Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Kinematics]

The fusion abilities you were talking about are powerful enough to rate the more long term type research. After basic will be a training course comparable to typical training options.

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Wondered if I could get a bit of clarification on which 'typical' training options this refers to.

If I understand correctly, the basic Tandem Magic practice will proceed like this:

1) 1 month of 3 vet/2 cube research
2) 1 month of 3 vet/2 cube research. Complete.
3) 1 month of 6 vet (10%) 'new' training
4) No further upkeep unless it decays

Is this correct? Or would #3 be like the current upkeep for demon finding training and such, with 2.5 vet/0.5 green perpetual upkeep costs?

 

[Kinematics]

With the increase in upkeep costs this month, I went back to check the numbers to see how much value they were providing, and whether it was worthwhile to maintain them.

Overall, we have 27.5 meguca on jobs and upkeep — half of the entire organization. Jobs can't really be changed, but I did want to be sure about the upkeep.

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It fluctuates a tiny bit based on the exact org balance, but the Demon Finding Training is almost always virtually no gain over just spending the 3 units on direct hunting. The only tiny edge it has is that you're using 0.5 green instead of 0.5 vet for the last portion of it, giving you a net gain of maybe a quarter-unit out of 20 (ie: not enough to matter).

So, it gains us nothing, but we'd also gain nothing by dropping it, so might as well leave it as is (and there are thematic secondary effects that might apply, as well).


Pack Training could save about half a unit by being dropped, but that unit would be the 0.5 green, which doesn't have much value without at least another 0.5 green to pair it with somewhere. It also leaves us weaker against attacks by opponents that we aren't carefully controlling. Overall, not worth dropping it.


Other upkeep items provide more value relative to their meguca cost, so should all be kept.

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After that, we have 1/3 of the organization assigned to hunting. This is pretty much mandated by territory size, and is unlikely to ever really change as long as we're using pair-hunting tactics. If we ever managed to switch primarily to solo tactics (requiring about -8% more casualty protection), we could drop the ratio from 1/3 (33%) to 2/7 (28%), basically freeing up a 5% upkeep squad's worth of meguca. Given that we'd almost certainly have to pay such an upkeep squad to make it feasible, we're essentially locked at this percentage.

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That leaves about 1/6 (17%) of the organization for 'other' stuff. At least 3% of that will go to morale (1 day per month), leaving 14%.

Each research project will be about 5% (between 3% and 7%). If we can ever not need to constantly use those meguca for other things, we could get 2 research projects going.

My main concern is the long-term research projects, which we really need to get started on if we ever hope to benefit from them.

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This turn we don't have the option. We need the training and the house dealt with. If we push to get both retraining actions out of the way this turn, next turn we could squeeze two research projects in (along with the final try at Kaoru's training). Well, hopefully something we can move on to.

 

[Aranfan]

I think that it is important to try for Improved Rotating Tactics next turn.

I also strongly desire to translate and publish the manuals.

 

[Elder Haman]

To me the key take away here is that we need to grow bigger so that 1/6 not dedicated to survival is larger. Research becomes more and more plausible. I tend to think that we should spend half our currently free megucas on research, and the rest on diplomacy.

I would also point out that the Demon Finding Training is break even because it permits reducing the amount of girls exposed to the dangers of hunting. Because we have reduced that danger to an effective 0% we no longer get much benefit from it, but since it doesn't hurt, might as well keep it.

Pack Training gives us flexibility in how we organize our forces, as such I think we should continue it permanently.

 

[Kinematics]

I think that it is important to try for Improved Rotating Tactics next turn.

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Actually, I'm not so sure. Improved RT would get us more cubes out of our territory, but to actually get those cubes we'd have to invest even more in the number of hunters we have working. Given the strain on our meguca power, that actually makes things worse for us.

At present we can sustainably harvest about 80 cubes per turn, once we re-merge territories and sort that out. Our current cube costs are: 57 (upkeep) + 1 (demon forecasting) + 6 (10% to the stockpile) + 5 (approx buffer for grief spirals) = 69 cubes. That means we have a surplus of 11 cubes per turn that we can apply to Fun With Magic, Research, or whatever random thing we have to pay Kyuubey for. We really don't need any more right now.

 

[Elder Haman]

Also... why don't we drop the 1 Vet and 2 greens with normal jobs?

That will free up 3 Vets (as the 2 greens can move to courier work).

 

[Elder Haman]

@inverted_helix If we retrain this turn will the bonuses apply this turn? I never saw the answer to this question.

 

[Kinematics]

Also... why don't we drop the 1 Vet and 2 greens with normal jobs?

That will free up 3 Vets (as the 2 greens can move to courier work).

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Well, as it happens, money was the next thing on my list to review.

Current average worker income is $1522 per month (using next month's $9000 for the restaurant), or about $18,250 per year. Pretty good for a young teenage girl, but we really need to improve that. We have 18 workers, or 1/3 of the entire organization, making fast food wages (well, maybe a bit more, but ignoring taxes).

With the new house, the higher stipend, and the maintenance costs of the mopeds, our net income for the organization is going to be $2880 per month. Enough to pay for one research project that costs money, and one set of full kevlar. After that, we're back in the red.

We have enough in the bank that we're not in danger of going back into debt, but we're just not making enough to make any significant progress towards larger long-term objectives, such as major business operations, re-buying the Sakura church, owning our homes rather than renting, etc.

Even back when I thought we'd be making tons more money (before extra expenses got dropped in), we were still in a very slow climb upwards.

Need to figure out some way to move beyond this level.


Anyway, dropping the three workers who currently make $1000/month means our net income per month drops to 0 (negative, even). We don't want to do that.

If, however, we could legitimately move them into our courier or restaurant businesses, and get enough extra business to match the standard wages of those already in those jobs (ie: about $1500/month), we could either move the two greens to keep the same income per month and free up the vet, or move all 3 and gain another $1500/month.

 

[Kinematics]

@inverted_helix If we retrain this turn will the bonuses apply this turn? I never saw the answer to this question.

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He said they do.

Training can be assumed to apply that turn in general.

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[TheEyes]

Jobs can't really be changed,

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Also... why don't we drop the 1 Vet and 2 greens with normal jobs?

That will free up 3 Vets (as the 2 greens can move to courier work).

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You know, that brings up a good point. @inverted_helix, back before the water poisoning incident our courier business was making $1,500 per meguca (6 meguca making $9000), but as of this update we have 8 couriers working an expanded area, and yet despite the business being "fully recovered" to the point we're turning people away, we are only making $8000, or $1000/meguca which is exactly the same cash-per-person as the ones working regular day jobs.

 

[TheEyes]

Even back when I thought we'd be making tons more money (before extra expenses got dropped in), we were still in a very slow climb upwards.

Need to figure out some way to move beyond this level.

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I'm not sure we're going to really get much farther there until the girls are out of school and can work full-time. For some, that should be ~12ish more turns, unless we opt for college, in which case we're talking ~60 turns at least.

 

[Kinematics]

You know, that brings up a good point. @inverted_helix, back before the water poisoning incident our courier business was making $1,500 per meguca (6 meguca making $9000), but as of this update we have 8 couriers working an expanded area, and yet despite the business being "fully recovered" to the point we're turning people away, we are only making $8000, or $1000/meguca which is exactly the same cash-per-person as the ones working regular day jobs.

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Note that he lists the two areas separately for income: $8000 from Mitakihara and $4400 from Kasamino, for a total of $12,400. With 8 couriers, that's $1550 each. More money in absolute terms, but per-worker has hardly changed.

 

[Elder Haman]

You know, that brings up a good point. @inverted_helix, back before the water poisoning incident our courier business was making $1,500 per meguca (6 meguca making $9000), but as of this update we have 8 couriers working an expanded area, and yet despite the business being "fully recovered" to the point we're turning people away, we are only making $8000, or $1000/meguca which is exactly the same cash-per-person as the ones working regular day jobs.

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Umm.... the 8 meguca in the courier business are making $12,400

 

[Aranfan]

Actually, I'm not so sure. Improved RT would get us more cubes out of our territory, but to actually get those cubes we'd have to invest even more in the number of hunters we have working. Given the strain on our meguca power, that actually makes things worse for us.

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That depends actually. If Improved RT changes the multiplier from .66 to .60, wouldn't that increase the number of cubes we can get for the same meguca cost?

 

[Elder Haman]

Well, as it happens, money was the next thing on my list to review.

Current average worker income is $1522 per month (using next month's $9000 for the restaurant), or about $18,250 per year. Pretty good for a young teenage girl, but we really need to improve that. We have 18 workers, or 1/3 of the entire organization, making fast food wages (well, maybe a bit more, but ignoring taxes).

With the new house, the higher stipend, and the maintenance costs of the mopeds, our net income for the organization is going to be $2880 per month. Enough to pay for one research project that costs money, and one set of full kevlar. After that, we're back in the red.

We have enough in the bank that we're not in danger of going back into debt, but we're just not making enough to make any significant progress towards larger long-term objectives, such as major business operations, re-buying the Sakura church, owning our homes rather than renting, etc.

Even back when I thought we'd be making tons more money (before extra expenses got dropped in), we were still in a very slow climb upwards.

Need to figure out some way to move beyond this level.


Anyway, dropping the three workers who currently make $1000/month means our net income per month drops to 0 (negative, even). We don't want to do that.

If, however, we could legitimately move them into our courier or restaurant businesses, and get enough extra business to match the standard wages of those already in those jobs (ie: about $1500/month), we could either move the two greens to keep the same income per month and free up the vet, or move all 3 and gain another $1500/month.

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I think we should hold off on the mopeds then.

Instead lets drop 1 vet and 1 green from their jobs and use them to try and expand the courier business into Seto's area.

 

[Kinematics]

That depends actually. If Improved RT changes the multiplier from .66 to .60, wouldn't that increase the number of cubes we can get for the same meguca cost?

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No. The cubes we get are fixed by other factors. Pair vets would get 1.5 (vet) * 1.6 (pair) * 1.5 (dispatch) * 1.1 (kyuubey) = 3.96 cubes each. Demon strength has absolutely no effect. RT only figures out how much DS changes based on how many cubes you harvested.

 

[Aranfan]

No. The cubes we get are fixed by other factors. Pair vets would get 1.5 (vet) * 1.6 (pair) * 1.5 (dispatch) * 1.1 (kyuubey) = 3.96 cubes each. Demon strength has absolutely no effect. RT only figures out how much DS changes based on how many cubes you harvested.

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So Improved RT would lower the amount we could get on the downswing, if we didn't increase the people assigned?

Edit: Couldn't we use elites for hunting too though?

 

[TheEyes]

Note that he lists the two areas separately for income: $8000 from Mitakihara and $4400 from Kasamino, for a total of $12,400. With 8 couriers, that's $1550 each. More money in absolute terms, but per-worker has hardly changed.

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Oh, duh, stopped reading halfway down. My bad.

Anyway, given area 9 and the fact that we're turning away business from our current territory, it seems reasonable that we could pull one of our $1000/month meguca off of their job and transfer to the courier business, get the other two to quit, and use the extra meguca-power for more training/morale actions this month. Research, IMO, can wait until we're out of cube-debt to kyuubey next month, and morale is as low as it was when we first started so that needs to improve.

No. The cubes we get are fixed by other factors. Pair vets would get 1.5 (vet) * 1.6 (pair) * 1.5 (dispatch) * 1.1 (kyuubey) = 3.96 cubes each. Demon strength has absolutely no effect. RT only figures out how much DS changes based on how many cubes you harvested.

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That all depends on what Improved RT ultimately does. We'll need to do the research and find out. Maybe it boosts both the meguca-efficiency and the territory-efficiency of cube-farming; we won't know until we put the time and effort into research.

One thing that would be interesting is that successfully researching Advanced Combat Tactics should also have a beneficial impact on Improved RT, since it will give our meguca a larger range of tactics to rotate between, thus increasing the amount of time before a demon sees a tactic that killed another demon in its area.

 

[Aranfan]

Also, just because we have improved RT, doesn't mean we have to use it if would be harmful to do so, given megucapower constraints. If it does prove deleterious without increased megucapower, then we can just use the x*.66 version.

 

[Kinematics]

So Improved RT would lower the amount we could get on the downswing, if we didn't increase the people assigned?

Edit: Couldn't we use elites for hunting too though?

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Suppose I take a split territory of 32 capacity per side (to make it easy to balance), and RT hunt to DS+10. I'll use more-accurate-than-allowed hunting units to show exactly what happens, and keep it solely to vet pairs.

N: 0 -> 10, RT:0.66 — 14.20 vets
S: 10 -> 0, no RT — 4.05 vets

Total hunters: 18.25
Total cubes: 72.2

Now with a reduced RT ratio:

N: 0 -> 10, RT:0.60 — 14.80 vets
S: 10 -> 0, no RT — 4.05 vets

Total hunters: 18.85
Total cubes: 74.6


So dropping to 0.60 RT ratio gains 2.4 cubes at the cost of assigning an extra 0.6 vets (where 0.6 * 3.96 = 2.38 cubes). The extra cubes are exactly what you'd expect from assigning the extra hunters; the RT just gives you more room in which to assign those hunters without going over your target DS.

Edit: Fixed bad addition

 

[Kinematics]

So Improved RT would lower the amount we could get on the downswing, if we didn't increase the people assigned?

Edit: Couldn't we use elites for hunting too though?

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And, because I didn't quite answer your question in the above example:

If we decrease the RT ratio to 0.6 but do not increase the number of hunters on the upswing, we end up with:

N: 0 -> 9.1, RT:0.60 — 14.20 vets
S: 9.1 -> 0, no RT — 4.40 vets

Total hunters: 18.60
Total cubes: 73.6

In this case, you increase the number of hunters by 0.35, and the number of harvested cubes by 1.4 (where 0.35 * 3.96 = 1.386). Again, no savings in meguca power relative to the number of cubes harvested, only the final DS and casualty risks.

 

[Aranfan]

Interesting, and how do elites figure into this? IIRC they can solo hunt safely and we've used them for this sort of thing in the past.

 

[Kinematics]

That all depends on what Improved RT ultimately does. We'll need to do the research and find out. Maybe it boosts both the meguca-efficiency and the territory-efficiency of cube-farming; we won't know until we put the time and effort into research.

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Certainly, though we can't assume so at this point.

Anyway, given area 9 and the fact that we're turning away business from our current territory, it seems reasonable that we could pull one of our $1000/month meguca off of their job and transfer to the courier business, get the other two to quit, and use the extra meguca-power for more training/morale actions this month.

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Need to find out from @inverted_helix how many people we can move into our existing businesses. We probably still have room to grow Kasamino before we need to consider expanding into Fujinomiya (as Haman suggested). And we likely have space for at least one more worker in the restaurant.

If we do have space to move all three into our businesses, we still have the option of having them quit their jobs this turn and use the meguca power for other things (such as the morale action), and then put them in their new jobs next turn.

Research, IMO, can wait until we're out of cube-debt to kyuubey next month, and morale is as low as it was when we first started so that needs to improve.

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Yeah, research was waiting til next turn. If we can do the job shuffling, above, and get the second morale day along with the other plans, that'd be great.

Interesting, and how do elites figure into this? IIRC they can solo hunt safely and we've used them for this sort of thing in the past.

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No real difference, except how many cubes each harvests per turn.

 

[TheEyes]

Interesting, and how do elites figure into this? IIRC they can solo hunt safely and we've used them for this sort of thing in the past.

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Using elites doesn't change things; the point that @Kinematics is making is that, if the only thing that Improved RT does is reduce the DS modifier for overhunting, then all you will ever improve is the territory-efficiency of hunting, and not the meguca-efficiency. We need to actually boost both, especially in the long-term interest of keeping the Incubators from deciding this whole "letting meguca live for more than a few months" deal is not working out for their efficiency goals, and start murdering our long-lived non-Legendaries (if and when we get one/some) and mindwiping the Legendaries.

 

[Kinematics]

I think we should hold off on the mopeds then.

Instead lets drop 1 vet and 1 green from their jobs and use them to try and expand the courier business into Seto's area.

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Hmm. Would the mobility bonus on the mopeds act as a multiplier for hunting harvests, if all the hunters had one? I know the bikes say they have a mobility bonus, but I have no idea what it applies to.

If the mopeds gave even a 10% bonus, and even only giving them to the vets, that would free up 1 or 1.5 vets (the 0.5 vet would be hard to free from the rural area) after the merge. One extra person free to work would pay for the upkeep costs (20 mopeds would be $1000/month), so it'd be a net win.

The primary cost would be the initial purchase. 20 mopeds would be $24,000.

We'd be looking at potentially 14 mopeds for hunters (excluding elites), and 6 for the couriers. And then there's the possibility of getting a couple for the restaurant, for a delivery service. We could probably add to our income by putting a couple people on that. Then there's the ones we want for if we look into the nomad territory.

I could see a target of 25 mopeds, easily; maybe 30. Might be able to shuffle them around, though, if most of the hunting is not during business hours (so, for example, couriers get them during the day, hunters get them at night). If that's the case, we can get away with about 20 total.


If we can shuffle things around a bit, we have options for:

3 solo workers that quit their job this turn (to use for other actions), then get placed in courier or restaurant jobs next turn, increasing their income from $1000/month to $1500/month. Net +$1500/month.

8 to (possibly) 10 couriers switching from bicycles to mopeds. Will this improve the business's income? A 10% bonus to $12k-$15k per month would be another $1200-$1500.

If the mopeds improve the harvest rate, we can go from 15 vets to 14, freeing up a meguca unit.

Pending @inverted_helix confirming, we could potentially net about +1 vet and +$2000 per month if we spring for the mopeds. They'd end up paying for themselves in about a year.

Hopefully they would actually benefit us in measurable ways; if so, I'd like to maintain the effort to purchase them. However if they end up being nothing more than noisy bicycles, I guess they can be dropped.

 

[Elder Haman]

I'm missing something. We had a total of -15% bonuses for pair hunting prior to wearing armor. But now when I add it up it's 14%.

What am I missing?