President's Personal Log, 9th May, 2116Three battalions of hostile robotic soldiers were unearthed at the dig in Glasgow. The River has been dispatched to transport our mobile infantry brigade to the location.
President's Personal Log, 19th May, 2116The robotic soldiers have been dealt with. I have decided to leave the mobile infantry brigade in place, just in case we unearth more robotic soldiers.
President's Personal Log, 18th June, 2116It's a good thing we left the mobile infantry in place. They just unearthed another vault of robotic soldiers. The mobile infantry are dealing with them.
President's Personal Log, 5th July, 2116They mopped up the robot forces again. I hope this doesn't end up becoming a monthly thing.
Zoe Dodd just completed research on better grav sensor strength. He has now begun researching a set of active sensors and missile fire control systems. It will be about a year before he has them all finished. Jennifer Evans is researching some missile launchers as well, utilizing the reloading technology we salvaged from the enemy vessels.
President's Personal Log, 6th December, 2116Our second engineer brigade just completed training. They'll be led by Steven Osullivan, the newly graduated xenoarchaeology expert (15% bonus). They should help recover the ruins on Glasgow V moon 4 faster.
President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2117Today marks our seventeenth year here. The wealth from the scrap is beginning to run low, down to 1720. The construction of financial centers has significantly improved the economy. The last month 31.2% of our income came from our financial centers, compared to 56.6% coming from tax on populations. We have 77 financial centers completed, with 23 more coming by June of 2118. At that point production will shift to ordnance factories.
Our research projects are also going well. The long range sensor package will be ready for production in May, then the two fire control systems should only be a few months behind. We also have some launcher systems researched, and a new magazine system is in the planning stage. We should be able to begin producing missile defense PDCs in a few years, with our first warships coming soon after.
President's Personal Log, 22nd February, 2117The engineers disturbed another vault of robotic soldiers today. The mobile infantry are cleaning them out again. This seems to be happening with disturbing frequency of late.
President's Personal Log, 10th May, 2117I've just received word that the Intrepid 2 has spotted more wrecks in the new system of Carver. I have sent the Legion along with a salvage team to check the area. The 10th mobile infantry battalion is also accompanying them aboard the River troop transport, just in case a base is found in the area.
President's Personal Log, 17th May, 2117The Joliette Imperium has just informed us that they consider us a friendly empire, and will allow our ships to use their jump tenders. They have also started sharing geo survey data with us. I intend to propose that begin doing the same at the next senate hearing in June.
President's Personal Log, 8th August, 2117Zoe Dodd's team just finished researching the last of the fire control systems. We should have workable PDC plans soon, we only need a few more parts designed. Actually constructing them is another matter, since we're still building financial centers and need to work on ordnance factories next.
President's Personal Log, 28th August, 2117Commander Jacob Gallagher was killed in an accident today. He was the CO of the Traveller, our fuel harvester - and he always performed his job excellently (60% bonus). He will be missed. The CO of the Tribal salvager will be reassigned to the Traveller as soon as arrangements can be made for the two ships to meet, since the tribal rarely salvages anything these days and our fuel production is more important.
President's Personal Log, 2nd September, 2117I just received word that the Prospector 3 was attacked in the Horrigan system by an Aigalas class ship. The system is one of the new nebula systems we've been exploring. The Legion is still out of contact investigating Carver, but even when it returns I can't send them. They just aren't equipped to fight in a nebula, their only beam weapons are point blank range gauss point defense turrets and their main defense is their shields. For now this enemy in Horrigan will have to be left alone.
President's Personal Log, 28th October, 2117I just received a report from Captain Iqbal on the Carver system.
"We arrived in system on the 23rd of July, activated sensors, and began moving toward the sole planet in the system. On the 24th we detected two Anaithil class enemy vessels and began closing, reaching missile range early morning on the 26th. We fired 60 size 5 Assassin missiles, 30 at each target, then waited for results. An hour later the missiles impacted, destroying one ship and damaging the other. As expected, the ships had no point defense - but the missiles only had a 75% hit rate. We fired off another 10 at the other target, destroying it as well.
