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GarfunkeL

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Situation at 1st May 2034 - 12:30

p7WRZ.jpg


It stopped again and has been waiting there for the last three hours.

****

And it's moving again, this time on heading 60. I'm starting to think that it's a GravSurvey ship. In fact, when I double check the survey points it becomes clear and obvious. Now that I know where it's heading, I order my corvettes to cut it off - though they are woefully slow - it'll take them 9 days to get to that survey location.
 

GarfunkeL

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8th May 2034 - 06:45

Mutsu 003 took off and is heading straight to Survey Point 2. My ships will never catch it so it's time to gamble: both corvettes and the freshly overhauled frigates will head to Survey Point 1, in the hope of catching the alien ship there.
 

GarfunkeL

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16th May 2034 - 07:45

I predicted correctly - Mutsu 003 just arrived at Survey Point 1. Unfortunately, my frigates are still 2 days away - the distance between them and Mutsu is 438.3m km - my missiles only have a range of 32.1m km. Maybe the alien ship will hold long enough for the FFGs to get it under missile coverage.

****
17th May 2034 - 02:45

Situation near SP1:

I0W86.jpg
 

GarfunkeL

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17th May 2034 - 17:47

Mutsu finished surveying SP1 and took off on heading 180 - straight towards my frigates who are on heading 0 - distance between my frigates and the alien ship is no 96.6m km

****
18:27

Mutsu 003 is acquired by the SkyDome Active Search Sensors of my frigates. It doesn't change course so either it has no EM sensors or it just doesn't care.

****
18:49

Mutsu 003 is still keeping the same heading and velocity. Remembering how another one of these ships rammed my JSC, I designate Waypoint #1 a little to the side, order my frigates to head towards it and then follow Mutsu 003 at 40k km.

Situation now:

D6Ooq.jpg
 

GarfunkeL

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19:29

Mutsu 003 has definitely noticed my ships now, as it altered course to heading 177 as my frigates started to veer off. It is still outside missile range but not for long. I have no idea whether Mutsu is armed or if it has strong anti missile defences but we'll see. My eight frigates are carrying 64 SS-N-1/8 anti ship missiles each - for a total of 512 missiles. All eight frigates have loaded their tubes - four each.

IQtox.jpg
 

GarfunkeL

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19:45

Mutsu has ECM strength of 60, dropping our fire control range from 64.8m km to 25.9m km, meaning we can't fire quite yet. Soon... But, this is a worrisome turn of events - why would an unarmed grav-survey vessel have ECM?

19:58

Glorious sight:

SafFw.jpg


****
20:01

Beautiful:

rHxMh.jpg


So what had I done? I assigned correct missile for each tube, then assigned all tubes to correct fire control and finally I selected "sync fire" and "auto fire" boxes on each frigate. This means that the eight frigates fire as one, giving us a salvo of 32 missiles.

But it's going to take 50 minutes for the missiles to reach the Mutsu 003 - though I think that time will be halved as the alien ship is still heading towards my frigates. Anyway, since reloading the launchers takes two minutes AND the alien ship is so fast, I select caution and order the frigates to head towards Earth. At least that way the distance between them and Mutsu 003 will close little bit slower, giving the gunners more time to reload and fire - which we will probably need as SS-N-1/8 is only 2k km/sec faster than Mutsu, not many of the missiles will hit.

****
20:21

The missiles reach Mutsu 003. And talk about information overload! Whoa, let's see - I'll give details for each batch of four missiles.

#1 - all four destroyed by PD.
#2 - all four destroyed by PD.
#3 - 3 missed, 1 hit for 9 points of damage.
#4 - all four missed.
#5 - 2 missed, 2 hit for 9 points each.
#6 - all four missed.
#7 - 2 missed, 2 hits.
#8 - all missed.

All together, five size-9 explosions detected. Five out of thirty-two, not too bad. Mutsu might have two railguns for PD, nothing very significant - considering they only got eight missiles and SS-N-1/8 is a first generation missile - very crap.

Salvo 2 is off the launchers at the same time.

Apparently Mutsu is well armoured - those five hits were all absorbed. No change in velocity or thermal signature.

****
20:37

Second salvo reaches Mutsu 003. Again, the first eight missiles are destroyed by point defence.

Batch #3 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#4 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#5 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#6 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#7 - 2 missed, 2 hit
#8 - 2 missed, 2 hit

That's 8 missiles lost to PD, 13 that missed the target through evasive manoeuvres and 8 that hit home. And we pierced the armour! The alien ship is streaming atmosphere after the last two hits and it's thermal signature dropped from 960 to 800. So it's damaged but not heavily - velocity dropped from 8000 km/sec to 6665 km/sec. So probably one engine was knocked out, which means that if they can't repair it quickly, the next salvo will have easier time hitting them!

Salvo 3 is launched at the same time.

****
20:49

Third salvo reaches Mutsu 003.

Batch #1 - 4 destroyed by PD
#2 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#3 - 3 missed, 1 hit, venting more atmosphere
#4 - 3 missed, 1 hit, venting more atmosphere
#5 - 2 missed, 2 hit, venting even more atmosphere
#6 - 4 missed
#7 - 2 hits - at which point Mutsu 003 explodes! The remaining missiles self-destruct as there are no targets for them.

So not only did Salvo 2 knock out one of their engines, it must have destroyed half of their PD capability. One secondary explosion was detected just before Mutsu went supernova, though it wasn't any bigger than the warheads of my missiles.

In any case, a clear victory! Eight frigates used up 96 missiles to destroy a single ship.

Woo-hoo.

Well, eight shitty frigates used 96 shitty missiles to destroy a single ship that was at least two, if not three generations ahead of us. So that's little perspective.

Okay, all my vessels will head back to Earth to refuel and rearm. I also need to design a salvage ship so I can check that wreckage.
 

GarfunkeL

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11th February 2035 16:52

Sol Patrol - my 8 FFGs - was picketing JP2 (Sol - Lacaille 8760) when a new hostile contact jumped in. Intelligence designated it as Mutsu 004, so it's another survey vessel. Unfortunately I had forgot to create a waypoint, so the frigates are right on top of the JP, only 39k km from Mutsu 004 - practically knife-fighting distance. This does tell us that the Lacaille aliens do not have very advanced jump drives, as the more advanced jump drives you have, the farther from the JP you are when jump in-system.

Anyway, the ships all have permission to fire, though with instructions to synchronize. Their railguns should be in-range too, unless the enemy ECM is hindering them. Time to give some instructions to the frigates:

O3VkI.jpg


I click the "Copy Target - Class in TG" button after selecting Mutsu 004 as the target for FFG Agincourt. This means that the other 7 frigates in the TG - Aisne, Anzio, Armada, Austerlitz, Balaclava, Bastogne and Borodino - all target Mutsu 004. Active sensors are on, missile launchers are ready to fire - I click the big red button "Current Fleet - Open Fire" let's see what happens.

****
10 seconds later, Agincourt's crew still isn't ready to fire, and because of synchronized fire order, the other ships are all waiting for her. The aliens, however, sprang into action - heading 349, speed 7999km/sec, now 96k km away. I order the fleet to follow. While the frigates will never catch up with the alien ship, they can give more time for the missiles to reach it.

****
5 seconds later, navigation officers have plotted the course but again, not all ships are yet ready.

****
5 seconds later, the alien ship has opened the range to 174k km but the frigates finally fire.

****
Situation at 16:53

G7keL.jpg
 

GarfunkeL

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11th February 2035 - 16:54:36

The first salvo reaches Mutsu 004.

Batch #1 - all 4 destroyed by PD
#2 - all 4 destroyed by PD
#3 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#4 - 2 missed, 2 hit
#5 - all 4 missed
#6 - all 4 missed
#7 - 1 missed, 3 hit
#8 - 2 missed, 2 hit

In total, eight missiles hit but all hits were absorbed by armour. 30 seconds until salvo two is launched.

****
16:55

Salvo two is launched. Mutsu 004 is now 831k km away, still speeding away 7999 km/sec.

****
16:57

Salvo three is launched. Salvo two is little over half-way to Mutsu 004, which is now 1.5m km away. I order the frigates to stop firing, as I want to see how salvo two and three fare before tossing away more missiles.

****
17:02:06

Salvo two reaches Mutsu 004:

Batch #1: All 4 destroyed by PD
#2: All 4 missed - but this means that salvo one managed to knock out half of their PD or they missed
#3: All 4 missed
#4: 3 missed, 1 hit
#5: 2 missed, 2 hit, Mutsu is streaming atmosphere
#6: 3 missed, 1 hit
#7: 2 missed, 2 hit
#8: 1 missed, 3 hit, Mutsu is streaming more atmosphere

Total of nine missiles hit, out of which three penetrated armour, knocking at least one engine, maybe more, out of commission as the alien thermal signature dropped from 960 to 640

****
Five seconds later, the damage is confirmed as Mutsu 004's velocity dropped to 5333 km/sec. Still more than enough to escape the frigates but salvo three should have an easier job hitting it. Mutsu is now 3.1m km away from Sol Patrol. As our missiles have range of 32m km, it won't escape. Salvo 3 is few minutes away.

****
17:05:21

Salvo three reaches Mutsu 004.

