Aurora 4x
C# Fiction => Steve's Fiction => Gothic Campaign => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on May 31, 2021, 06:02:36 AM
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Please post any comments in this thread
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An old familiar song is heard coming over the jump horizon...yes, Steve has started another Warhammer campaign, and all the Emperor's people said "Amen!"
Hopefully we get to see some action with the new raider spoilers, I'm also hoping for some Tyranid action reminiscent of the Crusade campaign.
I do notice that the tech level you're using seems to be upjumped a bit compared to previous WH40K campaigns, such as starting with 20 cm railguns and 6-shot Gauss. Makes sense, with the rather suboptimal weapons arrangements on many of these ships making them a little bit more effective helps to keep things relatively even against better optimized NPR designs...now there's a phrase not often uttered!
And you were not kidding when you said this was a detailed setup. Is this the first campaign where you've detailed the Space Marines really at all? In any case looks like you pushed against the post size limit, so here's to more posts that do the same!
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Oh wow, definitely a very detailed startup. That must have taken you several hours!
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Not a WH40K player so this may be a dumb question, but why are 10cm railguns "lascannons" while lasers are "bombardment cannons"?
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"Wait, how did he give those units TWO specializations? I've only ever been able to pick one!"
I fire up Aurora, run to the unit design page, start clicking.
Idea. Hold shift and click a second specialization.
Slam my head into my keyboard. :)
Not a WH40K player so this may be a dumb question, but why are 10cm railguns "lascannons" while lasers are "bombardment cannons"?
I imagine this is a distinction based mainly on rate-of-fire; with lascannons firing rapidly at the cost of each shot being lower-power, and a bombardment cannon prioritizing penetration over ROF.
Since railgun shots get weaker at longer ranges, rapid-fire lasers are arguably a more accurate fluff characterization. ;)
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Stormbird class Attack Craft 1,000 tons 30 Crew 168.5 BP TCS 20 TH 160 EM 0
8007 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 HTK 3 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 7.56
Maint Life 0.90 Years MSP 50 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 55 5YR 831 Max Repair 80.00 MSP
Magazine 30
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Ravenor Drive Systems AC-160 Attack Craft Drive (1) Power 160.0 Fuel Use 442.72% Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 35,000 Litres Range 1.42 billion km (49 hours at full power)
MK II Lascannon (1x4) Range 40,000km TS: 8,007 km/s Power 3-3 RM 40,000 km ROF 5
MK I Lascannon Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 8,000 km/s
R3 Gaseous Fission Reactor (1) Total Power Output 3 Exp 5%
Light Torpedo Launcher (12) Missile Size: 2.5 Hangar Reload 79 minutes MF Reload 13 hours
MK I Light Torpedo Fire Control (1) Range 21.1m km Resolution 120
MK I Light Torpedo (15) Speed: 24,000 km/s End: 7.7m Range: 11.1m km WH: 4 Size: 2.5 TH: 80/48/24
MK I Attack Craft Torpedo Detection Array (1) GPS 3 Range 2.1m km MCR 192.7k km Resolution 1
MK I Shuttle Active Augur Array (1) GPS 864 Range 18.3m km Resolution 120
MK I Shuttle Thermal Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 0.6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6.1m km
Maybe I am missing something but why does the stormbird have an internal magazine? Can parasites reload box missiles in hangar from their own magazines? Also it say 15 but should be 12 max with 30 space I guess due to refit.
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Stormbird class Attack Craft 1,000 tons 30 Crew 168.5 BP TCS 20 TH 160 EM 0
8007 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 HTK 3 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 7.56
Maint Life 0.90 Years MSP 50 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 55 5YR 831 Max Repair 80.00 MSP
Magazine 30
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Ravenor Drive Systems AC-160 Attack Craft Drive (1) Power 160.0 Fuel Use 442.72% Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 35,000 Litres Range 1.42 billion km (49 hours at full power)
MK II Lascannon (1x4) Range 40,000km TS: 8,007 km/s Power 3-3 RM 40,000 km ROF 5
MK I Lascannon Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 8,000 km/s
R3 Gaseous Fission Reactor (1) Total Power Output 3 Exp 5%
Light Torpedo Launcher (12) Missile Size: 2.5 Hangar Reload 79 minutes MF Reload 13 hours
MK I Light Torpedo Fire Control (1) Range 21.1m km Resolution 120
MK I Light Torpedo (15) Speed: 24,000 km/s End: 7.7m Range: 11.1m km WH: 4 Size: 2.5 TH: 80/48/24
MK I Attack Craft Torpedo Detection Array (1) GPS 3 Range 2.1m km MCR 192.7k km Resolution 1
MK I Shuttle Active Augur Array (1) GPS 864 Range 18.3m km Resolution 120
MK I Shuttle Thermal Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 0.6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6.1m km
Maybe I am missing something but why does the stormbird have an internal magazine? Can parasites reload box missiles in hangar from their own magazines? Also it say 15 but should be 12 max with 30 space I guess due to refit.
Thats not the internal magazine, its got 12 size 2.5 torpedo tubes, which gives 30 magazine space for the missiles inside the box launchers themselves.
The only confusing thing here is the 15 torpedoes which you pointed out already.
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Gotcha, yeah I guess the different size confused my, didnt think box launchers had the volume listed.
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Glad to see another Imperium campaign, especially with Spacemarine chapters included!
Will the Space Marines go off on their own and perform independent operations and generally cause trouble (with the blessing of the Emperor of course) or will they hang around with the Imperial Navy and do what they're told?
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Glad to see another Imperium campaign, especially with Spacemarine chapters included!
Will the Space Marines go off on their own and perform independent operations and generally cause trouble (with the blessing of the Emperor of course) or will they hang around with the Imperial Navy and do what they're told?
I'd love to see the campaign split across multiple theaters, with e.g. Space Marines fighting Necrons and the main fleet desperately staving off Tyranids.
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An old familiar song is heard coming over the jump horizon...yes, Steve has started another Warhammer campaign, and all the Emperor's people said "Amen!"
Hopefully we get to see some action with the new raider spoilers, I'm also hoping for some Tyranid action reminiscent of the Crusade campaign.
I do notice that the tech level you're using seems to be upjumped a bit compared to previous WH40K campaigns, such as starting with 20 cm railguns and 6-shot Gauss. Makes sense, with the rather suboptimal weapons arrangements on many of these ships making them a little bit more effective helps to keep things relatively even against better optimized NPR designs...now there's a phrase not often uttered!
And you were not kidding when you said this was a detailed setup. Is this the first campaign where you've detailed the Space Marines really at all? In any case looks like you pushed against the post size limit, so here's to more posts that do the same!
The engine tech is one below Ion (using the new engine tech designations) but I am up to about 8000 RP in most of the weapons. The gauss turrets are twin, so only 3-shot gauss.
In past WH40k campaigns, the Space Marines were treated as elite boarding troops within the Imperial Navy, so this is the first time I have detailed them separately.
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Oh wow, definitely a very detailed startup. That must have taken you several hours!
Several days :)
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Not a WH40K player so this may be a dumb question, but why are 10cm railguns "lascannons" while lasers are "bombardment cannons"?
I'm using the WH40k designations for weapons and and then trying to find the Aurora weapon with the most appropriate mechanics. For example, weapon batteries are the main armament of many warships and fire lots of shots so the larger railguns make sense. Bombardment cannon have powerful individual shots so they match lasers. The lascannon are small, fast-firing weapons, so they match 10cm railguns, etc.
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Glad to see another Imperium campaign, especially with Spacemarine chapters included!
Will the Space Marines go off on their own and perform independent operations and generally cause trouble (with the blessing of the Emperor of course) or will they hang around with the Imperial Navy and do what they're told?
I plan to have them conduct independent operations, but they will also conduct joint operations with the Navy if needed. I'll probably assign each Chapter to a colony that will act as their base of operations.
