Burning Hotok and other Fortress Worlds

[Sydney Freedberg]

Over in the thread about Adam aka Admiralducksauce's 'Throne of Glass and Shadows' game (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?p=31258#post31258), we got into a discussion about space vs. ground operations that turned into trying to Tech Burn some kind of fortress that could actually give you a fighting chance against enemy Hammer.

Clearly this is something that Chris Moeller himself has some thoughts about, since he describes Hotok (in Faith Conquers) as a "fortress world." Geil Caracajou says "it's mostly underground," and Trevor Faith goes into more detail:

"The keep... its chamber and bunkers stretch for kilometers in all directions, stitched to the main power sink by cables and grid channels. Clouds of smoke heave from its spires like black pennons in the wind -- and at its center-beams sit in their armored silos, ready to scourge the heavens."

(And that's all the nitpicky canon-quoting you'll get from me. I ain't no frickin' Trekkie.)

Now, defending against an enemy with space superiority is terrifyingly hard (as Chris Moeller himself points out here (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showpost.php?p=28612&postcount=6)). In particular, Hammer is always, always going to have superior maneuverability compared to anything on-planet, let alone a stationary fortification: Spacecraft can engage and disengage at will, they have the high ground automatically, and if they get fed up, they can always find a nice asteroid somewhere, nudge it towards you, and let gravity take care of the rest. (Yeah, maybe you can blast the first asteroid off-course. Groovy. But there're plenty more drifting space rocks where that one came from, and it doesn't take much mass hitting the ground from 1,000 miles up to make a big hole). So here's a tentative tactical principle:

If the enemy has space superiority, and they know where you are, and you can't move, you're dead. No amount of weaponry, no armor, no amount of digging underground, is going to do anything more than buy you time.

I say "tentative" tactical principle because it's conceivable that waste heat is such a terrible limiting factor on space-born weapons systems, and that a ground-based heat-sink can be so obscenely huge, that fortresses can actually hold off a sizeable Hammer attack by sheer superior firepower. It's conceivable, but a stretch, for me at least.

Why? Here's the Hammer's advantage: Mobility. Here's the planetary fortress's advantage: Mass. Every kilogram a spacecraft carries is precious and expensive; on a planet, mass is literally dirt cheap -- and even dirt is a good defensive barrier if you have enough of it (read any book on trench warfare). Mass is your shield and, if you use it for heat sinks, a big help to your sword as well. But ultimately, mobility is going to win, because mobility can always dance out of harm's way and find all the mass it wants, namely those pesky asteroids: Hammer can just drop rocks on your head, or get fancy and set up "siege guns" on asteroids using a planetoid's worth of mass for heat sinks.

So using your planet's mass for armor, or even using it for heat sinks for bigger weapons, will fail you in the end -- although it may be adequate to repel anything short of an all-out invasion, making the heat sink plus gun turret type of fortress viable to a point. But there's a third way of using mass: to hide.

The model for a planetary fortress isn't a medieval castle, or even the Western Wall that the Germans built to defend the coast of France in World War II. It's Cu Chi (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/720577.stm), one of the most elaborate tunnel systems -- seventy-five miles long! -- built by the Viet Cong. If a bunch of undernourished rice farmers with hand tools can build defenses sufficient to stymie the United States military, the engineers of the Iron Empires can build ones sufficient to baffle the Vaylen.

Now, what you hide in these tunnels isn't just infantry in black pajamas. My (re-)interpretation of those big, squat artillery batteries that Trevor Faith walks past at the Hotok Keep is that they're not actually gun turrets at all, but giant self-propelled artillery pieces (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3179) parked and waiting for war.

When enemy Hammer shows up in orbit, the SP guns duck into the tunnel system and hide. Sure, the Hammer can locate and blast some of the tunnel entrances, but they won't get them all. Convincing decoy tunnel mouths are easy to build -- especially if the construction crews aren't too sure where exactly they've been taken to work today, and whether the hole they're digging this week is a decoy or actually going to connect to the tunnel system. Backup real exits are easy to hide: inside buildings; under water, with an airlock system (presumably, grav vehicles have to be airtight); or buried under a few tons of dirt - in fact, the tunnel could be dug from below and the exit never completed, with engineers making the final breach only when it's time to emerge (like the "Bugs" in Heinlein's Starship Troopers). The only way Hammer can tell a decoy entrance from a real one, let alone to find a hidden entrance, is to fly low enough, long enough to get a good look -- which, given that the Iron Empires setting doesn't give sensors a huge range advantage over weapons, means you're coming close enough to shoot.

So when the scattered, hidden, and pretty disposable sensor arrays on the surface detect enemy Hammer in the right places, SP guns fly out of the tunnels, open fire, and then fly back underground -- probably using a different tunnel mouth than the one they sortied from. (Modern artillerymen call such tactics "shoot and scoot"). It's quite possible that Hammer will blast some of the SP guns on the surface; it's almost certain that Hammer will blast some shut of the tunnel mouths thus revealed. But SP guns and tunnel entrances are cheaper than starships. This guerrilla war of attrition actually starts looking winnable.

We already have some self-propelled missile launchers (http://www.burningempires.com/wiki/index.php?title=Self-Propelled_Artillery_%28Gravitic%29_-_Missile) and fusor cannon (http://www.burningempires.com/wiki/index.php?title=Self-Propelled_Artillery_%28Gravitic%29_-_Fusor) burned up, so the missing piece is the tunnel system itself -- which was frankly stumping me. But Adam ("admiralducksauce"), Devin ("zabieru"), and Mike Atlin ("countercheck") had a good brainstorm in the parent thread (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?p=31258#post31258), which I'll excerpt the relevant bits from here:

I'd represent it in the map-drawing phase. Give a few positions with stupid amounts of cover to simulate the artillery peices scooting through tunnels.

Yeah, that's part of it, but I think you also need some kind of Enhancement to let defenders go from Position to Position via the tunnels without using any of the regular Firefight maneuvers.

Naaa, this is a massive Hammer vs Bolo fight, right? One position could represent the ENTIRE tunnel system, another could be the ocean, a third could be an entire mountain range, and the fourth orbit. Add a restriction that the artillery couldn't go into orbit, and the hammer couldn't go into the tunnels.

Or make it so that tunnels and orbit are the SAME position. While in orbit, the weapons of the hammer have so much KE that they'd blast right through the tunnel system, while the hammer is a sitting duck for the anti-invasion fusors. Could be represented decently in Close Combat.

See, I'm feeling the tunnel system as a bonus to Withdraw actions. Because that's basically what it does, right? Gets the arty from an observed position to a new one.

Without messing with the rules too much, would it perhaps work to burn "Tunnel System" as an advantage die or dice towards the Take Cover action? Even if you're in no-man's land, you can still use successes from Take Cover to increase your cover, right?