Batch #1: All 4 destroyed by PD
#2: 3 missed, 1 hit and penetrated armour
#3: All 4 missed
#4: 2 hit and penetrated - blowing up the ship.

Remaining missiles self-destructed. This time there were no secondary explosions - though a strength 0 absorption shield explosion was spotted. If the aliens really have absorption shields, we are in heap of trouble, though since it was only strength-0 and didn't seem to interfere with my missiles, I'm not sure what to make out of it.

In any case, we now have 2 wrecks to salvage in Sol system. Salvager is still on the drawing board. I send Sol Patrol to Earth to refuel and rearm and overhaul - the corvettes will take their place picketing the jump point. DD Hoods can't launch soon enough - then I can move my ships to their system and allow their ships to come to me, instead of chasing them around Sol.

Also, I've designed a Gen2 missile - SS-N-2/8, but I prefer to use the older missiles first, especially since the Mutsu class ships do not pose much of a danger to my ships.
 

GarfunkeL

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Destroid said:
Can you post the comparative performance of your missiles two missile designs?

Sure can!

Name******** Size****Speed*** Endurance***Range**Warhead**Manoeuvre Rating
SS-N-1/8 (Gen1) ** 8 ** 10k km/s ** 54min *** 32.1m km * 9 ********* 18
SS-N-2/8 (Gen2) 8 11k km/s 63min 41.8m km 9 23

SA-N-1/1 1 11.6k km/s 4min 2.6m km 1 20
SA-N-2/1 1 13.6k km/s 3min 2.6m km 1 27

ICBM (Gen0) 24 10 km/s 17 0.1m km 6 10

Conventional ICBM is there just for comparison, as its the starting point.
 

Topher

Cipher
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I'm still not totally sure how to work and assign survey teams but I've built and sent my first geological survey ship. After surveying all the inner planets of the sol system I can see the mineral content of each planet but I can't view the mineral content of moons (luna or either martian moon) even though I've had them surveyed. Also, how can I set luna to be a colony? and how can I build and ship something like an automated mine to it's surface?

*Apparently none of the moons have any minerals and I've figured out how to set luna as a colony.
**I think I've figured out how to get automated mines to a planet/moon, I just need to figure out how to design a cargo ship.
 

Cassidy

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You'll have to research all the way in Genetic Modifications until -50% base gravity to be able to actually settle Luna, and then churn Genetic Modification Centers in Mars to start a batch of low-g adapted humans for settling in the Moon. As for Automated Mines, Freighters or any kind of ship with cargo holds can load them from a planet to the other using a "Load Automated Mine" order. Depending on how many cargo holds, it may take more than one run to load 1 automated mine. Just give "load x at Earth" and "unload y at destination" orders, click on the "Cycle orders" checkbox, and just in case, add special order to refuel at nearest colony if fuel gets below 20%, and check once a while until the rough amount of automated mines you wanted is delivered.
 

Ashery

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As far as surveying goes, hit F9 and, on the left most side of the list, you should see a column that's either blank (no survey done), M (survey done, minerals found) or S (survey done, no minerals found).

I'm pretty sure you can send a geosurvey team and find minerals on planets that were originally empty, but that's not really worth it as you should be focusing on turning silver mines into gold mines instead of digging up every ounce of minerals you can find. For instance, if you find out that Venus has 2mil duranium at 0.2 availability, if your geosurvey team manages to bump that availability up to 0.8, that is a huge benefit, provided that Venus has the other minerals in at least modest quantities/availability. If all it has is duranium, even a hundred million at 1.0 availability, you'd still be better off sending most of your mines elsewhere.
 

Destroid

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Doing the tutorial on the wiki pretty much takes you through all the basics that you need to play the game, such as doing geosurveys, building basic ships etc.

I just designed some little 800t ships to use as fast system defenders (don't need much fuel or jump drives when defending friendly systems), I think these should perform quite well, and allow me to train up lower ranking officers (which couldn't command my 6000t basic destroyers). I have some hangers in orbit of Terra to reload them. My tech is a a bit better than yours here as I started with a TN nation and I'm in the year 2069.

Code:
Goblin class Fast Attack Craft    800 tons     39 Crew     174.2 BP      TCS 16  TH 70  EM 0
12500 km/s     Armour 1-7     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 7.8
Maint Life 7.49 Years     MSP 68    AFR 10%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 2    5YR 32    Max Repair 88 MSP
Magazine 52    

ICFHO Drive - Military (1)    Power 200    Fuel Use 500%    Signature 70    Armour 0    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 30,000 Litres    Range 13.5 billion km   (12 days at full power)

Compact Missile Tube/4 (13)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
MissileFC II (1)     Range 105.2m km    Resolution 80
Slingshot II ASM (13)  Speed: 42,500 km/s   End: 28.2m    Range: 72m km   WH: 5    Size: 4    TH: 255 / 153 / 76
 

Topher

Cipher
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Should I send survey ships out with basic sensors or wait and send them out with improved sensors? I thought that you could only survey a planet from space once or can I go back and survey it again later on with improved sensors to find more minerals? Also wouldn't the first level sensors miss a lot? Is that why luna, the other moons and mercury didn't have any minerals, I just didn't find them because of weak sensors or weak crew survey skill? Would surveying them again later on with better sensors or a better crew turn up minerals or do I loose out those minerals forever because I missed them on my first pass?
 

Destroid

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Basic sensors will do the job, as far as I know the advanced sensors just work faster so you can make more efficient survey ships. Do bear in mind that TN minerals are quite uncommon, it's not that unusual to find completely barren systems if they don't have many objects.
 

GarfunkeL

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Better survey skills improve the odds of finding stuff and allows you to find more stuff with better accessibility. However, you only get 2 chances - once with a geo-survey ship and second with a geology team and that's that. However, if Sol system is poor, fret not - concentrate on getting jump gates up & running, it's a big galaxy out there!
 

Ashery

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I've been under the impression that better/more geosurvey sensors just decrease the time it takes to survey each body, where the ship commander's survey ability (And the survey officer's and part of the overall commander's under Task Force Organization) just modifies the amount of points, but I could be mistaken.

I highly suggest you start with geosurvey ships immediately, but wait until you have an experienced group of officers (120 as a minimum, 140+ would be better) before you do the final team survey.

I'm not even planning on researching the advanced sensors once I pick up my game again (14 years into a conventional start, but I've been obsessively reading/participating in the game's forums). They just aren't worth the 20k total research points. By the time I have the spare RP to get'em quickly, they wouldn't see much use, so there's really no point. If it's true that they increase the minerals detected, that'd certainly make a compelling argument to get'em early, but I don't think that's the case.

@Destroid: You can set the officer level required to command a ship under DAC/Rank/Info in the Fleet Design menu.
 

GarfunkeL

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8th June 2037 09:58

Jumper Alpha encountered a new alien race while exploring DX Cancri - a system mere 2 jumps from Sol. No colonies were found and the only contact is this:

P4VDr.jpg


That's 37 fast-attack crafts, each 800 tons, heading towards my jump scout with very high velocity. I hailed them and put my diplomatic team to work but after the experience with the Mutsu, it's better to be cautious so I ordered the scout to jump back. GEV Alexander Mackenzie and GSV Antonio Abetti will be on their own, unfortunately.
 

Cassidy

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GarfunkeL said:
I hailed them and put my diplomatic team to work

:decline:

This is how real diplomatic teams do:

2wqsewz.jpg


In my game I built an excess of military academies and thus had easily five officers with 30% diplomacy skills. Then they tried to establish communications with aliens that made first contact with two surveys and one jump ship. Those three spaceships were shot on sight and destroyed, and in the end, even with those highly skilled diplomats, communications were deemed as impossible as if trying to communicate with rats(at least two of them gained 5% boosts to their diplomacy skills along it). Right now I'm preparing for the payback and proper EXTERMINATUS.

Therefore,

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TOTALLY AVOID COMBAT IN AURORA
 

GarfunkeL

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So yeah, my JSC got away. Two days later, the geo-survey ship was swarmed by the little buggers. Apparently they are armed with a single Meson cannon each. That's bad and good news - bad is that Mesons go straight through shields and armour, good is that they only inflict 1 point of damage per hit and their range is pitiful 60k km. In the forlorn hope of saving something, I sent my grav-survey ship to rescue the 32 people who managed to make it to the lifepods, only to be attacked again. This time another contact was spotted, in addition to the FACs but without active sensors, no details were known. In any case, the GSV was swarmed as well and destroyed. 473 humans were killed.

So I dubbed the aliens as the "Swarm". We're now have contact with two alien races, both immediately hostile. Looking good!

Cassidy, yeah, there are
some aliens that are always hostile - Precursor robots, the biological Swarm and the extra-galactic Intruders. NPRs are -usually- more neutral, though nothing prevents one from being hostile from the start.

In other news, my salvage crews found a veritably treasure from the wreck of Mutsu 003. That race is clearly much more advanced than humanity - their grav sensors are of strength 48, while mine are 21 - their thermal sensors are of sensitivity 28 while mine are 8. Well, disassembling those sensors should help with research - and there's two more wrecks to salvage.
 

Norfleet

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GarfunkeL said:
Mars has already been terraformed to ideal - it's little bit colder than Earth but otherwise perfect for humanity.
That sounds ideal to me. Earth is too damn hot, and the problem is only going to get worse in the future.
 

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