What would be reasonable sized attacking fleets?

[JMISBEST]

I've volunteered to run the last part of A Pirates of Drinax Campaign for a friend who is too ill to continue doing so

The problem being that his ideas are many times weirder then even mine and in his last session his players convinced Oleb to lend Cr 30 billion of Drinax's Royal Art Collection to Tobias Duke, then stole it, secretly returned it, Oleb got the insurance money then used it to buy A Super Fleet of 5 3,000 ton Carriers for Cr 1.6 billion x4 or Cr 8 Billion, 2 40,000 ton Super-Heavy Mega-Freighters converted into Heavy Cruisers for Cr 10 Billion x2 or Cr 20 Billion and 1 1,800 ton version of The 200 ton Drinax Harrier for Cr 343.5 Million x9 or Cr 3,091,500,000, which all in all gives Drinax 292 Ships that are worth 414 Fighting Dice and 5 Capital Ships that are all Super-Heavy Mega-Freighters converted into Heavy Cruisers. So what would be reasonable sized attacking fleets for The Imperium and The Hierate to send that wouldn't be guaranteed to lose but also wouldn't be guaranteed to win?

Also forgot to mention that he was running, why I don't know, a campaign where eventually The Pcs die and their players take over The Old Pcs trained almost from birth successors, its being going on for around 330 years, this Oleb is the 5th King or Queen of Drinax since the campaign started and Drinax now controls 98% of the planets in The Trojan Reach that weren't initially Hierate or Imperium, has recruited The Floranni League and the 3 lesser powers, gained the official support of 11 lesser Aslan Clans, The Hierates 2 weakest major Clans and The Major Class Kasiyl comes from(name forgot), netted the unofficial support of The Zhodanni Worlds and conquered The Glorious Empire and they now have around 15,300 ships that are from 100 tons to 64,700 tons

[ShawnDriscoll]

I don't know. You're the one with experience using uber fleets.

[MonkeyX]

Oh another gazillion ships with a billion Worlds. These numbers mean nothing as they are so vast that it’s almost impossible to imagine. Are you planning on placing every single ship here listed on the map? I’m guessing the reason they used attack dice for adventure 10 is to stop ludicrous numbers like these cropping up.

[locarno24]

The problem being that his ideas are many times weirder then even mine and in his last session his players convinced Oleb to lend Cr 30 billion of Drinax's Royal Art Collection to Tobias Duke, then stole it, secretly returned it, Oleb got the insurance money then used it to buy A Super Fleet of 5 3,000 ton Carriers for Cr 1.6 billion x4 or Cr 8 Billion, 2 40,000 ton Super-Heavy Mega-Freighters converted into Heavy Cruisers for Cr 10 Billion x2 or Cr 20 Billion and 1 1,800 ton version of The 200 ton Drinax Harrier for Cr 343.5 Million x9 or Cr 3,091,500,000, which all in all gives Drinax 292 Ships that are worth 414 Fighting Dice and 5 Capital Ships that are all Super-Heavy Mega-Freighters converted into Heavy Cruisers.

Observations:

1 - That's more than BCr30, and - assuming the scheme went off without a hitch - you wouldn't get BCr30 in insurance payouts from the loss of BCr30 of art once insurance premiums, excess, and the cost of pulling the scam are factored into account.

2 -I'm pretty sure the mechanics for Finale only allowed a ship to contribute a maximum of 1 fighting dice even if it was a >1000 dTon warship, since the rules were in part designed to model the Drinaxi blockade, where one ship - no matter how big - can only be in one place at once. The fleet cannot therefore generate more fighting dice than it has component ships.

So what would be reasonable sized attacking fleets for The Imperium and The Hierate to send that wouldn't be guaranteed to lose but also wouldn't be guaranteed to win?

