Aurora III (v 6.21) - The Final Frontier - Hosted by Blue Emu

[Stuckenschmidt]

When is the IESA launching its "meet singles in your area" recruitment campaign?

The IESA prefers Bachelors, so the Imperial Budget will not be burdened with pensions for widows and orphans in the case of...well...unfortunate events. Of course the crew may interact, but as soon as someone wants to marry or gets pregnant, they are out of the game. This is, of course, strict. But we prefer efficiency over political correctness.

 

[blue emu]

What's our short term goals right now? We have any minerals to worry about?

Our short-term goals are:

1) To get some quick-and-dirty Geo-scouts built and launched. This will give us the ability to locate and assay new mineral resources within the Sol system, and that in turn will tell us just how urgent it is to break out of the cradle and into the neighboring systems. It will also allow at least a few of our players to get behind the controls a ship, which in turn will give them the chance of gaining some stat-boosts.

2) To start converting some of our 5000 CI to the much more useful TN industrial plant. CI produce only three production points per turn (and nothing at all towards Fighter or Ordinance production), while the specialized TN industries produce ten points each instead. This will likely be a background task, repeatedly interrupted to build other things and then resumed during slack periods. Rather than an equal distribution of conversions, I will be converting the largest fraction (45%?) to Mines, the next largest (35%?) to Construction Factories, and the remainder to Fuel Refineries, Fighter Factories and Ordinance Factories. Eventually.

3) To research the techs we're going to need, in roughly the order we'll need them. Sector Commands should have a high priority, since they would allow us to stack a Sector Governor's bonus with the Planetary Governor's bonus... very useful for Mining, Factory production and Ship construction. Cargo Handling will be needed to build useful Freighters and Colony Ships, and the latter will also require Cryogenic Transport. The +speed techs for Mining, Factory production, Ship construction and Shipyard operations would also be very useful, but perhaps not as urgent as some other things. Fuel is a constant headache under the new v6.21 rules, so a Sorium Scoop-Mining module will be needed, along with the +speed tech for Sorium-to-Fuel conversion. Of course, there's not much use in getting that tech until our Yards are nearly large enough to build Scoop-Miners. We will also need Tractor Beams, in order to build Tugs to move the Scoop-Miners into position. It's also urgent to study some Fuel Efficiency techs to stretch our limited Fuel supplies, and of course we'll need more advanced Engines ASAP, since NTEs (Nuclear Thermal Engines) are total crap. Grav sensors and Jump Drives (or Jump Gate construction modules) will of course be needed before we can leave the Sol system... our preliminary Geo-survey will tell us just how urgent that project is.

Minerals? The Earth's mineral supply is pictured in post #2 above. Corbomite is in shortest supply (51,000 tons) and will run out the soonest, but not too many applications require it. Our biggest needs (as opposed to our biggest shortages) in the early years will be Sorium for Rocket Fuel and Duranium and Corundium for Automated Mines. If we have a decent supply of those three minerals, we can collect whatever resources the Sol system has available.

 

[blue emu]

October 25th, 1949. Our scientists have completed research on Geological Survey Sensors, the last tech required to build our rudimentary Geo-Scouts, and our industrial modernization is again suspended in order to pre-build a few sets of these new sensors. This pre-build will take less than two months, after which (around December 20th of this year) we can lay down our first functional spaceship. Thanks to our minimum-spec design, no expansion of the shipyard will be required. The research labs freed-up by this completed project have been allocated to research on Duranium Armor, which will allow our ships to be slightly less bulky (and therefore a bit faster)... this new research project will complete around December 5th, just before our Geo-sensor pre-build finishes, thus allowing the planned survey ships to incorporate the new armor in their designs.

November 10th, 1949. Researcher Lord Strange has completed his theoretical study of Infrared Lasers, and is now working on scaling them up to a practical size for weapons applications... 10 cm aperture.

 

[Forgiven]

Oh so much happened already...

