That list on the worm thread was also full of games with short descriptions (most of which I haven't played sadly).
Faith in Superior Firepower [Planetary Annihilation Multicross SI]
- Thread starter Faith
- Start date
That list on the worm thread was also full of games with short descriptions (most of which I haven't played sadly).
Got more from my wish list.
- Space Empires IV (possibly all of them)
- X3: Terran Conflict (or rather the whole X universe)
- Nexus - The Jupiter Incident (as a whole as well)
- Deus Ex (all as different universes)
- Beyond Good and Evil
- Crysis
Also I have a way of getting lots of tech out of FTL, spray some nanites on the stations and have them build a fabricator in a hidden away place to produce more, then design a hidden variant of fabricator and build them in the docking bays so that they spray some onto the ships which then build another hidden fabricator or two on/in the ship that spray some nanites on any stations they dock with, add infinitum.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
...You are essentially suggesting that Faith should Bubonic Plague her way to better technology.
A techno version of the Bubonic Plague, yes lets go with that.
That's how I would act anyway, then you would have fabricators in place if you ever need an army anywhere.
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Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
It's certainly better than a number of other ideas I've had, and that was the simile that came to mind.
Oh, fair enough, to be honest I would redesign all my units to have at least weak fabricators that could spit out nanites for this very reason.
37 - Shoplift
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
37 - Shoplift
I was still fuming as I wandered throughout J Deck's market stalls, though I tried not to show it.
It was just appalling to me that anyone could consider the United Humanity Laws as anything close to fair or morally and ethically acceptable, and yet apparently at least some people did. Enough that people were able to actually implement them. Across an entire race.
God, humans are such douche bags.
At least the markets gave me something interesting to look at whilst I waited for my fleet of Trackers to finish building.
Namely, cool technology everywhere.
Well, technology in general everywhere. Some cool technology.
There was a salesman advertising a Weapon Pre-Igniter module and a Defence Scrambler module, each for sixty tonnes of scrap.
Using a tonne of scrap as a unit of currency seemed... flawed, for a number of reasons, but apparently it worked. Or something. Whilst I took a closer look at the two horse-sized lumps of complex machinery, the salesman began a long winded rant about their features - one that fell upon deaf ears. The Hypertech optics I had standing in for eyes could tell me more about the devices than any Vince Offer knockoff, and faster, too.
The Weapon Pre-Igniter was nothing interesting to me. It was basically just a capacitor that drained the exotic energies created by an FTL jump to charge the weapon systems as soon as the ship exited FTL. My ships didn't have charge times even close to those of the FTLverse ships, and the one weapon that did have a charge time long enough for it to be worth it - the LiRoS, - was probably too big to be effected by the presumably relatively small amount of power.
That said, it was power harnessed from the ambient exotic energies of faster-than-light travel, and that had its own implications.
The Defence Scrambler, on the other hand, was far more useful to me, and also far simpler in construction. It basically targeted enemy Defence Drones and fed them so much white noise that they didn't know what to shoot at. Scaled up and improved with Progenitor Bullshit, it could potentially serve as a form of jamming device. It was simple enough in concept that I was surprised that the Progenitors didn't have them already - but then, Progenitor computers were probably bullshit enough that they wouldn't be effected in the first place.
Also, the Progenitors had apparently never bothered with energy shields, either, so there was clearly some precedent for forgoing certain technological paths for whatever reason.
I ran my hand along the outer casing of the Defence Scrambler, drawing lines in the dust whilst the MicroFabricator in the NeoAvatar's hand sending a small trickle of nanobots into the device. I repeated the process with the Weapon Pre-Igniter, if only because I wanted to find out how to harness FTL energy, and then thanked the fast-talking salesman for his time, told him I wasn't interested, and left.
He seemed a little disappointed, but when I glanced over my shoulder a couple of seconds later, I saw him chatting animatedly with a pair of... Mantis? Huh. They were short - shorter than me, even, which made for an interesting change. The two bugs had dark green chitin plates, covered in what looked like some form of leather armour.
Well, I guess the game was wrong. Not every non-human walked around naked.
And let me tell you, that was a relief.
I stepped around a corner, still keeping my eyes out, when I saw it.
It was a thing of beauty. Two Engi stood next to it, their green eyes widening and narrowing as they looked out amongst the crowd. Small plates atop their head - on their 'brow', as it were, - seemed to slope up and down, almost a pale mockery of human eyebrows. In a way, it almost reminded me of the Geth.
One of them met my eyes, and tilted his head. Obviously he didn't appreciate my staring.
Well, I didn't appreciate that they had a stealth drive and I didn't, so there.
I hurried over, darting through the crowd with a practised ease - dodging through crowds to avoiding getting trampled was a vital skill for young children who spent a lot of time in public areas like shopping malls, and short people such as myself often found themselves maintaining the practice.
The Engi and his friend were both staring at me as I stepped out of the crowd.
Without preface nor pretext, I pointed straight at the sign.
Stealth Drive for Sale - we will install it for free
"How much?"
"We require scrap to repair our ship's engines. Approximately one hundred and twenty tonnes will be sufficient."
That... well, that translated to one hundred and twenty scrap in game, which seemed cheaper than I recalled, though I may have been wrong. Either way, it was a lot of scrap.
"Your engines, you say? What if I offered my crew's assistance in repairing them?"
The Engi turned to each other, their green eyes flashing brightly before they returned their sight to me.
"Perhaps we can make a more favourable deal. Follow me."
Hm.
---
The possibility did cross my mind, of course, that they could have been lying. However, that seemed unlikely. On a station such as this, one couldn't get by in public places through such blatant trickery. If anyone tried to scam or otherwise cheat a person out of their various funds, they would likely be forcibly removed.
After all, if Joe Trader scammed Jimmy Pirate, what's to say he wouldn't scam everyone else? No one wanted to take that risk, so anyone caught trying any less-than-legitimate business would find themselves removed from the station, possibly via airlock.
The same applied, of course, to people who started random fights, which is why I could walk around without being particularly worried about getting mugged.
Also the hyper-dense titanium-ceramic composite skeleton and the whole 'bench press a tank one handed' thing.
The Engi, as I expected, proved true to his - its? - word, leading me to a hangar not too far from my own whilst his friend, and a Zoltan colleague, packed up the stall.
The ship I stared down upon was not the Engi scrap-heap donut I was expecting, but rather a sleek, arrow-shaped vessel painted with, of all things, dark grey digital camo.
Well, hello!
---
The DA-SR 12 Stealth Cruiser was a sight to behold.
I don't know why it was here, in some backwater system, instead of in a top secret Engi facility, but since it was, and the crew were offering up the stealth drive in return for a chance to get the hell out of this area, I wasn't going to complain.
If I had to guess, I'd say they were some kind of harassing unit working for the Federation who got in over their head and decided to bug out - it explained the stealth ship, the damaged engines, and their reasons for being incredibly nervous about leaving.
It didn't matter much to me - I was here for the stealth drive, and anything else I could get was just a bonus. Luckily, my nanobots were rather good at the whole 'stealthy' business themselves, to a degree, and as I entered the ship in the guise of wanting to take a look at the damage, I tapped a finger idly against the wall, releasing a small cloud of nanobots into the ship's internals with the goal of locating and accessing the ship's databanks.
The Engi lead me to the rear of the ship, where another Engi and a Zoltan were kneeling amidst a pile of engine parts. Both were peering into the dark space between the engine room and the outer shell of the ship, where a large, torn chunk of twisted metal was visible.
"The bomb did not detonate inside our vessel. However, it caused serious structural damage. Subsequent missile impacts caused this section of armour plating to collapse on the engine, damaging the port compression coil."
I nodded, unsure of the importance of that particular component yet convinced I'd heard the name before. "Well, it does look pretty torn up, but... well, the Starsong has seen worse. I'll call down Ajax and Byron, get them to take a look."
Of course, it would still be me taking a look, but I had to keep up appearances. Also, bringing two people from the Starsong to here meant I could bring a crate of parts as well, and since I had the blueprints for engines identical to those installed on the DA-SR 12 (apparently a lot of components and systems are universally compatible - who knew?) I knew exactly what parts the Engi would need to complete their repairs. And, more importantly, I had the capacity to make those parts.
So, whilst I was busy talking engines with two knowledgeable cyborg nanite thingies and an energy being, I spun up the Fabricator in the Starsong's cargo bay and started building them.
I was still fuming as I wandered throughout J Deck's market stalls, though I tried not to show it.
It was just appalling to me that anyone could consider the United Humanity Laws as anything close to fair or morally and ethically acceptable, and yet apparently at least some people did. Enough that people were able to actually implement them. Across an entire race.
God, humans are such douche bags.
At least the markets gave me something interesting to look at whilst I waited for my fleet of Trackers to finish building.
Namely, cool technology everywhere.
Well, technology in general everywhere. Some cool technology.
There was a salesman advertising a Weapon Pre-Igniter module and a Defence Scrambler module, each for sixty tonnes of scrap.
Using a tonne of scrap as a unit of currency seemed... flawed, for a number of reasons, but apparently it worked. Or something. Whilst I took a closer look at the two horse-sized lumps of complex machinery, the salesman began a long winded rant about their features - one that fell upon deaf ears. The Hypertech optics I had standing in for eyes could tell me more about the devices than any Vince Offer knockoff, and faster, too.
The Weapon Pre-Igniter was nothing interesting to me. It was basically just a capacitor that drained the exotic energies created by an FTL jump to charge the weapon systems as soon as the ship exited FTL. My ships didn't have charge times even close to those of the FTLverse ships, and the one weapon that did have a charge time long enough for it to be worth it - the LiRoS, - was probably too big to be effected by the presumably relatively small amount of power.
That said, it was power harnessed from the ambient exotic energies of faster-than-light travel, and that had its own implications.
The Defence Scrambler, on the other hand, was far more useful to me, and also far simpler in construction. It basically targeted enemy Defence Drones and fed them so much white noise that they didn't know what to shoot at. Scaled up and improved with Progenitor Bullshit, it could potentially serve as a form of jamming device. It was simple enough in concept that I was surprised that the Progenitors didn't have them already - but then, Progenitor computers were probably bullshit enough that they wouldn't be effected in the first place.
Also, the Progenitors had apparently never bothered with energy shields, either, so there was clearly some precedent for forgoing certain technological paths for whatever reason.
I ran my hand along the outer casing of the Defence Scrambler, drawing lines in the dust whilst the MicroFabricator in the NeoAvatar's hand sending a small trickle of nanobots into the device. I repeated the process with the Weapon Pre-Igniter, if only because I wanted to find out how to harness FTL energy, and then thanked the fast-talking salesman for his time, told him I wasn't interested, and left.
He seemed a little disappointed, but when I glanced over my shoulder a couple of seconds later, I saw him chatting animatedly with a pair of... Mantis? Huh. They were short - shorter than me, even, which made for an interesting change. The two bugs had dark green chitin plates, covered in what looked like some form of leather armour.
Well, I guess the game was wrong. Not every non-human walked around naked.
And let me tell you, that was a relief.
I stepped around a corner, still keeping my eyes out, when I saw it.
It was a thing of beauty. Two Engi stood next to it, their green eyes widening and narrowing as they looked out amongst the crowd. Small plates atop their head - on their 'brow', as it were, - seemed to slope up and down, almost a pale mockery of human eyebrows. In a way, it almost reminded me of the Geth.
One of them met my eyes, and tilted his head. Obviously he didn't appreciate my staring.
Well, I didn't appreciate that they had a stealth drive and I didn't, so there.
I hurried over, darting through the crowd with a practised ease - dodging through crowds to avoiding getting trampled was a vital skill for young children who spent a lot of time in public areas like shopping malls, and short people such as myself often found themselves maintaining the practice.
The Engi and his friend were both staring at me as I stepped out of the crowd.
Without preface nor pretext, I pointed straight at the sign.
Stealth Drive for Sale - we will install it for free
"How much?"
"We require scrap to repair our ship's engines. Approximately one hundred and twenty tonnes will be sufficient."
That... well, that translated to one hundred and twenty scrap in game, which seemed cheaper than I recalled, though I may have been wrong. Either way, it was a lot of scrap.
"Your engines, you say? What if I offered my crew's assistance in repairing them?"
The Engi turned to each other, their green eyes flashing brightly before they returned their sight to me.
"Perhaps we can make a more favourable deal. Follow me."
Hm.
---
The possibility did cross my mind, of course, that they could have been lying. However, that seemed unlikely. On a station such as this, one couldn't get by in public places through such blatant trickery. If anyone tried to scam or otherwise cheat a person out of their various funds, they would likely be forcibly removed.
