Perpetual Energy Borehole[Time: 4 Progress: 4 Cost: 5]
You know what's great? Energy. Phones, electric razors, neon-lights, furbies- they all need energy. Sure, you can burn a bunch of rocks for it, or you can try and smash unstable metals together until they explode, but our engineers our working fast on a new and better form of limitless clean energy. All it requires is repeatedly cutting into the fabric of space-time, and absolutely nothing can go wrong with that.
Perpetual Energy Borehole: 0/14 [3] | 100 Transplutonics + 50 Metal + 25 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Prototype[Efficacy: 5]
So, turns out that our initial observations are correct. You can break unity with this sucker- break it and make it cry like a bitch. Doomsayer physicists speculate that we're not actually breaking unity but are actually deriving energy from breaking down the fabric of space and time itself through repeated boring, and thus jeopardizing the long term life of the universe. Those guys always say that though, and the universe is a big place, not like little 'ol us could do much harm.
In function it's lightly shielded particle accelerator, with a catch plate to decelerate the particles released after the bore collapses and convert them to electrical energy. It's an effective design, requiring light shielding to protect the crew, easily tuned to power needs, and easy to shut down in case of emergency. Her main issue is the fact that she's a rather pricey power source in terms of exotic elements.
Perpetual Energy Borehole Generator: | 0T 0O 175M 80E 25S | Capacity: -8 | Power +65 | A generator based around exploiting aperture mechanics in order to generate a surplus of energy. In essence, static magnetics accelerate a particle beam trapped between two bores, exciting it until the bore decays and the accelerated beam is directed into an absorption slide which brakes its energy into electrical current. It's surprisingly effective, light, and stable.
BOre-hole for Synthetic Synthesis mod. E (BOSS-E)[Time: 1 Progress: 4 Cost: 2]
So, here's the deal. Industrial particle accelerators are great- they take great amounts of money, great amounts of space, and incredibly great amounts of power to run. Incorporating bores could, theoretically, cut down on all three, but there's on additional, extra great, thing about accelerators: their great need for a controlled environment.
Synthesizing a particular exotic compound is an incredibly meticulous process. Back in the day you could just slam things together and hope for the best, but modern industrial applications have timetables, and that means being able to get reactions on demand. Bores are an incompletely understood science, and they radiation they throw off, even when healthy, is tricky to compensate for. Our scientists are working on integration solutions, but they won't come easily or cheaply.
BOSS-E: 0/22 [3] | 150 Transplutonics + 120 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Prototype[Efficacy: 3]
If we can get these new labs running, they will will enjoy a 40% increase in efficacy over our existing facilities- for a relatively minimal extra infrastructure cost.
BOSS-E Synthesis Facility | 50T 0O 100M 25E 10S * Planet Size per rank. 5 Ranks | Costs 10S * Planet size to upgrade existing Elemental Synthesis facilities. | Advanced Elemental Synthesis facilities, equipped with looped bores to accelerate particle beams within a limited amount of space. Increases Synthetics utilization by 7% per rank.
Pacemaster Modular Transport[Time: 2 Progress: 4 Cost: 1]
You'd think it would be easy enough to dig up a couple blueprints from the old files and get a working ship out of it. Turns out, it isn't. Our ancestors saved a significant portion of their cultural archives, and it took us an embarrassingly long time to realize that the initial documents we seized on were promo materials for the reboot of 'Air Wolf'. What we've been able to assemble has been sketchy, and we're having to pool a surprising amount of resources for the project, but it's not actually that complicated.
We'll have it done. Eventually.
Pacemaster: 0/15 [3] | 150 Organic + 300 Metals + 150 Energetics | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Prototype[Efficacy: 1]
There's no easy way to say this. The Pacemaster is a piece of shit. Built from stacks of disagreeing blueprints, she's fragile, slow, prone to losing internal power when turning, and the locking mechanisms on her transport pods are faulty as fuck.
The fission engine is the start of the bad. We can't actually risk putting pods too close to it because the power occasionally spikes and control systems don't recognize it time, resulting in the back half of the ship getting bathed in ionizing radiation. Not only is this fantastically bad for anything organic, it's murder on the circuitry- which is already fucked up. There were six incomplete wiring diagrams for this vessel recovered from the archives, and the engineers married all of them to try and get her working. Protip: six-way marriages don't work well when electricity is involved. Shorts and faults run rampant, and what should be superficial damage can cripple the entire transport.
The frontal disks for the regular crew, though adequately shielded from the temperamental reactor do not handle acceleration well. Command systems will blink out under minor lateral structural strain to the ship- and the structure is nearly as awful as the wiring. It's sufficient to house a crew capable of taking the ship from point A to point B, as long as they do it slow and there's not a lot of turning involved. There's barely enough room left on the ship to cram necessities in, and while she possesses a pair of light mounts, they are a sad and limited last line of defense.
She may have been designed to carry four cargo modules, but she can support 2 in her current condition. Everything else is too close to the reactor to trust with organic life or electronics you ever want to work properly again. In the same manner, the modules are fit only for cargo. The vids clearly show weapon modules being slapped on and the ship used as an armed freighter- but every time we try to hook modules directly into the Pacemaster's circuitry the power system goes on the frits, the coffee maker explodes, the starboard reaction thrusters fire, and all the lighting tries to bring back disco.
We can build it, but we're going to have a devil of a time finding people to fly it.
Pacemaster Modular Transport (Transport Destroyer): | 200T 300O 500M 150E 0S | A historical reconstruction of the worse order, the Pacemaster is a faulty attempt to bring back an effective design from our past. To make a short list of her faults: the engine is radioactive and containment is glitchy, module space is half what it should be due, the wiring is nightmare that causes the power to go out during turns, her weaponry is barely suitable for limited point defense, she's barely structurally sound, and could be disabled by a strong sneeze.
Specs:
2 Small Hardpoints
25 Capacity
Can carry up to 2 regiments and attachments in combination
Revision Phase of Year -6ResourcesDice: 1
T: 0 + 2500
O: 0 + 7500
M: 0 + 7500
E: 0 + 5000
S: 0 + 500
Perpetual Energy Borehole: 0/14 [3] | 100 Transplutonics + 50 Metal + 25 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Pacemaster: 0/15 [3] | 150 Organic + 300 Metals + 150 Energetics | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
BOSS-E: 0/22 [3] | 150 Transplutonics + 120 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested