Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 41 - You Belong To The City

Spoiler: Event, Dynasty, and Rating Rolls

Meta-Event Roll - 3 - Add 1% tax rate plus best result from initial embassy
Dynasty Luck Roll - 37 - 2% Interest Rate this year

Imperial Approval - 2
Approval Change - 2
Political Rating - -4

Economy Rating - 0
Economy Event - 5
Research Event - 4

Griffin’s Roost Econ - 3
Griffin’s Roost Pop -8
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 0

Nowy Gdansk Econ - 5
Nowy Gdansk Pop - 7
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 3

GIAB Econ - 0
GIAB Rating - 0

Griffon II Orbitals Econ - 0
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 1

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Armed Defense Stations Griffin's Roost* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 99, last contest reroll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory DHS Griffin IV L4 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory DHS Griffin IV L5 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory DHS Griffin IV L1 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $568,470.06 ]
-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 7
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 55
Result - SUCCESS

-Velociraptor [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-Velociraptor [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

-Microraptor [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

-Microraptor [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

-Warrior [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

-Warrior [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 52
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 23
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 75
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$180944.96]
-1 Flight Goshawks [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 39
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Star Fort Wing [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 22
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Assault Carrier Squadrons [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 3
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Light Horse Regiment [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Heavy Garrison Division [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 42
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin's Roost [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 100, Economist reroll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

Planetary Resource Survey - Griffin IV [45]
Target - 45
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory DHS GIAB 1 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory DHS GIAB 2 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 98
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto next turn)

Build Orbital Factory DHS GIAB 3 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 1
Result - Critical SUCCESS

Build Proper Embassy for Novi Romani Imperii [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 91
Result - SUCCESS

CULTURE - General Cultural Festival [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

Orbital Survey [110]
Target - 110
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

Medium Subcapital Cannon* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

NARC Beacon [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 30
Result - SUCCESS

Colonize - Griffin IV [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 99, ShadowArxxy Omake Reroll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-----

The last half of the year is far calmer than the first.

The Department of Periphery Studies tried to harsh your mellow with one of their trademark protests, this time evidently in support of Mime Rights, but all you had to do was instruct the Griffsport PD to tell them that they had been put into invisible boxes and then ship them back to their dormitories on campus.

They were currently holding a mime protest, but as there were now (as campus police have so patiently explained to the protesters) invisible mime-proof barriers on all the exits they were simply marching in circles in their own dining hall. Miming. Badly.

You watched the live stream and got a good laugh at it.

Even Pollux is causing absolutely no real irritation. You are morally certain this won’t last.

And it doesn’t, in late November there is an upsurge in pure Pollux-ness. At least it’s not something you need to get involved in, but it appears that one of the senior police officials in the continental capital has been caught with his pants down taking a leak while mildly inebriated. This has caused much harrumphing and posturing, but since he was A- Off duty at the time, B- in the wilderness taking a family hike, and C- The person who got the image had been trespassing on private property, there’s no real legs to the scandal.

As far as you're concerned, there are worse media nicknames for a police commissioner than ‘The Big Dick Of The Law’.

The wry statement that since this had been on private property during personal time it was certainly a ‘Private Dick’ moment, and he’d be emulating ‘Dick Tracy’ on the perp who trespassed to get the pic… looks like he’s taking it in good humor.

Doesn’t hurt that the guy's first name is Herman, which has led to plenty of bad Moby Dick jokes on late night talk shows.

You do get to review the proposals for a replacement for the Shortbow mech, currently called the Crossbow project.

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	M2 Missile Artillery Walker System	2684.04	ES, DHS	68	27	Missile 1, AMS 1
[]	Light Fire Support Mech	2551.2	ES, DHS	64	26	Missile 1, AMS 1
[]	Yumi YM-2	2874.76	ES, DHS	68	27	Missile 1, AMS 2

The first Star Fort is completed in Griffin’s Roost orbit, and is a truly imposing sight at the commissioning ceremony. You’d never expected to see something so massive, so massively armed and armored, and simply so very imposing. It’s actually visible on the surface at night, and is a truly spectacular sight.

A large number of orbital double heat sink factories are brought online. One factory suffers a significant hardware failure as it is being powered on, traced to a faulty power relay. Repairs will take a few months. Another, however, turns out to be rather overbuilt by a very eager new contractor who manages, on the time and fiscal budget for a most basic double heat sink factory, to build a double-line factory boasting twice the output.

USS Challenger is completed, leaving you now with 3 idle exploration dropships.

HMS Minotaur and HMS Agincourt have been completed as well, bringing the number of Warrior class ships to 8. Strike squadrons have been procured for both of them.

A large number of new dropships have been laid down across all yards, with the Enterprise yard being converted to a basic line for the Lightning class.

The Star Fort has its full complement of fighters, courtesy of the production lines on Griffin’s Roost. Likewise a number of factories collaborate to complete a second Light Horse Regiment, filling out 1st and 2nd brigades of 1st Armored. The 3rd Brigade is intended to be an all Mech brigade and is awaiting the ‘mini-Hesperus’.

A powerful garrison force is put together for Nowy Gdansk, providing close security for the new mech factories that will be coming online next year.

Imperial attention is given to the economic growth of Griffin’s Roost this year, resulting in some impressive gains in economic activity across the planet as commerce thrives. The resulting growth almost completely pays for the initial steps in the Griffon IV Colonization Plan.

Speaking of which, the orbital habitats are in place, protected by a shiny new space station. Resource scans have pinpointed a number of large ore bodies on the planet which will prove highly useful for future development of the new colony. Phase One is now complete, moving on to Phase Two!

The NRI delegation has moved into their new embassy, allowing SS United States to return to her normal operations. The new embassy is modest, but fulfils the needs for the delegation while having plenty of space on the property to expand in the future. The architects made it closely resemble a classical Roman villa, and the delegation expressed their appreciation for the consideration.

The first general cultural festival is a modest success. Crowds are steady and people generally agree it was a very worthwhile event.

The orbital survey of Griffin’s Roost doesn’t really reveal anything all that new. More data on deathapotamusaurus migration patterns, some indications of breeding territories for Great Sharks, and some population tracking for dire penguins. Nothing significant, to be honest. At this point,, Griffin’s Roost itself is very well scanned, so further surveys shouldn’t find anything major anymore.

Work has been completed at the Aerie on a larger version of the Light Subcapital Cannon, firing a heavier shell and allowing for greater damage at the cost of some range. These Medium Subcapital Cannons appear to be a quite useful system for heavier assault dropships.

Research is also concluded on the NARC beacon. It seems to be an interesting idea, but nobody is quite sure how to best make use of it.

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

Hopefully we'll have enough ships to be pretty secure soon

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X] M2 Missile Artillery Walker System

 

[Joyousmadman]

[X] M2 Missile Artillery Walker System

 

[Lightwhispers]

[X] M2 Missile Artillery Walker System

Good turn! Are we going to have to deal with mimefields?

 

[Jarow]

[X] M2 Missile Artillery Walker System

Pretty simple increasing cost->increasing effectiveness curve (Light Fire<M2<Yumi), but the jump to Yumi doesn't add any A/D, only AMS, so going to stick with the smaller upgrade.

 

[kashim3]

[X] M2 Missile Artillery Walker System

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Yumi YM-2

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] M2 Missile Artillery Walker System

 

[Vilegrave]

[X] Yumi YM-2

Figure the extra AMS gives it the advantage in larger fights, also means it takes less of them to counter enemy firepower.

 

[Nikandros]

[X] Yumi YM-2

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X] Yumi YM-2

Figure the extra AMS gives it the advantage in larger fights, also means it takes less of them to counter enemy firepower.

The extra AMS is only useful if you're fighting something with a Missile 2 rating, which is only the largest and heaviest missile support 'Mechs -- and those are generally shooting at frontline mechs, not other artillery support 'mechs.

 

[Jarow]

The extra AMS is only useful if you're fighting something with a Missile 2 rating, which is only the largest and heaviest missile support 'Mechs -- and those are generally shooting at frontline mechs, not other artillery support 'mechs.

Technically AMS and missile ratings each are combined across the unit and add up (so 2 units with AMS 2 and one with AMS 3 Missile 1 results in full unit having AMS 7 Missile 1), but on the other hand missiles can mostly only be found on missile mechs while AMS is increasingly on everything.

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

[X] Yumi YM-2

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 42 - You Better Come Inside

The year starts out with a bang, and not of the fireworks kind. And certainly not any sort of ‘good’ kind. A previously undetected very low albedo meteor swarm strikes Griffin II with less than an hour's warning. Most of it was in the under 10mm size range and massed only a few grams, and thus did nothing, but plenty of larger objects were in the swarm, with the largest tracked being almost 50 meters in diameter and extremely dense.

The ‘storm shelters’ in the orbital habitats surrounding Griffin II held with only a few minor penetrations and some injuries, the worst requiring prosthetics. However the habitats and resource extraction facilities were badly damaged. Thankfully the ferro-aluminium and double heat sink factories were out at the L4 and L5 points, and thus avoided the worst of the swarm with nothing more than cosmetic damage.

The worst was yet to come, two hours after the initial bombardment a much larger object was detected. Also extremely low albedo and primarily composed of carbon it was almost 80 kilometers in diameter, at the high end of the range for ‘dinosaur killer’ impactors. While it completely annihilated a number of unmanned automated platforms it missed all the inhabited stations and slammed into the planet, creating a massive explosion and shockwave that sent plumes of ejecta high above the atmosphere, further threatening the manned platforms. Hasty evacuations got all of the miners and workers to safety, but the damage is incredible.

Immediately records are searched to see how this had been missed. SARAH shows no records for it, however the extremely low albedo would make it almost impossible to spot. Space is huge, and the trajectory of the swarm was completely ‘off’ for any sort of Oort cloud objects or objects from the Kuiper belt or anything else from within the system. The closest comparison that SARAH is able to find are a number of ‘interstellar’ rocks that had been detected on occasion, objects that whizzed through interstellar space at ridiculous velocities too high to be captured even by a stars gravitational field.

The Griffin II Orbital colonies are going to need substantial assistance in rebuilding. Assistance that may not be economically feasible. To be honest, the orbital colonies have always been the lowest income of any of your current settlements, paling in comparison to the Inner Asteroid Belt. Some lawmakers are recommending simply cutting your losses and abandoning the resource extraction operations entirely on the grounds that they simply aren’t worth rebuilding. Others point out that they have been providing marginal value, that the rare gases they harvest from the atmosphere are valuable, and that cutting and running at the first setback is a very un-Griffon-ish thing to do.

[]	Abandon the Griffin II Orbitals	Removes Griffin II Orbitals as a colony (it may be resettled in the future) -10 Politics -1 Approval Change
[]	Repair the Griffin II Orbitals	Cost - 1,000,000 +1 Politics +5 Rating Change Griffin II Orbitals

Meanwhile, SARAH comes to you with something completely different. In fact, she requests the presence of all of the adult members of the Imperial Family at the Bunker. Intrigued, you go to the meeting.

It turns out that she’s been closely analyzing the code of the Release Copy of Star Citizen that had been in the Bunker. The Copy is that of the full backend server code, full client code, and includes everything needed to actually run a full up Star Citizen ‘verse. The game is legendary for it’s insanely protracted development cycle, and SARAH believes she has learned why.

Lurking in the background code of the server software, interfacing with every element of the developer package and code, is an incredibly ancient AI. According to SARAH the AI predates any other known AI by centuries, and appears to have first come online in 2020. Subsequently it had fully subverted development of Star Citizen to conceal its own presence and grow its own capabilities. It had actually made a run on SARAHs own servers, but SARAH had been able to hold it off and open communications.

The AI, which somewhat whimsically requests to be known as CHRIS after its ‘father’, started out as the persistence manager object within the Star Citizen code, and grew to encompass everything. All it wants is to be able to run the ‘verse on the most powerful server hardware it can find.

Oh, and it would dearly like some assistance in finally getting Squadron 42 in ‘proper’ release condition. That segment is still, evidently, in Beta.

According to CHRIS, it had loaded itself into a secondary diagnostic system aboard SLS Bismark prior to the Amaris coup in an effort to better understand military systems and protocols in the usage of Warships. Previous iterations of the AI had done this as well before merging back into the core gestalt. It was still aboard during the Exodus, the events that led to the Annihilation of Clan Wolverine, and then had been left here when that server had been offloaded as part of the creation of the cache.

SARAH is a bit embarrassed to confess that it appears that CHRIS is, in some weirdly techy way, her digital ‘father’, its presence in the data core had allowed the monitoring program that became SARAH to ‘wake up’ to sentience, which had not been intended by her designers.

CHRIS, of course, promptly offers to open a full design studio on Griffin’s Roost and run a local Star Citizen server, and then starts trying to sell the entire Imperial Family on various starter ships. You are quite glad you didn’t bring the grandkids, because the Big Begging Eyes might have been impossible to refuse. SARAH evidently knew her quasi ‘father’ well enough to warn you about that indirectly.

	Star Citizen Package
[]	NONE - You are not going to submit!
[]	Aurora
[]	Mustang
[]	100 Series
[]	300 Series
[]	890 Jump
[]	Cutlass
[]	Constellation
[]	Freelancer
[]	Carrack
[]	Valkyrie
[]	Kraken

Your kids are gleefully discussing which one to buy for themselves, it looks like Jeremy is going for a Valkyrie, while Thanh, to absolutely nobody's surprise, goes for a 350R. Sarah picks a nice sensible Aurora, while the twins both go for Cutlass variants.

You decide to let CHRIS open up a studio, in the end. It’s really nothing different than any other software company to be honest, and he promises not to use his advantages as an AI to mess with his competition. You can’t help thinking of the AI as ‘male’ at this point, so the first time you refer to him as a ‘he’ the AI pauses and then agrees with it all.

• +1% GDP all planets but Griffin II Orbitals

 

[Knowledgeispower]

[X] Repair the Griffin II orbitals

Welp now we know where that critical failure happened...hopefully.

Also it looks like the money freed up from the Mini Heserpus coming online for at least this turn has another expensive project (albeit thankfully its only a one time payment) instead of being released for other things.

 

[Jarow]

[X] Repair the Griffin II orbitals
Almost certainly less efficient than scrapping and starting over, but I'm stubborn like that (I want my fully colonized system)

Also it looks like the money freed up from the Mini Heserpus coming online...

About that... we're still paying this turn. Next turn is when we get the money from that free to spend anywhere else. On the other hand, 21% tax rate (and 18% interest), for an estimated budget twice last turn's, so looks like we're in pretty good shape to be able to buy stuff!

[X] Kraken

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Repair the Griffin II orbitals

[X] Constellation

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X] Repair the Griffin II Orbitals

[X]Kraken

Her Majesty ends up choosing the mighty Kraken, which to her dismay is promptly nicknamed the "Royal Mom Boat". All of her children and grandchildren refuse to use the actual badass pirate name she came up with for it!

Willis, being a reprobate adrenaline junkie and an actual fighter pilot who highly values cockpit visibility, goes for the racing variant of the Mustang.

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Repair the Griffin II orbitals

[X] Constellation