Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution
- Thread starter Hoyr
- Start date
- Location
- United States
Hmmm, I kinda want repulsor cannons on our mk2.
Any restrictions on size? I was thinking something like the following:
- "Lab I"-sized (minimum necessary for TIR research; includes space for both applied and theory lab) - 200m or larger ship (Frigate tech required)
- "Lab II"-sized - 400m or larger ship (Light cruiser tech required)
- "Lab III"-sized - 600m or larger ship (Heavy cruiser tech required)
- Full "Lab I-III" stack - 1000m or larger ship (Dreadnought tech required)
- If placed in a ship of minimum size, the lab takes the place of the primary weapon system; if placed in a ship one "size category" larger then it takes the place of one secondary weapon system
Okay, have a few moments free, so a possible competing plan:
2174-Q3 (for delivery Q4)
QEC - 22.5+1456.75: Agreed that we need to get this, for strategic reasons.
Minaturized Energy Weapons - 400: Here's where I depart, however. The Mark II still isn't the biggest game-changer in the tech tree, but this is. Minaturized energy weapons applies to all aspects of the battlefield: on the ground by giving us high kilowatt/low megawatt-range laser weapons that we can attach to Legionaries, in the air by letting us upgrade our Tiger lasers to high megawatt/low gigawatt, and even in space by letting us turn those 5 GW lasers up to the maximum that @Hoyr will allow us for a 100m frigate (probably somewhere in the 20-35 GW range), which should get us closer to MAC-ranges. Combine this with high-GW lasers at some point and I'm thinking we could get up to 100 GW lasers into our "lite" frigates. With this tech the Batarians will get steam-rolled, all without pissing off H&K by going over their heads with a new armor before our first armor contract even runs out.
Reactive Barriers - 200: This is partly because it's another upgrade to shields, which we don't specifically need but is always nice to have, but more importantly because gated behind this is Singularity Shields, which should provide laser protection to our ground troops (TIR will never help them), something we're going to need eventually. Remember that the basic level DEW tech was only 200 RPs; we in fact bought it outright, and we have since let our Advanced Materials tech proliferate while we move on to Superalloys. That's the tech that resulted in tanks with laser turret main guns, and in principle just about anyone else can co-develop it. That implies we are going to have to face such a threat ourselves someday, and having shields that can even partially lens away laser effects should help out a lot.
Mind shields - 70+16.75
Omni-tool upgrades - 37
Light Cruisers - 10: Same reasoning as yours.
2174-Q4 (for delivery 2175-Q1)
Singularity Shields - 941.25+22.5: Or whatever Level 3 of Gaver Dor's shielding tech turns out to be. I'm anticipating it only costing 800 RPs, so we should be able to finish it this quarter. We need to start looking for something other than TIR that can provide protection against energy weapons.
Advanced xenobiology - 800
Mind shields - 70+243.25
Omni-tool upgrades - 37+89
Light cruisers - 10: Again, same reasoning as yours.
2175-Q1 (for delivery 2175-Q2)
Mark II: 500 - Now that our original H&K contract is nearing completion, we can think about implementing the Mark II with a clear conscience.
TIR - 22.5+1577.5
[Some Biotech] - 70
Light cruisers - 10+69.75+94.25 = 204/600: Same reasoning as yours, but also I want to get Light Cruiser tech implemented, both for the Hanar and for the Alliance. Our Space Factory IIIs should start coming online within 2-3 quarters at this point, and we need to be building something larger than a frigate to take advantage of them.
Later priorities in 2175 include the rest of the core Cabira techs--multi-core eezo, grav wave detectors, UV lasers, high GW lasers--as well as blue box AIs if we can get them, and the Invisible Fighter/Frigate techs, just to complete the Cabira's stealth profile.
Lasers are better than repulsor cannons for most things, being longer range even with IR lasers and more efficient in delivering energy to the target (remember that Repulsors are something like 1% efficient; the only reason they're any good at all is because they don't use propellant/fuel). The only reason to get repulsor weapons is for when an enemy has TIR shielding deployed, rendering lasers useless. In this way repulsor weapons are the new GARDIAN laser beams: a "knife range" ship weapon that can do crazy damage, but only when you're right next to the target.
