Project Damocles 4th Edition
I have run the Project Damocles three times, once with Second Edition and twice with Third Edition rules. Now I am planning to run it a forth time under the new rules. I have redesigned and detailed the original facility twice and have never been truly happy with it. This time I plan to use a real underground facility that lies abandoned by the USAF, the 850th SMW Titan I Launch Site A. The Titan I launch facilities were the largest and had the shortest service life of all ICBM facilities, being deactivated in the mid 1960's. It was a massive facility interconnecting three silo complexes with a twin antenna complex. two massive dooms structures at and over 100-feet in diameter, as well as support tunnels and other underground structures. It is very easy to see how this complex could be taken over as a underground D.A.R.P.A. research facility. There are no longer any military installations in the upper peninsula of Mich. so the reason for having the facility there makes no sense. This site is actually visible on Google Maps just off the I-90 Freeway east of Rapid City SD (Ellsworth AFB), find the 171st Ave Exit and follow the 171st North about a mile and a quarter there is a dead end road heading east, this leads to Launch site alpha complex, look on satellite view and you can pick out the features. Doing an image search has given me dozens of line drawings and pictures of the interior of the tunnels which are great for building the feel for where the players are at I placed the Fusion Reactor Development project at the bottom of one silo with the old liquid oxygen tank serving as a liquid Deuterium storage giving an explanation of why the reactor has stayed fueled for 150+ years and giving the players a possible way to refuel their fusion reactors and packs should it become necessary. I put Damocles in another silo complex along with robotic research, modified the antenna complex so that one is a high gain trainable satellite antenna and the other is a phased array radar. The top of the Damocles silo has a bunker with an elevator that leads down to floors in the silo where the SU and MDU are stored. The remaining silo can be used for anything or nothing, I had the idea to use it for a future adventure where the team must find the components of and transport, prepare and launch of a Delta IV rocket to launch a satellite using the third silo.
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