[X] Ultra-Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves covering one system at a time in escorted force.
[X] Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers.
[X] Write In - Work on improving current shipbuilding practices
[X] Ultra-Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves covering one system at a time in escorted force.
[X] Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers.
[X] Ultra-Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves covering one system at a time in escorted force.
[X] Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers.
A sound pair of options for me, especially developing new technologies that will certainly help us.
Throw money at labs. They ought to have some ideas now, we've got some foreign tech around, some recovered, and enough combat we ought to have been visited by the good idea fairy.
[X]Slow Scouting
[X]Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers.
[X] Ultra-Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves covering one system at a time in escorted force.
[X] Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers.
[X] Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves pairs of scouts heading into each system.
[X] Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers
[X] Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves pairs of scouts heading into each system.
[X] Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers
How should the HSWS manage scouting? Slow Scouting - plan an operation that involves pairs of scouts heading into each system. How would the HSWS like to distribute its spare budget? Attempt to develop new technologies by deploying funding to Home researchers.
Scouting Reports
An unusual operation draws together in the late months of the 11th year, with the return of the Deep Space Surveyors and the rest of 1st Scout Flotilla from the North-West. Two scouting groups are drawn together, each centred around a Flotilla Support Ship, each with a different destination, both with the same mission; to head out, scout out the systems identified at a distance, and report back with delicious and valuable data and what - and who - is out there.
- Operation Nor-Wester will conduct a scouting operation in three systems, sectors currently labelled as '-04,00', '-04,-01' and '-03,-02'. This will require drop tanks and the FSS extending its own range on its stored fuel to allow it to operate as a deep space range extender. Fortunately, we have not yet reached a point where we need to double up on FSS deployments to reach distant stars but perhaps in not too long we will.
- Operation North, meanwhile, will not require deploying ships beyond their internal tankage range, though the scouts will still be carrying their drop tanks. They will penetrate three systems, currently labeller as '-01,-03', '00,-03' and '01,-03'. Hopefully they will recover information on exactly who is running an entire star system as a prison.
Departing on 12y00m00w, it is expected we wont see some of these ships for months. Operation Nor-Wester will likely not return for four months giving the sheer scale of their deployment and the distances involved. The scouts will cover ten parsecs over the course of those four months, should everything go to plan.
Technological Developments
Some technological progress is easy - a little funding here, a nudge there - and so it is for us. New missiles and torpedoes are developed with relative ease including the extremely fast, but extremely low-impact 'decoy' missile which is capable of almost 150m/s/s acceleration. At the same time, new concepts are developed for torpedo munitions including the 'casaba howitzer' or bomb-pumped laser warhead and the anti-electronics Ion or EMP warhead.
More influential developments are more difficult, and with current funding it is expected that it will take a very long time to develop on the current standards - on the order of several decades - however they will continue to work on these and the current funding will at least allow for the moulding of a new understanding of pan-Home scientific consensus with a goal to working towards advanced technologies.
Xyri
Xyri has two major cities and a broad array of townships, domed or buried into the ground of dug into the sides of sheer cliff faces that protect them from harsh dust storms and allow the containment of a denser atmosphere than the planet would usually allow. The plains these settlements sit on are broad and desolate and gritty, useless to anyone but resource extraction groups that hunger for the materials buried beneath the planets ancient crust.
When hovercraft and wheeled tanks stream across the surface, it raises a dust cloud ten kilometres high. Our ships on station see these movements, the sweeping aggression of the dictatorships Housecarls marking the atmospherics in a way that cannot be missed. Initially these are dismissed as training exercises, but the flash and twinkle of kinetic projectiles and laser refraction gives the game away - Xyri is plunging itself into a war.
Orbital Photograph, later identified as the advance of the House Contrabael 8th.
It is, at least, currently a conventional conflict. Small armies, each with barely more than a few thousand people under arms, clash with advanced tanks, hovering APC's, small arms and missiles. Our courier ship reports all of this breathlessly, and captains order their ships to readiness in preparations for a 'preventative' campaign in Xyri should they be ordered to.
What is the HSWS response to the situation in Xyri?
[ ] Allow it to play out, as it must - how will we ensure out trade? write-in
[ ] Enforce our access to fuelling stations by force - with what ships? write-in
[ ] Deploy ships to enforce peace on the main world - What are their rules of engagement? write-in
[ ] Another plan entirely - write in.
OK, so this is a small-scale surface conflict. It doesn't threaten orbit, as of now. We might want to contact the dictatorship and tell them that we are taking over the security of their starport, but otherwise there's no need to internvene. Wait... Do these guys even operate a starport? If not, just make it known that destroying trade facilities is off limits to all sides and keep an eye on the infrastructure.
Well doing nothing resulted in the predictable thing happening. The dictatorship controls the orbits and the space port and through it, all trade with us. I doubt trade with the other factions will be allowed to continue with the outbreak of conflict.
Deploy ships to protect orbital infrastructure and enforce a no-use policy regarding nuclear weapons or deliberate dome-cracking. Home's interest is that there be a Xyri and Xyrians left at the end of this.
Anything in the atmosphere is fair game. Anything in orbit is under the HSWS' protection. This includes things launched during the war.
Remember that trade with republicans and technocrats was conducted through dictator intermediaries, so strictly speaking we're not dropping trade partners.
Deploy ships to protect orbital infrastructure and enforce a no-use policy regarding nuclear weapons or deliberate dome-cracking. Home's interest is that there be a Xyri and Xyrians left at the end of this.
Deploy ships to protect orbital infrastructure and enforce a no-use policy regarding nuclear weapons or deliberate dome-cracking. Home's interest is that there be a Xyri and Xyrians left at the end of this.
This is a good plan, do we have any troopships available? We might start thinking of setting up a protectorate on Xyrie if the situation gets bad enough.
This is a good plan, do we have any troopships available? We might start thinking of setting up a protectorate on Xyrie if the situation gets bad enough.
Embargo doesn't work, since it would implicitly favour one side. Besides, even if we didn't sell stuff to them the Aslan mercenaries don't have to go along with our embargoes. I'd rather not have the Xyrians indebted to them.
I wouldn't be counting on that. Even if the Aslan mercenaries didn't have their representatives in Cassalon and Xyri beforehand the news will spread and the Aslan will poke around to see whether someone requires their services.
[X] Allow it to play out. However, commit to protecting the orbital infrastructure and enforcing a no-use policy regarding nuclear weapons or deliberate dome-cracking. State that breaking these rules or attacking assets in orbit will invite HSWS intervention against the attacker.
-[X] Deploy four ICs, four Frigates and the MMV and place them in orbit of Xyri.
-[X] Deploy MIC. Ask the warring sides for permission to attach them as observers to monitor the situation.
