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Alpha Base Discovered


DevisDevine

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So I want sure if this was the best place, maybe it should be moved to the General Discussion thread, or possibly game mechanics. I decided to post a short story of a scenario I envision happening in game. I don't fully know all the mechanics that will be available but my story highlights some mechanics that I hope are available. It also sheds some light into how we operate and things we tend to implement when possible in games. Sorry that my writing sucks, I usually just focus on the story. 

               

 

It’s a barren world, covered in vast deserts and lakes. In a large lake on the North continent the water begins to stir. Slowly a rectangular chain wall begins to break the surface. It is a half a kilometer long and 200m wide. As the wall breaks the surface the water inside begins to rapidly drain away. As it does a large metal door is exposed and begins to slide away exposing a massive chamber.

 

Slowly a Daedalus class BC, the Asteria, begins to rise from the chamber. It is over 400m long and covered in turrets, a bit unfinished but it was combat ready.  As it emerges it slowly begins to ascend, thrusting lightly as to not damage anything below. As it clears the hangar the doors closing behind it and the walls recede allowing the water to rush back over. Once it is several hundred feet above and the water is covering the doors again I increase the thrusters to full. Angling upwards I quickly gain altitude and enter orbit.

 

 

Once in orbit I set the nav point and activate FTL. It is just a short jump to a nearby asteroid belt in system. Once in FTL I activate the defensive AI and head to the hangar. The Asteria is a bit more than needed for a mining trip, but I like to take it out for whatever reason I can, besides it makes for a good guard while mining. The right hangar contains a smaller miner. Equipped with multiple laser miners and plenty of storage for the ore I mine.

Once the Asteria drops out of FTL I look at the nav feed to see it is all clear, not many people are in the region so I never expect anyone. Occasionally our sensor drones pick up an explorer that comes through, and so far the neighbors that are nearby have not located our base. I send a command to open the bay door and start up Little Bite’s engines. Slowly I emerge from the hangar and begin thrusting to the Trillium asteroid 1km starboard.

 

Slowing down on approach, I line up near a cavity in the surface. I had been here already and cleared away most of the rock around the Trillium core. I activated the miners and watch the surface of the asteroid as the matter dissolves away funneled into nanocells for storage. The power is a bit insufficient so I have to pulse the lasers, allowing the power cells to recharge. One of these days I will quit being lazy and fix that, but for now I watch as the Trillium begins to fill up my storage with a few traces of rare elements. I wonder how many more trips will be needed to finish our capital ship.

 

Suddenly an alert pops up, one of our sensor arrays in orbit around the planet picked up something. A small vessel entering an FTL jump. It must have been a stealth ship observing the planet, shit. I quickly cut the lasers and thrust away from the asteroid. I align and burn towards the Asteria, coming in for a hard landing. As soon as I am in the hangar I send a command to close the hangar doors and begin charging the FTL as I dock Little Bite.

 

Sprinting down the corridor I arrive at the bridge, there’s still a minute left to charge the FTL drive. I sit down and pull up the sensor logs as I wait, aligning the Asteria towards the planet. No sign of the stealth ship entering orbit, it must have traveled in and been there a while. Just as I am about to jump the sensors pick up 3 FTL signatures dropping in orbit around the planet. All quick moving destroyer class ships. I adjust my coordinates to their location and enter FTL. Just under a minute until I exit warp, all I can do is wait, all guns active.

 

 

As I drop out of warp I am just 10km from the nearest destroyer. One of them is clearly a planetary bombardment design and is lining up to fire below, centered over our base. The stealth ship must have been there to determine our location. The planetary bombardment destroyer was already unloading its kinetic kill projectiles down onto the planet and the other two were firing missiles down as well. As soon as my targeting sensors had a lock I unleashed everything onto the PB destroyer, catching it by surprise and ripping through its rear shields, and penetrating deep into the hull. A lucky shot destabilized a reactor, causing an explosion that ripped the back end of the ship off crippling it.

 

 

As the kinetic kill projectiles entered the atmosphere turrets on the surface were already coming to life. Pedestals were rising above the surface of the water with SAM and Flak turrets. The Kinetic kill weapons were hard to track and shoot down, but a few were broken up before impacting. The remainder were stopped mostly by the water, with no energy left by the time they hit the hangar door below. With over 2 dozen flak turrets almost all of the missiles from the first wave were taken out. But it was clear they knew the base location and were here to destroy it.

 

 

On the Asteria I launched the 2 dozen fighters I had onboard and routed shield power forward. The remaining 2 destroyers quickly began turning their fire onto me. I began launching missile volleys but my laser capacitors were completely drained from the opening attack. Even without it my missiles are overpowering the shields slowly. As the fighters reached the ships they began circling it in tight orbits, not doing much damage with the shields up, but distracting the automated turrets and reducing fire on the Asteria. My shields were at 85% but slowly dropping as their missiles start leaking through my flak cannons. As my laser cannon reaches full charge I fire it just as a volley from my rail gun hits, collapsing the destroyers shields, but it remained largely intact. However the next volley began to destroy chunks out of the hull. It was quickly gutted by missiles and left crippled.

About then, large explosions begin erupting on the surface below. Starting from the center and stretching out in a line nearly 3km long they begin spreading outwards to nearly a kilometer wide. The false bottom of the lake is being blown to pieces, allowing all the water above to rush in below as it does. The emergency evacuation protocol has been initiated, meaning help is on its way. As the dust and fog begin to settle there is a massive swarm of small drones released. Just small battle space drones, they allow sensor feeds of the area and also act as an overload for enemy sensors. Shortly after another loud eruption as the Radials booster engines fire, slowly lifting it clear of the opening.  

 

Upon discovery of the stealth ship, Drakyn Ral quickly began activating its systems and moving what he could from the base into the Radeal. Its hull not more than half finished, very little systems were in place and functional. It had minimal power, thrusters, shields, and FTL with very few turret placements mounted already. I wasn’t even sure if Kloydeb had gotten around to uploading the AI to them so they would function at all. And none of us were sure that it could even break orbit. It had a booster system attached as an emergency launch system, but it functioning was all theoretical.

 

Before the Radeal could reach orbit 10 smaller 50m long frigates exited FTL in the battle space above it. They quickly targeted the remaining destroyer, and with their DPS added to mine, its shields vanished. It was quickly engulfed in missile explosions, shredding the hull. The drones were part of the emergency protocol, and when active they activated their FTL and jumped in from deep space above the solar system.

The hangar below was gutted and scorched as the engines fired, but we never intended to use it again anyway. As it reached orbit the booster system was released and fell back to the ground. The ships frame stretched 2.5km long and 500m wide, at the widest constructed points thus far. With only the basic frame in place for most of it, it looked almost like a rectangular box with some buildings stacked on top towards the rear. The front end was one giant hangar, large enough to swallow the Asteria. The side hangars were only beginning to be built, with small juts sticking out from the main hull.

 

As the Radeal broke orbit it released more battle space drones followed by another 4 dozen fighters that quickly began to disperse in the battle space. Hartomo and Kloydeb each emerge from the Radeals hangar in Raptor class cruisers. But it didn’t stick around, with its FTL charged it initiated a quick jump out of the battle space where it would charge its drives for its travel to the beta base. We stick around and ensure that the Radeal enters FTL before charging our own. The Raptors quickly charge theirs and follow as escorts, but with my capacitor banks tapped from the battle it takes even longer than usual for me to charge my drive.

 

Just as I am about to jump into FTL, my sensors light up red. With all the battle space drones feeding sensor data I quickly get locks and accurate tracking data on over a dozen ships. There are 2 capital class ships, a carrier and dreadnaught, both more than twice my mass. 2 BS, 4 BC and an assortment of cruiser and frigate class ships. The battle space lights up with explosions as their AI begins targeting and taking out the fighters and drones in the battle space. Immediately 3 of the AI frigates vanish in explosions.

 

Not intending to stick around, I rapidly hit the FTL as it charges to completion. Just then a massive shell strikes my nearly depleted shield, punching through and ripping a massive chunk out of my right hangar bay. What is left of Little Bite floats free into space. Thanks to redundant and dispersed systems most of my ship is functional, including the FTL drive. Before any interdiction nets could be activated I slip into FTL, clearing the battle space. Within a few minutes I exit FTL near the Radeal. It got away with minimal damage, mostly from the debris falling from above when the lakebed was blown. One of the shield emitters wasn’t fully functioning and let some debris through, impacting the hull. The Asteria’s damage was a bit more extensive, but no major systems were hit. Most of the hangar will have to be rebuilt, but there weren’t many components and systems that were destroyed. We waited around until everyone recharged their FTL drive for the first of several long jumps to the beta base. For the rest of the crew who weren’t able to respond quickly enough, they will get there a bit quicker, as out in the void here there aren’t many RNs that they can spawn at. With Alpha base destroyed, Beta base will likely be the closest. 

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Interesting read, lost me a little bit in the beginning when you were introducing all the ship and I just didn't know what was what, can't really say I'm a fan of all the SG though, kind of want DU to be it's own thing and not borrow from other stories to create it. 

 

The only part that I don't like is the "recharged their FTL drive for the first of several long jumps", as I don't want a FTL system that relies on multiple jumps to get from A to B.. I'd prefer it be one continuous movement all the way there, you just need to charge it longer for a longer distance maybe?

 

But all in all, interesting read would be interesting if this actually came to happen in the game too :)

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Interesting read, lost me a little bit in the beginning when you were introducing all the ship and I just didn't know what was what, can't really say I'm a fan of all the SG though, kind of want DU to be it's own thing and not borrow from other stories to create it. 

 

The only part that I don't like is the "recharged their FTL drive for the first of several long jumps", as I don't want a FTL system that relies on multiple jumps to get from A to B.. I'd prefer it be one continuous movement all the way there, you just need to charge it longer for a longer distance maybe?

 

But all in all, interesting read would be interesting if this actually came to happen in the game too :)

 

The large ship shown in the first DU images is a Daedalus class BC from Stargate, well at least modeled off of one. My icon is also the Daedalus, first in its class built by the Tauri. The Asteria is my ship, I first built it in starmade and it is a modified Daedalus hull. I have intentions to modify it further so that likely it would be its own class. And while there will be plenty of unique ships, you have to understand people have always wanted to fly the iconic starships from movies and shows. How many Enterprises do you think there will be? The story is its own, the only think taken from Stargate is the hull design itself. 

 

Well as we didnt know what system DU will have I just went with that one. If it is a continuous I would expect there to be no charge. Just a maximum speed you can sustain for the duration and maybe an initial energy burst in the beginning to enter warp. I would much prefer this as well, at least for long distance travel. 

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This is all very reminiscent of Elite...I'm guessing former player here?

Um I have a few hours clocked in on the game. But was busy and never got a chance to play to much. When the released a full priced expansion it kinda pissed me off as the game had just released so I hadn't gone back yet. 

 

I have 7 years in Eve Online though as well as the last 5 in various voxel games where we tended to implement emergency systems for large projects similar to here. 

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So, what happens next then, I've waited long enough to find out, Did you make it to Base Beta and did all the people who died make it to the RN there ?... You can't just leave a story half finished... geeez... :)

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So, what happens next then, I've waited long enough to find out, Did you make it to Base Beta and did all the people who died make it to the RN there ?... You can't just leave a story half finished... geeez... :)

 

Lol, well I wasnt planning on continuing it. From there we would repair the Asteria and begin remaking our basic ships like the miners. We always stock our secondary base with things like that. Then possibly a retaliation attack. I guess I could write more if people are interested, but it was ment to highlight the features I would like more than anything. Hell if I would take time to write it and not just type a bit in between Overwatch games I am sure I can improve what I already wrote. 

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Lol, well I wasnt planning on continuing it. From there we would repair the Asteria and begin remaking our basic ships like the miners. We always stock our secondary base with things like that. Then possibly a retaliation attack. I guess I could write more if people are interested, but it was ment to highlight the features I would like more than anything. Hell if I would take time to write it and not just type a bit in between Overwatch games I am sure I can improve what I already wrote. 

 

NO SPOILERS!!!..... Geez, i want to know the full story, don't spoil it for me....

 

Also, just bought Overwatch last night, not really sure what to make of it if i'm honest. Not sure if i like it or hate it..... :(

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NO SPOILERS!!!..... Geez, i want to know the full story, don't spoil it for me....

 

Also, just bought Overwatch last night, not really sure what to make of it if i'm honest. Not sure if i like it or hate it..... :(

 

Hmm, how about a write something starting a bit earlier on and then going past it, at least until the Radeals completion?

 

 

And its a good time waster, but I tend to get bored quickly. It is fun with a group. 

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Hmm, how about a write something starting a bit earlier on and then going past it, at least until the Radeals completion?

 

 

And its a good time waster, but I tend to get bored quickly. It is fun with a group. 

 

You can write in smaller chunks you know, I'll still be a fan of it. Large chunks of text are harder to take in, short sweet additions to the story would be nice, before or after :)

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You can write in smaller chunks you know, I'll still be a fan of it. Large chunks of text are harder to take in, short sweet additions to the story would be nice, before or after :)

 

Maybe I will just do a bunch of short stories of random events for now then. 

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