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

[DeserereX]

4 out of 8 Scientist are dead, 3 for medical problems and 1 in a accident.  All of them was working on the same research. . .
i'm starting to think that the  water pressurized reactor research  is cursed. . .

[Erik L]

4 out of 8 Scientist are dead, 3 for medical problems and 1 in a accident.  All of them was working on the same research. . .
i'm starting to think that the  water pressurized reactor research  is cursed. . .

They couldn't handle the... pressure.

[Jumpp]

And suddenly the Solari Empire is busy:

The site in the system previously known as Ross, where the elusive Badguy lurked, turns out to have a Power/Propulsion anomaly and some unidentified installations. The Solari have no experience of such things, but their culture is full of legends about hostile swarms emerging from mysterious ruins, so in an excess of caution they've moved an entire infantry division to the site, as well as 1st Fleet, which totals 108,000 tons and 90 ASM launchers.

They've placed a Xenology team at the site without any further instructions, in the vague hope that the team will on its own find something worthwhile to do. An idiosyncratic general believes, without evidence or much in the way of explanation, that Combat Engineers might be relevant, and so a brigade of those is being raised and should arrive at the site within a few months.

The planet, now called "Tau Ceti Center" in the system now designated "Tau Ceti," has tremendous mineral resources and a nitrogen-rich atmosphere. The 70th Terraformer Wing is onsite and has already removed the trace toxins and added enough oxygen to make the atmosphere breathable. They're adding some CO2 to adjust the extreme cold and expect to be done in about a year.

A listening post erected on Tau Ceti Center detected a hostile ship lurking in the asteroid belt far beyond the most-distant JP.  A detachment from the 1st was able to approach to within 20mkm without being detected, and expended much of the remaining supply of obsolete Mk2 Harpoons to destroy it. Though blind as a bat, this ship had a thick skin.

FIRST CONTACT: A new intelligence is found in Beta Virginis, five jumps and about 11 billion km from Sol. Survey ships are promptly withdrawn from the system while diplomats establish contact.  Anticipating possible hostility from the enemy (and near-certain hostility from the Solari in any event,) 51st Transport wing promptly sets up a listening post and fuel dump on a not-quite-habitable planet in the next-nearest system, an only-slightly-cold rock 98% covered with ice. Planet and system are now designated Mare Infinitus and Okinawa, respectively. Mare Infinitus refers to the anticipated state of the planet once 70th Terraformers get done with it, and the designation of Okinawa is an obscure reference from Solari history which indicates hostile intentions toward the system just beyond.

As though that weren't enough for the Solari to think about, a new system five jumps from Sol turns out to have an Edenic planet sitting uninhabited and begging for colonists, and another planet just inches away which will require only a few weeks of terraforming to reach perfection. This system is now designated "The Sisters" and the planets designated Hera and Hestia. With already more habitable worlds than they're quite sure what to do with, the Solari have no near-term plans here besides setting up one of their innumerable listening-post-and-fuel-dump sites.

[83athom]

Just discovered the Detroit system... it is largely uninhabitable. The only one they may be worth while/easy to colonize is a 0.6 gravity world with 98% Nitrogen and 2% Methane atmosphere (0.38 pressure). There are plenty of bodies however and may make a good mining outpost. Scary thing is all planets and stars (4 stars) are within 4b km of the main star.

[Mastik]

March 2135

  The Wolf Clan sent in 3 Yasa class ships into Sol,  appear to be some sort of EW craft with no offensive capabilities.  57300 T, ECM 70, and much faster than we are.  1st Earth Defense fleet was again dispatched to deal with the threat. 

  Yasa point defenses prevented most missiles from reaching their targets.  Beam weapons are useless, base chance to hit 0%.  1st Earth Defense is returning home, maybe my fighters will have better luck. 

[Ostia]

And another round of Precursor FUN.

And against an actual fleet this time no less. 2 new Grav Surveys and a Command Ship are lost. At least I managed to grab the survivors this time.

The main fleet was a handful of destroyers, some 29k thing and 2 more destroyers making 11k km/s which are still running around because they stayed well outside my missile range. 2 PDCs are also in the system.

Stuff learned:
- 150 Shields / 300s recharge don't cut it, especially not for the sensor platform (good thing I had 2 command ships in my fleet)
- 2 layers of armor are also pretty thin
- There is no such thing as "enough CIWS"
- 70 missiles are not enough ammo
- Search and Rescue should be left to a dedicated ship, not the command ship

New Ships are designed, and long-range missiles are build so I can evict the remnants and avenge everyone who didn't make it.


Looks like the 403 bug found me at last.

[MarcAFK]

You might be interested in my current rescue ship.

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Sigma class Rescue Shuttle    1,000 tons     19 Crew     118 BP      TCS 20  TH 143  EM 0
7150 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 10.9 Years     MSP 37    AFR 16%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 1    5YR 9    Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 1   
Cryogenic Berths 200   

10.2 EP Ion Drive (14)    Power 10.2    Fuel Use 59.35%    Signature 10.2    Exp 8%
Fuel Capacity 80,000 Litres    Range 24.3 billion km   (39 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesIt's small size has allowed it to avoid a lot of enemy ships even at top speed, and it is quite speedy for ION tech, after all it's 70% engine.
However it can only hold 200 people and I just can't resist cramming a thousand into it after a large NPR force wanders into the wormhole system. A swarm of them would be quite cheap though.

[Jumpp]

Things are heating up for the Solari Empire:

In the North: At Tau Ceti Center, the Xenology team has identified the ancient ruins and the 15th Engineers, with four construction brigades, are excavating. They're turning up a fair amount of infrastructure, which is kind of amusing to the Solari since we always terraform to CC0 before landing anyone.

In the South: The Sisters turns out to be a leaf system, and extremely mineral-rich to boot. Still no great hurry to settle here, and less now that we know nobody else can get in there ahead of us.

In The East: Nothing ever happens in the East. This hasn't changed.

In The West: The Beta Virginis aliens, which we now call the Betas, offered trade access. About a dozen civilian freighters heard the call. Turns out there's more aliens in or around Beta Virginis--let's call them the Gammas--and while the Betas granted trade access to Beta Virginis, the Gammas weren't on board and reacted the way you'd expect when a bunch of alien ships appeared in their system. After a few hours of shadowing the ships, cooking them with active sensors, and otherwise offering unambiguous threat displays which the civilian ships entirely ignored, the Gammas started communicating with high-caliber beam weapons. Unlike the previous messages, these seem to have been received and understood by the civilian freighters, which replied by politely exploding.

The Gammas then pushed into Okinawa, demolishing the listening post at Mare Infinitus shortly before the 70th Terraformers were to arrive. With 1st Fleet still babysitting the dig site at Tau Ceti, the exhausted and badly in need of overhaul 2nd was sent to clear the system. These early engagements tell us little about the Gamma capabilities. These slow, gun-armed ships were most likely scouts, not ships of the line.

2nd briefly visited Beta Virginis, in hopes of encountering more Gamma forces, but the Betas threw a fit, revoking trade access within hours of 2nd's arrival. This gesture, while painless (we'd already forbidden our ships to visit the system, trade rights or no), made it clear to us that the Betas won't allow us to fight the Gammas alone. 2nd Fleet promptly withdrew to Okinawa, where we continue to stockpile fuel and ammunition. We plan to return to Beta Virginis in a few months, and next time we'll be hunting Betas as well.

1st has been moved to the Western front while 2nd goes home for rest & overhaul. We're going to move some of that otherwise-useless infrastructure from Tau Ceti down to Mare Infinitus so that we can land enough colonists to support a maintenance site. The 70th Terraformers have arrived and are doing their work, but it'll take time. They're not happy about being in such a forward position. While our warships at 8,750kps are capable of easily outrunning the Gammas we've seen so far, the terraformers at around 900 are not. If Okinawa is overrun, the 70th will be lost.

The first pair of the new gauss-equipped Archangel-class antimissile cruisers will be done with their crew training and ready for line service in a few months.

[Ostia]

You might be interested in my current rescue ship.

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Sigma class Rescue Shuttle    1,000 tons     19 Crew     118 BP      TCS 20  TH 143  EM 0
7150 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 10.9 Years     MSP 37    AFR 16%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 1    5YR 9    Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 1   
Cryogenic Berths 200   

10.2 EP Ion Drive (14)    Power 10.2    Fuel Use 59.35%    Signature 10.2    Exp 8%
Fuel Capacity 80,000 Litres    Range 24.3 billion km   (39 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesIt's small size has allowed it to avoid a lot of enemy ships even at top speed, and it is quite speedy for ION tech, after all it's 70% engine.
However it can only hold 200 people and I just can't resist cramming a thousand into it after a large NPR force wanders into the wormhole system. A swarm of them would be quite cheap though.

I had a fighter/carrier approach in mind. The fighter gets some 200 cryo, the carrier 10k or so. And could also carry ground troops, small sensor craft etc.

[Mastik]

January 2139

  A new Alien race was encountered in a nearby system, diplomatic relations have been established.  Relations appear to be doing well.  The race has identified themselves as the Khanate of Eburacum.

[Mastik]

April 2139

  The hornets have arrived.  As was previously predicted the Wolf sent 5 new ships into the Sol system.  3 Ships are of the Khan class and appear to be an Anti-ship missile type ship.  The last 2 are being called the Sartaq class and appear to be EW ships.

  The Famous 1st Earth Defense Fleet was dispatched to intercept this new threat to the Sol System.  As the fleet approached, enemy missiles were soon detected.  The Missiles were of a tech level never thought to be possible, and quickly overwhelmed the fleet.  4 Corvettes and 6 missile boats were destroyed.  Soon after, missiles were detected incoming towards several civilian ships.

  All told 4 Corvettes, 6 missile boats, 10 civilian freighters, and 3 civilian colony transports were destroyed by missile fire.  Total loss of nearly 155,000 lives.

  The 3 Khan class ships broke off from the fleet and approached several large freighters, 10 additional large freighters, and 1 huge freighter were destroyed by suicide attacks.  The 3 Khan ships were also destroyed in the attacks.

  A command cruiser and beam cruiser (all i have left) were dispatched to deal with the EW ships.  The jamming was so intense that only 2 (size 5) missiles hit an enemy ship.  The cruisers were sent back to earth.  Search and rescue operations have been completed.

[Ostia]

I really need to rethink my exploration approach. Permanently losing heavy survey ships to Spoilers is to expensive to maintain.

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EXP Magellan class Long Range Survey Ship    17,750 tons     255 Crew     1809 BP      TCS 355  TH 1600  EM 0
4507 km/s     Armour 5-60     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/5     Damage Control Rating 20     PPV 0
MSP 1274    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 48 months    Spare Berths 0   

400 EP Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (4)    Power 400    Fuel Use 4.42%    Signature 400    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 3,000,000 Litres    Range 688.3 billion km   (1767 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (5)   5 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Gravs look the same with a sensor swap. I guess I'll have to dual-purpose the support carrier for survey duty.
Also MarcAFK: Is there some RP reason for that design? For comparison my approach to the issue:

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FTR Comet - Copy class Rescue Shuttle    400 tons     2 Crew     54.8 BP      TCS 8  TH 48  EM 0
6000 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 17.25 Years     MSP 43    AFR 2%    IFR 0%    1YR 0    5YR 4    Max Repair 24 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 8   
Cryogenic Berths 400   

48 EP Ion Drive (1)    Power 48    Fuel Use 67.2%    Signature 48    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 33.5 billion km   (64 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
The engine is 4 HS, Power *1.0, Fuel *0.7. (Not the best possible, just to somewhat match the example.)
(The EXP/FTR are prefixes to maintain order on the class design page.)

[83athom]

The only thing to change in your shuttle design would be a little less fuel and a little more engines. Overall those are good designs, but the things that irks me is that the numbers don't add up, there is no CIWS (on the EXP Magellan), and essentially they are blind to the universe. You don't need to change them, it just irks me when there are uneven/exact values (speed and size mainly), no defense for the inevitable missile surprises, and that they cant see farther than their portholes.

[83athom]

Well, it turns out one of the systems I have been exploring now has JG on EVERY JP that were not there when I first looked at the first few as they were discovered, except the one that goes to my space. Lets hope that whoever is in that system does not know of the existence of the JP that leads to my space. Note; My GSVs do have both Thermal and EM sensors, and Thor has not seen anything as they were scouting. Oh, and this is only 2 jumps from Sol... good thing my first 2 warships (my command ships of all things) have been built and the next 4 (my actual missile ships) are due in about 4-5 months.

[Jumpp]

The Solari Empire, update:

The war against the Beta Virginis aliens has begun. To set the scene:

Beta Virginis is about 10b km from Sol. It's five jumps away. (Sol->Ross->Midway->Solomon->Okinawa->Beta Virginis)
There are two alien factions there, of the same species, based on the same planet, of comparable size and strength. The Solari perceive no meaningful distinction between them, and regard them as, for all practical purposes, a single entity, henceforth called the Betas.

At the start of the war, we've got no good information about their capabilities.

We Solari have got six modern 16,000-ton cruisers with a total of 200 size-5 ASM launchers, four 8,000-ton frigates with a total of 80 AMM launchers, and two Antimissile cruisers each with a pair of quad gauss turrets with tracking speeds of 20kps. Also, we have a great many 8,000-ton colliers and tankers which move at the same speed as the fighting ships. This is unorthodox, but it's our way. We've had bad experiences with support ships getting isolated and picked off, so we think the safest place for them is right up on the front line with the fleet.

Our missiles and sensors permit us to engage large ships and FACs out to around 50mkm.

We've got a base in Okinawa, the system right next to Beta Virginis. Our colony in Okinawa is about 250m km from the BV jump gate. Their colony in BV is about 3 billion mk from the Okinawa jump gate.

The war plan is simple: Push into the system. Destroy every ship, station, and PDC. Then land the 2nd Infantry and 4th Armored divisions on the homeworld and conquer it.

Our initial push made it about about 1.5B mk from the homeworld before being turned back. We destroyed about 150,000 tons of warships, while losing the 16,000-ton antimissile cruiser and half a dozen 8,000-ton support ships.  We learned:

- The enemy has vastly superior weapon and sensor range.
- We have much better missile defenses and (generally) better speed.
- They have some freakishly fast FACs armed with long-range missiles
- Our tankers and colliers need warship-grade armor if they're going to travel with the fleet. They get shot at a lot.
- Our gauss cannons need greater tracking speed before they're going to be a serious defense.
- Our modest shields are useless. When a ship gets hit at all, it gets hit big and quick. Pound for pound, the space spent on shields would be much better spent on more armor.

We've withdrawn to the Okinawa system, where we keep a fleet parked about 1m km away from the gate. Every several months, the Betas try to come through. We destroy these ships without difficulty. Their superior reach doesn't do them any good under these conditions.

We're making several adjustments:

- We're no longer bringing tankers with us into BV. With our base in Okinawa being only 3.5b km or so from the enemy homeworld, the 20b km fuel loads on our warships is plenty.
- We're adding a ton of armor to the colliers. We can't leave these behind because the fighting ships just don't carry enough ammo, so we're giving them the same armor that the bruisers have got.
- We're upgrading our search radars and fire controls, so that we have significantly better reach than the enemy. We used to see and hit out to 50m. Enemy is doing about 200m. So we're upgrading to 300m.
- We're swapping our our warhead-16 Harpoon with a range of 44m km and a speed of 48000km/s in favor of the new warhead-9 Lance missile with a range of 350m km and a speed of only 28,800km/s. These things are slow, and easy to shoot down, but we use box launchers on our cruisers and the enemy point defenses just aren't able to deal with salvos of the size that we employ. We defeat their missile defenses with sheer numbers, rather than agility.

Better gauss-equipped ships are in the pipeline, but won't be ready for another year and a half, so we're pushing ahead without them.

The next push begins within the week.