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

[amram]

I recently had to fire the ship design team responsible for my grav survey ships for incompetence.

They offered huge design work savings by starting their design from the geo survey design.  They offered adequate commonality to build in the same yard.  Seemed ideal.

Built a dozen, set them loose surveying the neighbouring systems hunting for jump points.  Thought nothing of it and went about growing the empires industrial and technological capacity to wage war.

Then i started getting morale notifications which took 4 years, and it dawned on me....I hadn't been notified of any newly discovered jump points in all that time, with a dozen survey craft in 8 systems....  Just what the hell were they all doing?

Absolutely.  Nothing.

The design team, in their utter brilliance, never actually swapped out the geo sensor for a grav sensor.  So the crews all did as told, they moved to locations, and tried to make due with geo sensors.....progress was....lacking.  The crews are all now on permanent assignment to those very same vessels.

The copper lining is that I now have a dozen volunteers for mine clearing detail.

[Michael Sandy]

Ah, that wonderful feeling when you manage your economy so that you don't have that first Duranium crunch from Earth running out.  Duranium and Mercassium stocks are slowly increasing after years of careful management.

Now, economists are suggesting that a Duranium surplus actually indicates we are not growing our economy as fast as possible.  Which may be true, as the theory we are going with on the fastest way to increase our economy is more Military Academies and Ground Force Training Facilities to exploit the several large ruins we have discovered.

Over 500 facilities of a TL4 race have yet to be catalogued, and we have three other ruins the archaeology teams haven't even found out how many installations are present.  But building military academies and GFTFs do not greatly increase mineral consumption.

[joeclark77]

So I conquered the Batman people, er, Batmen.  This is my longest successful game, now 41 years into it and well into the antimatter tech era.  In this case I had enough divisions of ground forces to conquer their home system (Gotham) with ground forces and no nukes from orbit.  The prize was a population greater than my empire's other two racial homeworlds combined, and proportionally enormous quantities of mines, factories, etc.  Even before all the little Batman mining colonies had been cleaned up I made contact with another alien race, the Empire of Sonderborg (emphasis on "borg"), all the way the *other* direction from Earth.  Their planet's EM signature is nearly double that of Batman Prime.  It'll just take a little time to move my ground troops across the galaxy and to upgrade and re-provision a couple of carrier groups...

[Marski]

Current status.

Lots of things happened, hostile automated ships found in Luytens, one jump from earth. Alien fleets at HIP. Two colonies established in Alpha centauri that provide a stable source of Gallicite, thought the demand is still greater than supply. One colony at Epsilon Eridani that has every mineral needed for a self-sufficient colony. One colony at Lyutens.




You can see how much the limited supply of gallicite is affecting the size of fleet I can maintain. Missiles are also in short supply and about quarter of the military ships have empty magazines. Military operations are also very much restricted to defense only, since any offensive action would deplete the missile stocks in short order.

[amram]

PANIC!

That's what is happening in my empire right now. 

A Note before I begin, this is played with a slightly modified database, wanted to muck around with different balancing between some of the parts, so if you notice something odd, you're probably not wrong.  Some of the changes are very cheesable, but not something I will be doing, its not as fun.  AI ship components for spoilers were adjusted to account for the edits, so they'll be competitive even so, its NPR's im less sure of.

We started exploring our neighbouring systems before we ever even had combat ships, but they were on the way.  For years, the next major tech upgrade was so close at hand, it would have left the ships beyond simply obsolete before they were even built, so the design was updated, and pushed back, and back.  Finally it would be over a year before the next tech developed, so prototype parts were quickly mocked up, ship designs were finalised, and work began on the components that would be the first combat force.  By this time, I had 6 jump capable survey craft exploring neighbouring systems. And then it happened, a survey ship walked face first into a salvo of missiles it never even saw coming.The decision to lock in a design paid off, we were just weeks away from deploying our first actual combat ships.  Just 15 years in, our fledgling little mass of people put real weapons in space.  Not.  Nearly.  Enough.

We had a small set of 8kt naval yards, 5 in total, to produce the combat force, with some commonality to allow building any particular force faster than in just one yard.  The fleet doctrine is for up to 20 destroyers with anti ship weaponry, to be backed up by a passive sensor ship, and active sensor ship, 4 PD gauss ships, and 5 pd railgun ships primarily intended for anti fighter/fac duty.  With mid/late game tech, this makes for a very potent combat force that I can usually walk right through spoilers despite a slight tech disadvantage, and kill everything to be salvaged and benefited from.

My military tech levels at the time of the first ships rolling out were composite armor, 25cm railguns, ion drives, 1.75 engine power, 70% fuel, 4kkm/sec beam tracking, 160kkm range( doubled beam FC ranges, I am aware of the 5ls limitation - I'll have smaller FC's late game), unboosted reactors, Grav 16, EM 5 sensors, Gauss 2-2, gamma shields, thermal 6, EM 6.

With that tech, I started building up my combat force:

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Ajax class Destroyer    8,000 tons     191 Crew     1402.5 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 8
Maint Life 2.42 Years     MSP 548    AFR 102%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 128    5YR 1926    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

25cm Railgun V6/C4 (1x4)    Range 300,000km     TS: 8281 km/s     Power 15-4     RM 6    ROF 20        5 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 2
4x1 Fire Control S02 320-4000 (1)    Max Range: 640,000 km   TS: 4000 km/s     98 97 95 94 92 91 89 88 86 84
0.2 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 1.8    Armour 0    Exp 5%
0.7 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 6.3    Armour 0    Exp 5%

DD G16 E6 ASS MR1-R15 (1)     GPS 72     Range 1.1m km    Resolution 15

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Leander class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     191 Crew     1408.5 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 16     PPV 6
Maint Life 3.49 Years     MSP 715    AFR 78%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 90    5YR 1347    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

10cm Railgun V6/C4 (2x4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 8281 km/s     Power 3-4     RM 6    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
1x4 Fire Control S02 80-16000 (1)    Max Range: 160,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38
0.7 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-1 (3)     Total Power Output 9.45    Armour 0    Exp 5%

DDE G16 E6 ASS MR0.42-R5 (1)     GPS 16     Range 420k km    Resolution 5

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Emerald class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     175 Crew     1326.5 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 16     PPV 9.12
Maint Life 3.05 Years     MSP 622    AFR 85%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 100    5YR 1504    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

Single Gauss R2-67 Turret 16k (1x2)    Range 20,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 2    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1x4 Fire Control S02 80-16000 (1)    Max Range: 160,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38

DDP G16 E6 ASS MR0.19-R1 (1)     GPS 4     Range 190k km    MCR 21k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Orion class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     178 Crew     1285.5 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.33 Years     MSP 502    AFR 102%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 126    5YR 1887    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

DDW G12 E6 ASS MR4-R1 (1)     GPS 68     Range 4.1m km    MCR 444k km    Resolution 1
DDW G12 E6 ASS MR31-R60 (1)     GPS 4080     Range 31.6m km    Resolution 60
DDW G12 E6 ASS MR15-R15 (1)     GPS 1020     Range 15.8m km    Resolution 15

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Orion's Shadow class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     181 Crew     1161 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 54/21/0/0     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.42 Years     MSP 476    AFR 97%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 112    5YR 1680    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

Thermal Sensor TH9-54 (1)     Sensitivity 54     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  54m km
EM Detection Sensor EM3.5-21 (1)     Sensitivity 21     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  21m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The build up was slow, even now, the fleet stands at 1 Orion, 1 Orion's Shadow, 8 Ajax, 2 Leander, and 2 Emerald.  Intended fleet builds are 1,1,20,5,4, respectively.  Barely halfway there.

With the evolution of technology, every ship built is currently v2 spec. Not one of the v2 upgrades cost more than 10% of a new build, and all upgraded inside 6 months compared to nearly 2 years new build.

• Ajax destroyers are upgraded from a 25cm railgun, to a 30cm with 60% more reach.  Sensors upgraded to grav21, EM 11, range improved by 80%, and improved damage control.
  
• Leanders are the weakest of the round two upgrades.  Sensors upgraded to grav21, EM 11, range improved by 80%, and improved damage control.  They don't uprate in weaponry until I can build a bigger RoF-5 railgun, or get the same weapon at longer range.
  
• Emeralds doubled their Gauss PD with 4 shot gauss replacing the 2 shot.  Sensors improved to grav21, EM 11, size increased, range improved by 1950%, and improved damage control. nearly 10x.  Emerald 1 are myopic with 20kkm MCR, Emerald 2 have 402kkm MCR.
  
