After Odessa: EFGF

Updated group listing to reflect Bigby's recent death, and people's space preferences. Also added summaries of post-Odessa plans to the first post.

The spreadsheet is current, with tabs for grounders and spacenoids, but I'd like to hear what else people would like to see there. Would it be helpful to have a fleets/bases tab as well? The goal here is to condense information so we can get an at-a-glance look at a bunch of important stuff, instead of having to harvest it from the roster/tactical pages.

I already have an Excel spreadsheet with web queries/macros set up to keep all the roster stuff up-to-date automagically; I'll copy/paste the information to the Google Docs sheet when roster updates occur.

Atra has agreed to help plan our PC groups on Thursday sometime; it would be great if we could form a small group to meet in chat on Thursday afternoon/evening to talk group formation and strategy.

Here's hoping we stop that nuke!

Why will you not survive turn 6?

aleksei
Brennan's group is pulling out because they've exhausted most of their ammunition and they don't want to be around when you show up. I don't think you'll die, though you might sustain heavy damage. I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

@everyone
Ketara has vowed to kill a few of us who didn't follow the ceasefire; this will change our group formation strategy significantly. Hopefully, those that die will rejoin; otherwise, we'll be hurting for people.

Given that Ketara estimates 1 or 2 more turns before Odessa ends (Turn 7 or 8) I'd like for us to begin thinking through the post-Odessa plans we have now: scouting, bases and spaceports. Of course, this may be happening already on the Officer Boards, but I think there are advantages of planning it here, where we all can take part (Though, I admit, it may seem rather ponderous).

We'll take scouting first. Before starting, we'll have to make sure the units we're using to scout are not damaged (It's in the rules). We'll also have to consider whether the stealth we sacrifice by sending a unit of PCs to scout a base is worth the extra manpower. Rules say that fleets are not allowed to scout, or units on ships. So, we'll have to organize our scouting parties so that they're not fleets, while at the same time making sure they can respond in a coordinated manner to attacks, patrols, etc. Or, we could wait until after we're done scouting to form our PC groups. Finally, I'm a bit unclear as to what, exactly, a scouting report gives us that we can't already look up from the bases page. Would anyone care to elucidate?

This leads us to our second and third plan points: Taking bases and destroying spaceports. I imagine that we'll prioritize scouting the bases we plan to attack first. Most of the bases that we've mentioned as good targets are also heavily-fortified and well-defended. This will mean that we'll probably need to merge a few of the PC groups that we just formed, especially if we won't have access to the ships leftover from Odessa (As I understand things, we'll only be able to continue to control the PC-owned ships - the ships of the 42nd and 87th). This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if we cluster again, the Zeon forces will have a lot of room to maneuver where we aren't. It seems we will fall into two larger groups, like the 42nd and 87th, while we assault bases. But, I don't think this is reason enough to halt forming groups of PCs, as the groups can still be good for group RPs, cooperation, delegation, etc.

Finally, the Zeek spaceports. New spaceports can be built for 1000RP. While this is not a small sum, it could be easily coughed up over a couple of turns, if the Zeeks lose all their (4) spaceports and really need to get to space. We cannot destroy/capture all their spaceports at once. Cutting off the Zeon ground forces from space is only a viable option in the long-term. But, if we continue to assault bases, starting with California and/or Alexandria, we'll be taking steps in that direction.

We ought to start thinking about what the Zeeks are planning on doing after Odessa too, so we can work on contingency plans. They're running from Odessa, but they've probably got a good idea of where they're going/what they're going to do after they leave. If they don't right now, their plans will probably congeal soon enough. I'm guessing that they'll be doing much the same thing as us: Planning to assault bases and reinforcing their space forces. If possible, we should think about which of our bases might be particularly juicy targets for the Zeeks, and what steps we can take to make sure all our base stay belong to us.

So, in conclusion, we should use the first few updates after Odessa to repair and form up into our PC groups, perhaps getting in a few get-acquainted, reminisce-about-Odessa group RPs. After we're scout-ready, we can begin scouting potential Zeon targets. I'll leave the choosing of these up to our more experienced members (read Feyd, Flippmoke, Advocate, etc.), but California and Alexandria bases will probably be among them.

@dj
I agree, and I added Hughendon to the list of scouting targets and major bases. Nobody likes it because it is hard to spell and pronounce.

We have lots of good targets in the Post Odessa landscape, the key will be getting our side RP up as quickly as possible however, considering it is low after odessa, we will need it if there is another major event.