Inspired by the planetary hexmap by Riles we have here an aqua planet with space-factions, deep-sea mines and aquatic residents. This is the 'get it out the door' ashcan, as baked as I can get it with time constraints of travel. List of things I would have improved in the land of infinite time at the bottom.
The Planet
Humans have come to Planet 44E chasing rich metal nodules on the floor of the planet-spanning ocean. The colonists arrived and have been busy, regularly buying in shipments of gear paid in hard galactic currency but only a trickle of export product is leaving - the miners are close-lipped about their route.
White Corp is losing its mind as their investments hemorrhage cash and point the finger at the Black Coalition presence - they must be smuggling! Avoiding export taxes! Blue Navy has been called in but are failing to find any such regular smuggling run despite significant armed and stealthed Black Coalition transport capability. Things appear stale-mated, with a lot of fuel burnt and sensor sweeps. Ripe terrain for some enterprising mercenaries.
The Hex Key
| Cell | Contents |
|---|---|
| A4 | * 27. White Corp patrol car - coast-to-launch-base cargo hauler - this was all supposed to be the easy money; ship miners here and take a slice off their exports, now White Corp execs panicking and trying to bury the whole effort |
| A3 | * 35. Blue navy monitoring base - quiet monitoring station, stealthed and trying to listen in on everyone |
| A2 | |
| A1 | 1. Colonial deep sea mech currently at work with cargo shuttles attacked by unusually aggressive fish |
| A-1 | 2. Colonial Escort run on cargo drones, twitchy running a cargo that does not exist for tax purposes to the local aliens who officially do not exist at all |
| A-2 | |
| B2 | |
| B1 | |
| B-1 | |
| B-2 | 25. White Corp skimmer - surface-to-orbit shuttle and at-pinch atmospheric gunship, tough as an anvil, similar flight characteristics - cheap to run but still slowly facing ruin as predicted export runs not materialising |
| B-3 | * 28. White Corp cargo-launch base - oversized starport with many under-occupied crew. Morale and discipline both dropping swiftly, open to all reasonable offers for anything you can haul away. |
| B-4 | * 29. Black coalition outpost - integrated signals-supremacy base, set up to throw a stealth shroud over cargo shuttle arrival and departures, on-planet chasing rumours of advanced technology |
| C2 | 3. Colonial Lone diver in exo-mech - prospector, tries to run folk off to hide size of operations |
| C1 | |
| C-1 | 7. Inter-planetary portal - sub-sea portal at the uttermost depths of the seas where gravity becomes uniform, nexus for off-world trade though only the locals know, guarded and operated by a collective of aquatic aliens and their well-paid off-world mercenaries |
| C-2 | 4. Colonial Heavy drone tasked with neutralising escaped smart-sharks |
| C-3 | * 31. Black coalition patrol crawler - mobile operations base, crawling around the ice-caps sniffing for emissions leakage from the seas below |
| D3 | * 33. Black coalition sigint base - fully stealthed facility with shrouded repair and resupply yard, supporting continuous listening flights and patrols |
| D2 | 6. Colonial Deep sea base breeding smart sharks to assist miners, project success very iffy so far but difficulties moving funds off-world make this R&D tax write off well supported by the extra-planetary board |
| D1 | 8. Alien sage - electro-tattooed alien kraken, member of ultra-advanced species that built the portals, considers the planet their hermitage with lots of adorable noisy small sentients running around for entertainment |
| D-1 | 13. Abyssal lurker - largest and meanest of the native mega-predators. Finds aliens sickening-to-poisonous to eat so mostly avoids them. Could dismantle a mining mech with minimum effort |
| D-2 | 26. White Corp mech - adapted all-environments explorer mech being used to watch for things attacking cargo drones, since that must be what is choking supplies |
| E2 | 34. Blue navy heavy cruiser - assertion of system dominance, center of local command with aggravated captain trying to figure out why White Corp is frantic but the miners say there is no problem |
| E1 | 14. Crong - smaller of the open-water predators, has a name because sometimes people survive attacks |
| E-1 | 15. Abyssal angler - sea-floor dwelling ambusher, has a fully sentient nymph-stage which molts into a larger, non-sentient breeding stage |
| E-2 | 19. Corrupted octopus - fruit of previous iteractions of the 'smart-shark' program, lost when entire research team absconded with subjects and oceanic adaptation work to claim oceans as their own |
| F2 | 30. Black coalition interceptor - dedicated recon and patrol trans-orbital ship, fast-enough to flee from or trail-beyond-sight most things |
| F1 | 16. Sector 49 glitch - larger of the open water predators, aggressive and territorial, nothing has witnessed it and survived |
| F-1 | 17. Abyssal spider - smaller of the sea-floor dwellers, problematic because they like shiny things for mating ritual behaviours and are strong enough to rip the side off a submarine |
| F-2 | |
| F-3 | * 37. Blue navy transmission base - running high-power jamming and active scans, being very loud and present to command attention |
| G3 | * 38. Blue navy jammer crawler - deniably disguised anti-ship/plane/shuttle energy-weapon acting as mobile jamming |
| G2 | 20. Corrupted ray - early iteration of the 'bionic convoy escort' concept, too prone to wandering off, requires shepherding |
| G1 | 18. Abyssal octopus - proto-sentient native, usually hiding from the many predators, some might venture out to interact with interesting interlopers |
| G-1 | 23. Robot shark-sub - oceanic supremacy design, stolen when the research team left now mothership for deep ocean rebels |
| G-2 | 32. Black coalition starcruiser - interstellar cargo-ship, retrofitted and upgraded for stealth and speed to support |
| H2 | |
| H1 | 22. Robot octopus - innovative aqua-mech concept using salvaged technology, pilot went rogue with the mech during maiden voyage |
| H-1 | 9. Aquatic wanderer - alien on a big game hunting vacation, predator-style. Only using primitive gear to make it fair, vastly underestimates the lethality of native life |
| H-2 | 36. Blue navy signals skimmer - glass-hammer energy-weapon carrier flying around being obvious |
| I2 | 39. Black coalition heavy cruiser - brawler, lurking about as the big stick to back-up surface operations, runs frequent drop assault drills |
| I1 | 5. Colonial Exploration team with 'corporate social responsibility' zoology team, get cross about people disturbing their pristine conditions, here to report definitely no smart shark program |
| I-1 | 24. White Corp starcruiser - interstellar capable cargo ship, workhorse of the stars, carries cargo, defends itself, supports small surface expeditions - trying to unlock mining export runs but miners keep selling their production somewhere else and it vanishes |
| I-2 | |
| I-3 | * 40. Black coalition walker - armoured personnel carrier being held on stand-by to rush-out any interesting tech found, wandering about on random patrols by bored crew |
| J3 | * 42. Black coalition sigint car - stealth surface recon patrol vehicle sweeping for interlopers, surprisingly fast for such a big machine |
| J2 | 10. Water-dragon - draconic alien, intensively modified to be aquatic, on planet with entourage to protect and defend the natural environment |
| J1 | |
| J-1 | |
| J-2 | 11. Portal-disruptor - constructed by draconic entourage as shrine to the deep seas and to house facility to disrupt existing deep sea portal - an unsuccessful ambition so far |
| K2 | 12. Retro-fitted mining mech - defector to sea temple from the mining groups, now seeks to scare off any interlopers |
| K1 | |
| K-1 | |
| K-2 | 41. Black coalition stealth skimmer - repurposed transorbital bomber brought in since the Navy showed up to blockade-run any tech finds out, lurking about doing listening patrols, unnerving everyone else |
| L2 | 21. Corrupted whale - second wave 'bionic convoy escort' - too aggressive - now used as raider |
| L1 | |
| L-1 | |
| L-2 |
Ashcan Improvements
Things I would have done had I the time(/realise are suboptimal now):
* Split out the set images per hex.
* Beef up descriptions, add NPCs stats, thumbnails
* Stat things out with Stars Without Number + Starvation Cheap - these vehicles are all TL4 of varying heft. Others may prefer Star Wars or Star Trek should provide ample chassis to steal, Star Wars probably the simpler of the two.
* Redo hexmap with appropriate icons for all the hexes.
Design Notes
Inspired by the plot of Algebraist - Space factions seeking aquatics secrets of travel - aquatics totally chill/ignoring them/scuffling amongst themselves.
Had some thoughts about making this an interlocking point-crawl with space factions in space and the aquatics moving via gates at planetary cores - felt like a lot of work for unclear gain.
I am pleased with how the hexmap turned out, a little fiddly to manage the duplication of polar cells but not too bad.
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