Winter_Wind45
Well-known member
[X] Support the Planetary Terraforming Access Act of 3022
Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
Perhaps we should play up the weight of being a senator (in this idealized society where senators should be respectable). Maybe they will appreciate that more. No aristocratic titles to elected senators, though.
[X] Support the Planetary Terraforming Access Act of 3022
[X] Support the Planetary Terraforming Access Act of 3022
mmgaballah
Well-known member
what are the odds of Blacksteel deciding to pack up their shit and go bother the inner sphere instead ? , it could have some intersting knock on effects of alerting the inner sphere and later the clans to our existence and the effects that might have on the diplomacy and foreign affairs aspects of the quest
I don't think they hunt anyone specifically. They feel more like the classical 'berserker' faction in sci-fi...only interested in the destruction of all life other than their own.
darkcloudt2
Well-known member
From a game point of view I hope they bugger off and pick on the inner sphere, with the expanded jump ship numbers and I take it mech/aerospace fighters the IS should be able to handle it after a while.
But, unless they still have warships (I don’t think it’s ever been mentioned / confirmed as the combine didn’t have anything like a warship when they came) then a lot of planets are going to be nuked before they slow them down.
But, unless they still have warships (I don’t think it’s ever been mentioned / confirmed as the combine didn’t have anything like a warship when they came) then a lot of planets are going to be nuked before they slow them down.
...and the TC are right in the way forward...or possibly the CC.
That or they could be Cylons
"I'm sorry your girlfriend turned out to be a psylon Billy."
Turn 92 - And I See Storms On The Horizon
Turn 92 - And I See Storms On The Horizon
The Olympics take a turn for the better at least, but then again it is time for motor racing and nobody expects Team Griffon to do anything but dominate. Which they don’t. Sure, they sweep the podium like usual and bring home four gold medals, but the racing is far closer than it has been in the past, especially in the hovercraft races with the NRI showing a definite propensity for all four events, bringing home silver in all of them.
Sports commentators are heaping scorn on Team Griffon’s coaches and leadership, because so far this Olympics has been an utter debacle. This year you’ve medaled in 11 out of 23 events so far, by an enormous margin the worst showing for Team Griffon ever in the Olympics. The host Rasalhaguians are well ahead in the gold medal count, however the team that is doing the best so far in terms of total medals are the Bourbons.
General Bradley comes to meet with you. The Army is finalizing plans for completely revamping procurement, reorganizing existing forces, and developing a new paradigm for future expansion. All of this will be centered around combined arms divisions based on the Brigade Combat Team concept, only more carefully optimized. Several existing Battlemech and armored vehicle designs will be completely phased out in this process, also eliminating a number of existing unit types. The main example being the Light Horse Regiments, which will be phased out in favor of Armored Cavalry Regiments, with the light mech role being fully filled by the more modern Light Mech Regiments. The Kavallerie Light Mech will be retired completely in the process.
“One of the issues we’re attempting to deal with, Your Majesty, is that the Army is heavily influenced by the experiences of our past battles, especially the Battle of Castor. As a consequence we tend towards heavy, slow, massively armored designs that sacrifice firepower and mobility for defense. Sensible for when you are defending a position from fixed emplacements, or grinding over inferior forces with overwhelming support, but not so useful in actual mobile warfare.” She sighs. “Much as I dislike the RRF, Your Majesty, I do fully support the concept of maneuver warfare. I just want it done right, not by some half-assed cowboys racing off without proper support. Most of the equipment we will be eliminating will be assault weight tanks and support vehicles, replacing them with more mobile and flexible medium weight vehicles that can fulfill the same roles, with more mobility in exchange for less raw armor. Specialist units will retain the assault weight equipment, but in general overall tonnages will be going down.”
Your Justice Minister, Martina, comes to you with some concerns. It seems that the grandson of one of the media moguls behind the sexual predator ring in the Griffon system back during your great-grandmother’s reign has built a fresh media empire of sorts in the New Eden system. While New Eden is very much a backwater, and the market there is not precisely profitable, it could be an issue. His father is still running a media company in the Griffon system which, while massively reduced due to the fines and criminal penalties combined with how many people simply wanted nothing to do with it, is still profitable enough to sustain itself, and there have long been suspicions about his ultimate loyalty to the Empire. The grandson is more of a cipher, the media outlets under his control appear to be playing things straight, reporting the news with, if anything, a slight pro-Imperial bias, but that could be deceptive.
There’s absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing on the grandson’s part apart from his questionable family ties. He spends most of his time on New Eden well away from the corridors of Imperial power. Martina’s concern is that New Eden is a critical food supplier to the western sectors of the Empire, despite the relatively lackluster economy there. This is the sort of thing that is at the Empress’s paygrade, and Martina is quite happy to shuffle it up to you.
And then it is budget time. You don’t really get why your grandfather hated this. It’s not exactly ‘fun’, but it’s the sort of work that is required if you are to rule the Empire, and with the privileges and luxuries of being Empress, you should have to do the work to earn them.
Of course, dealing with General Jenkins when he’s on a roll is something else. “Alright, I have been officially asked by your aunt to grovel appropriately for a reprieve from your sentence to paperwork hell for the RRF. I have preemptively instructed the Quartermaster Corps to require them to fill out the paperwork for that first. General Bradley’s already given you the Good News Of Army Reorganization, also known as the GNOAR. You're welcome. She probably forgot to tell you that the equipment taken out of front line service will be passed down to the militia and garrisons, who are chomping at the bit for it all. We need more strategic materials, and please stop building new factories when we can upgrade our existing ones, we need to provide security for all those new installations and standing guard outside a DHS forge is booooorrrrrriiiiinnnnnggggg.”
He turns the podium over to General Bradley. “We’re still finalizing plans, and the SLEP process is actually making this much easier as we have already begun the process of replacing obsolete kit. Strategic materials are expected to be the main bottleneck, although we are also evaluating our needs in terms of mech production facilities.”
General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, We’ve been informed by Admiral Fisher that the navy will not be procuring any new carriers this year, freeing us to build up our other units. Our focus is on increasing our overall striking power for planetary defense purposes, as such we are procuring a large number of attack and strike ASFs.”
Admiral Fisher then takes over the podium. “Indeed we’re not procuring any Saipans this year, we’ve got plenty of them for now, we need other things. BuShips has managed to produce viable missile dropships, we’re putting those in mass production this year. In addition, we are producing a large number of Bainbridges in hopes of completely retiring the PPG-50 and PGL-001 classes. We’re also procuring more training ships, our using some of our obsolete crap as training ships will help us handle the python lump this year, and next year we’re going to temporarily idle a few yards in order to prevent overloading the training pipeline again, but after that we should be good for maximum rate production again.”
He checks his notes, then puts up a chart showing what the Navy wants.
General Jenkins is about to retake the podium for the summary when the door opens and the Communications Officer of the Watch in the Palace control center enters, handing you a priority dispatch. The same Bonaventure spotted in the New Eden system had jumped into the Griffon’s Eye system, being spotted by the jump point defenses. It is well away from said defenses and is not making any aggressive moves.
You grit your teeth, the only value the Griffon’s Eye actually has is as a recharge point, so you simply nod and acknowledge the report. The remaining heavy response forces are dedicated to defending inhabited systems, so only a few old Daggers would be available to help out the orbital defenses of an uninhabited system. It’s a hard, cold calculus of war, but you can’t afford to divert forces there if that means leaving millions, even billions, of your citizens unprotected.
It’s to a more somber meeting that Elizabeth Lee takes the podium. “Your Majesty, I’d like to start with our recommendations for scouting. We are pretty sure that there is at least a nodal position for the Black Steel somewhere near New Eden, judging by the force compositions of the latest waves of attacks. We need to find it and if possible take it out before it becomes an even greater problem. As such, there are four systems which we are recommending we send scouts to, including in that area.”
She brings up the map. “GX-I20 is a blue supergiant star, much like the Griffon’s Eye, we haven’t surveyed it yet, however, and it is a leading candidate for a Black Steel base given their past propensity to use systems of this nature. GX-F24, F27 and F28 are all to the Galactic north between Awha and Bauernparadis. We are hoping to gather more data on the unusual HPG interference and further refine our estimate of the origin, which may be a major Black Steel installation. F24 is a red subgiant, F27 is an orange main sequence star, and F28 is a white-yellow main sequence star.”
She checks her notes. “Now, for investments and economic foci. We have two new core worlds this year, although we are a bit hesitant about Nya Kopenhamn given the continued unrest in the system. We do recommend major economic investments in each of them. Edelsteine is such a wealthy system to begin with that it’s nearly a no-brainer, while it is believed that such an investment would yield enormous dividends of goodwill in the Nya Kopenhamn system on top of the more mundane economic benefits. Beyond that…” She brings up the chart.
“Now, we have four DoME teams free, one of which is obligated towards Planetary Optimization. We have one colonization project, and two terraforming projects which we strongly recommend.”
Leila is off at the Olympics, having to endure that debacle first-hand, and as a consequence her deputy is present but has no new projects for you to consider.
Lien is looking quite calm, although you recognize that she’s forcing herself to remain so. The behavior of the Senate is galling to her. “Your Majesty, your political office is ready to assist in trying to get the Senate back fully onside, if so desired. In addition, the number of settled systems is creeping up towards the limits of what the Colonial Office can efficiently handle, we would like to recommend expanding that this year to keep on top of the curve effectively.”
Grace has her typical expression, although there’s a bit of a sparkle there that’s usually absent. “Well, Your Majesty, this year we are going to be asking for not just some money, but a LOT of money. We have two critical R&D efforts that will, combined, be the Grifftiger’s share of the budget, but which have equally massive benefits upon completion. And something that those unrepentant jackasses in the Black Pumpernickels snuck into our files without telling us they were doing so, something we’ve been wanting for a while but couldn’t quite crack.”
The laughter dies down eventually, and General Messerschmidt, who’d been dancing right along with the rest of you, is still grinning. “After that, well… I’m proud to announce, Your Majesty has acquired a new temple in the NRI. I am sure that this will warm the cockles of your cold Imperial heart. Did I mention it’s on the beach, with a wonderful sunset view and some of the finest black sand on the planet?”
Martina is up next. “Your Majesty, we’d like to initiate the next review of the Imperial Legal and Regulatory codes, we are currently working out a method of handling this in a continuous manner, rather than waiting for the rot to sink in bloating the codes, but are not quite there yet in terms of navigating the legal complexities of such an arrangement.”
The Olympics take a turn for the better at least, but then again it is time for motor racing and nobody expects Team Griffon to do anything but dominate. Which they don’t. Sure, they sweep the podium like usual and bring home four gold medals, but the racing is far closer than it has been in the past, especially in the hovercraft races with the NRI showing a definite propensity for all four events, bringing home silver in all of them.
Sports commentators are heaping scorn on Team Griffon’s coaches and leadership, because so far this Olympics has been an utter debacle. This year you’ve medaled in 11 out of 23 events so far, by an enormous margin the worst showing for Team Griffon ever in the Olympics. The host Rasalhaguians are well ahead in the gold medal count, however the team that is doing the best so far in terms of total medals are the Bourbons.
General Bradley comes to meet with you. The Army is finalizing plans for completely revamping procurement, reorganizing existing forces, and developing a new paradigm for future expansion. All of this will be centered around combined arms divisions based on the Brigade Combat Team concept, only more carefully optimized. Several existing Battlemech and armored vehicle designs will be completely phased out in this process, also eliminating a number of existing unit types. The main example being the Light Horse Regiments, which will be phased out in favor of Armored Cavalry Regiments, with the light mech role being fully filled by the more modern Light Mech Regiments. The Kavallerie Light Mech will be retired completely in the process.
