Second Battle of Kawdl-Kit (K’tsa-Kar) – FY61.347

Earlier today, in the space around Kawdl-Kit, Task Force Cassidine engaged the invading sathar forces. After nearly an hour and a half of fighting, the last of sathar forces were destroyed.

While almost all of the Spacefleet vessels sustained serious damage, battle losses were light with the Task Force only losing three fighters and three assault scouts.

Hours after the battle, repair work for the heavily damaged assault carrier and battleship are still ongoing.

Vah’zen’rk – Kawdl-Kit Global Reporting

This one was a doozie. This was the longest lasting battle as far as number of turns of play go. Although that’s partially because the combination of speeds, damage, and lack of maneuverability caused everything to get spread out. You’ll notice the maps shift around a bit, especially toward the end as I shifted the view to keep the main part of the battle in view. I might have to shift to a larger map grid. As always this fight held a few surprises, not the least of which was the final outcome.

Background

Reinforced with some additional ships from SCC#10, veterans of campaign against the saurians, SBF-B2 reenters the K’tsa-Kar system with the intent to wipe out Task Force Cassidine.  The UPF forces, while somewhat outgunned, are determined to hold the line here.

Order of Battle

Task Force Cassidine

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

Sathar

  • 7 Fighters
  • 1 Frigate
  • 6 Destroyers
  • 1 Assault Carrier
  • 2 Heavy Cruisers

The Battle

Setup

Task Force Cassidine elects to hold the battle around the planet, hoping to use the planet’s gravity well to their advantage even though there is no longer a station there.  With no station to defend, the UPF form up in a broad line far back from the planet and the oncoming sathar forces to give them time to study the sathar deployment before committing.  The capital ships are moving at speed 15 while the fighters and assault scouts are moving at speed 25.  The six seeker missiles (from the battleship and heavy cruiser) are deployed in an arc on the side of the planet the sathar are approaching from.

The sathar, also cautious for this major battle, come in relatively slow, with their capital ships moving at speed 10 and fighters at speed 20.  The assault carrier, escorted by the frigate, take the center position with a heavy cruiser on either side which is in turned flanked by a trio of destroyers and a flight of fighters.

Deployment at start of battle with seeker missiles shown for reference (they will only show up later when activated). Click for full size image.

Turn 1

While the sathar destroyers all accelerate to speed 13, the rest just drift forward at their current speed.

Closing ranks to defend against the expected oncoming flights of fighters, the light cruiser and assault scouts join the battleship while the frigates join up with the heavy cruiser and assault carrier.  The fighters slow to speed 20 to remain out of range of all of the approaching sathar ships except possiblly the lower flight of fighters.

No shots are fired as everyone is still out of range.

Both sides approach the planet. Click for full size image.

Turn 2

Yhe upper flight of sathar fighters accelerate to speed 25 and make a pass at the upper group of ships, firing on assault rocket each at the assault scouts and light cruiser.  The lower flight make a pass at the UPF fighters and fire an assault rocket at three fighters in that group.  The sathar destroyers accelerate to speed 16 and fly out to the flanks with the upper group turning to head back into the fight while the lower group keeps their forward firing weapons aimed at the UPF fighters.  The heavy cruisers accelerate to speed 12 and turn to cross in front of the planet while the frigate and assault carrier remain at speed 10 but turn to pass below the planet.

Defensively, all of the UPF ships fire at the upper group of incoming fighters, while the more distant ships don’t connect, it adds to the crossfire and shots from the closer ship manage to destroy three of the four fighters while almost destroying the fourth (it has 1 HP left).

The surviving fighter fires at the light cruiser and knocks out its engines, it will be stuck at speed 17 until it can get those repaired. The lower flight of sathar fighters all hit with their assault rockets destroying three of the UPF fighters (half the flight).

The UPF activate two of the previously placed seeker missiles.  Upon activation, each of them detects the nearby heavy cruiser and accelerate, driving home into the ships. Both cruisers fire 3 ICMs to attempt to intercept the missiles but they fail.  The upper cruiser has its ICM launcher knocked out while the lower suffers a devastating hull hit (76 HP – double damage) nearly destroying it.

Ignoring for a moment the fighters and the upper group of destroyers, the UPF ships focus on the other capital ships.  The remaining fighters, the assault scouts, and the frigates and make a pass at the lower group of destroyers.  The heavy cruiser and assault carrier go after the severely damaged heavy cruiser and the sathar frigate, while the battleship and light cruiser go after the other heavy cruiser.

Defensively, the frigate, upper heavy cruiser, and assault carrier focus their fire on the UPF light cruiser damaging its maneuvering, taking out its laser and proton battery, slightly damaging its hull, and starting an on-board fire. The heavily damaged heavy cruiser fires at the UPF assault carrier knocking out its engines (stuck at speed 16) and severely damaging its hull (a little over 1/3 of hull integrity lost).  The lower flight of destroyers focus their fire on two of the assault scouts. One is lightly grazed suffering a 20% hull integrity reduction while the other is destroyed. 

Under combined fire from the UPF light cruiser and battleship, the upper sathar heavy cruiser has its maneuvering and proton battery knocked out, and suffers a 43% hull integrity loss from multiple hits. While the UPF assault carrier misses, the UPF heavy cruiser finishes off the heavily damaged sathar heavy cruiser with it’s pair of laser batteries. The shots by those ships at the frigate are much better. The frigate manages to intercept the heavy cruiser’s torpedo with its ICMs, but the sathar vessel is hit with the cruiser’s disruptor cannon and rocket batteries from both vessels damaging its damage controls system and reducing its hull integrity to only 8%.

The lower flight of sathar destroyers doesn’t fair much better. The lead destroyer is hit by an assault rocket and laser battery inducing a navigation control hit and suffering 28% hull integrity reduction. The second is hit by an assault rocket from one of the fighters which scores a critical hit and the laser cannon from one of the frigates and is destroyed by the damage inflicted. The last destroyer is hit by two laser batteries and an assault rocket knocking out 54% of its hull integrity.

First shots fired. Click for full size image.

Turn 3

The surviving heavy cruiser, having no MR, accelerates to speed 14 to come in range of the assault scouts and frigates.  The seriously damaged frigate just drifts forward at speed 10 and the assault carrier follows it but accelerates to speed 12 and turns to cross its path near the end of its move  All three ships fire at the UPF assault carrier.  The upper flight of destroyers swoop down and are joined by the surviving fighter from the upper flight.  They unleash everything they have at the UPF battleship.  The lower flight of fighters loop around and fire on the UPF frigates (2 AR at one and 1 at another) while one of the destroyers loops around to fire at the lead assault scout with everything but it’s torpedo which it fires at the second frigate.  The destroyer with the navigation control hit loops away from the fight but fires at the remaining assault scout as it passes by.  The fire on the UPF light cruiser damages its combat control system.

Defensively, the frigates and assault scouts fire their laser batteries at the oncoming fighters destroying one and lightly damaging another. The frigates fire their other weapons at the damaged destroyer making the attack on them knocking out another 30% hull integrity and short circuiting out its screens and ICMs.

The UPF heavy cruiser and assault carrier fire their laser batteries at the sathar frigate (short circuiting its screens and ICMs and inducing a navigation control failure) and all their other weapons at the passing heavy cruiser.  The battleship and light cruiser fire their disruptor cannons at the heavy cruiser, which combinded with the fire from the heavy cruiser and assault carrier, destroy that ship. They fire 2 laser batteries at the incoming fighter but miss and concentrate the rest of their weapons on the lead destroyer damaging its damage control system, inducing a fire, and nearly destroying it with a critical hit (only 8% hull integrity left).

The lone sathar fighter fire a salvo at the battleship. While most of the shots miss, the ones that hit are significant. The fighter’s assault rocket knocks out the battleship’s ICMs, the lead destroyer’s torpedo scores a critical hit knocking out 25% of the battleship’s hull, and the second destroyer scores a critical hit with its rocket battery taking out another 22% of the hull.

The UPF assault carrier is hit by both the sathar frigate and assault carrier knocking out its proton and laser batteries and multiple hull hits knocking another 40% off of it’s hull integrity. Shots at the surviving assault scouts destroy the lead assault scout while completely missing the other one. The lead UPF frigate is hit by an assault rocket damaging its engines while the other is hit by an assault rocket and torpedo knocking out nearly half its hull and acceleration ability.

The UPF light cruiser, with its engines nearly completely off line, turns to starboard and drifts down toward the lone sathar destroyer at the bottom of the map.  The battleship turns hard to starboard and flies down over the wounded sathar frigate and flying past the assault carrier.  The surviving UPF fighters and assault scouts loop around and make a run at the sathar assault carrier.  The two frigates go after the lone sathar destroyer at the bottom of the map and loop back toward the main fight.  The UPF assault carrier, severely damaged and with its engines disabled, drifts away from the fight escorted by the UPF heavy cruiser.  The fire on the sathar destroyer rampages through the ship knocking out its engines and damaging its combat controls  system

Defensively, the upper flight of sathar destroyers once again concentrate all their fire on the battleship, hoping to do better defensively than they did offensively.  Their hope is in vain however as only one hit does hull damage (reducing it by another 10%) but they also induce a navigation control malfunction, knock out its stasis screen, and damage its combat control systems.

The lone sathar destroyer in the middle of the fight fires at the UPF assault carrier short circuiting its defensive systems and reducing its damage control capabilities.

The lone destroyer at the bottom of the map with the navigation control malfunction focuses its fire on the more damaged frigate knocking out it’s laser cannon.

The sathar frigate and assault carrier fire their energy battery weapons at the incoming UPF fighters (one is hit for a 38% hull integrity reduction) and the frigate fires its rocket battery at the assault scout (critical hit destroying the scout) and laser cannon at the battleship as it flies by (that’s the shot that induced the navigation control hit mentioned above).

The UPF fighters fire at the sathar assault carrier but only connect with one assault rocket knocking out the carrier’s maneuvering. The frigates work to finish off the damaged destroyer with the navigation hit but only manage to hit with a single laser battery inducing an onboard fire.

The light cruiser fires at the second destroyer in the upper group as it flies away hitting with its laser, proton, and electron batteries damaging it’s hull and weapons before the light cruier’s torpedo slips past the ICMs launched by the destroyer and scores a critical hit, destroying the sathar ship. 

The battleship fires it’s disruptor cannon and a laser battery at the frigate hitting the laser battery and destroying it, two laser batteries at the damaged destroyer in the upper group, one of which connects destroying that ship, and the rest of its weapons at the third destroyer connecting with the electron battery and torpedo and knocking out 70% of the sathar vessel’s hull integrity.  

Finally, the assault carrier and heavy cruiser fire at the damaged destroyer in the middle of the map destroying it with multiple hits.

While the UPF ships are fairly damaged, they are definitely in control of the fight at this point.

Positions after the first half hour of battle. This is the first of the map shifts (moved up slightly this time for that destroyer at the bottom to stay on the map). Click for full size image.

Repair Turn

On the UPF side, the damaged fighter fails its repair attempt on its hull which will have to be repaired at a shipyard, luckily it is still over 50% hull integrity and doesn’t have to worry about breaking up. The second UPF frigate and the battleship both manage to repair some of their hull while the battleship also effects repairs to its combat control system. The light cruiser gets its fire under control while the assault carrier repairs its damage control systems.

On the sathar side, the two damaged fighters repair their hull while the surviving destroyer from the upper group fails its hull repair, leaving it permanently damaged below 50% hull integrity. The other surviving destroyer gets its fire under control while the assault carrier repairs its maneuvering and combat control systems.

Turn 4

Recognizing that they can’t win, the sathar attempt to at least finish off the already damaged ships. To that end, the upper destroyer and 3 fighters go after the assault carrier. Though severely damaged, the destroyer manages to hold together (rolled 37 with a 30% breakup chance).  The assault carrier turns away from the battleship and accelerates as much as possible.  The other sathar destroyer, although it put its fire out, still has a problem with its navigation control system and pulls a turn to port. It also accelerates.

Defensive fire:

The UPF assault carrier and heavy cruiser fire defensively at the sathar fighters, using their ICMs to defend against the incoming torpedo, managing to destroy two of the three fighters. The battleship fires everything it can at the assault carrier causing significant system damage (all maneuvering, navigation control damage, half engine capabilities, and knocking out its ICM launcher) and some minor hull damage (20%). The UPF light cruiser and frigates fire long distance shots at the other destroyer but the shots all go wide.

The sathar fighter fires its final assault rocket at the UPF assault carrier knocking out that ship’s masking screen system. The sathar destroyer hits the assault carrier with its laser battery and a rocket battery but only causes minor hull damage (15% hull integrity reduction). The sathar assault carrier hits the UPF battleship with both of its energy weapons inducing a loss of navigation control and some minor (~6%) hull damage. However, that is enough to put the battleship below 50% hull integrity and with the navigation control damage, it could break up

At this point, I really thought we were going to loose the battleship. Especially when it takes even more damage as part of sathar defensive fire phase of this round. But that same destroyer saved the battleship as well. This is where the damage to all the ships combined with their high speed, really started to spread things out. Any of the ship staying in the fight (mainly the UPF light and heavy cruisers) I tracked on separate maps so they could loop around and come back in if the fight lasted that long.

