Author Topic: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?  (Read 263555 times)

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Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1680 on: April 26, 2017, 05:19:30 AM »
So, first system I probe, lots of rocks and moons, nothing below 8 habitability.  Second system, nothing below 8 habitability.  Third system... EIGHT 2-2.4 habitability... and a crap ton of wrecks.

As a bonus, the wrecks and the potential colony sites are within 300 million km of the jump point, just inside of Saturn's orbit, so the potential and risk are huge.

So I am making a fighter pinnace with an active sensor.  The sensor is named the "What Killed Me?" sensor.  Basically, I am going to make a pass at the wrecks and the habitable moons with teensy ships that will be lucky if they see what kills them.

Salvage module got bumped up the priority list pretty hugely.  I probably won't shift out of economic expansion techs to war techs until the scout is done.  Most of my shipyards were either building or refitting survey ships, or expanding yards, so my immediate response is limited to purpose built fighters.  The internal debate may revolve around what prospects the other jump points offer, and how overwhelming the threat seems.

Complicating matters is we finally got a decent Bio scientist, to augment our 40 terraforming installations.  The moon is going to be habitable in something like 3 years or so, and the plan was then to terraform Mars and the Jovian moons, to generate internal trade.

RP wise, the idle survey units had created a lobby to get exploration back on.  We have two shipping lines with lots of shipping, which they seem to spend a lot of time competing to see how many colonists they can kill.  Still, as much as I would be amused to see some of the civilian ships get munched, they are a resource I need.

One of the ideas that has to be considered is refitting the missile bases with modern firecontrols, and designing armored missiles for them to deal with whatever is discovered in Procyon.  But given our crappy engine tech, whatever we meet will likely be faster than us, how much faster, we dunno.  We can't get started on really expensive measures until we have some idea of whether those measures would even be likely to work.
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1681 on: April 27, 2017, 12:50:45 AM »
So the pinnace Morituri, of the class, Expendable, equipped with a sensor named "What Killed Me?" has successfully visited the terraformable moons and the 5 wrecks in the system.

The Morituri was NOT expected to survive.  It was expected to return useful data, about anything scary in the system.  If I had bothered to give the Morituri a ship commander, that commander would have gotten a medal for it.  In the future, I may create the Morituri medal for a ship commander that does something particularly self-sacrificing.

Needless to say, when they get back to Sol, markets are going to be in turmoil.  The speculation bubble in missiles and launcher tech is going to crash for a while, and the colonization related markets will soar.  A lot of people won't think anything has really changed since before the wreck discovery, but the shipyard expansions have already happened.  The shipyards had been largely idle after the first surge supporting the Geo survey effort for Sol, but now there are so many new systems to survey.  All the old geo survey ships are being updated in a civilian shipyard dedicated to them.

One of my logistics guys just hit 40%, and we just finished ship to ship tractors and hangars, so life is good. :)
 
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Offline Sarganto

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1682 on: April 28, 2017, 07:43:22 AM »
I've got a really nice game going on currently, already have like over 100 systems discovered and some really nice connections, which makes it less tree-y and more interconnected.

I went with a light carrier doctrine this time and built a couple of light but slow carriers (I think around 20.000t in total) with 6.000t hangar capacity and a couple of CIWS, some gauss-cannons and one big active sensor, which has like 280m km range. To fill the ships, I went with 50% 1.000t FACs, 8.000km speed and filled with gauss cannons and 50% 500t fighters, with gauss cannons as well and miniature sensor. I call it the bee swarm, as one of those ships/fighters doesn't cause much pain, but the whole swarm shreds everything to pieces in less than 30 seconds.
They are accompanied by light battleships (around 15.000t) equipped with missiles that can shoot as far out as 140m km and give me some long range capabilities, when I don't want to give up the additional missile defense that all the gauss cannons of the FACs/fighters provide. They are as slow as the carriers, I think barely scratching 2.000 km/s. They also have some AMM launchers-
I recently added a couple of pure missile slinger frigates(?), which are essentially light armored missile launchers without any sensors, the same long range fire control and limited magazines. They only have around 5.000t, but are massively faster than my carriers and battleships. With 5 launchers and 30 loaded missiles, I wanted to improve my "first punch" capability and increase the size of the first couple of missile volleys. But as they are rather cheap to make, I have decided to create 2 variants of them, one with the large 280m km range sensor and the other one filled with gauss-cannons as flak-cover. This way, I can use them as rapid response force or sector defense, while my main fleet is busy somewhere else.
Plus, the update time of my main fleet has come, so they will have to take over defense duties for a while until my carriers and battleships are back on the field.
Although I am thinking of just keeping the fleet carriers as they are and just park them somewhere as back up and design new, awesome, BIG carriers instead. We will see.


