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[Happerry]

Revision : Death Ray Turret
Right now the Death Ray has aiming issues for shooting dodging enemies in a confusing environment. Given that battles are expected to be confusing and fast moving, this is not a good thing. So why not cap off the Death Ray with a turret assembly so that, while we can still use Borehole fire when we want to, we can also aim and shoot with turrets from our starship for more accurate and faster firing when that is useful? There's no reason why not, in fact.

[Chiefwaffles]

Death Ray turret makes no sense.
Sure, long-range boreholing our guns is less effective in chaotic battles, but short-range boreholing (having the terminus adjacent to the ship) gives a better effect than a turret without wasting a revision.

Revision: Predictive Algorithms
Right now, our bore-related things work by a picture of local space created by sensors. This is fine and all when not much changes, but when space is chaotic our sensors need a lot of time to gather enough data to allow computers to make a viable prediction (even though we painted our computers red made our computers quantum).

By implementing algorithms and code and what-have-you that predict the effect on spacetime from our own weapons and everything our sensors are tracking. A missile's explosion would be factored in and predicted before it happens, and boreholes' effects on further borehole generation would be diminished.

This should just increase the speed in general of borehole calculations, and further reduce the effect of local chaos on borehole generation. Which is kinda nice, considering practically everything we have relies on generating boreholes in time.

[10ebbor10]

Assuming Direct Control

The Honey drone is good at repairing simple systems, but more complex tasks are so far beyond it. However, with a secure and stable link between the bee drone and the main computer, we can use it's vastly greater power for diagnostics and repair of even the most complex systems.

[Twinwolf]

So something worth noting is which of our projects will be complete by turn 1.

Ready turn 1:
Pacemaster
BOSS-E
Death Ray
Bore Shield
Expedition
Honey Drone

Not ready turn 1:
Gravity Drive
Foray
Hornet
Bioplastic Armor

This is something a problem, given that three of those four are... rather essential.

[Powder Miner]

Well, let's look at exactly how much each of those projects will have left.
Gravity Drive: 10/18. This is going to be the one that needs the most investment.
Foray: 8/9
Hornet: 12/13
Bioplastic Armor: 3/8

The Foray and Hornet can pretty much be left alone, we're only looking at a minor increase in cost for one turn, and if we REALLY want to get rid of that minor increase it just means 1 more die applied to each.

We need 8 progress on the gravity drive, and we should sink 3 dice into that.
If we want to finish the bioplastic armor, that's 2 dice.

So we only really need 5 dice overall to finish what we have up or be more or less finished up.

[Twinwolf]

Fair enough.

Gonna start the voting if nobody else has ideas.

D.E.A.T.H. Marines (1): Twinwolf
Death Ray Turret (0):
Predictive Algorithms (1): Twinwolf
Assuming Direct Control (0):

[Jilladilla]

I don't really have much in the way of comments, so here's a vote.

D.E.A.T.H. Marines (2): Twinwolf, Jilladilla
Death Ray Turret (0):
Predictive Algorithms (2): Twinwolf, Jilladilla
Assuming Direct Control (0):

[Kashyyk]

D.E.A.T.H. Marines (3): Twinwolf, Jilladilla, Kashyyk
Death Ray Turret (0):
Predictive Algorithms (3): Twinwolf, Jilladilla, Kashyyk
Assuming Direct Control (0):

Enough 10% boosts should double our boring speed.

[Draignean]

D.E.A.T.H Marines
[Efficacy: 6]
~Exterminate, Exterminate, DESTROY!~
Guessing which DEATH marine is a human Security operator and which Marine is just a machine has become a popular guessing game- particularly since it can be surprisingly difficult. With the bulk of the Security force stored out of the way in murder-holes built into ceilings, floors, and the most innocent of walls, DEATH marines take up hardly any space at all within the working body of the ship, but can emerge in surprising numbers to engage a hostile threat or to perform a flashdance at a crew member's surprise party. Frequently co-opted to lift heavy objects, help perform minor repairs, and fill out teams during board game nights, DEATH Marine Squads are a welcome and friendly sight on any Naval Vessel.

D.E.A.T.H Marines:  10O 35M 15E *Ship command cost | Power: -1*Ship Command Cost| A defensive augment to any Vessel, a force of DEATH marines are installed on ship in order to provide a bolstering shot to anemic crew numbers, repel boarders, and give the shipboard computer more hands to work with. Effective implementation means that they draw no capacity from the ship, but do draw a small amount of power in order to operate. Effective, surprising, and definitely not the seed of an AI rebellion.


Predictive Algorithms
[Efficacy: 2]
Events in space are chaotic, and while the products of those events take ordered patterns rapidly following those events- our predictive algorithms do little to enhance our ability to jump to the correct emergent ordered state resulting from the aftermath of a chaotic event. There's some progress, but nothing particularly novel is achieved, and it's just one more subroutine sucking up computing power.

Predictive Algorithms: Effect of chaotic environments on bore drive functionality reduced by 5%. 


Design Phase of Year -1

Pacemaster has auto-completed

Resources
Dice: 10
T: 12150 + 2500
O: 37300 + 7500
M: 36850 + 7500
E: 24800 + 5000
S: 2355 + 500

Spoiler: Active Projects (click to show/hide)

BOSS-E: 18/22 [3] |  150 Transplutonics + 120 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | 150 Transplutonics + 120 Synthetic Invested
"Death Ray" LPBA: 6/7 [2] |  75 Transplutonics + 100 Metal + 50 Energetics + 10 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Bore Shield: 9/11 [3] |  135 Transplutonics + 120 Metal + 20 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Gravity Drive: 6/18 [2] |  155 Transplutonics + 225 Metal + 35 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
"Foray" Class Escort Frigate: 4/9 [2] |  50O  + 175M + 175E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Mk Ib Parasite Drone "Hornet": 6/13 [3] |  35O  + 150M + 150E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Expedition-Class Battlestar Cuiser: 14/21 [4] |  50T + 100O  + 300M + 100E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Bioplastic Armor: 1/8 [1] | 150O + 150E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Honey Drone: 3/8 [3] |  10T + 35O  + 120M + 120E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested

[Twinwolf]

So here's last design phase's designs, minus the ones that went through and the Remora and Anti-boarding countermeasures because their roles are filled now.

Designs
Reading Rainbow Sensor Drone (0):
Gravitational Metamaterials (0):
Slavebore Drive (0):
Finder's Keepers Salvage Ship/Tug (0):
HOLograms, Intelligence, & COMmunication (HOLI-COM) Module (0):

Speed-up dice


Save for Revisions:

As for what we use dice on:

I mentioned earlier a few things won't be ready by game start, but that's probably fine since we probably won't have quick contact. Still, an option if we want it.

What we definitely need, is some command and control - such as HOLI-COM or some other C&C design. If we don't have that we can run at best groups of a Expedition and a Foray. I would also put as high priority a new Bore-drive that has a higher speed. I think we need some kind of better sensors, such as the Reading Rainbow drone or some other sensor design, as well. And finally, it might be worth making a new transport instead of the Pacefailure, but not a great priority. Do any other priorities come to mind?

In terms of revisions, all I can really think of is another speed up or making the pacemaster not suck.

[Powder Miner]

It may be worthwhile throwing a dice or two at the gravity drive this turn in case we get any bright spacetime-manipulating ideas, but I’d still like to start two designs this turn since we do have ground to cover — preferably the C&C and the sensor drones, but we have lots of possibilities. That’s six dice — so perhaps we could throw two in the direction of the gravity drive and two towards revisions, which we can decide upon in the revision phase.

[10ebbor10]

Fleet Command-Unbound

A hundred years ago, a satellite detected an object under the sand. It was our colony ship, and we may have been a little bit careless when parking it. Deep within it was an object that could change our history forever, as well as the colony missions full entertainment database. The former has been lost to time, but the later inspires us to this day.

Controlling a fleet is an extremely complicated task. The chaos of battle, with hundreds of not thousands of automated fighters and ships reporting in is impossible to effectively transmit using any known interface. The only logical solution is a full direct link. The Unbound command suite fully integrates the commander with his/her ship using advanced cybernetics and a direct brain interface. With an Unbound interface, one does not merely command the fleet. Once becomes fleet command.

We do not expect to have any negative or psychological consequences.

Artificial Composite Intelligence

With most of our fleet under full or partial automation, it makes sense to leave most of the business of fleet command to our automated systems as well. Information exchange, low level tactics and target prioritization can all be perfectly handled by automated systems. The trouble is effectively integrating this information in a consistent manner.

The Solution is ACI, a dynamic artificial intelligence that is created by combining the computing resources of all the ships in the fleet into a single composite overmind. As a distributed intelligence, it is present in all ships, and can thus take actions over the entire fleet.

In order to keep the composite consistent however,  frequent high volume communications is required. For that reason, there's an ACI command node needs to be included in one of the ships. This node consists out of an artificial intelligence core, a human monitoring system, and more importantly a large array of miniature bore drives. These drives are used to deploy and retrieve transmissions and messaging drones, keeping the mindstate of the AI consistent even at great distances.


Bore Overdrive Protocol

Experience from the Bore shield has thought us how to operate bore drives at high power for limited span of time. We have know applied that experience to a somewhat modified bore drive. By selectively reinforcing systems, and increase the available power, we can sustain the overloaded performance for significant amounts of time (if proper preparations are made). We hope that this will allow our bore drive to operate at greater speed in the strategic if not tactical sense.

[Happerry]

If we're looking at command components, let me repost the ones I wrote up earlier.

"Admiralty Code" Class Command Deck
The "Admiralty Code" Class Command Deck is a component with two layers. The top layer, which is the one most people pay attention to, is a teardrop shaped command deck centered around a large Holo-Tank 3D projection display built into the middle of the large side of the teardrop, with raised alcoves and podiums for the commanding admiral and his minions around the tank. It is from here where the commanding admiral oversees the battlefield, decides upon his plans, and sends his directives to his lessers as all his minions keep everything coordinated and in communication with each other.

Beneath this deck is an absolutely enormous super-computer complex that runs the holo-display tank, does all the grunt work in keeping coms up, does the needed calculations to make the admiral's orders work, keeps track of the entire fleet's logistics as relevant to the battle, keeps track of the fleet's damage, keeps track of the enemy fleets damage, keeps track of the enemy fleet's units, and so on. Arguably, this part of the component is a lot more important then the humans up top, but they get all the attention.

"Raiding Party" Class Command Deck
Not all fleets or groups of ships are large enough to need a full admiral and associated officers to take command, but that doesn't mean that they still don't need a commanding officer attached to them. For those smaller groups, the "Raiding Party" Class Command Deck was designed, adding in extra computer clusters, a smaller 3D holodisplay that, while not large enough to display an entire battlefield is still large enough to show what's around a few ships, extra com links, and so on, to the equipped ship's normal bridge, allowing a senior captain to not only command his or her own ship, but also several other ships for smaller affairs that don't need an entire fleet to hit them. (Really, the name of this component in and of itself says pretty much what size of a detachment it is meant to command.)

"Nest" Orbital Defense Hanger
The "Nest" class orbital defense hanger is not a big, dramatic, defense installation. Instead, it a small, easily forgettable (even if a foe would have to be foolish to ignore it), defense installation. It's really little more then a basic computer core based on the Expedition-class's computer core and its ability to run the entire ship, with a small hanger, a very small supply storage for the hanger, and two small hard points normally filled with Shatterguns attached to and built around said core. Oh, and some maneuvering thrusters to dodge long ranged attempts to shoot it down from across the system. With but a very few layers of Bioplastic Armor covering it, the station is fragile... but also cheap, and it doesn't really matter if it gets destroyed in combat as long as it launches its drones first, right? And speaking of drones, the "Nest" is, like many nests found closer to the ground, usually full of stinging insects. In this case, Hornets. These insects are always more then happy to swarm out and sting intruders to death...

Around one in five "Nest" class stations carry Honey Drones instead of Hornets, which are used to maintain the whole network, repair it in and after combat, and provide support in fleet battles.

"Royal Nest" Orbital Defense Hanger
Based on the designs for the venerable and plentiful Nest class defense hanger, the Royal Nest is obviously based on the same general design, but is also far far larger. Instead of a dinky small hanger, it is built around a large hanger, with a secondary small hanger built in for holding Honey Drones. It has six small hardpoints for defense guns, and unlike the smaller Nest stations it has a multitude of armor layers, both on the surface and built into the ship's general frame to isolate penetrations, and also unlike the smaller Nest stations it has a small (if only optional) bridge section wherein people can enter and command the station from instead of leaving it all to the Expedition-class inspired computer core. The Royal Nest is also given a multitude of communication uplinks, from which it can coordinate and command the drones launched by smaller Nest class stations with its own larger load.

[Twinwolf]

Well we seem to have plenty of ideas now...

I do think we need the faster bores, but I don't know that we could get it via that bore overdrive protocol (which sounds more like upgrading our existing bores) instead of making a new drive.

Designs
Reading Rainbow Sensor Drone (Sensors) (1): Twinwolf
Slavebore Drive (Manueverability for drones) (0):
HOLograms, Intelligence, & COMmunication (HOLI-COM) Module (C&C) (1): Twinwolf
Fleet Command Unbound (C&C) (0):
Artificial Composite Intelligence (C&C?) (0):
Bore Overdrive Protocol (Faster bores) (0):
Admiralty Code Command Deck (C&C) (0):
Raiding Party Command Deck (Small C&C) (0):
Nest Orbital Defense Hanger (Defense Sat) (0):
Royal Nest Orbital Defense Hanger (Big Defense Sat) (0):

Speed-up dice
2 dice to Gravity Drives (1): Twinwolf

Save for Revisions:
Save 2 dice (1): Twinwolf

[Kashyyk]

Designs
Reading Rainbow Sensor Drone (Sensors) (1): Twinwolf
Slavebore Drive (Manueverability for drones) (0):
HOLograms, Intelligence, & COMmunication (HOLI-COM) Module (C&C) (2): Twinwolf, Kashyyk
Fleet Command Unbound (C&C) (0):
Artificial Composite Intelligence (C&C?) (0):
Bore Overdrive Protocol (Faster bores) (1): Kashyyk
Admiralty Code Command Deck (C&C) (0):
Raiding Party Command Deck (Small C&C) (0):
Nest Orbital Defense Hanger (Defense Sat) (0):
Royal Nest Orbital Defense Hanger (Big Defense Sat) (0):

Speed-up dice
2 dice to Gravity Drives (2): Twinwolf, Kashyyk
1 die to Bioplastic Armour (1): Kashyyk

Save for Revisions:
Save 2 dice (1): Twinwolf
Save 1 die (1): Kashyyk