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

[blue emu]

Taking a look at the Insane Killer Robot Gift Shop, I realize that our Engineers have dug up two Ground Forces Training Centers, a Research Lab, a couple of Fighter Factories and six Ordnance Factories out of the alien ruins. All of that can be moved to Earth.

 

[blue emu]

March 24th, 2031.

The same crap in a new five-day bucket. The Modrons offer a polite suggestion. Diplo +70.3

Our first three eight-ship squadrons of Partystarters are complete. Twenty-four jump-capable missile platforms, enough to fill one Mountain class small-craft Tender.

Now we're just waiting for the jump gate to be finished, to give the Mountain access from Harmony to the Neutral Zone. It's under construction.

Then we can test out our new weapons.

In the meantime, the second half of the Gunship force and the first half of the Carrier force are under overhaul at Harmony.

STO construction has finished and our Ground Forces Training Centers have switched to training Light Infantry, for the invasion of Mechanus.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Our first three eight-ship squadrons of Partystarters are complete. Twenty-four jump-capable missile platforms, enough to fill one Mountain class small-craft Tender.

I thought it took 4 squadrons.

 

[blue emu]

I thought it took 4 squadrons.

No.

The Partystarters are about 500 tons each (498, most of them). They are in squadrons of eight, so 4,000 tons per squadron.

Carriers hold 8,000 tons (16 Partystarters). Two squadrons.

Mountains hold 12,000 tons (24 Partystarters). Three squadrons.

 

[blue emu]

March 29th, 2031.

Another polite suggestion from the Bork. Diplo +71.5

Ok, we built about 40,000 tons worth of troops in that first five-day turn. If we really are building 40,000 tons of troops every five days, that's nearly a quarter of a million tons of troops per month, and three million tons of troops per year.

That puts us right on track for an army of 10+ million tons. Especially when you consider that we are building more GFTCs (Ground Forces Training Centers).

 

[Acheron]

March 29th, 2031.

Another polite suggestion from the Bork. Diplo +71.5

Ok, we built about 40,000 tons worth of troops in that first five-day turn. If we really are building 40,000 tons of troops every five days, that's nearly a quarter of a million tons of troops per month, and three million tons of troops per year.

That puts us right on track for an army of 10+ million tons. Especially when you consider that we are building more GFTCs (Ground Forces Training Centers).

mustnotmakeamericanfatjoke, mustnotmakeamericanfatjoke, mustnotmakeamericanfatjoke...

 

[Wagonlitz]

March 29th, 2031.

Another polite suggestion from the Bork. Diplo +71.5

Ok, we built about 40,000 tons worth of troops in that first five-day turn. If we really are building 40,000 tons of troops every five days, that's nearly a quarter of a million tons of troops per month, and three million tons of troops per year.

That puts us right on track for an army of 10+ million tons. Especially when you consider that we are building more GFTCs (Ground Forces Training Centers).

Sounds good.

 

[blue emu]

mustnotmakeamericanfatjoke, mustnotmakeamericanfatjoke, mustnotmakeamericanfatjoke...

The Americans would just use squads with fewer but wider soldiers in them.

 

[RowanOfElton]

The Americans would just use squads with fewer but wider men in them.

View attachment 1288900

Fat's just nature's kevlar, yeah?

 

[SteveZAX]

when you said you wanted to test the partystarters, i only thought "send them through on squadron jump and see how much they scatter, and their jump shock delay" , but no, you mean to attack something with them, right?

 

[blue emu]

when you said you wanted to test the partystarters, i only thought "send them through on squadron jump and see how much they scatter, and their jump shock delay" , but no, you mean to attack something with them, right?

Correct.

The plan is to send our main fleet to set up an ambush on the Modron's own doorstep - on the Neutral Zone end of the Mechanus => Neutral Zone jump point. Then we mount a real attack with the Partystarters on the isolated enemy force in Phi Arietis. I only spotted one warship in that stack. Maybe two.

If the Modron fleet sorties to punish our Partystarter force, they run smack into a jump point ambush right on their doorstep.

 

[randakar]

Sensible and smart. I like it.

It would make sense to do a dry run too though. And get their crew training level up as that reduces jump shock duration.

 

[SteveZAX]

Of course they can dry run through EVERY jump point on the way from Earth to neutral zone

 

[randakar]

Of course they can dry run through EVERY jump point on the way from Earth to neutral zone

The crew training is the tricky bit. Ideally they have 100% training but depending on the officers assigned that can take a year or more of training.

Ship Crew - AuroraWiki

aurorawiki.pentarch.org

Training Exercises​

This is the ability of combat vessels (PPV > 0) to work within a particular task force and respond quickly to orders. It only comes into play when there are hostile contacts in the same system. A task group has a Task Force Training Rating that is equal to the average of all its ships. A low TF Training Rating means that task groups may take up to a minute or so to respond to movement commands. A low individual rating for a ship means it may take a while to open fire while told to do so and make have further delays when ordered to change targets. It will also be bad at formation keeping if you have a formation set up. This TF training rating represents the likely confusion when a group of ships that are not used to operate together are given orders to do something together in a stressful situation.

You can raise the TF training rating by sending your ships on Fleet Training Exercises, much like modern day navies do before deploying a fleet. This can be set on the second tab of the F12 window, near the bottom left. This will only work if the task group is in the same system as the Task Force to which it is assigned. During fleet training exercises the annual rate of points gained is the Crew Training Skill of the Task Force Commander plus the operations bonus of the Operations Staff Officer. So if the task force commander has crew training of 200 and the operations officer has an ops bonus of 30%, annual crew training points would be 260. This is further increased by the grade bonus of the ship being trained. A ship has to gain 500 training points to have 100% fleet training skill.

 

[blue emu]

We won't have enough officers to train every Partystarter. They're like Fighters. Maybe one officer per group.

 

[randakar]

Let's see what their jump shock period looks like without it then.

 

[blue emu]

April 4th, 2031.

The usual polite request from the Bork. Diplo +72.8

Still grinding out troops. So far we're averaging about 37,000 tons of troops per five-day period. But we have more GFTCs in the build queue.

 

[randakar]

Very nice. 2.664 million tons per year. Seems like we're well on track to be ready for that part of the war in about 4 years.

We also have some academies in the build queue, right? Somewhere low priority I presume, but .. given the above discussion a few more we can definitely make use of.

 

[blue emu]

Naturally we can test the basic functionality of the Partystarter launch platforms without needing an enemy present.

We can have a Tender take a ship-load of Partystarters out to some friendly jump point, park the Tender on one side of the jump point and deploy the Partystarters, then everybody squadron-jump through simultaneously and everybody fire one missile, in synchronized barrage fire , against a test target.

There will be 11-30 seconds delay from the jump shock associated with the squadron jump - it would have been 2-3 minutes with a standard jump instead - and then further delay from inexperienced crew penalties. But the interval that passes between jumping through and firing the missiles should offer a useful metric.

 

[blue emu]

A Modron scout!