In other news, I have conquered 2 NPRs in this game so far. One with basically the same production capabilities and population size as Earth but almost no minerals left on their planet, the other one with maybe 25% of the capabilities and population but a still very healthy amount of minerals on their planet and much more in the system. Both have been integrated in my empire already and have proven to be really valuable outposts and production centers. Unfortunately there is a really smegty nebula between Earth and the conquered planet with all the production capabilites, so I will have to make it self-sufficient for the near future. The other one will probably become a supplier of minerals for earth, with construction of automines being kept up (as there is already a worker shortage on that planet).

In Sol, everything that can reasonably be terraformed has been terraformed already and our terraformer fleet has moved outside of Sol. They are currently finishing up the 7th planet outside of Sol within 4 jumps.
A main colony has been set up within a system that has 3 planets with all minerals present in varying degrees, but most importantly duranium, corundium and neutronium each with at least 0.9 and deposits in the millions. Only downside: Boronide is only available with 0.1
For this, another colony 4 jumps out of Sol has been established and the atmosphere has become breathable a couple of years ago. Boronide is available with 0.9 and tens of millions in deposits, plus all other minerals are available with 0.1. This will make a great outpost in the future, as we will not need to supply this colony with minerals to conduct repairs and overhauls.

On the fuel side, while we were worried about 20 years ago that fuel might run out, dozens of fuel harvesters have solved that problem nicely and we have hundreds of millions of fuel in reserves in every major colony / conquered world, plus nice deposits in some outposts.

Overall it's looking good, although a bit quiet for my taste. I wonder when we will meet the next NPR... (I have NPR discovery set to 90% by now, I really want to go to war again :) )
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1683 on: April 28, 2017, 05:16:54 PM »
Starting over because I had to reinstall and it wiped my saves, had some weird stuff happen.

My new administrator starts with 20% wealth creation and a bunch of other stats.  6 months later, it goes to 30%.  A month later he dies in an accident.  I am thinking there was something hinky in how he generated wealth, and some organized crime group offed him for it.

A couple months later, get a new survey officer, that officer dies THAT MONTH in an accident.

A little worried about the RNG gods.  Started with a +30% C&P, worried he will die in an accident.
 

Offline Rendap

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1684 on: April 29, 2017, 04:01:47 PM »
Starting over because I had to reinstall and it wiped my saves, had some weird stuff happen.

My new administrator starts with 20% wealth creation and a bunch of other stats.  6 months later, it goes to 30%.  A month later he dies in an accident.  I am thinking there was something hinky in how he generated wealth, and some organized crime group offed him for it.

A couple months later, get a new survey officer, that officer dies THAT MONTH in an accident.

A little worried about the RNG gods.  Started with a +30% C&P, worried he will die in an accident.

Don't worry about it. I'm certain he'll be just fine. Of course he'll have a medical condition forcing him to retire, but he'll be fine.
 

Offline Drgong

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1685 on: May 01, 2017, 11:08:00 AM »
had my first major victory vs. a non-spoiler.   

My scout ship was exploring Wolf-359 when it detected a active sensor.   Following the rulebook, the S-class Scout went to slow speed and changed direction.   The ship did not follow.   

The Terran Union fleet mobilized, and 12 Sheffield class light cruisers, and 8 warrior class frigates jumped into the system, with a support fleet of 2 Mark Watney Tankers and 3 surplus FACs (SDB-P-3 class) and 10 Lion class fighter bombers. 

After jumping into system, two Warrior class Frigates, the T.U.S. Lenin and the T.U.S Genghis Khan was sent to investigate the area and give cover for the T.U.S.S Simón Bolívar to exit.   2/3 the way to the Bolivar, the active sensors detected four FACs of the "Wolf" race trailing the Frigates, with active sensors on.   Due to this action, they where deemed hostile and the Lenin and Khan delivered five Salvos, eliminating the FACS.   The Warrior class then double back and the remaining fleet joined them, with the FACs and Lion classes topping off their fuel and the Watney's returning to sol.

Near the encounter of the Bolivar, the fleet (with the Warrior class sensors active) came across 3 7300 ton ships with active sensors, who maintained a 40 million km distance, just outside the Warrior class Hammerhead missiles.   It was also shown that they had a 500 km speed advantage.   

The Fleet Commander, to test the sensors sent the FACs and Lion classes, without sensors, to do a attack run on the ships.   at around 38 Million KM they suddenly learned what the ships were armed with, as the FACs and Lion classes where decimated by two volleys of missiles,  After the 2nd volley, the remaining Lion class ships attempted to pick up survivors, but they where then eliminated by a third volley.

Unable to close on the fleet, the T.U.S. Sheffield turned on its active sensor array, and warmed up their tubes, each ship armed with longbow missiles with a range of 100 million KM.

