Humanity First Comments Thread

[Kurt (OP)]

As always, comments, questions, and criticism are welcomed

[nuclearslurpee]

As always, [...] criticism are welcomed

This is an utterly horrifying near future and I look forward to seeing how humanity comes back from it. It is a bit of an old trope as far as settings go, but usually makes for very good stories. 

The alien retribution was terrible, and China was destroyed as a nation. 

As is tradition. 

It was called many things in different languages, but it meant the same thing in all of them.  The Terran Empire was going to the stars, and it would bring war and death to the aliens that had devastated Earth. 

Wonderful, we've had entirely too much peace and life around here lately. 

Terran Empire, 2095
Population: Four Billion
Tech: Just unlocked TN Tech
Industry: 3200 conventional industry, 2500 financial centers, fifteen ground force construction complexes
R&D Establishment:80

Some interesting settings here. In my XCOM AAR campaign I've been finding that starting with 4b pop means you have a large amount of conventional industry, although you've knocked that number down by about half it looks like, the balance converted to other facilities. Having so much means projects get built pretty quickly, which on one hand can lead to an almost overwhelming growth rate but on the other hand in my case is suitable for an XCOM setting. Curious to see how it works out here.

I always play with limited scientist admin so 80 labs tends to be a lot and means you have to do a lot of tertiary projects in the early game until your scientists grow their admin caps. If you have normal admin then it shouldn't have much impact though.

Military:
Two divisions of Imperial Guards.
31,720 Imperial Guardsmen (Light armor, Imp Pers Weapons)
1,340 GEV (light vehicles, light vehicle armor, med autocannon)
800 AT Guardsman (Light armor, Light AT weapon)
800 Hvy Weaps Guardsman (Light armor, Crew Served AP Weapons)
309 HQ and Log

I'm curious how a "division" is organized here. Or are these just monolithic blocks of 100,000+ tons each?

Looking forward to this one. I know you were considering trying to do multiple player races, but the detail of Aurora compared to Starfire put you off - but I'm sure this will turn out to be an interesting story regardless of your approach! 

[Garfunkel]

and China was destroyed as a nation

As the ancients have prophesied.

and China was destroyed as a nation

It is known.

and China was destroyed as a nation

Thus, the traditional legacy was passed from father to son.

Really bleak start and I'm looking forward to more!

[Kurt (OP)]

As always, [...] criticism are welcomed

This is an utterly horrifying near future and I look forward to seeing how humanity comes back from it. It is a bit of an old trope as far as settings go, but usually makes for very good stories. 

The alien retribution was terrible, and China was destroyed as a nation. 

As is tradition. 

The Chinese took one for the team.  Whether they were heroic or just stubborn and/or ignorant is up to the reader.

It was called many things in different languages, but it meant the same thing in all of them.  The Terran Empire was going to the stars, and it would bring war and death to the aliens that had devastated Earth. 

Wonderful, we've had entirely too much peace and life around here lately. 

Terran Empire, 2095
Population: Four Billion
Tech: Just unlocked TN Tech
Industry: 3200 conventional industry, 2500 financial centers, fifteen ground force construction complexes
R&D Establishment:80

Some interesting settings here. In my XCOM AAR campaign I've been finding that starting with 4b pop means you have a large amount of conventional industry, although you've knocked that number down by about half it looks like, the balance converted to other facilities. Having so much means projects get built pretty quickly, which on one hand can lead to an almost overwhelming growth rate but on the other hand in my case is suitable for an XCOM setting. Curious to see how it works out here.

I always play with limited scientist admin so 80 labs tends to be a lot and means you have to do a lot of tertiary projects in the early game until your scientists grow their admin caps. If you have normal admin then it shouldn't have much impact though.

I reduced the conventional industry to reflect the looting and destruction that went on prior to campaign start.  I increased the R&D facilities and the ground combat construction capability to reflect humanity's response to the raids.  Also, as I was starting at a pre-TN tech level, increased R&D would hopefully mean that humanity could catch up to the other races and the spoilers in a reasonable amount of time. 

Military:
Two divisions of Imperial Guards.
31,720 Imperial Guardsmen (Light armor, Imp Pers Weapons)
1,340 GEV (light vehicles, light vehicle armor, med autocannon)
800 AT Guardsman (Light armor, Light AT weapon)
800 Hvy Weaps Guardsman (Light armor, Crew Served AP Weapons)
309 HQ and Log

I'm curious how a "division" is organized here. Or are these just monolithic blocks of 100,000+ tons each?

Looking forward to this one. I know you were considering trying to do multiple player races, but the detail of Aurora compared to Starfire put you off - but I'm sure this will turn out to be an interesting story regardless of your approach! 

Currently the Imperial military is based on 10,000 ton battalions, organized into brigades of 50k, divisions of 250k, and corps of 1m.  STO units are usually around 5k, and support units like logistics or artillery are usually 1-5k.    10k battalions might be too small a base unit, I guess I'll figure it out as I go. 

[El Pip]

As others have said it is good to see the ancient tradition of the destruction of China upheld.

On the new ships the naming theme is a bit grim. The "Abomination" troop transport seems harsh, though I suppose it could look really hideous. However the "Abductor" survey ship does seem a bit insensitive given the backstory of what happened to Earth. I can see some vicious names as part of a cult of revenge (or pre-venge on any aliens they meet), but not something that is going to bring back bad memories of the worst bits of recent history.

Anyway, best of luck to Emperor Charles I and his campaign to give any and all xenos a damn good thrashing.

[nuclearslurpee]

On the new ships the naming theme is a bit grim. The "Abomination" troop transport seems harsh, though I suppose it could look really hideous. However the "Abductor" survey ship does seem a bit insensitive given the backstory of what happened to Earth. I can see some vicious names as part of a cult of revenge (or pre-venge on any aliens they meet), but not something that is going to bring back bad memories of the worst bits of recent history.

The naming theme as well as the discussion of Imperial Guards and Marines leads me to suspect this Terran Empire is a reboot of the same entity from Kurt's Starfire and VB6 campaigns.

[Michael Sandy]

High population but low industry means the empire will be comparatively good at building infrastructure and wealth.  It will take a LONG time for production to get to the point where it is limited by number of workers, it is much more likely to be limited by minerals.

I have also enjoyed stories where the population was much smaller, and the empire started out pretty close to being production limited by number of workers, which yields a very different colonization strategy.  I especially like the ones with the homeworld rendered uninhabitable, so the main focus is finding inhabitable worlds to settle on.

The focus here seems to be how to maximize economic expansion for when they inevitably find aliens to beat.

[Kurt (OP)]

As others have said it is good to see the ancient tradition of the destruction of China upheld.

On the new ships the naming theme is a bit grim. The "Abomination" troop transport seems harsh, though I suppose it could look really hideous. However the "Abductor" survey ship does seem a bit insensitive given the backstory of what happened to Earth. I can see some vicious names as part of a cult of revenge (or pre-venge on any aliens they meet), but not something that is going to bring back bad memories of the worst bits of recent history.

Anyway, best of luck to Emperor Charles I and his campaign to give any and all xenos a damn good thrashing.

You're right about the names.  I picked the "aggressive names" class name theme because it seemed to fit the background of the campaign, and then didn't pay much attention to it.  After a while it started bothering me though, so I started changing names.  The "Abhorrent" class freighter seemed just silly.  I didn't catch the survey ship name.  You are right, I will change that. 

[Kurt (OP)]

High population but low industry means the empire will be comparatively good at building infrastructure and wealth.  It will take a LONG time for production to get to the point where it is limited by number of workers, it is much more likely to be limited by minerals.

I have also enjoyed stories where the population was much smaller, and the empire started out pretty close to being production limited by number of workers, which yields a very different colonization strategy.  I especially like the ones with the homeworld rendered uninhabitable, so the main focus is finding inhabitable worlds to settle on.

The focus here seems to be how to maximize economic expansion for when they inevitably find aliens to beat.

That's what I thought too, but as it turns out the focus is on the scarcity of TN resources near Sol.  This is my first campaign where there were no real decent mining sites in the solar system.  Luck of the draw I guess. 

[nuclearslurpee]

As others have said it is good to see the ancient tradition of the destruction of China upheld.

On the new ships the naming theme is a bit grim. The "Abomination" troop transport seems harsh, though I suppose it could look really hideous. However the "Abductor" survey ship does seem a bit insensitive given the backstory of what happened to Earth. I can see some vicious names as part of a cult of revenge (or pre-venge on any aliens they meet), but not something that is going to bring back bad memories of the worst bits of recent history.

Anyway, best of luck to Emperor Charles I and his campaign to give any and all xenos a damn good thrashing.

You're right about the names.  I picked the "aggressive names" class name theme because it seemed to fit the background of the campaign, and then didn't pay much attention to it.  After a while it started bothering me though, so I started changing names.  The "Abhorrent" class freighter seemed just silly.  I didn't catch the survey ship name.  You are right, I will change that.

The other issue with most of the name themes is that they proceed in alphabetical order, which starts to look silly after a dozen or so ship classes are in service. For the most part, the exceptions to the rule are those themes labeled "Class Theme" or "System Theme", there's a few others which are non-alphabetical but they're rare.

I usually use a different naming theme per class or group of similar classes (e.g., freighter + colony ship), this also has the advantage that you are less likely to run out of names after a few generations of tech advances.

