Minor note: I updated the Design post for the Interplanetary Makeshift Warship. Nothing changed mechanically, but more fluff was added and the post was just improved in general. I wrote it out pretty quickly on my phone at the time. Also, this isn't noted there, but is now in the design: The ship uses basic radar and optics to locate targets, looking in areas based on courier intelligence from Moerth.
Also, obsolete designs (original printed pistol) will now be removed from the designs list. If for whatever reason you still want to use the design, just let me know in post and I'll put it back in the list and you can use it as you please.
Combat Phase of 2208The fighting on B2 continues this year. Our troops cheered when they finally managed to affirm the position of IMW #1 in orbit around the planet. We can only hope one sole warship is enough.
Our decision to send the "warship" to B2 was affirmed when our intelligence located one of Amaok's ITCs en route to the planet. Making use of a lucky positioning of orbits, we sent a courier to the IMW to alert it of the ITC's general location. The period after that was filled with near-painful waiting. We weren't sure if the IMW could
locate the ITC even with our intelligence, let alone get a successful hit.
The next courier brought mixed news. The ITC managed to avoid targeting by our warship, but the Captain of the IMW #1 reports that they were able to get several confirmed hits on the shuttles delivering the ITC's shipments to the planet. It wouldn't prevent Amaok from delivering whatever was in that ITC, but it would definitely decrease the effectiveness of it.
Our soldiers on the planet eventually found out what the shipment was: weapons. Amaok has developed what appears to be a semi-automatic battle rifle. Deployment of the rifle is limited thanks to the actions of the IMW #1, but every encounter with squads equipping this weapon ended in near-disaster. Our troops are shot and eliminated at ranges making our pistols nearly impossible to use, and the bullets of their battle rifle easily pierce our Kevlar. However, at closer ranges their troops seem to purposely stop using the new rifles in favor of their slightly inferior pistols. It's here where we have the advantage again, but the losses already suffered are still far worse.
In more covert deployments, their battle rifles are still superior to our pistols, but are again used on purpose much less and even when they are used, they aren't as effective. These battles mostly end up in pistol-pistol fights which we can still hold a minor advantage in as well.
If it wasn't for the interception of the shuttles, the battle for B2 would have ended in disaster. But even with the gun's limited deployment, we're now on the back foot. The Commander at B2 tells us that they can likely keep on holding their ground for the next year, but after that concessions of land will have to be made. The IMW saved our forces here, but we need an advantage on the ground now, and any way to find that advantage is desperately requested by the Commander.
Neither side gains ground at Planet B2. [M: 1/3, A: 1/3]B2 isn't the only planet their new rifles were deployed.
The barren world of C3 and the sandy desert planet A3 were both present to Amaokian invasion forces, both equipped with their new rifle. At every turn, our soldiers were overrun. The open expanses of both planets were dominated by the long-range Amaokian weapon, annihilating our pistol-wielding soldiers. We etched out the occasional "win" in covert ops using our pistols up-close, but these minor and rare victories were nothing compared to the sheer power of their new gun. Somewhat fortunately is the fact that they lose one of the new gun's advantages here - armor piercing - as neither sides have developed armor to use in hostile environments.
The Commanders of both worlds have been on the retreat this entire year. After initial devastating losses in open combat, our Commanders chose to instead tactically withdraw our main forces and use guerilla tactics to whittle their numbers. These tactics helped prevent the battles from being outright slaughters of our troops, but couldn't stop Amaok's advance.
Both Commanders are requesting immediate evacuation to either Moerth or another planet. They believe that particularly good new designs sent to them could help turn the tide, but if nothing changes then next year will be a bloodbath as both Units are eliminated.
Amaok has gained ground in C3 and A3. [M: 1/3, A: 2/3]But the year wasn't full of losses. Our blitzkrieg in the unprepared ocean planet of C2 was without a doubt a resounding success.
Amaokian troops were slowly fortifying the islands when our troops came. Without their armor, our Mk 1.1 pistols were an even bigger success. The effect of their greater reliability is amplified when single pistol shots can pierce the spacesuits worn by both sides. Better yet, Amaok evidently never deployed their battle rifle here. Every Amaok soldier is once again equipped with their inferior printed pistols. Losses of our troops was inevitable with the ease of spacesuit piercing, but with less weapon malfunctions than the enemy, we're able to overpower them in terms of weapons on every front.
The Commander's island-hopping strategy is of great aid to our operations on C2. Using the ITC allocated for this specific purpose, our forces can choose which islands to invade and when, while Amaok forces are limited to slow movement via
extremely basic seafaring transports. While their forces are occupied travelling between islands, our soldiers are relatively quickly moved to new positions to take advantage of relatively unsecured Amaokian assets as well as fortification of islands about to be assaulted by Amaok forces. The fact that we outnumber them 2-to-1 is another deciding factor here. When they manage the occasional minor victory, we still outnumber them. In most of our engagements, our forces simply outnumber the enemy's soldiers.
Finally, the status of C3 means the troops of Amaok here are cut off from most of their supply chain. Have you seen a Printed Pistol actually blow up when used? Our forces now have; apparently it's a surprisingly common event when the pistol is left unmaintained in rather degrading salty ambient of this planet. Their morale is low without quality of life supplies, and they're forced to supplement their food and water with inferior products gained from the planet's water and limited aquatic life. Our troops however are a well-oiled fighting machine with supplies direct from Moerth!
The Commander at C2 praises Moerth's tactical genius at C2, but warns that heavy Amaokian response is likely. Our forces here should be prepared for Amaok to ship in new reinforcements and/or designs such as that weapon he's been informed about. He believes that either orbital support or some kind of seafaring combat/transport vessel would be of immense aid here.
Moerth has gained ground in C2. [M: 2/3, A: 1/3]Production Credits!After getting tired and notably concerned by the back-and-forth bickering using every single radio channel possible at the same time, the colony ship seemed to had shut off its radio.
Some amount of hours later, they got back to both parties and after managing to get
some quiet, relayed their decision. While some colonists disagreed with those in command on the ship and would settle in the other colony, as a whole, the people of the vessel chose Moerth as their new home. They were quite charmed by the noble descriptions of life in Moerth and some bought into the material putting down Amaok.
At some time next year, the ship will land in a designated area on Moerth and its occupants will be integrated into the colony's society. An agreement is
eventually tentatively decided upon to allow the small amounts of disagreeing colonists to find transit to Amaok.
Moerth gets 2 Production Credit(s)! (Production Credit: Create a new Production Line for 1 year. Can be saved.)
Interplanetary Transport Craft: A primitive “shuttle” capable of carrying a unit and basic equipment to another planet. It’s quite large, and built completely in space. Docked to it are SSTO rocket shuttles designed with just enough fuel to carry things to/from planetside and return. However, the lack of large empty spaces in the shuttle and craft as well as limited fuel in the rocket shuttles means it can’t carry “heavy” things. The ITC relies on efficient chemical engines for thrust and powers essential systems via solar panels. While it can still carry units, the ITC cannot carry any item with a minimum weight above 1 CU.
Cargo: 4 CU
Expense: 3x
Resources: Metal, Exotics
Interplanetary Makeshift Warship: A converted ITC with an armament of 16 missile tubes located at the front of the vessel, near the command and crew module. Lacks a dedicated radio and operates via couriers and standing orders, and can't receive essential combat data and telemetry. Missiles are loaded in manually (by hand) by the crew, and the ship only has space for roughly 32 missiles - enough for two volleys. The missiles have only minor course correction capabilities and mostly rely on the aim of the pilot, and have minor destructive capabilities but still enough to completely destroy an unarmored ship and heavily damage lightly armored ships. A notable percentage of fired missiles remain unarmed after firing and are duds. Has light armor reinforcing the ship's structure, making it resistant to most small arms fire and capable to not fall apart because of one damaging event. Targets enemies through a combination of basic radar, optics, and gets general areas to look in from routine courier intelligence reports from Moerth.
Expense: 1x
Resources: Metal, Exotics
Printed Pistol Mk 1.1: A basic pistol that’s created via advanced 3d-printing techniques, making it very cheap. Unfortunately, its benefits stop there. It’s uncomfortable to use, inaccurate, works at short ranges, and fires very weak rounds. Fortunately, these rounds are still enough to puncture the basic suits and unarmored clothing used by soldiers on the field. Very light. The Mark 1.1 offers marginally better ergonomics and noticeably improved reliability. It still suffers from every other drawback of the Printed Pistol, and is still somewhat unreliable.
Weight: 1 CU = 10x
Expense: Unlimited
X112 Space Suit: A bulky space suit originally designed for the vacuum of space. It’s relatively flexible compared to spacesuits used by earlier space agencies such as NASA, but greatly restricts agility. Its complete lack of armor doesn’t help either. Luckily it’s cheap to produce.
Weight: 1 CU = 3x
Expense: Unlimited
Kevlar Armor & Uniform: Very basic thin-layered and light-weight partial Kevlar armor. Not even a helmet is included. This armor was originally used for security personnel sent with the colonies. It cannot be used in conjunction with regular armor. The facilities for producing Kevlar are still very limited in the colonies, making this armor a luxury.
Weight: 1 CU = 5x
Expense: 1x
Resources: Metal
Radio: Communications are done via basic radio systems. However, the size required means units would have to lug expensive radio systems to planets with them in order to communicate with Central Command back at their homeworld.
Weight: 2 CU = 1x
Expense: 2x
Resources: Metal
Akhsoyrtam Printers: Upgraded industrial 3d printers on Moerth allow for more detailed and fine manipulation of 3d-printed items. Originally planned to be able to build the components for more 3d printers, but preciseness of manufacturing was deemed too imprecise to accomplish this task.
PlanetsA1 - 1 Metal Unclaimed
A2 - 1 Exotic A: 1/3
A3 - 1 Metal A: 2/3, M: 1/3
B1 - Nothing Unclaimed
B2 - Nothing A: 1/3, M: 1/3
C1 - 1 Metal Unclaimed
C2 - 1 Exotic A: 1/3, M: 2/3
C3 - 1 Metal A: 2/3, M: 1/3
Production Line 1: Interplanetary Transport Craft (3/3)
Production Line 2: Printed Pistol Mk 1.1 (Unlimited)
Production Line 3: X112 Space Suit (Unlimited)
Production Line 4: Kevlar Armor & Uniform (0/1)
Production Line 5: Radio (2/2)
Production Line 6: Interplanetary Makeshift Warship (1/1)
Production Line 7:
Production Line 8:
Production Line 9:
Production Line 10:
Items covered in [brackets] aren't fully deployed, and the Unit must be sent the design again successfully to fully deploy the item. Partially deployed items still cost an expense level, and attempting to fully deploy it does not cost any expense levels.
Unit 1:
Equipped: Kevlar Armor, Printed Pistol Mk 1.1
Location: B2
Unit 2:
Equipped X112 Spacesuit, Printed Pistol Mk 1.1
Location: A3
Unit 3:
Equipped: X112 Spacesuit, Printed Pistol Mk 1.1
Location: C3
Unit 4:
Equipped: X112 Spacesuit, Printed Pistol Mk 1.1
Location: C2
Unit 5:
Equipped: X112 Spacesuit, Printed Pistol Mk 1.1
Location: C2
Transports
Interplanetary Transport Craft 1: Unassigned
Interplanetary Transport Craft 2: Unassigned
Interplanetary Transport Craft 3: Intraplanetary Troop Transport at C2.
Combat Vessels
Interplanetary Makeshift Warship 1: B2
Author
Topic: Planetary Arms Race - Moerth, Strategy Phase 2212 (Read 38567 times)