@Prime 2.0 just thought of something. It might be worth putting Vitcan on the social engineering via boon actions for the Cogitare. He's good at that kind of thing and it's not like he has anything else to do this turn.
He might be better on a passive action with nothing specified. I think that the "counter-espionage" part of his passive could turn out to be very good thing to have right now, when considering all the chaos cultists that must have gone to the ground.
 
I like this plan too otherwise, except for one very important thing to me: Why no psychic encryption, @KyleDaScourge? Like Neablis said:

And I currently think that at least better machine spirit resistance is just not worth it when compared to it. We already have very bare-bones psy tripwires on top of the basic resistance that the Machine Spirits have. Even finishing the initial faith-studies isn't worth it. I just don't want to be again fucked over by our lack of anti-divination and anti-information-transfer against psychic threats.

I mean, that's a fair opinion, it hurt to take it out of my initial plan. If I'd realized the RP from the initial Cogitare recruits is apparently immediately available, I may have rejiggered things a little to try and keep it in. Although I don't know that it's going to be immediately applicable to all our existing psychic shielding, so we'll see whether it actually matters for the upcoming turn.

That said, I don't really dislike anything in the Franken-Plan.

The worst I can say about it is that I'm a little disappointed that they're spending a boon on recruiting diplomats rather than doubling the focus on long-term Cogitare recruitment, I'm a little disappointed that the build queue expanded to the point that only 97/130 factories are being brought online for next turn, and I think it's a little unlikely that flooding the nest with knockout gas and then trying to put anyone who looks chaos-y into a medically induced coma is going to turn out to be as feasible as they seem to think.

I could be wrong on that last point, but we'll see.
 
That does make sense, but W is already on that and she is a much more focused spy, he's a diplomat-spy.
In this kind situation immediately after the invasion, I think W would be very welcoming for all the competent and trustworthy help that she can get before the cults dig deeper into hiding. Because her workload might be still a bit heavy at the moment, even if not desperate as coordinating resistance against an invasion by the forces of Chaos.
 
[X] Plan: Son of Frankensteining My Plan Once Again

It has encription, makes reasonable use of boons, and does most of what I want.

Given we're about to go into a chaos stronghold I'd have preferred a small core of psyker shielded bots to work with Cia as a witch/daemon killer unit, but no one else seems to share this concern so maybe I'm overestimating the threat there.
 
@Prime 2.0, some thoughts on your plan

--[x][Boon] One-time Social Intervention (Cogitare NGO with Vita and Anexa in charge)
--[x][Boon] Permanent Social intervention x1 (Free action: Cogitare recruitment and [discovery/science] mission statement promotion)
Do we want the NGO mission statement to be Discovery/Science or do we want it to be Uplift/Teach? I feel like the 2nd would still get us quality crew but would align with our use of them better. It would likely have them doing uplift of their own after awhile as well.

--[x] Build 3K Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (570 VBP, 60 CP)
While heavy bots are good, remember they are bulk and have a hard time in close quarters (like a station). They are also spec'd with heavy anti-armor weapons, which might be over kill against cultists. Since light bots are better in dense terrain and spec'd for anti-infantry maybe change this to:
  • 2x Heavy Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (175 BP, 20 CP)
  • 2x Additional Spector (100 BP, 20 CP)
Also, don't forget that the Spector has machine spirit jamming, so it might be redundant to get it for heavy-bots as well.

--[X] Build 40x Basic Stealth Assault Shuttles (-1,000 VBP, -200 CP, +40 Shuttles, +4,000 Troop Transport Capacity)
--[X] Build 4 free floating Spaceports to support 40 Assault Shuttles. (-400 VBP, -100 CP, +40 Shuttle Capacity)
If you are willing to spare 5 RP (10RP /2*) it is cheaper to build this with a blueprint'd light defense station:
Assault Hub - Lt Def Plat (620 VBP, 110 CP, 10 RP), Hull: (270, 370m x 370m), Shields: None, Armor: None, Hull Equipment (50 BP): Psychic Shielding: 10 HP, Weapons (300 BP, 270 Size): 2x Assault Shuttles,
This would give the stations some psychic shielding and reduce the CP cost by 80 and save us 160 BP

*with 100 Cogitare we have 50 that are not producing RP, so we can afford to have 20 halve the design cost.

Now to catch a devilishly clever mouse that is vexing my cat....
 
Do we want the NGO mission statement to be Discovery/Science or do we want it to be Uplift/Teach? I feel like the 2nd would still get us quality crew but would align with our use of them better. It would likely have them doing uplift of their own after awhile as well.
That was what I wrote and Prime borrowed for his plan. And I can say that we have already takenn care of embedding uplifting and otherwise helping others with our social engineering with Denva. Better that we focus the efforts of Cogitare on actual scientific development and discovering archeotech/xenotech/etc.
While heavy bots are good, remember they are bulk and have a hard time in close quarters (like a station). They are also spec'd with heavy anti-armor weapons, which might be over kill against cultists. Since light bots are better in dense terrain and spec'd for anti-infantry maybe change this to:
  • 2x Heavy Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (175 BP, 20 CP)
  • 2x Additional Spector (100 BP, 20 CP)
Also, don't forget that the Spector has machine spirit jamming, so it might be redundant to get it for heavy-bots as well.
My thoughts for that part was less on the immediate situation. With over 1000 BP spent on the bots and then there being stealthed assault shuttles, etc. I think we have more than enough forces built and committed. Heavy bots with jammers (among everything else included) will be a fine addition to have back at our ship's defenses and if we need to commit to planetary-surface fighting.
 
