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[mr. domain]

Nighthawk Class Deep Strike Carrier

At the peak of the cruiser school's dominance and with concerns about the loyalty of the penal crews, there were calls to supplant the Grendel with a phase auxiliary more fitting with the new doctrine. Although involving significant cost overruns and design compromises, the resulting Nighthawk class was deployed on schedule. (Read: Lore justification)

The fighter bays are the offensive backbone of the ship, yet the rigors of phase required specialized comms relays to continue providing data to strikecraft during the mothership's phase dive. Worse, skilled engineers need to always be present in manufactories to carefully observe fighter construction and reduce errors to an acceptable minimum. To compensate for some of these shortcomings, a phase beacon has been installed which can provide performance-boosting data to nearby fighters even during phase, though it has difficulties reaching more distant fighters. (Read: reduced engagement range for fighters, high crew requirements, Phase Beacon ship system)

For the sake of cost, one of the manufactories was hardcoded with a light phase craft reusing many of the same parts as its mothership. A unique phase flare system makes this craft drastically increases the survivability of itself and its accompanying fighters, but the use of a non-modular manufactory to service a single fighter was heavily criticized by some cruiser school purists for diminishing the flexibility of the ship. (Read: You have a phase fighter with cool and powerful PD countermeasures, do your best to build around it.)

To satisfy the objections of the old guard about the lack of guns, a singular large hybrid turret was added to provide captains with point defense or strike capabilities. (Read: You have a large turret, you figure out what to do with it.)

[Killer of Fate]

who's the old guard?

[Phenir]

who's the old guard?

whoever designed the invictus

[mr. domain]

who's the old guard?

Capital school/low tech guys

[Killer of Fate]

who's the old guard?

whoever designed the invictus

i think invictus predates phase though... Like incredibly.
I think Invictus was like... I dunno possibly hundreds of years before the invention of phase ships possibly (maybe even thousands). I assume Domain existed for as long as Ancient Egypt or something. Hence why its military doctrine is all over the place.

who's the old guard?

Capital school/low tech guys

Does this ship predate Drover and Heron???
If so, the issue is that the earliest phase ship we know of is Gremlin. And it didn't even exist.

Spoiler

And Tri-Tachyon designed phase ships. They wouldn't care about what the Old Guard thinks...
If they wanted a phase ship carrier they would probably do it their way. Midline is more about taking compromises with Low Tech. Cause they always live in their shadow.

If this is a midline phase ship carrier, then who designed it? The Domain? I thought phase ships were funded entirely by Tri-Tachyon. The only exception being Gremlin, which again doesn't even exist. And Grendel. Which was made by a crazy admiral who felt like a rogue agent within the Domain.

Generally I don't think Domain would ever want to have a phase ship carrier. Phase ships are literally illegal according to Harbinger's lore, I think...

Spoiler

[close]

Oh, wait... That's treaty of Thule... WAIT. Does this mean Harbinger was invented AFTER the Collapse??? Holy cow, how young is phase ship tech then?

Okay, I'm too confused about the timeline to continue.

This would mean... Advanced phase ship tech was perfected during the Collapse by Tri-Tachyon. Hence it's not physically possible for there to be any kind of competent phase tech being made by anyone else than Tri-Tachyon before the Collapse...

Maybe you should redesign this to be a Persean League or a Sindrian Diktat project then.

But then the treaty of Thule, implies it was enforced by Persean League. And the reason they did it... That's funny. They were allied with them during the AI Wars. And yet they're still so horrified of phase ship tech. Enough to ask Tri-Tachyon to stop developing.

Also, unfortunately it can't be a Sindrian Diktat ship either, cause Sindrian Diktat hates carriers in this retcon. At least atm. Maybe 200 years from now they won't. If they survive this long. They probably will.

So, wait... Again... Who designed it? The Domain? How's that... Huh? TT? It wouldn't be Low Tech. It would just be another Harburger. But Harburger was made after the Collapse. So Doom? When was Doom? I assume slightly before. But then how old is Tri-Tachyon? Thousand years? Couldn't have been that long? But then is Drover from how long before Doom was made...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[close]

sry, this is being too much of a tangent... I'll put this under spoiler to not occupy too much space of this thread

[mr. domain]

who's the old guard?

whoever designed the invictus

i think invictus predates phase though... Like incredibly.
I think Invictus was like... I dunno possibly hundreds of years before the invention of phase ships possibly. I assume Domain is as old as Ancient Egypt or something. Hence why its military doctrine is all over the place.

who's the old guard?

