[RFP] Competition for Replacement of Zig Fighter

[Rajvik]

From: Wolfboy at Solaris
To: soc.military. starfighters

Subject: re:Mock battles are fun

Folks, that was one heck of a good fight, my thanks to the folks at CGI who hooked us all up with the simulations. In the same vein of Jerry over at Jenga let me give my thoughts of the other frames up for the contest.

-I might want to turn down the music when flying, I don't even notice the Gatling cannon anymore.
-Wasp: Sweet goddesses this thing can move, hits decently but you better be able to dodge or else
-Trident: It was difficult to maneuver until I remembered the bloody thing doesn't fly like a air breather, after that it was like the death blossom scene from "The Last Starfighter". Guns were decent, and the armor was decent but only for a couple of hits it seemed.
-Viper: Maybe as a frigate or a light destroyer but not as a light fighter, sorry.

all in all, a good time and I would love to see a repeat IRL when things are built. The Bat already has a second built, what's keeping you slowpokes.
Wolfboy
 

[Dartz]

EDIT: I used a fair and random dice-roll to make the decision.

...therefore, it is the recommendation of the board that the submission from Black Aeronaut Technologies be accepted as the winning bid.

"The one thing you've got to remember about these lads, is that they can't ever be seen to be wrong. They won't stick their heads over the parapet. They always have to be able to say that they did the Right Thing. And that Right Thing isn't necessarily doing their job exactly according to spec. That Right Thing, is whatever the public thinks the answer should be. It might not be the right answer, but public opinion doesn't care about that. Fandom doesn't care about that.

All fandom really cares about is it being the Popular answer. Because then it will be seen to be Right because everyone will agree with it. Do something that's against Public opinion, but that you believe is Right, risks being utterly and publicly ridiculed if you're wrong, or if the program hits the usual bumps and hiccups all programs hit because then it will be your fault. No sane human being would risk pissing off the entirety of the fandom - especially the bloody mil-fen. The keyboard warriors will make your life hell until you become a liability to keep around.

So they'll do their job to make it happen. Either by writing the spec to make the Right Thing easier to achieve, or scoring things up to fill in the numbers in just the right way.

Once you realise that, you realise we won't win many of these. Not until we get a reputation for doing the Right Thing, more and more, do we become the safe choice. It's worked in our favour before. The Foxhound became the Right Thing amongst the hackerspace after it stumbled on the Raven - and GJ split the contract and bought 3 of them. Just on a trial basis. It worked with Survival Shot - we got three big hits right after that Defense journal wrote about us - and I hadn't even realised to ask them to do it.

Once you get a few defense journals writing positively about how you do things, your thing starts to be seen as a Right Thing. Or it gets easier for it to be seen as the Right Thing. That's whay I've invited bloggers from three different journals out to give it a try. And if it goes well, they'll start to see things our way, and write about our way as the Right Way. Or why we're all debating on public channels, rather than in private rooms. Okay, it's a risk, but it works.

The problem, is everyone else will be doing exactly the same thing. Everyone's out there, in the backrooms and halls and journals, making the independant voices of the Convention see their thing as the Right Thing. And that's a lot easier to do when your reputation is strong enough to give them a reason to listen to you. And until we get the reputation for doing this, we're always going to be swimming against the stream.

That's why we didn't get it this time. You could offer the best purple squirrel in the universe, but if the public opinion isn't there to back it up and make it the Right Thing, it's going nowhere. Look, Mackie, we carried a lot of good press from this - a lot of people liked what we offered, so we can carry that into the next one. It wasn't the Right Thing, this time, but we're now at least capable of doing Right Things.

And Padraig O'Neil finally released his specification for his own high-speed Concorde-style cruiser.... it might look familiar."
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

"They killed it Cathy, they killed it!"

Cathy looked up from her desk where she was working on a number of administrative issues of Jenga as Jerry stormed into her room. She sighed and deactivated her display.

"Okay Jerry, calm down and take a seat, I think I know what you are talking about."

Jerry blinked in surprise.

"You already know? We got the formal 'not interested, maybe another time' email just 10 minutes ago!"

"Yes, I know... as you know I have to handle a lot of administrative parts of our community, which means I am on the 'need to know' list of every major project that we negotiate with an external party. Of course I know. But now SIT DOWN and don't get yourself in a tizzy."

"Easier said than done, this is really a punch in the gut" Jerry complained but sat down. "You have read their email, but do you want to know what I heard from a friend closer to the decision committee? They say our proposal was unrealistic anyways, not enough proven hardware."

Cathy looked first surprised, then a bit unhappy.

"Yes, I can see where this attitude is coming from" she finally said. "How reliable is your source and how strong do you think is this oppinion within GJ?"

"I have no clue Cathy, I have no clue... but it fits the feeling I got with this. We lost to a stupid Cessna, not even a real spacefighter. Do you think we ever had a chance to get this contract?"

"So its a rumor... don't get too excited about it, most likely it is just that, a rumor. I think we had a real good chance, but we were not good enough to overcome the fact that BA already delivered a lot of reliable military hardware. Maybe next time."

"I am not convinced that it is worth the effort to try. The variety of military hardware GJ needs is really low, if they look that much for 'known reliable stuff'. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Cathy rolled her eyes... 'Herding cats again, as always' she thought.

"I just hope Jenny does not overreact too much, she has put a lot of heart and effort into her baby, I don't think she will let it just drop" Jerry said quietly. "I have already sent a warning to the Labs that they help Jenny to get over it. Luckily the Labs are far enough away that she cannot just post her plans on somewhere on the interwave in a flash of anger."

Cathy tail was twitching as she thought about the effect if the complete plans for the GJ fighter proposal would end on the interwave. There were quite a few parties who would take them, many of them not friendly with the Fen.

"You still trade unfiltered skillsoft with her from time to time, that is why you are so angry about this, right?" Cathy asked carefully. "I remember you know very well that this is not a safe thing."

"Spare me your comments, I wrote down most of the safety rules for Mindtech myself. But Jenny and me are different and it works very well for us. We are coming from the same base template and we have keeping each other roughly in sync over the years" Jerry hissed. "Think about it as a backup solution. I would guess I could take over most of her research project with just a year of working on her notes to learn the details... not that anyone else would understand our notes that well."

Cathy shrugged, no use to beat this bush any longer.

"Just inform me if something happens and you need some advice, help or damage control."

"I will Cathy, I promise."

###############

Yes, some cats are not happy with this GJ decision, so I plan to post a bit more what is happening at CI afterwards.

[HRogge]

"It is no use, the decision is final. They say to had to play 'safe' because of the high numbers of fighters they want to buy." Cathy said, wiping the holographic note away with her hand. "Sorry Jerry, we really tried... I think we had a good chance, but maybe we were a bit too experimental."

"Too experimental? You really say too experimental? To hell with these dinosaurs, they just wanted us for window dressing to make sure nobody could complain when they bought from the usual gang."

Cathy could see that Jerry was still quite angry about the decision of the Great Justice committee. A few weeks and everything would be normal again.

"Do you think Jenny has also calmed down? I heard the rumor she caused a bit of trouble at the Labs" Cathy asked carefully. "Cortana didn't told me any details."

"Lets say she got stopped and calmed down before she could do something stupid" Jerry said with a grin. "Luckily there are no armed long range ships at the labs she could fly alone."

"I would have paid for hearing her discussion with Tali, I think she is the least action oriented sister of EDI. So you think she is finally over her depression?"

"I don't think she ever was really that depressed, she was angry just like me! But we already have a plan to get our little revenge on the idiots at Great Justice, you will see they will wish they had bought our fighter!"

Cathy felt an alarm clock ringing in her head, a mad scientist thinking about revenge was always a bad thing.

"So what do you have in mind?" she asked slowly, "is there anything we can help you?"

"Not at the moment, we are still in the planning phase. But I can already tell you that you were wrong... the F-61 was state of the art, but we will make sure it will become beyond state of the art!"

[JakeGrey]

Meanwhile, in a bar in Tokyo not far from a Project Diva gig, Old Man Tom is taking a phone call.

"... Yeah, I didn't really expect any different. Oh, well, their loss. I hope we don't end up regretting this though... Bloody hell. The French? How did your sales blokes pull that off?"

Well, they do say you're not a true handwavium-wrangler until you've had that, "Oh, God, I've created a monster" feeling.

[Rajvik]

Thump, thump, thathump thump thump
With small breaks in the noise, the last half hour had been nothing but a series of repetitive thumps of someone using the body bag in the dojo. Mom, Dad, or Whitney Tara Wa Bostwick thought as she closed her book and sighed. She couldn’t concentrate on it, and that in itself was annoying. “All I can do is ask I suppose.” She sighed getting off her bunk and stepping into the corridor. Looking down the hallway she spotted her sister peaking around the doorway into the dojo. “Whitney, what the hell…..” Tara let her voice trail off as the blonde shot her a look.

Whitney pointed around the corner as Tara got close enough to hear her whisper, “Pop’s been in there for the last half hour or so beating up the body bags and he’s already busted three of them.” Whitney told her. In response Tara quirked an eyebrow at her twin. Oh they weren’t identical, in fact they were both pretty much of melting pot appearance, Tara appearing to be mostly an Asian mixture while Whitney had a decidedly European appearance. “He’s mega pissed over something, and I think he seriously needs to work it out of his system.” Suddenly there was a ringing spang as a chain link shattered and then a final thump followed by a hiss. “Make that four body bags in half an hour.” Whitney deadpanned. Then came the laughter.

It started as a low chuckle, but by the time he walked out of the dojo the Wolf biomod was laughing out loud. “Hey girls,“ he said as he walked out. His hands and forearms as well as his feet wrapped in bandages to protect them from the blows he had been landing. “I think I know how I’m going to get back at that bunch of bean counters on the zig replacement project.” With a final chuckle the wolf threw a towel around his shoulders and they watched as he went toward the showers.
To: Cathy, Jerry@Jenga
CC: Jet, Mackie@Frigga

Ok folks, I’ve had an idea and I doubt the bean counters that cannot let public opinion think they were wrong are going to like it. Let’s face it, we were sunk due to politics, and I doubt, (though I can’t be certain without asking Ben or Gina) that BAT even wanted the contract. I mean come on all they threw at the competition was a waved and slightly modified Cessna, so I say we show the people and the bean counters that each of us has a better design. If you are in on this idea, I’ll talk to the guys over at Bellcom about getting you in on production for six each of your fighters. I don’t have a lot of money to throw at this idea, in fact I’m putting off upgrades to the Werewolf to do this so anything you can throw in will help.
 
Let me know if you’re in, if you are, I’ll let you know the plan, if you’re not then I won’t burden you with the knowledge.
Wolfboy
 

[HRogge]

From: Cathy at Jenga
To: Wolfboy
CC: Jerry at Jenga, Jet,Mackie at Frigga

Subject: Re: space fighters

Hi...

I like the idea getting a few more fighters built, because otherwise we never will be able to do more with them than a bit testing.

But please keep in mind the problem with production is not capability, but the amount of money or resources we want to spend. Building 6 fighters by hand is possible but time consuming... setting up production capabilities to produce "lots" of "reasonable cheap" fighters is very time consuming and expensive, it makes only sense for large numbers. Without the attached GJ contract this is not really an option at the moment.

I also dislike the idea giving a third party money just to produce a few fighters. At the moment Bellcom would not be able to build a F-61 anyways because they have no way to produce the new engine cores.

But I would like to propose a different solution. We just finished the last parts of the new factory complex at Frigga... we want to build something else there, but the factory is more than large enough to allow us building a few spacefighters, as long as you bring all 'special resources' and some people to do the work. The advantage is we don't need to pay for this (except with out own time) and we have a lot more support there.

What do you think?

Cathy

[Rajvik]

From:Wolfboy
To: Cathy at Jenga
CC: Jerry at Jenga, Jet,Mackie at Frigga
Subject: Re: space fighters

See you at Frigga, I think the three groups need to put their heads together and come up with a joint project.

Wolfboy
 

[Dartz]

From:Jet.jaguar at Frigga.fen
To: Cathy at Jenga
CC: Jerry at Jenga, Jet,Mackie at Frigga
Subject: Re: space fighters

Joint projects tend to end in a mess. "I want the guns of that yoke, the agility of that other yoke and the form factor that that third yoke" All we need to add to that is 'And let Lockheed make it on a cost-plus' to have a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, things don't work like that. The stuff that made our entries good really can't be transplanted that easily. Not when a set of guns on one 'Bat' weight more than an entire 'Wasp'.

Anyway, anyone ever hear the phrase 'Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM'. The last thing these lads doing the selection process want is to risk being wrong - because then they'll hear about it from the Interwave. They're still going to fucking hear about it from some quarters for 'not being adventurous'. It's a funny Catch 22. But at least nobody will be able to say they made a 'bad' decision if it turns out to be a disaster. So they go with the safe option. Just a reminder that nobody here is IBM yet.

This isn't the first time we've been hit by this.

The trick is the roll with it and be left with something useful at the end of the process. Strip the guns out of it, and the wasp is fairly handy to handle as a sports craft. And cheap enough to be within reach of anyone wanting to have some fun around an asteroid....

-Jet
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

From: Cathy at Jenga
To: Jet.jaguar at Frigga.fen
CC: Wolfboy
Subject: Re: space fighters

Its sad that you will not join Jet... I understand what you say, but I think you are wrong about the "not mix up". Pushing the edge is about inspiration and ideas, and this is a region where multiple people can work together very well.

You will see when we produce the first prototype at the factory!

Cathy

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

From: Jerry at Jenga
To: Wolfboy
CC: Cathy at Jenga, Jenny at LBBL
Subject: Re: space fighters

Wolfboy,

it seems we are down to two teams, but I already have some ideas where we could get a good blend of your and our idea.

Lets have a brainstorming session when we are together!

Jerry

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

From: Jenny at LBBL
To: Wolfboy
CC: Jerry at Jenga
Subject: Re: space fighters

Wait for me, I am coming too!

Jenny

[Dartz]

From:Jet.jaguar at Frigga.fen
To: Cathy at Jenga
CC: Jerry at Jenga, Jet,Mackie at Frigga
Subject: Re: space fighters

>Its sad that you will not join Jet... I understand what you say,

Not what I meant. Was just trying to warn against feeping creaturism. It's too easy to get caught up in the rush and throw the kitchen sink at things in the rush to be the 'best'. We have something in the CAD archives that's reasonably easy to build - out of welded steel of all things, meets the range and speed requirements, and more than quadruples the firepower requirements - but also comes at nearly ten times the cost before options. It also weighs fifty tons and comes with a turn-fighting rating of "Don't"

Remember, the project is supposed to be something dog-simple and easy to build anywhere. Aside from a tendancy to be a bit kevorkianesque to noobs, I think we hit all our goals on our first try with the Wasp.

-Jet

---------

From:Jet.jaguar at Frigga.fen
To: Tech.Open.Defense
Subj: We may have lost...

But that doesn't mean what we did gets left on the shelf. In good hands, the Wasp was a hoot to fly, and it's fairly easy to knock one together. It seems a shame to put it aside.

Therefore, I've posted the CAD files, Documentation, Aerodynamic and Ether-flow models to the newsgroup, and to the usual mirrors. All Released under a TAPR Open Hardware License. The vision-systems and helmet/control interface come from the Stingray Project - proper attribution and licensing in the notes files.

You'll have to add engines, armament and your own computer pack, but everything else is feature-complete. And it's fairly agnostic about what you put in. We ran with everything from Zig-engines and JetCats, to a Hurricane booster - to a pair of Hurricane boosters. (Frightening, but Fast).

Just be careful with the throttle close to the ground - and if you do take it into combat, try not to get hit.

Questions and comments can find me at the usual place.

-Jet
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

From: Jerry at Jenga
To:Jet.jaguar at Frigga.fen
CC: Cathy at Jenga, Jet,Mackie at Frigga
Subject: Re: space fighters

I think we did NOT pushed to 'modular' factor of the F-61 to the sweet spot. But its a moot point anyways... Great Justice decided they want to continue their 'waved plane' route and I don't think we will care much about this anymore.

We will work on the F-61 project a bit more for some time and then produce a couple of them... maybe if we find someone interested in using them, a few dozens more. To the hell with Great Justice, they got what they deserved. I think I know a couple of places who would like something better than that.

Jerry.