1973
February: Constuction of the commercial spaceport completed on Polaris, this should help a little bit with the civilian
shipping.
March: The Protectorate completed grav survey of the Holy Loch system, there are 3 jump points there. And we found a new
jump point in the Peterhead system, no gate.
April: The digging crews on Douglas III have disturbed an underground vault containing robotic defenders with a strength
equivalent to an assault battalion. But with the number of forces on Douglas it should be no problem to keep them at bay.
At the same time we managed to learn about Fuel Consumption 0.6 from the Protectorate trade ships. Eleanor Singh starts to
look into Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology instead.
Spitfire TF-training level reached 50%. And the first 2 King George V carriers have been completed and start to train.
May: Bradley Schofield researched EM Sensors 11 and the fairly substancial improvement of the active sensor range over the
currently used EM 8 new sensors are prototyped, the first one will be a 250t R18 sensor to be build by Gibson-Grant. And
with the current training speed it might very very be possible, that the Spiders will have been refitted with this sensor
before the FACs are ready to enter Stevenage.
June: Sam Harrison completed research into Ground Unit Strength 12 and starts to look into Engineering Section - Fighter.
The Protectorate completed grav survey of the Exeter system, it has 4 jump points.
A interesting find for a change, a research lab has been uncovered on Douglas III, which means that our forces were able to
push back the robots. The participating units and commanders receive the Combat Medal. With the 80% bonus for defensive
research the lab will be used to take a look into Thermal Reducation 75% without any specialist. For some reason we have
not managed to get more than 1 defensive specialist from the academies in more than 23 years - but at least the one we have
is a fairy good one.
The Protectorate completed grav survey of Southampton, there are 4 jump points with gates on 3 of them (2 actually build by
us) and a 4th - still unexplored one - under construction by a Protectorate gate builder. The gates lead to Douglas,
Lancaster and Preston.
July: Oliver Fuller completed research into Ultraviolett Laser and takes over 20cm Laser research. By the end of July TF-
training of the Spitfires is at 70%, rising even so slowly, but at least due to this grade levels are able to rise as well,
they are up from 12% to 16%-17% which should be helpful against the small and fast swarm ships.
August: The ruins on Douglas III are fully exploited and the construction units are shipped off to Sheffield.
2 additional Illustrious Mk2s have been build and 2 Illustrious will be upgraded. The new R18 sensor prototype is completed
and 4 of them will be pre-build for refits, next is the R170 prototype to be build by Howell International.
With all the training going on we start to feel a drain on our fuel reserves for the first time, with 60mt there is still
plenty, but in the medium term we will need a fuel harvester, so once the next major research project is completed we will
have to start looking into a fuel harvesting module.
September: The Protectorate has found a new jump point in Canterbury, in addition they have already geo surveyed about 75%
of the huge number of asteroids in the system. It looks like our own grav and geo survey ships are only needed for the
systems which were already surveyed by the Protectorate before they started to share their knowledge with us.
October: Bradley Schofield has completed the R170 sensor prototype, work is started on a R1 prototype to be build by
Leach-Oneill. Since it is only needed for point defense its size is lowered to 100t, giving it a range of 500kkm.
By the end of October Spitfire TF-training is at 94%, we will be able to face the Swarm in Stevenage before the end of the
year. Now we actually have to hope that one of the Tribes sends a ship to Stevenage to use the distraction for entering the
system without our ships getting shot to pieces at the gate if the Swarm should be waiting there.
November: Akira Kurosawa heads to the Stevenage gate to provide fuel to the Spitfires before they enter Stevenage.
Research into the new R1 sensor prototype is completed and Anna Heath is assigned 8 labs to look into Sorium Harvesters.
Bradly Schofield starts to look into Beam Fire Control Range 40k.
Spitfire TF-Training is completed and together with the Spider class sensor ships they move to the Stevenage gate. The
Spitfire training officers are exchaged for high initiative officers hopefully able to keep their distance from the Swarm
ships. Overall commander of the 8 Spitfires is Commander Brooke Bates. And since no other ships are heading towards
Stevenson we will have to make a plan to prevent getting shoot to pieces if the Swarm ships are at the jump point.
In the end it was decided that the Spitfires will enter first and move away from the gate at full speed, one Spider will
enter the system 5 minutes later, hopefully without meeting any resistance. Once all sensors are working again we will try
to engage and destroy the Swarm ships.
Commander Bates leads his sqadron away from the Polaris gate at a heading of 309° without having seen any enemies on their
very basic sensors. 5 minutes later the Spider class sensor ship Obsidian enters Stevenage, moving away from the Polaris
gate at a heading of 139°. It takes a bit over 2 minutes before the sensors are back online, but there are no enemy ships
in range. And quite strangely there are no wreck in the system as well. It seems like the Swarm are good salvagers. The
Obsidian meets up with the Spitfires and together they head towards the center of the system. Spider class Opal jumps into
Stevenage as well to keep the gate to Polaris under observation.
Nearly 1 day later Obsidian picks up 542 750t contacts of the dreaded Swarm Hasan Basri class on a collision course, a few
minutes later 7 more of them appear on the screens. Their speed is 10666km/sec, which is faster than Obsidian's top speed.
Obsidian reserves course and heads back towards the Polaris gate while the Spitfires continue to close the distance to the
Swarm ships. We can only hope that the Swarm is already moving at top speed, if they are able to go faster than 11.2kkm/sec
this will be a very short engagement.
Commander Bates orders his Spitfires to close the distance to the Swarm down to 200kkm, then to reverse course and head
towards the jump point at a speed of 9000km/sec while fireing on the Swarm ships. At a distance of 120kkm the Spitfires
will match the Swarm's speed. At this distance our hit chances are around 60%. It seems like 10666km/sec is the Hasan
Basri's top speec, since they are unable to close the distance. Soon there were lots of Swarm wrecks, but they simply kept
on coming.
[ooc]OOC: Once it was clear that getting rid of all the swarm ships would simply take lots of time without any real danger I
SMed in a new super race and gave them some high tech laser ships to wipe out those pesky little Swarm ships.[/ooc]
It was noted that instead of losing atmosphere when their hulls were penetrated the Swarm ships lost fluid. Maybe the Swarm
is a fish-like aquatic race that needs to breath water. But only once this endless slaughter has ended we might be able to
take a closer look at those ships and take some prisoners. And concerning prisoners another strange thing was noted, there
were no life pods when a Swarm ship was destroyed. With their singleminded attacks without any regard for their own safety
maybe the Swarm does not even have life pods, prefering to die rather than face defeat, surrender or captivity.
When the last Swarm FAC was destroyed we closed in to one of the wrecks. A close scan showed that they are actually not
wrecks, but corpses. The Swarm is acutally a race of giant space bugs and the fluid we saw leaking earlier is their blood.
Obsidian moves toward Stevenage-I with the Spitfires and the Akira following, we have no idea if those biological ships
actually have or need a homeworld, but we will take a closer look at all the planets.
December: Grav survey of Belfast was completed, it has a total of 3 jump points, all of them with a gate.
Nothing of note was found on Stevenage I-III, expect II and III being fairly suitable worlds for a colony with a col cost
of just 2.0. But as we approached Stevenage IV the sensors picked up 3 huge ships in its orbit. The ships are identified as
Swarm ships and the computer calls them the Yos Sudarso class, they have a tonnage of 60kt each. They are moving at
1000km/sec with a heading of 303° which is pretty much 100% away from us, but we follow them.
With the behavior seen from the little Swarm ships the Yos Sudarsos look like a "civilian" class to us, otherwise they
would sure head right at us like their smaller breathen, we keep moving towards them, but will keep a distance of 120kkm as
with the smaller ships. When Obsidian got closer to the planet the sensors picked up 53 additional Swarm ships, designated
the Sutanto class. And the 3 Yos Sudarsos have reversed course and are heading right at us now. A little while later they
head back to Stevenage IV.
When we get in range for the R18 sensors the Sutantos show a tonnage of 5650t, they seem to be immobile in orbit. Maybe
some kind of defense platforms. With the range down to 30mkm the Yos Sudarsos suddenly activate strong 336R100 active
sensors. This does not look like what a civilian ship would use, but for now they stay in orbit. At a range of 17.9mkm
Obsidian picks up new energy emissions. They match what our scientists saw during experiments with defensive shielding, but
the strength of those shields is incredible, based on our data they can absorb 600 points of damage, but we have no idea
how fast they would be able to regenerate. Obsidian stops while the Spitfires move closer.
Once the Spitfires closed to 1.2mkm the Sudarsos start to head their way again. Our lasers have some problems with tracking
the Swarm ships, they have a strength 30 ECM system. Once the Spitfires are at 200kkm Commander Bates orders to stop to let
the huge ships come to us and open fire whenever they enter our weapons range. Due to the ECM 30 fire was only opened at a
range of 177kkm, and only a single strength 1 hit was scored, the to hit chances are down to 6% vs. the Sudarsos. Commander
Bates orders to let them close the distance a bit more for more/better hits. 20 seconds later the to-hit-rate is up to 14%,
but the lasers will need another 25 seconds to recharge.
At 133kkm the lasers fire again, this time 5 hits for 2 damage each are scored with a to hit chance of 25%. Commander Bates
orders the Spitfires to head toward the Polaris gate at 1000km/sec when the range is down to 128kkm. It took just 5 seconds
for the Sudarso to recharge the shields back to 600, so their regen rate is at least 2 per seconds. And with this it
becomes fairly clear that the Spitfires have no chance to penetrate those shields unless getting closer which might expose
them to enemy fire. At 128kkm the hit chances are just 28-29%. Just 3 hits were scored on the next volley. Commander Bates
orders the ships to move around the Sudarsos and head for the Sutantos who seem to be unshielded, all Spitfires are to stop
and open fire at a range of 128kkm.
But it turns out that the Sudarsos will stop their pursuit once the Spitfires were too far away from them, so they will
have to be lured away for about 1 hour it seems. Due to a navigations error (OCC: "move to" + setting a distance does not
seem to work) the Spitfires end up at a distance of just 83kkm from the 5650t ships, but either they have no weapons, or we
are still outside their range. The to hit chances are around 80%, so it seems like they dont have any ECM. 6 lasers hit for
3 damage each, destroying one of the aliens. After 1 hour all Sutantos are destroyed. With the Sudarsos currently following
the Obsidian back towards the gate the Spitfires take a closer look at the moon the Sutantos were orbiting. But nothing was
found there and the Spitfires head back towards the gate as well and Obsidian is ordered to raise its speed to 10kkm/sec.
The Vanguard's TF-training is at 73% and the Thunderbolts have just started their training, so it will be quite some time
before we are able to deal with the Sudarsos. High Command founded a new type of medal, a campaign ribbon, being awarded
for participation in a large scale operation. And due to both the number of enemies - 600 ships destroyed so far - and the
huge 60k shielded ships still left the first medal of this new type will be the Stevenage Swarm Ribbon.
Grav Survey of Belfast is completed, there are a total of 3 jump point in this system, all of them with gates.
On Polaris it is noted that the orders to pre-build the new active sensors got lost somehow in the bureaucracy, so new
orders are placed now.
End of year status
Planets/colonies:
Sector Polaris - (Henry Storey - Adm 6 - Pol +5, Ship +5, Wealth +10, Mine +20, Pop +10, Ground +20, Log +15)
Polaris (Olivia Brookes - Adm 6 - Ship +40, Fact +55, Wealth +25, Mine +30, Terra +5, Pop +5, Ground +25, Log +5)
Pop: 816m (+10)
Factories: 1000
Mines/automines: 124/164
Labs: 59 (+5)
Finance Centers: 100
Academies: 7
Naval yards (slipways/tons): 4/13000 (+1000), 2/14000 (+2000), 8/1000, 2/4000
Commercial yards: 3/113700, 2/62700
Thermal: 20.5k (+0.5), Tundra 23.0k (+0.4), Hill 22.5k (+0.4)
EM: 63.7k (+1.1), Tundra 61.4k (+0.9 ), Hill 60.6k (+1.1)
Polaris II (Louise Barrett - Adm 6 - Pol +30, Fact +50, Wealth +5, Mine +15, Pop +25, Ground +10, Log +10)
Pop: 61.4m (+9.6)
Factories: 120
Finance Centers: 205 (+17)
Terraformers: 11
Polaris VI Moon 6 (Rebecca Porter - Adm 3 - Pol +10, Ship +30, Wealth +20, Mine +30, Terra +15, Pop +30)
Pop: 24.3m (+2.1)
Factories: 100
Finance Centers: 50
Terraformers: 4
Polaris Comet#4 (Thomas Dobson - Adm 3 - Pol +10, Ship +20, Fact +10, Wealth +15, Mine +20, Terra +10, Pop +20)
Automines: 50
161k 90% Duranium, 204k 80% Corundium
Polaris Comet#5 (Jacob James - Adm 3 - Min +30)
Automines: 50
152k 70% Duranium, 220k 50% Mercassium
London III Moon 30 (Charlie Wyatt - Adm 4 - Ship +10, Fact +15, Wealth +5, Mine +20, Terra +20)
Automines: 199
3533k 100% Duranium, 1128k 90% Boronide, 2193k 100% Uridium
Douglas III - +80% defense research - 1.1m pop, 1 factory, 3 mines, 1 mass driver, 1 research lab
Sheffield III - Ruins - TL4, 189 Installations - Digging
Middlesborough II-Moon 6 - 100% missile/kinetic research
Aberdeen II - TL2 - 53 Installations - +30% power/propulsion - Digging
Aberdeen III - TL2 - 58 Installations - +40% logistics/ground combat - Digging
Scientists/projects:Bio: 30% / Terraforming 0.0015 atm
Construction: 45%, 25% / Sorium Harvester, Mining Production 14t
Defense: 50% / Shield Regeneration 2
Energy: 35%, 25% / 20cm Laser, Far Ultraviolet Laser
Logistics: 30%, 25% / Engineering Section - Fighter, Brigade Headquarters
Missiles: 65%, 35% / Missile Agility 64, Ordnance Production 14
Power: 55%, 30% / Tokamak Fusion Reactor, Max Engine Power x2.0
Sensors: 45%, 30%, 25% / Fire Control Speed 5k, Beam Fire Control Range 40k, Thermal Reduction 75% (DS)
Civilian Shipping (4240 up to 5860):
Godfrey Lines - 32 ships (+1 - 2130 income)
Shepherd Corp - 30 ships (+2 - 1600 income)
Payne Transport - 7 ships (650 income)
Doherty Transport - 6 ships (+2 - 240 income)
Lloyd T&T - 9 ships (+1 - 560 income)
Sharp Company - 7 ships (+1 - 430 income)
Lawson Container - 4 ships (+1 - 170 income)
John T&T - 2 ships (20 income)
Clements Carrier - 2 ships (40 income)
Banks Container - 2 ships (120 income)
Income at 41.2k (+1.6) and 38.4k spend (+0.
. Wealth reserves are at 45.8k.