The race is the Church of Wasat. I began on year 1 with the following:
Population = 150-200 million
SY = 3
Construction Factories = 100
Research = 10
Mines = 100
Automated Mines = 15
Research Points = 0
Wasat Home System
Primary: F1-IV
Terrestrial Planets: 1
Gas Giant Planets: 2
Super Jovian Planet: 1
Chunks: 3
Moons: 34
Wasat Prime is a moon of Wasat II, the innermost gas giant. A moon of the other gas giant is habitable for the Wasatians, with a colony cost of 2.
As you can see, a very basic setup. I like beginning with the basics and going up from there.
The initial Wasatian goals were to survey their own system and research the systems they needed for warp travel. The initial geo survey results for the Wasat home system were encouraging. While several bodies had minor amounts of minerals, the second habitable moon had large amounts of minerals with moderate availability levels (I fudged a little as I wanted experience colonizing).
While the Wasatians slowly and painfully researched warp travel they also built a colony ship and some infrastructure and began colonizing the other habitable moon. By the time all of the warp travel tech was researched and the first jump ship was in the yards, a small colony supported by four engineer divisions had been placed on the second moon.
The warp survey of the Wasat home system revealed no less than nine warp points. As soon as the first jump ship was complete the First Survey Group set out to probe the warp points.
The nine systems contained no less than eight habitable planets (Col cost 2 or less) and numerous bodies with mineral deposits. The Wasatians decided to limit their expansion at that point and concentrate on developing the systems they had discovered.
Note: I was amazed at the number of habitable planets, and for a short time I wondered if something was messed up. However, in almost every other game I found very few habitable planets, so it balances out.
The first system to be developed was the Hydrogen system. After much research and development the Wasatians built a jump gate at the warp points between the home system and Hydrogen and then began building a colony on the sixth moon of the innermost gas giant. Automated mining colonies were placed on the third planet, and one of the moons of the same gas giant as the colony. For many years the Wasatians concentrated on developing their four extra-planetary colonies (tow inhabited, two automated mining colonies).
It is now June of Year 78. The population of the Wasat home planet is 1.07 Billion and has 220 factories and 235 mines. The colony in the home system has a population of 26 million with 66 mines and 14 factories, while the colony in the Hydrogen system has a population of 9 million with 47 mines and 5 factories. The two mining colonies in the Hydrogen system each have 100 automated mines.
A freighter has been tasked with picking up the minerals mined by the two automated mining colonies in the Hydrogen system. Periodically the freighter is diverted from its regular rounds and begins hauling mined resources from the main Hydrogen colony to the home planet. To support the freighter in Hydrogen a fuel dump was created on the mian colony and a commerical freight facility was constructed. The Hydrogen system is the template for all future Wasatian colonization and exploitation efforts in the nine known systems.
The Wasat have completed a jump gate to the Flourine system and the colonization effort of Flourine IV, a terrestrial planet with a colony cost of .2 is underway.
The Wasatian Navy is small, two Patrol Cruisers and a Battlecruiser. The Navy is currently using advanced 10 cm lasers and torpedoes.
Author's Note: This is not really an "official" campaign, just something I'm playing around with. I'm focusing on the economic side of things in this campaign, at least so far. I'm going to try to exploit all of the nearby systems that are worthwhile before expanding, jsut to see how long it takes and how hard it is to manage the economy as it gets bigger.
Steve - Having played around with this campaign for a bit, I have to say that I can't see an Aurora Campaign ever being anywhere near as big as an SA supported Starfire campaign. Having said that, I'm not sure that is a bad thing. Aurora tends to have more interresting systems, that are not just "more of the same thing", and Aurora's economy is much more complex, so I think that this is a case of "Smaller is better".
Kurt