Capital school/low tech guys

Does this ship predate Drover and Heron???
If so, the issue is that the earliest phase ship we know of is Gremlin. And it didn't even exist.

Spoiler

And Tri-Tachyon designed phase ships. They wouldn't care about what the Old Guard thinks...
If they wanted a phase ship carrier they would probably do it their way. Midline is more about taking compromises with Low Tech. Cause they always live in their shadow.

If this is a midline phase ship carrier, then who designed it? The Domain? I thought phase ships were funded entirely by Tri-Tachyon. The only exception being Gremlin, which again doesn't even exist. And Grendel. Which was made by a crazy admiral who felt like a rogue agent within the Domain.

Generally I don't think Domain would ever want to have a phase ship carrier. Phase ships are literally illegal according to Harbinger's lore, I think...

Spoiler

[close]

Oh, wait... That's treaty of Thule... WAIT. Does this mean Harbinger was invented AFTER the Collapse??? Holy cow, how young is phase ship tech then?

Okay, I'm too confused about the timeline to continue.

This would mean... Advanced phase ship tech was perfected during the Collapse by Tri-Tachyon. Hence it's not physically possible for there to be any kind of competent phase tech being made by anyone else than Tri-Tachyon before the Collapse...

Maybe you should redesign this to be a Persean League or a Sindrian Diktat project then.

But then the treaty of Thule, implies it was enforced by Persean League. And the reason they did it... That's funny. They were allied with them during the AI Wars. And yet they're still so horrified of phase ship tech. Enough to ask Tri-Tachyon to stop developing.

[close]

sry, this is being too much of a tangent... I'll put this under spoiler to not occupy too much space of this thread

Persean League doing it as a counter to Tri-Tachyon's violation of the Treaty of Thule could be a funny lore tidbit. The flavor text you mentioned would also give a lore justification for the ship having "relatively safe" low upkeep phase coils - they don't want to go fully into the deep end of phase tech. Unfortunately I don't know the full lore of the Persean League Gens, but I'm sure you could get a similar dichotomy as my original suggestion - "ultraspecialized phase carrier" vs "please for the love of ludd put in guns" factions in its designs. Similarly, the built-in phase LPC, using a unique and strong phase flare system to suppress PD, would fit in the doctrine of the Persean League focusing heavily on fighters over bombers.

(This is a tangent from my actual suggestion, but if you really want to go into the idea of a "phase arms race", you could also have a Lion's Guard phase ship that goes all in on massive energy damage over everything else including logic, survival, and maneuverability.)

[Killer of Fate]

who's the old guard?

whoever designed the invictus

i think invictus predates phase though... Like incredibly.
I think Invictus was like... I dunno possibly hundreds of years before the invention of phase ships possibly. I assume Domain is as old as Ancient Egypt or something. Hence why its military doctrine is all over the place.

who's the old guard?

Capital school/low tech guys

Does this ship predate Drover and Heron???
If so, the issue is that the earliest phase ship we know of is Gremlin. And it didn't even exist.

Spoiler

And Tri-Tachyon designed phase ships. They wouldn't care about what the Old Guard thinks...
If they wanted a phase ship carrier they would probably do it their way. Midline is more about taking compromises with Low Tech. Cause they always live in their shadow.

If this is a midline phase ship carrier, then who designed it? The Domain? I thought phase ships were funded entirely by Tri-Tachyon. The only exception being Gremlin, which again doesn't even exist. And Grendel. Which was made by a crazy admiral who felt like a rogue agent within the Domain.

Generally I don't think Domain would ever want to have a phase ship carrier. Phase ships are literally illegal according to Harbinger's lore, I think...

Spoiler

[close]

Oh, wait... That's treaty of Thule... WAIT. Does this mean Harbinger was invented AFTER the Collapse??? Holy cow, how young is phase ship tech then?

Okay, I'm too confused about the timeline to continue.

This would mean... Advanced phase ship tech was perfected during the Collapse by Tri-Tachyon. Hence it's not physically possible for there to be any kind of competent phase tech being made by anyone else than Tri-Tachyon before the Collapse...

Maybe you should redesign this to be a Persean League or a Sindrian Diktat project then.

