1901Completed techs: Missile Agility 64, ECCM 1, Fuel Production 48k liters, Magazine Feed 80%, Missile Launcher Reload Rate 2, Asteroid Mining Module, Magazine Feed 85%, Two-stage Thermonuclear Warhead Strength 6, Magazine Ejection System 80% Chance, Missile Agility 80 per MSP, Fuel Consumption 0.7
New techs being researched: Magazine Feed 80%, Fuel Production 56k liters, Active Grav Sensor 36, Magazine Feed 85%, Magazine Ejection System 80% Chance, Jump Gate Construction Module 150, Missile Agility 80 per MSP, Railgun Launch Velocity 6, Magazine Ejection System 85% Chance, Ordnance Production 12, Fuel Consumption 0.7, Tokamak Fusion Reactor Tech
The last jump point in Stuttgart leads to the Magdeburg System. It consists of a G-class sun (94% mass), 4 planets (one might be habitable), 2 moons and 6 comets.
Two new jump points are discovered in Dresden, both inside the orbit of Dresden A-IV, the first at 70° and the second at 90° from the sun. Kepler 2 heads there to investigate.
In February the first 5 Falke missile boats are completed. They are loaded with missiles and have to wait for the carrier from New Berlin due to their limited range. In the meantime a slightly improved missile has been developed and construction started.
Missile Size: 6 MSP (0.3 HS) Warhead: 5 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 19
Speed: 25600 km/s Engine Endurance: 90 minutes Range: 137.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.194
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 486.4% 3k km/s 152% 5k km/s 97.3% 10k km/s 48.6%
Materials Required: 1.25x Tritanium 2.944x Gallicite Fuel x2500
The first jump point in Dresden leads to the Dortmund System with a binary sun, a G-class (99% mass ) orbited by a smaller K-class (82%) at a distance of 0.25 lightyears. Both suns have planets, but due to the range Dortmund-B’s planets are not relevant for further exploration. Dortmund-A has 10 planets, 50 moons, 1200 asteroids and 10 comets. There are 2 planets in the habitable zone, but one of them is a gas giant, the other one terrestrial, but at the outer edge of the zone and thus fairly cold.
The exploration of the second Dresden JP leads back to Sol which is a huge surprise since it was assumed that all jump points in Sol have already been discovered. It seems like there are some holes in the current Jump Point Theory since the existence of the additional jump point in Sol can not be explained by the theory. But this shortcut will be very useful in the exploration and potential exploitation of the Bremen/Koln System arm.
A ruined outpost is found on Dresden A-II and a XenoTeam is ordered there. Upon taking a closer look at one of the larger installations it seems very likely that this installation would be able to help with defensive research and speed up the research by up to 40%. The salvage of the first wrecks in Munchen yields nothing but minerals, all relevant systems were destroyed beyond recognition or salvage. The same happens at the second wreck a short time later. Both salvagers head back to Earth.
In March Humanity gains trade access to the Iroquois Imperium. At the beginning of April another jump point is found in Dresden, this time beyond the orbit of Dresden A-VI, more than 5bkm from the sun at an angle of 85°. One of the new Kepler Mk2s will take a look and arrives in the Duisburg System, the first Quadrinary encountered by Humanity.
Duisburg-A is a G-class sun (144% mass) orbited by Duisburg-D another G-class sun only a little bit smaller (96%) at a distance of 3bkm. Farther out the double stars B (G-class, 143%) and C (G-class, 142%) orbit at a distance of about 20bkm. All suns have planets and the system look very interesting for an in depth survey.
