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Ad Astra ex Lutum

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[X] Plan Winter is Coming

Tried updating the map to show the situation this turn. Actual locations of formations are likely different and more concentrated than shown.
 
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Blackstar said:
By the fifth day, additional forces of the Alien enemy were tasked with halting the incursion with VTOLs deployed in large numbers along with a stock of armored assets to halt the breakthrough. Broadly across the front, their holding actions failed, the armor that had consistently posed a threat that could not be surmounted was surmounted and overcome at several sectors. A single tank of the Alien Enemy used to be an insurmountable challenge, but with successive engagements, they have proven unable to adequately respond to coordinated flanking fire with previously solid defenses of two mutually supporting tanks capable of being overrun by a well-coordinated company.
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Okay, that's very good news. We are able now to actually mass-produce vehicles that can contest the enemy tanks at the point of contact, even (it seems) without expending nuclear shells (though those help lol).

The destruction of at least fifty alien IFVs has been confirmed along with confirmed gun camera kills on around twenty tanks and another twenty VTOL craft, significantly degrading forces in the theater.
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That is well worth having a few army corps chewed up.

Plan Orange has still forced the deployment of reinforcements to the theater rather than towards novel areas, testing them against steadily strengthening defenses.
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WOO-HOO! That is ABSOLUTELY one of the big things I was hoping for from this month- that the alien high command would commit the reinforcement wave to the existing war zone rather than trying to conquer a third, entirely different area with them. Of course, now we have to contend against a double-strength alien army...

Interdiction operations against the Alien Enemies drop have been entirely focused on the re-entry shells rather than a more general targeting profile. To that end, fire was held as the transport ships committed to their drop to ensure optimal BPL impacts. This has come with the effective interception of something approximating a quarter of the tonnage dropped as the point defense against the operation was far lesser than original expectations. Despite these strong intercepts, the predicted armor division has impacted the lines, effectively breaking through the 40th CAA in sectors and leaving significant portions of the Eastern sector under-defended and broken open. New heavier infantry was also dropped into the location with them designated internally as a militia unit on corporate communications.
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Hm. well, that's rough. The armored division is proving tough, and we're going to have a very hard time stopping them if they stay concentrated, except by repeating the broad outlines of Plan Orange and throwing whole armored corps at them in sacrificial attacks with a lot of nukes thrown while hoping to actually accomplish something else somewhere else along the lines.

Also, "heavier infantry," I don't like the sound of that. We were hoping for crappy troops and that they'd be poorly armed or no better armed than the Salamander infantry we were already fighting. On the other hand, it may be too soon to assess the "new heavier infantry's" tactical quality and full potentialities.

Continued communications intercepts have determined that the current drop in forces only represents a small part of the additional funds allocated by them to secure the Alien artifact...
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Crap. So they're well funded and we can expect more mercenary units, with the third wave of reinforcements to be very well funded. The big question is whether that manifests as:

1) More enemy ships and assault landers, so that they can deliver significantly more forces to the planet than in the last two waves- it sounds like we did NOT shoot down any more of the assault landers this time, sadly.
2) Higher quality enemy troops, either with higher-tech equipment further beyond us, or a higher proportion admixture of tanks and heavy power armor.

Dunno.

What could be classified as stock manipulation has also happened according to some corporate training documentation, with the board selling down to a 51% stake compared to external investors.
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Hm. That's actually... interestingly mixed news. The good news is that if we can keep this invasion stalemated, the board members will be under pressure to throw in the towel and that if even one board member sells out their stock for any reason, the board loses full control of the company and this may change the equation markedly.

Data-interception operations have confirmed the location of several jump point stations only sixty light years away from Kuriuq with a spirited discussion by the corporate board on their exact content and why which station would be prioritized for trade expeditions. Current plans range from avoiding contact for long enough to secure modern cultural and scientific information to opening contact directly through the landing of an ambassadorial team into the closest equivalent of the core worlds after a few off-grid jumps. The latter is the inherently riskier option as the attention of the mainline state backing the Alien Enemy may come with far more drawbacks than the simple consequences of partial recognition.
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Yeah, that's an interesting one. On the one hand, attracting more attention from their actual state could mean more corporate filibustering expeditions. On the other, us being able to actually send messages to the state and stock exchange backing the corporation we are fighting gives us SOME opportunity to directly hack at their interstellar supply line, in a way that would otherwise be impossible for us since we can barely threaten their forces in low orbit over our planet, let alone their base of supply sixty light-years away.

Further operations with the Investigator have been broadly planned through several Department Four commissions as a true first contact with the Alien Enemies state would only lead to further attention. Some of the more optimistic members of the commission believe that from what is known, the corporation is actively committing some crimes, but the risk to everything from state interest is too much to bear. Several of the more questionable gray zone stations at the borders have historically served as the rallying places for mercenaries, malcontents, and something of the fringe of active colonization for what are believed to be historical reasons. Current operations are going to entirely focus on them, as a ship with a questionable drive and construction would not be out of place, especially if presented as a pure FTL hauler.
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So we're thinking of pretending that our first FTL explorer is, like, some really janky flying rustbucket? Interesting.

[]Technical Investigation Mission: Instead of attempting to purchase as many electronic devices as possible the expedition can be more restrained, trading a smaller amount of rare earth materials in exchange for textbooks and database access. The mission will if anything be more obvious that it is aiming to do something with a planet, but it may be possible to pass it off as an uplifting expedition instead of anything more suspicious. Diplomatic contact will not be made and as many transactions as possible will be conducted remotely to minimize surveillance impacts.

[]Technologies Acquisition Mission: Several commodities can be sold to the highest bidder if several corporate contacts are followed up upon. The CLP has left practically an entire database of contacts willing to move inventory in significant amounts and nuclear warheads can improve the diplomatic heft of the expedition. The primary goal will be the purchase of limited inventory arms, including armor, vehicles, IFVs, and a wealth of technical assets. The significant scale of the exchange along with its military nature may attract a certain clientele but the drive of the Investigator can easily outrange any figures present in CLP databases.

[]Degrade Corporate Image: A cursory understanding of how the CLP is organized has several loyal media contacts listed for public releases and PR statements. Carefully working around the list and towards organizations that are not known loyal can be done as a further stop in the journey. Raising additional capital has been key for the expedition and with a single masterstroke it might be possible to end the entire invasion by presenting the corporation's reports on how the war is going. The purchase of databases will come as an essential part of this, with local computers used to contact media closer to the core worlds and start up a story.
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:D I love all these options.

The design of an individual grenade system has proven overwhelmingly challenging and impossible to deliver. The larger rocket system has advanced further with a greater capacity for carrying incendiary fluid if at a shorter range than original expectations would indicate. The mass production of the new 3kg system is capable of delivering incendiaries up to three hundred meters. To reduce production costs the missile itself is stored in a double-layer tube that is self-contained with a small aiming system remaining as the only non-disposable component. Standardized sighting on the rocket comes with a laser rangefinder and an automatically adjusting sight, avoiding any AR integration to keep costs low. Accuracy against moving targets has a limited gyroscopic auto-lead capacity but accuracy is expected to be poor.
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Hm. So instead of fluorine-compound Molotov cocktails, we have a frankly probably more practical, more useful, and marginally less batshit lightweight disposable rocket-propelled incendiary grenade. Not bad from my point of view.

[]Emergency Food Programs: With the lack of food and partial destruction of the harvest the food situation has continued to destabilize with acute shortages expected over the winter. Supplementation with alternative food sources has already started but the initial expectations of a more normal harvest this year have been dashed by increasing cold conditions and a persistent reduction of sunlight along with increasing metallic burdens, causing crops to grow far smaller than they normally should. Third-generation starch organisms can be deployed both in contained and uncontained environments to stabilize the situation, allowing for continued resistance. (-30 Mobilization Capacity)

[]Expansion of Heating Systems: Nuclear winter is coming in the next few months with temperatures expected to drop by around ten degrees from current use and another five if the incineration of the biosphere is maintained. Out-of-control fires have been a mainstay of several sectors leading to massive depositions of carbon into the atmosphere. The number of ground bursts conducted has also increased the relative thermal burden, modifying the climate and reducing the availability of sunlight. Limited heating is going to cause several casualties if not built up now and the power grid loading will steadily increase as the winter gets worse. (-30 Mobilization Capacity) (Increases Power Issues)
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Hmyeah, we'd better work on this. Sounds like we're kicking off nuclear winter in a big way. Fortunately, we aren't as blown up and do know how to cope.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Also, "heavier infantry," I don't like the sound of that. We were hoping for crappy troops and that they'd be poorly armed or no better armed than the Salamander infantry we were already fighting. On the other hand, it may be too soon to assess the "new heavier infantry's" tactical quality and full potentialities.
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They are miners, they are probably jury rigged their gear into some scuffed power armor, I don't expect much quality soldiering from them, only soldering...
 
