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[NUKE9.13]

It is the start of SY 102
Battle report for SY101

Everything is going smoothly. As engineers woken only recently from cryosleep, you have no clan connections to worry about. Which is good, for you are far too busy designing weapons to mess around.

It is now the Design Phase of SY102

Spoiler: Tech List (click to show/hide)

Ships
ITC (Interplanetary Transport Craft): The ships that carried colonists to your homeworld, now repurposed as military transports. They use rocket shuttles to ferry things to and from the surface. These shuttles have a limited capacity, meaning that with the exception of troops, the ITC cannot carry any equipment of a size greater than 1TC. It has 4TC. It uses chemical engines for propulsion. It has no armour or armaments. It is Very Slow, and quite large.
Cost: 2SPP

ESC-FS 1 'Cuttlefish' laser corvette: A medium-sized spaceship. The Cuttlefish's hull vaguely resembles its namesake. The 'beak' is a "Hermes" variable-water-injected fusion thruster, which draws plasma from the Helios-S reactor. It has very light armour, and has three AX4-Spear turrets, which are automatically aimed by the Athena RL System, which also handles evasive manoeuvres. The more ships in the fleet, the better Athena performs, due to her distributed computing. Its speed is Moderate, though it can inject extra water into the thruster for a temporary speed boost.
Cost: 2SPP


Equipment
Printed Pistol: Issued to security guards before the war, the only real weapon both colonies started with. They are 3D-printed out of plastic, a process which is not entirely reliable, meaning the gun has a tendency to break after prolonged use... or any use, really.
Cost: Cheap

X100 Space Suit: A civilian space suit, totally unarmoured and cumbersome to walk in. At least it works well enough, and has a self-sealing lining meaning a single shot isn't an immediate death sentence... most of the time. Necessary for deployment to worlds without breathable atmospheres.
Cost: Cheap

EAF-X1 "Ranger" Laser Rifle: A big, bulky firearm, weighing in at 15kg- just barely wieldable whilst standing. Works best against stationary targets. Can fire 30 shots in pulse mode before reloading, or 15 seconds in beam mode. Beam mode has pretty good armour penetration against conventional armour. Comes with basic scope and bipod. With the scope it is accurate at Long range.
Cost: Cheap
  EAF-PX3 Raider: A variant of the Ranger, using the new Picasso Pattern. Weighs a 'mere' 7.5kg. Fires shorter pulses, and deals more damage against moving targets. Does not have a beam mode.

Interplanetary Radio: Essentially just a very big radio set, capable of reliable communication between planets. Too big to fit on an ITC. Currently only useful for taunting Quillus.
Cost: 2GPP
Weight: 2TC


Infrastructure
Colony Defence Grid: The reason you can't instantly invade the enemy homeworld. A series of surface-to-orbit missile launchers, the only real concession to self defence the planners of the colony made. How they work is a mystery, and no one wants to risk taking them apart to find out.

"Helios" Fusion Reactor: A large, Tokamak style reactor. Performs He3-He3 fusion, though it does not take full advantage of this. Provides 2SPP and 2GPP.
  Helios-S: A variety specifically designed for use in spaceships. A 'twisted' plasma flow allows for plasma to be siphoned off without disrupting the reaction.


Misc Tech
Nanoquantum Capacitor Cells, Escher Pattern Mk2: AKA NQ Cells. About 15 times better than chemical batteries. Palm-sized, weigh about a kilo each. Despite their apparent complexity, manufacture and usage is simple.

Libum-265K: A near-room temperature superconductor. Manufacture is complicated.

Spoiler: Observed enemy tech (click to show/hide)

Ships
ITC (Interplanetary Transport Craft): No differences noticed.

QS-CA-99 'Odin': A heavily armoured medium-sized spaceship. Her hull is all slope, the front being a point, from which slopes lead up to the widest point, then slopes lead down at the same angle, before being cut off, leaving a large flat area in the back, where the main thrusters are. Aforementioned main thrusters are three Apollos. She has five smaller thrusters mounted pointing in other directions, providing excellent manoeuvrability. Her powerplant is a Stardust reactor. She is armed with four Mjolnir turrets providing excellent coverage, and a single spinal-mount extra-long Mjolnir. Her armour consists of a layer of Heavy titanium with faraday insulation, with a layer of Light ceramics mounted a full three meters away from the main hull. Despite her bulk, she moves at a Moderate pace.
Cost: 3SPP

QS-SF-00 'Loki': A small-ish fighter, capable of independent operation for a few days before needing to resupply. A substantially downsized Stardust reactor provides power to the Apollo thrusters, as well as the singular Mjolnir coilgun. Has light armour, and a radio capable of same-orbit communication. Requires a transport to act as 'mothership'- two Lokis take up 1TC
Cost: 1SPP for two.

