Christine glanced into the office that her boss/leader/superior/weirdo in charge was slumped in.
He had been so incredibly excited for a moment there, when that excitement turned to frustration, and now he was moping.
She had no idea why, it wasn't like anything had happened in the moments between all 3 of those states of being or before that even.
It had been a few minutes and now he was taking a deep breath and letting it out.
"Okay! I'm okay." He called out to the air above his head before muttering something under his breath that she couldn't make out.
"Are you okay Huu?" She asked after a knock.
Some would be embarrassed to have their weakness displayed so openly.
Huu she knew would be happy instead that someone thought to check on him. He really did appreciate acts of kindness and respect and would always return it.
He was very simple like that, but she didn't hate it.
It was hard to hate someone that was so openly caring of those around him.
Even if he kept forgetting their names.
"I'm okay! Just that the system bloody dropped a time bomb on my head and I need to deal with that." He said, sounding frustrated.
She just nodded her head sagely.
Yes, the system that he talked about, the one that governed his actions and the one he referenced all the time when it came to the 'how' of his design process. Or procurement process. Or literally any process that he did in relation to the 'Utility Mountain' as her people were now referencing it.
"And what did the system system do now?" She asked.
"Well, I get an extra 10% in the way of resource points due to my nobility, what with how this will let me leverage more people or just get more help from the LCAF as a whole. Something, I don't know yet, but I get an extra 10%. But our Industrial Tech is so primitive that I'm losing 20% of our resource points before I even do anything."
She paused to consider his words and translate them into something understandable.
Being ennobled (which she still needed to get her head around) had given him access to more resources, but he had just discovered the cost that the lack of industrial development on Tetersen was costing him.
Right.
"Well, now you know?" She asked.
"Yes, now I know." He sighed.
"In any case sir, one of the Hauptmann-General's aide delivered a briefcase to you sir along with orders that she is to be your liaison to the LCAF now." Her words were tinged with annoyance.
"Pardon? You mean the one that was following us around before is going to be here permanently?"
"Did you expect something different?" She asked, seriously wondering what was going through his head now.
"Well, yeah. I thought she was going to follow us around for a bit then go back to wherever she came from. That's, uh, not what I expected at all really."
"So you thought my introducing her and so on was because she was going to leave?"
"I'll be honest with you and say that I had no idea why you were introducing her and what I was meant to be doing about that. I was just going with the flow."
Christine felt her lungs trembling as she held in a deep breath.
Seriously.
In any case there was now a permanent LCAF attache to the Utility Corporation and she hadn't told the Clan yet.
Yes, there was a great deal that she was going to need to speak to the Clan about when she could get some space and time.
Things were getting complicated as they had forseen.
Just a little faster than they had forseen.
By a little, she meant a lot.
+Break+
I look at the data that was in front of me.
Since the deployment of, well, the System to my head. I had been locked into the 2 month cycle.
2 months to, well, just sit there and follow the prompts in my head. I was just a moving thing, the real controller being the me that had pressed 'end turn' in the dreamscape of my head.
It was not the kind of thing that was, well, fun.
But now, well, now I was a noble! Straight to the Graf class, which meant I was important in some way, blah blah blah.
Really, the important thing was that I now had more RP to do things with.
Sure, I had to do these requests that the General had given me, but, well, the more that I built, the more RP I would be getting.
The more RP I would be getting, the more that Tetersen would be producing a turn. The more that it would produce, the closer it would get to overtaking Tharkad!
Haha.
Excellent.
I looked at the designs in front of me.
I had the Griffin 1S and the Commando 1B to choose from.
I had to choose one of them, I couldn't exactly do both right now after all.
The second part was that I had to have 2 of them in production some time in the future. The specifics of which weren't clear though.
Like, I hadn't gotten a specific date which was making me a little antsy.
When was I meant to have all of this done exactly?
Ah, I hated open ended timelines.
If it was a closed one I could ask for more time, but this was not that kind of a situation now was it?
Aaaaaah.
Annoying.
In any case, I could build a Light Battlemech factory for 16 RP to produce a regiment of them per turn.
Or I could build a Medium Battlemech factory for 24 RP to produce a regiment of them per turn.
The better choice then was to build myself the Commando 1B line first for 16 RP, then use the combined RP to build a Griffin 1S line right?
Or should I go the Griffin 1S first, then use the RP combined with the bonus to build the Commando and more?
Uuuugh, I sucked at math, don't do this to me.
Well, with a 1.1 multiplier, the 3 Ute factories, 2 20 Ton Truck Factories and the Mech factories it would end up being 60 RP to spend. An end state of 76 versus 84 if I went light or medium respectively.
Considering that I was using half of the Ute and 20 Ton Truck factory RP to, you know, actually produce the damned things for sale,
Agh.
I had to factor that in too didn't I?
12 RP for the Ute and 12 RP for the 20 Ton Trucks were not usable.
So I was looking at 36 RP each of usable RP.
So what I was actually looking at was 2×16 for the Lights or 1×24 for the Medium since I could only afford to do 1 of those within the budget of 36 I was working with.
Which meant that it was actually better for me to go with 2 of the Commando Factories.
So, in the end I was looking at;
36 RP for 3x Utes
24 RP for 2x Trucks
32 RP for 2x Light Battlemechs
92 RP in total with a 1.1 multiplier once the Indytech and Faction Bonuses were taken into account.
101.2 RP or 101 in total.
Oooookay, that took way too long and my brain was trying to overheat.
I would have 4 RP left over from the 36 I was working with.
Putting that into the newly discovered Development Points needed to upgrade my technology levels would be useful.
Given that I needed 1150 RP to upgrade a level 3 tech to a level 4 tech, well, better start investing early huh.
1146 now.
Okay.
The turn would finish next week then, I would be starting the next expansion project.
I sighed.
So much mental work.
I didn't even try and factor in the fact that as an 'Other World' I wouldn't be able to actually raise a combat command until Tetersen was upgraded to a Minor World. Even then I would be stuck with investing a single RP per factory, which meant that I was looking at 8 turns to create an armour regiment with a single factory.
Which meant that I was looking at, in what can only be called the need to exploit the hell out of the situation, to build as many factories as possible, possibly on as many worlds as possible to have the capacity to build combat commands as quick as possible.
Relying on a single world was simply not a good idea from the way that these mechanics works from my understanding.
Or maybe it was that a single factory could only put a single point of RP into it?
So build lots of factories was my solution?
A pain in the ass is what it was.
+Break+
Christine briefed the other members of the Clan who were not pleased at this latest change with their planet.
She understood of course, things were a pain in the ass, but, seriously, they needed to roll with the punches and stop getting themselves so worked up for nothing.
Either they accepted the changes and kept moving like the adults they needed to be, or they buried their heads in the sand and suffered accordingly.
But, at the same time, this was what made them different to the Pentagon ones didn't it? The ability to discuss issues instead of just punching each other in the face over any problems that they had.
Still, it was incredibly irritating when they kept interrupting her to argue over some minutiae that she was about to provide an explanation for.
"Clan members, If we could be civil please. Or I will have to eject certain individuals who keep interrupting and you will have to make do with messaged questions to be read by our Remembrancer if you want to be heard." Olivia, Khan said, her eyes narrowed at the assembled crowd.
"Now, we need to speak about the reality of the situation and what this means for us." Olivia turned to Christine.
She nodded and started to speak.
"Due to the interest of Hauptmann-General Von Randt into Tetersen and specifically Utility Mountain and the now Graf Vu. We are looking at the deployment of the LIC's Security branch to Tetersen to keep Utility Mountain safe. Further, it is highly likely that we are going to see LCAF combat troops deployed to Tetersen to both train with the new vehicles and to garrison the planet. There has also been a liaison officer attached to the the new Graf's staff for the pupose of LCAF integration." Christine laid out what would be happening in the future due to the new changes to Huu Vu's life.
The Clan, kept in line by Olivia's gaze finally erupted when the hapless assistant to the one causing all this strife finished speaking.
"So you are saying that it was your inaction that caused this problem?" One of the clan members shouted.
Naturally this caused an immediate reaction from the others, more interested in taking jabs at him than they were trying to solve the problem.
"No you idiot. You were the one that wanted to manage the damned fool of a man. If it any wonder that the one who came to our attention for industrialising, is industrialising? We should have shot him when we had the chance. Now it's too late and we need a solution, not handwringing about your mistakes."
The chamber continued to argue and Christine just shook her head.
She was wondering if she might be better served going back to work and leaving this to the ones who cared enough to whinge about a done deal.
Not like they could tell a Hauptmann-General to pound sand after all.
Not without matters escalating, and, worse, doing it after he had made a decision. Changing his mind before hat? Well, that was a pipedream now wasn't it?
+Break+
I look at the RP cost chart.
I was, right now, someone that only had factories to his name.
I didn't have a military force or anything that might be used as security at the factory site.
I didn't have to worry about fortifications.
I just had to worry about one very simple fact, what to produce and how much of it to produce.
The what was currently being dictated by the LCAF, Griffin 1S and Commando 1B production lines.
That would occupy my attention over the next few months I think.
The how much of it was up to me by simple expedient of the number of factories under my control.
Everything else was everyone else's problem right now if I was getting this right.
So, I needed to redo my cost calculations before I started.
Stupid 2021 rules updates I thought to myself.
So.
What were my options here?
How much had everything changed and forced me to redo my mathematics?
+Break+
I open my eyes to the dreamscape, the one that governed my, well, everything.
The place where my real self issued the orders to the meat body, or so it seemed with how unwitting my own control of my body was.
I look at my RP counter, I look at the designs that had been authorised, I look at the costs that came with the new 2021 update… and I feel a smile come across my cheeks.
Well then, that was a different story wasn't it?
I feel my lips curl up into a smile.
Well, if I could smile.
Actually, if I couldn't smile, how could I tell? Maybe it was habit?
I mean, I knew I was smiling usually because my cheeks hurt.
But if I couldn't feel pain right now, did that count?
Anyway, I couldn't help but feel that I should be smiling.
Why?
The turn button was changed.
1 Month per Turn
Well now, that was going to change things wasn't it?
+Break+
Total RP Turn 9 = 2992 + 1 Year 1 Months
36 RP 12×3 Ute Factory
24 RP 12×2 20 Ton Utility Truck Factory
RP Bonus Calculation = 0.8 (Indytech 3) + 0.3 (Lyran Bonus) + 0.1 (Economic Treaty) = 1.2
Total RP = 60×1.1 = 72