March 2106: Corbomite deposits have been mined out on Earth.  This is currently a low-usage resource, but is a harbinger of things to come. 

Corbomite is a sneaky one... it seems unimportant most of the time, but once you run out it can sometimes be worse than corundium if you lose the ability to build financial centers and cargo handling systems at a critical moment. Oddly, I don't run out that often, but whenever I do it's always in an AAR campaign... 

Imperial Ground Forces
Terra
5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Guard Divisions – 11 Guard Infantry Brigades, 4 Guard Armored Brigades, all equipped with 2nd or 3rd generation armor and weapons
1st, 2nd, and 3rd Territorial Guard Divisions – 10 Guard Infantry Brigades + 1 independent Battalion, all equipped with 1st generation weapons and armor
1st, 2nd, and 3rd Guard Armored Brigades

Love the idea of reflagging older formations as "Territorial", I'll have to remember this one.

Looking forward to seeing how Empire-alien relations work out. I assume hostilities, this is only the first alien race so there is not yet any pressure to form alliances of convenience with less-aggressive aliens against bigger threats, but will the Empire have a sufficient technology and industrial base to fight the inevitable war of conquest?

Also, better crank out those ground units, you'll need a lot more of them if you want to conquer an alien home world...

[Kurt (OP)]

<snip>

Looking forward to seeing how Empire-alien relations work out. I assume hostilities, this is only the first alien race so there is not yet any pressure to form alliances of convenience with less-aggressive aliens against bigger threats, but will the Empire have a sufficient technology and industrial base to fight the inevitable war of conquest?

Also, better crank out those ground units, you'll need a lot more of them if you want to conquer an alien home world...

The Empire is pumping out ground units as fast as it can.  The need for STO's dilutes their eagerness to build up ground forces though. 

[nuclearslurpee]

<snip>

Looking forward to seeing how Empire-alien relations work out. I assume hostilities, this is only the first alien race so there is not yet any pressure to form alliances of convenience with less-aggressive aliens against bigger threats, but will the Empire have a sufficient technology and industrial base to fight the inevitable war of conquest?

Also, better crank out those ground units, you'll need a lot more of them if you want to conquer an alien home world...

The Empire is pumping out ground units as fast as it can.  The need for STO's dilutes their eagerness to build up ground forces though.

Excellent. I don't think we've ever had a C# AAR that played out ground combat at the planetary invasion scale so if we get lucky this AAR may break that ground. 

[Kurt (OP)]

<snip>

Looking forward to seeing how Empire-alien relations work out. I assume hostilities, this is only the first alien race so there is not yet any pressure to form alliances of convenience with less-aggressive aliens against bigger threats, but will the Empire have a sufficient technology and industrial base to fight the inevitable war of conquest?

Also, better crank out those ground units, you'll need a lot more of them if you want to conquer an alien home world...

The Empire is pumping out ground units as fast as it can.  The need for STO's dilutes their eagerness to build up ground forces though.

Excellent. I don't think we've ever had a C# AAR that played out ground combat at the planetary invasion scale so if we get lucky this AAR may break that ground. 

My last Aurora campaign had multiple attempts to take an enemy held world, all of which failed.  I don't think it was a homeworld, though.  I had several problems, although I didn't realize it.  First, I drastically under-estimated the size of the enemy force.  Second, they out-teched me by a fair amount.  Finally, I was just learning the rules, so made some critical mistakes, like misallocating my support units, and classifying artillery support units as "avoid combat".  If I understand things correctly, that drastically reduced their usefulness. 

[doublerobz23]

Excellent, some more Kurt fiction to enjoy!

An interesting premise and excited to see where it goes.  Some revenge is certainly need against those ambulatory mushrooms.

[nuclearslurpee]

It's always just a tad silly how quickly after reaching the, ah, threshold the, um, Archers show up. Like clockwork, really. Meanwhile, the plague of 'A' names continues. 

After a series of hits the alien ship comes to a halt, now a sitting duck for the human ships.  Two more salvoes and the alien ship exploded, ending the threat. 

"A boarding shuttle! A boarding shuttle! My kingdom for a boarding shuttle!"

The Flight II class interceptor includes a new ion drive that’s been modified to produce thirty percent more power at the cost of significantly increased fuel consumption.  In addition, the Flight II includes improved passive sensors.

Something I notice is that your ship designs seem to have rather low engine sizes relative to their total size. I recognize this as being the common design paradigm in the VB6 days, but in C# the AI ship designs are generally improved and use more engines, proportionally, so you may want to consider dedicating a bit more of your own ship tonnage to engines to counteract this. I tend to use engine mass fractions of 32% for missile/carrier doctrines and 40% for beam doctrines, mostly because they make for nice round numbers.

Hopefully the Imperium can adapt to the new threat quickly enough before some alien forces show up in greater force...