Topic: Lets Play Aurora: Lost in Space scenario (I know, cheesy name) (Read 7225 times)

Paul · « **on:** September 04, 2011, 08:40:02 pm »

This will be a roleplayed Aurora game using my lost scenario, where a group with advanced technology gets lost during a colonization flight and are forced to fight other alternatives. I'm playing it with the rule that my ships can't communicate between systems unless theres a jump gate or a ship there to retransmit the message, so if a ship goes into a new system and gets killed by itself I'll play like I don't know until I have another ship go in and see whats going on. Same with alien contacts, the military fleet won't act to move into a new system until they've received the message - even if that means they're too late. I played the first year already, and intend to keep it going hopefully with suggestions from you folks. I guess I should have posted at an earlier point since so much was happening in the first year, but I got so into it I didn't want to stop - so it's more like an AAR now heh, but I'll keep going with it and I'm sure I'll find more aliens. I didn't name any of the ships yet, just going with the default Prospector 001 002 003 etc. Anyway, here it is:

Expedition Leader's log, 19th September, 2099
Our convoy is finally ready, and we're leaving the spaceport to start our three month journey to Serenity III. I saw the reports from the survey team, the planet is a utopia. Perfect atmosphere, beautiful scenery, and the TN mineral readings are off the charts. Finding the 50 million colonist volunteers proved remarkably easy. One of its moons is habitable as well, although the oxygen content is not quite there. Our request for a terraformer was denied, so we're carrying enough infrastructure to set up 10% of the population on the moon to get a colony started there as well. Once we show them we mean business I'm sure they will send terraformers.

Convoy Manifest:
1x 1.5m ton Gateway class support vessel (gate building, maintenance modules, jump tender)
1x 1.5m ton Traveller class fuel harvester
10x 1.5m ton Pioneer class colony ships containing 50 million colonists and various officers, scientists, and administrators.
14x 1.5m ton Behemoth class cargo ships containing the following:
1000x Infrastructure
250x construction factories
5x research labs
250x automated mines

We also secured a small military escort:
1x 40k ton Legion class jump cruiser loaded with advanced missiles
1x 40k ton Hades class carrier with:
10x docked Cerberus class fighters with heavy anti-ship missiles
3x docked Intrepid class grav survey ships
3x docked Prospector class geo survey ships

I'd prefer they sent the full compliment of 40 fighters, what with the threats to stop our "exploitation of a natural habitat" from that eco terrorist group - but they want to use our colony as a staging ground for the survey of the local systems and brought along survey ships.

Expedition Leader's Log, 22nd December, 2099
The journey has gone well, but has taken a bit longer than expected. Looks like we'll be celebrating Christmas onboard ship this year - but we should be celebrating new year in Serenity. Some of the crew have been voicing concerns over the supposed instability of the Serenity jump point, but I've assured them it is just superstition. Those long range explorers are a notoriously superstitious bunch, one bumpy ride due to pilot error and it's an unstable jump point. Prelimiary scans have already showed no signs of instability, and we'll be making the jump in just short of 10 days.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2100
The explorers were right! That was the worst jump point transit I've ever been through, and we're definitely not in Serenity. Whats worse is we've lost the jump point! We came through and lost instrumentation for several minutes, nearly hitting a large asteroid, and now nobody can figure out where exactly we exited from. Daniel Carroll, our resident jump expert, tells me he believes the jump point shifted somehow during transit, and we could be anywhere. He seems pretty grim, but I'm still optimistic we can find our return point using the grav survey vessels on the carrier. I've dispatched all three of them to survey the system. I also sent out the geo survey ships, just in case we need minerals for ship maintenance.

Expedition Leader's Log, 8th January, 2100
Initial reports don't look good, they have found four jump points nearby - but none of them are the one we came in through. The geological survey has found good minerals om some of the nearby comets, so I've sent the cargo captains hauling the automated mines to set up temporary mining operations. I've made the choice to wake everyone and give a speech to apprise them of the situation, despite the risk of mass hysteria. They all seem to be taking it pretty well considering the circumstances, and those 5 million souls aboard Pioneer 1 have voted to spearhead the initial colonization effort when we find a habitable world. A hundred or so skilled individuals decided to stay out of stasis and help in any way they can - among them are scientists, officers, and civilian administrators.

Expedition Leader's Log, 17th January, 2100
We've finished surveying the system, which we've taken to calling Nowhere, and found 6 jump points. I've ordered the survey vessels to take the three jumps closest to us and report back if they find any habitable worlds or recognizeable stars.

Expedition Leader's Log, 20th January, 2100
We've been attacked! Three days after our explorer made the jump through the first jump point three 13,100 ton ships appeared on our thermal sensors. Two ships we've dubbed the Aigcatas class and one Reaper class. They immediately activated sensors and began approach. This appeared fairly hostile to me, so I ordered the military escort to close on them and send in fighters just in case. The fighters flew right by missiles heading toward our convoy! I immediately ordered them to launch their full ordnance at the closest ship and return to the carrier to reload. Turns out they have level 5 ECM tech, but the fighters were already at 20m km so it didn't matter.

The first four missiles were shot down by point blank PD fire, but the next 4 hit the target dead on. Data reveals an armor strength of at least five, but the four strength 56 warheads pushed through and destroyed the first Aigcatas on the 4th impact. The remaining 32 warheads locked onto the other two ships. The second Aigcatas shot down another 3 missiles taking one hit before again being destroyed by the next volley of four. The Reaper ship seems to have far more advanced PD capabilities, and managed to shoot down 12 of the remaining 24 missiles, but was destroyed by the 7th impact - leaving one volley of 4 missiles drifting without a target. Too bad we can't pick them back up, we only have 320 left and currently no way to produce more. The enemy missiles never arrived and presumably self destructed when their ships were destroyed, but I ordered the fleet to move and stay out of the area for a while just in case their missiles have sensors too.

I'm quite impressed with the performance of our fighter group, and awarded an impromptu medal to all of the officers in charge of them. They say the missiles did all the work, but closing on an unknown target in what amounts to an engine with missiles strapped to it to defend our convoy is an action worthy of praise.

No word yet from the explorer who made the jump into the system, I'm sending our military escort in with sensors and shields engaged to attempt contact. I hope they're alright, losing a ship so soon would be hard on everyone.

Expedition Leader's Log, 25th January, 2100
The Legion and Hades have returned from the system they're calling London with news. Our scout is fine, they decided to continue surveying the system and never even realized hostiles had detected their jump. We also had another skirmish with enemy forces.

Upon entering the system, the Hades detected a new 13100 ton vessel that they've dubbed the Sentinel and two defense bases orbiting the 2nd planet. The ship hadn't engaged active sensors and was apparently moving back toward the bases. The fighters were launched, and since the ship didn't even have sensors engaged only one fighter launched missiles to conserve ammo. The four missiles hit without any attempt to stop them, and the ship was destroyed. They then flew toward the defense bases, and again launched one fighter's ordnance against each target and waited to see the results. Again neither target had activated their sensors, and all missiles hit the targets - destroying both.

Upon approaching the planet to investigate the Legion was targeted by mines orbiting the planet, but the gauss point defense shot down most and the ship's shields absorbed the rest without damage. There are five other wrecks of unknown class, four 6550 ton and one 41100 ton.

London II has a surface temp of 58.5, but contains large amounts of dangerous methane. Some of the crew want to set down our infrastructure and colonize the place, but I'm reluctant to do so when hostiles could still potentially be in the area. Plus I'm still hopeful to either find a way home or a more habitable world without methane. As soon as a geo survey vessel returns I'll send them in with the Legion as a military escort to survey the system and see what else might be there.

Expedition Leader's Log, 22nd February, 2100
The prospector 2 ship has returned from a system they've named Stevenage with news. The system is a trinary system, with all three stars quite close to the jump. They've found two worlds with a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, Stevenage-A III and B II, with B II having almost enough oxygen to be breathable (.0971 atm). The temperatures are a good bit off - the first being -36.9 and the second 84.2 - but they're promising. Under pressure from the others to get some people on the ground, I've ordered the fleet to move to Stevenage-B II to drop off 5 million people, 1000 infrastructure, and 100 of our construction factories. I'll also have them pick up some minerals from our comet mining operations and deliver it to the planet so they can begin construction. I'm also sending the prospector in to survey London system, as planned. A team of xenologists demanded they be allowed to go with the survey vessel to examine any remains of the alien presence, so I let them go. They have the Legion to protect them, with the Hades remaining with the fleet.

Expedition Leader's Log, 18th March, 2100
We've founded our first new colony, with 4.9 million people and 1000 infrastructure. It's not Serenity, with minimal mineral resources and far too high temperature - but it's the best we've got. I've ordered construction of some infrastructure and a terraforming facility, which should be completed February of next year. No word yet from the rest of our survey ships, presumably they are scanning the nearby systems. We left a message buoy in Nowhere to tell them where to find us, so hopefully they'll be arriving shortly with good news.

Expedition Leader's Log, 4th April, 2100
The prospector 1 returned from a system they named Manchester today. They say the jump point survey is going well, and gave a report of the system. It has some good mineral sources, but no good habitable worlds. One thing of note is a large gas giant full of accessible sorium, which I've dispatched the Traveller fuel ship to exploit. The survey vessel left to take another of the unexplored jumps, eager to find (and name) new things. The Gateway was dispatched with orders to build jump gates between Manchester and Stevenage.

As we have a source of fuel now, I've decided to have our military ships start task force training exercises to get them used to the new command structure. I promoted Captain Anna Gibbs, captain of the Legion, to be the fleet commander, and put one of the brave officers of the Cerberus in charge of the Legion. I gave her the pick of any officer in the fleet for her command staff, and filled in the holes with officers among the colonists.

Expedition Leader's Log, 9th April, 2100
The prospector 1 just returned early with quite a tale to tell. They explored both the remaining unexplored points in Nowhere system, finding the first empty and naming it Edinburgh. The second they named Glasgow, and it's where things get interesting. Coming in, they detected a few wrecks. Initial scans of the system show the 4th planet is a near perfectly habitable world, and moon 4 of the 5th planet isn't far off but appears to have an ammonia atmosphere. Having learned of the events in London they decided to stay near the jump point and observe for a bit. After only a few minutes they detected numerous nuclear explosions coming from the third moon of the fourth planet. Shortly afterward more explosions were seen about halfway between the 4th and 5th planets, and examining the locations of the explosions revealed wrecks. They had come into a battleground.

They stayed and observed for a few hours, seeing hundreds more explosions and a total of 15 wrecks of varying sizes scattered around the system, followed by massive nuclear explosions emanating from the 4th planet. Someone was bombarding it. They decided they had seen enough, and returned to Stevenage with the news. Against my better judgement I allowed our fleet commander Anna Gibbs to send the entire military fleet to Glasgow to investigate, leaving the rest of our convoy undefended. I debated going with them, but my advisors insisted I stay with the colonists.

