KickStarter Let's die a burning death in Highfleet [Done]

[Andnjord]

tindrli goes in first, one of the boreys was damaged in the attack, with a bit of luck you can sneak a shit in the ammo compartment and blow it all to hell.
Andnjord is ready to step in with laser guided munitions if it becomes to hot. Cleared to use incendiaries, because why not.

Since I'm the one with the armor plates, wouldn't it have made sense for me to go in first instead of Tindrli?

Also, the UI is so nice to look at. It's great to see an UI that actually tries to immerse you into the game.

 

[spectre]

I like to think the first strike group to be a boss encounter at the end of the tutorial. It's not THAT difficult with some preparation, but can still kick your ass.
As you can see, the fighting's picked up, we encountered a bunch of new enemies, most of them beginning to look like actual combat craft.
Our money situation's good, but munitions stocks might use some replenishing.
We gained some long-range bombardment capability, so I'll brief you on that in a second.


Using the last screenshot from the previous update as reference, most of our forces are in TARSHISH, but Andnjord and tindrli are pretty banged up, that leaves baud, ERYFKRAD and Krraloth to welcome strike group VARYARG.
We managed to liberate the entire south and western side of the map. There's a small cluster of towns to the southeast, I consider them targets of opportunity.

From this point on, we need to approach cautiously, cause we're getting closer to missle carriers and aircraft carriers.
Some AA capability would be nice to have.

Since I'm the one with the armor plates, wouldn't it have made sense for me to go in first instead of Tindrli?

Probably, though I am a traditionalist - lightly armored skirmishers go first to test the enemy capabilities and wear them out.
The plan was to have them exhaust some munitions against a nimble craft that could dodge them,
and it was almost successful... that one fuckup being - I totally didn't see that missle launch and only caught that on replay.
At first, I thought they exploded the Zenith with stray proximity rounds, but I completely dodged all of them,
and missles don't explode until armed, so it didn't make sense.
I was kinda hoping to get one good shot in and drop that wounded BOREY, but alas, the plan is the first casualty in contact with the enemy. I could probably get it done spending a re-try, but you know my policy here.

Still, I think that drives the point home - there comes the time when the game just stops fucking around and running butt naked into strike groups is asking for trouble.

Also, the UI is so nice to look at. It's great to see an UI that actually tries to immerse you into the game.

Yep, it's funny how the dev even managed to put some tutorial messages into this, like that missle control thing in the upper right corner is pretty self explanatory (not to mention, it's fun to flip those switches).
It's crowded, but cozy in a way. Gives you that sensation of working with rugged equipment, with all the alarm lights, beeps, etc. at some point you start recognizing stuff by ear.
If only it could zoom out a bit more, or have more space for the map in the center.

 

[tindrli]

seems like i was not that ready to fuck thing up.
GREAT LP.

 

[spectre]

The briefing about long range missles is long overdue. Here's the basics.
The interface shows 4 switches next to a launch button.
We can have more, but 4 is the max we can fire per salvo.

We currently have two Yars craft, 4 tubes each, which is plenty.

Roughly speaking, there are two types of long-range missles:

The Kh-15 is the "standard" missle. ~1500 km of range and 900 km/h speed means no enemy craft will outrun it (but some of ours can attempt this stunt).

The A-100 can be considered a "defensive" missle. It has much shorter range of 400 km, but an impressive speed of 4000 km/h.

Both are nuclear capable, as indicated by the N and the fallout icon.
We will be testing both warhead types, nuclear fun is also planned, but it's not the right moment.

There is also a matter of guidance, you probably saw some of the missles have this the radar icon.
Now, it's still something I've yet to completely master, but the basics are as follows:
You launch the missles aiming at a specific spot. When they reach that point, they engage their own guidance,
which is a 90 degree angle cone and will target the first thing they see (the lack of IFF is something that should be strongly considered in this mode).

Theoretically, since the missles are radar guided, parked ships should be invisible, but I've neve had that happen.
I'm also unsure how jammers play into this, so this will have to be tested, since we have that capability.

Now, it is possible to track the missles using our own FCR radars, but I've yet to try that.
This supposedly overrides the missle's own guidance.

Another missle subtype is the P variant, which is described in game as "anti-radiation, designed to track radar signatures."
My first thought was it targets enemy nuclear-capable vessels, but it seems this one's intended to be fired blindly towards
ELINT emissions.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is these are expensive toys, coming at 1500 a piece for a standard Kh-15, up to 4000 for nuclear.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I also checked fuel prices. I am told this is a hot topic of sorts these days, so let's sperg a bit.
The game obfuscates this as much as possible, so I had to punch in the numbers manually.

So, for towns without a dedicated fuel depot, it seems that 100 tons of methane costs between 131-133$.
Might depend on rounding, but this scales up similarly to bigger numbers. Also,
the fuel slider isn't very accurate, and its difficult to get a nice round number,
You set it to 98, move slightly than it's suddenly 102.
I guess the dev made the point to give us a close to real life fueling experience.

A dedicated fuel depot like QUIVA gave me 69$ for 105 tons, which is basically half the price.
I am not sufficiently vaccinated to find out the exact number, nor will I be comparing different two depots.
Let's just settle that fuel depot cuts our fuel expenses in half, so it makes sense to use those as waypoints to move
the main bulk of our force around.

On a related note, capturing enemy fuel tanks gives us 500-800 fuel, meaning our raiders are self-sufficient when it comes to fuel,
and it saved us a few thousand shekels so far.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Time to do some strategizing, I think.
Let's start with a map, centered on the recently captured UZ. Lower portions don't matter to us now.

This also conveniently gives us the total money: 66906 plenty to do some shopping.
Also, the available munitions.

Our stocks of laser guided are running short. AK-100 stocks are are okay, both AP and proximity.
Aircraft munitions are okay, but we might want to do some buying anyway.

Standby for forces overview:
TARSHISH

The aircraft carrier is parked there, together with Andnjord, Krraloth and baud.

As we zoom in, we can see there are roads leading north, which is strange, cause there's just a big patch of nothing.
We might want to investigate this at the earliest convenience with Whispers.

