Ground conquest: Federation vs. Ogre, C&C

[Opecoiler]

Q opens portals from Earth to the worlds of Command and Conquer circa 2047 and Ogre circa 2086.

The Federation must conquer both worlds.

No space support is allowed (spacecraft cannot fit through the portal, although smaller craft like shuttles can).

Who wins?

[Jedi Master Spock]

Problem: Shuttles are space support in the fullest sense of the world.

Problem #2: Shuttles vary greatly in size and capability, from tiny shuttlepods to the Argo shuttle. Sometimes runabouts even get classed as shuttles. Can we get hard and fast dimensions of the portal? (This will also limit vehicles and equipment.)

[Opecoiler]

Problem: Shuttles are space support in the fullest sense of the world.

There's nothing stopping shuttles from going to space (Though C&C does have its own space assets, and Ogre has extremely strong anti-orbit defenses).

I'm just preventing Starfleet from winning via orbital bombardment, since that would be boring.

Problem #2: Shuttles vary greatly in size and capability, from tiny shuttlepods to the Argo shuttle. Sometimes runabouts even get classed as shuttles. Can we get hard and fast dimensions of the portal? (This will also limit vehicles and equipment.)

A 10 meter square.

[Jedi Master Spock]

OK, so that's large enough for the shuttlepods, regular shuttles, the Argo shuttle (with wings folded), and possibly the Delta Flyer to fly through, and you could wedge a Danube class runabout through diagonally if you were careful.

Federation fightercraft are too large, however.

[Opecoiler]

OK, so that's large enough for the shuttlepods, regular shuttles, the Argo shuttle (with wings folded), and possibly the Delta Flyer to fly through, and you could wedge a Danube class runabout through diagonally if you were careful.

Federation fightercraft are too large, however.

I see. With that information in mind, how do you think the actual battles would go?

[GStone]

Multiple uses of transporters to scatter the orks' atoms.

[Trinoya]

Kane does everything he can to obtain use of a replicator and transporter and takes over the world.


PEACE THROUGH POWER! KANE LIVES IN DEATH!

<_<

>_>

*ahem*

Seriously though, federation wins pretty effectively... they just keep coming through making a beach head until they get enough support to have industrial replicators and total control of the skies. Transporters take care of the rest.

[Roondar]

OK, so that's large enough for the shuttlepods, regular shuttles, the Argo shuttle (with wings folded), and possibly the Delta Flyer to fly through, and you could wedge a Danube class runabout through diagonally if you were careful.

Federation fightercraft are too large, however.

I see. With that information in mind, how do you think the actual battles would go?

The second runabouts can enter the battle is the second where the others have lost. They've always been portrayed as 'mini capships' in DS9, complete with transporters, replicators, shields that can take a serious punch, torpedoes, multiple phasers and a tractor beam of significant ability (seeing the ship they towed in the DS9 pilot a runabout has roughly the ability to pick up a large battleship (sea based one) out of the ocean, fly it about and drop it wherever it wants).

Naturally they are no match in space for capships, but I'm quite confident they'll be able to shrug off any unit the C&C universe can throw at them, including the nukes and quite probably the ion cannon.



The other reason I'm assuming the Feds will win is manpower, the Federation pool of resources is rather enormous compared to what the C&C universe can offer.


(This post is mainly about vs. C&C. I'm not sure about the Ogres because I don't know them :) )

[Typhonis]

Ogreverse is a nuclear battlefield. LITTERALLY.

Ground combat is dominated by huge nuclear equiped sentient warmachines called Ogres.

A dark joke about human troops rpging in this world is.."You see an Ogre 3km away on the horizon, there is a bright flash of light. Roll up a new character"

Only thing worse is if you had the Federation try to take a Boloverse planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%28self-aware_tank%29

[Roondar]

Ogreverse is a nuclear battlefield. LITTERALLY.

Ground combat is dominated by huge nuclear equiped sentient warmachines called Ogres.

A dark joke about human troops rpging in this world is.."You see an Ogre 3km away on the horizon, there is a bright flash of light. Roll up a new character"

Only thing worse is if you had the Federation try to take a Boloverse planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%28self-aware_tank%29

Heh. No need to fight them then, just let them destroy themselves :P

(I've always felt that SF races which acually started throwing nukes at eachother during groundcombat as a matter of course deserved all the horrors they got. You have to be pretty darned insane to destroy that which you live on or that which you try to conquer)

[l33telboi]

Well, I know a thing or two about C&C so I suppose I can elaborate on a few issues. Alas, I know virtually nothing about Ogreverse. Also, the OP doesn't specify whether GDI and NOD will be working together, so I'll assume they are just as they are in the game.

they just keep coming through making a beach head until they get enough support to have industrial replicators and total control of the skies.

No doubt the Federation has a larger population base to draw from, so I guess, in the end they could just flood C&C earth in numbers, if nothing else works. Having said that, things aren't going to be all too easy for the UFP.

Industrial replicators for example. No doubt they provide for an excellent way to create more shuttles or whatever vehicles the UFP will be using. Sadly we don't even really know what to expect in this regard. However, it should be noted that C&C Earth isn't exactly low on production capabilities themselves. The NOD factory for instance assembles the units on site, which would mean that it would have to be done quite quickly. There are a lot of fancy talk about nano-assemblers and things like that for those wondering how it's done. The term itself is hardly quantifiable, but it helps to realize that they do use some rather exotic methods to construct their stuff.

There's a dude called Iysnic (or Squishy these days) on SB who analyzed the production capability in a little more detail. Basically, he took the time between missions and then deduced how much time the factions would have to create their stuff. I'm too lazy to dig up the analysis myself, but it turned out to be something like a tank every few hours or something like that, IIRC (This for a single base).

Having said that, I'm not too sure I agree with the method of analysis there. Generally when talking about RTS games, I tend to think that the missions might play out very differently then we as players experience. But I thought the analysis should be mentioned.

The second runabouts can enter the battle is the second where the others have lost. They've always been portrayed as 'mini capships' in DS9, complete with transporters, replicators, shields that can take a serious punch, torpedoes, multiple phasers and a tractor beam of significant ability (seeing the ship they towed in the DS9 pilot a runabout has roughly the ability to pick up a large battleship (sea based one) out of the ocean, fly it about and drop it wherever it wants).

I don't think it's quite that simple. The shuttles might be sturdy and all that, but the AA-systems the GDI and NOD use are hardly pushover stuff. 30mm AA emplacements with a high ROF that fires DU rounds, for instance, that's not something you shrug off too easily, and it’s standard issue base-defense. I recall someone saying they were railguns as well, but I can't seem to verify that at the moment. Then there are of course missile emplacements, units with AA ability etc. Nothing directly quantifiable when it comes to any of the other AA units/buildings, but generally speaking everything that can be quantified in C&C seems vastly more powerful then the normal military fields, so I’m thinking the trend holds for missiles and the like.

[Roondar]

The second runabouts can enter the battle is the second where the others have lost. They've always been portrayed as 'mini capships' in DS9, complete with transporters, replicators, shields that can take a serious punch, torpedoes, multiple phasers and a tractor beam of significant ability (seeing the ship they towed in the DS9 pilot a runabout has roughly the ability to pick up a large battleship (sea based one) out of the ocean, fly it about and drop it wherever it wants).

I don't think it's quite that simple. The shuttles might be sturdy and all that, but the AA-systems the GDI and NOD use are hardly pushover stuff. 30mm AA emplacements with a high ROF that fires DU rounds, for instance, that's not something you shrug off too easily, and it’s standard issue base-defense. I recall someone saying they were railguns as well, but I can't seem to verify that at the moment. Then there are of course missile emplacements, units with AA ability etc. Nothing directly quantifiable when it comes to any of the other AA units/buildings, but generally speaking everything that can be quantified in C&C seems vastly more powerful then the normal military fields, so I’m thinking the trend holds for missiles and the like.

On the other hand, Runabouts carry photon torpedoes and shields which can withstand being hit by them.

I suggest that a craft capable of withstanding multi-megaton attacks is going to have very little problems with AA guns which don't even show kiloton level abilities on screen to be honest. The same problem exists for the missiles, the explosions don't show anything resembling high yields.

In fact, the onscreen yields of CnC weapons are not at all that great, even their nuclear weapons are quite puny in effect.

Not too mention that if all is said and done a Federation shuttle/Runabout can always continue the fight from orbit, which conveniently puts it out of range of pretty much anything the CnC universe can field.


That said, overpowering said vessels is probably still possible simply by overwhelming numbers as I find it unlikely that thousands of Runabouts would be present. Be carefull tho, Runabouts and shuttles contain warpcores and hence, sizeable quantities of antimatter*. You might not want to blow one up when it's over your base ;)

*) Even small quantities will be quite deadly. 1 Kilogram of antimatter (roughly 2 pounds) would create some 42 Megatons of yield when it explodes. This is enough to destroy a sizeable city.

[OmniBack]

The Federation is going to horribly raped by both Ogres and GDI/NOD forces!

They have no chance at all, maybe if they are allowed full space forces, Runabouts, Defiants, Intrepids, Galaxies, Sovereigns, etc.

Even than they'd still more than likely lose.

[Roondar]

The Federation is going to horribly raped by both Ogres and GDI/NOD forces!

They have no chance at all, maybe if they are allowed full space forces, Runabouts, Defiants, Intrepids, Galaxies, Sovereigns, etc.

Even than they'd still more than likely lose.

Right. Except of course that even one single Galaxy Class starship could remove both GDI and NOD from power, no contest. It probably wouldn't even be in any real danger.

Even a simple shuttle will probably survive being hit by GDI/NOD's 'doomsday' weapons. Heck, even in the CnC universe those doomsday weapons can't even manage to destroy simple concrete buildings in one shot. And everything else the GDI and NOD forces can manage has even less power.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Onscreen yields of nuclear devices may be "puny," but those are the smaller tacticals. You can bet that strategic grade warheads can and will be fitted onto guided missiles.

Runabouts may be small capital ships, but as normally designed, they fight with microtorpedos, and can probably be hurt by the same. The yield of those is unclear, but it could easily be single digit megaton range.

That's not to say they'll be easy to hit or destroy, but it's presumably possible, and Starfleet wouldn't be throwing them through the portal too quickly.