Wish us luck!

This fine lady...



...is Nahda, or rather will be. She'll be a disaster relief vessel, scheduled to have her keel laid in the new year (Illium year, a little way off still) at Echomire's yards, and slated for primary contract service to IBRS, Illium Partnership, Eclipse Fleet, and Polaris-Grumman Terminus. Not the biggest of her type ('light cruiser' is what they tell me, in terms of mass), but she'll be the latest search/rescue and medical technology wrapped in a new-generation hull, and (here comes the point) a little lobbying and sweet-talking has paid off with Envirometrics scoring a place in the RFP allocations just announced. Which in simple terms means we get to submit a full proposal for providing theatre environmental monitoring hardware for her mobile medbays (which, yes, is a tiny part of a huge project, but we're on the tiny side ourselves, so it's a big deal from where we sit). No guarantee we'll be chosen of course, but it's a closed RFP, only three companies (ourselves included) were selected for that particular contract, so that's something to be cheerful about already. And, tides willing, if we do score the job it'll go a long way towards making our finances look nice and healthy for a while, and maybe be an in to other ship-based contracts - I've gathered it's a pretty tough market to crack, so getting a seat at that table could pay off pretty well.

And that's it really, just thought I'd share the good news. :)

Good luck, Daia! I'm glad that your business is taking off. :D

Maybe next you can make specialty armor for emergency rescue? Or ATLAS-family mechs?

My, but it certainly is rather... vertical, isn't it? That's certainly going to keep it out of the docks rated for frigates and under... do you suppose that's intentional?

I wish you the best of luck, Daia, assuming of course a plurality of quality between your product and the nearest compeditor... even if you don't get it though, do keep an eye and heart open to followup offers. Don't be one of those companies that would deny a quality bio-bed just because they couldn't sell the custom power grid and airlocks.

Daia, of course I hope you get it! (and I certainly say, they would be fools to go with anything else!)
And now I know why Vale kept pushing out dinner date on and on. Preparing all of this must be quite the perfect pitch but knowing her I'd say you will have all the pearls alligned properly.

That's an interesting design indeed.

Thanks all. :)

We don't really have the manufacturing capabilities for armour (well, 'we' don't technically manufacture anything besides prototypes, but we've got a contract with a fabrication plant, you know how it is), and our sensors work best in enclosed spaces. (Connie, the omni-tool app, is a bit of an exception to that, but it's software, so it's the omni-tool doing the sensing work anyway.) Mechs are another tough market, they're quite insular - the core manufacturers keep it all in-house, so far as I've heard, buyers just take what's produced as-is, and third-party them on a case by case basis. There's a rumour going around that HK's going to be facing a serious challenge from Isah in the mech market here anyway - I do know for sure that the NAPD deployed some Isah-made mechs during the Scarletwood riots, rather than just pulling out the usual LOKIs, although there hasn't been any public unveiling, so I don't know if they're planning a replacement or what.

I don't know if they want to limit it out of smaller docks, I suppose it's probably just the appeal of an update on the classic Armali hull style. Our part of things, the mobile medbays, are being categorised as ancillary craft so we haven't got a whole package for the mothership anyway, just what we need for compatibility and integration. It's a variable configuration hull though, we do know that much, and it's not a warship so there's really no reason for it to have that other than landing.

(I'm not 100% sure how that'll work out, seems like half the interior volume would end up sideways if they swung it around the core to land flat, but I'm sure they've got something figured out.)

Oh heck no, we're nowhere near the kind of company that can turn down a customer - even if it turns out they just want some posters for the onboard rec room, we'll come up with something. :)

She did an amazing job - next time we've got the breathing room to do a little reshuffle I really want to give her some official title acknowledgement of all the top-level work she does, people see 'office manager' and think glorified secretary which is so unfair to her. She's earned a big slice of paid leave soon (I'll have to make sure we can spare her so she can go see the pildavi final in person, too).

I don't know a lot about ships and stuff, but best of luck!

Thanks Vindi! :) Truthfully, runabout-size craft aside, I didn't either until now - it's been quite a crash course. (Note to self, expression to avoid when talking to them about the ship.) Luckily our involvement if it pans out will be limited in terms of the starship tech we'll have to get up to speed on, but still, things like flight field pressure lines, repulsor backwash, delta-v compensation in the EPS grid... We've got a conference call set up for tomorrow with a couple of people on Rannoch our contacts there have rustled up for us - if anyone knows all about running clean-room-type tech on vessels, that'll be them.