Author Topic: Theban Empire  (Read 38056 times)

0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline Paul M

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #165 on: March 26, 2015, 06:36:31 AM »
Additional Economic Notes:

The Shanirians have just reached HEL 9, and have begun researching the new technologies focusing on the key ones for the upcoming fleet upgrade.  The other races are currently researching the next level of basic technology, though none of them have been doing so long.

The Maldovian Conclave is a partner of the Urloki and currently has begun research that will lead to the development of reactionless drives.  They are currently planet bound but are awaiting the development of sufficient technology to allow them to build their first orbital stations plus ground bases.  As they are but two transits from the Cervii they are concerned about their safety.  The plan to construct 4 orbital stations and build ground bases.  At the moment they have developed: the spaceport, the sprint missile and the basic missile.

The Shanirian's have encountered, but not contacted a pre-Industiral race whose world is in the second component of Rubicon.  They have interdicted the component, and that was infact one of the primary motivations for establishing a fleet base there.  The race has been left alone, with no contact allowed.

The Confederation has colonization policies that vary with the Race.  The Shanirian's rarely make use of heavy industrialization, perfering to develop more ecologically friendly but less industrialized societies [ooc]Benign worlds are limited to 100 IU, most other worlds follow suit[/ooc] but to spread out into the moons of a system quickly.  The Urloki have limited planets that they are comfortable in industrialize heavily plus were the first Race to emphise the colonization of their colonies to produce a population that produces additional colonists [ooc]forcing growth to medium population[/ooc].  The Urloki have also settled their systems moons heavily.  The Council of the Moon, in all practical terms wishes to be left alone and is exploring and colonizing only in the hope that they will find themselves in a pocket or they can produce one by the existance of closed warp point connections.  The Urloki have only the five unexplored warp points in Elvorfilas left to explore.  The Benthians have had fantastic survey luck and have invested heavily in primary colonization and growth of benign worlds at the expense of secondary colonization.  They have also invested heavily in industrial expansion.  They have relatively short distances from Sea to their frontier regions and this has allowed them to inexpensively settle their space.  Previous to the Perginan incursion they were using their CFN at over 95%.  They have found a significant number of mineral plentiful fully habitable worlds and these are primary drivers to their economy.

The Shanirian's are expending a considerable amount of money to colonize their frontier regions, with journeys now being up to 5 months.  A large amount of secondary in-system colonization is also occuring, in particular from planets that are lacking in strategic materials.  The goal is to have a large and growing population.  They have two systems Babylon and Cross-Roads that are jointly settled with the Urloki, who at this time have more population on the sub-terran class planet in the system.  There is also a military outpost in the process of being established in Elvorfilas to support military units there and to provide for leave for the watch forces.
 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #166 on: March 31, 2015, 03:30:42 AM »
Month 236, Odd Crab space, Blue system
Fourth Bainisteroir Brunehild was back again at the doors to the system she had fled from five months ago. This time, her task force Mjoelnur had been augmented significantly, with Cliath and Oraiste fleet being folded into its structure for this operation. surprisingly, Second Bainisteroir Aethehild of Cliath fleet had ceded command of the operation to her despite her superior rank, and stayed behind in the staging area. Thus she was allowed to redeem her failure and regain the favour of the Aesir.
 
Purely numerical, her force represented a fourth and a third of the Things total fleet strength, approximately. Six Dreadnaughts where guarded by 22 battlecruisers, 18 heavy cruisers, two carriers and nine pinace carriers. Eight corvettes and six colliers rounded out the fleets order of battle.

Now was the time to strike. Three of her IASC class dreadnaughts lined up for the first wave, followed by three Serbhis class battlecruisers and an Allain class destroyer and a corvette. The second wave was similar, while the third would be six Eagla class battlecruisers and again a destroyer and a corvette.
The dreadnaughts transited, emerging on a course slightly divergent from six hostile super dreadnaughts at two and a quarter light second.
Due to the distance, the Things advanced gun/missile launchers where not that accurate and point defense got many of their shots. But with teh antimatter warheads they ripped shields and armor off a super dreadnaught. In return, two monitors activated and with seven capital force beams and four XRay lasers each removed the IASCs shields and armour.
The IASC of the first wave turned about, ready to retreat if they took heavy damage, and the enemy super dreadnaughts held their place. Two of them fired first and their beams and CAM dug deep into the valiant ship. Its brethren quickly avenged it, with their combined fire overwhelming the damaged super dreadnaught and digging deep into it. With two more firing as singles, the Crabs further damaged the IASC, but in return a second monitor was gutted, and a third stripped of its passive defenses while they removed the shields and half the armour of a second IASC.

The damaged IASc transited out while the third wave arrived, and the second wave ones also turned, ready to retreat.
Strangely, the crab ships moved to close the distance, but the Things gunners where quicker off the mark, and with such close targets fired their missiles in sprint mode. One enemy Anklenumb class ship was damaged, and a second one totally destroyed by the spint fire, while the allready damaged one lost more interior systems. But then the Crabs retaliated. It turned out that the Anklenumbs had such light defenses because they mounted sixteen plasma guns each, and the two which fired at extreme plasma gun range turned two undamaged IASC into cripples. The less damaged one of these retained its full broadside still, and blotted the damaged Anklenumb from the universe. Light capital missile fire indicated the presence of the three Balmuck class battlecruisers encountered in the earlier expedition.
While the damaged four IASC transit out the enemy BC run away, sending a parting shot at a corvette but failed to do more than strip the shields from it. Brunehild prefers to assemble her fleet before setting a course for the inner system and lets them run.
Finally the fleet was all transited and ready to advance the short distance from the warp point to the planet. But as the ships approached the planet, a flight of fighters was spotted incoming. The thing fleet turned away a bit until its own fighters were ready and launched alongside their assault shuttle, while the armed pinnaces, being slower, hung back with the heavy battle line. Eighteen heavy cruisers, three destroyers, eight corvettes, 48 fighters and 42 shuttles advance to meet the incoming 84 fighters. Maneuvering adroitly, the things fighters and ships set themselves up to intercept the Crabs fighters, which split into two groups, with 48 facing the things fighters and 36 going for the corvettes. Bainisteroir Brunehild starts to realize something is strange when the crab fighters declined to close further on her swift corvettes in the vanguard and stayed at just a light second. A suspicion immediately confirmed when trails of missiles reached out from the fighters towards her corvettes. As she had none of the Slasher class corvettes, just three obsolete Leathpingen beam corvettes and five Fraoach scouts, the corvettes where ill suited to take this punishment. While the two Leathpingen class corvettes weathered the fire aimed at them, two Fraoach scouts took damage to their engines and one targeted by two salvoes vanished in the resulting fireball. The next time the fighters would be met with a screen of her assault shuttles and fighters she decided. But the exchange was not yet over. While the unloaded fighters speeded away, their 48 escorts met the Things swarm of fighters and assault shuttles in a furball. Within a minute 34 of the things fighters and five of the assault shuttles where slain in exchange for the 48 enemy fighters, this spending the things fighter strength in defense of the fleet. Luckily in one firing pass a squadron of crab fighters decided to target shuttles instead of fighters, else there might have been even fewer fighters left.
But no further strikes came until the Thing fleet closed in on the planet. Seeing the orbital layout, the swung somewhat wide to avoid the group of bases for now, and stayed at long SBM range to plink away at the three superdreadnaughts and three battlecruisers. The first exchange was very inefficient with only seven laser torpedoes hitting the selected Bumblepuff class ship, in return to slight shield damage to an Eagla. The second salvoes where not more effective from the things side, but the Eagla lost its shields and a third of its armour. Then the three Bumblepuff class superdreadnaughts hid behind the planet, leaving only the two space stations and the three Ballmuck battlecruisers to face the fifteen Eaglas.  But the ballmucks proved to be almost impossible to hit due to their ECM and evasive maneuvering, and thus fire swiftly shifted to one of the space stations. But here too the SBM-LT proved to be very inaccurate at long range, and only a few missiles were on target and not intercepted. Thus in order to spread the damage from the SBM-LT a bit before they ran out, and to draw the fire from the bases after the stations did not respond at long range, the Eaglas edged closer just into range of the bases and exchanged fire. Although in the next minute the damaged Eaglas armour was breached, they also eroded away the armour of a base. The damaged Eagla tried to disengage, though the Ballmucks send a parting shot after it without success. By the time the fleet ran dry on SM-LT they actually had managed to reach the internals of the targeted base, but that wasn't much of an effect for the time spend, if you discounted the crab units running out of SBMs to return fire with. Finally in the fourth minute the Eaglas fire showed some effect and the base was hit by several antimatter tipped SBM, ripping through its shields and deep into its innards. In return, another Eagla lost half of its shields. The last salvo of the Ballmucks didn't hit anything, nor of the bases, as the Things crews did a good job with the point defense. In return though the damaged base was eliminated as a threat. After six minutes a slight lull in the fighting ensued, as the damaged Eagla came back and fired off its magazine's worth of SBMs against the remaining base and the cripples, while the Crab ships hid behind the planet and the Space stations watched impotently.
Finally the moment of decision came, and the things fleet advanced into capital missile range, and was greeted by a salvo of 20 CM each from the space stations. Why they had forgotten to load SBM will remain a mystery. Nevertheless, the slightly damaged Eagla lost its passives, but antimatter gave the thing an advantage and one of the Bumblepuffs suffered massive damage. The next exchanged forced a second Eagla to withdraw, but removed all weapons from the first damaged Bumblepuff and ripped into the one Bumblepuff which had shot accurately so far. Staying still close to the edge of the capital missile envelope at almost seven light seconds, the Thing send its damaged ships away and continued to hold a parallel course with evasive maneuvering. Suddenly the space stations displayed improved gunnery, and over thirty missiles converged on the Eagla whose data group mates had to leave the envelope due to damage, and enough penetrated the defensive fire to blot it from space. Another Eagla in a two ship data group was damaged, and will turn away with its squad mate, but the things fire eliminated a Ballmuck in return. With only three data groups remaining, things started to look a little bit shaky now for long-range fire approach. On the other hand, the crabs where down to the two stations and two battlecruisers, with one superdreadnaught able only to fire less than a third of its original broadside, and suffering from shakedown effects as well. The lone surviving base was kept out of range. Over the next six minutes, the eaglas and the station exchanged fire, unill only four undamaged Eaglas remained, and the stations suddenly fell silent. This was the signal for all Eaglas to edge into capital missile range again and empty their magazines into the station which so far lost its shields and some armour. It took literally every single capital missile in the fleets magazines to reduce the two stations, leaving for the defenders two carries hiding behind the planet and a damaged base. deciding to end this quickly, Brunehild ordered the seven Serbhis BCs and two IASc forward to engage the base, accompanied by every single assault shuttle, SPN and fighter configured for anti-fighter work. The base got a few licks in onto a Serbhis as the ships closed into standard missile range, but then even at almost five light seconds, the fire was devastating. It took only one firing sequence and the base was annihilated. Seeing this, the determination of the last crab ships was overcome and they struck their colours.
Bainisteroir Brunehilds exuberation about a job well done was tempered when somewhat in her next meeting with Bainisteroir Aethehild when she was asked why she hadn’t asked for the SBMHAWKS stored in the home system to help her break the warp point and take the stations under long range bombardment.  Although only two ships where lost, they might have won with even less losses.

(Wew, that was a long battle wrought with a strategic mistake from the things side and the Odd Crabs definitely being hampered by their ship designs. Their superdreadnaughts  (light monitors in older terminology) all had immense broadside at a cost of passive defenses and magazine capacity. Even more hampering overall in the long range duel was that most Crab units lacked ECCM and thus had a hard time hitting anything with EM at long range. But overall the Thing would have lost if the Crab space stations have had more than 20 rounds of fire with CM, and especially if they had SBMs in their magazines.
I decided that the Crabs kept their remaining fighters back with fG to defend, as 36 fighters against the Things battle line would have evaporated, fM none withstanding. And the Thing has 54 apn, 37 ast and 14 f0 left to help defend against fM armed fighters. This was definitely the longest battle so far, with 6 turns at the warp point, ten with the fighters and a whooping 74 turns to resolve the siege.  I let the Crabs ship designs stand due to their low militancy and no experience in battle. They didn’t have enough time to refit their ships to better designs with the first battle only 4 months before. On the other hand, an RD of 98 made them just not give up at all, until they had only the carriers left.
The Things ship designs definitely benefitted from 200 turns of fights and evolution, and with the upcoming TL 9 refit will definitely gain some passives faced with AM.)

 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #167 on: March 31, 2015, 01:58:45 PM »
For those who like seeing ship designs, the Odd Crabs have what the RNG came up with. As they were developing TL9 tech, this might have changed soon, but they ran out of time.:

ANKLENUMB class ML     AM2    33 XO Racks   165 Hull    TL 8
[3]S0x14Aix24HQ(IIIII-It)H(BbS)(IIIII-It)PgPgFcPgPgLxQFcPgx3FcPgLxPgFcPgx3FcDzLxPgM7Dz!2PgDzQFcDzPgXrDzZiPgDzLxFc(Dec)(IIIII-It)?2LhQ(IIIII-It)[4]
165 RCP  35 MCP       Trg:8  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost = 4541/681.2
HTK 109   S0x14  Aix24  Dzx6  Fcx7  Lxx4  Pgx16 

BUMBLEPUFF class ML     AM2    33 XO Racks   165 Hull    TL 8
[3]S0S0Aix12HQ(IIIII-It)H(BbS)(IIIII-It)Rcx5QRcRcMgRcx7MgRcDzRcDzM7RcDz!2QRcDzRcDzRcDzZiRcMgXr(IIIII-It)?2LhQ(IIIII-It)[4]
165 RCP  35 MCP       Trg:8  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost = 3961/594.2
HTK 81   S0x2  Aix12  Dzx6  Rcx21  Mgx3 
188x CM, 42x CM LT1, 53x SBM, 2x EDM (Mg)

BALLMUCK class BC     AM2    16 XO Racks   80 Hull    TL 8
[2] S0x6Aix12HQ(II)(BbS)(III)(II)RcFcRcFcRcM7Dzx3!2RcFcMgXrZi(III)(II)?2LhQ(III) [6]
80 RCP  20 MCP       Trg:8  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost = 1923/288.5
HTK 54   S0x6  Aix12  Dzx3  Fcx3  Rcx4  Mgx1 
40x CM, 12x CM LT1, 32x SBM, 2x EDM (Mg)

BONEFUMBLE class BS5     AM2    36 XO Racks   180 Hull    TL 8
[1]S0x4Aix16HQRcFc(BbS)RcFcRcFcRcFcRcFcQRcFcRcFcMgRcFcRcFcRcFcDzM7QDzRcFcDzZiDzRcFcDzDzRcDz?2LhQRcMgXr[0]
180 RCP  20 MCP       Trg:8  Bmp +4        Cost = 3317/165.9
HTK 66   S0x4  Aix16  Dzx7  Fcx12  Rcx14  Mgx2 
112x CM, 28x CM LT1, 46x SBM

CLODDUMB class CV     AM2    17 XO Racks   85 Hull    TL 8
[1]S0x10MgAix14HQ(II)(III)(BbS)(II)PgVx6PgFcPgVx6DzPgDzDzVx6FcPgM7!2Zi(III)(II)?2LhQ(III)[6]
85 RCP  40 MCP  18 FCP       Trg:8  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost = 2674/401.1
HTK 79   S0x10  Aix14  Dzx3  Fcx2  Pgx5  Vx18  Mgx1 
54x fG, 54x fR, 108x fM

SS DIPCORN class SS        63 XO Racks    1150 Hull    TL 8
[1]S0x100Aix100H(SY)x8Rcx5FcFc(BbM)Rcx5FcFcLhQx5(SY)Rcx5FcFc(SY)Rcx5Fcx4Xr(CHS2)Hx4!2LhQQ(CIC)M7Dzx10Zi?2(BbM)Vx24LhQQMgx5[0]
1150 RCP  24 FCP       Trg:8  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  11654/ 153.1
HTK 395   S0x100  Aix100  Dzx10  Fcx10  Rcx20  Vx24  Mgx5 
400x CM, 12x EDM (Mg), 69x fG, 96x fR

 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #168 on: April 07, 2015, 04:01:46 AM »
T236, Undine expanses, Techneticum Salt system
For several months now the Undine fleet in system has been reinforced by small groups of ships moving towards this distant and low on supplies system, finally being build up into nine modern and three older Romeo class cruisers, nine escort destroyers and thirteen Alpha class frigates. also, there Bravo class scout corvettes and six small mobile shipyards arrived. After creating a small mine field of 120 patterns, the ship yards now where assembling a small control and beam asteroid fort to help hold the system. Given the low numbers of ships, it was decided to keep the ships at five and a half light second from the warp point until they activated, rather than risk them under initial beam fire without being able to retaliate. Command over the fleet was still held by Earth Lord Pinipedius who commanded it when he probe six months ago occurred.

But now the time for preparations seems to have terminated, as one of the four assault shuttles on patrol on the warp point discovered a pinnace transiting, and shot at it with its basic point defence. Unfortunately, the gunners missed and the pinnace transited out again.
Two days later, the defenders where still slowly circling the warp point when six battleships materialized quickly one after another on a course not pointing directly at the defenders but slightly ahead of them and just sat there after launching 36 gunboats while the undine crews races to action stations.
The next wave consisted of three battleships and three battlecruisers which discharged a total of 66 gunboats to add to those on the warp point, and three battlecruisers launched 30 capital anti-mine missiles from external racks, and took out a quarter of the minefield in an arc towards the undine fleet. The older group of undine Romeos was well trained and reached action stations fully, allowing them to launch a coordinated salvo of 18 capital missiles from their external racks, with seven taking out shields on one of the just transited battlecruisers. A very small salvo from a group of red fleet Daikus failed to deal any damage, and the other undine ships continued to activate. But further attempts to capitalize on this initial success by the undines proved indifferent with only 2 more missiles hitting.
The third wave of invaders was another six battlecruisers which added 60 gunboats to the 102 already in-system.
The undine fleet tacked away from the warp point by a quarter light second to stay out of range of the battlecruisers X-ray lasers. On the undine side, not a single cruiser reached action station and thus the following exchange of shots was rather one-sided, with only six red fleet battleships firing. One salvo was just 3 CM, and was easily shrugged of by the frigate, but the other one was fifteen and four penetrated to rip it afire from bow to stern.
While the undine ships stayed at range and used the maximum possible engine modulation, four heavy cruisers and three destroyers arrived through the wrap point. Definitely again something new. The four cruisers fired external BAM-Rc into the suffering minefield. In return, the undines eroded the shields of the targeted battlecruiser further, and another frigate suffered damage to slow it down.
While another six destroyers arrived, the undine fleet turned inward, and exchanged 3 damaged frigates against the removal of shields from the battlecruiser and probing fire on the newly arrived destroyers.
Now things turned interesting.. with the frigates proceeding into primary range, the nine stabilised destroyers, four heavy cruisers and the gunboats advanced to meet them. At these short ranges, carnage reigned. The Undines lost all frigates to fire, and in return removed the thick shielding from the heavy cruisers and slowed down two of the capital missile battleships. Then the undine fleet turned away, drawing the red fleet battlecruisers and Marauder class Missile battleships after it. In a long range duel with these and at shorter distance with the four heavy cruisers and nine destroyers the undine destroyers lost one of their own and some damage, The three gun armed red fleet destroyers proved to be quite resilient to missile fire, and to avoid them closing in, the undine fleet then detuned. But that was costly, the now enlarged blind spot of a heavy undine cruiser attracted a salvo of 12 capital missiles, of which ten hit and destroyed the passive defences of the ship. Else it was more a slowly mutual eroding of defences, where the cruisers could take it better than the destroyers.
During the fifth minute of the engagement, the undines stopped running, and the red fleet had systematically targeted their faster ships like frigates and destroyers to prevent their escape. While the gunboats idled somewhat instead of charging wildly into sprint missile range, the destroyers closed in on the undine cruisers while finishing off crippled destroyers, and the six red fleet battlecruisers and three battleships created new cripples with their capital missiles and X-ray lasers. When destroyers and the three heavy cruisers reached sprint mode range of the undine Romeos things changed, with the first group of destroyers following the gun armed group into dissolution, and the first two Spider class heavy cruisers finally loosing their armour and speed.
With the faster undine ships by now mostly slowed by the long range fire from the marauder data group, the main fire started to concentrate on the undine cruisers, but in their dying, they reaped. The incoming wave of 142 gunboats lost 50 in one exchange, and thus compelled to stay cautiously away instead of racing to oblivion. Instead the red fleets four cruisers and scattered packs of destroyers bore the brunt of the cost for closing in, with six destroyers damaged severely by sprint mode fire by the undines, and another heavy cruiser damaged unto its internals. Unfortunately, the Spider class heavy cruisers proved to be insidious with their needle beams taking out the magazines of  still quite combat worthy undine cruisers, some even yet armoured but for the shields. The greatest damage was inflicted by the slowly closing in six Quickdraw battlecruisers and their X-ray broadsides which made one cruiser after another fall out of formation. In a move born out of desperation and anguish over loosing another two undine worlds to the nuclear pyre sure to follow and unable to escape his tormentors, Pinipedius ordered his ships around to ram the red fleet. A move the closest three red fleet destroyers were willing to reprociate, seeking mutual annihilation. The Undines used up their last ammunition killing another 25 gunboats and inflicting further damage on a Spider class cruiser close by. Then, out of ammunition the rest of the undine fleet also sought to ram red fleet targets. Four Spider class cruisers willingly meet them head on, and vanished in fireballs along the undine cruisers. Only one cruiser left tried to ram a Quickdraw battlecruiser, but its broadside of four X-ray lasers ripped through its armour and forward engine rooms and thus stopped its final run short, where the other battlecruisers very swiftly reduced it to a spreading cloud of gas.
After hunting down the last few slowly crawling cripples, the red fleet reorganised and set out to survey and sweep the system clean of undine life.

(Needle beams are nasty. They took out the primaries on several frigates, and the magazines on at least 4 heavy cruisers and several destroyers, reducing them to weaponless targets. On the other hand, I am not quite as satisfied with the spinal forcebeam damage projection capability.)
 

Offline Paul M

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #169 on: April 13, 2015, 04:01:38 AM »
((We seem to have lost the OOC indicator.   The above battle was brutal, in many way because of our home rules on what weapons a ship can carry.  However, the main issue was fighting uphill with the technology level:  Red Fleet having Dx and SM/CM/SBM-a and ?3 compared to Dz and SM on the Seal ships made a huge difference to the whole equation of damage.  The limited magazine loadout of the CAs ultimately decided the battle.  Starslayer didn't think they would live long enough to run out of missiles but there was nearly half still in good shape when their magazines went dry.  At that point they could not escape so I went to look at the rules to check out campaign ramming and so forth.  It is hard to say if staying back was the best choice as it let the Red Fleet get lots of ships into the system, but if they had been closer they were going to throw the DDs and CAs at them.  I think that they would have been killed by the defenders as the CAs were lethal to those ships but that would leave the fleet out of ammo and facing the heavy ships of the Red Fleet.  I had hoped to get the ships out of the battle but to fight this sort of running battle I had to make turns that cost me distance to ensure my blindspot wasn't uncovered and to bring the broadside into play.  I think actually the result of them throwing the DD+CA at the Seals would have been the survival of the Seal force (part of it) but the loss of the system regardless.  There are two further battles to come but we were distracted by a good DVD from playing out the 2nd WP assault that I suspect is going to be hard to play out but should not be so one sided.  The key to the second one will be the point at which the Seals start to fall back from the WP, but in this battle they have 18 BC armed with 3 (or 4) Fc.  That takes the point defence out of the equation and for the first time the Lx/DEC2 armed BCs will have only a minor range advantage and the HETs will be out of range.   I suspect the defenders will be forced out but I hope not with the total loss of the fleet.

The Shanirian's are utterly ignorant of these actions but they are forting up their two open contacts with the Seals on general principles as they have "no communications possible" with the Xenophobic Water Loving Mammeloids With Poor Dispositions and a Tendancy to Throw Nuclear Weapons Around.))
 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #170 on: April 15, 2015, 11:05:02 AM »
(It also didn't help the seals that the first battle was the one most lopsided in terms of tonnage against them. Still they reaped a lot of DDs, pGB and Cas from the red fleet. Second battle went well first two turns, but now the Seal frigates are forced to decide: Stay in range for their primaries and get caught by the apn, or run but then don't fire. The 54 Fc in play do make a difference though.)

Colour red works for OOC...
 

Offline Erik L

  • Administrator
  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • *****
  • Posts: 5654
  • Thanked: 366 times
  • Forum Admin
  • Discord Username: icehawke
  • 2020 Supporter 2020 Supporter : Donate for 2020
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #171 on: April 15, 2015, 11:26:35 AM »
(It also didn't help the seals that the first battle was the one most lopsided in terms of tonnage against them. Still they reaped a lot of DDs, pGB and Cas from the red fleet. Second battle went well first two turns, but now the Seal frigates are forced to decide: Stay in range for their primaries and get caught by the apn, or run but then don't fire. The 54 Fc in play do make a difference though.)

Colour red works for OOC...
That's all the ooc tag was :)

Offline Erik L

  • Administrator
  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • *****
  • Posts: 5654
  • Thanked: 366 times
  • Forum Admin
  • Discord Username: icehawke
  • 2020 Supporter 2020 Supporter : Donate for 2020
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #172 on: April 15, 2015, 07:37:26 PM »
Off-Topic: show
Off topic text test.


See above

Offline Paul M

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #173 on: April 16, 2015, 02:10:14 AM »
Off-Topic: show
Great we are back in business.  As far as the FGs are concerned they should avoid being swarmed under.  Unless the idea is to sacrifice them to use up FRAM; that I don't think is a good trade.  They are useful against PGBs if they are out of Lx range.  The N is indeed nasty with the UTM changes. 

The other change of note in the UTM is the explicit statement that LT2 can be used on fMx...this makes the standard loadout the fMxLT2 because fighters have a limited throw weight and it works with fL which fM2-b does not.  Note SFA has the fMx-a but that is not possible as only AAM warheads can be mounted, and even so they do reduced damage.  I have to admit I don't fully understand the reason for this.  Fighters have been systematically nerfed by Ai, S0, Dz, and most critically Zi.  This reduces the effectiveness of non-blindspot launched fighter missiles to "hope and prayer."  Since you can't possibly saturate Dz with the missiles a F1 or F2 can carry (18) your only chance is to get the -3 modifier to work for you, as an added bonus the damage is laser which makes it "hard" compared to the shield only damage nuclear armed missiles will do for a long while. 

Another change we discussed was allowing Mix to have the function of Xr included in it.  This makes sense to me, mainly because the smaller higher tech version gets it...and frankly the size of Mix is excessive, far more than I think seems reasonable. 

Another point is identification of the command ship...basically I have 2 ships with 5 Rc and 1 ship with 4 Rc firing as a data group then picking out which one has the Mix on it is straight forward, worse later when you have to add in Z2c.  Yet you never see anyone "hunting the command ship", something I would think makes sense.  Even if you had no idea why the ship might have a weapon less ...clearly the volume is used for something else...clearly at least blowing it up first should be done as a test to see what then happens.

Fighters are very expensive attrition units, the RM currently pays ~50% of their carrier cost for fighters and if memory serves the magazine on the ship is equal to the ships construction cost.  The SCN recently reloaded Apn onto their transport ships and the cost of that was also non-trivial.  It is hard to say if the "magazine fund" is less or more expensive then the old fashioned way of building the missiles and paying for the magazine on the colliers that we are using.  What it does mean is that there is ship with several times its value in ordinance on board...that is paying constant maintenance.
 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #174 on: April 25, 2015, 01:57:26 AM »
Month 236, Undine Expanses, Helium system.
Fire Lord Deeply Diving was a handsome and dashing undine. His sleek pelt was groomed carefully and shining under the lights of his command bridge. He was known for his courage, and although tending to aggressive action he was wise enough to know when to break and run. Also he was considered lucky, an attribute which definitely had served him well when the Surge fleet under his command had swept the invaders from Helium nine months ago. But since then, only small reinforcements and repaired ships had arrived, with the shipyards busy fortifying Tantalum next door and refitting ships. Also, possible reinforcements in lighter units had been send to Telurium salt to hold there against further probes by the implacable foe. He still had his battle cruisers, even reinforced with six of the new long range Whiskey class battle cruisers, and the yards in ocean had promised to send over the Tango class battleships as soon as they were refitted. But he still lacked the close range firepower and mass of ships to slug it out, and thus his ships were deployed rather standoffish. Twenty-four Alpha class frigates held positions just in range for their beams at three light seconds, and where covered by nine Romeo class cruisers at four. Just closer to the warp point than the cruisers his eighteen Victor class battle cruisers stood ready, and his six Whiskeys stayed at six light seconds out of range for immediate discovery. Ready to hold the system as long as possible.

As usually, battle, when it happened for the defenders of a warp point was joined quickly and with surprise. Six dreadnaughts and 144 armed pinnaces appeared on the warp point, and lights flared up where 22 of the apn materialized within each other. A total of 96 gunboats launched from the dreadnaughts carrier racks, and the warp point became a maze of crossing hetlasers, capital force beams and primaries, leaving one frigate heavily damaged and one destroyed, and one of the invader dreadnaughts without shields and another cored by seven primaries.
Then another six dreadnaughts appeared and disgorged another 96 gunboats, while the armed pinaces moved through the minefield, loosing twelve to mine attacks. The undine ships moved slowly, applying what EM they could while whittling down shields and armor on the red fleet ships. With the primaries dealing further damage to the one dreadnaught and another loosing its shields and armour, the udines fared better than before. But then as the six second wave dreadnaughts stabilised their fire control, their combined fire ripped through the passives of an undine battle cruiser and slowed it, while he apn pushed the frigates away from the warp point. The BCs lend fire support to the frigates and killed 19 apn and stripped the shields of a missile dreadnaught, while the already damaged and slowed frigates fell to the fire of the small craft. The undine heavy cruisers and the missile battle cruisers managed to rip deep into the internals of the beam dreadnaught without passives, while the red fleet still concentrated on hurting the frigates.
But then, while the fourth wave, battleships again, arrived, the undine ships had to retreat but where caught by the 83 remaining apn. In an intense exchange of fire, the battle cruisers killed 78 of the apn, while 5 managed to fire, slowing one battle cruiser and leaving one with half its armour. This last one became the focus of the red fleet missile dreadnaughts, but with the first salvo already punching six missiles through, they switched to another battle cruiser swiftly. This one lost some shields but was able to flee with its comrades. Meanwhile, on the warp point, three of the battleships fired BAM-Rc into the minefield which the apn had already weakened.

While the undine ships continued to fleet, the Rc-armed dreadnaughts and battleships managed to slow down another two battle cruisers, raising the undine losses to five ships too slow to escape the eventual advance of capital ships.
The three red fleet minesweepers breached the remaining 12 patterns of mines, taking shields damage before sweeping them with hetlasers. Then the red fleet, after sending back its damaged ships, set into the long and slow chase, hunting down the five crippled BCs and the damaged frigates.

(Ok, another slow one in the fighting it out. Ouch.. I hadn't expected that effective fire against the apn. I then quickly calculated in my head, and Paul later confirmed my gu feeling with exact numbers, that I could have tossed all my 520 gun boats at the remaining 13 BC and escorts and they would maybe barely have made it into fL range.. ouch.  prototype gunboats really suffer through their lower closing speed and taking fire as starships. Up to now, they rarely had to do stern chases though. Still, 500 pgb are more than often got tossed at the ISW4 fleets, and the allies had more ships to defend + fighters. Only maybe in the late battles, but even there I am not sure. A screen by my reckoning should eat gunboats like crazy. so the red fleet didn't throw away 40k worth of gunboats to chase down the undines, as they would have lost them for no gain. Better stop when you are ahead, loosing 144 apn was already costly enough. Though I suspect fighter ECM will be part of the load out soon...).
 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #175 on: April 25, 2015, 05:07:51 PM »
T 237, Theban Empire, Nebetcher system.
Poking at Dragons!
Third Lay Magician Sekeret was almost besides himself when he finished listening to the report of frigate captain Mahoumeth. The worthy man had just finished probing the only waypoint Survey force 3 had found in this system next to Pedise. Pedise, where right now mobile yards were just beginning to assemble the support base for the undine relief force. Not that besides a month long chase around the bootlegger system and then watching the alien invaders in heir battleships concede that they couldn't really catch a faster force much had been accomplished in the last few weeks. But the task had been easy, just survey and make sure there were no unwelcome surprises next to Pedise. And now he listened with dismay as his subordinate described how he had exited a way point half an astronomical unit from the local sun. How he had examined all the rock balls the system sported to make sure they were not settled by any alien race. And how he then had been followed by a sensor echo back to the warp point, just to realise there were two more closing in on him while he did so. And then the forlorn sheep had transited the warp point after realising that he was shadowed by one of the red alien scout cruisers, disclosing the location of the warp point to these hostile aliens. With a heavy heart he ordered his mine layer and his survey ships into position to defend the warp point while sending a courier drone to Pedise. Then he settled down and prayed to the ancestors that the fleet elements in the area would reach him before any hostiles did. Hostiles now aware of his presence and where to find him because one man did not have the backbone to sacrifice himself and his ship for the good of his race.

No hope.. within an hour three light cruisers came through the warp point, catching his minelayer still busy deploying her cargo from the mine racks. With the first salvoes in sprint mode, despite the aftereffects of the warp transits, the mine layer displayed deep glowing craters all over her  armour and ripped wounds where the antimatter plasma had breached the thin belt.

While the theban ships weren't quickly of the mark, the fighters all declared readiness and launched from their bays, charging straight at the warp point. One of the Survey CAs managed to activate her weapons and fired for no effect, and in return one of the hostile CLs reduced the mine layer to a last engine, while the other two removed the passives from the Ostergötland light CL of the Thebans. In atonement, Mahoumeth charged his frigate forward with the fighters and send a CAM into the light cruisers shields. But these ignored the star ships completely and send a stream of missiles towards the fighters. Missiles able to engage the fighters and taking out nine of the 24 the Thebans had.

Seven fighters survived the defensive fire at a quarter light second and launched their rockets, but only 5 hit at that range. Still, better than nothing. The frigates plasma gun missed though, and the remaining Theban fire kind of bounced off the hostile ships. Now the three cruisers pounced towards the Theban fleet, leaving the survey frigate behind, and their fifteen gunboats  charged from the warp point as well, towards the intrepid frigate. Theban fire, though faster, still was unable to penetrate the cruisers point defence in more than homeopathic doses, unlike the hostiles. Five of their missiles got through, and with antimatter warheads  mission killed the Ostergötland light cruiser. Three gunboat groups fired as well, salvoing fighter missiles into the frigate and blotting it from the sky.
Next a survey cruiser was hammered out of data link by the relentlessly closing light cruisers. Most of the gun boats chased after the two small carriers, but he ones which had shot their missiles went after the crippled ships, though did not reach them yet.
Then the hostile light cruisers closed to almost a light second, but sprint mode missiles did not save the Thebans, deviated off target by the red fleets ECM systems. In retaliation, they demonstrated how sprint mode missiles should work, sending ten into one cruiser and seven into the up to now undamaged one. This left only the destroyer and the two carriers in the fight, but the carriers doom was approaching swiftly with the quick gunboats. But before the damaged cruiser or the destroyer could fire, the red fleets cruisers cycled their guns again and mission killed the cruiser and destroyed the destroyer in one hail of missiles. Without any defenders left and with the carriers caught before they could rearm the fighters, the survivors where swiftly chased down and destroyed.
Third Lay Magician Sekeret managed to send off a last courier drone, with a scathing remark about the cheapness of his ships electronics and guns.
it definitely was time to rethink the Theban survey fleet concept in face of such opponents. The Thebans were no longer facing backward empires but very aggressive high tech foes.
Due to the failure of the defence, the Thebans had no eyes in the system anymore to report what else might arrive on the heels of the small picket force.

(Theban survey forces where more optimised for surveying, and with light defensive capacities. But their passives and their missile launchers could use an upgrade to Wa at least. Also, by accident the Theban saved the Spiders from being visited by a nasty fleet. Well.. its now coming the Thebans way.. which in turn will force the Thebans to recall their fleet with the Cartel, as its the closest asset hey have. Now we'll have to see how that affects the cartels defence.

I'm quite proud of these nasty little picket ships.. :). They haven't been seen much yet, but when used they do kick ass so far.

CL JENNER class CL     AM2    1 XO, 5 XOg Racks    45 Hull    TL 10
[1] S1x9Acx9H(II)Q(I)Wa(II)WaWa(I)?3M3WaWa(BbS)XrDxZiDx(II)QLh(I)Mg [6]
45 RCP  5 MCP  50 FCP       Trg:4  Bmp +6        Cost =  1318.5/ 197.8
HTK 44   S1x9  Acx9  Dxx2  Wax5  Mgx1 
120x SM-a, 15x SM LT2, 25x AFM, 80x fR-a, 80x fM2
)
 

Offline Paul M

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #176 on: April 27, 2015, 07:06:09 AM »
The fate of the PGB is something of interest to the Shanirian's as they can't use fighters so they are stuck with Apn and PGB.  I'm not sure the PGB would not be better off with 2x4 rows rather than 4x2 rows.  Currently they can only fire 4x3=12 fMx or fRAM then following up with 12 fL for the close range hack and slash.  If they had 2x4 rows and could ripple fire 6x3 = 18 fMx or fRAM followed by 6 fL for the hack and slash or carry 2x3=6 AFM or SMa or SMLT2 they may be much more effective.  The Apn are dangerous mainly if the other person isn't ready for them...but as the above battle showes enough beams can cut them appart before they can make a short range launch...and a long range launch is a case of leakers only.

The calculations on the PGBs I think are "conservative" and basically with all the fire coming their way I don't see how they can go in unsupported.  The CAs with their Wa's make a huge dent into the numbers while the BCs Fc's are effective over a longer range.  But you have to include in there the Wa's in standard mode,  Rc fire against broken datagroups and Dc fire as well.  The Shanirian's with their use of the Ra probably face some problems but on the other hand they also have beams available but the big advantage to the Wa is the fires twice.  Once in sprint mode this is what reaps gunboats.

For the undine's...9 CAs with 7 Wa once you get into sprint mode:  9*7*2*0.35 (average value of tohit) = 44 PGBs/round for 3-4 rounds and that is a lot of PGBs gone....176 with the expected 4 rounds of fire.  In a final fire situation at range 0 or 1...that is: 9*7*2*0.6 = 75 PGBs more.  That is half the strike right there.  The BCs manage a fair few PGBs with their Fc, Wa, and Dc mix.  12*3*0.35*8= 100 from Fc, 12*3*2*0.35*4= 100 from Wa in sprint mode, and 12*3*0.5+12*3*0.3= 29 from Dc.  Add in 4 rounds of fire from the Wa's in standard mode, plus the fire from the 6 BCRs and not much of anything survives to get to point blank range.  And the fire at point blank range is devestating...9 Fc, 9 Wa, 9 Dz (leaving 15 shots of the Dc to defend the ship) per BC datagroup...9*(0.7+2*0.6+0.5) = 21 PGBs per BC datagroup firing at range 0 or 1.  So the 500 PGB strike doesn't look to be likely to do much damage before it evaporates.

Neither Starslayer nor I even begin to understand why the TFN had such worry about gunboats.   They had escorts sufficient to kill anything that closed and fighters to ensure that not much survived to close.  The only time I can see them worried is on a WP defence where you could theoretically throw 2000+ GBs through the WP as manned SBMHAWK...but outside of a sudden shocking arrival like that the damage inflicted on them by a layered defence would be catastrophic.  The other case where they become deadly is if you can't slow down their closure...so on a coverging course where they close effectively 14 hexes per turn...that makes them far more dangerous.

Fighter ECM is on the Shanirian's list of things to get...  The RM never bothered as they felt it reduced the fighters firepower too much but something like Pn2 has the fXo's for it.  The shanirians likely will ask for Pn2 with datagroups.

Also Starslayer and I talked about it and decided to implement that Mix has Xr included.  Seems odd that it is part of the smaller 2Mix system but not the original and it helps enable one to fit Mix in things like BCs.

 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #177 on: June 24, 2015, 05:27:28 PM »
Month 238, Pedise System, Theban Empire
Fifth Lay Magician watched as his fleet assembled around the warp point to Nebertcher, where last month the survey fleet had perished against a measly three light cruisers from the red fleet. All the ships send to this frontier sector to assist the Cannon Cartell had been withdrawn and united into one strong fleet, consisting of six battleships, three battlecruisers, nine heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, a carrier, nine destroyers and three escort carriers. And the second Theban fleet was in its way to this sector, bringing with it all the might the empire was able to project. The Theban strategy of strongly fortifying key systems and known points of contact was not so fortunate now, leaving the empire with fewer mobile assets than one could wish for against such a formidable and technologically advanced foe. But still, in six weeks the most powerful battle line of the known galaxy would stand together with his fleet and defend the system, if supplies allowed it. But by the second week of the month, a war bulletin forwarded by the Cartell showed him the error of his assumption. The Theban Second fleet, even united with his ships, might not be the heaviest battle line after all. United with the first fleet, yes, but by its own it was that no longer. Anyway, freighters were busy moving mines from one warp point towards this one, and mine control bases where shaking down and ready to be towed over, and the first two Apis emergency bases finished assembly and had been emplaced alongside his ships. Then the eighteenth day came around, and the warp point spit forth six battleships. The enemy was probing already, and in force. Unfortunately, despite their arrival vectors wildly scattering the only one to present its rear aspect was the first ship and quickly turned about before the Theban weapons could respond.
Intense laser fire flashed between the invading battleships and the six Amon class destroyers holding station three light seconds away, leaving two battleships with light armour damage and two destroyers with breached armour and damage to their engines. Theban missile fire was absorbed by the battleships shields, but the ready squadron of fighters was quick to react and eighteen fighters raked the ship with laser fire from a distance, ripping away huge swaths of armour. Then the battleships turned about and vanished back into the warp point, leaving the defenders high strung and waiting until general quarters had to be abandoned.

Silence reigned for barely 37 hours. Then the wrap point agitated again, spitting forth six dreadnaughts which launched 96 gunboats. Another 162 flashed into existence just on the heels of the last dreadnaught. 26 of them immediately vanished in the glaring annihilation of matter which proved that despite all wishes atoms cannot exist within each other. Nor can larger objects. The first dreadnaught fired five hetlasers and two missiles, and despite transit hit with all of them. By happenstance his target was the already damaged Amon class destroyer and it just winked out into a spreading cloud of incandescent gas. In a pattern already well known the Theban close in defenders at  three and four light seconds distance where slow to activate, and thus only two destroyers and a Urt-hekau CA responded and scourged furrows into the thick armour belt of a dreadnaught.

Unwilling to  go out in a blaze of glory against that many gunboats, the CAP stayed away from the warp point for now and tried bringing its squadrons up to readiness, staying out of range for fire from capital point defences. The Theban destroyers and heavy cruisers in the close range group moved forward by a half light second, modulating their engines, but for the two crippled destroyers. The red fleets dreadnaughts swung about, facing now the way the Thebans would sooner or later go, while another six dreadnaughts materialized and spat out gunboats. 232 gunboats raced from the warp points and within three quarters of a light seconds from the Theban ship group. The Theban CAP was next to discover an unwelcome surprise, as three dreadnaughts used two Dcx each to swat one squadron completely from the sky, while sending their combined firepower into an Urt-Hekau cruiser. But these were assault ships and it weathered the fire well, losing only a third of its armor and two thirds of its shields. The Theban destroyers turned their fire against the closing gunboats, killing five in total in a display of imperial marksmanship...not. In contrast, another squadron of Theban fighters was burned out of the sky by the second data group of Demolisher class dreadnaughts, even while they burned away the remaining passives on the Urt-hekau. Lasers and the six CAM of the two active Urt-Hekaus killed another six gunboats, then the newly arrived dreadnaughts started to fire and revealed themselves as Catapult class ships. The Theban light cruiser, who held their fire before, now send a swarm of sprint mode missiles into the advancing gunboats from 1.5 ls away, accounting for another seven. Then two Theban Dua class cruiser ripped away half the armour on a Demolisher with their X-ray lasers. In return, a catapult send five missiles into Archeron, one of the two Aten class light cruisers, eliminating its passive defences and the first engine room. While the last Dua joined its brethren in scourging armour of the  Demolisher, another catapult punched two more missiles past Archerons defensive fire and crippled the old and proud ships ability to flee anymore. In response, the three Candace class cruisers, Calvacade, Claude Auchinleck and Candace herself send a withering storm of 42 sprint missiles towards the gunboats, killing 12. Then a Catapult took Nekbeth, the lead ship of the CL Nekbeth class under fire, and destroyed her passive defences. While the five active Osiris class battleships and the three Busiris battlecruisers reduced the demolishers armour further with laser torpedoes, the last catapult crippled Nekbeths engines. Then a blizzard of fighter lasers reached out to the close range defenders, but due to the range, two of the heavy cruiser survived, even though but for one crippled the destroyers did not... and one motorized laser... ( xxxx(I)L ).

The 96 gunboats on the warp point lunged forward, coming within three light seconds of the motorized laser. The 215 forward ones flew onward, to swarm over the two slowed light cruisers, but only within a light second of the six heavy cruisers and the remaining undamaged Aten CL, who all had moved away from the warp point now, only turning to engage their pursuers. The six Demolishers moved from the warp point in pursuit, while the catapults turned around in order to follow the defenders soon, and six battleships appeared on it. First to fire again where the crippled light cruisers, spitting defiance at the gunboats and taking five of them along into the darkness. Then three Demolishers fired at the more damaged Urt-Hekau, who while trying to keep the gunboats in sight had allowed the heavies to slip into its blind spot, and paid dearly, being reduced by missiles and lasers to a floating engine room. The last remaining Urt-Hekau took four gunboats down, but the other three demolishers ignored it, instead sending their fire into the last undamaged Athen, Absolution, which got hit by five missiles and eleven lasers, leaving it wide open and burning. It took out two gunboats with its sprint missile, and then its crew braced for the soon coming end. Next to face fire was Claude Auchinleck, but with two EDM deployed all but one missile was shot down, and thus her shields held out. In return she and her sisters removed thirteen gunboats from space. The other data group of Catapults then ravaged Claude Auchinlecks armour with seven second generation laser torpedoes, reducing it to a sliver. The two still inactive apis class bases got ripped apart by the six battleships on the warp point. Then the swarming gunboats removed the light cruisers except Aten, a Dua and all Candace class heavy cruisers from the line of battle, leaving them crippled or even drifting clouds of gas. Theban long range fire from the Busiris and Oiris class ships removed the armour of the damaged catapults and two engine rooms, ending that vessels pursuit.

The intense fight continued. Even though one carrier was not yet active, the Theban carriers launched their fighters towards an intercept while turning to move away. The Theban heavies moved further away, turning to keep the Demolishers out of their blind spots and keeping out of range of the gunboats, but with them slipping just into their blind spots also not able to engage them. The Duas raced onwards, and turned a bit to engage the Demolishers, while keeping out of range from the smaller gunboat group. Six battlecruisers joined the ships on the warp point. The Catapults also moved in pursuit, while the battleships turned. First to fire were the two Demolishers, but they failed to do more than scratch the armour of a Dua. The two Duas retaliated and removed a sizeable portion of a Demolishers armour. In return, the damaged Dua was reduced to it last engine room. The surviving Urt-Hekau killed three gunboats, while Absolution died from laser torpedoes launched from the demolishers. Next the Catapults fired at six light seconds upon one of the Busiris class battlecruisers, Banshee. Unfortunately, she had not yet received the latest in Theban armour technology, but her passive defences just held against that salvo. In return she and her squad mates damaged the Demolisher already targeted by the Duas further with laser torpedoes. Then the other Catapults  managed to send seventeen capital missiles on target with seven penetrating her point defences and crippling her. In return, the Osiris class battleships engaged the Demolisher further and reduced her shields to a third.

The red fleets ships advanced further from the warp point. The Theban ships maneuvered adroitly and managed to keep the enemy ships out of their blind spots, but this allowed the gun boats to close to just short of a light second. The first Theban data group of Osiris BBs fired, and whiped 22 gunboats from the sky, and reduced the shields on the second damaged Demolisher further. The Catapults answered, with their missiles streaking towards a Busiris BC and their capital energy beams engaging the last Dua who had sneaked up to them, taking out most of his engines by ignoring that ships thick armour belt. Benedict Arnold managed to shot down all but two incoming missiles by a combination fo point defence and EDM, only loosing her shields. South Dakota ripped away a quarter of a Catapults armour, but then was targeted again by those capital energy beams, and was left a drifting ghost ship by the electricity playing havoc inside its hull.
Benedict Arnold was unable to repeat her earlier feat and six CM-a smashed into her, taking out her armour and four engine rooms. Her combined salvo with Bangladesh failed to penetrate the Demolishers point defence, but two more gunboats died to their beams. Four laser torpedoes from the complete demolisher group hit home on her after that, while their hetlasers sought out the remaining Urt-Hetau, burning through its armour and into its engines. In return, it took out another gun boat. Even well protected industrial age lasers are not really weapons for this age anymore. Then it got targeted by the two other demolishers, and melted but for some rudimentary systems and a solitary laser. In return, the other Osiris data group managed to send six missiles through the Demolishers defences, and ripped away its passives and killed another 17 gunboats, leaving only 120. The red fleets Daiku battleships cleared up crippled destroyers and cruisers while chasing after the Theban fleet.
Things now came to a conclusion. The gunboats caught up to the Thebans battleships, and the Theban fighters closed to them at a quarter light second, while the various ships moved further in-system. As luck would have it the Theban crews where quicker of the mark, and the Osiris class BBs fired first. 17 gunboats died, a few evading at the last moment. And six more missiles crippled the Demolisher. Then 14 fighter missiles slammed home into October, not quite enough to kill her but she only had four advanced missile launchers left to defend herself, killing two gunboats. Octopus and Ovango accounted for another 15, and send one missile home into the demolisher. Another FRAM salvo rocked home, then the Theban fighters reaped seven gunboats, while loosing four of their number to the gunboats point defences. After the intense exchange cleared, 74 gunboats and 38 fighters had died. Almost as an afterthought, the catapults cleaned up the remaining Busiris battle cruiser and the crippled ones, aided by long range fire from the Demolishers.
The remaining gunboats of this wave turned back and sought cover near the red fleets ships, daring the fighters to come after them. But the 96 of the second wave set out to pursue the Theban carriers which now were in full flight.
An attempt by the fighters to intercept ended badly, with the fighters taking down some gunboats but perishing afterwards, leaving the carriers defenceless to be chased down.
It has been black day for the Theban navy. Several days later, 9 million Thebans ceased to exist in Pedise, alongside the yards and stockpiles of prefab bases..
 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #178 on: June 24, 2015, 05:31:33 PM »
Theban ship classes involved:

BB OSIRIS III class BB     AM2    20 XO Racks    100 Hull    TL 9
[2]S0x14Acx18H(BbS)RcRcQ(III)?2RcRc(III)RcRcXr(III)M5DcWax3Dc(III)DcLhQWax3!2DzZi(III)MgMg[5]
100 RCP       Trg:6  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  2420/ 363
HTK 75   S0x14  Acx18  Dzx1  Dcx3  Rcx6  Wax6  Mgx2 
120x SM-a, 102x CM-a, 4x CM LT1, 24x SBM-a, 2x EDM (Mg)

BC BUSIRIS V class BC     AM2    16 XO Racks    80 Hull    TL 8
[2] S0x8Aix10H(III)Q(II)(BbS)(III)(II)(III)DcRcx6Xr!2?2DcM4DzZiQLh(II)(HET)Mg [6]
80 RCP  20 MCP       Trg:5  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  1762/ 264.3
HTK 54   S0x8  Aix10  Dzx1  Dcx2  (HET)x1  Rcx6  Mgx1 
5x CM, 60x CM-a, 24x CM LT1, 6x BAM-Rc, 2x EDM (Mg)

CA CANDACE VI class CA     AM2    12 XOa Racks    60 Hull    TL 9
[1] S0x8Acx15H(BbS)(II)WaWaQDz(II)Wa(II)WaDzM5(II)!2WaDz(II)WaWaMgDzZiLhQ?2(II) [6]
60 RCP  40 MCP       Trg:6  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  1663/ 249.4
HTK 56   S0x8  Acx15  Dzx4  Wax7  Mgx1 
140x SM-a, 6x SBM, 3x CAM (Mg), 28x BAM-R, 2x EDM (Mg)

CA DUA III class CA     AM2    12 XO Racks    60 Hull    TL 9
[1] S0x6Acx21H(BbS)(II)Q(II)Dz(II)(II)Dz(II)!2?2M3Lxx4(Dec)MgDzZiLhQ(II) [6]
60 RCP  40 MCP       Trg:4  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  1426/ 213.9
HTK 57   S0x6  Acx21  Dzx3  Lxx4  Mgx1 
6x CM, 6x CAM (Mg), 80x LWH

CA URT-HEKAU IV class CA     AM2    12 XO Racks    60 Hull    TL 9
[1] S0x12Acx30(BbS)H(II)Q(II)?2XrsL(II)DzL(II)DzM3L(II)DzZi!2QLhL(II) [6]
60 RCP  40 MCP       Trg:4  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  1384/ 207.6
HTK 71   S0x12  Acx30  Dzx3  Lx4 

CL ATEN V class CL     AM2    9 XOa Racks    45 Hull    TL 9
[1] S0x6Acx9H(BbS)(II)QsWa(I)Wa(II)?2DzWaXrM5(I)Wa(II)!2WaQsZiDz(I)Mg [6]
45 RCP  5 MCP       Trg:6  Bmp +4  Tem -2        Cost =  1252.5/ 187.9
HTK 41   S0x6  Acx9  Dzx2  Wax5  Mgx1 
20x SM, 100x SM-a, 3x SBM, 20x BAM-R, 1x EDM (Mg)

CL NEKHBET V class CL     AM2    9 XO Racks    45 Hull    TL 8
[1] S0x4Aix8HWa(II)Qs(I)Wa(II)Wa(I)?2M2WaDzXr(II)(CIC)MgDzZiQs(BbS)(I) [6]
45 RCP  5 MCP       Trg:3  Bmp +4        Cost =  1091.5/ 163.7
HTK 37   S0x4  Aix8  Dzx2  Wax4  Mgx1 
120x SM

DD AMON IV class DD     AM2    6 XO Racks    30 Hull    TL 8
[1] S0S0Aix5ZHs(I)(I)Qs(I)DzL(I)LM2(I)(I)DzQs(I)L [7]
30 RCP  20 MCP       Trg:3        Cost =  596/ 89.4
HTK 24   S0x2  Aix5  Dzx2  Lx3 

CV ANQET III class CV     AM2    17 XO Racks    85 Hull    TL 9
[1] S0x12Acx15(BbL)(III)H?2Vx6Q(II)Vx6Dc(III)Vx6Q(II)Vx6DzQ(III)Vx6QCVx6ZiQLhXrMgMgDz(II) [6]
85 RCP  15 MCP  36 FCP       Trg:1  Bmp +4        Cost =  2075/ 311.2
HTK 94   S0x12  Acx15  Dzx2  Dcx1  Vx36  Mgx2 
2x EDM (Mg), 108x fG, 108x fR, 216x fR-a, 108x fL, 432x fM

CVE AHEMAIT class CVE    AM    6 XO Racks    30 Hull    TL 9
[1] S0x3Acx3ZHs(I)(I)(I)(I)(I)Xr(I)Vx12QDzQLh(I)Mg [7]
30 RCP  20 MCP  12 FCP       Trg:1        Cost =  685/ 102.7
HTK 33   S0x3  Acx3  Dzx1  Vx12  Mgx1 
36x fG, 72x fR-a, 36x fL, 144x fM-a

BS1 APIS class BS1       5 XO Racks    25 Hull    TL 8
[1] S0x6Aix5ZHsFx3M4?2QsF

25 RCP       Trg:5  Bmp +4        Cost =  477/ 23.9
HTK 20   S0x6  Aix5  Fx4 
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 06:08:26 PM by Starslayer_D »
 

Offline Starslayer_D (OP)

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Theban Empire
« Reply #179 on: June 24, 2015, 06:15:44 PM »
T239 Theban Empire

The situation quickly became even worse.
Bishenphat, a very productive and vital system with 3 habitable worlds, was probed from a warp point leading to a starless nexus by a red fleet scout. The local fleet responded quickly but was unable to catch it as it turned around.
Nepherenhat, a very rich world settled by a about 490 million Thebans was also probed by a scout through a closed warp point. The probe was observed by the local sensor net but the wrap point could not be pinpointed. In response, a fleet was send towards the system. Unfortunately, the closest substantial fleet was unable to reply due to the third event.
Stockholm, right next to Lemuria, was a mining system. Unfortunately, this time the scout ship was immediately followed by a croup of light cruisers who escorted a bombardment ship which proceeded to while out all the moon colonies in the system before the Lemurian home fleet could race to their defence. The Malmo Picket of nine BBs and the Lemuria home fleet now bracketed the lifeless system, guarding against further incursions.