Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[Jarow]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze
-[X] Military [$ 16,147,863.42 ]
--[X] Construct Mark 1 Naval Defense Station* [->1]
---[X] Griffin's Roost
---[X] Griffin's Roost
---[X] Griffin's Roost
---[X] Griffin's Roost
---[X] Nowy Gdansk
---[X] Nowy Gdansk
---[X] Nowy Gdansk
---[X] Nowy Gdansk
---[X] Nadir
---[X] Nadir
---[X] Nadir
---[X] Nadir
---[X] Zenith
---[X] Zenith
---[X] Zenith
---[X] Zenith
---[X] Griffon IV
---[X] Griffon IV
---[X] Griffon IV
---[X] Griffon IV
--[X] Upgrade Defense HQ [->1]
(We need every action we can get)
--[X] Dedicated Upgrade and Refurbishment Facility [->1]
(we're going to need to do so many upgrades over the course of upgrading to clantech...)
--[X] Expand Factory 46 [100]
--[X] Expand Factory 47 [100]
--[X] Expand Factory 48 [100]
(We do need lots of ASFs)
--[X] Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - 455,459.20 ]
---[X] Newport [80]
---[X] Newport-C [80]

--[X] Purchase New Units [$ 162429.22 ]
---[X] 1 Regimental Support Squadron [75]
---[X] 4 Assault Carrier Wings [75]
---[X] 2 Assault Carrier Squadrons [75]
---[X] 2 Flights of Griffon ASF [75]

-[X]Interior [$ 19185000 ]
--[X] Expand Orbital Factory 39 (DHS) [95]
--[X] Expand Orbital Factory 59 (FA) [95]
--[X] Expand Orbital Factory 60 (FA) [95]
--[X] Expand Orbital Factory 61 (FA) [95]
(We probably will need more DHS when we start building ground forces again, and we only had 2 ferro aluminum leftover this turn)
--[X] Focus Development on Griffin II Orbitals [65]
(Last planet in upgrade cycle, means after this we can get Griffon's Roost again)
--[X] Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]
--[X] Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [100]
---[X] Large
--[X] Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [100]
---[X] Large
(These three are not stopping until we can't afford not to)
--[X] DOME - Plant Temperate Forests on Griffon IV [->4]
(Helps speed up getting people on our newest planet)
--[X] DOME - Nowy Gdansk Arcology* [95]
--[X] DOME - Planetary Sculpting - Artificial Oceans - Griffin IV* [->6]
--[X] DOME - Planetary Sculpting - Artificial Riverbeds - Griffin IV* [->6]
--[X] DOME - Planetary Sculpting - Artificial Lakes - Griffin IV* [->6]
--[X] DOME - O'Neill Cylinder at Griffin II* [->7]
--[X] DOME - Arcology Cluster - Griffon IV* [->7]

-[X] Diplomatic [$ 6060000 ]
--[X] Have Exploration Fleet Survey GOAB* [75]
--[X] Endow Imperial War Museum [90]
(More money for not spending everything, and a positive mystery box)
--[X] Open talks with NRI for military alliance [->4]
(We're already friends, lets make it official)
--[X] CULTURE - General Cultural Festival [75]
(We're in a good place money-wise, lets help get everything stable on our planets instead of just getting more oney. Also thematically works with building a museum)

-[X] Political [$ 6000000 ]
--[X] Civil Service Reform* [75]
--[X] Charter Imperial Broadcasting Company [75]
(reroll for one of 5 areas, and a small outside boost. Also allows us to try to fight back against what's currently going on)

-[X] Research [$ 19750000 ]
--[X] Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
--[X] High Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
(We need to do at least two of these to finish next turn)
--[X] Full Survey - SLS Morristown [->1]
(Exploring our warship is never a bad choice)
--[X] Improved PPC [->1]
(Hopefully, combined with the last T2 advanced tech will let us research cERPPCs)
--[X] Hyper-Pulse Generators - Theory Lvl 2 [->4]
(If we're about to have allies, it'd be nice to be able to talk with them. Also with any out of system colonies we'll have soon enough)
--[X] Advanced Standard Core Theory* [->1]
--[X] Advanced Standard Core Design* [->1]
--[X] Advanced Standard Core Construction* [->1]

-[X] Intelligence [$ 0 ]
--[X] Counterintelligence Surveillance [?]

