Choice of ship: station
The Asteroid Company mobilized most of their ships in the vicinity of their main station "ASS Svetlana" to tug it to closer to earth orbit. In the year 2026, as part of the creation of a trinational asteroid mining interest, The Russian Station "Nizhny Mir" was launched into the Asteroid Belt. It was soon joined by the Chinese Station "Xinshijie", and later a number of obsolete ships, as it becomes the main base of the asteroid mining interest. When it reformed into the Asteroid Company in the year 2048, it is already a gargantuan lump of space junk, in a generally speaking toroidal shape, around 1 kilometer in diameter, and a few hundred meters thick.
In its current state, it has processing capability of hydrogen and helium fuel for a quarter of current earth consumption. There are also quarters, food production facilities, office space, and amenities for around 1000, which is around 1/10 of the Company's staff of 10000. It looked ready for life in the deep space, save for one big problem.
It lacked a functioning engine, an engine to accelerate it to decent speed. for the journey.
Dilemma 1
Your engineers, after consulting the yards near earth, proposed the following three options:
Fission Pulse Propulsion
+ Very Cheap Fuel
+ Rugged technology
- Politically challenging
-- Failure tend to be catastrophic
150 RU left for building
Fusion Pulse Propulsion
+ Cheap fuel
+ Net Energy provider: 100kW at full power
+ Fast
-- Expensive: 100 RU left for building
- Fuel Hungry
- No pure power plant mode: even if you don't use the thrust you'll still need that much fuel
VASIMR-Based Plasma/Ion Engine
+ Cheap: 200 RU left for building
- Slow
- Need to build another power source
You don't need to decide the specifics, as the engineers will flesh it out. Plus you still do not know where you are heading to so its meaningless at the moment.
Dilemma 2
The Pacific Rim wanted a tech exchange:
The Pacific Rim seemed to run into troubles in getting their autominers right. They may have the best automated systems, but lack of practical experiences, ceasing of large-scale mining half a century ago, and too much fantasy mixed with propaganda means that they fear that they will have to launch with either defective miners, or have to mine using late 20th century tools. They proposed that if we are willing to part with a quarter of our current mining bots, which we can never fit them in anyway, they will be happy to provide us with a state-of-the-art Bio-Quantum computer, which should be very useful as the central core of our future colony, or even fitting it to replace the ship computer.
There is a big thorn in the deal, however. The Pacific Rimmers insists that they will also bring along around 25000 colonists, which they claims to be an entire maintenance team for the computer. They argue that the computer is still too advanced for you to completely understand. The company board admits this as true to some extent, but they sees that more as an attempt to diversify Rimmer risks and practically speaking a hostile takeover. They also note that this deal will sour relations between the company and AsiaPac Conglomerate.
Speaking about AsiaPac, one Chinese board member wanted to turn this venture upon its head: they will sell the Rimmers out and gives AsiaPac another reason to increase their economic sanction, if not immediate military action upon the Rimmers. The AsiaPac officials will be grateful for this initiative and will provide you with extra resources or goodies, but on the other hand if things don't go well it will backfire seriously.
- Accept the exchange deal.
- Deny the exchange deal.
- Provoke AsiaPac.
Unique Rimmer Technology: Bio-Quantum Computer
Space needed: 5 when stowed, 10 if you need to use it enroute, 30 to replace main computer
Energy Requirement: 10kW to keep it alive, 20kW for limited operation, 30kW for full-flanged operation
The Quantum computer was not new, but the main challenge is making it practical, rugged, and programming it in hardware and software terms to fully utilize its potential. Somehow, combining it with Biocomputing as the shopfront makes it a more user-friendly machine.
The current Rimmer proposal is a prototype 64-core 128Qbit machine, which needs a dedicated crew of at least 25 to keep it fully functional. It promises to improve manufacturing, damage control, transportation planning, and many more activities in the future colony.
Construction:
"ASS Svetlana" is on tow so no your Large Construction slot is not scheduled to be ready this turn!
Cargo Ordering:
From List (still writing that up!)
Political Action:
You can either negotiate with another faction for a quid pro quid exchange, which means technology, unique parts, political favour, military intervention, or anything you want to name. You can also direct this action to your own people (admittedly as the Company you have good control on your staff).
"ASS Svetlana" Space-station-soon-to-be-colony-ship
(to be calculated)
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Topic: Outpost+: Reloaded - Turn 0: Choosing your ship (Read 3431 times)