Yeah... That's why they need to get Drover, Afflictor, Shade, Fury, Wolf, Shrike, etc.
A mixture of Midline and High Tech ships would somewhat fit in my opinion their lore better. Sindrian Diktat is based off military dictatorships of modern world from my perspective. And without saying any names, soldiers of those tend to display some psychotic tendencies which are reflected in aggressive, reckless doctrine.
"They're bad guys" -> "bad and war crimes mean aggressive doctrine" feels kind of shallow and cartoonish to me. Action movies aside, the respective doctrines of the Korean war make for a more interesting comparison - especially since there are pretty overt tones of "sci-fi North Korea / late USSR" in the Diktat. The more individualistic Americans emphasized a doctrine of taking initiative when orders were not available and attacking when the opportunity offered itself, whereas their less individualistic opponents did not, on the basis that their officer training was not compatible with that kind of behavior. If you're looking to avoid a coup by ambitious officers, a strong emphasis on waiting for orders before acting is vital, whereas a nation of hard-to-govern cowboys with a diffuse power structure doesn't worry as much about the possibility of Colonel Billy becoming a generalissimo.
There's a lot of really interesting stuff on the competing doctrinal ideas East and West of the Iron Curtain that would be excellent for designing interesting military dichotomies. Even little things, like the "reinforce the forces making the most progress" versus "reinforce the forces making the least progress" debate, give unique character to historical militaries in little ways - sometimes not in the directions one might expect.
The Domain was always a highly incompetent military organism. One that failed to adapt and instead used lobbying and misinformation to maintain their military doctrine. It became over time most likely less of an actual powerhouse of ideals, and more of a place for old men to earn money with their dated beliefs. This is why cruiser school was constantly sabotaged. This is why Cobra never made it out of the prototype phase. Etc.
The Domain had internal power struggles, yes, but I don't think it was implied to be incompetent. It crushed all opposition, continually innovated, and one of its surviving battlegroups, even with no outside support, is the dominant faction in the sector despite facing what might amount to the worst possible conditions (a rogue megacorp showing up with countless AI armadas, the headquarters of the galaxy's major religious opposition, and a well-organized anti-reconsolidation polity in the form of the League).
IMO the Domain is portrayed as highly competent, just not unrealistically so (like many superstates in other sci-fi). It's the premier human government, but it's still run by humans.
If you gave Sindrian Diktat 5 in Officers doctrine, they would be just as effective as the Hegemony generally speaking. If not for the fact that their capital ship is pretty trash.
I don't think that's true, but officer training
is far and away the best thing to put points into. IMO Tri-Tach should rework its doctrine away from ship quality and towards better officers - better captures the aesthetic of a used-future sci-fi megacorporation that ignores OSHA regulations but fosters a fiercely cutthroat selection process for potential military personnel.
As a side bonus, it'd make finding an early flagship more interesting. At present, it's very easy to hunt down an Aurora or similar player-friendly high tech fast warship with few to no D-mods and great logistics stats, leading a lot of players to ignore midline and low-tech and converge around the same strategy after nothing else fits together quite as easily. That'll get more important with the Anubis, which is an ideal player flagship and is available even earlier due to the lower price.
Also, one thing I would like to complain about. Why does Sindrian Diktat military use the Executor? The Executor is described by the player character when speaking with Spider Man as an experimental military ship.
That's a good thing to point out. I have to figure that line was written before the Executor's role was finalized. He talks like it's still in development. When I read it, I thought I was going to get some lore on an upcoming experimental ship, or something.
Like? Are we to assume Sindrian Diktat just reworked its entire doctrine around LG ships for the LG, but for the Sindrian Diktat they specifically left out all the LG ships, but they kept the Executor for... Why? You'd think of all the things, the LG Centurion would be like more accessible, then the ultimate display of Andrada's prowess or whatever... What happened to all the Conquests? Did they just dump them in a river?
That's a whole other can of worms that's been talked to death here, but for the record I agree with you on making the LG ships viable for player use. It does seem kind of silly that the Lion's Guard is 100 percent incorruptible and not a single one of its vessels finds its way onto the black market, given how they're portrayed the rest of the time.
Giving cautious to the faction with exclusive access to the G I G A C A N N O N would be the decision of all time for sure.
Honestly I think it would hammer home 'doctrinal inefficacy' much more elegantly than all of their ships being completely overfluxed. It's the sort of thing that genuinely would not show up on paper.
The answer is to give all Diktat ships safety overrides.
Actually maybe some Unstable Injectors on their variants wouldn't hurt.
I've toyed around with something like this. I like the idea of setting up a basis for the Lion's Guard's "doctrine" that genuinely makes sense, and then having their zaniness come from the obscene difficulty of implementing some grand, pure, theoretical ideal under the conditions inherent in a collapsing state within a collapsed state.
Like, Andrada was a Hegemony officer, and the Hegemony liked big fleet anchors supported by carriers. Maybe Andrada saw one too many Hegemony battle lines get outflanked or outmaneuvered, or just shot to pieces by up-gunned Auroras and Hyperions popping up in places they couldn't reach, and decided that the future of warfare involved a steadily advancing wall of reasonably maneuverable battleships escorted by a replaceable set of overdriven support ships that rely on the anchors to soak up damage while they themselves dish it out. "Special modifications" might involve stripping the armor off of a ship to support an extra set of vents, on the basis that, in theory, these ships will just duck behind their charges instead of taking hits anyways. Could throw in a PPT reduction and bundle it with their version of solar shielding, and say that various compromises necessary to get the whole deal working rely on these ships operating in-system and taking advantage of the nearby red giant and readily-available reinforcements to even out the waiting game.
