Callisto of course knows a counterinvasion of Venus is coming, as this is an issue debated in public Japanese political discourse. Politicians have it on their agenda. Unfortunately the army is one arm of the regime that has suffered as a consequence of the budget cuts, and a defense of Venus on the ground is deemed infeasible. What money there is is being invested into another run of thrust blocks. The next fight for Venus will be decided in space. There will still be a refresh of the ground troops, especially in light of the losses in Smolensk, but it's a secondary priority.
This seems shortsighted as a decision by the Callisto leadership. Tonnage of well-fortified ground troops is worth quite a bit when defending a colony as they can require several times their mass in attackers to dislodge. That said, of course spaceborne defenses are a necessity otherwise the mining infrastructure on Venus will be blown up in the battle anyways.
I'm a bit surprised by the discussion of civilian shipping income, mainly because the kind of numbers Callisto has are pretty typical for all of my campaigns and having a budget driven so heavily by shipping taxation is something I never see. It may have to do with the length of the campaign though?
The counter-volley penetrated the raider's thin plating, taking both engines and the weapon systems with it, ending the fight in one attack. Being disabled, the Garmr surrenders. The privateers had made a rookie mistake in sitting right on top of the JP and will now pay for it by spending their lives in chains.
I'd say their bigger mistake was trying to pick a fight with a military ship three times their size and weapons payload. These pirates will need to go to the clothing store and buy new pants, they've gotten too big for their britches!
The Cerberus briefly reversed course and fell to under 90k km distance, further than they had intended. The crew of the San Rafael used the opportunity to plink away at the Cerberus before their speed advantage pulls them out of their 120k weapons range again.
More #AuroraWoes:
That ship that was keeping distance exactly 33k too close? Yeah, 6.6k km/s speed over 5 seconds is that distance. The Cerberus was moving to the 120k distance it was meant to be, then the chasing ship closed in an additional 33k every tick. I wonder how many people are raging at their ships being chronically unable to do what they're told, cause the interactions of movement orders can be a science unto itself.
I've found similar happens when ships with different speeds try to maintain distances. Usually manually setting the speed of the faster fleet to match the slower fleet works, but often this requires some fancy flying to actually reach the expected range. I usually consider this to be due to the difficulties of driving a 10,000-ton spaceship and mutter some hand-wavey stuff about helm officers.
Oh, and apparently the San Rafael forgot that it was supposed to be under jump shock, it just jumped into the system via standard transit as it was stabilized and was able to move immediately and shoot 5 seconds after, but only because I didn't give the order to shoot immediately. I'm still on 1.11, but I don't think it is broken in this version. One guess would be that it didn't apply an order delay because there were no hostile ships in the system.
The jump shock system seems to interact with fleet training level so that a well-trained fleet may not suffer from it at all? The whole system is maddeningly inconsistent frankly. I'd prefer if the current system were replaced by a sensor blindness effect which would prevent opening fire as a side effect, and also make jump point reconnaissance rather less effective preserving the advantage of the defenders, if we must have a jump point system for combat in the first place.
The INL reaction at least confirms that shipping is the point to hit with them, and intelligence on their newest ship class could be gained.
Making the best spin out of a bad result, indeed.
Galactic irony has delivered a Japanse explorer with a bounty of immense strategic value: A secret passage into the unprotected backyard of the enemy.
A stabilizer is being dispatched to secure passage for the fleet.
Finally, the conflict expands beyond Venus! Are we on the cusp of our first truly interstellar war between two human factions?
Faction Profile: TERRA
Terran Primacy (2150)
In general it seems like Terra has the major advantage of population, they may not have the galactic resource base to effectively fuel all of that population but they can absolutely staff the large number of research facilities and other non-production installations to remain competitive until their enemies are weakened enough to strike against.
Interesting deal with Japan, Terra may become a market for "export" designs if some other power sees an opportunity to stabilize, I dunno, a severe financial crunch by selling second-rate technology? Of course, this level of realpolitik only serves to be swept aside by nationalistic enmity...
Development of proper long-range weapon systems will take a while, but as a first step the Hestia class has been designed:
Interesting design. The propulsion is curious, the individual engines being quite gallicite-hungry but the small displacement used for propulsion keeps the overall cost down and allows mounting a large cache of particle weaponry. The maintenance demands are likely to give Terra serious problems, it looks like they have chronically underinvested in ship engineer training and cannot staff enough engineering bays to reduce overall failure rates. Hopefully, the size and number of weapons will provide a sufficient deterrent.
Daimonion class Escort
Looks like an excellent design, aside from the magazine perhaps being a bit shallow. This should provide Terra with an absolute hornet's nest of defensive firepower.
Although expensive, a population in an orbital habitat station is much easier to control than one on the surface of a large planet.
A true, if mildly concerning, point to be raised.
Remind the colonials of their place - the eventual, if far-off goal, is to make all the independent powers pay Terra their dues again, but the INL is first in line due to their relative weakness. A fight against Mars can't be won yet, so limited engagements that don't call upon them to defend their ally yet are the plan. Raids on targets of opportunity, further sponsorship of privateering and perhaps the takeover of a few minor outposts.
An ambitious if long-term goal. It will be difficult to defeat the colonials with a philosophy that prioritizes Terra first, despite her limited resource base though still yet substantial.
