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[somemildmanneredidiot]

Solution, ask Chiefwaffles if this is a thing we can do. Rereading the section where we initiated the cave in suggests that we had time to get into solid cover and then detonate, but specifics would be useful.

Ideally, we'd be able to lay out explosives throughout the three machinery rooms in such a manner as to probably make them go boom, have them set to three different detonators one for each room with a fourth "just in case" one that will blow up all of them. Then we continue exploring throughout this level and if it looks like they're going to lift off the ship or something, we detonate the main room.

Thinking about it, we apparently have two rooms with only one entrance to both of them and no exit (is this correct?). We could start to clear out patrols and then dump their bodies in one of those rooms, doing so until the entire level is clear, and then repeat on the next floor until we've secured the ship. Or encounter something that requires more detailed instructions.

[Chiefwaffles]

Grenades were triggered with some fairly basic jury-rigging. The two rooms are on opposite sides of the main room, but are both located near the end (As in, furthest away from the entrance) of the main room.
One more note: This isn't the whole ship that you've explored. This is just the first item of note.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Yup. Lots more to learn about.

Hmmm.

Actions:
Make silent radio contact with Team 2. We don't want to blow their cover if they need to be quiet. If we don't have a method to do that, hold off on contact.

Carefully and methodically explore the rest of this level of the ship. If there isn't anything else of interest return to what is now designated as Room B (the weird pipe room). Room A is designated as the Gate room where we entered. A map would be useful but not necessary.

Goal when returned to Room B: Wage a guerilla war across this level, using ambushes and traps to neutralize all HS#1 soldiers. If possible, in between patrol kills, take bodies to the back rooms of Room B to hide. Once all patrols have been dealt with, move Team 2 to Room B to better consolidate our personnel and let the techies have a look over all of this.

[Chiefwaffles]

Soo the game really isn't doing too hot thanks to my signature lack-of-direction and over-storifying.

Going to try to finish this encounter a bit faster since 13 updates is already a lot. After this I'll probably re-evaluate away missions. I want to keep an exploratory feel but also a tactical one. But it's already hard finding a middle ground between after-action reports and step-by-step like this. So serious feedback on this would be nice. Specifically based on what you think of the away missions and how you think they could improve.

So far I'm likely going for more of an after action report-type thing. You send a team in with some general directives, they do some things, and give you a report of all that happened. You'd frequently get decisions asked by the team. "What do we do with this alien artifact", "How should we go about dealing with this group of enemies", etc.. And maybe occasionally I'll have times where I go back to this style for a more story-based format.
But I'm not quite sure. As I said, feedback would be great.

The update will come soon, but I'd like to try using the style I said before, so if people could give some general directives and the like, that'd be great.
And by general directives I mean things such as "Try to escape the ship without harming anything, but bring _______ with you", "Shoot ______ until something happens, then try to get out, but if you can without casualties, see if you can capture the ship.", "loot everything and try to escape back into the gate." Or one of many possibilities. These are just examples, not suggestions.


So summarizing that: The current format of updates isn't drawing much participation and is fairly tedious (though easy to write), and I want to switch to a more "macromanaging"-type deal with handling away missions. Where you basically give your team some general directives and what you want by their next report.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

That method sounds like a good balance. The biggest problem I can see with the current method is a thing I see happen in TTRPGs, namely, the player(s) getting caught up on details provided under the idea that if it was mention it must be important. That was a little part of my thinking when it came to clearing Farpoint where we ended up starting to look at every room individually per update where the instructions we ended up giving were about the same throughout. Also a bit with the whole paranoia about something horror film themed going to happen, because if we're spending time to check out each room, then something must be going on. Granted, what the scenes were actually about ended up being giving us the opportunity to GTFO before the ship arrived, which we instead decided to spend all the time at Farpoint. This is a bit of a both player and GM thing though.

I like the amount of control we've had over the away teams. Micromanagement can lead to efficiency beyond general orders. But it also requires a fair amount of time and effort that tends to take away time from progression forwards in story and game play. Part of XCOM is being able to micromanage personnel when it matters most and then letting you spin the clock until micromanagement is needed again. Within the current set up, micromanagement has been important for a bit due to circumstances of "so many things happening wow". I'm less familiar with Stargate, though I'm working on it, but if memory serves, they've had to make a lot of decisions in the field without consulting Command (which is fortunate that the Team Leader is a Colonel and thus has a bit more rank to throw around). So the set up you're purposing looks like a good balance to let us still have choices and provide direction to away teams.

The only other method I can think of is providing a grid and letting us go full micro in battles, but that feels like it would require a ton more effort on your end and could slow encounters down to a halt.

For what you've asked for:
General Directive: Ensure civilian safety, after which go forth and cautiously remove HS#1 presence from the ship.

Roughly how big is the ship, going off of guestimates. All we really have at the moment is "big".

[Chiefwaffles]

Problem with a tactical grid in my eyes is two main things: The first is simply making it. I need to have sprites/icons, tiles, and more. I know that it definitely doesn't have to be perfect, but it's still hard to find usable stuff. I tried making a grid map for the entrance room earlier, and I ended up with a fairly mediocre map and still no actual object sprites.
The second problem is the logistics. If I make a grid, I have to start tracking specific statistics about each soldier, their weapons, their armor, and more.

So far I'm thinking this for the future, assuming I get more participation once this mission ends:

• Enforcing smaller teams - this will make the smaller aspects in tactical combat more easy to manage, and make effects of the gear used more noticeable.
• Changing the role of soldiers. Instead of being generic redshirts in every away missions, soldiers will be more of a 'resource', to put in basic terms. When you want to explore, send specialists. When you want a strike team, send specialists. When you want to capture that enemy installation via brute force, send soldiers.
• Two styles of mission updates: Narrative and combat. Combat will be done in a grid-based format. Narrative will be done in a style fairly similar to how it is now, just with more stuff per update.
• Expanding on combat: There will actually be some combat not covered by a tactical grid. Referencing back to the part on soldiers, their missions will still go in a narrative-like format, where you handle the broad 'macro' aspects of the battle.

Main problem is the tactical grid. As I said previously, I find it difficult getting this set up. I have numerous problems with it already. How do I even manage the grid? I've tried several programs, which are fairly limited, and then there's paint.net, which is simple but pretty tedious. Then there's the 'graphics' - how to handle these? When I've been messing with tactical grids in the background I mostly considered using free-to-use tilesets, but that leads to a very nonuniform and ugly look, with the additional problem of not being able to have any flexibility with soldier icons/sprites. Such as not being able to show different gear on soldiers or differentiate between soldiers.

Once again, sorry for not including an update. This could end in a couple of ways. I do want to consider some kind of reboot, but my last attempt at that with a different game ended very poorly. There's the possibility of a hiatus, but again, I tried that before and that just led to the game dying. There's continuing as normal and hoping people start participating again, there's changing all that stuff and hoping that'll work, and in addition to any of these continuations, I may even 'skip' this mission since it's obviously not very popular now.

To be completely honest, I think, sadly, this game is in its death throes. Me writing out these paragraphs probably isn't helping, but oh well. It's definitely still possible to keep Star-Com going, but this same thing happened to my previous ended games: They just seem to lose that potential and people stop participating. Most of the time I've had the option to continue with 1-2 people giving actions, but that really just feels pointless.


To summarize all this: At this point I'm probably going to heavily re-evaluate Star-Com. That could end in several different things happening, such as a reboot, skipping this mission, and/or some substantial changes in mechanics. There's a small yet decent chance I may let it gracefully die since I've tried most of this stuff with previous games to no avail.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

No worries about this not being an update. You're working on trying to make this into something that works well all around, which very reasonably can take some time.

From page 10 onwards, there are about 5 players about half of whom tend to post here about every other update rather than per update. I think the thing with participation right now is that we happen to be in a section where we don't have a ton of options per say, and what we've chosen to do has ended up leading to a fairly narrow path to follow. The planned changes to put a bit more focus on base perspective and to streamline away team functions will probably have more people participate as there will be a lot more directions for us to go. If I had more free time and financialness, I'd offer to help set it up so that we could have players operate as specialists sort of like your current mercenary game, with the actions from there affecting the base end of play.

You could use Roll20 for grids, tokens, and distinguishing tokens, using screen shots to share in forum. I've seen it handle all of that decently well. Another method you could go for is a simplification of the combat rules to make them work better for more narrative writing. Three stats with modifiers could work. Something like Health, Combat, Defense, comparative rolls (a d6 or d10 should work fine), with bonuses based on how effective the current equipment is and situational modifiers. Combat could be a base of the Team Leader's Combat stat with bonuses based on tech level of weaponry, ammunition used, and effective ranges. Bravo Squad load out with Dawson could look something like the following for Combat: 3 (Dawson's Combat stat) +0 (basic ballistics weapons) +1 (for general AP ammo) +2 (the rounded nature of Bravo's loadout leads to a smallish but solid bonus at most ranges, plus being able to use explosives fairly freely) = +6. Defense could be a base of armor tech level modified by combat ready status and cover, with an example for Bravo squad of something like 1 (basic Earth stuff) +2 (they're actively aware of possible enemies and are moving in purpose for combat) +0 (not really any cover in hallways) = +3. Health could be something like Squad # x 2 x Armor Tech Level, with wounds being spread even until around 1/2 or 2/3 Health for deaths or major injuries to occur. So right now Team 1 would have 15 x 2 x 1 = 30 Health but more likely has 29 or 28 health as Leaf is lightly wounded.

[Chiefwaffles]

Still working on tactical grid stuff, but by the time you hit combat again I should either be ready or I can just hurry on doing it.

Not quite inclined to "RP-ify" all this, so I'm putting down a new list of restrictions/game mechanics. They're subject to change, but the gist will stay the same for sure. If someone doesn't like any of these, feel free to PM me.

• There is now a 6-man limit on away teams. Any combat done with the limit active will be done in a tactical grid.
• For large-scale combat engagements, any number of soldiers may be sent. However, if using the Warpgate or a similar "constricted" (as in, how fast a force can deploy through the device) method of entry, the invading force will suffer a large penalty.
• Away missions will fairly similar, but there will be more content/stuff happening per update.

Three less important things:
1.) Please tell me if I missed something in the base status stuff. I copied it over from the last base update and may have forgotten to account for some changes made during the encounter.
2.) I now realize the mistake I made naming Emma Dawson Emma Dawson. Oh well.
3.) Please re-submit any actions intended for IRW management that were given during the encounter.
2nd Encounter at Destination 5: Update 13
"Return"
You are still Emma Dawson. Operation leader.

"Alright," you begin to declare. "Team 2, try to get some info on this stuff while Team 1 clears the ship and looks for anything that could be redirecting the Warpgates."

As you sneak through the halls, an ene--

...

You are now the commander of the IRW, currently located at Waypoint base. You've been trying to get contact with the team ever since the Warpgate unexpectedly closed about half an hour ago. As you and the rest of the control room staff along with Greenfield are going over possible courses of actions, a voices come on through the intercom.
"WARPGATE CONNECTION COMING FROM DESTINATION 2; CONFIRMED TO BE TEAM 2!"

You and the rest run over to the control room just in time to see the Warpgate activate. Blasts of energy impact the walls of the gate room. The technicians in the room brace for cover as they run out. The entirety of Team 2 along with 20 refugees come through first. They're quickly shepherded out of the room before they have the chance to be hit by a stray shot.

The radio connection to Team 1 reactivates. Emma Dawson starts yelling over it, gunfire and energy blasts sounding in the background.
"Coming in hot, sir! Multiple enemies on our tail; keep weapons trained on the gate and close it right after we get through. No urgent wounded at the moment!"

You give the order for more soldiers covering the gate. Eventually all of Team 1 make it through the gate unharmed, and it immediately closes. The 20 refugees are put into containment for now while the participating personnel recuperate before their debriefing.

At the debriefing, you learn what happened. In addition to managing to escape the now-likely-destroyed Farpoint (maybe you named that one a bit too hastily) and boarding the enemy's ship, they did quite a lot of things. After managing to reach what one Team 2 member called "something resembling a piece of technology somewhat similar to the general rough overall designs of a thruster-like device" and some other various tech, they spread out from there. After dispatching a few enemies thanks to the AM rifle they had, the main alien forces quickly caught onto them thanks to the loud nature of the rifle.
Just barely managing to regroup back at the 'pseudo-engine' room, Dawson made the decision to use their explosives to blow up the technology within. That apparently started a chain reaction of explosions across the ship along with a larger one at the room where the explosives were detonated. While the vessel was still intact, just with very ominous alarm sounds and a repeating alien voice over loudspeakers, the teams managed to escape the ship through a new hull, briefly avoid detection long enough to reach the gate, then make the connection and come home.

Impressive. You also unfortunately learn that in the brief duration that the gate was open, the RSU was found to have been destroyed, and the logs couldn't be retrieved wirelessly.

You also look at the wounded. The critically wounded have been sent offbase to a more  "permanent" military hospital. According to the doctors both at the medbay and the hospital, the 3 critically wounded soldiers won't be returning to Waypoint base as they aren't predicted to be able to perform their duty as soldiers anymore.

Dan Stevens has already been looked at in the Medbay and will likely take two weeks to recover. The four moderately wounded soldiers will take one week. And the lightly wounded Sarah Leaf and single soldier will be able to more or less immediately return to active duty. The wounded refugee has much more severe wounds, and will sadly take three weeks to recover.

What do you do now?

Spoiler: Galaxy (click to show/hide)

Explored Planets: (Planets where some effort was given by the IRW to be explored - ordered by most recent data)
Destination 5: [IRW Presence] [Enemy Presence]  Ruined village attacked by hostile forces.
Destination 2: [RSU Presence] Vacuum; Ruins with autonomous defenses.
Destination 1: Suspiciously perfect soil/water/air/vegetation; huge pylon seen in the distance from the gate.


Visited Planets: (Planets known of but not explored in any 'real' way- data may not be up-to-date.)
Destination 1: Breathable atmosphere. Apparent forest and general apparent 'friendly' environment. Surveillance unit returned after two days completely unharmed.
Destination 2: Vacuum (no atmosphere). Apparent ruins. Surveillance unit stopped responding roughly a minute after arrival. (Note - This counts as 'surviving')
Destination 3: Immense heat and destruction within seconds of arrival. Likely sun or other extreme hostile destination.
Destination 4: Breathable atmosphere. Small island surrounded by sea. Repeated signal interruptions, but unit returned safely after two days.
Destination 5: Breathable atmosphere. Regular terrain, and what appears to be a village in the distance. Unit immediately returned to prevent contact.
Destination 6: Immense heat - unfit for human life. A huge toppled pillar/building next to the Warpgate.
Destination 7: Underwater. High pressure, acidity, and radiation.

Coordinate Index currently houses extreme amounts of Warpgate coordinates. Any one of these can be dialed on Switchboard.

Spoiler: Species (click to show/hide)

Hostile Species #1:
Encounters: (1 total)
Encountered at Destination 5.

Funds: 117,500 Credits

Spoiler: Waypoint Base (click to show/hide)

Base Size: 5x5 tiles


(White border means the two rooms are connected via passageway.)

Power Usage: 62/100.
(-10p) Control Room: A room that houses the Switchboard along with control & support staff. Has a window to the Device Room, controls the Device room entirely, and has equipment for controlling/managing the entire base as well as supporting + managing away teams.
(-30p) Warpgate Room: The room housing the Warpgate. Holds ramping to it as well as various equipment dedicated to controlling aspects such as direct input and powerflow to the Warpgate.
- Warpgate Ventilation Upgrade: The Warpgate Room has independent life support systems that can be remotely activated and that will last a few weeks before having to switch back to the main base ventilation.

(-5p) Security Room: A 2-tile wide room with equipment and fortifications to help defend against attacks - cover, cameras, blast doors and regular heavy doors, checkpoints, and more. Manned by up to 12 personnel and has 2 MG emplacements facing towards the Warpgate Chamber entrance.

(+50p) Nuclear Reactor: A self sufficient nuclear reactor providing 50 power.
(+50p) Nuclear Reactor 2: A self sufficient nuclear reactor providing 50 power.

(-5p) R&D Lab: A room housing basic fabrication facilities and research equipment for both engineering and research. Manned by up to 15 research pesonnel.

(-1p) Staff Quarters: Has enough room and housing for 60 personnel.
(-1p) Small Staff Quarters: Has enough room and housing for 30 personnel.
(-3p) Barracks: Armory and barracks for soldiers. Has enough room for 20 soldiers and large amounts of weaponry + armor.
(-3p) Barracks: Armory and barracks for soldiers. Has enough room for 20 soldiers and large amounts of weaponry + armor.
(-3p) Small Medbay: A medbay with room for 10 people in medical care, and 20 in quarantine. Most efficient when staffed with 5 medical personnel.

(-1p) Exit: Self-explanatory. Multiple elevators (freight and otherwise) to the surface.

Surface Buildings/Emplacements
Helipad: Can fuel, maintain and hold up to 2 large helicopters.

Spoiler: Squads (click to show/hide)

A squad is a group of specialists and soldiers with a set equipment loadout. There is a 6 person max in squads, and the same specialist can be in different squads. That just means both squads can't be deployed at once.
Squads are primarily for exploring, strikes, operations, diplomacy, and more. For more 'brute' matters, simply sending in a number of soldiers works.


There are no squads set at this time.

Spoiler: Staffing & Personnel (click to show/hide)

37/40 Soldiers
32 Trained Soldiers
- 28 waiting at Waypoint Base
- 4 in Medbay
5 Specialists
- 4 waiting at Waypoint Base
- 1 in Medbay

70/90 Regular Staff
Research
4 Scientists
4 Engineers
7 R&D Techs

Trained
5 Medical Staff (Medically trained; staff medbay)

General
20 Technicians (Keep base running)
10 Control & Support Staff (Manage away teams and staff Control Room)
5 Management (General upper-management of program)
15 General Staff(Food, Custodial, Etc.)

Other
21 Refugees
- 20 in Quarantine
- 1 in Medbay

Spoiler: Medical & Quarantine (click to show/hide)

Quarantine slots filled: 20/20
Other
20 Destination 5 Refugees

Medbay slots filled: 6/10
Regular Personnel
4 Soldiers - Moderate wounds[/b]
- 1 week to recover

Specialists
Dan Stevens - Major wounds[/b]
- 2 weeks to recover

Other
1 D5 Refugee - Severe wounds
- 3 weeks to recover
- Warning: There is no space in Quarantine for this refugee once recovered.

Spoiler: Specialists (click to show/hide)

40/40 Barracks Slots filled

Dan Stevens (Waiting at Waypoint Base)
Combat: 1, Science: 1, Xenotechnology: 1, Archaeology: 3, Language: 3, Diplomacy: 1     
Sarah Leaf (Waiting at Waypoint Base)
Combat: 2, Science: 2, Xenotechnology: 3, Archaeology: 1, Language: 2, Diplomacy: 1
Charles Greenfield (Working at Waypoint Base)
Head of R&D
Combat: 1, Science: 3, Xenotechnology: 2, Archaeology: 1, Language: 1, Diplomacy: 2
Emma Dawson (Waiting at Waypoint Base)
Combat: 3, Science: 1, Xenotechnology: 1, Archaeology: 1, Language: 1, Diplomacy: 3
Jason Lerth (Waiting at Waypoint Base)
Combat: 1, Science: 3, Xenotechnology: 1, Archaeology: 3, Language: 1, Diplomacy: 1

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)

Notable Items
Note: Only items of higher value or that are worth noting are listed here.

- Warpgate
- Switchboard

- Artifact #2
- Artifact #3

Other Items
Mostly just things that are important to know that you have/
- "Infinite" RSUs (Robotic Surveillance Units
- "Infinite" Basic EVA Suits (Hazmat, Vacuum, etc.)

Spoiler: Artifact and Specimen Log (click to show/hide)

A log of all gathered artifacts + specimens and their planet of origin.
- Artifact #1 - Alien Energy Weapon
Belongs to Hostile Species #1
Found at Destination 5
- Artifact #2 - Alien Armor
Belongs to Hostile Species #1
Found at Destination 5
- Artifact #3 - Alien Energy Source
A container of a relatively-volatile liquid with extreme energy potential.
Belongs to Hostile Species #1
Found from deconstructing A#1.

- Specimen #1 (Dissected) - Hostile Species #1 Corpse; Killed by IRW Forces; Found at Destination 5

Spoiler: Finances (click to show/hide)

Wages handled by Government.
Maintenance handled by Government.

Income
Funding session in 3 weeks. Expected funding: +$600,000

Purchases:
Barracks: -$200,000
21 Soldiers: -$315,000

Upkeep/Expenses
5 Specialists: -$25,000
2 Deployments: -$330
Expected Upkeep (next week)
5 Specialists: -$25,000

Funds Change since last base update: -$540,330
117,170 Credits

[somemildmanneredidiot]

......I had a post and then needed to leave it for a bit and it's gone now. I'll try to make a cliff notes version.

Hooray that we are back! In retrospect, trying to take over a ship of [insert size guess?] size with like 20 people wasn't the most achievable idea.

@Away Team Size: Are we allowed to send more than one team per destination?
@Army Deployments: Makes sense and just means we'll have to be careful when securing the other side of a gate.
@Emma Dawson: I have personally enjoyed the idea of Emma Watson leading our Away teams.

@Book Keeping: Looks good to me. Here's a large amount of things I'd like to price check.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Personnel:
Spec Ops (stealth soldiers specifically)
Combat Engineers (soldiers that are able to set up defenses and infrastructure of sorts in the field as well as demolish structures)
Linguists (we'll want a team with various backgrounds and areas of knowledge to dig into any and all languages we stumble upon. First project: The Civies)
Teachers (to provide various personnel additional useful skills such as how to shoot better, how to blow things up, how to disassemble technology so it can be brought back to base, how to speak languages, field medicine, how to use any new tech we make, etc)
Rock Star Scientists (it was mentioned before as not really a thing, but we might get lucky and get info on someone who happens to be working on things semirelated to what we've found)
Diplomatic Advisors/Speech Writers (No, seriously. If we can hire someone, or a team of someones, to write budget speeches for us, they could pay for themselves within the first budget period. Plus they'll be useful when we get to less hostile aliens.)

Structures:
Training/Teaching Room (The Officer Training School and other buildings like that exist, so mentioning)
R&D Mk2 (Basically where we can throw more money to fit more science personnel per space. If that's not a thing, then better equipment and such. If possible, take the D out of R&D. Two space?)
Engineering Bay (Taking the R out of R&D. This would be focused on making anything we design. Two space?
Missile Silo & Guidance System
Even Larger Nuclear Reactor (Does it need the wall space separating two or more rooms to be destroyed to get us more power? Okie doke then.)
Large Medbay (two space?)
Large Barracks (two space?)
Even Larger Staff Quarters (two space?)
Above Ground Hanger Connected to Below Ground Hanger (If we can't build down or out, we can build up. Should let us juggled around more vehicles.)
Above Ground Facilities In General (mirrors of what we already have? Would the Committee be alright with this and if not, what additional costs/buildings need to be in place to make it alright if possible?)
Setting up a Power Generator (Nuclear or not) at Farpoint
Solar Panels & Power Storage (if we have the space, why not?)

Improvements:
Machine Gun Emplacements in the Gate Room
Automated Machine Gun Emplacements in the Gate Room
Camera/Security System throughout Base if we don't have one
General Gate Room Defense Upgrades like a thick gate that can be put into place manually or automatically
Better Elevators (including a system to cut them and seal the top and bottom so that anything that wants to get out will have a much more difficult time)
Wall Creation/Destruction (Probably the same as entrances but mentioning)

Vehicles:
Quad ATVs
Truck, unarmored
Quad Mini Helicopter with surveillance equipment (A flying RSU!)
Tank
Unmanned Military Drone (with and without combat options)
Heavy Duty RSU (What we'd need to explore Acidic Underwater environments and Hotter Than Humans Can Survive But Not A Star Environments. If they need to be two different RSUs then so they need to be.)
Submarine(a normal science exploration one and one that can survive Acidic Water of the levels that the above HDRSU would be able to)


Weaponry:
MANPADSs
Automatic Shotguns with FRAG-12 HE-AP ammunition
Mobile Anti Air Machine Gun Turrets
Mortars
Explosives of various strengths
Claymore Mines
Missiles of various strengths
Artillery (the cannons that once set up are able to fire on positions many km away)
Remote Detonation Systems that are grenade incorperatable if we do not have them already
Heavy Machine Guns (will need to be set up in field to be fired)
Supressers (incorrectly called silencers in some cases)

Misc:
Better Environmental Suits (Space Suit level stuff. Also suits that if we send personnel out in a submarine at Acidic Water destination, I want them to have a chance of being able to swim back to the Gate.)
Helmet Display Systems: I want our soldiers to be able to share camera feed with each other and be able to access RSUs and actually see where they move them. Also silent texting so they can communicate without radio if needed.
Excavation Team: For geting at Farpoint.

With the Civies, we should figure out how to communicate with them, make sure they have good accommodations, and then try to learn from each other. This will almost certainly be a project of many weeks. They might have information about all of this or they might not. <=Action suggestions

Should we immediately check out D5? The ship could be leaving, or exploding, or grounded. But checking into there could be more than a little risky. We could  send an RSU and a team to D1 or D4 to then send the RSU to D5, but if they have troops waiting then it could be quite bad. We MIGHT have the ID of the Gate on the ship, which means we could do a LOT of things without going to D5 directly. It might provide them with our ID if we dial straight to them, plus they'll almost certainly have a solid guard there now. <=Not actions suggestions, bringing up for discussion.

One possibility about the situation at D5. There is only that ship and everything on that ship. For whatever reasons, they are set on this area at the moment (Farpoint maybe?), which is why they have semi-solid coverage of that particular gate. They're able to override Gates from that ship which would account for the ambush of the first combat encounter. As stated before, they could be monitoring the Gate. <= Discussion

With D5 we can either go back today, later, or never. I want to go back because we could salvage a LOT from Farpoint and whatever is left/got blown off of the ship, but when depends on what HS #1 does.

Shelving D5, our options are waiting for R&D to have a break through we can invest in or exploring more. I'm interested in sending a team or two to D4, there could be something useful there and if not, that's exploring and possibly fund worthy. Once we have HDRSUs in place, I want to check out D6 and D7 in more depth. Getting a sample of that crystal in D6 could be quite the break through. Presumably there's nothing new from D2, so there's just the question of if we want to explore D1. ATVs would be quite useful for that. <= Action suggestions

Before we deploy ANYONE, we need to go over general gear per soldier and per squad. Some ideas: Rations for 3 days per soldier, Water pack per soldier, bundle of 30 military grade glow sticks per soldier, sidearm (something of a higher caliber than usual) per soldier, 3 knives per soldier, 2 HE grenades, 2 Frag grenades, 2 Flash grenades, with each grenade type being per soldier, a roll of military grade duct tape per soldier, 1 extra hand held video camera with a connection to feed per squad. I'm trying to think of more but I haven't yet. <= Action Suggestions

Some squad ideas. A configuration stated to be something like BravoB or CharlieB means that it is a full Soldier squad.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bravo: Dawson, Leaf, Stevens or Lerth, 3 Soldiers.
Respective loadout: AMR, AR, AR, LMG, MANPADS, GL
Charlie: As above
Respective loadout: SR, AR, AR, LMG, GL, GL
Delta: Leaf, Stevens, 4 Soldiers
Respective loadout: AR, AR, AMR, LMG, LMG, GL
Ephraim: Dawson, Lerth, 4 Soldiers
Repsecitve loadout: AMR, AR, AR, LMG, LMG, GL
Foxtrot: Dawson, Leaf, 4 Soldiers
Respective loadout: LMG, AR, GL, MANPADS, MANPADS, MANPADS
Galilei: Dawson, Leaf, Steven, Lerth, 2 Soldiers
Respective loadout: AMR, LMG, AR, AR, GL, MANPADS

Until and unless we secure Farpoint, the ship, or something else, we should have R&D focus on the circuitry, the power source, and the element, with something like a 3:3:1 focus on them in respect to time used, while also looking into how they interact together. If anyone has any ideas on how to break the language barrier with the Civies, they should feel free to look into it.<=Action Suggestions

[Chiefwaffles]

You can only have one team per destination. But keep in mind that the members of this team are basically the 'front-line explorers' at the destination.

I'll also address some of the price-check items for now. The ones listed here are basically just the "impossible/not feasible at the moment" items. The rest will come in a separate mini-update or actual update either later today or sometime in the next few days.

Teachers: These aren't really necessary. You can teach soldiers 'new' techniques once learned, such as how to operate a certain piece of alien technology, but that more or less happens by itself. For the rest of the things, soldiers won't really be improving much in terms of aiming and the like. For that you could either invest in more specialists or look into more expensive soldiers.

And for specialists, those guys improve their skills via fieldwork.
Rock Star Scientists: These aren't really a thing. R&D is currently abstracted mechanics-wise to the point where factoring in things more complex than "is this skill/R&D personnel relevant? How relevant?" would, in my opinion, be more trouble than it'd be worth it.
Training/Teaching Room: Like the teachers, this is currently not relevant. Soldiers don't have improving skills and specialists get better via practicing it on the field.
Above-Ground Hangar: Not quite sure what you mean here.
Solar Power Generation: The quantity of equipment and space needed for this to be practical is, well, unpractical.
Above-Ground Facilities: But this ruins the base building mechanic The Committee wants any rooms that don't need to be on the planet's surface to either be underground or offplanet for security, secrecy, and defense reasons.
Setting up a Power Generator at Farpoint: For this you'd have to get a team of technicians to Farpoint.
Base Camera/Security System: This already exists.
Wall Creation/Destruction: This is covered by either entrances or multi-tile rooms.


More things/'hints':
You can always look at new unvisited destinations if you don't feel that visiting any of the current ones is a good idea.
The underground hangar is pretty much a catch-all storage facility for anything that is intended to leave the base or go through the gate repeatedly.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

@Price checks: Makes sense. I'm expecting a fair amount of answers to things to be "not exactly practical", but you never know til you ask.

@Above Ground Hanger: The idea is that once we have the below ground hanger, we could create an expansion of that above ground to let us avoid more maintaince costs, provide more building cover for things we want to bring in, and let us store more vehicles on base.

Additional Proposal: Send an RSU or three to four unknown destinations per week to provide additional areas of exploration

[Tomcost]

To be fair, I think that we should not do anything right now, and lick our wounds. We need to start to interact with the refugees and try to understand their language, and hopefully get more information about what is happening at D5. Also, we should buy back the soldiers we lost.

So:

-Interact with the refugees. Focus on trying to understand them. If they prove uncooperative, try with the wounded and isolated one first.
-Buy back the three soldiers that we lost.
-If possible, try to fit that alien armor so at least one of our soldiers can use it.

Proposed squad deployment:
-Multi-purpose generic squad "Cobra": Assault rifles with GL, one rocket launcher and one flamethrower. With Specialist Sarah Leaf (the one with the most rounded up skills I think).
-Scouting/tactical squad "Hawk": silenced SMGs, one silenced sniper rifle, C4 charges, flash grenades. With Specialists Dan Stevens and Jason Lerth(Archeology, Science and Language are good skills for those who need to explore I think).
-Heavy combat squad "Rhino": LMGs, five rocket launchers, frag grenades. With Specialist Emma Dawson (because combat, and diplomacy if required).

Feel free to make any comments on these things.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

I think we should hold off on buying those soldiers for the moment because of funding, reduced squad sizes (28 not in med bay - 12 for the security room leaves 16 soldiers which we can get 3-4 squads deployed at a time out of it depending on how we use our specialists), and future specialist space.

@Refugees: 100% Agreed.

@Armor Refitting: Fantastic idea. Bare minimum, it'll provide us an armor base when we're in a better position to manufacture more of that armor.

The squad deployments look good. For "Rhino", I think replacing one of the RLs with a MANPADS could be prudent.

I want to try to keep up some amount of missions because I want to show the Committee that the Encounter at D5 is unusual for our operations and that we are able to produce results with significantly less risk.

[Tomcost]

Replacing the soldiers is not so important right now, because of the decreased squad size. So I'm OK on holding it off right now.

I'm not against exploring other destinations, but I don't want to stress the GM by saying "Explore three random locations". So I guess that exploring another location would be fine.

And, well, I think that I agree with the MANPADS

[somemildmanneredidiot]

I understand the concern about GM stress and appreciate that idea. How about a compromise of "1, and another 1 after that if the first leads to an inhospitable location". That way if we end up rolling one we can't use immediately, we can still continue to explore some.

Another idea that's been bouncing around but I keep forgetting it. We might want to explore the economic and/or research benefits of using D3 and D7 in some fashion. D3 could hypothetically be a huge power source while D7's water might have trance elements that are useful or the water itself could have functions. While probably not useful or possible right now, we should mention it to Greenfield. <= Action suggestions