Author Topic: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?  (Read 3322 times)

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Offline blue emu (OP)

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... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« on: October 20, 2011, 10:46:20 PM »


... ouch.

The hostile had a Shield Strength of 45,000 (!), a Thermal Signature of 16,000, 350 m-km active sensors, and moved at 4,000 kps (so it wasn't a Swarm Mothership, presumably).

They're only two jumps from Earth, one jump from my first interstellar colony... and I'm only three years into the game.

This does NOT look good... it would take a simultaneous time-on-target salvo by 5,000 strength-9 missiles just to dent their shield!

Any idea who these jokers are?
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2011, 12:50:22 AM »
The only thing I know that uses even remotely but still far lower amounts of shields would be a swarm matriarch ... But from the Swarm Mothership thread those seem to have 2500TH and 6250km/s and 5000 shield strength, so absolutly no clue o.o Unless that thing is actively cloaked (ha, as if), it needs to be almost exclusivly shields!? Invaders, perhaps?
 

Offline blue emu (OP)

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2011, 04:31:38 AM »
If it was the Swarm, I would have expected it to fire Mesons at me. There was no fire at all... no Beams, no Missiles... just a Ramming Attack.
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2011, 04:55:39 AM »
Ramming is more in the lines of precursors ... Though I only know of troop transports and those alike to be unarmed. Haven't seen a precursor ship with shields yet, either. Do invaders ram?

You *must* capture that thing, not destroy it! :D
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2011, 04:57:52 AM »


... ouch.

The hostile had a Shield Strength of 45,000 (!), a Thermal Signature of 16,000, 350 m-km active sensors, and moved at 4,000 kps (so it wasn't a Swarm Mothership, presumably).

They're only two jumps from Earth, one jump from my first interstellar colony... and I'm only three years into the game.

This does NOT look good... it would take a simultaneous time-on-target salvo by 5,000 strength-9 missiles just to dent their shield!

Any idea who these jokers are?

If you ask me, it sounds like the captain flew his ship into an asteroid and is now filing a false insurance claim :)

Steve
 

Offline Zed 6

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2011, 06:11:40 AM »
That answer made my day!  ;D
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2011, 02:29:31 AM »
By any chance, do you have the database of that game and are willing to hand it out? ;D I wanna tame an asteroid ;o
 

Offline blue emu (OP)

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2011, 06:18:06 AM »
Not sure if I've still got it... I did start a new game not long after that.

EDIT: Found it!

Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?4cjucz7ehn17j2s

The save you want is: Empire of Terra
« Last Edit: October 23, 2011, 06:29:55 AM by blue emu »
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #8 on: October 23, 2011, 06:37:29 AM »
Thank you very much :D I'll play around with this a bit ...

And wow, an 800 MB database o.o
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2011, 08:19:29 AM »
Alright. Coincidentally an alien race lives just one jump from the Wolf 359 system with remarkably identical technology compared to humanity. They enter the system on the 27th of July with their main combat fleet (also a coincidence) and turn their sensors on ...

Two ships are detected on a 245° bearing from the fleet, 60kt in size and moving at 1000 km/s. Passive sensors pick up a 16k thermal signature close to the system's star, a dim red dwarf. While unknown to humanity, this race is able to determine the ships as of biological origin - the star swarm - albeit the 16k thermal reading suggest ... unnerving proportions of the infestation in this system.

*edit 1*

The fleet sets course towards a (human) wreck of 2700 tons, while the star swarm ships take an intercept course. 14 minutes later, the two 60kt queens start charging their shields, still 867 million kilometres away from the fleet. The 16k thermal contact heads on a 4° course towards the star, either oblivious or ignorant towards the newly arrived fleet.

Plagued by a very slow perception of time due to combat someplace else in the galaxy, events unfold slowly ...

*edit 2*

Another 24 minutes later, the 16k thermal signature changes course and now heads for the fleet as well. A special sensor dummy is launched carrying a sensor dedicated to capital ship detection. The contact isn't yet in range, but the sensor should allow for more detailed readings from almost 1.8 billion kilometres away in due time.

*edit 3*

Half an hour later, a space-time bubble wraps itself around the system.
Another hour later, the sensor craft receives echo signals from the 16k thermal signature. Apparently, the ship has a displacement of 200kt, heavily suggesting it to be a matriarch of the swarm. Thermal signatures do not match the previously encountered matriarchs, however.

A fleet compartment breaks formation with the command ship, consisting of ten Bitra class battleships, ten Fachad class frigates, ten Olour class destroyers and five Wara class corvettes.

*edit 4*

The fleet prepares throughly as they approach the two queens. Until intercept, almost five days will pass. The command ship turns off its active sensors and the leading battleship Bitra turns on its own sensor arrays.
This proofs to be a mistake on the fleet's side, as one and a half day into the intercept, eighty previously unnoticed gunboats appear on top of the fleet and shred Bitra within seconds with their meson armament. The fleet scrambles, the Olour destroyers with their laser batteries aiming on the gunboats, while the rest of the fleet continues towards the queens. Command ship sensor go back online shortly therafter.

*edit 5*

A total of five Bitras has been destroyed be the swarm soldiers before the escorts could dispatch all eighty of them.

In the meantime, the 200kt ship fully charged its shield to a strength of 1500, which again does not align with previous matriarch sightings nor the logs the command ship could extract from the 2700 ton human wreck.

*edit 6*

Olour laser batteries dispatch the two queens from a safe distance within a couple minutes. Bitra missiles were saved for the eventual confrontation with the 200kt mothership.
During this maneuver a further one hundred and sixty swarm soldiers are detected only fify million kilometres away from the intercept group. Their superior speed proves them to be quite a thread and another dog fight with the numerous beam escorts ensues.

*edit 7*

The soldiers are destroyed, albeit with the loss of nine Fachad class frigates, eliminating all PD capabilities of the intercept group. However, the Fachads could serve only minor roles against the 200kt mothership due to their limited range and the swarm has never been observed to use missiles. The remaining Fachad collects all life pods and returns to the command ship and the remainder of the fleet alone, while the Olour, Wara and Bitra ships head for the giant.

*edit 8*

No more queens or soldiers are encountered while the fleet closes in on the 200kt mothership. At fourty million kilometres distance, the shortsword missiles are targeted onto the enemy ship, but ECM won't allow proper calibrations until a distance of at most thirty-five million kilometres is between the ships.

Ipyt class dropships are dispatched from the carriers at the command ship fleet compartment. They will take roughly a day to arrive at the 200kt mothership.

*edit 9*

Several minutes later, each of the four Bitra battleships has launched roughly one thousand missiles with a delay of thirty seconds between each wave. About fifteen minutes from now, the first wave will reach its target and the command ship prepares the sensors for an immediat shutdown should the shield be breached and minor internal damaged achieved.
The shortswords, which are without on-board sensors, should then self destruct, leaving the mothership hopefully damaged but intact.

*edit 10*

The first salvo arrives and hits - out off the four hundred missiles, three hundred and nine penetrate the point defenses and hit the shield, reducing it to about fifty percent of its original strength. Command prepares for a sensor shutdown after the third wave.

Due to the mothership's intercept course, the next salvo hits its target twenty seconds later. The shields managed to regenerate about 7% of its maximum strength. The microwave-armed Wara corvettes break formation and race for the mothership. The idea is to cripple most of its electronic components while the shields are down, as the Iypt dropships won't arrive in time and no more missiles are available.

The third wave manages to eradicate the target's shields, no fluid leaks are detected however. Command refuses to shut down sensors just yet and waits for the fourth wave to hit.

Salvo #4 fails to breach the armour. Command is getting nervous as to the thickness of the armour and the damage allocation of the missiles. The strength four warheads proved efficient in reducing the shields, but apparently fail against the heavy armour. Wave five will be left to hit its target.

Even the fifth salvo failed to penetrate the armour. Point defense fire was observed to shoot down no more than a hundred missiles per salvo - so far the armour successfully absorbed two thousand shortsword missiles without breach.

The sixth missile wave disappears from scanners without visible effect as well. Command ponders whether any missile will penetrate the swarm's armour.

After wave seven and eight, the swarm mothership absorbed just short about three thousand without taking any visible damage to its combat efficiency.

... Salvo eleven penetrates the armour in multiple locations. At least three fluid leaks are detected, but the sensors show no difference in the motherships' signature. Wave twelve will be allowed to hit, but all sensor stations are reminded of their impeding and vital shutdown.

*edit 11*

Wave twelve penetrates the armour again and at least one of the motherships' engines fails. Its thermal signature is reduced and its speed falls by 20 km/s.
Wave thirteen is allowed to impact and reduces the speed further, but insignificiantly.
Wave fourteen causes an internal explosion, but no further performance changes are detected.
Wave fifteen finally reduces the motherships' thermal sensor signature to 14k, but command decides to let the final two missile salvos reach its target as well.

In the end, seventeen salvos hit the target and no sensor shutdown was performed. The mothership was reduced to a speed of 2820 km/s, but its advance could not be halted. Its shields regenrate at an alarming rate and reach eighty percent of their maximum strength before halting.

As the corvettes close in, it becomes apparent how most of the missile damage must have hit the weapon systems. Only a few beam impacts are reported by the flotilla, although they bypass all armour ... the corvettes are destroyed within seconds due to the powerful shield the mothership is engulfed in yet again. Command regrets the loss of the corvettes and their microwave armament, but the laser batteries of the Olour destroyers should outrange the mothership's point defense. This way, the shield could be worn down and a boarding by Ipyt dropships attempted within half a day.

*edit 12*

The Olour destroyers open fire as the mothership enters their range. Their reversal maneuvers is delayed however, as the crews struggle to execute their orders in unison. This endangers the entire flotilla of ten destroyers and the mothership comes ever closer. Compared to a single destroyer, it's almost twenty times as large and the silence of its weapons as the laser batteries hammer on its shield frightens the destroyer crews - the ship refuses to slow down and heads directly for the bulk of the fleet.

Fifty thousand kilometres away from the destroyers, the mothership open fires on one of the destroyers, bypassing the armour and bringing it down to 2700 km/s. Only five seconds later, a new hail of beams impacts and breaks most of the internal systems. The first destroyer is obliterated just a moment later. A lucky shot from the dying destroyer manages to set off a chain of internal explosion within the swarm mothership ... which destroys it entirely.






... And thus I failed to capture it, damn. Created a new player faction in a system and linked it to Wolf 359. Added the human tech 1:1 to my new empire and used the OOB point to create the fleet. Gotta retry =´C
Though I'm pretty sure now that it's 'just' a matriarch at a slightly lower tech level than the other one posted. No idea how the 45k shield strength came to be as it only ever goes to 1500 when I encounter it, but the event log shows it clearly.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2011, 01:02:16 PM by Vynadan »
 

Offline blue emu (OP)

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2011, 10:05:25 PM »
Perhaps the "45,000 shield strength" reported by our sensors doesn't equate 1-to-1 with the shield's damage deflection capability? A 30-to-1 ratio would bring it down to 1,500 effective deflection strength...
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2011, 04:07:55 AM »
Perhaps there's a margin for guesswork as it is with active sensor ranges? Though x30 seems like a bit much ...  Too bad the player can't ram to test this out.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2011, 12:26:36 PM »
Shields give off an EM signature equal to 30x the strength of the shield. I probably should display the shield strength for contacts rather than the strength of the EM signature

Steve
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: ... did anyone get the number of that truck?
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2011, 01:20:20 PM »
o_o

That explains it.