Perhaps they are trying to leave the party your started?
A quarter of a million km to go...
View attachment 1330471
Awesome!
View attachment 1330472
View attachment 1330473
The Modrons destroyed the probe the instant it flipped on its RADAR... but too late! We got the RADAR snap-shot that we wanted!
Shipyard Complex, check!
Ground forces, check!
Eight orbital fortresses, with PD fire coming from the Allier class.
... and we learned that Red 13 (the stack of a dozen 20,000 kps FACs) is NOT currently present at the planet.
A very successful probe recon, despite the fact that it was destroyed almost instantly.
How do we know its fortifications and not ships?A quarter of a million km to go...
View attachment 1330471
Awesome!
View attachment 1330472
View attachment 1330473
The Modrons destroyed the probe the instant it flipped on its RADAR... but too late! We got the RADAR snap-shot that we wanted!
Shipyard Complex, check!
Ground forces, check!
Eight orbital fortresses, with PD fire coming from the Allier class.
... and we learned that Red 13 (the stack of a dozen 20,000 kps FACs) is NOT currently present at the planet.
A very successful probe recon, despite the fact that it was destroyed almost instantly.
So at most 10 mil.I updated the above post with some rule background.
The short version is that with a full infantry army ( max fortification level 6) in the worst terrain (jungle mountain, terrain modifier 3) that signature could be concealing an army up to 18 times bigger than the detected signature.
With less insane terrain modifiers and a bit more heavy units a x5 modifier would still not be weird though. But our army should be able to handle that.
We don't.How do we know its fortifications and not ships?
My guess is orbital fortresses. Ships are possible, though.
526.000 tons of ground combat units, including the presumably present STO.
What kind of terrain is that planet? With a bit of research into how much that affects signature size and with an educated guess at their fortification level we should be able to guess how big their ground army really is. At a glance, 5 million tons would not be a strange guess.
Edit: See
Detection formula: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110371#msg110371
Terrain fortification modifier:
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13369.msg166544#msg166544
Unit fortification level: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110539#msg110539
Damn, the gunships would enjoy those… you might almost say they would get all Emotional at them!Couple of pages of this:
View attachment 1330900
... and a couple of pages of this:
View attachment 1330901
Looks like 83 Freighters.
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View attachment 1330899
Coniferous forest. That's not much worse than open terrain. A modifier of x1.25
A self-fortification limit of 3 and a 1.25 multiplier makes it look like we're facing about 2 million tons of ground troops if they have no Engineers present to dig them in, or about double that amount if they do have Engineers.
About 4 million tons maximum. Does that look right?
Couple of pages of this:
View attachment 1330900
... and a couple of pages of this:
View attachment 1330901
Looks like 83 Freighters.
He can search for Modron mining colonies. Not likely, though, since we've seen no Freighters except the ones headed to the Abhorrent star system.