NC Part 16: October 2049 - June 2050

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

13th October 2049
Dionysus transits the second unexplored jump point in Delphi. She emerges 1.4 billion kilometers from a G5-V yellow star primary orbited by seven rocky planets, three gas giants and three asteroid belts. Although the innermost planet is a Venusian world, the next three all have oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres. The air on planet four is very thin, approximately ten percent of the atmospheric pressure on Earth, and the surface temperature is -115C. Planet three is much more promising with a breathable atmosphere and acceptable gravity. Even though the temperature is on the chilly side at -37C, this is one of the more habitable planets we have encountered with an estimated colony cost of 2.4.

Planet two is fifty percent larger than Earth and is an ocean world dotted with archipelagoes of frost covered mountains. The atmosphere is very similar to Earth, although slightly more dense, and the temperature is a survivable -5C. With a colony cost estimated at 1.1, this is an ideal, habitable world two jumps from Sol and only one jump from Delphi and the Gitanyow homeworld. However, it quickly becomes apparent this world is not necessarily available for immediate colonization. Artificial emissions indicate the presence of a high tech civilization.

As Dionysus is well over a billion kilometers from the planet, it is unlikely she has been detected. As per standing orders for a first contact situation, the first responsibility of Dionysus

[Michael Sandy]

Yay!  First loop.

I imagine that the Asian alliance will be most unhappy to be on the receiving end of 3,000 tons of Tritanium, thoughtfully converted into missiles.

Check me on this:
A size 75 jump cruiser's jump engine would cost only slightly more than half the cost of the jump engine of a size 100 jump cruiser.  I don't remember the exact numbers, but you could support about 3 size 75 jump cruisers for the cost of 2 size 100 jump cruisers.

I suppose this is one of those inertia things.  You start off with building size 100 jump cruisers so freighter and colony ships tend to edge up to size 100.  Then you have a whole bunch of size 100 ships which would not be able to make use of a size 75 jump cruiser.

I suppose once the next jump engine tech becomes available, size 90 jump cruisers become the cheapest.  So if you can keep freighters and colony ships from creeping up in size over 4,500 tons, you can either go with that, or pay the small cost extra to have size 100 jump cruisers with the new jump engines.  A jump engine for a size 100 ship would cost about 23% more than the jump engine for a size 90 ship, but the flexibility would probably be worth the price.

[Michael Sandy]

Is 600 supply for a ship that costs over 1200 BP a good ratio?  Won't that limit its range?

I realize that in my last post I maybe overstating the expense of jump engines a bit.  They take a lot of time to build, but the Commonwealth has a lot of Sorium, and at least Duranium is available.

Something else occured to me:
Once the Corinth-Sol jump gate is completed, the Commonwealth won't need to send jump cruisers into Sol, except for exploring beyond the Gitanyow.

And accomplishing the diplomatic feat of exploring beyond the Gitanyow and having them thank the Commonwealth for it?  Really cool, and definitely not Starfire.  Aurora is more open seas and confined straits than the tight confines of Starfire are.

[Michael Sandy]

I was going through the mineral data and I wondered why Sicyon hasn't come up as a good mining site.

There is an asteroid with lots of different minerals with accessibility-1, including Mercassium, and it is quite close.   It is just off Mycenae.

And while the deposits are limited, once they are mined out there are plenty of other places in Sicyon to move the mines to, including a moon with Gallicite deposits

Sicyon-A V appears to be a terraformable planet with decent deposits.  I figure that deposits on habitable worlds have to be weighted about 30-50% more because manned mines are cheaper.

[vergeraiders]

So the Islamix Alliance treat got me to wondering how ground and space combat interact and the time scale of ground combat.

Scenario one:

The commonwealth decides takes the IA threat seriously and decides to launch a premprive strike with the 2 missile cruisers.

Can the target the IA Nuclear Artillery from orbit? Once under attack how long would it take for ground forces to react to an an attack from space where most things appen in as short as 5 sec or as long as 30 sec.

Scenario Two:

The IA feels they are bewing ignored and decide to do something so that launch ther Nuclear Artillery. Cour the Posiden use its lasers to counter these missiles? How long would it take to go to GQ and are the nukes ICBMs which take up to 90 min to get to their targets or something better thet might be a challenge to its PD lasers?

Mike S.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

So the Islamix Alliance treat got me to wondering how ground and space combat interact and the time scale of ground combat.

Scenario one:

The commonwealth decides takes the IA threat seriously and decides to launch a premprive strike with the 2 missile cruisers.

Can the target the IA Nuclear Artillery from orbit? Once under attack how long would it take for ground forces to react to an an attack from space where most things appen in as short as 5 sec or as long as 30 sec.

Scenario Two:

The IA feels they are bewing ignored and decide to do something so that launch ther Nuclear Artillery. Cour the Posiden use its lasers to counter these missiles? How long would it take to go to GQ and are the nukes ICBMs which take up to 90 min to get to their targets or something better thet might be a challenge to its PD lasers?

Mike S.

At the moment, there is no direct bombardment from space against ground forces using space time scales. Ship-based missile weapons can only be used to bombard population centres. However, there is an orbital bombardment system (which the Asian Alliance has developed) that can be used as additional artillery to back up ground forces in the same way as naval gunfire support in modern warfare. Each OBS is linked to an HQ unit and its rating is used during ground combat resolution. Atmospheric fighters are represented by the bombardment value of HQ units.

I haven't decided yet on the final timescale for ground warfare but I think I will probably go for 24 hour  combat rounds.

Ships in orbit cannot attack the missiles launched by nuclear artillery units. I am assuming they are some type of low-level hypersonic cruise missile rather than the current relatively slow ICBMs. I will likely add some ability for the air-defence values in ground units to be used against the nuclear artillery.

This isn't entirely realistic but allowing space and ground timescales to interact is extremely difficult. Therefore the way I have decided to handle it is to prevent any direct space-based attacks on ground units using the space-combat rules. Instead, ships with OBS are included in ground combat but at ground-combat timescales where they represent supporting fire over the course of a day rather than individual attacks.

Steve

[MWadwell]

Is 600 supply for a ship that costs over 1200 BP a good ratio?  Won't that limit its range?

The Posiden costs close to 1000 BP's, and has a yearly maintenance cost of only 50 (at 5%).

So if the maintenance didn't increase every year (which it does), 600 supply would be enough to supply it for 12 years.

As the supply does increase, I'd guess that 600 supply is good for 3 years - which is about how long the Commonwealth goes before overhauling the ship.....

[MWadwell]

I was going through the mineral data and I wondered why Sicyon hasn't come up as a good mining site.

There is an asteroid with lots of different minerals with accessibility-1, including Mercassium, and it is quite close.   It is just off Mycenae.

And while the deposits are limited, once they are mined out there are plenty of other places in Sicyon to move the mines to, including a moon with Gallicite deposits

Sicyon is a good site - but I think that Piraeus is better.....

While it might take longer to get to and from Piraeus, the fact that the the Commonwealth is using automated mines means that they can be dropped off and forgotten.....

Sicyon-A V appears to be a terraformable planet with decent deposits.  I figure that deposits on habitable worlds have to be weighted about 30-50% more because manned mines are cheaper.

Sicyon-A V has a habitability of 4.8 - which means that it is expensive to colonise.

Even if the colony costs are discounted by 50%, the world is still nearly 2.4 times as expensive to colonise as Thebes (not counting the extra distance involved).

In time Sicyon might be a good place, but at the moment......

[Michael Sandy]

Good point.  I have been having problems with Aurora and wasn't able to figure out how to quickly look up the Habitability indices.

But I thought Sicyon was almost the exact same distance from Earth?

You could even have the Jump ship escorting the fast colony fleet to divert slightly to the Sicyon jump point to drop off freighters, and continue on to Thebes, picking up the freighters on the way back to Earth.

It occurs to me that one of the best ways to reduce Duranium production, long term, would be upgrading the Commonwealth's armor technology.  IIRC, higher levels of armor technology will consume Neutronium and Duranium, not just Duranium, and all ships with only 1 layer of armor will consume less material period.

[MWadwell]

Good point.  I have been having problems with Aurora and wasn't able to figure out how to quickly look up the Habitability indices.

If you go to the "System Generation and Display" window (either by double clicking on a system in the galactic map or by pressing F9), the "Colony Cost" is the habitibility index.

If you go to the Economics window (F2), the same index is listed at the top of the summary page.

But I thought Sicyon was almost the exact same distance from Earth?

You could even have the Jump ship escorting the fast colony fleet to divert slightly to the Sicyon jump point to drop off freighters, and continue on to Thebes, picking up the freighters on the way back to Earth.

Sicyon is almost the same distance from Sol as Thebes. And if you have a look at the jump point layout of Mycenae, the 3 jump points (from Corinth, to Sicyon and to Thebes) are almost in a straight line.

And the greater distance that the Thebes fleet has to travel (in Mycenae, between the jump point to Sicyon and Thebes) is almost the same as the extra distance the Sicyon bound ships have to travel between the Sicyon jump point and the primary.

I.e.
Fleet 1, going from Corinth Jump point (in Mycenae) to Sicyon:
Jump point to Sicyon jump point: 1.39B
Jump point to Sicyon primary: 2.17B
Total distance travelled: 3.56B

Fleet 2, going from Corinth Jump point (in Mycenae) to Thebes via Sicyon Jump point:
Jump point to Sicyon jump point: 1.39B
Sicyon jump point to Thebes Jump point: 2.68B
Thebes Jump point to Thebes primary: 0.2B
Total distance travelled: 4.27B

So while it might take slightly longer for the Thebes colony to do the run, it might be possible (it all depends on if there is enough available freighters to carry the automated mines to Sicyon).