Dust-blowing sound.Right then. Let's get back to business. Better FTL, anyone?
[OUR] (FTL) <Queen's Path> Gen B.1.0:
Look out upon the stars. See how they shimmer. Such fine gems belong to [Our] Queens by right. Their [Path] shall lead us to the stars, that we might claim them in their names.
The Queen's Path is not simply an upgraded Bore Drive. Whilst the fundamental principles are similar, the Path does not generate boreholes by brute-force calculations run on primitive machines. Instead, it uses the most powerful and elegant computational entity we know of- the psionic collective. Sure, individual drones know nothing of faster-than-light travel. But they don't need to- they just need to lend their mental energies to a Pilot, a specially bred and trained Prince whose mind has been scoured clean of all unneccessary knowledge, leaving only a pure & instinctual understanding of bore-physics. Interfaced directly with the Queen's Path Bore Drive, the Pilot (or multiple Pilots working in unison) is (/are) capable of opening apertures three times the size to stars twice as distant- requiring (relatively) less space and energy compared to the Gen A.
The Gen A Bore Drive is a woefully inefficient device; forcing open apertures along inefficient paths by brute force. It is no wonder it is such a costly piece of equipment to operate- especially at longer ranges. By contrast, the Queen's Path opens paths that 'want' to be opened, and does so in a delicate manner that results in a more stable aperture. Psionic energy is used to 'seed' the aperture, then more conventional means are used to expand it, whilst the psionic energy maintains the 'edge'- that is, the bits where the collapse of a borehole would start, which usually require intensive calculations to maintain. In this way, conventional and psionic energies work hand in hand (I got the brains, you got the brawn, let's make lots of boreholes).
The Queen's Path is not reserved for a single vessel. Whilst it can function perfectly as a bore drive for a given ship, it shines when used to open the way for others. In this capacity, the aperture is constantly updated, using psionic feedback to identify fluctuations in spacetime and adapting the 'contour' of the aperture to survive the changing circumstances. This allows for a borehole to be kept open long enough for many ships (with or without their own bore drives) to pass through it, before finally the generating vessel passes through (at which point it can no longer be maintained and will dissipate as quickly as a normal borehole).
The Relentless we should leave for a turn, because once it reaches 50% completion (which it will next turn), we'll retain the experience after we scrap the project, letting us make a superior fighter.
Other designs for this turn: a medium ship weapon, perhaps? Basic infantry we also need, something like
[OUR](GIB) <Takers> Gen A.1.0:
Takers are a Ground Invasion Battalion tasked with quickly taking control of a planet. Consisting of mass-bred Warrior drones, they are lightly armed with conventional firearms and minimal armour, and receive only a few weeks of training before deployment. Their focus is mobility, cost, and numbers, ensuring the rapid expansion of [We] across the galaxy.
To maximise our numerical advantage, Taker deployments involve soldiers crammed together like sardines, with equipment designed to take up as little space as possible- their buggies are flat-packed and their boats inflatable, and suchlike and so forth.
-Lightly armed
-Minimal training
-Low cost
-High numbers
-Rapid conquest
-Boring as all getout, but sometimes you just need a quick and dirty solution to a problem.
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Topic: [We] Empire Thread | Hivers | GalactiRace (Read 25417 times)