Hell, we can burn it up with the Tech Burner like so, perhaps (although you might use Fortifications rather than Fabrication, FoRKing in Back-Breaking Labor or Soldiering instead of a straight-up Resources test):

Tunnel Complex
This network of reinforced tunnels allow mobile artillery to fire and move against hammer assets without immediately being vaped by orbital strikes.

Shoot n' Scoot: The tunnels give mobile artillery +2D to the Withdraw and Take Cover actions in a Firefight.
Tech trait: Advantage, 5pts for +2D, x2 for two skills, total 10pts.

In a Firefight, the tunnel system applies to a single position as well as the no-man's land immediately surrounding that position. Additional tunnels must be bought or fortified in order to apply to multiple positions (depending on the scale of the conflict, group's discretion).
Categorical Limitation: -1pt (?)

Cave-In!: If the Cover rating of the tunnel system's position is reduced to zero, the tunnel system is destroyed and any units occupying that position hesitate on the next volley as they dig, climb, or blast their way out of the ruined tunnels.
Categorical Limitation: -1pt

Total cost: 8pts

---

The way I see it working is your arty takes the tunnel position and alternates firing, withdrawing into no-man's land - from there you could Take Cover and then fire again, then Withdraw back to the position before firing again, or immediately Advance back to the tunnels' position.

One thought: Rather than say "mobile artillery," I'd probably go for "Enhancement: Affects everyone on your side (+6 pts)." Realism-wise, it's hard to imagine a tunnel big enough for huge grav-propelled gun platforms that infantry can't enter. Tactics-wise, while infantry is irrelevant as long as the enemy Hammer is in orbit, you really want them on hand and able to sortie from the tunnels in case the bad guys land combat engineers to blow the tunnel mouth shut.

I would rather keep the "Cave-In!" to an automatic hesitation.... Having to roll or you're "stuck" sucks, because that's a cheap way to completely remove an unlucky unit from battle, and having a "saving throw" type Ob, where if you pass the test there's no penalty (or else you hesitate on failure) seems like it should actually cost LESS than what I've priced Cave-In! at.

Perhaps the automatic "hesitate for a volley" should be priced as a bigger discount? I'm new to the Tech Burner.

Anyhoo, at this point it's gone to picking nits about tech traits. Perhaps we should move the tunnel system to the Tech forum? :)

So at this point we're trembling on the edge of a workable Tech Burn for a tunnel system, which means it's a good time to bring it over to this part of the forum and solicit input on the final form -- or forms, given that there may be several valid ways to build a fortress.

[admiralducksauce]

If you were going to apply the +6pt "Affects everyone on a side" bonus so infantry could also benefit, I might give maybe 2-3 pts off that total for Obscure Circumstances. I mean, 99% of the time, infantry just aren't going to factor in an orbital battle, right? If you're using my "Cave-In!" trait, it really makes more sense for the enemy to spend some volleys blowing away the tunnel system rather than trying to land engineers. It all depends on intent, too, I suppose (if you need intel or prisoners you can't just slag the place), but what I'm getting at is that allowing infantry forces to benefit from the tunnels certainly doesn't FEEL like 6pts worth of resources to me.

Something I didn't think about earlier is that the original 8pt cost makes it very nice for character burning purposes - 2rps on a low index world can get you a tunnel system.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Or maybe a Categorical Limitation: "affects everyone on your side who's in the designated Postion."

I really want that infantry in there, because otherwise the bad guys can do unto you as the Japanese did unto the British fortress at Singapore, which had lots of massive artillery turrets that pointed out to sea but nothing much on the landward side: insert ground troops and sneak up on you. Arguably, this is what happens to the Rebel base on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, too: They have a great anti-starship defense, but enemy ground forces are apparently able to come in under it. Planetary defenses are especially vulnerable to this kind of thing because, as soon as they find any gap in your overlapping fields of fire, the attackers can land on the other side of the planet get in their grav vehicles, and fly around to your side at low altitude.

In game-mechanical terms, I worry that if it's just written as a die bonus without an enhancement, you can't actually use it for more than one unit. That's fine if all your artillery is in one fireteam, but it's not much for flexibility.

[Thor Olavsrud]

As far as dealing with orbital bombardment, I'll point out another option: using civilian populations as shields.

Remember that by far the most common reason to conquer a planet will be for its resources. There may be a few worlds out there that are valuable solely for their strategic location, but they're few and far between.

Now, consider that travel time in the Iron Empires is long. Really long. It has faster than light travel, but it's not zip-around-the-galaxy-in-minutes FtL. It takes months to get to planets in nearby solar systems and years to get to planets that are farther away.

In other words, there's no shipping in new civilian populations. Even shipping in industrial capital on a large scale is prohibitively expensive. For the most part, if you want to extract resources from a planet, you have to make do with what you've got. You have to pacify the population and you have to secure industrial assets more or less intact.

This simple fact is what makes Anvil important and what keeps Hammer Lords in their places. Only a Forged Lord, with both Hammer AND Anvil at his command, can take and hold a world. A Hammer Lord can reduce a world to cinders but he can't pacify it and he can't occupy it. Destroying a world is an insanely expensive feat in terms of both currency and travel time, and it has zero return.

All that said, I think you're right. Defensive tunnel fortresses are definitely the way to go to protect your military capital, just in case. Even so, it's a holding measure at best. A planetary system without a Forged Lord with Hammer assets to defend it is a planetary system that will soon belong to someone else.

[Sydney Freedberg]

100 percent agreement. If the invading Hammer were willing to destroy the planet, or at least its economic value, then they'd just whip up a relativistic kinetic-kill weapon (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x.html): moving at 90 % of the speed of light, it's nigh-impossible to shoot down and makes a helluva bang on impact. You can't defend against that without your own spaceships on picket duty at Pluto-like distances from your sun.

The objective isn't a fortress that can hold out forever, because that's not militarily possible. The objective is one that can inflict enough punishment on the invaders that they can't take control of the planet's economy before your own Hammer reinforcements arrive. If reinforcements are never coming, you might as well surrender now.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Yup. That's exactly it! :cool:

[Sydney Freedberg]

Well, either surrender now or detonate an arsenal of cobalt-laced nuclear bombs to kill every living thing on your own planet in a "scorched earth" maneuver. But I don't think that's generally considered an attractive option.

[Countercheck]

The objective isn't a fortress that can hold out forever, because that's not militarily possible. The objective is one that can inflict enough punishment on the invaders that they can't take control of the planet's economy before your own Hammer reinforcements arrive. If reinforcements are never coming, you might as well surrender now.

I REALLY like that idea. It ties in closely with the pseudo medieval style of the game.

