Research and Development

## Technology and R&D

The Alliances' ability to wage war is primarily dependent upon the proper combination of troops, strength and the right application of resources. These resources include the technolgoies that are developed, begged for bought and stolen. These technologies can vary, from weapons and armor, to ships and medical breakthroughs. The Alliances' development arm is just as important as the army or navy, and it is through these that millions of lives are saved and freed from the tyranny of the Imperial war machine.

### **Acquisition of Technology**

The alliance has many ways of acquiring technology- none of which are easy or cheap. However the most common is acquisition through alliance and trade. Allies to the Rebellions' cause will sometimes donate the schematics and blueprints of various techs to the alliance in the interests of strengthening not only the rebellion but themselves as well. This is an example of a narrative acquisition.

Sometimes some more mercenary groups will offer to sell the schematics for a profit, this is the most common occurrence.

However- The Rebellions' fight against The Empire sometimes leads it to deprive its' enemy of particularly nasty or helpful pieces of technology. Certain missions will grant The Rebellion technologies just the same.

And finally, the Rebellion can deploy its' own scientists to conduct their own research and development, a method that is costly and time consuming, but will produce some of the most powerful gear and vehicles available. The mechanics of which will be touched upon later.

### **Building the Items**

In order to build items the Alliance must have "Build slots". Build slots are acquired through alliances with capable production companies, facilities within bases, and even the lending of said facilities from liberated and loyal worlds.

Build slots vary, however. Gear can only be built in Gear slots, Vehicles in Vehicle slots, Starfighters in starfighter slots and so on. On the mission select screen on roll20 there is a section that shows the total ammount of build slots and what is being built in each. A pog is placed in the slots, with a name-tag attached to it, this shows what is being built at any given time.

The available gear table shows how long it takes to build any particular piece of tech, in build points. Each slot generates 1 build point per day, however every week one engineer from any area may make an easy(1p) mechanics check. (As the engineer is following established blue prints and schematics.) Every success generated adds 1 build point to the progress made to whatever is being built. Multiple engineers may do this every week. Failures will set back the project equal to however many failures are generated.

THe difficulty of the check becomes a hard 3p check in the event of a supply shortage as mentioned in Taskforces and Supply

Advantage, Triumph, threat and despair are utilized in the following ways(TBC)

#### Alliance Can Currently Build

Below is a full list of all available gear, vehicles, and ships that The Alliance can build.

 Civilian Airspeeder
 Beast Hardpoint Harness

Escort Carrier
Gladiator Destroyer
Imperial Star Destroyer
Any Ground Target
TIE Fighter
 X-wing
TIE Bomber
Lambda Shuttle
ATST
ATAT
Star Destroyer
ATAA

TIE Interceptor
TIE Bomber
Star Destroyer

### **The Research Process**

Several factors go into the proper development of new gear, most of it requires in-depth discussion with the GM and quite a bit of compromise. However, if you can think of a piece of tech it can probably be built, within reason of course. This could be weapons, armor, vehicles and ships, this allows for home-brew gear to be created and legally available through an abstract system.

Step one is to take an existing item or vehicle, it can be anything you could want...next requires in-depth discussion with the GM, the exact modifactions and changes made to the item are so vast and so unknown that it is literally impossible to cover all possibilities here. Moreso- the item of interest could very easily be made completely from scratch or cover an area that is not even mechanically touched upon by any other thing ever.

However what the GM will work out with you is the following.

The individual heading up the research

The ammount of time it will take to come up with a working prototype

The ammount of credits it is predicted to take. (This could go higher or lower depending on circumstances.)

And the difficulty class of the item. The more in-depth and extreme the item might be from the norm, the more difficult it will be to figure out.

In a nutshell, the object is to- over the course of several weeks make research checks, you must roll the relevant skill based upon what is being built. This could be anything from Mechanics, Medicine, Knowledge(warfare) Knowledge(xenology) Computers and so on. The goal is to gather a certain amount of successes in order to succeed in the research and crack what you're looking for. Every week a certain amount of credits are also drained as a result of the research. The longer the research takes the more expensive the week-to-week costs will be.

#### **Step 1: The Positive Dice**

This is as simple as denoting the acting scientist, denoting the relevant skill and applying it to the positive dice pool. However, it is important to note that the acting scientist will not be available for any mission while they are researching for a week. Any assists from any other character will also tie the assistant up for a week.

#### **Step 2: The Negative Dice**

The negative dice come from the natural difficulties and problems that arise from any research process. It is comprised of purple and red die that can change depending on generated threat or despair. However the base difficulty is determined after discussion with the GM.

#### **Step 3: Boost and Setback Dice**

Boost and Setback dice can be applied based upon a few factors, such as the use of certain facilities, NPC assistance, or even results in some missions. Negative setback dice can come from those same sources, such as incompetent helpers, damaged or unreliable tools, and the use of threat on any checks.

#### **The Results**

Every success generated on a successful check fills up the progress stat by one. Progress varies depending on the tech being researched, but the general minimum is 10, and it could go as high as 50. After the roll is complete an ammount of credits equal to "Budget" is drained from the rebel savings.

On a failure the progress bar does not proceed, and the budget is still drained.

Research can be cancelled at any time and for any reason, and the scientist involved can immediately be reassigned to a new or existing project, lending their dice pool to the cause.

Every HERO character(non PC) that contributes to a research project every week gains a flat +5 exp.

Seen below are ways that Advantage, threat triumph and despair can be spent on Research checks. (TBC)