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.. and we're off again.

I take the last "refuel on earth" orders off the TG orders for both freighter groups, and hit "advance 5 days".

2ZQgk.png


We get an interrupt because the Mariah Carey completed it's order to drop off the civilian admin. It hasn't, actually, completed unloading it's cargo.
Also, there's a message from the Crow - Kai Cooke reached JP 3 without incident and started construction.

oR1nX.png


Here's part of the current system view. You can see Neutron Rock with the Mariah Carey to the east, the Charon Freighter group heading north, and the gates on JG 1 and 2, as well as the James Cook, still busy with it's survey.

With the admin dropoff, I can now start automating the Mariah Carey a bit - since we want 50 automated mines on there I add the orders to refuel from earth and load up another mine to the still uncompleted order to unload, then tell it to repeat that order another 48 times. I could not do this before - telling it to keep picking up and dropping off the same person over and over isn't going to work very well :p
Completing the full set of orders will take it 459 days, 16 hours, and 32 minutes.
I suspect that after that Captain Onbekende may require a vacation. :D
( I may however have to change this order in the future, so that it will start ferrying minerals back to earth as well... )

Also, I tell our NPC admin to officially take up the mantle of civilian administrator for Neutron Rock:

nEbwA.png


The astute observer will note that while technically the Mariah Carey isn't done unloading yet, the colony overview treats that installation as already available. This means that mining will start immediately.


Does Aurora have any revolution mechanics, even GM led. E.g mars becomes independant fron the ConFed?

If a colony grows big enough it will start to demand protection in the form of ships and/or planetary defense installations. If that protection doesn't exist, it will start to generate unrest, that you can quash using ground troops. Getting rid of the unrest permanently however requires making sure their (growing) demands are met.
Something similar happens when you have minority races in your empire. A race that has less than 10% of the total population may start growing restless.

I've never seen full-scale rebellions, though.
 
Another time advance. This time we're progressing 32 days, to the arrival of the Rihanna and the J-Lo on Charon.

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At the end of the first 30 day time increment we are greeted with welcome news: A new bright-eyed Power and Propulsion scientist has joined our Scientific establishment!
The asteroid is less interesting. We still have 50.000 tons of Boronide at fairly high accessibility on earth, so we should be good there.

The second time increment pushes us forward to the delivery of the civilian administrator. I immediately appoint him Governor:

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.. and tell the Freighters to start repeating their round trip:

V83er.png


.. 3572 days, 16 hours, 45 minutes until completion. It's a good thing this version of the game doesn't require our ship crews to take shore leave every now and then - if it did, they'd need about 2 years of vacation after this stint.

Current system map:
1qGjh.png


The Columbus can be seen here, slowly completing it's last trip around the sun.
It will require new orders when it does so - shall I begin giving it orders to start doing geological surveys when it's done with the gravitational surveys?
 
It's a good thing that the crews doesn't ask for free days, indeed...
 
No, only whether there is enough crew members.
 
No, only whether there is enough crew members.

The changes to 6.00 require crews to take shore leave, but there is no way to rotate crews in and out of the same vessel.
Yet.
 
Ten more days of time:

oq4gl.png


Another month, another jump point.
Apparently, every time I report Hannibal's position, the game decides to give us more jump points. :)

Something curious happened in this particular case, though. This is the 7th jump point we have found so far, but Aurora decided it's actually JP 5, and renamed two jump points accordingly:

CoNHc.png


A quick look at the Crow's build orders confirms that this is truly the case.

RvqGD.png


Of course, these orders aren't quite as sensible anymore as they used to be.
I'm removing the last three build orders from the Crow's queue for now.

Rendap or whoever takes Kai Cooke should feel free to submit new ones, though. But there is no rush. We have 76 in-game days before current construction completes. :)
 
Ten more days of time:

oq4gl.png


Another month, another jump point.
Apparently, every time I report Hannibal's position, the game decides to give us more jump points. :)

Something curious happened in this particular case, though. This is the 7th jump point we have found so far, but Aurora decided it's actually JP 5, and renamed two jump points accordingly:

CoNHc.png


A quick look at the Crow's build orders confirms that this is truly the case.

RvqGD.png


Of course, these orders aren't quite as sensible anymore as they used to be.
I'm removing the last three build orders from the Crow's queue for now.

Rendap or whoever takes Kai Cooke should feel free to submit new ones, though. But there is no rush. We have 76 in-game days before current construction completes. :)

Jump points are numbered based on the distance from the local star, not the sequence you discover them in.

Build Order for Crow: Go to Jump Point 6 (should be the one to galactic NW of Sol) and construct Jump Gate. Continue through the outer system on a clockwise base and construct jump gates as Jump points are reached / discovered.
 
Done.

Time advancement - this time, past january first, 2026.
Congratulations, gentlemen. Humanity survived it's first Aurora year.

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The first set of promotions rolls in. Jacob and Trajan can now call themselves "Commander", just after Jacob finds yet another rock with (some) minerals on it.

Sirce completes his first set of sensor research, and I immediately queue up the next level of Active Grav research for him.
The replacement battalion finishes construction. That leaves 3 ground unit training facilities currently idle.

The most important thing though is that Hannibal found yet another jump point:

RJavZ.png


This one is fairly close to JP #4, earning the "#6" designation, and as such causes another set of renames.

Next up: A review of our current status, as we have just passed our first year.
Since I have to be off now that may take a while to materialize though :)
 
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The first set of promotions rolls in. Jacob and Trajan can now call themselves "Commander", just after Jacob finds yet another rock with (some) minerals on it.

Congratulations to me!
 
Paradoxian Confederation Status

January 2026

Colonies
E1M89.jpg


Currently we have 4 colonies: Earth, the archeological dig on Mars, and two mining colonies; Neutron Rock, and Charon.

Wealth
The Paradoxian Confederation currently posesses 12945 wealth.

nRqiV.jpg


We've burned through nearly half our funds in the past year. Financial Centre construction is ongoing, but it's still only a drop on a hot glowing plate.
The figures for the last month look a bit better though - the percentage wealth coming in from Financial Centres has gone up to 2.2%.

Earth
47QHZ.jpg

BrmRR.jpg


Most of the numbers from january 1 to present haven't changed much. Automated mines have dropped a little, with freighters ferrying them off to other places; And our home planet sports 13 brand new Financial Centres in our mad rush to prevent bankruptcy.

Mars
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Not much to see here yet. Six tantalizing installations on the planet's surface, but no engineers to dig them up. Yet ..

Mining
Earth:
LpoIP.jpg


Neutron Rock:
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Charon:
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This will require a careful look later.
Not much news here though, I presume. Uridium is still our biggest mineral deficit right now.

Industry
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Our new Naval yard is due 29th June, 2026. That's in almost 6 months.
That yard will start at the minimum size for a shipyard - 1000 tons. It will require some effort to grow it to a more useful size.

Shipyard status
brRbz.jpg


Looking at the shipyards, it's about time to start thinking about retooling the Afrika Industries yards.
We can retool it to Xorns or Mayflowers - these classes are wholly interchangeable, with identical retool costs and each retool being capable of building the other one, as well.
This decision will have to be taken now - a retool to this class would complete 5 days after the Cranes finish construction.

The alternative is this:
BldCu.jpg


A retool to the San Andreas - however, that is more expensive and takes more resources, for questionable benefit.

Ship construction
LpCxX.jpg


The cranes being build will be launched on april 27th.

Research
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Not much news here.

Crew availability
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Ground unit status
nL1fP.jpg


As you can see, our army has grown too big to fit in a single screenshot without hiding some units.
The new Replacement Battallion requires a ground unit commander to lead it. I will have to rectify that at some point.

Brigades
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Behold the full might of our Regiments. :)

Ground force training
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A lot of this capacity is currently idle. Leaving it like that is not really something I'd recommend, if we want to be aggressive about expansion.

Fleet
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Our meagre cadre of ships. Nothing here yet that bears arms, but it's a start.

Sol system view
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All of our ships, jump gates, and colonies are in this single screenshot.
Once we leave Sol, that will change..
 
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Well, that's the beginning of something very good, I hope.

(the lack of warships hurts me deeply but c'est la vie)
 
Lot of info

MEMO FROM REAR ADMIRAL RENDAP, PN
TO: THE COUNCIL
CC: SO RANDAKAR, PN STAFF, SENIOR ADMINISTRATORS, SCIENCE AND NAVAL NETWORKS

RE: STATUS 1/1-2026:

Fellow councilors,

A fresh year have dawned and we are looking at several challenges over the coming year that we will need to address at the moment and shape our path for the coming year.

In my opinion, the worst problem that we have is the lack of funding for all the projects that we currently have pending. We will simply have to cut back on some of these projects and prioritize what is needed over the coming years.

Looking at the expenses, there are 3 critical areas: Research, Industry and Shipbuilding. We can add in shipyard modification which so far have been covering our needs.

Research costs is 1/4 our our total cost and app. 1/3 of our incoming. We have planned to double this figure over the coming years.

Can we afford this expansion at this point?

The plan with building Financial Centers have only increased our income by 1,2% and I estimate based on the current figures that 2% will be max at this point. Looking at the cost of them in minerals and wealth I would finish the current batch and then not build any further.

Installations cost 1/3 of our total and almost half of our income! We need to expand, yes. But are we spending the wealth wisely here?

And then we have our shipbuilding. 40% of our cost and almost 2/3 of our income is spent here. I can't see any option than to reduce spending here!

My proposals for the Council for the next year are therefore:

Industry:
Postpone the Construction of Research Labs for 1 year. Each new lab we construct cost 250 Wealth per year + 2400 to construct. As much as I would love to have more labs, I simply don't think we can afford it at this point.
Reduce the number of Military academies from 4 to 2 for now. We can always come back to 2 more when our economy improves. Prioritize Infrastructure for Mars as well as Construction Factories and Mines.

Minerals:
IGNORE the socalled Uridium crisis. This is something the Press have invented and I dispute the truth from those scaremongers! Look at the figures damnit! We have 2,1k tons and we need 2,3k. That's a deficit of 200 tons and the majority will be needed for the Financial centers which will finish in the next 6 months. In that time we will mine 800 tons! Tell me, where is the crisis???
I admit that we need to address this, but it is not as critical as some might say AND we are moving 50 mines to Charon, where there is more than 300k tons!! Crisis... Pffft!
Keep expanding our mines on Earth and get the Neutronium and Uridium as our current plans and we will be fine for now at least. We still need a more long term solution, but we are still only beginning exploitation of Sol!

Civilian Shipbuilding:
As the Cranes finish, I suggest to retool the yard to Either Xorn or Mayflower, but NOT begin construction of new ships in this yard.
As the Mayflowers finish, the same happens. That will leave 2 of our 3 Civilian yards idle for now.
The Afrika Yards should switch to construct more Xorns when finished with the 2 San Andreas Class Troop Transporters to assist in the logistical challenges of Sol.

Naval Shipbuilding:
The 3 Columbus Class Exploration ships should finish and then the shipyard go idle until we have more research complete and designs for Warships.

Shipyard expansions:
I suggest expanding our new Naval Shipyard as it finishes to 5k tons. This being the only modification undertaken at this point.

Research:
No Changes.

Ground Forces:
I suggest beginning ordering 4 identical units at a time, thus simplifying our logistics and preparing our Ground Troops for future operations. I will also for the enxt year support Brigadier Adamus in all build orders that he might request.
Ground Force construction and maintenance is so small a part of our budget that we should not even think about it, except to keep expanding at this point.

Wealth:
Passing the above suggestions will go a long way to reduce our deficit, but will probably not completely stop it. We therefore still need to monitor the situation over the coming year, yet there is no update of the actual situation with treasury levels. I am certain that this is an oversigt on part of the Administration and request that the figures are made available for the Council.

To summerize my suggestion:

Postpone creation of new Research labs.
Reduce the numbers of Academies on order to 2.
Keep the current Mine Allocation Plan (MINING MAP) and keep implementing it.
Halt most of the civilian ship construction, except for Afrika which should continue with Xorns.
Halt Naval Construction.
Expand our new Naval Shipyard to 5k tons capacity.
Keep current research plan.
Begin constructing 4 identical units at a time from our Ground Force Training Facilities.


I recommend discussion among the Council of these 8 subjects but should the Councilors reject one or more of these, I kindly ask you to propose alternatives to solve our financial deficit.

Rendap
Rear Admiral, CINC PN
 
In response to Rear Admiral Rendap's proposal I will reject the moratorium on research labs and suggest we immediately build a defence base as we are currently totally defenceless.
 
In response to Rear Admiral Rendap's proposal I will reject the moratorium on research labs and suggest we immediately build a defence base as we are currently totally defenceless.

I agree with the defence base as well but the biggest issue is the lack of active sensors and targeting computers. Therefore, I propose giving me the maximum allowed labs of 15. Taking 5 from Kiwi and Surt's research each til I complete the current project and design appropriate sensors for our bases and planned missile destroyers. Remove Active Grav Sensor 16 from the queue.

Rendap said:
To summerize my suggestion:
Postpone creation of new Research labs. Reject
Reduce the numbers of Academies on order to 2. Reject
Keep the current Mine Allocation Plan (MINING MAP) and keep implementing it. Approve
Halt most of the civilian ship construction, except for Afrika which should continue with Xorns. No more new construction, Afrika retool to CS Mayflower
Halt Naval Construction. Reject, finish the EX Columbus
Expand our new Naval Shipyard to 5k tons capacity. Approve
Keep current research plan. Reject, new proposal above
Begin constructing 4 identical units at a time from our Ground Force Training Facilities. Approve


Looking over the wealth screen, 20 percent of the financial centre's contribution last year occured during the last month. We will see more benefits from the centres as we complete them one by one. Once we complete the naval yard, our cost will go down provided we don't build more ships for the time being. Nearly 45 percent of our expense is in shipbuilding, thus all new construction are on hold til we have a stable budget. Secondly, 30 percent of our expense (not breaking the bank) is on installation construction. Notable is the Financial centre and naval yard. In the queue is military academy and research labs which are expensive. Thus I recommend moving military academy to the end of the queue (proposal forthcoming). Mines and construction factory should move up. Our workforce is growing and we should try to keep them busy.

Our uridium shortage is due to building the 3x EX Columbus class (300 each), Military Academies (300 each) , and financial centres (120 each) which will exhaust our supply on Earth. This is why Rendap and I are in agreement with mines on Neutron Rock (neutronium) and Charon (has uridium).

In short, controlled shipbuilding projects should be enforced til our economy grows stronger to support sustain shipbuilding.

Industry Queue order The following should be in order of the queue, keeping the percentage and current projects.
  1. Mass Driver <---- NEW (25 percent IPC, Quantity: 5)
  2. Infrastructure
  3. Mine
  4. Construction Factory
  5. Research Lab
  6. Ordnance Factory
  7. Fighter Factory
  8. Military Academy

Randkar can you post a link to zip file when you update on the first or second post? I prefer downloading 7mb or so instead of 140mb. :D
 
It is absurd not to focus heavily on the navy yet as as we don't know what we will find out beyond the jump points. A strong navy will let us secure earth and expand our reach into other systems
 
It is absurd not to focus heavily on the navy yet as as we don't know what we will find out beyond the jump points. A strong navy will let us secure earth and expand our reach into other systems

True but we're not neglecting our navy. We need certain sensor techs first before we can build a proper defense. Something got to spot and paint targets for us or we're target practice for hostiles. By holding off building more ships and be frugal for a short while, we can build up our economy and support those ships we build. By adding another Naval Shipyard complex and plan to increase its capacity, we're setting ourselves up for building good sized ships in large numbers. Once we get sensors up, we'll be designing missiles and launchers. We may even design a carrier now that we have a scientist that may research larger and more efficient jump drive technology for us.

We're not halting, but rather slowing down shipbuilding so our mining, industry, tech and economy catches up. We got a big shipyard thanks to Randkar generous setup but somewhat weak on everything else.
 
A voice from the masses.

Well, as a non-voting citizen of this glorious civilization, I recommend that you all split the difference in approaches.

Just out of curiosity, in the other sessions played in this game system, how often did players run into hostiles just on the
other side of the homeworld jump points?
 
My views on the subject of priorities:

Armaments are a definite priority, but it would be pointless to construct warships that cannot even defend themselves, let alone protect the Sol system. Our current "weapons" priority should be weapons and sensor research, not warship construction. Before we can build any worthwhile combatants, we will need sensor techs (Grav and EM, perhaps Thermal as well), better Armor, a decent reaction drive (Ion Drive if at all possible, else Nuclear Pulse), and some sort of offensive weapons system: either Missiles/Launchers/Magazines, or Beam Weapons (Lasers, Mesons, Particle Beams, whatever)... or both. A doctrine based on Missile weapons will consume large amounts of Gallicite, but they are faster and easier to bring up to combat-effective levels, since a doctrine based on Beam weapons really require a fast, well-armored platform which is difficult to design at low tech levels. As we develop a military capability, pre-fabbed PDCs (Planetary Defense Centers) should probably take priority over warships in the early phase of our arms race, since they don't require any engines and can paciffy our colonial unrest as well as guarding the colonies themselves.

As far as civilian research goes, anything that improves our Mining rate or Construction rate would be worthwhile, as would the tech that improves our cash-flow by +20%. Similarly, the tech that increases Research speed is very valuable.

With bankruptcy threatening, more Financial Centers are a must-have. We may need to back off on ship and ground unit construction in order to save money and slow the remorseless erosion of our treasury. We should certainly have enough Jump Gate Constructors by the time the current group of Cranes finishes... I can't recall ever building more than two or three. We will need Troop Transports (techs allowing) and lots more Freighters... I suggest at least a couple of dozen.

Starting a large colony on Mars will jump-start the Civilian Shipping companies, which will give us a new source of tax income... we get a share of all the money they make shipping goods and passengers between worlds. Unfortunately, a large colony on Mars (>10 million people) will require both Garrisons and PDCs to guard it, so we will need both Troop Transports and weapons techs by the time the colony reaches 10 million.