I like it. If we wanted to be a bit more paranoid, we could have sent some people (covertly) to Intai'sei first, to watch out for competition, but otherwise, yeah, I like this. And then we could actually go on vacation for a bit maybe? I agree that we have been pushing ourselves a lot, and a month-long vacation (with Liara and someone else maybe?) would do us good.
Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution
- Thread starter Hoyr
- Start date
We'll have our well-protected space yacht/mobile lab ready in 2174-Q2, and not much to do then except finish flawless BB and maybe Perfect Alien. That would be a great time for a vacation.
Okay, yeah, sending money will be good. I doubt we'll need 100m this time, especially as we're providing the security and this time Liara isn't digging up a city in order to get to another, older city, but sure, reserving 100m just in case would be good, and we can pay for better travel accommodations this time.
Guardian Angel systems are designed for our big, bulky Legionaries, and probably won't be compatible with biotic-compatible hardsuits (biotic-compatible power armor doesn't exist yet; we have to invent it!) Guardian Angels are apparently designed to recharge other people's shields, though, so we can actually equip our troops' Legionaries with Guardian Angels, and if anyone likes my Hastati mobile bunker/bounding overwatch companion idea we can certainly assign one to hover around her.
On the other hand...
One month to train a mercenary? Hell no. Even Blackwater trains their mercenaries better than that, and we all know how that turned out. All it would take is one trigger-happy idiot to sink ParSec--and thus Revy's--rep for years to come. I'd be concerned if we gave new guys less than three months of training, and that's only if they're ex-Special Forces or something similar and already know everything about military ROE, Urban Operations, etc, simply because we need to train them on our Legionaries, Tigers, new drone systems, new VI tactics, and our neural interface tech.
No, the only way I'd trust anyone with only a month's worth of training is if we transferred some of the ex-military guys from our own security forces, because they'll already have training on all of PI's tech.
Here's my take (yes I'm still doggedly updating my plan, even if no one here agrees with my opinion that anti-starship missiles are an important improvement over disruptor torpedoes):
-The Intai'sei Treasure Hunt (100.4 million)
--Get volunteers from current security staff to go help Liara with the search; give them 1 month of refresher training in military operations at the ParSec academy. Max of 8 teams; offer a 50% hazard pay bonus (max 1.4 million/quarter)
--Build light armor for biotic use with best technology we have, based on civilian line. Give it for Liara as gift if she wants it. Associating with us can make her target and this might help her out. (400,000 credits, 1 production)
--Send along 4 of the Tigers, 20 of the Sagittarius and Hastati drones, 40 of the Legionary suits, along with the Repulsor version of the Appia and half of the related modular buildings, in order to create a good base camp.
--Rent a decently-armed transport for your troops and equipment (up to 100 million budget)
Okay, yeah, that's a pretty good idea. Stealing.
@UberJJK deserves special praise for maintaining and updating the finances doc. Having an actual accountant do actual accounting work for our fake corporation is absolutely above and beyond.The plans you propose are detailed and well though out.
Have you reflected on how hard it is to do those?
You are among the few who can do it so you with @@Sylvire and @@TheEyes are entiteld for praise.
The GM think so.
I do have limited one. I've been intending to go tough the update and check everything again and build an event time line.
I've got some material to work with from the older votes. Ultimately that would make voting 4 phase instead of the three phases and one of the phases would be fairly dead so I'm not sure if that'd help.
Most of the company builds X votes are mostly things for me tho check off and okay and then be added to the finance sheet.
Reasons. Lets just say that I have plans and stuff.
She could try to do it. She'd need to get funding, but that'd be easier given her latest success it may not be fast (enough).
Don't think so. The main limit for the Guardian Angel system is the need for an arc-reactor, its size (about say a 30cm diameter disk?) and the large amount of eezo in it. Oh and a plug-in port so it can interface.
Well, if that's what you want. But still, thanks, you've been a big help.
Last edited:
@UberJJK @Sylvire: do you suppose we need to build new admin offices for our new construction division and to setup/promote this new e-sports league? What do you think @Hoyr?
And I agree that we probably shouldn't bother buying Legionaries. I do think, however, we'd be better served by building a few Tigers and missile/bunker drones, rather than powered armor, if we have to choose one or the other. We could have gotten a lot more mileage out of a hail of missiles in the last event than having another score or two of powered armor jockeys, and frankly we probably don't want most of our guards in powered armor suits while they're on duty anyway, since they have to go inside buildings, talk to the public and our other employees, monitor cameras and other security apparatus, all things that would not be well-suited to a 7-foot tall mini-mech.
I'm also extremely annoyed that we managed to be jammed, despite being in a structure powered by a large Arc Reactor. The size and power that should have been needed to keep a building like that from calling for assistance should have been enough to raise alarms around the planet anyway, which means that our comm infrastructure is sorely lacking. In other words, I am updating my plan idea (again) to include the following:
And I agree that we probably shouldn't bother buying Legionaries. I do think, however, we'd be better served by building a few Tigers and missile/bunker drones, rather than powered armor, if we have to choose one or the other. We could have gotten a lot more mileage out of a hail of missiles in the last event than having another score or two of powered armor jockeys, and frankly we probably don't want most of our guards in powered armor suits while they're on duty anyway, since they have to go inside buildings, talk to the public and our other employees, monitor cameras and other security apparatus, all things that would not be well-suited to a 7-foot tall mini-mech.
I'm also extremely annoyed that we managed to be jammed, despite being in a structure powered by a large Arc Reactor. The size and power that should have been needed to keep a building like that from calling for assistance should have been enough to raise alarms around the planet anyway, which means that our comm infrastructure is sorely lacking. In other words, I am updating my plan idea (again) to include the following:
Last edited:
I suppose it would depend on if you wanted this to be a PI effort or too integrate it with larger/other e-sport works. I imagine there's an e-Olympics at least.
We are picking from a pool of literally millions. Given a total pool of 360 million and assuming we are picking those aged between 21, minimum age with a 3 year contract, and 40, life extension means they likely still have years of combat left in them, that gives about 45 million potential candidates.
The odds that we aren't picking the best of the best of the best is pretty low.
Furthermore I'd like to remind you that until now we have never had a training center and everyone we've hired has gone straight to guard work, which is basically what these guys would be doing anyway.
In fact as per the following post by @Hoyr
Running our ParSec guys through our academy does only two things:
1) Means we can hire people besides Ex-Marines since we have the facilities to train them.
2) Makes our PMC more "organized".
What the second one means I'm not sure, @Hoyr care to explain?, but I think that's more about the overall organization then our individual troops.
So I'd say they already come skilled enough to deploy. The only question is training them on our gear. Fortunately PI gear is incredibly user friendly and from what we've seen doesn't require much training. Especially since these guys, in my plan anyway, are only going out there in Legionaries so their training on Tigers/Drones/Whateverelse can wait.
I've updated my vote to include Liara's Treasure Hunt.
In part the below:
Your teams largely use SA Military derived methods, the academy also helps with developing you teams ability to use methods more directly targeted at your needs. And having you troops train and get used organizing on a larger level.
You can also train commanders for higher organizational levels (not fast).
Even just formalising the chain of command and providing a central agency that handles things like training, standards of conduct, rules of engagement and developing all of the aforementioned to best fit our needs would be a godsend. I've a feeling that right now the reason we've got such good security is because we've got very good troops with even better equipment, with the inefficiencies of a mostly informal chain of command and military focused training and rules of engagement compared to what we need covered on that basis.
Um, no, there's no way we're getting the best of the best, especially at the money we're offering. Now that I'm looking at the issue in a little more detail, we're going to have to raise the salary and benefits quite a bit:
This seems to be the most common sort of answer to "How much to PMCs make": around 70,000/yr for low-risk convoy duty, up to 225-250k/yr for high-risk duty to start, with especially skilled and/or well-trained contractors making 2, maybe 3 times that much.
We're paying 70k/yr plus benefits, and you seem to be under the impression that we're not even going to send them out with the best possible equipment for the job. That's not going to be getting us the best of the best; that's only going to get us average, above-average at best. Someone with N-school training is going to command twice that much in starting salary, so we both need to double our "merc team" benefits to 1,050k/quarter to start, with hazard pay bonuses for dangerous missions, and I really, really suggest that we include the best equipment we can produce for guys for whom we are picking up the tab on medical benefits and life insurance policies before we ever send them into the field.
