The Northern Coalition (AAR)

[joeclark77]

On terraforming...I don't use the "safe green house gas" or "anti-green house gas"...uhm well just no.  There is no "safe green house gas" and frankly a significant number of the gases in the list should be GHGs (water for example).  Just my physics background making things twitchy for me.  But that is why they are not in use in the AAR.  So it means that my gas mixes are sub-optimal if what you want is a cost 0 colony.  I suspect I will get very few of those...but even costs of 1-2 are fairly viable.

Sure there are safe greenhouse gases.  You just named one... water.  Carbon dioxide would be another.  Anyway the principle is the same: either start by adding 0.1 atm oxygen or start by adding greenhouse gas until the temperature is warmer.  No need to add nitrogen or other gases, or to add oxygen beyond 0.1 atm.

I think you ought to try for cost-zero colonies.  It takes a long time, but a conventional game gets rolling at a very slow pace which means it's actually more feasible to terraform than in a fast-paced TN game.  In my latest conventional game I built low-tech terraforming ships over the course of a decade and parked them at Luna.  It took at least 10 years to terraform the moon, but when it was done I had more than 50 effective terraforming modules that I could move to another world and they require neither maintenance nor a worker population.  Doing Mars now would only take 2-3 years.  However, I've got a better prospect in a neighboring system so the fleet is headed there now.

I'd love to get 2 stage sensors and mines running...but I'm a bit lost on how you use them and avoid all the problems people have with them seperating too early and so on.   But mining Jump Points the NCN would die for the ability to do so...

I read an older forum thread that I can't find now, and the idea of that author was to build an extremely long-range and very fuel-efficient drone stage that could deploy a sensor bouy or mine as its second stage billions of KM away.  He would fire these from a PDC at earth and could cover all his jump points without having to send out any ships.  I haven't attempted this yet myself.

[Paul M (OP)]

Sure there are safe greenhouse gases.  You just named one... water.  Carbon dioxide would be another.  Anyway the principle is the same: either start by adding 0.1 atm oxygen or start by adding greenhouse gas until the temperature is warmer.  No need to add nitrogen or other gases, or to add oxygen beyond 0.1 atm.

 

Uhm...here we run into a problem where my background limits my ability to ignore things for the sake of playing the game.  There isn't a GHG that is safe to breath in large quantities...water is not safe, CO2 is not safe, nor is any of the more esoteric things which also function as GHG.  In a few ppm concentrations they are acceptable as 70% of the atmosphere not.  Additionally, there is no such a beast as an Anti-GHG.  Or at least not a naturally occuring gas...I suspect you could tailor some sort of polymer that might do the job but again I'd not suggest inhaling it.  Does this mean I am going to start a campaign against them in the game, no...but I will just do my terraforming without using them and accept it is far from the ideal solution.

I think you ought to try for cost-zero colonies.  It takes a long time, but a conventional game gets rolling at a very slow pace which means it's actually more feasible to terraform than in a fast-paced TN game.  In my latest conventional game I built low-tech terraforming ships over the course of a decade and parked them at Luna.  It took at least 10 years to terraform the moon, but when it was done I had more than 50 effective terraforming modules that I could move to another world and they require neither maintenance nor a worker population.  Doing Mars now would only take 2-3 years.  However, I've got a better prospect in a neighboring system so the fleet is headed there now.

I believe I am currently researching the terraforming module and BIC would love to have a nice fleet of them.  At the moment the use of planet based terraforming engines is the only option.  There are a number of extra solar planets that are high on BICs "To be Terraformed when we can do list."  One of which has nearly a breathable atmosphere (0.09 bar oxygen) and so would be relatively quick to terraform...once the ships are available to do it.

I read an older forum thread that I can't find now, and the idea of that author was to build an extremely long-range and very fuel-efficient drone stage that could deploy a sensor bouy or mine as its second stage billions of KM away.  He would fire these from a PDC at earth and could cover all his jump points without having to send out any ships.  I haven't attempted this yet myself.

I think I can get the sensor to work...at least I'm fairly confident that I can.  But the mines seem to show up periodically as questions and there seems to be some relatively complicated things that must be done to get them to work in the manner desired by the player.  I should look and see if Shoe has gotten to them in his starting player guide.  But for the moment technological development is at the lowest level it will be for the forseeable future due to the way labs are allocated...I'm accepting this for what I feel is better long term solution.  Update should be out on saturday or sunday...depending on how much time it ends up taking.

[Brainsucker]

At last catch up to the last update. I want moar. This AAR is really-really give me insight of how to design low tech ships. The other interesting AAR that I read usually start from the middle, so I can't really-really learn on how to build a good military ship. But even with the knowledge, I still confuse about a lot of thing in military ship design matter. Well, hopefully I will mastered my playing capability by reading this AAR.

[Brainsucker]

just a little suggestion. You can give your further combat spacecraft a name with the late heroes who fall or dead in a confrontation with the alien. 

