The Galaxy Awaits ... Choose Your Path!

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

About how long do you estimate before we're ready for jump drives?

A good question actually and one I was considering earlier today.  Jump Theory is in the 'on the radar but not an immediate task' category at the moment.  I'd actually like to post the next year's update(which is ready and will be up a bit later) as some of the info that's in it sheds a bit of light on this question, and then answer it more completely.

Jay Cin II has been accepted into the queue, thanks!

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

2038

Early Feb. – The JupSat team completes it’s survey of Callisto.  They found a major Uridium deposit(2.53mt) but only 0.1 accessible.  The team heads to Carpo next.  No word yet from the Venus team.  

Small asteroid deposits continue to be found, but nothing significant yet.  

Feb 26th – Ignacio Bravo’s team completes work on Cryogenic Transport.

March 3rd – The final piece of the puzzle clicks into place as the CNT-25-4 engine prototype is approved for production.  Soon afterward, the engineers come up with four new blueprints ...

Essex II - class Geological Survey Vessel
Speed: 1136 km/s(16.7 times faster than the current Essex)
Range: 35.9 billion km(5.8 times further, the entirety of the system is now within it’s reach)
Size: 2200 tons(40% smaller)
Cost: 185(8% cheaper)

Lexington II - class Shuttle Transport
Speed: 1388(17.8 times faster)
Range: 43.9 billion(6.2 times farther)
Size: 1800(43.8% smaller)
Cost: 64.2(6.1% cheaper)

Spruance - class Colony Ship
Twin CNT-25-4 Engines and capacity for 50,000 colonists in cryostasis.
Speed: 295 km/s – Saturn is a 5-6 week trip each way, approximately.  
Range: 4.7 billion(there’s nothing habitable that far away, so more fuel would be redundant at this point).
Cost: 654.6, takes nearly two years to build
Size: 16,850

Fletcher-class Freighter
15,000 tons of cargo space for carrying ... whatever, twin engines
Speed: 257
Range: 2.7 bkm – enough to go to Saturn and back nearly twice.    
Cost: 180.4
Size: 19,400

The Fletcher was the one that really got debated a lot here.  It would be nice to design one that could reach the outer edges of the system but to do that in a reasonable time frame, even quad engines wasn't enough and the cost etc. really started going through the roof ... it was decided that a freighter going that far really needs to wait until the next generation.  Crawl before we can walk.  

They also wanted to call it the Enterprise.  Really, a freighter?  No.  Just no.  

March – Nothing found on Carpo or Sinope.  Jupiter is pretty much a dead planet to us, resource-wise.  

April – Tod & MacGregor has expanded to 20k capacity.  

June – Boronide deposits are depleted on Earth.  It’s not being used much right now, and with almost 10k in reserve, it’s not something to get concerned about.  Yet.  

LC Roger Wilco graduates – Fleet Movement Initative 210, 10% pol. reliability, 15% fighter combat, 20% mining, 10% figher operations, 10% intelligence, 20% logistics.  The multi-talented Wilco is expected to do great things, astronomy geek, candid, good judge of character, motivated.

Sam Baker's crew training is now up to 100.

Late August – FT Victoria, first ship in the Fletcher class, completed.  Retooling begins for the Spruance class(this would later turn out to be a miscalculation, more freighters should have been built first).    

Oct. 20 – Ouellet Shipping lauches Ouellet small class 1 freighter ... it's nearly twice as fast as the Fletcher .  

Nov – ST Wayne sets course for Titan as the JupSat team will next complete work on the Saturn moons, hoping for a better result than was found in Jupiter. Incredibly, this journey is expected to last only 11 days.  They arrive on the 22nd.

Mid-December – The Venus team completes it’s survey, and finds nothing new.  This is disappointing, but rather expected.  They are sent back to Earth, and from there they will work on surveying the several asteroid finds that the survey vessels have pinpointed so far.

As the year ends, P&A Group Shipyard reports it is ready for the Essex II vessels to begin to be built.  Two will be constructed concurrently, the Amerigo Vespucci and the Lief Ericson.  Also, ?Sam Baker improves his training again to 125, and Ken McKay’s political reliability is now up to 10%

** OOC:  At this point the updates will slow down in pace a fair bit.  Partly because the next week or so is heavy on work for me, partly because as more and more things are going on it will take a little longer and I need to be methodical and make sure all the ships and production orders are doing what they need to be doing.  I'm also going to change the reporting a bit starting with the next one to make it easier to follow what all is happening on an annual basis.

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

Now back to answer the question about jump drives, as I think the Fletcher and Spruance vessels enlighten that.  I think we're a generation of tech away from really being able to use jump drives if we had them.  Then there's several steps to get there of course(theory, grav survey ship, jump ships, etc.).  Optimistically 10, realistically more like 15 years is my best guess.  It does depend somewhat on what happens with the rest of the surveying of Sol. 

Right now(game date is Jan. 1 of 1939 just as we're updated to) the mineral situation is basically this:  with a considerable time and investment, Venus will eventually take care of the duranium problem.  But it won't be quick, largely because we have a limited number of automated mines and can't build many more -- corundium is the biggest mineral supply issue at 6.2k(some being used to build automines) and only 600 more to mine on earth.  Venus will trickle in what it trickles in at 0.1 accessibility, and here's the rest of what's available:

Isolda -- 42(1)
Erminia -- 792(1)

Yep, that's it.  There's now a total of about 7k corundium in existence at reasonable extraction rates.  How the surveying goes will determine what course of action is taken(and how imminently important the idea of exploring new star systems becomes). 

[Brainsucker]

Should Roger Wilco jump to apply for the Fletcher captain candidacy? or whatever ship that commissioned recently? How big is the competition to get the job in the SPACE? who is my competitor and what should I do to get the job? He even willing to cheat in the test (reference to Star Quest V, an old game from Sierra), to get him out of his daily janitor job. Tell me if he has even has a chance to get his own ship.

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

Sign-up char updates will be later tonight, but the Fletcher already has a not-you Captain .  I will spoiler though that I think you have a very good chance to get your own ship, just not yet. 

[OAM47]

Even though my char is military, not political, I put in my vote for "we need to leave the system ASAP, if not sooner*"

*That being said, we of course need to develop the technology to make it feasible to use, too, like engines.

That's typically how I play, though.  Generally I have all JPs scouted before even Saturn's moons are fully surveyed.  Can't say for sure if it's served me any better than those that fully develop Sol first.  Probably depends on your definition of "better".

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

I think it makes sense strategically to know more about the surrounding community in galactic terms.  My research goals are being governed by the idea that necessity is the mother of invention -- I'm not going for costly projects(with 6 labs, 5k for Jump Theory is a very costly project, TNT is the only one I've done for that much) unless they are deemed critical when there's a lot of more basic research to do in other areas.  That's also why(along with the war hangover humanity has) research isn't going into military techs much yet. 

Right now it's a case of why go through that when we don't know what's on a lot of the Sol system bodies.  If we don't find corundium(and neutronium is a problem also) soon, it's going to be very painful and that could make jump theory come sooner rather than later.

FWIW. 

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

Cmdr. Ken McKay -- 11th out of 14, junior member of the Venus Geology Team, which is no longer on Venus but transiting back to earth onboard the ST Valencia.  From there they will board one of the new, faster Lexington-II transports and survey various asteroids in the inner system. 
Cmdr. Sam Baker -- 4th, CO GEV George Ogden Abdell, assigned to surveying the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter orbits. 
Lt. Cmdr. Roger Wilco -- 4th out of 42, has a bright future, unassigned but presently 5th in line to receive a command.

Jay Cin II is on the waiting list.

Col. Benjamin Berkeley -- 4th out of 34, still with the 4th Low Tech Infantry Battalion

Karabishi Juishao has yet to be given a research assignment.  Space is very limited.

[OAM47]

Oh yeah, I meant to ask that question in my earlier post *facepalm*.  What's the likelyhood of making more research labs in the near future.  They're pretty expensive, but definitely a good investment.  Are we low on the mineral they need besides duranium too?

[Mel Vixen]

First: I like to commision one of your Civvie shipping lines if you can somehow rename it "Space transports International". Maybe later a CEO (govener) of a mining world (mining 20%+).

Secondly: Now that you have engines for it you could build a small fighter squadron with space for 10 people and a geosensor. It would be cheaper and faster then the big ships. The same goes for Jumppoint-scouts saving you some R&D. You can get also more hulls and training for your commanders that way.

With a much smaller transport you could also jumpstart some private shipping given that you etablish a maned colony somewhere, say on Mars. The civ-sector production of infrastructure should then take care of the rest if you go with mars or another low-cost target.

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

Oh yeah, I meant to ask that question in my earlier post *facepalm*.  What's the likelyhood of making more research labs in the near future.  They're pretty expensive, but definitely a good investment.  Are we low on the mineral they need besides duranium too?

That's being done.  About 10% of earth's industrial production has been dedicated to that since like forever, and it's been upped to 20-25% most of the time recently.  Thankfully we aren't low on mercassium, so more and more it's becoming one of the few things we can actually afford to make .  We originally had 5, now are about to finish the 7th, with more coming every 2-3 years at the current rate. 

Heph:  No problem on the first.  Do you have a name you'd like to use? -- I can just put you in as the next admin with 20% mining or something. 

I'm completely not understanding what you are after on the fighter thing.  I can't fit everything I would need on a 500-ton ship even with a tiny engine(leaving aside the exploity nature of it, at least from an RP standpoint). 

Also, what's the point of making a colony on Mars when there's no resources there?  Yes I can jumpstart the civilian lines, and maybe they make enough infrastructure for Mars, but I don't need it there I need it on more difficult places. 

[Mel Vixen]

The value of civvies for you, apart from additional income, is that the civvies build freigters. Those you can use to transport your Mines to the outskirts of the system with a civ conrtact. The best target is normaly the moon netting the civivies a ton of money which they use to buy more ships to move stuff around. 


For the fighters you could go with something like this:

 50 ton engine
 20 ton fuelstorage (2x small)
 25 ton tiny engineering space
 50 ton crewquarters
150 Ton geosensor
150 ton jump engine ( 600t displacement at Jump efficiency 4)

In sum that makes a hull with ~450tons depneding on your armor-tech. These fighters should have a 12 month deployment + additional Spareberths for a team of geologists. They are also cheaper then your average survey vessel and can be build in a fighter factory.

Since you can assign commanders to those fighters you can keep your "navy" chars in the loop giving them some experience.

Oh and the name should be "Herman Fox" if male or "Liska Sattler" if female.

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

Well on the fighter idea I actually can't do what you have for most of the components.  I can't make a tiny engineering space(not researched), the sensors are 250 tons by themselves, ship is at 500 tons without adding an engine or space for the geology team. 

I'm not sure(I'm still new), but perhaps I've not been clear enough on exactly how crap our tech level is right now?

I think both ideas are good from a gameplay standpoint, but not good from the standpoint of rp which drives a lot of my decisions in this game.

I'll keep an eye out for an appropriate char for you. 

[Mel Vixen]

I have build the thing with crappy tech (except armor) here - your right its 50 ton overweight . Anyway i am looking forward to it and Rp comes always first

[Bryan Swartz (OP)]

** The new format is a shameless ripoff of Paul M, and I think it will work better as it makes it easier to organize events now that we are gradually getting more and more happen each year.  For now I'm going to stick with annual updates**

2039 IN REVIEW

Sol Survey Efforts

The Rater team(Miquel Rater, formerly known as the Venus team) departs on the ST Marengo(Cmdr. Pitianello) in late January.    They first make for Apollo in their tour on inner-system asteroids with confirmed deposits by orbital scans.  With the new engines in place, it takes only 20 hours ...

A decent find was discovered in April on the asteroid Chernykh, with 40k vendarite and 20k+ gallicite.  Unfortunately not what we need right now.  In June, several minerals were discovered on the Whipple comet, including 11k Duranium and 16k Mercassium.  No corundium or neutronium yet.  

Sept. 13th – The Leif Ericson and Amerigo Vespucci are christened.  Commander Lucas Marini, the brightest young star in the navy at this point, takes the first and head to Uranus to survey that system.  The previously unreachable(for a manned mission) seventh planet would take less than a month to approach.  Un-freaking-believable.  The latter vessel goes to Jon McElveen(previously on the Valencia, which LTC Besler will take over) and heads to Neptune.  

Oct. 16th – The report from Uranus is in: 18.2mt of Sorium at 1.0.  We won’t lack for fuel in the near future, that’s for sure – though that isn’t our problem at the moment.  A search of the moons followed ... a small amount of Gallicite was found on Stephano, and that was it.  Sigh.  The Lief Ericson went in search of more targets in the outer system ...

November – More Sorium, only 1.5mt at half accessibility, found on Neptune.  It’s very unlikely we’ll develop that as Uranus and Saturn seem much better long-term targets.  On the 10th, the Neptune moons’ surveys were completed, and there was some much better news.  Triton contains 475k duranium(0.8 ), 553k corbomite at 0.9, and lesser amounts of some others.  The corbomite find is worth noting because, while it’s not a need right now, we haven’t found it anywhere else in quantity off of earth.  It’s not worth the extreme cost of developing right now – but it certainly could be in the near future.  

At the same time, a report came in from the comet Borrelly – good-accessibility Duranium(18k at 0.9) and even better Neutronium(44k at 0.8 ) was found along with several others.  Borrelly gives us a short-to-medium range solution to the problem of neutronium for shipyard
operations etc.  Since there’s duranium there as well, moving automated mines from Venus(though not all of them) seems productive.   Orders were immediately sent for a new mass driver and for automines to be split between Venus and Borrelly as soon as a team could be deployed there.  

December —  Less than a month after it's discovery, the Borrelly deposits got downgraded in importance as the Schaumasse comet yielded ... a number of things, but most importantly 19k corundium at 1.0!  Everything else on earth stopped.  A mass driver and as many automines as could be hauled by the Victoria were sent immediately.  

Commissioned Officers

Jan 27th – Lt. Cmdr. Jay Cin II graduates.  
Fleet Movement Initiative:  177
Bonuses:  15% Fighter Operations, 10% Fighter Combat, 10% Communications
Personality Traits:  Many social interests, wealthy, motivated

A solid officer, not superlative but not bad either.  

Feb – Another purge sees two dozen more officers get canned.  This time the majority are from the army.       

May – Sam Baker’s political reliability is up to 15%.  

As it might take a while to get an appropriate administrator, I've drafted an existing low-level one.  Herman Fox was commissioned in December of 2034, or just over five years ago.  Despite being multitalented, he's done nothing due to the lack of opportunities so far -- and his limitation when it comes to oversight.

Administration:  1
Bonuses:  25% Mining, 15% Shipbuilding + Factory Production, 10% Population Growth + Logistics, 5% Wealth Creation
Personality Traits:  Disciplined

Venus Colonization

The first automated mine arrives on March 20th.  In July, the mass driver starts shipping back very small amounts to Earth.  By the end of the year, Venus sits at 6 automated mines, allowing annual production of a little under 200 tons combined.  A very paltry contribution, but we've just started.  It has 24 infrastructure, as the freighter has been busy hauling mines(and will be even more so with the new discoveries).  

Venus has been shuffled to the back burner, probably for quite some time.

Earth Industry

April 25 – Ground Force Training Facility Completed(Earth)

July – Conventional Industry conversions halted.  Still over 27% remains, but it is clear that right now mining will not keep up with industry as it is due to lack of good deposits.  Work on the third commercial shipyard has also been paused for the same reason.  Rapidly we are running out of things to usefully do.  Director Dungey orders an independent review over the last months of the year to evaluate options.  

September – Earth inches over 700m total population.  

Research

Sep. 25 – Sanko Matar’s team completes marginally useful research on increasing power plant output – while also making the things more likely to blow up if they ever get him in combat.  I’m not so sure about that one.  Meanwhile, a seventh research lab is completed, allowing Clint Wyche to begin a study on improving fuel efficiency further.

Special Update

As it impacts on multiple areas ...

December -- Following the Borrelly and Schaumasse finds, an interesting factoid is discovered:  every single comet surveyed so far(five of them) has yielded results.  Most asteroids have not, and those that have were in much smaller amounts.  Therefore the scheduled review is delayed and the survey ships(Essex and Essex II's) have been order to expend every possible effort to survey the remaining comets as soon as possible.  When their initial scans are complete, SPACE will have some decisions to make, decisions that are likely to be highly painful.  

As of now, 5 of 25 comets have been surveyed.  Of the remaining twenty, four(Ikeya-Zang, Hale-Bopp, McNaught-Russell, and Brooks) are at an obscene range(15b km or more) but the others should be able to be 'caught' or are incoming.  Thirteen of the twenty spend most or all of their orbit within range of the Fletcher-class freighters, so if more mineral deposits are found, it is likely we will be able to act on them.