Ruins of Alien Suns: Research and Exploration

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Exploration

Advancements in new drives and long-term logistics systems have made exploration easier, but in many ways more dangerous than ever before.

This new Golden Age of Exploration coincides with a great Chrome Age of Piracy, caused by the revival of uploaded pirate lords who slept when the long night of Disconnect broke, the displacement of millions by the AEGIS war and the new religious Great Awakening that grips Verger society. Decreasing costs for spacecraft have also led to proliferation of cheap accessible survey hulls wielded by wildcat miners and prospectors seeking their fortunes, insurgent groups and amoral corporations seeking technological advantages in this time of tumult. As a consequence, untold threats have been released in the dark of uncharted space. Remnants of ancient wars between long-dead polities wage eternal war against one another and all species who dare disturb the tombs of their fallen masters.

For those brave souls willing to risk the frontiers however, there is great profit to be had.

Exploration Missions

Explorations are, like intelligence, posted in a standardized format to facilitate moderation. They come in two flavors:

  • Surveys: Involve the study of known stars and celestial bodies, searching for something of value.
  • Expeditions: Expeditions are open-ended searches for something of value across a whole sector.

Surveys

Survey missions 'fill in' established portions of the map with additional information. Although it is known that most uninhabited stars in human space are red dwarfs, not particularly given to supporting life-bearing planets, untold variables like ancient construction, terraforming of dwarf planets and cartographic mistakes often result in differences between records and what might be found there.

Surveys have a Primary and Secondary Objective, taken from the list below. These represent the operational focus of each survey, and determines rewards if the mission is successful.

Objectives marked with a (*) require a Grav Survey Vessel or Survey Modules, (#) denotes a Lab, and those with a (+) require Sensors or a Scout ship. Missions marked with an (F) work best paired with large transport capacity like Freighters, Reeferships, etc.

Jump Points *

Searching for new jump point connections. These reward Jump Point Candidates, which can then be investigated to reveal new jump point connections. Candidates reward 1 Prestige, successfully uncovering a new connection to an existing or uncharted system provides an additional 1 point.

Loot/Salvage +/#/F

Investigating battlefields or other places with significant floatsam for valuable salvage. These reward money, Remmants (typically Scrap, but rarely Salvage and Survivors) of appropriate origin and Prestige when rescuing stranded crews. One can also 'survey' undefended colonies and other settlements and strip them bare at the expense of their founders.

Archeology +/#

While it's informally known that hundreds of planets and planetoids bearing alien ruins exist in human, only a fraction are actually catalogued. Searching for these reveals Remnants of various types.

Habitability +/#

Human explorers have increasingly discovered that their predecessors cared little for the tendency of viable exoplanets to form around yellow main sequence stars. Even seemingly lifeless rocks can hide lost hab domes or significant terraformed cavern systems with vast ecosystems. Habitability Surveys uncover Colony Candidates, which in turn reveal viable locations for long-term habitation beyond gas mining platforms and hollowed asteroids. Particularly significant finds may have free colony sites or Prestige rewards baked in.

Colony +

Searching Colony Candidates rewards those who investigate them with easy to settle land. Surveying systems without established Colony Candidates tends to yield stable orbits for gas platforms and mine-able asteroids. Exceptional finds like long-lost megastructures are possible without a Candidate, but rare.

Testing */#/+

Field testing prototypes either in secluded systems and away from prying eyes or deliberately as a show of power. Successful surveys add bonuses to Research Missions (including Joint Projects), or may result in free Tech Strikes. Locals may be annoyed about you setting off D-weapons off the coast.

Antipiracy

Hunting down pirates, their caches and secret redoubts. Make sure your exploration fleet is ready for a fight. Note that normal antipirate operations can be ordered without being surveys or intelligence projects, this is explicitly for locating bases.

Prestige

Pure scientific or PR missions looking for photogenic vistas to send back home, or places too plant a flag. Yields Prestige, and only Prestige. Prestige Surveys going badly on the other hand is very bad PR, particularly when government officials and popular photojournalists are getting killed by pirates.

Assigning Survey Orders

Surveys now follow a standard format as follows:

Survey X

  • Target System: Specify if a specific celestial object (like a gas giant or terrestrial planet) is the target.
  • Primary Objective: The thing you want no matter what.
  • Secondary Objective: The thing that would be nice to have.
  • Assets: Any Labs or non-OOB materials assigned to the survey, Agencies assigned to protect the mission, or expendables including money or Prestige for rerolls.
  • Explorer OOB: Any discrete units assigned to the mission.
  • Reinforcements OOB: A link to or direct copy of the sum forces that could arrive to assist the fleet on short notice (~1 week). Note that "my capital is next door" is not a valid response to this field, it's important to specify forces that will specifically be called up to react on short notice.

Expeditions

Expeditions are long-term exploration missions outside the scope of the survey system. These are missions to unseen frontiers or the dark places in space, things that won't easily be found measuring the emissions off yet another red dwarf star. Expeditions are assigned by Sector and naturally open-ended, the Expedition starter (the PC state, Taskforce or PMC) must provide a mission statement clarifying the expeditionary objective.

Expeditions 'check in' (are rolled) every 6 months and last as long as the flotilla's Endurance. Ships on expedition do not pay Endurance to use jump points but also cannot be recalled for any reason without ending the mission outright. They can shuffle assets in and out, and do repairs, refits and resupply but that entire phase (of 6 months) is a write-off and no further progress is made.

Expeditions are written up as follows:

Xth [Entity] Expedition to the Y Sector, or give it a Cool Codename

  • Sector: Pick a Sector from the list below.
  • Mission Statement: What is the expedition looking for, really?
  • Mission Length: How long you expect the assets to be tied up.
  • Assets:Any Labs or non-OOB materials assigned to the survey, Agencies assigned to protect the mission, or expendables including money or Prestige for rerolls.

Interiors

Rewards: Minimal

Genesis

Not much is to be found in Genesis save for the remains of early human spaceflight, a patrimony claimed by the Great Powers.

Outer Core

Gelica and lost Renly carry small secrets, but the Outer Core is much the same as the inner, safe and picked clean centuries ago.

Low Frontiers

Rewards: Moderate

Elysium Fields

The 'third pole' of humanity after Genesis and Eversea, the Elysium Fields nonetheless have their fair share of secrets.
Secrets of Note: Praetorians, Berserker Probes, Extinct Sapients, Chelid Ruins

Paragon

A few great wars have been fought in Paragon, but the sector is a graveyard of empires both recent and ancient.
Secrets of Note: Khan, Precursor Activity, Alderbaran, Qin Exclusion Zone, vast Red Line Networks

Newpeace

A placid area that earned its name over the past few centuries, now facing shake-ups.
Secrets of Note: Gateway Armada, Arteman Exclusion Zone, Precursor Activity

Eversea

The 'second pole' of humanity, and the most inhabited sector outside of Genesis. Eversea is eternally beset by social unrest, counterculture movements and the whims of empire within and without.
Secrets of Note: Punisher Drones, Drifters, Quon, Gateway Armada

Columbiad

Ravaged by recent wars, Columbiad is increasingly split between UN and anti-UN factional influences, particularly around the divided national reconstruction efforts around Haven.
Secrets of Note: Punisher Drones, Quon, AEGIS Salvage, Sutukare, Gateway Armada, Chelid Ruins, Space Megafauna

Triumph

The so-called 8th Imperium lays claim to these stars, consolidated with military force during the Disconnect. Their technology has greatly diverged from mainstream humanity. The alien Tacet menace the Imperium from their other front, dividing the attention of their ailing empire.
Secrets of Note: Reconquista-era Salvage, Liberation-era Salvage, Tacet Ruins

High Frontiers

Rewards: High

Farsight

Farsight is a mostly unexplored sector split in two by the Mycore Trunk, a long tradelane that leads down towards Starbridge. Dozens of red line connections conceal untold secrets, including alien worlds, long-forgotten colonies and pirate redoubts.
Secrets of Note: Purification Drones, Lost Colonies, Ancient Battlefields, Quon, Tegmen, Gateway Armada

Sunbreak

Sunbreak connects Farsight and Starbridge to Eversea and is a major trunk of commerce, the sole source of the valuable life-extending panacea known as Red Jelly. The preponderance of Disrupted Worlds in the area hold untold secrets and material wealth lost since the Disconnect.
Secrets of Note: Cyran, Stop, Cyclope Ruins, Quon Ruins, VIRTUE Ruins, Gateway Armada

Starbridge

Nearly unexplored, the Starbridge Sector is the site of an ongoing fight for survival between the remnants of human colonists and the alien Marauders.
Secrets of Note: Lost Colonies, Marauders, Gateway Armada

Delve

The lawless fringe most associated with 'lawless fringes', Delve is home to a hundred technobarbarian polities and pirate microstates, and untold secrets. It was here that the remnants of Quon civilization were first discovered, changing the course of human history forever.
Secrets of Note: Quon, Drifters, Punisher Drones, Extinct Sapients, Praetorian Remnants, Gateway Armada

Unknown Space

Rewards: Unknown

Distant Heart

AEGIS is well-entrenched at Von Stang's World and have sealed this area away.

Basis Null (AEGIS Militarized Space)

Militarized space, do not approach.

Metropole (AEGIS Space)

The adopted homeworlds of the AEGIS species.

Black Oasis (Drifter Space)

The nomadic/parasitic Drifters use a local massive black hole as a navigational beacon, dredging the accretion disk and using the unusual physics that manifest here to their own ends.

The Basilica (Dead Space)

What is dead may never die. Long live the new flesh.

Tangle at the Edge of the Web (Smerg Space)

Somehow even more divided than humanity, the Smerg are divided into a vast assortment of polities with no central authority. Their space is threatened by the Web of Worlds, a vast expansionist power.

Beyond the Bjornstellar Junction (Tegmen Space)

By REM-211 one can find small old colony where humanity and an alien race have formed a new polity together to survive in unsteady times. Beyond that lies the worlds of the Tegmen and their vast worldships, waging eternal doctrinal war on one another.

VIRTUE Megastructure (Extragalactic Space)

The VIRTUE have migrated to extragalactic space in order to sustain their immortal, unknowable lives. Their starless territory is littered with the remnants of their passage.

Hazard

This is the threat a mission suffers, from overextension, lack of resources, abuse of crews, etc. This has no bearing on the success of a mission, but may complicate in ways that make completion impossible. Hazard applies to all of a player's explorations, rather than sequentially.

Low Hazard Results in: Pleasant, flavor-text-only encounters, lucky bonuses, extra prestige, etc.​
Moderate Hazard Results in: Corsair spawns, warship spawns, random accidents, etc.​
High Hazard Results in: Warship spawns, disasters with nation or game-wide consequences, dark fate triggers, etc.​

Things that Increase Mission Hazard

Every survey adds a Small Amount
Every colony owned adds a Minor Amount
Dark Fate adds a Moderate Amount on he 1st and 2nd Table, a Large Amount on the 3rd
Bought surveys add a Minor/Small Amount each
Negative traits that impact diplomacy add a Moderate Amount
Negative traits that impact ship or crew performance add a Moderate Amount
Negative traits that increase vulnerability to piracy add a Moderate Amount
Exploring 'high frontier' zones like Delve, Farsight, etc add a Moderate Amount
Hubris adds a Large Amount
Dominions in 'high frontier' zones instead add a Large Amount
A certain amount of Hazard is carried across tables, with a bonus to the following table proportional to the amount that exceeded the threshhold.

Things that Reduce Mission Hazard

The current year reduces by a Tiny Amount
Client states controlled subtract a Small Amount
Lucky reduces by a Small Amount on the 1st Table, a Moderate Amount on the 2nd and a Large Amount on the 3rd
Not buying surveys from an outside source reduces by a Small Amount
Traits which improve patrol quality, piracy or colonization reduce by a Small Amount
Well-appointed flotillas (value 500+/1000+) provide a Moderate or Large reduction to Hazard
Exploration posts may result in rolls being fudged favorably

Other ways to manage Mission Hazard

Assigning labs (reusable per 'phase' or 'table' of exploration) or Prestige (1 per single use) provides rerolls.
Combat Archaeology gives 1 'get out of jail free' card per year for hazardous encounters, and allows more to be bought for 5 Prestige a pop. The problem still exists, but it's someone else's now.
Certain (but not all) paranormal encounters may be partially mitigated by Custodians, Library of Ruins or Firestarter Protocol

Remnants

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Standard Remnants

  • Scrap/Bits/Glimmers: Discrete non-functional objects which are expended when subject to reverse-engineering research.
  • Salvage: Remains of alien or advanced human technology which can be made partially or fully usable. They can be wielded as normal or subject to reverse engineering. In most cases (roll a 1d10, 10 is a pass), attempting to pick these relics apart will destroy them.
  • Limited Sites: Semi and non-functional ruins with a scale that makes their relics exhaustible. Limited Sites have a rating that determines the number of successful yearly tech results each can yield, demonstrated as 'Limited Site (X)', X being the number of techs it holds.
  • Active Sites: Mostly functional ruins which provide nearly inexhaustible advancements to states that research them.

Unusual Remnants

  • Artifacts: Devices of unexplained or unexplained (Solarian vernacular, paracausal) power or function. Alternatively technological wonders from the peaks of fallen civilizations, improperly documented and created under such rarefied conditions that they are impossible to reproduce. Examining such devices provides further secrets as to their function, but they can never be reproduced.
  • Bracewell Probes/Mimics: Civilization hijack devices left behind hostile alien species. They provide powerful technologies which guide the development of sentients in order to win internal conflicts and ultimately replicate the biology or sociology of the creator species, or function as beacons to signal the harvest or destruction of the target species at a pivotal moment. The difference between a Bracewell Probe and a Mimic is primarily one of scale: the latter can consume civilizations while the latter is a ship-eating menace at worst.
  • Guidestones/Rosettas: Uplift devices left behind by benevolent aliens, which provide 'keystone' technologies that open entire new avenues of physics or engineering. The difference between Guidestones and Rosettas is primarily one of effort: Guidestones lead their finders to hidden caches or lost battlefields, Rosettas simply provide an inter-period bridge to new fields of understanding. The MERLIN Device found by the ISA is a typical Guidestone, while Quon Archives from a dynastic Interregnum gave much of humanity access to the practical principles of plasma and antimatter weaponry.
  • Survivors: Actual functional alien technology in the hands of those who created it, minimally patched with 'modern' engineering to make it useable. Quon PAVs, and much of what was stolen from Havuon by humanity after the sack, as well as the great hosts of Quon warriors who have begun to trickle into various Verger armed services are survivors. Their equipment can be decommissioned to be researched, in which case it's treated as Salvage and will most likely greatly annoy their original possessors.

Candidates and Habitability

Research

Humanity is enjoying a new golden age of research, progressing past the lost glories from before Disconnect with the coupling of more advanced research systems, strengthened interstellar trade links and a veritable gold rush for alien ruins scattered across human space. Contact with a variety of alien races, as well as the survivors of an ancient spacefaring protohumanity has revealed powerful new forces to wield.

Research is primarily conducted through Labs, though states may have other resources in a variety of circumstances.

Initial Assets

At game start every player begins with:

  • [PC State] 10 Labs
  • [Skunkworks/Cutting Edge] 1 Skunkworks Facility
  • [Dreamland] 1 Active Site (see Exploration)
  • [Library of Ruins] 1d3+1 Artifacts

Players who joined after game start may have their starting assets increased, at GM discretion.

Research Missions

Research

Research the 'normal' way. Assign Labs (min 1, no limit) to a Field, optionally have a target (see the Fields section for recommendations). Assigning 10 Labs to research is an automatic success in the yearly rollover.

Protect Research

Prevent theft or corruption or existing technologies by hostile agents, increasing the length of any intelligence project to affect them by 50%. 1 Lab per Technology.

Sanitize Research

Attempt to make dangerous technologies (particularly xenotechs derived from unsafe sources like Bracewell Probes and Mimics) 'safer'. Assign Labs (min 1, no limit) to an existing technology.

Joint Research

Assign labs to special 'joint' projects which draw on the strengths of all participants and make steady, limited progress year by year. For more information see the 'Joint Projects' section below.

Reverse Engineering

Attempt to break down purchased or salvaged technology to uncover its secrets, assigning labs to the job (min 1, no limit). This is difficult but rewarding, with knowable (human) or exceptional (alien) results. Unlike normal research, there is no 'guaranteed' success margin.

Fields

Starship Construction

Affects build times and hull designs and fusion torches.
Example Targets: [Ship Class], Escorts, Capitals, Build Time, Build Cost, New Hulls, Drives

Energy

Affects Directed Energy Weapons and Reactors.
Example Targets: Improve [Existing Weapon], Lasers, Reactors, New Directed Energy Weapon

Kinetics

Affects railguns and mass drivers.
Example Targets: Improve [Existing Weapon], Railguns, Autocannons, New Payloads, New Kinetic Weapon

Ballistics

Affects missiles.
Example Targets: Improve [Existing Weapon], Standard Missiles, Standoffs, New Missile

Sensors and Computers

Affects sensors, C3 improvement, and interacting with alien systems.
Example Targets: Improve [Module], Sensors, C3, FCS, Labs, Survey Systems

Materials

Affects stealth and armor and hulls.
Example Targets: Improve [Module], Stealth, Armor, Base Hulls, System Micronization, New Armor Types

Art of War

Better ground troop and misc systems.
Example Targets: Improve [Unit], New Unit, Special Forces, Aerospace

Civilian and Industrial

Better developments, ground facilities, etc.
Example Targets: Improve [Development Type], Improve [Development Class], Transportation, Medical Technology, Entertainment

Discovered Fields

Discovered fields require an 'unlock' technology to access them, which can be traded or researched as normal.

Antimatter

Exotic armor-piercing weaponry, antimatter torches, advanced reactors.
Example Targets:[Existing Weapon] but Antimatter, Propulsion, Reactors

Plasma

Improved fusion torches, plasma weapons and exotic defensive fields.
Example Targets: [Existing Weapon] but Plasma, Propulsion, Reactors, Exotic Particles

Mind-Machine Interface

Improved ground forces, special forces, transhumanism, aerospace and ship interfaces.
Example Targets: Interfaces, Backups, Cybernetics

Artificial Intelligence

Highly illegal.
Example Targets: [Existing Unit] but AI, Automation, Big Data, Network Warfare

Advancements

General Advancements cannot be made targeted, but generally yield thematic technologies based on the discovering state.

Physics

Blue sky research into particles, high-energy phenomenon.
Output: Typically unlocks new fields, new exotic reactors or extremely powerful energy weapons.

Biology

The stuff of life.
Output: Powerful slotless upgrades for ground and aerospace, medical technology, useful developments, very rarely unlocks new fields.

Engineering

Labs dedicated to solving practical problems, often in impractical ways.
Output: Significantly powerful materials, greatly improved new hulltypes, enhanced industry and new fields.

Alien Artifacts

Glimmer and Salvage unlock single minor techs that resemble humantech with some deviations or additional changes. Other Remnants give powerful but difficult to-advance technologies. Big-A Artifacts simply provide expanded functionality or explanations of their origins, but will never give clues as to their reproduction.

Labs

Labs are the basic unit of research. Costs and modifications to basic function are described for each type.

Standard Labs

  • Spare Network Cycles: 'Temporary' labs, typically a Great Power reward or the result of a random event. Useable for one research roll or exploration mission. Cost: 1 Prestige
  • Labs: The maximum amount of computing power that can be linked together on a single network based on limitations set forth in the Berlin Treaty, and enclosed in basic netwar protections like a faraday cage and 24/7 overwatch by a specialist. Cost: 5 Prestige
  • Specialized Lab: These are highly specialized facilities that are locked to a chosen Field when built, or to a specific non-research function like Espionage or Exploration. They cannot be reassigned to a new specialty after being built. Cost: 4 Prestige.
  • Safelabs: Research blacksites or specialized laboratories in otherwise inhospitable areas. Safelabs are immune to 'corruption' from ambient Titan or SoV levels and have double effectiveness if used to protect technologies on Protect Research and Sanitize Research missions. Cost: 10 Prestige

Non-Standard Labs:

  • Hyperlabs: Any particularly large computational bloc that goes over Berlin compliance limits. Hyperlabs are typically not airgapped in order to steal clock time from civilian networks and self-fund by mining cryptocurrency, folding proteins for designer medicine for the wealthy and other onerous brute-force applications of processing power. Many contain a single or entire groups of noncompliant self-aware artificial intelligences. Depending on their scale they may have names like Matrioshka Brain, Jupiter Brain, Hyperbrain- or pejoratively: Skynets. Cost: Created by 'burning' 1d10 Labs and 1dX+XX Fervor, guarantees a yearly tech strike in a field in addition to whatever is rolled. The cost cannot be refunded after declaring Hyperlab construction. Good luck.
  • Skunkworks Facility: Questionably treaty-compliant mass computational blocs built up with advanced security systems, including air-gapped I/O network connectors, thermal shielding and self-contained reactors to conceal the sheer energy footprint of such facilities to outsiders. These cannot be built, instead Skunkworks states and Cutting Edge transtellars begin with 1 and gain an additional one on the following in-game years: 7, 13, 19, 25, 31. Guarantees a yearly tech strike in a field in addition to whatever is rolled.

Joint Research Projects

Joint Projects are special inter-player projects which involve the creation of a leap-forward superior unit or system, or the resolution of a specific problem. In exchange for exceptional results however, they take longer to resolve and may be subject to various politics, particularly when the members are non-sovereign entities like Dominions or UN Taskforces.

Joint Projects require the following:

  • Location: Where the research is centralized. Unlike normal research, which can be assumed to be distributed across the whole of a single empire, such comprehensive multinational efforts must be put in a specific place for the purposes of espionage, accidents or military attack.
  • Curator: ONE player is responsible for counting contributions to joint projects and linking relevant posts by members in the year-end summary in their budgets.
  • Labs: Joint Projects progress at a rate of about 1 new technology or iteration per 10 lab/years. An average joint project would therefore have around 10, with more labs allowing for faster resolution and more powerful final results. Hyperlabs and Skunkworks Facilities count as 10 labs each for the purposes of joint research.
  • Assets: Alien artifacts, special facilities, technologies that provide an edge in development, etc.
  • Objective: The stated objective of the joint project.

After the 1st year of research, the project almost always produces an initial innovation which is shared with all members, and a series of dilemmas that discuss how it might advance. The Project Curator is always responsible for tracking the choices of their various members.

Dilemmas are presented in the following manner:

  • Elective Dilemmas: Require all stakeholders to come to a simple majority (51%) vote on the issue.
  • Decisive Dilemmas: Every stakeholder for themselves!
  • Executive Dilemmas: The curator makes a choice outright, with or without the consent of the other stakeholders.

Results of each dillema will influence the year by year progress of a project, producing truly unique results.

In case of a player leaving or being evicted from a project, only the 'initial breakthroughs' (those produced after the 1st year of research) are retained. These players then get a significant bonus to creating their own divergent versions of the original project.

Tech Trading

Nations that have technologies they want to share can offer the expertise and personal to sell it (or give it away). Each nation can transfer 1 technology with no cost to one singular other nation. If they wish to transfer more they will have to allocate labs to represent the brainpower being used in other regards.

  • 1 Extra Transfer | 2 Labs used
  • 2 Extra Transfer | 4 Labs Used
  • 3 Extra Transfer | 8 Labs Used
  • 4 Extra Transfer | 16 Labs Used
  • Trades beyond the 4th extra (5th, 6th, etc) each simply cost an additional 10 labs rather than doubling.

Certain technologies have additional costs to trade them:

  • Xenotechs cost 10 Prestige or XX Fervor unless directly traded for a complimentary Xenotech, that is one that follows the same 'theme' or assists in the completion of a greater wonder. Quon Armor and Quon Infantry Shields would be complimentary in such circumstances, but Quon Plasma and Web of Worlds exotic particle beams would not.
  • Controversial or Proprietary technologies (such as Yamatan TSFs) cost 5 Prestige or XX Fervor.
  • Certain technologies involve violations of international norms or ethics may have a political cost in their implementation, reflected as an expense in Fervor for the adopting player.

Tech Strikes

Tech strikes represent the fortuitous acquisition of technology outside the normal chain of acquisition, either via luck, an ambitious junior researcher getting to present their ideas or an industry outsider being found and brought into the fold. The history of small arms development for example, has a preponderance of men in their garden sheds producing experimental weapons, and the tech sector of the 21st century prides itself on the use (and misuse) of young talent and a penchant for 'disruption' of old industry norms. Tech strikes can either be Unfocused (10 Prestige), Focused (15 Prestige) or Unique (20 Prestige).

  • If unfocussed, they are into a given category (such as Energy) and will result in a random result; this will tend to be of good quality.
  • If focussed, they can target a specific thing based off existing technology (I want triple mount railguns). Unique techs cannot be acquired this way.
  • If striking for a unique tech, you are essentially combining one or more existing technologies in an improved and player-directed fashion. Eg long-range lasers + rapid fire heavy lasers to get Quintex long-range heavy lasers. Unique techs are kept out of the tech gacha and if traded, cost 1 stability. Lend-lease and monkey model export is still acceptable however, with the caveat that if the receiving power does successfully copy them the sender will still suffer -1 Stability. Unique technologies retain their status of 'unique' for a period of time."

Incorporating unplanned research and making them reproducible has a significant overhead. Every Tech Strike on a given year after the first is subject to the same scaling lab costs as Tech Transfers (e.g. 2nd costs 2 Labs, 3rd costs 4 Labs, 4th costs 8, etc) or a scaling +5 Prestige overrun (e.g. 2nd costs +5, 3rd costs +10, etc). UN Taskforces have their costs scaled based on the activity of all players.

The Skunkworks (State), Prototypes (Taskforce) and Cutting Edge (PMC) traits each give an additional 'free' strike in this way.

Spending Fervor/Stability on Strikes

A desperate state may be up against the wall, bereft of resources except for the loyalty of their citizens. In such circumstances, one may resort to radical research in order to gain an advantage. Human trials may be rushed, the normal ethical guidelines that apply to the professions may be abbreviated for the sake of victory and discredited researchers with fell reputations may be brought back into the fold.

Tech Strikes made this way cost an amount of Fervor equal to their Prestige costs. The cost is doubled if there is no imminent threat to the player (GM determinant). If the player has no Fervor, the cost can be paid in Stability instead, at a rate of 1 per strike of any type. Labs to accommodate these new teams must still be paid for as normal, as described in the section above.

Technologies resulting from these strikes are always Controversial or Proprietary, subject to time restriction and other limiting measures. There is always a political cost to such rash actions, in the end.

Arms Sales, Tech Sharing and Lend-Lease

States selling arms now do so with predetermined limits. This system also allows for lend-lease and technical support of foreign proxy forces as the USA did in WW2 or most western countries in the post-imperial era. By its nature as a distantly separated spacefaring millieu with ubiquitous nanofabrication, the most common type of arms sale in the Verge consists of blueprint licenses. Loaded with DRM or managed by specific treaties, sales of blueprints to Verger states allowed the powers of Sol to precisely dictate the size and capabilities of their colonial navies while inhibiting the development of a strong native tech base.

The most restrictive of these sales are what are contemporarily called lend-lease agreements, in which case the state issues DRM-riddled blueprints with a limited (or unlimited) maximum number of purchases at any price the buyer is willing to pay. The units are assumed to be built in the buyer's own industrial facilities, but have the traits and technologies permitted by the seller. The seller may opt to upgrade them at any point, should relevant technologies become available. Lend-lease assets are effectively a borrowed tech base, but maintaining this agreement costs the issuing state 1 lab. Should this agreement ever expire, lend-lease units effectively become monkey models.

Export models or monkey models are straightforward designs with a 25% production cost markdown (cumulative with other discounts). They may incorporate any techs the seller desires and the buyer is willing to pay for, but are blackbox systems and never receive upgrades.

DRM makes reverse-engineering lend-lease and monkey model units difficult, it takes 3 extra strikes on the research roll to uncover involved techs. Should lend-lease ever be cracked, the seller is informed by network protocols.

Open sales are typical of military surplus by former superpowers or regional powers axing outdated equipment. Such units are no easier or harder to reverse-engineer, have national maker marks that are generally identifiable, but they are also incredibly easy to upgrade due to national militaries and UN taskforces generally springing for rugged, modular gear with future-proof capabilities. Surplus assets can be de-milled into monkey models for 10% of cost.

Alliance Lend-Lease

The various economic and military alliances which increasingly encompass the majority of Verge space (and economic might) are more efficient at distributing resources thanks to the elimination of certain internal trade barriers. Alliances spend 2 Labs to make Lend-Lease agreements that apply to all members of the alliance. The United Nations counts as a single 'Alliance', as does any single Great Power.

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