“One of the issues we’re attempting to deal with, Your Majesty, is that the Army is heavily influenced by the experiences of our past battles, especially the Battle of Castor. As a consequence we tend towards heavy, slow, massively armored designs that sacrifice firepower and mobility for defense. Sensible for when you are defending a position from fixed emplacements, or grinding over inferior forces with overwhelming support, but not so useful in actual mobile warfare.” She sighs. “Much as I dislike the RRF, Your Majesty, I do fully support the concept of maneuver warfare. I just want it done right, not by some half-assed cowboys racing off without proper support. Most of the equipment we will be eliminating will be assault weight tanks and support vehicles, replacing them with more mobile and flexible medium weight vehicles that can fulfill the same roles, with more mobility in exchange for less raw armor. Specialist units will retain the assault weight equipment, but in general overall tonnages will be going down.”
Your Justice Minister, Martina, comes to you with some concerns. It seems that the grandson of one of the media moguls behind the sexual predator ring in the Griffon system back during your great-grandmother’s reign has built a fresh media empire of sorts in the New Eden system. While New Eden is very much a backwater, and the market there is not precisely profitable, it could be an issue. His father is still running a media company in the Griffon system which, while massively reduced due to the fines and criminal penalties combined with how many people simply wanted nothing to do with it, is still profitable enough to sustain itself, and there have long been suspicions about his ultimate loyalty to the Empire. The grandson is more of a cipher, the media outlets under his control appear to be playing things straight, reporting the news with, if anything, a slight pro-Imperial bias, but that could be deceptive.
There’s absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing on the grandson’s part apart from his questionable family ties. He spends most of his time on New Eden well away from the corridors of Imperial power. Martina’s concern is that New Eden is a critical food supplier to the western sectors of the Empire, despite the relatively lackluster economy there. This is the sort of thing that is at the Empress’s paygrade, and Martina is quite happy to shuffle it up to you.
| [] | Action | Argument | Result |
| [] | Preemptive Strike. Do not give him the opportunity for betrayal. | His grandfather was a pederast, rapist, murderer, and traitor. The entire family is rotten, so long as they are in no position to cause harm the rule of law should be sufficient, but the grandson is a threat, and threats should be eliminated immediately |
|
| [] | Assign the Special Branch to monitor him for any signs of treason. | This is something that the Special Branch was formed to handle. There’s certainly smoke, so it makes sense to examine the cause. While the Special Branch is infamous for their flamboyance, 99% of their operations are so utterly covert that nobody ever realizes that they were even involved. |
|
| [] | Take no special action whatsoever | The presumption of innocence applies even to those you suspect the most. Until he actually does something to deserve having the hammer brought down, leave him be. |
|
And then it is budget time. You don’t really get why your grandfather hated this. It’s not exactly ‘fun’, but it’s the sort of work that is required if you are to rule the Empire, and with the privileges and luxuries of being Empress, you should have to do the work to earn them.
Of course, dealing with General Jenkins when he’s on a roll is something else. “Alright, I have been officially asked by your aunt to grovel appropriately for a reprieve from your sentence to paperwork hell for the RRF. I have preemptively instructed the Quartermaster Corps to require them to fill out the paperwork for that first. General Bradley’s already given you the Good News Of Army Reorganization, also known as the GNOAR. You're welcome. She probably forgot to tell you that the equipment taken out of front line service will be passed down to the militia and garrisons, who are chomping at the bit for it all. We need more strategic materials, and please stop building new factories when we can upgrade our existing ones, we need to provide security for all those new installations and standing guard outside a DHS forge is booooorrrrrriiiiinnnnnggggg.”
He turns the podium over to General Bradley. “We’re still finalizing plans, and the SLEP process is actually making this much easier as we have already begun the process of replacing obsolete kit. Strategic materials are expected to be the main bottleneck, although we are also evaluating our needs in terms of mech production facilities.”
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
- Strategic Materials
- Upgrade all Endosteel Orbital Factories
- Upgrade all Ferro Fibrous Orbital Factories
- Upgrade all Double Heat Sink Orbital Factories
- Strategic Materials
- Procurement
- 30 Garrison Rating
- 25 Militia Rating
- Production
General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, We’ve been informed by Admiral Fisher that the navy will not be procuring any new carriers this year, freeing us to build up our other units. Our focus is on increasing our overall striking power for planetary defense purposes, as such we are procuring a large number of attack and strike ASFs.”
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- Strategic Materials
- Upgrade all Ferro Aluminum Orbital Factories
- Strategic Materials
- Procurement
- 30 Fighter Wings
- 30 Heavy Fighter Wings
- 10 Attack Wings
- 10 Strike Wings
- Production
Admiral Fisher then takes over the podium. “Indeed we’re not procuring any Saipans this year, we’ve got plenty of them for now, we need other things. BuShips has managed to produce viable missile dropships, we’re putting those in mass production this year. In addition, we are producing a large number of Bainbridges in hopes of completely retiring the PPG-50 and PGL-001 classes. We’re also procuring more training ships, our using some of our obsolete crap as training ships will help us handle the python lump this year, and next year we’re going to temporarily idle a few yards in order to prevent overloading the training pipeline again, but after that we should be good for maximum rate production again.”
He checks his notes, then puts up a chart showing what the Navy wants.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Strategic Materials
- Upgrade ALL Naval Armor Factories
- Orbital Shipyards
- New Orbital Shipyards
- Pieklo
- Stahlfurt
- Griff’s Leap
- New Eden
- Bauernparadis
- Expand all existing Orbital Shipyards
- New Orbital Shipyards
- Escort Yards
- Nowy Slask
- Nowy Wrocław
- Griff’s Leap
- Kainga
- New Phoenix
- New Castor
- Skala
- Pieklo
- Bari
- Small Warship Yards
- Nya Kopenhamn
- Edelsteine
- New Pollux
- Medium Warship Yards
- Griffon
- Calliope
- Nowa Warszawa
- Okusawa
- New Capricorn
- New Port Royal
- Strategic Materials
- Procurement
- Standard Dropships
- 100 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
- 5 Ensign-class training dropships
- Large Dropships
- 19 Meteor-class Parasite Guided Missile Cruisers
- 38 Aetna-class Parasite Guided Missile Cruisers
- Jumpships
- 2 Windjammer
- Escorts
- 5 Supply-class transports
- 5 Wolverine-class Training Ships
- 5 Fubuki-class Destroyers
- Small Warships
- 11 Dido-class Light Cruisers
- Medium Warships
- 3 Scharnhorst-class Battlecruisers
- 3 Canarias-class Heavy Cruisers
- Standard Dropships
- Production
General Jenkins is about to retake the podium for the summary when the door opens and the Communications Officer of the Watch in the Palace control center enters, handing you a priority dispatch. The same Bonaventure spotted in the New Eden system had jumped into the Griffon’s Eye system, being spotted by the jump point defenses. It is well away from said defenses and is not making any aggressive moves.
You grit your teeth, the only value the Griffon’s Eye actually has is as a recharge point, so you simply nod and acknowledge the report. The remaining heavy response forces are dedicated to defending inhabited systems, so only a few old Daggers would be available to help out the orbital defenses of an uninhabited system. It’s a hard, cold calculus of war, but you can’t afford to divert forces there if that means leaving millions, even billions, of your citizens unprotected.
It’s to a more somber meeting that Elizabeth Lee takes the podium. “Your Majesty, I’d like to start with our recommendations for scouting. We are pretty sure that there is at least a nodal position for the Black Steel somewhere near New Eden, judging by the force compositions of the latest waves of attacks. We need to find it and if possible take it out before it becomes an even greater problem. As such, there are four systems which we are recommending we send scouts to, including in that area.”
She brings up the map. “GX-I20 is a blue supergiant star, much like the Griffon’s Eye, we haven’t surveyed it yet, however, and it is a leading candidate for a Black Steel base given their past propensity to use systems of this nature. GX-F24, F27 and F28 are all to the Galactic north between Awha and Bauernparadis. We are hoping to gather more data on the unusual HPG interference and further refine our estimate of the origin, which may be a major Black Steel installation. F24 is a red subgiant, F27 is an orange main sequence star, and F28 is a white-yellow main sequence star.”
She checks her notes. “Now, for investments and economic foci. We have two new core worlds this year, although we are a bit hesitant about Nya Kopenhamn given the continued unrest in the system. We do recommend major economic investments in each of them. Edelsteine is such a wealthy system to begin with that it’s nearly a no-brainer, while it is believed that such an investment would yield enormous dividends of goodwill in the Nya Kopenhamn system on top of the more mundane economic benefits. Beyond that…” She brings up the chart.
- Economic Focus & Investment
- Economic Focus
- Core
- Griffon
- Periphery
- Skala
- Core
- Investment
- Kaiyo
- Economic Focus
“Now, we have four DoME teams free, one of which is obligated towards Planetary Optimization. We have one colonization project, and two terraforming projects which we strongly recommend.”
- DoME
- Planetary Optimization
- Kainga
- General Projects
- Colonize Olej
- While petrochemicals are less valuable today than they once were, and exploiting this system properly would be hellaciously expensive, there is still sufficient return on investment to justify the expense.
- Terraform Chuma - Stage 1
- We’ve already begun terraforming here, let’s not stop until we’ve made the place someplace we’d want to live
- Terraform Calliope II - Stage III
- A long term project with major returns for one of our most important Core worlds
- Colonize Olej
- Planetary Optimization
Leila is off at the Olympics, having to endure that debacle first-hand, and as a consequence her deputy is present but has no new projects for you to consider.
Lien is looking quite calm, although you recognize that she’s forcing herself to remain so. The behavior of the Senate is galling to her. “Your Majesty, your political office is ready to assist in trying to get the Senate back fully onside, if so desired. In addition, the number of settled systems is creeping up towards the limits of what the Colonial Office can efficiently handle, we would like to recommend expanding that this year to keep on top of the curve effectively.”
Grace has her typical expression, although there’s a bit of a sparkle there that’s usually absent. “Well, Your Majesty, this year we are going to be asking for not just some money, but a LOT of money. We have two critical R&D efforts that will, combined, be the Grifftiger’s share of the budget, but which have equally massive benefits upon completion. And something that those unrepentant jackasses in the Black Pumpernickels snuck into our files without telling us they were doing so, something we’ve been wanting for a while but couldn’t quite crack.”
- R&D Projects
- Improved Education Lvl 8
- I believe I do not need to elaborate on this one
- Improved Automation Lvl 8
- Likewise this will help us in many critical ways
- Advanced Long Range Missiles
- The primary focus is on the ammunition, not the launchers, enabling extremely low cost upgrades when the new ammunition is available
- Ground Mobile HPG
- Those rotten stinking bastards hid this in a recording of this ancient musical ‘Something Rotten’, one of my assistants was watching it and noticed the steganography. And if anybody, and I mean anybody, including you, breaks out into random singing and dancing…
- Improved Education Lvl 8
The laughter dies down eventually, and General Messerschmidt, who’d been dancing right along with the rest of you, is still grinning. “After that, well… I’m proud to announce, Your Majesty has acquired a new temple in the NRI. I am sure that this will warm the cockles of your cold Imperial heart. Did I mention it’s on the beach, with a wonderful sunset view and some of the finest black sand on the planet?”
Martina is up next. “Your Majesty, we’d like to initiate the next review of the Imperial Legal and Regulatory codes, we are currently working out a method of handling this in a continuous manner, rather than waiting for the rot to sink in bloating the codes, but are not quite there yet in terms of navigating the legal complexities of such an arrangement.”
[X] Assign the Special Branch to monitor him for any signs of treason.
hellspawn023
Active member
[X] Assign the Special Branch to monitor him for any signs of treason.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
[X] Assign the Special Branch to monitor him for any signs of treason.
AlphaOmega
Well-known member
[X] Assign the Special Branch to monitor him for any signs of treason.