I still don't REALLY have a problem with simply allocating massive amounts of cover to a position and calling it a tunnel system. When you're looking at battles on this scale, the artillery peices popping in and out of holes like gophers aren't going to have a big enough footprint to justify occupying muiltiple positions, IMHO. I'd not bother burning the tunnel system at all, except, perhaps, as something that gives more cover to a single position.

Here's how I would fight a Forged Force attacking an anvil force. The Forged force would consist of hammer warships and transports and shuttles, along with some sleds and infantry. The anvil force would have the artillery and other assorted ground forces and the tunnel system. The intent of the Forged lord would be to land troops on the planet. That is MORE than enough for a single firefight... you don't need to play out the entire reduction of the planet's defenses in a single scene. The Anvil Lord's intent would be to drive the forged lord's troops out of orbit. Now, the Anvil Lord has this beefed up position representing the tunnel system. He's obviously going to put his troops in there. Since the Forged lord knows this, he's going to be scripting a lot of supressive fire and flanking actions... the enemy is fixed into defensive positions, all he needs to do is keep the artillery pinned down while he moves his transports out of the artillery's field of fire. The Anvil Lord knows this, and is probably going to be scripting a lot of direct fire and supressive fire, representing the anti-invasion barrage. He's only going to venture out into the open (advance/flanking actions) once his position's cover is reduced.

I think that this, even without burning tunnel system tech, would give the feel of the battle properly. Remember, the scale is the entire planet! Positions are going to be MAJOR geographical features. I also find it interesting that with this kind of Firefight, casulties are going to be fairly low on the defender's side, which is realistic, UNLESS the Forged Lord gets really ballsy and decides to pull an Adama Manouver, bringing his cruisers down into the atmosphere to duel with the artillery at point blank range with an Advance and Close Combat action. I think that could be ridiculously cool=)

[Sydney Freedberg]

I'd agree that, on the scale of a fleet vs. fortress battle, the entire fortification system may well be one position and ships flying into atmospheric for low-level attacks would equate to Close Combat! It's possible to have a Firefight! about small ground units trying to locate or sabotage a tunnel system, in which case the scale changes, but I suspect the same Tech Burn can handle both.

I still don't REALLY have a problem with simply allocating massive amounts of cover to a position and calling it a tunnel system.

Here's the problem: the Wave trait. Remember, this trait is standard on the heavy fusor Battery (p. 518) and you can buy it for on missiles (e.g. SWARM). That means "massive amounts of Cover" count as one point, only.

[MechaMan]

Here's the problem: the Wave trait. Remember, this trait is standard on the heavy fusor Battery (p. 518) and you can buy it for on missiles (e.g. SWARM). That means "massive amounts of Cover" count as one point, only.

Then why not just invent a defensive Trait that counters the Wave trait? Apply it to each Cover as a separate instance of that Technology.

Can anyone justify why the Battery/Artillery weapons have the Wave trait anyway?

-ATR

[Sydney Freedberg]

It makes an awful kind of sense that the more powerful energy weapons (the Heavy Laser, the Fusion Gun, and the fusor Battery) have the Wave trait: Sweep the beam across the target like a searchlight and energy will come pouring through any hole in your cover -- and there're always holes. But that doesn't do justice to a tunnel system that, in any sane world, would be built with zigzags in it to stop blast effects, energy beams, and bullets. I think the simplest way to portray this is just to use the Device: Obstacle rules.

So, after considerable brain-wracking, I have actually broken the fortress into what I hope are five bite-sized pieces of technology which I offer for the thorough working-over they need at this point:


Fortification common trait: Immoble

All fortifications suffer from a special Categorical Limitation, "Immobile." Whenever a Keep, Warren, Assault Tunnel, Infiltration Tunnel, or HIDRA is established in the game -- either in character burning, or as color prior to a resources roll -- whoever is introducing it must specify its location to the satifaction of all the other players, including the GM. The location need not be painfully precise, but it must be reasonably clear in play whether a given Firefight occurs in the right area for a given fortification to be involved or not. "Near city X," "on my secret island base," "on the near side of the first moon," or "in an isolated mountain range on the western continent" are generally acceptable locations; just "on the western continent" is not. The GM is the final arbiter in any given Firefight.



Keep
Resources Obstacle: 8 points

The deepest, most secure section of any underground fortress system is commonly called "the Keep." In peacetime, for convenience's sake, an elaborate support base tends to grow up on the surface around the entrance to a convenient access tunnel (this is what Geil Caracajou and Trevor Faith were looking at in the first pages of Faith Conquers), but the access tunnel is always several kilometers long and bends sharply in several places to obscure the actual location of the Keep proper.

The Keep normally houses an array of Combat Support systems like medical facilities and battle command (bought as separate items of technology).

When setting up a Firefight, the controlling side must designate at least one position, and may designate several positions, as having entrance/exit tunnels for the keep. During Firefight, a friendly unit in one of these positions can move into the Keep with a succesful Withdraw action, and a unit in the Keep can move out into any one of these positions with a successful Advance. (For game purposes, these tunnels are considered effectively indestructible). However, if an enemy unit occupies one of these positions with a successful Advance of its own -- and a successful Close Combat action against any defending unit on the surface in that position -- it may then engage units inside the Keep in subsequent Close Combat actions.

The Keep imposes a +3 Obstacle to any enemy action against the units and systems it contains. That includes Close Combat, Observation, Direct Fire, and Suppressive Fire unit actions; individual shot opportunities; and Sensor Sweep specialist actions. Enemy fire that damages its target in spite of this obstacle is assumed to have breached that particular section of the Keep or indirectly caused a local collapse. The Keep is large enough that more than one unit may occupy it and each must be targeted separately.

However, units in a Keep can perform no unit actions other than Rally & Regroup, Take Cover -- which represents a move deeper into the tunnel system -- or Withdraw -- which represents a move away from a threatened or breached area of the Keep into a safer one. They may not use Observe, Direct Fire, Suppressive Fire, or Flank at all. They may not use Advance except to exit the Keep into no man's land. They may not use Close Combat except against enemy forces that have entered the Keep: To engage enemy forces on the surface, they must Advance out the access tunnel first. Sensor Sweep and Signals Warfare specialist actions are allowed for systems built into the Keep only, not for mobile units; the Medic specialist action is unrestricted.


Technological Traits:

Device: Obstacle, base cost +1 pt; +3 Ob, +3 pts; affects five additional actions, +5 pts (+9 points)

Enhancement: Affects everyone in the scene (+8 points)

Categorical Limitations: eight Firefight actions prohibited or restricted (-8 points)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)


Availability in character burning: Any character with the Hammer Lord or Forged Lord trait may purchase a Keep for 1 rp, if and only if the player specifies its location before play begins.




Fortress Warren
Resources Obstacle: 8 points

Underground, a fortress warren consists of a network of tunnels built deep enough to resist nuclear bombardment, with zigzags and blast doors to stop the propagation of blast effects and energy beams within the tunnel system itself. On the surface, the warren appears as a large number of well-hidden sally ports, interspersed with bunkers, fighting positions, and decoy tunnel mouths on the surface, to allow troops to enter and exit without giving away exactly where they came from. The whole system provides +2D advantage to friendly Take Cover and Withdraw unit actions, and a +2 Obstacle to enemy Observe unit actions and Sensor Sweep specialist actions.

To benefit from the warren, however, troops must be trained to navigate the tunnel labyrinth, emerge unseen, attack, and then retreat underground again, normally by a different tunnel mouth. Training troops in such tactics requires a successful Command, Tactics, Instruction, or Fortifications roll against Ob 2 during a building scene. Each such roll can train any number of troops on one set of contiguous tunnels. This warren's location must be specified to both the GM's and the players' satisfaction in the same building scene. Thereafter, the troops trained are entitled to the +2D advantage in any Firefight involving that specific warren, unless and until it is destroyed.

When setting up a Firefight, the side controlling the warren must designate one position on the battle map as representing the sally ports. Any cover this position has represents bunkers and other fortified fighting positions on the surface, rather than the deep tunnels themselves. Units may benefit from the 2D advantage to Take Cover and Rally & Regroup actions without actually occupying this position: They are considered to be "shooting and scooting," using the sally ports as their base of operations, rather than taking cover in and around them.

However, if the sally port position is occupied by enemy troops -- using a successful Advance action, followed by a successful Close Combat action against any friendly troops present -- the +2D bonus is lost until the enemy troops are evicted by friendly forces taking a successful Close Combat unit action. If the position's Cover value is reduced to zero by superstructural scale damage, the warren's sally ports are destroyed and its advantage dice are lost permanently. (Damage done by squad support or vehicular scale weapons still counts for reducing the Cover rating under the "collateral damage" rules, pp. 489-490, but not for destroying the sally ports).

For game purposes, the destruction of the sally ports has no significant ill effect on any units inside the warren, as they can escape either deeper into the tunnel system or to the surface through auxillary "blowholes." These emergency exit shafts, designed for a one-time escape rather than combat operations, are dug from below and left unfinished, with prepositioned explosives blasting an exit through the last five to fifteen meters of earth.

Technological Traits:

2D Skill Advantage, +5 pts; affects one extra action, +1 pts. (+6 points)

Obstacle, +1 pt base; +2 Ob, +2 pts; affects one extra action, +1 pt (+4 points)

Enhancement: affects all friendly forces (+6 points)

Trait Limitation: useable by tunnel-trained troops only (-3 points)

Trait Limitation: destroyed if sally ports' position is destroyed (-3 points)

Categorical Limitation: can be blocked by enemy troops (-1 point)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)

Availability in character burning: Any character with the Hammer Lord or Forged Lord trait may purchase a Fortress Warren for 1 rp, if and only if the player specifies its location before play begins.



Assault Tunnel
Resources Obstacle: 4 points

Some fortress systems include assault tunnels, extra-wide underground causeways to allow entire units to move through and emerge -- through one-use "blowholes" like those of escape shafts -- in combat formation at some critical point, without requiring special tunnel operations training or "shoot and scoot" guerrilla tactics.

Each set of assault tunnels may be used once and once only, and the general area they can reach must be specified when the tunnels are made hard technology (usually by tying them to a specified fortress warren). When the controlling side scripts their Firefight actions, they may designate any Advance, Flank, or Close Combat unit action as coming through the tunnels: This unit action benefits from a +2D advantage.

2D Skill Advantage (+5 points)

More Powerful: Can choose what kind of Firefight action to give bonus (+1 point)

Obscure Circumstances: one use only (-1 points)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)




Infiltration Tunnel
Resources Obstacle:

Some fortress systems include small, extremely well hidden sally ports specifically designed to allow small units to emerge unseen for covert operations, giving a +2D advantage to Infiltration by friendly forces. The area these infiltration tunnels and sally ports cover must be specified to both the players' and the GM's satisfaction at the time the system becomes hard technology.

2D Skill Advantage (+5 points)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)




High-Intensity Dispersed Refractive Array (HIDRA)
Resources Obstacle: 4 points

Lasers and other energy weapons do not actually need a long, straight barrel, since they bounce the beam between mirrors and/or pulse it through tubes of energized gas before firing. A HIDRA system allows an energy weapon Battery (pg. 518) to have its power source and beam generator buried deep underground, but still fire on targets aboveground by refracting its beam through any one of several dozen "barrels" that snake their way to different points on the surface.

When used, each individual firing port reveals its position -- precisely, and with an unmistakeable blast of energy -- and is almost certainly destroyed by retaliatory fire. But each individual port is a small part of the system and designed to be expendable.

When the HIDRA is first burned as hard technology, its location must be specified to the satisfaction of both the playres and the GM. When setting up a Firefight, as for a fortress warren, the controlling side must designate one position on the battle map as representing the area concealing the HIDRA's firing ports. If thats position's Cover value is reduced to zero by superstructural scale damage, the firing ports are destroyed and the HIDRA system is put out of action. (Damage done by squad support or vehicular scale weapons still counts for reducing the Cover rating under the "collateral damage" rules, pp. 489-490, but not for destroying the sally ports).

Putting a disabled HIDRA back on line requires three successful rolls in a building scene -- one with the Fortification skill, one with Armorer, and one with Repair -- each against an Obstacle of 3. Alternatively, the buried power source and beam generator may be dug up for reuse in a new firing platform (for example, another HIDRA, a Hammer warship, or a SPAG) with a single successful Salvage roll against Ob 3.

Technological Traits:

Artillery Weapon: Battery (+8 points)

Trait Limitation: destroyed if sally ports' position is destroyed (-3 points)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)



P.S.: My brain hurts now.

[zabieru]

Fly. Also, nice job with the HIDRA acronym. Slight nitpick, though: Since it's mainly using mirrors rather than lenses, shouldn't it be Reflective rather than Refractive?

[Sydney Freedberg]

Heh. Quite possibly.

Also, the current Tech Burn for the HIDRA doesn't address how you target the deeply buried weapon itself: it sort of presumes you can't. It might be better to revise it to be a way for a weapon in the Keep, or with Keep-like Obstacle 3 protection against enemy action, to be exempt from three of the Categorical Limitations -- i.e. to re-allow Direct Fire, Suppressive Fire, and individual shot opportunities.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Oh, also:

Heat Sink
Resources Obstacle: 6 pts

+2D to Ammo Check rolls (+5 points)
Enhancement: affects everyone on your side (+6 points)
Categorical Limitations x 2: only energy weapons; only fortress-mounted weapons (-2 pts)
Trait Limitation: destroyed when surface vents are destroyed (as per rules for Fortress Warren) (-3 pts)

[Sydney Freedberg]

And, very tentatively, because this is pushing the rules until they scream:

[EDIT: STAT BLOCK DELETED TO PREVENT ANY POOR PERSON FROM EVER ACTUALLY TRYING TO USE THIS ABOMINATION IN A GAME]

Based on the Hammer Cruiser (p. 557).

Decrease speed category from Space to human: dropping four categories, Space, Air, Ground, Human at -2 pts each (-8 points)
Decrease speed exponent from 9 to zero, at-2 pts per die (-18 pts)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)

Remove +2 Ob to Control as irrevelant (+3 points)

Add modified Hardened and Shielded trait (+ 14 points)
Like Iron, the Battle Fortress's armor is hardened and internally shielded by a process closely guarded by most senior artificers in the Iron Empires. Any superstructural-scale damage that strikes the armor is reduced to vehicular scale. For example, an S12 hit from a Battery would be reduced to V12: Instead of being Damaged, the Fortress would merely be Breached.
Based on Hardened & Shielded trait for Iron (see p. 545).
Technological Traits: Enhancement (+8 pts), PITAP (+3 pts), More Powerful (+3 pts)

[luke]

Moved a bunch of stuff here:
http://burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3466

[Sydney Freedberg]

Rescuing some relevant stuff that was split:

Excellent discussion, guys. I've been away for the holiday, with no access to the site, so I missed the early part of this discussion. Overall, what you're proposing is all well within canon. There are two factors that aren't being addressed, mainly because the rpg doesn't discuss them. I'll be going into more detail in the future, and they may show up in an expansion, but I'll touch on them here.

1. Q-Beams.
These are the primary Hammer weapons... the big guns in the Iron Empires. They have the following properties:

-they annihilate matter on contact (via a matter/antimatter detonation), but don't often contact their target directly, being inaccurate and slow. Most damage will be from near-misses.

-they outrange all other naval weapons by a significant margin.

-they can be fired out of atmospheres (or any other particle-rich environment, such as a dust cloud... even from far underground), but not into them.

-They're massive, and require a lot of power to operate.

2. Powered Armor
This isn't a force-field (we don't have those in the IE), but a form of powered plate (or ceramic, or layered, or whatever... Sydney, help!) armor. Energy transferred to the powered material (kinetic, heat, shockwave, etc...), is channeled away and vented, allowing the target to survive strikes from most conventional weapons (all the stuff in the Brick), Nuclear weapons and Antimatter weapons being the notable exceptions.

-Again, this technology is bulky and eats power.

The ramifications for fortresses: Fortresses can mount and power more Q-beams, more cheaply, than Hammer forces can. What's more, ground-based Q-beams can attack anything outside of low orbit, while the attacker can't respond. Finally, Q-beams can buried a mile underground, and still operate as long as their surface sensors and targetting elements are intact.

The Keep and other key facilities will be shielded with powered armor, rendering them virtually invulnerable to orbital attack except with nuclear weapons or really big asteroid bombs (which have their own problems, as you guys have discussed). So a "real" fortress will be proof against orbital attack, unless the attacker is determined to just burn the entire world. Outnumbered defending Hammer assets can shelter in low orbit, protected by the Q-beams of the fortress below, and preventing the attacking fleet from approaching without suffering horrible losses.

Ultimately, the only sure way to take a major fortress out is via ground assault, sabotage or treachery. Smaller fortresses are another story, and those sorts of fortifications will employ all of the sorts of strategems you're talking about above.

-Chris



Hmm, powered armour sounds like a very efficient heat exchange system. Something combining lots and lots of low mass/high bulk armour with superconductors that duct the energy down into subterranian water resevoirs.

Great! I was hoping for your input, Chris, since it's obviously essential. Let's contemplate how to depict them.

The armor sounds like a supersized version of Iron's "hardened and shielded" trait: instead of reducing Vehicular-scale damage to Human-scale as Iron does, an armored fortress might be able to reduce Superstructural-scale damage to Vehicular-scale. [EDIT: I crossposted with Mike/Countercheck, but I think his description of the armor sounds reasonable].

The Q-beams might be portrayed as a highly modified Battery with an extra level of Long Range ("beyond artillery"), an accuracy penalty, the Megablast trait, and a Trait Limitation to reflect firing into/out of atmospheres.


If that's the way Q-beams work, then I could see most fortresses being placed under-water. The water itself would act as the bulky armour, and would give you a near inexhaustable heat-sink


That's a cool idea. There are nasty engineering problems building underwater, so I'm not sure "most" fortresses would be submerged, but I'd think a lot of Forged Lords would consider the tradeoff (more construction cost for better defense) to be worth it.

And even with hardened-and-shielded fortresses, you'd want to conceal or at least obfuscate your exact location, because you don't want to make it easier for the enemy to drop that asteroid or H-bomb on you -- and they're certainly going to try to.

As an invasion force commander, especially a Vaylen one, I'm going to do everything I can to smash the fortress itself before resorting to exterminating the populace and hoping the defenders relent. Besides the waste of valuable slave labor/hullable humans, the problem with such terror tactics is that they rarely work: The population tends to rally, not collapse (consider the Blitz in London), and even if they don't, the defending military secure in their bunkers doesn't really have to listen to them.

I agree, strategic bombing has proved ineffective generally, but when you add WMD into the mix, things might change. Not saying they WOULD, but if fortifications are as tough as Chris has suggested, then planets will be virtually unassailable, and the Vaylen would eventually need to move onto depopulating a large enough area to begin staging their Hoth style assault.

Also, If I'm a Forged Lord, you KNOW I'm going to put my anti-invasion Q-beams in the middle of cities.

As for the engineering difficulties of submerged fortresses, how about truely massive submarines? They can manouver, fire into space easily, and have hundreds of meters of water between them and the surface.


Cripes, anti-Hammer submarines. Is scary thought. You can launch missiles off those things too, of course -- that's existing technology, in fact!

Also, I remember how the Traveller "meson guns" worked: Mesons are exotic particles that don't interact with matter, but also have a very short lifespan before they decay into (deadly) radiation; by accelerating them to near-light-speed, and calculating precisely how much those relativistic velocities slow down time in the mesons' frame of reference, you can determine exactly when and where they decay.

