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Department of Starship Design (Trek-ish)

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Mechanis said:
four couriscating green-white beams slashed through space, [snip] the fore heavy beams of the battlecruiser—so very different from the simpler mint-green spears of its secondary emitters
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Mechanis said:
the tiny gunships simply [snip] A single, stabbing blue-white beam lashed from the lead ship's port aft emitter
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Here is the hostile weapon fire we've seen so far. This is implying at least 3 different types. We know the weapons for each colour are a different sized emitter. If the colour change is a function of energy type or just size we can't say for certain. I'm assuming that they are different weapon types but we have exactly 0 proof.

We have also found some bits of different styles of energy weapons, my last loot post has the relevant quotes. Not definitive, but it does seem to support the idea there is more than one energy type.
 
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The Paths of Medusa : Part I (28)
  • Threadmarks
    • > Investigate 1A first
    As you speculated, 1A contains—in addition to the ruins of what appears to be an industrial complex of impressive size—a derelict example of the Anchorage encountered at 1C.
    Unfortunately, the reason why the station was abandoned is evident in the brightness of the nebula clouds here: something in this area of the nebula is releasing significant amounts of hard radiation as a side effect of the energy discharges that are blocking sub-space sensors and communications. With Polarized Hull Plating the Star Seeker—and her shuttles—will be able to turn aside this danger, but your teams will have to carefully limit their exposure nonetheless.
    [ ] Investigate quickly (Low Risk, standard reward)
    [ ] Investigate carefully (Moderate Risk, extra reward)
    [ ] Investigate as long as it takes (High Risk, greatest reward)

    Edit: if SV could please stop eating my Threadmarks that'd be great
    Mechanis threw 2 6-faced dice. Reason: Investigate, need 6+ Total: 9
    3 3 6 6
    Mechanis threw 2 6-faced dice. Reason: Investigate, need 7+ Total: 5
    1 1 4 4
    Mechanis threw 2 6-faced dice. Reason: Investigate, need 8+ Total: 10
    5 5 5 5
    Mechanis threw 3 6-faced dice. Total: 9
    2 2 1 1 6 6
    Mechanis threw 1 4-faced dice. Total: 2
    2 2
    Mechanis threw 2 6-faced dice. Total: 8
    6 6 2 2
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Investigate as long as it takes (High Risk, greatest reward)

    Because as much as this risks the crew, it is also the absolute best possible chance of retrieving something to make the risk worth it we will likely have.
     
    [X] Investigate as long as it takes (High Risk, greatest reward)

    Call me callous, but if the crew aren't completely against it- then we need to take risks to secure ourselves against both this threat and others out there. Or even understand how these people could fall so far- especially given how relevant the topic of interspecies civil war is to us.
     
    [X] Investigate as long as it takes (High Risk, greatest reward)
     
    The Paths of Medusa : Part I (29)
  • Threadmarks
    • > Investigate as long as it takes
    "Careful… careful… and we're in! Gods, what a mess!"
    "Shuttle Resh, respond. Damn it—Transporter room, acquire Shuttle Resh's crew and beam them to sickbay, they're over a bell past maximum exposure time and unresponsive."
    "Look at this place… the sheer size of those printers! Tyran, Y'liss, spread out, try to find the main computer."
    "That… is not a matter printer. It looks like one, but I worked on ours enough for that- R'Yan! Pack this whole room up! We'll sort out the grain on the ship, out of this rad-field!"
    "... And frankly captain, speaking as an engineer, I am both impressed and horrified by that station. It would have worked, before it was stripped for parts, but the amount of kludged together systems was… there were environment control computers bludgeoned into working as fire control, conduits that went from a single station grade high capacity cable to a bundle of ship grade medium capacity and back, and half the blasted parts are two centuries old or more—frankly, captain, did I ever manage to meet the people who managed to make this work, I don't know if I would demand to learn their secrets at gunpoint or throttle them for making a mockery of proper engineering."
    While the station (and surrounding wreckage) provide a reasonable trove of technical samples to look over, the most important thing it provides is a timeline. While the main computer was removed—with prybars and in a hurry, by the look of things—one of the surviving backups contained a complete docking log for the station—and by tracking the ships that launched without a corresponding docking, your analysts can get a pretty good idea how many ships the place built while it was still in use. In the case of this station, it was apparently brought online about fifty years ago¹, with an initial surge where it seems to have been building ships about as fast as it could, launching some fifty of those gunships and fourteen battlecruisers in only five years²; after which construction rapidly peters out—after that, in the time between then and its abandonment some sixteen years ago³, only three more battlecruisers and twelve of the gunships were produced.

    These logs also suggest a slow decline in ship numbers over the station's operational period, punctuated by sharp drops in traffic 23, 20, and 18 years ago⁴.
    Next is the relatively straightforward choice of visiting 2A and subsequently 3B to investigate the wreckage there, or proceeding to Booster B and exiting the area.
    [ ] Investigate what are probably wreckage fields at 2A & 3B
    [ ] Exit area now
    1: about 250 years ago, Terran time
    2: two and a half decades, Terran time
    3: 80 years previous, Terran time
    4: 115, 100, and 90 years prior by Terran measurements
    Note: yes, this does mean that it managed only 12 small ships and 3 large ones in 145 years, after the initial surge.
    Mechanis threw 1 3-faced dice. Total: 1
    1 1
    Mechanis threw 1 6-faced dice. Total: 2
    2 2
    Mechanis threw 1 4-faced dice. Total: 1
    1 1
    Mechanis threw 1 2-faced dice. Total: 1
    1 1
    Mechanis threw 2 6-faced dice. Total: 5
    2 2 3 3
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Wow. That suggests they retained significant industrial and technological capabilities some 750 terran years after the civil war hit the research station. To have so catastrophically declined over 250 years, and only fully abandoning this station 80 years ago shows a far less gradual decline and far more unstable circumstance for these people than previously implied.
     
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