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Crazy amount of details, I love it.
Looking forward very much to the Imperium's tale of war ;D
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I don't want to be a buzzkill :D but I would have preferred a multi-human campaigns, in part to see how Aurora C# handles the load. But oh well, this Gothic Campaign is not something I'll ignore, thanks Steve!
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I don't want to be a buzzkill :D but I would have preferred a multi-human campaigns, in part to see how Aurora C# handles the load. But oh well, this Gothic Campaign is not something I'll ignore, thanks Steve!
May I recommend Stormtrooper's massive "History of Mankind after COVID19 pandemic" AAR? Over about two centuries, he built up a human empire, initially 0.5 billion, to a total population of more than 35 billion including conquered aliens. His Aurora C# 1.12 savefile is in the POST SCRIPTUM thread.
Load it up, and you will get a very definite idea of what REAL late-game slow-down, both on the gameplay side and the interface side, feels like!
The short answer to your query, based on this - rather definitive - evidence and my own multi-faction AARs, to the question:
"How [does] Aurora C# handles the load" is:
"Temper expectations and limit scenario size, even on the fastest [2021] CPUs. There's a good reason not to allow more than a few spacefaring factions to exist in any game, regardless of the detection and civilian options you choose, and that reason is ever-increasing and - as Stormtrooper experienced - eventually game-killing lag. His savefile should be an object lesson for us all."
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I don't want to be a buzzkill :D but I would have preferred a multi-human campaigns, in part to see how Aurora C# handles the load. But oh well, this Gothic Campaign is not something I'll ignore, thanks Steve!
I've found with C# that I spend a lot of time on game setup because of the increased detail. Therefore, multi-human campaigns are a lot of work. The AI is improved too (although I still need to add carriers, more variety, etc.) so the games vs AI are more interesting. I will get around to another human vs human at some point.
BTW, the new raiders definitely change the way you think about protecting your Empire. I'm actually sending escorts with colony fleets :)
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That is both great and horrifying, especially with the huge amount of civilian shipping that can quickly spawn.
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BTW, the new raiders definitely change the way you think about protecting your Empire. I'm actually sending escorts with colony fleets :)
I was thinking about it quite a bit and it brough back memories of WITPAE. Setting convoy escorts, search patterns to detect submarines and raiders in time to intercept them and there were never enough escort ships to protect everything adequately.
Our terraformers and fuel harvesters were always safe, now they are extremely vulnerable targets that require protection. Dedicated escort designs with enough endurance to accompany long range convoys will be necessary or chain of refuel bases, that will also need protection. This actually adds completely new layer that we didn't really have to think about.
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Our terraformers and fuel harvesters were always safe, now they are extremely vulnerable targets that require protection. Dedicated escort designs with enough endurance to accompany long range convoys will be necessary or chain of refuel bases, that will also need protection. This actually adds completely new layer that we didn't really have to think about.
It also gives new life to planetary terraformers and fuel refineries which have been pretty badly outclassed by their orbital versions for some time now, since it is probably easier to plant those on a far-out colony with a 20,000-ton garrison brigade than it is to maintain permanent escorts. Of course the hard part is getting enough workers to run the things which could have its own challenges...
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I do worry a bit that it will add a lot of tediousness due to having to cycle a lot of small fleets in patrol tours all over the place. I guess tending stations and orbital habitat will become a lot more essential now.
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I do worry a bit that it will add a lot of tediousness due to having to cycle a lot of small fleets in patrol tours all over the place. I guess tending stations and orbital habitat will become a lot more essential now.
Well you just need to be aware of shipping routes and send stuff along that way. Protecting JPs isn't necessary because thats not how the pirates get around from what I understand.
As for lone colonies a ground garrison and some STOs will probably be sufficient. The latter is what would be most micro intensive, since you'd have to get transports to drop troops at every mining colony, archeological dig and CMC (assuming their garrisons are insufficient). I also fear the problem where since ground construction isn't aggregate like normal construction, STOs will take years to build, making it hard to protect those small colonies.
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I do worry a bit that it will add a lot of tediousness due to having to cycle a lot of small fleets in patrol tours all over the place. I guess tending stations and orbital habitat will become a lot more essential now.
Raiders are optional, so if you don't want to worry about patrols, etc. you can just turn them off.
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I do worry a bit that it will add a lot of tediousness due to having to cycle a lot of small fleets in patrol tours all over the place. I guess tending stations and orbital habitat will become a lot more essential now.
Raiders are optional, so if you don't want to worry about patrols, etc. you can just turn them off.
I don't think they were complaining about the fact that needing to set up patrols was somehow bad. The point was that it could be super micro intensive to do so, which you may or may not agree with.
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Oh yeah not really complaining, more stuff is always good and it is optional as mentioned, just thinking out loud what I expect will happen in my first playthrough. I do think it will favor making less colonies overall with the raiders enabled just to ease on the micromanagement side.
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Oh yeah not really complaining, more stuff is always good and it is optional as mentioned, just thinking out loud what I expect will happen in my first playthrough. I do think it will favor making less colonies overall with the raiders enabled just to ease on the micromanagement side.
Alternatively there will be some measure of risk+reward, in that if you have a mining system with a hub colony and several outlying asteroid mining sites, it may not be practical to stick defenses on every asteroid you're mining but the gains from building those colonies hopefully outweigh the risk of losing installations or stations to the raiders before your defense fleet can respond. Basically, settle ten colonies and if the raiders take one you still have nine left, which is a net positive.
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It seems that I double-post in AAR comment threads with frightening regularity...
Anyways:
Proxima could be a strong automining site especially if better deposits don't turn up in the next few rings of surveys, particularly if going heavy into ground forces the Vendarite could be useful as well. Still with so many jump points in the second ring I'd guess that it's unlikely nothing better turns up.
As is tradition in WH40K AARs the fighting starts early against a Necron fleet. I am curious though if some tweaks have been made to the NPR ship and missile designs? They seem just a bit different from what I remember.
Victory on the ground as well, but with much heavier losses than in space. One wonders what sort of advances in ground forces technology and doctrine might be made based on lessons learned in this battle. With two Dormant Constructs already discovered there is a possibility that any Aether Rifts might be closed up before the Imperium gets the chance to discover them!
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I am curious though if some tweaks have been made to the NPR ship and missile designs? They seem just a bit different from what I remember.
I do tweak the designs as I spot issues. For example, the AI ship designs in v1.14 are better at matching speed to beam fire control design, rather than the generic 4x Range, 1x Speed. I've also added small, secondary anti-missile sensors to AI designs with railguns as the main armament.
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Hey Steve!
I have been offline for a while and when I came back I see this campaign and I'm eager to find out more about the Empire and its heroes. As someone said I also think that scorting ships and harvests stations will give much more deep and RP, and also reminds me to War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition (WITPAE) when you have to scort ships to avoid enemy SS.
Eager to play with the new 1.14!
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heh, 186 missiles missed. That sucks.. Think of all the wasted resources!
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Man those raiders are scary. With a significant tech deficit AMM are about the only thing that would be effective if tohit% can overcome the ECM. The fact that they have lowish armor makes it workable I think.
I liked the last stand of Commander Endymion, very heroic.
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Uh oh, raiders are indeed scary. The stuff of nightmares if one is doing a conventional start! Good luck - you're going to need it!
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Uh oh, raiders are indeed scary. The stuff of nightmares if one is doing a conventional start! Good luck - you're going to need it!
I was thinking the same thing! Probably a little like invaders and better to keep them turned off for that initial build-up period.
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A bit surprised about that larger raider fleet - to be honest was expecting them to be more like nuisance instead of a formidable and organized fighting force.
By the way, could we get a screenshot of Galactic Map? Having hard time connecting all the system links in my head.
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A bit surprised about that larger raider fleet - to be honest was expecting them to be more like nuisance instead of a formidable and organized fighting force.
By the way, could we get a screenshot of Galactic Map? Having hard time connecting all the system links in my head.
The raiders are mostly single ships and small squadrons, but they will have one or two larger forces available when they identify a potentially valuable target with relatively minor defences. However, they are still far smaller than NPRs or other spoilers in terms of total tonnage. Destroying their ships will slow them down though as they have fixed replenishment rate.
Their main advantage is their ECM. Otherwise they start with precursor-level tech. However, they can advance their tech in the same way as an NPR, so they will stay dangerous for longer than Precursors.
I've added a Galactic Map post.
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That sounds super nice. :)
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Seeing the first raider ship class noted as "Corsair" brings to mind: will there be a new class naming theme for the Dark Eldar to go along, similar to how we have a Necron theme for precursors?
A very interesting tactical situation posed by this raider that we don't usually see from NPRs I think, so looking forward to that. I do wonder if it might be a bit overtuned for the early tech level as players on default 500m pop TN starts will struggle to tech up enough to overcome the combination of ECM and 250,000? km range railguns. I recall the raider spoiler is supposed to tech up over time so perhaps some adjustment wouldn't be the worst idea? On the other hand with fog of war being a thing it might not be so bad as long as the raiders remain afraid of a respectably-sized fleet and stand off as much as possible.
The single alien ship was proving to be extremely troublesome. Almost three hundred thousand tons of Imperium warships were engaged in trying to catch a single, elusive 9500-ton alien ship.
LMAO!
And later on it seems that the raiders can mount a fairly convincing fighting force. Not sure how the Imperium will handle this just yet, it seems some sort of new technology is needed to make headway. Perhaps upgrading the Starhawk torpedoes to a model with less range or damage but more speed/agility or perhaps ECCM will be able to penetrate the raiders' ECM screens.
Definitely have left off at a tense moment, I eagerly await the conclusion of this surprisingly epic clash!
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I like it a lot, a tense moment to be sure.
If I had time to change fleet composition, in this situation I would be tempted to build a lot of fast ion drive beam fighters, since Steve just researched that. They would surely take horrific losses but on the other hand, missiles are very costly too.
Of course it's not so easy to quickly change fleet composition.... I look forward to read more ;D
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Seeing the first raider ship class noted as "Corsair" brings to mind: will there be a new class naming theme for the Dark Eldar to go along, similar to how we have a Necron theme for precursors?
Yes, already added :)
I'm using those Dark Eldar theme names in this campaign.
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I realised that you didn't follow proper doctrine by making the smaller Imperial ships slightly faster than the larger ones, but you did a good job of displaying the normal Imperial strategy against Eldar of getting beaten into a pulp by something a tenth of your size. :P
Are the Hermes class platforms classified as commercial, I thought anything small enough to be a fighter would automatically be military, but is that because they have no engine?
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Are the Hermes class platforms classified as commercial, I thought anything small enough to be a fighter would automatically be military, but is that because they have no engine?
Correct, commercial is the "default" classification of a ship and it is only classified as military if it has a military component - weapons, military engines, and sensors larger than 1 HS are military components, but notably sensors of 1 HS or smaller are commercial, so you can make such a monitoring station or probe.
I do remember Steve made a comment about requiring an Engineering Space as a bugfix in 1.14+ but I'm not sure I see that applied to the Hermes class, unless the required size is now dependent on the size of the ship to enable these kinds of small designs?
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I do remember Steve made a comment about requiring an Engineering Space as a bugfix in 1.14+ but I'm not sure I see that applied to the Hermes class, unless the required size is now dependent on the size of the ship to enable these kinds of small designs?
It has 25MSP, so it probably does have an engineering space.
Those Eldar escort ships must have pretty good passive sensors.
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So all these Eldar ships are obviously coming and going from a fixed point in space - will that point be marked if you happen to see a ship entering/leaving, or is it up to the player to remember?
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Quite rare to see so many losses suffered in a Steve campaign, especially on the ground. Certainly keeps things tense and exciting!
Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.
It seems to me that the raiders pose a threat in two stages from a naval perspective. First they send a scout to poke around in a potentially vulnerable system, which necessitates having light patrol and guard forces in all colonies or commerce lanes. However once they identify a target they commit to a large operation to make off with the loot, so detecting their scout requires a large response force to race towards that system to carry out counter-raiding operations. The result is a full encounter battle, and understanding it this way the raiders make a lot more sense to me, although they are still very different from the pirates people suggested initially (not a bad thing of course). Looking forward to similar stories in my own campaigns!
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Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.
Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.
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Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.
Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.
That doesn't seem like it would gain him much. The raiders don't use missiles, so he can fire as many as he wants at them pretty freely. The problem is only the new special anti-raider missiles can actually hit them, and even those not well. Diverting industry that could be producing the new missiles into more expensive mines seems like a straight up loss.
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Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.
Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.
That doesn't seem like it would gain him much. The raiders don't use missiles, so he can fire as many as he wants at them pretty freely. The problem is only the new special anti-raider missiles can actually hit them, and even those not well. Diverting industry that could be producing the new missiles into more expensive mines seems like a straight up loss.
Except that his Starhawk bombers take 80 minutes to reload. If they lay a salvo of mines, and then reload with their normal light missiles, the next battle could see two or more effective salvos out of them.
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Except that his Starhawk bombers take 80 minutes to reload. If they lay a salvo of mines, and then reload with their normal light missiles, the next battle could see two or more effective salvos out of them.
The main bottleneck is missile production - Steve specifically mentions that the current fleet has virtually all of the new (actually able to hit with any kind of %) missiles. He doesn't have the production needed to also produce mines - which isn't surprising when even your "improved" missiles miss about 80% of the time.
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So, the raiders get raided in turn! Great update.
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The main bottleneck is missile production - Steve specifically mentions that the current fleet has virtually all of the new (actually able to hit with any kind of %) missiles. He doesn't have the production needed to also produce mines - which isn't surprising when even your "improved" missiles miss about 80% of the time.
Yes, I take it for granted that he is producing new missiles non–stop. It follows then that he would need to produce one fewer missile for every mine he uses.
The only important unknown is whether he can squeeze the sensor and reactor into the mine without losing so much range or warhead strength as to make it useless.
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Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.
Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.
Actually, it may be the time to finally add back the self destruct button? Just for the sanity of those who may want to clean up the mess after a search and destroy mission.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/3524/3783516803_84c4f6b53a_c.jpg)
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I like Steve's AARs. I have, occasionally, gone back to read his prior C# AARs, especially the previous Imperium-themed ones. They're fairly brief as AARs go, but are more lavish in detail when it's needed (battles etc.) It lets me enjoy the tactical challenges Steve faces while also getting to see how someone else handles the "grand strategy" challenges.
I have to make some time to advance my current game to a good stopping point because I really want to fight these new NPRs as well when the next version drops. :)
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So it looks like the raiders not only upgrade their ships over time, but actually do so at a fairly quick pace. That means they should remain pretty challenging through much of the game unless you can really cripple them in the early going. Otherwise it is a technological race for a while yet.
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Minor error: The Defiant class was described and design as a light carrier but in the Aurora design has been classified as a light cruiser.
Was re reading today and just noticed.
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A very entertaining read. A hard fought battle, but it seems the imperium is the winner this time.
It also seems, just as I thought before, that massed beam starfighters would be very effective. Costly yes, but then again using a ton of missiles is costly too, and they're not fast to be produced.
A couple of question.
I noticed you killed every single enemy ship. Did you consider that trying to capture any of them was impractical/too costly?
From your description, at least one of the raptors during the furies engagement seemed to be without working weapons, but maybe I got that wrong.
Also, are you going to shift productions towards morer beam fighters/warships?
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A very entertaining read. A hard fought battle, but it seems the imperium is the winner this time.
It also seems, just as I thought before, that massed beam starfighters would be very effective. Costly yes, but then again using a ton of missiles is costly too, and they're not fast to be produced.
A couple of question.
I noticed you killed every single enemy ship. Did you consider that trying to capture any of them was impractical/too costly?
From your description, at least one of the raptors during the furies engagement seemed to be without working weapons, but maybe I got that wrong.
Also, are you going to shift productions towards morer beam fighters/warships?
Yes, one of the Raptors wasn't firing. It had probably lost fire control.
I do agree that massed beam-armed fighters seems like a good option. One Fury II costs the same as 38 MK III torpedoes, so the full waves of 768 torpedoes were equivalent to the cost of twenty Furies. The Furies also require a lower percentage of Gallicite than the torpedoes. I also believe that double the number of Furies would be more effective than double the number of torpedoes, so I do plan to increase the proportion of interceptors to bombers, assuming I can resolve the Gallicite crisis.
Capture is tricky with the Eldar. They are fast, so boarding at full speed isn't a good idea, plus even when disabled they tend to have active energy weapons that would destroy the Thunderhawks. I may make more of an effort in future, but for now I just wanted them gone :)
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I like the rate of updates in this AAR. They come out quicker than the last couple of AARs which means Steve is having fun with the new spoilers - which means only good things for the rest of us when 1.14 releases!
I'm really loving the tactical richness in these Dark Eldar fights. I'll admit that I'm still worried that the new spoilers will be a bit too much on a 500m pop start, but it definitely seems like there will be a lot of creative ways to even the odds with a technologically inferior fleet.
A very close-run battle in Proxima. Certainly a great victory though I imagine the fighter corps will have difficulty recruiting new Fury pilots given the rather concerning mortality rate. Still, in the grim darkness of Imperium Naval calculus, as Zincat says probably a cheaper solution than expending even more expensive missiles, although gallicite will be a concern either way.
Meanwhile in Ullanor, an Emissary class Diplomatic Station had been towed into orbit of the alien-occupied moon in an attempt to establish communications. The alien ground force continued to ignore all hails, so the Death Korps of Krieg was on en route to the planet to encourage a response.
I see the cliffhanger bug is leaking from Stormtrooper's AARs... :P
Capture is tricky with the Eldar. They are fast, so boarding at full speed isn't a good idea, plus even when disabled they tend to have active energy weapons that would destroy the Thunderhawks. I may make more of an effort in future, but for now I just wanted them gone :)
The solution is to follow classic Imperial doctrine and maximize the advantage of numbers. ;)
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Having a new interceptor variant armed with microwaves (the Panasonic-class :D) mixed in with the Furies would increase the lifespan of the interceptors once they finally get in range of the Eldar ships.
But perhaps the Imperium sees microwave weapons as perverted abominations in the sight of the Omnissiah!
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Having a new interceptor variant armed with microwaves (the Panasonic-class :D) mixed in with the Furies would increase the lifespan of the interceptors once they finally get in range of the Eldar ships.
But perhaps the Imperium sees microwave weapons as perverted abominations in the sight of the Omnissiah!
If the Eldar ships couldn't shoot back then it would be easier to capture them as well, so perhaps the lure of all that advanced Xeno tech would make the Mechanicum overlook the heresy and embrace microwaves.
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It seems that Raiders, while dangerous, are pretty reliant on their tech edge. They certainly aren't unbeatable, and killing/capturing their ships should lead to a pretty rapid evening up of tech levels if you can salvage the wrecks, or choose to disassemble prizes. Of course, it being so early in the campaign, the Imperium is having trouble using the improved tech, because Gallicite shortage is a thing, as ever (and we haven't even GOT to the Corundinium Crunch yet), but if they can fend off this early pressure, it should mean a much stronger Imperium in the medium term, with access to much better engines, sensors and ELINT gear than you'd normally expect.