Duisburg-A: 5 planets with 6 moons between them, 2 terrestrial planets in the habitable zone
Duisburg-D: 7 planets with 9 moons, 2 terrestrial planets in the habitable zone
Duisburg-C: 4 terrestrial planets with 2 moons, but all outside of the habitable zone
Duisburg-B: 4 terrestrial planets with 2 moons, 2 in the habitable zone
With logistics becoming a real issue the first collier is designed
Kamel class Collier 4 500 tons 43 Crew 427 BP TCS 90 TH 200 EM 0
2222 km/s Armour 1-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0.03 Years MSP 6 AFR 1620% IFR 22.5% 1YR 220 5YR 3301 Max Repair 50 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Magazine 850
EP05 FC 08 25HS 200 EP Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 200 Fuel Use 10.61% Signature 200 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 530 000 Litres Range 199.8 billion km (1040 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
On July, 2nd the first carrier task force in addition to 2 recon fighters and 10 Fokker fighters arrive at the Bremen/Dusseldorf jump gate and refuel before jumping into Dusseldorf itself. All sensors are active and the 1 recon fighter (R1, 19mkm), 1 recon FAC (R100, 392mkm) and 5 missile boats start to move towards the wrecks. At 07:51 on the 9th contact is made with 4 alien ships, all at 8,550tons, 1 Sheffield, 2 Amazon and 1 Vanguard class. The recon craft retreat towards the carrier while the missile boats wait for now. At 15:11 the alien ships are in range, each missile boat targets one enemy and the Sheffield-class is targeted twice, orders are to fire synchronus. Due to strong enemy ECM and lack of any ECCM system the firing range is lowered to 104mkm. At 16:44 the missiles are launched and the missile boats start to head back towards the carrier at 7.2kkm/s, at tad slower than the aliens at 7,238km/s.
The missiles have a chance of 57% to hit the aliens and the strength 4 warheads are not able to penetrate the alien armor which has a thickness of at least 2. Sheffield is hit 5 times by the first flight and 4 missiles miss, 7 hits from the second flight of nine missiles, no PD is observed. Vanguard PD destroys 2 missiles, 2 miss and 5 hit. Amazon 2 destroys 3 and is hit by just 1, 5 miss. Amazon 1 destroys 4 and is hit by 2 missiles, 3 miss. The PD was energy weapon based. No change in the flight pattern or speed can be observed and no atmosphere from any cracks in the armor, essentially the attack did not cause any real damage.
When all ships are back at the carrier Kapitän zur See Nikolaus Laufenberg asks Fregattenkapitän Lukas Rewald of the S1 Recon Fighter if he and his crew would be willing to volunteer for waiting in system till the last possible moment before jumping out in order to provide intelligence about the likely missile strike about to occure and Rewald agrees.
The first important fact is that the Sheffield and Vanguard keep their distance at a range of about 130mkm while the Amazons close in. Making the Amazons most likely close ranged vessels. After about 1 hour the Vanguard even starts to move away while the Sheffield starts to close the distance as well. At a distance of about 50mkm the Amazons stop. Flights of 3 and 2 size 5 missiles are spotted moving at a speed of 31kkm/s. Each waves seems to be about 40 seconds apart from the next. With this information The recon fighters jumps out of the system and move to New Berlin.
Due to the small number of missiles 2 Fokker fighters might actually be able to destroy 1 incoming missile (23% for each shot)m but they were left behind to guard the jump point. A better offensive missile is needed to damage the alien ships anyway, the Dorn Mk2. While 1 less engine and more agility would improve the chances to hit (by about 7%), but the speed would be lowered (by about 6k) and with the enemy PD capabilities higher speed seems preferable.
Missile Size: 6 MSP (0.3 HS) Warhead: 9 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 25600 km/s Engine Endurance: 63 minutes Range: 96.3m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.938
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 409.6% 3k km/s 128% 5k km/s 81.9% 10k km/s 41%
Materials Required: 2.25x Tritanium 2.688x Gallicite Fuel x1750
At 03:38:06 a hostile transit is detected. 2 Amazon and 1 Sheffield have arrived in Bremen. The Fokker squad tries to follow and target Amazon 1, which is using active sensors. But due to the untrained crews they take a lot of time before they are able to open fire and the enemy is out of reach soon. But it seems that they have expended all their missiles and their PD seems to be only defensive in nature, no shots are fired at the Fokker squadron.
At 03:38:31 all fighters are ready to fire, but the enemy remains out of reach and the Fokkers are ordered to follow the slowly retreating recon fighters. At 03:38:41 Fokker 1 is hit by an alien ASM and is destroyed. It seems like the aliens still do have missiles, but due to the short range they were not detected before impact and due to this could not be engaged by PD. The next 2 waves are detected and intercepted by the railguns. Due to system error PD failed to engage a flight of missiles and Fokker 3 is destroyed
(tried to change the PD settings and messed up). A flight of 9 size 1 missiles moving at 56kkm/s is dectected among swarms of size 5s, they will be very hard to intercept, but in the end fire from 6 Fokkers was enough to neutralize them (12-14% to hit).
