A solution I wish to propose is that for each completed tech within a node, the random bonus for that node is increased by the skill of researchers. Or there is an increase to the overflow, like +1 or +2 to overflow for each completed tech. Or anything, really - When a tech in a research group is completed, you realize that there are less topics for researchers to look at, which means that intuitively speaking, more progress should be made on the uncompleted topics.
/
...Actually, we could have a different research system altogether - Research is largely about breakthroughs and at the same time incremental progress, so perhaps we could roll the skill of researchers to assign where their points go? Or something. Perhaps generic researchers will do the bulk of the work?..
Any proposal that still retains the randomness due to tech completion is not any better IMO. Your proposal still has research time for the whole research node a probability distribution instead of something 100% predictable, and it adds more complicating rules too.
But also tech tree itself seemed less... overwhelming? I'm primarily a mobile user. When I open a single spoiler and get a faceful of 25 tabs that take all of my screen without even opening them, the first, second and third reaction is "Ahahaha nope." And that's just one kind of tech. I don't think I'm misremembering when I say that things were easier to take in.
Well a tech tree was inevitable or else we'd be sitting with a bunch of ever increasing rp (along with simplifying snakepits a bit by eliminating research team options). The alternatives were sticking with the old research category with built-in tech tiers system and allowing more rp to be spent or assigning multiple research teams to same category, with potentially complicated rules to avoid over-specialization.
I'm fine with a tech tree. It's the uncertainty about research completion times that is confounding and precludes much long-term planning.
IF we could get things down to where only 5-10 teams were being reassigned at once, AND IF we had overflow so there wasn't a mechanical need to worry about a given team being "too good" for a given research project...
I'd be okay with a compromise where research nodes are locked until completion AND overflow mechanics were revised to make overall research node time 100% predictable. Especially in the long run with high skill (4+) teams, each research node wouldn't take that long to complete, so it's not like we would be locking down a team for decades.
It would then be more similar to ship building planning - there's very limited mechanism for cancelling/delaying a ship build in progress there, and that would be analogous to researching a research node.
I keep bringing up Briefvoice's ship building planning spreadsheet, because research planning has the potential to be very similar to that, and thus we could create a spreadsheet to help make long-term research plans in a fairly intuitive manner. But that's not possible right now because of the uncertainty inherit with the current research overflow mechanics.
If we do adopt research node locking, I still would like the option to switch teams at some expense, but not 5pp - that's an unreasonable cost. Like Nix said, 5rp (another rp sink!) or 1pp or so would be much more reasonable.
Dropping inspiration won't help much. It's effectively guaranteed (predictable) +5 per turn, and I don't mind randomness in getting particular techs faster within a research node. It's the overflow mechanics that's the problem.
Any proposal that still retains the randomness due to tech completion is not any better IMO. Your proposal still has research time for the whole research node a probability distribution instead of something 100% predictable, and it adds more complicating rules too.
Allowing research to progress for *completed* research would make it 100% predictable.
It would also make research progress faster on average, so I suppose Onerios could increase RP costs to accomadate?
I don't think RP costs to swap teams is the solution, though - it's intent is to prevent us from making research complicated via research team swapping, so it's not really workable.
I could see a situation where we're allowed to burn RP at an inefficient rate to rush a technology, though. Say, at a 1 RP to 1 Tech Progress rate. That's actually rather more workable IMO.
You basically had two types of proposals: one that increases research bonuses whenever a tech is 100% complete, and thus variable on when those techs randomly complete. The other involves random rolling of research skill, which should obviously make research node completion time random.
I suppose if you tweak it extremely carefully, the increasing research bonus proposals could still have research node completion time be non-random, but then why not just go for the simpler solution of allowing overflow to apply to all techs regardless of completion? That too also effectively increases research bonuses as techs are completed, but in a fashion that guaranties non-random research node completion time.
I don't think RP costs to swap teams is the solution, though - it's intent is to prevent us from making research complicated via research team swapping, so it's not really workable.
I'm not sure why it wouldn't be workable? If the intent is to disincentive switching assignments, you just need a cost. That cost can be RP. Unless you think we'll always have a surplus of RP in the future and thus RP is effectively a meaningless mechanic?
I could see a situation where we're allowed to burn RP at an inefficient rate to rush a technology, though. Say, at a 1 RP to 1 Tech Progress rate. That's actually rather more workable IMO.
That would be a decent RP sink, but I'm not sure we want or need an additional research mechanic at this point (in contrast with tweaking/simplifying existing ones). Maybe a couple years down the line, if we persistently keep having RP surpluses and thus need another RP sink.
Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 23371.4 - Nash ka'Sharren
We have received a number of very odd transmissions from the SS Udusha, an Andorian civilian research cruiser. Inexplicable, unprofessional transmissions, well outside the norm for any spacefaring service, enough to raise alarm bells that they ship may be in distress. The Udusha had been analysing the accretion disk of the Pisces* black hole. There shouldn't be any mind-altering substances around, except perhaps if staring into primordial nothingness long enough eventually drives you mad. Honestly, if I had to take a stab, they sounded, well, drunk!
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Captain's Log, USS Sarek, Stardate 23372.1
While on a sweep through the Cardassian Border Zone, we have located a potential mining colony at Lapycorias VII, located between Bajor and Indoria. Substantial duranium deposits should keep any mine in operation for centuries. I would like to call attention to the distribution pattern of the ore veins, which [Chief of Staff: taken the liberty of snipping the remaining 19 minutes of the log].
[+25 br, locate potential 25 br/yr colony]
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Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 23372.5
The SS Jade Queen, a Rigellian civilian ship, has put out a distress call. She is under attack by slavers who have demanded their surrender. They are attempting to escape, but with only fusion reactors providing a top speed of Warp 4, they haven't a hope of getting away.
I can only hope we arrive in time.
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Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 23372.4
We are heading back towards Caitian space to be on hand for the end of hostilities between Caitian and Dawiar. There should be no threat to proceedings, but we want to keep a strong watch for Cardassian vessels in the lead-up. It is a reasonable assumption that peace is ...
[Beep]
Commander, why have we dropped out of warp?
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Captain's Log, USS Stalwart, Stardate 23373.1
The USS Comfort has issued a distress call, warning that their life-support systems were failing after a massive power-surge hit their system while they were proceeding towards an outbreak of Warkoan Fever on Ypres IV-12. Unfortunately, we were unable to arrive in time to save the ship, as the Ypres colony is on the far edge of the sector. Ion storms are continuing to breakout around the system, and it looks like passing through one of these has caused the impulse reactor blow-out.
[Starfleet Hospital Ship lost]
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Station Commander's Log, Vega Outpost, Stardate 23373.4
We have just been raided by a Sydraxian party consisting of one cruiser and two escorts. Between ourselves and a Miranda-class from United Earth, we successfully fended off the attack. The enemy cruiser suffered heavy damage, and will most likely be laid up for a while. Shields on the outpost have held up, and our Miranda escort avoided damage.
[Vega outpost saved]
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Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 23373.6
The SS Jade Queen is in the process of breaking up due to weapons damage. I have beamed up those survivors that were still on the ship and locked in a pursuit course for their assailants, whose subspace wake we can still detect. They haven't gotten far, and they have as much hope of outrunning an Excelsior's warp drive as the Jade Queen had of outrunning them.
It always puts a smile on my face to see the hunter become the hunted.
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Captain's Log, USS Endurance, Stardate 23373.8
Together with the Bon Vivant and the Hospital Ship Mercy, we have arrived at a Rigellian colony world to render aid for a serious plague situation. A rotting blight is affecting the substantial cartilaginous matter of the Rigellian biology. Although the existing cures for this virus failed on account of heavy mutating in the virus gene sequence, the extensive science labs of the Endurance have been able to assess the changes and develop a counter-agent.
[Gain +25 Relations with Rigel, +10rp]
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Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 23374.2
There are no lifesigns remaining on the Udutha, the ship is dead in space on a slowly degrading orbit. We have beamed over to attempt to ascertain what happened and ... I have to say it looks like one wild party happened on this ship. Discard and refuse littered the corridors. The ship's environmental controls were turned down to what became lethal levels. We have turned it up somewhat, but we don't want to cause anyone to thaw out just yet, so it is still in freezing conditions. The process of analysing all the fatalities and beaming them to a makeshift morgue in Cargo Bay 6 will begin shortly.
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Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 23374.6
After a spontaneous failure of the warp drive, we have found ourselves making our way at high impulse to a Qloath colony world, a Class M world covered with heavy jungle-like vegetation, in between Arqeniou and Dawiar space. It looks like one of our plasma injectors simply failed due to manufacturing blemishes. Thankfully it did not do so in an explosive manner, with the ion flow regulator simply closing off supply.
We are attempting to negotiate with the colony for the materials we require to fix the plasma injector. Otherwise, an engineering ship from Starfleet is two weeks away. However, I find the colony administrator to be less a negotiator, and more an extortionist.
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Captain's Log, USS Selaya, Stardate 23374.8
The Betazed crusier Radlawxa has reported serious damage from an asteroid collision. We were able to arrive in time to prevent the substantial damage becoming ship destroying damage, thankfully. After spending a day to fortify the ship for travel, patrol cruiser Radlawxa is now being towed back to Rixx Orbital by the Selaya.
[Gain +10pp, member world ship saved]
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Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 23375.1
Strange behaviour is starting to sweep the ship. Crew members, especially those who either went to the Udutha or share quarters with those who did, are behaving as if intoxicated, even though their bloodstreams are testing clear. I'm working with Doctor Asurva to identify a cause but we have nothing yet.
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Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 23375.5
We have tracked down the assailant ship and disabled it. The Little Fang is of Orion make but spoofed registry. Forcing them to surrender their vessel proved a somewhat more involved task. After they threatened the safety of their captives from the Jade Queen, we were able to exploit an improperly secured and maintained comms mount to hack into their computer system remotely to end the stand-off by spreading a knock-out gas around the ship.
[Gain +2 Impact, +25 Relations with Rigel, +5 pp]
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Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 23375.8
Our warp drive and one of the impulse reactors has been taken off-line by infected crew and now we are the ship on the degenerating orbit to Pisces*. We still don't know the vector that was taken for this infection. It seems that it triggered nothing in the transporter biofilter. All we know is that there is some agent at play, and it is sending people completely odd. Commander Zaardmani is going around like a clan champion, rescuing fair damsels and looking rather dashing while doing it. I had to send even logical Stol to sickbay after he began practicing Vulcan children's dances on the bridge.
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Captain's Log, USS Thunderhead, Stardate 23376.2
We have rescued survivors from a Caldonian Cargo Ship that was hit by a powerful subspace surge around the Iconi system, near the Klingon border. As we collected the last of the escape pods, we were challenged by a new, larger and more powerful variant of the Bird of the Prey. However, it was pretty clear just what we were up to, and the Klingons eventually aided us in searching the area for any other survivors that we missed.
[Gain +5pp, +25 Relations with Caldonia]
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Chief Medical Officer's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 23376.5
Almost everyone on the ship is infected, and we are a mere hour away from reaching the event horizon of this black hole. However, we're only half-an-hour away from our navigational deflectors being overwhelmed by the radiation from the accretion disk.
The infeciton is the Polywater Infection, reported by the original Enterprise. They managed to develop a cure, which is in our database. As of this moment, I am waiting on the first batch to synthesize, so I can get the Engineering staff back in action. Thankfully, I and the one other female Orion crew member aboard are unaffected. When you spend your life as something of a pheromone factory, you need more than water with delusions of grandeur to upset your inner balance.
[Gain +10 rp]
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Federation Anti-Slavery Sub-Committee Report
A number of ships were detained, of which two were found to be Orion Syndicate smuggling vessels.
The Friec, a Riala-class Amarki ship, had to attend to political disturbances on Selindra, where the crack-down on the Syndicate is reportedly disrupting other trade.
[Total Impact for the Year, 22, Cumulative Total of 22]
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Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 23376.9
In addition to being an extortionate brute, it seems that the local governor has a weak point: he is an inveterate gambler. Noticing that he had a Three-Dimensional Chess set, a recent import from the early trade between the the Federation and the Qloath, I inquired as to his familiarity with the game. When he boasted of his prowess, I committed a large proportion of the S'harien's cargo bays to a wager. Being coached by my first officer in how to sound "desperate" was an ... experience, but the ruse was successfully carried out.
I neglected to mention to the Governor that I was trained in the art of chess by Spock.
[Gain +25 Relations with the Qloath, +10pp]
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Federation Broadcast News, Stardate 23378.2
The Gaeni Tech-Cruiser Koat-Nar of the Perkoia Tanar Institute has just been reported lost with all hands. The heavy electromagnetic disruptions encountered in the Triosis system induced a failure of the primary cooling loops, and when the secondary loops failed to start up in a timely manner, there was a containment failure that destroyed the ship.
I would actually call the uncertainty about longterm planning an advantage. You need some uncertainty/chaos when it comes to such things because otherwise it will become incredible boring/stale. If you reach a situation where all people do for 5-10 turns is follow some predetermined plan (that is often dictated by an elite) you have got a real issue with active player participation (at least in my opinion). You will have (hopefully) a large discussion at the start but "silence" for a longtime afterwards (which in turn is something many GM's find very dispiriting).
Granted this quest has a neat turn mechanic that counters this imbalance since the actual research turns are relatively spread out (and thus people have other reasons to be active) but even so it starts to become a problem when you consider that fields like "shipbuilding" have also developed such automatism.
I am honestly not sure how I should value this turn . On the one hand we lost quite a few ships( but they weren't really ours) and on the other hand we got also got quite a few diplomatic boni this turn.
I am honestly not sure how I should value this turn . On the one hand we lost quite a few ships( but they weren't really ours) and on the other hand we got also got quite a few diplomatic boni this turn.
30 pp, +50 to rigel and +25 to Qolath and +25 to Caldonians, a loss of a few affiliate/member ships but also impact on against the syndicate. Also we seem to have good relations with the Klingons still. Overall a success
I would like to call attention to the distribution pattern of the ore veins, which [Chief of Staff: taken the liberty of snipping the remaining 19 minutes of the log].
Straak must love having the most boring (to everyone else) missions on FYMs.
Captain's Log, USS Stalwart, Stardate 23373.1
The USS Comfort has issued a distress call, warning that their life-support systems were failing after a massive power-surge hit their system while they were proceeding towards an outbreak of Warkoan Fever on Ypres IV-12. Unfortunately, we were unable to arrive in time to save the ship, as the Ypres colony is on the far edge of the sector. Ion storms are continuing to breakout around the system, and it looks like passing through one of these has caused the impulse reactor blow-out.
Station Commander's Log, Vega Outpost, Stardate 23373.4
We have just been raided by a Sydraxian party consisting of one cruiser and two escorts. Between ourselves and a Miranda-class from United Earth, we successfully fended off the attack. The enemy cruiser suffered heavy damage, and will most likely be laid up for a while. Shields on the outpost have held up, and our Miranda escort avoided damage.
This is really concerning. Sydraxians are now making incursions into Federation space. While we don't have the ships or pp to spare to create a border zone, and I don't really want to just give up and treat Sydraxians as a permanent enemy, we do need to consider beefing up Tellar, Sol, and Rigel sectors, even if we already meet garrison requirements.
We are heading back towards Caitian space to be on hand for the end of hostilities between Caitian and Dawiar. There should be no threat to proceedings, but we want to keep a strong watch for Cardassian vessels in the lead-up. It is a reasonable assumption that peace is ...
It looks like one of our plasma injectors simply failed due to manufacturing blemishes. Thankfully it did not do so in an explosive manner, with the ion flow regulator simply closing off supply.
Uh-oh, I hope that doesn't mean Excelsiors suddenly have reliability problems.
Also, hope nothing bad happened to the Caitian-Dawiar peace negotiations because of this.
As we collected the last of the escape pods, we were challenged by a new, larger and more powerful variant of the Bird of the Prey. However, it was pretty clear just what we were up to, and the Klingons eventually aided us in searching the area for any other survivors that we missed.
This is great for intel and for continuing peaceful relations with Klingons.
Chief Medical Officer's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 23376.5
Almost everyone on the ship is infected, and we are a mere hour away from reaching the event horizon of this black hole. However, we're only half-an-hour away from our navigational deflectors being overwhelmed by the radiation from the accretion disk.
The infeciton is the Polywater Infection, reported by the original Enterprise. They managed to develop a cure, which is in our database. As of this moment, I am waiting on the first batch to synthesize, so I can get the Engineering staff back in action. Thankfully, I and the one other female Orion crew member aboard are unaffected. When you spend your life as something of a pheromone factory, you need more than water with delusions of grandeur to upset your inner balance.
Wow, here I thought that "Blue Kirk" just described Nash's personality, when it turns out it aptly describes her physiology!
Also, this kinda ended abruptly - I assume that the Enterprise escaped the black hole with that "[Gain +10 rp]", but if that wasn't there, I'd have thought there would be another log entry coming.
The Friec, a Riala-class Amarki ship, had to attend to political disturbances on Selindra, where the crack-down on the Syndicate is reportedly disrupting other trade.
And that's two three successful missions by Saavik. And Qloath are now only 11 away from affiliate status.
The Gaeni Tech-Cruiser Koat-Nar of the Perkoia Tanar Institute has just been reported lost with all hands. The heavy electromagnetic disruptions encountered in the Triosis system induced a failure of the primary cooling loops, and when the secondary loops failed to start up in a timely manner, there was a containment failure that destroyed the ship.
I would actually call the uncertainty about longterm planning an advantage. You need some uncertainty/chaos when it comes to such things because otherwise it will become incredible boring/stale. If you reach a situation where all people do for 5-10 turns is follow some predetermined plan (that is often dictated by an elite) you have got a real issue with active player participation (at least in my opinion). You will have (hopefully) a large discussion at the start but "silence" for a longtime afterwards (which in turn is something many GM's find very dispiriting).
There's already plenty of uncertainty about research planning outside of research node times. RP is a scarce resource that we aren't guaranteed to always have a surplus in (and if do keep having surpluses, that suggests need RP cost tweaks or another RP sink). Events keep happening that change research priorities. For example, switching from long-range sensors to short-range sensors for anti-cloaking. Synergistic discussion with SDB keep revising what ship design techs we're aiming for, especially explorer vs cruiser vs escort prioritization.
Research node time uncertainty is just not needed and results in even attempting to make long-term plans an exercise in frustration.
but even so it starts to become a problem when you consider that fields like "shipbuilding" have also developed such automatism.
I disagree. Both ship building and ship designing are interactive affairs that involve both dedicated cores coming up with several proposals, and the rest of the vote base voting on such proposals (and mostly understanding the implications). For ex, consider Briefvoice's latest ship building option summary.
What do you mean, "suddenly"? Don't forget; the Excelsior-class was intended as a testbed for Transwarp Drive. The USS Excelsior itself was sabotaged by Scotty in the third movie, preventing it from intercepting the stolen Enterprise, but that wasn't why Starfleet cancelled the project...
In regard to research, how about allowing us to spend extra RP to speed up research? Say, at a relatively inefficient rate, but still allowing an exchange rate.
It would handle all the opimization timings things while still be something we wouldn't want to use where possible (Assuming it was sufficiently inefficient.)
Easily explainable by starfleet allocating extra resources to research projects.
We have just been raided by a Sydraxian party consisting of one cruiser and two escorts. Between ourselves and a Miranda-class from United Earth, we successfully fended off the attack. The enemy cruiser suffered heavy damage, and will most likely be laid up for a while. Shields on the outpost have held up, and our Miranda escort avoided damage.
oh dear, that's kind of concerning. I wonder if the threat level will go up due to this, I mean a small fleet attacked one of our stations. That's the kind of thing that justifies an increase in military buildup.
We have tracked down the assailant ship and disabled it. The Little Fang is of Orion make but spoofed registry. Forcing them to surrender their vessel proved a somewhat more involved task. After they threatened the safety of their captives from the Jade Queen, we were able to exploit an improperly secured and maintained comms mount to hack into their computer system remotely to end the stand-off by spreading a knock-out gas around the ship.
We have rescued survivors from a Caldonian Cargo Ship that was hit by a powerful subspace surge around the Iconi system, near the Klingon border. As we collected the last of the escape pods, we were challenged by a new, larger and more powerful variant of the Bird of the Prey.
However, it was pretty clear just what we were up to, and the Klingons eventually aided us in searching the area for any other survivors that we missed.
The Gaeni Tech-Cruiser Koat-Nar of the Perkoia Tanar Institute has just been reported lost with all hands. The heavy electromagnetic disruptions encountered in the Triosis system induced a failure of the primary cooling loops, and when the secondary loops failed to start up in a timely manner, there was a containment failure that destroyed the ship.
said one Tanar spokesperson, "well thease things happen, you know how it is. any two parts fail at once and the ship goes up." reporters were then seen to rapidly exit the gani made space station.
honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen this happen before now. Maybe it's standard practice to leave the hull and warp core the most reliable parts?
What do you mean, "suddenly"? Don't forget; the Excelsior-class was intended as a testbed for Transwarp Drive. The USS Excelsior itself was sabotaged by Scotty in the third movie, preventing it from intercepting the stolen Enterprise, but that wasn't why Starfleet cancelled the project...
Oneiros previously said he was grandfathering in 100% reliability for Starfleet ships when he introduced the reliability mechanic (except Soyuz, which already suffered via event failure by then I think).
I'm wondering if that's no longer the case, and that Excelsior now has 98% or 99% reliability and we just got unlucky here.
OTOH, it doesn't seem like two events can happen to a ship a single captain's log, and the rest of the captain's log indicated S'harien got a presence-based event (chess game).
Fwiw, "Annual Hilarious Breakdown Chance" doesn't actually mean that the ship blows up. Mostly it gets an event, and some variant of unfortunateness occurs to it. Usually short of blowing up.
Do be careful as to how far you push the warp related fudge factors though, no one wants a warp core pushed to the edge and ready to blow.
Except the Gaeni, of course. That's right up their alley.
What do you mean, "suddenly"? Don't forget; the Excelsior-class was intended as a testbed for Transwarp Drive. The USS Excelsior itself was sabotaged by Scotty in the third movie, preventing it from intercepting the stolen Enterprise, but that wasn't why Starfleet cancelled the project...
Presumably, it was canceled because it didn't work. We never had any other indication that any other parts on the Excelsiors were particularly unreliable.
That said, S'harien is one of the newest ships in the fleet, and the component failure was a "manufacturing defect." The most likely explanation is that we got a bad part from the factory, presumably a statistical fluke given how many ship-years we've put on our Excelsior fleet without anything like this happening. And that more careful inspection of the parts we receive are all that's needed.
Yeah. I'm not sure if it's just a common thing Oneiros is using to represent a "ship threatened by random Spatial Whozit threat" roll result on the event checks, or if this is him subtly hinting at what our next boss-level threat is.
In fairness, "we didn't get there in time" indicates that Stalwart failed a Defense roll. Nothing we have right now except an explorer would have passed that Defense check, if so. Because at Defense 3 the Constellations are among the best ships we have short of explorer status.
The Constellation-A refit would have Defense 4, the Constitutions (A and B) and Renaissance have five, and the Excelsiors have six... and we've got ships that meet those descriptions in the pipeline.
It's a pity the sector fleet Excelsior (not sure where Stalwart is assigned but I think there is one) wasn't able to respond either.
This is really concerning. Sydraxians are now making incursions into Federation space. While we don't have the ships or pp to spare to create a border zone, and I don't really want to just give up and treat Sydraxians as a permanent enemy, we do need to consider beefing up Tellar, Sol, and Rigel sectors, even if we already meet garrison requirements.
Hopefully not. "Bug in our machinery" sounds like something you could roll on an event table, and S'harien is literally a brand new ship. That may actually be the problem; she's still in the shakedown phase.
Also, hope nothing bad happened to the Caitian-Dawiar peace negotiations because of this.
Oooh. Good point. Though I think he'd have mentioned if anything had. Also, the relations boost with the Qloath is a good consolation prize, and the +10 political will won't go amiss either.
Wow, here I thought that "Blue Kirk" just described Nash's personality, when it turns out it aptly describes her physiology!
Also, this kinda ended abruptly - I assume that the Enterprise escaped the black hole with that "[Gain +10 rp]", but if that wasn't there, I'd have thought there would be another log entry coming.
