How the Biggest PVP Faction Lost | Space Engineers

hey let's get brock here today i'm going to talk about something a little bittersweet how the largest faction on my pvp server got wiped out in functionally three to four episodes while maintaining a numerical advantage right up until the final moments i want to be clear this is not meant to on that faction namely the cdf the civilian defense force but it's meant to talk about their story their triumphs their struggles and then their ultimate demise in order to really talk about how they got wiped out in such a decisive fashion we have to kind of go through their history the cdf were wheeled into existence when the whole thing started is one of the large de facto factions that made up the series war server starting out it possessed 60 destroyers 30 frigates and zero capital ships existing as a more of a policing force for the budding civilian industry the desire or need for large war fighting vessels was unneeded as they were primarily an anti-piracy force however there was a new enemy on the horizon the riders the writers were or are ah no no they're not dead yet i'm just messing with you they're a faction that was formed out of defeating defecting first fleet officers and then later as it grew anyone that would join for their albeit a little bit weird vision of freedom this would result in a ragtag group that on paper numbered significantly smaller than the cdf but practice actually had a fair number of converted capital ship sized chips at the start of the cdf rider war they had approximately three armored cruisers one battleship ten destroyers and eight frigates this resulted in a scenario where interestingly the rider forces were extremely attrition limited probably only being able to survive one to two catastrophic losses but in theory had a much stronger individualist squadron due to the armored cruisers and the battleships none of which the cdf had the cdf on the other hand had a near limitless reserve but zero capital ships on the field and it would be some time before they were unable to deploy theirs regardless of this reality the cdf in cdf live fashion pulled up their sleeves and got to work despite the setbacks of superior vessels that doubled or tripled in displacement compared to the destroyers were actually able to suppress the riders into a very small area while actually not suffering very many casualties of their own they basically went one for one with this with the riders fully suppressed and unable to break out they uh they kind of held them there and began building up their cruiser force on the back end allowing them to finally deliver that knockout punch later on once the cruiser force was built up on the flip side the core of the series design is the efn attorney's advent a earthborn ship that jumped to the system it is a battleship and it is far better technologically speaking on paper it seemed unstoppable but in typical fashion the cdf looked at this problem laughed and got to work and then promptly got demolished that being said the cdf were renowned for having very good individualistic pilots at this point in the series and a great baseline destroyer design both the viminal the missile destroyer and the aventine the fleet or balance destroyer which i'll link up here if you want to download one of them combined with their ability to be willing to learn be humble and have their team put in practice time to kind of figure out things round two would occur several weeks later and this time the cdf came with a plan they surrounded the efn eternity baited her in and then collapsed on all sides from multiple angles the efn eternity is a singular ship and while she's immensely powerful she was quickly overwhelmed her defenses and offenses were saturated and they were able to rapidly inflict damage to this vessel causing it to retreat while they if while they received heavy losses in return thus they were unable to board and push their advantage the blow was struck and the eternity's average was shown to be able to bleed as the war progressed it honestly seemed like the cdf had it in the bag even before their cruises came online their destroyer-based tactics were becoming more and more effective to the point where they were able to do more with less compared to any other faction and multiple victories of destroyer only forces against cruiser forces was not an uncommon sight at this point and with cdf destroyers coming off the assembly line well it seemed like the it seemed like the outcome was already basically locked in the riders on the flip side were effectively paralyzed by their inability to achieve a decisive victory after a certain point the eternity was not able to match a cdf heavy destroyer squadron while the battles were mostly coin flips with the efn and the cdf that is not a odds that the eternity could take being unable to go to a shipyard to prepare after a battle thus it seemed the war was honestly over already with the second and third cruiser coming off the line at this point and be a behind the scenes super project the cdf was staging for a lights out punch for the riders however in the weeks leading up to this attack the efn the eternity and the riders entered a formal alliance fighting side by side so while previously the eternity was beginning to struggle against a competent destroyer force with smart tactics well with the inclusion of a rider distorted escort this flipped the entire dynamic on its head and the eternity would go on to inflict grave casualties to the cdf and begin pushing them back but at this point the cdf was committed and it was do or die the cdf had their four cruiser squadron their super project codenamed leviathan basically a forward observation base that had thrusters strapped to it and a terrifying array of four glances basically our versions of max to a degree designed to crack the outer hull of the eternity in a rapid fashion the initial thrust into ryder territory seemed to be going well the leviathan made contact with the eternity and basically vibe checked her immediately and received almost no damage in return while it with its escort destroyed a destroyer and heavily damaged the eternity uh bringing her about to 60 combat strength with the first true capital ship versus capital ship battle against the riders it didn't fare nearly as well while the cdf were immensely knowledgeable