Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
[X] Elias Sims
Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
Jarow
Well-known member
Okay, so everyone has the same number of total actions, with one possibly shifting into other categories. I bolded my favorites from each action type:
Value of each type of action:
Military: normally used for building infrastructure to support the military. 2 slots are reserved for building mechs/CVs/ASFs and Dropships. Also available for colonization actions
Interior: can build most military infrastructure (it can't do fortifications), along with economic actions (normally we do one of these per turn) and colonization actions
Research: About half our budget currently goes here. We can always use more slots here, but we drift ever closer to being unable to afford pushing farther here
Intelligence: Historically hasn't been doing much, but under current intelligence reorganization is likely to be a lot more active. Has one action permanently devoted to counterintelligence, leaving only 2 free at present.
So, of my favorites:
Jeremy: Our heir has been known to engage in military research. Probably part of our mechwarrior mafia, but we have a lot less pressure saying mechs are best than the IS regardless. Has training from being with us at these meetings to have a good idea what's going on here. As leader of the OpFor in the recent exercises, probably one of the most strategically practiced officers we have (note: we don't have much strategic practice). On the other hand, this might focus him too heavily on military matters.
Mary: Head of the aerie, and has seen our military balloon ridiculously and helped make sure our limited trainers were enough to keep everyone well trained. Probably has a pretty good idea of how the military as a whole functions. Given how great a job I've done supplying the aerie with machines, probably not too bad managing logistics.
Elias: Current military intelligence, former special operations. Good at thinking outside the box, meaning possibly ideas for how military should change. However, no idea how good he is at thinking inside the box.
Reagan: As part of quartermasters group, probably the least able to lead in combat. However, almost certainly willing and able to rely on subordinates for that. A large portion of their job is going to be shuffling materials as opposed to pure strategy, where she'd excel, but not entirely confident in her abilities on the strategic leadership side.
| Name | Extra Action | Thoughts |
| Karin Stewart | Military | Theoretically, good for continuing current path |
| Jeremy Griffith | Military | Training for upper reaches of our nation, but might be a bit to military centric in longer term? |
| Mary Stannard | Research | Experienced with shaping people, probably a decent fit for the job |
| Alexander Nichols | Research | Civilian! Sad, because dropship designer could be beneficial for us, but I don't think a civilian is the best choice to put in charge of our military |
| Stacy Bowman | Intelligence | Currently part of ministry of Intelligence, probably best not to pull her out |
| Elias Sims | Intelligence | Special operations, probably used to thinking that way. Probably good for mixing intelligence and military operations. |
| Reagan Collins | Interior | Lots of experience that works pretty well with what's needed from the job as we see it |
| Thomas Sanders | Interior | Probably a bit too old |
Military: normally used for building infrastructure to support the military. 2 slots are reserved for building mechs/CVs/ASFs and Dropships. Also available for colonization actions
Interior: can build most military infrastructure (it can't do fortifications), along with economic actions (normally we do one of these per turn) and colonization actions
Research: About half our budget currently goes here. We can always use more slots here, but we drift ever closer to being unable to afford pushing farther here
Intelligence: Historically hasn't been doing much, but under current intelligence reorganization is likely to be a lot more active. Has one action permanently devoted to counterintelligence, leaving only 2 free at present.
So, of my favorites:
Jeremy: Our heir has been known to engage in military research. Probably part of our mechwarrior mafia, but we have a lot less pressure saying mechs are best than the IS regardless. Has training from being with us at these meetings to have a good idea what's going on here. As leader of the OpFor in the recent exercises, probably one of the most strategically practiced officers we have (note: we don't have much strategic practice). On the other hand, this might focus him too heavily on military matters.
Mary: Head of the aerie, and has seen our military balloon ridiculously and helped make sure our limited trainers were enough to keep everyone well trained. Probably has a pretty good idea of how the military as a whole functions. Given how great a job I've done supplying the aerie with machines, probably not too bad managing logistics.
Elias: Current military intelligence, former special operations. Good at thinking outside the box, meaning possibly ideas for how military should change. However, no idea how good he is at thinking inside the box.
Reagan: As part of quartermasters group, probably the least able to lead in combat. However, almost certainly willing and able to rely on subordinates for that. A large portion of their job is going to be shuffling materials as opposed to pure strategy, where she'd excel, but not entirely confident in her abilities on the strategic leadership side.
We *have to* vote for Colonel Sanders!
[X] Alexander Nichols
I think putting a civilian who has substantial knowledge of military technology and operations in charge over the military makes a lot of sense, actually.
[X] Alexander Nichols
I think putting a civilian who has substantial knowledge of military technology and operations in charge over the military makes a lot of sense, actually.
[X] Elias Sims
Panzerkraken
Well-known member
[X] Elias Sims
Given even the Scout is 90,000 tons we're not going to waste time building a jump ship that small right people?
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
You can make a JumpShip that small that can still carry a DopShip but small JumpShips are really expensive for what you get due to the costs of the drive being front-loaded with fixed prices that ignore tonnage. A Scout is 389M Cbills but you can get three times the collars on an Invader for 676M. Three times the capacity for well under double the price. Go up to a Star Lord and it's 1,141M, under 3 times the price for 5 times the collars.
There's something to be said for having two smaller ships that can be in two places at once but it seems to me more economical to perhaps build no more than a single small prototype to get our engineers some experience and then work towards a mid-sized vessel.
Jarow
Well-known member
Assuming the "Advanced Standard Core" tech currently in the research tabs will let us build larger things, they're in my current early stage plans. Should be done by the time we actually have the shipyards to be building them (assuming the action has been updated beyond just the name - which I can't confirm).
I will say I plan to build as many jumpships as I can, probably not stopping for higher level techs to come in if need be, but do plan to switch to larger ones when I can.
I will say I plan to build as many jumpships as I can, probably not stopping for higher level techs to come in if need be, but do plan to switch to larger ones when I can.
As I mentioned in the Discord, I have ready-to-go designs for a solid early generation midsize JumpShip already, which I will be proposing/promoting as our first mass production jumper class.
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Karin Stewart
Turn 46 - And Did Those Feet?
Turn 46 - And Did Those Feet?
You summon Colonel Sims to your office to inform him that you’d chosen him to replace General Potter and receive a bit of a surprise.
“Your Majesty, while I am deeply honored by your trust in me, I’m afraid I must decline.” he says, although interestingly his eyes are just as intense as ever. “Your Military Chief needs to be somebody who can work with multiple viewpoints, seamlessly and without fear or favor. I’m afraid that my field role ended when I was a staff sergeant and sent to OCS, and I’ve been a staff officer ever since, moreover one who is focused purely on intelligence matters. I completely lack operational familiarity with anything outside of very small unit special operations, have zero experience with aerospace concerns, nor do I possess any special talent for logistics, organization, or bureaucratic maneuvering. I’m an intelligence analyst, professionally, and if you wanted me for the intel shop I’d feel qualified, but I would be completely unsuited for the role of your Military Chief.”
An honest man, who knows his competencies, knows his flaws, and isn’t afraid to admit the latter? You press him, but he continues to decline, although he does offer to give you a far more in depth analysis of the other candidates for the position based on his personal interaction with them. Somewhat bemused, you agree.
He takes up the list you hand him, and his lips twitch. “The first two, neither would thank you for it although for different reasons. Colonel Stewart is a superb officer, for all that she’s been stuck in staff roles for the last decade. She’s in line to command the 3rd Brigade of 3rd Armored once that stands up, and your son had to twist her arm hard to get her to agree to that. Your son is enjoying himself immensely as a division commander and would be highly… irate.... If you took that away from him. On the other hand, both of them would be exceptionally good at the job.”
He then grins at you. “If you believe the rumors about the Prince being some sort of Mechwarrior Mafioso, though, ignore them, I happen to know that right now he’s down with the infantry forces on a field exercise, slogging through the same mud as them and testing out anti-Mech tactics. He plays the mech dandy to draw out youngsters who actually are, then pushes them straight into joint-ops and requires them to cross train, probably the biggest reason why our ‘Mechwarrior Mafia’ is so small.”
You chuckle, that’s just like Jeremy, to sacrifice a bit of his own dignity for the good of the force. Once again you get some confirmation that someday he’ll make a great King.
“Colonel Stewart doesn’t have the field experience, but she’s a born organizer as well. She’ll be unhappy not to get a Brigade command, but she’ll serve you very well.” he then takes a breath. “General Stannard is, right now, the classic square peg in a square hole and is working miracles at the Aerie. I can guarantee that the very first thing she’ll tell you to do is purchase multiple training regiments to bulk out the Cadre, because that was one thing that General Jackson never emphasized, even when we included expansion recommendations in her briefing materials. Then again, General Jackson has also proven that field training after graduation can be equally valuable to classroom training before, so it may just be a clash of styles. And I know of your dislike for powerpoint, General Stannard actually teaches the Introduction to Powerpoint course at the Aerie. Fair warning.”
He glances back down at the paper. “I’ve met Lex Nichols, there’s not a man alive I wouldn’t rather have drinks in a bar with, but he’s a maverick risk taker who’s never seen a pie-in-the-sky outlandish concept he didn’t think he could make work. He has no patience for accountants, no patience for regulators, couldn’t care less about procedures and rules, if they get in the way of his latest project. He also, bluntly, is a pure technocrat, he doesn’t understand people or their needs, and I’ve personally heard him muttering about how escape pods, life support systems, and crew quarters are simply wasted space ‘luxuries’ that should be minimized or dispensed with because those crews just aren’t real to him. His bosses at Majeure keep him on an extremely tight leash for a reason, Your Majesty.”
He looks again. “Ahh, Stace, fair warning, her and I may have a thing.” his eyes sparkle a bit. “You could say. She’s smarter than her rep implies, she just prefers to first try things by the book and within the rules before getting creative. Honestly, she’d be just as bad as I would be, though, because she lives and breathes intel work. She’d give you her best, but, well, I don’t know if that is what you’d need. Unlike me she’d shut up and soldier on, doing her best, and her best is pretty damn good, but her best is being a brake on Harry, not at running the military.”
“General Collins is good, very good. She’s probably saved the government more money than any three other officers in the Quartermaster’s Corp with her work, and she has the respect of just about everybody in procurement for being somebody who can get things done. She does have the vices of her virtues, though, at budget time she would want to pinch pennies until they screamed for release and begged to be put out of their misery.”
Then he blinks at the final name. “And Sanders is… Sanders. He’s almost as old as General Potter, would probably give you two or three years before retiring for good, and would talk your ears off about his chickens.”
Well, that was instructive. You try again to get him to change his mind, but the Colonel’s adamant that he’d be criminally negligent if he took the job with how poor a fit he’s convinced he is for it.
So that leaves things back up in the air. Lovely. At least you have a bit more information about some of the candidates.
The delegation from the NRI arrives for the Olympiad with quite a bit of pomp and ceremony. They’d brought along all sorts of exotica to show off with, and it makes for a very nice show indeed.
They’ve also brought something else… plans and a production license for one of their technologies that you knew many of your infantry types were salivating over, their anti-personnel gauss machine gun. Looking at the plans you are extremely amused to find that it is built on the same frame and configuration as the ancient M2 Browning… it looks like that old dinosaur was as immortal as anything could be. According to the tech rep who turned over the plans they’d tried other form factors and layouts, but trying anything but the classic Browning layout failed miserably.
A few weeks after the Romans arrival Jeremy shows up at the Palace looking rather excited, and promptly insists that you and Willis accompany him to a testing ground ‘for a little treat’.
When you arrive you see something rather interesting. A new battle armor suit, larger than anything that had ever come before it, with the new AP Gauss slotted into the right arm above an oversized manipulator, a submachine gun built into a semi-fixed mount on the right shoulder, a missile launcher very similar to the one on the current top-of-the-line Power Armor (Light) suits on the left shoulder, and a brutal looking three fingered claw on the left arm instead of a hand.
“Behold the Mk I Standard Battle Armor (Light).” Jeremy proclaims, sweeping an arm across the squad of suits. “Bigger, tougher, and stronger than the previous suits, with one party trick that I think will impress you.”
As he spoke one of the Soldatin II heavy battlemechs from 3rd Armored came out from behind a nearby building and positioned itself behind the battle armored infantry.
“That’s a proof of concept machine that the techs are still grumbling loudly at me about.” Jeremy said with a grin. “If you look carefully, though, you’ll see six grab bars welded to the top of the Mech. And there just happen to be six troopers in a battle armor squad, so….” he turns to the lined up troopers and bellows out in his best Parade Ground Roar. “Squad… Mount UP!”
And the six suits promptly fire their jump jets, twisting in mid air and landing at six marked spots on the top of the mech, using the grab bars to steady their landing, and then all six ‘sat’ down.
“One of the things that APC’s that are rated for power armor do is provide umbilical power and life support to the suits. We simply took the same system used in the Bear and applied it to the Soldatin. You can’t see them from here, but there are foot rests sculpted into the armor plates of the mech as well, so the troopers are fairly secure when riding, but can very quickly dismount in the event of battle. In essence, we’ve turned all of our heavy or quad mechs into a Power Armor Rated APC if we deploy this system widely.” Jeremy is looking… smug as smug can be.
He then grins boyishly at you, looking far younger than his 41 years. “It’ll cost us a bit, but with your approval I’ll work on getting the purchase orders approved, because I’d like to see how two entire augmented Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments perform in the field exercises.”
You summon Colonel Sims to your office to inform him that you’d chosen him to replace General Potter and receive a bit of a surprise.
“Your Majesty, while I am deeply honored by your trust in me, I’m afraid I must decline.” he says, although interestingly his eyes are just as intense as ever. “Your Military Chief needs to be somebody who can work with multiple viewpoints, seamlessly and without fear or favor. I’m afraid that my field role ended when I was a staff sergeant and sent to OCS, and I’ve been a staff officer ever since, moreover one who is focused purely on intelligence matters. I completely lack operational familiarity with anything outside of very small unit special operations, have zero experience with aerospace concerns, nor do I possess any special talent for logistics, organization, or bureaucratic maneuvering. I’m an intelligence analyst, professionally, and if you wanted me for the intel shop I’d feel qualified, but I would be completely unsuited for the role of your Military Chief.”
An honest man, who knows his competencies, knows his flaws, and isn’t afraid to admit the latter? You press him, but he continues to decline, although he does offer to give you a far more in depth analysis of the other candidates for the position based on his personal interaction with them. Somewhat bemused, you agree.
He takes up the list you hand him, and his lips twitch. “The first two, neither would thank you for it although for different reasons. Colonel Stewart is a superb officer, for all that she’s been stuck in staff roles for the last decade. She’s in line to command the 3rd Brigade of 3rd Armored once that stands up, and your son had to twist her arm hard to get her to agree to that. Your son is enjoying himself immensely as a division commander and would be highly… irate.... If you took that away from him. On the other hand, both of them would be exceptionally good at the job.”
He then grins at you. “If you believe the rumors about the Prince being some sort of Mechwarrior Mafioso, though, ignore them, I happen to know that right now he’s down with the infantry forces on a field exercise, slogging through the same mud as them and testing out anti-Mech tactics. He plays the mech dandy to draw out youngsters who actually are, then pushes them straight into joint-ops and requires them to cross train, probably the biggest reason why our ‘Mechwarrior Mafia’ is so small.”
You chuckle, that’s just like Jeremy, to sacrifice a bit of his own dignity for the good of the force. Once again you get some confirmation that someday he’ll make a great King.
“Colonel Stewart doesn’t have the field experience, but she’s a born organizer as well. She’ll be unhappy not to get a Brigade command, but she’ll serve you very well.” he then takes a breath. “General Stannard is, right now, the classic square peg in a square hole and is working miracles at the Aerie. I can guarantee that the very first thing she’ll tell you to do is purchase multiple training regiments to bulk out the Cadre, because that was one thing that General Jackson never emphasized, even when we included expansion recommendations in her briefing materials. Then again, General Jackson has also proven that field training after graduation can be equally valuable to classroom training before, so it may just be a clash of styles. And I know of your dislike for powerpoint, General Stannard actually teaches the Introduction to Powerpoint course at the Aerie. Fair warning.”
He glances back down at the paper. “I’ve met Lex Nichols, there’s not a man alive I wouldn’t rather have drinks in a bar with, but he’s a maverick risk taker who’s never seen a pie-in-the-sky outlandish concept he didn’t think he could make work. He has no patience for accountants, no patience for regulators, couldn’t care less about procedures and rules, if they get in the way of his latest project. He also, bluntly, is a pure technocrat, he doesn’t understand people or their needs, and I’ve personally heard him muttering about how escape pods, life support systems, and crew quarters are simply wasted space ‘luxuries’ that should be minimized or dispensed with because those crews just aren’t real to him. His bosses at Majeure keep him on an extremely tight leash for a reason, Your Majesty.”
He looks again. “Ahh, Stace, fair warning, her and I may have a thing.” his eyes sparkle a bit. “You could say. She’s smarter than her rep implies, she just prefers to first try things by the book and within the rules before getting creative. Honestly, she’d be just as bad as I would be, though, because she lives and breathes intel work. She’d give you her best, but, well, I don’t know if that is what you’d need. Unlike me she’d shut up and soldier on, doing her best, and her best is pretty damn good, but her best is being a brake on Harry, not at running the military.”
“General Collins is good, very good. She’s probably saved the government more money than any three other officers in the Quartermaster’s Corp with her work, and she has the respect of just about everybody in procurement for being somebody who can get things done. She does have the vices of her virtues, though, at budget time she would want to pinch pennies until they screamed for release and begged to be put out of their misery.”
Then he blinks at the final name. “And Sanders is… Sanders. He’s almost as old as General Potter, would probably give you two or three years before retiring for good, and would talk your ears off about his chickens.”
Well, that was instructive. You try again to get him to change his mind, but the Colonel’s adamant that he’d be criminally negligent if he took the job with how poor a fit he’s convinced he is for it.
So that leaves things back up in the air. Lovely. At least you have a bit more information about some of the candidates.
| [] | Karin Stewart |
| [] | Jeremy Griffiths |
| [] | Mary Stannard |
| [] | Alexander Nichols |
| [] | Stacy Bowman |
| [] | Reagan Collins |
| [] | Thomas Sanders |
The delegation from the NRI arrives for the Olympiad with quite a bit of pomp and ceremony. They’d brought along all sorts of exotica to show off with, and it makes for a very nice show indeed.
They’ve also brought something else… plans and a production license for one of their technologies that you knew many of your infantry types were salivating over, their anti-personnel gauss machine gun. Looking at the plans you are extremely amused to find that it is built on the same frame and configuration as the ancient M2 Browning… it looks like that old dinosaur was as immortal as anything could be. According to the tech rep who turned over the plans they’d tried other form factors and layouts, but trying anything but the classic Browning layout failed miserably.
A few weeks after the Romans arrival Jeremy shows up at the Palace looking rather excited, and promptly insists that you and Willis accompany him to a testing ground ‘for a little treat’.
When you arrive you see something rather interesting. A new battle armor suit, larger than anything that had ever come before it, with the new AP Gauss slotted into the right arm above an oversized manipulator, a submachine gun built into a semi-fixed mount on the right shoulder, a missile launcher very similar to the one on the current top-of-the-line Power Armor (Light) suits on the left shoulder, and a brutal looking three fingered claw on the left arm instead of a hand.
“Behold the Mk I Standard Battle Armor (Light).” Jeremy proclaims, sweeping an arm across the squad of suits. “Bigger, tougher, and stronger than the previous suits, with one party trick that I think will impress you.”
As he spoke one of the Soldatin II heavy battlemechs from 3rd Armored came out from behind a nearby building and positioned itself behind the battle armored infantry.
“That’s a proof of concept machine that the techs are still grumbling loudly at me about.” Jeremy said with a grin. “If you look carefully, though, you’ll see six grab bars welded to the top of the Mech. And there just happen to be six troopers in a battle armor squad, so….” he turns to the lined up troopers and bellows out in his best Parade Ground Roar. “Squad… Mount UP!”
And the six suits promptly fire their jump jets, twisting in mid air and landing at six marked spots on the top of the mech, using the grab bars to steady their landing, and then all six ‘sat’ down.
“One of the things that APC’s that are rated for power armor do is provide umbilical power and life support to the suits. We simply took the same system used in the Bear and applied it to the Soldatin. You can’t see them from here, but there are foot rests sculpted into the armor plates of the mech as well, so the troopers are fairly secure when riding, but can very quickly dismount in the event of battle. In essence, we’ve turned all of our heavy or quad mechs into a Power Armor Rated APC if we deploy this system widely.” Jeremy is looking… smug as smug can be.
He then grins boyishly at you, looking far younger than his 41 years. “It’ll cost us a bit, but with your approval I’ll work on getting the purchase orders approved, because I’d like to see how two entire augmented Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments perform in the field exercises.”
| [] | Approve |
|
| [] | Disapprove | No change |
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Mary Stannard
[X] Approve
Its both cheap and mechanized forces have been used to carry troops since the cart was first invented. Tanks sometimes carry troops as well. So its not that big of a deal.
[X] Approve
Its both cheap and mechanized forces have been used to carry troops since the cart was first invented. Tanks sometimes carry troops as well. So its not that big of a deal.
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Karin Stewart
[X] Approve
[X] Approve
edofthesquid
Well-known member
[X] Karin Stewart
[X] Approve
[X] Approve
