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

[blue emu]

More than a day later. Still alive.

We're being followed (escorted?) towards the jump point, by a vessel that is keeping a sensor lock on us. Since this looks like their home system, that seems perfectly reasonable. It's what we ourselves might do.

Hopefully, they plan no last-minute treachery.

EDIT: The aliens have adjusted their course and speed to match our own, but following 70 million km behind us.

... so we know that their sensor can track us at that range.

 

[blue emu]

Eight days later. Still alive. About 40% of the way to the jump point. Still no hostile acts from the aliens, but they refuse to reply to our signals.

 

[blue emu]

Nearly there.

Still trailing 69 million km behind us.

 

[Blaaat]

Looks like these are reasonable Xenos, that's a first.

 

[blue emu]

Commander Happycat and the ESNS Charles Darwin have made the jump to the Luhman 16 system.

The Aliens followed at a distance, but did not interfere.

Now the question is... will they also jump through and try to follow us back to Earth?

Once out of the alien system, Commander Happycat sets course for another unexplored jump point... let's try to shake these aliens off our tail.

EDIT:

The aliens did NOT follow us out of their system. They just escorted us to the jump point and then waved goodbye.

 

[Yvanoff]

Wew! That was quite the rollercoaster of emotions. Glad to not be in charge of that ship ^^

 

[Nikolai II]

Wew! That was quite the rollercoaster of emotions. Glad to not be in charge of that ship ^^

I do hope they have proper washing facilities for underwear.

This can result in what we shall euphemistically term "very briefly entertaining" situations, in the sense of walking into a dark room and turning on that flashlight only to find the entire room is completely covered in (very startled) rats.

 

[blue emu]

Well... THAT was interesting.

After they all flipped on their Active Sensors at once, I was almost sure they were Precursors.

Glad to be proven wrong.

 

[blue emu]

So... we should discuss this.

The presence of an alien homeworld only TWO JUMPS from Earth is a game-changer.

Setting aside any question of their attitude and possible intentions... they didn't shoot, but they refused to even acknowledge our broadcasts, let alone reply to them... any threat estimate must be based on capabilities, not on perceived intentions.

And that's pretty sobering, since their ships move at four times the speed of ours and have Thermal signatures twelve times higher and sensor emissions ten times brighter than our scout craft (which, admittedly, is not designed to look impressive to aliens).

I suggest that we prioritize weapon and sensor research. Build research labs.

Man... this is going to put a bit of a crimp in our expansion...

 

[blue emu]

Not sure what would be best.

Check the map again:

The Luhman 16 system is directly adjacent to both their homeworld system and ours. It's also on our star gate network. I do NOT want aliens owning the Luhman 16 system. I don't mind friendly aliens transiting the system, but I want to keep control of it.

My gut instinct (especially since they haven't found Earth yet - as far as we know) is to BLUFF them and claim the Luhman 16 system as our own property. The whole star system is almost uninhabitable, but there's one point (a moon of a gas giant) where it's possible to build a colony. It's no vacation spot... at a temperature of -235 C, Nitrogen is a rock... but with a truly ludicrous amount of life-support infrastructure it would be possible to set up quite a large colony there. There's room on the moon to support over one and a half million colonists... enough to validate our claim to the system, certainly.

Naturally, we can't actually DEFEND it. But we can't defend Earth, either, at this point in the game. Not from THESE guys. Too low-tech. Too weak.

In a limited-information game... bluffing might be our best option, while we scramble to catch up in tech and in deployed weapons.

 

[Yvanoff]

So, you're basically hoping aliens will respect private property here ? If we say it's ours and they're nice, they'll leave Luhman 16 alone ?

I suppose that's a plan. Though how costly would it be in terms of resources ? In other words, what else could we do with the resources we'd spend on colonizing that system ? Because if they decide to be aggressive, that's going to be a loss (I guess at this point if they decide to be aggressive, we're dead anyway, so I see why bet on them being pacifists - but won't the presence of a human-owned system right on their border make them more aggressive ?)

 

[Deleted user]

They must have liked the name. I've met intelligent life and survived! I will not confirm the status of our underwater at this time, my only report is to please not ask about why our water usage is significantly higher than usual at the next refit.

 

[blue emu]

So, you're basically hoping aliens will respect private property here ? If we say it's ours and they're nice, they'll leave Luhman 16 alone ?

I suppose that's a plan. Though how costly would it be in terms of resources ? In other words, what else could we do with the resources we'd spend on colonizing that system ? Because if they decide to be aggressive, that's going to be a loss (I guess at this point if they decide to be aggressive, we're dead anyway, so I see why bet on them being pacifists - but won't the presence of a human-owned system right on their border make them more aggressive ?)

If we just let the Galapa-Goons have the Luhman 16 system, they will STILL have a human-owned system right on their border. Our home-world.

How much will colonization cost us? Infrastructure costs 2 per point. A research lab or shipyard costs 2400.

 

[Wagonlitz]

We're getting lots of time-interrupts...

View attachment 1076190

... but they're very irregular, occurring anywhere from 20 minutes apart to two days apart. A hidden hostile watching one of our Survey Craft? That would explain the irregular timing, since different rocks would take us different amounts of time to survey.

Of course, it might have nothing to do with us. It might be two hostiles stalking each other, halfway across the map.

How large jumps in time does the game usually generate? I.e. how fast does it run?

Known Space, July 13th 1970

View attachment 1076192

The gold lines represent our Star Gates; so we have four links of our Star Gate network complete (Sol <=> Alpha Centauri, Sol <=> Psi Ceti, Sol <=> 61 Hydrae, and Sol <=> Luhman 16) and are working on two more... Sol <=> Sirius and 61 Hydrae <=> EZ Aquarii.

Why are we building star gates to ssytems we dont' operate in?

Commander Happycat has discovered a nearly-habitable planet in Struve 2398.

A world much larger than Earth, with a surface gravity of nearly 1.8g... but it has a breathable Nitrogen / Oxygen atmosphere!

A temperature of -48 degreed C, and 85% of the planet is covered by a frozen ocean... so we might consider removing some of that water while we are warming the place up.

Did we get to see what resources it had? Like, given you said you wanted a colny there, thne I take it it had a lot?

Also, would these enemies be that other, main race, or a race we basically created, like you said the main rivals could?

As well, the major failing in the flashlight analogy is that active sensors, unlike flashlights, are heavily tuned. They are designed to a specific resolution measured in tonnage, which determines how far away they can see ships (and missiles) of a specific size. If you want to see very small missiles, your active sensor cannot reach very far, but it will see anything of missile size or large through that entire range. On the flip side, designing an active sensor to see large batleships of hundreds of kilotonnes can let you spot these very far out for the same hull displacement, but will render you completely blind to anything much smaller. This trade-off means you'll typically want several designs of active sensors, designed specifically for missiles and ships close to the expected sizes you believe you might encounter - an active sensor designed to detect battleships is worse than worthless if you end up facing fighters and missiles, as it's nothing but dead weight to slow you down.

Is it possible to have active sensors of all range tunings if your ship ir large enough?

If this is NOT the Precursors, then this is likely to be their home system, given the habitable planet. So we should LEAVE as quickly as possible, and send a Diplomatic vessel instead. Diplomatic vessels do not raise inter-species tension by being in your star system. Other vessels (including Scouts) do raise the tension.

Do we have nay diplomatic vessels?

but they refuse to reply to our signals.

Is that normal?

After they all flipped on their Active Sensors at once, I was almost sure they were Precursors.

Culdn't they still be?
Also, I thoguht the precursors were all dead and only their robit ships remained.

Also, was it posisble they might have followed you to try and deduce where Earth is? Couldn't they still do it?

The Luhman 16 system is directly adjacent to both their homeworld system and ours. It's also on our star gate network.

D we want to remove that stargate?

In a limited-information game... bluffing might be our best option, while we scramble to catch up in tech and in deployed weapons.

Wouldn't it be likely they knew of Earth, though?

How much will colonization cost us? Infrastructure costs 2 per point. A research lab or shipyard costs 2400.

Whst's a point? As in, how many points would a colony cost?

 

[Deleted user]

Did we get to see what resources it had? Like, given you said you wanted a colny there, thne I take it it had a lot?

I highly doubt I got to look at anything before they kindly let me know that they were considering blowing me up

 

[Blaaat]

Just turn Luhman in a colony system/fortress system.

 

[blue emu]

How large jumps in time does the game usually generate? I.e. how fast does it run? - I can click any button, from 5 seconds to 30 days. Turn interrupts are when it DOESN'T go forward as much as the button I pushed called for... eg: I click the "forward 5 days" button and it only advances a few hours instead.

Why are we building star gates to ssytems we dont' operate in? - You can only connect adjacent systems to each other. If you EVER want anything to widdershins, you have to run a gate to widdershins, whether the immediately neighboring star system is useful or not.

Did we get to see what resources it had? Like, given you said you wanted a colny there, thne I take it it had a lot? - We had no chance to prospect for resoueces.

Also, would these enemies be that other, main race, or a race we basically created, like you said the main rivals could? - These guys are way too close to Earth to be our main opponent.

Is it possible to have active sensors of all range tunings if your ship ir large enough? - What do you consider to be "all range tunings"? It's a continuous spectrum.

Do we have nay diplomatic vessels? - Building one now.

Is that normal? - Each race has random scores in different stats like Diplomacy, Aggression and Xenophobia.

Culdn't they still be? - No. Precursors always attack.
Also, I thoguht the precursors were all dead and only their robit ships remained. - That's what "precursors" typically means in-game. It's a "side" in the game.

Also, was it posisble they might have followed you to try and deduce where Earth is? Couldn't they still do it? - They can't watch me from a different star system. They need assets in-system.

Do we want to remove that stargate? - Can't. It makes little difference anyway. They need FTL ships to REACH our jump-gate network.

Wouldn't it be likely they knew of Earth, though? - They might be doing their expanding in a different direction. They might not be expansionistic at all.


Whst's a point? As in, how many points would a colony cost? - Industry points. When building it. The amount of life-support infrastructure a colony requires depends on too many factors for any simplistic answer. Depends on the size of the population, the mix of gasses in the atmosphere, the temperature, the availability of water... on Mars (unbreathable atmosphere, -60 degree C temperatures, no liquid water) each point of Infrastructure allows another 5,000 people to settle. On our chosen -350 degree C colony site in Luhman 16, each point of Infrastructure will support 1,000-odd people. So spending the same amout of Industry, money and minerals on life-support infrastructure as it would cost to build ONE research lab will get us enough Infrastructure to support about 1 million people on our Luhman 16 colony site.

 

[blue emu]

Just turn Luhman in a colony system/fortress system.

Fortress systems work better if you have some weapons. But yeah. Let's get some weapons, and turn Luhman 16 into a fortress system.

 

[Wagonlitz]

> How large jumps in time does the game usually generate? I.e. how fast does it run? - I can click any button, from 5 seconds to 30 days. Turn interrupts are when it DOESN'T go forward as much as the button I pushed called for... eg: I click the "forward 5 days" button and it only advances a few hours instead.
How long do you usually progress normally?

> Also, would these enemies be that other, main race, or a race we basically created, like you said the main rivals could? - These guys are way too close to Earth to be our main opponent.
How close can we expect the main opponent to be?

Also, was tehre a cap on alien races?
Also, why were tehy called clankers? Are tehy robots?

> Is it possible to have active sensors of all range tunings if your ship ir large enough? - What do you consider to be "all range tunings"? It's a continuous spectrum.
Well, covering anythign that'd be needed. So having stuff to detect missiles as far away as possible, stuff to detect large ships very far away, stuff to detect medium ships in between, etc.

> Also, I thoguht the precursors were all dead and only their robit ships remained. - That's what "precursors" typically means in-game. It's a "side" in the game.
Side?



Can the game be cruel enoug to have aggressive xenos two systems away wh immediately hunt you down and destrouy your home planet?
Is there a risk they later go to Luhman 16 to see which jumpsite yo come back from and hence which direction our homeworld is?

 

[blue emu]

> How large jumps in time does the game usually generate? I.e. how fast does it run? - I can click any button, from 5 seconds to 30 days. Turn interrupts are when it DOESN'T go forward as much as the button I pushed called for... eg: I click the "forward 5 days" button and it only advances a few hours instead.
How long do you usually progress normally? - When at peace, I usually use 5-day increments, because Production updates every five days anyway.

> Also, would these enemies be that other, main race, or a race we basically created, like you said the main rivals could? - These guys are way too close to Earth to be our main opponent.
How close can we expect the main opponent to be? - 50 light years or somewhat further. These clowns are only 11.6 light years away.

Also, was tehre a cap on alien races?
Also, why were tehy called clankers? Are tehy robots? - That was the first name I gave them, because they look like robots.

> Is it possible to have active sensors of all range tunings if your ship ir large enough? - What do you consider to be "all range tunings"? It's a continuous spectrum.
Well, covering anythign that'd be needed. So having stuff to detect missiles as far away as possible, stuff to detect large ships very far away, stuff to detect medium ships in between, etc. - I typically give AWACS all three. Once we tech up enough. Higher tech = more compact gear.

> Also, I thoguht the precursors were all dead and only their robit ships remained. - That's what "precursors" typically means in-game. It's a "side" in the game.
Side? - Player or NPC. For game purposes there is no difference between robots and living opponents, exvept for back-story.

Can the game be cruel enoug to have aggressive xenos two systems away wh immediately hunt you down and destrouy your home planet? - Yes.
Is there a risk they later go to Luhman 16 to see which jumpsite yo come back from and hence which direction our homeworld is? - Yes.