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I'm hoping for some kind of Reynolds style malignant AI entity that will put us all thoroughly in our places.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:01
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No idea who that guy is but we should totally talk to him!
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Jun 26, 2017 22:10
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 12 March, 0253hrs  A small force forms up to sweep the moons of Neptune.  At the same time the marine corvettes, a fleet tanker and a Brigade transport under Jack 2142 start loading to go retake S-T.  The western moons reveal nothing,  The sweep force heads to the 'south'. 12 March, 1146hrs  Suddenly, a ping! 400T contact moving away at 1000kps from Neso, it must have seen the active of the sweepers moving at it. As the sweepers turn towards it it increases speed to over 2000kps.  Luckily the frigates sensors and fire control are excellent at targeting ships of this size.  Target acquired! Fire salvo two!  After the second salvo the ship is left a tumbling wreck.  Interestingly as explosions tear through the ship its size baloons on the sensors to 2000T from a mere 400.  Survivors are picked up for interrogation, it will be interesting to see what they know and what they have seen from their vantage point. 12 March, 1438hrs  Salvagers depart to pick over the wreck as the Swift tuttle assault force departs, troops full loaded and ready.   The brave officers participating in Swift-Tuttle 2, the revengening.  After all this drama you can see TF Dumbo has traveled only a fraction of the distance back. In the solar south you can see the John Phillip Holland repair yard slowly making its way outsystem. Saros fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 00:17
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I loving knew it. Glad we got the bastard before he saw the S-T force leave. We should let the SB boys know that there might be a similar sweep coming for them if the IC decides to copy us. Also, nice to confirm they've got cloaking. Well, not nice, but useful. There could be near-invisible scout ships scattered all over the place, following our fleets, whatever 
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 00:26
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Wait, how do we know they have cloaking?
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Jun 27, 2017 00:41
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GunnerJ posted:Wait, how do we know they have cloaking? I think the comment about the 400T ship appearing 2000T as it blew up. Their cloaking device failed as they died.
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Jun 27, 2017 00:45
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Ah... So cloaking works by masking the apparent mass of the ship, then?
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Jun 27, 2017 01:00
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Makes sense, think of it like Low Observable aircraft (stealth). The sensor return(s) show a much smaller object than there actually is, so it's either there was enough material blown off by the missiles or some sort of active emission absorbing device got knocked out. Remember, TNEs are Space Magic so that's not ridiculous as it sounds (it is, but ~space magic~).
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Jun 27, 2017 01:14
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Well, I wasn't saying it's implausible, just trying to understand. "Looks smaller than it is" is a bit more immediately comprehensible though.
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Jun 27, 2017 01:18
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Hey, so I spotted myself for the first time in the second to last screenshot there. I might have missed it before, sorry if I'm dumb, but can someone tell me what kind of ship I'm on?
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Jun 27, 2017 01:36
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Troop Transport, with you leading some ground troops to go liberate a rock.
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Jun 27, 2017 01:39
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Yeah the way cloaking works is that an active cloaking device lowers what mass the ship registers as on active sensors. One of our missiles hit their cloak at some point, which is why the contact ballooned up to its true size of 2000 tons. The analogy that Coffeehitler made is a good one. Cloaking does nothing to hide thermal or EM signatures, however, so a cloaked ship that wants to stay hidden still has to move slow and keep actives off (unless it's also got assorted gubbins to reduce those as well). The fact that this guy was crawling along implies that, thankfully, they don't have too much thermal baffling on their engines. As long as our fleets move fast, a stealth scout can't keep up and remain hidden, so we at least don't need to worry about them tracking our fleets in real time, just watching them come and go. Should be SOP to sweep for the little buggers now, though, we saw one at Tempel as well.
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Jun 27, 2017 02:59
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Dancer posted:Hey, so I spotted myself for the first time in the second to last screenshot there. I might have missed it before, sorry if I'm dumb, but can someone tell me what kind of ship I'm on? Labou class antifighter Corvette, Prancer. Spreadsheet has all officer assignments and a tab for compiling info on IC ships. Edit: Apparently I missed an image.
