Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Voting is closing, mechanical results have been done...

Urist loves you guys, I swear. He threw two critical failures at me for things that basically translated to 'no event', while giving you one of the best possible results for the meta event roll. Doing the write up now and it should be up later today.
 
Turn 1 - Results

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 1 Results and Dynasty

Economic Roll - 3 degrees of success
Health Roll - 0 degrees of success
Stability Change roll - 5 degrees of success

Stability Rolls

-Political - 1 Positive Event
--Roll - 8 - 1 degree of success
--Result - Roll=1-1=0 Event - Major Rally of Supporters, +1 Success on all rolls next turn

-Research - 1 Positive Event
--Roll - 100 - critical failure
--Result - no event

-Economic - No event, rolling for completeness
--Roll - 100 - critical failure
--Result = no event

Meta Event Roll - 2 - Roll once on Table 2 - result - Unlock Lostech Project - Roll - 35
Dynasty Luck Roll - 16 - Cash windfall of 1000

Rebuild Military Academy
-Skill Target 75
-Roll = 10 SUCCESS

Secure Wreckage from Raid
-Skill Target 75
-Roll = 40 SUCCESS

Foreign Affairs Planning
-Skill Target 50
-Roll = 65 FAILURE must restart project

Search for Enemy Survivors
-Skill Target 65
-Roll = 6 SUCCESS

Interrogate POWs
-Skill Target 55
-Roll = 10 SUCCESS

Review Laws of War
-Skill Target 75
-Roll = 75 SUCCESS

-----

At least you no longer felt like a little girl playing pretend when you chaired meetings. It had been almost a year. A year of hard work, of shouting matches, of gritted teeth and endless meetings.

Of course, there were lighter events. Sergeant Ngô was firmly of the opinion that despite you now being Queen that didn’t excuse you from having ‘fun’ with the platoon; you were still, despite everything, on paper a Lt and their commander. And, surprisingly, it was fun, it was an escape valve. Leading your platoon on patrols once a week got you out of the clutches of the bureaucrats and gave you a worm’s eye view of the rebuilding.

And the people absolutely loved it. You aren’t some remote autocrat to them, and they know you are working to rebuild the institutions they were used to. You are right there, in the same sort of uniform that most of them at one point in their life had worn.

It gave some of your advisors fits that they had to sometimes track you down in order to get your signature on something. For Dr Young, at least, this informality was almost painful. The expression on her face when she had to brief you on something minor while you were perched on the bumper of a jeep with a thermos of coffee and some field rations? Priceless. Of course, what with the subject of these meetings being planning for future contacts, and with how… uncomfortable the foreign office types were, you couldn’t really blame them for the lack of progress in that regard.

You are present for the reopening ceremony for the Academy. You only really spent time there during your training rotations, and had never seen the admin area before since you’d never been assigned to that. Looking around, you are thinking that it might be a good idea to come up with a better name than ‘the Academy’ for it, especially if your plans to go after the pirates requires you to expand it greatly. After all, the fragmented history files mention places called ‘Sandhurst’ and ‘Nagelring’, having your military academy called something unimaginative might be… demeaning?

[] Write-in for future Academy names

While securing the dropship wreckage your teams discover something unexpected. In one of the wrecks are found a number of industrial exoskeletons of some sort, apparently used to handle heavy loads. Your researchers are very excited about this. There had been vague mentions of such things in the records and data cores, but this was the first time they’d found anything of the sort.

Interrogation of the POWs indicate that they are disgraced mercenaries turned pirate who had been searching for a new base to use to prey on something called the Hanseatic League. The prisoners have been proving to be very resistant to questioning but slowly information is being discovered. This particular group originated in the Draconis Combine many years earlier and had been slowly spiraling downward into greater and greater depravity ever since.

Sweeps of the wilderness around the battlefields and crash sites finds a few dozen more prisoners but also a dozen or so women dressed in the ragged remains of lingerie with collars around their necks, apparently this particular pirate band kept slaves in the old ‘comfort woman’ mode. They are in poor shape, but with proper medical care and time with rape trauma specialists they improve markedly. Gentle questioning reveals that most are from the Magistracy of Canopus with a few from the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation.

This presents you with an opportunity, and once they’ve recovered enough you make sure to bring in the media and use the women as a way of rekindling the anger towards the raiders. ‘This could have been you, your wives, your daughters, your mothers, your sisters…’ is the general theme, with interviews by sympathetic counselors aired over and over again.

The reaction is… beyond what you had hoped. People dig in to the reconstruction effort with an earnest will.

The guards at the POW camps are rather annoyed at having to prevent mass lynchings, but you can’t have everything. You did take your turn with your platoon on guard duty and had some long discussions with concerned citizens outside the wire. They know your thoughts on the matter.