But then the treaty of Thule, implies it was enforced by Persean League. And the reason they did it... That's funny. They were allied with them during the AI Wars. And yet they're still so horrified of phase ship tech. Enough to ask Tri-Tachyon to stop developing.

[close]

sry, this is being too much of a tangent... I'll put this under spoiler to not occupy too much space of this thread

Persean League doing it as a counter to Tri-Tachyon's violation of the Treaty of Thule could be a funny lore tidbit. The flavor text you mentioned would also give a lore justification for the ship having "relatively safe" low upkeep phase coils - they don't want to go fully into the deep end of phase tech. Unfortunately I don't know the full lore of the Persean League Gens, but I'm sure you could get a similar dichotomy as my original suggestion - "ultraspecialized phase carrier" vs "please for the love of ludd put in guns" factions in its designs. Similarly, the built-in phase LPC, using a unique and strong phase flare system to suppress PD, would fit in the doctrine of the Persean League focusing heavily on fighters over bombers.

(This is a tangent from my actual suggestion, but if you really want to go into the idea of a "phase arms race", you could also have a Lion's Guard phase ship that goes all in on massive energy damage over everything else including logic, survival, and maneuverability.)

i don't think anyone in the sector except Tri-Tachyon has the wits to just invent a phase ship. None of them have the resources. Mostly because Tri-Tachyon monopolysed them. The development of phase ship carrier sounds like something aliens would do faster than anyone in the Persean Sector. And if it were done by the Domain it would either be an unsuccessful barely functional prototype or an abomination like Grendel. Nothing anyone would admit to using. And nothing that would be safe to use.

In case you're curious what I mean monopolysed them... I feel like the way Tri-Tachyon functions is that they keep everything so shrouded in mystery that no one was ever capable of actually figuring out their designs and replicating what they have been doing. Remnants, phase ships, Aurora, Hyperion, temporal shell are all pretty much homemade alien tech that the entirety of the Domain tried to shut down asap. But TT was so clever about it that they managed to dodge regulation at every turn.

In order for a phase ship carrier to exist. The phase technology would have to be portable enough to make something like that. And if you look at phase tech it actually is going backwards in scale. Doom seems to be the oldest standard phase ship. This might imply Ziggurat is actually the original original phase ship. Rather than the newest one.

This makes me wonder if the old reworked Tempest drones that I think had phase ship tech were canonical. Probably not, cause drones are incapable of performing under phase due to it screwing up AI thinking. And Terminator Core is pretty much a tiny beta core.

Another thing about phase tech which I think I have mentioned multiple times is that it's scary. It causes horrible mental anguish on its users. And as you saw with Ziggurat. It eventually turns them into ghosts. It seems like phase tech is something like from Dead Space. It's literally the ultimate of horror or whatever could happen to a person.

Honestly this makes me wonder just how scary temporal shell tech then is. And how the heck Omega cores work. Are Omega cores even AI if they use temporal shell? is temporal shell like phase tech? Are Omega cores actually not manmade and in reality alien artificial intelligences that were made by something like Ammoneans or whatever? And if they aren't. Then when the *** were they made? Or did they time travel from the future? Considering this game is heavily inspired by the Hyperion series. It's very likely Omegas are actually from the future.

All of this aside. If you were to stand up and say "let's develop a phase tech carrier" in a Kazeron budget meeting. People would look at you as if you were either insane or stupid. They didn't forbid it cause it was scarily powerful in combat. They most likely forbid it cause it was scary as in existentially horrifying. Even though Domain... And by consequence Persean League and Hegemony. Though Persean League is a bit more complicated in terms of what they represent of the Domain. Indulged in casual destruction of the universe through Domain tech magic. They would never actually try using phase ships further. Cause there are just some things that are kinda over the line.

The only reason Persean League teamed up with the TT in the war... Is most likely cause they hated the Hegemony even more. But I assume if Hegemony wasn't there to attack TT... Kazeron would probably do it. But this might be unexplored lore I'm just making up. I'm not actually sure what was the motivation for the Thule agreement. Or how scared is the Persean League of phase technology. But considering Afflictors and Shades are common enough to be fielded regularly by pirates. And yet Kazeron never uses them... EVER. Means that they are deathly afraid of phase tech. Possibly on an existential level. Just like Hegemony.

The only faction that would dare develop such tech might be Sindrian Diktat...

[mr. domain]

The only faction that would dare develop such tech might be Sindrian Diktat...