and experienced with destroyer type tactics the different dynamic required for cruiser or capital ship tactics did not work out well the cruisers were heavier slower and while more capable were a completely different beast the riders who never really had many destroyers to begin with as they produced destroyers basically as they got destroyed were far more competent in capital type engagements and were able to force the cdf capital fleet to retreat the table was then set for the final showdown leviathan versus eternity and the rider battleship and while it was a nail biter of a season finale uh the the riders and the efn eventually won now peace was finally on the table and while the cdf weren't truly defeated in any metrics the riders were still very small in territory the reality is that the nature of this war and the requirement of this war kind of ceased to exist and they was fighting for fighting thus peace was brought up the cdf was absolutely still the dominant power with their five cruisers still intact they had a five cruiser fleet combined with their destroy they still had their five cruiser fleet and among those ranks was the fabled war spike armored cruiser which had been on the front lines against the riders almost from like the second week it was the first cruiser off the line and it repeatedly had gone against multiple cruisers and battleships and emerged victorious or the legendary autumn which had fought numerous times against the eternity a ship that was literally almost ten times its displacement and survived back to back to back to back on the backbone of this was still a massive horde of avatine and destroyer or aventine and viminal destroyers so while the cdf took a kind of a hit to their pride as they essentially came to the peace conference as the loser the reality was they were still absolutely the dominant force in the sector and this was more of a concession to get the area to peace because ultimately the cdf was about peace they are a civilian defense force a escort force for civilian trade vessels combined with their ability to defeat the eternity it really seemed like nothing could challenge the cdf straight up combined with the fact that due to unknown reasons either cdf talking to the writers or the writers willing to or wanting to kind of turn over a new stone and be a more independent faction the efn was actually expelled from this alliance and given an ultimatum to leave friendly controlled or cdf and rider controlled space or risk the consequences thus season one started with the cdf and writers in an alliance called the coa the coalition the efn being expelled and the cdf still firmly the most powerful faction by far a new challenger has arrived the khan's enclave a war-like faction that a warlike conglomeration of factions that had combined together to do conquesty things the cons were no pushover being very similar to the riders basically being a conglomeration of smaller factions with 10 cruisers 10 destroyers and some frigates the combined total of the ctf and rider forces now named the coa was more than enough to offer parody but more importantly with the massive destroyer reserve and production they had the easy ability to basically lose five ships to every one ke ship khan's enclave so the war seemed all but one if with a desire to end this war in a rapid fashion specifically before the efn could do any shenanigans the cfa went all in right out of the gate two squadrons two squadrons made a deep push into enemy territory one of them was entirely a rider medium to light squadron and the other one was a joint super squadron for the lack of a better term comprising of the war spite which i mentioned further the elysium another armored cruiser the vesuvius a rider heavy armor cruiser and the ravager a light battleship these ships would push deep into ke territory while that seconds rider squadron i mentioned would screen and act as a follow-up force in an event of an engagement the riders once again would be there to match and defend any assaulting ke force as the war kicked off and in a move that no one saw the defending forces were utterly wiped out the assaulting force that super squadron i mentioned in a similar token actually got defeated heavily by a token defending force losing almost all of its offensive ability weapon stripped thruster damage one of the ships was completely disabled uh so on and so forth and completely got cut off in enemy territory while the second rider squadron was able to sacrifice itself to buy time for the super squadron to retreat back to friendly space it was a hefty price to pay thus this newly minted alliance ended up sort of being soured from day one not only because of the defeat but the the circumstance of the defeat while all parties ultimately agreed to how the start of this war would play out predominantly writer focused the optics of it was quite bad because for the start of the war essentially 10 rider ships went in and only two cdf vessels went in when in reality the riders were not at all equipped to handle casualties and the cdf would have brushed something like this off quite easily the result was a heavy blow to rider capability for the rest of the war similarly it also meant because the riders were going in less veteran commanders were taking the fight to the enemy or rather say less proven commanders were taking the fight to the enemy this also built some animosity on the cdf side who were felt a little let down that the initial push was handled so poorly regardless from here on out from the gm's point of view functionally both of these factions would never really communicate together again essentially finding two independent wars instead of a united front against the ke and honestly from day one the tides were turned the cdf would attempt multiple breakouts uh to recapture the choke point into their territory however it was never enough and while some close battles were fought no victories would achieve be achieved in another vein behind enemy lines the eternity because it was kicked out of the lines uh really never participated in the opening days of the war and with a rider change of leadership after the initial failure brought about by the initial failure a pro-eternity faction or leadership formed in the riders however similar simultaneously the efn the eternity realized that the cdf were constructioning