After all, if Joe Trader scammed Jimmy Pirate, what's to say he wouldn't scam everyone else? No one wanted to take that risk, so anyone caught trying any less-than-legitimate business would find themselves removed from the station, possibly via airlock.
The same applied, of course, to people who started random fights, which is why I could walk around without being particularly worried about getting mugged.
Also the hyper-dense titanium-ceramic composite skeleton and the whole 'bench press a tank one handed' thing.
The Engi, as I expected, proved true to his - its? - word, leading me to a hangar not too far from my own whilst his friend, and a Zoltan colleague, packed up the stall.
The ship I stared down upon was not the Engi scrap-heap donut I was expecting, but rather a sleek, arrow-shaped vessel painted with, of all things, dark grey digital camo.
Well, hello!
---
The DA-SR 12 Stealth Cruiser was a sight to behold.
I don't know why it was here, in some backwater system, instead of in a top secret Engi facility, but since it was, and the crew were offering up the stealth drive in return for a chance to get the hell out of this area, I wasn't going to complain.
If I had to guess, I'd say they were some kind of harassing unit working for the Federation who got in over their head and decided to bug out - it explained the stealth ship, the damaged engines, and their reasons for being incredibly nervous about leaving.
It didn't matter much to me - I was here for the stealth drive, and anything else I could get was just a bonus. Luckily, my nanobots were rather good at the whole 'stealthy' business themselves, to a degree, and as I entered the ship in the guise of wanting to take a look at the damage, I tapped a finger idly against the wall, releasing a small cloud of nanobots into the ship's internals with the goal of locating and accessing the ship's databanks.
The Engi lead me to the rear of the ship, where another Engi and a Zoltan were kneeling amidst a pile of engine parts. Both were peering into the dark space between the engine room and the outer shell of the ship, where a large, torn chunk of twisted metal was visible.
"The bomb did not detonate inside our vessel. However, it caused serious structural damage. Subsequent missile impacts caused this section of armour plating to collapse on the engine, damaging the port compression coil."
I nodded, unsure of the importance of that particular component yet convinced I'd heard the name before. "Well, it does look pretty torn up, but... well, the Starsong has seen worse. I'll call down Ajax and Byron, get them to take a look."
Of course, it would still be me taking a look, but I had to keep up appearances. Also, bringing two people from the Starsong to here meant I could bring a crate of parts as well, and since I had the blueprints for engines identical to those installed on the DA-SR 12 (apparently a lot of components and systems are universally compatible - who knew?) I knew exactly what parts the Engi would need to complete their repairs. And, more importantly, I had the capacity to make those parts.
So, whilst I was busy talking engines with two knowledgeable cyborg nanite thingies and an energy being, I spun up the Fabricator in the Starsong's cargo bay and started building them.
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- Location
- Middle Earth
I once more iterate: Faith needs to head on over to the One Punch Man verse at some point, because tell you me don't want to get your hands on what makes Genos tick? He's like a Metal Gear verse Cyborg turned up to eleven and a half. Also you could rob professor Bofois/Metal Knight blind, just make sure not to piss off Caped Baldy, least you find yourself with a serious case of the dun goofed.
It's also good to see Faith expanding into stealth. Nothing says Oh Shit! Like suddenly a massive fleet.
It's also good to see Faith expanding into stealth. Nothing says Oh Shit! Like suddenly a massive fleet.
OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
Hmm... the plot thickens. stealth mobile kitten artillery.
Should probably be here.
Should probably be here.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
That sounds both terrifying and adorable.
- Location
- Middle Earth
Adorafying?
asdx
Superior Sword Fairy
- Location
- Texas.
Addorifying is the proper spelling of it...I think.
Be polite. That's about all not pissing him off takes.
If you want clever, it would be next to no effort to open a supermarket near his house that has low prices. Just meet him there a few times so he knows its yours, bottomless goodwill and the ability to distract him when you want.
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
I thought I got most of those, but you were right. Should be all fixed now.
At this time there's not much point, and the stuff Faith still wants (Mind Control, Anti-Bio Beam, Zoltan Bypass) are all fairly rare and exotic - the first rare but used by every faction/race, the second used only by the Slugs, and the last just flat out rare.
I haven't finished watching OPM yet (only episode 2, busy with other stuffs) but it looks like it might be a fun setting to go to - I shall add it to...THE LIST *krakathoom*
Well there is probably stuff other than what's on the ships that she could want, if she knew about it anyway.
I wonder if they use 'scrap' (which is bundles of parts in my opinion) because they can't really make ship parts any more, this would make you a god send for them if it was true.
I maght suggest you start sticking Halleys and guns on those asteroids.
Also somebody needs to create a thread where people find and list interesting sci-fi verses for people to use because the that are here and on @Drich's commander thread are different.
I wonder if they use 'scrap' (which is bundles of parts in my opinion) because they can't really make ship parts any more, this would make you a god send for them if it was true.
I maght suggest you start sticking Halleys and guns on those asteroids.
Also somebody needs to create a thread where people find and list interesting sci-fi verses for people to use because the that are here and on @Drich's commander thread are different.
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Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Presumably because they have different tastes and what they feel comfortable writing about, even in a cross?
Also, wandered in because of Fusou's story, not too shabby.
TSYGAN was adorbs <3I see, and like, what you did there.
If you didn't its in here.
Grrl Power - A webcomic about superheroines.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
I know that one, it is quite entertaining
38 - Phase
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
38 - Phase
After spending two hours clambering around the space between the hull and the inner walls, bending panels back into shape with raw strength and patching up hull breaches and various other small flaws with the MicroFabricator built into 'his' hand, the dark skinned android pushed himself out from the crawlspace and turned to the Engi wiping the sweat from his brow.
Well, technically it wasn't sweat, it was just water, but I didn't know the chemical composition of sweat beyond 'mostly water, some other stuff', and I figured that the Engi wouldn't know or care either way. And if they had the capability to detect that kind of stuff by looking, they'd have probably reacted to the fact that all three people from the Starsong were androids.
"There you go, pal. All the hull's beat back into shape, the compression coil's replaced, I ripped out all the broken wires at the repeaters so you could replace them, and everything looks working." Sighing, I had the android gesture at the large pile of engine components, thick cables and mounting brackets that still occupied a corner of the room. "I take it you guys can take over from here."
The Engi nodded. "Affirmative. We will rebuild the main drive core and engines ourselves. Metric and Digit have uninstalled the Cloaking Device. You should assist your crew in returning it to your ship."
Ajax nodded, clipped his multi-tool back onto his belt and stepped out of the engine room, making his way through the ship to the port airlock.
---
'I' turned to look at my other body as it entered the room, noting once again how deeply entrenched the humanoid machine was in uncanny valley, and so glad that the aliens on board this ship were too... well, alien, to see it.
Seriously, I don't want to sound racist but Ajax looked downright creepy in the half-lighting of the vessel.
The two Engi, once they had confirmed that all three members of the Starsong's crew were present, gestured to the Cloaking Device and began to explain in a dull monotone.
"This cloaking device utilizes highly advanced phase manipulation technology, a more refined version of that which exists in the FTL drive, to shunt the ship out of phase with reality."
Wait, really?
Holy shit, that's even more overpowered than I was expecting.
"This allows the ship to bypass the majority of weaponry, although there is a small chance that the weapons will cause damage through the phase, and it also makes it difficult for the ship to be targeted by sensors."
Man, does this thing have any downsides?
"Do not operate this device beyond the fifteen second safety margin, as it may overheat or overload. Failure to properly install the device will compound these issues."
Oh, there it is.
"In the event that this does happen, attempting to activate the drive may result in failure, up to and including catastrophic self destruction and transdimensional scattering."
Oh.
I bit my lip.
"We will install it carefully."
Well. Thank god for that.
---
The two Engi stepped away from the doorway and performed an odd motion with their heads, some sort of Engi nod. "Thank you for assisting us with the repairs of our ship, and showing us your own. The design of your engines is most impressive. We hope you appreciate the Cloaking System."
I nodded enthusiastically. "No, it's not a problem. And thank you, I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of it."
---
As the Starsong pulled away from the station and rocketed away into the black, four hundred and sixteen Tracker-class Corvettes received the instruction to engage self-repair protocols, and did so quickly, their internal Fabricators dispatching nanobots to make the required changes.
Of course, the Cloaking System wasn't the only thing they were equipping. I also added another technology I'd until now neglected to add to my units - Zoltan Super Shields. Powered by the exotic energies of FTL travel, the Zoltan Super Shield protected not only from asteroids, lasers, beams, and ion blasts but also missiles, bombs, teleporters, mind control devices, and hacking modules. Between the two technologies, that represented a huge increase in the survivability of my units. Nearly invisible, nearly indestructible.
Also, more as a fallback measure than for any real reason, a number of Mark II Friendship Lasers - hemispherical focusing arrays equipped with small-scale emitters and receivers, - were mounted on the top, bottom, and sides of all my Pioneer-chassis vessels, granting all vessel variants an extra form of incredibly effective point defence fire. And lethal capacity, in the case of the Trackers, as they had previously been lacking.
The Cloaking Systems got their turn, too, mounted into the ship sandwiched between the FTL drive and the shield generator.
The Engi had warned that overusing the device could cause it to overload or overheat - neither of those were issues for my Progenitor hypertech, which meant that my cloak-equipped ships were capable of turning invisible and staying invisible, so long as they had power. Which they no doubt would, thanks to another generous helping of Progenitor hypertech. Heat buildup and electrical overload were nearly nonexistant due to wireless transmission of energy, and almost 100% efficient energy usage, and even if they hadn't been, Progenitor alloys tended to be pretty resistant to that kind of thing.
Whilst the Trackers performed their self upgrades, I turned my attention to my economy.
I had almost fifty Advanced Orbital Factories lingering in the asteroids where I had made my base, and a number of smaller Orbital Factories as well. Up until now, they had been producing Trackers, for my upcoming war on human stupidity.
Now, though. Now I gave them different orders.
I'd been using the corvette because I hadn't wanted to make a ship that massively stood out amongst the FTLverse. That was... no longer an issue. I no longer had to worry about slipping under the Rebel's or the Federation's radar. I wanted them to see me.
I wanted them to be able to recognise me as a threat. And once I was done, they damn well would.
So, when I began construction on my latest ships, I based them not off the Pioneer but the Voyager.
Which, I noted, was large enough to carry Pioneers underslung. Which gave me... another idea.
Muwahahaha.
---
Like the Pioneer, the Voyager had been built with the idea of carrying passengers in mind.
Neither of my new ships, the Wayfarer or the Migrant, suffered such an issue.
The Migrant was a heavily stripped vessel, the vast civilian decks of the Voyager replaced by a huge assembly of Fabricators. Other crucial systems were compacted into the ship's spine, the entire ship effectively becoming an Orbital Factory, powered by cluster of eight Resource Cores embedded in the ship's bow.
Now, perhaps a bit of clarification. Resource Cores are pretty solidly in the high end of Progenitor tech - at least, the tech available to Commanders, anyway. It's one of the Commander's three most crucial components - up there with the AI Core and the Fabricator. It serves as both an Energy Generator and a Metal Generator, flat out creating matter from nothing (at an admittedly unimpressive rate), and is what allows a Commander to kick-start their Von Neumann economy.
The basic Commanders were equipped with one Resource Core. The things were prohibitively expensive, complex and time consuming to build, each one taking at least ten minutes to be constructed, and throwing more Fabricators at the problem could only speed up the complex task so much.
I set all of that aside and made a ship that had eight, in a 2x2x2 cube mounted at the rear of the vessel, surrounded by a large amount of armour, the vessels' other crucial systems such as shields, engines, cloaking, and sensors, and then yet more armour. If one of those things was hit, it would result in an explosion powerful enough to rival nuclear warheads. Which would, in turn, set off the other seven... I didn't want them getting hit, basically.
It would take almost an hour and a half for the first five Migrants to be complete, with my current facilities, assuming unlimited economy. But my economy wasn't limitless - building just one would drain almost my entire metal income, which meant that production would be even slower. For a full batch of five? Four hours, minimum. But once they were done...
Mobile factories. Factories with energy shields, FTL capable engines, a network of Mark II Friendship Turrets (which still needed a shorter name, gorram it), a cloaking device, and the same bullshit Von Neumann industrial and economic technologies that made Commanders so bullshit in the first place.
Ah, Commanders are such utter bullshit.
The Migrant wasn't the only project I'd been working on, though.
Where the Migrant was a more subtle support style ship, capable of building reinforcements or repairing existing ships, the Wayfarer traded support capabilities for raw, unrelenting firepower.
Where the Voyager had carried rooms for over a thousand people, the Wayfarer held guns.
Namely, four great, honking Mark II Friendship Lasers. Lasers with emitters almost as big as the Pioneer-class corvettes. And reactors big enough to power the whole lot going full bore.
Lasers that could form chains. Focused firepower from a single ship would be enough to carve through starships like a hot knife through butter. Clusters of fifteen or sixteen, combining fire? With other, smaller Mark IIs like those on the Tracker or the Migrant adding more fuel to the flame?
It was the kind of firepower you pointed at planets covered in Zerg.
I queued up twenty of them.
After all, I did want to make an impression.
After spending two hours clambering around the space between the hull and the inner walls, bending panels back into shape with raw strength and patching up hull breaches and various other small flaws with the MicroFabricator built into 'his' hand, the dark skinned android pushed himself out from the crawlspace and turned to the Engi wiping the sweat from his brow.
Well, technically it wasn't sweat, it was just water, but I didn't know the chemical composition of sweat beyond 'mostly water, some other stuff', and I figured that the Engi wouldn't know or care either way. And if they had the capability to detect that kind of stuff by looking, they'd have probably reacted to the fact that all three people from the Starsong were androids.
"There you go, pal. All the hull's beat back into shape, the compression coil's replaced, I ripped out all the broken wires at the repeaters so you could replace them, and everything looks working." Sighing, I had the android gesture at the large pile of engine components, thick cables and mounting brackets that still occupied a corner of the room. "I take it you guys can take over from here."
The Engi nodded. "Affirmative. We will rebuild the main drive core and engines ourselves. Metric and Digit have uninstalled the Cloaking Device. You should assist your crew in returning it to your ship."
Ajax nodded, clipped his multi-tool back onto his belt and stepped out of the engine room, making his way through the ship to the port airlock.
---
'I' turned to look at my other body as it entered the room, noting once again how deeply entrenched the humanoid machine was in uncanny valley, and so glad that the aliens on board this ship were too... well, alien, to see it.
Seriously, I don't want to sound racist but Ajax looked downright creepy in the half-lighting of the vessel.
The two Engi, once they had confirmed that all three members of the Starsong's crew were present, gestured to the Cloaking Device and began to explain in a dull monotone.
"This cloaking device utilizes highly advanced phase manipulation technology, a more refined version of that which exists in the FTL drive, to shunt the ship out of phase with reality."
Wait, really?
Holy shit, that's even more overpowered than I was expecting.
"This allows the ship to bypass the majority of weaponry, although there is a small chance that the weapons will cause damage through the phase, and it also makes it difficult for the ship to be targeted by sensors."
Man, does this thing have any downsides?
"Do not operate this device beyond the fifteen second safety margin, as it may overheat or overload. Failure to properly install the device will compound these issues."
Oh, there it is.
"In the event that this does happen, attempting to activate the drive may result in failure, up to and including catastrophic self destruction and transdimensional scattering."
Oh.
I bit my lip.
"We will install it carefully."
Well. Thank god for that.
---
The two Engi stepped away from the doorway and performed an odd motion with their heads, some sort of Engi nod. "Thank you for assisting us with the repairs of our ship, and showing us your own. The design of your engines is most impressive. We hope you appreciate the Cloaking System."
I nodded enthusiastically. "No, it's not a problem. And thank you, I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of it."
---
As the Starsong pulled away from the station and rocketed away into the black, four hundred and sixteen Tracker-class Corvettes received the instruction to engage self-repair protocols, and did so quickly, their internal Fabricators dispatching nanobots to make the required changes.
Of course, the Cloaking System wasn't the only thing they were equipping. I also added another technology I'd until now neglected to add to my units - Zoltan Super Shields. Powered by the exotic energies of FTL travel, the Zoltan Super Shield protected not only from asteroids, lasers, beams, and ion blasts but also missiles, bombs, teleporters, mind control devices, and hacking modules. Between the two technologies, that represented a huge increase in the survivability of my units. Nearly invisible, nearly indestructible.
Also, more as a fallback measure than for any real reason, a number of Mark II Friendship Lasers - hemispherical focusing arrays equipped with small-scale emitters and receivers, - were mounted on the top, bottom, and sides of all my Pioneer-chassis vessels, granting all vessel variants an extra form of incredibly effective point defence fire. And lethal capacity, in the case of the Trackers, as they had previously been lacking.
The Cloaking Systems got their turn, too, mounted into the ship sandwiched between the FTL drive and the shield generator.
The Engi had warned that overusing the device could cause it to overload or overheat - neither of those were issues for my Progenitor hypertech, which meant that my cloak-equipped ships were capable of turning invisible and staying invisible, so long as they had power. Which they no doubt would, thanks to another generous helping of Progenitor hypertech. Heat buildup and electrical overload were nearly nonexistant due to wireless transmission of energy, and almost 100% efficient energy usage, and even if they hadn't been, Progenitor alloys tended to be pretty resistant to that kind of thing.
Whilst the Trackers performed their self upgrades, I turned my attention to my economy.
I had almost fifty Advanced Orbital Factories lingering in the asteroids where I had made my base, and a number of smaller Orbital Factories as well. Up until now, they had been producing Trackers, for my upcoming war on human stupidity.
Now, though. Now I gave them different orders.
I'd been using the corvette because I hadn't wanted to make a ship that massively stood out amongst the FTLverse. That was... no longer an issue. I no longer had to worry about slipping under the Rebel's or the Federation's radar. I wanted them to see me.
I wanted them to be able to recognise me as a threat. And once I was done, they damn well would.
So, when I began construction on my latest ships, I based them not off the Pioneer but the Voyager.
Which, I noted, was large enough to carry Pioneers underslung. Which gave me... another idea.
Muwahahaha.
---
Like the Pioneer, the Voyager had been built with the idea of carrying passengers in mind.
Neither of my new ships, the Wayfarer or the Migrant, suffered such an issue.
The Migrant was a heavily stripped vessel, the vast civilian decks of the Voyager replaced by a huge assembly of Fabricators. Other crucial systems were compacted into the ship's spine, the entire ship effectively becoming an Orbital Factory, powered by cluster of eight Resource Cores embedded in the ship's bow.
Now, perhaps a bit of clarification. Resource Cores are pretty solidly in the high end of Progenitor tech - at least, the tech available to Commanders, anyway. It's one of the Commander's three most crucial components - up there with the AI Core and the Fabricator. It serves as both an Energy Generator and a Metal Generator, flat out creating matter from nothing (at an admittedly unimpressive rate), and is what allows a Commander to kick-start their Von Neumann economy.
The basic Commanders were equipped with one Resource Core. The things were prohibitively expensive, complex and time consuming to build, each one taking at least ten minutes to be constructed, and throwing more Fabricators at the problem could only speed up the complex task so much.
I set all of that aside and made a ship that had eight, in a 2x2x2 cube mounted at the rear of the vessel, surrounded by a large amount of armour, the vessels' other crucial systems such as shields, engines, cloaking, and sensors, and then yet more armour. If one of those things was hit, it would result in an explosion powerful enough to rival nuclear warheads. Which would, in turn, set off the other seven... I didn't want them getting hit, basically.
It would take almost an hour and a half for the first five Migrants to be complete, with my current facilities, assuming unlimited economy. But my economy wasn't limitless - building just one would drain almost my entire metal income, which meant that production would be even slower. For a full batch of five? Four hours, minimum. But once they were done...
Mobile factories. Factories with energy shields, FTL capable engines, a network of Mark II Friendship Turrets (which still needed a shorter name, gorram it), a cloaking device, and the same bullshit Von Neumann industrial and economic technologies that made Commanders so bullshit in the first place.
Ah, Commanders are such utter bullshit.
The Migrant wasn't the only project I'd been working on, though.
Where the Migrant was a more subtle support style ship, capable of building reinforcements or repairing existing ships, the Wayfarer traded support capabilities for raw, unrelenting firepower.
Where the Voyager had carried rooms for over a thousand people, the Wayfarer held guns.
Namely, four great, honking Mark II Friendship Lasers. Lasers with emitters almost as big as the Pioneer-class corvettes. And reactors big enough to power the whole lot going full bore.
Lasers that could form chains. Focused firepower from a single ship would be enough to carve through starships like a hot knife through butter. Clusters of fifteen or sixteen, combining fire? With other, smaller Mark IIs like those on the Tracker or the Migrant adding more fuel to the flame?
It was the kind of firepower you pointed at planets covered in Zerg.
I queued up twenty of them.
After all, I did want to make an impression.
TheGuyInTheBack
Dapper Penguin
- Location
- Tornado Alley
Curb-stomp time?
Curb-stomp time.
Curb-stomp time.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
Huzzah, a new chapter!