So that's the force, Andnjord insists it's just a flesh wound. Baud needs R&R due to morale,

Krraloth is doing minor repairs and fitting the Vympels. Will be good to go soon.

Next up, UZ,

There's just ERYFRKRAD and the Sevastopol there. I've been doing... things to it.

But other than this, ERYFKRAD is all good to go.


Moving down south, our missle carriers are refuelling at SHAYBAD


And GHAZM has tindrli with Emerald. That would be a complete raiding party.

Though I still thing you need to be fitted as a bloody interceptor. Moar speed.

(I also talked to the OHS people, you sorta need those two fire extinguishers, or we might get some more happy accidents down the line).
We'll compare which design gives sufficient performance, triple molot on baud vs. quad molots.

I whip out a compass to mark the no-fly zones.

Well, these aren't really no-fly, but I think it's not outlandish to engage strike groups outside the range
of enemy missles and aircraft, if we can help it.
Of course, this is based on unconfirmed intel these TAC groups tend to stay put,
but we did make some noise last last time, so they might close in to investigate.
I use the remaining intel points, next TAC group is up north. Won't be a factor for now.

And holy crap, glad I did it. There's a second strike group, codename KAZBEK really up close.

That's our situation at the moment. Two STRIKE GROUPS nearby. They'll probably be moving towards
our last reported positions.

So, current plans are as follows:
1) Heal up as much as possible.
2) Do some recon over the empty desert.
3) Form up with our long range support - they will have plenty of targets soon.
4) Once reffting is done, tindrli will be sent raiding to the RESHT / TIMNATH SERATH / KIRIATH triangle. Go bring us something nice.
5) I'm torn about what to do with ERYFKRAD. We'll need a heavy hitter for the coming fights, but it's also tempting to hit KHASH and/or SHEBA.
Especially KHASH might be important for those pressing repairs, I'd much rather withdraw from there than head back south.
The strike groups move at a speed of 95-130, so we should have plenty of time. We have the speed advantage, so we have full control over where we want to engage these two.

Also, regardless of everything else, we need to wait out the general alarm, that's 8 hours if I'm reading this thing right.

 

[Andnjord]

Query: Will we see some big ships? Or even bigger ships? Either enemies or our own?

EDIT: spectre , the first two images are broken by the way.

 

[spectre]

Yeah, these are direct linked from the wiki, I'll try and unfuck them in a sec.
EDIT: There, should be all good.

Query: Will we see some big ships? Or even bigger ships? Either enemies or our own?

So far the biggest combat craft we've seen are Boreys, and that Kadesh transport you took was also rather big; though this tells me I did a shit job at showing them off,
so thanks and point taken. Perhaps the sense of scale is off cause we started at frigate size,
but the ships do look tiny on the battle screen.

The original Sevastopol was is about as big as the vanilla designs get and Longbow is probably the biggest one we currently have.
There are other craft in game that matches Sevastopol in size and hopefully we get to see them.

Sure, the game allows you to build some big ass ships in the editor, but they aren't really practical for the campaign.
For starters, we're limited by the starting budget, and shit the size of Sevastopol can easily go over 100 000.
Then there's the matter of fueling it up. Paying 1000-3000 on each stop sounds insane
(though as I did the math on fuel costs it's not undoable, it basically means you need to beeline and pick up critical salvage on every stop).

Building our own big ass ships from the ground up would take hundred of hours, even with the right infrastructure, so we probably won't
have time for those.

 

[spectre]

CHAPTER 11: LETTERS OF AFFECTION

I start by sending out craft into the desert.

The Whisper quickly zips above the blasted landscape.
Time passes.

And after a few hours, we get a report on something:

But it'll have to wait, plenty of shit is happening all at once.


Someone called us in to the feds. Not that it matters too much with all the noise we've made.
Also, we intercept a transmission.

Turns out it's all garbled.

This is where all those pieces of paper we've been dutifully correcting come in.

The jigsaw puzzle's description reads: 3+ years. I piece it together after only a few hours. That's how good I am.


I set dials on the decryptor according to the numbers. One is still missing, but that's no biggie.
All the gaps don't help, but I'm pretty positive the third word is "heading".

There we go. That's OUTLAW, one of the transports we've been following.
It's a standard message template, he's reporting current position and ETA to next stop.

Let's check those coordinates.

So they're in KHASH. Not sure where he's headed, might be any of the three directions.

It's a bit risky, but I plan to cut him off en route to EN GEDI, head down to KHASH
then investigate the other routes if he's not there.

I position the whisper like so, so we'll be alerted if the strike group gets too close.
We need fast craft for this job, so that's baud.


The general alert is gone now, so time to get off our asses.

ERYFKRAD will secure a forward position in SHEBA


and I'm sending tindrli off to the RESHT / TIMNATH SERATH / KIRIATH triangle.
It's probably all just shit tier garrisons, so I won't do a detailed writeup for each town,
unless something interesting turns up.


We got an ELINT 2 readout coming from VARYAG's location

and EMERALD spots the convoy on the radar

I detach baud, cause he's 100 kmh faster and I have a feeling every minute's going to count in the hot zone.


The fucker's making a lot of noise.

The convoy is unescorted, which means it surrenders immediately.


ELINT goes up to 3, which means the strike group is alerted and on the move. Time to fuck off.


We have an IRST contact. We have a visual.
Holy shit. That's a missle incoming!
BRAAAACE!

I need a fucking damage report here!

Preliminary: direct hit on the EMERALD, it's all banged up but airborne.
Aircraft impossible to scramble. What the fuck happened there?

We need to think of something fast. That convoy ship is slowing us down.
The logical thing would be to scuttle it, but there's no such function in the game.
We also can't let it go since it's flagged as captured (which means when we detach it, it initiates combat... where we immediately capture it because it's on its own)
All in all, no good solution other than simply unload it at the closest enemy town, which happens tp be KHASH


Baud dodges a Zenith.

Then another.
Then one more.
You guys done yet? Good let's start killing you.



The two light escorts are the first to go, then Sarma gets our undivided attention. Easy.
CMDR baud, stand up for promotion.

We'll pick VETERAN PILOT this time.


Hot damn, they just won't let us be. Another missle incoming.

Let's do it properly this time.

Sprint missles are go.
First missle away.
Second missle away.

IMPACT!
The enemy Kh-15 detonates and we get showered by fragments.
Close, but no cigar for you this time.

And immediately afterwards, there's the phone again. Who the fuck is this?
No I am not interested an extended warranty on my Emerald.

That's another convoy we've been aware of in the area.
We get its planned route, but that's outside our reach for the time being.

I want a detailed damage report ASAP.

Baud's fine. Minimal damage.

And as for emerald, that Kh-15 really bit it on the ass, the ammo supply cooked off,
which is why I couldn't scramble the aircraft. Should have done it in advance.

In the meantime, ERYFRKRAD pops a small garisson.


The alarm is off, which means they'll be already airborne.
Paradoxically, it only makes killing them is quicker.

I quickly go over the available auxiliaries:

So, another Voskhod. I don't think its pilot is doing a good job advertising his skills.

Fenek, Lightning and Meteor.
I think we can all agree that missle defense is something we need more of.

And there's also a Takhan in an oversided tanker.

Pretty impressive firepower though.

Time for a mini-sitrep.

I'm concentrating our forces at KHASH. That's two frigates ready to roll, one frigate out of action.
One LONGBOW carrier is also available and we got two YARS long range artillery craft have completed their refitting.
One is already in place, the other YARS is moving to TARSHISH, which should still be in range to fire
on the strike group.

The VARYAG sees us on the radar and is calling us in.

As we prepare for a major battle, I also bought some auxilaries:
So that's the FENEK. Basically a fire control radar, CIWS and four sprint missles.

For starters, we need to work on the speed so it can keep up with the rest of the party.
You probably can't see it, but those missles are placed on heavy-ass reinforced hull section, which further slows it down.
I'm thinking, if I shave off the two antennae, there's going to be room for two more.

Also, I got the Tarkhan on board, here's the ride:

Look at that fucking speed. You look at it. Have you no shame?

Ah, and those magnificent firing arcs. What are those fucking miniguns even hitting at the bottom?
Sorry, I just can't use this thing. My religion prohibits this.
I sell it for an easy +60 000$

Next up - we send some long-rage love of our own.
In all this commotion, there wasn't really any time to check out our desert discovery, so we'll do that too once we stabilize the situation.

 

[spectre]

These are our available forces at KHASH. We need exact eyes on the VARYAG

I'll start by sending out the aircraft in three pairs, loadout: 100 kg bombs. The Strike group should slow enough to hit.
Fan out and find me that strike group.

There we go.
I let the aicraft pass them so nothing interferes with the guidance. Time to play with missles.

Let's try two for starters. I flip two switches, then press LAUNCH.
Off they go.

Let's see how you like it.

We get some low quality footage on the strike group.
Three craft, one looks like a BOREY, two other unidentified, but look a bit similar to the NEGEV we saw in the previous update.
They send sprint missles to intercept.

The Kh-15 is hit but stays on target.

KHOOM! Direct hit.

Looks prety much the same, but that's the second missle coming in.

Target destroyed.

Time for the aircraft.

Go peck them apart.

First wave of bombs coming in.

Direct hit.

Second wave, hit.
Third wave.

Enemy ship on fire. I'm seeing massive damage to the fuel tank, but it's not down yet.


baud, Krraloth, you bring their asses to me on a platter.

Yep, a BOREY and a NEGEV. We might actually read that if people would stop making a mess of my planning board.
NEGEV looks done for, but the BOREY is still fresh. Godspeed men.


Enemies dead ahead. Krraloth deftly shoots down the incoming missle.

That's basically foreplay.

It gets pretty fucking hot pretty fucking soon.

You spray the NEGEV with incendiaries. It catches fire.

It still fires missles, but our CIWS still work.

But they just keep on firing.

Oh for fuck's sake, two more missles.

Can't work the guns fast enough. Brace for impact.
They keep on hammering.

Fires break out. The crew put them out.

More fires, time to gtfo.

There, eat a parting salvo, motherfucker.

Shitshitshitshit, more fires.
Escape is within arm's reach...

An explosion rips through the air. One of the fires reached the ammo compartment.
This ship is done. All of it vaporized instantly.
There will be time for speeches later.


baud steps in.

His vision goes black as the craft pulls some serious Gs in order to avoid the hail of gunfire.

He keeps his distance to better use his agility. He lets loose a laser guided salvo...

Eat this, motherfucker.

Yeah, let's savor the moment.

He expertly dodges more gunfire. Need to gain ground, no sense to waste time getting past bottom armor.

DIE
DIE
DIE
Salvo after salvo rips through the NEGEV, still it refuses to yield.
And then suddenly...


Damn, that was hard work.

ATTENTION


They say the taste of victory is bittersweet.


Some die, those who live get medals. That's war.
This choice seems oddly fitting.

Gentlemen, a minute of silence for commander Krraloth and HMS Sirocco, lost in the line of duty.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[tindrli]

 

[spectre]

Not to mention 161 good men manning the craft.
As per his wishes, I am including Azira in the count, a stowaway whose corpse we discovered among the mangled fuselage I've once again forgotten to retract for the fight.

All earned the soldier's rest 165 HRS into the campaign.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Not sure how we're going to handle succession. I'll check how long it's going to take to rebuild a frigate from the ground up and how practical this ordeal is going to be.
Otherwise, we still have auxiliaries, not sure if anyone's eager to man the LONGBOW, cause that's just aircraft. The Yars strategic missile carriers similarly shouldn't get near combat.
There are also two Fenek's, and air defense duty as you probably see is both important should promise a sufficiently early demise.
Krraloth it's your call if you still up for more fun. Same goes for Azira.

 

[spectre]

Alright people, time for an AAR.
Damage report comes first:

Baud and Andnjord will back in action up in a matter of hours.
In the meantime, our radar capabilities are now significantly reduced, because the EMERALD is out of action for the rest of the day.
This will need to be addressed when convenient.

