Author Topic: The Forever War - Part 01  (Read 1108 times)

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Offline Haji (OP)

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The Forever War - Part 01
« on: September 14, 2022, 10:32:16 AM »
  For those unaware Quasar is a translation of visual basic Aurora 7.2 into Godot engine, making it much, much faster. There are however small differences, most of which are either bugs or quirks of the engine. The only deliberate difference of note is that orbital habitats have four times the capacity and armor can be removed, making them much more useful. I chose Quasar over Aurora due to missile re targeting mechanics, as descried in this post: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11983.0

  I control all sides of this campaign, but the story is told from the point of view of only one of them, the Republic of Poland. If something is said about other nations it should be assumed this is either common knowledge, something the government was informed about or an Intelligence analysis and as such may be inaccurate. In addition as I don't want to use mechanical notation in the narrative, 1 point of damage is one mega tonne of damage and one layer of armor is one decimeter (0.1 meter) of armor.

  This games has a lot of house rules. If I were to list them all and provide explanation for them it would become a whole new post. As such this is only the gross overview of house rules in effect.
Non real stars.
Mineral abundance was modified up in the database.
Industrial technologies cannot be researched. All production/mining is on the baseline level and cannot be upgraded.
Shipbuilding rate cut to fifty percent.
Research cut to fifty percent. In the year 3400 cut further to twenty percent (40 RP per facility).
Research has to be reasonably spread out. No focusing on single technology/group and no bee lining.
Max 1000 construction factories per planet. Other facilities are not capped.
Planets have simulated capacity, they cannot expand population indefinitely.
No fully automated mining sites. Automated mines can be used but only to support manned operations. No more than four automated mines per one manned mine can be present. Asteroid mining modules are fine however.
No terraforming ships. Terraforming PDCs are allowed, but only on planets that already have manned facilities present.
At most one hundred terraforming installations/modules can be used on a planet.
Shipyards can have only one slipway.
Tech for beam fire control range is capped at 40k. As a result energy weapons have range cap of 320 000 kilometers.
No ECM.


   The first interstellar exploration mission was launched in 2117 and by 2139 colony ships begun leaving the Solar system for one way trips towards the stars. One of them was Stanislaw August Poniatowski launched in 2209. In 2714 she suffered a micrometeorite hit that damaged the secondary reactor responsible for powering cryogenic capsules. While the colonists were not in an immediate danger she had to abandon her original goal and search for a safe haven nearby.
   The best option was the Parana system, comprising four stars. The primary red dwarf was closely orbited by a brawn dwarf and much further away by another red dwarf with a brawn dwarf companion. The primary was home to a North Korean colony of Kim Jong while the secondary was a home to a Brazilian colony of Amazonia. Both planets refused to accept refugees and were armed well enough to destroy the ship on approach so she had to head towards the sixth planet orbiting the primary. Named Marzanna, the planet was very large, had no water, had dense atmosphere of nitrogen and methane, very low temperature and eight moons.
   The colony expedition was privately founded rather than being a national project and its organizers had specifically decided to prepare much better than would normally be the case. As such while the planet was not habitable and terraformation was impossible, the colonists managed to survive although the life for the first twelve generations was brutal.
   In 3062 Rzeczpospolita (Republic of) Polska, as the nation was known, begun reaching into space, mostly in order to redirect water rich comets and asteroids towards the planet to make life a little easier. In 3101 they discovered TN elements that completely transformed their industry. However the elements were scarce forcing establishment of colonies for mining. The issue was complicated by the fact that thanks to Lagrange points that could be used with TN technology the Federative Republic of Brazil was now within reach and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea considered the entirety of the primary star to be their property with Poles being nothing but squatters. This led to a new space race and, ultimately, an arms race as well.
   By 3207 the situation was stable but arguably strained. Brazil had full sovereignty over the secondary red dwarf and its companion but had no ambitions beyond that being an isolationist state. Korea was different however and some worried that this was merely a clam before the storm.