The Sheffield class first had three fire, to see if the ships would close range (The Hammerhead missiles of the warrior class had a much higher ability to strike home then the longbows) and to test any anti-missile systems.   Soon it became clear that the 7300 ton cruisers where heavily armored but did not have much in anti-missile defense vs. the longbow missile.   So all 12 ships of the class began to volley into the enemy cruisers.  For some time there was a worry that their armor, which took dozens of missile hits, would hold out vs. the magazines of the the fleet.  However finally some engines where knocked offline, allowing more missiles to strike home, and the three cruisers became wrecks. 

The fleet picked up survivors and then reconned in force in the system, finding no colonies.   Fleet headquarters is not deciding on what is the next step after this encounter. 

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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1686 on: May 01, 2017, 07:37:10 PM »
 
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Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1687 on: May 01, 2017, 08:33:42 PM »
Don't worry about it. I'm certain he'll be just fine. Of course he'll have a medical condition forcing him to retire, but he'll be fine.

So far, he is fine.  The guy I started up as an understudy died, however.  I have a +20 in case the now +60 dies, and that will put a huge hole in my research establishment.  But as my C&P stuff is researched to the 20k level, 40k research tech, and I haven't hit ION yet, I could comfortably switch out of C&P and research other stuff while training the new guy up.

After several games of no major Geo Survey team discoveries, and the frustration of two systems adjacent to my home system infested with something nasty, a world that had 4 million .1 duranium turned out to have 32 million in .9.

Double bonus, it actually had over a million in every mineral, most at .1, triple bonus, the other world in the system was terraformable, with large deposits of .8 corundium, something really in short supply elsewhere.

Quadruple bonus, the Jump Point to the system in question was the closest in, and the distance from Jump Point to the two rich planets was also short.

The real nice thing is that I won't need to go after the two systems with nasties for their real estate any time soon.
 

Offline GodEmperor

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1688 on: May 02, 2017, 04:34:08 AM »
So the pinnace Morituri, of the class, Expendable
That must do wonders for crew morale...
."I am Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt. I am known as a fair man, unless I am pushed.
You have just pushed me."
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1689 on: May 02, 2017, 05:47:39 AM »
That must do wonders for crew morale...

Hey, these guys have luxurious quarters and excessive engineering departments, and their exploits are followed by millions of people.  And an unknown number of Venom entities.

I think the thing that helps their morale the most is a complete lack of officers on board, or even within a billion km most of the time.

So far, of the 10 built, 2 have been destroyed, and 5 valuable systems checked successfully.  The third Venom system was discovered with a face check by a survey ship, and THAT caused a morale issue, as the rest of the survey fleet ran for their lives.  Successfully, oddly enough.  Intelligence is gathering data, testing hypothesis.
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1690 on: May 02, 2017, 06:09:27 AM »
One of the systems I discovered had a ridiculously rich asteroid belt.  Something like 40 asteroids with a combined 5 accessibility or greater.

And a terraformable world (with substantial minerals) in the center.

I wish I had a decent Biology scientist, sigh.  +15% is crap.  But we are about 2 years from terraforming module, and we have a gargantuan civilian shipyard ready to work.  The plan is to terraform the moon, then tow all shipyards to the moon.  And put a +45% shipyard civilian administrator to work. :)

I fully expect that all my work to stabilize the duranium economy will be hard pressed to keep up, at that point. ;)
 

Offline Drgong

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1691 on: May 02, 2017, 09:57:22 PM »


Thanks!

I build them after my first run of geo-surveyors,  a NT or NP commerical engine and ~300,000 liters of fuel, and they are used to rescue Geo-surveyors that run low on fuel.   Then they become double useful later as fuel-depots that are small (<2000 tons IIRC) that can be easily jumped to other systems, I used a pair of them to give 600k liters of fuel to top off the doomed FACs and fighters who had limited range.   

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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1692 on: May 04, 2017, 05:46:19 PM »
I'm going to have to steal that idea.
 
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Offline Drgong

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1693 on: May 04, 2017, 10:55:10 PM »
I'm going to have to steal that idea.

Here is the design concept.   Of course, each games "Mark Watney" might be slightly different, as the idea is is to throw on whatever Commercial  Nuclear Thermal drive I design, and 300k of fuel. 


Code: [Select]
Mark Watney class Tanker    1 850 tons     22 Crew     116.125 BP      TCS 37  TH 62  EM 0
1675 km/s     Armour 1-13     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 39    Max Repair 15.625 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   

Worthley-Hayslett Space & Security 62.5 EP Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine (1)    Power 62.5    Fuel Use 13.26%    Signature 62.5    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300 000 Litres    Range 220.0 billion km   (1520 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
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Offline clement

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1694 on: June 03, 2017, 04:06:37 PM »
After clawing my way up to interstellar capabilities from a conventional start, the first jump I make into another star system results in me finding 3 Star Swarm motherships within observation range of my transit.

Needless to say, Earth did not fair well.