Aurora 4x
C# Fiction => Steve's Fiction => The Suns Never Set => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on September 02, 2021, 08:42:14 AM
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Please post any comments in this thread.
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Excellent, a right proper British Empire AAR. I expect nothing but the finest in nationalistic fervor, imperialist boot-heels, and of course light refreshments.
In honor of this I feel obligated to re-post the following terrible photoshop for the amusement of all:
(https://i.imgur.com/xSQFmqh.png)
Interesting setup with the two different ASMs this early. Personally I'd love to see what could be done with box launchers/VLS on the larger ships, but given the era and more importantly the complete lack of other player-controlled races that would be a bit silly of an idea in this AAR. Maybe in the next one!
Looks like the commander rank for the Astraea class might be a misclick, by the way. ;)
The geological survey was very disappointing with no suitable mining sites. Mars, Mercury, Earth’s moon and the Galilean moons of Jupiter were all entirely devoid of mineral deposits.
From a reader perspective - excellent! A strong early economic motivation to expand rapidly out of Sol makes for an entertaining read.
Loving the introduction of ASW to deal with the Corsair incursions. Another different tactic, even compared to the last WH40K campaign, and we shall get to see how effective it might be.
Establishment of good relations with the Space French Beershebae is an interesting and contrasting development. With the requests to honor territory well-received, this could be the beginning of a strong alliance, or an opportunity to expand the Empire, depending on the temperament of our British protagonists.
I will admit an interest in seeing how the British Army is developing in the TN era, obviously the Royal Navy is first and foremost but the Army cannot be neglected given the dangerous forces which lie in wait...
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Are diplomatic station/ships being considered neutral in contested territory a new addition or was that always the case? I had no idea you could do that without eventually getting a nice nuclear welcome gift from the aliens.
Very cool start of the campaign, I like this new iteration of the raiders better already.
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My favorite theme from Steve, British Empire in space. :) Looking forward to next part! Unfortunate, that Sol is void of resources, but it will provide more action as the Empire will have to be aggressive with expansion. I am curious how well will Empire fare with all missile armament.
I like the new approach to Corsairs and their aggressive move to attack in Sol. Fate of the HMS Apollo and HMS Thetis shows that armed survey ships might be better idea in 2.0 than in earlier versions and that makes me happy as that is how I prefer to build my survey ships.
Interesting setup with the two different ASMs this early. Personally I'd love to see what could be done with box launchers/VLS on the larger ships, but given the era and more importantly the complete lack of other player-controlled races that would be a bit silly of an idea in this AAR. Maybe in the next one!
NATO vs USSR would be excellent theme for VLS/Box launchers, coincidentally my second favorite from the VB6 past. :) Maybe for version 2.1. ?
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Are diplomatic station/ships being considered neutral in contested territory a new addition or was that always the case? I had no idea you could do that without eventually getting a nice nuclear welcome gift from the aliens.
Very cool start of the campaign, I like this new iteration of the raiders better already.
Its always been the case, but there was a bug in earlier versions that caused the aliens to issue warnings, even though diplomatic status was unaffected.
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, and of course light refreshments.
BritCo might have to jump dimensions to break into more friendly markets indeed~
Great to finally have another Steve AAR!
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, and of course light refreshments.
BritCo might have to jump dimensions to break into more friendly markets indeed~
Great to finally have another Steve AAR!
Trading tea to alien empires for fun and profit.
Technically a recreational drug, if the Xenos demand it but their government deems it illegal it is our duty to ensure the finest quality product is sent to our poor suffering Alien friends.
Perhaps an intergalactic tea war shall ensue, who knows.
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Aw yiss a new AAR!
I think it's funny how close the Darwin's Star side is due to the jump points, making systems three hops take less time to get to than any of the neighboring Sol systems.
"Hullo Charles, where are you off to?
"Ah Percy me old bean! Just popping 'round to Argos Colony to get a new hoverperambulator for the missus. Back in time for supper at the club tonight!"
"Jolly good, see you then!"
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Trading tea to alien empires for fun and profit.
Technically a recreational drug, if the Xenos demand it but their government deems it illegal it is our duty to ensure the finest quality product is sent to our poor suffering Alien friends.
Perhaps an intergalactic tea war shall ensue, who knows.
We need treaty ports in Aurora, @Steve plz
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Losing 25% of your survey fleet in 2 years is pretty bad for your ability to expand, the fact that you replaced them only hides the cost.
However as you are (thus far) using missile ships against beam ships, you could make an armed version of the Apollo by ripping out the survey sensors and jump drive and filling the hole with missile launchers.
Alternatively I was wondering how much hanger space you could get from the above and carry some Havock class destroyers with you?
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Update, hooray! ;D
With the temperature range between -90C and 110C, the planet would still need infrastructure and was likely to have a final colony cost around 0.70 due to tide-locking. The water cycle was complex, with the planet going through frozen, liquid and vapour hydrosphere types at different points of its orbit, but the time spent in the hottest part of the orbit was not sufficient to evaporate more than a small fraction of the surface water.
Sounds like the new changes to terraforming and hydrosphere are working really nicely, then.
Ze Space Germans seem suitably intimidating. It is unfortunate that engagements with the Corsairs will keep our fleet from properly establishing relations with them, of one sort or another. I am wondering if these are Precursors or just a normal NPR with large ships, we shall see.
I am liking the effectiveness of STOs against the Corsairs shown in this update. Another viable method to defend our outlying colonies even if STOs are obviously not able to chase them down and drive them out of the system.
And so it seems that the Space Italians will be played by The Swarm in this episode. This is likely to pose a serious challenge to the Admiralty, particularly in terms of logistics as the distant and inhospitable Cyrene system seems to be the necessary place to defend against any incursions to prevent these aliens from expanding into other explored systems. I do think the Royal Navy will have the necessary ships available to meet this threat, at least on defensive footing, but they will be stretched very thin given the conflicting demands to defend against the Corsairs and to maintain colonial stations plus forces opposing the yet-unknown Space Germans.
Quite a lot of drama and intrigue in this galaxy now. Maybe in the next update we will get to see a big space battle to complement all of this border tension and Corsair hunting so far!
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Quite a lot of drama and intrigue in this galaxy now. Maybe in the next update we will get to see a big space battle to complement all of this border tension and Corsair hunting so far!
Combat currently underway :)
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Did I read correctly that the AI is combining its fleets now instead of sending them into battle piecemeal?
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Did I read correctly that the AI is combining its fleets now instead of sending them into battle piecemeal?
Yes, I had coded that behaviour for v2.0 but that's the first time I have seen it happen.
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Did I read correctly that the AI is combining its fleets now instead of sending them into battle piecemeal?
Yes, I had coded that behaviour for v2.0 but that's the first time I have seen it happen.
Finally! At long last ;D
Thank you VERY much for this Steve, it's such a great thing for the game, before the Ai loved to suicide in many small bites ;D
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The Royal Navy required either a long-range, passively-targeted missile...
How do you design a missile like that?
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Put active sensors on the missile itself and launch them at waypoint. Once they reach the WP, they will use their onboard sensors to find a target.
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Did I read correctly that the AI is combining its fleets now instead of sending them into battle piecemeal?
Yes, I had coded that behaviour for v2.0 but that's the first time I have seen it happen.
That is beyond awesome, thanks!
My last wish is to have AI that will not spam thousands of AMMs in late game that makes anything except armor-CIWS-DeathStart impossible to survive that.
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My last wish is to have AI that will not spam thousands of AMMs in late game that makes anything except armor-CIWS-DeathStart impossible to survive that.
There are other ways to combat AMM spam - but don't use CIWS. It only protects the ship it is on which makes it very ineffective for a fleet.
Armor and shields both become very effective as the tech increases. Beam PD with sufficient mass can handle AMM spam quite well even at relatively low tech levels. Using your own missiles or even AMMs to counter also works well. In the later game you have access to good ECM and cloaking even for fighters. Lots of possibilities even if it is really not the most tactically interesting thing to fight against.
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Realizing that Steve posted a new AAR is like seeing your favorite military sci-fi author has published a new book (well, a short novel) ;D
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I saw that building a station rather than a colony near a construct increased that particular research on all worlds by 10 percent. Is this correct? And where is the rule? I've never seen that before.
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I saw that building a station rather than a colony near a construct increased that particular research on all worlds by 10 percent. Is this correct? And where is the rule? I've never seen that before.
once a planet with an (active) construct has a population of 1mil, 10% of the constructs bonus is applied as an "empire" bonus. So if a planets gravity is too high, or its CC is unrealistic to colonize you can still benefit from the construct somewhat.
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I saw that building a station rather than a colony near a construct increased that particular research on all worlds by 10 percent. Is this correct? And where is the rule? I've never seen that before.
The "station" is 6 orbital habitats, each holding 200k pop (so, more than the 1m needed for the bonus). Pop from habs are part of a colony. In this case, it's the entire colony's population.
This is correct, and the only other way I can think of to gain this bonus on a high grav body is to conquer an npr with a higher gravity tolerance.
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Once again in a Steve AAR, the first Swarm encounter proves deadly and the player empire will be on the back foot for a while now. Hopefully this war goes better than the one in the Crusade AAR... I still remember the nearly unstoppable Tyranid advance from that one quite well!
On July 16th 1899, two months after the Battle of Byzantium, HMS Formidable and HMS Implacable were launched from the Devonport Shipyard. The two Formidable class battleships were fifty percent larger than the preceding Royal Sovereign class and mounted one-third more missile launchers plus a secondary armament of four 8-inch lasers. Armour thickness increased by twenty percent and total armour was sixty-five percent greater. Despite the increase in combat capability, the ships would be extremely vulnerable to the Etna’s microwave weapons or the boarders carried by the Palestros. Refits would be required for the both battleships before they could be risked in action.
I wonder if it will be more economical and effective to build a different class, or refit other classes, and use the new Formidable class in other theaters? For example they should prove quite effective as a bulwark against ze Space Germans.
Three months later, HMS Majestic and HMS Magnificent were launched. The Majestic class battleships were the same size as the Royal Sovereigns, with similar amour, and the first Royal Navy battleships with an entirely energy-based armament. Their Majestics were effectively an upscaled Eclipse class cruiser, mounting a main armament of twelve 8-inch lasers, supported by four twin 5-inch laser turrets.
These should be more effective, but even a 250,000 km range is hardly enough to shoot down 100+ deadly Swarm small craft before they can close in. It seems like the major technological advance needed to win this war will be some combination of faster engines and better short-range missiles to efficiently wipe out the small craft before they can close in.
Two months later, a second Swarm ship of a new type, designated as Lepanto class, appeared in the Achaea system, home to six 500,000 ton orbital habitats and a colony of one point two million on the second planet. Achaea was eight transits from Byzantium, with no known connection between the two system except via both Alexandria and Epsilon Eridani. This unexpected Swarm presence resulted in near-panic at the Admiralty as the new incursion was only two transits from Epsilon Eridani, via Neapolis, and three from both Alexandria and Sol.
Sounds like a dormant JP about to complicate the galaxy map. Those are always...fun...
The survey cruiser HMS Andromache passed through the same jump points, but remained in Neapolis to conduct a resurvey to locate any newly-active jump point. That dangerous endeavour bore fruit far more quickly than expected with the discovery of a previously unknown jump point less than seven hundred million kilometres Achaea jump point.
Yep.
