Turn Five Combat Phase---------
Core thread rules updated a bit, particularly the portion about movement and a bit on costs so that they actually make some semblance of sense now. Please bring issues to me. These rules were already explained in both threads and have been used for some turns,
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In Orbit Over Planet EThree Network ships cruise past E on their way to Planet F. Some time later, three Technate vessels arrive, completely unaware of how close they came to a battle. The Technate ships notice the extensive Network activity over the entire planet down below; it is quite clear that the Network controls the whole planet and has a substantial number of troops dug in on the surface. Resources are flowing back towards Network space from this world.
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In Orbit Over Planet FLate in the season, three Network ships show up and find the planet crawling with Technate soldiers, resource shipments heading back towards Technate space.
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In Orbit Over Planet DTwo of the Network's Logos ships, one of them still scarred from the last battle, orbit lazily over the planetwide battle below them. Two friendly ITCs are due, and the enemy is nowhere to be seen. The ITCs arrive on time, and unload their deadly contents to the unsuspecting surface below. Their shuttles are larger and faster than standard shuttles and the Technate forces fear they will be used to move Network troops across the water faster than before. Indeed, the first of the Network's forces are deposited by one of these large shuttles, breaking through an island fortress the Technate had hoped would hold for another season, leaving the rest of the archipelago open for assault. The shuttle's pilot heads back for space, rocketing through the upper atmosphere and heading for a rendezvous orbit, ready to return to his transport on the far side of the planet and get refueled before moving the next few groups.
Then the first of the missiles arrows in from deep space, and the large shuttle is sent hurtling back down towards the oceans below.
No fewer than five Technate vessels are arriving at high speed from a transfer orbit, and the Network scrambles to respond. Its two ITCs throw power to their drives and drive for deep space, while the Logos reconfigure into a defensive formation as the transports make a run for it. Luckily, the Technate is slow to abandon their ITC for fear of an ambush, but as they get closer they realize that no Network ships are lurking on the back side of the planet, and the four warships alter course to intercept the Network ships.
The Surface of Planet DThe Network has doubled their forces on the planet, and things looked like they were going to go even worse for the Technate. The first of the archipelago's islands had been blown through what seemed to be a small army of Network soldiers disembarking from a shuttle, and the rest were surely soon to follow. There was nothing the single unit of Technate soldiers could do to hold back four times their number, even if a lot of the Network soldiers were still reliant on simple boats for transport.
In fact, thought Nysk Titania, where was that shuttle that had helped take out the first island? It had been gone long enough to make two more trips by now. Maybe it had been that bright streak over in the eastern sky? It seemed like too much luck for that to be case. These new shuttles were large enough to light up the whole sky with their descent and takeoff, it seemed unlikely that they would be fragile enough to fail in flight. And surely the transports above had more shuttles?
Then the sky lit up again, and everyone dove for cover and aimed for the burning red light of a descending shuttle, getting brighter. And brighter...and then the pieces started breaking off, and B Company's sergeant yelled about it not being a shuttle, and then they were sprinting for the nearest of the cave entrances, the starlit sky growing steadily redder.
In Orbit Over Planet DFour ships raced down towards the planet, aimed unerringly at the two specks rising to meet them on the brilliant plumes of plasma drives. Missiles raced out from the trailing Technate ships, a pair at a time. Some were intercepted by projectiles from the rising ships, and most missed the agile Network vessels. But one struck the leading Logos, patches evident on the laser-scored hull. There was no fire of a nuclear blast nor a flare from a shaped charge, instead the projectile disintegrated in a flash of laser fire, aimed
away from the Network ship, and the damaged frame of the Logos groaned alarmingly as one of the railgun loading and control stations was torn to pieces and thrown by some unseen force, shattering the sensor node behind it. The shrapnel holes on the top of the ship started to flow closed, but all too soon the lasers once again seared the hull. One railgun destroyed, one damaged, and preoccupied with the missiles still being flung at it by the more distant combatants, the leading Logos is not returning effective fire. The trailing Logos, however, is fully fit, and isn't going to let its ally stand alone. A lucky salvo of railgun rounds tear the guts out of the leading Chord, which suffers an internal detonation of its chemical laser mixtures and slows its acceleration, falling back to defend the new Degree missile corvettes.
