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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Korea
    Gender
    Male

    Default Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Introduction

    When Arixa declared its independence, the blood on Terra had barely dried from decades of nuclear war.

    The First Emperor was found dead in his sleep. His young heiress quickly assumed the throne, a hasty coronation planned for the turn of the century. Her ministers reaffirmed the sweeping promises of her father, swearing to end the famines and rebuild their bleeding world. To the average Terran, though—poor, starving, and sick—imperial guarantees fell on largely deaf ears.

    The homeworld was half ruined, entire continents left radioactive. Hundreds of millions had fought in the crucible of war that established the new order, the echoes of their sacrifices haunting those who remained. Few could say the unity was worth the blood. The one hope they dared to cling to was that finally, the fighting was over. With no more nations, there would be no more wars, and humanity could count on a generation of peace.

    The Arixans, wayward colonists of a distant world, shattered that dream before the people scarcely believed it.



    Welcome to my narrative after action review for Space Empires IV (SEIV), a 4X turn-based strategy game from the year 2000. It’s an old-school game, and I’ll be presenting it in an old-school way: screen shots with accompanying writeups. Inspired by a plethora of similar writeups for other strategy games, mainly those published by Paradox Interactive (Stellaris, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, etc.), other inspirations include various narrative roleplaying content creators I follow, and a Let’s Play for this very game on this very forum many moons ago. Special thanks go to the game’s fan wiki, unfinished though it may be.

    The playthroughs I always find most interesting treat the games they showcase as vehicles for storytelling, with less regard for strictly adhering to the game’s rules or win states than prioritizing compelling fiction. Appropriately, I’ll be playing SEIV with a handful of modifications, both downloaded and my own, plus starting off with a bit of behind-the-curtain stage setting before we begin.

    Spoiler tagged below is an overview the game’s setup options, what choices I went with, and what it all means for the unfamiliar. Throughout and following that, I’ll have some notes about mods in play and self-imposed RP limitations.

    The second post will house running overview information of the game as it progresses: a galactic map, our in-game score, the economy, colonies, fleet rosters, etc. These will be pulled from the game at the time of the latest update, giving a look into the state of the game outside of what works itself into the narrative.

    One of SEIV’s primary selling points is the customizability of its ship, station, and unit designs. Basic hull sizes are the starting point for everything, typically filled first with control components and the maximum allowed number of engines, and following that by any desired combination of weapons, defenses, and specialty components—as tech levels and hull space allows. Intermittently, I’ll include some key design overviews outside the regular chapters as a reference for our current technology levels and fleet doctrines.

    And hopefully this will be all well and interesting. Updates will be a mix of in-character and out-of-character explanations as needed. Please let me know any suggestions for improvements.

    Spoiler: Game Setup
    Show
    Quadrant (Map)



    Pictured here is the galaxy (quadrant) creation screen, a sub-menu for initial game creation. A game of SEIV takes place within the star systems picture on the above example map—the white circles—which are linked together by warp point connections—the white lines.

    The main difference between the quadrant types is their system distribution; as far as the content of those systems goes, all types are roughly identical minus Ancient. According to the fan wiki, all non-Ancient maps will have roughly the following proportion of systems: 67% single-star systems, 8% binary star systems, 4% trinary star systems, 8% nebulae, 6% asteroid belts, 1% black holes, and 6% miscellaneous.

    Below are example maps of each type, all generated at the largest size. Mod note: I’ve edited a data file to max out the number of systems that will be generated, giving our large maps up to 255 stars as opposed to the game’s default 100.


    Quadrant Types

    Mid-Life:


    Mid-Life galaxies are the standard fare and serve as a baseline for comparison against the other options. A mix of densely packed regions with some dead space between them.

    Cluster:


    My personal favorite, and the option I went with for this game. Up to twelve distinct clusters of systems with limited connections between them; can make conflict within a cluster messy and make it very difficult to break into another empire’s clusters without major military effort.

    Galactic Edge:


    Essentially even density of systems throughout the map. Has fewer systems than other large map types on the 255 setting.

    Spiral Arm:


    A “spiral” map; absolutely breaks under the 255 setting, so also pictured is a 100-system variation. I feel like the technology existed in the year 2000 to make something a bit more analogous to an actual spiral galaxy than this, but no dice.

    Grid:


    Not much to say here. Good proof to its denizens that their reality is just a simulation.

    Ancient:


    Same layout type as Mid-Life, but with the following changes to the proportion of systems it generates: 43% single-star systems (with planets), 0% binary star systems, 0% trinary star systems, 20% nebulae, 12% asteroid belts, 10% black holes, and 15% miscellaneous (including systems with one, dim star and a load of former-planet asteroid fields). Generally, less livable space and more time dealing with bizarre stellar obstacles.

    Some notes on the other options listed in the Quadrant screen above:

    All Warp Points connected: Checked in all the above map examples. Means that, given enough time and supplies, a ship can make the journey from any one point in the galaxy to any other without having to open a new warp point along the way. When unchecked, you get strange galactic topography and some isolated regions of the map, like this:



    Strictly speaking, I left this enabled, but more on that later.

    No Warp Points: Self-explanatory. Generates a map according to the selected type’s distribution and content, but not a single warp point connecting any of the systems together. Starting from zero with regards to having the tech to place your own warp points, this makes for a slow open. Disabled.

    Warp Points located anywhere in system: When unchecked, warp points only appear in the outermost edge of a system unless placed manually with high-tech components, meaning longer travel times between stars until far into the late game. When turned on, they’ll spawn anywhere between the system’s center and the edge that faces the system they warp to, allowing for generally faster travel. To help maintain the sense that Space Is Big, this is left off for us.

    All systems seen by all players: Reveals the whole map to all players at the start of the game but leaves fog of war unaffected. Basically, removes exploration as an expansion factor while still requiring reconnaissance to see what other nations are doing with all the planets you know about. Left disabled for our game.

    Omnipresent view of all systems: Removes fog of war. You still have to explore a system the first time to see it, but, inexplicably, you never have to go back for permanent real-time knowledge of what’s there. Combined with the above option, the entire map will be explored and visible from the start. Also disabled.

    Finite resources: Planets and asteroids have values for the game’s three main resources: minerals, organics, and radioactives. 100% is ‘nominal value,’ and values can range wildly between 0% and 255% (not sure what the game’s hang-up on the number 255 is all about). When mining a settled world with a building, the percent value never goes down; when orbitally/remotely mining asteroids or an unsettled planet, the value goes down by one percent per turn. When the Finite resources setting is turned on, these percentage values are all replaced by a sum total number, and all exploitation, settled or orbital, will cause the planet’s total value to go down per turn. Not something I want to have to deal with this game: disabled.

    All player planets the same size: Later game creation settings allow starting with more than one planet; this option being unchecked means that they will vary in size. It also means that there’s a (very) small chance that, even in a standard game where everyone only starts with one planet, those planets can be different sizes between players. I’ve only ever noticed it allowing that to happen once, however, after many attempts at seeing it work on maps with all systems seen/omnipresent view turned on and maximum players. Regardless, disabled for our game.


    Another mod note: I generated a large, 255-system cluster map for this AAR. Once the map was made, I used the map editor to remove a few key warp points to separate the galaxy in half. Past a certain point, we’ll be forced to research and employ expensive and highly advanced warp point generators to continue exploring the galaxy. Who knows what we’ll find isolated on the other side?


    Events



    Events in SEIV are universally negative occurrences which can affect human or AI players at random intervals, according to the selected Frequency. They range from ships receiving damage out of nowhere (Low Severity) to extinction events which wipe out entire systems in the wake of a star’s supernova (Catastrophic Severity). As ‘fun’ as that would be to deal with, I’ve turned them off for my own sanity—there will be plenty of stellar manipulation shenanigans on our own terms later, and this will allow me to ignore the inevitable entropic death of the universe with at least semi-permanent stars.


    Technology



    SEIV boasts an intricate and interesting technology tree, and this menu allows any particular technology to be selectively disabled before starting a game. We’ll be leaving everything turned on and have Technology Cost set at High for a reasonably slow pace of advancement.


    Player Settings



    This screen determines several of the actual starting conditions we’ll experience in-game. Pictured is the configuration I chose. We’ll start with a treasury that’s nearly empty, on a homeworld barely keeping itself together. AI players’ scores will only be visible to us if we make a friendly treaty, meaning we’ll have no way to know our enemies’ size and strength without some recon and espionage. Starting with a Low Technology Level gives us only the basic, starting techs, with a long way to go before we can call ourselves a respectable galactic power. Racial Points are what we spend on min-maxing our nation’s stat bonuses and debuffs, which we’ll look at a bit further down.


    Players



    SEIV allows for up to 20 empires in one game, and we’ll be filling up all 19 other slots with (mostly) vanilla empires edited by the TDM-Modpack. TDM keeps the standard empires largely unaltered minus updates to their AI and design choices to make them more survivable, challenging opponents. The Computer Player Bonus setting, which gives free resources to the AI, is turned off; they’ll survive based on what resources they actually have, just like us, and for the far away empires with time and space to develop that should be more than enough to cause us problems by the time we find them.

    We’ll return to take a look at our own empire’s settings shortly.


    Victory Conditions



    When all victory conditions are disabled, the game doesn’t declare official victory until there’s only one empire left. This AAR isn’t strictly playing for the ‘you win’ screen, so I’ll save us both some trouble and time:



    Alternatively:




    Game Settings



    The game’s hard upper limits on ships (including base stations) and units of all types are 20,000 each, per player. This is quite high—high enough that I’m not worried about ever reaching it. The other settings are self-explanatory, except maybe No Tactical Combat: combat occurs in either Strategic mode (AI auto-resolve) or Tactical mode (where you actually control your own ships). We’ll be playing Tactical for every battle we fight, so that setting stays disabled.


    Mechanics



    And the last game setup screen—not much to see here. SEIV’s classic single player/hotseat style with Turn Based Movement is left on, whereas multiplayer games using play-by-post require Simultaneous Movement (and Strategic combat, for that matter) to keep things fair.


    Empire Setup – The Terran Domain



    On to our empire creation. I’ve used the vanilla Terran face model (ignore the discrepancy between the old man face and our leader being an empress) and changed its shipset to the game’s Generic appearance. We won’t have any so-called Neutral races in play, which all use the above ship appearance and are incapable of traveling by warp points—thus serving as single-system, ‘easy mode’ enemies—so their ship set is up for grabs. I personally prefer it to several of the other shipsets, including the Terrans’, so, here we are. I did keep the Terran flag and blue map color, though.

    The game refers to AI control over aspects of a player nation as having “Ministers” enabled—technically, all AI players simply have every Minister enabled for all parts of their empire, with how they behave determined by the empire's game files. We could dynamically enable Ministers ourselves in-game to govern parts of our empire and relieve some of the stress of micro-management…



    …but we won’t plan on doing that. Any decision the AI makes will be, generally speaking, worse than just letting something sit there until I get back to it. There’s even an option for Simultaneous (usually multiplayer) games to explicitly not allow Ministers make any changes whatsoever to your empire if you miss a turn.

    Environment



    Standard humans here—for the record, the game prevents you from picking a gas giant/no atmosphere homeworld combination.



    Oh well. Interestingly, there is a picture for such a colony type in the game files, plus an additional, unused atmosphere—Argon—for all three planet compositions.


    Culture





    Here begins the meat of SEIV empire design, and the start of my separation of the gameplay and story. Cultures apply blanket changes, at no charge to your allocated racial points, against the Characteristic stats listed below. The Berserkers culture applies a very favorable increase to our combat stats, and it’s arguably the best meta option, but in-lore it won’t apply to our people in the narrative. Consider the stat modifiers to be largely behind-the-scenes.


    Characteristics



    And the gameplay/story separation continues. I couldn’t help but do some min-maxing to our stats, and while you won’t find me describing our version of humanity as having Non-Existant (sic) Physical Strength or Pathetic Cunning, the numbers don’t lie for the benefits we’ll receive to combat, research, and some other choice statistics. An expert player would doubtlessly do better, but this will serve us well enough, and we’ll need a bit of an edge over the AI anyway—but more on that later.


    Advanced Traits



    Advanced Traits give powerful, or near-useless bonuses depending on which you pick. The three selected above are generally the best in the game, giving pluses to our planets’ building/storage capacities, our space yard construction speeds, and our ship movement. For what we didn’t take: the supply bonus would be nice, but it isn’t essential, and eventually becomes obsolete anyway. Plagues aren’t common or bad enough to be worth the points, and since all Events are outright disabled they won’t happen to us without biological weapons or intel attacks. Not requiring a spaceport building per system is convenient, but it’s not so convenient that it justifies the cost. Exploration will be a large part of this playthrough, so the Ancient Race trait stays off, and wouldn’t make sense for us anyway. Further down the list is a trait which removes happiness as a factor for our population, which is not only meta-mechanically not worth it, but breaks our lore and is contrary to another decision I made on the next screen.

    Not pictured are five other traits which lock unique tech trees behind them, those being psychic, religious, temporal, crystallurgic, and organic technologies. I may or may not have dropped all their costs to zero in the game files and selected all five for this playthrough. We won’t research them independently, but if we manage to steal such technologies from relevant aliens, I want to be able to reverse-engineer what we find without having to pretend that a certain type of gun is simply “beyond our understanding” because we didn’t check the right box at game creation.


    Description



    Neutral Demeanor probably fits well enough and has no gameplay or stat implications. Happiness Type, however, absolutely does.

    The default happiness type is Peaceful, and having it means that your people are sensible folk who like diplomacy, industrial progress, and colonial acquisitions. Neutral is a third option, and it’s an active handicap which causes populations to gain unrest as you take diplomatic action. Bloodthirsty, which I selected, is also an active handicap that causes unhappiness as you colonize new planets, make treaties, and do anything other than very frequently win battles and wars, but it’s a nice proxy to represent a split society that requires frequent policing and internal military occupation—a bit closer to what I’m looking for.


    And that settles our pre-game settings. Other modifications not already mentioned:

    -I disabled the feature called “Mega Evil Empire,” which, when flagged True in the data files, forces all AI players to become permanently hostile to anyone (i.e., me) who passes a sufficient score threshold over second place. This would be impossible to roleplay, and it’s almost literally guaranteed to happen to us, so it’s off for good.

    -Space stations can be made to join fleets (mechanically allowing them to hold battle formations), and space yards/colony modules can be retrofitted onto ships which didn’t previously have them (another game balance restriction that felt arbitrary for RP purposes). Very niche changes that are honestly unlikely to even come up. As space stations have infinite supplies, I’ll make sure not to cheese that and will keep them out of fleet formations with actual ships in them (this is probably the main balance reason that this feature is disabled by default).

    -I raised the per-sector (per-tile) limit of satellites and mines from 100 to the hardcoded game maximum for units in general: 20,000. This isn’t because I intend to actually use 20,000 satellites or mines somewhere, and I certainly hope that the AI doesn’t. But since we can easily and quickly create magnitudes more than 100 of any unit, and a similar limitation doesn’t exist for the other applicable unit type (fighters), it felt like a move which may help the RP later. Also, it means that enemy minefields remain a concern as we advance: normally, you could just make every fleet capable of sweeping away the maximum 100 mines and they’d be immune to the problem forever. Now, we’ll need to keep on our toes and be ready to sweep minefields in excess of that number.

    -Probably the largest mechanical change I’ve made: mines, normally undetectable by even the highest level of cloak detection technology in the game, will be seen by top level sensors once researched and employed. Also, a red nebula type which similarly couldn’t be penetrated by the highest sensors has been adjusted so that it can. I like the idea that technology can eventually counter these problems, and with mines potentially being stacked in numbers greater than 100 I may need the heads up so that my entire navy isn’t shattered unexpectedly.


    Finally, a note on a major gameplay limitation I’m self-imposing: we won’t be using warp points until first contact is made with another species. That means staying in our home system for, if my test games are any indication, several dozen turns until a xeno stumbles across us. AI players will therefore have a significant head start, and we’ll be playing catchup for a good portion of the game—hopefully, this translates into a fun way to play, and an entertaining story to read through.

    And that’s that.

    I hope you enjoy and choose to follow along. The first chapter will be up before tomorrow, with regular updates backlogged through the first dozen or so updates. Thanks for reading.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-07-30 at 12:09 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Korea
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Contents

    Act I – Insurrection
    Chapter I – The Terran Domain
    Chapter II – New Space Race
    Chapter III – First Shots
    Chapter IV – Operation Mercy
    Chapter V – Capitulation
    Interlude I – The Long Peace

    Act II – Foreign Stars
    Chapter VI – Outside Context
    Chapter VII – Tentative Steps
    Chapter VIII – Initial Expansion
    Chapter IX – Singular Honor (Coming Soon)

    Extra Chapters
    To Be Added

    The Terran Domain, 2412.4


    Colonies
    Total Colonies: 8
    Construction Colonies: 2
    Minerals Colonies: 1
    Organics Colonies: 1
    Radioactives Colonies: 2
    Research Colonies: 2

    Spoiler: Colonies (Detailed by System)
    Show
    Spoiler: Fallia System, Imperial Capital
    Show

    Construction Colonies: 2
    Minerals Colonies: 1
    Organics Colonies: 1
    Radioactives Colonies: 2
    Research Colonies: 2*
    *Terra and Arixa permanently classified as Homeworlds.
    System Notes: Home of the Terrans, capital of the Domain. New Brenen fuels the industrial growth of the empire while the labs and universities of Arixa and the homeworld spearhead its scientific leaps.

    Economy


    Known Space Data and Empire Census


    Research and Development




    R&D Notes: Chemistry will give us basic armor, a second layer of defense after energy shields and the only defense against certain shield-skipping weapons—until we research a higher tier of shield that blocks those, too. Applied Intelligence will allow us to start generating intelligence points that we can pour into various espionage actions, including Counterintelligence, which protects us from alien sabotage. Energy Stream Weapons (which we have three levels of already) will give us higher tiers of the Anti-Proton Beam, a mainstay gun that, while currently worse than our simple DUCs, eventually far overtakes them as the standard end game weapon. Smaller Weapons and the Fighters tech areas offers, predictably, fighters and the carriers that deploy them, plus weapons that can fit on their miniature hulls. Maxing out the Repair tech at level three will matter once we start retrofitting entire fleets at once to the latest equipment, which can take months even with multiple repair stations in orbit. And Minerals Extraction will greatly increase our output for the most important resource in the game.

    Weapons Report


    Diplomatic Relations


    Treaty Grid


    Intelligence and Espionage
    N/A

    Spoiler: Diplomatic Summaries
    Show
    Terran Free Republic – The colony world Arixa declared its independence from the empire at the turn of the 25th century, in tandem with the coronation of Empress Letra I on Terra. Claiming to establish a Free Republic, its stated goal was to liberate humanity from tyranny following the forced annexation of all nations in the unity wars. Joravir Oros, a former official of the colonial administration, took the title of Arixan President and led its military as self-proclaimed Grand Admiral. Before secession, Arixa was the jewel of the Domain, its rich lands and deep mines fueling the reconstruction of the homeworld. After more than two years of cold war, the imperial navy shattered the rebel’s defenses and forced its leaders to surrender in 2402.8.
    First Unidentified Alien Civilization – In 2412.0, an unidentified craft appeared on the edge of Fallian space, unfamiliar in design and inexplicable in its presence. A brief skirmish resulted in the ship's self-destruction, and an investigation of its remains confirmed one of humanity's silent fears: the existence of intelligent, organized, spacefaring alien life. Its arrival in Fallia led to the discovery of the warp network by which it traveled, opening humanity up to the stars. The unknown aliens were impossible to communicate with even as the navy discovered its colonies and its fleets. Both sides tensely watched the other from across the void.
    Second Unidentified Alien Civilization – In 2412.4, a Terran reconnaissance craft detected an unfamiliar ship type in the Sutranna system. Initial reports suggested the unthinkable: a second, distinct alien race, spacefaring in its own right and its intentions unknown.

    Spoiler: Historical Timeline
    Show
    2329.5-2349.9 – First Colonial Era begins with initial human settlement of Arixa.
    2350.0 – Arixan Colonial Administration provisionally established, promoting unity and cooperation between the planet’s various national colonies.
    2367.3 – The Kingdom of Trastiva, Terra’s largest nuclear power begins the unity wars by invading its rivals.
    2393.6 – Off-world communications blackout instituted across Terra.
    2398.8 – End of the unity wars. King Trast crowned as humanity’s First Emperor.
    2399.9 – First Emperor found dead in his palace in Mytra City.
    2400.0(Chapter I) Letra I crowned Empress of Humanity. Arixa declares independence from the empire, establishing the Terran Free Republic.
    2400.4(Chapter II) Second Colonial Era begins with the launch of the TS Hope, the first colony ship since unification. Colonization of New Brenan.
    2400.6 – Colonization of Dorani.
    2400.8 – First Fleet established under Admiral Neven Varr.
    2401.0 – Colonization of Nevak.
    2401.3 – Colonization of Eprina by the Terran Free Republic.
    2401.5(Chapter III) First military engagement between spacecraft by imperial forces in the First Fleet. Colonization of Hetonis.
    2401.6 – Invention of frigate ship hulls.
    2401.7 – Colonization of Jeralis by the Terran Free Republic. End of the Second Colonial Era as all habitable Fallian worlds host human life.
    2402.4(Chapter IV) Start of Operation Mercy, the Terran Interplanetary Navy’s mission to pacify and compel the surrender of all rebel worlds in Fallia.
    2402.5(Chapter V) The Battle of Arixa; rebel navy destroyed; imperial blockade established over the planet.
    2402.6 – Blockade established over Eprina.
    2402.7 – Blockade established over Jeralis. Orbit secured over all three rebel colonies.
    2402.8 – The Terran Free Republic surrenders unconditionally. Arixa, Eprina, and Jeralis incorporated into the Terran Domain.
    2403.3(Interlude I) Terran Interplanetary Army established by imperial commission; its First Division begins recruitment and training across the colonies.
    2404.6 – Invention of anti-ship mines, near-undetectable without transponder codes.
    2405.0 – Invention of destroyer ship hulls.
    2407.9 – Invention of climate control facilities, capable of small-scale terraforming to repair the damage and improve the living conditions on Terra.
    2408.2 – Completion of the first climate control facilities across Terra.
    2410.2 – Invention of light cruiser ship hulls.
    2410.6 – Invention of energy shields and the anti-proton beam, both significant forays into energy-based science and technology.
    2411.1 – Second Fleet established under Admiral Kelix Ren. Neven Varr promoted to Grand Admiral of the Terran Interplanetary Navy.
    2411.4 – Invention of combat sensors, advanced electronic components which greatly assist the targeting of enemy ships.
    2411.9 – Terran Interplanetary Navy undergoes a mass retrofit to update older ships with new technology, placing most of the two fleets into a temporary inactive status.
    2412.0(Chapter VI) An unknown craft appears on the border of the Fallia system's gravity well. Following intercept by a detachment from the First Fleet, the vessel is debilitated and damaged in a skirmish, thereafter self-destructing. Wreckage analysis and autopsy reports confirm the vessel is alien in origin.
    2412.1(Chapter VII) The TMS Nearsight, while investigating a gravitational phenomenon in the vicinity of the alien ship's appearance, inadvertently teleports to a system dozens of light years away in an instant. Its crew becomes the first humans to travel outside Fallian space, discovering the galaxy's warp network as well as the Utekra system.
    2412.2 – The Terran Interplanetary Navy enters Utekra in force, massing a defense on both sides of the single warp point leading into human space. A reconnaissance mission begins to ascertain the extent of both the warp network and the unidentified alien civilization, quickly discovering the Nizzarumma nebulae system.
    2412.3 – Discovery of alien colonies in the Sapella system, all on frozen worlds thought to be uninhabitable. The First Fleet discovers the Rastabana system, finding there a major alien presence and an ancient ruin world designated Rastabana IV.
    2412.4(Chapter VIII) Third Colonial era begins with the commissioning of a fleet of new colony ships to claim worlds beyond Fallia’s warp point. Terran Interplanetary Navy redesignated as the Terran Interstellar Navy. Terran explorers continue the discovery of various alien colonies and fleets, and find an alien ship unlike the others in the Sutranna system.

    Naval Overview and Industrial Capacity


    Fleet Rosters, Terran Interstellar Navy

    First FleetThe Reunifiers
    Grand Admiral Neven Varr
    Flagship: TMS-DF Alacrity (Longsword IV – Heavy Cannon Cruiser)
    TMS-DF Faithless (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Fearless (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Memory (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Modesty (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Silverstar (Longsword IV)
    TMS-KS Dread (Spear III – Missile Cruiser)
    TMS-KS Drowned (Spear III)
    TMS-KS Everlast (Spear III)
    TMS-KS Fouler (Spear III)
    TMS-KS Terser (Spear III)
    TMS-KS Zealous (Spear III)
    TMS-AE Batterer (Laconic IX – Anti-Engine Cruiser)
    TMS-AE Debilitator (Laconic IX)
    TMS-BB Leverage (Plasma VII – Heavy Bomber)
    TMS-LM Waive (Entrencher IV – Minelayer)
    TMS-LS Mischievous (Fencer IV – Satellite Layer)
    TMS-MS Clearer (Wayfarer IV – Minesweeper)
    TMS-RC Fairday (Foreseer III – Reconnaissance Ship)
    TMS-RC Nearsight (Foreseer III)
    TMS-RP Waterfall (Savior V – Repair Ship)
    TMS-SS Bystander (Lifeblood V – Supply Ship)
    TMS-SS Treatise (Lifeblood V)
    TMS-TR Malevolent III (Hegemony IX – Troop Transport)
    Ships in Fleet: 24. 6 x heavy cannon cruisers, 6 x missile cruisers, 2 x anti-engine cruisers, 1 x heavy bomber, 1 x minelayer, 1 x satellite layer, 1 x minesweeper, 2 x reconnaissance ships, 1 x repair ship, 2 x supply ships, 1 x troop transport.
    Fleet Notes: Descends from the ships, captains, and crews who subdued the Arixan rebellion and reunited the empire in 2402. Still led by its original admiral, Neven Varr also acts as head of the navy. Comprised of a balanced mix of combat and support ships, and capable of both long- and short-range engagements. Defending the Utekra warp point in Rastabana.

    Second FleetThe Loyalists
    Admiral Kelix Ren
    Flagship: TMS-DF Criticality (Longsword IV – Heavy Cannon Cruiser)
    TMS-DF Telemetry (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Eager (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Divest (Longsword IV)
    TMS-DF Lexicon (Longsword IV)
    TMS-KS Generation (Spear III – Missile Cruiser)
    TMS-KS Jealousy (Spear III)
    TMS-KS Luster (Spear III)
    TMS-AE Aegis (Laconic IX – Anti-Engine Cruiser)
    TMS-AE Terminal (Laconic IX)
    TMS-BB Armageddon (Plasma VII – Heavy Bomber)
    TMS-LM Underway (Entrencher IV – Minelayer)
    TMS-LS Trialer (Fencer IV – Satellite Layer)
    TMS-MS Believer (Wayfarer IV – Minesweeper)
    TMS-RC Braver (Foreseer III – Reconnaissance Ship)
    TMS-RC Neverfar Foreseer III)
    TMS-RP Deviator (Savior V – Repair Ship)
    TMS-SS Gulf (Lifeblood V – Supply Ship)
    TMS-SS Valley (Lifeblood V)
    Ships in Fleet: 19. 5 x heavy cannon cruisers, 3 x missile cruisers, 2 x anti-engine cruisers, 1 x heavy bomber, 1 x minelayer, 1 x satellite layer, 1 x minesweeper, 2 x reconnaissance ships, 1 x repair ship, 2 x supply ships.
    Fleet Notes: Formed in early 2411, its creation marked a massive expansion of the navy’s size and power. Identical on paper to its sister formation, the Second Fleet still lags behind in actual combat power and lacks an assigned troop transport from the army. Supporting colonization outside Fallia.

    Spoiler: Active Designs
    Show
    Ships
    Spoiler: Military Ships
    Show
    *New designs incorporate ECM and Multiplex tracking technologies.
    Warships, Direct Fire Weapons (DF)

    Longsword – Equipped with four heavy Depleted Uranium Cannons (DUC), three energy shield generators, and advanced combat sensors to increase accuracy. Serves as the mainline warship of the imperial navy, balancing protection with firepower. Engages enemies at close-to-medium range
    Sword – Equipped with four light cannons, two shield generators, and combat sensors. A precursor to the Longsword, several still exist in a mothballed status as a reserve force, but none actively serve in a fleet.

    Warships, Seeking Weapons (KS)

    Spear – Equipped with four Capital Ship Missiles (CSM) and two shield generators, engages foes at extreme long-range. Their low rate of fire necessitates protection by shorter-ranged cannon ships, or operations in large numbers. Extra supplies help offset the above-average supply usage for their missile fire.
    Lance – Equipped with three missiles and a single shield generator. Many are held in an inactive flotilla, but are none are still fielded.

    Support Warships, Anti-Engine (AE)

    Laconic – Equipped with four large ionic dispersers, which overload and destroy a ship’s engines, immobilizing it, but otherwise leaving it undamaged. Serves in a supporting role to other warships, enabling the isolation and envelopment of individual enemy warships.

    Support Warships, Bomber (BB)

    Plasma – Equipped with enough planetary napalm to annihilate an entire colony. Its bomb bays offer little projection power, forcing deployment of its arsenal from the outer atmosphere of its targets. Considered a war-crime weapon, nevertheless kept on arsenal and maintained in active employment by the navy.

    Support Warships, Minelayer (LM)

    Entrencher – Minelaying cruiser capable of transporting up to 89 anti-ship mines. Its launch bays can deploy up to 14 mines in a single month. Allows a fleet to dynamically lay mines while on the move, or to heavily fortify a location against hostile spacecraft by emplacing mines over a long period of time.

    Support Warships, Satellite Layer (LS)

    Fencer – Satellite laying cruiser capable of holding up to 20 armed satellites, all of which may be deployed in one month’s time. Provides a fleet with the flexibility to supplement its firepower with static defenses, or to move on from a position while leaving satellites behind.

    Support Warships, Minesweeper (MS)

    Wayfarer – Minesweeping cruiser which can detect and remotely denotate mines without transponder codes, albeit only at extreme close range. Can sweep up to 13 mines.

    Support Warships, Reconnaissance (RC)

    Foreseer – Reconnaissance ship, lightly shielded and completely unarmed, save for the deployment of up to four armed satellites. Laden with significant extra supplies for extended missions away from its host fleet, plus an emergency after burner for a short-term boost to its movement speed.

    Support Warships, Repair (RP)

    Savior – Repair cruiser, two-thirds as efficient at spacecraft repair as a dedicated repair station.

    Support Warships, Supply/Resupply (SS)

    Lifeblood – Supply ship intended to refuel and rearm combat vessels when away from port.

    Support Warships, Transport (TN)

    Caravan – A transport ship crewed exclusively by military personnel, carries military equipment to resupply minelayers, satellite setters, and other vessels. Other models include shields and other defenses when accompanying a fleet on deployment.

    Support Warships, Troop Transport (TR)

    Hegemony – A large troop transport ship, technically part of the Terran Interplanetary Army. Various models balance the need for defense when on approach against the size of the on-board garrison. Regardless of actual size, a ship’s troop complement is considered a division, and is given its own monikers and honors.

    Spoiler: Civilian Ships
    Show
    Colony Ships (CL)

    Fallia – A ship carrying the necessary components and equipment for permanently colonizing a new world. Can carry up to 94 million settlers in stasis, or a lower amount in combination with other equipment (mines, weapons platforms, etc.). Envisioned for colonization missions requiring long-term travel and immediate access to defense upon a colony’s establishment.
    Terra – A standard colony ship. Capable of carrying up to 4 million colonists, its speed can match a modern fleet and it can quickly reach its destination. Requires resupply on longer journeys.

    Remote Mining Ships (RM)

    Extractor (M/O/R) – Cruiser equipped with remote mining drones to exploit unoccupied worlds and asteroids. Variant models collect minerals, organic matter, or radioactive materials. Totally unarmed, and outfitted with the cheapest possible engines to reduce maintenance costs, maximizing profits.

    Stations
    Spoiler: Military Stations
    Show
    Defense Stations, Mixed Armament (DD)

    Oligarch – Orbital defense station armed with both long-range missiles and short-range cannons, mounted on heavy rails for extended range and firepower. Intended to supplement the defense of worlds with less cargo space available for conventional ground-to-space defense batteries.

    Defense Stations, Direct Fire Weapons (DF)

    Patriarch – Orbital defense station armed with four heavy cannons. Designed for use in a network of defenses, where its medium range is complemented by longer-ranged weapons elsewhere.

    Defense Stations, Seeking Weapons (KS)

    Matriarch – Orbital defense station armed with five missile launchers. Designed for use in a network of defenses, where its long range and long reload times are complemented by shorter-ranged weapons elsewhere.

    Spoiler: Civilian Stations
    Show
    Construction Stations (CO)

    Factory – Orbital space yard station, armed with a single missile launcher to supplement colonial defense. Orbital space yards are smaller than ground-based facilities and construct at roughly half the rate, but greatly augment a sector’s production potential.

    Remote Mining Stations (RM)

    Extraction (M/O/R) – Orbital mining station, designed to extract resources from an unoccupied world or asteroid field. Variants collect minerals, organics, or radioactives. Indelicate remote-controlled machines slowly cause damage to the subject of their extraction, rather than preserve their value like ground facilities.

    Repair Stations (RP)

    Provision – Orbital repair facility, capable of repairing spacecraft five times more efficiently than traditional orbital space yards.

    Storage Stations (ST)

    Vault – Orbital storage station, designed to permanently assist planetside logistics with the long-term holding of various military equipment.

    Mines
    Spoiler: Anti-Ship Mines
    Show
    Anti-Ship Mines, High-Explosive (HE) and Low-Explosive (LE)

    Nova – High-explosive anti-ship mine, designed to break through a ship’s defenses and destroy it. Undetectable without original transponder information or advanced sensors.
    Flash – Low-explosive anti-ship mine, designed to deal damage as a swarm to multiple enemy ships. Undetectable without a coded transponder or advanced sensors.

    Satellites
    Spoiler: Military Satellites
    Show
    Defense Satellites (DF, KS, AE)

    Thorn – Defense satellite armed with cannons.
    Kite – Defense satellite armed with missiles.
    Ion – Support satellite armed with ionic dispersers. Supports defense networks by immobilizing enemy ships.

    Troops
    Spoiler: Military Troops
    Show
    Offensive Ground Forces, Light (LT)

    Subjugator – Planetary invasion vehicles and their supporting infantry, launched from orbit to ground via drop pods and landing shuttles. Part of the Terran Interplanetary Army. Equipped with heavy cannons but lightly defended, doctrinally trained to swiftly overwhelm their opponents with superior numbers and firepower.

    Spoiler: Civilian Troops
    Show
    Garrisoning and Policing Forces (PO)

    Enforcer – Lightly armed policing vehicles. Designed to patrol secured colonies, maintain the peace, and break up riots. A step above conscripts in the colonial militia, all are controlled by the Terran Interplanetary Army in a reserve status, authorized for offensive use aboard its troop transports in emergencies.

    Weapons Platforms
    Spoiler: Planetary Weapons Platforms
    Show
    Defense Platforms, Colonial (DC)

    Homestead – Weapons platform comprised of a mix between nuclear missile silos and heavy cannon artillery. Designed for defense of worlds with limited space on the ground for more varied, dedicated defenses.

    Defense Platforms (DF, KS)

    Searchlight – Weapons platform comprised entirely of heavy cannon artillery, capable of accurate fire against targets well out of atmosphere.
    Tower – Weapons platform comprised primarily of nuclear missile silos, with a short-range, low-caliber cannon as an auxiliary weapon.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-09-06 at 03:15 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Feb 2016
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    Earth and/or not-Earth
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    I never played SEIV, but I was a huge fan of SEV back in the day. I'm quite looking forward to seeing where this goes!
    I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Rockphed's Avatar

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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Ah, Space Empires. I had SE3 growing up. I never did figure out how to win the game but I did have a fair bit of fun learning the joys of exterminating xenos. To be clear I was perfectly capable of cleansing the universe of my enemies. The problem came when I had researched all the weapons and cleansed all the worlds with nuclear fire. I have played a bit of SE4 (I had a version of the game that came with an annoying amount of ads at some point), but I won't try to claim I have any great ideas of how to play.

    I look forward to reading your adventures.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wardog View Post
    Rockphed said it well.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sam Starfall
    When your pants are full of crickets, you don't need mnemonics.
    Dragontar by Serpentine.

    Now offering unsolicited advice.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DwarfFighterGuy

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    Dec 2014

    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Ah man, I’ve lost so many hours to SEIV. A very good game, if a daunting one

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Chapter I – The Terran Domain

    “You know, I’ve got a cousin out on Arixa.” The man sat lazily in his seat, arm across the back of it to brace him upright. “Haven’t heard from them since the blackout, obviously. Wonder how they fared through this whole mess.”

    Syn Drisdin looked up from the display on the wall of their flight compartment. Their transport craft rocked gently from turbulence. “Seven years is a long time not to hear from someone, Nev. Were you close to them before?”

    “Nah, never met ‘em.” Neven Varr chuckled. “You think someone like me was getting seats off-world? I was young and poor, once, too—not some pre-war aristocrat relic, y’know. Only ones on flights out of atmosphere were military and business—big business.” He sat back and grinned. “Being the young devil I was, I had yet to find myself in the fortunate waters of today.”

    “Of course.” Syn shook his head. “You know I forget sometimes, but you’re not that much older than me.”

    Neven waved him off, still smirking. “Kids these days.”

    Syn looked back to their display screen. The empress’s coronation ceremony had begun hours earlier, as they were boarding the transport to the capital city. Around the world, millions of others would also be watching the ritualized events play out like an elaborate drama. Even without the sound, he could imagine the roars of the horns, the announcer’s bellowing voice, the cheering from the frantic audience. He had watched the broadcast of her father’s ceremony; he noted the similarities.

    He checked his watch. It was getting close to midnight. At the top of the hour, the new empress would be officially crowned. And, per the orders summoning him and his travel companion, they would be in the group meeting her immediately after.

    At first, he thought it must have been a mistake. They had both earned distinction in the armies of the great unifier, but even war heroes didn’t get invitations to the palace—there were a lot of them, after all. The best he thought they’d get was quiet retirement, but their breaks from service were short-lived. The new orders came fresh off the back of news the emperor’s death. They both asked questions, but neither one of them got an explanation. Eventually, when the transport arrived, their best option was just to get in.

    It was confusing, and unclear. But in the final bloody years of fighting, he became accustomed to the ambiguity of the imperial household. This was just the latest in a long line of things he lacked the full picture to understand.

    “So, what do you think?” Neven asked. “About the new boss.”

    Syn looked at him wearily. His friend shook his head. “I’m not asking for your opinions on her fashion sense, Syn.” Neven leaned forward. “What do you know about her?”

    “Probably no more than you.”

    “That’s strange, right? Ever hear of her before, what, a month ago? I didn’t.”

    “There’s a lot we didn’t know about the royal government. That we still don’t.”

    “Sure, but an heir? The old man had secrets, but a bit odd no one ever mentioned her before, yeah? Didn’t the old nations make a big fuss about, I don’t know, legitimate lineage and all that?”

    Syn shrugged.

    “A resounding sigh. You’re basically the man of the hour, can’t I get a bit more out of you? Let me pry into that maniacal mind of yours?”

    “What do you want me to say, Nev? It’s just above our level, and that’s all there is to it. We could sit here for just five minutes and name off a hundred missions we executed without understanding why, or state secrets we only caught a glimpse of. Didn’t you get used to secrets during the wars?”

    “Maybe. But maybe we won’t need to stay used to them for much longer.”

    “What do you mean?”

    Neven rolled his eyes and motioned at the display screen. “Our arrival—synced up exactly with the coronation. And come on, Syn, a personal meeting with the new girl? We weren’t called in for some secondhand award ceremony in the dead of night.”

    “You think we’re being promoted?”

    “You don’t?”

    “Who knows,” Syn said. “Could be an in-person execution. Disappear us, quietly, for some crime we forgot about long ago.”

    “I wish. Blast my brains out on live TV and the rest fall in line, yeah? And a nice reward that would be for all our years of service, ha!” He sat back. “Although, that may not be too far off. Her ‘dad’ sure liked shows of force.”

    “Well, if you want my opinion on that, I think most people will be glad those are over.”

    “You never know. Anyway, think of it like this: dream big, maybe you win big. Maybe she wants to see how we react to being called in. We go with positive attitudes, polite smiles, we see what happens, maybe good things happen. Yeah?”

    “I’ll keep that in mind.”

    Neven leaned over and knocked hard on the door leading to the pilot’s cockpit. “You got an ETA for us in there?”

    A static-muffled response came out over the intercom, chopped by the rocking of the aircraft. “Ten minutes to touchdown, gentlemen.”

    “Finally.” Neven looked back to Syn. “You ever make it to Mytra before?”

    “No, first time.”

    “Oh, you’re in for a treat. Now sure, it’s seen better days, but I rotated through on R&R after my second campaign—uh, before the bombing—and from what I’ve heard, they rebuilt most of it after the peace accords.” Neven spoke with his hands. “I could talk you to death with my stories of its glory days, just from those few weeks. ‘Jewel of the empire,’ and they meant it. Richest city on the planet, bar none.”

    “That’s not too hard to say these days.” Syn had personally witnessed more than one of the old nations’ capitals razed to the ground by the unity armies. Mytra wasn’t always without competition.

    “Well, it is what it is, y’know.”

    “I know.”

    A few minutes later, the screen showed the coronation ceremony reach its end. Syn’s watch struck midnight. Empress Letra I was crowned the new ruler of humanity.


    2400.0
    Terra, Fallia System




    Terra’s history had always been marred by conflict, but the nuclear-fueled unity wars of the 24th century surpassed all previous destruction. Almost three decades of hard fighting, dozens of nations devastated, 200 million dead. Before, Terra had reached the height of its technological development; after, all it was left with were hollow echoes of its past.



    In the century before the campaigns, enormous orbital stations, vast satellite arrays, and grand extra-atmospheric ships filled the Terran sky. The first tentative steps into space became frenzied competition by the great powers, each aiming to take the next leap forward to revel in the spoils of the stars. Above all else, one goal shone the brightest to those who looked upward.

    For millennia, humanity had seen the other blue specks in the night sky—far-off worlds touched by deep oceans of water. Modern probes confirmed what previous generations had only speculated: the atmospheres of these alien planets held oxygen-rich, breathable air, capable of supporting human life indefinitely.



    One such world, the eighth in orbit of the Fallia star, became humanity’s main aspiration. It boasted vast expanses of arable land, deep mineral wealth, and was identified as the best candidate for a concerted colonization effort. The first functional colony ships carried millions across the vast void of space to Fallia VIII in the early 2300s. Officially renamed Arixa after an old god of prosperity, the planet’s habitation marked the start of a new era in space exploration.

    By mid-century, population booms increased humanity’s number to nearly two billion across its dual worlds. Arixa, initially dependent on Terra’s support for its many uncoordinated colonies, became a rival to many of Terra’s minor powers. Functionally self-sustaining, the increasingly independent Arixan colonies held cooperation talks irreverent to the borders of their national progenitors. A loosely united provisional government coalesced, bringing representatives together from across Arixa’s surface.

    Then, in 2367, the kingdom of Trastiva, Terra’s largest nuclear power, declared war on the rest of humanity. The Trastivan king was the last known of the great psychics, capable of powers rumored to break a person’s mind and sway entire armies. He decreed the war would not end until all Terrans were united under his flag. Massive attacks marked the beginning what would become over three decades of protracted conflict—the unity wars.

    An entire generation would be born and raised in its fires.



    Before the unity wars would end, the great space stations would come crashing down and nuclear weapons would devastate much of Terra’s surface. The colonists of Arixa, separated from the fighting by the deep abyss of space, appointed an administrator to keep the peace on their world. Once several key communications sites were under Trastivan control, a planet-wide blackout on civilian messages severed nearly all connections between Terra and Arixa for the last five years of fighting.

    Ultimately, the wars ended with Terran unification, bloody but resolute. With no major force left in opposition, King Trast crowned himself Emperor of Humanity in late 2398 and received a message of fealty from the colonial government on Arixa.

    However, just over one year later, the new emperor was found dead in his sleep. His heir was revealed as a young woman, previously unknown to the world, and her coronation was scheduled for the final night of the century. Whiplash turned to public acceptance; the people craved peace and reconstruction, regardless of who led them.

    However, Empress Letra would not be so fortunate to inherit an empire at peace.





    The Imperial Palace, Mytra City
    Terra


    “Is this a joke?” Neven whispered to Syn as the message played out on a holographic projector. There were a few dozen others gathered with them in the large meeting room. Syn recognized some of them—ministers, generals, magnates—but most he didn’t. Banners of the empire hung from every wall, the new imperial seal in gold and blue. At the head of the room, a man in an unmarked military uniform stood by the holo-display’s control panel, and guards from the same ambiguous unit watched the entrances. At the center, still in her full ceremonial dress, stood the Empress of Humanity.

    The hologram’s emitter bathed her in a soft blue light. It played a recording of another man Syn didn’t recognize, wearing an outfit that looked like a modified colonial peacekeeper’s. His voice cracked through, sounding like it was recorded on half-functioning technology and transmitted on something even worse.

    “…by any means necessary,” the man in the hologram said. “As the elected speaker for the people of Arixa, I pledge that your tyrannical regime will not destroy our planet as you have destroyed our homeworld. There will be no further tribute, no more promises of loyalty. Instead, we swear to your ruin. To the False Empress, the imperial liars, and all royal collaborators: you are traitors to humanity. Consider this a declaration of war.”

    The message ended. The man’s image froze in place. His eyes glared through those assembled in front of him, a deep rage burning through the hologram’s washed-out colors.

    The man at the control panel pressed a few keys, and the static image began to slowly rotate in place.

    “Joravir Oros. Former colonial magistrate of Arixa, now styling himself the Grand Admiral of the Arixan Defense Force, and president of the Terran Free Republic.” Empress Letra’s voice powerfully carried through the room. Syn had never heard her speak before; he wondered how many people in the room had. “Since my father’s death, Arixa has broadcast this message out of every major communications hub on the colony, every day, all bands directed back to Terra. And ever since the broadcasts began, lawful orders to the colonial government have gone ignored.”

    The hologram continued to slowly turn, almost looking people in the eye as it passed.

    “Many of you served under my father in the wars. Some of you led ministries in his government. All of you swore loyalty to him, and to humanity. Who among you can say that you met him though? Who here looked my father in the eye when they took their oath, face to face?”

    Letra stepped forward, passing by Joravir’s frozen image. “I want you to know my face, to hear my voice. I am your Empress: Letra the First. The Arixans’ leaders believe they can steal away a billion of our sisters and brothers, divide humanity, and destroy the empire every one of us spent blood to build. I swear, as I live, humanity will live, united under one flag. No threat to our peace will go unanswered.”

    The hologram disappeared. “We will match this declaration with one of our own. New leaders of a new empire, of which you all form the cornerstones—swear with me that you will not rest until our people know peace again. Beginning today, all our efforts will go to the new unity war, forced upon us by traitors and thieves.”




    We start the game with the most common screen in SEIV: the system view. Along the top bar we have our empire flag, name, and ruler, then the more pertinent information of the game date and current resource stockpiles—those resources being minerals, organics, and radioactives. Just below the top bar are twelve various sub-menu buttons to the left (the lit-up icons), and then forty grayed out options that generally cover all other special actions in the game. When a selected planet or ship is capable of one or more of these functions, the icons light up and become usable, either directly completing an action (move, attack, etc.) or opening another sub-menu to cover the associated task (launch units, cargo transfer, blow up a star, etc.).

    The system display itself takes up most of the screen and is where all the action happens. Pictured here is our home system—Fallia, a standard system with a single star in its center, surrounded by several planets, an asteroid field, a space storm (the blue blob to the center right), and, in this case, one warp point (the bright blue circle in the bottom left). Our homeworld, Terra, is currently the only thing we own, and the rebels on Arixa have only their starting planet, with their own identifying color scheme.

    All planets are colonizable eventually by anyone with the right technology, but at the start of the game we only have the tech to colonize worlds with the same composition as our homeworld—namely, rock. Accounting for our tech, colonizable worlds are marked by an asterisk to the top right of their icon. Red indicates that the atmosphere isn’t breathable, meaning the planet is much, much less valuable to us and can only host a fraction (20%) of the buildings/population/units that it could if we could breathe there. Green asterisks mean the planet shares our main species’ atmosphere type—in our case, oxygen. These are the most ideal worlds we can find, and each one will be an enormous boon to our economy, research, and overall development.




    Looking more closely at our homeworld, we’ll see various data points of interest. Devastated by decades of nuclear war, the deadly conditions on much of Terra mean that the reproduction rate is effectively 0%. Arixa, a flourishing colony, won’t have this problem. The value amounts for each resource category are also all sizably below 100%, putting our economy off to a slow start and requiring quite a bit of extra attention be paid to our income and reserves to ensure we don’t run literally out of anything.



    Here is the second tab for any settled planet, showcasing what facilities are present on the world and how many can be constructed in total. A small breathable world like this can hold up to 12 buildings (normally ten, but already we’re seeing the benefits of taking the Advanced Storage Techniques trait). The default setup here is enough to get us off the ground (literally) before we come back to optimize it later.

    We have, starting in the top left, a space port facility, one of which is required somewhere per-system to allow the resources collected there to hit our empire’s bank accounts every month. To the right of that is a space yard, which increases the productive capacity of the planet and, more importantly, allows us to construct ships and stations here. Any planet can produce any type of non-ship unit (satellites, weapons platforms, mines, troops, and drones) without needing one of these, but ships are the real ‘action’ pieces in the game, and generally units require ships to be practically employed. The next building we see is a resupply depot, which produces infinite supplies (abstracting both fuel and ammo) for any friendly ship that enters the planet’s orbit. Four mineral mines, a radioactives refinery, a farm, and three research complexes finish off our starting facility lineup. Not much, all told.

    Due to the low values of the planet, I’ll plan on later swapping out all the mines, farms, and refineries here with research stations to optimize the planet’s usage, but in the meantime, we’ll heavily rely on the minerals collected here.




    The Cargo tab shows how many kilotons of storage weight this planet can support; 2400kT is a decent amount that won’t cause any bottlenecks for anything we’re capable of producing at this early stage, but it’s not really enough for serious stockpiling later on. I’ll eventually be throwing cargo stations into orbit to supplement important unit manufactories and storage hubs, allowing far greater quantities of equipment to be stored in and distributed from individual sector tiles.



    And lastly, the Ability tab lists every single racial/empire/other background number that effects our world on a given turn. Not really something that ever needs to be checked again for our purposes.



    Arixa, being controlled by another faction, is opaque to us beyond the basic information available here. Being that the game will classify it as another homeworld, however, in a meta sense we know exactly what they have here on turn one—specifically, the same as us, barring the better planet conditions and slightly randomized resource values.



    Returning out to look at the rest of the system: all systems of all types exist on a 13x13 grid, with sector (tile) 0,0 in the top left corner and sector 12,12 in the bottom right. The gridlines for these tiles can be made visible in an options screen (as well as toggling planet names and other ease-of-use indicators), but it’s a bit garish so I generally leave it off.

    The bottom right of a settled planet icon marks if a significant facility is present, with space yards indicated with a capital Y, an S for space ports, and an R for resupply points. Other indicators exist for various planet-specific or system-wide affects (atmosphere conversion, ship/fleet training, population happiness, etc.), but it will be quite some time before we see most/any of them. Aside from being useful for our own empire management, we’ll also be able to see these icons for any military allies or partners we make; for enemies, we’ll just have to take notes for when we spot key facilities that we can’t destroy as we battle over their worlds.




    Fallia VII will be our highest priority to colonize, defend, and exploit; in a non-RP game, this would essentially be our new ‘capital’ for how important this world is compared to our paltry homeworld. A breathable huge-sized planet has space for 30 facilities, and at 146% value for minerals almost all of them will be made into mines. This world, when fully developed, will fuel our industry for years by itself.



    And it will have to, because the other two huge worlds we can colonize, Fallia III and IX, are far less remarkable. Being that their atmospheres aren’t oxygen, they hold a pitiful 6 facilities each, and their values aren’t anything to jump at either. We’ll be taking everything we can get though, since, as noted in the introduction post, we won’t be leaving our home system until an alien makes first contact, so every planet here counts.



    The other three rock worlds in the system are smaller still; Fallia I can hold two buildings, and the two tiny worlds (moons, actually) hold just one each. Fallia II A and VI A will be best utilized hosting space yards, which, ideally, we’ll have on every planet in the empire for maximum production (once the resources are rolling in, anyway).



    Other notable items in the system: asteroid belts are typically very high in one or more resource value but must be mined remotely to make use of them, which reduces the value by one per turn. This matters later in the game when we research the technology to drag these asteroids together to form new planets—the output of a 200% or more mineral value on a huge world is worth fighting a war over—but for the immediate (and really, not so immediate) future, remote mining is the only practical use for these.

    Space storms are essentially small nebulae clouds—their larger versions cover entire systems end to end, and but these smaller ones impact only a single sector. The effects can vary: this one hides anything in it from all but mid-to-high level cloak detection. Eventually we could theoretically include storms like this in our defenses, generating storms which neutralize shields on hard points guarded by forces reliant on armor protection, for example, but it’s much more likely that we’ll just never fight in them.




    And for the final point of interest in the system, we have the warp point leading to stars unknown. For RP purposes, consider it invisible to the naked eye—some kind of subspace phenomena requiring special detection technology, or prior knowledge that it’s there to navigate. In a real sense, ships cannot traverse systems without these warps, making them the obvious choke points for defense. Eventually, once humanity finds out this is here, this particular warp point will be the most important in the galaxy to us since it’s the only way in or out of our home system. Expect permanent defenses here once we have the capability to field them.


    Planetary Space Yards
    Terra




    Newly appointed as Imperial Executor, Syn had barely slept the night before. The only rest he had was on the short flight from Mytra to the old planetary space yards, and even most of that he had spent reviewing the empress’s requirements. He needed to ensure he knew exactly what he was meant to oversee there.

    After the meeting with the empress ended in the early hours of the morning, most of the other officials had been given offices and staffs somewhere in the palace complex. Syn, however, had been pulled aside by the empress personally and given different instructions.

    “I want you to go to the yards. Meet with the director and oversee their immediate reactivation. Have him gather his lead engineers and labor chiefs and review these ship plans in detail. These are the first projects they’ll be constructing since the plants were shut down, so you may need to take a personal hand to ensure production targets are met—I’ll leave the specifics to you.”

    Syn asked about the limits of his new post. “I can only be in so many places at once,” she went on, “and the physical presence of the imperial crown can be as much a hindrance as it can be a benefit when something needs to get done. As my first executor, then, I personally endow you with the highest authority on all official business, and I’ll make sure that the people who need to know that, do. Think of yourself as a kind of scalpel, and your missions as a method of surgery. Your flight is waiting. You’re dismissed.”

    It was still a lot for him to take in. But Syn was always a patriot for the old kingdom, and now his heart was in it for the empire. Even if it wasn’t, the empress herself had given him personal orders—it would be death not to carry them out.

    The yards director met him at the landing pad. The man nearly bowed before Syn quickly waved him off. “Just a representative,” he said.

    The man looked puzzled, but then nodded. “Of course. Please, follow me.”



    Pictured here is the designs screen, from which we develop and archive all ship, station, and unit types we plan on building. Customization in SEIV is very flexible: barring a few restrictions, the various hull sizes are blank canvases onto which any combination of weapons, armor, and support components can be grafted to fill an imperial need. This screen is also how we’ll see any and all alien ship designs we gain access to—primarily by engaging them in combat, but eventually via long-range scanning reconnaissance, and even by espionage. Any subjugated aliens that we leave partially independent will also automatically provide us with copies of whatever designs they’re producing, giving us real-time information on their technology levels and insights into their tactics.



    The combat simulator, accessed via the above designs screen, allows us to meticulously setup and execute mock battles to assess our designs in practical application—especially against known alien designs and planets. Here we can adjust cargos, fleet compositions, and even decide to set the battle inside a space storm or asteroid field. With careful planning and accurate intelligence, entire campaigns can be rehearsed battle-by-battle ahead of time, ensuring that losing engagements are recognized and avoided, and that victory costs as few lives and resources as possible.

    Half the fun in SEIV is messing around with the designer screen, so expect to see plenty of prototypes and specialty vehicles special designs and doctrine posts over time. For now, we’ll focus in on just a few, primarily because it’s all we can afford:




    The Terra I is humanity’s standard colony ship—slow, unarmed, and very vulnerable. I have -A and -B models on the books, the -A model above having cargo space for an extra 30 million colonists, and the -B model instead using that space to for extra supplies on longer journeys—which, of course, we won’t be taking for some time.

    The Dart I is our first combat design, weak though it may be. Starting with the smallest warship hull size available—the Escort, with 150kT of tonnage—there’s just barely enough space for a single Capital Ship Missile (CSM) launcher after the maximum number of engines and the minimum required supporting bays (the bridge, life support, and crew quarters modules). Said missile can launch once every three combat turns, leaving it defenseless without supporting ships while reloading, but the missile can launch from a hefty eight combat spaces away; our only other offensive weapon, the Depleted Uranium Cannon (DUC), has a measly range of two, making it nearly useless until researched to higher levels. The Dart should have no problem winning engagements against any ship armed only with DUCs, even facing 2-on-1 odds, simply by controlling the range of battle.

    And the Tower I showcases our first ground weapons platform: a small nuclear missile launcher capable of defending colonies—and for now the homeworld—from light attacks. Weapons platforms are effectively the weapons that a planet itself is armed with during battle, and must all be destroyed by any attacker before the planet’s population and facilities can be harmed by conventional weapons. With sufficiently well-armed weapons platforms, a planet can stand alone against small early game fleets and individual harassers, and provide powerful supporting fire for friendly fleets when defending against serious threats down the line.




    “…And for the time being, the palace will maintain the restrictions on private comms traffic, including all information regarding the colony world Arixa. That’s all.” The executor sat back and stifled a sigh.

    After several hours spent meeting with the space yards director and his staff, Syn felt confident that they were all finally on the same page. Specialists from the yards’ engineers would be re-tasked to retrofit several nuclear weapon silos, their mission being to gear them for consistent, tactical firing into outer space. This was considered the most feasible way to quickly defend Terra in the event the Arixans deployed some kind of combat ship to attack the homeland. In the meantime, the yards would prepare for its full remobilization. Immediately following the missile project—expected to take no more than a month—the full effort of the planetary space yards would go into creating and launching a warship of the empire’s own, rebirthing its fledgling navy. The warship would then remain in Terran orbit until the completion of a colony ship two months later, and guard said ship on a mission to Fallia VII, the only other planet in the system with an oxygen atmosphere besides Arixa and Terra itself.



    At the same time, state-sponsored research and development teams would spearhead advancements in ship construction to ensure imperial dominance over Fallian space. Larger ships, capable of carrying larger payloads, could prove essential in any open conflict with the Arixan rebels. Syn’s next stop would be a proving ground for such projects’ prototypes, then a visit with a variety of propaganda ministers to check the messaging counteracting fallout from the Arixan’s war declaration—despite the blackout, everybody knew private communications were still being sent and received. It was only a matter of time before half the world knew about what was going on, and the headache that would bring. To think nothing of the 30-odd million colonists that needed to be convinced, recruited, or conscripted in a matter of months for the first off-world settlement project in nearly a century.

    When he left the space yards, he let out his stifled sigh. It was going to be a long day.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-07-10 at 03:47 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #7
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Man, this takes me back. It's been a while since I played SEIV.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
    Girlfriend and Parents: Why do you spend so much money on that stuff?
    Me: Would you rather I spent all my money on alcohol like others in my peer group?
    G&P: You keep spending as much money as you want!
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    Bossing Around Mad Cats for Fun and Profit: Let's Play MechCommander 2!

    Kicking this LP into overdrive: Let's Play StarCraft 2!

  8. - Top - End - #8
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Thanks for the interest so far, making this is a nostalgia trip for me as well. The actual gameplay and draft chapters are basically done for pretty far out (currently putting together a future chapter 14), but I'm thinking that about one or two updates will go out every weekend for the time being. The process of making a final revision, managing the screenshots on the hosting site, and actually putting the posts together takes a not-insignificant bit of time on the side of real life activities, but I hope it can keep being entertaining as we go along.


    Chapter II – New Space Race

    2400.4
    Orbit Above Terra, Launch of the TS Hope






    The launch of the TMS Majesty and the subsequent completion of the TS Hope—Terra’s first spaceworthy vessels in a generation—proved to the world that humanity was once again forging ahead in its push towards the stars. It also validated to the imperial government that they had, in fact, retained the institutional knowledge of spacefaring that some feared may have been lost forever to the fires of war. To those who knew about Arixa’s declaration, both inside the halls of Mytra’s palace and on the streets below, the Majesty was considered a triumphant show of force that their rebellion would not go answered.

    To the millions of ordinary people escaping dire shortages of food, water, and supplies, the Hope was exactly its namesake: a chance to start again on another world, yet untouched by conflict.





    The 34 million souls in stasis aboard the TS Hope left Terra with TMS Majesty close behind, bound for Fallia VII—thereafter dubbed New Brenen.



    The successful planetfall was celebrated across Terra, and presumably noted by the Arixan rebels. Imperial Executor Syn Drisdin, having met with the new colony's overseers prior to their departure, received countless remote reports in the days after the colony’s establishment. “So far, so good,” was the news, including for the scheduled employment of their Homestead-class defensive battery.



    A compromise design between the traditional nuclear armament defending the space around Terra and prototype heavy cannons designed for low-to-mid-orbit engagements, Homestead-class platforms integrated two missile silos with two massive artillery cannons on enormous rail mounts. Only capable of accurately firing rounds half as far as a missile could fly, the cannons could nevertheless fire three times as often, and were considered sufficient for engaging an enemy craft which survived an initial missile barrage.



    Production plans were laid out: within just over three years, New Brenen was forecasted to achieve its optimal output. In just a matter of months, however, it was expected to out-produce Terra’s own starved strip mines, and the resources it would ship back were expected to immediately revitalize imperial industry.



    A research boom experienced at the turn of the century, spurred by the collective excitement of the scientific community at initial forays back into space, had tapered off into slower, but consistent progress. Colonial research labs to be established on New Brenen in seven months’ time would supplement the efforts of the greater scientific community substantially, and increase the general research base upon which the empire would likely come to rely.


    A brief word of explanation. The astute may recall the first turn’s research summary forecasted the next level of Ship Construction would be complete in 0.6 years, or six months (in SEIV’s ten-month-per-year game calendar), but now reads 1.3 years. What gives?

    The first turn of SEIV gives an extra boost to all your resources based on the selected Starting Resources for Player setting at game generation. With the lowest option selected—5,000—our starting mineral stockpile was determined to be 5,000 plus one turn’s worth of our homeworld’s mineral generation: 3,804. Thus, we started the game with 8,804 minerals in the bank.

    A similar trick occurred with our research, where 5,000 was added on top of the 2,175 research points we actually generate each turn on Terra, meaning for the first turn we had an extra 5,000 points of research to put towards important projects. Unlike the bonus minerals, organics, and radioactives we left in the stockpile, though, research doesn’t carry over between turns—it’s use it or lose it, and the value is recalculated every month. Since we ‘technically’ had 7,175 research points in the first turn, and Ship Construction level two requires 40,000 points to achieve, the projection indicated that, at the current research speed, we would unlock the next tech level in six turns. Unfortunately, our actual by-turn research was less than half that amount, and by turn two the adjusted estimate—1.7 years in total—was revealed.



    2400.5
    The Imperial Palace, Mytra City
    Terra




    “The station achieved stable orbit soon after launch from the planet’s surface, your majesty.” Syn looped the footage of the station maneuvering into place above Arixa.

    “Do we know what’s on it?”

    “No. And since Arixa isn’t saying, the only way to know would be to send a ship to scout it out.”

    The empress sat back. “Any idea how well the one ship we have would do if it fought a base that size?”

    Syn pressed a few keys. “Well, we estimate our own station designs are comparable to whatever the Arixans have created. We’ve assessed the odds.”

    “And?”





    “It doesn’t look good.”

    “What are the chances they just launched a space yard?”

    “Not zero, your majesty, but given our last records of their economy we think it’s unlikely. They’ll have even fewer resources available to them for shipbuilding than we do, and if we built a space yard in orbit right now we’d be hard-pressed to find anything for it to build a ship with.”

    “I see.” She paused for a moment. “No signs of any other ships near the planet?”

    “Nothing.”

    “Good, so no threats to another colony ship.”

    “Correct. TS Pride is on track for completion in a few weeks and the journey to Fallia III will only take a few more after that.”

    The empress was silent for a long moment. “How visible would that station over Arixa be to any amateur stargazers? Here or New Brenen.”

    Syn shifted in place. “Quite.”

    “…”

    “Are you… considering the status of the media campaign, your majesty?”

    “I am. My concern is, until the economy is stable and the millions of starving mouths are fed, I’m not sure we can afford to publicly acknowledge our first and largest colony broke away—and that it did so five months ago.”

    “What if they launch an attack?”

    “TMS Majesty was already built on the pretense of anti-piracy patrols. It wouldn’t be difficult to apply that narrative there.” She shrugged. “It may even actually happen. Once every world in the system is inhabited, piracy between them will be a real concern.”

    “Just not the main one.”

    “No. Not until we’ve quelled this rebellion.” Empress Letra looked back to the feed of the unknown station breaking out of the Arixan atmosphere, watching its stabilizing thrusters gently guide it into place. “And it seems it may be some time before that’s possible, Executor.”


    2400.6
    Launch of the TS Pride






    The Dorani colony will provide primarily organics, since that best leverages its natural resources as our figurative breadbasket. “Figurative” because there’s no actual food mechanic (or any other civilian economy) in this game, so all its resources will go into ground and space industry, like everything else. It will actually be quite a while before we use anywhere near the amount of organics this colony could produce if I filled it with farms, so even though the radioactives value is suboptimal I’ll be splitting two slots off for refineries. Another space will go to a research bay, and the sixth slot will eventually hold a space yard facility.

    2400.8
    The Imperial Palace, Mytra City
    Terra

    Launch of the TMS Imperia; Unknown Ship Detected Over Arixa






    When active Arixan satellites were detected the month prior, it was not considered cause for alarm. A kind of status quo had been reached in Terra’s seat of government; so long as no one publicly admitted that Arixa was filling its space with unauthorized orbital infrastructure, official imperial colonization would continue uninterrupted. When a functioning ship was detected, though, similar in size to Terra’s own two warships, the empress called for a meeting.



    “By weight, whatever those satellites are armed with can’t be much more dangerous than our own designs.” Admiral Neven Varr, sporting the new uniform of the Terran Interplanetary Navy, continued, “And given their low orbit patterns—”

    “I think we all understand that some faraway satellites are the least of our worries, admiral.” The colonial governor of New Brenen chimed in, his voice filtering through the holo-comm. “What about that ship they’ve made? That’s why we’re here. Is your navy preparing to destroy it?”

    Neven cleared his throat. “We’ve recalled TMS Majesty back to Terra to regroup with the Imperia and stage for action. As you know, governor, both New Brenan and Dorani will be constructing additional defensive batteries, per imperial orders. Those defenses will be more than enough to handle a single ship, even if the rebels—”

    “But when will the fleet be expanded to deal with this rebellion once and for all?” the holographic image of Dorani’s governor interrupted. “We’ve spent most of the last year staring down the barrel of this terrorist cabal, watching as they hijack a billion of our people and an entire world, pretending that they aren’t concentrating their forces to kill each and every one of us as we speak. I say, we t—”

    “Gentlemen.” Executor Syn stood up. Despite trying to hide it, he was sure his face betrayed his frustration. Their incessant interruptions were stopping them from getting anywhere. ‘Not that they care,’ he thought. The meeting could hardly go a word without a colonial noble throwing their weight around, trying to impress the throne. Syn motioned for Neven to continue. “Please.”

    Neven nodded. “…If I may. This conflict is a bit different than the wars we’re used to. The simple fact the enemy is a whole star system away places enormous burdens on fielding a viable force. Economic burdens,” he said, eyeing the lord of New Brenen. “Arixa closed diplomatic channels, and won’t surrender unless we attack. That much is obvious. But they’ve been digging in their heels from the moment they declared separation, maybe even before, so we can assume the cross-planetary force necessary to beat them down won’t come easy, or cheap. While I defer to higher judgement on what is and is not good policy on the matter—” He made a gesture as he bowed toward Empress Letra, seated on her throne. “—the bottom line, gentlemen, is that any attack will need overwhelming force for victory. That overwhelming force will need colonies to pay for it. Hence, the empire’s continuing focus on the colonial initiative.”

    “Agreed, admiral.” Empress Letra said. “I feel we’ve spoken on this before. And while lord Dorani may not have been present for our many discussions on this issue, I can assure everyone here today that an attack against these renegades is, in fact, planned. And may be briefed by my appointed admiral without any further interruptions.” She waved her hand. “Proceed.”



    Pictured here is the fleet transfer screen, sparse though it may be for our fledgling navy. While ships in the same sector can be multi-selected to move in ad hoc groups, fleets are essential to keep the navy organized and effective. Fleets share supplies evenly across their ships, and begin battles in a formation, selectable here. In pretty much all circumstances, I’ve found a simple Wall formation is preferred, and that’s what we’ll be using as standard; it gets all the combat ships in in a big, long line, with unarmed ships scattered behind it. Ideally, I would prefer the game let us micro a bit here and choose exactly where each ship or class would appear in the lineup, but no such luck. In formations other than Wall, our ships have the potential to start out too far away from each other to provide mutual support, or they start staggered out in some weird V or lightning shape that results in ships engaging the enemy one at a time—not ideal.

    The strategy button allows us to determine what AI tactics the fleet should use in strategic (AI controlled) combat, which we won’t be using. If we were, I’ve read that the best thing to do would be to have the fleet’s strategy be to break formation as soon as combat begins, from which point each ship would then default to its individual ship’s AI strategy (long range, point blank, launch fighters, etc.), selectable during ship design. Otherwise, the fleet will, at all costs, try to maintain the formation around the flagship as it moves and turns in battle, with no regard in so doing for individual ships charging headlong into range of a dozen enemy guns unnecessarily.




    Another note: fleets, as well as individual ships, gain experience by destroying enemy ships with direct fire weapons (cannons, lasers, etc.). Experience translates into bonuses to a ship’s direct fire hit and dodge chances (attack and defense racial stats) and is so important later that a fleet could be considered totally unready for combat if it wasn’t trained to the pre-combat maximum of 20% XP. Against the AI, which I don’t believe ever deliberately holds and trains its forces ahead of battle (at least in vanilla), maxing XP is less of a way to even the battlefield and more of a flat advantage. Once we have the tech, we’ll plan to have training facilities distributed throughout our space to ensure our crews know no alien equal.


    2401.0
    Launch of the TS Jovial




    In time, another ship would appear in orbit above Arixa, joining its enigmatic twin. The TS Jovial, marked to make planetfall on Fallia I, would be escorted by the Terran Interplanetary Navy’s First Fleet—currently comprised of the two ships Majesty and Imperia. Additional combat craft meant to act as support for the missile-carrying Darts were placed under construction in Terra’s space yards.



    The Knife’s short-range cannons were laughable in comparison to the range and power of even a single nuclear missile, but the long reload times of those missiles left the Darts vulnerable to close-range opponents in the heat of combat. Additionally, the self-guiding tracking apparatuses of the missiles required targets at least the size of an escort to get a lock—the satellite field Arixa produced would be completely untouchable by seeking missile fire.

    Significantly cheaper than their Dart counterparts, the Knife could be built twice as fast. Two were put on order, with the Executor heavily emphasizing their urgency.



    Fallia I, renamed Nevak, was subject to extreme radiation from the proximity of the system’s primary. Littered with a trove of radioactives, a series of refineries were planned to make use of the valuable materials.


    2401.2
    Launch of the TMS Vexation; Departure of the Arixan Fleet


    “We may need to update the propaganda.”



    Neven scratched the back of his head. “Guess they felt cramped.”

    “We don’t actually know if it’s a colony ship,” said Syn.

    “Well, it ain’t a school bus.”

    “Cut it, Nev.”

    “Yeah, yeah.”

    The two men reviewed the latest imagery as they waited to be called in for their audience with the empress, who had been increasingly busy with fielding the assorted concerns of her three colonial governors. Of course, officially there was always a fourth on Arixa, but now it seemed there was a fifth they would need to fabricate, and then explain why its colonists were coming from another colony and not the homeworld.

    Eventually the two men were let inside. Empress Letra quickly motioned for them to sit down as they bowed. “Tell me you have something good for me.”

    Syn said, “Your majesty. We’ve prepared two main options.” He nodded to Neven.

    “The first, ma’am, is that we send the fleet to intercept that Arixan flotilla before it gets where it’s going—Fallia IX. Second plan is to blockade that planet in the hopes that they get the message, turn around, and run home. Either way we’d stop the enemy from planting its flag in dirt that’s rightly ours, and with four combat ships against two, victory is a sure thing.”

    The empress waited a moment. She pressed her temple in frustration. “Both of those options are terrible.”

    Both men flinched. “…Your majesty?”

    “Say that we send the fleet to intercept en route. Say that the two suspected warships they have get blown out of the sky. What do we do with that colony ship? Shoot it? Kill all however-many-million people may be on board? As we speak, we have an entire ministry forging a hundred reasons that the ships we’re looking at are actually sanctioned imperial vessels on official charter. To say nothing of the massive loss of life…” She sighed. “Or say we blockade the planet, and they show up anyway. Same scenario: we either blow up a freighter of civilians, or they call our bluff and settle that world, with our whole navy in orbit watching.” She leaned back. “I don’t like it, gentlemen.”

    Executor Syn spoke up. “There is a third option, then, your majesty.”

    “Speak.”

    “We let them land the colony ship unopposed.”

    “You’re not serious.” Neven glanced at him. “What, just hand it over? Have two rebel worlds on our hands instead of one?”

    “It took years before Arixa became the industrial and military threat it is today, admiral,” the empress said. “Our junior colonies now are nowhere near as prosperous, or capable. It may be fairer to say they’d be getting half a rebel world more with the addition of Fallia IX.”

    “It sounds like you’ve already decided that’s the way ahead, your majesty,” Neven said.

    “Because it is the only way.” She sighed. “Joravir snatched this from us because he knows I can’t call myself fair if I attack civilian targets. It would make me seem too much like my father, and these peaceful days would suddenly feel a lot like the last thirty years of war. We’ve just about convinced people that if they do their work, then the food keeps coming in and their lives keep going on. If we escalate to civilian bombardments, he’ll be able to justify them in turn. He may even be hoping we do so that he can sleep at night when he builds a proper fleet and orders Mytra turned to glass.”

    Both men sat silently.

    “…Consolidate the fleet over Nevak. If those ships change course that’s our most vulnerable colony, the others and Terra have enough missiles aimed at their clouds to steer them away if they go around it. Admiral, I want you on board, and standing by for further instructions. I hope I’ve made it clear here, but take note: in any engagement that may or may not happen, civilian casualties are to be kept to an absolute minimum. Go.”


    2401.4
    +1 Month after Fallia IX’s settlement by Arixan Colony Ship




    Fallia IX—now called Eprina in imperial media and official dispatches—was colonized by the rogue Arixan state in 2401.3, and the two ships that escorted the colonizer there remained in orbit of their new acquisition. One month later, a second space station appeared in orbit over ‘Fortress Arixa,’ challenging the empire to come and enforce their claim on it. The imperial fleet, still conducting maneuvers over Nevak, watched the space between the planets carefully, and awaited new orders from the crown.

    At the same time, the loyal imperial worlds proceeded with their various development plans.



    (2 x Tower I, 4 x Searchlight I)

    Terra’s shipyards prepared colony ships for the unsettled moons of Fallia II and VI, currently a kind of ‘no-man’s-land’ that neither side yet occupied.



    (2 x Homestead I)

    New Brenen, quickly becoming the keystone of the empire, continued expanding its mining operations. Already, the wealth it generated was reinvigorating the Domain’s economy, essentially funding the entire colonization effort and the creation of the imperial fleet.



    (3 x Homestead I)

    Dorani, with its farms and refineries complete, began construction of its own space yard facility. Its completion would be a critical milestone in the expansion of the empire’s industrial might.



    (2 x Homestead I)

    Having activated the greatest missile array that Nevak could support to defend itself, the world set about the construction of defense satellites to supplement its surface batteries. Due to the colony’s severe space limitations, satellites would have to be constructed, armed, and deployed one at a time, but the handful of additional missiles they would provide could prove essential in defending against any future rebel attack.



    And the past year’s research and development efforts towards more advanced ship designs were nearing fruition. Planned in order to bring more firepower to bear against Arixa’s defenses while far from home and resupply, the production of these new ships could allow the empire to break the stalemate. Once the hopelessness of the rebel cause was revealed, their colonies blockaded, and their burgeoning navy crushed, there would be no alternative but their total surrender. Humanity would be united once again.


    Edit: Summary post has been updated. While going through these first couple updates, I've realized there are some bizarre discrepancies with screenshots sizes. Best explanation I can think of is that the playthrough has been a mix between my proper desktop computer with HD monitors and a laptop I used while away from it. The displays' size differences are really my best guess at why screencaps of the same submenus, which appear identically between the two monitors, would come out to different pixel heights and widths. The screencaps from the laptop seem generally larger with a bit more blur, apparently. I'll work my way through fixing these as I find them.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-07-10 at 04:18 AM.

  9. - Top - End - #9
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Had a bit of extra time to put an update together, so here’s a mid-week chapter. Should still be able to get another ready over this coming weekend.


    Chapter III – First Shots

    2401.5
    Fallia System




    The enemy ships had broken off from guarding their new colony and were heading back to Arixa.

    Admiral Neven Varr realized this was the opportunity they were waiting for; he was prepared even before the orders came in. There was an empty colony ship waiting on Terra to load its human cargo and make a break for one of the unsettled moons, but with active enemy warships in the system, it wouldn’t take the risk. He knew the executor was looking for a chance to have the navy clear the way, but with a standing ban on engaging civilian populations and unarmed ships, the timing was tricky. This was just what they were waiting for: a military target, pure and simple.

    The crown gave almost immediate support once the message made it to Mytra. All four of his warships engaged their engines on course to intercept the enemy. At their speed, they would meet just outside close scanner range from Arixa. By the time those ships were destroyed, even if the rebels were constructing another combat vessel, it would be too late for them to send in support. The window for establishing the next imperial colony would be open.

    They made the approach.



    Skirmish in Fallia (Fallia Sector 9,1)







    “Enemy ships within scanner range, admiral.”

    “Show me.”



    The rebel’s cannons were larger than theirs—more powerful, farther ranged. Neven shook his head. It wouldn’t matter. ‘Reb didn’t bring any missiles to this fight,’ he thought, ‘plus we outnumber them two to one.’ He had a decisive advantage. This battle was as good as over.

    “Maintain the formation. Advance.”



    “Enemy ships at full speed to meet us, admiral.”

    “Acknowledged. Nav, break off the Majesty, heading hard right. Comms, have the Charity follow. Imperia and Vexation hold position here.”

    “Aye.”



    “Enemy is pursuing the Majesty.”

    “Fire at the farthest one as soon as they’re in range, have Imperia hit the nearest. Once the missiles are out, we all move away.”

    “Aye.”

    A moment later, he felt the rumble of the missile firing, shaking the entire frame of their small vessel. A blip on the display indicated that Imperia followed suit.



    It occurred to Neven: these were the first shots fired of the war. All the tensions and maneuvering of the last year and a half had led up to this, their first engagement. He wondered to himself how many more shots would be fired before it was finally over.

    Snapping back to the moment, the tac officer called out: “Enemy disengaging at full burn!”



    “They’ve moved outside effective range! Both missiles losing thrust in three, two… Thrust is gone, both missiles drifting dead in space. No hits. Orders?”

    “Again. Close the gap in pairs, let out another salvo.”



    “In range, admiral.”

    “Fire and break away.”







    “Fire ineffective.”

    “Sir, the enemy ships have—”

    “I can see it, tac.” Admiral Varr set his jaw. The enemy was way out of position, too far apart to support each other. Missiles fired even from mid-range were just being dodged—he needed to put his forces further up. With so much distance between the rebel ships now, he had a chance to mass on them one at a time.

    “All ships converge on the nearest enemy!” he shouted out. “Engage at close range, target key systems, and move away!”

    “Vexation is in lead position on the attack, admiral. They’re firing!”



    “Vexation confirms, enemy is leaking oxygen. Their life support must have been hit!”



    “Both missiles away.”

    “Enemy is limping. The other ship is moving back into combat range.”

    ‘Too late, reb,’ Neven thought.





    “Both missiles were good hits. Scans confirm, enemy is ship neutralized with both guns inactive.”

    “Outstanding.” The other may try to run now. He wouldn’t let them get away. “Reform the fleet and send its partner our regards.”

    “Sir!”



    The second enemy ship was charging their line. ‘Idiot,’ Neven thought. ‘Should’ve run.’ “Full broadsides.”



    “Friendly cannon fire ineffective. Ships moving back, missiles are away.”

    “Enemy ship is pursuing the Charity, they report incoming fire!”



    “One of Charity’s engines was hit!”

    “Missiles on intercept!”



    “Damage assessed?”



    “Good hits, admiral. All enemy guns are down.”

    A cheer went up on the bridge, echoed across the fleet net on the command net.

    Admiral Neven sat back in his chair. The empress had given him strict orders to avoid civilian casualties, but she had been flexible when he proposed a scenario like this. ‘Up to his best judgement,’ she had told him. ‘Well, we have no way to capture them, and no way to fix their leaking hulls if they surrender,’ he thought.

    In the best case, they give up and cooperate with a slow, deliberate boarding action to evacuate and arrest the surviving crews. Worst case, they say they surrender, then they ram their dying ships into his during boarding, taking at least one of his with them and avoiding the humiliation of being the war’s first surviving prisoners. Even if his ships survived the ramming, he didn’t have a way to repair his own vessels out here either. He couldn’t afford that risk. He wouldn’t gamble away this victory for these traitors.

    ‘All moot anyway if they don’t surrender, I suppose,’ he thought. “Comms, direct a signal. They’re to power down their engines and send back a manifest with all surviving crew data, plus the full contents of their tactical drives.” He thought a moment. “And make it clear they have five minutes, or we’re spacing what’s left of them.

    “Sent, sir.”

    And they waited. He watched as his fleet maneuvered around the drifting rebels on the tactical display, keeping pace with them. Their engines certainly weren’t powering down. Three minutes passed. Four.

    “Close in and finish them off,” Admiral Varr commanded.

    “Aye, aye.”







    “All hostiles destroyed, admiral.”

    “Bring us home.”



    Following the First Fleet’s victory, Fallian space was cleared—temporarily—of active rebel warships. The colony ship TS Bold, passengers in tow, made the journey out of Terra’s atmosphere. It made landfall on the moon of the gas giant Fallia II a week later.



    Precariously close to the orbits of both Arixa and the rogue Eprina, the remote colony of Hetonis would serve as a small space yard hub but would require significant orbital defenses to compensate for its lack of capacity for sufficient ground batteries. Once its defenses were in place, plans were laid out to commission an orbital mining station which would exploit the vast wealth of resources detected within the deepest layers of Fallia II.



