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

[Wagonlitz]

Perhaps I should point out - while the Jerx are still off somewhere, hiding - that it is essentially impossible to protect civvie shipping in the Alpha Centauri system.

The Sol jump point is five billion km from the base on Nessus. The jump to Luyten's Star is another billion km away. Our best AWACS has a RADAR range (against 5000-ton targets) of 200 million km. Even if the enemy stealth is disregarded, it would take literally dozens of DSPs to cover the trade routes from end to end.

The system is simply too BIG to guard effectively. We must settle for having enough force there to make the Jerx think twice.

How long can the range get with tech?
Also, will we be notified if the Jerx do attack civvies?

Also, is it worth it to make two DSP per trade lane in that system, ro cover it more thoroughly?


Also, think we ever will be ablet o invade the Jerx system?

 

[Iche_Bins]

Are there any plans to bolster our military to take on the precursors?

 

[blue emu]

Are there any plans to bolster our military to take on the precursors?

We are researching better Lasers (higher frequency, longer range). Also researching Stealth techs and better sensors. Active terminal guidance for missiles. Bigger Laser apertures. Lots of military research going on.

But we are WAY behind them in tech. Like... still three levels or so behind. And there were craploads of them. I counted twenty-eight of them. It will be a while before I get the urge to take them on.

How long can the range get with tech? - Beam weapons never more than 1.5 million km. Sensor range? Quite a ways... but five billion km is quite a distance.
Also, will we be notified if the Jerx do attack civvies? - Yes.

Also, is it worth it to make two DSP per trade lane in that system, ro cover it more thoroughly? - It still wouldn't cover a tenth of it. I might do, even so.

Also, think we ever will be ablet o invade the Jerx system? - No. They can never learn to use jump points. We can never learn to use their rift teleport method. Their home system has ZERO jump points. No way in, that we can use.

 

[Gawquon3]

Also, think we ever will be ablet o invade the Jerx system?

No. They can never learn to use jump points. We can never learn to use their rift teleport method. Their home system has ZERO jump points. No way in, that we can use.

What if we let them do the jumping for us? I wonder what happens if you board their ships with a bunch of space marines and the Jerx jump back before the fight concludes. Highly impractical even if it worked, obviously.

 

[blue emu]

Not sure what our exit strategy would be even if we won.

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The Luhman 16 system is just about sorted. I still need to make automatic arrangements for fuel/spares/ammo but that has to wait until the Tenders are launched.

 

[Wagonlitz]

> How long can the range get with tech? - Beam weapons never more than 1.5 million km. Sensor range? Quite a ways... but five billion km is quite a distance.
Was sensor I meant, as for covering the distance then it's sensor that matters.

> Also, think we ever will be ablet o invade the Jerx system? - No. They can never learn to use jump points. We can never learn to use their rift teleport method. Their home system has ZERO jump points. No way in, that we can use.
What a shame. Would have been fun if by scavenging their wrecks you coudl gain their rift tech.

What if we let them do the jumping for us? I wonder what happens if you board their ships with a bunch of space marines and the Jerx jump back before the fight concludes. Highly impractical even if it worked, obviously.

Why not just hijack their ships and reverse engineer the tech from them?

 

[blue emu]

Why not just hijack their ships and reverse engineer the tech from them?

Can't be done. The game does not allow Humans to learn Rift technology. Period.

Note that this is a very artificial rule. There are indeed some race-specific techs (Compressed Fuel Storage, for example. Or Advanced Lasers), but generally speaking you CAN learn them, either from (as you say) reverse engineering a wreck or by digging them up in an alien Ruin.

Only this Rift tech (as far as I know) is not allowed even for reverse engineering.

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In other news, we are preparing a new Refinery site in Luyten's Star. This will be very useful if (as we intend) we set up a major Naval base here.

The refinery will be in orbit around the Sorium-rich gas giant orbiting just beyond the planet where we plan to set up the base.

 

[Blaaat]

I've noticed there is an Aether rift option in the galaxy view screen, does that show any thing useful or does it simply confirm Jerx are Aether raiders

 

[blue emu]

I've noticed there is an Aether rift option in the galaxy view screen, does that show any thing useful or does it simply confirm Jerx are Aether raiders

I turned it on during the first raid, but didn't notice any difference. Perhaps I just didn't know what to look for.

 

[Nikolai II]

There is a turn-key tech called Genetic Engineering that you need to research in order to "open the door" to any form of genetic customization.

After that, Gravity Tolerance is measured by two parameters... median and acceptable divergence. Humans start with a median of 1g and an acceptable divergence of +/- 0.9 ... so any gravity from 0.1g to 1.9g is acceptable to Humans.

Genetic research could be used to create a sub-race that had a median of 1.4g and an acceptable divergence from 0.5 to 2.3g (because it's +/- 0.9). So they could live on that high-g Ocean planet or on Earth, but not on Mars or Luna. Ordinary Humans could live on Earth, or Mars, or Luna... but not on that Ocean planet.

But I'd rather not do the Genetic Engineering thing at this point.

Can you change the entire species, or is it only "convert a fraction"? I.e. could you just increase acceptable divergence for every living human to 1.1 G? (and bump up median to 1.1 G for good measure)?

 

[blue emu]

Can you change the entire species, or is it only "convert a fraction"? I.e. could you just increase acceptable divergence for every living human to 1.1 G? (and bump up median to 1.1 G for good measure)?

I think the conversion rate is way too slow. Maybe if you did nothing else?

 

[blue emu]

Our bank account was draining away as if the money was running out a hole in the bottom of the vault... losing about 1,000 Schmuckers every five-day build period... but by building hundreds of financial centers and hiring literally millions of accountants and lawyers, we managed to "catch" the fall at about 130,000 (down from a high of around a quarter of a million) and have started going up again.

 

[Wagonlitz]

How much does each new financial centre give, and how fast can you build them?

 

[blue emu]

How much does each new financial centre give, and how fast can you build them?

You only collect taxes from Pops that are employed in TN industries.

Each Financial Center requires 50,000 pops to run, and produces as much income as a million taxed pops.

... so a million people working in Financial Centers produces 20 times as much income for us as if they were working in mines or factories or whatever.

The Financial Centers each cost 120 cash and 120 Corbomite to build (and there isn't a lot of competition for Corbomite). To put that figure of 120 into scale, a manually operated mine costs 120 cash and 120 Corundum, and a construction factory costs 120 cash and 60 Duranium and 60 Neutronium.

EDIT:

I am also studying a tech that will increase tax income by 20%.

 

[Wagonlitz]

I meant more how much cash does a fully staffed finance centre provide per 5 day period, and how fast can you build them.

 

[blue emu]

I meant more how much cash does a fully staffed finance centre provide per 5 day period, and how fast can you build them.

Both questions get the same answer. "It depends".

As I said above, a financial center does NOT provide a set amount of cash per day. It provides whatever amout of cash (per year) that a million employed pops would provide. This depends on stuff like tech level and tax rate. So "It depends".

I focused on them for a while and built about 400 of them just now.

"How fast can we build them?" depends on stuff like how many construction factories we have, what fraction (100% or less) of those industries we want to devote to this particular project, mineral availability... "It depends".

Short answer: Each one might be worth half a buck per day, and we could build maybe 1.5 per day.

 

[blue emu]

Situation Report - October 2nd, 1989 (that's 41 years into the game):

Almost all of Known Space has been brought within the reach of our Star Gates (orange lines). Only a few scattered stars remain outside our network.

Within the stargate network, I have been quite focused on improving our infrastructure within the corridor stretching from Luhman 16 just to widdershins of Sol, through the Sol system itself and coreward through Alpha Centauri to Luyten's Star. In the future I intend to extend the high-infrastructure corridor at both ends... through Tau Ceti to widdershins and through AX Microscopii to coreward.

These are not random choices.

The areas already developed contain some of the best colony sites and mineral sites (Alpha Centauri), and also fuel sites (Luhman 16) to be found in our immediate neighborhood; and the systems we plan to expand the high-infra zone into (Tau Ceti, AX Microscopii) contain more of the same.

Forward bases in Luyten's Star and (later) Tau Ceti will greatly assist the exploration efforts in the jump points nearby. Having fuel, spare parts, shore leave and overhauls all available in the forward zone will speed up the turnaround time and also extend our scouting range and endurance.

Setting up these well-armed forward bases will also reduce the scope for banditry in the outer fringes of our empire.

... the drawback of course is that a methodical process is a slow process.

When I speak of "improving our infrastructure" in a star system, I'm talking about deploying stacks of Grinders guarded by STO on valuable comets or small moons, deploying refinery stacks, guarded by Sentry / Sauron / Airfield stacks supported by Gadgets and Devices in close orbit around high-Sorium gas giants, colonizing a planet and constructing a Naval Base on it with enough maintenance facilities for spare parts and overhauls, enough Pops for shore leave, a refueling station and a stockpile of fuel and spares, an airfield, and so on. If the system is sufficiently spread-out (like Alpha Centauri is), we might want to establish a DSP and build a second Naval Base floating free in the middle of the trade route. It would requires an Ark habitat module to provide enough Pops for shore leave.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Sounds like it's a good strategy.

The systems with a blue ring all are settled, right?
How large are the colonies in Sirius, Barnards Star, and EZ Aquarii, as well as Psi Ceti?
And will we protect trade lines to them too?

 

[blue emu]

Sounds like it's a good strategy.

The systems with a blue ring all are settled, right? - Correct, although most of them are just outposts, with a few million people.
How large are the colonies in Sirius, Barnards Star, and EZ Aquarii, as well as Psi Ceti? - Sirius 2.4 million, Barnards Star 2 million, EZ Aquarii 7.25 million, Psi Ceti 4 million.
And will we protect trade lines to them too? - Later, maybe. Too busy to even begin on that... and the trade volume there is too low to justify the investment.

 

[blue emu]

We have assembled a full Space Marine Division on Earth:

Sixteen battalions and five HQs (four brigade-level and one divisional level) making a total of 21 units each requiring 5,000 tons transport capacity.

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In other news:

Our forward scouting base in Luyten's Star (intended to support jump point exploration) now lacks only one element: fuel pumps.

Earth will send some, by fast Freighter