Now, trying to burn up the Q-beam is, wow, expensive:



Q-Beam
Resources Obstacle: 12 points

Enhanced Range: Artillery-plus (+10 pts)
(This is extrapolating from Vehicular range costing 8 points and Artillery costing 9)

Indirect (+8 pts)

Megablast (+6 pts)

Categorical Limitations x 3: cannot fire into atmosphere or dust clouds -- restricts Direct Fire, Suppressive Fire, and shot opportunities (-3 pts)

Mounted (-3 pts)

Categorical Limitation: must be mounted on a fortress or a vehicle with Integrity of 8 or more (-1 point)
(Again, extrapolating from Vehicular weapons requiring Integrity 6 and Artillery weapons requiring Integrity 7)

Inaccurate: +1 Ob to Direct Fire, Suppressive Fire, and shot opportunities (-4 pts)

Categorical Limitation: may not be used in Close Combat at all (-1 pt)



And all that is after you've already bought an Artillery scale weapon (Ob 8) or a vehicle with artillery mountings (like a SPAG or Hammer warship) as the base to upgrade from.


Blind spots will abound regardless... planets are huge, and you can't build a fortress that points in every direction (at least not an affordable one). The strategic function of fortress worlds is to make "safe harbors" from which human hammer assets can strike and harass Vaylen penetrations.

...

As for nuking fortress worlds into glass, it's expected that a desperate enemy will go full out against a fortress world when it comes to a siege, throwing everything possible at it. The populations will have some sort of underground shelters (if their lords are humane), or flee in civil spacecraft, or die horribly, which is still preferable to being hulled. As Faith says, "It's a fortress world, it's supposed to be ruined."

As for the Q-beam, it is similar to traveller's Meson Gun, in that it creates a "tear" in the positive universe at a distant point, without regard to intervening matter. The trick is that the point at which the tear opens has to be a virtual vacuum. The tear won't occur if there's too much positive matter in the vicinity. The same technology (on a much smaller, more controlled level), is used for distortion drives. So distortion drives can't operate inside dense particle fields either... near planets, in gas clouds, nebulae, etc...

[Sydney Freedberg]

I'm going to try to burn up revised versions of the fortress systems based on the new canon from Chris. Bbut for the moment, I just want to say that maybe the underwater fortress/anti-Hammer submarine is not such a great idea on second thought, because water is, y'know, not opaque.

We already have satellites that can map the ocean floor by radar. Anyway, it's easier to see things underwater from above than from the surface-- because subs can only hide so many miles deep, whereas a ship trying to detect a submarine has to send sonar waves sideways through miles upon miles of water. So as far as Low Index technology is concerned, I'd bet that any ocean is going to be sensor-transparent, which means not a hiding place at all.

There are a few ways to hide from sensors: stealth, which means lowering your radar/sonar/lidar return to something indistinguishable from the surrounding environment; soft cover, which means hiding in some environment that is itself sensor-opaque (e.g. a smokescreen, if the enemy's just using their eyes); or hard cover, which means hiding in an environment where everything around you has pretty much the same sensor return as you, i.e. is pretty much the same density as you.

You can and should use all three techniques in combination when you can, but as technology advances, the chance of any naturally occuring environment remaining sensor-opaque diminishes, so soft cover is increasingly out, and stealth is a very tricky game to play, putting you into an arms race with enemy sensor advances. The hard cover game, by contrast, is always doable, because you just have to find an environment made out of the same stuff as what you're trying to hide. Thus a tank will always have a good shot at hiding in a city full of metal-frame buildings, and a fortress carved out of living rock will be a lot easier to hide than one made of metal and plunked on top of the basalt seabed.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Okay, after much brain-wringing, I think I've finally figured out a relatively straightforward way to depict Hotok's Keep -- although this is not to where I want it yet:

First, keep all the traits I mapped out earlier:

Technological Traits:

Device: Obstacle, base cost +1 pt; +3 Ob, +3 pts; affects five additional actions, +5 pts (+9 points)

Enhancement: Affects everyone in the scene (+8 points)

Categorical Limitations: eight Firefight actions prohibited or restricted (-8 points)

Categorical Limitation: immobile (-1 point)


And now add:

Hardened, Shielded, and Buried (22 points!)

The Keep is protected by less sophisticated but far larger-scale version of the hardening and shielding used for Iron. Fortress armor consists of alternating layers of metal, ceramic, and superconducting materials that channel the heat of incoming blasts directly into the local water table. As a result, most Keeps are either built near large bodies of water or actually surrounded by a natural underground lake -- which usually ends up being poisoned with heavy metals used in building the armor, and outright vaporized if an actual battle occurs.

A fortress's armor protects all units and items of technology inside it -- within limits: While the direct force of the incoming bombardment is neutralized, the garrison must endure local collapses, burn-throughs, and the bitterly nicknamed "steam bath" effect that occurs when ultra-hot, ultra-high pressure vapor from the local water table bleeds back into a section of the Keep through a damaged seal. The larger pasages and chambers of the Keep are particularly vulnerable to these secondary effects, so vehicles (and vehicle-sized animals) sheltering in the Keep generally take more damage than personnel, who can fit into smaller areas where tight bends in corridors, blast doors, and other labyrinthine features buffer the blast.

For a vehicle, or a life form with Vehicular or Superstructural-scale damage tolerances (see "Big as a House" on pg. 596), the Keep's armor reduces any Superstructural-scale damage to Vehicular scale, and any Vehicular-scale damage to Human scale.

For a human, Kerrn, or Mukhadish-sized life form -- whether in Iron or not -- the Keep's armor reduces both Superstructural-scale damage and Vehicular-scale damage to Human scale.

Thus, an S8 hit from a Hammer gunship's main battery on a particular section of the Keep would do V8 damage to vehicles inside, but only H8 damage to people. An Anvil Assault Sled in an affected garage area would only be Damaged, rather than annihilated; a less sturdy civilian Grav Sled parked alongside it would be destroyed regardless, probably smashed by falling concrete or hurled end-over-end into the Assault sled by a blast of steam. Personnel in less-open spaces would likely be Maimed but treatable, while troops in Anvil armor would probably only be Injured.

Note that this effect is in addition to the Obstacle the Keep imposes on individual shot opportunities, and that an attack targeting one unit, vehicle, or person in one part of the Keep does not affect anyone else in it!

Technological Traits: Two Enhancements: Reduce Superstructural damage to Human, reduce Vehicular damage to Human, +16 pts; pain in the ass penalty, +3 pts; more powerful, +3 pts


Comments are not only welcome, but begged for.

[admiralducksauce]

I can't help but read that description and think of the Stormtroopers falling over and sparks flying everywhere when that dude missed with his proton torpedoes in Star Wars. :) I'm finding it hard to comment on how close your fortress is to the book, though, because I haven't read Iron Empires yet. The point cost seems reasonable, though - there's not much that can turn an artillery battery into just an Injured result for a human.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Heh. That's an example of the constraints of the system forcing me to get creative about the setting (as opposed to the setting determining how I use the system, which is "the way it's supposed to be" traditionally). I couldn't make the Keep work as a stationary vehicle, because that broke the Tech Burner rules too badly, so I was stuck with making it a bonus to the units inside, at which point I realized some nasty damage would still be getting through and wanted to figure out how to justify that.