• Orion and Orion's Shadow classes are simply improved damage control and improved sensors, pulling about 80% range increase.
  

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Ajax v2 class Destroyer    8,000 tons     190 Crew     1504 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 44     PPV 9
Maint Life 1.94 Years     MSP 499    AFR 120%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 173    5YR 2602    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

30cm Railgun V7/C4 (1x4)    Range 490,000km     TS: 8281 km/s     Power 21-4     RM 7    ROF 30        7 7 7 7 7 7 7 6 5 4
4x1 Fire Control S02 320-4000 (1)    Max Range: 640,000 km   TS: 4000 km/s     98 97 95 94 92 91 89 88 86 84
0.7 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 6.3    Armour 0    Exp 5%
0.2 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 1.8    Armour 0    Exp 5%

DD G21 E11 ASS MR1.8-R15 (1)     GPS 63     Range 1.8m km    Resolution 15

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Leander v2 class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     191 Crew     1484.5 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 46     PPV 6
Maint Life 3.54 Years     MSP 754    AFR 78%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 92    5YR 1387    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

10cm Railgun V6/C4 (2x4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 8281 km/s     Power 3-4     RM 6    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
1x4 Fire Control S02 80-16000 (1)    Max Range: 160,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38
0.7 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-1 (3)     Total Power Output 9.45    Armour 0    Exp 5%

DDE G21 E11 ASS MR1-R5 (1)     GPS 21     Range 1.0m km    Resolution 5

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Emerald v2 class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     175 Crew     1441 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 45     PPV 9.12
Maint Life 2.54 Years     MSP 591    AFR 97%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 128    5YR 1921    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

Single Gauss R2-67 Turret 16k (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 2    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1x4 Fire Control S02 80-16000 (1)    Max Range: 160,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38

DDP G21 E11 ASS MR3.7-R1 (1)     GPS 34     Range 3.7m km    MCR 402k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Orion's Shadow v2 class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     180 Crew     1279 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 99/20/0/0     Damage Control Rating 45     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.44 Years     MSP 525    AFR 97%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 122    5YR 1827    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

Thermal Sensor TH9-99 (1)     Sensitivity 99     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  99m km
EM Detection Sensor EM3.25-19.5 (1)     Sensitivity 19.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.5m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Orion v2 class Destroyer Escort    8,000 tons     178 Crew     1423.5 BP      TCS 160  TH 1325  EM 630
8281 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 21-840     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 45     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.39 Years     MSP 556    AFR 102%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 134    5YR 2003    Max Repair 220.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

HS23 P160 F070 T100 441.6 EP Ion Drive (3)    Power 441.6    Fuel Use 174.54%    Signature 441.6    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1,745,000 Litres    Range 22.5 billion km   (31 days at full power)
Gamma R840/588 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  147 Litres per hour  (3,528 per day)

DDW G21 E11 ASS MR9-R1 (1)     GPS 90     Range 9.8m km    MCR 1.1m km    Resolution 1
DDW G21 E11 ASS MR76-R60 (1)     GPS 5355     Range 76.0m km    Resolution 60
DDW G21 E11 ASS MR38-R15 (1)     GPS 1339     Range 38.0m km    Resolution 15

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

And remember, I currently have 8 ajax v2, 2 emerald v2, 2 leander v2, 1 orion v2, and 1 orion's shadow, v2.  I can probably fend off a precursor attack, which is what I figure my survey craft found.

....Something worse came knocking.  I am horribly inadequate to fight it at this time, I need probably another 30-50 years before I stand much chance in a straight fight.

I have advanced further in railguns, but can't spare any tonnage to uprate the ajax class yet.  Currently their big change is a better firecontrol, which can actually meet their speed.  Emeralds have uprated their FC to 20k km/s, have not yet replaced the turret with a 20kkm/s variant.  Refitting the Ajax class begins.


I've been visited by Invaders.....  So far, I have been incredibly lucky, they've only sent 4 gatebuilders into sol, which i promptly destroyed and salvaged.  So far the loot has been worthy, I hope for more gifts before combat ships roll through....maybe they recognise my superiority and are offering tithes to pacify my latent aggression.....yeah...no.

leached tech points thus far:

• laminate composite armor 3600
• gauss rate 5 20,250
• BFC range 96 kkms 8,700
• BFC speed 6250kms 8,400
• Grav 28 2850
• turret gear 230
• eccm-1 850
• mag plasma drive 8200
• jump construction 180 module 100

Stellarator Fusion reactor tech, so I can use that mag plasma research, is still 6 months away.  BFC 96kkm/s is 4 years away.  35cm railgun is 2 years away.  shield regen 1.75 is 18 months away(currently 0.75).  I have 42 labs.  Not nearly enough, lol.



I have, in panicked desperation, decided to try a tactic that will let me steal even more goodies from invaders if it works...maybe even stop them cold if it works well enough.  Or it fails and I die in a few puffs of laser fire and nuclear detonations.   Either way, I expect major casualties. The priority technology is now microwaves.  I plan to build fighters with the longest reaching microwave I can pack onto them. Take a page from the swarm, and swamp the invaderswith numbers, escorted by the main fleet until fairly close, then surge forward out of the pd cover, to try and get close and knock sensors off line.

The destroyers can take a bit of invader fire I think, and any fire directed at them, is not directed at the microwave craft.  Each destroyer has 21hp of shielding and 4-35 armor....I may need to increase this.  I have enough firepower to kill the ships, If I can life long enough to get to fire on them enough times.

The next revision is likely going to carry a very limited capability backup BFC, for knifefighting, and a return to heavily subdivided fuel tanks - i've derped and put the majority of the fuel capacity into a very large tank, which is the second most likely htk target.....

I don't usually have invaders on until I can handle precursors reliably, figured I'd live dangerously this time, small population, industrial and tech base, unboosted income/industry.  I'm not even certain a full fleet of destroyers could win any fight the precursors can bring right now, and I get invaders.....

I am so screwed, lol.

[Bughunter]

Sounds like you are having a fun game, maybe it will be the Dwarf Fortress sort of fun but still fun 

[amram]

It was very much rimworld/dwarf fortress in how it ended.

I lasted a couple years further, was working on upgrading the ships to mag plasma engines, had a moderate force of fighters, 14 ajax and 3 each leanders and emeralds.

Shortly after posting, a 15kt warship rolled through and it all started going downhill.  I had spent every moment possible in taskforce training, they were getting there.  Unfortunately, none of them could deal with an invader alpha strike, even at max range, the shields weren't quite enough for the little ships even.  At best, they could take a single 37 point hit from a missile, or 26pt hit from a laser(s), which would deplete the shields and just penetrate the armor with no internal damage, absent shock damage.

Their 15kt warships are generally a bit weaker than that at max range, but I can't fire back, even if it weren't for the ecm.  If I close into range, I get plastered, and I was every so slightly slower than they were, about 100km/s less. I needed those fighters to take the abuse because the destroyers couldn't.

They jumped in from out past pluto.  The destroyers left immediately, the fighters left 2 days later and beat them there, the battle happened not all that far from uranus.

At 497 tons, the fighters were barely that, but they could bring their own 10cm ROF-10 microwave, could only reach 80kkm though.  Made all the nastier by the invaders ecm cutting that by 60% to less than 40kkm - I'd be in range and detected long before I could engage.  They were decently quick though, making 20kkm/s - I'd have made them even faster, but had to downsize the engine a little to fit in the microwave emitter.  They were literally all engine and microwave, less than 80 tons went into reactor, BFC, crew, fuel, and armor, they carried nothing else.

What happened next was messy.....and lucky.  Things went mostly as i'd hoped.  The fighters rushed in, bagging the firecontrols before the losses got out of hand.  The destroyers closed in an mopped up.  Of 37 fighters, I had 29 left.  Everyone headed home.

The industrial cycles nasty sometimes, I'd already spent all my luck in the fight, one fighter had a maintenance issue and lost its engine.  It carried no MSP, and I had no tugs no carriers to go pick it up.... I hadn't planned for a carrier strike force, the fighters were a stopgap.  Had the crew abandon it and the destroyers picked them up in the way by.

A couple weeks roll by, a couple more fighters deploy, and then another ship jumps in, 15ktons.  I was not as lucky this time.

I went to close in, and then the increments went to 20s....I wasn't close to them yet, that was not good.  So I immediately turned and tried to run.  I couldn't escape, but I could string out the missile engagements and try to take it.  Microwave fighters were of no help there, so they did the only useful thing they could do, charge.  The fighters did their job, and managed to jab fingers in all its eyes right quick, I didn't lose very many either.  But the worst was yet to come.    As they'd been closing in, they'd seen a worrying number of missiles closing.  6 every 20s, doing 50kkm/s.

20kkm/sec gauss turrets are not ideal against 50kkm/s missiles...   Their closure was over 40kkm/s, the there would be only one engagement per salvo, and the leanders and ajax would be lucky to even hit anything.  The three emeralds fielded a 1x4 gauss turret, for a total of 12 shots per volley, against 3 salvos, but only 67% base, so I could only count on 8 hits.  Of course, a 20kkm/s turret facing 50kkm/s missiles doesn't fare well, 3.2 hits.  Not enough.

The leanders were intended to provide fighter/fac defence, with an assist to missile defence, but at such an early tech stage, they were barely competent.  Only 16% accurate, with 8 tries, I could expect 1 on average per leander, with 3 leanders.

I could average 6 missiles per increment.  Its the average part that worried me.

The ajax were just as competent as the leanders in accuracy, but fielded half as many shots, on 6 times the reload.  It was literally 50/50 whether an ajax would manage a single kill or not.  So I spread them out, for the first salvo three were put on final fire, then three more, then 2, 2, 2, and 2.   There was a 90% chance the ajax's would get at least one kill.  Its when they wouldn't that would be a problem.

Every 20 seconds, 6 missiles rolled in, far too many salvos were inbound.  Any one hit might be fatal, and two would be.  Loss of an ajax would hurt my chances, loss of an emerald would end me.

The emeralds only had a range of 20kkm, so separating them to act as a picket between the main force and the missiles would be disastrous, there was a good chance the missiles could skip right past and not even get shot at, no, I needed to be as much of a doom stack as I could pretend to be.

I managed to stay on top for the first three salvos, my average kill rate was above the incoming, but only just.  Then it happened, a leaker slipped through and hit the Orion.  38 pts of damage.  The shield was wiped out, and 17 points landed on 4 layers of armor.  1 pt penetrated, an engine resisted it.

A two salvos later an emerald took a hit and lost its firecontrol.  That wiped out roughly 1 kill per salvo of defence.  The ajax' now had to get a kill every salvo, or I was going to take more hits.

And they didn't.  I took three hits on the next salvo and lost a leander.  Two the salvo after and lost an ajax.  At this point it was clear i'd survive.  There were only three salvos left, the fighters had blinded the target, and I had 15 ships left.  I lost two more ajax.

Got them home, and continued the ramp up.  I got a bit of breathing room for a couple of months.  Finished another leander and emerald, with 4 more ajax not that far away.  Never had a free yard to repair the emerald that took a hit, so not only did the armor have to stay punctured, but I had to wait out DC repairing the fire control on its own.

Then ragnarok arrived.  2 ships jumped in, 31ktons.  There was little hope, off they went anyways.

The fighters rushed in, and were promptly splattered with AMM's, never even got a shot off.  The destroyers didn't fare any better.  They could maybe stop 8 missiles now with a little luck, but these were 5 missile salvos, 20 salvos at a time, every 5 seconds.  At least the ships could absorb more punishment, 152 plates of armor and 4 layers.  Problem was, it was quite likely that i'd be taking internal hits before I took 75 hits.  That meant I would maybe absorb 1000 AMM's in total, lose my entire fleet in the process, and I knew their magazines held several thousand missiles each.

I managed 7 salvos, 35 seconds..., before I lost a ship, and it rapidly snowballed from there.

I had an industrial cycle before they made it close enough to fire on earth, and built a single fighter....armed with a microwave emitter, useless in missile defence, doubly so against AMM ships.  they stomped the colonies on Io, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, Mars, Luna, and Mercury, and emptied their stocks into earth.  Industrially I was finished, no shipyards, and a badly bruised economy.

Then more jumped in, and that was that.  Proper ASM's hammered into earth, and industrially, I was erased.  They didn't just pummel the planet and leave, I had no factories or labs left when they were done.  I did have a ground unit training facility, but hadn't researched construction brigades, there was no way to even try rebuilding.  Besides that, my population was plumeting and there was no infrastructure on earth, it had all been taken to the colonies.

