The Pact Worlds Militaries


Attack of the Swarm

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Metaphysician wrote:

Eh, strength in numbers does exist, its just not infinitely scaling. There are middle ground zones where the added number of attacks more than balances the the lesser chance of hitting.

That said, I'd be inclined to stat well-disciplined forces using something like the swarm rules.

Strength in numbers aka the human wave attack is not that good against a superior opponent.

Well unless the Gatling jams

Quote:

The sand of the desert is sodden red,—

Red with the wreck of a square that broke;—
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,

Modern repeating rifles anything after brown bess massively changed things IRL

And harder SF like Traveller even more so tech level F troops could do an insane amount of damage with a small unit say a Jump Commando Company (basically an all teleporting powered armour unit)


Elegos wrote:
An important strength of numbers that gets overlooked is the ability to hold territory. You can have a team of 6 level 20 bamfs who can lay waste to armies, clear out battle cruisers and punch space whales to death or whatever...but they can still only be in a maximum of 6 places at once. Good luck using them to govern your new territory once they take it. And all your enemy needs do is attack on 7 fronts...

Going for no strength in number to noone in the army :)

Yes, clearly, an army of 6 is not an army. But when you gather your fleet of battleships for the big battle, having a party of 6 able to teleport to the enemy flagship and take control of it is a game changer.


Elegos wrote:

Gas giants in our solar system form past the ice line, but this is not universal! The vast majority of exoplanets we have discovered are what are known as "hot jupiters" which form closer then mercury, but many systems we've discovered in recent years contain gas giants, usually between the size of Neptune and Saturn that exist in the "goldilocks" zone.

Now, they would be subject to some long day night cycles (which wouldn't be particularly inimical to life especially in starfinder, look at orcs!)Io, for example, has an orbital period of 42 hours, about a quarter of which would be behind Jupiter. So 10 hours of extra dark out of every 2 earth days. And be more geothermally active due to a process called tidal heating, but again that's not necessarily bad. To maintain an atmosphere, a body needs an active rotating core of liquid iron to generate an electromagnetic field that prevents said atmosphere being stripped by solar winds, hence why earth has an atmosphere and Mars doesn't.

Ganymede and especially Callisto don't seem to have an unusual deal of tectonic activity. Of course they're quite a bit further out and would have 3.5 and 9 Earth-day long nights respectively.

Neptune or Saturn-sized primaries would give considerably less tidal heating than a Jupiter-sized primary would anyway.


The real question relevant to this thread is how does the presence of a Gas Giant effect the military defense of an inhabited moon relative to the military defense of a planet? Does the predictable eclipse driven night facilitate more raids? Does the gas giants gravity complicate firing solutions of orbital bombardment?


While the gravity of a gas giant would not intrinsically complicate long distance orbital bombardment, the presence of a swarm of moons and possibly a ring system? That probably *would*. Too many nearby gravity wells, in too complex a pattern.

Which is to say, while you could theoretically fling rocks or missiles at an Earth-type planet in an Earth-type orbit from halfway across the solar system if not more, against a Jovian moon? You probably need to actually be in orbit around the gas giant, at the very least, to have a decent chance of hitting your target with any kind of dumb-fire projectile.


That’s really not how gravity works. A moon in orbit it much like a planet in orbit, the only gravity well that affects objects in a meaningful way is that of the moon. It is just like how we don’t need to take our moon or sun into account for most ballistics.

Unless you’re firing from inside the gravity well of another celestial body, I would not be concerned.


The lagrange points of such a system could be relevant for the military, especially L1 and L2, both as a place for defense stations or satellites or for the attacker as supply and observation station or even command centre. Close enough to still affectbthe battle for the moon, but far enough away to not be within an easy shooting range of the defender. Maybe even as a point from where one can launch long range bombardment of the moon.

Liberty's Edge

After receiving my PDF sub copy, I am VERY pleased how the military organization handles independent operators like PC's. There is a ton of flexibility from being a grunt in the military to a Pact World volunteer.


So how are militaries and large scale battles described (if at all)?

Medieval fantasy styles with two sides charging into each other until one side is dead, modern with strongpoints, mechanized and armored columns with artillery and air support or sci-fi, same as modern but also with orbital bombardment and troopers dropping in from the sky space marine style?

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