STAR REACH

A note on interstellar travel...

Mankind has succeeded in constructing FTL engines for the purpose of interstellar travel, able to achieve a standard of;
1 sec = 1 light second
1 minute = 1 light minute
1 year = 1 light year

Yet even with the ability to travel faster then light, it would still take years to pass between star systems. Expanding on FTL technology, and advances in quantum physics, have allowed for the construction of ward drive nodes and the establishment of star lanes.

Star lanes are the warp tunnels that speed ships between star systems, essentially opening up a portal and allowing passage that would take years to take place in days. (think Star Trek warp drive mixed with Mass Effect's Mass Relays) Every system has a Warp Drive node, a beacon that opens up a portal through space-time.
 
In other words invading fleets have to exit there? Or can they exit halfway through the tunnel and fly the rest of the way at standard FTL?
 
Ghazkull said:
In other words invading fleets have to exit there? Or can they exit halfway through the tunnel and fly the rest of the way at standard FTL?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Exiting out of warp midway through the star lane is dangerous and runs the risk of rupturing a ship's drive core, but is still possible. Ships can still travel the old fashioned way, and not be inhibited by the warp nodes, however interstellar travel would take years rather than weeks.
 
I have begun sending out mission PMs. Players will receive a brief from their respective employers laying out their objectives. From there formulate an overall plan with your fellow mercenaries if you're working as a team, then relay your orders. An After Action Report will follow detailing the results.
 
Romulus' Tripyre Ltd
  • Apocrypha

    • Tripyre LTD.

    For all of your private naval security needs
    Professional. Reliable. A Permanent Solution.

    Leader: Astoria Harkone



    Speciality: Friends in the Directorate Security Forces​

    Bio:
    Astoria shuffled a few datapads around her desk, as best she could considering the messy state of it anyway. She sighed as she brought her attention back to the multitude of reports and paperwork she still needed to read and/or sign off on on her console. A glance to her left had her eyes land on a picture of herself when she was younger with a few of her friends from childhood, before she joined up with the Directorate Security Forces.

    "Catch me if you can Daniel!" she yelled over her shoulder as she raced across rooftops and jumped over, rolled over, and slid under obstacles in her path. A quick look behind her showed Daniel, an auburn haired boy her age doggedly running at her heels a few meters back. Looking forward again she turned just in time to see the big gap between this building and the next - had to be at least 5 meters she later thought - and her heart hammered in her chest as she soared freely in the air; arms wheeling and her legs stretched as far as they could go to reach the next rooftop. A second later her front foot made contact and she immediately dove into a forward roll to bleed off her momentum and took a few steps forward. Turning around she was just in time to see Daniel doing same thing she did and as he came up they high fived each other. The massive grin on her face must've been contagious if the grin on his face was any indicator.

    Man... those were the good old days... Where she was just living one day to the next at the orphanage with the rest of the crew. In the morning she would get the rest of the kids up in time for whatever breakfast they and the caretakers - bless their souls - could scrounge up and got ready for school. Afternoon and evenings though, she and her friends would go running over rooftops and doing daring-dos and causing some mild havoc in town. She didn't realize at the time why the old matron of the orphanage pushed the kids so hard to go to school, but at least now she knew it payed off. Considering how it got her into the DSF and got her to fly fighters, well, she'll never complain about working hard again.

    "Cub 11, Home Plate. Contact, 2 Bogeys. Grid 7-3-4 by 3-3-1 by 9-5-4, how copy?"

    "Home Plate, Cub 11. Wilco. Bogeys on sensors, moving to engage. Out." my element lead, another trainee pilot, replied back to the ATC for the exercise. "12, on my wing. How Copy?"

    "Two," I moved the stick in my right hand and gently pulled left to stay on his wing as he rolled left then dived and punched the throttle. Hell. Yes. This is the shit I signed up for baby! With a deft twist of my wrist I rolled my fighter to match, pushed the stick forwards, and punched my throttle with my left arm, the accel slamming me into my seat but I couldn't give a shit as my heart was starting that addicting beat in my chest and a manic grin pulled at my lips.

    I followed his lead and we hit an asteroid field a few minutes later. I dived under an asteroid in front of me when my passives finally found the hostile contacts some hundred kilometers away burning hard in our direction, "Break break! Bogeys two o'clock high. One zero zero klicks."

    "Wilco 11. Weapons hot, go active," and with that the exercise was officially on.

    That was the first time I went out for combat, simulated combat sure, but still technically combat. We eventually won that one too, the other team was too aggressive and got baited and separated. Reminds me of my first official engagement though as an actual fighter pilot and not a trainee.

    "Angel Flight, Lighthouse. Contacts grid 7-7-7 by 8-4-1 by 9-0-5. Your flight is ordered to intercept, how copy?"

    "Lighthouse, Angel Actual. Affirmative, moving to intercept. Out. Angels, form up on me."

    "Angel 2, I read you," I replied back as I formed up a bit behind his right wing.

    "Angel 3 copies."

    "Angel 4, Roger."

    We formed up on our flight lead and we boosted over to where our mothership picked up the contacts, somewhere about a thousand kilometers away from our position. Still, we were the closest DSF unit so we got picked to go poke the hornet's nest. We stopped boosting once we were about a hundred klicks out and our passive sensors picked up the contacts, a flight of pirate fighters. No idea where the hell they came from but we've been picking up pings for days in this area.

    "Unknown fighters, this is Angel Flight from the DSF Moreno, identify yourself or you will be fired upon."

    "Go fuck yourself corpo!"

    Well that was blunt, and with the squelch and static their end of the channel closed and considering how they're burning hard towards us its obvious that they're hostile, "Angel Flight, form up by element and engage!"

    '''Roger!'''

    Our flight split and I followed Angel Actual's lead. I pressed my weapon's safeties off and we burned hard towards them. Our sensors turned active and I immediately had tone, "Angel 2 I got tone! Fox one fox one!!"

    Two of my missiles dropped from my fuselage and ignited their thrusters and sped towards the fighter I was targeting. The pirate jets instantly scattered but my two missiles followed their target, doggedly staying in its heels even as it jinked and dived before it finally shot chaff and flares. This time one of the missiles went after one of the flares and exploded, leaving the second missile to keep on going. I followed after him, finger primed to fire off another missile or two when Angel 1 screamed in my ear, "Angel 2 you have a bogey on your tail! Missile missile dive!"

    I instantly threw my fighter into a dive, looking up out of the canopy I saw the missile on my six fly right over my thruster nozzle a scant few meters off. My HUD put that bogey as Target 1, shit. I have their leader on my tail and he's a bare kilometer behind me. I pulled out of my dive and banked right, my active sensors pinging him following right behind me and the fighter I was following beforehand, Target 2, being chased off by Angel 1. Damn I was alone on this one. I pulled back hard on my stick and prayed that Target 1 would stick on my tail. I tapped on my other thrusters with my feet and cut my main engine and flipped a full 180 degrees and there he was a few hundred meters in front of my nose, "Guns guns guns!"

    I smashed the button for my lasers and his fuselage burned, his fighter tumbling off into the distance before exploding; guess I hit something important, "Splash one!"

    Pulling out of my spin I gunned my engines and tried to find my lead and found him still going after Target 2, though the latter was trailing gas. I punched my throttle and boosted after the duo but by the time I caught up Target 2 had been splashed by a missile from Angel 1, "Good shooting Angel 2. From up on me and we'll get the rest."

    "Affirm Angel 1, on your wing."

    They threw me a party, kinda, sorta, after that considering that was my first kill and I was the rookie in the unit. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but camera footage of my cockpit had my face nearly split in half by a grin it was so wide; and that was how I got my callsign Smiles. My time in the DSF was... pretty good actually. Turns out being a fighter jockey got you laid whenever you're in port. Must be something about us being able to play our fighters like our fingers. Heh.

    Still. It was probably a bad idea for me to screw one of the DSF's admiral's daughter, but hey she came onto me first! But I got caught when I was sneaking out and I booked it out of there. The rest of that tour was... pretty tense for me and I resigned my commission and got an honorable discharge out of it. A pretty nice nest egg too if I do say so myself. Got plenty of bounties over the years and I never did use too much of my money, preferring to send most of it back home to the orphanage.

    I tried to go back to civilian life, I really did. I went back to the orphanage, got a place and a job nearby and helped them out whenever I could. Sometimes I went out onto the dating scene but no one ever really caught my fancy. From time to time one of my old buddies from my DSF days would come by and we'd get a drink or six, but I was always yearning to get back out there. To get back in a fighter seat and fly out in the black again.

    A few years after I mustered out one of my old buddies from my old unit came by and dropped the news that a lot of our old unit was leaving the service for some reason or other and he was whining about how he was thinking about going mercenary but couldn't find a good one to sign up with. And it hit me. Why don't I make one?

    With a core made up of my old unit, we could pool together enough money to buy something nice to start out with and with the sign up bonus of 2 BC and considering lots of the people I used to know are now higher up in the command chain... well its an idea worth thinking about. Fast forward a few months later and TRIPYRE LTD. was born with me at the head.

    I snapped out of my day dream when the door to my office opened up, "Smiles, here's the contracts available right now."

    I gave Rook a quick smile, "Thanks Rook, any good ones?"

    He shrugged, "Any contract's a good one and you're the boss. I'm up for whatever."

    I hummed a bit as I scrolled the datapad at the three open contracts, "Lets go for this one..."
     
    Last edited:
  • Apocrypha
    • A minor change you may wish to take into account for IC purposes.

    APCs and Dropships, listed as 1 unit in your stats, are now a squadron. So whereas before you may have had a single APC, you now have a squad of 5, same for dropships.

    Each Squadron can carry up to 5 infantry squads. Price remains the same.
     
    BlackBishop said:
    A minor change you may wish to take into account for IC purposes.

    APCs and Dropships, listed as 1 unit in your stats, are now a squadron. So whereas before you may have had a single APC, you now have a squad of 5, same for dropships.

    Each Squadron can carry up to 5 infantry squads. Price remains the same.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So those who didn't nail any contract... What are they supposed to do?
     
    On the Battlenet...

    As we're getting very close to hostilities I should go over my plan for handling combat.

    When a bogey or enemy is detected, the Battlenet is opened up. Think of this as a control interface your commanders would be using in their Command Information Center.

    Effected players are pinged in the thread, and Alice lays out the details of the upcoming encounter. Should the conflict be adversarial between two or more PC's, the encounter will likely unfold in Pms to preserve the element of surprise.

    Once battle opens up, players relay their orders based on the battle conditions. A combat roll follows, and the event chain moves forward until its conclusion.
     
    Just to be clear, signing bonuses are not immediately available to your company. The bonus is wired over upon closing of the contract, regardless of success or failure of the mission. However, your bid will only be awarded upon success.
     
    On FTL and Space Combat
  • Informational
    • On FTL and Space Combat...

    FTL travel allows starships to traverse star systems in the matter of minutes. However, such speeds make tight maneuvering impossible. As such, it is standard equipment on warships to have interdiction hardware. This is basically an Electro-magnetic pulse that disables a ship's FTL drive and force it out of light speed.

    Interdiction is impossible in warp drive, but is standard operating procedure when intercepting enemy vessels and forcing a phase of naval combat.
     
  • Informational
    • Beginning to get a better grasp of overall format for how I want the game to go.

    I think from now on I'll post a large scale open contract every round, along with one or two smaller, more lucrative contracts players can have bidding wars over. The smaller contracts, along with any player missions will play out in PMs, while the large scale open contract will be done over the main thread. This should keep things running smoothly, allowing me to run multiple missions at the same time, and keeping us progressing and a fair clip.
     

    The Spade of Aces Company [Nick; The Spaces]

    Cmdr-Col. Hellion "Frag" Gnose.

    Burn-Op; An ex-military engineer, Frag is known for three things. His use of explosives, his (rather disturbing) love of flamethrowers, and his near-encyclopedic knowledge of martial arts movies.

    Born out of a trio of military engineers who were dishonourably discharged out of the military due to "excesses in combat zones", Frag took his knowledge of explosives to good use and began to make a living blowing things up. Unhappy doing it without the singing of gunfire about his ears, Frag and his buddies formed the Spade of Aces Company. Stories tell that the name came out a bluff made by Frag, who played a four-of-a-kind hand of ace of spades on a particularly daft marine, who allowed the obvious cheat to win.

    Although not exactly recommended for silent ops, the Spaces haven't failed catastrophically (yet).​
    ​
     
    Alrighty - companies on the open contract have been interdicted enroute to the Chorren system and raiders are targeting their transports. The raiders have run a hack on UMF sensors, sending up ghost signals, and making it impossible to discern the true source of the bogeys.

    Time for some thrilling heroics!
     
    BlackBishop said:
    Alrighty - companies on the open contract have been interdicted enroute to the Chorren system and raiders are targeting their transports. The raiders have run a hack on UMF sensors, sending up ghost signals, and making it impossible to discern the true source of the bogeys.

    Time for some thrilling heroics!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Time to be big damn heroes.
     
    A couple of questions as we wait on orders to finalize the first turn, relevant to most players I hope?

    1 - Is there an ability/requirement/reason to establish bases or a corporate training HQ. For training troops not assigned to missions to improve quality? (Or is this being abstracted for simplicity?)

    2 - Repair and replacements - Kit gets damaged (especially space ships) and some squads lose a few members. How does repair work, time, cost or a combination of the two?

    3 - Is there an ability to hire buy civilian transport to move troops and equipment in excess of what our companies ships can carry? E.g. I hire 5 more squads in addition to my starting 5. Can I only use them once I buy another frigate?
     
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top