Saros fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 07:14
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This probably explains that tiny ship we detected in the inner system cruiser clash earlier as well. Sounds like we should consider having some of these anti-fighter ships shadow and or scout for our fleets with actives to try to detect these scouts. If we wanted to try to hide our movements and thought these might give us away we could always just have them fly around randomly with their actives on sometimes.
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Jun 27, 2017 13:44
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Lets do some sweeps around S-T with our corvettes and see if another one pops up.
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Jun 27, 2017 13:49
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Interlude 2; Learned behavior Martian colony Patroclus: The emergency shelter deep within the rock of Patroclus shakes as if giants tread overhead. The occupants huddle in their cramped sections, emergency vacsuits plugged into the backup power and air supplies. Some pray quietly and others are simply quiet after countless hours of terror having given way to a kind of muted acceptance. In one section a mother holds her two children in their bunks, the fourth bunk remains conspicuously empty with the peeling sticker "D. Khan - LS Engineering." It’s been over a day since David was called to help salvage the colony’s failing life support systems and little word has come since. With a flash and howl of escaping air the roof explodes inwards, rubble flying like bullets and tearing down the line of cubicles. By some miracle the mother and her children are unhurt but the common channel fills with the screams of those less fortunate, paper thin vacsuits doing little to stop the speeding hail of stones. From the rubble rises a mechanical monstrosity. Spiderlike with four limbs, standing tall as a man it rapidly scans the surrounding area and fixes upon the mother and her children. The machine is clearly badly damaged, a low slung gun is nothing but a fused lump and one of its legs is a smashed ruin but it rapidly adjusts and hurls itself towards the huddled figures. Limbs reach out to snatch the children from her grasp, suit air and power umbilicals snapping like whips from with the force of it. Less than two seconds behind the drone is a Mobile Infantryman, his suit scarred from battle but still lending inhuman speed and strength as he lands in a crouch, gun already tracking the corporate drone. The drone spins its captives around to face the hulking figure and there is an instant of stillness followed by horror as he takes in the tableau before him and realises the location to which the battle has brought him. The drone is already charging, tiny vacsuited figures held before it like shields. For a moment a finger tightens on a trigger but it passes just as fast. A sudden twist of the wrist and the rifle ejects itself from the armored arm and a duranium blade snaps into place. The drone discards the children and hurls itself upon the armored figure, the small figures skimming past in the low gravity to impact the far wall with bone-shattering force. Man and machine meet, both moving too fast to follow but the infantryman is immediately on the defensive, unable to compete with the machines blinding speed. The terrified onlookers can only watch as the flurry of movements leaves the armored figure crumpled against the wall, a spike from the drone’s leg driven clear through him.  One more quick scan of the room and the drone levers itself back out the ceiling and is gone, leaving behind nothing but destruction. Saros fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jun 28, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 14:39
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Guys, are we sure we know what genre this is?
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Jun 27, 2017 15:45
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Jun 27, 2017 15:52
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...is Swift-Tuttle located on Patroclus? What are we reading about here.
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Jun 27, 2017 15:54
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GunnerJ posted:...is Swift-Tuttle located on Patroclus? What are we reading about here. Pretty sure thats where the IC attacked Martian Forces in the inner system. We heard a fleet wide broadcast about it.
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Jun 27, 2017 15:55
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Yes right those broadcasts dont want to work in sweden?
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Jun 27, 2017 16:03
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Pash posted:Pretty sure thats where the IC attacked Martian Forces in the inner system. We heard a fleet wide broadcast about it. It's a Jovian trojan, if that counts as inner-system to you. Aside from that, yeah.
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Jun 27, 2017 16:07
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Yeah Patroclus is one of the Jovian Trojans. It was a pretty large Martian (or was it just Martian-aligned?) settlement. The IC warcriming all over it is what turned the war hot at the start of this theater. E: If the videos aren't working in other countries I could do transcriptions of them. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 16:20
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Patroclus is the primary Martian Settlement in Jupiter's leading Trojan asteroids, currently blockaded and under siege by IC forces. As you may have guessed it's turning into a bit of a bloodbath as the IC deploys autonomous drone troops to flush out the entire division of Martian mobile infantry stationed there. The drones have extremely adaptive behavior routines and seem to have taken the view the Geneva conventions don't apply to space... ------- The videos aren't working? Hmm okay i'll go have a look around and see if I have done something dumb with youtubes settings. [e] I made them public and linked them in the first post so maybe check back see if they are working now. Saros fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 16:28
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Oh, I saw the video, I just forgot the details. 
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Jun 27, 2017 16:34
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Saros posted:The drones have extremely adaptive behavior routines and seem to have taken the view the Geneva conventions don't apply to space... Glad the IC seems to have not learned from any Sci Fi ever. At least after our eventual demise we can rest assured that the Drones will eventually murder all of the IC as well.
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Jun 27, 2017 16:53
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Pash posted:Glad the IC seems to have not learned from any Sci Fi ever. At least after our eventual demise we can rest assured that the Drones will eventually murder all of the IC as well. Well yes you would think that. Then again: Technocrat posted:Silicon Valley re-invents the wheel, again.
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Jun 27, 2017 17:28
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 12 March, 1728hrs  Good news! 9th Cruiser Division, veterans of the battle of Tempel 1 are completing repairs and overhaul at Mars. Once this is complete command intends to assign them to Triton. 12 March, 2038hrs  Fleet Scout Tornado departs for Uranus, she will wait until the IC movement from Saturn is due to arrive then scan the area with her actives. 15 March   Three days pass with little news, the Salvagers fail to recover anything valuble fro mthe wreck of the IC stealthship and prisoners remain tight-lipped. 9 Crudiv completes most of her overhaul however and readies to depart. 17 March, 1752hrs  Two more days pass as ships move across the vast distances of the outer system. A very small IC freighter is detected heading outsystem from Uranus, odd but probably going on a run to some independent kuiper belt colony. 24 March 1353hrs  Almost a week later and ships are still moving about. The marine raider force splits from the S-T assault and heads for the shipping lanes. Reports come in of humanitarian disaster on beseiged Patroclous but details are sketchy. "Right, gametime" thinks the commander of Tornado and her huge active sensor lights up only 80 million km from Uranus.   Contacts! Many contacts! Berthed off Titania. Two PDC contacts on the inner moon Umbriel! 1x Steve Jobs 2x Bill gates 2x Zuckerberg 1x Elon Musk 5x Marissa Mayer 1x Shell 1x Robert Ford 4x Iron Lady Looks like one hell of a force gathering here! Surely though it can't be all destined for an assault on Triton?  The SB operations ship and escorts are closing on Pluto, "only" 800m km to go! Saros fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 20:04
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What was the class of the missile destroyers that shoot the giant waves again? That looks like a fleet that might be intended to attack Neptune...
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Jun 27, 2017 20:11
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Well we've certainly gotten their attention  I admire your optimism, Saros, but I think they're going all-in on Triton. I guess the silver lining is that even though we're all gonna die, at least all those ships are way out here instead of covering against an attack from the inner system.... E: Pash, it's the Marissa Mayers that are the bullshit missile boxes. We're looking at a 250+ missile alpha strike just from those DDG's, to say nothing of the rest of the fleet. This is gonna be "fun". E2: Intel query: why are some of the Mayers designated "M" and some designated "S"? E3 to not double post: 
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 20:12
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Double-posting so I don't add more edits: Does Triton have any missile factories? If we try to take on that deathstack in a straight fight we'll get real bloodied even if we win. If we could fab up some mines to seed along the route between Triton and Saturn, however, we can wear them down before having to fight. We might even get lucky and peg their munitions tender or tanker or something irreplaceable.
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Jun 27, 2017 20:33
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Those boxlaunchers only have one salvo before they need to reload? Prostrat: they will likely target one or two ships. We might trick them into targeting our already crippled ships? While we rush them? Can we destroy their supply ship?
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Jun 27, 2017 20:35
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Affi posted:Those boxlaunchers only have one salvo before they need to reload? Skeleton crews trying to eat missiles might be the best bet assuming they attack before the shipyard makes it and can repair them. Wishing others had gone for the Carrier right about now... Formation wise if the fleet battle comes before we can repair it would probably be best to put the damaged ships up front to eat missiles with the anti missile ships with them to chew up as many as we can. The Supply ship idea required us getting the captured box launcher ship up and running, which we have not had a chance to do. Crazycryodude posted:Double-posting so I don't add more edits: Unless we can activate some sort of homing space is so large they won't matter. besides that we will probably face issues of time before that could be useful.
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Jun 27, 2017 21:10
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Pash posted:Skeleton crews trying to eat missiles might be the best bet assuming they attack before the shipyard makes it and can repair them. Wishing others had gone for the Carrier right about now... With a scout we ought to be able to pinpoint their heading? And if they are arrogant they might not even change it a bit?
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Jun 27, 2017 21:13
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Affi posted:With a scout we ought to be able to pinpoint their heading? And if they are arrogant they might not even change it a bit? I mean usually you try to lay mines before the enemy is already moving right? Are you suggesting just shooting some missiles in their general path, letting them run out of fuel, and hope they run into them?
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Jun 27, 2017 21:23
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Crazycryodude posted:Does Triton have any missile factories? If we try to take on that deathstack in a straight fight we'll get real bloodied even if we win. If we could fab up some mines to seed along the route between Triton and Saturn, however, we can wear them down before having to fight. We might even get lucky and peg their munitions tender or tanker or something irreplaceable. You're more than welcome to request custom missile/mine designs and i'll do my best to mock them up. Triton base has its own manufacturing capabilities and can produce custom missiles and even fighters at a limited rate.
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Jun 27, 2017 21:26
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Pash posted:I mean usually you try to lay mines before the enemy is already moving right? Are you suggesting just shooting some missiles in their general path, letting them run out of fuel, and hope they run into them? "Mines" is Aurora terms are a large missile that flies to somewhere in space (or has no first stage engine and is dropped by a ship), goes dark, and then shoots smaller homing missiles at anything that comes near (near being up to millions of kilometers). It's not a stationary object that you pray they run into, that's just incredibly dumb and bad in the vastness of space (as you have surmised). They're very useful for seeding around jump points if we ever get that far, and are situationally useful in other cases. Situations like dropping them behind you to gently caress with pursuers or scattering them in the general direction of an incoming doomstack to whittle away at them. Saros, if it's not too late, we definitely want Triton to crank out and launch as many mines in whatever form we can. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 23:15
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 24 March, 1535hrs The Tornado waits an hour and a half but no sign of sudden movement present themselves from the IC forces although the transports settle into a lower orbit over the colony. Eventually the commander has had enough, the lack of activity is worrissome expecially as the IC must see the Tornado thanks to her massive active emission. The order is given to withdraw towards Neptune. 24 March, 1707hrs   The commanders insincts are proven correct as another hour passes before suddenly an active sensor springs to life 25 million km away. The ship must be small, a fighter or a FAC as nothing registers on Tornado's active sensor but her passive EM sensors alert her anyway.  Mark Watney and William S. Burrough's are scrambled from Neptune as the Tornado flees at maximum power. The range of the active contact closes to 10m km over a few hours. Suddenly ten missiles flash in from the darkness. Tornado takes eight hits but thankfully her armor holds.  A few minutes later twenty missile drives show up briefly on her passive thermals before they too reach attack position.  Tornado's desperate dodging pays off as only 11 impact. She staggers, streaming atmosphere and five crew are killed as her Thermal passive is torn apart by a detonation but the ship holds steady. A minute later the hostile active winks off, signal disappearing into the blackness. Tornado does the same, changing course to hide her position but the last reading on the ships around Titania was of the troop transports pulling up from low orbit to join the rest of the ships the fleet startng to form up around the Steve Jobs class contact.   Deploy for the defense of Triton! Uranus is a shade over 1.63 billion km distant so you have about ten days before the IC fleet transports can arrive but advance elements may arrive sooner. Enemy estimates are up the page a bit and here are your current forces: Dumbo:  Marine Raiders:  Marine assault ship:  Triton Defense:  Good luck Goons! Fair odds a lot of you aren't coming home from this one! Saros fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 23:24
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Alright, 10 days. Just eyeballing things, that's about enough for Dumbo to get home and refill their magazines but not perform any meaningful repairs. It is enough time to have some desperate ordnance techs fearing for their lives slap together some makeshift mines and launch them from the PDC silos or something towards the doomstack. We probably won't get many out, but even a single mine that they hit and get scared by is better than doing nothing.
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Jun 27, 2017 23:29
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What would be really useful is some way to trick the missile spam boats into unloading on nothing.
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Jun 27, 2017 23:43
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