Prioritization recommendations;
Conversion towards TN Industry above mining on temporary basis, until reaching at least 500 on the industry side, assuming our current mineral reserves allow for this, then balancing the production of mines/industry and after reaching 1000 industry prioritise mines. Tentatively I'd also suggest bit smaller fraction of the total to be converted into industry, indeed, somewhere between 20 and 30 % should be quite sufficient for our needs, or in other words, for our mining can support. Fuel needs, even the enlarged ones, are probably covered short term by the conventional industry portion of our production, but once most of CI has been coverted, the last 500 or so should probably turn into refineries. Ordinance/Fighter factories, I almost expect we'll be done with CI conversions before we need them, and could build those from fully new materials, but this may be decision for later.

On using the existing industry for spaceship components, fully approved and to be used as necessary.

Not a big fan of small scale freighters, surely we can push the yard to manage a full scale one fast enough?

 

[blue emu]

Prioritization recommendations;
Conversion towards TN Industry above mining on temporary basis, until reaching at least 500 on the industry side, assuming our current mineral reserves allow for this, then balancing the production of mines/industry and after reaching 1000 industry prioritise mines. Tentatively I'd also suggest bit smaller fraction of the total to be converted into industry, indeed, somewhere between 20 and 30 % should be quite sufficient for our needs, or in other words, for our mining can support.

OK, I will prioritize the planned Construction Factory conversions a bit, and scale back some of the planned Mine conversions... taking care not to consume minerals faster than we are mining them, of course. Part of the rationale for emphasizing Mines over Factories in the conversion ratio is that Mines (and CI) are the only way that we get minerals, but we spend them in several ways: Factories, CI, Sorium=>fuel conversion, ground unit construction, shipyard expansion and retooling, and ship construction. If we simply balanced the number of mines to be equal to the number of factories, we would quickly run out of minerals. Another reason for converting CI to extra mines is that we can then convert some of THEM to Automated Mines. We start the game with none at all, and we will need plenty for exploiting whatever ore deposits the scouts can locate.

Fuel needs, even the enlarged ones, are probably covered short term by the conventional industry portion of our production, but once most of CI has been converted, the last 500 or so should probably turn into refineries. Ordinance/Fighter factories, I almost expect we'll be done with CI conversions before we need them, and could build those from fully new materials, but this may be decision for later.

Agreed.

On using the existing industry for spaceship components, fully approved and to be used as necessary.

It's a tactic that's most useful in the early game. Later on, we would only use it if we really want to rush a new ship-type into production.

Not a big fan of small scale freighters, surely we can push the yard to manage a full scale one fast enough?

A functional five-hold freighter will probably mass in excess of 40,000 tons. That will require four expansions of our commercial yard (the first expansion is already under way), each lasting about a year. The Colony Ship will be even bigger. We only need one more tech for Freighters, one more for Colony Ships, and one more for Troop Transports. The techs can be ready in much less time than the three-to-four years it will take to expand the yards. I was only thinking of building a handful of mini-freighters.

Another consideration is that EVERY ship we build at NTE (Nuclear Thermal Engine) tech-level will be hopelessly obsolete within a decade anyway, so it doesn't cost us as much as you might think to build a handful of throw-away mini-freighters.

 

[blue emu]

December 5th, 1949. Our researchers have completed their work on Duranium Armor, so the planned Geo-scouts can incorporate this advance into their design. Our research focus has shifted to Cargo Handling Equipment, in preparation for designing freighters, colony ships and troop transports... all of which will require that capability.

Here is the finalized design for our quick-and-dirty Geologist class Geo-Scout:

Geologist class Geological Survey Vessel 2,200 tons 42 Crew 281.625 BP TCS 44 TH 62 EM 0
1409 km/s Armour 1-15 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/2 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 80 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 11 months Spare Berths 5

62.5 EP Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine (1) Power 62.5 Fuel Use 13.26% Signature 62.5 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 30.8 billion km (253 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

The speed is quite acceptable for a NTE-tech commercial design. With the moderately fuel efficient de-rated engines, it has an operational radius of 15 billion km, easily enough to survey everything out to Pluto... although a survey of the Oort Cloud might need to be postponed until we have more fuel-efficient engines available. It carries enough life support for an 11-month mission, after which morale penalties will start accumulating and reducing their efficiency. The life support includes five spare berths, so it can be used to place (and remove) five-person Geology Field Teams on selected bodies of interest. It carries enough fuel to drive at full speed for eight and a half months; probably somewhat more than they will need on an 11-month mission, given that they will spend part of the time on station surveying. We included two Geological Sensors instead of one, which halves the survey time and provides a backup set of equipment.

The Sensor pre-build is still on-going, but enough ship components have accumulated to lay down the first vessel of this class. It is due out of the yards in three months and three days... that's on March 8th, 1950.

How many should we build? I will soon have components on hand for four of them. Will we require more than that?

 

[Forgiven]

Hm.
Vaguely I have a memory that the bigger the yard gets, the faster it is to expand it? I'm willing to accept the smaller freighters if they are deemed truly necessary. Query into how long retooling the yard for another size freighter is going to take again though? And indeed, are we building the geo scout on military or commercial yard? retooling time is time away from expansion still right?

But yes, if we actually have something worth shipping (how soon will we have automated mines, not quite yet I think?) to somewhere worthwhile...
...then fine, small freighter will have to do.

Rationale for industry first over mines is simply speeding the overall process as much as possible, but this is numbers game over mineral supply so you'll be in better position to fix the numbers as it goes anyways.

Edit: enough components for four scouts? Wow, I rarely bother getting more than one at this point, so I won't advocate even larger number

 

[Rendap]

If it is as normal, then you only have 1 slipway available. I'd therefore restrict to only 2 as it would be a waste of resources building additional and just scrapping them.

The Oort Cloud is indeed a pain to survey and I recommend waiting.

 

[blue emu]

The rationale for building four of them is that:

1) It will only take a year and twelve days to build the full set of four, so the last one can be launched only nine months and nine days after the first one.

2) It will take a couple of years to properly survey the Sol system, so the later ones in the series will still be able to speed the process somewhat.

3) They are small enough that our planned Grav-scout can assisted-jump them through into neighboring systems, so when they are finished at Sol we can use them to investigate and prospect nearby star systems, without exposing and risking a much more expensive Grav-scout.

4) It's really not much of an investment. The whole ship, pre-fabs included, costs less than 290 minerals. A single mag-catapult or deep space tracking station costs more than that. A single Research Lab costs twice as much as the entire run of four Geo-scouts.

5) We can always use them to move teams around when they run out of tasks, since I intentionally gave them each five extra berths.

 

[Rendap]

Good Points. I agree.

 

[blue emu]

Hm.
Vaguely I have a memory that the bigger the yard gets, the faster it is to expand it? I'm willing to accept the smaller freighters if they are deemed truly necessary. Query into how long retooling the yard for another size freighter is going to take again though? And indeed, are we building the geo scout on military or commercial yard? retooling time is time away from expansion still right?

The rate of expansion gets faster with total size, yes. The rate of adding slips slows down, though. Retooling takes time away from expansion, yes... but we can't retool the yard for freighters until the yard is big enough for the freighters anyway. We won't know how long the retooling process will take until we've researched one more tech: Cargo Handling Equipment.

But yes, if we actually have something worth shipping (how soon will we have automated mines, not quite yet I think?) to somewhere worthwhile...
...then fine, small freighter will have to do.

We could be building (or converting) automated mines right now, if we had nothing else important to do. We have the required tech.

Rationale for industry first over mines is simply speeding the overall process as much as possible, but this is numbers game over mineral supply so you'll be in better position to fix the numbers as it goes anyways.

Yah... bear in mind that in a conventional-start game, your mineral stockpile starts at ZERO, though, so we need to show a profit in minerals harvested vs minerals used, right from the start. I will certainly convert CI to factories at every opportunity, since it speeds the conversion process. But we can't let our total mineral expenditure (factory production, shipyard expansion and retooling, ground unit construction, ship construction, etc) exceed our rate of mineral income. That would force us to take projects off-line while rebuilding our stockpile.

Edit: enough components for four scouts? Wow, I rarely bother getting more than one at this point, so I won't advocate even larger number

I will limit it to four, then.

 

[Adamus]

Private Adamus

Born 27th September 1930, Graduated from Sandhurst Military College aged just 19, Adamus was top of his class in both Military Tactics and Political Philosophy, subjects he relished in. Coming from a poor background based out of the suburbs of London he grew a taste for warfare after seeing his father command a squadron of basic fighter planes during the Great War. He saw his father lead the way into new ground, unknown territory. His ambition and dreams were set in stone.

Adamus wished to lead the pride of a navy, and when Space became the new frontier upon Planetery unification, he knew that starting small was starting first. He wrote a letter to the Military Elite at the time, the Minister of the Navy Peter Wieczorek a beloved figure among his poor community back home and requested assignment.

He await his reply, he awaits his destiny.

 

[AtreyuAtreides]

I agree with getting our scouts out as early as possible even if they will be out-dated in ten years. Ten years and we would already have found out our future mineral situation. (Even though are engines are as slow as molasses). We've got to get some geologists out there as well although it looks like you already made a team.

Btw was I added into the officer rotation? =(

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

Imperial Exploration and Survey Agency​

- To boldly go... -​

The IESA hereby approves the building of four Geo Survey vessels, so they may rotate in service to prevent morale exhaustion.

 

[Sirce]

Nice, making good progress. Now its a race to the Moon!

 

[stamasd]

November 10th, 1949. Researcher Lord Strange has completed his theoretical study of Infrared Lasers, and is now working on scaling them up to a practical size for weapons applications... 10 cm aperture.

So we're going with beam ships from the get-go... bold move. Even with the most recent changes I generally still find it more useful to develop missiles first. Yeah I realize we got an EW scientist and no kinetics... don't forget missiles though.

(edit) To further elaborate, EW require support systems (reactor, capacitor) and we have no PP scientist... which kinda negates the EW advantage.

 

[Lord Strange]

So we're going with beam ships from the get-go... bold move. Even with the most recent changes I generally still find it more useful to develop missiles first. Yeah I realize we got an EW scientist and no kinetics... don't forget missiles though.

(edit) To further elaborate, EW require support systems (reactor, capacitor) and we have no PP scientist... which kinda negates the EW advantage.

I will do it all myself!
In a cave! With a box of scraps!

 

[stamasd]

Well yeah, you'll have to do it in a cave... because labs, we ain't got any to spare.

 

[Sirce]

Either way, we still need PP scientist to come up eventually. Missiles great advantage is range and speed. Speed is derived from PP technologies. Beam ships are the same thought. However, since we got EW already, we can develop some defensive bases with beam weapons and do ok.

Hopefully, we get some smarty pants to get recognition in the field of PP.

 

[blue emu]

Btw was I added into the officer rotation? =(

Yes. I've updated the first post of the sign-up thread with a list of officers.

Nice, making good progress. Now its a race to the Moon!

We've hit the ground running! Our Geo-Scouts will tell us whether our first colonization target should be the Moon, or Mars, or perhaps one of Jupiter's Galilean satellites.

So we're going with beam ships from the get-go... bold move. Even with the most recent changes I generally still find it more useful to develop missiles first. Yeah I realize we got an EW scientist and no kinetics... don't forget missiles though.

(edit) To further elaborate, EW require support systems (reactor, capacitor) and we have no PP scientist... which kinda negates the EW advantage.

Missiles will become an effective weapons system before beams will, yes. Neither one will work properly without a good deal of P&P progress, though. In v6.21, missiles are pretty sad until you get some Fuel Efficiency techs and the x3 Thrust Augmentation tech-line finished.

Either way, we still need PP scientist to come up eventually. Missiles great advantage is range and speed. Speed is derived from PP technologies. Beam ships are the same thought. However, since we got EW already, we can develop some defensive bases with beam weapons and do ok.

Hopefully, we get some smarty pants to get recognition in the field of PP.

Agreed.