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[Chiefwaffles]

Core Thread

It's been finally done. All those sacrifices and years of planning and preparations have finally paid off. The Consortium has gained full control of Ark 2 and the only other vessel capable of chasing us has been subject of quite a few unscheduled demolitions. No castaways have been found, and it looks like the Ark systems will remain functional for the time being. Unfortunately, intercepted communications as we left indicates that the Company plans on catching up with us by the first stop.
You've been assembled from the crew as the team of the best engineers in the Consortium. You're shuttled into a reinforced-glass room at the top of the ship with a wonderful view of the stars and space passing by the ship as it slips through space. Plenty of terminals accessing the Ark's limited computing systems and comms lines to the rest of the new crew are present here, giving you the perfect tools to do your job.

The Arks were intended to launch with extra supplies at the beginning, so the Navigational Computer states that the next stop is at Jump 3. We'll have three jumps to ourselves before we stop at a proper "stopping point" with resources we can mine - Jump 0 (this one), Jump 1, and Jump 2. We made sure to "borrow" some more materials before we launched, so we should have about the same amount as the Company's Ark.


You have your task. In three jumps, we'll encounter the enemy's ark. They'll be hostile, but by then we'll be ready. We'll turn this unfinished Ark into something to behold.

10 Dice
500 Advanced Plastics
500 Noble Gases
500 Uranics
1,000 Hydrogen
1,000 Metals
1,500 Non-Metals

Spoiler: Ark 2 (click to show/hide)

Ark 2
5/12 Power available
2/5 Life Support Capacity available
4/10 Skeleton Space available (500 Metals & 500 Non-Metals required for next +2 expansion)

Modules
(Green integrity indicates the module is working at full effectiveness; Orange indicates partial effectiveness; and Red indicates the Module is offline.)

• [100%] X-05 Auxiliary Fusion Reactor
  +12 Power;   -1 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
  Consumes 100 Hydrogen/Jump
  A Tokamak Fusion Reactor. Intended originally to be the auxiliary reactor to the primary power source (which is not installed), the X-05 is specially stable: designed to continue operations despite degradation from wear-and-tear. It can lower output according to damage, translating current integrity directly to current power produce compared to max power possible. Shuts down at 20% integrity.
  50 Advanced Plastics, 100 Uranics, 400 Metal, 200 Non-Metal
• [100%] Emergency Life Support
  -3 Power;   +5 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
  When launched, the Ark didn't have its own dedicated Life Support systems and was still relying on an umbilical to the shipyard. The ELS represents the existing small amount of Life Support Equipment hastily put together to keep the ship's atmosphere sustained until it reaches Eden, as long as only a relatively small amount of crew members are thawed at any one time.
  100 Metal, 200 Non-Metal
• [100%] Ion Thrusters
  -1 Power;   -0 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
  Thrusters with their own self-contained fuel tanks expected to last the entire trip, using external power for most of the propulsion. Can move the ship, but very slowly.
  10 Advanced Plastics, 100 Noble Gases, 200 Metal, 100 Non-Metal
• [100%] Mining Bay
  -1 Power;   -1 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
  Produces 100 Noble Gases, 100 Uranics, 200 Hydrogen, 200 Metals, and 300 Non-Metals / Jump
  A small hangar and a few tiny piloted mining ships to extract resources from only material sources with little to no gravity present.
  50 Uranics, 50 Noble Gases, 400 Metal, 400 Non-Metal
• [100%] Cryovault
  -1 Power;   -1 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
  A place where skilled crewmembers are frozen, ready to be thawed when needed; and also where our thawed crewmembers live. If below 50% integrity, we will not be able to man new crew-requiring modules. Due to advanced backups, this module cannot be destroyed.
  500 Metal, 1,000 Non-Metal
• [100%] Cargo Bay
  -1 Power;   0 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
  A depressurized large cargo bay with dedicated storage for each resource type and requiring EVA suits to access. Stores 1,500 of each resource.
  400 Metal, 600 Non-Metal

Spoiler: Other Designs (click to show/hide)

Array

Spoiler: Projects (click to show/hide)

Array

The Design Phase of Jump 0 has begun. Due to extra supplies and motivation, we will have 10 dice per turn (but cannot bank any of these 10 dice) for Jumps 0, 1, and 2.
You may also vote on a new name for your Ark, and a new name for the Consortium (if you wish) as we don't have to be in hiding anymore.

[Thanik]

Posting to notify you I'm joining the Consortium. Any chance of us renaming the faction?

[FallacyofUrist]

To the Catsortium, yes.

Hey Chief. Can we do nuclear weaponry? What about bio-modding?

[Doubloon-Seven]

Brothers and Sisters of the Consortium. The time has come. We have no reason to hide, and our glory will shine through the heavens proclaiming the victory of Justice over the Corrupt!

In this, our vessel shall be christened with a name befitting of its importance to all of human history! Brothers and Sisters, welcome to the Starvessel Havoc.

Yet it is not just our hammer of deliverance that will be reborn, but us as well. The Consortium is no more, for we are Freemen Eternal!


With that out of the way, any ideas?

[Jilladilla]

I personally hate the concept of megacorps. So as such I will throw my support behind the Consortium! And yeah, we can rename it; but I do not have a name. (I'm terrible at naming ok?)

Anyway, we more or less have 3 designs to work out this turn, and another 2 turns to work out some designs before first contact. So any suggestions?

My suggestions:
I noticed our Mining Bay includes piloted mining ships; so a Hangar Bay for strike craft should be simple enough.
Maybe have armor plating involved in here somewhere?
Of course, some personal weaponry would be good to have also.

I thought of a name: This ship is the Anvil upon which a brighter future is forged upon!

[FallacyofUrist]

First of all, our Mining Bay is very low-quality. We'll be much better off in the long run if we upgrade it. Better mining pods would help, as would expanding the hangar.

We need some kind of offense. While missiles, lasers, mass accelerators and whatnot may work, what I would love to do is boarding pods. If we can get our crew members(or drones if we don't want to waste crew) on board their ship, we can cause untold of havoc.

Steal their resources! Sabotage their systems! Deliver computer viruses and biological plagues!

And if we can get a team far enough inside Ark 1... we can attack their Slipdrive!

FE-J0 "Hammer" Breaching Pod:
The Hammer is a spacecraft designed for one purpose: to breach the hull of the enemy Ark and deliver a living payload of our crew, ready to sabotage their ship!

The Hammer is a large cylinder-shaped pod crafted primarily of various metals, mainly the latest specialized alloys. Or whatever we can scrounge up. The Hammer uses hydrogen-based fuel to maneuver, but these maneuvers are only capable of changing direction, not actually propelling the pod forwards.

This is because the Hammer is basically a giant bullet, fired out of our new ship module, the Magnetic Accelerator, a magnetic cannon that acts like a railgun, using electromagnetic force to propel the Hammer pods at high speeds. The hydrogen fuel jets just allow the Hammer to perform a degree of self-aiming before impact.

The Hammer's velocity is high enough to enable it to pierce the hull of the enemy ship. The pod's front then detaches, deploying eight or so of our crew members into the enemy ship. From there? Well, they can cause all sorts of havoc.
~~~
FE-J0 "Extreme Excavation" Blast Mining System:
We can do a lot better than the tiny mining ships we have right now and the tiny hangar they use. Our new Extreme Excavation system uses high explosives to blast away large amounts of material from whatever asteroid we mine. From there, we still use the tiny mining ships, but they now use large carbon nanotube nets to ensnare the blasted material. This should allow us to collect much more material than normal, and as a bonus should let us sabotage the enemy mining efforts.

[Doubloon-Seven]

Defense should not be forgotten, lest we pay the price.

'Kestrel' Point Defense Laser
The Kestrel is a short-ranged pulsed laser weapon, designed to take out incoming missiles and shells before they impact our ship's hull. It has a passive sensor bank that allows it to keep track of all objects within range above a few centimeters in height, and an active sensor system that tracks the nearest object to itself to aid in firing upon it. It is capable of detecting friendly fighter craft by having them emit signals on a specific identification frequency. All other objects will be fired upon automatically, unless firing is overruled electronically. As the system is automated, it does not require a human operator.

[FallacyofUrist]

We should also note that we currently have to deal with a lot of poor quality modules.

We're using an auxiliary fusion reactor as our main one. Our cargo bay is depressurized. We're on emergency life support. We have no means of moving our ship quickly other than the Slipdrive.

We have a lot of work to do.

[frostgiant]

FE-J0 "Laceration" Shrapnel Cannon:
The Laceration is a weapon designed to damage unarmoured hull components,  Unarmoured hull and any for of launched craft that the corporate scum might create is their attempt to stop us .
The laceration Fires a reasonable large munition, the size of the average mans torso, This munition is a shaped explosive charge, designed to detonate upon impact with a target or after travelling a set distance (typically after a few kilometers of flight depending on how near the enemy target is) Upon detonation the laceration munition propels hundreds of pieces of shrapnel, with the intent to shred unarmoured targets and fliers. The charge's effect has been compared to a shotgun shell by some of the design team.
The blast is shaped so that all shrapnel that comes off of the munition has no ability to flew backward, and thus back towards the Ark.

Early design meant to mangle unarmoured Weapon systems and hulls, while later it can double as a anti fighter/drone weapon system.
I agree we need better Mining systems. We could also serve to increase the effectiveness of our life-support, shouldn't be too hard.

[Doubloon-Seven]

The Hammer, while cool, seems like a great way to continually send our limited crew on suicide missions. Maybe killdrones instead?

P-01 Stellarator
Using an alternate approach to fusion power, the Stellarator's plasma channels follow a twisting path that reduces instabilities found in Tokamaks, allowing the power plant to devote more energy to the actual fusion process. With the upscaled reactor and Stellarator configuration that reduces power loss, the P-01 should provide more "bang"--just kidding PJ we do not want our reactors to explode--for our Transuranic "buck".

Designs
Extreme Excavation: (2) FallacyofUrist, DoubloonSeven
Hammer: (1) FallacyofUrist
Kestrel: (1) DoubloonSeven
Laceration: (1) Frostgiant
Stellarator: (1) DoubloonSeven
-----
Ship Names
Havoc: (1) DoubloonSeven
Anvil: (1) Jilladilla
-----
Group Names
Eternal Freemen: (1) DoubloonSeven

[FallacyofUrist]

Hm. Killdrones...

The pod itself is a good idea. We just need a supporting design for killdrones.

FE-J0 "Deathball" Killdrone:

The Deathball is as simple as it goes. It's a rolling sphere shaped drone, 1 meter diameter. Every bit of it that isn't used for receiving a control signal and navigation and movement is packed full of high explosives. When the Hammer delivers a pack of them onto the enemy ship, they can be remotely controlled and maneuvered to exactly where we need them to go to cause maximum internal destruction.

[Doubloon-Seven]

Well, uh, please add that to the vote list. Also, the original Hammer still wouldn't work. We don't have an armory, so we have no guns.

[FallacyofUrist]

Well, uh, please add that to the vote list. Also, the original Hammer still wouldn't work. We don't have an armory, so we have no guns.

We could certainly make guns. It's not like the Deathball needs them, though.

I would certainly add the Deathball to the vote list... next Jump. Extreme Excavation is more important than the Deathball, and we get 10 dice for the first 3 jumps. I would do Extreme Excavation and Hammer for J0. We can then do the Deathball and another core design(either better life support or fusion reactor) J1. J2 then gets one more design(maybe core, maybe some kind of defense) and revisions to make the earlier designs work better.

We can afford to think long term right now.

[Doubloon-Seven]

I'd prefer to get the Reactor done as early as possible, so we have more power available without having to devote time to basic things during combat jumps.

[crazyabe]

I'll Join THIS side.