I mentioned manned mechs in my post, too. I see no issue selling them as an industrial tool, but as a weapon they'd be terrible. Because of the joints you can't rely on armor, instead having to rely on shields that infantry can hard counter.
Why even bother trying to rely on armour for a mech anyway? Unless the mech is a walking howitzer or a walking missile silo or guardian laser array in the vein of say a madcat from battletech, its always going to be better to rely on speed anyway and a destroid doesn't look like as though it would be quite fast enough so might I offer this suggestion?
*-Re: modular frigates: I'm a little nervous that sticking the lasers in them at this point. I'm concerned it rather risks showing our hands early IMO; maybe we should stick with MACs, missiles, and drone/fighter carriers for now?
I suggested this a while ago, the consensus was no. Despite my arguments, like:
Modularity doesn't mean we actually have fewer when the Reapers come.
Its a sub optimum design for defensive engagements, such as protecting colonies.
But at the same time, someone's probably going to work out that if we can size a Gardian down to be fitted on a tank, we can do the same for a Frigate.
First time posting in the thread, so pardon me if I seem a bit out of line and out of touch with the spirit of the quest.
Why even bother trying to rely on armour for a mech anyway? Unless the mech is a walking howitzer or a walking missile silo or guardian laser array in the vein of say a madcat from battletech, its always going to be better to rely on speed anyway and a destroid doesn't look like as though it would be quite fast enough so might I offer this suggestion?
Ideally you wouldn't be, the the shields can take a significant amount of punishment. It's just that shields can be hard countered by infintry, and PI has already made a missile that mostly bypasses them.
So, I wanted to ask: do I continue with my cost estimation modeling? Is it in any way useful at all? I can improve the fit quite substantially (three times at least), but I want to know if it's actually useful at all.
I think the question here is whether or how to limit our actions. Right now, as far as I can tell, we're talking in terms of at least three things that need to be done:
I've been basing my posting on @UberJJK's plan and in this section he suggested describing expansion options on other planets.
Based on that though I need to generate ten or so extra paragraphs of text... I have a section where some contracts and stuff (four items), but the construction section could be summed up as, "here's a link to the document that details buildings , what do you want to do?".
Mind the production section is the same thing.
Do note that due to RL I don't have the time right now to do lots of writing. I've got a Dynamic Programming thing I've got to do, a presentation and a short essay all needing to be done this week so writing for ShepQuest... not happening so much.
So, I wanted to ask: do I continue with my cost estimation modeling? Is it in any way useful at all? I can improve the fit quite substantially (three times at least), but I want to know if it's actually useful at all.
Well we are pretty close to the must ship by date for a ship design package (aka when I post the update were you guys can build ships).
I do find it interesting in a mathematical sense quest wise... Having a better formula for scaling civilian ships and there 5Ly would be good. The current one is a hack I made to produce something okayish but it scales badly into the 3.75Ly range it would seem.
Civilian ships have a target value about 1/5000th of the warship value.
I'm not sure about the core costs so far we're pretty invested in those being expensive. Though I guess We could make reactors expensive. Make Arc-reactors even more OP though.
Did we have any plans to enter the civilian ship market on a large scale?
Repulsors and Arc Reactors allow us to make damn good freighters. And the modularity means we can turn a cargohauler into a passanger liner or a cruise ship.
Or a mining vessel.
While we are at that, we can also do aircars and normal planetary planes, although I'd licence those out.
When we start producing refineries and mining ships and the whole infrastructure behind that we basically start producing income that isn't money but still acts like it right? We won't be relying on money by that point but will still be using it for simplicity's sake.
I do find it interesting in a mathematical sense quest wise... Having a better formula for scaling civilian ships and there 5Ly would be good. The current one is a hack I made to produce something okayish but it scales badly into the 3.75Ly range it would seem.
Well, for everything non-eezo, I think it's actually relatively reasonable to use what they use in real life to estimate naval ship construction costs. I linked one of the documents I read about it before, but here's a new link (page 13). It's quite educational and makes sense (essentially, they separate the ship into several categories each of which scales a bit differently)
Civilian ships have a target value about 1/5000th of the warship value.
I'm not sure about the core costs so far we're pretty invested in those being expensive. Though I guess We could make reactors expensive. Make Arc-reactors even more OP though.
I could actually easily fit the cores being expensive. That's no problem at all, really. Just give me a lower boundary value. Essentially I can input some sort of a boundary into my fitting code to look only for parameter sets that fit into it. I'll run the fit with cost of eezo >= 0.1*cost of non eezo parts condition implemented tonight (0.1 is from the fighter's core costing 10 million while the fighter costs 100 million total). If you want a different fit (say, cost of eezo >= 10 cost of non eezo parts ) I could do it too, but give me some sort of a boundary.
I also used the costs of no-eezo parts produced by PI = 0.1 normal costs of no-eezo parts which I think arose from how you scaled total costs. Should I throw it out?
I really want to make this work, as it would neatly tie into physics part of the setting, and would allow nearly free scaling. Plus, I like to think that I am being helpful here.
It's a joke about how he must have ship construction/cost rules ready by the time we can start building ships. Transportation companies use a 'must ship by' date as a deadline for sending things that need to arrive on a certain day, as otherwise they won't get there in time.
It's a joke about how he must have ship construction/cost rules ready by the time we can start building ships. Transportation companies use a 'must ship by' date as a deadline for sending things that need to arrive on a certain day, as otherwise they won't get there in time.
Ah, ok, thanks. Also, I withdraw my previous comment: it's not that easy to implement "eezo core must cost at least X % of the ship" as it makes the code very slow (it's a very hard barrier to pass it turns out). Still, I should have some good fits by morning. Better ones at least.
When we start producing refineries and mining ships and the whole infrastructure behind that we basically start producing income that isn't money but still acts like it right? We won't be relying on money by that point but will still be using it for simplicity's sake.
I also used the costs of no-eezo parts produced by PI = 0.1 normal costs of no-eezo parts which I think arose from how you scaled total costs. Should I throw it out?
That's not what I had intended exactly. Originally I had just scaled from Scimitar fighter costs. And everyone said the numbers were to big. They had a point, so I shrugged and divided by 10. Fighters and frigates (not to mention larger ships) are not perfectly comparable after all. Which made things more reasonable cost wise. The effect though was for general ship building not PI in particular. Problem is that that made cores go from 5%(135m)-10%(Fighter) of cost to 50%(135m) of cost compared to 10%(Fighter) and... well obviously that makes things messy.
If some one wants to junk all the old data and rebuild things from canon up in a way that fits existing paradigms...
Ah, ok, thanks. Also, I withdraw my previous comment: it's not that easy to implement "eezo core must cost at least X % of the ship" as it makes the code very slow (it's a very hard barrier to pass it turns out). Still, I should have some good fits by morning. Better ones at least.
I suggested this a while ago, the consensus was no. Despite my arguments, like:
Modularity doesn't mean we actually have fewer when the Reapers come.
Its a sub optimum design for defensive engagements, such as protecting colonies.
But at the same time, someone's probably going to work out that if we can size a Gardian down to be fitted on a tank, we can do the same for a Frigate.
It's not the sizing down that's so frightening about our laser-frigates; it's the sizing up. See, the main reason GARDIANs are currently "short-range" only for starships is a combination of "low" power ("only" in the tens to low hundreds of megawatts of power) and low frequency, which means high beam spread. All of that begins to change with the addition of low/high gigawatt-range lasers and UV lasers*. Lasers suddenly go from knife-range to have a further effective range than the current industry-standard MACs.
*- Just realized we haven't picked up UV lasers yet, and we may be putting the cart before the horse. What is the effective range of a laser-frigate with low gigawatt-range, IR frequency lasers? Can we even do laser-frigates yet, keeping in mind that without variable wavelength tech our frequency selection will be terrible and we'll be lucky to deliver 5-10% of the weapon's rated power to the target?
*- Just realized we haven't picked up UV lasers yet, and we may be putting the cart before the horse. What is the effective range of a laser-frigate with low gigawatt-range, IR frequency lasers? Can we even do laser-frigates yet, keeping in mind that without variable wavelength tech our frequency selection will be terrible and we'll be lucky to deliver 5-10% of the weapon's rated power to the target?
I'm pretty sure you're fine I did the math with V (400nm) not UV (<400nm). It should be in the range of things you can do. Not sure where the 5-10% is coming from does the interplanetary and interstellar medium absorb IR that badly? I was pretty sure it didn't. Frequency selection in space generally effects spot size and target penetration for armor/ablated vapor.
But since you asked and I have charts (should migrate those to Google docs at some point)
My charts spit out:
16-25 thousand kilometers, depending on armor (Carbon<AB<Tungsten), 1.4-2.1m radius holes, 10cm boring per second of dwell time. 18GW laser, 5m radius lens , 700mn light.
29-44 thousand kilometers, depending on armor (Carbon<AB<Tungsten), 1.4-2.1m radius holes, 10cm boring per second of dwell time. 18GW laser, 5m radius lens , 400mn light.
Does not take into account ablation (less damage), vaporization shock (more damage), pulsing effects (more damage) and other "It's complicated" laser factors like material penetration (??? damage). Aspect ratio is not a primary issue for holes at this range. High performance lenses or mirrors are assumed.
If you want numbers for something else give me a power, lens size (or if it's lensless the aperture size) and a wavelength.
I'm pretty sure you're fine I did the math with V (400nm) not UV (<400nm). It should be in the range of things you can do. Not sure where the 5-10% is coming from does the interplanetary and interstellar medium absorb IR that badly? I was pretty sure it didn't. Frequency selection in space generally effects spot size and target penetration for armor/ablated vapor.
It's not that; it's that the specific material you're targeting is going to absorb or reflect energy differently depending on the frequency of incoming light. Variable wavelength lasers would give you the ability to "tune" your laser to prevent these sorts of losses; without it we're stuck with a weapon that may be a bad match for our target.
So first, no comments on my question about the construction section?
In sort it was do you want me to write text about possible expansion sites or is looking at the List of SA colonies a player wrote up and looking at the bottom of this: Human, enough?
Because the update is basically done if I don't need to do that.
It's not that; it's that the specific material you're targeting is going to absorb or reflect energy differently depending on the frequency of incoming light. Variable wavelength lasers would give you the ability to "tune" your laser to prevent these sorts of losses; without it we're stuck with a weapon that may be a bad match for our target.
I really can't claim to be an expert on the subject, but what few comments I have heard regarding the target's material's reflective qualities is that the energy of weaponized lasers dumped into the material is to high for this to matter. In addition, reflecting materials do absorb the incoming energy temporarily it just never gets past "skin depth" as long as the incoming energy is enough that the skin depth is vaporized before the refection can "finish" as it were it doesn't matter... I think.
In the case of thin reflective layer it would be burnt off quickly and cease to matter. For the case of more significant armoring I believe that the materials that one would gain the most advantage with (gold and aluminum for IR I think?) lose impressive amounts of heat capacity such that the reflectivity benefits (hard to find numbers) increase doesn't cancel out the reduced armoring. Of course I don't know enough about vapor pressure to make good observations here as the quick charts on wiki indicate that the melting temperature and the vapor temperature in space is pretty close so I should be using mostly just the melting point. If that is true Gold is ~31% of Tungsten's effectiveness Aluminum is ~21%. Relative to boring carbon armor ~14% Gold, 9.4% Aluminum. If I go to normal pressure boiling Tungsten becomes best heat armor and Gold is about ~42% of it's capacity and Aluminum is ~35%.
But that's all from a fool who knows enough to get in trouble, what the hell do I know?
Though if this is an issue for IR lasers than GARDIANs need to be more powerful and I'd up rate your lasers as well so I'm pretty sure everything would spit out the same numbers at me.
Maybe one or two recommendations from our political analyst guy but more than that is not necessary. Going to anhur will have to wait a turn though, which i hope everyone remembers.
Well... based on the Legionary having the shields of a Tank... x10-20 times the effect? Maybe? Not sure the power draw and cost changes but... IDK it should look like it's taking advantage of the additional power within reason of cost.
implies that other then shields being able to operate at 100% power* any increases in performance are going to linearly scale with cost. Doubling emitter density would double shield performance, because the impact would be spread out across twice as many emitters, but since you now have twice as many emitters they should cost twice as much. Similarly an emitter that is twice as good should cost, at least, twice as much.
*Things like the Legionary and Tiger get massive shield boosts because normal hardsuits run off batteries and regular IFVs can't mount powerful enough fusion reactors to meet the power demands of their shields.
Frigates do get that close to their targets though and use their GARDIANs as an attack weapon (Link to codex):
Ablative armor is principally dependent on thickness for combat effect and endurance. More is better.
I know that. My point was while it's a threat, that's why you have the stuff to begin with, it's not a significant enough one to be worth the lost mass. My reasoning being that fighters and frigates in close range tend to prefer Disruptor Torpedoes because they are far more deadly.
I know, it just makes me shake my head when I look at that. That said 800 main gun with 82 TW output! ME appears to be using fantasy numbers already. Between common super conductors and thermal conduits/capacitors:
And that's with our super fast MACs while the canon one would only be 3.6GW since it's one shot every two seconds.
That said all of those complaints are actually primarily directed at the system itself. the x8 on GARDIAN power is from the math I used indicating that as it stands the 100m ship can only power one turret at a time.
Probably just let us do our own thing for the most part. That big was because I was trying to let each option be it's own post and I needed something wordy to fill out the production/construction post so it wasn't just "Votes go here". With the combined "Results + Votes" approach it's not really needed.
Well, from the post it looks like we did do something non-trivial: we bought a 200-million credit GARDIAN laser turret, took it apart, and miniaturized it from something tens of meters tall to something that can fit on an IFV. To Revy that's relatively trivial, but to the rest of the galaxy that's about 15-20 years of technological development.
This is a very good point. Would neatly explain why no one else has laser tanks yet and why they won't for a number of years.
I think the question here is whether or how to limit our actions. Right now, as far as I can tell, we're talking in terms of at least three things that need to be done:
Reloading/rearming/updating the ParSec operation on Anhur.
Building a half dozen or so modular frigates as a proof of concept, which I suppose can be combined with 1 if we're creative about it.*
Readying our expansion on Demeter (although... @UberJJK should we really be going there, since we don't yet have multi-core eezo transports researched? I was sort of assuming we were going to get those sooner than we have).
*-Re: modular frigates: I'm a little nervous that sticking the lasers in them at this point. I'm concerned it rather risks showing our hands early IMO; maybe we should stick with MACs, missiles, and drone/fighter carriers for now?
What exactly are you nervous about with laser frigates?
Is there any reason why we'd really need multi-core eezo transports before going to Demeter? It has seven cities so it's presumably pretty well connected with Earth via transports.
Mainly that we don't have Flawless BB yet. Everyone's going to want gigawatt lasers, and unlike our previous products we're going to be trying to keep these exclusively in-house, with the possible exception of an IR-frequency mining laser version that we might patent and sell rights to for purposes of benefiting the galactic economy. I'd be much happier if a production model gigawatt laser without Flawless BB protection never exists; that way we don't have to constantly worry about everyone from the Shadow Broker to Aria to all of the Specters trying to steal it.
Is there any reason why we'd really need multi-core eezo transports before going to Demeter? It has seven cities so it's presumably pretty well connected with Earth via transports.
Well connected in terms of being in easy range for resupply, yes. Well connected in terms of being able to get products from it to the rest of the Alliance/galaxy in a timely manner? Well, that's up to @Hoyr, but I suspect it might not be. The whole point of us going to Demeter is that it should be relatively free of outside influence, and thus easier to secure; that sort of implies that it's a bit of a backwater compared to worlds with more direct links to primary/secondary relays.
Mainly that we don't have Flawless BB yet. Everyone's going to want gigawatt lasers, and unlike our previous products we're going to be trying to keep these exclusively in-house, with the possible exception of an IR-frequency mining laser version that we might patent and sell rights to for purposes of benefiting the galactic economy. I'd be much happier if a production model gigawatt laser without Flawless BB protection never exists; that way we don't have to constantly worry about everyone from the Shadow Broker to Aria to all of the Specters trying to steal it.
If I recall correctly we are suppose to be finishing up Flawless BB this quarter right? I also remember mention that all PI's gear is automatically upgraded to our highest level of Blackboxing, can you confirm @Hoyr ?
So by the time anyone even tries to steal them they'd already be under Flawless BB protection.
Well connected in terms of being in easy range for resupply, yes. Well connected in terms of being able to get products from it to the rest of the Alliance/galaxy in a timely manner? Well, that's up to @Hoyr, but I suspect it might not be. The whole point of us going to Demeter is that it should be relatively free of outside influence, and thus easier to secure; that sort of implies that it's a bit of a backwater compared to worlds with more direct links to primary/secondary relays.
Does not take into account ablation (less damage), vaporization shock (more damage), pulsing effects (more damage) and other "It's complicated" laser factors like material penetration (??? damage). Aspect ratio is not a primary issue for holes at this range. High performance lenses or mirrors are assumed.
Given that the primary damage mechanism for high power lasers and virtualy all pulsed lasers is impulsive shock, I would suggest you increase the bore rate by a least a factor of x100 and perhaps as much as x500 when estimating how destructive our lasers are.
This is due to how destructive high peak power can be, against human scale targets you literaly get about a thousand fold reduction in energy on target required between pulsed and countinous wave lasers for a given amount of damage. Higher energy levels will reduce the gap, but until you reach the point that the CW laser is causing continous impulsive shock effects (which is rather hard to model and require a LOT of energy) there will be a major effectiveness increase just from a pulsed beam.
EDIT:
On consideration it would probably be best to model a pulsed beam as a series of explosions in contact with the target. Decide the pulse rate, probably on the order of a nanosecond pulse groups seperated by millisecond gaps, work out the energy per pulse and then just treat it as explosions applied directly to the target.
If I recall correctly we are suppose to be finishing up Flawless BB this quarter right? I also remember mention that all PI's gear is automatically upgraded to our highest level of Blackboxing, can you confirm @Hoyr ?
So by the time anyone even tries to steal them they'd already be under Flawless BB protection.
In that case which planet do you suggest expanding to?
I'd be a bit surprised if that upgrade applied to existing products. The underlying product designs, sure, but the actual objects that we physically produced? Seems a little farfetched. Anyway, a missile/drone carrier frigate is still a brand new concept itself, so it's not like we wouldn't still be innovating by deploying those by themselves for now.
As for expansion options, I'm thinking Bekenstein. We need to increase our exposure to the Citadel market, especially if you want to get in with the Hanar and their fleet upgrade plans, and that's the gateway. @Hoyr, how many cities are there on Bekenstein, and are there any special circumstances to building there (higher operating costs etc) given that it's a rather different planet compared to the other SA-related colony worlds?
Ideally you wouldn't be, the the shields can take a significant amount of punishment. It's just that shields can be hard countered by infintry, and PI has already made a missile that mostly bypasses them.
True that. Though I do wonder what the effective range of those missiles are in the first place?
Anyway, the missile is pretty damn deadly to anything it hits however it has to actually hit in the first place. lasers though are pretty much an assured hit if you're out in the open and it has line of sight on you. The suggestion was kind of more to deal with the future problem that laser armed tanks would represent to air cover. After all, who would expect the air cover to take cover behind a building and shoot from behind it?
implies that other then shields being able to operate at 100% power* any increases in performance are going to linearly scale with cost. Doubling emitter density would double shield performance, because the impact would be spread out across twice as many emitters, but since you now have twice as many emitters they should cost twice as much. Similarly an emitter that is twice as good should cost, at least, twice as much.
I'm talking mostly about an effect similar to this:
The Cybaen is an asari cruiser-class warship. A mix-up during the cruiser's construction left it with an unusually large drive core and engineers redesigned the ship around the excessive power source. The Cybaen's unusually robust engines provide enough energy to generate kinetic barriers normally reserved for dreadnoughts.
For items your companies own I think I let it happen automatically as part of the maintenance. So it'd be on a one quarter delay technically if it ever came up.
Sold stuff is at the level you had when you sold it.
New stuff is made at the level you have when you make it.
Given that the primary damage mechanism for high power lasers and virtualy all pulsed lasers is impulsive shock, I would suggest you increase the bore rate by a least a factor of x100 and perhaps as much as x500 when estimating how destructive our lasers are.
As you note its better to think in terms of explosions. But its even better to think of the effect as the armor plate itself exploding as the energy is dumped into the plate. Plate shatters and explodes, surrounding plates take damage and the next layer in takes damage to.
Impulse shock from pulsing depends on rapid pulse rates and the material (needs to be faster than the speed of sound in the material or something like that IIRC), idea behind pulsing in the first place is to counter ablative effects by letting the vapor clear.
Okay than update incoming after I reread the thing.
Rain (Project Results and Production & Construction) 2174-Q2
Project Results: Peak Human Trials Finished: [X] Panacea for all! Work with Sirta and their developing network of clinics to spread the benefits of this technology far and wide, (-11.3 Billion Credits)
--[X] Contact the governments - some countries offer free healthcare, and might subsidize the project for their citizens.
--[X] Anyone willing to can pay what they can to help maintain treatment centers. Work with your PR to encourage donations
"Beginning today, humanity has eliminated some of the greatest threats to its health. All that's left are old age, infectious disease, and gross trauma. Even those are largely mitigated by older technology or further mitigated by the Perficere project..."
There have been a lot of speeches. Also a lot of donations. Within five years the technology should be available to effectively everyone. A year after that everyone that needs it will most likely have used it. Assuming they're in their right minds.
Of particular note is a large investment by the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. In addition to paying for augmenting their own troops and using the technology for medical treatments, they have added money to the Sirta fund to promote the technology's deployment. Humanity's next group of soldiers should be the best they can be in body; their minds and skills will be up to their trainers.
[X] Hire Jeff, elite test pilot. 250K/quarter.
You hire Jeff Moreau. He's a very good pilot. Jeff quickly gets to work testing PI's flying equipment.
Hyper Modularity Support: [X] For free, develop builder VI and maintain database of verified parts. (-200 million credits/quarter)
"Hello, I'm Hades Exit and this is a Let's Try of MBS VI. Or Modular Building Support VI." a British voice says as a screen shows MBS VI's main screen, "Which is a silly name for a game. Which would make sense as it's not technically a game. MBS VI is a product released by PI to support the Modular Building craze they have kicked off."
"It's a lot like several other building game products, save for two key facts: it uses 100% real physics, and anything you build using the the parts list that is pre-installed you could actually go out and make using the modular parts PI and other companies have developed. The list will auto-update as new parts are verified by PI. All of this is free and available on the downloads section of PI's extranet site"
"Fortunately for us the mod community has already put up some "outline parts", that is parts that can't be printed but can be used in simulations, which allow us to install weapons on our constructs. So I'm going to see if I can put together a warship. Maybe a corvette to start with?"
ParSec Intelligence: [X] Green light the project, gain the ability to hire and deploy agents and establish Intel networks. (-768 Million to start up, -35 million quarterly upkeep)
You order the construction of facilities and the hiring of personal to support a spy agency. By next quarter you should be able to hire agents to do spy missions and establish information networks around the galaxy.
Super-Biotics Girl: [X] We could send some one to talk to the girl. (Write in who)
-[X] Rahna. Her experience in the Alliances L2 implant program, while nowhere near as close to as bad as the girl has suffered, can let her emphasize more easily with the girl.
-[X] Hire some psychologists for the task, to advice people you send in
-[X] Some aliens on the team would be good too. A krogan she might relate to, both due to her violent nature and their history of being subjects to manipulation as a species. An asari might also elicit a positive response, especially a trained one
-[X] A group of Leginoary-armored soldiers as backup. They won't be making contact with the girl, but will be backing up the main team
-[X] See if you can find a feline uplift willing and qualified to talk to the girl. They are rare and reclusive, but you might be able to find one.
-[X] The team going in will have the following agenda:
--[X] Offer of sanctuary, protection, help from PI. And help in finding who did it to her.
--[X] If she declines, free ticket first class to either Earth, Thessia or and other respectable well-developed world in Citadel space
--[X] Giving her your contact number
It started with a mess of action and money thrown around and ends here with you and a government case worker sitting in a conference room. You spend a lot of time these days in those don't you? It this the consequence of being a successful business person?
Everything went nearly perfectly, Aria had no issue with us being on Omega as long as they followed the cardinal rule of Omega, "Don't fuck with Aria." The local groups were disinclined to fuck with a team of Legionaries. The girl going by "Jack" likes cats and is convinced that her biotic cat construct lives in her amp. Once she was told that the team was from the people who had made the amp, it was easy to convince to come with the team so PI could check to make sure the amp was working okay in light of the modifications. Which leads ultimately to you giving a presentation to a government case worker from Social Services.
"Okay so let's get the basics out of the way." you begin your presentation, "DNA testing shows that 'Jack' is Jaclyn Wendell. She was born on Eden Prime in 2161 and is listed as having died on 2165 due to complications from prenatal eezo exposure, obviously untrue. Mother is listed as dead from suicide two years later. Her father is an alcoholic laborer on Eden Prime."
"Obviously neither of them is a good option here." The woman says.
"Yes. To make matters worse, Jack is for all intents an purposes a child soldier. One that can never be disarmed. The hardening on the Magi makes electronic warfare impossible, Jack shields herself and her neck in particular subconsciously, the amp has some add-on dark energy reactor that'll keep running long after Jack is dead, the amp has been partly grafted to Jack, making removal require surgery, and for additional reasons including ethical, moral and legal reasons I would consider attempting to remove the amp a criminal act." you pause to make sure the case worker has understood the severity of the situation.
"That isn't the best positions to be raising a child from, much less one with Jack's history." The case worker observes, her voice showing how out of her depth she is.
"Unfortunately the only real option for dealing with Jack is diplomacy." you state.
"Which is complicated by the lack of social bonds she has." the woman observes with a frown.
"As far as I can tell there are only two major things Jack will respond to: food and other survival needs and her amp and/or cat. On of Aria's agents bribed Jack to kill a group of people that were causing trouble with food. We got Jack to visit because we made the amp and pointed out that the modifications might have damage it. On the flip side Jack considers violence a valid and effective solution to many problems. She has had some friendly social contact at PI though so that's good. This is all made even more complicated by something I'll get to in a moment."
"Not a strong base to work from but it's better than nothing. I don't think there will be many good options for Jack as it stands." the case worker says.
You nod, "Probably not. To make matters more interesting Jack is pretty solidly in the transhuman category." You pull up a hologram of Jack. "Let's start with her 'cat'. It's name is Indigo. Upon meeting it four things become apparent. One, it is not a cat. It's a shaped mass of biotic energy. Two, it can talk. Yes talk, it's weird. Three it's sapient. That's wierder. Four it evaluates the world in relation to Jack. Things that are friendly to Jack are good, hostile are bad and otherwise don't matter. For good or ill it's the more reasonable of the two and Jack listens to Indigo, usually."
The blanks stare you get manages to perfectly communicate the poor woman's bafflement at your description.
"If that wasn't odd enough the explanation for this all is even better. Jack and Indigo while to separate people are for all intents and purposes the same being. The Magi amp has a high powered VI in it. Thanks to the conditions Jack was under combined with her own mentality the VI has partially integrated with her nervous function." you tap the hologram displaying Jack and highlight her nervous system and the points where the VI is integrated. "Thanks to the VI safeties this should have been an oddity where Jack's amp worked to support her nervous system. There might have been some performance effects good or bad but that's it."
"The final piece is this," you say tapping the hologram again, "What I've just added is an overlay of Jack's eezo nodes and the dark energy usage in her body. Slowing it down to a more observable speed... we can observe the dark energy acting as a signaling system interacting with the Jack's nervous system and the VI. The VI created this as a bypass to the restrictions and this created Indigo a secondary co-operational personality."
"That brings up, two, no three questions. Firstly is Indigo an AI?" the woman asks.
"No thankfully. Thanks to the Quarians and Salarians the effect here is not considered an AI, it's 'VI assisted personality augment' according to the legal department. Which is good getting rid of Indigo would case Jack a great deal of physical harm if not kill her as they operate on the same set of hardware. Mind the biotic manifestation can be destroyed all you want. It'll just come right back."
"That's good I suppose. From your descriptions Jack is using her biotic powers continuously, as I understand it that has two consequences: she needs to eat a lot and she will have continuous issues with static discharge. Are those issues?"
You can appreciate that this woman did some research on biotics, "Both are Jack needs to eat a lot. I think we had her at 5,500 Calories per day, a large portion of that as energy drinks. Static discharges is an issue fortunately it's small, constant and annoying, not large, uncommon and life-threatening."
"Is there anything else?" she asks dreading the answer.
"Other than her shear lethality if she chooses to use violence? I assume you saw the video and the others that followed it. Those videos get the point across well enough. But that covers what we know."
"Ah, well then. I suppose Social Services has quite a project ahead of itself. We don't have anyone equipped to deal with this..." she pauses and smiles at you, "Have you considered adopting or acting as a foster parent?"
Jack and her 'cat' Indigo are currently in PI medical custody until some one can figure out what to do with them.
-2 Million, Jack Retrieval Mission
[X] PR Response: Condemn human experimentation and offer the public the best proof we can offer that it wasn't us. (-200 million)
--[X] You helped L2 victims. Ask them to talk on your behalf
Public opinion is the oddest thing. For all the speeches, testimony and good will you have generated the thing that affects the public the most is the line from a talk show, "It can't be a PI weapons project. It's not powered by an arc-reactor." You weep for the collective intelligence of the galaxy even if it is true.
[X] Investigation: Which amp is that? Can we find anything about the girl's history? How did she get to Omega. Etc. (Feel free to add questions you consider critical in a subvote, -320 million)
You can with minimal effort say that the amp in question is one of seven amps that belong to assorted people that have dropped off the grid after getting the amp. From their backgrounds this isn't particularly suspicious. Five of them lived off the grid before getting their amps replaced and have probably gone back to doing just that. Two others have gone out to explore the galaxy and have been out of contact. From there it's hard to tell, three of those people you found. The others you can't get in contact with, but that could be for completely benign reasons.
Of course Jack coming in makes it all simpler. The amp and implant were sold to Gloria Dittmar an L2 biotic who had "gone off to explore the galaxy". Gloria hasn't been seen since.
Jack's history is as simple as a DNA look up and asking her for what she knows, though most of her past is unpleasant and she would really rather not talk about it.
Unfortunately Jack has no clue which ship she got to Omega on. It was some sort of cargo ship which she commandeered by walking on to it and threatening to kill everyone on board. The planet she was on before was "covered in lots of plants". Anyone that knows more either isn't talking or is dead.
Where the other things you wanted to know? I'll answer them if it's thing you could find.
Only billing you 4 million for now.
Some Other Project: [X] Invite Misaki Suzuhara to Paragon Industries for a tour of our ANI/ANI gaming development facilities as well as an offer to get the Peak Human package straight from the supplier, handled by the best doctors in the SA.
Walking, Misaki thought, is strange. She had walked before her infection and she'd "walked" as Hikaru, but personal mobility was alien to her. Some might have considered lying there for the treatment boring, but it wasn't that much different from what she normally did. Besides she still had Hikaru and that helped.
"You're up!" Kasumi cheered tugging on her arm, "Come on we have to go, before Jack eats all the snacks I liberated from the snack closet!"
"Liberated? Don't you mean stole?" Misaki asked.
"Liberated, stole, same thing. Now come on we have movies to watch, games to play, snacks to eat and now you can join in on the eating of snacks!" Kasumi said as she pulled Misaki along.
"If there are any left." Misaki said. Of course making strange new friends made everything unboring.
Construction & Production: Guaranteed Budget: 115.086 Billion Credits Free Production: 1,501,131 Production exchange rate: 260,000 Credits/Production Max Budget: 427.321 Billion Credits
Contracts: Contracts are a good way to make friends, politic around or see if you can get even better profit margins. Below are some selected ones, but you can suggest your own if you want.
CHA: The Systems Alliance Navy called a conference and requested that CHA double it's Gladii production, which require us to sell them more arc-reactors. The Systems Alliance Navy also wants the Gladii to have the following modifications:
Warp Barriers
Repulsors
Arcane Blur Plating
Mod-capable MACs
All of which are PI technologies. We could license some or all of that to CHA. In addition, the SA would like upgrade kits for the 3,000 fighters it has bought so far. It looks like it'd cost about 85 million and 339 production per kit. PI's profit on that is of course up for discussion. [ ] All in house. CHA requires 1,000 kits per quarter and 5,000 arc-reactors per quarter as well as a backlog of 1,000 kits and 15,000 arc-reactors for the SA, in the next year or two. (Warning: Requires > 22% of current free production!)
[ ] License all non-arc-reactor and repulsor technologies. CHA needs 12,000 repulsor units 5,000 arc-reactors per quarter. Profit from CHA Gladius sales up to 9,474,800 per unit, 1000 units per quarter. CHA also needs 9,000 repulsors and 15,000 arc-reactors for the upgrade kits. You will receive 3,400,000 credits per kit, 3,000 kits total.
[ ] We can only double production. CHA needs 2,000 arc-reactors per quarter and sells 1,000 fighters per quarter.
[ ] We can't do that... because... reasons.
[ ] Something Else (Write-in)
GM's Note: So the listing for the Gladius-C had the warp barriers cost stacking with the arcane blur cost... and that isn't right at all. So I fixed it to only adding those costs. Enjoy your extra 434 million credits. Also I'm listing the arc-reactor and repulsor requirements here and further in terms of the standard 0.3 production unit for simplicity, the scale is linear so it's all good.
HK: HK is requesting an increase in arc-reactors to produce more Legionaries. They would also like to produce the MK 1.75b or something closer to it. [ ] Sure, we can quadruple our output (100,000 arc-reactors per quarter at 120%) and sell 400,000 repulsor units @ 250% as part of the MK 1.75b. But we want 75,000 per suit commission. (Warning: in total consumes ~10% of current free production!)
[ ] We can quadruple our output (100,000 arc-reactors per quarter at 120%)
[ ] Sorry, can't do that... because... reasons
[ ] Something Else (Write-in)
Missiles and Block Upgrades: We were looking into outsourcing/licensing these. [ ] License Missiles
-[ ] To Earth based companies (4 billion/quarter)
-[ ] To Colony Based companies (2 billion/quarter)
[ ] License Block Upgrades
-[ ] To Earth based companies (15 billion/quarter, requires contract for 15,000 arc-reactors and 85,000 repulsors/quarter)
-[ ] To Colony Based companies (4 billion/quarter, requires contract for 4,000 arc-reactors and 22,700 repulsors/quarter)
Ships: We can build ships now. So, let's see about selling some. [ ] Talk to the SA (They would like cheap but effective ships in bulk)
-[ ] Offer what? (write-in)
[ ] Talk to the Hanar (They would like pretty much every type of ship)
-[ ] Offer what? (write-in)
[ ] Talk to the Someone else (Who knows what they want)
-[ ] Offer what? (write-in)
Internal Production: We can also build things for PI or ParSec use. (See the product details page of the Business Details Document Version 8 (Google doc)) [ ] Make what? (Write-in plans please! Breaking them down would be nice.)
Hiring: Equipment needs employees to use it. [ ] Hire General Employees (Pilots, Squads, Crew, etc)
-[ ] Who?
[ ] Search for Specific/Talented Employees
-[ ] For what positions or with what skills?
Construction: We can build many things. (See General Information tab of Business Details Document Version 8 (Google doc)) We have finished the Lab II on Elysium and should begin building a Lab III there. Additional space factories would probably be good idea if we can afford them. [ ] Build what? (Write-in plans please! Breaking them down would be nice.)
-----
GM's Notes: So yeah one of the two technical portions... I think the votes other than the what do you want to build and what do you want to make parts are not to big that they'll crash anything save for the two items I slapped warnings on. If you're not into the technical stuff vote for the stuff you do feel comfortable voting on.
CHA: [ ] All in house. CHA requires 1,000 kits per quarter and 5,000 arc-reactors per quarter as well as a backlog of 1,000 kits and 15,000 arc-reactors for the SA, in the next year or two. (Warning: Requires > 22% of current free production!)
[ ] License all non-arc-reactor and repulsor technologies. CHA needs 12,000 repulsor units 5,000 arc-reactors per quarter. Profit from CHA Gladius sales up to 9,474,800 per unit, 1000 units per quarter. CHA also needs 9,000 repulsors and 15,000 arc-reactors for the upgrade kits. You will receive 3,400,000 credits per kit, 3,000 kits total.
[ ] We can only double production. CHA needs 2,000 arc-reactors per quarter and sells 1,000 fighters per quarter.
[ ] We can't do that... because... reasons.
[ ] Something Else (Write-in)
HK: [ ] Sure, we can quadruple our output (100,000 arc-reactors per quarter at 120%) and sell 400,000 repulsor units @ 250% as part of the MK 1.75b. But we want 75,000 per suit commission. (Warning: in total consumes ~10% of current free production!)
[ ] We can quadruple our output (100,000 arc-reactors per quarter at 120%)
[ ] Sorry can't do that... because... reasons
[ ] Something Else (Write-in)
Missiles and Block Upgrades: [ ] License Missiles
-[ ] To Earth based companies (4 billion/quarter)
-[ ] To Colony Based companies (2 billion/quarter)
[ ] License Block Upgrades
-[ ] To Earth based companies (15 billion/quarter, requires contract for 15,000 arc-reactors and 85,000 repulsors/quarter)
-[ ] To Colony Based companies (4 billion/quarter, requires contract for 4,000 arc-reactors and 22,700 repulsors/quarter)
Ships: [ ] Talk to the SA (They would like cheap but effective ships in bulk)
-[ ] Offer what? (write-in)
[ ] Talk to the Hanar (They would like pretty much every type of ship)
-[ ] Offer what? (write-in)
[ ] Talk to the Someone else (Who knows what they want)
-[ ] Offer what? (write-in)
Internal Production: [ ] Make what? (Write-in plans please! Breaking them down would be nice.)
Hiring:
[ ] Hire General Employees (Pilots, Squads, Crew, etc)
-[ ] Who?
[ ] Search for Specific/Talented Employees
-[ ] For what positions or with what skills?
Construction: [ ] Build what? (Write-in plans please! Breaking them down would be nice.)
