Ambition and Ambiguity. X3:AP DiD

[Idleking]

Yeah and you're doing pretty good on the narrative part. All the characters introduced so far actually seem like characters rather than NPC#001-xxx (Eh, ai, eh ai oh.. hilarious ) and stuffing out two "double agents" trading information for both sides of the war w/o blowing their cover on either while not giving the other guy too much for the stuff they want for themselves..

Tough nut

[BankruptAssasin]

Double Agents? Ah no. Poseidon you will know why i said ah no tomoorow if you read my next chapter.

[Poseidon]

Technically, there have been no double-agents, except the unnamed one mentioned in passing. Tomes and I are both opportunists with very ambiguous allegiances. Neither one of us has yet to indicate a desire to defect; we just want to leverage the advantages of the opposing side. :-p

It’s still a fairly awkward situation. Neither of us was negotiating from a position of power.

-----

The meeting with Tomes left me with a nagging itch in the back of my mind. He had control of combat vessels on the front lines. There was no reason he couldn’t send them elsewhere. The ATF also had jumpdrives. Stacy was right; I needed to be better prepared.

I left Saturn, and hopped to Megnir. Two hours in the Shipyard left me confident there were no tracking devices on my ship. I called in a Kestral to map out the Asteroids, then started digging through my Personnel files. Ah, there he was... Robert Jackson; the short black Argon Marine with the huge shoulders and traps.

“Marine Jackson, do you have a moment?”

The aforementioned traps and torso came into view on the commlink. He appeared in a state of moderate undress, with the sound of waves and laughter in the background.

“Of course, sir. I finished my training, and was enjoying some time planetside.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“You can interrupt all you like, sir,” he responded formally. “But to answer you implied question, I have no family. You’re only interrupting drinks on the beach.”

A rather attractive young woman in a bikini skipped up to him, and took his arm. He smiled, and gently ushered her away.

“Apologies, sir. One of the local girls… I always manage to find good company when on leave. Do you need me back on the bird?”

“Not needed. Rather, I have a personal request. I’ve recently had an experience that made me aware of my shortcomings in physical fitness and close combat. I’d like to remedy that. Your dossier lists you as proficient in a number of combat forms, and with extensive live field experience. How much to construct a gym and training center for me?”

He pondered for a minute. “Fitness wise, you can do it with almost nothing. If you want to scavenge bulkheads and tires, we could do it for a couple hundred credits. If you want real equipment… 20k for low tech. 200k for high tech. The sky is the limit really. What type of combat training are you expecting? Who is going to teach you?”

“I want to be a certified badass, Jackson. In a hurry. And you’re teaching. Fitness, Hand-to-Hand, and Sidearms are my first priorities.”

“There’s no hurrying strength, weight loss, or conditioning, but better facilities and diet does make it easier.”

“What can you do with 10 million?”

Jackson grinned. “One Certified Badass forge coming up. You got the cajones?”

“I guess we’ll find out. I’ll transfer the money to your account. Take your time; I’ve gotta waste some money in Terran space first.”

“Where am I building this, sir?”

Oh, right

“You know the recently de-classified OTAS sector, Legend’s Home? There’s a sector behind it, on the East compass point. I’ll grant you access; commandeer a private corner of the Equipment Dock, and set up there.”

“Yes sir. I’ll get started on it-" a pillow flew in from the left of the camera; his hand snapped up and caught it before it struck his face. "Tomorrow. I'll get started on it tomorrow."

We shared a grin, and I closed the connection.

-----

“… so now I’m out another 50M. I’m hoping Tomes delivers. I really don’t want to self-destruct a complex of that size,” I finished.

Maddy spoke up. “It’s a lot of money, but it’s better than costing lives. You’re in a good position to make more money if it’s needed.”

“It will be. Bribes and reputation seem to be the only way to make any progress without resorting to lethal force.”

“There’s another aspect to consider,” Maddy suggested. “What happens if War breaks out?”

“When, you mean? Everything burns. My only hope is that the station generates enough revenue to recoup the costs before that happens.”

“Yet you intend to continue down this route?”

“As you said… what’s the cost of a life? And frankly, I only have about 80M credits invested in Terran space. That’s less than 10% the value of my current assets. Right now it just looks like diversification.” I rationalized.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“So you’ll be gone for a while?” she asked.

“Most likely. I need to build a complex, and I’ll have engine designs to research shortly afterwards. I also want to address my physical condition,” I slapped my belly. “I’m about 20kg overweight, and I’ve lost a lot of strength since I left gravity behind.”

She smiled. “Whatever you want to do, dear. I always expected we’d get a bit Jolly as we aged. Can we have a date night before you disappear?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea. How does Split food sound? Family Zyarth still controls Twisted Skies, and the view is rather spectacular.”

“As long as we can retire back to Argon Prime. I’ve been a bit homesick.”

“Sounds good. See you in a few.”

[Song Of Obsidian]

You and Maddy are sickeningly cute together. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Be good to see how the next confrontation with Stacy goes after the training though

[Poseidon]

Heh. I try to keep the sickening cute to a minimum, and throw in other types of relationships when it makes sense.

The training will certainly be interesting.

[Poseidon]

Definitions / Review:

MRC: Mandelbrot Research Complex - http://goo.gl/QpMVW - Primary Research Facility behind Legend’s Home

MRL: Mandelbrot Lobby – Teladi Equipment Dock behind Legend’s Home for docking large ships

Farm: Merry Photon Farm - http://goo.gl/LUrGY – Biological Research Facility for Maddy in Harmony of Perpetuity

ATF IRS: ATF Ion Research Station – Resource-Minimal Self-Sustaining Complex in Megnir, based exclusively on Boron and Terran Tech, that builds 200MJ and 1GJ shields, Mosquito Missiles, and Ion Disruptors. Merged with existing Water Purification station.

-----

Building a station is significantly easier when you have three TLs jumping out to retrieve materials. My cost estimates proved to be on the low side… I had forgotten the extra credits for the Complex Hub and Transporter Network. Still, 65M credits and a fairly short time later, the ATF Ion Research Station was up and running.

I dialed up Tomes and sent him an encrypted message with coordinates and a request for ‘payment’.

Jackson was still gathering materials, so I decided to get all my ducks in a row for the near future. First stop: Getsu Fune.

-----

The Springblossom is a remarkably powerful ship. Unfortunately, my loadout of all SSC made securing research materials troublesome… Xenon Ns were vaporized from a single bolt, and the larger fighters didn’t fare much better when there were 14 guns involved.

Xenon Sector 534 contained a number of Ps and Qs, as well as a J, K, and I. I led them towards the southern jumpgate, and goaded the carrier to launch all its fighters. The next few minutes were a chaotic mess of dodging capital ships, fighters, and the jumpgate itself. When the flak and PPC fire started getting too thick, I hit the Booster and led the army into the center of the sector.

My tactics paid off: friendly fire had fried the electronics of 3 Ls and an M. I jumped back to the gate, hotwired the ships, and sent them through to Getsu Fune to meet up with Saya for relocation to Mandelbrot Research Complex.

Next stop: Every Military Outpost in the Universe.

-----

The universe was getting less competent. 2000 energy cells later, and I conceded that I needed to lower my standards. Four-star fighting rank was very rare, as the single paranoid marine lounging in the back could attest. I stopped at a Solar Power Plant, and made another lap, this time accepting three-star fighting rank.

All said and done, I was now responsible for the lives of 43 marines. Seven had finished training; sixteen were almost ready for action… and then there were the twenty sparklefruit I’d just hired. It’d be a very long time before they were educated enough to be of use as anything other than cannon fodder and drills.

The trip yielded other fruits though: a Kha’ak M4 Interceptor, and a Pirate Blastclaw Prototype. The former was adrift near the planet atmosphere in some random Boron sector, I think. The latter was part of a fighter group in Empire’s Edge that took offense to my existence. The pilot of the Prototype was evidently less offended than his brethren.