   Poland is the smallest power in the Parana system with population of five hundred and ten million, most of whom live on Marzanna. For comparison the population of Brazil is six hundred and seventy five million while the population of Korea is eight hundred and twenty million.
   Due to manpower shortages the Republic is investing heavily into cometary mining ships and have sent a total of sixteen of them to four comets. Nonetheless they have mining operation on Turow, a dwarf planet orbiting the primary and on Pniowek, the largest moon of Marzanna which utilize orbital habitats, mines and automated mines. Other than that they have a military base on their innermost moon named Baszta and a fuel harvesting operation above a gas giant orbiting the brawn dwarf companion of the primary named Perun.
   The other two powers also have their own outposts. Korea has three colonies on moons of Pyongyang, a gas giant orbiting the primary, all of which comprise orbital habitats due to their inhospitable nature. Brazil has two surface colonies and two housed in orbital habitats around various objects of their own dwarfs.
   As Poland was the first nation to industrialize TN elements they had a lead in spacefaring thanks to which their fleet is the most technologically advanced one but is also the smallest and arguably the weakest. Not having enough manpower to support missile armed ships they focused on railguns to serve as both anti-missile and anti-ship weapons. However they were ultimately forced to adopt anti-missiles although they still don’t use shipkillers. That however was a response to what the other nations were doing.
   Brazil is not generally considered to be a danger. They have established a shell of orbital bases around their home planet but they also have seven destroyers massing eleven and a half thousand tonnes each to patrol their space. Korea is a whole different matter however. They do not have any defensive installations above their planet but they do have four ground missile bases with interplanetary ordnance that have range of three hundred and fifty million kilometers which is enough to cover the entire inner system – Marzanna included. The exact number and performance of those missiles is unknown but it is generally accepted that they can launch around a thousand of them. They also have four cruisers massing nineteen thousand and two hundred tonnes.
   Those missile bases are what have ultimately forced Poland into greater militarization. As a result the innermost moon was developed into an anti-missile base with five installations. Together they can fire salvos of two hundred anti-missiles from over two million kilometers away and they have enough magazine space for over four thousand interceptors.
   The Polish mobile force is much less impressive. The earliest warships were the Projekt 004 frigates. Each massed six thousand and four hundred tonnes and was nothing more than a bunch of railguns on top of small crew section, fuel tanks and engines. The newest variant uses four guns with caliber of two hundred millimeters and range of one hundred and sixty thousand kilometers. She is capable of thirty three hundred kilometers per second, which is the standard speed for Polish warships. Eight are in service
   The Projekt 011 destroyer has the same four railguns as the frigate, but with two gauss cannon turrets for better anti-missile defense and scaled up in terms of engines, fuel and other supporting elements. Overall she masses nine thousand and six hundred tonnes. Eight are in service.
   The Projekt 014 destroyer escort is the newest addition to the fleet and a response to the ever growing number of missile combatants possessed by Korea and, to a lesser extent, Brazil. She is based on the same hull as Projekt 011 but has thinner armor and only three railguns but in exchange she received sixteen anti-missile launchers with magazine space for a total of a little over three hundred rounds. Four are in service.
   While in theory the Polish fleet is quite large with twenty warships, in reality those need to be in multiple places at once. A picket group comprising one frigate and one destroyer has been sent to the mining colony of Turow and the fuel harvesting site of Perun which admittedly leaves the four cometary mining operations exposed. To make matters worse those vessels need to rotate home for overhaul and shore leave so similar number of ships is usually home but unavailable. As a result the main Polish battle fleet comprises four destroyer escorts, four destroyers and four frigates which in tonnage terms is far less than what Korea has in terms of mobile force. Nonetheless new warships are being constructed.

24/04/3207

   Twelve unknown ships suddenly appeared in the Parana system. All had thermal signature two and a half times as great as that of the Polish destroyers but were also slower, moving at only eighteen hundred kilometers per second. Quick calculations have shown them to be nearly sixty thousand tonnes indicating either commercial ships or very large, but slow, warships.
   What was confusing about them was that they should have been detected earlier. Poland have secretly been working on jump point theory for several months now and some propose they have just observed a transit. This is further reinforced by the fact that while ten warships were staying in place two have disappeared, returning shortly after, making some speculate they went through the jump point to bring more ships in, although ones that were smaller and thus invisible. Once that was done all twelve ships begun heading towards the inner system. After twenty minutes of observation it became obvious that the vessels were heading towards Kim Jong. All forces were put on high alert with the two picket forces being recalled. Fortunately their replacements have finished overhaul about twenty days ago so they were available as well.
   No warships were sent to observe the newcomers as all Polish sensors were configured to detect incoming missiles and had rather short range. If the arrivals were hostile and armed with missiles they would be able to destroy any scout before said scout could get any information. As such all Republican forces were ordered to stay in orbit of Marzanna although hails were of course sent towards the unknowns.

25/04/3207

   One of the Polish picket groups have arrived back on Marzanna. The second one is still en route but should arrive well before the unknown ships. However one of the cometary mining groups wes almost directly in the way of the newcomers so they had to be recalled as well. They will also move close to Turow and another mining operation, but those should be difficult to detect on passive systems and the active systems being detected from them shouldn’t have enough range. Last but not least fuel harvesting above the gas giant Perun has been suspended. The operation was very close to one of the Lagrange points and if the incoming fleet were to use it, there would be no time for those ships to leave.
   In addition shields were detected confirming the newcomers to be warships. Nine of their vessels could absorb one hundred and forty mega tonnes of damage before their armor would even be dented while the other three could absorb two hundred.

28/04/3207

   The unknown ships stopped about one hundred and fifty million kilometers from Kim Jong. Nearly three hours later eleven detonations in the megaton range were detected about half a million kilometers from the planet. Assuming the invaders fired as soon as they stopped their missiles had speed of around fourteen thousand kilometers per second, which is a pretty standard speed for nuclear pulse engine munitions confirming the newcomers were on the same technological level as Brazil and Korea but behind Poland.
   The fact that only eleven detonations were detected meant DPRK had very weak anti-missile defenses, most likely limited to what they had on their four cruisers. In the end only seventy seven missiles were intercepted. Over four hundred and sixty detonated in orbit of Kim Jong, but their target was initially unknown. The comm chatter however quickly revealed the attackers were targeting shipyards, destroying all three of them.
   The invading fleet begun moving towards Marzanna. Brazil was being kept informed of the development and now the Polish government was desperately trying to make them move their fleet to the inner system pointing out that if the newcomers were targeting all parties, the Federal Republic will be next. It appeared to be somewhat working but the Brazilian fleet was dragging their fleet somewhat as some people hoped that the enemy won’t check the distant secondary system.
   While that was going on fifty one nuclear detonations were detected nearly one and a half million kilometers from the invading fleet. It was nearly six hours after they first stopped, which most likely meant Koreans were hoping the fleet wasn’t hostile, took the attack and then responded with their missile bases which were apparently designed to not only threaten planets but also to be able to destroy any warship within three hundred million kilometer range. It was unknown whether the four cruisers were also adding to the fire.
   In the end nearly eight hundred Korean missiles were intercepted by anti-missiles and another hundred by some sort of final point defense. More likely missed but nearly twelve hundred detonated among the alien fleet. Four wrecks were detected, but those were all nine thousand two hundred tonnes, some sort of destroyers accompanying the enemy battlecruisers. One of the large warships fell out of formation, but her speed was only slightly decreased indicating very light damage. The other warships slowed dawn so she could keep up.
   The three nations inhabiting Parana entered an incredibly rare joint conference to discuss the problem. The aliens probably still have missiles or they would not be moving against Marzanna, but they likely don’t have that many of them or they would have destroyed the Korean cruisers. The most likely explanation is that the invaders intend to destroy shipbuilding capacity of the defending nations and then remove what they can with their remaining ammunition. More over their defenses are so heavy that even if Korean and Brazilian warships were to fire together, they wouldn’t even get past the anti-missiles.
   Under a lot of pressure Korea admitted that they cannot fire another full salvo. They always assumed that any war with Poland would be decided with a single strike so they more or less have been adding a new base the moment they had missiles to arm it. They have eight hundred more they can fire but that is simply not enough. In the end Korea and Brazil believe that in order to achieve anything they need to fire their munitions from short range and to do that the invading fleet needs to be run out of ammunition. Which means they intend to wait for Poland to be attacked before proceeding.
   The damaged engine was repaired within an hour after which the battlecruisers were showing no signs of damage.

30/04/3207

   Five hundred and forty enemy missiles are detected, moving at fourteen thousand kilometers per second. Poland has five anti-missile bases that were developed as a response to the Korean interplanetary missiles and four destroyer escorts although they are not as relevant as they have much fewer launchers, less ammunition and require twice as much time to reload after each firing.
   The five bases have a total of two hundred launchers between them and can fire every five seconds. They are armed with ion drive powered Iglas capable of thirty six thousand kilometers per second. The first defensive volley dawned two hundred and sixty three incoming shipkillers, nearly half their number. Nonetheless worried about their ammunition situation the bases were firing only one interceptor against any incoming missile, waiting to see the results before firing more. As a result the last of the enemy ordnance was intercepted only fourteen thousand kilometers from the shipyards, although those were still protected by gauss cannons and railguns of the Polish fleet.
   The enemy didn’t move making Poland think that they fired another salvo which was good. Considering the enemy had both shipkillers and interceptors they had to have rather tight limit on how many missiles they could carry and any salvo wasted against the heavy Republican defenses is one less they will be able to use against warships. However over an hour later detonations were detected near Korean cruisers. The four ships have been shadowing the invaders at a distance of sixty million kilometers, ready to pounce. Brazilian ships intended to do the same, counting on the enemy focus on infrastructure. Apparently the Poles were so successful the invaders changed their goals.
   Judging by the number of detonations the enemy fired half of a normal salvo, destroying one cruiser and lightly damaging another, which was surprising as Polish officers fully expected the Korean force to be completely destroyed. It appeared that while their active defenses were severely lacking, their ships were surprisingly resilient which made for a rather unpleasant discovery.
   The Korean cruisers managed to get off their own missiles, three hundred of them, but they failed to score any hits. The enemy also fired another half salvo and this time the defenders run out of anti-missiles. One warship was destroyed and another one crippled and left dead in space. The last one continued to run.
   The enemy stayed in place for a little longer and then begun moving towards one of the Lagrange points in the inner system, most likely intending to assault Amazonia next. It was the Polish turn to decide whether or not they will fight immediately or allow the enemy to waste ammo against defenses of another nation. The problem was ammunition. The Republic had only four escort destroyers with a total of a little over twelve hundred Iglas. With fifty percent interception chance, those could in theory defeat one enemy salvo, but that’s it. Under normal circumstances they would still make an attempt but since neither nation was willing to help, Poland decided to wait as well.
   The situation was further complicated by Korean missile bases as those may become a target. If they do the collateral damage will results in millions of dead at the very least. That however was the risk DPRK have taken and one Poland have avoided by putting their installations on a moon and no one was willing to die for Korean mistakes.

01/05/3207


   The invaders have jumped to the secondary component. Poland has been requesting updates from Brazil as they were unwilling to use the Lagrange point without knowing what awaited them on the other side, fearing an ambush. Apparently the Federation have done just that, having six of their destroyers – all they could spare as one was in overhaul – sitting right on top of the point, launching all their missiles and lasers. Unfortunately this apparently didn’t add to much as no invaders were even slowed dawn while all the defenders were cut dawn by lasers.

02/05/3207


   Four hours after the first Brazilian battle nuclear detonations were being detected close to the Lagrange point of the secondary star. The distance was nearly twenty five billion kilometers from Marzanna, but it was still close enough to observe combat, even if only indirectly. Apparently the Federation launched a thousand missiles at the invaders, scoring two hundred hits but failing to destroy any warships.
   Several hours later the invaders responded by attacking Amazonian shipyards. Brazil appeared to have their anti-missiles in single shot box launchers because their first defensive salvo resulted in over three hundred interceptions. Even so the defenses weren’t powerful enough and one shipyard have been destroyed.
   It was impossible to know whether or not the invading force was moving, as due to the distances they weren’t on any sensor, but whether they stayed for another attack or tried to retreat, Brazil managed to re-arm their orbital bases and fire again. That would have been good news under any circumstances but the enemy have run out of ammunition after intercepting only a handful of incoming missiles. They still had their point defenses which took dawn a hundred incoming shipkillers, but nearly eight hundred got through. Unfortunately all enemy warships still managed to survive although two powerful secondary explosions were detected indicating heavy internal damage to some of the ships.
   To the surprise of everyone one of the ship exploded several minutes after the strike. Apparently she was so heavily damaged the enemy decided to abandon her. Even then the entire formation was, according to Brazil, slowed.
   The invaders weren’t done however and they did launch a second missile strike. Worse the bases didn’t have enough time to fully re-arm and they intercepted only three hundred of the incoming munitions. The other two hundred have obliterated Brazilian yards.
   According to the Federation the remaining battlecruisers begun moving back towards the Lagrange point at eight hundred kilometers per second. It was unknown whether or not they had any offensive ordnance remaining but it was the time for Poland to send their fleet to try and finish them off.
   Several hours later the enemy jumped to the single Lagrange point around the C component, a brawn dwarf where Polish fuel harvesting operation was previously located. Apparently they wanted to avoid ambushes or additional Korean missile strikes. They promptly set course towards their entry point with Polish fleet in pursuit.
   While the invaders were slowed, they were picking up speed indicating ongoing repairs. It was very likely that by the time the battle was joined, they will be at full combat capacity although they should still have diminished armor on some of their ships.
   Unfortunately the Polish fleet will have no support. Under pressure Koreans admitted that their crippled cruiser won’t be available for combat and intercepted messages imply she is a barely holding together wreck that will need extensive shipyard repairs. Their single remaining warship won’t be able to do much as the invaders have more than enough point defense to make a hundred shipkillers essentially worthless and DPRK is unwilling to send their only remaining vessel into energy weapon combat.

03/05/3207

   The Polish fleet closed to four hundred thousand kilometers without any issues, seemingly confirming the invaders are out of ammunition unless they were trying to be sneaky. The question was whether or not anti-missiles should be used in offensive mode. In the past the enemy close in defenses were intercepting up to a hundred incoming munitions, but they are one ship short and Iglas are much faster. Even so there were only twelve hundred of them and if even half of those are intercepted, they wouldn’t be able to do much. As the Republican battle fleet has only sixty four launchers, half of their anti-missiles getting through may be actually optimistic.
   Additional problem was the armament. Due to their need to marry anti-ship and anti-missile capabilities, Poland has gone into railguns, but those have rather limited range. In fact while their fire control systems are capable of striking targets at three hundred and twenty thousand kilometers, their weapons can reach only one hundred and sixty thousand kilometers.
   In the end there was no option but to try despite lack of information. With Korea and Brazil unable to rebuild their forces and Polish shipbuilding being unable to expand due to manpower issues, the invading fleet had to be gutted otherwise there will be no future for the Parana nations.
   Once the Polish ships closed to one hundred and seventy thousand kilometers the destroyer escort ORP Warszawa was hit seventy six times. Fortunately at this range the enemy weapons were doing damage equivalent to what a one mega tone nuclear warhead would do so all the hits were absorbed by armor. Nonetheless the destroyer escorts were relatively weakly armed as their main function was to throw anti-missile and as such they were ordered to pull back. That will remove twelve railguns from the equation but sixty four will remain.
   Once in range the Polish forces scored over a hundred and twenty hits but those also had only the strength of an interceptor. They focused on an already damaged warship however, one that wasn’t even able to full recharge her shields. The enemy responded with another seventy hits on the destroyer ORP Bug. Fortunately she was well protected with twelve decimeters of armor so she could take several salvos like that. Fifteen seconds later the targeted battlecruiser fell out of formation with the other ten warships initially slowing dawn to let her keep up but ultimately the entire enemy fleet just stopped, deciding to accept the mutual slugfest.
   The third volley to strike ORP Bug have breached her armor but did no internal damage. Kontradmiral (Rear Admiral) Albrech Wojciak, commanding the fleet, ordered the vessel to stay. With the shipyards having to cancel their construction tasks for repairs anyway, he had to do as much damage as possible and he was willing to risk a lot to achieve that. He fully intended to make the ship retreat after the next salvo, but for now she will absorb the hits letting her fifteen consorts to fire uninterrupted.
   Unfortunately the Rear Admiral forgot his crews weren’t as well trained as they should be due to budgetary concerns. By the time Bug was allowed to retreat she lost a railgun and several other systems as well as four of her crew, but that was enough to slow dawn the remaining officers making her slow on the helm. In the end she never made it with over half of her crew dying. To make matters worse the time she bought wasn’t even enough to finish the Polish target.
   Before the invaders could retarget the first enemy battlecruiser was finally destroyed. That however was the easiest kill due to her earlier damages inflicted by Koreans and Brazilians.
   ORP San was the next target and this time she was ordered to retreat immediately with Wojciak fully expecting her to actually need time to fulfill his orders. She never made it. The enemy energy weapons had ten second recharge rate and killed the destroyer in only seven salvos. Poles simply weren’t trained well enough to do what they intended to do and they had to either fight to the death or to retreat. For now they decided to stay. The ship they were targeting was also damaged, with shields that were just a tiny bit weaker, so hopefully they will be able to nail another battlecruiser before long.
   A second invading warship died, but the frigate ORP Miedwie was lost and the destroyer ORP Narew was dead in space. In desperation Wojciak ordered his four destroyer escorts to fire. ORP Narew died seconds later.
   Only sixteen Iglas from the first salvo managed to get through, a disappointing number but the fire didn’t cease. After a couple of salvos the number rose two twenty six and while that was still a distraction at best, the targeted battlecruiser died very shortly after. Either she was much more heavily damaged than expected or there was a lucky hit involved. The enemy was targeting the destroyer ORP Pilica, but she was still mobile and trying to disengage.
   The fourth battlecruiser died. ORP Pilica have been hammered, losing most of her systems and thirty two of her crew, but she miraculously managed to get away. ORP Wisla was being targeted but she was still alive. Unfortunately the destroyer escorts were dawn to two last salvos of Iglas.
   By the time the fifth battlecruiser died the frigate ORP Mamry has been killed while three more destroyers had to withdraw. ORP Odra recieved heavy damage but ORP Wisla and ORP Warta had lost only a system each. The loss ratio was very much in Polish favor but the enemy wasn’t being killed fast enough so Wojciak ordered his forces to disengage. While the fleet was moving, the enemy was pounding the frigate ORP Lebsko, causing light internal damage.
   The six remaining battlecruisers rescued their own survivors then they begun to retreat. Poland did the same once the area was clear rescuing over four hundred people. Even so five hundred and sixty four Republican servicemen died in the battle.
   Despite the loses the Polish fleet was still formidable comprising four destroyer escorts, five destroyers and five frigates because of which there was a lot of pressure from the other nations to attack again. The Republic was considering just that as they had enough interceptors for two more strikes, but they already took the easy targets out and the presence of shields complicated matters as light attacks spread over long time won’t be effective. Worse their bases also needed additional ammunition as they never replenished it after the attack on their shipyards. Still the enemy have lost a lot of their lasers as well so attack may be possible especially if Korea was willing to cooperate as their single cruiser would add a lot of firepower to the equation. The problem was that DPRK had only two hundred kilometers per second speed advantage over the invaders so they could attack only once. The Brazilian destroyer isn’t taken into consideration as the Federation have focused on maximum power to offset their small size and their ships are even slower than those of the enemy.

