The Paradoxian Federation – Aurora Forum Game II, run by Rendap.

[Rendap]

The Push for the stars!

21/6-2027: Cargo Task Group consisting of 10 frieghters begins transferring 100 Automated mines from Earth to Rhea. Mass Driver production planned to being shortly on Earth.
15/7-2027: The first 10 mines along with a NPC +15% mining govenor is dropped off on Rhea.
26/7-2027: Lord Strange improves research bonus to 35%
20/8-2027: Automated mines completed on Earth - Capacity transferred to Mass Drivers.
10/9-2027: Nuclear Pulse Engines are now available. Research of these commences immediately, still will 26 labs assigned. As soon as they are ready, Jump engine technology will be researched.

 

[blue emu]

The Administration therefore plans the following ship classes to be added - Sometime in the future:

Commercial:
Freighters
Colony Ships
Terraforming Ships
Fuel Harvesters
Asteroid Mining Ships
Troop Transports
Tankers

Something to consider is to build your Fuel Harvester, Astroid Miners and Terraforming ships without any engines, and (except for the fuel harversters) only minimal fuel tankage; and instead build some commercial Tugs to drag them into position. They spend nearly all of their time on-station anyway, and doing it that way reduces the crew accomadations required and eliminates a lot of surplus mass; which allows more displacement for mission-critical modules such as Sorium converters, terraforming modules and mining modules. Of course, you will need Tractor Beams for your Tugs, so your first-generation resource ships might need one engine each, to slowly creep into position.

I also like to have seperate Troop Transport and Drop Ship designs, since at our tech level it's nearly impossible to build a combination vessel that moves at any reasonable speed.

Have you considered Orbital Habs for your Mercury, Venus and Titan colonization efforts? Again, Tugs are almost a necessity if you go that route.

 

[reis91]

Perhaps some moderate expansion of the shipyards while we wait for the next-gen engines?

 

[blue emu]

How many Geology teams are you running, to explore for extra minerals on already-surveyed planets?

 

[Rendap]

15/9-2027: The 7th and so far last planned colony ship is laid down on earth.
10/10-2027: Turret Tracking Speed researched. Now researching Visible Light Lasers.
15/11-2027: The first Naval Yard reach 15.000 capacity - Expansion to 20.000 starts immediately.
20/11-2027: The Colony Ships CS Bat and CS Albatross are launched. The Shipyard building them is not given new assignment for the moment, due to a resource shortfall. No new commercial constructions are planned for the close future until more designs become available.
26/2-2028: Our Geologists have struck again. 36k tons of Vendarite in 0,8 have been located on Rhea.
5/3-2028: Mine production is now completed on Earth. All capaticy is now working towards mass drivers!
10/3-2028: Captain Vainglory gains +25 Crew Training.
15/4-2028: Research into EM Sensor Strenght completed. Now Researching Beam Fire Control Range.
Captain Vainglory promoted to Commodore.

25/4-2028: En route from Earth to Rhea Captain Joebthegreat slipped on a walkway and fell, hitting his head on a sensor display. GEV Diamond was immediately dispatched from Earth to rendevouz for emergency medical transport, however 2 days out of earth the sad message came back that our brave captain had passed away. An investigation into the event wonders why suddenly so many bananas were assigned to this ship specifically, but no evidence were discovered indicating foul play.

Joeb - Please advice if you wan't to join in a new role or if I should pop you right back here in a new character.

Naval Shipyards are being expanded on a regular basis. Plan is to have 3 slipways on each and 5-10-15-20 capacity at first.
I am currently running Geology Teams on Rhea, Venus, Titan and Triton. No paradoxians involved at this time.

 

[Rendap]

30/4-2028: Mass Drivers completed on Earth. 2 Research labs are ordered.
1/6-2028: Supply of Gallicite on Rhea is no more.
6/6-2028: Rear Admiral Blue Emu improves Fighter Operations to 40%
26/7-2028: Polar Mongoose completes research into Shipyard Modification time/cost savings. 5% decrease is expected. +20% Research is the next task on his list.
21/8-2028: Lord Issac Strange improves research bonus to 45%
16/9-2028: Rear Admiral Blue Emu falls ill.
100k tons of Vendarite found on Venus. Geology team transferrered to Amalthea.
27/9-2028: And we finally gets a Power Specialist researcher. +15% will double the bonus from our current Biology researcher, who are once again transferred to somewhere in the Pacific Ocean wearing Cement Shoes.
7/10-2028: And in other news - 88k tons of Tritanium (0,8) have been found on Rhea. Mass Drivers recently arrived starts flinging towards Fleet HQ, hoping to score a hit. Unlikely though.
17/10-2028: 50 Automated mines are being transferred to Titan along with 2 mass drivers.
And Lord Isaac Strange have improved the chance of ejecting a magasize to 80%. He will now begin reducing the size of our launchers.
2/11-2028: Lord Strange improves admin rating to 8 - And 2 more colony ships have been launched.
22/11-2028: Small fuel storage researched. New researching tractor beam, so we can build tugs!
2/12-2028: 2 more colony ships launched. Only 1 to go.
17/12-2028: Construction of Research labs complete - Now producing 500 Infrastructure for Mars.
22/12-2028: Lord Issac Strange have succeeded in reducing the launcher size to 0,75. He will continue his research.

And os ends 2028. 2029 should see the needed jump engines come online, so we can start building new ships!

 

[reis91]

Poor Joeb...

 

[Lord Strange]

Blasted missiles - each time you produce a smaller one the Military Directorate comes back and asks if you could shrink it a bit more. Still, at least they've said I can run more labs this time, and I hear that my latest research paper "On the Miniaturization of Circuitry" has been well received - seems at last my skills are being recognized!

 

[randakar]

16/6-2026 Joebthegreat falls ill. His long term health is thus worse. Is it Stress over his nemesis Randakar? Or was he really poisoned? No evidence either way exist!
1/10-2026: Captain Randakar has been promoted to Commodore

I am confident these two things are not related in any way, shape or form

Figures randakar poisoned me...

Poison? Who needs poison, when all it requires is few mishaps in operations to drive your blood pressure up?
Not that there ever are mishaps under my watch ..

 

[reis91]

The Fleet Commander wants to inform that he will not give command of heavily armed Ships and Defense Complexes to Commanders who don't prove themselves responsible and completely focused on their duties. With great guns comes great responsibility.

Dismissed.

 

[Vainglory]

That appears to work on my 17", so far. I suppose nothing can be done about having to turn on English in the Control Panel...

What is your native language, anyway? Obviously mine is C++

@Vainglory: Gauss PD is, at least theoretically, frighteningly difficult to penetrate.

Yeah, my friend quoted some figures to me that sounded impressive, but then at the time I knew very little about the game. He said that CIWS aren't worth having though, which I haven't heard elsewhere.

As for reduced height windows, you still need 800 vertical resolution and modern laptops are often less than that. I tink I mentioned that to you somewhere else.

Yeah, we did. That's why I said "have you tried" rather than "this will fix it".

Are you up to joining the Big game I'm GMing?

When's startup? I'm trying to cut down on time spent here as I rapidly approach my end of semester.

Captain Vainglory assigned Survey Officer, Fleet HQ
Captain Vainglory gains +25 Crew Training.
Captain Vainglory promoted to Commodore.

Booyah!

Vice Admiral Reis91 assigned Fleet HQ as commander. He's disciplined and friendly. Stats are: Crew Training 200, Fleet Maneuver 183, Factory Production 20%, Espionage 10%, Intelligence 10%, Operations 25%

Excellent choice.

With regards to the swarm, I see it as a double edged sword and it would be up to the fleet setup whether I would prefer to meet them in a nebula or outside. But with the normal mix I'm promoting, I would probably have to say outside so missiles and fighters can play as well as the speed.

I'd definitely prefer to fire scads of AMMs at them rather than try engage them in a nebula.

And genetic modification scientists piss me off so much. My new game for the latest patch, I had 2 spawn at game start, and then two spawn later on, for a total of 4/10 scientists as GM at one point. ARGH!

 

[Rendap]

22/1-2029: Research in first Jump Engine is complete, and we are now ready for our new scouts:

Nightsky class Scout 5,000 tons 454 Crew 773.8 BP TCS 100 TH 280 EM 0
2800 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-26 Shields 0-0 Sensors 24/1/1/1 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.48 Years MSP 1097 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 247 5YR 3702 Max Repair 289 MSP

J5100(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Nuclear Pulse Engine E10 (7) Power 40 Fuel Use 100% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 54.0 billion km (223 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH4-24 (1) Sensitivity 24 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 24m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour
Geological Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Retooling begins immediately and 6 scouts are planned.

At the same time, Research is transferred into fuel efficiency.

7/2-2029 - Construction of Infrastructure complete. Now we are just waiting for the freighters to complete their mine transfer to Titan and we can start the Mars Project. 5Terraforming installations are being built.
7/3-2029 - Our first Naval Yard reaches 20.000 tons capacity and expansion in size halts. 2 Extra slipways are ordered.
22/4-2029: Last colony ship for now is launched. We now have the capacity of transferring 350.000 colonists per round trip.
2/5-2029: Lord Isaac Strange has once again reduced the size of missile launchers to half the original size. Unfortunately, they now take 5 times as long to reload. The administration is pondering this while Lord Stange is directed to improving reload times.
26/6-2029: Titan begins sending minerals back to Earth and the Mars Project can now commence. Freighters and colony ships are loading up on Infrastructure and Colonists.
22/7-2029: Initial colonization of Mars have been completed and 2,1mio colonists have been transferred. Infrastructure is in place and terraforming stations are being brought online as fast as the freighters can deliver them.
Lord Isaac Strange continues to improve and has now reached a benus of +50%.
A new type of shields, called "Beta", have been researched. The team thinks they can improve recharge rates of said shields as well and have been instructed to investigate.
2/8-2029: Fuel Efficiency have been improved. New Engines are expected to only use 90% the fuel that our current engines does. The team is instructed to improve this even more.
17/8-2029: Polar Mongoose don't want to let Lord Strange be the only one improving and is therefore now with a +30% bonus.
22/8-2029: Our second largest Naval yard is expanded to 15.000t capacity and instructed to add 2 new slipways.
12/9-2029: Lord Isaac Strange discovers that actually training the crews will improve the reload times and submits his results. commodore Randakar is overheard muttering "Now why didn't I think of this?". Lord Strange is directed to improve the feed mechanisms from our magazines.
17/9-2029: First civilian ship launched: A Victoria class colony ship.
22/10-2029: And they soon follow up with their first Freighter. Looks like we don't have to do much more re. Mars.
27/10-2029: 100k tons of Uridium (1,0) discovered on Titan. Geologists are transferred to Sycorax.
18/11-2029: Tractor Beam research complete, which triggers the following design:

Honduras class Fleet Tug 39,500 tons 833 Crew 1093.2 BP TCS 790 TH 3000 EM 0
3797 km/s Armour 1-103 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 17 Max Repair 100 MSP
Tractor Beam

Nuclear Pulse Engine E1 (30) Power 100 Fuel Use 10% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 136.7 billion km (416 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

This is actually the first time that I have used fleet tugs and have shamelessly stolen a design from the Aurora forums... - Retooling begins at 2 commercial yards.
The team is directed to start looking at ground units.

And thus ends the year 2029 - 2030 will see the first scouts and will follow later today.

@Vain - Agree completely on BG scientists. At the moment I'm 3/13 on that score....
And agree on the AMM against swarms. Problem is, that they are rarely enough to kill them..... :sad:

 

[Vainglory]

Head of Survey Operations, Fleet HQ, reminds all survey captains to leave no stone un-turned in the conduct of their mission. Literally. Any captain found to have left a stone in its original orientation will experience a severe dressing-down.

 

[Vainglory]

18/11-2029: Tractor Beam research complete, which triggers the following design:

Honduras class Fleet Tug 39,500 tons 833 Crew 1093.2 BP TCS 790 TH 3000 EM 0
3797 km/s Armour 1-103 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 17 Max Repair 100 MSP
Tractor Beam

Nuclear Pulse Engine E1 (30) Power 100 Fuel Use 10% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 136.7 billion km (416 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

This is actually the first time that I have used fleet tugs and have shamelessly stolen a design from the Aurora forums... - Retooling begins at 2 commercial yards.

You'll find them very handy, I think. Aside from the benefits Blue Emu pointed out (using them to tow units like sorium harvesters, asteroid miners, and shipyards) you can also tow ships disabled in combat, rescue survivors, and I used mine to transfer geology and xenology teams around, as they were the fastest ships I had in my fleet and often un-tasked. Also if you build sorium suckers, set them as tankers. That way you can easily order fleets to refuel from them, including other tankers so you can transfer fuel to colonies.

 

[blue emu]

He said that CIWS aren't worth having though, which I haven't heard elsewhere.

One CIWS doesn't help much, although it adds an extra layer to your PD, which is always useful. In the Ad Astra game, I equipped the Rocks with about nine CIWS each (since they were civilian ships and carried no armament anyway), and they actually shot down impressive numbers of missiles... sometimes taking out every single missile in the incoming salvo.

And genetic modification scientists piss me off so much. My new game for the latest patch, I had 2 spawn at game start, and then two spawn later on, for a total of 4/10 scientists as GM at one point. ARGH!

In my current conventional-start home game, I started with only three researchers... two of them Biologists

Nightsky class Scout 5,000 tons 454 Crew 773.8 BP TCS 100 TH 280 EM 0
2800 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-26 Shields 0-0 Sensors 24/1/1/1 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.48 Years MSP 1097 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 247 5YR 3702 Max Repair 289 MSP

J5100(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Nuclear Pulse Engine E10 (7) Power 40 Fuel Use 100% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 54.0 billion km (223 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH4-24 (1) Sensitivity 24 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 24m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour
Geological Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Hmmm... that's aweful short endurance for a scout, isn't it? Both in maintenance capacity and fuel.

I would have settled for a size-1 Thermal scanner (which is only carried to tell you if the planet you're scanning is occupied by an NPR), and put the extra three hull squares into more fuel and more engineering.

... but that's just me, I suppose.

 

[Taiisatai64]

I'd like to be a planetary governor of a fringe world if possible. Or a gravsurvey ship captain. Under the name Pyotr Taiisatai Rurikovich. I like russian names.

 

[Vainglory]

One CIWS doesn't help much, although it adds an extra layer to your PD, which is always useful. In the Ad Astra game, I equipped the Rocks with about nine CIWS each (since they were civilian ships and carried no armament anyway), and they actually shot down impressive numbers of missiles... sometimes taking out every single missile in the incoming salvo.

You're allowed to load CIWS on civilian ships? Intriguing. Now that I think about it, I did read somewhere else (the wiki?) where they argued that CIWS either doesn't do anything because your other layers succeed in swatting everything down, or else they get swamped. Again, not my words though.

In my current conventional-start home game, I started with only three researchers... two of them Biologists

Ouch. I'd consider adding an NPR empire somewhere just to transfer in some researchers out of their empire, then deleting it. Because that really blows.

I'd like to be a planetary governor of a fringe world if possible.

Said fringe world should be named Tasmania. They're on the fringe if anyone ever was...

 

[Taiisatai64]

*snickers*

But no...

 

[reis91]

Yes, it seems the new scout designs are dangerously prone to failures. Furthermore, they don't have any backup scanners to account for such failures. I would thus propose a motion for alternate designs for the new Nuclear Pulse General Purpose Scout (NPGPS) models.

 

[blue emu]

Yes, it seems the new scout designs are dangerously prone to failures. Furthermore, they don't have any backup scanners to account for such failures. I would thus propose a motion for alternate designs for the new Nuclear Pulse General Purpose Scout (NPGPS) models.

Well... they carry enough maintenance spares to repair three times. Still, I prefer long-endurance scouts which can scan more than one system before overhaul. It's still very early in the game, though. It's likely that until we reach at least Ion tech, most of the stuff we build will be basically junk.

Ouch. I'd consider adding an NPR empire somewhere just to transfer in some researchers out of their empire, then deleting it. Because that really blows.

I solved it by building a bunch of Naval Academies... that's where your scientists come from, as well as Naval officers... and now, ten years into the game, I'm up to six researchers. Two Biologists and two Sensors, unfortunately, but the problem is slowly solving itself.