[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