Aurora 4x

C# Fiction => Zap0's Fiction => Topic started by: Triato on June 05, 2020, 02:25:21 PM

Title: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Triato on June 05, 2020, 02:25:21 PM
Finally the chinese are having some luck!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Froggiest1982 on September 12, 2020, 09:50:48 PM
A 5d increment takes about 20s time to process for me at current.

You have many empires, so many civilians. In my game I have turn the time back to 5/7 secs by purging them plus another thing I left at the end. So I keep around only civilian companies with a decent amount of ships and get the rid of the others. For instance I had an average of 5 civvies per race (3 in total) and I kept only the biggest per race plus another race I kept a second one because strangely there werent enough freighters in the big company. Both lagging and zooming issues were sorted in many systems as well.

I have also removed all other games and kept only the one I was playing. But this helped most with loading times as these were getting pretty long as well (around the minute versus 30/40 secs after the purge).

You can try to see if works for you by copying the database as backup, do the procudure and save.

Beware: First save will still be a long one, maybe longer.

Finally I have been playing on HDD and want to move to SSD and see if there will be increase in performances as I suspect there should be at least in saving/loading but not processing, that should still land on CPU shoulders.

EDIT: you will encounter a non threatening bug http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11565.msg139813#msg139813
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Black on September 13, 2020, 11:58:06 AM
A 5d increment takes about 20s time to process for me at current.
Finally I have been playing on HDD and want to move to SSD and see if there will be increase in performances as I suspect there should be at least in saving/loading but not processing, that should still land on CPU shoulders.

EDIT: you will encounter a non threatening bug http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11565.msg139813#msg139813

Save times are definitely shorter with SSD in comparison with normal HDD, but turn time in my games was not affected. I even played from flash drive and only difference were long save times.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on September 13, 2020, 07:25:59 PM
You have many empires, so many civilians.

SO MANY civilians. Over 37m tons of civilian shipping. The Chinese have not just one, but two lines with a hundred ships in them!
The universe being alive with activity is nice, but I actively fear getting the human empires into a war with another where they start targeting each others civilians or having an NPR prey on their shipping, as there are just so many ships to chew through.

The slowdown is still bearable to me, I'm sure it wouldn't if this was still VB6 Aurora. If it gets longer than I'm willing to tolerate I'll look into cutting down on the number of civvies. Is it really just as easy as deleting a line and all the associated ships will vanish with it, or would the ships need to be deleted individually?

Save and load times are in the same ballpark of ~20s with my fast SSD. The db file has expanded itself to 94MB now.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Froggiest1982 on September 14, 2020, 03:02:09 AM
You have many empires, so many civilians.
Is it really just as easy as deleting a line and all the associated ships will vanish with it, or would the ships need to be deleted individually?

Yep, just as easy as that. You can try it out without saving.

At least they disappear from any view. I don't know if they remain in the database idle though. For that, you should have a look in there. Anyway, as long as they are gone I don't really care what happens behind the scenes.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: lochmere on September 15, 2020, 02:35:25 PM
Hey really love the series and your writing! Just had a question from a gameplay point of view:

How much do you actually play in this game vs observe? I think I saw in an earlier post you were playing as the Argentinians since they were struggling the most, but do you actually play like one normally would in Aurora or just intervene sparingly?

I was thinking of doing my own version of a multi NPR on Earth start, seems like a fun experience just watching the AI develop and act on their own.  Can't wait for the next write up!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on September 15, 2020, 04:00:54 PM
It's nice to hear that people are reading and enjoying my story, thanks!

In a sense, I do all playing and no observing: All six human empires are player races. It's a little like playing six games in parallel. The event log is set to show events for all races (an SM option) and I react to whatever happens with whatever empire is affected. The Xining and all other aliens are NPRs on the other hand, I can't look at what they're doing.

Having an NPR on Earth really limits the way you can interact with them - either you'll be friendly or it's all-out war. Witnessing NPR-NPR interactions can be really cool however, like with that alien conflict the PRL just stumbled into.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: TheTalkingMeowth on September 18, 2020, 08:39:07 AM
FYI: it is not currently possible to actually use captured alien missiles. They can only be scrapped for resources.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on September 18, 2020, 12:15:31 PM
FYI: it is not currently possible to actually use captured alien missiles. They can only be scrapped for resources.

It does appear so. But I am a magician!

Or at least somebody with DB access. Distributing the missiles between the empires required some DB editing too. In order to make them usable I then also added the missile to every empire's tech list. That means they now show up in the ordnance selection screens like any race-designed missile - and can be built like one too. I'll be refraining from building any more of them, unless I want to role-play that they got fully reverse-engineered at some point.

That's probably the most "invasive" DB edit I've done. Other edits I've done:

Did you SM Luna as Jungle in the last AAR? Just out of curiosity

No, they just moved all their terraformers away to Mars and then Sheng Yúe in Santa María when Luna became habitable. They specifically built a few more terraformers recently to change the terrain of Luna. If I'm understanding the mechanics right there was a chance it could have been any of several terrain types, and I changed the temperature specifically to be above the minimum required for jungles. Mars was also trying the same, but Mars is already Prairie and I don't think I can change the terrain without giving the planet a CC cost again. Everyone still has infrastructure there, but it'd seem like a step back, so I won't do it.
Terrain rules post: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104912#msg104912 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104912#msg104912)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Black on September 18, 2020, 12:50:07 PM
You should be able to change terrain of Mars if you increase water coverage or change temperature. Some terrains have 25% or 30% water coverage requirement or 20-25°C temperature requirement. Terrain can change if you cross these thresholds.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on September 18, 2020, 01:04:51 PM
You should be able to change terrain of Mars if you increase water coverage or change temperature. Some terrains have 25% or 30% water coverage requirement or 20-25°C temperature requirement. Terrain can change if you cross these thresholds.

You say every time it crosses those thresholds there's a chance it rerolls? Mars is already above 30% water, I've attached the current environment screen.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Black on September 18, 2020, 02:07:34 PM
I checked again and in your situation it seems you are stuck because there are some limitations for terrain change and for Prairie there is no upper limit for water coverage. I was mistaken in this as I thought that there was a limit for Prairie, sorry about the confusion.

In your case you would need to get above 50°C and go back down to change the terrain.

Edit: I suppose you could go below 0°C (Prairie has minimum temperature requirement of 0°C) that should force the terrain re-roll to Taiga or Steppe and still keep the colony cost at 0
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on October 24, 2020, 03:38:26 PM
Having gotten up to date on this I wanted to say that I'm enjoying this quite a bit.    Really liking the colonial-era style of limited flare-ups between the powers instead of all-out galactic war, although things keep escalating with each incident and I can't help wondering what will happen first - massive war between humans or an alien invasion?

With the Consortium now establishing what is basically a puppet state from the ex-EU Martian colony, I can't help but wonder how the PRL will respond as their chief competitor Will they continue looking to other systems or maybe consider the value of tightening their own control of the solar system?

I'm curious, by the way: how do you work out what will happen during some of the incidents and other clashes? Sometimes it's easy - ram two fleets together and see what happens - but I'm thinking of examples where one side sets a trap with an obvious bait and the main fleet hidden in deep space.    As the player you have to decide when it's reasonable or not that the other side would "fall for it", do you have an approach for this or is the decision based on whatever makes the most interesting story and/or most exciting space combat?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on October 24, 2020, 09:22:23 PM
Race to the Stars is the best C# fiction imo.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Froggiest1982 on October 24, 2020, 09:48:51 PM
Having gotten up to date on this I wanted to say that I'm enjoying this quite a bit.    Really liking the colonial-era style of limited flare-ups between the powers instead of all-out galactic war, although things keep escalating with each incident and I can't help wondering what will happen first - massive war between humans or an alien invasion?

With the Consortium now establishing what is basically a puppet state from the ex-EU Martian colony, I can't help but wonder how the PRL will respond as their chief competitor Will they continue looking to other systems or maybe consider the value of tightening their own control of the solar system?

I'm curious, by the way: how do you work out what will happen during some of the incidents and other clashes? Sometimes it's easy - ram two fleets together and see what happens - but I'm thinking of examples where one side sets a trap with an obvious bait and the main fleet hidden in deep space.    As the player you have to decide when it's reasonable or not that the other side would "fall for it", do you have an approach for this or is the decision based on whatever makes the most interesting story and/or most exciting space combat?

You know Aurora helps you a lot with this.

First of all every empire has only their limited vision. So you as player do you what is out there or what your general strategy is but the race you control does not. So galaxy map not same, if you dont fly over a colony you won't know there is one. Detection, class recognition etc.

Regarding decision making there is the RP component but also you could use the traits of the leading officer to set the story. So an impulsive pr aggressive captain will fall into the trap while a cautious or suspicious one migh send in some scouts.

The key is discipline, you should act as you are playing alone against AI or you could go for what creates the most interesting setup considering the story you want to tell.

Sometimes the story writes itself as the more info you add the more you will have to stick to the past events and so on.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on October 25, 2020, 12:44:27 AM
Having gotten up to date on this I wanted to say that I'm enjoying this quite a bit.    Really liking the colonial-era style of limited flare-ups between the powers instead of all-out galactic war, although things keep escalating with each incident and I can't help wondering what will happen first - massive war between humans or an alien invasion?

Limited conflict and competition between the powers is something I also enjoy. So far no power has found it necessary to target anothers civilians or commercial ships, for instance, so they were always left alone. Skirmishes over mining outposts or dubious claims in outer space are one thing, but total war at home is rarely justified. That's also something you can't get when interacting with NPRs and the mechanics of Aurora sometimes make it difficult to simulate a limited conflict. For instance in order to start a ground war you need to set the other race as hostile, which starts ground fighting on every body where you and the enemy both have a colony (this is the real reason why Argentina invaded Russia during the first Machholz incident). If a situation comes up where I want to start ground fighting between two powers on one body but not on Earth or other unrelated colonies I'll either skip it and just delete one side if it's clearly inferior or simulate the fighting by recreating the forces in a different game or something.

More serious conflict or Galactic War is something better suited to multi-system empires that don't all share one planet where the majority of their industry is located. The powers which have moved off of Earth are more likely to enter a larger war, a trend which will continue if industrial centers move out of Sol and further away from another.

As for what the future holds, who knows? I hear Russia was preparing to invade Venus :D
One thing I want to do is a summary once the governments stabilize again after this last crisis, it's been a while since we had a comparison and laid out the agenda for each power.

With the Consortium now establishing what is basically a puppet state from the ex-EU Martian colony, I can't help but wonder how the PRL will respond as their chief competitor Will they continue looking to other systems or maybe consider the value of tightening their own control of the solar system?

Not much has changed for the PRL in the overall strategic situation. The Consortium now has even more mines and population on Mars, but that doesn't really matter as they were already mining more than they could use of Mars's products (Corundium and Duranium). It's going to become interesting once the Consortium gains an interest in serious extrasolar exploitation as their 0.5 Gallicite Comet in Sol is not going to last them forever.
The option of an eventual direct assault on Mars has gained and lost some appeal. Gained some because the EU is now eliminated as a power to potentially take issue with an attack on the planet and lost some because the Consortium now has full control over the world, including some defected STO defense guns from the EU, with no other power having a foothold.

I'm curious, by the way: how do you work out what will happen during some of the incidents and other clashes? Sometimes it's easy - ram two fleets together and see what happens - but I'm thinking of examples where one side sets a trap with an obvious bait and the main fleet hidden in deep space.    As the player you have to decide when it's reasonable or not that the other side would "fall for it",
The key is discipline, you should act as you are playing alone against AI or you could go for what creates the most interesting setup considering the story you want to tell.

I practice discipline in the details of engagements but larger decisions and kicking off a campaign in the first place are role-played, pushing the story in a direction I want to go. I've always wanted a colonial nation to split off from a central government, for instance :)

Often I have an idea for a scenario which I think might be interesting and then check to see if it's possible or plausible, for instance by checking the intel records of a given empire to see if they have the necessary information required for something. That may be something like the assault on Procyon's Rest, where the PRL had info on the nature of the Qian stations due to having encountered them before.
In general I roleplay the human powers as knowing where each others colonies are as you wouldn't be able to keep their existence or location secret if a civilian or a large enough military population is present. They also have at least a general idea about the capabilities of each others vessels, if no exact numbers. They all do spy on each other and analyse the footage and readings of the others ships, which is not hard to do as most assets are stationed permanently in inner Sol.

As for situations where one side is baiting or ambushing another I do check their respective intel and make estimates based on the information they have available. Does one side know the location of the others ships? At what ranges can one expect the opponent to detect your own ships? How far away does this fleet have to stay from a body to avoid detection by a single DSTS? Do I expect to have a speed advantage, giving me the option of disengaging?
There are a few situations where such information has made a difference. For instance, the fleets stationed in deep space in the first and third Machholz incident were not detected by the opposing force prematurely, their estimates about how far away to stay to avoid detection but be close enough to respond to a situation worked out.

Then there was the confrontation between the Russian navy and parts of the PRL fleet when they were racing to colonize what is now Novokutznetsk, the PRL commander calculated that he could not safely absorb a volley based on prior experience with Russian missile effectiveness. Some consideration for them firing being just a bluff or not later, he stepped down and turned around. I think the commander here also was a considerate type or something along those lines, which is something else I look up when considering such decisions. Which ships did or didn't desert during the independence war was also informed by commander origin and personality (and I may be guilty of picking exactly the ships that would desert to join the task force sent to retake Taíno. ;) There was actually a second Taíno-born commander in that group, also commanding a destroyer. However the conditions I set for her defection never occured, I imagined her to be more reluctant due to personality.)

The whole Salto ambush in the independence war was also interesting here, the EU *did* actually have a listening post with 10 DSTS in the system supposed to prevent exactly such a scenario, only it's orbit put it on the farthest point from the Sol JP. There it wasn't strong enough to detect the 680 thermal Taíno destroyer squadron heading towards the JP or the 475 thermal Consortium frigates leaving the Salto colony. The other powers don't know the EU operates that listening post and they would absolutely have reacted differently and not jumped in there if they'd detected them. In order to determine if the ambush was possible at all it was necessary to calculate if the ships could make it there before the EU task group made it to the JP. They could, but only because they were escorting a very slow troop transport.

(https://i.imgur.com/8ez3leM.png)
During the ambush the listening post was closer to where LP1 is currently. Unfortunately we can't select the detection radius for arbitrary signatures anymore.

do you have an approach for this or is the decision based on whatever makes the most interesting story and/or most exciting space combat?

I typically do have a direction or a few options in mind for the story to go and do accept results based on the outcome of battles, but I'm at least somewhat guilty for orchestrating events to go in the direction I want. I was, for one thing, totally expecting the Martian navy to be inferior to the EU fleet and wanted the independence war not to just be a single battle. So I decided the EU would try and go after the Taíno colony first, which weakened them for the final battle. I justified that a bit with that they didn't have the political will for a frontal assault, which in turn fits as I gave them political waffling and indecisiveness as a trait.
Every power has their own personality which influences how they approach things.

Race to the Stars is the best C# fiction imo.

Awww, thanks <3 It's nice for me to hear you guys are reading my story, it helps keep me going.

As for the future, I've taken a break from Aurora for the past couple weeks. With 1.12 out now there's a temptation to start a new game, but I've got this one in an interesting position with several established empires. Despite all the fixes I don't think there's anything in there that I really can't live without. There's a chance of spaceships in the near future 8)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on October 25, 2020, 03:20:47 AM
Quote from: Zap0 link=topic=11602. msg142238#msg142238 date=1603604667

For instance in order to start a ground war you need to set the other race as hostile, which starts ground fighting on every body where you and the enemy both have a colony (this is the real reason why Argentina invaded Russia during the first Machholz incident).  If a situation comes up where I want to start ground fighting between two powers on one body but not on Earth or other unrelated colonies I'll either skip it and just delete one side if it's clearly inferior or simulate the fighting by recreating the forces in a different game or something.
I might be wrong, but can't you prevent this by setting the ground units to front line defense instead of attack before turning hostile? Or, if you don't have any heavy bombardment elements, setting all of them to the rear would do the job too.  Obviously against the NPR this is politely termed suicide, but here you get to be in charge of both sides and prevent unseemly sneak attacks (or not?).

Quote from: Zap0 link=topic=11602. msg142238#msg142238 date=1603604667
As for what the future holds, who knows? I hear Russia was preparing to invade Venus
I was expecting that! And then we got all of these diversions instead. . .

Quote from: Zap0 link=topic=11602. msg142238#msg142238 date=1603604667
One thing I want to do is a summary once the governments stabilize again after this last crisis, it's been a while since we had a comparison and laid out the agenda for each power.
I do appreciate detailed summaries from time to time.  It may help keep the pace to summarize nations as-needed, i. e.  if a nation is about to take a big action then recap the situation to draw out the root causes.  Similar to what you did with Russia a few posts earlier which was quite a nice and well-situated recap.

Quote from: Zap0 link=topic=11602. msg142238#msg142238 date=1603604667
However the conditions I set for her defection never occured, I imagined her to be more reluctant due to personality. )
I look forward to seeing if this comes back to haunt the EU later on. . .

Quote from: Zap0 link=topic=11602. msg142238#msg142238 date=1603604667
As for the future, I've taken a break from Aurora for the past couple weeks.  With 1. 12 out now there's a temptation to start a new game, but I've got this one in an interesting position with several established empires.  Despite all the fixes I don't think there's anything in there that I really can't live without.  There's a chance of spaceships in the near future
Other than bug fixes and QOL the big improvement was ground unit series and auto-reinforcements, which don't seem to be a likely concern here for quite a while (and it's not like people couldn't play the last 11 versions without unit series anyways).  I for one certainly vote for the continuation!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Warer on October 26, 2020, 10:57:12 AM
Adana-class Frigate Pixel Art
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50533420141_ed54d47f26_o.png) (https://flic.kr/p/2jZsZfv)Adana-class Frigate EU 5x (https://flic.kr/p/2jZsZfv) by warer war (https://www.flickr.com/photos/190773322@N05/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on October 27, 2020, 11:14:17 PM
Like the picture! That's one of the original Adana A types with five guns :D The Adana may just well be the most common human warship design.

I might be wrong, but can't you prevent this by setting the ground units to front line defense instead of attack before turning hostile? Or, if you don't have any heavy bombardment elements, setting all of them to the rear would do the job too.  Obviously against the NPR this is politely termed suicide, but here you get to be in charge of both sides and prevent unseemly sneak attacks (or not?).
Unfortunately they attack each other without being specifically set to frontline attack, just being on frontline defense they also fire. On attack they just try for breakthroughs, lose their fortification but get some other modifiers, I think?
Setting them to rear guard might work, I think only one or two nations have heavy bombardment even researched.

Another note, I've applied for a subforum on the board, so I'll be moving the thread there. There'll be a seperate comments thread and threads for whatever else comes up. As a first thing I'll post a thread for ship designs, I've avoided posting too many designs in here so they don't clutter up the story, but it may be nice to know how they compare against another.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Warer on October 28, 2020, 07:45:51 AM
I love the naming scheme, has good definition and ambiguity to it. Might do more art of the other ships later, thanks for giving them their own thread so i don`t have to search around.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on October 28, 2020, 09:51:10 AM
I like what you have done with the place. This will make reading easier. :) Thanks for posting designs.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on November 02, 2020, 06:12:34 AM
Do you think the Terra Prime movement will prove popular with all the abandoned peoples of Earth? Both American continents have been abandoned in favour of space, Europe is in chaos and Russia is soon to abandon its people for space too. I can't imagine the people of China are too happy with their situation either. Add in India and Africa, you either have a massive population of many billions working together to survive, or they all go to war with each other and Earth becomes a wasteland. Fun!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on November 02, 2020, 12:15:54 PM
Perhaps from an ideological perspective, but I doubt it materializes into a real independence faction/movement.  Simply put, there's nothing left on Terra to support a TN nation, one-world-government or otherwise.  All the resources are dried or drying up, the TN facilities are being whisked away by their owners, at most maybe you see something similar to the last independence war with some ships defecting but how would they support a space navy for more than a couple of years?

Probably the best hope for the peoples of Earth will be to remain members of their respective nations, so as to at least be involved in something resembling a functional TN government and keep raising a stink about this in their "national" governments every so often to get some governmental goodies thrown their way.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on November 21, 2020, 07:56:17 AM
Some comments on this installment (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11602.msg143313#msg143313):

It's been three weeks since the last post already, wow. Writing the Independence War took a lot and when the fighting here started I found it difficult to stay in the game for more than a short while. The key was to just start writing stuff down, once I started the story just wrote itself.

This is not the first time I've had a pop surrender to the wrong empire. When I was transferring colonies from the EU to the Taíno government I did it by evacuating all ground forces from them and having them be "invaded" in a single turn of fighting. Except the asteroid colony of Número Ocho in Santa María actually ended up in the hands of the PRL! Sure, they also have a mining outpost on the body, but they weren't involved in any fighting.

This time and before I took the suggestion of assigning all units on bodies not supposed to be involved in fighting (mainly Earth) to Rear Echelon. It's working beautifully. Now nobody is allowed to deploy heavy artillery for my convenience!

To give another impression of the difficulties in playing Aurora: When RUS finally conquered Venus, the entirety of Japanese colony shipping surrendered to them in addition to the orbital habitats. They were in orbit as I was trying to move people off of Venus before because of the problems they had with 0% manufacturing sector. To avoid clutter I usually don't show civilians on the map, so I wasn't expecting that. Fortunately I had a save just a day before (expecting surprises on colony transfer) and was able to redo without that happening.

The Venus War made my save file grow by 23MB. The massive number of ground combat logs generated is the cause, I'm guessing. it's 169MB total now. I'll have to try wiping the logs to see if it improves load/save times.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Garfunkel on November 21, 2020, 12:46:55 PM
It will. And thanks for sharing the experiences here, it'll definitely help me out later!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Droll on November 21, 2020, 01:09:59 PM
The Venus War made my save file grow by 23MB. The massive number of ground combat logs generated is the cause, I'm guessing. it's 169MB total now. I'll have to try wiping the logs to see if it improves load/save times.

How do you go about wiping such logs? I'm not necessarily just asking about ground combat logs but any sort of useless unnecessary log in general since I imagine this is also affecting my save as well now.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: TheTalkingMeowth on November 21, 2020, 01:49:20 PM
Gotta edit the DB. The relevant table is FCT_GameLog.

I've been using DBBrowser for SQLite. If I get a chance later I will post the SQL to remove most of the ground combat stuff from the event logs. It doesn't get everything because I didn't identify all the relevant event types. It can also be easily modified to remove any other clutter event; just change the event type.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Droll on November 21, 2020, 04:03:48 PM
Ok so using SQLiteStudio I've done this so far for officer related events which works wonderfully:

Code: [Select]
delete from FCT_Gamelog
where (EventType = 129 or
       EventType = 90 or
       EventType = 291 or
       EventType = 98 or
       EventType = 42 or
       EventType = 296 or
       EventType = 292 or
       EventType = 99 or
       EventType = 256 or
       EventType = 257) and
       GameID = 38;

Warning: Your GameID might not be the same as mine so should be checked.
Warning: "EventType = 42" is not related to officers and instead refers to failed standing orders which I also wanted to remove.
The officer events refer to reassignments, promotions, health, retirement and the various events that fire when a specific type of officer is recruited.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: TheTalkingMeowth on November 21, 2020, 04:47:01 PM
Ground combat events types are in the low 300s.

Not exhaustive: 301,302,304,306,307,308

Not sure what 305 is
303 is losses summary, which I've been choosing not to delete.

304 is by far the most common; IIRC it is the GU element vs GU element event. So it grows as the square of the # of elements involved.

Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Droll on November 21, 2020, 05:31:15 PM
Ground combat events types are in the low 300s.

Not exhaustive: 301,302,304,306,307,308

Not sure what 305 is
303 is losses summary, which I've been choosing not to delete.

304 is by far the most common; IIRC it is the GU element vs GU element event. So it grows as the square of the # of elements involved.

75 fires when a population doesn't surrender to ground forces
106 is related to general combat intelligence (ground units and space ships)
299 is related to breakthroughs
305 is related to OBS results
309 is related to OBS summaries
314 is related to ground combat hostile size estimation
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on November 21, 2020, 07:39:18 PM
I suspect that the Japanese will be the next of the powers to collapse into nothingness at this rate. Unless there is some gallicite in Grand Bourg they are crippled, even Taino will not struggle to win the fight for Comet #2 because the Japanese ships will be stranded in their home ports or else crippled by the next maintenance failure.

Argentina is similarly in deep trouble but I think they will hang around until the next major military setback and then the Earth section of their government will also collapse.

That would seem to leave us with the PRL and Consortium as the two superpowers in the galaxy with ex-Russia struggling to claw its way closer to parity. I imagine some proxy wars in the future as both sides fight an influence war over the smaller independent factions as well as the remnants of collapsed factions. We may be heading towards a Galactic Cold War which should be very interesting to see especially as there are still plenty of aliens running around causing problems as well.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on November 21, 2020, 09:53:22 PM
I agree, Japan is in a bad state. I foresee populations on Earth being used in a similar manner as the neutral factions you can create. Just pull colonists from the struggling states of Earth and send them to a new life elsewhere.

I think the PRL has a head start in the galactic cold war, but the Martian Consortium has allies they helped get independence, they might step in to help fight the PRL.

Thanks for adding another excellent instalment to this fiction. :) 
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on November 26, 2020, 01:20:40 PM
Some comments on this installment (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11602.msg143580#msg143580):

I've been debating responding to the speculation about the future of the powers, especially as I may see things differently and am always afraid I don't communicate the state they are in accurately. For instance with the question of another empire emerging from the EU's ashes: There's still a lot of industry and minerals on Earth, and even Gallicite income from the Hambach asteroid mining complex in Bremen. Generally I decided I want the campaign updates do the talking in regards to what may happen in the future, but I wanted to clarify that one.

The image I have of Earth after the fall of the EU is a little like the chaos in central and eastern Europe after WW1, not necessarily all-out warfare between states with millions of soldiers, but more that of a lot of internal and external strife. Governments are weak and unstable, revolutions that last for weeks or months only, there's extremely punishing treaties enforced upon some nations, political and ethnic militias are causing troubles inside and outside of borders and there's a big, scary new ideology that some of the remaining powers desperately want to contain.

Life in the less turbulent areas of Earth, like North America, I imagine a bit like in the opening of Blade Runner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZNzz4SaTYk): Crowded, with the impoverished masses trying to make a living, and often trying to make that living elsewhere.
"A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!"

Todays installment of #AuroraWoes:

When Japan abandoned the Russian occupation I moved the pop and remaining facilities from the Russian Earth pop into the pot of the Earth nations. Then I deleted their Earth colony, which was something that already caused issues when I did the same with the US/Mars a long time back. The problem is that each load of cargo in a civilian ship saves it's originating colony (the destinations got wiped just fine), causing the reference to break. This caused errors when those ships tried to unload their cargo, as the wealth for the shipping trip could not be calculated. As the function in question (2788 for cargo and 2790 for colonists) aborts, the cargo stays on the ship, which causes problems when the ship then goes and tries to load up something else. That was also the point at which I found the issue, there were scores of Russian civilian ships loaded with infrastructure from Earth, I presume, trying to load up facilities for a contract. The real issue here was that the game wouldn't save anymore with the broken references present, as the save function for the ship cargo table (1462) would also error out. Consequently I've not saved the game and just kept it running since I wrapped up the Venus War last week. Until I fixed the issue by deleting all the Russian civilian freighters with leftover loads of infrastructure, anyway.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on November 26, 2020, 07:50:56 PM
You should send messages to Steve every post containing all your #aurorawoes. I imagine having a fix for this issue could be easy enough.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on November 26, 2020, 10:48:34 PM
I've been debating responding to the speculation about the future of the powers, especially as I may see things differently and am always afraid I don't communicate the state they are in accurately. For instance with the question of another empire emerging from the EU's ashes: There's still a lot of industry and minerals on Earth, and even Gallicite income from the Hambach asteroid mining complex in Bremen. Generally I decided I want the campaign updates do the talking in regards to what may happen in the future, but I wanted to clarify that one.

Personally I would say not to worry too much about how "accurately" the state of the nations/powers is communicated. For the commentators after all, the fog of war is what really fuels speculation. While a side note or correction like this one is occasionally advisable to clarify matters of fact, as the author you need not for example confirm which of the powers is likely to rise or fall next in line as we speculate, but you could even encourage such speculation with mysterious comments and things left unsaid.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on November 27, 2020, 01:38:40 AM
You should send messages to Steve every post containing all your #aurorawoes. I imagine having a fix for this issue could be easy enough.

I used to make a bunch of bug reports, but they only selectively get fixed. I'm not sure if it was because I said I modified the DB in some cases, but replicating issues isn't always easy and I'm still using 1.11, having managed to stave off the urge to upgrade to a newer version. Steve doesn't work to fix issues just for me, and I have accepted that playing Aurora in a longer or more complex game means running into issues and needing to work around them. Even if Steve wanted to give full attention to my issues, any fixes would still not apply to the current game.

Personally I would say not to worry too much about how "accurately" the state of the nations/powers is communicated. For the commentators after all, the fog of war is what really fuels speculation. While a side note or correction like this one is occasionally advisable to clarify matters of fact, as the author you need not for example confirm which of the powers is likely to rise or fall next in line as we speculate, but you could even encourage such speculation with mysterious comments and things left unsaid.

Thanks, seeing it that way lets me not worry too much :-)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on December 22, 2020, 09:25:45 PM
First, just as an aside given the time between updates I have a hard time remembering the acronyms for each power in some cases. Maybe the first time a power is mentioned in an update, the full name could be used, and then the abbreviated form thereafter?

A broad coalition to oppose the Terra Prime states has formed on Earth. The movement is amassing power at an unprecedented rate, winning many of the smaller conflicts that still rage on Earth and starting yet more. Offworld support for the new coalition is there, but largely limited to moral, not material, support.

I'm curious to see if this coalition or Terra Prime for that matter will actually have the ability to become major players, given their Earthboundedness and the rather declining state of mining capabilities on Earth and more generally in Sol.

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With it's navy back in shape and enough leftover supplies to restart the exploration program, the Japanese government launches a long-overdue expedition into the Grand Bourg JP. Two exploration cruisers are sent in with orders to make diplomatic contact and find out more about the aliens and the connecting system. Shortly after activating it's transponder the first ship in Wakayama, the system connected to Grand Bourg, receives a message from the Sukabumi aliens using the old code established during the Christmas Miracle. They quite politely suggest the Japanese ship leave the system as they consider it part of their territory - a fact substantiated by the message apparently originating from the Grand Bourg JP, suggesting they have surveillance in place there. The second explorer entering confirms a known Sukabumi jump ship on the JP.
Much unlike expected, the Taiyo was unable to find any evidence of alien colonization on the habitable worlds of the Wakayama system. The planets themselves are of only low mineral value, having low accessibility across the board, with the best find being 0.3 accessibility Gallicite on planet III. They would still be prime colonization targets, with very minor atmospheric adjustments both worlds are ideally habitable for Humans.

Japan may be poking a bear here, sending exploration ships into the system after being asked to leave. A risky play given the system is right next to their primary non-terran colony...

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Aside from a small-scale experiment in the Consortium, the two 500kt "Atmosphere Generator" terraforming stations now being towed into orbit are the first such stations built by Humanity and promise to finally make Shèng Yùe as pleasant a place to live as Callisto, and eventually Luna, within a reasonable timeframe.

Wow. Go big or go home! Those are some huge space stations by just about any standard, though candidly I wonder if the size is largely for bragging rights and building 3-5 smaller stations for reach big one might have been a better choice in the long run for strategic flexibility, given that once you're in the 100s kT range the tonnage impact of splitting a larger station into smaller ones is rather negligible. But bragging rights are good too!

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A Callistoan explorer makes first contact with a new alien species. Ten ships are detected via their shield signatures holding position on an outbound JP towards a partially explored system. Not carrying active sensors, the ship's captain turns around without investigating further. Ten ships with active shields suggests a military operation is underway.

Not sure from the maps, but this seems rather far from the Grand Bourg/Wakayama systems. Suggesting a JP link hidden just behind the frontiers...

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Having seen large-scale alien warfare it is their ambition to be Humanity's shield against the alien forces, knowing their strength can't be matched by scattered Human national flotillas.

This sounds like a good way to get into an all-out galactic war with some NPR and then get sucker-punched from behind by some upstart ex-Terran nations while their navy is tied up.

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Control over a large civilian population on Earth is being maintained, although deliberately without any important infrastructure on the surface. The PRL has been, perhaps rightfully, accused of maintaining it's control over the Earth population only as a political tool to justify stationing ships, weapons and troops on Earth to threaten the other powers.
The PRL maintains a presence in Santa María, the INL's home system. The moon colony of Shèng Yùe orbits the fifth planet, a Sorium source, and itself is a long-term source of several minerals. Exploitation rates have been relatively low, especially as the terraforming project has gotten nowhere to date. That is being corrected, and the mines on Shèng Yùe should prove to be one of the pillars of the PRL economy in the future. It is no secret that the INL would prefer it's home system to be free of influence from other powers, but the minor power would not dare challenge the PRL. Several asteroids in the system, most importantly Número Ocho, are home to mining operations of both the INL and PRL, with the former often griping about the greater mining capacities of the latter depleting bodies fast and leaving them little leftover.

And there's a couple of potential conflict points right there. Also worth noting the ominous potential for the rise of the Terra Prime or anti-TP coalition which might take offense at the PRL maintaining a presence on and around "their" planet.

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The exploitation of the Quanzhou system. Also known as Petropavlovsk by it's Russian name, the system is the site of the first encounter between Humanity and the Qian. In 2103 a large PRL fleet failed in destroying the Qian base in the system. What is not known to the other powers sans the Callistoan Regime is the rich mineral wealth on outlying bodies that initial scouts reported from the system. The main problem during the fighting were heavy emplaced weapons on the surface of Quanzhou VI, to which no counter has been found as of yet. As such, the plan is to neutralize the mobile Qian vessels in the system but leaving the static emplacements intact, allowing exploitation of the rest of the system. There is some risk involved in leaving some Qian forces operational or the system may turn out to be less valuable than expected, but these risks are considered acceptable.

If a distance from the planet needs to be maintained, this sounds like a good job for a missile doctrine fleet such as the PRL has built up. A ripe opportunity here.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on December 23, 2020, 07:30:31 AM
Ohh, thanks for the detailed comments! I'll respond to a selection.

First, just as an aside given the time between updates I have a hard time remembering the acronyms for each power in some cases. Maybe the first time a power is mentioned in an update, the full name could be used, and then the abbreviated form thereafter?

Fair enough, I'll make an effort to include the proper names more often. I already try to make a point to mention, for example, that Shèng Yùe is the PRL's moon colony in Santa María, instead of just using the name, I can't expect people to remember every minor colony/system/class I've named.

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Japan may be poking a bear here, sending exploration ships into the system after being asked to leave. A risky play given the system is right next to their primary non-terran colony...

They might be! But the aliens are only asking quite politely, and as far as we can tell, they don't even have any colonies on those planets... Mouths may be watering at the prospect of such colonization targets, especially if the rest of the empires don't know the location of the JP leading there.

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Aside from a small-scale experiment in the Consortium, the two 500kt "Atmosphere Generator" terraforming stations now being towed into orbit are the first such stations built by Humanity and promise to finally make Shèng Yùe as pleasant a place to live as Callisto, and eventually Luna, within a reasonable timeframe.

Wow. Go big or go home! Those are some huge space stations by just about any standard, though candidly I wonder if the size is largely for bragging rights and building 3-5 smaller stations for reach big one might have been a better choice in the long run for strategic flexibility, given that once you're in the 100s kT range the tonnage impact of splitting a larger station into smaller ones is rather negligible. But bragging rights are good too!

They're definitely big for bragging rights. Gotta show the others what the might of Lunar industry is capable of! Gameplay-wise it makes sense to have fewer, larger stations to make better use of commander terraforming modifiers. At the end of the day they're only twice as big as the old EU asteroid mining stations and carry 20 terraforming modules each, so it's not an overkill amount of terraforming power.

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Having seen large-scale alien warfare it is their ambition to be Humanity's shield against the alien forces, knowing their strength can't be matched by scattered Human national flotillas.

This sounds like a good way to get into an all-out galactic war with some NPR and then get sucker-punched from behind by some upstart ex-Terran nations while their navy is tied up.

Hubris and arrogance may well be in their personality as well :D
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on December 23, 2020, 08:35:19 PM
That summary for the PRL was very good. Are you going to be doing something similar for the other powers?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on December 23, 2020, 09:34:24 PM
I'm planning on doing all of them, just not all at once. In fact, I just posted the Japanese one! All at once would be a bit much to read and a bit much for me to write, I figure.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on December 24, 2020, 02:40:52 AM
It's probably easier to do the updates when a nation comes somewhat to the fore of the story than to try and force a regular cycle. For example the Consortium has been quiet lately, so maybe when events begin to transpire in their corner of the galaxy a faction profile is a useful way to remember and get an update about the faction's status.

Speaking of updates...

Ignoring support ships, the task force sent is just two cruisers - the Agate and Amber Rabbit. Both of the Jade Rabbit class, designed and built partially in response to the experiences of the First Contact Battle in 2103, where ten destroyers were lost in a failed assault onto the Qian base there. The two ships being sent are not intended to destroy the whole Qian base - just the mobile warships that remain in the system. If they are destroyed, the static emplacements on the surface of the Qian's planet should prove no threat to mining and shipping operations elsewhere in the system anymore. As the Jade Rabbit class was built as a direct counter to the Qian forces encountered here, and in order to not weaken the military presence in Sol too much, the two ships are considered sufficient in light of the expected effective enemy tonnage being barely above that of one of the cruisers.

I might be a bit hazy on exactly how advanced Terran tech is relative to the Qian, but this seems like a Bad Idea™. Even if you do actually outmatch the enemy, why give them the chance to fight at closer to even odds? Surely the mighty PRL can spare a few escorts at least.

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The Qian ships are in orbit of their base. That means one of the gambits has already failed, it was hoped that the Qian would meet the warships in open space like they did the explorers they destroyed. Part of the reasoning behind not sending an overwhelming force was to provoke such behavior. Now, the targets are sitting under the umbrella of their powerful surface batteries. The operation is still a go, in light of the Jade Rabbit's heavy defenses, orders are to dive into range of the batteries and drive the warships out. An unlucky engine hit here could mean a ship stranded in hostile weapon range, however.

Clearly hubris is not lacking amongst the PRL captains. Already the plan is not working as hoped, and the forces committed are the worst combination of too light and too valuable. What 's the Chinese phrase for "Force Z" again?

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Near the planet close-in fire from the surface engulfs the Amber Rabbit, penetrating the armor together with the fire from the fleeing Qian warships. An engine, two engines fail. The captain makes the split-second decision to abort the charge across the planet and extract backwards, trying to put as much distance between the planet and the ship as possible. If he's to weather the next volley of the main surface batteries, he'll need it.

There it is.

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The next surface volley targets the Agate Rabbit, but it is too far to do much damage. At this point, the Agate Rabbit is free to chase the Qian ships down and further away from their protective umbrella, their own lasers not enough to bring down the strike cruiser. And so it is done, the Qian ships are defeated with the Agate Rabbit down to 78% armor.

A lucky finish. I'm not sure the Amber Rabbit would have survived the next volley, but the Qian split their attention trying to save their ships. The time to shoot at the Agate Rabbit was in the previous volley, hoping to hit the engines like they did the Amber Rabbit.

Nevertheless, a close-run thing and the damage should serve as a lesson...will the PRL learn from it?

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One of the Japanese explorers sent into Wakayama to investigate the Sukabumi aliens finds a jump point, and transits. There is no presence immediately on the other side of the JP, but what the initial system scan reveals is shocking: dozens, hundreds of wrecks, most of them with enough volume to have come from a destroyer or cruiser sized ship. Most of the debris is accumulated in orbit of the fourth planet, a marginally habitable terrestrial world. Evidently the site of a great battle. Some of the wreckage can be identified as belonging to the same types of ships encountered in Grand Bourg. Could this be the Sukabumi homeworld? The crew of the SRV Chiyoda transmits it's findings, steels itself, and heads for the lagrange point leading to the inner system.

Japan may be close to making the connection with a distant part of the galaxy here, at last.

Always fun to see the results of NPR v. NPR wars. Those really make the galaxy feel a little more alive and dangerous.

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The ship closes to 5m km, the maximum range of it's weak sensors, and indeed a population signature is detected, complete with industrial shipyards in orbit. No ships are in orbit, they might have left - fled - in the face of an approaching alien vessel with active sensors. Deciding not to overstay their welcome any longer, the Chiyoda begins it's trek back into Wakayama.

It's also possible that there are ships in orbit, with thermal signatures too low to be spotted at 5m km.

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The bright side is that the Sukabumi don't seem immediately threatening, but more reconnaissance to get a more accurate picture of their interstellar empire is necessary.

On one hand, the Sukabumi likely lack many ships to enforce any kind of threats they'd like to make. On the other hand, they could be technologically well ahead of the human nations and make up for a lack of quantity with high quality.

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Terra Prime already has the loyalty of the extant EU cruisers Kerberos and Pluto in orbit, which are still called upon occasionally to deliver orbital bombardment support during conflicts, so this new union may herald the rise of a new interstellar power.

This has the potential to be a game changer. The EU ships were never the worst, and all it takes is one nation struggling with a mineral shortage to be vulnerable in the moment.

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Japanese warships are high-tech miracles bristling with energy weapons and force fields. Kinetic weapons are looked upon with some disdain. Ships are constantly being upgraded and retrofitted to wield the most modern equipment, keeping outdated ships on the roster is not tolerated for long in the navy.
The backbone of the navy are 7 Tama-class attack destroyers, armed with long-range particle weapons and built with a speed slightly above that of other navies, particularly the PRL navy during it's inception.

Is Japan anywhere near to mounting Particle Lances at this stage? Combined with a speed advantage these would be devastating as long as a strong point defense/AMM capability is also maintained.

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Venus no longer has a Japanese presence, but was home to a population living in surface infrastructure and received several suborbital habitats, representing heavy investment. For the sake of recovering that investment, the civil population and the body's important deposits of Duranium and Gallicite, efforts are being made to reconquer the planet.

Oooh, plot hook...

Nice to see that Japan is able to recover from their critical maintenance problems and take an active role in the galactic dance. I still doubt they can stand up to the PRL, but they seem to have done a good job of getting out of everyone else's way, hopefully that will work out well for them in the long term. Let the PRL and Consortium whale on each other, maybe sneak in and take back Venus, but otherwise lay low and build a tech lead.

And then, Particle Lances for everybody!!  ;D
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on December 24, 2020, 09:19:06 AM
It's probably easier to do the updates when a nation comes somewhat to the fore of the story than to try and force a regular cycle.

That's the plan :D

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I might be a bit hazy on exactly how advanced Terran tech is relative to the Qian, but this seems like a Bad Idea™. Even if you do actually outmatch the enemy, why give them the chance to fight at closer to even odds? Surely the mighty PRL can spare a few escorts at least.

The PRL at least is actually close to matching Qian tech levels, usually just one tech level below. MP-drives are around the corner, too. Of course, the cruisers are the only ships that actually encorporate that near-matching technology right now and after the action I discovered that their fire controls were a generation out of date. Stuff like "I have the tech for new fire controls" is the kind of detail that eludes me when I put the game down for a few weeks... I keep notes, but they're not always that detailed.

As for the escorts: They considered it! Who knows, maybe there are different forces than expected and some missile defense ships would have been a good idea. The reason they didn't take any along was A) To present a force small enough that the Qian ships might come out and meet it in open space and B) Because the Qian ships have a higher speed than any other PRL warship. They would have to be left behind to chase the ships down, and if they're alone and the battle goes bad or a seperated Qian ship finds them they'll have a bad day. More cruisers could have covered them, I suppose.

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A lucky finish. I'm not sure the Amber Rabbit would have survived the next volley, but the Qian split their attention trying to save their ships. The time to shoot at the Agate Rabbit was in the previous volley, hoping to hit the engines like they did the Amber Rabbit.

Nevertheless, a close-run thing and the damage should serve as a lesson...will the PRL learn from it?

They also regretted not bringing more ships. In hindsight I'm not sure it'd have made a difference: if the ground batteries just kept shooting the same ship, the potential for loss would be the same. The small Qian ships popped easily enough under the fire of just one cruiser.

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Always fun to see the results of NPR v. NPR wars. Those really make the galaxy feel a little more alive and dangerous.

Agreed! Nothing quite like running across a massive alien graveyard. A few installments ago I complained about a few years being hard to play due to interrupts, this was the main cause of that.

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The ship closes to 5m km, the maximum range of it's weak sensors, and indeed a population signature is detected, complete with industrial shipyards in orbit. No ships are in orbit, they might have left - fled - in the face of an approaching alien vessel with active sensors. Deciding not to overstay their welcome any longer, the Chiyoda begins it's trek back into Wakayama.

It's also possible that there are ships in orbit, with thermal signatures too low to be spotted at 5m km.

Well, the orbit was in active sensor range, so there really wasn't anything there. The ship, uh, doesn't have thermal sensors...

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Is Japan anywhere near to mounting Particle Lances at this stage? Combined with a speed advantage these would be devastating as long as a strong point defense/AMM capability is also maintained.

I just looked it up, they're 45k RP away from unlocking them, so probably not in the 2140s yet :-( I'm also very excited for them to get to that point and getting to play around with the lances for the first time.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on December 24, 2020, 02:04:33 PM
They also regretted not bringing more ships. In hindsight I'm not sure it'd have made a difference: if the ground batteries just kept shooting the same ship, the potential for loss would be the same. The small Qian ships popped easily enough under the fire of just one cruiser.

With a few more ships the PRL would have the option of pulling the first ship or two that take hits away from the planet forcing the ground batteries to divide their fire, plus they could send two ships after the Qian cruisers instead of just one ensuring that a lucky engine hit doesn't end their pursuit. More force is always better as long as the logistics can support it.

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Well, the orbit was in active sensor range, so there really wasn't anything there. The ship, uh, doesn't have thermal sensors...

One of those design decisions I never really understand...every one of my ships has at least small passives just to ensure they won't be blind if I send them out alone for some reason.

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I just looked it up, they're 45k RP away from unlocking them, so probably not in the 2140s yet :-( I'm also very excited for them to get to that point and getting to play around with the lances for the first time.

Man I hate waiting...  :P
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on December 24, 2020, 02:17:41 PM
One of those design decisions I never really understand...every one of my ships has at least small passives just to ensure they won't be blind if I send them out alone for some reason.

It was the 2070s, it was wild! They didn't know what was going to be needed yet! And I think they were trying really hard to squeeze 10 years of endurance out of the ship. I do miss the built-in minimum strength passives...
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: MinuteMan on December 26, 2020, 08:15:45 AM
@Zap0

Thanks for the awesome story so far.
I really enjoyed reading it in one go!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on December 31, 2020, 11:49:08 PM
Reposted in the correct thread...  :-[

PRL xenologists are dismayed that the Japanese are making contact with aliens and investigating their systems, but given that the precise location of the new JP in Grand Bourg is only known to them, there is little that can be done about it. In order to find that JP and keep an eye on Japanese dealings with these Sukabumi, a small set of new scout fighters designed for long-term observation missions is being sent to Grand Bourg. If all goes well, they'll eventually detect a transiting ship and can pinpoint the JP location that way. There exists an alien wreck in the system, under the assumption that it is near the JP the scouts are stationed within sensor range of the wreckage. The operation quickly is a success as it detects both the JP and the Japanese listening post some distance off of the JP.

Okay, that's damn sneaky. I would have gone for the "ask nicely from the bridge of a very large cruiser" plan, but this works too and preserves the PRL cruiser fleet for more suicidal attacks against the Qian aliens instead.

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The Consortium will in exchange support the construction of new plasma-drive powered warships and patrol vessels on Taíno by supplying technology, either through license production or delivery of prefabricated ship parts.

License building, I like it. Very Cold War client state feel to it.

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(https://i.imgur.com/8TWtj5V.png)
All hail the new leader! She will restore Terra to greatness.

Do I detect that you've gone into the DB and renamed the Administrator title? Or is that just a renaming of this character?

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The new Terra Prime government is putting resources into creating order among the old European space programs. Supplies for survey ships, returning from year-long journeys, have often been irregular, EU state fuel harvesting programs have had to sustain themselves selling to the open market and various supporting elements are in deteriorated condition. Warships have generally had more luck receiving money and support from the ground. With the Primacy controlling both cruisers, other EU warships of alternate loyalties were forced to submit to their will and had their crews replaced. It was easy to establish control over the old EU space assets, once things started moving everything else just fell into place. The Terra Prime government had something to offer what has been sorely missing for a decade: Order and a promise of stability.

Okay, this is interesting. Terra Prime could potentially come into galactic relevance by replacing the old EU, provided they can leverage their fleet into some kind of offworld colonial presence without antagonizing too many of the major players. I could see an alliance with the Martians happening as TP would like to kick PRL off of Earth and claim sole dominion over the planet, while the MC would love to stick it to the PRL when they have a chance.

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A Callistoan explorer runs into some Qian signatures on a planet four jumps from Novokuzneck. Given that the two signatures remain stationary they are assumed to be orbital defense platforms as have been encountered before. Then, surveying the B component, the ship finds a dormant alien construct on planet II and an identical pair of Qian signatures on planet III.

Aside from being thankful that the ship survived a run-in with the Qian, leadership is excited at the prospect of a Qian outpost - two, even - for them to loot all by themselves, as they had missed out on the spoils that came out of Procyon's Rest. The problem is that Qian defense platforms are known to be equipped for missile defense and that their performance is only able to be estimated by second-hand reports of the battle in Procyon. A sufficiently large force to keep up deterrence must also remain in Sol, so not much strike power can be made available. The safe option would be to wait a few years until the next wave of shipbuilding is underway, as it is unlikely any other power is going to discover the location. The desire to gain an advantage now instead of waiting wins out, and it is determined that a force of three frigates will execute a probing attack.

So if I'm reading this right, the construct on Smolensk B-II should be reasonably safe to exploit as long as it is out of range of the Qian on Smolensk B-III? It's risky to be sure, but a mission to drop off some ground units and establish a military-only colony (for now) on the former planet should let exploitation begin. That construct "could" ;) have immense value even beyond any spoils from the Qian bases...

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The shipbuilders of Callisto are going a radically different way for their works in this new generation of engines. It is actually an older concept shelved for various reasons until now. In order to maximize the usefulness of each engine, each piece of Gallicite even, the engines must be as flexible as possible. This is achieved by not having a dedicated engine built-in in each ship, many of which may not be relevant for a given mission, and instead creating modular engine blocks designed to attach to a "payload block", an engine-less vessel with all the guns, sensors and missiles a ship would normally carry, using a clamp system. When going on a mission, each thrust block will attach to a relevant payload block, allowing for customized tailoring of the fleet composition. In case of an emergency the thrust block can detach from the payload and leave it behind, either to return and bring a new payload into the fight or to save it's own skin, with thrust blocks certainly outspeeding any possible pursuing warship, keeping the hard-to-replace part of a ship, the engines, safe. This assumes that payload blocks are available in sufficient numbers, considers them disposable to some degree even, all based on the economic assumption that Gallicite is hard to find and must be saved on, whereas other minerals are uncritically plentiful. This has certainly been true historically, and even with the full exploitation of Venus and the Novokuzneck colony growing, is expected to remain a basic economic fact for decades to come.

OOC Note: The tractor beam component in my game is modified to be 1HS instead of 10HS. It still costs 100BP and 10 crew, representing an appropriate overhead for the kind of sophisticated clamping/docking system they are using.

I've never actually seen someone do this in a game, here's hoping the results are spectacular...for someone!

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Upgrades to Callistoan combat strength have usually come from advances in missile technology, but the dependency on ordnance stocks and manufacturing, including their consumption of vital resources, are considered severe drawbacks to the current doctrine. Protection of the growing Novokuzneck colony presents a challenge to the navy, as their massed strike doctrine makes it very difficult to protect more than one place at a time.

This is actually an interesting drawback to missiles not usually seen in a typical game. With upwards of half a dozen potential enemies to potentially fight at any one time, it becomes more difficult to maintain the critical mass of missile launchers that are usually not hard to pull together in a game with only a few fairly predictable NPRs to worry about.

I wonder if the Callistoans will at some point consider massing box launchers to give the maximal alpha strike capability, but this seems at odds with the block system as once a payload block has fired its launchers it is a sitting duck if the thrust block has detached.

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Notably there are no current plans for aggressive expansion. The regime has great long-term prospects for growth now, holding on to them and expanding the industrial base are the priorities.

A wise policy. The best way to get ahead of your rivals in this case is to let them fall behind on their own, by fighting wars among each other and weakening their own navies while you conserve your own strength. However we will see what the other powers have to say about this...
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 01, 2021, 03:48:16 AM
@Zap0

Thanks for the awesome story so far.
I really enjoyed reading it in one go!

Glad you like it! That must have taken you a good chunk of the day.

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The Consortium will in exchange support the construction of new plasma-drive powered warships and patrol vessels on Taíno by supplying technology, either through license production or delivery of prefabricated ship parts.

License building, I like it. Very Cold War client state feel to it.

Me too. I'd like to do it more, but there isn't really much in Aurora that allows for trade between empires. The only thing you can transfer via button is ground units, but ships, techs, modules and the like, you have to get tricky for with SM or DB editing.

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Do I detect that you've gone into the DB and renamed the Administrator title? Or is that just a renaming of this character?

I just renamed the character, would be awkward to have another High King pop up whenever a second level 8 admin spawns! I haven't done much with characters this campaign in general, but it felt appropriate to go pick one to highlight here.

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Okay, this is interesting. Terra Prime could potentially come into galactic relevance by replacing the old EU, provided they can leverage their fleet into some kind of offworld colonial presence without antagonizing too many of the major players. I could see an alliance with the Martians happening as TP would like to kick PRL off of Earth and claim sole dominion over the planet, while the MC would love to stick it to the PRL when they have a chance.

Too bad Terra Prime hates offworlders in general, but the Martians in particular! They're the reason much of their heartland fell on hard times when they declared independence, after all. Ironically I see them as a potential ally of the PRL against the Martians. If only both of them didn't see themselves as the rightful heads of Mankind :P

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So if I'm reading this right, the construct on Smolensk B-II should be reasonably safe to exploit as long as it is out of range of the Qian on Smolensk B-III? It's risky to be sure, but a mission to drop off some ground units and establish a military-only colony (for now) on the former planet should let exploitation begin. That construct "could" ;) have immense value even beyond any spoils from the Qian bases...

That's something they're working towards. Only the better part of a decade to go until the sole stabilizer they have has paved the way! :lol:

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I've never actually seen someone do this in a game, here's hoping the results are spectacular...for someone!

I've always wanted to try this kind of doctrine, and I'm eager to see how it turns out.

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This is actually an interesting drawback to missiles not usually seen in a typical game. With upwards of half a dozen potential enemies to potentially fight at any one time, it becomes more difficult to maintain the critical mass of missile launchers that are usually not hard to pull together in a game with only a few fairly predictable NPRs to worry about.

I wonder if the Callistoans will at some point consider massing box launchers to give the maximal alpha strike capability, but this seems at odds with the block system as once a payload block has fired its launchers it is a sitting duck if the thrust block has detached.

Well, they already have a box launcher doctrine. They're expecting the ability to just ditch a spent box launcher block to be an advantage, each such rack as they're building right now costs only ~180 of each Duranium and Tritanium and packs 85 missiles. Being able to run back to base at their boosted, unburdened speed (15k!) to bring either more missiles or some other module to the fight sounds good. Modules ditched in deep space should also be pretty hard to find if the enemy doesn't know where to look.

Code: [Select]
??????? class Missile Block      3 999 tons       16 Crew       475.4 BP       TCS 80    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      Armour 6-22       Shields 0-0       HTK 6      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 59.5
Maint Life 4.90 Years     MSP 74    AFR 128%    IFR 1.8%    1YR 5    5YR 77    Max Repair 20 MSP
Magazine 595   
Kapitan vtorogo ranga    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 55 months    Morale Check Required   


Pavlov Launch Rack (85)     Missile Size: 7    Hangar Reload 132 minutes    MF Reload 22 hours
Ryzkhov Frigate Targeting Dish (4)     Range 28.2m km    Resolution 120
Ryzkhov Bomber Targeting Dish (2)     Range 23.9m km    Resolution 5
Pavlov F Heavy Missile (85)    Speed: 32 086 km/s    End: 13m     Range: 25.1m km    WH: 9    Size: 7    TH: 171/102/51

Ryzkhov Frigate Detection Dish (1)     GPS 1152     Range 24.4m km    Resolution 120

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

(https://i.imgur.com/uJwbOGE.png)

...ouch, the missiles in the rack cost more Gallicite than the launch rack in total.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 01, 2021, 12:37:59 PM
Too bad Terra Prime hates offworlders in general, but the Martians in particular! They're the reason much of their heartland fell on hard times when they declared independence, after all. Ironically I see them as a potential ally of the PRL against the Martians. If only both of them didn't see themselves as the rightful heads of Mankind :P

Once again a perfectly good alliance of convenience is ruined because everyone hates each other.

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...ouch, the missiles in the rack cost more Gallicite than the launch rack in total.

That's sure not going to come back and bite anyone in the space rear end...
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 06, 2021, 12:13:10 AM
I can't remember if you ever said this, but did you change the research rate at all?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 06, 2021, 03:21:18 AM
Nope, it's at 100%. My empires are pretty small, with 10-20 research labs on each.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 06, 2021, 09:06:40 AM
Thanks. Did you change the survey speed or the terraform speed either?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 06, 2021, 10:07:07 AM
Nope, also all at default :D
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 09, 2021, 07:08:47 PM
Posting in the right thread this time...  ;)

the expansion of financial infrastructure on Callisto is what will carry most of the burden - but the expansion of financial centers comes with the opportunity cost of not expanding mines, factories or other infrastructure.

Damn opportunity costs and their insistence on making game mechanics interesting when all we want is to crush our enemies and take their loots.

As an aside this is making me wish we had a mechanic where civilian enterprises could trade with multiple factions based on the highest bidder for their services. It would make an interesting game economy, but also incentivize some factions to take military action against CMCs or even CSLs which might then seek the protection of another power. 1700s-style trade wars, anyone?  ;D

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A Terra Prime strike force consisting of both cruisers and most available escorts is sent out to ensure the loyalty of the destroyer squadron on permanent station in the mining system of Bremen. The ships stationed there have been there since before the Independence War (called the Martian Rebellion on Terra now), and although most ships have an understrength crew in the face of irregular supplies and payments, the Primacy wishes to preempt any attempts of their enemies to use the warships stationed here against them, as well as ensure the continued flow of valuable minerals from this system back to Earth. A big show is made out of the old ship's crews being relieved: Not only was there no resistance, the images of freshly trained recruits manning a previously deteriorating flotilla show the restoration of order the Terran Primacy is advertising first hand.

This bold new faction is certainly making a name for itself. Hopefully they can continue to play the game smartly, as while some major powers are slowly moving out in different directions towards extrasolar holdings exclusively the two most powerful factions remain solidly entrenched in Sol.

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With the stabilization of the Terran Primacy as a central government of much of Earth, the age of transition comes to a close. Mankind settled new worlds and the distances between their new homes became the dividing lines between them, for travel of goods or people, even on a fast ship, takes days or weeks, leading to governments ruling over single bodies. Earth, Luna, Mars, Callisto, Taíno - all unified planetary governments to some degree. The age of the nation state may not have come entirely to an end, but it certainly has changed forms.

It often strikes me that we broadly lack an effective, uniform term to refer to these new kinds of states which span multiple star systems. One of the classic SA LPs used the term "Supernational Organization" (SNO) but that's the closest I know to a term encompassing all the different empires, consortiums, republics, leagues, and so on. I wonder how the people of this reality refer to such things?

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Magneto-Plasma generation designs

Excitement!

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Code: [Select]
Vallis class Light Cruiser      16 000 tons

Interesting design, offensively it looks fairly well-suited. I'd personally prefer bigger missiles with WH9 but the smaller missiles will be more effective against any point defenses which are always a concern with beam ships. Not entirely sure what the turrets are for, though, they look like dual-purpose mounts but ideally they'd not be used for ship-to-ship combat as long as there's still missiles to be fired, and being dual-purpose they're naturally less effective for point defense. Seems at-odds with the design doctrine but we'll see how it looks in battle.

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Code: [Select]
Hellhound class Raider (P)      3 000 tons

An interesting design, I'd actually say the fire control is a bit of a weak link there as the autocannon can fire quite far by railgun standards but not very accurately. Another range upgrade would help to keep at least some credible threat at long range against laser ships even as it closes with high speed. Failing that we'll see if the missiles and speed can help it against the PRL and consortium cruisers.

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Code: [Select]
San Rafael class Patrol Vessel (P)      10 000 tons

For a "patrol" ship I wonder if more fuel might end up being needed especially if these need to fly about frequently to make up for a lack of deep sensor networks in core territories. That said this ship looks heavily packed to the seams and likely will struggle in a serious combat role with limited weapons range. Hopefully the shields, armor, and speed combo will make up for a lot in cases of emergency.

It will be interesting to see what Taino can come up with...granted, box launcher fighters are rarely that exciting to design, but the designers will have a big challenge to determine how to best use those 500 tons to counter or at least deter the big guns of the other factions' heavy ships.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Hawkeye on January 10, 2021, 01:22:05 AM
Zwiebel Electronics ASS3-35M (1)     GPS 1512     Range 35.1m km    Resolution 80
Zwiebel Electronics Radiation OmniSensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

Do those make the crews tear up?

 ;D
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For the non-German speakers, Zwiebel is German for onion.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 10, 2021, 01:42:56 AM
For the non-German speakers, Zwiebel is German for onion.

"Our sensor systems are unmatched in all of humanity, providing many layers of protection!!"  ;D
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 10, 2021, 05:46:20 AM
There wasn't any action this update, but I spent a lot of time in the ship designer and microing the various logistics each empire needs to take care of.

I was going to do a DB edit to allow the INL to use or build the various systems that the Martians give them access to, but then I remembered there was a bug where I could add one empire's systems to another empire's ship design! #JustAuroraThings


As an aside this is making me wish we had a mechanic where civilian enterprises could trade with multiple factions based on the highest bidder for their services. It would make an interesting game economy, but also incentivize some factions to take military action against CMCs or even CSLs which might then seek the protection of another power. 1700s-style trade wars, anyone?  ;D

That would actually be amazing, having the civilians in a game like this less strictly tied to one empire or another. Squabbling over trade is absolutely something these empires would have done, especially when everybody was still stuck in Sol.

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It often strikes me that we broadly lack an effective, uniform term to refer to these new kinds of states which span multiple star systems. One of the classic SA LPs used the term "Supernational Organization" (SNO) but that's the closest I know to a term encompassing all the different empires, consortiums, republics, leagues, and so on.

I suppose until now our empires were seen as nation states, if upgraded versions with interstellar colonies, with those that don't quite fit the bill being less prevalent. We'll have to wait and see if a term evolves that puts them all in the same category.

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I wonder how the people of this reality refer to such things?

It turns out I took that as a writing prompt, but since it's in-universe perspective I'll put it in the next update instead of the comments thread :-)

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Code: [Select]
Vallis class Light Cruiser      16 000 tons
Interesting design, offensively it looks fairly well-suited. I'd personally prefer bigger missiles with WH9 but the smaller missiles will be more effective against any point defenses which are always a concern with beam ships. Not entirely sure what the turrets are for, though, they look like dual-purpose mounts but ideally they'd not be used for ship-to-ship combat as long as there's still missiles to be fired, and being dual-purpose they're naturally less effective for point defense. Seems at-odds with the design doctrine but we'll see how it looks in battle.

The smaller missiles are there partially to overcome missile defenses more easily as there aren't any other missiles of this type in the fleet, and partially they are this small for marketing reasons to differentiate them from the heavy (and individually expensive) cruise missiles already in use. As ordnance production capacity is a concern with expanding missile usage, having a lower unit cost per missile was framed as not being much additional draw on the factories. Nevermind that you need more of them. The turrets were an easy sell because of their flexibility. Given the lower speed than their expected opponents some measure of beam weaponry seemed required, and without any capability for heavy, long-range guns in the Consortium this seemed the best option. Good dps for the tonnage! Won't have problems tracking! Can serve as supplementary missile defense! Armored turrets give ships additional staying power! Being able to put so many green check marks on the comparison table was advantageous.

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Code: [Select]
Hellhound class Raider (P)      3 000 tons
An interesting design, I'd actually say the fire control is a bit of a weak link there as the autocannon can fire quite far by railgun standards but not very accurately. Another range upgrade would help to keep at least some credible threat at long range against laser ships even as it closes with high speed. Failing that we'll see if the missiles and speed can help it against the PRL and consortium cruisers.

The firecontrol is actually considered state-of-the-art, with the next levels costing 16k in each, but Terra is already investing into them as it has a good SC scientist and plents of research labs. The next upgrade for these ships is intended to be cap recharge 5, reducing the ROF to 15.

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Code: [Select]
San Rafael class Patrol Vessel (P)      10 000 tons
For a "patrol" ship I wonder if more fuel might end up being needed especially if these need to fly about frequently to make up for a lack of deep sensor networks in core territories. That said this ship looks heavily packed to the seams and likely will struggle in a serious combat role with limited weapons range. Hopefully the shields, armor, and speed combo will make up for a lot in cases of emergency.

More range would have been nice, but that was a tradeoff that had to be made. There are good gas giants in most settled systems, so I'm envisioning refueling opportunities on most colonies. Their limited weapons range is indeed a heavy drawback, but something they will have to deal with for now. Mars has a noted lack of long-range guns, so that's not an option, and the only MK scientist on Taíno is a retrained biologist still struggling with turning the railgun blueprint into a railgun weapon.

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It will be interesting to see what Taino can come up with...granted, box launcher fighters are rarely that exciting to design, but the designers will have a big challenge to determine how to best use those 500 tons to counter or at least deter the big guns of the other factions' heavy ships.

I have the fighter done already, but as it's not that interesting a design I opted not to post it so as to not overload the post with designs. Initially I forgot to remove the bridge and wondered why I could only fit 8 box launchers instead of the 10 that the Eurofighters I made at the start of the game had...
They aren't really meant to go on the offense anywhere (although I guess a carrier could cart them around) and not to defend the system all on their own, but they should provide another obstacle for a would-be attacker to overcome.

Code: [Select]
System Defense Craft class Fast Attack Craft      500 tons       7 Crew       85.3 BP       TCS 10    TH 102    EM 0
10260 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 4.5
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 10    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 3    5YR 42    Max Repair 51.20 MSP
Magazine 30   
Capitán de Corbeta    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days    Morale Check Required   

Interstellar Drives MP System Defense Craft Thruster (1)    Power 102.4    Fuel Use 700.00%    Signature 102.40    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 61 000 Litres    Range 3.1 billion km (3 days at full power)

Cerberus Launch Rack (10)     Missile Size: 3.0    Hangar Reload 86 minutes    MF Reload 14 hours
Medium-Range Missile Guidance (1)     Range 10.9m km    Resolution 30
Cerberus D ASM (10)    Speed: 27 000 km/s    End: 6.7m     Range: 10.8m km    WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 117/70/35

Medium-Range Missile Acquisition (1)     GPS 256     Range 10.7m km    Resolution 80

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction


Zwiebel Electronics ASS3-35M (1)     GPS 1512     Range 35.1m km    Resolution 80
Zwiebel Electronics Radiation OmniSensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

Do those make the crews tear up?

 ;D

For the non-German speakers, Zwiebel is German for onion.

What's so strange about naming electronics companies after fruits and vegetables? If we can have Apple, we can have Zwiebel :P
I found it funny, so I took it. The company name generator giveth and it taketh away, but in this case it definitely giveth.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 10, 2021, 12:26:31 PM
It turns out I took that as a writing prompt, but since it's in-universe perspective I'll put it in the next update instead of the comments thread :-)

I look forward to it!  ;D


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The smaller missiles are there partially to overcome missile defenses more easily as there aren't any other missiles of this type in the fleet, and partially they are this small for marketing reasons to differentiate them from the heavy (and individually expensive) cruise missiles already in use. As ordnance production capacity is a concern with expanding missile usage, having a lower unit cost per missile was framed as not being much additional draw on the factories. Nevermind that you need more of them. The turrets were an easy sell because of their flexibility. Given the lower speed than their expected opponents some measure of beam weaponry seemed required, and without any capability for heavy, long-range guns in the Consortium this seemed the best option. Good dps for the tonnage! Won't have problems tracking! Can serve as supplementary missile defense! Armored turrets give ships additional staying power! Being able to put so many green check marks on the comparison table was advantageous.

I find this blatant display of salesmanship hilarious.


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I have the fighter done already, but as it's not that interesting a design I opted not to post it so as to not overload the post with designs. Initially I forgot to remove the bridge and wondered why I could only fit 8 box launchers instead of the 10 that the Eurofighters I made at the start of the game had...
They aren't really meant to go on the offense anywhere (although I guess a carrier could cart them around) and not to defend the system all on their own, but they should provide another obstacle for a would-be attacker to overcome.

Code: [Select]
System Defense Craft class Fast Attack Craft      500 tons       7 Crew       85.3 BP       TCS 10    TH 102    EM 0
10260 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 4.5
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 10    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 3    5YR 42    Max Repair 51.20 MSP
Magazine 30   
Capitán de Corbeta    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days    Morale Check Required   

Interstellar Drives MP System Defense Craft Thruster (1)    Power 102.4    Fuel Use 700.00%    Signature 102.40    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 61 000 Litres    Range 3.1 billion km (3 days at full power)

Cerberus Launch Rack (10)     Missile Size: 3.0    Hangar Reload 86 minutes    MF Reload 14 hours
Medium-Range Missile Guidance (1)     Range 10.9m km    Resolution 30
Cerberus D ASM (10)    Speed: 27 000 km/s    End: 6.7m     Range: 10.8m km    WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 117/70/35

Medium-Range Missile Acquisition (1)     GPS 256     Range 10.7m km    Resolution 80

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

Definitely quite short range, so I guess relying on small size to avoid detection until they can close in and launch missiles. Should be a useful deterrent against beam raiders (so, PRL cruisers) but I would worry that a dedicated missile cruiser like the Vallis class would not feel threatened by these. It all depends on the sensors though!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 17, 2021, 11:40:28 PM
It is awesome to see you using https://n.bellok.de/wikibox/ It is a great website I think. The tale of the EU is a somewhat tragic tale. Hopefully something great can rise from the ashes, although I don't know how that might work economically. Does the PRL still control the population in mainland China? Maybe they could decide they are not happy with the status quo and join the Terrans, to give them more population and wealth. Maybe minerals if there are still some in storage, although you probably moved all that years ago lol.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 18, 2021, 12:56:58 AM
I made one of the battle of Mars  ;D
(https://www.imgurupload.com/uploads/20210118/46a974ea2efb518c50bc492b573754f2930f691b.png)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 18, 2021, 03:50:01 AM
Does the PRL still control the population in mainland China? Maybe they could decide they are not happy with the status quo and join the Terrans, to give them more population and wealth.

They still control China, yes. They're definitely aware that they're second class citizens to those on the moon, but the PRL is spending much administrative effort to keep careful control over the population. Then again, 3.3b people are a huge mass of people, some are bound to be less tightly controlled than others...

Maybe minerals if there are still some in storage, although you probably moved all that years ago lol.

Yeah. They have nothing of significance left on Earth, so conquest of China isn't terribly high on Terra Prime's priority list for lack of material reasons.

I made one of the battle of Mars  ;D

That's perfect! I was playing with the thought of going back and making some for the older conflicts, and I think I'm going to stick that right there :D
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 18, 2021, 07:25:01 AM
Nice :)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 18, 2021, 03:49:46 PM
F to the Russian combat tugs:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11945.msg146964#msg146964

It looks like any engagement where they get shot at is going to require GM interpretations of what damage they should be taking.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 18, 2021, 04:41:41 PM
Several years ago a Callistoan explorer detected an alien fleet blockading a jump point. The location is revisited, and the alien fleet is still there. This time the ship gets closer and gets a thermal image. If the internal temperature of the alien vessels is similar to our own, the hull readings suggest ~600k tons of ships to be present - more than the entire PRL navy, and several times more than the expanding Callistoan navy. The aliens send emissions towards the explorer which are judged to be an attempt at communication. The explorer retreats again without incident. In light of their overwhelming strength establishing communications sounds like a good idea, and an envoy vessel is being prepared.

Uncomfortable amounts of warships near Novokuzneck.

Some time later a pair of their ships is detected orbiting two moons a few systems further out. No alien populations are detected.

Quite curious behavior from these aliens. What is most confusing is that there is not just a fleet on the JP but also other ships milling about suggesting activity. Callisto must send their best communications expert to establish relations quickly before they get too annoyed with human presence at their JP picket.

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Contemporary fiction is full of enigmatic elites living on the moon or another close-by but unreachable body, either in hiding or not, with those elites secretly manipulating events on Earth and other places to follow some morally ambiguous master plan.

In this distant future, Captain America comics will feature him punching Moon Commies instead of ####s.

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Earth, or the Terran Primacy, aren't seen as a power with a war fleet and extrasolar outposts yet, still having much of their grassroots movement character that defined them during the struggles on Earth. They are planning to make themselves known to both the other powers and the common man in the coming years.

The smart move would be to remain under the radar until they were capable of standing in the upper tier of human powers. Once again, the old story of national history repeats itself as pride gets the better of good sense, it seems.

Quote
The Martian Consortium holds much economic and military power and military strategists have long been aware of them as a threat or factor, but due to not being a government per se they aren't put on the same level as the other powers in people's minds. The absorption of the civilian administration on Mars actually lends them a decent amount of credibility when it is advantageous to appear like a government for some purpose or another. Their navy is still somewhat famous, but is typically seen as the Martian navy, fighting for the freedom of the colony. Even with the awareness that the Consortium controls much of what goes on on Mars it wouldn't be strange for the average person to think the fleet is an arm of a civilian Martian government.

This seems an interesting cultural quirk since the old USA was one of those nations that originally pushed the principle of civilian control of the military in their government system. Perhaps that image has remained attached despite their evolution over time - certainly for the average Martian it is a more pleasant thought.

Across the board, nice to get a glimpse of how the common people perceive the various entities involved in this little stage drama. Their opinions may not matter very much, but it can't hurt to know what precisely is not mattering to those in charge.  :P

Quote
(https://i.imgur.com/zO9GZ5J.png)

Possibly the most curious thing I've seen lately. A CIWS station in empty space, not even along any orbital path? Up until I noteiced that I was wondering if one of the other human powers had killed off some Qian and I'd forgotten, but that's quite a curious finding indeed.

Quote
(https://i.imgur.com/ZrIGL51.png)

This is honestly just hilarious to see.

Quote
Internal disputes and power struggles in the Martian Consortium have left supply levels dangerously low. There is no reason to speak of a shortage yet, but upon completion of the latest cruisers it was discovered that insufficient supplies had been delivered to fill ship stores. The split focus of the ordnance industry also leaves missile racks empty, as was to be expected. The Consortium's shipbuilding capacities seem to outpace their ability to arm them.

Not the worst problem to have, but arguably one of the most annoying. "Where's the button to force the factory workers to pull double shifts so I can go kill things already?!"  ;D

Quote
After escalating the incident up the chain of responsibility, speakers for the Terran Primacy reiterate the view that the Republic of Taíno and the Interstellar League are illegitimate governments, and that no INL traffic will be tolerated in Sol.

I suspect I know what the next little flare-up in Sol will be about... Frankly this seems to be an overstep from the Terrans, the casus belli is rather thin here and it feels like they are just trying to find a "little guy" to pick on to make themselves look stronger than they are. Someone in their government should ask the Italians how this works out in the end...

Quote
Terran intelligence, using the old EU observation post in Salto, have detected the transit of an INL task group into Sol and correctly surmised that they would be in Aguascalientes to escort their ship out. A trap is set, three ships are sent to ambush the ships when they jump back into Sol. This, in turn, is detected by Martian observation stations, who inform their allies.

Welp that was fast.

Quote
With one of their own down the shocked Terrans lay in a reverse course, quickly ending the engagement as the Adana class escorts of each side fall out of each other's short range.

Yup.

Quote
Faction Profile: EU
European Union (Historical)

Ooh, this is a neat concept. Historical faction profiles, very cool!

Quote
Modern successor states of the EU are the Interstellar League, the Martian civil government and the Terran Primacy.

This is helpful to keep track of the rather messy path of international relations and the various entities involved.

Quote
The disparate nature of the Union, giving voices to every minor nation contained in it, and failure to adapt political representation to a model suited for interplanetary governance, eventually led to paralysis and the downfall of the EU.

Quick, one of those Italians being consulted pass this bit on to the Terrans!  ;)

Quote
The Hambach Mining Complex is a series of large mining platforms constructed in the 2080s. Designed to mine small moons and asteroids, the complex has operated in Sol, Santa María and the system of Bremen where it remains to this day.

Which power took control of this after the EU collapsed? I don't remember.



F to the Russian combat tugs:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11945.msg146964#msg146964

It looks like any engagement where they get shot at is going to require GM interpretations of what damage they should be taking.

I wonder if it is a divide by zero error, since usually ship speeds are set to 1 km/s when idle presumably to avoid such errors but in this case the tugged ship might not be getting the speed set to 1.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 18, 2021, 09:25:21 PM
Quote
(https://i.imgur.com/ZrIGL51.png)

This is honestly just hilarious to see.

The one time I forget to take a look at a newly discovered system. Most "new discoveries" are discoveries already made before by other powers, so I just fiddle with the map and let the explorer go wild without taking another look, but this one was new and I didn't peek in. Seeing a bunch of wrecks would have definitely saved that poor survey ship! *cough* I mean, they failed to recognize what these readings were, of course.

Quote
The disparate nature of the Union, giving voices to every minor nation contained in it, and failure to adapt political representation to a model suited for interplanetary governance, eventually led to paralysis and the downfall of the EU.

Quick, one of those Italians being consulted pass this bit on to the Terrans!  ;)

The new Terran Empire is much more centralized than the EU ever was. Both the INL and the Terrans are trying to avoid the mistakes of the EU, just on opposite ends of the spectrum. The INL wants to be a much more flexible representative democracy that is made with interplanetary and interstellar constituents in mind, the Terrans are heavily centralized to avoid any of the internal bickering that paralyzed the EU.

Quote
The Hambach Mining Complex is a series of large mining platforms constructed in the 2080s. Designed to mine small moons and asteroids, the complex has operated in Sol, Santa María and the system of Bremen where it remains to this day.

Which power took control of this after the EU collapsed? I don't remember.

It remained under the tenuous ownership of some of the ex-EU member states which were eventually conquered or absorbed into the Terran empire. Last week they sent the fleet there to ensure loyalty. Large-scale organized resistance on Earth against the Primacy has largely ceased, but to prevent the ships or the complex from falling into the hands of potential terrorists or enemies, or even the INL, it was necessary.

I wonder if it is a divide by zero error, since usually ship speeds are set to 1 km/s when idle presumably to avoid such errors but in this case the tugged ship might not be getting the speed set to 1.

From what I can see the speed of a tugged ship gets set to 300k km/s, on a 5k km/s ship being tugged I saw a 6000% engine modifier in the ship description. I assume that is so that the tugged ship does not slow down the convoy.
I plan on calculating a rough hit chance manually and SM-applying the damage to the ships in question if the battle is small enough. Either way, it's going to make fights with the new Callistoan navy much more annoying to play. Another one for the #AuroraWoes. Did I ever tell the tale of how one NPR shot another NPR's shipyards and every empire's yard tasks got deleted?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 18, 2021, 09:42:16 PM
The one time I forget to take a look at a newly discovered system. Most "new discoveries" are discoveries already made before by other powers, so I just fiddle with the map and let the explorer go wild without taking another look, but this one was new and I didn't peek in. Seeing a bunch of wrecks would have definitely saved that poor survey ship! *cough* I mean, they failed to recognize what these readings were, of course.

Rule number one of Aurora is "Always blame the ship captains". (https://i.imgur.com/DYAEiOu.gif)

Quote
The new Terran Empire is much more centralized than the EU ever was. Both the INL and the Terrans are trying to avoid the mistakes of the EU, just on opposite ends of the spectrum. The INL wants to be a much more flexible representative democracy that is made with interplanetary and interstellar constituents in mind, the Terrans are heavily centralized to avoid any of the internal bickering that paralyzed the EU.

The thing that sticks to me about the Terrans is that they are trying to be Terra Prime yet concerning themselves with "breakaway colonies" and trying to dominate them by the same centralized government structure, which was half the reason the EU collapsed in the first place (so the, uh, commentators of the day say). It's a massive ideological overreach, to say nothing about their capacity to back it up as we see.

INL has the right of it in that they're by nature built around respecting the membership of their "colonials" on account of being made up entirely of colonies.

Quote
From what I can see the speed of a tugged ship gets set to 300k km/s, on a 5k km/s ship being tugged I saw a 6000% engine modifier in the ship description. I assume that is so that the tugged ship does not slow down the convoy.
I plan on calculating a rough hit chance manually and SM-applying the damage to the ships in question if the battle is small enough. Either way, it's going to make fights with the new Callistoan navy much more annoying to play. Another one for the #AuroraWoes. Did I ever tell the tale of how one NPR shot another NPR's shipyards and every empire's yard tasks got deleted?

That sounds truly horrifying...maybe for the Halloween special?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 19, 2021, 12:01:23 AM
In this distant future, Captain America comics will feature him punching Moon Commies instead of ####s.
Would he still be Captain America? Or would he be Captain Mars? Or Captain Consortium?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 19, 2021, 12:23:49 AM
In this distant future, Captain America comics will feature him punching Moon Commies instead of ####s.
Would he still be Captain America? Or would he be Captain Mars? Or Captain Consortium?

Captain Space Capitalism
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 19, 2021, 02:05:34 AM
The thing that sticks to me about the Terrans is that they are trying to be Terra Prime yet concerning themselves with "breakaway colonies" and trying to dominate them by the same centralized government structure, which was half the reason the EU collapsed in the first place (so the, uh, commentators of the day say). It's a massive ideological overreach, to say nothing about their capacity to back it up as we see.

The EU didn't have a centralized structure. Although in this universe it was somewhat more unified than in reality, in particular in regards to foreign politics and the military, they were still a by then old federation of more or less sovereign states.
Terra Prime could well have gone the isolationist route of concerning themselves only with Earth, but they do actually espouse Earth as the dominant and capital world of the whole of the Human race - a unified Human race, which the colonies should be subservient to. There is also much bitterness against the colonies for having caused the economic collapse on Earth that came with the fall of the EU.

Quote
Did I ever tell the tale of how one NPR shot another NPR's shipyards and every empire's yard tasks got deleted?

That sounds truly horrifying...maybe for the Halloween special?

Let's just say the cool moment of coming across an alien homeworld with tons of wrecks in orbit came with a price to pay :D
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 23, 2021, 11:24:01 PM
Comments on this installment (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11602.msg147366#msg147366):

Today I bring some Precursor adventuring and more inner Sol skirmishing.

The Encke summary box picture I got from an eve blog while searching for sci-fi missile. It shows Phoenix-class dreadnoughts, who can only fire three (massive) missiles at once with a long delay between firing, but I thought looked cool enough.
Sauce of the Smolensk box picture (https://www.deviantart.com/infinite-auran/art/Missile-Cruiser-Front-View-182644832)

Fun fact: The Callistoan flag is actually that of the Nara Prefecture in Japan.

#AuroraWoes: AMMs only fire onto specifically hostile incoming missiles, not neutral ones. Also, they only fire from fire controls set to open fire, but the "open fire all" button only works for fire controls that have a target set! So you have to manually click on each and every AMM fire control in the fleet to set them to open fire. Or you can manually assign targets to each, I guess.
This is why I play with low number games (4 instead of 40 ships), and save often.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 24, 2021, 09:36:56 PM
Ahh, the worst Dreadnaught. That reminded me of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/c20w9n/eves_cruise_missiles_are_goddamn_terrifying_heres/

I used to play EVE a bunch, never really used capitals, but if I had, I would have cried "
V
E
R
T
I
C
A
L

S
U
P
R
E
M
A
C
Y
"
and get myself a Naglafar :)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 25, 2021, 10:11:28 PM
Update posted

Oh joy! With my internet stable and some time on my hands, it's time for the next insta--

Update posted

Good God man.  :P

Anyways, getting caught up here...

The alien frigate moves at a speed of 8k km/s, faster than any known Qian vessel, faster than the PRL navy and definitely faster than the scout squadron.

That's a bit frightening. The Qian I think were operating somewhere north of 5000 km/s, which places these guys at least two tech levels advanced over them. Given that human ships are still not quite up to parity with the Qian (the PRL is close with the Jack Rabbits but not on a fleetwide basis just yet) this is concerning, particularly if the "BNV" aliens are hostile rather than meerly, hmm, "armed and curious".

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Yay! A new map connection that doesn't require large rearrangements of the map!

Truly such things are worth their weight in gold gallicite.

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Japan still has a bone to pick with Callisto over Venus. [...] The operation is a gamble, but the prevailing notion is that this opportunity with the CAL main fleet away must be seized.

This seems to be almost entirely politically/nationalistically driven rather than by any good sense. But it's okay, since when has starting a war they weren't prepared for against a superior power with a surprise attack while low on minerals with amorphous goals at best and for largely moral gains ever gone badly for...Japan? Oh. Oh no...

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Their exact travel time is 65 hours, with a 370m km distance and 1576km/s speed. The distance from Callisto to Encke is 1150m km, but the thrust modules loaded up with missile launch modules have a speed of 7922km/s - 40 hours. That leaves an entire day for preparation, and that will be needed as the missile launch modules are only partially loaded with ammo.

"Missiles? $10 billion. Fuel? $25 billion. Being able to anticipate the enemy plan, intercept them, and have over 24 hours advance preparation time besides? Priceless.

"Some things in space are priceless. For everything else, there's SpaceMasterCard."

Quote
And so it is done, the distance is closed to 19m km and the ships Metis and Thebe unleash the ordnance loaded into their missile modules, then retreat back towards Callisto.

This strikes me (heh) as a major miscalculation. While it would have been more costly in life to wait, not waiting for the Japanese to fire first (or at least issue a threat) cannot look good for international relations. Callisto is likely to be seen as an aggressive neighbor here, which given their relative stature is not a position they want to be in.

Quote
In any case, it is not expected that another strike will come in the next two days, as the enemy would have to return to Callisto and reload, so the task group will lay siege to Encke. Little do they know that this was only a quarter of the Callistoan fire volume.

"Surely we got them all. What could possibly have happened, we somehow missed an entire carrier fleet that will come back to haunt us in six months?"

Quote
(https://i.imgur.com/Ov805M2.png)
There may have been some screaming when the second strike came on sensors.

The Great Encke Turkey Shoot.

Quote
The Callistoan side also attributes the survival of the Japanse fleet to them opening the distance, highlighting again that speed is key, in both warships and missiles. They begin their trek back to Callisto to reload for an eventual third strike, but that does not seem necessary as the Japanese task force makes no further movement towards Encke, staying in position only until a tug can retrieve their most damaged ship. As far as Callisto is concerned, the mission is accomplished, their outpost safe.

Good thing no one decided to start a world war or something this time around, eh?

Quote
The destroyer Ryujo will be scrapped as it has lost all it's engines, and the budget is too tight to restore last-generation ion drives.

I was almost tempted to say that this could be cheesed handled by using MSPs instead of shipyard repairs, however MSPs cost Gallicite so this is probably not ideal anyways, though it might have been cheaper depending on the exact engine details.

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Smolensk Operation Sol Operation Smolensk Operation

 ;D

Quote
A bit of overkill, perhaps, but better than embarrassingly failing to achieve a kill.

There is no "overkill." There is only "open fire" and "reload."

Quote
(https://i.imgur.com/NIR0Vzx.png)
Okay, is this just a bug where they move at 1km/s, thinking they're ships?

What the actual frell is wrong with your game??

Quote
Seeing how the Krivak missile frigates have no armor to speak of, they don't dare to go any closer.

Not sure I understand the thinking of Callisto's commanders here. Whatever the enemy weapon range is, the only recourse is going to be a missile barrage until the entire STO battery lies in shambles, as Callisto does not really have any other weapons of comparable efficiency. Thus, the call is either to bombard them now, or call home for a fleet of size-1 missiles to do the job instead.

----

2146 - Mining Comparison

Oh, good, just a short one here, I can catch up.  :P

Quote
But Gallicite, the mineral required for the construction of engines, is considered to be the gold of the 22nd century

Called it!

Quote
The INL has a relatively high income of secondary minerals, but a low Gallicite flow at the moment. They have established no less than five distant mining outposts on various Gallicite-bearing bodies, some of which are still ramping up production.

These guys seem to have a good handle on the economics side of things, though of course they are only a secondary power militarily. This bodes well for their continued ascension.

Quote
The arms race is considered to have been won by the PRL, who now have 600k tons of military ships in service compared to the Consortium's 457k. The Consortium's ascendence to a great power in recent decades was bought with stored up minerals and potential and seems to have reached it's zenith, while the PRL's industrial investments into mines, more mines, and even more mines is paying off exponentially.

One candidly wonders whether the PRL can be held in check or if they will simply run away with things as their lead lengthens.

----

#AuroraWoes: AMMs only fire onto specifically hostile incoming missiles, not neutral ones. Also, they only fire from fire controls set to open fire, but the "open fire all" button only works for fire controls that have a target set! So you have to manually click on each and every AMM fire control in the fleet to set them to open fire. Or you can manually assign targets to each, I guess.
This is why I play with low number games (4 instead of 40 ships), and save often.

Does "Open Fire Fleet" work? I swear the last time I used AMMs I had the opposite problem, entire fleets would be popping off their AMMs before I remembered to tell them not to!  :o
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on January 26, 2021, 02:35:34 AM
Ahh, the worst Dreadnaught. That reminded me of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/c20w9n/eves_cruise_missiles_are_goddamn_terrifying_heres/

I used to play EVE a bunch, never really used capitals, but if I had, I would have cried "
V
E
R
T
I
C
A
L

S
U
P
R
E
M
A
C
Y
"
and get myself a Naglafar :)

We used to have a Phoenix doctrine in our group, the idea was to make use of the insane range of the cruise missiles and drop 200k away from an enemy dreadball. The killer was that we all would have capital sized microwarpdrives, so before sieging we'd get up to speed, and then drift parallel to the enemy. If more dreads got dropped on us we'd just drift out of their range in a minute, and then be free to shoot them too. Of course in three years we only pulled that off once or twice and never when I was around for it. :-(
For more general dread usage I was a conventional Rev-man. Can't beat big fat lasers!

The alien frigate moves at a speed of 8k km/s, faster than any known Qian vessel, faster than the PRL navy and definitely faster than the scout squadron.

That's a bit frightening. The Qian I think were operating somewhere north of 5000 km/s, which places these guys at least two tech levels advanced over them. Given that human ships are still not quite up to parity with the Qian (the PRL is close with the Jack Rabbits but not on a fleetwide basis just yet) this is concerning, particularly if the "BNV" aliens are hostile rather than meerly, hmm, "armed and curious".

The PRL has 6 Cruisers and 8 Escort Destroyers going at 6.6k km/s now, 216k tons. They sure were dismayed to have built a fleet meant to outspeed aliens only to find faster aliens!


Quote
Quote
And so it is done, the distance is closed to 19m km and the ships Metis and Thebe unleash the ordnance loaded into their missile modules, then retreat back towards Callisto.

This strikes me (heh) as a major miscalculation. While it would have been more costly in life to wait, not waiting for the Japanese to fire first (or at least issue a threat) cannot look good for international relations. Callisto is likely to be seen as an aggressive neighbor here, which given their relative stature is not a position they want to be in.

Perhaps, but Japan was virtually on top of their mines with a whole bunch of military hardware already, their intentions were clear.

Quote
Quote
The destroyer Ryujo will be scrapped as it has lost all it's engines, and the budget is too tight to restore last-generation ion drives.

I was almost tempted to say that this could be cheesed handled by using MSPs instead of shipyard repairs, however MSPs cost Gallicite so this is probably not ideal anyways, though it might have been cheaper depending on the exact engine details.

I considered it, but Gallicite is tight for the Japanese. That said, when I later looked at their income numbers I wonder if a slightly older ship restored for half the Gallicite wouldn't have been something they want, because stocking up to at least six escorts again (their goal) and also building dropships is just not in the cards anytime soon with their economy.

Quote
Quote
Okay, is this just a bug where they move at 1km/s, thinking they're ships?

What the actual frell is wrong with your game??

Hell if I know. I haven't heard anybody else report this, and I haven't spend any time trying to reproduce it in 1.12, so for now I'm just going to leave it a mystery. Will still shoot the stations before they become a navigational hazard, or actually end up arriving somewhere.

Quote
Quote
Seeing how the Krivak missile frigates have no armor to speak of, they don't dare to go any closer.

Not sure I understand the thinking of Callisto's commanders here. Whatever the enemy weapon range is, the only recourse is going to be a missile barrage until the entire STO battery lies in shambles, as Callisto does not really have any other weapons of comparable efficiency. Thus, the call is either to bombard them now, or call home for a fleet of size-1 missiles to do the job instead.

True, but that information could be useful for future Qian encounters or trying to land a dropship.
Size 1 missiles to reduce collateral damage? I meant to clobber them with big ones, but now that you mention it, with lots of Qian Interceptors captured they do have a large number of now obsolete AMMs sitting at home.

Quote
One candidly wonders whether the PRL can be held in check or if they will simply run away with things as their lead lengthens.

One does wonder. Either they'll really become the hegemons of humanity like they want to be or any combination of hubris, aliens and bad luck will change the situation :D

Quote
Does "Open Fire Fleet" work? I swear the last time I used AMMs I had the opposite problem, entire fleets would be popping off their AMMs before I remembered to tell them not to!  :o

Quickly checking, no it doesn't. I also remember AMMs firing sometimes surprisingly without needing extra input, much like how you don't need to set a final fire bfc to active for it to shoot. But the last time I used AMMs was years ago and things may well have changed in C#.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on January 26, 2021, 11:13:10 AM
Hell if I know. I haven't heard anybody else report this, and I haven't spend any time trying to reproduce it in 1.12, so for now I'm just going to leave it a mystery. Will still shoot the stations before they become a navigational hazard, or actually end up arriving somewhere.

June 27, 2753: Mysterious floating weapons batteries arrive in orbit of the planet Laughalot III. The terrified population laughs at how woefully outdated they are and blast them out of the sky with a pair of Mk LXIX AMMs before continuing on with their day.

Quote
Size 1 missiles to reduce collateral damage? I meant to clobber them with big ones, but now that you mention it, with lots of Qian Interceptors captured they do have a large number of now obsolete AMMs sitting at home.

Yes. I believe any hit on a STO by an "orbital" weapon will take them out, however I may be wrong and it may be that you need to do 3 damage (as STA have 3 HP). Even so, 1-damage interceptors should still do much less damage than, say, 9-damage ASMs even if you fire three times as many of them.

Quote
Quickly checking, no it doesn't. I also remember AMMs firing sometimes surprisingly without needing extra input, much like how you don't need to set a final fire bfc to active for it to shoot. But the last time I used AMMs was years ago and things may well have changed in C#.

Last time I used them was in 1.12, but I abandoned that campaign fairly quickly and haven't used AMMs since. I plan to eventually in the current campaign if it has legs...

E: Per a random comment in another thread, MFC auto-fire in PD mode was added in 1.12. I recall you're still in 1.11 so that would be it I think.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on January 26, 2021, 06:13:47 PM
Quote
We used to have a Phoenix doctrine in our group, the idea was to make use of the insane range of the cruise missiles and drop 200k away from an enemy dreadball. The killer was that we all would have capital sized microwarpdrives, so before sieging we'd get up to speed, and then drift parallel to the enemy. If more dreads got dropped on us we'd just drift out of their range in a minute, and then be free to shoot them too. Of course in three years we only pulled that off once or twice and never when I was around for it. :-(
For more general dread usage I was a conventional Rev-man. Can't beat big fat lasers!

Nowadays, the counter to that would be supers, since their fighter bombers can keep up with anything, especially a Tokyo drifting dread :)
I believe my alliance had sniper Phoenixes as one capital doctrine, but that never really worked as intended, because any fight where you would drop sniper Phoenixes would tend to be one where you also dropped other dreads to threaten their other capital ships, so you would almost always see TIDI. Missiles and TIDI do not get along, so the doctrine was dropped. Also not enough people trained into them, so it was hard to get the numbers to volley enemy capital ships or supers as intended.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on April 18, 2021, 06:53:22 PM
It's baaaaaaaack!!!  ;D ;D ;D

It's been a while since I touched this - blame RL. Had most of the update written out already after the last update, but wasn't quite satisfied with it as things repeatedly failed to take a dramatic turn. Two more peaceful years it is :D

I know the feeling, although it's my case it's less that nothing dramatic is happening and more that too many undramatic things happen which slow down the arrival of dramatic happenings. Such is Aurora.  :P

Quote
The ships move into position on the LP under radio silence, but the plan fails. Calculations for the arrival time of the PRL freighter were off by a bit, not more than 10 or 15 seconds, and the black ops unit enters the LP at virtually the same time as the freighter on the other side. As the target is now in the inner system and and a mere 200m km from Concordia and the busy civilian traffic there, the operation is aborted. Although it is unlikely they ever saw the frigates, another attempt won't be made in case they noticed something was up and increase security for the next run.

Crew members reported hearing the Pink Panther Theme playing in the background.

Quote
San Rafael First Contact Situation

Seems like the Solway do not mind too much if you follow them back home, which is rather curious. Likely they don't realize the JP they just stabilized was hidden and assumed the INL would find them anyways? Although they'll likely need a grav survey ship to actually find the Solway home world anyways. At any rate, the aliens didn't shoot, so this may be a good opportunity for trade and technology sharing behind the backs of the other human powers.

Quote
A seperate expedition will come to clear the ground weapon on planet B-III and then there is nothing standing in the way of full exploitation of the system.

Given the rather rash decisions made previously in the fight against the Qian by the PRL, this show of careful patience is a sharp difference, what with sending multiple expeditions instead killing everything all at once.

Quote
hand-holding party on Procyon's Rest

That's one way to describe it, I suppose.

Quote
Not two weeks later the alien task force identifies itself as belonging to a polity called the Sukabumi Alliance. They don't divulge any details about their mission. This is the same species that the Japanese made contact with after one of their ships popped up next to Neo-Kobe twenty years ago. Naturally, they had never shared the communications codes they used to communicate with the Sukabumi or the location of the JP leading back to their space, and given the current bad relations with Japan, it's unlikely they ever will. So be it, should the Japanese decide to exploit this only-known-to-them connection and anger the Sukabumi, Callisto will not warn them of their overwhelming military strength encountered here.

This is just hilarious. Of course the only powers which met these aliens just happen to have a mortal hatred for each other. It won't be long before each side starts trying to pit the Sukabumi against their opponent, though I imagine the Sukabumi are not terribly eagerly to be so trifled with.

----

With more discoveries of alien races it has to be only a matter of time until the various human powers begin to forge alliances with their non-human neighbors to try and leverage against their human opponents. It remains to be seen how this might upset the balance of power in the galaxy...
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on April 18, 2021, 08:16:04 PM
I know the feeling, although it's my case it's less that nothing dramatic is happening and more that too many undramatic things happen which slow down the arrival of dramatic happenings. Such is Aurora.  :P

Absolutely. It's easy to think about getting back into the game, dreaming about epic space battles, alliances and betrayals, only to be clobbered by a hundred mundane logistical details, orders and build queues finishing where you don't quite remember if you intended to follow up on them somehow. I do take notes, but they're only so extensive - More than once an empire has sat on a new set of technology for their ships or armies all researched and designed, but then never actually put them into action.

By now everyone's Gallicite sources are getting farther and farther away, and not everybodies freighters are up to the distances. The CAL freighters got a refit for extended fuel tanks at some point relatively recently, but the joint-venture mining outpost Mars established with the INL (Burzaco is the system) is just over 40b away and Martian freighters have a range of 20b, necessitating four micro-intensive refueling stops along the way. I wish underway refueling worked in this version!
Then there's the details of maintenance and fuel juggling between bases, handling the fallout from when there wasn't enough msp somewhere, the ever-present background noise of survey ships needing targets, coming home or finding something, some scientist dying and having to figure out which project he was working on to find a replacement, and so on... There's a lot of busywork involved in Aurora. The turns started taking long enough that I began playing FTL in the background while turns processed in January. All symptoms of a game with a hundred years worth of simulated entropy. One of my favorite characteristics of a nice AAR is that it doesn't stop early, like so many projects here and elsewhere do, and I think I've succeeded by that measure. I'll definitely get to the 100 year mark yet, with 6 empires. But at some point I'll have to call it quits. Just not yet. One more turn... ;)
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on April 19, 2021, 12:50:11 AM
Yes! The return of Race to the Stars. How would the PRL have responded if that freighter had been destroyed? Ships don't just vanish in Aurora, but the people in the game don't know that, although I don't think any other ships have just vanished without a trace. Would they have tried to search for the wreck?
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on April 19, 2021, 04:09:38 AM
Yes! The return of Race to the Stars. How would the PRL have responded if that freighter had been destroyed? Ships don't just vanish in Aurora, but the people in the game don't know that, although I don't think any other ships have just vanished without a trace. Would they have tried to search for the wreck?

We'll never know now, would we? I imagine the Martian ships in the system would have looked away and whistled very hard while the PRL tries to conduct an investigation. They might well have concluded it was them, and tried to respond in kind by raiding their shipping, giving potential for escalation.

They'd probably have searched for the ship and found the wreckage. The Martians had no plan for the wreck, analysis might well have shown that Martian weapons were the cause of the destruction.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on April 19, 2021, 07:58:21 PM
Yes! The return of Race to the Stars. How would the PRL have responded if that freighter had been destroyed? Ships don't just vanish in Aurora, but the people in the game don't know that, although I don't think any other ships have just vanished without a trace. Would they have tried to search for the wreck?

We'll never know now, would we? I imagine the Martian ships in the system would have looked away and whistled very hard while the PRL tries to conduct an investigation. They might well have concluded it was them, and tried to respond in kind by raiding their shipping, giving potential for escalation.

They'd probably have searched for the ship and found the wreckage. The Martians had no plan for the wreck, analysis might well have shown that Martian weapons were the caues of the destruction.

Can you tractor wrecks? If you can, it might not be a bad idea to bring a tug ship along for next time, or you could use boarding tactics and fly the ship away from a shipping lane. Or you could board and scuttle the ship. (Can you still do that in C#?) If it is scuttled, it might look like an accident, assuming the scuttling is destructive enough to get rid of evidence for boarding action.

Clearly the Martians need to create a plan for next time if they are considering raiding again! Shame about that route not being as valuable as they remember it being, but even a small raid is better than nothing.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on April 19, 2021, 08:37:29 PM
Can you tractor wrecks?

Sadly not.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on April 20, 2021, 08:27:39 PM
Can you tractor wrecks?

Sadly not.
Ahh, never mind.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Garfunkel on April 20, 2021, 09:40:34 PM
This was a planned feature for C# but hasn't made it in yet. Hopefully in 1.13 or maybe 1.14! I really like the idea of towing wrecks to a salvage station in orbit of Io!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on April 21, 2021, 08:09:49 PM
Or maybe just out of range of your rivals sensors.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on April 22, 2021, 12:04:10 PM
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Human-Xining relations are relatively cool these days as they've come to view Humans as unreliable.

Accurate.

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Particularly the PRL, who had a ship get caught up in the fighting, restructured their navy with alien wars in mind as they were the greater threat.

I wonder if this means their ship designs are better than those of other human fleets, or merely are optimized for an alien enemy at the expense perhaps of being weaker against human fleets, providing a useful opportunity for their competitors to take them down a notch.

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There are also a number of other encounters made by Human explorers over the years. Some of them could be attributed to Qian, some as likely encounters of other races, but many are still a mystery: Unexplained energy spikes and weapons fire, mystery wrecks and artificial structures in space. Explorer crews often come home with stories so fantastic and outlandish that they seem unlikely to be true, but should they indeed be there may be as many as a dozen alien species active in the stellar neighborhood.

That would be quite something, especially if the aliens get drawn into a complex web of cross-alliances as human races ally with some and fight wars against others. Lots of potential here.

An excellent and useful summary.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on April 26, 2021, 08:47:11 PM
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The PRL is struggling to get enough infrastructure to Fùguó quickly enough to cover the explosive growth of it's colony. Local refueling and maintenance capacities are badly needed due to it's distance from other PRL bases, the system is only really reachable due to the refueling station on Procyon's Rest already. A repair yard, central administration, naval facilities, more than just a token ground defense force, even a full gravimetric survey of the system are still lacking. Fùguó is in a very vulnerable stage of it's growth. The PRL may need to react early and decisively if it looks like another power is making a move on it.

A familiar feeling...Aurora is maddening at times, you need to get things done as fast as possible but the game takes forever to advance once you've started really playing it.

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The crunch has also highlighted the inadequacy of existing PRL logistics ships, which are an overworked collection of ancient military vessels combining fuel and supply duties, with low capacities of either. A dedicated series of bulk haulers and fast couriers is a must.

Sooo you gotta spend gallicite on your gallicite haulers to get gallicite for your actual fleet. Like I said...maddening!  :P

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The disembarkation process went smoothly, all units got in formation and advanced on the enemy. Upon treading across some unknowable perimeter, the defense systems of the compound sprung to life and began the slaughter. The mobile units of the Qian moved with ease through the thick mists and sharp inclines of the local terrain, efficiently cutting down squadron after squadron as the soldiers in their heavy armor struggled to hit anything. The whole assault was over within an hour, the occasional lucky hit taking down not nearly enough of the defenders.

That's...quite something. Looks like the Callistoanskiy Rezhim has learned not to place nearly so much trust in their active sensor readings when it comes to ground forces...that 600 tons was probably closer to 3000 due to fortification modifiers!

I recommend air-dropping two thousand main battle tanks, this works every time. (https://i.imgur.com/DYAEiOu.gif)

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The Japanese Situation

Japan has been having tough times. Ever since the loss of Venus budgets have been tight in virtually every area. The plan is to change that with the reconquest of Venus and the liberation of it's population, for which rough preperations have been ongoing for years. It is now time for a concrete plan and timetable.

This is really starting to take on a Hatfields vs. McCoys feel now.

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The downsizing of the attack destroyer squadron opens up extra capacities for more escort destroyers, which will be needed to counter the Callistoan navy, as has been demonstrated in the skirmish over Encke a few years ago. The remaining three ion-engined escorts can be kept in service, as they do not depend on their movement speed for their efficacy, but the goal is to build up to 8 escorts again, with 6 as the minimum. Reserves of Qian Interceptors are too low for comfortable supply of all units with 1330 interceptors remaining. Good numbers of domestic interceptors are in storage, but they are not as efficient.

A smart admiral would load the Qian missiles first and fill the magazines with domestic models. Hopefully this can convince the Callistoans that they face a stronger enemy than they really do, and press them to retreat before the Qian missiles are exhausted.

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Maintaining and maximizing Gallicite production is of the highest priority.

An ill-advised raid on a Qian shipping lane may be called for.

So it seems that the battle is some years off. I wonder what the other powers might get up to in the intervening time...
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on April 27, 2021, 12:56:42 AM
That's...quite something. Looks like the Callistoanskiy Rezhim has learned not to place nearly so much trust in their active sensor readings when it comes to ground forces...that 600 tons was probably closer to 3000 due to fortification modifiers!

I might have known that, but the people in charge over there only saw small numbers! :P

I recommend air-dropping two thousand main battle tanks, this works every time. (https://i.imgur.com/DYAEiOu.gif)

Ah, the PRL approach then. You'll be glad to know that the next (hopefully final?) military expedition to Smolensk does indeed carry tanks, though they only have a hundred or so to spare.

A smart admiral would load the Qian missiles first and fill the magazines with domestic models. Hopefully this can convince the Callistoans that they face a stronger enemy than they really do, and press them to retreat before the Qian missiles are exhausted.

That was the plan, but perhaps some more Qian interceptors can be obtained from somewhere before then yet...
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Garfunkel on May 20, 2021, 11:47:27 AM
Very interesting update! How did you handle the raiders? Did you make a new race for them or just made Terra & INL hostile to each other for a bit and hoped that there wouldn't be any accidents elsewhere? I guess if INL doesn't really have any assets in Sol, there wouldn't be.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on May 20, 2021, 01:56:56 PM
Very interesting update! How did you handle the raiders? Did you make a new race for them or just made Terra & INL hostile to each other for a bit and hoped that there wouldn't be any accidents elsewhere? I guess if INL doesn't really have any assets in Sol, there wouldn't be.

The raiders were just part of Terra, and I didn't even make them hostile to another. I've considered setting them hostile to another (I've temporarily set empires hostile for individual fights or screenshots before), but they do share a colony on Procyon's Rest, and a number of systems are used by traffic from both sides, like Wuhan and Salto. The sharing-a-colony issue can be solved by putting all units on both sides into rear position, but the killer problem would be constant detections of civilian ships in Procyon and shared transit systems. But hostile relations are required for a few mechanics to function (like interrupts when they enter your space or sensor range, ground combat and AMMs working). If only all these mechanics didn't tie to the same control... That's an #AuroraWoes moment.

More #AuroraWoes:

That ship that was keeping distance exactly 33k too close? Yeah, 6.6k km/s speed over 5 seconds is that distance. The Cerberus was moving to the 120k distance it was meant to be, then the chasing ship closed in an additional 33k every tick. I wonder how many people are raging at their ships being chronically unable to do what they're told, cause the interactions of movement orders can be a science unto itself.

Oh, and apparently the San Rafael forgot that it was supposed to be under jump shock, it just jumped into the system via standard transit as it was stabilized and was able to move immediately and shoot 5 seconds after, but only because I didn't give the order to shoot immediately. I'm still on 1.11, but I don't think it is broken in this version. One guess would be that it didn't apply an order delay because there were no hostile ships in the system.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on May 21, 2021, 12:46:56 PM
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Callisto of course knows a counterinvasion of Venus is coming, as this is an issue debated in public Japanese political discourse. Politicians have it on their agenda. Unfortunately the army is one arm of the regime that has suffered as a consequence of the budget cuts, and a defense of Venus on the ground is deemed infeasible. What money there is is being invested into another run of thrust blocks. The next fight for Venus will be decided in space. There will still be a refresh of the ground troops, especially in light of the losses in Smolensk, but it's a secondary priority.

This seems shortsighted as a decision by the Callisto leadership. Tonnage of well-fortified ground troops is worth quite a bit when defending a colony as they can require several times their mass in attackers to dislodge. That said, of course spaceborne defenses are a necessity otherwise the mining infrastructure on Venus will be blown up in the battle anyways.

I'm a bit surprised by the discussion of civilian shipping income, mainly because the kind of numbers Callisto has are pretty typical for all of my campaigns and having a budget driven so heavily by shipping taxation is something I never see. It may have to do with the length of the campaign though?

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The counter-volley penetrated the raider's thin plating, taking both engines and the weapon systems with it, ending the fight in one attack. Being disabled, the Garmr surrenders. The privateers had made a rookie mistake in sitting right on top of the JP and will now pay for it by spending their lives in chains.

I'd say their bigger mistake was trying to pick a fight with a military ship three times their size and weapons payload. These pirates will need to go to the clothing store and buy new pants, they've gotten too big for their britches!   :P

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The Cerberus briefly reversed course and fell to under 90k km distance, further than they had intended. The crew of the San Rafael used the opportunity to plink away at the Cerberus before their speed advantage pulls them out of their 120k weapons range again.
More #AuroraWoes:

That ship that was keeping distance exactly 33k too close? Yeah, 6.6k km/s speed over 5 seconds is that distance. The Cerberus was moving to the 120k distance it was meant to be, then the chasing ship closed in an additional 33k every tick. I wonder how many people are raging at their ships being chronically unable to do what they're told, cause the interactions of movement orders can be a science unto itself.

I've found similar happens when ships with different speeds try to maintain distances. Usually manually setting the speed of the faster fleet to match the slower fleet works, but often this requires some fancy flying to actually reach the expected range. I usually consider this to be due to the difficulties of driving a 10,000-ton spaceship and mutter some hand-wavey stuff about helm officers.

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Oh, and apparently the San Rafael forgot that it was supposed to be under jump shock, it just jumped into the system via standard transit as it was stabilized and was able to move immediately and shoot 5 seconds after, but only because I didn't give the order to shoot immediately. I'm still on 1.11, but I don't think it is broken in this version. One guess would be that it didn't apply an order delay because there were no hostile ships in the system.

The jump shock system seems to interact with fleet training level so that a well-trained fleet may not suffer from it at all? The whole system is maddeningly inconsistent frankly. I'd prefer if the current system were replaced by a sensor blindness effect which would prevent opening fire as a side effect, and also make jump point reconnaissance rather less effective preserving the advantage of the defenders, if we must have a jump point system for combat in the first place.

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The INL reaction at least confirms that shipping is the point to hit with them, and intelligence on their newest ship class could be gained.

Making the best spin out of a bad result, indeed.

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Galactic irony has delivered a Japanse explorer with a bounty of immense strategic value: A secret passage into the unprotected backyard of the enemy.

A stabilizer is being dispatched to secure passage for the fleet.

Finally, the conflict expands beyond Venus! Are we on the cusp of our first truly interstellar war between two human factions?

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Faction Profile: TERRA
Terran Primacy (2150)

In general it seems like Terra has the major advantage of population, they may not have the galactic resource base to effectively fuel all of that population but they can absolutely staff the large number of research facilities and other non-production installations to remain competitive until their enemies are weakened enough to strike against.

Interesting deal with Japan, Terra may become a market for "export" designs if some other power sees an opportunity to stabilize, I dunno, a severe financial crunch by selling second-rate technology? Of course, this level of realpolitik only serves to be swept aside by nationalistic enmity...

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Development of proper long-range weapon systems will take a while, but as a first step the Hestia class has been designed:

Interesting design. The propulsion is curious, the individual engines being quite gallicite-hungry but the small displacement used for propulsion keeps the overall cost down and allows mounting a large cache of particle weaponry. The maintenance demands are likely to give Terra serious problems, it looks like they have chronically underinvested in ship engineer training and cannot staff enough engineering bays to reduce overall failure rates. Hopefully, the size and number of weapons will provide a sufficient deterrent.

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Daimonion class Escort

Looks like an excellent design, aside from the magazine perhaps being a bit shallow. This should provide Terra with an absolute hornet's nest of defensive firepower.

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Although expensive, a population in an orbital habitat station is much easier to control than one on the surface of a large planet.

A true, if mildly concerning, point to be raised.

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Remind the colonials of their place - the eventual, if far-off goal, is to make all the independent powers pay Terra their dues again, but the INL is first in line due to their relative weakness. A fight against Mars can't be won yet, so limited engagements that don't call upon them to defend their ally yet are the plan. Raids on targets of opportunity, further sponsorship of privateering and perhaps the takeover of a few minor outposts.

An ambitious if long-term goal. It will be difficult to defeat the colonials with a philosophy that prioritizes Terra first, despite her limited resource base though still yet substantial.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on May 24, 2021, 04:24:16 PM
I'm a bit surprised by the discussion of civilian shipping income, mainly because the kind of numbers Callisto has are pretty typical for all of my campaigns and having a budget driven so heavily by shipping taxation is something I never see. It may have to do with the length of the campaign though?

Probably to do with the length of the campaign. The other four powers have absolutely insane numbers of civilians, 6-9 times as much as INL and CAL.

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I've found similar happens when ships with different speeds try to maintain distances. Usually manually setting the speed of the faster fleet to match the slower fleet works, but often this requires some fancy flying to actually reach the expected range. I usually consider this to be due to the difficulties of driving a 10,000-ton spaceship and mutter some hand-wavey stuff about helm officers.

In this case, hand-wavey stuff about unruly pirate crews without proper military training.

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The jump shock system seems to interact with fleet training level so that a well-trained fleet may not suffer from it at all? The whole system is maddeningly inconsistent frankly. I'd prefer if the current system were replaced by a sensor blindness effect which would prevent opening fire as a side effect, and also make jump point reconnaissance rather less effective preserving the advantage of the defenders, if we must have a jump point system for combat in the first place.

I like that idea. Frankly I have no idea what happened to jump shock or why it isn't working. As far as I read [the rules](http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg113856#msg113856) the incoming ship should have had a minute or two of fire delay. Jump shock hasn't been working all campaign, which may or may not be the real reason nobody has dedicated jump assault ships.

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Galactic irony has delivered a Japanse explorer with a bounty of immense strategic value: A secret passage into the unprotected backyard of the enemy.

A stabilizer is being dispatched to secure passage for the fleet.

Finally, the conflict expands beyond Venus! Are we on the cusp of our first truly interstellar war between two human factions?

Was quite excited to see that passage pop up, the Japanse have all the exciting dormant JP action this game.

There was actually another funny moment that year that stopped my heart for a bit:

(https://i.imgur.com/boQKBnp.png)

I was already in "Oh no, not this again" mode when the Japanese got that message. Turns out they've managed to detect their own shipyard being towed from Earth as a seperate race named Civilians... thanks Steve  ::)

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In general it seems like Terra has the major advantage of population, they may not have the galactic resource base to effectively fuel all of that population but they can absolutely staff the large number of research facilities and other non-production installations to remain competitive until their enemies are weakened enough to strike against.

In general nobody has population problems, another artifact of the conventional start and the many years of growth time afforded by it. The one closest to having pop problems is Callisto, and they still have a bit of breathing room: A worker requirement of 50m and a manufacturing sector of 70m.

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Interesting deal with Japan, Terra may become a market for "export" designs if some other power sees an opportunity to stabilize, I dunno, a severe financial crunch by selling second-rate technology? Of course, this level of realpolitik only serves to be swept aside by nationalistic enmity...

Given their newly enlarged amounts of research facilities (32 to the PRL's 31) I see Terra as being self-sufficient in the future tech-wise, with the smaller powers being more interested in buying tech, like the INL is already doing. I'd have loved to do more trading in this kind of setup, but the general lack of game mechanics to that effect put up some barriers. Not even the "trade access" diplomatic treaty works :-(

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Interesting design. The propulsion is curious, the individual engines being quite gallicite-hungry but the small displacement used for propulsion keeps the overall cost down and allows mounting a large cache of particle weaponry. The maintenance demands are likely to give Terra serious problems, it looks like they have chronically underinvested in ship engineer training and cannot staff enough engineering bays to reduce overall failure rates. Hopefully, the size and number of weapons will provide a sufficient deterrent.

The propulsion systems ratio is still 26%, I'd hoped to be able to push it down to 20, but that wasn't in the cards.

Never really understood people looking at AFR/IFR however, for a ship twice as big it's simply going to be twice as high and consume twice as many supplies, all other things even. Or are you saying 1.2 years maintenance life is a bit low for a capital ship like that? One of the beautiful things about having a slow doctrine is that you can make fast support ships that can keep up with the primary fleet. Now, if only underway replenishment worked in 1.11...

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Daimonion class Escort

Looks like an excellent design, aside from the magazine perhaps being a bit shallow. This should provide Terra with an absolute hornet's nest of defensive firepower.

Agreed on the shallow magazines, but between more magazines and more launchers, more burst defense potential won with how the known missile users of Mars and Callisto operate. The math works out to the ship being able to defend against two volleys of about 35k km/s speed across their whole defense envelope before running out of ordnance.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on September 30, 2022, 11:54:11 PM
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Surprise continuation after 1.5 years!

Clearly you are suffering from El Pip's disease. For a disease about slow posting of updates it certainly spreads rapidly.

This is...actually quite a long post. Certainly a worthy comeback.

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Hopefully the 43k tons of ground pounders and tanks they carry will be able to make sure this will be the last expedition needed to secure the system.

Such wishful thinking on the part of the Callisto faction. I mean, it worked out okay, but still.

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That was good, that meant alien wars could stop somewhere before they became total and genocidal.

I'm very confused, I thought this game was Aurora?

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The PRL is in negotiations with the Japanese regarding the sale of their share of the Qian interceptors captured on Procyon's Rest. PRL escorts don't use interceptor missiles, so they have little use for them. It is in the PRL's interest to see the Japanese navy, whom they see as a likely ally against alien threats, survive, so providing them with defensive weapons makes sense. There has been some difficulty finding something the Japanese can offer in return, though.

That problem is solved when a PRL survey cruiser shows up near Neo-Kobe in Grand Bourg and transits into Sukabumi space, the location of the JP already known to the PRL due to an intelligence coup in 2138. This happened over Japanese objections, as they had always refused to share the precise location of the JP with the other powers for fear that they might provoke the aliens. The next day, the PRL negotiation head let the Japanse know they were prepared to release the interceptors to them in the interest of good relations. It was unlikely they Japanese would have agreed to give them access to the JP, but sometimes it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. The move had demonstrated two things: That the PRL was the one to dictate the terms, and that they do not need assistance to take what they want.

That is certainly one way to close a deal, though I think the Japanese resentment might cause problems later...

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Mighty Dolphins

Top ten ship class/squadron names right here.  ;D

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In the end and in true democratic fashion a compromise is reached

Indeed, there could be no other resolution, even in states which are not chained to the dictates of the democratic system such a status quo remains in effect after all. (https://i.imgur.com/Z3wSg01.gif)

Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on October 01, 2022, 07:33:21 AM
Awesome! I get the feeling the Humans might want to think about creating mutual defence treaties before poking the alien hornets nest, that is a lot of ships.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Garfunkel on October 11, 2022, 10:19:08 PM
Nice to see this updated!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on October 17, 2022, 02:44:42 PM
Nice to see much of the crowd from a before is still around and kicking :-)
Not sure how frequent updates are going to be going forward. I've certainly reached my goal of a hundred-year campaign.

Such wishful thinking on the part of the Callisto faction. I mean, it worked out okay, but still.

It helped that they had bombarded most of the troops beforehand, and the crew here was just on clean-up duty. This was the smallest size of Precursor outpost, if it was just one or two sizes bigger (like the Quanzhou one) they probably wouldn't have been able to take it.

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I'm very confused, I thought this game was Aurora?

NPRs sure are weird sometimes. I've come up with successor game ideas from time to time, and mostly resolved to play at least a significant portion of extrasolar empires myself. That means starting different factions in different systems, which is it's own kind of fun! Had a VB6 game like that before and it was pretty fun as well.

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Indeed, there could be no other resolution, even in states which are not chained to the dictates of the democratic system such a status quo remains in effect after all. (https://i.imgur.com/Z3wSg01.gif)

I'm sure you can picture most vividly all the arguments and shenanigans that go on on the naval conference where such decisions are made ;D

Awesome! I get the feeling the Humans might want to think about creating mutual defence treaties before poking the alien hornets nest, that is a lot of ships.

Due to our luck with NPRs there hasn't really been a concrete external threat to force something like that to happen yet, but it'd totally be up the PRLs alley.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on October 19, 2022, 03:19:55 AM
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NPRs sure are weird sometimes. I've come up with successor game ideas from time to time, and mostly resolved to play at least a significant portion of extrasolar empires myself. That means starting different factions in different systems, which is it's own kind of fun! Had a VB6 game like that before and it was pretty fun as well.
That does sound fun!
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: nuclearslurpee on October 19, 2022, 07:34:20 AM
I keep hoping for someone (Steve??) to do something basically like this, maybe not with 8+ Earth factions but playing multiple races from multiple systems as they all expand, interact, and beat each other up. I don't think we've really had a game like that in Aurora, whereas this is the bread and butter of the old Starfire AARs (and the current one too!). So I would fully support this sort of shenanigan if Zap0 felt up for it.

I'd do it but I barely have enough time for one player race as it is.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: StarshipCactus on October 19, 2022, 09:03:23 AM
I tried playing a multi faction game in 1.12 and it needs a lot of work. There are so many SM tools and abilities missing so you have to crawl through the DB all the time to get anything done.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: Zap0 on October 19, 2022, 11:04:00 AM
That's unfortunately true. 2.0 added some of that missing functionality, like the ability to transfer ships between races. In this game (1.11), I'm making do with SM-ing boarding ships and boarding parties, which can be a bit of a hassle. Transferring tech is a reasonably easy DB edit, but moving components ingame is only possible through invasion, which involves setting two empires hostile to another and that has it's own baggage. It not being easy is one of the unfortunate reasons why there hasn't been much trade between the various nations.

Time isn't as plentiful as it was before, but I do like this game and keep coming back to it. Half the fun comes from being in a game state where everybody has expanded and has their own set of strengths and weaknesses already. That's a reason to continue to play an existing game, even if it's also full of many unrelated threads of micromanagement one needs to keep in mind and keep tabs on.
Title: Re: Race to the Stars - Comments Thread
Post by: rainyday on October 19, 2022, 12:08:37 PM
full of many unrelated threads of micromanagement one needs to keep in mind and keep tabs on.

I feel you there. I've done a similar setup (inspired by this AAR, actually) in Sol at least twice now. The longest running one started with 5 races, and one had, I think, 8, and honestly, I don't know how y'all keep up with it. By the time I get jump drives, I am desperately consolidating down to 2-3.

I have two player races in my current AAR who are actively expanding in different areas, and it's been pretty manageable. Maybe even a bit easier than having them in the same system. The different maps and limited interaction make it almost like playing two games at the same time. Probably a bit too much like that, because I have 100+ systems in my database explored by 4 different races (including NPRs and Spoilers) and zero natural overlap points. My third player race is about to build their first jump drive and I'm curious to see how much that complicates the game. Their starting system was trash, so all I've really needed to do for them is manage build queue/research/etc.

I don't remember when it was added but "Show All Race Events" on the map has been huge. A bit of judicious color coding makes it pretty quick to read and process the turns without needing to juggle windows.