Used designer mode to poke around their forces, and yeah, the wormhole was in the system they entered sol from, and they had 40 ships just hanging out around the wormhole.  I was so completely screwed, lol.

80k rp, 500m start is maybe not quite enough with invaders on from the start, lol.

[joeclark77]

I am aware of the 5ls limitation

I'm not!  What's that?

[joeclark77]

It was very much rimworld/dwarf fortress in how it ended.

I always play with Invaders on, because the game is too easy without them, but I can't beat them if I play the game "straight", as intended.  I cheat bigtime.  I use the fact that you can tell when enemy ships are firing missiles, to trick them into emptying their magazines at a jump point, jump through, jump back.  Then I mop their missile ships up with beam fighters (meson and microwave mostly).  I board their ships by using "30 day" increments (guaranteeing a 6 hour window for the boarding ships to approach without being fired on).  The boarding ships unload their marines, then get detected and destroyed.  I send lots of ships on suicide missions because it works.

If you had as little dignity as me, I'd have recommended camping on the JP in the adjacent system to make them waste all their missiles before entering Sol.

[Michael Sandy]

The increment boarding tactic still requires the boarding to be successful, and if the enemy is too fast to board, your troops will splatter and not be successful in boarding.

[amram]

I am aware of the 5ls limitation

I'm not!  What's that?

no FC can exceed a bit over 1.4mkm in aurora,its a hardcoded limitation regarded as being the distance light travels in 5 seconds, one increment, and taken as the limit for beam weapons range, by limiting the FC.  Not an issue with stock FC's capping out at 175kkm, you come up just short.  With doubled FC ranges I'll certainly hit it.

Its amusing to muck about in the DB and re-spec an FC to that you wanted, but its rather unfair, the NPR's and spoilers could never compete with it, as they suffer the limit unless you watch for their components in the database too.

[ExChairman]

Humans have for the first time in history visited another star system, using wormhole travel we are now visiting Alpha Centauri. Is this the system the Enemy come from, the same enemy that terrorised earth  from 1973 to the late 1987. On the other hand the war we fought against the enemy united our species under one rule for the first time in history, but we lost over 3 billion and great parts of Earth was devastated by nuclear fallout. But we won, first on Earth then taking the fight in early 2010 to Mars were we defeated the last remnant. We had to pull back for almost 40 years to heal Earth and its people. Then in 2050 we returned to Mars and Luna and for the next 30 years we reclaimed the enemy Mars colony and with that help we began to colonize our solar system, and today 2080 at midnight our first jump capable ship jumped to a new system, finding one small habitable planet and several standard planets that might be terraformed. Now we have a small fleet of 8 destroyers and 12 FACs to defend the human race, but more will come...

[joeclark77]

The increment boarding tactic still requires the boarding to be successful, and if the enemy is too fast to board, your troops will splatter and not be successful in boarding.

True, but it works great against those immobile AMM platforms they sometimes push through wormholes.  Capture and disassemble a couple of those and you'll have maxed-out missile reloading and sensor tech.  Also you get to keep the AMMs.  Tens of thousands of them.

[Garfunkel]

80k rp, 500m start is maybe not quite enough with invaders on from the start, lol.

I've tried having them on from start with much bigger starting Earth population and it wasn't fun. You might sink twenty hours into a successful game and then get stomped in 30 minutes. It'll work as a special challenge, ie you dedicate the whole game to just dealing with them from the start, but as a general game, where you also have other spoilers and NPRs, it just means that you might face instant death at any moment.

[amram]

I'm actually about to do exactly that, a 2.5b pop start, invaders on from the get go.  The increased labs and production should make me sustainable against what I faced, and potentially against their larger ships.  5 times the industrial base, and change government type to meritocracy, so it leans more heavily into labs.  I won't be all that much more productive, maybe double, but definitely much more technological, which is the biggest failing of a young empire against invaders.

Not sure if I want to lay on the fighters from the beginning, and go full blast towards mimicking the swarm with microwaves and perhaps also mesons.  Or make skip fielding my combat destroyers and go straight into cruisers at 16kt that field microwaves, and spend much of the 8kton increase on just armor to survive the coming onslaught long enough to poke their eyes out.   Or both....

I usually only advance in size when I can't increase the efficacy of the smaller hull significantly anymore.