Aurora 4x

Fiction => Aurora => Vandermeer's Fiction => Topic started by: Vandermeer on November 21, 2014, 11:19:41 PM

Title: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on November 21, 2014, 11:19:41 PM

I am currently running secondary game because I got inspired by some browser games art I saw. I thought about posting something in the "what is going on in your empire"-thread, but then ran into more trouble, so better not pave it full.

This is the race I chose:
(http://abload.de/img/astralrepublicdetailsvjbao.jpg)

And I went for a custom start with custom system. A nice thing I didn't notice about Aurora so far is, that the generated systems for a custom start race also become named after that race's theme. Any start system I would roll up was thus nicely named "Athens", and all the discovered systems after also kept such theme.(have yet to run into a system that carries a number instead of a name)
I started conventional as I always do, with no enhancements or handicaps in the generation, but I did not give my home planet the starting resources and instead left it random without looking. Of course, this could have easily crippled my to non-playable, so I gave myself around 2k units of everything into the storage just in case. Then I spread around 8 'start planet resource spawns'-packages over 8 of the larger planets or moons in the system, one of them being my home planets moon, another something like Mars, and then only distant moons around gas giants comparable to Jupiter and Saturn in positioning (but further of, as my start system was rather large). I also deployed 4 different ruins, one of which at my home (...and it spawned robot soldiers before I had my own to defend myself *bites into table*). Got no interesting tech out of any of those though.
The idea was that my race should be the far offspring of some distant gigantic human empire machine. Something happened that left this ancient military out-/ and ward-post destroyed though, and only after intelligent life recovered were they able to dig out some of the ancient technologies and designs and become space faring again. This distant empire may be huge, but due to bureaucratic devolution and paid(+some talent sponsoring) education system only manages to hold up a tech grade of 6, so magnetic containment fusion and all around that, with some higher developed regions being possibly one grade higher.
I love the tech 5-6 time the most, because there you are strong enough to be on pretty much equal or just slight above terms with most that you encounter, so you still have to think about tactics or bringing in enough mass to achieve victory. In later ages, you normally tend to have the deadly combination of range+speed advantage right away, and thus just kill everything. Thus I set myself an artificial limit of TL6, as this is the maximum that the people can dig out from ancient times, but allow myself to go one level higher on planets that grant a research bonus in a field, making those more desirable to catch. Of course it is allowed to deserve further tech improvement through conquering, which is what I will mainly do. The offspring republic is quite militaristic still, and looks on strangers with heavy xenophobia.
Having such a tech limit makes the game more exciting I think, because you really get to lust over the cherries in neighbors garden and finally crack that pinata. When you can get the same by sitting at home, conquering is just a bonus, and after maximizing even just a mere vanity task.

So my first mission was to use my meager means to get a simple geo survey probe, and a 1 cargo hold freighter into orbit somehow, so I could tap on the moon as my first and primary source. My home planet turned out to have massive amounts of duranium and neutronium, but sadly both with poor 0.2 and 0.1 access, some mercassium and uridium with 0.1 too, then basically infinite supplies of vendarite at good 0.6 (jay for the carrier industry), and 38 million of galicite at 0.4 - a real treasure, as this is needed the most in mid to end tech eras. After spending some years to get trans-newtonian and basic techs, I barely got a conventional engine probe and freighter, having no access to boronide, and manufactured a couple auto-mines from my start budget too, which slowly set me free as income from the moon rose. Then I went to nuclear thermal engines, and finished the system survey, losing a probe due to inadequate range, and repeatedly exhausting fuel supplies. I set up two more mining sites and paired them with mass drivers, got to ion tech and finally saw my own system fully cruisable, though still short on fuel. It took forever to get around 300 auto-mines spread with the harsh fuel limit, and often my few freighters were grounded.
However, then came magneto-plasma age, and since fusion tech was the interstellar race entry tech after my custom lore, I now set out for the neighborhood with my first survey frigate, the Gemini, an 100kt inefficient multi-role design with 5 fighters, 5 bombers, 2 long range geo and grav survey FACs, and a 2kt boarding boat. Weapons were 12 size 6 missile launcher that used ammunition which could be freely interchanged with what the bombers used (5 size 6 box launchers - their custom ammunition variant had more agility for drastically shorter range), then 5 calibre 3 quad laser turrets as area PD (not a good choice, but accurate in terms of the flavor needed), and 4 up to date CIWSs. No shields, 10 armor, high range, only about 1900 speed or so. Also 2.5kt missile and long range sensors, but only most basic passive sensor ability. The fighter and bomber designs were cut out to make it exactly to the edge of the frigate's sensor range and back, needing no reconnaissance craft of their own.

Art from the game I mentioned:
Frigate:
(http://abload.de/img/astroempires_frigate2pourq.jpg)

Fighter:
(http://abload.de/img/astroempires_fighterstdjcn.jpg)

Bomber:
(http://abload.de/img/astroempires_bombers27uyy.jpg)

In the game a frigate could carry 4 squadrons of either fighters or bombers, which were formations of 5 each. I only took one squadron of each (2.5kt in hangar space per squadron), and filled the remaining 5kt with the four survey crafts , but then had to cheat and took an extra kiloton, because the boarding boat could not be smaller than 2kt to be able of transporting a battalion.
The original frigate size was around 460meters x 120m x 70m, so 3.864m cubic meters. Steel is 8 tons per cubic meter, so estimating a fill of 12.5%, we would land at a mass of 3.9mt.(in comparison, the Nimitz Carrier has a steel fill equivalent of 6.25% - so only half -, but it also doesn't have so much armor and the shield against space and its high velocity travel hazards) 4mt is clearly too much for a mere frigate. However, Aurora plays on skewed scales when it comes to mass, as can be seen on its tonnage per man ratio. 10 tons per man is the absolute maximum here that allows missions with at least 8 years secure supply, and potentially more with poor conditions. These ratios are insane for spacecraft. I know it is all oriented on official U.S. navy manning numbers, where 100kt ships are manned with 3000 to 5000 people, but in space there is more to care about. The ISS arguably has lots of extra tonnage that doesn't really work for the crew, but also no engine of a real ship and such which would have taken away, and she supports 6 people for 3-6 months with her 450t weight; Around a 1:50 ratio I would assume.
So if 3-6 months is 1:50, then 2 years is around twice as much (following Aurora calculation here), and the planned 6 years should be around the 1:150 range, compared to the mere 1:4 that Aurora suggests.(..can you survive on a spaceship for six years without resupply with 4 tons of equipment around you? ok, in a big ship people can throw together and share a lot of needed infrastructure, but I dare to say that even recycling water and growing food would take up way more than that. How much does a person's farmland weight? Count in your share on corridors, waste and medical treatment, and oxygen refinement as well.)
So there is around a factor 40 disparity, and that is how I came to fit the frigate in a 100kt shell, as that is Auroras equivalent of a truly (by realistic standards perhaps insanely) big ship. In other words, depending on the game, I consider Aurora ships to be either 40 times the size they are displayed (Star Wars Scale), or divide the crew count by forty, so a mere destroyer would not run with 400, but 10-40 people.(/factor may change with deployment time)
...All very vague and lots of per feeling 'measurement'.

Sadly, all that over-thinking never got into action early as it should, as the very first alien contact I had in this game... was a swarm mothership. No, not only a swarm mothership, but a swarm mothership in a nebula, which reduced my detection range and rendered my missiles and bombers useless + my cut-to-be-blazing fighters slow crawlers. When I saw it, it was too late, as my frigate could not get back to the jump point in time against the with 5kps closing foe. It is not a good idea to fight a mothership in close combat, but a nebula forces you to do so, which means, unprepared, it becomes one of the most deadly encounters. The frigate blew up eventually, and only two grav survey drones survived (geos were the first victims - they didn't even see what killed them, and I fool set course to the incidents curiously). The wrecks mysteriously disappeared soon after, but clearly the mothership just used their resources to breed even more terrors.
(http://abload.de/img/ghomanebulademonsbujew.jpg)

Before this incident I however found 4 other systems, 3 of which so incredibly lucky that this became easily the best starting position I had so far. First there was a system with a planet that had nearly every resource except neutronium with top acc. and amounts to around a million and then some. Neutronium could be easily found on another body in the system too, that also had enough other sources to be a viable investment. This securely finances my fast beginner civilization's growth currently. The second was the exact opposite. At least one planet of insane 80-210m+ resources of every kind, but nearly all sources at 0.1 acc, which is natural for those big ones. Some other bodies with alot too, but not the full spectrum at once. This system will be the treasure chamber of my Republic, as any late game civilization will strongly rely on heavy exploitation of 0.1 worlds, once the duranium and corundium flows freely. This one planet will finance all I will ever need once I reach the auto-mine spam stage (that only 0.1s can endure to take). Both these systems are direct neighbors, so no need to explore space to find sources. Only if I find an extraordinary corundium or gallicite source will I ever have to consider opening trade some place else.
The third system solved my last problem elegantly: Fuel. Two close orbiting white dwarfs and a 51m acc1 sorium gas giant form the Delphi system, so I kept the flair and opened up the Oracle of Delphi, first one 1.4mt harvester-platform, later 3, which immediately solved all the fuel shortage I always had, despite owning already 700+ auto-mines on start world quality sorium sources. In some games good gas giants are not found easily, or may be very distant, but this one will likely carry me through nearly the whole game, all basically to the next door of my capital.

However, I was out to take revenge on the mothership, and since I already had reached internal fusion when this incident happened, I decided to skip a tech grade and go directly for my goal level of TL6, and use that to build a objective engineered 20kt nebula diver, which would basically be a short range high speed weapon platform that I would deploy via carrier. It should be faster and outrange the enemy with particle beams - a secure win if not for commander errors.
I built a special shipyard just for this, and coined the plan as Pharsalos Project (the name of the proto-star in the nebula).

So this is how it went. The mothership took notice and was the only one at first to approach me, while the new 2 carriers it seems to have built stood back in the system. I dispatched the diver, but left the carrying cruiser there for illumination and lure. Then the Facs appeared, one around 80 units squadron from the mothership first, then in the distance another wave of 160+ more that must have come from the backyard carriers.
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject35e1h.jpg)

The Facs took the bait and followed the diver to be slowly diminished by around one every half minute. Some would get destroyed instantly, some only became immobile and fell back. The "ion-cannon" particle beam was able to pierce 4 layers, so exactly prepared for the proven to be armor 3 facs.
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject-frsf5f.jpg)

There is a display error for ships in nebula by the way. The enemy speeds are always exact, but for some reason your own race's velocities are only every displayed as increments of the smallest possible increment, which is 1250k per armor layer in this nebula. I would only ever see 2.5k or 5k for example, but I could definitely fly at any other speed too if I wanted. Often I let enemies come closer by just taking 10 or 50 kps of my speed, and it worked.
A second error comes with the targeting speed, which is apparently still considered to be the Facs' maximum velocity, even so the nebula reduced them to mere 3.75kps, which I could easily track. This error reduced my hit chances to about half of what it should be, which is crippling in a dust that already halves to begin with.(ended up with 14% through this... one statistical hit per interval thanks to 7 cannons)
It took one real time day to resolve those 240+ facs. It was very time consuming to fly the lane back and shoot the remaining ones down too, and one time one of those bastards only played dead/ came back to life and actually landed a shot, but it damaged only a crew quarter without inhabitants.

Then it was on to take revenge, but the mothership must have watched what happened and tried to evade my diver at first, only going after the cruiser.
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject-m78uqu.jpg)

After 'persuading' it by landing a few shots from the sides anyway (speed and range is still superior), it started to follow me finally and made the shooting process relaxingly automatic. I had to watch to be slightly slower than my enemy though, as otherwise it would always lose interest in the diver again, and either fall back or start to target the cruiser, which meant more management burden for me.
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject-mfvume.jpg)

It took very very long to take it out, and I could honestly not guess how much damage I had already done. It slowed down gradually, but after hours it still only lost about 20% of its speed, despite the constant "fuel leak observed" messages that I would now get every increment after shredding enough of its thick armor. Then it surprisingly exploded without much of a fuzz when it was still at 60% of its engine capacity. I though I was only half way done, but maybe the whole thing just performed under a huge jurassic adrenaline rush and was actually more heavily hurt.

Then I went in to take out the carriers who hid behind an asteroid in very close proximity to the star. As a surprise, there were some ships that my long range scanner didn't see yet. They looked like escort destroyers, but were too slow. So maybe support carriers? That would explain the high numbers
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject-fzljdm.jpg)

One thing I always seem to forget about swarm carriers is that they keep a reserve of facs around. Even after a wave of 240, they will still have more. It was good for story though, as the Republic couldn't possibly have known. Those extras get released as soon as the carrier receives direct damage, so I had to deal with two more waves for a grand totale of 289 units.
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject-faqulp.jpg)






...But wait, there is more! Ok, first I took out those support designs and the carriers, which was not much of a challenge. The carriers were cowards that always tried to retreat to the asteroid and ruined my laid back auto-turn/auto-shoot tactic, so I eventually flew around them and waited for them at the asteroid. But when it was all done, the diver docked back with the cruiser, went home and the commander was being welcome with a parade, promotion to captain and 6 different medals total. ...Did you know that swarm ships never leave behind wrecks. Not only other ones wrecks, but also their own ones don't spawn any. ..Did you also see that there was a wreck of their ships, lying there the entire time?
Yepp, I didn't know what to make of that It hadn't been there the first time I visited, and I was not responsible, but I definitely hoped for interesting scientific discovery. So in order to finish the survey, I first sent the new frigate of the fleet the "Gemini Twin" there to continue where its older sister left of. ..Aaand its survey crafts got promptly destroyed, just like the last time.
It was a trap. Apparently those support designed can be sacrificed and salvaged just like they do with enemy craft, except that they 'digest' themselves. The Diver had already hovered over the wreck, as he claimed the asteroid for some time, but when my probes got close, the wrecks mechanism triggered, and it vanished to make space for 7 facs of an entirely new breed. They blew up the first probe promptly and quickly hunted down the other one, which was again just too slow too attempt escaping.
(http://abload.de/img/thepharsalosproject-nfabmr.jpg)

In shocked retrospective to the last encounter of this kind, the Gemini Twin immediately turned around and left the system for good. The celebrations were blown off and the diver had to return for one more run. I closely examined the places where they spawned again, but could not find anything that could topple the 'spawn from wreck' hypothesis, so the system was again declared free.
All in all the one 20kt diver platform had managed to kill of over 600kt of enemy tonnage, but that is no accomplishment for a purpose built superiority design. Some wars are won with mere information if the enemy is too slow to adapt. The spoils included a small ruin of 7 buildings (nothing worthwhile came out of it), and also a 80% propulsion bonus place close to the star, where I will eventually deploy a research station once I get terraformers and colonizers. Quite a good catch with my rule, as propulsion is the most important upgrade of them all. Also very stylish to have dedicated engine studies at the closet planet to proto-star in a nebula. You can imagine that being a thing, and a respectable anomaly. This game really worked out good in terms of odds so far.


Anyway, so the story is now that the ancient military ward-post that this Republic sprouted from, was made to watch over and study those nearby Nebula monsters, as they meant a serious potential threat to the empire with its mainly missile/ or shell based weaponry.
A funny thing is that I actually perceived the presence of the swarm before going to this nebula, as the time did slow down often after I entered the adjacent system. I flew patrol with my lacking sensor range, but at some point the slow down stopped, which meant whatever was there flew away. Through an accidental click on the race instead of the system dropdown, I then figured out that the swarm was listed, so they had been there. I flew back to investigate the adjacent jump points, landed in the nebula, and the rest was history.
This fits perfectly into the story, as the nebula demons must have had the tendency to come out sometimes, and since my home world is only 2 jumps afar, it was at one time victim to a full assault of what ever may lie even deeper. I now have a 100 tracking stations outpost in the in between system, and plan another monitor on the science outpost close to the proto-star. The in between one will also get a 200 tubes LR Torpedo base, while I will manufacture a smaller planetary hangar in Pharsalos to be able to maintain the diver craft directly there, where it is most effective. (outside of the nebula, facs would be faster for example, but here it outranks them by factor 2)

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: 83athom on November 22, 2014, 12:54:57 AM

Dude, which universes do you roll in. I'm mostly in Omega and Pegasus. And good luck with the demons.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on November 22, 2014, 09:49:11 AM

I am in Andromeda. :) I don't play very seriously though, also joined to late to be competition. Currently I only have two planets (which are also the home planet and the "Mars" in my Aurora game), and I look out for a third settlement as an asteroid base. My focus was so far only to tech as much as possible, so that the different ship types can be unlocked and seen. I can build Fleet Carriers and Battleships at max, which I calculated to be around 5-10 megaton designs in aurora, and I think that will be my maximum. I may consider this sleek looking 'Leviathan' as capital ship if the game really goes far, but it will not be original size, because that would be like moon mass or something.^^
My favorite design is the heavy cruiser so far. So long and noble, and turrets, and little hangars on the side. Cannot wait to get one in Aurora once I have the resource.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on November 30, 2014, 02:29:06 PM

Correction to the above: the diver was actually just 10kt size. Specialized 'pest control' replaces any serious navy for swarms.


