20th December 2332
Fifty construction factories arrive at the Commune colony of Wieliczka and eleven thousand tonnes of all TN elements have already been stockpiles, allowing the colony to begin construction of first terraforming installations. Mines and possibly more factories will be coming in the following years.
There is also a mounting discussion about the future of the planet. It's mineral resources make it only a moderately good prospect for mining but since no other colonisable planets have any resources of interest, Wieliczka may end up being the largest manned mining site in the Commune anyway.
But even if that is not the case it seems like the planet will end up being a major R&D site, due to large and easily accessible deposits of duranium and mercassium, making it a perfect place for construction of additional facilities. However such an effort will require significantly larger population than already present, which means it will be quite some time before the planet can be developed in that direction.
Whether or not those industries come to the planet, it will at the very least remain a large and important fleet base. The current population is almost fifteen million.
Ymir class Terraforming Base 51 000 tons 205 Crew 1193 BP TCS 1020 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-122 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 3
Terraformer: 2 module(s) producing 0.002 atm per annum
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 21 sections
1st February 2333
A jump gate network has extended to ES – 19 GGTH4, allowing the Commune construction ship to call for help.
This causes consternation among the government and upper echelons of the Commune Defense Force, as Galileo has scouted the inner system finding nothing which means the initial survey methods will need to be updated. In the meantime there is the question of response.
Two gunboat flotillas are present at Wieliczka and two more in the home system. The latter is too far and the whole point of establishing a fleet base in Sudetes was to allow the First Fleet to remain concentrated so those vessels are not being considered.
The problem is that the First Flotilla has been placed in an overhaul recently, which means there will be no protection for Wieliczka should the Second Flotilla be deployed. In addition there is no more fuel on the colony, it will take some time to transport more and the general fuel situation is still problematic.
In the end the government decides to wait, at least until fuel stockpile can be re-established on Wieliczka. The colony expedition, which was just approaching the Gateway jump point, will be redirected to the already established colony as well. For now the readily habitable planet will remain undeveloped.
6th February 2333
The last two gunboats leave the Kossakowski Naval Shipbuilding yard orbiting the Commune habitat of Courland, bringing the total number of flotillas to five. The yard, which consists of six slipways of three thousand tonnes of capacity, will now build missile defense bases, although the construction will not begin for several months due to the limits of the current maintenance facilities. At the moment two dozen bases are planned, with six deployed on Wieliczka, six permanently deployed on Courland and Odin and six remaining on Courland in reserve to be deployed elsewhere when necessary.
Palisade class Orbital Weapon Platform 3 000 tons 80 Crew 485 BP TCS 60 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 6-18 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 42
Maint Life 2.07 Years MSP 101 AFR 72% IFR 1% 1YR 31 5YR 471 Max Repair 77 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Spare Berths 0
Single Stefanowski -Wojcik Gauss Cannon Turret (5x3) Range 30 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Zaituc-Boroi Point Defence Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Sandberg Heavy Industries Small Missile Detection System (1) GPS 21 Range 2.3m km MCR 252k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
9th March 2333
First Gunboat Flotilla completes its overhaul. With fuel under way, the Commune government decides to release the Second Flotilla for operations.
25th March 2333
The three ships that destroyed the Commune survey ship Ruby are detected on active sensors. Their mass is eighty three hundred tonnes. Commodore Gunadi, who recently has taken over command of the formation, orders his ships to halt. The distances between Wieliczka and the enemy system are so large, his ships are almost down to half the fuel and his formation will be unable to survey the system. However it is obvious the aliens have Commune vessels on some kind of passive sensors, so he intends to stay in place for several days allowing all mobile forces to come to him. If the Intelligence analysis of the ADS is correct, anything that can move will move towards the threat represented by humans.
As soon as the aliens are in range, the Commodore orders his vessels to open fire, assigning three gunboats to each alien. Only one ship is destroyed, but the other two are heavily damaged. Two more Piranhas open fire, each targeting a different ship. This is enough to eliminate all known threats.
1st April 2333
The Commune archaeologists complete their survey of alien ruins on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2, finding a total of one hundred and ten installations waiting to be recovered. All three troop transports in service are tasked with moving construction brigades and garrison battalions to the site to begin recovery operations. Unfortunately, the moon has too low gravity to be colonized.
11th April 2333
There is no sign of any additional alien forces. One of the Jutland class ships will be dispatched to perform a second flyby of the system, while the Commune colonists that were en route are being awaken on the Wieliczka colony. They are not happy about the change of destination, but they understand going to ES – 19 GGLH4 is too risky and they don't want to return to the Baltic habitats due to the overpopulation there.
21st June 2333
The Hegemony settles Poseidon, a large terrestrial planet covered completely in ice that orbits the primary star. While the government has no plans for development of the colony, they hope to use its existence to bring investment – in particular mining companies – into the primary system.
3rd July 2333
The Commune salvage group arrives in Dandanelles to begin operations there and in the adjacent ES – 16 KH4.
16th August 2333
The Republic launches their first vessel since their colonization of the Phoenix system. It's a fuel harvester, as despite their large stockpiles, recovered mostly from alien ruins, their continued colonization efforts require a significant amount of fuel.
18th August 2333
Jutland and one of the Eel class scouts have completed passive and active sensor sweep of the ES – 19 GGLH4 system. Some begin to suspect that despite the Commune previous believes the ADS can – and in this case have – move to other systems. Hawkwing will arrive in the system for survey as soon as they complete their current task. Until then ES – 19 GGLH4 will remain off-limits to commercial traffic.
6th September 2333
All people who were willing to emigrate to Seine has done so, releasing colony ships for the next project. The privately owned freighters – which have managed to pick at least some trade between Germany and New Atlantis – has been used to move large amounts of infrastructure to Phoenix C III, opening the planet to the Republican colonization. As always there is fierce competition.
United Kingdom would have gotten a spot already, but they are somewhat divided. While many Scots and Welsh have seen benefits of the united government and their independence movements failed numerous times, in this new era the minorities are large enough to champion for their own planets, which means that England competes alone, weakening its position. The other most likely candidates to receive the planet are Italy and Ukraine.
In the end the Italy wins. The planet is renamed Servii, after Servian Wall which marks the unification of the seven settlements located on the seven hills and formation of the city of Rome. It is estimated that nearly five million people intends to emigrate there.
20th October 2333
The second Hawkwing class support ship leaves the yard. No more vessels of this class are planned and the components for the newest Commune warship are still under development, prompting some people to suggest using the yard for construction of Amethyst class geological survey vessels, instead of waiting for the new commercial shipyard, which is currently under construction. The discussion quickly escalated into general debate about the current state and function of the Commune Defense Force.
Before the decision to expand was made, Commune possessed no warships, as they were hoping to hide from threats rather than confront them and they did not believe themselves to have sufficient resources for defense anyway. When the gunboats were designed and laid down, they were conceived as a throw away vessels to deal with potential threats other than the Destroyer.
In the end such threat did exist in the form of ADS. So on the one hand the Commune still does not believe itself powerful enough to defeat the Destroyer – or the race that built it – and on the other they have a force that protected them from aliens without the loss of a single warship. And to top it off, thanks to lower military spending, other areas of Commune industry are finally fully founded and operating at one hundred percent. The CDF objections that gunboats have limited utility due to their small size, short range, reliance on ammunition and lack of missile defenses, are generally ignored by those wishing to see smaller naval budget.
In the end the Administrator and the Oversight Committee manage to stand fast against the demands to cut warship production, but it remains to be seen if they can continue to do so.
10th January 2334
The Commune recovers the first alien installation on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2, an ordnance factory.
Meanwhile their salvage group completes recovering the wrecks in ES – 16 KH4. Fortunately the vessels have enough space to move to ES – 19 GGLH4 before returning the minerals and components.