    Note the missile launcher on that mining station design. Not much, but as demonstrated by the battle above, it’s enough to threaten a lone enemy ship into backing off. Combined with more dedicated defenses, the mining operation here—once it’s established—should be secure.


    2401.6
    Arixan Colony Ship en route to Fallia VI




    The Arixans, fresh off the loss of their only two combat vessels, challenged the empire yet again. Without escort, another colony ship burned on direct course to the gas giant Fallia VI. Ostensibly a civilian vessel, and thus off-limits by the highest authority, the navy was forced to let it go.

    Fallia VI’s largest moon—the only possible target for the Arixan ship—was nearly identical in size and composition to the imperial colony world Hetonis. Analysts suggested the Arixans likely had similar ambitions to use their colony over Fallia VI as a base to exploit that world’s mineral wealth in the future.



    Preventing this would be a task for later days, however.

    Firstly, the imperial fleet was still several days out from returning to Terran orbit, slowed by the loss of one of TMS Charity’s engines in the skirmish. The admiral was loath to spread out his limited forces while the production of any new Arixan ships in the system was still uncontrolled, but further action was impossible before receiving repairs.



    Secondly, and more pressing, another matter now occupied imperial attention. The empress, in a secure message, called in her executor for private counsel.


    The Imperial Palace, Mytra City

    “Executor.”

    “Your majesty.” Syn bowed. The message sounded urgent. “How may I assist?”

    “Scientists on Dorani sent back reports yesterday of something very unusual,” she said. “I want your input.”

    She brought up a series of images taken by long-range cameras. After a few moments, he asked, “…What exactly are these?”



    “I was hoping for your best guess on the matter first.” She sat still on her throne. “What does it look like?”

    The images were rigorously labeled, making it clear they were depicting the surface of Fallia V, the system’s ice giant. In varying quality, they depicted sprawling complexes and bizarre, artificial features, frozen under thick layers of ice in a secluded canyon. He flipped through them. “…Some kind of facility?” He added, “But that wouldn’t be possible. The surface of Fallia V is—”

    “Totally uninhabitable, yes. Completely unsurvivable, and yet those objects aren’t natural.”

    “Do you think it was the Arixans?”

    “No. We’ve had our eyes on them this entire time and they never once sent a ship towards Fallia V. In fact, the space traffic in Fallia has been monitored so closely since my father took his throne in Trastiva, that I can say with complete certainty that not a single human ship has ever landed on that world.”

    “Then what is this?”

    She brought up another report. “These are the log notes.”

    After a moment, “Your majesty, has all this really been verified?”

    “More than I care to admit.”

    “Suspected alien structures… Believed to be present since… But—!”

    “By current estimates, those frozen spires predate sentient human civilization. Even if the scientists are off by tens of thousands of years, it completely rewrites our history of the star system. Or it would, if we could get to the things and actually study them.”

    “This is still an incredible discovery.”

    “The once who found it will be rewarded. But for now, they will have to remain behind the scenes and, unfortunately, stay in the domes on Dorani. A sudden transfer of their entire team to more suitable arrangements would prompt questions about their recent discoveries—questions we would have a hard time covering up.”

    “This won’t be announced, then?”

    “Not yet, and I am instituting stricter controls to ensure that no one else stumbles upon this before the timing is right. Until we are certain of what that is, and how valuable whatever’s down there can be to humanity, we cannot afford the risks of uncontrolled access to this information.”

    Syn instantly understood. “You’re worried the Arixans may get to it first.”

    “I’m worried the Arixans may bomb it from orbit out of spite,” she replied. “And despite the information quarantines, I know for a fact that data packets are still being transferred between rebel elements in the system and illegal comms relays on Terra—we intercept more and more every week. If we announce this discovery to the public, the Arixans will know within the day, maybe even the hour. And while I don’t want them attacking any of our colonized worlds, those have defenses—this doesn’t.”

    “We’ll have to establish a cordon in the planet’s orbit. I’ll meet with the navy and supervise the effort myself.”

    “Good. Before you go, you can bring some good news to the navy along with you.”

    “Your majesty?”

    “They’re getting bigger ships.”



    Frigates at last. While frigates offer only a modicum more tonnage for weapons and equipment than escorts, this also means that per-ship maintenance costs will be around the same for that extra firepower, and maximizing the efficiency of our fleet is essential when our economy is so limited. With these, we’ll be able to field something that looks a little bit more like a navy.



    The Javelin and the Dagger iterate on the basic escort missile and cannon designs. The Dagger’s hull is just 10kT shy of being able to fit a fourth gun without cutting an engine, but the additional supply bay installed instead will still come in handy; the Javelin’s missiles cost far more supplies per shot than cannons, and since they’ll be working in tandem this should help offset the disparity. When these are built, we’ll feel more comfortable assaulting Arixa directly.



    Frigate hulls also allow us to start experimenting with some specialty ship designs that simply aren’t worth making in escort variations. The above Fencer I can transport up to eight satellites and deploy four per turn with the single attached bay. Not a lot, but it starts us down the road of various support capabilities like this. Future (larger) ships like this one will see frequent use placing satellite defenses around frontier warp points, hiding surveillance satellites within alien space, and providing fleets with some additional flexibility in combat by tactically deploying satellites mid-battle.


    Outside that, let me know if you have any thoughts on how the flow of these chapters work, especially the battles. Although I’ve pre-written a lot, there’s still plenty of playthrough left to go, and these can be longer, shorter, more or less text heavy, etc. Also, the text and other overlay information on screenshots is something I’ve experimented with doing in different ways as I’ve gone along, so if something doesn’t really work or is distracting, I’ll adjust what I can.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    A bonus chapter is always welcome, especially when it's as exciting as this one. Space battles, the discovery of alien ruins, technological breakthroughs, long-range economic planning.. the fun never stops!

    Quote Originally Posted by Cobalt View Post
    Outside that, let me know if you have any thoughts on how the flow of these chapters work, especially the battles. Although I’ve pre-written a lot, there’s still plenty of playthrough left to go, and these can be longer, shorter, more or less text heavy, etc. Also, the text and other overlay information on screenshots is something I’ve experimented with doing in different ways as I’ve gone along, so if something doesn’t really work or is distracting, I’ll adjust what I can.
    The flow seems all right to me. When I first read it I thought the battle was a bit slow-paced, but on a second read it seems fine.
    Last edited by InvisibleBison; 2022-07-12 at 01:42 PM.
    I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Chapter IV – Operation Mercy

    2402.0
    Fallia System




    Less than two years after Arixa declared independence from the empire, the Fallia system’s eight habitable worlds all knew human settlement, including the rebel moon Fallia VI A, identified to the imperial public as Jeralis. The Free Republic, having rebuilt its fleet following their losses in 2401.5, held its forces in orbit over their capital and had yet to strike at any imperial world. For the moment, a tense peace held.

    Nevertheless, diplomatic demands from both sides fell on deaf ears. Unofficial back-channel communications between Mytra and the Arixan colonial administration could hardly be called negotiations, and produced no tangible results. With Arixa not recognizing the legitimacy of the empire’s suzerainty, and the Free Republic repeatedly denounced as a gang of terrorists, talks were going nowhere. A military option remained the empire’s primary solution to the crisis.



    Constructed two months prior, the first frigate-sized vessel of the imperial navy, the TMS Forgiveness, took position at the helm of Neven Varr’s fleet, a sister ship joining it at the turn of the year. Imperial estimates calculated that the Arixan economy had likely stretched itself to the breaking point in the process of reconstructing their navy whilst supporting settlements on likely unprofitable colony worlds. In contrast, the imperial coffers were overflowing with wealth coming in from New Brenen. All agreed that the advantage the frigates afforded the imperial navy was likely insurmountable by the rebellion’s military. Once adequate numbers were assembled, a full assault would be carried out on Arixa itself, crushing the uprising at its core.



    In 2402.1, the space yards on Dorani assembled and launched an orbital construction facility, to no small celebration. An armed military installation was quick to fill the queue behind it, and similar efforts across other colonies marked the beginning of a massive effort to permanently fill the space above imperial worlds.

    By 2402.4, a total of four frigates had been produced and put into service. The navy concluded its preparations by refitting its cannon-armed craft with the latest model of DUC, matching the range and power of the rebels’ own ships.



    The fleet was ready.


    2402.4
    Start of Operation Mercy
    Departure of the First Fleet; Bridge of the TMS Forgiveness




    “All ships clear of Terran orbit, admiral.”

    “Good.”



    “Continue as planned.”

    “Aye.”

    The sheer vastness of space still awed him. He considered the enormity of the moment, tightening his grip on the console. It would take more than a month for the fleet to reach Arixa, even at top speed; he was left with plenty of time to think. They were not only executing the largest military operation in human history but putting down the largest rebellion in the yet-short history of the empire. Once Arixa was tamed, its child worlds would also be forced back into the fold, and this would be over, once and for all.

    His mission—and that of the eight ships under his command—was to clear the space over Arixa and establish an orbital blockade of the planet. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. The two ships of theirs he fought nearly a year earlier were manned by crews that weren’t afraid to go on the attack, despite their inevitable defeat. He would arrive with what should be an overwhelming amount of firepower to destroy what was left of the enemy’s resistance, but nevertheless he drilled his men for months in preparation. His officers ran continuous simulations practicing the assault on the planet’s defenses, and his ships had executed full, live fire training maneuvers of the event more than a dozen times. Still, they were going in blind on several crucial questions.



    The exact composition of the enemy stations, satellites, and ground defenses were totally unknown to him. The best estimates put his weapons at least on par with their adversaries, but he didn’t like not being able to study the actual schematics of what he was up against. With the enemy fleet in orbit, however, and the distance between their worlds being so great, any reconnaissance effort prior to the full fleet’s arrival would be at serious risk. Thus, the first phase of the attack would, by necessity, be a recon-in-force. He had confidence that the enemy wouldn’t turn him around, but still—Neven hated being surprised.



    Two weeks later, the fleet passed through Fallia’s stellar storm, a mess of plasma and energy that masked their movement for a few days and marked the mid-way point of their journey. Final preparations were made, last-minute adjustments to battle plans drawn up, and the course set. The time was near.


    2402.5
    On Approach to Arixa




    “Fleet entering full combat alert, admiral. All crews are at their stations.”

    “Captains are standing by on the command net.”

    “Formation is holding steady. Coming into short-range scans of the planet in ten.”

    ‘This is it,’ Neven thought.


    Battle of Arixa (Fallia Sector 11,1)



    “All right, tactical, show me what we’re dealing with.”

    “Sir, no change from… Wait, there’s another ship exiting Arixa’s upper atmosphere!”







    Neven silently cursed. A surprise after all. “It’s a frigate, tac. Near identical to our Daggers by the looks.”

    “Orders, sir?”

    “It doesn’t change anything.” He sat back. “Show me the rest.”





    “Both stations are heavily armed, sir.”

    “No kidding. And the satellites?”



    “It covers a hemisphere from our approach, but the weapons are no larger than our own.”

    “Good.”

    “Several active missile silos detected on the surface, admiral.”



    “And the three smaller craft?”

    “Identical hulls and compositions to the two escorts engaged a year ago, sir.”

    Neven assessed the battlespace. Then he gave the order.

    “Advance.”



    “Enemy fleet is moving to intercept.”

    “We’ll see.” He’d have to conserve his missile fire if he didn’t want to be caught on the flank. “Fire a single missile at that frigate, maximum range. Then reform the fleet, I want a screen of cannons around our artillery boats.”

    “Aye.”

    ‘That one missile should drive off the frigate’s attack until we’re in position to mass fire,’ he thought, ‘and then—’

    “Admiral, frigate is maintaining its approach!”

    “What?”



    “We drew it in! Missile to impact in two, one… Confirmed hit!”

    “Damage report?”

    “Standby… Sir, severe damage to the enemy’s hull and command nodes!”



    “Their bridge is down, but all weapons are active and still tracking us!”

    “Utterly insane.” Neven didn’t understand, but he didn’t spare it a second thought. The rebels were willing to risk a glancing blow from that missile to close the gap, and they paid the price for a bad bet. “Fire another at it and pull us back.”

    “Missile away.”

    The enemy’s escorts held their formation and swept around behind the venting frigate.

    “Second missile on target for impact… Now.”



    “Two guns rendered inoperable, only one turret remaining.”

    “Pull us around to meet those escorts. Fire two missiles to cover our maneuver.”

    “Missiles out.”



    His cannon ships held the first line between him and the enemy. He took a breath. His missile fire had been limited so far, with plenty left in reserve during reloading. He had been worried that the enemy would be trickier than this and may try to forcibly draw him into the engagement range of the heavy guns and rockets on their static defenses. So far, it seemed like he would keep the upper hand.

    “Enemy escorts pulling back out of range, sir.”



    “The frigate is drifting towards us.”

    “Send the Charity and Baron to finish it off.”



    “One miss in Baron’s volley, ship still active.”

    “Baron pulling back.”

    “Charity moving up.”



    “One hit, one miss. Ineffective.”

    “This is Baron, our guns are reloaded and we’re moving back in. Firing in three.”



    “Enemy frigate destroyed.”

    “Hold that position, Baron,” Neven barked out on the comm. “All ships, form tight off the Baron’s right.”



    He’d have to play this carefully. Any closer than they already were, and the enemy stations’ guns would start firing at them. If even one of those shells struck a hit, it would cripple or kill one of his ships, and leave his fleet badly out of position for the remainder of the engagement.



    “Enemy ships turning around.”

    “Full volley, then pull us back.”

    “Missiles away.”





    “Enemy has retreated back out of our effective range, admiral.”





    “Mind the range of those hostile stations.” Neven considered his options. It was clear the foe wouldn’t take their medicine without more bait on the line.

    “Enemy warships turning to engage, sir.”

    “Skirt the max range of their orbital cannons. Have the Soliloquy move in, fire a few rounds to get their attention.”

    “Aye.”



    “Firing another missile volley.”







    “All shots ineffective, admiral.”

    “I can see that, tac. Move the whole fleet back, well out of range of the enemy defenses. We’ll see if the rebs follow us out, then we’ll engage close, in open space.”







    “Enemy is pursuing. They’re moving to cut off our formation, sir.”

    “Tac, on my signal the whole fleet moves in. Cannon ships fire and maneuver. Fix the rebs in place, then hit them with our missiles from just behind the front line.”

    “Aye, aye.”

    A moment passed.

    “Go.”





    “Missiles away.”

    He prepared himself. The enemy would either run back out of range again or take the chance to hit his forward line. If they did that, his rockets were likely to hit their targets, but if they concentrated their fire there was a chance he’d lose a ship in this exchange.

    “Baron reports, they have incoming!”



    “Heavy damage on the TMS Baron, three engines down and crew quarters are venting air. All guns still active. Their captain reports they’re stable and have a clear shot on the enemy.”

    The missile barrage passed over the heads of their front line.









    “All missiles launched are confirmed hits! Assessing enemy… Severe damage across all their hulls, sir!”

    He slammed his fist down. “Close in!”





    “One enemy ship destroyed, two crippled, each with one gun active.”

    “Missiles away.”



    With their controls ruined and most of their engines destroyed, it was a sure thing.





    “Results?”

    “Their weapons are gone, admiral, both ships neutralized.”

    “Bypass and approach the planet. Hold outside max range of all enemy fire. Mop up those two wrecks as we go.”



    As the fleet approached, the TMS Baron disengaged from the fight, limping away from the battlefield. It would be in for a long trip home when this was over. With its parting shot, it finished one of the crippled enemy escorts.



    Shortly after, TMS Charity dealt the killing blow to the final enemy ship.



    “Target the nearest station, full missile volley.”

    “Missiles away.”



    “Sir, detecting incoming missiles from ground silos and the targeted orbital station!”

    “How many?”



    “Counting twelve missiles launched across all ground platforms, nine more from the station. Scanners indicate they’ve fully committed, sir, no missiles in reserve.”

    Even so, it wouldn’t be safe for him to exploit that. Not with the cannon station and the satellite cluster still active. They would have to play this slow.

    “Fire our reserve missile volley at that station and pull us back out of range. We have the advantage now that their ships are dust; we take our time, and we win it all.”



    “Multiple silos on the station suffered direct hits, two remaining.”

    “Second volley firing… Now. Missiles away.”



    “All missiles are hits, the station’s gone up!”

    “Now for the other.”



    By staying at range, the remaining station’s cannons never even had a chance to engage him.





    “The way is clear, admiral.”

    Neven nodded. “Yes, it is.”




    Twelve Hours Later

    The empress had been clear: orbital bombardments of civilians were off limits. However, unless they were totally defanged, the rebel forces on the ground would remain defiant, firing off missiles at any imperial ship that got close, and eventually rebuilding their fledgling navy. Neven would have to assume some risk to get the job done.

    The next day, the First Fleet approached Arixa for a second time, its targets being the armed satellites in orbit and the missile silos which made close approach impossible.

    “Ships are in position, admiral.”

    “Keep out of the firing cones of those satellites. Our short-range ships will draw their ground fire with a feint approach. Then we go in and let loose.”

    “Incoming fire from the ground batteries. Scans confirm, all hostile missiles are committed.”

    “Soliloquy, Charity, and Vexation moving back.”

    “Push us up.”



    “Missiles away, admiral.”



    “Enemy missiles moving past us in pursuit of the cannon ships, sir.”

    “Acknowledged.” He wondered what the gunnery crews on those silos must have been thinking. They consistently failed to leave any rounds in reserve. Was it lack of training? Itchy trigger fingers? ‘If they were better at their jobs, this might have actually been a real fight,’ he thought. But, in retrospect, that was their whole rebellion. They failed to deny the most valuable worlds to the empire, they failed to press the advantage of catching them flatfooted for over two years, failed to leverage the fleets they had built. And ultimately, they would fail to break away.

    “Tac, move us back while we reload.”

    “Aye.”

    “Rinse and repeat, gentlemen.”





    The first volley had successfully destroyed two of the rebel’s surface missile silos. With the next…



    …It was over.

    “All silos confirmed destroyed, sir.”

    “Collateral damage?”



    “Minimal reported.”

    “Call it a toll for the trip over.” He sat back. “Mop up the rest and assume blockade positions.”



    Once the job was done, Neven looked across his bridge.

    “Prepare a signal back to the homeworld, comms. The tea-sippers in Mytra will want to know we’ve defanged the tiger.”

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    A shorter chapter, but the next update will be up right behind it today or tomorrow to close out our first act. I took a bit longer revising this one, cutting an entire section I just wasn’t satisfied with, clarifying some of the events, and re-taking some of the screenshots—which really highlights where I accidentally saved a jpg instead of a png. Eventually, all that got cleared up, but sorry for any distraction the occasional blurry picture causes.


    Chapter V – Capitulation

    2402.5
    Imperial Blockade Over Arixa




    After the battle, with the space above Arixa secured, the fleet reorganized. Two ships broke off to accompany the TMS Baron on its long journey home, its limping, battered hull just holding together after hasty on-site repairs kept the oxygen tanks from venting. Another portion of the fleet adopted a blockading posture over Arixa, halting all civilian traffic to and from its outer colonies, and continuously broadcasting a single message to the surface below: surrender. All told, with minimal casualties on the ground and only a single imperial ship taking damage, the operation was considered an overwhelming success.



    The rebel colony of Eprina on Fallia IX was the next target. Reaching orbit one month later, the First Fleet executed its plan of attack as it did during the battle of Arixa, albeit encountering far less resistance from the undeveloped world.







    Once its defenses were destroyed, the fleet remained in orbit another month, blockade relief coming from two new frigates produced at Hetonis and Dorani. Once the new ships were in position above the rebel world, they too set to broadcasting a continuous, singular demand: unconditional return to the empire.

    Admiral Neven continued with the main fleet to the Jeralis colony on the moon of Fallia VI—the final unchecked rebel holdout in the system.



    The small colony could barely support a single dedicated missile launcher. Its defenders were completely outmatched.





    With its orbit secured in 2402.7, the Domain achieved unchallenged naval supremacy in the system; the so-called Free Republic had no room to maneuver and nowhere to run. Rebel leaders across all the rogue worlds received the empress’s ultimatum. The only way to prevent a nightmare scenario—planetary invasions, nuclear war—was to return to the fold and face judgement.


    2402.8
    The Imperial Palace, Mytra City
    Terra


    “So,” Neven said, “that’s it, then.”



    “That’s it.”

    Executor Syn and the admiral reviewed the wealth of data before them. Reports from each of the former rebel worlds had been rolling in for hours; it would be weeks before the bureaucrats could make sense of all the information. Integrating the planets would take months administratively, and probably years culturally—simply bridging the animosity gap would be a colossal endeavor. But still, they had won. The war was over.

    The surrender broadcast had been first received by the ships blockading Arixa and was immediately relayed back to the homeworld. It came with assurances of a total stand-down of all military resistance and promises of full cooperation by local officials. The Free Terran Republic had been officially dismantled, its ragtag senate disbanding effective immediately. The empire was reunited.

    Again.

    “Good riddance,” said Neven. “Now what?”

    “Back to empire building,” Syn said, leaning back. “With the fighting done, we can ratchet down the war economy and focus on development again.”

    “No big spectacle for this victory, I imagine?”

    “No,” Syn shook his head. “Not since the whole thing was unofficial. Sorry that you won’t get your victory parade, Nev.”

    “I bet the citizens we just regained will spread the word for us anyway, although their narrative might not paint us as heroes. Coincidentally, I heard civilian traffic is opening back up.”

    “Yes,” Syn said, “with the hostilities complete it’s slowly being authorized again. Within a few months, the blackouts should be over, too. Everything will finally get back to normal.”

    “Don’t call it normal if we were never there to see it.”


    ***


    The Arixan surrender had lifted an enormous weight off the shoulders of the Terran state, finally able to relax its defenses and bring home its ships. The newly accessible worlds of the former Free Republic were closely scrutinized, their industries restructured, and their new colonial governors quietly appointed as their old ones quietly disappeared.



    Arixa itself was the obvious prize. A world on par with Terra in size, its surface was unmarred by nuclear devastation, and its population had boomed over the years. Neglected facilities were ordered to be torn down and replaced by state-of-the-art research laboratories, capitalizing on the significant scientific community which proved to be present on the world during its long revolt.



    The Arixans’ colonial research department, despite its comparatively meager resources, had invested significant time and effort in developing military technologies. Before the end of the war, its cannon schematics once again surpassed the empire’s own, and the discoveries were handed over to eager imperial weapons scientists. This, coupled with the eleventh-hour and independent advent of frigate plans by the Arixan navy, told planners on Terra that it would be worth fostering Arixan scientific minds, now back in service to the empire.



    Eprina would carry over its designation as a research colony, now under official imperial charter. Jeralis, previously home to domed hydroponics facilities, would be re-geared to house an operational space yard. From there, the moon would match Hetonis is its mission, launching mining stations to tap into the wealth of the massive gas giant it orbited.



    Following a census of all colonized worlds, relocation plans were drafted to promote demographic growth across the system. Private civilian travel between worlds, while no longer illegal, would never be sufficient to move human capital in the numbers necessary to solve overcrowding issues on the old worlds and jumpstart industry on the new.



    Hulking, dedicated transports would be constructed and operated under official naval commission for the purpose. Capable of ferrying millions of people in stasis between the various worlds of the Terran Domain, these and vessels like them would become a common sight in Fallia’s many skies.





    Coinciding with the end of the war was a significant leap in the empire’s own R&D department. If diplomacy had failed to end the rebellion following Operation Mercy, war planners needed the means to deliver a ground invasion to forcibly pacify the rebel planets. Now painfully aware of its precarious hold on its subject worlds, imperial research would continue to develop peacekeepers and a ship-borne army capable of interplanetary deployment.

    The people could once again drift into the dream of life at peace, the final war over and the fighting behind them—fighting that would never make it to the history books. A single nation under a single flag, Empress Letra I now ruled, in matter of fact, the entirety of the human realm; no corner of it escaped view to devise schemes of independence, separation, or blood. No more nations meant no more wars—one of many promises made decades ago, but never kept. Now, its unity realized, humanity moved forward as one.



    The Construction technology we completed opens research avenues down some very powerful—and very expensive—auxiliary tech routes, troops among them. The primary purpose for getting it so early, and on such a limited research budget, was exactly as described in the narrative: if the AI refused to surrender, as they’re wont to do, troop invasions would be the only way to secure their planets and eliminate their faction from the game. That became unnecessary in the end, but police-type troops across our worlds really are essential to increase happiness and maximize our resource production (the highest happiness level, “Jubilant,” give a mighty +20% bonus to our income).

    With the enemies in our backyard taken care of, we shift focus to squeezing every last resource out of Fallia that we can to build up our economy, technology, and our military for the day we inevitably leave. And despite the peace and quiet we’ve earned, doing this as fast as possible will be urgently important, because when that day does come, we’ll likely have to fight our way out.

    I’ll hold off on updating the summary post until the next chapter goes up—it’ll bring some pretty substantial additions. Sorry for the brevity of this one. Like I said at the top, next chapter should be up in the next day or so, not accounting for time zones.



    EDIT: For posterity, I’ve copied the summary post from pre-interlude here, spoilered below.

    Spoiler: The Terran Domain, 2402.5
    Show


    Overview


    Economy


    Known Space Data and Empire Census


    Colonies


    Minerals Colonies: 1
    Organics Colonies: 1
    Radioactives Colonies: 1
    Construction Colonies: 1
    *Three colonies in rebellion under the Terran Free Republic.

    Research and Development

    R&D is prioritized towards military technology, especially discovering ways to pacify the rebellious colonies in the event they refuse to surrender.

    Weapons Report


    Diplomatic Relations


    Treaty Grid


    Intelligence and Espionage
    N/A

    Spoiler: Summaries of Known Empires
    Show
    Terran Free Republic – The colony world Arixa, in the Fallia system, declared its independence from the Terran Domain at the turn of the 25th century in tandem with the coronation of Empress Letra I on Terra. Claiming to establish a Free Republic, its stated goal was to liberate humanity from tyranny following the forced annexation of all nations in the unity wars. A former official of the colonial administration, Joravir Oros, took the title of Arixan President and headed its military as a self-proclaimed Grand Admiral. Before secession, Arixa was the jewel of the empire, its rich lands and deep mines fueling the reconstruction of the homeworld.

    Spoiler: Historical Timeline
    Show
    2329.5-2349.9 – First Colonial Era begins with initial human settlement of Arixa.
    2350.0 – Arixan Colonial Administration provisionally established.
    2367.3 – Start of the nuclear Unity Wars as the Kingdom of Trastiva invades its rivals.
    2393.6 – Off-world communications blackout instituted across Terra.
    2398.8 – End of the Unity Wars. King Trast crowned as humanity’s First Emperor.
    2399.9 – First Emperor found dead in his palace in Mytra City.
    2400.0 – Empress Letra I crowned. Arixa declares independence from the empire, establishing the Terran Free Republic.
    2400.4 – Second Colonial Era begins with the launch of the TS Hope, the first colony ship since unification. Colonization of New Brenan.
    2400.6 – Colonization of Dorani.
    2401.0 – Colonization of Nevak.
    2401.3 – Colonization of Eprina by the Terran Free Republic.
    2401.5 – First military engagement between spacecraft by imperial forces in the First Fleet. Colonization of Hetonis.
    2401.6 – Invention of frigate ship hulls.
    2401.7 – Colonization of Jeralis by the Terran Free Republic. End of the Second Colonial Era as all habitable Fallian worlds host human life.
    2402.4 – Start of Operation Mercy, the Terran Interplanetary Navy’s mission to pacify and compel the surrender of all rebel worlds in Fallia.
    2402.5 – The Battle of Arixa. Imperial forces secure orbit over the rebel capital, establishing a planetary blockade.

    Naval Overview and Industrial Capacity


    Fleet Rosters, Terran Interplanetary Navy
    First Fleet
    Admiral Neven Varr
    Flagship: TMS-KS Forgiveness

    4 x cannon ships and 4 x missile ships.

    Spoiler: Active Designs
    Show
    Ships
    Spoiler: Military Ships
    Show
    Combat Ships, Direct Fire Weapons (DF)

    Dagger II – Equipped with three Depleted Uranium Cannons (DUCs) and a complement of extra supplies. The short range of its weapons limits it to defense of longer-ranged missile craft between reloads, finishing off undefended enemies, and the destruction of satellites too small to be targeted by missile launchers’ tracking computers.
    Knife II – Equipped with two DUCs. The cheap production design allows it to be constructed in one month. Considered obsolete with the advent of frigate hulls, but still in active use by the navy.

    Combat Ships, Seeking Weapons (KS)

    Javelin I – Equipped with two Capital Ship Missiles (CSMs). Missiles offer long attack range and comparatively heavy damage, but the extended reload time of its launcher leaves it vulnerable between shots, and slow missiles can be outrun by quick enemies. High supply use per-shot means that extended engagements risk depleting a fleet’s supplies.
    Dart I – Equipped with a single CSM. Considered obsolete with the advent of frigate hulls, but still in active use by the navy.

    Combat Support Ships
    N/A

    Spoiler: Civilian Ships
    Show
    Colony Ships (CL)

    Terra I-A/B – Carry the necessary equipment for colonizing new worlds. The Terra I-A can transport 34 million settlers, while the Terra I-B carries only 4 million but holds additional supplies for longer journeys. Totally unarmed and significantly slower than a military vessel, they often require escort to their destinations, and the colonies they create will similarly begin defenseless. The high expense of the colony module means space yards typically dedicate at least two months to their production.

    Stations
    Spoiler: Military Stations
    Show

    Oligarch II – Orbital defense station armed with both long-range missiles and short-range cannons, mounted on heavy rails for extended range and firepower. In service over Dorani and Hetonis, worlds with less cargo available for conventional ground-to-space defense batteries.

    Spoiler: Civilian Stations
    Show

    Factory I-B – Orbital space yard station, armed with a single missile launcher to supplement colonial defense. Orbital space yards are smaller than ground-based facilities and construct at roughly half the rate, but greatly augment a sector’s production potential.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-07-24 at 10:24 AM.

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    The war is over at last! A pity I can't shake the suspicion that the bad guys won...
    I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.

  14. - Top - End - #14
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Quote Originally Posted by InvisibleBison View Post
    The war is over at last! A pity I can't shake the suspicion that the bad guys won...
    What, do the glories of imperial conquest ring hollow next to the total, bitter defeat of the freedom-minded rebel underdogs?

    Hopefully this initial story arc was a decent read; the alternative was a very quiet, boring, untold years-long one-system-challenge, with few opportunities for character development or conflict before first contact. And I think we'll have more chances to examine the "bad guys" question in the not-too-distant future.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-07-24 at 10:44 AM.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    That man's face is somehow horrifyingly uncanny.

  16. - Top - End - #16
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Took a bit longer than I thought it would to balance this update with some IRL activities, but here we are with the end of Act I. Quite a flash forward from where we left off, even more so than I had anticipated it would be when I started playing. A bit light on the narrative side until next time, but there's quite a bit of OOC catching up to do. The summary post has also been updated with more detail for the interested


    Interlude I – The Long Peace

    2411.9
    Fallia System
    The Terran Domain


    The years following the Terrans’ second unification saw an era of prosperity, development, and great technological innovation. The Fallia system, once as silent and primitive as a nature preserve, grew to hold dozens of spacecrafts, billions of people, and all the industrial hallmarks of the interplanetary empire which inhabited it.









    Terra’s environment, still suffering the aftereffects of decades of nuclear war, saw the fruition of years of research in climate-restoration technologies in 2408.2. A series of enormous facilities were constructed across the war-torn planet, some ‘scrubbing’ the radiation near bomb detonation sites, others rejuvenating soil for agriculture, others still cleaning the air of heavily polluted urban zones. It would take years to undo the damage, but like guiding hands, the small-scale terraforming efforts were projected to repair most of Terra’s ecosystem within a human lifetime.



    The space above Terra, in the span of a few years, became progressively more crowded with ship traffic and orbital infrastructure. Two combat fleets, to say nothing of almost three-dozen legacy ships chained together in an unmaintained mothball array, made traffic control over Terra a permanent difficulty. Dense satellite fields, a total of seven permanent orbital installations, and an outer layer of anti-ship, high-explosive mines turned the space around Terra into a veritable city.



    Neven Varr—now Grand Admiral of the Terran Interplanetary Navy—still personally commanded the First Fleet, monikered the “Reunifiers” by those veterans who saw battle with it in years past. Admiral Kelix Ren, formerly one of Varr’s captains, now commanded the Navy’s Second Fleet in his own right. The “Loyalists” stood fewer in number than their counterparts, still receiving ships fresh from drydocks across the empire as the budget ebbed and flowed, but both fleets carried enough firepower alone to annihilate any foe.

    In 2411.9, a massive retrofit of the standing navy was ordered, fielding the latest technological advancements for all light cruisers in varying levels of modernity.







    Arixa, in the years immediately following reintegration, became a hub of research, academic study, and practical experimentation. The design for light cruiser ship hulls carrying up to 400kTs of equipment was only possible due to the important work of Arixa’s branch of the Naval Concept Labs. The first shield generators, too, capable of encasing a starship or station entirely within a stable, protective energy barrier, were prototyped by the Arixan scientific community.

    In orbit, a handful of space stations provided off-planet support to the world below. A troop transport ship, the TMS Liberator, awaited its complement of combat vehicles being constructed on the surface. Once fully manned, it would depart Arixan space to join the navy in orbit above Terra.







    Behind every major industrial boon was New Brenen’s vast mineral wealth to fuel the material needs of the empire. Subject to a massive immigration drive after the peace, which was followed by an unprecedented population boom on its surface, almost three billion people came to inhabit the colony by 2411.9. Nearly half of the Domain’s total population called New Brenen home.









    Eprina served as the chief exporter of radioactive materials and fuel cells in the system, also storing the empire’s strategic fuel reserves on its surface. Home to several hundred million colonists, Eprina’s domes hosted the largest colonial population behind New Brenen and Arixa, causing more than a few complaints on the surface about the limited space.







    Dorani, breadbasket of the Domain, produced and stored most of the system’s surplus food and the workable organic material required for life support equipment and artificial atmospheres. The studies conducted there showed promise for significant advancements in biology and hydroponics.







    Nevak, the smallest imperial colony save the moon bases orbiting the system’s two gas giants, served as a minor radioactives refining and construction base. The most traffic the world saw was from dedicated transport ships, routinely picking up volunteers and lottery selectees for resettlement off-world to prevent overcrowding.









    Hetonis and Jeralis—more accurately large military bases than fully-fledged colonies—each operated spacecraft construction yards within their domed accommodations. Being that living space was so limited, each saw regular visits from transports to rotate colonists off-world.

    The resources of the moons’ primaries were selectively exploited by resource extraction stations capable of deploying hundreds of remote collection drones into the gas giants’ atmospheres to gather mineral wealth. These stations were strategically activated and deactivated to fill empire-wide minerals shortfalls, and both lay dormant as of 2411.9.

    The Domain had flourished for nearly a decade during the so-called Long Peace, lavishing in the rewards of Fallia’s many worlds, consolidating its control unburdened by conflict. Stability seemed to have finally been achieved. Having already witnessed incredible progress in their lives, the people dreamt of what else the stars had to offer them. Some imagined a future where, one day, Terran vessels could even traverse the vast voids beyond the system’s gravity well, exploring and settling alien worlds an unfathomable distance away.

    On the twelfth celebration of the new year and the empress’s coronation, those dreams were forever changed.


    ***





    And on that note, we’ll take a moment to further explore the state of things as of 2411.9.

    As it turns out, we had quite a bit of time without any outside “intervention.” But since an unwelcome arrival could have come at any moment, I spent the years since the end of the rebellion arc frantically preparing for a worst-case scenario—namely, full-scale hostile invasion. Such an event could find us battling outgunned and outnumbered by more powerful and significantly more advanced foes. For the moment, all we’ve been discovered by is a lone destroyer, but given the sheer amount of time that’s passed in game I can virtually guarantee this is just some hapless explorer from a larger neighbor who expected to find a dead system here. For all we know, an armada will be right behind it—and they’ll try to make it what into they expected it’d be.

    To stay ready, I maintained a sizable standing navy during the interlude period and mothballed, rather than scrapped, our older ships (escorts, frigates, and most destroyers) as I replaced them. Mothballed ships can’t be interacted with in any way besides scrapping them or shooting them down, but they get to stay on the game board maintenance-free and maintain all accrued experience. Unmothballing them costs some money and leaves them vulnerable out of supplies for a turn, but it’s faster and generally cheaper than building a whole new vessel. Despite their weaker armaments and smaller size, I opted to keep the following 34 ships essentially on standby in case we were faced with several dozen alien cruisers suddenly barreling towards the homeworld, in which case I’d want every possible gun available to us.





    In no particular order, there are enough ships here that we could press a hasty reserve fleet into service if the need arises, albeit one with limited, desperate usefulness.

    Our main battle fleets are comprised of Light Cruisers, carrying 400kT of attached components each, and marking our entry a higher, informal “tier” of ship sizes in SEIV. I have somewhat standard templates for these fleets in mind, but I hadn’t quite filled them out yet before our visitor arrived. On top of that we’ve been caught in the middle of a massive retrofit of all our combat craft. In retrospect, I probably should have staggered out the rearming based on the actual by-turn capacity of my available repair bays, but here we are.

    First Fleet, “Reunifiers”
    Grand Admiral Neven Varr
    Flagship: TMS-DF Alacrity





    Totals at 24 vessels, half of which are meant for direct combat (six armed with large-mount cannons, another six armed with long-range missiles) with the other half providing a variety of support functions. The First Fleet is our primary combat force, and directly descends from the fleet responsible for subduing the rebel worlds a decade ago. Its support ships include two anti-engine craft which can immobilize an unshielded target, one heavy planet bomber, one troop transport, one satellite layer, one mine layer, one mine sweeper, two reconnaissance vessels, a repair ship, and two supply/fuel tankers. Ideally, I’ll get us to more of a two thirds/one third ratio with more combat vessels, but with our current economic limitations this is where we ended up by the time the curtains rose.

    Second Fleet, “Loyalists”
    Admiral Kelix Ren
    Flagship: TMS-DF Criticality




    Currently comprised of 19 ships, the Second Fleet is intended to provide the same capabilities as the First, including the eventual goal of more combat-to-support ships. As it stands, it has five cannon craft, three missile boats, then the same support configuration as its sister fleet. At some point, expect to see specialty fleets with different focus areas and wildly different compositions in play (carriers, close range versus long-range, cloaking, etc.), but something like this will be the mainstay of our battle line for now.

    For a glance at where we are technologically, here are our main warship designs:




    We’ve replaced the old ion engines with Contra-Terrenes, giving an extra movement point on the system map, and developed up to shields level three. The Longsword LCs use large-mount DUCs, increasing the hull space they take but doubling their damage per hit, and get an extra shield module since they’ll be more likely to take damage up close. Also note their final component: Combat Sensors I, giving a 25% bonus to direct fire weapon hit chance. This is an enormous boost to their effectiveness, and we’re only a few turns away from researching its defensive equivalent, Electromagnetic Countermeasures (ECM) I, which gives a 20% bonus to dodge. Our future enemies will be developing this technology as well, if they aren’t already well ahead of us, so we’ll need to stay on top of these to be competitive in a fight.

    The Spear’s missiles range out to twelve tiles in combat, a marked improvement over level one missiles’ range of eight. Their supply usage per shot is still astronomical, though, so I added an extra supply module to slightly offset that. Still, they’ll require frequent resupply between fights, and we’ll have to take care deep in hostile space that the fleets don’t run out of fuel for feeding the missile boats.



    The Laconic and Plasma LCs represent some specialty designs we’ve concocted to fill niches. Anti-Engine weapons only damage engine components, leaving the rest of a ship intact, but require an enemy’s shields be down to be effective. Situationally useful by itself to cripple ships that drift within range of our battle line, they’ll be part of ship capture teams once I finish researching boarding parties, allowing us to incapacitate and capture alien technology in the field.

    Plasmas are meant to crack heavily defended planetary defenses in a single bombing run, armed with enormously powerful napalm bombs. Where our large-mount cannons deal 80 damage per shot, and missiles do 90, the large-mount Planetary Napalm II will crash 600 points of damage per shot into enemy atmospheres. It’s heavily shielded to help it get in close under fire from weapons platforms and orbital defenses.



    We’ve also forayed into new unit types. Mines, with fully upgraded explosive warheads, will deal out 600 damage each if they aren’t swept away. Troops allow for planetary invasions and police peacekeeping to improve population morale. Pictured here is the model for invading alien worlds; a cheaper variant will serve as police on our colonies and secured planets.



    Economically, we’ve hit an equilibrium, and from that perspective our visitor arrived at an opportune time. Our income plateaued a long time ago, and I’ve been micromanaging our building layouts, remote mining stations, and navy size to balance our resources with research generation to maintain some decent growth. I would have hit the Minerals Extraction 2 tech after the next few military technologies, and that would help after we spend a ton upgrading our current mines, but without more actual colonies to increase our raw income we’re starting to see the limits of what our sole system can do for us.

    Next time, we’ll delve into our first alien encounter, and with it dive into space unknown.
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-07-28 at 09:27 AM.

  17. - Top - End - #17
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Chapter VI – Outside Context

    2412.0
    Open Space, Fallia Outer Rim






    Grand Admiral Neven Varr paced the bridge of his flagship, the light cruiser TMS Alacrity. He had spent most of their approach doing that, seldom speaking to anyone but his closest staff for days at a time. He looked once more at the reads from their scanner.



    He didn’t like what he saw.

    No one knew where the mystery ship had come from. First detected by planetside observatories on New Brenan, it was dismissed as a comet or faulty reading. But its presence persisted, and scans confirmed it had to be artificial. The empress, completing her twelfth annual re-coronation, convened a meeting. Information was scarce, and the timing was terrible. The Grand Admiral himself was sent to investigate the object, up close.

    Neven racked his mind for the hundredth time. There hadn’t been a ship anywhere near that size flying independent of the empire for nearly ten years. Add to that the fact it appeared at the far edge of Fallia’s gravity well, and he was at a loss for what to make of it. If it came from some secret pirate haven, he’d expect it to be spotted near one of the colonies. But this? Days of travel away from the closest planet? Popping into view in the middle of dead space?

    “It shouldn’t be possible,” he muttered.

    “Sir?” The navigation officer asked.

    Neven shook his head. “How long until we’re on site?”

    “About two hours out, admiral.”

    “Good. Tactical, I want all ships on combat alert as we arrive. No surprises.”

    “Aye, sir.”

    “Nav, I want routine scans of the space around our approach vector. Tell me when you find something that shows us where they’ve come from. Ion trails, residual heat patterns, jettisoned trash—anything comes up, I want to know about it.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    Neven finally sat down. The unknown ship couldn’t have picked a worse time to appear. Both of his fleets were in the middle of a significant modernization, and down for the length of it. More than half the combat power of the navy was sitting in dock on one of Terra’s orbital bays, utterly useless to him. ‘If it’s just the one ship, we’ll manage fine,’ he assured himself. The task force he brought with him carried enough firepower to level a small world, but that wasn’t what worried him. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. ‘Where did you come from?’


    Two Hours Later
    Close Approach to Unidentified Spacecraft (Fallia Sector 0,10)








    “Unknown craft is within our short-range scans, admiral.”

    “Show me what we’re working with.”



    ‘What…?’

    The bridge seemed to pause in time.

    Neven broke the silence. “Confirm those readings, tactical.”

    “Second scans complete, sir, readings confirmed.”

    “Mind explaining what I’m looking at?”

    “Tonnage of approximately 300kT, sir, destroyer sized. Engine output estimated on par with ours. Reading abnormally high shielding for a generator of that size, though, plus an unknown small-caliber weapon. There’s heavy electromagnetic sensor interference from an unknown source.”

    Not good. “Anyone abroad?”

    “Radial heat signatures are consistent with expected manning, sir.” The tac officer paused, then spun around. “Sir, their engines are going hot. Guns are tracking us!”

    This wasn’t right. Some of that tech he had only seen in the prototype yards on Arixa, not fielded on a ship. As head of the navy, he saw the full R&D cycle—there was no chance a functional model was built without him knowing about it. Even less likely that one flew undiscovered more than two months out to the middle of nowhere. Now it was looking to fire, outgunned seven to one, on a flotilla headed by the navy’s flagship?

    He shook his head. It didn’t make any sense, but that didn’t matter now. He’d cripple the ship here and get his answers from the crew themselves.

    “Comms, coordinate. All ships will approach on our wings. As soon as we’re in range, have Terser fire a missile volley. Once its shields are down, I want the Debilitator moving in and frying their engines.”

    “Copy all, admiral.”

    “Commence operation.”



    “Approaching missile range, sir.”

    The navigation officer nearly jumped from his post. “Sir! Detecting a significant gravitational anomaly behind that ship!”

    “How significant are we talking, nav?”

    He failed to hide his shock. His section ran the numbers again. “Sir, there’s enough gravity there to bring in a small moon!”

    “What are you saying?”

    “I’m not sure, sir, I’ve never seen anything like this. Visual model is constructing… Now.”



    “What the hell are you showing me?”

    “Anomaly is invisible through the viewport, sir. We’re adding the computer’s visualization to the tactical map.”

    “Purpose being?”

    “Sir, according to these readings, that thing is strong enough to rip a ship apart. Recommend we keep our distance.”

    ‘That unknown craft seemed awfully close to whatever that is, though, until we showed up,’ Neven thought. “Acknowledged, nav. Keep the fleet clear.”

    “Sir, Terser is missiles away.”



    “Now, let’s see if they try and break off.”

    “Sir, unknown ship is maintaining approach. Incoming fire!”



    “It’s the unknown weapon, sir. It seems like they were aiming it at the missiles Terser launched, rather than the ship itself.”

    “Was their fire effective?”

    “One missile was hit and detonated, three missiles still operational and in flight.”

    “Its main guns are targeting the Terser!”



    “Several good hits, Terser’s shields at 73%.”

    “Missiles on approach.”



    “Enemy shields are down, two engines confirmed disabled by volley.”

    “This is Debilitator, moving up.”

    “TMS Modesty, escorting.”



    “This is the Debilitator, our weapons are having a hard time acquiring lock, moving in closer to compensate.”

    ‘That would be the ECM disruption,’ Neven thought. ‘We’re months away from working models, yet here it is in action. Another mystery.’

    “Debilitator, opening fire.”



    “Good hits.”

    “All enemy engines are down, sir,” the Alacrity’s tactical officer announced. “Orders?”

    “Comms, relay a message to them. Order them to power down their weapons and prepare for boarding.”

    “Affirm, sir. Sending on wideband frequency.”

    Then they waited. The flotilla pulled back into formation around the Alacrity. After several minutes, the enemy’s weapons remained active.

    “Comms, tell me what we’re waiting for, here.”

    “No reply back, sir. We resent the order every 30 seconds, but nothing heard.”

    “Tactical scan confirms, all enemy weapons are still hot.”

    “Here that, comms? I think that counts as a reply, don’t you?” Neven said, “They think they’re calling a bluff. Move us in and fire a broadside at range.”

    “Aye.”



    “Two enemy weapons hit and destroyed, sir. Standby… Remaining two active guns still powered.”

    “Bring us near. Take aim and hit those guns.”





    “All enemy weapons destroyed, sir.”

    “Good, maybe now they’ll see reason.”

    “Sir, the enemy ship—!”

    “Tactical, out with it, what’re they doing?”

    “They’re… Leaking, sir. Thousands of gallons of water detected venting into space from the breach!”

    “What?” He checked the visual display. It confirmed: a small waterfall’s worth of liquid was emptying out into the void, drifting in all directions like a liquid cloud.

    “I don’t know what to make of it, sir.”

    Neither did he. “Comms, anything?”

    “Nothing, sir.”

    He considered his options.

    “Admiral! Massive energy spike detected on the unknown ship!”

    “Another weapon? Get us clear!”

    “Sir, it’s internal! They’re—!”






    ***


    Three Hours Later
    Holding Pattern
    Vicinity of the Unknown Gravitational Phenomenon




    Neven couldn’t wrap his mind around it without a headache coming on. If it wasn’t for the video logs, he’d almost think he imagined the whole thing. That the ship they’d fought was just a sensor illusion—a ghost.

    But it wasn’t a ghost, at least not at the time. The technology it employed was recognizable, if slightly advanced, but the hull’s design was unlike anything he had ever seen. Utterly… alien.

    His stomach twisted into a knot with the thought of that word. His face gave nothing away as he looked at the photographs taken by his salvage and autopsy teams.



    The body was vaguely humanoid, but over three meters long, and more fish-like than human. Best they could tell, it was male—every one of the bodies they recovered seemed to be, save for one they found on what was left of the ship’s bridge following self-destruct. Finding the sole female there was the only reason they were able to distinguish between sexes at all, given the creatures’ radically different physiology. The fleet medical teams were his best option for examining the corpses, but they were never prepared for this, and the reports lacked detail. There wasn’t much about the situation he liked.



    The bizarre gravity readings they identified early in the skirmish were persistent, with almost no fluctuations in their intensity. This despite nothing, to the naked eye, even being there. It seemed concentrated in a single point in space, showing no signs of orbiting the sun like a planet would with an equivalent signature. Just one more thing in his lap that he wasn’t equipped to properly investigate.

    He had summarized his findings in a secure report relayed back to Terra. Only one person’s eyes were authorized to see it: the empress herself, Letra I. He would hold position there and continue sweeping the area while he awaited her response.

    He stifled a sigh. He didn’t like this at all.


    ***


    Terran Orbit
    Onboard the Defense Station MSS PA-005




    High Executor Syn Drisdin had been reviewing the navy’s modernization over Terra when the call came in. He received it in a half-finished weapon control center on a refurbished Patriarch defense station. When Neven had departed days earlier, he had a feeling they would be getting bad news back from the expedition. This was it: an emergency recall to the imperial palace, direct orders from the empress. The cabinet was being called in. Something big was happening.

    It didn’t take a massive leap of his imagination for him to wonder what it was. When the mystery ship had been detected, some voices in the scientific community were placed under house arrest who seemed frustrated with the initial censor. The fear was that they would preemptively release dangerous speculation about where it may have come from, what it may have been. Until the official reports came back, the issue needed to stay silent.

    It seemed like that time was rapidly coming to an end.

    He contacted Admiral Kelix Ren’s flagship, the TMS Criticality, to dispatch an emergency shuttle to transport him back to the surface. As he waited, his thoughts flashed to the ancient ruins frozen under millennia of ice on Fallia V. They had remained outside of humanity’s grasp all this time, protecting their secrets under a lethal atmosphere and a glacier of carbon dioxide. They never were made public knowledge, and even among the people who knew about them, most had forgotten. Syn wondered his own, silent thoughts about possible connections between those old husks and their new unexplained visitor.

    A thought occurred to him as his shuttle touched down. He signaled to the pilot to radio down to him.

    “Sir?”

    “Patch a voice message through to the admiral for me.”

    “Yes sir.” A moment passed. “You’re through.”

    “Kelix, are you there?”

    “I can hear you, executor.” The junior admiral’s voice crackled through the secondhand connection. “Travel accommodations not to your liking?”

    Syn ignored his remark. Kelix was a capable officer, and had taken temporary command of both fleets in Neven’s absence, but he had a penchant for snide comments. All told, while only about half of the navy was operational, some of the retrofits were complete, and Syn wanted to get ahead of something.

    “Send Admiral Varr his working reconnaissance craft. Their mission specs will come during the flight, probably tomorrow. Get the crew ready to go immediately and notify the Alacrity that it’s on the way.”

    “Consider it done, lord. What should I tell Varr when he asks about it?”

    “He won’t ask,” Syn said. He’ll understand the meaning perfectly.

    “Enigmatic. Not going to tell me anything about what happened over there yet?”

    “Not yet, admiral, but I have a feeling we’ll all know more than we would like about it soon enough.”


    ***


    2412.1
    Arrival of the TMS Nearsight


    “Alacrity, this is Nearsight. All systems are green.”



    “Affirm, Nearsight. Standby.” The communications officer turned to Admiral Neven.

    Neven nodded. “Move them in.”

    Preliminary testing by remote probes suggested that, if approached slowly, the gravity well could be entered without tearing the hull off a starship. The first probe had been sent at high speed and shattered on impact, like hitting a wall. Whatever it was, the anomaly had a real, physical presence, despite its invisibility. Especially in light of the alien ship appearing by it the month prior, it warranted more study.

    Subsequent probes successfully passed through the threshold identified as the outermost edge of the anomaly, but being that they were equipped with only basic sensors and cameras, they failed to gather any data they hadn’t already received from observation. The captain of the Nearsight suggested that the more advanced sensors on his ship were more likely to get a better read. After a few days of planning, Neven gave the go-ahead.

    “Nearsight, you are clear to approach.”

    “Copy, command.”

    Neven’s hand instinctively tightened into a fist.

    “Nearsight is three kilometers out from the edge of the anomaly,” the Alacrity’s tactical officer said. “Five hundred meters. Two hundred…”



    “…One hundred… Nearsight is fifty meters from—” Suddenly, the tactical officer stopped.

    “What is it, tac? What’s their status?”

    The officer blinked. “They’re… They’re gone!”

    “What?!”



    “Sir, we’ve lost visual of the Nearsight!”

    The comms officer immediately attempted to make contact. “Sir, we’re not getting anything back from them!”

    Neven stood up. “Tactical, you find that me that ship, now!”

    “No debris detected, checking farther out.”

    “Confirming readings, sir, they disappeared as soon as they passed the threshold. Recalibrating sensors to try again…” The whole bridge filled with noise.

    The line-of-sight displays matched their instruments. Someone brought up a playback of the Nearsight’s final seconds in visual contact. As soon as it passed through the invisible edge of the gravity well, it simply disappeared.


    ***


    “Navigation, what the hell happened!” The captain of the TMS Nearsight yelled. “Where’s the fleet?”

    “Sensors aren’t reading any other ships in our vicinity, sir. They’ve dropped off sensors and visual contact completely!”

    “That’s not possible, look again!”

    “Aye, sir.”

    The captain was as dismayed as his crew. The moment they reached their objective, all their sensors began behaving erratically, generating nonsensical reports and impossible numbers. It lasted only a few moments, as they moved through the anomaly, but when the madness stopped all the other ships were gone.

    Which was completely insane. There were no explosions, no frantic messages, no abnormal signals, nothing. The Nearsight’s navigation ensign reported that the gravitational anomaly was still there after they passed through the other side of it. All its readings matched the data they had prior to entry. ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ the captain thought.

    “Navigation, turn us around and—”

    “Sir!” His comms officer cut him off. “It’s not just the admiral’s fleet, we aren’t getting receipt confirmations from any of the stations or colonies!”

    The captain looked at him. “What did you say?”

    The tactical officer stood. “Sir, you’re not going to believe this.”



    “…Where the hell are we?”

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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Three new warp points and a breathable planet - not a bad start for humanity's interstellar expansion. Assuming, of course, they aren't overwhelmed by hordes of highly advanced alien warships.
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Quote Originally Posted by InvisibleBison View Post
    Three new warp points and a breathable planet - not a bad start for humanity's interstellar expansion. Assuming, of course, they aren't overwhelmed by hordes of highly advanced alien warships.
    It's been a while since I played, but that looks like an alien Colony ship, so they'll have to hurry
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    What are the odds two species share the exact same habitability conditions?

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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    What are the odds two species share the exact same habitability conditions?
    Fairly reasonable, actually, depending on the conditions and how late in the game it is.

    Later on, you're able to research the ability to colonize the other two planet types - there's no habitability penalty for a rock-worlder settling a Gas Giant, they just don't know how to at the start. So atmosphere is the only one that matters for the whole game, and with only four* atmosphere types, you're going to double up on those fairly often.



    *Technically there's five if you include "none", but I don't think vanilla has any races that prefer that type of atmosphere (though you can customize your own race for it).
    Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Artanis View Post
    Fairly reasonable, actually, depending on the conditions and how late in the game it is.

    Later on, you're able to research the ability to colonize the other two planet types - there's no habitability penalty for a rock-worlder settling a Gas Giant, they just don't know how to at the start. So atmosphere is the only one that matters for the whole game, and with only four* atmosphere types, you're going to double up on those fairly often.



    *Technically there's five if you include "none", but I don't think vanilla has any races that prefer that type of atmosphere (though you can customize your own race for it).
    Even if we ignore the possibility of researching additional planet type colonization, there's only 12 atmosphere/planet type combos, and 19 AI nations. If I'm doing the math correctly, that's an 80.8% chance that at least one alien race shares humanity's planetary preference.
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Quote Originally Posted by InvisibleBison View Post
    Even if we ignore the possibility of researching additional planet type colonization, there's only 12 atmosphere/planet type combos, and 19 AI nations. If I'm doing the math correctly, that's an 80.8% chance that at least one alien race shares humanity's planetary preference.
    The other thing I forgot to mention is that (unless the OP is running mods or something), all the aliens have pre-scripted homeworld types, ship graphic sets, and preferred armaments. As I recall, Rock and Oxygen were both significantly more common than the other options, so doing O2-Rock is a minor 'hard mode'.

    ...not nearly as 'hard mode' as sticking to one system for this long, but still
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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Artanis View Post
    *Technically there's five if you include "none", but I don't think vanilla has any races that prefer that type of atmosphere (though you can customize your own race for it).
    I could have sworn there was one, but after looking at all 20 default empires, it turns out the sentient rocks do, in fact, breathe.

    Quote Originally Posted by InvisibleBison View Post
    Even if we ignore the possibility of researching additional planet type colonization, there's only 12 atmosphere/planet type combos, and 19 AI nations. If I'm doing the math correctly, that's an 80.8% chance that at least one alien race shares humanity's planetary preference.
    Quote Originally Posted by Artanis View Post
    The other thing I forgot to mention is that (unless the OP is running mods or something), all the aliens have pre-scripted homeworld types, ship graphic sets, and preferred armaments. As I recall, Rock and Oxygen were both significantly more common than the other options, so doing O2-Rock is a minor 'hard mode'.
    None of the AI are modded any further than what the TDM Modpack changes, which is AI design choices and behaviors to up the difficulty a bit from standard. It does further change the starting lore, tech, and subsequently the ship designs, of one stock race, but it does nothing to any planet atmosphere or composition preferences. I don't think there's any way SEIV could be modded to randomly generate empires, unfortunately.

    And "significantly more common" is right: 70% of the stock races start on rock worlds, 45% are oxygen breathers, and 40% sport the combination. A measly three species breathe hydrogen at all, four breathe methane, and in our game only three breathe carbon dioxide—I had to bump one from the roster to make room for the human rebels, but that cut wasn't made with any meta sense in mind, so my least favorite dropped and they just happened to breathe CO2.

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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Took a bit longer with this one because I simply couldn't bear the discrepancy between the JPGs and the PNGs, so I went back and retook most of the screenshots. There's a huge chunk of the next few parts that were all taken on a laptop and look lower res in the first place, but the JPGs even come out in different sizes for some reason from the higher quality images. I was going to just leave it, but it looked really bad; I'm debating whether I want to slow things down to fix it every time, but there are some things that wouldn't be worth the effort to redo anyway (i.e., battles). I'll figure something out and probably just split the difference. In the meantime:

    Chapter VII – Tentative Steps

    2412.1
    Utekra System, Unknown Distance from Fallia
    Five Hours after TMS Nearsight’s Lost Contact Event




    Once captain Lokan Fera of the TMS Nearsight ascertained the magnitude of his situation, he ordered the ship to break for the nearby storm cloud. Initial scans indicated it was similar enough to the one in Fallia that it would conceal their presence from the other ship detected in the system—a strange, bulbous hulk drifting on the far side of the star’s gravity well.



    Fera had been personally briefed on the first contact event when he arrived on Grand Admiral Neven Varr’s flagship. He had reviewed all the footage, combat logs, and post-contact reports—to include the autopsies of the corpses collected from the mystery ship’s remains. He realized they were dealing with an intelligent, space-faring alien species. What he hadn’t known, and what he was partly sent to find out, was where it had come from, and how.

    It seemed they had their answer.

    While the tonnage on this new vessel seemed identical to the one the fleet encountered, its shape was almost entirely different, excluding the bizarre, round compartments across the length of its hull. Its composition was completely unknown, and it was at least two months’ travel away—which was far longer than he wanted to be here.

    ‘In the absence of orders, improvise,’ he thought, recalling a basic lesson from the officer’s academy. His was the duty of reconnaissance and information collection. The Foreseer III light cruiser he commanded came equipped with a satellite deployment bay and four units in its hold. Originally, the ship was envisioned for long-term on-target missions, deploying its satellites for orbital surveillance—and as a hasty defense, being that the ship itself was neither heavily shielded nor armed.




    He decided to take advantage of the satellites he carried for another task: confirming his ship’s sensor readings from a secondary position.

    “Sat readings match ours so far, cap’n,” his control officer told him. “Confirming all visual and telemetric data.”

    They were, as impossible as it seemed, perhaps dozens of lightyears away from home. Crew morale would be an immediate problem if he didn’t confirm whether it was possible for them to go back.

    He would leave the satellite in the storm cloud, its primitive on-board computer set to fire its adjustment boosters to keep it from drifting out. The satellite would broadcast continuous signals on a standard encrypted frequency, transmitting observation data back to his ship regardless of his location in the system. ‘And,’ he thought, ‘to any other Terran ship that knows to check for that wavelength.’

    “Navigation, show me those charts again.”

    “Aye, sir.”



    There were three other phenomena they detected along the outer rim of the star system. Just like the one they went through, they were all invisible to the naked eye; if they hadn’t known how to look for them, they would have likely never been found.

    Fera wasn’t a scientist, much less an astronomer or astrophysicist, but after going over all the data, he felt like he had reached a realistic understanding of these gravity spirals.

    He gave the order to his nav officer. They were heading back the way they came.


    ***


    Four Hours Later

    “Admiral, contact!”



    “Confirming, it’s the Nearsight!”

    “Get them on comms, now!” For most of a day, Neven had fielded calls from everyone who had half an idea of what he was doing out here, almost all of them demanding to know the fate of the Nearsight. The empire was past the days when they could keep these kinds of things completely secret. The court stargazers for colonial governors on at least half a dozen worlds must have had their eyes on this sector for weeks watching his little flotilla conspicuously not return home, which means the disappearance of the Nearsight would have quickly become news in their halls. Which was wasn’t his problem—censorship like that was an executor’s job. But the issue of finding the Nearsight without sending another ship to its apparent demise was his.

    “This is Captain Fera of the TMS Nearsight,” the voice came in loud and clear. “Requesting to meet with the Grand Admiral at once.”


