Monthly Archives: January 2020

State of the Frontier – Jan 2020

Can you believe it’s already the end of January 2020? Where has the time gone? You may have noticed that this post didn’t come as a regular Tuesday post. I don’t think I’m completely back to getting a full post every week with this as a bonus post but we’ll see how it goes. In any case, this was a crazy month but things are going well.

Looking Back

I started out with the Detailed Frontier Timeline post and the post on the Sathar Assault Carrier miniature. That was all according to plan. Then the Frontier Explorer happened. More on that later. The Worlds of Origin post was planned as the third post for the month, but I didn’t have it finished and because of the time spent getting the Frontier Explorer issue ready, I wasn’t going to get it done in time. But I had already finished the UPF Minelayer model, which I had planned to save for February, so that post went up with the Worlds of Origin post following the next week. And then we got this post at the end of the month.

That’s the front end of the site. Behind the scenes, there were also a bunch of other things going on. The biggest is that I finished up and released issue 27 of the Frontier Explorer. And I just want to say that I absolutely love this cover by Jerry Boucher.

Getting the issue out actually took a bit more work than I had anticipated. Due to life events, some help I thought I would have with the issue didn’t materialize and I didn’t find out until the last minute so there was a bit of a scramble to get everything ready to go. But it all worked out in the end and, because of these events, I’m in a better situation to handle future issues of the magazine with fewer problems. So in the end it was a net win.

Another behind the scenes activity was the migration of several websites. During January, I managed to get all of my externally hosted websites, including the Frontier Explorer site, moved from the external host to the new server. This allowed me to get them all set up with SSL certificates so they use the HTTPS protocol instead of just plan HTTP. Now I just need to cancel that hosting service so I don’t get billed again.

I also set a goal to spend less time playing games on my phone when I’m sitting around waiting to pick up kids from school and activities and instead use that time to work on writing my book. The program I’m using to write and organize the book has an Android app and can connect directly to Dropbox. So I can write on my phone, tablet, or computer and have it all synced up. While I wasn’t completely diligent about not playing games, I was much better than I have been and managed to get another ~3000 words added to my novel in my spare moments.

Finally, I spent some time working on the fighter miniature models. The ones I have work just fine on my high resolution printer but I wanted versions that would work on lower resolution FDM printers as well. I think I’m happy with the new variations. I don’t know that I’ll do a blog post on them (unless you really want me to), but they will be released at some point in early February.

Looking Forward

Coming up next is the usual post on the Detailed Frontier Timeline. I kind of dropped the ball a bit on that project here in January with the work on the Frontier Explorer and missed a few days posting on Twitter. And then yesterday I realized that I had dropped a couple of the storylines so I had to go backfill them and post the missed updates to keep everything in sync. I’ve fixed that and will try to be better going forward. I need to take a day and work out the next few weeks of events to get the stories all advanced. For the past month or so I’ve been barely staying ahead and with all the storylines going on, it’s been a bit too last-minute.

After that will be a post on the Pirate Frigate miniature. That was the last ship from the Sathar Ships boxed set of miniatures that needed to be recreated. I finished the model last week and sent it out to my Patreon supporters. The write up will happen on the second week of February.

The RPG Blog Carnival topic for February is Legends & Lore. If all goes well, the third post of the month will be on that topic. I don’t know what I’m going to write about yet, especially since I haven’t seen the kickoff post for the month, but I’ve got some ideas percolating. I’m leaving the fourth week post open right now. I might have content or it may end up being the State of the Frontier post but I think it will be the former.

Behind the scenes I will be continuing to work on an number of projects. I’m already mostly done with my next ship model which is a recreation of the freighter miniature from the Federations Ships box of miniatures. That will be the last ship from that boxed set. That will be posted about at some point, probably in March or it may end up as the fourth week post. After that, I just have the six ships from the Privateers box to recreate.