[Paul M (OP)]

Ok I am late...but well I discovered that I had several hours of reviewing what was going on to do...in a sense the update will also refresh my memory of what was going on.  But I have the update underway it is just the fiddle faddle of organizing the event log file at the moment...

Thanks for the suggestion on the names...that makes a lot of sense actually...at the moment I am using a combination of the random name selector and then my particular interpretation of how best to satisfy it... plus some names I pick myself.

Sorry for the delay...caused by me getting back into the swing of things mostly.  I had to go through each of the systems and all my task forces then all my ship designs going "ah this is what I was doing..."

[Brainsucker]

I'm still waiting for the glorious come back of NCN in a fight against the alien. When will humanity kick their ass for good

[Paul M (OP)]

[ooc]It has been a bit slow going, I apologize as I get back into this.   The NC Assembly by the way isn't as Parlimentary-like as it sounds.  Political Parties exist but tend to be rather regional in nature and the "Government" or "Opposition" are more "Power Blocs" than Political Parties as they are generally thought of.  There has a been a tendancy to long term alliances but as the Members from the Outsystem colonies showed the various members will often stand against their Bloc when local issues come into play.  Also independants abound, assuming you have the wealth to afford the election process, and that is mandated to be a rather short period (officially at least).  This results in a "wheeling and dealing" type political process in many (but not all) cases, rather than the more staid parlimentary one where party whips keep back benchers in line.  I do need a better election results generation system than what I used but it was good enough for a first attempt.  On "safe greenhouse gas" I may start adding equal amounts of it to water to simulate the effect the atmospheric water should have...it is worth pointing out that although water is a tiny fraction of the overall atmosphere in the lower atmosphere it is about 4% or so.[/ooc]

AD 2281 (June) to AD 2282 (March) Same olde; Same Olde

The summer focused mainly on the election to occur in the early fall, with both the Government and Opposition positioning themselves, while elements on the fringes built up their financial support.  When the election started the Government came out swinging with a well planned electioneering campaign that played to the economic benifits of the NCC's efforts, the expanding intersolar trade, and emphisised the Governments willingness to deal with tough situations, thereby making the most of the resignation of the minister of defence.  The Opposition's efforts to point out that many of these things were not directly the result of Government actions unfortunately did not gain much traction, at least not on Earth.  The result of the election although gratifying was viewed by the Government analysists with some concern.  At the end of the day of voting the Government maintained its majority of seats, plus gained an appreciable amount more popular vote; however, two trends were disturbing.  The first was that the votes in the outsystem colonies were nearly evenly split between the Government, Opposition and home grown far more radical parties.  The cause of the rise in popularity of the radicals was attributed to overcrowding and frustration with the Earth based political process.  Unfortuantely, the NCC when approached was unable to offer much in the way of concrete solutions as the degree infrastructure lagged behind needs was often due to the way it was allocated rather than anything else.  A more rational planning would satisfy the smaller colonies needs and then attempt to reduce the needs of Venus.   But as this is in the hands of the shipping agencies they see little way to assist.  The second issue was the overall growth of the radical parties on Earth itself, most being strongly local in nature limited their potential power but there did seem to be a much larger number of them then before.  It was unclear if this was due to economic factors or just with discontent with the current moderate mainstream political apparatus.

The fuel situation was on the minds of most during this time as usual but by use of the existing harvesters (both BIC and Civillian) it proved possible to sustain the exploration and expansion to the military without undo stress to the farm.  Terraforming operations on Mars, near the end of February 2282, switched from adding N₂ to the atmosphere to O₂; with the goal of providing half the required minimum pressure.   It will take several years but once achieved it will mark a major improvement in safety on Mars as leaks in suits and enviroments will no longer be so dangerous.  The Upholder survey efforts on Hestia are finally complete with no new minearls found.  It is intended to complete surveys of the remaining asteroids then send the 1st Geosurvey team to Alpha Centauri to survey its various bodies.

The NCC and Navy come to an agreement on laboratory planning.  The Navy feels that propulsion sciences are too critical to stop development and so proposes that new laboratories be designated for other efforts while the existing 3 are maintained strictly for development of new propultion technologies.  This will likely lead to some degree of in-efficiency in the short term but as it will also allow for development efforts in the critical sensors and fire control area to start sooner (even if they progress slower) is felt to be the better solution.  The Wolvers obvious degree of over all technical superiority means Humanity needs to make sure it develops all necessary technologies rather than trying to exploit a specific technological advantage, given it has none.

The lack of maintance facilities that can overhaul their existing destroyer hulls is of great concern to the engineering branch of the NCN as they point out that the Algonquin is showing signs of operational fatigue with failures to her engines on two occasions as well as a failure to a launch tube for her ship killer missiles.  The NCC promises to bring new maintenance facilites on line as quickly as possible, but the political pressure is for completion of the modernization of the Earth based defences.

Industrial Efforts, Earth, Sol
Primary Industrial Tasks
AD 2281 (June 5) Construction of a Maintenance Facility is finished 
AD 2281 (November 5) The refit PDC Fort Goose Green to the modern standards is finished and crew familization begins
AD 2281 (December 30) Construction Factories are built to increase the available pool.
AD 2282 (February 1) Construction of a further two Maintenance Facilities ends (7400 tonne vessels can now be maintained) [OOC]corrected this[/OOC]

Secondary Industrial Tasks
AD 2281 (June 5) Construction of Infrastructure[ooc]x24[/ooc] for BIC extra solar colonies is finshed
AD 2281 (October 5) An older Mine is converted to teleoperated control for transport to Alpha Centauri when shipping is available
AD 2281 (November 15) Construction of Infrastructure[ooc]x24[/ooc] for BIC extra solar colonies is finished
AD 2282 (February 20) A new Fuel Refinery joins the others and more Infrastructure for BIC starts construction

Missiles and Fighters
AD 2281 (August 2) A batch of Hawk IIB Counter Missiles is constructed.
AD 2281 (August 20) More Javelin IIIA Anti-ship Missiles are built to complete the Navy's shipboard requirements
AD 2281 (September 10) A batch of Hawk IIB Counter Missiles is completed to re-arm the ground bases
AD 2281 (October 20) A batch of Hawk IIB Counter Missiles is completed to continue the re-arming process of the existing ground bases
AD 2281 (November 15) Javelin IIIA Anti-ship Missiles for the ground bases are built
AD 2282 (February 10) A batch of Hawk IIB Counter Missile is completed again for the existing ground bases
AD 2281 (October 11) Fairmile B2(EW) 018 finishes its shake down flight
AD 2282 (February 30) Fairmile B2(EW) 019 finishes its shake down flight

Research Developments
AD 2281 (June 20) Dr. Leopold Herz publishes a series of well recieved papers on long range sensor theory (Research Bonus increases to 20%) [ooc]YES!!![/ooc]
AD 2281 (August 20) Dr. Charlotte Rowley's team finishes developements of new ways to increase fuel production efficiency (Fuel Production 32,000 Litres) and the team turns its attention to the use of virtual reality simulations and enhanced optical computer technology to enhance research efficiency (Research Rate 320 RP)

Naval Yard: Deschimag A.G. Weser, Sol
AD 2281 (July 5) Mohawk (Tribal class) finishes its construction and by July 8 is on station with the Algonquin.  The pair of ships now significantly outweapon the frigates also present.

Naval Yard: Victorias-Esquimalt Graving Yard, Sol
AD 2281 (July 10) Pacific Dogwood (Flower class) completes construction
AD 2281 (October 5) Vimy Ridge and Ortona (Wounded Knee class) the core ships of 6th Squadron are completed on schedule
AD 2281 (October 11) Grendal (Gargoyle class) is launched and joins the other ships of the 6th Squadron

Civillian Yard:  Robert Napier and Son's Ltd., Sol
AD 2281 (October 11) Lac Champlain (Loch (HP) class) is constructed and assigned to FHG VII
AD 2281 (November 5) Avgas (Petrol (HP) class) is launched and proceeds to Jupiter to join FHG VII, arriving on the 25th of November


Northern Coalition Army
AD 2281 (August 20) Venusian Peacekeeper detachment finishes its training at Camp Wainwright and departs on the Ceylon for Venus arriving in its new barracks near the end of August.  The Io Peacekeeper detachment begins training immediately after the barracks at Wainwright are available.


Civillian Operations Sol
AD 2281 (September 25) The supply of Neutronium on Van Biesbroeck has been exhausted
AD 2281 (November 20) The civilian mining colony on Encke has been expanded to 12 civilian mining complexes


BIC Operations in AD Leonis

With a full four Fuel Harvester Groups now present the main task at hand was maintaining the farm on Forge at reasonable levels to service the survey and naval vessels transiting through the system.  Each Fuel Harvesting Group is in turn sent to Forge to give their crews R&R and to equalize the time the crews of the various ships in the group have been in space.  Meeting the needs of the ships takes precedence over filling the Harvesters fuel tanks or exhausting their crews endurance so for the most part the time on station harvesting is much lower than the ships capacity.  In early March 2282 Forge's tank farm stands at slightly over 280K litres of fuel.  The FHGs are currently all harvesting with various amounts of refined fuel on board (maximum of ~60%).


BIC Operations in Alpha Centauri

The primary focus of the colony was on production of new infrastructure with sufficient for 60,000 new colonists produced in 9 months.  This is, even with the additon of building materials from Earth, barely sufficient to deal with the colonies growth.  A request for additional construction factories is relayed to the NCC with an outgoing ICG.  The refueling situation is looking good with the recently refit Loch rejoining FHG I in early June 2281.  FHG II completes its shore leave at the end of August 2281 and resumes harvesting in September while FGH I takes up orbit around Faewald in December to give its crews some R&R after off loading its available fuel, the ships complete shore leave near the end of January 2282 and then resume harvesting a week later.  ICG I arrives in early September and departs for Earth 3 weeks later.  ICG IV arrives in early December and leaves also 3 weeks later for the return trip to Earth.  The tank farm on Faewald has been able to refuel each ICG on departure and this represents a major saving for the tank farm on Earth.  Based on this BIC intends to set up 2 FHGs at their next colony site right from the start of the process.


Outsystem Survey Efforts and Naval Operations

In late September Interstellar Survey IV takes over survey operations in Gliese 382 from Interstellar Survey III which sets course for Sol.  Interstellar Survey III will arrive at Earth in November and the Thor Hyerdahl and Scout will complete their overhauls at the end of February 2282.  The minearal survey of the Gliese 382 system is completed on December 6th but it takes approximately 1 month more for the last gravitational data to be collected.
 
AD 2281 (July 8 ) Minerals Discovered on Gliese 382-A Asteroid #38: Boronide 2,190 (0.9)  Uridium 2,540 (0.9) 
AD 2281 (October 20) Minerals Discovered on Gliese 382-A Asteroid #9: Duranium 1,152 (1)  Corbomite 1,482 (1) 
AD 2281 (November 18) Minerals Discovered on Gliese 382-A Asteroid #56: Corbomite 2,209 (1)  Tritanium 121 (1) 
AD 2281 (November 20) Minerals Discovered on Gliese 382-A Asteroid #31: Corbomite 795 (1)  Corundium 3,600 (1) 
AD 2282 (January 12) Gravitational Survey Completed in the Gliese 382 system. The system has a total of 1 jump points

On the way to FL Virginis Interstellar Survey IV takes time out to survey a nearby comet in LHS 292 as they have to wait for clearance from the Navy.  It seems likely that almost all minearal wealth will be concentrated in comets for this system.
AD 2282 (February 26) Minerals Discovered on LHS 292-A Comet #19: Neutronium 8,199 (0.7)  Boronide 12,820 (1)  Sorium 11,964 (1)  Corundium 17,625 (0.9) 

2nd Squadron has taken over from 3rd Squadron in June and 3rd Squadron arrives back in Sol in July, refueling from the civillian harvesters at Jupiter to spare the farm.  2nd Squadron is still sheparding the two grav survey missions through the jump points when Interstellar Survey IV enters FL Virginis and Trail Blazer is detached to do a quick probe of the system to ensure no aliens are present, to the relief of all none are found and the two survey ships begin their survey ahead of their naval watchdog's presence.  1st Squadron is proceeding to Forge to refuel enroute to relieve the 2nd Squadron (currently onstation at the jump point to FL Virginis in LH 292) of its duties to allow it overhaul and R&R time.

[Brainsucker]

because of the report style of this AAR, would you mind to tell us about the NCN (North Coalition Navy) organization list? Like, what is in 1st squadron, who's the commanders, what do you expect from each squadron... their role, etc?

[Paul M (OP)]

Certainly, here you go...

The NCN is organized currently as 1st Fleet (CO: Commadore C. Frazier )

The 1st Fleet is organized as 1 Task Force of Two Task Groups plus additional support Task Groups/Squadrons for particular missions

Task Group 1 (CO: Captain A. Benson) is composed of 3 squadrons (1st, 2nd and 3rd).  Task Group 2 (CO: Commadore P. Morganrot) is composed of 3 squadrons (4th, 5th, and 6th).
1st Squadron is divided into a Battlegroup and a Support Group
1st Squadron BG (CO: Captain A. Benson) is:  Airdale, Borsoi (FG Terrier Class), Dorset (ES London Class), Picket (FGE Guardian Class)
1st Squadron SG (CO: not allocated) is: Edmonton (TJ Edmonton Class), Protecteur (RS Protecteur Class), Guardian (FGE Guardian Class)

2nd Squadron is divided into a Battlegroup and a Support Group
2nd Squadron BG (CO: Captain G. Broddison) is: Beagle, Bloodhound (FG Terrier Class), Cheshire (ES London Class), Watchman (FGE Guardian Class)
2nd Squadron SG (CO: Lt. Cmdr H. Grietingrson ) is: Banff (TJ Edmonton class), Pious Antonius (RS Protecteur class), Sentry (FGE Guardian class)

3rd Squadron is divided into a Battlegroup and a Support Group
3rd Squadron BG (CO: Captain E. Ahmed) is: Foxhound, Mastiff (FG Terrier Class), Shetland (ES London Class), Lookout (FGE Guardian Class)
3rd Squadron SG (CO: not allocated) is: Perryvale (TJ Edmonton class), Paul Bunyon (RS Protecteur class), Warder (FGE Guardian class)

4th Squadron is divided into a Battlegroup and a Support Group
4th Squadron BG (CO: Commadore P. Morgenrot) is: Algonquin, Mohawk (DD Tribal class)
4th Squadron SG (CO: not allocated) is: (JS Enchanter Class), (FGE(H) Gargoyle) plus as yet undefined support ships

5th Squadron is divided into a Battlegroup and a Support Group
5th Squadron BG (CO: Captain D. Nim) is: Wounded Knee, Normandy (FGH Wounded Knee Class), Lake Superiour (CT Lake Class), Gargoyle (FGE(H) Gargoyle Class)
5th Squadron SG (CO: Lt. Cmdr J. Reed) is: Wild Rose, Purple Violet (TJ Flower Class), (SV Edinbourgh Class), (FGE(H) Gargoyle Class)

6th Squadron is divided into a Battlegroup and a Support Group
6th Squadron BG (CO: not appointed ) is: Ortona, Vimy Ridge (FGH Wounded Knee Class), (CT Lake Class), Grendal (FGE(H) Gargoyle Class)
6th Squadron SG (CO: Lt. Cmdr B. Bell) is: Pacific Dogwood (TJ Flower Class), (SV Edinbourgh Class), (FGE(H) Gargoyle Class)

There is also:
The Troop Transport Squadron:  Ceylon, Hong Kong, Singapore (TT Ceylon class), (TJ Flower class)
Alpha and Beta Tanker Mission: Husky, Petrocan  (TK Petrocan Class)

Near Earth Defence Force (CO: Captain R. Unnvaldrson): 4xFort Detroit PDC, 2xFort Dublin PDC, 2xFort Victoria MB, 2xFort Des Moines ILB, 1xListening Post
Near Mars Defence Force: 1xTranquility Class PDB, 1xListening Post
Near Luna Defence Force: 1xTranquility Class PDB

Missions for each Squadron are generally escort or picket.  Each Squadron is intended to be self contained and capable of fighting alone, though against the Wolvers this is generally considered to be unlikely to be sucessful for the 1st-3rd Squadrons due to their limited survivability.  The Missile Escort class frigates (FGE Guardian and FGE(H) Gargoyle) are generally tasked with combat recon missions as they have a pinnance, but their primary mission is thickening the missile defence with their countermissile battery.  The Escort classes (CT Lake and ES London classes) are close combat laser armed ships intended for Jump Point Ambushes, Missiles Defence and Knife fighting.  The support group consists of a jump tender, a resupply ship and a missile escort frigate to defend these two ships.

Early warning pinnaces are based on the Guardian, Gargoyle, Tribal, Enchanter and Flower classes.

Squadron 4 is the destroyer Squadron and represents the first heavy combat force of the Navy.  Doctrine on its deployment is still developing.  Squadron 5 and 6 are the heavy frigate squadrons and it is hoped they will be able to take over most out system operations from the "light" frigate squadrons.  They represent a signifant increase in combat survivability but this comes at the cost of greatly increased fuel use, which is a good part of the reason that they are stil orbiting Earth.  A light frigate squadron requires 1,000,000 litres to bunker from empty, the heavy frigate squadron takes 3.5 times that and, the destroyers each take 620,000 litres.  At the moment demands such as this are not easly met.  For this reason it is likely the ships of TG1 will remain in service longer than would otherwise be indicated.  The support groups for the ships of TG2 are still being built/designed.  Squadron 5 and 6 support groups are currently planned to be: 2 Flower class jump tenders, two support vessels and a missile escort.  Squadron 4 will get at least 2 Enchanter class Jump Ships plus as yet undetermined number of support vessels.

At the moment Squadron 1, 2 and 3 rotate through missions in the order of: Escorting Survey Operations, Overhaul at Earth, Picketing the jump point Sol-Wolf 359, Overhaul at Earth.  As Squadron 4 can't yet be overhauled the pair of destroyers are at the jump point Sol-Wolf 359 as there is no way to move them out of Sol and there is no point leaving them at Earth.   

Senior officers are also in short supply as it usually desired that any jump capable ship be commanded by a Comander.  Due to being deployed often out of easy communication with Earth squadrons are commanded by Captains. 

[Brainsucker]

That's help me a lot. Thanks. I can understand the AAR better now.

[joeclark77]

You want to give us a run-down on your logistics and industry?  How many fuel harvesters do you have in service, for example, and what's the quality of the gas giant?  Since the first time I read through your AAR, I've been using tons of fuel harvesters in all my games, and choosing fuel efficient engines (usually 10HS/0.8power for military; 40HS/0.2power for commercial) and it's changed my game entirely.  It's been a while since that read-through though.  Also remind us about your colonies: what are your purposes for each, and how far away are they?  Maybe post a map or system screenshots?

[Paul M (OP)]

I hope to have a short update this weekend (bringing the time up to end of june) as I find 6 months is enough to write up.  In this case I'll include some more details as the fuel farm, and the harvesters are rather critical to the NCNs long term planning, plus BIC.  I'll make a screen shot of the explored universe as well (something I was thinking was probably a good idea).

At the moment research is ongoing on fuel efficiency 0.7, when that is done I will generate a new series of engines that are larger than the current ones (5 HS, and 25 HS) by a factor of 2.  I have one series of military engines with 0.75 power setting.  It is used on the auxillaries and the George Vancouver and Scout classes.  For the grav and geo survey ships they use older commercial engines.

I was a bit surprised originally how much difference it made on the long haul freighters but they have steadily gained range from even small changes to their efficiency.  Fuel use or the otherside of that coin fuel efficiency is critical for me as current fuel production doesn't exceed need by a huge amount.  As I said above the reason the ships in TG1 are still used is because they have a smaller fuel impact.  From a military prespective a single DD is a better deal and is only 100,000 l more fuel impact than the squadron it can basically replace.  But it will be around 2-2.5 years before the enchanters are finished and the DDs are able to deploy out of Sol...and they need support ships...but at 650,000 l of fuel per DD that makes the NCFB cringe.  The thought of sending a ship with potentially a years worth of fuel production on board...they find it disturbing. 

[Paul M (OP)]

[ooc]There will be another update really soon about the search for the first system to colonize that isn't Alpha C.  It will include the starmap and some further details of the options BIC is looking at.[/ooc]

AD 2282 (March) to AD 2282 (June)  Expanding the Frontier

The 4 months of spring and early summer 2282 marked a period of stock taking by both BIC and the NCC.  The NCFB had managed to keep the farm from dropping below 1 Ml of fuel during this time only by tapping their strategic reserve on the Petrocan tankers and subsiquently refueling from the civillian harvesters at Jupiter.  Current fuel production is: 3.7184 Ml per year, from 83 refineries.  The arrival of 2nd Squadron on May 2nd, with most of its ships below 40% fuel hit the farm hard, and the commissioning of 3 heavy frigates and a destroyer were equally strong demands on the refineries output.  It was clear to BIC that no sucessful colonization scheme could be undertaken without a substantial investment in fuel harvesters, but also in the long term a solid planet bound supporting refinery infrastructure.  Unfortunately, that would require a substantial population; as realistically the minimum number of fuel refineries that would produce reasonable amounts of fuel was 30.  For the moment the priority in BIC was on expanding the colonial manufacturing and mining base on Faewald while considered where to set up the first extra solar colony off AD Leonis. 

The NCN was also considering its mission options.  Any mission with the DDs of 4th Squadron, realistically at least 2 years distant, would have to consider return for fuel invested.  That made a return visit to Wolf 359 a tempting objective.  Unfortunately, while Wolf 359 was fuel efficient mission target the higher speed of the Wolvers ships meant that the combat could only be forced on the wolvers during jump point assaults...otherwise the enemy could always choose to retire from close combat.  If the Wolvers would defend a planet then possibly the NCN could force an engagement against a superiour speed foe...otherwise the enemies higher speed would allow them to be able to dictate all aspects of the engagement.  The NCN could for the moment see no way past this problem, and concentrated instead on building up its capacity and urging the NCC to complete the maintanence facilities for its destroyer class vessels as soon as possible.

1st Geosurvey team completes a survey of Hestia.  Setting a new record, the survey of Pandora takes only 11 days (March 9th to 20th) before they start their survey of the asteroid Sylvia.  So far nothing not seen in the Upholders original survey has been found in the asteroid belt.

Based on the current mineral production situation the NCC starts making plans to both increase the number of mines on Mars and Io plus to also build at least a further 50 teleoperated mines to increase the flow of minerals from NCC operated mining colonies.  The current budget is starting to go into the red with the biggest cost the purchase of civillian minerals.  15 mines will go to Venus, 15 will go to Sylvia, 10 will be shipped out system and a further 10 will go to other mining sites in Sol.  However, there remains both the refits to the forts of Earth and strategically critical big ticket items such as two new space yards, an expansion to the Earth University and a new ground force production centre to consider.  It is clear that the construction facilities of Earth will be busy non-stop for the next several years.

On the 7th of May Cmdr Josh Bird is promoted to Captain, giving the NCN 8 senior officers besides Commadore Frazier.  He is the youngest officer to ever achieve this rank, as he is only a few years out of the Academy but his career has been the fast track of fast tracks.  He is given command of the 6th squadron as it is currently assembling in Earth orbit.  It is likely once the squardon's ships are all present he will be rotated to one of the squadrons in TG1 to give him command experience in the field.

Industrial Efforts, Earth, Sol
Primary Industrial Tasks
AD 2282 (March 25) Construction of a Terraforming Installation for Mars ends.  A civillian contract to transport it to Mars is placed and inside of a week the installation has begun operations on Mars.
AD 2282 (April 21) Two Maintenance Facilities (allowing ships of up to 7800 tonnes to be maintained[ooc] the previous AAR entry is wrong[/ooc]) are added to the complex
AD 2282 (June 13) Two Deep Space Tracking Satalite constellations are deployed in near Earth space extending the passive coverage near the home world.
AD 2282 (June 28) A Maintenance Facility is added to the complex bringing it to an even 8000 tonnes worth of military ship that can be maintained and a Research complex already earmarked for Sensors and Fire Control R&D has its ground breaking ceremony.


Secondary Industrial Tasks
AD 2282 (April 1) Infrastructure[ooc]x24[/ooc] for BIC is completed and the conversion of an older mine to teleoperated starts


Missiles and Fighters
AD 2282 (March 20) Construction of Hawk IIB Counter Missiles ends
AD 2282 (April 5) Construction of Javelin IIIA Anti-ship Missile ends

Naval Yard: Victorias-Esquimalt Graving Yard, Sol
AD 2282 (March 14) Mayflower (Flower class) is completed and is assigned to the 6th Squadron Support group
AD 2282 (March 20) Lake Erie (Lake class) finishes construction and is assigned to the 6th Squadron Battle group
AD 2282 (May 13) Praire Crocus (Flower class) is launched and is assigned to the Troop Transport Squadron, giving the NCN the ability to transport troops out of Sol
AD 2282 (June 18) Retooling for Edinbourgh class Supply Vessel is finished and the Edinbourgh starts in a free slipway

Naval Yard: Deschimag A.G. Weser, Sol
AD 2282 (June 28) Comanche (Tribal class) is completed and is assigned to the 4th Squadron Battlegroup currently in Earth Orbit for R&R

Northern Coalition Army
AD 2282 (April 1) Io Peacekeeper Detachment completes its training in Wainright, vacating the camp just ahead of the arrival of the recruits that will form the Ganymede peacekeeping detachment after training.  Col J. Scott is assigned command of the formation and they are transfered to Victoria to begin the process of boardiing the waiting Ceylon which will take them to Io.


BIC Operations: Alpha Centauri

Every two weeks more colonial infrastructure and life support/habitation prefabrications come out of the colonies industrial park adding nearly enough space for 30,000 [ooc]Infrastructure x8[/ooc] to the colonies living space.  Unfortunately the current population keeps growing faster than the infrastructure to support it can be fabricated.  FHG II is recalled to Faewald to top up the farm to enable them to refuel ICG II which departs the colony on April 5th with a load of minerals for Earth (having arrived there with a mine, 20,000 new colonists and support equipment on the 15th of March).  FHG II returns to the gas giant to refine more fuel, then in June rendevous with FHG I and transfers that groups fuel onboard before setting course for Faewald.  On the 18th of June FHG II is back in orbit around Faewald where its crews are given R&R.  This allows them some time before the arrival of ICG III on the 29th.  The three ships of the ICG III had a full load of supplies to expand the colony and 20,000 new colonists, but even after the colony workforce had finished installing the new support services the colonial population, now 2.02 million, was still some 50,000 over what the life support could easily support.


BIC Operations: AD Leonis

To ensure sufficient fuel was on hand to refuel the detached RS Pious Antonius the ships of FHG V are recalled (arriving at Forge on April 5th) from the gas giant to fill the farm's tanks and to have a spell of R&R.  This leaves 3 FHGs at the gas giant with over 1 Ml of fuel in their tanks.  Forge has now a full complement of 5 Teleoperated mines on its surface and flow of minerals to the colonies storage bunkers is steady if unspectacular.   FHG's crews are finished their R&R and back on station at the gas giant on the 8th of May. 

[OOC] The gas giant is rated at 17.97 million sorium with an availablity of 1, each FHG can collect and refine 644,000 litres of fuel per year [/OOC]

Survey and Naval Operations (FL Virginis)

FL Viriginis is a binary system with the following system bodies:
A-I (dwarf planet)
A-II (gas giant) with 1 terrestrial moon
A-III (gas giant) with 9 moons
A-IV (gas giant) with 15 moons
A-V to A-VII) are a dwarf, terrestrial and dwarf planet that orbit at 3 billion to 22 billion km from the primary and due to this extreme distance have yet to be surveyed.

B-I (dwarf planet)
B-II (terrestrial planet)
B-III (gas giant) with 12 moons
B-IV (super jovian) with 12 moons two of which are terrestrial
19 asteroids


FL Virginis is rapidly looking to be one of the richest system ever found in terms of absolute number of TN minerals ever discovered.  In most cases, however; they are not so easy to extract.  The binary system also boasts a mineral rich dwarf planet (planet A-I) which would serve the same purpose as Faewald.  By late June all easily worlds had been surveyed and Alpha and Beta Grav surveys were working on the outer grav survey locations.  Two new jump points had been found so far in the survey, the first currently was very close to B-companion star while the second was somewhat further outsystem.  Captain A. Benson authorizes probes of the two new jump points.  A probe force of the Borsoi, Picket and Edmonton jump through the first jump point on the 24th of June discovering the system of Gliese 505, an uninspiring red dwarf system with no habitable worlds.  The system consists of two gas giants: one orbiting so close to the dim red star to prevent moon formation and the other boasting 18 moons plus 267 asteroids orbiting between 18 and 417 m km from the star.  The entrance jump point a whoping 3.3 billion kilometers from the star.  As this system will be time and fuel consuming to both survey, no matter exploit the Navy and Survey Command ships set course for the other newly discovered jump point in FL Virginis with an ETA of July 1st.

AD 2282 (March 11) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-A III: Sorium 876,000 (0.9) 
AD 2282 (March 22) New Jump Point found in the FL Virginis System
AD 2282 (March 29) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-A I: Duran 1,280,000 (0.6)  Neut 1,440,000 (0.6)  Corb 1,392,400 (0.7)  Trit 3,097,600 (0.5)  Boron 360,000 (0.3)  Merc 3,920,400 (0.2)  Vend 90,000 (0.7)  Sorium 1,254,400 (0.1)  Urid 2,433,600 (0.7)  Corun 1,904,400 (0.1)  Gall 1,600 (0.1) 
AD 2282 (April 5) New Jump Point found in the FL Virginis System
AD 2282 (April 18)  Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-A IV - Moon 5: Duranium 578 (1)  Boronide 2,209 (1) 
AD 2282 (May 1) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-A IV - Moon 10: Duranium 10,580,000 (0.3)  Corbomite 10,000 (0.1)  Boronide 3,422,500 (0.3)  Uridium 1,210,000 (0.1) 
AD 2282 (May 2) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-A IV - Moon 14: Corundium 42 (1) 
AD 2282 (May 5) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-A IV - Moon 15: Neut 313,600 (0.3)  Corb 1,285,956 (0.7)  Trit 509,796 (0.8 )  Boron 879,844 (1)  Urid 1,764 (0.9)  Corun 86,436 (0.7)  Gall 571,536 (0.8 ) 
AD 2282 (June 8 ) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-B IV: Sorium 292,000 (1) 
AD 2282 (June 18) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-B II: Duranium 50,803,200 (0.1)  Neutronium 55,577,020 (0.1)  Tritanium 2,822,400 (0.1)  Sorium 58,752,220 (0.1)  Corundium 34,574,400 (0.1) 
AD 2282 (June 19) Minerals Discovered on FL Virginis-B IV - Moon 3: Mercassium 32,535,620 (0.1)  Vendarite 984,064 (0.1)  Corundium 1,245,456 (0.1) 
AD 2282 (June 24) Exploration of jump point 2 in the FL Virginis system has revealed it connects to the system of Gliese 505

[Paul M (OP)]

[ooc]This is part II basically shows the current state of BICs options.  At the bottom is a galactic map that is a bit advanced for this time period by a few days.  None of the canditate worlds are particularily impressive.  Distance I assume is in billions of km it is just the number the map tool gives.  The distance to alpha C is listed as 6 to put things into perspective.  If people have a preference feel free to indicate it...also I updated the previous post a bit with some additional information.[/ooc]

BIC's Assessment of the Candidates for Colonization Reachable from AD Leonis

The primary drivers for colonization are:
1.  Presence of TN minerals, with access to Duranium and Neutronium considered critical.
2.  Round trip distance.
3.  Presence of a gas giant with Sorium for fuel harvesting.
4.  Ease of Terraforming and suitability for colonization (gravity, presence of water, temperature, etc)

Current Canditate Worlds:

Gliese 382

Planet A-II (Terrestrial) -29.8°C average Temperature; 0.8 G (12400 km dia); 89% water coverage (ice); 0.19 atm (N₂ 81%, O₂ (0.04) 19%)
Duranium present on planet and also in the system.
Distance from Sol 8 billion km.
Gas Giant present with Sorium.

Gliese 408

Planet A-II (Terrestrial) +44.5°C average Temperature; 0.87G (15200 km dia); 53% water coverage (liquid); 0.53 atm ((N₂ 83%, O₂ (0.09) 19%)
The system has TN minerals but no Duranium is present in system.
Distance from Sol 3.5 billion km.
Gas Giant present with Sorium.

FL Virginis

Planet A-II moon 1 (Terrestrial) -96°C average Temperature; 0.53 G (6200 km dia); no water; 0.23 atm (N₂ 79%, Amonia 20.6%, CH₄ 0.4%)
Planet B-II (Terrestrial) -82°C average Temperature; 1.34 G (21000 km dia); 72% water coverage (ice); 0.9 atm (N₂ 84%, CO₂ 16%)
A-II moon1 has no TN minerals present but planet B-II does.  Significant quanties of all TN materials can be found in the system.
Distance from Sol 6 billion km
Gas Giant present with Sorium.

[joeclark77]

Have you given any thought to naming the stars something other than Gliese this and Wolf that?
I think the FL Virginis system looks promising, although that Gliese 408 planet is nothing to shake a stick at.  It could be terraformed very quickly and start generating money and population and trade if nothing else.