The Surface of Planet DThe sky rained molten shards of metal and plastic, caustic chemicals released by failing tanks and metallic slugs dropped from melted magazines of broken ships. In the caves and bunkers, Technate forces weathered the storm, while the Network's exposed units were decimated. Sealed in their CEVAS space suits, Technate forces waited out the destruction, before venturing to the surface. Everything was torn to shreds, the islands were on fire, and almost nothing appeared to be left alive. The broken remains of Technate soldiers were scattered next to the sparking circuits of Network combat units.
Elsewhere, the sound of combat could still be heard. Some Network units must have chased the Technate into the caves during the fall. And something was audible over the sounds of combat...something was flying towards the island.
In Orbit Over Planet DAnother salvo of lasers traces its way across the hull of Logos-01, beginning to glow red and orange as the gout of brilliant blue plasma from the compromised main drive burned holes through what was left of the aft section. Chord #2 was still firing all three of its lasers into the ship, and it was already losing speed, heading for the ground.
But it wasn't finished yet. Two railgun rounds, aimed down the same path, raced from the stricken ship, the recoil tearing free the guns from their molten mountings and tearing the ship apart, throwing pieces everywhere as they hurtled back towards the planet below. But its last revenge was well-aimed, for the two shots sailed up towards the descending enemies and struck the retreating Chord #1, detonating one of its engines which, curiously, did not explode. Its overload instead ripped the ship into two pieces and left them to fall, alongside its molten adversary.
The Surface of Planet DTitania ran for cover for the second time that day, pursued by a storm of fire from the turret mounted on a gunship above. Two railguns linked together were firing as fast as the operator could cycle them, and they were getting closer. The Emergent wasn't a very maneuverable aircraft and some of them fly nearly sideways, but when there's nothing capable of shooting it down that can sometimes be ignored. After a desperate few minutes the Technate forces have already discovered that it's hard to keep the guidance laser pointed at an aircraft, and it takes a good or lucky hit to the pilot or an engine to knock one from the sky, and they're now horribly outnumbered, and the new enemy forces have carbine variants of their railguns in addition to the usual railgun rifle equivalents, which put them on an even footing with Technate infantry at Close range.
D-34N hurtled over the ocean in one of the new Emergent gunships, waiting patiently to be deployed onto the next island in the chain. Boats were unnecessary with the new aircraft finally assembled after the drop. He'd heard that the advance forces, who'd gone in before air support had been readied, had been savaged by something in this island chain, but until his aircraft entered final approach and opened the doors he hadn't quite realized what had happened. The entire area was a blasted wasteland, parts of the ocean burning with the caustic chemical laser ammunition and the dense jungles set on fire by a rain of molten metal from above. It was going to be an unpleasant fight.
Titania guided another round into another robotic soldier, and wished for the thousandth time that she'd joined a mining operation instead. The robots were coming thick and fast and the Technate lines were collapsing, not just here but across the planet. An entire platoon of Network soldiers burst into the clearing and charged the three remaining members of her squad, until a sonic boom and a rush of hot air and noise roared over the entire group. Something had just come in from orbit and was decelerating to land practically on top of her holdout. Reinforcements had, finally, arrived.
In Orbit Over Planet DLogos-02 was now in the sights of all three enemy ships, and it was suffering. Scoring railgun shots against Chord #2, Logos-02 turned to flee back towards its retreating ITCs, now well clear of the engagement zone and out of the enemy's range. Shuttles from the Technate ITC were racing downwards towards the embattled Technate forces on the surface, and all three Technate warships were closing on the lone Network ship.
