Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[Nikandros]

[X] Make the Transfer
[X] Plan: Grifftigers can into space

 

[edofthesquid]

[X] Make the Transfer
[X] Plan: Grifftigers can into space

 

[Thors_Alumni]

I feel it important to point out that we have only 4 years left before the Armistice which was signed on turn 28 ends. So we should be thinking about building more defenses that will deal with the inevitable massive invasion force that the Drac's are going to throw at both planets.

That invasion exercise from a few turns back may very well be what will happen with that kind of invasion force if that report about the Drac's movements is correct, IE the Drac's conquering all of the surrounding systems in order to better prepare for taking us on.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

I feel it important to point out that we have only 4 years left before the Armistice which was signed on turn 28 ends. So we should be thinking about building more defenses that will deal with the inevitable massive invasion force that the Drac's are going to throw at both planets.

That invasion exercise from a few turns back may very well be what will happen with that kind of invasion force if that report about the Drac's movements is correct, IE the Drac's conquering all of the surrounding systems in order to better prepare for taking us on.

Of course the Dracs have a massive deficiency of intel as related to us since they've had a total of one Jumpship come into our system and it only ever saw a fraction of our dropship forces albeit an impressive one since the Devastation was in the vicinity.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

Of course the Dracs have a massive deficiency of intel as related to us since they've had a total of one Jumpship come into our system and it only ever saw a fraction of our dropship forces albeit an impressive one since the Devastation was in the vicinity.

That was the New Rasalhague jumpship that is currently part of a civil war within the DCMS ranks, The Drac's still remain ignorant of all that is going on in the system nor do they know about all of the dropships.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

That was the New Rasalhague jumpship that is currently part of a civil war within the DCMS ranks, The Drac's still remain ignorant of all that is going on in the system nor do they know about all of the dropships.

I was assuming that if the Civil War ends in the Dracs favor they'll acquire said information

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I feel it important to point out that we have only 4 years left before the Armistice which was signed on turn 28 ends. So we should be thinking about building more defenses that will deal with the inevitable massive invasion force that the Drac's are going to throw at both planets.

I would imagine that the Dracs will feel free to ignore the treaty as they please, since it was negotiated by a traitor. That said, the prideful rage of the Dragon is probably aimed more at said traitor than at us.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

I was assuming that if the Civil War ends in the Dracs favor they'll acquire said information

They might, Or The information could be destroyed in an attempt to deny the Dragon the information about what was seen in Griffins roost.

I would imagine that the Dracs will feel free to ignore the treaty as they please, since it was negotiated by a traitor. That said, the prideful rage of the Dragon is probably aimed more at said traitor than at us.

Honor is everything to the dragon, It would have compelled them to honor it even if the author was now a traitor. If it wasn't they would probably have attacked by now even with the Civil war. Remember that the Drac's do not know about the Dropships or our other defenses. at worst they think that Griffins roost has an ASF factory that has been reactivated at best, and has a militia for ground defenses. They don't know about the Battlemechs either since the one time they landed on Griffins Roost they only faced the hovercrafts since the first run Battlemechs had not been build yet.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 44 - Hallelujah

Spoiler: Event, Luck and Rating Rolls

Meta-Event Roll - 61
Dynasty Luck Roll - 54

Imperial Approval Roll - 2
Imperial Approval Change - 0
Politics Event Roll - -3

Economy Roll - 1
Economic Event Roll - 2
Research Roll - 4

Griffin’s Roost Econ - 6
Griffin’s Roost Health - 3
Griffin’s Roost Change - 5

Nowy Gdansk Econ - 8
Nowy Gdansk Health - 10
Nowy Gdansk Change - 3

GIAB Econ - 9
GIAB Change - 1

G2O Econ - 3
G2O Change - -3

Griffon IV Econ - 4
Griffon IV Health - 3

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Armed Defense Stations Nowy Gdask* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $165,332.88 ]

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 74
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 377,435.00 ]
-2 Flights of Eagles [auto]

-2 Flights of Griffons [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Star Fort Wing [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 2
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Planetary Defense Wings [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Armored Cavalry Regiments [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Standard Armored Regiments [70]
(Going for path 3; it finishes a unit and is actually doable)
Target - 70
Roll - 85, Shandrilessa reroll - 91, ShadowArxxy reroll - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin IV [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Shipyard Griffin's Roost [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 27
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 55
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 43 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 44 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 45 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

Build Relations with Chamber of Delegates (60)
Target - 60
Roll - 73, ShadowArxxy design reroll - 78, Jarow design reroll - 87, Steve reroll - 80, ShadowArxxy design reroll 2 - 60
Result - SUCCESS

Build Relations with Senate (60)
Target - 60
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

Improved Communications Lvl 5 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 85
Result - SUCCESS

Full-Head Ejection System [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 93
Result - FAIL

VTOL Jet Booster [55]
Target - 55
Roll - 58
Result - Bare Failure (auto success next turn)

Standard Core Construction* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 87
Result - Bare Failure (auto success next turn)

Standard Core Theory* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 96
Result - FAIL

Standard Core Design* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 100, ShadowArxxy emergency reroll - 99
Result - FAIL

Establish Separate Counter-Intelligence Section [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

Establish separate Signals Intelligence Section [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 85
Result - FAIL

Investigate Military Industrial Complex for corruption [45]
Target - 45
Roll - 85
Result - FAIL

-----

You are actually visiting with SARAH on a somewhat casual visit to the bunker when the AI suddenly triggers an alert. The main viewscreen updates… USS Enterprise is making a frantic distress call from Griffon VI that they are under attack.

The initial report is just the basic EMERGENCY flash on the exploration dropships beacon, but within a few minutes you get more data, the oldest dropship in your fleet is under assault from a pair of heavily customized and very flamboyantly painted Avenger dropships… in the markings of the Amaris-affiliated pirates who’d already attacked your system once.

The captain of the Enterprise is a canny and crafty sort, managing to dodge and evade attacks that should have killed the ship and even landing a few hits of his own. But then the dropship is bracketed by heavy naval laser fire and nearly crippled. Nevertheless, they’d managed to build up enough velocity that they were able to get clear, completely dead in space, but clear as the Inner System Patrol raced towards them. Granted, it will take several hours for the Patrol to reach them, but still.

Several hours later the situation is clarified, but is no better. Enterprise had gotten a visual on the warship that had fired upon her… the distinctive shark-fin silhouette of a McKenna-class. By the time the Inner System Patrol had reached the area the warship had evidently jumped out as there was no sign of it.

According to SARAH it’s quite likely that the battleship had mounted a lithium-fusion battery system, although it is also possible that she’d been there undetected for some time as SARAH still has no eyes on that planet.

Needless to say, USS Enterprise is going to require serious repair work, as she is only holding pressure in a few compartments, the drive is shot, the reactor had to go into emergency shut down, and the main sensor suite is a total loss. Moreover, the attack showed the vulnerability of the design, leading to some calls to replace the class with something larger and more capable.

[]	Repair USS Enterprise	Cost 400 Improves Crew to Crack
[]	Scrap her and solicit new exploration dropship design	Remove USS Enterprise from service Opens up new design competition
[]	Do both repairs and solicit new design	Cost 400 Improves Crew to Crack Opens up new design competition

A quarter of the crew were casualties, thankfully the majority were injured rather than killed, but you still wind up attending several funerals. It’s a rather sobering affair.

The news of the attack on USS Enterprise almost overshadows the first Pan-Griffon Games, but only almost.

By the end of the competition there are calls for the heads of the coaching staffs for just about all of the Griffin’s Roost teams, with many of the coaches and team members having to be given police protection. The games are a shambolic debacle for Griffin's Roost, with Nowy Gdansk utterly dominating in many disciplines, including, shockingly, some of the motorsports.

Local news is dominated with the Greatest Fails of the competition, for example the utter and complete travesty that was the Griffin’s Roost Women’s Gymnastics Team managing to fail at every single one of the events so badly that it looked like a pre-school children’s team competing with professionals.

There are a few bright spots in all the gloom. The Women’s Athletics Team is incredibly dominant, with multiple system records being broken by a pair of incredibly talented young runners. The Women’s Swim Team is similarly dominant, while the Women’s Marathon is dominated by a young runner from Pollux. The only sport where the men manage to eek out a victory is at the shooting range, behind an impressive performance at the pistol range.

The Planetary Government of Griffin’s Roost, who had invested heavily in the games, promptly opened up investigations into the performance of the coaches and athletes to ensure there was no hanky-panky going on. You get a report forwarded to you that the conclusion the investigation came to was that everybody involved had done their best, but that the investments had been so heavily biased towards facilities and infrastructure that the coaching staff for most of the teams had been mainly drawn from the high school level, and athlete recruitment had been poor to put it kindly.

Meanwhile you are spending quite a bit of time with very smug Poles from Nowy Gdansk, drinking Polish Vodka and eating pierogies. Thankfully you like both the vodka and the pierogies, but you could do without Jake constantly strutting around like he personally won the events.

The second Star Fort is brought online over Nowy Gdansk to great acclaim and approval, providing even greater protection for the industrial powerhouse that the planet is rapidly becoming.

Procurement overall goes rather well, despite some issues with Jaguar production thanks to a perfect storm of minor labor disputes that just seemed to dog the project. In the end all were resolved amicably enough, and the two standard armored regiments stood up with full complements of their equipment, but it was a nearer run thing that anybody is really happy about. You look into things briefly, but everything appears to be fine overall.

You are kept very busy, in between being present at most of the keel laying ceremonies for new dropships and attending commissioning ceremonies. You are so very glad of the existence of teleprompters, because you are sure you’d have messed up the names more than once without them.

A set of space stations is constructed ringing Griffon IV, giving ASFs places to stage out of if need be. In addition the first two military orbital shipyards have been completed. You tour one of them and are quite impressed, but then you realize that you forgot to address one rather important question… Do you want to build big dropships that would take up the entire current platform, or smaller ones that you can build two of at a time?

[]	Large Dropships GR	Gain 1 Lvl 4 Large Dropship Yard
[]	Regular Dropships GR	Gain 2 Lvl 4 Dropship Yards

[]	Large Dropships NG	Gain 1 Lvl 4 Large Dropship Yard
[]	Regular Dropships NG	Gain 2 Lvl 4 Dropship Yards

While there’s not much economic activity in the small orbital habitats that orbit Griffon IV supporting the terraforming effort there is some, and promoting the light zero-g manufacturing that goes on there has a small effect on the local economy.

Expansion of a number of orbital factories goes rather well, increasing production of endo steel and ferro fibrous armor, as well as double heat sinks.

Jake had an easy time schmoozing with the Senate, it’s with the Chamber of Delegates where things went a bit wonky. Evidently quite a few of the Griffin’s Roost Delegates took a bit of offense at his blatant Nowy Gdansk Pan-Griffon Games fanboyism, leading to it taking far more effort than it probably should have for him to soothe ruffled feathers and increase your support in the chamber.

Mary reports that things in her patch are… not nearly as smooth as she’d hoped. Work on improving communications technology went well enough, despite some hiccups and difficulties, and she reports that they are able to start researching both advanced communications technologies as well as the underlying theories of practical HPG development.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is everything else.

The least bad news comes from the VTOL Jet Booster project. The Jet Booster works very well, or at least they think so, the problem was that the test pilot managed to crash the test VTOL on landing, completely wrecking the bird and setting back getting actual final results until Q1 of next year. The next least bad news comes from the Standard Core Construction research team, who are pretty sure that they know what they are about but a misplaced close paran in their CAD/CAM software configuration resulted in excessive delays and they’ll not be finished until Q2 of next year.

Everything else makes you think that the same people behind the Griffin’s Roost athletics teams in the Games were in charge of the R&D projects.

The Full-Head Ejection system, for example. The testbed actually killed the test pilot when the rockets detonated prematurely due to an electronic fault that had been missed by three separate diagnostics. Reviewing the diagnostic results show no sign of imminent failure, but when the test pilot sat down on the pilot’s seat in the test article the rockets instantly fired before he strapped himself in, killing him, the technician helping to strap him in, and sparking a fire in the test chamber.

The Standard Core Theory team? Well, they had gone out for celebratory drinks after a partially successful model run and wound up all getting arrested for public intoxication, public indecency, disturbing the peace and affray after a rather memorable bar crawl that resulted in over five hundred thousand in property damage and the unforgettable (although you want to forget, desperately) of the project leaders bare buttocks stuck out the plate glass window of what had used to be a very high class bar.

The Standard Core Design team evidently took this as an excuse to challenge for The Most Embarrassing Incident At Griffin’s Roost University This Decade No Prize. And after utterly humiliating themselves in the process, along with spending several nights in jail since nobody wanted to admit to knowing them and they were too drunk to simply bail themselves out, they discovered that they’d been one single mouse click away from deleting all of their work.

Evidently the Intelligence Department isn’t immune either. While the new Counter-Intelligence Section stood up and is now functioning as intended, the Signals Intelligence people evidently are very good at analyzing signals and equally bad at properly filling out paperwork.

Meanwhile the investigation into the Military Industrial Complex for possible corruption is ongoing. So far nothing of note has been found, although this is possibly because investigators spent several months chasing what turned out to be a red herring investigating complaints related to military field rations. One major corporation alleged corruption as they’d lost the contract to a competitor who was charging significantly more than their bid had been. This one actually makes it all the way to your desk, and you wind up ruling that considering that the ‘cheap’ bid was for rations that you wouldn’t feed to rats without feeling guilty about their poor taste buds and stomachs, and the winning rations were actually extremely good, that the corporation complaining could just suck it up.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Welp looks like we're going to need some capital weapons research soon(so we can build battle sats and make a Devastation variant armed with a fair few AR-10s) and a lot more nukes if a frickin McKenna of all things is going to show up in our system oh and lot more combat dropships and strike ASFs. On the other hand if we can capture that ship in a repairable condition....evil laughter.
Also
[X] Do both repairs and solicit new design
[X] Regular Dropships GR
[X] Regular Dropships NG

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X]Do both repairs and solicit new design

A crack crew is very valuable, but the Enterprises are also first generation explorers that don't really have the capacity to defend themselves in space. We need to move to more of an "armed exploration" design that mounts some of our killer toys.

[X]Regular DropShips GR
[X]Regular DropShips NG

DropShips against WarShips is never a fun matchup, but Troodons are the best DropShips we've got for being able to dogpile a McKenna.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

DropShips against WarShips is never a fun matchup, but Troodons are the best DropShips we've got for being able to dogpile a McKenna.

I'd kill for us having AR-10s researched though especially since we already want a missile heavy Devastation variant anyways plus the fact that we can tip capital missiles with nukes if need be. Mind you I want that ship relatively intact after all it would make a fine flagship

 

[magusblack]

....They have a McKenna running raids. Guess they really want intel on us, cause using a Battleship on this kind of operation seems like overkill, unless they have nothing else capable I guess.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I'd kill for us having AR-10s researched though especially since we already want a missile heavy Devastation variant anyways plus the fact that we can tip capital missiles with nukes if need be. Mind you I want that ship relatively intact after all it would make a fine flagship

For the tonnage limits of Combat DropShips, subcapital missiles are actually for the most part superior to capital missiles. You can mount *five* Piranha launchers and have three and a half times the BV for the weight of a single AR-10, and the disparity in missile tonnages doubles down on that.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

For the tonnage limits of Combat DropShips, subcapital missiles are actually for the most part superior to capital missiles. You can mount *five* Piranha launchers and have three and a half times the BV for the weight of a single AR-10, and the disparity in missile tonnages doubles down on that.

True but the extra range is rather handy for not being blown into a million pieces as easily by capital weapons fire which is ya know important and the ability to fire nukes if need be is the cherry on top since a dropship armed with those can pretty much be guaranteed to at the very least do heavy damage to most Star League era warships since they have at best terrible anti missile defenses. Mind you ideally we wouldn't mount any AR-10s on dropships but instead on warships or monitors but if we have the tech for the AR-10 but not those ships well a small specialized sub class won't kill us.Also I really hope we can build something better than the base AR-10 since I'd really like us to be able to remotely control our capital missiles if need be which the AR-10 as orginally designed lacks for some reason.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

True but the extra range is rather handy for not being blown into a million pieces as easily by capital weapons fire which is ya know important and the ability to fire nukes if need be is the cherry on top since a dropship armed with those can pretty much be guaranteed to at the very least do heavy damage to most Star League era warships since they have at best terrible anti missile defenses. Mind you ideally we wouldn't mount any AR-10s on dropships but instead on warships or monitors but if we have the tech for the AR-10 but not those ships well a small specialized sub class won't kill us.Also I really hope we can build something better than the base AR-10 since I'd really like us to be able to remotely control our capital missiles if need be which the AR-10 as orginally designed lacks for some reason.

Yes, but if you're just looking to be able to hit to extreme capital range and/or fling nukes, you're better off on a tonnage efficiency basis mounting single-purpose White Shark or Killer Whale launchers. I've run the numbers -- AR-10s are only weight efficient if you're loading all three missile types, and DropShips really don't have the tonnage to do that unless they're completely dedicated missile boats. It's exceedingly useful on WarShips, though.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Do both repairs and solicit new design
[X] Large Dropship GR
[X] Regular Dropships NG

 

[Joyousmadman]

[X] Do both repairs and solicit new design
[X] Regular Dropships GR
[X] Regular Dropships NG

 

[Artifex]

[X] Do both repairs and solicit new design
[X] Large Dropship GR
[X] Regular Dropships NG

I get the feeling that we have quite a number of Dropship yards present on GR already so I feel we should prepare for the future here by getting the Shipyard in orbit to produce Large Dropships.

 

[edofthesquid]

[X] Do both repairs and solicit new design
[X] Large Dropship GR
[X] Regular Dropships NG

We should get started on at least one big yard, get some lift capacity ready before we need it