Duchess Industries

[eyvind]

Ah, a well slept night clears the mind. I have a few more nitpciks and requests for clarification!

First and foremost, be more punctual. Don't get me wrong, the draft has given at least superficial thought on anything. It's just hard to read and essential information needs to formatted (either using formatting tools or rewriting paragraphs) to be more easily viewable.

I blame the forum software, mostly. I originally had this in several very nicely formatted OpenOffice.org documents but was forced to mash them together and use BBCode for posting here. My DI minions and I are currently working on converting the most crucial of this information into Google Docs (such as the diplomacy charts, which I linked to).

how do you make money?

Primary trading and mining.

where do you operate?

Primarily anywhere DSE operates.

What is your ZOI? Which systems, which bases? Do you have a ZOI? If yes, does it consist only of your main offices or also liaisons?

Our Zone of Influence is primarily only Liberty, at least directly. Our Zone of Interest is most of Sirius. (Factions around here don't all use it the same way. In my opinion, Area of Operations is more useful.)

It is not particularly simple defining a clear Area of Operations for DSE. DSE is responsible for all Gate/Lane construction outside Gallia. This leads to DSE being present in any system with lanes or gates.

DSE is also a space exploration and mining corporation(at least where the two coincide). However, mining operations are limited to Liberty where no other significant faction has conflicting interests. As far as I know, Coronado is the first exception to this.

Does having an office on a base make it your ZOI? If so, do your relations conflict with Liberty relations? If so, do you hi-jack the base and hostiles can't land? Can the unfriendlies? If not, are your bases no-fire zones or can you engage?

DI is as patriotic as any Libertonian corporation. We run the Kusari blockade to Bretonia given the chance, for example, and we tend to use our freedom of movement to the greater benefit of Liberty.

If we have an office on a base, the owning faction will have allowed to use to have it there. In most cases, the office will be very limited with very few DI employees. I will be diplomatizing for all those offices as soon as I am able. So far I have only had a chance to arrange for the Gateway office, and you can expect most arrangements to be similar. There won't be any hijacking of bases from liaison offices any more than countries hijack other countries through their embassies.

Our bases do not have no-fire zones. We engage hostiles if given reason to.

Where do you engineer? Where do you transfer freight? From whom and to whom do you transfer it? What are the types of freight you transfer?

We engineer on construction sites. We maintain gates and trade lanes. We build ships. We build equipment.

We transfer freight primarily between our bases, allied bases, and construction sites. We also do plenty of trade between any bases that allow us to, if it is profitable for us and in accordance with our interests.

We primarily move cargo needed by or produced by our bases. Robotic Components, Gate/Lane Parts, materials, and so on. We engage in other trade as well, occasionally, but our ships aren't designed for all types of cargo. Passengers wouldn't be particularly comfortable in most of our ships, for example.

Where do you mine? Do you have your own fields? Are you allowed to intentionally mine at other corporations' fields? If yes, are you evasive or hostile? Will you attempt hostile takeovers of enemy corporations' fields? If not, where are you going to apply for fields of your own?

In Liberty, DSE is the only significant mining corporation. We mine Silver and Copper in Liberty, for example, and no one will challenge us for it.

It would be very difficult for us to expand mining operations to other houses, considering politics and the presence of native corporations with conflicting interests. Expansion is, of course, often in the interest of corporations, so if we see an opportunity, we will take it.

Some factions (e.g.) Junkers don't "own" fields. Will you mine those fields? Will you leave when asked to do so? If not, will you evade hostilities? If not, why aren't e.g. Junkers unfriendly to begin with?

Junkers are unfriendly toward all Liberty corporations, but Junkers have not yet given DI any reason to extend anything but neutrality towards them. We have no interest in scrap and waste fields, but if we did, I'm sure we would be plenty at odds with the Junkers.

How do you handle diplomacy? Will you attempt peaceful resolve or defend your corporate interests? Is your faction a power hungry or a peaceful one? What exactly are DI corporate interests, which in your COC override your normally evasive behaviour?

Only vague principals can hold for diplomacy in general. I coudn't tell you how we would deal any particular type of diplomacy until we begin dealing with it. The same more or less holds true for interests. If something benefits DI in some way, it is in the DI interest. If it benefits Liberty in some way, it is also in DI interest.

Beyond that, it is a matter of balance between good diplomatic relations and corporate/house well-being. In many cases it will be a matter of chance and risk that governs what actions DI takes, while in other cases it will be much more straight-forward.

Give me specific questions and I may be more able to answer.

What constitutes research? Where does it happen? What cargo do the scientists carry? How big is your scientist wing supposed to be? How is it financed?

I find this question quite strange. Research is research and is done wherever possible. Scientists carry whatever they need to do the research. Our scientists are of course paid by the corporation, and their research financed by corporate income, just like any other part of the corporation.

Maybe you should be more specific here too?


(Double posting. Quoting limit and all.)

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<span style="font-family:Agency FB">Good Morning!</span>