Now back to timeframe. I don't think there's any way we can expect an HR department to hire 80 people, do thorough enough background checks on them to get security clearance, then give them enough training to be PMCs that we can count on not to embarrass us in less than three months. Sure, if we didn't care that much about our reputation, or collateral damage, like say the Blood Pack or Eclipse then sure, I could see a month being enough time to get someone from the recruiting office to the meat grinder, but being a PMC for a company that can't afford to tarnish its public reputation as much as Blackwater has in the real world (enough that they no longer call themselves Blackwater; they got "bought out" after that incident where a group of contractors panic-fired into a group of civilians in Iraq) is very different from being a soldier, and that's not something you're going to just pick up in a few weeks at a firing range.
On the other hand, what we're going to have our PMCs doing in this case is going to be remarkably like armed security guard work, as we're basically bodyguarding Liara and whoever/whatever she needs while she's on Intai'sei, so we can probably get away with an abbreviated training schedule for our existing, already-vetted, background-checked, and trained on our own weapon systems and tactics security guards. It's still going to be tight, but I'm pretty sure it can be done, and we'll likely be able to get enough (5-7%) of our guards to go for it if we effectively triple their current salary.
On-the-job training is a thing; in fact it's a thing that we'd be fools not to have, especially for security guards, and double-especially for security guards with whom we are constantly introducing new, never-before-seen technology. Our first group of ex-LEOs would have had guard training already when we hired them, but any new people that we hired would have to be trained before being trusted to do shift work; that's just common sense.
Just as a note N is SpecOps. B is infantry/marines. Elite troopers start at B4.
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Thats...kinda bullshit. I mean, the simple solution is just to raise what we are paying according to those numbers - but I think the idea that the "average/above-average" marine we would be hiring is going to act like the shittiest of Blue Sun or Blood Pack mercs is vastly exaggerating the situation.
- Location
- va
[X] Plan Sylvire
Yeah, that's what I said: people with special forces training and PMC experience make in the 3-500k range (eg 2-3 times as much as the "normal" 70-225K mercs). Someone like that is probably already employed by another, established PMC, or they're independent operators like Wrex; we're not even going to have the opportunity to hire people like that in an inaugural class, and if we do a full team of them is going to cost 3.15-4.2 million per quarter.
That's not what I'm saying at all, though I guess I did kind of confuse matters by bringing up the Blood Pack to begin with. What I'm saying is that we can't afford even one Blackwater-sized mistake, and one month of extra training, ex-Marine or not (note that all four of the people in that article are decorated ex-Army Sniper school grads or ex-Marines), just isn't going to get us there.
Last edited:
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
See...I don't see why it wouldn't be. We are talking about guards standing out around a dig in the middle of a desert on a planet that barely has 150k people on it - not guards in the middle of a heavily populated city in a war torn region suffering insurgency among civilians.
But even so, just increasing the salary (and presumably the quality of recruits) addresses that. I suppose it comes down to this:
not being true yet, I don't think. This job isn't gonna be any different from being an Alliance soldier - a whole bunch of standing around doing nothing, possibly interspersed by "Suddenly, Pirates!" though in this case the pirates would be "pirates".
Last edited:
Just to point out but at 600k per quarter and using the 1/3 goes to benefits you gave way back that comes out to 80k:
600,000cr per quarter * 4 quarters = 2,400,000cr per year
2,400,000cr / 20 people = 120,000cr per person per year
120,000cr * 2/3 = 80,000cr per person per year
I'd also like to point out that you were the one who put that number forwards. I have no issues changing it.
Going with these figures:
lets say 500,000cr per person per year in hard cash. That's 750,000cr total per person per year which means it is 15,000,000cr for the entire team for a year and 3,750,000 per quarter.
Voted update:
That adds an additional 78.75m to our expenses.
Other then that I'll just have to disagree with you. I don't think it's a serious, or really even noteworthy, risk.
May I ask why weapon mods? If we want weapons, we should spend on lasers, I think. Or finally start researching invisible man. I get the appeal and synergy with hyper-modularity, but I'm really not sure why we would want weapon mods at this time. Otherwise, I like your plan. Well, I like all of the plans, really.
EDIT: Also, about Cabiras. We should find a retired Asari admiral or someone similar ( a krogan from way before who led fleets against Rachni, or a turian general willing to work for someone other than the government; hell, even a succesful batarian pirate lord) with lots of experience with space combat, but out of public's eyes. Then we will give them the exercise of creating military doctrine based on Cabira-type ships. How they can be applied, etc.
Last edited: