Aspen's Logs and Notes

[Proselyte]

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Aspen Harlow
Logistical overview (provisional)

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Log start, ship status overview.

I must keep track of this myself now. No more Survey Corps flight-techs to lean on, and Zach, the greaseball, didn't leave very detailed records either. Unbelievable... of all things, I drop my guard with some gung-ho shipbreaker, and I'm not even the one that pays the price.

There is my due reward for taking the high road. Now, here I am.

So, best get on with it. Overview of the basics: weapons, propulsion, instruments, and powerplant are all operating nominally since previous servicing. The Fury 4 complement makes an effective deterrent and the stowed Grinder array doesn't experience any glitches after being hooked up by three different teams. The midship workshop amenities added a lot of mass, so it's been a teensy bit more sluggish, but I reckon I can part with them soon anyhow. The Dandelion's performing more or less equivalent to a Series D otherwise, which for an old YX Dromedary I gather is quite impressive, given technology marching on and all.

Now down to the reason why that's the case: Levan's special tune-up he ordered for the ship in March of 834. Mom would disown me if she sees what Baltimore's done to her pride and joy, but the routine work logs I perused indicate the following upgrades:

1. Obsolete nonstandard Ageira-derivative powerplant replaced by a Kress Industrial model to bring capacity in line with modern Series D.
   
2. Engine Control Unit optronic architecture modernized to handle newer and experimental drives.
   
3. Thick lead radiation shielding lining the cargo bay replaced by high-entropy alloy composite with lead sheet overlay, with several slots for additional protective sheet underlay inserts, given some lengthy dockyard service.
   
4. Streamlined power bus array connected to an emergency battery system. Notably isolated from shield and weapon systems to deter overloads, it still offers other critical systems with a useful power bank to fall back on. Good for jump-starts.
   
5. Ruggedized structural reinforcement in expectation of extreme gravitational and energy expenditure hazards, to maybe keep the hull in one piece when I bite off more than I can chew. (My favorite.)
   
6. Four total crew bunks set into the walls. One in the cockpit access corridor, two amidships, one in the aft compartment. Spartan, but tolerably so.
   
7. A co-pilot position, and uniquely for the ship model, a sensor officer console in the cockpit access corridor.
   
8. Really nice chairs, with folding footrests. True civilian comfort. (My second favorite.)
   

These bring it roughly in-line with a Dromedary you could find at the Freeport 6 auction today. Some of the utilities here set it apart for the work I do, but it's an older hull that's had many different hands on it, and I'm told putting too much stress on aging systems may start to result in quirks and malfunctions. Thus, further sweeping overhauls are out of the question.

Additional fittings acquired later include the following:

1. Equipment lockers in the passenger elevator compartment between midship and the cockpit access corridor. (Easy place to gather up my things.)
   
2. Atmospheric and geological survey scanner suite, accessible from the survey officer console.
   
3. Workshop amidships for maintaining drones, vehicles, devices. (No more use for this without a techie.)
   
4. Field research suite in aft compartment. (A bit cramped, move this to midship?)
   
5. Vehicle mountings in cargo bay: three magnetogravitic docks for hoverbikes.
   

I ever wish to add an ARAPSS package onto the list somewhere as a response to the many Baxter object variations I've encountered for raw data collection, but making it fit on such a small hull is apparently a daunting task, let alone an old ship on top of that. I do need those capabilities more than ever, so, it's worth denoting.

That should do it. Reminder to my future self to have this info re-indexed into a proper technical readout.






Oh, who am I kidding.

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