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Shepard Quest Mk V, Base of Operations (ME/MCU)

@ Sylvire, we can build 6/4s frigates each quarter, Though it's true we don't know how long it takes to build a shipyard.


On that note, I put the details we have on the small shipyard into the Finance document (And put in the build times for all of them.)

@Esbilo
 
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Question: Is my above post cutting off at "Esbilon" for everyone, or is it just me? Because it isn't letting me post more.
 
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whenever I try to copy paste the rest, it is now giving me a "Please enter a valid message" error. >.<
 
Try 2!
@Esbilon:

How long does it take to build a small shipyard? And with our expansion speed, you might want to start thinking about the larger ones. ^.^



(We Shall Rule The Terminus Systems! All Hail Galactic Lawbringer Revy!)
Empire quest is a go!
 
3 Quarters, same as a Factory III. I had hoped to get some writing done this weekend but between figuring out what kinda thing to actually write, RL engagements and a moderate hangover nothing much got done. To make things up to you, I plan on getting an extended tech tree out tonight instead.
 
Alanek2002 said:
There already is a slight counter to the stealth: Visual scanners. The cloaked ships would have a slight chance to be spotted every time they went in front of something, right?

And on the subject of research, could we do it something like this:

Turn 1: Super alloys, Flawless blackboxing
Turn 2: Gigajoule lasers, MK II suit, Flawless blackboxing
Turn 3: Re-entry shroud, Light cruisers, Flawless blackboxing
Turn 4: Flawless blackboxing

And so on, until it is finished? That is to say, taking 8-9 hundred points of projects, and the rest into Blackboxing?

We have the projects to do so for a few turns.
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Not even that much, just ~250-300 in Blackboxing, all the rest into our ongoing projects. After three turns, two more of about 1200 will finish it (hopefully we have Elysium labs set up by them - at least level 1 and 2 should be done if not all three). That leaves a comfortable budget for real research, we should have no trouble having super-frigates and whatever else ready.

@Alanek2002 - I vaguely recall being told shipyards take as long as the third tier of factories to build, though they cost much more.
Edit - Kasumi'd
 
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It occurs to me that I (think I) have forgotten to award +50 Research points to UberJJK for the final Tiger design. Even if that reward was supposed to go into just getting an IFV that was more than a Mako with PI tech strapped onto it, I think he and the other contributors when above and beyond the call of duty on this issue :)

EDIT: On a mostly unrelated note, how do you feel about your employees leaving to start their own companies that can spend time improving some of the techs that I find too boring to include in Revy's tech tree?
 
Well, do they really need to be companies? Wouldn't it just be better to just have research departments of their own? Or are we gonna make a holding company itself subsidiary to PI to manage all these chumps?

I guess it depends on what brand we want to market their stuff under - given the lengths we have gone to in order to avoid the merchant of death rep, keeping everything PI should be fine.
 
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Esbilon said:
EDIT: On a mostly unrelated note, how do you feel about your employees leaving to start their own companies that can spend time improving some of the techs that I find too boring to include in Revy's tech tree?
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Will we get anything out of it? I mean seems to me that there should be something in the employee contract forbidding our employees from just leaving, and then using knowledge/tech/info from our company to develop something their own. Thats basically espionage/theft Arent there contracts that prevent things like that even in real life?

Ofcourse if its somekind of child-company of our company or something then that would make sense. And I guess inventing something totally new and unrelated to our company would also be fine, though without Revy it might be questionable if they do something revolutionary.
 
I have no problem with some splitting off into child companies; But if they form their own there might be legal repercussions.
 
Esbilon said:
EDIT: On a mostly unrelated note, how do you feel about your employees leaving to start their own companies that can spend time improving some of the techs that I find too boring to include in Revy's tech tree?
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It depends on why they want to do it. First I would offer them higher funding, more resources and a raise if they were worth it (if they were actually productive researchers). If they still want to leave, I'll subsidize them in exchange for a share in the firm they create. As long as they don't sell our corporate secrets (which should probably be in their contracts), I'd have no trouble with it, generally - competition is good, and fostering progress is also good.
 
Esbilon said:
EDIT: On a mostly unrelated note, how do you feel about your employees leaving to start their own companies that can spend time improving some of the techs that I find too boring to include in Revy's tech tree?
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I don't see why they'd need to form their own companies for that, given that it's most likely the least effective method for them. Also, what kind of techs are you talking about?
 
Alanek2002 said:
I have no problem with some splitting off into child companies; But if they form their own there might be legal repercussions.
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I don't think they can form on their own if they are using PI proprietary stuff as their base. They could be companies subordinate to us, but I don't see the point

*shrug* ...maybe so we don't have to micromanage that stuff? Meh. Honestly, just having a department dedicating to improving "low-tech" stuff seems like it should be sufficient. Build it, pay them, but don't get any dice for it - they just spit out improvements on their own.
 
It was exactly to have a way of handwaving progress in these areas without having to micromanage it. But child companies where they get a share of their own profits rather than a salary would work for my purposes.
 
Esbilon said:
It was exactly to have a way of handwaving progress in these areas without having to micromanage it. But child companies where they get a share of their own profits rather than a salary would work for my purposes.
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That works - I was just wondering what the advantage to having subsidiary companies was, over a department dedicated to that stuff.

I mean, it's all gonna be marketed as Paragon Industries products, right? I could see the advantage if we focused on weapons and high- tech, while they handled sales to other markets...but our brand is strong and we have been going for an all-encompassing one from the get go.
 
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Esbilon said:
It was exactly to have a way of handwaving progress in these areas without having to micromanage it. But child companies where they get a share of their own profits rather than a salary would work for my purposes.
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Honestly, you could handwave pretty much any minor thing you wanted as just 'something neat we found while researching and slapped together a prototype.' Plenty of inventions were made that way. Microwave ovens are a thing because a tech walked in front of a radar dish and noticed that the candy bar in his pocket just melted.

I'm not really comfortable handing over independence to a subsidiary like that though. Part of Revy's personality has been keeping absolute control over PI, it would be out of character.
 
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She would still have veto rights over their activities, they would just be improving things and making money rather than pursuing the cutting edge with her.

Anyways, here is the first draft of the extended tech tree, first with some preliminary notes.

I've not included the entirety of UberJJK's list, mostly because a lot of it was redundant and speed-bumpy, and I see no reason to tire you with speed bumps. They are not awesome, they do not belong in this Quest.

Despite Kelenas's, and I think others', request, I have not included any resource extraction or production techs. This is partly for the same reason, and partly because we know jack shit about the current state of the art from the games. Ideas for making these techs awesome might change this situation.

I have added an MK III suit; the MK IV will follow once we see where the tech tree takes us.

Eclipse Phase style Medichines and other kinds of advanced nanotechnology belong in their own branch of the tech tree, and I'm reluctant to add things that neither belongs in Mass Effect, or the Iron Man movies. If you, the players, really want to go in that direction, we'll figure something out.

First some corrections to the current tech tree.
"Ultracompact FTL Drive" is removed from the tech tree.
"Improved Repulsor Cannons" is replaced by "Particle Beams"
All references to *joules in the laser section should be replaced with watts
All Laser techs get doubled prices

Advanced Mass Effect Theory (400)
--Basic
*Not entirely sure what the practical benefits of this would be, but I still feel that

Multi-core Eezo Drive (800)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory

Ultra-Compact Core Design (1600)
--Multi-core Eezo Drive

Comm Buoy Construction (1600)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory

Quantum Entanglement Communications (1600)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory

Mass Relay Design (XXX)
--Comm Buoy Construction, Unobtainium

Tractor Beams (800)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory, Repulsor Cannon

Gravitational Wave Detectors (800)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory
*Allow detection of ships by the waves they make as they move through space-time. Also allows communication.

Mk III Suit (1600)
--Superalloys, Genration II Arc Reactor, Repulsor Cannon

Advanced Xenobiology (800)
--Peak Human
*Expand our biotech to also work on non-human species.

Kepral's Syndrome (800)
--Advanced Xenobiology, (Drell or Hanar assistance)

Quarian Immune System Restoration (1600)
--Advanced Xenobiology, (Quarian assistance)

Project Lazarus (3200)
--Full Body Prosthetics

Optical computing (800)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory, Improved Intelligence Algorithms
*Boosts VI effectiveness

Variable Wavelength Lasers (800)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory, Miniaturized Energy Weapons

Total Internal Reflection Shield (1600)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory

Eezo production (6400)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory, Generation III Arc Reactor

Anti-matter production (1600)
--Advanced Mass Effect Theory
 
So considering just how many new techs we have to work through do you think you could reconsider the number of Labs we can have on a planet? Or mayhaps include a research action to make Lab 4's? They would be ludicrously expensive and have all the cool toys on top of that I'm thinking...
 
Esbilon said:
EDIT: On a mostly unrelated note, how do you feel about your employees leaving to start their own companies that can spend time improving some of the techs that I find too boring to include in Revy's tech tree?
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Generally, if they're not directly using our tech but are using lessons learned from us, then there's nothing we can do to forbid them from doing that.

However, ideally, we want to set up a system where these employees can pitch the idea to Shepard, and if she like it she gives them some funding and space (and time from HR / IT / etc) to set up a new department or remote office. I think you'd be safe to handwave that with a general "budget for secondary departments" and some dice rolls to figure out income & spend on them. A decent amount of a department's early profits would need to go to the guys who "founded" the department, so that we don't lose too many people to spin off companies.

I wouldn't do this on a per project basis, but as just a single line on the budget -something like:

secondary spending this quarter = x million,
return = (secondary spending from previous 4 quarters) * 1d10 / 20
 
Given how our expansion is going to be exploding, that isn't necessary. A full set of labs on Mindoir gives an average of 1535 points - elsewhere they give an average of 1185, and we can lay down a full set every 3 quarters. Even if we add one more quarter as legal preparations to move to a new planet, a yearly increase of that much is pretty damn nice.

...those techs should be the culmination of years of effort afterall.
 
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