Well of Souls Forums

Arioch wrote:..., but mail vessels can coordinate to relay for periodic expected reports.

There's a dedicated "Colonial Mail Service" running between the worlds of Humanity?
Is that something the TCA provides, or is it freelance based?

It may be a mix: under the auspices of the Colonial Union / TCA, but the actual runs are outsourced to the cheapest bidder.

Just like many parcel services here do not do the runs themselves anymore, but have several contractors do it with their own vehicles.
All in the name the parcel service.

Sounds like mail goes with the next ship to a certain destination then.
Email might be the simplest then: simply upload to the appropriate communications relay and then pass it on to the next ship making a jump.

Krulle wrote:It may be a mix: under the auspices of the Colonial Union / TCA, but the actual runs are outsourced to the cheapest bidder.

Just like many parcel services here do not do the runs themselves anymore, but have several contractors do it with their own vehicles.
All in the name the parcel service.

GeoModder wrote:Sounds like mail goes with the next ship to a certain destination then.
Email might be the simplest then: simply upload to the appropriate communications relay and then pass it on to the next ship making a jump.

Yes, precisely. Any passing ship will automatically exchange email traffic and news with the communications relays. If there is something like an expected monthly report due and there are no regularly scheduled vessels, the TCA or local government can just hire a local ship to run out to the next system and grab it. The four inhabited human system are all very close together; Alpha Centauri is just one jump from Sol, Tau Ceti is two jumps from Sol, and 82 Eridani is three jumps from Tau Ceti, so retrieving a message is usually just one jump away.

Packages and physical mail items will generally hitch rides on transports carrying larger cargo, as was done with international mail before air travel. You can hire a private courier to transport a priority cargo, but of course this is expensive. I don't think there would be a need for a dedicated mail fleet up to this point. With the potential threat of alien incursion, a courier network may become necessary, but the TCA is juggling a lot of high priorities at this point.

Hy Arioch, I'm very sorry if this has been asked before, but I was wondering about the state of piracy in TCU Space.

I do remember that prior to First Contact with the Orgus, the TCU had a "Shore Guard" kind of navy going on, so that does imply an illegal activity (space piracy?) of some kind, right?

The less exciting possibility being tax evasion, I guess. :p

GabrielGABFonseca wrote:Hy Arioch, I'm very sorry if this has been asked before, but I was wondering about the state of piracy in TCU Space.

I do remember that prior to First Contact with the Orgus, the TCU had a "Shore Guard" kind of navy going on, so that does imply an illegal activity (space piracy?) of some kind, right?

The less exciting possibility being tax evasion, I guess. :p

Answer should be found here halfway the page.

hi hi

You may be interested to look at the parts regarding piracy in the insider section on terrans.

I don't think is was asked, forgive me if it was, but... how colonial fleet uniform looks like? Like SC uniform with different patches?

Chekist_Felix wrote:I don't think is was asked, forgive me if it was, but... how colonial fleet uniform looks like? Like SC uniform with different patches?

This is not quite up to date, but it looks a bit like this:

Arioch wrote:

Chekist_Felix wrote:I don't think is was asked, forgive me if it was, but... how colonial fleet uniform looks like? Like SC uniform with different patches?

This is not quite up to date, but it looks a bit like this:

Would that be the on-duty or parade uniform? Also would that be an officer's or a crewman's uniform and would there be any distinction beside rank insignia?


A somewhat different question: what would be the MOO2 racial stats for Umiak and Loroi? I want to recreate them in-game. I'd try it out in your game, but there are no "space elves" there.
For example:
Umiak: Unification, +2 Production, Low gravity, Warlord, Poor Homeworld
Loroi: pretty much Elerians?

Chekist_Felix wrote:Would that be the on-duty or parade uniform? Also would that be an officer's or a crewman's uniform and would there be any distinction beside rank insignia?

From the lack of braid/pipes/stripes/stars, I'd say a crewman's uniform.

Cthulhu wrote:Would that be the on-duty or parade uniform? Also would that be an officer's or a crewman's uniform and would there be any distinction beside rank insignia?

It's a dress uniform; the duty uniform would be a jumpsuit. I haven't got the rank variations worked out. The character depicted is an ensign.

Cthulhu wrote:A somewhat different question: what would be the MOO2 racial stats for Umiak and Loroi? I want to recreate them in-game. I'd try it out in your game, but there are no "space elves" there.
For example:
Umiak: Unification, +2 Production, Low gravity, Warlord, Poor Homeworld
Loroi: pretty much Elerians?

For the Umiak I would suggest:
+100% Population Growth
+2 Industrial Production
+10 Ground Combat
Unification Government
Low-G World
Poor Home World
Uncreative

That's not quite right, but the available traits and limit on penalties don't allow for a much more accurate representation. Looks like they'd have a really tough start.

The standard Elerian build works for Loroi, maybe with the addition of +50% Population Growth and -1 Research.

Arioch wrote:

Chekist_Felix wrote:I don't think is was asked, forgive me if it was, but... how colonial fleet uniform looks like? Like SC uniform with different patches?

This is not quite up to date, but it looks a bit like this:

Oh look, it's Acelyn Ventura, the best the colonial fleet pet division has to offer.

I was reminded of a discussion I had earlier about the Donnager battle in The Expanse, where I noted that one of the points showing the Martians did not have the right mindset for a war was that even after Captain Yao announced battle stations, the majority of the crew wore fabric uniforms throughout the fight.

I noticed that the same was true of the Bellarmine. Despite calling for battle stations, the only people getting into spacesuits were damage control personnel.

This ends badly in both situations. On the Donnager, most of the crew are killed by railgun rounds causing loss of pressure. Only the marines and a few prisoners get spacesuits, which allows the boarding teams from a pair of frigates to overrun an entire battleship. On the Bellarmine, the entire bridge depressurises, killing the command crew. The only surviving crewmember is a damage control officer. If the entire crew had been wearing spacesuits, the Loroi might be talking with Captain Hamilton instead of Jardin.

Is this situation likely to change?

RedDwarfIV wrote:I noticed that the same was true of the Bellarmine. Despite calling for battle stations, the only people getting into spacesuits were damage control personnel.

On the Bellarmine, the entire bridge depressurises, killing the command crew. The only surviving crewmember is a damage control officer. If the entire crew had been wearing spacesuits, the Loroi might be talking with Captain Hamilton instead of Jardin.

Is this situation likely to change?

I can't answer with any authority or certainty, but the way I see it, this is a reflection of the TCA's Fleet (as you said it yourself) lack of experience in the subject.

All space combat on which the TCA would have been engaged with has been, up to the Bellarmine Incident, counter-piracy attacks. On all such scenarios, the TCA would always have had the tactical, technological and experience advantage over the buccaneer wannabes.

It is of my opinion that when the TCA actually engages in real combat - combat against an opponent as strong as they are, or more likely stronger - then they'll start noticing things like this and issuing correctional policies.

To be fair, Bellarmine was an exploration vessel and not a true combat unit. They were not expecting to be attacked, and were really not in any serious condition to respond to such an attack.

On a military vessel, the command center would be better protected and less vulnerable to depressurization. (Though in this case that wouldn't have prevented the ship from being cut in half.) It's hard to imagine a ship at this tech level functioning well if the entire crew has to work in pressure suits. I've watched some STS missions, and it took them like an hour during suited EVA to unscrew a bulkhead.

Apparently that's largely due to spacesuit gloves, which are difficult to work with as a result of their design. To a lesser extent, the rest of the suit also resists movement, making EVAs very hard work.

Those are both caused by gas-pressure design. Mechanical counter-pressure suits don't have this problem. They're way more flexible and don't have different layers rubbing against each other.

Whilst we don't have such suits right now, I'd be surprised if a civilisation with the Terrans' tech level couldn't build them.


And if its absolutely neccesary, they could just wear the suits with the gloves and helmets off until the pressure alarm goes off, at which point everyone puts them on.

This is the general theme across most of sci-fi involving space naval engagements and seems logical.

You generally don't see all the crew in spacesuits all the time or on battle stations because a) a space suit, armored or not, unnecessarily restricts movement and impedes communication, b) at the energy and damage levels involved, a ship that got damaged so badly as to loose most of the atmosphere is very unlikely still in a fighting condition or in one piece at all, c) if your power plant is hit, it's usually game over anyway, regardless if you are wearing a space suit or not, d) bailing out of a damaged starship during combat, in an escape pod or "out the window" in a space suit is also unlikely to result in survival with radiation and stuff exploding all around you, escape pods feel more like a psychological thing than true means of survival.

If your naval battles are expected to end with boarding operations rather than ships exploding, then yes, you usually have suited and armored marines on board to do the fighting as in the TCA's case thus far.

Note that the loroi are also not wearing space suits all the time, only lightly armored uniforms without helmets, because your ship will either blow up entirely, or be left disabled. In the first case it doesn't matter what you're wearing and in the second you will have plenty of time to get off and don't need a bulky and clumsy suit to hinder you. If the umiak were to board said disabled ship and you get into hand to hand combat with them, armor will only make you crunchy

*Edit*
Forgot to mention something. Noone in sci-fi wearing spacesuits onboard starships is the same as real life submarine crews not wearing diving suits when submerged. If something bad enough happens to the sub to require diving suits for survival, chances are everyone is already dead anyway and the sub is lost. Space would be very much the same.

entity2636 wrote:Forgot to mention something. Noone in sci-fi wearing spacesuits onboard starships is the same as real life submarine crews not wearing diving suits when submerged. If something bad enough happens to the sub to require diving suits for survival, chances are everyone is already dead anyway and the sub is lost. Space would be very much the same.

Submarines are known to spring leaks with sections partially or fully flooded, this is usually a good reason for drama in movies.

The loroi light armor could probably function as spacesuits in an emergency. maybe they have emergency gloves and an inflatable helmet (plastic bag) tucked away somewhere.

You can have REALLY nimble hands in space if you go with teleprecence control of a robot. We can make such today and they are improving. It is possible that Bellarmine had some but they was not used for simple things like plunging leaks.

RedDwarfIV wrote:I was reminded of a discussion I had earlier about the Donnager battle in The Expanse, where I noted that one of the points showing the Martians did not have the right mindset for a war was that even after Captain Yao announced battle stations, the majority of the crew wore fabric uniforms throughout the fight.

I noticed that the same was true of the Bellarmine. Despite calling for battle stations, the only people getting into spacesuits were damage control personnel.

This ends badly in both situations. On the Donnager, most of the crew are killed by railgun rounds causing loss of pressure. Only the marines and a few prisoners get spacesuits, which allows the boarding teams from a pair of frigates to overrun an entire battleship. On the Bellarmine, the entire bridge depressurises, killing the command crew. The only surviving crewmember is a damage control officer. If the entire crew had been wearing spacesuits, the Loroi might be talking with Captain Hamilton instead of Jardin.

Is this situation likely to change?

Nope, if the crew had been in pressure suits the attacker would have kept firing since they clearly did not want any surviving witnesses.