The Second Year 6th January 2026

Kate Wallace stood in her office in the government complex looking out at the snow falling from a dark grey winter sky. As she stood looking out she felt proud that this would be the year when the human race would take it's first step towards exploration of the Sol star system and if the research team are right potentially the rest of the universe.

She had just received an updated report giving the current status of the Terran Federation and things where looking fine:

Current empire status

The previous year had been a year of scientific breakthroughs with research completing in areas of propulsion and sensor tech. The empire now had the technology to build Thermal Nuclear Engines and in just over three months the first space faring craft utilising the trans-newtonian technology would be designed and sent out to survey the local system.

As you can tell I'm trying to use a bit of fiction this is all new to me so please be gentle with any comments. At the start of this new year the geological survey team have been sent to asteroid #7 to help improve their skills which was the original plan.

Ok still unable to survey need to carry out an orbital survey first so until the ships are built I will disband them again.

On the 1st of May at 3am in the morning Kate Wallace was rudely awakened by her chief of staff with the news that the research on the gravitational survey sensors was complete this meant that the survey ship designs could now be finalised. An urgent call was passed through to the team at the Atlantis Military Shipyard requesting a meeting later the same day.

The meeting was convened with all the high ranking personnel in the federation and there was a high level of excitement as the breakthrough was revealed the only worry that was voiced was the possibility of other lifeforms gaining access to the the Sol system through the potential jump points that would be revealed by the survey. A decision was made to equip all survey craft with a full sensor suite including and active search sensor with a range of 100 million km to detect anything out of the ordinary. The military side of the federation where also concerned with the safety of the planet so it was also decided that defensive measures would be taken to protect the planetary population it was not decided what these measures would be.

Before the ship designs are finalised the research labs are working on an active search sensor which is due to complete by the 8th of June. This is a sensor that needs to be activated and when used gives away the position of the ship to any other ships in range with active senosrs searching.

The active search sensor completes on the 11th of June and the Goldrush Geological Survey Ship is designed:

Goldrush class Geosurvey Ship 3300 tons 323 Crew 647.5 BP TCS 66 TH 100 EM 0
1515 km/s Armour 1-19 Shields 0-0 Sensors 25/25/0/4 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 29% IFR: 0.4% Maint Capacity 368 MSP Max Repair 100 MSP Est Time: 4.53 Years

Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 Military (4) Power 25 Fuel Use 100% Signature 25 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 27.3 billion km (208 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR25-R100 (1) GPS 5000 Range 25.0m km Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH5-25 (1) Sensitivity 25 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 25m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-25 (1) Sensitivity 25 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 25m km
Geological Survey Sensors (4) 4 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

Not sure if this is a good design or not but it's my first attempt so again any comments much appreciated.

The Atlantis Military Shipyard is commissioned to retool and build the craft and the estimated completion is the 20th of April 2028 which means it will take nearly two years to build. Using the same basic design a Geosurvey ship is also set to construct this ship is called Light Seeker. This ship is built at the Freeport Military Shipyard and will also take nearly two years to construct.

No we have free labs so the next research target needs to be chosen also a check of the industry would be useful.

Due to the need to defend Earth the decision is made to study missile reload rate as this affects how many missiles can be launched over a period of time and any missiles in silos on Earth are going to be big. Research is also started in jump drive efficiency 3 so that once we have jump points we can build jump engines to build ships to use them.

Not sure about the design of PDC's so if anyone reading this can give me some pointers in the thread below that would be great:

http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2482&p=24592#p24592

Right time to move forward again.

Jump drive efficiency completes on the 6th of November and we then choose to research capacitor recharge rate 2 which I think leads to the next level of engines at least I hope so. This is due to complete on the 26th March 2027.

Damn another error it's not capacitor recharge rate that leads to the next engine tech it's pebble bed reactor tech oh well I'm learning.

We start work on the next engine tech on the 11th of October 2027. Our research team is really starting to improve now Adam Connolly now has a research bonus of 25%.

On the 6th of April Charlotte Akhtaris promoted to Commodore which is the highest military position we currently have.

Finally on the 21st of April our two survey ships are completed and we can start to explore the Sol system. Commander Taylor John is assigned to Goldrush 001 and has a survey bonus of 21% and Commander Jamie Taylor is assigned to Light Seeker 001 and he has a survey bonus of 25%.

The first mission for Goldrush 001 is a survey of asteroid #7 so we can get a geo team in place. Light Seeker 001 will just start surveying the nearest survey point. The ship yards will also start building two more craft.

The time it will take to reach asteroid #7 is 1 day 23 hours and 6 minutes. Goldrush 001 arrives on the 23rd of April and starts it's survey. No minerals are found on the asteroid but a geo team headed by Lieutenant William Manning are despatched anyway. Goldrush 001 is then given orders to survey the nearest planet or moon.

The 8th of May is a sad day Commander Georgia Bird is killed in an accident but I'm not too sure what happened. On the 9th of May the sadness is forgotten as the first jump point in the Sol system is discovered by Star Seeker 001. This means we need to start thinking about developing ships with jump engines to explore further. Maybe more shipyards would also be useful.

Well that's all for this session but now that we are in space the game should really open up. In the next session I will survey more and hopefully get started on some defense for Earth just in case things go wrong.