I’ll also continue to work on my novel. We’ll see if I can get the time spent on it increased. I wrote about 14k works in November, writing 15-20 minutes a day. If I can get back up to that rate each month, I would probably have the first draft done late this year or early next. I’m ~74k words into it and about 1/4 of the way through the outlined story. I also plan to start spending a little bit of time on issue 28 of the Frontier Explorer as well but that will be very low level in February as I also have an editing project to work on another module for FrontierSpace being written by Trevor Holman.

Finally, I’ll be migrating more websites to my new server. I still have four websites and my mail server running on the old server and I want to get those moved over this month. These will either be really easy to move or much trickier than the sites I’ve already moved. We’ll see how it goes. But these include the starfrontiers.us, starfrontiers.info and starfrontiersman.com sites so they are directly relevant to this audience. I also have my old programmingspace.net blog to move. Once those are moved, the real work of upgrading all the sites will begin.

Final Thoughts

I think that about covers it. If you have feedback on the types of posts you’d like to see more of, please let me know in the comments below.

Worlds of Origin for Star Frontiers Races – part 1

This week we’re going to begin looking at determining the origins of any given character or NPC in the Frontier. I’ve labeled this as part 1 in a series as it is a preliminary draft that I plan to tweak and expand on in the future. This is really a preliminary, first pass but still quite usable in its current form.

This is the post I had planned for last week but didn’t quite have it ready in time so you got the UPF Minelayer a week early.

RPG Blog Carnival Logo

This project is something that’s been kicking around in the back of my mind for years now and I was inspired to look at it again as part of the RPG Blog Carnival this month which has the topic “Random Encounter Tables“. While this isn’t necessarily a random encounter table per se, it can be used to randomly determine information about someone you encounter in the game. It’s a bit of a stretch, but still relevant. I encourage everyone to visit the main topic page for this months carnival and read all the posts linked to in the comments. I’ll be hosting the blog carnival in June so I’m going to make an effort to write a post each month for the carnival this year and become more active. It tends to be more focused on fantasy gaming so sometimes I’ll really need to stretch the topic but we’ll see how it goes.

We’re going to start right with the table and then I’ll talk about how it was generated. If you’re interested in a slightly different take on this same topic, we published an article, “Star Frontiers Birth Locations” by ExileInParadise, in issue 19 of the Frontier Explorer back in Jan 2017 as part of our Star Frontiers 35th anniversary issue. This article will be a first pass at my take on that same topic.

Where Are You From?

To randomly determine the world of origin of one of the “Core Four” Star Frontiers species, roll d100 on the following table. Find the value rolled in the column for the species in question and the line tells you the origin world and system for that character. This version of the table is ordered by system and not the name of the world.

Planet (system) Dralasite Human Vrusk Yazirian
Hentz (Araks) 1 1 1 1-12
Yast (Athor) 2-3 2-3 2-3 13-19
Rupert’s Hole (Cassidine) 4-6 4-10 4-5 20-22
Triad (Cassidine) 7-18 11-20 6-17 23-33
Laco (Dixon’s Star) 19 21-22 18 34
Inner Reach (Dramune) 20-27 23-24 19-21 35-37
Outer Reach (Dramune) 28-35 25-31 22-28 38-44
Groth (Fromeltar) 36-40 32 29 45
Terledrom (Fromeltar) 41-52 33-35 30-41 46-49
Hargut (Gruna Goru) 53-56 36-38 42-45 50-61
Ken’zah Kit (K’aken-Kar) 57-59 39-40 46-52 62-63
Zit-Kit (Kizk’-Kar) 60-62 41-42 53-59 64-66
Kawdl-Kit (K’tsa-Kar) 63 43 60-64 67
Kdikit (Madderly’s Star) 64-65 44-50 65 68-69
Gran Quivera (Prenglar) 66-78 51-61 66-76 70-81
Morgaine’s World (Prenglar) 79 62-63 77 82
Histran (Scree Fron) 80 64 78-79 83
Hakosoar (Scree Fron) 81 65 80-82 84
Minotaur (Theseus) 82-85 66-75 83-86 85-87
Lossend (Timeon) 86-87 76-79 87-88 88
Pale (Truane’s Star) 88-95 80-86 89-95 89-95
New Pale (Truane’s Star) 96 87-90 96 96
Clarion (White Light) 97-100 91-100 97-100 97-100

If you just want to use the table, you’re done. Enjoy. If you want to learn a bit more about how I created it, read on.

