Turn 1: 2350-2359Player Turns:Lyran Commonwealth: Budget $80B.Free Worlds League: Budget $100B.Draconis Combine: Budget $100B.Marian Hegemony: Budget $10B.Federated Suns: Budget $90B.NPC Turns:Terran Hegemony: Budget $750B.United Hindu Collective: Budget $20B.Capellan Commonality: Budget $25B.Sarna Supremacy: Budget $25B.Duchy of Liao: Budget $15B.Sian Commonwealth: Budget $10B.St. Ives Mercantile League: Budget $10B.Tikonov Grand Union: Budget $5B.Rim Worlds Republic: Budget $20B.Taurian Concordat: Budget $10B. (
Designs,
Budget)
Principality of Rasalhague: Budget $1B.Astropolitical Summary:- The Draconis Combine's efforts to pacify the Rasalhague region continue. Significant counter-insurgency efforts are made within the region, but the conflict shows no signs of stopping yet.
- The Sarna Supremacy invades the Tikonov Grand Union in 2351, seeing to capitalize on chaos within the region by attacking Algol and Slocum. By the end of 2352, the Tikonov forces have largely stopped fighting, and a ceasefire is brokered by the Capellans. The Sarna Supremacy takes control New Aragon in the peace treaty.
- The Federated Suns also take note of the chaos in the Capellan regions, and in 2357 they invade the planet of Bell, demanding Chesterton and Highspire as well. A joint force from Capella, Sarna, and Tikonov counterattack in 2358 to recapture Bell, but the entire civilian population of 15,000 has mysteriously vanished by the time they arrive. In the end, the Federated Suns acquires Chesterton, but its other gains are lost in the peace settlement.
- In 2358, Seluk Tucas is elected Prime Minister of the Capellan Commonality. An aggressive opportunist, he begins attempting to unify the Capellan region under his own leadership, by using a combination of defence pacts and extortion to convince Tikonov to hand over the planet of Algot to his allies in Sarna.
Combat Results: A note before we start. For each battle, I'll outline a plausible fight that happens this turn, and get a sense of what forces will be dedicated to it. For each side, I'll roll three dice - crew skill, command skill, and luck. Crew skill represents fighter pilot effectiveness, quality of gunnery, and so on. Command skill is about trying to make the battle happen in the way that best suits your forces - a great result might be an ambush, or a lengthy stern chase against a slower enemy with short-ranged weapons. Luck should be obvious. These rolls can be modified depending on maintenance levels, support infrastructure, notable canon personas having an impact, and so on. I'll take it all together, and write up a battle for each.
The only notable space battle during Sarna's invasion of Tikonov happened three days after the invasion fleet appeared at a pirate point Algol. A retired captain vacationing on Algol managed to, by sheer force of personality, scrounge up almost every ship that could fly on the entire planet, hastily converting the one DropShip on ground into an impromptu tanker for his fighters and shuttles, and sending his forces on a roundabout route after the Sarnish JumpShips. Barely escaping detection by the inbound DropShips, they sprang upon the JumpShips which had been left with an escort that didn't bother to scout due to overconfidence on the part of its commander. While the Sarnish forces fought well once they got over their initial surprise, they were badly mauled by the initial missile strike from the ragtag force, and lost two JumpShips and one DropShip outright before the fighters could mount an effective defence. Once the defenders rallied, the Tikonov forces realized they were doomed and attempted to surrender, but according to records from the Sarnish command ship, communication difficulties led to the surrender request not being noticed until nearly the end. Only one Tikonov pilot, a junior police shuttle pilot from the planet's capital, managed to survive the battle. 11 Sarnish fighters were lost, but 21 Tikonov fighters and 13 Tikonov shuttles were destroyed in the process.
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The Draconis Combine's attempt to clamp down on the insurgency in Rasalhague was mostly fought on the ground, with one notable exception. Unbeknownst to the Dracs, the Rasalhague forces had managed to find a supplier for modern fighters, and had secreted over a dozen wings on Trondheim waiting for their chance to strike at a convoy. They got their chance in November of 2355. A major troop convoy of eight fully loaded JumpShips entered the system at the nadir point, and the Rasalhague fighter flotilla was ready to strike. They attempted to ambush the inbound DropShips about three hours away from the planet, and their navigation and preparation were both superb. Against any other convoy, their attack would have been a glowing success. However, this was not any other convoy. This convoy had the brand-new
DCS Kutai escorting it, on its first-ever combat mission. The Kutai's new sensor system detected the inbound fighters, and while the result was actually dismissed as a probable glitch by the duty captain due to the unlikelihood of such a large force being in that place at that time, the warning was sufficient to ensure that their weapons were warming up when the fighters arrived. In the end, that may have been the difference between victory and defeat.
The Kutai's fire was occasionally interrupted by issues with the new equipment, and the point-defence machine guns performed somewhat worse than had been hoped. The DropShip weapons barely got online at all. Conversely the Rasalhague forces performed well for pilots with no combat experience, adjusting targeting solutions on the fly once they realized what the escort they faced was, and nearly managed to overwhelm the Kutai entirely. However, once the machine guns began firing properly, at least two potentially-fatal missiles were shot down in the nick of time. Fighters attempted to fire their on-board cannons into the gaping wounds in the Kutai's frontal armour, but their inexperience began to show here, as their lack of evasive maneuvers meant that many were shot down before their fire could cause significant damage. In the end, only 32 Rasalhague pilots out of 200 survived to surrender, but they destroyed four DropShips and 13 fighters in the process, and came within inches of destroying the Kutai itself.
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After the Federated Suns moved into the Tikonov Grand Union in 2357, analysts were expecting no major response to the invasion, given how totally the Tikonov forces were routed by the end of 2352. However, an unlikely alliance of Sarna and Capella came to Tikonov's aid by the beginning of 2358. After marshaling their forces of over two dozen JumpShips led by the
CCS Qinru Zhe, the combined fleet set out for the world of Highspire to commence the liberation of Tikonov space. However, on their way towards the planet, a Federated Suns JumpShip had snuck away and summoned reinforcements. The
FSS Albion jumped to a pirate point some twelve hours ahead of the "Capellan Coalition" fleet, and proceeded to set an ambush. Knowing that no faster ship was in service anywhere, that the Qinru Zhe's primary weaponry was shorter-ranged than his autocannons, and that the raider carried no fighters, the captain of the Albion dictated a combat strategy of maintaining a range just outside effective range for the NAC/30, and trying to hammer the ship to scrap from afar.
Unfortunately, Federated Suns intelligence on the Qinru Zhe was grossly inadequate, and had neglected to understand either the extremely long range of its lasers, the fact that the Capellan ship was just as agile as their own, or the superiority of Capellan sensors. The Capellan captain embraced the long-range fight, and the gunnery of his crew was almost as accurate in combat conditions as it had been in excercises while they were working up. The Albion was hammered by over two dozen hits from naval lasers in the early part of the fight, landing only two hits in reply. The Albion's captain panicked, and sent his meager fighter force on a strike mission to try to allow his ship to escape, but despite valiant efforts by the pilots, the entire strike force was annihilated by defensive fire from the Qinru Zhe. The Albion's doom seemed certain, but at this point the Capellan force's commander broke off the fight due to a distress call from his transport ships(which were engaged in landing on the planet at the time). It was hoped that the Albion had been crippled enough to slow it down and allow for the Qinru Zhe to catch up, but that was not to be - one of the few systems that actually remained undamaged in the fight was the Albion's engines, and by the time that the Qinru Zhe had realized that the Albion was making its escape, it was too far away to overhaul before it could jump out of the system and limp back to base.
Research:LC: $2,731m
FWL: $1,049m
DC: $2,000m
FS: $862m
TH: $11,480m
UHC: $1,265m
CC: $254m
SS: $900m
TC: $166m
DoL: $306m
SC: $300m
SIML: $538m
TGU: $40m
RWR: $1,400m
TOTAL = $23,291m
I'm not sure if I actually want to keep the winner a secret like I was saying, but I will for now(unless it's a human, of course - check your PMs to see if you won, I'll send out the notice before I post this).
What do you guys think?
Budgets for Turn 2:Most budgets remain unchanged for the time being. The TGU drops from $5B to $2B due to its hideous losses and damage, while the Sarna Supremacy and Federated Suns each gain $1B to represent their gains in combat.