Equipment
Printed Pistol: No differences noticed.

X100 Space Suit: No differences noticed.

Interplanetary Radio: No differences noticed.

QS-IRW-99 'Hayk': The Hayk is a micromissile-firing rifle. It is magazine fed, has a reasonable rate of fire, and is accurate at a surprising distance- theoretically out to Long range, although few are capable of such superhuman feats. There is an ammo variant which explodes on contact, though it is less accurate and in shorter supply.
Cost: Cheap


Infrastructure

Colony Defence Grid: No differences noticed.

QS-CPP-96 'Stardust': A fusion reactor. Utilises powerful niobium-tin superconductors, cooled by liquid helium, to contain plasma in a Tokamak-style. Two sizes have been observed, a medium-sized reactor seen in the Odin, and a smaller one which is 3m*3m*2m seen in the Loki.


Loose Parts
QS-MAC-97 'Mjolnir': A coilgun (and definitely not a railgun) capable of firing 150mm slugs at considerable speeds. Requires a substantial power supply. Ground installations cost 1GPP for four. Ship mountings cost 1SPP for  eight.

QS-MHD-98 'Apollo': A magneto-plasma-dynamic thruster of exceptional efficiency. Uses hydrogen plasma by default; heavier elements can be injected into the mix for a boost in thrust.

Spoiler: Production (click to show/hide)

Ship Production Points: 16+2
  6 Points: 3xITC
  12 Points: 6xCuttlefish

Ground Production Points: 16+2
  18 points: Unassigned
 
Units: 5
  2 Units on planet A (no extra equipment)
  2 Units on planet D (no extra equipment)
  1 Unit on planet E (no extra equipment)

Spoiler: The Map (click to show/hide)

Don't even worry about this looking nothing like a solar system. Its, uh, optimal transfers or something. Look, it's dumb, but what do you want from me?

Key:
A: A volcanic world. Constant eruptions and earthquakes result in a thoroughly unpleasant environment. 4SPP, 2GPP
B&F: Rocky worlds. (Almost) no atmosphere, no major tectonic activity, these planets are... boring. The most notable terrain features are the craters that litter the surface. 2SPP, 2GPP
C: An ocean world. Covered in 94% water, with a breathable atmosphere, and a few inhabitable islands. Prepare for lots of island-hopping. 2SPP, 4GPP
D: An earthlike world. Covered in 69% water, with a breathable atmosphere, most of the surface being inhabitable. Terrain varies wildly, from open plains to thick jungles- and of course vast seas. 5SPP, 5GPP
E: A frozen world. Almost entirely covered in ice, with an atmosphere too thin to breathe. Ice sheets make for treacherous terrain, with snow-covered mountains being not much better. 2SPP, 4GPP
G: A desert world. With a few salty 'seas' covering a mere 12% of the surface, the majority of this planet is dry as a bone. Vast sandscapes dominate, punctured by low, rocky hills, and the ocassional oasis. The atmosphere is breathable. 2SPP, 4GPP.
Ertex&Quillus: Earthlike worlds. Capturing the enemy homeworld results in victory. Yield no Production Points. I mean, they do, but those are already accounted for in your basic industry.

[joha4270]

Seeing our ships are in port, i think we should get as much punch in a short time, leaving the fancy theoreticals for later.
I hereby present the
ESC-MND 1 'Lightning' Bomb pulsed laser
The Picasso pattern normally stores electrons at specific charge levels, turns them into protons and direct them in some direction. This works reasonably well, but most powerplants produce a slow tickle of power instead of a great burst that is optimal for a laser.
A bomb pulsed laser elegantly sidesteps this problem, by only using half the Picasso pattern, the half that directs the photons and then using another source of x-rays. More specifically, a nuclear warhead. The laser doesn't survive the explosion, but before being turned into superheated gas, it emits a very powerful laser.
This is the operating principle of the Lightning bomb pulsed laser.