Well, assuming you're not planning on retroactively correcting errors in fleet strength, something which is ~ 400 fighting dice 'worth' with a number of capital ships (the exact number doesn't really matter once you get above, say, four - because the fleet strengths halve every round you're unlikely to kill more capital ships than that even if you dedicate all your combat round 'wins' to destroying them before the fleet fighting strengths are so low it's probably irrelevant). Fighting dice represent 1,000 dTons 'worth' of combat-capable ships, if I remember right, so 4 capital ships and 400,000 dTons of combat tonnage is a close match - a half-squadron division of 4 100,000 dTon CA-15 heavy cruisers ought to do it.

Also forgot to mention that he was running, why I don't know, a campaign where eventually The Pcs die and their players take over The Old Pcs trained almost from birth successors, its being going on for around 330 years, this Oleb is the 5th King or Queen of Drinax since the campaign started

Is that this campaign, or a different one? Because if you've already conquered or absorbed 98% of the reach, you're past the point of the Finale scenario being relevant and either you're facing full-scale war from one or other empire or you're already the Sindallian Empire Reborn, job done.

The Major Class Kasiyl comes from(name forgot)

I believe Kasiyl is Ahroay'if Clan. They're not a Major Clan - they're Tlaiowaha Vassals, I believ.

[JMISBEST]

The problem being that his ideas are many times weirder then even mine and in his last session his players convinced Oleb to lend Cr 30 billion of Drinax's Royal Art Collection to Tobias Duke, then stole it, secretly returned it, Oleb got the insurance money then used it to buy A Super Fleet of 5 3,000 ton Carriers for Cr 1.6 billion x4 or Cr 8 Billion, 2 40,000 ton Super-Heavy Mega-Freighters converted into Heavy Cruisers for Cr 10 Billion x2 or Cr 20 Billion and 1 1,800 ton version of The 200 ton Drinax Harrier for Cr 343.5 Million x9 or Cr 3,091,500,000, which all in all gives Drinax 292 Ships that are worth 414 Fighting Dice and 5 Capital Ships that are all Super-Heavy Mega-Freighters converted into Heavy Cruisers.

Observations:

1 - That's more than BCr30, and - assuming the scheme went off without a hitch - you wouldn't get BCr30 in insurance payouts from the loss of BCr30 of art once insurance premiums, excess, and the cost of pulling the scam are factored into account.

2 -I'm pretty sure the mechanics for Finale only allowed a ship to contribute a maximum of 1 fighting dice even if it was a >1000 dTon warship, since the rules were in part designed to model the Drinaxi blockade, where one ship - no matter how big - can only be in one place at once. The fleet cannot therefore generate more fighting dice than it has component ships.

So what would be reasonable sized attacking fleets for The Imperium and The Hierate to send that wouldn't be guaranteed to lose but also wouldn't be guaranteed to win?

Well, assuming you're not planning on retroactively correcting errors in fleet strength, something which is ~ 400 fighting dice 'worth' with a number of capital ships (the exact number doesn't really matter once you get above, say, four - because the fleet strengths halve every round you're unlikely to kill more capital ships than that even if you dedicate all your combat round 'wins' to destroying them before the fleet fighting strengths are so low it's probably irrelevant). Fighting dice represent 1,000 dTons 'worth' of combat-capable ships, if I remember right, so 4 capital ships and 400,000 dTons of combat tonnage is a close match - a half-squadron division of 4 100,000 dTon CA-15 heavy cruisers ought to do it.

Also forgot to mention that he was running, why I don't know, a campaign where eventually The Pcs die and their players take over The Old Pcs trained almost from birth successors, its being going on for around 330 years, this Oleb is the 5th King or Queen of Drinax since the campaign started

Is that this campaign, or a different one? Because if you've already conquered or absorbed 98% of the reach, you're past the point of the Finale scenario being relevant and either you're facing full-scale war from one or other empire or you're already the Sindallian Empire Reborn, job done.

The Major Class Kasiyl comes from(name forgot)

I believe Kasiyl is Ahroay'if Clan. They're not a Major Clan - they're Tlaiowaha Vassals, I believ.

So they/The Ahroay'if are. I'll check and if The GM meant that they became A Major Clan in that campaign

[ochd]

'What would be reasonable...'?

I think my understanding of 'reasonable' is a bit different from yours