07/05/3207

   After four days of exhausting work all internal damage on Polish warships have been repaired, all vessels have been resupplied and replacement crew added. The Republican fleet is ready for action although this time the loses would likely be much greater as many warships still have armor damage that can be only repaired in shipyards.
   Due to taking long way round the enemy is still nine days away from their entry point. What’s even more interesting is thanks to information exchange and a lot of pressure from other nations Korea admitted that their cruisers have ten thousand kilometer range advantage over the enemy. Unfortunately between low damage output at maximum range and the inaccuracy of such fire, the single cruiser won’t be able to get past shield recharge. Even so she has a hundred shipkillers, anti-missiles that can be fired in offensive mode, at least some energy weapons and, most importantly, the most bulk. As such Korea agreed to take part in the next battle.

10/05/3207

   The problems facing Poland and Korea are lack of training, lack of trust and lack of cooperation. As such an elegant fire coordination is simply not possible. Even so the Parana force will try to achieve it, moving together against the enemy, trying to fire anti-missiles in more or less concert and using anti-ship missiles once several salvos are on their way. Under the cover of missile fire the warships will proceed but Koreans will move to one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers for better damage and hit chances as they can afford to take multiple salvos from the enemy. The cruiser wasn’t happy about it, and the Korean government even less so but they didn’t really have an excuse and they were as eager as Poland to try and wipe out the invaders.
   Once again the newcomers stopped, as they didn’t want any damaged warship to fall behind. On the Polish side all ships, including the destroyer escorts, went in.
   Only twenty four shipkillers got through, but the anti-missiles were doing good work. However as soon as the ships got into range the destroyer escort ORP Wroclaw was hit over thirty times. She was ordered to withdraw but like other Polish warships she was slow on the helm. The rest of the fleet however responded with their railguns and while Koreans added their fire as well, they were almost irrelevant. The cruiser was scoring only a couple of hits every thirty seconds or so, which was almost worthless. Still if the enemy focuses on the closest enemy it will buy the Republic some time to do actual damage.
   ORP Wroclaw managed to withdraw with only light damage and four dead, a hopeful start to this new pounding match. By the time the Parana forces run out of anti-missiles, their targets thermal signature have become almost non-existent indicating heavy damage but the destroyer escort ORP Lodz have been forced to retreat after losing five of her crew, her only fire control and one of her railguns. Twenty seconds later the targeted batlecruiser was gone was gone, leaving only five remaining.
   Unable to kill the destroyers, the invaders switched to targeting frigates, starting with ORP Jeziorak but she managed to retreat with minimal internal damage. By the time the second battleecruiser has been destroyed the frigate ORP Gardno has been killed and ORP Niegocin have been driven away but had no internal damage.
   The enemy fire was lessening a lot with ORP Dabie withdrawing with only light armor damage which made Wojciak decide to keep his warships longer while trying to pressure the Korean cruiser to get closer. When the DPRK pointed out he was staying behind, the Rear Admiral pointed out his ships are two to three times smaller and as such are in far more risk. Despite the bickering the cruiser did get closer coming to rest a hundred thousand kilometers from the enemy.
   During the argument Wojciak forgot that some of his ships had previous damage and ORP Lebsko was disabled and then destroyed. The next target, ORP Sniadrwy, didn’t have this problem and she stayed for over a minute under fire before being ordered to retreat and then she took even more time to get underway. She suffered very light internal damage and no casualties.