Building the Table

First off, this table just covers the original systems presented in the original (Alpha Dawn) ruleset, and doesn’t include Volturnus (Zebulon) as there is no indigenous core four population there in that rule set. Also, that rule set left Kawdl-Kit (K’tsa-Kar) out of the data table so I’ve used the values from Zeb’s Guide for that system.

Design Decisions

One of the decisions I made in creating the table is that it is possible for any of the core four races to be from any planet, although the chance may be very small.

Another decision I made was that I didn’t want either a d1000 table (although that’s easy enough to do in Star Frontiers that only uses d10s) and I didn’t want a series of sub-tables. One roll and you would be done.

The result of those decisions is that the smallest probability of having a race/homeworld combination is 1% and for certain situations this is probably a bit (or even a lot) higher than it would really be given the demographics and politics of the Frontier. An example is a non-Yazirian race from Hentz, a world controlled by the Family of One where non-yazirians are second class citizen. There just aren’t that many there. Similarly, vrusk from Kdikit (Madderly’s Star) after most vrusk were driven off world by the Freeworld Rebellion. Although you could also argue that those situations drive up the chance that those beings would be off-world and increase the chance. So in the end, it’s all good.

Getting the Base Numbers

The rules give a dominant population and a population density for each world in the Frontier. The dominant population could be one of the core four races, a mix of two (Terledrom, Fromeltar with a D/V designation for dralasites and vrusk) or an asterisk (“*”) meaning relatively equal mix of all species. The population codes were either outpost, low, medium, or high.

To determine the relative number of each species on each planet I used the following formula. First, an outpost was given a value of 1, low population given a value of 3, medium population a value of 5, and high population a a value of 8. Next, if a species was not listed as a dominant population on a world, it just received the value above. If it was the dominant population, I multiplied that value by three. For the systems marked with an asterisk, I gave all the species the x3 multiplier. Since these planets are the core planets of the Frontier, typically with high populations, this just helps to concentrate the population density there.

For example, Inner Reach, Dramune, is listed as a medium population and the dominant species as Dralasites. So for this world, humans, yazirians, and vrusk all receive 5 points while dralasites receive 15.

This was done for each planet in the Frontier which gave me a large table that listed points for each race on each planet.

Calculating the Table Percentages

Next I tallied up the points for each race. Depending on the species, those totals ranged from 190 to 226. Using those values I scaled the points for each species so that the total came to 100. This effectively gave me the percentage of each species that came from each planet. Some of these, especially on the outpost worlds, end up with percentages less than 1 but given my assumptions, those all get rounded up to 1%.

After that, it was just a matter of tallying up the percentages to make the table. I built a cumulative table first by just adding up the percentages. Due to the small fractional percentages of the low probability planets, this resulted in some planets having the same value.

To fix this, I fixed some of the percentages to 1. This in turn, pushed the totals above 100 for some of the species. To fix that, I then adjusted the percentages down on a few of the worlds based on physical characteristics and game lore.

I started by reducing the percentage of non-yazirian races on Hentz to one. This reflects (as mentioned above) the fact that that world is very rigidly controlled by the yazirian Family of One and non-yazirians are practically, if not in fact, second-class citizens. Next I reduced the percentages of yazirians on high gravity worlds. This is based on the idea that those worlds are less desirable to yazirians because their gliding ability is greatly diminished on these worlds and so the populations would be smaller. For the vrusk, I set the percentage on Kdikit (Madderly’s Star) to one to reflect the expulsion of the vrusk after the Freeworld Rebellion. Finally, I reduced the percentage of non-yaziran races on the worlds in the Scree Fron system because it is far from the core of the Frontier and deep in yazirian space.

