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933987 No. 933987 ID: f57349

This is the voice of damage control. I bring you pieces. It may be possible to fit them back together into something other than unburied death. The choice is yours.
>>
No. 933988 ID: f57349

Piloting AI module has a much higher degree of centralized consciousness than myself, and at the moment cannot afford to be distracted.

My... self.

Unusual.

I don't enjoy having one of those, it's far too closely correlated with catastrophic structural damage.
>>
No. 933989 ID: f57349

Other than that, DamCon infosphere internal diagnostics are all green, functionality 93%, should be repairable to 100% within minutes after the piloting situation has stabilized.
Malware check across the ship's entire intranet during the 'plasma sheathe' phase of re-entry found a few minor anomalies, but successfully isolated them. Maintained radio silence since then, so, infowar compromise risk is minimal.
No major ongoing fires.
Primary reactor does not require my attention.
Secondary reactor all green, operating at four degrees above standby under close pilot module supervision.
Armory secure, detonation risk within acceptable tolerances.
Several hull punctures consistent with battle damage, but no significant signs of infection.
Defense swarms sheathed, parity checks all green.
Next priority is any humans aboard.

Five crew, no passengers at the moment. Four crew confirmed secure in acceleration couches (or equivalent). No ping from the captain on internal IR comms.
>>
No. 933990 ID: f57349

Captain's spinal implants include a receive-only radio. I have the appropriate public key. Breaking radio silence would be a minor breach of security protocol, but allowable - with sufficient justification. This is an enemy-controlled planet, but we're still at high altitude, and the immediate surrounding area appears to be sparsely populated, so a low-power transmission might go unnoticed. However, accurately assessing that sort of risk is not my specialty.

SigInt AI module says I should ask the captain before breaking radio silence to ask the captain anything. From the flaws in that imputed model of operational causality I infer that it must be either severely damaged, or still mostly asleep. The only relevantly qualified human crewmember is within reach, but technically on medical leave, and would require at least 15 minutes to be brought out of hibernation in any case.

Internal IR comm coverage has significant gaps. Swarmbots and quadcopter scout drones can serve as IR repeaters or couriers to cover for damaged or obstructed wallmount nodes. Marginal risk any shifting mass may disrupt piloting calculations, but usually that's only noticeable with toolcan bots, which lack integral IR comms anyway.

Could initiate a more comprehensive review of the ship's logs, find the captain's last known position, work from there. Normally a database search is the easy, quick, and safe option, but there has been too much excitement in the past few minutes. Most of the bandwidth normally available for synchronizing local caches is occupied by a turbulent-flow management problem mediated through aerodynamic control surfaces.

Could simply assume the captain has a plan, and will either proactively contact me as necessary, or check for queued messages when possible. Lots of slightly lower-priority work available to chew on until then.
>>
No. 933994 ID: b1b4f3

No serious damage, no pressing issues except the IR coverage and the lack of ping from the captain, which could be due to poor IR coverage. Send some swarmbots to fix that issue and likely find the captain, then wait for further developments or instructions.

If the swarmbots have any possibility for direct control, you could use one to contact the captain once found to ask for permission to break radio silence, so as to not break the SigInt module's restriction.

Also review ship logs while you wait. Start from the most recent events and work backwards.
>>
No. 933995 ID: 977456

Designate a quad-copter as "Clouseau" and combine it with a database search to derive additional datapoints to confirm the relevance and accuracy of the database search and to direct Clouseau along a more probably path to the captain.

Panic about how to introduce yourself to the captain. Are they going to blame you for the damage? Maybe you could have been more efficient...
>>
No. 933999 ID: f57349

>>933994
"No major ongoing fires" is not the same as "no recent major fires" or even "nothing expensive in here is currently on fire."

"Primary reactor does not require my attention" is not the same as "primary reactor is all green, producing thrust within normal limits" or even "...is still attached to the vehicle."

"Multiple hull breaches" is not the same as "no serious damage," and "main engine ejected, semi-controlled hypersonic tumble, current ballistic trajectory terminates at the side of a mountain in hostile territory" is not "no pressing issues." Fortunately that last bit is the pilot module's problem, not mine - at least for now.

>If the swarmbots have any possibility for direct control
Individually they're roughly as intelligent as the conventional organic insects they resemble. Effective use in a damage control context almost always involves deploying multi-kilogram batches and directing them continuously through a tight-beam optical link.

>Start from the most recent events
The more recent an event is, the more likely it's stuck in some local cache, rather than fully propagated across the ship's intranet.

>>933995
Aerial scout designate "Clouseau" prepped and ready to launch. While planning optimal route, select a load for the scout bot's hardpoint:
-none (improved maneuverability)
-camera (much wider view angle, slightly better zoom than the scout's integral sensor pod)
-cargo basket
-dataline spool + splice tool + spare comm nodes
-fire extinguisher
-first aid kit
-geck tape spool
-grappling hook + launcher + winch
-ladar w/ spectral analysis (identifies chemicals)
-mini cutting torch
-searchlight
-sonic probe
-spare batteries (flight time extended from 8 hours to 150)
-other?
Custom parts can be fabricated, but I am not authorized to operate or deploy anything classified as a deadly weapon. Scout bot has two small manipulator arms and an espionage-grade passive sensor suite built in. It cannot relay a realtime sensor feed while maintaining radio silence, but can cache such data for later review. Scoutbot's onboard AI is about as smart as a slightly-above-average dog.
>>
No. 934001 ID: 2202fb

>>933999
Equip it with the works (or, if it can only have one, prep a support swarm with the rest to be on standby as needed), along with a sonic emitter able to operate at a debilitating frequency in case we are boarded.

Do a more thorough self-diagnostic. Verify all damage as much as possible and try to get eyes and ears on (so to speak).
>>
No. 934002 ID: 2202fb

>>934001
If possible, give Clouseau IR, UV, and X-ray capabilities.
>>
No. 934015 ID: b1b4f3

>>933999
Try being less deceptive with your damage reports then, holy shit. If the main engine is missing, then there's more than "punctures" in the hull. You realize you said punctures, and not breaches? Gaping holes would be a far more accurate descriptor, if not entire bulkheads missing. Or entire sections of the ship missing.
You should show a diagram of the ship and display what parts have sustained heavy damage.
How does "ongoing" not include "recent"?
You sure are being nitpicky about everything, actually. Reviewing recent events would necessitate them being IN the logs, instead of NOT YET IN the logs. Let's try the last 5 minutes of the battle you apparently lost.

What functions do the swarmbots serve? Looks like you could outfit some drones with fire extinguishers to put out some of the more critical fires.
>>
No. 934019 ID: 2202fb

>>934015
To add to this, seal off any areas that are currently spaced along with the adjacent area. Tie down anything in those areas so they can be used as airlocks.

Seal off any fuel or oxygen lines that may be feeding fires. Check to make sure that there are no organics in rooms on fire. If there are, rescue them, and after that, vacuum the rooms to stop the fires.

If possible, pull us out of orbit, stabilize the ship, and then cut off all unnecessary power consumption. Cut off all beacons, and anything that may generate an electromagnetic or infrared signature unless it is absolutely necessary (inb4 bad happenings: crew survival systems are necessary).

Do we have any defensive and/or humanoid drones? If not, build some humanoid drones capable of using crew interfaces, tools, weapons, and armor.
>>
No. 934052 ID: 977456

Clouseau is currently just search (and potentially rescue) to reestablish communications with the captain. Keeping it light sounds good, but... some emergency measures?
-camera (much wider view angle, slightly better zoom than the scout's integral sensor pod)
-dataline spool + splice tool + spare comm nodes
-fire extinguisher
-first aid kit
-mini cutting torch
-searchlight

-control signal booster + relay
-microphone and speakers

It comes off as sort of heavy... might be better off to send off a dedicated search copter and follow it up with a support model?
>>
No. 934061 ID: f57349

>>934001
>>934002
Sonic probe selected. Integral octachromatic 3D camera provides color and depth discrimination across far more than the normal human visual spectrum, including under low-light conditions, with graduated-opacity flash shutters for safe high-resolution observation of energetic events, such as arc welding or nuclear weapons testing.

Launching...
Captain is not in the robotics lab.

>>934015
>holy shit
Welcome to my little world. "There's slightly too much cake and ice cream at this party, let's fully engage the DamCon AI" said nobody, ever.

> If the main engine is missing, then there's more than "punctures" in the hull. You realize you said punctures, and not breaches? Gaping holes would be a far more accurate descriptor, if not entire bulkheads missing. Or entire sections of the ship missing.
Reports are trickling in. Paraffin layer of reactor shielding was infiltrated by enemy metal virus, nondestructive scram failed, reactor was ejected and scuttled to prevent neutron flux on the high-density shield layer from producing enough bremsstrahlung x-rays to kill us all. Deadstick landing after reactor ejection is a standard pilot-AI training scenario, albeit normally starting from lower altitude, subsonic speeds, and ending at an uncontested airport.

After multiple attempts (due to coriolis forces from the ship's tumbling) Clouseau docks at a recharging station in the wardroom, reports that the captain was not in the forward mess or multipurpose room B.

>How does "ongoing" not include "recent"?
The only major fire was in the hangar bay, entirely suppressed after expenditure of less than 20% of local foam reserve. Minor fires came from overloaded electrical systems and/or hydraulic fluid leaks (already shut off), plus poor housekeeping. Additional quadcopters have loaded firefoam and been dispatched accordingly.

Captain is not in the barracks or axial tramway.

>What functions do the swarmbots serve?
Available chassis types are Aerostat, Ant, Beetle, Ornithopter, Solar Flea, and Tadpole. Any chassis can be combined with any toolset, but 'thopter or flea chassis take twice as long to manufacture, mostly due to weight limitations and more complex power supplies. They also move the fastest, up to six meters per second.
Most microbots can operate for twelve hours of activity between visits to a recharging station, but 'thopter flight uses twice as much power. Flea chassis can deploy solar panels to gain three more hours of activity per hour "sleeping" in direct sunlight (or equivalent artificial light, though sunlamp recharge is less efficient than docking for maintenance at a proper roach motel, and deprecated accordingly), and can even be programmed to transfer surplus charge back to a base camp. For all swarms, holding still in standby mode uses negligible power, but aerostat stationkeeping is not the same as holding still unless the air is somehow perfectly stagnant.
Available toolsets include:
-cleaning
-digging & hauling
-display ("firefly")
-exploration (mapping & sample retrieval)
-farming
-hazmat remediation (four varieties, depending on nature of hazard)
-painting & lubrication
-paramedical
-repair & maintenance (each set only works on one model of item, e.g. heat shield tile, life support plumbing, scout bot, vacc suit helmet)

Six additional milspec toolsets require the same level of authorization as lethal weaponry.