Expedition Leader's Log, 11th April, 2100
Prospector 3 has finally returned from a system they've named Liverpool. It has some incredibly large resource deposits, and I've noted them down for future mining sites. They then decided to join with prospector 1 and follow the military fleet and observe the situation in Glasgow, carrying out a geological survey if the area is deemed safe.

Expedition Leader's Log, 18th April, 2100
Prospector 2 returned again, reporting on the London system.
The survey of London revealed small thermal contacts on asteroids #5 and #7, presumably listening posts. The ship was hit by two more mines with size 6 warheads at #7, but neither penetrated the armor so the ship continued surveying. As we have no ground units to take them, I've noted the listening post locations down for later. It will be a while before we have the capability to take them, as we will need to set up a training facility to train some ground forces as well as a shipyard to build a ship capable of transporting them to the world. We also found a ruined city on London II, the world with the orbital defenses. The xenologists stayed to examine the ruins, but their preliminary report suggests the ships were the last remnants of an automated home defense fleet and that the aliens have been dead for some time. This is reassuring news. They decided to follow in the footsteps of the other two prospector ships and get a look at the action in Glasgow. I should probably stop have stopped them, since losing all three geological survey ships would be catastrophic, but Captain Gibbs thought it was a good idea to survey Glasgow faster. Technically the military vessels aren't under my command so I'm wary to press the issue.

Expedition Leader's Log, 5th May, 2100
The Legion and Hades have returned triumphant. They found alien forces identical to those that attacked us in January. Following is a detailed report of their battle with the alien forces:

Upon entering the system, they enabled shields and began their approach. About halfway to the wrecks they detected thermal contacts, which meant either the enemy detected their approach and was coming for them or the ships were out after something else. Activating active sensors revealed three ships within missile range - two 6550 ton ships moving at 4274 that they've dubbed the Claw, and one 6550 ton ship moving the same speed they're calling the Fang. At 200m km theres another group consisting of a previously seen Aigcatas class and three new classes. Two 6500 ton ships they've labeled Guardian, one 6550 they've labeled Defender, and two 13,100 ton ships that they've labeled Bardiche. The same defense bases as seen in London were also here, orbiting the fifth planet.

The Legion opened with three 10 missile volleys, one at each of the close ships. The Hades launched fighters and sent them toward the larger ships in the distance. Each ship managed to destroy 4 incoming missiles, but the remaining 6 per target destroyed all three ships.

The fighters closed in and launched all 40 of their missiles at one of the new Bardiche class ships, then turned around to return to the Hades. 16 of them were shot down by the Bardiche's point blank defensive fire, but 8 of them got through destroying the Bardiche. the remaining 16 went for the Aigcatas, and which shot down another 12 before being destroyed by the other four. After reloading on the Hades, the Cerberus fighter group went in for another shot. This time, knowing the capability of their fleet, 24 targeted the Bardiche while 16 targeted a Guardian.

Right before they hit some enemies missiles were spotted on approach, and the AMM systems used a few anti-missiles shooting them down before being switched off to conserve ammo. A few more hit the shields uselessly before our missiles struck. 16 were shot down going for the Bardiche, but the other 8 destroyed it. They had apparently all used their defensive fire helping the Bardiche, and the Guardian went down in 4 missiles. The remaining 12 went for another Guardian, 8 being shot down and 4 destroying it as well - leaving only the one remaining Defender. All the enemy missiles on approach disappeared with the destruction of these ships, and the defender was on the run. Thinking it was an easy target, the Legion fired a single volley of missiles - which were all shot down. A second volley, this time of 20, was launched. A few minutes later, 10 more were shot down and 8 of the others destroyed the target.

Moving in on the defense bases, these turned out to be significantly more effective than the last. They fired AMMs and took out the first two volleys fired on it by the legion, only being destroyed by a strike from the fighters - and even then only barely, with almost all of them being shot down on approach.

Further investigation revealed enemy ground forces on the 1st moon of the 5th planet, as well as a small thermal contact. They bombarded the moon with gauss weaponry, destroying all ground forces and the facility. This brings up a question - are the ground forces machines too, or was our xenologists' theory about them all being dead and gone false? Since they were completely wiped out by our gauss bombardment, I guess we'll never know. A geological survey of Glasgow-A V Moon 4 revealed a partially intact colony, which I'm sure the Xenologist team will be excited about when they get back from London.

Examining the 4th planet reveals nothing - whatever lived here has been completely eradicated. The planet is partially irradiated, but otherwise the most habitable planet we've seen so far - with only 27 infrastructure required per million population. The colonists on Stevenage-B II are excited about it, and want to move there immediately - a notion which I find a bit alarming. Aren't they worried about radiation? The scientists have estimated that the radiation should dissipate within 5 years, but it still seems rash to colonize an irradiated world.

Expedition Leader's Log, 12th May, 2100
At the insistence of the colonists, we've packed up 4 million of them along with 800 of the infrastructure and all but 15 of the construction factories. We are moving to Glasgow. The remaining 1 million insist on staying on their new home, so they will remain as a small colony and continue constructing the terraforming installation, although with such a reduced workforce it will take three years.

Expedition Leader's Log, 5th July, 2100
We've arrived in Glasgow and set up the colony, leaving yet another buoy telling the team where we are now. As we passed through, I ordered the Gateway to connect Glasgow to the little network it was building. Still no word from the grav survey vessels, they should be finishing their initial surveys soon and heading home. With all the hostilities of late, I'm getting worried. I may have to send the Legion to look for them.

Thanks to the greater habitability of the planet, we now have all of our construction factories manned as well as two labs on the planet. The scientists are eager to begin research. Daniel Carroll, our resident propulsion expert, has proposed a commercial ion engine design that he claims to have built previously as a science fair project, to be used on a salvage vessel to collect the numerous wrecks scattered across the region. It's crude compared to what we have on our existing vessels, but it's the best he do without tech manuals. He suggested we take apart some of our cargo and colony vessels to disassemble the engines so he can figure them out, but the ability to build ships of this size won't come easy and I would hate to lose them. We don't have the means to do it yet anyway, so that decision can wait.

Another scientist, Jennifer Evans, is also designing some basic missiles. They're a far cry from what we're using currently, but with nearly half our payload expended on the recent battles we'll need something to replace them with soon.

Spoiler: Missile Designs (click to show/hide)

It will be a while before we can produce them, however - we don't even have any ordnance factories yet.

Expedition Leader's Log, 20th July, 2100
The grav survey team has finally returned from London with news of two unexplored jump points, and was rushed into my office to report to me. I'm glad to see them safe, but With all the tedium of managing the new colony I've grown less concerned with day to day survey reports. I've delegated the task to Abigail Thomas, the fleet survey officer, with orders to inform me of important developments - and a note saying that finding an unexplored jump point is, in fact, not that important - unless it leads back home.

The colonists were excited about this place before, but now that we've actually colonized this irradiated rock and some of them are falling ill they're getting upset and unrest is growing. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it, since we have no ground forces and barely any semblance of government to keep control. Putting most of them back in their cryo chambers and moving the rest back to Stevenage isn't really an option. Not really anything else I can do about it. Captain Anna Gibbs seems to think I should bombard the edge of the colony as a warning. I'm beginning to doubt her ability to act as fleet commander, and I'm glad I took her out of the captain seat of the Legion. At least on . It's bad enough we're trapped out here with no way of contacting home, I don't want to turn into a mad dictator. Thinking about holding elections to form a ruling council, but I want to wait until we have everyone out of stasis.

Expedition Leader's Log, 4th November, 2100
Nothing much going on in the last few five months. We finally completed construction on our first terraformer with two more on the way, and have begun adding anti-greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. The dust cloud has settled a bit on the planet, raising the temperature and making things even hotter - so we need to get some terraforming going to stave off the heat. Unrest is still rising, but the radiation levels have dropped a bit. If we can hold out for a few years until the radiation fades and the terraformers do their job, this might actually be a decent place to live.

Expedition Leader's Log, 30th December, 2100
One day until we've been here a year. A year already? It hardly seems it. The first few months were a flurry of activity, but lately it's been pretty quiet. The Xenologist team sent me their report on the London dig. They've found 156 abandoned installations belonging to an empire calling themselves the Kingdom of Bucklands, and everything looks pretty high tech (TL5). Sadly, we don't have the manpower to salvage the place yet. The Xenologist team hitched a ride on a survey ship and are now checking out the Glasgow ruins. They were quite disappointed with Captain Gibbs' action of destroying the moon facility and the ground troops there before they could study them, but they seem excited about the partially intact colony we found.

The situation on Glasgow-A IV isn't that great. The single terraforming installation isn't keeping up with the rising temperatures, and we've had to build more infrastructure just to maintain our presence there. The radiation level is dropping, but it's still too high for comfort and we've had deaths due to exposure.

On the plus side, our population is still growing despite the deaths. According to the census we conducted last week, We currently have 30 million people living in Glasgow. The small colony on Stevenage has about 1.1 million. And we still have 20 million in cryo stasis, who have been there the entire year. The doctors assure me they will be fine, but I worry for them. I tried to set up a rotation program, moving people in and out of cryo stasis until we have a colony going - but it didn't go over so well. Many of the colonists have already started families, and none of them want to get crammed back in a colony ship. It surprises me that our population has already grown by about 1.1 million despite all the hardships and most of them being stuck in cryo stasis. I guess being stuck on a new world with so little to do for entertainment has that effect.

The colonists have pestered me about coming up with a name for our colony on Glasgow. Isaac Hunt, captain of the Hades carrier, suggests New Serenity - but it just didn't feel right, seeing as we never even managed to colonize the first Serenity. The survey captains have their own suggestions, but based on what they've been naming the systems I'm not sure I want to hear them. Just another thing to worry about.

Current ship locations and tasks at the end of year 2100:
Traveller - gathering fuel in Manchester.
Grav Survey vessels - surveying Edinburg, Liverpool, and Glasgow.
Geo Survey vessels - waiting at Glasgow for new orders.
Gateway - Just finished construction of the gate network between Glasgow, Manchester, and Stevenage. Currently in Glasgow system awaiting orders.
Hades, Legion, and the 10 Cerberus fighters - all on task force drills in Glasgow.
10 pioneer and 9 behemoth ships - orbiting Glasgow IV, 2 research labs and 20m people still onboard.
3 Behemoth ships - orbiting the colony in Stevenage
Remaining two behemoth vessels - On the comets in Nowhere system, awaiting orders to haul in more minerals to Glasgow IV.

Current colonies:
Glasgow-A IV: 30m people, 235 construction factories, 1028 infrastructure, 1 terraforming installation, 3 research labs. Colony cost 0.3383.
Stevenage-B II: 1.1m people, 15 construction factories. Colony cost 2.0.
Comet #12 in Nowhere: 150 automines
Comet #8 in Nowhere: 50 automines
Comet #13 in Nowhere: 50 automines

Known galaxy map as of December 30, 2100:

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Pwnzerfaust · « **Reply #1 on:** September 05, 2011, 02:31:49 am »

Awesome start. Aurora is quite an interesting game.

Would you mind posting the full specs of the various ship classes in your fleet?

Paul · « **Reply #2 on:** September 05, 2011, 12:05:26 pm »

Sure. They're high tech, since the idea is you're from a highly advanced empire, and it gives you ships that you probably won't be able to build yourself for a hundred years - so they're a precious resource. Note that the missile numbers on the carrier and jump cruiser are current amounts after using some to fight.

Spoiler: Pioneer class Colony Ship (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Behemoth class Superfreighter (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Traveller class Fuel Harvester (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Gateway class Support Vessel (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Legion class Jump Cruiser (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Hades class Carrier (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Cerberus class Fighter (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Intrepid class Gravsurvey Ship (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Prospector class Geosurvey Ship (click to show/hide)

If anyone wants to play the scenario or get a better look at the ships, I have it uploaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?l2zoabe5korfez9

You start in a system with nothing but comets and asteroids, and everything else is completely random (no pre-genned systems).

Early on it looks like wealth is going to be a major problem. I should have started it with more money lol. The tax generated by the population is tiny. Will have to make financial centers.

Pwnzerfaust · « **Reply #3 on:** September 05, 2011, 04:00:36 pm »

Wow, those are some massive ships. Would hate to see how long those would have taken to construct, had that been necessary.

Paul · « **Reply #4 on:** September 05, 2011, 04:07:29 pm »

Not as long as you might think. It would take a while to get the shipyard up to that level, but the actual ship construction time is only listed as 2.7 years for the Behemoth, 4.83 years for the Pioneer, and and 5.87 years for the Gateway even with the my current technology ship building rates (which are way behind the tech where I designed them at, I forget what the original rates were). A highly advanced Earth could probably manufacture the engines and other expensive components and churn them out in less than a year.

Paul · « **Reply #5 on:** September 05, 2011, 06:09:28 pm »

Expedition Leader's Log, 29th January, 2101
I've been informed of a rather alarming trend among the colonists. They're acting like we are still in the Republic. They all sent in standard taxes to me, and are demanding wages for the construction of the infrastructure and terraforming installations. Many of them are starting their own projects, building their own infrastructure and forming businesses. Seeing this, the scientists have even started submitting a bill for their efforts as well. I guess capitalism has started.

The survey results of Glasgow are less than ideal. No jump points found. I've decided to send the ship to explore a location in Manchester, that way they can stop off and refuel from the Traveller on the way. I sent the geo survey vessels to Manchester as well, so they can survey any new systems explored.

We've finished the second terraforming installation, but temperatures are still rising from the dust settling. It appears we'll need many more terraforming installations to turn it around.

The Hades and Legion are both being overhauled by the Gateway crew. We've had some breakdowns, and with a general lack of maintenance supplies I thought it best to keep them in top condition. They've sent me a huge bill for the overhaul, too. Has everyone lost their minds? Where do they think I should get all this money? I can't go back to Earth and make a withdrawal. The first person to send me a bill for the autominers in Nowhere is going to be our first public execution. All we have is the remains of a corporate fund I was given to build the convoy, and at this rate our little government will be broke in a year. Ewan Law (the administrator I put in charge of the civilians on Glasgow) suggests I build financial centers, but it hardly seems an appropriate use of resources when our very existence is threatened and 20 million people are still stuck in stasis.

Expedition Leader's Log, 26th August, 2101
Jennifer Evans has completed her missile designs, and went ahead and researched another one for anti-missile capabilities. I fear they'll prove largely ineffective against the kinds of missiles we were facing from the alien fleet, but they'll be better than nothing.

Spoiler: Missile Design (click to show/hide)

Daniel Carroll has completed his engine design as well, and drawn up a basic design for a 19,400 ton salvage vessel using 7 of them. With all the wrecks around, I'd like to build one as soon as possible to augment our duranium supply and provide technological advances - but it may be a while before we have a functional shipyard. Current plans are to begin constructing one as soon as our fifth terraforming installation is complete, but there are many requests for other structures. Commodore Gibbs (she promoted herself, go figure) is pushing for me to construct ordnance factories, a military academy, and a ground force training facility. Ewan Law is pushing for the construction of a sector command facility to enhance our government and financial centers to boost the economy. Several of the scientists want a deep space tracking facility, so they can try to determine exactly where we are in relation to Earth.

Both researchers have also begun research into other projects. Jennifer is working on improving missile agility, and Daniel is working on fusion reactor technology so we can eventually upgrade the ion engine. Both projects are quite long term goals, and will take many years to complete.

Since January we've been able to unload another 3 million colonists from stasis, leaving 17 million more in the ships. Construction of infrastructure is still under way.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st October, 2101
Commander Natasha Sims was killed in an accident today. She was the captain of one of our Pioneer colonist ships, and I picked her for the position personally when we undertook this expedition. She will be missed.

Expedition Leader's Log, 23rd October, 2101
I've just received terrible news. The Prospector 1 has been destroyed, and Lieutenant Commander David Wilson and his crew have all been killed. They had went with the Intrepid 1 to Edinburgh system, exploring a system they had named Newcastle. They finished the geological survey early, and informed the Intrepid 1 that they would return to Edinburgh and survey the other unexplored jump in that system. The Intrepid 1 finished the survey of Newcastle as planned, then returned to Edinburgh and followed the Prospector's route through the jump. On arrival they received a repeating distress call from the Prospector 1's life pods. The 28 survivors explained their situation, but there was no hope of rescue - they were three days from the jump point, and had less than 8 hours of oxygen remaining. The Intrepid stayed in system for their last goodbyes, then returned to give their report.

They were attacked by a group of four fast attack crafts traveling 8000 km/s that they named Augcatlos. The thermal signatures were 160, suggesting they likely had a single high powered engine. If they had seen them sooner they might have escaped, but they were already within missile range before being detected. Their ship was destroyed by two volleys of fifteen warhead 12 anti-ship missiles. David Wilson was killed in the first volley from a hit to the bridge, and the ship broke apart when the second volley hit. I presume they are likely the same aliens that have been attacking us constantly since we've arrived.

In accordance with the survivor's last wishes, we have named this new system Wilson, in memory of the commander and his brave crew.

I have also ordered the Legion to search out and destroy these alien ships before they find their way to destroy more of our own. Her heavy shielding and anti-ship missiles should be more than a match for them.

Expedition Leader's Log, 29th December, 2101
Commander Amber Iqbal on the Legion has just sent a report about Wilson from Edinburgh:

"Upon approaching the wreck of the Pioneer 1, we detected two new 6550 ton ships that we've named the Anaithil. They look to be of the same general design of the ships encountered previously. We closed in and fired off a volley of 10 missiles at each target. The ships had armor thickness of at least 6, but the volley of 10 tore through each target. The first went down in 5 missiles, with strength 5 and 2 secondary explosions. The second dropped on the 6th missile. Apparently this class possesses poor if any anti missile capabilities.

We then moved on toward the 9th planet, which the ships appeared to come from, and detected four 1000 ton fast attack crafts moving at 8000 km/s. Utilizing our AMM fire control to guide the size 8 anti-ship missiles, we fired one missile per target to conserve ordnance. Shortly afterward 60 size 5 anti-ship missiles were detected on approach. Swapping the AMM control back to point defense duty we were able to shoot down 10 of them, the gauss point defense shot down 36 more, and 14 impacted bringing our shields down to 16%. It was only by the skill of our point defense gunners that we avoided taking significant hull damage. Our missiles then hit their targets, destroying all four.

We patrolled the system for another week to ensure nothing else remained, detecting a small alien listening post on the 8th moon of the 9th planet and another on the 12th moon of the 6th planet. We then returned to Edinburgh to submit our report via the jumpgate system. We should be back in Glasgow in another two weeks."

I've made plans to give the entire crew of the Legion a medal for their excellent work in securing the system of Wilson and avenging our fallen, and will present it to them when they arrive back in Glasgow. We're still reeling from the loss of Commander Wilson and his crew, but at least now their attackers can't kill any more of our brave men and women.

Expedition Leader's Log, 30th December, 2101
It's hard to believe that it has already been another year. Things are going well, and we've been able to unload more colonists on New Serenity. Thats the name that finally stuck for our colony in Glasgow. We now have 39.23 million people on New Serenity, and I'm told the Stevenage colony has grown to 1.24 million. 13 million are still in cryo stasis in the ships, but I believe we should be able to unload the rest by this time next year. This puts our total numbers at 53.47 million.

We now have five terraforming installations on New Serenity, but the temperature is still rising due to the dust settling. There isn't that much dust left in the atmosphere though, so eventually we'll start reducing temperatures. It may take many years before New Serenity is ideal. We just don't have the resources or the technology to build terraformers as good as I was used to seeing back on the Republic worlds.

Our commercial shipyard is 10% complete, and should be in orbit by the end of 2102 - although we'll still need to work on it to get it up to building our salvage vessel. We also have a good stock of fuel on New Serenity now thanks to the Traveller's efforts in the Manchester system. The financial situation is a bit grim, though - the economy has developed, but government spending trying to get everything constructed is still far higher than income. In the last year we've taken in 662, and spent 5457. We only have another 4296 left in the coffers, so I'll have to do something about it soon or productivity is going to suffer. We were billed 1185 just for the overhaul of the Hades and Legion, and they'll be due for another overhaul in 3 months. Research spending alone is 50% higher than our income, so I may have to slash their budget. I've tried to encourage civilian companies to build mining bases so that I could tax them for income, but so far none have been organized.

We've surveyed a good number of new systems. None have worlds rivaling New Serenity in habitability, but some could be long term prospects for the future. Our mining operation is still doing alright in Nowhere, but a few of the minerals are beginning to dry up and we will need to relocate them eventually. Specifically Corundum has run out completely on the comets we're mining, but we haven't been using much and still have a stock of 1700 from earlier mining. Duranium is the material we've been using the most, and at current mining we still have 7 years of that on Comet #12.

Known Galaxy Map as of 30th December, 2101

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Burnt Pies · « **Reply #6 on:** September 05, 2011, 10:54:19 pm »

Enjoying this a lot, seems like a pretty awesome scenario. Good Luck!

Paul · « **Reply #7 on:** September 06, 2011, 06:51:40 pm »

Did a longer one this time, since it mostly went without incident for a while. This one contains some minor spoilers with the introduction of a new alien near the end. They're a fun enemy that I expected to have more trouble from, I tried to keep from metagaming it since I've dealt with them before. My starting ships are such powerhouses with their high tech ordnance that they didn't have much trouble though. If I ever redo the sim I might tone them down a wee bit. I guess it's kinda balanced with the limited ammo aspect though, especially since I've already used over half my ammo - and I've been intentionally conserving it every chance I get. New ammo will suck compared to the missiles being used now.

The main problem I'm seeing with my scenario so far is the cash issue. I should probably start you off with 100k instead of 10k, so you can go for longer at full production before grinding to a halt due to money issues. Just doesn't seem like money should be your main limitation when you're cut off from civilization and having to make do with limited resources.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Expedition Leader's Log, 27th June, 2102

The coffers are quickly running dry, down to 2476 now - and the maintenance clocks on all of our ships are getting high. I've still been focusing on getting all our people out of the ships, and have managed to unload another 4 million since January. Some of the gravitation survey ships are beginning to break down, so I'll have to order them overhauled soon. Perhaps I can get the Hades hangar deck crew to do it.

The dust has all settled on New Serenity, and the temperature has stopped at 52.71 degrees celcius. At this point we need 39 infrastructure per person. Now the terraformers can begin gradually reducing the temperature.

I've decided to move shipyard construction up in priority to complete it in November. I'm hoping to have a salvage ship built some time next year.

Expedition Leader's Log, 12th November, 2102

A momentous day! Our first orbital shipyard has been completed. We still need to expand it to build our salvage vessel, but that won't be as hard as the initial launch.

The terraforming is going great as well. We've managed to reduce the temperature to 51.88, and it's steadily dropping. All but 2 million colonists have been unloaded, and we have stopped production of infrastructure - the terraformers will do the rest.

I've now moved to financial center construction in an attempt to stave off our financial collapse. I also halted all research. I never expected money to be the chief concern when lost in the middle of nowhere battling genocidal aliens and living on an irradiated world where another civlization was massacred just weeks before our arrival, but the workers demand payment so what can you do.

Expedition Leader's Log, 12th December, 2102

Today we finally got the last of the colonists out of cryo stasis and onto solid ground. Surprisingly, none of them showed any ill effects from being frozen for three years.

The shipyard is progressing nicely. In the last month we've managed to upgrade its capacity by 1310 tons. Only 8090 to go before we can build the salvager. I've ordered the engines and salvage module built in preparation. Just think of it, the first ship built by us in this far away place.

The Xenologist team on Glasgow V moon 4 have found 189 abandoned installations of someone called the Shako Imperium, although their technology is low (TL1). It is still worth investigating once we have the capability.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2103

It's new years again. Three years to the day that we've been in this place. We're a lot better off than we were three years ago. Our population has grown to 56.54 million - and all of them on a habitable world instead of stuck in stasis. There is a huge celebration going on outside, the first new year we have celebrated since we got here. I think people are finally starting to see this place as a home. Last year was also the first year we've had without being attacked by the mysterious aliens. The military remains on alert, still doing task force training exercises, but people are starting to feel a lot safer without reports of alien attacks every few months.

Expedition Leader's Log, 3rd April, 2103

Production has ground to a halt due to a shortage of funds. We're in debt, and workers are beginning to strike. Couldn't they just work for the greater good? Our production is already down to 90% of capacity and still dropping. This will seriously delay the production of our salvage vessel. I've asked to see if we could scrap some of the cargo vessels, but the shipyard we have just isn't big enough to do it in any reasonable timeframe.

Expedition Leader's Log, 3rd August, 2103

This deficit is crippling. Our production is down to 60% of capacity at 480 debt. I've tried to convince the workers to keep working for the good of us all, but they refuse. We've managed to build four financial centers, which increased tax income by about 7%, but all these costs are just too much so I've ceased all production. We would be building our salvage ship by now if not for this.

The military ships are in need of an overhaul, but I just don't have the funding to do it. If we all die because the military ships break down and the aliens show back up, I blame it on the greed of the maintenance workers aboard the Gateway.

Expedition Leader's Log, 23rd September, 2103

We've begun construction of the salvage vessel, but with efficiency reduced it will be late next year before it's completed. We're slowly climbing out of debt, but all production except the ship has been halted.

Two of the Intrepid ships are now in the Hades being overhauled. The best part? They aren't charging me anything extra, it's just part of their regular duties to maintain their craft. Debating building a large military hangar on New Serenity to dock the Hades and Legion ships in for the same treatment, but it would be a large structure and take a lot of money to build. Might be something to it for long term maintenance, though.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2104

New years again. More celebrations outside. Time has been flying by of late, although we haven't gotten much done. We're finally out of debt, and our salvage ship should be complete in April - but the construction factories and research labs have just been sitting idle.

Expedition Leader's Log, 9th April, 2104

Our first ship just launched. Now we can finally go about salvaging the numerous wrecks in the area. This should solve our mineral problems for a while, but debt will still be an issue.

Expedition Leader's Log, 3rd May, 2104

We scrapped our first wreck today. The components found were incredibly primitive, but made us 67 credits and a decent bit of minerals in scrap value. Considering our monthly tax income is only 100 credits, this is a pretty significant boost. I've ordered the construction of another financial center.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st July, 2104

I've ordered the military vessels in for an overhaul. It's going to bankrupt us, but they're falling apart and we need them in top shape if we're attacked. Perhaps we can pull enough wealth from the wrecks to bring us out of debt afterward.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st September, 2104

We've begun salvaging some of the ships we fought upon entering the system. These have advanced technology, and we've already begun learning things just from the wrecks. When we take apart the components we will learn even more.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2105

I had to abandon the overhaul of the Legion and Hades. It was costing us far too much money, and due to worker sabotage wasn't working out at all. (Not sure if a bug or what, but the "overhaul" was making the clock advance at a normal rate after the efficiency got low due to low funds, but it was still charging me a huge sum of money to do absolutely nothing. Now I'm 1000 in debt and have nothing to show for it. Bah! I'm just going to erase half that debt with SM mode, since it charged me a fortune and didn't even overhaul my ships).

Expedition Leader's Log, 3rd March, 2105

We're slowly climbing back out of debt after the overhaul fiasco, but we did get one good piece of news - the atmosphere of Stevenage-B II is now breathable thanks to the terraformer the colonists there have built. I congratulate them and their ingenuity. It's still far too hot there, but at least they can breath the atmosphere. New Serenity is doing great, the temperature is down to global average of 46.8 celcius and the radiation has nearly dissipated.

We've also begun constructing a drydock PDC for the military vessels with a 40,000 ton capacity, so either the Legion or the Hades can land and undergo maintenance by military personnel instead of being charged an arm and a leg for maintenance. They can take turns.

Spoiler: Drydock Plans (click to show/hide)

Expedition Leader's Log, 5th July, 2105

The colonists are celebrating our 5 year anniversary on the planet. I'm not much in the celebrating mood, what with the hefty debt and the raw deal I got on the overhaul of our military. I'll go anyway, though - have to keep up morale.

Expedition Leader's Log, 13th September, 2105

The salvage vessel has completed salvage operations in Glasgow. In total, we gained:

4740 Duranium
665 Neutronium
499 Corbomite
2145 Tritanium
207 Boronide
430 Mercassium
1253 Vendarite
364 Sorium
1915 Uridium
12 Corundium
1243 Gallicite

As well as 540 wealth, and a good deal of various technological knowledge. Thanks to this, we're no longer in debt temporarily - although we'll be diving back down into debt constructing the new PDC, which won't be done for over a year.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2106

It's been six years now, and we're still going strong. Construction of the military maintenance hangar is halfway complete, but it won't be finished until near the end of the year due to budget constraints.

The radiation on New Serenity has fully dissipated, and unrest has finally begun to die down.

Expedition Leader's Log, 29th August, 2106

The salvage vessel has returned with the contents of the wrecks in London and Wilson. Examining the parts we have learned the following technologies outright:
Missile Launcher Reload Rate 5
Active Sensor Strength 28
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology

We've also come very close to finishing Magneto-plasma drive technology. Daniel Carroll believes he can have it finished by the end of 2108, so I've given him the go-ahead on his project again. Without examining the enemy ships' drives he would have been researching the project for fifteen years or more.

We didn't get much in scrap from the components, since the equipment was mostly high tech and the scientists took it all for their research. We now have 13,840 total duranium, however - which should be enough for quite some time. The only mineral we're short on now is Corundium, with only 1200 in storage.

Another piece of good news - the civilians set up a small mining post on Glasxow X moon 6 earlier this year. We've been making a small bit of extra income taxing them. I'm not sure what the civilians plan to do with the minerals, but the extra revenue is incredibly useful.

Expedition Leader's Log, 13th September, 2106

Something has happened to Commander Eleanor Wright and her crew aboard the Prospector 2. They were exploring the region out past Wilson with the Intrepid 2. They both surveyed a system they named York, then Douglas, Cambridge, and Blackpool. This all went as planned, and the two ships headed back to York and took another jump to a system they called Sheffield. Geological survey was finished quickly and Commander Wright was getting bored waiting. Once both ships had finished, they moved on together to a system they called Southampton. Again the geological survey was finished first, and the Prospector 2 decided to go back to Sheffield and survey the rest of the systems - with plans to leave a small buoy by each jump to alert the Intrepid which system they had entered, then updating it as they finished to include survey details before moving on to the next. Once the Intrepid 2 finished up in Southampton they moved back to Sheffield and found three buoys - one leading to a place the Prospector named Inverness, another Dartmouth, and another Rosyth which did not yet contain the geological data. Deciding to join them in Rosyth, the Intrepid jumped in.

Upon reaching Rosyth, no sign of the Prospector 2 or her crew could be found. The Intrepid spent a day near the jump hailing the Prospector 2 and searching for signs of her, but found nothing. Thinking perhaps an error had been made, the Intrepid checked both the systems of Dartmouth and Inverness for signs of the Prospector 2 as well. They found nothing and returned to the newly built York jump gate to report.

They are fairly certain the ship was last in the Rosyth system due to the last buoy found in Sheffield. Commodore Isaac Hunt of the Hades insisted on going personally, with the Legion as escort; and against my better judgment I allowed it. I know that Commodore Hunt was close friends with Commander wright, and he was adamant about being allowed to go - saying that since we haven't been attacked in years that this was the most pressing threat. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

Expedition Leader's Log, 2nd November, 2106

The Hades and Legion are about to make the jump into Sheffield, breaking our contact via the jumpgate system. I have given them our best and ordered them to retreat at the first sign of any significant danger. It worries me that our entire military force is going to a place where one of our ships disappeared without a trace. Losing them would be disastrous. I have ordered the Intrepid 2 to go with them and remain at the jump point to relay any details, just in case the worst happens.

Expedition Leader's Log, 18th November, 2106

I have just received a report from Commodore Isaac Hunt aboard the Hades.

