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Shepard Quest Mk V, Base of Operations (ME/MCU)

Lagrange said:
I intended "resources" to be more abstract than simple iron. We could be talking about more rare elements, labor requirements, pollution regulations, infrastructure costs, etc. When you're just one factory on the side of the highway, and you are purchasing of element Y at market prices, it's a lot less expensive than when you need to build out roads & rail to your factory complex and hire prospectors and mining companies to find more of Element Y, since you've already bought all of it that was available.
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Actually if anything massive factory complexes seem to be more cost efficient then that one factory by the highway.

And yes I recognize that it's a lot more complex then simple Iron but my point was that insufficient materials really don't make sense on the scales we're talking about here.

Rare Earths are called such because they are rare on Earth not because they are rare.

I doubt we're going to be limited by the common elements anytime soon, but finding enough palladium to power the arc reactors, enough gold/platinum/rare earth elements / whatever to make our exotic super alloys and electronics, and whatever else we're building is not going to be easy.
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Yes. It. Is.

207,000kg of Palladium were mined in 2011. Assuming the Arc Reactor Palladium core is 5cm by 5cm by 1c (likely an overestimation) gives it a volume of 25cm^3 and a mass of 300 grams.

So Earths' production nearly 200 years ago was enough for 700k reactors per year.

Also, yes I acknowledge that asteroid mining would add tons of useful resources to the pool. There was a whole discussion earlier about (as far as we can tell) ME universe not doing any asteroid mining, and what sort of techs we could add to the tree to open that up. I even wrote an omake on the topic. Research on that tree would increase the amount of production we could reasonably fit into one system.
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Actually the discussion was on how asteroid mining in Mass Effect is done in the stupidest way possible* rather then it not happening at all. We are explicitly told they mine asteroids in Bringing Down the Sky since that's why they were moving the asteroid for.

*Seriously, of all the ways to mine an asteroid why would you put actual manned mining camps on it!?

Esbilon said:
Good thoughts there. One mistake though is that it's a Humanity-wide collider project, not just Durham's. They're the biggest group in their field, but they do not have that kind of funding.
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Ah. It's just it's mentioned as coming from Durham and talks about his project. Fixed.

I see your point about the Leviathan-induced Indoctrination. That obviously changes things.
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Just to be clear, because it's 5am, when you say Leviathan induced you mean the Leviathan of Dis (the not-so-dead Reaper corpse hidden on Khar-Shan) not the Leviathans who created the Reapers right?

We really need more words for giant undersea monsters then Leviathan.
 
Tabron89 said:
Oh, found something interesting: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Systems_Alliance#Mass_Effect:_Paragon_Lost

If this is considered canon, then it might be possible to have planet based kinetic barriers...I might watch the movie to see if that's what it means...
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They do have city scale barriers, IIRC they show up in ME2 as well in one of the one off missions.

UberJJK said:
Actually the discussion was on how asteroid mining in Mass Effect is done in the stupidest way possible* rather then it not happening at all. We are explicitly told they mine asteroids in Bringing Down the Sky since that's why they were moving the asteroid for.

*Seriously, of all the ways to mine an asteroid why would you put actual manned mining camps on it!?
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IIRC they wanted to turn it into a space station afterwards.
 
Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with us being able to metaphorically print money due to our tech-advantage. If we can just note down our monetary resources as "Yes"; great! One less thing to worry about.
 
Kelenas said:
Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with us being able to metaphorically print money due to our tech-advantage. If we can just note down our monetary resources as "Yes"; great! One less thing to worry about.
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Let's take a look at the implications of the current system, and round things off so 1 Fac 3 running for 1 quarter can pay for 8 new Fac 3's. And let's say that 1 of your current Fac 3's does nothing but build Fac 3's that build new Fac 3's and so on.

Q1: Finished: 1 // T-1: 0 // T-2: 0 // T-3: 8
Q2: Finished: 1 // T-1: 0 // T-2: 8 // T-3: 8
Q3: Finished: 1 // T-1: 8 // T-2: 8 // T-3: 8
Q4: Finished: 9 // T-1: 8 // T-2: 8 // T-3: 72
Q5: Finished: 17 // T-1: 8 // T-2: 72 // T-3: 136
Q6: Finished: 25 // T-1: 72 // T-2: 136 // T-3: 200
Q7: Finished: 97 // T-1: 136 // T-2: 200 // T-3: 776
Q8: Finished: 169 // T-1: 200 // T-2: 776 //T-3: 1352

I think the pattern is relatively clear to see from here...
 
UberJJK said:
Actually if anything massive factory complexes seem to be more cost efficient then that one factory by the highway.
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I'm not going to get into a huge posting argument where we pick apart each other's points. The main point of my earlier post was game balance, not physical reality. If you can think up a better explanation for a similar system to satisfy Esbilon's desire to limit exponential growth, feel free to propose it.

In general terms, it doesn't make sense for a colony world (which should be barely producing enough to sustain its growth) to have enough resources to support a massive high tech manufacturing complex. We've solved any power concerns, which would normally be the first problem, but we're still going to run into issues with how personnel, physical resources, infrastructure, etc that the colony can provide. Want 1,000 tons of iron? Sorry but all the iron being mined is being put straight into construction right now, you'll need to pay a premium to either delay the construction, ship in more, or increase the scale of the mining operations. Decided to ship in more? Oh, now you're over stressing the starport and ground based transport systems, pay to either build your own remote starport or upgrade the colony's infrastructure. Sure, we can feasibly do it, but it should cost a lot of money to bootstrap a colony into being able to support the sort of industry normally only seen on worlds that have been colonized for twice as long.

We can easily handwave all that stuff and not worry about it. Or we can handwave it all into a limiting system of the sort Esbilon was asking for.
 
Esbilon said:
Let's take a look at the implications of the current system, and round things off so 1 Fac 3 running for 1 quarter can pay for 8 new Fac 3's. And let's say that 1 of your current Fac 3's does nothing but build Fac 3's that build new Fac 3's and so on.

Q1: Finished: 1 // T-1: 0 // T-2: 0 // T-3: 8
Q2: Finished: 1 // T-1: 0 // T-2: 8 // T-3: 8
Q3: Finished: 1 // T-1: 8 // T-2: 8 // T-3: 8
Q4: Finished: 9 // T-1: 8 // T-2: 8 // T-3: 72
Q5: Finished: 17 // T-1: 8 // T-2: 72 // T-3: 136
Q6: Finished: 25 // T-1: 72 // T-2: 136 // T-3: 200
Q7: Finished: 97 // T-1: 136 // T-2: 200 // T-3: 776
Q8: Finished: 169 // T-1: 200 // T-2: 776 //T-3: 1352

I think the pattern is relatively clear to see from here...
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Which is kind of the point; why not simply roll with it and accept that effectively having a license to print money means we just don't have to worry about money anymore, and focus on other things instead?

The way I see it, the limiting factor was always supposed to be our research-speed, and I don't think that has changed; IIRC we're still limited to building new labs on only one planet.
 
UberJJK said:
Not really. That's limited by:

  1. The number of Large shipyards we can build (I doubt the Alliance will want a dozen in every system)
  2. The Dreadnaught limitations treaty
  3. Becoming a threat to our neighbors
  4. Crew (unless we build AI Dreadnaughts in which case see 3)
  5. Desire
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  1. That's what empty systems and deep space are for.
  2. That's why we just build flying labs, which I have decided to call Library Ships, that don't have spinal guns, but do have pettawatt laser banks for research purposes.
  3. Not actually seeing the limitation there.
  4. People are an abundant resource. Especially with the pay/benefits we offer.
  5. Also not seeing a limitation there.

Okay, I was joking for #3. But that's really our only limit.
 
Esbilon said:
Let's take a look at the implications of the current system, and round things off so 1 Fac 3 running for 1 quarter can pay for 8 new Fac 3's. And let's say that 1 of your current Fac 3's does nothing but build Fac 3's that build new Fac 3's and so on.
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I'm not entirely sure, but I think that might be considered 'illegal' because it sounds like a von neumann swarm.

We know that it comes close to 'von neumann factory', but considering the Councils paranoia about VI/AI rampancy and killing organics, I wouldn't want to try it.

We can probably use some of the Factory to make walls/foundation/roof/lights/power lines....maybe a quarter or a third at maximum?
 
Tabron89 said:
I'm not entirely sure, but I think that might be considered 'illegal' because it sounds like a von neumann swarm.

We know that it comes close to 'von neumann factory', but considering the Councils paranoia about VI/AI rampancy and killing organics, I wouldn't want to try it.

We can probably use some of the Factory to make walls/foundation/roof/lights/power lines....maybe a quarter or a third at maximum?
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I don't think the idea was that the factories would just spawn totally new factories, but rather all the components required to make a new one, which would then be put together by humans/robots. However the cost of having someone assemble a factory like this is probably minor compared to the cost of the actual components that make up the factory.

So its not really a von neumann thing. Or atleast thats the idea I got.
 
Tabron89 said:
I'm not entirely sure, but I think that might be considered 'illegal' because it sounds like a von neumann swarm.

We know that it comes close to 'von neumann factory', but considering the Councils paranoia about VI/AI rampancy and killing organics, I wouldn't want to try it.

We can probably use some of the Factory to make walls/foundation/roof/lights/power lines....maybe a quarter or a third at maximum?
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You misunderstood my premise. I meant dedicating the sales coming from one Fac 3, and all subsequent Fac 3's, to building new fac 3's.
 
Alright hows this for a proposed limiting agent?

First double the costs of all factories. This is to represent investment in infrastructure to support the factories. For example housing and entertainment for any in house people paid to stay and work at the factories. Probably only in a repair man sense. Further the building of a proper sized space port built primarily for the use of the factory so as to bring in supplies and resources. The star port would be oversized of course.

Furthermore we may double again the price to add "enough" defenses to the factory system. Basically top of the line security gets installed here. I'm expecting all our tech to be put into these with guardian lasers and eventually city shielding when we get them. Every building gets its own barrier for defense etc. Basically make these things impossible to infiltrate and/or attack. This probably won't be implementable until we get mechs and the other necessary things from the tech tree built.

At most we can only built a set amount of total factories per planet. What this number is should be determined by our esteemed GM. Definitely a minimum of 6 in my opinion but its his game. Though I am partial to 14...

Esbilon said:
You misunderstood my premise. I meant dedicating the sales coming from one Fac 3, and all subsequent Fac 3's, to building new fac 3's.
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There is always the potential to start lowering how much a production unit is worth once we start flooding the market with our ability to produce.
 
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@UberJJK, just noticed something in our last quarter's research: Peak Human is at half-way point, and you don't have it in your current or older (and longer) plans.
Peak Human (0/400)
20d10+70=180
180+29/2+36/2 = 212
--Halfway there!
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While this as the overflow project would have a much greater chance of ending up wasting up our points, it is something I think we should complete as soon as possible. The increased personal safety with the ability to fight back better alone would be worth it, but near-photographic memory (which Revy doesn't have; how can you call yourself a true super-genius if you don't have one?), probable increase in physical activity (and maybe biotic) learning speed would close the deal for me. Plus we can maybe finally start winning against Revy's mother in their mother-daughter bonding activities.

Also, this has nothing to do with me having just watched Captain America: the Winter Soldier a few days ago. None at all.

And if we do so, the next quarter would end up looking quite transhuman themed:
[] Advanced Mass Effect Theory
[] Advanced Neural Implant
[] CASIE Implant
[] Peak Human
[] Flawless Blackboxing / FRM *Overflow
 
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Seriously guys, you need to put in something better than just adding a money sink to stop us from hitting Economic victory. Because that's only going to momentarily slow things down.
 
Daniel14541 said:
First double the costs of all factories. This is to represent investment in infrastructure to support the factories. For example housing and entertainment for any in house people paid to stay and work at the factories.
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Already covered by Advanced Security measures.

Probably only in a repair man sense. Further the building of a proper sized space port built primarily for the use of the factory so as to bring in supplies and resources. The star port would be oversized of course.
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No issues here although it would probably end up more like 1 spaceport per facility then per factory.

Furthermore we may triple the price to add "enough" defenses to the factory system. Basically top of the line security gets installed here. I'm expecting all our tech to be put into these with guardian lasers and eventually city shielding when we get them. Every building gets its own barrier for defense etc.
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While I agree with the idea I doubt the Alliance will let us mount heavy GARDIAN lasers inside our private compounds. Just like how they don't want us owning kill-sats...

At most we can only built a set amount of total factories per planet. What this number is should be determined by our esteemed GM. Definitely a minimum of 6 in my opinion but its his game. Though I am partial to 14...
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While it doesn't make sense for more developed worlds like Earth to be capable to support the same number of Factories as Mindoir I like the three sets of three we have going right now.
 
meianmaru said:
@UberJJK, just noticed something in our last quarter's research: Peak Human is at half-way point, and you don't have it in your current or older (and longer) plans.
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Already covered in the last vote. Just waited for that update (after the current Tiger adventure).

See this post for what's happening then:
UberJJK said:
Winning Vote​

This was hard but as best as I can tell the winning vote would be:

Company Actions
[] IFV UberJJK

[] Letter of the law. Produce 50,000 Arc Reactors for the Citadel market. Let Lindsey handle the rest of your available production capabilities.

[] Build 3 Factory III's in each of Mindoir's other cities (total: 6), and upgrade the Factory I and II in Landing to Factory III's as well (total: 2). Total Cost: ~9 Billion, ~3 Billion left

[] Begin to look into expanding Paragon Industries beyond Mindoir. Specifically, conctac the government/administration of Elysium about constructing production and research facilities on their planet.

[] Hire an additional 20 Security Teams on Mindoir to protect the facilities under construction in the other cities. Keep their equipment at normal hardsuits and smallarms for now, to be upgraded to Legionaries later.

Research Actions
[] Peak Human (212/400)(30d10+55) (98.08%)

[] Frigates (400) (70d10+55) (95.40%)

[] Improved Warhead (150) - 0d10 +50 (Tiger Reward) +50 (Lagrange Omake) +50 (Reference Recognition) (100%)

[] Mk II Suit (500) - 40d10+20 + (Overflow)

[] Legionary Re-Entry Shroud (50) 0d10 +50 (UberJJK Omake) (100%)

Personal Actions
[] Look into starting a Private Military Company.

[] Headhunt a research hero (this will not necessarily come into fruition immediately).
-[] Search for someone with experience in Shielding/Barrier technology, in hopes that we might be able to design shields that can protect against DEWs.

[] Clean break. Continue as if nothing has changed until he actually ships out.
-[] But keep in touch and try to stay friends. You're honestly looking forward to hearing stories about his experiences in bootcamp.
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UberJJK said:
Already covered by Advanced Security measures.
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Not according to my opinion.


While I agree with the idea I doubt the Alliance will let us mount heavy GARDIAN lasers inside our private compounds. Just like how they don't want us owning kill-sats...
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:Citation Needed:

Esbilon said:
While true, so long as you can't print super-dreadnaugths by the time the Reapers appear, that's not too bad a thing.
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Don't they take a certain number of quarters to build?
 
Esbilon said:
While true, so long as you can't print super-dreadnaugths by the time the Reapers appear, that's not too bad a thing.
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Which I don't really see an issue with. The SA is still bound by the Treaty of Farixen, meaning they can only build 1 dreadnought for every 3 / 5 that the Council races have. Private citizens/corporations aren't allowed to own any (though as seen with the Volus it's possible to privately build one and then donate it).
Furthermore, dreadnoughts still take a long time to build; possibly several years, with super-dreads most likely even longer.
 
UberJJK said:
While it doesn't make sense for more developed worlds like Earth to be capable to support the same number of Factories as Mindoir I like the three sets of three we have going right now.
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Mind you, Earth is suffering from overpopulation....which is even more weird than MEs asteroid mining.

They have 'cheap' spaceflight thanks to eezo to the point were they (seemingly) gave up trying to build a space elevator and supposedly have around a dozen or more colonies, each one ranging between a few thousand to potentially a few million....

And yet we don't hear about mass exoduses to the more advanced colonies...

Maybe it is all the problems with slavery and pirates that stop most people? Or is it that they still vainly attached to the cradle of humanity?

Kelenas said:
Furthermore, dreadnoughts still take a long time to build; possibly several years, with super-dreads most likely even longer.
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If the SA push for it, then they can build one in a year. But there is no indication if they either got a bigger budget or they scimped on some other things to divert more of their budget.

It's possible that the SA originally got a budget increase thanks to Shepard for a year after the events of ME1 due to him/her talking about the Reapers, only to lose that budget when Shepard died and they wanted to hush the existance of the Reapers up.
 
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Daniel14541 said:
:Citation Needed:
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I said so.
Kelenas said:
Which I don't really see an issue with. The SA is still bound by the Treaty of Farixen, meaning they can only build 1 dreadnought for every 3 / 5 that the Council races have. Private citizens/corporations aren't allowed to own any (though as seen with the Volus it's possible to privately build one and then donate it).
Furthermore, dreadnoughts still take a long time to build; possibly several years, with super-dreads most likely even longer.
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There's nothing stopping you from building Turian, Asari and Salarian super-dreads, or overpowered technically-not-dreads.

And if you're serious about expanding your production facilities, and nothing is done to moderate your income, by the time you can build superdreads, you'll likely be able to build hundreds in your first run.
 
how does yield scale with barrel length?
becuse if we can't have a ship with a 800m gun we can have 32 300m guns instead
 
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