And besides, seeing Janet on television cheerfully discussing exactly how many of the commonly accepted laws of war these bastards had broken and just how many justifications for the death penalty for them there were was entertaining. You knew your old roommate had a vicious streak, but to see her cheerfully discussing the pros and cons of firing squads versus nooses with the most popular evening TV host had you in tears of laughter. You had been very tempted to call in to advocate for Madame Guillotine, but a look from Sergeant Ngô kept you from doing it… only to fall off your chair laughing when SHE did it for you.

You DID have to keep neutral on this after all!

But then there were more uncomfortable things. You were 22, almost 23, the sole surviving member of your family, of your dynasty. You knew you’d have to do something about this… but… how?

[] Look for prospective husbands from amongst the future nobility

[] Look for prospective husbands from amongst the commoners

[] Look for prospective husbands from any social classes

[] Look for prospective husbands from within the military

[] Ask your advisors for, well, advice on the matter

[] Wait until things are more settled
 

CurtisLemay

Wargamer, Amateur Historian, Writer
Nuke Mod
Moderator
Staff Member
Founder
[X] Academy names
--[X] Roost Military Institute

[X] Advice is always welcome
--[X] Ask Your Advisers (especially Ngo)
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
[X] Future academy name: The Aerie
(We will cheerfully ignore the staff intern whom it falls upon to point out that most of these legendary Academies of the past appear to have been named after the cities they are located in, and that an "intentionally cool name" is ahistorical. We then promote the intern and fire the jerk who made the poor intern be the one to deliver bad news to Us. Besides, it's a bird pun, and we totally have a proud planetary tradition of all the bird puns.)

[X] Wait until things are more settled
(Also, We are pre-emptively threatening to throw Tyler Lee out of all the windows for offering advice on this subject. And We remind him that Our reconstructed palace has many windows. In fact, We will have the staff build more windows just to throw him out of.)
 
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Jarow

Well-known member
Don't care too much about the name until I see a good one, but I'm going to go ahead and vote the one thing I care about:
[X] Ask your advisors for, well, advice on the matter

Edit: you know what? I've decided I enjoy the descriptive flavor text after the name, going to vote for
[X] Future academy name: The Aerie
 
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LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Voting is closed.

Winning entries -
Academy name = The Aerie
Ask your advisors for, well, advice on the matter
 
Turn 2 advice and actions

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 2 Available Actions and Advisor Recommendations

After a rather amusing (to you) occurrence resulting in the firing of a leading contender for this year's Upper Class Twit Of The Year champion and the promotion of a far more sensible intern to take the twits place, you announce that henceforth the Academy will be referred to as The Aerie. You are quite proud to have limited yourself to only a half dozen or so bad bird puns in the course of the speech.

For once General Wolf and Dr Young seem totally united on something. From now on, no more bird puns in official speeches. The killjoys.

The advice you get from your advisors on the succession range from the somewhat whimsical (Janet offering to take you out clubbing with her to troll the waters, swearing that her fourth boyfriend from such a tactic will totally work out, unlike the first three who didn’t seem to know what the word ‘commitment’ meant) to the boringly practical (Professor Chapman sitting you down for a two hour discussion on historical precedents, political theory, and the pros and cons of various approaches in the absence of a settled precedent).

You spend most of those days pointedly avoiding Tyler Lee, at one point loudly commenting to Sergeant Ngô about just how many windows there are in the repaired palace to throw the old lech out of if he sticks his nose in.

And then he sticks his nose in.

“You know, I’ve got a grandson about your age. Good kid, hotshot junior test pilot over at Aves Aerospace.” he rather casually comments, leaning against the doorway to your office. “Granted, my son-in-law runs the place, but he’s still good people, almost good enough for my oldest daughter.”

You have to shake yourself… the walking hormone is married? You realize too late that you said that out loud when the old lech laughs.

“53 years, kid, keeps me young.” he smirks at your expression. “Somebody had to win the grand prize, after all.” and he has the nerve to buff his nails on his suit jacket lapel.

You are still trying to get your head around the fact that some woman put up with him for over a half century as he saunters, positively saunters, out the door.

Before you can have him pitched out the nearest window.

The old bastard.

-----

General Wolf is pleased with the repairs to the Academy overall.

“I know that our military is in poor shape, but right now it’s more important that we fully dig ourselves out of the budgetary hole we’re in with all the repairs. At most we should buy some more tank platoons or perhaps an LRM carrier platoon or two, but that’s very low priority compared to getting our finances into order. One thing I would strongly advise is to start researching fortifications in order to make defending our planet easier.”

Military Projects

Tyler Lee, still un-defenestrated weeks after he stuck his nose in the entire marriage thing (you’ll get him eventually!), goes over a number of options with you and the rest of your advisors. With the rebuilding on track and the replacement of conventional power plants with new fusion plants underway he brings up the possibility of focusing attention on various sectors of the economy.

“Down the road promoting heavy industry and the tech sector will be very important, but for now we really can’t afford it. We could promote the financial sector, and the bankers would love us for it. But nobody else will and it may cause far more trouble than it is worth. This will sound odd coming from an unrepentant business tycoon like me, but once the budget can handle it I would strongly advise that we implement stronger environmental regulations. We can’t afford the hit to our economy right now, but the benefits when we can are more than worth it and it will let us leave a more positive legacy for future generations. With technology that’s coming down the road we’ll be able to shift much of our industry into orbit, after all, so once that happens we can get the best of both worlds. For now, though, let’s not start anything new and just finish up what we’ve got coming down the pike.”

He pauses, then slides a folder over to you. “There is one low-cost thing we can do, a general improvement to infrastructure is well within our means and would have small but important knock on effects to both our economy and our populations quality of life.”

Interior Projects

((Note a reminder, you can use any non-committed actions from any category to perform generic rating actions like improving infrastructure))

There’s been a lot of chaos within the Foreign Ministry, but Doctor Young assures you she is on top of the situation. While the contingency planning hasn’t progressed it is still an option, and in addition the Cultural Affairs section of the ministry sends you a memo proposing the commissioning of a monument to those who gave their lives in defense of the planet in the raid.

Diplomacy Projects

You and Professor Chapman spend most of your meeting discussing the ongoing reorganization of the government back to the lines in place under your father. Campaigning is already beginning in various areas, and the Professor has been fielding requests from prominent families for consideration for noble status ever since the Lords were announced. She has a small binder of the more amusing submissions which have the two of you chuckling for a few hours.

Everything is on track, with new construction for the capital buildings well underway along with dispersed bunkers to hopefully prevent what had happened to the previous government from happening again. The recent great enthusiasm for you personally is having an effect, people are working long hours wanting everything to succeed and the effects are starting to be felt.

((Every action either in progress or started this turn will have 1 free success added to its resolution roll. This means that a bare failure on the roll will be treated as a bare success, 1 degree of failure will be treated as a bare failure, and 2 degrees of failure will be required for an actual failure. Projects with this effect active will be marked with an asterix))

Political Projects

Dr Palmer video conferences in from her field office with piles of paperwork visible on the rickety desk she’s seated behind. She’s been camped out near one of the main crash sites for months overseeing the cataloguing of material for future research.

“The labs are coming along very well.” she reports. “They should be finished on time and on budget, then we’ll really be able to get started on some real research again.”

She shuffles some papers. “Until that is finished I’d really recommend not starting any serious research projects. The difficulty in working without good labs is going to hamstring any serious work and ultimately cost far more money than we can afford.”

Research Projects

Juanita Bailey comes in, looking even more grim-faced than usual, and sits down heavily. “Those people are scum. Complete scum. You’ve gotten the reports about those women we rescued?”

When you nod she grimaces. “We’ve been getting more intel out of them than out of the prisoners. It’s bad. The Star League has fallen, the entire Sphere is in a constant state of war with all of the powers nuking each other back into the stone age.”

There is silence in the office as this sinks in.

“We won’t be able to hide this for too long, so you’ll want to start thinking about how to handle this. In more local news, when your father was on the throne he’d regularly have us investigate the various politicians within Parliament, you might want to get a head start on that by looking into those who are already jockeying for positions as we get things restarted.”

“Oh, and as big of a bunch of scum as they are, my people are certain that the prisoners still have things to spill, our questioning has started bearing fruit but we can, with your permission, jack up the pressure.” an evil smile crosses her aged face. “I’ve ordered some workmen to erect a scaffold in full view of the POW camp and we’ve started testing the mechanism for the trap. That should motivate them to be very cooperative, yes?”

Intelligence Projects

Janet is her usual ebullient self when she bounces in at an indecently early hour with a giant steaming cup of coffee as a bribe for good behavior (and not getting thumped).

“I’ve got a great idea!” she announces, flopping back on your couch while you work on reducing the blood content of your caffeine system. “And I ran the numbers on it too! Remember when we spent a semester volunteering downtown at that women’s shelter?”

You nod, slowly coming awake.

“Well that got me to thinking, remember that legal aid clinic they had there? They did a ton of good, helping poor folk deal with issues. Got quite a few off the streets after all, and that’s always a good thing. We already have a public defenders office and it’s pretty well staffed, why don’t we expand it a bit both in size and scope to provide free legal services to the poor and indigent. If we prime the pump, we’ve got mechanisms in place for the existing legal aid clinics to merge in both with their manpower and their funding, so it would be almost cost neutral.”

She grins a bit. “So think of it, kay? Oh, and I really think we should do some background checks for the various candidates for office. Just doing a quick scan through the names and did you know that two of the ones vying for Lordships are convicted sex offenders, and one of the candidates for the Common’s has a laundry list of fraud convictions? Won’t cost much either, but boy will it save on embarrassment.”

“In addition once Mrs Bailey is done playing with the prisoners, let us know and we’ll start the trials of those scum buckets. Pirates are hostis generis humani, after all, so we don’t really need a trial technically but it might give their victims some closure and show that we at least care about the rule of law.”

Justice Projects
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
[X] Economy First

-[X]Military
--[X]Read the folder Tyler Lee gave us, and Improve Infrastructure.

-[X]Interior
--[X]Planetary Economic Survey.

-[X]Political
--[X]Improve Infrastructure

-[X]Diplomatic
--[X]Foreign Affairs Planning.

-[X]Research
--[X]Begin Research on Fortifications Lvl 1.

-[X]Intelligence
--[X]Investigate potential MPs.

-[X]Justice
--[X]Expand Public Defender's Office.
 

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Head's up, you can only do any one action once per turn unless it is specifically noted otherwise. Both of your plans have infrastructure twice.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Probably don't need to, but adding in ongoing projects for reference

[X] Economic Steps
-[X] Military
--[X] Purchase 1 LRM Carrier Platoon
(Modest increase to military in desired method)
-[X] Interior
--[X] Public Assistance for Rebuilding*
--[X] Upgrade Power Infrastructure*
(Ongoing projects, nothing new here)
-[X] Diplomatic
--[X] Foreign Affairs Planning
(We've decided to go for this, might as well keep trying)
--[X] Build memorial for victims of pirate raid
(This will pay for itself : +500 for 10 turns. We need this one)
-[X] Political
--[X] Reorganize Government (Const.)*
(ongoing)
-[X] Research
--[X] Rebuild Academy Labs*
--[X] LOSTECH - Industrial Exoskeletons lvl 1
(A bit of a gamble, but can reduce military and general upkeep costs)
-[X] Intelligence
--[X] Investigate potential MPs
(Nothing we really need here, but relatively minor cost)
-[X] Justice
-- [X] Expand Public Defenders Office
(Decent small project)
-[X] General (from unused actions)
--[X] Improve Infrastructure
(Cheaper, safer, and more effective than improving either health or economy and does both)

A few key features in this plan:
Exoskeletons is a gamble, but can reduce some of our current costs, and will greatly help any future aerospace expenses
Memorial gives us +500 income for 10 turns, paying for itself almost immediately and providing a pretty big bonus
 
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PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
[X] Interim years

-[X] Military
--[X] Purchase one unit of Falcon ASF

-[X] Interior
--[X] Nothing major this year

-[X] Diplomatic
--[X] Nothing major this year

-[X] Political
--[X] Nothing major this year

-[X] Research
-- [X] Organize Expedition to Ruins

-[X] Intelligence
--[X] Establish Dedicated Intelligence Agency

-[X] Justice
-- [X] Nothing major this year

Funds are tight right now, so no major projects.
 

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
OK, some systemic advice from the QM, and feel free to modify plans to suit if you so desire. Note that this isn't me telling you what you are doing is a bad idea :geek:

Until the labs are rebuilt, any R&D project takes 1 round extra. So in many cases, if you were to start an R&D project now, it would take twice as long... and cost twice as much if it's a project that would be reduced to 1 round by finishing the labs.

In addition, I have added the rules for Influence and the various parts of government. Copying them here.

12) Influence ratings are primarily used to determine the results of any conflicts between parts of the government. In the event of a conflict a d10 is rolled for each party to the conflict and subtracted from that parties influence rating. The results are compared and the highest value 'wins' the conflict. Moreover, each turn a d10 is rolled for each party. If the roll is below their current influence then that party will take an action that will not cost the treasury any funds. This action will have a skill target of (100-(influence*10)). For the Crown a success will either result in a windfall of 1000 or 1 project will take 1 less turn (players choice). For the Lords and Commons this will depend on their current influence. If their influence is at or below 3 they will increase their influence by a maximum of +2 or to 5, whichever is higher. If their influence is above 3 this will result in either a windfall of 500 or 1 project (QM choice) will take 1 less turn.

Finally, if anybody wants to write omakes set in the universe, if they are accepted as canonical then there shall be in-quest rewards available (generally a +10 skill target bonus to a roll of the players choice, or a funding windfall of 1000 that turn). The design bureau is also open in the discord for players to propose and discuss designs. Anybody who submits a design will get a special discord role (cosmetic for now) and player submitted designs will be cheaper to R&D. I will also be setting some challenges in there to design specific pieces of equipment for in game rewards equivalent to writing omakes.
 

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