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Well, there's one option that might be gradually improved if it wins, but for the rest of it, +100. We aren't just prototyping, we're building the first functional model to put in places that need it.

Right, the storage enchantment can be improved. But the actual process of designing alternative waystone setups doesn't get easier just because we've done something similar is what I was trying to get at. If we create one using the [ ] Leyline option for transmission, in the future it doesn't get easier to create one using the [ ] Both transmission option even if every other component is the same.
 
[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)

This is definitely the all-in option, and I can't help but voting for it because of that. I was a little leery about the reverse engineering, but if it's gonna be done at some point (which I think's probably the right call) might as well get started on it early to get those kinks worked out.
 
I, also, subscribe to the KISS school for engineering problems. So, approval voting such plans as:

[X] Plan Simple and Functional
[X] Plan: Repairing The Network First
[X] Plan Keep It Simple
[X] Plan: The FEMA Model
[X] Plan: The FEMA Model (Collegiate Foundation Edition)
[X] Plan Simple and Functional
 
[x] Plan Building A Better Future
- [x] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
- [x] [RUNE] Dwarven
- [x] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Runed
- [x] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
- [x] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)

I've been convinced that the reverse-engineered option isn't ideal for a design that already requires High magic for the Capstone.
 
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Consider also that both most voted plans have dual Leyline-River transmission too, which is another possibly complicated to design part even beyond 'fitting everything together'. If we want possible magic shinies we can still investigate the reverse-engineering later, but now our priority should be to build a functional and, if possible, mass deployable waystone, and every hour we spend trying to figure out a way to get the reverse engineered storage to be close to as efficient as any of the other methods already are (and we're far from certain to succeed) is an hour not spent in figuring out other parts of the Waystone like the river-leyline connection.


Also, changing my vote to approval vote for the most voted plan that doesn't have reverse engineering.

[X] Plan Building A Better Future
[X] Plan Simple and Functional
[X] Plan Keep It Simple
[X] Plan Keep It Simple, with Material
 
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[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine
 
One of the advantages to my mind of building a maximum functionality Waystone now is that if we build a second model it can be more different, so between them a greater amount of the 'solution space' is covered.

With this Waystone churning away being refined in the background doing everything the Golden Age version can do but better, we can then explore more innovative options.

I'll still my Wayboat proposal as an example. A Waystone built into a boat solves a very different use case to the one the Golden Age elder races were trying to solve, but one that is very useful in the modern day, particularly for Kislev. The simplest way of making it requires cutting a deal with a river spirit/god, but I think that's pretty manageable.

In general, an advantage of making a Jade riverine Waystone now is that it's leverage over river spirits. In future if we want to make a spirit dependent design they'll know they aren't the only game in town, that whatever they ask for has to be cheaper than the cost of the Jade method, otherwise we can just use that.

Similarly, a low production rate of Golden Age + Waystone for permanent installation could be supplanted by the temporary use of a much cheaper easier to make version that's not intended to last, so makes use of compromises that we don't want to make in the long term but are willing to in the short term.

Edit: @Boney, I'm not sure if it makes sense, but would it be possible to build a Waystone that can work with three transmission methods, so it could work wi try the leylines, or a cooperative spirit, or with a river that's had the Jade's menhirs installed along its bed?
 
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Edit: @Boney, I'm not sure if it makes sense, but would it be possible to build a Waystone that can work with three transmission methods, so it could work wi try the leylines, or a cooperative spirit, or with a river that's had the Jade's menhirs installed along its bed?

It's possible, but the difficulty of making sure everything works together compounds as you add more methods.
 
Want something that can be produced at a reasonable scale.

If scalability is your focus you may want to consider a cheaper design. We don't know what the dominant constraint is, whether cost or skilled labour availability would be the rate limiting factor.

The 'Building a better future option' is very expensive, which may be a major limitation on deploying them at scale.

This also changes over time. Something using reverse engineered storage stays cheap but the manpower constraint relaxes over time but expensive runic storage will always be expensive.

In the long run it seems quite possible that options with reverse engineered storage scale better. We just don't know how long it would take for the crossover to occur, if it does.
 
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I wonder if the deep seas are full of Ulgu, considering the lack of light and the absence of a stone roof. That may be a place that is full of high quality Grey wizard enchanting components and it's completely inaccesible to us.
 
I wonder if the deep seas are full of Ulgu, considering the lack of light and the absence of a stone roof. That may be a place that is full of high quality Grey wizard enchanting components and it's completely inaccesible to us.
I think the point where sunlight no longer reaches would be full of ulgu.
Deeper than that, or shallower, and ulgu does not care.
 
Hopefully this isn't counting chickens before they hatch, but if we do succeed at making a really high quality Waystone this turn, I wonder if that can be leveraged by Mathiode diplomatically.

Look at the context at the time Mathilde will travel to Lothern:

Within the last year she signed her name on the same treaty as the Prince of Yryvesse, the representative of the Phoenix King.
She's also head of the Waystone Project which has just made probably the first Waystone constricted in the Old World for four thousand years.

Together those two facts put a completely different complexion on her visit to Lothern to how it would been previously. Before now, she was just some human, now she's very likely interesting.

She's a demonstration in the flesh of the success of Finubar's policy of re-engagement with the politics of the old world.

Doors may be open to us (and our associated) that wouldn't have been open to us before. The merchant princes of Lothern may smell opportunity in us, it's scholars may be interested in exchanging (or extracting) knowledge from us, and nobles politically aligned with Finubar may want to demonstrate a connection with us a symbol of his policies.

All of this presents us opportunities, whether smaller ones to get better access to the (book) traders of Lothern, up to much larger ones like getting a foot in the door of Lothern's apparently extensive libraries. It's possibly also a chance to influence how the Asur central government and the Princes of Lothern engage and contribute to the Waystone Project in future by meeting them and their advisors and talking to them about it.

Depending on how things shake out, I can see the Emperor wanting a chat with us about how we present ourselves, and the Queen in Laurelorn sending a delegation at the same time, using us as a distraction.

All of this is probably made easier by having the most impressive Waystone demonstration model we can now.
 
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