The debate over power supply was surprisingly vicious. There were yelling matches in boardrooms and several tense lunches before a team-wide vote settled the matter.
The fuel cell production line would be built, and would be Musabayev's first large infrastructure project. The Baikonur facility would expand significantly over the first half of 2111, and a land purchase in Kazakhstan's upcoming L2 colonies would ensure a spaceborne facility by the end of the decade.
But for now, there was a vessel to complete. Abilkhan was taking shape in truth: Main thrusters and docking interfaces had been designed with little issue, and there was high hopes that you could show off a testbed at the Delhi Aerospace Expo by year's end. The primary obstacle between you and a functional prototype is one you are uniquely qualified to comment on.
The subject of arms.
When you'd come on board, arms had been an uncontroversial subject. Abilkhan would launch with two lightweight arms and a pair of semi-articulated maneuvering thrusters, mapping to the pilots arms and legs respectively.
Then Team Three began testing the neuro-rig and the possibilities expanded exponentially.
With a few days of training, a pilot could learn to manipulate a second set of arms instead of leg-like thrusters. The interference issues you'd run into running multiple rigged pilots in the same vehicle were easy to solve once you had an actual budget and other minds on the problem. While you hadn't been able to make it work yet, you'd even theorized alternate 'bodyplans' for the vehicle, relying on neuroplasticity and clever engineering to make a three-armed rig work.
Unfortunately, you didn't have months or years to explore potential solutions. Abilkhan needed a neuro-rig demonstration for customers in eight months, which means you needed to choose a bodyplan now.
Two and four armed setups were straightforward. They only mandated one pilot and included a fairly simple trade of weight for strength and versatility, albeit anything besides a two-armed setup would require some expensive practical testing before your engineers would sign off on it.
The three armed setup was the most efficient setup you'd found, but you didn't actually know if it would be possible or prove an expensive failure that would require last minute redesigns.
More exciting were the six and eight armed options. A six armed Abilkhan would be a larger vehicle, mandating a minimum crew of two, but the gains in utility would be significant. An Octopodal approach was only possible due to the weight savings of your fuel cells, but would be unmatched in terms of sheer functionality.
With the rethinking on arm layout comes a rethinking of arm design. Lightweight arms are cheap and efficient, yes, but they do come with load limits on any given limb. Ruggedized arms would be a significant boost in weight, but would also be better suited to a wide variety of unplanned tasks at no real cost to the project's budget. They'd also save customers some long-term maintenance costs, albeit with a modest boost to the up front price tag.
There is, however, another option. Corporate espionage.
Gabon Aerotech has developed a fully water-independent electronically activated polymer, an artificial muscle breakthrough more than a century in the making. Unfortunately, they're incredibly tight lipped on the development and refusing to share, especially with a company made of borderline anarchists.
More fortunately, you've got a guy on the inside who can leak the designs to you.
Dry EAP would give you all the benefits of reinforced arm structure with the weight of a barebones design. And at a reasonable cost, too. There's just the minor potentiality of legal issues and attending bad PR if it gets out.
Arm Layout
Current Budget: 11
[ ] Two Arms. (+1 Payload, +2 Utility, +1 Weight. 1 Budget)
[ ] Three Arms. (+2 Payload, +4 Utility, +2 Weight. 2 Budget. 1 Hazard.)
[ ] Four Arms. (+2 Payload, +4 Utility, +2 Weight. 4 Budget.)
[ ] Six Arms (+3 Payload, +7 Utility, +4 Weight. 5 Budget. Mandates 2+ Crew)
[ ] Eight Arms. (+4 Payload, +10 Utility, +6 Weight, 5 Budget. Mandates 2+ Crew)
Arm Design
[ ] Lightweight Arms. (-1 Payload, -1 Weight. 0 Budget.)
[ ] Rugged Arms. (+1 Utility, +1 Weight. 0 Budget.)
[ ] Dry EAP Arms. (+1 Payload, +1 Utility, -1 Weight. 2 Budget. 2 Hazard.)
Hazard
Hazard represents risks of all sorts taken during the development process. This can represent safety compromises to the end user, illegal activity, gambles on untested technology, public relations catastrophes, and more. Hazard will not always tell you the cause of the hazard, and you may not know that a hazard option is hazardous in character, however any option that will cause hazard will be labelled appropriately.
At the mid and endpoints of a project, your hazard will be rolled to see if it generated any complications. Because you work for Musabayev, Hazards that your coworkers disapprove of will have increased effect.
Hazard will not end the quest, but can greatly alter its trajectory.
Current Design
Payload: 1
Utility: 0
Weight: 1
Maintenance: 2
Unit Cost: Medium
Hazard: 0