Sirius Business - a C# Aurora forum game. v2.5

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The Earth is the cradle of Humanity... but one cannot live in the cradle forever.

On the 20th of June 1944, Nazi Germany launched the first man-made object into outer space... a modified A-4 rocket (later rechristened the V-2 in September of that year), serial number MW-18014. Launched vertically as part of a test series to determine the behavior of rockets in vacuum conditions, the modified A-4 reached an apogee of 176 kilometers (109 miles); well above the Karman line that marks the official boundary of outer space.

Less than a year later, Hitler was dead and Nazi Germany had been defeated and occupied by the Western Allies and the Soviets. One of the first priorities of the victors was to arrest the German rocket scientists and dragoon them into Allied or Soviet service. As the Cold War started heating up, the West and the Soviets both started work on rocket projects, each intending to create a ballistic missile force capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The emphasis was on developing a rocket that could carry a nuclear payload to destroy enemy cities. Except for a few visionaries like Werner von Braun (himself a Nazi party member), manned space-flight was still far from everyone's thoughts...

... until 1947, when a series of strange events in New Mexico USA, changed the game completely.

Our story opens in January of 1948.

 

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A falling snow-flake can trigger an avalanche, if the conditions are exactly right... or is it, exactly wrong? Something very similar happened in mid-June of 1947... three years almost to the day since Hitler's Nazis had sent the first man-made object into space.

A New Mexico rancher called W.W.Brazel found that some odd debris had fallen on his land in the hills behind Roswell, New Mexico. Without a phone or a radio Brazel did nothing at the time, but the next time he was in town (on July 5th) he mentioned it to his uncle. He was urged to report the matter, and the next day (July 6th) he spoke to Sheriff George Wilcox about the unusual debris which had apparently fallen from the sky.

If it came from the sky, it was the Air Force's business, so Wilcox called the Roswell Army Air Field... who sent out two officers, Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt, to look into it.

Two days later (July 8th), the Roswell Army Air Field public information officer 1st Lieutenant Walter Haut issued a press release stating that the Army Air Force had recovered what he called "a flying disc". The debris... and the pieces of whatever it was that Haut had described as a flying disc... were loaded onto a transport aircraft and sent to Fort Worth.

... and at this point, it disappears from the official records.

The following day (July 9th) a second press conference was held, this time hosted not by a lowly 1st Lieutenant but by a General and his Chief-of-Staff. They retracted the previous day's report of a flying disc, and told the press instead that the object was a crashed weather balloon.

The media interest in the find quickly evaporated, and the debris and/or disc, whatever it was, disappeared into obscurity.

Our game begins six months later...

 

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Game Setup:

I've made a few tweaks to the usual starting conditions.

I've reduced the maximum potential size of the "game space" to 750 stars (from 1,000) and slightly reduced the chance of spawning NPRs (non-player races). Since we are starting in 1948 with "World War II" techs (even "pre-ballistic-missile") instead of the usual 2025 spaceflight-enabled start, I have increased the size of the mineral deposits on Earth to get us through the extra 77 years of game-time before we catch up to the typical 2025 game start.

Other than that, most of the tweaks are to make the game a bit more challenging. Game difficulty is set to 110% (instead of 100%). All of the hazards are enabled (Precursors, Star Swarm, Invaders, Rakhas, Ether Raiders) as well as our main NPR opponent and whatever hazards or NPRs he spawns by exploring.

Minimum of ten Comets per star system, minimum of six jump points at Sol, and I've added the mythical "Planet X" to the Sol system.

 

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January 1st, 1948.

The inner solar system. The dotted circle represents the limit of our current Earth-based detection systems, assuming a fairly "noisy" Thermal or EM target.

First, I'll do a quick survey and see what we've got for Administrators and Scientists. The Naval and Ground officers won't be relevant for years, since at this early point in the game we have no spaceships and no opportunity to employ ground troops.

Administrators:

Mostly good news. We have plenty of Administrators, with a good spread of ranks (from 1 to 6) and skills. Our top two Population Growth ministers are too low ranked to manage Earth itself (rank 5 is required, and both are rank 4) but maybe one of them will get a random promotion. I have started some paper studies on each of the main potential colony sites here in the Sol system (the Moon, Mars, Ganymede, etc) to give each of the Admins a job and start skilling up.

I've given each Admin a planet, moon or other object to "govern". Since we are still confined to Earth's surface, this is just a desk job at HQ.

 

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Continuing the survey -

Scientists:

Not good news. We have fewer scientists than there are branches of research. No Biologist. No Missile scientist. No Construction / Production scientist.

It's that last vacancy that REALLY hurts us. Most of the most vital early techs are in the Construction / Production path.

We have two extra zero-skill scientists that we can re-purpose, so we'll make one of them a zero-skill Construction / Production scientist and the other one a zero-skill Missile scientist.

Only two of our scientists have a high skill... and both of them have only average admin values. Again, they'll likely level up in the course of play.

Note that I am perforce using scientists outside their specialty.

 

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To finish off the survey of Earth, here is our starting situation:

Until we get a few technologies researched, we don't really have much that's worth building. So I loaded a few obvious builds into the queue... some Financial Centers, to pay for the rest of our construction, a couple of shipyards, and a second Military Academy, to spawn a few more Scientists.

Our two starting shipyards (one Naval, one Commercial) are both expanding and will continue to do so.

 

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The game begins!

Until we discover the turn-key tech "Trans Newtonian Technology" our options are rather limited both for construction and for research.

Our Defensive Systems scientist is working on conventional composite armor for spaceship hulls, and manages to finish first one level, then another.

That brings us up to late March of 1948.

 

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Mid-December of 1948.

Our cash-flow situation is gradually improving, thanks to our policy of building Financial Centers right from day one.

A couple more research projects complete... and then the big one!

THAT'S what we were waiting for! Trans-Newtanian Technology is a game-changer.

I will now suspend all of our ongoing research projects and construction builds, and re-assign our resources to Trans-Newtonian projects.

This brings us up to April of 1949.

 

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With all of our research points re-assigned to the new Trans-Newtonian technologies...

... and our construction production re-assigned as well...

... we are ready to enter the Trans-Newtonian age! Our first priority will be to convert our old 1940s-style industrial base into a futuristic military-industrial complex based on the new series of Trans-Newtonian (aka TN) elements. That will give us the industrial power to really start expanding.

In the meantime, we will research the technologies we will require to launch a few small, fragile exploration / survey spacecraft. They will explore the planets, moons, comets and asteroids of the Sol system, searching for additional deposits of the rare TN-elements.

Our first completed TN technology! Lighter and stronger hulls for our future spacecraft.

 

[Blaaat]

Subscribed and I like to volunteer for captaincy of the first survey craft.

 

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We hope to launch our first manned survey craft in less than ten years.

Our scientists have completed research on the Radioisotope Thermal Generator power-system tech, and have begun work on the corresponding Engine tech, Nuclear Radioisotope Engine. Power-system techs and Engine techs are always paired, a new power-system tech automatically enables a new engine tech.

... but these Radioisotope techs are basically trash. We are researching them, not for their own utility, but because they are necessary prerequisites to more advanced power-system and engine techs. We'll go up one more power/engine level before we build our first manned spacecraft.

In the meantime, there are several other techs that will be needed before we can design a functioning craft. Sensors... Geological Scanners, of course, but also sensors of all types. Fuel efficiency techs. Specific engine models, once we reach the second power/engine tech level.

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We are also researching some of the early Energy Weapon techs (specifically, 10cm Infra-red Lasers). This will (eventually) allow us to design and build our first space-age Ground Units. Eventually. There are several other techs required first, such as personal armor so we can make Space Marine Power Armor.

By mid-April 1950, the Geological Survey Scanners tech is complete, and our Sensor and Control Systems scientist has shifted his focus to Detection (Grav) sensors.

 

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May 20th 1950

Research:

Production (tons per year) and on-hand stockpiles:

The line in the Stockpiles section labelled "Change" is the number of tons per five-day period by which the stockpile is changing, plus or minus.

