Battletech 4x: From Mech to Empire

[idea weenie]

This is going to be a collection and discussion of various ideas for a Battletech 4x game, where your character starts as a Mechwarrior (or mob boss, or Dropship Captain, or Investor), and through lots of hard work and fudged die rolls manages to have their family eventually make an empire spanning the stars.

If you know of other posts/threads on this site that have good ideas to include (or bad ideas to avoid) and are willing to provide reasons for both, please link them, add a description, and your reasoning.  Ideas from other sites can be linked/described, and various ways to convert that to BT can be discussed.  Existing rules for income from the RPG can be included so we can compare values of different income ideas to make sure they match, including the source material.

What I hope is we can set up ideas that people can use in their games to be tested for *balance/anti-munchkin/anti-runaway.  Those games can run from a single person managing to set up their private city on a planet, to a person playing the leader of a single-system nation that expands to include more star systems under their control.

* Balance = provide different paths, but all provide a useful benefit
* Anti-munchkin = avoid creating specific paths that far exceed other combinations
* Anti-Runaway = similar to Mario racing, the closer you are to the lead the weaker the benefits get.  This can range from smaller empires having easier times making allies (because a larger empire nearby is an obvious threat), to larger empires needing to pay more in admin costs

[idea weenie]

Some of my ideas:
Business owner level (i.e. working within existing in-game framework where you are not a ruling member)
Pathfinder:
Honor Points
Downtime
Taxation (paying taxes, then later being the one to collect taxes)
Investments
Caravans
Reputation

Revanche's Industrial Rules

Tech Manual:
- The various non-weapon items that are needed by a civilian government (i.e. designing a building that has multiple Field Kitchens to simulate a restaurant)
Tactical Operations: Advanced Rules
- the rules for making buildings (this would cover smaller buildings for individual businesses)


For being a noble/controlling interest on a single planet:
Pathfinder:
Kingdom building
Dark Dungeons X Core Book from Gurbintroll Games (not Darkest Dungeon):
Has rules for "Settling Down", which includes the following:
- Rogue States (can be modified to the player setting up their own small nation in an out of the way system that was generated using existing Campaign Operations rulebook)
- Building a Stronghold (aka your main base where you can protect the people at your colony)-
- Resources (food, minerals, water)
- Seasonal Economy checking
- Public Works

Campaign Operations:
- Force Operations (specifically for procuring equipment and personnel during a Campaign)
- Force Operations (specifically for Housing and Base building)
- Solar System Generation (all of it, including the Colony Generation)
- Maintenance, Salvage, Repair, & Customization (Repair & Replacement - Special Cases, Replacement Parts & Personnel)
- Morale (do your new colonists like you, fear you, or despise you)
Interstellar Operations:
- Strategic Battleforce (to reflect your efforts to keep your new colony safe and growing)
- the entire 'Inner Sphere at War' section
Tactical Operations: Advanced Rules
- the rules for making buildings (this would the larger buildings needed to protect your investment)

We would also need to establish what is expected of each noble level, and the income needed to keep up with that expectation.  I.e. if a Knight is expected to provide a form of military service (such as having their Mech ready), that military service costs 25,000/year, then the Knight Landhold would need to provide over 25,000 C-Bills/year.


The danger is that this will be getting into Fasanomics, which is a dangerous path

[The Wobbly Guy]

* Balance = provide different paths, but all provide a useful benefit
* Anti-munchkin = avoid creating specific paths that far exceed other combinations
* Anti-Runaway = similar to Mario racing, the closer you are to the lead the weaker the benefits get.  This can range from smaller empires having easier times making allies (because a larger empire nearby is an obvious threat), to larger empires needing to pay more in admin costs

The simplest one would be bureaucratic inefficiency that gets worse the larger your territory becomes, and the 'profits' become less, or perhaps even negative, along with increasing unrest. My gut instinct is to base it on population size, with a distance modifier, though the distance modifier may be hard to apply.

[Apocal]

The simplest one would be bureaucratic inefficiency that gets worse the larger your territory becomes, and the 'profits' become less, or perhaps even negative, along with increasing unrest. My gut instinct is to base it on population size, with a distance modifier, though the distance modifier may be hard to apply.

If you want to keep things thematic, it could be that the distance penalty is negated by access to HPG networks. Of course, not every world has an HPG but that's actually a good thing because it would place limits on how many difficult-to-govern minor planets/systems a player would be willing to take without a nearby HPG to help administer their territory. In turn, players could more intelligently allocate garrisons, knowing the likely limitations of their opponent and therefore help resolve the usual issues in grand strategy games where military forces are so mobile as to render defense suboptimal, or worse: pointless. Instead of painting the map, conquests would have an inherent logic to their pathways that would encourage more intelligent move/countermove escalations.

Additionally, it allows for a very powerful ComStar ability in the form of an interdiction. All of a sudden, a player under interdiction can only communicate at the speed of dropship travel, which necessarily complicates any kind of planning (although it shouldn't make it impossible).

Just the possibility of ComStar interdiction should act as a soft limit on player power expansion and force them to "stay on the rails" as it were.

[Daryk]

Multiple Field Kitchens would be a food court, not a restaurant...

[idea weenie]

Multiple Field Kitchens would be a food court, not a restaurant...

One Field Kitchen can support up to 150 troopers, which to me means 450 meals per day.  Based on here, a McDonald's could handle ~3000 people per day.  Assuming half of that is kids and that they eat half as much as an adult, that reduces to 2250 people per day.  So you would need five (2250/450) Field Kitchens to simulate an average McDonald's.

For Food court vs restaurant, it would be a case of different design.  Ten Field Kitchens around a central location could be ten separate small fast food restaurants, or one large restaurant serving a large crowd.

Unless there is another item in the rules that can serve more people than a Field Kitchen?  Or would we be adding capacity similar to MASH units, where the central MASH unit masses 2.5 tons and adds a surgical theater every 1 ton after.  So a Restaurant would have a three ton base unit, and each additional ton adds another 450 adult meals it can serve per day?

[Daryk]

I read it that a Field Kitchen can serve up to 150 "at a time".

[idea weenie]

I read it that a Field Kitchen can serve up to 150 "at a time".

Based on this answer I thought it was 150 people total, per Field Kitchen:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/techmanual/(answered)-field-kitchen-capacity-question/msg624995/#msg624995

But Campaign Operations p219 (Corrected 2nd printing, printed in China)

Field Kitchen: Forces that have access to field kitchen reduce fatigue by 1 extra point. One field kitchen can supply 150 combat troops (and their support personnel) per Morale/Fatigue Cycle. When determining which forces have access to the available field kitchen resources, do not split any units; that is, all 28 ground-pounders in that platoon are counted or none are.

So the Campaign Operations might be referring to 150 families instead of 150 people.


I was assuming 150 individuals, and since 150 individuals need 3 meals per day, I translated that as 450 meals per day.  Otherwise, a single Field Kitchen could try to push through 48 sets of meals of 150 people each (7200 people total), just requiring that all the people take less than half an hour to eat.


But just to make sure, I am raising this on the TechManual Rules questions, linked below. If my description on that thread is not good, please let me know so I can change it.
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/techmanual/field-kitchen-support-capability/

[Daryk]

And their support personnel??  For 'mechwarriors, that means a full Tech Team (of 7), plus .8 of an Admin each!  Call it 10 just for round numbers, and that's 1500.

[DOC_Agren]

tagging for interest

[idea weenie]

Official Answer received for Field Kitchen Support:

150 plus the crew of the Field Kitchen.

So if a Field Kitchen has a crew of 3, then each one can support a total of 153 people.


Now for a review of the debts, loans, and upgrades in BT books:
Interstellar Operations (2016 printing)
p345 - each turn is 4 weeks long
p348 - World Values Table Notes:
          Upgrading a planet from a Regional Capital to a National Capital will pay for itself in 48 turns: 1920/(80-40)
          Upgrading a planet from a basic world to a Regional Capital will pay for itself in 26 turns: 960/(40-2)
          Upgrading a planet from a Minor Industrial World to a Major Industrial World (3+ factories - p347) will pay for itself in 60 turns: 960/(40-24)
          Upgrading a planet from a basic world to a Minor Industrial World (1-2 factories - p347) will pay for itself in 27 turns: 576/(24-2)
          If a world falls under two categories, it gets income for both (I.e. a National capital that is also a Major Industrial World will produce 120 RP/turn)
          Observation: transforming a world into a Regional Capital that is also a Minor Industrial World will pay for itself in 25 turns: (960+576)/(64-2)
          (This is ignoring the inherent bonuses to defensive troops that such an upgrade would also offer, based on p368 Garrisons)
p351 - Banking Resource Points.  Non-spent Resource points earn 5% interest per turn (they are multiplied by 1.05).  Since 1 turn is about 1 month, that is about 80% growth per year (1.05^12).  It also means that banking RPs is economically better than upgrading a world to a higher category.  This should be a concern for GMs as it encourages players to try to keep as much RPs in the bank instead of building up their planets (for others to blast into pieces).  I propose reducing this multiplier to 1.005 (to be explained below under Campaign Operations Loan section)


Campaign Operations (2016-2021 copyright, corrected 2nd printing)
p31 - a unit's startup debt is paid off at a rate of 1% of the principal every month, with the full amount paid off after 150 payments (12.5 years).  I don't have the math to calculate fractional loan amounts based on paying off a portion every month, so I took e^(LN(1.5)/150) = about 3.3% interest, and if it is compounded monthly this becomes .27% interest (or 1.0027 per month).
p50 - This is the loan table for various reputations.  I'm sure there is a way to compare likelihood of surviving to pay back a loan with the loan rate (i.e. a bank might have multiple mercenary loans active that are all at 30% annual interest, but the rate of defaults might keep the overall investment package at ~5% interest).


My proposals:
1) Interstellar Operations: Banking Resource points needs to have its multiplier be reduced to 1.005, giving a result of about 6% increase annually.  This also encourages the player to invest in their economy, instead of holding on to the RP.  It also means the player has to choose between building up a world, or having the RP on hand to pay for emergency war funds.
2) Campaign Operations: Startup Debt is paid off at a rate of 2% the value per month, for 150 months.  This gives an actual interest rate of 1.00735 per month, or 9.19% annually (just under the 10% annually for a merc unit with a Reputation of 1-4).  Using 3% the base value for 150 months would translate to ~1.01 per month and 12.8% annually, and 4% the start value would be 1.2% per month and 15.4% annually (the minimum interest for a Mercenary unit with a Reputation of 0 or less)

Between these two values (~6% given to the ruler, and ~9% taken by the banks) is room for a banking system to function.  Considering that mercenary units are putting their collateral on the line with every fight I am surprised banks will accept an interest rate as low as 9% annually.  The loan table on page 50 shows that banks will demand a minimum of 10% for poor-rated units, so that does make sense.

(Next up, various building costs, construction costs, etc)

[Daryk]

I stand corrected, thanks for putting the question to TPTB! 

[MDFification]

The simplest one would be bureaucratic inefficiency that gets worse the larger your territory becomes, and the 'profits' become less, or perhaps even negative, along with increasing unrest. My gut instinct is to base it on population size, with a distance modifier, though the distance modifier may be hard to apply.

An alternative is to go the Crusader Kings/Imperator Rome approach - your character can only directly manage so much, and is forced to delegate authority to other characters. These characters of course having their own ambitions (which can conflict with one anothers, and yours), which you subsequently have to manage. The more of them there are, the more difficult it becomes to keep everybody happy - the political actors are more difficult to bribe/threaten into line the more power they acquire.

[idea weenie]

Campaign Operations is an excellent resource.  Here are some of its rules as applied to colonization (for up to the Formation Rules):

• Player needs to determine if they are going to be working for a House, a Corporation, or trying to perform this colonization on their own (to avoid the 20% paid to their liege).  Player also needs to determine how many jumps it will be from the selected colony source to their new colony (distance allows more secrecy/training/, but also a longer transit)
  
• p9: Colonization types:
  
  •       Government sponsored colonization (these colonies are paying the 20% to their liege lord, but can call on the liege lord for aid if needed)
    
  •       Private corporation sponsored corporation (including mercenaries paying for their own colony or upgrading an existing location) (these sorts of colonies are set up to avoid paying most of the taxes to the House, but instead you pay 10% of your production to the corporation)
  •       'Pirate' sponsored colony (i.e. creating a hidden world that nobody else knows about, hopefully) (Good news is you keep the full 20%.  Bad news is nobody cares if you get into trouble)
• p11 - Basic Budget (use for determining starting funds to set up your colony)
• p12 - Era and Faction Budget modifications table
• p14 - Equipment availability Cost Tables (including modifiers for availability and technology)
• p15 - recommend every colonization effort reserve 10% of funds for unanticipated expenses and initial maintenance
• p17 - Large spacecraft acquisition (permanent access to a Jumpship and/or Dropship to allow you to trade with other nations)
• p20 - Support personnel (a colony will need administrators, doctors, technical people, etc)
• p21 - Officers are treated as specialists in various areas, and as such will be needed for a colony (part of their higher paycheck is compensating them for their higher skill level)
  
• p24 - Operating Expenses
  
  •       Ammunition is expended by the various terraforming equipment, to map the region, take soil samples, etc.  (This will require designing a Terraforming machine of some kind; not true terraformation, merely taking care of the worst parts, might use the GURPS Alpha Centauri Former as a guide)
    
  •       Spare Parts will be needed by all the equipment, but will also need a way to produce new spare parts to reduce the costs; multipliers (i.e. easy to repair, hard-to-find parts, etc) (producing items locally will make them easy to find, unless a pirate group also decides they are easy to find); Spare parts take up .1% of the unit's mass every month
  •       Fuel costs are based on page 202 in Strategic Operations, and consumption will likely be based using the Traveller World Tamer's Handbook to get an idea of average travel performed per month
  •       Salaries will be for the specialists, you will need to set up buildings and industries for the colonists to pay the first set of taxes
• p25 - Salary table
• p29 - Peacetime costs are what the player has to spend every month to keep the colony running smoothly.  Problems that occur will have extra costs.  If the players think the local bureaucrats can handle it, rules for that will need to be developed.  If the players think they can deal with it cheaper than the expense listed, time for Roleplay or tabletop battle
• p30 - list of character traits that can help get a better budget
• p30 - Dependents - colonists will likely be bringing their families, initial crews will only have themselves, but as the colony grows each colonist will have more dependents being brought along, meaning more population transport requirements to make the colony grow (also allows for a basic mining operation with a few 'dependents', all the way to large families being brought to a new planet).  These dependents add to the total planetary population, meaning they will be eating food, but not producing products to support the colony or otherwise earn money.
• p31 - backgrounds of the people you hire to organize the colonization expedition
• p31 - taking on debt to get a bigger colony started, can up to double the starting colony funds
• p33 - Reputation Score modifiers, treat duration of colony as 'mission success' (will not use Strategy or Tactics Skill, but instead use Administration and Protocol, with Administration as running the colony, and Protocol making sure that new supplies arrive from the selected faction) ('pirate colonization' still uses Investigation instead of Negotiation, to reflect that the pirate colonizer is finding items that can be used at the colony and won't be missed at first)
• p33 - average experience rating, for a first time colony this will be Green (If extremely successful the colonizer might be able to get experienced colonization personnel and bring this up to Regular)
• p34 - Command Rating: Add and subtract the modifiers as listed
• p35 - Combat Record Rating: For every full year the colony is in operation, treat it as a successfully completed mission.  For every failed event that occurs that the colony admins and players were unable to solve, treat as a failed mission, though these events will count as their own successful mission.  If over 10% of the population is lost within a single year, treat this as a mission breach (this loss can be due to disease, animal attacks, equipment failure, slaver raids, or the colonists deciding to leave, either to make their own colony with B&H or just head back to civilization).  If this is a pirate colony and the colonists head back to civilization, make a second Charisma-based roll to convince the colonists to keep quiet (each Jump gives another reroll).  If all the CHA rolls fail, the colonists will tell others of where they went, and this counts as two mission breaches.
• p35 - Transportation Rating: Determine the tonnage of Spare parts needed every month, and how often the cargo ship can make a round trip.  If the Dropship(s) can provide at least that much tonnage on average, then it is treated as having enough capacity for the Force's combatants.  If the Dropship can deliver at least 1% of the colony's current population every month with their personal gear, that counts as being more than double the Force's combatants.  Keep the rules for the Jumpship presence and total capacity (I still need to work on this area)
• p36 - Support Rating: Treat the colonists as being infantry platoons in terms of Administration needs (p20 in Force Creation to determine administration needs)
• p36 - at the end of each month that the colony is in debt, the penalty applies (smart characters leave extra funds to make sure the colony never goes into debt, using their personal income/assets to make sure the colony is working, though those assets reflect physical resources kept at the colony and are at a risk of being stolen)
• p36 - Crimes: If a crime affects more than 5% of the colony, these penalties are taken into effect.  The effect is removed if the PCs or their bureaucrats can solve the cases (in the case of the massive Pirate Penalty, remove 2 pts per year that the colony has been solvent until this is at zero, to reflect that the location is enduring)
• p39 - Contract table can be used to reflect how many people and what sort of resources are available to be hired to go to the new colony
• p39 - Contract Offers table: instead of using the table, just take the Margin, divide it by 2, and FRU
• p39 - Contract Employers table - source of the colonists/resources (if doing a Corporate colony, rolling a House as 'employer' means you need to RPG in order to hide the resources being purchased, or just accept that the items are available at double the listed prices) ('pirate' colonies have to make this RPG effect when getting resources from corporate or House employers)
• p40 - Missions table: will need to be redone to reflect types of resources available for purchase (or stealing).  For example, Riot/Garrison Duty might represent a large number of people available to go to the colony
• p41 - Base Payment: this reflects the cost to get the resources to the colony.  Create a mercenary force composed of the personnel/equipment listed, adjust for being civilians (adjustment TBD), and this is the initial cost to get them loaded into the Dropship(s)
• p41 - Length of Mission: how long before those people will be settled on the colony (i.e. eating food without producing anything, or how long before the equipment has its breakdown in a new environment) (Medical/Training skills will reduce the first and depending on the Dropship ride can be done en-route, while Technician and Training can be done to increase the latter.  If the breakdown time is doubled, then the breakdown does not occur)
• p42 - Mission table: Tempo will reflect cost multiplier to get the equipment/personnel, Employment Multiplier might actually be a reduction in cost
• p43 - supplemental Contract Terms table: Command Rights might reflect how much support you can get from your Sponsor, Salvage Rights might represent how much of your net profit you have to send to your sponsor, Support Rights might reflect how much you have to deal with on your own, and transport terms mean how much more you have to pay in shipping (2d6*5%+15%)
• p46 - component repair costs are 1/5 the cost of a new component
• p46 - peacetime fuel rates are for normal operations, special events will have a larger fuel demand to reflect needing extra travel capability (if the PCs are able to get the job done with less fuel, this will give them a bonus at the end)
• p47 - Mission failures: as hiring people and buying equipment is not normally an issue, the primary deal with mission failures is on the colony side, where a crop failure can mean starvation for the colony.  Partial failures would be where a higher category becomes aware of your colony (i.e. a House becoming aware of a Corporation wanting to make a tax-free colony) Partial failures can be averted/reduced via clever roleplaying
• p48 - Changing Force type: these rules are used to convert a colony from one type to another, each with their advantages/disadvantages (specific rules TBD)
• p49 - Loans: taking on loans to support the colony is possible, but those payments have to be made before other expenses.  Details of the loans are on page 50
• p50 - Company store: you have a captive population, and decide to make the prices where they have to work extra hours in order to buy the basic necessities.  For each 1% income, you have a 2% chance of a riot occurring.  Charisma, Administration, and similar skills/stats can be used to reduce the % chance of a riot (or just arrest the rioters and put them to work in the mines, letting the rest of the miners work fewer hours and the anger of the colony decreasing)
• p50 - Repaying debts by shorting salaries: Take the total amount shorted in the past year that the PC and friends made up via personal funds, divide that by their personal monthly income, and if a 2d6 roll is less than that value then the PC suffers Court embarrassment, access restrictions, etc due to not being able to maintain their status due to lack of funds.  If the colony is hidden (i.e. Corporate or Pirate), expect groups to begin investigating to see where your money is disappearing to
• p51 - procuring equipment: these rules will be critical to determine how much civilian goods is available for colonization.  A good idea to avoid the time delay (if you can afford the exposure) is to have someone on the contact planet stockpiling goods for your Dropship to pick up. 
• p51 - Training: Your colonists will need to be educated about the new planet, and eventually you will need to set up an education system.  Expenses for school should be calculated as though each class is a platoon of Foot Rifle troops of the colony's Tech level
• p52 - Maintenance: Colony equipment and buildings will need a percent of their tonnage each month in maintenance, and at a cost proportional to their original cost (a slab of armor costing 10k C-B/ton will have cheaper maintenance needs than a slab of armor costing 20k C-Bills/ton
• p53 - Administration: has useful rules for how much administration is needed.  Bonus to % provided due to better skill?
• p53 - House & Base Building: this is likely the key to colonization.  The advantage is that the land is relatively cheap, the down side is that the necessary facilities/equipment have to be brought in, plus the whole setup needs to be organized (Base Building is covered under TO:AR for pages 112-141
• p55 - Base Construction tables: key to colonization

Next post will be more from Campaign Operations

[idea weenie]

The rest from Campaign Operations:

• p70 - Special Pilot Abilities: some of these would be useful for helping out with a Colonization program (i.e. Lucky) (can develop some while on-planet?)
• p84 - Environmental Specialization: obviously useful to colonize a world (but make sure you get the right specialization) (can develop some while on-planet?)
• p84 - Esprit de Corps: reduced morale penalties for bad situations
• p98 - Solar System Generation: when you need a place for the colonists to go to
• p111 - Habitable Planets Features table (useful if you want to put people onto a planet with an atmosphere and living creatures)
• p112 - Terrain table: make the planet interesting
• p114 - Planet Special Features: a few ideas, but the planet can have more than than these
• p115 - Other planet and system weird ideas
• p123 - Planetary population Table: use to determine relative costs of putting down people (but have to take into account that closer worlds have been inhabited for longer), can use Planet Condition to affect price per colonist
• p123 - USILR codes: For each order of magnitude that the colony population goes up, the planet loses 1 ranking from each code category (if a category is at 'F', then the planet cannot grow any higher in population)
• p126 - USILR code table: items that can affect the starting USILR code on the planet
• p129 - Government table: need to set up a chart of various advantages and disadvantages of the different government types
• p133 - HPG and Recharge Station tables
• p144 - Repair & Refit table: use to modify colonization equipment for local terrain
• p147 - Campaign setup (Map-based campaign): useful to set up initial colony location
• p174 - (Some) Campaign options can be used for local disasters for the colony to deal with
• p189 - some items are not in as good of a condition, but are easier to acquire.  Perhaps the PCs can hire technicians to repair the items before the colony needs them? (but based on difference between Faction Quality and item quality, i.e. TL C items in a TL C nation are far more expensive than TL C items in a TL E nation
• p190 - Support Personnel Experience Table
• p191 - Maintenance in a campaign
• p192 - Maintenance Tables (through page 194)
• p195 - damage types due to lack of maintenance
• p197 - Repair and replacement, covering mostly dead vs truly dead, along with combat-destroyed vs truly destroyed
• p200 - Obtaining replacement parts
• p201 - Tables for obtaining parts
• p202 - Fabrication of missing parts
• p202 - Fuel costs table
• p202 - Stockpiles along with buying and selling equipment
• p203 - Selling: use this as a guide for buying lower-quality items
• p203 - Negotiating a price for the materials
• p203 - New Personnel table (replace the combat listings with non-combat equivalents)
• p204 - Repair rules
• p205 - Master Repair table (take the timeframes into account, at 20 work days per month at 8 hours per day (this gives 28 days per month, the remaining 2 are for basic location maintenance)
• p208 - more rules for repairs & replacements, including rush jobs vs taking time
• p210 - Medical care (with extra rules on page 211 for getting better experience)
• p211 - Experience gaining (so your existing personnel can get better, and Green personnel can be trained)
• p211 - Customization: to adjust various units to the local biosphere conditions (or taking in regular equipment and modifying it due to the colony being a vacuum-based mining operation)
• p212 - Refurbishment: Sometimes the stuff breaks too much, and you need to redo the whole thing.  Option one is to ship it back to civilization, option 2 is to build a factory on-planet.  Whichever works better is up to the player
• p218 - Morale tables
• p219 - Fatigue (likely will be used to deal with people forced to work extra hours)
• p222 - Units & Personnel in Cargo Bays: this is what will be used to transfer colonists to the new colony
• p223 - Wounded checks: useful for dealing with mass casualty situations (i.e. rockslides, earthquakes, tidal waves, building collapse, dome breach, etc)
• p225 - Positive Design Quirks: some of which would be good for colonization equipment (i.e. Compact, Easy to Maintain, Rugged, Ubiquitous, etc)
• p231 - Negative Design Quirks: useful only for getting equipment cheaper than otherwise (i.e. Bad Reputation = useful, Difficult to Maintain = not good)
• p236 - start of sheets useful for setting up a colony and location