The battleship, with its navigation control damage pulls a turn to port. Luckily its damaged hull holds together (rolled 24 on 14).  The frigates, unable to reach the assault carrier, go after the destroyer at the top of the map.  The light cruiser, with its limited maneuverability turns to try to come back around to the battle area.  The UPF fighters make a final run at the sathar assault carrier before turning to return to their assault carrier.  They also activate two more seeker missiles, one accelerates and slams into the remaining sathar fighter destroying it.  The second starts to go after the battleship but as the battleship flies away, turns its sights on the sathar destroyer.

Defensively the sathar assault carrier misses its shots at the UPF fighters while the sathar destroyer hits the battleship for another 5% hull integrity loss and knocks out all of its maneuvering. The sathar destroyer connects with the damaged UPF frigate knocking out some of its engines and nearly destroying it.

Two of the three assault rockets from the UPF fighters connect with the sathar assault carrier, one of which scores a critical hit and between the two of them reduce the carriers hull integrity by another 64%. The UPF frigates, assault carrier and heavy cruiser all fire at the remaining sathar destroyer at the top of the map connecting with multiple weapons and destroying it. The battle ship hits the destroyer at the bottom of the map with a laser and electron battery reducing its hull integrity by another 24%.

Start of the cleanup phase for the UPF. Click for full size image.

Turn 5

The two remaining sathar ships are heavily damaged.  The assault carrier just drifts away while the destroyer, with its navigation control system damaged pulls a hard turn to starboard and accelerates to speed 19.  It doesn’t break up from the strain.

Defensively, the battleship is the only ship in range and it opens fire on the destroyer hitting with all of its battery weapons damaging its combat control system and short circuiting its defensive systems, knocking out its torpedo launcher, reducing its maneuverability, and slightly damaging its hull (6%).

Offensively, the destroyer fires back at the battleship and hits with both its rocket battery and a torpedo (the battleship’s ICM launcher is damaged) which both damage the battleships hull and nearly destroy it. It has only 6% hull integrity left.

If the destroyer hadn’t knocked out the battleship’s MR, it would definitely have broken up from the strain of the turn this round.

The seeker missile reverses course and heads after the battleship and sathar destroyer, the undamaged UPF frigate turns and accelerates to speed 24 to chase after the sathar assault carrier.  The UPF heavy cruiser (off the top of the map) with no foreseeable danger to the damaged UPF assault carrier, turns and starts to pursue the sathar assault carrier as well. The light cruiser (off the bottom of the map) continues to slowly turn back to the combat area and the damaged battleship, frigate, and assault carrier just drift on their current course.  Finally, the fighters start to close with the assault carrier to board and rearm.

Defensively the assault carrier fires at the oncoming frigate but misses.  The destroyer takes its final shots at the battleship hitting with its laser battery. Unfortunately for the sathar, it only damages the battleship’s engines instead of damaging its hull.

Offensively, the battleship fires its final salvo, including a torpedo at the destroyer but only hitting with an electron battery damaging its engines and a proton battery knocking it out its rocket battery launcher .  The UPF frigate fires at the sathar assault carrier but doesn’t hit at the extreme range.

Chasing down the stragglers. Click for full sized image.

Turn 6

The sathar assault carrier continues to drift while the destroyer’s navigation damage causes it to pull to port and fly up toward the planet, its reduced maneuverablity reducing its chance of breaking up and spreading out its movement.  Defensively the frigate fires once again at the assault carrier, this time dialing in the range and hitting with both the laser battery (damaging the combat control system) and the laser cannon (16% hull integrity), nearly destroying the ship.  The assault carrier returns fire but misses.

The UPF frigate chases down the assault carrier and surviving the defensive fire (laser battery hit for 18% hull integrity), hits the carrier with its laser cannon for 20% hull integrity and a rocket battery knocking out is proton battery and destroying it.  The seeker missile continues to pursue the destroyer.

Main battlemap after an hour of combat. Most of the surviving combatants are off the map which has shifted down to keep the sathar assault carrier in view. Click for full size image.

Repair Turn 2

The two UPF frigates, assault carrier, and battleship all repair some of their hull while the assault carrier also repairs the short circuit in its defensive systems and the light cruiser restores complete maneuverability.

The sathar destroyer manages to repair 18% of its hull

Turn 7

The destroyer’s navigation control damage causes it to turn to port toward the light cruiser and it accelerates to continue to stay away from the seeker missile.  The light cruiser, its maneuvering repaired continues a wide turn to avoid the seeker as well, otherwise, it could have closed on the sathar ship.  The frigate turns after destroying the assault carrier, accelerating to chase after the destroyer.  No shots are fired.

The map has shifted up again and the UPF light cruiser is back in view. It would have been visible last turn except for the map shift. Click for full size image.

Turn 8

Continuing to accelerate, the sathar destroyer’s navigation damage turns it to starboard and it passes within 40,000 km of the light cruiser.  Defensive fire from the more distant frigate misses, but the light cruiser connects with its electron battery knocking out the destroyer’s masking screen.  The destroyer returns fire and hits with its electron battery knocking out the cruiser’s ICM launcher.

The seeker missile continues to chase the ships but can’t catch them at their high speed.  The light cruiser turns to run parallel to the sathar destroyer’s path.  The frigate loops around and comes up directly behind the destroyer and the heavy cruiser completes it large turn and comes in directly at the destroyer.

Defensively, the destroyer fires at the frigate as it closes but misses with everything.

The light cruiser can only fire it’s EB and misses.  The frigate fires its energy weapons (everything else is expended) and scores critical hits with both knocking out 52% of the sathar destroyer’s hull integrity (it only has 6% left).  The heavy cruiser opens up with all of its energy weapons but misses as well.

Final positions of the ships still in view at the end of the end of the fight. The UPF heavy cruiser, has managed to turn around back to the battle area. Click for full sized image.

Turn 9

Now severely damaged after the hits from the frigate, and with the navigation control damage causing it to pull to starboard, the strain on the sathar destroyer’s hull is too much and the ship breaks apart as the crew tries to save it.

Task Force Cassidine has won the day, and while most of the capital ships are damaged (the heavy cruiser is the only one unscathed), they have only lost 3 fighters and three assault scouts. The crews get to work immediately upon field repairs.

Final Repairs

The frigate still in the fight completes its repairs in another half hour and just needs a reload to be fully operational. An hour an a half later the light cruiser finishes its repairs. An hour after that the other frigate completes as much repair as it can, its hull is only at 73% integrity but the rest of the work is going to need to be done at a shipyard. Another hour and a half (4.5 hours after the battle ended) the assault carrier completes all of its repairs. Finally, 6 hours after the battle is over the battleship completes the repairs of all its systems except for its stasis screen which is going to require a work in a shipyard.

Lessons Learned

I was really surprised the UPF did as well as they did. I really thought the sathar were going to win this one or at least leave Task Force Cassidine gutted. From a purely hull point perspective, the sathar had the advantage 631 to 518. Some lucky damage rolls, like the seeker missile doing 76 HP to the heavy cruiser on round two, and bad rolls on the sathar’s side, definitely helped tip the scales in their favor.

The other problem was that the sathar just couldn’t manage to finish off the UPF ships. The UPF battleship, one of the frigates, and the assault carrier were all nearly destroyed. They all were down to single digit hull points during the fight. The sathar just couldn’t manage to get the killing blow in. Those low hull points were late in the battle (expect for the assault carrier) so eliminating the ships would not have made much difference in this fight but eliminating them would have definitely helped the sathar’s war effort later on. As it is, Task Force Cassidine is almost completely intact. They will have to replace some fighters and assault scouts, but that’s relatively easy compared to having to replace a battleship and assault carrier.

What did you think of this fight? What should either side have done differently? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Battle of Theseus – FY61.346

A lone sathar frigate, detected three days ago shortly after it entered the system was engaged today by two militia assault scouts. While one of the assault scouts was heavily damaged in the encounter, the militia ships eliminated the enemy vessel in a single assault run.

Speculation rages as to the origin of the sathar vessel. There are unconfirmed reports that Spacefleet has established routes outward from Theseus toward the Great Void. Could it be that the sathar are coming in along those routes?

Victoria Sorensen, StarPlay News

Background

A lone sathar frigate jumped into the Theseus system as part of an effort by the sathar to chart a route to the Frontier from the Liberty system.  Due to an alert that the ship was headed in that general direction from the forces of PG Liberty, the Minotaur militia was on alert and patrolling the system.  The frigate was detected by two of the militia assault scouts and they vectored to intercept.  Unable to jump out of the system before being caught, the frigate turns to fight the oncoming militia ships.  This battle occurs in deep space.

Order of Battle

Minotaur Militia

  • 2 Assault Scouts

Sathar

  • 1 Frigate

The Battle

Setup

The opposing forces enter from opposite sides of the map.  The militia are moving at speed 30 while the sathar frigate is moving at speed 20.  The militia are the attackers in this scenario and will move first.  The sathar are not necessarily trying to destroy the militia ships but rather escape the battle.

Initial positions of this fight. Click for full size image.

Turn 1

The two forces close with each other but no shots are fired.  The militia ships swing wide to flank the sathar and maintain their speed.  The sathar frigate changes course to go after the upper assault scout and uses its maximum acceleration but remains just out of laser canon range.

Initial closing movement. Click for full size image.

Turn2

The closer assault scout turns to avoid flying into range of the frigates laser cannon and loops around, remaining at speed 30 and ends in a position to fire its assault rocket at the frigate.  The farther assault scout accelerates to speed 34 and makes a pass at the frigate firing its assault rocket from the same position where the other assault scout ends its movement but flits out of torpedo range to end its move.

The frigate focuses its fire at the closer assault scout while firing all of its ICMs at the incoming assault rocket from that ship.  The laser battery hits for 8 HP of damage.  The ICMs are ineffective and both assault rockets slam into the sathar frigate.  The laser battery from the second assault scout also hits the sathar vessel. The combined damage from both ships obliterates the sathar frigate and that quickly the fight is over.

Final positions when sathar frigate is destroyed. Click for full size image.

Repairs

Unable to repair the hull damage, the wounded assault scout heads carefully back to Minotuar where it will enter the starship construction center for repairs.

Lessons Learned

The sathar should have matched the militia ships’ speed. Or at least started at speed 25. If it had, it could have brought at least its laser canon and laser battery to bear on the lone assault scout on turn 1 and possible even its rocket weapons (if it had started at speed 30). That would have significantly changed the outcome of the fight as it would have had another salvo at the militia and could have possibly eliminated one of the ships right away.

Once again this went faster than I expected. The damage rolls for the attacks were 18 and 20 HP for the assault rockets and 10 HP for the laser battery.  While I rolled well for the damage effects (all of the hits did hull damage which I wasn’t suspecting), I actually rolled really low on damage for the assault rockets as both of those were double damage rolls!  They should have done more on the order of 30 HP each.  But it was still enough.

The sathar have part of the route to the Frontier from Liberty mapped, but because of the misjump the frigate made, the route in not complete.

Building Print Editions of the Star Frontiersman

As I mentioned in the last State of the Frontier post, one of the projects I want to tackle is to make print versions of the Star Frontiersman issues available for those that want them.

Once upon a time, the first 17 issues were available with black and white interiors from Lulu. However, with the trademark kerfluffle a couple of years ago, WotC had Lulu take them down. I have copies of all of these (ordered in a batch just before they were no longer available) and they are okay, but being black and white, lack something compared to the full color PDFs.

Plus, I found that the page registration was lacking on several of them. This manifested by having the border not on the edge with a gap around them on some sides. I suspect that this registration issues are simply a by-product of the way Lulu does its printing. It uses the original PDFs with no bleed. That combined with the fact that it prints the pages oversized, binds them, and then trims the pages to size means that things like that are going to happen. I was just surprised by how bad it was in some cases.

At some level, that is neither here nor there as those versions are no longer available.

What I want to do is make full color versions (like the PDFs) available via print-on-demand through DriveThruRPG. Much like the issues of the Frontier Explorer. While there are several hurdles to making that happen, the biggest problem is that most of the original (non-PDF) files for the early issues have been lost due to hard drive failures or the person who had the files leaving the gaming scene and dropping out of contact. I have issues 9-11 (I edited those so I have the original files) and can get issues 19-25. But for the others, I just have the PDFs.

This is an problem because the files I need to supply to DriveThruRPG for print editions are different than just the regular PDFs. First, I need a separate file for the cover (front and back combinded) and then a file for the interior pages. Both of those need a “bleed” region where the images and border art extend beyond what would be the printed part of the page to handle minor variations in the printing process – those same registration issues I saw with the Lulu prints. PDFs are not designed for extensive editing and having the original files would make things easier.

And truth be told, if it weren’t for the border art on the pages of the Star Frontiersman, this wouldn’t be too much of an issue. I could just increase the page size and be done. Of course, that means there wouldn’t have been the noticeable registration issues in the Lulu printed ones either. But those borders are definitely a problem. In fact, that’s exactly why the Frontier Explorer doesn’t have page borders; I didn’t want to have to deal with this issue and we were planning on print-on-demand versions of the magazine from the very beginning.

Additionally, in the Star Frontiersman, those borders changed starting in issue 7 and the new border art looks like it extends off the edge of the page. Which would be great for the bleed. Except that the border was drawn to exactly fit the page, not factoring in bleed. It has been dealing with these borders that has been the biggest concern that has kept me from really getting started on this project for the past few years. Having the original files would make it not so daunting but working with the PDFs is not easy. However, issues 11 & 12 will be easy to do as we changed the border on those issues to a much simpler line border. This is because we had feedback from readers saying that they were printing out the issues at home and the complex, detailed border was using up a lot of ink. So we went with a simpler border. But the magazine reverted back to the complex border starting in issue 12 again. And in fact, some of you may have issues 11 and 12 with the complex border as Larry changed the border on those issues and re-uploaded the new version. I think the ones on DriveThruRPG have the more complex border while the ones on the magazine website have the simpler border.

Cover of issue 7 with full page cover image.

Another problem is that later issues of the Star Frontiersman, also starting with issue 7, had cover images that fill the entire cover. The first six issues had the cover images in a frame and just a solid blue color for the rest of the cover. This was really easy to extend to make a bleed region for printing the cover. For all the later issues, I need to try to find the original cover images (which were almost guaranteed to be cropped to fit the cover) so I can get the rest of the image for the bleed on the cover. Otherwise, I’m going to have to do something to extend the cover to give it a bleed region, possibly, just using a black region.

Those are the hurdles. And they are understandable as the Star Frontiersman was never conceived to be a printed product and was designed as a digital product. In fact, the first few issue were just something Bill whipped up to give to his players, they weren’t even originally designed for public distribution. To get the POD version, we’ll just have to work around these hurdles.

Getting Started

In November 2020, I decided to bite the bullet and see what I could do. I started by trying to tackle the first six issue of the magazine. As I mentioned above, the covers for issues 1-6 are nice in that they just are a solid blue that extends to the edges with the image in a frame. Making the POD file for the covers was easy enough. Using my 4K monitor, I rotated the cover sideways, put it in to full screen mode, and did a screen capture. This gave me a fairly high resolution image of the cover which I scaled to the correct resolution for the print file. I then just had to fill in a little bit of the blue color for the bleed (and a bit of black for the issue block). And then I was done. (I actually did that last, after figuring out the interior). Here’s what that file looks like:

Cover file that needs to go to the printer.

The interiors of those six issues are also the same (almost) but took a bit more work. The interior pages were designed to look something like a file folder with a hatched background. The challenge was to extend this hatching out beyond the original page edge for the bleed and have it line up a closely as possible. If I had the original files, I could probably just change the page size to include the bleed area, check that the images didn’t move, and be done (That’s what I do with the Frontier Explorer) as I suspect that they were just using a pattern as a background. Unfortunately I don’t, and working with just the PDF version was going to take a bit more work.

What I have to do is a multi-step process. First I have to increase the size of the pages in the PDF to be the correct size for the POD version and include the bleed region (which is 1/8th of an inch on the top, bottom, and outside edges). Then I have to add the content for the bleed. This will be done by adding a background to each page of the file that extends the hatching out to the edge. The left and right pages have the hatching going the opposite direction. Luckily, they are mirror images of each other (or, as it turns out, nearly so).

So the main task was to make a background image that I could drop in behind the existing pages that lined up with the existing hatching border. I started with doing a high resolution screen capture of a page of the magazine. I then imported that into GIMP, enlarged the image size to be the correct size for the bleed, and deleted all the content except the border and hatching. Finally, I used regions where the hatching was prominent to grab a pattern and replicated that all around the edges. It turned out it didn’t exactly line up in places which required a bit of tweaking but in the end I was able to get a pretty good image. I then mirrored it to get the background image for the facing pages. Here’s what they look like:

The background spread. These are actually two different images, show here together.

Finally I added the background into the expanded PDF pages. This is where I discovered that they weren’t exactly mirror images of each other but I was able to shift things to line everything up well enough. Remember, if all goes well, this bit that I’m adding will get cut off and you’ll never see it. It’s just there as a contingency.

I did all that for issue 1 and sent the files off to the printer. And then I waited. It took about two weeks for the print proof to come back. Looking over it, it all looked fine. I could see some small variations that I knew were from the bleed area but I could only really notice them because I knew exactly what I was looking for. But that justified the work because if I hadn’t done it, there would be a bit of white border around the edges of the page.

And I have to say, I like the color. Here’s a picture of the Lulu black and white version next to the new color version.

Issues 2-6

With issue 1 looking good, I started working on the other issues. That actually went fairly quickly. Using the hard won experience of getting issue 1 set up, it only took about 20 minutes to convert each of the other issues to create the interior files.

Until I hit issue 6. I had never noticed, but issue 6 has a different hatching scheme. Instead of the diagonal lines, it uses a grid. So I had to make a new background image. But again, I knew what to do here and resolved that in quick order. Here’s the background images with the new gird that I used for this issue:

Background images for issue 6.

Once the interiors for those issues were complete, I created the cover image files for each issue. Again, this was a fairly straightforward and easy process. The biggest problem here was the fact that each issue is larger than the one before and I had to grab a separate template file for each one and adjust the size of the area used for the bleed and, due to the way the file is set up for the printer, shift the position of the barcode box (and the exact position of the classified ads on the back cover).

Speaking of the classified ads, due to their size, there is always going to be a bit of the lower right one that is cut off by the barcode that the printer uses to identify the cover and match it to its interior. This is just another casualty of the fact that the Star Frontiersman was designed with printing in mind. Luckily the box is fairly small and doesn’t have a large impact.

Print Proofs

With everything done, I uploaded the files for issues 2-6 and ordered print proofs. Strangely, even though I ordered them all together, they only printed issues 2-5 and sent them out. Issue 6 got delayed for a while. After waiting a couple of weeks, the print proofs showed up.

The covers all looked good and issues 2, 3, & 5 looked good inside. But when I opened issue 4, I got a bit of a surprise.

The cover and interior of the issue 4 print proof. It’s the interior for a stretch goal from the 2013 Kickstarter for White Wolf’s Exalted game 3rd edition.

Somehow, they put the wrong interior inside my cover! Remember that barcode I talked about earlier. They print that on the cover and on the last page (which has to be black) of the interior and use them to match things up. In the case of this print, they don’t match. Something didn’t work and someone else’s interior got put into my cover and someone else got the Star Frontiersman interior in their cover. Oops.

The barcodes from the cover (left) and interior (right). As you can see, they don’t match. They do in all the other proofs.

By this point issue 6 still hadn’t shipped so I contacted DTRPG and they check on the status of issue 6 and got their printer to order me a new copy of issue 4. Issue 6 shipped a couple of days later and arrived just this week. I’m still waiting on the reprint of issue 4.

Available for Order

I had planned on posting this last week but was still waiting on the print proof of issue 6 to arrive. Now that it has, I’m making the first six issues available on DriveThruRPG. I haven’t gotten the corrected proof of issue 4 yet but given that the others look fine, and the error seems to be a mix-up of the printing process and not a problem with my files, I’m not too worried about it.

If you want printed copies of the Star Frontiersman, just head over to the Star Frontiersman page on DriveThruRPG and select the issues you want. Like the PDFs, these are pay what you want. The difference is that the minimum is not free (as it is for the PDFs), but the “at cost” price to print the book (i.e. no money to me, just to the printer). These issues range in price from ~US$3.75 to ~US$7.00. The exact price depends on where you are in the world (inside or outside the US as the print prices are a little different) and the page count of the magazine. Issue 6 is about the same size as an issue of the Frontier Explorer and so costs about the same. Some of the later issues are much larger, and so are going to cost more.

Also, I recommend you order as many as you can at once to save on shipping. At least in the United States, where I’m at, it costs basically the same to ship one issue as it does to ship five. In either case it’s about US$5.00 using media mail. I can’t speak for other shipment options or foreign shipping but I suspect it’s similar.

Going Forward

There are more hurdles for the remaining issues as I’ve mentioned. My plan is to work on these off and on over the coming year to make them available. As I do, I’ll post notices here that you can get them.

Once all the individual issues are up, I may go back and do omnibus editions that combine the individual issues into larger volumes. But that is something that will have to wait at least until 2022.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.294 to FY61.325

A new year and here’s the recap of the details happening in the Frontier over the past month.

The beginning of the month was the final battle of the initial sathar foray into the Frontier. There could have been a couple more but the sathar, being significantly outgunned, decided to fall back and retreat. Another sathar starship construction center joins the war effort and this month sees a lot of repositioning of ships as well as reclaiming control of the Liberty system. The sathar are getting ships into position for another major push in the coming month.

Early in the month, I started reporting all the movement of ships in and out of the UPF starship construction centers as Spacefleet took control of their operations. By mid-month, I realized that was a little much and scaled it back only reporting ships completed or started for Spacefleet and the militias. All the commercial construction and maintenance will not be mentioned.

Date (FY)Events
61.295– The HSS History’s Hope safely arrives in YS06 and begin working on a jump to the YS07 system.

– The CMS Osprey arrives back at Clarion and is quickly admitted into the shipyards for repair.

– TF Cassidine jumps into the K’aken-Kar system and begins decelerating toward Ken’zah-Kit.  Once again they won’t make the initial engagement arriving a few days too late.  However, they are determined to stop the sathar here if PG Meteor and the militia ships cannot.

– 15 HS of space opens in the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine). Spacefleet starts construction on another light cruiser to finish filling the holes in their ranks and allows the Truane’s Star militia to begin construction of a final assault scout.
61.296– With the loss of the Liberty system, and the massive losses in the initial foray into the Frontier, sathar forces and production from SCC#10 are committed to war effort against the Frontier.  This adds 9 fighters, 3 FF, 5 DD, 3 LC, 2 HC, and 2 AC to the sathar roster in addition to the SCC’s production capacity.

– The CMS Osprey emerges from the Clarion shipyards fully repaired and ready for action once again.  A small HS:4 yacht is moved in the SCC for maintenance.

– Battle of Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) – The sathar obliterate the station with a single concentrated barrage but then are quickly destroyed by the combined UPF and militia forces.  Besides the station, only a single militia assault scout was lost with damage to three other ships that will require time in a shipyard to repair.

– Sathar SCC#4 (OFS111) completes construction of a new frigate.

– Realizing that SF Nova will reach New Pale in time for the battle, and having a nearly 2:1 hull disadvantage against SF Nova, PG Virgo, and the remaining Truane’s Star militia, SBF-E2 reverse course and start plotting a jump back to Zebulon.

– 12 HS of space opens up in the CDC SCC (Triad, Cassidine).  Construction is begun on two new assault scouts to replace those lost by the Kizk-Kar militia.  The remaining space is given over to a HS:6 ship for annual maintenance.

– 22 HS of space opens up in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar).  With Spacefleet’s immediate needs being met, they move two HS:11 ships in for maintenance.
61.297– SF Nova arrives in orbit around New Pale.  The crew spends the day resting from their hard trip as they watch the sathar begin to fall back.  The remaining ships of PG Virgo are absorbed into the Strike Force.

– The White Light militia jumps back to their home system and begins deceleration toward Clarion.

– The UPF minelayer jumps into the Fromeltar system and begins decelerating to join up with the militia forces holding that system.

– With the loss of SBF-C1 in the K’aken-Kar system, and recognizing that they are out gunned by the UPF forces there, SBF-B2 does not jump to K’aken-Kar but begins decelerating back toward Kawdl-Kit in the K’sta-Kar system.

– With its engines repaired, SF Nova’s assault carrier, together with its four surviving fighters, begin a high-speed jump to catch up with the main group.  At the same time PG Virgo’s carrier, leaving its 3 fighters behind, begins a transit back to Prenglar.

– The newly constructed sathar frigate at SCC#4 (OFS111) begins a transit to SCC#5 (OFS019)

– SBF-J1 (1 AC, 1 HC, 2 LC, 1 DD, 1FF, & 8 fighters) departs SCC#10 and begins a high-speed transit that will eventually take it to K’sta-Kar.

– SBF-J2 (1 HC, 1 LC, 3 DD, 2 FF) departs SCC#10 and begins a high-speed transit to the Liberty system.

– 8 HS of space opens in the Hentz (Araks) SCC for a total of 9 HS of open space.  A small HS:9 freighter is moved in for maintenance.

– SBF-E1 jumps back into the Kazak system.  They do not slow down and start plotting a jump back to SSC#5 in the OFS019 system.

– An additional 13 HS of space opens in the Hentz (Araks) SCC.  A HS 11 mining ship is moved in for annual maintenance.
61.298– After rearming the ships in the K’aken-Kar system, TF Cassidine and PG Meteor begin accelerating for a jump to the K’sta-Kar system to confront SBF-B2 or drive it out of the system.

– The damaged ships (a frigate & assault scout from PG Meteor and the surviving K’aken-Kar assault scout), designated Repair Group (RG) One are ordered to Fromeltar for repairs. They begin accelerating for a jump to Kizk-Kar.

– 13 HS of space opens in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar).  A HS:12 ship is moved in for maintenance.
61.299A small group of 8 civilian privateer vessels, hailing from the yazirian worlds of the Frontier and calling themselves the Yazira Squadron, arrive in orbit around Morgaine’s World (Prenglar) and request permission to assist Starfleet in the fight against the sathar.
61.300– The HSS History’s Hope arrives in the YS07 system and begins decelerating toward the inner system.  Back at the last system explored, they plan to spend a few days resting here before starting to chart new routes toward their destination.

– SBF-E2 jumps back into the Zebulon system and starts decelerating toward Volturnus.

– SBF-B2 settles back into a high orbit around Kawdl-Kit (K’sta-Kar).

– SBF-E1 jumps back into the OFS019 system and begins decelerating toward the starship construction center there for repairs.