30th June 2334
All alien installations on Germany has been recovered by the Republican forces. The operations will now move to Servii.
9th July 2334
ES – 19 GGLH4 has been surveyed with two new jump points found. Both new systems have been scouted finding nothing and as such the Commune government decides to open the system for development.
4th August 2334
The Commune designs their first major warship, the Stockholm class frigate. The ten thousand tonne vessel is heavily armored, equipped with both anti-missile and anti-ship railguns and can stay in deep space for two years. The only potential problem of the class is limited sensor ability, which is good enough to target missiles and ships within weapon range, but is not really practical at finding targets in deep space.
Retooling of the yard will take over a year.
Stockholm class Frigate 10 000 tons 301 Crew 2021.8 BP TCS 200 TH 986 EM 0
4930 km/s Armour 7-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 11/11/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 48
Maint Life 2.8 Years MSP 758 AFR 133% IFR 1.9% 1YR 141 5YR 2111 Max Repair 246.4 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Spare Berths 0
Suyanto & Sjukur Medium Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 492.8 Fuel Use 54.83% Signature 492.8 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 32.8 billion km (77 days at full power)
Markowicz -Barczak Aerospace Industries 100 mm Railgun (8x4) Range 40 000km TS: 4930 km/s Power 3-4 RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Markowicz -Barczak Aerospace Industries 250 mm Railgun (3x4) Range 200 000km TS: 4930 km/s Power 15-4 RM 4 ROF 20 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 2 2 2
Stanciu Orbital Systems Railgun Fire Control (2) Max Range: 256 000 km TS: 6000 km/s 96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Sastrowardoyo-Sudiro Advanced Nuclear Reactor (8) Total Power Output 48 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Sandberg Heavy Industries Small Missile Detection System (1) GPS 21 Range 2.3m km MCR 252k km Resolution 1
Urena Orbital Systems Small Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 11m km
Urena Orbital Systems Small EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 11m km
Compact ECCM-3 (2) ECM 20
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
26th September 2334
The Commune have completed the salvage of all the wrecks around the Sudetes system.
28th March 2335
The first million Commune colonists lands on ES – 19 GGLH4 A I. The names have only recently been decided and the system has been dubbed Athens, after the ancient Greek city where democracy was born and the planet has been named Eden, due to its readily habitable nature.
10th April 2335
The amount of sorium on Valhalla falls below a hundred thousand tonnes, prompting the Commune to start moving fuel harvesters to Bjornoya (Sudetes VII) which has over two million tonnes of the mineral with accessibility of eighty percent on the Kamov scale and is located close to a growing fleet base, making it quite secure.
21st April 2335
Commune engineers working on ancient ruins on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2 find, within a short period of time, two installations containing new technologies – magazine ejection system of ninety five percent and mining production of twenty five tonnes per complex per annum, the second of which will be especially useful.
20th August 2335
Geological survey of Eden reveals an unusual stellar radiation which would greatly aid in Commune development of sensors and other electronics systems. As ECCM is believed to be extremely important in preparing the defense against the Destroyer, the planet has just become a high priority for development.
Mineral resources were somewhat more disappointing. Ten out of eleven TN elements were present in significant quantities, but only duranium, uridiun and corundium had good accessibility. Even so turning Eden into a mine production site is a possibility.
28th September 2335
Alien ruins have been found on ES – 16 KH4 II. A Commune archaeological team is dispatched to survey them.
19th January 2336
For a couple of years now the Commune habitat of Courland has been experiencing slight manpower shortages, which lowers productivity to ninety percent. Not only this slows down production but it also puts into question any future yard expansion.
A short term solution will be to move ordnance factories to Perun, one of the three mining sites around Valhalla, despite the additional logistical problems this will entail. But to allow the CDF to grown in size a longer term solution will be needed. Three are presented.
The first option is to spread shipyards among the mining locations. Not only they already have some available manpower, but once they run out of minerals they will need new industries to replace mining. The second option is to move all, or at least new, yards to Wieliczka, which is growing to be a fleet base and has almost all minerals, which means readily available maintenance materials. The third solution would be to move the yards to Eden.
Each of those has their own problems of course. The first ones involves spreading and decentralizing the yards, making logistics more difficult, while not providing redundancy as they would all be orbiting the same gas giant. In addition it will be at least decade, maybe more, before the three habitats run out of minerals and even then the colonies cannot grow at all, which means the problem may reappear someday. The second option involves moving mines to a strategically placed location, but while Sudetes will be important travel node, this also means they can be attacked from multiple directions and Second Fleet is supposed to be weaker than the First Fleet, which raises the question of how secure the yards would really be. This is even more important in the case of the third option, Eden, as the surrounding systems have not yet been fully explored and as far as current plans go, the nearest major naval concentration will be in Sudetes, which is so far away the gunboats cannot make the trip between Wieliczka and Eden and back on their own.
As the debate continues, a new proposal emerges – Malbork. The system is a dead end connecting only to the capital system making it a secure as it goes. That of course is somewhat deceptive, as the jump points are located in the inner system, while the habitats – and the fleet that will protect them – are located in the outer system, allowing enemies to potentially bypass First Fleet altogether. Worse, there are no reasonable mineral deposits in the system, the only candidate for colonization is far from ideal and putting the yards there would make logistical chains as long as they could potentially get.
But the idea that there may be a very good, logical reason to colonize Malbork only serves to give steam to those who already wanted to settle the system, seeing it as the most secure location. Finally the government has no choice but to give in and begin preparations for initial development, although the decision to actually put the yards there has not been made yet.
29th January 2336
The Commune launches their first five Oliwa class space stations, designed to provide maintenance with much less workforce than traditional facilities. This allows Courland to support ships up to ten thousand tonnes, which includes Palisade class orbital weapons platforms and Stockholm class frigates, all of which are under construction. The government plans to build many more of those stations, as they need to build up their naval base on Wieliczka, expand Courlands facilities to accommodate future vessels which are likely to be larger and have spare Oliwas to quickly establish new bases when needed. As it takes twenty months to construct one, the process is expected to be long.
Oliwa class Space Station 51 500 tons 510 Crew 2291 BP TCS 1030 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-123 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 28 Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 3
Maintenance Modules: 10 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 2000 tons
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
11th February 2336
Small alien ruins have been found ES – 21 FH3 II by the Commune, a planet orbited by two wrecks around a protostar located in a nebula. A far more important find however is a vast alien manufacturing complex, study of which could greatly enhance any economic R&D done on the planet, making it an inviting target for colonization and development. However, despite being only three jumps from Baltic, the system has not yet been gravitationally surveyed.
13th February 2336
The continual release of gases into Germany's atmosphere caused the ice caps to melt, increasing albedo and drastically rising the temperature. The planet now have a breathable, if dense, atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen and various safe greenhouse gases and the average temperature is eighteen degrees Celsius, slightly higher than Earth's was. The Republican terraforming installations will be moved to Seine.
21st February 2336
The engineers working on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2, the site of alien ruins, find a mining complex that was much more advanced than the rest. A detailed study allowed the Commune to upgrade their existing mines to produce thirty tonnes per complex per annum. This should allow them to expand the industry much quicker than they previously expected, as they won't have to concentrate so much on mining.
23rd February 2336
The first five Commune asteroid mining ships leave the yards and set course for one of the comets in the Baltic system possessing large deposits of duranium, which is always in short supply and is in danger of being mined in insufficient quantities in the medium term.
Fjord class Asteroid Miner 79 300 tons 760 Crew 2454 BP TCS 1586 TH 800 EM 0
504 km/s Armour 1-164 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 19 Max Repair 120 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Asteroid Miner: 14 module(s) producing 420 tons per mineral per annum
Feliciano & Bustamante High Power Commercial MPD (2) Power 400 Fuel Use 5.3% Signature 400 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 2 250 000 Litres Range 96.3 billion km (2211 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
2nd March 2336
The initial survey and cataloging of ruins on ES – 16 KH4 II is complete with twenty nine installations waiting to be recovered. There is also a massive alien genetic lab that would improve any biological research done on the planet by fifty percent, but it's one of the most obscure and underfunded scientific areas in the Commune, so it's unlikely to be utilized.
4th May 2336
A near habitable planet has been found three jumps away from Baltic, but with Commune having so many commitments already it will be some time before the planet is developed, unless it possesses large amounts of easily accessible TN elements.
26th July 2336
Scouting a new system adjacent to ES – 16 KH4 (one of the former ADS strongholds) Newton, operating from the Commune support vessel Hawkwing, detects two alien bases. There are alien gates on the ES – 16 KH4 – ES – 35 GH5 allowing the ship to communicate with the rest of the Commune. Unfortunately the planet is too far away from Wieliczka to allow gunboats to move to the alien planet and back, so no expedition will be possible until a tanker becomes available.
The planet itself, designated as ES – 35 GH5 II, is one of the most inviting candidates for colonization, with breathable atmosphere, large size and reasonable day-night cycle. Unfortunately temperature is too low for human habitation and ninety eight percent of the planet is covered in ice. Even so the planet could be made habitable, and comfortable for hundreds of millions of people, relatively easily.
19th September 2336
The first hundred thousand Commune colonists land on Peles (Malbork I) named after a famous castle in Romania, from a privately owned colony ship, making it the third inhabited planet outside of the Baltic system.
12th October 2336
Alien ruins have been found on the near habitable planet three jumps from the Commune capital system of Baltic. The system is in opposite direction from Sudetes and the systems beyond. There has also been no sign of aliens nearby, other than the ruins themselves.
The planet is also a very promising candidate for colonization, thanks to massive manufacturing center which will increase any construction related R&D by ninety percent. Unfortunately mineral resources are very hard to access.
14th October 2336
An alien wreck of unknown make has been noticed in a newly discovered system in the same region of space as the recently found alien ruins. Both systems with alien presence connect to ES – 10 FH2, which connects to Baltic through ES – 2 KU1. Aside from the survey forces the Commune has no presence there and the CDF is considering putting a naval base on ES – 10 FH2 III a reasonable candidate for colonization that is surprisingly easy to terraform, and is located in what begins to look like a very important junction and could cover the Baltic system from this new direction. However even if that happens, it won't happen any time soon.
3rd November 2336
The Commune Space Defense Force tanker is in place on the ES – 35 GH5 allowing a military operations in the system. First Gunboat Flotilla is dispatched to clear it.
9th November 2336
Hubble, a Copernicus class ship exploring ES – 38 KH3, detects several powerful sensor emissions, accompanied by shield emissions which do not match anything in Commune library. The ship heads towards deep space, trying to communicate, but there is no response. Finally the vessel turns about and moves towards the jump point to warn the rest of the Commune.
The government hears the news a couple of weeks later and decides to build and dispatch a Copernicus class to serve as a tip wire, but for now no military action will be taken. Not only the Commune has no interests in the region, aside from small ruins they would be interested in, they are still fighting against the ADS around ES – 16 KH4 and they don't know for certain the new race is hostile. Besides, with two systems between them and the new aliens and three gunboat flotillas stationed at the capital, the government feels secure.
11th November 2336
The Republican scientists complete their initial survey and cataloging of the alien ruins on Phoenix C II finding a total of eleven hundred and seventy two installations, making it the largest find to date. As the ruins on Servii are almost completely exploited – only two installations remain for recovery – some believe Phoenix C II should be the next target.
One of the more mysterious aspect of the ruins is their different technology level. Those found on New Atlantis represented technology on a generation or two ahead of the humans, but those found on Germany and Servii were much more ahead. In fact internal confinement fusion drives were found on Germany and their study has allowed the Republic to advance to magneto-plasma drives and even make headway into next generation propulsion technology. As such most of the government wants to focus on the most advanced ruins first, which means dispatching troops to Seine, which would take a long time, or Phoenix D III, one of the less inviting targets for colonization.
After a prolonged debate Phoenix D III has been chosen as the next target of recovery operations.
28th November 2336
The Commune First Gunboat Flotilla arrives fifty million kilometers from ES – 35 GH5 II. The CO decides to assign eight gunboats to the base armed with anti-missiles and four to the one armed with point blank defenses. This is an experimental approach, one that may result in no kills, but it may also end up with the destruction of both targets.
This time the enemy defenses engaged at longer ranges and destroyed three hundred and twenty four missiles with ordnance and twenty three more were destroyed by point blank energy weapon fire. A mere forty missiles managed to hit, all going for anti-missile equipped base, but causing little if any internal damage.
This cases the government and the upper echelons of CDF begin considering sending both flotillas in Wieliczka to deal with the problem, but this would leave Sudetes uncovered, and with new alien race beyond ES – 10 FH2, no reinforcements will be coming. As such the government decides to suspend further operations against ADS beyond Dandanelles, as the Commune has no interests there for the time being, concentrating on building up their colonies in Malbork, Sudetes and Athens.
19th March 2337
A readily habitable planet has been found four jumps from the Commune capital system of Baltic, adjacent to the system in the nebula. However, despite having breathable atmosphere, there is no water on the surface. As there is still enough space on the bodies already colonized and exploiting this chain would require spreading available resources, both civilian and military, it's unlikely the planet will be settled any time soon.
26th May 2337
By disassembling and studying some found components the Republican engineers design a revolutionary fuel storage system, that can carry fifty percent more refined sorium than normal ones.
21st December 2337
Four Oliwa class space stations are delivered to the Commune colony of Wieliczka, which together with ground based facilities, allow the colony to support warships up to ten thousand tonnes. Six Palisade class orbital weapon platforms will also be send.
4th January 2338
New Atlantis is experiencing worker shortages, prompting the government to move all construction factories and ground force training facilities to Germany, which may very well become the future manufacturing center of the Republic. New Atlantis has population of seventy one million many of which are operating a total of twenty seven recovered research laboratories.
26th February 2338
Commune archaeologists complete the initial survey and cataloging of the ruins on ES – 21 FH3 IIbut only twenty three installations were identified.
16th March 2338
The Commune archaeologists complete their initial survey of alien ruins on ES – 34 GH I a near habitable planet three jumps from Baltic. However due to the new aliens in the region, those will not be exploited any time soon.
With this all the known ruins have been surveyed, but the recovery troops are still working on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2.
1st May 2338
Commune Recovery operations on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2 are now complete. Dozens of installations has been recovered with the most impressive being thirty three automated mines, two research facilities and two terraforming installations which unlike human ones can be moved around and adopted to any planet. In addition fuel, resources, ship components and data on several technologies have been found.
Unfortunately, transporting it will require a significant amount of lift, which means it will take a long time to move them, making the current cargo vessels unavailable for other tasks. The first thing to be moved will be forty seven internal confinement fusion engines as the Commune hopes to learn the secrets of their production.
8th May 2338
New, albeit small, alien ruins have been found on ES – 17 GH4 III, a system with no known previous alien presence in the same region of space as the Commune system of Athens, although a new connection was discovered linking the system directly to Sudetes. The planet itself is a reasonable candidate for colonization but it has a thin, toxic atmosphere of ammonia and methane which will have to be removed first, making terraforming more difficult than is usually the case.
12th July 2338
The alien ruins on Phoenix D III has been fully exploited by the Republic. A significant amount of infrastructure has been recovered, but as the conditions on the planet are harsher than usual, there is enough of it for only four million people, making colonization impractical at this time. In addition the cargo ships are currently en route to the primary star, making then unavailable for a year.
For the time being the recovery teams will have nothing to do. There are alien ruins on Phoenix C IV, a planet with too low gravity for humans, but the initial survey is not yet complete. Once that is done recovery operations will move to the A and B components, before moving to Phoenix C II, the largest ruin site known.
14th October 2338
The emigration to Servii is now officially over. The next planet to be colonized will be, despite the range, Phoenix A II, which was given to England and renamed Albion. It is estimated that seventy one hundred thousand Republican citizens intend to emigrate there.
1st March 2339
With the Commune yard capacities expanding, the government takes a closer look at their designs. There are currently four commercial yards in operation two of which have five slipways of eighty thousand tonnes busy building asteroid mining vessels and maintenance oriented space stations, one with two slipways of fifty thousand tonnes and one with a single slipway currently expanding to fifty thousand tonnes.
The original colony ships and freighters have been designed to operate within the system of Valhalla and its moons, making them very fuel efficient but also very slow. After the decision to expand was made, there was not enough shipyard space to expand the amount of lift available as the same time as expanding fuel extraction capabilities, forcing the Administrator to use the most fuel efficient designs possible.
That however is no longer a problem. Not only new harvesters can be build, there are numerous sources of sorium to be tapped and for the last several years fuel stockpiles have been steadily rising. As such new freighters and colony ships have been designed, using more powerful and more numerous but less fuel efficient engines. The Gdanks II and Oslo II are ten thousand tonnes larger than their predecessors, almost three times as fast, but they also use over seven times as much fuel. Unfortunately with the currently existing distances and the steady expansion of the Commune, even that speed may turn out to be not enough.
Gdansk II class Freighter 49 750 tons 215 Crew 919 BP TCS 995 TH 2880 EM 0
2894 km/s Armour 1-120 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 12 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 3
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10
Garibay Aeronautical Mid Range Commercial MPD (9) Power 320 Fuel Use 3.04% Signature 320 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 119.0 billion km (475 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Oslo II class Colony Ship 49 900 tons 310 Crew 1897 BP TCS 998 TH 2880 EM 0
2885 km/s Armour 1-120 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 24 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Cryogenic Berths 100000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10
Garibay Aeronautical Mid Range Commercial MPD (9) Power 320 Fuel Use 3.04% Signature 320 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 118.6 billion km (475 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
20th May 2339
One of the Commune Amethyst class geological survey ships operating in ES – 15 KU4 system adjacent to Dandanelles detects active sensors of ADS ships. The small red dwarf has no candidates for colonization in the system so it was not scouted. There is a jump gate on the point, but there is no matching one on the Dandanelles side, making communication impossible.
The vessel is destroyed several hours later.
1st June 2339
The research facilities on the Commune habitat of Biskupin receive over forty internal confinement fusion engines found among the alien ruins on Yggdrasil C III Moon 2. After disassembling half of them they finally learn how to use the technology themselves.
While it was hoped the engines will aid Commune research efforts, no one expected a breakthrough this quickly, forcing the government and CDF to scramble to update their designs. Commercial ones will have priority.
Other components provided insight into better capacitors, higher railgun launch velocities, better ECM systems and basics of shielding.
16th July 2339
The new versions of Commune freighters and colony ships using internal confinement fusion drives have been designed. They are slightly faster, slightly more fuel efficient and have slightly more range than their predecessors.
