Recent Posts

Pages: 1 ... 8 9 [10]
91
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Gyrfalcon on November 03, 2022, 09:46:28 AM »
Neither one of the minor powers were more than a roadbump, which we could expect. Of the two, I found the Lothari reasoning more 'logical' (in the sense of 'the crazy dictator's secret police will torture and kill my family, their family, their extended family, everyone who knew anyone on those lists, and anyone who sees them while they're busy with the above if I surrender or retreat') than the Aurarii. Was it just a case that in both cases the minor empire didn't really believe they were next to a big multi-species empire that couldn't just bury them in hulls if needed?
92
New Cold War / Cold War: Month 215, Battle with the Aurarii
« Last post by Kurt on November 02, 2022, 04:27:37 PM »
Month 215, Day 2, Alliance Chruqua Nexus
Reinforcements from the core worlds reached the Alliance force holding at the warp point to the Doraz Home World at 0800 hours.  These reinforcements consisted of six strike carriers, ten escort carriers, and eighteen corvette-carriers, all fully loaded with the Alliance’s latest F1 fighters.  They brought the 3rd Fleet’s fighter complement up to nearly five hundred fighters.  Unfortunately, the 3rd Fleet had largely been stripped over the last year to provide reinforcements for the various other fleets, and aside from the carriers currently only boasted three battlecruisers, three light cruisers, and six destroyers, all older designs.  Still, Cho-sho Banzan, the 3rd’s commander, felt that he couldn’t wait any longer.  The Doraz Home World was open to attack, and must be defended.  So, the 3rd jumped into the Doraz Home System, accompanied by the twenty-two warships of the Torqual fleet.  Their ETA to the inner system, and both the Aurarii fleet and the Doraz home world was six days. 

Month 215, Day 8, Doraz Home System
The combined Alliance 3rd Fleet and Torqual Expeditionary Fleet arrived in the inner system at mid-day.  At the urging of the Doraz government, the fleets set out for the warp point where the Aurarii fleet had waited.  Eight hours ago, just after the combined fleets reached twelve light minutes from the warp point, the range at which the Aurarii sensors could determine the number of ships in the fleet, the Aurarii ships on the warp point had jumped out.  The Doraz, after waiting for an hour, sent their entire fleet, all two destroyers and seven corvettes, to probe the warp point.  After arriving they found that the Aurarii were gone, and were retreating back the way they had come. 

The combined fleets jumped through to the Doraz Whever system at 1600 hours, to find that they were twelve light minutes behind the withdrawing Aurarii force.  The Aurarii were on a direct heading to the warp point to the Sheund system, which was back along their initial line of advance.  The Alliance force’s ETA to the warp point was thirteen days, eight hours, while the Aurarii force, due to their slower capital ships, had an ETA to the same point of nineteen and a half days. 

Cho-sho Banzan, secure in the knowledge that his force would be able to chase the Aurarii force down long before it could reach the warp point, ordered his fleet to pursue the Aurarii at their maximum cruising speed.  They would be able to close the distance to the Aurarii in twenty-four hours. 

Month 215, Day 9
Lord Major Vintari knew that he was in trouble.  The Alliance force was coming up steadily behind them, and even if he accelerated to full military speed the Alliance would just do the same and would still catch them.  And given the number of ships they had, even if they lost some to burnouts, they’d still far outnumber his fleet.  For a brief period, he was tempted to detach his carriers, which could at least run ahead of the main fleet and maintain their distance to the Alliance force, but if he did that it would leave his superdreadnoughts and battleships uncovered and open to attacks from Alliance fighters, virtually ensuring the defeat of his fleet in detail, whereas is they stayed together they’d at least have a chance against the Alliance.  Unfortunately, with the Alliance corvettes buzzing around his fleet they certainly had an exact idea of his strength, he still didn’t know anything about most of the Alliance fleet, except that they outnumbered his fleet.  It made calculating the odds of winning a battle against the Alliance fleet difficult, although it was hard to see how his fleet could stand off nearly five to one odds. 

Shortly after reaching a standoff distance of sixty light seconds, the Alliance force split, with twenty-one ships racing ahead of the main Alliance force, detouring around the Aurarii Fleet to get ahead of it.  The detached Alliance force was moving twice as fast as the Aurarii capital ships, which either meant that they were corvettes or they were running their engines at a dangerous level to get ahead of the Aurarii fleet.  In a bid to force them to retreat back to their main fleet, Lord Major Vintari ordered his carriers to launch their fighters, and then ordered the fighters to move towards the detached Alliance ships.  Unfortunately, the Alliance ships ignored the threat and Major Vintari was forced to recall his fighters short of the target, when the main Alliance Fleet launched their fighters.  While the Alliance fighters were too distant for the Aurarii sensors to determine their numbers, their mere presence was a threat and Vintari was forced to withdraw his fighters to protect his fleet. 

The pursuit continued, with the detached Alliance ships moving to get ahead of the much slower Aurarii fleet.  Once directly in front of the Aurarii fleet, they launched their fighters, confirming that they were carriers of some sort.  Simultaneously, the Alliance fleet behind them launched as well.  Hoping to overrun the smaller enemy force ahead of his fleet, Lord Major Vintari ordered his carriers to launch their fighters, and for the entire force to advance towards the smaller force ahead at the capital ship’s maximum speed.  Contrary to Lord Major Vintari’s wishes, the Alliance force ahead of his fleet began retreating, maintaining the range, while the force behind began closing, with their fighters running ahead of the main Alliance fleet and closing at their maximum speed. 

The Aurarii force continued its pursuit, and eventually the fighter force ahead of them turned and began their run at the Aurarii force, timed to coincide with the arrival of the Alliance fighter force behind them.  Both Alliance fleets appeared prepared to remain outside of the Aurarii force’s weapons range, at least for now.  Lord Major Vintari was forced to choose between sending his fighters against the Alliance fighters in front of him, with which his fighters had parity, or the fighters behind, which outnumbered his fighters over three to one.  Arguments could be made either way, and were, by his staff officers.  Finally, Lord Major Vintari decided.  The fighters would be sent against the smaller force of fighters from the Alliance ships ahead of their fleet. 

The odds were very nearly equal.  The Aurarii sent out one hundred and eleven fighters, while the Alliance had one hundred and twenty-six.  All of the fighters involved on both sides were F1, with three external weapons racks, and all of the fighters were equipped for anti-fighter work, with a fighter gun in each mount.  The two groups of fighters slammed together ahead of the Aurarii fleet, and a desperate battle began, with both sides trying to evade enemy fire while getting into position to fire on their opponents. 

The furball dissipated after a minute, with seven fighters remaining of the Alliance fighter group, and no Aurarii fighters remaining.  The Aurarii main fleet had turned to face the main Alliance fighter force, expecting it to attack while its defensive fighters were occupied with the secondary force, but instead, both Alliance fighter groups turned back towards their carriers.  Lord Major Vintari decided that the Alliance had equipped all of its fighters with anti-fighter weapons, to eliminate his fighter force, and so they had no way to attack him without rearming. 

The loss of his fighters was shocking to Lord Major Vintari.  He had known that the odds were against them, but the Aurarii Navy had never lost a battle in its storied history, and he would not allow himself to be the first fleet commander to do so and irrevocably stain the honor of the Aurarii Fleet.  In spite of the continued pleas to surrender and avoid a battle, Lord Major Vintari refused to consider any such thing, such was his faith in Aurarii invincibility.  And, seeing his determination, none of the older, wiser officers dared bring up the possibility, not with the hot-headed younger officers crowding around Vintari, praising his resolve.  The Aurarii fleet continued on towards the distant warp point, with the Alliance Fleet pacing them. 

Soon enough, the Alliance fighters had returned to their carriers and rearmed, and were headed back towards the slow Aurarii fleet.  The Alliance commander issued yet another demand for the Aurarii to surrender, which Lord Major Vintari stubbornly refused to acknowledge, and the Alliance fighter force, four hundred and fourteen fighters strong, raced towards the Aurarii fleet.  At the last second, Lord Major Vintari ordered his ships to make a turn, trying to keep the fighters out of their blind spots, but the lumbering superdreadnoughts and their escorting battleships were too slow to make the turn and the Alliance fighters slipped neatly into perfect firing positions.  The Aurarii force’s carriers managed to make the turn, exposing the fighters to the weapons on those ships, but the Alliance fighter group commander assumed they were lightly armed. 

The Alliance fighter squadrons began ripple firing their close attack missiles.  Due to supply issues, the Alliance missiles were equipped with standard fusion warheads, not the newer and more powerful anti-matter warheads, but there were a lot of them.  In short order the nine Aurarii heavy ships were overwhelmed by fighter close attack missiles, ripped apart by explosions that ate their way through the ship’s passive defenses and then deep into their fragile insides.  The return fire from the three Aurarii carriers and two light carriers caught the Alliance fighters by surprise.  All of the carriers were equipped with four datalinked point defense emplacements each, and the larger carriers had a single missile launcher, while the smaller light carriers actually had a capital force beam turret and a plasma gun.  All of these weapons unloaded into the attacking fighters, catching them while they were lining up on the heavy Aurarii ships.  The Aurarii crews were experienced and well trained, but the fighters were difficult targets.  Fourteen of the Alliance fighters were hit, and then the Alliance fighters turned on the carriers.  The original Alliance plan had been to eliminate the warships and then force the carriers, now bereft of fighters or warship defenders, to surrender.  The carrier’s armament, though, made that plan difficult, and so the Alliance fighters still carrying weapons descended on the Aurarii carriers with a vengeance. 

When the fighters left the area, there were no Aurarii ships left.  The Alliance force began picking up life pods, and Cho-sho Banzan reorganized his fighter squadrons and detached several carriers to return to the inner systems to be reloaded with fighters.  After re-distributing ammunition from the departing carriers, Cho-sho Banzan ordered his force to begin advancing once again.  He ordered his scout-corvettes to move out ahead of the force, towards the three inhabited planets in the inner system, while his fleet moved towards the warp point to Aurarii territory.   
93
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Paul M on November 01, 2022, 04:20:50 PM »
Each hex can have up to 5 outposts and so for a extremely large asteroid belt (72 hex's) you can have: 16 PU/outpost*5 outposts/hex*72 hexs = 5760 PU and that can have 2880 IU as well.  Admittedly 72 hexs is huge but even a system with 18 hexs (rather typical) is 1440 PU and 720 IU which is a nice chunk of change.  Also they are automatically rich so that is 125%.  It beats easily anything but a benign world.  And after a certain point the growth from the asteroid colonies themselves are non-trivial in terms of in system colonization.

What you say about in system colonization is true.  The Shanirians and the other races I run I do that extensively and it takes an eternity to go through each system shovel the 2 PU to moon x and so on.  But the Shanirian's especially I need to do this as they are "green" so they limit their investment in IU on benign worlds to 100 IU.

As for as colonization goes, I force grow to medium on any world either benign or else that is normal or better wealth.  Unlike the bugs I can't do it in one go but it doesn't take that long when you are shipping a 100 PU per turn or more to the planet.  The RM have the capability to do it fast when they so choose.  Also breaking down a few PU on a Large pop planet is usually worth it.  It is important to be clear that in starfire there are no bad investments.  The only question is if you have a better alternative, but when the answer is "nope" then shipping PU 20 jumps to a normal ice ball moon will still give you a net income increase when the colonists arrive.  There is no way an investment can lose money...the only question is the number of turns it will take to pay for itself.  There is no break to the rich get richer faster and faster that usually kills the game.  The only way I can see to do it is to make a lot of the stuff that in the game has no maintenance (as basically no one likes the bookkeeping) have maintenance...then there is a cost as your empire gets larger.  And make the cost scale somewhat with size...or do something that makes adding a system cost more than the system can make so that people think about if they want to expand.  Stellaris does this but even so in that game there is relatively little dis-incentive to expanding.  It is this cost of empire that has gotten virtually every real world empire I know of...eventually the empire expands to the point it is no longer economically viable to maintain it.  Then an internal or external event triggers it to break down.
94
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Kurt on November 01, 2022, 11:21:56 AM »
If I did this again, I'd probably remove the asteroid colonization as well.  It is very time consuming for me, and like you said, an economy bloat.  Still, with the changes I did make the Cold War campaign has lasted quite a few more turns than the Phoenix Campaign did, so I count that as a success.

I wonder if maybe instead of removing them entirely it would make some sense to simplify them mechanically. I'm thinking of the population limits in Aurora which are usually quite small for asteroids, to the point where one might say that a single colonization mission to create 150 PUs on an asteroid, or whatever the limit is, is the extent of the matter, there is no natural growth beyond that. I'm not at all familiar with Starfire mechanics, but I think that ought to reduce the bookkeeping to multiplying the total number of asteroid colonies by whatever multiplier gives the income per asteroid.

Of course since I know nothing of the Starfire mechanics aside from what I glean from this thread and other AARs, I could be way off base here?

There are a couple of issues here.  The maximum population on an asteroid is 16 PU, but an asteroid belt can contain anywhere from 6 to 54 (I think) outposts.  At 16 PU per outpost, that's up to 864 PU's for a large asteroid belt, which is the equivalent of a medium-large population.  A system with four of these asteroid belts, although unlikely, would have the equivalent of a very large population planet. 

This creates several issues relating to game mechanics.  The first is income bloat, which is what some of the house rules I'm using are intended to prevent or at least delay.  Colonizing asteroid belts willy-nilly causes income to go up faster, which kills strategic starfire games.  The Phoenix Campaign, my last major campaign, ended in the 140-150 turn range because the major races had gotten so big that it was taking excessive amounts of time to finish each game turn, and fleets had become so large that battles were unmanageable.  The Cold War campaign is now at turn 216 and still going strong, largely because I've limited population growth. 

the second issue is balance, which was mentioned by Starslayer.  The primary threat race in many campaigns are the bugs, a hive mind.  In Starfire, the bugs get several advantages, like greatly accelerated population growth, cheap colonization, and bonus income for larger populations, if I remember correctly.  However, they have several off-setting weaknesses.  One of which is that they can only colonize habitable planets.  This means that asteroid belts are off-limits for them, which gives non-bug races a big advantage. 