– 8 HS of space opens in the PGC shipyards in Gran Quivera (for a total of 9 HS of space available).  A HS:9 ship is moved in for maintenance.
61.301– Worried that since the sathar have a route into Prenglar they may also have one to Gruna Garu, Spacefleet sends the Yazira Squadron back to Gruna Garu to bolster the defenses there.

– With the sathar mostly on the retreat at the moment, and based on the success of the fighters and assault scouts in the recent engagements, Spacefleet announces the creation of the Frontier Fighter Corps with a plan to station multiple squadrons of fighters in every system of the Frontier.

– As the first step of implementing the Frontier Fighter Corps, all currently available space in the Type I and II shipyards around the Frontier are used to start construction of new fighters.  At the moment that means 2 are started in Hentz (Araks) and 2 in Minotaur (Theseus).
61.302– The White Light militia arrive back in orbit around Clarion.

– The UPF minelayer arrives in orbit around Terledrom, joining up with the Fromeltar and Dramune militias.

– SF Nova’s Assault carrier jumps into the Dixon’s Star system and starts working on calculations for the jump to Truane’s Star.  The carrier leaving PG Virgo also arrives in the system and starts working on calculations for the jump to Prenglar.

– The lone sathar frigate jumps into OFS110 and begins calculations for a jump to OFS022.

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

– SBF-J2 jumps into the OFS177 system and begins calculations for a jump to the Dayzer system (OFS178).

– Sathar SCC#5 (OFS019) completes construction of a cutter.
61.303– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS169 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS167 system.

– Task Force Cassidine and PG Meteor jump into the K’sta-Kar system and begin decelerating toward the sathar forces orbiting Kawdl-Kit.

– RG One arrives in the Kizk-Kar system and begin engine overhauls and plotting a jump to Fromeltar.

– 11 HS of space open up in the Triad (Cassidine) SSC.  Work is begun on 11 fighters for the newly formed Frontier Fighter Corps.  There are complaints that over half the SCC’s capacity are being used for Spacefleet but Spacefleet points out that some of that usage if for planetary militias as well.

– Deciding not to wait any longer, two HS:6 ships under construction in the Pale SCC (Truane’s Star) are moved out of the shipyard by Spacefleet to make room for the damaged light cruiser.
61.304– The crew of the HSS History’s Hope start working on the next jump in their journey to a small red dwarf star.  It’s a long one, just under 12 light years long jumping a big void of stars in this region of space.  They designate their target system YS08.

– Detecting the inbound UPF forces, and recognizing that they are still outgunned, SBF-B2 decides to abandon K’tsa-Kar. They break orbit from Kawdl-Kit and begin accelerating to jump out of the system.

– 13 HS of space opens up in the Hentz (Araks) shipyard.  Two HS:5 ships are moved in for maintenance and work begins on constructing 3 new fighters.

– 4 HS of space opens up in the Clarion (White Light) shipyard and a small HS:4 ship is moved in for maintenance.

– The sathar SCC#10 (OFS174) completes construction of a fighter.
61.305– SF Nova’s assault carrier jumps into the Truane’s Star system and begin deceleration toward the rest of the Strike Force.

– The lone sathar frigate jumps into OFS022 and begins calculations for jump to OFS018.

– SBF-E1 arrives back at SCC#5 (OFS019) and is disbanded.  The work halts on the heavy cruiser currently under construction and the damaged frigate and destroyer enter the shipyard for repairs.

– 6 HS of space opens up in the CDC SCC (Triad, Cassidine), with another 17 HS opening up tomorrow, the space is held to allow some larger ships to move in for maintenance.

– 9 HS of space opens in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) SCC.  With RG One only a few days away, the space is held for those ships so that battle repairs can begin immediately when they arrive.
61.306– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS167 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS166 system.

– SBF-J2 jumps into the Dayzer system (OFS178) and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS179 system.

– 11 HS of space opens in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar).  Spacefleet begins construction of 8 fighters and an assault scout using the available space.
61.307– The lone sathar frigate jumps into OFS018 and begins calculations for jump to OFS019.

– The damaged sathar destroyer under repair at SCC#5 (OFS019) is finished and emerges from the shipyard ready for battle.

– SF Nova’s assault carrier arrives in orbit around Pale and rejoins the fleet.  It collects the fighters left by PG Virgo as part of its compliment.

– The assault carrier from PG Virgo arrives back at Morgaine’s World (Prenglar).  The crew is debriefed on their trip to the Rim and recent battle at New Pale (Truane’s Star).

– After four days of round-the-clock work by the engineers from the Pale SCC and SF Nova, the light cruiser emerges from the Streel shipyards fully repaired and ready for action.  The two ships that were moved out to make room resume construction.
61.308– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS166 system.  Upon arrival, their orders are changed, and they are ordered to proceed to SCC#3 (OFS138) instead of heading into K’tsa-Kar.  They begin plotting a jump to OFS157.

– RG One arrives in the Fromeltar system and begins deceleration toward the shipyards at Terledrom.

– Task Force Cassidine and PG Meteor arrive in orbit around Kawdl-Kit, much to the relief of the planet’s populace.

– The damaged sathar frigate under repair at SCC#5 (OFS019) is finished and emerges from the shipyard ready for battle.  The damaged heavy cruiser is moved in to begin the extensive hull repairs it needs.
61.309– SBF-J2 jumps into the OFS179 system and begins calculations for a jump to the Liberty system (FS30).

– SBF-B2 jumps into the FS33 system and begins decelerating.

– After two days rest, the assault carrier at Morgaine’s World (Prenglar) is ordered to Triad (Cassidine) to await completion of the first fighters for the Frontier Fighter Corps and then to shuttle them to the Kizk-Kar system.  It is designated Shuttle Group (SG) Alpha.

– 18 HS of space opens in the Hentz (Araks) SCC.  A HS 14 ship is moved In for maintenance.  Another fighter is started for Spacefleet and the remaining space is held for an upcoming ship maintenance.
61.310– Jump calculations complete and verified, the HSS History’s Hop starts accelerating for the jump to YS08.

– Yazira Squadron arrives back in the Gruna Garu system where they join up with the local militia to coordinate the defense of that system.

– Strike Force Nova, together with the remaining ships of the Pale militia, leave Fortress Pale and begin accelerating toward the Zebulon system to engage the sathar forces now orbiting Volturnus.
61.311– The lone sathar frigate jumps into OFS019 and begins decelerating toward SCC#5.

– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS157 system and begin calculations for a jump to the OFS156 system.

– With the sathar apparently gone from the system, PG Meteor is ordered to the Kizk-Kar system where they will be supported by the fighters being delivered by SG Alpha and joined by their flagship, the battleship Admiral R’kazk’tar which will be completed in 33 days.
61.312SBF-J2 jumps into the Liberty system and begins decelerating toward Snowball.
61.313– PG Liberty and the Mhemne belters detect the sathar ships that have arrived in the system.  An alert is immediately sent out to Spacefleet alerting them of the sathar presence.

– RG One arrives at the Terledrom shipyards (Fromeltar).  The militia assault scout and UPF frigate are immediately moved into the shipyard to begin repairs.

– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS156 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS155 system.
61.314– SBF-B2 arrives in the inner system of FS33 where they await orders from the sathar high command.

– Recognizing that they are no match for the inbound sathar forces, PG Liberty, with the assistance of the Mhemne belters, go into hiding in the Liberty system to watch the sathar’s movements.  Evacuations begin immediately on the L4 and L5 stations.

– Receiving the alert from PG Liberty, the Theseus militia ships in the White Light system depart Fortress Redoubt and begin accelerating for a jump home.
61.315– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps into the YS08 system.  They begin decelerating toward the inner system and working on engine overhauls.

– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS155 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS150.

– SF Nova and the Pale militia jump into the Zebulon system and begin decelerating toward Volturnus and the sathar forces.

– The K’akan-Kar militia assault scout completes its repairs in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) SCC.  As it emerges the UPF assault scout is moved into its place.
61.316– The sathar frigate arrives at SCC#5 (OFS019) joining up with the other ships there.

– SBF-J2 arrives in orbit around Snowball and finding the L4 station abandoned settle back into the berths there. 

– Detecting SF Nova, SBF-E2 decides to avoid engagement and departs Volturnus and begins accelerating for a jump to the Kazak system.

– PG Meteor jumps into the K’aken-Kar system and begins working on calculations for the jump to Kizk-Kar.

– The UPF frigate and assault scout complete their repairs in the Terledrom shipyard and emerge once again ready for combat.  A HS:6 ships is moved in for maintenance and Spacefleet begins construction of 3 fighters.
61.317RG One, now fully repaired, departs Terledrom for the Kizk-Kar system.  The  Spacefleet vessels will remain in that system to await the arrival of the rest of PG Meteor while the militia ship will return to its home system.
61.318– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS156 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS146 system.

– SG Alpha arrives in orbit around Triad (Cassidine) just in time to pick up the five fighters completed in the CDC shipyards.  The fighters are taken aboard the assault carrier which prepares to depart for the Kizk-Kar system the next day.  Construction begins on five more fighters.

– After two days in the Liberty system, with no indication of any UPF presence, the heavy cruiser and 3 destroyers of SBF-J2 split off (now SBF-J3) and begin accelerating for a jump back to OFS179 leaving the light cruiser and 2 frigates in the system.
61.319– Arriving at the inner system of YS08, the crew of the HSS History’s Hope begin working on calculations for the return jump to YS07.

– Taking several days longer than expected, the damaged sathar heavy cruiser emerges from SCC#5 (OFS019) fully functional once again.  The hull of the heavy cruiser whose work was paused is moved back into the shipyard to resume construction.
61.320– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS146 system and begins calculations for a jump to SCC#3 (OFS138).

– SF Nova arrives and settles into orbit around Volturnus (Zebulon).

– PG Meteor arrives in the Kizk-Kar system and begins decelerating toward Zik-Kit.

– SBF-E3 (1 C, 1 FF, 1 DD, 1 HC) departs SCC#5 (OFS019) for a jump to Kazak to join up with SBF-E2.
61.321SBF-E2 jumps into the Kazak system and begins decelerating toward Stenmar.
61.322– RG One arrives in the Kizk-Kar system and the Spacefleet vessels start decelerating toward Zik-Kit while the militia assault scouts remains at speed and prepares for a jump back to its home system of K’aken-Kar.

– A fighter for the Frontier Fighter Corp is completed in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) and construction begins immediately on another.
61.323– The Theseus militia arrive back in orbit around Minotaur.

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

– SBF-J3 jumps into the OFS179 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS168 system.

– One of the sathar frigates in the Liberty system begins accelerating out from the inner system and appears to be on a course to jump to the Waller Nexus system. It is designated EG-1. PG Meteor could intercept from their hiding place in 2 days.

– Detecting the outbound sathar frigate, PG Liberty notifies Spacefleet and are told to let it pass but take it out if it returns to the system.
61.324– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS138 system and begins deceleration toward SCC#3.

– PG Meteor arrives in orbit around Zik-Kit (Kizk-Kar).

– A UPF fighter is completed in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards and construction begins immediately on another.
61.325– Calculations complete, the HSS History’s Hope stars accelerating for the jump back to YS07.

– SBF-E2 arrives in orbit around Stenmar (Kazak).

– SBF-E3 jumps into the Kazak system and begins decelerating toward Stenmar and SBF-E2.

Here’s the full timeline PDF for download:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload

State of the Frontier – Dec 2020

You may have noticed that I didn’t have a post last week. I think that was the first weekly post I’ve missed since I started the blog. The truth is, I just didn’t have anything ready to write about, nor the time to generate anything. Hopefully you were too busy with the holidays (like I was) to really notice or miss it.

I don’t do yearly retrospectives in these updates so looking back will only be December. However, given some of the things that happened this month, looking forward will take a bit longer view than just January. Read on.

Looking Back

As I already mentioned, I missed last week’s post. That said, I still managed to get four posts up (this one makes five) this month. It’s just that one of them was the off-schedule battle report post of the Battle of Ken’zah-Kit. We started the month with the usual Detailed Frontier Timeline post which I followed up with some musings on the Second Sathar War triggered by all the work I’ve been doing on that in the the timeline. I then posted the first part of a series with videos showing how I make my ship deck plans as I work on the deck plans for the HSS History’s Hope.

And that was it on the blog front. The reason for that is that there has been a lot going on behind the scenes.

First and foremost, I changed jobs mid-month. Now instead of being an Adjunct (part-time) Professor at the local university teaching an occasional computer science class and working full time as a software developer at NASA, I’m now an Assistant (full-time, tenure-track) Professor at the university and only part-time at NASA. Making that transition (I’m no longer working from home), plus the holidays, has severely cut into my free time this month and I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to work on game related topics. I’m still getting my schedule sorted out and figuring out when I have time to schedule my various activities.

What time I did have was put primarily into the next issue (#31) of the Frontier Explorer. I’ve edited most of the articles and will finish those up this week and get the preliminary layout done so we can figure out what art is still needed. Once again, I had more things scheduled for the issue than will fit so we’re already well on our way to having all the content for issue 32.

Another chunk of time was spent on the timeline. With the aftermath of the battles last month and this, there was a bunch of logistical things I had to track and work through for the timeline and that ate up a bunch of time.

The other thing that happened is that I started looking at the Star Frontiersman magazine again. Ever since Bill Logan passed the magazine off to me, I’ve had two things I’ve wanted to do. The first is bring it back to life, probably on an annual or semi-annual basis filling the pages with adventures, kind of like TSR’s old Dungeon magazine. Looking over the magazine submission queue, there are several adventures in there and it may be time to kick that project off.

The second is that I’d like to make print versions of the Star Frontiersman issues available for those that want them. The first 17 issues used to be available in black and white from Lulu but with the trademark kerfluffle a a couple of years ago, WotC had Lulu take them down. I want to make the full color versions (like the PDFs) available. The problem is that for most of those back issues, I only have the PDF files, not the original documents, and the format needed to make the print version is not just the PDF that currently exists. I started to go into an explanation of the issues involved but realized I should save that for a separate post and do it proper justice. The short version is that I managed to get proper print files for issues 1-6 ready and sent off. I’ve received the print proof or issue 1, which I did first, and am happy with it. I’m just waiting on the other five. This project sucked up the remaining free time I had this month (including some time I probably should have spent on the Frontier Explorer).

Looking Forward

On the blog, there will definitely be another Detailed Frontier Timeline post next week, and toward the end of the month, three more battle reports (which I still need to play out the battles for). I also hope to finish the History’s Hope deck plans and post those and the associated videos. Beyond that, I don’t know what other posts, if any are coming. It’s really going to depend on what I end up working on.

The other thing that is definitely coming out this month is the next issue of the Frontier Explorer and the print-on-demand editions of the first six issues of the Star Frontiersman. I haven’t missed an issue of the Frontier Explorer since we started in 2012 and don’t plan on starting now. That will always get my #1 priority slot. And the Star Frontiersman issues are just waiting on the print queue and shipping. Once they arrive and I can look them over, I’ll make them available.

Over the past month or two, I’ve been thinking a lot about what projects I want to work on going forward and what that will mean for this blog.

For the past half year or so, I’ve felt really pressured to try and get an article out each week even when it hasn’t been something I really wanted to work on for focus my time on. When I started the blog, I also launched my associated Patreon campaign. I originally promised one post a month but later decided to try to get a weekly post out as a way to generate interest and Patreon supporters even though a weekly post was way down on the goals list. But I felt that a more frequent and regular posting schedule would be helpful in growing my readership and patronage. And I was was able to keep it up for over 2.5 years. However, I think going forward, I’m going to dial back my posting a little bit.

I’ll continue to have the Detailed Frontier Timeline posts on the first Tuesday of each month, and I’ll continue to do these State of the Frontier posts on the last Tuesday of each month. In between that though, I think I’ll be posting on a more sporadic basis as I finish projects and/or have progress to report. I also might start doing more small announcement type posts when I learn about other things going on or have something to mention. But that begs the question of what will I be working on beyond the Detailed Frontier Timeline.

First, I want to finish up the deck plans of the HSS History’s Hope and produce a Technical Manual for the ship. That should be good for at least two posts. One, which I hope to have ready by the end of the month, on the rest of the decks, and a second giving more details about the ship in general, maybe with more detailed room descriptions. Then there will be an announcement post when the final Technical Manual is available.

Second, I want to get back to my 3D modelling. Both finishing up the recreations of the miniatures from the Privateers boxed set that TSR created, and making new ships of my own design. I’m going to start with the Privateers. If I can manage to get one done each month, that will get me through to June. When I get to my own designs, they may or may not come with deck plans. I’d like to Technical Manuals for each one but may shift to a lighter “spec sheet” version that doesn’t go into quite as much detail as my Technical Manuals but still provides game data on the ships.

Third, and related to the modeling effort. I have a new starship construction system nearly complete (it has been for a long while) that I want to finish and make available. I’ve posted excerpts from this in the past and really need to just finish it and get it out there. My plan is to base all the miniature designs of my own creation on ships created with this system.

Fourth, I want to finish the Death at Rosegard and Ghost Ship Osiris adventures that I started when I began this blog. I’ll probably start with Death at Rosegard as that one is mostly done, I just need to stitch it all together. Then I can tackle Ghost Ship Osiris. The latter was put on hold as Bill wasn’t really doing anything with FrontierSpace. However, with Trevor Holman’s FrontierSpace adventures coming out (that I edit for him), and Bill starting to get things going again with FrontierSpace, it’s time to finish that one up as well.

Finally, I want to get back to writing. I’m 75,000+ words into a first draft (probably about a quarter done) of a Star Frontiers novel and have an outline for the sequel to my book Discovery. I’d like to start spending more time on those as well. I’m not sure how much of the writing will show up in the blog until I get toward later drafts and have excerpts I can post, but it’s something that I will be spending time on.

Final Thoughts

Things are going to look a little different going forward, but hopefully there will still be plenty of content for you to enjoy. What types of material would you be interested in seeing that I haven’t mentioned already? Or what aspects of the mentioned projects would you be interested in seeing me write about here? I’m always open to suggestions.

I want to end this post with a big thank you to all those who have supported me on Patreon over the years. You have really helped to keep this blog going. If you are already a supporter, thank you again. If you’re not a supporter, consider helping out.

HSS History’s Hope Deck Plans – part 1

This is going to be a two-parter, mainly because I haven’t finished all the deck plans. The reason is that instead of just drawing the deck plans, I decided to record myself doing so and make a set of how-to videos about how I make the deck plans, similar to what I did for drawing the Rosegard maps (part 2, part 3, part 4) a couple of years ago. But because of that, I haven’t had a chance to record all the videos with everything going on. This post will provide links to the maps and videos I have finished, and the next one (hopefully sometime next month, I hope to record the rest over the Christmas break) with provide the rest of the decks.

All of the maps are drawn at 140 DPI or 70 pixels per grid square which is exactly the size needed for Roll20 and most virtual table tops.

Getting Started/Cargo Deck

The first video shows the set up of my drawing environment and then we draw the first/lowest deck on the ship, the cargo deck, which is also the simplest. Here’s the video:

Here’s the final map for the Cargo Deck.

Cargo Deck map. Click for full-size image.

This map is fairly simple, there is the elevator and ladder well, the main cargo bay, and two smaller sealed cargo bays on the right side. These smaller rooms have secure doors that can be locked. There is the main cargo bay doors at the bottom of the map. These open downward to form a loading ramp to get into the cargo bay if landed on a planet’s surface.

Crew Deck

There are two videos for this deck. The first one fixes some minor issues with the cargo deck and then gets to work on the crew deck. The second one adds in the portholes for the deck.

This is actually the deck plan for five different decks on the ship as they are all the same except the Officer’s Deck which has a ceiling access to the bridge deck. Here is the final map for these level.

Officer Deck. The only difference between this and the other decks is that the dashed square (which represents the access to the bridge) is absent on the other decks. Click for full-sized image.

Once again the deck is fairly simple, consisting of four nearly identical cabins, with one being slightly smaller due to needing to access the ladder well.

Each cabin has a bed, desk, table, several chairs, wardrobe and private bath.

Science and Exploration Deck

This is the final deck for this installment. This is the deck that houses all the exploration equipment (atmoprobes, remote probes, landing drones), the ships laboratory, a small lifeboat and workpod, and the hydroponics and life support system.

And here’s the deck plan.

Science and life support deck. Click for full-sized version.

You may notice that this deck looks a bit different than the end shot in the video. As I mentioned in the video, I forgot about the life support machinery when I was drawing it. I’ve gone back and fixed that mistake.

The missile silhouette is the atmoprobes, the are two of them, one on top of the other, The two bays on the left with nothing drawn in them are the landing drone (top) and remote probe (bottom) bays. The area on the right is the laboratory and the large area at the bottom is the hydroponics bay (left) and life support machinery (right).

This deck changed the most from my original sketches due to the creation of the 3D model. You may notice that the three bays at the top “stick out” from the the basic shape of the ship. As I was making the model and working on the hull, I found that there was more space available given the angular shape I gave the hull. So I was able to extend these bays out instead of having them take up space from the hydroponics and life support area and still be within the sloped edges of the hull. You can see the cutouts for these bays doors on the model.

Final Thoughts

There are only three maps here but they actually represent 7 of the 12 decks in the ship so on some level, I’m over half done. This is a short post, although if you watch the videos, you’ve got a bit more than an hour and a half of viewing ahead of you.

I had hoped to finish all of the deck plans but I’ve been crazy busy this month (among other things I start my new position as a computer science professor today) and just haven’t had the time to dedicate to this project as I’d like. So I decided to do this post for today and finish up the other ones in a future post.

Thoughts on the Second Sathar War

Obviously, as I’ve been playing through the battles and coordinating the movements of the UPF and sathar forces for the Detailed Frontier Timeline, the events and conditions surrounding the Second Sathar War have been on my mind. A lot.

While the rules in the Knight Hawks Campaign Books are really geared around a balanced war game, I’ve been porting the scenario over more to the RPG side and looking at it from that perspective. In this post, I thought I’d collect some of the ideas I’ve had along the way. The topics are not necessarily connected or in any particular order but all relate to the how the Second Sathar War would impact or play out in the Frontier. So let’s get started

The Rim

I already mentioned this in one of the battle reports, but I’m not really considering the Rim in my narrative beyond the two battles I’ve already reported. I’ve never sat down and worked out the starship construction capabilities of the Rim, the order of battle for the Flight (the Rim’s version of Spacefleet), or any of those logistical considerations.

When I set this scenario up, literally decades ago, I didn’t have a copy of Zebulon’s Guide so the Rim was never in my considerations. Since I’m really just playing out that setup from so many years ago, and I never did the background work necessary for the Rim, they just weren’t part of the plan. I’m really just assuming that their fortunes go the same as in the Frontier.

Civilian and Megacorp Ships

I think handling these other Frontier ships is the biggest issue that moving this from a war game over to the RPG side of things needs to consider and I’m not sure how I’m going to address it completely yet.

In looking at starship construction based on the listed starship construction centers in the Frontier, I’ve estimated that without any changes to the SCCs, there are probably about 2300 ships flying around the Frontier, which is probably low. But let’s use that number to start.

There are 23 worlds in the Frontier (including Volturnus), so if you just divide those ships out, that’s about 100 ships per world. That probably shifts around a bit, for example, Laco, in Dixon’s Star, is an outpost world with very low population, so it probably doesn’t have as many ships. Neither would Volturnus. And the more heavily populated worlds probably have a little more. Morgaine’s World in Prenglar is also an outpost but since that’s the home of Spacefleet, I give them just as many ships as at least a medium population planet and say that those are all the Spacefleet ships.

Plus there are the ships that the megacorps own. We know that Streel and Pan Galactic have military ships, it stands to reason that WarTech and CDC do as well and I even gave some to Trans Travel in my timeline. So some fraction of those 2300 ships are going to be military vessels owned by the megacorps. All of which could do some damage to sathar ships invading a system.

Finally, and what I really want to focus on, is that given that piracy is a concern for ships in the setting, even the “non-military” ships are going to be armed to some extent or another, even if it is just a laser battery or three on any ship HS 6 or larger.

Let’s assume for a minute that every ship in the Frontier has at least a laser battery. Now some won’t have any weapons but others will have more than one so it probably all averages out. What happens if 50 of these ships decide to not sit idly by while Spacefleet dukes it out out with the sathar but join the fight?

First, lets just look at the “average” hull damage done by a laser battery. On the damage table, there is a 10% change of double hull damage, a 35% chance of regular hull damage and a 55% chance of damaging some other system. The laser battery does 1d10 damage for an average of 5.5 hull points of normal damage and 11 points when double damage is called for. Multiplying that out by the percentage that they occur means that on average, ignoring the damage from system hits, a hit by a laser battery does 3 HP of damage (11 points 10% of the time, 5.5 points 35% of the time and 0 points 55% of the time).

At an average of 3 HP of damage per hit, 14 hits kill a frigate, 17 kill a destroyer, 24 kill a light cruiser, 25 kill an assault carrier, and 27 kill a heavy cruiser. Do you see where this is going?

The next question is how often do these laser batteries hit? The base “average” chance to hit with a laser battery is 50%. But since laser batteries suffer from range diffusion, it’s only that high if the ships are within 10,000 km (1 hex on the game map) of each other. Getting that close means that the sathar can use their rocket batteries and torpedoes against you if they want and since these are civilian ships, we’ll assume they try really hard to stay out of the range of those weapons. So they shoot from 50,000 km (5 hexes) away and have a chance to hit of only 25%. Which means that the average laser battery shot, factoring in the miss rate, does a little over 0.75 HP of damage any given round.

That doesn’t seem like a lot, but remember that is an average taking into account of all the probabilities and that is per ship. So let’s look at those 50 ships. If you take 50 ships, each doing ~0.75 HP each time they fire, you have a combined damage output of 37-38 HP. And since the laser battery can fire both offensively and defensively, that doubles to about 75 HP each round of combat. That’s enough damage to take out any single ship expect a heavy cruiser.

And the truth is, that there is a good chance that the HP damage output is actually larger. We have 100 shots (50 ships, 2x each) at 25% to hit. So 25 of those shots hit the target. 11.25 (45%) of those do hull damage while the other 13.75 (55%) do system damage. But if the system damage results calls for a hit on a system already destroyed, you get hull damage instead. Some of those system hits are going to shift over to the hull side and increase the damage. (I really should write a program to analyze this and get the actual numbers.)

The bottom line is that in any give turn, that swarm of civilian ships could take out any one large sathar ship, two frigates, or a swarm of fighters.

