Ad Astra! ... an Aurora Forum Game, run by blue emu

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Agreed. Unless someone talks me out of it, I intend to take the Fleet back into Wolf 294 as soon as we have enough missiles and (mixed type) Fighters to fill our holds, and our two Spy class recce vessels are ready. That should be early next year.

Is there no way you can sit a scout on the far side of the jump point and just have it stare at the wrecks while we wait?

As in, it's right next to the jump point and can leave immediately, but it can still report on whether or not the wreckage has been tampered with?
 
Hi Blue Leader,

a few comment:

1) I vote for option 2, going to salvage those wreck as soon as possible, meanwhile trying to asses whether the Prix have PDCs operating there or not.

2) Nice to see two of short-listed priority researches come in fruition soon enough. I should suggest you to include 0.25 Missile Launchers in your next future researches schedule.

3) I'm also dubitative about the need for an engineering section at all on board your fighters as carriers hangar will take care of their maintenance.

How the rest of yours researches going on so far ?

Best regards
 
Is there no way you can sit a scout on the far side of the jump point and just have it stare at the wrecks while we wait?

As in, it's right next to the jump point and can leave immediately, but it can still report on whether or not the wreckage has been tampered with?

We could sit a Grav-scout or Geo Scout on the jump point, yes... but they have crap for sensors (except those needed for Grav/Geo survey) and could easily be surprised from outside visibility range. We don't WANT to call attention to the jump point... Prix cannot search for jump points, but they can use them if they know where they are. We want to fight the Prix in the Wolf 294 system, we don't want to have to go hunting them in the Sigma Draconis system, where our developing colony is.

A Spy class surveillance ship would be just the rig for that job... but they won't be ready to launch until January (about six or seven months). Also... they carry no jump drive, they need to be jumped in by another Military ship and cannot leave without assistance.

How the rest of yours researches going on so far ?

Still progressing. No change.
 
Scientist Bo Mosberg has completed research into Nuclear Pulse Drone Engine and started researching the next level, Ion Drone Engine. Should be finished in about eight months.
 
Dear Emucrat,

In my quite limited understanding of your strategical posture,
I wonder how long it will take for you to solve the current minerals stocks crisis.

I wish to point out your obvious need for more shipyards/larger slipways for both your commercial-line and navy.

Maybe you could draw us a sort of "five years plan" for your expansion/colonization effort.

I'm worried The Blue Empire is still to much earth-centric !
 
Dear Emucrat,

In my quite limited understanding of your strategical posture,
I wonder how long it will take for you to solve the current minerals stocks crisis.

I wish to point out your obvious need for more shipyards/larger slipways for both your commercial-line and navy.

Maybe you could draw us a sort of "five years plan" for your expansion/colonization effort.

I'm worried The Blue Empire is still to much earth-centric !

A five-year play will take a bit of thought. For the past three years or so, I have been engaged in building additional automated mines and mag catapults. I am currently deploying them... some to the best spots in the Sol system (Titan and Titania in particular), some into the closest and best-developed colony system (Dravar XV in the Procyon system).

One problem is that a typical Freighter round-trip out to the colonies and back takes months, and each Freighter can only carry one mine, which produces an insignificant amount of minerals (there are over a hundred of our mines on Titania, for comparison). So I am also approaching the problem from a second angle... building more and faster Freighters, to increase our ability to deploy mines, and to speed up the turn-around time for such deployment missions.

I also have our only Gate Construction Ship linking up all of our colonies with jump gates, so that the Freighters can make the trips unescorted, instead of requiring a (slow) colony ship to jump them in and out. That part of the project is nearly complete.

More shipyards and larger shipyards would be very useful, but I hope to increase our resource base faster than we increase our ways of SPENDING minerals... shipyard upgrades are expensive in minerals all by themselves (just for the upgrade) and they enable us to spend minerals faster (more ships, bigger ships, built faster).

As far as the Empire of the Emu still being too Earth-centric... we're only ten years into the game. Relax.

========== =========== ============= ============== ==============

After finishing the practical implementation of the Drone breakthrough (ie: after designing and researching a particular piece of hardware based on the Drone engine), We are now building a limited number of long range surveillance drones, which can cruise all the way from the jump-point into the Wolf 294 system, nearly 1.8 billion km to the planet that we suspect harbors an enemy PDC. The sensors need to be extremely short-ranged in order to gain that much cruising range... but if it gets shot down, that tells us what we want to know anyway.
 
Last edited:
Ships currently under construction:

Our first two Spy class Surveillance Vessels
Three Battle class Heavy Cruisers (the second, third and fourth)
One Attitude-II class Light Cruiser (the sixth, and last of the class)
Two Mule-II class Freighters (the fifth and sixth)
Two Orbital Fuel Mining Stations (the ninth and tenth)
 
2) The Rocks are Civilian ships, not Military. I cannot mount PD defenses on Civilian ships. The game doesn't allow it. We can build Military Rocks instead, but that will take a long time... it will take decades (quite literally) to expand the Military shipyards to that size, for one thing.

You CAN however mount CIWS systems on it without flagging it mililtary

Hedgehog class Civilian pincushion 9,350 tons 208 Crew 625.2 BP TCS 187 TH 300 EM 0
1604 km/s Armour 1-39 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Capacity 42 MSP Max Repair 38 MSP

Ion Engine E0.6 (2) Power 150 Fuel Use 6% Signature 150 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 160.4 billion km (1157 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (15x4) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
 
You CAN however mount CIWS systems on it without flagging it mililtary

Yes, I know... the Rocks each carry NINE of them. But that's not what joebthegreat was talking about. He was suggesting that they should be equipped to shoot down enemy missiles that are targeted on someone behind them, as the missiles pass by... something that CIWS cannot do.
 
The Combined Fleet is now leaving for the Ross 248 system, in order to test-fire some of the new missile prototypes, and to test out the new theory of attacking planetary defenses from a distance of 100 m-km+. We will be using some of the worthless, uninhabitable cosmic junk in the Ross system as targets for the live-firing tests.
 
Let's just make sure that there are no Charlies in the way of our test fires :p
 
Let's just make sure that there are no Charlies in the way of our test fires :p

I will orbit the planet and scan it with sensors, before backing off 100 m-km for the test-firing.

EDIT:

A few words on exactly what I'm testing, what I hope to accomplish, and why I'm leaving the Solar System to do it.

I hope to develop a technique for bombarding hostile worlds from a safe distance. Since our current propulsion tech (Ion engines) limits our practical missile range to about 100 m-km, I'm going to tentatively assume that 100 m-km is a "safe" distance, and perform my tests based on that.

In order for this theoretical technique to work in practice, at least four conditions must be met:

1) It must be possible to attach a way-point to a moving world, and have it "stick" to the planet, rather than get left behind as the planet orbits its sun.

2) It must be possible for a warship to "blind fire" at a way-point that is far outside its sensor and fire control range, without the missile self-destructing as it leaves fire control range.

3) The upper stage of a MIRV-ed rocket needs to deploy as it reaches the way-point, even if no target is detected.

4) The Planetary Defense Complex that we intend to attack must have a missile range of less than our "safe" distance, 100 m-km.

The first three conditions can be tested in safety, in live-firing tests. I'm doing that now. The last condition is an unknown, and we won't find that out until we start shooting drones (or sending recon ships) towards the Prix world. If it turns out that 100 m-km is NOT a safe distance... then we'll have to come up with a Plan B, probably involving Drones.

I'm doing the tests in the Ross 248 system in order to get out of the radius of Earth's Deep Space Surveillance Network, which might otherwise give us a false-positive result.
 
Last edited:
Good plan. I also support going back to Wolf 294 ASAP, we don't want to win the battle and see someone else walk off with the spoils.

As for the Gnat/Typhoon/Spitfire debate, here's my contribution:

With all Spitfires, we have 72 fighters and 216 missiles. If 50 get taken out, we have a remaining alpha strike of 66.
With all Typhoons, we have 90 fighters and 180 missiles. If 50 get taken out, we have a remaining alpha strike of 80.
With all Gnats, we have 120 fighters and 120 missiles. If 50 get taken out, we have a remaining alpha strike of 70.

This would suggest Gnats are more effective and less wasteful than Spitfires, while Typhoons are apparently optimal. Of course, as the number of fighters taken out increases the gnats become more attractive, while as the number of carriers (and thus fighters) increases the Spitfires become more attractive.

I'd personally go with the Gnats, purely because of speed. Speed will get them in and out of firing range faster, and let them catch up with a retreating fleet (ours or theirs). I'd prefer a homogenous build because of simplicity, although slower fighters are perhaps more viable for PDCs.

I also would have suggested a recon version, but somebody beat me to it :)

In other words, you're on the right track.
 
I'm not sure you can tow a wreck... I was planning to send both of our Wreckers in to dismantle them on the spot.

Vice-Admiral Edzako is awarded the Fleet Command Sunburst, gained by commanding a battle-fleet in a victorious engagement against the enemies of Humanity.

G_222_Sunburst.jpg


For the second battle in the Wolf 294 system, Vice-Admirals Edzako and Autonomous will trade places, so that Autonomous can have his chance to earn the same glory.

mission_accomplish_1112950c.jpg
 
I concur with the notion of getting as much of the wrecks in Prix's system as fast as possible. We need that tech now!
 
1) It must be possible to attach a way-point to a moving world, and have it "stick" to the planet, rather than get left behind as the planet orbits its sun.

I was about to ask how hard it can be to hit a goddam planet, but then I realized that if you target the centre of Earth, it will be out of target within about three minutes. Space is big!
 
1) It must be possible to attach a way-point to a moving world, and have it "stick" to the planet, rather than get left behind as the planet orbits its sun.

2) It must be possible for a warship to "blind fire" at a way-point that is far outside its sensor and fire control range, without the missile self-destructing as it leaves fire control range.

3) The upper stage of a MIRV-ed rocket needs to deploy as it reaches the way-point, even if no target is detected.

1) is possible by selecting a body and clicking on "last" in waypoints tab, I'm pretty sure you described the process earlier yourself. 2) works as well.

However I'm pretty curious about 3), never tried that. It's perfectly possible that the seperation won't occur in absence of radar painted target.
 
Isn't there something like a "Launch missile" option when you select a planet? Though I haven't tested it and can't tell if it means "launch missile at this target" or rather "launche a missile that will sit idly at this point like a buoy".
 
If I'm honest, I don't think that plan will work. I think in order to hit anything you need an active sensor "lock" even if you blind fire into the same spot as a ship or PDC.