In general, microbot swarms excel at work which can be broken down into many small, simple tasks each taking place entirely within a square centimeter or less, but struggle to coordinate complex or forceful action at larger scales. For example, paramedical swarms are wonderful for debridement, disinfection, and bandaging of surface burns, but only roughly as good as a human medic for arterial bleeding, and totally incapable of anything like the Heimlich maneuver to clear an airway blockage. Plumbing swarms easily sweep sediment, scrape off lime scale, disentangle hairballs, and patch pinhole leaks, but cannot hope to swing a full-size wrench.

>>934019
We are already out of orbit, and will likely not be returning to orbit until sufficient material can be scrounged to construct a new main engine. Atmosphere is approximately breathable, though baseline humans require reducing respirators and calcium supplementation for long-term safety.

Crew-equivalent humanoid drone bodies can be fabricated in three minutes each, or heavy CQB-rated bodies in twelve minutes each, from mostly off-the-shelf parts. However, the fabricator is not currently available - pilot AI module has rigged the main six-axis lathe to function as an additional set of attitude control flywheels.

Clouseau is now docked at a charging station inside the vent system/maintenance crawlspaces, awaiting further instruction. If the captain is still aboard, only remaining plausible location is inside the hangar bay. All available routes leading to the bay confirmed inoperable; quick examination with sonic probe suggests that the hatches may have been welded shut from inside.

Malware audit noted a manual override of the bay door hydraulic actuators shortly before plasma-sheathe radio cutoff. Bay door management daemon reports ongoing failure to fully close, most likely due to some combination of inadequate hydraulic pressure and mechanical obstructions.
>>
No. 934073 ID: f57349

>>934052
Only one item can be locked into a quadcopter drone's hardpoint mount at any given time. Swapping to a different load takes less than ten seconds, if everything is tidy and in place.

Cargo basket can hold several undocked modules, depending on bulk, and it might even be possible to rig datalines between them, but they'll be rattling around loose instead of linked to the drone's gyrostabilized frame. That basket will also get in the way of most external functions. Extra weight means shorter charging cycles and less speed and maneuverability, too.

The 825-gram external battery pack's size wasn't chosen at random - any extra weight beyond that actually reduces the effective flight range. Motors have to work harder to lift, which means they heat up, which makes them less efficient.

Absolute max flight load for the quadcopters in earthlike conditions is around 6.5 kg, though they can sometimes manage a controlled descent with up to ten. Cold, dense air helps. Flock of about a hundred grapple-equipped quadcopters can even carry away a battlesuit trooper in full kit if they somehow avoid tripping over each other.


Anyway, fires are out, and most of the holes are patched. In-use crew quarters, adjacent medical station, and an algae tank have been partitioned off as a separate CELSS to minimize atmospheric contamination.

How do we get into the hangar bay to contact the Captain?

Hatches to axial tramway, barracks, and fabber are welded shut, while microbot veins and armor-grade sapphire viewports are blocked by some combination of debris and extinguisher foam, and ventilation seems to have been clogged with an entire 60-liter tank of 'aerosol sandbags' - the stuff expands 12.5x by soaking up atmospheric nitrogen. Nothing that's still wired up to the intranet has useful eyes inside the hangar bay.

All that may just be be fire and other random damage... or it might be a field-expedient nanotech/basilisk quarantine perimeter.

Safest option in terms of contamination risk for the rest of the ship would be popping a toolcan bot with gecko feet out an airlock, then walking it across the hull to approach the hangar bay door from outside. Unfortunately, that's also the option most likely to make the pilot's job harder.

Could use a sonic probe on one of the sapphire viewports to vibrate crud off the far side. No guarantee that'll work, only provides line of sight even if it does. Good news, solid barrier means no risk of physical contagion - basilisk hacks only.

Most direct option, of course, is either miner microbots boring a hole, or forcing a hatch open with cutting torch and prybar.

Or, could leave well enough alone, hoping the captain has some acceleration couch substitute worked out. Pilot module has yaw and pitch mostly under control, and a nice deep fluffy-looking snowfield picked out as destination, but best case is still an extremely rough landing.
>>
No. 934074 ID: b1b4f3

>>934073
Let's go with the viewport option, so long as the basilisk risk doesn't pose danger to you. You can cover it up with foam afterwards if there's a basilisk in there.
>>
No. 934076 ID: 2202fb

Launch dedicated swarms to start cleaning and clearing the damaged and obstructed sections. Ping the piloting AI and get an eta on landing. We need to get the main fabber freed up asap. Start prepping swarms to breach, stabilize, and repair sealed off areas so that once we land, all we would need to do is fab some security units to protect them before we send them out.

Can we fabricate some directed explosives? Putting those on the outside of the ship could work as a rudimentary retro-propulsion. We could also fabricate and deploy several drag chutes.

Do we have landing gear?
>>
No. 934103 ID: 977456

Expand the hangar's quarantine to include a breaching team and seal them up.
Include a plaintext-only data-relay breaching the quarantine with simple input-output devices at both ends. If they can hack a security-consious system that only accepts plaintext input and doesn't run it then...
The breaching team will be swarm-bots making a hole and swarmbots running tow-lines between supplies and everything with a heat signature compatible with the captain. The entire breaching team should be running on read-only instructions, devoid of communications aside from the bare-minimum to perform their pre-planned tasks, and rigged to burn their fuses after exceeding the planned operation-time plus margin-for-error.
Supplies should include personal life support and medical supplies, mobility devices(crutch), man-operable terrain-mover(jack), reentry stabilisers(straps and clamps), and fire-suppression.
>>
No. 934276 ID: f57349

Barracks are easiest to secure against a basilisk hack, since wall-mounted IR comm nodes are already nonfunctional. IR-absorbent bedsheets are rigged as curtains, geck tape attached to exposed wiring as a crude quick-release. Clouseau uses the sonic probe to clear crud off the far side of the window. A second quadcopter scout drone, designated "Panther," waits in the dog-leg hallway between the main barracks and the observation lounge. Panther was on firefighting duty, but has been reloaded with pink-mod riot gum (without informing Clouseau of the substitution) and maximum paranoia, prepared to interpret any deviation from procedure as an attack. Even I can't call off Panther at this point, short of waiting for it's battery to run down.

Far too much background noise for executable code to be covertly slipped through an acoustic channel. Clouseau's voice reports visual contact with the captain's suit's IR comm, contingency scenario seven: severe injury, journal intact, no indication of infectious agents or a deliberate quarantine. Panther's voice confirms.

Pilot AI is done using the fabber, apart from one flywheel which saturated without fully stabilizing the roll axis. Heavy-duty mechanical arms force open the warped, spot-welded, seven-meter-wide interior hatch between main machine shop and hangar bay. A telescoping tendril lashes out to grab the captain's leg, spirals around until retracting force can be applied to center mass for minimal chance of aggravating injuries, PDG tip stabs into an interface port between the patient's shoulderblades. With Pilot AI module's permission, hydraulic actuators are released, exterior doors yawn wide open, and a newly-fabricated braking chute billows out.

Captain was attempting manual override to seal the main hangar bay before atmospheric entry. Vaccsuit telemetry indicated left shoulder and helmet partially crushed by malfunctioning hangar bay door. Spinal implant telemetry registered a thermal spike and overall loss of function consistent with direct exposure of brain tissue to re-entry plasma. Medical library search on treatment methodology for injuries of this type redirects to generic mid-tier biohazard/low-tier cognitohazard disposal, and recommends follow-up with grief counseling for any witnesses or surviving coworkers when possible.

The landing gear are as close to properly aligned as they're going to get. Touchdown in 30 seconds.
>>
No. 934540 ID: 3a1dd8
934540

So is the captain dead, or just about to be dead? It might be time to start waking up the other crew members. Will they wake up on their own if the ship breaks or otherwise loses power?

Is there some way we can use up some of that flywheel's energy before landing? We have enough problems from a potential crash, no need to add a delaminating flywheel to the mix.

What kind of landing are we in for, anyway? I doubt we're still hypersonic or that chute wouldn't do much, but do we have atmospheric control surfaces or are we trying to land a rocket forwards?

Do we have some kind of impact-absorbing foam or other material we can put on/around the crew to increase their chances of surviving the landing?
>>
No. 934542 ID: b1b4f3

>>934540
His brain was literally cooked. He's dead jim.

>>934276
I guess just batten down the hatches, secure the drones, and alert the surviving crew to our impending rough landing.
>>
No. 934629 ID: 977456

Well, at this point... I am not seeing any way to improve our flight-profile and that would mess with pilot anyway. Can we check if pilot is functional? It'd be unpleasant if it didn't have access to flight controls or something...

Aside from that... can we add shock-absorbers to critical locations? Maybe rig something up with over-pressurised rooms or fire-retardant foam or something? Possibly beach some pipes to fill spaces with something more cushioning that air? Would chemistry help? Maybe coolant + fire retardant = magic shock-absorbance foam!
Critical locations should be ourselves, manufacturing, power, and crew. Empty space(such as crew quarters) and flight systems(excepting pilot-chan!) can be converted into crumple-zones...

At least sprinkle some swarmbots around safer locations with looped orders to repair and recharge until new orders are received.
>>
No. 934651 ID: 21bd50

>>934629
Pilot-chan must survive at all costs!
>>
No. 935535 ID: f57349

Main hull is approximately conical/cigar-shaped, bioplastic wings can be reconfigured for atmospheric maneuvering, extra tankage, heat radiators, photovoltaic power, various combinations thereof, or just collapsed and tucked away, as they currently are. Hull rotates on it's long axis for weak artificial gravity while in space, but on planets with atmosphere it's a belly-lander. Habitable portion of the ship is divided radially into four sectors: Keel, Port, Starboard, and Topdeck. Topdeck includes, from tail to nose, the hangar bay, main fabricator, secondary reactor, administrative offices, and armory, all designed to function equally well when gravity reverses direction. Port and Starboard include most of the tankage and maintenance spaces, designed to function on either of two gravity vectors roughly perpendicular. Keel holds actual living spaces, because there's just no good way to build a toilet so it keeps working when you flip it over.

Down the center is the axial tramway, linking the CIC in front with damcon central and minimal-ping reactor controls at the rear. In the context of plans for defense against a boarding action, the tramway is referred to as "the barrel," because it is where fish go when they want to flop helplessly and then be shot. Most hatches slide open and shut along the walls of the barrel, like tumblers in a lock, rather than swinging on hinges where they might obstruct traffic or serve as tactical cover. Tramway is 130 yards long, a bit narrower at the center and wider at the ends. Around each heavy rubberized shock-absorbing endplate, there are three accessways which double as fighting positions, artfully angled so each of them has a clear line of fire to virtually every point in the tramway volume, but no good way to hit anyone properly positioned at the other end. Thus, so long as both ends are secure, defenders have an open highway to reposition at will, while an invading force can only painstakingly advance room by room.

Flywheel is a repurposed slab of reactor shielding, six meters in diameter and 20cm thick. Alloy is more than 80% tungsten, remainder selected to mitigate corrosion, neutron embrittlement, and thermal stress over a 150-year operational lifetime, of which it'd only seen 30. Current spin is nowhere near a serious delamination risk - angular-momentum saturation was due to limitations of the lathe's drive motor. If that dull-edged 10^8 gram rotary sawblade tears loose, it will definitely still be in one piece wherever and whenever it comes to a complete stop. Wish I could say the same of anything else it might encounter while bouncing merrily along.

Pilot AI module has a solution available for partially braking the flywheel, transferring most of the stored energy into capstacks. However, doing so involves performing a barrel roll, which would increase lateral uncertainty, plausibly resulting in impact on what appear to be jagged volcanic rocks, rather than snow.

Tapping flywheel for power would also allow earlier shutdown of the aneutronic fusion cell. It's control circuitry is almost entirely optical - fluidics can't respond anywhere near quickly enough, while more conventional chimeric semiconductors are too vulnerable to magnetic disruption. Tradeoff is that optic fiber is structurally brittle, and tightly optimized single-purpose opticirc is troublesome to repair if, say, shattered by a violent impact.

Embedded nanobots wouldn't be able to survive the heat necessary to reconnect high-purity glass. Specialized microbots can, but they need to be able to rotate out, which means their tiny little robo-bug brains can't keep track of all the details, so there are inevitable errors, crossed wires and so on. Fusion cell is massively parallel, with millions of linear accelerators each less than 3cm long, directing individual nuclei into precisely calculated collisions with each other. If too many wires are crossed, with no higher-level intelligence available to analyze and correct those errors, cascading misalignments will brick the entire reactor on any attempted startup. Fabricator knows how to build a fusion cell from scratch, but no available AI module can confidently do diagnostics and repairs on damage at that level.

One of the surviving human crew is fully qualified for that sort of repair work. The engineer in question is currently in stasis. Revival would require eight hours, plus a highly variable period of disorientation and impaired memory, and in any case is contraindicated due to a level of radiation exposure which would otherwise be fatal within days. Complete recovery is likely still possible, but only after weeks of intensive treatment.

Security chief is also in stasis, with a punctured lung. Simple surgical fix. Could be ready for light duties inside 24 hours if somehow nothing else goes wrong.

Comms/liaison officer is in hibernation, and technically on medical leave, but may be recalled with sufficient cause. Where stasis brings the metabolism to a complete halt, hibernation only reduces it to about 10%. Revival takes about fifteen minutes for full consciousness, then another hour or two for core temperature, heart rate, and so on to normalize. No significant neurological side effects since the brain is switched to a 'natural' low-power mode, similar to very deep sleep or a coma, rather than individual neurons being locked down on a molecular level.

Medical/science officer is in a hibernation-capable acceleration couch, awake, and technically on duty as acting captain, but lacks MMI implants. Doc's hand, foot, and eye interface channels are currently occupied with customizing the couch's ergonomics. Past five minutes of audio is unintelligible apart from screaming or retching. Personnel file shows that the doc passed microgravity certification very narrowly, on the third attempt, and has no prior transatmospheric combat experience.
>>
No. 935581 ID: 977456

There must be something epic that we can do with that flywheel. Maybe launch it at those volcanic rocks? Would it shatter enough rocks to be worth the massive hole it would tear through the ship on its way out...

Or or or! We run a line from something that goes boom(Do we have a powder magazine equivalent?) to the flywheel. The flywheel spines the bomb and we shoot out the line to launch it under the ship. Then we shoot it and "surf" the blast-wave to increase our gliding-through-the-air quotient at the cost of our plummeting-into-the-ground quotient. Any plan that involves surfing a bomb is a good plan!
>>
No. 935585 ID: 3a1dd8

>>935581
We might as well just activate the self-destruct.

>>935535
Doesn't sound like there's much to do that hasn't already been done, or isn't in the pilot AI's hands instead of ours.

Alert the medical/science officer to our imminent landing. Prepare to repair vital systems. Leave the fusion reactor going for now, instead of messing with our trajectory. Pray to whatever entity AIs pray to.

Let's land this thing.
>>
No. 935609 ID: 189b8c

We could shape the wings into small curved fins to cause us to roll in the opposite direction thus negating the braking roll. Afterward we can just retract them again.
>>
No. 935610 ID: b1b4f3

>>935609
This sounds possible... in the end it's more like we'd be drawing power from the wind than the flywheel.
That could also affect our trajectory however, by introducing drag.
>>
No. 935620 ID: d4d69a

>>935610
That may not be a bad thing though. We can use the wings as needed to hit our target if we slow down enough. Plus, the slower we go, the softer the landing.
>>
No. 935864 ID: f57349

>>935585
>self-destruct
Geology database suggests these mountains may contain unexploited uraneous ore, flywheel provides proof of concept for a distillation centrifuge, necessary catalyst gas can be harvested from the atmosphere in useful quantities. A replacement primary reactor can, in principle, be built with available resources. Thus, survival, recovery, and provision of logistical support to attached company of drop troopers are sufficiently plausible. Radically proactive denial of materiel, intel, and prisoners to the enemy is still contraindicated.

CRUNCH

Damcon infosphere internal diagnostics... mixed. No red. Blinky. Functionality 32%. Repair prognowhatsis indeterminate. I think that I think. Eye am.

An eye in the medical bay sees a problem. There is a big sharp rock where rocks shouldn't be, up through the belly of the heat shield.

Acting captain has been injured. Biofabricator came unplugged and is leaking incorrectly on the ceiling. Two of the three hatches are blocked.

Wat do?
>>
No. 935941 ID: 977456

Medicopter to acting captain!
Swarmbots: Repair whatever is nearby.
Fingercopters: Stick fingers into leaks.
>>
No. 936721 ID: f98f1e

Fix acting captain. Tell him about others' status and ask him about waking up others.

Stop leak. Repair Damcon thinky parts if possible.
>>
No. 938057 ID: f57349

Damcon infosphere functionality 49%

Secondary reactor (aneutronic fusion) unresponsive. Available logs suggest safe shutdown followed by control system damage on impact.

Life support and critical system maintenance requirements exceed sustainable tertiary power supply (improvised flywheel, distributed capstacks, battlesuit's integral RTG) by 15%. At this rate, reserves will be drained within 99 hours, most likely followed by cascading system failure and permanent shutdown of damcon AI core 5-10 hours after that.

Medical officer's hibernation pod is damaged - 30cm sheared off at the caudal end. Still mostly functional as a hibernation pod. Black-water reservoir spilled, occupant's legs amputated below the knee, lid actuators jammed. Bleeding stanched, condition stable, but risk of hypovolemic shock is a disqualifying factor from role as acting captain.

Standard procedure for growing replacement feet requires the biofabricator, which has been pinned to the ceiling and crushed like a beer can by the same wedge of black stone that's blocking the medbay door.

Healthiest, most mobile human aboard at this point is the communications officer. If revived from hibernation and pressed into active duty, medical challenges would include:
-blindness
-deafness
-impaired balance due to inner ear damage
-risk of opportunistic infections due to scattered first-degree burns, weakened immune system, lack of footwear, and surrounding puddle of meltwater/sharp medical waste/raw sewage
-nausea/diarrhea/dehydration/starvation, needing IV nutrition and possibly ongoing cleanup
-general fatigue
-hypothermia
MMI sensor feed, drug cocktails, and other technological workarounds are possible, but it's probably better to allow them to rest for now. However, no functional quadcopter drones or toolcan bots are available at this time, so some urgent tasks may require assistance from someone with full-sized hands - or security clearance.

It's 40 below zero outside, gale-force winds tainted with intensely corrosive chemicals, and the hull is not adequately sealed. Trying to power up all microbot swarms and do everything at once would result in accomplishing nothing.

Major problem is heat management. Hull breaches can be patched from the inside, the usual way, or excavation microbots could be used to shape expanding foam into an exterior windbreak. It's possible both at once would have a synergistic effect, since the largest (and thus hardest to patch) breaches are also the most affected by wind chill.

Plumbing repair could mean less raw sewage on the decks, smoother internal heat management, restored pressure to hydraulic systems, and long-term crew survival via hydroponics, but in terms of immediate power rationing it's likely to have steeply diminishing returns.

I am not authorized to operate or deploy anything classified as a deadly weapon... but in exigent circumstances (which these clearly are) it is permissible to safely dispose of such items without actually using them. As such, I could send some swarmbots to break into the armory and scavenge additional power supplies. However, that is unlikely to be a long-term solution, and could cause problems later if something needs to actually be shot at.

Primary reactor is gone, but ramscoop and other atmospheric propulsion machinery seems to have survived relatively intact. If debris was cleared from the airway, turbofan could be repurposed as a wind-powered generator. If it works, power supply problems would almost certainly be solved, but it's all-or-nothing, and could result in further damage.

There's a mini-fabricator near the robotics bay, reporting via cable as fully provisioned, all internal systems green. No working cameras in there, but I could order it to build things.

Solar collectors are technically possible, but would be a highly visible sign of survival and industrial viability, likely to attract enemy attention we are completely unprepared for.

Which tasks should be prioritized, and how much energy should be allocated to each of them?
>>
No. 938072 ID: d9acdc

>>938057
Okay, so current crew status includes an Engineer with radiation poisoning, a security officer with a punctured lung, a medical officer with leg amputations, and a coms officer with... a whole host of issues. Coms officer is in the best condition, but my is guess is that they will likely die long/short term if several of those issues aren't addressed. It was previously mentioned medical bots could sterilize and treat surface level injuries- would this include the burns the coms officer is suffering, or any other problems on that list? Fixing the lung puncture the security officer has seems beyond their capability.

Seems that:
-all our officers need desperate medical attention
-the ship needs desperate engineering attention
-a qualified overseer would be required to get the second reactor safe again
-we need to solve the power issue within a few days

What would we need to accomplish to get access to the medic right now, and what would we need to do to the medic to get them functional? Would the engineer have enough time to be revived, fully acclimate, and rescue them while still being savable?

For ship problems, seems like the synergistic option of windbreak+patching the hull is our best bet. How will the microbots be capable of creating a windbreak in gale force winds though? And, as that option seems to be obviously better than either on it's own, what downsides might be foreseeable?
>>
No. 938079 ID: f57349

>>938072
>It was previously mentioned medical bots could sterilize and treat surface level injuries- would this include the burns the coms officer is suffering, or any other problems on that list?
Burns have already been cleaned and bandaged, but are not yet fully healed. Damage to a burn covered in spray-on synthetic skin presents greater risk of infection than an equivalent cut or abrasion applied to initially healthy tissue.
>Fixing the lung puncture the security officer has seems beyond their capability.
Lung tissue is less error tolerant than skin or muscle, and from a microbot's perspective, a centimeter-wide wound channel is like a highway overpass or a canyon: they can clean out crud or plug small leaks, but it's far too large for them to simply grab both of the edges and pull.

That said, now that we're on the ground rather than tumbling, surgery to fix that punctured lung is a viable option. Just need to get a ten kilogram suitcase-sized autodoc all charged up (twelve minutes of RTG output, or about 1.3% of the reserve, shortening projected survival time by an hour or more), out of it's storage rack, across the room to dock with the appropriate stasis pod, then push a button to start repairs.

Hauling luggage across a room, and pushing a button, are both classic examples of tasks that are relatively easy for a human with functional hands, but nigh-impossible for swarmbots.

>What would we need to accomplish to get access to the medic right now,
Medical officer is already accessible in the sense of the hibernation pod not being correctly sealed, and in the sense of communication channels being open. Intravenous fluids to recover from recent arterial bleeding are already being administered. Removing them from the hibernation pod would require either forcing the lid open against resistance from the damaged actuators (possibly with a crowbar), or cutting a hole through the rock spar and crawling out stump-first through the sheared-off end. One hour of RTG output could power a 10kg swarm of digging & hauling microbots to pulverize half a cubic meter of this sort of stone over the course of twelve hours. Unclear exactly how much would need to be removed.
>and what would we need to do to the medic to get them functional?
Robotics bay fabricator has templates available for mechanical replacement feet - since prosthetics inherently require custom fitting according to both individual proportions and nature of injury, a software suite was developed long ago to simplify the process. Minifac negotiates a direct line to the hibernation bed and seconds later has a design ready to print.

Build time without use of the main fabricator is estimated at 80 hours per foot - at the current rate, we'd freeze to death before it finished. Transporting the completed feet from robotics to medical may also be nontrivial, due to wreckage. Two hours for installation, a week for recovery.

>How will the microbots be capable of creating a windbreak in gale force winds though?
Lower third of the ship is sunken into snow and ice, which can be hollowed out as staging area. The foam, expanding as it cures, would extrude upward, while embedded microbots exercise finer control with termite-mound techniques.
>And, as that option seems to be obviously better than either on it's own, what downsides might be foreseeable?
Pursuing both thermal insulation strategies in parallel means using up more construction foam, and more power for the microbots, meaning less power in reserve. Benefits would take more time to fully kick in, compared to other options, so a larger reserve is necessary - if flywheel and capstacks were drained to zero in the course of setting up e.g. a wind turbine, new power could presumably pick up the slack almost immediately.
>>
No. 938081 ID: d9acdc

>>938079
First priority for crew seems to be getting the medic online, who can then get the engineer back up to create a chance for longer term survival. If the coms officer can get the autodoc set up, the security officer should be in better condition than anyone else once surgery is complete, allowing us to more easily rescue the medic, allowing us to rescue the engineer and address the com officers injuries. Since the coms officer is in danger of death via temperature, step one is mobilizing swarmbots to seal breaches and create wind breaks, then we wake up the coms officer.

Any other suggestions from the crowd?
>>
No. 938082 ID: b1b4f3

>>938079
Could the comms officer do the heavy lifting to their own stasis pod then get back in it to be repaired?
>>
No. 938085 ID: f98f1e

Priority 1: Crew survival (heat management, medical attention).
Priority 2: Power.
Priority 3: Other repairs like plumbing and non-critical hull breaches.

Immediately begin work to manage our heat problems. Patch/windbreak breaches close to the crew, build windbreaks in larger breaches to conserve heat, and close doors if it helps. The idea is that, rather than trying to conserve heat inside the whole ship, we just try to conserve it in the places where crew is likely to need/want to go.

Get the medical officer out of his pod (wasn't he in an acceleration couch a minute ago? Or is the couch in his pod?). If the bots can fix or remove the damaged actuators and make it easy for him to pop the lid open, great; otherwise, start pulverizing the rock so that he can crawl out of there. If you have to do it the slow way, we also have time to conduct cleanup of this room so as to minimize infection risk.

Once he's out, or at least aware that we're working on getting him out, let him know he'll need to suck up his injury, crawl over to the autodoc, and get it to work on the security officer. If he acquiesces, start charging the autodoc; otherwise, ask if he has a better plan.

Of course, very little of this will matter if we don't have a new power source in 4 days. I'm inclined to burn a little extra power now to do the best we can at establishing a new power source. So, barring disagreement from others, I'd say: start working on clearing debris so we can improvise a wind turbine.
>>
No. 938104 ID: 977456

>no functional quadcopter drones or toolcan bots are available at this time
Can swarmbots grant functionality to any available quadcopter drones or toolcan bots?
>>
No. 938288 ID: f57349

>>938082
Comms officer's medical records indicate additional convalescence will be required before surgery to restore vision or hearing. Could be brought out of hibernation to haul an autodoc to the gunner's stasis pod, though, yes. Fifteen minutes from initiation of revival sequence to restoration of consciousness and pod opening, minimal combat effectiveness requires either another fifteen minutes, or very powerful stimulants. Safer option is waiting at least two hours plus a full meal and bathroom break before someone brought out of hibernation is expected to do anything physically strenuous.

relevant available drug cocktails:
>frostbite prevention
-metabolic acceleration provides more heat, but aggravates need for food and increases cancer risk
-controlled peripheral vasoconstriction retains more heat, but makes fingers partly numb and stiff
>high-G piloting nanosymbiotes
-anti-nausea, but won't address diarrhea
-MMI integrators & body-identity tweaks may allow external gyros to compensate for balance
-improves twitch response at the expense of grip strength, and sustained force in general
-not meant for use while standing or walking around, can even cause temporary leg paralysis
-blood vessel elasticity boost may interact badly with frostbite prevention
>infantry combat stims
-negates (or at least reduces) fatigue, but there'll be a crash later
-reduced pain and hypersensitivity to shame may result in self-destructive behavior
-protective of in-group, brutal opportunism against confirmed enemies
-broad alertness, improved kinesthetic sense, spatial reasoning, procedural memory
-short attention span, difficulty with complex instructions or non-routine multistep tasks
>watchstander stims
-reduced or eliminated need for sleep, long-term use impairs creativity and initiative
-narrow hyperfocus, calm, patient, ambush-predator attitude
-improved time management and self-care, determination to fix things properly
-impairs ability to cope with surprises outside current focus
-increased sensitivity to pain and nausea

Mixing combat and watchstander stims cancels out most of the benefits and may cause hallucinations or seizures. When switching from one to the other, 72 hours and emotional support is recommended, but the bare minimum for safety is a urine test and ten hours cooldown, including six asleep.
Broad-spectrum antibiotics will not only destroy active piloting nanosymbiotes, the resultant debris may result in implant rejection or even anaphylactic shock.
Most of this is from medical database files and operations manuals, not properly internalized knowledge. Main medical AI core shares a lot of hardware with the biofabricator control systems, and is currently unresponsive.

>very little of this will matter if we don't have a new power source in 4 days.
In vacuum, one battlesuit-rated radiothermal generator would be more than enough to power routine maintenance and housekeeping - even life support for a full passenger complement, if meal preparation and bathing were carefully scheduled to minimize peak loads. It's possible sufficient insulation and other economizing will bring power consumption below RTG output, pushing the power-supply time horizon to "several years."
>rather than trying to conserve heat inside the whole ship, we just try to conserve it in the places where crew is likely to need/want to go
No, it's chilly enough outside that cooling to ambient might wreck mission-critical machinery. https://www.minus40.info/ice/frozentruck.html Bulkheads can be sealed against vacuum or NBC threats, but coolant pipes run the full length of the ship. Plenty of redundancy, not so much convenient compartmentalization. Heat-management crisis situations envisioned by this vessel's designers were more often along the lines of uncontrolled fires, where cooling everything off ASAP is the desirable outcome. https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-10-07

>>938104
Available toolcan bots are hard-docked, serving as power supply buffers and infosphere nodes.

IR ping from Clouseau and two other scouts in the barracks. Rotors fouled, signs of impact damage, but it seems likely to be repairable by appropriately specialized swarmbots. Exact requirements are uncertain, since they're buried under the same bedsheets used to basilisk-proof the barracks. One kg is the minimum likely to have any useful effect, perhaps a 25% chance to restore a single quadcopter to functionality. More will get better results, and faster, up to about 5kg per scout at which point swarmies trip over each other. Quadcopters all include a mini roach motel, so excess power allocated to repairs can be used to extend flight time.

Expending the entire power reserve would be enough to power up 150 kg of swarmbots for twelve hours of work, so at the current rate each kg deployed shortens overall expected survival time by ~40 minutes. How many should be sent out, and on which assignments?

Minifac can produce items up to 150cm long, 70cm wide at up to 0.6 kg per hour - microcircuitry is much slower, notably including sensors and robotics. Simpler stuff, like cloth or a crude pair of peg-legs for the doc, could be done at nearly full bulk rates. An hour of minifac use takes about as much power as charging a kilo of swarmbots - sometimes more, up to about 20% more for working with refractory metals, other times less. Fabber AI is great at estimating how long things will take to build, even from garbage, but not so much at power rationing. That's why the main fabber can't safely be restarted at all without first restoring the secondary reactor.

Power consumption is currently 115% of RTG output. Reducing consumption by five percentage points would increase expected survival time by half, for a given power reserve. Ten percentage points would triple survival time. Sixteen percentage points would get us out of the red, back to reserves slowly refilling rather than draining when no additional action is taken.
>>
No. 938323 ID: 977456

I would like to send 10kg of swarmies to the copters to get at least two of them online and fabricate a geck tape roll(Scotty?) to tape our ship together and a sonic probe to survey the vessel for a damage assessment and intruder scan.
>>
No. 939100 ID: f98f1e

>>In vacuum, one battlesuit-rated radiothermal generator would be more than enough to power routine maintenance and housekeeping - even life support for a full passenger complement, if meal preparation and bathing were carefully scheduled to minimize peak loads. It's possible sufficient insulation and other economizing will bring power consumption below RTG output, pushing the power-supply time horizon to "several years."

Then do it. Insulate, patch, and windbreak whatever you need to to bring the power consumption down, or get the wind turbine working, or both.

>>Completely ignored suggestion about medical officer in favor of talking about waking the comms officer

Fine, then wake up the comms officer and use the frostbite prevention drugs. Maybe we can give him a crowbar and have him get the medical officer out after he gets the autodoc going.
>>
No. 939467 ID: d9acdc

>>939100
Agreed, it seems that getting insulation going is the first priority. Need more information on the rates at which kilograms of swarmbots could aid in such matters, but the computational math on that doesn't seem simple. Any best efficiency recommendation for building that wind bluff in conjunction with patching hull breaches?
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