At 03:45:01 size 1 and size 5 missiles arrived at the same time, overwhelming the PD, 2 Fokkers are destroyed. The number of missiles passing the fighters and targeting the carrier is rising. At 04:03:56 SMS Kondor is hit by a ASM for 13 damage, all FACs are launched as a precaution and follow the carrier. At 04:09:06 SMS Kronos is destroyed. In hindsight it would have been better to keep the fighter escort with the carrier instead of trying to ambush the aliens at the jump point. Especially with untrained crews who are not able to take advantage of the enemies weakness after a jump. Future tactics will be adjusted accordingly. A Falke missile boat is destroyed by the remaining missiles.
After having moved away from the remaining ships for some time the aliens start to follow the fighter group again. At 05:27:01 a new flight of 9 size 1 missiles appears on the screens. The salvos are 10 seconds apart. Obviously the alien ships still have ordnance left. At 05:27:51 Fokker 2 is destroyed. The R100 recon fighter 10 seconds later. 20 seconds afterwards Fokker 10. While the minimal armor on the fighters was able to absorb some damage earlier it is largely worn down now, leading to lots of kills in short order. And with each Fokker gone the remaining PD capabilities grow weaker. At 05:28:51 Fokker 9 is destroyed. And the missiles keep coming. At 05:30:01 the R1 recon fighter is destroyed, turning the 2 remaining Fokkers unable to see approaching missiles. At 05:35:06 the last fighter is destroyed. At 08:44:51 the FACs are destroyed as well.
Trail of tears…
At July 27th the alien Sheffield 1 rammed a small civilian cargo transport and while the transport was destroyed the Sheffield blew up as well. It looks like the aliens are willing to commit kamikaze attacks. Maybe they mistook the transport for a capital warship due to its 33kt size… Essentially a civilian caused the first casualty to the aliens.
A Ruined Outpost is discovered on Duisburg A-III, in addition a radiations was detected, that turned out to be conetected to research boni in two other places. With the XenoTeam still looking into Dresden A-II it will take some time before these new ruins are examined. At the same time Duisburg A-III turned out to be a perfectly habitable planet, with large deposits of Duranium, Corbomite, Boronite, Sorium and Gallicite, but sadly all will be fairly hard to mine. In addition there is some Mercassium and Vendarite, hard to mine as well.
In the meantime a new Radar TF (1 R100 FAC, 1 R1 recon fighter) arrived in Hannover. Together with the Fokker 2 TF (10 Fokker R1) and the remaining missile boat TF (5 Falke) they head towards Bremen. The Salvage 3 who was send towards Dusseldorf for the two wrecks there arrives at the Hannover/Bremen jump point. It will try to salvage the alien Sheffield class instead, but will wait for the battle force moving into Bremen to give the all-clear before starting, There are at least 2 Amazon vessels still around. At August 9th the battle force arrives in Bremen and heads towards the Dusseldorf gate.
On August 10th the 2 Amazons are detected again, they tried to ram another small civilian cargo ship close to the gate into Koln. The battle group changes course accordingly. Every 2 hours the aliens try to ram, but so far have been unsuccessful, but it seems very likely that they will succeed before the military will be close enough to fire missiles. At 12:46 the small cargo transport is destroyed due to a ramming attack, but its destruction served to reveal that the alien Amazon class has an armor strength of at least 6, Humanity is essentially using unarmored ships. 6 hours later Kepler 1 is destroyed while heading form Koln to the Hannover gate. And on the 12th another small transport is lost to ramming. Later in the days another transport is destroyed, but this time the Amazon which did ram it was destroyed as well. There is 1 Amazon still at large.