So the first survey+combat exploration carrier Gemini got destroyed, but I was not about to drop the design idea, since I liked the artwork very much. Thus I created the refitted Gemini Twin version with such statistics:

Code: [Select]

Gemini Twin class Frigate    100,000 tons     2299 Crew     17440 BP      TCS 2000  TH 7500  EM 0
3750 km/s     Armour 12-191     Shields 0-0     Sensors 14/14/0/0     Damage Control Rating 200     PPV 175.05
Maint Life 6.33 Years     MSP 21827    AFR 399%    IFR 5.5%    1YR 937    5YR 14049    Max Repair 1400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 72 months    Flight Crew Berths 140   
Hangar Deck Capacity 9000 tons     Cryo Drop Capacity: 5 Battalions    Magazine 2232    Cargo Handling Multiplier 10   

625 EP Lifter Magnetic Fusion Drive (12)    Power 625    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 625    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 4,290,000 Litres    Range 291.4 billion km   (899 days at full power)

4xCalibre 6 sX-Ray Laser Phalanx (5x4)    Range 320,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 24-24     RM 6    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 4 3
CIWS-200x8 (4x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Tactical Control System (r.160k-20kps) (1)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Magnetic Fusion Reactor r.60-300t (2)     Total Power Output 120    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 12 Torpedo Launcher r60 (6)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 60
Torpedo Fire Control (r.499m-900t) (1)     Range 498.9m km    Resolution 18
Critical Fusion LR Torpedo "Cobalt-Flare" (72)  Speed: 52,100 km/s   End: 154.5m    Range: 483.1m km   WH: 36    Size: 12    TH: 295/177/88
"Thunderbolt" Shell (1330)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 2.6m    Range: 10.9m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 446/268/134

Long Range Radar (r.2.23g-6.5kt) (1)     GPS 182000     Range 2,234.7m km    Resolution 130
Collision Perimeter (r.21.3m) (1)     GPS 1400     Range 196.0m km    MCR 21.3m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Wake Receiver TH14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km
EM Wake Receiver EM14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km

ECCM-4 (2)The components are around TL 5 for most, but TL 6 for engines and all the missile tech.

Through some means of destiny, it was also the Gemini Twin that would again trigger the next big encounter, which was quite the nice three sided battle.

It began with making my first contact with the robotic race.
(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-largeencounteryckxn.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/nedroidsc3lsj.jpg)

Since this was also my very first enemy encounter outside of the wretched nebula, I took up the opportunity to finally test my fighters and bombers. (the first generation design exploded in their hangars without ever starting)
(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-largeencounterqeafy.jpg)

The designs for the parasite craft:
Fighter

Code: [Select]

Kanjiu F57 class Fighter    500 tons     4 Crew     233.5 BP      TCS 10  TH 250  EM 0
25000 km/s     Armour 3-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 3
Maint Life 2.13 Years     MSP 29    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 9    5YR 128    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 6   

250 EP Magnetic Fusion Jet Turbine "Firestar" (1)    Power 250    Fuel Use 284.6%    Signature 250    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 40,000 Litres    Range 5.1 billion km   (56 hours at full power)

Calibre 3 sX-Ray Gatling Laser (1)    Range 80,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 6    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 0 0
Kanjiu HUD Controls (r.40k-25kps) (1)    Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Imperial Issue Fusion Cell r.3-15t (1)     Total Power Output 3    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Bomber

Code: [Select]

Mifune B41 class Fighter-bomber    500 tons     4 Crew     185.5 BP      TCS 10  TH 250  EM 0
25000 km/s     Armour 2-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 2
Maint Life 2.06 Years     MSP 23    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 7    5YR 109    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 6   
Magazine 38   

250 EP Magnetic Fusion Jet Turbine "Firestar" (1)    Power 250    Fuel Use 284.6%    Signature 250    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 40,000 Litres    Range 5.1 billion km   (56 hours at full power)

Conventional Turret Barrel (2)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
"Raikan" Plasma Shell Turret (r.11.1m-500t) (1)     Range 11.1m km    Resolution 10
"Thunderbolt" Shell (38)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 2.6m    Range: 10.9m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 446/268/134
Both designs use power factor 2.5 engines and just make it to the frigates long range scanner range and back. The former bombers had 5 size 6 missile box launchers instead of the size 1 bomb spam, but I changed my frigate to not use missiles anymore, and size 12 torpedoes were really not an effective option for bombers, so now they pretty much have turrets. Their maximum damage potential received a serious upgrade through this, but of course at cost of salvo density. ..It works out, but it sure is not optimal.
Those "Plasma Shell Turrets", the "Shells" and the turret barrels btw. were meant to simulate heavy battle turrets for my cruisers and larger craft. I wanted something that really felt like the ancient ginormous battleship turrets (railgun and gauss simply don't do the trick..), and that would actually exhaust its ammunition too, so I put one fire-control for each 'turret' I fantasize to have, and add the number of barrels to that which I want.(like 4 per 'turret' on my cruiser design)
They perform quite nicely since they outrange any possible beam weaponry. If you can live through enemy missile fire, you got yourself some considerable long-"beam" dps.
The "shells" are 0.4 warhead, 0.47 engine, some maneuver and the 0.04 fuel, the minimum possible amount that brought me the tiniest fire control I could build.(-my requirement for counting as a shell is that they have nearest possible range, but that is as can be seen still a lot) There is also a minimum sensor on it with 10km range, which I experimented with. Since those shells only travel around 350k km per round, it is likely that you exhaust more ammunition on an enemy than needed, so I hoped with such sensor they might re-target on spot, and I can just spam out my magazines like a flak barrage, and they would still hit. It does however only work for the same salvo with that little range, and not the salvos coming after that. The other ones will only detonate over the wreck where likely no enemy is near anymore. Works like a charm with stationary targets though. No bomb is wasted.


Going on, the bombers worked good, and one full bombing run was pretty much exactly enough to blow one of those 19kt ships up. The next one I wanted to try to cripple with lasers.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-largeencountervdc5z.jpg)

That worked very well too, but only because the enemy just wouldn't shoot anything back. I recognized that those were probably just troop transports, but this played no role in my next step to board the crippled ship.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-largeencounterirfmk.jpg)

Despite heavy loses in the boarding attempt, it still worked and as spoils I indeed got a combat transporter.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-largeencounterp9z95.jpg)


I sent that transporter back home, but wait, the reason why I first discovered this little target practice was that the frigate flew further into the system. Normally survey carriers just wait on the jump point they came from, but in this system I discovered something distant that seemed worth the investigation: a graveyard.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-graveyardview5eje3.jpg)

Those wrecks were all hovering over a single planet, which made it appear as if there had been some ancient battle, potentially with an NPR. Now that the robot invader troops have been spotted, I was almost sure, and indeed great was the joy when I found them unconquered yet.
It seems they dispatched their military, either to hunt those transporters which might have partaken in a recent attack on this world up there, or just to investigate my frigate. Since I didn't know about their intentions, I decided to test it and not risk my capital ship for it, so I sent fighters close, weapons disarmed, but having bombers in shooting range to instantly take retaliation in case something went wrong.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-prwqula.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-deb8uuh.jpg)

The first diplomatic test was passed, as they clearly did not care about my fighters flying directly in syncro with their ships.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-1s98j2r.jpg)

I called the fighters back and kept my route towards the graveyard. Yet they still continued on their course towards my frigate, so I couldn't be sure if it wasn't some tactic to take out the only serious threat first, and there was a critical moment where they even made a warning target lock.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-crpexfx.jpg)

They however never fired, which gave me confidence that they were struggling with their decision to classify me as threat after watching me taking out their enemies. Through my mistake I missed for the entire time and a bit more to hit the "initiate communications" button though, which might be why there is still suspicion and wariness. Even after not acting on their target lock, they still came closer, and I again couldn't be sure if they didn't try to bring beam attackers closer to get a devastating alpha, so I decided for some "diplomatic maneuver" quite literally and evaded their forces contact with my slightly superior engines.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-brj1uhw.jpg)

Then I flew about a month towards the second star to close in and investigate the graveyard which I suspected to be their (former?) home planet. The small navy escorted directly behind, being nearly as fast as Gemini Twin. As it turned out, it was likely just a colony, and their true home was revealed to be the also inhabitable BI. I wanted to move in a bit to maybe discover some smaller ships and probe their reaction again.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-hofqi33.jpg)

I however decided against that after seeing some of their freighters flee when I was still hundred millions kilometers away. -They were afraid I was just an exchange, one enemy for another.
So I set course again to the graveyard to take a look, but nothing of special interest was there. Unexpectedly however, they dispatched 3 more ships from their home world as soon as I arrived at their former colony. Could I have triggered some sort of offense?

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-thyruyt.jpg)

Any sane leadership however would not take aggressive action against completely unknown alien life, based on a mere border or manner infringement about which we couldn't even know. On top of that, they could not even guess who those newcomers are and what they are capable of, so even if they themselves had shady intentions, it would be very unwise judgement to go into potential war with a foe you know nothing about.
In hindsight analysis I however see that the Republics problems into initiating the first contact must have looked to them like they were potentially just another robot race. They never saw us out of uniform, we didn't answer in any way, just like machines, and being such a offshoot race distant from any jump point, they probably never left their system to discover how the galaxy truly is.

The captain of Gemini Twin let them come closer to prove trustworthiness, yet when they were only around 100m km afar, the communications officer felt a disturbance in the morse: Their attempts for contact stopped and made place for a strange repeated pattern of signals. It was quickly considered, that those might have been emissions coming from firing locks.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-it9ocfu.jpg)

At the thought that they might just have launched missiles at the Gemini, red alert was issued, and so took of disaster.
The ship was pulled back to take away from eventual missile range, and the fighter and bomber squadron were launched. The captain quickly made contact with the headquarters and phoned in cruiser support; the Artemis would be on her way, bringing with it also two quick destroyers for strategic maneuvers.
When trying for distance revealed that the Jinza ships would close in and make up to exactly the same distance, it was obvious that they were assuming tactical and aggressive position. ..Well, at least it was confirmed enough to justify a counterattack out of unwise pressuring. So reasoned the captain, and issued to make use of the twelve salvo torpedo arsenal. Two salvos of 6 were then shot at each ship of the Jinza, hoping not to destroy but just cripple them, so they would retreat.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-toalbt2.jpg)

The ship under the classification Taragiri had however surprisingly little to offer in terms of defenses and suffered hull breaches already at the second impact, making it impossible to survive for even just the second salvo. The whole formation of Taragiri and Ranvijay did not make it through the assault.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-tojbk3o.jpg)

It was later judged that those first 3 ships must likely have been missile destroyers, designed for offensive alone, as the Tabar and Godavari performed far better. In fact, they were impenetrable by the Gemini's torpedo salvos, and all in all 75% of the magazine was wasted.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-tot7jw8.jpg)

Thus the bombers were ordered closer to hopefully overwhelm such defense with tight bomb carpets. With accurate timing, the five Mifune units could deliver 20 bombs in 10 second increments, and it worked out well, as 60% did find their target.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-shj9jae.jpg)

One bombing run was however not enough to incapacitate the larger Tabar ship, so the bombers flew back and the Kanjiu tried to do the rest. A crucial mistake, as the ships possessed as expected considerable short range point defense firing power. No Kanjiu unit was left intact, though some pilots survived.
The whole time it was kind of gnawing on the captains nerves if the attack even was justified, since despite all the carried out counters, no hostile missile has yet been showing on the radar, or been spotted by the fighters. Finally it was confirmed however, as a relatively slow moving barrage appeared on the displays.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-fi30kfc.jpg)

The timing was quite unlucky, as it fell together with the return of the bombers from their first run, so they had to be rearmed in a spectacular maneuver in midst a firing storm. No missile made it through Gemini Twin's defenses however.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-rehfjcr.jpg)

The (now official) enemy saw the disastrous failure of his offense and urged to move his remaining navy back, but was of course no match for the engines of the chasing bombers. The next run dispersed their formation and got rid of the Tabar class ship - likely their commanding vessel. The third run would destroy their forces completely.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-bo2oksp.jpg)

The 3 additional Jinza ships had laid their course back as well, which meant the encounter around the graveyard was resolved, and the frigate went to pick up any survivors.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-afgzu2q.jpg)

The Jinza crews were probably shocked and surprised when they were saved by a living species. Some managed to make contact and established rough communications, which is how it was learned that they called themselves the Odell Alliance.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-lekdusf.jpg)

At this time it was when the Gemini Twin should have concentrated to guard the graveyard for the incoming Recycler ship, and the survey teams, but the captain turned out to be vindictive about the few lost Kanjiu pilots, and turned his ship towards the Odell home world. Being still the C.O. in the system, and being technically at war, it was free for him to do anything in his judgement, as long as it didn't include harm for civilians. He set out to scare away the freighters and other support crafts of the remaining Odell navy again, and managed to apprehend the 3 ships that fled the last encounter distant from their home. They provided no resistance to the Gemini's superior ranged laser weaponry, and were all incapacitated.
The prison cells on the Gemini Twin were now overflowing, making it difficult to maintain normal operation, but the captain was a glory hound and turned back to the planet again. This time the support ships did not flee immediately -likely learning from they had seen-, so in a rush of hubris the captain flew even closer. Too close.
She should have waited for the cruiser support to arrive, as only these ships were outfitted in the Republic's doctrine to eventually handle planetary assault. Underestimating the range of the enemies defenses, she unleashed a barrage of 2x40 missiles every 10 seconds - far too tight for even the advanced systems of Gemini Twin to handle.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-shmji63.jpg)

The Mifune squadron was launched and tried to land some hits on the planetary defenses, yet had to retreat as counter fire started raining down on them too. These missiles were small, and the combined laser and CIWS defense systems could fend of roughly half on every salvo, yet being so many, they slowly corroded the capital vessel's armor. The Gemini Twin tried to get away, but seeing their chance, the prisoners had started a revolt, and the ship would not respond well with only bridge commands.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-gejej71.jpg)

The prisoners were then ordered to be shot by the remaining garde soldiers, but it was already too late. The Artemis just entered the system when they saw the Gemini Twin blow up in a fusion boosted fireball. No ship was close and crazy enough to attempt to rescue her survivors - a total defeat.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-gebrjyd.jpg)

The captain of the Artemis, Asuhara Kino (now Admiral of the fleet since 17 years) was furious. Shortly before being promoted to Senior Captain and assigned to the cruiser, the Gemini Twin was his ship for many years. Being unable to take the humiliation, he ordered the fleet's Base Barque to mobilize and deploy the Gotai army forces on the Odell. Later it was found that he made false report about the danger-grade of the enemy threat by affirming the Gemini Twin had been blown up by an incomprehensible planetary weapon. He attested that such weapon needed to be found an destroyed, before the aggressor race Odell could master them, and set the Artemis on course with B I.

(http://abload.de/img/astroempires_cruisereojcu.jpg)

Code: [Select]

Artemis class Cruiser    300,000 tons     6469 Crew     45221 BP      TCS 6000  TH 30000  EM 27000
5000 km/s     Armour 12-399     Shields 900-300     Sensors 700/700/2/2     Damage Control Rating 615     PPV 302.1
Maint Life 6.82 Years     MSP 57946    AFR 1170%    IFR 16.3%    1YR 2168    5YR 32526    Max Repair 1400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 72 months    Flight Crew Berths 275   
Hangar Deck Capacity 18000 tons - 10 Fighters, 10 Bombers, 4x1kt survey vessels for Geo and Grav
Cryo Drop Capacity: 5 Battalions    Magazine 7656    Cargo Handling Multiplier 50   

625 EP Lifter Magnetic Fusion Drive (48)    Power 625    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 625    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 15,015,000 Litres    Range 340.0 billion km   (786 days at full power)
Theta R300/288 Shields (225)   Total Fuel Cost  2,700 Litres per hour  (64,800 per day)

4xCalibre 6 sX-Ray Laser Phalanx (10x4)    Range 320,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 24-24     RM 6    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 4 3
CIWS-200x8 (12x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Tactical Control System (r.160k-20kps) (2)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Magnetic Fusion Reactor r.60-300t (4)     Total Power Output 240    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 12 Torpedo Launcher r60 (6)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 60
Conventional Turret Barrel (24)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
"Raikan" Plasma Shell Turret (r.11.1m-500t) (6)     Range 11.1m km    Resolution 10
Torpedo Fire Control (r.499m-900t) (1)     Range 498.9m km    Resolution 18
Critical Fusion LR Torpedo "Cobalt-Flare" (120)  Speed: 52,100 km/s   End: 154.5m    Range: 483.1m km   WH: 36    Size: 12    TH: 295/177/88
"Thunderbolt" Shell (5960)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 2.6m    Range: 10.9m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 446/268/134
"Oroborus" Radiation Shell (240)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 1.9m    Range: 8.1m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 235/141/70

Collision Perimeter (r.21.3m) (1)     GPS 1400     Range 196.0m km    MCR 21.3m km    Resolution 1
Long Range Radar (r.2.23g-6.5kt) (1)     GPS 182000     Range 2,234.7m km    Resolution 130
Thermal Observatory TH700 (1)     Sensitivity 700     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  700m km
EM Observatory EM700 (1)     Sensitivity 700     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  700m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

ECCM-4 (3)
Having intelligence data on the enemies defenses after Gemini's failure, Kino knew they had nothing to dish out that the cruiser couldn't take, so he did not even try to weaken the Odell positions with torpedo fire and moved to bring the turrets in range instead.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-crg3i69.jpg)

It turned out that the Odell had apparently nearly completely exhausted their ammunition supply when taking out the Gemini Twin, and could only fire 2.5 more salvos. Even those however were erased by Artemis' superior point defenses before even hitting the shields, proving the captain's judgement right. Already being unchallenged, the cruiser assumed position and started firing its 6 main turrets to destroy any planetary defense. The shells hailed down and, even though at first largely intercepted, slowly flattened any entrenchment under heavy plasma fireballs.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-cre3c44.jpg)

When the Odell had nothing left to defend themselves with, Kino demanded to prepare the way for the incoming Base Barque, and loaded the Oroborus shells. Only ten salvos later, in a mere minute the planet of the Odell had been rendered uninhabitable.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-cr99ux4.jpg)

spy information
(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-raztub8.jpg)

After the deed was done, the cruiser flew into orbit, destroying any shipyards with short range laser weaponry, and remained there waiting, while the Barque was closing in, and the fast destroyer escort took out the fleeing support ships.

Code: [Select]

Cerberus class Destroyer    20,000 tons     487 Crew     5090 BP      TCS 400  TH 4860  EM 0
12150 km/s     Armour 8-65     Shields 0-0     Sensors 14/14/0/0     Damage Control Rating 21     PPV 40.92
Maint Life 2.97 Years     MSP 3340    AFR 152%    IFR 2.1%    1YR 565    5YR 8475    Max Repair 810 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 1090   

1620 EP Magnetic Fusion Destroyer Drive (3)    Power 1620    Fuel Use 33.03%    Signature 1620    Exp 13%
Fuel Capacity 3,040,000 Litres    Range 82.8 billion km   (78 days at full power)

4xCalibre 3 sX-Ray Laser Phalanx (2x4)    Range 180,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 6    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1
Tactical Control System (r.160k-20kps) (1)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Small Magnetic Fusion Reactor r.30-150t (1)     Total Power Output 30    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Conventional Turret Barrel (10)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
"Raikan" Plasma Shell Turret (r.11.1m-500t) (5)     Range 11.1m km    Resolution 10
"Thunderbolt" Shell (1090)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 2.6m    Range: 10.9m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 446/268/134

Short Range Radar (r.24.8m-500t) (1)     GPS 560     Range 24.8m km    Resolution 10
Thermal Wake Receiver TH14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km
EM Wake Receiver EM14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km

ECCM-4 (1)
Then the Base ship was there and unfolded the might of the Gotai planetary army forces by deploying its main force with the five divisions Yamamoto, Sui-Feng, Gin, Unohana and Aizen

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-dim2knb.jpg)

The Odell's last defences were so quickly overcome, that the military needed transporters from orbit to get to capture points quickly enough. The only unit that suffered any loss of manpower at all was the heavy tank company Kyoka Suigetsu. When the population was subdued, all riches and technologies were claimed and robbed. For the coming years, the Republic's clippers would fly back and forth between both home worlds, taking everything that once was theirs away, while the Odell home slowly died under the doom of coming centuries of irradiation. Such is the punishment of those who shoot first at peacefully trespassing strangers, and such is the punishment who would further attack even those that showed mercy on their wounded.

(http://abload.de/img/rhodes-anotherrace-wazbupz.jpg)


[suddenly some story appears :P:]
Asuhara Kino was regarded to be a war hero, and his mistakes and crimes forgotten. So began the shift of the Republic into a military dictatorship, as the now prestigious astral navy could on the wave of public approval assemble the power to eradicate and conquer entire worlds. Few years after, not even a potential civil revolt could have stopped them anymore. The last resort against oppressors and corruption, the swaying power of the many through revolution, had forever been stripped away from them, as the astral navy overcame the need to care.

(http://abload.de/img/astralrepublicdetailsh8uzo.jpg)

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on December 08, 2014, 01:40:30 AM

The next major encounter is probably the best I had so far in any game. But first the up to date starmap for explanation purpose:

(http://abload.de/img/starmapuoc4s.jpg)

As can be seen, the nebula didn't expand so much more after Pharsalos, but the second system was interesting too, as it contained a pre-starfaring NPR which I started sponsoring to work for me until they have about 200 auto-mines. The second and last planet in there then came up with a powerful civil mine too, so a pretty good delivery service.

The Rhodes system was the scene of the last incident, but I only figured out later how nicely it was placed.
Then I have fuel bases with 3200 modules each around gas giants in Delphi, Ephesos (both my main supply delivery for the home world), and then Mytilene, and on fly in currently Massilia. (an amazing 568m giant there - the highest concentration I have ever seen in any resource, but only acc.0.4)

There is a propulsion lab in Pharsalos, a Missile tech lab currently being towed towards Plataea, and two more lab locations planned for energy and defenses. The design here:

Code: [Select]

Akropolis Sanctum class Orbital Research Station    39,850,000 tons     15975 Crew     177380.7999 BP      TCS 797000  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 5-10392     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/18/0/0     Damage Control Rating 234     PPV 0
MSP 651    Max Repair 60.8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3    
Cargo 2500000    Cryogenic Berths 7050000    Habitation Capacity 7,050,000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 2000    
Recreational Facilities


CIWS-250x10 (127x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 25000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Thermal Wake Receiver TH-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
EM Wake Receiver EM-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
...or slightly older ones can exactly carry and then run those 5 research labs at 100% capacity at any place.
(http://abload.de/img/lab11ckz.jpg)
(here a second lab had just arrived, but not yet unloaded the population and extra labs)
In theory those stations could of course also run 100 factories instead of any kind, but I think I will build something different for that later.

So I traveled around a lot and discovered my surroundings, but besides a couple droids here and there not much to report. I realized that my fighters are useless though, as the only time they get not shot down themselves is when being deployed against helpless troop carriers, which the bombers could take down as well. I stopped replacing them, and consider updates to both designs.

Now, the only system that I avoided for long, even though it is directly adjacent to my home Athens, is Sparta. Sparta is a completely empty system, which is not nice to have in the neighborhood, because it makes it difficult to monitor. I normally like to have a big sensor post in every system next to my capital, to be warned early enough, yet here it didn't work. What you could normally do then, is just placing more outposts into systems behind this one, but Sparta is not only empty, but also has 7 other connections. Too much.

I finally decided to investigate those systems for safety reasons then. And when my second cruiser "Atlanta" was doing his final survey mission in Becvar before returning to the docks, the first cruiser stumbled -also on his last objective- across this beautiful but also dangerously close vicious neighbor, Louisburg.

The system has full 4 suns, which is nice. Three of them have planet satellites, and there is an asteroid belt akin to the Oort Cloud... far too way out.(I think it was 5trillion km...)
Shortly after entering I got unmistakable static of life.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-1-newracegqkin.jpg)

...which was indeed from 3 different races at once. :o Well, probably just two, as the first ones share the same characteristica:

(http://abload.de/img/louisburgalienszuz68.jpg)

The double race is indeed seated on the same planet A I, so it seems to be an offspring or different political region... . We don't know yet.
So this was already very promising, but a split second later it was revealed what hell's kitchen this was. There was an active invasion going on.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-2-warterritbzfdu.jpg)

So droids were also present, and they were attacking + being attacked by the other races. So far the Republic only ever found ruins of TL1-3 civilizations with the ancient invaders often still nearby, and the only ones that ever exceeded this level was that Jinza race, which still fought them.
It is natural to assume that also other races like this one would attract the same aggressors. The only reason that the Republic ever was spared after all, was because it wasn't. It was destroyed, but not completely, by another enemy, and then grew up on unsuspicious small population unnaturally quickly advancing in technology thanks to all the TL6 relics from their past they could study.

The droids had been my enemy ever since I saw how they squashed civilizations everywhere they go, so I decided to help the natives out to defeat their ancient nemesis and set course to assist in the assault on the fortified droid base on B II.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-3-theyarege35e6q.jpg)

There was also some droid ship currently approaching the main colonies.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-4-maincolonvolv5.jpg)

Since they had survived for so long, the captain was confident however that they would be able to repel the assault. One might only wonder how many ships the three factions truly have, since only those with active sensor could currently be seen, and those were already a lot of ships.
Nothing to the levels of our cruiser or frigate designs though.

The captain sent the bombers ahead to test their conditioning.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-5-sendingbovvc3p.jpg)

The ship of the natives that was in its bombing run was receiving counter fire. That gave us the intelligence that 52 size 1 missiles was likely the capacity of the enemies defences. The CIWS on the cruiser could alone block 48 missiles, or more like 32 after considering boni and estimated speed. To that come 15 shield regeneration per 5 seconds, so it seems the cruiser would be immune and could securely assault the installation.

Then some explosions happened over the installations, leaving me in puzzles.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-7-droidsget04ya4.jpg)

I thought for some time that there was some sort of FAC assault going on, even though that would be very unconventional for NPR. The fire clearly came from twin turrets of strength 3, and there were anti missile explosions too.
I should have looked for atmosphere on the planet, because that would have made clear that this was actually PD laser fire which completely negated to bombing assault of the natives. Would have saved me a slight mistake later on. (me?...uhhh, I mean "the captain", yes  :P)

So this attack went for quite a while, and meanwhile my bomber squadron was struggling with two droid ships that had positioned themselves exactly between the colonies and the attack ship of the natives, blocking of his retreat. The droid ships had sizes of 19.5kt and 9.75kt, and they could detect my bombers at around 15m km since the old models still had no thermal dampening. 15m was still times 2.5 as far as the weapons would reach under ecm influence, and they started firing back at around 10m km already. I came to test a similar situation in another system (except against two 9.75kt destroyers), and lost 3 of the 10 bomber squadron in the assault - still winning, but losses are not acceptable in this situation.
This time I tested their range a bit more, let them fire 5 times, and then flew out with apparently superior speed, killing the missiles (which I never saw). The squadron commander hoped to exhaust the targets ammunition supply this way, and flew multiple such fake close ins. Even after quite a couple of those, there was still no end in sight, so a new tactic was derived: Dive bombing. The captain ordered to use supreme initiative and afterburners to get directly in touch with the enemy during the enemies short retargeting window of opportunity, and then use the natural supreme speed to fly away from missiles while deploying the bombing. In short, the complete inverse opposite of what was done before. The tactic worked, and the two enemy ships were destroyed without leaving a scratch on the bombers, so the natives retreat was secured.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-9-theirretrrjuwp.jpg)


Suddenly a new problem unfolded. The two different races were apparently not only afraid of the droids, but also fighting against each other, as they started exchanging broadsides.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-10-theyfighdezt5.jpg)

Also the larger colony on A I was probably currently blocking inter planetary missiles strikes from the A II race.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-10.5-..anddkquhe.jpg)

The staff has to consider the probability that these sudden attacks were triggered by the Artemis' appearance, which might have seeded mistrust, or even philosophical crisis (aliens..) in a way that can not possibly be guessed.

With the words of the current C.O. in Louisburg. "A beautiful battlefield unfolds". The single ship of 8900 tons managed to destroy one of equal tonnage through heavy missile barrages, despite being severely outnumbered.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-10.55-whata79l6r.jpg)

Then both sides got to some distance from each others ships, only to start raking each other with smaller missiles shortly after.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-10.555-exchinuqj.jpg)

This little skirmish was held non lethal, and both parties retreated to regroup after some exchanges. However, somewhere distant yet invisible ships were under fire too.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-11-nolossesckuj0.jpg)

Strategic intelligence shows so far, that even though the aliens of A II are performing much wiser in battle, and seemed to have slight technology advantage that allowed them tricks like the interplanetary missile strikes, they were likely largely outnumbered. At least if they didn't have a small fleet of yet undiscovered ships in silent running mode.

They leave battles with small victories, outranging the enemy, but eventually that will not be enough.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-11.5-parall7cfef.jpg)

Only a couple of hours after the war supposedly started, the home world of the A II race started to get bombarded by nuclear missiles. The defenses seemed to stop incoming strikes before they arrived.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-12-severalh7hu8a.jpg)

Parallel the Artemis was nearly in range of the droids defences, and close enough to attract their attention. The captain send out the bombers in order to probe if they were possible, or those PDCs had up to date ecm too.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-14-takingourjks9.jpg)

It turned out they had ecm, so remembering the Gemini Twin incident, it was better to keep bombers save in hangars until defences had been overrun.

Then the defensive fire impacted, and as expected couldn't dent the artemis. The enemy TL5 niveau technology only allowed a salvo every 10 seconds, meaning advantage for the lasers and in theory a shield regeneration of 30 even between impacts. The lasers however reduced salvos to a mere third by themselves, while the rest would fall on the dense CIWS perimeter, never even reaching the shields.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-15-impactscptk1q.jpg)

Eventually the station's ammunition reserves were exhausted, and the Artemis could assume position. Instead of firing from the cruiser's own turrets though, the captain judged that in all this turmoil that happened in the system, it might be wiser to preserve ammunition, and after a small atmospheric analysis decided to move into orbit to threaten the entrenchment with laser fire.
What he overlooked was of course that if he could use lasers, so could the droids, and actually evidently did, following the intelligence of the recent assault by the natives.

Just when he assumed firing position, a huge salvo was fired from the planet, reducing Artemis' shields to 78% in a single assault.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-16-planetfiyejum.jpg)

Obviously such heavy fire could not be endured for long, and so the cruiser retreated to respectable distance. Luckily, Artemis was outfitted with larger calibre lasers of double the power, and could thus fire from positions where the enemies defenses were becoming ineffective. Only two broadsides were necessary to destroy the first complex, and another two got rid of the other one too.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-16.5-twosal6djge.jpg)

The ancient droid threat that these races probably had been suffering under for many years, was thus suddenly ended by an outside force. Since the captain rightfully felt some reward was in order, he phoned in the recyclers, a base barque with expedition troops to deal with the remaining ground forces, and issued a full scan of the planetary facilities to map anything of worth.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-17-scanning0rc7i.jpg)


--{Juchhee, and that is where firefox crashed, throwing my writing back by a good hour. Of course it happened shortly before finishing, because Muphey is god, and a lunatic jester one in that.}--


After few relatively insignificant skirmishes, the game seemed to change. The defenses of A II had been doing a good job so far in holding of the enemies barrages, and even recently managed to take down two larger ships in the distance. Yet, it appeared their ammunition supply was all too soon exhausted, rendering the planet helpless before the nuclear holocaust that was raining down on.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-19-adaylatexcjws.jpg)

The race of A II had long since stopped its counter-attacks, being forced to concentrate on defense. Know, only a mere day after the eruption of the war, it was facing extinction.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-20-massiveesxilz.jpg)

Even amidst this personal chaos, the aliens did not seem to forget about their ancient enemy, and often tried to approach the remaining straying droid ship in formation.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-21-formatiocuy51.jpg)

Due to insufficient engine technology they however always had to abort.


When the ruined droid base had been fully mapped and Artemis was moving in to fulfill its last objective target, it was also found that the alien races apparently maintained further outposts even this far out.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-22-foundruil8yc6.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-23-biiiisal7gj8q.jpg)

Setting up such bases in proximity to the droids without being noticed is a respectable achievement.


To better apply the new found dive bomb tactic, maneuvers were carried out to get a better contact vector, and bring the bombers in line with the enemy ship's trajectory.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-24-maneuverahjb9.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-25-bettercojuk0b.jpg)

Probing indicated however that the ship was either not capable of longer ranged missile strikes, or had exhausted its ammunition. No risk was taken, and the bombers flew in, but could indeed finish their job uninterrupted.


Now having finished all common objectives, the Artemis was ordered to maintain respectable distance from the alien colonies, but monitor the battlefield at the edge of her sensor range, as well as identify any larger craft around the central two inhabited planets.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-26-intellig1ach8.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-26.5-distan0gi41.jpg)

Then, while still being relatively far off, the aliens for the first time recognized the Republic openly when a few ships set course on the Artemis.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-27-theysetcrmcyb.jpg)

Reminded of alarmed by the experience of the last incident of this kind, Asuhara ordered the cruiser to retreat as far out as  the sensors would barely keep the colonies in sight, and even further should the pursuit continue. Instead, a geo probe should be launched to analyze the other inner planets for potential further outposts.

The Artemis could however not fast enough reposition, so the dominating alien species fired a single warning salvo and retreated right after.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-28-theyhavejeu2r.jpg)

[OOC: I assume that happened because I coincidentally went over a distance of 1.5 billion km to their colony just at this moment, and that is maybe the AI trigger for aggression or not. Just a theory though.]

For a few days Artemis could now rest at position and peacefully observe what was happening. There weren't any battles between the races anymore, as all of the A II race's navy had been defeated, but many strange patrol routes were still being flown - maybe in search of hidden craft.

Then the pattern changed, and a huge part of both of the A I races set course on the Sparta jump point. This behavior was alarming to the headquarters, as the ships might try to seek out the Republic's home world in Athene. Undoubtedly they were at least investigating were we came from.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-29-theyarelq6uc2.jpg)

Though the location of Eden Ende would not have long been hold secret if relations started out, it was preferable to first at least being able to talk to the races and understand the reason behind the alarming genocide they just commited.[..said hero Asuhara] Having the same very same war fleet setting course on another living world would at least be considered strange etiquette, so Artemis was first ordered to cross the path and test the reaction, and after that didn't cause any trouble, peacefully escort the ships to the jump point.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-29.5-escortpkyu1.jpg)

For safety measures though, the captain of Artemis went through some calculations and found out that the for fast reinforcement response order designed destroyers of Eden Ende would make it just in time to the jump point too before the alien fleet could pass. The whole situation would be a lot less tense to handle if there was some backup besides the Artemis as the only current representation of the fleet, so the support was called.

After the cruiser started escort leading the alien fleet, their commanders didn't seem to take the gesture too kindly and fired another warning shot.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-30-furtherak8jp1.jpg)

At this point their behavior was definitely to be considered rude, but not hopeless, so a bit more distance was given.

The mood and picture of them changed further to the negative however only shortly after, when they used the same warning salvo threatening on our peaceful recyclers by the very distant B II.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-31-attackonfld2y.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-32-theystopgyype.jpg)

They seemed satisfied when the salvage missions were canceled and the recycler fleet turned to retreat from the system. Again a race that seems very ill advised in political matters, trying to intimidate a foreigner they know nothing about and potentially making him an enemy. The wrecks that were salvaged there were the result of the Republics fortunate interdiction, but still one faction just laid claim on them.(One wonders if the other two factions know of this as well)
It can not be known what they truly though of the interdiction with the droid problem, but if the Republic can keep wise distance, then shouldn't they also carry some responsibility?

Then one of the nations finally managed to achieve a breakthrough in the communications that went beyond mere morse and prime numbers, so simple information could be shared. It was the insectoid and more alien looking one, which had all its power destroyed in the recent events. A professional team of translators was assembled to exchange intelligence between us and them. Sadly the first signals indicate message about that they are dying already and may only be saved by evacuating them to another world.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-33-aiiisirr78b0g.jpg)

The Republic may now be their only hope, and they know that too.


When the destroyer pairs had just arrived on the other side in Sparta and both Artemis and the Recycler Task Force were nearly evacuated from the system, a detachment of the alien fleet separated itself to seemingly intercept the recyclers. Could they really go after unarmed and unarmored civil ships that were retreating anyway, or do they just intend to escort them too. Bad feelings.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-34-shortlyb2cj02.jpg)

...And indeed they went to attack them. Not only that, but completely mercilessly destroyed them all.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-34.5-attackm8ly6.jpg)

In no jurisdiction or by any sane judgement can such act be seen as a misunderstanding. Not a single shot has ever been fired from our side, despite several provocations. The giant needs to be wise and endure the ill temper of the weaker ones, but everything has its reasonable limit. These aliens was in engaged in fights with literally every faction that wasn't them, first the droids, then their own neighbors, and now we, the passive watching surprise guest alien life forms. They shoot before knowing their enemy, and clearly feel no moral issues in attacking the unarmed just because they can, and even obliterate whole species under atomar fire. - Overall, they have proven to be dangerously aggressive, and in that light their last action was considered to be a declaration of war.

While they further bomb the remaining outposts of their neighbors in their system...

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-35-meanwhilevukd.jpg)

..Artemis and the destroyers have taking tactical position directly behind the jump point, ready and authorized to alpha strike and blast into pieces everything that comes through. Another two days went by, and it seemed like they may have revoked their plans, but then the first came.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-36-traphasbffutj.jpg)




//OOC// So far so good. The situation is gold I think. The kind of stuff you wait for to happen. I am really indecisive in how to handle the situation from here. Obviously I have to fend of attackers, and since I can escape nearly every ship that they have, it is no harm trying to get rid of them in relative distance from the planet already. But what after that?
I played with the idea of developing mine layers and secure every of their jump points to trap them (a thing I definitely have to do to avoid the game slowing down). Then I would spy on them with some stealth craft network with passive sensors maybe.
I would just besiege every jump point, but I fear even when the other cruiser comes back, I simply don't have enough military for that, as 5 jump points have already been identified, and every point essentially needs defenses to repel their whole remaining fleet.
I definitely don't want to kite in and weed them out partly or something like that. Only fight back when they attack in the beginning.
The bigger endgame plan looks like that I deploy either my first real carrier or heavy cruiser when they are finished (still quite some research to do here), and then engage in total annihilation if they keep their attitude, which is very likely. No enslaved survivors this time then, 40000 radiation directly to the capital area.
The other guys I will indeed try to rescue though, but I have no idea how yet.(on their planet they will die, but I cannot personally carry them away, so how do I help them to help themselves?)

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: 83athom on December 08, 2014, 07:29:27 AM

Good job and keep up the good work. I think you should go for the mine and watch approach like you said. Maybe you could design skirmisher ships that don't have the best tech, but have a little more than what they have in order to give them a little boost to enrich the gameplay a little.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on December 08, 2014, 11:39:17 AM

Mhm, I want that mine thing to happen, but I have no design or shipyard ready yet, so I will have to siege their system for probably up to two years.
Skirmisher ships, hmm, maybe it is time to start building the heavy bombers. I have a 25 slipways 1kt heavy bomber factory ready without a design yet. If I use my cruisers to carry them to Louisburgs jump points, and then add a recreational module, they might just make acceptable guards for the time in between.

Though I think I will just come up with more destroyers (they are at around their highest tonnage) and draw a guard circle around their inner worlds until the mining has been done. *sigh* I am really lacking ships for this.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: 83athom on December 08, 2014, 11:54:33 AM

Btw, the pictures of the ship (and ones talked about between us ie heavy bomber, fleet carrier, battleship) all have full 3D models.
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/fighters_v1.1_5gv4cfb8jh/fighters_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/bombers_v1.1_hf456hfdcv/bombers_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/heavy-bombers_v1.1_bg5gt5rfvb/heavy-bombers_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/ion-bombers_v1.0_jcsdcjfvbk/ion-bombers_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/corvette_v1.0_jfvck08df/corvette_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/destroyer_v1.1_lm8uh3dvyg/destroyer_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/frigate_v1.1_6h5g4f3dgb/frigate_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/ion-frigate_v1.1_b5gh6hgtgb/ion-frigate_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/recycler_v1.0_fckgfcng/recycler_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/scout-ship_v1.1_5g3dfbtghy/scout-ship_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/outpost-ship_v1.0_kjkwsxx12v/outpost-ship_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/cruiser_v1.2_8kujhtc3nh/cruiser_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/carrier_v1.1_dfg98gcwy7/carrier_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/heavy-cruiser_v1.0_jkloasdcv4/heavy-cruiser_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/battleship_v1.1_dfr4gfdbny/battleship_low.ogv http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/fleet-carrier_v1.1_6h5g4f3dbg/fleet-carrier_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/dreadnought_v1.1_hb5gf4bjuh/dreadnought_low.ogv
http://cdn.astroempires.com/videos/items_html5/titan_v1.1_5gnhy7ujnh/titan_low.ogv
Note; I do not have Leviathans or Death Stars unlocked so I could not provide the video link of the models. And in game your able to view a larger size and manipulate the model.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on December 08, 2014, 01:16:41 PM

Of course I know that. This is why the game got me so inspired, because those models look really good, and a have solid believable style.(in comparison to some other "high fantasy" sci-fi where ships get edges spikes, and strange shapes altogether)
This is why I also only played to tech and unlock more ships, as written above. Because I downloaded these videos myself, and that is where those pictures came from.^^

The dreadnought and titan are new for me though, so thanks for that. It is two days late, but I am currently starting a new game in the fresh Centauri server. Depending on how the beginning works out, I might even play it for real.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on January 03, 2015, 09:26:55 AM

So to continue the report: The enemy came in, and it was mostly the destroyers who would open fire.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-1-barrageswork7eu3u.jpg)

Roughly 5 salvos of 20 shells a 4 damage were needed to bring down one of their 7kt destroyer designs, and roughly 9 salvos for the the 14kt frigates. They never had chance to return fire in the short time window, and tried to flee away in the opposite direction. The republic destroyers tried to save on ammunition often though, which is why sometimes a ship survived after only 4 or 8 salvos. In such cases the Artemis cruiser would serve to correct this little imbalance by firing only one or two of its turrets later.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-2-artemisdoestwdsoy.jpg)

Just a couple of enemy ships came through at that time, and hours of waiting time followed. At some point it was too much, and it was decided to take another peek into the Louisburg system in order to illuminate whether the enemy had been scared away from their attack plans or not. Indeed they have been found in a retreating stance.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-3-havetheylearb0sbe.jpg)

Just at the same moment as the cruiser was gathering the information though, another incident happened. While some more bombing on the former droid base occurred...
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-5-morebombarde2pup5.jpg)

...one of the survey drones that had been left in the system was surprisingly shot down over the planet A VI on which no life had been detected before.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-4-oneofourprobucu6p.jpg)

Only 14 days were left to rescue the surviving officer, which no less was one of the most promising newcomers. Woefully was the reminder to the Pharsalos incident where once the best new officer that the fleet had ever seen was killed amongst the first victims. (side fact: this was no kidding the best young officer I ever had. he came with 30% survey, 30% fighter operations, some other skill too, and then over 200 in both initiative and training rating. ...and literally the first fire and alien contact I had in this game instantly killed him on his first mission when he was in charge of a geo survey probe (http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_crazy07.gif) )
This time was different though, as it was possible to help. So it was decided to gather the destroyers and the Artemis in one tight battle group formation in order to unite their anti missile capacities, and move in to the rescue. When looking on the route they would have to take... (older picture)

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-1-newracegqt7ubu.jpg)

...it was like destiny, as the jump point, the rescue target, as well as the enemies home world were directly aligned, so that the shortest course would mean direct confrontation. The distance was just as such, that it could barely be crossed in 14 days by setting direct course. Yet, since the Artemis was not sufficiently equipped to close in with the alien homeworld's defenses, at least a slight detour was to be flown, making the operation a precision maneuver.

After gathering the little battle group together, also the enemies' forces reacted. Now, the aliens have been shown to posses very poor judgement in military matters, which lead to theories that some extremist group might have recently taken over, or something in that direction. Whoever was currently in command of their sizable and potentially more than equally powered war fleet, somehow saw it fit to not only fail to retreat and assemble into a battle line as soon as possible, but also thought it was a good idea to engage the much more capable Artemis-class Cruiser with split up forces.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-6-forsomereasov9saj.jpg)

Some units seemed to retreat, but some others engaged, and would, given their underwhelming speed, ultimately have to face the cruiser individually, being not only outclassed in technology, but also severely in mass.
Well, the first part of every war strategy was to split up the enemy forces and always take them out with superior power. It appears the enemy admirals (if they even have organization as such) were polite enough to take this part over for the Republic, so no clever maneuvering -the design purpose of the escort destroyers- would ultimately be needed.

It was soon that the first encounter happened, and since it was rated to be so massively underwhelming that the main weaponry wouldn't even be needed, it was judged that saving ammunition could be of long term strategic importance in this campaign, so some ships as those were better to be taken out by laser fire alone.
Since the non-artilleristic laser fire puts any ship into a threat distance of potential enemy counter fire, only ships with shields could be allowed to not risk any losses. The escort had to be left behind for this very first encounter.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-7-preserveammuf9s58.jpg)

This turned out to be a wise decision as the enemies ships not only identified themselves as beam attackers, but also surprisingly featured superior range to the cruiser's own weaponry.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-8-theirenergyw94svb.jpg)

Firing back quickly diminished their forces, as they were under the constant threat of 40 calibre 6 laser cannons. Their firepower on shorter distances was remarkable though, but required long loading times, on which the Artemis with its only rapid firing turrets could profit. Some maneuvers were flown that increased range on enemy firing times, and closed in whenever there was a pause.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-8.5-firingbackk7shs.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-8.55-shorterradqs0u.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-8.555-shieldsw1tsva.jpg)

In the end, the small group of only 1/10th of the mass of the Artemis had managed to bring down her shields to 50% - a respectable achievement.

Any wise commander would at the latest from this little skirmish have learned that the enemy had to be faced with larger collected force. Yet something seemed to be very wrong about them, as they appeared to conclude the opposite and started to send us even those who previously fled the approaching battle group.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-9-nextencounte9lszc.jpg)

Either they are not taking this seriously, or maybe there was some sort actual corruption going on, about which the intelligence knew nothing yet. ..But the safety of the own forces and people was to go first, so no worrying about motives now. The next enemy battle group was too dispatched by the same strategy, which, now after tests, worked even more effectively and left almost no dents in the Artemis' shields this time.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-9.5-hereisthedtqstl.jpg)

The following group then had shown to be the first missile capable craft in this assault, and greeted the Artemis and the destroyers from greater distance. The superior laser defenses of the combined battle group however was easily capable of repelling anything that those 3 destroyers could throw out. While a single strong artillery salvo from the destroyers' turrets managed to take them out, the bombers of Artemis had been sent in advance to fly around the enemies detection radius and engage the singular Taranto class vessel, so it wouldn't bother the fleet in its path.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-10-missileencokruq6.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-10.5-powerfuluogsak.jpg)

In the distance a new surprising foe appeared that hadn't been registered yet, and was the first (military design) of the alien's vessels to fly faster than the Artemis cruiser.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-11-interestingq2s28.jpg)

It seemed the Republic saw for the first time some kind of heavy bomber or fighter design on alien side too. Since it was just manufactured and started, likely even a recent invention after witnessing what the Republic's fighter designs could do.
Dealing with this find was priority, so to be able to set collision course instantly, a torpedo salvo was expended to quickly dispatch of the other approaching ship. Intelligence never even learned its purpose...
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-11.5-santarosa5aswi.jpg)

Short range radars then confirmed the theory and indeed identified the ship and two others in silent running mode as heavy bombers.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-11.55-nice_npr3vs4x.jpg)

Since the point defense couldn't possibly be pierced by those few wasps however, it was again plan to move in to artillery distance. Yet, after the bombers got a solid scan of the Republic ships, they immediately turned around in fear and flew...
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-11.555-theyturmksn1.jpg)

Once again it seemed there was no plan behind the enemies actions, and this incident delivered a lot of evidence towards the theory that in fact there was no higher command on the enemies side. Those bombers clearly did not receive any communications of the scans that all the other previously encountered ships had already made, as otherwise they would have known they were no match. So the reason why they also didn't posses foresight to bundle together in one overwhelming line was possibly that their society existed either in total anarchy, or maybe separated clans of little sub groups (some ships worked together after all). Possibly the nations also just don't trust each other yet to share military efforts, who could know from this far yet.

As the bombers turned around and were actually faster, it was an obvious reaction to fly under their underwhelming radar capacity and hunt them down with interceptors, whose prime role was exactly this situation. After closing in to 60-70k kilometers with those, they still didn't show any kind of reaction, making them helpless to what was to come. Their armor was thin as papyrus, and one simple volley fire from the 10 Kanjiu on that distance already took care of one of them each time.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-11.5555-onevolmqsky.jpg)

[...] Some similar little encounters later, the Artemis battle group had already achieved to take out most individual operators in the system by just eliminating what it faced on its path. The aliens were driven back to their core planetary system, and had no actively flying presence beyond left.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-12-theyhavebee1ms61.jpg)

The constant escapades however took its toll on the time management, and as it was clear that the Artemis could not reach the valued life pods in the remaining one and a half day, it dispatched a flight of two little Kanjiu fighters to take a risky route around the enemy core worlds and through their remaining fleet, so that they could refill and tow away the life units.
The action was successful -though a near last minute salvation-, and since the fighters could now also scout out the base installation that was responsible for the whole maneuver, the pilots decided without consultation to fly lower and shred the outpost with laser fire.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-13-lastminutesj5so3.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-13.5-somepaybauns4w.jpg)

Sanctioned or not, the action was successful, and the base destroyed.

The primary goal was now nearly achieved, leaving only open for the fighters to successfully return to the Artemis. No risks should be taken, and so the fighters where to remain on position for a while, as the battle group would work to make the territory saver.

The next encounter that the forces had to face was then a coordinated assault of both of the identified main alien groups. While the much larger group with its basically dominating amount of ships was the one that was fought on all previous skirmishes, now for the first time there was one of the second, and it surprised. Instead of strength through mass, it seemed that the smaller alien nation(?) focused on technological invention instead, and fielded a somewhat larger frigate with in comparison much more competent engines. -the second ship that could at least match the cruiser's speed- However, after seeing its missiles to be impressive, but also still not up to own standards, the technology was likely still behind the Republics customs, so no boarding attempts were ordered for now.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-14-thereisafasqcucy.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-14.5-missilesah2u88.jpg)

The command then decided to deal with this combined attack in a multi-task kind of way too, and sent bombers to the one and a probing torpedo salvo to the other. Simultaneously the remaining fighters were started to join the others mid-flight on a more secure position, as they were approached by enemies and needed reinforcements.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-15-whostrikesf5duc4.jpg)

Then the two strikes landed. While the bombers successfully destroyed all their targets before the enemies missiles could even get to the Artemis group, the torpedo salvo was to some astonishment intercepted. Normally those enemy ships that are proven to be missile attackers, never performed well enough in point defense to not being overwhelmed by one of such salvos, but technology really seemed to yield them competent advances.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-15.5-mybombscoc2uhl.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-16-theirshiphaf9uts.jpg)

After this change of events, the bombers flew a detour and took care of the advanced target nonetheless, and it was found that their defense capacity was still not as great so that they could fend of an overwhelming bomb rain.

With the battle group having now come this close to their home world, some of the aliens seemed to become nervous enough to attempt evacuation -their first smart move to this date-. Too late though, as Admiral Kino had ordered that the whole system had to be sealed of for some time until an investigation revealed what really happened. The Artemis's next priority target was thus to move around their planet and use all forces available to prevent the fleeing civil freighters and person transports from retreating to other systems, and also pick up the retreating fighter flight in that path.
As the plans became obvious to the enemy, some for now unique demonstration of collaboration and compassion stirred up further combatants, who left the security range of their planet to come to the freighters aid.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-17-theywanttositude.jpg)

...not to much success of course.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-17.5-torpedosrmmual.jpg)

The slow freighters were no match and easily caught, but for the others, there were simply too many of them around to hunt them down individually with the bulky cruiser alone, so two of the destroyers left the group to hunt them down much faster and efficient than the cruiser could.
At the same time there was also an individual concerning target, which appeared to be another frigate of the technically advanced alien faction. Since bombers had worked well with those the last time, the otherwise too fast enemy would be prey to them once again.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-18-theyfleefrob2u1e.jpg)

...Things turned out different with this model though, as it did not only prove capacity to detect the bombers ahead by itself and move in bravely, but also that it was capable of artillery fire similar to that of the destroyers and cruiser, but with a trade of most of the power for increased range...
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-19-counterfirelusc8.jpg)

Further reinforcements were not easily available, so as in this lengthy campaign, again, no losses could be risked, the bombers returned immediately after receiving damage. One of them also seemed to be bugged by the new android-ultimate-redundant-operation-repair-autosoft service system and needed a extra slap on the chassis from the master of space (/chief engineer) to function properly again.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-20-repairbugfgud2.jpg)

A change in plans was made, and after the quick repairs, the bombers were sent out again, together with the now secured fighters - the first to hunt a singular fleeing military destroyer, the second to take over the duty of eliminating the escaping civil craft. The destroyers were instead issued to follow the frigate which would otherwise be at risk of escaping.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-21-lastciviliamqu70.jpg)

Since only fighters, bombers and destroyers could catch a ship this fast, and the first two didn't perform well against this type of enemy, it was now for the destroyers as the only leftover effective tool to take over the job. The enemies weapons had been proven to outrange Republics artillery though, and the destroyers had no shields and only medium armor, so the encounter was perceived as necessary trouble -damage expected-. The Republic faced a gap in their strategic fleet doctrine for which they had no efficient counter...

[ - pause - ]


///edit: various typo fixes

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on January 04, 2015, 05:27:29 AM

When the Chile-class's counter fire started, it provided to be much more devastating than anticipated. Due to a crucial design flaw in the Cerberus-destroyers sensor phalanx, the small and fast artillery fire could not be before impact, leaving entire salvos to hit without being first diminished by the laser turret defenses. As it was too late to turn back so deep in the enemies firing range already, there was no other way than hoping for the best, yet soon severe damage had accumulated.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-22-costlyapprobisjy.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-22.5-damageaft97ste.jpg)

As a desperate last resort, the senior officer of the system, and Sn. Captain of the "Heike", attempted to use the inherent flak capability of the standard issue Thunderbolt ammunition, and fired concussion barrages in the deep space in hope of lucky hits.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-22.55-testinga23sxg.jpg)

None of these maneuvers were successful however, and as the enemies ammunition reserves provided to be very deep, both destroyers eventually faced a catastrophic end before even being able to fire.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-22.555-afailurrxukr.jpg)

While the commando structure adapted and counseling about the continued strategy started, it became evident that the other race of the system had been conquered, as person transports and freighters were seen performing emergency missions in-midst war. The homeworld of the second race was to be freed however, and so the fighters flew around the star and took the freighter fleet out to cut of the economic connection.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-23-secondracewkyukr.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-24-freighterclgbuix.jpg)

The new command went through a couple calculations and found that after the destruction of the two Cerberi, and the ammunition lost through the short bomber approach, the Chile-class frigate should not have much ammunition left. Certainly not enough to repeat the feat that it had done once more, and so it was decided that in revenge the remaining two destroyers should be dispatched to finally catch the ship.
Things went as expected, and the impacts suffered were already considerably thinner, weaker, and soon stopped after barely scratching the armor of both ships. Being stripped of its ammunition, the Chile was an easy target.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-25-considerabltxsbe.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-25.5-revengepjsu6.jpg)

..And with the Chile also the last mobile member of the enemies military fleet fell, leaving only unarmed ships behind. A worthy last target.

Through all the mess and due to some misunderstanding in communications, the other captain of the two lost destroyers, Kanagaki Hitoshi, was already promoted post mortem, despite not actually being dead. To some surprise he was now however found amongst the life pods, and could -not without grudges from his colleagues- celebrate his advance by stepping up to local command.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-26-promotedposukuvq.jpg)

Meanwhile the Artemis flew closer circles towards the inner system with the goal of testing the range the enemy was able to defend, and also setting up fortified position over A II, the other races conquered homeworld. While doing so, another hostile outpost was found on A III at closer sensor range, and ground bombardment was considered priority.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-27-moreoutpost03u6b.jpg)

The ground forces on both worlds, A III and A II were left intact to test out their performance nearby parked and ready Barque. After another good day or so, the fighters finally succeeded in taking out every last of the fleeing civilian ships, completing the isolation requirement part of the fleet command's orders.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-28-finallyallcilsbs.jpg)

The aliens were now stuck on their homeworld, and officially under siege. The Artemis could not move in, but they also could not move out. They however tried, and after a short while started further heavy bomber designs from the surface that were out to target the battle group on the position they had assumed over A II.
Fighters worked well the last time, but the enemy must have adapted its strategy, as this encounter did not go without some small losses.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-29-skirmishloscds0v.jpg)

Obviously this was unacceptable in a lengthy siege again, which is why further heavy bombers would now be engaged by the Republic's own bomber designs out of targeting range.

Then the Barque arrived to finally achieve the last objective: freeing A II the other alien's planet. The enemy ground forces provided to be so thin and weak though, that it barely seemed worthy all the effort, and probably the marines on board of the Artemis could have already achieved the victory.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-30-invasiontof87uw0.jpg)

A quick survey and damage reports now revealed the catastrophic state that the alien planet had fallen into. Anything had been either bombed or robbed away, and literally no installation was left after the occupation. The planet was irradiated to a degree that would secure the species' demise in just two generations. The only things left were some sparse minerals, and a small supply storage in fuel and tools.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-30.5-theyhavenl0s69.jpg)

The sabre aliens gratefully provided the supply to the orbiting cruiser in exchange for further protection, though on long term, military shields were not the option. This species was beyond saving.
To discuss the situation and what was to do, the 12 leader-admirals of the Sabre folk were invited and flown to Eden Ende via one of the present Leonidas Shuttles, where a meeting decided conditions and learned about the situation.
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-30.55-...aand1jqski.jpg)

It was revealed that both species used to live together and developed individually in the system. For around two centuries and due to insufficient space-faring technology, all the communication between the two used to be a (funky?) exchange of electronic signals, trading cultural information such as media, art, and even scientific discourse. Then a breakthrough happened that advanced the population of A I towards dimension bending, actual space travel, and in hindsight of the good relations, the first exploration ship visited A II to share this new technology, and also finally meet in person.
Some decades of fruitful synergetic existence went by in which the travel technology was refined. Though since nobody had yet figured out how to traverse to other stars yet, all the efforts were focused on exploring and building outposts around their own system. ...With the exception of the Divinity Endeavor, a project that sent a singular unmanned probe with revolutionary technology out, which could use one of the systems Lagrange Points to be flung towards other stars in superluminal motion. The project succeeded to a good degree, and the probe flew around multiple stars, curving its trajectory until it would face back to its origin. However, some unknown incident must have happened while it was underway, as soon after the probe was caught and disassembled, the people on A I would undergo rough changes, first in behavior, and then even on the outside, where they developed an exoskeleton and a thick moistly epidermis.
Following the communication block from the Jafari side and the nightmarish observations of physical corruption, the Sabre were quick to issue pandemic alert, immediately followed by preparations for defense and eventual war.
The energy levels of the interstellar flight had however also attracted the attention of the droid invaders, who now awakened from their ancient base in the system and started to manufacture a strike force. Interestingly, achieving interstellar flight capability could actually be the trigger that startles their suspicion and summoned the doom of many of the other civilizations whose ruins were found. Come to think of it, the Jinza race probably only was ready to fight, because their homeplanet existed in great distance of any jump point, so they were naturally concealed long enough to develop weaponry. ..And here the existence of two sizable civilizations at once, and the already impending war preparations likely served to overcome the limited resources of the singular droid base, so they too could withstand.
Although the Jafari did despite already overwhelming fleet size not act out in any threatening way for long, and military efforts were turned against the new enemy instead, they also did not care to further explain the situation. Then, when the Republic arrived, some unknown reason caused them to berserk. Whether there is some relation to the Republic directly that is not known by the Sabre, or simply the illumination of a jump point, and with it possibility of other interstellar travel speeded up their plans, ... it must be learned from the Jafari directly.

The decision of the council was now to give back any control to the planet to the Sabre (*), and provide support to make their suffering as little as possible. For those who would survive the already irremovable radiation dose, a new planet with adequate conditions would be seeked out, though the chances for one to be found in time were slim.

*= That did not work btw. . There is no way to give away control of a whole colony to another race. You can give them ships, and with that officers I believe, but the "transfer" button in the colony window doesn't seem to work, or does something different to what I thought.

[...] Some time went by in which new measurements were starting development, that could make it possible to approach the central planet A I, or maintain the siege more efficiently. The naval defeat and paralysation of the Jafari only took less than 3 weeks, but the siege was now maintained for more than a year. Artemis and the remaining two destroyers had readily waited around the A II world and constantly maintained the sensor surveillance from there. The Jafari were not entirely beaten, and frequently sent out newly build ships in foolish attempts to escape the planet, but only to be hunted down by the fighter squadron every time and again. Soon more than 20 additional civil transporters had been lost due to their feeble organization, yet none of the more advanced faction.
The fleet command started to capture and interrogate the survivors of such transporters by sending the shuttles with especially equipped quarantine bays. Their behavior was that of savages however, or even less, as not even the most basic communication was possible. How they were able to assemble and then operate actual space ships in this state is beyond understanding, but further investigation might show more.
Amongst all the wreckage however was at least one useful information, and that was the analysis of the enemies artillery missiles:

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-32-intelligenc56ulb.jpg)

The intelligence on the missile provided essential information towards planning a new siege approach. Currently, only mines were in development, in order to automate the concealment, yet an even better method would be to at least temporarily destroy their means of achieving any kind of space travel. For this, obviously, their large shipyard complexes had to be destroyed. Since the current torpedo weaponry could not hope to get through defenses, and the artillery was simply to short ranged, purpose designed ammunition would be needed to deliver the necessary strike with current ship designs. Since now the range of the enemies defenses was exactly known, it would be easy to come up with something just slightly better, and send them swarms of deception flares along with a few actual payloads.


Amongst all the civil ships that frequently left the planet A I were occasionally also further units of the enemies new bomber design. Those usually were taken out without trouble by the own bombers of Artemis, but at one time there was a surprise: The technically more advanced Harsawa faction of the Jafari had developed a bomber design too, which was expectably quite a bit more capable, though still no match due to its lacking sensor range.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-33-anewfasterfrauoe.jpg)

When the plans and designs of the first feint flares were just finished, the intelligence should discover further details that could have thrown back the plans by another month. Of course the more advanced faction also featured a slightly superior version of artillery missiles, and exceeded the previously determined range. Thanks to some design foresight though, the zone of safe fire had been extended in advance, and the flares were still usable.

(http://abload.de/img/sparta-34-morepowerfunes04.jpg)

(http://abload.de/img/unbenannt2outp.png)
*The shields are actually just 33% stronger, but still.

Code: [Select]

Artemis rev.2 class Cruiser    300,000 tons     6478 Crew     49309.6 BP      TCS 6000  TH 30000  EM 36000
5000 km/s     Armour 14-399     Shields 1200-300     Sensors 900/900/3/3     Damage Control Rating 615     PPV 302.1
Maint Life 6.93 Years     MSP 63185    AFR 1170%    IFR 16.3%    1YR 2299    5YR 34485    Max Repair 1800 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 72 months    Flight Crew Berths 281    
Hangar Deck Capacity 18000 tons     Cryo Drop Capacity: 5 Battalions    Magazine 7656    Cargo Handling Multiplier 50    

625 EP Lifter Magnetic Fusion Drive (48)    Power 625    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 625    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 14,800,000 Litres    Range 335.1 billion km   (775 days at full power)
Xi R300/360 Shields (240)   Total Fuel Cost  3,600 Litres per hour  (86,400 per day)

4xCalibre 6 sX-Ray Laser Phalanx (10x4)    Range 360,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 24-24     RM 6    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 4 3
CIWS-250x10 (12x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 25000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Tactical Control System (r.192k-25kps) (2)    Max Range: 384,000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
Magnetic Fusion Reactor r.60-300t (4)     Total Power Output 240    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 12 Torpedo Launcher r60 (6)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 60
Conventional Turret Barrel (24)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
"Raikan" Plasma Shell Turret (r.11.1m-500t) (6)     Range 11.1m km    Resolution 10
Torpedo Fire Control (r.499m-900t) (1)     Range 498.9m km    Resolution 18
Critical Fusion LR Torpedo "Cobalt-Flare" (120)  Speed: 52,100 km/s   End: 154.5m    Range: 483.1m km   WH: 36    Size: 12    TH: 295/177/88
"Thunderbolt" Shell (5720)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 2.6m    Range: 10.9m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 446/268/134
"Oroborus" Radiation Shell (480)  Speed: 70,500 km/s   End: 1.9m    Range: 8.1m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 235/141/70

Collision Perimeter (r.35.2m) (1)     GPS 1800     Range 324.0m km    MCR 35.3m km    Resolution 1
LR Gravity Echolot (r.3.4g-5.5kt) (1)     GPS 198000     Range 3,398.1m km    Resolution 110
Thermal Observatory TH-900 (1)     Sensitivity 900     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  900m km
EM Observatory EM-900 (1)     Sensitivity 900     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  900m km
Advanced Gravitational Sensors (1)   3 Survey Points Per Hour
Advanced Geological Sensors (1)   3 Survey Points Per Hour

ECCM-5 (3)         ECM 50
(http://abload.de/img/sparta-35-updateddesioku0j.jpg)

As soon as the revision design was finished, the Atlanta and 6 destroyers would show up carrying a full bay of the specialized siege ammunition, ready to lay waste to the enemies shipyard complexes... .

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: MarcAFK on January 09, 2015, 05:00:41 AM

Where's your resolution 1 fire control for those AMM's ?

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on January 09, 2015, 07:36:02 AM

Not needed. You will see why when the maneuver starts. ;)

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Bryan Swartz on January 19, 2015, 02:11:21 AM

I am in awe of this thread. 

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on January 19, 2015, 01:55:35 PM

Thank you. Nice to hear some approval once in a while.(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_=3.gif)

Quote from: MarcAFK on January 09, 2015, 05:00:41 AM

Where's your resolution 1 fire control for those AMM's ?

Well, the thing did not work out as I thought it would. I was thinking I could aim at my own missile salvos, because there is this hit-box in the targeting window that lets you display friendly targets. This way I would have sent a long ranging torpedo first, and then all the flares after it until the next torpedoes are fired, leading to a constant and still long ranging stream. I should have tested it with my previous weaponry though, because this check-mark really just enables friendly contacts, but no own ships or missile salvos.
Would have been a great plan, because since these flares were really just there to distract enemy AMM, then who cares who targets who if they still end up destroying each other.(actually it is even better to not target yourself here, because the enemy loses way more AMM's trying to intercept just one of mine than the other way around, even if I had 100% to hit one them)
I ended up cheating me a 110RP turret into the designs of cruisers and destroyers though (but the other way around - less resolution, more range). Not the best solution, but I really didn't want to wait another year over this tiny blooper.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: MarcAFK on January 19, 2015, 05:52:03 PM

You could have tacked on a fire control instead.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on January 19, 2015, 06:25:44 PM

Those are missile fire controls. I name the controls for size 1 missiles "turrets" for flavor, and size 1 AMMs are the "shells", because I wanted artillery that expends ammunition, so the ships feel more massive. ;)

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: 83athom on January 19, 2015, 06:35:56 PM

Seeing your 300k ton cruisers are making me feel inadequate about my 100k ton cruisers. ;)

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on January 19, 2015, 07:18:56 PM

Hehe, I noticed the calculation for the mass in the first post had a crucial mistake, so all the sizes are now basically arbitrary. Not the size-ratios between the classes though.

I think you can estimate the perfect minimum super-sized ships, since their idea is to maximize your tech capacities (best engines, and largest effective components generally). If you want a LR sensor, a missile sensor, and then thermal and EM for example, that means that to get the most out of your current tech, a minimum of 10kt of mission tonnage is already taken. If you have 40% mission tonnage, then 100kt seems a good point with 30% still for weapons and such. My very first combat ship in all of Aurora followed similar optimization thinking, and I ended up with a 80kt design on 50% mission tonnage.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on February 17, 2015, 01:50:16 PM

//Random cursive words, because of forum problems. Better not pay attention to it.//

To continue on the reports, before the siege equipment arrived, there was of course the need to take a closer look on the enemies defenses - namely those multitudes of bases around A I. So intelligence was very busy pre-operation, and managed to uncover not only the design to one of their defending beam bases, but also parts of the secrets that let them achieve such incredible fire distances.(as witnessed in the assault of Artemis - way out of the Republic's league)

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-01defensede3ws3x.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-02technical0os58.jpg)

Analysis showed though that the beam bases themselves had rather small caliber guns - accurate, but way under their technologies potential. This uncovered to the intelligence, that there was the possibility to make a safe assault even with current outfit of our navy, in case that their artillery should ever be depleted of ammunition. Even the standard laser turrets could then pick on those beam bases, as they simply are too underpowered to retaliate. ..However, it also meant that these defenders were especially cut out and optimized to repel incoming missile strikes - a detriment to the coming operation.

When the Atlanta was still being outfitted, there was also an unprecedented change of tactics of the Jafari. They developed a new type of ship and missile, that had so long ranging abilities, that it could actually achieve to strike from all the the way of A I to our cruisers positioning on A II, essentially making it artillery.
However, the salvos were thin and not very well concealed, so the automatic AI targeter could pick up the attacks even before they entered moon orbit, and no one had to get out of bed for this.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-03newdesignsqub2.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-03.5nochall6guxe.jpg)

It was a problem though that these attacks simply would not stop, as the ship kept resupplying over its nearby colony indefinitely. One can only guess that these salvos were maybe meant for the planet instead, to kill of all the remaining Sabre instead. Or maybe it was an attempt to lure the cruiser or its fighter craft out of its cover, because in order to get a firing solution on this new ship, all our available vessels would have to enter the impassible artillery covered ring around A I, which the enemy did not leave under any circumstances.
This was of course no option, but as the attacks wouldn't stop and became quite bothersome, the only remaining option was to try to fire a torpedo salvo, and hope that it didn't get intercepted by planet defenses.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-04torpedoexjbs8w.jpg)

Their ship tried to hide behind the planet, but the angle wasn't perfect, so the torpedoes would luckily cross at about 1 million km distance.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-04.5crossin8lsmf.jpg)

Since intelligence revealed that this was nowhere close to their beam defense capacities, and also their flak artillery wasn't fast enough to keep up with our design, it was destined to be a successful attack, so a second salvo was also sent to make it final.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-04.55armora9iseu.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-04.555seconvnsh3.jpg)

---
Then, finally, the destined day came, and the Atlanta, together with 4 freshly built and trained destroyers, assumed position at the calculated position.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-06catapulthgbr96.jpg)

The destroyers' cannons here were only filled with deception flares to provide the necessary coverage cloud around the torpedoes that the cruiser had to fire. The siege torpedoes carried an exceptionally high payload for their size, and featured improved speed to even keep up with the high artillery standards and fly in synchronization.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-07.1ammunitsfpoh.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-05.1destroyyoqky.jpg)

The destined hour came and fire was finally ordered. Targets were by 80% the mighty Jafari Shipyard complex, and by 20% the yards of the more advanced Hassawi. To make success more likely, the C.O. decided for alternating firing patterns. One time a couple of thicker salvos of flares would fly ahead to take away attention of enemy counter-fire beforehand, then a medium cloud of flares with torpedoes in the middle would follow. Another time the torpedoes would actually come last to maximize the deflection, but also make it easier for the enemy to guess their position. Finally, there was also the tactic to fire the torpedoes quite far ahead, close to the tip of a firing lance, as this would allow a second torpedo salvo to directly follow at the tail, which might overload the enemies reaction capacity.
So in very varying and experimental packages, the strikes came one by one, until the magazines were emptied by 4000 flares, and 126 torpedoes:

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-08salvosfirtlk15.jpg)

The one probing salvo that flew ahead could soon demonstrate partial success, as the concept worked: The enemy started picking on the flares, without being able to tell apart the few real threat torpedo bodies, and did so in a very random pattern as well, which meant none of the firing pattern was in the end really superior.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-09itworksth5hjmz.jpg)

...Then however the laser bases showed what they could to, and the perimeter seemed far too tight, as not even the thicker flare clouds could get through despite their supreme agility.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-10pointdefenxjiu.jpg)

The Jafari's laser technology was truly superior, and this seemed to put the failure mark on the operation, but since so much ammunition was fired already, the further results had to be monitored too. There was some chance at least, that the enemies beam defense might be at their limit with this, and since thicker salvos, and the simple rule of chance could help out, it was still possible to land a lucky hit.
An alternate pattern approached, and finally a siege torpedo got close...

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-11alternatecek1h.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-12willthisbaouap.jpg)

...but it was expectably also a failure.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-12.5operati67upd.jpg)

So it went on, and the whole magazine load was eventually repelled by their laser defenses. However, some turn of events opened a nearly not expected other opportunity. Half way through the firing storm, their counter artillery stopped firing, arguably, because its ammunition supply was indeed depleted!
The enemies organization has failed yet once again and didn't foresee the most important duty in a defensive position: to make sure and double sure to build enough supplies to maintain artillery range.
They had expended too many shots in attempts to catch every single of the nimble evasive flares, and now their range advantage was annulled, as the beam bases could only defend against enemy artillery or missiles, but not against actual sizable laser turrets.

Since the paralysis would only last for so long until they started rebuilding their stocks, it was now immediate priority to move in and take advantage. Now, not only the shipyards should fall, but all their defenses. What started out as a siege plan, and failed at it, turned in a surprising way into a much more capable winning assault strategy. Victory was at grasp, so Artemis left their position to join into the task force and move in as one powerful little fleet.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-13movinginaxfojf.jpg)

Even cadets would have known how to proceed from here. A safe firing position was found where the enemy could not fire back. The two cruisers targeted the shipyards and two defenses, and it was found that the new fire control indeed made quite the difference on larger ranges.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-15newfirecoihk8o.jpg)

Synchronous the fighters were started to take on the rest of the enemies defenses. It was also the debut test of the disruption weapon prototypes on the new fighter designs.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-16alloutassmwo3s.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-17thepilotsqlock.jpg)

...It also showed how much experience the fighter pilots who maintained the siege over these years had gained, as they landed far more successful attacks. However, even though the older laser fighters of Artemis would hit amazing 4 times more often, the new disruption design still outpaced in performance and managed to destroy their targets sooner. - A huge promoter for the new technology.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-19despiteon5prxe.jpg)

Then the shipyards were nearly gone, and it became time to analyze the debris. Some notable technology was found between these stations, which appeared to have served as the aliens' headquarters too. Interesting was especially the find of the new long ranging missile prototype that had just recently started to make trouble.
 It seemed they didn't have had the time to evacuate it after construction with the assault following so shortly after.

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-18shipyardsaypdr.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-20theknowlejlryu.jpg)

...The position was secured. The next endeavors should be put to three things.
1. Bringing in the new Recycler design to get knowledge of the huge graveyard that had been building up.
2. Make a new home for the Sabre as agreed to in the contract.
3. Complete the campaign by invading A I and deciphering the myths surrounding the monstrous changes of the Jafari.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on May 27, 2015, 08:30:15 PM

///New forum technology finally lets me hide the overflowing pictures! Dreamed of this since I got here.(http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/core/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.png)
Also, I am rushing the story a bit, since it has been long since I played last, and this is just from my leftover recordings and screens that I had already collected. It's difficult when you are not into it so much anymore. You need the heat of the moment for inspiration I guess.///

Finalizing the report on the campaign we start by crediting the Sabre for their initiative and will to take their destiny in their own hands. Without the interference of the Republic and despite their at this point almost non-existent resources, they managed to get an expedition party shipped and settle over to the third planet of the central star and start to prepare themselves for future settlement.

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-21.5anewhom11yen.jpg)

The only explanation for them to be able to slip this maneuver under the constant surveillance scans is for them to use pre-trans-newtonian rocket ships of both incredibly small size and powering.
[OT: Their stuff just appeared there, and I don't know how... . Hax recorded on tape?]

However, still, for them to live there required an adjustment of the environment to suit their races' needs, so a real settlement will have to wait for the fresh built and modernized Republic Heimdall Terraformer to arrive.

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-21.55terraf33kmb.jpg)

While the still resistant Jafari managed to round up an entire espionage team during their siege, a new method of siege controls had just been finalized. The past Gemini frigate design had been proven to become obsolete with the rise of true star sailing cruisers, and it had long been debated what could be done with their docks. Now seeing how long range resupply and/or ammunition deployment started to be become an issue with the exploration crafts journeying farther and farther away from docks, it was finally decided to refit the hull into an ammunition resupply ship, which would also be able to safely eject certain ammunition types in order to alternatively function as a mine layer.

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-23minelayervszq8.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/proximityminenkaim.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/mineshrapnelisb31.jpg)

Gemini Hermes class Frigate    100,000 tons     1697 Crew     11656 BP      TCS 2000  TH 10000  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 10-191     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/18/0/0     Damage Control Rating 111     PPV 100
Maint Life 2.66 Years     MSP 8087    AFR 720%    IFR 10%    1YR 1623    5YR 24351    Max Repair 900 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 30 months    Flight Crew Berths 0   
Hangar Deck Capacity 9000 tons     Magazine 8740   

625 EP Lifter Magnetic Fusion Drive (16)    Power 625    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 625    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 3,075,000 Litres    Range 208.9 billion km   (483 days at full power)

CIWS-250x10 (4x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 25000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Size 100 Mine Layer r500 (1)    Missile Size 100    Rate of Fire 500
Torpedo Fire Control (r.499m-900t) (1)     Range 498.9m km    Resolution 18
"Red Mist" Proximity Mine (87)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 0m    Range: 0.6m km   WH: 0    Size: 100    TH: 0/0/0

Thermal Wake Receiver TH-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
EM Wake Receiver EM-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km

ECM 50
----------------

With the war and siege on the Jafari being essentially over at this point however, it would only be a method held in reserve to exert some control over the befriended Sabre in the future. Now seeing Louisburg completely safe for travel, the first thing to do would instead be to unleash the new recycler generation on the immense graveyard that had been piling up, hiding who-knows-what treasures.
An overview of the inner system's graveyard alone:

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-25allthosewbfu6t.jpg)

The spoils where surprising to say the least. Long were the Jafari regarded as inferior on the technological front, enabling the Republic to hold serious range, speed and information advantages over them. As it turned out, even the less developed Jafari worker caste seemed to have technology just behind and in many fronts even far surpassing capacities, such as in active gravitic sensoring, general control of gravitic and dimensional dynamics (transporter devices for freighters = "grav assisted cargo handling"), and extremely advanced beam fire controls. The leading Harsawa caste then even had just developed engines of the very same reliant magnetic confinement grade which Astral's ships are so proud of. ...It seemed that the only difference between us and them was often not the technology, but our boldness to build such a large and fully equipped mission platform as our cruisers. ->A win from engineering, rather than science. The culturally succeeding wonder builders.
So before we even started to take a closer look onto the Jafari's actual belongings,  the graveyard yielded many amazing new gizmos and insights, such as:

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-24recyclers7tul5.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-26evidenceo9lu4f.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-27bestcargogiuoe.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-28...evenmov6u50.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-29powerfulawju2k.jpg)

Even before the disassembly of all the wealth of components, the initial prospecting managed to kick start new directions of study which would now be possible to be pursued.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-30.1science2dsxi.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-30.2sciencejss4f.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-30.3scienceioska.jpg)

An integral summary of all the intact relics that had been found after a solid year of salvage work:

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-31lootsummawsj40.jpg)
---------

Two further advances could be learned by studying all the systems, most namely understanding the transporter technology which should obsolete all previous methods that Astral had known (even from including the knowledge of the ancient forefather civilization that seeded us). It was also found that especially the information technology (sensors and fire controls) was so advanced that we couldn't even see the end of their capacities. It seems like even the supposed to be huge forefather empire had things to learn still as it easily shadowed their achievements by factors. How such a young race could hold onto secrets this arcane seems to be part of the great question surrounding their existence.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-32analyzingiojzh.jpg)

With Astral's Gotei armies already readied nearby long ago, and the Jafari officially giving up on space faring altogether, it was now time to deal the final stroke and invade their homeworld for good. With regards to the major bio hazards that members of Jafari could pose, a combined assault was planned in order to prepare that not only official armies would possibly be resistant, but every civil member could potentially also act as a bomb of sorts. While the divisions would deploy in full hazard suits, synchronous a hail of bombardement shells would pave the area during the drop so to cause potential civilian threats to evacuate the battle zone.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-33invasiontwuux9.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-34thebattley9uzx.jpg)
-------------

When the battles, though low on losses, continued for longer than had be foreseen, the constant orbital strikes eventually rendered the environment too hostile for living.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-35certainde2euzi.jpg)

..An outcome that was expected as a possibility in military affairs calculations, as stated by Admiral Kino in public announcements. An outcome that could not have been anything else to those who think silent to themselves in face of all the facts.

With the planetary resistance overthrown, a specialized commando was quick to surround both Jafari and Harsawa universities, technology parks and manufacturing centers, as well as their palaces. Any attempt of riotous civilian force to approach the captured points would still get disrupted immediately by the orbital coverage on both planet sides. There is little record of what happened from here concerning the dwindling Jafari population, as any documentation was officially prohibited, but it is to be expected that at least some found their ways into secured bunkers. Since all their advanced technology and infrastructure was to be ransacked and deported, they would soon only be a shadow however, incapable of returning to their space faring roots.
Amongst the spoils that the Jafari alone could provide were amazing wonders advancing multiple fields of studies by as much as 3 generations at once, basically resulting in throwing our own technology away and starting to use theirs entirely. Even a more powerful capacitor had been found that will enable Astral to finally realize the plans for a more massive cruiser idea, capable of mounting high caliber, yet still fast firing laser turrets for the first time. Jafari sensor and beam technology was truly inconceivable, and we could not resist the comparison to where we had seen that before...

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-36techlootz0oi7.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-36.1structuw3qmk.jpg)

..Then it came to intrude into the Harsawa leader castes capitol, and the revelations it brought with it. Ghoma, our ancient nemesis that destroyed our forefathers outpost, and the first alien life that ever crossed our paths in this new era, - it had spread to a location outside of the Pharsalos Nebula. Overgrown now with wild skins, chitin and fleshy mass we found an university institute which held inside what appeared to be failed eggs of one of the demonic biological monstrosities. Though essentially exploded, the nest -however it got here- had formed a massive bulb of veinous biomass that seemed to be very alive in another way. We do not know anything about Ghoma life to this point still, so it may even be possible that this process was intentional, though it seems unlikely. ..There is no doubt that this must have been the source of the corruption that befell the Jafari, and probably even the source of their advanced understanding of certain technologies, most namely their sensoring capacities. In that case it would also explain how the Harsawa caste could stay ahead by a generation or so. The difference then would have never truly been due to culture, but simply due to distance to the "ground-zero" of the corruption.
How the Jafari were able to at least somehow maintain a shadow of a will after such a potential overtaking, will be object of studies to come. For now it is at least secured that the contaminated individuals are not contagious by themselves, and would require some process that we have not yet witnessed.(- maybe because it has ended with the overtaking of any last member on the planet?)

Further spoils from the center of advancement:

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-38thelastlo3uqdh.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-38.1thelastkmpcl.jpg)

Amongst the data recovered then were found mission codes to different research vessels that were still in operation after admirably dodging our sensoring so far.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-36.2surrendgfl85.jpg)

To no reason of real disquiet at first, it was a real shock when we had to find that a modernized version of the Rosencrantz probe that the Jafari sent out to conduct their first interstellar research was also re-issued for a second voyage and sent out deep into other systems already, carrying on board the infestation, if not even an entire original organism that might have survived after all. Like metallic pollen they engineered a ship to find new victims to decent upon like it must have happened to them, and it was too far out already to stop it now. The Harsawa had bred an ambassador.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-39theirdeep00zkk.jpg)

The Admiral and the leading captains will now have to figure out what to do with the situation. Though the conflict turned out to be extremely fruitful and will keep busyness and science occupied for around a decade to catch up, it also provided that at some point in the future equally or even superior developed and larger opponents might come the Republic's way. Though there was no reason yet to believe that Ghoma had any notion of vengeance, it seems questionable to conclude from the previous pure bestial encounters, as some crude form of shifty and crafty intelligence can now definitely be attributed to them.

Slight post war busyness:
Just at the moment of victory, the Sabre managed to sneak in yet another admirable feat by establishing a small sustainable base on A III to which they fled a small population.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-37theyhaveppkuge.jpg)
------

..How all this was happening without anyone being informed or sensors noticing anything is mysterious, but certainly not unwelcome. It had been one of the fears that the Sabre would eventually turn towards becoming a constant drag of development resources on the Republic, but their eagerness to make up for themselves surely proved otherwise.

Then, when there was finally time to also start on the excavations in the ruined city that the droid invaders left behind, another crowning discovery was found - the perfection of fusion technology.

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/louisburg-40incredibletauz.jpg)

The inertia fusion method is so advanced and clean that it even exceeds the already perfectly safe magnetic confinement method. Fusion devices could now be scaled down and fitted in almost anywhere, even on fighter crafts, depending just on the portion of energy that you'd want to release. Generators and potentially even engine exhausts will appear as smooth and clean as having flying whyPods.
An advancement just in time too to be able to face whatever might be coming that likely will already match Astral's current means of getting around, as the Harsawa just did.


Finally, a summation of all the technological spoils of the Louisburg confrontation altogether:

- Beam Fire control range 60k->125k
- Fire Control Speed Rating 6k->12.5k
- Grav Assisted Cargo Handling
- Phased Geological Sensors
- Missile Tracking Bonus 40%->60%
- Gauss Cannon Launch Velocity 1->4
- Railgun Launch Velocity 3->8
- Railgun Caliber 10cm->40cm
- Jump Drive Efficiency 6->8
- Squadron Jump Radius 250k
- Capacitor Recharge Rate 8->10
- Active Grav Sensor Strength 36->80
- Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology

..And the material spoils:

Maintenance Facilities: 266
Construction Factories: 1733
Ordnance Factories: 469
Fighter Factories: 1
Fuel Refineries: 724
Mines: 2167
Automated Mines: 337
Mass Drivers: 1
Research Labs: 51 (will be scrapped though)
Training Facilities: 15
Genetic Manipulation Centres: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 21
+ somewhat more than 800k in combined resources of all kinds

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: MarcAFK on June 05, 2015, 01:31:09 AM

Wow. But why scrap the research facilities?

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on June 05, 2015, 03:47:27 AM

The game policy that I don't research beyond TL6, which I almost universally have by now. :) The only places that are allowed to research up to TL7 are these giant 5 lab orbital habitat research stations that I have to tow towards locations with research bonus.(and they are only allowed to research that field where the bonus lies)

Other than that I only need around 60 labs on my planet to develop new components out of found technology, but even that will eventually be taken over by the more efficient research stations when they run out of TL7 theoretics.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on June 30, 2015, 02:00:19 PM

Since I have finally managed to push through the large and, with the siege, rather exhausting NPR war campaign, I have become more enthusiastic in playing this a bit more, where I could finally focus on building up the republic again. There were some ideas that I wanted to test in this game, which I had already planned since way back to the first NPR war with that Jinza/Odell race.


So one of the main points was to figure out a method for an effective passive mine if possible, and learn to deploy it nicely. Though there is now a new plan for specialized crafts that would be capable of automated deployment, up to this date the preceding dormant Frigate designs of Gemini would fill the role and had to do the job after own measurement.
Most target goals had been reached within a year, including the sealing of Louisburg to keep the Sabre in and eventually returning Ghoma out, and protecting all unsecured distant fuel mining and research stations with a mining perimeter. Additionally some strategic points that had to be passed in order to proceed deeper into Republic main territory were also belted, as well as the Athens home system itself.

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(http://abload.de/img/louisburg1.1-approprixbjka.jpg)
---

The technological spoils of Louisburg had been extraordinary, and the specialized research stations were just taking up wind too, so a lot of new development had to come to maturity for a next refit of the fleet to make sense and be economic. ..Unfortunately too much, as the person who set it all into motion and had watched over the progress over 5 years could not live to see what it lead up to. Asuhara Kino, "hero" of the Odell containment gambit, later appointed as the first Admiral and leader of all republic Navy -and with it- its people, had died at age 85 and after more than 27 years in his final position.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg2-asuharakin9aub3.jpg)

His influence, character and vision shaped the Republic into that which it is today and gave it personality. A whole generation had grown up knowing the Navy and Kino leadership as the way things are, leaving huge expectations for the successor. After him comes Kanagaki Hitoshi, filling the spot as second Admiral in Republic history. Long already treated as Kino's protege after his miraculous survival of the Destroyer Soeren's destruction in Louisburg, Hitoshi shows a wide range of skill and overall unique talent which was already recognized even when he just joined as Lieutenant. It is widely rumored that he might easily surpass Kino's achievements, and surely he has already begun to use his new empowered position and make a few adjustments in planning... .

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(http://abload.de/img/astralrepublicdetailsykufq.jpg)
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///OOC: It is pure coincidence that the second Admiral also happens to be of japanese origin btw. . 40% are german, 40% english, and respectively 10% of officers should be nordic and japanese. Somehow there is often oddly strong representation of japanese amongst the captains or highest skilled officers though... . ..Maybe their insular naval tradition showing through, or just, you know, ..asian. :P


Hitoshi pushed the modernization of the fleet and sanctioned a few survey trips into directions that were considered safe as far as Ghoma threat chances go. However, he held back in the pursuit of the direct Ghoma traces leading out of Louisburg up until now. In anticipation of upcoming costs of the inertial fusion upgrade, many of the previously marked and charted mineral sources now experienced strong exploitation - enough so that as an extra, and much overdue, the freighting fleet could be expanded by the factor 3 as well.
And so another 10 years passed in which a couple things of interest stirred up public attention.

The Sabre have been caught arranging espionage efforts in our direct:
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg3-sabrestartadjeg.jpg)

Though the espionage was mutual, Astral must receive the straightforward execution of our members as a heinous act, and also as utterly ungrateful behavior, considering Sabres few survivors owed their lives and a freshly terraformed new world to only the Republics grace.
However the court of captains voted to overlook the incident as long as it remained singular, so to not waste all the resources that had already been spent. As wisely pointed out by the seniors, the absolute isolation of Louisburg and the establishment of a large scale listening post are expected to provoke feelings of suspicion and maybe imprisonment amongst the Sabre, even though the feeling should be an irrational illusion considering that they weren't expected to reach interstellar traveling capacity again anyway within the next 2 generations at least.
So instead, the offers of friendship were reassured once again, and a survey team was sponsored to help the Sabre get started on their new world, which promptly brought up remains of an ancient just-subterran fallen moon -the "sandman", entirely encrusted with high grade Duranium sediments. The Sabre felt greatly humbled by us simply acknowledging their possession of this valuable treasure.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg4-somedurani8xjja.jpg)


Mytilene Archimedes World
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg5-mytilenearflk8l.jpg)

...Little did they know without having ever left their home system that, though still rare, similar and even far better spots could be found and were partly already under ownership of Astral. So when the bureau of geology finally caught up with Mytilene, they discovered that which is now classed as a Archimedes World - A planet with huge and easily accessible sources of all the four key resources, Duranium, Neutronium, Corundium and Gallicite, making it a perfect builder world.


A world spanning major civilization in ruins
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg6-remainsofatgj7q.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg6.5-withconstakn7.jpg)

The biggest ruins found to date, consisting of highly mechanized metropolis areas, were found lying under Nedroid watch in the Schlaun system. Though barely advanced behind chemical propulsion and sub-light electronics, the sheer scope of the likely up to two digit billion population must have been like a lighthouse for the automated incinerators when the first sensor experiments started. ...So many leftovers we have seen, and they always became too eager to "signal for life" when they first got the chance, never questioning why space had been silent to them itself so far.
However at least the Schlaun legacy shall live in the Republic, as we adapt to their great knowledge in focused city building and integrated infrastructure that make even multi-level cities feasible.


Diplomatic Wisdom
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg7-sabrenowfr1zko3.jpg)

Proving the old decision right, a few years later we saw the fruits of the continued providing relationship towards the Sabre. They were apparently impressed, and though our own people still begrudge them for acting dishonorable, it may only be a matter of time until neighboring life will be considered normality.


Awesome Giant
The richest giant to date, a super-duper Jovian with almost as deep reserves as Massalia's pearl, but with powerful convecting streams that pump out its collected concentrated core contents to semi-permanent hot gas seas on the surface, where we have to do as little as dip in a metaphoric hose. Even more so, the giant lies adjacent to Sparta, the most easily accessible connection from Athens, basically placing an infinite power source in our front yard.
(http://abload.de/img/louisburg8-awesomegiah9j74.jpg)


Then, finally, half a generation of modernization and project work later, all new designs could be finally laid down. A new era of ships that realizes even the most of the last technology potential hinted in the old schematics left from the Astral Empire, and then even surpasses it in matters of the salvaged Ghoma sensor inventions.
The transporter design upgrades had already started being slowly applied some years before, but since they amounted for the highest share of the coming costs, it would take quite a bit longer to finish them than it should to update and build the real navy.


Updated Fighter Craft
The most important upgrade for all fighter craft has been the replacement of the engines with clean, near non-residue fusion drives that despite their high power leave almost no trace anymore. The magnetic fusion drives of last generation Kanjiu and Mifune, though serving well over decades, had the issue of being rather 'loud' and giving away approach to even unwary targets ahead of time. It was often noted that at least with the bomber designs that turned out to be shame as it had sometimes eliminated save approach chances, which conflicted the whole bomber design purpose, so new generation models all had to meet the requirement of silence, no matter the cost.

(http://abload.de/img/fighterspnug8.jpg)

In addition to the classic fighter craft, the Captain Loge and Kino long decided that some tactical capabilities were often missing that could potentially greatly enhance the usefulness of fighter formations. One first thought was that the conventional fighters were often only used as harassers, as any seriously armed military vessel would put them at too high risk. With the predominant goal of loss-less battles, this usually meant that bombers would be deployed instead.
However, fighters should see a comeback in the role of escorts where they could provide dearly needed fighter and missile protection for approaching bombers or other combatants. This would form a second measure after the engine muffling to further ensure that bombers can always make their move.
Shiroge S22
For the strategy to become plausible, a spy craft was finally needed. The former idea had always been that capital ships paint the targets, and with that also the zone in which fighter craft could operate. Missiles however can rarely be illuminated to great distance, and so the Shiroge came into being. In the theoretics, at least one Shiroge would glide silently with every formation of 10+ crafts, but would be able to spot any eventually approaching missiles via an advanced thermal augury hull which had been specially designed for it. Once an alarm was raised, it would stop the silent operation mode and active an enormously powerful, yet small missile sensor to give exact coordination to the escorting fighters.(salvaged Ghoma-Jafari hybrid technology became so advanced that even hypothetical lightspeed missiles could always be spotted at least 5 seconds ahead with just a standard civil collision monitor)
Since Mifune bombers could in theory also attempt missile interception with their standard dual-purpose shell ammunition, they also receive a Shiroge in every formation for safeties sake.
Shiroges are also especially heavy armored for a fighter in order to make sure they last hopefully the longest as to maintain illumination, so that the rest can keep fighting the pressure.
(http://abload.de/img/shirogeposq4.jpg)

Hajabusa R94
The second proposal was then one directly addressing the coming Ghoma threat. Ghoma have been seen employing heavy fighter kind of monstrosities, yet the capital ships of Astral are not only ill equipped to spot them efficiently, but also reluctant to add expensive sensor equipment just for this case. Normally, missile sensory should be far enough to spot these assaulters soon enough before they become an issue, yet the real problem would be retreating ones, as they cannot be easily spotted once they leave the awareness circle.
For a hunting fighter detachment to be still capable of pursuit against any small craft, another recon fighter, Hayabusa, was conceived, this time equipped with a sole tailored SR sensor, taking up most of its hull. In addition the escort mission, Hayabusas carry some extra fuel to make patrol jobs feasible at least. The combination of fast silent engines and strong active sensory should make it possible to exert "flash-scan" tactics where enemy positions are checked, but if they show signs of advancing against the scout, the illumination could be turned off and the position quickly changed, making it a re-occurring radar ghost.
(http://abload.de/img/hayabusalgsqg.jpg)

Oyama RR04
The last change in traditional fighter craft doctrine was the addition of simple fuel carrying fighter-ranger types. It was noted that sensor technology eventually grew faster than the ranges of advanced engines, so that the classical requirement of fighter craft -to be able to fly to the edge of the ship sensor and back- could not be fulfilled anymore. Though maximum range engagement was rarely needed, it should however stay an option, and so the Oyama was planned out to extend its own range and that of 3 other fighters to double.
Of course, another welcome side mission would be the quickest possible response refuel capacity of crafts that are about to become stranded. The spectacular extended flight that saved the survivors of the war provoking shot-down geo survey vessel in Louisburg, had been a case where tricky maneuvers had to be flown, refueling fighters trough other fighters in domino/multi-pendel patterns to not run out. A single large fuel space ranger could have prevented the whole situation, and if not, then at least make the refueling as effective as it can be.
(http://abload.de/img/oyamahjqv5.jpg)


Heavy Bomber Development
After considerable efforts and many difficulties, the first heavy bombers arrived finally, though to late to see the start of their first mission vessel for now. It was long debated whether or not it even made sense to double the size of conventional fighters, as a larger craft offers little in compensation. However, it does offer two things: space for adding electronic counter measures, which turns any heavy bomber into a critically effective air superiority anti-fighter vessel; and the option to mount slightly higher caliber guns, which mostly means range advantage.
In the shadows of the coming engagements with the Ghoma, a dominating anti-fighter/fac vessel could easily become a great boon, and even though other counters already existed, it is a path worth to be tested.
Aetherblitz and Aetherlicht, the first Heavy Bomber designs, both offer to replicate the conditions that made the Pharsalos Diver craft once so successful, ...but outside a nebula. While the ecm cuts the enemy weapon range down, the already outranging ion-carried disruptor manages to shoot any monstrosities from afar.
The designs are technically Ion Bombers, which is just a beam specialized sub-category of Heavy Bombers.

(http://abload.de/img/aetherieu9k.jpg)


Lastly for this section also a comparison of the fighter craft sizes:

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(http://abload.de/img/astroempireschart_hant1uab.jpg)
---

Other Supports

Trireme TB34cs
All of Astral's capital ships come with a specially trained guard brigade, enabling it to carry out boarding missions. However, these usually were only effective in the rare cases that the enemies' engines had been mostly taken out without exploding the ship prematurely, giving the previous missions only about a 50% success ratio.
Though that was no reason to remove this capability at a whole, it raised questions if the task couldn't be approached in a safer way. The answer was only half satisfying, as any ship up to the mission would be so large that it can only be realistically be fitted into a carrier.
(http://abload.de/img/triremec2szh.jpg)

Asclepius Uq4
Louisburg also revealed another issue with the Republic's designs. Hospital shuttles could not always be present as fast to rescue any survivors or even take prisoners. Though the mission would not be taken over in open conflict zones, any incidental encounter required the capital ships to have some means of securing those disabled.
The designation as "Lifepod" is misleading, as these have little in common with the standard life ensuring capsules. Each Lifepod can move individually and take its ferry from basically anywhere all the way back to Athens home system, and does so in less than a year under mostly perfect stealth. Each capital ship will get a provision of a couple of Asclepius, so a single one could always be spent to even just transport back an important personal or prisoners outside of the planned homecoming schedule.
(http://abload.de/img/asclepiusd6ugt.jpg)


New Era Capital Ships

Artemis Leto
In the abundant energy age of fusion perfection, the classical mission of a long range exploration cruiser would now be taken over by the much more suited new representative, the Heavy Cruiser. The Artemis is therefore re-envisioned to return to more patrol, defense and response duties for whenever a destroyer group isn't enough. For now, only the survey craft staff has been reduced along with their hangar, freeing up space used for mostly slightly better armament. In the future it is expected to revision the design for about half the range and deployment, as they will become the main 'guard on duty' stationed in the planned deep space hangar bases.
(http://abload.de/img/artemisyfk8s.jpg)

Nereide
The long held dream of Asuhara Kino, yet he couldn't live to see its realization. The design had been in planning for around 30 years with the corresponding shipyard long since built, but always was short of something, so it was always postponed. With the discovery of new capacitors that made fast firing caliber 10 turrets possible, the last piece fell into place.
The heavy cruiser was designed as the ultimate force projection platform while still having cruiser typical full capital ship functionality (large fuel reserve, maintenance time, and due to fully autonomous recycling and expansive relaxation areas now even infinite deployment). It was built with the idea of making lengthy sieges like the one that happened in Louisburg obsolete, as it should be capable of directly charging ahead into all but most massively defended positions.(currently even our own homeworld would not have enough missile power to stop one heavy cruiser - ...but likely enough beams/disruptors)
When compared to the classical cruiser, the offensive power doesn't scale equally, which is mostly because of the expansion on the long range capability part. A Heavy Cruiser should be able to not only get to but, but even hold positions in deep space for years if necessary.(a substitute for Astral not holding any colonies or maintenance bases currently)
(http://abload.de/img/nereidezizj2.jpg)

Oceanus
When seeing how effective just a small bomber flight detachment was in midst of the gunnery chaos that had befallen Louisburg, it was a frequent wish of the changing commanders to have more than just one flight of bombers at their hands, so that ideally the mothership wouldn't even have to engage. Though the heavy cruiser took that wish up and doubled the fighter complement, giving two flights of each, it is still not close to having a real carrier - a fleet on its own.
The Oceanus drains incredible talent resources and is thus so far the only ship planned of its type. It carries not only just an entire wing of respectively fighters and bombers plus supports, but also 20 heavy bombers and two whole destroyer escorts that make it possible to permanently occupy certain strategic points if necessary without obstructing the carrier's freedom.
Shields and direct weaponry are considerately weaker than on the cruiser types of course, so the carrier is expected to keep out of trouble by managing encounters with either crafts or its especially expanded LR torpedo strike capacity.
Oceanus is considered the center of the fleet at this point, so should any major war break out, it is mandatory for her to be summoned up to the front. This also means that it becomes the flag base of the actual fight commanding Vice Admiral of the fleet, which is currently the eccentric "Lady" Alfie Davison.

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(http://abload.de/img/astralrepublicdetails70lul.jpg)
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(http://abload.de/img/oceanusujbnn.jpg)


To round it all up, here a complete size comparison of all current military craft in Astral:

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/astroempires_medium_a20uh8.jpg)
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Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Rich.h on July 01, 2015, 09:26:07 AM

Great update to the fleet their, I was not aware you could use the recreational stuff on a ship it was mounted on, but handy to know now. I noticed your numbers of low ranking officers seem far lower than my own when trying to get a rank 7 officer. Do you make use of the automatic/realistic promotions or do you do your own promoting to let you tailor your officer distribution to your needs?

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on July 01, 2015, 02:09:31 PM

The recreation works only around 90% of the time though, because some buggyness makes them randomly non functionable on a whole ship, even between different models of identical designs. So far it has only failed me on a few civil stations, and only one military ship so far, which is though sadly exactly that Oceanus carrier from the post. :( The first heavy cruiser worked perfectly, but the carrier accumulates time and is thus useless with only 3 months deployment. (if I had gone fully out and not chosen at least 3 months for RP reasons, it would be basically immovable...)
I had reported this before, but I will make another one tomorrow with more analysis.

..Also, has anyone ever had the issue where some civil ships start reporting moral loss? I currently have a tanker, one of four of the same design, and it keeps sending me moral problems (easily had with only 3 months time), but it shouldn't because it is civil, just like its sister ships. I have some hunch that the occurrences of these two problems could be connected. Actually, the primal reason why I started building large 50 cargo hold freighters throughout nearly all of my games, except the very first and now this one, was so that I could easily put one a recreational facility, because that doesn't matter much if your freighter is already 2.1-2.4mt heavy.
..The moment I stop this in favor for smaller freighters, I start seeing this problem again... . It is the second ship with it too.


For the officers: I let the automatic promotions run, so they can sort out talents for ground officers and navals up to commander. Sometimes I kind of guide or 'recommend' some people with a 1000pt worth "special promotion" badge, when they popped up as talented officers in the message feed, and I agree. However, only about a third of them improve significantly above those good starting skills, so many don't reach commander level still (though of course with way higher chances than any casual one).
The captains I run half automated. Sometimes I see time for promotion is up, and then I browse through the 40+ commanders to find one suitable, but without any thorough investigation ("pick the first that jumps into the eye"). Most of the time I simply wait for the message feed though, and when I see "captain", then I go check on them, and sometimes I might disagree and demote the person again.(fighter aces and mining cracks are not welcome if they lack other talents for example) The captains are kind of the leader caste in my game - the around 20 people who have dictatorish control over all, so more power any real admiral would have even ever had, and that makes me picky.
I also check on division captains and highest generals, but just out of RP curiosity. It would be pointless to micromanage them, because for some reason they die and shuffle through really quickly compared to all other personalities.
Then the senior captains and 2-3 assistance admirals are always hand selected, as soon as I see one die or the captain number grow enough. The admiral is always hand promoted, and I ignore all lower rank number requirements for this one.(even though it would need 3, there is not more than one vice admiral planned - his executive arm) I normally always have a reserve admiral candidate waiting at the start line which I eye out long before. For some strange reason though, the rate of successors to the admiral is usually around 3-1, as the upstart candidates keep dying before the admiral himself goes out.(I swear I have no doing in this ;) )
Current emergency candidate is the one rear admiral, which I personally spoon-fed into rank. He is just 33, which makes him younger than any of the captains and sn.captains even, and was one of the recommended talents that made it through. He eventually showed up on the radar again as captain and had accumulated all kind of powerful TF relevant boni - perfect admiral material, so I eventually advanced him by hand two ranks when the next rear admiral position opened up.

The admirals usually outliving successors(if not incredibly young) has been a consistent phenomenon through all my games so far btw. . The big task force leaders always age incredibly well, and sometimes live through decades of all different severe sicknesses, but simply wont go.(not saying I don't like it  :) - staying figureheads are great)
The two biggest record I had in my star swarm game, where the second ever fleet admiral was like this:

Off-Topic: show

(http://abload.de/img/leaderlonglife2reuk8.jpg)
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...but the first one even lived to at least I think age 128 it was when I last checked, so something more even (cannot check 'record of dead legends' sadly. All dead and forgotten instantly) At this point, when you have basically lived half your life with "severe medical condition", it must be like having a flimsy corpse taped to some office chair, still somehow giving orders which are probably just youth rantings or even mere body crackings, interpreted by surrounding loyal scryers into complex campaign strategies. (Wh40k anyone? ;D)

I have 2 theories to explain this:
A)
Task force commanders get an actual bonus that makes them survive longer, whether it being through reduced accident chances, reduced illness affection, or maybe even simply that they cannot retire for health reasons.(not sure if I have ever seen that on them)

B)
Instead of high rank, high promotion score bestows that protection. This would explain some more phenomena, like ground officers dying and retiring in their 40s-50s normally (sparse skill sets), and also big civil leaders like sector commanders or A5 world governors living through quite some decades of service usually.
Also I have seen that always those admiral candidates seem to make it which have the most medals on their roster, which is nice, because I like to keep the most memorable ones around too. :)

Question with B then is though - if promotion score prolongs life, then isn't it inhumane to keep medals so exclusive? Is their supply limited, like some Bacta or ancient alien talisman, so only the best can be rewarded? (there is "alien artifact" commodity trade, right?)
I kind of want to test that theory out with some insane value medal ("anti-aging creme"/"pinned on respirator/auto-defibrilator"(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_xd.gif)). Not in this game though, because it would taint the honorable admiral position.
...hmm, the "artificial robo-admiral experiment"?

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Rich.h on July 01, 2015, 03:33:31 PM

Interesting way of doing things, and I very much like the idea of a semi auto system wherby you can generally forget about the typical ranks unless you spy a promising officer to follow their career. I have found a problem with my own game trying this though, I normally use the realistic promotion setting and I find that I then cannot select the promote button at all, this then only leaves me with the option of awarding medals of very high promotion scores to ensure that officer is selected. however even this method leaves me needed vast amounts of lower ranks, to put this in perspective your game has some 400 odd rank 1 officers and 1 rank 7. For some reason I end up needed far more than that, I once tried to get a rank * officer to just see the numbers and it would not give me one until I have some 1500+ rank 1 officers. AT that stages you end up with a vast number of lower ranking officers doing absolutely nothing, and there are only so many desk jobs going in star fleet.

Are you getting a rank 7 officer just through the use of high scoring medals alone, or are you also promoting using the instant promote button? If the later I may have to submit a bug report.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on July 02, 2015, 03:00:52 AM

This and yet unbuilt design editing are actually the reasons why I am permanently in space master mode. I did this so long that I had even forgotten that it was needed to be able to edit the ranks. Medals aren't really reliable to do this for you, as sometimes people with lesser score sometimes get promoted still, plus you can of course not demote at all.
The rank seven indeed needs around 1500 ranks 1s on a natural route, and promotion score alone doesn't advance officers further. There it also bothers me that so many low ranks end up unemployed. I once had a game with 720 fighters, but it still wouldn't have been half enough, and the ship window was already lagging like snails on Valium.

Sometimes I am even in designer mode all the time, because that is necessary to personally cull upcoming civil ships. In this game I had little problem with them though for some reason, so I don't do that anymore.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: JacenHan on July 07, 2015, 12:18:40 AM

Is there a particular reason the Neriede and Oceanus don't have active sensors? It seems like even a max-size sensor would be a small addition for ships over a million tons.

Title: Re: Astral Rebublic Showcase
Post by: Vandermeer on July 07, 2015, 01:35:10 AM

Yes, well noticed. The reason is that through these npr wars I acquired extremely advanced sensors, but sadly in matters of active search strength, which increases the sensor costs in contrast to just em sensitivity. Though it turned out ok for the Artemis there, it cut heavily into the Oceanus' lifetime, reducing it to mere 4.53 years, which is not acceptable for a recreation capable exploration ship like this. The Nereide wasn't affected too much, but still to some degree, and since I was developing an alternative plan anyway, I included it there too.
So the alternative is to have a 10k minimum engine sensor module docked in the ship, which carries the three 2.5kt sensors that would have otherwise been on the capital one. It does only work though if the module is released and then tractored. In this smaller setting, the lifetime is enlarged even with few engineering sections, and I can always rewind the clock by docking it for while.
It was an experiment here though, and I will roll back to use cheaper sensors again instead, until the engine technology catches up to at least one level below actives (gives more MSP). Reason is that I had to witness that active sensor ships seem to always get targeted first, even with an overwhelmingly powerful thermal signature next to it.(and I only have 1 armor on the modules) This results in some awkward dance where I need to dock the ship in time to hide from missile fire, and then launch a Shiroge to still maintain sight on missiles... . Not a very elegant solution. I really should have given the two at least the size 1 sensors to prevent the dependance on fighters... .
But well, there is a refit for both after the maiden voyage anyway, because the energy weapons aren't on TL7 range yet.