We'll need to develop them eventually, but only after TIR tech proliferates. Until then, it's a waste of RPs.
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That is nothing for this quest. Serious look here. That link will take you to a tally so large it had to be split across three posts to successfully post.
All put together they had a total word count of over fifteen thousand words (15,684 to be exact).
Probably not... there is currently only one uploading tech in game right now and it wouldn't allow that.
The short answer is it depends on the VI and is complicated. Some VIs learn from collected data (They may not self modify, but they do learn). Some VI's are really composites of smaller VIs. Once a VI has a general problem solving method it can rapidly become an AI.
Ultimately a fair number of VIs are potential "seeds" that could become an AI if not contained. They are contained with watch programs, inherent crippling and the like.
That sounds around what I'd do.
Not by themselves they won't! How will they know the laser is coming?
I do have a laser shield tech in mind. Though I'm still hammering out the exact details of the rest Gaver (sp?) Dor's tree.
Tech tree should be updated FYI
Okay calling it! Ohh compact mode... I like that.
Vote Tally : Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution | Page 418 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.4.2
Spare Time (pick two):
[39] Continue Peak Human Treatment (Full Captain America Upgrade, Part 2/5 Done), maybe chosen twice
-[39] Ghost in the machine! You can have lots of fun with admin access to all the nice holographic screens and projectors. You may even be able to catch Kasumi!
[26] Continue Peak Human Treatment (Full Captain America Upgrade, Part 2/5 Done), maybe chosen twice
-[26] Study Diplomacy/Etiquette/Negotiation
What will your response be?
[28] "...'Courting' wasn't the idea there; I value you too much, both your friendship and your expertise, to want to pressure you like that. If you want to catch a movie, or whatever people like us would do, that might be fun though.
Will you go?
[59] Sure
Well that's a not good sign, if an enemy is coming you don't have long. What sort of preparations will you make?
[24] Some of the city shielding working would be better than none. (-200 million credits)
-[X] Coordinate with the Alliance and City Government to make sure the Civilians know which sections of the city are covered by shields and can evacuate to those locations.
-[X] Call a Tactical Alert for security forces and ParSec (2 12-hour shifts on 24-hour rotation, A/B watches, allocate up to 100 million in overtime pay)
-[X] Coordinate with the City Government, distribute drones in squads of 12 Accipiters/6 Tribulus throughout the cities to act as a fast reaction force (50 squads--600 Accipiters and 300 Tribulus drones each--for S. Carthage and La Morte, 100 squads--1,200 Accipiters and 600 Tribulus drones--for Landing), have ParSec coordinate drones.
-[X] In the first 12 hours, build 1,000 Sagittarius drones, 1,000 Aspidai drones, and 10 Standard Anti-ship missiles (1,395 million, 6,000 production). Distribute 600 of those drones to the various fast-reaction forces (3 each per squad).
-[X] In the second 12 hours, build 20 Tigers, 10 Standard Anti-ship missiles, 100 Hydras, 192 Legionaries, and 1,000 Piliums (1,314.4 million, 4566 Production)
-[X] In hours 24-48 (ish), build 10 Gladius Type Cs (2,583.9 million, 9,290 Production)
-[X] Total spent over 48 hours: 5,293.3 million credits, 19,856 Production
Total No. of Voters: 72
Hmm... compact isn't perfect, but a with a little work, good enough.
Edt: Numbers why do you change? Anyway same winning votes.
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Out of curiosity when might we expect the update. I'm only asking because finals week and all that.
Next week is hell week for me, but it not looking to bad, if I don't encounter a writer's block. Those things are vicious. I may get it done very soon indeed.
- Location
- Brazil
Do we actually have 5 billion to spend? I thought we closed the quarter with a mere 3 billion to our name.
Yay! Operation Just-in-time Military is go! 
Oh, and Transformation Systems should be yellow now, not that we have a terribly important reason to get it for awhile yet. Maybe when we have multiple next-gen weapon systems developed and we want to make starship-scale morphic weapons a reality.
Seriously, though, it's such a waste for a company like ours. At least Buffet had an excuse; his primary business is insurance where you need a giant cash reserve. We're a growth company with massive (and massively increasing) quarterly profits; we should be carrying debt loads every quarter so we can finance larger factories, more complementary business arms (like that mining division so we can secure a palladium reserve!), etc.
Well sure, it's not going to do anything against the first X nanoseconds of the hit, and it's definitely not going to be the complete protection that TIR is, but it ought to be better than no barriers at all.
Oh, and Transformation Systems should be yellow now, not that we have a terribly important reason to get it for awhile yet. Maybe when we have multiple next-gen weapon systems developed and we want to make starship-scale morphic weapons a reality.
Pretty sure it's closer to 60 billion. In fact we had a similarly gigantic cash reserve at the end of last quarter as well, which I'm regarding as a failure of imagination. If we're just going to keep sitting on billions of credits quarter after quarter we need to start an investment arm of our company, like Warren Buffet.
Seriously, though, it's such a waste for a company like ours. At least Buffet had an excuse; his primary business is insurance where you need a giant cash reserve. We're a growth company with massive (and massively increasing) quarterly profits; we should be carrying debt loads every quarter so we can finance larger factories, more complementary business arms (like that mining division so we can secure a palladium reserve!), etc.
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Ok, some comments:
1) On lasers vs. Mk2 - mk2 is more of a gate tech in terms of how much of our tech can be implemented. Lasers (miniaturized DEW) put advanced laser weaponry in our soldiers' hands (because simple construction lasers just need Mk2 reactors for a power source, really). Mk2 allows integration of a lot of advanced tech in our suits. Plus, Mk2 suits are capable of reentry, flight and lots of other tactical tricks. Basically, Mk2 is more versatile than laser weaponry. Laser weaponry is, well, weaponry. Mk2 is a weapon platform.
2) On barriers - I would actually assume that any singularity barriers would require both Gaven Dor's reactive barriers and Conrad's black hole gun to be unlocked. The assumption that TIR is unusable to troops on the ground... @Hoyr could you confirm or deny this?
Overall, this is a bit more militarized than my idea. I could live with swapping Grav Wave detectors for Black Hole gun + reactive barriers with the remaining RP going towards advanced prosthetics (with enough omakes, I think we might have a chance of buying it the turn after next one, then). Black hole gun should be integrate-able into Mk2 (techs under 800 points, right?), and would allow us to bypass personal energy weapon branch... Well, not completely, but somewhat.
On the other hand, well, I want grav wave detectors for pure scientific interest. They could be quite useful. As I said, I hope to either find lost relays, or Krypton or eezo deposits with them.
Actually it's the result of playing safe. I'd have to double check to be sure but I'm pretty sure that 60 billion, or at least the vast majority of it, came from the difference between the estimated income from selling kits to CHA, I used the minimum figures to be safe and avoid going over budget, and the actual income.
TKB17
Playing with portals!
- Location
- Up! Down!
That was pre-cleaned up vote system, though...and holy shit is that vote a mess.
I am happy the tally is only 1.2k, even though we now have more voters. I mostly lurk in this quest, but it's still nice to see (I should have specified that).
It makes it easier for everyone, yes?
For one, now that we have Repulsors integrated into the suits they can do powered re-entry, like the Tiger does, and can do it more quickly than if we had bothered with that 50-point heat shield tech. For another, the only technologies so far that we have that the Legionary can't mount is either vehicle/starship sized, Invisible Man, or Superalloys. We're not even looking at the stuff we need the Mark II/III for yet (Swarm Networking, Repulsor Cannons, Black F*cking Gun, maybe Thermal Compensator and Artificial Biotics), because in terms of weapon systems we still need to be looking at starship weapons first, since we're still behind the State Of The Art there (Salarians have UV lasers; Geth have X-ray).
On the other hand, better lasers seriously change the game, both on the ground and in space. It may "just" be a weapon, but it's a weapon that, like the Pilium three years ago, fundamentally changes the nature of warfare, and unlike the Pilium it does so across all theaters of war. In contrast, the Mark II changes the ground game, sure, but we've already won there, and we don't have the follow-on techs to make the Mark II really useful anyway, not yet.
That's probably accurate. I guess it just seems weird that a company like ours, which is still in super-exponential growth territory, is constantly in positive cash, rather than taking out all the loans it can beg, borrow, or steal, though that seems to be mainly due to game balance reasons.
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I might have missed it - when did we fully integrate repulsors into Mk 1.75? have to say I disagree. Mk 2 is still a qualitative leap forward. It changes the ground and air combat, and, in some ways, even space combat (boarding action might become viable). Integration of Invisible Man is quite a big thing. If QEC could also be integrated into it... Well, that's another leap forward. Basically, more technology can be integrated into Mk 2, than comes out of miniaturized lasers.
On the ground, I'd rather let someone else develop miniaturized energy weapons, really - with mk 2 reactors salarians at least should be able to put out a perfected design relatively quickly (because, really, it's not that hard). Yes, sure, ours would have been better, but that revolution would come anyway. I'd rather develop gravity guns for our troops. In space... Yeah, ok, gravity guns aren't usable in stealth because of grav wave detectors, there lasers should be useful (even if TIR kinda makes them less than effective).
Basically - laser weaponry revolution is likely to come even without us, and I like that, and am fine with that - we are ultimately working against Reapers, so we don't need to work on everything ourselves. I'd rather work on stuff others won't be able to do. Black hole gun seems like a good investment there.
So, yeah, I think that black hole guns would be a better investment than miniaturized energy weapons for ground combat, and I am fine with allowing Salarians to have that breakthrough on their own. I also think that Mk 2 platform is important enough to be put out soon, especially in the event of a war.
I have no idea what soon means in context.
It's where the "b" came from in "Mark 1.75b". They're not integrated into hands and feet yet, and frankly that's a silly place for a non-daredevil to put Repulsor engines anyway; for flight purposes you're better off keeping them near center-mass, which incidentally the more combat-oriented Iron Man armors do (see the Mark VII armor at the end of Avengers, with Repulsors integrated into a "backpack" and "shoulder harness").
I sort of agree, except that we don't really have any guarantee that we'll even be able to scale up black hole guns to starship-scale, let alone how much it'll cost in RPs.
On one hand, UV laser/mini-energy weapons/high-GW lasers techs cost a total of 1200; we know they all exist, that they all stack with each other, and that when all three are combined they fully trump everything in space, up to and including dreadnought weapons. This was one of the core observations of the Cabira techs in the first place: that we can, within 9-12 months, put together frigates that can reliably out-range and take down Batarian heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts, which we are sure to see in combat if the Batarians declare war like we're expecting. We can fight them now, but with those techs we can stomp them, which we need to do if we want them to surrender rather than dig in for a decades-long war.
The black hole version, on the other hand, takes 1200 RPs just for the missile version (Black F*cking Gun + Dark Energy Warheads), which are both super-expensive and questionably reliable. The MAC version? We don't even know how much it'll cost, but at the minimum it'll require 1800 RPs (Black Gun, Advanced Ammo Mods, Small Ship mods), plus whatever follow-on techs are required to integrate the two, all without really knowing how effective it'll be. Oh, and let's not forget that we need to pick up Miniaturized Energy Weapons eventually anyway because the Repulsor Cannon techs are gated behind it; we'll need those to adapt our short-range GARDIAN defenses if and when TIR shielding becomes more common.
All in all, ship-scale laser weapons are faster and more reliable an upgrade path, and we need that right now in anticipation of a Human-Batarian war, the worst of which is going to be fought in space, where humanity is currently out-gunned, as opposed to on the ground where we already have superior weapons tech and drones as backup.
It means don't harass the QM for an update; that's very rude.
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Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
hand and feet is actually a great place for secondary repulsors, where they can be used for stabilization and maneuvering.
Hmm, you are right. I missed some things about miniaturized energy weapons. How about this?
QEC - 22.5+1456.75. Finishing up QEC so we can start distributing it as soon as possible. Especially important in light of the latest update and how the situation would have differed if we had it running. This is the strategic war tech and, as such a priority.
This leaves us with 616.75 general points. Depending on how events play out (if we face full out war, if this is something that looks like Reapers, etc), the point allocation can be switched around. But, in general, something like this:
Mark 2 - 500. Military tech, combines a fighter and an armor in one package, in a situation of non-Reaper war should be game-changing, especially with invisible man and all other goodies installed.
Mind shields - 70+116.75. This is a tech that's basically meant to appease STG, really, and win us political favor with them. This allows Mordin to report progress to his superiors. The omake points I'll put here first, so ideally we can roll out Mk2 with it integrated (and start distributing implant version if it's a part of that tech).
Omni-tool upgrades - 37. Putting it a bit on backburner here, yes, but it's not a super-high priority tech.
Light Cruisers - 10. Slowly accumulating the points.
Reasoning is pretty much unchanged, getting Mk2 out. I value it a bit over energy weapons, as we have weapons already that can do the work, and protecting our soldiers is more important to me, not to mention that in a situation of non-Reaper war, and non-total war (ie something likely to be fought against batarians) ground action in urban environment is likely to feature prominently. We could swap mind shields here for MIniaturized energy weapons here. The way I see it, if we are in a war situation, and/or if we have enough RPs from omakes to but the tech this turn (meaning 283.25 points or six omakes total), we could delay the mind shields till next turn (since even now the plan has them as next turn tech) and buy energy weapons here.
Turn after the next one:
Mind shields - 70+143.25. Finishes up mind shields (which we can then leak to STG), improving security and getting paranoia out of the way.
I would have liked to start researching TIR here, to keep on track to Cabira, but we don't have a deep space lab, and I don't think we can get it by that point (please, correct me if I'm wrong). Thus, I go to the next important tech that is least likely to massive disturb the galactic scene (since I am trying to progress from least disruptive to most disruptive tech on that track):
Minituarized energy weapons - 400. As you said, an important gate tech. Improves offensive capabilities.
Advanced xenobiology - 800. At this point we are likely to be in talks with both Drell and Quarians (and quite possibly some other races) about bioforming. Making peak [species], and [advanced genemodding] available to them, not to mention out other medical tech should greatly boost our sales pitches and improve relationships. We might be able to use it to get AI licence. If we do, some of the points afterwards are going to be dedicated to AI research afterwards.
Omni-tool upgrades - 37+89. Finished up the project for low cost
Advanced prosthetics - 263.75. Start of the cybernetics research track as discussed previously.
Light cruisers - 10. Still slowly accumulating points.
Gravitational wave sensors - 22.5+377.5. We are likely to accumulate 400 RP points by this time (it would be eight updates later, so this is not an unreasonable assumption, I feel), so we could buy grav wave sensors here. If not, I'll pull RP away from omni-tool upgrades probably.
Next turn:
TIR - 22.5+1577.5. Get it done, get it done quickly, get it done before STG has time to react, start integrating it.
Advanced prosthetics - 70+466.75. Finished "first tier" of cybernetics route, should help quarians (since they already rely on cybernetics to boost their immune system), drell, possibly krogans (the proposed fetility-controlled wombs). Depending on specifics might allow cross-species procreation asari-style (artificial melding + using your partner's DNA / brain patterns to randomize the genetic pattern of the offspring). I wonder what the asari's reaction would be if we stole their schtick.
Gravitational wave sensors - 127.5 (I somehow didn't allocate several RPs previously, leaving me with 127.5 extra to spend, compared to my previous plan). Overall, I am confident that with omake RPs we should be able to afford it by this turn.
Light cruisers - 10. Continuing the slow build up. Depending on if we have AI licence by that point, and if "improving setting tech" applies to blue box ais at least, we either put 69.75 points into it, or into cruisers. If we had to postpone omni-tool upgrades to this date, we'll put 69.75 into them, and add a little bit extra.
The idea is to get one strategic tech (QEC->advanced xenobiology / gravitational wave detectors -> TIR / gravitational wave detectors), one tactical tech (mark 2 -> miniaturized energy weapons -> advanced prosthetics), one biological / peaceful tech (mind shields -> mind shields / advanced xenobiology -> advanced prosthetics), one security / protection tech (mind shields / mark 2 -> mind shields) per turn, advancing in all the areas at once, basically. I left shields on the wayside, as I feel that with mk 2 reactors + superalloys fully integrated into mk 2s and our tanks / craft, we could afford it.
Depending on how many omakes we have, there's a slight chance of some other techs in there (either black hole guns, which would likely be needed to research singularity shielding anyway, or UV lasers, much as I loathe to do salarian work for them). Overall, I expect the plan to actually go faster.
Politically, the results would play like this, probably:
1) After next turn, SA becomes much more protected. QECs makes fleet responces faster, mark 2s can hold their ground until reinforcements arrive
2) The turn after that we earn a lot of goodwill and go on the offensive in ground combat with miniaturized energy weapons
3) The next turn we basically break the paradigm with TIR
Huh... oops.
I don't recall commenting on it one way or another. TIR stealth isn't useful though as you turn into a black light-hole or act as a giant mirror. TIR shielding for lasers is it's own mess.
Okay so as we have talked about their are two types or TIR which I will label "Black" and "Mirror" for their physical appearance.
Black involves mass increasing fields, but the strength is consequently detrimental to anything near the unit and possibly the unit (it may be possible to shield the unit from this). It basically would involve surrounding the unit in a psuedo-singularity. The unit is nearly blinded as usual.
Mirror has few problems A) the unit can bake in it's own heat, B) if you use a high powered FTL to prevent that field the unit will partially phase, have no mass to resist impacts and be nearly blinded as usual. Oh and be an easily targeted giant mirror.
Interesting partial effects could be used to reduce laser effectiveness, your basically producing "laser cover" not laser shielding. Also short duration uses to close distance after collecting data would be possible.
TIR can be used in atmosphere or on the ground, it just not ideal for units in those areas.
Insert my usual grumbling.
Repulsors were added in to replace the existing jet system on the 1.75b. It's not as good as a design ment to use repulsors but it does work.
Next few days?
Er... 1600. 800 + 400 + 400.
The mods are only if you want the gun to shoot other things... you don't need them if it only shoot pseudo-singularities or normal singularities.
I will say that there will probably be an expensive tech that allows Darkstar like weapons and series of techs that upscale the BFG.
The GM offers no guarantees any of the following will be true (I'm just pointing out what I like to do):
Analyzing my previous habits the size up will probably follow this pattern.
Infantry>Vehicle/Fighter>Starships
And will probably double each jump.
Ah thank you for translating that.
Oh, right, herp derp.
The reasoning there was that the black hole gun would itself be considered a mod of the normal frigate-sized MAC, however...
If we're going this route, where upscaling the Black Hole gun is its own hidden tech series, all that goes out the window.
The thing that worries me is that, in atmosphere or on the ground, you'll have the atmosphere interacting directly with the FTL-quality TIR field. I'm not sure what that will do, exactly, but it probably involves spewing Cerenkov radiation everywhere, both inside and outside the field. I'm also not sure we can easily build FTL-quality fields around infantry-scale suits without the Ultracompact FTL drives tech.
So, TIR is usable to at least generate some laser protection. That's good. Are grav. wave sensors usable in atmosphere and can they be scaled to fit into power armor? To see through walls and TIR shields.
Well, we are unlikely to use ship-scale ones, as they would run counter to TIR stealth (if enemy has grav wave sensors).
Wait, what? What weapon are you planning on using then? You're already dismissing lasers; Repulsors are way too short range; are you suggesting we use regular un-upgraded MACs as the primary weapon for TIR-stealth ships?