Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Thors_Alumni

Well-known member
[X] Accept her into your service

She is a MechWarrior which makes her invaluable to us. She can write MechWarrior training manuals, help us design a Battlemech of our own when the time comes, and whatever else she can aid us with.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
[X] Accept her into your service

I think this is a, "Trust but verify" situation.

She's certainly given us a lot more information than the Kuritan operatives did, and she's been up front about her own loyalties and agenda. I think that we can reasonably expect that, being a smaller power, the Magistracy is far more likely to want us as an ally as opposed to trying to conquer us outright as long as we aren't handing them cheap opportunities to do so at minimal risk.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
[X] Accept her into your service

We should plan on sending her home if we ever get a JumpShip but for now it's likely she's completely safe for us. Once she can potentially travel back to Canopus her loyalties are likely to be divided, so we should instead use her as a goodwill ambassador, however a JumpShip is a long way off.
 

Thors_Alumni

Well-known member
We should definitely plan on building light battlemechs. 35 ton Battlemechs are still a force multiplyer. Especially since we now have a Mechwarrior of our own.
 
Turn 7 - Advisor and Planning

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 7 Advisors and Actions

When the year starts you are looking at your balance sheets with a bit of trepidation. Last year, while extremely productive, had been equally expensive and had wrought wreck and ruin to the finances. You weren’t in the red by any means, and next year looked like it would show the benefits of your hard work fully. But you still were going to have to tighten your belt to get through the year and keep everything on track.

Or so you thought. Less than a week later a very excited Tyler bounced into your office, his usual exuberant self hardly bothered by the fact that he had your oldest son riding on his shoulders happily gurgling ‘grappa horsy!’

He bounced in, tossed a folder on your desk, made a whinnying noise, and bounced right back out again to the delighted cries of your son and the exasperated eyerolls of everybody else.

The worst part of him being the ‘fun grandpa’ he was showing himself to be was that you couldn’t throw him out the window for it and you were certain that he would somehow contaminate your boys with his ways. You complain to Sergeant Ngô and bà about it regularly, although you can’t seem to manage much heat. So you decide to blame Willis for being related to that madman, it’s obviously all his fault for being such a good husband that he is forcing you to endure the madness that is the Lee family.

That’s your story and you are sticking to it.

You open up the folder, and it takes you a good twenty minutes to get your breathing under control. Evidently there had been a massive petrochemical strike right off shore from Vịnh Cam Ranh. The estimated auction value for the licenses to exploit it makes your eyes water and you find yourself tempted to strangle the old man while kissing him enthusiastically. Budget issues? WHAT budget issues?

You call in the rest of your advisors to share the good news, and you have the pleasure of seeing many worry lines fade and vanish.

You are strongly considering grossly abusing your position as Queen to requisition the testbed Chasseurs in order to celebrate when a great idea hits you… hovercraft racing league! You jot it down to remember it and go on to your next appointments during the day.

Dagny has been a wonder to work with, you accepted her oath even with the caveats. You have no intention of invading anybody, especially not some periphery power far away from you. So now you have somebody you can mostly trust to help out with mech tactics and piloting, and tactics against same. General Wolf has been meeting with her non-stop for days now.

The time comes for your advisors to actually, well, give you some advice. It’s a yearly ritual at this point, so you reluctantly accept that you need to spend time in stuffy meeting rooms rather than playing with your kids or chasing your husband around the bedroom (when you manage to get away from the kids).

General Wolf is glad to see the new designs ready for production. “If I had infinite money at this point I’d say buy as many Rocs as possible, but I don’t. What I would like to see is two things. That we build up a fast reaction force in order to be hopefully able to counter the enemies advantage in fast ground units, and that we get started on fortifications. The former is a higher priority than the latter. I’d also like you to consider financing production of the Cutlass and Foxhound, but that is of even lower priority.”

Tyler can’t stop grinning, being his usual insouciant self. “Well, we’re in the home stretch. So I am willing to bet you know what I think we should do this year in my area.” he smirks, earning himself glares from everybody else that bounce off of him like spitballs off the hull of one of the new Tritons. “Let’s get that railroad built!” And he has the gall to start whistling the John Henry song! Some people!

One thrown eraser and one laughing Interior Minister later, Dr Young manages to stop scowling at Tyler and turns her attention back to you. “If General Wolf is willing to spare Ms Sigurdottir for a few days I’d like to have my people interview her to build up our knowledge base about the Inner Sphere today. Other than that, the Foreign Ministry is good.”

Professor Chapman looks thoughtful. “Now that we are spread out more, transportation and communication are becoming more difficult. I’d like to propose that one way of dealing with this is to deregulate the air transport industry to enable private firms to start offering passenger and cargo services. We would derive some significant income from licensing fees which would only help our future endeavors.”

Janet pipes up “We’d want to put in a regulatory framework as well from the start, better get that done than have shuttles falling out of the sky left and right or crashing into each other.”

Dr Palmer looks frazzled, but in the way that any real scientist looks when they’re dealing with Interesting Things. “We have so many options, I don’t even know where to begin! I’d like to keep on working on the education system, get it up to old Star League standards if we can. And we are getting closer to League standards in automation technology, let’s keep at that. Otherwise, we are ready to research whatever you want us to find out!” Ahhh, geek enthusiasm, it’s so much fun… although you do remember hearing your father’s admonition to always keep the ruins of the initial landing site in mind as a warning about overenthusiastic geeks.

Juanita is looking like the cat who caught the canary, stole the cream, broke the vase, and managed to blame it all on the dog. “At this point, with a few exceptions amongst the technical personnel, I think we’ve gotten everything useful out of the prisoners. We can either keep them in custody, or start the war crimes trials. I will warn you, most of the technical personnel will get off from any such trial, few if any of them have committed any actual crimes since things like access to the comfort women and such were limited to the ‘samurai’.”

Janet nods “Just give the word and we’ll get that started. Other than that and the regulatory framework for opening up aerospace to the private sector, Justice doesn’t have anything this year.”
 

Jarow

Well-known member
[X] Plan: Deploy Explorers
-[X] Military 4
--[X] Establish Militia*
--[X] Form Rapid Reaction Force
--[X] Build Fortifications lvl 1
-[X]Interior 4
--[X] Financial Sector Reform (Interior)*
--[X] 3) Build Railway to Resource Area
(4 stage, we want the next super awesome one done as quick as possible)
--[X] Construct Planetary Surveillance Network lvl 3
(Small buff, better research survey)
--[X] Planetary Resource Survey
(Potential resources or new project while waiting for expedition)
-[X] Diplomatic 3
--[X] "Debrief Dagny Sigurdottir about conditions in the Inner Sphere"
(It's free. Why would we not do this?)
-[X] Political 3
--[X] Permit private ownership of aerospace small craft (spheroid and aerodyne)
(Income increase)
-[X] Research 3
--[X] Organize Expedition to Ruins
(Potential to regain KF theory? Also, we get +20 to this if we start now)
--[X] Improved Education lvl 2
(We need to maximise chances of success for ruins)
--[X] Improved Automation lvl 2
(Money to fund everything)
-[X] Intelligence 3
--[X] Establish dedicated intel agency*
Justice 2
--[X] Financial Sector Reform (Justice)*
--[X] Develop legal framework for private small craft ownership
(Solves issues with new money source)
 

Thors_Alumni

Well-known member
Keep in mind that we should definitely start saving some money in the bank for larger projects.
[X] Plan: Deploy Explorers
 

Thors_Alumni

Well-known member
In furtherance of my statement about saving up part of our money each turn. I think we should get the surplus to ever 30.000 Credits in savings at all times from now on. So that when a really big project comes along we can use that money. but that's a few turns from now. and the minimum limit of money in savings will go up as our Income goes up so that we can maintain a proper amount relative to what we earn per year.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
$30,000 is a bit much... That's our estimated turn 23 income. About 5k would be a lot more reasonable. Worst turn so far has been 8k, with income we should be fine to repeat that. Of course, building up for more expensive stuff would be helpful, so we should try to build up where reasonable.
 
Turn 7 Results

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 7 Results

Economic Roll - 8 degrees of success = 8%
Health Roll - 7 degree of success = 7% Pop growth rate
Stability Change roll - 1 degrees of success

Stability Rolls

-Political - 6 rolls
--Result - +20 to all difficulty targets this turn

-Research - 3 rolls
--Result - no effect

-Economic - 1 roll
--Result = no effect

Meta Event Roll - 1 - 7000 windfall, +10% GDP growth
Dynasty Luck Roll - 44 - no event


Crown Influence Roll - 5 - FAIL

Lords Influence Roll - 8

Commons Influence Roll - 2 - SUCCESS - +2 Influence

Establish Militia
Target - 95
Roll - 36
SUCCESS

Form Rapid Reaction Force
Target - 85
Roll - 68
SUCCESS

3) Build Railway to Resource Area
Target - 105
Roll - 66
SUCCESS

Construct Planetary Surveillance Network lvl 3
Target - 85
Roll - 14
SUCCESS

Planetary Resource Survey
Target - 65
Roll - 58
SUCCESS

"Debrief Dagny Sigurdottir about conditions in the Inner Sphere"
Target - 115
Roll - 69
SUCCESS

Permit private ownership of aerospace small craft (spheroid and aerodyne)
Target - 85
Roll - 36
SUCCESS

Improved Education lvl 2
Target - 85
Roll - 22
SUCCESS

Improved Automation lvl 2
Target - 90
Roll - 52
SUCCESS

Develop legal framework for private small craft ownership
Target - 95
Roll - 35
SUCCESS

---


You are getting quite used to seeing Tyler in full grandfather mode, so it is no surprise at all to see him with your eldest son again on his shoulders, although this time he’s carrying your twins in each arm and looking about as happy as can be as a somewhat frazzled aide trails after him with a briefcase.

“Your Most August Majesty!” he grandly proclaims, to the giggles of your son. “I am the bearer of good tidings!”

You are struggling to keep from laughing or scowling at his antics. This is just so… Tyler. Your husband chooses this moment to sweep in to reclaim the kids so you can actually get on with your meeting.

“More seriously, I do indeed have good news.” Tyler wipes off some childish drool and dribble with all the aplomb of somebody who’s done such post-kid cleaning a million times before. “The railroad project has gone extremely well despite the worst that nature could throw at us. I tell you, those infantry assigned to the garrison down there are earning their pay.”

He pulls a stack of images out of the briefcase. “Witness what the men are calling the Damntiger. Because DAMN is that one hell of a tiger!”

The image is somewhat disturbing, a pitch black tiger-like felinoid with glowing blue stripes and a truly malevolent look to it, caught crouching as it prepared to strike. The next image is of the same beast laid out after the guards shot it. Almost 10 feet long, very heavily built, and according to the numbers appended to the image massing over a ton of sinew, muscle, teeth, and fury.

raph-lomotan-bbt.jpg

“Those stripes are some sort of bioluminescence according to the scientists. Most of the predators in those jungles have that sort of glow to them, probably because of how pitch black it can get in the undergrowth. These are apparently the alpha predators of the jungle and, frighteningly, the ones we’ve caught have all been juveniles according to the science types. Larger ones have been spotted but they seem to be staying away from the rail line.”

He then grins again. “We have caught a few cubs alive, which are supposedly ‘disturbingly cute for how deadly aggressive the ones we’ve fought have been’. Some of the science types would like to study them, would cost us a bit but might prove useful. Would be nice to know why the big ones leave us alone at least.”

[] Authorize study, will cost 100 a turn for the next 5 turns.
[] We can’t afford it.

“And to add to the good news.” now his grin becomes positively predatory, almost matching the damntiger. “Look what our satellite survey has found!”

He slaps a set of high-resolution imagery on the desk, along with a geologists report.

You look through it, in the Antarctic continent of the planet, one of the few places on this semi-tropical world that actually regularly sees snow and ice, there are a series of rock formations with spectrographic data appended from the multi-spectral images.

“What am I seeing here…” you ask, looking over at the grinning lech.

“Titanium deposits, massive ones. That’s the largest ilmenite deposit we’ve yet found. The only downside is that it is extremely cold down there, so we won’t be able to exploit it immediately mainly because we’ll need to improve our mining equipment. And, well, somehow convince people to go live in that deep freezer. The summertime high is barely above freezing.”

“We’ve also got the surveillance network up and running, we’ve been able to sell some of the imagery to the local farmers to help them with planning so we’re seeing a boost in food production, however if we want to improve the network any further we’ll need to work on our orbital infrastructure first.”

You get reports from General Wolf about the progress on the fortifications. Construction has started and is expected to finish this year.

You also take the time for the official standing up of the new Rapid Reaction Force. A full battalion of Chasseur hovertanks. You again feel odd taking the salute of officers technically senior to your second lieutenant status, but as Queen you rank them all.

You are strongly tempted to buy a few of those fun little hovertanks for your own personal use, but your loving husband points out something that puts that idea into the deep freezer. In far too short a time your kids will be teenagers… and do you really want to let teenagers anywhere near those things?

Maturity sucks sometimes.

You also get reports that preparations for the militia have been completed, hidden armories have been established and plans are in place for their activation in the event of an invasion that your regular forces are unable to defeat.

Doctor Young reports that her discussions with Dagny have been extremely productive. Several days later you get an extensive briefing dossier on the current state of the Inner Sphere and it makes for some grim reading. Evidently the idiots are working very hard at destroying themselves and heading head first into the stone age.

You spend several hours just cuddling with your family after reading this, and watching mindless children’s shows in the process. If you never hear that song again in your life it will be too soon.

The first reports are now in about the privatization of air-transport and things are looking extremely promising. Licensing and certification fees are performing to expectations and the first regularly scheduled flights from the capital to Huế mới have already started.

The reports from the labs are also encouraging, with newer, more efficient automation technologies being distributed to industry resulting in a surge of improvement as efficiencies rise even further. Moreover, even with the cutbacks resulting from this you are seeing employment go up as the education system is further optimized. Further improvements in either area will be far more expensive.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
[X] Authorize study, will cost 100 a turn for the next 5 turns.

Might not necessarily give benefits; but total of 500 is pretty cheap, and spread across 5 turns makes it easier. Also, we're about to get a massive increase to income to make this even more affordable. If there are serious benefits, even better.
Also, no action cost makes this a lot more palatable than would have been otherwise.
 

Thors_Alumni

Well-known member
[X] Authorize study, will cost 100 a turn for the next 5 turns.
That bioluminescence stuff intrigues me. Maybe we use it somehow or may be not. But either way its a cheap research option.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Yep, cheap potential research that doesn't require anything but money. Also, more knowledge about the Dark Scary Jungle to help with any issues that might arise from there in the future.
 

CurtisLemay

Wargamer, Amateur Historian, Writer
Nuke Mod
Moderator
Staff Member
Founder
[X] Authorize study, will cost 100 a turn for the next 5 turns.
 

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