Hopefully this does not mean the sun will set too soon on this British Empire... but with the Swarm advancing from two sides, defense will prove difficult unless the enemy can be delayed long enough to develop the necessary advanced technologies to push them back. Simply building more ships will not be enough to win this war.
Great stuff, Steve, already awaiting the next one!
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Depending on how quickly and decisively the swarm advances, this could turn really ugly really quickly.
It's been a while since I faced the swarm... personally I don't really like to fight it with missiles. At least in the early game. That's because an anti-swarm early game missile fleet is VERY different from an early game missile fleet used against anything else.
Of course, switching to something else (beam-heavy or fighter-heavy) is still a long-time endeavour and requires a lot of tech investment, and time IS short here... so...
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What does Steve mean when he orders a "resurvey" of the jump points? Adding new jump point survey locations with SM?
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What does Steve mean when he orders a "resurvey" of the jump points? Adding new jump point survey locations with SM?
You can 'undo' a grav survey for a system (on the System View window) and resurvey from scratch. This will allow you to find any dormant jump points that have now become active.
EDIT: You can survey individual survey locations manually but the above is required for a resurvey using standing orders.
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I saw that building a station rather than a colony near a construct increased that particular research on all worlds by 10 percent. Is this correct? And where is the rule? I've never seen that before.
once a planet with an (active) construct has a population of 1mil, 10% of the constructs bonus is applied as an "empire" bonus. So if a planets gravity is too high, or its CC is unrealistic to colonize you can still benefit from the construct somewhat.
I don't remember seeing that before. So will the 10 percent be added to another world with a like bonus?
For example:. Say I have a world with a 50 percent construction bonus and build a station on another world with a construction bonus, will I end up with 60 percent bonus on the first world?
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What does Steve mean when he orders a "resurvey" of the jump points? Adding new jump point survey locations with SM?
You can 'undo' a grav survey for a system (on the System View window) and resurvey from scratch. This will allow you to find any dormant jump points that have now become active.
EDIT: You can survey individual survey locations manually but the above is required for a resurvey using standing orders.
You know, I had no idea this was even possible.... :'(
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I honestly cant find that button either atm - I can see the full grav survey in SM mode, and "no geo" but no "no grav" button.
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I saw that building a station rather than a colony near a construct increased that particular research on all worlds by 10 percent. Is this correct? And where is the rule? I've never seen that before.
once a planet with an (active) construct has a population of 1mil, 10% of the constructs bonus is applied as an "empire" bonus. So if a planets gravity is too high, or its CC is unrealistic to colonize you can still benefit from the construct somewhat.
I don't remember seeing that before. So will the 10 percent be added to another world with a like bonus?
For example:. Say I have a world with a 50 percent construction bonus and build a station on another world with a construction bonus, will I end up with 60 percent bonus on the first world?
Theoretically that should be how it works, but i have never had 2 of the same constructs in 1 game so i can not tell you 'yes' or 'no' for sure.
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I saw that building a station rather than a colony near a construct increased that particular research on all worlds by 10 percent. Is this correct? And where is the rule? I've never seen that before.
once a planet with an (active) construct has a population of 1mil, 10% of the constructs bonus is applied as an "empire" bonus. So if a planets gravity is too high, or its CC is unrealistic to colonize you can still benefit from the construct somewhat.
I don't remember seeing that before. So will the 10 percent be added to another world with a like bonus?
For example:. Say I have a world with a 50 percent construction bonus and build a station on another world with a construction bonus, will I end up with 60 percent bonus on the first world?
Theoretically that should be how it works, but i have never had 2 of the same constructs in 1 game so i can not tell you 'yes' or 'no' for sure.
Every construct active will give 10% of its bonus to your whole empire, which means every colony you have. This means that if you have 2 power and propulsion constructs, one 40% and another 60%, your empire will have a total bonus of 4+6 (10%) research bonus in power and propulsion.
What I'm not 100% sure in the above example I gave is when you consider the colonies that actually contain the construct. For example, if we consider power and propulsion on the 60% bonus world, will the overall bonus be 64% (60 + 10% of 40) or will it be 70% (60% + total empire bonus (10%))?
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You get the '10% of construct bonus' on every project, including those on the construct world that already benefit from 100% of the bonus.
Assume you have a propulsion construct at 80%, a propulsion scientist with 30% bonus and 200 RP per facility.
On a 'normal' colony the bonus would be: 200 * (100% + (4 x 30%)) * (100% + 8%) = 475.2 RP.
On the construct colony the bonus would be: 200 * (100% + (4 x 30%)) * (100% + 80%) * (100% + 8%) = 855.36 RP.
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I honestly cant find that button either atm - I can see the full grav survey in SM mode, and "no geo" but no "no grav" button.
It's possible I added the 'No Grav' button for v2.0
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I honestly cant find that button either atm - I can see the full grav survey in SM mode, and "no geo" but no "no grav" button.
It's possible I added the 'No Grav' button for v2.0
Probably part of this 1.14 change:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg152334#msg152334
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Three updates today, and I was just wondering how this campaign was going! Truly Steve spoils us...
The decision to violate Hegemony space for economic gain seems a rather harsh calculus but probably necessary, at least for the time being. If they do raise objections, it might make sense to seek an alliance as both the Hegemony and the Empire could use an ally against the rather strong threats on their borders.
The Myrmidon class destroyer is a very fun design, single-minded but optimized for a specific purpose. I love seeing these kinds of specialized ships built in response to a specific threat like the Swarm, or the Corsairs in the previous AAR for that matter.
While the Devonshire had less overall protection in theoretical terms than the Monmouth, the shields would prevent boarding attacks
I did not know that this was a thing. Good to know!
Very interesting to see the evolution of British battleship design through this period, although given the huge size jump I wonder if the Dreadnoughts should be reclassified as a new hull type entirely? Perhaps one named after the lead ship of the class...
Most of the alien force, numbering perhaps six hundred, was comprised of humanoid automatons almost seven in height and equipped with machine guns.
My high school math teacher was fond of saying that if students did not put units for their answers, she would assume all answers were given in units of elephants. This seems to be suitable guidance here and I choose to believe that the automatons are indeed seven elephants in height. ;)
Besides, the Hegemony had plainly suffered losses in battles with the Babylonians in Epsilon Indi and Rome while the Royal Navy was feeling very pleased with its new battleships. The fear of hostilities with the Hegemony was decreasing as the Empire became stronger.
I suspect that these matters will come to a head in, hmm, about 1914 or so.
The galactic map is beginning to look quite interesting, the number of loops are increasing and it may become increasingly difficult to defend every border, especially if any new races are encountered which may not be so friendly and accommodating. Which I hope does happen so we can see these mighty Dreadnoughts in action!
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Very interesting to see the evolution of British battleship design through this period, although given the huge size jump I wonder if the Dreadnoughts should be reclassified as a new hull type entirely? Perhaps one named after the lead ship of the class...
Most of the alien force, numbering perhaps six hundred, was comprised of humanoid automatons almost seven in height and equipped with machine guns.
My high school math teacher was fond of saying that if students did not put units for their answers, she would assume all answers were given in units of elephants. This seems to be suitable guidance here and I choose to believe that the automatons are indeed seven elephants in height. ;)
Besides, the Hegemony had plainly suffered losses in battles with the Babylonians in Epsilon Indi and Rome while the Royal Navy was feeling very pleased with its new battleships. The fear of hostilities with the Hegemony was decreasing as the Empire became stronger.
I suspect that these matters will come to a head in, hmm, about 1914 or so.
The galactic map is beginning to look quite interesting, the number of loops are increasing and it may become increasingly difficult to defend every border, especially if any new races are encountered which may not be so friendly and accommodating. Which I hope does happen so we can see these mighty Dreadnoughts in action!
The actual HMS Dreadnought was completed on October 3rd 1906 and this one was completed on October 1st 1906. I had a potential game-changing design in mind for a while, similar to the historical Dreadnought, but I didn't expect to end up that close to the date. And yes, future large ships will be Dreadnoughts.
The potential routes around the Galactic map are a real headache. As you say - very hard to defend everything. I also spent quite a few hours trying to rearrange systems :)
The 'elephants' are feet. I'll fix that :)
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The 'elephants' are feet. I'll fix that :)
Aww.
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No offense meant but seeing a 1821 tons ship categorized as a destroyer hurts me so much ;D That's barely a lifeboat ;D
Good progress all around. Interesting and fun ships design too, I like the big laser range and fast speed on those things. Sometimes I just wish the swarm ships were more aggressive in general.
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That is quite the buildup, I wonder whether the decision to violate Hegemony's space was not in fear of possible reprisals but more in anticipation.
I mean that would be quite the shame if these new shiny Dreadnoughts would have to sit at port so long as to become obsolete. Quite the shame indeed.
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No offense meant but seeing a 1821 tons ship categorized as a destroyer hurts me so much ;D That's barely a lifeboat ;D
Good progress all around. Interesting and fun ships design too, I like the big laser range and fast speed on those things. Sometimes I just wish the swarm ships were more aggressive in general.
In the late 19th century, Royal Navy battleships, such as the real Royal Sovereigns, Majestics, Londons, etc., were around 15-17,000 tons. First class cruisers, such as the real Diadems, Devonshires, etc., were around 11-12,000 tons.
Destroyers varied between 300 and 600 tons, so they are unrealistically large in my campaign at 1000+ tons. :)
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No offense meant but seeing a 1821 tons ship categorized as a destroyer hurts me so much ;D That's barely a lifeboat ;D
Good progress all around. Interesting and fun ships design too, I like the big laser range and fast speed on those things. Sometimes I just wish the swarm ships were more aggressive in general.
In the late 19th century, Royal Navy battleships, such as the real Royal Sovereigns, Majestics, Londons, etc., were around 15-17,000 tons. First class cruisers, such as the real Diadems, Devonshires, etc., were around 11-12,000 tons.
Destroyers varied between 300 and 600 tons, so they are unrealistically large in my campaign at 1000+ tons. :)
Ah I see, it's an historical thing. I must admit my knowledge of that period is quite low, so I had no idea. I'm more up to date on ww2 and recent ships.
I look forward to see those in action XD
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No offense meant but seeing a 1821 tons ship categorized as a destroyer hurts me so much ;D That's barely a lifeboat ;D
Good progress all around. Interesting and fun ships design too, I like the big laser range and fast speed on those things. Sometimes I just wish the swarm ships were more aggressive in general.
In the late 19th century, Royal Navy battleships, such as the real Royal Sovereigns, Majestics, Londons, etc., were around 15-17,000 tons. First class cruisers, such as the real Diadems, Devonshires, etc., were around 11-12,000 tons.
Destroyers varied between 300 and 600 tons, so they are unrealistically large in my campaign at 1000+ tons. :)
Ah I see, it's an historical thing. I must admit my knowledge of that period is quite low, so I had no idea. I'm more up to date on ww2 and recent ships.
I look forward to see those in action XD
My bible for that period is 'Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1860-1905' and I am just moving on to 'Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1906-1921'
I also have the 1922 - 1946 and 1947 - 1995 books. They are all excellent reference works and well worth reading simply for entertainment. They include a lot of background material on each design and on the period in general. For that reason, I use them a lot more than Jane's Fighting Ships.
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I have the 3 volume version of Conway's and when tempted to do Brits in space get my ship lists from it.
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So I finally had a chance to catch up, and found quite a suprise "shields prevent boarding attacks".
I had a search and looked through the changes post and I can't see any mention of it in the description for boarding or shields, is it new for 1.14/2.0 or is it an old feature I've never encountered?
Also I think you should come up with a naming scheme for the different sizes of battleships, may I suggest you give them ratings, like the Napoleonic ships-of-the-line? Alternatively the Yamato class is widely refered to as a Super-Heavy Battleship so maybe that would be suitable?
Also do you have something planned to give them jump capability or are they going to be kept within the stabilized jump network forever?
Given how you started tooled up for missile combat, I'm suprised at how much time and research you're putting into beams, rather than designing specific anti-swarm missiles. If you can get a missile running at 40k km/s with 25 MR then they should hit the small swarm craft pretty regularly.
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So I finally had a chance to catch up, and found quite a suprise "shields prevent boarding attacks".
I had a search and looked through the changes post and I can't see any mention of it in the description for boarding or shields, is it new for 1.14/2.0 or is it an old feature I've never encountered?
Also I think you should come up with a naming scheme for the different sizes of battleships, may I suggest you give them ratings, like the Napoleonic ships-of-the-line? Alternatively the Yamato class is widely refered to as a Super-Heavy Battleship so maybe that would be suitable?
Also do you have something planned to give them jump capability or are they going to be kept within the stabilized jump network forever?
Given how you started tooled up for missile combat, I'm suprised at how much time and research you're putting into beams, rather than designing specific anti-swarm missiles. If you can get a missile running at 40k km/s with 25 MR then they should hit the small swarm craft pretty regularly.
I have just launched four jump-capable battleships of 18,750 tons - the Lord Nelson class. At the moment I don't have anything larger planned for jump-capable ships.
Larger battleships will become Dreadnoughts and then Super-Dreadnoughts. Going back to my Starfire roots :)
Missiles seem powerful, but in a large campaign they are problematic. You need to build all the missiles to arm your ships, and often build them again when engine tech improves, which limits your missile-armed fleet to the number of launchers that ordnance production can effectively support. Missiles also require Gallicite, so when you research new engines you can run into a serious Gallicite shortage as refits and new missiles compete for limited resources. Half this campaign has been spent securing Gallicite supplies and because of that I neglected other priorities which means I am about to run out of Neutronium.
Beams have none of these problems, so you can build as many ships as you like within your ability to maintain them, plus they cost a lot less in combat because they aren't consuming valuable resources every time they fire. Missile ships without missiles are just expensive targets, so I find myself reluctant to commit to a large engagement unless I know I can quickly replace the ordnance expended with modern equivalents. At the moment, I still haven't produced enough missiles to even arm all the missile ships with the latest models. I need to expand on the current 500+ ordnance factories but the Gallicite issues meant that I couldn't use that extra capacity even if I built it.
The hybrid ships are an attempt to have the tactical firepower of missiles with the strategic flexibility of energy weapons.
In terms of the swarm, I am using the energy-armed ships to combat the small craft, so I can save the missiles for use against the battleships that outrange my energy weapons. Although I just starting retooling for the energy-only Invincible class battlecruiser. Faster than a battleship (due to boosted engines) but with less armour protection (which worked so well in real history :) ). That is slightly faster than the Swarm capital ships so I will be able to close the range.
On the subject of boarding vs shields, I thought that was the case, but after checking the code I might be wrong :)
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Any news from the front?
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It's probably not going any further. After I made further changes I started a new test campaign, which I played without posting anything to speed things along, but then I got distracted by Valheim (we have a family server with three generations playing). I am just starting to look at Aurora again in the last couple of days.
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Don't worry about it, WW3's about to start soon anyway.
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Don't worry about it, WW3's about to start soon anyway.
Great time for a new NATO vs Russia campaign!
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Great time for a new NATO vs Russia campaign!
Seconded with great prejudice!
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Great time for a new NATO vs Russia campaign!
Seconded with great prejudice!
Would love to see how china's bad luck streak goes in a C# campaign.