"Upon entering the system on the 10th of November, we detected a 1200 strength thermal contact. Active sensors revealed it to be a 60,000 ton vessel near the 2nd planet, with seven 6000 ton vessels doing something on the 2nd moon. They were all only about 84.39m km away, and the 60,000 ton vessel immediately began approach when they detected us. We launched our fighters at the large 60,000 ton vessel, with orders to nuke it to hell and return for reloading. Facing a ship half again as large as ours we didn't want to take any chances.

Fifteen minutes later, with our fighters safely aboard and reloading, the missiles made contact. Eight were shot down in defensive fire, the rest hit their target. The ship had an armor strength of at least seven. The first 15 missiles hit without much effect, the 16th finally caused the vessel to show signs of damage - but not what we were expecting. The ship began streaming some sort of fluid. The next three missiles had no noticeable effect, but missile 20 again punctured the ship and caused it to stream more of the strange fluid. The next four seemed to all penetrate the armor, obscuring the ship in a mass of fluid. When the cloud cleared the ship seems to have completely disintegrated, but the last two missile volleys have sent back data on detecting smaller 800 ton ships. It seems there are 21 800 ton ships. I'm not sure if they came out of the larger vessel when it was destroyed, or if they were escorting it undetected. The two volleys impacted and obliterated two of them, leaving 19 - but with the destruction of the missiles we have lost all contact with these small targets. Our sensor officer has labeled them Red Cloud, which seems fitting since the first sign of them was from a cloud of hazy liquid.

We decided to approach the 6,000 ton targets in order to find the 800 ton targets. When we closed to 57 m km we detected 38 of them moving at 10,000 km/s, twice as many as we were expecting and faster than anything we had encountered previously. We immediately turned back toward the jump point to keep them at range, and the Legion began firing missiles. Figuring 800 ton ships likely couldn't withstand more than one of our missiles, they rigged their point defense fire control to cycle fire six size 8 launchers. It was a beautiful sight to behold, one missile per target every 5 seconds, firing all 38 in 3 minutes 10 seconds. The stream of missiles started impacting a few moments after they were finished, and each ship in turn was destroyed - leaving nothing behind but a cloud of fluid. I commend Captain Iqbal on her innovative use of the Legion's point defense fire control system.

Closing in further we detected another 18 vessels of the same type. We continued our approach, and the Legion cycle fired 18 missiles at the targets in 90 seconds, then waited to see the outcome. Again all enemy vessels were destroyed. Whatever these strange things are, they can't withstand our missiles.

The 6000 ton ships have yet to make a move, but we've decided to eliminate them as well. Whatever they are, none of them have attempted contact - and they are likely to blame for whatever happened to Eleanor and the rest of the Prospector 2 crew. I ordered two Cerberus vessels launched, and had them cycle fire one missile per target then land. All seven targets were destroyed on impact.

Total contacts detected and eliminated were one 60,000 ton ship, apparently some kind of mothership; Seven 6000 ton ships, seemingly passive vessels that appeared to be mining a small moon; and 58 small 800 ton ships which appeared to be some kind of fast attack craft. Their offensive capabilities are unknown, as we did not allow any to approach our ships.

We searched the rest of the small system for a few hours, but detected no sign of Commander Wright or her ship. I suspect these strange ships, which Commander Iqbal has nicknamed The Swarm due to their swarming behavior, destroyed the Prospector 2 and salvaged the vessel. I can only hope her crew died swiftly and painlessly."

The strange seemingly organic nature of these ships is worrysome, but at least they were relatively easily destroyed. I worry about what we will do when we run out of our high tech ordnance, however. Just another threat in this strange region of space. I awarded Commodore Hunt a medal for avenging the crew of the Prospector 2.

The loss of Commander Wright and her crew, as well as the loss of another Prospector ship, is hard on morale. I will order the remaining Prospector 3 to be extra careful, and to always remain in direct contact with a grav survey vessel. At least then they will have a chance of being rescued should the worst occur, and we will know what happened to them.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2107

Our drydock has been finished, and the legion has landed and begun overhaul by the military forces in the hangar. It's a lot cheaper than using the high priced maintenance crew aboard the Gateway. The Hades is waiting for a turn, and hopefully won't completely fall apart before that happens. The ship's maintenance clock is already at 4.4 years, which is already slightly past the estimated maintenance life of 4.39 years. Things are failing on a weekly basis, and they're running out of maintenance supplies. We're still in terribly crippling debt cutting our production to 43%, so producing more may be a problem. I plan to swap them out once the Legion has halfway finished her overhaul.

It's good to have them back in system, I was on edge the entire time they were gone worrying about an attack on the colony with no ships around to defend us.

We've come a long way in the seven years since we arrived. I can scarcely believe it has already been seven years. New Serenity is now a much better place to live, with no infrastructure required. It's still a bit hot, but certainly tolerable. We're planning to move the infrastructure and terraformers to Stevenage, although I'm reluctant to create a very large out of system colony with only the one defense fleet. Our total population is up to 70.28 million on New Serenity and 2.21 million in Stevenage.

Our mining operations on the comets in Nowhere are beginning to dry up, with many minerals no longer available. With everything else going on I have yet to order them moved, but I should organize that sooner or later. We have plenty of minerals thanks to the salvage operations, but stocks of corundium, vendarite, and corbomite are still fairly low. We still have vendarite and corbomite being mined, but corundium has been gone for several years now.

Updated ship locations and tasks as of 1st January, 2107

Grav Survey Vessels - Surveying Holy Loch, Plymouth, and Dartmouth (this one is refueling at Manchester at the moment, actually).
Geo survey vessels - Two lost to alien attack. Last remaining one flying through Oxford toward Dartmouth to meet up with Intrepid 2.
Hades and her Cerberus fighters - orbiting New Serenity, waiting for an overhaul and falling apart.
Legion - Docked in the new Drydock PDC being overhauled.
Traveller - Still gathering fuel in Manchester
Behemoth 1 and new Tribal salvage vessel - salvaging the last known wreck in the region, in the system of Blackpool.

Galaxy Map as of 1st January, 2107

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Paul · « **Reply #8 on:** September 08, 2011, 07:25:33 pm »

I had to revise the Drydock design after the fact because I forgot to add maintenance storage. Funny that it wasn't even locked after being built, so I could just add it. Without maintenance storage it apparently generates a bazillion errors whenever a damaged ship is docked with it. It still repairs it using its own maintenance supplies, but since the dock itself has none it throws a bunch of errors. The cost increase was minimal (15) so it wouldn't have really affected the build time anyway.

-edit- Further checking reveals it wasn't maintenance storage, but damage control systems. Guess I'll add one of those too.
Aaand it still does it. Guess I'll just remove both and live with clicking through errors whenever one of the big ships needs repair. Reported it on the official forums.
______________________________________________________

Expedition Leader's Log, 5th April, 2107

Charlotte Potter, our resident construction and production expert, has been killed in an accident today. We owe much of our knowledge on terraforming, production technology, and mining techniques to her notes and published work since we arrived here. She will be missed.

Our dwindling team highlights our lack of an academy to train new recruits. One will have to be constructed once we've recovered from the debt accrued in building the military maintenance base.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2108

Eight years we've been here now. Things are going well, but we're still in debt from the construction of the maintenance base. It was worth it, as our military fleet is no longer falling apart. Daniel Carroll has nearly completed his research of the improved drive technology, and tells me he should have a workable commercial engine design within the next few months. A troop transport vessel is in the planning stage, the idea being to transport engineering brigades to recover the ruins. This is still a good ways off, as we have yet to build any ground force training facilities and have no engineering brigades to transport.

The Prospector 3 reports minor damage due to mines in the newly explored system of Chester. They did not penetrate armor, but the ship will need armor repair when it returns. They also found a ruined settlement on Chester-B IV, which the mines were in orbit of, and a ruined outpost on Chester-B II. Our xenologists are excited about the prospect of another dig to unearth, although it will be a while before we can recover the two they've already explored.

Another development is the movement of 9 million colonists to Glasgow-A V Moon 4, the world with the ruins. It has 0.4143 atmospheres of ammonia, so will require significant efforts to terraform - but the ruins seem to have attracted tourists and an entire civilian industry has sprung up around tourism on the planet. So far they've commisioned our colony ships to haul them over, but I've heard rumors that the civilians are developing their own ships.

Expedition Leader's Log, 29th March, 2108

Daniel Carroll has finished research on his commercial Magneto-plasma Drive. It has 1/3 more thrust than our Ion engine, which is impressive. Plans have been drawn up for construction of a 20,600 ton troop transport utilizing 6 of these engines, capable of transporting an engineer brigade. The shipyard is being upgraded and refitted to build one, and our next construction task will be a ground unit training facility to train the engineers that will begin recovering the local ruins.

Spoiler: Troop Transport (click to show/hide)

Expedition Leader's Log, 29th May, 2108

We've begun construction of the first River class ship. With the budget constraints, it is expected to be completed in late 2110. The ground force training center should be done some time in 2109. This should give us time to train an engineer regiment before the ship is complete.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2109

Today marks our ninth year here. The duranium on Comet 12 has dried up, prompting me to move the 150 automines placed there. I checked all of our survey data and selected a site in York, the 5th moon of the 7th planet. It has good accessibility on all the minerals I was looking for (Duranium, Tritanium, and Corundium), large quantities so I won't have to move them again so soon, and is within our small jumpgate network. Even the smaller Tritanium deposit should last about 27.6 years.

Spoiler: York-A VII Moon 5 Minerals (click to show/hide)

Expedition Leader's Log, 17th April, 2109

The ground force training facility has been completed, and our first engineer brigade just entered training. They should be ready in October 2110, while the transport will be ready in November 2110.

Expedition Leader's Log, 27th April, 2109

A civilian shipping company owned by a group of maintenance workers from the Gateway just launched a new cargo vessel today, utilizing our Magneto plasma drive engine. It's larger than I expected - 41000 tons. Our shipyard is only capable of half that. I knew those guys charged me way too much for the overhauls of our military ships, they probably pocketed most of it and used it for this. I plan to tax them greatly.

Spoiler: Civilian Cargo Ship (click to show/hide)

Expedition Leader's Log, 2nd June, 2109

Our economy is booming. A second civilian shipping line launched another Cog class cargo ship. With the tax income from these new ships we should be out of debt in no time.

Expedition Leader's Log, 17th July, 2109

I've received news of wrecks detected by the Intrepid 1 in a newly explored system that they've named Leicester. Rather than risk our exploration ships, I've sent the fleet in to investigate before the area is surveyed. The salvage crew is heading that way as well, in order to salvage the area after the military ensures that it's safe.

We're also completely out of debt. The civilian shipping moved a lot of civilian infrastructure from New Serenity to the tourist colony on Glasgow V Moon 4, and I taxed them for loading it and again for unloading it. It's nice to be able to pay off the creditors and stop getting all those annoying calls.

Expedition Leader's Log, 27th August, 2109

I've just received Commodore Hunt's report on the system of Leicester. Turns out the system was definitely inhabited.

"We entered the system on August 11th, then headed toward the wrecks. At 200m km we activated active sensors, detecting a 13,100 ton ship we've named the Gomduring far off to our left, and a variety of targets near the wrecks. The 5th planet has the same defense bases we've previously encountered, as well as 5 ships. One is of the Sentinel class that we saw back in 2100 and was easily destroyed by missile fire. The other two are new classes. Two are 6550 tons that we've called the Alcatol. The last two are also 6550 tons, but with a different signature. We're calling it the Nardrol. All of them are flying at 4273 km/s.

Just to test their capabilities, we launched a single volley of 10 missiles from the Legion at the Sentinel. Every one was shot down instantly upon getting within their detection range. Not wanting to waste missiles for their target practice, we decided to try saturating their defenses with a launch of 100 missiles from the Legion at 150m km from the target accompanied 40 minutes later by a launch of another 40 from fighters 60m km out. As expected, the missiles arrived together - but every single one was shot down, all 140 of them. These ships have significant AMM capabilities. With our ordnance mostly depleted, we decided to approach, possibly to give them an all out attack at close range utilizing our AMM missiles in addition to the ASM missiles.

Shortly afterward we detected a chain of doubled small volleys of 2 size 5 missiles, with 4 coming every 20 seconds. We continued our approach, and relied on our gauss defense and shields to prevent damage. The gunnery crews performed well, shooting down all approaching missiles. At 30m km we detected a vast amount of size 1 missiles. They were firing their anti-missile ordnance at us. We immediately turned away back toward the jump point in an attempt to avoid some of them. Our gunnery crews continued to perform admirably, but they started getting through so we activated our AMM systems. The Hades lost shields and began to take armor damage, so the Legion turned and flew into the missiles in an attempt to shoot some of them down. The Legion took heavy shield damage, but remained undamaged - and finally the missiles stopped coming. We must have faced over a thousand of them. Figuring they were probably out of anti-missiles now, our fighters launched another volley at them. We were wrong, and detected another massive volley on approach shortly afterward. The Legion continued flying through them, her shields and gauss turrets braving them all.

Soon they had been destroyed as well, and thanks to the Legion none of the anti-missiles made it to the damaged Hades. Our missiles then approached, and by this time they really had shot all their anti-missiles - every volley hit, and their fleet was destroyed with 8 missiles still looking for a target.

Since we were so low on ordnance, the Legion took a gamble and went in to brave the defense bases' anti-missiles personally before firing any ordnance. It paid off, and all incoming anti-missiles were either shot down or exploded uselessly against the shields. The Legion came close to losing shields a few times, but was able to maintain them and took no armor damage. After all their anti-missiles had hit and the her shields had regenerated, the Legion charged in to point blank range and destroyed both bases with a single burst of missile fire. One base had defensive beam weapons and inflicted minor armor damage on the Legion, but nothing came close to penetrating her heavy armor and the maneuver saved ordnance that would have been wasted trying to shoot through their defensive beam weapons.

We then sent the fighters at the only remaining ship detected in the system, the 13,100 ton Gomduring class - which was fleeing. We fired 9 missiles at it, with 9 fighters firing 1 each. The first two were shot down in defensive fire, 6 more destroyed the target - leaving one wasted drifting.

We then collected our fighters and left the system to give our report, alerting the Tribal salvager on the way that the area was clear.

Remaining ordnance:
48 Size 10 ASMs
99 Size 8 ASMs
224 Size 1 AMMs"

While it's good news that they were victorious with only armor damage, their dwindling ordnance supply is troublesome. I still haven't managed to get ordnance factories going. Perhaps the ruins will provide some when we have completed the transport ship.

As we are now out of debt, I have also just begun production of our first military academy. We will need commanders for the ground forces and the new ships we produce. I'm keeping the production at 50% to keep us out of debt and avoid slowing the construction of our transport ship, which means it will be finished in February 2111.

Expedition Leader's Log, 1st January, 2110

Theres a huge party going on outside for the tenth anniversary of our arrival here. I'm told that I am expected to give a speech about how far we've come.

Thinking on it, we have come a long way. From 50 million wide eyed colonists in cryo stasis with no world to call home; to 74.3 million pioneers on a world terraformed to near earth standards and two more colonies of 3.08 and 9.73 million. We've built ships, terraformed worlds, mined out comets, and defeated every enemy we've come across. Who would have thought our little convoy could have done so well on its own?

Hmm, that was good. I'll put that in my speech.

Updated ship locations and tasks as of 1st January, 2110

Grav Survey Vessels - Surveying Preston, Leicester, and Chorley.
Geo survey vessel - Surveying Chorley and remaining in contact with a grav survey vessel at all times.
Hades - orbiting New Serenity, fully repaired and finishing up an overhaull by the crew aboard the drydock.
Legion and the Cerberus fighters - waiting for the Hades to finish overhaul. The legion still needs repair.
Traveller - Still gathering fuel in Manchester. It has made quite a few dropoffs, and our fuel supply is great.
Behemoth 1 and new Tribal salvage vessel - salvaging the newly created wrecks in Leicester
Gateway - waiting in Leyland to escort the salvage team back into the gate network.

Galaxy Map as of 1st January, 2110

Spoiler: Revised Galaxy Map (click to show/hide)

-edit- Oh I just realized I left the percentage surveyed thing on for the map. The percentage beside the systems is the percentage of system bodies surveyed. The ones with less than 100% have system bodies way, way out that I didn't want to take the time to survey.

Paul · « **Reply #9 on:** September 09, 2011, 07:05:53 pm »

Expedition Leader's Log, 20th January, 2110

I've just finished laying the foundations of our government system. We have adopted a constitution similar to that of the Earth we left over ten years ago, and our very first election is to be carried out in November. Commodore Gibbs is the only one running against me. I fear for us all if she is elected.

Expedition Leader's Log, 8th March, 2110

The Tribal salvage vessel just made it back with the load of salvage from Leicester. Around 7000 assorted minerals, and a variety of technology that our scientists have examined. Zoe Dodd, our sensor and fire control expert, tells me he's very close to a breakthrough on EM sensor sensitivity just from looking at the fire control and sensor systems of these ships. He's learned a lot about their active sensor tech as well.

While expensive in terms of ordnance cost, the technological advances from the salvage is proving quite valuable.

Expedition Leader's Log, 20th August, 2110

I just received dire news from the Intrepid 1 in Leyland. Exploring a jump off the Douglas system into a system they named Norwich, they exited right beside a planet with orbiting wreckage. Following my standing orders, they immediately jumped back out of the system. Shortly afterward other ships made the jump after them. They detected two Fang class, an Aigcatas class, and a new class they've named the Pelduril. They escaped, but not before taking significant armor damage from a few chasing missiles before they were out of range.

Despite their dwindling ordnance, I've dispatched the Legion and Hades to deal with this threat. If they make it into our jumpgate network they might hit us anywhere, and none of the civilian vessels would be safe.

Expedition Leader's Log, 13th October, 2110

I have just received Commodore Hunt's report on the Norwich system. It follows:

"We found the vessels at the jump point leading to Norwich. Stopping at 1b km, they didn't even seem to notice us. We sent the fighters in, and even at 50m km they still hadn't activated active sensors. Due to this, we decided to try and save ordnance. Each fighter launched 1 missile each. The ten missiles destroyed all targets. They barely even put up a fight, activating active sensors only seconds before impact and only managing to shoot down one of the missiles with point defense. This left us with 38 size 10 missiles, which meant two fighters were a bit light.

Deciding to enter the system and finish things, we detected two Gomduring class ships, one Sentinel, and two defense bases of the same configuration we've seen elsewhere. The Legion chased down the Gomduring ships and destroyed them with gauss fire, then returned and moved after the Sentinel. The Sentinel was definitively identified as their anti-missile platform. Its volleys were no match for the Legion's gauss defense and shielding, so the Legion stood and bore the combined attack of both it and the missile base, waiting for their anti-missiles to run out. I believe the gunnery crews made a game of it, to see which turret team could destroy the most - but they all lost count and had to announce a draw after the first few thousand. Soon the Sentinel began moving away, presumably to a secondary stash of missiles, but was chased down and destroyed point blank by the Legion's gauss weapons - proving our intelligence report that the Sentinel class has no beam weaponry.

Now all that remained was the two defense bases, and the Legion identified the one which had fired beams at it before and ordered the fighters to fire missiles. They fired six, half were intercepted and the other three made contact. The base wasn't quite destroyed, but the Legion assumed it was likely disabled and moved in to fire gauss weapons. The assumption proved correct, and neither base was able to put up a fight when the Legion flew in and destroyed them both with gauss weapons.

On the way back to meet up with the Hades at the jump point, the Legion detected ground forces on the 3rd and 10th moons of the third planet. Due to the complaints last time, we left them alone for future study. We then returned to York to submit our report via jumpgate.

Total ordnance remaining:
32 size 10 ASMs
99 Size 8 ASMs
224 size 1 AMMs

I have borrowed ordnance from the Legion, and Cerberus 9 and 10 are now carrying size 8 ASMs."

Their victory with so little ordnance used is exceptional, although closing to gauss range against alien ships is a bit reckless. I hope to have ordnance production for them soon, so they won't have to take such risks in the future.

We have also trained our first engineering brigade. On November 7th our troop transport will be complete, and we can begin salvage operations of the ruins in Glasgow.

Supreme Overlord's Log, 1st November, 2110

The results of the vote are in, and I won! My new title is Supreme Overlord of the Empire. All shall bow down to me!
...
Ok, it's just President, and we're a constitutional republic, and my term is up in 10 years. But still, great day.

President's Personal Log, 7th November, 2110

We just completed our troop transport, and also just realized we forgot the cargo handling system. Whoops? I've ordered the ship refitted to include the vital component (which reduces load time from 30 days to 6 days), which will be done in 15 days.

President's Personal Log, 8th November, 2110

On November 3rd, 2110 the Intrepid 2 made first contact with a new race of aliens. For once, they did not fire upon us. Could this be our first friendly neighbor? We know little about them, but their ship seemed rather primitive. The thermal signal was only 100, and it was observed traveling at 1666 speed. Initial data of what is presumably their homeworld reveals it to have an average surface temp of -32.9. Is this a colony, or are they adapted for cold temperatures? They are likely oxygen breathers, as the world contains 0.13 atmospheres of oxygen. I assembled the best diplomats we have and assigned them to diplomatic relations with this new species - including the public affairs officer, three civilian administrators, and the CO of one of our colony ships.

I'm hoping they turn out friendly, but Commodore Gibbs is convinced they are a threat that must be eliminated. I've vetoed her orders to nuke their planet for now, at least until we can make formal contact with them. Good thing I won the election.

President's Personal Log, 22nd November, 2110

The troop transport has completed refit to include the cargo handling system, and is set to deliver the engineer brigade to begin recovering the ruins in Glasgow.

President's Personal Log, 18th December, 2110

We've just established communication with the new aliens, who have identified themselves as the Joliette Imperium. They appear quite human-like in appearance, and it seems we may be able to get along peacefully with them. Time will tell. I have officially renamed their system to Joliette and updated our galactic map accordingly.

President's Personal Log, 29th December, 2110

On the 22nd of December, the Intrepid 2 made first contact with another alien race in the system they've called Canterbury. They seem to be developing a knack for finding new races. These also appear to be oxygen breathers, although their atmosphere tolerance must be lower. Their world only has .08 atmospheres of oxygen. The temperature is an average of 18.2, which means their temperature tolerance is quite similar to our own.

I've divided what few diplomatic officers between the two alien races, and begun communication attempts with the second aliens. I hope to recruit better diplomats once the academy is completed, until then I just hope we can keep this from turning into a galactic three way war.

President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2111

Thus begins our 11th year in the region, and now we have neighbors. The plan was to build our economy with financial centers once the naval academy was complete, but with two unknown races right next door (only 5 jumps away from our worlds, and 2 jumps from our closest jumpgate) our lack of ordnance factories to resupply our fleet is becoming a real issue. What to do about these new alien races is another matter for discussion. Commodore Gibbs insists I let her nuke them both back to the stone age. Not only is that no way to make friends, but with our ordnance supplies where they are nuking them sufficiently would likely pose a significant challenge. Commodore Hunt suggests I build a tug ship to steal their shipyards for our own uses, although I doubt this would be received very well - and would require our valuable Gateway ship go along to escort it in and out of the system.

Galaxy Map as of 1st January, 2111

Spoiler: Galaxy Map (click to show/hide)

Flying Dice · « **Reply #10 on:** September 09, 2011, 09:53:19 pm »

Glad to see you worked the kinks out of your scenario, I might give it a shot at some point. Also, this has been a very good read so far.

Paul · « **Reply #11 on:** September 10, 2011, 04:46:55 pm »

President's Personal Log, 13th January, 2111

Our mobile infantry division found something of note. They were on training exercises on New Serenity, and discovered a stockpile of supplies - presumably belonging to those who previously owned this planet. They found 16,000 maintenance supplies and 1000 of each mineral. I had the minerals and supplies brought to our colony. The Legion and Hades have resupplied fully, leaving roughly 5600 for later. This was a great find, as it saves me having to produce maintenance supplies - which was the next thing on the ticket after the military academy was completed.

Speaking of which, our military academy is complete. The engineering team has recovered a single ordnance factory as well, but we'll need many more. With just one, a single size 10 missile will take 7 months. I have decided to build financial centers now, at least for a time. The logic is that even if I built ordnance factories, without financial centers I could hardly afford to build enough missiles to matter. I'll just hope the engineer brigade recovers more ordnance factories from the ruins while we build our economy.

President's Personal Log, 20th February, 2111

After finding the stash on New Serenity, I've decided to have the mobile infantry search the other planets in the system where we previously detected signs of civilization. Going through the old reports, I see that the 3rd moon of New Serenity was bombarded before New Serenity so I've sent the mobile infantry there to investigate. After that they will go to the 1st moon of the 5th planet, where the Legion bombarded the unknown ground troops. Perhaps we will find something useful.

President's Personal Log, 28th February, 2111

We've found a stockpile of 2970 enemy AMMs, and 18 size 5 ASMs. It seems our lack of AMMs is over, although the ASMs leave a bit to be desired. No sensors, low maneuverability, and only size 5. Range 128.6m km, warhead 8, 10 maneuver, 24,000 speed. They only have just over half the hit rate of our proposed size 8 missiles. Still, until we have ordnance factories they are better than nothing. I've ordered them brought to New Serenity. I also have our mobile infantry set to tour London and Wilson on the same mission, with the Legion and a cargo ship following along to bring back whatever they find.

(Due to the bug in the current version, I also got given two combat transports from across the galaxy that I didn't even know about, loaded down with infantry divisions. Not sure what I should do with these... I guess I'll just disband all the ground units, order them to abandon ship, and send my salvager to grab them on the way back from Norwich.)

President's Personal Log, 8th March, 2111

We discovered another stockpile of 2970 AMMs, and this time it was 952 ASMs of the same type. I've decided to scrap these and sell the non-TN materials to the civilian sector in order to pay for our financial centers. This should significantly boost our construction efforts, and allow us to build more of our desired missiles much sooner.

We've also finally made contact with the aliens in Canterbury. They call themselves the Kaifeng Federation. They appear generally humanoid with blue skin. Time will tell if these new aliens prove friend or foe, but at least we can communicate now. I've renamed the Canterbury system to Kaifeng, which is what they call their system.

President's Personal Log, 14th April, 2111

The group in London has encountered robotic soldiers on asteroids 5 and 7. The Legion bombarded them with gauss weaponry before the mobile infantry team moved in, and we captured the bases present. We have another significant find of missiles, totaling 9138 AMMs and 760 size 5 ASMs. We also picked up 3 deep space tracking stations. The Legion will take a bit to haul all this back to Glasgow, then I will send them on to Wilson. Due to the wealth income I could get from all of this, I have ordered the labs started up again, this time researching Magneto-plasma missile drives to improve our next generation of missiles. The project won't be finished until February 2116, however.

President's Personal Log, 15th July, 2111

We recovered some more missiles from Wilson, and 3 more tracking stations. Nothing like the previous finds - only a few hundred.

President's Personal Log, 27th August, 2111

The Tribal has returned with the salvage from the Norwich system. Thanks to data gained during salvage, we've improved our capabilities of EM Sensor sensitivity to 14. Taking apart their launchers, we've learned as much as we can from them - our launchers will now be capable of reload rate 6.

I've also been informed by several prominent astronomers, who have been using the tracking stations we brought back a few weeks ago, that they have found the milky way. Apparently it's visible with the naked eye, but it isn't easy to make out and before now they didn't realize what exactly it was. The deep space tracking stations have allowed them to confirm it. Obviously this means we are no longer even in the same galaxy as Earth. This has completely changed their views, and they have begun calculating distances and trying to figure out exactly which galaxy we're in.

Imagine that, a jump between galaxies. Earth probably already counted us all dead. Guess we're definitely on our own out here.

President's Personal Log, 26th November, 2111

Commander Andrew Bennett was killed in an accident today. He was one of the ten Cerberus pilots decorated for bravery in 2100 for defending the convoy against the first attack we faced. He will be missed.

President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2112

Today marks our twelfth year here. We're up to 24 financial centers now, which is helping our economy a good bit. I'm hoping to get that up to 50, but it's going to take another two years.

Still no further contact with our two neighbors. Commodore Gibbs insist I deploy a listening post in Leyland to detect their approach, but the few tracking stations we have isn't really enough to detect much of anything. Still, I've sent five of the six to Leyland anyway to appease her.

President's Personal Log, 25th June, 2112

We have all the various missiles back at New Serenity now. All total, other than the ones we already scrapped, we have 968 Assassin anti-ship missiles (the size 5 already mentioned), 12108 of the AMMs, and 60 Ardent anti-ship missiles, which are a shorter range variation of the Assassin - faster and with a 50% larger warhead, but still not all that effective. I've loaded 400 Assassin ASMs on the Legion and 380 on the Hades, then scrapped the remaining 188 Assassin missiles. All the Ardent ASMs are also on the Hades, for use aboard the fighters.

President's Personal Log, 12th August, 2112

The Legion stopped by to check on our alien neighbors. Nothing was detected in Leyland, although they detected thermal contacts in Greenrock. It appeared they were surveying the system, so it's likely they haven't yet explored Leyland. I am unsure how they will react when they find our jumpgate network. They also checked on the Kaifeng, and found thermal contacts in Middlesborough - and a jump gate leading to Kaifeng system, so they're starting a gate network of their own. We'll have to start being more careful with civilian ships in the gate network, as either race is only 1 jump from finding our network - and the Kaifeng may even connect their systems to ours.

President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2113

Today marks our thirteenth year here. A few of my more superstitious advisors suggest I should prepare for the worst since it's an 'unlucky' anniversary, but I expect it will be a year like any other. Thanks to all the missiles we found, we're armed for war regardless.

Commodore Gibbs has been insisting that we use the new ordnance to nuke Kaifeng and stop their gate building activities, but until they take aggressive actions I refuse to allow it. We're training a brigade of mobile infantry, just in case of a ground invasion.

We still have 801 wealth left from scrapping all the missiles, and have managed to build up to 37 financial centers now, with another 13 on the way by November making it 50. The new missile drive technology is still expected to be completed in February 2116.

Galaxy Map as of 1st January, 2111

Spoiler: Galaxy Map (click to show/hide)

Paul · « **Reply #12 on:** September 11, 2011, 07:06:08 pm »

Another battle with the strange alien menace.
________________

President's Personal Log, 10th March, 2113

We just detected a ship going 2222 km/s in the Leyland system. It appears to be doing a geological survey of the world where our listening post is. I guess it wasn't completely useless after all, now we know they've found the Leyland system.

We also have news of a new potential colony world in Llandudno. It's already a breathable atmosphere, and is just a bit cold. It's better than Stevenage. Still, it is quite a distance away - and no effort has yet been made to colonize it.

President's Personal Log, 27th April, 2113

Several larger vessels were just detected in Leyland. We'll be monitoring them over the coming days. They appear to be approaching Leyland-A I, our listening post location.

President's Personal Log, 6th May, 2113

They came, activated sensors, scanned the planet, then moved away. We are unsure of their intentions, but they didn't seem to do anything. Further comparing the two planets, it seems the planet our sensor post is on would be an ideal world for them. Good temperature, and the same low oxygen atmosphere their homeworld has. I guess that is why they are so interested in it. If it wasn't one of the main systems connecting our jumpgate network loop I would move off of it and let them have it. Hopefully they won't make an issue out of it.

President's Personal Log, 12th July, 2113

I reluctantly ordered another 7812 of the anti-missiles scrapped. This still leaves us several thousand for usage, and the 2780 wealth from them will go a long way in improving our economy. I've also dispatched the Legion and the River troop transport to Norwich, to search the previously detected bases on the 3rd and 10th moon of the third planet for more ordnance. The cargo vessel accompanying them will unload most of its fuel, so it can bring back any fuel from scrapped missiles.

President's Personal Log, 16th September, 2113

We found another 944 Assassin ASMs and 9138 AMMs in Norwich. I've ordered them all scrapped for the money, and the cargo vessel will be bringing back the minerals and fuel. All total we got another 4195.5 wealth in scrap value. This will keep our government budget healthy for years to come. Scrap has become quite a staple of our budget, 68% of our income over the last year has been scrap value. That was the last of the alien bases that we've found so far though, so finding more scrap may prove difficult.

