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[Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
[Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#1
Submitted for Approval

Ship:
Ship Name: Foundry Hephaestus, Auxillaries and Shuttles

Created by Nicholas Casler (Wiregeek, Kokuten)
Registry Number:HSF prefix indicates Hephaestus Space Fleet.
Shuttles: The HSF incorporates two 'fast shuttles', 'wavemodded conventional automobiles, with AI cores onboard. Both of these vehicles are capable of self drive and are fully autonomous.
Millie: HSF-006 'Millie' is an AI controlled 4-door sedan dispatch boat, with integrated airlock dividers, allowing any of the three compartments to remain pressurized while others are exposed to vaccum.
Chassis: Millie is based off of a 1983 Subaru GL wagon. She's not the best looking or fastest vehicle in space, but she's reliable, she can park on a dime and bring back change, and she's Here to Help.
AI Core: Millie was intended to be a greek goddess, but the AI core generated as a perky blonde secretary, professional and dedicated. Millie isn't a supergenius, but she's more than capable enough to motor her chassis around Fenspace's docks and yards without any trouble.
Drive: Speed, Max velocity .1c, Adjusted Mass reactionless rotor, transverse mounted.
Known Vehicle Quirks:
* I'm a GIRL, that's why!: Millie's AI core is female, emphatically so. As of yet, this has posed no problems with romantic entanglements, but she tends to avoid having to dispose of vermin or lift truly heavy objects, this is what boys are for, after all.
* I may not be a supermodel, but...: Millie is aware that her chassis isn't the 'pinnacle of automotive engineering', but she still likes to look her best. Keeping her in good tires and keeping the paint clean and polished are a necessity. If the interior and exterior are not well-kept and maintained on a regular basis, Millie will lose efficiency and speed.
* Oh BOYS!: Millie is quite fond of the 'Boys', Hephaestus' small fleet of 'waved Suburbans, and they're quite fond of her. Fond enough that if she calls, the poor devil loading a ton or two of rich steel slag into the back of one of the Boys may find himself working alone, while a pseudo-intelligent Suburban careens across the system barking happily and heading for his girl.
* "Grunt!": Millie retains one of the quirks of her basic chassis, and can handle and haul several times her normal payload or rated capacity, but she _doesn't like it_. She also is top-speed limited, and depending on the amount of overload, her top speed can drop to as low as .05c
Faction: Hephaestian, Millie knows who her Boss is, and will not consider other offers of employment.
Home Port: HSF-000 Hephaestus.
Status: ACTIVE
Trivia:
* Millie's AI Core is unique amongst Hephaestus' cadre of AI and pseudo-intelligent personell in that it was spawned from non-Wintel hardware, a mac Powerbook modified into her dash console and wired into the car system.
* Even though Millie is the chronologically and experientially older of the two, she thinks of and treats Vioarr as an older sister, and is fairly intimidated by her.

Vioarr: HSF-009 'Vioarr' is an AI-controlled 2-door sport coupe, with similar airlocking capabilities to her sister Millie.
Chassis: "V" is based off a 1999 Mitsubishi 3000gt VR4, with Dodge Stealth badging. She's fast fast FAST, and very hard to see when she doesn't want to be. Her shell is variable reflectivity, on all wavelengths from IR to multi-ghz microwave. She also has 'store and forward' invisibility capability.
AI Core: V was CarPC'ed from an 8-way cluster of low-power VIA setups, bossed by a quad-core Intel machine. The resulting AI is almost disgustingly frugal in energy usage, but tends to multitask on an instinctual level, which works out beautifully with her normal operationals.
Drive: Speed, Max Velocity .12c,sustained, .13c burst (causes heat accumulation), .132c 'full burn' (sacrifices thrusters in addition to burst mode, no heat. Dual Adjusted Mass reactionless rotor, Lithium-Polymer-Handwavium backup pack. Acceleration, backup propulsion is low-ob liquid Nos thrusters, good for 'some' manuevering and accel without energy signature.
Known Vehicle Quirks:
* I can outrun that, I can outrun _anything_: V is a very swift ship, but she's not the fastest thing in Fen space, and that's a sore spot with her. Unless she's 'on a job', V is a sucker for a race, and her agility and multitasking serve her in good stead pushing through the asteroids.
* Hey, look over there! *poof*: V is a stealth platform by primary design. When found, she's fond of cheap sucker ploys and overcomplicated gambits to lose her observer, but is not above simple misdirection or distraction. Whatever works.
* Stupid big galoot, get off me!: Publicly, V is less than fond of Hephaestus' flock of Suburbans, but they love her almost as much as they love her 'younger' sister. In private, when she thinks noone is looking, V will 'pet' or play with the Boys.
* Uhm, you're gonna put that _Where?_: V's trunk is half Adjusted Mass rotor, half tankage for the NOS thrusters. The backseat has been given over to lithium-ion pack and electronics. The passenger seat is cramped in by displays and auxillary controls, and the driver's seat is the only truly open seating. Cargo capability isn't just limited, it's vestigal.
Faction: Hephaestian, if you'd like her to turn her coat, don't be surprised if you somehow end up working for Hephaestus as well.. Girl's _wicked_.
Home Port: HSF-000 Hephaestus.
Status: ACTIVE
Trivia:
* V's AI Core could have gone schizo during Quickening - but it didn't. She's a remarkably stable single personality that happens to be capable of multithreaded thought, as well as 'focussed multithread' on a single problem. This giver her incredible versatility with her processing, but leaves a possible vulnerability to personality fragmenting either by attack, or under extreme stress.
* Even though Millie is the chronologically and experientially older of the two, V thinks of her as a younger sister, due to her less worldly outlook.
* V looks forward to this whole 'no handwavium weapons' thing being worked around, because she has dreams of silenced long-range sniper shots. Doc Raven has blocked her access to the John Ringo and David Marcinko, but her obsession remains.

Tenders: The HSF is also home to a 'flock' of seven Chevy Suburbans, of varying years and personailities. 'Waved ECMs and auxillary processors ended up providing a 'big dumb dog' level of intelligence for these vessels, and they are used as the day-to-day 'work trucks' of Hephaestus' mining operations. When the two shuttles are spoken for or busy, a Hephaestian Suburban may be seen in public, usually with someone playing fetch in the parking lot while someone else accomplishes the errand in question.

Chassis: The Boys are based off of the Chevy Suburban utility vehicle chassis. They're big, they're not very subtle, but they can haul a whole LOT of stuff. The boys are all airlocked with standard Hephaestian Zipperlocks, and vary in color and body style cues.
AI Core: The boys were a 'punt' AI. After the 'Cat' experience, Hephaestus' crew decided that the somewhat self-motivated and somewhat-personality of the Cat could be improved upon 'just a little', to provide a very easy to use and efficient mining tender. So, the original Chevy ECM was handwaved, soaked overnight in a tub of pure strain with a copy of Disney's "Beethoven" movies. Similar treatment was given to a Sony in-dash media player, and the resultant items were installed in short order, into a 'waved Suburban. The result was seven "Big Doofy Dog" Suburbans, more than willing to get in harness and pull, but they'd like to talk to you about this tennis ball (radial tire, small lump of iron, Space Hamster) that they found...
Drive: Speed, Max velocity .08c, Adjusted Mass reactionless rotor.
Known Vehicle Quirks:
* GIRL!: The Boys are quite defensive of and fond of Hephaestus' two shuttles, and will obey/help them over the desires of human personnel.
* "Grunt!": The boys are capable of hauling pretty much anything that can be loaded into them or chained to them. Being a canine level intelligence, and well trained, they can also pull together in harness. Hephaestus has yet to find something too heavy to haul, heavier things just.. take a little longer to get going.
* Land Shark: Small fast-moving objects of appropriate size are considered 'play items' to the boys, and they may break orders and attempt to play with them. Unless you have VERY good body armor and inertial shielding, don't be a small moving object. The boys won't intentionally hurt someone, but 4000 pounds of Suburban is a whole LOT of love, and there is _seven_ of them.
Faction: Hephaestian, the Boys pick up on the 'smell' of the people and ships that live and work out of Hephaestus, and tend to not obey people who don't smell right.
Home Port: HSF-000 Hephaestus.
Status: ACTIVE
Trivia:
* The Boys are individually named after the Seven Dwarves of Snow White fame. This was in an attempt to make them more 'mining oriented', and does not appear to have worked in the slightest.
* The Boys are not able to appear in public unescorted. They're just too damn dumb, and the amount of damage that can be caused by a Suburban who thinks your converted Winnebago looks 'cozy', or your flying VW looks like a chew toy, doesn't bear thinking of.
*The Boys spontaneously reinforced their hoods and assimilated part of the grills into them during their 'waving. They may not have that durable of a jaw, relatively speaking, but they have jaws, and they do use them. The installation of synthetic myomer actuators for the hoods is regretted, but it's a bit late, and the boys do love to play fetch...
Edit: corrected speed ratings, added quirks to VWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#2
Just a comment from the racing committee. (har, bit of a joke, what other names can I think up for myself this week?) The speeds are out of whack for their masses for what we've established anyway (though it's probably a fair bit of digging through the big thread to find that). The minimum mass limit for the standard race classes are in the 1-1.2 metric ton range; normal speedrive limits for that mass range were pegged around 0.1C, with the racecraft up to 0.12C on pure speedrive or 0.14ish with 'waved reaction engines burning very large fractions of the vehicle's mass as reaction mass. Either of which end up quirky as hell, in the "crap, why isn't it working *NOW*?!" sense.
For the record, last I checked the only racing vehicles out there are my Kestrels, and blackaeronaut's Bullet Boy Express. The Kestrel Mk3 is towards the top end of the range that I mentioned but is scratchbuilt and... uhm, keeps suffering explosion-related problems that create DNFs when something fails in the carefully engineered kludge of things that keep the engines happy.
Besides... we all know a 3kGT-VR4 is nowhere near 1 metric ton. [Image: wink.gif]
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#3
...or about .13 on pure speeddrive if you were willing to accept the drive taking up more than half of your available mass and having a few extra-special quirks. Note that at that point you no longer have the available mass to put in a hybrid engine.
Basically, anything of SUV size or smaller can take .1 as a gimme. Pulling .11 is Cool Stuff, and should have some sort of justification/drawback associated. It would also allow you to outrun everyone in space who wasn't *specifically* built for speed. Anything past that is nontrivial.
Notice also that this is long-haul. You can certainly have ships that are agile over short distances without too many problems - especially if they are relatively small and max out around .1c or below. Agility is what really matters if you're trying to go fast without hitting things.
The .18 on the Records page? Well, take a look at the speedster entry in the Ship Registry thread.
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#4
Duly noted, edit is happening.
thank you, gentlemen.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#5
No problemo... heh heh, I think this brings the PCs-with-racing-oriented-stuff up to 3 now, which I can't but be in favor of. [Image: wink.gif]
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#6
Hmm...
"V" still feels a bit overpowered to me, unless the durations on the heat buildup/full burn are *really* short. Specifically, it's sounding like she's got the performance of a dedicated racing hull over relatively short distances, plus some sort of rather impressive stealth suite, without any additional limitations/concerns other than the duration limits. I guess my personal baseline would be that taking up most of the internals on Move Stuff would get you the reliable .12, but you've got the two extras on top of that (the various forms of burst speed plus stealth effects) and it doesn't look to be costing you anything.
On the other hand, I do have to be controlled for wangst creep from time to time. I acknowledge that this may be one of those times. Could someone else weigh in on this?
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#7
seconded - I'm going to bundle Millie and the Boys into the ship thread, but V needs some consideration.
Bueller?
Bueller?Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#8
Bump for consideration on 'V'. Reduce power, increase Quirk, or punt?Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#9
Punt. She's got plenty of quirks for her power level, in my humble opinion.

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#10
No objections here. Punt.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
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Re: [Submission] Hephaestus/Auxillaries - for the ship file
#11
punted, thank you gentlemen.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
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