Part 79: 2135-2139 - At least we're not an independent!

We have a few months of quiet, then the Sol marauders try and raid one of our gas mining stations. They fail, thankfully. And I get another protection agreement in.



This prompts a redesign of the stations to include more weapons – and an area effect device, as we don't have to worry to much about friendly ships in the area.



We sign a free trade agreement with the Faliin Corporation. Maybe they will sell us more fuel.







Then, right out of nowhere, I am informed that we have captured a planet! This is a real shock as I've not built any ships with troops bays!



Going to the report, it seems that the Menicing Fang Bandits, one of the many pirate factions we are paying, decided to take the world with one of their large fleets and gift it to us!



This may be a good thing, except the world is in the middle of the Brakios Empire!



We do not need another world to defend, nor do we want to anger a larger empire, so we trade the world back to them, for a fee of course – we call it a donation to our anti-pirate fund.



Our friends the Utrantu have finished a holographic network that is the wonder of the galaxy. We however struggle to stay alive.







We are the forced to break our Mutual Defense pact – we cannot go to war with the Grand Atuuk Territory and defend ourselves against pirates at the same time.



We then complete a gas mining station above Sol 3 – which is then mobbed by fuel starved space craft.



We are days from the completion of an orbital battery over Ogoonu Prime when it mysteriously detonates. We think this is the work of foreign agents, but whether they are from the pirates, or other empires wanting to keep Ghana suppressed, we may never know.



With our 8th Fleet refuelled at last, we target the Haunted Marauders for destruction.



They arrive a few months later and begin the attack.



The shields of the Bandits Fortress are unlike anything we have ever seem and our ships are forced to jump in and out as their own shields fail. We do capture an enemy ship during the combat however.



A fresh wave of Pirate ships turns the tide and we are forced to retreat, having lost four of our twelve ships.



We were nearly there however, and it is clear we need to update our ship designs once more. The new Black Mamba class destroyer is a 50% increase in fire-power over the Mk3 Revenges. It also has over twice the shields while having more spare power from the single advanced reactor than provided by two of the older ones. She is much larger, but larger fuel tanks increase the range.







6th Fleet is now our largest, and patrols the Sol system with extreme prejudice.



Ogoonu Prime is now properly defended, and defensive bases are springing up on other worlds.



As soon as I press unpause after typing this, a massive Sol Marauders fleet jumps in above the planet.



One weapon platform goes down, but not before four pirate ships have been destroyed and most of the others forced to flee.



It could be worse – it seems that every independent world in the galaxy is a terrifying war-zone where pirates and empires come to fight – this could easily have been Ghana.





Yeah, I've been running up and down the walls waiting for them to fix the forum.

I did have time to write a new OP though. Anyone interested in playing in a Goon vs Goon game of combat mission should go
Here