We then proceeded to the planet in the system, with the troop transport River following us. We captured a base on the planet and found 190 Assassin ASMs, a net gain of 120 after taking into account the 70 fired at the ships guarding the base. We reported the two DST stations and new wreckage to the salvage team, and returned to London to send back our report."
President's Personal Log, 24th November, 2117We've detected three ships from the Kaifeng approaching Leyland-A I again.
President's Personal Log, 4th December, 2117The Kaifeng just nuked our tracking station in Leyland! I thought our relations were improving, but apparently I was wrong. There was no formal declaration of war, they just showed up and fired missiles.
I'm sending the Legion and Hades to investigate. So far we have never detected them in our home system, and they're the largest threat - so I feel safe enough sending our entire military force. Better that than arriving with too little and losing our best ship.
President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2118The new year brings trouble this time. The Kaifeng have destroyed our Leyland listening post, and I am monitoring a situation in Leyland. Our military forces have detected the three ships that destroyed the post and are pursuing them now.
President's Personal Log, 5th January, 2118The Kaifeng just destroyed a Joliette ship, so they must be at war as well. Our ships will be in range of the targets tomorrow, and I have ordered them to eliminate the Kaifeng ships. This may be the start of an interstellar war, but they were the aggressors.
President's Personal Log, 6th January, 2118The Kaifeng ships were running, but the Legion closed in to 80m km and fired off 60 Assassin missiles, 20 at each enemy ship. One Sirtori class was destroyed, the other severely crippled. The Argonauta seems less damaged, so another volley of 10 were fired at it - destroying it. The Legion closed on the remaining crippled ship and ripped it apart with gauss fire.
President's Personal Log, 24th January, 2118The military fleet just came across a small, 2700 ton Kaifeng ship in the Leyland system. It was likely a survey vessel, but I had them destroy it anyway using gauss weaponry. We don't want them finding Glasgow and our colonies.
Since Middlesborough is a nebula, I've ordered the fleet to blockade the Middlesborough gate and destroy any ships that come out. Perhaps they'll send in a fleet this way.
I'm sending a espionage team to Leyland on the Intrepid 2, just in case I get the chance to drop them off on a Kaifeng world.
President's Personal Log, 25th March, 2118On the urging of Commodore Gibbs, I've decided to send the fleet through Middlesborough, even though it's a nebula system, to get to Kaifeng system. It's just over an 8 day trip, so hopefully they don't encounter enemy vessels along the way. No ships have come through, and the worry is that they could go right around without us realizing. If not for the jump gates between Sunderland and Middlesborough I might just blockade the Middlesborough-Leyland gate, but they can go right around and get into our systems so it seems taking the fight to them and destroying their means of producing warships is the best bet. Our ships seem to have a significant tech advantage, so they should be alright. Since jumpgates exist the entire way my ships can remain in contact with only a slight delay for the signal travel time between gates, and I can give the order to retreat at any time if they appear to be in danger.
I've transferred the espionage team to the Legion for later drop off on the Kaifeng homeworld.
President's Personal Log, 4th April, 2118The fleet has made it to Kaifeng system. They destroyed a 33750 ton vessel near the gate, likely a freighter, and have continued their movement toward the Kaifeng capital.
President's Personal Log, 10th April, 2118We've detected a Kaifeng defense fleet. On further approach, twenty two 950 ton FACs were been spotted. The Legion destroyed or disabled them with the size 5 Assassin missiles, then finished off the drifting ships with gauss as they passed them on the way to the other ships.
President's Personal Log, 16th April, 2118What follows is a report of the last six days in Kaifeng.
At 500m km the Hades launched fighters at the 10 assorted ships on approach, ranging from 7000 to 14000 tons. Two 7000 ton Bari class ships were destroyed, as well as a 14000 ton Settembrini and another 14000 ton Oriani. A good many missiles were shot down in final defensive fire. This left 6 ships on approach. A 7000 ton Ciclope class ship got in range first, being swiftly shot down by a volley of 20 Assassin missiles from the Legion. By this time the Hades' fighters had reloaded, and were again sent on a bombing run against the remaining five ships. They destroyed another Bari class, a 14000 ton Sirtori class, and a 7000 ton Marcello class ship. This left two 14,000 ton Settembrini class ships on approach.
The Legion fired 80 missiles, followed by a second volley of 80 when those didn't destroy their targets. The second set of 80 did the job. This left the Legion with 130 Assassin ASMs, 33 size 8 high powered ASMs, and 15 of the new size 8 Wasp II ASMs. The Cerberus ships are carrying a mix of Ardent class and Assassin class size 5 missiles.
Continuing our approach to the world, we detected a group of 10 Cavour class ships, 21050 tons with a max speed of only 1424. Figuring these were probably cargo or colony ships at their speed, we ignored them for now and continued toward the world. Getting closer, we detected a variety of bases orbiting the world. We stopped at 32m km and began firing on them. Their anti-missiles shot down everything, so the Legion began approach to them to determine their close-range effectiveness and perhaps make them waste their anti-missiles.
Upon reaching 2m km, the bases began firing volleys of 100 size 1 missiles. This swarm tactic overwhelmed the Legion's gauss defense and began damaging the shields, so they began moving off and fired a few volleys of missiles at the target hoping they'd make it through since they had focused on anti-ship, but they quickly switched back and shot them down - and the legion took heavy armor damage. After recharging shields, the Legion decided to move back in. They can't have unlimited AMMs, after all.
This repeated a few times, without the armor damage due to more care taken by the Legion's pilot, but the enemy seemed to have an endless supply of anti-missiles. Deciding a massed attack to be the only way to get close, the Legion called in support from the Hades.
The fighters launched missiles, the Hades and Legion both began firing antimissiles, and the Legion rushed in. Under the massive barrage of hundreds of anti-missiles, the defense bases focused completely on the missiles - allowing the legion to slip into point blank range and destroy three of the bases in a mere 25 seconds with gauss fire.
Then something unexpected happened. Seven new ships appeared beside the planet, presumably from the shipyards (production update). There were two 7000 ton ships classified the Asmara, three 14,000 ton ships classified as Littorio, and one 21,000 ton ship classified as Grecale. The seventh was a harmless Bolzano class, presumably a cargo ship, but the rest were far from harmless. They fired beam weaponry and bombed the Legion point blank with strength 10 warhead missiles, dropping the shields and causing heavy armor damage. The Legion's missile fire quickly took down one Littorio and one Asmara class ships, and the gauss fire took out the other Asmara.
Switching to the Grecale class, which was tearing into the Legion with beam weaponry, the legion pelted it with Gauss and then fired the last of its size 8 missiles to finish it off. The littorio ships then slammed the Legion with another volley of missiles, tearing through the heavy armor and causing some heavy internal damage. The Legion finished off another of the littorio class, then targeted the other. Right before the other was destroyed, it slammed the Legion with one last small volley.
The Legion is in pretty bad shape, but it's holding together. The ordnance is about gone too, but it had enough to bomb the ground units on Kaifeng Prime and the gauss weaponry was able to shred the enemy shipyards. Figuring they may have more ships in the area, I recalled the military fleet for repairs and rearming. The mission to cripple the aggressor was successful, with all their shipyards being destroyed. We've also dropped off our espionage team, who will hopefully provide useful details on the Kaifeng.
President's Personal Log, 21th April, 2118We've picked up all the life pods of the ejected aliens and interrogating them. So far we have learned a few things about their technology, including warhead technology that's better than our current tech. The Legion also managed to repair some of her engines, and is up to 3750 speed now.
President's Personal Log, 26th April, 2118Using extra supplies from the Hades, the Legion is now in full working order again - aside from armor damage, but the maintenance base can take care of that. They're going to start the trip through Middlesborough in a few days, the most dangerous part of the journey home due to the lack of shielding and missiles in a nebula.
President's Personal Log, 7th May, 2118Disaster! Four ships, three Asmara and one previously unseen Sella class, 7000 tons each, were waiting on the Leyland side of the jump from Middlesborough. The Legion was targeted as soon as she entered the system, and before the sensors came online or the jump engines got ready for another jump they had destroyed her. The shields were still down from leaving the Nebula, and missiles began impacting almost immediately after entering Leyland. With the armor so heavily damaged, it only took two volleys. As soon as sensors became operational after the jump the Hades launched fighters, which destroyed two of the ships with the last remnants of their ASMs, then the Hades finished the other two off with AMMs and gauss weaponry. We've lost our flagship, and the only ship with a large military jump drive. This means the Hades is now stuck in the jump gate network. Luckily all the local systems are already connected, so the Hades can still get home.
Still, the loss of the Legion is terrible news. Of the 3746 crew aboard, only 1340 survived. Captain Amber Iqbal, commander of the Legion and thrice decorated war hero, was killed by a hit to the bridge. Her and her ship will be sorely missed.
With her goes the last of our advanced ordnance, leaving the Hades with nothing but recovered anti-missiles. More missiles will have to be produced for our fighters, and perhaps a new fighter design can be made to fill out the rest of the Hades' mostly empty hangar.
We destroyed the enemy's shipyards and bombarded their world, but they struck a terrible blow with their ambush in Leyland. I was expecting the trouble to be in the nebula, but catching the Legion right outside while her shields were still down and sensors were inoperable due to the jump was devastating, especially due to the armor damage caused above their homeworld when the ships appeared suddenly.
President's Personal Log, 6th September, 2118Using the new warhead tech we beat out of the Kaifeng prisoners, Jennifer Evans has designed a missile with a 25% larger warhead at only a slight decrease in range.
Hornet III AS10 Missile
Missile Size: 10 MSP (0.5 HS) Warhead: 20 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Speed: 30000 km/s Endurance: 22 minutes Range: 40.2m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.18 Sensitivity Modifier: 140%
Resolution: 120 Maximum Range vs 6000 ton object (or larger): 270,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 10.4217
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 600% 3k km/s 200% 5k km/s 120% 10k km/s 60%
Materials Required: 5x Tritanium 0.18x Uridium 7.1167x Gallicite Fuel x3346
The Hades is fully repaired from the beating she took during the battles with the Kaifeng. New Serenity is steadily building ordnance factories, and production of the Hornet III missiles is underway. It will take several years before we're capable of producing a good quantity of ordnance, at which time the Kaifeng will likely have built more military ships. The lack of a listening post is problematic, as there is no way for us to monitor their progress. Once we have a good ordnance supply we may need to build more tracking stations to set up a new listening post somewhere in that region.
Perhaps the Joliette has more military ships to help in the war effort. Judging by the wrecks scattered across their systems, they lost a lot of their military assets to the Kaifeng before we stepped in - but they should still have their shipyards, while we destroyed the Kaifeng's. I believe we destroyed most, if not all, of their military assets as well.
President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2119Today marks the 19th year we've been here, and this last year has been a lot of trouble. For reasons unknown to any of us, the Kaifeng attacked first our listening post in Leyland then our friends the Joliette Imperium. We managed to invade their home system and destroy all their shipyards and ground units, but the loss of the Legion and her captain was a high price to pay for it.
The salvage crew has been braving the danger of the area, and finding wrecks all over the place - mostly of Joliette ships except for the Kaifeng ships we destroyed. They also managed to salvage the Legion, taking some of the important parts off her. They managed to save all of her fire control systems - both point defense and missile. These will be put to good use on new ships, as they are better than any fire control systems we can currently manufacture. Sadly they were only able to save two of the gauss turrets, they would have been a real asset to go with the point defense fire controls with their 40k tracking speed.
On the manufacturing front, we're up to 27 ordnance factories and have made 8 Hornet III missiles so far. Many more of both are being built, but funds are running low. Scrapping the parts taken from enemy ships should help a bit with that when the salvage team returns. Should money run short, research may need to be postponed until we have a good supply of ordnance.
Galaxy Map as of 1st January, 2119
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Topic: Lets Play Aurora: Lost in Space scenario (I know, cheesy name) (Read 7219 times)