After making these changes, and a few other small tweaks, I ended up with the results presented in the table above.

Thoughts and Discussion

This is definitely a first draft. It will probably get tweaked a bit as I flesh out the lore of the worlds a bit more. I may change the relative populations of the the various species as well as the overall population numbers for any given world (i.e not making all medium populations a value of 5 or every high population world a value of 8) That said, this is definitely usable to get a rough idea of where any given member of each species is from. Future versions will also include the Zeb’s Guide systems as well as generate tables for the Rim races, at the very least.

One thing that this doesn’t do is show the relative percentages of each species on any given planet. Since I renormalized the values for each race, that changed the relative percentages of the races on any given planet. As I refine those relative values a bit more, they will get reflected into the raw data used. I may start presenting that information in separate posts on each world.

What are your thoughts on the table? What other information would you like to see? What is missing? What would you do differently? Let me know in the comments below. And be sure to head over to the Random Encounter Tables post to check out the other posts in this month’s RPG Blog Carnival.

UPF Minelayer Model and Miniature

This is not the post I had planned for this week, but since I’ve been up to my ears getting the next issue of the Frontier Explorer ready to go, I didn’t have time to do the post I had planned. You’ll probably get that one next week.

With the Assault Carriers (UPF & Sathar) completed, it was time to tackle the last of the UPF ships needed for the Second Sathar War game: the UPF Minelayer.

Now, this is a bit of an interesting ship to do the mini for. If we look at the counter from the game (shown at right), those familiar with the miniatures produced by TSR will realize that a miniature already exists with that silhouette.

This is the miniature labeled on the blister pack as the Sathar Cutter. This particular one is missing one of it’s cannons but it’s a really close match for the shape on the counter.

This isn’t the first time that TSR messed up the labeling of ship images as the counters and the “Ship Identification Guide” in the Tactical Operations Manual don’t match up. We can probably assume that they had this miniatures and its silhouette and since the cutter doesn’t have game stats (until fans created them – see Frontier Explorer issue 2 – Friend or Foe), they used the image for the UPF Minelayer but didn’t change the name on the blister pack. In the blister pack, it is sold with the Sathar Frigate so my guess is that it was supposed to be a sathar ship but the silhouette was used for the UPF Minelayer by accident.

In any case, it poses a bit of dilemma. We need to make a ship that at least sort of looks like the counter to continue with the theme of the miniatures I’ve been creating but it also can’t look exactly like the sathar ship. This is also why I saved this miniature for last as you could always use the Sathar Cutter mini as the UPF minelayer in your game as it matches the game counter. So with that background out of the way, let’s look at the ship.

UPF Minelayer Miniature

Since I’m not planning on matching the shape of the silhouette on the counter exactly, I want to look at the broad features of the silhouette for inspiration. In my mind there are four main features to be considered:

  1. The body should be somewhat roundish and elongated
  2. There should be two side lobes off the main body
  3. There should be two guns mounted forward on the main body
  4. The engines should be long and skinny.

Now that last one doesn’t match with any of the engines on any of the other UPF ships. However, I’ve always felt that the minelayer, unlike the mainline ships, used ion engines instead of atomic engines. It’s really more of a system ship that does its work before the battle starts so it doesn’t need the performance of the main warships.

And the game stats bear this idea out. Ion engines are limited to an ADF of 1 and that is what the minelayer has, unlike all the other ships which have an ADF of at least 2. So these long skinny engines can be the UPF ion engines instead of atomic ones.

The two guns really aren’t an issue either as the minelayer sports a pair of laser batteries in addition to the mine and seeker missile dispensers. And the other features are just things to keep in mind while designing the ship. The minelayer is listed as hull size 7, so in the end, the ship should be a bit bigger than the UPF Destroyer when it is all done. With those design constraints, let’s get to work.

The image to the right shows the finished model. Instead of the smooth rounded body of the Sathar Cutter, I chose to go with a more angular squashed cylinder and then add cylindrical lobes to the side somewhat like the UPF Assault Carrier.

The two laser batteries are mounted on the front of the ship and the engines are long, tapered to the back, and, although you can’t easily see it in this image, angled slightly inward at the back as are the engines on the silhouette.

Beyond that I added some surface features reminiscent of the other UPF vessels and then a bunch of small cylindrical indentations on the back of the fuselage to represent the mine dispersal system. In the model, they are all at different angles so that mines are spread out as they are ejected.

Printing the Miniature

With the model made, it was time to print. Since this is a relatively small miniature, the print only took about 5 hours. Here is the UPF Minelayer next to the sathar cutter and UPF frigate, as well as a ruler for scale.

The engines didn’t come out as straight as I’d like. I’ll need to add some more supports to them on future prints to get them to hold the right positions.

As you can see, the ship is a bit bigger than the cutter and the body is bigger than the main part of the frigate as well. It’s also bigger than the destroyer although I don’t have a picture of that one. While it’s not as long, it is about as thick and much wider so I feel that it came in at right about the correct size to be just a bit bigger than the frigate and the destroyer.

This model just about used up all of my grey resin so I’ll probably be printing in the black or white resins until I get some more grey ordered. The grey (and white) take longer to print as they are opaque resins and need more curing time but I definitely like the look of the grey miniatures. At least they photograph better than any of the others.

Up Next

I finished this model a couple of weeks ago so my Patreon supporters already have the model file. I’ll be posting it on DriveThruRPG shortly with all the other models on my 3D Models page. I’ve also added it to the Miniatures Price List here on the site.

That completes all the UPF and Sathar ships. I’m probably going to revisit the fighters soon as I need to make those models more friendly to FDM printers. The models I created work on an SLA printer but the wings are too thin (by about a factor of 5-10) to print on a regular FDM printer. I want to make the models easier to print on FDM printers (or at least versions that are) before I post those models on DriveThruRPG.

But before I do that, I’m going to tackle the last military vessel that I haven’t reproduced from the original miniature sets, the pirate frigate. That’s a ship that came in the Sathar ships box of miniatures along with the pirate assault scout which I have already reproduced. I’ve already started on the model, so once I get issue 27 of the Frontier Explorer out the door, I’ll get back to it.

Once the pirate frigate model is complete, I’ll be in a position to start offering “module packs” of printed miniatures that contain all the ships needed for the Knight Hawks scenarios from the various modules as well as the UPF Task Forces. I may need to make a few more models for some of those (the Gullwind and Elanor Moraes come immediately to mind) but that will give me some direction for future builds.

After the pirate frigate, there are just 7 ships from the original sets left to recreate: the freighter from the Federation Ships box and the six ships from the Privateers box. Those will be my next projects, interspersed with the models needed for the module packs, after reworking the fighters.

What are your thoughts on the minelayer model? Let me know in the comment section below.

Sathar Assault Carrier Model and Miniature

With the UPF Assault Carrier completed, it was time to tackle the Sathar Assault Carrier. This would complete all of the capital ships for both sides.

Now, way back when I started this blog, I posted the outline for a sathar assault carrier project. This is not the model that project was intended to create. When I made that project outline, I never imagined I’d be this heavy into creating miniatures. Although if I ever get around to actually doing that project, the end result might be fairly similar. One major difference, however, would be that all the surface features would be actual scale rather than selected for aesthetics as they are on this model. But that’s for some undetermined future date. Let’s look at the model I have created.

Building the Model

Like the others, for this model I’m working off the silhouette from the game counter, pictured to the right. As you can see, this ship is a bit more bulky and angular than the other sathar vessels which tend to be more bulbous and curvy.

