DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER

This fourth part of the Darkstar background and setting material outlines “Naval Life,” what the navies and fleets are actually like – both in the future world of Darkstar and to a certain extent how they are in reality today.  It includes the major divisions of a navy, how they are organized into fleets, task forces, and battlegroups, how one is inducted into either the enlisted, commissioned officer, or warrant officer ranks, how the rank structures are different for fleet, aerospace, and marine arms, what ranks and billets hold what levels of command, and even a sample of the rank insignia (although these would vary from nation to nation, of course.

Also includes the corporate “rank structure.”  😀

Sample page – full doc linked above.

In response to requests from community members who’ve been following this project, I’m continuing to publish the background of the Darkstar universe.

This third part includes an overview of “Known Space,” the general layout of the how far mankind has pushed out into the stars in the Darkstar universe, what the colonies are like, what the fleets are like, and with what general “densities” and command structures they tend to work at in these different “distance brackets.”

Hope you enjoy!

Sample page below, please click on the file above for the full .pdf document to read. 😀

In response to requests from several Beasts of War community members who’ve been following this project, I’m continuing to publish the background of the Darkstar universe.

This second part includes an overview of the “Ten Powers,” the major factions of Known Space that players can fight for in the Darkstar universe.

There are also hints as “sub factions” such as Commonwealth states of the UK, pirates, privateers, several companies of the “Corporate Consortium” and the new “rebel power” of the Khitan-Tunguska Free State.

Re-uploaded to correct a few typos in the text.  😀

Below is just a sample image, please click on the .pdf above for the full document and enjoy!  😀

In response to requests from several Beasts of War community members who’ve been following this project, I’ve started publishing the background of the Darkstar universe.

Apologies it took so long, please understand that these docs were written several years ago for a much more limited audience, before putting them up for general publication I wanted to clean them up just a little.  Furthermore, such efforts were slowed somewhat since I was working on the Kursk article series.

This first part includes a very broad overview of the history of Darkstar – from the present day through the early 2500s.  Future parts talk about the factions, Known Space, Naval Organization, and Darkstar Tech.

These are just some sample pages, click the .pdf above for the full document.  Again, this is just the first section, there is much more to come.

Good afternoon ~

Okay, for those who might be interested, here is what one of our starship commander “career tracker” sheets look like.

Obviously, this sheet is for some of our most advanced (i.e., oldest) “characters,” who have been in plenty of wars, conflicts, battles, and campaigns, and have the experience points and upgrades to prove it.

So obviously the first thing listed is the commander’s name, followed by his rank.  We use a standardized US Navy / Royal Navy navy rank system for all factions except the corporate consortium, but even their levels are all the same (just with different names).

There are also “ratings” for battlegroup commander, task force commander, and fleet commander.  This represents the size of the force that commander is eligible to lead from his flagship.  Battlegroups are up to 250 points, task forces to 500 points, and fleets 501+ points.

For instance, as the skipper of a destroyer, Matthew Spencer started his “career” as a Commander.  His first promotion was for a Commander (Battlegroup), then Captain.  Because he’d already paid for his “Battlegroup” rating, he took it with him to Captain.  Then he was “promoted” again to “Captain / Task Force,” which was required when his force got so expensive (through upgrades, etc) that it became worth more than 250 points.

Hence, he’s been promoted three times.

Next is the ship he commands, obviously USS Oriskany and the US Navy pennant / registry number (DSGN-791).  Notice some of these commanders have replacements and transfers.  Replacements are for when a ships is destroyed and must be replaced, transfers are for when a commander willingly switches ships or is promoted to a new class of warship (e.g., destroyer to light cruiser).

This is important to track while transfers are unlimited (within reason), replacements are limited to three in a career.  After you lose three ships, the Admiralty “promotes you behind a desk” where you can’t do any more damage.

Next are the wars the commander has been in, followed by the number of battles and the number of campaign points he’s earned, followed by the number of campaign points he’s spent and the upgrades he/she has bought with these campaign points.

This is system is actually quite simple.  You get 1 point for taking your ship into an actual battle, win, lose, or draw.  If you’re on the winning side, you get 2 points.  Sometimes I give out extra points for truly large battles, kickass exploits, at the end of a war, etc.

With every 6 points, you get to buy one of the upgrades.

