[Brian Swartz]

The war has unquestionably made us stronger, and now we must decide what is next for the Collective. If we want to finish off the Kroll, my understanding is we have to wait 10 years(cooling-off period before we can go to war again against the same enemy). They and the Djomar are still allied, and they remain our only neighbors. So for now, we would have to far out of our way to find another conflict.

In terms of the military, naval capacity is at 73/118, though we'll be building more spaceports to increase that near our new border. General Eola Eusrim's army fared very well. We have about 20 assault armies which proved to be more than sufficient for a single conflict. New defense armies will need to be built in the recently conquered Kroll worlds, and some attachments scattered but really the ground forces looked like they have what they need for the most part.

Naval Briefing: Admiral SirFozzie

It's finally cruiser time -- the fleet has waited long enough. First of all, the present state of things:

** 5 Scout Corvettes are available to be deployed wherever. Most will probably stay near Kroll and Djomar space. They were useful for probing recon during the war, but will be less important now.
** Assuming the deployment is not changed, the Home Defence Force of 5 Destroyers, 10 Corvettes will be reconsitituted.
** This leaves the Fist of Boojie with 15 Destroyers, 1 Frigate, 15 Corvettes, and 1 Raider.
** The present order of business, under established orders at least until they are changed, would be to repair all damaged ships, build up the the spaceport infrastructure, and put all shipbuilding for the time being into the new cruisers.

Cruiser Design Options

A cruiser is a three-module ship, much as a corvette has a single module and a destroyer two of them.

** The Breaker section can be built as a Guard(1 Lg. Weapon), Screen(2 Sm/1 Med Weapons), or Chain(2 Med. Weapons). Utility capabilities are identical, with 1 Lg and 1 Med on each.
** The middle section is the Core fittingly enough. It comes in Spectral(2 Sm Weapons, 1 Strike Wing), Punisher(1 Lg + 1 Med Weapon), Reaper(3 Med Weapons), and Wrath(2 Med + 2 Sm Weapons) variants. One Utility spot of each size(Lg, Med, and Sm) is available for each.
** Finally, at the back of the ship the Bulwark section can be fitted as a Protector(1 Med Weapon) or Guardian(2 Small Weapons) design. Both have 1 Lg, 1 Med, and 1 Sm Utility slot.

Between the Asimov patch and recent technological developments there are some new considerations to be had for what we will outfit the ships with as well.

** We can now use Strike Craft if we utilize the Spectral Core. The only available option we have right now are Scouts Wings. Strike Craft are high-damage, short-range mini-vessels, eight of them. The Scouts are designed to interdict enemy Strike Craft, and have a shorter range than any of our ship-based weapons. Never know till you try, but I would expect them to not be particularly effective against enemy ships themselves. The Amoeba Breeding Program and possibly other advances could increase this capability, but a limited carrier role is now possible.
** The combat computers have changed. The two improved ones we now possess have been renamed Basic Attack and Basic Bombardment. The Basic Attack computer +5% weapons damage, +5 evasion, and +10% sublight speed. It will also instruct our ships to swarm the enemy, a close-range philosophy. Basic Bombardment, which we presently use on all our destroyers & corvettes, affords +3 accuracy, +5% fire rate, and +10% weapons range, and instructs our ships to stand off and fire when they are within weapons range of their targets.
** Defensively, a combination of armor and shields within power capabilities still seems best until Crystal Plating becomes a thing.
** Projectile weapons now are slightly more effective against shields, giving a 15% bonus to damage against them. Our standard Coilguns are the best we have here and will serve as a baseline for comparing damage with the best variants we have of other general weapon types.
** Standard energy-based weapons do not get the anti-shield bonus, have somewhat lower range but higher accuracy, and gain a 33% armor penetration. We have the second tier here as well, Blue Lasers. Ignoring the shield/armor effects, they have 96% of the damage output of Coilguns. Scaling is better here though, reaching 100.6% for the large versions. We've yet to come up against shielded enemy ships though, the Kroll included, while a number of the enemies we've seen have had significant armor.
** Mining Lasers have been employed effectively on our Glasnur-class destroyers. They can fire from the same range as the coilguns, along with completely ignoring armor(100% penetration). The accuracy is lower than the standard lasers though, contributing to a damage rating(again not considering armor/shield effects) of 89%. They are probably our best bet against highly-armored targets, but relatively somewhat weak against other configurations. Mining Lasers are also only available in Small and Medium mounts.
** Red Shard Throwers are an interesting, and the most recent, development. They are the best of the weapons systems that have been reverse-engineered from the debris of the nomadic aliens that wander the stars. The range is low, only half that of coilguns. They are also a bit slower-firing, but have the best punch per shot. 50% armor penetration is also achieved. The base damage output is the highest of any weapons system at 101.4%. They damage does not scale as well as the other systems, reaching only 95% for Medium mounts and 94% for Large ones; but the range limitation is removed at those sizes.

As a reminder, here are our current designs:

** Glashnur-class Destroyer -- 5 Small Cutting Lasers(Mining Lasers)
** Tapper-class Destroyer -- 1 Large Coilgun, 1 Medium Coilgun
** Borrer-class Destroyer -- 2 Medium Coilguns + 2 Small Coilguns
** Dorsal-class Corvette -- 3 Small Coilguns
** Sschlurga-class Corvette -- 1 Medium Coilgun + 1 Small Coilgun

So after all of this, a few choices to be made.

** Ratio of Cruisers -- Equal numbers to destroyers + corvettes to maintain the same approach to fleet balance, or something else?
** Variety of Classes -- Between the three sections, there are 24 possibilities. With 2 types of Corvettes and 3 kinds of Destroyers, we could continue the trend with 4 Cruiser variants, or become either more complex or more simplistic.
** Outfitting -- Stick with Bombardment combat computers, or switch it up? What weapons should we use on each designated Cruiser class? Of course the design of the smaller ships could change as well if you so desire.
** Deployment -- Any updated instructions, if required, on how to split the fleet. The mission, unless you change it, will be to clear out known hostile contacts. Presently two elite crystalline entity systems and one packed with mining drones are known in the outer arm.

Admiral SirFozzie, you are on the clock. The navy awaits your decision. Spew forth any questions you may have that I might be able to clarify, with the advance to cruisers and other developments things have gotten that much more complicated.