Gdansk III class Freighter 49 700 tons 188 Crew 886.25 BP TCS 994 TH 3150 EM 0
3169 km/s Armour 1-120 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 11 Max Repair 61.25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10
Segura Aerospace Industries Mid Range Commercial IF Drive (9) Power 350 Fuel Use 2.18% Signature 350 Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 166.1 billion km (606 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Oslo III class Colony Ship 49 850 tons 283 Crew 1864.25 BP TCS 997 TH 3150 EM 0
3159 km/s Armour 1-120 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 23 Max Repair 61.25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 1
Cryogenic Berths 100000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10
Segura Aerospace Industries Mid Range Commercial IF Drive (9) Power 350 Fuel Use 2.18% Signature 350 Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 165.6 billion km (606 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
27th July 2339
The initial cataloging of ruins found on Phoenix C IV is now done, with a hundred and twenty installations found, but it seems like the colony had a low technology level. As such recovery teams will be sent to Albion which has two hundred and twenty five installations to be recovered, but long transit times will be a problem. Fortunately the Republic now have access to internal confinement fusion drives and they have large number of harvesters, so they will begin to build up a large, modern, fleet of fast transport ships soon.
4th September 2339
The first terraforming installation begins its work on the Commune colony of Peles.
27th September 2339
The Commune designs a new version of Piranha with internal confinement fusion drive has been designed. The engine is, proportionally speaking, less powerful than the previous one and as such slightly more fuel efficient while still resulting in over one thousand kps faster vessel. The new missiles, Arrow II, are a straight up engine upgrade of the original Arrows, and while that means they have the exact same range and warhead, they should be harder point deference target and should be able to close engagement envelopes faster, leaving the enemy with less time to fire anti-missiles. Overall both of those upgrades should result in a significantly more useful warship.
This however leaves the government with the issue of whether or not to upgrade the Piranhas. The refit would cost nearly forty percent as much as a new construction and there are no yards available. The one that built the Piranhas has been now upgraded to five thousand tonnes of capacity per slipway, is busy building orbital weapons platforms and once new technologies are in place, will be used to build anti-missile escorts. The other two naval yards are even larger and are, or will be, used to build frigates.
While some propose just leaving the gunboats as they are, those ships have proven invaluable in the war with the ADS, making many people want to keep them as up to date as possible. Building new ones would split the crews, reducing experience of new ships and would not solve the problem of yard availability.
In the end the Administrator decides to build a new yard that will be expanded to eight slipways of one thousand tonnes each, but will not be expanded further and will be used to support, refit and build gunboats exclusively. However this presents its own problems as Courland is already experiencing worker shortages, with its industry operating at only eighty percent of their theoretical efficiency and Peles is nowhere near developed enough to take the load. At the same time, there is little hurry to actually upgrade the Piranhas as the Commune is relatively secure at the moment and the existing vessels have proven to be very effective.
Piranha II class Gunboat 1 000 tons 14 Crew 249.4 BP TCS 20 TH 145 EM 0
7250 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 7.2
Maint Life 4.16 Years MSP 39 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 4 5YR 54 Max Repair 72.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 48
Saiz-Alaniz High Performance Internal Fusion Drive (1) Power 145 Fuel Use 144.31% Signature 145 Exp 14%
Fuel Capacity 190 000 Litres Range 23.7 billion km (37 days at full power)
Pangratiu Systems Small Box Launcher (24) Missile Size 2 Hangar Reload 15 minutes MF Reload 2.5 hours
Lindberg-Claesson Short Range Missile Fire Control (1) Range 69.3m km Resolution 100
Arrow II (24) Speed: 40 000 km/s End: 26m Range: 62.5m km WH: 4 Size: 2 TH: 133/80/40
Compact ECCM-3 (1) 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
Eel II class Fast Scout Craft 1 000 tons 22 Crew 238.5 BP TCS 20 TH 145 EM 0
7250 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/33/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.53 Years MSP 75 AFR 16% IFR 0.2% 1YR 6 5YR 89 Max Repair 72.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Spare Berths 0
Saiz-Alaniz High Performance Internal Fusion Drive (1) Power 145 Fuel Use 144.31% Signature 145 Exp 14%
Fuel Capacity 310 000 Litres Range 38.7 billion km (61 days at full power)
Lindberg-Claesson Short Range Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 6300 Range 69.3m km Resolution 100
Narvaez-Naranjo Small EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 33m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
