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

[ForzaA]

Or, considering that he MAY have been firing missiles already, he's returning home to reload? Or merely standing off after launching the first salvo?

 

[ForzaA]

What did he use for a target solution? He never turned on any active sensors. Unless he is relying entirely on homing warheads, he can't possibly hit us without a target solution (normally provided by a combination of active sensors and fire control computers).

You never saw him turn on an active sensor, in any case; or is that impossible to miss?

 

[ForzaA]

The ' character is a "special" character in most databases -- at an old job I once had a guy named O'Connor try to use a form on our web site and revealed a nice bug for my programmer to fix. I'd avoid it moving forward, especially since the game is in alpha and Steve likely hasn't worked around these types of things yet.

Carrying a last name likewise endowed with an apostrophe... It would appear 99% of programmers doesn't consider the possibility

Our research teams have completed Grav (Active) Sensors sensitivity 16, Ceramic Composite Armor and Delta Shields.

Let's see if my memory is accurate; Delta Shields was being researched by Henry D'Aazrof, yes? What's his new job, and did he get a skill upgrade yet?

 

[ForzaA]

beams triggering weapons explosions? I dunno?
Fighters?

improved CIWS?

 

[ForzaA]

(Where) do the fighters figure into any of this?

 

[ForzaA]

Maybe it's time to open another discussion.

Several of our Military Shipyards are reaching 20,000 tons capacity. Our largest current warship is 15,000 tons. With the increased capacity, we can either build a line of larger warships, or build small warships much faster (I think it goes by the something close to square of the difference, so a 20,000 ton Shipyard can construct a 5,000 ton warship almost twice as fast).

We should consider our current Navy, and decide what weaknesses it has which should be addressed by our new construction program.

I'll start:

At present, we have no real ability to detect or engage small vessels such as Fighters or Fast Attack Craft (no sensors with intermediate resolutions, in between 1 and 100), and we have no Fast Attack Craft of our own. We also have no purpose-built PD vessels, no Gun-Ships, and only one Ammunition Tender... in fact, we are generally rather short of support vessels.

We should also consider the SORT of engagements we intend to fight.

So far, ALL our engagements, you have done your utmost to maintain range for missiles, and even though the Prix have a significant tech lead, they were unable to close to beam distance (if by a hairsbreadth)

Any ship relying on beams to deal damage, as such, has no place in our current fleet.

I could see a separate detachment working on closing to beam distance, with a new, larger, lead ship for that detachment - but size is generally counterproductive when it comes to closing the distance (a LOT of engines will be needed to provide sufficient speed to close against an oponent who wishes to maintain distance. Big ships are hard to hide)
Like the battleships of Earth's blue water navies, I would think that large, short-range weapons platforms have no place in your space navy; if you "must" use the size; Either do so as large PD platforms - but then, the question is, would this role not be much better fullfilled by a few smaller PD platforms? Issues of fire control might give the leg up to large platforms, but I wouldn't think so. OR use the size for large missile cruisers or carriers.

More ammunition ships would probably be a good addition, but I doubt the extra size would be needed there (and indeed, might just make them more of a target)

With regards to defense against fighters, small attack crafts - that's what you have CAP for, right?

 

[ForzaA]

Yes and no. Mostly no.

NONE of our vessels has an appropriate Active Sensor or Fire Control system for engaging very small targets at medium ranges. The sensitivity of sensors, outside their designed range of target sizes, obeys the inverse-square rule.

Example:

Suppose my sensor is designed to pick up size-100 (5000 ton) targets, as nearly all of our main-armament sensors are. A group of 300-ton Fighters approach to launch missiles. They are size-6 targets, so our sensor's sensitivity is reduced (relative to them) by (6/100)squared. A sensor designed to pick up warships at 50 million km could only detect those Fighters at 180,000 km. Naturally, that's about a thousand times closer than they need to come in order to launch missiles at us.

Would a dedicated "CAP leader" (compare strike leader Gnat) fighter work?

You have these lovely flexible platforms (CVs), why not make use of that flexibility
I would imagine a new fighter can be designed and built ever so slightly faster than a dedicated anti-fighter ship.

 

[Darkrenown]

Shouldn't you wait to see what bounty of techs you can recover from El Dorado before designing any new ships/fleets, or will it take too long to harvest the alien cities? Would be a shame to lay down a new series of ships only to to see them outdated before they're built.

 

[Darkrenown]

There's a lot on that planet, but there'll be a lot in the other Prix systems too. We should definitely wait till the quick stuff is recovered and returned to Earth, but anything that could years or months to recover can carry on in the background while we move on to the next target, in my opinion. Most of what we're upgrading, like fighters and missiles are quick to replace and tend to get used up anyway - all those thousands of missiles we expended taking this planet were already obsolete, as it turned out.