A few thoughts from the battle itself:
(o) So far, the Kh-15 munitions seem effective at breaking through enemy air defense, with 1 cruiser kill per 2 missles expended.
Unfortunately, we don't have any influence as to what they'll target.
(o) The efficacy of aircraft is TBD. Six were unable to score a hit with 100 kg bombs, despite direct hits under favorable conditions (with Kh-15 exhausting enemy anti air).
Perhaps we need more of them.
(o) While the aircraft were effective at stripping away enemy armor, in the end it may have forced us into an unfavorable fighting position.
To elaborate: the aircraft attack from above, while our armored craft are more suited to engaging from below, this leads to all kinds of problems and undoubtedly contributed to our losses.
(o) Burning out a cruiser with incendiaries is proven as NOT a valid strategy.

I'm checking out on KAZBEK, it seems to be going on some kind of erratic search pattern.

It's coming straight to us, which I consider favorable, I'd rather reel it into our territory and bring it down there.

In the meantime, tindrli reports back from the raiding assignment.
=========================================
Fleet standby for report.
Assignment completed successfully. Removed enemy presence in cities:
RESHT, TIMNATH SERATH, KIRIATH

Minimal resistence met and minor damage sustained.
Destroyed enemy craft: 5x Courageous, 2x Slogger, 1x Flower.

Acquired salvage and specialized munitions, see attached picture:


CMDR tindrli now returning to fleet.
=========================================
You also recieve a field promotion. Repair speed comes in handy in your line of work.


Your orders are to randezvous with ERYFRKRAD

We have a bit of time on our hands before it hits the fan again, so I take this opportunity to investigate the two phenomena
discovered in the desert. We actually have two of those, because Whispers zipping around running errands managed to find a second.
Standby for landing.
The locals are friendly.



It appears customary to greet newcomers with long range missiles... but in a good way
(The othe hidden city gave us a fuckton of bombs, so it's confirmed to be a cultural thing).

This looks to be a safe haven of sorts. We can stay here as long as we want with no trouble.

I bring one of the craft down to examine the local facilities.


A nice, 100m wide dock with decent repair bonus here. The southern hidden city is a bit worse off.
Mostly flat terrain.

Here's them gifts.


And I'll be slowly turning that Mockingbird into Whisper pattern. I slapped an extra engine on it, but it needs to go faster.
The other one's a reworked meteor or lightning. Still needs the electronics.


This is our strategic situation for the time being.
The southernmost hidden city is way behind our lines, but I plan to do some rebuilding in both of them.
The more pressing matter for the moment is SHEBA. The locals are just about fed with us there,
so we need to fuck off.

Since I'm determined to fight this out, it's decided to move our troops out of the way SHAELI to evade
the strike group. We'll bloody them with artillery, then mop up. It'll turn out well this time, pinky promise.


ERYFKRAD and tindrli are go.

A decent fight. Once the fast mover is gone, it *should* be much easier to dodge the rockets.

Poor slogger, barely gotten in the air.

Oh my, plenty of rockets.

One down.
Hey, sharing is what friends are for. Let Eryfkrad have a go at the other one.

Splendid.



Final look at our current situation.

The plan it to deploy listening posts to notify us once the strike group passes UCHKUDU (which will be open for attack) towards SHEBA
If I'm feeling particularly daring, I might try and hit the nearby missle launcher TAC group,
or it can be taken out with long range fire. The obvious problem being - if they're in range, so are we.
Might be an opportunity to test if quad AK-100s with proximity ammo are any good for air defense.
I must keep in mind there's a convoy running around that neighbourhood. We most definitely do not want it to make noise and fuck up our silent strike,
and our radar dish should be pointed away from the TAC groups, cause that's how we get fired upon.

Of course, we could also try and be smart - sneak past this whole shitshow by taking the western route through the desert towards ZAIRAH.
We'll need to fuck off from KHASH soon-ish anyways.

 

[baud]

Yes!
I approve exploding ships with high explosive ordinance

So, with sphincters all clenched, 'ere we go!

...

So there actually are WMDs in Gerat.

 

[baud]

Fucking army half-logic. You wanted dual 57 mm, they don't have, but they think one 100mm will suffice,
because the math more or less checks out.

 

[tindrli]

Of course, we could also try and be smart - sneak past this whole shitshow by taking the western route through the desert towards ZAIRAH.
We'll need to fuck off from KHASH soon-ish anyways

West is the way to go

 

[spectre]

No more stomach for the fight, eh? You're not wrong, but you also won't get off that easy.
I am also "happy" to report that I lost a bit of progress to a surprise power outage, but nothing major.



I discovered we can see our current war score, intuitively hidden on the LOAD GAME screen.
We're also getting closer to our objective, here's a measurement taken from the location of our main force.

Also, regarding the practical possibility of rebuilding frigates, let's take this Meteor Mk3 auxiliary.
It's parked in one of the hidden cities, in a rather decent +50 repair dock.

I strip it down to the Bridge (which is the starting block needed to build a ship)

And that's a basic frigate frame done in 74 hours, no engines, no armament, no fuel tanks,
which might as well take the next 30 hours.
Hidden cities are rather poorly equipped, this one doesn't have all the modules
to get the rebuild done in one go. This means we need to deliver these modules
using Whisper craft, it also might be good to hit a dedicated shipyard for that final round
of refits, once the locals build us something that can more or less stay airborne.

EPISODE 12: FOOTHOLD

Ok. So, what happens if we take the western route?

=========================
CMDR baud, CMDR Andnjord standby for orders
You are to secure a foothold for our forces by securing URUK and its nearby towns.
Go in silently and gather as much intel about local enemy forces as possible.
=========================

Sending out an advance party to get there a tiny bit faster.

ATTENTION, new enemy craft identified. Designation: NIMROD.
Preliminary analysis:
Basically a MK-2 emplacement all wrapped up in armor. There are some gaps here and there for escape pods,
but easiest kill seems to from topside.
Looks like a good opportunity to test out armor piercing munitions.

No sense wasting them on chaff, you can pick one special munition type for each gun
and it's possible to switch to standard AP if need be.

The escorts are dispatched with little fuss.

The nimrod is using proximity ammo, but that's just two 180mm it can be dodged before it does too much damage.

As planned, remove the top of the head and get to the juicy brains within.

It wasn't a challenging fight by any means, but two stars means field promotion.
Picking EVER READY this time.

===============
CMDR baud, post battle report.
Threat rating of NIMROD combat craft evaluated as low.
Carried out field testing of AP munitions.
Due to very low ammo count (17) results weren't conclusive,
1) munitions observed to easily pass enemy armor, but resulting damage was low.
2) travel speed of AP rounds is significantly higher compared to standard rounds, may cause problems leading the shots
due to muscle memory.
===============

Having gained access to an intel point, I ping the local forces.



So that's a strike group not far from our location, currently doing nothing, parked next to missle carriers.
There's also an aircraft carrier close by.

We might want to have a go and dismantle these defences at some point later, but it appears that we currently have free reign over this area as that entire bit of land is outside missle and aicraft range.
Our other detachment with Tindrli and ERYFKRAD are waiting for the other strike group to get a move on, but no radar emissions were picked up yet.
They have ample long range support close by, but I might just have them fuck off and meet with the rest of the forces.

Time to spread out a bit. The objective is to get to the fleet HQ at MAGOR, pick up a few fights along the way.
While baud is undergoing minor repairs, I send out Andnjord to have some fun.

A decent snack, but barely fulfilling.

You will notice, the current loadout is 2x AK-100 and MK-2
We'll se if missles give us problems.

First Courageous is dead before it's off the ground.

And the flower quickly loses the missle rack to 100 mm.

The AK-100s were able to shoot down some missles. Takes a bit of practice, but seems doable.


We also need to secure that fuel depot.

Yeah, I won't bother recording it.

In the meantime, Andnjord lands at GIZRAM where we get tangled in local politics.


Do I look like a guy to say no to a ship?

Ok, but I wasn't told it would involve bad table manners.

Ah yes, classic.
Hearts and minds people, who are we to judge local customs?



And we get a second aircraft carrier. I can live with that.
I quickly inspect the auxiliaries...

We know this guy already.

And this is what we've been blowing up for some time.

Yeah, nothing that we need at the moment.

That would be it for the time being.

 

[Krraloth]

My career was blazing fast and furious.
I want MOAR.

Krraloth the II son of Krraloth reporting for duty.
Get me on a long range artillery ship, time to alpha strike some rebels.
Ship name: VENDETTA

 

[spectre]

EPISODE XIII: ARE YOU SUPERSTITIOUS? YOU WILL BE.

I'm moving the rest of the troops towards the western passage. The planned route is - Fremen siechhidden people, then our foothold in URUK.

Suddenly, ELINT lights up. Seems like the strike group took yet another route.
I setup listening positions to triangulate.

Yep, they are most definitely taking the EN GEDI - KHAS route.
I want to send out aircraft for scouting first, and there's this new toy I want to test out. But it appears one of the T-7s on EMERALD is being funny.


It just stays like this. I try to unfuck it, get it off and reinstall, but it doesn't help.
Oh well.

That would be the approximate enemy position.
Aircraft away.


So, a bit more to the south.

There you go, we have a visual on KAZBEK

Infuriatingly, the T-7 ran out of fuel just as I was ordering it to strike.
The rest still carry out the bombing run.

Three BOREYs and a NEGEV. Pretty sizeable.
Second wave:


Zat's a bingo!
Two BOREYs and a NEGEV now

I still need to whittle it down. Time to send in some long range missles.
I estimate missle flight time between 1-2 hours and then plot the expected enemy course in that time, assuming 180 km distance travelled.
It's a bit like WW2 torpedoes.

And just like the WW2 torpedoes, they narrowly miss. That's 3000$ down the shitter.
How narrowly? Can't tell without eyes on the target.
Ok, point taken. Stationary targets preferred.
We intercept their transmission. We'll just wait for them to park.

tindrli and ERYFKRAD are lying in wait.
Now, the trick is to set the missles so that they engage their own targeting systems once they're past their position,
otherwise we'll be getting a happy blue on blue accident.


Missles away.
Missle 1. Patching Kh-15 camera feed.

Missle 2

Missle 3 direct hit


Spraying and praying doesn't help them much...

One more direct hit, four missles out, still no kill.
The aircraft will take some time to get ready.

So that's the best we could have done at range. CMDR tindrli CMDR ERYKFRAD, move in.

I expected to hit them before they know what's coming. Unfortunately, this plan backfires.

Incoming enemy missile. I attempt to jam it.
EVASIVE MANEUVERS DAMMIT!
Despite being jammed, the missle homes in. We narrowly shoot it down with proximity rounds.
ANOTHER ONE INCOMING!
And that's a direct hit.
Well, there goes out plan. Withdraw and give me damage report.

Less terrible than I thought It'd be, but still in no shape to take out three cruisers.

OOF!

Turns out we will be exchanging pleasantries at long range for the time being.

Aircraft are up.

Kill confirmed on the NEGEV
Holy crap, that 266 mm rocket is rather effective.


Bombing run complete. BOREY is down.

We're out of Kh-15 and with major repairs needed, I need to pull @Andjnord and baud to finish this.


After all this shitshow I've been putting on all day, time to do it by the book.

Infuriatingly, that juicy gap is on the other side of the ship.
Keeping the armored plating towards the enemy.

First missile shot down. He's got more.

Second one. The AK-100 aren't too bad at this.

And that's two guided 180mms.

You're being promoted, baby! (BATTLE SCARS)

Well, that felt like work.
I decide to spend the next few dozen hours on repairs and R&R.
Here's a rare shot of the whole gang in one place:

You probably can't see shit, so a quick rundown:

1. One Yars mk.3 is refitted into a VENGEANCE pattern. All welcome Krraloth the second. I put a big ass radar dish on it.
2. I expanded the flight deck on the longbow a little bit, it now takes 10x standard aircraft.
3. I managed to unfuck that T-7 aircraft. Needed to stack it together with more of its kind in the inventory, and it's now behaving as expected.
4. One ECHO pattern frigate is airborne. Still needs extra work on the engines, armament, etc., but it's airborne.

I ping the local radar station, it shows me there's another strike group bumbling about the area.

We made quite a bit of noise around here. I think it's smart to go be somewhere else for the time being.

============================
Strike group KAZBEK killed. Standby for AAR.
Sudden striking proved to be ineffective. Enemy Missiles continue to be a threat even at very short range.
NEGEVs are acting as missile carriers with capacity of two Kh-15 each.
Need to deplete their missiles before proceeding with direct assault.
Need to further examine the effects of jamming.

Air defense evaluation - sprint missles are the best performing anti-missle measures so far.
130 mm proximity rounds demonstrate poor performance
100 mm proximity rounds demonstrate moderate performance

The efficacy of long range munitions is difficult to ascertain.
Previously, two direct hits with Kh-15 were sufficient to bring down a cruiser,
this time four direct hits have no effect (with total six missiles expended).
Bombing runs of 2 waves per 3 aircraft prove to be the most effective thus far.
266mm rockets show promise, need further testing.
============================

Thought I catch me a breather. Boy I was wrong.

You broke it, you pay for it young man.


These are probably my two favorite pieces of in-game artwork. Enjoy them in actual context.




So, one rabbi says it's an eclipse, the other says it's nuclear.
Would be easier if y'all just straight up admitted that you don't have a fucking clue.
Ok, but what am I supposed to say here?



I appeal to their sense of ROMANI-hood, pictured below.

Spoiler

Yes, I too think it was a good speech.
Crisis averted for now.

Okay, so here we are, up in ERIDU.


Here's the elephant man's map for more readability.

Our cash reserves are okay, but we're short on munitions. Managed to load up VENGEANCE,
but the other missle carrier is running dry. Same goes for all kinds of incendiaries and laser guided stuffies and nya.
I'm also doing some minor works on our two aircraft carriers.

Current plan is to raid the surrounding area for some extra stuff then assault the fleet HQ at MAGOR,
all done quietly as much as possible.
This gets us onther step further towards KHIVA. Next, we'll attempt to break past the defenses up north.

 

[spectre]

Again, slow day at work today, so updates come a-rolling.

EPISODE 14: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 1%

We are raiding today.
Commanders, standby for orders:

CMDR tindrli you job is to snag anything of value in ZAIRAM


CMDR ERYFKRAD will capture AGTASH along our route north.


CMDR Andnjord will secure ground further up north.
UMM, who names these things?


CMDR baud will raid far off the main route in KEMH.

PROCEED.


ZAIRAM offers very little resistance.
Allow me to skip this.


And something's fucky at AGTASH. Why are these cunts sounding the alarm?

DidYou notice how that sudden strike thing is always at 99%?
Well that's what happens in 1% cases. Some guy snorted too much cocaine and sees ERYFKRAD coming from far away.


Not too much resistance. The two courageous are easily dispatched and the unguided rockets from the BALLISTIC
are easily dodged 1v1 with any sort of reasonably agile craft.

Still, ERYFKRAD, the fleet appreciates your service [VETERAN GUNNER]

In the meantime, baud arrives at KEMH
(that's really baud, yellow circle means I have something else selected)


New enemy spotted, designation: GLADIATOR MRL.
That's actually a legit combat vessel. On par with our own.
It's packing two unguided missle launchers which might have been a problem for less agile craft.
Thankfully, baud knows the moves.

He opens up with a salvo to test the GLADIATOR's armor.
Yep, better get it from the bottom.


Rockets fill the skies.

First escort down.
Also that circle surrounding the gladiator indicates Palash active defense. It'll shoot down some of the ordnace we send its way,
but the high RoF on AK-100 thinks nothing of it.

More dodging.

And even more dodging

Aaaand that leaves the two of us.

Switching to laser-guided...

We got him where we want him.

ROYAL GUARD for you, baud.


Rummaging through the salvage at KEMH, baud intercepts a rather peculiar transmission transmission.

Son of Sayadi, that would be me.
But who is this Alsahir and why does he want to _____ with ______?
Slightly puzzled, I'm off to more pressing things.


Well, at least you said it straight off the bat.



Ah yes, a bit of small talk about the weather...




Right, you do you. Overly dramatic about everything all the time.


In any case, me take on the above is we need to get moving.
We cover good ground, so nothing to get hysterical about, but I don't particularly enjoy the prospect
of having to pop several strike groups.

How many we're talking exactly? I believe the original briefing said the rebels have
eight or nine strike groups total, but that's unconfirmed. Three are down for the count, and there's at least
one in the area.

Well, there's still more raiding to be done around here.
I said we'd do it all sneaky like, but that 99% fluke threw a wrench in our plans.
Fuck that. Carry on as planned.

Andnjord will soon be arriving at the UMM place.
In the meantime, I send out ERYFKRAD to secure the fuel depot at BETHEL.
That fleet is beginning to guzzle up some serious gas, so these become our main waypoints.


CMDR Andnjord reporting in, you should see this.

Designation PALADIN MK2.
Check out the missle rack on this thing.
Acknowledged. You're cleared to use guided munitions and armor piercing rounds for the 100mm.

The fight is brutal. Andnjord does what he can, dodging with missiles.

The escorts are gone, but the Paladin also nearly expended its entire rack
A shot from below rips it apart.

Hell of a fight. Crew compartment is hit and we lose a few brave souls today.


And here comes BETHEL


Looks like no more easy garisson fights for the time being.
Previous one was a rude wake up call, now this.
These are some serious hard targets. You are cleared to use AP rounds.

No sense in wasting special munitions on a courageous

But we need to get below these two.
Now, switching to AP

That's how you do it, bridge kill straight through the armor.

Fuel at 75%, it's just ERYFKRAD and the NIMROD.
Plenty of time to spare, no sense wasting AP.

Down you go.

Status report.

For starters, since tindrli captured a shipyard, let's put it to some use.
We need more speed, so I'm refitting you to match baud's pattern.
I think we hit diminishing returns with the quad 130 mm.
Andnjord took a bit of a beating.


We get a few more transmissions, there's some convoy traffic in the area


A brief check on the auxiliaries in KEMH

Small tanker, big tanker.

This one's basically a quad minigun box. Probably flies like a brick too.

And a strategic frigate we don't need.

Oof...

7000 tons of cow farts, and barely enough to cross that patch of desert.