That was what I wrote and Prime borrowed for his plan. And I can say that we have already takenn care of embedding uplifting and otherwise helping others with our social engineering with Denva. Better that we focus the efforts of Cogitare on actual scientific development and discovering archeotech/xenotech/etc.

That seems entirely unnecessary, and the last part in potential like it may predispose them to the nonsense canon sees whenever AdMech run into Necrons.

To quote Neablis on the subject, bolded to emphasize certain points...

It's a priesthood of aesthetics who fervently chase knowledge and replace significant chunks of their bodies with implants.

"Worshiping tech isn't what defines them so much. They worship knowledge, and the acquisition of more. Part of this is going in hard on augmentation, but also learning as much as they can about as many things as they can, to the extent they're closer to monks than normal people.

I think the way I'm going to rule this is that if you get normal scientists and engineers they'll have the same proficiency, but not in both. You either get scientists or engineers, while the Cogitare are both. But you'll have to put in effort to maintaining them as a subculture. Which could either be a long-term social intervention or a short one. The short-term one means you get more sooner but they start decaying again. The long-term one means you make them into a stable subculture in Denva's science & tech ecosystem."

If you do the ongoing one then you embed them and their culture more firmly into Denvan culture, as the place smart people go when they want to Learn Everything All the Time and not have distractions like families or retirement or etc. That will set them up as a stable existing institution that grows with Denva, where they're kind of like technology monks that everybody respects because they're more technology than anybody else.

Important point - this wouldn't start Starfleet. It would be closer to the old mechanicus, just closer in vibe to the explorators with less objectionable stuff. But not really driven to diplomacy and mediate, and currently their culture is more "learn & experiment & build" than "explore.

If you want to start starfleet, spend one of those boons on influencing Denvan military culture.

EDIT - And also...

Quick comment that this is a valid use of the cogitare. You are very much allowed to pick up technical staff in Denva and sprinkle them around in various systems to build a manufacturing base & uplift the local societies around them. That would be a way to either establish a bunch of strong and advanced societies in this sector of space or make it easy for Denva to incorporate them later with a minimum of difficulty and a maximum of "rapid expansion" energy.

Of course, this would be a major "thing you're doing" and you should expect to spend actions on every planet getting them set up & hooked into the local populations, as you did in Vorthryn.

They're going to mostly be ok with this - you picked them up on a boon and they work for you. This kind of "here's a massive tech-base, go build out a star-system" isn't unappealing to them, especially if you let them do some research at some point down the line. It's a pretty strong ticket to glory and authority, and many of them see education as a holy duty.
 
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Since I had some time this morning, I went ahead and put together designs for a destroyer, frigate, and light cruiser using the hulls we captured at Aetherion.

Destroyer, 25 RP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slots (450 BP, 1500x350 meters)
Engines: (8 gravities) for (150 BP)
Shields: (medium) for (100 BP)
Armor: (medium) for (100 BP)

Hull Equipment | 200 BP
Warp Drive (50 BP) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Void Abacus (50 BP) This ship can navigate through the warp slowly, at a rate of 3 systems per action.
Psychic Shielding (100 BP, 20 HP) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, that thinks "no" as hard as possible, answering the question for any warp-corruption for any beings or objects within the hull. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 5 BP spent on it.

Weapons | 300 BP (270 / 300 Space Used), 50 CP
x1 Light Lances (100 BP) Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
x1 Assault Shuttles (150 BP, 50 CP) 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip. Basic stealth automatically applied.
x1 Point Defense (50 BP) A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.

Combat Equipment | 50 BP
Medium Boarding preparations (50 BP) The ship layout is designed to funnel borders into kill-zones in front of armored bunkers, and any borders will take heavy casualties.

Non-Combat Equipment | 100 BP, ~200 CP when carrying a full load of machine-spirit bots.
x1 Troop compartment (50 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Repair Bay (50 BP) Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost. Can be used to refit the ships as well with a +50% markup. Cannot be used to make new ships, bots, manufactories.
Frigate, 50 RP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots (900 BP, 2100x550 meters)
Engines: (7 gravities) for (225 BP).
Shields: (medium) for (150 BP)
Armor: (medium) for (150 BP)

Hull Equipment | 380 BP
Warp Drive (100 BP) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Void Abacus (100 BP) This ship can navigate through the warp slowly, at a rate of 3 systems per action.
Psychic Shielding (180 BP, 36 HP) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, that thinks "no" as hard as possible, answering the question for any warp-corruption for any beings or objects within the hull. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 5 BP spent on it.

Weapons | 650 BP (585 / 600 Space Used), 50 CP
x2 Light Lances (200 BP) Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
x1 Light Plasma Cannon (250 BP) Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
x1 Assault Shuttles (150 BP, 50 CP) 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip. Basic stealth automatically applied.
x1 Point Defense (50 BP) A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.

Combat Equipment | 200 BP
Light Boarding preparations (50 BP) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying.
Tuned Shields (150 BP) These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.

Non-Combat Equipment | 100 BP, ~200 CP when carrying a full load of machine-spirit bots.
x1 Troop compartment (50 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Repair Bay (50 BP) Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost. Can be used to refit the ships as well with a +50% markup. Cannot be used to make new ships, bots, manufactories.
Light Cruiser, 75 RP, 200 CP, 8 ship construction slots (1800 BP, 4200x700 meters)
Engines: (5 gravities) for (300 BP).
Shields: (medium) for (300 BP)
Armor: (medium) for (200 BP)

Hull Equipment | 380 BP
Warp Drive (180 BP) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Void Abacus (180 BP) This ship can navigate through the warp slowly, at a rate of 3 systems per action.
Psychic Shielding (360 BP, 72 HP) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, that thinks "no" as hard as possible, answering the question for any warp-corruption for any beings or objects within the hull. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 5 BP spent on it.

Weapons | 1400 BP (1260 / 1300 Space Used), 50 CP
x3 Light Lances (300 BP) Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
x1 Light Plasma Cannon (250 BP) Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
x1 Medium Plasma Cannon (500 BP) Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.
x1 Assault Shuttles (150 BP, 50 CP) 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip. Basic stealth automatically applied.
x4 Point Defense (200 BP) A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.

Combat Equipment | 400 BP
Light Boarding preparations (100 BP) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying.
Tuned Shields (300 BP) These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.

Non-Combat Equipment | 100 BP, ~200 CP when carrying a full load of machine-spirit bots.
x1 Troop compartment (50 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Repair Bay (50 BP) Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost. Can be used to refit the ships as well with a +50% markup. Cannot be used to make new ships, bots, manufactories.

I was going for generalist designs with all of them. They've got the best engines, armor, and shields available for their category and as much psychic shielding as they could support along with an admittedly minimal repair bay to touch those shields up if needed. Minimal boarding preparations and a troop compartment to do the actual fighting in defense of the ship when needed, and assault shuttles because if you're going to be hauling up to 10,000 bots around it seems dumb to be incapable of getting them off the ship to fight somewhere if necessary. The armament is focused on light lances and plasma cannons, with the destroyer being under-gunned with only the one light lance. Hopefully speed, range, and numbers will make up for that in practice.

Given we more or less accidentally stole the Aetherion Industrial Complex, I'd like to build these or something like them and give them to the Stellar Ascendancy as the basis for their own Space Defense Force. Particularly given that we now own their primary shipyard and without Large-Scale OMC building and staffing a new one is likely to be a major setback for them.

It would be 5,785 BP to complete one of each design, which I think we should do as soon as we can so that they can start training with them, and 24,980 BP to complete them all, which I think we should be able to manage before we leave without seriously impairing everything else we want to get done.
 
As nice as those designs are, I have no intention on making any designs until we got some cramming, and some other ship techs including MS-spirits for them (Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP) gives us frigates, so one more after that to also get the cruisers)
 
As nice as those designs are, I have no intention on making any designs until we got some cramming, and some other ship techs including MS-spirits for them (Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP) gives us frigates, so one more after that to also get the cruisers)

If we were intending to run into danger with the things, I'd agree. I strongly disagree with us continuing to be the only thing in the system with guns for longer than absolutely necessary however. We can design and build the first run of these within the next couple of turns and the sooner we do so the less likely it is that someone else comes along and starts wrecking the SA's shit.

Cramming doesn't make that much of a difference at this scale and while LSMS would be helpful, the locals have enough OMC Operators that they can get by without it for awhile.
 
If we were intending to run into danger with the things, I'd agree. I strongly disagree with us continuing to be the only thing in the system with guns for longer than absolutely necessary however. We can design and build the first run of these within the next couple of turns and the sooner we do so the less likely it is that someone else comes along and starts wrecking the SA's shit.
We can build plenty of caltrops, candles and flames without doing any new designs.
 
We can build plenty of caltrops, candles and flames without doing any new designs.

Or we could make use of the discount provided by the hulls we captured, the discount provided by Cogitare with access to our design software, and the almost certainly very easy to acquire buy in from the locals given we'll be handing the things over to them, and get all of these built with one research and two construction actions within 5 years of deciding to do it.
 
Or we could make use of the discount provided by the hulls we captured, the discount provided by Cogitare with access to our design software, and the almost certainly very easy to acquire buy in from the locals given we'll be handing the things over to them, and get all of these built with one research and two construction actions within 5 years of deciding to do it.

Eh, I'd go with the caltrops, candles, and flames for now, and do new stuff after getting better tech. Though our research budget is pretty packed right now, we still need to get warp comms, and a whole bunch of other stuff...
 
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