Our Power and Propulsion scientist has completed his theoretical work on Nuclear Radioisotope Engine... and rather than designing any hardware prototypes he will immediately switch to researching the Pressurized Water Reactor power systems tech, whose paired engine tech is the direct theoretical prerequisite for the prototypes of the engine model that we intend to use in our first rather primitive survey craft... Nuclear Thermal Engine.

 

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As a result of our conversion of 300 of our original 4000 conventional 1940s industry to space-age military-industrial complexes, our production capacity has grown by +67%... from 4000 BP to 6700 BP... with less than 1/10th of our factories converted so far! I'll be converting some to factories, some to mines, some to fuel refineries, some to fighter factories, and some to missile factories.

Each 1940s industry (and we started with 4000) produces one-and-a-half points of mining, and one point each of production, fuel refining, fighter construction and missile construction.
Each TN factory produces ten points of construction (called BPs or Build Points).
Each TN mine produces ten points of mining.
Each TN refinery produces ten points of fuel refining.
Each TN fighter factory produces ten points of fighter construction.
Each TN missile factory produces ten points of missile construction.

That's where the numbers above come from: converting 300 of our 1940s conventional industry to TN factories causes us to lose 300 BP (from the loss of those 300 conventional industry) but also to gain 3000 BP (from the 300 new TN factories). Our original 4000 BP becomes 6700 BP.

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Nice! Our Power and Propulsion scientist just tripled his research bonus... from 5% to 15%. Quadrupled to +60% if researching within his own specialty.

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April 25th 1951

The Sensor techs start to drop... we have researched the first Grav Sensor tech. We still need an EM Sensor tech (under research now) before we can actually design any functioning sensor prototypes.

 

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June 29th 1951 and the Pressurized Water Reactor tech completes! Our newly-promoted Power and Propulsion scientist switches to Nuclear Thermal Engine, which will allow us to design and build actual hardware prototypes. We will probably research a Fuel Efficiency tech or two before designing those prototypes... not so much because we NEED the fuel efficiency (although it is certainly useful) but because the Power and Propulsion scientist's promotion has put us ahead of the critical path. We still need more Sensor techs before we can design a survey craft, so the P&P scientist might as well research something useful while waiting.

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October 21st 1951

Finally! Nearly four years into the game, we receive an Administrator of rank 5 (ie: high enough to manage Earth itself) who also has appropriate skills.

An authoritarian drug addict. What could go wrong?

 

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November 28th 1951

Our Construction and Production scientist has just increased his research bonus from 5% to 10%. A scientist's bonus is quadrupled within his own field.

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January 8th 1952

Our first round of conversions of 1940s conventional industry (CI) is complete. We have converted 900 of our original 4000 conventional industry into 300 TN factories, 300 TN mines, 100 TN fuel refineries, 100 TN fighter factories and 100 TN missile factories. Overall, that improves our output in all five of those categories.

We'll build a bit of miscellaneous stuff (a Naval shipyard, a Commercial shipyard, an officer's academy) before starting another round of CI conversions.

 

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April 26th 1952

Our current research efforts:

The Tractor Beam is for Tugs. That will allow us to start designing a few purpose-built "ships with no engines"... actually orbital space stations, which can be moved into place by the Tugs. Of course, there are only a few specialized roles for "ships with no engines"... but those roles can be very important. Orbital mining platforms, for example. Orbital terraforming platforms. Refineries in orbit around gas giant planets that have traces of Sorium in their atmospheres.

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September 26th 1952

We have built a Military Academy, which should double the rate at which we receive new Scientists. Now working on the second round of conversions.

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October 1st 1952

We have finished the last theoretical tech required before we can start designing and building Nuclear Thermal Engines. Since (as expected) our super-charged P&P scientist has finished his task way ahead of schedule... we're still short at least two Sensor theory techs plus the practicals, before we can design a spacecraft... our hero will research one or two fuel efficiency techs (as planned) while waiting for Sensor research to complete.

 

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August 24th 1953

Our decision to build another Military Academy (for a total of two) has increased the spawn rate of new leaders. We have four new Admins, one of whom has better stats than the current governor of Earth. She will replace him immediately.

Frustratingly, none of the new leaders has been a scientist.

 

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November 4th 1954

Our first man-rated spacecraft engine!

I used a non-military engine configuration because in this particular role (exploring our home star system for minerals) we will get more profit from fuel efficiency and long mission endurance than we would out of high speed dashes and short endurance. This configuration is a bit problematic in the sense that the ship will now contain both military-grade components (eg: Geological Sensors) and civilian-grade components (the engines) giving us what is in effect a civilian ship that requires military maintenance... but it's just a stop-gap solution anyway. The ship's only real job is to explore the Sol system, after which it can retire to a museum.

I will use our factory facilities to pre-build components for our ship(s), to speed up construction in the shipyard. Two or three survey craft should be enough.

 

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We have finished designing all the components that our first spacecraft will require!... the sensors took the longest, since for the sake of role-play we want to be able to scan for TN minerals, for heat sources (infra-red), for radio waves and microwaves, as well as having an active radar (PING!) for spotting any alien ships.

I have equipped the survey craft with low-power (~20 million km range) versions of this entire detection-and-analysis instrumentation suite.

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Beetle class Survey Craft 2,437 tons 48 Crew 323.1 BP TCS 49 TH 80 EM 0
1641 km/s Armour 1-16 Shields 0-0 HTK 17 Sensors 6/6/0/2 DCR 1-4 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.70 Years MSP 207 AFR 48% IFR 0.7% 1YR 15 5YR 230 Max Repair 100 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Morale Check Required

CIV NT Engine EP80.00 1954 (1) Power 80.0 Fuel Use 8.94% Signature 80.00 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 123.8 billion km (873 days at full power)

CIV Search Sensor AS20-R100 1955 (1) GPS 1000 Range 20.3m km Resolution 100
CIV EM Sensor EM1.0-6.0 1955 (1) Sensitivity 6.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
CIV Thermal Sensor TH1.0-6.0 1955 (1) Sensitivity 6.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Geological Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Survey Ship for auto-assignment purposes

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I've given the craft enough fuel and enough on-board spare parts and maintenance stores to enable it to stay out there up to four years, and to replace any faulty component twice. I've deliberately limited the mission duration to two years so that the limitations of fuel and spare parts should never become an issue.

Our construction factories have produced a huge stack of components, to speed up construction of the three planned survey craft.

... as Ikea is fond of saying, "some assembly required"... and this means that instead of constructing the ship, all the shipyard needs to do is put the pieces together.

This reduces the ship construction time from 11 months and 10 days to zero months (!) and 26 days.

 

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The scientific breakthroughs that our first spacecraft required can also be adapted to other designs. Since the "Tractor Beam" technology has already been perfected, we can now design a Tug. We'll keep it fairly small (<20,000 tons) mostly because we have an open 20,000 ton civilian shipyard available. It will need large fuel tanks and a ridiculous operating range in its basic stats anyway, because it might end up towing something five times its own mass... so instead of large tanks I'll give it HUGE fuel tanks and a refueling module (pump) so that it can also act as a Tanker.

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Strongman class Tug 19,773 tons 166 Crew 548.1 BP TCS 395 TH 800 EM 0
2022 km/s Armour 1-65 Shields 0-0 HTK 71 Sensors 6/6/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 17 Max Repair 100 MSP
Tractor Beam
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months

CIV NT Engine EP80.00 1954 (10) Power 800.0 Fuel Use 8.94% Signature 80.00 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres Range 508.6 billion km (2911 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 50,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 100 hours

CIV Search Sensor AS20-R100 1955 (1) GPS 1000 Range 20.3m km Resolution 100
CIV EM Sensor EM1.0-6.0 1955 (1) Sensitivity 6.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
CIV Thermal Sensor TH1.0-6.0 1955 (1) Sensitivity 6.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Tug for auto-assignment purposes

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And in other news:

That allows us to design one of the most vitally important ship (space station) types in the whole game... an orbital mining platform.

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Grinder class Orbital Mining Platform 107,183 tons 1,060 Crew 2,868 BP TCS 2,144 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 138 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 16 Max Repair 120 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Orbital Miner: 21 modules producing 252 tons per mineral per annum

Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range N/A

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Space Station for construction purposes
This design is classed as a Orbital Miner for auto-assignment purposes