Laser fire traced across its engines, and a missile flashed in and struck the forwards maneuvering cluster. Railgun rounds raced backwards, striking Chord #2 and one of the Degrees behind it, but minor damage was no substitute for a melting engine mount, and every so often the railguns were forced to point away from their target to make another clumsy attempt at destroying a particularly accurate missile. The agility of the light Logos is incredibly useful against missiles, but these Technate missiles are not bad enough that the Logos can simply dodge them all. After trading more fire, the Logos is finally able to get out of range of the Chord, and leaves the missile ships' range shortly thereafter when the
Damaged Chord and two
Lightly Damaged Degrees pull back to defend their ITC. Logos #2 is
Crippled by the encounter, and it's obvious to everyone in the system that the limping ship is unfit for further combat.
Far away, two ITCs were racing away, their enemies delayed by the daring assault and sacrifice of the Logos warships.
The Network has forced its way across much of the planet, interrupted only by the concentration of Technate reinforcements in the last key positions across the watery planet. The introduction of air power, though imperfect, has shaken the balance of power dramatically. The introduction of two more units of well-equipped Technate troops wasn't even enough to save them from the relentless assault of what is now 4 Network units equipped with two sets of aircraft and a wider array of weapons.
Control of Planet D: 8 Network - 2 Technate
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Planetary Contents:
1 & 2: Earthlike planets just as you’d expect. Take your opponent’s homeworld to win, lose yours and you die.
A: Riddled with caves and with a mineral-rich crust, this airless world is ideal for the production of spacecraft components. 1 GPP, 3 SPP.
B: A volcanic world with a caustic atmosphere and lava flows on the surface, B is full of minerals that can be easily acquired…if you can deal with the, quite literal, heat. 3 GPP, 1 SPP.
C: Icy, barren, rather flat in most regions. It has rather a lot of those things humans need to live sitting on and under its airless surface. 3 GPP, 3 SPP.
D: A surface-wide ocean is the defining trait of this planet, providing an interesting combat environment and also plenty of interesting life forms that can be studied….if you can build a big enough boat to catch one, anyway. 4 GPP, 2 SPP.
E: Another Earthlike planet, ideal for habitation….or, y’know, fighting a good old fashioned war over! 4 GPP, 4 SPP.
F: A world of highlands and mountains, the lower parts of the planet are filled with most of the planet's already scarce water. However, the mountainous regions have high mineral contents and plenty of good spacecraft launch sites above the majority of the atmosphere. 2 GPP, 4 SPP.
G: Deserts cover the surface of this planet. Deserts made, in fact, of a curious sand with abnormally high metal and mineral contents. It has an atmosphere that serves to stir up the sands into occasional sandstorms. 3 GPP, 3 SPP.
H: An airless, small rock in space, H is heavily cratered and not a great place to live. Good place to build spacecraft, though. 1 GPP, 3 SPP.
I: A world covered in wide stretches of windswept terrain covered in something that we’re going to call grass, I is ideal for large-scale industrial activity. Nobody cares if you do irreparable damage to a huge tract of grasslands here, after all, there are a hundred more huge tracts of pristine grasslands you haven’t ruined
yet. 3 GPP, 1 SPP.
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This just gets longer every time. But I enjoy writing them, and I hope you enjoy reading them. Complaints, compliments, questions, concerns, and other nonsense welcome.
OK, so, I've been having a lot of trouble with the logistics system. I'm not great at keeping it straight and the number of mistakes is bothering me, and probably bothering many of you. So, I have a rather radical question to pose to everyone:
Do you think using logistics, particularly for ground units and transport ships, is worthwhile? Would you like me to change it? I've been thinking about this more and more every time I have to deal with logistics (and my screwups with logistics).
I've noticed that unlike a couple other space arms races (and of course Piratejoe's naval AR), nobody is really caring about the ships as individual entities. I'd really like to change that, though I'm not sure how.
Author
Topic: Interplanetary Arms Race (Read 5078 times)