Skirmishes with missile fighters and FACs continued, but none came close to overwhelming our defences and the Vallettan resistance ran out of craft before the colonial fleet ran out of ammunition. With no more known hostiles in the system, our own warships left for earth. The war bounties were to follow as soon as planet-bound defences were in place, built by fighter factories so heavy industry could focus on the relief effort. Withdrawing our fleet was meant to show our continued peaceful intentions towards the Aikhibba.

They struck 3 days later. Without warning, Valletta colony ships in orbit were hit by small missiles and what later turned out to be Gauss weapons. After the initial confusion, our laser bases cleared the orbit before rendering what defence they could, while the AMM forces commenced planetary bombardment. The Aikhibba responded in kind, splitting their fire between Valletta population centers and civilian ships . There was no maneuvering, no finesse, no heroism. Just killing. The artless slaughter ended in an Aikhibba surrender within minutes, but the dust and the ashes will not settle for years.

The Aikhibba Imperium and the Valletta Commonwealth share a planet orbiting the secondary star of the Nullarbor system, directly adjacent to Sol.
Diplomatic overtures were made and we granted trade access to both, but only the Imperium reciprocated. Eventually, the Commonwealth turned hostile and destroyed several of our merchant vessels.

Since our offensive capabilities were missile-based and we had insufficient ammunition for a prolonged war, the high council voted to resolve the matter with a single overwhelming display of force. A convenient Lagrange Point allowed an intra-system jump that almost brought us into missile range, and since our missiles were considerably faster (30000km/s vs 12000km/s) we would be able to withdraw unengaged after making our displeasure known. Our battlefleet expended most of its ordnance in a volley of 252 missiles against Valletta population centers, overwhelming the surprisingly capable point defence and causing an immediate surrender.

The dispersed enemy forces appeared unlikely to overwhelm the newly acquired 5 Orbital Beam Bases with their combined 140 twin laser turrets, so the Missile Bases and AMM-armed escort vessels in orbit were used offensively against approaching ships, with breaks to thin out occasionally large volleys over 50 missiles (highest encountered: around 80). All in all, thousands of seized Valletta missiles were fired.
Some hostiles managed to close the distance to as little as 80k, but our new subjects held the line without coming under beam or point-blank missile fire. The immediate vicinity of the planet is clear, and while skirmishes will continue for a while, complete victory seems inevitable.

Planetary casualties are unknown, but we have acquired 790 million new subjects who will need to be pacified and cared for. Emergency housing and infrastructure projects are underway, as the nuclear winter with temperatures below -34°C is currently expected to result in millions of new deaths each month. This has to be balanced against the need for maintenance facilities, as the acquired orbital defences are in a woeful state of disrepair. Fortunately, the nation exhibits a high degree of industrial development - without the current disruption its industrial output would be higher than Earth's, with large mineral stockpiles and several times the shipyard capacity. Curiously, there is almost no educational or financial infrastructure.

The Aikhibba Imperium so far showed remarkable restraint, we haven't received as much as a protest note. Hopefully there will be no cause for further unpleasantness, the history books will likely be unkind to us as it is.

Small.

Right.

Exactly how big is that military of yours?

On several occasions I have written a function, only to subsequently find I previously wrote exactly the same code with a slightly different function name.

That shows that you know what you are doing - same result every time. Except that you do it again... and again... and again... 

Due to my smegty OCD i had to scuttle my campaign which was frakking fun as hell. Im pretty sure it was the longest campaign i ever played, when i abandoned it was 160 years long.
Started at terraformed Titan with nuked Earth, transformed my entire population into human  capable of living in -43C because thats the lowest temp Titan can get. It was kinda fun to try and reclaim 17 colony cost Earth.
Last 20 years i spent in a war with first xeno that i encoutered, with my hopelessly outdated fleet that was forced to use AMM as ASM's. Sol was secured but i lost several ships during opening phase of the war and 26milion people bombed to death on one of the colonies outside Sol.
Was pretty nice but few harmless bugs made my OCD go full overdrive and i had to delete it :/

So i started new game, following the slightly modified house rules for ship design someone posted here long time ago.
Earth, conventional start with 12bn people ( UN population projection for 2100 ), 10 labs and no shipyards.
Its 2138 and i have 28mil both naval and civilian shipyards ( biggest mil shipyard is 5mil with 2 slipways ) but i have to chill with shipyards for a while because i have more than 1bn worker shortage due to that and duranium shortage because adding one slipway to that 5mil shipyard requires almost 500k duranium...

Im working on my first ship now, with scientists researching 1st gen kinetic/missile techs ( i wont build additional labs soon because i want to go slow with my research as always ) so i can give that ship some point defence as said rules demand from me.

Cant wait for my first Titan or Superdreadnought to be built and unleashed against my enemies.
Theoretically im on UNSC/standard Federation theme but im going full Warhammer on this smeg - mine the entire galaxy, kill all the xenos, populate what you can, field thousands of ships O!

What's the difference between the two models?

P-200M is an improved model of the first iteration of the P-200 series, introducing thermal sensors and slightly improved range of 124,5 million kilometers at the cost of maneuver handling.
P-200L has the same sensor package but newer thruster with much longer range at 139,8 million kilometers, along with larger warhead, improved from 24 to 27.

P-200M and P-200L anti-ship missiles homing to targets using onboard infrared sensors

Quote from: Steve Walmsley on May 05, 2019, 06:18:57 AM

When programming, I comment my code a LOT. For some of the more complex code, I also leave Future Steve more detailed explanations in comments so that when he turns up in a few years and asks "Why the hell did I code it that way?", the answer is there

As a professional developer, it's amazing how many times I land in a piece of code that I have no recollection of and see comments there from past me

John

On several occasions I have written a function, only to subsequently find I previously wrote exactly the same code with a slightly different function name.