That said, there are definitely some features that fit the typical sathar ship style. We have the long skinny engines with the spherical tip, long, extended nacelles for the engines struts, and a round head separated from the body by a skinny neck. The other features that stand out are the guns on the head of the ship and the rectangular shape of the lobes on the side of the ship. I’m going to assume that the latter are the location of the bays for the fighters.

image showing a small assault carrier being approached by an assault scout and exploration vessel

Now, there is another reference for the sathar assault carrier in the rules. The image to the left comes from the module SFKH3: Face of the Enemy. This ship (bottom) is described as an older, obsolete, and smaller assault carrier no longer in main-line service by the sathar fleet. In the module, it has been converted by the sathar to serve as a mobile base for larger scout craft instead of fighter craft. So while I will probably model this ship at some time in the future, I won’t be using this image as a reference for the assault carrier model.

Like the UPF assault carrier, the sathar assault carrier should be significantly larger than the light cruiser but not quite as big as the heavy cruiser. That gave me a bit of a scale to shoot for when building the model. Once that scale was decided on, I used the counter to get the rough shape of the head and body of the ship.

Here’s the final model (pictured to the right). The size of the body, neck, and head are taken directly from the dimensions on the counter.

Given the positioning of the guns on the counter, I assumed there were three evenly spaced around the head. Since the stats for the Assault Carrier include a laser battery, a rocket battery, and a proton battery, I figured that wasn’t too much of a stretch.

The size and shape of the rectangular lobes around the center of the ship are based on the counter as well. The height of the lobes from the center of the ship match the profile height from the counter and the size of the rectangle that forms the outer face, along with the width where it intersects the hull match as well. What is different is the detail on the face. The counter shows one large rectangular shaped detail that I decided to break into three smaller ones on each lobe. each of these represent a fighter bay giving the assault carrier the capacity (per the rules) to hold up to a dozen fighters.

The other major difference is the engines. Instead of the single, long engine depicted on the counter, I went with pairs of smaller engines, similar to the ones used on the heavy cruiser. Unlike the heavy cruiser, which mounted the two engines in each cluster in-line with the engine strut, for the assault carrier, I chose to mount them perpendicular to the engine strut. Additionally, these engines are slightly shorter, a bit thicker, and have a bit more spacing between them than the ones on the heavy cruiser. Otherwise, they are similar to the heavy cruiser engines and modeled on those engines.

It’s not obvious from the image of the model, which is the intention, but I started using a slightly different technique when modeling this ship. For all the ships in the past, I’ve set a global level of detail for round objects that was fine enough for the larger bits of the ships to look smooth. This resulted in way more detail on small objects (like the spheres around the upper body) than was needed and caused the rendering time of the model to be really long. Starting with this model, I’ve been specifying the detail at the individual part level, allowing me finer control and reducing the rendering time significantly since I don’t have to put as much detail into the smaller pieces.

Printing

With the model done, it was time to print the miniature. As it turns out, this model is fairly massive. In fact, physically, it has more volume than any of the models I’ve created to date, even the UPF assault carrier. Here’s a picture of the sathar assault carrier along with the sathar heavy cruiser and light cruiser (and a quarter for scale).

The light cruiser looks kind of glowy because it was printed in a translucent resin and this particular print was hollow so the translucency really shows.

It sits right in there between the light and heavy cruiser but it is much fatter. It ended up weighing a couple of ounces, compared the ~1 ounce for the heavy cruiser and ~1/2 ounce for the light cruiser. It actually has some heft to it. I may consider printing these slightly hollow to save weight and bring the cost down. Here’s another picture with it next to the UPF assault carrier.

The two assault carriers side by side. One of the features chipped off of the aft fuselage of the sathar ship when I was trimming off the printing supports attached to it. I don’t think those supports are actually necessary and will remove them next time I print one.

