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Firing Knight Hawks Rocket Weapons From the Surface of a Planet

There has been a discussion going on on the Star Frontiers Discord server (invite link) in the #KnightHawks channel about firing one of the Knight Hawk (KH) rocket weapons (torpedoes – TT, assault rockets – AR, or rocket batteries – RB) from a ship downed on a planet surface at a target in orbit around the planet.

Given the nature of the weapons, my gut reaction is that they have more than enough power to get from ground to space, but I want to check that assumption. There are other things to consider such as aiming, steering, etc. Let’s look at these in turn.

Power to get to orbit

The first question we have to answer is if the weapons have enough power to get from the ground to orbit. They are designed for firing in a zero gravity environment and getting to a target in orbit means that they have to climb out of the gravity well. Can they?

We start by looking at how much thrust the weapons have. And to do that, we have to make an assumption about how their engines work. We know that they can cover either 40,000km (TT & AR) or 30,000km (RB) in one KH turn or 10 minutes. The question is do they constantly accelerate over that time or is there a short burst of acceleration and then they basically coast? Personally, I’ve always felt that torpedoes do the former while AR and RB do the latter. But let’s look at the accelerations involved. Warning, math ahead!

The equation that governs the distance traveled for an object that is accelerating under thrust for a time and then (possibly) coasting is given by

d(t) = \frac{1}{2}at_{1}^2 + v_{max}(t-t_1)

where

  • d(t) is the distance traveled at time t >= t1
  • t is the total time of the calculation
  • t1 is the time when the acceleration stops
  • a is the acceleration of the object while under thrust (assumed to be constant here)
  • vmax is the velocity of the object after acceleration is over and is simply the acceleration times t1. Substituting this in gives us
d(t) = \frac{1}{2}at_{1}^2 + at_1(t-t_1)

Simplifying this slightly gives us

d(t) = att_1 - \frac{1}{2}at_{1}^2

This equation can be used in both cases where the object accelerates and coasts (t>t1) and when it accelerates the entire time (t = t1).

For the KH weapons, we know the total distance d (30,000 or 40,000 km) and the total time t (10 minutes or 600 seconds). What we don’t know is a or t1. But we can pick one and calculate the other. The rocket with the highest acceleration on Earth is the Sprint anti-ballistic missile which had an acceleration of 100g (982 m/s2) for 5 seconds. So as long as we stay below that figure, we are probably safe.

For the accelerate constantly option, which is what I assume torpedoes do, to cover 40,000km in 10 minutes, the acceleration would need to be 222.22 m/s2. If a rocket battery had the same acceleration pattern, the acceleration would only be 166.67 m/s2 as it has to cover less distance in the same amount of time.

A reader on Facebook asked about the decrease in range and when looking into that, and adding the section at the end, I realized I had miscalculated the acceleration in the burn and coast mode. The actual numbers (now corrected) were lower than I first posted and much more reasonable.

Now for the accelerate and drift option (which I assume for AR & RB), let’s start by trying a 30 second acceleration and then coast to the target. To achieve that, the AR would need an acceleration of 2279.20 m/s2 and the RB would need an acceleration of 1709.4 m/s2. Which is starting to be a bit excessive and well over the 100g of the Sprint rocket. If we go with a 60 second acceleration period, those drop to 1169.59 m/s2 and 877.19 m/s2 respectively. Those are more reasonable and given advanced materials, and the fact that these are fired in a vacuum, maybe that is reasonable.

So now we need to see if these accelerations (and durations) are enough to get these missiles off of a planet.

When we launch from the surface of the planet there are three forces we need to deal with. The first is the thrust from the rocket which is just mass of the rocket times the acceleration we just calculated. This pushes the rocket up. The second is force of gravity pulling the rocket back, and finally we have drag on the rocket as it pushes through the are. This also resists the rocket getting off the planet.

The drag force is given by:

F_d = \frac{1}{2}C_d\rho Av^2

where

  • Cd is the drag coefficient
  • rho (ρ) is the fluid density of air
  • A is the cross sectional area of the missile
  • v is the velocity of the missile

The drag coefficient depends on the shape of the object and how the fluid flows around it. I’m just going to use the drag coefficient for a long cylinder (0.82) as an approximation for any of these missiles. That value comes from the Wikipedia page for drag coefficients.

The other bit we need is the fluid density of air. That can be approximated by

\rho(h) = \rho_0e^{-h/h_0}

where

  • ρ0 is the fluid density of air at sea level (we’ll use 1.222 kg/m3)
  • h0 is the scale height of the atmosphere (10.4 km).
  • h is the altitude

If you want to read more about the exact calculations, check out the Density of Air Wikipedia page.

To figure out the acceleration as a function of time, we add up all those forces and divide by the mass of the rocket. That acceleration can then be used to find how high the rocket goes. The problem is that the acceleration has terms that depend on the velocity and position which in turn depend on the previous acceleration and velocity. This type of problem is known as a partial differential equation. And it can be solved but is definitely beyond the scope of this blog. Luckily, it easy to approximate this one with a simple numerical iteration that you can do with a program or even a spreadsheet. So that’s what I did.

The only thing we don’t have is the mass of the rockets. It cancels out for the rocket thrust and gravity but we still need it for the drag term. The problem is that all the rules give us is the volume for each weapon. Since a larger mass will reduce the effect of the drag force, we’ll approximate on the light side and say that the missiles weigh only 1000 kg/m3, the same density as water. That’s might be light but I also assume that the volumes given in the rules are for the entire storage space for the missile, not just the missile, so it probably evens out. And that just means that if it is more massive, the drag effect will be smaller and easier for the missile to get to orbit. That gives us a mass of 10000 kg for the RB and AR and 20000 kg for the torpedo. Although for the rocket battery, I’m going to use a mass of only 1000 kg because it’s a salvo of smaller rockets.

Let’s start with the with the continuous acceleration engine. We’ll look at the RB, AR, and TT and see how long it takes to get to space (if it can at all). For the purpose of this calculation, I’m defining reaching space to mean it got to an altitude of 600 km. That’s a bit higher than the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope. I’m also going to round the acceleration of gravity up to 10 m/s2 and ignore the fact that gravity drops off with altitude. Finally we’ll use a cross section of one square meter in the drag equation (that’s probably high for the RB but that just means that any values we get for the RB are conservative). Here’s what we get using 0.25 second time steps on the integration:

WeaponThrust (m/s2)Mass (kg)Time to space (seconds)
Rocket Battery166.671000112.75
Assault Rocket222.221000078.75
Torpedo222.222000077.00

The small mass of the individual rocket battery rockets definitely has an effect on the time. Even with the same acceleration as the other weapons, it would take 94.75 seconds to get to space. Still though, it takes less than 2 minutes to reach space and in truth the drag of the atmosphere is negligible for the RB after 57 seconds and 28.5 seconds for the AR. And remember, these are slightly longer times than the actual values because we’re ignoring the dropping off of gravity with height.

Now let’s look to the burst acceleration case. We’ll use the 60 second burn case. This gives us the following values:

WeaponThrust (m/s2)Mass (kg)Time to space (seconds)
Rocket Battery877.19100048
Assault Rocket1169.591000033.50
Torpedo1169.592000033.00

Now there would be variations due to atmospheric density and gravity but even increasing the gravity to 1.5 g only added 0.75 seconds to the AR in the continuous acceleration case. Doubling the air density and keeping the gravity at 1.5g pushed the AR’s time-to-space up to 82.5 seconds. The thrust of these weapons is just so large that gravity and drag are only small effects.

In all cases, the missile reaches space before the engine cuts off. The drag force gets really high on these later cases because they are accelerating quickly but it’s not enough to keep them from reaching orbit. So it’s pretty safe to say that any of the weapons have the thrust to reach a ship in low (or even high) orbit if fired from the planet’s surface. But having the thrust to do so isn’t everything.

Heat of Passage

These missiles are going to be screaming through the lower atmosphere for the first 30-60 seconds and that drag force is going to generate a lot of frictional heat on the surface of the missile. The Swift anti-ballistic missile dealt with this by having an ablative heat shield to protect it through the lower atmosphere. It’s safe to assume that our missiles don’t have that as they were never designed for atmospheric launch but rather were expected to be working in a vacuum. One might argue that they might not even have a shell or skin, just structural supports to hold all the pieces as no aerodynamic shape is needed, but we’ll assume that just for the sake of handling they do have a solid surface.

This means that while there might be enough thrust, it might be too much for the missile to handle. The rocket battery, with the slower thrust, goes a bit slower so the effect isn’t as great but it spends more time hot. This is probably enough to make this a no go but it’s up to you to decide if this is a factor for your game.

Aiming/Guidance

The next consideration is how to aim and/or guide the missiles at their targets. And this comes down to how you feel the weapon is fired in space. This will impact if a ship sitting on the surface of the planet can fire and guide the weapon to its target. It really comes down to two ideas, direct flight or guided flight. Direct flight is where the missile is launched and it just flies in a straight line at the target based on its launched direction. Guided flight is where the missile has maneuvering capabilities and can steer itself after the target. Here’s my take on each of the three weapons we’re considering.

Assault rockets are moving player only and forward firing. These are mounted in a launch tube aligned with the main axis of the ship and the ship needs to be lined up with the target before firing as the assault rockets are direct fire. Once launched, they fly in a straight line at the target and detonate. If they have any steering capability, it is minimal for final approach.

Like assault rockets, rocket batteries are direct flight. The difference is that the launcher itself can swivel to aim the rockets and control the direction of launch. Again, any guidance of the missiles themselves if very, very minimal, probably confined to final approach.

Torpedoes, on the other hand, I treat as a guided flight weapon, probably by an internal system rather than controlled by the firing ship, but they do have the ability to steer to chase their targets. You fire them out of the side of the ship and they steer around and guide in as they approach.

This has an impact on how these weapons navigate through the atmosphere. Since they are designed for spaceflight, and not to work in an atmosphere, it’s very unlikely that any of these missiles have fins, which would help to stabilize their flight though the air. They are not needed in space so the missiles wouldn’t have them. Which means, that for the direct flight weapons, strong winds, turbulence, and uneven air flow are going to push them off their intended path, possibly significantly and maybe catastrophically as they don’t really have any guidance system to keep them on track. This won’t be so bad for a guided weapon as it has the capability to somewhat steer itself and remain on course.

Another question is rifling of the launch system. This is where the launch system either by physical design or the way the rocket is made, imparts a spin to the missile as it is launched. While not needed, it may very well be a design feature of the AR and RB launchers as it imparts stability to the flight and could help keep the missile from going off course due to minor unevenness of engine thrust over the long flight, basically a form of gyroscopic stabilization. If you do include some sort of spin stabilization in your launch system, that could help the missile stay on course while buffeted by the atmosphere.

Given those aspects of the missiles, you’d only be able to launch an assault rocket from the surface of the planet if the ship had landed tail down and the target passed nearly directly overhead. Since it takes the whole ship to aim the weapon, a grounded ship can only shoot and AR at a target that passes directly in front of it. The rocket battery or torpedo launcher could conceivably fire at any target. Additionally, there is a good chance that the AR or RB will get knocked off course due to the turbulence of passage through the atmosphere whereas the torpedo, with its steering capability, might fare much better.

Environmental impact

Here I’m not talking about whether the missile launch is good for the environment or not (it’s probably not) but rather what direct impact it has on the firing site. The ship itself would probably be fine as it was designed to handle the launch of the weapon. But they were designed for space and now you have all this heat being generated by the rocket launch rushing out into the surroundings. The air will get hot, things might catch on fire, etc.

Additionally, even the “slow-moving” rocket battery breaks the sound barrier in 2.5 seconds while it is only half a kilometer away from the ship. What impact does that sonic boom have on the ship and surroundings? What impact does it have on the missile?

Effect on range

I had originally ignored this because I was assuming we were looking at shooting at something in orbit around the planet which is well within the range of all these weapons. A commenter in the STar Frontiers Facebook group asked about it so I thought I’d post the max ranges for each of the weapons in each scenario.

If you assume an unguided missile (i.e. AR or RB in my case), I’d definitely reduce the chance to hit something not in orbit just because of the aiming issue, the atmospheric passage would reduce the accuracy of the weapon. But here are the max ranges for the weapons (these are for vertical launches):

WeaponNormal Range In SpaceContinuous Burn From Planet Burn and Coast From Planet
Rocket Battery30000 km25678 km22189 km
Assault Rocket40000 km37716 km37061 km
Torpedo40000 km37953 km37607 km

So for the larger weapons, the atmosphere only reduces the range by less than 3,000 km or less than 10%. The RB fares a little worse due to the increased drag. In continuous burn mode, it loses ~4,300 km or 14.4%. The biggest effect is when you assume the RB is a burn and coast engine. Then the effect is nearly 8,000 km off it’s normal range, a 26% reduction.

