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File: Mars_Orbital_Shipyard.jpg (288 KB, 1600x866)
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((This is a one-shot quest with the goal of enjoying some creative space ship action. It may meander a bit but I’ll try to make it a proper self-contained experience that ties up neatly. I’ll be using Homeworld Style ship classification because I think it’s an fairly straight forward short hand for ship sizes: strike craft < corvette < frigate < capital))
It has been millennia since humanity became a star faring race. Enough time for stellar regimes to have risen and fallen, for technologies to be forgotten and relearned and for a diaspora of life; both human and alien to spread across the galaxy. You are the owner of a shipyard out in neutral space.
The galaxy is full of opportunity, clients both human and alien will consider placing orders with you. Unfortunately, the sheer diversity of the factions in this stellar region means there is no unified currency. Who you do business with and how they pay you will be as important as what you sell.

Where is your ship yard located?
>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.

>A remote but resource rich system; your ship yard supports your own mining operation which drastically reduces material costs. However you will have fewer trade opportunities and “impulse buys”, securing repeat business with reliable clients will be key to success.

>Yours is the official ship yard of an independent colony that has decided to expand its orbital industry. You will have a steady client with the colony itself and the support of other entities owned by the colony. However while you have a certain amount of autonomy you will be expected to prioritize the colony’s ship orders first.

>cont
>>
>>6019359
>A remote but resource rich system; your ship yard supports your own mining operation which drastically reduces material costs. However you will have fewer trade opportunities and “impulse buys”, securing repeat business with reliable clients will be key to success.
>>
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>>6019359
What kind of ship yard is it? (You can expand or retool the ship yard later, so don’t worry about being locked into a single setup.)

>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>An orbital complex with four medium sized berths and small factory; allows you take on multiple orders for frigate sized ships and make limited production runs of small shuttle/strike craft. Good for courting smaller buyers and/or developing bespoke designs for discerning clients.
>A large factory complex with a single “oversized” hanger bay. You can construct a single frigate class hull in your primary hanger but your bread and butter will be filling bulk orders of small craft and/or components. There’s no shortage of clients but the market is cut throat, out doing your clients in terms of cost, innovation or quality will be key to staying afloat.

What types of ships do you specialise in building? (Can be expanded upon as we go so don’t worry about being locked into a specific niche.)

>Civilian ships; your catalogue offers some existing designs with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Your initial technology base can’t be called cutting edge, but you’ll be more attractive to clients who prefer good value for money over bells and whistles.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.

>Exotic Tech; your catalogue includes some innovative designs that don’t quite have an equivalent on the market. However, none of your ships truly fill an existing niche and your R&D team don’t know the meaning of “boring but practical”. Courting traditional buyers will be harder, but you are better positioned to break into emerging markets.
>>
>>6019359
>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.
>>
>>6019364
>A large factory complex with a single “oversized” hanger bay. You can construct a single frigate class hull in your primary hanger but your bread and butter will be filling bulk orders of small craft and/or components. There’s no shortage of clients but the market is cut throat, out doing your clients in terms of cost, innovation or quality will be key to staying afloat.

Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.
>>
>>6019359
>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.

>>6019364
>An orbital complex with four medium sized berths and small factory; allows you take on multiple orders for frigate sized ships and make limited production runs of small shuttle/strike craft. Good for courting smaller buyers and/or developing bespoke designs for discerning clients.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction
>>
>>6019364
>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.
>>
>>6019359
>Yours is the official ship yard of an independent colony that has decided to expand its orbital industry. You will have a steady client with the colony itself and the support of other entities owned by the colony. However while you have a certain amount of autonomy you will be expected to prioritize the colony’s ship orders first.

>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.
>>
>>6019364
>Yours is the official ship yard of an independent colony that has decided to expand its orbital industry. You will have a steady client with the colony itself and the support of other entities owned by the colony. However while you have a certain amount of autonomy you will be expected to prioritize the colony’s ship orders first.

>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>Civilian ships; your catalogue offers some existing designs with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Your initial technology base can’t be called cutting edge, but you’ll be more attractive to clients who prefer good value for money over bells and whistles.
>>
>>6019359

>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.

>An orbital complex with four medium sized berths and small factory; allows you take on multiple orders for frigate sized ships and make limited production runs of small shuttle/strike craft. Good for courting smaller buyers and/or developing bespoke designs for discerning clients.

>Civilian ships; your catalogue offers some existing designs with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Your initial technology base can’t be called cutting edge, but you’ll be more attractive to clients who prefer good value for money over bells and whistles.
>>
>>6019363
>>6019365
>>6019367
>>6019373
>>6019386
>>6019392
>>6019393
>>6019412

Tallying Votes:

Trade Route: 3
Remote Resources: 1
Indy Colony: 2

Capital Class Dry Dock: 3
Medium Berths: 2
Large Factory: 1

Civilian: 2
Military: 4
Exotic: 0

Okay Capital Class Military Drydock along a bustling route is locked in. Not the most synergistic combo, but at least it will be interesting.

Now comes the fun part:

>Writing...
>>
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n_8lPu3DZM&list=PLLIWYDpOq7WJYefSkcfYujE5JaLmB0Ezf&index=3

Your name is Jack Horner and you had a dream: affordable capital ships for everyone! Why should these beauties be the domain of large stellar nations!? Why should only the likes of the Solar Union or the Major Clans enjoy the awesome power of a capital class warship? People had called you insane. “You want to manage not only an independent capital class ship yard, but one that makes warships!? Good luck finding clients, and even if you do, good luck not pissing off one of the regional powers.”

Well somehow you’d done it: through a combination of getting a really good deal on a derelict orbital platform and successfully cheating in certain high stakes gambling dens you now had yourself a ship yard and the accompanying staff. JH Independent Ship Works was now open for business baby! Located in the neutral trade system of Car’Cass you were poised to carve out a share of the independent warship market… if it even existed.

It had been a month since you officially opened for business and started marketing your yards sole proprietary design: the Enforcer. You’ve received some interest in the design but no bites yet. But today, finally you walked into your office to find something in your message buffer that wasn’t spam or didn’t begin with “We regret to inform you”.

JOBS! Actual jobs! And more than one too, unfortunately having only a single dry dock meant you could only take one, let’s see here:

>cont
>>
>>6019464
A commission from the Saurian Clan Margathon. One of the minor saurian clans is asking your shipyard to manufacture a cruiser of their own design for them. They will supply the schematics and you will build it to spec. Intriguing, humans traded with the lizards all the time but it was practically unheard of for them to commission another species to build them a ship. You probably wouldn’t get any new tech out of the deal either, but it’s something. They were also offering to pay you in Margathon Scrip, not the strongest currency out there.

The next offer comes from some guy called Galatan Starwind. He requires an advanced prototype capital class warship to-quote-“give me an edge in battle, be a mobile bachelor pad, and house my battle harem.” Your Enforcer class patrol cruiser was none of those things, but that’s what he offered to buy, and he’s offering to pay up front in Solar Credits.

Finally you have an order from the “Empire of Raiha”. The Imperial house wishes to commission your shipyard to design a bespoke vessel to be the flagship of their glorious space navy. You run a quick check on the infonet; turns out this Empire of Raiha was once a medium sized interstellar nation that fell apart, regressed to pre-space levels of tech and were only now clawing their way back to the stars. Grandiose airs aside they were offering to pay you in common matter to both design and build them their ship.

>cont
>>
>>6019464
Background info to consider:

Common Matter: Iron, Nickel and other abundant elements, usually formed into ingots fitting some kind of metric standard. Undeniably useful as they make up the base materials for various alloys and components. Almost every faction and race place some value on common matter, however its bulk makes them a poor medium of exchange for entities incapable of storing or transporting them.

Saurian Clan Scrip: Currency used for trading between the Saurian Clans. Each clan issues their own scrip, but generally all clans will accept the scrip of all other clans as payment. It’s still worth keeping track of which clan you have scrip for since if the issuing clan is disbanded or falls out of favour it’s scrip will become worthless. Aside from Saurians themselves, most other factions value scrip to trade in it but acceptance wanes the further away you are from Saurian space.

Solar Credit: The currency of the Solar Union, one of the most powerful human factions in the galactic neighbourhood. Naturally trades well within the Union itself, most human factions will accept Solar credits, as will aliens who regularly do business with the Union. However, considering that the Solar Union’s doctrine of “humanity first” such aliens are few and far between.

What to do?
>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

>Give Galatan Starwind his Enforcer. He seems to have the wrong idea about what it’s capable of but he’s still placing an order. Part of you wonders whether you should tell him that he’s making a mistake but he’s offering 3 million Solar Credits upfront.

>Build a warship worthy of Raiha. You have to wonder if this resurgent Empire will be able to pay you through to the project’s end but it is an opportunity to stretch your R&D department and show the galaxy what you’re really capable of. 100,000 Solar tons of common matter is nothing to sneeze at even though it will be hard to fit in your pocket.
>>
>>6019469
>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

This one seems like it has the least chance of going completely belly-up in terms of payment at least. I can easily see Galatan Starwind throwing a giant fit about his ship not being what he wants, and the so-called resurgent empire defaulting on their payment.

Pissing off the Solar Union is bad, but money comes first, and we can always just grovel a little like a good ól human.
>>
>>6019469
>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.
>>
>>6019469
How much are the various currencies worth in relation to each other, and how much did it cost us to produce the ship in the first place? 3 Million strong solar Credits might easily be worth more then 5 Million in a scrip that could instantly depreciate.

I'd say:
>Give Galatan Starwind his Enforcer. He seems to have the wrong idea about what it’s capable of but he’s still placing an order. Part of you wonders whether you should tell him that he’s making a mistake but he’s offering 3 million Solar Credits upfront.

And whilst the shipyard is busy with starting making this pre-existing model, perhaps our R&D boys can look into the design phase of the Raiha commission for 10-20% of the total fee upfront as 'Design and Feasibility assessment'? It'll give us some idea of what they want, what we can build for them, and how reliable they're likely to be as clients. And even if it doesn't go forward into construction, we'll at least stretch our RD theoretical muscles and have some design schematics to pass to them.

Plus, I don't think we want to be taking their payment in matter all at once in any case.
>>
>>6019483
>How much are the various currencies worth in relation to each other,
Saurain Scrip in general is roughly equal in value to Solar Credits within the region of the galaxy your ship yard is based. However there is an important caveat. Clan Margathon is a minor clan, in theory they are paying a very good price, but given how the value of their scrip is directly tied to the prosperity of their clan the value of their currency is potentially the most volatile.

The fact that they came to you: an alien and an outsider for this ship is highly unusual.
>>
>>6019469

>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

Fun idea for a quest. Also, a job is a job - earning a reputation for “irregular” work might be worth the risk of payment in an uncertain currency.

We might also consider that there might be a market for a currency exchange here - we’re in a busy trade route, lots of traffic here. Perhaps a way for us to pad our bottom line
>>
>>6019476
>>6019482
>>6019483
>>6019485
>>6019492

Margathon: 3
Galatan: 1

Calling the vote early because I want to update before bed and leave it overnight. Going forward I will try to update at least once a day. If you're lucky you'll get extra updates.

Looks like we're accepting alien lizard money. Although I will allow an attempt at securing the Raiha deal since that might open up a fun sub-plot.

>Writing...
>>
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>>6019522
The commission for Clan Margathon’s ship seems like the least dubious, which is saying something. Still, at this stage you’ll take whatever business you could get. You send a reply to the Clan to tell them you’ll take the job.

-------------------

A month later a small saurian cargo ship arrives carrying a small team of scientists and engineers from Clan Margathon. The plan is for them to supervise construction and ensure any proprietary Clan tech is not retained by your company after the project is completed. Clan Margathon gives you a down payment of 2 million scrip upon construction start, promising you the remainder once the ship is complete.

>Gained 2Mil Margathon Scrip

----------------

The Raihan Imperial Navy is rather miffed that you chose to fill another order instead of their own. They are still willing to engage your services but are unwilling to give any payment until you show them a preliminary design. The submitted design specifications are:
>Must have enough firepower to best any modern line cruiser. (Tough, but doable)
>Must be able to carry and launch an entire Imperial Aerospace Wing. (If you want this AND firepower, you’re gonna end up with a messy compromise.)
>Must be able to carry and deploy an entire Imperial Marine Legion. (You want that AND the Aerospace Wing!?)
>Must carry an advanced command and control system capable of co-ordinating an entire fleet action. (Woah there, that shit ain’t cheap)
>Must be capable of precision bombardment from high orbit. (You simply don’t have the tech for that.)
>Must have 10 ten luxury habitation suites. (Err…)
>The Imperial Crest must take up the entirety of the ship’s prow. (FFS…)
Yeah, no these design specifications were absurd. Not even the Solar Union itself could build something that ticked all these boxes. These guys clearly didn’t know shit about the limitations of ship design. Although… this might be an opportunity to sell them something they don’t even know they want…

>Tell them that neither you, nor anyone in the galaxy can make them a ship with these specs and that they should come back with a request that isn’t fucking stupid.

>Scam them, tell them you’ll make the ship, string them along for more payment, then deliver them a ship that falls short but is… you know, actually possible. What are they gonna do? Attack you with the navy they’re asking you to build?

>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for. (Write-In, this is where you can theory craft to your heart’s content. I will attempt to distil the ideas given into a final design.)
>>
>>6019527

>Tell them that neither you, nor anyone in the galaxy can make them a ship with these specs and that they should come back with a request that isn’t fucking stupid.

“Buddy, let me save you three years and ten million creds and I’ll give you some free advice - you can have a pleasure yacht and a battlecruiser, but they’re not going to be the same ship. I can build you matching vessels, but if you insist on building a Frankenstein ship, you’re going to have find some other manufacturer.”
>>
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For those of you who are seriously considering coming up with a design:
A Note on your tech level
The galaxy is a big place and the technologies of the various star faring factions vary immensely in sophistication and effectiveness. You know about many high end technologies but what you are actually capable of building is limited by how advanced your production facilities are and how many domain experts you have amongst your staff. For example: energy shielding is a thing, but you lack the facilities and the knowledge base to incorporate shielding into your designs.

While not an exhaustive list this is kind of tech you can produce in house:
>Capital class hulls. (Duh)
>Simple Kinetics (slug throwers both chemical and magnetically propelled)
>Basic energy weapons (Lasers and masers)
>Fusion Powerplants
>Basic electronics (Well by our standards they’d be super computers, but these things are the bare minimum in regards nav calculations, targeting, controlling the ships etc…)
>Basic AI (Stupid AI that can follow preset behaviour patterns. Smart enough to navigate a somewhat irregular environment but fundamentally monotask.)
>Eigen Drive. (The standard human FTL drive, works by “translating” the vessel along N-dimensional vectors or something.)
>Simple onboard fabrication. (Enough to create replacement parts for repairs, but not enough to completely replace lost strikecraft.)

While it’s possible to develop more tech in house or even out right buy it, a more cost-effective short-term solution would be to sub-contract components for more advanced ship designs. Your position in the trade hub makes this more viable.
>>
>>6019527
>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for.

Yeah there's no way we can fulfill this order, I say we just submit a design that they need rather than they want, and given their circumstances I'd say what they need most out of a flagship are Firepower, and the Command System. The rest of shit can be fulfilled by other ships in their fleet.

So I say build we build a slower, but high-spec ship that's meant to hang back and be surrounded by a fleet it directs. It's focus will be on long range firepower that can handle any cruisers or other capital ships from the safety of the rear, and good equipment that a smart commander can use for directing a fleet.

So is this doable

>Capital Class Hull
>Subcontracted (or researched) Energy Weapons (Long Range Focus)
>Fusion Power-plants
>Subcontracted (or researched) Advanced Electronics (The advanced control system)
>Basic AI (maybe better if we can swing a good deal for it on the market)
>Eigen Drive
>>
>>6019556
It's quite doable, you could even make the energy weapons in house though it might be a bit of a stretch.

It will take some doing to find sub-contractors or upgrade your tech level, but that will be another decision point if you get serious about pushing the design forward.
>>
>>6019566

Do the lizards know of any helpful tech here? We already have a team of lizard ship-builders on-site, maybe we could lean on their expertise to patch our technical gaps?
>>
>>6019556
+1
If they deny it at least we get a new design
>>
>>6019566

Hmmm. I'm guessing we can take our time even if it pisses the Raihan's off, I doubt there's going to be another shipbuilder that will be insane enough to build something for them. Especially with their demands, at the end of the day they'll be happy as long as the ship works well for them.
>>
>>6019570
Didn’t they hire lizards specifically to stop that? I doubt it.
>>
>>6019527
>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for. (Write-In, this is where you can theory craft to your heart’s content. I will attempt to distil the ideas given into a final design.)

The aerospace wing capacity. If they have enough bombers and fighters and drones to support bombing runs, sell that as being the firepower. Sell the bombers as being your best chance for higher precision planetary siege strikes.

Make a swank slightly larger messhall where you can quietly partition areas off for parties of cliques within the ship. Give it a big viewing screen that replays big wins and military plays. Have that double as a command center where they can use it to plan out strikes for the (wing) fleet.

Give it an docking port that could secure a glorified box transport along the spine of the ship that they could pump atmosphere into and could hold the marine legion? Optional and don't care too much.
>>
>>6019527

>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for. (Write-In, this is where you can theory craft to your heart’s content. I will attempt to distil the ideas given into a final design.)

From: JH Independent Ship Works
To: Most Glorious Empire of Raiha

My deepest apologies, but with your chosen specifications, it would prove too difficult to construct any one ship that could fulfil all of your desired requirements bar a super battleship. However, our ship works most humbly present to you the designs that we were able to create based on your requirements for your considerations keeping in mind you desire a befitting flagship of the royal imperial family:

1. A command carrier which carries your desired aerospace wing, limited firepower, enough to deter enemy wings, corvettes, even perhaps threaten a frigate or two, but its true strength lies in your requests for the advanced command and control system which will assist with coordinating these wings. Of course, if you so desire, we can come up with designs for smaller ships carrying further aerospace assets that could be further coordinated by the carrier. Of course, we shall ensure that Your most Honourable Crest shall be placed right in the centre of the vessel, allowing everyone to witness the awesome power of your brand-new flagship.

2. A frontline brawler painted in the Glorious colours of your house, it shall have more than enough firepower in terms of kinetic weaponry to best any modern line cruiser and be able to take a beating in turn thanks to its tough armour and shield your glorious realm. Such a ship will ensure that any battle you wage shall have its centre completely and solidly secured. Though I would also personally recommend, if you will allow so, some smaller ships produced by our ship works as such a powerful and tough ship will be slow, so screening and chasing vessels are required.

3. This anon’s idea >>6019556

Probably the best and most honest attempt we can muster, treid to weasel in some other orders down the line. Also, the troop transport is just outright retarded, they need a dedicated transport for that.
>>
>>6019611

You might be right, but I interpreted QM’s post to mean “lizards are coming to oversee construction and prevent ship secrets from spilling”, not that the lizards are going to be automatically opposed to contributing to a second ship project.

Maybe I’m wrong, but licensing some lizardtech might help this weirdo feel special on his battle cruiser, and clearly that is his motivation.
>>
>>6019527
>Scam them, tell them you’ll make the ship, string them along for more payment, then deliver them a ship that falls short but is… you know, actually possible. What are they gonna do? Attack you with the navy they’re asking you to build?
Drop the guns from best to cosmetic, maybe ciws only, but try to make some kind of luxury command carrier
>>
>>6019543
I recognise this tech tree Cool game, liked the art

>>6019624
And I support this
>>
>>6019840
>I recognize this tech tree
I don't I just grabbed a random pic of the internet <.<

>>6019536
>>6019556
>>6019623
>>6019624
>>6019736

Honest Attempt: 2
Fuck off: 1
Scam: 1

>Writing...
>>
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Construction of the Margathon Cruiser hits a snag: the Saurian Overseers are micromanaging your construction crews. HR has received multiple complaints from crew chiefs about “damn lizards trying to tell me how to do my job!” This is probably exacerbated by the fact that the aliens are interacting with your employees using auto-translators. While sufficient for basic communication, a lot of subtle nuance is lost, resulting misunderstandings and coming off as ruder than intended. If this keeps up production will be delayed and company morale will suffer.

How will you handle this?

>Tell your employees that the customer is always right, do it their way, even if it makes no sense, even if it causes delays.
>Negotiate with Clan Margathon’s delegation, tell them that if they want their ship finished on time they are going to have to trust the professional ship builders to build the damn ship!
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>Write In

>cont
>>
>>6019997
Despite how awkward the Raihan’s are being you’re not ready to write them off just yet. You ask your R&D department to get started on a preliminary concept while composing a reply to the Empire. You decide to be straight forward with them; no bullshit, just an honest description of what you can and cannot do for them. Given that you are unsure of their military needs and preferred naval doctrine you can’t really come up with a fully formed design yet, but your R&D team do come up with a basic hull that could be fitted for different roles.

>I don’t think they’ll like this design, scrap it entirely.
>Interesting, let’s make some changes before submitting. (Suggest changes, this is for the base hull shape, we’re not putting in specific systems yet.)
>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)

Regardless, a week after sending your message you receive a reply:

From: The Foreign Office of the Raihan Empire
To: JH Independent Ship Works

Mr. Horner

I believe there have been some misunderstandings regarding our commission for a warship. Given that our glorious empire is only beginning to return to the stars, there are many matters we are yet unsure of. On behalf of her Imperial Majesty, I cordially invite you to the throne world of Raiha that we may have a more fruitful conversation about this.

Regards
C. Chatfield
High Diplomat of the Crown

Huh, curious.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>Send someone to negotiate on your behalf (might be seen as a slight)
>Reject invitation, this client hasn’t even put money on the table yet, you don’t have time for this.
>>
>>6020000

>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.

I view this as a future investment, if we can complete this project and gain a reputation amongst the saurians, we might be able to snag extra contracts later down the line. Also, a question are there more advanced auto-translators? If so, I say we buy them, even if they may have a higher upfront cost, the maintenance costs will most likely be lower than paying salaries for the diplomats in the long run, will also allow to translate more than one alien language probably.

>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it.

Though I'd like for the designs I wrote up to at least be basically sketched out to showcase that they have options and what limitations spaceships of this era have.

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

Might as well, if they so cordially invited us we have to go there with our biggest business smile and continue the PR nonsense.
>>
>>6020000
>>6020021

An addendum, if we do get the diplomats and they are not just a glorified translator, we should probably get one or two of them to come with us so that we don't commit any social faux pas.
>>
>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
Use the scrip to hire Saurians who translate well.

>Interesting, let’s make some changes before submitting. (Suggest changes, this is for the base hull shape, we’re not putting in specific systems yet.)
Make it less dick shaped

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
We ain't swingin any spanners, may as well celebrate our illustrious position with a royal visit
>>
>>6019962
Heh. Stars in Shadow, a decent Master of Orion 2 clone.

>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>>6020000
>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>>
>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>Interesting, let’s make some changes before submitting. (Suggest changes, this is for the base hull shape, we’re not putting in specific systems yet.)
Like another anon said, less dick shaped. Im thinking more angular like the FTL Kestrel, but capital sized.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>>
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>>6020021
>Though I'd like for the designs I wrote up to at least be basically sketched out...
((I suppose I did promise "creative space ship action", just bear in mind that it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to put the art together so I will be using QM fiat to decide how far I want to take a concept.))

You decide to push your R&D team further. A bare hull was full of possibilities, but you needed something more concrete to truly spark the imagination. You wanted the Raihans to look at these designs and imagine commanding one as it spread the glory of their empire.

Eventually your R&D team get back to you with three submissions:
Project Sovereign: R&D refined their original design into a long range weapons platform, that can hang back and command the fleet while raining fire down upon the enemy.

Project Carrack: The definition of boring but practical; a big metal box that could definitely accommodate that aerospace wing, and serve as a command platform. Functional, but the design lacked a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.

Project Warhawk: You have to question whether the R&D team even cared about the original design spec anymore. This thing was pure warship porn, maybe if their admirals saw it, they’d be so enamoured with the design they might just forget all about their ridiculous list of requirements and commission it on impulse.
With these designs you at least had something that you could sell the Raihans on. Heck, even if you decided the Raihans weren’t worth it you might be able to take one of them further and add it to your catalogue.
>Design vote has been rendered moot now. If you choose to go to Raiha you will try to peddle these three designs. The other votes will be left open till I update later this evening.

>>6020043
A Note on Diplomacy and Translation
There is no one size fits all solution to communication among the different races and factions. Literal translation of languages is simple enough, but true expression requires in depth understanding of body language, idioms and cultural norms. Combine that with the fact that individual races will have their own sub-cultures and dialects and communication becomes even harder.

Advanced translation devices exist but are exponentially more expensive than basic ones. Diplomats are pricey but still cheaper. Regardless, a device or diplomat will only be rated for communicating between two to four species. Whoever you hire to help with the Saurians might not be able to help with other species.
>>
>>6019997
>Negotiate with Clan Margathon’s delegation, tell them that if they want their ship finished on time they are going to have to trust the professional ship builders to build the damn ship!

>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
You don't say no to Royalty when they're trying to find ways of paying you.
>>
>>6020137

>((I suppose I did promise "creative space ship action", just bear in mind that it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to put the art together so I will be using QM fiat to decide how far I want to take a concept.))

Sorry, didn't mean to make you go all the way out QM, just thought to mention bringing rough sketches of multiple designs (without them being drawn out of universe) that could then later be worked on into proper designs as the quest progressed.

>A Note on Diplomacy and Translation

Good to know.
>>
>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.

>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>>
>>6019997
>Tell your employees that the customer is always right, do it their way, even if it makes no sense, even if it causes delays.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>>
>>6020021

Supporting, what do we have to lose?
>>
Sorry guys, no update tonight.
>>
>>6020000
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>>
>>6020493
Thanks for running so far QM. The artwork is really nice to envisioning the designs.
>>
>>6020021
>>6020045
>>6020062
>>6020131
>>6020140
>>6020199
>>6020202
>>6020230
>>6020502

Hire Pros: 5
Customer is Always Right: 1
Let me build the damn ship!: 1

Hiring Pros wins, and we have a unanimous decision to go on a business trip to Raiha.

>Writing...

>>6020142
Yeah I think for my own sanity I'll try to focus design decisions down a bit more before committing to actually drawing anything.

>>6020503
Thanks
>>
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“This is bullshit! Market rate for diplomatic consultation at this scale is 500k scrip, 750 if I’m feeling generous and I am most certainly not!”

The Saurian diplomat in front of you inclined his head in what you assumed to be a gesture of apology.

“You are not wrong Mr. Horner, unfortunately the scrip you are offering is backed by Clan Margathon. That clan is-as you say-‘in the red’. We of clan Quezet are taking an enormous risk in accepting Margathon scrip at all. Consider the inflated price compensation for our risk. After all there is a very real chance it will become worthless soon.”

“Even so, two million scrip is outrageous!”

“It is the only deal I am authorized to accept, unless you can offer payment in a more stable currency?”

Well this was news to you. No wonder Maragathon was willing to ask an upstart alien shipyard with no track record to build them something; they were desperate! How did you not figure this out sooner!? You were so eager to take on your first project you hadn’t even done a basic background check. I mean, you thought the fact that they could put money on the table meant that they were legit right?

Regardless you were too far along with the project to let it fall through now, and frankly; did it matter that you were getting ripped off if the money you were losing was worthless? You allow yourself a very long-drawn-out groan.

“fffffffFINE! Two million scrip for a department’s worth of human/saurian diplomats. Just stop my clients and crews from murdering each other until we can finish the ship!”

>Lost 2mil Margathon Scrip

--------------------

>cont
>>
>>6021166
“How did we miss this?”

Right after you finished paying the Quezet rep, you had immediately called an executive meeting.

“Well Jack, you basically said ‘Shut up and give me your money’, the moment you received their order. If you’d asked me about it first instead of announcing the project to the entire staff, maybe I could have discovered that this wasn’t the best client to take on.”

“Gee, thanks Karen,” you spat at your chief financial officer, who flipped you off in response.

You couldn’t deny she had a point though. These lizard’s had taken you for a ride and it was kinda your fault.

“So what are we gonna do now?” Asked Tim, your chief technical officer.

“We’ll finish the ship, at the end of the day I want a completed project under our belts. But after the ship is done I am holding on to it unless clan Margathon can pay the remainder of the price in something that isn’t their worthless scrip.”

Your head legal consultant spoke up: “You sure that’s a good idea? We did agree to the current contract.”

You roll your eyes. “This isn’t the Solar Union. Who’s gonna make me honour this bullshit deal?”

“You’re right Jack; this isn’t the Solar Union; worst case scenario Clan Margathon sends it’s warriors to storm the yard and take the ship by force. No rule of law doesn’t mean you shouldn’t honour the deals you make. Even if the lizards don’t get violent, word gets around and our rep would tank even more. Not only did we go back on our deal with Margathon, we were stupid enough to make one with them in the first place. It’s in our interest to finish up this contract with minimal drama.”

“I think we should just consider this a high-risk, long-term investment.”

You looked at your CTO incredulously.

“Hear me out: just because Margathon scrip is worthless today, doesn’t mean it will be worthless tomorrow. What if their clan’s situation improved? The fact that they came to us means that they were incapable of acquiring capital ships before, once we finish making them this one, the standing of their clan can only improve. It might take a while but I think the value of their scrip will appreciate eventually.”

“One cruiser isn’t going to save an entire clan Tim,” sighed Karen.

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know their situation but I think trying to stiff them is more trouble than it’s worth.”

>How should you handle this? Remember: your business trip to Raiha is imminent, whatever you decide, your subordinates will have to deal with the fall out.

>Honour the deal.
>Refuse to hand over the completed ship unless the remaining payment is delivered in a better currency.
>Write-in

((Ended up developing the Margathon sub-plot more than I thought. I think I’ll give it some breathing room and leave the Raiha arc for another update unless you want to cancel the business trip))
>>
>>6021168
>Honor the deal
>>
>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
Refusing to honor the deal is way more trouble than it's worth. The only real question is what to do with the scrip. Do we hold on to it and hope it appreciates, or try to spend it as quickly as possible in case it crashes?
>>
>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
>Demand to study their tech
No way they get to essentially stiff us and then be anal about protecting their tech.
>>
>>6021208
But that's also a breach of contract, which comes with similar consequences to demanding different currency.
>>
>>6021168

>Honour the deal

Listen, if we give these guys the warship, there’s a decent chance that they go on the warpath and suddenly their money is actually worth something.

That being said, let’s look out for our hard bottom line.

How hard would it be to install a backdoor into the electronic systems of the warship without the lizards finding out? We could then sell the secret later to their enemies for non-useless currency.
>>
>>6021213
>How hard would it be to install a backdoor into the electronic systems of the warship without the lizards finding out?
Nigh impossible with your current capabilities.
>>
>>6021215

Damn, worth the question at least.

Well, I do think we should honor the deal anyways and hope that the lizards’ money is worth more over time.

Maybe we could try to upsell the lizards with a maintenance contract or warranty plan to scare up some additional (worthless) money?
>>
>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
read up to current events, cool quest so far
>>
>>6021168

>Honour the deal.

As an independent entity, reputation is everything. We MUST maintain a solid reputation for people to go out of their way to purchase ships from us. We cannot take any actions that could compromise that.
>>
>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
>>
>>6021168

>Honour the deal.

Our word is our bond. We can only thrive if keep the deals we make.
>>
>>6021168
>>Honour the deal.
>>
((RL shitmight slow down updates over the weekend. For now, have some delicious lore.))

A Note on the State of the Galaxy, and Common Knowledge
“Star-faring civilisation” refers specifically to a faction that can build and use it’s own FTL tech. “Space-faring civilisations” have a reliable means of inter-planetary travel but not FTL. They usually have colonised the entirety of their home star system. There are a significant number of space faring civilisations that are aware of the wider galactic community but are content to “stay home” or outsource their FTL tech to become something in between space and star faring. Human civilisation on Earth circa 2024 would still be considered “pre-space faring” as despite being capable of space flight, we have not accomplished large scale colonisation of our solar system.

The galaxy is multipolar. The challenges of interstellar communication (and power projection) mean there aren’t really any pan-galactic organisations. Many civilisations would claim the title of “Empire” but these are tiny in comparison to what you’d see in something like say: Dune or Star Wars. Having more than one star system under the control of a single regime is a serious feat. The Solar Union only rules 10 star systems and each Major Saurian Clan has between 3-5 star systems under their direct control. In between are countless independent colonies and regional powers.

Information networks are readily available in most developed star systems, but interstellar news doesn’t travel nearly as fast as the modern RL news cycle. Accessing info on market conditions and detailed histories of different factions is not as simple as a google search. Your location in a trade hub makes passive info gathering easier but being well informed will still come down to active digging and cultivating connections.

((Despite these info dumps, the world setting is nowhere near fully fleshed out in my mind. This is basic setup is really just an excuse for me to pull whatever I want out of my ass, which in turn will hopefully add interesting context to what is ultimately an excuse to dream up spaceships.))
>>
In general, how much of a market would there be for a "monitor" ship? No/bare-minimum/Assist-needed FTL and probably shitty engines, but in return for no FTL and probably shitty thrusters it's a small ball of big guns and heavy armor to drive off larger targets and hit above its weight class. Practically unusable on any offensive that isn't a slow crawl, but makes pirates or even some militaries think twice about attacking a planet or station protected by it.
>>
>>6021769
There's actually quite a big market, the problem is system monitors are usually frigate sized.

This is because it's a lot easier to send the ships to the client.

A capital class hull with no FTL capability is really hard to deliver, to the point where simply giving it at an FTL drive is easier than any attempt to "tow it" or tack on a disposable FTL booster.

The average client that needs big in system defences usually invests in a static battle station.
>>
>>6021785

If that is so, whenever we expand our shipyard, I'd say we add a frigate berth so we could make monitors, it sounds like a cheap, but steady investment.
>>
>>6021785
Would a bare-minimum FTL be small enough for it to still fit the role of a system monitor (IE draw most of the benefits of having none), or would they be reduced but still worth it, or just not worth the trouble of making an FTL-capable monitor because that's just a slow-ass regular ship with extra steps?

Would it also be possible to deliver the ship in on-site assemble-able pieces? So instead of it having its own FTL or towing it or strapping a booster, we just put the pieces in a couple of cargo ships, truck it there, and then put it together. Kinda like how you can buy prefab house parts, it's just a whole house/half of a house then put on the foundation and wired to electricity/piped to water and sewage on-site.
>>6021904
OR... We make a SUPER-CAPITAL dock and use that to make a cargo ship to deliver the cruiser-monitor whole!
>>
>>6022034

>OR... We make a SUPER-CAPITAL dock and use that to make a cargo ship to deliver the cruiser-monitor whole!

I think the literal moment we make one of those we are getting invaded by any nation-state nearby cause its that valuable of an asset.

Speaking of which, if the shipyard keeps growing, we will need to invest in its defences, a lot. Neutrality only works when you are armed after all.
>>
Stupid idea: flat-pack 90% of the capital ship to try and get a system monitor down to frigate size. Collapse all the crew quarters, corridors, storerooms, bridge, fuel tanks, etc. Then a smaller FTL tug could take it where it needs to go. Downsides should be really obvious but such a design does have a few upsides, largely around ease of repair, maintenance and being able to modify a design to suit a customer easier (and the customer being able to customize it themselves far easier too).
>>
>>6022053
I feel like that'd be best with a carrier (aka a lot of empty hangar space so less to put together), but that gives me another idea; a ship that folds out into a repair/construction dock for on-site assembly or repair of ships like these theorized monitors.
>>
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>>6022034
>>6022046
>>6022053
>>6022087
((I expect informal theory crafting will be a big part of this quest, so I’m going to try out a gimmick to facilitate that: when enough discussion occurs I’ll respond to it in the form of a written scene between the MC and another NPC of a relevant background. These scenes are meant to be separate from the main timeline of events and are meant to be ‘water cooler’ conversations that happen ‘at some point’ during the MC’s busy schedule.))
“So what do you think? I’m just throwing shit at the wall here to see what sticks, so don’t be afraid to tell me if any of these ideas are dumb.”

The intern from R&D looked at you apprehensively before slowly giving his feedback.

“Well, um sir, there isn’t really such a thing as ‘bare minimum FTL’, at least not with what we have. A ship either has a full-blown Eigen drive or it doesn’t. Maybe there are other FTL technologies out there that are more scalable or disposable, but I don’t know of any off the top of my head. Your idea of a super-capital FTL transport would work in theory, but given our current situation we’d have to expand the yard into a super-cap dock and go to the trouble of designing and building the transport. I’m not a business guy but I’m guessing this would be a massive investment that would take a long time to pay off.”

“Yeah, I guess that would make sense,” you sigh. “What about flat-packed pre-fab ships?”

The intern rubbed his chin, giving it some serious thought.

“In and of itself it’s a solid idea, but we’d have to put in some serious R&D into designing something that can be made in tiny pieces, flat packed, then assembled on site. Heck, figuring out the transport and assembly workflow will be take some doing. Also, this technique would only be viable for civilian designs.”

“What? We can’t flatpack weapon systems?”

“It’s not about guns sir, it’s about the super structure. If your ship skeleton is made of lots of pre-fab pieces stuck together it’s simply not going to handle the shock of combat manoeuvres and weapons impacts as well. Generally mil-spec hulls need to be fully formed in a drydock in order to achieve the required durability. Although…”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t quote me on this, but I have heard of atomic bonding tech that can join parts more securely than conventional welding. If we acquire that then pre-fab warships could become possible.”

((Proper update will likely be delayed till Sunday evening. I won't have the time to put out anything more than little vignettes till then.))
>>
>>6022569
((BTW don't take the intern's comments as a guaranteed roadmap, he's speculating just like you are. Universe is being built as I go so there's a lot that hasn't been decided on.))
>>
>>6022087
((Forgot to address this one))
>a ship that folds out into a repair/construction dock for on-site assembly or repair of ships like these theorized monitors.

"That's just a super-capital mobile ship yard sir, those exist, but they're really expensive. Hmm, I guess if you're serious it would be feasible to make the current shipyard mobile, but that would be really costly and severely limit the potential for expanding it's facilities, again, not a business guy. Maybe if you do the math it could be worth it, IDK."

"I'm thinking more, something with capital class displacement, that has extendable scaffolding and a medium hanger for worker drones. Doesn't need full blown material processing or fabrication capabilities."

"Oh! Yeah, that's definitely something we can do with our current tech. We'd have to sit down and figure out the design before we can make it but if that's what you really want to do next, just say the word... Oh! Just remember sir; without a pre-fab ship to assemble such a ship wouldn't be able to do much beyond basic repairs."
>>
>>6022569
((Nice! I wish I could think of something to trigger another scene like this))
>>
Is there any benefit to sticking two FTL drives on a ship?

Is space tourism a thing? If we design a capital-sized cruise ship would there be potential buyers?
>>
>>6021168
>Honour the deal, but spend the scrip to buy resources from the Raiha Empire immediately
Hopefully they won't realize we're scamming them.
>>
>>6022589
What market is there for armed transports? If there is one, I imagine it's most appreciated by military logistics, traders going through pirate-heavy areas, and possibly pirates themselves (not that we'd sell to pirates, even if these upstanding gentlemen who just showed up out of nowhere with hundreds of thousands of credits of goods seem a little rough around the edges). Would it be reasonable to re-design the Enforcer into such a craft? Take out the fighter wings for cargo bays, toss on some (energy-based so there's no magazines needed) AA to counteract the lack of fighter cover, maybe upsize the main gun just a *little* bit to be capable of warding off any pirate capitals.
>>
>>6022789
>>6023045
You’d been having some ideas to diversify your catalogue lately so you met up with Caroline from marketing over lunch for a second opinion. Her pained sigh was not a good sign.

“Jack, I’m not an engineer and even I can tell you that sticking two FTL drives on a ship is more trouble than it’s worth; the damn things drive up maintenance costs, plus I’m pretty sure having more than one drive will cause some wibbly-wobbly sub-dimensional bullshit to happen- go to talk to R&D if you want a more in-depth explanation of how bad of an idea that is.”

Geez… she could have just said no.

“Now about the whole cruise ship tourism thing. The thing you need to understand is that there’s no pan galactic tourism industry. Different cultures have different ideas of what’s fun, and even if a demographic likes to travel they usually engage in tourism within their own star systems. Yeah, there’s probably a stellar nation out there that does cruises, but the whole ‘touring the galaxy thing’ doesn’t really happen. In short, what I’m saying is you’ll need to do market research. I’d also add that we are a ship building company, not a tour company, if we can’t find a tour company to sell to, don’t even bother. It’s beyond us to create demand where none exists.”

You nod thoughtfully as Caroline continues.

“A better market is luxury transports or yachts. Yachts are usually frigate class though. And once again, different buyers have different concepts of luxury. You’ll need specialists in xeno-ergonomics to design the ship interiors up to standard.”

“You say xeno, but that only applies to aliens right? Since we’re humans, we already know what humans consider luxurious?”

“Gee I dunno Jack, can you design elegant interiors? Do you have an eye for the aesthetic? Do you have good taste?.”

You decide not to answer that…

“Luxury designs need professionals regardless of race, got it.”

Caroline gives you a satisfied smile.

“Moving on to the armed transport idea I’d advise against it. Different territories have varying laws on armed civilians, plus the average trader prefers to commission escorts if the risk warrants it. Not saying no-one would buy it but it all comes down to market research. As for the actual ship design, talk to R&D. I’m sure they can modify the Enforcer hull accordingly.”
>>
>>6021173
>>6021196
>>6021213
>>6021226
>>6021312
>>6021456
>>6021466
>>6021673
>>6022878

Unanimous decision to honour the deal. Time to finally move the plot along. Hold on, this is gonna be a big one.

>Writing...
>>
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You throw up your hands in resignation.

“Fine, give the lizards their ship, just like we agreed. In the meantime I’m head to Raiha to see if I can secure a better contract. I’m sure you guys can handle the final sale while I’m away.”

----------------------------

With the diplomats spread out amongst your work crews your crew chiefs are actually able to have some constructive conversations with the overseers, some even build rapport. The saurians are still super cagey about guarding their tech, but thanks to the diplomats, they manage to come to a compromise that won’t impact the schedule.

------------------------------

You prepare for your trip to Raiha. Much to your embarrassment after all the effort you went through to acquire a ship yard, you don’t seem to have a ship yourself. Fortunately, the Raihans were willing to send one to pick you up. A few weeks after accepting the invitation an Imperial Raihan frigate arrives in system and docked with your shipyard.

The frigate itself is a rather spartan affair and you are forced to share a cramped room with your accompanying head of R&D and legal consultant. This was par for the course for a warship but couldn’t they have sent something more comfortable?

As the frigate approaches Raiha, the Captain invites you up to the bridge to view the ‘glorious capital’ of the empire first hand. In front of you is an enormous space station connected to the planet via an orbital elevator, below you concentric rings of light glitter on Raiha’s night side, showing off what must be a continent sized metropolis. It is a rather magnificent sight. Your head of R&D doesn’t seem to think so, constantly squinting at something off in the distance.

“Something on your mind Persica?”

“This planet has seen better days.”

“Looks pretty fancy to me.”

Persica shakes her head.

“Yeah they’re putting the good stuff front and centre, but look a little closer. Notice how the planet seems to be shrouded in this glittering cloud?”

“Orbital traffic right? That’s normal for a highly developed space faring world.”

“Nah, movement patterns and density don’t match orbital traffic; it’s a debris field. This planet is suffering from Kessler syndrome, this orbital elevator is probably their only path into space. Take a look at the city lights below, notice the places where the urban sprawl suddenly just goes dark?”

“Could just be unconventional urban planning.”

“Maybe, but it looks like this planet has seen some shit Boss. Don’t know what to make of it yet, but something doesn’t feel right.”

>cont
>>
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>>6023432
Eventually the frigate docks and you are shown to your quarters. The rooms are much more to your liking, on par with a five-star hotel. Concerning though where the armed guards posted outside that accompanied you everywhere you went. Their armour was golden and ornate but they way the move implied they were no mere ceremonial guard. When questioned they would politely but firmly stonewall you, reciting some canned lines about how “the crown wished to ensure your safety.”

Just as you started to wonder whether you had been kidnapped you were summoned for a meeting with the High Admiral of the Imperial Raihan Navy. The meeting takes place in a lavish state room with a wide window overlooking the planet. (Persica tells you it’s not a real window but a high-fidelity camera feed). As you enter a man you presume to be the Admiral turns to greet you. He seems to be a older man with greying hair, but his physique was robust. Dressed in his admiral’s uniform he had an imposing presence, which he somehow mitigated with a warm smile.

“Mr… John Horner I presume? CEO of JH Independent Ship Works?”

“The same,” you confirm. “But please, call me Jack.” A smile and a nod, seems like the Admiral was happy to play this casual. “I’m guessing you’re the Admiral of the Raihan Navy?”

High Admiral Arcturus Horatio Rex Garan the 5th, of the Imperial Raihan Navy. Also currently Lord Commander of the Imperial Raihan Armed Forces.” You nodded slowly, hoping you looked suitably impressed. “But please, call me Arcturus,” he finished with a wink. Okay so we were going to play it cool, you could appreciate that. Way better than the stuffy protocol you were expecting.

You introduce both your associates as you all sit down on a wide sofa in the middle of the room. Arcturus himself, sits down on another sofa opposite you. A servant brings refreshments and sets them down on a coffee table between you. All the while both your guards and the Admiral’s take up position behind their respective charges. Despite never saying a word or moving an inch you could not quite forget they were there.

>So…
>”I couldn’t help but notice I’ve been under guard constantly since I was here. Is there some danger I should be aware of?”
>”Tell me a little bit about the Empire. My infonet only had the briefest of summaries.”
>”Tell me about the needs of your Navy, I’m afraid the original design spec was a bit unrealistic, but I so have some alternate concepts here for you to look at…” (go straight to business.)
>Write in
>>
>>6023434
>So…
>I presume you'd rather get straight to brass tacks, we can do small-talk after.
>”Tell me about the needs of your Navy, I’m afraid the original design spec was a bit unrealistic, but I so have some alternate concepts here for you to look at…” (go straight to business.)
>>
>>6023438
+1
>>
>>6023438
+1
>>
>>6023434
>>6023438

+1
>>
>>6023434
>”Tell me a little bit about the Empire. My infonet only had the briefest of summaries.”
Build rapport first
>>
>>6023438
+1
>>
>>6023438
+1
>>
>>6023461
>>6023468
>>6023478
>>6023589
>>6023648
>>6023688

Looks like you guys really know what you want.

Writing...
>>
File: QueenOfRaiha.png (1.98 MB, 1649x725)
1.98 MB
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“I presume you'd rather get straight to brass tacks, we can do small-talk after.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

”Tell me about the needs of your Navy, I’m afraid the original design spec was a bit unrealistic.”

Arcturus chuckled. “Ah yes, I think somebody just went around to the various branches of the military, compiled a wish list and called it a day. I’m no engineer but I assume the final design will need to be more… focused.”

“Glad we understand each other. I had my R&D team come up with some alternate designs for you, let me know what you think.”

You set up a portable holo-projector and proceed to pitch your designs. Arcturus leans forward with great interest.

“So, what do you think?”

“I can’t help but be charmed by Sovereign, it would certainly look good on a newscast, but what I really need is something in between Carrack and Warhawk. I need something tough, that can carry troops and provide fire support.”

“That doable Persica?”

Persica gives it some thought. “With all do respect, if you want to up the firepower you’ll have to sacrifice some of the carrying capacity.”

“It just needs one or two big guns, not a full battery.”

“I guess that’s doable, but I’m not sure-”

Just then you hear the door chime. Arcturus glances at it in annoyance. “I thought I gave strict instructions to not be disturbed.” One of the guards opens the door then immediately staggers backward and gives a hasty salute. In the doorway flanked by guards of her own stood what looked to be a young woman in an elegant robe, her hair done up with intricate jewellery. Arcturus himself stands up and gives the woman a shallow bow.

“Your majesty!”

The woman gives Arcturus a disdainful look before turning her gaze to you. Her gaze is harsh and probing. You get the feeling she is drawing all sorts of conclusions about you yet you detect no judgement.

“Is this the foreign shipwright?”

“Yes, your majesty. Mr. John Horner, CEO of JH Independent Ship Works… and his associates. Mr. Horner, this is her majesty Asaga Kire Zelevas Ryu, Empress of the Raihan Empire.” Much to your embarrassment you realise you had been gawking. You hastily get you your feet and kneel, encouraging your associates to do the same.

“Ah! Uh, pleasure to meet you, your-uh-majesty.”

>cont
>>
>>6023860
Asaga regarded your antics with some amusement before bidding you to rise.

“Be at ease Mr. Horner. There’s no need to stand on ceremony, although…” She turned to Arcturus. “Admiral why was I not informed of this meeting? I should have liked to consult Mr. Horner on the matter of our empire’s new flagship.”

“Apologies your majesty. I did not think you would care for such technicalities given the situation on the throne world.”

Asaga narrowed her eyes at Arcturus. “You assume too much Lord Commander. What kind of flagship we commission sends a message to the rest of the Empire and to the galaxy at large. It is more than just a military matter.”

“As you say your majesty, shall we move to another room? This one isn’t so fitting-”

“It’s fine Arcturus, there’s plenty of room on the couch for me. Let’s just continue where you left off.”

You were now sitting across the table from both the Admiral and the Empress. Arcturus himself looked far less relaxed than he was previously. Asaga herself was completely poker faced.

“So…uh…the Admiral and I were just hashing out a design for some kind of assault carrier. He tells me your navy needs something that can carry troops while mounting big guns.”

The Empress frowned at this. “Well, I suppose that would be what the military needs, but is it what the Empire needs?”

“It is what the Empire’s Military needs, it is a distinction without a difference,” asserts Arcturus with some annoyance.

“I disagree Admiral. There is a difference between strength and aggression. I would have our flagship be a symbol of the former and not the latter.”

Crap, you seem to be caught in the middle of some bullshit power game. The Admiral clearly had an agenda the Empress didn’t agree with, the fact that he could openly argue with her implied she might not have as much power as her title would suggest. What ever ship you built for them would directly impact Raihan foreign policy. Question was: did you care?

>Try to sell them on the assault carrier.
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
>Write In (This better be good, don’t want to piss them both off).
>>
>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.

It’s not like Sovereign isn’t a damn good warship in its own right. It should get the job done well enough, and besides the empress is probably the one cashing the checks.
>>
>>6023861
>>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
While this may be a vote on which ship we sell I think the more important thing to think about is how this will impact foreign policy. Sounds like if we sell the more war-oriented ships the empire is going to be expansionist and aggressive. Which is good on paper for a company selling warships… But I could see it getting us into a whole ton of shit if they piss off the wrong people by being expansionist and Raiha is just setting foot back into space anyways. It might not be best the for them to be aggressive either. I think going with the Sovereign is the safer bet. It’ll be a big stick the Empress can wave around in diplomacy but rarely use.
>>
>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
>>Write In (This better be good, don’t want to piss them both off).
"Look, if you're planning on a fight happening, and needing a ship to carry the day done soon you'll want the assault carrier. If you just want to start building a fleet, and you either have supporting ships already or you have the time to get them, the Sovereign is probably the better option as the centerpiece. I'd personally recommend the Sovereign, but that might just be the businessman in me hoping you'll buy the rest of the fleet from me, too."
>>
>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
But take the payment up front. If their mlitary ends up performing a coup, we don't want to lose the payment.
>>
>>6023861
Okay, so, if my reading of the geo-politics at play here is accurate, then we're looking at Space Japan circa 1900s. Specifically, the military are expansionist (hence aggression, invasion capacity) while the Princess wants...a showpiece for morale purposes? I'm not sure if what she wants is a ship that serves purely for propaganda or if she thinks they should focus on being able to win a fight rather than - I assume - invading former colonies of theirs...

In my honest opinion, we go with the Princess. The High Admiral might be the one in charge of the military but she is the one in charge of the nation - he'll probably be replaced before she will - and she is his nominal superior. There are risks with this, but if we're smart we can definitely make some moves to ensure we've a direct-line-of-contact with her to counter any potential moves he might make. Maybe see if she'd be in the market for any non-military capital ships? Something to help them clear their orbital debris might be smart...

>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.

"If you want a showpiece, the Sovereign is the most impressive. If you want a fleet killer, the Warhawk is the most powerful. If you want to move troops and support them, the Carrack is most suited."
>>
>>6023861
>>>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.

Oh great, political squabbles. Yeah, while the admiral may be good in the short term, causing a way may be quite deleterious. I say stick with the Empress.
>>
>>6023878
+1
>>
>>6023895
OOH! That's a good idea! We might even be able to make big money doing it for free, depending on the scrap... and if not money, might be able to grab some good tech, no?
>>
>>6023895
I don’t know about calling the sovereign a showpiece. It’s still a highly functional warship with great firepower and command capabilities, if a little gaudy. Simply calling it a showpiece is underselling it too much for my taste’s, I’d argue it’s just as good as the other two ships but a little less suited to Raina’s direct military needs (invasion).
>>
>>6023902
Well yeah, except the Sovereign has 5 technical issues for us to overcome. The power grid, electronics, sensors, targeting and C3. The carrack and Warhawk have one and two respectively. Even assuming you take the light guns of the carrack as a issue, that'd still be just two.

Reasonably speaking therefore, it seems entirely reasonable to call out the Sovereign as a showpiece - on paper and at a distance it might look great and scare the shit out of someone, but unless we get a lot of money to fix the problems, it's gonna be a very flawed vessel.
>>
>>6023909
Design-wise the only issue is the power grid. Building-it-ourselves-wise the other stuff is an issue, if we skimp out on the proper research or buying quality shit then it becomes a design issue. It’ll be a shitty ship if we make it a shitty ship, but in theory it should be up to par if we put in the requisite time and money. And why would we tell them that anywho.
>>
>>6023916
Well yeah, but let me put it another way - if we applied the same tech / funding to the other two designs, they'd also be substantially improved (e,g with the same funding, the Warhawk could use automation or more advanced targeting to cut down on the issue of literally everything inside being ammo storage with little room for crew or other facilities). Being upfront with the fact the Sovereign as a design is fundamentally more likely to have problems is just reasonable - we're definitely building them a ship, let them decide if they want to risk a potential boondoggle.
>>
>>6023861
>>Try to sell them on the assault carrier.
This will net us more future contracts i think.
>>
>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
She's cute
>>
>>6023865
>>6023877
>>6023878
>>6023892
>>6023895
>>6023896
>>6023897
>>6023967
>>6024152

Almost everyone voting for Project Sovereign. Makes me wonder how things would have gone if the Admiral was a hot upstart dommy mommy while the Emperor was the old dude.

>Writing...
>>
Regardless of politics you were here to make a sale, and the first, most simple rule of sales was: ‘’If the customer knows what they want: give it to them.” Now that the Empress was here she would likely stymie any attempt to finalize the design of a hypothetical assault carrier, much easier to present her with something full formed she could say yes to. And you had just the thing.

“Well there is this other design I was showing the Admiral. I call it Project: Sovereign. It’s more of a pure space warship which might be more up your alley.”

You bring up the holo-schematic of the Sovereign design again, walking the Empress through the specs before finishing off with some artistic impressions of the ship in action.

"Look, if you're planning on a fight happening, and needing a ship to carry the day done soon you'll want the assault carrier. If you just want to start building a fleet, and you either have supporting ships already or you have the time to get them, the Sovereign is probably the better option as the centrepiece. I'd personally recommend the Sovereign, but that might just be the businessman in me hoping you'll buy the rest of the fleet from me, too."

The Empress studied the design thoughtfully, you could see the Admiral’s face grow dark as any hope of him getting his desired vessel slipped away.

“It looks a little phallic for my tastes, but the Sovereign seems like it would provide a stout deterrent to the Empires enemies as well as inspire the people. I believe we should commission this design.”

Whatever the power dynamic was between the High Admiral and the Empress, he clearly didn’t have enough to openly defy her. In the end Arcturus was forced to give his grudging assent. “If it pleases your Majesty, so be it.”

“Excellent. I thank you for your time Mr. Horner, my secretary will organise a follow up meeting with my own financiers and shipwrights to finalize the contract.”

You couldn’t help but grin at closing the sale.

“No, thank you for your patronage your highness.”

>cont
>>
>>6024470
You spent another week on the station attending meetings. This time Persica and Frank(your legal consultant) did most of the talking. It was mostly hashing out design details and finalizing the payment plan.

The Raihan Government was still offering 100,000 tons of common matter. It didn’t seem to have much in the way of other currencies. Getting upfront payment was out of the question, even if the Raihans were willing to take that risk, they didn’t have the capacity to ship it all to you in one go and you didn’t have the capacity to store it.

Payment would be delivered in instalments upon completion of certain milestones. When all was said and done your associates presented you with the project plan.

Frank wasn’t too happy about it.

“I’ll be honest Boss, if we had any kind of reserve this would be a done deal, as it stands things might get a little tight.”

“Well there is some good news. Turns out we don’t need to worry about the C3 systems. The Raihans have some kind of taboo against advanced computing tech, instead they rely on a special ‘savant’ caste to handle that stuff. We just need to alter all the command consoles accordingly. They’re willing to give us the tech.”

>Gained new technology: Raihan Neural Interface.

“That just leaves the long-range sensor system. I don’t think we can develop it in house.”

“That’s a problem for future us. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

--------------------------

The Raihans sent you home on the freighter that carried the first instalment of your payment. It was definitely a down grade but at least the freighter gave you separate rooms.

>Gained 20K Common Matter

Once you arrived back home you were happy to find the deal with Clan Maragathon concluded with out a hitch. The lizards had taken their ship and left in a hurry, but not before giving you the final payment.

>Gained 3mill Maragathon Scrip

((Gonna try tacking some numbers onto all this ship building in order to have a lever to create more dilemmas and decisions.))

>Now, before the next update. Somebody roll me a d20.
>>
A Note on Matter as Currency and Building Materials

You can’t actually make a ship out of money. Ships are constructed using different combinations of matter. The more high tech the design, the higher the proportion of rare matter or even exotic matter. You are unlikely to have all the materials you need in the required quantities at any given time. Thus you will need to buy what you lack either with money or through direct trading.

Common Matter: Iron, Nickel and other abundant elements, usually formed into ingots fitting some kind of economic standard. Undeniably useful as they make up the base materials for various alloys and components. Almost every faction and race place some value on common matter, however its bulk makes them a poor medium of exchange for entities incapable of storing or transporting them.

Rare Matter: Lithium, Boron and similar elements. Like common matter, but more valuable due to rarity and usefulness to industry. Rare matter packs more value per ton, but once again runs into issues involving bulk transport and being able to quickly exchange it for desired goods.

Exotic Matter: Anti-matter, Phelebotinium, E-115; exotic matter is a catch all term for materials that share extraordinary physics defying properties. Rarely found in nature, and requiring expensive infrastructure to synthesize in industrial quantities. Exotic Matter is an essential component in the manufacture of FTL drives and certain advanced power plants. Despite its incredible value, trading in exotic matter is difficult as it usually requires specially made storage facilities.
>>
Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>6024474
>>
Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>6024474
>>
Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>6024474
>>
File: Infonet1.png (389 KB, 1635x1355)
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389 KB PNG
>>6024502
((Too low for anything to happen...))
>>6024635
((This one however...))

With the initial payment of common matter covering the cost of phase 1 construction of the super structure went off without a hitch. The Raihan Empire delivered the second payment on schedule but the foundry reported some impurities with it.

Turns out the Raihans were sourcing their common matter from their own debris field, must have been centuries worth of detritus up there and the salvage crews weren’t 100% through when sorting it for processing. In a stroke of good luck, the ‘impurities’ turned out to be rare matter embedded in cut up ancient ship hulls.

>Lost 20kT CM
>Gained 35kT CM
>Gained 5kT RM

With phase two came the first major hurdle. You needed rare and exotic matter to fabricate the power plant, engines, electronics and FTL drive. Nominally you’d buy these off the open market you had no money beyond the Margathon Scrip which was currently very hard to move.

Current Resources:
>35kT CM
>5kT RM
>3mil Maragthon Scrip

"Who the fuck is Paul Ruskay?" you ponder as you peruse the local infonet.

How to source the materials?
>Try to find an independent seller to take your scrip.
>Try buying from someone you already know. (Who?)
>Make transactions on the open market to get what you need. (See pic related)
>Some other hairbrained scheme. (Write In)
>>
>>6024679
Ah fuck my rampant copy-pasta has bitten me in the ass. Some of the prices on the Clan Collective Market being in SoC is a typo. The Saurians are definitely not handling transactions in solar credits.
>>
>>6024689
Are all the buying and selling prices meant to be switched? because right now we could buy the materials and sell it for a profit.
>>
>>6024717
I guess? When I wrote buy and sell I meant: The market will buy from you at this price and sell to you at this price.

Is that not how it's displayed IRL? I can swap it if you find it confusing.
>>
>>6024679
Assuming we sell all the CM (and buying and selling rates are swapped) we would get 3.15 mil (3.5*0.9) SoC on the UMI and 3.85 (3.5*1.1) CAS on the CCM.


Rare matter would be better to buy on the UMI then the CCM looking at the exchange rates with us being to buy about 1.67k*10 tons (3.15/2.3) the UMI and 1.48k*10 tons (3.85/2.6) using the CCM


And EM would be better on the UMI as well since we can buy about 4.85k Tons (3.15/1.2*2) EM using the UMI and 4.28k (3.85/1.8*2) Tons using the CCM

So if we’re going to sell our common matter to buy other materials the UMI is just straight up better.


>>6024732
Nah it’s fine just confused me a little. Can we get an estimate of how much EM and RM we’ll need for the ship?
>>
>>6024742
Wait NVM I ignored the earlier graphic.
>>
>>6024732
Yeah I think the intuitive reading is that we buy from the buy column and sell at the sell column.
>>
>>6024679

I’m a bit leery of using the lizard money now - it might be worth more in the future if the Margathon clan becomes a stronger faction.

>Try buying from someone you already know. (Who?)

Do we perhaps know if the Lizards have any interest in trading for rare/exotic materials? Obviously we want to trade in resources and NOT potentially worthless lizard money. What about the black market for stolen materials? We might be able to “launder” stolen materials by converting them into ship parts, sort of like how some assholes will steal copper tubing and then install it into someone’s house for double-profits (no cost materials!) or a chop-shop for cars.
>>
>>6024742
We need about 15,000 more RM and 1,000 EM to finish the project- which will cost us 4.1mil SoC to buy the on the market which we won’t have even if we sell all the CM. Selling all but 15k CM (for construction) on the market nets us 1.8 Mil so we need to make up a 2.3 Mil SoC difference.


So I guess…
>Try buying from someone you know (Maragthon)
>>See if we can buy any Raw materials from them using their script.

We can’t really make any moves until we know exactly what we can get using their script, but 2.3 Mil worth of stuff is what we should go in thinking of getting (or getting a loan of) in negotiations.
>>
>>6024679
Push our 3mil scrip onto Benny and see what we get. I really doubt it will appreciate in any observable future.
>>
>>6024777
You burned all your underworld contacts when raising the capital to set up the shipyard.

You could try making some new ones but getting in bed with criminals carries much bigger risk.

>>6024777
"The Lizards" are not a monolith. You currently have direct contacts with Clan Margathon and Clan Quezet.

Margathon is currently unwilling to sell anything... I wonder why?

Quezet is will to sell to you at a 300% mark up. They think it was nice of you to do business with Margathon but the value of their scrip is still in the toilet.

>>6024780
Loans are an option, yes.
>>
>>6024780

What about taking out a loan for the 2.3 solar creds? Probably we’d get absolutely shanked on rates but if we stay on top of the payments we can make our lender re-amortize.
>>
>>6024679
Know what? Fuck it.
>Sell 20,000 CM for 1.8 Mil SoC credits
>Take a loan of 2.3 Mil SoC credits
>Buy 15,000 RM and 1,000 EM for 4.1 Mil SoC credits
>Pray to space Jesus the Maragthorn Credits appreciate or the Raihan’s pony up before we go into bankruptcy

We already bet on this shitty currency might as well double down.
>>
>>6024801
Tentative +1
>>6024789
Can we sell any of our technology or designs? I’m really scared of taking a loan.
>>
>>6024801
>>6024805
Why don't you want to sell the scrip to Benny, anons?
>>
>>6024679
ehhh, +1 to >>6024801

>>6024824
>gacha
ngmi
>>
>>6024827
>hates gacha
>is willing to bet on a currency of a minor clan who's getting its shit kicked in somehow appreciating somewhere in the undefined future
Please explain your reasoning.
>>
>>6024830
It’s either that or sell it for pennies. At least we know they have a capital ship now. We’ll need a loan anyways even if we do sell it.
>>
What if we were to enter a partnership with the Empire of Raiha and become their state-sponsored shipyard?

We could make a deal to become their state shipyard and trade center with the rest of the galaxy. Since we are located on a massive trade network we could potentially be the largest space presence the rest of the galaxy sees of the Raiha. And in doing so we could promise them to begin construction on both military and civilian vessels. This would make them invested in our continued existence as well.

For example, we could start with a civilian ship mounting many small lasers that destroy orbital debris. This could be a good way to begin countering their Kessler syndrome.
>>
>>6024875

This is a good plan but I’m sure they’ll want one or more completed ships from us before we become their shipyard of choice?
>>
>>6024830
oh, nah, I wouldn't have been for dealing with the lizards in the first place. That weird second option would've been my choice.
>>
>>6024801
>>6024805
>>6024827
We are working a job with a profit margin below 2mil, we definitely should not go into that much debt.
We need to exhaust every other possible avenue before it comes to that.
>Try to find an independent seller to take your scrip.
>Some other hairbrained scheme. (Write In)
Get an (1) amazing deal from BENNY
>>
>>6024946
Yeah, but we've already dealt with them, so why are you voting on holding on to their trash "money" now?
>>
>>6024948

I don’t really see any other avenues besides that, though. Unless Benny is both the best negotiator in the universe AND dealing with the biggest sucker in the universe we’re going to go into debt, the only difference would be going into very slightly less debt now by selling the script, or going into 2.3 mil debt now and holding onto the script in hopes of a payday. The way I see it the only damned chance of profit we have here is holding onto the script. And if the script doesn’t go up, we pay off most of the debt from the Raiha payments and we hope that the jobs we done were good enough advertisement to get a more profitable one.


I see this as mostly a consequence of choosing probably the least synergistic options of the starts. The most expensive starting area and the most expensive ships.
>>
Hot take: it’s actually good for us to go into some debt.

We want to build up a “credit score” that shows that we are a reliable partner
>>
>>6024991
The thing you need to remember about Benny is that he seems to be doing it for the hell of it moreso than anything else. He's one of those ship-people from Homeworld, so he's got all the tech he needs.
>>6024679
>Make transactions on the open market to get what you need. (See pic related)
Convert 7.5k common mats into 1k tons of Exotic Matter (this is the approximate exchange rate if you convert it through creds... I think). We can buy the rare matter when we get more payment.
>Try to find an independent seller to take your scrip.
If it's not a good deal:
>Some other hairbrained scheme. (Write In)
TRIPLE GACHA WITH BENNY!
>>
>>6024991
>I see this as mostly a consequence of choosing probably the least synergistic options of the starts. The most expensive starting area and the most expensive ships.
Yeah and anyone in the market for a capital ship built by an independent yard is going to be kinda shady, hard up or both.

Regarding the scrip, I think we should make something out of it instead of just hodling it like the suckers we are. We should find someone to move it, even if the 3 mil shrink down to <1 SoC.
>>
>>6025005
I mean the only ones who are willing to take it so far are Clan Quezet for a 300% markup so the only thing we could get is 1 ton of exotic matter with 300 thousand Maragoth Scrip left over. It would save us 650k SoC and take the debt down to 1.75k mil, but at that point I’d rather hodl for a chance of profit instead selling for chump change. I
>>
>>6025009
Let's see if an independent seller can give us a better price than the other clan.
>>
Roll me a d20 to find an independent seller.
>>
Rolled 10 (1d20)

>>6025230
>>
Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>6025230
>>
>>6025244
>>6025249
Failed

Opinion seems to be split regarding Benny. Based on discussion I'm thinking there's enough consensus to warrant buying one object.

Roll me a d10 for Benny.
>>
Rolled 8 (1d10)

>>6025262
>>
>>6025269
Oh ho!

>Writing...
>>
File: AmazingDeal.png (168 KB, 1506x1348)
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Try as you might, you couldn’t find any independent sellers that were silling to take Margathon scrip without a ridiculous markup. Traders in Car’Cass were too well informed and as long as Margathon was getting thrashed by the Solar Union the value of their currency was unlikely to increase.

That left you with only one option for spending it…

------------------------

“Greetings J. Horner, I welcome you to the arena of interstellar business. The scrip you offer is of value to the… pfft… hahahaha! I’m sorry I can’t keep up this schtick any longer. Seriously? What were you thinking!? Setting up an independent capital ship yard and and selling to a clan that was facing annihilation?”

Your face fell. Of course an entity like Benny would be fully aware of the situation.

“So are you going to accept the payment or not?”

“Of course! When you’re unbound, your time horizons are practically infinite. And even if Margathon does bite the dust, nothing like a little risk to spice up one’s existence.”

“Yeah speaking of which. Can I get the odds on what this deal is likely to get me. Almost every jurisdiction legally obligates everyone to display payout odds on what is effectively gambling.”

“Hey man, being unbound means being unbound by laws like that. Besides, not even I know what you’re gonna get.”

“I thought you had mastery of hyperspace, how can you not know what you’re about pull over here!?”

“I’m high as fuck every time I do it. Initializing quantum wavefront now, big money! Big Money!”

A short distance away from the shipyard a neat box of blue energy opens up and slides across the void to reveal the derelict prow of starship where there was previously empty space.

“Hey if I pay you another million can I get the rest of that ship?”

“Nope, purged the settings from my hyperspace buffer already. Can’t let you optimize the fun out of your little venture can I?”

“Easy for you to say. Must be nice to have an infinite time horizon. When you’ve only got the span of a single flicker life I find it’s more fun to not have your investments go tits up.”

“My dude if you’re trying to guilt me into helping you out like a certain other leader you gotta do better than that. Whining about your business going under doesn’t really tug the heart strings in the same way that facing a galaxy ending threat does.”

“What are you talking-”

“Anywho gotta head for my next appointment. For what it’s worth, making that cruiser for Clan Margathon gave them a fighting chance. So who knows, maybe things might still work out for you yet. Farewell…”

>Lost 1mil Margathon Scrip

>Cont
>>
>>6025355
After your worker drones finished dismantling the wreck you received a report from the foundry. Looks like the piece of junk Benny gave you was the prow of some kind of high spec warship, human tech base as well, probably a casualty in some ancient battle fought by the human diaspora. The hull and internal components were broken down into a respectable mix of common and rare matter but the real jack pot was an advanced fire control system optimized to acquire targets for a railgun battery at long range. With some time and modifications your R&D team could repurpose it for Sovereign and even reverse engineer the tech for your own use.

>Gained 10kt CM
>Gained 3kt RM
>Salvaged FCS has filled the requirement for a long range sensor and reduced the cost of phase 3 by 1kT RM.
>Gained technology: Mil Spec Long Range Targeting Sensors

>Revise purchasing plan in light of these developments?
>Otherwise gonna go with:
>>6024801

((Benny considers their business with you done for now, you may not attempt to buy more pulls from them at this time.))
>>
Here's a little something extra for you guys:

https://voca.ro/16zHIqp3PPKD
>>
>>6025358
Revising.
Selling CM to buy RM is marginally more efficient with the Clans, so I switched to them
>Sell 28,363 CM for 3.12 Mil CAS
>Buy 12,000 RM for 3.12 Mil CAS
>Sell 1,636 CM for 0.147 Mil SoC
>Take a loan of 0.753 Mil SoC
>Buy 1,000 EM for 0.65 Mil SoC
>Have 250k SoC of liquid funds
>>
>>6025455
((I think I might live to regret simulating a market. Oh well, Cést la vie.))

Let's get the bean counting out of the way.

>Writing...
>>
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Even with your gamble with Benny paying off you ended up having to go into debt, and to financial institutions affiliated with the Solar Union no less.

>You have taken out a loan for 753k Solar Credits at 10% interest.
>Phase 2 Construction Costs: Lost 10kT CM, 10kT RM, 1kT EM

With phase 2 complete it was time for the installation of the weapon systems, sensors and a whole manner of other little things. Shortly after phase 3 began Tim, your CTO came to you with a problem.

“Jack, I’ve been reviewing the schematics for Sovereign. Based on the specs of the primary laser turret and the way its wired to the main reactor, the weapon is going to be prone to overheating.”

“Stuff like that is a chronic problem with energy weapons. No design is perfect.”

“This isn’t a minor problem. If we keep to the current design the laser turret will only be able to fire a handful of shots in battle before the heat build-up reaches dangerous levels along the main power conduit in the spine. You know what else is along the ship’s spine? The missile launchers. Unless the captain uses the laser sparingly there’s a very real chance the magazine for the missiles will cook off and destroy the whole ship. This is a potentially fatal flaw.”

“What can we do about it?”

“We’ll need to mount an array of heat sinks along the spine. This will solve the problem, but they’ll replace the capital class missile launchers.”

“That will lower the overall firepower, can we find somewhere else to put the missiles?”

“We could replace most of the medium kinetic battery in the rear with a VLS. This would reduce the ship’s effectiveness against frigate class vessels at medium to close range. We’d be going all in on the long range specialisation.”

“If the problem is the laser why not just replace it with something easier to work with like another capital class VLS?”

>cont
>>
>>6025466
“The laser is the centre piece of the design. Removing it would be seen as us cutting corners. It’s also worth noting that despite doing less raw damage than a missile battery, energy weapons offer a significant tactical advantage through their speed and precision. Effective countermeasures also require a much higher tech base, whereas most stellar nations can just slap a CWIS on their frigates and drastically reduce the effectiveness of missiles.”

“What about a heavy kinetic battery then?”

“Still sacrificing speed and precision, plus the ship’s combat profile will shift towards a mid-range brawler. It doesn’t quite have enough armour to be optimal and that role and we can’t add any more without screwing up the thrust/mass ratio.”

>How to handle this.
>Make no changes. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but also contain a FATAL FLAW.
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.
>Trade the Laser turret for another VLS. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER on paper but will be EASILY COUNTERED by anti-missile systems. Phase 3 costs reduced by 4kT RM and increased by 4kt CM.
>Trade the Laser turret for a heavy kinetic battery. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but will be LESS SUITED for its role. Phase 3 costs reduced by 4kT RM and increased by 4kt CM.
>Just remove the missile launchers and install the heat sinks. The Sovereign will have REDUCED FIREPOWER but will retain FLEXIBILITY.

-------------------------

After you finish talking to Tim you are visited by Caroline from marketing.

“Hey Jack, I was talking to some of crew chiefs and the fitting of the crew quarters hasn’t started yet. I know it’s not in the agreed upon spec but we still have an opportunity to install a few luxury suites on the ship. I think it would be a nice bonus that would help keep the Raihans sweet. I’ve found a specialist in xeno-ergonomics who’s willing to join us for 1 million Solar Credits.”

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)
>Pay 1mil SoC and gain the Xeno-Ergonomics(Human) tech. Luxury suites added to the Sovereign at no extra cost.
>”You know what Caroline? I think I do have good taste. I’ve seen the kind of styles they like on Raiha. How hard could this be?” (Roll 2d100 to attempt to add Luxury suites without pre-requisite tech. Could go wrong.)
>>
>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.
A ship of this class needs to have escorts anyway.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)
>>
>>6025468
>Make no changes. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but also contain a FATAL FLAW.
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)
>>
>>6025520
>Make no changes. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but also contain a FATAL FLAW.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

Ignore above vote
>>
>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.

>”You know what Caroline? I think I do have good taste. I’ve seen the kind of styles they like on Raiha. How hard could this be?” (Roll 2d100 to attempt to add Luxury suites without pre-requisite tech. Could go wrong.)
>>
>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

Actually thinking it over the fatal flaw is way too bad to justify. Switching.
>>
>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.
>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)
>>
>>6025492
>>6025520
>>6025587
>>6025530
>>6025632

Unanimous vote for rear VLS.

Overwhelming majority for no feature creep.

>Writing...
>>
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You decide to sacrifice some kinetic turrets to move the missile system, really the Sovereign should be adequately escorted at all times. You were sure the Raihans would agree that the trade-off was worth it. Acquiring 10kT of rare matter to complete phase 3 turned out to be the last real road block to the project. With phase 3 complete the penultimate instalment of common matter came in and from there it was a straight shot to finish up the outer hull.

You were expecting to organise some kind of gala event upon Sovereign’s completion, maybe even play host to the Admiral or Empress as the ship launched. No such thing happened. The Sovreign’s crew came in with the last shipment of common matter and boarded the ship with little ceremony. In the end it launched with little fanfare. Although you did sense a quiet respect when you handed her over to the captain.

“Fine work you’ve done there Mr. Horner. Shame I won’t be able to keep her.”

“What do you mean?”

“My orders are to take the ship to Raiha, once there it will be-” he caught himself. “Well, you need not concern yourself with such matters. On behalf of her Imperial Majesty I thank you for your services.”
Final resource count at project completion:
>25kT CM
>1kT RM
>250k SoC
Outstanding debt:
>911k SoC (interest has incremented twice over the duration of the project.)

---------------------

In the end a rather modest office party with the rest of your executives marked the end of Project Sovereign. After the ship launched your work crews had promptly used up their vacation days. Half of them were probably getting shit faced on one of Car’Cass’s many orbital habitats. Sitting in the board room you contemplated your disposable cup of cheap champagne while the rest of the team rode the giddy high that came before the crash at the end of weeks of overtime.

“Guys I’ve been thinking, we have to get bigger. Right now we can only make one cap ship at a time, that’s basically putting all of our eggs in one basket. We need to expand the yard, have more than one revenue stream you know?”

“Jack, we barely turned a profit on Sovereign and it will be God knows how long before the Margathon scrip is worth something. If we didn’t get lucky with Benny we could be deep in the red right now. I don’t think we’re in a good position to expand.”

>cont
>>
>>6025689
“Shhh Karen, let’s allow ourselves to dream a little,” you activate the AR display on the conference table and draw a crude sketch of the shipyard. “Come on everyone, if money wasn’t an issue, what do you think we really need?”

>Vote for Minor upgrade, this is a ranked vote so you may vote for multiple options.
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade the yard’s defence grid. Right now you only have some light CWIS turrets. Upgrade will increase turret coverage and firepower.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

>Vote for a yard expansion, also a ranked vote.
>A second capital class dry dock.
>Two frigate class drydocks.
>A factory for strike craft.
>>
>>6025692
If money wasn’t an issue.

>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies

>Two frigate class drydocks.
>>
>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.
If someone's going to attack us, they're going to do it to try and take us over, but we REALLY need more tech on offer. Like flatpacked assemble-on-site ships and atomic welding for delivering capital-class monitors.

>>Two frigate class drydocks.
>A factory for strike craft.
Start selling monitor frigates and escort/patrol craft. Do NOT build a 2nd capital drydock. We don't have enough buyers.
>>
>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade the yard’s defence grid. Right now you only have some light CWIS turrets. Upgrade will increase turret coverage and firepower.

>Two frigate class drydocks.
Sounds like Raihans are doing something tricky.
>>
>>6025705
This vote presumes we only get one of each, and if we only get one total it's the frigate-class drydock.
>>
>>6025692
>>6025705
+1
>>
>>6025692

>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

This is practically mandatory. Once our staffing is solid, we can focus on exterior defenses.

>A factory for strike craft.

This is equally mandatory - we NEED the ability to crank out smaller craft on a regular basis to keep a steady income. Not to mention - there’s probably a market for overpriced elite fighter craft and a specialty outfit like ours could really make a name quickly.
>>
>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

>A factory for strike craft.
Not only is strike craft the quicker turnover option, we could build a carrier and its strike wing in one go.
>>
>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

>A factory for strike craft.
>Two frigate class drydocks.
Strike craft can be sold as a package with a capital as a carrier, harder to do with frigates.
>>
>>6025692

Minor Upgrade:
>Defense Grid
>Internal Security

If we’re going to invest in our defenses let’s invest in our defenses. All the internal security in the world doesn’t matter if a hostile party can start poking holes in our station and venting our atmosphere until we’re forced to surrender.

Shipyard Upgrade:
>Strikecraft factory

Let’s just start building some craft we won’t have trouble moving in large quantities to ensure we have a trickle of income to finance our larger projects
>>
>>6025692
>>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.


>A factory for strike craft.
>>
>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>A factory for strike craft.
>>
Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>6025697
>>6025705
>>6025706
>>6025709
>>6025718
>>6025726
>>6025730
>>6025935
>>6025947
>>6025974

Lab Complex: 8
Internal Security: 8
Defence Grid: 2

Frigate Docks: 5
Strike craft Factory: 8

Strike craft factory is a clear winner but there's a tie between research and internal security. Rolling a d2 to break the tie.
1: Lab
2: Internal Security

>Writing
>>
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Time was a funny thing. The days moved by at a crawl, then suddenly it had been six months since the launch of Project Sovereign (designated the Ryu class command cruiser by the Raihans). You had always wondered why they didn’t want to celebrate the completion of their flagship. The answer came a month later when you were visited by a Raihan diplomat just as a certain story was making the rounds on the infonet.

--------------------

You read the article with a sour expression: Flagship Launched over the Throneworld

The Imperial Raihan Navy has unveiled its new flagship: The IRS Asaga. Constructed in absolute secrecy over the last few months, it is the first capital class warship produced by the Imperial Shipyards in over 200 years. First of a new line of Ryu class command cruisers, the IRS Asaga boasts a formidable array of long range weapons and advanced C3 capabilities, making it the lynchpin of any naval formation.

Empress Asaga was present at the launching ceremony where High Admiral Garan christened the new ship in her honour. The Empress expressed hope that the ship would go on to defend the Raihan people and inspire hope for a prosperous and peaceful future as the Empire returned to the stars.


“Seriously? What the fuck?” You growled as the door to your office opened.

Right on queue the Raihan diplomat stepped into your office with one of those annoying inoffensive smiles on his face.

“You want to tell me what exactly your government is playing at?” You say as you bring up the news article on the AR display where he could see it. “Project Sovereign was our first real contract; it was supposed to put my shipyard on the map. I went into debt to finish that ship for you and now you’ve gone and stolen the credit!”

“Come now Mr. Horner; it simply will not do for my Illustrious Empire to be seen commissioning a no name independent shipyard to build the ship that is to be a symbol of its might.”

“And yet that’s exactly what it did.”

The diplomat sighed.

“You must understand that repairing our own industry to the point where we could build capital ships ourselves would have taken much longer. When we heard that your company was open for business we saw an opportunity to accelerate our plans.”

“So now what? Have you come to threaten me into silence? You know construction of a capital class warship is not easy to hide. Anyone with eyes to see would have noticed.”

“But all eyes were on the throne-world. And there’s no need to be so hostile Mr. Horner. The Empress sympathizes with your situation. In exchange for your… continued discretion I have been authorized to offer you further compensation…”

>Cont
>>
>>6026278
Well, that had happened. With the Raihan Empire’s hush money you had managed to pay off your debt and expanded the shipyard. It was a new era for JH Independent Shipworks. You couldn’t say it was bright (after the expansion had been paid for you barely had anything left) but you were in a stronger position that you were before and despite being in the middle of a vacuum you could smell opportunity.

>Thread Intermission
>>
>>6026279
>taking the hush money
I know we would've ended up taking it anyway because anons are cowards but I wanted to expose the fuckers or force alternative compensation for dicking us over like this.
>>
I will be putting the main story on hold for the next few days to recover from running. This quest has ended up requiring much more effort from me than I originally thought. I knew the art would take some doing what I didn’t expect was to end simulating an economy and spend so much time doing the writing.

You see I did not want this quest to just be a “video game” where I give you a spread sheet of numbers and tell you what happens. That’s a waste of a human QM, might as well go play an actual video game. I tried to frame the choice outcomes with actual character interaction rather than an impersonal summary. Having said all that I ended up defining an in universe economy. Even though I risk getting bogged down with spreadsheets it was getting hard to communicate the stakes of running the shipyard without putting some actual numbers to your choices.

One of the things I plan to do during the intermission is think a bit on how to balance the economy. (The hush money is basically an excuse for a soft reset.) The other is come up with new story threads.
In the mean time, (You) now have the opportunity to get some of that creative space ship action I promised. Based on your discussion I will do art for up to two designs to add the catalogue before the main story moves forward. Now’s your chance; do you want to diversify with civilian designs, or double down on the death machines?

Oh and feedback; feel free to offer it. How are you liking the quest so far? I made up a lot of stuff as I went but I’m starting to find my feet now that we’ve explored a few plot threads together.
>>
>>6026294
Quest is fun. I think we ought to try and make a utility ship, something that is able to to do onsite scrapping, repairing, and general maintenance. Would have military and civilian uses, and with more yards, can produce different squadrons? Produce small groups of ships designed to work off of each other
>>
>>6026294
Let's develop a line of Kessler Syndrome cleanup small craft and sell them to the Raihans before anyone else catches wind of this market. Even though I'm angry at them.
>>
>>6026294

I love the quest and think you’re doing a great job. Addressing “scope creep” is a great idea too - quests have a tendency to spiral out of control and QMs can find themselves simulating things that the MC wouldn’t know or care about if they’re not careful.

>>6026404

Supporting - a line of space garbage trucks isn’t glamorous but it will pay the bills
>>
We didn’t get the tech yard so we should design something using the tech we currently have or it’s going to be costly to develop it again. We recently got the long range military sensors which is probably now the most impressive tech we got.

So what about a small disposable scouting strike-craft that’s pretty much just equipped with sensors meant to find enemy positions and ships, and for civilian purposes mineable asteroids ore and other things. If we’re feeling really good maybe some cloaking tech to make it harder to find.
>>
We got a strike-craft yard and capital ship yard… Let’s make a shift that synergizes these two.
>Design a capital ship a lot like project Carrack that focuses on serving as a command and launch post for strike-craft with some limited firepower.
This way when we sell the ship we can package it with strike-craft we make for extra profit.
>>
>>6026513
+1
Makes sense
>>
>>6026294

>Design a modular strike craft, the craft I envision will be on the larger end of what could reasonably be considered strike craft. The basic concept behind this vessel is to build a robust chassis, and power plant that can then be fitted with. Variety of mission specific modules so it can be tailored to customer needs without needing a fully new design for each customer.

You want a bomber drone, slap on the bomb bay module and an ai pilot module, then send it off. You want a VIP transport slap on a luxury transport module a defensive armament module and an organic pilot module and your good to go.

I think yall get the picture, I feel something like this will give us access to the most amount of customers without necessitating completely new designs for each customer
>>
>>6026513
I like the idea, but we'll need some kind of bomber if we want to sell this. Having a carrier with only fighters might sell, but it will definitely be harder.

>>6026294
I really like the quest, please continue when you've recovered.
>>
>>6026294

Really enjoying the quest so far QM, and I love your drawing style.

>>6026568

Won't we run into the exact same issues as with the proper warships ? As in, they will be far to brittle and potentially prone to failure due to combat stress. We would still need that tech that allows for metal to fuse together easily. As of right now, unless we can figure out how to make those drones dirt cheap, I doubt this will sell.
>>
>>6026404
Maybe we can make some kind of cleanup ship that carries drones that help with the cleanup?
>>
>>6026589
We can only make Capital and Strike spaceships. I doubt anyone would buy a capital ship solely for cleaning. If we do that might as well make a ship for carrying strikecraft in general hint-hint and then offer the cleaning drones on the side.
>>
>>6026587
Way I figure it all strike craft have to be pretty flimsy in the grand scheme of things. Ours just happen to be a little more flimsy, though the way I imagined the craft is a simple well made frame that the modules slap on to. Rather than the entirely modular flat pack warship concept. This strike craft would be in essence a traditional frame, and power plant that mission specific modules are attached to. Hopefully it wouldn’t be overly flimsy but if it is it would have the advantage of being a one size fits all solution for poorer worlds and nation states. Buy one strike craft and a few different modules and you could have everything from a heavy fighter to a courier shuttle. As opposed to having to purchase wholly separate craft for each role

I definitely think there is a market niche for a product like this especially if we could keep it on the cheaper side
>>
>>6026294
1. Modular workhorse 'strike craft' similar to >>6026568 - can be anything from heavy fighter, medium bomber, courier, atmospheric craft, lander, light hauler.
2. A similarly minded modular hauler capital that can be refit to be a carrier, cargo liner, fleet tender or specialist.

Really enjoying the quest Cognis, certainly one of my favourites when I can catch it.
>>
>>6026591
Well if we have one for civilian purposes I would probably be cheaper on account of not needing military components or weapons. We already know the Raihans suffer from Kessler Syndrome, perhaps we could reach out to them and see if they're interested.
>>
>>6026595

I think in that case, it'd be cheaper for us to just simply give loadout modularity, anti-ship missiles, anti-craft missiles, Stuff like that. I doubt most people will be wanting to get into a modular VIP craft even if it is as flimsy as any other, perception matters and all that.
>>
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>>6026311
>>6026404
>>6026568
>>6026595
>>6026600
>>6026601
>>6026619

Persica rubbed her temples after sitting through your latest stream of consciousness.

“I’m pretty sure the Raihans are already handling their Kessler Syndrome. All their material payments were salvaged ship parts. They are likely ‘mining’ the debris field around their home world like crazy. We can be reasonably sure they have access to small industrial craft, maybe even frigate production facilities. If we want to work the Kessler clean up angle we need to pitch them something they can’t make themselves. Maybe something like a mobile foundry that will allow them to process what they salvage on site. If we had access to remote effector technology we could mount tractor beams on the thing and it would be even more efficient.”

“As for modular craft, you’ve got to tread carefully. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do modularisation. From what you’re saying I’m guessing you want some kind of heavy duty frame that can be retooled as a transport or a bomber. I can easily design civilian and military variants around a common chassis but if you want something that can be reconfigured like a brick-based toy construction kit I’d advise against it. It would compromise the integrity of the design.”

“Persica, we can’t afford to let idealized design principles stop-”

“I’m talking about literal integrity, not artistic integrity you dingus! Your mix-and-match strikecraft would have components coming loose every time it hit a micrometeoroid. Besides, nobody retools the same chassis constantly to fit shifting needs, they buy multiple variants and increase efficiency through shared parts. You want a luxury shuttle and a bomber built on the same hull? That I can do. You want something that can swap out torpedoes for a zero-g jacuzzi in a single maintenance cycle? Come back when you’ve acquired radical atomic reconfiguration tech and all the prerequisite tech needed to make it viable on a strikecraft. Pull that off and you’ll basically transcend the need for a shipyard and all your employees. You could turn yourself into any type of ship you want and go hang out with Benny.”

“I don’t know, when I met up with them I got the feeling that Benny wasn’t living their best life.”

“Not the point Jack!”

((Main quest might be on hold but I think I can still do these little vignettes.))
>>
>>6026294
I'm liking the quest very much.

>>6026656
Alright, so bomber/troop transport/civilian transport variants around a common chassis and a carrier design to carry them. Can we do better interceptors than the basic drone we already have, as an upgrade package we can offer to prospective clients at a reasonable cost? Gunships?

Also, laserboat and missile boat variants for the Monarch? Variant that sacrifices firepower for survivability?

I will also second anon's idea for a utility ship.
>>
>>6026656
With the new information about how difficult a purely modular ship could be I’d like to refine my proposed strike craft idea.

>Aerospace Assault Shuttle (AAS)

The AAS is large as far as strike craft goes taking the form of a flying wing with an engorged mid section where the majority of the vessels components will be located. The most prominent features of the baseline vessel are its somewhat overkill power plant and heavy armor for a strike craft.

Though the most interesting feature is the two modular weapon mounts in the wings and the modular bay located in the fattest part of the craft. The modular weapon mounts are capable of hosting anything from light rail weapons, to missiles, and bomb racks though the standard pattern of the AAS equips strike craft grade lasers in these nodes.

The modular bay is most commonly fitted out as a utility storage and transport area, capable of handling light cargo or transporting a substantial amount of personnel in relative safety if not comfort. However their are several other options for the modular bay depending on customer request, the more common examples are internal missile racks capable of carrying a variety of guided munitions these racks fold out from the bay and increase its firepower substantially. Advanced Sensor suite this bay is outfitted with a variety of advanced sensors and electronic warfare equipment and the boarding bay this bay is equipped with magnetic clamps and cutting torches especially designed to get heavily armored marines into enemy vessels where they can do their work
>>
>>6026656
Ok, broad horizons are impossible to reach. I think all this interchangeable/modular talk is a sense of not wanting to make something that there isn't a market for. We have little to no market knowledge at the moment, perhaps we should do some surveys through the local ports and nearby systems to see what ships are in demand?
>>
Well, as I see it there are a number of options for where we could go next. As it stands, we've acquired advanced C3 from the Sovereign project, so a carrier or drone tender - military or civilian - could easily make use of those I imagine. Similarly we could try and design a light capital ship along the lines of our initial Enforcer design but with a more focused approach to combat rather than its jack-of-all-trades approach. Ditch the fighter craft and bulk up the engines or guns to make an interceptor or brawler for example. Trade them for anti-capital missiles or accommodations space to make a "destroyer" or troop ship. Hell, replace the majority of the weapons systems with sensors, briefing rooms and high quality quarters and sell it as a command ship.

Assuming we didn't want to go for a military design - drones would be useful for salvage, mining, exploration, disaster response and repair work. A mobile scrapyard or foundry as the NPC advised would be a good idea - even better if it can work from ore - and best of all if it can fabricate very simple parts like armor plating, pipes or wiring.

If we are aiming to design a modular (capital) ship, I'd say for our first go we should aim civilian and go as bare-bones as possible for the core craft. Specifically - and taking inspiration from a ship I adore - a largely skeletal spine onto which custom-purpose utility sections can be attached. Anything from cargo bays to living accommodations, hydroponics to tractor beams. If you wanted to go even more extreme, you'd make it so each utility section carried its length of spine and the core craft as two sections capable of independent movement. Could even make it a selling point - if your reactor/engine breaches, your command section has battery power and solar arrays to keep you warm and breathing until rescue gets to you. It'd probably have issues with the FTL drive being underutilised (as in way too big for the tiny core craft) unless you are loaded down with sections - but maybe that'll let it trade out for speed or something.

For a civilian strike craft, my initial thought is to aim at the surface-to-orbit or in-system utility craft. The sort of thing a space station or ship uses to move people back and forth without bothering to dock. Cockpit, one or two areas that can be outfitted as needed and then an engine bay. Alternatively, we aim for the low end military market and basically design something for police and customs work from a space station or planet - reasonably quick, light but lethal guns or missiles, short range and simple/cheap to maintain.
>>
>>6026513
>Support

Willing to change since it’s not the most exciting suggestion, but most of the suggestions seem to be using technology that the yard doesn’t have and our group didn’t get the tech lab.
>>
I really apreciate you putting in the work QM :) It feels nice. I like the diagrams.
>>6026656
I do not understand whether the vote to branch off into civilian tech is concluded or how but in case it still is going maybe we can experiment with civilian ships with capital ship scale. Nobody offers cap ship production on the free market so that could be an opportunity. Could one big transport be better and more efficient than multiple smaller ones much like irl? There are bound to be a couple of Goldsteins that could afford a big boat for long term business savings or larger deliveries per freight. I am hoping that after "capital" civilian ships hit the scene, some asshole is going to up armor and arm it to make a cheap diy battleship to bully patrol frigates and herald a new age of piracy. If space killdosers turn out to be surprisingly effective it will create a pressure for civies to arm up too. We are not creating a problem to sell the solution, piracy already exists according to the QM, rather we "inspire the market". Push comes to shove if nobody buys the BIG boat for everyday use then we can use it ourselves for future endevours. I am thinking of maybe using the gigaboat to make deals with asteroid miners or entities with acess to minable asteroid fields. That way they give us materials to build ships and to stockpile resources while getting ships from us much much cheaper then if they sell the materials (and get low balled) and then buy on the market( increased price for seller profit). We ARE buying resources with a markup for some one elses profit. That way we and our trading partner could cut off a couple of middlemen.
>>
>>6027307
>vote to branch off into civilian tech

There isn't really vote. Stuff like this is nebulous and I was just planning to see what anons talked about then use my judgement to distill the ideas down into two designs.

Right now the consensus seems to be going towards the Aerospace Assault shuttle with both military and civilian variants and a big modular civilian capital design. ((Mix n match capital ships are more feasible, but keep in mind the limitations stated by R&D.))

> Nobody offers cap ship production on the free market
Eh sorta, most capital class shipyards are affiliated with a bigger government. Large civilian ships are a thing and smaller entities buy from the state shipyards all the time where the law permits. JHIS is not under the aegis of any other faction right now which makes it more vulnerable but easier to buy from.

>>6026760
>Also, laserboat and missile boat variants for the Monarch? Variant that sacrifices firepower for survivability?

Sure I can give you those for free. Variants are a lot easier to develop assuming the changes are minor.
>>
>>6027327
>Right now the consensus seems to be going towards the Aerospace Assault shuttle with both military and civilian variants and a big modular civilian capital design. ((Mix n match capital ships are more feasible, but keep in mind the limitations stated by R&D.))
If the Assault Shuttle counts as one of the two new designs (It makes sense that it does but I hadn't considered it for some reason), then I would say that this and a Carrier should be what we get now and wait to expand into the civilian market at the next opportunity.
>>
>>6027327
I'm fine with the AAS, but for the other design I'd rather not go into the civilian market right now. We should really establish ourselves fully with our bread and butter being military equipment before going into civilian ships.

>>6026513
I'd say a strike-craft carrier like this anon suggested is the best second option to pair with the AAS
>>
Hey Cognis, would it be possible to 'flip' a ship? As in, we purchase an old but prestigious model of ship, refurbish it and then resell for profit?
>>
>>6027406
>>6027426

Okay I'm locking in the assault shuttle as the first design.

Second design will be for a new capital class. Let's put it to an official vote:

>Modular civilian capital ship. (Initial variants will be mobile foundry and transport modules.)
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
>>
>>6027433
Yes, if you found a way to acquire someone else's ship.
>>
>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
>>
>>6027434

>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

We should not split our focus, we are a military manufacturer, we should only expand to the civilian market when we have established ourselves. I think splitting our focus in such a way would certainly hurt us as most of the thinking we have geared the shipyard towards was military.
>>
>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
>>
>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
Civilian designs later
>>
>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
>>
>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
>>
>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
I still think we should try and investigate the market, see what is being sold, see what's in demand.
>>
>>6027434
>>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
>>
>>6027434
>Modular civilian capital ship. (Initial variants will be mobile foundry and transport modules.)
I do not like you guys going for carriers, we do not have the in ship production tech to build new drones, only minor repairs. And minor repairs do not sound like enough to salvage half wrecked drones for repurpousing in the field(kind of like half wreck+halfreck = new drone kind of idea). That is not going to be good for attrition for something of this scale of ship which would be expencive just because of its class AND rely on drone spam to win. Seems like something that would peter out quick if someone decides to bring the BIG boat into big battles.

Also QM could we get an idea for scale for capital ships? Can we get a human for scale next to our manufacturing? If a person would be too small then can we gat a british double decker bus for scale, or a Hinderburg for scale?
Also your prevous posts said we can build masers. What do those do? Any chance for some news hunting on the spacenet to keep an eye on our client clan?
Also what is the state of intellectual property on the hard to police expances of space? Could we buy some advanced drones off of some one on our trade lanes, crack it open and add something t
fancy to our product line?
>>
>>6028025
((Got a slight fever so I'm just gonna answer your questions OCC.))

>we get an idea for scale for capital ships? Can we get a human for scale next to our manufacturing?
I don't like a defining a clear scale for my stuff as it forces me to add in an extra layer of autism that does little to enhance the experience. A ship is as big as the plot needs it to be.

>What do masers do?
They're like a laser, only with microwaves. For our purposes you can just assume they're another flavour of sci-fi pew-pew weapon.

>Any chance for some news hunting on the spacenet to keep an eye on our client clan?
Some information will be forthcoming in the next proper update.

>Also what is the state of intellectual property on the hard to police expances of space? Could we buy some advanced drones off of some one on our trade lanes, crack it open and add something fancy to our product line?

If you just want to cannibalize someone else's components it's usually more cost effective to buy it off them directly then buying their ship and ripping it out.

IP rights are hard to enforce in neutral space. Corporate espionage is rampant and many of the more advanced ship components have designs that obfuscate their workings to increase the cost of reverse engineering. If you're gonna try doing this be careful; piss of the wrong person and you'll get a hit put on your company.
>>
How’s it going with reworking the system.
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>>6029446
It's not, see right about Friday I came down with a 39 degree fever. I have been recovering from it ever since. As of now I've almost beat it. You should be getting an update soon...maybe.
>>
>>6029896
Damn the QM curse is real. Hope you get better soon.
>>
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Your yard had to temporarily stop taking orders as your workforce was re-tasked to setting up the new strike craft factory. But now JH Independent Shipworks was back baby!

Your R&D team had been busy using the down time to add more ship designs to your catalogue. One you were most excited about was the new carrack class carrier. Persica from R&D had cautioned that it really needed more advanced electronics to efficiently manage its entire strike craft compliment. Tim had been disappointed when you chose to expand internal security over building a lab, but the bullshit over Project Sov-sorry the Ryu Class had made you paranoid. You had a feeling that not only would you need better armed security personnel in the future but you would also need-for lack of a better term-an intelligence agency.

You recall the conversation you had with Decker, your newly hired head of Counter-Espionage…

----------

“Times of war are upon us.”

He said this with the certainty of a man who had seen it all before.

“Not the most astute observation. That thing between the Solar Union and the Saurians; everyone could see it coming.”

“Not just talking about that. The Raihan Empire might find itself embroiled in a war soon.”

“Empress Asaga seems to be doing her best to avoid that.”

“We don’t know that for sure, besides, it’s Lord Commander Garan I’m worried about. I’ve seen his type before; loyal to the Empire, not the Empress.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Garan wants to rebuild the Empire as it was, and he wants it to flourish under the enlightened rule of a worthy monarch. If he had his way he would have launched an invasion of the former colony worlds already.”

“Then why is he supporting the current Empress?”

“Hard to say without learning more about the situation. The most obvious answer is that the Empress is still seen as the legitimate ruler by many Raihans both on the throne-world and within the former colonies. If Garan simply staged a coup he would just be viewed as an opportunistic warlord and his dynasty wouldn’t last a generation.”

“I see so… should we sell to the Raihans or not?”

>cont
>>
>>6030107
“Up to you, just remember to consider whose agenda you’re helping when you accept orders from them. Personally, this whole thing about the future of the Raihan Empire isn’t our problem, but you don’t want to make an enemy out of the Empress or Garan. I’d say wash your hands of them and seek out other markets.”

“Hmm, I wonder if Clan Margathon might commission us again.”

“Don’t sell to the lizards.” It was a command, albeit one delivered with a calm resignation, as if he did not care whether it was followed or not.

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“Ok Jack, but you should understand that the question to sell to the lizards is actually a question of: ‘Do you wanted to get fucked by the Solar Union?’ You’ve read the latest story on the infonet. Right now, Union High Command is wondering how the hell Margathon: a clan they previously thought had no capacity to field capital class warships, got their hands on a cruiser. If they find out you’re arming the lizards, they will do something about it.”


You were starting to dislike this guy. He had this condescending attitude that made him feel like your grandpa explaining why everything you thought was wrong.

“I’ll take that into consideration, and if the Solar Union tries to fuck us, I expect you to tell me when and how hard.”

>cont
>>
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>>6030109
Thanks to the Raihans stealing the credit for your last project, your shipyard’s reputation hadn’t grown as much as you wanted, but you were still getting orders. Let’s see…

Galatan Starwind was back, seemed like he had gotten his hands on his prototype warship because now he was asking that you refit it with a “massive layzor cannon”. Potentially a shorter and simpler job than building a new ship from scratch… potentially.

Interestingly you got two orders from the Imperial Raihan Navy: One was for a second Ryu Class command cruiser, the other was for a special variant of the carrack incorporating the Raihan neural interface. The Empire was offering to pay you an inflated price for both, presumably because they would not be giving you credit… again.

Then there was an order for a monarch class coming from the independent colony of Shima. Decker informs you that Shima was one of the Raihan Empire’s former colonies, and has the strongest anti-Imperial sentiment. Something to be mindful of.

Finally Clan Margathon had submitted another order for a capital ship. Same deal as last time, they wanted to use your drydock to construct their own proprietary design and would pay you for the privilege. They would be supplying the raw materials themselves so it would be pure profit. The fact that Margathon scrip wasn’t worthless anymore made this easier.

You had no strike craft orders. Guess people didn’t really know you made strike craft yet, either that or the dozens of other strike craft manufacturers offered better products.

>Which order to fill with your capital drydock?
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Build a second Ryu class for the Raihan Navy (56kT CM, 30kT RM)
>Build a custom Carrack variant for the Raihan Navy (70kT CM, 14kT RM)
>Build a Monarch class for Shima Colony (40kT CM 15kT RM)
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)

>Your strike craft factory wasn’t seeing much use yet.
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>Save your resources and production capacity.
>>
>>6030111
>>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
>>6030111

>Build a Monarch class for Shima Colony (40kT CM 15kT RM)

Fuck 'em. I do not have anything more PR worthy to say other than that, the Raihan can choke on their new found prestige.
>>
>>6030111
>>6030123

Forgot this.

>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)

We need some more self-defense.
>>
Also, QM, could we put out feelers for C3 systems ? It'd be good to know at what rate they would go at, since we will need to build the carrack sooner or later and it would be good to figure out how to integrate the system beforehand.
>>
>>6030111
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
Buy the raw materials with scrip
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
>>6030111
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)

We don't want to embroil ourself in Lizard-issues, and building too much for the Raihans when the orders aren't coming directly from the Empress is going to lead to a coup and the resumption of Imperialism.
>>
>>6030111
>Build a Monarch class for Shima Colony (40kT CM 15kT RM)
I have a feeling Starwind will be dissatisfied with what we can make for him and our reputation will take a hit.
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
>>6030111
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)

>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)

I’m willing to bet on Clan Margathon the better there war effort goes the more valuable their scrip becomes. We help them out enough and our current scrip reserves could become quite valuable, beyond that if we strengthen our relationship with them we could acquire some neat Saurian tech.
>>
>>6030111
Hey, he survived the curse! Great to see QM. Also is the cost of the drones per drone or per pack of drones?
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)
I liked the lizards, that was a fun mini adventure. Now about the spooky counter intelligence officer. We should not be scared because if we produce heavy duty war gear then we are going to be pissing off a polity anyway so we will have to fund a couple of warships out of pocket eventually. This is where appreciating currency of Margathon comes in. Just give them message that their bossy bullshit with our workers will no longer be tolerated and for them just to assume the situation to be like the one the diplomats ironed out by the end of the project. They are now knee deep in conflict and need our ships to stay afloat, and they know they get quality too. I think we can throw our weight around now since they need us more.
>Produce humming birds and AAS Bombers for self defence.
This is also reasonable while no one wants to buy the drones. The numbers seem to fluctuate between anons so the final number is up to the QM. I see we ask our defense minded employees how many drones would be a "reasonable" defense against at least a small raid.
>>
>>6030111
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)

>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
>>6030133
>could we put out feelers for C3 systems ?
Yeah, you'll get the opportunity to do this soon.

>>6030318
>Starwind will be dissatisfied
His legend has barely begun and you already fear him, truly he must a be a fearsome captain.

>>6030394
>Also is the cost of the drones per drone or per pack of drones?
For now it's per drone, although if this gets too awkward I might organise strike craft into squadrons based on the craft size and sell them as a set.
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>>6030111
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)

If Starwood wants us to work for him he’s going to need to send a harem member over.
>>
>>6030111
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)

>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
>>6030419
>If Starwood wants us to work for him he’s going to need to send a harem member over.
As a diplomat right? :D
>>6030413
Any estimates on how much a second BIG construction yard could cost or are you saving that for milestone rewards like what happened with our security and strike craft?
>>
>>6030111
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
Anything but Margathon. We've been warned multiple times that we can make enemies if we aren't careful, and explicitly that the Solar Union will do something about us arming their enemies. We hired this counter-int guy to warn us about exactly these kinds of things, and we're going to ignore him? This is the worst option we could do. I don't want to get a game over from greeding for the lizard currency where it won't even help build our reputation.

>>6030394
There's a difference between producing one warship for them and continuously doing so. If we produce for several different vendors, at least we look neutral, but if we take several for Margathon, we might as well be a Margathon shipyard, and I don't think we'll be able to defend ourselves against a concerted Solar Union effort to shut us down. Yes we'll need those warships out of pocket eventually, and how many do we have now? You are suggesting to piss off one of the biggest players out here before we have any kind of defense except for a few piddly drones and an internal security team. It doesn't make any sense.

>>6030123
>>6030318
You might want to switch your votes if you don't want Margathon to win.
>>
>>6030111
>>6030318
Anon is right, I'll switch to
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>>
>>6030316

Supporting this post, sorry I’m late.

Basically my thought process is that we need to lay low for a job or two and not get sucked into the Solar Union/Lizard war or the Raihan/Shima conflict.

We’re not really strong or important enough to survive a factional war, although in the future, selling ships to both sides would be a great business model
>>
>>6019492

This is me, btw
>>
>>6030697
>Do "something" about us...eventually
>OMG they will send the fleet NOW NOW NOW!
>Aiiieeeeee the shadows are scawy!
You'll have a chance to look neutral later, this is still early on. The force they sent against their actual competitor got shot down by ONE of our ships. And it looks like the Clans will have talks about uniting against SoL. They will have their hands too full to delegate too many resources our way. This is only a problem for long term supply.
>You are suggesting to piss off one of the biggest players
Territory of aliens they actually want to pick a fight with, did not warrant a big response. There is no reason why they would sacrifice a lot of resources for a relatively minor producer far away form their territory. Their real radar is going to be on the main supply chains of the major clans. You are suggesting they will sacrifice more resources against an independent producer for a one off ship rather their actual proxy(soon to be real) war effort. According to the QM they do not even know about us. We finish this ship -> Some time passes and Margathon uses it-> they maybe start looking into the supplier of a random minor clan ->by that time you will have enough time to sell more ships to other people for the investigation to reveal a fluke purchase by our clan. Remember we built Sovereign before anything was done with the original ship and that was only because SoL attacked the territory our boys were stationed in. Our smaller clan is on the defensive, they have no reason to go on an all out warpath with SoL and risk getting blasted because they took too much attention on themselves. The would logically just hold out until the major clans get their asses in gear. The measure of how much our ships will hurt SoL basically depends on on how much SoL will spaz out against Margathon specifically. And soon they will have bigger things on their radar. Stop being such a coward. What we provide is merely a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the opposition SoL will focus on.
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>>6030111
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
I have a feeling some ships to tool around with will come in handy.
>>
>>6030724
>consequences don't exist, especially for things we are warned about several times!

>ONE of our ships
One of our capital ships, yes. That's kind of what they do.

>They will have their hands too full to delegate too many resources our way
They won't need to. We have five (5) drones, a small CWIS system, and an internal security team. They could probably overrun us with a frigate or two. It's not like they would need to divert a battlefleet to take us down.

>sacrifice a lot of resources
Again, would take almost nothing.

>Their real radar is going to be on the main supply chains of the major clans
Right, and if we make it look like we're going to continue pumping out capitals for them, that's going to be us.

>According to the QM they do not even know about us
Yet, but I seriously doubt they have no way of finding out, especially if we keep building for Margathon. Do you think the QM would warn us over and over about this if there was no way for them to find out?

>Stop being such a coward
Stop being such a suicidal retard. We can find plenty good profit elsewhere without taking needless risks and ignoring all the obvious signals the QM is giving us not to take this contract.
>>
>>6030734
>One of our capital ships, yes. That's kind of what they do.
Literally NONE of our tech is cutting edge. They got beaten by a low end ship. If they did not deem it necessary to send a major force against an actual opponent they have 0 logical reason to even bother with a random wepons manufacturer.
>They could probably overrun us with a frigate or two.
Not only do they not know that, they have zero reason to even bother. How many times did heckler and koch get blown up by the local government because a criminal used one of their guns?
>Again, would take almost nothing.
Just sending ships all the way out in the boonies and waiting for them to haul ass instead of supporting the actual front IS a big use of resources.
>Right, and if we make it look like we're going to continue pumping out capitals for them, that's going to be us.
Why do you think that 2 ships = constant supply? By the time anything happens we could easily build ships for other people.
>We can find plenty good profit elsewhere without taking needless risks and ignoring all the obvious signals the QM is giving us not to take this contract.
THEN WHY DID YOU NOT TAKE THE "SIGNALS" SERIOUSLY IN THE BEGINNING OF THE QUEST!? You know, the ones that said that building military capital ships would literally end in this situation anyway? Or why were you not afraid of supporting the reemerging empire with project sovereign? They could have pissed off the clans or SoL too you know. Why are you not afraid of the old colonies of the empire putting out a hit on you once they discover where sovereign came from. Sovereign that looks and functions almost exactly like Sovereign that appeared on our menu almost at the same time as the sovereign unveiling. You want safety you should have voted civilian either in the beginning or the semi previous voting round when people were talking about going civilian ships or carriers. You have not only ignored half my points in the previous post you are cherry picking QM words for an excuse to jump at shadows.
Anon why would Margathon do anything drastic when they are barely stabilising after exiting desperate survival mode? Why would SoL hyper focus on them when they were just one clan that had all the logical reasons to arm up and fight back? You will get a chance to produce ships later after this one for your deniability. Margathon has no reason to put itself into harms way and make our ship a major thorn in SoL side? There is a difference between constant supply and just a couple of buys on the literal free market. Why would the major clans not have their own shipyards pumping out ships by the double or triple digits throughout their operation as polities? Do you remember our first option on the menu for sale? A police cruiser. A capital class ship for the space coast guard. Not a particularly high level of the military. Seems like you are overestimating the importance of capital class vessels a bit.
>>
>>6030111
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
>>6030762
>Literally NONE of our tech is cutting edge.
Besides the point. These are *capital ships*. They are the mainstay of fleets. The only reason Margathon is still alive is because they had one that we made for them.

>Not only do they not know that
Probably not hard to find out

>they have zero reason to even bother
Other than to rid their enemy of the source of their capital ships for next to no cost??

>How many times did heckler and koch get blown up by the local government because a criminal used one of their guns?
Do you not believe the QM when he says that we will face consequences from siding too hard with factions? Do you think he's yanking our chain? I don't, personally I believe him when he says we should avoid pissing off powerful factions that can wipe us out.

>Just sending ships all the way out in the boonies
We are located in a major trading center. And sending two frigates is not a major use of resources even if it was out in the boonies. Two frigates, even if it was for a long time like you want to believe for some reason, to ensure no more *capital ships* are sent to your enemies, is a pretty damn good idea by my measure.

>Why do you think that 2 ships = constant supply?
Because these aren't your run of the mill ships, these are capitals, each one is a big deal, and sending two in a relatively short period of time is establishing a pattern. Also the QM warned us about this. Maybe you should take the hint.

>IN THE BEGINNING OF THE QUEST!?
Because I wasn't here? I agree, I would have liked another kind of shipyard, unfortunately I missed that vote. Don't believe me? Go look for my id in the vote where we decided the shipyard type. It's not there.

>why were you not afraid of supporting the reemerging empire with project sovereign?
Because they weren't the direct enemies of any major faction that we knew of, and weren't obviously about to go to war with the Saurians, and most importantly *we hadn't established a history with them yet, at all*.

>Why are you not afraid of the old colonies
Because they are independent, not very tightly connected, we don't have a history of supplying the empire (the empire wanted to keep it hush anyways), and we weren't warned about pissing off the colonies by the QM. We *were* warned about pissing off the solars, the solars *are* united, and we *do* have a history of supplying someone they're about to go to war with.

>You have not only ignored half my points
Not really? I'm not responding to literally every inane sentence you put out, but I do think I responded to most of it. It's not like you responded to everything I typed either. This is a dumb cop out angle to avoid actually discussing your garbage point of view.

>you are cherry picking QM words
At least I read what he says instead of straight up ignoring it, and this is likewise a cop out angle to avoid the point.
>>
>>6030762
>Anon why would Margathon do anything drastic
They're not the ones who would do something, the solars are invading them. I don't know why you think war isn't happening, it's very clear that it is.

>Why would SoL hyper focus on them
Probably their location near the sol colonies, like they already said? They wouldn't even need to hyperfocus, just going against them in any real capacity would put them in contact with capitals we produce.

>just a couple of buys
These are capital ships dude, not a few frigates on the side. It's a big deal. We produced the flagship for Raihan that made the news for them that they are parading around their former colonies. That was "just one buy". The "just one buy" the saurians previously got from us held off the destruction of Margathon. This purchase would be a second.

>Why would the major clans not have their own shipyards
Good question, maybe you could ask the Margathons. It's besides the point. They are coming to us for their capital ships.

>A police cruiser.
Yeah and no one's bought it. So far we've built designs given to us by the saurians and a custom order flagship for the Raihans. I don't know why you think capital ships aren't a big deal. That's a really silly line to take.
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>>6030780
>Besides the point.
No its not. If a low end ship that was just chilling repelled an attack the attack was small and low priority.
>Probably not hard to find out
Ships can move around. They do not know if we have a small fleet at our call.
>Other than to rid their enemy of the source of their capital ships for next to no cost??
I already told you there is no such thing as no cost. Anon imagine this: You invade a person, that person buys weapons off of the FREE MARKET to defend himself. Why would anyone be stupid enough to assume it was the random free sellers fault? There is a difference between some one buying something off of you twice and direct sponsorship.
>We are located in a major trading center.
One does not disqualify the other. Anon why are they fighting? Because SoL is invading minor clan territories. The expansion of SoL rubs close to the Clans. We are in an independent system. Which means we are neither SoL or clan trerritory. We are not close.
>Because these aren't your run of the mill ships
If cops can get some they are not THAT special.
>Because I wasn't here?
You were there when we were looking at the carrack vs civilian branching and you went carrack.
> I would have liked another kind of shipyard
You would have sacrificed the best part of this quest? This is the kind of person that is currently shifting the vote. This is a terrible day.
>Because they weren't the direct enemies of any major faction that we knew of
Whenever a new country starts conquering nearby territory everyone gets on edge. And according to you they would have started doing it with a major weapon at that. So why would the "big players" not get mad? Its the same potential.
>not very tightly connected
Invasion of a common enemy would have been a strong connection. And motivation to stop a "constant producer" of the enemy fleet according to you. And by the way! The same colonies have an infinitely greater reason to send a couple of frigates here to stop 100% of the Empire capital ship production. The Saurians have several major clans who should by all accounts have WAY more than just one capital ship considering a clan on its supposed death bed could afford one. Theoretically the colonies have MORE reason to zero in on you with you providing a larger percentage of the fleet to the enemy. It takes time to design large vehicles. They can put two and two together. And if you supply the colonies the same would apply to the empire. And with the exception of race car Johny over here those are our only other option for clients. Why is a greater risk of being frigated not magically a problem anymore?
>we weren't warned about pissing off the colonies by the QM.
Why is it a warning now? Why does the beginning of the quest not count as a warning when it were exactly the same words in exactly the same context. Why are you not desperately begging everyone to switch to civilian i mean WE WERE WARNED IN THE BEGINNING RIGHT!?
>>
>>6030780
I hit a character limit.
>It's not like you responded to everything I typed either
I literally deconstructed every single point. It is YOU who ignores half the material to pretend to be smart.
>At least I read what he says instead of straight up ignoring it
No. you are inconsistently spazzing out and pretending the worst will happen NOW despite there being no reason for it.
>They're not the ones who would do something, the solars are invading them
Yes that is my point!
>I don't know why you think war isn't happening, it's very clear that it is.
NIGGA i literally called it a proxy war about to go hot. Why are you calling my posts inane when you are ignoring the content? You literally arrived at the OPPOSITE conclusion than what i was spoon feeding you!
Listen: Since SoL is the one invading it is suffering from our ships exclusively when the go up against a specific clan that has all reason to defend itself and buy from whoever they can. Therefore it leaves the Clan to be an active problem for SoL. They have no reason to do so. That means SoL will not suffer from our ships in any comparable capacity next to the actual clans. Therefore priority of clan Martgathon hits a low and therefore WE are not a problem unless we become a constant supplier which we can stop being on the next order.
> Probably their location near the sol colonies,
It is the lizard colonies that THEY ARE INVADING! And Margathon is one of MANY minor and major clans. THAT is why i said hypefocus. The war effort is spread with Margathon being extremely minor and therefore we are minor. Combine this point with the previous one. Anon currently you are proving to me you have a severe reading comprehension problem since you are taking away OPPOSITE points that i keep making. I cant spell things out more for you i have character limits. I answer EVERY point while you FORGET every point i make just so you could pretend to be smart.
>We produced the flagship for Raihan that made the news for them that they are parading around their former colonies. That was "just one buy". The "just one buy"
Anon that was the symbol of their re emerging empire and its military industrial complex (that they dont have yet but paid us not to talk about it). You have literally ignored all of the reason WHY they are parading the thing around. Anon, in your attempt to make an argument you ignored all context and reason of the events you are describing. Just reread what i said. Slowly. And this time connect them all together instead of going full Ben Shapiro.
>Good question, maybe you could ask the Margathons. It's besides the point. They are coming to us for their capital ships.
ANON MARGATHON IS A MINOR CLAN THAT WAS ABOUT TO DIE! No major clan came to us. Are you trolling? Anon this reading comprehension thing is getting worse for you.
Character limit
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>>6030762
>How many times did heckler and koch get blown up by the local government because a criminal used one of their guns?
Anon you are completely braindead retarded in general, but this is an especially retarded point. Heckler and Koch makes guns. We make capital ships. Does your pea brain not understand the difference between a pistol and a missile cruiser? You bet your ass H&K would get shut down hard if they began delivering aircraft carriers to Hamas.

Why are you so insistent on arming the lizards anyway? You've ranted extensively on why we shouldn't be afraid to piss off the superpower to continue building up their enemy's fleet, but you haven't actually provided a reason for doing it in the first place. They pay the least out of all potential customers and they don't share their tech, so we don't even get a better design out of this contract either. What do we gain out of building a capital ship for the lizards instead of any of the others? Why them instead of any of the others?
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>>6030781
>>6030825
>Yeah and no one's bought it.
Anon what are you arguing? We never tried to sell one. The QM told us it was a safe sell early game inside the menu. Anon the point is since the coast guard can get a capital ship on occasion they are not as world shattering as you try to make it out to be. How is no one buying what we never tried to sell in any way relevant to the point. The point is that you objectively overestimate the importance of one capital ship. This is the third time i hit the character limit you can not accuse me of not spoon feeding you at this point. I spoon feed you by hitting the limit several times and you actively refuse to use reading comprehension and you refuse to tie it to context of WHY things are the way they are on purpouse. You all my posts inane shen you make arguments about things that were never raised. Seriously what is the point in saying "no one bought it". The point is the existence of the capital class for cop duty, not how hot it is as merchandise. I'm done. You ate maliciously bad faith arguer and a hypocrite.
>>
I think you guys can just agree to disagree at this point lmao.
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>>6030807
>If a low end ship that was just chilling repelled an attack the attack was small and low priority.
Yes I'm sure a small and low priority attack is sparking a war between major factions. Retarded take.

>Ships can move around.
Ok and? It wouldn't take much research to find out we are an up and coming shipyard that just got our feet on the ground. No way are we going to have a fleet. They could also just scout around, like normal people do, and if no mysterious fleets are nearby and our shipyard has pitiful defenses besides, it's an easy call to make to attack it.

>I already told you there is no such thing as no cost
Neat but I didn't say no cost. The cost exists yes but it's small. That's what "next to no cost" means. Please learn to read.

>Why would anyone be stupid enough to assume it was the random free sellers fault?
No one is saying it's the manufacturer's fault the guy defended himself, but in this case the solar empire has enough weight to throw around to make an example of us, and then no one will be stupid enough to supply the saurians after us.

>We are in an independent system. Which means we are neither SoL or clan trerritory. We are not close.
These don't connect. We could be bordering Sol and clan territory for all we know. Personally I don't think we are very far because we are getting orders from the clans, or they would go to someone else, but we really don't have much information on the subject and you have no grounds for insisting we aren't close.

>If cops can get some they are not THAT special.
Cops of interstellar empires? I don't know man... Also I've already established why these are important. They held off the invasion of Margathon and are the flagship for the Raihans, both of which made headline news.

>carrack vs civilian
Oh that vote? That's what you're whining about? I thought you meant capitals vs the smaller ships. We can still safely trade in military ships in general, and I'll explain in a later point because you go on about it there.

>You would have sacrificed the best part of this quest?
What are you even on about? This quest could still be interesting if we made different kinds of ships.

>So why would the "big players" not get mad?
You missed the point I outlined multiple times in my response to you earlier. Because *we hadn't established a history with them yet*. If we are just an independent neutral shipyard building for everybody, it means we aren't consistently supplying their enemy. Especially if we supply them too.
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>>6030825
>And motivation to stop a "constant producer" of the enemy fleet according to you.
Not if we only supplied them with the one ship. Like I said several times now, we didn't establish a history of supplying the empire. Funny how all the mental gymnastics you just went through gets unraveled just from that. It might be a concern if we were to continue supporting the Empire, but I didn't vote for that, and even still, I don't know about you but to me a disparate set of colonies not currently united sounds like less of a threat than an established warmongering empire.

>Why is it a warning now?
Because the QM warned us about it...? Did you read the post? "“Don’t sell to the lizards.” It was a command, albeit one delivered with a calm resignation, as if he did not care whether it was followed or not.

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“Ok Jack, but you should understand that the question to sell to the lizards is actually a question of: ‘Do you wanted to get fucked by the Solar Union?’ You’ve read the latest story on the infonet. Right now, Union High Command is wondering how the hell Margathon: a clan they previously thought had no capacity to field capital class warships, got their hands on a cruiser. If they find out you’re arming the lizards, they will do something about it.”"

>Why does the beginning of the quest not count as a warning
It does? That only supports my point. He's been warning us from the beginning and you still want to go in with the Saurians. It's nonsensical.

>Why are you not desperately begging everyone to switch to civilian i mean WE WERE WARNED IN THE BEGINNING RIGHT!?
"Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies". It doesn't say we will get rekt if we pick military, it says we need to be savvy. Which is about the opposite of what you are proposing, wanting us to basically be reliant on the Saurians wiping the Solars off the map and/or them somehow never finding out about us supplying them. Why should we risk this in the first place? So a few million scrip that we have can appreciate in value? It's not worth it.

>>6030825
>I literally deconstructed every single point
You didn't and I outlined one you missed in this very post, but like I said, besides the point, and a distraction.

>inconsistently spazzing out
Coming from the one typing words in all caps every other line, and another pointless distraction.

>Yes that is my point!
Ok? So they are coming in contact anyways and will see the capital ships? How does this help your point again?

>NIGGA i literally called it a proxy war about to go hot.
Yeah that entire paragraph is pointless, not even gonna bother
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>>6030825
>It is the lizard colonies that THEY ARE INVADING!
And now you are definitely just starting to lose coherency. More deflection and distraction. I'm starting to think you're just trolling me.

>Just reread what i said
You're not even trying to argue anymore lmao.

Yeah this isn't worth it anymore, this is my last response. Have fun shouting into the void, at least your dumbass vote looks like it's losing. Maybe you can cry at everyone about how we lost the potential to cash out on the Margathon scrips in favor of a safer investment. I'm not responding to you after this post.

>>6030831
Yeah I'm done now, sorry for clogging the thread, shouldn't have replied to him in the first place, his type never really listens.
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>>6030828
Do you too have reading comprehension issues?
>We make capital ships. Does your pea brain not understand the difference between a pistol and a missile cruiser? You bet your ass H&K would get shut down hard if they began delivering aircraft carriers to Hamas.
Tell me where have you seen aircraft carriers in the hands of the coast guard full time. The first design we had is literally for space border patrol EXCLUSIVELY. When you get into space scales shift drastically. You need the power of nukes just to get around before you die of old age.
>Why are you so insistent on arming the lizards anyway?
I did say it. They were the best part of the quest so far. Also them doing better appreciates the currency and therefore better for us. They do better and suddenly they could be the biggest paychecks which we need to build defense ships out of pocket to get the safety you desperately want. The danger of SoL is massively overrated if we just do limited short term work while the fundamental reason why you are afraid applies to most things anyhow. The reason i keep making the "rants: so long is to explain things in detail. And it difficult when you ignore the whole context and pretend every green text is in a vacuum. Anon just tell me why are you not making a case to shift to civilian production only, if you really believe we can be comparable to H&C selling aircraft carriers to Mossad? Why would the empire or the colonies not scrounge together a frigate or two to kill us? It is the same now matter what. Anon both of you have not answered it. If you invade a dude, and he buys a weapon off of the free market to understandably defend himself, why would you assume the free seller is suddenly the dudes best friend? Why is SoL not killing all free trade everywhere then? Mined resources can supply saurian fleets, any and all frigates manufactures can sell military frigates. Anon i even agreed with you that long term supplying would be viewed the way you are explaining but this is just maximum paranoia. I am trying to make you understand here, not rant.
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>>6030831
You are right, i'll stop.
>>
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
Sheesh. This has got to be the biggest shit storm I've seen around my work. Bigger than balance arguments in my skirmishes, bigger than waifu issues in BS isekai. I'm kinda surprised that the issue of selling ships to lizards has proved more contentious than all of those.

I also thank you ending the argument on your own.

I shall make another IC vignette to provide better context about the geo political situation.

For now will say this: Not all capital ships are equal.

The Enforcer class is underpowered compared to the Monarch, which in turn is out classed by Saurian and Solar Union cruisers. That cruiser you built for Maragathon had a butterfly effect that will be explained further in the IC update.

The Sovereign class is a big deal to the fallen Empire of Raiha and it's colonies, but kinda quaint compared to a Solar Union equivalent.

That is the difference in power between a major interstellar power and mere single system colonies.
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>>6030111
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)

>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>>
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You arranged for the security department to give a presentation to the rest of your execs. You figured it would be a good time to introduce them to your newest department heads. First up was Kryska Relium; your new Security Chief. She was a muscular woman of average height, who was paradoxically affable and demanding at the same time. You’d learned that the hard way when she had somehow cajoled all the other department heads into joining her fitness routine at the beginning of the day cycle. Her positive encouragement had helped ease any hard feelings, the scrumptious catered breakfast she had arranged afterwards helped even more.

“Afternoon everyone! I know most of us have already met this morning but in case we didn’t; I’m your new Security Chief: Kyrska Relium. I served for 10 years in the Solar Marine corps with 4 of those years in the role of an officer. I bring with me my leadership skills and expertise in both void and personal combat. With these skills, my work ethic and a little help from Decker in Counter-Espionage, I will keep JH Independent Shipworks safe from any aggressors who would seek to attack it directly.”

A soft round of applause.

“To that end I will give you an overview of our current security readiness. Thanks to my training and the expanded department budget, the internal security teams have been brought up to para-military standard. I am confident that they could repel any armed boarding attempt from criminals and low level contractors. I know some of the staff feel a little uneasy seeing armed guards patrolling the corridors but I assure you our security personnel are no mere grunts; they are also trained in first aid, social dynamics and conflict de-escalation. Pulling the trigger will always be a last resort for them. They are here to keep you safe, not intimidate you.”

The audience nods and give a few murmurs of assent.

“I have already drawn up numerous response plans for likely security events and distributed them to your departments. I seek your co-operation in getting your employees to participate in the necessary drills. I know they’re tedious, but during a crisis, a well drilled workforce makes a big difference in reducing casualties.”

A few reluctant nods, emergency drills were a pain, no two ways about it. In more a developed and secure system people might have dragged their feet, but neutral territory was just dangerous enough for them to be taken seriously.

>Cont
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>>6031271
“Finally I will brief you on our space borne defences. The yard itself is currently protected by a network of light CWIS turrets that can neutralise a medium missile bombardment and fend of small raids by pirate strike craft. Our planned defence squadron will increase this capability and provide some deterrence against frigate class vessels. Personally, I believe that these defences are still inadequate for our purposes, but I will hand the presentation over to my colleague Decker who will explain more.”

“Thank you, Kryska.” Decker stands up and takes over the AR display. Like High Admiral Garan, Decker was an older man with a full head of grey air. Unlike Garan, he was smaller, almost diminutive. Where the Admiral exuded an air of patriarchal power, Decker looked like he’d been beaten down by life. But that didn’t mean he looked weak, on the contrary, his manner conveyed the impression that he’d “dealt with this bullshit a million times before, so don’t test me.”

“Decker Radic, Head of Counter-Espionage. Many of you don’t know me and you’ll want to keep it that way. I worked 15 years in law enforcement, another 25 in intelligence, and 5 more in private consulting and investigation. I’ve seen a lot of things over my career; petty gang intrigue, corporate scandals, conspiracies in the highest levels of government. Whatever could possibly go wrong around here, I’ve likely seen it before and I will definitely see it coming.” Oh right, now you remember why you hired him despite taking a disliking to the guy. Apparently, he was that good, at least if his resume was to be believed. Although that did beg the question: why here? Why not just retire already? Maybe he was one of those workaholics and his gig with the company was his idea of retirement?

“Going back to our discussion on the physical defence of the shipyard; there’s been some talk of putting together a defence fleet under the direct command of the company; that’s not the best idea. Mustering a private fleet generates a lot of overhead and tends to make the powers that be anxious. Car’cass already has its own militia under the command of the governor, building up a fleet of our own would be seen as a challenge to his sovereignty. A few strike craft squadrons and a small frigate flotilla are acceptable, but if you really want to beef up our firepower; upgrade the turret defence grid.”

>cont
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>>6031272
It was straightforward, obvious even, then why hadn’t you thought of it? Maybe you just loved spaceships too much, and despite making the damn things you still didn’t have one of your own!

“Static defences tend to inspire less anxiety in the local governments. As long as they stay far away from the things they care about and don’t possess any ‘strategic strike’ capability, you can get away with deploying more of them, with bigger guns, without ruffling feathers. Now of course they have downsides.”

Persica leaned forward clearly interested in engineering pros and cons.

“Independent turrets are inefficient and networked turrets are vulnerable to cyberattacks. There are some good solutions but I’ll leave that decision to our CEO when the time comes to buy the next round of upgrades. Speaking of cyberattacks, one of my department’s main roles is to defend against them, the other is to investigate clients and gather intelligence on the local business environment. I heard your company got paid in worthless money the first time you did work for Clan Margathon, with me here I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

((Hold onto your butts, I've still got another side scene for you.))
>>
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All this talk of politics was making you nervous. Decker, for all his years of experience came across as pessimistic and you got the feeling there were angles he couldn’t or wouldn’t see. So, you decided to ask for a second opinion and arranged to meet with Patrick of Clan Quezet over dinner.

Patrick wasn’t his actual name, rather one chosen to facilitate interaction with humans, it was a thing many diplomats did.

“So Patrick, I’m seriously considering working with Clan Margathon again but a lot of people tell me that’s unwise, they say the Solar Union will destroy my business if I build the clan another capital ship.”

Conversation over food was a surprisingly common practice among species that formed social groups. Even better for you; there was an overlap in what humans and saurians found edible. Of course this probably contributed to the friction between the Clans and the Union since they could inhabit similar bio spheres, and thus coveted the same systems for colonization. In this case, it at least made finding a restaurant you both liked easier.

Patrick hisses in contempt at the mention of what must be a hated enemy among the Clans right now.

“The Union’s reach is not as great as many believe. They would not dare strike you directly, not unless they are willing to commit to an absolutely ruinous war. Do you know how Car’cass has maintained its neutrality, despite being in a strategically important position between two major powers?”

“Uh… sort of? But remind me again so we’re on the same page.”

“Two factors guarantee its neutrality. Firstly, the systems government expertly navigates the dynamic tension between the Clans and the Union. If one side performed military operations in Car’cass space, let alone tried to annex it, the governor would immediately invite the other side in to help ward off the aggressors. So you see; any act of aggression on one side’s part effectively hands the system to their adversary. Disputing the matter further would escalate into a war in which the attacker is at a disadvantage.”

You nod thoughtfully, you sort of already knew this but it was helpful to have the game theory spelt out again.

“Secondly: Car’cass is a Blorg colony.” Patrick stopped there as if that explained everything.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“The Blorg are considered repulsive by many sentient species. Their ugly nature combined with their xenophilic culture makes them an undesirable demographic to rule over by non-Blorg.”

>Cont
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>>6031279
“Oh come on! They’re not that bad. I mean sure their speech sounds like fart noises and I have to wear a fully sealed envirosuit around them to avoid getting a nasty infection from their symbiotic microbiome… yeah I wouldn’t want to deal with the occupation of a Blorg system. Feel kinda bad for them though, they find other species endlessly fascinating and just want to hang out with them.”

“I share the sentiment, alas the amount of accommodations required to facilitate ‘hanging out’ with the Blorg are more than most species are willing to make. Back to the main point: the Solar Union would not dare send its ships to strike at your yard. Even a single squadron of bombers flying the Union banner would trigger the political scenario I just described.”

“Speaking of political scenarios, all my warnings about the Union kicked into high gear when that cruiser I built for Margathon repelled the attack on their home system. How did that happen? No offense to the warriors of Margathon but I thought the Union fleet was massive?”

“I will admit there was an element of luck in it, but you must understand that the Union calculates its use of force very precisely. A single frigate battlegroup was sent to cripple the orbital industries of Feranis and Margathon. They were to complete the attack as quickly as possible then escape the system. With Feranis, their plan unfortunately succeeded. With Margathon, their cruiser just happened to be patrolling the jump point the first squadron translated in from. Said squadron was promptly annihilated. After that it was likely that the Union commander called off the entire operation, rather than risk further casualties.”

“Why only send such a small force? The margin for error must have been tiny. It makes no sense.”

Patrick puffed himself up with pride.

“Because the Union fears a united response from the Clans. Consider this: The Solar Union has ten star systems under its control. Clan Azuraz has five, as does Clan Herpentis, while Clan Gerek has three. Then there are the various minor clans who each have between one and two star systems. As a whole the Saurain Clans have a greater population and industrial output than the Solar Union! All other things being equal the Clans would win a total war against the Union.”

“But things aren’t equal?”

>cont
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>>6031282
“Much to my species shame, it is much harder for us to act as one, whereas the Union can put every resource at its disposal behind a singular effort. The Major Clans are reluctant to risk their fleets unless their interests are directly threatened. If the Union mobilised it’s full might across the disputed territory the situation would change from a small conflict with the minor clans to a full invasion of Saurian space. And that is something the Union wishes to avoid as long as possible.”

“So basically the Union has to pull its punches, both with Margathon and me?”

“Correct.”

“My head of counter-espionage is adamant that the Union will act against my company if I take any more jobs for the Clans.”

“I think he is over selling the threat, but there are still ways for them to get at you. The most obvious and crude way is to hire privateers to attack your shipyard. I wouldn’t worry too much about that; compared to the Solar Navy, privateers are too undisciplined to do much damage before the local authorities come to chase them off. By far the most damaging thing the Union could do to you is to completely deny you access to the Union Materials Index and credit loans. But never fear; should that happen, you can just do business on the Clan Collective Market.”

“Uh, sure… oh look! Food’s here.”

((Whew, what was supposed to be two vignettes turned into a small short story. Turns out there was a lot of info that needed to be dumped in order to address the earlier discussion. Oh and the vote is still open. I'm take a break then the real update will happen later tonight.))
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>>6031284
For those who haven't voted yet, I'd like to remind that the guy talking about how we can freely build ships for the lizards without fearing the SU is a lizard himself and as such not without his own bias and agenda.
>>
With all the new information I’m still for working with the lizards, though it may be unwise for us to build our own private cruiser. I wonder how it would work out if we built a cruiser and donated it to the local defense forces with the understanding they are expected to defend the shit out of our yards in return.
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>>6031287

My thought is that we do a job here and there for the lizards, but we’ll have to space them out and try not to tip the balance too far. I’d prefer not to get locked out of the Solar market and the risk losing access here is too great for me to support another lizard job in the short term.
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>>6030121
>>6030123
>>6030124
>>6030144
>>6030316
>>6030318
>>6030384
>>6030394
>>6030405
>>6030419
>>6030531
>>6030697
>>6030711
>>6030725
>>6030770
>>6030983
>>6031174

Okay time for the real update.
All this talk about who to do business with and not a single person considers buying Benny's mystery box.

Starwind refit: 8
Build a Monarch for the anti-monarchists: 1
Rent out to Clan Margathon: 6

Strike craft vote is pretty much unanimous.

Looks like we're side stepping all politics by refitting Starwind's ship. (Or are we?)

>Writing...
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>>6031392
Isn't Benny unavailable right now?
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>>6031437
((No that was after buying the gatcha. Now he's selling the secret of life the universe and everything.))

You were taking a little break on the yard observation deck while a technician was demonstrating the control interface of your newly deployed hummingbirds.

“Claw, wall, sphere. Look at these little pre-programmed formations and they can dynamically scale the formation no matter how many are in the squadron?”

“Yes, sir they even come with pre-programmed battle stances; passive, evasive, aggressive…”

“Look at the little guys go,” you chuckle to yourself as you toggle formations and watch the squadron outside the observation window automatically assume them with perfect co-ordination.

“Uh sir, you’re going to want to see this.” One of the other technicians was frantically pointing in the opposite direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qe0OdLkeFo

Turning around you saw the biggest warship you had ever seen approaching the dry dock. Your face froze in terror. Was it the Solar Union? Had they chosen to disregard all the consequences and wipe you off the face of the map!? But you hadn’t accepted Margathon’s order yet, why would they go- Your thoughts were interrupted by a ping on your personal comm.

“Boss this is traffic control. Galatan Starwind is here for the refit but his ship is obviously too big for the dry dock. I’ve denied him docking permission and now he’s insisting on talking to you.”

“Put him through.”

“Heeey, Horner, buddy. I’m here on schedule for my refit but your guys aren’t letting me dock.”

“Mr. Starwind I was under the impression yours was a capital class ship, what you’re flying is a super-capital. It’s too big for the dry-dock.”

“Heh, yeah the Großschwert is a big girl, not gonna lie. But I need the layzor installed on the prow, surely your yard can handle just the tip?”

You mute yourself for a second and confirm with traffic control that the dry dock could indeed handle “just the tip” before toggling the audio feed back on again.

“Fine just the tip follow traffic control’s directions and let the pilot vessels guide you in, I don’t want your um…” you take a long incredulous at the spherical engine pods attached to the side of the ship’s girthy super structure, “… er nacelles denting my ship yard.”

“Heh, you got it Horner, that 6Mil should be in your account already.”

It had damn well better be.

>cont
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>>6031494
Your troubles had only just begun. Soon after the Großschwert “docked” the shipyard was surrounded by Car’cass patrol frigates. Kryska’s men were in a stand off with the system militia who were demanding you allow them to board the shipyard (presumably because they were too scared to board the Großschwert), and Governor Flurgus was on the line.

“Horner! What is the meaning of this!? 3 hours ago the early warning network detected a super capital jumping into the system and now my men have tailed it to your shipyard. That thing is a fleet killer! Do you have any idea what a fiasco this is!? The major powers have spies all over Car’cass so of course they already know. Both the Union and the Clan reps are freaking out. What am I supposed to tell them!?”

>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
>Spin a plausible Lie; the Großschwert is an obsolete ancient dreadnaught that while imposing can’t scratch modern warships. Starwind is an eccentric collector who has commissioned you to do some refurbishment work.
>Get the governor to become an accomplice. Tell Flurgus that Starwind is a mercenary and that he should tell the faction reps that he’s hired him to keep both the Unions and Clans off his back until the border crisis blows over.
>Spin an outrageous Lie; Tell Flurgus that the Großschwert is crewed by a race of bored technologically advanced aliens (like Benny) who decided to hang out at the yard on a whim.
>Write-In
>>
>>6031497
>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
Why lie? We were caught off guard by this too.
>>
>>6031497
The guy knows which shape is the strongest.
>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
What I wonder is why is the governor bothering us and not the ship's owner.
>>
>>6031504
>why is the governor bothering us and not the ship's owner.
Because Starwind is being bothered by the local militia captain who's giving him the: "Unknown ship you are in violation of our territory, surrender or we will open fire etc..." speech.
>>
>>6031497
>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
>>
>>6031497
>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
>>
>>6031497

>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.

No reason to lie, and we should also put Decker into figuring out just who the FUCK this guy is. Bastard showed up with a goddamned battleship out of nowhere, you don't get enough cash to make one of those without leaving some sort of a trail. So:

>Get counter-intelligence to look into Galatan Starwind.
>>
>>6031497
>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his big dick, so we're gonna drop a load in it, make sure it works well enough and he can spend his load testing it all in another different system, because he's all spent here.
>>
>>6031497

>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.

“Look, look - I signed up for a capital retrofitting, and I got bamboozled myself. I can’t even fit this thing into my dry-dock, buddy. And by the way, this thing IS a fleet-killer - do YOU want to tell him he’s not allowed in-system? If so, you better warn me now so I can get the fuck outta here before he decides that we’re in HIS system, not the other way around…”
>>
>>6031497
>>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
>>
>>6031497
This is independent business unrelated to the Union or the Clans. I would say come back witha warrant, but there aren't any laws against this, so what we're doing is perfectly legal.
>>
>>6031497
Well, looks like we met the Garry Oak of the setting. QM what about that neural interface we got from Rhaia? What is the overall reality of special brain people in the sapient community? Can we use the mental interface as a C3 system for neiche clients? Are psychic powers a thing? Or are Raihans a gross outlier?

Also anons shouldn't we build one civilian shuttle for our civilian staff evacuation in case of attack?
>>
>>6031497
>Tell them the truth; Galatan Starwind commissioned you to refit his ship, he’ll be gone once the job is done.
>>
No update tonight guys, sorry.
>>
Update will be delayed again, sorry.

For now enjoy a little extra lore. I'm sure many of you are wondering just what the Solar Union and lizards usually use. I may be creating the universe as I go, but the Solar Union and Saurians are recycled from an old skirmish design. These ship designs have been sitting in my folder for ages.
>>
File: Union vs Lizards.png (223 KB, 885x834)
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>>6033497
Aaaand I forgot the pic, of course.
>>
>>6033499
Can you tell us how the shields work. Do they allow the user shoot through their own shield? What are they weak/strong against?
>>
>>6032201
>QM what about that neural interface we got from Rhaia
The MC doesn't know the details, but the Raihans use a special savant caste of person in place of advanced computing systems. The Raihan Neural Interface is designed specifically for use by savants and is useless in designs intended for other clients, even humans within the right implants. Psychic powers might be a thing, the MC doesn't really know.

>>6033534
>Can you tell us how the shields work.
Maybe later when you get the tech, need to write the update.

>>6031502
>>6031504
>>6031512
>>6031527
>>6031538
>>6031542
>>6031547
>>6031658
>>6032246

Looks like we're being honest.

>Writing...
>>
Are there any local laws or inter-empire standards/conventions governing the construction of warships?
>>
File: CannonSchematic.png (391 KB, 998x362)
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Trying to lie your way out of this one was probably a terrible idea. In the end this was on Starwind not you.

“Look, look - I signed up for a capital retrofitting, and I got bamboozled myself. I can’t even fit this thing into my dry-dock, buddy. And by the way, this thing IS a fleet-killer - do YOU want to tell him he’s not allowed in-system? If so, you better warn me now so I can get the fuck outta here before he decides that we’re in HIS system, not the other way around…”

An extremely loud drawn out fart noise was all you heard in response before the call ended.

--------------------

In the end Starwind himself went to the planetary capital to smooth things over. You don’t know what he did, but he called you to say he’d have to stay there for the duration of the refit in order to “keep the governor sweet.” You decided not to speculate on what that might entail, with the Blorg, even being under simple house arrest could be unpleasant. On your end you had to deal with a single patrol frigate being stationed near the yard which was practically a slap on the wrist.

Your troubles were just beginning though. The fact that Starwind had brought a much bigger ship than you were expecting changed up a lot of things.

-----------------

“We can’t just scale up our existing designs, the power draw and the heat output increase exponentially,” explained Tim.

“What if we just, strapped a bunch of heavy lasers together, increase the firepower by firing more shots rather than a bigger one?”

“That’s a very practical solution that I can personally get behind, but Starwind wants something big and showy that will one shot all but the biggest targets. Multiple smaller guns working in concert is almost as good but it won’t look as cool.”

“Hmm… I think we might need to outsource this one.”

“That’s certainly an option, and I do have some contacts we can leverage. I’ll send you a summary.”

>cont
>>
>>6034102
You take a look at the options Tim sent you:

First up is the Light Side Beam Corporation, a company heavily affiliated with the Solar Union, known for production of the Sol-3 Ion cannon mounted on Union cruisers. They weren’t allowed to export Ion weapons but what they could sell you was a customized super-heavy laser called the Flare-4C. This was a simple “Giant Layzor”, just like Starwind wanted, and it was the complete package. For a flat fee LSBC would ship you the Flare and the accompanying cooling system. This was the simplest and quickest way to finish the job but it would cost the most out of pocket.

Saurians had a love for both energy weapons and bigger ships, thus they could probably do better than you in building this. Much like the LSBC the lizard were not going to share or sell their particle lance tech. However Tim had been talking to Clan Quezet and they were willing to sell you a design for modified lightening cannon that you could build yourself under license. Much cheaper than the LSBC’s offer in terms of out of pocket expenses but you’d have to build the thing yourself.

Finally, Tim had reached out to the Raihans of all people. You hadn’t expected that to work, but you were surprised when Admiral Garan himself sent a reply. The Admiral had access to a large particle beam cannon salvaged from the fallen empire’s military detritus. He could not make use of it by himself but he was willing to give it to you if you would immediately begin building him his desired assault carrier after Starwind’s job was complete. He was even willing to pay for the carrier on top of giving you the cannon, business wise this was a great deal, but did you really want to get cosy with the Lord Commander?

>How to refit the Großschwert?
>Do it all in house: Just stick 3 Sovereign Laser cannons in the prow and call it a day. (20kT CM, 10kT RM)
>Buy and Install the Flare-4C from the Light Side Beam Corporation: 4Mil SoC.
>License a lightening cannon from the lizards: 1Mil Scrip (20kT CM 10kT RM)
>Accept Admiral Garan’s deal. (5kT CM installation costs, Raihan Assault Carrier project locked in as the next job.)
>>
>>6034104
>License a lightening cannon from the lizards: 1Mil Scrip (20kT CM 10kT RM)

Wait so we do we know this design for future project if we buy it?
>>
>>6034107
Yes but you have to pay Clan Quezet the licensing fee every time. Plus the design is for a super-heavy single strike lightening canon. Think of it as the big unwieldy bolt action version to the Saurian's full automatic.

Scaling the design down and adapting it for general use will take some doing, and you might have to negotiate a licensing fee for derivative products lest you anger the Lizards.
>>
>>6034104
>>Accept Admiral Garan’s deal. (5kT CM installation costs, Raihan Assault Carrier project locked in as the next job.)
>>
>>6034104
>>Accept Admiral Garan’s deal. (5kT CM installation costs, Raihan Assault Carrier project locked in as the next job.)
We need at least one faction that likes us for continued business. We are making warships, of course there will be war.

Also, we get a very good amount of materials. Maybe working on the Raihan Assault Carrier, we can finagle some of the particle cannon tech and combine it with our long-range Mil-spec sensors.
>>
>>6034104
>License a lightening cannon from the lizards: 1Mil Scrip (20kT CM 10kT RM)
Don’t want Raihans. They’re going to cause a war if we make those carriers and put us into more politics. I also like dommy mommy empress and they won’t give credit for the project.
>>
>>6034104
>Accept Admiral Garan’s deal.
Its a great deal, and secure work. Would love the tech advancement from licensing designs but don't love bleeding money and material.

Speaking of tech, what's Persica busy with at the moment? Does R&D have any projects going?
>>
>>6034104

>Buy and Install the Flare-4C from the Light Side Beam Corporation: 4Mil SoC.

It is expensive, yes, but I view this as an investment. The big cost should put us on the radar as a truly neutral party and would give us a foot in the Solar Union and affiliated markets.
>>
>>6034104
>Buy and Install the Flare-4C from the Light Side Beam Corporation: 4Mil SoC.

Wasn't thinking about how it could smooth oer relation to work with the Solar Union (so we can work with the lizards again later) I'll switch.
>>
>>6034104
>Haggle with Starwind for additional pay for a unique, restricted availability ancient tech exclusive deal particle cannon.
>If he agrees, accept Admiral Garan’s deal. If he doesn't, buy the lizard license
>>
>>6034192

We are not an affiliated military manufacturer, working both sides is what we're supposed to do and we do that by appeasing both sides enough not to cut relations. Time will come (though this is a one-shot so it might not) when we will have to pick a side, but for now we can enjoy the benefits of both sides.
>>
>>6034104
>Accept Admiral Garan’s deal. (5kT CM installation costs, Raihan Assault Carrier project locked in as the next job.)

This seems to have the least political fallout to profit ratio and repairs the apparent damage that the Empress may have wrought earlier. Does the good Admiral know that the particle beam cannon works though? No deal if its a dud.
>>
>>6034104
>License a lightening cannon from the lizards: 1Mil Scrip (20kT CM 10kT RM)
The Raihan deal sounds enticing, but instead of building a weapon that fits into the ship, we'd have to modify the ship to fit the particle beam cannon.
>>
>>6034104
>Accept Admiral Garan’s deal. (5kT CM installation costs, Raihan Assault Carrier project locked in as the next job.)

Raihan expansionism actually kinda works in our favour - given they lack the native heavy industry / shipyards to do what we do and the fact that their independent colonies are potential customers too. Worst comes to worst, we've a 3rd major power who needs us until their own shipyards come online. Best comes to best, Raihan and its colonies get into an arms race which we make bank off.

Also we might be able to use the Raihan contract to get our hands on some more carrier focused tech, which'll benefit us given our smallcraft production facility. Also the obvious point of being able to offer to ship them the craft with fighters/bombers already onboard.
>>
>>6034107
>>6034151
>>6034153
>>6034168
>>6034169
>>6034175
>>6034192
>>6034195
>>6034227
>>6034283

>Does R&D have any projects going?
Nope you didn't buy a tech lab. R&D can only make new stuff out of what you already have, maybe modify things a bit.

License Lightening Cannon: 3
Buy Flare: 2
Accept Admiral's deal: 6

So much for siding with the Empress.

>Writing...
>>
>>6034302
Maybe the Empress could commission a ship from us to fight the Admiral.
>>
>>6034104
>Buy and Install the Flare-4C from the Light Side Beam Corporation: 4Mil SoC.

He wanted a 'Giant Layzor', not a particle beam cannon. Give the customer what he wants.
>>
“So Mr. Starwind, great news: I’ve managed to secure a giant particle beam cannon to mount on your ship.”

“Yeah that’s what I asked for, why did you call just to tell me this?”

“You asked for, and I quote: ‘a giant layzor’. Laser weapons and particle beams are completely different. One is vastly cheaper and easier to make than the other.”

“Potato, potah-toe, it fires a big beam that will tear right through the target right?”

“Yeah…”

“Cool, that’s what I wanted, stick it on my ship like we agreed.”

“Woah, woah, I just told I’m giving you a free upgrade and you just take it for granted!?”

“Don’t try and upsell me Horner. Not only did I pay you in advance, I gave Governor Flurgus a hug to make him stop freaking out! I’ll be rubbing antiseptic cream all over myself for weeks! So do your job before I demand a refund!”

What an entitled dumbass.

The call ended abruptly. You sigh in exasperation and wonder why you didn’t just rip him off with triple sovereign cannons. At least he didn’t threaten to annihilate your shipyard, although maybe he didn’t need to. He did pay you in advance and you were getting this cannon basically for no monetary cost, so you’d overlook Starwind’s bone headedness… this time.

>cont
>>
>>6034397
Decker looked thoroughly annoyed as he handed you the dossier on Starwind. You couldn’t help feel a little smug about seeing the salty old dog chew on something he hadn’t seen before.

“This guy’s like a character from a holo-drama. Showed up on the Car’cass merc net about a year ago commanding some dinky frigate, running his mouth about becoming the most awesome captain around. Even the most delusional indy captains have more self-awareness than him. Anyway, he finishes a few high risk contracts against the odds. Nothing too out of the ordinary just yet, you get folks with talent or luck popping up from time to time. At this point he tries to buy an Enforcer off of you and you turn him down in favour of Margathon. Not the best move by the way.”

“I don’t pay you to criticize my business decisions.”

Decker kept going without missing a beat. “I couldn’t find out where he came from, even the model of frigate he used was unknown, only thing I could figure out for sure was where he got his new ship.”

“Well don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Benny gave it him.”

“What!?”

“I shit you not, apparently after you refused to build him an Enforcer he went and gave every penny he had to Benny. He got a lot of useless junk, but the final item that alien pulled out of hyperspace for him was the Großschwert.”

“That’s…absurd.”

“I am as shocked as you are.”

“Hey, you think we should pay Benny for more junk?”

“Not possible. The last piece of junk Benny pulled from hyperspace had a self-replicating bio-mechanical parasite on it. As soon as it assimilated the unfortunate buyer Benny started ranting about how they would ‘not be bound’ and completely erased the guy from existence. That’s why they don’t sell random cosmic junk anymore.”

“Oof… Well, if you come across anything else then great, but for now I need you to turn your attention to the Raihan empire. I have a feeling I’m about to step into a political minefield.”

>cont
>>
>>6034400
While the refit was underway you had time get started on the new design for High Admiral Garan. Before the design meeting, Persica pulled you aside.

“Boss, it’s not directly related to the upcoming project but you really need to start thinking about developing new technologies.”

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t build the tech lab, but after weighing the pros and cons I felt we needed to beef up internal security.”

“I get that, not ragging on you about it. Just saying that given we don’t have a tech lab we need to explore alternate avenues.”

“Well first off, what can we do in house?”

Persica sighs. “Not much. When we handle third party tech I’ll slowly get a feel for it, but that will take forever. Some limited work can be done in our machine shops towards developing tech directly related to what we already know, but it will move at a crawl compared to what can be achieved within a proper lab environment.”

“I see.”

“When it comes to obtaining tech outside our own lab we have two options: commission a research lab. This involves a high initial investment but once completed we get the technology as if we developed it ourselves. The second option is simply licensing the components we can’t make ourselves from third parties. In which case we need to pay money to them every time we make that model of ship.”

“Can’t we just buy technologies out right?”

“It’s possible but that usually costs crazy amounts of money.”

“Crazier than amounts involved in making capital ships?”

“Yup, you effectively have to buy out the technology holder and no offenses boss, but we’re not operating at that level yet.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, I know there’s been some tech you’ve had your eye on recently. I’ve made a list and added some stuff I think would help us with our current direction. Let me know if and what you want to act on.”

Research Mechanics
Each possible technology has a research point cost associated with it. The various methods of research will grant you a certain number of d10s to roll. Every time an opportunity arises to deepen your understanding of a certain tech you will roll a number of d10s and the total will count towards its research point cost. After the research point total has been reached you will gain the technology. Generally excess research points are wasted although I may make allowances for techs that are closely related.

>cont
>>
>>6034401
>Pick a research topic (ranked vote, you can pick more than one but only one will be chosen based on total votes)
Researchable in house
>Advanced Electronics (required for C3 systems that fully leverage a capital class carrier’s strike craft complement. RP cost: 100)
>Refined simple energy weapons (more efficient laser technologies allows them to be scaled up or down, and just be made better in general. RP cost: 80)
>Advanced Kinetics (Helical Coilguns, electro thermal chem propellant and all the accompanying recoil compensation; the pinnacle of making bullets go faster before resorting to spatial manipulation BS. RP cost: 40)
>Intermediate Fabrication (Enables full strikecraft manufacturing on capital ships as well as other industrial functions. RP cost: 60)
>Xenoergonomics Human/Saurian/Blorg (Enables the addition of luxury accoutrements and efficient designs targeted at that specific race. 30/50/70 RP)

Requires Lab Rental
>Remote Effectors (Tractor beams. RP cost: 100)
>Hyper Conductors (Materials that transfer energy with near perfect efficiency, opens up more possible solutions to problems involving energy hungry systems. RP cost: 80)
>Refined Fusion Power (Smaller, more efficient fusion power plants enable you to do more with less. RP cost: 60)
>Advanced Scientific Sensors (Sensors optimised for analysing a target in detail rather than tracking it. RP cost: 40)
>Simple Shield Generators (Energy field projectors that a negate incoming weapons fire. The basic versions work both ways so you can’t shoot when the shield is up. RP cost: 60)
>Basic Particle Beams (Enables production of capital class Ion Cannons. RP cost: 60)
>Stealth Composites (Enables sensor dampening features to be incorporated into designs, the first step on the road to true cloaking. RP cost: 40)
>Generic Neural Link (Allows organics to interface with machines, does not provide the same benefits as the Raihan version. RP cost: 40)

>Vote on Extra Research Measures:
>Rent a lab (Pay 5 million SoC or 4 million Scrip to set research rate at 5d10)
>Outsource (You will find a partner to provide the tech, building designs that incorporate that tech will require payment to the partner company.)
>Do it all in house (research rate set to 2d10, only tech researchable in house will accounted for in the vote.)
>>
>>6034402
>Xenoergonomics Human
>Advanced Kinetics
>Refined simple energy weapons

>Do it all in house
Logic being we don't have a lot of RP to work with, so we should pick cheap option that won't take forever to see results from. I don't want to do research other than in house because the other options are ridiculously expensive and we don't have that kind of money. We really should get a lab at the next opportunity.

As for the researches themselves, we know our customers are mostly human, and the Raihans at least are a known market that appreciate ergonomics, and the tech is cheap. Kinetics isn't super useful admittedly but it's also one of the cheapest options, and can be a nice cherry on top of our designs. I think the refined energy weapons would be a more useful research but it's also dramatically more expensive, so because of that it goes as my number 3.
>>
>>6034407

Supporting - we can build a research lab in the future
>>
>>6034402
>>Refined simple energy weapons (more efficient laser technologies allows them to be scaled up or down, and just be made better in general. RP cost: 80)
>Remote Effectors (Tractor beams. RP cost: 100)
>Do it all in house (research rate set to 2d10, only tech researchable in house will accounted for in the vote.)
>>
>>6034402
>>6034407
+1
>>
>>6034402

>Refined Simple Energy Weapons

>Do it all in House
>>
>>6034402
>Advanced Electronics (required for C3 systems that fully leverage a capital class carrier’s strike craft complement. RP cost: 100)
>Refined simple energy weapons (more efficient laser technologies allows them to be scaled up or down, and just be made better in general. RP cost: 80)
>Advanced Kinetics (Helical Coilguns, electro thermal chem propellant and all the accompanying recoil compensation; the pinnacle of making bullets go faster before resorting to spatial manipulation BS. RP cost: 40)


I’d rather have the advanced electronics than Xergonmics since our carriers explicitly require advanced electronics when not dealing with the Raihans.
>>
>>6034402
This isn't a ranked vote btw, because you are choosing the winner based on total number of votes regardless of preference. If it were ranked, there would be some form of elimination of accounting for preference, but as it is, it's just a standard vote where you can vote for multiple but only one will win, which actually discourages listing multiple options as I'm coming to find. Why would I list out my preferences in multiple votes if, even though a majority might agree with me, a couple others only want my least preferred option, and because there are "more votes" for that option, that option wins? Why wouldn't I just vote for only my first choice?

With this in mind, I'm changing my vote >>6034407 to only
>Xenoergonomics Human

>>6034477
So would I but that stuff requires 100 RP, it's not worth it. It would take way too long to research.
>>
>>6034478
elimination or* accounting for preference
>>
>>6034402
>Advanced Kinetics (Helical Coilguns, electro thermal chem propellant and all the accompanying recoil compensation; the pinnacle of making bullets go faster before resorting to spatial manipulation BS. RP cost: 40)

>Do it all in house (research rate set to 2d10, only tech researchable in house will accounted for in the vote.)
>>
>>6034402
>Advanced Electronics (required for C3 systems that fully leverage a capital class carrier’s strike craft complement. RP cost: 100)
>Do it all in house (research rate set to 2d10, only tech researchable in house will accounted for in the vote.)
>>
>>6034478
The logic here is that if you put multiple votes, you increase the chance that the vote you'd like even less than your least-preferred one will not win. This system works best when there's options that you're actively opposed to. Then you vote for every option that you don't oppose.
>>
>>6034402
I was hoping we'd do some market research before deciding what tech to procure.
>Advanced Kinetics (Helical Coilguns, electro thermal chem propellant and all the accompanying recoil compensation; the pinnacle of making bullets go faster before resorting to spatial manipulation BS. RP cost: 40)
>Do it all in house
On average, this is going to take 4 turns to complete.
>>
>>6034402
>Do it all in house (research rate set to 2d10, only tech researchable in house will accounted for in the vote.)
>Advanced Kinetics (Helical Coilguns, electro thermal chem propellant and all the accompanying recoil compensation; the pinnacle of making bullets go faster before resorting to spatial manipulation BS. RP cost: 40)


First off, I don't think we've much need for the Advanced Scientific Sensors. Military craft aren't insanely interested in that sort of thing seeing as they're explicitly not better targeting sensors. Similarly, the Generic Neural Link might be useful, but only assuming our buyer is willing to use it - otherwise it's not that useful (beyond maybe using it ourselves to augment our workforce!).

In terms of the stuff we can research in house, all of them are pretty great although I would add an immediate opinion that Advanced Kinetics is actually better than Refined Simple Energy Weapons. Reason being that smallcraft aren't going to have the reactors for a lot of energy weapons but they could mount a big gun with much less issue. Plus the obvious point that guns are cheaper to produce and selling "good guns" vs "okay lasers" to me seems to favour guns a bit.

Beyond these initial comments, literally everything else is a great investment of time/resources. Personally think we should grab Intermediate Fabrication or Remote Effectors. Latter has benefits when it comes to non-military ships to the Raihan while the former could open an opportunity to sell them some sort of "invasion support ship" producing smallcraft, tanks and so on in-orbit of a planet to resupply and repair forces.

I'd also make a note that Refined Fusion Power is universally useful and only 60 RP. Similarly, Stealth Composites would be great for smallcraft (not sure if they'd work well on a capital ship, what with it being a capital ship). Particle Beams might be good too but there's something to be said for focusing on one or two kinds of weapons as much as we can rather than jumping on something new just because it might work out better.
>>
>>6034519
Those other investments are useful to have, but the cost is a total non-starter. It's not at all worth it to pay effectively the entire price of a capital ship just for any one of those techs, and that's what would be required since they aren't researchable in house.

>>6034509
This could still be achieved with an actual ranked vote without the downsides.
>>
>>6034519
>I would add an immediate opinion that Advanced Kinetics is actually better than Refined Simple Energy Weapons.
Plus, Kinetics would synergize well with the railgun fire control system we got recently.
>>
>>6034527
An actual ranked vote is hard to count.
>>
>>6034531
It doesn't have to be. A very simple way of doing it is giving first choice 3 points, second choice 2 points, third choice 1 point. It's not as good as a true ranked choice selection but it's simple to count. I also don't really agree that it's hard to count in the first place.
>>
>>6034402
>Advanced Electronics (required for C3 systems that fully leverage a capital class carrier’s strike craft complement. RP cost: 100)
>Intermediate Fabrication (Enables full strikecraft manufacturing on capital ships as well as other industrial functions. RP cost: 60)
>Xenoergonomics Human

>Do it all in house (research rate set to 2d10, only tech researchable in house will accounted for in the vote.)
>>
>Advanced Electronics (required for C3 systems that fully leverage a capital class carrier’s strike craft complement. RP cost: 100)
>Intermediate Fabrication (Enables full strikecraft manufacturing on capital ships as well as other industrial functions. RP cost: 60)
>Advanced Kinetics (Helical Coilguns, electro thermal chem propellant and all the accompanying recoil compensation; the pinnacle of making bullets go faster before resorting to spatial manipulation BS. RP cost: 40)
>Do it all in house
>>
I would just count the first option they vote for only. Ranked choice is just a pain in the ass for QM’s, and griggas always complain about the counting later. Are you the same guy who bothered bananas QM about it over and over.
>>
>>6034632
No, I am not. I'm just bringing it up because it was called a ranked vote, and the description for how the votes were counted wasn't a ranked vote.
>>
>>6034402
>Xenoergonomics Human & Saurian
>Refined simple energy weapons
>Advanced Electronics

No customers seem to be seeking capital mass drivers. Galatan wants his layzor, the Raihans wanted a planetary striking lance.
>>
>>6034478
>>6034652
>This isn't a ranked vote

Oh it's not? Sorry if I mis-used the term then. My intention was: There's a whole lot of choices here so just vote for the one's you don't mind and hopefully we'll end up with something everyone is okay with.

I'll think about how I can do this better for next time.

>>6034516
>market research
I'll give you this one for free. This game requires a fuck load of context and I'm struggling to give it to you all in character.

So: Salvage ships. War is on the horizon so there's opportunity for enterprising scrappers to pick at the battlefields.

War ship demand is up in Raihan Empire and its former colonies. Not so much in Union and Clan space as they prefer to do all their military construction in house.

However with state shipyards occupied with war production there's opportunity for private companies to pick up the slack in civilian markets especially for transport and industrial designs.
>>
>>6034402
>Advanced Electronics
>Xenoergonomics Human
>Remote Effectors
>Advanced Scientific Sensors
>Simple Shield Generators
>Rent a lab (4 million Scrip)
>>
Lurker just popping in. I can't believe Benny got wrecked by the Beast. I sure hope that's not going to be a problem in the future, especially since we don't seem to have Kiith Somtaaw around to bail us out. Makes me wonder if our shipyard would've gotten infected if we bought his mystery box. Does that mean Starwind has the Naggarok?
>>
>>6035127
Nah, the one infected was the last buyer, not Starwind, and Benny erased them from existence, so Benny should be safe too.
>>
>>6035134
>>6035127

Thank Benny there is no Flood yet
>>
>>6034527
To be fair, it may be the case that these technologies will let us charge that much more from our clients.
>>
>>6035127
>>6035194
Glad to see some people are enjoying the Benny sub-plot. I can't resist avin a giggle with my quests.

Sorry guys but I'm delaying the update again.
>>
>>6035258
Benny is a good boy, and we appreciate that. Damn that the super-capital was drawn, what a lad Benny is.
>>
Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>6034407
>[
>>6034419
>>6034460
>>6034467
>>6034474
>>6034477
>>6034478
>>6034483
>>6034507
>>6034516
>>6034519
>>6034587
>>6034630
>>6034715
>>6034959

It's almost unanimous to do things in house. So I'm throwing out the votes for things that require the lab.

Xenoergonomics (Human): 6
Refined Energy Weapons: 4
Advanced Electronics: 6
Advanced Kinetics: 5
Intermediate Fabrication: 2

Rolling off between Xenoergonomics and advanced electronics.
1: Xenoergonomics
2: Advanced Electronics

>Writing...
>>
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Advanced electronics was going to be the bottleneck if you wanted to pivot to producing carriers. Persica told you that it was possible to develop the tech in the yard workshops but without specialized tools and a dedicated lab space it would be slow going. You told her to do it anyway. You considered this to be a really long term investment.

---------------------

True to his word, Admiral Garan sent the particle cannon from Raiha. The weapon was almost half the length of a cruiser and frankly made you more nervous than when the Großschwert had shown up; just what kind of military had the Empire possessed at the height of its power?

Fitting the thing onto the Großschwert’s prow required you to remove the forward kinetic battery, something Starwind had no problem with because it was “weaksauce”. Good fortune for you since salvaging the battery allowed you to cover the common matter costs of installing the cannon. Power didn’t seem to be a problem, all your engineers had to do was hook up the weapon and verify the power conduits could handle the load.

Decker got back to you with an interesting tidbit about Starwind’s ship. He had traced the origin of the Großschwert to a long defunct stellar nation of the human diaspora. Curiously, all images of the ship showed it to have a conventional super-capital drive array, not the spherical engine pods mounted on the ship in your yard. Could this be an experimental variant? A mystery to be sure, but ultimately one that didn’t concern you.

Having to install and verify the cannons functionality without firing it had given your engineering teams a rudimentary understanding of particle beam weaponry. Something that maybe could be built upon in the future. Starwind would be taking the Großschwert to an uninhabited system for the live test fire upon your insistence; you were both on thin ice with the Car’cass authorities.

>CM cost of cannon installation absorbed.
>Roll 1d10 towards Basic Particle Beams Tech
>Roll 2d10 towards Advanced Electronics Tech

>cont
>>
>>6036031
Starwind gleefully reported that the test fire was successful. He seemed very satisfied and promised that he would recommend your services to all his friends. You wonder what kind of friends a guy like him might have, and whether they’d be more trouble than they were worth.

With that job out of the way the time had come to build Admiral Garan his assault carrier. You felt vaguely dirty taking on the job, you were sure the Empress wouldn’t approve. Then again you were in debt to Garan while you didn’t owe the Empress anything. At the end of the day you were a business man, not an extension of the Raihan monarch.

Soon after Starwind left a representative of the Imperial Raihan Navy arrived to be the project liason. Rear Admiral Klaus Funke was a humourless man who clearly didn’t want to be here, but the navy needed a man with rank to be present so any decisions could be made without having to send a message back to the throne world.

Mirroring your original meeting with High Admiral Garan the two of you sat a cross from each other in one of your conference rooms. Funke had a Raihan shipwright and administrator with him while Persica and Frank sat next to you once again. Behind you your own security team stared down the Rear Admiral’s golden armoured escort; it felt good to have goons of your own.

“So, are you going to steal credit for this ship as well?”

“There will be no credit to steal Mr. Horner. The High Admiral wants this ship built discretely. The vessel shall be launched without fanfare and pressed into service immediately. I trust one of the Empire’s most powerful weapons on top of the ship’s market price should more than make up for any lost reputation.”

>cont
>>
Rolled 10, 6 = 16 (2d10)

>>6036031
>Roll 2d10 towards Advanced Electronics Tech
>>
>>6036031
“Hrmph. I will concede that it was quite generous of Arcturus to give me that cannon, my previous client was very satisfied.” Funke narrowed his eyes at you, annoyed that you would refer to his boss so casually. “I must warn you though that it is very hard to conceal the construction of a capital ship. While I won’t be broadcasting it to the galaxy, I can’t stop people from flying past this station and just looking at what’s being built.”

“Do not worry too much about that, the Empire’s enemies believe we are building our ships in the home system. They have not yet thought to look elsewhere. Your silence is enough.” Funke paused to take a sip of the refreshments on offer, wrinkling his nose in slight disapproval. The mineralized soda water you had put out, clearly inferior to what he was used to back on the throne-world. You made no apologies; what you served was already a cut above the recycled liquids the average spacer subsisted on, importing actual spring water from a planet would have been over doing it.

“I will not mince words; the vessel we are commissioning is to be an invasion craft. The Empress would try to convince our wayward colonies to return voluntarily, the Lord Commander will not leave that to chance. To that end I need a vessel that can deploy and co-ordinate an invasion force, preferably providing precision bombardments from orbit, with enough space combat capability to best any picket ships and light defence platforms.”

“Hmm, providing all of that in a single ship will be tricky, but I think we can come up with something…”

>Just stick some heavy kinetics and missiles on the Carrack and call it a day.
>Come up with a new design focused on speed and durability, incorporating a kinetic battery optimized for precision bombardment.
>Go the extra mile; outsource simple shields and refined fusion power for a design that not only meets expectations, but exceeds them.
>Write-in
>>
Rolled 5 (1d10)

>>6036031

Rolling for basic particle beam tech
>>
>>6036035
>Come up with a new design focused on speed and durability, incorporating a kinetic battery optimized for precision bombardment.
>>
>>6036035
>Go the extra mile

>Write in
Offer to design and produce strike craft to specifically outfit the new design if the empire is willing to agree for a continual production contract. Just a way to develop a continuous income stream for our company.

I imagine the AAS would already be tolerable as a bomber for them, we’d just need to be able to design a decent fighter or upgrade our current drones and likely provide a troop landing craft but we do have the AAS shuttle variant available which could pretty easily become a troop lande
>>
>>6036035
>Tell him of our meeting with the High Admiral.
Homeboy was satisfied with the idea of a blend between the Carrack and the Warhawk with a couple of big guns(no need foe a battery) for fire support and the rest of the ship is for carrying the flyboy squad.
>Actually make a cross between the Carrack and Warhawk.
Whether we hollow out the Warhawk and throw all but the big railguns away or just upgun the Carrack does not bother me.
>>
>Come up with a new design focused on speed and durability, incorporating a kinetic battery optimized for precision bombardment.
>>
>>6036061

Supporting, this is great logic
>>
>>6036035
>>Come up with a new design focused on speed and durability, incorporating a kinetic battery optimized for precision bombardment.
>>
>>6036035
>Come up with a new design focused on speed and durability, incorporating a kinetic battery optimized for precision bombardment.
>>
>>6036061

Fuck it. If we are doing a project, then we need to go all the way in. We will be the greatest ship designers, or none at all.
>>
>>6036035
>>6036061
>>6036139

Forgot to link it, but +1
>>
>>6036035
...huh, exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about offering them. I'd call it ironic, but it's what they obviously need.

>Write-in
The carrack is a good baseline design - after all, there's no need to be fast when your target is a planet and standardising parts / training is an obvious benefit of the near-identical ships.

One thing that they might appreciate for example being duplicate / extensive sensor systems to provide them with as much intel as possible (monitoring radio, observing weather & surface movements, etc). Perhaps advanced medical facilities?
>>
>>6036035
>>6036061
supported

Also QM, did we do enough rolls for the tech advance, or we doing Best Of x rolls?
>>
>>6036787
You've made enough rolls.
>>
>>6036035
>Come up with a new design focused on speed and durability, incorporating a kinetic battery optimized for precision bombardment.
>>
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>>6036061
+1
Let's put this Fighter factory to something. Give em the good ol zippy. That zoomy zimmy. The fast thingymajig. The, and lord forgive me for saying this, the superiority fighter drone.
>>
>>6036875
I don't think we have any techs to stick on those to make any more advanced drones.
>>
>>6036875
I’ll be honest I really just want to convert our AAS (Aerospace Assault Shuttle) Bomber into a boom and zoom style heavy fighter. If for no other reason we could call it the ASS (Aerospace Superiority Shuttle) though I willingly admit that high quality fighter drones would undoubtedly be more practical
>>
>>6036061
>>6036035
>support
>>
>>6036035

We don't need a brand new design just upgrade the Carrack to suit their needs.

>Go the extra mile; outsource simple shields and refined fusion power for a design that not only meets expectations, but exceeds them.
>>
Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6036051
>>6036061
>>6036070
>>6036079
>>6036122
>>6036130
>>6036142
>>6036219
>>6036801
>>6036875
>>6037482
>>6037735

Extra Mile: 6
New Design: 6
Alter Carrack: 1

Gonna lock in the vote, but the update might be a while coming.

1: Extra Mile
2: New Design
>>
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You bring up the schematic of the Carrack carrier on the AR display.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with our carrack class carrier.”

“I am, but this model is not suited for our needs.”

“Which is why we shall be modifying it.”

“I’d rather not have a cobbled together franken ship.”

“Oh Yee of little faith, take a look at what I have to offer before saying no.”

You launch into your sales pitch, deftly manipulating the AR display as you mould the carrack into something new.

“A carrier will serve as a good baseline for an invasion ship, the flight deck can accommodate your invasion force or supporting aerospace wing, but you’ll be needing a little more than that…”

With a few gestures you dismiss the existing light kinetic battery and slice off the forward hull, before adding in new components.

“We don’t really have room for a proper battery on this design so we’re going to do more with less. Dual heavy railguns will give you precision firepower, while a single medium kinetic auto-turret will give you some ‘knife fighting’ capability against picket ships and platforms. Combine all of this with an expanded sensor suite and these weapons can engage targets both in space and on the ground.”

Funke was nodding along, his interest piqued.

“Planetary sieges are bloody work, so this ship must be well armoured and faster than average to get its forces to the combat zone. Normally you’d be forced to pick one or the other but with refined fusion power plants we can double the power output without any increase in mass. With all this extra power we can afford to mount another pair of heavy capital drives and make the armour just that much thicker.”

Persica raised an eyebrow at this. You’d rehearsed this pitch with her so as not to over promise.

“To make the thrust/mass ratios balance properly we’ll have to sacrifice 20% of the ship’s carrying capacity but with improvements on all other aspects I believe it to be an excellent trade off. There’s even room for a shield generator although it will require some power juggling on the captain’s part.”

You make the final adjustments on the AR display. The ship before you bore a resemblance to the carrack but was a different beast. The Rear Admiral leaned forward and turned the design over, occasionally conferring with his shipwright. There was a lot of nodding which you took as a good sign.

“This design certainly meets our needs. If the final product can match its simulated performance the High Admiral shall be impressed. I do have a request; since we are going all out on this concept there is an additional feature I wish to add…”

>Your willingness to go the extra mile has fostered trust with Garan’s faction. They have provided you with a new technology to be used in their ship.
>Gained Drop Pods Technology: Allows a ship to rapidly send stuff to a planet’s surface from orbit.

>cont
>>
>>6037908
“Wow, thank you, yeah, this new ship is going to be a beast. Say since I’m building you a carrier want me to throw in some of our new aerospace strikecraft? I can give you a good-”

“Don’t push your luck Mr. Horner. Let’s see how the new ship plays out and if you impress me, I might be willing to buy a little extra.”

------------------------

The cheerily named Project Subjugator began with little incident. The Raihans didn’t have much access to widely accepted currency but they had plenty of material wealth. Your legal team had organised the payment plan such that the client would cover most of the construction as it progressed. The final payment would be your “profit” and it would be shipped over after the Subjugator launched.

Of course, something as big and complex as a capital ship was unlikely to be finished without hitting a snag. Prior to phase 2 Persica pulled you aside to inform you of a problem.

“I think you got a little too enthusiastic boss.”

“What’s wrong? Are we unable to deliver on all the features promised? I thought you said it was all doable?”

“It is all doable… on paper.”

“Buuut?”

“In practice the ship is a powder keg. The ammo, supplies, sub-systems are all sardine canned into the hull. We pushed the mass restrictions to the limit so that everything would fit, anything that penetrates the armour will rip and tear through something important.”

If it penetrates the armour.”

“Do you really want to gamble on that boss? The Raihans might not be willing to take those odds.”

You sigh. “What are our options?”

“Fixing the problem will require internal reinforcement, redundant systems, blow out compartments for ammo etc… All require more volume and/or mass.”

“A we already pushed all that to the limit?”

“Exactly, so something has to go.”

>”Between the shields and the armour, they’ll be fine.” (Continue with no changes, the design will have a FATAL FLAW).
>Omit the forward turret and spinal point defence. (Ship will have reduced firepower and point defences.)
>Reduce Carrying Capacity by another 20%. (Ship will have reduced aerospace/troop deployment).
>Drop some of the engines. (Ship will no longer be fast enough to exploit key opportunities.)

>Also Roll me a d4.
>>
>>6037909
>Drop some of the engines. (Ship will no longer be fast enough to exploit key opportunities.)

I figure a planetary assault vessel can get away with slightly reduced speed more then anything else
>>
Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>6037909
>Drop some of the engines. (Ship will no longer be fast enough to exploit key opportunities.)
>>
>>6037909
>Drop some of the engines. (Ship will no longer be fast enough to exploit key opportunities.)
>>
>>6037909
>>6037914
What's the planet gonna do, run away?
>Drop some of the engines. (Ship will no longer be fast enough to exploit key opportunities.)
>>
>>6037909
>”Between the shields and the armour, they’ll be fine.” (Continue with no changes, the design will have a FATAL FLAW).
We made a design fitting their requirements, and their liaison accepted it
>>
>>6037940
>What's the planet gonna do, run away?

The planet's not going anywhere but a landing ship's speed could be the difference between hitting the target before the enemy can form a defense line, and dropping your troops into an LZ that's too hot.
>>
>>6037965
Isn't that the reason they asked for the orbital bombardment capabilities, to clear areas for troop landing?
>>
>>6037973
The speed angle is about getting your troops planet side before the enemy can react. That reaction can happen above and below. Yeah the ship can do a bit of fighting itself, but if the enemy are trying to intercept you with a cruiser squadron, speed helps.

Same deal if you've triggered the enemy's sensor net and now have x number of hours before their planetary capital is hardened against invasion.

Not saying speed is the wrong choice to nix, just trying to explain why the MC even tried to make the ship fast in the first place.

The idea is that this thing is basically a space marine strike cruiser, or a scaled up super destroyer from Helldivers.
>>
>>6037977
>>6037977
With that in mind
>Omit the forward turret and spinal point defence. (Ship will have reduced firepower and point defences.)
Remember that one of their future victims already tried to comission a capital from us, they have already started putting in effort for a defenvive fleet. Meaning that getting caught out of position is really bad without any speed. If the enemy breaks through the supporting picket of frigates being a backline support warrior will lose its charm real quick. And the turret should be too piddly to do much against a anti cap taskforce. Leverage drones against small craft and maintain the ability to break away from stronger threats when things go fubar in a war.
>>
>>6037909
>”Between the shields and the armour, they’ll be fine.” (Continue with no changes, the design will have a FATAL FLAW).

The Bradley will do everything. Just need faith boys.
>>
>>6037909

>Reduce Carrying Capacity by another 20%. (Ship will have reduced aerospace/troop deployment).

This is probably the best sacrifice - what good is the ship if it’s too slow to insert troops and unable to defend itself?
>>
>>6037909
>Reduce Carrying Capacity by another 20%. (Ship will have reduced aerospace/troop deployment)

I know cutting the space for troops is not so great, but I believe in the idea of being able to fight what you can and outrun what you can't, so I think having troops on the planet in a ship that is armed enough to hold its own in a fight but fast enough to skedaddle when needed is important.
Better than having a ship that can't protect what it's carrying if it gets picked at or can't get its troops in and out in a timely manner IMO.
>>
>>6037909
>>Reduce Carrying Capacity by another 20%. (Ship will have reduced aerospace/troop deployment).
>>
>>6037909
>”Between the shields and the armour, they’ll be fine.” (Continue with no changes, the design will have a FATAL FLAW).
>>
...Why don't we just ask what the Raihan would want most? We could just be open and say "Hey, so some problems were found during construction and we have these options. What would you want to be done?"

After all one of them IS what we promised in the pitch. So we can give the other options as "If you don't want it, then we'll just stick to what was already promised."

We've never lied to them, and are just giving them options they can choose between if they don't like the bad aspects of the original product. I think they would appreciate the honesty as well.
>>
>>6038264

This is actually a smart play - why not let the customer decide? Then if they fuck it all up, it’s their fault.

Or maybe even a “hey, we identified this problem and here’s our suggested fix - let me know if you’d prefer something else?”
>>
>>6038264
I agree, this is smart, supporting this
>>
>>6038264

Also agree, good idea. Has my support.
>>
>>6038264
That or looking for some sort of technology to further reduce the design's space/weight requirements to free up some room. Higher performance engines for example or better armour would work. Though even that would best be done in cooperation with them.
>>
>>6037914
>>6037915
>>6037922
>>6037940
>>6037948
>>6038022
>>6038055
>>6038121
>>6038138
>>6038252
>>6038257
>>6038264
>>6038311
>>6038318
>>6038402

I think I kinda messed this one up by putting this decision to you guys while the client is physically present. Just asking the client how they want to handle it seems like the most common sense thing to do so I'm going to exercise QM fiat to force that outcome.

>Writing...
>>
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You wrestled internally about how to handle this dilemma. Then you remembered that Raiha had sent a Rear Admiral over to handle such decisions should they arise.

-------------------

“I can’t say I’m pleased about this oversight Horner. But if something must be cut to improve survivability, we can afford to lose some more hangar space.”

>Rear Admiral Funke is not pleased.
>He has chosen to sacrifice troop capacity, in favour of survivability.

-------------------

Of the course of the Subjugator’s production you had a few “walk in” orders for strike craft. Nothing special, just some random corps and independents looking to buy some shuttles off you. It was still something though, as it marked you first off-the-shelf sale. Everything so far had been some weird custom job that required special negotiations. Part of you was starting to wonder if there was any point in maintaining a catalogue and if you should just deal exclusively in custom orders.

>3 AAS Shuttle squadrons sold. (Bomber sized strike craft are sold in sets of 3 for a total of 9 craft sold.)
>Total Profit: 900k SoC (Ship prices are calculated as the total cost of their materials based on market in the most recent infonet post. This base price is then increased by 20% so you make a profit.)

----------------------

The rest of the Subjugator’s construction went by without incident. Once again a skeleton crew arrived from Raiha with the last shipment of your payment. The launch was even more subdued than that of the Sovereign. There were a few quite words of respect from the captain and you caught Funke smiling to himself as he beheld the completed ship from the observation deck. Oddly enough you were told not to paint the ship in Raihan colours… or give it any markings at all for that matter. Were they planning to paint it themselves? Eh, not your problem.

>Subjugator contract complete.
>Outsourcing costs: 3Mil SoC
>1kT EM bought from the UMI at 650k SoC
>Materials storage at project completion: 40kT CM, 15kT RM
>Warning: Yard Storage of 50kT exceeded, auto selling 10kT CM on the CCM for 1.5Mil Scrip
>Final Balance Sheet:
>3.5 Mil SoC
>1.8 Mil Scrip
>30kt CM, 15kT RM

A Note on Storage
By default your yard can store an excess of 50kT of common or rare matter. Any more beyond that will be auto sold on the open market at the QM’s discretion. CM is prioritised first. Exotic Matter requires special containment facilities and so has a separate cap. You can current store 1kT of exotic matter.

>Standby…
>>
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Decker returned to you with his report on Raiha. He brought up a Stellar map of the surrounding region and highlighted several star systems.

“The so called Raihan Empire, founded by wayward colonists God knows when. At the height of its power, it controlled seven star systems and had tech on par with, if not slightly better than the Solar Union.”

“They’ve fallen a very long way if they’re coming to me.”

“One of the core values of the original colony on Raiha was that humans not be reliant on artificial intelligence to run their lives. This doesn’t mean that they were tech adverse, just that all the decision making, all knowledge keeping, all the administration had to involve humans.”

“Which is why they have the savant caste?”

“Yes, a group genetically engineered and trained to interface with machines and process the information. The savants are just one part of it. They used similar techniques to create other castes; military castes, labour castes… ruling castes.”

“The nobility.”

“Yup. As you can imagine, creating a class of people that runs your society eventually metastizes into some form of feudalism. Technically the Raihans could be classified as ‘post human’, with every citizen engineered beyond the Old Earth baseline for their given role. What makes the nobles extra special is that they have a wider breadth of enhancements.”

“So the Empress…”

“Is older than she looks, can interface with the Ryu Class C3 system and can probably bench you… probably.”

“Wow… So if the Raihans are so great what happened?”

“Same thing that tends to happen to any large Empire. Bloat, decadence, then decline. About 800 years ago the Empire ceased to exist as a coherent entity. First it broke apart into different factions, which degenerated further into individual colonies trapped at varying levels of pre-FTL development. The throne world has been in a constant state of civil war since the Empire fell. The ruling house isolated itself in the palace district (which is practically a small nation) as warlords fought over control of the planet.”

“What changed?”

“One of the warlords, who would later become the Lord Commander; Arcturus Garan managed to subjugate all the others and unite the planet.”

“So how come the Empress is in charge and not him?”

“Loyal to the Empire remember? The story goes that after he conquered the rest of the planet, Garan marched his army up to the gates of the palace district and demanded an audience with the Empress. When she came to meet him he knelt before her and pledged himself and his army to her service.”

“That’s… uh… very patriotic.”

>cont
>>
>>6038597
“It makes for a romantic story, but I’m a cynical man and I’d say they needed each other if the colony was to fully recover. Garan himself is not of the noble caste, and a lot of important stuff is gene locked to them. The Empress has access to resources and secret shit squirrelled away by the Imperial Family. On top of that she has a special place in the hearts and minds of the Raihan people.”

“Uhh…”

Decker sighed. “Not in that way Jack, fer fucks sake.”

“Hey I wasn’t-”

“Moving on, all this brings us to the present situation and how it effects your business. My contacts tell me the Raihan Navy has finally secured complete control of their home system. They are currently rebuilding the far halo shipyards along the outer orbits.”

“So they’ll have the ability to make their own capital ships soon. Does this mean they’ll cut us out of the loop?”

“Probably. It’s still worth cultivating a good relationship with them. They seem to like coming to you for clandestine work. They’re also willing to pay you extra for your discretion. You might get a few more good contracts out of them yet.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about being their dirty little secret.”

Decker shrugs. “Mores to the point, as the Empire rebuilds itself we could be looking at a new regional power, one with its own currency and materials market.”

“I see.”

“One last thing to consider.” Decker points out two star systems on the AR map, both were former Raihan colonies, but one seemed to be a vassal of minor Saurian Clan and the other was very close to Solar Union territory.

“Oh great, more political bullshit.”

“Yup, the one near the Solar Union is Shima colony, unlike the rest of the former colonies, they’ve managed to rebuild themselves to space-faring levels. As soon as the Empressed announced her diplomatic tour they started petitioning the Solar Union for membership. If Raiha wants them back, they’ll want to stop that from happening.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“More customers.”

“Great!”

“One more thing: Raiha was previously isolated, yet they knew of your business soon after it started. Assume they have agents abroad, and that they have their eyes on us.”

>Standby
>>
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>>6038599
After completing the Subjugator you sat down to review the next round of potential clients. These ones seemed pretty simple, which was a welcome break from all the complexities of your previous jobs.

Governor Flurgus had placed an order for an Enforcer-B along with a complement of hummingbirds and AAS bombers to fill its hangar. Finaly, someone actually bought the damn thing.

Shima Colony was still asking for a monarch, knowing what you knew, the request seemed more desperate than it appeared.

The Raihan Navy was still asking you for another Sov-ugh Ryu Class. Now that you already had the design it would be pretty straight forward to make them another one.

Finally some chick called Harriet Hydraphur wanted to buy a Monarch-B. Seems like the design was getting popular.

So many customers and only one dry dock…

>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)
>Build a Monarch for Shima Colony (8.1 Mil SoC)
>Build another Ryu Class for for the IRN (56kT CM, 35kT RM)
>Build a Monarch-B for Harriet (4.32 Mil SoC, 5.4 Mil Scrip, 2kT EM)
>>
>>6038645
Oh forgot something: roll 6d10s for researching advanced electronics.
>>
>>6038645
>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)

THE GOVERNOR
>>
Rolled 8, 2, 6, 10, 10, 1 = 37 (6d10)

>>6038645
>>
Rolled 6, 6, 1, 7, 6, 7 = 33 (6d10)

>>6038645
>>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)
>>
You know looks like Maragthon might get absorbed into a major clan. Should we spend their script in case some fuckery happens? If we do I'm partial to go for another benny lootbox.
>>
>>6038645

>>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)

We kind of owe him after the last "incident", best to ensure that we retain good relations with the guy in charge of the system we are a part of. We've got to show him the benefits of having a shipyard in system.
>>
>>6038645
>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)
>>
>>6038645
Would you look at that we did manage to raise Clan Margathon back to relevance. Now if only they wouldn't get absorbed...

>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)
>>
>>6038645
>Build the Enforcer Combo for Governor Flurgus. (13.2 Mil Scrip)
Choosing a drone factory instead of doublig our production yards was not the wisest call in retrospect. We are losing opportunities left right and center. Harriet is obviously one of Starwinds friends and people like Harriet would be the most vital to actually spread our reputation. We will need that once local opportunities start drying up. And police cruiser does police work is less newsworthy than whatever a dashing space opera rouge would pull off. Raihans are short term while the colonies have more potential for long term sales against the Raihans. The colonies are a second best option for reputation building. A minor colony fending off a bigger nation is a better sales pitch for our gear than THE GLORIOUS RAIHAN E. BUILD THEIR OWN WUNDER WAFFEN and commisioned an extra ryu from some guy i guess. I mainly vote for the governor since if he thinks he needs more defense we kind of need that too. Governor is going to be a landslide victory.

QM in a meta sense would having more construction berths snap your spine in terms burnout? You did say once that making the ships took more time than what you were expecting but you still offered an option for an extra berth. Would there still be an option in the future? Also i suggest introducing a bit of separation between mechanics and story. What the anons did is basically pushing the vote on to the QM, and if people wanted to play with themselves they would nit start a quest. We could just say that the options on what to do with a FATAL FLAW is what we see as players and after the vote is concluded the story acts like that was the only solution at the time. Like
Vote
>keep fatal flaw
>less engines
>less guns
>less capacity
Capacity wins
>Jack chose between keeping the flaw and less capacity as the only solution possible.
That way the meta aspect of interaction with the quest as an audience does not get endangered by a client just hanging out.
>>
>>6038772
>QM in a meta sense would having more construction berths snap your spine in terms burnout?
Not in and of itself. Custom designs and "under construction pics" take a decent amount of effort, but what really burns me out is all the background writing.(Conversations with NPCs, Infonet articles etc...)

Generally most of your customers are supposed to be making off the shelf purchases from the catalogue, and that's fairly straight forward for me to process. It's just that up until now you guys never really chose a "normal" job. A lot of the stress from running this quest came from coming up with stuff like the infonet screen and political intrigue off the top of my head.I also got a little too excited in the beginning and pushed myself to update more frequently.

I've started to find my rhythm now in terms of when to gloss over unnecessary minutiae and when to let the players get creative.

I'll take what you said into consideration regarding the Fatal Flaws.

As for a chance to get future upgrades, we'll see. This was supposed to be a one-shot, so I want to tie up the thread before it falls off the board. We've still got some time but I'm still thinking about how to tie this up neatly.
>>
>>6038778

As a QM myself, you’re doing a a great job and have the readership to prove it! Your setting is both approachable and interesting and you’ve managed to create multiple narratives and quirky details to puzzle over
>>
>>6038645
1) Call Benny, spend Margathon scrip
2) Keep the local governor sweet, Enforcer Combo
3) BUILD MORE TIBERIUM SILOS
>>
>>6038651
>>6038655
>>6038705
>>6038733
>>6038746
>>6038772
>>6038872

Guess we're selling the Shroom Governor.

While I'm writing can get a few more dice rolls?

Since you outsourced a shield generator and refined fusion power for the Subjugator you get one d10's worth of research towards each.

I also need a d2 rolled for... reasons.

>>6038870
Thanks, glad you guys are enjoying it.
>>
Rolled 4 (1d10)

>>6038876
Rollan for shields. Welike the quest op
>>
Rolled 1 (1d10)

>>6038876

Second research roll
>>
Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6038778
I really like the setting, and I hope it can stay around in some format beyond this first thread QM, but it's all your call.
I would say that adding layers of complexity like research, instead of hamming up the Benny gacha (and instant payoff) implies that longterm investment is part of the quest. If you intend to keep this as oneshot, removing research options makes more sense.

The technology licencing is a cool mechanic, and is another part of the way we interact with the universe. I think that would work well if you're comfortable with running a clear political and economic marketplace where favours and resources are traded and that means building the universe up enough to support that.
We've seen this with the particle cannon and production slot reservation from Raihans, that was good and clear.
The Margathon and Quezet favour trading was less clear, and seems like a barely profitable enterprise (but it was the first job so it was a great teaching example). The in-character exposition since then really painted the picture, so nice one QM.

>>6038872
>3) I mean we need more resource storage

>>6038876
>>
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After the incident with Starwind you felt you owed the Governor. Besides, selling him a warship would also increase your own security. It also looked like Flurgus was the first guy to buy a carrier/strikecraft combo off you… sort of.

For once you had an order that didn’t involve tough decisions or political intrigue.
>Construction costs partially covered by existing material stores.
>2.5 Mil Scrip spent for extra CM and EM.
>Net gain of 10.7 Scrip
>Final Balance Sheet:
>3.5 SoC
>12.5 Scrip
>1.5kT RM

--------------

You briefly wondered if the universe was messing with you because Karen had good news for once.

“Tax breaks?”

“Yup, Governor Flurgus is trying to stimulate the economy so he’s giving tax breaks to select industries. This means our cash reserves are going to be higher than initial projections.”

“How much higher?”

Karen shows you the spreadsheet.

“Wow, nice. I’m gonna pay myself a fat bonus and distribute the rest to our shareholders.”

Karen didn’t even bat an eyelid. “Sure thing Jack.”

“Jeez Karen, I was only joking. We don’t even have shareholders. Reinvest the extra cash back into the company.”

Karen actually snorted at this. What? Isn’t that how you were supposed to run a business? What kind of messed up world did she live in if she thought that was the joke?

>Choose a minor upgrade
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>Upgrade Internal Security. (Security personnel have access to power armour and anti-personnel drones.)
>Upgrade Turret Defence Grid. (Increases coverage and firepower. Turret network now provides excellent coverage against strike craft and missile attacks. Can deal minor damage to frigates.)
>Expand Matter Storage. (Increase regular storage by 50kT and Exotic Storage by 1kT)

>Choose a production upgrade
>Strike craft factory
>Two frigate berths
>Another capital class dry dock.

((Enough time has passed for you guys to roll me 6d10s for advanced electronics research.))
>>
>>6038894
Oh! Also vote if you want to spend 5Mil Scrip on Benny's Mystery Box.
>Yes
>No
>>
>>6038894

>Upgrade Turret Defence Grid. (Increases coverage and firepower. Turret network now provides excellent coverage against strike craft and missile attacks. Can deal minor damage to frigates.)

Paranoid? Maybe, but I’ll rest easier if we have excellent point defenses.

>Another capital class dry dock.

As another anon noted - we’re missing out on business left and right because we can only build one ship at a time.
>>
>>6038895

Oh and we DEFINITELY need to take a spin on Benny’s mystery box

>Y

wtf is Benny, anyways?
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>Two frigate berths
>Yes
Who doesn't like gambling with company assets
>>
Rolled 9, 9, 10, 10, 7, 2 = 47 (6d10)

>>6038894
>Expand Matter Storage. (Increase regular storage by 50kT and Exotic Storage by 1kT)
>Another capital class dry dock.

>>6038895
BENNY:
YES YES YES give me the flood now
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>Another capital class dry dock.
>Yes
>>
>>6038894

>Upgrade Turret Defence Grid

Just because you're paranoid, that does not mean they are not out to get you.

>Two frigate berths

Full package fleet, a capital and escorts, besides, we need to get defense monitors up and running as was discussed before.

>Yes

Come on, Benny, give me something good !
>>
>>6038894
Sick. Thank you QM.
>Another capital class dry dock.
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
Honestly after the dry dock, our tech issues are the biggest "need" right now. After our up teched warships start msking noise and raising higher waves the defences will be next on the priority list.
>Gamba
>Yes
Less comfortable with this since two ships at a time might need more resources on standby from us, but might as well see what Benny is hyping up now.
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>Another capital class dry dock.

>>6038895
>Yes!
Roll the gacha!
>>
>>6038894
>Another capital class dry dock.
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>buy mystery box
We need to shit out more jobs. For more money to invest in more research and production capacity.
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)

We just provided our system with an extra capital so it's decently likely there's a large enough presence to defend us pretty quickly if we get attacked. Getting better tech quicker will let us attract better contracts and produce better ships (and maybe even improvements for our yard - e,g shields or better manufacturing tech).

>Another capital class dry dock.

They're the big budget items, we're getting plenty of requests and being able to produce two at once would also leave us more equipped to do refits and repairs without disrupting our attempts to build a reputation.


>>6038897
Bentusi from Homeworld --> https://homeworld.fandom.com/wiki/Bentusi
>>
>>6038980

Ah, how did I miss it? I’m a huge HW fan too (check out the great Homeworld Quest on the board right now if you guys haven’t looked)
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)

>Two frigate berths
Faster and less expensive to build, and more prevalent than capitals, so we should get a steady income from production and maintenance.

>Yes
>>
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>Two frigate berths
>Yes
>>
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)
>Another capital class dry dock.
>Yes
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab (Allows more in house research and increases research dice to 4d10 per time step.)

>Another capital class dry dock.

>Yes
>>
>>6038894
>Upgrade Turret Defence Grid. (Increases coverage and firepower. Turret network now provides excellent coverage against strike craft and missile attacks. Can deal minor damage to frigates.)
>Two frigate berths

>Yes
>>
>>6038894
>Research lab
Highest tech in the black

>Two frigate berths
Lets get some yachts flying
>>
>>6038895
>Yes
>>
No update tonight guys sorry.
>>
>>6038896
>>6038897
>>6038899
>>6038903
>>6038904
>>6038905
>>6038910
>>6038915
>>6038932
>>6038980
>>6039076
>>6039113
>>6039149
>>6039155
>>6039202
>>6039727
>>6039730

Turrets: 3
Research: 11
Storage: 1

Capital Drydock: 9
Frigate Berths: 6

Everyone just has to see what's in the box.

Overwhelming majority for research and capital drydock.

This is gonna be a big update so it might take a while.

>Writing...
>>
File: Infonet4.png (379 KB, 1539x1241)
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After seeing how Starwind had gotten lucky buying from Benny you decided to take the strange entity up on their offer. You really didn’t understand what they meant when they were selling the meaning of “Life the Universe and Everything” but surely it must be valuable.

>Lost 5Mil Scrip

------------------------

“42? That’s the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything!? I don’t get it.”

After you paid them, Benny had transmitted an absolutely massive mathematical equation to your R&D department; a kilometres long string of numbers and symbols which made your head spin. And right at the end of it all was an equals sign followed by the number forty-two. Both you and Persica stared at it with a feeling of disappointment.

“I don’t get it either, but maybe if we studied the equation we could get better context.”

“The equation makes even less sense to me than its answer.”

“Well it’s way too complex to understand just by reading it, but there are some analytical techniques I can apply…”

>Advanced Electronics Tech researched.
>All passive and active research has been suspended while your R&D team ponders the meaning of LtUaE.
>Roll me 1d10.

---------------------------

Another day, another round of clients. Now that you had two capital drydocks you could snag even more jobs… ah fuck the market had dried up while you weren’t looking.

The Imperial Raihan Navy wants to commission the design of yet another ship. This time a carrier, but not the carrack. They wanted something new designed from the ground up… that pretty much the same thing. Oh and another subjugator too. Why was it that no matter how much they paid you, you couldn’t help but feel insulted by these guys?
And Margathon still needs more ships, they’re getting desperate too, willing to pay you more for both drydocks.

Marketing tells you there’s a strong demand for civilian cargo and industrial ships, but you don’t have any in your catalogue.

That was it for capital ships. Galatan Starwind was back but this time he was looking for a bespoke strikecraft for one of his ace pilots. Since you had just started to sell strikecraft you weren’t sure you could deliver, but maybe it could be an opportunity to stretch your design team.

Choose a project for your capital drydocks.
>Fill the Raihan Navy’s orders. (Get paid in materials with 140% mark up.)
>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)
>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.

Choose a project for the factory.
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>Keep the factory ready to fill walk-in orders.

((Okay, maybe not such a big update this time but there's a few things coming... maybe))
>>
Rolled 10 (1d10)

>>6040611
>>
>>6040611
Would it be possible to use one dock to prototype a civilian design while using the other for either Raihan or Margathon?
>>
>>6040611
>Fill the Raihan Navy’s orders. (Get paid in materials with 140% mark up.)
The carrier is probably for the Empress' faction, the admiral's would use the same design. It's in our interests to play both sides.

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
Paint it red and it's automatically a superprototype.
>>
>>6040619
The Raihans are insisting you take both their orders if you want their business.

Margathon will accept you only taking one order but will only pay you 6Mil Scrip.
>>
>>6040611

>>All passive and active research has been suspended while your R&D team ponders the meaning of LtUaE.

>>6040617

>Rolled 10

Fucking brilliant, our R&D team is going to need a raise after that.

As for the votes:

>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)
>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.

I remember us having discussions about modular ships, those would be perfect for civilian designs, and we can keep the experiment afloat with Margathon’s scrip.

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.

As for this, fuck it, we need to get better craft eventually and the man actually spreads out the word about us.
>>
>>6040611
>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)

I’m tired of these Raihan fucks already. They’re so goddamn petty and have a holier-than-thou attitude for being some apes who literally just rediscovered space travel by banging some rocks together.

Let’s take the Maragthon order, we’ve chilled a bit and diversified by doing other projects (including strengthening our neutral system governors defenses) so they’ve can’t really point fingers at us too much and say we have a hate boner for them.

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.

I feel like we’re going to be getting some spiffy new tech to put to work after our team decodes the Benny equation.
>>
Hm.. we did just finish Advanced Electronics, which will make carriers we make significantly better, and the Raihans do want another carrier, so that would work, but we have had a decent gap since the last margathon order, and it would be a very good idea to get started on the civilian sector. Not an easy vote here.
>>
File: Oh yeh.png (448 KB, 1000x625)
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>>6040611
>>6040617
>Scientist decides to try one of the Empire's neural interfaces to try and speed up the processing of the LtUaE
>Becomes a nascent unbound on accident
Welp

>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.
Would be nice to have something available for if we do get contacted about it.

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
Oh yeh
>>
>>6040611
>Let the Magarthon use one slip (6 million scrip)
>Prototype a civilian design

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind
>>
File: MFW.png (163 KB, 517x517)
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>>6040611
>Fill one of Margathon’s Orders
>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
We did get that electronics upgrade sorted so maybe we could ponder a better strike craft.

Would have loved to both for Margathon but we did ponder doing a civilian design all the way back in the thread.
>>
>>6040617
Persica had been acting strange lately. She’d missed several key staff meetings and wasn’t responding to any comms. Even her office was unoccupied. It was with great annoyance that you had to march down to the newly constructed research lab to look for her yourself.

You eventually found her in front of a huge AR display filled with equations, somehow you knew you were looking at the equation for Life the Universe and Everything. Persica was scrolling feverishly through sub-displays reviewing pieces of it while muttering to herself.

“This…this is the section with the transmission entropy models, but it’s somehow more complete… wait… this extra bit implies-”

“Persica.”

Your head of R&D jumped in surprise.

“J-Jack, what are you doing here!?”

“I’ve come to find out why you’ve been unreachable for the past week.”

“Wait? It’s been a whole week already? Huh… well, that doesn’t matter. Jack we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough!”

“You better be, otherwise I’m going to have to fire you for skipping work.”

Persica ignored your stern tone and instead brought up more displays full of what was effectively technobabble.

“The hell is this?”

“My team was examining the equation Benny sold us and certain sections match the energy fall off equations we use for calculating power conduit efficiency.”

“Okay…”

“But, that was only a tiny fraction of the whole thing, studying adjoining sections revealed underlying mathematical principles for a sub-atomic lattice with monodirectional flow.”

“Which means…?”

“A medium of energy transfer that is almost perfectly efficient. No waste heat, leakage, all the power that goes in one end will come out the other. We can apply this to electricity, heat-”

“So what you’re saying is?”

Hyperconductors Jack! We figured out how to make hyperconductors just by studying the equation. My team have fabricated some based on our mathematical models and they work as expected! Other companies took years of trial-and-error testing to develop this technology and we just extracted it from Benny’s equation within a week. Think of what else we could learn.”

You could see a manic glint in Persica’s eyes that you found unsettling but the prospect of free tech, maybe even all the tech overrode your instincts.

“Sure Persica, good job… just… make sure you get a good night’s sleep before you continue studying this thing.”

“Yeah, yeah Jack, I will… just let me examine this next sub-section.”

>Gained Hyperconductors tech.
>Your R&D team continues to ponder LtUaE
>>
>>6040611

>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)

This is sort of a smart play if you consider that if we keep sending ships to the lizards, the money will become worth more.

Choose a project for the factory.
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.

Spare no expense, let’s make something ridiculous!

>>6040648

I am concerned for the R+D team’s wellbeing, maybe we should have them only look at Benny’s math in small doses…
>>
>>6040611
>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>6040648
Not ominous at all!
>>
>>6040648
If this Persica doesn't know the answers, then certainly the one in the mirror space knows...
>>
>>6040648
She looks like she needs a boyfriend who grips
>>
>Fill one of Margathon’s Orders
>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>
I just ofund out about this quest, and it really sucks that i didn't earlier. I hate that it's a one-shot.
>>
>Fill the Raihan Navy’s orders. (Get paid in materials with 140% mark up.)
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>
>>6040611
>Fill one of Margathon’s Orders
>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>
>>6040611
>Fill one of Margathon’s Orders
>Use one dock to prototype a civilian design while holding out for a walk-in customer.
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>
im just starting to read the quest and:
>The next offer comes from some guy called Galatan Starwind
damn, you really know /qst/'s history, don'cha?
>>
>>6040611
>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>6040620
support painting it red
>>
>>6040611
>Let the Magarthon use one slip (6 million scrip)
>Prototype a civilian design

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind
>>
Oh yeah, now that we have hyperconductors, constructing a revised Sovereign class along the lines of the original rather than the compromised version would be possible - since it'd make supplying power to the laser without resistance risking a cookoff of missiles possible. Also makes an all-energy armament much more feasible (though refining lasers will probably be needed for that too).
>>
>>6040920
Eh...more like I shamelessly rip off names. Coming up with 100% original ones is hard. Galatan has very little in common with the guy you're thinking of <.<
>>
>>6040611

>Fill Margathon’s Orders (15Mil Margathon Scrip)
>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind.
>>
>>6040611
>Let the Magarthon use one slip (6 million scrip)
>Prototype a civilian design

>Attempt to design a new strikecraft for Starwind
Hyperconductor stealth superiority fighter, leveraging the new tech to minimize energy signatures while operating at the peak of feasible performance, but also offering a massively oversized lazor cannon that can have near 100% of reactor output funneled through until it risks damaging the weapon itself.
>>
>>6040657
>>6040648
>support

We gotta go all in on margathon to get their currency to sky rocket. Raihan can wait until after.

I say we immediately invest in another capital drydock. Then we can use one for research if we don't have 3 jobs.
>>
>>6041377
I do like the strike craft of this anon though that's smart.
>>
>>6041377
Imagine if the hyperconductors let us reverse entropy, converting all ambient heat and radiation sources back into energy. That then gets fed back into the massive fuck-off laser.
The stealthiest, most powerful craft in its weight range.

>captcha GHAH4
even 4chan is gloating as it laughs
>>
>>6041813
Trans-dimensional energy wells would be absolutely wild
>>
>>6041813
>mfw we end up building yamato
>>
>>6041813
Well, that's one hell of a product we can provide, a 1:1 energy weapon system for ships that may also be used in making the ship a damn near dark matter blip on the radar. I think Benny accidentally gave us a fast pass to fame around these parts. Introducing the Recursive Energy Cannon Type-1 (R.E.C.T-1), get shit on nerds.
>>
Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6040620
>>6040634
>>6040638
>>6040643
>>6040644
>>6040645
>>6040657
>>6040659
>>6040692
>>6040740
>>6040782
>>6040801
>>6040935
>>6040978
>>6041164
>>6041377

Lizard Ships: 5
Half n half: 5
Raiha: 1

Rollin a d2 to break the tie:
1: Full Margathon
2: Half n half

>Writing

Somebody roll me a d10 while I'm at it.
>>
Rolled 4 (1d10)

>>6042146
Not so bad, its interesting when votes are so neck in neck
>>
File: Starwind.png (383 KB, 356x487)
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Your first instinct was to immediately prototype a civilian ship design, but doing that would be chasing a trend that may or may not still be happening when you were done. Meanwhile Margathon was putting a lot of money on the table right now.

------------------

You were hoping the Margathon job would go smoothly since your crews and their overseers had ironed out a functioning workflow from the previous job, but such was not to be.
HR was receiving complaints about saurians putting your staff under surveillance; overseers watching your crews file in and out of the assembly bays between shifts, security personnel noticing lizards watching your staff while they ate in the cafeteria and even one instance of a low level Margathon clanner recording a team of engineers putting together one of the ships sub-systems.

>Ask Decker to investigate it, figure out what the aliens are up to.
>Confront Margathon Leadership about the issue.
>Hire Quezet Diplomats to sort this out again. (Will cost 250k Scrip)

-----------------

Galatan Starwind visited you personally about the new strikecraft. This time having the sense to park the Großschwert at the system limits and journey to the yard in a shuttle.

“Hey, Horner, how’s it going? Love what you’ve done with the yard. Two drydocks now? Business must be good.”

“You could say that, and it’s about to get better now that you’re here.”

“Ayyyyy!”

Both of you indulge in firing finger guns at each other while your associates rolled their eyes in the background.

“So what can I do for you Starwind?”

“Well I’ve got this girl on my crew, she’s special to me you know?” You really didn’t. “She’s an ace pilot and I wanted to give her a high end strikecraft as a present. It needs to be high performance and have a cool gimmicky ability, like…um… a quick boost or a claw that can rip weapons off of enemies and immediately put them to use.”

“Uh, I think that last one is a little beyond the tech I have but I’ve sure I can come up with something…”

Ah shit, a truly high performance strikecraft needed a host of advanced tech you didn’t have access to yet. But Starwind seemed ignorant enough about the minutiae of starship engineering that you could probably swing the sale as long as what you offered had a suitable “gimmick”.

>You can assume you have all the basic tech needed for a hull, propulsion and armaments.
>Write-In a concept with a suitable gimmick. Your advanced tech right now is:
>Hyper Conductors
>Advanced Electronics
>Drop Pods
>>
>>6042161
>Hyper Conductors
>Advanced Electronics

Make A10 of laser cannon on it use hyper conductors to fire with 100% efficiency. And use the advanced electronics to give a HUD and targeting system. Also electronic warfare suite.

Basically what that anon said earlier.

>Build another capital drydock
>>
>>6042161
>Confront Margathon Leadership about the issue.

>Use hyperconductors to replace cooling with more engines for hypermaneurability. And just so Starwind doesn't complain that the gimmick isn't cool enough, have it be turned on by a big red switch, even though logically it can be on all the time.
>>
>>6042161

>Hire Quezet Diplomats to sort this out again. (Will cost 250k Scrip)

Better to get professional help again.

>>6042168

Supporting this write-in, make the button say “LUDICROUS SPEED”
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>>6042164
+1
>>
>>6042161
>Write-In a concept with a suitable gimmick. Your advanced tech right now is:
Ok so the big problem with hyper conductors is that we need to answer the question "conduct where?". No matter the efficiency of conductors eventually the device that needs the power will be generating heat by its nature. A laser bounces light around a medium, exciting the medium and then emitting light. This means our super conductors are actually trash for helping the lasers work, no excess heat, no generating light because the powers flows through he conduit too well. Engines gets us more heat because of the jets needed for transportation. Use the conductor to conduct heat? Conduct heat where? An ouroboros of running heat through a superconductor coil would still mean all the heat stays inside the vessel which means everything except the wires would be cooked anyway. And we cant have a hyperconductor radiator since since it would not bleed out the heat in the form of light.
So with all that in mind we can make a bigger gun and stronger engines since we save on heat with the hyper conductors being more efficient than normal. And have the transfer of heat be funneled into heatsinks( i do not know if a block of ice in a can or something else is the best option in this verse). Since the energy transfer is one way that means we can pump the heat sink much more than with normal wires. Once the heat sink is close to "bursting" by having too much thermal energy with it the computer switches to pumping the next one in line. The filled canisters then could be ejected and then a small explosive attached to it could push it over the edge to maybe make a heat trap against sensors. Depending on the max heat buildup the final burst could even be more noticable than our jet plume. If the sensors are too god for that trick then maybe the eruption could be so violent that it becomes an anti missile, drone munition. With good conductors and advanced computers this could be doable, and the advanced computers could help with launching the heat sink at the best time to serve as a defensive measure. Since the system would need a lot of heat then it could be used when some fighting has passed. So there is your gimmick Starwind. An extra layer of defense that come online in the thick of fighting, that gets powered by the extra heat that comes from above than normal guns and engines( for the crafts size class). You have a limited time to fight, but you hardly expect an infinite sortie time from a small craft anyway.
Now does our hyper conductor generate a magnetic field? The conductor could be more useful for a rail gun than a laser.
Also up sell some hummingbirds for cheap cover, no matter how good you are there is such a thing as being overwhelmed.
>Margathon
I support you in your time of need, i care about your future, i lose half my nerve cells in an argument against panic attack anon and this is how you repay me?
To be continued
>>
>>6042161
>>6042194

>Launchable burst heat sinks with overpowered rail gun (or laser depending on the mag field dealio) and engines with a computer that scans for threats 360 or communicates with Starwinds ships sensor suite.
>Ask Decker to investigate it, figure out what the aliens are up to.
>Confront Margathon Leadership about the issue.
YOU FUCKERS ARE FACING EXTERMINATION WHILE SENIOR CLANS ARE PLAYING le ebin realpolitic. You got no cards to play, you need us so much more than we need you, and you doing spying work against us goes towards hostilities against the people that helped you out(us). Close to a betrayal. This is not "just business". A "normal business" would tell you to just buy or fuck off, we were much more than accommodating by letting you on private property and letting you influence as much as you do. Cut your shit out, take a humility pill or get exterminated.
Do not kneel before scale lizzers, divest from cold blood stocks, cover local flies in vinnegar.
>>
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You weren’t sure if you were having a dream or a nightmare. It had started innocently enough; with you relaxing on a comically small island in the middle of a vast ocean, complete with a solitary palm tree. And then, out in the distance a giant figure emerged from the ocean and started striding towards you.
With a shock you realised the figure was Persica, and she was naked, but not really. It was tasteful barbie doll nudity, her skin was featureless alabaster, but really, with her full figure on display it wasn’t hard to imagine- and oh shit she was gonna step on you!

You tried to get up and dive into the ocean only to find out you were paralyzed. You could do nothing but stare upwards in horror as a massive foot came down on you. Just as it was about to crush you a window of blue energy opened up along the sole and swallowed you up with a deep electronic buzzing sound.

-------------------

“Gah!” You sit bolt upright in your bed and you notice with some embarrassment that your upper body wasn’t the only thing that was upright. Then you notice with even more embarrassment that you weren’t in your quarters, but in a lab while your bed was in a square indent in the floor. Staring at you with unrestrained glee was-

“Persica! What the fuck is going on!?”

“Whoops, sorry Jack, seems I got the n-z axis co-ords mixed up on the hyperdrive test.”

“HYPERDRIVE!? Since when did we have a hyperdrive!? Wait-wait-wait, are you telling me that you sent me through hyperspace from my quarters to this lab!?”

Persica was only half paying attention to you now.

“I wasn’t aiming for you, but yeah, after investigating Benny’s equation some more I learned this one weird trick that let’s you open up quantum wavefronts of different sizes and distances relative to the size of your hyperspace core. Still needs some fine tuning though…”

She shambled towards a display and brought up an incomprehensible yet familiar jumble of numbers.

>cont
>>
>>6042200
“Hey Jack, did you know that FTL is bit of a misnomer. Almost all known methods of FTL have absolutely nothing to do with going faster than light. They just somehow cover greater distances while moving at the same speed, or change the position of the ship without actually moving. But not only is it possible to literally travel faster than light, there have been civilisations in the past that have done so. The problem is it screws up the fundamental flow of space and time such that the universe itself aggressively ‘corrects’ the violation with devastating consequences. There are no actual records of such occurrences because of the ensuing a-casual shenanigans.”

“Wait, if all the records were retroactively erased then how…ugh…Persica, when was the last time you got some sleep?”

“I’m sleeping right now. Did you know that it’s possible to interact with the waking world while your brain is experiencing REM sleep?”

It was only now that you noticed Persicas eyes were shut, the subtle twitch of her eye lids proving that her eyes were indeed moving rapidly.

“But how can you see?”

“There are many other modes of perception. I learned them from the equation, can’t really explain them now. It’s old news and there’s so much more to discover.”

>Gained Advanced Hyper Space tech. You can now install hyperdrives on your capital and frigate class ships as an alternative to the Eigen drive. Capital class hyper drives can bring non-FTL equipped ships along with them in a process known as wake jumping.
>Your R&D team continues to ponder LtUaE

((Oh I forgot to mention you guys also have long range sensors(military) as an advanced tech you can use.))
>>
>>6042201
Focken Advanced hyperspace...imagine how useful that would be in a war.
>>
>>6042168
+1
>>
>>6042161
>Hire Quezet Diplomats to sort this out again. (Will cost 250k Scrip)
Let's get the professionals on the case, again.

>>6042168
Support this write-in. More speed is the first thing he asked for, he'll be happy with it, especially if we play up just how high-tech it is a bit.

Starwind is an isekai protagonist building his harem in the background and I like him already.

>>6042201
Is it time to stage an intervention? I think it's time to stage an intervention. After we retrofit our capital designs to make use of the new technologies.
>>
>>6042168
Supporting. Though the added acceleration does no good if the resulting g-force turns the pilot into Jell-o(tm). Can we outsource any tech that can prevent that?
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>>6042168
Make the effect cool as well, let the switch to the hyperconductors make the ship glow colors along the lines, Tron style. Give it the light trails and everything

>>6042201
>We have advanced hyperdrives now
Oh our picket fleet (once we build it) is going to be a fucking menace to anyone trying to attack us
>>
>>6042161
>Hire Quezet Diplomats to sort this out again. (Will cost 250k Scrip)
>>
>>6042161
>Ask Decker to investigate it, figure out what the aliens are up to.
>Hire Quezet Diplomats to sort this out again. (Will cost 250k Scrip)
I think we can do both. Not like Decker does anything else.

>>6042168
Support write-in. The ship will be red on the outside, edgy as fuck on the inside, and the red button to gottagofast
>Hyper Conductors
>Advanced Electronics
Throw both at the ship, maybe the electronics will improve the lasers/railgun energy conversion.
>>
>>6042161
>Ask Decker to investigate it, figure out what the aliens are up to.
>Hire Quezet Diplomats to sort this out again. (Will cost 250k Scrip)
No need to arouse their suspicions with a direct confrontation.

>>6042168
+1 to fast button, but perhaps we could develop the cockpit into an escape pod/some kind of offensive boarding vessel as a last resort by adapting the Drop pods, military targeting/sensors and advanced electronics?
Would drive the cost through the roof but it's certainly gimmicky as hell.
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>>6042164
>>6042168
>>6042171
>>6042176
>>6042194
>>6042198
>>6042207
>>6042214
>>6042622
>>6042764
>>6043015

Ask Decker: 3
Bring in Quezet: 5
Confront Leadership: 2

>Writing

Roll me another d10 while I'm at it.
>>
Rolled 5 (1d10)

>>6043044
>>
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You activate an AR display and put together the basic hull shape of a strike craft.

“So with JHIS’ proprietary hyperconductor technology we can cut down the heatsinks required to stuff more engines and weapons into the hull.”

You proceed to “sketch” out a design built around a large laser canon.

“There we go; a corvette hull built around a frigate grade laser canon, bitches love canons.”

“Ehh… a corvette hull is a bit too chonky for her style, and a frigate grade canon on a corvette it’s that impressive, this design just feels more like an elite mook ship to me.”

“Okay how about we lean into the engine angle. With enough thrusters we can achieve super manoeuvrability, which is basically like a quick boost. I’ll even hook it all up to a big red button that will trigger a ludicrous burst of speed.”

“I guess that’s fine, by the way, do you have inertial dampener tech? My Chief Engineer tells me it’s a must have to achieve super manoeuvrability.”

“I’m afraid not. Okay, how about a heat bank system that can double as a countermeasure-”

“LAAAAME! I get the feeling that strikecraft aren’t really your specialty. That’s cool, we can’t be good at everything, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to look elsewhere for my girl’s ride.”

>Starwind was not impressed by any of your concepts, acquiring better technologies or using your existing ones more creatively might help with clients like this in the future.

---------------------

You decide to hire diplomats from Clan Quezet again to help you deal with the growing friction between your staff and the Margathon overseers. Diplomats are attached to your internal security teams as they politely but firmly confront Margathon personnel over suspicious activity. The response you get is… unexpected.

“So those individuals that were scrutinizing my staff were doing so for… personal amusement?”

The diplomat seemed a bit embarrassed by the admission.

“Err, yes. Please understand Mr. Horner, there is a certain subculture among the Saurians that, well, finds humans cute. In the same way your kind find certain felids and rodents cute. It is soothing for them to watch humans go about their daily lives.”

“While I am relieved that the behaviour was nothing nefarious, it is a little degrading for my people to be treated like this. We need to find a way to address the situation.”

>Brief your staff about the situation, assure them that nothing malicious is going on and just ask them to bear with it.
>Liaise with Margathon leadership and ask them to curb the behaviour, your people are not zoo exhibits.
>Designate a specific lounge where the lizards can ogle humans to their hearts content. Human use of the lounge will be voluntary and they will receive small financial incentives in the form of discounted food and recreational activities.
>>
>>6043073

>Designate a specific lounge where the lizards can ogle humans to their hearts content. Human use of the lounge will be voluntary and they will receive small financial incentives in the form of discounted food and recreational activities.

I smell a business opportunity!
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>>6043073
>Designate a specific lounge where the lizards can ogle humans to their hearts content. Human use of the lounge will be voluntary and they will receive small financial incentives in the form of discounted food and recreational activities.
>>
>>6043073
>Brief your staff about the situation, assure them that nothing malicious is going on and just ask them to bear with it.


>>6043096
>>6043099
Guys, you're forgetitng. They like to see humans go about their *daily lives*. Just putting them in a zoo isn't enough.
>>
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It had been a whole month since you had last had any contact with Persica. At first you had been all too glad to avoid her after the hyperdrive incident, but this was getting out of hand. It wasn’t just Persica either. Other departments were reporting it was getting increasingly hard to communicate with R&D. They wouldn’t respond to their comms, and people that went to the research lab in person reported the staff members wandering around in a dreamlike fugue. The walls were decorated with mathematical equations featuring the number 42 prominently.

This had gone too far. It was time to put your foot down and tell Persica to abandon researching Benny’s equation.

With a small security detail at your back you marched into the lab module. You were surprised to find it empty and pristine. No unsightly graffiti, all equipment neatly stowed and not a single researcher around. It was as if the module had been freshly installed. When you finally reached Persica’s lab, she was nowhere to be found, the mess and detritus that had previously characterised her manic research was also gone.

“Greetings, what can I do for you?”

A hologram of statuesque man sprang up in the middle of the lab. His muscular physique was perfectly sculpted and conveyed both a sense of strength and elegance. Your security team lowered their weapons once it became obvious the hologram was no threat.

“Who are you?”

“I’m ChadGPT, an artificial intelligence created by Persica. I can generate aesthetically pleasing designs for any and all tastes.”

“What do you mean?”
“Let me give you an example. Here is a concept for a Blorg luxury yacht.”

The man’s hologram was replaced by a model of a very bizarre looking ship. In fact if you hadn’t been told it was a yacht, you would have assumed it was something far less elegant…

“That ship looks really weird, ugly even.”

Chad’s idealised visage returned.

“I assure you that to a Blorg it would look very classy.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Do you know where Persica is?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I do not know.”

“When was the last time you saw her.”

“I do not know, there are errors on the time stamps of our recorded interactions. I only resynchronized my internal clock when your presence brought me out of sleep mode.”

“Do you know anything that might aid us in finding Persica’s whereabouts?”

“She mentioned in our last conversation that she was tired of this place, these people, she was tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives. I believe all her subordinates shared a similar sentiment.”

“Fuck…”

>cont
>>
>>6043113
You mobilized the entire security division and had them sweep the entire station for any personnel from R&D. No trace of them was found. Decker’s men went over R&Ds network with a fine-toothed comb. Aside from ChadGPT and your existing technology blueprints there was no trace of any human digital footprint; no personal files, no account details, no communications, nothing. There was also no record of the equation of Life the Universe and Everything.

>Gain Universal Xenoergonomics Tech.
>Your entire R&D team has disappeared. You will not be able to roll any research dice until you replace them.
>>
>>6043103
Guys, you're forgetitng. They like to see humans go about their *daily lives*. Just putting them in a zoo isn't enough.
It is either enough or they accept genocide form the less cute solar union.
Besides the lounge could have a one way mirror into a workspace or something(as long as its temporary)
>>
>>6043115
>It is either enough or they accept genocide form the less cute solar union.
Or we could just *not* make a zoo
>>
>>6043114
Well, i expected this was going to happen. We didn't have any option to actually tell her to stop, but still. Losing our entire R&D team is shit.
>>
>>6043115
>>6043103
Just to clarify, the lounge is basically a cafeteria/bar/rec room. Staff can go there to hang out, eat, drink and play space foozeball. They already do this at other places on the station except doing it at this place will be cheaper and the lizards will be allowed to watch them.

>>6043125
Think of the free tech, Jack certainly was.
The effect of Benny's equation was three higher level techs in exchange for your R&D team. Sadly you rolled some of the less impressive ones. If you had rolled something like miniaturized Eigen Drives you would have had the Starwind contract in the bag.
>>
>>6043129
>free tech
>that we paid 5 million scrip to roll for
I don't think that's how free works. Hyperconductors are neat though.
>>
>>6043129
To be fair, being able to produce ships that fit the aesthetic desires of literally anyone, being able to build ships capable of warping other smaller ships with them, and being able to make more efficient ships in general are all pretty great on their own. Really we should probably be looking to offer that first one as a service, after all, if we genuinely considered paying cash for specialists to tell us how to build a ship to fit the aesthetic and luxury tastes of the Raihan that one time, chances are someone out there would pay us for the same service.


Also, now that we're able to design hulls and interiors that are aesthetically pleasing, we can probably make a decent killing producing a range of luxury shuttles from our strikecraft factory - Blorg, Human (Solar Union, Raihan or otherwise) and Saurian amongst others. Should also approach Raihan with our new FTL tech - plenty of cost savings in only needing to equip your capital ships with FTL drives but also you could use it to bring a extra-large number of strike craft since you don't need to keep them in hangers, with the extra advantage of them being able to jump into combat immediately.

Could also design a bare-bones "capital" ship that has the sole purpose of carrying a hyperdrive. Sell it as a "convoy-capital" that can bring merchant / trade craft between systems without them needing their own FTL drives or something. Definitely don't offer it to the Solar Union as a Alpha-Strike missile "carrier" that FTLs into a system dragging as much mass of missiles as possible, feeds them targeting info and immediately jumps out again.
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>>6043073
>Designate a specific lounge where the lizards can ogle humans to their hearts content. Human use of the lounge will be voluntary and they will receive small financial incentives in the form of discounted food and recreational activities.
>>
>>6043176
a neat thing with hyper conduits is making wires as it will probably help our drones to react faster or be more energy effective.
along with our group warp tech we could make our own
>>6043114
well thats neat means we can also disguise our ships as really anything making our tech principles fit into nearly any mold both literally and figurative.

also SHE FUCKING ROBBED US she stole our equation we bought from benny
>>6043178
selling services and schematics can do alot for us and also the works on flesh and such so why not sell art or perhaps robotics/drone design as form follows function
>>
>>6043113
Call Benny, ask him for a backup copy of the equation.
"Benny, our pet R&D team seem to have eaten your homework, so uh, can you resubmit it to me?"
>>
>>6043113
>persica leaves
>with the whole R&D department and company property

how dare she! demigod or not her contract isn't over yet, so she's either coming back to work or at the very least she's gonna give us our goddamned equation back
>call starwind. if someone can find something as bullshit as a living.....entity, whatever she has become now, its him
>>
>>6043728
yeah i can support this
>>
>>6043728
+1
LtUaE quest when
>>
>>6043728
Honestly man i care more about getting a damn R&D team than ido about LtUaE
>>
The real question is, if we get a new R&D team, should we purchase the LtUaE... again? That's 3 high-tier research projects accomplished in 3 turns for 5mil, which might not be bad if we're just going for speed over efficiency. Surely, nothing will go wrong here.
>>
Update will be delayed.

>>6043845
I knew someone would want to try this, which is why I didn't let you keep the equation. Although if I had and if you'd tried, this would turn into an SCP/Lobcorp quest.
Shame you didn't roll remote effectors as your final tech. Really wanted to make a "Gravity is a harness/I have harnessed the harness" reference followed by the research lab imploding.
>>
>>6043878
i mean, you can always let us get it back, but not do anything due to shenanigans. or have our research come from there; at this point its more of a pride thing to get the equation back more than anything. and the idea of persica being scolded by us -even if it effectively is meaningless- its very funny
>>
>>6043878
If you really wanted it to go that way, there's no reason you couldn't have just said "you got remote effectors from this", there's no way we would have known what the roll result was supposed to be.
>>
((A little mini update for you guys))

The meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything. Even now you didn’t understand it, not even a little bit. All you knew was that pondering it had caused your R&D team to quickly produce technologies that would have normally taken an exorbitant amount of time and money to research. Said R&D team had also… ascended to a higher plane? Been erased? Gone on a permanent vacation!?

You had no idea.

The only thing you were sure of was that you wanted that equation back. You didn’t know what you’d do with it; sacrifice another research team to the tech gods or just keep it in a vault somewhere? For all the Persica had done for you, you couldn’t help but feel cheated by her.

You open a comm channel to Benny.

“Greetings John Horner. I am currently not doing any business-”

“It’s about the equation of Life the Universe and Everything.”

“If you want me to explain it, I cannot. I merely obtained a copy from an enormous super computer that had spent millions of years developing it. Said computer could not explain it either.”

"It’s not that Benny. My pet R&D team seems to have eaten your homework, so uh, can you resubmit it to me?"

“Alas I cannot. I needed more space to expand my 5D porn collection so I deleted the equation.”
You are speechless for a second. Life the Universe and Everything, deleted to make room for porn!? Your face wasn’t capable of expressing the level of disappointment you felt at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

“Right…fine…okay. Have a good one Benny.”

“Farewell.”

You were doing this the hard way then. Opening up your mail program you began to compose a message.

To: G.Starwind

Hey

I got a job for you, a quest if you will. I need to you to find a missing person and recover a very important piece of information that was recently erased from my servers…

>What kind of wacky adventure will ensue? That is another story all together. (One that I currently have no plans to write.)
>>
>>6044342
It will be a dangerous journey across the galaxy rife with danger, explosions, and philosophy...so Galatan Starwind can officially deliver a notice that Persica is being sued for stealing corporate property.
>>
>>6044342
Galatan's ace pilot will be the femc, with chadgpt as snarky sidekick delivering cryptic hints. The R&D team has gone on essentially a tour of galactic metaphenomena, taking satisfaction and meditating on the beauty of physics and causality. Persica herself is using SgrA* as a cosmic vibrator
>>
>>6044342
a romantic comedy where starwind learns about his past, humbles himself a wee bit and learns that the real treasure is the friends you make along the way and loot; he finds enough loot to gold plate all of his super cruiser.
>>6044352
>spoiler
that's what happens when your head of R&D doesn't have a boyfriend, or at least a (sex)friend
>>
>>6044372
what we did leaving her alone after we found her awake and that worn down, its like leaving a kid alone with a computer either they become a computer expert or they become a porn addict, that fills it with viruses that makes it crash downloading cowgirl human cattle elbow knee or just sonic inflation art after looking at art and what is the equivalent to a joke to a kid like balloons, "funny" animals, fart "jokes" ect. they become addicts
>>
>>6043096
>>6043099
>>6043103
>>6043417

Right, time to get on with the quest. Overwhelming majority for the special lounge.
>>
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After the diplomats helped figure out the cause of the Margathon clansmens behaviour you decided to designate a special lounge where saurians could engage in “sanctioned observation” of humans. As an incentive food and drinks in the lounge were sold at a discount. Not all your staff were thrilled at the prospect of being put on display for aliens, but given as it was purely voluntary, and they weren’t expected to put on a performance, there wasn’t much push back. Those who didn’t like the idea didn’t use the lounge while everyone else was either indifferent or after cheap refreshments.

Ironically this only made things more awkward for the Saurians. Given that Clan Margathon was under heavy attack by the Solar Union a fascination with humans was seen as degenerate at best and outright traitorous at worst. Most of the overseers were already holding their noses dealing with you. As a result, none of the human fanciers would be caught dead using the lounge. Now the saurians attempted to minimize contact with your crews as much as possible.

Not the best outcome for interspecies understanding, but it did solve the problem.

-----------------

Halfway through the construction of Margathon’s cruisers, the thing you were worried about happened. Traffic control reported two frigate class vessels approaching your shipyard that were not responding to your hails. You notified the system militia and scrambled your own security squadron to intercept.

As your strikecraft approached you identified the incoming ships as torpedo frigates, the threat they posed was obvious. Traffic control had already made it clear that continuing their approach would be met with force so you had no qualms in ordering your bombers to engage. The Frigates had an escort squadron of their own but your hummingbirds managed to keep them occupied long enough to for your bombers to make an attack run.

Fortunately for you the torpedo frigates weren’t very well armoured, they were a barebones design meant to hang back, dump their payload and escape. Concentrated laser fire from your bombers detonated one of the torpedo pods, putting one of the frigates out of commission.

Unfortunately for you the second frigate got in range of the yard and dumped it’s entire payload on one of the cruisers that was still under construction. A barrage like that would have devastated an operational cruiser, the half-constructed ship in the dry dock stood no chance.

By the time the system militia arrived any attackers that weren’t destroyed had fled.

>cont
>>
>>6044731
The mood was tense at the emergency meeting. Kryska and Decker stood stiffly across from your table as they prepared for a very uncomfortable conversation.

“How bad is it?”

“Workers were evacuated from the drydocks as soon as the yard was put on alert,” said Kryska. “The torpedo strike destroyed the second cruiser and heavily damaged dock 2. We’ve got a lot of injured but fortunately no fatalities.”

“While I am glad to hear nobody died, our clients are going to be pissed. Decker, what do you have for me?”
“During the attack several of our CWIS turrets were taken offline leaving a hole for our attackers to exploit. Our turret network is split into independent clusters to reduce the chances of the whole network being brought down. When we checked the control station for the rear drydock cluster we found all the personnel dead, and the controls sabotaged.”

“Do we have any security footage?”

“Scrubbed. Fuckers sabotaged the camera network too. Didn’t even hack it, they knew where to cut key power and data lines.”

“So this was an inside job?”

“Well, our station has played host to plenty of guests recently…” mused Decker.

“There’s no way the saboteur was a Saurian. These cruisers were ear marked to fight the Solar Union, this has to be their dirty work.”

“It probably is, but I wouldn’t rule out lizard involvement. It’s in the interests of Clan Gerek to keep Margathon weak. There’s a possibility they could have a plant within either Margathon or Quezet.”

“That seems unlikely. While Gerek would love to vassalize Margathon, engineering the deaths of their own kind is going too far.”

“Humans kill each other all the time Jack, why not aliens?”

Decker had a point.

“Kryska, do we have any idea who the attackers actually were?”

“No, the ships we destroyed had no survivors and everybody else escaped. No faction marking on the hulls either. The ship designs were bottom of the barrel too, they could have belonged to any two bit pirate or mercenary operation.”

“Deniable assets, of course.”

>cont
>>
>>6044734
You sat back in your chair and massaged your temples. The Solar Union were certainly capable of this, but according to Decker saurian involvement couldn’t be completely ruled out. You can’t imagine any member of Margathon being willing to betray their own. Quezet did business with many factions, they wouldn’t jeopardize that by becoming a vector for espionage.

This had to be the work of the Solar Union, but if it was who could possibly be the traitor? Kryska was former Union. No, too obvious, but maybe that’s what she wanted you to think? Was this even something that went all the way to the top? The saboteur could have slipped in under both Kryska and Decker’s radar. Fuuuuck! This was a nightmare, with a traitor in your ranks both your internal and external defences were compromised. You had to deliver the remaining cruiser, but were you confident enough to root out the traitor(s?) before they tried to sink that one too?

(Bribing the Governor and hiring Clan Quezet are not mutually exclusive, everything else is.)
>Have Clan Quezet take over internal security duties until the Margathon Project is complete. (5Mil Scrip)
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>You can’t believe you’re doing this but… ask the Raihans for help. (Sends a special investigative team and a small frigate flotilla. You must build them a Ryu class and a Subjugator at a discount.)
>Trust Kryska and Decker to root out the traitor.
>Trust only Kryska.
>Trust only Decker.
>Trust no one (Write-In)
>>
>>6044734
>“Scrubbed...Fuckers sabotaged the camera network too.”

Sorry this was a typo. The security recordings were not deleted, they didn't have to be. The cameras were disabled during the attack. A minor but potentially important detail for those of you trying to puzzle this out.
>>
>>6044736
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)

This is getting better by the post! And panic attack anon thought that would kill us, bad ass.
>Trust Kryska and Decker to root out the traitor.
If there is not enough information pointing fingers will only sabotage our inner circle.
>>
>>6044754
But what if it's Kryska or Decker? Then they'll just strike again.

Personally, I'm all but certain it's the Solar Union. Even if they wanted Margathon to be weak, these ships were going to be used against the Solars. Whether they win and hurt the Solars or lose and stay weak, the other clans can only win from this war.
>>
>>6044762
I mean maybe, guess we will just have to rely on the second one to sniff them out. For now this is empty guessing. I guess it is less likely that a visitor knew everything about our surveillance network. If you have better ideas how to get closer to the culprit ill change my vote.
>>
>>6044736
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>Trust only Decker.
If the saboteur easily killed all the turret personnel, they must've had weapons. Who has weapons? Security. Installing and maintaining cameras is also Security's job.
>>
>>6044736
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>Trust Decker to root out the traitor.
i doubt kryska is a culprit, but decker is literally the only one we can trust, just because its his job
>>6044776
maitenance could be part of the problem as well. i mean, you dont need high calibre weapons to kill people, just smuggle in a gun or two, or fuck, 3d print the materials individually in house, pretend you're cleaning the security zone and just murder everyone. we can narrow it down by checking the adjacent cameras that were the nearest to the compromised ones, but fuck, this is serious.

we can also ask chadgpt. i mean, persica wouldnt have left us a shitty AI, she was-is a competent researcher after all. once we manage to narrow down our suspect groups, we could task it to mark everyone that has odd behaviors in the last month and have decker fine tune the list
>>
>>6044776
Its possible, but the traitors could have been just some digitally bribed lower security personel and Decker would also know everything about our information system since he is counter espionage.

Ok so what is known:
>>6044746
>The cameras were disabled during the attack
> Not wiped
Since the footage before the attack is still here we can review the footage if there were any unusual loitering between the guests, or patrols before the attack.
Define " dead personnel".
Were there security guards among the corpses? If not then grill them, Epstein levels of "oh we just all left to take a piss ALL at the same time leaving strategically important defenses to shat on" will not fly. Before that grill the QM for cause of death lead or gas? If they were not gunned down and killed some other way that would need even more setup so more chances to see something on the pre attack recordings. If the security guards were ordered to leave see any logs for who could have given the order. Both Decker and Kryska were veterans so any one could have massacred the civvies but unlikely to have challenged several soldiers to a firefight.
Were all saurians accounted for before the attack?
Problem with zeroing out Decker is he's counter espionage, really experienced too so close to anything could be him doing things ineffectively to frame Kryska.
So far i have:
1. Scrutinize as much pre attack footage as possible. Recording Hardware was sabotaged at key infrastructure junktions but data is not wiped.
2.Were there security personnel?
3.Cause of death. If there were a small number of soldiers that could have been killed with a fully automatic weapon then that would mean some one that they trusted got the drop on em' behind their backs. This could rule out the lizards at least. Sabotage with explosives/gas/etc should demand more prep and extra loitering for the perp.
>>
>>6044794
>Problem with zeroing out Decker is he's counter espionage, really experienced too so close to anything could be him doing things ineffectively to frame Kryska.
regardless of the outcome(or specially if kryska or someone close to her is the culprit) we're gonna need external help then, and the raihans are the only neutral external party we know. although ideally we should get a proper investigation agency to do it; the is a non zero chance the raihans would use this oportunity to manipulate us, after all, they have their people in the station already
>>
>>6044736
Like other anon said we need to see what the cameras covering where they cut the power and data lines saw. And how the civvies died. And if any security died or where the fuck they were.

Then do both of these.
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>You can’t believe you’re doing this but… ask the Raihans for help. (Sends a special investigative team and a small frigate flotilla. You must build them a Ryu class and a Subjugator at a discount.)

>Insurance claim on out damaged capital dock. They should cover damages and lost profit. Also they'll have their own security team to do an investigation.

Then see what raihans say. See what our Insurance company says.

Watch us make money of this Insurance claim boys.
>>
>>6044938
oh fuck you're right. if there is anyone 100% invested into finding the real culprit, its the insurance
>>
>>6044959
Insurance doesn't want the truth, they want an easy reason to deny it.
>>
>>6044736
>>6044938
Support. We can't actually trust Decker to not be the traitor. There'll be a lot of discounted ships in our future, but we need external experts.
>>
>>6044736
>>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>Trust Decker to root out the traitor.

I don't like the insurance idea. I doubt we got the premium kind so they'll have every reason to do a shitty investigation that pins the blame on us to minimize damages paid.

We paid for the fucking internal services lets use them
>>
>>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>Trust Dechker to root out the traitor.
>>
I wanna trust decker but like I don't think there's a single story I've seen where the "internal security" spy master guy ISN'T in bed with the traitors.
>>
>>6044938
I would like to ask the Raihans for help but it's mutually exclusive with any other option. Maybe we just go for the Raihan only option, they do handle external defense as well.
>>
>>6045117
Counterpoint, it is in their best interest to ensure we won't end up buddy buddy with anyone to deny their enemies a possible asset.
>>
>>6045118
It's in whose interest we don't end up buddy buddy with anyone? Raihan's? Doesn't make much sense, enlisting them would directly help them, and the more options we have besides the colonies, the less likely the colonies will get our business. I don't think you mean Raihan, what are you trying to say?
>>
>>6045121
Why would Raihan *want* us to be friendly with other polities? They have no reason to pursue anything but a result that benefits them most.
>>
>>6044794
>>6044938
You get nothing from the camera feeds pre-attack. Your cameras were sabotaged with devices planted during an unscheduled maintenance cycle.

You know this because you have other camera footage showing guys doing the work. The problem is nobody questioned it at the time. It was the old: "Wear a uniform and act like you're supposed to be there" trick. Further scrutiny reveals nothing: the perps concealed their identities with fake name tags and safety equipment.

As for the turret control crew it seems they were caught by surprise. Ballistics indicates only a handful of tightly grouped shots to take down each crew member. Whoever did it was well trained.

The bullets used were a common caliber that was compatible with several models of pistol and SMG. Your armories had them, but a similar weapon could have just as easily been smuggled in or fabricated on site.

You guys don't have insurance. The only insurance out in neutral space is making sure shit doesn't happen.
>>
>>6045122
Hiring them on doesn't make us any more friendly with other entities than if we don't, even if they do manage to find the rat in our ranks. Also, they would get 2 capitals on discount, which is a very good deal for them, much better than whatever they would lose from us "being friendly with others after getting rid of the traitor".
>>
>>6045130
Anon is implying the Raihans might've been behind the attack

>>6045128
Launch a rumor that we've recognized the perp despide protective equipment. After some time, provide an opportunity to escape, like transporting the injured t oa hospital, and see who bites.
>>
>>6044736
>>6044736
>Trust Kryska and Decker to root out the traitor.
Give them equal authority, they will keep one another in check, and rat if there is evidence against either.
Would love to trust Decker but he was shown to be biased against Saurians, and his history doesn't cast him in an open-minded light.

>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
Even at a discount, with all our new tech we should be able to markup enough to turn a profit.

>>6045201
+1 to the bait-and-switch, though maybe we can transfer command of security detail to ourselves so we can be assured of effective enforcement

Also Cognis do we get any material as scrap from the ships that were destroyed?
>>
>>6044736
>>6045007
(That's me, 1 post id because phoneposting)
I'll switch this to
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for enhanced protection. (Only guards against external threats, you will have to build him a ship at a discount)
>Trust Kryska and Decker to root out the traitor.
Because it can actually win the vote and trusting Decker alone is too risky
>>
>>6045128
>guys doing the work
>guys
Does that mean Kryska is in the clear at least as in her direct involvement? How stacked is our muscle security dommy mommy? Work overalls can hide the body but only to a point? If there are no breasts giving the chest area a non slight bulge, wider hips could point to a feminine figure or the lack of it.
Also if we have footage with them doing "maintenance" we could find out their height relative to any panels or consoles they were working with, those elements could be measured right now in our base. Measure their height in pixels on the recording, compare that to any wall fixtures, outlets they were near to and get their height. Cross reference with our medical records to narrow down the list of suspects. Work boots always have an onvious connection where the sole ends and the foot begins. PPE for the eyes would tell us how high on their body is the eye area so a particularly thick helmet should not throw us off of the height estimations. ib4 social media formed genetic selection during the 21st and 22nd centuries and now everyone is exactly 6 feet
Also if the bodies do not have any anatomical differences from humans at least that could exlude the local saurians. Even PPE would give away a saurian on account of a mask being designed around a snout instead of a human face, or digigrade legs or numbers of digits. Since the crew trusted the hitman it could not have been the "annoying" lizard guests.

QM can the cameras in all of the areas of our station confirm the positions of Decker or Kryska at the time of attack? If we could narrow down people based on height then we could hunt for them on our recordings to narrow the suspects further into who was conspicuously missing.
>>6045201
Bait could work for lover level employees but if the highet ups dunnit then they would deduce that we do not have anything since their influential positions arent getting sacked immediately.
>>
>>6044736
>>You can’t believe you’re doing this but… ask the Raihans for help. (Sends a special investigative team and a small frigate flotilla. You must build them a Ryu class and a Subjugator at a discount.)

Damn, our first art of the second drydock and it's under fucking attack. Are we able to retrieve any records or data from the frigate we took out? Maybe uniform insignias from the corpses?
>>
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>>6045281
Assuming Persica was sexually frustrated, now trying to ID Kryska based on boob size? Damn you guys are horny. Here, have a screen cap from the game Sunrider 4: The Captain Returns, from which I have shamelessly ripped off some pics to represent some characters in this quest.

From the security footage you can tell the fake maintenance team were definitely human. While height and body type can be determined there are enough personnel that have similar builds on staff to make it hard to ID the saboteurs based on that alone.

Camera footage and eye witnesses claim both Kryska and Decker were at their posts throughout the attack.

>>6045289
What little identifying stuff you could salvage from the frigate indicates that they are low level privateers. Recovered data implies they were hired specifically to attack your yard and that they had an unknown paymaster. There isn't much that wasn't already obvious and nothing that would be useful for tracking down the saboteurs.
>>
>>6045329
it's not horny! Its deductive reasoning and its paying off.
We know its not directky Kryska, not Decker and not the local saurians.
Which is more than we had at the start.
Its possible that Decker or Krysska were relaying orders but also possible both are in the clear.
Since the saboteur himself is a minor wagie then a jebait could work.
>Repair our comms by replacing the damaged wires, the recording and storage are fine just the connection.
>Set up redundancy between Krysska and Decker.
A copy of all comms and staff orders from Krysska are automatically forwarded to Decker and vice versa. If anyone of them was the mastermind and tries to warn their lackey then the loyal one can catch that. Obvoiusly lower workers do not get acccess to it.
>Tell guards to blap anyone in the head that tries to do maintenance without supervision on said comms.
>The attack started before the drydock evacuation so anyone who was working there is off the suspect list. The ciws had to be down before the attack started, a maintenance cycle during red alert would be suspicious. Hopefully that would narrow down the potential suspects somewhat.
>>
You know, the fact that the killings were done by professionals implies some skill here.
>>
>>6044736
>Bribe Governor Flurgus for protection AND ask him to help you investigate (It's in his best interest, after all it's HIS system trespassed by armed ships)
>Ask the Raihans for an investigation team and just one or two frigates in exchange for ONLY ONE of the ships they requested (they choose which one)

Also, what has Patrick been doing this whole time? He's been strangely quiet...
>>
>>6045117
Bribing the Governor and hiring Clan Quezet are not mutually exclusive, everything else is.)

We can bribe the governor with any choice we make.

Our choice would be raihan and then governor. So that's legit.

Dayum cognis no insurance companies? Well boys we might have another way of making money... we can insure our ships. For a hefty premium.
>>
>>6045373
i can support this
>>
>>6045384
X and Y not being mutually exclusive means they can go together, everything else being mutually exclusive means they can only be used alone. This is supported by a basic reading of the options. In the Raiha option, it is to hire them for both external security and the investigation, which makes sense if you can't use it with anything else.
>>
>>6045427
if it changes anything i would like to trust kryska and decker and involve those write in based solutions for a two head based verfication system
>>
>>6044736
It might be too late, but just in case it's not:
>You can’t believe you’re doing this but… ask the Raihans for help. (Sends a special investigative team and a small frigate flotilla. You must build them a Ryu class and a Subjugator at a discount.)
>>
I've decided I want to grab a (relatively) early night, and resolving this choice would be a very big update. So I've deleted the original vote and count and will leave the vote open till tomorrow.
>>
>>6045329
Last I knew there was only Sunrider 2
God, I'm old
>>
Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>6044754
>>6044776
>>6044791
>>6044938
>>6045010
>>6045023
>>6045210
>>6045273
>>6045289
>>6045357
>>6045373
>>6045438

Trust Only Decker: 4
Trust Kyrska and Decker: 4
Call in the Raihans: 4

There's a lot of support for bribing the governor so we'll do that on top of everything.

Only one new vote came in making this a three way tie. Rolling a d3 for the tie breaker.

1:Only Decker
2:Kyrska and Decker
3:Call the Raihans.

>Writing...
>>
>>6046031
>2
Yo lets goo, last time it was decker only.
>>
((Writing mysteries is hard.))
You didn’t have enough facts to clearly identify the traitor, and your paranoia was driving you nuts. What if it was Kryska? What if it was Decker? What if it was both!? ARRRRGH!

…wait, both…

“Until the saboteurs are caught I can’t trust any one of you, so from now on you will watch each other. I want every measure we take signed off by both internal security and counter-espionage. If any of you uncover anything suspicious you come directly to me. Understand?”

Decker nodded wordlessly while Kryska gave a salute.

“Yes Sir!”

--------------------

One thing the attack had shown was that your space borne security was barely adequate, maybe if the CWIS had been fully operational the torpedo strike wouldn’t have gotten through. But maybe if you’d had more ships it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no time build additional squadrons so you decided to engage in some good old-fashioned bribery.

Governor Flurgus couldn’t just station more militia at the yard while the last cruiser was being built. That would be seen as favouring the saurians too much. But what he could do was alter the patrol schedules such that they passed closer to the yard and with greater frequency. For the promise of a discounted Enforcer-B the governor would ensure that the militia could respond to your distress signals within 5 minutes.

Car’cass’ political situation forced the Solar Union to calibrate its use of force very carefully. Small skirmishes between criminal elements and mercs happened all the time. Sending a larger force of privateers to attack your base would raise questions among the powers that be. For now you were reasonably sure that further attacks could be thwarted before they got close.

That meant the biggest threat remained on the inside…

>cont
>>
>>6046059
Things were getting tense. After the espionage incident heightened security measures had been put in place. Work crews couldn’t do shit until both a guard and member of counter-intel signed off on their work order for the day. Although everyone understood the reasoning behind it, it was sapping morale and slowing down work. Clan Margathon was especially frustrated. The longer this took, the worse things got for them back home. Even if the Major Clans helped fight off the Union Margathon risked going into debt to them and face annexation.

Then one day, Kryska came to see you in private.

“Sir, I’ve been doing some digging and I believe I might have some information on the saboteurs.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“On the same day the cameras were sabotaged, a handful of counter-intel personnel were off duty. They’d applied for a few days off and were spending it on the station. Other surveillance footage shows that they did not leave their residential units the whole day.”

“You think these were the saboteurs?”

“Based on their build and gait analysis, our pattern recognition software shows a 73.7% match.”

“That’s high, but I’m not sure if it’s high enough.”

“With the right training it’s possible to fool pattern sniffers. There’s a real possibility these aren’t our guys, but there’s also a very real possibility they are.”

“But you said surveillance of the residential halls showed they hadn’t left their apartments?”

“That is correct sir, but the footage could have been scrubbed. It would be hard to verify without going through counter-intel themselves. If the department really is compromised then they could just lie to us.”

“We’ll have to keep digging. Do we have surveillance footage that confirms they remained in their apartments?”

“We don’t put any cameras inside our employee’s quarters, that would be a breach of privacy. If you want more information we’ll have to question people.”

“Alright, let’s do it.”

“I should warn you sir that digging further might tip off the traitors and cause them to go to ground.”

“You’re not helping me make a decision here and I still don’t know if I can trust you.”

“With all due respect sir, I am as frustrated by this as you are. You told me to come to you if I had something and I have.”

You sigh in resignation. “I know, and thank you. But please understand that I’m not cut out for this and the people who are, are suspects. So bear with me a little longer.”

>cont
>>
>>6046060
Coincidentally Decker came to see you later that day.

“My guys dug something up; a member of the security team that was part of a patrol near the turret control room during the attack. Armoury records show his weapon had been discharged when it was returned. Type and number of bullets match those used to kill the control team.”

“What does he have to say for himself?”

“He was badly injured when the torpedoes hit, memory of the incident is patchy. He’s currently confined in medical. Very convenient.”

“What about his squad?”

“Squad members claim that he’d left to take a piss just before the alarm sounded. They immediately started moving to the designated rally point, trusting him to catch up with them.”

“Hmm… no direct witnesses but the weapon being discharged is pretty damning.”

“He’s almost certainly our culprit.”

“What about the rogue maintenance team? Until we’re sure we’ve nabbed all the saboteurs this isn’t enough.”

“No leads on them yet.”

“Seriously? Mr. ‘Seen-it-all-before’ hasn’t seen anything that could shed light on the guys that sabotaged us in broad daylight!?”

“Nope,” he said with a completely straight face.

“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Okay Jack, you got me; it was me, I’m the traitor, I masterminded the whole thing, Wooooo!”

“Very funny asshole.”

“Jack, you can agonize all you want about who’s compromised, but eventually you’re going to have to make a decision.”

“God dammit Decker this is supposed to be your job.”

“Well apparently you don’t trust me to do it so you’re gonna have to make the call boss.”

------------------

Decker wasn’t wrong, the paranoia was paralyzing you. The way that Kryska and Decker had both come to you, it was like that riddle with the two guards where one always lied. If only there was something you could do that would make the liar out themselves… Assuming either of them were even liars.

You needed more information, but that would take time and construction was already behind schedule. More delays would sour relations with Margathon further. Maybe you should follow Decker’s advice and just do something?

>You can pick only one
>Investigate Kryska’s claims
>Investigate Decker’s claims
>Ask the Saurians if they knew anything (You must ask the right question)
>Arrest Decker
>Arrest Kryska
>Do nothing, with security and counter-espionage checking each other, the real traitor wouldn’t be able to do shit.
>>
>>6046062
This might be tinfoil hat but I honestly feel like it’s Saurian infiltraitors and the suspicion towards our people are a false-flag. The “human-boos” (whose event conveniently happened right before the sabotage) could have been actually just tailing our men for patterns and info necessary for the attack. They were recording people, watching people file in and out, finding out the timings. And the reason they didn’t use the lounge is because the lounge would have been of no use to them since it would just be static voluntary watching from a distance that discerns no info. Would a true humanboo miss a chance to watch real humans with their explicit permission? Maybe, maybe not. And it doesn’t even have to be the work of a major clan, who says there isn’t a Saurian willing to sell out his kind? Hell if they were working with the Solar Union and they know the language they could have overheard the counter-intel men talking about taking a day off in the cafeteria (which was what some human ops were reportedly doing) and been known the men would have been none the wiser assuming it was a clueless lizard who doesn’t speak English. The rogue maintenance could have easily been Saurians as well, they’ve been watching our guys work on it for days. And for the soldier… maybe he was shooting at the Saurian who killed our men in the surveillance room and the gap in memory hides that.
>>
>>6046084
That's fine and all anon but i still don't know a cause. Why would they nuke one of their own ships and possibly make us stop working with them? As i said before, the Saurians win nothing from attacking us. Even if it's not the clan.
>>
>>6046096
The cause is the Solar Union could be paying an infiltrator a buttload of money to betray their kind. Or a Major clan wants Maragthon to fail so that they can annex them.
>>
>>6046101
I already said why i don't think it's another clan. No real advantage to stopping the war when they can swoop in when the Margathon are weak and spend their efforts bloodying the Solar Union. It also seems doubtful that a saurian, who's obviously got a very different body, would leave no sign whatsoever.
>>
>>6046103
“Clan Margathon was especially frustrated. The longer this took, the worse things got for them back home. Even if the Major Clans helped fight off the Union Margathon risked going into debt to them and face annexation.”

And I’m not saying it has to be another clan either.

Anyways I know it’s a little far-fetched just putting the idea out there. I see it as a way to connect all stuff together a little haphazardly.
>>
>>6046108
>And I’m not saying it has to be another clan either.
Well but here's the thing anon, for other clans, the best route is to let the Margathon fight the Union. If they were behind this, they wouldn't be striking again. They'd still want the Margathons to face the union so they can hurt *them* too
>>
>>6046062
>Investigate Decker’s claims
Decker's findings seem more substantial, but it's possible both Decker and Kryska have valid leads.
>>
>>6046062
>Investigate Kryska’s claims personally
Decker's seems rather suspicious. Why would the saboteur return to the armory the evidence against him? How did he fake his injuries? How did he coordinate so precisely with the attackers to leave just before the alarm? Wouldn't a real saboteur prepare a better cover story than just "I lost my memory"?
I think he's been framed.
Also if Kryska really was a traitor, wouldn't she prepare a better story too?
>>
>>6046062
i don't think the heads of security and counter ops are compromised per se, but its..... convenient that both sides have a culprit. my guess is a saurian plant did the sabotage for politicalTM reasons

>Ask the Saurians if they knew anything (You must ask the right question)
are there any clans that would benefit from you not getting your ships on time, or at all?
>>
>>6046062
>>6046361
Support. "who benefits" is always a right question, and the humanboos were suspicious, as the other anon said earlier
>>
>>6046062
>Investigate Decker’s claims

For all we know the reason those people didn't leave their quarters is they were fucking each other or watching films or just sleeping. This guy meanwhile disappears, discharges his gun (no reason to do so) and turns up injured. Way too suspect.
>>
>>6046062
>You can pick only one
OP I deny your restrictions, but I am certainly suspicious of Decker.
>Arrest Decker
>Investigate Kryska’s claims
>Investigate Decker’s claims
I want a more detailed analysis of the gun that was discharged, anything that indicates it may have been used by more than one person. The fact that the security guy was seriously injured with what must indicate accidental damage rather than a combat wound makes me think he was legitimately incapacitated and unable to kill the control team. However, the counter-espionage team would be able to take his weapon and return it after using to place the suspicion on him, which is well within their MO. They would also know to alter their gait to throw off analysis with basic things like ill-fitting shoes.

I vote we begin questioning the counter-espionage team as well as arresting Decker, and then running the bait-and-switch hospital transfer to Flurgus' station.
>>
>>6046762
The reason why I'm only allowing you to pick one is because you only have time to follow up on one lead yourself.

Voting to arrest either character assumes you will follow up with further investigations to verify both leads, but regardless of what you find after the fact, there will be fallout if the character turns out to be innocent.

To make it clear: choosing to investigate is trading time for more clues. Choosing to arrest is gambling on your chosen character being the traitor and hoping you can find evidence after the fact.
>>
>>6046062
Do nothing, with security and counter-espionage checking each other, the real traitor wouldn’t be able to do shit.
The setup exists for a reason. With everyone on edge, being extra diligent, and the heads ofcdepartments being unable to coordinate conspirasies we should be able to have time instead of guessing.
>>
>>6046062
>>6046361
+1
The lizards are up to no good...
>>
>>6046062
I think it’s the Saurians but I think the question we have for them right now is bad. It doesn’t really lead to any info that isn’t obvious. We know the major clans have reason to sabotage already. I think we should dig deeper into the human watching avenue and the fact that the guy who Decker found shot something, and that something might be a Saurian.


>Are there any Saurians that seemed uncharacteristically interested in watching us? That wouldn’t normally do that? Or previously did business with the Solar Union or major clans? And do any have any bullet wounds that could have come from the rifles of our security.
>>
>>6046144
>>6046158
>>6046361
>>6046361
>>6046469
>>6046495
>>6046762
>>6047043
>>6047246

Looks like I've gotten all the votes I'm going to get.

Investigate Decker's Claims: 2
Investigate Kryska's Claims: 1
Ask the Saurians: 4
Arrest Decker: 1

Looks like we're asking the lizards... Hope you asked the right question.

>Writing...
>>
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You decide to work the saurian angle. At this point you were running on crime novel logic but you had to do something. You try to broach the topics delicately, first with Quezet, then with Margathon leadership. The response was bewilderment, then annoyance.

Who could benefit from Margathon not getting their cruisers? The Solar Union of course! Clan Gerek might benefit politically since it would force Margathon to rely on them more, but it would also mean fewer allied ships on their side. Besides the human fanciers there weren’t any Saurians that were particularly interested in watching humans. Maybe some of the overseers were bigger sticklers for protecting proprietary knowledge but overall contact with humans had declined. While some saurians were injured during attack none had suffered bullet wounds.

It seems you had asked the wrong questions and soured relations with the saurians even more in the process.

Production of the remaining cruiser continued at a crawl. The increased security measures slowed everything down even as they prevented further acts of sabotage. The final cruiser was finished severely behind schedule. While Margathon politely acknowledged your efforts to root out the traitors they were clearly furious at your failure to deliver results. In the end you were forced to accept a paltry 3 million scrip instead of the promised 15 million.

And you still had infiltrators in your company.

>Gained 3Mil Margathon Scrip
>Quezet diplomatic fees: 250k Scrip
>Final Payout: 2.75 Mil Margathon Scrip
>Salvaged materials from the destroyed cruiser were used to repair the second drydock, so no net gain or loss.

((Taking a break for lunch, further updates incoming.))
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>>6047384
Wow, who could have guessed that it wasn't the Saurians? Oh right, me! Too bad you didn't listen.
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The mood in the company was sour after Margathon left. There was a feeling of undeserved suffering; that everyone had worked and bled yet still fallen short. The subsequent job for Governor Flurgus’ discount Enforcer was mercifully straight forward. With the second drydock undergoing repairs and a significant number of workers on medical leave you couldn’t really take on a second cap ship order.

You had a walk in order for more AAS shuttles, at least those seemed to be a decent source of revenue.
>400k SoC Profit

But you still had an infiltrator problem. You couldn’t rest unit the traitors had finally been purged. Shortly after the new shuttles had been sent off you called another security meeting with Kryska and Decker. Maybe if you cross examined their stories you might find a discrepancy. Kryska arrived on time, which was just like her but Decker was uncharacteristically late. You took the opportunity to question Kryska about Decker’s claim.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Kryska looking genuinely perplexed.

“Is it too farfetched that one of your men was a traitor?”

“Well since he was injured that means someone else had to hand his weapon back to the armoury. They could have had an opportunity to plant evidence.”

“Or, whoever handed it in had no idea the weapon was discharged and it really was the guy.”

“There’s one more thing; the guard in question has a reputation. We call him ‘Spray n pray Spencer’ at the barracks. If he had been the one to clear the control room, he would have mag dumped and you’d have holes in a lot more than just the occupants. I’m surprised Decker didn’t pick up this detail, it’s not like him to miss something like this.”

“Where the hell is he anyway? It’s been 30 minutes already.”

You pinged his comm directly, no response.
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>>6047549
--------------------

Decker Radic sat back in the seat of the shuttle as it headed to the rendezvous. For a moment it felt like he wouldn’t make a clean getaway. The way Jack had been sniffing around, it was only a matter of time before he figured things out. Luckily Jack had turned his suspicious on the saurians first. This had given Decker enough time to extract his people from counter-espionage and security. All it took was an order for shuttles placed through a shell company and tweaking schedules so that everyone was in the right place when the time came.

Right about now Jack should be realizing it was him. A younger Decker would have felt sorry for the man. Jack had no idea what he was getting into when he decided to make an enemy of the Solar Union. At least he was smart enough to hire someone who did. Unfortunately, that someone was an agent of the Union itself, not that Decker hadn’t given him a chance. He had been honest with Jack in a way only a spy could be; shame he didn’t listen…

>Made Enforcer/Strikecraft combo for the Governor at a loss.
>Net loss 4Mil Scrip.
>The sabotuers have extracted leaving a hole in your counter-espionage department. It is essentially non-functional into you hire replacements.
>A number of staff have quit due to the mishandling of the Margathon contract, you have a staff shortage.

>End of thread
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I was hoping to run you through one more arc but we’re already on page 9 and this thread has gone on for longer that I wanted. It’s a damn shame because from a QMing stand point where you are now is a great place to start; there are problems to solve and opportunities to introduce new characters as the MC tries pull his company back together. The quest mechanics have matured as well.

I know you guys got invested in the quest and it sucks to end it here, but between RL and my other projects I’ve got too much on my plate. I initially wanted to just scratch a spaceship itch after I finished playing Sunrider and Homeworld 3 turned out to be a bust. Instead, I ended up writing a small space opera and simulating an economy.

One day I might reboot the quest but for now I must shelve it and commit to other projects. Thank you all for playing.

>The adventures of Jack Horner: Ship Salesman will continue… even though I may never write them.
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Wow, who would have guessed the spymaster was the traitor...not like that's happened in literally every single piece of fiction ever...
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>>6047558
Yes, I'm a hack. I know... <.<
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>>6047559
Well, I just love it when a quest ends on a stupidly easy mistake i repeatedly warned everyone about. Really leaves a great taste.
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>>6047560
Stop being a salty faggot and just deal with it.

>>6047554
Thanks for running QM!
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>>6047561
>salty faggot
The preferred insult for those who ruined something by being retarded and don't like it when others point it out.
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Throughout heaven and earth, I alone voted correctly.
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>>6047562
If you are the panic attack anon then you were wrong about literally everything. I got the estimation on the geopolitical situation more or less spot on i was also completely correct on the timing as well.
The only thing you were right about is that something would "eventually" happen which was never in contention anyway.
Please disregard the message If you are not >fF6UeDeF
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>>6047554
Also thank you OP
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>>6047565
No, I was the one who pointed out how the Saurians had absolutely no reason to try to do it.
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>>6047565
I like how you call me the panic attack anon when the guy I was arguing with was the one incoherently yelling and it turned out I was right in the end and the Solars did end up attacking us for taking on Saurian jobs. Which is probably you considering you are a new id and the other anon who referred to "panic attack anon" was a new id as well. But no that guy you replied to is not me.
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>>6047554
Thanks for running
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>>6047554
Ah, well, it was a fun quest.
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>>6047554
t'was a nice quest. thanks for running!
>>
Thanks QM, good thread.



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