Yeah, the 'heavy infantry' is basically just miners in hastily militarized mining rigs and armed with very basic infantry weapons (just the carbine.) Their military training is also...lacking.
 
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Cannon Omake: Easy Money
  • Sidestory
    • Easy Money

    The mercenaries life was easy money, at least that's what Iccauhtli's brother had told him. You can spend your life slaving away in some corporation sweatshop your entire life or you can join a mercenary company, do a few easy tours shaking down primitives who had barely invented gunpowder and retire to a life of luxury. That was the common view of it anyway, what most people didn't tell you is that it depended entirely on which mercenary unit you joined. Join a cheap unit, the kind that'll hire just about anyone and you'll get thrown away cheaply. Join a more elite unit, the kind that you need a recommendation or a years of existing service to get into and you'll get an expensive gun, even more expensive armour and while the client won't care much for your life, they'll hate the price they have to pay out for replacements and that should keep them honest. The Drake's Claws were one of those decent units, with vehicles and even armoured support. His brother's recommendation got him through the door and he'd stuck with it through the training.

    This was his second tour. The first had been fairly standard. They turned up, told one of the local nations that they were the 'true leaders of the land' or whatever based on some nonsense like skin colour or shoe size, whatever worked. They'd then spent a few years mostly sitting around and handing their patsies some third grade gear, occasionally dropping on some local command to slaughter everyone. Sure, there were a couple of casualties but overall they'd been few. Iccauhtli's brother had laughed, said that anyone who died on these jobs deserved what they got for getting lazy or stupid. Iccauhtli wasn't going to say the same, not after he cleared out his brother's locker for keepsakes to send back to their parents. They'd normally send the body back as well so it could be properly buried but that required them to recover enough of him to bury.

    He should have known this was a bad job early on. They'd sent some guys to take over a mining ship, some primitive thing that looked like it was going to fall apart if someone coughed on it. They'd been joking as they went in, making bets over how many of the miners would shit themselves as soon as they saw power armour. They hadn't expected a brutal fight against enemies with machine guns who despite many of them being armed with mining tools were willing to fight to the last. They definitely hadn't expected the captain to overload his reactor and flood the entire boat with radiation. It shook the new guys, but the older ones just shrugged and said that there are always some wannabe heroes early on. They just have to be a bit more careful now they know this enemy has weapons that can do more than scratch the paint. That was then, before they'd learned.

    Iccauhtli's brother had died along with the rest of his squad on the planet's moon, as the defensive position they'd taken exploded into nuclear hellfire. Iccauhtli's captain had died to a machine gun position, the enemy killed not long after with their fingers still held on the trigger. He lost his friend from basic training when a local chose to detonate a satchel of explosives rather than be captured. He lost half his original squad in the nuclear hellfires that engulfed the alien city they were forcing their way through. The veterans were taking things far more seriously by this point, as loss after loss mounted. At least the IFVs had pulled them through, and Iccauhtli learned quickly to stay by one of those as often as possible. The enemy had nothing that could really scratch them. Well, not at first anyway. His original IFV's crew had learned about the new tanks the hard way, a round shot through the side and into the capacitor having brewed the thing up.

    Iccauhtli looked out of his bunker, into the pouring rain that seemed to never end. Apparently one of the locals had mentioned 'hypercane' season was approaching because of course this gods-damned planet had more to throw at them, on top of the endless rain, the ever-present radiation, the fucking psychopaths who threw around nukes like they were fucking party poppers and now a nuclear winter that was seemingly approaching.

    Easy money huh?
     
  • Sidestory
    • [X] Plan Winter is Coming

    I guess we should start the new infantry gear, since it's definitely going to be used until we can bring up enough of those new vehicles that won't explode the second something looks at them.

    Also really looking forward to the elfs and owls getting to boldly go where no one has gone before....to sell off-the-books cargo to non state actors.
     
    Crazycryodude said:
    Even after the T45s and T36CATs have fully proliferated it's not like infantry will stop being relevant, a T45 can't storm a trench or garrison a commieblock
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    Well, sure. It's just that our infantry are... adequate. Despite the advantages of firepower and material science that give the enemy objectively better infantry weapons, we're more or less holding our own. If we could turn this into a straight infantry fight, all of our infantry against all of theirs, we would absolutely win. Sure, the alien infantry would take a lot of our guys with them, but they'd go down and barely make a dent in our overall infantry forces.

    The real heart of the problem is:

    1) Their armored vehicles, whose sheer durability and firepower makes everything very difficult for us, while also nullifying artillery, a combat arm we'd otherwise be getting a lot of mileage out of. We're beginning to get a handle on this, but that still leaves
    2) Their spacecraft, which have deprived us of a lot of things we'd otherwise have and which give them an extremely tough supply line, because
    3a) Our industrial base and most of our supply line are vulnerable to their orbital bombardment while
    3b) Their industrial base and supply lines are practically immune to everything we can do.

    Now, more and better infantry weapons aren't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, especially if the enemy chooses to spend a lot of their $$$ for the next reinforcement wave on "just throw more warm bodies lol." It's just that because of the above sequence, people are a lot more interested in the counters to (1), (2), and (3b). Even (3a), really.
     
    One big thing is that with the addition of the Friendship Rockets (Chlorine Trifluoride LAWs) and ATGMs, the enemy armored vehicles are no longer effectively impervious to infantry attack. Which means the enemy tanks can't just power through an infantry defense and feel like they've got nothing to worry about. The rockets might not destroy a tank, but if they take out its optics and erode its armor they've basically mission-killed it.

    Which in turn means to dislodge entrenched infantry, the Salamanders have to rely more on their own infantry, and their armor needs more infantry cover against Seelie forces. So improving our infantry quality could rapidly spike Salamander infantry casualties, which leaves a lot of their other units exposed.
     
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    For the record, I'm not sure when we're going to roll the dice but if I'm asleep or something then my default preference for my Omake bonus is the Investigator mission
     
    Going to call it given the strong lead

    [X] Plan Winter is Coming
    -[X] Case Coral
    -[X] Technical Investigation Mission
    -[X] Icebreaker Construction Efforts (-25 MC)
    -[X] Redundant Harbor Systems (-25 MC x6)
    -[X] Homefront Logistical Stabilization (-15 MC x6)
    -[X] Infantry System Production (-30 MC x2)
    -[X] Emergency Food Programs (-30 MC)
    -[X] Expansion of Heating Systems (-30 MC)
    -[X] New Fusion Reactor Cores (-20 Total MC)

    Starting to write, this turn can be v v v v v exiting.
    Blackstar threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Coral Total: 43
    43 43
    Blackstar threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Investigator Total: 96
    96 96
    Blackstar threw 7 100-faced dice. Reason: Dice Total: 468
    98 98 59 59 61 61 86 86 87 87 53 53 24 24
    Blackstar threw 6 100-faced dice. Reason: Decrpyption Total: 233
    18 18 65 65 18 18 50 50 20 20 62 62
    Blackstar threw 3 100-faced dice. Reason: T/M/MP Total: 172
    42 42 90 90 40 40
     
    Mathpost:
    - Case Coral: 43 - 5 = 38
    - Technical Investigation Mission: 96

    - Icebreaker Construction Efforts: 98 + 10 = 108 artificial crit
    - Redundant Harbor Systems: 59 + 10 = 69
    - Homefront Logistical Stabilization: 61 + 10 = 71
    - Infantry System Production: 86 + 10 = 96
    - Emergency Food Programs: 87 + 10 = 97
    - Expansion of Heating Systems: 53 + 10 = 63
    - New Fusion Reactor Cores: 24 + 10 + 15 [1] = 49

    - Training: 42
    - Morale: 90
    - Military Production: 40

    [1] See below:
    MightbeaMimic said:
    Okay, I'll stick my omake on the Fusion Reactors
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    If anybody wants to omake the fusion cores to bring them up to average/expected instead of mediocre then this will be a pretty perfect turn, and even without that it's still amazing. Nice to be back after last turn, doing good on civilian stuff while getting a high morale roll should really shore things up.
     
    *Raises hands in thanks to the dice gods*

    Okay even if our battle plan and very critical power generation efforts are kinda meh, this is quite the good turn. Hopefully we picked up some material on the advanced material science that is proving such a problem for us.
     
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