QUICK  NOTES  16

*Price changes:

Ss=5MCr per torpedo

To:S=25 per silo

MpD=30MCr

La=30Mcr.

NEW TECH

Advanced Fighter Gun(fGi): Invented by the Inanigani during the attempted Arachnid takeover of their homeworld, the advanced fighter gun was a major improvement over the standard fighter gun. Two shots instead of one , TL8, .25 csp, 3MCr, 1,600 dev

Agristations: Building these orbital space farms increases a planets’ IU by 25% over standard IU. For every 100hs of agristations built, 20 IU is added to a planets’ economy. NO maintenance, Ind2. Agristations add +.05% extra growth per Qf(ie a O2 world with 10 AgriStn gets 50%/2 + 10 x 2 x .05% = 26% growth.

Atmosphere Processors: One of the most amazing engineering feats of all times, the development of the huge Atmospheric Processors by the Binarian Collective revolutionized large-scale terraforming, allowing the Binars to receive substantial revenues from this process. While perfecting this high-tech system, the Binars made tremendous progress in atmospheric manipulation, creating a breakthrough in the terraforming of O2 worlds into T-type planets. Although the initial prototype was rather small, the actual production model was far larger, and far more robust. Atmosphere Processors are visually identifiable from orbit due to their tremendous size. The control room of a Atmosphere Processor is far larger than a warship’s CIC. It is in the political and diplomatic interests of the Collective to NOT release this technology to other races, although they will sell complete self-contained units...at a fairly modest price! TL5

Antimatter Fighter Close Assault Missile(fCAAM): Desperate for a victory, the Republic of Argus developed the antimatter version of the fighter close assault missile during their conflict with the deadly Arachnids.  TL9, .25csp, 4MCr, 2,000 dev

Advanced Fighter Close Assault Missile(fCAM3 ): At the height of the Arachnid War, the Inheiritors developed the fCAM3, the third generation version of the fighter CAM. Still longer range, TL12, .25 csp, 3MCr, 6,000 dev

Battlesats

NAME                        CODE             TL       COST              CSP     D.V COST      NOTE

Railgun Sat                   BsK                             Ind1     30                    10        1,000               G

Autocannon Sat            BsA                             TL9      30                    20        5,000               H

ECM Sat                      Bs?                              TL7      55                    20        8,000               I

CD Sat                         BsCD                           TL3      20                    10        2,000               J

RD Sat                         BsRD                           TL8      50                    30        5,000               K

Z+ Sat                          BsZ                              TL9      50                    20        8,000               L

G: Fires as K, but with only 30% of the range. Fires three times only, then needs resupplying.

H: Fires continually, as Akm.

I: Defends nearby Sats

J: Holds 8 CDs, for communication. Can be activated by another CD.

K: Holds 3 RDs

L: Links up to 12 Sats together.

Energized Armor(Ae): Developed by the inventive Chonogua race, Ae is designed to help balance defense against the L and E families of weapons. Energized armor has the defensive properties of both S and A. It acts like normal armor, but will also block E beams. P ignores Ae just like normal armor. TL11, ½ hs, cost 10Mcr, dev cost 5,000.

Energized Armor, 2^nd Gen(Ae2): A standard improvement over the orginal technology, the Chonoguans developed this armor during their first encounter with the Arachnids, a deadly Hive Mind race in Garramore Kor Sector. TL13, 1/4 hs, cost 15MCr, dev cost 7,000.

Fighter Anti-drive Close Assault Missile(fADCAM): This close assault missile works like a ADM, and was developed by the inquisitive Inheiritor race during their involvement in the Arachnid War. The widespread use of this weapon destroyed many Arachnid engine rooms, substantially slowing their advance. Three fXO, TL12, .25 csp, 5MCr, 8,000 dev

Improved Fighter Close Assault Missile(fCAM2): Lasting years, the Arachnid War had spread to several adjacent powers, who were angered at the Argosians for irritating the Arachnids in the first place. One of these races, the Inheiritors, developed the fCAM2 for their Argosians allies. A longer range fCAM. TL11, .25 csp, 2MCr, 4,000 dev.

Fighter Energy Beam(fE): Desperate suicidal attacks launched at the Inheiritor home systems by hundreds of Arachnid warships led to the development of the fighter energy beam. This weapon was used to good effect in the Battle of Natu Gorvinu, the homeworld of one of the Inheiritors closest military allies. Hundreds of Arachnid warships were destroyed by Inheiritor ships and Argosian fighters equipped with this weapon. 2 fXO, TL11, .5 csp, 8MCr, 8,000 dev

First Stage Boosters(FSB): A second stage for planet-based missiles which extends their basic range by up to five hexes(meaning you can add up to 5 zero-range slots to the chart). Their unique feature is the ability to launch the missile five hexes out and then have it turn around and start it’s normal flight pattern in the reverse direction(kind of a banked shot, like with billiard balls). This add-on does not work with sprint-mode missiles and doesn’t work from SS, BS, ships, AF, etc, only from PDCs. The FSB is unable to survive multiple drivefield penetrations and so cannot be launched from things that have a drivefield, are too big for normal missile tubes(though you might launch a BM or SM with FSB from a Rc). FSB are also too fragile to launch from a XO-rack and you need the computing power of a planet to provide the ‘banked shot’. TL Ind2, adds 2MCr to the basic cost of a missile, 2 csp in size, 2,000 dev

Fighter Close Assault Missile(fCAM): The disastrous Arachnid War began when the Republic of Argus stumbled on a warp point leading into Home Hive III. It was a total shock to the non-militant Republic that a race as virulent and genocidal as the Arachnids could possibly even exist! Luckily the Arachnids hadn’t developed fighters, while the ever-efficient Argosians had, as well as the new-style fighter close assault missile. This missile enabled the badly outnumbered Argosians to hold their own against the massed Arachnid attacks. The fCAM is like the fR, except with longer range. 2 fXO racks, 4pts base damage, same R&D cost as regular CAM. TL8, .25 csp, cost 1MCr, 1,000 dev

Megahabitats: Building these orbital space colonies increases a planets’ IU by an additional 25% over standard IU.  For every 105hs of megahabitats built, 20 IU is added to a planets’ economy. These space stations must have a minimum size of 105hs. NO maintenance, Ind2. Megahabitats must have the minimum of the following:

S: must have one to protect civilians from solar radiation,

A: must have one to protect from meteorites etc,

BbL: must have at least one per Qc

Qc: x2

H: must have at least one

CHS: need one of some generation(not CHSm though)

Quarters-City(Qc): A self-contained living environment. 40 hs, cost 80Mcr, Ind2. Ships may have these installed but are classified as colony ships only. Must have 2 per Megahabitat, 1,000 dev

Quarters-Farming(Qf): Same cost and size as Qc. Must have 2 per AgriStn.

Planetary Core Tap(PCT): The most dangerous engineering system ever developed, the Planetary Core Tap is also one of the largest. This is a critical system for the operation of the Planetary Defense Shields, which defends entire planets from orbital assault. If the Planetary Core Tap is damaged and enters a runaway stage, substantial environmental damage and potential loss of life could be heavy. That is why most Core Taps are constructed in the low-population arctic regions of a planet. TL13, 500hs, 2,000 MCr to build, 100,000 to develop.

Flight Deck Errata: Michael Sauer came up with some interesting info about some of our new tech systems and I think we will go with it!

*Primary beams should ignore SB unless there are ships docked their. If ships are docked, apply the P damage to one of the docked ships.

*E should ignore SB and all ships docked their. The energy flows around the big open space.

*I imagine FD as a cleared area of the deck where fighters are kept and launched from, so:

   P-if the number rolled indicated FD hit and that space has one or more fighters, one fighter is destroyed AND the die is rolled once again and the P damage is applied normally to that system. Skip all remaining FD systems(ie treat FD as armor). The FD system itself cannot be damaged by P. Imagine punching a 5cm hole in an aircraft carrier deck, easily avoided or fixed, but the fighter that got in the way is toast.

   Here I see the P punching through the unlucky fighter, penetrating the FD(like armor, without really damaging it) and then destroying the other system.

   E-should work the same way, but that might be too effective. E damage would ignore empty FD, but would burn out(destroy) any fighters parked their and since fighters are small it might make sense that the damage be doubled(sort of like collapsing V in standard SF).

    Ie a carrier with SSSAAA(FD6)Mg...with the FD half full, gets hit with 7 points of E damage. The first three knock out the shields. The first three spaces of the FD(empty) are ignored(treat like A). There are 3 full FD spaces, the next point destroys 2 HS worth of fighters(4), the following point would do the same, but there is only 1 HS of FD left, so the ‘extra’ is lost. A total of 5 points of the E damage has now  been applied. The last 2 are applied according to normal rules.

   I think this is consistent for how I see E and FD/fighters, but it might give E a big advantage vs FD races, however Vb is available one TL before E. It makes it a good idea to invest in the new tech.

The rest are much easier!

*Vl and Va should always be affected by both P and E.

*Vh should be treated like FD, can’t destroy the system, but you can kill the contents.

*Vb could go either way, I’d say it would be affected, but no extra damage, collapse, or second role.

*Vm ignored by both, but treat carried fighters like on FD.

TWO  UNIQUE  PLANETS

Mesklin: A Jupiter-sized world, Mesklin is one of the most massive planets in Known Space and is the home of the incredible Mesklin race, centipede-like creatures native to the Galordon Kor sector of space. A superhuge squashed hi-gee world, Mesklin has a habability index of ten and few races are able to survive it’s crushing atmosphere. One of the most unique features about Mesklin is it’s gravity zones. Although the gravity at the equator is near 3-gees, the super crushing gees at the poles would kill any non-Mesklin as they reach as high as 400 gees! Monsoon season is especially severe on Mesklin, with devastating rains of hydrochloric and sulphuric acid which easily rolls off a Mesklins’ impenetrable armor. Mesklinites make fabulous ground troops(fight as Raiders)  and are much sought after by many races(they are one of the best and most faithful allies). Strangely enough, the native Mesklin race is a gentile Hive Mind race, with expert technical capabilities in making Battlesteel armor. They always come alongside lower-tech alien races, Uplifting them at every opportunity. Mesklinites also go out of their way to stop other races who commit genocide, especially when they genocide lower-tech races. The crushing strength of the average Mesklinite and it’s Super-Large Population allowed the planet to fight off a recent attack by the horrid J’Rill race. The planet Mesklin also has a beautiful orbiting ring of asteroids.
H. Clement, "Mission of Gravity", (Copyright Street and Smith Publications, 1953)

The Vang: No one truly knows where the deadly alien Vang race originated from, but everyone does know how absolutely terrifying this race can be. To be accurate, the Vang are the most horrific and deadly race to ever exist, more lethal than the J’Rill, Rigellians, or even a Arbitrator. What is know about them is once contacted they rapidly take over all races(kind of a super-diplomacy) unless the newly contacted race immediately declares war on them. The most fearsome battles with the Vang took place when they took over the ancient(and vast) Califax Pontificate. The resulting battles between the converted Califax Empire and their hated enemies, the Laowon Federation were epic, with both sides slugging it out with nuclear weapons, annihilating entire worlds and destroying large swaths of inhabited space. The only way to stop the spread of the parasitic Vang was total immolation of Vang-infested worlds. Worlds that were even suspected of infestation by the Vang were burned from orbit by Laowon warships, without the benefit of investigation. Many alien worlds, including the high-tech Penzatti homeworld, were destroyed by the genocidal Laowon race. The only aliens to avoid this fate was the truly bizarre Binarian Collective, which stumbled upon the horrors of this war during their expansion. The Collective’s inability to be infected by the deadly Vang and their overwhelming technological superiority enabled them to fend off both Vang and Laowon attacks, but at high costs. The near-instant ability of the Vang in partnering with any alien race that came into contact with them, and the resulting military offensive that followed, made the Vang the most prolific, and destructive race ever known. Their final demise, at the hands of the vengeful Laowon race with the help of the Binars, occurred after nearly forty years of continual bombardments of Califax-occupied planets. A biological horror, the Vang have a RM of 110, RC 110, with the ability to build ships twice as fast as most other races and twice the population growth of other races. However, their research and development is half that of other races but they have a special ability to infect/convert any conquered and controlled population at 25% a turn. Additionally, the have a 7% population conversion rate on contested planets.

RISHATHA WARSHIP  DESIGN

   Although the Rishatha Imperial Fleet is an institution with nearly a thousand year history, it is constantly developing new ship types and new technologies(albeit slowly), especially in it’s larger units like superdreadnoughts. Although the Imperium had ‘backslidden” from a higher tech level, it still retained several critical military systems, including the versatile Vertical Launch System. The Rish Admiralty designed several new classes of superdreadnoughts that were hoped to substantially change the balance of power within Known Space. The first in this class, the Vengeance-class VLS-equipped superdreadnought, was designed to be fast enough to keep up with a carrier task force. This vessel doesn’t carry the thousands of tons of armor and beam weapons of other superdreadnoughts. It is a pure missile ship, an “Arsenal Ship”, converted from prototype to fleet use only recently. The Rish Admirals had no doubt in the Arsenal Ships’ theoretical ability to throw massive volleys of capital missiles, which completely overwhelm traditional point defense systems on most warships. With four VLS bays and hundreds of missiles in internal launch bays, this Arsenal Ship will probably dominate the battlefields of the future. The Vengeance-class warship has only been used in combat four times, halting the most recent New Minthisti Offensive.

   The Hurricane-class superdreadnought was the Imperial BuShips newest design of capital ship, a supplement(for the moment) to the current carrier battle groups. This warship is built around a hollow core in which hundreds of Missile Pods are stored. This “Battlespace Dominance Ship” has not been tested in battle yet and is an interesting cross between current ship designs and the Arsenal Ship. Only twenty-four Hurricane-class superdreadnoughts have been acquired by the Imperial Fleet to date, but more are under construction and the Admiralty expects large numbers of these vessels in to begin entering Frontier Fleets at the earliest opportunity.

   One of the most stunning and effective warships being used today by the Rishatha Imperium is the Cataclysm-class superdreadnought. Equipped with a devastating broadside of plasma guns, this class of warship has destroyed literally hundreds of enemy warships since it’s introduction nearly thirty standard years ago. The Rish Admiralty has enthusiastically supported the continued  construction of this lethal ship class, and dozens are also in deep storage at the Central Fleet Yards, and RDF Central Command. The Cataclysm’s are the most effective in warp point assaults, but they also have a useful secondary role as anti-fighter escorts and against traditional Minthisti attacks.

Real-Life Transporters

   Quantum teleportation, similar to Star Trek’s far-fetched transporter technology, recently became a reality when physicists at Caltech transported a packet of energy from one point to another, one meter away. “This is an important step toward the realization of networks for distributing quantum information,” said team member Samuel Braunstein. The Caltech group generated exotic forms of light which are split in such a way that the transmitter and receiver each get a beam that is the quantum ‘twin’ of the other.

Another Article:

Atom by Atom, the impossible dream of teleportation moves off the pages of science fiction. by Jim Wilson(Popular Mechanics, December 1998).

   This time last year the idea of teleporting matter existed in science fiction and the dense equations of quantum theory. As a result of experiments conducted in Europe since then, the notion that matter can be moved from here to there without being anywhere in between has achieved new respectability. 

   Understanding that a teleportation system won’t work anything at all like the transporter that Captain Kirk used to beam down to class M planets. That fictional machine ‘beamed’ the body mass of crew members into space as energy. The type of teleportation system being discussed by scientists such as Charles Bennett--a physicist at IBM who conceived of the current approach--would send only information about the atoms that compose the traveler. At the destination this information would be then used to assemble a copy of the traveler from local materials. This may seem preposterous as Scotty managing to keep his accent after lifetime spent working with people who talk like they are from Jersey, save one fact: researchers have already proved it is possible to ‘teleport’ this sort of quantum information about a photon, or packet of light. The Austrian and Italian teams that did this work are now designing experiments that would enable them to teleport an electron. Electrons--the lightweight, negatively charged particles that orbit the nuclei of atoms--are responsible for most everything we see around us. Not the least of which are our bodies. Electrons form many functions, including coupling atoms together to form molecules.

   Stripped to the basics, a teleporter would work something like this: an object is scanned atom by atom. This process breaks up the atom to create entangled pairs of particles. The entangle pairs are stretched so that the superposition extends between the transmitting and receiving points. You disintegrate at one end and pop out at your destination, literally a new person. But don’t change in  your frequent flyer miles just yet. The process needs to be scaled up a bit first. For their next step, teams at the University of Innsbruck in Austria and the University of Rome are preparing to teleport an electron. A whole atom and molecule come next. Within a decade, Anton Zeilinger of the Austrian team believes it will be possible to teleport a small virus.

   Teleporting the flu may seem a dubious enterprise but consider this: if a small package of genetic material could be teleported, why couldn’t the genome containing the blueprint for the human body?

Final Thought: “You only get one chance to make a first impression”.