Circular Reasoning [Babylon 5 AU splinter colony quest]

More exo wombs! Lets build another one.

Manatee supreme said:

More exo wombs! Lets build another one.

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Might raise tensions with the Matriarchs to do it so soon. Better to wait a little while.

I think two is enough, thank you (at least for now)

Some thoughts on strategy for this turn:

1. I think the year coming is a storm year, we might want to avoid a lot of hunting operations and find something else for the militia to do.

2. It may be a better idea to divert some shuttles or gun shuttles to installing a solar farm in orbit, than just building more fusion reactors.

3. The other thing we could use spacecraft for is exploring the 2 anomalies in the system we haven't looked at yet. It would be good to do that before we leave the Founding period.

4. a 3rd science lab could be a good investment, otherwise we will have no research choices this turn with the 2 ongoing projects taking up all research time. Or we could prioritize shuttles and getting to both anomalies while installing the orbital solar farm and continuing mining,

thanks for the chapter and for writing'

Servetus said:

1. I think the year coming is a storm year, we might want to avoid a lot of hunting operations and find something else for the militia to do.

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Not all techs come from research labs. If you give a good enough writeup and maybe an Omake to support it that can have a Military Action yield something.

Servetus said:

2. It may be a better idea to divert some shuttles or gun shuttles to installing a solar farm in orbit, than just building more fusion reactors.

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With the Biomech Facility you could convert Biomass to Minerals so you could conceivably burn 3 Autofactory actions, build the Receiver and two Satellites, 24 solar panels, and between your stored materials and income you you'd still have some left over. (I'll allow two Satellite deployments as one Orbital Operation since it would be a bulk operation of the same kind.)

That would let you repeat the operation again the next turn because a Receiver can support 5 Satellites, too.

Logos01 said:

Yes, [Psi-Drones] produce +1 of /resource/ where allocated at the cost of -1 Energy. Unlike the Robotic facility upgrade, Psi-Drones can be reallocated from one facility to another as needed, and can extend the number of Facilities you keep operational at full capacity.

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Logos01 said:

Psionic Tier 1:
- Psionic Drones: +1 "psi-drones" pop. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action, 1 Psi-Crystal Machine Action, 2 Minerals. Can support 3 Psi-Drones pops per Human Pop.

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@Logos01 a while back you said Psi-Drones take 1 Energy/turn, but that is not shown on the Designs list; please clarify when you can? For now I'm going to assume they do take power.


State of the Colony:
Previous Turn

FOOD
- Base income: 12
-- 6 from greenhouses suffering Ancient Blight: 20% chance of total crop failure in Farms annually.
- Base expenses: 7
- Projected surplus: 5 (80% odds) / -1 (20% odds)
-- "Expected" surplus = 5*.8-1*.2 = 3.8
- Fishing Fleets: 1
- Expected fishing yield: 1x(1d4+1) =3+ (50% odds); =2+ (95% odds)
- Current stockpile: 20/40
- We have enough food stockpiled to survive TWO blight years
- In the worst possible case, we will have POSITIVE (+1) food income

BIOMASS
- Base income: 20
- Base expenses: 5
- Current stockpile: 15/40
- Projected surplus: 15

MINERALS
- Base income: 13
- Base expenses: 2
- Current stockpile: 30/40
- Projected surplus: 11
- Expected asteroid mining: 3x(1d12+3) =29+ (50% odds); =19+ (95% odds)
-- (assuming all available ships used for mining)

ENERGY
- Base income: 39
- Syngas Burn Rate: 3/3
- Base expenses: 39
- Current stockpile: 12/20
- Projected surplus: 0

WORKFORCE
- Human Pops: 3
- Growth: 50 children/year (0.2 Pop/t)
- Housing used/available: 3/4
- Psi Drones (max HP*3): 1
- Capacity (HP*10+PD): 31
- Jobs: 20
- Spare Capacity: 11

PRODUCTION
- 3 Autofabricator actions
- 5 Autofactory actions
-- (or get 3 autofab actions per 1 autofac)
- 1 Psi-Crystal fabricator action

ORBITAL MINING/EXPLORATION
- 3 Orbital Operations

It's time to spend! those! Minerals!
(remember, we can use minerals for storm-hardening in place of biomass)

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Logos01 said:

Centauri autofabbers do not have E/t cost

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Interesting. Might be worth shutting one down and setting it aside for eventual reverse-engineering? Of course, I don't know how well Centauri tech lasts; they might still be 'lightly used' three generations from now.

We're maybe due to build another "Civilian" Autofactory, to keep up with population growth? Not sure how many Pops worth of Production Credits one autofactory can provide.

Logos01 said:

People had been reaching their limits on how far "frontier spirit" can carry a soul.

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Heck, might even be worth building a dedicated "Civil" Autofactory so we can start paying actual wages.
(maybe don't call it 'civil', that could get confusing fast)

Servetus said:

Some thoughts on strategy for this turn:

1. I think the year coming is a storm year, we might want to avoid a lot of hunting operations and find something else for the militia to do.

2. It may be a better idea to divert some shuttles or gun shuttles to installing a solar farm in orbit, than just building more fusion reactors.

3. The other thing we could use spacecraft for is exploring the 2 anomalies in the system we haven't looked at yet. It would be good to do that before we leave the Founding period.

4. a 3rd science lab could be a good investment, otherwise we will have no research choices this turn with the 2 ongoing projects taking up all research time. Or we could prioritize shuttles and getting to both anomalies while installing the orbital solar farm and continuing mining,

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I like all of these.

As a note, a solar farm would be neat, but if we're worried about attacks, we probably want standby power on the surface too.

KNakamura said:

As a note, a solar farm would be neat, but if we're worried about attacks, we probably want standby power on the surface too.

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That is the risk, we definitely don't want to lose our backbone of Fusion Reactors. Hopefully in time we can get better battery storage and increase our ability to stockpile energy.

In the meantime the Receiver and the Solar Farms looks like a very good use of our mineral stockpile. If we know we are going to have a big energy surplus next turn we can build gun shuttles instead of regular shuttles to make better use of autofactory time. Long term I think we will want to retire the gun shuttles in favor of superior craft, but right now they cost less autofactory time and we can churn out more. Especially since we can make each one with 5 minerals and 5 biomass instead of 10 minerals. 12-24 minerals worth of orbital solar farm, plus the receiver. Then maybe another Science lab? A Civilian focused autofactory might be good choice as well.

TeaMug said:

Interesting. Might be worth shutting one down and setting it aside for eventual reverse-engineering? Of course, I don't know how well Centauri tech lasts; they might still be 'lightly used' three generations from now.

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It's only because they're attached to the colony ship. That's a freebie I gave to the quest to kick things off.

Servetus said:

That is the risk, we definitely don't want to lose our backbone of Fusion Reactors. Hopefully in time we can get better battery storage and increase our ability to stockpile energy.

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Don't forget you guys also have access to another fusion reactor design once you do the back-engineering research on it. The transport ship in your drydock has a much more powerful fusactor on board than the Basic shuttle fusactors.

It would cost (a lot) more minerals and more Autofactory actions for each, but it would actually have a much higher yield per unit as well.

Long term we're going to want to disassemble that colony ship to get a good look at the gravity plating. The autofabbers as well. After we've scouted all anomalies in the system and are a bit more established.

Reverse engineering the future ship and it's reactor is also a good idea, but we're in 2 multi-year science projects already.

Servetus said:

Long term we're going to want to disassemble that colony ship to get a good look at the gravity plating. The autofabbers as well. After we've scouted all anomalies in the system and are a bit more established.

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I mean the colony ship is also on the list, but I meant the wrecked transport the uptimers arrived in.

TeaMug said:

@Logos01 a while back you said Psi-Drones take 1 Energy/turn, but that is not shown on the Designs list; please clarify when you can? For now I'm going to assume they do take power.

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They should, yes, but I dropped it this turn. I'll include it moving forward though.

Thanks for the chapter logos.

Will the civilian research lab finish the current one before going to something else?.

Idk if it was mentioned earlier as iv been distracted from reading outside chapters due to letting a backlog of sb/sv updates build up.

So I'm planning to update the next turn tomorrow and there are still no votes folks. That would be an obstacle...

[X]Plan Rise above the Storms
-[X] Industry
--[X] Build 1 Storm hardened Solar Rectenna station. 1 auto factory, 6 minerals
--[X] Build 1 Solar Satellite. 1 Orbital action, 1 auto factory, 3 minerals and 2 biomass
--[X] Build 1 Storm hardened science lab, 1 auto factory 5 minerals 1 biomass
--[X] The remaining 2 autofactories wil serve as 3 autofabbers each
--[X] Build 12 Solar farms for orbital installation with satellite. 1 autofabber, 18 minerals, 6 biomass
--[X] Build 3 gun shuttles, 2 autofabber actions each, 5 minerals and 5 biomass each. 6 autofabber actions and 15 minerals, 15 biomass total
--[X] Build 1 Storm hardened civilian autofactory. Cost 2 autofabber 6 minerals
--[X] Reduce Syngas burn rate to 0/3, if doing so can be done without causing energy deficit
-[X] Orbital
--[X] 3 asteroid mining actions
--[X] 1 satellite installation
--[X] 1 orbital Solar farm installation
--[X] 1 attempt to study the 1 of the energetic anomalies in the system
-[X] Military
--[X] Hide and go seek. With the Storms raging the militia can attempt a few war games focused on stealth. With the model of local species like the Catxolotl members of the the militia can attempt to work on hiding from both telepathic and mundane detection through use of their abilities.
-[X] Start zero-g training using ride alongs on the various shuttle missions. Also, send some people along when we investigate the 2 anomalies, in case of xenomorphs.
-[X] While our TK miltary equipment is in limited supply we can run classes in other skills; First Aid, Emergency Response and Disaster preparedness.
-[X] Exploration
--[X]Study 1 of the known energetic anomalies in the system
--[X] If possible, observe any storm year behavioral changes in local species, if this can be done safely
-[X] Research
--[X] Continue both current projects
--[X] Begin study of the systems of the transport that the up timers were on. Electronics, the fusion reactor, everything. Record everything while we disassemble the transport.
-[X] Diplomacy
--[X] Focus on community building exercises. Expend some food on a public banquet as a social event. Focus is on making sure people inside and outside of the clan system (particularly up timers) see themselves as part of the same community
-[X] Personal
--[X] Assist wargaming by leading a clairvoyance choir, to expedite search and rescue and medivac
--[X] Just spend some time with Mira and the children. Life is too short.

Edited to Add: If I mucked up my math and someone notices something, please let me know.

Further Edit: Added an additional Personal Action by suggestion from @TeaMug
I changed the Military actions as a result of Feedback about the danger. If people really want to do the stealth exercises in a Hurricane season I left it in with a strikethrough to make it easy for a new plan to be created if people really want that.

[X]Plan Rise above the Storms

That is a LOT of building, dang.

@Servetus, I think I might add "assist wargaming by leading a clairvoyance circle choir, to expedite search and rescue and medivac" to the personal action. If we're having folks run around outside during a hurricane, there's going to be accidents and injuries at some point.

Edit: looks like the correct term is choir.

TeaMug said:

@Servetus, I think I might add "assist wargaming by leading a clairvoyance circle, to expedite search and rescue and medivac" to the personal action. If we're having folks run around outside during a hurricane, there's going to be accidents and injuries at some point.

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The intent was to only run the games in the areas closer to the settlement under the Storm Nullifier, but the point is well made. I'm not sure if we can do telepathy further than line of sight when we are not in Hyperspace however.

If anyone has an alternative military action that is safer in the Storm year they would like to suggest? The only other one I thought of was to get some freefall training in since we have enough shuttles up there we could probably get some training in while flying back and forth from the asteroid belt.

[X]Plan Rise above the Storms

Looking good and the solar satellite does sound like a nice investment, also a good start for orbital infrastructure.

I really wanted the Orbital Sensor sattelites, but it came down betweeen that, the civilian autofactory, or the 3rd science lab. We can start scanning the system next turn.

Areas under the storm nullifier don't actually have their storms nullified, merely reduced from planet-covering-superstorm to earth-level-hurricane. We still build pur greenhouses with meter-thick windows to keep out the flying trees.

(Source: it came to me in a dream Logos01 mentioned it somewhere, and I'm too lazy to chase it down right now)

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Servetus said:

I'm not sure if we can do telepathy further than line of sight when we are not in Hyperspace however.

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I was thinking of a reference early on (turn zero, dang) where clairvoyance was mentioned as useful for search and rescue.

Logos01 said:

you and a few of the more skilled 'clairvoyants' amongst your colonists decide to form a choir and try to get to the bottom of things.

It's a common misconception that telepaths require line-of-sight to interact with the minds of another. While there is truth to this, it's also a matter of degrees. Physical contact makes reading and affecting easier than line of sight, and line-of-sight makes reading easier than a more wide-area reading.

But if all you are doing is trying to get a sense of presence, even if you're doing it through walls of lead or over the area of kilometers -- well, that's clairvoyance. Vague impressions of the presences in an area, utterly useless in an urban setting but invaluable when doing search and rescue for lost hikers in the wilderness, your people put this less practiced skill to use. And you certainly discover something.

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So what's another military action we could do?

I wasn't thinking about sending the militia out in the Hurricane but apparently that is what I suggested.

Help!

I liked your idea of idea of getting some initial zero-g exposure. Could learn/practice more classroom-y stuff like first aid or logistics. Could do a month-long capture-the-flag game throughout the colony, followed by heavy analysis of tactics/weakness/desired tech/etc, repeat with varied teams for the rest of the year. Could dig through the database for good strategy-sim games.

Do we have our hyperspace beacon up? Could do signals intercepts & analysis.

TeaMug said:

I liked your idea of idea of getting some initial zero-g exposure. Could learn/practice more classroom-y stuff like first aid or logistics. Could do a month-long capture-the-flag game throughout the colony, followed by heavy analysis of tactics/weakness/desired tech/etc, repeat with varied teams for the rest of the year. Could dig through the database for good strategy-sim games.

Do we have our hyperspace beacon up? Could do signals intercepts & analysis.

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Stage 3 Starport has a hyperspace beacon and can do receive operations.

[X]Plan Rise above the Storms

Go alien ninja kitties!

Okay, maybe we should delay the stealth training until after the hurricane year.

I'm going to edit the plan but leave the old options in with a strikehrough, I know people are already voting but I was in a bit of a rush when I did the initial plan and didn't think things through.