Aurora IV - Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Emu!

[blue emu]

I've never even heard of this game before, so I'm following with great interest!

Could the gathering of such a large fleet of alien ships in formation around your exploration vessel be an indication they plan to follow it all the way back to Earth?

That's exactly what I was afraid of.

HOWEVER... the aliens allowed me to jump out of their system, then a big stack of them jumped through after me and sat on the jump point for a few hours, watching me steam away... then they jumped back into their own system!

I'm quite sure of this... I was still well within passive sensor range when the entire stack disappeared at the same time. Since the alien ships have Thermal signatures varying from 90 to 2400, they would have disappeared a few at a time (smallest ones first) if I was merely leaving passive sensor range.

Let's hope they stay away long enough for Hyme to get away!

 

[blue emu]

Six days past the jump point and still no sign of pursuit. It really appears that the Bugs have decided to let Hyme leave in peace!

Hyme has been ordered back to Earth to receive a medal for his cool and correct handling of Humanity's first peaceful alien contact.

 

[blue emu]

I've never even heard of this game before...

You should consider reading the AAR linked in my signature, "Ad Astra" (To the stars!). The battle of Wolf 294 was the scariest and most difficult fight I can recall in any wargame I've played.

 

[GaiusC]

Oh, good thing the relations were at -9. That's not much hostility to begin with.
On the other hand, I've never seen so many alien ships at the same time - unless it was a Swarm, but then it's just a bunch of fighters-like, not tens of real big ships... So, that's an ever better thing that those weren't hostile. You don't want to have to deal with such a massive fleet at pretty much any point in the game, I'd say - unless you outclass them by several levels of techs.

For anyone who wants a position, three (soon to be six) scouts are up for grabs, as are twenty freighters, three colony ships, two radar bases (and soon some missile bases), several scientists, fuel refineries, xenologists, geologists, administrators of various rocks and comets, a tug...

Gaius Sturmschnitzel is still lost somehwere on some Earthian Academy, I think. Pick him up for whatever important goal you have to fill up next. Fighter pilot, explorer, sgt of a battalion ensuring security of Mars, or whatever

 

[blue emu]

We are nearly ready to start designing warships... but I might wait just a few more years, to pick up another level of sensor tech (for Battle Management Vessels) and a level or two of thrust augmentation tech (for fighters).

We are up to nearly 50 labs, and our finances are holding out admirably well (although of course we don't have a Navy under construction yet).

 

[blue emu]

Establishing communications with the Bugs is proving to be frustratingly difficult and time-consuming. Perhaps they have some sort of Hive-Mind physiology which is very resistant to the attempts of our communications and diplomatic specialists?

 

[hyme]

Three additional classes of Bug ships (totaling 77 ships) have joined the procession, all of them flying in lock-step formation with Hyme toward the exit jump point.

The classes are:

Acalte x 7 (Thermal 1200)
Tomate x 39 (Thermal 90)
Guajolote x 19 (Thermal 90)
Zoqueto x 12 (Thermal 90)

I still haven't flipped on our active sensor to learn their displacement... I might do that just before jumping out.

EDIT: Twelve days en route to the jump point, and the Bugs are still holding their fire... so far...

I hope I make it.

 

[TheExecuter]

I hope I make it.

Yeah.

Those guys don't look as fun as the hippies.

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

Wow. That`s what I call a fleet. So we have technologically hyper-superior Hippies on one side and zerg-rush Bugs on the other side. This is going to be an interesting ride.

 

[hyme]

Wow. That`s what I call a fleet. So we have technologically hyper-superior Hippies on one side and zerg-rush Bugs on the other side. This is going to be an interesting ride.

Well, the bugs seem to be peaceful or maybe they were deciding if they could eat us or not.

 

[blue emu]

So now we know who that interstellar freeway belongs to... it runs right through the Bug system.

Interesting that they ran it through the adjacent Luyten 726-8 system and well beyond that point, but NOT into the Sol system. Could the Sol => Luyten 726-8 jump point be one of those "dormant" jump points that is only visible from our end?

 

[GaiusC]

Good question...

(though the "meta" explanation is quite obvious: there's no visible jump gate in the solar system, for real, so there can hardly be one in Aurora )

 

[blue emu]

Given the number of Bug ships (and gates), these people must have been active since the start of the game... which means that they must be THE at-start NPR. Only one is initially active. With 1000 stars in the galaxy, it's a weird coincidence that we started THIS close to the other player.

 

[GaiusC]

With 1000 stars in the galaxy, it's a weird coincidence that we started THIS close to the other player.

Well, you don't know how far - as in: over how many systems - their space highway actually goes

(though, indeed, considering their huge fleet, odds are that you might actually have found their core system, or one of the very first they settled in.

 

[blue emu]

We have STILL not managed to establish communications with the Bugs, despite having a skill-170 team working on the problem for nearly a year.

EDIT: ... so of course, my very next attempt succeeds. The race identifies itself as the Jiadliaokl Enclave. They remain "Bugs" to me. Current Diplomatic rating: +46.

 

[hyme]

We have STILL not managed to establish communications with the Bugs, despite having a skill-170 team working on the problem for nearly a year.

EDIT: ... so of course, my very next attempt succeeds. The race identifies itself as the Jiadliaokl Enclave. They remain "Bugs" to me. Current Diplomatic rating: +46.

How long does that normally take?

 

[blue emu]

A few months?

OK, we have managed to research the second-last Thrust Augmentation tech (x2.5)... the LAST one (x3) will cost us 30,000 research points, so we are putting that off for a while. This x2.5 TA tech will finally allow us to design half-decent missiles, which we are doing now.

Since we completed research on Box Launchers last year, this means that practical Fighters (and Carriers) are now just around the corner... although that weapon system cannot be effective until we have Battle Management Vessels with a detection range of at least half-a-billion km. Still working on that.

 

[blue emu]

Our new missiles:

Size 4 ASM 4-27k-59.6m-62.1 1943 missile
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 4 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 23
Speed: 27000 km/s Engine Endurance: 37 minutes Range: 59.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.3804
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 621% 3k km/s 207% 5k km/s 124.2% 10k km/s 62.1%
Materials Required: 1x Tritanium 2.3804x Gallicite Fuel x1487.5

Development Cost for Project: 338RP

Size 1 AMM 1-36k-3.8m-79.2 1943 missile
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 22
Speed: 36000 km/s Engine Endurance: 2 minutes Range: 3.8m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.9304
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 792% 3k km/s 264% 5k km/s 158.4% 10k km/s 79.2%
Materials Required: 0.25x Tritanium 0.6804x Gallicite Fuel x50

Development Cost for Project: 93RP

 

[Baron Jukaga]

Secret leak of the Kaiserreich Starfighter program:

Spoiler

 

[blue emu]

I sat in the pilot's seat of one of those (Starfighter F-104G) when I was 11 years old, out on the runway at Baden-Soelingen, Germany.

We have now found eleven star systems linked by the Bug Interstellar Freeway... but have encountered no Bug ships anywhere except in the 107 Piscium system.