The Sindrians having some crazy experimental phase carrier intended to be crewed by soldiers out of favor with the state could be interesting. In that case making my proposed large mount an energy mount would probably be mandatory, along with adding Energy Bolt Coherer and Solar Shielding hullmods. Additionally my hypothetical phase fighter would probably need to also have those hullmods. Then you just cram the LPC with as many 600 range ir pulse lasers as possible.

[Killer of Fate]

The only faction that would dare develop such tech might be Sindrian Diktat...

The Sindrians having some crazy experimental phase carrier intended to be crewed by soldiers out of favor with the state could be interesting. In that case making my proposed large mount an energy mount would probably be mandatory, along with adding Energy Bolt Coherer and Solar Shielding hullmods. Additionally my hypothetical phase fighter would probably need to also have those hullmods. Then you just cram the LPC with as many 600 range ir pulse lasers as possible.

you could imply the ship was designed outside the Core Worlds around some random worlds. That kind of complicated activity can't be necessarily related to LG. But more of some ominous Sindrian Diktat military entities operated by Spiderman (Macario).

Example of such a world...

Spoiler

[close]

This would allow Sindrian Diktat to develop the thing before they could be stopped by Persean League. And then when they were done. The Persean League said "but mah rules". And the Sindrian Diktat responded with "sowwy :3". And shrugged. With the matter not being pursued further due to Persean Sector being a political shitshow.

[HeimrArnadalr]

Another thing about phase tech which I think I have mentioned multiple times is that it's scary. It causes horrible mental anguish on its users. And as you saw with Ziggurat. It eventually turns them into ghosts.

I don't think we can say this for certain. The text all but directly states that, although designed for a human crew, the Ziggurat was never actually inhabited - there's no evidence that there was ever anyone on board.

[Sir Nitoh]

The only faction that would dare develop such tech might be Sindrian Diktat...

The Sindrians having some crazy experimental phase carrier intended to be crewed by soldiers out of favor with the state could be interesting. In that case making my proposed large mount an energy mount would probably be mandatory, along with adding Energy Bolt Coherer and Solar Shielding hullmods. Additionally my hypothetical phase fighter would probably need to also have those hullmods. Then you just cram the LPC with as many 600 range ir pulse lasers as possible.

Unfortunately, the Sindrian Diktat does not field any carrier at all, because Philip Andrada disrespects fighter pilots, I quote from the "Uniquifying the Factions, Part Two" blogpost :
"Let’s say neither uses carriers – “the individualism commonly displayed by the so-called ‘fighter jocks’ has no place in a society united around completing the Supreme Executor’s Great Plan”, or something."

To justify the development of a sindrian experimental carrier, you would have to explain how it went through without the Supreme Executor knowing anything about it, which sounds extremely unlikely.

Oh, wait... That's treaty of Thule... WAIT. Does this mean Harbinger was invented AFTER the Collapse??? Holy cow, how young is phase ship tech then?

This would mean... Advanced phase ship tech was perfected during the Collapse by Tri-Tachyon. Hence it's not physically possible for there to be any kind of competent phase tech being made by anyone else than Tri-Tachyon before the Collapse...

The Doom codex entry specifies that "advanced" phase technology predates the Collapse, I quote :
"Certain unnerving psychological phenomena have been reported by sensitive crew members after enduring many rapid phase-shifts in combat conditions. Domain Navy reports on the subject were never declassified and are thought to have been lost since the Collapse."

The Harbinger might be a post-collapse design, and I agree that Tri-Tachyon surely is the only political power capable of advancing phase-tech.

But then the treaty of Thule, implies it was enforced by Persean League. And the reason they did it... That's funny. They were allied with them during the AI Wars. And yet they're still so horrified of phase ship tech. Enough to ask Tri-Tachyon to stop developing.

To me, the "treaty of Thule" implies that these accords were signed on Kazeron, but it does not mean that the Persean League initiated the treaty, nor that it enforces it. Thule might have been chosen to be a "relatively" neutral ground to sign a treaty between the Hegemony and Tri-Tachyon (the "Oslo Accords" could be a real life equivalent to what I am trying to say). The League being the one trying to regulate bleeding-edge phase tech seems unlikely to me.

Sure, the Persean League does not field any phase ship at all. But it could be because they do not have the blueprints at all. The pirates recently acquired deteriorated phase blueprints when plundering TT fringe bases remains, I quote :
"After the Second AI War, many corrupted blueprints become available, sourced by salvagers willing to risk the star systems abandoned by Tri-Tachyon. Many of these were sold to disreputable elements such as black marketeers and pirates, who promptly put them back into service by producing low quality but combat-capable ships."
But that does not mean anyone can manufacture whole phase fleets on a whim.

My point is, I don't think the League is so adverse to fielding phase ships, if they can. You could imagine some sort of informal partnership between Tri-Tachyon and the League to develop an experimental phase carrier. There is a precedent, since Tri-Tachyon also partnered with the Sindrian Diktat to create the Kinetic Blaster.   

[Killer of Fate]

The only faction that would dare develop such tech might be Sindrian Diktat...

The Sindrians having some crazy experimental phase carrier intended to be crewed by soldiers out of favor with the state could be interesting. In that case making my proposed large mount an energy mount would probably be mandatory, along with adding Energy Bolt Coherer and Solar Shielding hullmods. Additionally my hypothetical phase fighter would probably need to also have those hullmods. Then you just cram the LPC with as many 600 range ir pulse lasers as possible.

Unfortunately, the Sindrian Diktat does not field any carrier at all, because Philip Andrada disrespects fighter pilots, I quote from the "Uniquifying the Factions, Part Two" blogpost :
"Let’s say neither uses carriers – “the individualism commonly displayed by the so-called ‘fighter jocks’ has no place in a society united around completing the Supreme Executor’s Great Plan”, or something."

To justify the development of a sindrian experimental carrier, you would have to explain how it went through without the Supreme Executor knowing anything about it, which sounds extremely unlikely.

That's why I stated it should be a project developed outside Sindria in secret by Macario. And considering by the time the game starts Andrada is pretty much dead. It's probable some things could be ran behind the general doctrine's back.

Macario is most likely already doing a lot of things without anyone being aware of what he's doing. All we have to do is imagine Sindrian Diktat and all the other factions have some deep space colonies. That are not here for now due to not yet being programmed. And one of them a sort of primitive phase carrier was developed.

But yeah. This is a stretch. But who knows?

[happycrow]

Honestly, I see the Sindrians engaging in bomber meat-wave tactics if they used a carrier. Absolutely overwhelmingly spammy numbers of torpedo bombers with nothing even remotely resembling hull durability or crew-survival hardware, the routes pre-programmed in advance from the local command ship.

And the hell of it is, an assault carrier group engaging you directly out of corona or some other close terrain like that could be scarily effective without needing to be phased at all. If they were phased, it'd likely be a one-way trip designed to get them moving at very high speeds towards their target without needing to worry about bumping into each other etc.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Honestly, I see the Sindrians engaging in bomber meat-wave tactics if they used a carrier. Absolutely overwhelmingly spammy numbers of torpedo bombers with nothing even remotely resembling hull durability or crew-survival hardware, the routes pre-programmed in advance from the local command ship.

And the hell of it is, an assault carrier group engaging you directly out of corona or some other close terrain like that could be scarily effective without needing to be phased at all. If they were phased, it'd likely be a one-way trip designed to get them moving at very high speeds towards their target without needing to worry about bumping into each other etc.

I thought mad meatwave tactics are a luddic path thing

[kaoseth]

Outside of lore, there's edge cases with phase ship carriers.   I'm note here that Converted Hanger can't be used on Phase ships.  Likely due to edge cases. 

What happens to fighters while the carrier is out of phase?   Do they launch and become real?  Do they delay till the ship is in real space?  What about returning fighters?  Do they magically phase?  Returning fighters need to be in a pretty specific spot to return to the ship, which is problematic with a phase ship as the fighter will just stop moving (and then likely die because it's not moving).  Even hanging out in a tight ball is dangerous too.  Single flak can wipe them out in very short order. 

What about fighter replenishment rate?  Phase ships have 3 time recharge speed.  So fighters replenish 3x faster as well?  Seems a bit broken.  They don't replenish 3x faster?  How does that interact wit the player experience of having this ship as the capital as piloting a phase ship is done through slowing down the rest of the game? 

If you are going for a stealth carrier, then S-mod Insulated Drive Assembly is several times better than what phase ships give. 


I read "Deep Strike" and it reminded me of a hightech combat carrier design I was thinking of.  It uses the hyperion's long range phase jump system.  Basically, a "Surprise, Carrier!" moment for the other side.  Or if used defensively, "Surprise, carrier out of range slippery devil!"