a modern battleship for the war and the coa at this point believed that this war was still extremely winnable thus the efn basically strong-armed the coa or the cdf specifically into not building this battleship with essentially subtle hints of or insinuations that it would go to war to prevent this battleship from being constructed thus the cdf relented which further built up the hatred between efn and the cdf further delaying the efn's entry into this war which in retrospect turned out to be solely needed i'm going to get into some opinion here i know this is going to rub some players the wrong way so i apologize but it feels like it's important for the retelling of the story i'm really going to harp on the fact that the factions never really talked together in a lot of ways a two wars were fought simultaneously instead of a joint united war in order to fight an effective offense which is what the the coa wanted to do to push them out of their territory you functionally need about four squadrons per tile because this allows two squadrons to attack thus should the squadron succeed they have a backup squadron to cover them as they repair and similarly if that squadron fails it needs a full turn to return back to its tile thus the second group of two squadrons can move in and continue the brunt of the assault the cdf was generally struggling to get something like this going and more often than not they had three squadrons which means they can attack one turn and they would need to hold for the second turn the riders had no such issues however due to the lack of communication that this four squadron assault thing was never set up effectively and there were a lot of strategies on the table for starters they could have simply just attacked attacked attacked and slowly attributed the enemy alternatively they could have gone after the repair structures thus eventually just attributing off the much smaller khan force on the tile and eventually pushing them out due to brute force however due to the lack of these factions never really working together this ideal four squadron setup was never enacted thus as a result the cons were never pushed to that brink and they were always able to have just enough ships to hold the front line as well as prepare for the next assault similarly due to this lack of constant pressure on all the fronts when the cons enacted a herculean build effort where they essentially deconstructed over half of their fleet to build two battleships there were times when there were functionally three ships on a tile two ships on a tile but because at this point the cons had begun to rely on this hodgepodge defense they were actually able to hold even though they didn't technically have the ships to hold there's the second reality as as the war was beginning to gear up to the stage the ke in a single battle destroyed more cdf ships than were lost in basically the entire season one combined and this combined with the loss after loss after loss kind of tanked cdf morale and a huge swath of the cdf leadership just decided it's not worth it anymore i'm not having fun i'm getting my ass kicked too hard this just ain't for me and while there were a lot of cdf members willing to continue the war the core of the leadership basically had their morale broken when they lost on that day that i mentioned so moving forward with the story the ke decided between the riders or the cdf to be on the chopping block right both squadrons or both capitals were at risk of siege they decided to go for the cdf and they attacked malta the seat of the cdf power and in a staggering display of battlefield prowess the cons would take out everything the cdf threw at them five cruisers were destroyed in under two minutes 14 destroyers would follow soon after this amounted to all losses in season 1 combined in about a 30 minute time span and thus the cdf fell i want to reiterate because it's so easy to backseat game the cdf did initially give it their all however this initial all giving was not enough to beat the cons and that's all the cdf was ultimately willing to give so that's when it turned out it wasn't enough a lot of what made that faction tick their morale their desire the play was kind of lost and thus something that numerically on paper was just dominant and able to win couldn't win because they weren't willing to do it because it just wasn't worth it in their eyes anymore that is absolutely understandable it's a game they were having they weren't having fun because they were losing and the thrill of trying to turn it around didn't exist for them and some players some cdf players are absolutely keeping the fight going and fighting under the ryder banner but some didn't and that's understandable right when it's not fun i can respect it and i'm grateful for the mark the cdf left on the history of outlands thanks guys so if you heard all this and perhaps are interested in joining or watching consider watching outlands i'll have a link to season one down below it's a live action series that's only partially scripted but mostly rp view it more as space engineers and dnd had a baby and that's played out here furthermore i'd like to thank all the patrons you guys make this possible i'm actually not currently employed i just graduated and i'm kind of giving this youtube gig a go so if you want to maybe support that in my ability to put out weekly videos both this this live action thing and other videos well maybe consider heading over to patreon and uh trying to make this thing work out regardless commenting uh subscribing all that stuff you know you hear every youtuber say it that's more than enough for me i love reading my uh reading the comments but head on down below go easy on my cdf boys it's easy the backseat game in uh with hindsight mention your thoughts about the cdf and how you would have potentially done things differently one final thing admiral mallard thanks for running uh one of the most successful factions in outlands for and leaving your mark on well outlands i appreciate it my dude and uh hopefully i'll see you more in future seasons regardless thanks for watching guys i'll see you later

Channel: GetBrocked

Views: 281,823

Keywords: space engineers, survival, letsplay, funny, chill, roleplay, story, series

Id: I0CXwZp0CR4

Length: 20min 48sec (1248 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022