   By the time the next enemy target, the destroyer escort ORP Warszawa, had to withdraw, only three enemy battlecruisers remained. Those were of a different class than those being destroyed so far and no one was sure what they were. They had heavier shields than the others but only four lasers. They were almost certainly some sort of a support vessel, maybe connected to how one traversed jump points.
   Wojciak still had six destroyers in his fleet, but some of them had armor damage, sometimes quite heavy one so he decided to take it slow and stay where he was. Despite being much closer the lone Korean cruiser was essentially worthless at this stage of the battle.
   By the time only two enemies remained, the destroyer escort ORP Krakow had to retreat. The destroyer ORP Notec was being targeted, but she begun the battle completely undamaged and she was comfortably soaking fire for a couple of minutes now and could remain on station for a couple of minutes more.
   As Wojciak was still wary of the enemy getting a lucky hit, he stayed at a safe distance even as the enemy fire was petering out so the destruction of the two remaining battlecruisers took several minutes.
   By the time it was over every single Polish warship had significant armor damage and additional two hundred and thirty seven servicemen died. There were six sets of enemy life pods waiting to be recovered so the Republic decided to take two of them leaving the other four for Korea and Brazil. They also sent a freighter with cybernetic teams to the wrecks. While they won’t be able to salvage them, they will hopefully be able to recover data, either written or digital so that the Parana nations can understand what was happening.
   The invaders turned out to be aliens. They were hexapods, moving using all six of their limbs and while their forward ones had some ability to manipulate objects, due to their posture it wasn’t all that comfortable. Instead their primary manipulator was their very long tails that split into eight very long digits with five joints. Like humans they had an almost non existent fur that was limited to some body and facial and their skulls had similar construction to terrestrial ones – mouth, nose, eyes, ears. The most notable difference were the eyes as those were very similar to the eyes of a spider, with multiple small organs on the each side of the skull.
   What was even more interesting however was that when the teams tried to communicate they, found out the aliens spoke two languages one of which sounded very much like a human one leading to a theory that they had previous encounter with our species. If so communication may turn out to be much easier as Poland had thousand of dictionaries of old human languages.
   For now all powers begun heading home to begin the rebuilding process. Korea however have also rescued all remaining aliens, leaving none for Brazil which was likely to spark another conflict within the system.
   Nine hundred and eighty six aliens have been rescued by Poland.
 
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Offline Warer

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Re: The Forever War - Part 01
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2023, 10:16:39 AM »
Thanks for the frankly epic story!

Also how do you modify mineral abundance via the DB? Is it SystemAbundance tab and if so how does it work?
 

Offline Haji (OP)

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Re: The Forever War - Part 01
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2023, 04:06:19 PM »
Thanks for the frankly epic story!

Also how do you modify mineral abundance via the DB? Is it SystemAbundance tab and if so how does it work?

I'm glad you enjoy it. As for the minerals, yes it is the system abundance. Also I never really asked how exactly this works but from what I can gather the game rolls a random number in the 1-1000 range and then assigns mineral modifier. I'm not exactly sure what the modifier does however. For that matter I'm not really sure the mineral generation really changed, although considering the deposits I think it did.

One warning though. I play non-real stars and it appears that at least in this case system abundance does not change mineral generation per se, but rather the type of planets that is being generated. I'm getting an enormous amount of venusian worlds and very few planets similar in size to Mars. All of this however is just my observation.
 
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