The other issue, in my mind, is the time requirement imposed on the player to manage in-system colonization.  For an individual system this time is negligible, but for an empire with dozens of colonial systems, many of which are eligible for in-system colonization, the time management requirement goes up dramatically for the player.  This is because each system's in-system colonization capacity, which is free, is fairly limited, even for richer systems.  This capacity might be anywhere from 10 to 15 PU's per turn, maybe more if there is a larger population present, or if much of the system has been colonized.  At the rate of 15 PU's per turn, it is going to take a long time to colonize the whole system, and that means that every single turn the player is going to have to manage the in-system colonization for that system.  Starfire Assistant handles the actual mechanics and calculations, but the player has to handle selecting the population source and the destination, and has to do it every turn. 


95
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by nuclearslurpee on October 31, 2022, 09:13:50 PM »
If I did this again, I'd probably remove the asteroid colonization as well.  It is very time consuming for me, and like you said, an economy bloat.  Still, with the changes I did make the Cold War campaign has lasted quite a few more turns than the Phoenix Campaign did, so I count that as a success.

I wonder if maybe instead of removing them entirely it would make some sense to simplify them mechanically. I'm thinking of the population limits in Aurora which are usually quite small for asteroids, to the point where one might say that a single colonization mission to create 150 PUs on an asteroid, or whatever the limit is, is the extent of the matter, there is no natural growth beyond that. I'm not at all familiar with Starfire mechanics, but I think that ought to reduce the bookkeeping to multiplying the total number of asteroid colonies by whatever multiplier gives the income per asteroid.

Of course since I know nothing of the Starfire mechanics aside from what I glean from this thread and other AARs, I could be way off base here?
96
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Kurt on October 31, 2022, 03:26:39 PM »
Seems your races are in the medium range of colonisation possibilities.

The lower range are races with not fully grown Homeworlds or low income, who have simply not the capacity to ship as much as they should.
The middle range are races with a 3600 PU homeworld wich get 100 PTU free each turn adn can afford to ship that.
The upper range are races with multiple fully grown worlds and the income to ship all the PTU each turn, like the Thebans in Paul and my campaign.
or the bugs, who due to only paying 1/4 od the Q and H .. just don't care.
Those high end races can afford to force colonisation. The bugs routinely just dump 800 PTU on a world, catapulting it to medium and ti the 50% bonus income stage.. well, each round. They ran out of worlds to do that on now, though.
The thebans can afford to send colonisation into the 9-12 jumps range, as their income is high enough to support such a huge ICN that typing up a few thousand H and Q for several turns doesn't matter. Also, it often was cheaper to boost a closer world to 800 and gain anew colonisation source than to settle directly. At least the thebans did that for VR worlds and systems with a lot of asteroid belts (income multiplier).
What we removed was colonising asteroids, as that is a very efficient way to boost income. A system with 4 Belts is as good as several habitable worlds in a system. Thus we removed a huge money bloat.
If we hadn't, I wouldn't look at 280k income, but at a million. Bugs would not be able to copete with that when they only settele habitable worlds.

I would say that the Alliance is in the upper range, while the Colonial Union and the Confederated Sentient Races are in the middle. 

If I did this again, I'd probably remove the asteroid colonization as well.  It is very time consuming for me, and like you said, an economy bloat.  Still, with the changes I did make the Cold War campaign has lasted quite a few more turns than the Phoenix Campaign did, so I count that as a success. 
97
New Cold War / Cold War: Month 215, Battle at the Warp Point
« Last post by Kurt on October 31, 2022, 08:48:17 AM »
Month 215, Day 9, Disputed Liawak System
Late in day nine, the Lothari force closed on the warp point.  Their three escort carriers were running four light seconds ahead of the other nine Lothari ships when they suddenly came to a halt when they reached just fifteen light seconds from the warp point and their sensors detected the Alliance Fleet.  Swordsman of Stars Hartmann, who was sitting in his chair on the bridge of his battlecruiser, staring at the plot tank, wondering where the Alliance fleet was, suddenly leaned forward as the plot updated to show his escort carrier screen coming to a halt, followed closely by the appearance of drive fields belonging to eighteen battlecruisers or carriers, fifteen heavy cruisers or light carriers, seven light cruisers or strike carriers, and twenty-two destroyers or escort carriers.  Given the fact that his fleet was out-numbered five to one, it probably didn’t matter what the actual composition of the Alliance fleet was.  The ironic thought flitted through his head as the Swordsman tried to find a way out of the trap he had led his force into at the warp point. 

