Ad Astra! ... an Aurora Forum Game, run by blue emu

[ForzaA]

So I gather that, essentially, humanity is now turning into a parasite on a galactic scale? Mine a planet/celestial body empty (and fairly quickly), move on..
What to do with the population of depleted planets?

 

[ForzaA]

Also: We should begin thinking about Ground Troop Unit names. I'm thinking Roughnecks.

We need a Rodger Young first, really.

 

[ForzaA]

... starting to make a bit of progress...

Is this Josh Myers a forum character?

If not, could mr. Myers have an unfortunate incident, after which he is replaced by Henry D'Aazrof, who has an uncanny resemblance to mr. Myers?

Otherwise, put me in the queue for either the engineers or whichever new scientist comes along.

 

[ForzaA]

How's Henry D'Aazrof doing? (skills)
And what? (current research)

 

[ForzaA]

So, basically, the Charlies are blockading a system that we have first claim to (as far as we know) - I say we blast them to smithereens as soon as possible - just don't let the diplomats know we're essentially just stalling for time.

It's not formally aggression what they're doing, but it isn't exactly friendly either.

What IS curious, however, is that they appear to not have made any attempt to jump through to Ross-bignumber.

 

[ForzaA]

What is the career path for a fighter pilot?

Fighter bay
attack vector
die in blaze of glory

 

[ForzaA]

They have the resources and military confidence to build jump gates leading FROM our home system.
We are a MOUSE, if not a smaller rodent.

We do NOT start a shooting war. We pray to the great avian in the sky that Charlie remains friendly.

 

[ForzaA]

Why is General Robert E. Lee commanding an Alien force that seeks to exterminate us?

States' rights. Nothing to do with slaves, honestly.



Ah well, at least this should take care of all the hotheads clamouring for war with Charlie.

 

[ForzaA]

I don´t know how clever the AI is, but if we put mines or buoys on every Jump Point that leads towards Earth, wouldn´t that be like drawing the enemy a map? (The Charlie situation is different since they already know Sol and they are not hostile).

That would be a pretty clever AI.

Not to mention pretty steadfast and/or well-armored

that is to say: moar mines!

 

[Darkrenown]

This is a HUGE star system, with nine jump points and two suns, each with their own family of planets, moons, asteroids, etc. It takes literally MONTHS for a civilian ship to drive across it... although those Lagrange points will provide some short-cuts. You can see Stonewall's expedition crossing the space between the two suns to establish the new colony on one of the planets at top left.

How do Lagrange points help? Intra-system jumps?

Also, is it possible to look at the tech tree and see how far you would need to advance to match Charlie's speed? If so we would have some idea of their general tech level when sizing them up for a fight.

 

[ForzaA]

They spent four days trading, and then took off again, headed for the jump point to Ross 248. These guys are slow enough that I could actually follow them, and find out where they come from... but it might be more prudent to wait until WE get trade access from THEM, and then follow the next trade mission back to its home planet.

Landing the Fighters and recalling the Fleet. Should I start retro-fitting the Fleet up to modern standards, a few ships at a time?

I would say follow them anyway, at least until Ross 248 - possibly they offer you the treaty by the time they'd make a jump to Groombridge (or elsewhere, even) and it might be a while for the next fleet to arrive.

 

[ForzaA]

i.e. a Hiroshima bomb.

While Hiroshima was a single stage fission weapon, the implication doesn't really work the other way round.

For one thing - even if we look at pure fission weapons, the Ivy King test was a 500kton explosion (rather than the 15kton or so that was Hiroshima)
And I would still count fusion boosted fission weapons as single stage. (and those get quite a bit more violent than Hiroshima)


--

Still, some regression can't be denied.

 

[ForzaA]

What about reducing research for a few months, just take some RL away from the unimportant projects...

Shame that there are no unimportant projects that have any RL assigned...

 

[ForzaA]

If we intend conquest, just make sure it doesn't turn into a second battle of Salamis.

 

[ForzaA]

Aside from espionage, how does one find hidden/dormant jump links?
Will they always be visible from the other system, say?
Or is it a matter of being lucky while maintaining a scan on the location?
Or... ?

 

[ForzaA]

I think it's a brilliant idea... the only problem is that it might not actually work. If it does, we're rolling... I'll just build a crap-load of them (having no engines, these "ships" are quite quick and cheap to build) and park a bunch in orbit around each Gas Giant that has a decent concentration of Sorium. Send a Tanker once a year or so, to suck out all the refined fuel, and leave them to it.

... and it gets even better! If this works, why not Terraforming Space Stations? Build several "ships" with no engines, but with as many Terraforming modules as I can cram in... and use Tugs to drag them over to a nearly-habitable planet such as Mars. Park them in orbit and let them go to work. The really clever part is that Planetary Terraforming Installations... the ones that you build on the surface of a planet... require 250,000 colonists to run each installation. But the ship modules don't. That saves me 250,000 labor for each module, and I might be able to cram several modules into each Orbital Station. Those couple-of-million colonists that I save by using Space Stations instead of Planetary Terraforming Installations can be used to run mines or factories instead.

ooohh, me likes.

Would those designs be civilian or military by the way? If civilian..........

 

[ForzaA]

All hell is about to break loose, isn't it?

Commander Arnold Kiwi Rimmer in ESN Maxwell has discovered an Earth-like, class-0 world in the Mu Hercules system, Hubwards of Earth and only two jumps from our colony on The Nexus. Atmosphere a bit thicker than Earth's, Nitrogen 77% / Oxygen 23%, average temperature +15.7 degrees centigrade, gravity 1.09g, 88% oceans / 12% land surface. Looks very nice. Primary very similar to Sol, three rock-balls, five rocky planets (one class-0, three marginally habitable), one super-jovian, 20 moons, no asteroids, no gas giants. We will have to send in a scout to check for Aliens, as soon as one comes available.

So, what sort of nasty aliens on this planet...

Chestbursters?

Mind controlling slugs?

 

[ForzaA]

It's under control. The full formula is:

Surface Temperature in Kelvin = Base Temperature in Kelvin x Greenhouse Factor x Albedo

Greenhouse Factor = 1 + (Atmospheric Pressure /10) + Greenhouse Pressure (Maximum = 3.0)

So is that the max Greenhouse Factor being 3.0 or the max Greenhouse Pressure being 3.0 ?
How about the base temperature and Albedo of Mars?

 

[ForzaA]

It's Greenhouse Pressure... but the limit of 3.0 probably isn't going to be a constraint, since currently with 83% of the atmosphere being greenhouse gas the greenhouse pressure is only 0.0506 (base temperature of Mars at this distance from Sol is 225 kelvin, albedo has been 1.0 ever since we started... no change).

hmm, ok - how about Earth itself? (base temperature, Albedo, greenhouse pressure.. atm. pressure at 1atm, I assume?)
Venus would probably need a ton of greenhouse gasses removed, but otherwise possible?
Mercury.. might need a <1 Albedo?
How about the outer planets, or moons around them?

Obviously, I don't expect that to be *worthwile*, but should you have terraformers to spare and/or a hugely inflated ego, would it be possible?

 

[ForzaA]

take off every 'zig'!
For great Justice!

Actually, no, keep at least one strike behind in case another shows up on a more dangerous vector.