[Countercheck]

Sydney, sorry I didn't respond sooner. I've been mulling it over.

I like most of the traits. I like the way they interact. What I'm not entirely sure I like is the fact that they're presented together as a single fortress. The overwhelming impression I've gotten from BE is one of age, so I'd think fortresses would have layer after layer of incompatable defenses that interact poorly. New bastions would constantly be added, and old ramparts pulled down... I feel like the fortresses should look and feel more evolved than a regulation SAM battery emplacement. And I think using the tech burner in play is the perfect way to do this.

You could have several manouvers centering on renovating the fortifications on several moons around the world, with the PCs frantically trying to get the improvements (burned technology) added before the Vaylen invasion fleet arrives while the Vaylen FoNs try to sabotauge the project with bombs and budget-cuts. I think the fortress needs to be created by the players in play, and needs to almost become a character in it's own right.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Mike, I really like that idea.

I've been trying to break up the earlier fortress designs into pieces (e.g. the "warren" and the various tunnel options), but you're right, it is absolutely essential for the "Keep" as well -- not just to break the Resources tests down into manageable bites but, as you just made me realize, to fortress-building a possible story element instead of just "well, here you have this thing." And I'm giddy at the fun the GM can have with "gift of kindness" flaws imposed on the partially restored, centuries-old fortress as the players keep missing their Resources rolls.

Conversely and complementarily*, I'm starting to think that the defining core element of a true Keep -- the superstructural-scale "hardened and shielded" trait -- should be, like Iron with its hardened & shielded trait, a rare and elite item of tech that's so expensive that, in effect, only Forged Lord characters can have it, and even then only as something bought in character creation. You don't build the superconducting layered armor in play, any more than you build Iron: You inherit it.

And then all you have to do is, y'know, make it actually freakin' function.


* That is a word, right?

[luke]

Sydney,
I don't care what they say about you. You're one cool cat.

-L
:)

[Sydney Freedberg]

[Cocking head to one side with adorable quizzical expression] Meowr? [/adorable expression]

[luke]

Don't push it, Freedberg.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I've been turning this over in my mind, slowly, like a whole dead cow on a spit at a medieval banquet (mmm... dead cow), and I've come up with an alternative way to portray a Keep. The advantage of this method is that it's more direct, counting the Keep as essentially a stationary vehicle, instead of having its effects all be indirect ones on other units. The disadvantage is that it requires me to come up with Strucutural Tolerances without any rules on doing so. Which means this cannot fly without Explicit Luke Approval.



KEEP
Integrity 9 (bought as Forte as per p. 389: 1st die, 6 pts; 8 additional dice at 2 pts apiece, +16 pts. Total: 22 points)

This is where handwavium comes in. The Hammer Cruiser (p. 557) has Integrity of 9, and so -- even though Integrity and Tolerances don't actually correlate very tightly if you compare different vehicles in the book -- I just borrow its STs:
Structural Tolerances: Surface, V3. Breach, V8. Damaged, S12. Destroyed, S15.

Enhancement: can hold other units inside, where they can only be hit as per targeting crew/passengers as per pg. 563 (+8 points)
Categorical Limitation: can be invaded - breaching Keep security allows enemy units to Advance into the Keep and engage units inside in Close Combat (-1 point)

Disallowed actions in Firefight: cannot Flank, Advance, Withdraw, or initiate Close Combat (Four categorical limitations at 1 pt each. Total: -4 points).
Categorical Limitation: Immobile - location must be specified when the Keep is bought (-1 point)

Total cost for a basic Keep: 24.



In keeping with Mike Atlin's idea about fortress-building being something that takes multiple building scenes and can be a major long-term goal, I've left out weapons (artillery mounts at 3 pts each, plus additional points to upgrade basic artillery to Q-Beam levels), Sensors, Signals, and the Security to keep people from waltzing in.

But now for the big one:


Hardened, Shielded, and Buried:
A fortress with this technology is armored with layers of superconducting material that carries the energy of incoming attacks away as heat and harmlessly dissipates that energy in the local water table -- harmless to the fortress, that is: Just having these materials in contact with your water supply is an ecological nightmare even before the fighting starts and your groundwater boils away. ("It's poisoning Hotok....")

Enhancement: Vehicular-scale weapons simply do ZERO damage (8 pts; Pain in the Ass Penalty, +3 pts; More Powerful. +3 pts. Total: 14 pts).

Incoming attacks suffer -1 to DoF (equal to cancelling out one enemy success on the to-hit roll, equavalent to removing 1D of enemy Skill Advantage, +3 pts)
Note this means, on average, that a Missile or Battery will do a mere Breach result.

Categorical Limitation: ecological disaster (-1 point)

Trait Limitation: requires the Forged Lord trait or every legitimate Forged Lord in range will arrive with his fleet and blow you the hell away before you get even halfway through building something that neutralizes their ability to bombard you from orbit (-3 pts)

Total cost to Harden & Shield a Keep: 13 points


Do people think this approach works better for the Keep proper than the ideas I had before? I think I'll still keep the earlier Tech Build to depict, say, a bunker instead.

[Paul B]

You know...mechanically and aesthetically, I like both approaches. I like the idea of a stationary vehicle. I like the idea of a vast, sprawling complex where you spend many, many scenes diddling with its various subsystems.

However, based on my play experience, this much fussing over a single tech investment may be either impractical or simply unfun.

I had a somewhat similar thing happen in my game: The bad guys were busy building a safe haven where they could start shipping their barrels o' worms in secrecy and safety. Each turn I spent at least one or two color and building scenes tacking on more and more stuff onto their home base. Frankly it sucked, because the home base wasn't being set up to do anything in particular -- it was just being built. No context, no conflict, boring.

That said, and based on the implications of the Fortress example from the book, I'm strongly considering next time having some kind of "banked" build rolls for large-scale stuff. Any tech that takes more than one roll to build (ie is comprised of more than one subsystem) doesn't get built on the spot -- instead, you bank a roll and designate what it's for ("a security system," "gun emplacements," "sensors," "hidden compartments," whatever), skip the roll, and move on. It uses up a roll but you don't work out the details right then and there. In fact, you really don't work out the details at all, ever, until and unless those systems come into play or are otherwise challenged.

I know this doesn't actually contradict anything you've just doodled up; it's just something I was thinking about to make large-scale tech investments more practical and less screwy in terms of game flow.

p.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Definitely agreed that spending a lot of game-time fiddling with tech is counterproductive. I think the best way to introduce a Fortress into the game, actually, is to allow a Forged Lord to pay 2 rps and just have one.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I split the Keep into as many parts as possible, but I'm really struggling to make the "stationary vehicle" thing work. A gun emplacement with the same Integrity as an Assault Sled, but less armament and no sensors or signals, costs 13 points -- the same as the fully mobile Assault Sled. An artillery emplacement costs 20 points -- the same as a Hammer Cruiser, which has more firepower, inbuilt Security, Signals, and Sensors, and can move between star systems!



FLAK GUN TOWER
Resources Obstacle: Ob 13

Integrity 6 (bought as Forte as per p. 389: 1st die, 6 pts; 5 additional dice at 2 pts apiece, +10 pts. Total: 16 points)
Structural Tolerances (as per Assault Sled, pg. 556 which also has Integrity 6): Surface, H8. Breach, V1. Damaged, V7. Destroyed, V14.

Ordnance: Vehicular-scale mount (+2 points)

Disallowed actions in Firefight: cannot Flank, Advance, Withdraw, or initiate Close Combat (Four categorical limitations at 1 pt each. Total: -4 points).

Categorical Limitation: Immobile - location must be specified when the tech is bought (-1 point)




ARTILLERY PIT
Tech Resources: Ob 20 (!)

Integrity 9 (bought as Forte as per p. 389: 1st die, 6 pts; 8 additional dice at 2 pts apiece, +16 pts. Total: 22 points)
Structural Tolerances (as per Hammer Cruiser, pg. 557, which also has Integrity 9): Surface, V3. Breach, V8. Damaged, S12. Destroyed, S15. (8 points)

Ordnance: Artillery mount (+3 points)

Disallowed actions in Firefight: cannot Flank, Advance, Withdraw, or initiate Close Combat (Four categorical limitations at 1 pt each. Total: -4 points).

Categorical Limitation: Immobile - location must be specified when the tech is bought (-1 point)



And the costs to add Sensors, Signals, and Security at the levels typical of armored vehicles are just insane:



S3 Package
Resources Obstacle: 20

Tools for Security, Sensors, and Signals (Security tools at full cost, 8 pts; Sensors tools at half price, 2 pts; Signals tools at half price, 2 pts. Total: 12 pts)

Sensors: Automation 3 (Security 1 included above, +2D, 2 points).
Signals: Automation 3 (2 pts base, +1 pt per die. Total: 5 points).
Security: Automation 3 (2 pts base, +1 pt per die. Total: 5 points).

Trait Limitation: Mounted (-3 points)

[Sydney Freedberg]

Okay, since the "build up from nothing" approach I used in the last post clearly doesn't work, I'm going to return to the "build down from vehicles" approach, which I think I've finally made reasonable. While losing all mobility-related traits and stas knocks 9 to 11 points off a vehicle's cost, fortifications desperately need some level of Security Automation -- unlike vehicles, they can't just drive or fly away from people trying to break in! -- and the cost of that usually offsets enough of the savings to make things balance out in a sane manner.

Thus:


Gun Turret
Type: Fortification
Capacity: 2 gunners
Tech Index: Zero index and higher
Tech Resources Ob 5
Profile 1
Integrity 5
Control: not applicable
Signals Automation 3
Sensors Automation 3
Ordnance Vehicular
Vehicular Speed: immobile
Security Automation 3
Structural Tolerances: Surface, H5. Breach, H10. Damaged, V5. Destroyed, V11.
[based off Anvil Attack Sled]

Gun Turret (net effect: -9 pts)
Reduce Speed two category steps (Atmospheric > Ground > Human): -4 pts
Immobile: Cannot take Advance, Flank, Withdraw, or Close Combat actions in Firefight (4 Categorical Limitations): -4 pts
Immovable: Geographic location must be specified when introduced (Categorical Limitation): -1 pt
(Note that all gun turrets are assumed to be retractable, so they can use the "Take Cover" action in Firefight)

Reduce Control from 1D to zero (equivalent to eliminating 1D Skill Advantage, -5 pts)

Add Security Automation 3 (+10 pts)



Heavy Gun Turret
Capacity: 4 gunners
Tech Index: Low index and higher
Type: Fortification
Tech Resources Ob 14
Profile 2
Integrity 6
Control: not applicable
Signals Automation 3
Sensors Automation 3
Ordnance Vehicular (2)
Vehicular Speed: immobile
Security Automation 3
Structural Tolerances: Surface, H8. Breach, V1. Damaged, V7. Destroyed, V14.
[based off Anvil Assault Sled]

Gun Turret: net effect, -9 pts
Reduce Speed two category steps (Atmospheric > Ground > Human): -4 pts
Immobile: Cannot take Advance, Flank, Withdraw, or Close Combat actions in Firefight (4 Categorical Limitations): -4 pts
Immovable: Geographic location must be specified when introduced (Categorical Limitation): -1 pt
(Note that all gun turrets are assumed to be retractable, so they can use the "Take Cover" action in Firefight)

Add Security Automation 3: +10 pts



Artillery Emplacement
Type: Fortification
Capacity: 8 gunners
Tech Index: Low index and higher
Tech Resources Ob 13
Profile 3
Integrity 8
Control: not applicable
Signals Automation 4
Sensors Automation 5
Ordnance Artillery (1)
Vehicular Speed: immobile
Security Manned
Structural Tolerances: Surface, H14. Breach, V5. Damaged, S10. Destroyed, S12.
[based off Hammer Patrol Craft]

Artillery Emplacement: net effect: -11 pts
Reduce Speed three category steps (Space > Atmospheric > Ground > Human): -6 pts
Immobile: Cannot take Advance, Flank, Withdraw, or Close Combat actions in Firefight (4 Categorical Limitations): -4 pts
Immovable: Geographic location must be specified when introduced (Categorical Limitation): -1 pt
(Note that all gun turrets are assumed to be retractable, so they can use the "Take Cover" action in Firefight)

Remove +1 Ob to control: +2 pts

Replace Manned Security (-4 pts) with Security Automation 3 (+10 points): net effect, +6 pts



Heavy Artillery Emplacement
Type: Fortification
Capacity: 16 gunners
Tech Index: High index only
Tech Resources Ob 12
Profile 2
Integrity 9
Control: not applicable
Signals Automation 5
Sensors Automation 4
Ordnance Artillery (4)
Vehicular Speed: immobile
Security Automation 4
Structural Tolerances: Surface, V3. Breach, V8. Damaged, S12. Destroyed, S15.
[based off Hammer Cruiser]

Artillery Emplacement: net effect, -11 pts
Reduce Speed three category steps (Space > Atmospheric > Ground > Human): -6 pts
Immobile: Cannot take Advance, Flank, Withdraw, or Close Combat actions in Firefight (4 Categorical Limitations): -4 pts
Immovable: Geographic location must be specified when introduced (Categorical Limitation): -1 pt
(Note that all gun turrets are assumed to be retractable, so they can use the "Take Cover" action in Firefight)

Remove +2 Ob to control: +3 pts