This post is to finish the report I started in the Bugs thread on an NPR vs NPR battle. Firstly, a refresh of the various snippets from the Bugs thread:
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Btw, one of the NPRs in my current campaign has discovered another very close by and they are really going at it. A lot of casualties on both sides. One has lost some shipyards though before it drove the other away from its homeworld so I think its days are numbered.
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Bugs thread is not really the place to discuss this but I started so I'll finish . The NPR bad guys are back again attacking the weaker NPR and have managed to take out the last of its shipyards. The weaker NPR has a single DDG and a bunch of escorts which have just returned to the home world and engaged a 13,500 cruiser and a 20,000 ton battlecruiser in orbit with anti-missiles. The battlecruiser just got blown to pieces by endless massed volleys, although it destroyed several escorts in the process.
Then the DDG + escorts attacked the heavy cruiser. Unfortunately for the beam-armed cruiser, it liked sitting on top of the nice ground forces contact that it couldn't attack (oops!) and let the missile-armed escorts get outside its range. By the time I realised what was happened and changed the NPR code so that beam-armed ships don't go chasing populations and ground forces, the plucky little escorts had damaged its engines and it couldn't catch them. Scratch one cruiser.
The DDG (with eight escorts remaining) is now targeting four other bad guy NPR ships at 43m kilometers. Oh! I just noticed that plucky NPR still has a dozen FACs in the outer system that are rushing home. No Shipyards but not dead yet. More as it happens
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More bad guy NPR ships just arrived in the system to avenge their comrades. Six 13,500 ton missile cruisers and fifteen DDGs. It's Kobyashi Maru I think.
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More on Bad Guy NPR (BGN) vs Plucky NPR (PN)
A group of four BGN escorts was fairly near the PN home world but they started pulling back to rendezvous with a 13,500 ton CA damaged in earlier fighting. The major BGN reinforcements were still far away in the outer system. The last PN DDG, accompanied by several escorts kept moving to the PN home world, reloading and attacking these escorts. One escort, separated from the others by about 500,000 km, was destroyed before the other three rendezvoused with the CA. Once the CA joined up the group moved toward the PN home world and faced a constant barrage of 7-missile salvos from the DDG, which reloaded from the planet a dozen times. Eventually the CA was destroyed just 12m kilometers from the planet and the escorts decided to break away and head into the outer system to meet the reinforcements. The DDG pursued and, after a lucky hit took out a BGN fire control system and reduced defensive fire, it slowly wore down the escorts and destroyed them all.
There are over forty wrecks in the system now and the battle continues. A group of a dozen PN FACs in the opposite side of the outer system from the BGN reinforcement fleet of 6 CA and 15 DDG is racing back to the homeworld to reload before the main BGN force arrives to wipe out the population.
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Now back to the action. The Bad Guy NPR is called the Dhule Conglomerate and the small, plucky NPR is the Jeanette Enclave. I recorded this in notes form and as it is not part of the main story I haven't bothered to write it up properly
Jeanette DDG + 8 DE goes out to meet approaching fleet of 6x CG, 15x DDG and opens fire with Dhule fleet still 200m from Jeanette Prime. The DDG empties its magazines at the enemy fleet: 1x Jump DDG destroyed, 1x 13,400 ton CG destroyed after three magazine explosions, armour damage to jump cruiser. Jeanette DDG then runs for the planet. 3884 km/s vs 3582 km/s
Meanwhile 13 Jeanette FACs (11 modern, 2 older) finally arrive at the HW from the outer system, arm with 5 missiles each (1 with FAC missiles and the rest with anti-ship missiles) and head out to meet the enemy. They launch with the enemy fleet 100m km from their HW. Missiles from modern FACs obliterate a DDG with overkill. They head for home to reload. Missiles from two older FACs take out an engine on a second DDG, slowing it to 3134 km/s. Repaired 90 minutes later. Enemy fleet now 5x CG, 13x DDG
The Jeanette DDG and the FACs all returned to their home world and reloaded with the leading enemy ships about 55m kilometers away. DDG opens fire: Dhule jump cruiser destroyed. A Dhule missile cruiser initially suffers only minor damage, losing one missile launcher, when it is hit by three more missiles from the Jeanette DDGs latest salvo. First missile stopped by armour. Third one scores two points of damage. Third one inflicts a single point of damage on an engine, which explodes and sets of a chain of five secondary explosions totaling sixty points of damage that almost completely guts the cruiser. The next salvo causes two magazines explosions and blows it to pieces.
As the DDG and its escorts moves toward the planet to reload, a new wave of missiles from the FACs is closing in on the Dhule fleet. Two minutes before they arrive, the leading group of nine DDGs in the Dhule fleet opens fire on the planet from a range of 38m km. Five seconds after the BGN DDGs launch their third salvo, one of their number is obliterated by the FAC missiles. Its destruction causes the missiles it has already launched to self-destruct. Unfortunately, the FACs are over-killing their targets as the NPRs are not distinguishing in the number of missiles they launch against each target based on consecutive or concurrent salvos (more NPR intelligence needed in this regard for v4.8 )
The fifth Dhule salvo is directed against the Jeanette DDG, which has just reloaded at the planet, and its escorts
A Dhule jump cruiser and two missile cruisers join in with the eighth salvo. The Jeanette DDG reaches the planet, re-arms and opens fire on the Dhule fleet once again. There are still 700 anti-ship missiles on the planet so they are in no danger of running out just yet.
The ninth Dhule salvo is fired at the planet as they judge they have fired enough missiles at the small Jeanette fleet. The Jeanette DDG defiantly continues to fire volleys of seven missiles at the oncoming horde. The eleventh Dhule salvo includes missiles from three more DDG. The remaining Dhule DDG was damaged earlier in the battle and lagging behind a little. It joins in with the 14th salvo
By the time both sides run out of ammo, 143 Jeanette missiles are in flight toward the Dhule fleet. 1933 missiles are heading in the opposite direction.
The leading Jeanette missiles are due to arrive first, as they are faster than their Dhule equivalents. Unfortunately, the target pulls back out of sensor range, causing the first ten Jeanette missile waves to lose lock and self-destruct. (AI Note: I think this is because the DDG was concentrating on staying within range of the last target rather than the one furthest away. I am going to modify the NPR code to be aware of the distance of all targets of missiles in flight)
The first Dhule missiles hit Jeanette Prime at 05:14 on May 9th 1907. Over three minutes, four waves totaling two hundred and eight missiles with strength-3 warheads kill over sixty million civilians and destroy approximately five hundred installations. As the fourth salvo hits the Jeanette home world, the first Jeanette DDG missiles reach the BGN fleet and attack a jump cruiser: Successive waves of seven anti-ship missiles batter the Dhule ship, scoring thirty-two hits before it explodes. One hundred and fifty Dhule missiles lose tracking and self-destruct.
The next four Dhule waves pass the planet in pursuit of the small Jeanette fleet but the bombardment resumes with the ninth wave.
So far 208 hits, 62.4m
W9: 52 hits, 15.6m loss
W10: 52 hits, 15.6m loss
W11: 91 hits, 27.3m loss
W12: 82 hits, 24.6m loss
In the midst of the bombardment the Jeanette FACs reload and go back out to meet the Dhule fleet.
150 missiles run out of fuel but some finally reach the DDG + escorts. Three escorts with anti-missiles begin firing and successfully defend the small fleet.
Missile hits on planet so far: 1167
All industry destroyed
350m dead
Radiation and dust 3500 (-35 degrees, -35% industry)
Planet surrenders. Jeanette now have four million pop on second planet plus a mining colony but they fight on. Seconds later, 11x FAC volley their missiles at the newly surrendered population, inflicting 55 hits for another 27.5 million casualties, then fly past the planet and head for the outer system to avoid the Dhule ships. The Jeanette DDG + escorts are heading in a different direction to rescue the lifepods from a group of freighters and colony ships that was wiped out in an earlier battle. The Dhule fleet is picking up its own lifepods and is heading home to reload.
Once the DDG + escorts have picked up life pods including some Dhule survivors, they head for the second planet, which is their only populated world. At this point I added some extra code to the NPR AI, after which the Jeanette escorts decided not to bother escorting a missile ship with no missiles and instead went after the enemy fleet.
Once the empty Dhule missile ships realised what was happening, they ran for the jump point but the escorts had about a 300 km/s speed advantage and slowly closed in. After several hours of pursuit, the two rearmost Dhule DDGs were blown to pieces by a hail of anti-missiles launched from 1.5m kilometers, followed an hour or so later by a third.
A further 12 hours passed and the chasing Jeanette escorts caught up with two more Dhule destroyer squadrons, totaling four DDGs and two Jump DDGs. The three missile-armed escorts used the last of their anti-missiles to obliterate five of them and cripple the sixth. The cripple was quickly overtaken and destroyed by the other five escorts, armed with gauss cannon. During this battle, the empty Jeanette DDG was sweeping up life pods in the wake of the fighting. At this point the three missile armed Jeanette escorts (Gorz class) broke off and headed for the small colony world, while the five Alvand class gauss-cannon escorts went after the last DDG squadron on sensors. The two surviving Dhule cruisers had headed to the south of the system for some reason and were no longer on sensors. Once the last three destroyers were caught and killed, the Alvands headed after the Gorz while the Sabalan class DDG recovered all the life pods
After several days of wide-ranging carnage, there are 55 wrecks in the system and the habitable planet has been rendered virtually uninhabitable. Both sides have taken extremely heavy losses with all but two of the attacking force destroyed. The Jeanette Enclave now comprises a Sabalan class DDG, three Gorz class escorts and thirteen FACs, none of which have any missiles or any source of resupply, plus five Alvand class escorts armed with Gauss cannon. There is a single population of less than four million and a small mining colony in a nearby system. There are also four gravitational survey ships on deployment.
The Dhule Conglomerate has two missile cruisers without missiles, four gravitational survey ships and two geological survey ships in the system, none of which are on Jeanette sensors at the moment. Their remaining combat fleet in other systems includes seven 20,000 ton BCRs, five 13,400 ton CAs, two 13,400 ton CLEs, twelve DEs, four DDG and three DDs plus a lot of commercial shipping.
Steve