As you can see, it ended up being a bit bigger even though they are supposed to be roughly the same sized ships. I probably made the sathar one a bit too big, but I like the way it turned out so I’m going to leave it be. It’s not too out of proportion to the other sathar vessels. Any downsizing I need to do will come with the next round of ships, which I’ll be designing to all be to scale with one another. However, with it being this massive, it makes sense that one of the sathar conditions for retreat in the Second Sathar War game is the loss of too many of these ships.

Up Next

That’s it for the Sathar Assault Carrier. I’ll be adding it and the UPF Assault Carrier to the Miniatures Price Table here on the site as well as uploading the model files to my 3D models page on DriveThruRPG. My Patreon supporters received the model files for both of these ships a while ago.

The next ship I’ll be tackling will be a new model for the UPF Minelayer. That may be ready by the end of the month.

Let me know what you think about the Sathar Assault Carrier in the comments below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.329 to FY60.359

A new month and new set of events in the Frontier. This month’s timeline includes events from the Warriors of White Light module (SFKH0), the beginnings of events from the Bugs in the System module (SFAD5), and more exploration beyond the edges of the known Frontier Sector.

Date (FY)Events
60.329 Patrol Group Flint arrives make the jump to the Kazak system and begin decelerating toward Stenmar station
60.330 The TransTravel corvette is completed at the Terldrom (Fromeltar) starship construction center.
60.331 – The TSS Dark Shadow is detected smuggling weapons provided by Streel to the Liberation Party on Clarion (White Light).  A firefight breaks out between the new boarding party of the CMS Osprey and the Dark Shadow’s crew. The smugglers are taken into custody and the ship impounded. (SFKH0)

– Deceleration complete, Discovery Squadron, realizing they are no match for the numerous sathar and other unknown vessels in the system begin accelerating for a jump out of the system back to OFS031 system. Luckily, they seem to not have been detected.
60.332 The HSS History’s Hope successfully makes the jump to OFS222, a bright blue main sequence star, even more massive than Belnafaer.  They begin decelerating to prepare for the return jump to OFS221.
60.333 Patrol Group Flint arrives at Stenmar station (Kazak) they spend two days refueling and preparing for the jump to OFS019.
60.334 – Strike Force Nova departs Laco (Dixon’s Star) for the Truane’s Star system.

– The TSSS Searcher departs Pale station with a shipment of titanium to attempt charting the return jump from the Truane’s Star system to the Cassidine system.
60.335 – Patrol Group Flint departs Stenmar station (Kazak) for their jump to OFS019.

– Discovery squadron successfully jumps back to the OFS031 system completely charted the route between OFS031 and OFS070.  They begin plotting a return jump to the OFS030 system
60.336 – Sathar SCC#4 completes a frigate

– Shakedown cruise complete, the fourth Saurian Ark Ship begins loading supplies and passengers
60.337 Having killed their velocity, the HSSS History’s Hope begins acceleration for the return jump to OFS221.
60.338 The TSSS Searcher successfully jumps into the Cassidine system completing the jump route between the Cassidine and Truane’s Star systems.  They decided to not report the jump to the UPF immediately and exploit the shorter jump times to move cargo between the two systems for higher profits.
60.339 – During a magnetic storm, the Matrix infection on Jetsom mutates and takes over the ship’s computer system, killing or incapacitating all members of the Alpha team on the ship (Belnafaer) (SFAD5)

– Patrol Group Flint arrives in OFS019 on high alert.  They immediately detect sathar radio signals and begin cataloging the sources.  Deceleration starts along a vector away from the inner system.  They begin the calculations for the return jump.
60.340 Four crew members from the Moneyspider are killed in an attempt to reach the crew on the stricken Jetsom when their shuttle is damaged in the descent and destroyed.  Only six crew remain on the Moneyspider. (SFAD5)
60.341 – After two days of data collection, Patrol Group Flint has identified nearly 20 different ships in the OFS019 system including two each of frigates, destroyers, light and heavy cruisers, and assault carriers.  There are numerous fighters and two of an unidentified new class of ship.

– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back to the OFS221 system completely charting the jump between OFS221 and OFS222.  Details are relayed back to the UPF to collect the bounty.  They begin decelerating in preparation for returning to the OFS222 system and continuing their exploration.
60.342 – Sathar SCC#5 (OFS019) completes a cutter

– The 4 sathar destroyers from Liberty system arrive in OFS019.
60.343 – Deceleration complete, Patrol Group Flint begin accelerating back toward jump speed to return to Kazak as the jump calculations are finalized.

– Strike Force Nova arrives at Pale (Truane’s Star).  They will have a five day layover to cross train with the Pale militia before heading out to Zebulon.
60.344 – The PGCSS Marionette, which vanished from Terledrom (Fromeltar) without its crew 28 years ago, suddenly appears in the White Light system headed directly for Clarion Station (SFKH0)

– The decelerating sathar destroyers pass very close to the accelerating Patrol Group Flint. Relative velocities are too large to allow for an engagement but there is now doubt that the sathar are now aware of the presence of the UPF ships.

– Discovery Squadron successfully jump back to the OFS030 system completely charting the route between the OFS030 and OFS031 systems.  Work begins on engine overhauls and plotting the jump to the OFS026 system.
60.345 – Attempting to approach the PGCSS Marionette, it repeatedly veers away and the the CMS Osprey is forced to disable its engines and maneuvering jets in order to board the ship.

– The crew of the CMS Osprey find that the ship is being controlled by a deranged cybot calling itself the Puppetmaster.  After a zero-g battle with robots controlled by the Puppetmaster, the cyborg is destroyed and the crew takes control of the ship. (SFKH0)
60.346 Repairs to the PGCSS Marionette’s engines allow it to be diverted from its collision course with Clarion station.  The ship is impounded for inspection.
60.347 Loading complete, the fourth Saurian Ark Ship departs the Sauria system for destinations unknown
60.348 – Training with the Pale militia complete, Strike Force Nova departs for the Zebulon system.

– Patrol Group Flint successfully jumps back to Kazak.  Flight forces in the system go on high alert.
60.349 TransTravel corvette arrives at Terldrom (Fromeltar)
60.350 After an amazingly long string of bad luck in several of its ventures, the Groth Energy Corporation, the major power supplier on Groth (Fromeltar) declares bankruptcy.  While they maintain power generation, all other corporate activities are frozen.
60.351 After nearly half a year of investigation and the death of seven more of the young eorna, the cause of the mysterious deaths is finally uncovered. One of the “Great Plan” eorna had been sabotaging the endeavor and subtly poisoning the children. He is taken into custody.
60.352 Patrol Group Flint arrives at Stemnar station where they will remain on alert with units of The Flight until Strike Force Nova arrives.
60.353 Three days after declaring bankruptcy, the Groth Energy Corporation (Groth, Fromeltar) is purchased by an undisclosed off-world organization for a fraction of its actual value. The new owners immediately begin restoring complete operations.
60.354 Discovery Squadron successfully jumps back into the OFS026 system although they end up much further out in the system than intended. The decision is made to try to get to OFS017 directly and not take the detour caused by their misjump to OFS025.
60.355 Sathar SCC#3 (OFS138) completes a frigate.
60.356 The HSS History’s Hope arrives back in the OFS222 system and begins plotting their next jump. This jump will take them beyond the Outer Frontier Sector.  Their target star is a white dwarf, 6 light years away.  They designate this region of space as the Yazira Sector and their destination as YS001.
60.357 Strike Force Nova arrives at Volturnus (Zebulon) and joins up with Patrol Group Virgo.  The crews are given three days shore leave on Volturnus before they leave the Frontier.
60.358 After several days of investigation and analysis, the eorna responsible for the poisoning of the children is diagnosed with a subtle mental illness that caused him to be unable to accept the new direction the species was going with the discovery of the egg ship.
60.359 In light of the subtle nature of the discovered mental illness, all eorna associated with the eorna egg project undergo a deep psychological analysis.

And here’s the updated full timeline file:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload