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Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 23, 2009, 10:42:45 AM »

Quote from: "waresky"
Steve,am loving read ur "Trans-Camp" history,are amazing same as best sci-fi book same as "Dominic Flandry's Earth Empire" do u have read? a best "Earth Empire" ever see around (prob better than Co-Dominium novel..:D

But..am a Megatraveller fans,so am intriguing and ive a single question to u: u know the Jump drive in Megatravller sci-fi world,1 psec or 2 or 5 or max 6 (at tech 16??) ok,WHYNot in Aurora u have made same situation,technology of Drive jump etc.etc..

Only for a problem on "trademark" with Marc MIller or because the "Jump" Drive on Megatravller (rule of naval shipyard am mean) are too difficult to build in ur program?

Hope u understand what am mean:)..my english was very poor for explain out the "game" situations..
I have looked at something similar in the past where all the systems were on the galactic map in fixed locations and you couldn't drag and drop. You could jump to any system in range and would appear at some type of hyper limit on a direct line from the star. This would effectively mean no jump points as they are now and it would lead to a very different strategic game, not necessarily better or worse. It would be a large amount of work to change to game to that type of model though. It would also require a lot more pre-game setup.

Steve
Posted by: Cunak
« on: January 21, 2009, 05:48:26 AM »

From books and movies I've read and seen there are several methods for getting from system A to system B.  Warp Drive (Star Trek) is a direct flight variant at which the ship travels directly from point A to point B at faster than light speeds.   Another variant uses foldspace that requires a device (hyper drive, jump drive) to allow a ship to  move from point A to point B almost instantaneously.  This sounds like the megatr device you are taling about in that you can travel from any point A to any point B that is within the operational range of your jump drive.    Warp points are a variation of foldspace with the difference being that the folding of space has resulted in naturally occuring gravitational anamolies called warp points that connect two points in space.  In some games these warp points are always open so any ship can travel through it.  In others a device, jump drive or jump gate, needs to be used to open the warp point.  The difference is that with a hyper jump drive you can make jumps from point A to point B.  With warp points you have to find a warp connector from point A to point B and that may require you to travel to system C in order to get to system B.

There are numerous other travel methods like the Borg Wormholes, Babylon 5 with jump gates and hyper dimension, David Weber's Honor Harrington with War...Sails, hyper bands, and the wormhole junction.
Posted by: waresky
« on: January 20, 2009, 10:59:08 AM »

Steve,am loving read ur "Trans-Camp" history,are amazing same as best sci-fi book same as "Dominic Flandry's Earth Empire" do u have read? a best "Earth Empire" ever see around (prob better than Co-Dominium novel..:D

But..am a Megatraveller fans,so am intriguing and ive a single question to u: u know the Jump drive in Megatravller sci-fi world,1 psec or 2 or 5 or max 6 (at tech 16??) ok,WHYNot in Aurora u have made same situation,technology of Drive jump etc.etc..

Only for a problem on "trademark" with Marc MIller or because the "Jump" Drive on Megatravller (rule of naval shipyard am mean) are too difficult to build in ur program?

Hope u understand what am mean:)..my english was very poor for explain out the "game" situations..
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 07, 2009, 10:20:53 AM »

Quote from: "ShadoCat"
I would think that the Commonwealth would at least come up with the plans for a nebula fighter.  As such a battle is possible in the future, it would be folly to rely 100% on warships that would be, effectively, disarmed in the nebula.
For the moment the Commonwealth is content to defend against ships coming out of the nebula rather than going into Vienna. This is mainly because their best research governors are for missile combat / construction & production / propulsion. No one has any energy weapon research bonus so it almost seems like a waste of research points. They are starting to research railguns and gauss cannons because they fall within the Msl/Kin speciality though.

Steve
Posted by: Þórgrímr
« on: January 01, 2009, 09:46:18 AM »

Quote from: "adradjool"
Steve,

Another well written post.  Just a quick question, after ten years as President of the Commonwealth, shouldn't someone be asking about elections?  Particularly on the other planets where some independence groups would be located, and anything to upset the current power base would be used.  Just a thought.

Adam.

The leadership is Russkie. Free elections would be the furthest thing from Volkov's mind.  :mrgreen:



Cheers, Thor
Posted by: ShadoCat
« on: December 31, 2008, 07:22:04 PM »

I would think that the Commonwealth would at least come up with the plans for a nebula fighter.  As such a battle is possible in the future, it would be folly to rely 100% on warships that would be, effectively, disarmed in the nebula.
Posted by: schroeam
« on: December 31, 2008, 06:36:28 PM »

Steve,

Another well written post.  Just a quick question, after ten years as President of the Commonwealth, shouldn't someone be asking about elections?  Particularly on the other planets where some independence groups would be located, and anything to upset the current power base would be used.  Just a thought.

Adam.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: December 31, 2008, 11:00:51 AM »

With jump gates connecting all systems from St Petersburg to Washington, there was no longer any need for jump ships either to escort the Commonwealth warships or to provide a communication link. Naval HQ on Sparta could watch the events in St Petersburg in real time and talk to the leader of the Expeditionary Force, Admiral Rafaele Perti. On May 3rd the Main Body crossed the orbit of St Petersburg V and Admiral Perti ordered Peter the Great to engage its active sensors. Although this would give away the position of the Commonwealth expeditionary force, Admiral Perti hoped the fifty-eight million kilometre range of the Voskhod MR-800 Active Search Sensor would identify any hostile ships long before they entered their own firing range. Two days later the battlecruiser detected nineteen ships on an intercept course. Seven were identified as the ships encountered during the previous Commonwealth incursion into St Petersburg and three more were identified as members of the same 6000 ton class. The other nine were a new class of 3950 tons. It appeared that the aliens had also been building new ships. As soon as the alien fleet moved within fifty million kilometres, Admiral Perti gave the order to open fire. Forty SS-N-1 Shipwreck missiles streaked away from the Commonwealth fleet at 14,000 km/s. It would take them almost an hour to reach their targets. Subsequent salvos followed every sixty seconds until all four battlecruisers had expended their ordnance.

When the alien fleet moved within forty million kilometres, the leading missiles had only covered two-thirds of the distance so Admiral Perti ordered his ship commanders to hold the range open. In the previous battle the aliens had proved to have a missile range of approximately thirty-five million kilometres and the Admiral didn't want to take any chances. Of course it was possible, perhaps even likely, that the aliens had increased their missile range in the last three years. If they hadn't though, he saw no reason to expend anti-missiles unnecessarily.

As the first salvo approached the alien fleet, one missile vanished at a distance of 200,000 kilometres and four more at 50,000, indicating the aliens had some form of anti-missile system, although not very effective. Seconds later the cruiser targeted by the first salvo disappeared from sensors and wreckage and lifepods were detected shortly thereafter. Fifteen of the forty missiles did not even have chance to attack before the alien ship was obliterated so they were re-directed against one of the smaller ships, destroying it. With two ships lost so quickly, the alien commander plainly realised his fleet was in trouble. All seventeen remaining ships reversed course and headed for the planet. With the enemy proving relatively easy to destroy, Admiral Perti ordered his ships to split their fire with Alexander Nevsky and Ilya Muromets targeting one alien cruiser while Peter the Great and Tsar Alexander II targeting a second.

The alien warships were slaughtered by the waves of Shipwreck missiles. All ten of the cruiser-sized vessels were reduced to wreckage by the first five salvos and the eight remaining destroyer-size ships were blown apart by the next two. Twelve salvos with a total of four hundred and eighty Shipwrecks were still in flight, which meant the battlecruisers had wasted over sixty percent of their missiles. Admiral Perti had been more concerned about ensuring the destruction of the alien fleet than conserving ammunition. Given the slow rate of missile production in the Commonwealth, the Fleet Admirals were troubled by the profligate use of ordnance but were prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the commander on the scene. However, if the planet had its own defences, they would have to be overcome without the aid of the battlecruisers. In the meantime, a considerable number of lifepods were scattered along a line 500,000 kilometres long so Admiral Perti ordered his ships to move in and rescue the alien survivors.

Recovery of the life pods allowed the Commonwealth crews to see the aliens for the first time. They were generally humanoid in shape, although smaller than humans and with double-jointed limbs. Their faces were small and black with leathery skin, large black eyes and a snout. A mane of white fur surrounded their faces, blending into the thick orange fur that covered the rest of their bodies. With no way to communicate with the alien survivors, Admiral Perti was concerned that the aliens might resist being rescued. To his surprise, they accepted almost meekly and were plainly grateful for being picked up. New communication attempts began as the fleet held position and waited five days for the reserve force to arrive. Once the reserve force was integrated into the main body, the combined fleet headed for St Petersburg II. As it moved within active sensor range, the alien shipyard complex was detected in orbit. Based on the size of the contact, the complex had been expanded during the last three years and was now 48,000 tons, giving it a production capacity of approximately 24,000 tons, although how this was distributed in terms of shipyards and slipways was unknown.

Communication attempts with the prisoners had made no progress so there was no way to issue an ultimatum to the alien world or even open negotiations. After a lengthy discussion between Admiral Perti and the Fleet Admirals via the jump gate network, he was ordered to destroy the shipyard complex to prevent the aliens building more warships and then continue communication attempts. Given what happened to the Earth, the Fleet Admirals and President Vorokov were all keen to avoid any planetary bombardment. As the Peter the Great class battlecruisers had no ammunition, the fleet would have to move within thirty million kilometres so the three Scharnhorsts could launch their Sabres.

As the fleet reached thirty-six million kilometres from St Petersburg II, active sensors detected three 9000 ton contacts on the surface; almost certainly PDCs. PDCs were normally almost impossible to detect until they fired because they were built within mountains or underground. Their sudden detection, well inside active sensor range, probably meant that missiles were heading for the Commonwealth fleet. At 20:33 on May 12th, twenty-nine point three million kilometres from the planet, Admiral Perti halted the fleet and ordered the Scharnhorsts to each fire two volleys at the shipyard complex; a total of forty-eight missiles.

At 20:45, with the Commonwealth missiles less than halfway to their target, thirty-six incoming missiles were detected at 950,000 kilometres. The six Tribal II escort cruisers began launching, directing two Dagger anti-missiles against each incoming alien missile. As the anti-missiles intercepted their targets, the fire control systems on the Tribal IIs recalculated their firing solutions and launched more Daggers. The last alien missile was destroyed 100,000 kilometres short of the fleet. One hundred and thirty-four Daggers had been fired, leaving almost four thousand more in the magazines of the Tribals. Over the next fifteen minutes, five more waves of alien missiles attacked the Commonwealth fleet, each one containing thirty-six anti-ship missiles. Every single missile was shot down by the Tribal IIs, using a further five hundred and eighty-two Daggers. The six Trafalgar II class escorts, providing the second line of defence for the fleet, didn't even have to fire a shot.

Why the alien PDCs only fired six salvos was unknown. It could have been their entire inventory of missiles or just a probe of the fleet's defences. Either way, the impressive defensive capabilities of the Commonwealth fleet were now evident to both sides. Four minutes after the last alien missile was destroyed, the first wave of Sabres from the Scharnhorsts attacked the alien shipyard complex. The shipyards were a sitting duck and there was apparently no alien point defences of any type. All twenty-four Sabres of the first wave exploded on target, ripping away great chunks of the structure and reducing the complex to a sixth of its former size. Forty-five seconds later the second wave of Sabres arrived and blasted the rest of it into irradiated debris.

Admiral Perti hailed the planet, trying again to establish some form of communication. With their shipyard gone and his fleet impervious to attack, he hoped the aliens would be in a mood to try harder. For the next hour, messages flew back and forth between the Commonwealth task force and St Petersburg II. As the aliens had seemed unwilling to cooperate before their shipyard was attacked, Admiral Perti began to believe the situation could be resolved without having to bombard the planet. Those hopes were dashed when a wave of two hundred and sixteen incoming missiles was detected at 950,000 kilometres. The Admiral immediately realised that with his fleet well within their range, the alien PDCs had launched six volleys of missiles and waited for all them all to merge before sending them on as one huge attack wave.

As the Tribal IIs began frantically launching missiles, Admiral Perti ordered the fleet to head away from the missiles at 2352 km/s, the maximum speed of the Arleigh Burkes, giving the Tribals as much time as possible to engage. The crews of the Trafalgars checked their advanced railguns, knowing that unlike the previous attack, they would soon be in action. With the closing speed of the missiles reduced to 5648 km/s, the Tribals had time for ten defensive salvos. Over six hundred Daggers were fired and they killed one hundred and ninety of the incoming missiles. The remaining twenty-six were engaged by the Trafalgar IIs, which fired a total of two hundred and seventy advanced railgun rounds and destroyed every alien anti-ship missile. Even Admiral Perti was shocked at the effectiveness of his fleet's anti-missile defences. The Tribals still possessed over 2700 Daggers and the Trafalgars had effectively unlimited ammunition so he saw no reason to fear any further alien attack. He ordered his ships to close to twenty million kilometres, bringing the Arleigh Burkes into range, and destroy the alien PDCs, regardless of any damage to the biosphere.

The nine Arleigh Burkes in the Commonwealth fleet opened fire at 23:29 on the 12th. Seven were armed with Trident II missiles, with a speed of 12,000 km/s and a strength-4 warhead, and the other two with Poseidon IIs, which were armed with a strength-3 warhead and had a speed of 7500 km/s. While both types were slower than either the Sabre or the Shipwreck, that was not a problem when firing on stationary targets. Three ships engaged each of the three alien PDCs, firing four salvos of eight missiles apiece.

At 23:38, with the Commonwealth missiles still in flight toward their targets, a wave of one hundred and seventy-one alien missiles appeared on Commonwealth sensors. As before, Admiral Perti ordered the fleet away from the incoming missiles to give the Tribals more time to engage. The fire controls of the Arleigh Burkes had a range of 22.5 million kilometres so the fleet had plenty of running room while still retaining control of the missiles targeted on the PDCs. The smaller size of the missile wave, plus the fact that three of the individual salvos were less than twelve missiles, indicated this might be the last attack of the PDCs. Only two incoming missiles survived the Dagger AMMs and those were easily killed by the Trafalgar IIs.

The first Trident missiles struck the alien PDCs at 23:57, blasting away much of their protective armour. The second wave destroyed one PDC and crippled the others and the third completed their destruction. Admiral Perti could have directed the fourth wave of Tridents and all the Poseidon IIs were against industrial targets in an attempt to force a surrender but he decided to self-destruct the missiles and continue communication attempts. With no shipyard and no PDCs, the aliens were not going to be a major threat. At 02:24 on May 13th, the fleet assumed orbit around St Petersburg II at a distance of 900,000 kilometres, close enough for the MD960 Missile Detection Sensors on the Tribals to get a good look at the planet. They picked up substantial ground forces on the surface.

On May 18th, after five days of intensive effort, communication with the St Petersburg aliens was finally established. They called themselves the Xiamen and their government was officially a monarchy. After a few hours it became clear the Monarch was a complete despot and probably certifiable. Even after a video link was setup between Peter the Great and the Monarch's Palace, he refused to address Admiral Perti directly, using a series of military officers to conduct the conversation. Whenever one of the Xiamen officers translated something the Monarch didn't want to hear, he dismissed the officer, sometimes with a tirade of abuse, sometimes with blows from his sceptre and occasionally with a fatal gunshot from what appeared to be a gold-plated assault rifle. It was not an ideal environment for negotiating a Xiamen surrender. Through conversations with his proxies, it soon became apparent the Monarch would not surrender and he even invited the Commonwealth to send in ground forces so they could be exterminated by his troops. Eventually Admiral Perti had had enough and ordered the destroyer Gonzalez to begin firing on the Xiamen ground units, which caused considerable collateral damage to the planet's population and industry.

After enduring a severe pounding, during which the Xiamen suffered the loss of all but one ground unit, fifteen million civilians and almost thirty percent of their industry, they broadcast their surrender. In the end the Monarch was killed by his own bodyguards, partly because even they realised further resistance was futile and partly because they hoped by deposing him, they would be looked upon favourably by the alien conquerors and by their own people. Admiral Perti ordered Gonzalez to cease fire and destroy those missiles still in flight. The war started by the unprovoked Xiamen attack on Copenhagen was finally over.

St Petersburg II was confirmed as the Xiamen home world and had a population of two hundred and four million. In the days following the surrender it became apparent that at heart the Xiamen were a peaceful race with no significant military tradition and a very open-minded attitude to the existence of other species. Fifty years previously, the leading members of the Royal Family that had provided benevolent leadership for hundreds of years were killed by a huge bomb planted in the Royal residence as the family gathered for an annual religious festival. Terrorism was unheard of for the Xiamen and they were too shocked and confused to prevent a distant branch of the Royal Family assuming control of the government on a shaky pretext. Anyone who did protest quietly disappeared. For the next five decades the monarchy became a dictatorship in all but name. When the recently deposed Monarch took over the throne in 2033, after his father 'accidentally' flew his air-car into a mountainside, he began a reign of terror that surpassed anything that had gone before. He also began building a fleet of warships to enforce his authority and had conducted more than orbital nuclear strike against entire towns after a single person within that town criticised his leadership. The destruction of Copenhagen without any attempt to communicate was on his personal orders.

While President Vorokov and the Fleet Admirals were gratified to hear the Xiamen would likely present no significant resistance in future, they were wary of the historical information that had been provided. Until they were sure of the Xiamen's long term peaceful intentions, they decided that occupation of the planet was unavoidable. Therefore the two Tarawa class Troop Transports were dispatched from Sparta with two Mobile Infantry divisions and four Garrison divisions on board. There was also the question of reparations for the war. The Xiamen were informed that their ordnance factories, automated mines and research facilities would be removed but everything else would be left in place. Knowing the Commonwealth was desperately short of population, President Vorokov was already beginning to consider that if the historical information proved to be correct, it might be possible to integrate the Xiamen into the Commonwealth. With the war over there no need to leave the entire fleet in orbit so the Nagatos were called forward from the Denver jump point. Their box launchers made them ideal for guarding the planet as they could deal an immense amount of damage very quickly if the Xiamen did somehow try to resist the occupation. Once they arrived, the rest of the fleet headed for Sparta.

At the time of the surrender, the installations on St Petersburg II were as shown below. The radiation level was enough to reduce industrial output by 11% and slow growth by 2.7%. Dust levels in the atmosphere reduced global temperatures by ten degrees. Despite these environmental problems, St Petersburg II was still an ideal habitable world for both Xiamen and Humans.

St Petersburg II Installations
157x Construction Factory
39x Maintenance Facility
26x Ordnance Factory
114x Mine
23x Automated Mine
2x Research Facility
2x Ground Force Training Facility
3x Deep Space Tracking Station

St Petersburg II Survey Report
Duranium 618,774  Acc: 1
Neutronium 63,837  Acc: 0.1
Corbomite 42,959  Acc: 0.7
Tritanium 220,559  Acc: 0.7
Boronide 37,774  Acc: 0.2
Mercassium 45,659  Acc: 0.7
Vendarite 44,596  Acc: 0.8
Sorium 45,369  Acc: 1
Uridium 36,169  Acc: 1
Corundium 26,033  Acc: 0.9
Gallicite 83,384  Acc: 0.5

The six months after the war passed without incident. All the ships of the Expeditionary Force, except for the Nagatos, returned to Sparta and a Commonwealth occupation force was landed on the Xiamen home world. There was no resistance to the occupation. All of the original Xiamen installations remained in place as the Commonwealth cargo fleets were busy transferring ordnance factories to Eden to set that up as the centre of missile production for the Commonwealth. Terraforming of Mars and New London was moving along very rapidly and fourteen Genesis class Terraformers were in service with four more under construction. The total population of the Commonwealth had risen to 432m, with two hundred and sixty-one million on Sparta, one hundred and thirty-six million on Mars, eighteen million on Lisbon V, almost eleven million on Eden and seven point five million on New London.

In the Vienna system, just one jump from Sol, the small scout Audacious was in a five million kilometre orbit of Vienna I, the home world of the Tulan Confederation. The Tulan, huge bug-like creatures who shared some form of communal mind-link, were first encountered in 2029 by the survey ship Montcalm and full communication was established in January 2030. They appeared to be peaceful and a non-aggression pact was signed in March 2030. Negotiation of a possible trade treaty continued for the rest of the year, albeit with little success as the Tulan took weeks to discuss and question every small detail. Eventually, even the most optimistic negotiators believed the intent of the Tulan was to avoid revealing any significant information about themselves, their culture or their history. They were not seen as a threat because every indication was that they were a pre-Trans-Newtonian civilization. When the war broke out on Earth in 2031 and the human race was plunged into chaos for several years, the Tulan became a relatively unimportant issue. Before the war a jump ship remained on station at the Sol - Vienna jump point but that ended when the Commonwealth was formed and jump ships only visited the system every couple of years allow a new scout to replace the one on duty.

Due to the infrequent contact with the Tulan, Commander Valentine Lamarliere, the captain of Audacious, was very surprised when his communication officer informed him the Tulan wished to speak to him urgently. After spending a good portion of the last decade in Vienna, Commander Lamarliere had learned to recognize several distinguishing features on the silver-eyed, twenty-four legged, grey and yellow aliens and he was fairly certain he had never seen this particular Tulan before. That wasn't unusual as each Tulan apparently knew what every other Tulan knew and they seemed to change the individual in contact with the Audacious at random, sometimes halfway through a conversation. The chittering, clicking language of the Tulan was extremely hard for human ears to decipher so Commander Lamarliere listened to the translation provided by his ship's computer. Rather than the usual lengthy and detailed communications that took place during the increasingly rare treaty negotiations, this message was short and to the point. The Tulan demanded that the Audacious should leave their system as quickly as possible.

After recovering from his shock, Commander Lamarliere asked if he could be told the reason he was being asked to leave, especially after twelve years of peaceful relations between Humanity and the Tulan. The Tulan negotiator informed him that the when humans first came to their system, the Tulan were not capable of spaceflight. They had now corrected that problem and wished to be left in peace to explore their system. They wished no harm to humans and would prefer not to force Audacious to leave but they would if that was necessary. With no way to communicate with the rest of the Commonwealth and no jump ship at the Vienna - Sol jump point, Commander Lamarliere was cut-off from the chain of command and had to act on his own initiative. Commanding an unarmed scout ship and faced with a alien force of unknown strength, assuming the Tulan were not bluffing, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour and set a random heading for deep space, planning to alter course for the jump point once he was well clear of the planet.

The surface temperature of New London rose above freezing on January 2nd 2042, making it the third ideal habitable world in the Commonwealth after Sparta and Eden. A long-term plan for the colony had yet to be decided, although forty-one mines were already in place because New London had large deposits of all eleven Trans-Newtonian minerals. Unfortunately only Tritanium and Vendarite were above 0.2 accessibility so it would not make a very good mining colony but the availability of all minerals, even in small quantities, meant it had potential for a fleet base, with the minerals providing raw materials for maintenance facilities. In January 2042 Sparta was still the only fleet base in the Commonwealth so a secondary facility would be useful, particularly if a small shipyard was towed to the planet.

On January 17th 2042, President Vorokov lifted some of the restrictions on the Xiamen population. The occupation was proceeding without incident and the vast majority of the Xiamen seemed relieved at the demise of their insane Monarch. While the full occupation restrictions were in force the productivity of the Xiamen was at only twenty percent of its pre-war level. With the increased freedoms allowed by President Vorokov that quickly rose to sixty percent. The background radiation was a problem and causing a further ten percent loss of productivity but it was falling steadily.

Scientists on Mars made a major breakthrough in propulsion technology in early February. For eighteen years the most advanced engine technology of the Commonwealth and its founder nations had been the nuclear pulse drive. That was now superseded by Ion Drive technology, capable of generating fifty percent more power than existing engines. Work began immediately on an engine design based on the new technology. On Sparta, with its larger research establishment, work continued on improving the construction and production technologies of the Commonwealth. During 2041, new research boosted economic output by twenty-five percent and the increased the efficiency of shipyard modifications by five percent. In 2042, work began on improving the output of the Commonwealth research facilities.

Code: [Select]
NPO Energomash Ion Drive
Power Output: 60     Explosion Chance: 5     Efficiency: 0.8    Thermal Signature: 60
Engine Size: 5    Engine HTK: 2     Internal Armour: 0
Cost: 30    Crew: 25
Development Cost for Project: 300RP
The new engine was completed by late February and was incorporated into several new ship classes. The Peter The Great II class battlecruiser, Tribal III class escort cruiser and Trafalgar III class destroyer escort were all updated versions of the ships that fought so effectively in the Second Battle of St Petersburg. In each case the new class was identical to its predecessor with the exception of new engines that increased the top speed from 3000 km/s to 4500 km/s. The Atlas III class freighter and Alaska III class colony ships replaced the four E90 Nuclear Pulse Engine of the existing Atlas II and Alaska II classes with five NPO Energomash Ion Drives, increasing top speed from 2000 km/s to 3529 km/s and size from 4000 tons to 4250 tons. With the larger freighter designs, additional large jump ships were required so an updated version of the Vittorio Veneto was designed, using all of the same components except for the new engines and the Voskhod MR-800 Active Search Sensor replacing the S300-50 Active Search Sensor. Several shipyards began retooling so they could either build the new classes or refit existing ships.

Code: [Select]
Vittorio Veneto II class Jump Cruiser    6000 tons     594 Crew     965.6 BP      TCS 120  TH 480  EM 0
4000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 20/20/0/0     Damage Control Rating 10     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 28%    IFR: 0.4%    Maintenance Capacity 1006 MSP    Max Repair 225 MSP

Rolls Royce RR6000 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 6000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
NPO Energomash Ion Drive (8)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 900,000 Litres    Range 337.5 billion km   (976 days at full power)

Voskhod MR-800 Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 5760     Range 57.6m km    Resolution 60
S20 Thermal Sensor  (1)     Sensitivity 20     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  20m km
EM20 Passive Sensor  (1)     Sensitivity 20     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  20m km
Because of the decision to make Eden the ordnance production centre for the Commonwealth, a ship was needed to transport missiles and others ordnance from Eden to fleet bases such as Sparta. Rather then start from scratch, an old pre-war design was revived and updated to include the new engines. The Manxman class
was originally a European design intended as a combination of minelayer and collier, able to transport 1096 Dagger AMMs or 274 SS-N-1 Shipwreck anti-ship missiles for resupply purposes or to carry and deploy up to 68 large mines or large sensor buoys. Two of the original Manxman class were laid down before the war but the half-finished hulls were abandoned when Earth was evacuated. The new version of the Manxman would be built in the Nikolayev Shipyard, which arrived in New London orbit in April 2042.

Code: [Select]
Manxman class Collier    6000 tons     457 Crew     699.6 BP      TCS 120  TH 360  EM 0
3000 km/s     Armour 1-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 16
Annual Failure Rate: 96%    IFR: 1.3%    Maintenance Capacity 219 MSP    Max Repair 80 MSP
Magazine 1096    

NPO Energomash Ion Drive (6)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 75.0 billion km   (289 days at full power)

Minelaying System (1)    Missile Size 16    Rate of Fire 240
Large Thermal Sensor Buoy (8)  End: 720 days    Range: 0m km   Warhead: 0    MR: 10    Size: 16
Thermal Mine (60)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 270 days    Range: 0.2m km   Warhead: 0    MR: 10    Size: 16
On April 24th 2042, the Audacious class scout Daring was escorted into Vienna by the jump ship Oslo. Her mission was to relieve Audacious and spend what her crew expected to be a boring two years in a distant orbit of the Tulan home world. Instead, Audacious was waiting at the far side of the jump point with the news that the Tulan Confederation was now a Trans-Newtonian race and had demanded that the Commonwealth leave the Vienna system. Commander Lamarliere's report was relayed to Sparta via the Sol - Washington jump point and resulting in a flurry of activity. A task force comprising five Arleigh Burkes and the four Invincible class destroyers was dispatched from Sparta to the Sol - Vienna jump point to provide a defence force in case the Tulan should attempt to use force to enter the Sol system. Although there was no evidence the Tulan were aware of jump points, or even any evidence of Trans-Newtonian spacecraft, the fleet admirals were not taking any chances.

The five Arleigh Burkes were selected because they held the Commonwealth's remaining stocks of Trident missiles while the Invincibles were all loaded with Sabres. The Commonwealth was running into a major problem with the wide variety of destroyers currently in service as they used three different sizes of missiles and had widely varying ranges. Standardization was urgently required. Therefore the Arleigh Burke V was designed. Half the size of the Peter the Great battlecruisers and equipped with the same missile launchers and electronic equipment, it would be ideal for guarding colony worlds or conducting independent operations and could be used to support the battle fleet if required. The long term intention of the fleet admirals was to build the new type while either converting or scrapping all of the older destroyers, possibly with the exception of the Nagatos as they were useful for different situations, such as a point blank jump point defence. The only real drawback of the new Arleigh Burke was its relatively slow speed compared to the battle fleet units, such as the battlecruisers and Tribal III escort cruisers, but most of its time would be spent in other situations so it was deemed that its other systems took priority over speed.

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Arleigh Burke V class Missile Destroyer    5000 tons     511 Crew     696.4 BP      TCS 100  TH 360  EM 0
3600 km/s     Armour 3-26     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 24
Annual Failure Rate: 66%    IFR: 0.9%    Maintenance Capacity 261 MSP    Max Repair 96 MSP
Magazine 384    

NPO Energomash Ion Drive (6)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 45.0 billion km   (144 days at full power)

Mk 1 Guided Missile Launching System (6)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 60
Raytheon R600 Missile Fire Control System (1)     Range 57.6m km    Resolution 60
SS-N-1 Shipwreck (96)  Speed: 14000 km/s   End: 59.5m   Range: 50m km   Warhead: 5    MR: 10    Size: 4

Voskhod MR-800 Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 5760     Range 57.6m km    Resolution 60
In mid-June, research facilities on Mars adapted the new ion engine technology for missile drives, allowing the design of new missile types. The SS-N-2 Sunburn anti-ship missile, the replacement for the SS-N-1 Shipwreck, had a strength-6 warhead, compared to the strength-5 warhead of its predecessor, plus a twelve percent greater range and a maximum speed almost thirty percent higher. The SA-N-1 Grail anti-missile was a replacement for the successful Dagger AMM. It had similar range and the same warhead but a much higher speed, making it considerably more effective.

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SS-N-2 Sunburn Anti-ship Missile
Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 18,000 km/s    Endurance: 52 minutes   Range: 56.3m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.7
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 180%   3k km/s 60%   5k km/s 36%   10k km/s 18%
Materials Required:    1.5x Tritanium   0.95x Gallicite   Fuel x2500
Development Cost for Project: 270RP
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SA-N-1 Grail
Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 35,500 km/s    Endurance: 1 minute   Range: 2.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.842
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 355%   3k km/s 110%   5k km/s 71%   10k km/s 35.5%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.342x Gallicite   Fuel x25
Development Cost for Project: 84RP
In July 2042, Mars became the only ideal habitable world in the Sol system. Twenty years of terraforming had finally transformed the once desolate planet into a living breathing world. The atmosphere was forty times denser than in 2022 and easily breathable by humans. The surface temperature was a balmy twenty-six degrees Celsius, due to the majority of the atmosphere being a safe greenhouse gas. Rain fell on the lower slopes of Olympus Mons, rivers flowed through the Valles Mariners and many of the craters were now lakes and small seas. The population of one hundred and thirty-seven million could leave the confines of the alien city and the human-built domed cities and spread out across the entire planet. A bonus of the completion of the terraforming effort was that those workers involved in maintaining the controlled environment of the domed cites and running the terraforming installations were now available to work in other areas, freeing up over sixteen million workers. By comparison, Earth was still a dark, frozen and irradiated wasteland, covered by dense clouds of dust that reduced the surface temperature to -26C.

Later the same month, the Commonwealth's sixth colony was founded on Hannover-B II. Located three jumps from Sparta via Boston and Berlin, Hannover was a binary system with a yellow-white F2-V primary and a yellow G5-V companion orbiting at just over three billion kilometres. Only a single Venusian world orbited the primary while the companion had four terrestrial size worlds and a pair of gas giants. One of the terrestrial worlds was Venusian but the other three all had terraforming potential. Hannover-B II was selected for the colony because of its mineral resources. All eleven minerals were present in significant quantities and several were at good levels of accessibility. It was already home to one hundred and twelve automated mining complexes. The atmosphere was nitrogen - carbon dioxide and the temperature was -17C, giving an overall colony cost of 2.0. Enough infrastructure was in place to support two point five million colonists. The Commonwealth mounted a special effort because this was the furthest out of any colony and used all of their twenty-five colony ships to transport a first wave of one and a quarter million settlers.

Hannover-B II Survey Report
Duranium 13,585,210  Acc: 0.6
Neutronium 1,734,683  Acc: 0.6
Corbomite 180,173  Acc: 0.3
Tritanium 212,155  Acc: 0.1
Boronide 1,328,856  Acc: 0.4
Mercassium 52,072  Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 1,247,286  Acc: 0.9
Sorium 3,526,529  Acc: 0.9
Uridium 525,788  Acc: 0.1
Corundium 6,960,649  Acc: 0.7
Gallicite 8,238,798  Acc: 0.3

In early January of 2043, President Vorokov had a series of meetings with his military and civilian advisors to decide on a long term strategy for the Commonwealth. He began with the present situation. The war on Earth was now ten years in the past, humanity's home world had been completely evacuated and the human race, except for a tiny group living in the Stevenage system, was finally under one government. The Commonwealth was firmly established, having fought and won its first interstellar war, and its citizens were thinking about building for the future rather than surviving the mistakes of the past. The Tulan might pose a threat in the future but for the moment they appeared to simply want to be left alone so they could take their first steps into space. In any event, tests within Vienna had shown that missiles would not function in the nebula so there was little the Commonwealth could accomplish by trying to force contact with the Tulan. A task force was stationed at the Sol - Vienna jump point in case they entered Commonwealth space but since no vessels had appeared in the year since they warned off Oslo, the task force was under orders to attempt peaceful contact if a single Tulan ship transited into Sol but to resist any significant incursion. After President Vorokov completed his brief review, Fleet Admiral Roberta Armenta Rentería presented a report detailing the state of the six colonies of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Navy on January 5th 2043. The summary was as follows:

State of the Commonwealth in January 5th 2043

Sparta - Vice Admiral Stephanie Boner (Research 40%, Population Growth 30%, Wealth 15%,  Shipbuilding 10%, Mining 10%, Production 10%)
Ideal Habitable World
Population: 266m
Wealth: 13333
Commercial Freight Facility, Level 2 Spaceport, Level 1 CSC
Shipyards 6, Slipways 12,  Total Capacity 85,000 tons
Research Facilities: 36
Construction Factories: 746 (inactive)
Mines: 602 (inactive)
Automated Mines: 19
Ordnance Factories: 32
Fuel Refineries: 18
Maintenance Facilities: 53
Mass Drivers: 9
Tracking Stations: 8
Fuel Stockpile: 30m litres

Mars - Vice Admiral Aroghetto Pepe (Research 40%, Terraforming 20%, Wealth 5%)
Ideal Habitable World
Population: 140m
Wealth: 5575
Level 7 Spaceport, Level 1 CSC
Shipyards 4, Slipways 11,  Total Capacity 86,000 tons
Research Facilities: 17
Construction Factories: 287 (inactive)
Mines: 331 (inactive)
Automated Mines: 34
Terraforming Installations: 21 (inactive)
Fuel Refineries: 71 (inactive)
Maintenance Facilities: 94 (inactive)
Mass Drivers: 5
Tracking Stations: 25
Fuel Stockpile: 600,000 litres

Lisbon V - Fleet Admiral Tyler Morrison (Shipbuilding 30%, Wealth 20%, Trade 20%)
Colony Cost 2.0
Population: 19.4m
Wealth: 885
Shipyards 2, Slipways 4,  Total Capacity 36,000 tons
Research Facilities: 1 (inactive)
Construction Factories: 29 (inactive)
Mines: 101 (inactive)
Automated Mines: 58
Terraforming Installations: 5
Fuel Refineries: 6 (inactive)
Maintenance Facilities: 29 (inactive)
Mass Drivers: 1
Tracking Stations: 6
Fuel Stockpile: 2.5m litres

Eden - Rear Admiral Lana Fajardo Nazario (Production 30%, Wealth 15%, Pop Growth 15%)
Ideal Habitable World
Population: 15.5m
Wealth: 677
Ordnance Factories: 165
Construction Factories: 1
Automated Mines: 3
Terraforming Installations: 1
Mass Drivers: 1
Fuel Stockpile: 950,000 litres

New London - Commodore Toyota Tetsuhiko (Shipbuilding 30%, Wealth 20%, Pop Growth 15%)
Ideal Habitable World
Population: 10.7m
Wealth: 486
Shipyards 1, Slipways 2,  Total Capacity 16,000 tons
Mines: 41
Maintenance Facilities: 29
Fuel Stockpile: 1.5m litres

Hannover II - Commodore Valérie Deschanel (Mining 30%, Shipbuilding 25%, Wealth 10%)
Colony Cost 2.0
Population: 2.6m
Wealth: 108
Automated Mines: 112
Mines: 2
Fuel Refineries: 6
Fuel Stockpile: 14,000 litres

Boston Mining Colony - Read Admiral Alexandre Bergeron (Mining 30%, Shipbuilding 20%)
Automated Mines: 301

St Petersburg II (Occupied) - Admiral Rolf Purdom (Research 50%, Shipbuilding 20%, Mining 20%)
Population: 208m
Wealth: 4525
Commercial Freight Facility
Research Facilities: 2
Construction Factories: 157
Mines: 114
Automated Mines: 23
Ordnance Factories: 26
Fuel Refineries: 92
Maintenance Facilities: 39
Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 12m litres

Commonwealth Navy

Warships
2x Peter the Great II class Battlecruiser: Alexander Nevsky, Peter the Great
4x Peter the Great class Battlecruiser: Georgy Zhukov, Ilya Muromets, Tsar Alexander II, Yuri Gagarin
3x Scharnhorst class Missile Cruiser: Admiral Scheer, Gneisnau, Prinz Eugen
4x Nagato class Destroyer: Fuso, Mutsu, Nagato, Yamashiro
2x Arleigh Burke IV class Destroyer: Cole, Fitzgerald
8x Arleigh Burke III class Destroyer: Barry, Farragut, Gonzalez, John Paul Jones, Mason, Oscar Austin, Roosevelt, Winston Churchill
2x Arleigh Burke I class Destroyer: Arleigh Burke, Mitscher
2x Valdivia class Destroyer: Almirante Riveros, Valdivia
6x Kongo II-B class Destroyer: Fubuki, Hatsuyuki, Miyuki, Murakumo, Shinonome, Shirayuki
4x Invincible class Destroyer: Admiral Lutjens, Charles de Gaulle, Giulio Cesare, Invincible
4x Moskva class Destroyer: Moskva, Murmansk, St Petersburg, Vladivostok

Escorts
2x Tribal III class Escort Cruiser: Cherokee, Cheyenne
4x Tribal II class Escort Cruiser: Comanche, Iroquois, Kiowa, Sioux
4x Tribal I class Destroyer Escort: Apache, Macedonian, Visigoth, Zulu
3x Trafalgar III class Destroyer Escort: Agamemnon, Bellerophon, Britannia
7x Trafalgar II class Destroyer Escort: Conqueror, Leviathan, Mars, Minotaur, Neptune, Orion, Téméraire
1x Trafalgar I class Destroyer Escort: Victory
2x Sao Paulo class Destroyer Escort: Independência, Sao Paulo

Jump Ships
1x Vittorio Veneto II class Jump Cruiser: Vittorio Veneto
2x Aragon class Jump Cruiser: Aragon, Castille
2x Nautilus class Jump Frigate: Nautilus, Rickover
1x Copenhagen class Jump Tender: Oslo

Survey Ships
4x Galileo class Gravsurvey Ship: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton
4x Darwin class Geosurvey Ship: Agassiz, Alvarez, Darwin, Richter
1x Virginia class Survey Cruiser: Virginia

Support Ships
2x Tarawa class Troop Transport: Iwo Jima, Tarawa
3x Brunel class Construction Ship: Brunel, Stephenson, Telford
1x Audacious class Scout: Ajax
4x Rappahannock class Tanker: Patuxent, Potomac, Rappahannock, Susquehanna
16x Genesis class Terraformer
3x Hercules class Tug
25x Alaska II class Colony Ship
6x Atlas III class Freighter
50x Atlas II class Freighter

Planetary Defence Centres
4x Barrack class PDC
3x Guardian class PDC
2x Ticonderoga class PDC

The populations of Sparta and Mars were growing slowly but steadily but they both still had huge numbers of inactive installations, including over a thousand construction factories and more than nine hundred mining complexes. The vast majority of the manufacturing sector on both worlds was dedicated to shipbuilding and research, although Mars was ten days away from reactivating her seventy fuel refineries. The consensus of the strategy meetings was that a large number of mines should eventually be transported to Hannover-II, which had substantial quantities of all minerals, five of which were at 0.6 accessibility of higher. Because this colony was the furthest from Sparta, it would take some time to increase the population to the point where this was a realistic possibility. As Hannover-II had no oxygen in its atmosphere and the surface temperature was -17C, infrastructure had to be transported to the planet to support the population, which would add further delays to the deployment of manned mining complexes. The terraforming fleet had recently arrived at the planet to alleviate this problem but that would require several years. A secondary function of Hannover II would eventually be as a fleet base, primarily because of the mineral availability.

Eden was established as the ordnance production centre for the Commonwealth and when freighter priorities permitted, the rest of the Commonwealth's ordnance factories would be transported to the planet. Lisbon V was focused on shipbuilding and had two shipyards, each with two slipways of 9000 ton capacity. Both shipyards were being upgraded to 10,000 ton capacity. While Sparta, Mars, Eden and New London were all ideal habitable worlds, Lisbon V was still hostile to humans. Its atmosphere was not breathable and the surface temperature was a chilly -43C. Five terraforming installations were pumping oxygen into the air but unless the terraforming fleet could be deployed to Lisbon, it would be many years before the environment significantly improved. The diversion of workers to maintaining the infrastructure limited the manufacturing sector on Lisbon V and Eden, even with its smaller population, actually had a slightly larger manufacturing workforce. The future of New London was as a secondary fleet base for the Commonwealth Navy, mainly because it had deposits of all eleven minerals, albeit at low accessibility. Twenty-nine maintenance facilities were already in place, allowing the colony to support ships of up to 5800 tons, and the Nikolayev shipyard with two slipways of 8000 tons had been towed to New London from Earth orbit. More mines would be needed to extract the minerals required to support the shipyards, the ships based at New London and any overhauls.

With regard to the Fleet, a decision was taken that, with the exception of the Scharnhorsts and Nagatos, all of the old, pre-war warships would either be scrapped or refitted to one of the more recent designs, although in almost all  cases the refit was not possible because it would cost more to refit an old ship than build a new one. Even the most recent Arleigh Burke models were too different from the Arleigh Burke V to make a refit worthwhile. With the new generation of freighters and colony ships at 4250 tons, all the older jump ships except the Vittorio Veneto were now of little use and all of them would eventually be scrapped. Three of the four Audacious class scouts had already been scrapped and fourth would soon join them. The older freighters and colony ships would remain in service as there was plenty of work for them to do and they still served a useful purpose. Out of date warships were just expensive targets.

The bulk of the fleet would remain at Sparta with its extensive shipyards and maintenance facilities. Once a sufficient number of the new Arleigh Burke Vs were available, a destroyer squadron plus supporting units would be based at New London and in several years time a second squadron would be based at Hannover II. Single units or small squadrons would be temporarily deployed to the other colonies as required, although the units involved would have to be rotated due to the lack of maintenance facilities. Another option was to activate the maintenance facilities at Mars, although with Sparta close by this was regarded as an expensive use of valuable manpower so it was unlikely to happen in the near future. Finally, the inability of the Xiamen to fend off the missile attack on their home world that eventually led to their surrender caused many sleepless nights for the President and the Fleet Admirals. They did not want a Commonwealth world to suffer a similar fate as a result of some future alien attack. Therefore plans were drawn up for an orbital missile defence base to protect the colonies that would include longer ranged missile defence sensors and anti-missile fire controls than those on the Tribal IIIs. Research on the new systems was instituted at the research facilities on Sparta, which had just completed a year-long project to upgrade the efficiency of the Commonwealth's research establishment.

The new systems were developed and the design of the Sentinel class missile defence base finalised by early April of 2043. The Sentinel had the same number of launchers as a Tribal III class escort cruiser but could detect and intercept missiles at twice the range and had a seventy percent greater magazine capacity. Building the bases would take some time, as would providing sufficient missiles for their very large magazines. An even larger base was considered that also included advanced railguns as a backup. However, as the Sentinels were intended for long-term deployment, the ability of the protected planet to maintain the base was a major factor in their design and six thousand tons was decided upon as the maximum size for that reason.

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Sentinel class Missile Defence Base    6000 tons     380 Crew     928 BP      TCS 120  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 3-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 12
Annual Failure Rate: 72%    IFR: 1%    Maintenance Capacity 387 MSP    Max Repair 192 MSP
Magazine 1272    

AML-15 Missile Launcher (12)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 15
AMF-2000 Missile Fire Control (2)     Range 1.9m km    Resolution 1
SA-N-1 Grail (1272)  Speed: 35500 km/s   End: 1 minutes    Range: 2.2m km   WH: 1    MR: 10    Size: 1
MD2000 Active Search Sensor  (1)     GPS 192     Range 1.9m km    Resolution 1
In May 2043, the continuing stable situation on St Petersburg II led to a further easing of restrictions on the Xiamen, bringing their productivity up to eighty percent of the pre-war level, before the loss of efficiency due to radiation was taken into account. Even with the restrictions, the lives of the Xiamen were far better than under the brutal previous regime and the Xiamen population was both surprised and pleased by the fairness of the Commonwealth administration. Negotiations were already underway between the old, noble families of the Xiamen, to whom the general population still deferred, and the Commonwealth leadership regarding potential Xiamen entry to the Commonwealth.

to be continued...

Steve