Note some commanders (Commander R. Cruz, for example) started with some points already in the bank.  This is because, if you lose a character (death or mandatory retirement), you get to start a new commander with 1/2 however many points the former character had, and at least one rank lower.  So losing a Captain with 24 campaign points (ouch!) allowed me to start a Commander with 12 points.

The stars under the character name actually tracks the upgrades the character / ship has bought.  Each gold star represents five upgrades (30 campaign points, or about 20 games / battles).  Silver stars are one upgrade (6 campaign points, usually about 4 battles).

Finally, underneath we have a write up we sometimes add to provide narrative for our commanders.

There are about 20 such pages between myself and all the other players who have helped play, develop, and revise Darkstar over the years.

Hope you found it interesting!

SITUATION:  The “Iron Wolf” coalition of Imperial Prussia, the New Roman Alliance, Japan, and the Khitan-Tunguska Free State (Black Dragons) finds itself in dire trouble in the War of Annabel’s Star.  They still haven’t recovered from their defeat at the Battle of Tsarina Twins, and now the defeat of the New Roman Leclerc battlegroup in the outer protoplanetary debris belt of the Neu-Bremerhaven star system (Gleise 581) has left Prussian colonies in that system badly exposed to further attacks by British, Panasian League, and Russian naval forces of “Duchess Annabel’s Alliance.”  Furthermore, if Neu-Bremerhaven falls, this would open the way opens the way to the Eisenwolf Colonies of Gliese 570, the main Imperial Prussian stronghold here in the Libra-Sagittarius region.

Making matters worse, the Annabel’s Alliance has reinforced the British and Panasian naval forces already in Neu-Bremerhaven with ships from the Holy Russian Empire, namely the Suvorov battlegroup, further reinforced with the Gagarin-class light fleet carrier CPK Kamarov.  Clearly they hope to crack the Iron Wolves in Neu-Bremerhaven right away, perhaps to use the system as a springboard for invasion directly into Eisenwolf Colony itself.

Clearly the Iron Wolves have to act to redress the situation.  Although scheduled for a long-overdue refit, the Kanoya light carrier battlegroup of the Japanese Navy is sent to head off the continuing Annabel’s Alliance incursion deeper into Neu-Bremerhaven.  Pushing out of the system’s outer debris belt, the invaders’ first stop is the outer gas giant of Lehmburg.  This is where the Konoya battlegroup resolves to make the intercept.  But the reinforce Suvorov battlegroup is too strong a force for the Kanoya and her escorts to stop alone, so the Prussians agree to commit their light cruiser Rossbach.

This combined Japanese-Prussian force find the Russians  as the Suvorov task force in the eclipse shadow of the fifth moon of the Lehmburg gas giant, Lehmburg Epsilon.  As the Iron Wolves vector in, the Russians do not raise steam to escape, but instead power up weapons to engage in battle …

REPORT:  There’s no two ways to put this, the Russians just have an absurdly bad day here.  Their tactics are sound.  They set a very high speed toward the Japanese carrier force, successfully engaging them with close-range gunnery and torpedo fire before their carriers can launch too many aerospace missile and torpedo strikes against them.

Likewise, the Komarov gets her strike wing launched quickly, and scores a solid torpedo and aerospace missile barrage on the Kanoya.

But nothing goes right.  The torpedoes under perform, and even those that hit just fail to strike vital areas of the ship.  Despite having closed the range and despite upgraded gunnery targeting and crews, the plasma projectors and rail guns of the Syekyra and Rusalka just can’t hit anything.  Where the Suvorov scores hits, the explosions cavitate back out into space or into areas already destroyed by prior torpedo hits.  Even when the Komarov lands part of her Tupolev Tu-97 “Zvesburya” (Star Storm) bomber wing to rearm, a broadside from the Rossbach actually hits the starboard hangar, venting the compartment as the bombers are being re-armed and setting off gigantic internal explosions of aerospace ordinance in the hangar itself.

Not to take anything away from the Japanese or the light cruiser Rossbach, their tactics and performance in this battle are first-rate.  The scrappy little frigates Yurakazu and Tanakasha slug it out with Russian destroyers twice their size, and although the Tanakasha is knocked out, the Yurakazu fights on with nearly superhuman resilience, absorbing punishment that should have crippled a light cruiser yet somehow she remains operational.  The Konoya is eventually damaged to the point where she has to break off, and much of her fighter group is shot down by Komarov’s MiG-103 “Tunguska” aerospace strike fighters, but really it’s the only success the Russians score that day.