President's Personal Log, 6th November, 2113

We've completed the first 50 financial centers. Since we have all the wealth from scrap, I've decided to build another 50 financial centers as well as 50 more construction factories, to make our construction factories a total of 300. This will increase our construction capacity by 20%, and after this the plan is to begin building ordnance factories to replace the alien ordnance with our own more effective missiles.

President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2114

Today marks year 14. All that nonsense about 13 being an unlucky anniversary proved false. We did great last year. As of today, we're sitting on 6202 wealth in the treasury and the economy is steadily improving. At the current rate of expenditure we have enough money for another five years of steady building.

President's Personal Log, 9th June, 2114

The Joliette Imperium just granted us trade access. While public opinion of them isn't yet good enough to return the favor, this is a good sign. I intend to present a bill that grants them trade access next month, and I expect with a little time the senate will pass it. I've sent the Gateway to connect them to our jumpgate network. The Kaifeng will likely connect them anyway, it might as well be our jumpgates on the points. They've already built a gate in Leyland to Middlesborough.

President's Personal Log, 4th July, 2114

The bill passed in the senate, and now the Joliette Imperium has been granted trade access in return. This bodes well for future diplomatic contact. It will be a few months before they're connected to our gate network, but soon ships can begin trade between our two nations.

President's Personal Log, 15th November, 2114

Daniel Carroll has just completed research on the magneto plasma missile drive. Jennifer Evans has begun research on new missiles using this improved engine. Thanks to the better engines, our new size 8 missile will go 26,000 km/s with a slightly increased range of 87.1m km. This compared to the old 20,000 km/s and 84.7m km. The new size 10 will be 30,000 km/s, with a range of 44.2m km, compared to 22,500 km/s and 44.3m km. Both designs should be complete next year.

President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2115

Today marks our 15th year here. The Joliette Imperium is now connected, and trade can begin - although as of yet no ships from either government has made the first move. I expect the distance between our colonies to be a factor, although it might just be that there isn't much to trade. Our construction is going well, and we're up to 58 financial centres and 270 construction factories now.

President's Personal Log, 1st April, 2115

I have just received grave news from Commander Madeleine Grant, the CO of the Intrepid 2. It seems the Intrepid 3 was destroyed in February by aliens the same as those detected previously in Rosyth. They were doing a grav survey of a system they had named Perth.

It was a lucky break that the Intrepid 2 was in system when it happened. The two ships had been surveying the systems in that area together, and purely by chance had decided to survey the system of Perth together after they had individually surveyed the nearby systems of Fleetwood and Dover. A few days into the survey the aliens attacked. 72 of her crew died, but the remaining 41 and Commander Jennifer Robinson made it to the escape pods. The Intrepid 2 braved the alien forces to rescue the crew of the Intrepid 3, then made their escape from the system. They detected no less than 38 enemy contacts in pursuit, but were able to outrun them.

Commander Robison's report has some disturbing news as well. The enemy weapons passed right through the Intrepid 3's armor without damaging it, doing damage directly to internal components. This likely means they are armed with some type of meson weaponry, or something similar - which means the heavy armor and shielding on our military vessels is useless against them. I will have to instruct our military ships to ensure none of the enemy vessels get within beam range.

I have awarded Commander Grant a medal for the daring rescue of her comrades, and have dispatched the legion to Perth to deal with this alien menace. The Hades and her fighters will stay in Glasgow to defend our colonies in case of attack by one of our neighbors. I have also sent the Tribal to follow the Legion in and salvage the Intrepid if at all possible.

President's Personal Log, 12th April, 2115

Our engineer team just made a great find on the ruins in Glasgow. They recovered a research facility, and found technical details of shield regeneration rate 3. When we begin constructing our own military fleet, this information will prove quite useful. Plus the lab will help in our research efforts. I've ordered it shipped back to New Serenity immediately.

Jennifer Evans completed research on her missile designs as well. I have now shifted research efforts to grav sensor strength research. Zoe Dodd assures me he can have a technology for better sensor strength done by July of next year. Once this is done, we can begin research on active sensors and missile fire control systems. The current goal is to develop everything necessary to begin building missile defense PDCs, to provide some measure of protection on our worlds when the military fleet is away dealing with alien threats.

President's Personal Log, 23rd July, 2115

I have just received Captain Iqbal's report on the system of Perth. They destroyed the aliens, but had to use most of their ordnance to do so. Her report follows:

"We arrived in the system on the 22nd of May. It is a large system, and active sensors detected nothing near the jump, so we decided to move toward the Intrepid. Late on the 25th, partway to the wreck, we detected a group of thirty eight 800 ton ships. Repeating an earlier maneuver, we used our AMM fire control to cycle fire the size 8 tubes. Since the targets were moving so fast, our new size 5 missiles would have a very poor hit rate - so we fired the size 8 instead for confirmed kills.

Spoiler: Large Images (click to show/hide)

As expected, all 38 targets were quickly eliminated. We detected a large active sensor contact out on the 13th asteroid, and moved in to take a closer look. We soon detected strength 600 shields, the same as we found before on the alien mothership. Hopeful that our size 5 missiles would pack enough punch to break through, we began closing with the vessel. As expected we determined it was 60,000 tons when we reached sensor range.

Remembering the point defense the Cerberus fighters faced last time, we decided to close within 16m km so we could fire all three of our fire control systems, and at 1905 hours on the 30th of May we reached 16m km and began firing the Assassin ASMs in two volleys of 7 and one of 6 guided by the AMM system. Knowing it would take at least 75 just to break through the shields and that it would shoot down much of it, we fired our entire load of 400 missiles. We also included our size 1 launchers firing the long range AMMs after the first 200, in order to confuse their point defense. All together, this took the ship down. It took most of the volley just to bring down its shields, and if not for the AMM missiles confusing their point defense the target likely wouldn't have been destroyed. Only 27 of the missiles were left without a target and self destructed. This left us to deal with 20 of the small 800 ton ships that had launched from the mothership. We switched back to the size 8 missiles and cycle fired another 20, eliminating them as well.

Low on ordnance, and expecting they were probably unarmed, we closed on the 5950 ton ships to use our gauss weaponry on them. Our assumption was correct, and the ships were torn apart with no attempt to defend themselves.

All told, we fired 400 size 5 ASMs and 250 size 1 AMMs to destroy the large ship, plus the 58 size 8 missiles we used to destroy the smaller ships.

We then returned to give our report, alerting the salvage team that it was safe to go in and salvage the Intrepid. They should be a few weeks behind us."

President's Personal Log, 13th August, 2115

The salvage team has just made contact.

Strange alien larvae were found during the salvage operation of the Intrepid. They appeared to be feeding on the wreckage and growing rapidly. The salvage team terminated all the larvae, but sadly they had already ruined all the main parts of the ship. All they were able to recover were a few minerals.

Is this how these creatures breed? The larger vessel must be some kind of queen. The docile ships that were easily destroyed are likely workers, and the rest some kind of soldier drones. I assume these larvae were to grow into more of the 800 ton drones, or possibly the workers. It's a good thing the salvage team killed them while they were still small.

Now we finally know for sure what happened to the Prospector ship lost to these creatures in Rosyth, they fed it to their larvae.

President's Personal Log, 1st January, 2116

Today marks our sixteenth year here. Construction is going well, we're up to 286 construction factories and 66 financial centres. We also recovered a second ordnance factory from the ruins, as well as some automated mines - which were shipped to our mining colonies.

Relations with the Joliette are steadily improving, but the Kaifeng have still been distant.

Galaxy Map as of 1st January, 2116

Spoiler: Galactic Map (click to show/hide)

______________________________
That little area by Sheffield and Leicester is going nuts with all the connections being found. The upper part of the map is all orderly and gridlike, then that area is a blob of intersecting lines.

Iituem · « **Reply #13 on:** September 11, 2011, 08:49:31 pm »

Just posting to say that I'm really enjoying the writing in this LP - kept me up a couple of hours past bedtime. =P

(Also, since I ask this of every Aurora LP - have you found any simplified tutorials to understanding Aurora, or did you just muscle through and figure it out by trial and error?)

Paul · « **Reply #14 on:** September 11, 2011, 10:19:27 pm »

Quote from: Iituem on September 11, 2011, 08:49:31 pm

Just posting to say that I'm really enjoying the writing in this LP - kept me up a couple of hours past bedtime. =P

(Also, since I ask this of every Aurora LP - have you found any simplified tutorials to understanding Aurora, or did you just muscle through and figure it out by trial and error?)

I just figured it out by trial and error. I've been playing it off and on for a few years now, heh. It always keeps drawing me back in. This is the first LP I've done of it, but I must say I'm enjoying it much more than just playing the game. Keeping a log of everything that goes on and writing it out in character makes it easier to get into it. And Aurora is one of those games where you kinda have to get into it to have much fun, otherwise it just starts looking like a spreadsheet and you get bored of it.

The most successful strategies in the game are also the most boring. Like sitting on Earth for 40 years focusing entirely on research rate and economy and etc until your tech is really high then branch out and build a super fleet. It's effective, you can advanced your research really fast and develop extremely advanced ships. But then when you do go out you steamroll anything you find, and if you started with an NPR they are way behind tech-wise because they go with a more balanced approach, and the game gets boring real fast. I played my very first Aurora game like that, and was bored out of my mind and had to restart.

Best way to get into it IMO is to not try to get super tech - just try and get tech for some early ships right off and start exploring with low tech, face whatever you find and adapt and rebuild when they knock you down. If you get totally wiped out because they followed you through the jump back to Earth, start again and try things differently. And you will get wiped out with early tech if you fight anything other than an NPR - the other stuff will out tech you by a large margin. It makes it all the more entertaining when you finally figure out a way to beat them, though.

If I ever remade the scenario I'm playing here, I'd weaken the starting ships. I made them tough because I thought it might be hard to find a starting world. I'm finally running out of super missiles in this one, which should make future fights more interesting - but so far it's just been bam bam bam everyone dies. I didn't realize I could pull so much slaughter out of one 40k ton missile cruiser and a carrier with only 1/4 of its fighter wing. I just made them too advanced - the Legion ship just flys right into wave after wave of missiles and shrugs them off due to the advanced gauss defense lol.

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Author Topic: Lets Play Aurora: Lost in Space scenario (I know, cheesy name) (Read 7225 times)

Paul

Lets Play Aurora: Lost in Space scenario (I know, cheesy name)

Pwnzerfaust

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Paul

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Pwnzerfaust

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Paul

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Paul

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Burnt Pies

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Paul

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Paul

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Paul

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Flying Dice

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Paul

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Paul

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Iituem

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Paul

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