>>6019359
>A remote but resource rich system; your ship yard supports your own mining operation which drastically reduces material costs. However you will have fewer trade opportunities and “impulse buys”, securing repeat business with reliable clients will be key to success.

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>>6019359
What kind of ship yard is it? (You can expand or retool the ship yard later, so don’t worry about being locked into a single setup.)

>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>An orbital complex with four medium sized berths and small factory; allows you take on multiple orders for frigate sized ships and make limited production runs of small shuttle/strike craft. Good for courting smaller buyers and/or developing bespoke designs for discerning clients.
>A large factory complex with a single “oversized” hanger bay. You can construct a single frigate class hull in your primary hanger but your bread and butter will be filling bulk orders of small craft and/or components. There’s no shortage of clients but the market is cut throat, out doing your clients in terms of cost, innovation or quality will be key to staying afloat.

What types of ships do you specialise in building? (Can be expanded upon as we go so don’t worry about being locked into a specific niche.)

>Civilian ships; your catalogue offers some existing designs with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Your initial technology base can’t be called cutting edge, but you’ll be more attractive to clients who prefer good value for money over bells and whistles.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.

>Exotic Tech; your catalogue includes some innovative designs that don’t quite have an equivalent on the market. However, none of your ships truly fill an existing niche and your R&D team don’t know the meaning of “boring but practical”. Courting traditional buyers will be harder, but you are better positioned to break into emerging markets.

>>6019359
>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.

>>6019364
>A large factory complex with a single “oversized” hanger bay. You can construct a single frigate class hull in your primary hanger but your bread and butter will be filling bulk orders of small craft and/or components. There’s no shortage of clients but the market is cut throat, out doing your clients in terms of cost, innovation or quality will be key to staying afloat.

Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.

>>6019359
>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.

>>6019364
>An orbital complex with four medium sized berths and small factory; allows you take on multiple orders for frigate sized ships and make limited production runs of small shuttle/strike craft. Good for courting smaller buyers and/or developing bespoke designs for discerning clients.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction

>>6019364
>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.

>>6019359
>Yours is the official ship yard of an independent colony that has decided to expand its orbital industry. You will have a steady client with the colony itself and the support of other entities owned by the colony. However while you have a certain amount of autonomy you will be expected to prioritize the colony’s ship orders first.

>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>Military ships; your catalogue consists mostly of warships. Military ships are lucrative, but polarizing. Depending on who you sell to you will quickly make friends and enemies. Unless you are very savvy when managing clients, you may very well find your survival tied to a single faction.

>>6019364
>Yours is the official ship yard of an independent colony that has decided to expand its orbital industry. You will have a steady client with the colony itself and the support of other entities owned by the colony. However while you have a certain amount of autonomy you will be expected to prioritize the colony’s ship orders first.

>A single large capital class dry dock; initially you will only be able to construct one large ship at a time. This is high risk/high reward; capital ships have a much higher upfront cost, there is a chance that investors might flake half way through the construction, however each successful project will grant huge rewards.

>Civilian ships; your catalogue offers some existing designs with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Your initial technology base can’t be called cutting edge, but you’ll be more attractive to clients who prefer good value for money over bells and whistles.

>>6019359

>A bustling trade route; it is easier to pick up contracts here especially short-term ones. Doing business will be more expensive as raw materials will have to be bought and shipped in. The trade route means that currency will have more purchasing power and there will be more opportunity to acquire technologies and favours through trade.

>An orbital complex with four medium sized berths and small factory; allows you take on multiple orders for frigate sized ships and make limited production runs of small shuttle/strike craft. Good for courting smaller buyers and/or developing bespoke designs for discerning clients.

>Civilian ships; your catalogue offers some existing designs with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Your initial technology base can’t be called cutting edge, but you’ll be more attractive to clients who prefer good value for money over bells and whistles.

>>6019363
>>6019365
>>6019367
>>6019373
>>6019386
>>6019392
>>6019393
>>6019412

Tallying Votes:

Trade Route: 3
Remote Resources: 1
Indy Colony: 2

Capital Class Dry Dock: 3
Medium Berths: 2
Large Factory: 1

Civilian: 2
Military: 4
Exotic: 0

Okay Capital Class Military Drydock along a bustling route is locked in. Not the most synergistic combo, but at least it will be interesting.

Now comes the fun part:

>Writing...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n_8lPu3DZM&list=PLLIWYDpOq7WJYefSkcfYujE5JaLmB0Ezf&index=3

Your name is Jack Horner and you had a dream: affordable capital ships for everyone! Why should these beauties be the domain of large stellar nations!? Why should only the likes of the Solar Union or the Major Clans enjoy the awesome power of a capital class warship? People had called you insane. “You want to manage not only an independent capital class ship yard, but one that makes warships!? Good luck finding clients, and even if you do, good luck not pissing off one of the regional powers.”

Well somehow you’d done it: through a combination of getting a really good deal on a derelict orbital platform and successfully cheating in certain high stakes gambling dens you now had yourself a ship yard and the accompanying staff. JH Independent Ship Works was now open for business baby! Located in the neutral trade system of Car’Cass you were poised to carve out a share of the independent warship market… if it even existed.

It had been a month since you officially opened for business and started marketing your yards sole proprietary design: the Enforcer. You’ve received some interest in the design but no bites yet. But today, finally you walked into your office to find something in your message buffer that wasn’t spam or didn’t begin with “We regret to inform you”.

JOBS! Actual jobs! And more than one too, unfortunately having only a single dry dock meant you could only take one, let’s see here:

>cont

>>6019464
A commission from the Saurian Clan Margathon. One of the minor saurian clans is asking your shipyard to manufacture a cruiser of their own design for them. They will supply the schematics and you will build it to spec. Intriguing, humans traded with the lizards all the time but it was practically unheard of for them to commission another species to build them a ship. You probably wouldn’t get any new tech out of the deal either, but it’s something. They were also offering to pay you in Margathon Scrip, not the strongest currency out there.

The next offer comes from some guy called Galatan Starwind. He requires an advanced prototype capital class warship to-quote-“give me an edge in battle, be a mobile bachelor pad, and house my battle harem.” Your Enforcer class patrol cruiser was none of those things, but that’s what he offered to buy, and he’s offering to pay up front in Solar Credits.

Finally you have an order from the “Empire of Raiha”. The Imperial house wishes to commission your shipyard to design a bespoke vessel to be the flagship of their glorious space navy. You run a quick check on the infonet; turns out this Empire of Raiha was once a medium sized interstellar nation that fell apart, regressed to pre-space levels of tech and were only now clawing their way back to the stars. Grandiose airs aside they were offering to pay you in common matter to both design and build them their ship.

>cont

>>6019464
Background info to consider:

Common Matter: Iron, Nickel and other abundant elements, usually formed into ingots fitting some kind of metric standard. Undeniably useful as they make up the base materials for various alloys and components. Almost every faction and race place some value on common matter, however its bulk makes them a poor medium of exchange for entities incapable of storing or transporting them.

Saurian Clan Scrip: Currency used for trading between the Saurian Clans. Each clan issues their own scrip, but generally all clans will accept the scrip of all other clans as payment. It’s still worth keeping track of which clan you have scrip for since if the issuing clan is disbanded or falls out of favour it’s scrip will become worthless. Aside from Saurians themselves, most other factions value scrip to trade in it but acceptance wanes the further away you are from Saurian space.

Solar Credit: The currency of the Solar Union, one of the most powerful human factions in the galactic neighbourhood. Naturally trades well within the Union itself, most human factions will accept Solar credits, as will aliens who regularly do business with the Union. However, considering that the Solar Union’s doctrine of “humanity first” such aliens are few and far between.

What to do?
>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

>Give Galatan Starwind his Enforcer. He seems to have the wrong idea about what it’s capable of but he’s still placing an order. Part of you wonders whether you should tell him that he’s making a mistake but he’s offering 3 million Solar Credits upfront.

>Build a warship worthy of Raiha. You have to wonder if this resurgent Empire will be able to pay you through to the project’s end but it is an opportunity to stretch your R&D department and show the galaxy what you’re really capable of. 100,000 Solar tons of common matter is nothing to sneeze at even though it will be hard to fit in your pocket.

>>6019469
>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

This one seems like it has the least chance of going completely belly-up in terms of payment at least. I can easily see Galatan Starwind throwing a giant fit about his ship not being what he wants, and the so-called resurgent empire defaulting on their payment.

Pissing off the Solar Union is bad, but money comes first, and we can always just grovel a little like a good ól human.

>>6019469
>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

>>6019469
How much are the various currencies worth in relation to each other, and how much did it cost us to produce the ship in the first place? 3 Million strong solar Credits might easily be worth more then 5 Million in a scrip that could instantly depreciate.

I'd say:
>Give Galatan Starwind his Enforcer. He seems to have the wrong idea about what it’s capable of but he’s still placing an order. Part of you wonders whether you should tell him that he’s making a mistake but he’s offering 3 million Solar Credits upfront.

And whilst the shipyard is busy with starting making this pre-existing model, perhaps our R&D boys can look into the design phase of the Raiha commission for 10-20% of the total fee upfront as 'Design and Feasibility assessment'? It'll give us some idea of what they want, what we can build for them, and how reliable they're likely to be as clients. And even if it doesn't go forward into construction, we'll at least stretch our RD theoretical muscles and have some design schematics to pass to them.

Plus, I don't think we want to be taking their payment in matter all at once in any case.

>>6019483
>How much are the various currencies worth in relation to each other,
Saurain Scrip in general is roughly equal in value to Solar Credits within the region of the galaxy your ship yard is based. However there is an important caveat. Clan Margathon is a minor clan, in theory they are paying a very good price, but given how the value of their scrip is directly tied to the prosperity of their clan the value of their currency is potentially the most volatile.

The fact that they came to you: an alien and an outsider for this ship is highly unusual.

>>6019469

>Accept the commission from Clan Margathon. You will be paid 5 million Margathon Clan Scrip. Technically the most straight forward job, but the value of Saurian scrip might be shakey and doing business with the lizards might anger the Solar Union.

Fun idea for a quest. Also, a job is a job - earning a reputation for “irregular” work might be worth the risk of payment in an uncertain currency.

We might also consider that there might be a market for a currency exchange here - we’re in a busy trade route, lots of traffic here. Perhaps a way for us to pad our bottom line

>>6019476
>>6019482
>>6019483
>>6019485
>>6019492

Margathon: 3
Galatan: 1

Calling the vote early because I want to update before bed and leave it overnight. Going forward I will try to update at least once a day. If you're lucky you'll get extra updates.

Looks like we're accepting alien lizard money. Although I will allow an attempt at securing the Raiha deal since that might open up a fun sub-plot.

>Writing...

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>>6019522
The commission for Clan Margathon’s ship seems like the least dubious, which is saying something. Still, at this stage you’ll take whatever business you could get. You send a reply to the Clan to tell them you’ll take the job.

-------------------

A month later a small saurian cargo ship arrives carrying a small team of scientists and engineers from Clan Margathon. The plan is for them to supervise construction and ensure any proprietary Clan tech is not retained by your company after the project is completed. Clan Margathon gives you a down payment of 2 million scrip upon construction start, promising you the remainder once the ship is complete.

>Gained 2Mil Margathon Scrip

----------------

The Raihan Imperial Navy is rather miffed that you chose to fill another order instead of their own. They are still willing to engage your services but are unwilling to give any payment until you show them a preliminary design. The submitted design specifications are:
>Must have enough firepower to best any modern line cruiser. (Tough, but doable)
>Must be able to carry and launch an entire Imperial Aerospace Wing. (If you want this AND firepower, you’re gonna end up with a messy compromise.)
>Must be able to carry and deploy an entire Imperial Marine Legion. (You want that AND the Aerospace Wing!?)
>Must carry an advanced command and control system capable of co-ordinating an entire fleet action. (Woah there, that shit ain’t cheap)
>Must be capable of precision bombardment from high orbit. (You simply don’t have the tech for that.)
>Must have 10 ten luxury habitation suites. (Err…)
>The Imperial Crest must take up the entirety of the ship’s prow. (FFS…)
Yeah, no these design specifications were absurd. Not even the Solar Union itself could build something that ticked all these boxes. These guys clearly didn’t know shit about the limitations of ship design. Although… this might be an opportunity to sell them something they don’t even know they want…

>Tell them that neither you, nor anyone in the galaxy can make them a ship with these specs and that they should come back with a request that isn’t fucking stupid.

>Scam them, tell them you’ll make the ship, string them along for more payment, then deliver them a ship that falls short but is… you know, actually possible. What are they gonna do? Attack you with the navy they’re asking you to build?

>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for. (Write-In, this is where you can theory craft to your heart’s content. I will attempt to distil the ideas given into a final design.)

>>6019527

>Tell them that neither you, nor anyone in the galaxy can make them a ship with these specs and that they should come back with a request that isn’t fucking stupid.

“Buddy, let me save you three years and ten million creds and I’ll give you some free advice - you can have a pleasure yacht and a battlecruiser, but they’re not going to be the same ship. I can build you matching vessels, but if you insist on building a Frankenstein ship, you’re going to have find some other manufacturer.”

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For those of you who are seriously considering coming up with a design:
A Note on your tech level
The galaxy is a big place and the technologies of the various star faring factions vary immensely in sophistication and effectiveness. You know about many high end technologies but what you are actually capable of building is limited by how advanced your production facilities are and how many domain experts you have amongst your staff. For example: energy shielding is a thing, but you lack the facilities and the knowledge base to incorporate shielding into your designs.

While not an exhaustive list this is kind of tech you can produce in house:
>Capital class hulls. (Duh)
>Simple Kinetics (slug throwers both chemical and magnetically propelled)
>Basic energy weapons (Lasers and masers)
>Fusion Powerplants
>Basic electronics (Well by our standards they’d be super computers, but these things are the bare minimum in regards nav calculations, targeting, controlling the ships etc…)
>Basic AI (Stupid AI that can follow preset behaviour patterns. Smart enough to navigate a somewhat irregular environment but fundamentally monotask.)
>Eigen Drive. (The standard human FTL drive, works by “translating” the vessel along N-dimensional vectors or something.)
>Simple onboard fabrication. (Enough to create replacement parts for repairs, but not enough to completely replace lost strikecraft.)

While it’s possible to develop more tech in house or even out right buy it, a more cost-effective short-term solution would be to sub-contract components for more advanced ship designs. Your position in the trade hub makes this more viable.

>>6019527
>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for.

Yeah there's no way we can fulfill this order, I say we just submit a design that they need rather than they want, and given their circumstances I'd say what they need most out of a flagship are Firepower, and the Command System. The rest of shit can be fulfilled by other ships in their fleet.

So I say build we build a slower, but high-spec ship that's meant to hang back and be surrounded by a fleet it directs. It's focus will be on long range firepower that can handle any cruisers or other capital ships from the safety of the rear, and good equipment that a smart commander can use for directing a fleet.

So is this doable

>Capital Class Hull
>Subcontracted (or researched) Energy Weapons (Long Range Focus)
>Fusion Power-plants
>Subcontracted (or researched) Advanced Electronics (The advanced control system)
>Basic AI (maybe better if we can swing a good deal for it on the market)
>Eigen Drive

>>6019556
It's quite doable, you could even make the energy weapons in house though it might be a bit of a stretch.

It will take some doing to find sub-contractors or upgrade your tech level, but that will be another decision point if you get serious about pushing the design forward.

>>6019566

Do the lizards know of any helpful tech here? We already have a team of lizard ship-builders on-site, maybe we could lean on their expertise to patch our technical gaps?

>>6019556
+1
If they deny it at least we get a new design

>>6019566

Hmmm. I'm guessing we can take our time even if it pisses the Raihan's off, I doubt there's going to be another shipbuilder that will be insane enough to build something for them. Especially with their demands, at the end of the day they'll be happy as long as the ship works well for them.

>>6019570
Didn’t they hire lizards specifically to stop that? I doubt it.

>>6019527
>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for. (Write-In, this is where you can theory craft to your heart’s content. I will attempt to distil the ideas given into a final design.)

The aerospace wing capacity. If they have enough bombers and fighters and drones to support bombing runs, sell that as being the firepower. Sell the bombers as being your best chance for higher precision planetary siege strikes.

Make a swank slightly larger messhall where you can quietly partition areas off for parties of cliques within the ship. Give it a big viewing screen that replays big wins and military plays. Have that double as a command center where they can use it to plan out strikes for the (wing) fleet.

Give it an docking port that could secure a glorified box transport along the spine of the ship that they could pump atmosphere into and could hold the marine legion? Optional and don't care too much.

>>6019527

>Make an honest attempt at submitting a design they’ll need, even if it’s not what they asked for. (Write-In, this is where you can theory craft to your heart’s content. I will attempt to distil the ideas given into a final design.)

From: JH Independent Ship Works
To: Most Glorious Empire of Raiha

My deepest apologies, but with your chosen specifications, it would prove too difficult to construct any one ship that could fulfil all of your desired requirements bar a super battleship. However, our ship works most humbly present to you the designs that we were able to create based on your requirements for your considerations keeping in mind you desire a befitting flagship of the royal imperial family:

1. A command carrier which carries your desired aerospace wing, limited firepower, enough to deter enemy wings, corvettes, even perhaps threaten a frigate or two, but its true strength lies in your requests for the advanced command and control system which will assist with coordinating these wings. Of course, if you so desire, we can come up with designs for smaller ships carrying further aerospace assets that could be further coordinated by the carrier. Of course, we shall ensure that Your most Honourable Crest shall be placed right in the centre of the vessel, allowing everyone to witness the awesome power of your brand-new flagship.

2. A frontline brawler painted in the Glorious colours of your house, it shall have more than enough firepower in terms of kinetic weaponry to best any modern line cruiser and be able to take a beating in turn thanks to its tough armour and shield your glorious realm. Such a ship will ensure that any battle you wage shall have its centre completely and solidly secured. Though I would also personally recommend, if you will allow so, some smaller ships produced by our ship works as such a powerful and tough ship will be slow, so screening and chasing vessels are required.

3. This anon’s idea >>6019556

Probably the best and most honest attempt we can muster, treid to weasel in some other orders down the line. Also, the troop transport is just outright retarded, they need a dedicated transport for that.

>>6019611

You might be right, but I interpreted QM’s post to mean “lizards are coming to oversee construction and prevent ship secrets from spilling”, not that the lizards are going to be automatically opposed to contributing to a second ship project.

Maybe I’m wrong, but licensing some lizardtech might help this weirdo feel special on his battle cruiser, and clearly that is his motivation.

>>6019527
>Scam them, tell them you’ll make the ship, string them along for more payment, then deliver them a ship that falls short but is… you know, actually possible. What are they gonna do? Attack you with the navy they’re asking you to build?
Drop the guns from best to cosmetic, maybe ciws only, but try to make some kind of luxury command carrier

>>6019543
I recognise this tech tree Cool game, liked the art

>>6019624
And I support this

>>6019840
>I recognize this tech tree
I don't I just grabbed a random pic of the internet <.<

>>6019536
>>6019556
>>6019623
>>6019624
>>6019736

Honest Attempt: 2
Fuck off: 1
Scam: 1

>Writing...

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Construction of the Margathon Cruiser hits a snag: the Saurian Overseers are micromanaging your construction crews. HR has received multiple complaints from crew chiefs about “damn lizards trying to tell me how to do my job!” This is probably exacerbated by the fact that the aliens are interacting with your employees using auto-translators. While sufficient for basic communication, a lot of subtle nuance is lost, resulting misunderstandings and coming off as ruder than intended. If this keeps up production will be delayed and company morale will suffer.

How will you handle this?

>Tell your employees that the customer is always right, do it their way, even if it makes no sense, even if it causes delays.
>Negotiate with Clan Margathon’s delegation, tell them that if they want their ship finished on time they are going to have to trust the professional ship builders to build the damn ship!
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>Write In

>cont

>>6019997
Despite how awkward the Raihan’s are being you’re not ready to write them off just yet. You ask your R&D department to get started on a preliminary concept while composing a reply to the Empire. You decide to be straight forward with them; no bullshit, just an honest description of what you can and cannot do for them. Given that you are unsure of their military needs and preferred naval doctrine you can’t really come up with a fully formed design yet, but your R&D team do come up with a basic hull that could be fitted for different roles.

>I don’t think they’ll like this design, scrap it entirely.
>Interesting, let’s make some changes before submitting. (Suggest changes, this is for the base hull shape, we’re not putting in specific systems yet.)
>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)

Regardless, a week after sending your message you receive a reply:

From: The Foreign Office of the Raihan Empire
To: JH Independent Ship Works

Mr. Horner

I believe there have been some misunderstandings regarding our commission for a warship. Given that our glorious empire is only beginning to return to the stars, there are many matters we are yet unsure of. On behalf of her Imperial Majesty, I cordially invite you to the throne world of Raiha that we may have a more fruitful conversation about this.

Regards
C. Chatfield
High Diplomat of the Crown

Huh, curious.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
>Send someone to negotiate on your behalf (might be seen as a slight)
>Reject invitation, this client hasn’t even put money on the table yet, you don’t have time for this.

>>6020000

>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.

I view this as a future investment, if we can complete this project and gain a reputation amongst the saurians, we might be able to snag extra contracts later down the line. Also, a question are there more advanced auto-translators? If so, I say we buy them, even if they may have a higher upfront cost, the maintenance costs will most likely be lower than paying salaries for the diplomats in the long run, will also allow to translate more than one alien language probably.

>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it.

Though I'd like for the designs I wrote up to at least be basically sketched out to showcase that they have options and what limitations spaceships of this era have.

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

Might as well, if they so cordially invited us we have to go there with our biggest business smile and continue the PR nonsense.

>>6020000
>>6020021

An addendum, if we do get the diplomats and they are not just a glorified translator, we should probably get one or two of them to come with us so that we don't commit any social faux pas.

>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
Use the scrip to hire Saurians who translate well.

>Interesting, let’s make some changes before submitting. (Suggest changes, this is for the base hull shape, we’re not putting in specific systems yet.)
Make it less dick shaped

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
We ain't swingin any spanners, may as well celebrate our illustrious position with a royal visit

>>6019962
Heh. Stars in Shadow, a decent Master of Orion 2 clone.

>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>>6020000
>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>Interesting, let’s make some changes before submitting. (Suggest changes, this is for the base hull shape, we’re not putting in specific systems yet.)
Like another anon said, less dick shaped. Im thinking more angular like the FTL Kestrel, but capital sized.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

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>>6020021
>Though I'd like for the designs I wrote up to at least be basically sketched out...
((I suppose I did promise "creative space ship action", just bear in mind that it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to put the art together so I will be using QM fiat to decide how far I want to take a concept.))

You decide to push your R&D team further. A bare hull was full of possibilities, but you needed something more concrete to truly spark the imagination. You wanted the Raihans to look at these designs and imagine commanding one as it spread the glory of their empire.

Eventually your R&D team get back to you with three submissions:
Project Sovereign: R&D refined their original design into a long range weapons platform, that can hang back and command the fleet while raining fire down upon the enemy.

Project Carrack: The definition of boring but practical; a big metal box that could definitely accommodate that aerospace wing, and serve as a command platform. Functional, but the design lacked a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.

Project Warhawk: You have to question whether the R&D team even cared about the original design spec anymore. This thing was pure warship porn, maybe if their admirals saw it, they’d be so enamoured with the design they might just forget all about their ridiculous list of requirements and commission it on impulse.
With these designs you at least had something that you could sell the Raihans on. Heck, even if you decided the Raihans weren’t worth it you might be able to take one of them further and add it to your catalogue.
>Design vote has been rendered moot now. If you choose to go to Raiha you will try to peddle these three designs. The other votes will be left open till I update later this evening.

>>6020043
A Note on Diplomacy and Translation
There is no one size fits all solution to communication among the different races and factions. Literal translation of languages is simple enough, but true expression requires in depth understanding of body language, idioms and cultural norms. Combine that with the fact that individual races will have their own sub-cultures and dialects and communication becomes even harder.

Advanced translation devices exist but are exponentially more expensive than basic ones. Diplomats are pricey but still cheaper. Regardless, a device or diplomat will only be rated for communicating between two to four species. Whoever you hire to help with the Saurians might not be able to help with other species.

>>6019997
>Negotiate with Clan Margathon’s delegation, tell them that if they want their ship finished on time they are going to have to trust the professional ship builders to build the damn ship!

>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself
You don't say no to Royalty when they're trying to find ways of paying you.

>>6020137

>((I suppose I did promise "creative space ship action", just bear in mind that it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to put the art together so I will be using QM fiat to decide how far I want to take a concept.))

Sorry, didn't mean to make you go all the way out QM, just thought to mention bringing rough sketches of multiple designs (without them being drawn out of universe) that could then later be worked on into proper designs as the quest progressed.

>A Note on Diplomacy and Translation

Good to know.

>>6019997
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.

>Looks Awesome, I’m sure they’ll love it. (Submit hull design.)

>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

>>6019997
>Tell your employees that the customer is always right, do it their way, even if it makes no sense, even if it causes delays.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

>>6020021

Supporting, what do we have to lose?

Sorry guys, no update tonight.

>>6020000
>Hire professional diplomats to facilitate communication between the saurians and your crews. This will cost money but will likely allow both parties to come to an understanding quickly.
>Accept Invitation and go to Raiha yourself

>>6020493
Thanks for running so far QM. The artwork is really nice to envisioning the designs.

>>6020021
>>6020045
>>6020062
>>6020131
>>6020140
>>6020199
>>6020202
>>6020230
>>6020502

Hire Pros: 5
Customer is Always Right: 1
Let me build the damn ship!: 1

Hiring Pros wins, and we have a unanimous decision to go on a business trip to Raiha.

>Writing...

>>6020142
Yeah I think for my own sanity I'll try to focus design decisions down a bit more before committing to actually drawing anything.

>>6020503
Thanks

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“This is bullshit! Market rate for diplomatic consultation at this scale is 500k scrip, 750 if I’m feeling generous and I am most certainly not!”

The Saurian diplomat in front of you inclined his head in what you assumed to be a gesture of apology.

“You are not wrong Mr. Horner, unfortunately the scrip you are offering is backed by Clan Margathon. That clan is-as you say-‘in the red’. We of clan Quezet are taking an enormous risk in accepting Margathon scrip at all. Consider the inflated price compensation for our risk. After all there is a very real chance it will become worthless soon.”

“Even so, two million scrip is outrageous!”

“It is the only deal I am authorized to accept, unless you can offer payment in a more stable currency?”

Well this was news to you. No wonder Maragathon was willing to ask an upstart alien shipyard with no track record to build them something; they were desperate! How did you not figure this out sooner!? You were so eager to take on your first project you hadn’t even done a basic background check. I mean, you thought the fact that they could put money on the table meant that they were legit right?

Regardless you were too far along with the project to let it fall through now, and frankly; did it matter that you were getting ripped off if the money you were losing was worthless? You allow yourself a very long-drawn-out groan.

“fffffffFINE! Two million scrip for a department’s worth of human/saurian diplomats. Just stop my clients and crews from murdering each other until we can finish the ship!”

>Lost 2mil Margathon Scrip

--------------------

>cont

>>6021166
“How did we miss this?”

Right after you finished paying the Quezet rep, you had immediately called an executive meeting.

“Well Jack, you basically said ‘Shut up and give me your money’, the moment you received their order. If you’d asked me about it first instead of announcing the project to the entire staff, maybe I could have discovered that this wasn’t the best client to take on.”

“Gee, thanks Karen,” you spat at your chief financial officer, who flipped you off in response.

You couldn’t deny she had a point though. These lizard’s had taken you for a ride and it was kinda your fault.

“So what are we gonna do now?” Asked Tim, your chief technical officer.

“We’ll finish the ship, at the end of the day I want a completed project under our belts. But after the ship is done I am holding on to it unless clan Margathon can pay the remainder of the price in something that isn’t their worthless scrip.”

Your head legal consultant spoke up: “You sure that’s a good idea? We did agree to the current contract.”

You roll your eyes. “This isn’t the Solar Union. Who’s gonna make me honour this bullshit deal?”

“You’re right Jack; this isn’t the Solar Union; worst case scenario Clan Margathon sends it’s warriors to storm the yard and take the ship by force. No rule of law doesn’t mean you shouldn’t honour the deals you make. Even if the lizards don’t get violent, word gets around and our rep would tank even more. Not only did we go back on our deal with Margathon, we were stupid enough to make one with them in the first place. It’s in our interest to finish up this contract with minimal drama.”

“I think we should just consider this a high-risk, long-term investment.”

You looked at your CTO incredulously.

“Hear me out: just because Margathon scrip is worthless today, doesn’t mean it will be worthless tomorrow. What if their clan’s situation improved? The fact that they came to us means that they were incapable of acquiring capital ships before, once we finish making them this one, the standing of their clan can only improve. It might take a while but I think the value of their scrip will appreciate eventually.”

“One cruiser isn’t going to save an entire clan Tim,” sighed Karen.

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know their situation but I think trying to stiff them is more trouble than it’s worth.”

>How should you handle this? Remember: your business trip to Raiha is imminent, whatever you decide, your subordinates will have to deal with the fall out.

>Honour the deal.
>Refuse to hand over the completed ship unless the remaining payment is delivered in a better currency.
>Write-in

((Ended up developing the Margathon sub-plot more than I thought. I think I’ll give it some breathing room and leave the Raiha arc for another update unless you want to cancel the business trip))

>>6021168
>Honor the deal

>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
Refusing to honor the deal is way more trouble than it's worth. The only real question is what to do with the scrip. Do we hold on to it and hope it appreciates, or try to spend it as quickly as possible in case it crashes?

>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
>Demand to study their tech
No way they get to essentially stiff us and then be anal about protecting their tech.

>>6021208
But that's also a breach of contract, which comes with similar consequences to demanding different currency.

>>6021168

>Honour the deal

Listen, if we give these guys the warship, there’s a decent chance that they go on the warpath and suddenly their money is actually worth something.

That being said, let’s look out for our hard bottom line.

How hard would it be to install a backdoor into the electronic systems of the warship without the lizards finding out? We could then sell the secret later to their enemies for non-useless currency.

>>6021213
>How hard would it be to install a backdoor into the electronic systems of the warship without the lizards finding out?
Nigh impossible with your current capabilities.

>>6021215

Damn, worth the question at least.

Well, I do think we should honor the deal anyways and hope that the lizards’ money is worth more over time.

Maybe we could try to upsell the lizards with a maintenance contract or warranty plan to scare up some additional (worthless) money?

>>6021168
>Honour the deal.
read up to current events, cool quest so far

>>6021168

>Honour the deal.

As an independent entity, reputation is everything. We MUST maintain a solid reputation for people to go out of their way to purchase ships from us. We cannot take any actions that could compromise that.

>>6021168
>Honour the deal.

>>6021168

>Honour the deal.

Our word is our bond. We can only thrive if keep the deals we make.

>>6021168
>>Honour the deal.

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((RL shitmight slow down updates over the weekend. For now, have some delicious lore.))

A Note on the State of the Galaxy, and Common Knowledge
“Star-faring civilisation” refers specifically to a faction that can build and use it’s own FTL tech. “Space-faring civilisations” have a reliable means of inter-planetary travel but not FTL. They usually have colonised the entirety of their home star system. There are a significant number of space faring civilisations that are aware of the wider galactic community but are content to “stay home” or outsource their FTL tech to become something in between space and star faring. Human civilisation on Earth circa 2024 would still be considered “pre-space faring” as despite being capable of space flight, we have not accomplished large scale colonisation of our solar system.

The galaxy is multipolar. The challenges of interstellar communication (and power projection) mean there aren’t really any pan-galactic organisations. Many civilisations would claim the title of “Empire” but these are tiny in comparison to what you’d see in something like say: Dune or Star Wars. Having more than one star system under the control of a single regime is a serious feat. The Solar Union only rules 10 star systems and each Major Saurian Clan has between 3-5 star systems under their direct control. In between are countless independent colonies and regional powers.

Information networks are readily available in most developed star systems, but interstellar news doesn’t travel nearly as fast as the modern RL news cycle. Accessing info on market conditions and detailed histories of different factions is not as simple as a google search. Your location in a trade hub makes passive info gathering easier but being well informed will still come down to active digging and cultivating connections.

((Despite these info dumps, the world setting is nowhere near fully fleshed out in my mind. This is basic setup is really just an excuse for me to pull whatever I want out of my ass, which in turn will hopefully add interesting context to what is ultimately an excuse to dream up spaceships.))

In general, how much of a market would there be for a "monitor" ship? No/bare-minimum/Assist-needed FTL and probably shitty engines, but in return for no FTL and probably shitty thrusters it's a small ball of big guns and heavy armor to drive off larger targets and hit above its weight class. Practically unusable on any offensive that isn't a slow crawl, but makes pirates or even some militaries think twice about attacking a planet or station protected by it.

>>6021769
There's actually quite a big market, the problem is system monitors are usually frigate sized.

This is because it's a lot easier to send the ships to the client.

A capital class hull with no FTL capability is really hard to deliver, to the point where simply giving it at an FTL drive is easier than any attempt to "tow it" or tack on a disposable FTL booster.

The average client that needs big in system defences usually invests in a static battle station.

>>6021785

If that is so, whenever we expand our shipyard, I'd say we add a frigate berth so we could make monitors, it sounds like a cheap, but steady investment.

>>6021785
Would a bare-minimum FTL be small enough for it to still fit the role of a system monitor (IE draw most of the benefits of having none), or would they be reduced but still worth it, or just not worth the trouble of making an FTL-capable monitor because that's just a slow-ass regular ship with extra steps?

Would it also be possible to deliver the ship in on-site assemble-able pieces? So instead of it having its own FTL or towing it or strapping a booster, we just put the pieces in a couple of cargo ships, truck it there, and then put it together. Kinda like how you can buy prefab house parts, it's just a whole house/half of a house then put on the foundation and wired to electricity/piped to water and sewage on-site.
>>6021904
OR... We make a SUPER-CAPITAL dock and use that to make a cargo ship to deliver the cruiser-monitor whole!

>>6022034

>OR... We make a SUPER-CAPITAL dock and use that to make a cargo ship to deliver the cruiser-monitor whole!

I think the literal moment we make one of those we are getting invaded by any nation-state nearby cause its that valuable of an asset.

Speaking of which, if the shipyard keeps growing, we will need to invest in its defences, a lot. Neutrality only works when you are armed after all.

Stupid idea: flat-pack 90% of the capital ship to try and get a system monitor down to frigate size. Collapse all the crew quarters, corridors, storerooms, bridge, fuel tanks, etc. Then a smaller FTL tug could take it where it needs to go. Downsides should be really obvious but such a design does have a few upsides, largely around ease of repair, maintenance and being able to modify a design to suit a customer easier (and the customer being able to customize it themselves far easier too).

>>6022053
I feel like that'd be best with a carrier (aka a lot of empty hangar space so less to put together), but that gives me another idea; a ship that folds out into a repair/construction dock for on-site assembly or repair of ships like these theorized monitors.

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>>6022034
>>6022046
>>6022053
>>6022087
((I expect informal theory crafting will be a big part of this quest, so I’m going to try out a gimmick to facilitate that: when enough discussion occurs I’ll respond to it in the form of a written scene between the MC and another NPC of a relevant background. These scenes are meant to be separate from the main timeline of events and are meant to be ‘water cooler’ conversations that happen ‘at some point’ during the MC’s busy schedule.))
“So what do you think? I’m just throwing shit at the wall here to see what sticks, so don’t be afraid to tell me if any of these ideas are dumb.”

The intern from R&D looked at you apprehensively before slowly giving his feedback.

“Well, um sir, there isn’t really such a thing as ‘bare minimum FTL’, at least not with what we have. A ship either has a full-blown Eigen drive or it doesn’t. Maybe there are other FTL technologies out there that are more scalable or disposable, but I don’t know of any off the top of my head. Your idea of a super-capital FTL transport would work in theory, but given our current situation we’d have to expand the yard into a super-cap dock and go to the trouble of designing and building the transport. I’m not a business guy but I’m guessing this would be a massive investment that would take a long time to pay off.”

“Yeah, I guess that would make sense,” you sigh. “What about flat-packed pre-fab ships?”

The intern rubbed his chin, giving it some serious thought.

“In and of itself it’s a solid idea, but we’d have to put in some serious R&D into designing something that can be made in tiny pieces, flat packed, then assembled on site. Heck, figuring out the transport and assembly workflow will be take some doing. Also, this technique would only be viable for civilian designs.”

“What? We can’t flatpack weapon systems?”

“It’s not about guns sir, it’s about the super structure. If your ship skeleton is made of lots of pre-fab pieces stuck together it’s simply not going to handle the shock of combat manoeuvres and weapons impacts as well. Generally mil-spec hulls need to be fully formed in a drydock in order to achieve the required durability. Although…”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t quote me on this, but I have heard of atomic bonding tech that can join parts more securely than conventional welding. If we acquire that then pre-fab warships could become possible.”

((Proper update will likely be delayed till Sunday evening. I won't have the time to put out anything more than little vignettes till then.))

>>6022569
((BTW don't take the intern's comments as a guaranteed roadmap, he's speculating just like you are. Universe is being built as I go so there's a lot that hasn't been decided on.))

>>6022087
((Forgot to address this one))
>a ship that folds out into a repair/construction dock for on-site assembly or repair of ships like these theorized monitors.

"That's just a super-capital mobile ship yard sir, those exist, but they're really expensive. Hmm, I guess if you're serious it would be feasible to make the current shipyard mobile, but that would be really costly and severely limit the potential for expanding it's facilities, again, not a business guy. Maybe if you do the math it could be worth it, IDK."

"I'm thinking more, something with capital class displacement, that has extendable scaffolding and a medium hanger for worker drones. Doesn't need full blown material processing or fabrication capabilities."

"Oh! Yeah, that's definitely something we can do with our current tech. We'd have to sit down and figure out the design before we can make it but if that's what you really want to do next, just say the word... Oh! Just remember sir; without a pre-fab ship to assemble such a ship wouldn't be able to do much beyond basic repairs."

>>6022569
((Nice! I wish I could think of something to trigger another scene like this))

Is there any benefit to sticking two FTL drives on a ship?

Is space tourism a thing? If we design a capital-sized cruise ship would there be potential buyers?

>>6021168
>Honour the deal, but spend the scrip to buy resources from the Raiha Empire immediately
Hopefully they won't realize we're scamming them.

>>6022589
What market is there for armed transports? If there is one, I imagine it's most appreciated by military logistics, traders going through pirate-heavy areas, and possibly pirates themselves (not that we'd sell to pirates, even if these upstanding gentlemen who just showed up out of nowhere with hundreds of thousands of credits of goods seem a little rough around the edges). Would it be reasonable to re-design the Enforcer into such a craft? Take out the fighter wings for cargo bays, toss on some (energy-based so there's no magazines needed) AA to counteract the lack of fighter cover, maybe upsize the main gun just a *little* bit to be capable of warding off any pirate capitals.

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>>6022789
>>6023045
You’d been having some ideas to diversify your catalogue lately so you met up with Caroline from marketing over lunch for a second opinion. Her pained sigh was not a good sign.

“Jack, I’m not an engineer and even I can tell you that sticking two FTL drives on a ship is more trouble than it’s worth; the damn things drive up maintenance costs, plus I’m pretty sure having more than one drive will cause some wibbly-wobbly sub-dimensional bullshit to happen- go to talk to R&D if you want a more in-depth explanation of how bad of an idea that is.”

Geez… she could have just said no.

“Now about the whole cruise ship tourism thing. The thing you need to understand is that there’s no pan galactic tourism industry. Different cultures have different ideas of what’s fun, and even if a demographic likes to travel they usually engage in tourism within their own star systems. Yeah, there’s probably a stellar nation out there that does cruises, but the whole ‘touring the galaxy thing’ doesn’t really happen. In short, what I’m saying is you’ll need to do market research. I’d also add that we are a ship building company, not a tour company, if we can’t find a tour company to sell to, don’t even bother. It’s beyond us to create demand where none exists.”

You nod thoughtfully as Caroline continues.

“A better market is luxury transports or yachts. Yachts are usually frigate class though. And once again, different buyers have different concepts of luxury. You’ll need specialists in xeno-ergonomics to design the ship interiors up to standard.”

“You say xeno, but that only applies to aliens right? Since we’re humans, we already know what humans consider luxurious?”

“Gee I dunno Jack, can you design elegant interiors? Do you have an eye for the aesthetic? Do you have good taste?.”

You decide not to answer that…

“Luxury designs need professionals regardless of race, got it.”

Caroline gives you a satisfied smile.

“Moving on to the armed transport idea I’d advise against it. Different territories have varying laws on armed civilians, plus the average trader prefers to commission escorts if the risk warrants it. Not saying no-one would buy it but it all comes down to market research. As for the actual ship design, talk to R&D. I’m sure they can modify the Enforcer hull accordingly.”

>>6021173
>>6021196
>>6021213
>>6021226
>>6021312
>>6021456
>>6021466
>>6021673
>>6022878

Unanimous decision to honour the deal. Time to finally move the plot along. Hold on, this is gonna be a big one.

>Writing...

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You throw up your hands in resignation.

“Fine, give the lizards their ship, just like we agreed. In the meantime I’m head to Raiha to see if I can secure a better contract. I’m sure you guys can handle the final sale while I’m away.”

----------------------------

With the diplomats spread out amongst your work crews your crew chiefs are actually able to have some constructive conversations with the overseers, some even build rapport. The saurians are still super cagey about guarding their tech, but thanks to the diplomats, they manage to come to a compromise that won’t impact the schedule.

------------------------------

You prepare for your trip to Raiha. Much to your embarrassment after all the effort you went through to acquire a ship yard, you don’t seem to have a ship yourself. Fortunately, the Raihans were willing to send one to pick you up. A few weeks after accepting the invitation an Imperial Raihan frigate arrives in system and docked with your shipyard.

The frigate itself is a rather spartan affair and you are forced to share a cramped room with your accompanying head of R&D and legal consultant. This was par for the course for a warship but couldn’t they have sent something more comfortable?

As the frigate approaches Raiha, the Captain invites you up to the bridge to view the ‘glorious capital’ of the empire first hand. In front of you is an enormous space station connected to the planet via an orbital elevator, below you concentric rings of light glitter on Raiha’s night side, showing off what must be a continent sized metropolis. It is a rather magnificent sight. Your head of R&D doesn’t seem to think so, constantly squinting at something off in the distance.

“Something on your mind Persica?”

“This planet has seen better days.”

“Looks pretty fancy to me.”

Persica shakes her head.

“Yeah they’re putting the good stuff front and centre, but look a little closer. Notice how the planet seems to be shrouded in this glittering cloud?”

“Orbital traffic right? That’s normal for a highly developed space faring world.”

“Nah, movement patterns and density don’t match orbital traffic; it’s a debris field. This planet is suffering from Kessler syndrome, this orbital elevator is probably their only path into space. Take a look at the city lights below, notice the places where the urban sprawl suddenly just goes dark?”

“Could just be unconventional urban planning.”

“Maybe, but it looks like this planet has seen some shit Boss. Don’t know what to make of it yet, but something doesn’t feel right.”

>cont

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>>6023432
Eventually the frigate docks and you are shown to your quarters. The rooms are much more to your liking, on par with a five-star hotel. Concerning though where the armed guards posted outside that accompanied you everywhere you went. Their armour was golden and ornate but they way the move implied they were no mere ceremonial guard. When questioned they would politely but firmly stonewall you, reciting some canned lines about how “the crown wished to ensure your safety.”

Just as you started to wonder whether you had been kidnapped you were summoned for a meeting with the High Admiral of the Imperial Raihan Navy. The meeting takes place in a lavish state room with a wide window overlooking the planet. (Persica tells you it’s not a real window but a high-fidelity camera feed). As you enter a man you presume to be the Admiral turns to greet you. He seems to be a older man with greying hair, but his physique was robust. Dressed in his admiral’s uniform he had an imposing presence, which he somehow mitigated with a warm smile.

“Mr… John Horner I presume? CEO of JH Independent Ship Works?”

“The same,” you confirm. “But please, call me Jack.” A smile and a nod, seems like the Admiral was happy to play this casual. “I’m guessing you’re the Admiral of the Raihan Navy?”

“High Admiral Arcturus Horatio Rex Garan the 5th, of the Imperial Raihan Navy. Also currently Lord Commander of the Imperial Raihan Armed Forces.” You nodded slowly, hoping you looked suitably impressed. “But please, call me Arcturus,” he finished with a wink. Okay so we were going to play it cool, you could appreciate that. Way better than the stuffy protocol you were expecting.

You introduce both your associates as you all sit down on a wide sofa in the middle of the room. Arcturus himself, sits down on another sofa opposite you. A servant brings refreshments and sets them down on a coffee table between you. All the while both your guards and the Admiral’s take up position behind their respective charges. Despite never saying a word or moving an inch you could not quite forget they were there.

>So…
>”I couldn’t help but notice I’ve been under guard constantly since I was here. Is there some danger I should be aware of?”
>”Tell me a little bit about the Empire. My infonet only had the briefest of summaries.”
>”Tell me about the needs of your Navy, I’m afraid the original design spec was a bit unrealistic, but I so have some alternate concepts here for you to look at…” (go straight to business.)
>Write in

>>6023434
>So…
>I presume you'd rather get straight to brass tacks, we can do small-talk after.
>”Tell me about the needs of your Navy, I’m afraid the original design spec was a bit unrealistic, but I so have some alternate concepts here for you to look at…” (go straight to business.)

>>6023438
+1

>>6023438
+1

>>6023434
>>6023438

+1

>>6023434
>”Tell me a little bit about the Empire. My infonet only had the briefest of summaries.”
Build rapport first

>>6023438
+1

>>6023438
+1

>>6023461
>>6023468
>>6023478
>>6023589
>>6023648
>>6023688

Looks like you guys really know what you want.

Writing...

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“I presume you'd rather get straight to brass tacks, we can do small-talk after.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

”Tell me about the needs of your Navy, I’m afraid the original design spec was a bit unrealistic.”

Arcturus chuckled. “Ah yes, I think somebody just went around to the various branches of the military, compiled a wish list and called it a day. I’m no engineer but I assume the final design will need to be more… focused.”

“Glad we understand each other. I had my R&D team come up with some alternate designs for you, let me know what you think.”

You set up a portable holo-projector and proceed to pitch your designs. Arcturus leans forward with great interest.

“So, what do you think?”

“I can’t help but be charmed by Sovereign, it would certainly look good on a newscast, but what I really need is something in between Carrack and Warhawk. I need something tough, that can carry troops and provide fire support.”

“That doable Persica?”

Persica gives it some thought. “With all do respect, if you want to up the firepower you’ll have to sacrifice some of the carrying capacity.”

“It just needs one or two big guns, not a full battery.”

“I guess that’s doable, but I’m not sure-”

Just then you hear the door chime. Arcturus glances at it in annoyance. “I thought I gave strict instructions to not be disturbed.” One of the guards opens the door then immediately staggers backward and gives a hasty salute. In the doorway flanked by guards of her own stood what looked to be a young woman in an elegant robe, her hair done up with intricate jewellery. Arcturus himself stands up and gives the woman a shallow bow.

“Your majesty!”

The woman gives Arcturus a disdainful look before turning her gaze to you. Her gaze is harsh and probing. You get the feeling she is drawing all sorts of conclusions about you yet you detect no judgement.

“Is this the foreign shipwright?”

“Yes, your majesty. Mr. John Horner, CEO of JH Independent Ship Works… and his associates. Mr. Horner, this is her majesty Asaga Kire Zelevas Ryu, Empress of the Raihan Empire.” Much to your embarrassment you realise you had been gawking. You hastily get you your feet and kneel, encouraging your associates to do the same.

“Ah! Uh, pleasure to meet you, your-uh-majesty.”

>cont

>>6023860
Asaga regarded your antics with some amusement before bidding you to rise.

“Be at ease Mr. Horner. There’s no need to stand on ceremony, although…” She turned to Arcturus. “Admiral why was I not informed of this meeting? I should have liked to consult Mr. Horner on the matter of our empire’s new flagship.”

“Apologies your majesty. I did not think you would care for such technicalities given the situation on the throne world.”

Asaga narrowed her eyes at Arcturus. “You assume too much Lord Commander. What kind of flagship we commission sends a message to the rest of the Empire and to the galaxy at large. It is more than just a military matter.”

“As you say your majesty, shall we move to another room? This one isn’t so fitting-”

“It’s fine Arcturus, there’s plenty of room on the couch for me. Let’s just continue where you left off.”

You were now sitting across the table from both the Admiral and the Empress. Arcturus himself looked far less relaxed than he was previously. Asaga herself was completely poker faced.

“So…uh…the Admiral and I were just hashing out a design for some kind of assault carrier. He tells me your navy needs something that can carry troops while mounting big guns.”

The Empress frowned at this. “Well, I suppose that would be what the military needs, but is it what the Empire needs?”

“It is what the Empire’s Military needs, it is a distinction without a difference,” asserts Arcturus with some annoyance.

“I disagree Admiral. There is a difference between strength and aggression. I would have our flagship be a symbol of the former and not the latter.”

Crap, you seem to be caught in the middle of some bullshit power game. The Admiral clearly had an agenda the Empress didn’t agree with, the fact that he could openly argue with her implied she might not have as much power as her title would suggest. What ever ship you built for them would directly impact Raihan foreign policy. Question was: did you care?

>Try to sell them on the assault carrier.
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
>Write In (This better be good, don’t want to piss them both off).

>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.

It’s not like Sovereign isn’t a damn good warship in its own right. It should get the job done well enough, and besides the empress is probably the one cashing the checks.

>>6023861
>>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
While this may be a vote on which ship we sell I think the more important thing to think about is how this will impact foreign policy. Sounds like if we sell the more war-oriented ships the empire is going to be expansionist and aggressive. Which is good on paper for a company selling warships… But I could see it getting us into a whole ton of shit if they piss off the wrong people by being expansionist and Raiha is just setting foot back into space anyways. It might not be best the for them to be aggressive either. I think going with the Sovereign is the safer bet. It’ll be a big stick the Empress can wave around in diplomacy but rarely use.

>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
>>Write In (This better be good, don’t want to piss them both off).
"Look, if you're planning on a fight happening, and needing a ship to carry the day done soon you'll want the assault carrier. If you just want to start building a fleet, and you either have supporting ships already or you have the time to get them, the Sovereign is probably the better option as the centerpiece. I'd personally recommend the Sovereign, but that might just be the businessman in me hoping you'll buy the rest of the fleet from me, too."

>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
But take the payment up front. If their mlitary ends up performing a coup, we don't want to lose the payment.

>>6023861
Okay, so, if my reading of the geo-politics at play here is accurate, then we're looking at Space Japan circa 1900s. Specifically, the military are expansionist (hence aggression, invasion capacity) while the Princess wants...a showpiece for morale purposes? I'm not sure if what she wants is a ship that serves purely for propaganda or if she thinks they should focus on being able to win a fight rather than - I assume - invading former colonies of theirs...

In my honest opinion, we go with the Princess. The High Admiral might be the one in charge of the military but she is the one in charge of the nation - he'll probably be replaced before she will - and she is his nominal superior. There are risks with this, but if we're smart we can definitely make some moves to ensure we've a direct-line-of-contact with her to counter any potential moves he might make. Maybe see if she'd be in the market for any non-military capital ships? Something to help them clear their orbital debris might be smart...

>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.

"If you want a showpiece, the Sovereign is the most impressive. If you want a fleet killer, the Warhawk is the most powerful. If you want to move troops and support them, the Carrack is most suited."

>>6023861
>>>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.

Oh great, political squabbles. Yeah, while the admiral may be good in the short term, causing a way may be quite deleterious. I say stick with the Empress.

>>6023878
+1

>>6023895
OOH! That's a good idea! We might even be able to make big money doing it for free, depending on the scrap... and if not money, might be able to grab some good tech, no?

>>6023895
I don’t know about calling the sovereign a showpiece. It’s still a highly functional warship with great firepower and command capabilities, if a little gaudy. Simply calling it a showpiece is underselling it too much for my taste’s, I’d argue it’s just as good as the other two ships but a little less suited to Raina’s direct military needs (invasion).

>>6023902
Well yeah, except the Sovereign has 5 technical issues for us to overcome. The power grid, electronics, sensors, targeting and C3. The carrack and Warhawk have one and two respectively. Even assuming you take the light guns of the carrack as a issue, that'd still be just two.

Reasonably speaking therefore, it seems entirely reasonable to call out the Sovereign as a showpiece - on paper and at a distance it might look great and scare the shit out of someone, but unless we get a lot of money to fix the problems, it's gonna be a very flawed vessel.

>>6023909
Design-wise the only issue is the power grid. Building-it-ourselves-wise the other stuff is an issue, if we skimp out on the proper research or buying quality shit then it becomes a design issue. It’ll be a shitty ship if we make it a shitty ship, but in theory it should be up to par if we put in the requisite time and money. And why would we tell them that anywho.

>>6023916
Well yeah, but let me put it another way - if we applied the same tech / funding to the other two designs, they'd also be substantially improved (e,g with the same funding, the Warhawk could use automation or more advanced targeting to cut down on the issue of literally everything inside being ammo storage with little room for crew or other facilities). Being upfront with the fact the Sovereign as a design is fundamentally more likely to have problems is just reasonable - we're definitely building them a ship, let them decide if they want to risk a potential boondoggle.

>>6023861
>>Try to sell them on the assault carrier.
This will net us more future contracts i think.

>>6023861
>Try to sell them Project Sovereign, sounds more like what the Empress wants.
She's cute

>>6023865
>>6023877
>>6023878
>>6023892
>>6023895
>>6023896
>>6023897
>>6023967
>>6024152

Almost everyone voting for Project Sovereign. Makes me wonder how things would have gone if the Admiral was a hot upstart dommy mommy while the Emperor was the old dude.

>Writing...

Regardless of politics you were here to make a sale, and the first, most simple rule of sales was: ‘’If the customer knows what they want: give it to them.” Now that the Empress was here she would likely stymie any attempt to finalize the design of a hypothetical assault carrier, much easier to present her with something full formed she could say yes to. And you had just the thing.

“Well there is this other design I was showing the Admiral. I call it Project: Sovereign. It’s more of a pure space warship which might be more up your alley.”

You bring up the holo-schematic of the Sovereign design again, walking the Empress through the specs before finishing off with some artistic impressions of the ship in action.

"Look, if you're planning on a fight happening, and needing a ship to carry the day done soon you'll want the assault carrier. If you just want to start building a fleet, and you either have supporting ships already or you have the time to get them, the Sovereign is probably the better option as the centrepiece. I'd personally recommend the Sovereign, but that might just be the businessman in me hoping you'll buy the rest of the fleet from me, too."

The Empress studied the design thoughtfully, you could see the Admiral’s face grow dark as any hope of him getting his desired vessel slipped away.

“It looks a little phallic for my tastes, but the Sovereign seems like it would provide a stout deterrent to the Empires enemies as well as inspire the people. I believe we should commission this design.”

Whatever the power dynamic was between the High Admiral and the Empress, he clearly didn’t have enough to openly defy her. In the end Arcturus was forced to give his grudging assent. “If it pleases your Majesty, so be it.”

“Excellent. I thank you for your time Mr. Horner, my secretary will organise a follow up meeting with my own financiers and shipwrights to finalize the contract.”

You couldn’t help but grin at closing the sale.

“No, thank you for your patronage your highness.”

>cont

File: Yard_Construct4_wSovereig(...).png (226 KB, 1793x1366)

226 KB PNG

>>6024470
You spent another week on the station attending meetings. This time Persica and Frank(your legal consultant) did most of the talking. It was mostly hashing out design details and finalizing the payment plan.

The Raihan Government was still offering 100,000 tons of common matter. It didn’t seem to have much in the way of other currencies. Getting upfront payment was out of the question, even if the Raihans were willing to take that risk, they didn’t have the capacity to ship it all to you in one go and you didn’t have the capacity to store it.

Payment would be delivered in instalments upon completion of certain milestones. When all was said and done your associates presented you with the project plan.

Frank wasn’t too happy about it.

“I’ll be honest Boss, if we had any kind of reserve this would be a done deal, as it stands things might get a little tight.”

“Well there is some good news. Turns out we don’t need to worry about the C3 systems. The Raihans have some kind of taboo against advanced computing tech, instead they rely on a special ‘savant’ caste to handle that stuff. We just need to alter all the command consoles accordingly. They’re willing to give us the tech.”

>Gained new technology: Raihan Neural Interface.

“That just leaves the long-range sensor system. I don’t think we can develop it in house.”

“That’s a problem for future us. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

--------------------------

The Raihans sent you home on the freighter that carried the first instalment of your payment. It was definitely a down grade but at least the freighter gave you separate rooms.

>Gained 20K Common Matter

Once you arrived back home you were happy to find the deal with Clan Maragathon concluded with out a hitch. The lizards had taken their ship and left in a hurry, but not before giving you the final payment.

>Gained 3mill Maragathon Scrip

((Gonna try tacking some numbers onto all this ship building in order to have a lever to create more dilemmas and decisions.))

>Now, before the next update. Somebody roll me a d20.

A Note on Matter as Currency and Building Materials

You can’t actually make a ship out of money. Ships are constructed using different combinations of matter. The more high tech the design, the higher the proportion of rare matter or even exotic matter. You are unlikely to have all the materials you need in the required quantities at any given time. Thus you will need to buy what you lack either with money or through direct trading.

Common Matter: Iron, Nickel and other abundant elements, usually formed into ingots fitting some kind of economic standard. Undeniably useful as they make up the base materials for various alloys and components. Almost every faction and race place some value on common matter, however its bulk makes them a poor medium of exchange for entities incapable of storing or transporting them.

Rare Matter: Lithium, Boron and similar elements. Like common matter, but more valuable due to rarity and usefulness to industry. Rare matter packs more value per ton, but once again runs into issues involving bulk transport and being able to quickly exchange it for desired goods.

Exotic Matter: Anti-matter, Phelebotinium, E-115; exotic matter is a catch all term for materials that share extraordinary physics defying properties. Rarely found in nature, and requiring expensive infrastructure to synthesize in industrial quantities. Exotic Matter is an essential component in the manufacture of FTL drives and certain advanced power plants. Despite its incredible value, trading in exotic matter is difficult as it usually requires specially made storage facilities.

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>6024474

Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>6024474

Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>6024474

File: Infonet1.png (389 KB, 1635x1355)

389 KB PNG

>>6024502
((Too low for anything to happen...))
>>6024635
((This one however...))

With the initial payment of common matter covering the cost of phase 1 construction of the super structure went off without a hitch. The Raihan Empire delivered the second payment on schedule but the foundry reported some impurities with it.

Turns out the Raihans were sourcing their common matter from their own debris field, must have been centuries worth of detritus up there and the salvage crews weren’t 100% through when sorting it for processing. In a stroke of good luck, the ‘impurities’ turned out to be rare matter embedded in cut up ancient ship hulls.

>Lost 20kT CM
>Gained 35kT CM
>Gained 5kT RM

With phase two came the first major hurdle. You needed rare and exotic matter to fabricate the power plant, engines, electronics and FTL drive. Nominally you’d buy these off the open market you had no money beyond the Margathon Scrip which was currently very hard to move.

Current Resources:
>35kT CM
>5kT RM
>3mil Maragthon Scrip

"Who the fuck is Paul Ruskay?" you ponder as you peruse the local infonet.

How to source the materials?
>Try to find an independent seller to take your scrip.
>Try buying from someone you already know. (Who?)
>Make transactions on the open market to get what you need. (See pic related)
>Some other hairbrained scheme. (Write In)

>>6024679
Ah fuck my rampant copy-pasta has bitten me in the ass. Some of the prices on the Clan Collective Market being in SoC is a typo. The Saurians are definitely not handling transactions in solar credits.

>>6024689
Are all the buying and selling prices meant to be switched? because right now we could buy the materials and sell it for a profit.

>>6024717
I guess? When I wrote buy and sell I meant: The market will buy from you at this price and sell to you at this price.

Is that not how it's displayed IRL? I can swap it if you find it confusing.

>>6024679
Assuming we sell all the CM (and buying and selling rates are swapped) we would get 3.15 mil (3.5*0.9) SoC on the UMI and 3.85 (3.5*1.1) CAS on the CCM.


Rare matter would be better to buy on the UMI then the CCM looking at the exchange rates with us being to buy about 1.67k*10 tons (3.15/2.3) the UMI and 1.48k*10 tons (3.85/2.6) using the CCM


And EM would be better on the UMI as well since we can buy about 4.85k Tons (3.15/1.2*2) EM using the UMI and 4.28k (3.85/1.8*2) Tons using the CCM

So if we’re going to sell our common matter to buy other materials the UMI is just straight up better.


>>6024732
Nah it’s fine just confused me a little. Can we get an estimate of how much EM and RM we’ll need for the ship?

>>6024742
Wait NVM I ignored the earlier graphic.

>>6024732
Yeah I think the intuitive reading is that we buy from the buy column and sell at the sell column.

>>6024679

I’m a bit leery of using the lizard money now - it might be worth more in the future if the Margathon clan becomes a stronger faction.

>Try buying from someone you already know. (Who?)

Do we perhaps know if the Lizards have any interest in trading for rare/exotic materials? Obviously we want to trade in resources and NOT potentially worthless lizard money. What about the black market for stolen materials? We might be able to “launder” stolen materials by converting them into ship parts, sort of like how some assholes will steal copper tubing and then install it into someone’s house for double-profits (no cost materials!) or a chop-shop for cars.

>>6024742
We need about 15,000 more RM and 1,000 EM to finish the project- which will cost us 4.1mil SoC to buy the on the market which we won’t have even if we sell all the CM. Selling all but 15k CM (for construction) on the market nets us 1.8 Mil so we need to make up a 2.3 Mil SoC difference.


So I guess…
>Try buying from someone you know (Maragthon)
>>See if we can buy any Raw materials from them using their script.

We can’t really make any moves until we know exactly what we can get using their script, but 2.3 Mil worth of stuff is what we should go in thinking of getting (or getting a loan of) in negotiations.

>>6024679
Push our 3mil scrip onto Benny and see what we get. I really doubt it will appreciate in any observable future.

>>6024777
You burned all your underworld contacts when raising the capital to set up the shipyard.

You could try making some new ones but getting in bed with criminals carries much bigger risk.

>>6024777
"The Lizards" are not a monolith. You currently have direct contacts with Clan Margathon and Clan Quezet.

Margathon is currently unwilling to sell anything... I wonder why?

Quezet is will to sell to you at a 300% mark up. They think it was nice of you to do business with Margathon but the value of their scrip is still in the toilet.

>>6024780
Loans are an option, yes.

>>6024780

What about taking out a loan for the 2.3 solar creds? Probably we’d get absolutely shanked on rates but if we stay on top of the payments we can make our lender re-amortize.

>>6024679
Know what? Fuck it.
>Sell 20,000 CM for 1.8 Mil SoC credits
>Take a loan of 2.3 Mil SoC credits
>Buy 15,000 RM and 1,000 EM for 4.1 Mil SoC credits
>Pray to space Jesus the Maragthorn Credits appreciate or the Raihan’s pony up before we go into bankruptcy

We already bet on this shitty currency might as well double down.

>>6024801
Tentative +1
>>6024789
Can we sell any of our technology or designs? I’m really scared of taking a loan.

>>6024801
>>6024805
Why don't you want to sell the scrip to Benny, anons?

>>6024679
ehhh, +1 to >>6024801

>>6024824
>gacha
ngmi

>>6024827
>hates gacha
>is willing to bet on a currency of a minor clan who's getting its shit kicked in somehow appreciating somewhere in the undefined future
Please explain your reasoning.

>>6024830
It’s either that or sell it for pennies. At least we know they have a capital ship now. We’ll need a loan anyways even if we do sell it.

What if we were to enter a partnership with the Empire of Raiha and become their state-sponsored shipyard?

We could make a deal to become their state shipyard and trade center with the rest of the galaxy. Since we are located on a massive trade network we could potentially be the largest space presence the rest of the galaxy sees of the Raiha. And in doing so we could promise them to begin construction on both military and civilian vessels. This would make them invested in our continued existence as well.

For example, we could start with a civilian ship mounting many small lasers that destroy orbital debris. This could be a good way to begin countering their Kessler syndrome.

>>6024875

This is a good plan but I’m sure they’ll want one or more completed ships from us before we become their shipyard of choice?

>>6024830
oh, nah, I wouldn't have been for dealing with the lizards in the first place. That weird second option would've been my choice.

>>6024801
>>6024805
>>6024827
We are working a job with a profit margin below 2mil, we definitely should not go into that much debt.
We need to exhaust every other possible avenue before it comes to that.
>Try to find an independent seller to take your scrip.
>Some other hairbrained scheme. (Write In)
Get an (1) amazing deal from BENNY

>>6024946
Yeah, but we've already dealt with them, so why are you voting on holding on to their trash "money" now?

>>6024948

I don’t really see any other avenues besides that, though. Unless Benny is both the best negotiator in the universe AND dealing with the biggest sucker in the universe we’re going to go into debt, the only difference would be going into very slightly less debt now by selling the script, or going into 2.3 mil debt now and holding onto the script in hopes of a payday. The way I see it the only damned chance of profit we have here is holding onto the script. And if the script doesn’t go up, we pay off most of the debt from the Raiha payments and we hope that the jobs we done were good enough advertisement to get a more profitable one.


I see this as mostly a consequence of choosing probably the least synergistic options of the starts. The most expensive starting area and the most expensive ships.

Hot take: it’s actually good for us to go into some debt.

We want to build up a “credit score” that shows that we are a reliable partner

>>6024991
The thing you need to remember about Benny is that he seems to be doing it for the hell of it moreso than anything else. He's one of those ship-people from Homeworld, so he's got all the tech he needs.
>>6024679
>Make transactions on the open market to get what you need. (See pic related)
Convert 7.5k common mats into 1k tons of Exotic Matter (this is the approximate exchange rate if you convert it through creds... I think). We can buy the rare matter when we get more payment.
>Try to find an independent seller to take your scrip.
If it's not a good deal:
>Some other hairbrained scheme. (Write In)
TRIPLE GACHA WITH BENNY!

>>6024991
>I see this as mostly a consequence of choosing probably the least synergistic options of the starts. The most expensive starting area and the most expensive ships.
Yeah and anyone in the market for a capital ship built by an independent yard is going to be kinda shady, hard up or both.

Regarding the scrip, I think we should make something out of it instead of just hodling it like the suckers we are. We should find someone to move it, even if the 3 mil shrink down to <1 SoC.

>>6025005
I mean the only ones who are willing to take it so far are Clan Quezet for a 300% markup so the only thing we could get is 1 ton of exotic matter with 300 thousand Maragoth Scrip left over. It would save us 650k SoC and take the debt down to 1.75k mil, but at that point I’d rather hodl for a chance of profit instead selling for chump change. I

>>6025009
Let's see if an independent seller can give us a better price than the other clan.

Roll me a d20 to find an independent seller.

Rolled 10 (1d20)

>>6025230

Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>6025230

>>6025244
>>6025249
Failed

Opinion seems to be split regarding Benny. Based on discussion I'm thinking there's enough consensus to warrant buying one object.

Roll me a d10 for Benny.

Rolled 8 (1d10)

>>6025262

>>6025269
Oh ho!

>Writing...

File: AmazingDeal.png (168 KB, 1506x1348)

168 KB PNG

Try as you might, you couldn’t find any independent sellers that were silling to take Margathon scrip without a ridiculous markup. Traders in Car’Cass were too well informed and as long as Margathon was getting thrashed by the Solar Union the value of their currency was unlikely to increase.

That left you with only one option for spending it…

------------------------

“Greetings J. Horner, I welcome you to the arena of interstellar business. The scrip you offer is of value to the… pfft… hahahaha! I’m sorry I can’t keep up this schtick any longer. Seriously? What were you thinking!? Setting up an independent capital ship yard and and selling to a clan that was facing annihilation?”

Your face fell. Of course an entity like Benny would be fully aware of the situation.

“So are you going to accept the payment or not?”

“Of course! When you’re unbound, your time horizons are practically infinite. And even if Margathon does bite the dust, nothing like a little risk to spice up one’s existence.”

“Yeah speaking of which. Can I get the odds on what this deal is likely to get me. Almost every jurisdiction legally obligates everyone to display payout odds on what is effectively gambling.”

“Hey man, being unbound means being unbound by laws like that. Besides, not even I know what you’re gonna get.”

“I thought you had mastery of hyperspace, how can you not know what you’re about pull over here!?”

“I’m high as fuck every time I do it. Initializing quantum wavefront now, big money! Big Money!”

A short distance away from the shipyard a neat box of blue energy opens up and slides across the void to reveal the derelict prow of starship where there was previously empty space.

“Hey if I pay you another million can I get the rest of that ship?”

“Nope, purged the settings from my hyperspace buffer already. Can’t let you optimize the fun out of your little venture can I?”

“Easy for you to say. Must be nice to have an infinite time horizon. When you’ve only got the span of a single flicker life I find it’s more fun to not have your investments go tits up.”

“My dude if you’re trying to guilt me into helping you out like a certain other leader you gotta do better than that. Whining about your business going under doesn’t really tug the heart strings in the same way that facing a galaxy ending threat does.”

“What are you talking-”

“Anywho gotta head for my next appointment. For what it’s worth, making that cruiser for Clan Margathon gave them a fighting chance. So who knows, maybe things might still work out for you yet. Farewell…”

>Lost 1mil Margathon Scrip

>Cont

>>6025355
After your worker drones finished dismantling the wreck you received a report from the foundry. Looks like the piece of junk Benny gave you was the prow of some kind of high spec warship, human tech base as well, probably a casualty in some ancient battle fought by the human diaspora. The hull and internal components were broken down into a respectable mix of common and rare matter but the real jack pot was an advanced fire control system optimized to acquire targets for a railgun battery at long range. With some time and modifications your R&D team could repurpose it for Sovereign and even reverse engineer the tech for your own use.

>Gained 10kt CM
>Gained 3kt RM
>Salvaged FCS has filled the requirement for a long range sensor and reduced the cost of phase 3 by 1kT RM.
>Gained technology: Mil Spec Long Range Targeting Sensors

>Revise purchasing plan in light of these developments?
>Otherwise gonna go with:
>>6024801

((Benny considers their business with you done for now, you may not attempt to buy more pulls from them at this time.))

Here's a little something extra for you guys:

https://voca.ro/16zHIqp3PPKD

>>6025358
Revising.
Selling CM to buy RM is marginally more efficient with the Clans, so I switched to them
>Sell 28,363 CM for 3.12 Mil CAS
>Buy 12,000 RM for 3.12 Mil CAS
>Sell 1,636 CM for 0.147 Mil SoC
>Take a loan of 0.753 Mil SoC
>Buy 1,000 EM for 0.65 Mil SoC
>Have 250k SoC of liquid funds

>>6025455
((I think I might live to regret simulating a market. Oh well, Cést la vie.))

Let's get the bean counting out of the way.

>Writing...

File: Layzor.jpg (140 KB, 764x1047)

140 KB JPG

Even with your gamble with Benny paying off you ended up having to go into debt, and to financial institutions affiliated with the Solar Union no less.

>You have taken out a loan for 753k Solar Credits at 10% interest.
>Phase 2 Construction Costs: Lost 10kT CM, 10kT RM, 1kT EM

With phase 2 complete it was time for the installation of the weapon systems, sensors and a whole manner of other little things. Shortly after phase 3 began Tim, your CTO came to you with a problem.

“Jack, I’ve been reviewing the schematics for Sovereign. Based on the specs of the primary laser turret and the way its wired to the main reactor, the weapon is going to be prone to overheating.”

“Stuff like that is a chronic problem with energy weapons. No design is perfect.”

“This isn’t a minor problem. If we keep to the current design the laser turret will only be able to fire a handful of shots in battle before the heat build-up reaches dangerous levels along the main power conduit in the spine. You know what else is along the ship’s spine? The missile launchers. Unless the captain uses the laser sparingly there’s a very real chance the magazine for the missiles will cook off and destroy the whole ship. This is a potentially fatal flaw.”

“What can we do about it?”

“We’ll need to mount an array of heat sinks along the spine. This will solve the problem, but they’ll replace the capital class missile launchers.”

“That will lower the overall firepower, can we find somewhere else to put the missiles?”

“We could replace most of the medium kinetic battery in the rear with a VLS. This would reduce the ship’s effectiveness against frigate class vessels at medium to close range. We’d be going all in on the long range specialisation.”

“If the problem is the laser why not just replace it with something easier to work with like another capital class VLS?”

>cont

>>6025466
“The laser is the centre piece of the design. Removing it would be seen as us cutting corners. It’s also worth noting that despite doing less raw damage than a missile battery, energy weapons offer a significant tactical advantage through their speed and precision. Effective countermeasures also require a much higher tech base, whereas most stellar nations can just slap a CWIS on their frigates and drastically reduce the effectiveness of missiles.”

“What about a heavy kinetic battery then?”

“Still sacrificing speed and precision, plus the ship’s combat profile will shift towards a mid-range brawler. It doesn’t quite have enough armour to be optimal and that role and we can’t add any more without screwing up the thrust/mass ratio.”

>How to handle this.
>Make no changes. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but also contain a FATAL FLAW.
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.
>Trade the Laser turret for another VLS. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER on paper but will be EASILY COUNTERED by anti-missile systems. Phase 3 costs reduced by 4kT RM and increased by 4kt CM.
>Trade the Laser turret for a heavy kinetic battery. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but will be LESS SUITED for its role. Phase 3 costs reduced by 4kT RM and increased by 4kt CM.
>Just remove the missile launchers and install the heat sinks. The Sovereign will have REDUCED FIREPOWER but will retain FLEXIBILITY.

-------------------------

After you finish talking to Tim you are visited by Caroline from marketing.

“Hey Jack, I was talking to some of crew chiefs and the fitting of the crew quarters hasn’t started yet. I know it’s not in the agreed upon spec but we still have an opportunity to install a few luxury suites on the ship. I think it would be a nice bonus that would help keep the Raihans sweet. I’ve found a specialist in xeno-ergonomics who’s willing to join us for 1 million Solar Credits.”

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)
>Pay 1mil SoC and gain the Xeno-Ergonomics(Human) tech. Luxury suites added to the Sovereign at no extra cost.
>”You know what Caroline? I think I do have good taste. I’ve seen the kind of styles they like on Raiha. How hard could this be?” (Roll 2d100 to attempt to add Luxury suites without pre-requisite tech. Could go wrong.)

>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.
A ship of this class needs to have escorts anyway.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

>>6025468
>Make no changes. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but also contain a FATAL FLAW.
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

>>6025520
>Make no changes. The Sovereign will have MAXIMUM FIREPOWER but also contain a FATAL FLAW.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

Ignore above vote

>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.

>”You know what Caroline? I think I do have good taste. I’ve seen the kind of styles they like on Raiha. How hard could this be?” (Roll 2d100 to attempt to add Luxury suites without pre-requisite tech. Could go wrong.)

>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.

>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

Actually thinking it over the fatal flaw is way too bad to justify. Switching.

>>6025468
>Put in the heat sinks and swap out the rear kinetics for a VLS. The Sovereign will be more VULNERABLE at medium to short range.
>”We can’t afford any feature creep this late in the project.” (Refuse)

>>6025492
>>6025520
>>6025587
>>6025530
>>6025632

Unanimous vote for rear VLS.

Overwhelming majority for no feature creep.

>Writing...

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You decide to sacrifice some kinetic turrets to move the missile system, really the Sovereign should be adequately escorted at all times. You were sure the Raihans would agree that the trade-off was worth it. Acquiring 10kT of rare matter to complete phase 3 turned out to be the last real road block to the project. With phase 3 complete the penultimate instalment of common matter came in and from there it was a straight shot to finish up the outer hull.

You were expecting to organise some kind of gala event upon Sovereign’s completion, maybe even play host to the Admiral or Empress as the ship launched. No such thing happened. The Sovreign’s crew came in with the last shipment of common matter and boarded the ship with little ceremony. In the end it launched with little fanfare. Although you did sense a quiet respect when you handed her over to the captain.

“Fine work you’ve done there Mr. Horner. Shame I won’t be able to keep her.”

“What do you mean?”

“My orders are to take the ship to Raiha, once there it will be-” he caught himself. “Well, you need not concern yourself with such matters. On behalf of her Imperial Majesty I thank you for your services.”
Final resource count at project completion:
>25kT CM
>1kT RM
>250k SoC
Outstanding debt:
>911k SoC (interest has incremented twice over the duration of the project.)

---------------------

In the end a rather modest office party with the rest of your executives marked the end of Project Sovereign. After the ship launched your work crews had promptly used up their vacation days. Half of them were probably getting shit faced on one of Car’Cass’s many orbital habitats. Sitting in the board room you contemplated your disposable cup of cheap champagne while the rest of the team rode the giddy high that came before the crash at the end of weeks of overtime.

“Guys I’ve been thinking, we have to get bigger. Right now we can only make one cap ship at a time, that’s basically putting all of our eggs in one basket. We need to expand the yard, have more than one revenue stream you know?”

“Jack, we barely turned a profit on Sovereign and it will be God knows how long before the Margathon scrip is worth something. If we didn’t get lucky with Benny we could be deep in the red right now. I don’t think we’re in a good position to expand.”

>cont

>>6025689
“Shhh Karen, let’s allow ourselves to dream a little,” you activate the AR display on the conference table and draw a crude sketch of the shipyard. “Come on everyone, if money wasn’t an issue, what do you think we really need?”

>Vote for Minor upgrade, this is a ranked vote so you may vote for multiple options.
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade the yard’s defence grid. Right now you only have some light CWIS turrets. Upgrade will increase turret coverage and firepower.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

>Vote for a yard expansion, also a ranked vote.
>A second capital class dry dock.
>Two frigate class drydocks.
>A factory for strike craft.

>>6025692
If money wasn’t an issue.

>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies

>Two frigate class drydocks.

>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.
If someone's going to attack us, they're going to do it to try and take us over, but we REALLY need more tech on offer. Like flatpacked assemble-on-site ships and atomic welding for delivering capital-class monitors.

>>Two frigate class drydocks.
>A factory for strike craft.
Start selling monitor frigates and escort/patrol craft. Do NOT build a 2nd capital drydock. We don't have enough buyers.

>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade the yard’s defence grid. Right now you only have some light CWIS turrets. Upgrade will increase turret coverage and firepower.

>Two frigate class drydocks.
Sounds like Raihans are doing something tricky.

>>6025705
This vote presumes we only get one of each, and if we only get one total it's the frigate-class drydock.

>>6025692
>>6025705
+1

>>6025692

>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

This is practically mandatory. Once our staffing is solid, we can focus on exterior defenses.

>A factory for strike craft.

This is equally mandatory - we NEED the ability to crank out smaller craft on a regular basis to keep a steady income. Not to mention - there’s probably a market for overpriced elite fighter craft and a specialty outfit like ours could really make a name quickly.

>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

>A factory for strike craft.
Not only is strike craft the quicker turnover option, we could build a carrier and its strike wing in one go.

>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.

>A factory for strike craft.
>Two frigate class drydocks.
Strike craft can be sold as a package with a capital as a carrier, harder to do with frigates.

>>6025692

Minor Upgrade:
>Defense Grid
>Internal Security

If we’re going to invest in our defenses let’s invest in our defenses. All the internal security in the world doesn’t matter if a hostile party can start poking holes in our station and venting our atmosphere until we’re forced to surrender.

Shipyard Upgrade:
>Strikecraft factory

Let’s just start building some craft we won’t have trouble moving in large quantities to ensure we have a trickle of income to finance our larger projects

>>6025692
>>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>>Upgrade internal security. Currently your security teams consist of rent-a-cops, enough to police your employees but inadequate in the face of any armed boarders. Upgrade will also enhance cyber security and bring in a small team of private investigators.


>A factory for strike craft.

>>6025692
>A small lab complex: enable internal research into new technologies.
>A factory for strike craft.

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>6025697
>>6025705
>>6025706
>>6025709
>>6025718
>>6025726
>>6025730
>>6025935
>>6025947
>>6025974

Lab Complex: 8
Internal Security: 8
Defence Grid: 2

Frigate Docks: 5
Strike craft Factory: 8

Strike craft factory is a clear winner but there's a tie between research and internal security. Rolling a d2 to break the tie.
1: Lab
2: Internal Security

>Writing

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Time was a funny thing. The days moved by at a crawl, then suddenly it had been six months since the launch of Project Sovereign (designated the Ryu class command cruiser by the Raihans). You had always wondered why they didn’t want to celebrate the completion of their flagship. The answer came a month later when you were visited by a Raihan diplomat just as a certain story was making the rounds on the infonet.

--------------------

You read the article with a sour expression: Flagship Launched over the Throneworld

The Imperial Raihan Navy has unveiled its new flagship: The IRS Asaga. Constructed in absolute secrecy over the last few months, it is the first capital class warship produced by the Imperial Shipyards in over 200 years. First of a new line of Ryu class command cruisers, the IRS Asaga boasts a formidable array of long range weapons and advanced C3 capabilities, making it the lynchpin of any naval formation.

Empress Asaga was present at the launching ceremony where High Admiral Garan christened the new ship in her honour. The Empress expressed hope that the ship would go on to defend the Raihan people and inspire hope for a prosperous and peaceful future as the Empire returned to the stars.

“Seriously? What the fuck?” You growled as the door to your office opened.

Right on queue the Raihan diplomat stepped into your office with one of those annoying inoffensive smiles on his face.

“You want to tell me what exactly your government is playing at?” You say as you bring up the news article on the AR display where he could see it. “Project Sovereign was our first real contract; it was supposed to put my shipyard on the map. I went into debt to finish that ship for you and now you’ve gone and stolen the credit!”

“Come now Mr. Horner; it simply will not do for my Illustrious Empire to be seen commissioning a no name independent shipyard to build the ship that is to be a symbol of its might.”

“And yet that’s exactly what it did.”

The diplomat sighed.

“You must understand that repairing our own industry to the point where we could build capital ships ourselves would have taken much longer. When we heard that your company was open for business we saw an opportunity to accelerate our plans.”

“So now what? Have you come to threaten me into silence? You know construction of a capital class warship is not easy to hide. Anyone with eyes to see would have noticed.”

“But all eyes were on the throne-world. And there’s no need to be so hostile Mr. Horner. The Empress sympathizes with your situation. In exchange for your… continued discretion I have been authorized to offer you further compensation…”

>Cont

>>6026278
Well, that had happened. With the Raihan Empire’s hush money you had managed to pay off your debt and expanded the shipyard. It was a new era for JH Independent Shipworks. You couldn’t say it was bright (after the expansion had been paid for you barely had anything left) but you were in a stronger position that you were before and despite being in the middle of a vacuum you could smell opportunity.

>Thread Intermission

>>6026279
>taking the hush money
I know we would've ended up taking it anyway because anons are cowards but I wanted to expose the fuckers or force alternative compensation for dicking us over like this.

I will be putting the main story on hold for the next few days to recover from running. This quest has ended up requiring much more effort from me than I originally thought. I knew the art would take some doing what I didn’t expect was to end simulating an economy and spend so much time doing the writing.

You see I did not want this quest to just be a “video game” where I give you a spread sheet of numbers and tell you what happens. That’s a waste of a human QM, might as well go play an actual video game. I tried to frame the choice outcomes with actual character interaction rather than an impersonal summary. Having said all that I ended up defining an in universe economy. Even though I risk getting bogged down with spreadsheets it was getting hard to communicate the stakes of running the shipyard without putting some actual numbers to your choices.

One of the things I plan to do during the intermission is think a bit on how to balance the economy. (The hush money is basically an excuse for a soft reset.) The other is come up with new story threads.
In the mean time, (You) now have the opportunity to get some of that creative space ship action I promised. Based on your discussion I will do art for up to two designs to add the catalogue before the main story moves forward. Now’s your chance; do you want to diversify with civilian designs, or double down on the death machines?

Oh and feedback; feel free to offer it. How are you liking the quest so far? I made up a lot of stuff as I went but I’m starting to find my feet now that we’ve explored a few plot threads together.

>>6026294
Quest is fun. I think we ought to try and make a utility ship, something that is able to to do onsite scrapping, repairing, and general maintenance. Would have military and civilian uses, and with more yards, can produce different squadrons? Produce small groups of ships designed to work off of each other

>>6026294
Let's develop a line of Kessler Syndrome cleanup small craft and sell them to the Raihans before anyone else catches wind of this market. Even though I'm angry at them.

>>6026294

I love the quest and think you’re doing a great job. Addressing “scope creep” is a great idea too - quests have a tendency to spiral out of control and QMs can find themselves simulating things that the MC wouldn’t know or care about if they’re not careful.

>>6026404

Supporting - a line of space garbage trucks isn’t glamorous but it will pay the bills

We didn’t get the tech yard so we should design something using the tech we currently have or it’s going to be costly to develop it again. We recently got the long range military sensors which is probably now the most impressive tech we got.

So what about a small disposable scouting strike-craft that’s pretty much just equipped with sensors meant to find enemy positions and ships, and for civilian purposes mineable asteroids ore and other things. If we’re feeling really good maybe some cloaking tech to make it harder to find.

We got a strike-craft yard and capital ship yard… Let’s make a shift that synergizes these two.
>Design a capital ship a lot like project Carrack that focuses on serving as a command and launch post for strike-craft with some limited firepower.
This way when we sell the ship we can package it with strike-craft we make for extra profit.

>>6026513
+1
Makes sense

>>6026294

>Design a modular strike craft, the craft I envision will be on the larger end of what could reasonably be considered strike craft. The basic concept behind this vessel is to build a robust chassis, and power plant that can then be fitted with. Variety of mission specific modules so it can be tailored to customer needs without needing a fully new design for each customer.

You want a bomber drone, slap on the bomb bay module and an ai pilot module, then send it off. You want a VIP transport slap on a luxury transport module a defensive armament module and an organic pilot module and your good to go.

I think yall get the picture, I feel something like this will give us access to the most amount of customers without necessitating completely new designs for each customer

>>6026513
I like the idea, but we'll need some kind of bomber if we want to sell this. Having a carrier with only fighters might sell, but it will definitely be harder.

>>6026294
I really like the quest, please continue when you've recovered.

>>6026294

Really enjoying the quest so far QM, and I love your drawing style.

>>6026568

Won't we run into the exact same issues as with the proper warships ? As in, they will be far to brittle and potentially prone to failure due to combat stress. We would still need that tech that allows for metal to fuse together easily. As of right now, unless we can figure out how to make those drones dirt cheap, I doubt this will sell.

>>6026404
Maybe we can make some kind of cleanup ship that carries drones that help with the cleanup?

>>6026589
We can only make Capital and Strike spaceships. I doubt anyone would buy a capital ship solely for cleaning. If we do that might as well make a ship for carrying strikecraft in general hint-hint and then offer the cleaning drones on the side.

>>6026587
Way I figure it all strike craft have to be pretty flimsy in the grand scheme of things. Ours just happen to be a little more flimsy, though the way I imagined the craft is a simple well made frame that the modules slap on to. Rather than the entirely modular flat pack warship concept. This strike craft would be in essence a traditional frame, and power plant that mission specific modules are attached to. Hopefully it wouldn’t be overly flimsy but if it is it would have the advantage of being a one size fits all solution for poorer worlds and nation states. Buy one strike craft and a few different modules and you could have everything from a heavy fighter to a courier shuttle. As opposed to having to purchase wholly separate craft for each role

I definitely think there is a market niche for a product like this especially if we could keep it on the cheaper side

>>6026294
1. Modular workhorse 'strike craft' similar to >>6026568 - can be anything from heavy fighter, medium bomber, courier, atmospheric craft, lander, light hauler.
2. A similarly minded modular hauler capital that can be refit to be a carrier, cargo liner, fleet tender or specialist.

Really enjoying the quest Cognis, certainly one of my favourites when I can catch it.

>>6026591
Well if we have one for civilian purposes I would probably be cheaper on account of not needing military components or weapons. We already know the Raihans suffer from Kessler Syndrome, perhaps we could reach out to them and see if they're interested.

>>6026595

I think in that case, it'd be cheaper for us to just simply give loadout modularity, anti-ship missiles, anti-craft missiles, Stuff like that. I doubt most people will be wanting to get into a modular VIP craft even if it is as flimsy as any other, perception matters and all that.

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>>6026311
>>6026404
>>6026568
>>6026595
>>6026600
>>6026601
>>6026619

Persica rubbed her temples after sitting through your latest stream of consciousness.

“I’m pretty sure the Raihans are already handling their Kessler Syndrome. All their material payments were salvaged ship parts. They are likely ‘mining’ the debris field around their home world like crazy. We can be reasonably sure they have access to small industrial craft, maybe even frigate production facilities. If we want to work the Kessler clean up angle we need to pitch them something they can’t make themselves. Maybe something like a mobile foundry that will allow them to process what they salvage on site. If we had access to remote effector technology we could mount tractor beams on the thing and it would be even more efficient.”

“As for modular craft, you’ve got to tread carefully. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do modularisation. From what you’re saying I’m guessing you want some kind of heavy duty frame that can be retooled as a transport or a bomber. I can easily design civilian and military variants around a common chassis but if you want something that can be reconfigured like a brick-based toy construction kit I’d advise against it. It would compromise the integrity of the design.”

“Persica, we can’t afford to let idealized design principles stop-”

“I’m talking about literal integrity, not artistic integrity you dingus! Your mix-and-match strikecraft would have components coming loose every time it hit a micrometeoroid. Besides, nobody retools the same chassis constantly to fit shifting needs, they buy multiple variants and increase efficiency through shared parts. You want a luxury shuttle and a bomber built on the same hull? That I can do. You want something that can swap out torpedoes for a zero-g jacuzzi in a single maintenance cycle? Come back when you’ve acquired radical atomic reconfiguration tech and all the prerequisite tech needed to make it viable on a strikecraft. Pull that off and you’ll basically transcend the need for a shipyard and all your employees. You could turn yourself into any type of ship you want and go hang out with Benny.”

“I don’t know, when I met up with them I got the feeling that Benny wasn’t living their best life.”

“Not the point Jack!”

((Main quest might be on hold but I think I can still do these little vignettes.))

>>6026294
I'm liking the quest very much.

>>6026656
Alright, so bomber/troop transport/civilian transport variants around a common chassis and a carrier design to carry them. Can we do better interceptors than the basic drone we already have, as an upgrade package we can offer to prospective clients at a reasonable cost? Gunships?

Also, laserboat and missile boat variants for the Monarch? Variant that sacrifices firepower for survivability?

I will also second anon's idea for a utility ship.

>>6026656
With the new information about how difficult a purely modular ship could be I’d like to refine my proposed strike craft idea.

>Aerospace Assault Shuttle (AAS)

The AAS is large as far as strike craft goes taking the form of a flying wing with an engorged mid section where the majority of the vessels components will be located. The most prominent features of the baseline vessel are its somewhat overkill power plant and heavy armor for a strike craft.

Though the most interesting feature is the two modular weapon mounts in the wings and the modular bay located in the fattest part of the craft. The modular weapon mounts are capable of hosting anything from light rail weapons, to missiles, and bomb racks though the standard pattern of the AAS equips strike craft grade lasers in these nodes.

The modular bay is most commonly fitted out as a utility storage and transport area, capable of handling light cargo or transporting a substantial amount of personnel in relative safety if not comfort. However their are several other options for the modular bay depending on customer request, the more common examples are internal missile racks capable of carrying a variety of guided munitions these racks fold out from the bay and increase its firepower substantially. Advanced Sensor suite this bay is outfitted with a variety of advanced sensors and electronic warfare equipment and the boarding bay this bay is equipped with magnetic clamps and cutting torches especially designed to get heavily armored marines into enemy vessels where they can do their work

>>6026656
Ok, broad horizons are impossible to reach. I think all this interchangeable/modular talk is a sense of not wanting to make something that there isn't a market for. We have little to no market knowledge at the moment, perhaps we should do some surveys through the local ports and nearby systems to see what ships are in demand?

Well, as I see it there are a number of options for where we could go next. As it stands, we've acquired advanced C3 from the Sovereign project, so a carrier or drone tender - military or civilian - could easily make use of those I imagine. Similarly we could try and design a light capital ship along the lines of our initial Enforcer design but with a more focused approach to combat rather than its jack-of-all-trades approach. Ditch the fighter craft and bulk up the engines or guns to make an interceptor or brawler for example. Trade them for anti-capital missiles or accommodations space to make a "destroyer" or troop ship. Hell, replace the majority of the weapons systems with sensors, briefing rooms and high quality quarters and sell it as a command ship.

Assuming we didn't want to go for a military design - drones would be useful for salvage, mining, exploration, disaster response and repair work. A mobile scrapyard or foundry as the NPC advised would be a good idea - even better if it can work from ore - and best of all if it can fabricate very simple parts like armor plating, pipes or wiring.

If we are aiming to design a modular (capital) ship, I'd say for our first go we should aim civilian and go as bare-bones as possible for the core craft. Specifically - and taking inspiration from a ship I adore - a largely skeletal spine onto which custom-purpose utility sections can be attached. Anything from cargo bays to living accommodations, hydroponics to tractor beams. If you wanted to go even more extreme, you'd make it so each utility section carried its length of spine and the core craft as two sections capable of independent movement. Could even make it a selling point - if your reactor/engine breaches, your command section has battery power and solar arrays to keep you warm and breathing until rescue gets to you. It'd probably have issues with the FTL drive being underutilised (as in way too big for the tiny core craft) unless you are loaded down with sections - but maybe that'll let it trade out for speed or something.

For a civilian strike craft, my initial thought is to aim at the surface-to-orbit or in-system utility craft. The sort of thing a space station or ship uses to move people back and forth without bothering to dock. Cockpit, one or two areas that can be outfitted as needed and then an engine bay. Alternatively, we aim for the low end military market and basically design something for police and customs work from a space station or planet - reasonably quick, light but lethal guns or missiles, short range and simple/cheap to maintain.

>>6026513
>Support

Willing to change since it’s not the most exciting suggestion, but most of the suggestions seem to be using technology that the yard doesn’t have and our group didn’t get the tech lab.

I really apreciate you putting in the work QM :) It feels nice. I like the diagrams.
>>6026656
I do not understand whether the vote to branch off into civilian tech is concluded or how but in case it still is going maybe we can experiment with civilian ships with capital ship scale. Nobody offers cap ship production on the free market so that could be an opportunity. Could one big transport be better and more efficient than multiple smaller ones much like irl? There are bound to be a couple of Goldsteins that could afford a big boat for long term business savings or larger deliveries per freight. I am hoping that after "capital" civilian ships hit the scene, some asshole is going to up armor and arm it to make a cheap diy battleship to bully patrol frigates and herald a new age of piracy. If space killdosers turn out to be surprisingly effective it will create a pressure for civies to arm up too. We are not creating a problem to sell the solution, piracy already exists according to the QM, rather we "inspire the market". Push comes to shove if nobody buys the BIG boat for everyday use then we can use it ourselves for future endevours. I am thinking of maybe using the gigaboat to make deals with asteroid miners or entities with acess to minable asteroid fields. That way they give us materials to build ships and to stockpile resources while getting ships from us much much cheaper then if they sell the materials (and get low balled) and then buy on the market( increased price for seller profit). We ARE buying resources with a markup for some one elses profit. That way we and our trading partner could cut off a couple of middlemen.

>>6027307
>vote to branch off into civilian tech

There isn't really vote. Stuff like this is nebulous and I was just planning to see what anons talked about then use my judgement to distill the ideas down into two designs.

Right now the consensus seems to be going towards the Aerospace Assault shuttle with both military and civilian variants and a big modular civilian capital design. ((Mix n match capital ships are more feasible, but keep in mind the limitations stated by R&D.))

> Nobody offers cap ship production on the free market
Eh sorta, most capital class shipyards are affiliated with a bigger government. Large civilian ships are a thing and smaller entities buy from the state shipyards all the time where the law permits. JHIS is not under the aegis of any other faction right now which makes it more vulnerable but easier to buy from.

>>6026760
>Also, laserboat and missile boat variants for the Monarch? Variant that sacrifices firepower for survivability?

Sure I can give you those for free. Variants are a lot easier to develop assuming the changes are minor.

>>6027327
>Right now the consensus seems to be going towards the Aerospace Assault shuttle with both military and civilian variants and a big modular civilian capital design. ((Mix n match capital ships are more feasible, but keep in mind the limitations stated by R&D.))
If the Assault Shuttle counts as one of the two new designs (It makes sense that it does but I hadn't considered it for some reason), then I would say that this and a Carrier should be what we get now and wait to expand into the civilian market at the next opportunity.

>>6027327
I'm fine with the AAS, but for the other design I'd rather not go into the civilian market right now. We should really establish ourselves fully with our bread and butter being military equipment before going into civilian ships.

>>6026513
I'd say a strike-craft carrier like this anon suggested is the best second option to pair with the AAS

Hey Cognis, would it be possible to 'flip' a ship? As in, we purchase an old but prestigious model of ship, refurbish it and then resell for profit?

>>6027406
>>6027426

Okay I'm locking in the assault shuttle as the first design.

Second design will be for a new capital class. Let's put it to an official vote:

>Modular civilian capital ship. (Initial variants will be mobile foundry and transport modules.)
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

>>6027433
Yes, if you found a way to acquire someone else's ship.

>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

>>6027434

>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

We should not split our focus, we are a military manufacturer, we should only expand to the civilian market when we have established ourselves. I think splitting our focus in such a way would certainly hurt us as most of the thinking we have geared the shipyard towards was military.

>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
Civilian designs later

>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

>>6027434
>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.
I still think we should try and investigate the market, see what is being sold, see what's in demand.

>>6027434
>>Carrier design based off Project Carrack.

>>6027434
>Modular civilian capital ship. (Initial variants will be mobile foundry and transport modules.)
I do not like you guys going for carriers, we do not have the in ship production tech to build new drones, only minor repairs. And minor repairs do not sound like enough to salvage half wrecked drones for repurpousing in the field(kind of like half wreck+halfreck = new drone kind of idea). That is not going to be good for attrition for something of this scale of ship which would be expencive just because of its class AND rely on drone spam to win. Seems like something that would peter out quick if someone decides to bring the BIG boat into big battles.

Also QM could we get an idea for scale for capital ships? Can we get a human for scale next to our manufacturing? If a person would be too small then can we gat a british double decker bus for scale, or a Hinderburg for scale?
Also your prevous posts said we can build masers. What do those do? Any chance for some news hunting on the spacenet to keep an eye on our client clan?
Also what is the state of intellectual property on the hard to police expances of space? Could we buy some advanced drones off of some one on our trade lanes, crack it open and add something t
fancy to our product line?

>>6028025
((Got a slight fever so I'm just gonna answer your questions OCC.))

>we get an idea for scale for capital ships? Can we get a human for scale next to our manufacturing?
I don't like a defining a clear scale for my stuff as it forces me to add in an extra layer of autism that does little to enhance the experience. A ship is as big as the plot needs it to be.

>What do masers do?
They're like a laser, only with microwaves. For our purposes you can just assume they're another flavour of sci-fi pew-pew weapon.

>Any chance for some news hunting on the spacenet to keep an eye on our client clan?
Some information will be forthcoming in the next proper update.

>Also what is the state of intellectual property on the hard to police expances of space? Could we buy some advanced drones off of some one on our trade lanes, crack it open and add something fancy to our product line?

If you just want to cannibalize someone else's components it's usually more cost effective to buy it off them directly then buying their ship and ripping it out.

IP rights are hard to enforce in neutral space. Corporate espionage is rampant and many of the more advanced ship components have designs that obfuscate their workings to increase the cost of reverse engineering. If you're gonna try doing this be careful; piss of the wrong person and you'll get a hit put on your company.

How’s it going with reworking the system.

>>6029446
It's not, see right about Friday I came down with a 39 degree fever. I have been recovering from it ever since. As of now I've almost beat it. You should be getting an update soon...maybe.

>>6029896
Damn the QM curse is real. Hope you get better soon.

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Your yard had to temporarily stop taking orders as your workforce was re-tasked to setting up the new strike craft factory. But now JH Independent Shipworks was back baby!

Your R&D team had been busy using the down time to add more ship designs to your catalogue. One you were most excited about was the new carrack class carrier. Persica from R&D had cautioned that it really needed more advanced electronics to efficiently manage its entire strike craft compliment. Tim had been disappointed when you chose to expand internal security over building a lab, but the bullshit over Project Sov-sorry the Ryu Class had made you paranoid. You had a feeling that not only would you need better armed security personnel in the future but you would also need-for lack of a better term-an intelligence agency.

You recall the conversation you had with Decker, your newly hired head of Counter-Espionage…

----------

“Times of war are upon us.”

He said this with the certainty of a man who had seen it all before.

“Not the most astute observation. That thing between the Solar Union and the Saurians; everyone could see it coming.”

“Not just talking about that. The Raihan Empire might find itself embroiled in a war soon.”

“Empress Asaga seems to be doing her best to avoid that.”

“We don’t know that for sure, besides, it’s Lord Commander Garan I’m worried about. I’ve seen his type before; loyal to the Empire, not the Empress.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Garan wants to rebuild the Empire as it was, and he wants it to flourish under the enlightened rule of a worthy monarch. If he had his way he would have launched an invasion of the former colony worlds already.”

“Then why is he supporting the current Empress?”

“Hard to say without learning more about the situation. The most obvious answer is that the Empress is still seen as the legitimate ruler by many Raihans both on the throne-world and within the former colonies. If Garan simply staged a coup he would just be viewed as an opportunistic warlord and his dynasty wouldn’t last a generation.”

“I see so… should we sell to the Raihans or not?”

>cont

>>6030107
“Up to you, just remember to consider whose agenda you’re helping when you accept orders from them. Personally, this whole thing about the future of the Raihan Empire isn’t our problem, but you don’t want to make an enemy out of the Empress or Garan. I’d say wash your hands of them and seek out other markets.”

“Hmm, I wonder if Clan Margathon might commission us again.”

“Don’t sell to the lizards.” It was a command, albeit one delivered with a calm resignation, as if he did not care whether it was followed or not.

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“Ok Jack, but you should understand that the question to sell to the lizards is actually a question of: ‘Do you wanted to get fucked by the Solar Union?’ You’ve read the latest story on the infonet. Right now, Union High Command is wondering how the hell Margathon: a clan they previously thought had no capacity to field capital class warships, got their hands on a cruiser. If they find out you’re arming the lizards, they will do something about it.”


You were starting to dislike this guy. He had this condescending attitude that made him feel like your grandpa explaining why everything you thought was wrong.

“I’ll take that into consideration, and if the Solar Union tries to fuck us, I expect you to tell me when and how hard.”

>cont

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>>6030109
Thanks to the Raihans stealing the credit for your last project, your shipyard’s reputation hadn’t grown as much as you wanted, but you were still getting orders. Let’s see…

Galatan Starwind was back, seemed like he had gotten his hands on his prototype warship because now he was asking that you refit it with a “massive layzor cannon”. Potentially a shorter and simpler job than building a new ship from scratch… potentially.

Interestingly you got two orders from the Imperial Raihan Navy: One was for a second Ryu Class command cruiser, the other was for a special variant of the carrack incorporating the Raihan neural interface. The Empire was offering to pay you an inflated price for both, presumably because they would not be giving you credit… again.

Then there was an order for a monarch class coming from the independent colony of Shima. Decker informs you that Shima was one of the Raihan Empire’s former colonies, and has the strongest anti-Imperial sentiment. Something to be mindful of.

Finally Clan Margathon had submitted another order for a capital ship. Same deal as last time, they wanted to use your drydock to construct their own proprietary design and would pay you for the privilege. They would be supplying the raw materials themselves so it would be pure profit. The fact that Margathon scrip wasn’t worthless anymore made this easier.

You had no strike craft orders. Guess people didn’t really know you made strike craft yet, either that or the dozens of other strike craft manufacturers offered better products.

>Which order to fill with your capital drydock?
>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Build a second Ryu class for the Raihan Navy (56kT CM, 30kT RM)
>Build a custom Carrack variant for the Raihan Navy (70kT CM, 14kT RM)
>Build a Monarch class for Shima Colony (40kT CM 15kT RM)
>Rent out the dry dock to Clan Margathon (5Mil Margathon Scrip)

>Your strike craft factory wasn’t seeing much use yet.
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)
>Save your resources and production capacity.

>>6030111
>>Refit Starwind’s ship (6 Mil SoC)
>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)

>>6030111

>Build a Monarch class for Shima Colony (40kT CM 15kT RM)

Fuck 'em. I do not have anything more PR worthy to say other than that, the Raihan can choke on their new found prestige.

>>6030111
>>6030123

Forgot this.

>Produce 5 humming birds and 3 AAS Bombers for self defence. (10kT CM, 1.5kt RM)

We need some more self-defense.

Also, QM, could we put out feelers for C3 systems ? It'd be good to know at what rate they would go at, since we will need to build the carrack sooner or later and it would be good to figure out how to integrate the system beforehand.