Pending Official Faction Requests

[Enkidu]

Long explanation

Battleship availability is a tough one. Whilst the Unioners according to the lore we’ve set out have the technical means to access battleships and technically have the blueprints for one battleship model, I’m leery of the concept of power creep and it pervading the faction and what we’re trying to do with it, so most of the role-play we set out on the subject was over the Donau and Oder, but the possibility was always there in the sidelines. We discussed very early on the possibility of roleplaying battleships, but we didn’t want to give people the impression that we were roleplaying only for an end goal. Unioner shipbuilders consider themselves the descendants of those who once forged the Rheinland Imperial Navy, and wear that banner with absolute pride. Just as there are Ideologically motivated, militarised Hessians, and Hessians who behave as common pirates and smugglers, there are all spectrums of Unioners. A battleship would ultimately represent the absolute peak - the top end of the more ideologically oriented spectra.



Tactically, we regard the Unioners to be at an inferior level of mobilisation to the Red Hessians and SCRA (which we’re setting up as their primary unlawful antagonists), whilst they’re at a similar level of influence over the Rheinland underworld. It’s conceivable that the Unioners, in a time of desperation, could deploy one or two battleships - but they would be limited and rare - and currently, there are none in existence.

I think the inclusion of battleships, if done right, could not only be harmless but very much advantageous to gameplay - if done in a limited manner. It would have to be OFL only, and would be extremely tightly regulated within the OFL. I.E: Basically only 1ic and 2ics fly them, and under incredibly regulated circumstances (such as attacks into Omega 54 and Texas), where they would be fitting considering the weight class of vessels that they would commonly expect to attack. They would be hung up by their bulk in other locations, owing to the fact that the majority of Unioner bases are in asteroid fields of varying densities.

So I’d go for: Yes, battleship is acceptable in very limited amounts against the SCRA, Hessians, and possibly in Liberty (all of which are factions that have battleships to field on their own terms). Scrutiny would be on OFL Unioners to make sure they don’t screw it up and make a mess of them - which, of course, would naturally lead to perk revocation.


There are functional gameplay possibilities in having battleship access. For one, balanced, multi-class capital ship fights against the Hessians would be possible. We’ve tried to keep up the tradition of long, pervasive conflicts in the Texas system as well. Such a perk would have the potential to bring back old memories.

Mind you, the primary objective of the perk was the Donau and the Oder. Battleships would simply be another tool at the OFL’s disposal to use as an RP platform - role-play the construction of in times of absolute, purest need against the Red Hessians as part of the defence of the Koeln theatre. It would play well into the apocalyptic themes that we’re crafting for the Unioners, and the intent to treat them as counterweights to the Hessians within Rheinland itself.

TL-DR: The existence, or not, of non-SRP Unioner battleships are up to the greens. We’re definitely for it, but we’d only be using them in very limited circumstances due to the nature of what they represent, and would be stringently controlled and rank locked. Any Unioner battleship SRP that may or may not have been worked on, would have been a battleship of the same class, regardless, as the Unioners are opposed to any use of foreign technology, so the inclusion of battleships in limited numbers into the perk would be acceptable in that light.

They would be heavily restricted to a max of two (more likely one, and currently zero), in much the same way SCRA restricts their heaviest guns. So we wouldn't be able to swarm with them or use them in any other way than as centrepiece elements in a combined fleet. They also wouldn't be used all the time, but occasionally and carefully, in much the same way as SCRA uses theirs. SCRA is actually as surprisingly good template here.

So yes to battleships, but a max of two.