Oh sure, churn out fighters and missiles, but there was talk of a strategic review and musing on a new, larger ship class to use now we have 20k ton military slips. Anything destroyer sized or larger is going to be a multi-year build. Also, just because Emu took out this Prix system doesn't mean we'll be able to take out others. The fleet was pretty lucky that the Prix seemed to be very low on shipkiller missiles.

Speaking of Fighters: Once we have faster fighters, will we make actual fighter strikes? That is, close the fighters to their missile range, fire, and return to rearm, rather than just holding them with the fleet to soak missiles?

Also, is SteveW Steve White, of Starfire fame? I was getting a lot of Starfire vibes from this AAR, but didn't think much of it until "SteveW" appeared.

 

[Darkrenown]

As for fighters, that's going to depend on just how good their sensors are. They weren't deliberately used as targets, they were on a missile run in that first battle. If we can't get them into firing range before they enter PD they'll just end up as missile soaks whether we like it or not.

They stayed with the fleet though, IIRC, since their missiles actually had the same range as the fleet's and they had no speed advantage.

 

[Darkrenown]

Yes, I have played a lot of EVE online. The wrecks and salvage in Aurora were a EVE-related addition. I don't know reddit.

May I ask what inspiration you got from Honor Harrington? I'm a huge HH fan, but so far nothing has brought it to mind, other than both being awesome and set in space

 

[Darkrenown]

Early this year. We've been consolidating the system since then... we have brought in three Brigade HQs, one commanding four Garrison Battalions, the other two commanding a total of eight Heavy Armor and Assault Infantry formations. We have set up a colony of 200,000 people on the captured Prix world under Governor Nixon, and are bringing in life-support Infrastructure to support a larger population. Our Xenology team under Julius Strange is examining the Ruins.

I think people were expecting ground combat. I take it the Prix didn't have any troops?

 

[Darkrenown]

In many ways the combat system is HH-based. Missiles with ranges in the tens of millions of km, launching in salvos 20-40 seconds apart. Short ranged, fast firing beam weapons with ranges of 500,000 km or less. Point defence comprising anti-missiles and point blank beam weapons, etc.

Hmm, I kind of see that, I suppose. The ships are much slower though, and the lack of wedges mean internally launched missiles are still deadly at long ranges. Then again, HH humans have a bit of a tech lead over the Emu federation.

 

[Darkrenown]

In my case, the whole concept of "jump point FTL" and "space navies" blowing away at each other with missiles immediately made me thing of Honor Harrington. For instance, Basilisk Station was placed in a completely uninteresting system that happened to have several jump points, and that led to the need for a permanent presence by the RMN, setting up an outpost where there was no real point in having one otherwise. A bit like Emu's Nexus.

Jump points (Worm holes) are pretty rare in HH, whereas they are the standard method of travel in Starfire. Also, since I am in HH sperg mode lready, Basilisk only had one Worm hole, it was important because it linked to the Manticore home system, plus it opened up a previously out of the way region.

 

[Darkrenown]

It is now July 2044. In about seven more months, the first four of our new Gauss PD Escorts will be ready, and with them in hand I intend to go Prix-hunting again.

That I guess

Edit: Emued, literally!

 

[Darkrenown]

Please make me a character and place me on the ESN Partly Cloudy with a Thirty Percent Chance Of Rain!

Also, I add "Cloudburst" to the list of names.

 

[Darkrenown]

We have recovered another Genetic Modification Center, and another free tech... this one is a genetic modification that will allow colonists to withstand a greater degree of heat or cold (+/- 1 degree C).

EDIT: And speaking of Colonists... the terraforming project on Mars has raised the average global temperature up to PLUS two-and-three-quarters degrees Centigrade, more than fifty degrees higher than it was in 2025. Now all we need to do is to finish adjusting the Oxygen balance, and Mars will be a class-0 world.

Can you actually use these Genetic Modification Centers you keep finding?

Also, is there any benefit to making Mars more earth-like or is class 0 as good as it gets? It still seems fairly chilly.

 

[Darkrenown]

Naturally, the more groups that I divide into, the better my chances of intercepting them... but the weaker the intercepting group will be.

If the ships are unarmed/out of ammo as they appear to be, weaker groups should be fine. I say use at least 4 groups

Edit: For ramming attacks, they'll run into PD missile/Gauss range if they try to ram, I think that plus the ASM should be plenty even with the fleet in quarters.
We could also use the fighters in separate groups and or/send them ahead for the groups for the initial strikes.

 

[ForzaA]

Unfortunately... I'm out of smokes. I'm going to run down to the corner store. Back soon.

For want of a nail smoke, the kingdom Aviocracy was lost.

 

[Darkrenown]

Actually... by coincidence, the task force that he's closing in on is the one with both of the fast Rock-IIIs in it. 6500 kps instead of the usual 4000. I'm tempted to send them out ahead, and see if he wants to ram them. They've got twenty layers of armor... if he does ram them, his ship will probably fold up like a paper hat.

Really? I would have thought a ramming atack at these speeds would kill anything.