-[X] Justice [$ 30000000 ]
--[X] Expand Special Branch [65]
--[X] Investigate Criminal Justice System [70]
(Two sources of event protection, with other benefits)

-[X] Miscellaneous [$ 7000000 ]
--[X] All the Dropships [->0] [2000000]
--[X] Ground Upgrades [->1][5000000]


A little under $120m leftover, but not much more to spend it on. Biggest debate for me here is HPG theory, other choices were anti-aging and advanced communications. All three were pretty valid choices, but decided starting HPGs needed to get done as soon as possible.

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[Knowledgeispower]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

And may I say it's nice to see my idea of dedicated facilities to do upgrades and repairs for all of our forces is going strong. This should hopefully enable us to do more than one type of unit being upgraded per turn which will be rather nice

 

[Nikandros]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[kashim3]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[Artifex]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[Ridli Scott]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[darkcloudt2]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

Getting ever closer to striking back at the dragon, how do our forces (mech, ground and air) compare to what they have?

 

[Artifex]

Don't think we have any TO&E on the Dracs yet and won't have it in the near future yet. We're kinda fighting blind with some assumptions provided by the Rasalhague Renegades.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Don't think we have any TO&E on the Dracs yet and won't have it in the near future yet. We're kinda fighting blind with some assumptions provided by the Rasalhague Renegades.

Well the good news is that we're soon to be in a position to do some scouting

 

[edofthesquid]

[X] Plan: Growing like a breeze

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Okay, strategic thinkythink time. The way I see it, there are three basic things we can do with our one JumpShip: raid, scout, and colonize.

Raiding would involve loading up all three Drop Collars with our big, nasty Royal Sovereign class DropShips and launching direct attacks on the systems we already know are in Drac hands.

Scouting would involve loading a mix of Royal Sovereigns and Enterprise-As, and jumping into the systems that we don't know about.

Colonizing would involve loading one-each Royal Sovereign, Enterprise-A, and heavy transport, and jumping to that one system we know is habitable but uninhabited, or other systems as validated by scouting efforts.

In my opinion, we should colonize first because colonies continue to grow once started, allowing us to take the JumpShip and do other things with it while still reaping benefits. The colony would grow slower without having a dedicated JumpShip providing the maximum possible amount of logistical support, but it *will* continue to grow, and that is a big step forward for us.

Therefore, I would suggest that we should plant that colony with our first JumpShip run this year, bringing a single large transport as a colony ship, the Enterprise-A to do more detailed surveying of the system, and one Royal Sovereign to provide military protection, and then the rest of the JumpShip runs for this year can bring in additional supplies.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - Country Roads

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating rolls

Meta Event Roll - 75 - Corruption Crisis
Dynasty Luck Roll - 62 - no event

Imperial Approval - 6
Approval Change - 6
Political Event - -1

Economy Rating - 6
Economy Event - 1
Research Event - 6

Griffin’s Roost Economy - 5
Griffin’s Roost Population - 9
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 3

Nowy Gdansk Economy - 6
Nowy Gdansk Population - 10
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 3

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Economy - 10
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - -2

Griffon II Orbitals Economy - 2
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 4

Griffon IV Economy - 2
Griffon IV Population - 4
Griffon IV Rating Change - 2

Spoiler: Action Results

Military [$ 16,147,863.42 ]
Expand Factory 46 [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 47 [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 96
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 48 [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 91
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - 455,459.20 ]
-Newport [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-Newport-C [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 162429.22 ]
-1 Regimental Support Squadron [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-4 Assault Carrier Wings [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Assault Carrier Squadrons [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Flights of Griffon ASF [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

Interior [$ 19185000 ]
Expand Orbital Factory 39 (DHS) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 1
Result - CRITICAL SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 59 (FA) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 60 (FA) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 61 (FA) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin II Orbitals [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 56
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [100]
-Large
Target - 100
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [100]
-Large
Target - 100
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Nowy Gdansk Arcology* [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 96
Result - Bare FAILURE

Diplomatic [$ 6060000 ]
Have Exploration Fleet Survey GOAB* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Endow Imperial War Museum [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

CULTURE - General Cultural Festival [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 59
Result - SUCCESS

Political [$ 6000000 ]
Civil Service Reform* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Charter Imperial Broadcasting Company [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 19
Result - SUCCESS

Research [$ 19750000 ]
Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

High Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

Justice [$ 30000000 ]
Expand Special Branch [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

Investigate Criminal Justice System [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-----

All is mostly quiet on the oligarch front, although one of the targets has been in communication with the lawyers to arrange a ‘get together’ early next year, which may well give you evidence against a third of them, but the language used is ambiguous enough that it wouldn’t yet help in court.

Doesn’t mean that you don’t have the Special Squad staking out the site for this ‘get together’, a rather lovely oceanside villa on the coast of Pollux with absolutely spectacular views. Unfortunately for the oligarch, this includes spectacular views from across the channel… their ‘private get together’ won’t be very private.

You’ve had a few meetings with Janet and several senior prosecutors discussing the case. They can guarantee convictions on the two you’ve already gotten evidence on, but not yet the others. So you are going to have to wait out a holiday season knowing that these monsters are out there. God willing, next year they’ll no longer be a problem for anybody but Satan having to keep them company for eternity.

So you’re feeling vindictive. Bastards have earned it.

In rather more positive news, you have received the design proposals for both a new command mech for air-droppable forces and for the potential upgrade to the Soldatin II. The command mech, called the Horse Archer is intended to cover the roles of both the Uhlan and the Rittmeister, as both a command and fire support mech.

The new Soldatin is precisely how your son described it, trading the Marauder-style enhanced PPC on the back for a pair of 5 tube long range missile racks, an anti-missile system tucked under the nose, more armor, and jump jets. The raw firepower has dropped, but the design is significantly more flexible now.

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
Soldatin III	1130.33	ES, DHS	34	34	Armored 1 Missile 0 AMS 1 TAG
Horse Archer	839.02	DHS	26	26	Armored 1 Missile 1 AMS 1 Command 1

There is one fly in the ointment. Upgrading the Soldatin II to the III standard would be a significant boost in capability for your standard line unit, but it coming as it does at this late of a date it would cause a degree of chaos in the final stages of the upgrade process… chaos it might be worth stirring up.

Going forward with the upgrade at this time would involve cycling all of the several hundred Soldatin II’s through the factories, delaying the ability to procure mechs, at least, for another year. It would also be expensive, initial estimates are around $5,000,000 for the upgrade and pilot retraining costs. On the one hand, expensive and time consuming… on the other probably worth it, because the new design is a significant upgrade indeed.

[]	Go for it	1 time cost of $5,000,000 No mech production next turn
[]	Wait For Now	Once the DURF is online it will cost $3,000,000 to perform the upgrade

The proposal for ‘Pathfinder Regiments’ is also on your desk. On paper there is a surfeit of command capability, but it is pointed out that most of the Horse Archer mechs won’t have an officer sitting in the back seat.

Each Pathfinder Lance would comprise 1 Orb Weaver Scout/Recon Mech, 1 Horse Archer Command/Missile mech, and 2 Wolf Spider Cavalry mechs. A Pathfinder Company would be 3 Pathfinder Lances, a Battalion 3 Companies, and a Regiment 3 Battalions. All mechs in the unit are jump-capable quads, making them ideal for orbital drops. The tactical concept is that such a regiment would be dropped from orbit to secure the LZ for the rest of the invasion force. Once the LZ is established they would serve as an LZ security force, protecting the grounded dropships.

Simulations show that such a force would be rather effective.

You only have to attend a pair of keel-laying ceremonies, which is a relief, but you then have to go to a massive number of commissioning ceremonies. You are very tempted to hunt down the officers responsible for some of these names. HMS Ribble? HMS URE? Then there’s HMS Kunatava, which you are dead certain will be nicknamed something incredibly rude. You were once infantry, you know how grunts think. All of this pales when you realize that your beloved son had authorized one of the new Royal Sovereign class ships to be named Empress of Nowy Gdansk. You are morally certain that he was smirking when he signed off on that.

He is almost certainly going through the Tyler Lee Memorial Defenestration Window!

You check the paperwork and the ASF contingents for all of the new dropships are ready on time and under budget. You check that, and learn that a paperwork snafu on the supplier's end resulted in them only billing you for 4 of the 5 Assault Carrier Wings that they delivered.

QM NOTE - I gave incorrect numbers for required ASF wings in the advisor post, consider this a QM freebie to you.

Bridget is giggling, positively giggling, when she informs you that the same contractors who’d managed minor miracles on multiple other orbital foundries and forges had done it again, the Double Heat Sink production line they’d been upgraded had, well, been upgraded well beyond what you pair for, two upgrades worth of upgrade for the price of one upgrades worth of upgrade.

The rest of the upgrade crews only deliver what you paid for. But they do all deliver it on time and to spec, so there’s something to be said for that.

Thanks to the investments from your government several new orbital refineries come online around Griffon II, boosting economic activity yet again.

This is somewhat of a mixed blessing. There is an enormous amount of material in orbit suitable for mining, but compared to, say, an asteroid belt or an entire planet it is quite finite. Luckily the new Enterprise is able to finish up the survey work on the Outer Asteroid Belt. The bad news? As long as Griffon II is producing it would not be economically viable to start mining operations there. The good news? When the debris field around Griffon II is depleted then it would be pretty straightforward to tow the equipment out to the Outer Asteroid Belt and continue mining there.

You are getting very close to being able to start producing Jumpships in your own yards, albeit currently very small ones. Roughly 80% or so of the way there. The refit yard is also coming along nicely.

Bridget does have one unfortunate thing to report. An industrial accident at the construction site of the new Arcology has pushed back completion for a year. Fortunately there were no serious industries and ultimately it is determined that it was pure bad luck that led to the problem, with no design faults, materials faults, or personnel faults found. That Nowy Gdansk Gull that somehow managed to fly directly into the rotation mechanism of one of the heavy lift cranes and jam it is determined to be at fault. Although how the hell it managed to do that has everybody scratching their heads.

In the mood you are in from HMS Empress of Nowy Gdansk you decide to blame Jeremy and move on.

The new Imperial War Museum is opened to some fanfare, corresponding with the general cultural festival organized by the Culture Ministry. It seems to go quite well, all things considered.

The civil service reform efforts have been completed. Surprisingly the total number of people on the government’s payroll barely budges, but there’s a great deal of reshuffling and reassignments going on reducing duplication while finding other areas requiring the talents of those made redundant. In the end the bureaucracy should be much more efficient, which pleases Jake to no end.

The Imperial Broadcasting Company is also chartered, to howls of outrage from the big media conglomerates who now have to compete against it. It is quite satisfying seeing the smug ‘journalists’ looking worried about their careers, and the rage from the oligarchs is a cherry on top. The IBC is not only allowing you to completely bypass those gatekeepers, but the firm commitment to always having iron-clad sourcing and, most importantly, proof should lead to it seriously challenging the others credibility.

You get reports from Mary that the scientists involved in the work on both high-energy physics and advanced electronics are very satisfied with progress in those fields and hope to see applications to other research areas.

Very discrete recruitment efforts enable the growth of the Special Branch. Finding the right people for the posts is very difficult, but Michelle is able to do it.

About a dozen judges find themselves removed from the bench as investigators discover conflicts of interest, illegal activity, and general ethical lapses. Another half dozen are ‘missed’ by the investigators… but you are watching those bad apples very carefully, as every single one of them is on the payroll of the law firm working for those oligarchs.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.

[X] Wait For Now

We save almost half by delaying the refits until we have the refit facility.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

[X] Wait for Now
Our glorious Dedicated Refit and Upgrade facility will do the job for us at a lower price and allow additional procurement of Mechs and moreover it shouldn't be too long before it comes online

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Wait for Now

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Wait for Now

 

[Artifex]

DRUF-chan to the rescue!

[X] Wait for Now