You stare at the display in horror. You, the leader of humanity's hopes and dreams amongst the stars, just sent your entire military fleet directly into the enemy. There were far more enemy ships than were showing up on scanners from afar, and the last thing you saw of them was a wall of what looked almost like teeth.
This situation needs a solution, and fast. The enemy fleet, if that is the correct term for them, is right on the other side of a jump point connecting to your new colony. There's no telling when they might decide to transit into your system and start attacking civilian ships.
(set: $preparedness to 0, $remainingOptions to 2, $missiles to 0, $fighters to 0, $stealth to 0, $fighterMissiles to 0, $badStealth to 0)
[[Evaluate the situation|Introduction]](if: $remainingOptions is 0)[You're out of time. The people won't stand for further delays in securing the borders, and you have no option but to send your ships [[forward.->Battle]]]
(else:)[It's obvious at the moment that you need a change in strategy in order to deal with this new threat. There are many promising technologies that you have yet to delve into that could help with the situation, but it's doubtful that you will have time to add all of them to your navy.
(if: $fighters is 0)[[[Carrier technology->Fighter Start]] is an intriguing possibility that could help you regain the numbers advantage against the vast swarms of ships you face.]
(if: $missiles is 0)[[[Missiles->Missile Start]] have always seemed too complicated compared to good old beams, but you have seen how well the good old beams did in this war already.]
(if: $stealth is 0)[[[Stealth Craft->Stealth Start]] could avoid the massed swarms of ships by approaching the enemy shrouded from their active scanners, tracking the enemy by those same scanners they negate while keeping a low profile themselves. It might even be possible to catch the enemy flagship before it has had a chance to launch their own attack ships.]
]
Your fleet finally closes with the enemy. You anxiously pace back and forth through mission control, waiting to hear news back from your fleet. Finally [[it arrives.->Victory?]](set: $fighters to 1, $remainingOptions to it-1)
Your naval officers are supportive of this idea. Most of them have seen almost no action, and would relish the chance to pilot a ship, so giving them so many opportunities to do so has them all burning with ambition and the desire to prove themselves. You can't bring yourself to tell them about the projected casualty rates any engagement with the swarm would produce.
Fighters aren't an exact science, but there are still some broader strokes that would need to be hammered out before starting any program. Firstly, their weapon choice is the topic of fierce discussion between your weapons scientists. Some argue for the simplicity of smaller and rapid-firing (link: "gauss guns")[(set: $preparedness to it + 20)(goto: "Fighter Weapons")], others for longer-range (link: "lasers")[(set: $preparedness to it+10)(goto:"Fighter Weapons")], and some feel that the inefficient but powerful (link: "railguns")[(set: $preparedness to it+15)(goto:"Fighter Weapons")] would be the best option. (if:$missiles is 1)[The veterans of the recent (link: "missile")[(set: $preparedness to it+30)(goto:"Fighter Missiles")] project also feel that their work would be highly effective on these swift platforms.]
In the end, it falls to you to push past their squabbling.(set:$missiles to 1, $remainingOptions to it - 1)
Missiles were always intimidating to you. Any time you talked to an engineer about one, they would start pulling up tables and charts out of nowhere while talking about "MSP" and nested requirements and generally just making the entire thing sound more complicated than it really needed to be.
Or so you thought. However, after you spent a few hours consulting some primitive technology known as a "wiki", you grew to fully appreciate the scale of the issue. Missiles needed a large amount of custom parts, and the entire plan had to be in mind before any of them were made.
Luckily however, you have underlings for all that. The main issues came down to just a few, with the first being the size of the missiles. (link: "Smaller")[(set: $preparedness to it+35)(goto:"Missile Type")] ones came with shorter range but higher velocity, as well as the ability to fit more of them onto a ship. (link: "Larger")[(set: $preparedness to it+30)(goto:"Missile Type")] ones however could let you deal with the engagement from arms length, massively reducing risk.(set: $remainingOptions to it-1, $stealth to 1)
You decide to pursue stealth technology to get the upper hand, banking on the enemy's sensors being primitive and unable to find your ships through all the interference.
Well, that's the idea at least, but there's still several complications to the plan. First and foremost is size, stealth technology does not miniturise well so (link:larger)[(set:preparadness to it+20)](goto:Stealth Weapons) ships will be able to dedicate more space to weapons instead of the bulky stealth unit. (link:Smaller)[(set:preparadness to it+10)](goto:Stealth Weapons) ships like frigates, on the other hand, already have naturally small radar signatures, and thus adding stealth to them would make them nearly undetectable outright. You just hope that your scientists and engineers won't hate you too much for demanding such a thing.As you are familiar with already, missiles will need 1 more decision compared to regular guns: (link: "Multiple projectiles per rocket")[(set: $preparedness to it+10)(goto:"Fighter Weapons")], or [[a single one->Fighter Weapons]]?With the guns out of the way, what remains is to [[design the carriers|Fighters Complete]]. Doing so, however, will probably take a while, and (link: "constructing the fighters first")[(set: $preparedness to it-5)(goto:"Slow Tragedy")] might make things more efficient; you can immediately fill up the carriers and leave, rather than having to wait for months to slowly build fighters to capacity.As it turns out, making the carriers themselves was a simple affair. The designers slapped on the biggest engines, shields, and point-defence turrets they could find, and filled the rest with hangers and crew compartments. Your new pair of carriers eventually emerged from the shipyard, carrying inside them 20 of your newest fighters each.
