April 19th, 009 SDE:
Countryman made his way through the market street. He had a meeting in about an hour, but in the meantime he’d come down to the residential and market areas for a walk. The battle had gone fairly well, for his forces at least. Roughly a third of their auxiliaries required repairs of varying degrees but they hadn’t lost any ships. Once the Flower surrendered their role in the fight had been over. As for the Drifters, the fighting had lasted several hours and they’d lost dozens of ships. Some of their larger ships had taken a beating that would leave them in a yard for weeks. The outpost however was once again in Drifter hands.
There was, however, the matter of the captured Raider vessels. Countryman fully planned to acquire a few of them. Permanent use was a consideration, but even if that wasn’t in the cards? Simply being able to take apart and study the Flower alone would be invaluable. They’d never have a better chance to study actual regenerative hull plating up close. The insights alone would accelerate their own research into the subject. The vulnerability to Pulsars was worrying, and the biotech did have a degree of vulnerability to Isanir radiation. But they’d learned from the Wovnar that biotech could parallel mechanical technologies. Countryman was fully aware of the possibility that any such project wouldn’t pan out, but the risks seemed fairly low all things considered.
Squealing children drew him from his thoughts, and he stepped to the side to let a trio of very young girls run past. A second later a tired young woman stopped beside him panting, “Sorry about them.”
“It’s alright. At that age they have nothing but energy. I’m quite well aware.”
“Thanks for understanding, sir.”
“Born here?”
“Yeah, just a couple months after we entered this damn storm.” She sighed, “I remember spending countless hours in the hospital worried for them.”
“That’s something I can understand. My Rika isn’t much older, but I was worried just the same for her.”
The woman nodded, “Well as much as I enjoy a good chat, I better catch my girls.”
Countryman watched her run after her little girls. They’d seemed happy and healthy. A good sign for the future, as those kids were the future of their entire race. Seeing them doing so well filled him with a bit of pride, and reassured him that he was doing the right things. Circumstances being what they were, as a people they were thriving again. They’d made a home for themselves out here. Planet or not; humanity, or whatever they were becoming, would live on. He was going to make sure of that, no matter how many lifetimes it took him.
With newfound resolve he resumed his walk, weaving past the young men and women busily going about their business in the market. People were buying toys for their kids, fresh clothing, the occasional book or game, and some people were even buying food. Countryman was in the group that bought food on occasion himself. While most took their meals in one of the many mess halls or restaurants throughout the ship. There were people like himself who had a private kitchen, but not everyone had the time or skill to make use of one. Countryman did on occasion, but most of the time he just used the officer’s mess. Rose used that kitchen more than he did these days. A thought which reminded him that he needed to restock on fruit, Rika had eaten all the fruit he had in the fridge.
With that in mind, he took a turn towards his usual vendor, already thinking about what else he might buy. He had plenty of credits left for the month, maybe he could splurge? Perhaps a nice steak dinner? Hmm, or he could go a little fancy? He would certainly have the time to make use of the kitchen tonight. Assuming the council meeting didn’t run long, that would always be a concern. Still, he might be able to make room tomorrow, if tonight didn’t pan out.
He wasn’t far from the shop when someone called out to him, “Captain! Nice to see you around. Do you have a moment?”
“Just a bit. Have something you want to talk about?” asked Countryman as he turned to the young man who’d called out to him. Countryman had spoken with him a few times. The young man was often here. He worked in one of the local shops to make ends meet, and provide for his younger sister. His parents had been lost in the attack on Luna, but the young man and his sister had survived the attack. It was quite admirable how he’d stepped into the role of guardian for the little lady. Especially given how young he had been at the time, a mere fourteen years old and a young individual himself.
“I did!” said the young man as he produced a datapad. “I’ve heard you are something of an expert at programming, so I wanted your thoughts on a game idea I had.”
“Games? Hmm, depends on the game. What did you have in mind?”
He gestured at some tables nearby, and started talking, “Well sir, I was inspired by retro computer games, specifically RTS games. After playing a couple, I started thinking about them. With very few exceptions they tended to either focus entirely on the ground or space. While some of them did include water or air, they didn’t always feel that they were three dimensional, but there was also the question of how to include that. I’m not going to do anything too crazy just yet. I wanted to get my toes in the water, so I figured I’d try primarily space with three or four asymmetric factions. I have a couple of ideas on those.”
“Ah, sounds interesting. I’ve actually played more than a few RTS games, bit of a niche genre, even today. Part of that is due to the learning curve, they aren’t the easiest games to get into. Some players claim it’s all about effective actions per minute but I disagree. APM is valuable for micro, but the real trick is all about timings, and macro. Micro only ever matters in the moment.”
The boy frowned, “I, uh, see...”
“Well don’t let an old man confuse you. Let’s talk about your game idea. What did you have in mind?”
He nodded and got started in discussing his factions. The first one was obviously based on modern humanity. For the first faction, units were expensive but powerful. While lacking shields, they had sturdy hulls and high base armor. In addition to that, all their ships would have an ability that boosts their armor value so long as the ship had reserve energy, further reducing damage.
Meanwhile the second faction idea was quite different with organic ships that had extremely high hull endurance, moderate base armor and the ability to trade reserve energy for hull regeneration. Again he didn’t plan to give this faction shields either.
For his third idea, he was considering a faction with fast low cost ships. They’d have fragile hulls but the ships are cheap. In addition they’d have a weak energy shield that can absorb a hit or two before failing. Reserve energy would be used to restore lost shields. The idea was the faction would favor skirmish tactics, with large numbers of fast and cheap skirmisher hulls.
Countryman nodded along, “Sounds quite interesting, but might I suggest being careful with the last faction. If done poorly they could end up being quite oppressive.”
“How so?”
“Well simply put, speed is just one of the most powerful tools you can give to a unit. Mobility is key and speed adds endless potential for micro. A fast unit that is also easy to field? You are going to see a lot of them and it will be painful.”
“Uh, thanks I’ll keep that in mind. What about my energy reserve mechanic?”
“Interesting, it has some options and effectively would make all units spellcasters.”
“Spellcaster? It’s modern, not fantasy!”
“I know but in RTS, units with an energy reserve for casting abilities are regardless of Genre often called spellcasters. I know it feels weird when the setting doesn’t actually have spellcasters.”
“I’d have to agree with you on that one.” replied the young man, who then launched into the next subject on his game idea. Countryman gave him what feedback he could before he had to leave. Somehow just barely managing to fit in his grocery shopping before hurrying to be on time for the council meeting.
Countryman stepped into the council meeting to find he was the last to arrive. Taking his seat, he began the meeting. “Alright Kurtz, how are looking supplies wise?”
“Pretty good, fuel use is pretty light these days. Most of that is to supply carbon for our factories and we offset it by using what little helium and beryllium we’ve been able to gather from the storm. Meanwhile, I’ve been getting good reports from Redfox on our agricultural production. If the numbers hold true, we should have a surplus this year. Robins told me demand for cloned tissues has fallen even further than projected. Which has resulted in a corresponding drop in consumption.”
“Nice to hear food won’t be a concern this year. What about our material reserves?”
Smith interjected, “Thanks to our trade deals, we should be in the green this month. The repairs hurt, but they won’t kill us just yet. We might just avoid another trip to the deep storm.”
“Sounds good to me, I don’t particularly want to visit that region any time soon,” commented Countryman.
Richards commented, “Don’t! Fixing the hull after that was a fucking pain.”
Ignoring the outburst, he changed the subject. “Now about the battle. We captured a number of Raider and Folian ships during our part of the battle. Let’s start with the prisoners?”
Captain Baker shifted, it wasn’t often she had anything to add to these meetings. Other than a few reports on the occasional domestic dispute or drunken brawl. “We’ve secured the officers in the brig, pending discussion on what to do with them. There was some sporadic fighting on a few of the ships, so the wounded were sent to our medbay. So far we haven’t had any issues with them, but I have my people on alert in case they try anything.”
“Glad to hear it,” replied Countryman, but before he could say more Richards was speaking.
“I’d like permission to get a look at a few of the ships we captured. A couple of them look to have interesting technology that we might be able to use.”
Countryman shifted, “Right, that is one of the things I wanted to discuss. We will need to consider which ships we want and which one we will hand over. There are things I’m looking to acquire. Our coffers are alright thanks to the trade deals, but there are still things we need. Certain research projects, while highly promising, will require a steady supply of materials to fund. Such as Ruri’s next generation computer development program. With that in mind, we need to discuss which ships we need, and how much we need them. Then determine which ones we can sell to the Drifters.”
Several voices spoke up as a lively conversation about that very subject began.