Obviously firing at an angle through more atmosphere would reduce this even more, firing the continuous burn RB at a 30 degree angle drops the range to ~22,000 km and the AR to ~32,600 km as examples. Also, these are actually slight underestimates of the range because I didn’t taper off the gravitational effect with distance from the planet. But that is such a small effect relative to the thrust that the variations are minor.

Final thoughts

This was a fun problem to think about. I think in my game, I’d allow these weapons to be fired at targets in space but give them a failure chance to go off course (possibly catastrophically) during their flight through the atmosphere, probably 20% for torpedoes, 40% for assault rockets, and 60% for rocket batteries. If the PCs were doing this, I’d reduce those failure changes for various things that they do to mitigate some of the problems mentioned above.

Such mitigations could include reprogramming the rockets for slower initial launch speeds (assuming you declare to rockets to not have a solid fuel core that cannot be regulated), somehow inducing spin stabilization at launch, adding fins that deploy after launch to stabilize flight, etc. Of course those things would probably take hours of work to set up and modify the missile so it wouldn’t be something they could do quickly.

One thing I didn’t talk about was the extra time it would take to get out of the atmosphere if not launching straight up. The launch angle (theta), measured in degrees from vertical, is in my spreadsheet that does the calculations but I only presented the numbers for straight up. Also, that angle only affects the height calculation and isn’t accounted for in the slow down caused by gravity but it’s a relatively minor effect unless theta is large. As a first approximation, just divide the times listed above by cos(theta) to get the time to space for a different angle. It’s actually a little bit longer than that due to more time spent with the drag force affecting the missile but not by much (at least for small theta). I’d probably also increase the failure chance by the same factor.

Speaking of the spreadsheet, you can find it here if you want to play with it:

MIssileLaunchDownload

What thoughts do you have about this scenario? Share your ideas in the comments below.

June 16, 2022 Tom 2 Comments

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.382 – FY62.007

This post takes us into Frontier Year 62. Things are relatively quiet with no major incursions by the sathar although they begin to step up sabotage attempts. The UPF continues to build up the Frontier Fighter Corps while replacing the ships lost in battle. The sathar are also working on replacing battle losses and commit additional resources to the war effort. They also continue to probe for new routes into the Frontier.

The HSS History’s Hope suffers a serious malfunction but recovers and continues on it’s way. This installment also sees the beginning of the events in the final module not already included, SF4: Mission to Alcazzar.

Date (FY)Events
61.382– SBF-J1 arrives back at SSC#10 (OFS228).  The heavy cruiser under construction is moved out of the shipyard to make room for the damaged cruiser from the battle fleet.

– Work is completed on a UPF assault scout at the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) and it joins TF Prenglar at Morgaine’s World.  Construction begins on another UPF assault scout.
61.383SBF-J2 successfully jumps into the Waller Nexus system. It remains near void speed as the astrogators begin calculating the 7 light year jump to the Padda system.
61.384– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps into the YS11 system. However, just minutes after the jump is completed and confirmed, a short circuit  causes a fire to break out onboard. The fire is put out but not before it severely damages the hull reducing it to only 25% integrity.

– With its serious hull damage, the HSS History’s Hope begins to drift while the crew attempts repairs. After an hour an a half, the hull is patched and the ship resumes deceleration while the crew cleans up the ship.  They begin calculations for the return jump to YS08.

– SG Alpha jumps into the Dramune system.  It remains near jump speed and begin calculations for a jump to Fromeltar.

– Two UPF assault scouts are completed at the Hentz (Araks) shipyards. Their crews, having arrived with the FFC pilots take command of the ships immediately. They are given orders to remain in the Araks system for now and together with the FFC fighters are designated PG Tranquility. Work begins on two more assault scouts.

– A UPF fighter and assault scout, as well as the replacement assault scout for the Pale militia is completed at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards.  The UPF battleship is moved into the shipyard for repairs and work begins on two more fighters.

– The second Pale assault scout is completed in the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards and work begins on another assault scout for Spacefleet.  The Pale assault scouts both depart immediately on high-speed transits to their home system.
61.385The third assault scout for the Pale militia is completed at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine).  With the new classified route linking Cassidine and Truane’s star the ship will be home after a single jump instead of the usual three. Spacefleet begins work on another assault scout
61.386– After four days of work the damaged heavy cruiser emerges from sathar SCC#10 (OFS228) fully repaired and work resumes on the partially completed heavy cruiser that was moved out to make room.

– The assault scout from Dramune arrives and joins TF Cassidine.
61.387Two assault scouts, replacements for the Zik-kit (Kizk-Kar) militia, emerge from the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine) and begin a high-speed transit to their home system where they will join up with SF Meteor.  Spacefleet begins work on a new destroyer.
61.388SG Alpha jumps into the Fromeltar system and begins decelerating toward Terledrom to deliver the ships to Task Force Cassidine.
61.389– Deceleration and jump calculations, along with as much damage clean-up as possible complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the return jump to YS08.

– Another group of 8 pilots graduate in the accelerated program at Gollwin Academy. They immediately depart for the Theseus system to take command of the fighters waiting there.
61.390Calculations complete, SBF-J2 slips into the Void and successfully jumps to the Padda system.  With the next jump being Theseus, they begin decelerating and work on calculations for a return jump to the Waller Nexus system.
61.391– Four more fighters are completed at the Hentz (Araks) shipyards and their pilots take command of them, filling out FFC Squadron Beta.

– Two more fighters are competed at the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards.  They are crewed by militia pilots until the pilots en route from Gollwin Academy arrive.
61.392– SG Alpha arrives at Terledrom (Fromeltar).  Three of the fighters are transferred to TF Cassidine, while the other 8 are formed into FFC Squadron Gamma.

– A light cruiser is completed at Sathar SCC#5 (OFS19).
61.393– After 40 days of operation, the CDC compound on Alcazzar (Rhianna), which had been producing at levels even higher than the previous season, suddenly goes silent. (SF4)

– SF Alpha departs for Prenglar to pick up more fighters.
61.394– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back to the YS08 system, completely mapping that route.  Despite the recent fire, the crew decides to press on toward their target and begin decelerating and working on calculations for the jump back to YS11.

– The Pale militia assault scout arriving from Cassidine docks at Pale station.  The crew is debriefed and the ship begins duties immediately.

– The UPF Battleship of TF Cassidine emerges from the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards fully repaired.  Work begins on 2 destroyers, a frigate and an assault scout.
61.395Deceleration and calculations complete, SBF-J2 beings to accelerate for the jump back to the Waller Nexus system.
61.396A UPF assault scout is completed at the Gran Quivera (Prenglar) shipyard and joins TF Prenglar. Work begins on another assault scout.
61.397After months of negotiations, many energy suppliers on Terledrom (Fromeltar) and Inner Reach (Dramune) agree to join the Consolidated Nebula Energy Group. CNE begins major infrastructure rollouts on Groth (Terledrom).
61.398Five fighters are completed in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) and transferred to Gollwin Academy.  Work begins on five more.
61.399Successfully jumping in the Waller Nexus system, the sathar have fully plotted the jump route between Waller Nexus and Padda. SBF-J2 remains near jump speed and works on the jump back to the Liberty system.
61.400Seven more pilots graduate in the accelerated cadet class at Gollwin Academy.  They take command of fighters at the Academy, and together with the surviving fighter assigned to TF Prenglar form FFC Squadron Delta base out Morgaine’s World (Prenglar).
62.001A strike team is assembled by CDC on Triad (Cassidine) and briefed on the Alcazzar project.  They depart immediately for the Rhianna system to investigate. (SF4)
62.002An attempt to sabotage the Inner Reach militia destroyer under construction at the Outer Reach (Dramune) shipyards is thwarted due to a last-minute tip off to the shipyard management. Star Law is called in to investigate.
62.003– HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back in YS11.  They begin decelerating and begin work on jump calculations for the next leg of their journey, a 9 light year jump.

– The militia assault scout coming from Fromeltar arrives back at Pale station. The crew is debriefed the ship immediately resumes duties.
62.004The sabotage attempt on the Inner Reach destroyer is quickly traced to agents tied to criminal organizations based on Outer Reach. However, the exact organization responsible is still unknown.
62.005A frigate is completed at Sathar SCC#3 (OFS138)
62.006– SBF-J2 successfully jumps back in the Liberty system completely charting the route between Liberty and Waller Nexus. They begin decelerating back toward Snowball.

– The Zik-Kit militia assault scouts arrive at their home station. After a day of debriefing, they begin patrol duties with SF Meteor.

– Sathar commit a portion of the production capacity of Sathar SCC#6 (OFS117) to the war effort and start ramping up production of frigates and destroyers at that center.
62.007An inside source provides a tip to Star Law indicating that Malthar Enterprises, thought to be mostly destroyed after the events known as the “Dramune Run,” are connected with the recent sabotage attempt of the Inner Reach destroyer.

Download the full document here:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload
June 9, 2022 Tom Leave a comment

Some Random Bits

I haven’t had as much time as I thought I would to create content directly on the blog but I thought that I’d let you know of some things that have been going on.

First, I have been working on the Detailed Frontier Timeline. Posts have been going out (almost) daily on the @Star Frontiers account on Twitter and you can expect a summary post here at the beginning of May.

Second, the Moonbright Stinger (aka Gullwind) 3D model is finally up on DriveThruRPG where you can download it if you want. It’s taken me nearly a year to get it up there but I finally got around to it. I know at least one of the readers will be happy. They keep asking about it.

Finally, if you are collecting the print copies of the Frontier Explorer, the print version of the final issue, issue 36, is now available for order on DriveThruRPG. You can follow the link to grab a copy.

I’ve also started looking at website updates. I’ll probably be updating the Frontier Explorer site first as there is some issue with the current site that causes it to send a random process off in to some weird infinite loop that is using up all the spare CPU cycles on my server. It’s really strange and I haven’t tracked down what is causing it. Since I was planning on an upgrade anyway, That will hopefully solve the problem.

That’s it for now. Hopefully there will be more soon.

May 24, 2022 Tom Leave a comment

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.357 to FY61.381

This post is only a bit over a year late. These are the events that I posted to twitter back in February of 2021 just before I stopped blogging. I’m finally getting them online. I also plan on resuming the daily Twitter posts of the events. starting on day FY61.382. If you want to get the daily updates, follow the @StarFrontiers account on twitter or the #SFTimeline hashtag. If you want to review everything that has happened, or are new to this series of posts, you can grab the PDF file linked at the bottom of the post that contains every entry in the timeline since I started it. Its up to 81 pages so there’s a bit of reading there.

Also, depending on how things go generating the timeline, I might start posting events using the GST calendar of the Frontier. Which means you’ll get 36 Frontier days worth of events every 30 Earth days as the GST calendar only has 20 hours per day instead of our 24. We’ll see if that actually pans out.

The events in this post include the two battles I posted the detail of early last year which are linked in their appropriate entries. With the conclusion of the Battle of Liberty, the war cools down for a while. The sathar are currently out of ships at the moment although they have dozens under construction. Both sides are now maneuvering to reposition and rebuild forces. Otherwise, not much happening in this post outside of the war events.

Date (FY)Events
61.357– Ten more pilots complete their fast-tracked certifications for the Frontier Fighter Corps.  They immediately depart for Hentz (Araks).

– SBF-J2 (Liberty system) begin calculations for a jump to the Waller Nexus system.Spacefleet holds the space in anticipation of more ships finishing and beginning construction on a new battleship.
61.358– Second Battle of Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) – After nearly 2.5 hours of fighting TF Cassidine defeats SBF-J1 losing only a single fighter while the sathar only have a fighter and heavy cruiser surviving. Most of the UPF ships have damage requiring a shipyard to repair.

– The surviving sathar heavy cruiser and fighter from SBF-J1 accelerate for a jump to the K’sta-Kar system.

– The damaged UPF destroyer completes repairs in the Streel shipyards (Pale, Truane’s Star) and the ship that was moved out to make room resumes construction (it will be done in 23 days).

– SBF-E2 jumps into the Zebulon system.  It remains at high speed and begins calculations for jump to Kazak.

– A HS:8 ship completes maintenance in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar). Spacefleet moves a couple of small ships in for maintenance to coordinate their completion with more ships finishing and beginning construction on a new battleship.
61.359– Calculations for the jump back to YS07 complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the jump while the astrogators get a day of rest before double checking the figures on the way out.

– Sathar TG-1 jumps into the OFS136 system where SCC#3 is located as they continue on their journey to SCC#4 (OFS111)

– The battleship Admiral Dooltan and accompanying minelayer arrive at Zit-kit (Kisk-Kar) and join up with PG Meteor.  With the addition of the battleship and minelayer, the fleet is now designated Task Force Meteor.

– After spending a day rearming, Task Force Cassidine splits up with the undamaged heavy and light cruiser, now designated Patrol Group Vigilant, departing in pursuit of the sathar heavy cruiser which is headed toward K’tsa-Kar.

– The main force of TF Cassidine, all needing time in a shipyard to fully repair, begin accelerating for a jump to the Kizk-Kar system and then on to Fromeltar.  The Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard is notified that they will arrive on FY61.375 and begins making preparations to receive them.

– The Clarion (White Light) militia, at the request of Spacefleet, depart for a jump to K’sta-Kar to join up with PG Vigilant and patrol that system.  The saurians send 3 of their 6 Battle Rays to assist.
61.360– Calculations complete, SBF-J2 (LC & FF) begin accelerating from the Liberty system for a jump to the Waller Nexus system.  PG Liberty detects the departure almost immediately and subspace radio the intel back to Spacefleet.

– Stationing 8 of the fighters at Fortress Pale as the first official squadron of the Frontier Fighter Corps, the second assault carrier currently with Strike Force Nova is designated as Shuttle Group Alpha and departs back to Triad (Cassidine) to start moving more fighters around the Frontier.
61.361– PG Liberty are authorized to engage the outbound SBF-J2 if conditions are favorable.  Several Mhemne Belter ships offer to assist although their outdated engines mean that they will only be able to make a single pass at the sathar vessels.  The ships all boost for intercept.

– Four fighters are completed at the Hentz (Araks) shipyard.  They are put into storage awaiting the arrival of the Spacefleet pilots. Construction beings on four more fighters.

– Two fighters are completed at the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards for the Frontier Fighter Corps but are currently manned by the militia.  Construction begins on two more fighters.
61.362– SBF-E2 jumps into the Kazak system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS019 and SCC#5.

– Battle of Liberty – PG Liberty, augmented by Mhemne ships, engage the sathar in the outer system. The fight does not go well for the UPF who lose their frigate and an assault scout although they do manage to destroy the sathar frigate.

– After fighting the UPF in the Liberty system, the surviving sathar light cruiser of SBF-J2 continues on its course to jump to the Waller Nexus system.
61.363– CDC staff arrive back on Alcazzar (Rhianna) in anticipation of the new mining season. (SF4)

– SBF-J1 jumps into the K’sta-Kar system.  They remain at speed and begin calculations for a jump to FS33.
61.364– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back into the YS07 jump completely charting that route.  They begin decelerating to turn around and jump back to YS08 to continue their journey forward.

– PG Vigilant and the Clarion militia both jump into the K’sta-Kar system from opposite directions.  Keeping an eye on the retreating SBF-J1, they start deceleration toward Kwadl-Kit.

– TF Cassidine jumps into the Kizk-Kar system and begin calculations for the jump to Fromeltar.  They transmit details of their recent battles to TF Meteor to share their experiences.
61.365– SBF-E2 jumps back into the OFS019 system and begins decelerating toward SCC#5.

– SBF-J2 enters the Void and like the frigate before it, misjumps, this time ending up in the OFS196 system.

– Enough space has cleared in the CDC shipyard (Triad, Cassidine) to allow Spacefleet to begin construction on another battleship to replace one of the two lost in the Second Battle of New Pale.
61.366– SBF-J1 jumps into the FS33 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS166.

– Eight more fighters are completed at the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) and shuttled to Gollwin Academy. Spacefleet delays the start of construction of more fighters as production of the ships is outpacing training of pilots and they want to use the space for construction of another battleship.
61.367– As OFS196 is a system in the sathar charts, being on the route to OFS203 and SCC#1, SBF-J2 determines it position after just two days.  It decides to take the known route back to Liberty and try again.

– Enough space opens up in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) for Spacefleet to begin construction on the second battleship to replace the second one lost in the Second Battle of New Pale.
61.368– The HSS History’s Hope arrives in the inner system of YS07 where they will rest for a day before they begin accelerating for the jump back to YS08.

– Task Force Cassidine jumps into the Fromeltar system and begins a slow deceleration toward Terledrom and the shipyard there.  They radio ahead that they are a few days early.

– Spacefleet resumes fighter construction in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) but only producing five at a time instead of eight.  The other 3 HS worth of space is dedicated to constructing an assault scout.  Additionally, 3 more assault scouts are started in the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine).
61.369– PG Vigilant and the Clarion militia, together with the saurian battle rays, arrive in orbit around Kwadl-Kit (K’sta-Kar).  They set up a patrol schedule to watch for new sathar threats.

– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS166 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS167.

– SG Alpha arrives back at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine).  The fighters in storage are transferred to the carrier while they await the arrival of their pilots, scheduled to graduate from Gollwin Academy tomorrow.
61.370– SBF-E2 arrives back at SSC#5 (OFS019).  The heavy cruiser under construction is moved out of the shipyard to make room for the damaged one to receive the necessary repairs.

– Nine more pilots graduate in the accelerated cadet class at Gollwin Academy.  They immediately depart to take command of the fighters currently sitting in storage at Triad (Cassidine).
61.371SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS167 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS169.
61.372An attempt to explode a bomb at the Council of Worlds building while the council is in session is foiled by Star Law agents and local law enforcement.  Unfortunately, none of the perpetrators survived.  An investigation is launched immediately to track down the origin of the plot.
61.373TF Cassidine arrives in orbit around Terledrom. There is currently 6 HS of open space in the shipyard and the heavily damaged frigate and fighter are moved in for repairs.
61.374– The HSS History’s Hope jumps back to the YS08 system.  They begin decelerating and working on the jump calculations for the next system, a binary system 5 ly away.

– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS169 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS170 system.

– The K’aken-Kar militia assault scout, also in OFS169, happens to detect the heavy cruiser just hours after it jumps into the system.  Realizing they are in sathar controlled space, the ship goes into as stealthy a mode as possible to avoid detection as they monitor the sathar vessel.

– SBF-J2 jumps back into the Liberty system.

– The TF Cassidine fighter in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard competes its repairs.  The space is held in reserve for the larger ships needing repairs.
61.375– Princess Leotia’s 35th birthday. Major celebrations are held all over Clarion (White Light) in commemoration of her coming of age.  While her father had planned to step down and hand the government over to her during the ceremonies, this has been delayed due to the ongoing sathar conflict.

– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS170 system and begins calculations for the final leg of their jump back to SSC#10 in the OFS228 system.

– PG Liberty detects the returning light cruiser and radios its presence back to Spacefleet.

– The damaged sathar heavy cruiser at SCC#5 (OFS019) completes repairs and construction is resumed on the new heavy cruiser.
61.376Three UPF fighters are completed at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards.  They are transferred to Task Force Cassidine.  The shipyard space is held in reserve to fit the larger ships needing repair.
61.377– SBF-J1 jumps back into the OFS228 system and begins decelerating toward SSC#10

– An assault scout is completed in the Outer Reach (Dramune) shipyards.  It sets off immediately for the Fromeltar system to join TF Cassidine.  Construction begins on a new assault scout.
61.378– SBF-J2 arrives back in orbit around Snowball.  After rearming, it sets off once again to try to jump to the Waller Nexus system.

– Calculations complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating to the next system on their route, which they designate as YS11.

– A UPF assault scout is completed at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine). This is the first of the replacement ships larger that a fighter to come out of the shipyards since the conflict began.  5 fighters are also completed and work begins on another AS and 5 fighters.  The completed ships join SG Alpha.

– The first damaged frigate from TF Cassidine emerges from the shipyard at Terledrom (Fromeltar) fully repaired.  The other frigate enters and work begins on it.
61.379– The Frontier Fighter Corps pilots arrive at Hentz (Araks) to take command of their fighters there.  There is some initial tension between the UPF and militia forces as the latter do not want to turn over control of the ships.

– The Spacefleet pilots arrive at Triad (Cassidine).  They are immediately transferred to the carrier in SG Alpha where their ships are awaiting them.  SG Alpha departs immediately for a jump to Dramune and then on to Fromeltar where the fighters are to be delivered.

– The Yazira Dome completes its second year of operation.  With the on-going sathar conflict, travel has been curtailed and off-world yazirian visitors diminished but the Dome is still wildly popular with on-planet visitors.

– Detecting SBF-J2 outbound once again, PG Liberty sends a subspace message informing Spacefleet and continues to monitor the sathar ship.

– Calculations complete and checked, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the jump to the next system on their route, designated YS11.
61.380– Sathar TG-1 arrives at SCC#4 (OFS111), joining the other ships there.

– After several back-and-forth communications, including a threat by Spacefleet to dispatch TF Prenglar to the Araks system to eliminate or take control of the militia, the Hentz militia turns over control of the Frontier Fighter Corps fighters to the UPF crews.

– The second damaged frigate from TF Cassidine completes repairs at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards.  A new UPF assault scout, along with an assault scout for the local militia are also completed.  This frees up enough space that TF Cassidine’s assault carrier can move in for repairs.
61.381TF Cassidine’s assault carrier completes repairs at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards.  There is not enough free space to move the battleship in, but that space will free up in three days.  With 30% of the shipyard empty, the work crews can each get a full day off to rest over the next few days.

Full timeline file:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload
May 6, 2022 Tom Leave a comment

Back to Blogging

Hello everyone!

It’s been a long time but I’m back to blogging and you can expect content to appear on this blog fairly regularly again. With the exception of the post about the Moonbright Stinger miniature, it’s been over a year. I’ve just had too much going on and, honestly, been very distracted by other activities, to do much in the way of posting. That is changing.

First, if you haven’t seen it yet, I just released issue 36 of the Frontier Explorer. You can grab a copy at DriveThruRPG or on the Frontier Explorer website. This was the last issue of the magazine. I was seriously burnt out on producing the fanzine and had to force myself to put out every issue for the last year. I threw in the towel with this one. Thirty-six issues and ten years of production was a good run. It’s time for new activities. If you want more details, check out my Endings and Beginnings article at the end of issue 36. A lot of what I plan on working on will appear here on the blog, either as entries or reports on “behind the scenes” activities.

That said, it won’t be the last fanzine issue. Tom V., who I co-created the Frontier Explorer with, is going to revive the Star Frontiersman fanzine. So you can expect to see more content there as well. I’ll probably write for the magazine, but I won’t be producing it any more.

What to Expect

With that out of the way, let’s look at what you can expect here at the Expanding Frontier going forward. I currently have no idea what my publishing schedule is going to look like. I hope to get back to a post a week, and maybe even more, but we’ll see what happens. Here are some of the projects I’m going to be working on and posting about.

Detailed Frontier Timeline

First, I’m resuming the Detailed Frontier Timeline project where I am posting a day-to-day series of events going on in the Frontier, these posts go out daily on Twitter and monthly here on the blog. Currently, the timeline is in the thick of the opening events of the Second Sathar War. I tweeted nearly a month’s worth of events back in February 2021 that never got posted here on the blog. That summary post will be the next one after this post. (In fact, it’s already written. I just decided to get this post up before I posted that one).

If you want to get the daily updates, follow the @StarFrontiers account on Twitter or the #SFTimeline hashtag. I post these in the Star Frontier account instead of my personal account (@dagorym) and every post has the #SFTimeline hashtag. They will start back up on day FY61.382. Otherwise, my plan is to publish the summary blog post here during the first week of each month that collects all the Twitter posts from the previous month. So you’ll be getting the summary from February 2021 in a day or two, Twitter posts starting back up, and the next summary post in the beginning of June.

3D models

I want to get back to modeling. I still have 5 miniatures from the Privateer boxed set to recreate and then it will be off to to the races creating ship models of my own design. Probably several space stations to start. I don’t know exactly when I’ll get started on this, but I hope to start working on models by the end of May. We’ll see what kind of progress I make and how often I post these.

HSS History’s Hope

Back in December 2020, I posted a set of videos showing how I was creating the deck plans for the HSS History’s Hope, a ship that features in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. The idea was to both show the deck plans and talk about how I create them. I need to finish the deck plans for that ship. The question is, would you be interested in seeing videos of how I draw the remaining five decks or do you just want to see the final plans. If you want me to record the design/drawing process for the maps, let me know in the comments. I’m happy to do so, but that might delay getting this project restarted.

Regardless of whether I record videos of the deck plans being drawn or not, I have two projects in mind related to this ship, maybe three. The first is to do a Technical Manual for the HSS History’s Hope like I’ve done for the UPF Assault Scout and Sathar Destroyer. It will include details of each deck, a bit of history on the ship, and its stats, all in a nice little manual.

The other project I want to do is a write-up of an exploration campaign to use the ship to search for the Yazirian homeworld, exactly what is happening in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. This is an ambitious project so I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off or finish it (I’m really bad at that), but I’m going to give it a go.

The third possible item related to this is doing a write-up of the History’s Hope’s travels as chronicled in the Detailed Frontier Timeline but in a more narrative form with additional details added.

Writing

Which brings me to my next topic, fiction writing. I have a short sci-fi novella, Discovery, that I wrote over a decade ago. While it’s not exactly Star Frontiers, it’s also not explicitly not Star Frontiers either. I wrote that novella to describe how I envision Void Jumping to work. I have a sequel planned and I might start working on that. And it’s possible to tie this into the Star Frontiers universe if I wanted to as the story is about humans discovering FTL travel and they could discover the other SF races in a later novel.

However, more likely, I am going to keep working on my explicitly Star Frontiers novel, A Pale Survivor. That one is already half again longer than Discovery and about a quarter of the way through the story. This is a story of events on Pale during the invasion of that planet during what would eventually be called the First Sathar War. I posted the prologue to the story back in 2019.

I hope to spend some time every month working on one or both of these novels. If you’d be interested in seeing excerpts from the stories as I write them, let me know in the comments.

Technical Manuals

I mentioned the HSS History’s Hope Technical Manual above. Once that one is done, I plan to start doing more technical manuals of other ships. I think this, combined with the 3D modeling, is going to become my main focus. This is where my interest is being drawn more and more and I think that’s where I want to focus my time. We’ll see if it happens.

Miscellany

There are a number of projects that I started here on the blog that I may or may not get back to. Hopefully I will, but I’m not making promises at this point. In addition, I have a list of (currently 8) topic ideas for one-off posts that are sitting in my draft ideas folder. Some of those might end up as posts on this site and/or articles in the Star Frontiersman.

Website Work

The other major project that I have planned is to redesign and revamp all the websites I host. This site probably doesn’t need much work, but all the other Star Frontiers sites are getting pretty long in the tooth and need some serious effort and updating. I’ll probably start with the Frontier Explorer site but the list of sites needing work include:

  • the Frontier Explorer website (frontierexplorer.org)
  • the Star Frontiersman website (starfrontiersman.com – this one is going to Tom V)
  • the Star Frontiers Revival forum site (starfrontiers.us)
  • the Star Frontiers Network site – wiki, game forums, and old website archive (starfrontiers.info)
  • my New Frontier Games site (newfrontiergames.com)
  • a couple of personal sites

My plan is to consolidate and streamline those sites and make them more user and mobile device friendly.

Related to this, I want to get all the articles from the Frontier Explorer online as individual HTML pages that can linked and referenced. Some of them are already online and that was the plan when we started the magazine but it fell by the wayside. I’m planning on putting my librarian hat back on and getting them all finished.

There are a host of projects involved with this effort and I’ll report on them as they get completed.

Patreon

That’s quite a list of projects. The last item I want to mention is that I have a Patreon campaign that supports the work on this blog. If you’d like to support me in my efforts as I work on the projects above, consider becoming a Patreon supporter. You can click the “Become a Patron” button on the upper right of the page (or this link) to sign up as a supporter. I need to update my patreon page to reflect what is going to be happening still and especially update the goals/rewards, but the general idea is still there. If you’re already a supporter, thank you. If not, consider becoming one.

Last Thoughts

That’s it for this post. There are a lot of things I want to do. We’ll see which and how many of them I get to in the coming months and years. I hope to be here for the long haul but we’ll see how it goes.

As always, feel free to leave me comments or suggestions below. I have several old comments that I need to respond to, but I will be more responsive going forward and am interested in hearing what things you’d like to see on the blog.

May 5, 2022 Tom Leave a comment

Moonbright Stinger Miniature and Model (aka The Gullwind)

It’s been over seven months since I last posted a miniature. And a month and a half since I posted anything at all. I didn’t get back to posting in May like I had hoped but I have started working on projects again. I just haven’t found time to write up the posts. That will probably continue through mid-July (once I finish the next issue of the Frontier Explorer) but things should start picking up after that.

Which brings us to the Moonbright Stinger model. This is a miniature from the Privateers boxed set. I had mentioned in the past that I had all the miniatures from that set that I had collected loose, but not from a single set. I also mentioned that I had misplaced three of the minis. Several people offered to send me theirs so I could use them to recreate the miniatures. I’m grateful to those that offered. However, during the intervening months when I wasn’t posting, a new, still in shrink-wrap Privateers boxed set came up on Ebay. While I’ve been burned with sealed minis having lead rot, that has only been on the Federation Ships boxed set. I’ve never had an issue with any other ones. I really think it was something in the production run of that particular set of minis.

In any case, I decided to take the chance and exercised the “Buy it now” option on Ebay and purchased the miniature set. It arrived a few days later and when I opened it up, I was happy to discover that the figures were in pristine condition.

Miniatures from my new Privateers boxed set. The Moonbright Stinger with its engine that needs to be attached is there at the bottom left.

I had already started working on the Moonbright Stinger model by then as it was one of the ones I still had, but this gave me a second miniature to compare to. The name Moonbright Stinger is the name of the miniature that is give on the Privateers box. Most Star Frontiers gamers know a much more famous ship of the same class. In fact, after the assault scout, this is probably the second most iconic ship of the game. Of course I’m referring to the Gullwind, which features in the Dramune Run module:

The Gullwind. From SFKH:1 The Dramune Run, p 6.

And while the miniature doesn’t quite have the detail of the artist’s drawings, it’s pretty close.

The 3D Model

Final model

The above is a render of the completed 3D model as seen from the “top” of the ship. The decks are perpendicular to the thrust axis as is true for all ships in Star Frontiers, but the artists like to draw this ship this way so I oriented the image that way as well.

The basic body of the ship

This model was a bit complicated but I think of all of the Privateer models, it’s going to be the easiest to recreate so that’s why I started with it. I began by roughing out the body. The engines were easy as was the fuselage up through the cargo bay (that large cylinder at the back). Forward of the cargo bay, the “underside” (not seen) is cylindrical while the “top” is a trapezoid. It took a little bit of jiggling to get that just right and in the end, I ended up making the top of the trapezoid a bit too wide but not enough to worry about.

The other thing is the nose of the ship is 1) not perfectly round, and b) off-center from the axis of the ship. Luckily my modeling software has a “hull” command that allows you to define a series of shapes at various layers and then the computer will smoothly connect them to form a surface. I used this to do both the nose (below where it became cylindrical) and the transition region from the main body to the nose. The roughed out body is shown in the image to the right. The observant reader may notice that the engines are not lined up in this roughed out version as they are in the final model. I didn’t notice that I did that until I was comparing the printed version of the miniature with the original.

After I had the basic hull done, I added in all the details on the miniature. Adding the positive features was fairly straightforward although those pods on the side of the ship just forward of the cargo bay were a bit tricky. With the easy stuff done, it was time to start adding in the negative details that were cut out of the body of the ship.

Of course life got in the way and there was a five month gap between adding the positive features and when I started added the negative details. I did this in sections, first I added details to the “top” of the ship, working from the cargo bay to the nose. I then went back and added in details on the starboard side and then port side, and finally the the rounded bottom of the ship. While I measured out all the features to get their sizes and positions, the final placement was done by eye to try to match the miniature. In the process, I discovered that I had gotten the length a bit wrong on parts of the ship’s fuselage (the final model is 1mm longer than the original miniature) and had the positions of some of the positive details slightly wrong as well. Positions and sizes (except for that 1mm length difference) were corrected as I went along. That gave us the final model as seen in the images below showing the two sides of the ship.

The “top” and starboard sides of the ship.
The port and “bottom” sides of the ship.

Printing

With the model done it was time to print it out and compare it to the original. Here’s what that first print looked like:

First print compared to the original model.

After putting these next to each other and taking this picture, I noticed a few thing immediately:

  1. I need to get a better camera than just my cell phone for taking close-up (macro) shots. Also, the discoloration on the printed miniature is is probably due to my haste in the cleaning and curing process. I might not have let it dry enough before curing.
  2. This is when I noticed that the engines in the model are rotated 30 degrees from where they should be. I’m not sure how I missed that. The hole in the top of the metal miniature near the back is where the third engine on that mini is supposed to attach when you glue it on.
  3. The positive features are mostly fine, but it turns out the negative feature on the fuselage are not quite deep enough to really make them stand out like they do on the original. I thought that might be the case when I was making the mode and it turns out that I was right. I will need to tweak them all to make them deeper.
  4. The big dome and boxy structure near the nose of the ship are a bit too big. They need to be shrunk down just a tad.
  5. Finally, this is when I noticed that the model is 1mm longer than the original. The discrepancy is in the nose area starting in the transition region down to the smaller nose and the nose section being a bit too long. When I was building the model I noticed I had a bit more space there but wasn’t sure why. I’m not going to fix this.

Observations in hand, I went through and doubled the depth of the negative features, tweaked the size and positions of the positive features, and reprinted the model.

Top and port side
Bottom

And then I noticed I rotated the engines the wrong direction so now they are 60 degrees off instead of 30. Oops. But the negative details stand out much better now and I’m happy with the way it looks. After this print I fixed the engine position and that resulted in the model image at the top of the post. I haven’t since reprinted the model but will at some point.

What’s next?

Next up is one of the smaller Privateer models, the Thruster class. It’s the small one in the upper left of the group picture up above. That one will take some work to get the wing features correct as that smoother shape is not something my CAD software does natively. I did it for the Freighter miniature, so I just need to relearn how.

I will be getting this model up on DriveThruRPG along with the rest of the models there as well as getting a price on to the price list here on this site.

Let me know what you think about this miniature and model in the comments below.

June 23, 2021 Tom 6 Comments

State of the Frontier – April 2021

Hey everyone. I’m back.

I basically dropped off-line and out of the Frontier mid February and haven’t done anything related to Star Frontiers or RPGs (with one exception, see below) in the intervening time. I’ve even stopped posting my Detailed Frontier Timeline tweets. In hindsight, I was seriously burnt out and just needed a break. About the only communications I had relative to this blog or other gaming content were messages to my Patreon supporters to let them know that they wouldn’t be billed in March or April. They also aren’t getting billed in May (since I didn’t do anything in April). Thank you to everyone who has stuck by be through this.

The one thing that I did do, was get the next issue of the Frontier Explorer ready and out. It came out on the 28th and you can grab it at DriveThruRPG or on the magazine website. And to be honest, getting the magazine ready almost didn’t pull me out of my slump as I didn’t start on the magazine until the beginning of this month when I would normally have started at the beginning of March. But I haven’t had an issue come out late (even if my deadlines are self-imposed) and didn’t want this one to either. In the end I got it finished (even with a drive failure right as I was finishing that corrupted the document forcing me to redo the layout from scratch) and you can grab the current issue for your reading pleasure.

Looking Forward

There really isn’t anything to look back at so let’s look forward. I’m going to start out small and probably won’t get a post out every week but try to get back to that schedule by the end of summer. But to start I’m going to focus on finishing some small projects.

The first thing I’m going to do is get my Detailed Frontier Timeline posts back up and going. I need to create about a week worth of entries and I’ll have another month ready to post here. I’ll start posting on Twitter again (follow the #SFTimeline hashtag) on May 1st and work to get caught up. I’m several months behind so that might take a while.

The second project I’m going to focus on is the video series I was doing on drawing the deck plans of the HSS History’s Hope. That should account for a post or two.

Finally, I’m going to get back to working on the 3D ship models. I recently was lucky and picked up an brand-new, unopened Privateers boxed set and the minis are in pristine condition. So now I have all six and I’m going to work on trying to get one of those recreated each month. As I’m already halfway done with one of them, I will hopefully get the first one done in May and then one a month until October. We’ll see what happens after that.

Beyond that, I have no idea what will happen but that’s enough to get me started. I have several topic ideas that I might flesh out into full posts but we’ll see how things go.

Last Thoughts

This post also marks 3 years since I started the blog. There have been 196 total posts (including this one) over those three years, even with the two and a half month hiatus I just took. Thanks to all of you who have followed along on this journey so far and especially to my Patreon supporters.

There isn’t much else to say. I’m looking forward to posting again and hope to keep doing so for a while.

April 30, 2021 Tom Leave a comment

Battle of Liberty – FY61.362

*** FLASH FLASH FLASH ***

TO: Spacefleet Command

FROM: PG Liberty

Engaged sathar forces outbound from Snowball. Lucky hit by sathar torpedo detonated magazine on UPFS Singing River (frigate) during initial engagement. Mhemne forces, together with assault scouts (UPFS Dirk and Heron) destroyed sathar frigate but UPFS Dirk lost maneuvering and pursued by sathar light cruiser. Damage to engines resulted in light cruiser overtaking and destroying UPFS Dirk. UPFS Heron remains on station in system.

*** FLASH FLASH FLASH ***

Spacefleet Signal Traffic

Background

With the loss of the single frigate comprising Exploration Group 1, the sathar decide to go with a stronger reconnaissance force and dispatch SBF-J2 (a light cruiser and frigate) to explore the route to Theseus.

Detected departing Snowball by PG Liberty, Spacefleet authorizes them to attack the sathar vessels on their way out of the system.  The Mhemne offer some of their ships to help.  Although limited in technology compared to the UPF and sathar vessels, the Mhemne ships will be able to make at least a single pass at the sathar vessels.

Three days out from the planet, the UPF and Mhemne forces intercept the sathar vessels.

Order of Battle

The Mhemne ships only posses limited chemical drives compared to the atomic drives of the sathar and UPF vessels and required significant help to boost up to the required speed.  For the purposes of this battle they all have 25 HP, 2 ADF, 2 MR, and a laser battery.  In addition, they can only use a total of 8 MR and/or ADF before their fuel supply is exhausted.

UPF

  • 2 Assault Scouts
  • 1 Frigate
  • 3 Mhemne vessels

Sathar

  • 1 Frigate
  • 1 Light Cruiser

The Battle

Setup

The UPF are the attackers in this scenario.  The sathar ships are flying in formation moving at speed 15 entering from the right of the battle area.

The three UPF ships are in a formation with the three Mhemne ships flying together nearby.  They are also moving at speed 15.  The plan is for the Mhemne to make a single pass at the sathar vessels firing at the frigate and then continue on while the UPF continue to engage and hopefully destroy the sathar.

Initial positions. Click for full size image.

Turn 1

The UPF and Mhemne forces drift forward maintaining their speed of 15.  Perceiving the UPF forces to be the bigger threat, the sathar maneuver to take the UPF ships on head-on while also maintaining their speed of 15.  No shots fires as the combatants are all out of range.

Initial maneuvering. Click for full size image.

Turn 2

Seeing that the sathar are tracking them, and hoping to draw them into the firing range of the Mhemne, the UPF forces pull up parallel the Mhemne course and accelerate to speed 19.  They turn to face the oncoming sathar vessels in the hope that that will cause the sathar ships to fly up near the Mhemne vessels.

The UPF plan works (maybe too well) and the sathar accelerate to speed 16 and maneuver so that they don’t come into the forward firing arc of the frigate’s laser cannon and move into rocket battery range.  However, that brings them within 20,000 km of the Mhemne ships.

Defensively, the UPF and Mhemne all focus their fire on the sathar frigate. Two of the Mhemne ships hit lightly damaging the frigates hull (5%) and knocking out its laser cannon. The UPF forces all miss.

Offensively, the sathar ships fire their energy weapons at the assault scouts and rocket weapons at the frigate. They miss the lead assault scout but the light cruiser its the second assault scout with its disruptor cannon damaging its navigation control system. They do much better against the frigate hitting it with a rocket battery and a torpedo that slips through the ICM screen destroying the UPF vessel.

Positions after initial engagement. Click for full size image.

Turn 3

With the UPF frigate destroyed right off the bat, the UPF forces are now seriously out gunned.  The assault scout, its navigation controls system damaged, turns to port and accelerates to maximum to try to get away.  It doesn’t have a perfect shot but fires its assault rocket at the sathar frigate.  The other assault scout loops around and fires on the frigate from behind before heading off away from the sathar vessels at maximum acceleration.  The Mhemne ships continue to drift away  reserving their limited maneuvering in case they need it later.

Ignoring the Mhemne ships, the sathar vessels fire all their energy weapons at the two assault scouts. The lead assault scout is hit by a laser and electron battery as well as the light cruiser’s disruptor cannon seriously damaging its hull (60%) and crippling its damage control systems. The second assault scout is hit by a proton battery damaging its hull (47%).

The Mhemne ships fire at the frigate as they pass hitting with 2 laser batteries damaging the sathar vessels hull (33%).  The assault scouts both fire everything at the frigate as well hitting with 1 laser battery and 2 assault rockets knocking out the frigates maneuvering (with the laser battery) before destroying it with the assault rockets.

The sathar light cruiser accelerates to chase after the assault scout directly ahead, ignoring the other ships.  The assault scout fires its laser battery in defense but misses.  The light cruiser fires its energy weapons at the assault scout hitting with its electron and proton batteries damaging the assault scout’s engines and knocking out its maneuvering capability.

Repair Turn 1

Neither of the assault scouts are able to effect any repairs. No other ships are currently damaged.

Positions after the first half hour. Click for full size image.

Turn 4

The UPF assault scout and Mhemne ships continue to drift away from the sathar ship.  The assault scout being chased, lacking any maneuvering maxes out its acceleration as it tries to escape the pursing light cruiser.

The light cruiser hits the assault scout with its proton battery knocking out half of the assault scout’s acceleration capability.  The assault scout misses the light cruiser.  The light cruiser continues to accelerate as it chases the assault scout and maneuvers to come directly astern of the smaller ship.  It drops a bit behind this turn but with the assault scout’s engines mostly disabled, it will close on it soon enough.  It gets some extreme range shots with its energy weapons but misses.

It’s a tail chase now. The other ships are far enough away that they get away safely and we are just tracking the sathar vessel and its target. Click for full image.

Turn 5

Using what acceleration it has, the assault scout continues to speed up as it tries to get away.  The LC hits it with its disruptor cannon igniting a fire.  It returns fire with its laser battery but misses.  The assault scout’s initial speed advantage temporarily takes it out of range of the light cruiser’s weapons.

To avoid having to draw long trails, and since relative velocity is all that really matters, I’ve adjusted the displayed speeds down. Click for full-size image.

Turn 6

The gap between the ships widen but the light cruiser’s greater acceleration will start closing it once again soon.

Repair Turn 2

Again the assault scouts fail to repair any systems.

Positions of the two ships still engaged after an hour. Click for full size image.

Turn 7

The light cruiser matches the assault scouts’ speed and will begin to overtake it on the next turn. (I forgot to save an image but it was just more of the same.)

Turn 8

The light cruiser starts to close the gap and is just out of range of its electron and proton battery weapons.

The gap between the ships start to close. Click for full size image.

Turn 9

The light cruiser closes to within 90,000 km.  The assault scout fires on the cruiser with its laser battery but misses.  The light cruiser fires with its energy weapons and hits with its proton battery destroying the small UPF ship.

And the fight is over after an hour and a half. Click for full size image.

Final Repairs

It takes another 8 hours but the damaged UPF assault scout manages to repair its damage control system (7 hours) and its hull (another hour).

Lessons Learned

That didn’t go at all like the UPF planned.  They did manage to destroy the sathar frigate but expected their frigate to survive a bit longer.  Poor shooting by the UPF and great shooting by the sathar on the first round definitely tipped things in favor of the sathar.

The Mhemne acquitted themselves well hitting with 4 of their 6 shots.  Had the frigate survived the first round they might have tried to loop back around for a second pass but the quick destruction of the frigate put survival ahead of damaging the sathar.

The second assault scout almost got away but the long range hit by the light cruiser’s distruptor cannon that knocked out its engines, combined with its failed repair rolls, spelled eventual doom for that ship as it was seriously outgunned by the light cruiser.

The sathar finally won a battle but unfortunately for them it was just a minor one on the periphery of the battle.

February 19, 2021 Tom Leave a comment

Second Battle of Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) – FY61.358

After nearly two and half hours of fighting, Task Force Cassidine defeated the invading sathar forces destroying all but a heavy cruiser and fighter which are currently departing the system.  The ships of the task force are almost all heavily damaged but only a single fighter was lost in the battle, the pilot of which ejected safely and has been recovered.

Rak’tal-ka, StarPlay News

Okay, I thought the Second Battle of Kwadl-Kit was a long one, this one went even longer. Sorry about the delay in getting it out but it took a while to play out. Task Force Cassidine just seems to like these long, spread-out battles. The map is going to really shift around this time as this fight involves a long chase and at one point it’s happening on two different maps as the battle spreads out. I hope you enjoy the narration. I also think this might now be the longest blog post yet.

Background

Fresh from the battle with the other sathar force in the K’tsa-Kar system, Task Force Cassidine is ready to face this new sathar threat.  While the presence of the militia assault scout that recently disappeared trying to probe the source of the sathar fleets would have been helpful, it would not have made a lot of difference in the fight.

After the recently losses in the K’tsa-Kar and Truane’s Star systems, SBF-J1, crewed by veterans of the campaign against the saurians, look to turn the tide and chalk up a victory for the sathar forces.  The fleets are fairly evenly matched with the UPF forces leaning more toward the larger ships with the loss of their assault scouts and half of their fighters in the previous engagement.

Order of Battle

This is probably the most evenly matched battle, in terms of hull points and capabilities, of any fight yet in the war.  Looking at hull points, the UPF are coming into this with a total of 435 HP of ship compared to the sathar’s 441.  Three of the UPF ships are slightly damaged: one fighter only has 5 of 8 HP, a frigate is at 29 of 40, and the battleship has a damaged stasis screen. Those were all battle damage that couldn’t be repaired in space after their recent battle in the K’sta-Kar system.  It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Spacefleet (Task Force Cassidine)

  • 3 Fighters
  • 2 Frigates
  • 1 Light Cruiser
  • 1 Assault Carrier
  • 1 Heavy Cruiser
  • 1 Battleship

Sathar

  • 7 Fighters
  • 1 Frigate
  • 1 Destroyer
  • 2 Light Cruisers
  • 1 Assault Carrier
  • 1 Heavy Cruiser

The Battle

Setup

The UPF elect to battle near the planet although with no station left to defend, they start far back from the planet at a moderate speed of 15 for all ships, including the fighters.  The two frigates form a battle group and the light cruiser and the battleship team up.  Those two groups form the center of the battle line.  The heavy cruiser escorts the assault carrier toward the bottom of the battle area while the three fighters form a flight near the top.  They deploy four of the six seeker missiles available on the side of the planet the sathar will be approaching from.  The heavy cruiser and battleship each retain one seeker missile in their magazines for deployment during the fight.

Like the UPF, the sathar come in at only a moderate speed to try to gauge the other side’s tactics and responses before committing.  They too are only moving at speed 15 but are split up to go wide around the planet. The sathar heavy cruiser and assault carrier, escorted by a destroyer come in opposite their UPF counterparts with a flight of three fighters just off their wing.  The light cruisers, escorted by a frigate, come in opposite the UPF fighters, with a flight of four fighters off their wing.

Initial positions of the ships. The seeker missiles are not shown. Click for full sized image.

Turn 1

The sathar capital ships maintain their speed and advance on the UPF forces.  The fighters accelerate to speed 20 and fly farther out on the wings of the formation.

The UPF ships converge toward the lower group of sathar capital ships.  The heavy cruiser and assault carrier continue to advance at speed 15.  The light cruiser and battleship accelerate to speed 17, the frigates to speed 19, the fighters to speed 20.

No shots are fired this round as the two forces remain out of range.

Positions after the first turn of maneuvering. Also the seeker missiles are shown on this one for reference. Unfortunately, the file was partially corrupted and the bottom of the map was cut off but the three sathar fighters just mirrored the maneuver of the fighters at the top of the map. Click for full size image.

Turn 2

The sathar all begin accelerating toward the UPF.  The group centered around the heavy cruiser accelerates to speed 17 and flies straight at their UPF counterpart while their wing of fighters accelerates to 25 and makes a pass at the same group.  All the sathar ships fire at the UPF assault carrier.  The upper battle group accelerates to speed 18 and turns down toward the UPF forces while the upper flight of fighters accelerates to speed 25 and sets up for an attack run next turn as they are too far away to engage this round.

Defensive, the UPF ships all focus on the flight of three lower fighters with the UPF heavy cruiser taking a long-range shot with its disruptor cannon at the sathar destroyer.  They don’t do too well and of the 17 shots fired at the three fighters, only one connects with each ship, knocking the hull integrity down by half on one, inducing a navigation control hit on a second, and knocking out the maneuvering on the third.  The disruptor cannon shot at the destroyer also misses.

Offensively, the sathar fare a bit better.  Two of the assault rockets hit the assault carrier knocking out half its engine capability and reducing its hull integrity by 17%. The sathar destroyer hits with its laser cannon further reducing the hull integrity of the UPF assault carrier by another 19%. The heavy cruiser’s distruptor cannon knocks out the assault carrier’s masking screen launcher.

The larger UPF capital ships maintain their speeds and converge on the sathar battle group.  The heavy cruiser and assault carrier fly right over the group turning up toward the planet at the end of their move.  The battleship and light cruiser maneuver down to take point blank shots at the sathar as well.  The frigates accelerate to speed 20 and come just in range of their rocket batteries while the fighters accelerate to speed 25 and make an assault rocket pass from below.

Defensively, the sathar ships continue to fire at the assault carrier with their energy weapons while they fire their three rocket batteries at the lead frigate. The frigate is hit by two of the rocket batteries reducing its hull integrity by 28% and knocking out a third of its maneuvering capability.

The assault carrier is hammered by the sathar’s weapons being hit by 2 electron, 2 laser, and one proton battery as wall as a laser and disruptor cannon. All told the damage knocks out all of the UPF assault carrier’s weapons, starts a fire, damages its combat control system, induces a navigation control failure, and reduces its hull integrity by another 13%.

Offensively the UPF focus on the sathar assault carrier and heavy cruiser with the frigates and fighters firing at the assault carrier and the other ships firing on the heavy cruiser.

Only one of the fighters hit the assault carrier but it scores a critical hull hit dropping the carrier’s hull integrity by 40%. The frigates combine to hit with a laser battery, laser cannon and rocket battery knocking out the carriers engines and further reducing its hull integrity by 7%.

The sathar heavy cruiser fares even worse being hit by a barrage of weapons from the UPF battleship, light cruiser and heavy cruiser. All told it is hit by all 3 distruptor cannons, 2 rocket batteries, 3 laser batteries, two proton batteries, and an electron battery. The damage knocks out the sathar heavy cruiser’s engines and maneuvering, ICM launcher, laser battery, proton screen and stasis screen, cuts it damage control ability in half, and starts a fire. Surprisingly, the weapons did little hull damage only reducing the ship’s hull integrity by 25%.

Positions and course after the first shots were fired. Click for full size image.

Turn 3

The sathar fighter and heavy cruiser, both with no MR, fly straight ahead (to the left).  The fighter slows down to speed 20 while the heavy cruiser, with no ADF either, just stays at speed 17.  The fighter with the navigation control hit slows to speed 20 and spins to port flying up toward the planet while the remaining fighter from the lower group accelerates to speed 20 and goes after the pair of UPF frigates.  The other fighters also speed up to 30 hexes/turn and go after the frigates as well, both fighter groups looping around the planet.

The sathar assault carrier, with its navigation control hit, pull to starboard and with no ADF, flies up away from the main battle.  The sathar destroyer loops around to go after the UPF frigates as well and the light cruisers and frigate decelerate back to 15 and light up for a shot at the UPF battleship.  The fire on the UPF assault carrier damages its hull (5%).

Defensively, the UPF frigates fire their laser batteries at the fighters and rocket batteries at the destroyer while the other UPF ships concentrate all their fire on the lead sathar light cruiser.

The UPF frigates miss the fighters completely but hit the destroyer with two rocket batteries seriously damaging it and deducing its hull integrity by 72%. The other ships hit the sathar light cruiser with 2 laser, 2 rocket, 1 electron, and 1 proton battery knocking out its ICM launcher, engines, and stasis screen, starting a fire and reducing its hull integrity by 16%.

Offensively, the sathar fighters hit the lead UPF frigate with and assault rocket reducing its hull integrity by 43% and the second one with an assault rocket as well reducing its already damaged hull (from the previous battle) by 38%. The destroyer also hits the second UPF frigate with its electron battery and laser cannon knocking out the frigates engines.

The sathar frigate and light cruisers hammer the UPF battleship hitting it with 2 disruptor cannons, 2 proton batteries, 1 electron battery, and 2 torpedoes that slip through the battleship’s ICM screen. The weapons short circuit the battleship’s defensive system, reduce its maneuvering ability by half, knock out its proton battery and reduce its hull integrity by 66%.

The two UPF frigates, now heavily damaged, drift on their current course firing at the destroyer as they leave.  The assault carrier also drifts but its navigation control hit causes it to pull to port.  Despite its weakened hull, it holds together.  The battleship also drifts away from the fight firing all its weapons at the damaged light cruiser.

The UPF heavy cruiser turns parallel to the course of the assault carrier but lines up for a direct shot with its disruptor cannon at the sathar destroyer.  It fires its rocket battery and torpedo at the undamaged light cruiser and uses its energy batteries to fire on the sathar fighters.  The light cruiser follows a similar path and firing at the same targets.  The fighters loop up around the planet and come up behind the sathar frigate firing their assault rockets at it.

The fire on the sathar light cruiser and sathar heavy cruiser damages both ships’ hulls reducing their integrity by 13% and 11% respectively.

Defensively, the sathar ships continue to fire at the battleship, hoping to destroy it before it can fly out of range.  The sathar assault carrier makes a long range attack at its UPF counterpart with its proton battery but misses.  The sathar destroyer fires at the lead UPF frigate hitting with its electron and rocket batteries knocking out the frigate’s masking screen launcher and damaging its combat control system.

The battleship manages to get off lightly and is only hit by 2 distruptor cannons and a laser battery cutting its damage control capability in half and reducing its hull integrity by another 14%.

Offensively, the UPF battleships hits the lead sathar destroyer with its laser and 2 electron batteries and slips a torpedo through the cruiser’s ICM screen destroying it and scoring the first kill of the battle. The UPF heavy cruiser manages to get its torpedo through the other light cruiser’s ICM screen cutting the sathar ship’s maneuvering in half but otherwise missing.

The UPF fighters hit the sathar frigate with all three assault rockets destroying it completely. The sathar destroyer is hit by disruptor canons from the UPF light and heavy cruiser, as well as a laser battery and two rocket batteries from the frigates. The frigates also manage to get a torpedo through the destroyer’s ICM screen. The combined damage from the UPF weapons obliterates the sathar ship. The sathar fighters get away with only minor damage: one loses 60% of its engine capability, one has its damage control capabilities cut in half, and the third loses 38% of its hull integrity.

Repair Turn

As the ships work on repairs, the lead UPF frigate finds that it’s hull is too damaged to repair in space and must find a way to a shipyard with only 30% of its hull intact. The other frigate manages to repair a bit of its hull restoring 10% of its integrity. The UPF assault carrier puts out the on-board fire while the battleship repairs 3% of its hull.

The two sathar fighters with hull damage find that they need a shipyard to repair their hull as well with their hull integrity sitting at 62% and 50% respectively. The sathar assault carrier restores 11% of its hull integrity while the heavy cruiser gets its fire under control.

Courses and positions after a half hour of combat and repairs. Things are starting to scatter as ships are damaged and lose maneuvering capability and control or are too damaged to risk maneuvering. Ships moving off the map will have a yellow number by them showing how many hexes off the map they are. Click for full size image.

Turn 4

The flight of four sathar fighters all go after the UPF assault carrier hoping to finish it off.  They loop around to make a direct assault and then fly off to chase after the UPF frigates.   The lone fighter, after firing its last assault rocket at the heavy cruiser loops around and starts heading for its carrier to dock and rearm.  The fighter with the navigation control damage loops to port and fires one of its assault rockets at a UPF fighter as it passes by.  The remaining fighter, with no maneuvering, along with the sathar heavy cruiser in the same condition, continue to drift away from the fight.  The sathar assault carrier, with its navigation control damage, pulls to starboard and passes distantly in front of the UPF cruisers and assault carrier.  The remaining sathar light cruiser turns to go after the battleship hoping to finish it off.

Defensively, the UPF cruisers fire at the sathar fighters hoping to take them out before they can fire their assault rockets.  The battleship fires at the light cruiser pursuing it and the frigates get a couple of distant shots at the sathar fighters.

The sathar light cruiser is hit by one of the battleship’s laser batteries and both electron batteries which score a critical hull hit (integrity reduced by 26%), knock out its ICM launcher, and damage its navigation control systems. Four of the five sathar fighters are hit by the UPF ships knocking the hull integrity down to half on one, destroying a second and damaging the assault rocket launcher on the other two (including the lone fighter going after the heavy cruiser).

Offensively, the two fighters with working assault rocket launchers firing at the assault carrier both miss while the sathar fighter with the navigation hit firing at the UPF fighter hits with its assault rocket destroying the UPF fighter, the first (and as it will turn out, only) UPF ship destroyed in the fight. The battleship is hit by the sathar light cruiser’s electron battery, proton battery, and distruptor cannon knocking out its proton screen, damaging its combat control system, and reducing its hull integrity by another 12% (only 11% remaining).

The two UPF frigates continue to drift and fire long distance shots at the fighters.  The battleship drifts away from the light cruiser firing at it as it goes.  The two UPF fighters loop around and take a run at the sathar light cruiser firing their last assault rockets.  The UPF assault carrier pulls to starboard and runs parallel to its sathar counterpart while the UPF light and heavy cruisers maneuver directly onto the sathar assault carrier’s tail and take point blank shots with all their weapons.

Defensively, the sathar light cruiser fires at the battleship and the sathar assault carrier fires at the UPF light cruiser. The UPF light cruiser is hit by a rocket battery reducing its hull integrity by 17% while the battleship is hit by an electron battery knocking out its ICM launcher.

Offensively, the sathar light cruiser is hit by one of the battleship’s laser batteries knocking out its proton battery and by both assault rockets from the fighters which damage its combat control system and knock its hull integrity down by 20%. The lead UPF frigate manages to score a long range laser battery shot on the lead sathar fighter knocking out its assault rocket launcher. The UPF cruisers hit the sathar assault carrier with a distruptor cannon and a laser, electron, and rocket battery knocking out the carriers maneuvering, laser battery, and masking screen launcher and damaging its combat control system.

Maneuvering and positions after forty minutes of battle. The UPF are stating to score kills and the ships are really starting to scatter. Click for full size image.

Turn 5

The group of three sathar fighters sets off after the two UPF frigates, the lone fighter, with its assault rocket launcher disabled, and realizing that the assault carrier is probably not going to survive the battle, attempts to ram the UPF light cruiser.  The sathar light cruiser pulls to port and slows down, firing at the two UPF fighters.  The other ships just continue to drift away with the assault carrier firing at the UPF light cruiser as it drifts.

Defensively, the UPF frigates fire at the remaining fighter with a working assault rocket launcher but miss. The UPF light cruiser fires at the oncoming fighter and destroys it before it can ram the larger ship. The UPF heavy cruiser hits the sathar assault carrier with its laser and rocket battery and reduces its hull integrity by another 36%.

Offensive, the sathar fighter misses the UPF frigate with its assault rocket while the sathar light cruiser hits one of the UPF fighters damaging its combat control system. The sathar assault carrier hits the UPF light cruiser with its proton and rocket battery short circuiting the cruiser’s defensive systems and reducing its hull integrity by 20%.

The UPF assault carrier’s loss of navigation control pulls it to starboard and the fighters, out of assault rockets, start heading back to the carrier to rearm.  The heavy and light cruiser stay on the tail of the sathar assault carrier while the frigates and battleship continue to drift.

Defensively, the sathar assault carrier continues to fire on the UPF light cruiser hitting with its rocket battery for another 16% hull reduction on the cruiser.  All other ships are out of range.

Offensively the UPF frigates fire at the pursuing fighters but miss. The UPF cruiser open fire on the sathar assault carrier and hit with 3 laser batteries, 2 proton batteries, an electron battery, a disruptor cannon, and two torpedoes completely destroying the sathar carrier.

This is the ships off the top of the main map (UPF cruisers and frigates, sathar assault carrier and fighters). The bottom row of hexes on this map exactly correspond to the top row of hexes on the main map (below). Click for full size image.
Main battle map after turn 5. Things continue to spread out. Click for full size image.

Turn 6

With their carrier destroyed and being either out of weapons or their weapon system disabled, the three sathar fighters attempt to ram the UPF frigates.  The sathar light cruiser pulls to starboard and accelerates back to speed 16, the lone fighter near the planet pulls to port with its navigation damage and the other two ships continue to drift away.

Defensively, the frigates fire everything they can at the incoming fighters hitting two with their laser batteries, the lead fighter for 75% of its hull and the second for a navigation hit but not enough to destroy them before they ram.  Two fighters slam into the lead frigate and despite its damaged hull fail to destroy it only taking out 20% of the remaining 30% hull integrity. The third fighter hits the second frigate for a measly 5% of its hull integrity.

The UPF frigates and battleship continue to drift, the assault carrier pulls to port and the fighters continue to close on the carrier to rearm.  The heavy and light cruiser start accelerating and turn to head after the sathar light cruiser.  No shots are fired as everyone is out of range.

Repair Turn 2

The lead UPF frigate repairs the damage caused by the two ramming sathar fighters but can repair its hull no further. The other frigate repairs 12% of its hull integrity while the light cruiser repairs 3% of its. The assault carrier gets its navigation control system fixed as well as repairing 8% of its hull. The battleship repairs 5% of its hull and brings is damage control system fully back on-line.

The sathar light cruiser repairs its navigation control system while the heavy cruiser discovers that a shipyard will be required to bring its damage control system back fully on-line.

The upper map after an hour of fighting. The second blue line by the assault carrier should have fighters at the end of it but I forgot to move the tokens. Click for full size image.
The main battle map after an hour. The poor sathar fighter can’t get is navigation system under control and is stuck near the planet. Click for full size image.

Turn 7

With its navigation control system repaired, the sathar light cruiser sets off at max acceleration to attempt to intercept the UPF battleship and finish it off.  The damaged fighter comes to a stop near the planet as the pilot continues to work on its navigation control issues.

The UPF cruisers continue in pursuit of the sathar light cruiser while the assault carrier, its hull and navigation control fixed, starts to turn around and head back toward the planet.  The two surviving fighters pull alongside the carrier and start docking procedures.

We’ve now shifted the map to track the sathar light cruiser pursing the battleship and the UPF cruisers pursing it. The other ships are effectively out of the battle. The planet is some 200,000 km off the left side of this map. Click for full size image.

Turn 8

The chase continues.  The sathar light cruiser continues to close on the battleship but the UPF light cruiser, which had a slight speed advantage on the sathar light cruiser, continues to close on it as well as it starts to outdistance the older heavy cruiser that has a lower acceleration.  The two UPF fighters dock with the assault carrier.

The gaps between the ships are narrowing. Click for full size image.

Turn 9

Since relative speed are all that matter, I’ve adjusted the speeds shown on the maps down so that the battleship is stopped and the other three ships have been scaled accordingly.

The chase continues as the light cruisers close on their targets.  The UPF heavy cruiser is as close as it is going to get to the sathar ship unless the sathar vessel’s engines are damaged as the greater acceleration of the sathar light cruiser has allowed it to match speeds with the heavy cruiser.  The UPF fighters are rearmed.

Repair Turn 3

The lead UPF frigate repairs some of its maneuvering while the other frigate repairs 10% of its hull. The UPF light cruiser also repairs 10% of its hull while the assault carrier brings its laser and proton battery back on-line. The battleship, expecting to have to defend against torpedoes from the the sathar light cruiser, gets its ICM launcher working again and repairs another 5% of its hull.

The lone sathar fighter repairs some of its maneuvering capability and starts to maneuver to meet up with the heavy cruiser. The sathar light cruiser repairs 13% of its hull while the heavy cruiser restores half of its engine capability and begins accelerating to out of the system.

The ships have almost come in range of the battleship. Speeds have been adjusted so that they are relative to the battleship being at rest. Click for full size image.

Turn 10

The sathar light cruiser continues to close on the battleship and the UPF light cruiser continues to close on the sathar light cruiser.  The two UPF fighters, rearmed, launch from the assault carrier and go after the lone sathar fighter near the planet.

The heavy cruiser is now starting to fall behind. Click for full size image.

Turn 11

The UPF light cruiser continues to close the gap but it is looking like the sathar ship will get to the battleship before the UPF light cruiser can intercept it.  The battleship, at relative rest to the other ships, rotates to face the direction it expects the sathar vessel to come from in order to bring its disruptor cannon to bear.

It’s taken nearly an hour, but the sathar light cruiser is nearly in range of the battleship with the UPF light cruiser in hot pursuit and gaining. Click for full size image.

Turn 12

Realizing it cannot quite get into torpedo range this round, the sathar light cruiser remains at its current speed staying at extreme range for the battleship’s defenses although this will also allow the UPF light cruiser a chance to close as well.

Defensively the battleships fires all of its energy weapons at the sathar vessel but they all go wide although one of the electron batteries would have hit except for the battleship’s damaged combat control system.  The sathar light cruiser returns fire but also misses.

The UPF light cruiser and heavy cruiser close in on the sathar vessel but the heavy cruiser is still well out of range.  The sathar ship fires once again at the battleship this time hitting with its distruptor cannon shorting out the battleships defenses and ICMs.  The battleship and light cruiser return fire.  The battleship connects with a LB damaging the sathar light cruiser’s hull (11%).  The UPF light cruiser is still too far away and its shots go wide.

The UPF fighters hit the sathar fighter with one of their assault rockets knocking out it’s assault rocket launcher.

Repair Turn 4

The lead UPF frigate repairs its combat control system and is now as functional as it can be without getting to a shipyard to repair its heavily damaged hull. The other frigate restores more of its engine capability. The UPF light cruiser repairs 13% of its hull while the assault carrier also gets a minor hull repair restoring 1%. The battleship focuses all of its repairs on its hull, hoping to survive the oncoming attack and restores 13% of its hull integrity.

The sathar fighter under attack by the UPF fighters finally fixes its navigation control system while the other fighter restores some of its maneuverability. The UPF light cruiser fixes its combat control system and brings its proton battery back on-line in preparation for attacking the UPF Battleship.

Shots are fired as the ships once more come in range. Click for full size image.

Turn 13

The sathar light cruiser makes a pass on the battleship firing everything it can at the larger vessel and using its maximum acceleration.  The lone sathar fighter, its navigation control issues solved, begins accelerating away from the planet, hoping to surviving the next two rounds of assault rocket fire from the two UPF fighters.

Defensively, the battleship and light cruiser try to take out the sathar light cruiser before it can inflict any more damage on the battleship. The UPF light cruiser, at nearly maximum range misses, while the battleship connects with 2 laser batteries, a proton battery, and its disruptor cannon slightly damaging the cruiser’s hull (8%), knocking out its laser battery and engines, and inducing a malfunction in its navigation control system.

The sathar light cruiser returns fire with all of its function weapons but in the excitement of the moment, the gunner all miss and the battleship escapes unscathed.

The UPF light cruiser closes to torpedo range on the sathar vessel and opens fire with everything it can.  The heavy cruiser continues to close and the battleship fires a long range salvo at the now retreating sathar light cruiser.  The fighters again fire at the lone sathar fighter, this time hitting it with one of their assault rockets and destroying it.

Defensively the sathar light cruiser now focuses on its pursuer and fires at the UPF light cruiser hitting with both its electron and proton battery inducing a fire and damaging the light cruiser’s damage control system.

Returning fire at the sathar light cruiser, the battleship misses and the UPF light cruiser hits with its laser, electron, and proton batteries damaging the ship’s hull (14%), knocking out its rocket battery, and damaging its combat control system.

The sathar light cruiser gets its shot and fails. It probably should have stayed closer to the battleship to get one more try. Click for full size image.

Turn 14

The sathar light cruiser pulls to port and holds together.  The fire on the UPF light cruiser knocks out its laser battery.

Defensively, the battleship and light cruiser fire on the sathar ship.  The battleship hits with an electron and proton battery starting a fire and knocking out its stasis screen.  The light cruiser hits with its proton battery and disruptor cannon knocking out the sathar ship’s disruptor cannon and electron screen.

The sathar light cruiser fires at the UPF light cruiser but misses.

The UPF light cruiser continues to tail the sathar vessel closing to rocket battery range while the heavy cruiser starts catching up with the other ships.  The fire on the sathar light cruiser damages its hull (6%)

The sathar light cruiser fires on the approaching UPF light cruiser hitting with its electron and proton battery damaging its hull (4%) and knockign out a third of its engine capability.

The UPF light cruiser hits the sathar ship with its electron and rocket batteries destroying it and ending the battle.

Final moves of the fight. Click for full size image.

Turn 15

The fire on UPF light cruiser damages its navigation control system.

Repair Turn 5

The UPF light cruiser gets its fire under control, the assault carrier repairs its rocket battery but discovers that any more repair of its engines will require a shipyard, and the battleship repairs another 11% of its hull.

The sathar heavy cruiser fully repairs its engines.

Final repairs

Battle repairs of the UPF ships continue over the next four and a half hours as the ships return to orbit around Ken’zah-Kit. In the end, the second UPF frigate can only get its hull up to 65% integrity, and the battleship can only get its hull up to 58%.

The lone sathar fighter meets up with the heavy cruiser and is attached to the hull of the larger vessel where it will remain until they get back to a shipyard. It’s maneuvering is fully repaired as the ships accelerate out of the ship. The heavy cruiser gets all of its systems repaired over the next four hours expect its hull which it is only able to restore to 81% outside a shipyard.

Lessons Learned

The sathar just can’t seem to catch a break and finish off the UPF ships.  I though the light cruiser was going to finish off the battleship but rolled over 80 for every single attack so it missed completely.  The battleship only had about 26 HP at that point. (On a whim I rerolled all the attacks and the second time it hit with a PB and RB, the latter did double damage and destroyed the battleship. But alas, that wasn’t the actual roll.) The same with the ramming of the frigates.  I thought for sure the UPF frigate hit by two fighters was going to be destroyed, it only had 12 HP left but then I just rolled 8 on 2d10 for the hull damaged sustained.  And it wouldn’t have done any good for the third one to hit it as I only rolled a measly 2 HP damage for that ship as well.  There were several other times where I expected the sathar to get better hits but the dice were just against them.  The UPF had bad spells as well but it didn’t seem to be at those critical, ship-finishing moments.

I considered having the light cruiser ram the battleship but the odds were in the favor of the battleship avoiding the ramming attempt and if it failed, the sathar ship would have been at point blank range for both the battleship and the oncoming UPF light cruiser so it didn’t try. Although it probably should have stayed a bit closer to the battleship as it ended its movement. But I really didn’t expect it to completely miss. This does have me thinking a bit about the ramming rules, however, so there may be a blog post about that when I have time to think on it some more.

The UPF are pretty beat up with the two cruisers and a fighter as the only ships not needing to go to a shipyard for repairs, but they only lost a single fighter.  The sathar on the other hand lost everything expect a fighter and a heavy cruiser.  Task Force Cassidine has now destroyed two major sathar fleets while only losing 3 assault scouts and 4 fighters.

There is one more battle coming up (in the Liberty system) and then things are going to quite down a bit as the sathar just don’t have very many ships surviving at the moment. They are done to just 9 fighters, 1 cutter, 2 frigates, 1 destroyer 2 light cruisers, 2 heavy cruisers, and two assault carriers but they are spread out all over the Frontier and the starship construction centers (and two are in the battle coming up in the Liberty system and may not survive). Its going to take some time to get them all together and build a few more ships.

February 14, 2021 Tom 1 Comment

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.326 to FY61.356

This is only a week later than I had planned. I’ve gotten behind on updating the timeline entries and am still trying to catch up. I’ve had some big battles to play through and I just haven’t had the time to do so. There will be another battle coming in a few days as soon as I get it played out.

The timeline this month, like last, focuses almost exclusively on the maneuvering, battles, and logistics of the Second Sathar War. There are a few entries on the HSS History’s Hope but that is really the only not war related thread I’m tracking right now. This month saw a couple of battles. There was originally going to be one more but the UPF withdrew seeing as they faced almost certain destruction.

This month also sees the fast-track completion of pilots in the current class in the Gollwin Academy to service as pilots for all the new fighters coming out of the starship construction centers for the newly formed Frontier Fighter Corps. This is a process that will continue of the next several months until all the pilots are graduated or the class completes their current training.

There might be a bit of other, non-war stuff next month but not much. The next two posts after this one will be battle reports that I’ll get up as soon as I can. Depending on how those play out, there might not be much in the way of ships left to fight for a while so things will probably quiet down.

Date (FY)Events
61.326– Sathar SCC#4 (OFS111) completes 5 fighters.

– The K’aken-Kar assault scout jumps into its home system and begins decelerating toward Ken’zah-Kit.

– RG One settles into orbit around Zik-kit and joins up with the rest of PG Meteor already in orbit.
61.327SG Alpha jumps into the Fromeltar system and begins calculations for the jump to the Kizk-Kar system.  The pilot of the recently completed fighter takes on extra life support and begins boosting to join SG Alpha as it transits the system.
61.328– SBF-J1 arrives at SCC#3 (OFS138).  After a rapid reprovisioning, during which orders are issued to all existing sathar vessels, SBF-J1 departs the SCC and begins accelerating for a jump to the OFS137 system.

– Sathar EG-1 jumps out of the Liberty system but does not end up in the Waller Nexus system as expected.  Rather it overshoots and arrives in the Padda (FS11) system instead.  The astrogators begin working out where they are at.
61.329– SBF-J3 jumps into the OFS168 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS167 system.

– SBF-E3 arrives at Stenmar (Kazak) and merges with SBF-E2.

– The fighter in the Fromeltar system joins up with RG Alpha as it crosses the system for its jump to Kizk-Kar.
61.330– The HSS History’s Hope makes the jump and ends up in a binary system but it is not the two stars of YS07.  While the engineers start to work on the engine overhauls, the astrogators try to figure out where they are.

– The lone K’aken-Kar militia assault scout arrives back in its home system and the crew stands down for some leave but remain on alert for rapid recall if needed.
61.331– SG Alpha jumps into the Kizk-Kar system and begins deceleration toward Zik-Kit and PG Meteor.

– SBF-J3 jumps into the OFS167 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS166.

– 2 UPF fighters are completed at both the Minotaur (Theseus) and Hentz (Arak) SCC and 2 more go into production in each location.  The fighters are temporarily manned by the local militias until UPF pilots and be dispatched to the system.
61.332Realizing that they need pilots for all the new fighters being produced, the current cadets at Gollwin academy are polled for volunteers for the Frontier Fighter Corps.  Those that volunteer are put on a fast completion track to get their Pilot and Rocket Weapons certifications.
61.333– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS137 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS136 system.

– SBF-J3 jumps into the OFS166 system and begins calculations for the jump to FS33 to join up with SBF-B2.

– 11 UPF fighters are completed at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine).  With no pilots ready, they are put into storage and Spacefleet temporarily gives the space over for commercial ship maintenance.
61.334– A fighter and assault carrier are completed at SCC#10 (OFS174).  Instead of starting another AC and fighter, construction begins on 2 destroyers and a frigate.

– The new sathar assault carrier at SCC#10 (OFS174) collects the 3 fighters in the system and begins a transit to SCC#4 (OFS111). The ships are designated Transit Group (TG) 1.

– Astrogators aboard the HSS History’s Hope work out their position and discover that they went nearly twice as far as they intended.  The system is designated YS09 and they decide to take two smaller jumps to get back to YS07 to reduce the chance of error.  They begin working on jump calculations for an 8 ly jump to the next system.

– 3 more fighters are completed at the Hentz (Araks) SCC for the Frontier Fighter Corps, 2 more go into production, the other slot being given over to commercial ship maintenance for now.
61.335Initial calculations complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for a jump to the first system on their way back to YS07, another binary system 8 lightyears away.
61.336– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS136 system and begins calculations for a jump to the FS56 system.

– SG Alpha arrives at Zit-Kit (Kizk-Kar).  The fighters are stationed on the planet’s surface while the assault carrier begins preparations for a trip back to Prenglar to pick up more fighters.

– SBF-J3 jumps into the FS33 system and begins decelerating to join up with SBF-B2.

– 8 fighters are complete for the Frontier Fighter Corps at the PGC shipyard (Gran Quivera, Prenglar).  They are shuttled over to Gollwin academy to serve as trainers for the accelerated pilot classes.  Construction begins on 8 more.
61.337– The astrogators in sathar EG-1 are able to localize their position.  Being only a single jump from Theseus, they begin calculating a jump to that system first.

– SBF-E2 leaves orbit around Stenmar (Kazak) and begins accelerating for a jump to the Zebulon system and Strike Force Nova.

– SBF-B2 leaves orbit in the inner FS33 system and begins accelerating for a jump to the K’sta-Kar and Task Force Cassidine.  SBF-J3 changes course to meet them enroute.
61.338– After another 100 days of exploiting their secret jump route between Truane’s Star and Cassidine, Obar Enterprises has grossed another 1.47 million credits.  In the year since charting the route they have grossed over 6.8 million and paid off the loan on their new freighter.  Given the current crisis, they turn over the details of the jump route to Spacefleet.

– Initial jump calculations complete, sathar EG-1 starts accelerating for a jump to the Theseus system.
61.339– SBF-J1 jumps into the FS56 system and begins calculations for a jump to the Kizk-Kar system.

– SBF-J3 meets up with SBF-B2 enroute to K’sta-Kar and merges into that battle group.

– Another UPF fighter is completed at the Hentz (Araks) shipyard.  The extra capacity in the shipyard will be used for the next six days to accelerate construction on two of the other fighters to get all four fighters on the same schedule.
61.340– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps into their target system which they designate YS10.  They immediately begin working on engine overhauls and calculations for the 6 ly jump to return to YS07.

– The initial group of more advanced students at the Gollwin Academy (Morgaine’s World, Prenglar) complete their fast-track certification for the Frontier Fighter Corps.  The ten of them are dispatched to Triad to take command of some of the fighters there.
61.341SG Alpha jumps back into the Fromeltar system and begins calculations for a jump to Dramune.
61.342– SBF-J1 jumps into the Kisk-Kar system and begins decelerating to engage PG Meteor.

– SBF-E2 jumps into the Zebulon system and begins decelerating to engage Strike Force Nova.

– SBF-B2 jumps into the K’sta-Kar system and begins decelerating to engage Task Force Cassidine.

– The sathar battle fleets are detected within hours of their arrival in their respective systems and alerts go out across the Frontier.  Spacefleet is out gunned in nearly every case but is determined to stop the worms.

– Sathar EG-1 jumps into the Theseus system.  They immediately begin decelerating to stay in the outer system and begin working on calculations for a jump back to the Padda system.
61.343– Construction of the Spacefleet battleship, Admiral Dooltan, at the Pan Galactic starship construction center orbiting Gran Quivera (Prenglar) complete.  With the new sathar offensive, Spacefleet starts construction of a light cruiser, frigate, and assault scout.

– 2 assault scouts of the Theseus militia detect the sathar frigate of EG-1 and immediately begin boosting to intercept the ship.  An alert goes out and the other ships of the militia boost to intercept as well although they will be two days behind.

– Suspecting FS33 to be the origin of the sathar fleets jumping into the K’sta-Kar system, the K’aken-Kar militia assault scout starts working on calculations to chart a jump route to that system.
61.344– Construction of the Spacefleet battleship, the Admiral R’kazk’tar, at the Cassidine Development Corporation starship construction center orbiting Triad (Cassidine) completed.  The crew takes command of the ship and begins a short shakedown cruise in the system as they await the arrival of the fighter pilots and SG Alpha.

– With the completion of the Admiral R’kazk’tar, Spacefleet uses the space in the shipyard to begin construction of two destroyers and two assault scouts.

– With plans to send the Admiral R’kazk’tar to Truane’s Star, the Admiral Dooltan is ordered to the Fromeltar system and then on to Kisk-Kar to take command of Task Force Meteor if the patrol group survives the coming attack.

– Detecting the incoming militia assault scouts, sathar EG-1 change their deceleration profile to try to avoid the ships while they change direction for the return jump to Padda.

– Realizing that they have an opportunity to exploit the new jump route provided by Obar Enterprises, Spacefleet HQ orders Strike Force Nova and supporting militia ships to fall back to the Truane’s Star system and expect reinforcements.
61.345– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back into the YS07 system.  They begin working on engine overhauls and calculations for a jump to return to YS08.

– SG Alpha jumps into the Dramune system and begins calculations for a jump to the Cassidine system.

– SBF-E2, detecting the departure of SF Nova, vector to follow them to the Truane’s Star system.
61.346– Unable to avoid intercept by the 2 Theseus assault scouts, the sathar frigate turns to engage them. They transmit all their jump data back to SBF-J2 before engaging. 

– Battle of Theseus – In a short, 20-minute battle, the sathar frigate managed to damage one of the assault scouts before being destroyed by a single volley of assault rockets and laser batteries from the 2 militia ships. The damaged assault scout heads to Minotaur for repairs.

– Calculations complete, the K’aken-Kar assault scout begins accelerating for a jump to FS33.

– Three more fighters for the Frontier Fighter Corp are completed in Theseus. Construction begins on 3 more.
61.347– Second Battle of Kwadl-Kit – Though outgunned by the sathar, Task Force Cassidine put up an amazing defense and over the course of 1.5 hours completely destroys the sathar fleet.  While almost no ship goes unscathed, they only lose 3 fighters and 3 assault scouts.

– SG Alpha jumps into the Cassidine system and begins vectoring for a jump to the Truane’s Star system using coordinates provided by battleship Admiral R’kazk’tar.

– After a detailed assessment of the strength of SFB-J1, PG Meteor and Spacefleet command decided that they cannot hold the Kizk-Kar system and the jump capable ships start accelerating for a jump to the Fromeltar system.  The fighters go into hiding on the planet’s surface.

– Seeing PG Meteor departing, the sathar forces vector to intercept but the acceleration of the UPF ships is such that only the smaller sathar vessels could intercept which would give the advantage to Spacefleet.  After a few hours of pursuit, they reverse course and settle into orbit once again around Zit-Kit.
61.348– Sathar SCC#1 (OFS203) completes construction of a light cruiser.

– Arriving back at Minotaur (Theseus), the damaged militia assault scout is immediately put into the shipyard.  A HS:7 ship under construction is moved out to make room.

– 5 fighters are completed at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine).  Work begins on five more.  These fighters are put in storage until crews can be obtained for them.
61.349– SF Nova and its supporting militia ships jump into the Truane’s Star system and begin decelerating toward Pale.

– The group of 10 FFC pilots arrive at Triad (Cassidine) and take command of their fighters. They immediately take on extra life support and begin a high-g boost, together with the battleship Admiral R’kazk’tar, to join SG Alpha.

– After a day rearming, Task Force Cassidine begins acceleration for a jump to the K’aken-Kar system and then on to Kizk-Kar to engage the sathar forces there.

– The Theseus militia assault scout completes its repairs and the HS:7 ship is moved back in to resume work.

– The battleship Admiral Dooltan jumps into the Cassidine system, it remains at high speed to transit to Dramune.
61.350– Joining up with SG Alpha, the fighters are quickly taken aboard the carrier and stowed for jump.  The battleship, assault carrier, and fighters are designated Task Force Relief and prepare for level 2 risk jump to the Truane’s Star system.

– SBF-E2 jumps into the Truane’s Star system and begins decelerating toward New Pale.  SF Nova and the local militia begin maneuvering to intercept.

– SBF-J1 departs orbit around Zit-Kit (Kisk-Kar) and begins accelerating for a jump to the K’aken-Kar system to intercept TF Cassidine.

– Detecting the departure of SBF-J1, PG Meteor puts its jump on hold and drifts in the outer system to observe.

– The UPF minelayer, currently in the Fromeltar system, begins accelerating for a jump to the Kisk-Kar system.  It will join up with the Admiral Dooltan as it transits the Fromeltar system before making the jump.
61.351– TF Relief jumps into the Truane’s Star system and begins a hard deceleration toward New Pale.

– The K’aken-Kar militia assault scout misjumps and instead of reaching FS33 ends up in an unknown star system (OFS169).  They begin working on determining their location.

– With a HS:12 ship completing maintenance in the CDC (Triad, Cassidine) shipyards, Spacefleet starts work on 3 new assault scouts to replace those lost by Task Force Cassidine.  The remaining space is used for civilian ship maintenance.

– The battleship Admiral Dooltan jumps into the Fromeltar system.  It begins vectoring and performing jump calculations to take it to Kisk-Kar.
61.352– The HSS History’s Hope makes the return jump to YS08 and begin decelerating toward the inner system as they once again overhaul engines and try to plot the route back to YS07.

– Seeing that SBF-J1 seems to be committed to jumping out of the Kisk-Kar system, PG Meteor changes course and starts to decelerate back toward Zit-Kit.

– A fighter is completed at the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar).  It is transferred to Gollwin Academy (Morgaine’s World, Prenglar) for use in training the accelerated cadets.

– Detecting TF Relief, the sathar reassess their position and despite being out gunned nearly two to one, press on toward New Pale and the UPF forces.
61.353– Strike Force Nova and the Truane’s Star militia ships arrive back at the armed station orbiting New Pale (Truane’s Star).  Just hours later, they are joined by TF Relief.  The incoming sathar ships are only a day away.

– The UPF minelayer in the Fromeltar system joins up with the Admiral Dooltan and then continue on their way to the Kisk-Kar system to join with PG Meteor.
61.354– Second Battle of New Pale – The UPF destroy or drive off most of SBF-E2 but both battleships, including the newly constructed Admiral R’kazk’tar, are destroyed in the fighting.

– The fleeing sathar ships accelerate for a jump back to the Zebulon system.

– The UPF destroyer damaged in the Second Battle of New Pale heads to the starship construction center on Pale for repairs.

– TF Cassidine jumps into the K’aken-Kar system.  Alerted that SBF-J1 is headed their way, they begin decelerating toward the inner system instead of continuing on the Kisk-Kar.

– Another UPF fighter is completed at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard.  It is temporarily manned by militia forces until Spacefleet can get fighter pilots to the system.
61.355– SBF-J1 jumps into the K’aken-Kar system and begins decelerating to intercept TF Cassidine.

– The UPF battleship and minelayer jump into the Kisk-Kar system and start decelerating toward Zit-kit.

– The damaged UPF destroyer arrives at the Streel shipyard (Pale, Truane’s Star).  A HS:6 ship under construction but nearly complete is temporarily moved out to provide priority access for the Spacefleet vessel.
61.356– PG Meteor arrives back in orbit around Zit-Kit (Kisk-Kar).

– A HS:5 ships complete maintenance in the CDC shipyard (Triad, Cassidine). Spacefleet holds the space in anticipation of more ships finishing and beginning construction on a new battleship.

Full timeline file:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload
February 9, 2021 Tom Leave a comment

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