Yeah. Well, to be fair, once you've cured a polywater outbreak, there's not a lot to tell: "everyone sobered up and stopped flying into the giant space-pit, the end."
OTOH, it doesn't seem like two events can happen to a ship a single captain's log, and the rest of the captain's log indicated S'harien got a presence-based event (chess game).
This may have just been an excuse to start the plot. Oneiros tends to write Captain's Log entries as sort of Cliff's Note editions of an actual Star Trek episode. I'm sure plenty of Trek episodes have used a convenient mechanical breakdown as an excuse to start the plot.
The USS Comfort has issued a distress call, warning that their life-support systems were failing after a massive power-surge hit their system while they were proceeding towards an outbreak of Warkoan Fever on Ypres IV-12. Unfortunately, we were unable to arrive in time to save the ship, as the Ypres colony is on the far edge of the sector. Ion storms are continuing to breakout around the system, and it looks like passing through one of these has caused the impulse reactor blow-out.
Station Commander's Log, Vega Outpost, Stardate 23373.4
We have just been raided by a Sydraxian party consisting of one cruiser and two escorts. Between ourselves and a Miranda-class from United Earth, we successfully fended off the attack. The enemy cruiser suffered heavy damage, and will most likely be laid up for a while. Shields on the outpost have held up, and our Miranda escort avoided damage.
It's great the outpost was saved, but it's just more proof we can't keep ignoring the Sydraxians and hoping they'll cool down and quit. We need intelligence reports on them. That border zone would be nice to have too, if we had the ships to man it.
Captain's Log, USS Selaya, Stardate 23374.8
The Betazed crusier Radlawxa has reported serious damage from an asteroid collision. We were able to arrive in time to prevent the substantial damage becoming ship destroying damage, thankfully. After spending a day to fortify the ship for travel, patrol cruiser Radlawxa is now being towed back to Rixx Orbital by the Selaya.
That was nice, though. Sometimes the Constellations succeed. If we refit them, they might succeed more often.
Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 23375.5
We have tracked down the assailant ship and disabled it. The Little Fang is of Orion make but spoofed registry. Forcing them to surrender their vessel proved a somewhat more involved task. After they threatened the safety of their captives from the Jade Queen, we were able to exploit an improperly secured and maintained comms mount to hack into their computer system remotely to end the stand-off by spreading a knock-out gas around the ship.
Lot of relations with Rigel this turn. I wouldn't mind seeing them be the next members after the Caitains.
Captain's Log, USS Thunderhead, Stardate 23376.2
We have rescued survivors from a Caldonian Cargo Ship that was hit by a powerful subspace surge around the Iconi system, near the Klingon border. As we collected the last of the escape pods, we were challenged by a new, larger and more powerful variant of the Bird of the Prey. However, it was pretty clear just what we were up to, and the Klingons eventually aided us in searching the area for any other survivors that we missed.
Complicated feelings about this. It shows that having an Affiliate so close to the KBZ will lead to more contact with the Klingons, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. And it's not like the cargo ship wouldn't have blown up if the Federation weren't so chummy with the Caldonians.
Federation Anti-Slavery Sub-Committee Report
A number of ships were detained, of which two were found to be Orion Syndicate smuggling vessels.
The Friec, a Riala-class Amarki ship, had to attend to political disturbances on Selindra, where the crack-down on the Syndicate is reportedly disrupting other trade.
[Total Impact for the Year, 22, Cumulative Total of 22]
Interesting how much more mention of member world ships we're starting to get. And I wonder how the Syndicate is going to respond to this very direct challenge.
Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 23376.9
In addition to being an extortionate brute, it seems that the local governor has a weak point: he is an inveterate gambler. Noticing that he had a Three-Dimensional Chess set, a recent import from the early trade between the the Federation and the Qloath, I inquired as to his familiarity with the game. When he boasted of his prowess, I committed a large proportion of the S'harien's cargo bays to a wager. Being coached by my first officer in how to sound "desperate" was an ... experience, but the ruse was successfully carried out.
I neglected to mention to the Governor that I was trained in the art of chess by Spock.
Yeah, definitely a push for the Qloath next turn. Get them and the Dawiar to affiliate status, and we'll have a much more solid "southern border".
Federation Broadcast News, Stardate 23378.2
The Gaeni Tech-Cruiser Koat-Nar of the Perkoia Tanar Institute has just been reported lost with all hands. The heavy electromagnetic disruptions encountered in the Triosis system induced a failure of the primary cooling loops, and when the secondary loops failed to start up in a timely manner, there was a containment failure that destroyed the ship.
-
That's a real blow for the Gaeni. The Tech-Cruisers are their biggest, toughest ships. A pity that we couldn't get a ship out there to help, but I suppose Captain Thuir can't solve all their engineering issues.
Generic Team 1: 2310s Shipboard Computing
Daystorm Institute : 2320s Mainframes
40 Eridani A Shipyards : 2310s WarpCores
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems : 2310s Warp Core Safety
Taves Nar Orbital Engineering: ToC Starship Frames
Starfleet Medical Command : Basic ToC Equipment
Vulcan Science Academy : 2310s Short-Range Sensors
Generic Team 4: 2310s Long-Range Sensors
Weapons Fabrication Division: Early ToC Weapons
Federation Broadcast Service : 2310s Communications
Starfleet Science Academy: 2310s Message Security
Tellar Prime Academy of Mineral Science : 2310s Special Resources
University of Betazed: 2310s Affiliates Research
Spock: 2310s Diplomacy
Generic Team 3: 2310s Escort - Engineering
Generic Team 2: 2310s Explorer - Science
San Francisco Fleet Yards : 2310s Explorer - Engineering
Generic Team 5: Klingon Research
+6
33 / 40 Chelok-Am Dilithium Treatment (Dilithium Efficency II) (Warp Core Weight:SR ratio reduced by 0.1) 40 / 40 Improved Thermal Shroud (Warp Core Construction II) (Warp Core Weight reduced by 2%) [3 Overflow]
35 / 60 Improved Injector Throttling (Warp Core Scaling II) (Warp Core Min Multiplier reduced by .5/1/2)
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems : 2310s Warp Core Safety
+8
35 / 40 K19 Main Engineering System Module (Warp Core Damage Failsafe Design II) (Reduced chance of Warp Core Breach and reduce crew loss in the event of ship destroyed)
30 / 40 Light-Weight Coolant Redundancy (Warp Core Operation Safety Design II) (Improved reliability by 2%)
19 / 20 EPS Conduit Mag Failsafes I (Reliability for all stats improved by 0.1)
Taves Nar Orbital Engineering: ToC Starship Frames
+4+2 20 / 20 Hull Armour Material Science I (-2% to Hull Weight)
20 / 20 Hull Integrity Grids I (-1% to Hull Power Cost)
20 / 20 Frame Weight Improvements I (-2% to Frame Weight)
[Gain -2% hull weight, power use, -2% to frame weight]
Starfleet Medical Command : Basic ToC Equipment
+8 20 / 20 San Francisco 1 Pattern Away Team Kit (Away Team Standard Equipment I) (reduce crew losses on away missions)
20 / 20 Mark-II Phaser Family (Personal Phasers I) (reduced crew casualties to events involving alien boarding/away team combat)
20 / 20 Yamaha 34a Duotronic Chip (Tricorder I) (Nothing yet)
[Reduce crew losses on away missions, casualties to boarding/away team combat]
Vulcan Science Academy : 2310s Short-Range Sensors
+8+1 40 / 40 SR Anti-Cloaking II - (Improved chance of intercepting cloaked vessels)
31 / 40 Targeting Sensors II (2% weight savings for combat)
10 / 40 Geological Survey Sensors I (+1 to resource acquisition for non-Explorer Crew)
[Improved intercept of cloaked vessels]
Generic Team 4: 2310s Long -Range Sensors
+1+1 40 / 40 Enhanced Sensors II - (2% weight savings for Science)
20 / 20 Light-Weight Sensor Redundancy I (Increases Science Reliability by +1)
40 / 40 Long Range Sensors II - (gain +1 to Rolls in Mapping Missions) [4 Oveflow]
28 / 100 Large-Scale Sensor Array I (Starbases Gain +1 Defence)
[Science Reliability + 1]
Weapons Fabrication Division: Early ToC Weapons
+4
9 / 20 Early Nadion Theory (Phasers I) (Lead to Phaser Development)
4 / 20 Advanced Torpedo Theory (Torpedo I) (Lead to Torpedo Development)
4 / 20 Type-IV Heavy EPS Manifold ( Phaser Power Conductors I) (-1% Combat Power/Use)
4 / 20 Type-VI Torpedo Warhead (Torpedo Yield I) - (-2% combat power use for Escorts)
Andorian Academy: 2310s Deflector Shields
+6
33 / 40 Core Shields II (reduce Shield power requirements by 2%) 20 / 20 Emitter Designs I (-2% to Shield Weight)
20 / 20 Emitter Simplification I (improve Weight:SR ratio of Shield) [5 Overflow]
20 / 20 Shield Geometry I (+1 to Damage Evasion Attempts)
20 / 20 Shield Regeneration II (No effect yet) [1 Overflow]
20 / 20 Shield Reliability I (+1 reliability for shields)
[+1 Reliability for Shields]
Federation Broadcast Service : 2310s Communications
+4
23 / 40 Long Range Subspace Comms II (Gain +1 to all Distress Call and Diplomacy missions)
18 / 40 Fleet Comms II (Give a 2% bonus to Federation Combat values in multi-ship battles)
Starfleet Science Academy: 2310s Message Security
+6
21 / 40 Centi-Cochrane Band Antenna (Subspace Communications Intercepts II) (Allow deployment of Improved Listening Posts) 20 / 20 Subspace Communications Encryption I (Improve Information Security)
20 / 20 Subspace Communications Decryption I (Improve Intelligence Phase Information)
[Improve Information Security]
Tellar Prime Academy of Mineral Science : 2310s Special Resources
+6
13 / 40 Special Resource Extraction III (+5sr on Resource Extraction missions)
8 / 40 Special Resource Identification III (boost to SRs found on Resource Extraction missions)
13 / 40 Special Refining Techniques II (+5 to Mining Colony annual production)
University of Betazed: 2310s Affiliates Research
+6
11 / 60 Recruiting Campaign III (Increase Academy intake from Federation Affiliates to 0.15 each)
11 / 60 Diplomatic Analysis III (+2 to the -Annual- Diplomacy Rolls)
6 / 60 Public Media I (Leads to further tech)
Spock: 2310s Diplomacy
+10
10 / 60 Universal Translator IV (Nothing yet)
15 / 80 Extended Diplomatic Reach I (Apply an Annual Roll for a Random Non-Affiliate with Positive Relations)
10 / 60 Extended Profiles I (+1 to all Diplomatic Rolls)
Generic Team 3: 2310s Escort - Engineering
+1+2
10 / 20 Early Light-Weight Duranimum Alloy (Escort Hull Design II) (-1% to Escort hull weight)
5 / 20 Type-VII-E Deflector Array (Escort Shield Design I) (-1% to Escort shield weight)
3 / 10 ONA Standards Initiative (Escort Reliability Design I) (+1% to Escort Reliability)
3 / 10 Alpha-Pattern Close Interlocking Geometry (Escort Shield Geometry I)(-2% to Escort Shield power Use)
Generic Team 2: 2310s Explorer - Science
+1+2
10 / 20 ONA Costs Directive 230x (Escort Design Efficiency II) (-2% to SR Costs)
5 / 20 Lwaxana Design Protocol '0x (Escort Presence Design II) (-1% to Escort Presence weight)
10 / 20 Improved Sensor Cupola Design (Escort Science Design II) (-1% to Escort stat weights)
3 / 10 XA3 Compact Plasma Coolant Exchange (Escort Warp Core Weight I) (-2% Warp Core weight on Escorts)
3 / 10 High-Efficiency EPS Conduit (-1% Science/Presence Power Use)
San Francisco Fleet Yards : 2310s Explorer - Engineering
+6+2
20 / 40 Explorer Hull Design II (-1% to Explorer stat weights)
12 / 20 Type-VII-X SH Duty Deflector Array (Explorer Shield Design II) (-1% to Explorer stat weights)
13 / 20 Explorer Reliability Design I (+1 Hull/Shield Reliability)
8 / 20 Ultra-High Throughput EPS Core Tap I (+2% Explorer Power Generation)
Office of Naval Architectur: Way of the Anchor
+4+3
17 / 25 Anchor Ship (Explorers gain +2 to Response rolls, Cruisers gain +1) 25 / 25 Explorer Ethos (All Explorers count for -1 Combat with the Council)
[Explorers count for -1 Combat with the Council]
Lt-Cdr Kuznetsova's Tiger Team: Way of the Elephant
+6+3
23 / 25 Attack Pattern Echo (+5% Fleet Combat when outnumbered)
23 / 25 Rapid Shield Roll (+1 Shield when Outnumbered 2:1 or more)
Admiral Lathriss : Way of the Giant
+6+3 25 / 25 Explorer Emphasis (+1 to Ship Design (Explorer) Research)
21 / 25 Big is Beautiful (Reduce Explorer and Cruiser project pp request costs by 25%)
[+1 to Ship Design (Explorer) Research]
Starfleet Tactical Command - Games & Theory Division: Cardassian Research
+4+3 26 / 30 Tactical Analysis I (+1% Fed Combat Power v Cardassians)
26 / 30 Doctrinal Analysis I (-1% CardassiansCombat Power)
26 / 30 Attack Pattern Analysis I (+2% chance of dodging a hit) 30 / 30 Intelligence Analysis I (Improved counter intel) [6 Overflow]
3 / 60 Tactical Analysis II
3 / 60 Doctrinal Analysis II
3 / 60 Attack Pattern Analysis II
18 / 60 Intelligence Analysis II
Generic Team 5: Klingon Research
+1+3
4 / 30 Tactical Analysis I (+1% Fed Combat Power v Klingons)
9 / 30 Doctrinal Analysis I (-1% Klingon Combat Power)
4 / 30 Attack Pattern Analysis I (+2% chance of dodging a hit)
4 / 30 Intelligence Analysis I (Improved counter intel)
Research Team Advancement
Skill increase for:
Cdr Kuznetsova's Tiger Team
Starfleet Tactical Doctrinal Report
Vice Admiral Sulu has started the roll-out of Lone Ranger as the principal design doctrine of Starfleet.
Fwiw, the Stalwart was up against a 3d6=17 mark when it came to responding to that hospital ship, which is why the log was at pains to point out "how far out" the colony being responded to was. I doubt anyone was getting there in time.
