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[Twinwolf]

Revision: DEATH Marines
Our ships are rather great, yes. However, they do have a glaring weakness - should an enemy manage to board, our best defense is locking the door and hoping they go away. While effective for ex-lovers, not so much for ravening alien hordes. In the distant past, ships had security teams or marines who fought to keep their ships safe. It seems only natural that we shall do the same, but unlike them we don't have the men to spare from the crew. Enter our GREAT units. Or rather, our Defensive Engagement And Trespasser Hunter Marines (DEATH Marines, for short).

These are essentially our standard G.R.E.A.T regiments, adjusted for the conditions of in-ship combat. They can either be entirely controlled by the ship, given sufficient AI capabilities, or by human operators on future ships that are less strong in that regard. They have strong arms in order to assist in heavy work on the ship in their "downtime" and use heavy weaponry, as well as a smaller pair of arms for more delicate tasks and holding smaller arms that are less damaging to the ship when boarders arrive. Human operators have armored suits with the same functions and are indistinguishable at a glance.

They tend to have a single, circular "eye" (mostly to make the enemy aim somewhere nonessential - they have sensors in several places on the body) that changes color depending on threat status, from passive green to cautious yellow to aggressive red. Someone advocated that they be painted red, "To strike fear into our enemies, as if they are covered in blood!". Given we have no confirmation that alien attackers will have red blood, we assume it's a reference. That's why we allowed it.

When not in use, the drones are stored in alcoves in the wall. They slide out of them when needed. This allows them to ambush intruders, coming from areas thought to be cleared.

Suggestions for edits are welcomed and encouraged

[Kashyyk]

The low crew requirements of our ships area boon to our limited population, but poses a very real risk of being overwhelmed by hostile boarding operations. To handle this, our ships can be upgraded with a wide-range set of "countermeasures". It's a bespoke upgrade for each model of ship, but it will further extend their durability.

First, multiple sets of sensors are placed to allow observation of the entire interior from multiple angles, providing the crew with critical combat intelligence.

All doors & hatches are fitted with additional sliding blast covers, tripling the expected amount of time to force entry. In addition, any long corridors are also split by blast doors, further controlling movement of hostiles. These are automatically closed when on combat-alert, requiring either a palm-mounted id chip to unlock, or manual unlocking from either the bridge or the ship computer.

The main active countermeasures are the "Defensive Engagement And Trespasser Hunter" Marines, although most people call them DEATHbots. These are essentially the same as the droid infantry used by our GREAT regiments, with slight modifications to make them more suited to claustrophobic ship-combat. They are equipped with carbine versions of the various standard arms, and each have a powered id-chip in their palms for access to doors. If the chip ever loses power, it ceases to function. They carry the same combat AI as their ground-based brethren, but are typically coordinated by either the Ship Computer or one of the bridge crew.

Finally, all crew stations are also equipped with lockers, containing standard issue GREAT body armour and carbine weaponry as a final line of defence.

Heh. I guess mine is a more indepth proposal than Twinwolf's, but at least mine says what DEATH is short for

[10ebbor10]

Do we actually need boarding solutions? I mean, it's a counter to a type of attack that we don't know the enemy possesses.

[Kashyyk]

Seeing as most of our ships are crew-light, we're particularly susceptible to a boarding action. And as this is a soft sci-fi game they can definitely happen, so I'd like to protect ourselves before we get bit.

[Chiefwaffles]

I like the idea that we/our engineers just give things cool acronym names just for the sake of it without even bother to at least backronym them.
And Ebbor: It's definitely not necesarrily 100% immediately needed (and I personally) don't think we should do anti-boarding stuff in the preparation turns), but there are two main points to anti-boarding actions:
1.) Our design paradigm (skeleton crew, lots of automation) means that by default it'd be very hard to fight off boarders. Sure, our ships (or at least just the Expedition for now) will be able to continue operating without a crew, but having some fleshy meatbags to handle things is better than none. Though I desperately hope the Liir or [We] have boarders so we can surprise them with the Last Stand Protocol by trapping them on a now-empty ship with a malevolent
2.) It serves as a stepping stone towards offensive boarding designs in the future.

But anyways.

Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism
Right now the gravity drive works by bending spacetime just enough to get it to do what we want without breaking its spine altogether. So if we bend it a bit more, then we get a hole in spacetime -- a bore.

The basic principle is easy enough. For a few microseconds we overcharge the drive, moving it past the point of gravity manipulation and creating a tiny, short-lived, very short-distance bore. We just add a bit of extra computing power so it can overcharge in the right way so that this supertiny bore doesn't rip apart anything going through it.
We may have gotten this idea when Jenkins, messing with a gravity drive for fun, accidentally "teleported" himself 50 meters into the air. He's expected to recover fully by next month.

While it of course would be nice to aim higher, for difficulty purposes we aren't aiming for the bore created to be usable for anything other than a Hornet-sized ship. This should allow Hornets to basically blink across space in any direction, giving it what's effectively extreme agility and short bursts of super speed.

REVISION
- DEATH Marines (0):
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (1): Chiefwaffles

[Twinwolf]

Do we actually need boarding solutions? I mean, it's a counter to a type of attack that we don't know the enemy possesses.

That's fair. That said, it's a glaring weakness that could be exploited, and it's a fairly simple way to handle it. If they do have boarders, expecting us to have not been prepared, they will be surprised. If they don't, then it's a stepping stone to potentially our own boarders.

REVISION:
- D.E.A.T.H. Marines (1): Twinwolf
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (1): Chiefwaffles

[andrea]

REVISION:
- D.E.A.T.H. Marines (1): Twinwolf
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (2): Chiefwaffles, Andrea

I think we probably should get some anti boarder defense before the game, ignoring glaring weaknesses until we get hammered when the cost is just one die is not the best course of action.

However, I want to do the Blink.
Just one thing however: Currently it makes a big deal of translating the ship, which is useful. But I feel that there should be more emphasis on the other, perhaps bigger, use: changing orientation of the ship. With a bore, an hornet travelling toward the enemy ship can become an hornet travelling perpendicular the enemy ship in no time. If we accrue a large enough velocity vector while approaching, then using a bore to change the direction of the velocity vector we can zip all around the place at very high speed in all directions, without requiring actual acceleration.

[TheFantasticMsFox]

REVISION:
- D.E.A.T.H. Marines (1): Twinwolf
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (3): Chiefwaffles, Andrea, TFF

[10ebbor10]

REVISION:
- D.E.A.T.H. Marines (1): Twinwolf
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (4): Chiefwaffles, Andrea, TFF,10ebbor10

[Powder Miner]

REVISION:
- D.E.A.T.H. Marines (1): Twinwolf
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (5): Chiefwaffles, Andrea, TFF, 10ebbor10, Powder Miner

This seems very useful for solving what is probably the main problem in using the Hornets.

[Kashyyk]

I want the Blink Module, but I'm concerned that it is too big for a revision.

REVISION:
- D.E.A.T.H. Marines (2): Twinwolf, Kashyyk
- Gravity Drive - Blink Mechanism (5): Chiefwaffles, Andrea, TFF, 10ebbor10, Powder Miner

[Powder Miner]

I figured that the Blink module would just be small and short variations of something the gravity drives have already been noted to do if we fuck up with the gravity drives and therefore not all that large a deal if they’re used for the drone role.

[andrea]

It is not like it needs to punch far. It would be limited to, say, a bit more than the width of an hornet.

edit: a proposal for future design.

Boregate station

Bores are fast, but space is mind boggingly big. It takes months for a ship to bore to another system, and it collapses soon after. In the end, it is a matter of computing power: space on ships is limited. Bigger ships have more, but bigger bores are harder. The solution is having a supercomputer that is dedicated to the task, without requiring it to be mobile or even able to pass through the bore itself.
Enter the boregate station: it is a gigantic  ring shaped structure in which most of the space is devoted to a quantum supercomputer and the embedded power generation to power the computer and our biggest bore generator, able to generate a bore large enough for a leviathan class vessel. The only concession to non bore systems is a medium hangar and an handful of small hardpoints (5-10) for point defense.

Being a fixed station, we can dedicate as much computer power to the task as needed, to the point of being able to calculate a bore solution in days rather than months. Furthermore, we have several computer banks running in parallel, working on the next bore before the present one expires. The end results of this is a nearly continuous borehole between the home system and the target; at a staggering cost. With a network of those stations, fleet movement in our territory would be, in the grand scheme of things, basically instant. Experience from the Expedition computers is used to improve stability and anti-jamming capabilities.

[Powder Miner]

Here's my proposal for our sensor drone design next turn (or some other turn I guess):

VEMS Sensor Drone "Reading Rainbow":

The Variable EM Spectrum Sensor Drone "Reading Rainbow" is a variety of carrier-deployed drone similar in many ways to the "Hornet" fighter drone preceding it. It is a flat and small drone, tapering down from a central height of 2m (much as the Hornet), however instead of being a chevron-shape like the Hornet, it is shaped approximately like a leaf. The reasons for this are as follows: the leaf shape is also intended to make the Reading Rainbow nearly impossible to hit from multiple directions, and allows for a thinner profile from the sides than a cylinder quite could, but as the Reading Rainbow doesn't require the maneuverability that the Hornet does, it doesn't need the chevron shape and thusly can be less wide than the Hornet.

The Reading Rainbow contains a miniature gravity drive much as the Hornet, and has tiny maneuverable thrusters that open out from the flat sides of the craft mainly intended to allow the drone to finely control its movements rather than turn particularly quickly, but the most important piece by far of the Reading Rainbow is its Variable EM Spectrum Sensor, or VEMS Sensor for short -- aiming to compact multiple functions into a single sensor to help make the drone small. The VEMS Sensor is a device that emits waves along the EM Spectrum (ideally, from X-Ray to UV to optical to IR to radio and microwaves) and is equipped (through antenna, photoresistors, etc) to precisely detect their reflection, capable either of rotating or of focusing on an object once it's detected a return from it. The VEMS Sensor is designed to have the capacity to detect objects, and to determine the range and velocity of these objects relevant to the drone.

The real genius of the Reading Rainbow is how it takes this one emitter and uses it in combination with the numbers of the rest of the sensor drone wing. One function that the Reading Rainbow performs is to send a beam of visible light between drones, from the emitter of one to the photoresistor of another. The receiving drone collects data on the intensity of the beam, and depending upon how the intensity of the beam fluctuates thanks to absorption or diffraction by intervening particles, the drone determines the contents and concentration of ambient particles in the space it's present in, acting as a spectrophotometer.

The Reading Rainbow also uses its numbers to disperse throughout the battle space, and to confirm and piece together the readings of other drones over a network in order to create a contiguous and confident whole of data that is sent back to the mother Expedition through the drone's pinhole bore system (based on the sad, basic sensor drones we already have). It should be noted that an effort is made to improve the pinhole bore system on these drones; though still just the same kind of very small bore system usually used for FTL comms on sensor drones, it is hoped that these particular pinhole bores can be created quickly and stably enough to ensure streams of (encrypted) data can be sent back to the mother carrier only occasionally interrupted by the destabilization and closing of the bore.

To sum it up: it's a small carrier-wing sensor drone designed to disperse, track objects, check the ambient particles in space, and report a contiguous whole of data back to the carrier through a combination of a variable EM spectrum emitter/sensor and an improved pinhole bore generator. Also it's got some small thrusters/a teeny gravity drive to move around.

[Draignean]

Gravity Drive-Blink Mechanism
[Efficacy: 6]
Our scientists would like to remind you that the Gravity Drive isn't close to finished yet. It isn't even in a state where we can reliably produce one in a state where it'll work without overheating and then tearing itself in half. It's completely unreasonable to assume that any sane scientist would add an experimental functionality to an already untried and unfinished prototype design- such an action would be a gross violation of safety protocols, ethical standards, and- giggle

Aw, shit, sorry, we just couldn't say that with a straight face. No probs, we slapped a supercharger on it and gave the computer a couple more processors to compute the new bore depth calculations. A fighter scale vessel equipped with this technology should be able to open a short range bore, with an exit at most twenty meters distant, in order to make a rapid change of position and vector. However, after the bore is opened, the Gravity Drive will need a few seconds to create another well, and that means the fighter will need to make a hard maneuvering burn to use the bore. That means this isn't a trick that can be done too frequently.

In all seriousness, we could have probably better on this if we had been given more time to iron out the kinks with the original gravity drive.

Gravity Drive- Blink Mechanism: Fighter scale vessels equipped with micro version of the gravity drive can use it to briefly create a very short range bore (~20m) in order to displace and change vector. Gravity drive requires a period after to create a new gravity well, and thus the fighter needs to make a hard maneuvering burn in order to get to the bore- limiting the number of times this maneuver can be made and introducing a period of vulnerability afterward.


Design Phase of Year -2

Perpetual Energy Borehole has Auto-completed
GREAT Regiment has Auto-completed

Resources
Dice: 10
T: 9750 + 2500
O: 30000 + 7500
M: 29950 + 7500
E: 20000 + 5000
S: 1855 + 500

Spoiler: Active Projects (click to show/hide)

Pacemaster: 12/15 [3] | 150 Organic + 300 Metals + 150 Energetics | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
BOSS-E: 15/22 [3] |  150 Transplutonics + 120 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | 150 Transplutonics + 120 Synthetic Invested
"Death Ray" LPBA: 4/7 [2] |  75 Transplutonics + 100 Metal + 50 Energetics + 10 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Bore Shield: 6/11 [3] |  135 Transplutonics + 120 Metal + 20 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Gravity Drive: 4/18 [2] |  155 Transplutonics + 225 Metal + 35 Synthetic | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
"Foray" Class Escort Frigate: 2/9 [2] |  50O  + 175M + 175E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Mk Ib Parasite Drone "Hornet": 3/13 [3] |  35O  + 150M + 150E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Expedition-Class Battlestar Cuiser: 4/21 [4] |  50T + 100O  + 300M + 100E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested