Per Aspera (Space Agency Plan Quest)
- Thread starter Shadows
- Start date
- Original
Tbh, I'd rather be dice-limited than resource-limited right now, especially because we've been taking fairly low-resource options so far (lots of 5R and 10R options). Once we start building orbital rockets with expensive satellites, we'll be chewing through our stockpiled resources super-quickly.
That said, we should get more dice soon. The HSR launch site will give us +1 ops dice once completed, and since we no longer need to urgently complete Rocket Boxes, we could repeat There is Power in a Union next turn to give us more facilities dice (which in turn can be used to build facilities that give us new dice and bonuses).
trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
Well looks like we failed the Rocket Box promise, though not from lack of trying. Rather from two crappy turns in a row. Oh well, it was really only a minor promise though we might get a PS penalty.
We overbuilt the rockets enough to get an extra one. And I got what I wanted with HSR, Tracking Stations, and Materials completing.
We overbuilt the rockets enough to get an extra one. And I got what I wanted with HSR, Tracking Stations, and Materials completing.
You misunderstand, I am not hoping for more dice in general. I want a free die in particular, and would probably take it over two of any other dice. That way, when we fall behind on a plan goal like we just did, we can compensate with the free die. I care much more about the flexibility than the increased ability to do projects.
Sure, but does that make sense in universe? We have teams of engineers working on engineering projects, construction crews working on building launch pads and wind tunnels, bureaucrats handling politics, and so on. Our dice all represent relatively specific things. I'm not against a free die that isn't limited to any one area, but it should make sense thematically as well (i.e., I'm in favour as long as we can justify it!)
Aretha's Abdul would have given us a free die if we picked him, so it's definitely thematically possible imo.
December 31st, 1952//Q4 1952 Results
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Plan: Soda Cans for Space!
-[X] (2 dice) Construct an R-2 Gale - (15R per dice, 13/45, costs 1 Build Capacity until complete)
--[X] And launch it (free action for Sounding Rockets) (gains Scientific Data, launch experience, results to show the people funding you)
-[X] Construct a Heavy Sounding Rocket launch site - (15R per die, 8/60, allows launch of the Heavy Sounding Rocket and theoretical derivatives up to 30 tons)
-[X] Construct a Wind Tunnel (10R per die, 0/80, +3 to projects labeled AERO)
-[X] Conduct Design Studies (Platform) (Heavy Sounding Rocket) [AERO] (5R per die, 49/80, unlocks Heavy Sounding Rocket (and a naming vote because that's unwieldy))
-[X] (2 Dice) Conduct Design Studies (Early Orbital Rocket) (Phase I) [AERO, PHYS] (15R per dice, 233/300)
-[X] (2 Dice) Tracking Station Surveys (5R per dice, 66/150, unlocks Tracking Station Construction project for Facilities)
-[X] Conduct Materials Research (Phase 1) - Better alloys would lead to higher-performing engines and lighter rockets, you were told. All you had to do was authorize the resource expenditure to start testing materials. (15R per die, 74/150, provides access to aluminum structures)
-[X] (3 Dice) Rocket Boxes (Phase 3) (5R per die, 140/350. Gives Rocket Boxes to every middle-school, high-school and university or equivalent in Australia and New Zealand. Encourages future scientists and engineers - some of whom will even come work with the IEC.)
-[X] (2 dice) Construct an R-2 Gale - (15R per dice, 13/45, costs 1 Build Capacity until complete)
--[X] And launch it (free action for Sounding Rockets) (gains Scientific Data, launch experience, results to show the people funding you)
-[X] Construct a Heavy Sounding Rocket launch site - (15R per die, 8/60, allows launch of the Heavy Sounding Rocket and theoretical derivatives up to 30 tons)
-[X] Construct a Wind Tunnel (10R per die, 0/80, +3 to projects labeled AERO)
-[X] Conduct Design Studies (Platform) (Heavy Sounding Rocket) [AERO] (5R per die, 49/80, unlocks Heavy Sounding Rocket (and a naming vote because that's unwieldy))
-[X] (2 Dice) Conduct Design Studies (Early Orbital Rocket) (Phase I) [AERO, PHYS] (15R per dice, 233/300)
-[X] (2 Dice) Tracking Station Surveys (5R per dice, 66/150, unlocks Tracking Station Construction project for Facilities)
-[X] Conduct Materials Research (Phase 1) - Better alloys would lead to higher-performing engines and lighter rockets, you were told. All you had to do was authorize the resource expenditure to start testing materials. (15R per die, 74/150, provides access to aluminum structures)
-[X] (3 Dice) Rocket Boxes (Phase 3) (5R per die, 140/350. Gives Rocket Boxes to every middle-school, high-school and university or equivalent in Australia and New Zealand. Encourages future scientists and engineers - some of whom will even come work with the IEC.)
October blended into November, and November slid into December, all the while leaving you wondering quite where the time had gone while staring down the barrel of your second World Council meeting. Things could have gone better across a variety of fronts - from start to finish, 1952 had been far too interesting a ride - but they also could have gone worse. You had managed to keep… most of your promises. Hopefully you could up that number this upcoming year.
There was, at any rate, a plane with your name on it waiting for you now, to take you to New Delhi, and the Council. As you finished packing your bags and started to make your way to the airport, you looked out over the skyline of Portland (Maine) and wondered if you'd be able to get out here again next year. The news coming from the south was increasingly dire…
Resources:
75 (+160R/turn)
40 Political Support
1 R-2 Gale
Council Liaison Reports:
Objectives of the World Communal Council
Complete Post-War Reconstruction (10000/200000)
Defeat Partisan Forces
State of the World
Mediterranean/Saharan Africa
Education: 5
Electrification: 3
Industry: 3 (+)
Infrastructure: 3 (+)
Security: 2
Partisan Activity: 4
Sub-Saharan Africa
Education: 4
Electrification: 3
Industry: 3
Infrastructure: 3
Security: 4
Partisan Activity: 8 (-)
Eastern Asia
Education: 8 (+)
Electrification: 5
Industry: 9
Infrastructure: 7
Security: 6
Partisan Activity: 10
Western Asia
Education: 8
Electrification: 10
Industry: 10
Infrastructure: 9
Security: 5
Partisan Activity: 11
Australia and New Zealand
Education: 5
Electrification: 5
Industry: 5 (+)
Infrastructure: 4
Security: 3 (+)
Partisan Activity: 5 (-)
Europe
Education: 8
Electrification: 10
Industry: 7
Infrastructure: 10
Security: 6
Partisan Activity: 7
North America
Education: 7
Electrification: 9
Industry: 9
Infrastructure: 7
Security: 11
Partisan Activity: 17
South America
Education: 5
Electrification: 5
Industry: 3
Infrastructure: 3
Security: 4
Partisan Activity: 3
Pacific Islands
Education: 3
Electrification: 2
Industry: 2
Infrastructure: 3
Security: 1
Partisan Activity: 4
Facilities:
1 Launch Stand (0-5 tonne) (+1 Operations dice)
1 Assembly Complex (+1 Build Capacity)
1 Engineer's Hall (+2 Engineering Dice)
1 University Affiliate (+2 Science Dice)
1 Materials Lab (+5 bonus to projects tagged [MATSCI])
1 Chemical Plant (+5 bonus to projects tagged [CHEM])
1 Electronics Cooperative (+5 bonus to projects tagged [AVIONICS])
2 Construction Union Halls (+2 Facilities die)
1 Publications Office (+1 to all science and engineering fields; coinflip each year to get an additional +1)
1 Hardened Tracking and Observation (T&O) Complex (+3 to Operations)
1 Engine Test Stand (+2 to PROP projects)
1 Isotope Separation and Nuclear Science Facility (Enables Nuclear Technology tree) (fully unlocks 1954Q1)
1 Computational Research Facility (+3 to all rolls)
1 Model 1952 'Stormchaser' Mobile Rocket Launch System (+1 Operations dice)
Scientific Advances (name TBD)
Improved Instrumentation (Gain +1d2 bonus to a random field every 2 launches. Gain +1 to AVIONICS immediately.)
Regenerative Cooling (Starts down the path to more powerful and advanced rocket engines)
Second Stages - Can now build 2-Stage Sounding Rockets
Combustion Instability Research - Turns the initial success roll for a rocket from a >60 to >50.
Engine Cycles - Enables Early Orbital engines.
Mobile Launch Operations - Can launch Sounding Rockets without the need for a launch pad.
Scientific/Engineering Specific Field Bonuses
AERO - +6
AVIONICS - +9
CHEM - +10
CREW - +3
COMP - +3
MATSCI - +8
PHYS - +3
PROP - +7
Penelope Carter [The Director] - [+10 to Politics rolls, +2 Politics die, +5R/turn in funding from Connections, reroll 1 failed politics roll per turn]
Sergei Korolev - [+5 to Science and Engineering rolls (unless researching [HGOL][FUEL] projects, then it becomes a -15), +1 Science dice, +1 Engineering Dice. Request: Build an Orbital Rocket within 5 years; build a Scientific Complex in former Ukraine within 10 years.]
Promises Made (Expires Q1 1953):
Build Computational Research Facility (+5 PS)
Complete Rocket Boxes (Phase 3)
Do not expand to more than 2 Facilities Dice
Do not pursue Spaceplane research
Construct an R-2 Gale - (15R per dice, 100/45, costs 1 Build Capacity until complete)
--[X] And launch it (free action for Sounding Rockets) (gains Scientific Data, launch experience, results to show the people funding you) - Success
With lessons learned from the last quarter's fiasco firmly in hand, your production team swings back into gear, rapidly churning out another pair of Gales. One was moved into storage, being excess to requirements for the existing launch schedule. The other went to the lab to be loaded down with instrumentation for its trip into space.
This one was pushing the envelope on pure height and speed, reaching an altitude of four hundred kilometers, traveling at three thousand meters per second, going five hundred kilometers downrange. The experiments were the standard fare for this kind of launch - accelerometer, geiger counter, barometer. Speed and radiation load versus height. The re-entry speed of the capsule caused some minor issues, ripping apart one of the two parachutes deployed to slow its landing. Because of this, it impacted the water somewhat harder than expected, damaging the capsule and causing it to intake water. Only the inflatable floater it came attached to saved the little capsule from disappearing beneath the waves. Some more thought would have to go into the design of those things, in the future.
(+2 R-2 Gale)
(1 successful launch)
(1 R-2 Gale in storage)
Construct a Heavy Sounding Rocket launch site - (15R per die, 24/60, allows launch of the Heavy Sounding Rocket and theoretical derivatives up to 30 tons)
Work on the Heavy Sounding Rocket launch site continued to grind forward slowly, with problem after problem surfacing necessitating a slow approach, where by the end of the quarter not much had actually been done but laying the first foundation supports for the launch pad proper. Other work began too - the pads for the fuel farm and the launch tower began to take shape.
"Why is that pad being such a problem child?" you asked no one in particular at a meeting of all the leads working on the project. "We are this close-" you said, holding your thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart, "to being more ready to build the rocket than we are to finishing the pad it launches on."
"Maybe it's cursed?" Someone offered from the other end of the table. "Ancient burial ground?" That got a gentle general chuckle, and you huffed out an amused laugh of your own.
"It's as likely as anything else…"
Construct a Wind Tunnel (10R per die, 37/80, +3 to projects labeled AERO)
Conversely, the new Wind Tunnel project was, to pardon the phrase, practically flying together. Jack Parsons and his merry band of gearheads must have been waiting for months with parts in hand, because as soon as the building itself was done they were swarming over it, adding ducting and fans and wiring and control runs with the singular purpose of filling one room with as much air as possible going as fast as possible.
You stood in the chamber where the testing would be done. It felt like standing in a giant sewer pipe, if you were being honest - the walls around you curved to form a tube through which the big ducts ahead of you would pour obscene levels of high-speed air, which itself would be vented through a ramped opening on the opposite end of the room. A half-sized mockup of the orbital rocket stood outside the doors, ready to be the first thing tested by the new apparatus when it was finished. You hoped it would help.
If nothing else, it would be very loud…
Conduct Design Studies (Platform) (Heavy Sounding Rocket) [AERO] (5R per die, 97/80, unlocks Heavy Sounding Rocket (and a naming vote because that's unwieldy))
It turned out that, in fact, you were right - you were able to build the rocket before you had anywhere to launch it from. The final design came out at fifteen tons, with a 1.8 meter diameter that was ripe for stuffing with all sorts of new and exciting experiments. The first one was set to do a photography experiment, using a much larger camera than could be fit safely on a Gale.
(Unlocks Heavy Sounding Rockets, 20R per dice, 0/80)
Name the Heavy Sounding Rocket!
[] [HSR] Write-in
-[X] (2 Dice) Conduct Design Studies (Early Orbital Rocket) (Phase I) [AERO, PHYS] (15R per dice, 318/300)->18/300 Phase II
The first stage of design and testing for the orbital rocket prototype was finally over. The diameter had been decided upon, the engine was scaled up to fit, and was then tested to within an inch of its life (and in fact beyond, as six destroyed test articles could attest). The next thing to do was to begin scale model testing of everything else. The body, the fuel systems, the avionics - everything. You had an engine and a dream.
"This seems… somewhat out of order." Korolev said, almost a grunt. The two of you were surveying the engineering teams working on the orbital project one evening, as the quarter drew to a close.
"What does?" you asked.
He gestured at the design work. "Building engine before fully laying down rest of plans. Certainly it works, but what if we have troubles later because we let our propulsion drive our capabilities rather than picking the capabilities we want and building propulsion to suit?"
You didn't really have a good answer for that. "At least it seems to be working."
Name the Early Orbital Rocket!
[] [EOR] Write-in
Tracking Station Surveys (5R per dice, 200/150, unlocks Tracking Station Construction project for Facilities)
The surveys were done. The discussions were concluded, concessions made, arrangements formed. There were now hundreds of tracking station locations identified and readied for use. Not all of them would be needed right away - some wouldn't be unless the IEC was successful beyond even your wildest dreams - but they were there, and Facilities could get on with expanding your footprint as soon as you gave the word.
Conduct Materials Research (Phase 1) - Better alloys would lead to higher-performing engines and lighter rockets, you were told. All you had to do was authorize the resource expenditure to start testing materials. (15R per die, 152/150, provides access to aluminum structures)
At 'long last', you finally let your materials scientists off the chain. Freed (in part) from their day jobs building engines and fuselage, you gave them funds to go out, buy equipment and materials, and do their very best impersonations of small children with a new chemistry set. They set about alloying metals together, testing different strengths and qualities, performing hot tests and cold tests and drop tests and compression tests… they truly were out to learn everything they could about everything they laid their hands on.
One of the things they looked into was aluminum, the light material that warplanes in the Third Great War had been made of. It was stronger than steel for a given weight, and didn't rust in the same way steel did. They told you that it could be drawn out, inflated like a balloon until it was very thin, to form a lightweight tank that would get its structural strength from the pressure of the fuel or oxygen within. That would require some development, but the metal itself would be a better selection for making rockets out of than the steel currently in use.
(Gain Aluminum structures)
(Unlocked 'Balloon Tanks' research project.)
Rocket Boxes (Phase 3) (5R per die, 280/350. Gives Rocket Boxes to every middle-school, high-school and university or equivalent in Australia and New Zealand. Encourages future scientists and engineers - some of whom will even come work with the IEC.)
The third phase of Rocket Boxes were - finally - rolling out smoothly. After greasing the wheels of dozens of small workshops and five new motor Factories, they were starting to really churn out material. But it just wasn't going to be enough to get the phase completed before the World Council meeting. Everything would have needed to go near-perfectly, and they just hadn't.
Outside of the motor shortage, there had been issues with security around the motor factories. Though the rockets were small, they could - theoretically - be used to make improvised weapons. The machines that made them certainly could. Locating additional personnel to provide security provided a good amount of this quarter's delays - training them provided most of the rest.
It was something of a bitter pill to not be able to deliver on all the promises you had made in the last Council session, but you did hope that the sheer expended effort - and all the other, kept, promises - would buy you some goodwill to make use of in the next one.
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Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Fixed. Formatting is in the update.
Dragontrapper
Homeless Draconis
- Location
- A Tower in the middle of nowhere
-[X] [HSR] R-3 Cyclone
-[X] [EOR] R-4 Typhoon
-[X] [EOR] R-4 Typhoon
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
-[X] [HSR] R-3 Storm
-[X] [EOR] R-4 Vortex
We can't use all the cool wind names for the early models; we have to conserve them for later.
-[X] [EOR] R-4 Vortex
We can't use all the cool wind names for the early models; we have to conserve them for later.
Dragontrapper
Homeless Draconis
- Location
- A Tower in the middle of nowhere
Why I skipped 'Tempest' - but I'm not worried too much. We can start branching out into other languages and winds: Sirocco, Shamal, Zephyr, Rafale, Mistral, Khamsin...
The R-4 is going to be our first orbital rocket (big PR win!), and likely will be used for a long time in a modified form since it can loft a ~first-generation weather or communications satellite, at least until we get semi-reusable rockets working. That's why I gave it a good name.
I thought the plan was to (at least sometimes) translate the names into other languages, thus the universal R-# index?
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- Location
- The great frozen north
Well this does not bode well at all. North America didn't get any extra partisan activity this turn, so now I am bracing for a very large increase next turn. If this escalates to Great War 3.5, it's at the expense of our budget isn't it?
Also I see that whatever successor to the USA formed in New England still keeps Maine around as some sort of administrative unit. Convenient I guess, if not very revolutionary.
Gotta lighten the mood somehow I guess. I suspect the guy who said that is about go get a reaming though, if he's spouting off tropes based on rather unflattering pre-revolution depictions of marginalized people. In a different continent.
I can see where Komrade Korolev is coming from, but he's letting his dreams cloud his judgement. Engines are less malleable that research capabilities, especially at this point in time. And since selecting an engine locks in a constraint on weight early on, it's an effective guard against the dreaded scope creep.
- Location
- A haze of forgetfulness
- Pronouns
- She/Her
-[X] [HSR] R-3 Storm
-[X] [EOR] R-4 Vortex
-[X] [EOR] R-4 Vortex
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] [HSR] R-3 Snow
Considering this one is based on a military rocket from the other side, I'd rather give it a less dramatic name to dissociate it from any militaristic implications.
[X] [EOR] R-4 Dawn
A new kind of name for a new family of rocket, one which resonates both with it putting things into orbit and with it opening up an exciting new field, and with the idea of space exploration being a globally unifying pursuit.
Considering this one is based on a military rocket from the other side, I'd rather give it a less dramatic name to dissociate it from any militaristic implications.
[X] [EOR] R-4 Dawn
A new kind of name for a new family of rocket, one which resonates both with it putting things into orbit and with it opening up an exciting new field, and with the idea of space exploration being a globally unifying pursuit.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
He's not the only one getting a reaming if it turns out we didn't actually do an archaeological survey on the heavy sounding rocket launch site before breaking ground. . .
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
[X] [HSR] R-3 Snow
[X] [EOR] R-4 Dawn
[X] [EOR] R-4 Dawn
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There are multiple Portlands in the US, for your information.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
There's 26, to be precise. I propose that after the revolution they would have been numbered in order of founding, making the artist formerly known as Portland Maine "Portland One."
- Pronouns
- She/Her
New headcanon accepted.