“The enemy force is launching fighters.”

As he expected.  He drew in a deep breath.  “Very well.  The enemy has finally given me a chance to come to grips with them.  They will regret it.  All ships launch carried craft and prepare for battle.”

It was a good thing that the Swordsman of Stars had called the fleet to alert status as they closed on the warp point, as a standard precaution, because the Lothari fleet was ready for battle and its fighters and gunboats were armed and ready.  Even as the fleet’s small craft launched, a message was received from the Alliance fleet.  Hartmann had it transferred to his console, and played it in privacy mode.  It was short and to the point.  The Alliance commander demanded the surrender of his force.  Hartmann was tempted.  They were heavily outnumbered, both in terms of ships and small craft.  Realistically, they had no chance of winning the battle, or even pushing through to the warp point.  Neither could they escape, with the enemy’s fighters pursuing them.  After considering the enemy offer for a brief moment, Hartmann came to a decision.  Surrendering without first damaging the enemy fleet was unthinkable, as the enemy’s next step would be to advance on the home system.  Worse, if word of their surrender got back to the home system, InSec would likely arrest everyone who had ever known anyone in the crew for being associates of defeatists.  Better to go down fighting. 

“We will advance on the warp point and jump back to the Kalizwali system to report the enemy’s advance.  All ships advance at maximum power!”

The Lothari fleet began advancing towards the warp point and the Alliance fleet.  The Lothari escort carriers waited for the main fleet to arrive, then joined with their advance.  The fleet’s fighters and gunboats remained in close formation with the bigger ships. 

The Alliance fighters advanced towards the oncoming Lothari fleet, leaving their fleet behind at the warp point.  The two groups advanced towards each other for several minutes, then the Lothari fighters and gunboats moved out ahead of their fleet, interposing themselves between the oncoming Alliance fighters and the Lothari fleet.  They were grievously outnumbered.  Lothari sensors were now able to determine that the Alliance fighter force was composed of just over five hundred fighters, compared to the Lothari force of seventy-two fighters and sixty gunboats.

When the Alliance fighters reached five light seconds range from the Lothari fleet, Swordsman of Stars Hartmann ordered his fleet to come to a halt, to allow their fighters and gunboats room to maneuver and engage the enemy fighters.  One minute later the two groups of small craft came together in a furball in front of the fleet.  At the last second over half of the Alliance fighter group turned aside, avoiding the battle, leaving the one hundred and thirty-two Lothari fighters and gunboats facing two hundred and thirty-seven Alliance fighters.  There could be only one conclusion to such a mismatch.  The Lothari small craft managed to take out sixty-six Alliance fighters, but were completely wiped from space in less than thirty seconds. 

The Alliance fighters that survived the battle turned back to their carriers, while the second group, which had avoided the battle with the Lothari small craft, raced in towards the Lothari fleet at maximum speed. The second Alliance fighter group launched fighter missiles at the Lothari fleet at one point two five light second’s range.  Swordsman of Stars Hartmann, knowing it was coming, ordered his fleet to divert engine power to engine modulations and to retain point defense for anti-missile defense, and leaving the oncoming fighters to the fleet’s heavy lasers.  The Lothari battlecruisers hit two Alliance fighters with their lasers, destroying them utterly, and while the targeted battlecruiser group’s advanced capital point defenses swept most of the incoming missiles from space, fourteen leaked through the defenses and were absorbed by one of the battlecruiser’s shields.   

The Alliance fighters turned to run back to their carriers.  Swordsman of Stars Hartmann did not intend to allow the Alliance enough time to rearm its fighters, so his fleet followed the fighters as closely as they could.  One minute later the Lothari fleet was ten light seconds from the Alliance fleet on the warp point, and both sides began launching SBM’s at each other.  Two Alliance battlecruiser groups engaged the Lothari battlecruiser targeted by the fighters, but only managed to punch one anti-matter tipped SBM through the Lothari group’s very effective point defense and engine modulations.  In return, a Lothari battlecruiser group launched twelve anti-matter SBM’s at a Rehorish heavy cruiser, but the range was long, and the cruiser group’s point defense swatted the few missiles that achieved lock-on before they could close on the ship. 

The next salvo of missiles was launched at 8.5 light seconds range, and the Lothari BC group equipped with long-range missile launchers was still having a problem penetrating their target’s engine modulations and point defense network.  The Alliance was having the same problem, and its two long-range missile BC groups failed to land any hits on the approaching Lothari ships. 

