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

[Vandermeer]

You are playing the tunes I like to hear, athom. I can't wait to get the spicy details.

[Anarade Relle]

When the Geosurvey vessel Hound, on a peaceful mission of first contact with the aliens now known as the Russets, was fired upon and mercilessly destroyed, human engineers quickly prototyped and tested the Blackbear class of destroyers.  With no time to design new engines or weapon systems, they re-used the gas guzzling engines from the Hawk, a fast patrol craft suitable only for home system defense, and they adapted the Arrow missile launchers and anti-missile meson turrets from Earth's two PDCs.  Although cobbled together in a hurry, the Blackbears proved to be very capable in the Ion era, with good speed, adequate range, and deep magazines:

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Blackbear class Destroyer    8,000 tons     208 Crew     1134.4 BP      TCS 160  TH 432  EM 0
2700 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 36.33
Maint Life 1.85 Years     MSP 177    AFR 256%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 66    5YR 987    Max Repair 54 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 672   

108 EP Ion Drive (4)    Power 108    Fuel Use 207.23%    Signature 108    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 10.9 billion km   (46 days at full power)

Triple R1.5/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (1x3)    Range 15,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 9-9     RM 1.5    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Turret Fire Control S02 24-12000 (1)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor 9P (1)     Total Power Output 9    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 4 Missile Launcher (75% Reduction) (8)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 80
Missile Fire Control FC38-R160 (1)     Range 38.3m km    Resolution 160
Arrow-I (168)  Speed: 13,500 km/s   End: 121.9m    Range: 98.8m km   WH: 9    Size: 4    TH: 54/32/16

Civilian Sensor MR1-R1 (1)     GPS 21     Range 1.3m km    MCR 137k km    Resolution 1
Ship Sensor MR42-R160 (1)     GPS 6720     Range 42.5m km    Resolution 160

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The relatively primitive Russets had nothing that could match it.  (Incidentally, they are so named because they were discovered in a star system named for the potato-growing region of Maine -- Aroostook.  All of their colonies are named for potato varieties.)  By the time a one-way jump gate was constructed, Earth had three shipyards (7 slipways total) producing Blackbears, and 11 were then in service.  They destroyed the entire Russet armada and took control of the planet's airspace with the loss of only one ship.  Each of the other ten took dozens of strikes from planetary defenses but somehow held together.

The last flight of the Blackbears occurred in April of 2012.  Humanity had made contact with a new alien race, apparently far advanced in technology, coming from the neighboring Oquossoc system.  Only their survey ships and one jumpgate construction ship had been encountered so far, but the aliens refused to communicate and gave only hostile signals, and we had nicknamed them the Intruders.  On April fool's day, three enormous (30,000 ton) Intruder warships transited into Sol from Oquossoc.  At that time, 19 Blackbears were in service:  5 were stationed at the Oquossoc jump point (just inside Uranian orbit), 8 at earth, and 6 were in the Aroostook system defending the conquered world.

The five destroyers at the JP (the 2nd battle group) began launching their missiles as soon as they detected the transit.  The alien ships moved incredibly fast and had powerful ECM, so they quickly outran the Blackbear group, but not before several volleys of missiles reached them.  The good news was, it was possible for Arrow missiles to hit the alien warships -- their point defenses weren't as superior as their engine and ECM tech.  The bad news was, they shrugged off several strength-9 hits without slowing down or altering course.

The 1st battle group, the eight Blackbears stationed at Earth, moved to intercept the aliens who were on a direct course for Earth at blinding speed.  The fleets met in the asteroid belt, and the Blackbears launched almost all of their combined 1344 missiles.  Several volleys struck the alien leader, and slowed it slightly, but not enough.  The intruders launched missiles at point-blank range which obliterated their targets in one strike.  One by one, all eight Blackbears were destroyed, their missiles in flight losing guidance before they might have destroyed the not-quite-invulnerable aliens.