Overall, I was very pleased. I had Saya collect all my interesting ships and deliver them to MRC, including one of each #deca. I stopped by Argon Prime to drop off the new recruits, and then jumped over to the Lobby to see what Jackson had cooked up.

[Song Of Obsidian]

Hiring marines is hit-or-miss. More often a miss, I find. Most reliable way I've found to get strong ones is to buy second-hand TMs at shipyards. If you can call that reliable.

Have to say though, reading all you've been doing has actually tempted me to try AP. Just...not from Steam.

Can't wait to see how Jackson plans on giving you bruises and bodyaches

[Poseidon]

Since I've never done a boarding action in an X game, this is all going to be a clusterf, regardless of their skill. I'm just trying to stack the odds.

Amusingly, I haven't touched on any AP plot at this point... just wandered the universe and made my own plot.

As for Steam... AP is on sale for $5 for the next few days. And the NoSteam patch provided by Egosoft works great.

You'll have to forgive this next bit; I'm going to indulge in some pseudo-monologue / wish fulfillment. Prepare for fitness knowledge transfer.

[Song Of Obsidian]

$5...I may never forgive you for mentioning that.

[Poseidon]

$5...I may never forgive you for mentioning that.

I couldn't not say anything, with a price like that.

-----
I stared at the recently added doors and walls with both excitement and trepidation. Within was a personalized hell that I had commissioned. Deep breath; through the door.

The facility had consumed a number of the smaller freight bays that were so prevalent on Teladi Equipment Docks, and in the process some walls were lost. It was still compartmentalized, but there was good lighting and airflow. I counted… five clusters of equipment, and three doors in the back. Jackson waited for me just inside the door.

“Hey boss. You ready for the tour?” He offered his hand; I returned a firm handshake.

“It appears you’ve been busy. What have we got?”

We walked towards the central workout area. I thought I recognized some of the gear, but it seemed sparse. The bars looked like normal barbells, but the windows in the bearing sleeves emit a dull purple light, and I didn’t see any plates around.

“This area is for getting Strong,” Jackson started explaining. “Here we have a bench, a platform, and a power cage. The bars interact with their fixture using Tractor Beam technology to produce the desired load. It will also monitor you during the lift and provide automatic spotting to prevent injury. The bench is for Bench Press, the platform is for Deadlift, and the Power Cage is for Squats, Overhead Press, and Pullups. There are also a couple dumbbells that can be used with any of the fixtures for assistance work.”

“That’s pretty cool, but... it seems a bit lacking. Five exercises?”

“Muscle Confusion is a myth. These are highly compound movement; they’re all you need to build some very serious strength.”

I shrugged. I’d asked him to teach me, and he had provable credentials. The money was spent, so I would do well to listen.

We moved on to the next area. It was sparse like the first.

“Here we have conditioning equipment: an OmniMill and a WavePool. The first is a treadmill that can change directions. The second is basically a treadmill for water; you can swim, or use the rowing attachment.”

“So this is for the weight loss?”

Jackson laughed. “Not even close. Conditioning is conditioning. Cardiovascular health. Running to lose weight is like using a TP for trade. It’ll get the job done eventually, but it’s a waste of time. Even if you've got a Boron Angel, you’re better off using a Demeter or Caiman. “

“So where’s the Demeter?”

He grinned, and we walked towards what appeared to be a food dispenser attached to a sensor grid. A feeling of dread grew in my gut.

“The Terrans are irritating bastards, but they make strong ships, and they know nutrition. You start here every day. It’ll take your measurements: everything from weight and size, to bodyfat percent, to radiant heat and metabolic rate. It’s hooked up to all the food dispensers in the station, as well as the exercise equipment in the facility, so it knows what you've eaten and what exercise you've done. It will produce meals to meet your nutritional needs. They’ll be very high in protein, to keep you full. Feel free to choose whatever Flavor Packs you want, of course.”

I sighed. “Really? It's just a diet?”

“Really,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “You have to eat correctly to recover from your exercise, but you lose fat by controlling intake to create a deficit. Exercise is for Strength, Conditioning, and training your nervous system for specific activities.”

I’d asked for this. “Alright, what are the other two areas, and what are the ‘Specific Activities’?”

“This is where it gets fun.” We continued walking. “This area is for stretching and gymnastic movements. Spring floor, lots of padding, rings, bars, and stretching equipment. There's also a climbing wall.” He didn't slow down. “The next area is for general use. If you need space for something strange, you do it here. Tire Flips, Power Sled, Ropes, that sort of thing.”

We approached one of the doors in the back, and stepped though.

“And this is combat training. We have all the traditional equipment: the standard array of light and heavy bags, punch and kick stands, a wooden dummy, and wooden weapons. We also have some more modern contraptions,” He gestured towards a device that looked like a Mannequin gone Cyborg. “This can be configured to throw punches and kicks at various locations, speed, and strengths.”

Now this was more interesting. “What will I be learning here?”

“We’ll start with Krav Maga, Muay Thai, Jujitsu, and some Wushu. From there, we’ll branch out into alien techniques such as Claw of the Priest and Family Rage.”

"Wooden Dummy, but no Wing Chun?"

"It's an effective tool for other arts as well."

I grinned. “No Boron Martial Arts?”

Jackson cringed. “You don’t want to see squiddy combat techniques. They’re all Gandhi and Zen until they crack, then they go Hentai on your ass… only nobody gets a happy ending. The really bad ones turn mind-bender; they make your thoughts burn. We don’t have the biological equipment for either of these styles, and I’m not sure I’d want it.”

Huh. Ew.

We exited the dojo area, and stepped through the other door.

“Here you learn firearms and combat tactics. There’s a firing range on the left, and a reconfigurable tactical environment with pop-up targets and ion-shock return fire on the right.” Jackson concluded.

We turned and started walking back into the main area. “I’ve still got about 2M credits left, in case we need to upgrade or replace any of the equipment. I hope this meets your needs?”

I nodded. “Yeah, this is excellent. I’m terrified. When do we start, and where?”

“We start today. Go warmup on the rowing machine… gently, for about 5 minutes. Then meet me at the Squat Rack. We’re going to find your working weights.”

“How do we do that?”

“We set a weight, and you do a set of 5 reps. Then we add 2kgs, and you do it again. We keep adding weight until you fail to finish all 5 reps. Not quit. Fail. We’re not stopping until you collapse, and the fixture spotter catches the bar. Then you cool down on the OmniMill, and stretch for a few minutes. Tonight, we start you on basic hand-to-hand.

Tomorrow is the same thing, only we find your working weight for Bench. We repeat until we know your limits for all five movements. Then the real work begins.”

[Song Of Obsidian]

Then the real work begins.

Best line of a post of great lines. How you came up with most of the technological mumbojumbo is beyond me.

I'm scared and I don't even have to go through it.

[Poseidon]

Then the real work begins.

Best line of a post of great lines.

Glad you liked it. I let my mind wander a bit on this chapter.

How you came up with most of the technological mumbojumbo is beyond me.

I'm scared and I don't even have to go through it.

Amusingly enough, this chapter is mostly factual, or based on real world elements. If you strip off the Sci-Fi veneer, you'll see a very common powerlifting workout and body recomp nutritional program, combined with martial arts and firearms training. I'll be blasting through it a little aggressively in the fiction, but you could take this program to the gym and you'd get excellent results; I've used a variant myself in the past.

That said, this is fiction. Use at your own risk. Your mileage may vary. Don't hold me, or anyone on this forums, liable for injury, etc etc etc...

Not to say it doesn't hurt.

[Idleking]

$5...I may never forgive you for mentioning that.

I couldn't not say anything, with a price like that.[..]

Well, basically it's 10$ since you need to buy TC too, but meh

[..]We set a weight, and you do a set of 5 reps. Then we add 2kgs, and you do it again. We keep adding weight until you fail to finish all 5 reps. Not quit. Fail. We’re not stopping until you collapse, and the fixture spotter catches the bar. Then you cool down on the OmniMill, and stretch for a few minutes. Tonight, we start you on basic hand-to-hand.

Tomorrow is the same thing, only we find your working weight for Bench. We repeat until we know your limits for all five movements. Then the real work begins.”

You. are. evil.

No seriously, that parcours sounds about right, although I can't shake the slight "because he hates himself even more" when thinking this through

[Poseidon]

$5...I may never forgive you for mentioning that.

I couldn't not say anything, with a price like that.[..]

Well, basically it's 10$ since you need to buy TC too, but meh

I had assumed he already had TC, based on his TC DiD. :-p

You. are. evil.

No seriously, that parcours sounds about right, although I can't shake the slight "because he hates himself even more" when thinking this through

It's not as bad as it sounds. It's a real program, that lots of real people do. You just have to get past that first mental hurdle of 'oh shit this is a lot of work'. Anyway, I won't harp on it too long; just need to show him paying for his progress in some manner.

[Song Of Obsidian]

Do have TC...just not from Steam.

That whole 'getting started' thing is usually the hardest part for exercise...or, um, anything else, for that matter.

[Poseidon]

Do have TC...just not from Steam.

Everything X on Steam is half off right now.. so, Superbox for $20. Not sure what you have against Steam, but we all have our mental ticks. I never played ME3 because I refuse to install the Origin service.

-----

I had planned to do start my research that night, but the fatigue overwhelmed me almost immediately after my hand-to-hand session. The next morning wasn't much better. My thighs were tender, which was expected, but my butt and lower back were also acting up.

That must have been what he meant by compound movements, I thought.

It was interesting that I had moved far more weight that I thought possible. I guess there was a difference between quitting and failing.

I forced myself to get out of bed and waddle to the shower. The hot water helped immensely, although I continued to walk gingerly for the rest of the day, with each step being an intentional motion. Clean and clothed, I moved to the food dispenser. I pulled up my normal coffee recipe, and hit go. A few moments later, I removed a steaming cup of liquid motivation, took a sip, then nearly did a spit-take.

It was black.

I normally drink my coffee black with a couple teaspoons of sugar. I went back and checked my recipe. Yup, there’s the sugar. I put the cup back in the dispenser, and ordered two straight teaspoons of sugar.

>Access Denied<

“Whasthlpbb.” I sputtered. I queried the restriction.

>User Riordan Clery has had access to Sugar restricted by User Robert Jackson.<

/facepalm

I ordered breakfast.

>Access Denied<

>User Riordan Clery has not performed morning scan of vitals. Unable to calculate appropriate breakfast.<

Oh, for heavens…

Technically, I could override the restriction. But I had asked for this, and I had paid for this.

Sigh.

I made my way down to the Badass Forge. This was going to be a long day.

-----

“Gmorning Boss!” a voice called out from the Power Cage.

“Good morning Jackson.” I said wearily.

4 minutes later, the Nutrition Center was satisfied with the number of invasive readings it had taken, and dispensed my allotment of artificially sweetened protein paste for the morning.

“Jackson, what is this?”

“I don’t ask, boss. It’s balanced right, so I just eat it. If I wanted something worth tasting, I’d go to a restaurant. There are a couple nice places here. I wasn’t expecting that from a Teladi owned facility.”

“I own the station.”

Silence.

“You own this?”

“I own everything in the sector.”

“Damn man. You've got it made! I thought you were just friendly with OTAS. Are you…” he started a question, but thought better of it. “Nevermind. Glad to be working for you, though. Marines don’t always get this level of respect.”

“I’m going to ask you to do some stupid shit. I figure I should do my best for you beforehand. Anyway, what’s on the schedule for today?”

Jackson stopped for a minute and thought. “Uhm, normally I’d say go for a quick swim before breakfast... maybe 10 minutes at a very casual pace. I’ll meet you at the firing range after you eat, and teach you to shoot. You should fire at least 100 rounds a day, and increase that number as you get better.

“Come back when you’d normally take lunch, and we’ll hit Bench. Then you can eat, and the rest of the day is yours. We’ll do hand-to-hand in the evening.”

I set down my foot tray, and headed for the WavePool.

-----

This was my pattern for the next couple weeks. Despite the weight getting heavier and the speeds increasing, it got easier. By the third week, I was used to the soreness, and I was less sore after a workout in general. I was also slowly but consistently losing weight, and my aim was getting better, so I guess you’d call that progress.

I was still no match for Jackson in hand-to-hand, but I wasn't bruising as easily as before.

The real fun was the research.

My target platform was currently an OTAS Venti. It would provide a solid foundation to improve upon, and they were in ready supply next door.

I started with a Xenon L, because it was a perfect example of how to implement PBE in large scale. I also dismantled an Advanced Mamba and an Advanced Perseus, and compared all three systems. Truthfully, it was amazing the PBE hadn't been adapted to the Venti yet. I couldn't see any significant technological hurdles; it must have been politics, favoritism, or existing infrastructure that kept the PRG in its place of dominance on Argon ships.

Dissecting the #deca ships was a disappointment. Aside from a novel steering system, there wasn't much to learn. It was obviously a predecessor to new technology…

…that new technology being the Spitfyre. Holy hell, what a ship. Fast, maneuverable, accelerates like a bat out of hell, and a massive weapon generator. Its shield reactor was anemic for its class, but the rest of it was a work of art.

The problem was, I didn't completely understand how they managed such a ridiculous power density… until Tomes delivered access codes. I dug through the abstracts, and found a number of whitepapers that would likely answer my questions.

The only question now was… what to pursue first?

-----

Reader Interaction Time!

Research has been modeled by destroying the ship(s) called out in the narrative. I am going to mod an upgrade to an OTAS Venti based on your feedback. I can only upgrade one aspect of the ship at a time, and I have to burn credits and technology appropriate to the research. The amount of improvement will be a pseudorandom value between the existing value and max value of the ships destroyed, with the exception of Weapon Enable upgrades, which I am still debating how to implement.

Current options are:

• Faster Engines
  Improved Steering
  Improved Acceleration
  Increased Max Weapon Energy
  Improved Weapon Energy Recharge
  Enable PBE on Main Guns

Please post your vote for one upgrade to pursue. Name suggestions are welcome too, although I reserve the right to veto any and all suggestions. :-p

edit: For the record, I have a tech tree in mind, and certain upgrade options do not become available until the requisite priors have been researched. No, I won't share the tech tree. That's why I'm having you guys decide; research progress can feel random at times. Some tech choices are exclusive, and will disable other options.

[Song Of Obsidian]

So many tempting improvements...

The speed looks like the greatest potential gain, while laser recharge improves its staying power...if it's not relying one EBCs. Venti looks sort of awkward to try to improve because of the way the improvements build on each other.

So, I'm going to vote for PBE compatibility to start. And I'll suggest Lynx for the name.

[Idleking]

Faster Engines

This.
Faster is better. Always. There's no exception to that.

And for storytelling purposes and staying in character (or "in universe" respectively) I'd say you can learn how to do this by recycling the Spitfyre you examined
Another issue to put your wrenches on is the Weapon Energy Generator, and again, you can learn from the Spitfyre (which has almost twice the energy output!).

What made the Argons not implementing PBE usage on their ships could be the short range of that weapon. Short weapon range means getting closer to hit which generally isn't the smartest thing to do.
Against larger ships, you have to go into Flak range and with the current state of autopillocking you have a significant chance of crashing into other ships when you get too close.
Xenon don't care about the "life" of their "pilots". An L goes boom? So what, it's gonna be replaced by another.
Humans (the non sociopaths at least) tend to have more troubles with losing people in combat, so bigger range is better.

[vukica]

with tech tree in mind, increased power seems like the logical choice.
after that you should be able to increase weapon energy, acceleration and top speed. (gradualy and at additional cost )

just increasing top speed wouldn't work in real life without additional power.

[Idleking]

[..]just increasing top speed wouldn't work in real life without additional power.

True, but that was not an option poseidon listed in his last chapter

If you don't mind the ***modified*** flag in your game, you could implement your "research" into your game by modifying the t-files.
You'll need the X3 Mod Manager to extract the files from the *.cat/*.dat files and X3 Editor 2 to edit the extracted *.txt.