** Long Update here, but also an important one after some years of tedium. All leadership are advised to at least read the summary at the bottom and the 'message' from last February. **
Fleet Upgrade
Thought I'd break this out as a separate thing, since there's a significant amount of changes here.
** Everything gets the new hyperdrives, advanced versions of whatever combat computers they had before, and thrusters. I didn't realize how long it'd been since I did this: we were definitely overdue. Sensors have not advanced in some time, and were unaffected.
** Small/Medium weapon slots were changed to X-Ray Lasers and Plasma Accelerators respectively. The lasers do more damage, the plasma weapons more armor penetration. On Destroyers and up, an ion disruptor was thrown in at least once per ship for an anti-shield option.
** Large weapon slots depend largely on the ship's previous type of weaponry, but they are either Proton Torpedoes(most damage by far, ignore shields) or Plasma Accelerators(for armor penetration).
** More power was required by these changes, so generally speaking the ships now have better weapons but not quite as much protection.
** We had some weapons which, by now, are absurdly archaic; mining cutting lasers, red shard throwers, etc. A few decades ago these were close to top of the line and we were still waiting to see what further developments might come. Now, they just look silly; so they're gone.
Total cost, just for the military ships though they are the lion's share, came to just over 4k minerals; about nine months surplus. About 200 more total for the construction ships, and probably similar cost for the science survey vessels though they are busy at the moment with the debris work.
2317-2321
2317.06.10 -- Qravadox Xenos United have destroyed a provincial building in protest of our occupation. This was on Gluggaben, in the Omaggus system a jump away from the border. We were right not to trust them.
06.24 -- More progress on Space Torpedoes and Plasma Throwers.
09.23 -- March towards useless Space Torpedoes continues.
11.03 --
Dr. Tarcisius has reached *** skill, slightly increasing the speed of his work.
11.15 -- Gabbog has finished another mining network. One more to build, but there are not enough Djomar slaves yet to operate it, so that will wait. It occurs to me at this point that I didn't check the core planets when achieved Nutrient Replication a few years back.
2318.01.19 -- The Gwesibor Regime and the Polity of Oxx-Oxx have entered a Defensive Pact. No doubt this is an attempt to protect themselves against further encroachment by the Bhenn'Thell. Of course it also means any attempt on our part to expand at their expense would be a lot more risky.
04.11 -- QXU(Qravadox Xenos United) is started to cause trouble again. In order to attempt to head off further sabatoge,
Patriarch Glosch authorizes using some of our influence(100 of nearly 700 saved) for an Integration Campaign.
07.10 -- It doesn't work. Another provincial building has been ruined. Governor Ablogor is reassigned to Gabbog, while Shushk is sent out to the Coffee Sector to establish order.
08.01 -- Schlurg is the fourth planet to complete terraforming.
08.27 -- Terraforming station completed above Ustir IV, and the decade-long process of preparing that planet for Architreuthis arrival begins.
09.29 -- After just over a year and a half, the fleet upgrade has been finished. The admiralty is decidedly underwhelmed by reports that combat effectiveness has only been increased by about 2%. I'd say the increased mobility is worth more than that on it's own.
2319.03.06 -- Last of the debris from the war has been studied, with a bit more progress on Space Torpedoes. The Engineering Dept. can get back to work.
08.10 -- More sabotage by the Qravadox.
09.10 --
Uri Hegemony declares war on the
Beldross Empire. The reason we care is that the Uri are basically on the other side of the Bhenn'Thell from us, and are one of a very few(perhaps only two) empires that might potentially be able to rival them. Assuming they succeed in this war, which is quite likely, the balance of power could shift somewhat.
11.19 -- The
Assembly of Vun-Okon Dominions has declared war on the
Qravadox Star Consensus again. They can fight among themselves as much as they want to.
2320.04.14 -- Zeldrah has been successfully terraformed. Only Hark among the original six, and of course Ustir, remain.
07.02 -- Standardized Cruiser Patterns research completed. There were multiple new options available, but we will proceed next with Standardized Battleship Patterns. When finished, this will allow us to fully optimize ship production. For maximum efficiency, it's been decided that we will build the larger classes at Humboldt, and the smaller ones at Bakangi. There's not enough space to add all of the appropriate modules in both locations.
08.10 -- More sabotage on Gluggaben.
Patriarch Glosch tries a second, more intensive Integration Campaign(200 of 678 influence spent, about five years worth of profit).
2321.03.11 -- A potentially ominous discovery ...
03.22 -- In a show of galactic unity, several empires open their borders to us. More would follow in the days afterwards.
05.02 -- Cruiser Assembly Yards finished at Humboldt Spaceport. Also, Telepathy research has been completed, allowing us to recruit Psionic Armies. They are considerably more expensive, and take a full year to train. As a result, using them for garrison duty seems foolhardy. An elite 'Boojie's Guard' force for defense of the core worlds and, if possible, assault duty for invasions is a more fitting role. Recruitment begins immediately.
Summary
Obviously the 'subspace echoes' are most concerning. Who, or what, is coming? When will they/it arrive? What will happen when they get here? Clearly the other empires of the galaxy have their eyes on this as well. Meanwhile, over the past few years many of the sector spaceports built observatories, eating up many of our energy gains but swelling our research efforts considerably. Overall a net gain I think. Current surplus is in the mid-50s per month, just above where we want it. Balance is just over 4k out of a 5k maximum. So we're in a very healthy situation, but don't really have the resources to expand the fleet yet. If nothing happens elsewhere, we'll probably be back at war, a conflict of our choosing, within the next few years.
From a galatic political standpoint, the Gwesibor Regime has been shattered into several small pieces, the rest of that area now under the control of their former small rebels, the Cormathani Star Combine. The Cormathani are friends(but not allies) of the Bhenn'Thell. The Vun-Okon are winning against the Qravadox, and the Uri against the Beldross, though both wars appear closer to their beginning than their end.