The surviving Russians soon break off, again swallowing bitter defeat and giving up their push into the moons of Lehmburg or the other outer planets of the Neu-Bremerhaven system, falling back again to the tankers and support ships that Annabel’s Alliance has staged in Gliese 581’s outer debris disc and cometary halo.

SCORING: Remaining in the battle area, the Iron Wolves have the light cruiser Rossbach (70 points), light carrier Sagae (28 points), assault frigate Tanakasha (24 points), plus three regular fighters, eight regular bombers (22 points), ten elite fighters, four elite bombers (42 points) bombers, plus four regular and seven regular scouts and two elite scouts (14 points) = 200 points, Russians have 9 scouts.  Iron Wolves win by 191 points, Major Victory.

Just a quick look at how terrible my luck was (playing the Russians).  In this last image, you can see the green “3” marker heading behind the small Japanese frigate (FF2) – that’s the Akashi-class strike frigate Yurakazu.  I started with 12 torpedoes, but mass drivers of the Yurakasu and the Rossbach (Prussian “CL1” ship) shot down most of them.  Only three remain, hence the “3” counter.

No worries, Class III torpedoes have a base to hit of 7, and the aft ECM / Shields of this ship are 4, upgraded to 5.  So with 7 – 5 = 2, my odds aren’t great (I have to roll a 2 or less on a d10), but with three tries, I hope to get at least one of them.  One is all it will take, these are pretty powerful torpedoes and the armor of the Yurakazu has already been pretty badly hammered.

Not only do all three of my torpedoes miss, but they miss with 10s, the worst possible roll.  THREE TENS!  Literally a one-in-a-thousand bad luck roll!

Like it said in the write-up, it just wasn’t the Russians’ day.

The Battle of Xenia’s Fortune, between the Black Dragons of the Khitan-Tunguska Free State and Task Force “Oriskany” of the United States Navy (18 October 2518) concludes …

The captain of the cruiser Xin Tian takes command of Black Dragon force, coming hard about and trying to consolidate with the frigate Natelyeva and destroyer Xianhoa.   The Valley Forge, now the only American destroyer left, cuts in behind them, hoping for another broadside into engines and reactors.  The Tarawa stays alongside for defensive fire support, too far away to recover her bombers for a second strike.  The Daggerfish continues to lurk half-hidden behind asteroid fields, locking on successive torpedo spreads.

The US Marine fighters, meanwhile, are lined up on a gunnery strafing run behind the frigate Natelyeva, only to have six of them shot down by Black Dragon point-defense fire.  Those that remain, however, tear into the Natelyeva, opening a big enough hole to where their carrier’s torpedo spread hits a moment later and cripples the Black Dragon frigate.  Overall,  however, this is a bad trade for the Americans, losing over half of an elite Marine strike squadron for one enemy frigate.

Meanwhile, a second smaller battle no less vicious breaks out behind another of the nearby planetismals, where Black Dragon scouts have engaged the Marine Grumman FS/A-81 “Avenger” torpedo bombers trying to get back to the Tarawa.  Two are shot down, while the Marine scouts likewise manage to shoot down two of the Black Dragons’ scouts.

Things turn around, however, as torpedo hits, rail gun impacts, and laser fire from the Valley Forge likewise leave the Xin Tian afire and adrift a moment later, thanks in no small part to devastating torpedoes launched from the corvette Daggerfish.

In that moment, this battle is more or less won by the Americans.  With only the destroyer Xianhoa still operational, supported by less than a dozen scouts, the Black Dragons are seeking only to keep this from turning into an outright rout.  In this they are successful, thanks in part to some rather dim American decisions later in the battle.

First of all, the Tarawa all but breaks off the engagement, heading off on a different vector to recover her remaining bombers (her captain perhaps shocked by the losses his pilots have just sustained).  This leaves the Valley Forge alone against a torpedo spread  from the Xianhoa, which finally scores some lucky hits along with a nasty broadside Xianhoa manages to put across Valley Forge’s engineering sect  ion.  This costs the Valley Forge her aft shields, a vulnerability exploited by the Black Dragon scouts, who start murderous (if desperate) strafing runs.  The Valley Forge cannot fire her mass driver defense guns at these scouts, as they are needed to fend off successive torpedo strikes form the Xianhoa, which has now slid up beside more Xenia’s Fortune asteroids to screen her own damaged stern.  The Valley Forge has no fighter cover since the “Tigerhsark” Marines are off chasing the crippled Natelyeva and Xin Tian, hoping to actually explode one of these derelicts.  Not only do they fail in this effort, but leave the Valley Forge unprotected and she finally goes down to a lucky strafing run by some of the last Black Dragon scouts.

All the same, this battle is a clear American victory.  Even as she’s picked apart by the harrying scouts behind her, the Valley Forge’s last torpedoes and a torpedoes from her and the Daggerfish smash into Xianhoa’s starboard quarter and all but blow the ship in half.

At last, the Battle of Xenia’s Fortune is over, and with it (as subsequent events will bear out) so ends the Scorpion’s Tail War.

Result:  Americans have operational: the light carrier Tarawa, the corvette Daggerfish, four double-elite fighters, two double-elite bombers, two double-elite scouts, and six regular scouts = 40 + 12 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 6 = 86 points.  Black Dragons have four regular scouts = 4 points.  Americans win by 82 points, a minor victory.

With the recent win over the Black Dragons’ Ostovny battlegroup, the Americans at last are nearing the precipice of final victory in the Scorpion’s Tail War.  And it’s not a moment too soon.  As the nearby Duchess Annabel’s War begins to heat up, the unbelievable news soon arrives that through a labyrinthine web of political ironies, the Japanese have actually joined the “Iron Wolves” alliance alongside the Black Dragons.  Needless to say, the Americans in Xi Scorpio are beginning to feel understandably anxious about the security of their base of operations “behind” them on Japan’s Hokkaido’s Flower colony.  Although the Japanese  are so far doing very well in Duchess Annabel’s War and are nowhere near being forced into any additional concessions to  their Black Dragon “allies,” for the Americans the writing is on the war.  This whole astropolitical quagmire (and military train wreck) of the Black Dragon Wars was never an American affair, and it’s time to be done with it before their Japanese allies have to reassess their relationships in the region.

Yet as much as the Americans would love to deliver a final knock-out blow to the weakened Black Dragon naval forces still clinging to the outermost extremities of the “Scorpion’s Tail,” (a vast protoplanetary and cometary debris “whiplash” extending out from the Kostas-Saigo binary star system – Xi Scorpio A/B), they have to wait.  Only the USS Oriskany is presently operational, and legendary as she may be, she can’t beat even a weakened navy by herself.  Soon her sistership USS Princeton is back online, having missed the battle against the Ostovny battlegroup on September 20.  But while Captain Matthew Spencer (commander, Task Force Oriskany) feels confident with two destroyers to at least begin more aggressive patrolling, he doesn’t want to move decisively until he task forces is at 100% strength.

This takes some time, and it’s not until October 10 that all five ships of the task force are back on line.  Yet while Spencer’s patience has indeed delivered him a full-strength order of battle, the Black Dragons have also been hard at work repairing ships, and soon have a sizable force yet again on its feet in the outermost reaches of the Scorpion’s Tail.

Fortunately for Spencer, he already has a target identified, one of the larger dwarf planetismals of the Scorpion’s Tail, the thousand-kilometer “Ceres” of Xenia’s Fortune (named for a merchant ship that once crashed here, her wreckage still half-buried in one of the super-asteroid’s craters).  Here the Black Dragons have been building up a sizable task force around the hated light missile cruiser Zhang Jia. If this war is to end anywhere, it is here.

Yet as Spencer’s task force drops out of its Darkstar wave and vectors towards the Black Dragons, its quickly apparent that the enemy has been gathering additional reinforcements, some of which have only just arrived.  Three light cruisers are awaiting at Xenia’s Fortune, along with two destroyers, a frigate and an old Russian torpedo corvette.

In all twelve ships have gathered here … all of Task Force Oriskany and the vast bulk of what the Black Dragons have left in the Scorpion’s Tail.  If the Americans lose here, they’ll have to give up much of what they’ve won in this war so far.  But if they can score a solid win, this war could finally end today.

The Black Dragons make their approach, hugging close to Xenia’s Fortune, launching scouts and trying to get a torpedo guidance lock on the approaching Americans.

Only some of their ships can get that lock, however, as Spencer has carefully vectored his approach behind one of the area’s many asteroid scatters, screening his ships from some of the enemy task force while allowing a full torpedo firing solution to on the trailing Black Dragon vessels.

The Americans release a full torpedo spread while the Tarawa begins launching her aerospace group (US Marine Corps aerospace strike squadron VMF/A-319 “Tigersharks”).

In this image, DD1 = USS Oriskany, DD2 = USS Princeton, DD3 = USS Valley Forge, DD4 = light carrier (destroyer class) USS Tarawa, and CV1 (barely visible) = torpedo corvette USS Daggerfish.

The Valley Forge takes some long-range hits from the Zhang Jia, while the forward guns of the Valley Forge, Princeton, and especially the Oriskany slash into the K-206.  Even from 2,500 kilometers, the pin-point accuracy of this American volley (enhanced with upgraded targeting suites) enough to hit K-206’s bridge, detonate her starboard magazine, and leave the ship crippled and adrift.  First blood has been drawn.

The two minutes that follow see both sides take incredible risks and pay an incredible price in their effort to win decisive victory here at Xenia’s Fortune.

As the K-206 careens out of control, the light cruisers Xin Tian and Petranyevska shoot forward, hoping to get around the asteroids behind which the Americans are screening their ships.  This allows USS Valley Forge to cut ahead and behind these cruisers with a starboard turn, presenting a broadside to the cruisers’ vulnerable sterns, and at a comfortable distance (the Americans don’t want to get too close to the fearsome Chinese rail guns and Russian plasma projectors).

Other Black Dragon warships, of course, see the Valley Forge make this move.  Rather than stay close with Petranyevska and Xin Tian, they instead fire their engines full astern, “slamming on the brakes” to drop in perfectly behind the Valley Forge.  The damage they will inflict on any American ships in this position will be horrendous, but it also means their fleet is fatally divided in the face of a massive incoming American torpedo and aerospace strike.  Since all the ships will not be able to support each other with defensive fire …

Too late now.  The Americans and Black Dragons both double down on their aggressive strategies, the Americans putting virtually their whole task force in a broadside behind the Petranyevska, the Black Dragons likewise doing so with most of their force behind the Americans.  All the while, of course, torpedoes are racing toward their targets, the Tarawa has completed her aerospace launch, and the Tigersharks of VMF/A-319 release a deadly swarm of ASM-56 Harpoon torpedoes and ASM-92 Hellfire missiles at the Zhang Jia and her escorts.

The USS Oriskany and Princeton open fire first, lasers and rail guns tearing into the stern of the Petranyevksa’s stern at just over 1,000 kilometers.  An instant later the full broadside of the hated Zhang Jia tears full-force into the Oriskany.  First come three of her Tsing Tao missiles, (over sixty warheads were fired at her) ripping open her stern for the fusillade of rail guns that follows.  Engines are hit, reactors overload.  Oriskany’s starboard reactor starts to melt, the port reactor has to be ejected before it overloads and detonates.  Still more fire hits, crushing sensors, mass drivers, aft turrets, and caving in crew quarters.  The “Lady O” is beyond crippled, her whole aft section more or less single sheet of flame as burning atmosphere escapes into space.

Yet even as this happens, Oriskany’s own spread of torpedoes, along with the Valley Forge’s, is slamming into the fantail of the Zhang Jia.  The damage isn’t quite as comprehensive, but the torpedoes set off enough internal explosions to cripple Zhang Jia’s power plant and leave her wrecked and adrift in space.

The slaughter is just getting started.  Seconds later, Xianhoa, Gorokhov, and Natelyeva likewise take apart Princeton’s aft superstructure, instantly knocking her out of the battle.  The Valley Forge opens fire into the Petranyeska, scoring a lucky series of hits that finishes what the Oriskany and Princeton started moments before.  The engines of Petranyeska flicker and die, the cruiser careening out of control.  The missiles and torpedoes of the Tarawa’s Marine aerospace strike slam into the destroyer Gorokhov, damned near blowing the destroyer’s stern clean off and almost exploding the ship right then and there.

Twelve ships sortied for battle at Xenia’s Fortune, and already six are put out of action.