The lead group of Alliance fighters finally managed to reach the Alliance fleet, but still had a way to go to reach their carriers, which were retreating to remain outside Lothari weapon’s range.  As the Alliance fighters continued their run towards their carriers, the two side’s warships were now within capital missile range, and the Lothari battlecruisers switched to the more capable missiles immediately.  Once again, the Lothari twelve-missile salvoes failed to penetrate the targeted heavy cruiser’s active defenses.  The Alliance ships switched as well, and managed to get one capital missile through the defender’s fire, further reducing the targeted BC’s shields. 

The Lothari ships continued to charge towards the warp point and the waiting defenders.  The range was now 5.5 light seconds, and missile accuracy was improving.  The Lothari battlecruisers managed to punch a single capital missile through the Alliance heavy cruiser’s defenses, reducing her shields to less than half strength, but in return the six Alliance ships equipped with spinal force beams opened fire, scoring four hits on the Lothari battlecruiser that had been hit by the fighter missiles, further reducing its shields.  The spinal force beams were at long range, but as the range dropped their strength would increase proportionately.  In fact, as was common for most Alliance fleets, most of the 4th Fleet’s combat units were optimized for close range combat.  As the Lothari were about to discover. 

With the two fleets now four light seconds apart, more of the ships were able to get into action against their opponents.  The first to fire were the trio of Alliance heavy cruisers that had been targeted for Lothari long range missile fire.  The three heavy cruisers were of the latest Alliance design, and each mounted two capital force beam emplacements and a single spinal force beam mount that ran the length of the ship.  Now, all of their weapons were able to fire, and the elite crews of the three cruisers scored five hits with their six capital force beams, and two hits with their spinal force beams, knocking out a Lothari battlecruiser’s shields and damaging its armor.  The Lothari battlecruiser group that had been silent so far responded with six HET lasers and three spinal force beams of their own, getting five hits with their lasers and one with their spinal mounts, chewing through the heavy cruiser’s passive defenses.  Many of the Alliance beam ships were older, with older beam weapons, and thus not in range yet, but the more advanced ships battered down one of the Lothari BC’s armor and damaged several engine rooms.  In exchange, one Alliance heavy cruiser suffered serious shield and armor damage. 

The Lothari battlecruisers suddenly accelerated as they activated their engine tuners and continued charging forward at full speed, with the one damaged BC and their carriers failing behind.  The sudden acceleration caught the Alliance force by surprise, but at this point the entire Alliance force was within range of their weapons, and all of the Alliance ships opened up on the five intact Lothari BC’s.  Three of the Lothari BC’s suffered serious internal damage, and two of the remaining three BC’s lost most of their shields and armor.  By some strange fate, Hartmann’s flagship was the only Lothari BC that remained undamaged, although two others had no internal damage, yet. 

The Lothari ships continued their charge, with the three Lothari BC’s with no internal damage reaching a half of a light second from the warp point, with the remaining three BC’s strung out behind them, straggling from engine damage.  The six Lothari carriers, which had so far been ignored, were a light second from the warp point.  One Alliance heavy cruiser had suffered internal damage.  At such a close range, the exchange of fire was brutal.  The Lothari, who only had three ships in their fleet optimized for close range combat, came out much the worse in the exchange.  Making matters even worse for the Lothari, some of the Alliance ships had datalink jamming systems on board, and the Lothari were now close enough for those systems to become effective.  And, as a final decisive blow, many of the Alliance beam ships were armed with plasma guns, which they were now close enough to employ.  In the end, when the firing died down, six Lothari ships were left limping towards the warp point, all crippled and slowed so much that they would never make it before the Alliance ship’s weapons recharged.  In return, an Alliance battlecruiser suffered minor internal damage.

The Alliance commander issued another call for the Lothari ships to surrender, but again that message was ignored.  In the absence of a response, a single Alliance battlecruiser group swept the remaining Lothari ships from space as they limped towards the warp point.  The battle was over. 

Cho-sho Watanabe detached his empty carriers to return to Alliance yards for replacement fighters, and the six ships that suffered damage either in the battle or during the race to the warp point.  As those ships set out for home, the Cho-sho set his destroyers to picking up Lothari survivors in life pods.  A fair number of Lothari had managed to reach their pods, but strangely, very few officers had survived.  One pod was found empty, containing only an Alliance datapad, with a note addressed to Cho-sho Watanabe.  After being examined for traps, Watanabe retreated to the privacy of his office and activated the pad.  A video started playing immediately after the pad booted up.  The video showed Swordsman Hartmann standing alone in what appeared to be an office much like Watanabe’s.  Watanabe activated the video and Hartmann cleared his throat.  “If you are seeing this, then I and most of my men are dead.  Know this, we died doing our duty, but I regret that we died facing an honorable enemy such as the Alliance.  This was not my choice, but we, as soldiers, are not always given the choice of the enemies we fight.”

Thinking of the D’Bringi who had so recently been fighting each other, Watanabe could only nod.  “Still, if I do not regret dying in service of the state, there are things that I do regret.  Things that, looking backward, I would change if I could.”  It was difficult to tell, masked as the Lothari was, but Watanabe could hear the emotion in the other officer’s voice.  After hesitating for a few seconds, the Lothari continued.  “You will find things on your colony that will enrage you.  That must enrage you.  Your people will want revenge against mine, that is natural.  But know this, there are many within my people who oppose what has happened.  It will be my eternal shame that I did not act when I could have, to stop the barbarities that you will find.  But I did not, because I feared for my family and relations back home, who would certainly have suffered for my actions.  And so, I was a coward.  Blame me.  Blame those who acted on your colonies in this system.  But don’t blame my entire people!  Most have no blame in this, and would oppose it if they could.  I beg this of you.”  The video flickered out. 

Cho-sho Watanabe sat in shock for maybe five seconds, and then he activated the comm system in his desk. 

“Yes, sir?”  The ship’s CO appeared slightly harried as she was handling all things that needed to be accomplished after a battle. 

“Immediate message to the picket at the warp point back to the Telmasa system!  All troop transports are to enter and proceed to the inner system.  As soon as we are finished here, we will head in-system to provide protection to the transports.  The scout force is to split, with half of the scouts coming here, and the other half going to picket the inner system and the colonies.  Understood?”

Catching his tone of urgency, the ship’s CO saluted and turned to begin issuing orders.  Watanabe’s eyes turned towards the system display on the monitor on the wall of his office.  What was happening on the colonies in the inner system?
98
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Starslayer_D on October 31, 2022, 03:43:49 AM »
Seems your races are in the medium range of colonisation possibilities.

The lower range are races with not fully grown Homeworlds or low income, who have simply not the capacity to ship as much as they should.
The middle range are races with a 3600 PU homeworld wich get 100 PTU free each turn adn can afford to ship that.
The upper range are races with multiple fully grown worlds and the income to ship all the PTU each turn, like the Thebans in Paul and my campaign.
or the bugs, who due to only paying 1/4 od the Q and H .. just don't care.
Those high end races can afford to force colonisation. The bugs routinely just dump 800 PTU on a world, catapulting it to medium and ti the 50% bonus income stage.. well, each round. They ran out of worlds to do that on now, though.
The thebans can afford to send colonisation into the 9-12 jumps range, as their income is high enough to support such a huge ICN that typing up a few thousand H and Q for several turns doesn't matter. Also, it often was cheaper to boost a closer world to 800 and gain anew colonisation source than to settle directly. At least the thebans did that for VR worlds and systems with a lot of asteroid belts (income multiplier).
What we removed was colonising asteroids, as that is a very efficient way to boost income. A system with 4 Belts is as good as several habitable worlds in a system. Thus we removed a huge money bloat.
If we hadn't, I wouldn't look at 280k income, but at a million. Bugs would not be able to copete with that when they only settele habitable worlds.
99
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Kurt on October 30, 2022, 03:06:02 PM »
For those who aren't familiar with Starfire, or who haven't played in a while, I thought I would post a little refresher on how Starfire colonization works. 

The basis of production in Imperial Starfire is the Population Unit (PU).  A PU is modified by the mineral wealth or lack thereof of its planet, and the race's tech level, and other modifiers, to find out how much mega-credits it produces a month.  A planet, moon, or asteroid can have varying numbers of PU's, with asteroid having the lowest upper limit of 16, and benign planets having the highest limit of 3,200.  It seems pretty straight forward, and it is.  Except, this is Starfire, so everything has to be complicated.  The complication comes with how many actual people the PU represents.  A PU can represent anywhere from 50,000 to 22,500,000 people.  This varies based on the number of PU's located on a planet/moon/asteroid.  Mostly, you can ignore this, as it has no effect on the game, as PU's are the basis of production, not people.  The only place this becomes important is in terms of colonization.  All costs for colonization are calculated by Population Transport Unit, or PTU.  One PTU equals 50,000 people.  So, for smaller populations, one PTU = one PU.  For a very large population, one PTU equals four hundred and fifty PTU's.  This is how the economics of colonization work in Imperial Starfire.  It doesn't make any sense to draw from a planet with a size of small, settlement, colony, or outpost, because it would deplete that population rapidly.  Generally, planets with populations of the size medium, or 400+ PU's, are considered suitable for supporting colonization, as at that size one PU equals 18 PTU's, so drawing PTU's from a medium population for a full sized 150 PTU colonization mission would only reduce the medium population by just over 8 PU's.  That's a winner for the colonizing race, as it is losing 8 PU's at the source population and gaining 150 PU's at the destination.  You can boost a colony's population over 150 but doing so rapidly becomes very expensive.  To boost a small population of 150 PU's to a medium of 400 PU's would take 650 PTU's to gain 250 PU's, whereas those 650 PTU's could be sent to five different habitable planets to gain 650 PU's of income. 

Because of speed limitations, it is most effective to colonize systems within four jumps of your colonization-source.  Anything farther than that increases the cost of colonization, and the duration that the cargo and quarters capacity is tied up.  Colonizing more than four jumps out can be done, but in my standard Starfire campaigns it was rare. 

That briefly is the economics of colonization in Imperial Starfire.  In the Cold War campaign, I have drastically reduced the population growth rate to 20% of normal, if I remember correctly.  This has affected the economics of colonization a lot, and in ways I didn't expect.  Under the standard rules, generally by the time I had colonized the worlds within four jumps of my main colonization-supporting planets, some of the new colonies had grown to medium size and were thus able to support colonies themselves, extending the range at which colonies would be placed.  This is not true in the Cold War campaign.  Only after about 200 turns have colonies planted in the early days of the game grown enough to support colonization.  This means that all of the major races were discovering planets in the 5-8 jumps area, or even the 9-12 jumps area, that they cannot cheaply colonize, because their only source of colonization remained their home planet.  I soon realized that I was going to have to colonize planets in the 5-8 jump range band, and that I was going to have to force-grow colonies to medium size to support colonization efforts by shipping in PTU's to grow the population, rather than relying on growth.  All of my races have been engaged in this practice, some more effectively than others. 

Generally, there are three kinds of colonization taking place in the Cold War campaign. 

The first is in-system colonization, where a medium size population ships PTU's to the other planets, moons and asteroids in the same system.  This is cheap and effective, because each system will support a limited amount of free in-system colonization based on its productivity, and this can greatly increase the wealth generated by the system.  For example, the Rehorish Home Planet produces 12,357 MCr's per month.  The Rehorish Home System, which is fully colonized, produces 17,872 MCr's.  The real drawback of this form of colonization is the time requirement it forces on the player in real life.  Even with Starfire Assistant to help, it is probably the most time-consuming part of each turn, except for actual battles. 

The second is standard colonization of newly discovered planets with 150 PU/PTU colonies.  Both the Alliance and the Colonial Union have been forced by slow population growth to colonize in the 5-8 jump range-band, and sometimes even farther out than that. 

The third is population-boosting colonization, which the races are using to boost the population of existing colonies to and past the 400 PU level so that it can support both in-system colonization, and the colonization of nearby habitable planets.  This is very expensive and resource intensive, since it ties up large amounts of the race's freighters and colony transports.  Generally, my races have reserved this type of colonization for benign/very-rich planets, or strategically or economically important systems. 

The slow population growth in this campaign has really caused a problem for the humans in the campaign.  Since Earth was largely bombed out early in the campaign, they lost their source of nearly limitless colonization, and this has affected all human successor states.  Because this is the first time I've used the slower growth rates I did not anticipate how it would affect humanity.  The Colonial Union ruthlessly plundered the remaining population on Earth to fund a massive colonization spree in the aftermath of the war, and this was effective, but has depleted Earth's population to the point where it is no longer the largest population in the Colonial Union. 
100
New Cold War / Re: Cold War Comments Thread
« Last post by Kurt on October 30, 2022, 11:04:33 AM »
Does the Colonial Union have any avenues for expansion? Are they still exploring new space or are they just colonising the territory they already know?

The Colonial Union is still exploring and expanding via colonization.  They continued to explore and colonize during the recent unpleasantness with the Alliance, nearly unabated, although two of their three survey groups were pulled in to support the Battle Fleet.  On the other hand, exploration and colonization came to a complete halt for quite a while in the Alliance, given the breakdown in communications and the confusion caused by the D'Bringi coup and countercoup.  The Alliance had a pretty big lead to begin with, though, and three home worlds with very large populations, while the Colonial Union doesn't have any planets with populations larger than medium.

Exploration by the Alliance has largely come to a halt as well.  This is for two reasons.  Partly this is due to the difficulties the Alliance has recently suffered through, which caused exploration fleets to be called back to support military ventures.  It also is because the Alliance has decided to standardize and modernize its exploration fleets, reducing its reliance on explorer class ships, which are too small to defend themselves or carry long-range sensors.  This modernization program got interrupted by the Alliance's current difficulties, and although the D'Bringi unpleasantness is largely over, the other wars occupying the Alliance's attentions will cause more than a little diversion as well.  The modernization program will likely be delayed until the Alliance reaches HT-10, which they hope will be soon. 
Pages: 1 ... 8 9 [10]
SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk