Ok, so I updated the game to 5.52 which meant that I had to start a new game. I'm not going to keep updating this LP month-by-month, year-by-year basis but rather just highlight interesting stuff as it happens.
Current galactic map for humanity
There are still 2 unexplored jump points in the Sol system. Still, we've found a bunch of worlds that could be terraformed fairly easily, so I have terraforming ships being built. Mars has already been terraformed to ideal - it's little bit colder than Earth but otherwise perfect for humanity. Now all the infrastructure and terraformers are being shipped to Mercury.
Anyway, two interesting things were found already:
This is Gliese 832 system:
Stable Wormhole!
I am unable to enter it and so far nothing has come through. As soon as my fleet strength allows me, I'll need to picket it. Also, people who know what that really means, please don't spoil it for others.
Then the other thing. This is Lacaille 8760 system:
I encountered aliens for the first time when my Jumper Alpha squadron jumped into the system. My gravity and geological survey ships were sent on their merry way, while the jump scout remained on the JP, active sensors on. Couple of days later, an unknown alien ship was spotted, coming towards my JSC at the velocity of 8000 km/s - which is much better than what my ships are capable of at the moment. I immediately hailed, put a diplomacy team on to try to crack their language. JSC Tycho Brace, a Copernicus class vessel, was armed with both AMM and a railgun but I didn't want to start a interstellar shooting war. I should have known better when the alien ship kept coming closer and closer - the bastards rammed my ship! Both ships exploded, leaving my survey ships stranded in the system. If we want to find something positive about this, it's that the Lacaille aliens aren't that advanced - their ship crumpled and blew up just like mine, so they don't have hyper-shield or super-armour.
Anyway, I'm building more JSCs but unfortunately they can only create a jump gate for ships up to 7,500 tons - my corvettes and fleet scouts could go through but my missile frigates would be left behind. OTOH, I don't want to build a permanent jump gate since that would give the aliens a quick and easy way back to Sol. So I designed a new warship:
Hood class DD said:
Hood class Destroyer 7,200 tons 561 Crew 780.6 BP TCS 144 TH 400 EM 0
2777 km/s Armour 4-33 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/6/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 16
Maint Life 3.89 Years MSP 271 AFR 103% IFR 1.4% 1YR 28 5YR 425 Max Repair 40 MSP
Magazine 656
Nuclear Pulse Engine E7 Military (10) Power 40 Fuel Use 70% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 53.6 billion km (223 days at full power)
SM-L/8 Missile Launcher (2) Missile Size 8 Rate of Fire 120
Marksman Missile Fire Control FC64-R100 (1) Range 64.8m km Resolution 100
SS-N-2/8 Missile (82) Speed: 11,000 km/s End: 63.3m Range: 41.8m km WH: 9 Size: 8 TH: 84 / 50 / 25
Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Hood, coupled with the fleet scouts which have giant sensors and the corvettes for defence, should hopefully be enough to put this alien race back to its place. Two shipyards are retooling for Hood and after that is finished, I can build six of them simultaneously.