Of course, this was only one component of this project, and there was always [[more to do->Introduction]]Unfortunately, you underestimated the tenacity and stubbornness of the orbital shipyards. There was much fanfare when the fighters first launched, but the first request for repairs from them was denied. Apparently, the higher-ups on the shipyard corporation's board didn't like the image of a scattered group of smaller ships, and was claiming that the only way these fighers could be maintained was through a carrier. Said carriers, however, were still several years from completion, and the contracts with the factories making the fighters could not be delayed that long. So, for months, a fighter at a time was launched, to slowly break down and fall apart in orbit, a complete waste. Still, the [[carriers->Fighters Complete]] remained to be designed.Once the size was decided, you continued to be bombarded with more questions, but you were starting to feel like you had the answers. Still, the lack of ability for your designers to act without your input on this matter continued to frustrate.
This second stoppage was due to arguments about the particular payload of a missile. [[Conventional options->Missile Craft]] were simple, but could be overkill. Such a concept of killing something too much was of course ridiculous to most of the military staff assigned to this project, but a small group of radicals nevertheless persisted in campaigning for (link: "Multiple projectiles per rocket")[(set: $preparedness to it+10)(goto:"Missile Craft")], which would require a multistaged system but would let you spread a smaller amount of damage far more evenly throughout a cloud of enemies: usefull against the tiny craft you faced earlier. All that remained before heading back to other projects was the decision as to what variety of craft should be used to deliver these new weapons. You remembered the overwhelming numbers of ships that surrounded and tore apart your own, and ensuring that that situation does not arise again is your highest priority.
One school of thought for preventing a repeat of the last tragedy was by attempting to match the enemy's numbers more closely, and placing the missiles on small [[frigates->Introduction]], which would force the enemy to divide their fire. Alternatively, creating a far (link: "larger")[(set: $preparedness to it+5)(goto:"Introduction")] and more armoured vessel to hold them would resist the enemy's fire for longer, providing a different kind of safety. Either way, this was the final tedious step in this avenue of attack.(if:$preparedness >= 60)[You can't believe it. The screen is free of contacts, and at least a third of the ships you sent are still flying. Cheers ring out around you from the admirals managing the engagement, and you take your seat again, all of the adrenaline [[draining out of you->Reality]]]
(else:)[The same horrific scene repeats again. Every ship you sent was torn apart by the aliens, unmistakably by teeth this time. Nothing you tried was able to halt their advance, and there is now nothing standing between them and Earth. (if:$badStealth is 1)[Your stealth ships accomplish absolutely nothing, as it turns out that your targeting systems refuse to fire only on engine signatures and anything else generated by passive sensors, and demand some kind of an active sensor to shoot off of. They all did absolutely nothing in the battle. ]You sink back into your chair in despair, considering the steps that led you here. Eventually it is all too much and you try to [[take your mind off things->Reality]]]With a jerk, you suddenly realise where you are: In your room, with a game open in front of you. You sigh as you realise that you simply got way too invested in things and imposed your own fantasies over the most mundane of tasks within the game. Given the hour, there is no choice for you but to [[go to sleep|End]], dreading another day of university on the other side.With the size out of the way, you are thrown into the next step of design, dealing with the next vital yet trivial detail. The engineers now want feedback on the weapon systems, as the weaponary on a stealth ship has different considerations relative to "ordinary" vessels.
Stealth systems can shorten the range at which the enemy can detect your ships, but can never completely hide you, so the longer ranged your weapons, the safer your ships would be. As such, (link: "lasers")[(set: $preparedness to it+15)(goto:"Stealth Sensors")] would be the optimal choice out of the beam weapons, combining range and power neatly. A second faction however has split the vote, promoting (link: "railguns")[(set: $preparedness to it+25)(goto:"Stealth Sensors")], as they provide better damage output and so would complement the ideal strategy of killing the carrier before it can fight back by doing as much harm in the moment of reveal as possible.
(if:$missiles is 1)[Of course, if range is the goal, then the (link: "missile")[(set: $preparedness to it+40)(goto:"Stealth Sensors")] you just developed would be ideal, having a range at least 50x that of any comparable beam weapon]There was just one major component left to figure out, the sensor arrangement. As these ships were intended to hide as much as possible, you would always be using more passive sensors than anything else. You could go with a [[standard->Introduction]] active setup, but you could also be more adventurous...
If you were able to go into battle never needing to turn on your active sensors at all, you could be almost completely hidden. Sure, it hasn't been done before, but there's no way there's a reason for that, right? It seems like a (link: "foolproof plan.")[(set: $preparedness to it-60, $badStealth to 1)(goto:"Introduction")]