While the 2nd battle group rushed back to Earth, the intruders began to ravage the inner solar system.  Nuclear strikes of unbelievable magnitude all but wiped out the major cities of Mars.  One intruder warship, apparently out of missiles, headed straight for Mercury and began ramming the fleet of four terraformers stationed there.  Unbelievably, it destroyed all four of them by ramming, as well as two civilian freighters, and continued toward Earth at blistering speed, seemingly indifferent to the ruptures in its own hull.  Finally it closed within 10 million kilometers of Earth, where the two PDCs' fire controls were able to gain a lock, and we managed to destroy it with a hail of Arrow missiles.

The other two alien warships stopped moving near the Martian orbit, and remained there for a few days until the 2nd Battle Group closed within missile range.  The aliens fired their final salvo and destroyed one of the human ships.  Out of ammo and out of fuel (we presume), they remained stationary and silent thereafter.  The brave pilots of the last four operational Blackbears had no alternatives but to close to point-blank range and commence firing with their anti-missile meson turrets.  Apparently helpless, the alien warships were destroyed.

The last four Blackbears rescued as many as they could from the lifepods, and are now in drydock on Earth.  This sturdy class served humanity well, but Blackbear 025, currently under construction, will be the last of the line.  Earth's engineers are now focused on developing ships with the speed to outrun the aliens -- using newly developed Magneto-Plasma engines -- and developing PDCs capable of defending the entire inner Solar system with multi-stage missiles and ultra-long-range fire controls.

That's a pretty cool story. The Blackbears certainly contributed alot to the defence of human civilization. I never really managed to have to build a emergency war fleet like you did here; I usually end up giving in and churn out warships in the long years before finding a NPR.

Personally I suggest keeping at least one Blackbear in a hanger bay somewhere as a museum ship for RP purposes.

[83athom]

That's a pretty cool story. The Blackbears certainly contributed alot to the defence of human civilization. I never really managed to have to build a emergency war fleet like you did here; I usually end up giving in and churn out warships in the long years before finding a NPR.

Personally I suggest keeping at least one Blackbear in a hanger bay somewhere as a museum ship for RP purposes.

And have it come out and pwn all the aliens when they come knocking. That's basically how the Ark Royal series starts.

[Anarade Relle]

And have it come out and pwn all the aliens when they come knocking. That's basically how the Ark Royal series starts.

Sounds like a good plan.

Of course one has to play the SBY Theme when doing so.

[Ostia]

I am mildly amused by my planetary findings.

Planet with 100% BioGen Bonus.
The kicker. 2.48 Gravity and 165 atm. By the time I researched the tech to make a normal home on it would be useless because I would have researched everything important in the field.

And 3k underground infra to host a sizable lab complex aren't really an option either.

[JacenHan]

The Terran Federation just made first contact with the second alien race it has found (the first being automated defense ships in the Epsilon Nebula). 4 10,000 ton ships have closed to 50m km of the survey ship Discovery 003, and remain there while the ships exchange messages in an attempt to establish communication. The Federation is unaware of this find, and does not expect the Discovery to report back for several weeks, as it was commanded to inspect the ideal habitable world present in the system, and then survey system for minerals.

The Bushehr Republic has encountered the first alien race in it's history. The planetary sensors on Bushehr Prime detected an active sensor signature several billion km from the homeworld, and on a direct heading for it. In response, the Bushehr dispatched the 1st Cruiser Group, consisting of 1 jump cruiser, 1 missile cruiser, and 2 escort cruisers. After closing to 50m km of the alien ship, they began communication attempts, while the Bushehr surveyors were attempting to find the jump point the alien ship originated from.

Communication between the two races was established 17th April, 2043, marking the beginning of Federation-Republic relations. The 1st Cruiser Group followed Discovery 003 out of the Bushehr system, into the system the Terrans call Epsilon Indi, a nebula with a Terran colony and archaeological dig, although that wasn't mentioned when the Discovery politely informed the Bushehr that the system was under the control of the Federation.

Edit: The Terran Federation has finalized it's design for the Orion class Battleship, meant to operate primarily in the extensive Epsilon Nebula. It is still going to be some time before a shipyard is large enough to accommodate it, though.

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Orion class Battleship    32 000 tons     760 Crew     5124.6 BP      TCS 640  TH 1920  EM 0
3000 km/s     Armour 10-89     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 30     PPV 180
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 2001    AFR 819%    IFR 11.4%    1YR 563    5YR 8441    Max Repair 360 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0    
Flag Bridge    Cryogenic Berths 200    

N240-20 Ion Drive (8)    Power 240    Fuel Use 64%    Signature 240    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 4 000 000 Litres    Range 35.2 billion km   (135 days at full power)

20cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser (6)    Range 256 000km     TS: 4000 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 4    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
300mm C4 Plasma Carronade (16)    Range 240 000km     TS: 4000 km/s     Power 24-4     RM 1    ROF 30        24 12 8 6 4 4 3 3 2 2
TN/SAG-5 Beam Fire Control (3)    Max Range: 256 000 km   TS: 4000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
P-9 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (10)     Total Power Output 90    Armour 0    Exp 5%

TN/SPD-3 Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 108     Range 8.6m km    MCR 941k km    Resolution 1
TN/SPS-1 Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 3456     Range 69.1m km    Resolution 16
TN/SPY-9 Large Area Search Sensor (1)     GPS 28800     Range 257.6m km    Resolution 80

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Another Edit: Another game, with the Terran Imperium, a xenophobic empire that believes it is destined to rule the galaxy, has been in a war with a 450% difficulty NPR for about five years. Although they haven't found Sol yet, my brief engagements with them have demonstrated that my anti-missile ability is very effective against them, but the range on my ship's systems is lacking. Currently, the entire Terran fleet is stationed on the warp point that leads to the NPRs territory.

In addition, I have a single survey ship (formerly two survey ships) trapped behind enemy lines, desperately surveying new systems in an attempt to stay ahead of the alien forces, and possibly find a warp point leading home.

[83athom]

10 years into my game with no ships yet. And the NPRs must have done/found something big. For the past several 1 month turn change I've been getting several Wreck Salvage Errors/messages. This lasted for several months (averaging around 3-6 every month) and has no longer been happening.
Edit; After a couple more months it has happened twice more in a group of 6 and 5 messages. The exact message is "Wreck not found in CompleteWreckSalvage". What are they doing over there?

[83athom]

Also, I just now noticed in my game it started me with 35cm focal size for lasers, a capacitor recharge rate of 8, and soft x-ray wavelength. I guess the game wants me to do some lasers this game. Everything else in the all the trees started pretty low level though, except sensors.

[Garfunkel]

Two factions are trying to salvage the same wrecks, if I remember correctly.

[Viridia]

Sorting out designs for both factions in my current game and doing a bit of surveying in the meantime. Atlantic surveyors have gone to Luna, Jupiter and Mercury to search for resources while their Eurasian counterparts are searching Mars and Saturn.

Edit; Poor Eurasians. They've not found a single mineral deposit on Mars, the first time this has happened in nearly a dozen games.

[vstyds]

In my current game I built my first construction ships and I'm having them build jump gates everywhere! (except that jump point to a black hole that sucked my lone exploration ship, thankfully I knew something bad could happen, so the exploration task group had one and only one ship).

It's faster than having freighters that can jump yet, and I've caught civilian ships using them, which is neat.

[CharonJr]

In my current game the 2 other powers on my home planet have been sending ships to a Spoiler (those that dont leave wrecks for very Long) infested system for about 15 years now, I really dread how many Spoilers I will find when I finally return there and how long it will take to kill all of them...

[MarcAFK]

Send a scout. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

[CharonJr]

Well, there were just 549 FACs in the end, but since they were slower than my ships and outranged as well it would have come down to endless turns of moving away while they try to close the range, I simply SMed in a high tech super race that killed them quickly

[83athom]

My first grav-survey ships just finished building 12 years into the game, and I am excited about what I'll find. I know How many points will be in Sol as I set that to 10, as well as 7 NPRs at start... Yay... fun.

Edit; Okay, something weird happened.  Even with Sol JP set to 10, a full survey found only 4 points. Will more eventually show up from other systems or is is bugged?

Edit 2; Yay, I just found out that my Grav-survey ships don't actually have jump drives. I guess I'll have to do a redesign/refit.