From the sathar side, there is really nothing you can do about this. You are looking at 25-50 targets (depending on how you distribute the laser batteries), each with 30 or more HP, and taking out 2 or 3 each round is not going to make much difference in their damage output. They will overwhelm you with sheer numbers. Death by a thousand cuts.

This is something that the war game doesn’t have to deal with but which will definitely come into play in an RPG-level look at the conflict. Maybe the civilian and mega-corps ships won’t get involved. But if their worlds are threatened, I don’t really see them not stepping up, at least a good number of them. And what if Spacefleet calls for a 3rd Common Muster? (There has to be something in the UPF charter about that.) Then they will be involved. The sathar are going to need more ships.

Starship Construction Centers

In the war game, ship construction and replacement is very abstracted. Every 20 days, the UPF get 2 fighters and/or assault scouts for each fortified station on the map and a capital ship for every fortress. The sathar just have a base 35% chance to replace every ship lost in the previous 20 days.

A big part of this project for me was to see how using the starship construction rules, combined with the distribution of UPF starship construction centers, and giving the sathar some SCCs as well, would play out in the logistics of what ships were available for combat. I knew this would drag things out as you couldn’t replace ships that quickly but wanted to see what would actually happen. We’ll find out as this plays out.

But, as the first battles have been fought, and the UPF is looking to replace ships, I started really looking at the distribution of the SCCs in the Frontier. Until now I had just taken them for granted and not though much about it. And for the most part, the type of construction center and its location make sense for the SCCs described in the book. Analyzing that (and maybe reorganizing them) may be another post in the future. But three of the SCCs stood out as a little odd. Let’s look at those from least troublesome to most (in my opinion).

Clarion (White Light)

This is a Type III SCC which means it can have up to 20 hull sizes (HS) of ships under construction but they cannot be military vessels and cannot have atomic drives.

To me, this feels a little bit odd. White Light is the nexus for jumps to four different systems so it’s a major hub system (and the only access to Theseus). Maybe because it is the setting for the Warirors of White Light adventures but it seems to me that there should be a more major construction center here.

However, with the Type II center just a system away in Theseus, and the fact that the main output of the planet is resources, not industrial products, maybe having a small shipyard is okay even if the planet does have a high population and is a major crossroads.

Outer Reach (Dramune)

Like at Clarion, the Outer Reach shipyard is a Type III SCC. There are a couple of things that stand out for me here.

One is the lack of an SCC at Inner Reach. Given the animosity between the two worlds, which is part of the canon background material before you even factor in the events of the Dramune Run module, and the fact that animosity has erupted into fighting in the past, if Outer Reach has a SCC, I would expect Inner Reach to have one as well. I don’t see them being willing to wait for ships to come in from Fromeltar or Cassidine, they would want to be able to build them themselves.

The other issue I have is the SCC class. As a Type III SCC, this shipyard is not supposed to have the capability to produce military vessels or ones that use atomic drives. But since this world is the home of a major crime syndicate, and supplies and supports pirates, I see this shipyard as where many of those pirate vessels, which are assault scouts, corvettes, and frigates, are created. Thus the shipyard can obviously handle military class vessels and atomic drives and should really be a Type II.

Because of this, for the Second Sathar War, I’m classifying this shipyard as a Type II-s (the s is for small). It can still only handle 20 HS of ships total like a Type III SCC, but like a Type II, can build ships with atomic drives and military ships up to HS 6 (i.e. destroyers).

Pale (Truane’s Star)

This is the one that baffles me the most. The rules say that this is another Type III shipyard. Pale is classified as a medium population, which tends to indicate a smaller shipyard, but its main economies are industry and resources, which would lend itself to ship building and therefore a larger SCC. Having a Type III SCC here just doesn’t make sense to me for a couple of reasons.

First, everyone knows that the sathar have a jump route into the Frontier that goes through Truane’s Star. This was the locus of the First Sathar War that resulted in the founding of the UPF. Spacefleet has a fortress here, it would stand to reason that there should be a good shipyard to build up ships here as well.

Second, and more important to me, this is the world where Streel is headquartered. We know they make ships, the corvette is designed by them, and they have a number of ships to fight against the ships of the Pan Galactic Corporation in the corporate wars. Assuming the shipyard at Gran Quivera (Prenglar) is owned by PGC where they have their headquarters, and the one at Triad (Cassidine) is owned by the Cassidine Development Corporation where they have theirs, if the #1 and #3 megacorps have Type I SCCs, then the #2 megacorp should have at least a Type II shipyard, If not a Type I. It’s a matter of corporate pride and sustainability. I mean, if they don’t have their own shipyard, PGC and CDC could just deny building them ships and they’d have to travel even farther afield to Hentz or Fromeltar to get ships build. It just doesn’t make sense.

I’m leaving it as a Type III SCC for the Second Sathar War in the timeline, but if I ever revisit the SCC distribution in the Frontier, I think Pale will be getting a bigger one.

Other Thoughts

It seems I had one more item that I wanted to talk about but it is slipping my mind at the moment and I didn’t write it down when the idea occurred to me to write this post a week or so ago. If it does come back to me, I’ll have a topic for a future post.

Overall, the sathar did not fare too well in their initial foray into the Frontier. In fact, if this was just the war game, they may very well have lost the game as I believe every retreat condition that the sathar players could have chosen have been met. Although if I was using those retreat conditions, I probably would have set things up a little differently and made a few different choices. However, I’m not using those conditions directly and the sathar have another wave of ships coming later this month. After that, however, it might be a while as they rebuild their forces.

This post has given me the idea for a few other posts that may show up in the future. The first looking at the distribution of starship construction centers in the Frontier (and probably the Rim) and another looking at the average damage output by the different ship types. The third one would be a look at exactly what is in the UPF Charter. We’ll see when or if those actually materialize.

Have you ever tried to incorporate, in detail, the Second Sathar War into your campaign? What assumptions did you make and what ideas did you incorporate? What other ideas should I consider? Let me know in the comments below.

Battle of Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) – FY61.296

Arriving from the recent engagement in the K’tsa-Kar system, the local militia ships, together with elements from Spacefleet arrive back at Ken’zah-Kit just as the sathar arrived at the planet. Arriving just too late to prevent the destruction of the fortified defense station in orbit, the militia and Spacefleet vessels made quick work of the sathar invaders, destroying all five ships in just twenty minutes of fighting.

While several ships will need time in a starship construction center to complete repairs, the only loss, beyond the station, was one of the militia assault scouts which was lost with all hands.

With Task Force Cassidine in-system and only three days out, it feels like Ken’zah-Kit is secure for now.

Rak’tal-ka, StarPlay News

Background

The UPF forces had wanted to engage the sathar in deep space, but having jumped in on the opposite side of the system, they were only able to intercept the attacking forces as they approached the planet. The frigate UPFS Flying Cloud, which has been on a continuous high speed transit from the Liberty system before the fighting started, finally joins up with the rest of PG Meteor just a day before the sathar are engaged. Task Force Cassidine is also in the K’aken Kar system. However, they just jumped in a day ago and are too far away to participate in this fight.

With Task Force Cassidine coming in behind them and the militia and PG Meteor ahead of them, the sathar have to fight and intend to take on the smaller group first, hoping to defeat them and then join up with SBF-B2 that is currently en route from the K’tsa-Kar system before taking on the UPF task force.

While the UPF have more ships, the sathar have a slight hull advantage in this fight.  It was supposed to be a tough fight for the UPF forces.

Order of Battle

K’aken-Kar Militia

  • 2 assault scouts
  • 1 fortified station

UPF – PG Meteor

  • 3 assault scouts
  • 1 frigate
  • 2 destroyers

Sathar

  • 1 frigate
  • 2 destroyers
  • 1 light cruiser
  • 1 heavy cruiser

The Battle

Setup

The station is on the side of the planet facing the invading sathar forces and orbiting counterclockwise.  With both fleets racing to intercept and coming directly from jumps into the system from opposite directions, they are starting on opposite sides of the map. The K’aken-Kar militia and PG Virgo are coming in fast on the left side of the map moving at speed 30.  The K’aken-Kar militia assault scouts are high above the planet with the UPF assault scouts are below the planet. The frigate and destroyer are flying in formation in the middle and come in just above the planet.

The sathar, moving fast at speed 25, appear in their standard diamond formation headed straight at the station and planet.  They intend to make a fast run at the station before engaging the smaller ships.

Initial positions for the battle. Click for full size image.

Turn 1

The sathar maintain their speed making a full frontal assault on the station, veering off just 20,000 km away to avoid colliding with the planet and turn toward the UPF capital ships and the militia.

Defensively, the stations fires all of its weapons at the closest sathar destroyer hitting with its laser batteries knocking out the destroyer’s masking screen launcher and causing an electrical fire. It also fires all of its ICMs at the salvo of incoming torpedoes.

Offensively, the sathar fire every weapon they have at the station. The UPF and militia forces can only watch helplessly as 17 of the 26 weapons fired, including 3 torpedoes that made it through the ICM screen, connect with the station and obliterate it.

Angered by the destruction of the station, the Frontier forces swoop in to exact their revenge. The UPF assault scouts use their maximum acceleration and swing up from below the planet to fire at the lower destroyer. The militia assault scouts line up for an assault rocket run at the sathar frigate and then veer off behind the planet, accelerating to speed 34. The frigate and destroyers slow to speed 29 to just come within rocket battery range and fire on the sathar heavy cruiser; they turn away from the planet at the last moment to prepare to fire at the sathar ships as they fly by.

Defensively, the sathar frigate and light cruiser fire their energy weapons at the militia assault scouts, each targeting a single ship, and their rocket batteries at the UPF frigate. The other three ships target the lead UPF destroyer. The sathar frigate misses completely but the light cruiser connects with its laser battery and electron battery damaging the assault scout’s engines and causing a loss of navigation control. It also hits the frigate with the rocket battery knocking out its laser cannon. The other sathar ships don’t do much better with the far destroyer and heavy cruiser missing completely while the closer destroyer only hits with its electron battery shorting out the UPF ship’s defensive systems.

While the gunners on the sathar vessels were not very effective, the same cannot be said for the gunners on the Frontier ships. The militia ships hit with one laser battery and both assault rockets destroying the sathar frigate. Similarly, the UPF assault scouts hit the lower destroyer with a laser battery and two assault rockets destroying that vessel. The UPF capital ships fare nearly as well. While the torpedoes didn’t make it through the screen of ICMs fired by the heavy cruiser, the large ship was still hit by a rocket battery from the frigate and each destroyer hit with their laser cannon, laser battery, and a rocket battery. Combined, the damage from the weapons disabled the cruiser’s distruptor cannon, damaged its engines, knocked out its maneuvering, and seriously damaged it, leaving it’s hull integrity at a mere 26 percent.

Courses and positions after the first round of combat. Click for full size image.

Turn 2

Seriously damaged, the sathar heavy cruiser just drifts away from the battle firing at the UPF frigate as it passes.  The light cruiser and surviving destroyer loop around the planet (speed 25 and 26), buzzing the UPF capital ships and firing their torpedoes at the lead destroyer. They then train all of their energy weapons on the militia assault scouts and fire their rocket batteries at the UPF assault scouts.

Defensively, the UPF frigate fires at the heavy cruiser and connects with its laser cannon, cutting the large ship’s remaining hull integrity by over half but not quite destroying it. The UPF destroyers fire at the remaining sathar destroyer only missing with a rocket and laser battery. The weapons that do hit knock out the destroyer’s electron battery before ripping its hull to shreds. The assault scouts all fire at the light cruiser and two of the UPF assault scouts hit knocking out the light cruiser’s laser batter and causing significant hull damage with maximum damage laser battery hit (20 HP).

Of the weapons brought to bear, only the heavy cruiser’s electron battery misses the UPF frigate with the torpedo slipping through the ICM screen. The frigate has its damage and navigation control systems comprised and its hull severely damaged, knocking its hull integrity down to just 32 percent. The torpedo from the light cruiser misses the UPF destroyer, but it hits the trailing militia assault scout with it’s proton battery and distruptor cannon destroying it. It also hits one of the UPF assault scouts with the rocket battery knocking its hull integrity down to less than half.

The 3 UPF Assault scouts chase after the Heavy cruiser while the destroyers and surviving militia assault scout go after the light cruiser.  The UPF Flying Cloud (frigate) with a damaged navigation control system, pulls a hard turn to starboard, looping around the planet.  It manages to hold its damaged hull together and not break up from the strain of the maneuver.

The heavy cruiser fires at the incoming assault scouts but only hits one with a laser battery knocking its hull integrity to just 33 percent. The light cruiser fires at the militia assault scout hitting with an electron battery knocking out half of the small ship’s hull integrity. It fires its rocket battery at the lead UPF destroyer but misses.

The UPF assault scouts hit the heavy cruiser with 2 of their assault rockets finally destroying the larger vessel. The other ships combine their fire on the light cruiser hitting with 2 laser canons, a laser and rocket battery, and an assault rocket and torpedo. The torpedo took out the cruiser’s proton screen but the other weapons all ripped into its hull destroying it.

Final moves and positions. The heavy cruiser and assault scouts are an additional 8 hexes off the map with the assault scouts veering of at a range of 4 hexes after making their assault rocket attack. Click for full size image.

Repairs

The UPF frigate manages to hold together after another hard turn to port and then gets its navigation control issues fixed despite its reduced damage control capabilities. Over the next 3 hours it repairs the rest of its systems but can only get its hull to 75% without spending time in a shipyard. The militia assault scout repairs some of it’s hull but only gets it back to 66% before running into issues that will require a shipyard. The UPF assault scout hit by the heavy cruiser repairs most of its hull but has a little (13%) that needs attention in a shipyard. The other assault scout and the damaged destroyer get all their systems back online in under an hour.

Lessons Learned

This one didn’t go anything like I expected. With the ships staring out on the opposite sides of the map, I knew the sathar would get a free round on the station. I expected them to take out the station (it was a primary target) but maybe not as spectacularly as they did (170 of 140 HP with three weapons, including 2 torpedoes, doing double damage).

From there everything went pear shaped for the sathar. Their tactics were actually pretty sound but their gunners couldn’t hit to save their lives (literally). The sathar light cruiser gunners did just fine, constantly hitting their targets but the other ships, beyond hitting the station, were not so accurate. This really didn’t help the sathars’ cause as they were unable to eliminate the assault scouts and suffered a few more assault rocket hits than they would have liked.

That, combined with the absolutely amazing firing from the UPF, both just in accuracy in hitting and also some well-placed double-damage rolls on the first round (two AR for 34 HP each on the frigate and destroyer, a LB hit for 14 HP on the destroyer, and a RB hit for 34 HP on the heavy cruiser), destroyed two of the sathar ships and seriously wounded a third right off the bat shifting the balance of power to the UPF. Had those ships survived that first round, the UPF would have probably still won but the casualty list would have been much higher. The rapid destruction of the ships on round one allowed the UPF to focus their fire on round 2 and keep the engagement short.

The incoming SBF-B2, being a just slightly larger version of the fleet destroyed here (an extra destroyer plus an assault carrier with 7 fighters) doesn’t have a chance against the combined forces of Task Force Cassidine (which is roughly the same strength, substituting a frigate, 3 assault scouts and a battleship for the three sathar destroyers), PG Meteor, and the surviving militia assault scout. The sathar are going to have to reasses their strategy.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.265 to FY61.294

This months sees the opening battles of the Second Sathar War. Maneuvers and engagement from this conflict overshadow nearly everything else happening in the Frontier as everyone watches the events unfold.

It is this conflict that I originally started this timeline to track so it will be heavily focused on the events of the battles and how the sides react for the next little while. Also things get really busy so there are a lot of entries every day this month. I think there are only 2 or 3 days that don’t have at least two entries and toward the end when the invasion starts, it’s rare to have a day with less than 5 or 6 entries. Links to battle reports on all the ship engagements are linked in the timeline.

On day 61.280, the arrivial of Strike Force Nova in the Prenglar system on the same day as the sathar fleet was pure coincidence. I had planned out the maneuvers of SF Nova separately from the sathar movements without consulting between the two. I was completely surprised when they ended up jumping in on the same day.

Settle in. This one is a bit of a read.

Date (FY)Events
61.265– After eight days of exercises with the crews of Fortress Kdikit, SF Nova departs Kdikit (Madderly’s Star) for a jump to Triad (Cassidine).

– PG Virgo arrives in the Zebulon system and begins work for the jump back to Pale (Truane’s Star).
61.266– Sathar Fleet SBF-C1 (1 HC, 1 LC, 2 DD, & 1 FF) departs SCC#3 (OFS138) and begin accelerating for a jump to the OFS137 system.

– PG Liberty arrives at Snowball (Liberty) and joins up with PG Lancet.  The assault scout in PG Lancet is transferred to PG Liberty, with the UPFS Flying Cloud (frigate), UPFS Eleanor Moraes, and UPF Backdoor (sathar scout ship) remaining attached to PG Lancet.
61.267– The SF Meteor destroyers arrive at Lossend (Timeon).

– The CMS Osprey arrives back at Clarion.  The ship is immediately put into the starship construction center for maintenance, repairs, and refits while the crew is given some much needed leave.
61.268– Sathar Fleet SBF-B1 (1 HC, 1 LC, 2 DD, & 1 FF) departs the rendezvous point in OFS167 and begins accelerating for a jump to the OFS166 system.

– The HSS History’s Hope and escorts jump into the OFS222 system.  They begin work on engine overhauls and jump calculations for the YS01 system.
61.269– The SF Meteor destroyers depart Lossend (Timeon) and begin accelerating for a jump to the White Light system.

– After three days debriefing the commander of PG Liberty and introducing him to the Mhemne contacts, Captain Reider and PG Lancet depart Snowball (Liberty) for a jump back to the Waller Nexus system and a high speed transit to Minotaur (Theseus).
61.270– Sathar Fleet SBF-A1 (2 HC, 2AC, 1 LC, 4 DD, 2 FF & 14 fighters) departs SCC#1 (OFS203) and begin accelerating for a jump to the FS12 system.

– PG Virgo arrives in the Truane’s Star system and begins decelerating toward Fortress Pale (Pale, Truane’s Star).
61.271-= Sathar Fleets SBF-E1 (1 HC, 1 LC, 2 DD, & 1 FF) and SBF-F1 depart SCC#5 (OFS019) and begin accelerating for a jump to the Kazak system in the Rim.

– Sathar fleet SBF-C1 arrives in the OFS137 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to OFS136.
61.272– Sathar Fleet SBF-D1 (1 HC, 1 LC, 2 DD, & 1 FF) departs SCC#4 (OFS111) and begins accelerating for a jump to the OFS020 system.

– The HSS History’s Hope and escorts jump into the YS01 system.  They detect transmissions from several other ships in the system.  Hoping to avoid a confrontation, they begin work on engine overhauls and jump calculations for the YS02 system.
61.273Sathar fleet SBF-B1 arrives in the OFS166 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to FS33.
61.274– Sathar fleet SBF-C1 arrives in the OFS136 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to FS56.

– Strike Force Nova arrives at Triad (Cassidine).  They will spend just 2 days in the system exercising with Task Force Cassidine before heading back to Morgaine’s World (Prenglar).

– PG Lancet arrives in the Waller Nexus system.  They immediately begin work on overhauling the ships’ engines and plotting a jump to Padda.
61.275– Sathar fleet SBF-A1 arrives in the FS12 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to Prenglar.

– Another small fleet of sathar ships, consisting of 2 LC, 3 DD, & 1 FF, designated SBF-F2 arrive at SCC#5 (OFS019) from deeper in sathar controlled space.

– PG Virgo arrives at Fortress Pale (Pale, Truane’s Star).  The crews are given a week of leave while the ships go into the starship construction center for repairs and maintenance.
61.276– Sathar fleets SBF-E1 and SBF-F1 arrive in the Kazak system.  SBF-F1 begins decelerating toward the inner system to engage the Rim forces there.  SBF-E1 maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to Zebulon.

– Sathar fleet SBF-B1 arrives in the FS33 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to K’tsa-Kar.

– SF Nova leaves Triad (Cassidine) for a jump to Morgaine’s World (Prenglar)
61.277– Sathar fleet SBF-D1 arrives in the OFS020 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to Fromeltar.

– Sathar fleet SBF-C1 arrives in the FS56 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to Kisk-Kar.

– The sathar fleet (SBF-F1) decelerating toward Stenmar (Kazak) are detected by Rim forces in the system (10 F, 3 AS, 2 FF, 2 DD, 1 LC), alerts go out to systems in the Rim and the Frontier.

– Just hours before the engine overhauls are complete and the HSS History’s Hope is ready to jump once again, the ship and her escorts are attacked by three unidentified vessels. 

– A running battle ensues as the escorts attempt to screen the HSS History’s Hope long enough to make the jump. In the ensuing fight, one of the escort vessels is destroyed along with two of the attacking ships. The last attacker manages to get a hit in on the History’s Hopes engines but it is not enough to stop the ship and it slips into the Void.

– After the HSS History’s Hope jumps out of the YS01 system, the remaining escorts ships finish off the final attacker.  After the fight, the escorts repair what damage they can and begin heading back to Scree Fron for repairs.
61.278– Now in the YS02 system, the crew of the HSS History’s Hope works on repairing the battle damage to their ship and preparing for the next leg of their journey, a jump to the YS03 system.

– The 2 destroyers arrive at Fortress Redoubt (Clarion, White Light).  They join with the other ships of PG Meteor which now consists of the two destroyers and 3 assault scouts.

– With the alert from the Kazak system, PG Virgo’s maintenance is fast tracked and the crews are recalled from leave after only 3 days.
61.279PG Lancet makes the jump to the Padda system.  Work begins immediately on the engines and calculations for the jump to Minotaur (Theseus).
61.280– Sathar battle fleets appear in five different Frontier system within hours of one another and most begin decelerating towards the inhabited worlds in those systems.  SBF-A1 arrives in the Prenglar system, SBF-B1 arrives in K’tsa-Kar, SBF-C1 arrives in Kizk-Kar, SBF-D1 arrives in Fromeltar, and SBF-E1 arrives in Zebulon.

– Unlike the other sathar fleets, SBF-E1 doesn’t slow down in Zebulon but prepares for a jump to the Truane’s Star system.

– Due to the alert sent out by forces in the Kazak system, these fleets are detected within hours of their arrival in system.  Alerts are broadcast all across the Frontier.

– Task Force Cassidine, leaving its minelayer in the Cassidine system, departs on a high-speed risk jump to Dramune.

– PG Meteor is dispatched on a high risk run to reinforce the armed station at K’tsa-Kar as there is no militia in that system.  The Clarion Royal Marines (1 FF, 4 AS) join PG Meteor.

– The two ZKKDA assault scouts, currently in K’aken-Kar also depart on a high risk run to the K’tsa-Kar system per the defense agreement.

– Both of the planetary militias of Dramune independently agree to make a high speed risk jump to the Fromeltar system to assist with the defense of that system, hoping to stop the sathar before they can get  any further into the Frontier.

– Strike Force Nova arrives in the Prenglar system within hours of the sathar fleet appearing.  They begin decelerating to engage the sathar fleet simultaneously with Task Force Prenglar.

– Sathar Fleet SBF-B2 (1 HC, 1 AC, 3 DD, 1 FF, 7 F) departs the rendezvous point in OFS167 and begins accelerating for a jump to the OFS166 system.
61.281– Battle of Stenmar (Kazak) between Rim forces (1 LC, 2 DD, 2FF, 3 AS, 10 F & 1 fortified station) and SBF-F1.  The sathar forces are completely destroyed and the Rim only lose 1 LC, 2 DD, and 1 AS with the station severely damaged. Word of the victory is broadcast across the Rim and Frontier.

– PG Lancet jumps back into the Theseus system and is dissolved. The UPFS Eleanor Moraes and UPFS Backdoor break off from the group and start decelerating toward Minotaur.  The UPFS Flying Cloud remains at velocity and starts working on the jump to White Light.

– The last of the ships of PG Virgo emerge from their maintenance in the Streel shipyards (Pale, Truane’s Star).  The crews go on high alert as they monitor the sathar progress across the Frontier.  While cheered by the news of the Flight’s victory in Kazak, they mourn the loss of friends made while stationed in that system.
61.282– The sathar forces from the Sauria system arrive back at their base, SCC#10 (OFS228) where they stand down to effect repairs from the recent campaign.

– Sathar fleet SBF-E1 jumps into the Truane’s Star system and begins decelerating toward Pale.  The Truane’s Star militia, along with PG Virgo, prepare to meet them.

– Task Force Cassidine successfully jumps into the Dramune system, they maintain the high speed and start working on a risk jump to Fromeltar.

– The Dramune militias successfully jump into the Fromeltar system and begin decelerating toward Terledrom, the apparent destination of the sathar forces in that system.

– PG Meteor and the White Light militia successfully jump into the K’tsa-Kar system and begin decelerating toward the planet and sathar forces approaching it.

– The ZKKDA assault scouts also successfully arrive in the K’tsa-Kar system and race to join the fight.
61.283– Sathar Fleets SBF-E2 (1 HC, 1 AC, 1 LC, 1 DD, 1 FF, & 8 fighters) and SBF-F2 depart SCC#5 (OFS019) and begin accelerating for a jump to the Kazak system in the Rim.  After the initial loss in the Kazak system, the sathar commit their 4 new cutters to SBF-F2 to boost the strength of that fleet.

– Deciding that PG Liberty can provide advanced warning if sathar start to come from that direction, the Theseus militia, together with the remaining saurian forces in Theseus, begin accelerating for a jump to the White Light system.
61.284– The HSS History’s Hope jumps to the YS03 system and begins preparations for a jump to YS05.

– Sathar fleet SBF-B2 arrives in the OFS166 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to FS33.

– TF Cassidine makes the jump to the Fromeltar system and begin a hard deceleration.  They won’t arrive in time for the initial battle but can engage any sathar forces remaining in the system if the militias cannot successfully hold the line.
61.285– Battle of Zik-Kit (Kisk-Kar) – Overwhelmed by the forces of SBF-C1 the two militia assault scouts and the armed station are destroyed with only minimal damage to the sathar vessels.

– Battle of Terledrom (Fromeltar) – The combined militias of Dramune and Fromeltar quickly overwhelm the sathar forces in an intense 20-minute battle. The only loss is the Inner Reach destroyer with the 2 Outer Reach destroyers sustaining heavy damage.

– Battle of Kawdl-Kit (K’sta-Kar) With some amazing gunnery by the UPF and militia forces, the sathar fleet is reduced to scrap in just 20 minutes.  However, before they are destroyed, they manage to obliterate the armed station orbiting Kawdl-Kit.  No UPF or militia forces were lost although the CMS Osprey sustained some hull damage that will require a shipyard to repair.

– Battle of Gran Quivera (Prenglar) – Approaching cautiously due to the expected minefield, the sathar’s slow speed limits their maneuverability and they are overwhelmed by the combined forces of TF Prenglar and SF Nova in less than an hour. The UPF only lose 2 F, 5 AS, 1 DD, and 2 LC in the battle. Several other ships will require shipyard repairs.
61.286– The UPFS Flying Cloud jumps into the White Light system.  It maintains its high speed while performing engine overhauls and jump calculations to get to K’sta-Kar and join up with PG Meteor.

– The CMS Osprey leaves Kawdl-Kit and begins accelerating for a jump back to the shipyards orbiting Clarion. The White Light SCC has space for up to a HS 4 ship so space is held for the Osprey.

– A HS 8 freighter completes its annual maintenance at the Terledrom SCC giving a total of 12 HS of space in the SCC.  The two Outer Reach frigates are immediately admitted for repairs.

– Orbiting high above Zik-Kit the sathar ships spend the day rearming but make no move toward the planet. All UPF and militia ships that were in battles the previous day also spend the day rearming and checking that all systems are ready to go.

– With the militias in control of the Fromeltar system, Task Force Cassidine immediately starts calculations and acceleration for a jump to the K’izk-Kar system.
61.287– Sathar fleet SBF-B2 arrives in the FS33 system.  It maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to K’tsa-Kar.

– Battle of New Pale (Truane’s Star) – Sathar target the smaller UPF vessels to great effect destroying 5 fighters, 6 AS, and 1 LC while only losing a DD & LC.  While their remaining ships are damaged, so are the remaining UPF vessels which are unable to purse as the sathar break off the fight.

– After finishing what battle repairs they can, the remnants of SBF-E1 start accelerating for a jump to the Zebulon system.

– SBF-C1 leaves orbit around Zit-Kit (Kizk-Kar) and begin accelerating for a jump to the Kaken-Kar system.

– Spacefleet now has several damaged ships in need of immediate repair and a need to replace ships lost in battles with the sathar. However, there is no space in most SCCs across the Frontier and especially in Prenglar.

– Given the state of the Frontier’s starship construction centers, and expecting things to get worse, Spacefleet addresses the Council of Worlds and requests that the Wartime Construction Control clause of the UPF charter be invoked.  A relic of the original charter, it has never been invoked in the history of the UPF.

– Receiving word of the departure of SBF-C1, PG Meteor and the K’aken-Kar militia, now rearmed, begin accelerating for a jump to the K’aken-Kar system to meet the on-coming sathar forces.
61.288– Sathar fleets SBF-E2 and SBF-F2 arrive in the Kazak system.  SBF-F2 begins decelerating toward the inner system to engage the Rim forces there.  SBF-E2 maintains its high speed and begins calculations for a jump to Zebulon.

– Shortly after their arrival in the Kazak system, the sathar fleets are detected and an alert is sent out.  The Rim forces brace for another battle.

– Space clears in the Outer Reach (Dramune) SCC and construction starts on a new Destroyer for the Inner Reach militia.

– Space clears in the CDC shipyards orbiting Triad (Cassidine), Spacefleet convinces the shipyard managers to start construction of 5 fighters and another assault scout, preempting the regular construction schedule.

– One of the Outer Reach frigates completes its repairs in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard freeing up 5 HS of space. 
61.289– Receiving the alert from Kazak, Spacefleet realize they only have 10-11 days to reinforce Truane’s Star.  Replenishing SF Nova’s order of battle with ships from TF Prenglar, but having to leave the damaged assault carrier and its fighters behind, it begins a high risk jump to Dixon’s Star and then on to Truane’s Star.

– Betting that Cassidine is safe, the third UPF Minelayer is ordered to Fromeltar.  It begins accelerating for a jump to Dramune as the first leg of its trip.

– Realizing that there is still enough room in the Outer Reach (Dramune) SSC, Spacefleet gets construction started on a new assault scout before anything else can be moved in.

– The second Outer Reach frigate completes its repairs in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard freeing up 5 more HS of space.  As HS 10 mining ship is moved in to the shipyard for its annual maintenance.
61.290– Two-day end of year celebration on Hum begins. With the events currently happening in the Rim and Frontier, the celebrations are more subdued than normal.

– The HSS History’s Hope arrives in YS05 and begin preparations for the jump to YS06.

– Overhauls complete, the UPFS Flying Cloud jumps into the K’sta-Kar system.  It remains at high speed working on calculations for a jump to K’aken-Kar with the rest of PG Meteor.  It will be just a day behind them.

– More space opens up in the CDC shipyards (14 HS worth). However, having just bumped six ships ahead in the queue for Spacefleet, they resist efforts to start more military construction giving the space to a large freighter that has been waiting over a month for its annual maintenance.

– Space opens up in the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards (6 HS worth).  The Theseus government starts construction of a new destroyer for the militia although they suspect the hull will be assigned to Spacefleet.

– Space opens up (4 HS worth for a total of 6 free) in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) SCC.  The Terledrom government alerts Spacefleet of the availability and starts construction on 2 assault scouts, one for Spacefleet and one for the militia.

– Space (8 HS) opens up in the PGC shipyard at Gran Quivera (Prenglar) as a freighter completes maintenance. After the recent battle, shipyard owners are more than happy to hold the space for Spacefleet. The damaged assault scout and frigate are moved in immediately and begin repairs.

– TF Cassidine jumps into the Kizk-Kar system.  They don’t slow down but immediately begin working on engine overhauls and calculating a jump to  K’aken-Kar.
61.291– Sathar fleet SBF-E2 arrives in the Zebulon system.  They don’t slow down but begin immediate calculations for a jump to the Truane’s Star system.

– Sathar fleet SBF-B2 arrives in the K’tsa-Kar system and starts decelerating toward the White Light Militia ships there. PG Meteor and the K’aken-Kar militia are less than 10 hours from jumping out of the system when the sathar are detected.

– Realizing that the K’aken-Kar militia will suffer the same fate as the K’izk-Kar militia if they return to face the sathar alone, PG Meteor continues with them for the jump to K’aken-Kar.

– SF Nova jumps into the Dixon’s Star system.  Working feverishly on overhauls to the assault scouts’ engines, they begin calculating the jump to Truane’s Star.

– The UPF assault scout and frigate complete their hull repairs after a single day in the PGC shipyard (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) and return to active duty.

– Another 6 HS of space open up in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) for a total of 16 HS of space available.  The damaged assault carrier is moved into the shipyard to have its engines repaired.

– Realizing that they cannot withstand the incoming sathar force, the White Light militia starts plotting a jump back to their home system. They delay departure, however, acting as bait and hoping to draw SBF-B2 deeper into the system so they don’t jump immediately after PF Virgo or straight to White Light.
61.292– SBF-C1 jumps into the K’aken-Kar system and begins decelerating toward the planet.

– PG Meteor and the K’aken-Kar militia jump into the K’aken-Kar system and begin decelerating to meet the sathar.

– The Theseus militia, along with the second saurian Ark Ship arrive in orbit around Clarion (White Light).  The saurians join their sister ships in orbit while the Theseus militia confers with the Clarion Royal Marines and Fortress Redoubt to establish defensive plans.

– SBF-E1 jumps into the Zebulon system and establish contact with SBF-E2 relaying full details of their encounter.  They start working on a jump to Kazak System and then back to SCC#5 (OFS019) for repairs.

– The UPF assault carrier’s engines complete their repairs.  With 16 HS of space available at the PGC shipyards, Spacefleet begins construction on a fighter, an assault scout, and a light cruiser.
61.293– Second Battle of Stenmar (Kazak) – seriously outgunned, the Rim forces are nearly all destroyed with only a single fighter surviving.  They manage to take out a sathar light cruiser and cutter before being overwhelmed.

– The UPFS Flying Cloud jumps into the K’aken-Kar system. It remains at high speed to catch up with the rest of PG Meteor and will execute a hard deceleration to match speed with the group when it does.

– Having succeeded in drawing SBF-B2 into the K’sta-Kar system, the White Light militia, reluctant to abandon Kawdl-Kit, begins acceleration for their jump home.

– Seeing the White Light militia start to leave the system, SBF-B2 changes course and start accelerating for a jump to K’aken-Kar to join SBF-C1.

– The UPF minelayer jumps into the Dramune system.  It doesn’t slow down but begins calculations for its jump to Fromeltar.

– Space (5HS) opens up in the Hentz (Araks) shipyards. It is not immediately filled as there is a larger ship waiting on maintenance.
61.294– SBF-E2 jumps into the Truane’s Star system and begin decelerating toward New Pale.

– SF Nova arrives in the Truane’s Star system just hours after the sathar.  Unfortunately, they arrived much farther out in the system than anticipated.  They begin a fast run and hard deceleration toward New Pale in order to arrive before the sathar forces.

– Seeing more and more sathar ships arriving in the Frontier, the Council of Worlds stops blocking the activation the Wartime Construction Control (WCC) clause in the UPF Charter. Spacefleet is granted complete control of all starship construction centers in the Frontier.

– With the activation of the WCC clause, Spacefleet, with the assistance of Star Law, move to take control of the shipyards. They temporarily suspend any new maintenance work while they sort out the schedule and priorities.

– More space opens in several SCCs across the Frontier: 2 HS at Hentz (Araks) for a total of 7 HS, 18 HS at Rupert’s Hole (Cassidine) emptying that facility, 6 HS at Terledrom (Fromeltar) 12 HS at Gran Quivera (Prenglar), and 5 HS at Minotaur (Theseus)

– Working to replenish their immediate losses, Spacefleet takes control of the destroyer construction at Minotaur, and start construction of 2 assault scouts at Hentz, a light cruiser at Gran Quivera, and a fighter and assault scout at Terledrom.

– Lacking facilities to construct military vessels, the Rupert’s Hole SCC is designated for ship maintenance and two ships are moved in immediately.  The other Type III SSCs at Pale & Clarion are given the same designation.

– Spacefleet also authorizes the start of construction for two assault scouts to replenish some of the ships lost by the Truane’s Star militia with the understanding that they may be deputized by Spacefleet during the conflict. Construction starts in Terledrom and Minotaur

Here’s the full timeline to download:

DetailedFrontierTimeline-1Download

State of the Frontier – Nov 2020

It’s another month down. I hope everyone in the United States had a great Thanksgiving holiday and the rest of you had a good month as well. I’ve been having a blast.

Looking Back

The biggest thing this last month has been the start of the Second Sathar War in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. This has resulted in a number of reports for the battles that have happened so far. To date these are:

Tracking the Second Sathar War and playing out the battles has definitely take up most of my time this month. I’ve been having a lot of fun with this. I was quite a ways ahead on the narrative but playing out the battles has eaten most of that buffer and I’m only a couple days ahead at the moment. However, now that the big initial push is over, things will settle down a bit. Expect to see a few more battles in the next few days and then they will start to really spread out as the sathar replenish their ships.

Beyond the battle reports we had the usual Detailed Frontier Timeline post at the beginning of the month, a post on the HSS History’s Hope describing the 3D model for that ship, and a look at the sathar starship construction centers. The battle reports represented the post for the 4th week.

Behind the scenes not much was happening beyond me working on the SSW narrative. The only major event was that the hard drive on my server failed and had to be replaced which took all of my Star Frontiers sites down for about 36 hours while I got a new disk installed and everything restored. Luckily I had good backups and nothing was lost.

Looking Forward

Tomorrow will be the next Detailed Frontier Timeline post that will have all the details of the events surrounding the opening of the Second Sathar War that happened this last month for those that don’t follow along on Twitter.

Next week I plan to talk a bit about the Second Sathar War in the timeline and muse on some of the ideas I’ve had relative to the setting and this fight since I’ve been playing out the battles.

Beyond that, I don’t have any specific plans. I’m working on the History’s Hope deck plans so those might come out this month. I am making “how-to” videos showing how I make my maps and the recording of those got put on hold with all the SSW battles, which is why they aren’t done yet. (It would go much faster if I wasn’t recording as I could squeeze in bits of time here and there instead of needing some dedicated time.) I’m also still thinking about that astrogation rules post. We’ll just have to see what comes up.

There is a major behind the scenes change coming next month. I’ve been offered a full-time, tenure-track faculty position teaching computer science at the local university and I start mid-December. Which means I’ll be leaving full-time at NASA but will remain as a consultant on the project I’m working on there. I have no idea right now what impact this job change will have on my time so we’ll just have to play it by ear and see what happens. Which is why I don’t have any specific plans for the end of the month.

There are at least two more battle reports to come in the near future. One will be on the 2nd and another on the 4th. Depending on the outcome of the fight on the 2nd, there might be a third on the 5th of December. But beyond that, it might be a while before another battle to be reported. It depends on the outcome of those battles.

I’m also starting on the next issue of the Frontier Explorer. Most of the articles have been selected and I’m planning on front-loading the editing work on this issue due to my job change and the holidays. We’ll see if I can actually pull that off.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really have anything else. If you like what your seeing on the blog, consider supporting me on Patreon. Just follow the link or click on the “Become a Patron” button. As always, comments and feedback are welcomed and encouraged.