Turn 1 Design
Proposal: Boarding Party BreachersDifficulty: NormalResult: 4+1=5,
Below AverageThere's one job every team trying to breach a ship is going to need, and that is someone to do the breaching. One member of the boarding party is given a bag full of shaped charges and some basic instruction on how to use them without killing themselves (immediately). The charges aren't as powerful as some of the Buccaneers would like, but they can be wired into a series for similar effect. The focused blasts of the charges should reliably penetrate most non-military hulls.
Breachers also get the latest in homebrewed Buccaneer equipment: the Short-Barrel Coil Shotgun. Made with close-quarters boarding actions in mind, the double-barrel break action 12 gauge "sawn-off" shotgun fires discarding sabot flechettes capable of puncturing light armor.
Breachers also take on the role of mentor, adopting a rookie into the unit to act as an apprentice and battle buddy, and definitely not a meat shield or glorified backpack.
Paint is handed out to boarding parties to personalize their equipment and, if they want, add some identifiers to reduce the risk of friendly fire. "Born to Kill" is a particularly popular decoration for helmets.
Boarding Party Breachers are integrated into the
Boarding Party and can be utilized in the creation of other units as-is without a significant influence on difficulty.
Proposal: Great Work FreightersDifficulty: Normal (for thoroughness' sake, this was around the high end of Normal)
Result: 6+4=10,
SuperiorWhy reinvent the rectangle?
Great Work Freighters are largely pressurized transport ships bearing a similar profile to the
Patchwork Freighters in the Arrrmada presently. A larger crew allows for more specialization in tasks, improving crew efficiency across the board in relation to the
Patchworks. Thicker armor plating meant to withstand attacks from smaller ship-caliber munitions, lower-intensity energy weapons, and smaller explosions is bolted onto the hull of the ship to improve its survivability (and the survivability of the crew as a result). The nose and tail of the ship get a nice 40mm coilgun turret, with the tail gun being set off-center due to the need for engines to belong there.
Airlocks in each ladderway greatly reduce the damage a breaching shot would have on a pressurized ship, isolating decompression to the impacted deck. Automatic fire suppression systems are also installed to, well, suppress fires on pressurized decks. In a final act of improving survivability, sets of emergency life rafts are hung from the ceiling of the cargo bay. These rafts are even less of a vehicle than the Boarding Skiffs, providing the crew with a platform with a small chemical engine to drift around on until someone with a ship that hasn't been destroyed comes by.
Great Work Freighters are fairly easy ships to throw together and maintain, made even easier by the fact that we just refitted the ships we had available.
Great Work Freighters are
Common with a
Unit Size 4. Being direct improvements of the
Patchwork Freighters, the
Great Works are capable of pushing them into
[Obsolescence]. Instead of just having useless ships sitting around, should you decide to have them go unused, you can instead scrap them similarly to captured ships to receive a one-time income of
Materials and/or
Fuel.
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Space is fun and all, but everyone needs solid earth to come home to. It helps when you can pretend that home is a tropical paradise. The Black Hole Buccaneers made their home among the sweltering desert islands and dense jungles that littered the planet, with their base of operations and Laneripper strategically built seated deep within a dead volcano and largely protected from the elements. This volcano also offered a bountiful supply of materials to use for synthesizing craft and equipment, giving the band the ability to move out of their spacecraft and into actual shelters in record time. It was a good solid place to use as a raider's haven, definitely hard to find and even harder to attack.
Planetary Base: 1 Free Material Use/Turn----------------
It is now the Revision Phase. You can vote for two Revisions, which are actions that modify, create variants of, improve, or otherwise are based off of equipment that exists in your armory. As with the Design Phase, I will be providing feedback on proposals. Along with voting on your two proposals, you are also tasked with deciding on the following question:
Piracy is business, and the most successful players in the black market know when a good investment opportunity shows up. Why would someone want to prop up a band of pirates? Well, there's a million simple answers for that. How is one of these shadowy businessmen supporting your efforts?
A: Money, obviously. It's what makes everything move (figuratively). Some refer to money as the "meta" of our universe, and that would be a correct assumption for a pirate. The faction produces 1 Wealth for use each turn. The wealth from this bonus will not be stockpiled, and will be used before stockpiled wealth.
B: Fuel. It's what makes everything move (literally). In a cold, unforgiving universe, it's always nice to know you can get where you gotta go and then back home. The faction produces 1 Fuel for use each turn. The fuel from this bonus will not be stockpiled, and will be used before stockpiled fuel.
C: Armor. It's what you use to keep people from making your people stop moving. Your boarding teams replace their voidsuits with Boarding Suits. Light armor is added to protect vital regions (including a reinforced faceplate), and integrated back thrusters allow controlled movement in space while magnetic soles and gloves can be activated to secure oneself to the side of a ship. You can get these supplies on-demand, so they can be used for any of your combat-oriented Crew until you come up with something better to replace it.
Craft:
Patchwork Freighters: Relatively small rectangular transport ships with the minimal amount of systems working to be space-worthy. The crew quarters, command deck, and galley are pressurized, but the rest of the ship is not. This includes the cargo bay. A single 30mm coilgun turret is slapped onto the nose and controlled through a console in the command deck. They are very clearly slapped together from what little remained of the original pirate fleet and carry a skeleton crew with space for a boarding party. Common, Unit Size 4 Status: Perfect
Great Work Freighters: Patchwork-derived craft with fully pressurized hulls, a small but skilled crew, room for a boarding party, and a cargo bay. A 40mm coilgun turret is mounted on the nose and at the rear of the craft. Armor increases protection against smaller and weaker ship-scale weaponry, while a multitude of safety mechanisms are in place to maximize survivability of the crew and (more importantly) the ship. Also has life rafts. Common, Unit Size 4 Status: Perfect
Boarding Skiff: Little more than a collection of metal sheets welded together and shackled to an engine. The platform is large enough to carry a standard boarding party. Since platform runs along the same axis as the engine's thrust, rails are places around the perimeter for boarders to brace against. The pilot is in the rear by the engine and can engage or disengage the magnetic clamps under the skiff to attach to target ships. Deployment requires at least one ship with a cargo bay. Common, Unit Size 4 Status: Perfect
Crew:
Boarding Party: A group of nine pirates ready to kick ass and take names (or things). All but one one is armed with a basic low velocity 9mm Submachine Gauss and an voidsuit that is barely better than clothing but does have the limbs, torso, and head compartmentalized in the case of breaches in a vacuum. A "Breacher" is given a 12ga sawn-off double barrel coil shotgun that fires armor piercing dicarding sabot flechette. They also get a sack of shaped charges to blow holes into ship hulls with. They also get a Rookie to follow them around. Boarding Parties carry a few plasma torches to cut their way into ships. Plenty of paint is provided to customize equipment. Needs to be assigned to a boarding Craft before use. Common, Unit Size 4 Status: Perfect
Planetary Base: 1 Free Material Use/Turn
Author
Topic: What's Yours Is Mine - Black Hole Buccaneers - Turn 1 Revision (Read 1879 times)