I'll clean this up later, but this is where we are at:
Year 5 (1108)
Now its time to branch out. I want to use the Free Trader (dubbed "Chairman Mao") as bait. I want to hire 6 former military men to pose as refugees and we'll go up and down the dangerous path back to Regina hoping to get a pirate ship to board us and we'll see if we can't get the jump on them and take their ship instead, if I don't break down or misjump...
But first, so I feel like there is some continuity in case I lose the characters, they create a new corporation: "4DC corp.". In the event of death, each of the 4 characters wills 1/4 of their holding in the company to their Next of Kin (aka, the next character I roll to replace them...) so they have a few millions of spending money to start out. Next, the crew spends one month looking for 6 military. The deal is each of the 10 crew keep 1/10th the value of any ships caught and resold; with 4DC corp. retaining the right of repurchase (I want a patrol cruiser!). If no pirates are met or ships captured before the end of the year, the 6 hired soldiers got a free 1 year vacation and will be paid 500,000cr each.
Bought 10 Laser rifles, 10 TL13 vacc suits, various other weapons, med kits, etc for the dangerous trip and headed to Regina with my "refugees"....
Jumped between Whanga, Knorbes and Forboldn. I just figure 2 jumps per month, with R&R on planet.
Pretty uneventful, until the May jump from Whanga to Knorbes… MISJUMP!
Yikes! Rolled up a 19 hex misjump! Since my map doesn’t go that far (!) the GM decides that when you hit the edge of the map, reroll for direction so you stay on the map but still in a random direction.
Misjump ended in: PATINIR asteroid belt. Phew!
Misjump was 6 weeks! GM ruled that there would not be enough supplies and some would have to go into low passage, fortunately, all made the low passage survival roll.
Now we have another problem my map show no way out of this little grouping of systems so “Chairman Mao” is stuck here… Oh well, stick to the plan, jump between Patinir and Lewis, look for a Pirate…
7/1/1108
Got a pirate patrol cruiser to attack, rolled on reaction table and tried to get him to dock and believe we are just refugees and he can take cargo, success:
Simple battle, 18 pirates with rifle and mesh, (777xxx) vs 6 hired former Marines (AAAxxx) with Vaccsuits and laser rifles.
All pirates captured or killed, wounded treated by Medic.
New problem, don’t have enough crew for both ships (doh!). Jumped back with both under crewed, but neither misjumped or broke down on the way to Patinir.
The characters have now decided that they are tired of risking misjumps. One engineer undertakes a project of converting 25 tons of “Chairman Mao” cargo hold to fuel tankage. Costs 100,000 cr and requires a roll of 8+, success. The rest of the crew turn in the pirates to the authorities.
New house rule: Book 2 says military ships are built to use unrefined fuel, “Fancy” is a military ship, therefore can use unrefined fuel with no penalty, but cannot refine it for other ships.
Players jump to Aramis in “Fancy”, and pay for maintenance and overhaul of the pirate Patrol Cruiser, 224,040cr.
They then jump to Natoko, flush the fuel tanks, fill up on refined fuel, jump to Patinir, transfer 40 tons refined fuel to “Chairman Mao”, refill unrefined and both ships jump to Natoko (“Mao” makes 2 jump 1’s to get there, taking 1 full month). Phew, finally back in safer space.
By the time this whole operation is done, the year is up.
The PT “Fancy is deemed to be worth 60% new cost, so each of the 6 hired former military are each paid 13.26Mcr for their services and dismissed. One of them Lisa k. asks if she can buy into ownership of 4DC corp for her 13.26Mcr. The GM agrees and she is also allowed Navigation -1 so the crew of 5 owners can operate their own ship on a basic level (saves me from having to roll another character and Lisa K. was kind of light on skills…).
“Fancy” gets a computer upgrade to Level 6 (costs 79.9Mcr!) and multiple combat programs to fill it, including Predict 5, Gunner interact, Select 3, Maneuver Evade 6, Return Fire, Anti Missile and ECM.
Removed 6 pulse lasers from “Mao” put on “Fancy”, sold extra missile launchers, “Mao” is now unarmed, “Fancy” has 4 triple laser turrets.
1/1/1109
Credits 163,115,990cr
Ships:
1. FT “Chairman Mao”
3209 Natoko.
Fuel – refined.
Crew - Hired complete crew to run cargo in local area
2. PC “Fancy”
3209 Natoko.
Fuel (Military ship, irrelevant).
Crew: Engineer x3 (Ron Gianti, Galron Alengran, Alyanna Sonrari)
Navigator (Lisa Kantaren)
Pilot (Krak Ranklin)
Hired: 7 marines for anti piracy campaign.
“Fancy” - Spent the year trying to get a pirate ship to attack in Class C starport systems (Pisardi to Cardson), none did (boo!!!)
“Mao” – Spent the year running cargo, doing speculation, taking passengers from Class A and B starports, made 29.4 Mcr (after year end overhaul), no hijacking attempts. For the sake of paperwork, the ship is assumed to pay for itself with standard cargo and passengers, 4DC corp pays for year end maintenance and takes profit from speculation. If no hijacking, no conflict, pure profit (though local area is not as good as Regina for speculation…).
Paid for yearly maintenance and total upkeep on both ships (800,000 for Fancy) then:
1/1/1110
Credits: 191,715,990cr
Ships:
1. FT “Chairman Mao”
Location = 3209 Natoko.
Fuel – refined.
Crew - Hired complete crew to run cargo in local area
2. PC “Fancy”
Location = Paya.
Fuel (Military ship, irrelevant).
Crew: Engineer x3 (Ron Gianti, Galron Alengran, Alyanna Sonrari)
Navigator (Lisa Kantaren)
Pilot (Krak Ranklin)
Hired: 7 marines for anti piracy campaign.
This time “Fancy” will jump between 2 E class systems (Rethe and Focaline) looking for pirates.
1/1/1110 – Pirate encounter on first jump (patrol cruiser)! Distance starts out at 3000 mm, ships both assumed to be speed 0 (pirates wait at common jump points waiting for prey).
Attacker phase:
Pirate accelerates to 300 mm, fires lasers, all of which miss (and, for that matter, cannot hit at all due to “Fancy” defense programs!).
Fancy return fire gets 10 hits (!!) 3 of which are chosen locations.
PP hit – 2
Jump hit – 1 (now destroyed)
Hull – 4
Computer – 2
Hold – 1
Defender phase:
Fancy fires 12 lasers, 7 hits destroys jump drive (critical) and a couple turrets.
Battle continues, “Fancy” undamaged, pirate ship gutted. Marines board:
11 marines and crew vs. 12 pirates (Alyanna stays behind, she is medic and too valuable).
Marines are AAA with laser rifles, Pirates are 777 with Rifles, all in vacc suits. Ok, not much of a fight here.
The pirate ship is so heavily damaged that its final value is only 3Mcr! GM ruled that all pirate ships are worth 60% face value, minus damage.
“Fancy” spends the rest of the year anti pirate, GM sends increasingly better armed pirates, though Fancy’s computer pretty much makes all battles completely lopsided…
Chairman Mao does safe cargo and speculation runs, rolled for hijack attempt = no
Fancy comes across a couple more pirates, ends the year in Paya for refit and to pay Marines.
GM rules that going forward, all pirates have a bounty of:
1d x 10,000 cr (dead) and 1d x 100,000 (alive).
4DC corp. totals the income from all bounties and pirate ship salvage, takes ½ profit. The remaining amount is split evenly between all members of the Fancy ship crew. Each crew profit = 8.23 Mcr (!). the 7 Marines are paid this amount each (57.61 total) and that is removed from the remaining profits. The 5 permanent members of the Fancy crew pool their funds back into 4DC corp, including the year end profits from Mao.
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