Thread: Awards and stuff

doh! I do have the Legion of Merit ribbon already. I was thinking of the Honorable Service Medal. I would be impressed if anyone already has that one.

Don't you have that you commander whore?

In an internationally televised event broadcast across the globe:

"Greetings. We are here, high above the earth, today for a very special event. A joint space project between the space empires De Dragon, Milton Legs, and the Colony of Man that has been in the research and design phase for years is about to come to completion. The first prototype FTL "Jump ship" is about to be tested. For more information we bring you Dr. Feinstein, chief scientist of this operation."

"Zis is a historical occasion. Ze best minds in starship design have been at work for years designing a FTL (faster than light) device. A year ago ve got de science down und ver ready to build a prototype. Convienently, De Dragon had 3 hulls of badly damaged frigates that they were able to donate to ze cause. Our first prototype is completed. A second is also almost completed and if nessisary we have a 3rd ship should ve have issues with the first 2."

"I give you the Proton"

"You see before you a 100 ton vessle simmilar to the ones flying about our system. Ze key difference is that this vessle is equiped with a jump drive. The jump drive works by creating a gravitational/magnetic field allowing the ship into hyper space. The drive in this ship should allow it to travel one parsec in aproximately 1 week. We've equipped it with a 10 ton drop tank so that it can carry sufficient fuel to return home after the test. Should the test be successful we will then add a jump drive to that large tanker so that these prototypes can make multiple jumps to explore our surrounding neighbors."

The scene jumps to a shot outside the research facility showing the Proton getting ready. "The ship has been charging up its capacitors. Jumping into hyper drive requires emense ammounts of energy. Soon you should see the vortex opening up infront of the Proton as it slips into hyper drive. The vortex should even be visable from the surface of the earth. We will be monitoring all aspects of this test that we can, but once the ship jumps, all we can do is wait. In two weeks it should return to our system with a successful test. There it goes now!"



He looks on the monitor with a pleased expresion, the glow of a father of a newborn. Suddenly warning allarms go off and he quickly dissapears from infront of the camera. The Proton dissapears into hyperspace leaving a spinning external fuel tank. The camera pans back to the lab where various scientists are frantically pooring over the data. "Good god, how could we have been so stupid to overlook the obvious" one screams. Suddenly the live feed from the station is ended.

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Later that day Dr. Feinstein apears once again on the TV screens.

"Earlier today, we made a serious miscalculation on our test jump. In our folly to show the world our progress we forgot to take into account the earth's gravitational and magnetic fields for our first test. This resulted in the Proton experiancing a 'mis-Jump'. Where it went, and how far is totally unknown to us. We can only hope that the Proton and it's test crew will be able to make it back safely. The second ship ProtonII should be ready for a test shortly and the test will be conducted far from the earth's forces out at the earth's L5 legrange point.

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2 weeks pass and no Proton, the world morns the loss of it's pioneers in space. The crews (top specialists from the 3 space powers) are listed as heros and nations experiance a day of mourning.

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A week later, without the big public hoopla, ProtonII makes it's test flight from the safety of deep space. Two weeks later it returns to the solar system and there is mass celebration as the Jump Drive is prooved successful.

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43 years later, a powerful radio telescope picks up a distress call. "Mayday, Mayday, this is the research vessle Proton. We've experianced a mis-jump and are far off course. We've sufficent suplies for another month but are completely lost. Does anyone read us? Mayday, Mayday......"
The radioed responce as to direction and distance arrives 86 years too late.

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[occ]
Congradulations folks, we now have FTL capabilities. This thread is to not only let you know this fact but also the risks involved. A well maintained ship with a full engineering staff running on refined fuel will never experiance a mis-jump as long as it jumps at least 100 diameters from any planitary body. (A 1G ship will reach a safe Jump distance from Earth in about 5 hours.) Jumps closer to planitary bodies, ships undermaintained, or poorly staffed run the risk of mis-jump or destruction.

Code:

Proton - LZ - 1111112 000000-00000 - 0  MC=150.54  Tons=100
                 Bat:                              Crew=10
                 Ber:                                TL=9

  Passengers=0  Cargo=11 Fuel=11  EP=1
  Troops=0  Bridge(s)=1 Capacitors=2 Agility=1
  Ship Craft:  1 Ships Boat (10 tons)

The tiny Proton required 2 Energy points stored up in it's capacitors to make the 1 parsec jump. Ships building up power will be scanned by other ships in battle or otherwize. Just prior to Jump the Jumping ship helpless (agility 0, no energy weapons) as it preps for the jump into hyper space.

Being primitive star farers now, we will need multiple jumps to cover longer distances. The drop tank will only work from the home system (you can't take it with you). You can do this by reserving enough space for fuel for multiple jumps or design a 'jump tanker' that jumps with the fleet and caries nothing but fuel.

Have fun designing. If you wish to upgrade existing ships, you can do so at 1/2 the cost and build time of a brand new one, BUT, you'll need to keep the main things the same, any radial redesign will be from scratch.

for example the soon to be upgraded Argo (needed extensive repains after last year's skermish anyways)

Code:

MHBS-Argo-14253 - BS - H3113B3 040000-60B00 - 2  MC=14253.07  Tons=8000
                          Bat:  5     3 1                     Crew=179
                          Ber:  5     3 1                       TL=9

  Passengers=0  Cargo=1.95 Fuel=1040  EP=240
  Troops=75  Bridge(s)=2 Capacitors=500 Agility=-4

  Launch Facilities:  Ship may Launch 1 craft a turn
  Ship Craft:  2 Fighters (10 tons),  1 Launch (20 tons) ,  2 AssaultPod (30 tons)

Note the weapon systems and armor remain the same, The troops were reduced to make space for the additional drive and fuel space. I'd have liked to upgrade the computer but not enough space. Cost of upgrade 7127.5 million, time about 1.5-2 years.

The Argo requires 160 EP's and 800 tons of fuel to perform a 1 parsec jump. While it has a large powerplant capable of generating 240 EP's it will still need to spend one turn after building up the energy before it can safely jump out of system.

OoC: Out of curiosity, why isn't this in the NS forum?

It is now.

odd, I started it in the NS forum but between photo editing and story creation I had to re upload the images as well (first time by the time I finished they were red x's) guess I exceded session time variables. Thanks for moving it back.