You never made any mention of future-month effects. Just making sure that's given due consideration.
--
Based on what we know of city populations and meguca group rankings, HC can't have more than about 350 meguca, most likely isn't higher than 300 meguca, and might have just 250 meguca. Probably has more than 200 meguca, though.
Putting in some basic numbers for that, and assuming 5 elites used for hunting (33 cubes @6.6 each), with vets harvesting 3.96 cubes each (pair hunting, no teleport tech, no experience bonus), they'd need somewhere between 55 and 75 vets hunting. They'd need 15 on dispatch, probably 15 on training, and 10 on communications, using a setup roughly similar to ours. Probably have between 35% and 40% of their population assigned to hunting.
Between 50 and 90 are needed on jobs to cover a spartan lifestyle (20%-30%), given the indications that they're not terribly well off. Then a bunch are needed for patrols and defenses; I'd guess at least 10% there.
Altogether, that's 65% to 80%. Then add in training, anything for morale, research, and probably a standby force in case of actual fights breaking out. I'm sure they could make room for the hunting offer, but I'd seriously question anything that would assume more than perhaps a dozen girls (~5%). *(Unless they're explicitly not hunting their own territory.)
At the same time, I'd guess that they'd keep the same pack requirement restriction as the Coalition had. Even if HC is a lot more friendly, Hiko is also very protective of those under her. If she was paranoid about Mami attacking her in her strongly defended home territory, she'll be paranoid about sending girls to remote regions as well. (And for someone her age, paranoia is probably a prerequisite for anything she does.)
So, most of the fusion ideas shot down. Also not sure of the effectiveness of clairvoyance+illusion (for the remote copy of the fight), depending on how they locate the demons calling for help.
While we might want to develop other stuff, for the focus on dealing with Tokyo, we pretty much only have a single fusion effect to work on — barrier/teleporter. Maybe clairvoyant/healer for remote healing, allowing the support troops to provide assistance from well outside the fight range.
Hmm.. Actually, support from range could actually be useful.
Clairvoyant/healing
Clairvoyant/barrier (probably not effective enough to bother with)
Clairvoyant/illusion
Illusions for distractions, and healing so that injuries can be dealt with without using up time by those actually in the fight (eg: Lita). The healing sounds useful enough to make Serena's group substantially safe even in rougher fights, mitigating any need for a vet team on-site backup.
Oooh. Also:
Clairvoyant/telepath — Communications with Serena's team without needing to stay right on the edge of her aura, whether or not she's in a miasma. That fixes a lot of our logistical problems. This may be worth using a second Taura action on if the first attempt fails.
This assumes we can get the charms working immediately (charms are a free action), or very quickly (eg: a 1 month research adaptation, and build the charms at the start of next month).
Unfortunately, they only have two actual named powers — healing and barrier — and fusion magic is horribly slow, so not useful in combat like that anyway. Unless you mean in a charm, but I don't think we've been able to put anything except named powers into charms, nor been able to mix anything but named powers regardless.
Is it worth investigating whether or not it's possible to charge a charm with Serena's aura? Like a battery or capacitor or something, that could be used in other things?
Is it worth investigating whether or not it's possible to charge a charm with Serena's aura? Like a battery or capacitor or something, that could be used in other things?
That's something we've thought about, but for now is just outside our capabilities. Her aura is an entirely different type of magic effect than anything else we've dealt with, and we have no idea how to reproduce or contain it.
Welp, I just realized something. When I originally constructed my plan I wasn't aware of the basic training taking 3 months. Doing green hunting on the downswing next turn will thus require a significant amount of armor, which we really can't afford.
As such I think I'm going to have to abandon my plan. I still think we need to try to harvest in the newly cleared Tokyo area though.
Whiteboard time. Too many things being considered, and have to work out where things can be moved around.
Applications (+2 vets, +39 greens)
Applicant (1 vet): Already accepted at the beginning of the month.
Refugees (1 vet, 39 greens): Accept. They can't be involved in the ongoing fight in Tokyo, but we can put them to work in other areas of our organization, and start work on training them.
** Everyone seems on board with accepting all of them, but I'm not sure where the foster plan stands, given the designs for using large numbers of greens for hunting to free up vets.
** Several hunting plans being thrown around, so this could easily change. The above is the single RT plan with greens, to get a middle-of-the-road meguca total. Current totals leave 1 free elite, which could be a Kyouclone hunting Tokyo, maybe, for another 7 cubes.
Support (8.5 vets)
3 vets on demon finding training (+20% grief cubes)
2 vets on dispatch service (+30% grief cubes additive with demon finding, -1% casualties)
2 vets on telepathic communication (-2% pair hunting, -1% pack hunting)
1.5 vet, Paperpushing
** Standard stuff.
Jobs (8 vets, 11 greens, 1 associate)
1 Vet (Hainako) Translation service
3 Vets, 6 Greens working courier business (Minimum 3 vets)
1 Akeno Delivery
2 Vets (Akane), 3 Green, 1 Associate - Restaurant (Minimum 2 vets)
1 Vets, 2 Greens - Restaurant delivery
** Rearranged existing jobs to fit in as many of the new greens as possible (swapped in 5).
Morale (2.0 vets, 2.0 greens, $2000)
Mixer day - Lots of time with people getting to know each other. Pick up some board games and card games.
General training - With the new immigrants, you need some time to get them all up to speed on your procedures and tactics.
Cost: 3 vets, 13 greens. 3 months.
Month 1
Training: 2.5 Serena's Team - Get the new girls adapted as well as possible to being in Serena's aura, so that they're not a liability when Serena fights.
Fusion casting training: At present with the difficulties involved this is less assured then other forms of training. 1 veteran/elite + 1 GCU per pair to be trained. Base success chance ~75% subject to modifiers.
- 3x Teleport/Barrier (0.5 Seto, 2.5 vets, 3 cubes)
-- One (non-Seto) group work on projecting a remote barrier
- 1x Telepath/barrier (0.5 Taura, 0.5 vet, 1 cube)
-- Attempt to nullify telepathic communications made by a target
- 1x Clairvoyant/telepath (0.5 Taya, 0.5 Taura, 1 cube)
-- Remote telepathic communications, whereever the clairvoyant can perceive
- 1x Clairvoyant/healing (1.0 vet, 1 cubes)
-- Remote healing, whereever a clairvoyant can perceive
** Given the recent comments, putting the attempt to get a telepathy barrier back in. Going to be running Taura ragged on the fusion training for a bit, I think. Given the need for trust, that's going to be an interesting venture. General training for the refugees is already priced, and the new girls in Serena's group will need some time to adapt.
Research (3 vets, 2 cubes)
Research: Further refine the teleport barrier.
With your general lack of understanding of the underlying mechanics this is trickier than you'd like. Your only resort is essentially brute force pitting the teleport barrier against a teleporter and trying different things and hoping for the best.
Cost: 3 Vets, 2 GCU; Chance of Success: low
** Don't know if the charm production will need a research action. *(It won't.) Any refinements on the teleport barrier is an unknown, and I mostly threw it in because the initial description on developing it didn't feel like it was entirely complete.
Production
Creating charms.
** No idea if we'll be able to this month. Actually, almost certainly not, because we have to finish the training before we can do any production, regardless of charm research. Might be able to get a little bit from the two vets that managed the first fusion work.
Diplomacy (1.0 Mami, 3.0 vets)
Discussions with Nagoya: Suggest that they can withdraw some/most of their forces for this month, as we will need time to evaluate the results of the previous month, and solidify plans for the next phase.
Gossipmonger (2.0 vets, $xxxx):
- Keep in contact with the Tokyo natives. Review the impact of recent activities on their situation, as well as keeping track of how things go over this month. Extend contract time of the burner phones, if possible. (cost?)
- Discuss the current situation with all the surrounding area's groups that we're in contact with (15/16, Kofu, The Magick Company, The Enlightened, The Sendai Queendom, and any other known minor groups). Try to get a handle on how they're dealing with any Tokyo emmigrants, whether they're absorbing them or letting them pass through (or even in conflict with them, though it's less likely we'd get that info), and if passing through, get an idea of how large a population is spreading out through Japan, and the degree of impact it's likely to have. For those that we've given hunting info to, make sure that their increased support capacity is proving adequate.
Heaven's Chosen: (1 Mami) Further discussions with Hiko about what we can offer that we think could be of use to them, and our own needs with respect to our goals of stabilizing the Tokyo region. Attempt to negotiate a trade for the teleportation interdiction tech. (See other notes)
Discuss with the Magick Company (1 vet): Do they handle loans for magical girl enterprises? While we could get a loan from a normal bank, we wouldn't mind giving preference to a magical girl business instead. If viable, see what their offers are. If not, seek out a standard bank loan instead, for opening a new restaurant branch ($500k+$100k for village refurbishment).
** A bit of a mess of things thrown together, and probably bad cost assignments. Already noted that I'm not sure whether we're continuing on the foster care, but we do at least need to find out the status of other nearby groups, if they're getting hit with immigrants as well. Also, need to extend the burner phone contract times, if we want to maintain contact with the Tokyo girls.
Tokyo (3.5 Serena's Team, 0.5 elite, 5 vets)
Scouting: (0.5 Taya, 1 clairvoyant, 1 teleporter) Observation of the Tokyo youma situation from various observation posts. Evaluate new or reverting behavior, movement patterns, etc.
Analysis: (3 vets) Thorough, fine-toothed review of every scrap of data acquired from the month of hunting youma in Tokyo. Review of tactics' effectiveness, responses, reaction times, behavior patterns, communication ranges, power ranges, etc.
** Very uncertain of how we're proceeding on the Tokyo situation, so this is another mess. Put in the analysis and scouting time, though.
Monetary Matters (5 vets, 4 greens, $24,200)
Pay for welcome packages for the refugees ($250 x 40 = $10,000)
Acquire apartments for the refugees (2 vets, $12,000 for 48 capacity)
Purchase 2 bulletproof vests and 1 set of kevlar clothing from Nagoya ($2,200) [brings totals to 30/30]
Pet Whisperer (1.0 Nagisa): Now that Nagisa has her basic certification, she needs to actually get some experience. Spend the month volunteering at pet shelters and such to help gain experience and reputation.
Restaurant search (2 vets): Search out locations and buildings for opening a second branch of our restaurant. Provided details support attempt to acquire a loan.
Job search: 4 greens
** Lot of expenses here, before even counting the increased upkeeps. ** Added leftover greens from my current total to job hunts, though three could be used to train one up to vet. However our current money deficit needs to be worked on, so jobs it is. Also put in the Nagisa training period, and the search for the new restaurant location.
@inverted_helix - How much fussiness will there be with the fusion training bookkeeping? For example, if Taura trains with Taya, does that mean Taura can now only do telepath/clairvoyant fusion with Taya; do telepath/clairvoyant fusion with any trained clairvoyant; or do fusion magic with any other trained meguca?
** Given the recent comments, putting the attempt to get a telepathy barrier back in. Going to be running Taura ragged on the fusion training for a bit, I think. Given the need for trust, that's going to be an interesting venture. General training for the refugees is already priced, and the new girls in Serena's group will need some time to adapt.
Bearing in mind that 1 month "not a liability" is probably the best you're going to get out of them.
Also so the 75% subject to modifiers was very intentional on the fusion training. When attempting a new creation you can expect a negative modifier (varying dependent on how tricky it is), and same if they're explicitly not very trusted (Taura to most people for instance).
There are possibly more than one result to some combinations, it's up to your goals when you're shaping the magic. The reason teleport + barrier resulted in a barrier to teleportation is because that's what they were trying for. They could likely have also produced a long range projected barrier.
This is going to end up a bit of a bookkeeping nightmare for me but I plan on some reasonable simplifications. Namely that once a pair is trained in fusion casting together, you can expect that they will automatically learn for free any new versions of magic you develop that utilize those two types, but you'll have to spend a fusion training action to attempt to develop each new type. Also right now outside of Taura and Keiko your core group is pretty much all reasonably trusting of each other as a result of how you've steadily worked to keep your group well integrated. They may not all be good friends with each other (since most people only keep a few good friends), but they all know each other has their backs no matter what.
** Don't know if the charm production will need a research action. Any refinements on the teleport barrier is an unknown, and I mostly threw it in because the initial description on developing it didn't feel like it was entirely complete.
Currently I'm thinking that crafting fusion charms will be available without a research action but costing twice as much as the tandem charms to account for even higher failure chance. Also they will need 1/4 the price a month in maintenance fee beyond the month they were created in to prevent them breaking down.
So it would look like this:
Charm Production:
100 basic charms for .5 meguca + .2 GCU
100 Tandem charms for 1.5 meguca + .6 GCU
100 Fusion Charms for 3 meguca + 1.2 GCU (1/4 that cost per month beyond first to maintain)
@inverted_helix - How much fussiness will there be with the fusion training bookkeeping? For example, if Taura trains with Taya, does that mean Taura can now only do telepath/clairvoyant fusion with Taya; do telepath/clairvoyant fusion with any trained clairvoyant; or do fusion magic with any other trained meguca?
This is a tricky question in terms of balancing bookkeeping. I'm going to say that for now it will be the most stringent level. You do have the dependency removal research to make it easier after all. I'll also probably relax it to the second level automatically after a couple turns as a sort of benefit of practice. The dependency research would be required to push it down to the third level.
Currently thinking this will be:
With your general lack of understanding of the underlying mechanics this is trickier than you'd like. Your only resort is essentially brute force pitting the teleport barrier against a teleporter and trying different things and hoping for the best.
Cost: 3 Vets, 2 GCU; Chance of Success: low
Can this be done with only 0.5 Seto? I thought it required a full Seto...
Also, I prefer the hunting plan to not over hunt at all using 22 greens, and 5 vets.
But that is because I want to do more in Tokyo, and so need that extra power there.
Additionally, with that many greens hunting I think there is high likelihood that 4 or 5 of them will become vets.
And then I think we really ought to have a trade deal with HC for hiring vets. I think it's a reasonable offer to make, as it leverages our specialty, and addresses multiple possible concerns of HC.
Training: 1.0 Serena's Team - Get the new girls adapted as well as possible to being in Serena's aura, so that they're not a liability when Serena fights.
While I agree that training is needed, I also want Serena to be deployed around Tokyo. Even if not heavily committed, at least bluffing demons, trying to keep them out of the area we have already cleared. I figure they can be on call, and spend their time training unless a youma tries to enter the cleared area.
Fusion casting training: At present with the difficulties involved this is less assured then other forms of training. 1 veteran/elite + 1 GCU per pair to be trained. Base success chance ~75% subject to modifiers.
[] 4x Teleport/Barrier (0.5 Seto, 3.5 vets, 4 cubes)
[] 2x Clairvoyant/healing (2.0 vet, 2 cubes)
[] 1x Telepath/barrier (0.5 Taura, 0.5 vet, 1 cube)
[] 1x Clairvoyant/telepath (0.5 Taya, 0.5 Taura, 1 cube)
Clairvoyant/barrier could also be useful to deploy a shield remotely in a fight that is being observed. (Teleporter/barrier should also be able to do this I guess).
In fact Telepath/barrier should also be able to do that, maybe, if the focus is around a specific girl.
** No idea if we'll be able to this month. Actually, almost certainly not, because we have to finish the training before we can do any production, regardless of charm research. Might be able to get a little bit from the two vets that managed the first fusion work.
Heaven's Chosen: (1 Mami, 2 vets) Further discussions with Hiko about what we can offer that we think could be of use to them, and our own needs with respect to our goals of stabilizing the Tokyo region. Attempt to negotiate a trade for the teleportation interdiction tech. (See other notes)
Foster Care: (3 vets) Communicate with the various groups that we are in contact with to determine who has had to deal with refugees from Tokyo. For those who have, make sure they're OK with handling whoever ended up there (particularly since we've been giving out info on how to increase their hunting capacity), and get an idea of the effect the refugees are having. For those who have not, see if any of them are capable of and willing to foster some additional greens, as our own resources cannot quite cope with the numbers in the long term. Note that we are providing them with training in the meantime. Contact: Sendai (check-in only, no fostering); Niigata and Nagano groups; Kofu democracy; 15/16 next door; the Coalition; 13 and 14 as independent checks; and Nagoya regarding their vassals in general.
I think this is a mistake to roll it up inbto one action. We should approach each organization individually, as they are each likely to have different requirements. Also, we should not ask Nagoya at all about this, as we already know their response.
Instead we should have someone talk to Nagoya about future plans.
Discuss with the Magick Company (1 vet): Do they handle loans for magical girl enterprises? While we could get a loan from a normal bank, we wouldn't mind giving preference to a magical girl business instead. If viable, see what their offers are. If not, seek out a standard bank loan instead, for opening a new restaurant branch ($500k+$100k for village refurbishment).
Scouting: (0.5 Taya, 1 clairvoyant, 1 teleporter) Observation of the Tokyo youma situation from various observation posts. Evaluate new or reverting behavior, movement patterns, etc.
Analysis: (3 vets) Thorough, fine-toothed review of every scrap of data acquired from the month of hunting youma in Tokyo. Review of tactics' effectiveness, responses, reaction times, behavior patterns, communication ranges, power ranges, etc.
Based on observation, analysis, and getting the new girls in Serena's team up to a functional state, consider experimental attack runs using the fusion charms to interfere with teleportation. If support youma teleport in, Serena's group teleports out before they can get in range. (3.5 Serena team)
** Very uncertain of how we're proceeding on the Tokyo situation, so this is another mess. Put in the analysis and scouting time, though.
Not sure if we ought to try fusion charms. They don't seem very useful actually. Seems like the better plan would be the old lure plan, luring the youma back to a killing field where there is a teleport barrier already raised.
1 month. And it should only take 1 Vet per an organization. That's the normal cost for a new trade deal. So I'm expecting a 4 vet cost (Kofu, Magik Corp, Enlightened, Coalition) instead of Kinematics 3 vet cost that doesn't give individual attention to each organization.
@Kinematics
What do you think of taking the 3 vets on "Foster Care", one of the vets on Heaven's Chosen, the free elite, and Serena's team and putting them on securing/hunting the Tokyo area?
I think that rather than trying to get rid of the refugees we should use them to try to secure more territory in the Tokyo area. That way we'll also have much less of a cube defecit in the near future.
Namely that once a pair is trained in fusion casting together, you can expect that they will automatically learn for free any new versions of magic you develop that utilize those two types, but you'll have to spend a fusion training action to attempt to develop each new type.
Hmmm. So, since we already have the teleport barrier, we'd be best off having the 4 pairs that I have training on barrier/teleportation each attempting to come up with one new application of the combination, so that all of them get all of whatever ideas we manage to come up with.
With that many greens hunting, plus a near equal number training, we can probably expect that almost all of the greens will be progressing on the 6-month advancement track. Given a random distribution of how long they've been magical girls up until now, by the time they finish training in 3 months, I would not be surprised if over 20 of them advanced to vet.
Pet Whisperer (0.5 vet, $1000) - Send Nagisa to a training course on pet training, to acquire a basic certification license. Once she has that, she can spend time (next month or later) volunteering at shelters or other venues to gain the experience needed to offer her own services.
Even with everything going on you managed to squeeze out some time to get Nagisa a training course on pet training. It's not much, but it's a step towards another hopefully significant income source.
So this month she'd take 0.5 months and take a $1,000 class, then volunteer at a shelter or something for another half or whole month, then put out a shingle on the third month. Up until she actually starts advertising for the business, the time can be split up with no loss.
We already did the first stage (I think), so she should have the certificate, and now would spend a month volunteering before finally having a chance to start working.
Yes, all 7 girls counts for "Serena's Team", with a total meguca value of 7.0. 1.0 would be one of them for the full month, 2 for half a month, etc. helix can say if he thinks a different cost is appropriate.
Partly because I don't think we're done playing the complicated game with Hiko, and partly because there was alot of copy/paste, and I wasn't sure exactly what all we were going to be putting into things with our discussions. Also: It's a mess.
I think this is a mistake to roll it up inbto one action. We should approach each organization individually, as they are each likely to have different requirements. Also, we should not ask Nagoya at all about this, as we already know their response.
Clairvoyant/barrier could also be useful to deploy a shield remotely in a fight that is being observed. (Teleporter/barrier should also be able to do this I guess).
In fact Telepath/barrier should also be able to do that, maybe, if the focus is around a specific girl.
Hmmm. So, since we already have the teleport barrier, we'd be best off having the 4 pairs that I have training on barrier/teleportation each attempting to come up with one new application of the combination, so that all of them get all of whatever ideas we manage to come up with.
We already did the first stage (I think), so she should have the certificate, and now would spend a month volunteering before finally having a chance to start working.
Partly because I don't think we're done playing the complicated game with Hiko, and partly because there was alot of copy/paste, and I wasn't sure exactly what all we were going to be putting into things with our discussions. Also: It's a mess.
And then I think we really ought to have a trade deal with HC for hiring vets. I think it's a reasonable offer to make, as it leverages our specialty, and addresses multiple possible concerns of HC.
I'm rather against hiring HC vets to hunt our territory. Remember that the reason we went that route with the Coalition was specifically to improve relations with them, and we were doing it by paying them, a lot. In a very real sense we were giving them a ton of our tech for free, along with paying them in cubes to hunt our territory (in effect temporarily ceding our territory to them for a month, and potentially allowing them a free pass to gather intel on our operations that we won't ever have on theirs without infiltrating them). The only reason I went along with the idea is that I expect that we're going to be attempting a merger with them sometime in the next year or two.
Heaven's Chosen is a very different kettle of fish. They're bigger than us, stronger than us, have a deep pool of tech that would take us years to unravel even with Hiko's assistance, and are actively in a two front semi-cold war that would have snuffed us out in a month. Further, we actually can't afford to lose too many cubes from our own territory right now either; don't forget that right now we're in an unsustainable position with how many meguca we have compared to our territory size, even with IRT helping us out. We need every cube we can wring out of our territory just to stay afloat the next 4-6 months; we definitely can't go around giving them away to a gigantic foreign group.
No, in this case what we need is a much more straightforward exchange of technology, possibly augmented by a student/mentor exchange program. Hiko sends 2-4 clairvoyants to us and we teach them how to measure DS and set up a good clairvoyant dispatch; we send 2-4 meguca (probably barrier girls/teleporters) to her and she teaches them how to interdict teleporters. I'd try to do it the other way, by us sending a pair of clairvoyants and maybe a couple other members of our quant team over to their side to set things up more explicitly, but we're actually already heavily overdrawn on clairvoyants as it is, running dispatch in our own territory, fusion training, and monitoring Tokyo.
BTW, on the subject of clairvoyants, @Kinematics, I note that your plan has allocated 5 clairvoyants plus 1 Taya (2 dispatch, 2+0.5 Taya on fusion training, 1+0.5 Taya on Tokyo), but we only have 4 clairvoyants total, Taya included.
@Kinematics
What do you think of taking the 3 vets on "Foster Care", one of the vets on Heaven's Chosen, the free elite, and Serena's team and putting them on securing/hunting the Tokyo area?
I think that rather than trying to get rid of the refugees we should use them to try to secure more territory in the Tokyo area. That way we'll also have much less of a cube defecit in the near future.
Well, first we need to refine the foster care bit, which actually includes two different actions.
The first is to get a handle on the effect of the emmigrants throughout the region. We want to know who accepted or rejected them, how many, where they're going, and what impact they're having on various groups' ability to maintain sustainability.
This is really an extended version of Gossipmonger work. If we give her a full action and an extra helper, I think they can handle collecting info from everyone, and getting us an understanding of where things stand, as opposed to putting individual assignments to every single group we're dealing with.
Gossipmonger (2.0 vets, $xxxx):
- Keep in contact with the Tokyo natives. Review the impact of recent activities on their situation, as well as keeping track of how things go over this month. Extend contract time of the burner phones, if possible. (cost?)
- Discuss the current situation with all the surrounding area's groups that we're in contact with (15/16, Kofu, The Magick Company, The Enlightened, The Sendai Queendom, and any other known minor groups). Try to get a handle on how they're dealing with any Tokyo emmigrants, whether they're absorbing them or letting them pass through (or even in conflict with them, though it's less likely we'd get that info), and if passing through, get an idea of how large a population is spreading out through Japan, and the degree of impact it's likely to have. For those that we've given hunting info to, make sure that their increased support capacity is proving adequate.
If we then drop the foster care action, that saves 1.5 vets overall.
As for shaving off a vet from the talks with HC... Ah, a new reply from helix:
