What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?

[icecoldblood]

Sounds like someone's aggressively making his way up the command ladder.

[83athom]

In a system right next to Sol 2 wrecks just poped up after a couple days of slow-down (not 5 sec, all have been between 30 sec and 1 day). One is 24,000 tons and the other is 73,000 tons. They are about 12.5b km away from my survey ship around the second star in the system... it is a really big quad system made from 2 binaries. Unfortunately the orbiting binary group is about 0.17LY away from the main star, and it doesn't have a LP. It may be an interplanetary war between neighbors as BIII and BIV (BIV has the wrecks on it)  are both within the realms of npr generation.

FINALLY, it seems the first sentence was forbidden as it was keeping me from posting.

[Mastik]

1st Contact:  May 2128

  Survey ships were sent into Wolf 359 system (one of 6 JPs out of Sol).  System survey shows 4 JPs all with gates, and a stable wormhole.  Planetary survey ship encountered a single alien warship, no shots have been fired, diplomatic relations have been opened and appear to be doing well.  Getting error 6 pop ups Ugh!

  Prior to discovery of this race, i assigned delivery of 5 deep space tracking stations to one of the planets.    Hope the locals don't mind. 

[Mastik]

Updates,

  Managed to deploy the deep space sensors in Wolf system while the locals were friendly.  Had diplomacy at 0 then they turned on us and now wont talk to us.  Maybe they didnt like the alliance scanning their system bodies  .  Planet survey 1 completed its survey of the Wolf system, but was destroyed by a wave of missiles soon after.

  Sensors have detected the wormhole has moved twice.  Didnt know the wormhole would move around.

  One class of ships is sporting a S720/R1 sensor, i wonder if that is causing the error 6.  The error has gone away for now.

[Jumpp]

There's a system that had some wrecks. I cleared them, and killed a handful of hostile missile boats there of ~7500 tons and ~5300kps.

This is pretty routine. I see this in lots of systems. Once the missile boats are dead, I can operate safely.

This time, though, a lone geo survey ship got picked off some months later. It happened pretty fast, but I got a quick look at the shooter: It was doing something like 12,500 km/s.

My fastest warships at this point are doing 8750. I'm playing a bit of cat-and-mouse with this guy. He likes to pick off stray unarmed ships, but won't get near the big warships. I've tried luring him to the JG so that I can pounce on him at close range, but he doesn't ever take the bait.

Any time I want to run ships through that system--and there's a fair amount of valuable wreckage on the far side of it so that happens a far bit--I have to detail some warships to babysit the civvies.

From my POV, this is an entirely new AI behavior. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this when I used to play a few years ago. I don't know if this is new, or if I just never ran into it before, but it's pretty cool.

I suppose I'll eventually get around to building a ship fast enough to hunt this guy down...but maybe not. I get a kick out of what he's doing.

[Erik L]

There's a system that had some wrecks. I cleared them, and killed a handful of hostile missile boats there of ~7500 tons and ~5300kps.

This is pretty routine. I see this in lots of systems. Once the missile boats are dead, I can operate safely.

This time, though, a lone geo survey ship got picked off some months later. It happened pretty fast, but I got a quick look at the shooter: It was doing something like 12,500 km/s.

My fastest warships at this point are doing 8750. I'm playing a bit of cat-and-mouse with this guy. He likes to pick off stray unarmed ships, but won't get near the big warships. I've tried luring him to the JG so that I can pounce on him at close range, but he doesn't ever take the bait.

Any time I want to run ships through that system--and there's a fair amount of valuable wreckage on the far side of it so that happens a far bit--I have to detail some warships to babysit the civvies.

From my POV, this is an entirely new AI behavior. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this when I used to play a few years ago. I don't know if this is new, or if I just never ran into it before, but it's pretty cool.

I suppose I'll eventually get around to building a ship fast enough to hunt this guy down...but maybe not. I get a kick out of what he's doing.

Someone hacked you and is playing you multiplayer in Aurora

[83athom]

Jumpp, did you make sure to turn everything off on your ambushers (actives off, shields off, and speed set to 0/1 kms [doing this is more important than you think])? Also what you could do is make a giant (relative) ring that interlocks the fc/weapons of your ships that are ambushing so there would be no escape (if you have enough ships) while your "lone" unarmed ship sits in the middle "surveying". Also, mines.

[Jumpp]

The hostile is in Ross, which is connected to Struve. What I did was:

I parked a fleet in Struve, at the JG to Ross. They'd have been sitting there with actives on and speed set to max. (They have no shields.)

I sent a freighter through the JG, from Struve into Ross. It sat at the JG with its transponder on. I'm a little hazy on exactly what the transponder does. (I'd love to look this up in the Wiki.) I vaguely recall that it broadcast your position to pretty much everyone in the system, so I was hoping that this would attract the bad guy. Freighter sat on the JG for many days, with no sign of badguy. Either badguy wasn't interested, or badguy can't see my freighter.  This freighter would have a thermal signature of, I dunno, probably 1600.

When that failed to attract him, I sent through several more bait ships and turned on their transponders. Two salvagers and four more similar freighters. This wouldn't have made the target any more visible--all these ships have thermal signatures comparable to that of the other freighter--but it might make the target more attractive.

Neither of these efforts got the guy to show himself. I have two hypotheses:

1. He simply can't see them. The transponder isn't doing what I think it's doing, and the thermal signatures of my bait ships aren't strong enough for the badguy to spot them from wherever he's lurking.
2. He knows perfectly well that there's a JG there and doesn't want to get near it for fear of being pounced upon by ships that may be lurking on the other side of it.

At this point I think the first is more likely, and so I'm not sure what to do about it. If I can't lure him to the JG, I don't know how to get him within range of my missile boats.

I only vaguely recall mines. Maybe that'd be helpful. Here, again, I wish the wiki were available.

It had not occurred to me to try hiding my ambushers inside Ross. That's worth a try. I suppose by setting the speed to 1kms I drastically reduce their thermal signature? Badguy would still of course be able to see me with actives. Not sure if he's using them or not.  I'm super rusty.

[MarcAFK]

They generally leave actives off if there's nothing to shoot, when your ships are detected with thermals you'll see the actives turn on.

[Viridia]

Have you considered sending a tug towing a powered-down warship? Should slow it down enough to read like a cargo-ship and make it look vulnerable. Then pow, right in the command bridge!

Either that or research an unterraum-boot Cloaking fields, stealthed engines and so on.

[Iranon]

AFAIK, that is not necessary, having the warship move at low speed under its own power should do (one might think otherwise because ships use full power unless ordered not to: Makes them easy to spot, but allows them to dodge attacks even if stationary).

[MarcAFK]

If he's not taking the bait try a mine field, send your regular missile boats out and spam mines around somewhere the ship is known to operate, then put your bait ship in the area. I've had good luck with 1000 ton scout ships, they can usually get within 100 million kilometers of enemy ships undetected, as long as their actives aren't on. Even against certain spoilers. Scout around the ststem until you find it then lure it towards the mines. You might lose a few scouts : p

[Jumpp]

Got him.

I'm newly returned to the game and rusty in lots of ways. One of the things I've been sloppy about is no passive sensors. I just run around with actives on and, consequently, anyone can see me coming long before I see them.

So I put some 100-ton thermal and EM passives on my fleet leaders and started running a bit quieter. Then I sent 1st fleet in to shadow a geo survey ship. Spotted badguy lurking at Ross A-II, unmoving and occasionally strobing his actives. I was able to approach to around 30m before he spotted me and started running, at which point I launched 20 Mk4 Sparrows at him--9 warhead, ~36000kps, range of about 100m.  He fled at his top speed of 12,500 but that's still well within my reach.

So, whats going on:

The Solari Empire has settled about half a dozen systems, and has explored about a hundred. The game was created, I think, with one NPR, and at around 2065 I hit the button that created another. It's 2073, and still no sign of either. All known infestations of the race known to us only as the "Assholes," with whom our diplomats are utterly unable to communicate, have been cleared, though we expect to find more as we search ever further. Those guys are everywhere.

We're stepping up the survey program, in hopes of finding some lifeform somewhere that we can communicate with, and then conquer.

[Jumpp]

Also: Made some improvements in my missile spreadsheet. When I want to improve the to-hit chance, I often don't know if it's better to add agility or speed. Now I've got a little display that tells me how much to-hit I'd gain from spending a little more MSP on speed and how much from spending a little more on agility. It's really helped me tune this latest generation of missiles.

Still rusty as hell, but I've got all the tools I made back when I knew the game well, and they're helping a lot.

[Mastik]

May 2133
  3 [Wolf Clan] 2100T Yaun class (Survey?) ships were detected in the Sol system, the 1st Earth Defense fleet of 4 corvettes and 4 Missile boats destroyed 2 of the 3 before the 3rd disappeared off sensors.  The 3rd failed to ram a commercial freighter. 

Sept 2133
  3 [Wolf Clan] 91600T Zanabazar class (Construction?) ships were detected in the sol system, all 3 have been destroyed by the same defense fleet.

  I am sure we will be visited by something more substantial soon.