In the meantime, let's test out tindrli's new loadout.

NARAD looks like a good place.

A decent fight.

Seems like sloggers have replaced courageous as default cannon fodder.

Appetizer's all cleaned up, now the main dish.

All done.

Thank you for your service [VETERAN PILOT]

Let's move on to the main objective.

CMDR baud, CMDR ERYFKRAD, you do the honors on this one. Get me that Fleet HQ.

Spotted enemy AA emplacements!
Ouch, that'll be plenty of missiles.

Now, the AA is something you'd be familiar with after the prologue, it's basically an immobile platform with
an infinite supply of missiles. It's pretty well armored and will give you the dakka if you move too close.


Baud sends some laser-guided in the general direction of the AA, good hit.
Now, that means the skies will have a few less Zeniths in it, but there's still a lot to tackle.

To make matters worse, the enemy saturates the air with proximity rounds.
Not a good place to be in for baud.
He snips the flower off in the bud, taking some pretty nasty hits in the process and ERYFKRAD takes over.


AP rounds make short work of the remaining two, but not without damage.

Exemplary performance men.


We extract the nukes. And check for damage.

Oh my...


Tom Bombadil is a bit less banged up.

Now's a good opportunity to check our score, since we're at the save point:

Also check me some intel.

Seems like strike group BASALT is hot on our heels.

Adn there's more convoy chatter to the south-east.

Oh for fuck's sake...

I wanted to rebuild baud's landing gear first to bring him down for further repairs.
Turns out the town is out of chassis parts.
We needed to relocate anyway.
Mindful of such possible shortages, I grab a few engines with us to go.

Time to lick some wounds (but not too much, there's a SG coming from the south)
I plan our route up north.

We've actually covered some serious ground. KHIVA's only 8 5000 km due north.

OSH and MUCHEN are two towns directly up north from our current position.
The alarm will soon die down, so we'll get at them then.
My main concern at the moment is the possible aircraft carrier at KHEBERETH,
with ~2000 flight range, it oversees quite a bit of land.
There's also a missile carrier nearby, but that's less of a concern.

Now, this intel is over 180 HRS old, so it might not even be there anymore, but I'm not taking any chances.
We need to approach cautiously and verify. Once we have their location,
I'll put Krraloth 's to work on his new assignment.

 

[spectre]

EPISODE 15: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PREPARATION

So I take them crayons and do some planning. Possible aircraft range radius, possible cruise missile range radius,
if we want to hit that location we need to park VENGEANCE and YARS somewhere around there.

Now, to do this, we need to secure OSH, and while we're at it, why not also do MUCHEN.

tindrli 's on it, together with the entire AA detachment which will support the long range troops down the line.

That's a decent variety of foes.


So yeah, it's mostly dodging missles.

Shooting down some.

And one by one, they come down.


Then more dodging...


The fuel is almost depleted. Dodging with afterburners are rough, and there were four enemies.

And they're done.

Exemplary performance.



So, this shit again. Pyoter. You've seen the price of gas these days?

I say no and nothing happens.
What the fuck do you think this is? Frostpunk?
For the record, the other choice gives us some extra morale,
but does exactly that, engines are kept on draining fuel all the time.


We catch a transmission from BASALT, in 10HRS they'll be close to a where we used to be some time ago.

Also, another one of those.
Ah, so, he want's to MEET with ________
Good for you guy, but this is the radio, not tinder.

Since we captured a troposcatter array at MUCHEN, let's use it.

PAMIR strike group, really close.
And the next TAC group is way up at KHIVA.

So far I've assumed that we're given data on the closest possible contact, meaning the rest of the area is clear.

Tindrli is a bit banged up, but there's no time to waste. After some rudimentary repairs, he sets off to OSH


That looks just about as much as you can chew on your own. Permission to use special munitions
I think I'm pushing the limit here, I'll send you out in pairs from now on.
Also, some people claim the size of the circle below the town somehow corresponds to garisson size.
I call bullshit. They all look the same.

Taking out the missle rack on paladin immediately tips the odds in our favor.

That was a very good cockpit shot from way over the other side of the screen.
The worst part is the enemies start using proximity rounds pretty much every time.

I switch to high explosive to preserve ammo. One...

and two.

Neither option does anything useful as far as I'm concerned.
Still, congratulations are in order.

I put the artillery in position.

AA screen will soon follow.

Rest of the fleet is in MAGOR, some minor repairs still going on before we head north.

A rare opportunity for a family photo. 22HRS until ERYFKRAD and baud are combat ready.

I tinkered a bit with the longbows, wiht the extended flight deck each takes 10 aircraft max and still
has a respectable speed of about 400 kmh.
I also took the liberty of converting the Sevastopol into a pocket carrier.

Everything's in position...

And I sweep the area with two Whispers.
Bullshit.
Nobody's home.

These TAC groups usually stay put in my games.
Guess our flanking maneuver was way more effective than I've ever thought.

Well, better come prepared for a fight and face a no-show than the other way around.
Or something. I'm not great at that zen wisdom bullshit.

We'll just redo this whole thing with the next TAC group.

That's what the next leg of our journey looks like. Get all gassed up in UMMA,
destroy enemy missiles at cthulhu F'taghn SHUBAT ENLIL then capture ASHDOD and gain intel from KARAMAH.
From there, KHIVA is just round the corner.

 

[baud]

eclipse don't look the same as a nuclear winter. And they're pretty localised, if you move 300 km (easy when you got fast ships/planes) and it's still dark, it's a nuclear winter and you're boned.

I'm hesitating between :salute : and :edgy :
after getting your homeland nuked, wagging a war of aggression to seize more nuclear weapons to nuke more cities, you're straight going to cause apost-apocalyptic future (well even more post-apoc than what's shown), reigning over fields of ashes. But on the other hand I can admire continuing to fight

 

[ERYFKRAD]

, not tinder

Tindrli

What did he mean by this?

 

[spectre]

Unrelated to Tindrli. There's this guy who's spamming the same message on the radio every few hours.
Sometimes it's hilariously garbled, like in the previous update.
Just one of my unfunny jokes. Move along.

 

[spectre]

EPISODE 16: WHERE IS EVERYONE?!

So I do a sweep with Whisper craft. Seems like nobody's home.
Setting up listening positions.
Soon after, we have an incoming message.

Seems like they've changed the codes again.
There wasn't any opportunity to collect any paper from radio rooms lately, so that won't be of any help.
Then I get an idea. The direction finder points roughly at the direction of strike group PAMIR,
the last word is the sender and is exactly 5 letters long...
so if I tweak the numbers like so:

There we go.


With just a regular garisson present, I send Andnjord in on SEMRAIN

Check out the glorious chemtrails!


Looks like a fairly standard ordeal.

They send out missles, we shoot them down.

BOOM

and BOOM.
I can see some minor damage to the underbelly.

With the foothold secured, the next step is the fuel depot along with the surrounding towns.

tindrli is on it. GOing to ARK

And the garisson is fairl basic. Very little resistance.

You is ROYAL GUARD now, motherlover.

Unfortunately, our XO is in a talking mood today.




You want me to make another speech, do you?

Phew. Wait, what? That's treason talk, my man.

Another speech it is.

I don't really have the stats to spin any of this in a good way.






So here are the stats. I didn't do much diplomacy, so these aren't particularly developed.
That -2 kindness is because I habitually don't pick up any survivors from the crash sites.

The other Hasid steps in for a word.




I think I want to have little heart-to-hear with your physics teacher, my man.


I don't know if it's the crappy facilities around these parts, but the repair times are starting to rack up.
I also take this opportunity to fill up the other aircraft carrier. Who knows what's up next.

No interesting auxiliaries to buy. We're running a bit short anyways.

That's similar to Andnjord's ride, but crappier.

Time to secure UMMA, CMDR ERYFKRAD


This seems to be the current standard garisson.



Quickly dispatched.

Final one is AKKAD


Again, not a lot of defenses.

We get one more of those.

Nah, can't be bothered to go back south just to hook up with some schmuck.
Immediately afterwards, a telegram comes in.

This is how you invite a guy over.
Well fuck me, do they think me for a fool?

At last, the rabbi speaks sense.

So, they're playing them 5D underwater chess, Pyoter?



So where is it?

In the ship's intercom? You silly man.



So there we have it, right next to the fleet HQ in ASHOD. Single ship invite only. Let me think on it.
But I'm not particularly eager.

As you can see, I singled out a strike force for ASHOD, CMDRS tindrli and baud are on it.
You're riden with bauden now, baby.

I did come listening and a few cautions radar sweeps. Nothing there, just the garisson.
Where the hell are those carriers and missile launchers? All holed up in KHIVA?
I'm assinging AA screen just in case.

Strike commences. FUG!

That's some serious hardware. Also, look at the size of this motherfucker.
New enemy spotted, designation ARCHANGEL.
I can see two MK-2 batteries, four vympels and at least four zeniths.
Double armor plaing above the bridge. This one won't be easy.
They've got serious AA to support them.

Preliminary plan is this- tindrli steps in first to deplete enemy missiles and do as much damage as he can. Then Baud mops up.
If he can't bring down the ARCHANGEL, we'll withdraw and mop up with an airstrike.

We're getting a bit short on laser guided ammo, and as you can see the stocks are split between the two craft.
I decide to give all the laser guided to baud.

Godspeed.


Ok, this is a very poor shot, but hopefully you can see GLADIATOR MRL being hit by friendly fire.
The plan is like this, since there can only be three enemy craft in combat at the same time, this means ARCHANGEL won't step in until we kill something.
So, ideally, tindrli will ignore slogger and navarin as much as is practical and try to bring down the GLADIATOR first.

So far it goes to plan.

That's Navarin down.

And tindrli eats a missile. Time to fuck off.
baud, you're up.



That slogger is quickly done for.
Now, how to even tackle this thing.

Working conditions aren't exactly comfortable, there's a drip of Zeniths coming down from the ground emplacements and the ARCHANGEL keeps sending out quad 180mm proximity shells.
Best plan is to try and sneak something past that gap in the upper armor. Blasting past that fule tank from the bottom will take ages.
Laser guided shells are soon depleted and baud's all banged up and almost out of fuel.


Finally. It's dead. This victory comes with a sacrifice.



Gentlemen, you are an inspiration.
Also, Honor level 8 is the highest you can go.

Now, I really want to pick those two Sarmats, that 12 000$ will come in handy.



Those repairs will take some time. Might want to visit a shipyard.

We extract the nukes and that's our score.


Rest of the fleet will catch up soon. I send out a Whisper. More nothing. I'm starting to get worried here.
We are almost there gentlemen, we can almost see KHIVA from here.

 

[spectre]

Gotta say, that's about the farthest I've gotten in this game so far.
I usually get stuck in this loop where I fuck something up, come up with an idea for a ship design, then start all over.
But this time I'm determined. I'm beating this game, or it beats me. I haven't made these ~800 screenshots for nothing.

Our current situation seems straightforward, more or less beeline for the objective. But I also kind of want to
repair comfortably in ALMA, refuel in SHUB NIGGURATH and grab that intel in KARAMAN, because seriously, where the fuck are all the TAC groups?
All frozen to death?

Now, we're past the stage of happy land grabbing, as you can see the garissons are now rather meaty and it's no longer possible to pull a flawless victory on them. There's always a few hours worth of downtime on repairs.
Also, previous events left us with a bit of a morale problem I need to address.

Not sure about all this one-ship meetup. Sounds like a good way to lose a perfectly good frigate, so I'd like your input on this.
I wouldn't risk the raider craft for this mission, so it's either Andnjord or ERYFKRAD. I'm not 100% positive how many laser guided 180 mm we got,
but I believe we have sufficient AP ammo for the quad AK-100s, so that would be the smart thing to do.

Of course, an even smarter thing would be to have Kralloth level the whole swath of land with Kh-15s. We'll se what the game lets us do.

Also, I know I sorta assumed in the beginning you I won't be touching on the story too much, and I did skip some parts of it,
but I figured you will appreciate those last few bits for endgame context.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I wouldn't risk the raider craft for this mission, so it's either Andnjord or ERYFKRAD

Reporting for duty, boss.