• OBJECTIVE: Conduct research into the development of a civilian AP shipline for commercial purposes. • ASSIGNED APM PERSONNEL: Dr. L. Vann, A. Cornell • AUDIT: CEO M. McKinsey • STATUS:In progress
Brief
While foreign shiplines utilized by AP Manufacturing serve their purpose within the Edge Worlds quite well thus far, it has become apparent that with the ever greater expansion of Imperium Omicronis, its challenging economic forecasts, as well as further development of the company per se, the need of creating a household civilian shipline becomes apparent. Even more so if considering that the PR impact resulting from genuine civilian craft cursing far and wide throughout Sirius and rendering Imperium Omicronis as a state in its own right, with its very own technological, economical and cultural potential.
Outline
Project "Susurrus" features the following phases to be completed for mass production to commence.
1. Analysis of demand - complete. The APM Board of Directors along with the project commission has confirmed the immediate need of 3 types of spacecraft:
- Freighter class mining vessel designed for harvesting azurite gas to replace the obsolete B-27-E
- Tactical medium sized transport for moving precious cargo and stand alone deep space iridium extraction to fill a poignant void in off-planet mining operations
- Heavy container transport to replace the obsolete C5 model
2. Recollection of existing tech - in progress. Since some of the solutions we seek to implement in our shipline may already have been developed in one form or another by third parties, it would save precious time and money not having to design those from scratch, but simply reverse engineering some of the best features from non AP craft.
3. Adapting acquired tech - incomplete. APM construction labs will face the challenge of reproducing and properly adjusting the acquired technologies to meet the project requirements, as well as the high quality standards of our AP shipline. Along with our very own ingenious designs developed prior to this, we are optimistic to produce the most advanced ship systems Siriuswide.
4. Designing and virtual testing - incomplete. As soon as technological needs are met, we can proceed to the actual rendering of the hulls and internal structures of particular ships. The requirement a priori to this will be to find and employ a new chief designer or team capable of producing quality models for virtual testing.
5. Prototyping and correcting - incomplete. Once the VR test results are deemed satisfactory, Alabama Shipyard shall produce a limited number of prototype vessels of each kind to perform their intended roles in actual environmental conditions. Shortcomings are to be corrected immediately upon notice. The final prototype editions will go into production as soon as proper documentation has been delivered to the shipyard's construction crews.
AP Engineering had confirmed that before taking the recently acquired "Rock Badger" mining craft apart for detailed analysis, it is worth testing its stock performance in the native environment of the Edge Worlds. While we are having certain linguistic difficulties with the onboard data core, up to present day substantial parts of the system interfaces have been successfully translated into plain Latin - despite centuries of isolation, French is but a derivative construct after all.
The thin fuel reserves have been deemed sufficient to perform several short range field tests. Since our correspondence with Gallic Metal Services regarding among other things the very purchase of petroleum based fuels is still left unanswered, I propose turning attention to alternative solutions - one of which being a conversion prospect established with Krüger Mineralien as a form of added value to the promising refit and supply contract.
In the meantime, Astrogator Thompson has been tasked with providing data on the actual performance of the Susurrus-2 within the fields of Omicron Lost and Omicron Delta.
While it was obvious from the start that the stock harvesting technology is near useless on mineral beds naturally occurring within the Edge Worlds, ore storage efficiency of the vessel is nonetheless extraordinary, making it a potentially viable asset to iridium operations in the outer systems. Naturally, it will require further testing, but the idea of utilizing a stand alone mining & haulage craft on long range expeditions is intriguing.
Though my attempts to establish contact with GMS in regard to a possibly profitable cooperation have failed due to not having received any response whatsoever, it did not render the Susurrus project suspended. Whenever one door shuts, another opens - and it could not have opened at a better moment. EFL Oil and Machinery, a corporation whose profile matches our current needs spot on, reached out for venture opportunities in the Edge Worlds. Their stumbling upon AP Manufacturing was thus a fortunate inevitability.
An initial deal has been established and we have received the much needed fuel supply that enables further examination of the diverse space borne functionalities of the Badger craft. It was not until now that the puzzle that is the CNO type engine could finally be put together - for every 1000 units of the liquefied organic petroleum, or Oil, the reactor requires about half the amount of cracking catalysts and promethene respectively as a sort of reaction control media. I must admit that this is not my immediate field of expertise, still I put my complete trust in the assigned engineering crews. Even more so since EFL have put one of their technicians at our disposal to aid our own. This gesture is certainly twofold, but as far as my interests are concerned, the moment we figure out the power management issues and develop a way of swapping the original engine for household tech, the man is out the door and can take his Gallic engine with him if he pleases. After all, in Mr. Mizaki's own words, no Gallic Engines in Sirian hands may be run without supervision - nowhere did he state that the vessel itself needs to carry one.
As soon as project Ceres is complete, we should be able to free the remaining resources to benefit this one.
With the fuel reserves supplied by EFL, performance tests with the Susurrus-1 continue. Dr. Rosenberg had requisitioned the craft for an archeological expedition to the Napo Cloud in Omicron Theta known to contain residue of xeno cultures.
Certainly, the efficiency of gathering artifact samples with stock technology is a task as daunting as extracting iridium using the same, however this mission was not burdened with pressure of time and so the expedition returned with a total of 2320 c.u. of minor archeological findings to be sorted in the labs of Durban Station.
Performance data gathered during the run revealed that the Barger is having issues with the tracking matrix at short range. Though the emitters were spot on accurate at anything from 250m or further, distances of 100m or closer started to trigger painting errors. Audit advises that the maintenance crews look into this before further testing. Perhaps repositioning the emitters would make an easy fix.
With project Ceres having reached completion, it is now time to tackle the power management issue with Susurrus-2, which currently operates at a mere 10% output despite proper fueling.
AP Propulsion Lab reports that although swapping the stock CNO engines for the DT fueled APC Generators does not render much of a difficulty, the fusion core of the Badger will most certainly fail to compensate for the much higher regenerative feedback amplitude of the new engines. Implementing such changes without modification to the core itself would not only result in not gaining any improvement, but may even lead to a disastrous end to the very ship.
Dr. Cassistor's team is currently examining the core beds in an attempt to either outline compatibility adjustments or extract and replace it altogether. We are looking at several prospects, one of which would be applying the insights gained from working with an IRG Powercell procured by our friends. The Forlorn Hope. Though we might not be ready at this point to actually reverse-engineer a complete device like this, it might not even be necessary to do so - instead we would just copy parts of the ion damp-course matrix and rework the feedback relays on the stock core to fit the changes. Another approach would be to simply swap it for one of the refurbished Ageira devices otherwise utilized on C5 class transports. It will however take further simulations before a definite approach can be chosen.
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