Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
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I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
[X] Continue Surveillance
Trashman.exe
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
ShadowArxxy - Omake - We Come Bearing Wonderful Headaches (Part II)
Omake: We Come Bearing Wonderful Headaches, Part 2
Less than ten minutes later, the watch Lieutenant‘s secure communications terminal lit up.
A surging panic overtook the young officer as he realized he was talking to the First Prince of the Federated Suns and he hadn’t even remembered to button his uniform, which was also... somewhat rumpled and oh God, were those food stains from the other day visible? The First Prince, for his part, was wearing an AFFS uniform undershirt but otherwise showed absolutely no sign of being even slightly disturbed or discomfited by being woken up in the dead of the night.
“Easy there, Lieutenant.” The First Prince’s tone was steady and measured, with perhaps a tiny hint of wry amusement. “Give me a sitrep.”
“Sir, at 0237 hours we picked up an unscheduled incoming jump signature at the zenith jump point, magnitude indicated a JumpShip in the two hundred fifty thousand ton range, but with significant signature discrepancies from a Star Lord or Tramp class. Upon emergence, the duration of jump confirmed the unknown JumpShip at two hundred forty thousand tons with five hundred thousand tons of DropShips. After light-speed lag elapsed, we established visual and sensor contact and were able to observe that the vessel was in fact a WarShip carrying five heavily armed military DropShips.
The unknown vessels took no hostile action towards the JumpShips and stations at the jump point, but did not transmit any IFF signal or respond to hailing on standard frequencies. The DropShips deployed into an escort formation around the WarShip, and the entire group is now burning in-system at a sustained 1.5Gs.”
The Lieutenant paused until Hanse nodded for him to continue.
“Sir, what concerns us the most at this point is that our warbooks do not contain even approximate matches for these vessels. The only recorded WarShip of that tonnage is the Terran Hegemony’s old Bonaventure class, which had no Drop Collars and a completely different hull configuration, and no known power has ever built military DropShips this large.”
Hanse looked thoughtfully at the terminal, manipulating a hand control to rotate and zoom in on the holographic image. This looks quite close to our own RX-78 project, actually. Almost identical tonnage, similar layout,and it looks like they copied the Maxell 45 Series naval lasers and Barracuda capital missiles just like we did. But none of the other Great Houses could put something like this into service without our intelligence services getting at least a hint of it, and none of the Periphery powers have the necessary resources. Who else is out there?
“Try hailing them on the old SLDF frequencies and encodings.” The First Prince ordered with a calculated calm he wasn’t particularly feeling. “They might not be using up to date protocols.”
Several lightspeed-lag cycles later, successful semi-automatic handshakes were followed by an audiovisual feed.
“Greetings, Federated Suns! This is Captain Eiko Nguyen of the HMS Endymion. We come in peace.”
Less than ten minutes later, the watch Lieutenant‘s secure communications terminal lit up.
A surging panic overtook the young officer as he realized he was talking to the First Prince of the Federated Suns and he hadn’t even remembered to button his uniform, which was also... somewhat rumpled and oh God, were those food stains from the other day visible? The First Prince, for his part, was wearing an AFFS uniform undershirt but otherwise showed absolutely no sign of being even slightly disturbed or discomfited by being woken up in the dead of the night.
“Easy there, Lieutenant.” The First Prince’s tone was steady and measured, with perhaps a tiny hint of wry amusement. “Give me a sitrep.”
“Sir, at 0237 hours we picked up an unscheduled incoming jump signature at the zenith jump point, magnitude indicated a JumpShip in the two hundred fifty thousand ton range, but with significant signature discrepancies from a Star Lord or Tramp class. Upon emergence, the duration of jump confirmed the unknown JumpShip at two hundred forty thousand tons with five hundred thousand tons of DropShips. After light-speed lag elapsed, we established visual and sensor contact and were able to observe that the vessel was in fact a WarShip carrying five heavily armed military DropShips.
The unknown vessels took no hostile action towards the JumpShips and stations at the jump point, but did not transmit any IFF signal or respond to hailing on standard frequencies. The DropShips deployed into an escort formation around the WarShip, and the entire group is now burning in-system at a sustained 1.5Gs.”
The Lieutenant paused until Hanse nodded for him to continue.
“Sir, what concerns us the most at this point is that our warbooks do not contain even approximate matches for these vessels. The only recorded WarShip of that tonnage is the Terran Hegemony’s old Bonaventure class, which had no Drop Collars and a completely different hull configuration, and no known power has ever built military DropShips this large.”
Hanse looked thoughtfully at the terminal, manipulating a hand control to rotate and zoom in on the holographic image. This looks quite close to our own RX-78 project, actually. Almost identical tonnage, similar layout,and it looks like they copied the Maxell 45 Series naval lasers and Barracuda capital missiles just like we did. But none of the other Great Houses could put something like this into service without our intelligence services getting at least a hint of it, and none of the Periphery powers have the necessary resources. Who else is out there?
“Try hailing them on the old SLDF frequencies and encodings.” The First Prince ordered with a calculated calm he wasn’t particularly feeling. “They might not be using up to date protocols.”
Several lightspeed-lag cycles later, successful semi-automatic handshakes were followed by an audiovisual feed.
“Greetings, Federated Suns! This is Captain Eiko Nguyen of the HMS Endymion. We come in peace.”
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Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
That's your missile Corvette right @ShadowArxxy?
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
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Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Assuming there is a possible good meta event next turn our glorious QM could be trolling us
That is based on one of my two current draft proposals for our first WarShip, a pair of corvette designs sharing a 240,000 ton hull with five jump collars. One is a 3/5 speed version configured as a pocket battleship, the other one is a 4/6 version configured as an escort.
Jarow
Well-known member
The meta event roll (singular) is rolled every turn, so we're definitely going to see it. What the meta event means can vary a lot more than other event rolls (for example, research event gives something related to research, but this event chain is most likely related while finding the Morristown definitely was), but it always takes place and can turn out positive for us. However, we definitely see negative meta events, so there's nothing saying that next time it gets rolled it will be positive and 'The Weak' will activate.
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Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
You know given how the Morristown was basically put into a parking orbit and had preservation efforts done to it I get the feeling that the SLDF mission Commander basically decided not to risk her and her crew and instead when he got back home get command to send out a Newgrange to fix her and presumably check in on the Colony while it was there. For some reason that never happened but hey as a result we got the Morristown so I'm not complaining
Turn 51 - Miner's Lady
Turn 51 - Miner’s Lady
The continued surveillance pays off several weeks later when a call from one of the other oligarchs is recorded to the law office. This time requesting that they ‘fetch lot seven and twelve’ from ‘storage’ for delivery to an isolated cottage owned by the oligarch in question.
A lawyer is tracked into a very seedy part of town, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Griffsport. What happens next has the Special Branch almost jumping without orders, but they manage to restrain themselves.
The lawyer is driving a rather subdued off-road work vehicle that looks appropriately battered for the neighborhood. He pulls up to a small ultra-subsidized housing development, built decades ago as part of a project to provide extremely low-cost housing for the very poorest citizens. One of the units is evidently this ‘storage’... a hard-faced woman meets the vehicle, money is exchanged, and four children are shortly afterward brought out of the residence and loaded into the rear of the vehicle. None of them look older than maybe ten. The team maintains surveillance while records are checked. According to everything you have there should be no children at all in this residence, none are enrolled in the school system and nobody in the building is drawing child assistance money from the state. Further probing finds substantial monthly payments from the law office to the residence.
The vehicle heads to a second location, which is much like the first, and after another exchange of money with a particularly nasty looking man a pair of young boys are loaded into the vehicle, which then heads towards the vacation cottage.
More records are checked, collated, and significant gaps are found. Facial identification of the boys brings a match to two brothers who were entered into the Child Protective Services system last year, but with a note that they had returned home after their home circumstances had improved and they were back with their parents. Cross-checking finds that to be a false notation, because the brothers' parents are both currently working as asteroid miners in the Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt. A discrete inquiry finds that the parents had left the children with their grandparents while the parents were on a 5 year contract. Checking again finds that the grandparents are both deceased under what had been ruled to be ‘natural causes’ but which appear to be very suspicious circumstances, messages from them to the parents originate from within the law office. Checking station records finds evidence of payments from the law office as well to two other miners on the same platform. A ‘random’ security sweep discovers items that could easily be used to stage an ‘accident’ eliminating the parents.
Observation of the cottage finds the oligarch and his family ‘enjoying’ the youngsters, sickening everybody involved. Worse yet, one of the guests at the cottage is the current President and CEO of Tank-X, a financial wunderkind who’d maneuvered himself into control of the company via a leveraged buyout, forcing out the company's founders. You’d met the man, you’d sat across a conference table from him as he pitched upgrade plans for the various Tank-X vehicles in service. And you’d never suspected a damn thing about the sociopathic bastard.
Armed with the profiles of these ‘storage’ sites you now have a half dozen or so under surveillance. You’ve only got sufficient proof to nail 2 of your six suspects, along with their hanger-ons. But you want the whole enchilada, every single one of these sick monsters. None of the 6 children are harmed beyond the obvious, being returned to 'storage' following the depraved 'party'.
You can’t focus solely on this, as much as you want to you have other business that needs to be dealt with. First of all, design proposals for the new garrison ASF are now available. Several designs had been rejected before getting this far, either for using technology that wasn’t yet read for production or because the designer had completely forgotten about the effects of heat build up and therefore had massively over-gunned the design.
In the end there are three serious proposals. One is from a tiny design house in Griffsport and sports no less that FOURTEEN AP Gauss rifles, five in each wing and four on the nose, with a single conventional AMS mounted on the tail. Of the three is it the prettiest in design, which makes sense considering that the designers come from an art background, and it is quite appropriately named the Spitfire.
The second comes from Lee Aerospace and has a nearly identical layout to the old Falcon II training birds, with a pair of extended range 5cm lasers in the nose, flanking a single anti-missile system, and a single extended range 3cm laser on each wingtip. A single extended range 5cm laser serves as a tail stinger. It is noted that this design shares significant parts commonality with the older design despite being 20 tons heavier.
The final design is built around a 20 tube long range missile rack and a pair of extended range 5cm lasers, one in the nose, one in the tail, along with an anti-missile system nestled underneath the bow laser. In general this one is quite the ungainly bird, with a single laser fore and aft, a gimballed AMS underneath the bow laser, and a big gawping ‘mouth’ filled with the 20 tubes of the missile system. It is nevertheless a ruthlessly practical design, but it will not be winning any beauty contests.
And then you need to deal with Parliament. The opposition is in an uproar, egged on by the media oligarchs, and are trying to cause the maximum amount of distraction, but your supporters are remaining very disciplined and with the Eldest growling at the worst offenders in the Senate business is getting done.
Indeed, while there are a number of bills laid before you that you reject out of hand, including an incredibly ridiculous proposal out of the Chamber of Delegates and one of the oppositions biggest priorities which would create a permanent Imperial CPS system… and place it under the control of a Parliamentary committee that is a who’s who of those members linked to the oligarchs. You take enormous pleasure in that monstrosity dying in the Senate under the gimlet gaze of the Eldest.
The media, of course, flips out over the fact that the Eldest then pointedly shredded the document with his massive claws while glaring balefully at the senator who’d been stupid enough to try and get it passed.
You’ve got a little list… and none of them will be missed… once you have the proof you need.
One proposal that you are strongly tempted to get behind creates incentives for businesses to open offices on Griffon IV, providing subsidies for needed infrastructure construction to support them. It will be expensive, but should have some serious payoffs long term.
The continued surveillance pays off several weeks later when a call from one of the other oligarchs is recorded to the law office. This time requesting that they ‘fetch lot seven and twelve’ from ‘storage’ for delivery to an isolated cottage owned by the oligarch in question.
A lawyer is tracked into a very seedy part of town, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Griffsport. What happens next has the Special Branch almost jumping without orders, but they manage to restrain themselves.
The lawyer is driving a rather subdued off-road work vehicle that looks appropriately battered for the neighborhood. He pulls up to a small ultra-subsidized housing development, built decades ago as part of a project to provide extremely low-cost housing for the very poorest citizens. One of the units is evidently this ‘storage’... a hard-faced woman meets the vehicle, money is exchanged, and four children are shortly afterward brought out of the residence and loaded into the rear of the vehicle. None of them look older than maybe ten. The team maintains surveillance while records are checked. According to everything you have there should be no children at all in this residence, none are enrolled in the school system and nobody in the building is drawing child assistance money from the state. Further probing finds substantial monthly payments from the law office to the residence.
The vehicle heads to a second location, which is much like the first, and after another exchange of money with a particularly nasty looking man a pair of young boys are loaded into the vehicle, which then heads towards the vacation cottage.
More records are checked, collated, and significant gaps are found. Facial identification of the boys brings a match to two brothers who were entered into the Child Protective Services system last year, but with a note that they had returned home after their home circumstances had improved and they were back with their parents. Cross-checking finds that to be a false notation, because the brothers' parents are both currently working as asteroid miners in the Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt. A discrete inquiry finds that the parents had left the children with their grandparents while the parents were on a 5 year contract. Checking again finds that the grandparents are both deceased under what had been ruled to be ‘natural causes’ but which appear to be very suspicious circumstances, messages from them to the parents originate from within the law office. Checking station records finds evidence of payments from the law office as well to two other miners on the same platform. A ‘random’ security sweep discovers items that could easily be used to stage an ‘accident’ eliminating the parents.
Observation of the cottage finds the oligarch and his family ‘enjoying’ the youngsters, sickening everybody involved. Worse yet, one of the guests at the cottage is the current President and CEO of Tank-X, a financial wunderkind who’d maneuvered himself into control of the company via a leveraged buyout, forcing out the company's founders. You’d met the man, you’d sat across a conference table from him as he pitched upgrade plans for the various Tank-X vehicles in service. And you’d never suspected a damn thing about the sociopathic bastard.
Armed with the profiles of these ‘storage’ sites you now have a half dozen or so under surveillance. You’ve only got sufficient proof to nail 2 of your six suspects, along with their hanger-ons. But you want the whole enchilada, every single one of these sick monsters. None of the 6 children are harmed beyond the obvious, being returned to 'storage' following the depraved 'party'.
| [] | Strike Now |
|
| [] | Continue Surveillance |
|
| [] | Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories |
|
You can’t focus solely on this, as much as you want to you have other business that needs to be dealt with. First of all, design proposals for the new garrison ASF are now available. Several designs had been rejected before getting this far, either for using technology that wasn’t yet read for production or because the designer had completely forgotten about the effects of heat build up and therefore had massively over-gunned the design.
In the end there are three serious proposals. One is from a tiny design house in Griffsport and sports no less that FOURTEEN AP Gauss rifles, five in each wing and four on the nose, with a single conventional AMS mounted on the tail. Of the three is it the prettiest in design, which makes sense considering that the designers come from an art background, and it is quite appropriately named the Spitfire.
The second comes from Lee Aerospace and has a nearly identical layout to the old Falcon II training birds, with a pair of extended range 5cm lasers in the nose, flanking a single anti-missile system, and a single extended range 3cm laser on each wingtip. A single extended range 5cm laser serves as a tail stinger. It is noted that this design shares significant parts commonality with the older design despite being 20 tons heavier.
The final design is built around a 20 tube long range missile rack and a pair of extended range 5cm lasers, one in the nose, one in the tail, along with an anti-missile system nestled underneath the bow laser. In general this one is quite the ungainly bird, with a single laser fore and aft, a gimballed AMS underneath the bow laser, and a big gawping ‘mouth’ filled with the 20 tubes of the missile system. It is nevertheless a ruthlessly practical design, but it will not be winning any beauty contests.
| [] | Name | Cost | HP | A/D | Specials |
| [] | Praesidium ASF | 271.27 | 23 | 13 |
|
| [] | Mustang Militia ASF | 244.50 | 22 | 12 |
|
| [] | Spitfire Militia ASF | 266.62 | 22 | 12 |
|
And then you need to deal with Parliament. The opposition is in an uproar, egged on by the media oligarchs, and are trying to cause the maximum amount of distraction, but your supporters are remaining very disciplined and with the Eldest growling at the worst offenders in the Senate business is getting done.
Indeed, while there are a number of bills laid before you that you reject out of hand, including an incredibly ridiculous proposal out of the Chamber of Delegates and one of the oppositions biggest priorities which would create a permanent Imperial CPS system… and place it under the control of a Parliamentary committee that is a who’s who of those members linked to the oligarchs. You take enormous pleasure in that monstrosity dying in the Senate under the gimlet gaze of the Eldest.
The media, of course, flips out over the fact that the Eldest then pointedly shredded the document with his massive claws while glaring balefully at the senator who’d been stupid enough to try and get it passed.
You’ve got a little list… and none of them will be missed… once you have the proof you need.
One proposal that you are strongly tempted to get behind creates incentives for businesses to open offices on Griffon IV, providing subsidies for needed infrastructure construction to support them. It will be expensive, but should have some serious payoffs long term.
| [] | Support |
|
| [] | Oppose |
|
Jarow
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
Looks like this continues every update within the turn (and probably after this turn if we don't finish it by then); I think we should wait at least until the turn plan stage to make sure we get this done properly
[] Praesidium ASF
[] Mustang Militia ASF
I'd say it's between these two - former is most effective and has a missile rating, latter is overall more cost efficient. Personally, voting for
[X] Praesidium ASF
because ASFs don't really cost much in relation to our budget. We're a lot more industry limited, so more value per industry slot generally works better in my opinion.
[X] Support
Significant, but not major costs, but does lots of stuff. Admittedly the planet is too new to see a really significant return on investment for a very long time, but it also increases pop growth, and (even if it technically doesn't affect things) we need all the people we can get to train to be soldiers.
Looks like this continues every update within the turn (and probably after this turn if we don't finish it by then); I think we should wait at least until the turn plan stage to make sure we get this done properly
[] Praesidium ASF
[] Mustang Militia ASF
I'd say it's between these two - former is most effective and has a missile rating, latter is overall more cost efficient. Personally, voting for
[X] Praesidium ASF
because ASFs don't really cost much in relation to our budget. We're a lot more industry limited, so more value per industry slot generally works better in my opinion.
[X] Support
Significant, but not major costs, but does lots of stuff. Admittedly the planet is too new to see a really significant return on investment for a very long time, but it also increases pop growth, and (even if it technically doesn't affect things) we need all the people we can get to train to be soldiers.