    ***

    2412.2
    Fallia-Utekra Warp Point




    Once the orders were given, the navy moved like clockwork. The Grand Admiral called up both his fleet, the Reunifiers, and the Loyalists fleet of Admiral Kelix Varr. These combined forces deployed provisional defenses around the strange feature of galactic topography: the gravity anomaly which came to be known as a warp point.

    Grand Admiral Neven, having reviewed the reconnaissance data delivered by his intrepid captain, recommended that he personally proceed through the warp point into the next system—dubbed Utekra—in force. The unknown alien race previously encountered was, if not an outright threat, a wholly unknown element to the empire, with military technology worryingly even with their own. Terran ignorance of them was unacceptable. The Empress concurred, and gave him additional orders: the navy must prevent the intrusion of the aliens’ warships into imperial space, determine the extent of their territory, and explore the possibility of human settlement on worlds beyond Fallia.

    “The fleet is ready to move, admiral.”

    “Standby. Contact Admiral Kelix.”

    “At once, sir.”

    After a moment: “This is TMS Criticality, I read you Alacrity.”

    “Kelix, it’s Neven. Once we’ve secured the far side of the warp, we’ll send a message back to you with the latest. Prepare your ships to follow in behind us once we’ve confirmed it’s clear. Come what may, your task is the defense of Fallia.”

    “Understood, we’ll be right behind you. Don’t go getting my scouts killed while you borrow them, now.”

    “We’ll do our best. Out.” He took a breath. “Helm. Take us through.”

    The fleet approached the warp point in close formation. As they passed through, one by one their navigation computers, weapons controls, and sensors all fell out of calibration. After a few moments, though, they were back in working order.



    An awed silence fell over the bridge as the reads came in. They were there. The crew had all seen the maps, had all been briefed on what to expect, but looking out onto a foreign star and truly alien planets with their own eyes shook something unexpected inside them.

    Neven surveyed the system’s reports. The alien ship had moved further along, but nothing else had changed since the Nearsight’s mission. ‘Good,’ he thought. ‘We proceed as planned.’

    “Let Ren know we all made it through in one piece,” Neven said. “Begin the operation.”


    ***




    Each of the navy’s two fleets had been assigned a pair of Foreseer reconnaissance ships, and Varr took all four into Utekra. After some study and data comparisons, the three invisible gravity spirals around Utekra’s edge were judged to be identical to the warp point leading to and from Fallia. Navy scientists assumed this meant Utekra led out to at least three other unknown star systems, all just a few months travel from Fallia—from the homeworlds. Surveys through these unexplored warp points would be the fleet’s first priority.

    Each pair of scouts would break off from the navy to explore the warp points nearest the Fallia tunnel, while the First Fleet would proceed to the farthest point as a unit. The Second Fleet would hold its position on the warp tunnel, acting both as a blocking force against any alien incursion as well as a reserve, should the others encounter resistance.

    “Nearsight and Fairday, moving off.”

    “Braver, Neverfar, falling out of fleet formation.”



    Within the hour, the First Fleet was in motion as well, on a course cutting through the systems center. With Admiral Kelix’s keeping watch, all ships moved at full speed to their objectives.

    Within the week, Braver and Neverfar and reached the warp point near the world Utekra V and traversed to the other side.





    “…Whoa.”

    “Stow it, ops. Navigation, what is this?”

    “Seems the cloud spans the whole system and then some, captain. Can’t get a visual read on anything past the naked eye out the viewports, but gravity sensors detect fluctuations on the other edge.”

    ‘Another warp point, then.’ “How long would it take us to get there?”

    “About a month, at speed.”

    The captain of the TMS Braver sighed. “Communications, get the Neverfar on the line.”

    “Aye.”

    “Captain Temm, do you read me?”

    “This is the Neverfar. I hear you, Oran. Can barely see you, though.”

    “Indeed. We’ll need to keep close as we navigate, make sure we don’t lose each other. Have you sent the probe back yet?”

    “Confirmed it made it through right after we arrived. Already got a positive receipt message back from the Alacrity.”

    “Good. Send another, let them know we’re proceeding ahead to a warp point we’ve detected on the far side of the system. It’s unfortunate, but it looks like we’ll be separated from the fleet for a few months.”

    “At least. No telling what’s on the other side of that next one. It’s a bit extreme compared to what I thought our recon missions would look like, but I guess this is what we get for signing up.”

    Captain Oran nodded solemnly. “Keep an eye on your fuel and rations. No need to drop any satellites here either, wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. We’ll carry on immediately.”

    “Aye.”


    2412.3
    Bridge of the TMS Nearsight


    A few days after the slow, lumbering alien colony ship in Utekra made passage through the unknown warp point near the system’s asteroid field, the TMS Nearsight and TMS Fairday followed suit.

    “Hitting the warp tunnel… Now.”

    “Stabilizing.”

    “Maps active in five.”



    “Alien ship identified. Definitely the same one we saw in Utekra.”

    “Seeing nine worlds and a star. Looking at a stellar storm and an asteroid field, too.”

    “Picking up another warp point on the system’s rim.”

    “Sir! We’re detecting significant activity on one—no, two of these planets!”



    “Make that a planet and a moon…” Captain Fera of the Nearsight leaned in as he read the incoming data pull. The two worlds were, without a doubt, inhabited colonies—the first observed worlds inhabited by another species in human history.

    Something that interested him was how all 74-odd million of the estimated aliens across them seemed to be living in domes, not dissimilar to the kind used in Fallia. ‘Only so many ways to perfect basic geometry, I suppose,’ he thought. That confirmed these aliens couldn’t survive without air, and couldn’t breathe in pure methane, either. ‘Good to know.’

    “Wait. Is the read on those colonies correct?”

    “Yes, captain.”

    “What in… Nothing should be able to survive down there, those worlds are frozen solid.”

    “All data is being confirmed by the second run, sir.”

    ‘That shouldn’t be possible.’ He shook his head. The scans weren’t wrong, however. “In any case, the admiral is going to want to know about this. Odds are that ship we followed in is heading to settle one of those other icebergs.”

    “The Fairday is confirming that Alacrity has received all system data from their probe push, sir.”

    “Good, then we’ll keep moving, but we’ll need to keep an eye on this place after we leave. Any convenient storm clouds we can disappear into?”

    “No sir, the small nebulae present here has a different composition than what we’ve found before.”



    “I’ve never seen anything like it. Seems like the gas is constantly emitting an extremely high dose of ionizing radiation. Sensors penetrate it easily though.”

    “Is it safe to pass through?”

    “It should be, sir, but it’s likely our shield generator won’t work while we’re in it.”

    “All the same, our sats aren’t shielded anyway. Guess the xenos will get to know we’re watching them. Set course for that other warp point. We’ll pass through the cloud and have captain Ezer leave one of his satellites behind in it.”

    “Aye, captain.”

    “Getting a positive read from the Fairday. Captain Ezer acknowledges.”

    “Then let’s keep going.”



    At pace, they would reach the unexplored warp point by the start of the next month.


    On Approach to Final Unexplored Warp Point, Utekra
    Bridge of the TMS Alacrity


    “Any movement from the new ship yet?”

    “None, admiral. Engines have been cold since it arrived through the tunnel.”



    Its hull type matched the ship Nearsight and Fairday followed into the system dubbed Sapella, and given their estimates it was likely a kind of colony ship. However, the initial readings were slightly off, which probably marked it as some type of variant. It could be anything—slightly more or less efficient engines, or a total overhaul of the design. Both ships carried who-knows-what. Neven cursed his lack of a long-range scanning capability. There was only so much he could do with guesswork. He needed more eyes; there could be anything on those ships, and others like them.

    It had appeared in Utekra a week prior as his fleet passed through the system’s center. So far, it hadn’t budged, and unless it moved quickly, they would meet when his fleet arrived to explore past the warp. Hard be it for him to back down against a single ship when he had a dozen armed combat vessels, he still hesitated.

    Not for lack of trying, there was no breakthrough in communicating with the aliens, and no comms meant no negotiations—no assurances of peace. Technically, this also meant no declaration of outright conflict, but the total silence made it impossible to assure the other ship that they meant to pass peacefully, or even so much as to warn them to move out of their way.

    He pictured what the captain of that ship might be thinking at the sight of his fleet barreling towards it at full speed. If it were him, with no way to discern the intentions of an overwhelming, implacable, unknown entity, he’d probably turn and run. He certainly wouldn’t just sit there staring at a naval force strong enough to kill him a hundred times over.

    He hoped it would conduct some sort of maneuver to evade him before he would be forced to lob a missile to get the point across. One of the aliens’ ships had already found its doom in Fallia, but powerful voices back home held out hope for alternatives to continued destruction, at least for now. There were influential people hoping he wouldn’t have to actually use all the guns he’d brought along with him. Like an unspoken addendum to the empress’s orders, he would try to keep conflict to a minimum.

    But he would use his fleet’s combat power if he had to, and his mission required him to go through that tunnel. He would suffer no delay. The empress needed to know what was out there, to know how much space humanity had between it and its enigmatic neighbors, and she needed that information sooner rather than later. They all did.

    “Estimated fleet arrival in one week, admiral.”

    “Good.” He thought. ‘I’ll be counting down the days.’


    One Week Later



    The First Fleet closed in on their target location.

    “We continue the approach,” Varr reassured his bridge. “We’re not being stopped by some bystanding aliens. If that ship tries to interfere, we’ll kill its engines with ion dispersers and bypass.”

    “Aye, admiral.”

    ‘And if it happens to have a weapon on board and decides to take its chances…’ he thought to himself.


    Encounter Near Unexplored Warp Point, Utekra Sector 0,10





    “Alien ship still holding near the warp point, sir.”

    “Move us in.” He thought to himself, ‘Last chance.’



    “Sudden engine activity, sir. Looks like they’re fleeing after all.”

    “Good, that’s the smart thing to do. Tactical, show me what they’ve got on board.”



    “Confirming it’s some kind of colony ship. Detecting several million lifeforms inside, probably in cryo-hubs.”

    ‘Looks like we’ll be able to pass without shots fired,’ he thought. With that, he let out a sigh he’d been holding back for days. He made no secret of looking relieved. His mind flashed back to the Arixan rebellion, and the empress’s orders back then to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. Technically, he supposed the order forbidding engagement with a colony ship never was rescinded. Could he have ever guessed it would become relevant again? Either way, he imagined blowing up a small nation’s worth of presumptive civilians would only cement hostilities between humanity and these aliens. At least for today, that would wait.

    “Take us through the warp point, nav. Non-combat ships, break off and hold back for now.”

    “Aye, sir.”



    Once they were through, it took several moments for their sensors to recalibrate. He noted the silence. ‘Not under fire yet,’ he thought. “Come on, tac, show me what we’re working with.”









    “…Well,” he said. “This sure is something.”

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    Default Re: Narrative AAR: Space Empires IV

    Had a busy few weeks IRL, which caused a bit of a delay with getting this out, even though it's ultimately a shorter update. I also settled on a relatively quick method for handling the wonky image sizes on the JPGs without having to redo scenes, but unfortunately the blurriness can't be fixed without going back the hard way, and I've decided not to do that, haha. For the sake of keeping things moving, there may be noticeable drops in screenshot quality at times. On the upside, the problem does go away entirely by Chapter XIV, so there's something to look forward to, at least.

    Chapter VIII – Initial Expansion

    2412.4
    Discovery of the Wertreka System
    Bridge of the TMS Braver


    “We’ve arrived at the warp point, captain.”



    “Take us through.”

    Captain Oran was relieved they would finally be done with the vast nebula cloud. Over a month of flying through it with nothing to see or study but the research notes on alien colonies discovered by their counterparts on the Nearsight and Fairday. The Nizzarumma cloud was materially fascinating and, he admitted, visually beautiful, but it didn’t have the same allure of finding new alien life on exotic faraway worlds. After the first week, it became dreadfully boring.

    The ship’s sensors scrambled momentarily as they passed through the threshold of the invisible tunnel. On the other side, Braver and Neverfar quickly reoriented themselves and reestablished contact.

    “Alright, show me what we’ve found.”



    “…What is that?”

    “Looks like a planet fragment. Absolutely enormous, though. Wonder where it came from.”

    “That trail behind it must be lightyears in length,” someone said. “Could have come from another galaxy for all we know.”

    “Is it moving fast enough to affect us?” Captain Oran asked.

    “No sir, it’s technically moving but the speed is so comparatively slow we can maneuver around it. It’ll probably still be here in a thousand years.”

    “No other worlds detected, then? This is all there is?”

    “Aye. Looks like the gravity from that thing is the focal point for two warps, too, not including the one back.”

    Oran thought for a moment. “Get me the Neverfar.”

    Captain Temm answered his call. “Quite the sights we’re stumbling on out here,” he opened.

    “Indeed. Go ahead and drop a satellite keep an eye on this place; if anything comes through, it’s in our blind spot through the nebulae cloud to Utekra.”

    “Copy. After that, you want to split up to see what’s on the other sides of those things?”

    “Not yet. The near tunnel looks close enough that we can both pass through it in a week or so, but the far one will take a month and a half to get to. We’ll both see what’s past the closest point and assess from there.”

    “Understood. We’ll follow.”

    Oran sighed once the comm closed. ‘Well, maybe there just aren’t any aliens out this way for us to find,’ he thought.


    ***


    Discovery of the Osshoda System
    Bridge of the TMS Nearsight


    “Exiting warp tunnel. Stabilizing.”

    “Unidentified ship detected, sir. It’s another xeno!”





    “Looks like another of the light cruiser-equivalents the fleet found in Rastabana. Composition unknown.”

    “Probably heavily armed. Can we avoid it?”

    “We can make it to the nearby storm cloud in a day’s time, it’ll hide our signature like the one back home.”

    “Good. Set course for there and we’ll see if they pass us by.”

    “Aye.”

    “Detecting two small alien colonies, sir.”



    “Both on frozen planets. All settlements under domes.”

    “Got it. Start cataloguing the information and prepare a relay to the fleet.”

    “Aye.”


    The next day, captain Fera took stock of his options.



    Both of the next warp points were far. The closest, leading towards a system he suspected would link back to the fleet in Rastabana, they could reach in the next month. The farthest would take over a month of travel. Either was too risky with the possibility of a hostile combat ship in the same system, though. Their satellites were armed, but they were a last resort for protection, especially against unknown enemy armaments. The best defense they had was to avoid conflict altogether.

    He decided on a plan. Assuming the alien light cruiser departed the system, and assuming another didn’t take its place, the pair would split up. He’d take the Nearsight through the closer tunnel, while captain Ezer would take the Fairday on the longer journey towards the system’s far edge.

    “Sir, we’ve found something else you’ll want to see.”

    “What is it, nav?”



    Fera studied the readings carefully. His navigation officer had made a point of sending the information directly to his personal display without alerting the entire bridge. ‘The admiral will need to see this,’ he thought. The empress would need to see this, too.


    ***


    Situation Report on the First Fleet’s Expedition
    Signed by Grand Admiral Neven Varr


    To the High Executor of the Terran Domain:

    My deepest respects to the Empress of Humanity.

    Since the departure of our forces two months ago, we have observed considerable evidence that the alien beings operate a sophisticated interstellar civilization. Our reconnaissance has positively identified seven colonies they inhabit, one of which houses upwards of half a billion settlers breathing the open air. As well, the aliens have demonstrated the capability to produce and field a substantial naval force. In the last few days alone, Rastabana, where I reside with the bulk of my fleet, has become host to several of the aliens’ ships. We suspect they are responding to our continued presence over the warp point leading into Utekra.



    It is doubtful that we have yet discovered the species’ homeworld, or even their core territory; given the estimated cost of fielding such a navy, I suspect it is supported by several more worlds they control beyond the unexplored warps.

    On the note of the warp network, I estimate it extends quite farther than initially estimated.



    Rastabana seems to be a central hub for the cluster, with projections indicating nearby star systems will likely connect in a circuit around it. Until proven otherwise, we are operating under the assumption that all these systems may house a significant alien presence. Further exploration remains a priority to determine their extent and capabilities.

    For exploration beyond Rastabana itself: I have ordered Admiral Kelix Ren to fortify the Utekra-Fallia warp point as best he is able, then to depart immediately to relieve my forces here. With both other routes into Utekra passively monitored and free of significant threats, I believe his fleet can best support both homeworld defense and new exploration by establishing positions in Rastabana. Upon his arrival, I will take the First Fleet into the next unexplored system and determine the best course of action once there.

    We live in dynamic times; please inform me of any new directives from the empress. We will endeavor to accomplish our duties.

    Grand Admiral Varr.


    Response: Situation Report on the First Fleet’s Expedition
    Signed by the High Executor


    To the Grand Admiral of the Terran Interstellar Navy:

    Glory to Empress Letra I.

    Her majesty has reviewed your reports and gladly concurs. She praises your decisiveness and the determination of your crews in these harrowing times.

    I advise you of one caveat she made to your plan. Prior to relieving your fleet in Rastabana, Admiral Ren’s forces will split and escort several colony ships into Utekra, Sapella, and Osshoda to establish Terran hegemony on strategically critical planets. He has been informed concurrently with your receipt of this message, and the required colony ships are already on their way.

    This process will take several months to accomplish, and, you understand, may stress relations with our neighbors once they see our intentions. I remind you that we still have not decoded one another’s languages, and thus diplomacy remains impossible.

    It would be desirable for you to complete surveys beyond Rastabana as soon as practical. We leave the specifics up to you.

    High Executor Drisdin.


    ***


    Utekra
    Departure of the Imperial Colony Flotilla


    Before the colony ships arrived, Admiral Ren’s Second Fleet split into two parts. The first, comprising the bulk of his combat craft and his flagship, would follow half of the colony flotilla into Sapella and protect the empire’s new holdings there and in Osshoda. The second part of his fleet would proceed to relieve Neven Varr at the other side of the Rastabana warp point, albeit with a much smaller overall defense force than the combined First Fleet currently provided.



    An OOC explanation of my movements here. The 2FLT-1TF (meaning Second Fleet, First Task Force, to help me keep track of where the units came from so I can put them back later) is comprised of three Longsword IVs, two Spear IIIs, a Laconic IX, and a supply ship—overall, just under half of the fleet’s combat potential. The fleet’s supply ship are, incidentally, already almost drained just from supporting the fleet maneuvers up to now, which emphasizes the urgency of getting a proper resupply base up and running at the front. The 2FLT-HQ (Headquarters) has the remainder of the fleet, including support ships, and is escorting three colony ships along the cluster’s galactic north to take the following worlds:



    We haven’t seen much in the way of potential resistance up there yet, so I’m betting the aliens’ forces are largely concentrated around Rastabana for the time being. When the First Fleet pushes farther out, we should have a better idea of just how far we can plant our flag before we need to dedicate significant defenses to our border planets.

    The TS Concise is making a dead run for Utekra VIII, where we’ll establish a resupply point and a large mining operation to fund our upcoming expansion. By mothballing nearly all stations in Fallia and reactivating my remote mining operations, I’ve pumped the economy up to around 11,000 minerals in profit per turn right now, but that will rapidly burn out funding the new colonies’ build queues. Decent mineral worlds like this one will be essential territory for the immediate future.




    Joining the 2FLT-1TF are two colony ships and, shortly behind, a cargo hauler heading to resupply the 1FLT’s satellite setter and minelayer, currently holding over the Utekra side of the warp into Rastabana. After its current load is dropped off, I’ll send it and my other roaming cargo destroyer to carry a few hundred million colonists from Fallia to our new worlds to bolster their production, which will also establish large population bases for future pop shuttling to other, later colonies.

    As for the alien colony ship, the Debacle V 0004, I can only imagine where it thinks it’s going, given there’s two dead systems in a row past the Nizzarumma warp point. It’s possible that the AI is using that ship as a scout and hasn’t already explored into Nizzarumma yet, but that’s hard to say.



    Discovery of the Sutranna System
    Bridge of the TMS Braver


    “Warp complete, captain, sensors are stabilizing. System map constructing… Now.”



    “What do we have, nav? This system a bit more alive than the others?”

    “Several planets picked up, but no settlements, sir. Looks like a standard type one solar system.”

    “Detecting two unidentified ships… Wait, make that one unidentified, and one known. Long-range scans indicate the first’s hull matches the colony ship encountered by the fleet in Utekra.”

    “And what about the second ship?

    The tactical officer checked his console again. “Completely unknown hull configuration, sir. It’s nothing like the others.”

    “What? Show me.”



    The ship was missing the massive, bulbous shape that defined all the alien designs they had seen thus far. It was far more compact, seemingly no room for the thousands of gallons of water the others apparently carted around.

    “It’s on course for the far warp, sir. Chart comparisons suggest that it leads back into Rastabana.”

    “Send a message back around for the Grand Admiral, then. Let him know there’s a new stranger on the way.”

    “Aye.”

    The captain leaned forward. He didn’t like this. As data rolled in, that unknown ship made itself more and more distinct from everything they were just beginning to get familiar with.

    “And send another relay further back while we’re at it,” he added. “I think Terra is going to want to know about this sooner rather than later.”
    Last edited by Cobalt; 2022-10-07 at 06:02 AM.

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