In the heart of the Lightning missile is a 100kg nuclear warhead surrounded by 20 Picasso based lasing rods, to capture most of the radiation. All of this is mounted on a gimbal, allowing it to be pointed in any direction independent of the missile orientation. All of this is surrounded by a thin casing. When a sensor detects the casing breaks somewhere, an electric signals triggers the warhead. This allows a Zeus not quite in range to try and hit something anyway, before it gets completely destroyed.

Behind this is a two stage rocket. The first one is a solid fuel rocket for the boost phase. Second stage uses hypergolic fuel and powers the rocket during the terminal phase, while at the same time providing fuel for the altitude control system.

In front of the warhead is the electronics. This consists of a set of redundant, radiation hardened computers, running a tiny Athena node. Using the swarm capabilities of the Athena, multiple missiles can work together to efficiently distribute warheads between multiple ships and evade point defenses. The electronics section also contains a radar for the terminal guidance, a short range radio and a fold out, high gain, radio receiver that allows it to receive course corrections during the coast phase.

The missile is usually delivered in a combined storage container/launch tube, which can either be bolted to the side of a spaceship or left in orbit as a static defense.

'Lightning' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270

[Chiefwaffles]

Alright.
We've managed to put Quillus in a bad situation. They can't move any Units without aborting conquering progress on any one planet. They get a tie going against us 1v1, and without technological advancements their only option is outnumbering. Which, like I said, they can't do without moving units away from other planets and thus stopping progress there.

So we have them in a corner, and can be reasonably confident that Quillus will go for a ground design this time around (and if they don't, we'll still win). So let's preemptively stop that.
Design: Hephaestus Synthesis

The island of stability, long theorized but never quite reached. Home to many materials with nebulous properties. The problem? Simply a lack of knowledge and effort in the field.
But guess what R&D bureau has extensive experience in easily manipulating particles the size of electrons and multiple years of designs in the field of quantum mechanics? And nuclear reactions that could be utilized to generate these theoretical elements? And new previously-“impossible” nanotechnology such as the Picasso pattern dealing with things extremely relevant to synthesizing this stuff?
The Ertex Design Bureau!

So we use the relevant theoretical knowledge regarding the island of stability from Earth combined with our extensive experience in the relevant areas in order to begin synthesis of materials in the Island of Stability. Preferably creating at least a superdense material (or the best material possible) for immediate use as armor in the Cuttlefish. We hope that the materials have other properties making them useful in other avenues as well, but regardless of any more exotic properties, they should be great for armor.
Thin plates of the proper Hephaestus-synthesized material will be used to armor our X100 suits and Cuttlefishes.

TL;DR: We have extraordinary experience and know-how in areas related to the frequently-theorized-about Island of Stability. So use all this knowledge to develop synthesis processes for cool&exotic Island of Stability materials, and use the best one for thin armor plating on the X100 suits and Cuttlefishes.

'Zeus' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270
Hephaestus Synthesis (1): Chiefwaffles

Like I said before, armor is explicitly the reason why we "lost" in the first orbital battle. We also need something we can apply to our infantry, to push our advantage at D. If we keep our advantage, we gain an actual advantage over Quillus in terms of resources.

[Blood_Librarian]

One problem I have with Hephaestus in the creation of armor is that  it seems much more likely that Hephaestus wont be stable enough to act as a longterm material (Days/months/etc), Could we modify it so that instead of using it directly in armor, it acts as a catalyst to the nanoscale fabrication of said armor.

After the Hepaestus is synthesized,  it is emplaced in a standard Metallurigc system, and then in several dozen chemical changes, the end result is almost impossibly durable material/foam like metal alloy  that consists of twelve different elements,

'Zeus' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270
Hephaestus Synthesis (2): Chiefwaffles, BloodLibrarian

[andrea]

'Lightning' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270
Hephaestus Synthesis (3): Chiefwaffles, BloodLibrarian, Andrea
-minor advantage (2): Chiefwaffles, Andrea

[Khang36]

'Lightning' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270
Hephaestus Synthesis (4): Chiefwaffles, BloodLibrarian, Andrea,khang
-minor advantage (3): Chiefwaffles, Andrea,khang

[TheFantasticMsFox]

'Lightning' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270
Hephaestus Synthesis (5): Chiefwaffles, BloodLibrarian, Andrea, khang, TFF
-minor advantage (4): Chiefwaffles, Andrea, khang, TFF

[Happerry]

Armor is good, and hopefully better armor will let us design some proper Armor sometime soon. (IE, a tank! Or at least some sort of war vehicle.)

'Lightning' Bomb pulsed laser (1) : Joha4270
Hephaestus Synthesis (6): Chiefwaffles, BloodLibrarian, Andrea, khang, TFF, Happerry
-minor advantage (5): Chiefwaffles, Andrea, khang, TFF, Happerry

[Blood_Librarian]

Honestly, I think we should fabricate robotic infantry on our next turn.

[Detoxicated]

Honestly, I think we should fabricate robotic infantry on our next turn.

Interesting thought, but I doubt we have the ability to create autonomous robots yet, and having them remote controlled seems quite dangerous to me, as they become useless if our transmission is broken...

Still like the idea, but we have to get proper technologies for it first...

[NUKE9.13]

Design: Hephaestus Synthesis

The island of stability, long theorized but never quite reached. Home to many materials with nebulous properties. The problem? Simply a lack of knowledge and effort in the field.
But guess what R&D bureau has extensive experience in easily manipulating particles the size of electrons and multiple years of designs in the field of quantum mechanics? And nuclear reactions that could be utilized to generate these theoretical elements? And new previously-“impossible” nanotechnology such as the Picasso pattern dealing with things extremely relevant to synthesizing this stuff?
The Ertex Design Bureau!

So we use the relevant theoretical knowledge regarding the island of stability from Earth combined with our extensive experience in the relevant areas in order to begin synthesis of materials in the Island of Stability. Preferably creating at least a superdense material (or the best material possible) for immediate use as armor in the Cuttlefish. We hope that the materials have other properties making them useful in other avenues as well, but regardless of any more exotic properties, they should be great for armor.
Thin plates of the proper Hephaestus-synthesized material will be used to armor our X100 suits and Cuttlefishes.

TL;DR: We have extraordinary experience and know-how in areas related to the frequently-theorized-about Island of Stability. So use all this knowledge to develop synthesis processes for cool&exotic Island of Stability materials, and use the best one for thin armor plating on the X100 suits and Cuttlefishes.

Hephaestus Synthesis (Hard): (3+3+2)-1=5: Average
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Insulanium*. Element number 112. Previous most stable isotope: 30 second half-life. New record: 5000 years*. So, it's still pretty radioactive. But at least it sticks around long enough for us to do something with it.
Synthesising Insulanium is not a simple process- it involves several large reactors and a whole mess of lasers, all designed to zap various elements together with considerable force. The process is long, expensive, and results in not much end product- but comparatively, it's not bad. We can produce about a kilo a day.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "A kilo a day? We'll never be able to make space ship armour at that rate!". And you'd be right, if we were trying to make armour out of pure Insulanium- but not if we use it in an alloy. For Insulanium turns out to alloy quite well, and with intriguing effects. The superheavy atom becomes a focal point for molecular formations of unparalleled strength, substantially increasing the strength of ordinary metals, with only 0.25% Insulanium added. Effectively, we can produce 400kg of "Island-Alloy" a day. Which still isn't a huge amount... which is why to deploy it in substantial quantities, we would need to set up Hephaestus Synthesis Reactors all across Ertex. This would eat into our industrial capacity, as the facilities are expensive to build and operate.

We've thrown together a very simple armoured X100, let's call it the X100-I, which will cost us 2GPP per unit. It's literally just plates of Island-Alloy bolted onto the X100; don't expect it to be super effective.
A very basic armour configuration for the Cuttlefish will increase the price from 2SPP to 3SPP. It augments the preexisting "armour", and should increase the Cuttlefish's endurance by 100%.


It is now the Revision Phase of SY102.

[joha4270]

We really lack some decent sensors. Radar works for short to medium range, but we are eventually going to need a real sensor. Now is a good a time as any.

Reversion: Athena's spear
The spear upgrade focuses on giving the Athena system some long to extreme range capabilities.
For this, it uses a new IR camera to passively detect enemies at long and extreme ranges.
The most unusual part of the IR camera is its lenses. It is deliberately out of focus, meaning a heat source takes up multiple pixels on the camera, no matter how far away it is. From here, a computer analyses the contacts to find the actual direction to the target, with a precision much lower than a pixel.
The lenses come in different flavor, some with a wide field of view for scanning the entire sky, with other having smaller field of view to gather further details on a target.
Other than being very sensitive, the central sensor is cooled with a liquid helium system, allowing it to (with some difficulty) detect objects only slightly hotter than the cosmic background.

If further time remains, the threat analysis system should be upgraded to automatically pick up incoming fire and attempt neutralize it with any weapon configured for point defense.

Athena's Spear(1): joha4270

[andrea]

So, we have a good material, but welack the power to make a lot of it.


Name pending Improved power generation
Making ephestus, we discovered something we really couldn't have imagined: we don't have enough energy density.  Even with our fusion reactors, it takes a lot of effort to synthetize our new super-alloys.
There is only one way around it: our generators must improve. In part, this can be done by fully exploiting the He-He process, which is still at a crude stage. But our problem also offers a solution here: incorporating superheavy alloys in our reactor tech. Such strong materials allow us to make smaller reactor, while also allowing them to run hotter and therefore more efficiently. This jump up in power generation capabilities should allow us to relieve the pressure that hephestus manufacturing brings to our industry.

As a stretch goal, it would be enormously helpful if the generator could be generalized to work with a wider range of fuel, continuing fusion up to carbon, although He3 should stay the optimum point for the time being.


Also: joha is suggesting a mrotar for our infantry. considering the current status of armor on both sides, it would be extremely lethal, especially in vacuum, and give us indirect fire ability that lasers will never have. We still need somebody to write the proposal however.

edit: Nuke confirmed that power isn't the issue, the issue is the reactor in which the alloy is produced.so, new proposal:

Aetna IoS processing plant
smashing together stuff with lasers is a fine method to produce island of stability materials. However, we are beginning to think it is perhaps not the most optimal for large scale production.
We need a new reactor design. we get the inspiration from our power production designs and we try to build a fusing mechanism that works even with plasma made of very heavy elements, past the point in which fusion itself is energy negative. Extensive use of super alloy itself in the construction of the reactor allows it to more effectively contain the plasma and make the reactor more compact, while also allowing it to run hotter and more efficiently.
The result is a fusion reactor design which starts from conventional elements and fuse them in plasma form, contained by magnetic fields, until it reaches IoS elements. Being a continuous process rather than the small batch one previously used ( smash things with lasers), production should be enormously boosted. Furthermore, it is hoped that this effort with further our knowledge in power generating fusion.

[Chiefwaffles]

Revision: Gogh Nanopattern

Currently a large cause of our difficulty with manufacturing Island Alloy is the "precision" of our Insulanium manufacturing. We have to repeat the Hephaestus process a lot of times in order to get a viable sample of Insulanium. So instead of doing anything fancy involving far greater rate of individual sample creation attempts or new reactors or anything like that, we should simply modify what we currently have at our disposal to improve this gaping flaw in the process.
Through some minor revisions to the Picasso and Escher nanopatterns, we can devise a nanopattern - the Gogh nanopattern - that facilitates the creation of Insulanium. In the simplest layman's terms, the nanopattern simply acts as a "mould" for the Hephaestus process to act on. We're not trying to replace anything or have our nanopatterns create Insulanium themselves - just making the "mould" in order to allow for a far higher rate of success in our Hephaestus processes without increasing the number tried.

We're primarily hoping to allow for the creation of enough Island Alloy to outfit our current navy of Cuttlefishes without sacrificing production capacity.
TL;DR: Revise a Nanopattern that acts as a "mould" for our existing process of creating Insulanium, ensuring that we have a far greater rate of successful sample creations compared to our current setup where most created samples aren't viable.

Athena's Spear(1): joha4270
Gogh Nanopattern (1): Chiefwaffles

[andrea]

While interesting, I think it suffers from a problem we had before: using nanoquantum patterns for things they were not made for. And this time, it is not even related to the current fields in which such thing have been employed so far... And we are trying to make it work while we fire enormously powerful lasers at them. If it facilitates the creation of insulanium ( we need a name), it means that the pattern is where insulanium is being created. And that means, being in an environment in which heavy nuclei fuse together, to a degree seen only in supernovae. That pattern wouldn't last even if made of insulanium.
Honestly, I believe that to be more far reaching than the Aetna reactor, so I think I will stick to my own proposal.

Athena's Spear(1): joha4270
Gogh Nanopattern (1): Chiefwaffles
Aetna IoS processing planr (1): Andrea