One day later the remaining Amazon appears on the sensors of the battle group. Salvage 3 enters Bremen and starts to move to the wreck of the Sheffield class. It looks like the Amazon is moving to another transport in order to ram it as well. And the Amazon seems to be damaged, it is only moving at 4kkm/s instead of the previous 7k. Right before the Amazon reaches the fire the missile boat fire their 45 old ASMs. With a damaged Amazon those might be enough. The Fokker squad starts to speed towards the Amazon as well. But the problem has solved itself at the expense of another civilian transport, both ships are destroyed. What strikes the crews as strange is that neither destroyed alien ship has left behind any lifepods. Then again this might fit in with the suicidal ramming attempts…
The recon craft and the fighters head back to the Sheffield wreck to provide cover for the salvage operation while the missile boats try to pick up lifepods. Salvage of the Sheffield has yielded 1 ECM-3, 5 size 1 missile launchers and 1 Thermal Sensor 11 in addition to a couple of minerals. Salvage 3 moves to the nearest Amazon next. The guards move back to New Berlin. A new kind of PDC, a hangar is designed and pre-fabricated on Earth and will be send to New Berlin to house the fighters.
Hangar 6k class Point Defence Base 7 500 tons 90 Crew 797.4 BP TCS 150 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 7-34 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 0
Hangar Deck Capacity 6000 tons
Fuel Capacity 430 000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 3 sections
With the completion of the expansion of Zeppelin Werke the yard is retooled to 16kt a new CV design, the Graf Zeppelin. Basically a Kronos with some additional engines and enough magazine space for a single reload for a squadron of Falke missile boats.
Graf Zeppelin class Carrier 16 000 tons 212 Crew 1991.8 BP TCS 320 TH 960 EM 0
3000 km/s Armour 2-56 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.11 Years MSP 545 AFR 292% IFR 4.1% 1YR 85 5YR 1270 Max Repair 40 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months Flight Crew Berths 74
Hangar Deck Capacity 6000 tons Magazine 340
EP10 FC 08 25HS 80 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (12) Power 80 Fuel Use 76% Signature 80 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 3 500 000 Litres Range 51.8 billion km (199 days at full power)
ECM 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
In September Kepler 3 pick up a espionage team and heads towards the Koln alien planet. It is time to learn more about them. And even if the mission is discovered relations should be good enough that no real problems are to be expected.
Salvage of the Amazon yields knowledge about ECM which provides a small boost to ECM-2 research, 2 magnetic fusion drives, 1 Thermal-11, 1 Missile Fire Control, 1 ECM-3, 1 ECCM-3, and 1 size 5 missile launcher in addition to some minerals. The small transport destroyed by the Amazon is next, but the main focus is to bring back the treasure trove of alien tech to Earth.
With the fuel situation on Earth starting to get below save level (4m liters) despite having build lots of fuel refineries there needs to be another solution. A fuel harvester is designed, the Oase-class.
Oase class Fuel Harvester 70 000 tons 299 Crew 2446.6 BP TCS 1400 TH 1600 EM 0
1142 km/s Armour 3-151 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
MSP 11 Max Repair 50 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months Spare Berths 0
Fuel Harvester: 20 modules producing 960000 litres per annum
EP05 FC 08 25HS 200 EP Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (8) Power 200 Fuel Use 10.61% Signature 200 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5 660 000 Litres Range 137.1 billion km (1389 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
The second Amazon wreck yields a ECM, missile fire control, engines, launchers and a thermal sensor as well. It turns out that Duisburg has 3 jump points in total, exploration of the 2 newly found JPs is started. The Munster System is found, but seems unremarkable, as is the second new system, Osnabrück.
In order to keep up with the fighters and missile boats a new R1 Radar fighter is designed and constructed.
Radar S1 Mk3 class Recon Fighter 500 tons 12 Crew 145.6 BP TCS 10 TH 80 EM 0
8000 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.54 Years MSP 18 AFR 20% IFR 0.3% 1YR 4 5YR 58 Max Repair 84 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 0
EP1 FC08 1HS 16 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (5) Power 16 Fuel Use 79.2% Signature 16 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 30 000 Litres Range 13.6 billion km (19 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor MR11-R1 (1) GPS 84 Range 11.8m km MCR 1.3m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
With the completion of another squad of missile boats and 2 new Kondor carriers a new attack on Düsseldorf is planned and set into motion. 10 Fokker fighters, 2 R1 Radar fighters, 1 R100 Radar FAC and 10 missile boats will participate in the attack supported by 1 tanker. The missile boats will use the improved Dorn Mk2.
Close to the end of December the assembly of the Hangar PDC is finally completed on New Berlin and the Fokker squad moves there. And at the end of the year the espionage team assigned to the Köln aliens finally feels prepared enough to begin their mission
(actually I forgot about them ).
Map at the end of 1901
That's it for today...