Ambition and Ambiguity. X3:AP DiD

[Poseidon]

Yeah, this did get a little complicated. That's what I get for letting my NPCs make decisions.

Unfortunately, I don't actually have a PHQ , so I'm going to have to take care of the Skirnir once I buy it. I may only ever get one.

[Idleking]

Obtaining the PHQ in AP isn't that hard. Takes about an hour or two if you don't get sidetracked. But you need the AP plot done for it

[Poseidon]

True, but Riordan has never heard of the PHQ, so he has to act the part. ;-p

[Idleking]

Jep..
I'm looking forward to how he's going to acquire those plans for the Tyr. Especially since his connection to the terran agent seems to go down the drain recently

Maybe try to make some thorough scans on one of these awesome ships?
Might want to use a random ship hardly traceable back to you - I think a Pirate version of Buzzard or something like that would do fine - with a jumpdrive at 80% when you perform that scan though

[Poseidon]

That is the question now, isn't it? I wish it were as simple as scans. It's not a bad thought. Tarquin only asked about the cargo hold, but I interpreted that to mean something much bigger. If they redesigned the cargo hold, what else did they redesign? Hence his request for a schematic and not a scan.

Perhaps future recon missions could be modeled with a 'Scan Count'... scan a ship a certain number of times, based on the ship size, to gather the information required to complete the objective. That might work, except you don't need much Rep Rank to be able to sit there and scan all damn day. It'd probably need to be a war mission mod, that tracked your scan counts, and turned the enemy hostile when you started the first scan.

-----
My next stop was the OTAS Shipyard.

Atilio's workshop was immaculately clean, considering how much mayhem had been inflicted on it the last few weeks. The silver-haired engineer sat behind his desk, feet propped up, beard in full bloom. A cup of some sort of hot liquid rest in one hand, while the other gripped a datapad. He appeared to be relaxed.

"You look busy," I mentioned as I approached him. "I take it that means the Stoma is finished?"

"Yup," he said, not taking his eyes off the datapad.

"I was thinking of giving you a break for a bit, but it appears you've already taken one."

"Yup."

"Did you get the Kyon's working?"

"Yup." He looked at me over the datapad and grinned. "That was a piece of work, that one. You lost a lot of functionality on the turrets though... down to ammo-based turret weapons. Still, it was a learning experience."

"I'm impressed. I'll take it for a spin after I'm done here. You up for more work?"

"Depends on the work," he muttered. "I'm tired of M3s... they're good ships, but keeping them carrier-friendly is a real pain."

"Alright. Bigger or smaller?"

"You've got plans for bigger?"

I tossed a datapad on his desk. He traded it out with his current one, and began flipping through the specifications. "You're nuts. I don't even know where to start with everything wrong with this spec."

"Keep reading," I said confidently.

After a few minutes, and some thoughtful pulls from his coffee mug, he looked up. "Maybe. But you realize that most of this has been tried before, and discarded as unworkable?"

I nodded. "You're partially right. It was discarded as unfeasible for mass production, and for having no positive ROI potential. There will only be one of these, and it will be mine. I consider the intangables as acceptable ROI."

The engineer seemed to consider. "This is going to cost as much a Boreas though, you're going to lose half the hull integrity, and while I have some ideas for optimizations, it won't perform nearly as well as your reference systems."

"Noted. Your initial budget is 100M credits. There's an ATF Vali, Terran Springblossom, and a Xenon P on their way here. You've already got the Khaak Corvette, and the MRC is producing everything else you should need except the Skiron chassis, which you manufacture here anyway. Also, time may be critical, so sooner is better than later... but that's always the case. You in?"

Atilio's hands clenched reflexively. "Of course I'm in. I'll get started after this cup of coffee." He went to take a sip, but his cup was empty. "Err, the next cup of coffee."

[Poseidon]

Sidhe Ships v4

Raw Mod
http://diffpair.com/misc/SidheShips-V0.4-7.12.2013.zip

Plugin Manager Mod
http://diffpair.com/misc/SidheShips-V0.4-7.12.2013.spk

The Lynx and the Stoma can generally be considered M3++ class fighters.

Lynx prototyping is complete, and the design has been consolidated. You can buy it from the OTAS Shipyard. Existing prototypes will remain, but can no longer be purchased.

The Stoma is complete, and is now available at the OTAS Shipyard. It has the same upgrades at the Lynx, but the base chassis had a heavy influence on the final results. As such, it's generally slower, and less capable. However, it retains its sizable Cargo Space advantage over the Lynx, and it can now equip Alpha and Beta Kyons on the main guns. Power routing requirements forced ammo-only weapons into the turrets.

Current Specifications for the Lynx:

Code: Select all

Class: M3 
Shields: 4 x 25MJ 
Reactor: 1300 MW 
Hull: 11,200 
Speed: 78 m/s to 312 m/s  
Steering: 19 to 48 rpm  
Acceleration: 16 m/s to 65 m/s 
Wep Energy: 9,000 J 
Wep Recharge: 225 J/second 
Max Capacity: 140 units 
Containers: Large (L) 
Purchasable: Yes, OTAS Shipyard 
Price: ~20M credits

Current Specifications for the Stoma:

Code: Select all

Class: M3 
Shields: 4 x 25MJ 
Reactor: 1300 MW 
Hull: 12,800 
Speed: 57 m/s to 228 m/s  
Steering: 22 to 55 rpm  
Acceleration: 13 m/s to 52 m/s 
Wep Energy: 9,000 J 
Wep Recharge: 180 J/second 
Max Capacity: 455 units 
Containers: Large (L) 
Purchasable: Yes, OTAS Shipyard
Price: ~20M credits

[Poseidon]

Sorry my plot is kinda dead, guys. There's an enormous amount of tedium required to justify some of the near future plot points. At this point, I'm just grinding through it. I'll post more narrative again soon.

[Idleking]

Taking Maddy and going on a vacation seems justified enough after what you accomplished so far

[Poseidon]

Taking Maddy and going on a vacation seems justified enough after what you accomplished so far

That's a good idea... I had already written in a day or two of personal time for Riordan and Maddy before things get crazy. Sadly, with everything set to explode in the plot in the near future, anything more than that wouldn't make much sense.

[Poseidon]

I called it a night, and met Maddy for dinner. We spent the next day wandering a couple geodome reserves back on Argon Prime. Some of the more popular ones changed their biome every month, to show off different botanical arrangements. One of them was holding a picnic lunch, wine tasting, and music. Not normally my thing, but Maddy enjoys it, and it is nice to do something low key every now and again.

The vacation ended all too soon.

The Mass Driver Ammunition forge was installed immediately after my meeting with Tomes, so I dove into my latest sell-off of allied tech. Say what you will about the Paranid, their stations play nice together. Layout of the complex took a little bit of creativity, but it was nothing compared to accomodating the sheer size of most Terran stations, so I had no issues. 23 stations, including the Ore and Silicon mine.

While I had one Mammoth jumping back and forth between Third Redemption and Megnir, I had 3 more making trips between The Moon and the Sidhe Archology. Given the direction of Riordan-Tomes relations, I decided to purchase my desired Terran stations now as opposed to later. Some misinformation on the Cortex caused me some planning grief, but in the end I decided that the Ghoul Missile factory was far more valuable than the Wraith Missile factory. Also, Phantom Missiles weren't nearly as important as Ammo for the Matter/Anti-Matter launchers.

All said and done, I dropped another 36 stations before I called it quits for a while. The rest of the Archology could be built from Commonwealth Tech, so I would do that at a more reasonable pace.

I finished the ATF Paranid Research Station, and started adjusting the prices. I'd been slowly moving the buy/sell prices since the first complex went up. At this pount, I was paying Max price for all goods, and selling all weapons at Min price. Every sector with one of my complexes in it was swamped with traders. I was an important cog in their economy now.

Tomes delivered purchase rights to a Skirnir after the first batch of Hornet missiles came off the production line. I wasted no time purchasing it, outfitting it, and jumping it out of there.

-----
My nose was bleeding, my knuckles were bleeding, and I had bruises on my forearms, shins, thighs, and ribs.

"Again," I said between wheezing breaths. "Let's go again."

The Split marine looked at Jackson, who nodded, then turned back to me. The training knife flashed. I caught his wrist with a hook block, and then snapped a ridge-hand into his elbow while pulling with my blocking hand. As I rolled his arm over, the knife fell from his grip... but I was too intent on his weapon hand. I saw a shadow of movement from his off hand before an elbow splayed me out on the training mat.

Now I had a black eye.

I rolled over onto my knees and shook my head to clear it. After a few breaths, my eyes focused again. I grabbed the knife, and tossed it to him as I stood up.

"Again."

-----
My office looked like a medical lab at this point, thanks to all the monitoring and treatment equipment I required each day. It was only good for covering the symptoms, though, and ensuring my body in prime condition to heal itself. The bed had been replaced with a rejuvenation pod. When I'd first heard about it, I was excited, but it wasn't the miracle I had hoped. It was also creepy as hell.

The pod came with an impressive array of medical grade sensors and micro-transporters, along with an extensive library on all known physiologies. As I fell asleep it would do a full body scan to ascertain my condition. During the night, it would use the transporters to take samples of various bodily fluids to monitor me for appropriate hydration, hormones, vitamin and mineral balances, immune activity, and other critical indicators. It would then transport my blood out of my body in small increments, filter it, clean out the dead and broken bits, add whatever it thought was necessary to speed healing and otherwise keep me healthy, and transport it back in. Every night was essentially a full biopsy, blood cleansing, and nutrient bath.

And it worked. I woke up refreshed, and I wasn't nearly as broken as I expected to be each morning.

I was poring over M6 design drawings when Jackson came in for the evening report. I could tell from his face that tonight would be mixed news.

"Go ahead, Jackson. Let's hear it."

"We lost four marines today, sir. Two veterans, two rookies. The first rookie was the only loss on that Op. The other three were lost due to a mistake by the second rookie. He was too green for an Alphabet Soup Op."

I looked over the personnel files for the KIAs. "Too green? He aced all training subjects, and was one of the top five marines that hadn't received their Combat Mastery Certification."

"That was the problem, sir. From now on, I recommend only pirate Ops until they finished their CMC; no exceptions."

I rubbed my forehead. That meant even more delays, but choosing between delays or dead bodies was a no-brainer. "As you say. No CMC, no Sesame Street. How did we do?"

"The Elite teams brought home five little brothers. The training crew also brought home five ships, although one of them was a Carrack so they had to work a little."

"Excellent. How close are we to being ready for a big brother?"

"After today's losses, we're down to 10 members on the Elite team. We've got 25 recruits that are close to being ready for the Elite team, and 13 that are going to be rookies for a while yet. A single bad Op could cripple this plan before it even starts. I recommend you do another round of recruiting, and don't take any unneeded risks."

My wristband beeped.

Jackson looked confused. "What's that, sir?"

"That's my bed telling me I've got 5 minutes before it injects me with sleep drugs, whether I like it or not. I'm on an enforced 9 hours a night while doing this combat training. Anything else to report?"

"No, sir. I'll take care of the letters home."

I winced. "Thank you for that. You still think this is a good idea?"

Jackson shook his head. "I've always thought it was a crazy, terrible idea. The problem is, it's still better than the alternatives. Get some rest, boss. Tomorrow you learn how to get hit with a chair."

I made my way towards the pod, and crawled in. Even if things went perfect, I had another few weeks of this.

[Idleking]

[..]Tomorrow you learn how to get hit with a chair.[..]

Having a Good Time™ huh?

Keep that Marines trained and their numbers high. You'll probably need more than you'd like

[Poseidon]

Yeah, I've grown a bit lax. I was hoping to have closer to 70 or 80 at this point.

I may have glossed this over in the fiction, but I've been flying every op, and managing the shields myself. I never got the hang of Flail Barrage boarding Ops, so I've been doing manually with M6 weaponry, just with some extra fighter support offer a distraction. I tried drones, but I haven't found a way to easily tell them to attack shields... have to do it one at a time. In the interest of saving time, I just deal with the shields myself.

[Song Of Obsidian]

I wouldn't trust the AI to run a boarding op either, but how you write it is your prerogative. As for the Flails, it depends on the target. If it's a corvette you'll most likely either be doing a fair bit of hull damage or losing marines because of how much faster the shields regen, percent-wise.

Anything bigger is quite a bit easier, unless you use ion to frag stuff off, like those sentry lasers, and accidentally get shields too. Using missiles and lasers can both be equally effective, just depends on some factors. In the end, whatever works for you, works for you.

But you shouldn't let your corvette take so much hull damage all the time

[Idleking]

[..]I tried drones, but I haven't found a way to easily tell them to attack shields...[..]

Try Launch Fighter Drone Hotkey.
Pretty self-explanatory.
Launched Drones are set to "Attack my Target". Can launch multiple drones at once (press Hotkey while no target selected to set amount of drones).

Makes using those pesky little buggers a lot more comfortable. Well, at least launching them.
Picking them up again is still a pain in the butt

[Poseidon]

I've done over a dozen boarding ops in the last couple days, and I didn't want to get bogged down in detailing every damn one. For corvettes, I've found that Poltergeist and Hurricane missiles are good to maintaining <5% once you get the shields down low. Being directly involved in keeping the shields down, as opposed to counting on Flail missile timings, seems to make things go a lot smoother, without the need for Ion.

But yeah, whatever works.

I don't take nearly as much Hull damage anymore... that was mostly a result of my lack of skill, and has since been rectified with practice.

-----

We took home our third Carrack the next day. A Caravel came through the gate to Maelstrom next, but the Op had to be cancelled when a Brigantine followed. Since I still had ships limping towards the North gate, I was forced to destroy both of the new arrivals. I wasn't terribly interested in the Brigantine anyway.

I made a patrol through Maelstrom, Mercenaries' Rift, Gaian Star, and Lost Order, but except for the hostile stations, they were empty.

"Hey Jackson... I think we cleaned them out."

"Good. So, time to move on to the Yaki?"

"Sure, why not. Their ships are better anyway."

-----

> One of your ships is under attack: Grand Exchange <

Understatement of the week, I thought bitterly. On the screen before me was a Xenon J, 2 Qs, a PX, and a small army of fighters.

I checked through my available ships, but nothing jumped out at me. Hrm, why was the Zephyrus' cargo hold so full? Oh. Oh! That could be fun.

I had the Zephyrus jump out to me, as well as one of my equipped Skirons. We traded some cargo. I turned towards the middle of the Xenon battle group, and started slamming out Poltergeists. One of the Qs tried to ram the Springblossom, but missed, and collided with the J... or it looked like it collided, but somehowit maneuvered such that it got out clean. Huh. Whatever. I spun back around and flew into the mess of Poltergeists I'd left behind. Then I dumped my entire cargo hold.

200 Fighters Drones make quite a mess.

While everyone was distracted, I swapped into the Skiron, and dumped Hammerheads into the mix.

And that's how you clean up a Xenon battle group.

[Poseidon]

[..]I tried drones, but I haven't found a way to easily tell them to attack shields...[..]

Try Launch Fighter Drone Hotkey.

I don't want them to attack my target... I want them to attack my targets shields. They already attack my enemies when I drop them. Thanks for the thought though.

[Idleking]

The "Attack Shields" Command isn't available for Drones (I think they don't have Fight Command Mk2 for that), but 5 to 10 Drones don't do more than keeping shields down with their IREs.
Nobody said you should deploy hundreds of them anyway

[Poseidon]

The "Attack Shields" Command isn't available for Drones (I think they don't have Fight Command Mk2 for that), but 5 to 10 Drones don't do more than keeping shields down with their IREs.
Nobody said you should deploy hundreds of them anyway

The 'Attack Shields' command is available to drones; you just have to do it one at a time after launch. And I've had boarding ops fail due to 5-10 over-enthusiastic drones in the past, otherwise I wouldn't be making an issue of it. :-p

The mass drone drop was to get rid of my drone supply, since they're worthless to me, and it solved a xenon problem.

[Poseidon]

"Welcome home, boss! I saw you brought some more recruits, " Jackson called out enthusiastically from in front of the door to the Forge.

"A couple rookies that seemed worth the time. Frankly, I've had to lower recruitment standards again, but if your pessimism is correct, we're going to need them all." I started strapping on my training gear.

"I'm being prudent, not pessimistic. If we don't need them now, then we'll need them later. You have the money; it's the time that's hard to find." Jackson was already geared up, so he waited for me to finish, then pointed me towards the TacSim room.

I looked at him questioningly.

"Today is freeform combat... lots of different rooms set up in tactically questionable configurations. There are 20 marines in there; try not to let every single one of them kill you more than once."

-----


I was bruising less, which was good. More marines were surviving ops now, which was better. Jackson's last report indicated 35 marines had completed their CMC, and 23 of those were almost done with their technical training as well.

My major problem now was logistics. If you stripped out all the Advanced Satellites, I still had 143 ships, and that number was increasing as my marines grew more competent. The Yaki had a bad habit of sending Ryu after Ryu after Ryu into Ocracoke's Storm. I owned an entire wing of mediocre TLs at this point. Not that I was complaining, but... well, yes, I was complaining. I needed to consolidate.

I pulled up the Cortex, and started looking at Carriers.

[Poseidon]

I faced off with the Argon marine, and we began to circle. He threw a jab, and I slapped it away. A snap kick flickered towards my groin, but I deflected it with my thigh. I returned the jab, and he took a half step back. I threw another jab, but extended it into a full left straight when he attempted to half step again. It caught him on the cheek.

He stepped in to retaliate, but I was prepared. I bobbed down and to the left of his incoming punch, and let my right arm hook across his attack. As I felt impact, I pivot and dug a left shovel hook under his ribs. Another twist and step, and my right forearm plowed into his right floating rib. He gasped in pain and stumbled back... directly into a heavy left roundhouse kick at head level. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious despite the headgear.

I bowed, then stepped back to catch my breath. 10-10 wasn't a bad day.

-----

I sold off 67 ships, and made a quick 150M credits.

I offered the pirate vessels to OTAS and the Argons, but they expressed little interest. On the other hand, I'd never seen a Teladi drool before today. The Brigantine, Galleon, and Carracks all fetch a good price. The Paranid were more than happy to take any Yaki ships off my hands, and the rest went into the recycle facilities at the OTAS Shipyard.

That cash was reinvested into a Teladi Condor M1. It's slower than a drunk spacefly, but the shielding, cargo, and docking capacity were a nice balance. The Flak on every hardpoint was what really sold me, though.

I kept the Thresher, the Sirokos, and the Skirnir. The Angel was still one of my most active craft, acting as a luxury yacht for fully trained Suicide Kings. I kept all the Mistrals, the Elephant, and the 3 Mammoths. I bought 10 Lynx, equipped them, and assigned them to the Condor.

Most of the other ships were scrapped, but I kept or purchased at least one of the unique ships, to be secured at the Archology once it was complete: the Khak'ak Corvette, Interceptor, and Scout... a Springblossom, Spitfyre, and one of each of the #decas... the P, an L and an M... one of the Blastclaw Prototypes...

...and the Fujin Raider. Geez, how long ago was that? My first ship capture. It still had the 2MJs of shielding and 4x IREs. I pulled up the commlink.

"Hey Maddy, what are you up to?"

"I was finishing up paperwork for the day. What's up?"

"Want to go on a joyride, for nostalgia's sake? I was cleaning house, and stumbled across the old Fujin."

"That old thing? The cockpit only seats one."

"I'm sure we could figure something out."

We grinned at each other, and decided to call it a night.