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

UberJJK said:
The whole reason of the switch from 14d100 to 140d10 was to reduce the variance.
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and it made a lot when we were only rolling 4 to 8 d100, where the variance is extremely high.

As we keep increasing the number of dice, the variance keeps going down. we'll be at something like 300d10 once we have a second set of labs up, and the bell curve for 40d10 looks a closer to the curve for 30d100 than the 300d10 curve

It's not a huge deal, but we have almost no pressure to take risks and gambles with the research assignments. With a higher variance, we could try 2 techs at 75% chance of completion instead of 1 tech at 98+% and one that definitely wont finish. Maybe both would finish, maybe neither, but it'd be more interesting. Right now we're basically just choosing the order of techs to research, and the variance is functionally being ignored for purposes of assigning dice.

OTOH, that would make voting more complicated, which might be bad.
 
Lagrange said:
and it made a lot when we were only rolling 4 to 8 d100, where the variance is extremely high.

As we keep increasing the number of dice, the variance keeps going down. we'll be at something like 300d10 once we have a second set of labs up, and the bell curve for 40d10 looks a closer to the curve for 30d100 than the 300d10 curve

It's not a huge deal, but we have almost no pressure to take risks and gambles with the research assignments. With a higher variance, we could try 2 techs at 75% chance of completion instead of 1 tech at 98+% and one that definitely wont finish. Maybe both would finish, maybe neither, but it'd be more interesting. Right now we're basically just choosing the order of techs to research, and the variance is functionally being ignored for purposes of assigning dice.

OTOH, that would make voting more complicated, which might be bad.
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Actually, since there was no penalty on overflow dice things were less stressful before.

Here, we are eating an increased penalty to get that 98% completion.
 
[X] Letter of the law. Produce 50,000 Arc Reactors for the Citadel market. Let Lindsey handle the rest of your available production capabilities.
[X] IFV - UberJJK
[X] Long distance. It never always works in the movies!
[X] Headhunt a research hero (this will not necessarily come into fruition immediately).
-[X]Salarian, biological
[X] Look into starting a Private Military Company.
 
I kind of want to see a different start to ME1 events than just the attack at Eden Prime. Thus, an Idea emerges.

Paragon Industries is getting into the biotech field. How about sometime down the road and once Revy has a private corporate fleet, she has them on various duties. Overseeing PI orbital security at various planetary facilities, a few are on detachment with Liara T'Soni, who has risen to become head of PI's xenoarcheological and xenotech recovery division. Liara's initial experiences with Revy and the company left their mark and she decided to not go back to the University and stay on with PI searching out various Prothean or Inusannon ruins and caches of tech.

But moving on, a squadron on Revy's ships on their way to...somewhere, come across a derelict ship in space. That ship is the Rachni ship with the Rachni queen in stasis. Moving on some more, and this moves from Paragon finding a ship in space to something big between the Alliance and the Council. I would prefer the Council not be all ragekill over Rachni eggs, but there are deep concerns. The Alliance of course is not going to play dirty with Rachni eggs because something dumb like experimenting with them to make a Rachni army is just stupid and would cause all kinds of shit with the Council for little gain. But the Alliance is pushing for some kind of give or leverage for cooperating with the Citadel instead of say, hiding that Paragon Industries ships found Rachni eggs in space.

So while all this back and forth is going on, let's just say an army of well equipped and well trained mercenaries attacks the facility where the Rachni eggs are. These mercs are no cannon fodder and are all those mercs and fighters Saren had in the pre-ME1 time period. Now the battle is quite fierce and more than a little brutal. Kind of undecided on whether Saren's mercs get away with the eggs or barely fail, but it was a very close fight. And in the aftermath, there is the fact that there is someone who is very well-funded and willing to commit a lot to their goals, like attacking a facility that would raise the alert levels with all the major galactic governments with little fear of the consequences. There are rumors that this is the Shadow Broker, or Batarians, or a crazy rumor that it is a Spectre gone rogue behind the attack. No one really knows or says 'Saren', but there is a sharp cloud of suspicion in the time leading to the ME1 events.

Thoughts?
 
Another thought. We should be finishing the reactor for CERN this quarter. So as long as we're visiting Earth anyway, should we stop in with them to oversee the delivery and maybe spend a day doing getting a tour of the place and meeting scientists?
 
We actually have two quarters to finish it I think. They are picking it up though (and handling the shipping costs).
 
Wait. I have to assign those 50 points? I am allowing anyone with a plan to assign it themselves in that case. I have not read this thread sufficiently to know where you really need those points.
 
Anyway, I'm back, and, after sleeping on it, I propose this:
[X] Letter of the law. Produce 50,000 Arc Reactors for the Citadel market. Let Lindsey handle the rest of your available production capabilities.
[X] IFV - UberJJK
[X] Long distance. It never always works in the movies!
--[X] Look into developing better communication technology and teleportation. Are you a genius or not?

Spare time (pick two)
[X] Headhunt a research hero (this will not necessarily come into fruition immediately).
--[X] Biology, preferebly a hanar one
[X] Look into starting a Private Military Company.

Other Company Stuff:
[X] 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
[X] Begin to look into expanding Paragon Industries beyond Mindoir.
--[X] Specifically, about acquiring land on Earth.


Research:
[X] Peak Human (212/400) 30d10+40
Labs 0+I+II
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 10 (research lab)
10d10 + 10 (VI)
10d10 + 10 (VI)
Probability of success: 86.6%, average overflow: 17 points

[X] Improved Warhead (150) 20d10+80
Research Teams
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 5 (salary)
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 5 (salary)
Bonus 0d10+50
Probability of success: 99.9%, average overflow: 40 points

[X] The invisible man (400) 60d10+90
Conrad
10d10 + 10 (VI)
Research Teams
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 5 (salary)+ 10 (research team)
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 5 (salary)+ 10 (research team)
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 5 (salary)
10d10 + 10 (VI) + 5 (salary)
Revy
10d10 + 10 (VI) - 10 (Conrad)
Probability of success: 82.1%, average overflow: 20 points

[X ] Mk II Suit (500) (overflow) 30d10
Revy
10d10 + 10 (VI) - 10 (Conrad)
10d10 + 10 (VI) - 10 (Conrad)
10d10 + 10 (VI) - 10 (Conrad)
Probability of success: 0%, average overflow: - 255 points

Total: 140d10+210 (160+50 bonus)

Ok, explanations and arguments for my vote:
1) Switched to UberJJK's design on further thought. Just personal preference, I guess.

2) Why a hanar biology researcher? Because I think one would be good. Hanar are as alien as present cycle's biological sapeint life gets from humans - this means they should think differently (simply being an aquatic species normally orienting in 3D should provide some different thought pattern). Hanars are managing drell situation (if we can fix it, by the way, that'd be great) and are uplifts themselves. This should mean that study of biology and genetic engineering is quite advanced in their society. They would need biology to help drell, and know genetic engineering to know what was done to them; to them study of genetic engineering would connect to theology, and studying their own modified genome would be like studying a bible would be for us.

3) Why going to Earth? Well, that's where most of humans are. This means that all the best institutions are there - if we want to get the best grad students, we have to go to Earth, so they could get internships with us. It's where all the industry really is, and where all the workforce is. It's also where most of consumers are. Logistic trails are the shortest if our facilities are on Earth. It's also the most secure place against Council spying. The least secure against alliance spying, yes, but, well, what can you do? Besides, it's a statement, and a big one. Earth is the core of humanity, the motherland. Having facilities there means we are a serious business. And there should still be plenty enough space in, say, Siberia.

4) Research. Ok, research arguments and explanations.
First, finishing Peak Human. It's not critical this turn, meaning that 86% probability of success is acceptable. No heroes research this, as what's left is finishing - the project is more than 50% complete, the general principles has been laid out.

Improved warhead is critical for the competition. It needs to be finished this turn. Why is it critical? Our warheads show that armor and kinetic barriers on armored vehicles are obsolete. That the concept either has to be abandoned or cardinally rethought in favor of some new solutions. With arc reactors in the hands of or competitors, our previous warhead might not have an overwhelming enough advantage. That's unacceptable, they must, for long-term success of this quest, operate under the assumption that all their conventional barriers can be pierced in one shot. That's what's required for the war against Reapers. Bonus goes here, but, otherwise, it's pretty much engineering. No need to put in heroes here.

Invisible man. Ok, here let me explain myself. Again, this has to do with long-term perspective (which is why I went for so low a probability of success). We know that in canon geth develop tactical cloak, which was a new technology. We want to put it out as soon as possible, so it can be countered. So security measures and combat counter-measures could be developed. In addition, it ties in with "armor is obsolete" paradigm. If stealth technology can be applied to armored vehicles (and I don't see why it can't be) it opens a completely new way of looking at ways of preventing damage - active battlefield stealth. I put Conrad on this one, as it's his idea, and added one of Revy's dice as it's appropriate they work on this together; it'll be a thing in Mk2, it integrates our advanced material research with Conrad's ideas; it's a logical thing for Revy to participate in this

Mk 2. An overflow option, and Revy's exclusive. It's appropriate that she works on this by herself, interacting, tinkering and being creative. It's her baby after all, the crown jewel of all her technology. I would have voted she retreat into a cave to work on it, but that would be just silly.
 
Okay, I already dislike Yog's plan simply because it doesn't research Frigates, meaning we won't be able to build our own shipyards soon, and instead focuses on things that are either superfluous (Improved Warheads; our Pilum is already good enough for the moment, so there's no rush to improve it) or - for now - useless gimmicks (Invisible Man, which is only useful as a likely prerequisite for better methods of cloaking/camoflage, as I fully expect any modern military hardsuits to include thermal vision and mini-radar).

Since apparently we *must* specify the area of expertise for the research hero we're headhunting, what should I pick for my plan?
Most seem to want Mordin, hence the focus on Biology/Medicine/Genetics, but there's also mention of AI/Computers for the possibility of getting Daro'Xen.
And if we purely go by what *new* tech-tree we might want, I figure we could look for someone who specializes in shield/barrier-technology, in hopes that we'll be able to research shields that block our DEWs.

Thoughts?
 
Kelenas said:
Okay, I already dislike Yog's plan simply because it doesn't research Frigates, meaning we won't be able to build our own shipyards soon, and instead focuses on things that are either superfluous (Improved Warheads; our Pilum is already good enough for the moment, so there's no rush to improve it) or - for now - useless gimmicks (Invisible Man, which is only useful as a likely prerequisite for better methods of cloaking/camoflage, as I fully expect any modern military hardsuits to include thermal vision and mini-radar).
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As I argued, invisible man is important as it is a) likely a prerequisite for more advanced research and b) synergies well with advanced missiles. Stealth is very important. And it's an advanced material research. Which is important too.

Missiles are in no way superfluous. Our current ones were designed more than a year ago and to work against the pre-arc reactor vehicles. That just won't work. We have a claim to fame in "our missiles can one-shot any vehicle defense". This claim must be maintained for PR, political and scientific reasons. We have to show that the speed of armaments development outstrips the speed of armor / defense development.

As for frigates and shipyards. Yes, that's important, and I agree, but I believe that it can wait one one-and-a-half turn. Especially with Mk 2 coming in, which I really want to work on. But, as a compromise, I am prepared to swap Mk2 for frigates, though I think that it (Mk 2) is a better choice.
Kelenas said:
Since apparently we *must* specify the area of expertise for the research hero we're headhunting, what should I pick for my plan?
Most seem to want Mordin, hence the focus on Biology/Medicine/Genetics, but there's also mention of AI/Computers for the possibility of getting Daro'Xen.
And if we purely go by what *new* tech-tree we might want, I figure we could look for someone who specializes in shield/barrier-technology, in hopes that we'll be able to research shields that block our DEWs.

Thoughts?
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For biology, I really think that a hanar researcher would be better. Mordin has too big a baggage with him. Daro'Xen is... not very sane for one, in my opinion, and a quarian to the bone for two, which is a point against her, as everything she does and gets access to will be sent to the flotilla.
 
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