Company ThreadConsortium ThreadWith a press of a button, the Consortium would change history.
Years in the planning. The secret group composed of like-minded experts and workers and soldiers and civilians hid themselves in plain sight among the company. Waiting. Preparing. Until the moment for them to shine came. The explosives were laid, the viruses installed, and all that was needed was for someone to press the button to start it all. And they did.
Ark 1 shuttered as it suffered multiple hull breaches and parts came flying off of it in arcs. Alarms that had been installed days prior started going off as the construction workers hopelessly tried to fix the myriad of problems that had just appeared. Simultaneously, the docking clamps under mysterious instructions let the sister ship
Ark 2 -- nowhere near as complete, and just barely spaceworthy -- go as its new thrusters began to fire with the Consortium onboard.
The leaders of the company were furious. All this,
all this, under their noses this entire time, and they had no idea. Now half of the project they had spent trillions on was
gone, and the remaining half was severely damaged. Someone would have to pay, but the only ones who could be held responsible were already on their way to Eden. Eden, the first habitable planet to ever be discovered. If this
Consortium got there first, they could shoot any incoming ships out of the sky before they had a chance to land. No, this was not acceptable, and would not happen.
Ark 1 had its repairs cancelled. The thrusters and basic life supports were ensured operational, and its crew was loaded onboard prematurely. A plan was devised to quickly create a device that could launch
Ark 1 at speeds great enough to catch
Ark 2 as it stopped for supplies. In a day, it was done, and
Ark 1 was sent on its way. Damaged, once-more incomplete, but with a full crew that had vengeance on their minds.
Ark RaceYou are the (engineers of the) crew of one of these Arks. Launched while still under construction as part of a long-term mission to send people to
Eden, the first confirmed-habitable extraterrestrial planet known to humanity.
Ark 1 was closer to completion before launch, but was sabotaged by the Consortium as part of their plan. The crew of Ark 1 was carefully handpicked by the
Company to pilot it to Eden; the Company, not wanting to be 2nd to Eden, launched it with only minimal repairs.
Ark 2 was much less complete, but didn't experience any sabotage as the
Consortium chose this ship to fly to Eden, hoping to get there first while
Ark 1 was being repaired. Though the Consortium knew that the Company could send out Ark 1 anyways, which they ultimately ended up doing.
The journey to Eden is very long, but still well within human lifespans thanks to innovations in the engines. The trip won't be as comfortable as originally planned, but now you have something else to worry about: the other Ark. The Consortium wants the others gone in order to fulfill their original mysterious goals, and the Company's Ark is fueled by a lust for vengeance and a desire from the Company to reach and colonize Eden while they still can.
There are many stops along the way required to gather water, fuel, and materials. As both sides are operating off of the same navigation plan, they'll be hitting the same stops at the same time, and have to use these stops to attempt elimination of the enemy Ark.
Conscripted from the crew, or simply volunteers, your task is to design components for and develop your Ark to survive and destroy the enemy.
This is an
Arms Race game. It's pretty simple even if you haven't played one before. You design things to add onto your Ark that will be used to (try and) beat the enemy. Whichever side survives past the other, wins. For those experienced with it, this game uses Draignean's AR system (Cinder Spires; GalactiRace) based around projects, prototypes, and resources. For those inexperienced, have a nice explanation.
Note: When I say "1d6" I mean a random result between 1 and 6 bell curved via actually rolling 1d4+2d2-2. Thanks to Draignean, which I
stole asked nicely for this from.
Every turn, you get 5 Dice. These can be saved for future turns, and/oror spent in the three phases detailed below:
Design Phase: Spend 3 Dice to design something new or make major modifications to something existing. Designs typically result in a Project (detailed below), which takes time and resources to develop to the point where you can start using the design in the first place. During this phase, you can also spend Dice to progress Projects.
Revision Phase: Spend 1 dice to revise an existing thing, whether it's a prototype, design, project, or anything else. Revisions have their affects apply instantly and don't usually cost anything to implement, but have a reduced scope and complexity.
Production Phase: Spend resources to build new modules and components on your Ark, adjust existing ones, and repair anything damaged in prior combat.
You can use the dice however you see fit, and any dice not spent will be saved to be spent later.
Projects represent the time and research it takes to fully implement a design. When a Project is started, a 1d6 die is rolled for each category: Time, which determines how many "points" you need to finish the Project; Progress, which determines how many "points" you get automatically per (end of) Design phase (a "1" gives 1 point per turn, a "2"/"3" gives 2 points, a "4"/"5" gives 3 points, and a "6" gives 4 points); and Cost, which determines how expensive it'll be to progress the Project forward outside of the automatic points per turn (the exact cost depends largely on the design itself).
During the Design phase, you can spend any number of Dice to progress forward a Project. Each die invested requires the Project's cost to be deducted from your resources, and gives you 1d6 points towards project completion. Each die invested can also be rushed, giving you 2d6 points instead of 1d6, but also giving a 33% chance of a random severity bug or worsening of an existing bug.
Projects may be cancelled at any time, giving you 50% of all invested resources back and a random number of dice between 1 and the total allotted (including the 3 spent to start the project) back.
A Prototype is rolled for at the start of every Project, with a single category rolled by 1d6: Efficacy, which determines how effective it'll be (relative to its difficulty). If a Project has a manufacturable end result, then once the Project hits 50% completion, Prototypes can be manufactured at twice the cost of the normal price until the project is completed. If the Project does not have a manufacturable end result, then the Prototype will most likely be a lesser form of the end result, implemented once you hit 50% completion.
An example project header would be:
Hastur Mass Driver: 18/32 [2] | 10 Uranics + 100 Metal + 50 Adv. Plastic | Rushed 1 times | 50 Uranics, 500 Metal, 250 Adv. Plastic, and 5 dice invested
Name, followed by current progress/total needed with the amount guaranteed per turn in brackets, then how much each die of progress costs, the number of times the project has been rushed, and the total resources that have been currently invested.
At the start, there are four resources relevant to your needs:
Noble Gases, which are useful for advanced manufacturing, technology, and other applications.
Uranics, Uranium and other radioactive elements, that can be useful in certain applications.
Hydrogen, primarily needed to power fusion reactors.
Metals, used for general building.
Non-Metals, also used for general building.
Finally, there's one more resource:
Advanced Plastics. Brought from Earth, these materials are insanely useful but due to the resources (and facilities) required, no more plastics can be created until your Ark reaches Eden. Plastics can be thought of as a "cheat" material used to skip problems, but you will never get more.
(Water is also a resource that's used by Arks, but that's handled by other departments and you odn't need to worry about it.)
The Company very carefully laid out a route through the cosmos to Eden that would result in plenty of stops at asteroids and planetoids where these resources would be available. Both Arks need to hit every stop if they want to keep their systems functioning and their crew alive. The amount of resources available at each stop is of no concern at all -- the only thing limiting resources gained at each stop is the mining capability of the individual Arks. Both sides start with the same mining capabilities, which will be listed in the team threads.
However, if the need arises, you may be able to look for additional types of resources that could be present in the stops.
Eden is far away. Very far away.
Luckily the Slipdrive makes the journey a feasible one. It's not particularly fast in the grand scheme of potential FTL, and will still take quite a while to get to Eden. Its function and mechanics are extraordinarily classified and not a single person on board any Ark has any clue how it works. But it does, and is extremely durable. It has its own suite of repair drones and its own self-contained reactor with enough fuel to last the whole journey. Access to it on both Arks is strictly prohibited, as any single accidental human-caused malfunction could mean permanent stranding in the middle of space.
Now, the Slipdrive has to cool down, the Arks need time to gather materials for maintenance (and now, construction), and water needs to be harvested to keep everyone alive. To this end, a substantial series of stops have been pre-programmed into the Arks' navigational computers. As another attempt to keep operational security, the Company limited the navigational computers to only show the next few stops (and those who planned the routes are all back on Earth); and the crews of both Arks are again afraid to tamper with it because they really don't like the idea of being permanently stranded in space.
Examples of stops include microasteroid-saturated areas, thick nebulas, ionic storms, and more. The majority, if not all, of the stops will likely have gravity fields strong enough to support notable ground activity if desired.
As it happens, your unfinished spaceship was not meant to go into space yet. But you can use this to your advantage. Sure, it may not have that cool zero-G basketball court that was originally planned, but it looks like a good place to put a gun!
Most of the things you'll be doing will be messing with Modules, representing distinct "rooms" and systems on the ship in a single spot. A new reactor needs space to be put in, and this space is represented by a Module. A new gun needs space for its mechanisms and magazine and more -- the module. Etc. etc. There are plenty of things that don't require modules, but chances are an improvement to the ship will be best served by adding a module.
You have three primary restrictions on expanding your ship:
Skeleton: Your ship needs to not fall apart under acceleration and use of the Slipdrive, and this is facilitated by the Skeleton. The Skeleton determines the max amount of modules you may currently have built, and can be expanded by spending resources on it in the Production phase. The exact cost depends on the case, and will be listed in the team threads.
Power: Your systems will most likely need power to operate. Based on what they are specifically, they'll require varying amounts of power provided by (the) reactor(s) on your Ark. You'll have to keep power consumption down, and power production up (by building or improving reactors) to keep the lights on.
Life Support: If a Module requires people to work it, it's going to need life support. Having people present in a module is a very useful thing, but annoyingly, humans need air to breathe and live. Your Ark has a life support rating indicating the number of rooms that can be maintained by its current Life Support systems, which can be improved.
Modules may be decommissioned for a 50% material refund of the remaining integrity. (Decommissioning a Module at 70% integrity would get you 50% of that 70%, meaning a total 35% resources back from the Module's original cost)
With the Consortium launching ahead of time and both Arks being guaranteed to meet up at the same spots, Combat is inevitable.
Combat is done differently than in other ARs. Every weapon on board the Ark that can fire, will fire. The order of weapons fired depends on the weapons themselves and how they were designed. Your crew will choose the best targets according to their training. Defensive countermeasures can eliminate or at least partially nullify incoming projectiles and other forms of things-that-want-to-destroy-your-ship, but damage is just as inevitable as combat.
Any weapon that successfully gets a hit on your Ark will end up damaging a Module. Damaged Modules have different reactions to damage depending on what they are. Your unstable reactor may suffer a meltdown, but your self-sealing icecream storage room will likely just lose some storage space.
Damage is measured by percentage. A module that is 100% damaged is completely destroyed and beyond repair, though barring special circumstances the skeleton holding the module will remain. A module that is 50% damaged will most likely operate at 50% capacity. Repairing modules is done in the Production phase, and costs the percentage of the Module's original cost matching the percentage that will be repaired.
Partial repairs can be done instead of full repairs if needed.
No-one has any idea when they'll get to Eden, so for now the only way of measuring Victory is in disabling the enemy Ark to guarantee you'll arrive first by a hefty margin. And disabling the enemy Ark is fairly hard to quantify. You'll want to do as much damage as possible, and keep that damage from being repaired for as long as possible. Victory starts becoming more likely when an Ark starts being unable to repair modules at the rate they're being damaged.
As victory cannot be quantified easily, both sides will be given plenty of warning when their officers begin thinking victory/loss is in the cards.
This is the near-future. Fusion Reactors are expensive, but practical for the right uses. Robotics and computers are roughly at the same level as today. The Slipdrive is experimental, and the two Arks are the only vessels in existence equipped with Slipdrives. Back on Earth, partisan divisions and countries still exist, though to a lesser degree. A few Megacorps have started to fully rise to prominence above the level of other first-world countries. The Company that was building these arks is the most successful Megacorp in existence; they were aiming at establishing a private colony on Eden for research, mining, prestige, and large amounts of profit.
The Consortium had their own reasons for stealing an Ark, and their formation is shrouded in mystery. It's unknown if they infiltrated the company or were formed entirely from within. But they succeeded. For now, at least.
The setting is Medium Sci-Fi. You can get pretty crazy with tech, but you have to remain grounded. For example, if pursued, Psionics could theoretically be possible, but only with large amounts of internally rational explanations and effort. Designs should be based in reality, or have some great logic supporting them if not based in our reality.
You are on a giant unfinished spaceship heading towards a far-away planet. There is another giant unfinished spaceship on the same route as you. Your job is to design things and build up your ship to survive and destroy/disable the other one so you are the only people capable of arriving at your destination.
If you're interested and want to play but the rules seem daunting, join in anyways, and don't be afraid to ask the GM or fellow players as you go!
Author
Topic: Arks Race (Jump 1) (Read 3567 times)