Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

WCSII said:

For this though, I'm listing safe route, unless someone can come up with a good reason to tackle identifying the corruption this turn?

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Really think we should tackle the corruption.

If you think about it, improved infrastructure would mean that it would simply become easier for stolen money and resources to be moved as well.

The longer we let it sit, the worse it will get, and in the meantime we're losing massive amounts of everything: the dialogue in this chapter basically supports this, stating that we could be more practical or tear out the corruption.

I'm for tearing out the corruption, since not only do we potentially regain what was lost, we might also vastly increase our yearly income through that action alone (since we'd no longer be losing so much), not to mention the goodwill this would garner while crushing the problematic elements before they have any more time to take root.

Though... @PoptartProdigy can we perhaps get an action to learn about the previous regime's corruption from San? I know there's a "make friends" option, but I'm talking about learning about the corruption and where it's all going from her directly. As Minister of Intrigue, I'd imagine she must have some idea already of where it's going, who's being payed off, etc.

Unless she's one of those corrupt elements, in which case we're fucked.

WCSII said:

Yeah, I'm also of the opinion that it needs taking care of ASAP, but we're also somewhat short on money, and our own ministry is inefficient as hell, actively giving us a malus against project success... if I read the description of Ministry Reorganization correctly. We'll need an in order ministry to improve our rooting out corruption chances, and that means doing Diplo: MR this turn, and hopefully catch Steward: TS, and Intrigue: DA next turn when they'll hopefully gain better chances with a working ministry.

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I thought that was just the ministry of relations? As opposed to the entire ministry?

On another note, what is our current yearly income? I can't seem to find it.

Edit: The plan I have in mind would cost 65k total, leaving us 35k to spend next turn (not counting whatever our yearly income is, and the possibility of recuperating losses through our actions).

Edit 2: Found Yearly Income. It's 10k which would leave us with 45k to spend next turn at the least.

BlessedYetDamned said:

Really think we should tackle the corruption.

If you think about it, improved infrastructure would mean that it would simply become easier for stolen money and resources to be moved as well.

The longer we let it sit, the worse it will get, and in the meantime we're losing massive amounts of everything: the dialogue in this chapter basically supports this, stating that we could be more practical or tear out the corruption.

I'm for tearing out the corruption, since not only do we potentially regain what was lost, we might also vastly increase our yearly income through that action alone (since we'd no longer be losing so much), not to mention the goodwill this would garner while crushing the problematic elements before they have any more time to take root.

Though... @PoptartProdigy can we perhaps get an action to learn about the previous regime's corruption from San? I know there's a "make friends" option, but I'm talking about learning about the corruption and where it's all going from her directly. As Minister of Intrigue, I'd imagine she must have some idea already of where it's going, who's being payed off, etc.

Unless she's one of those corrupt elements, in which case we're fucked.

I thought that was just the ministry of relations? As opposed to the entire ministry?

On another note, what is our current yearly income? I can't seem to find it.

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Income is 10,000 credits I believe.

And while I agree we need to tackle corruption as soon as possible, we need to get credits now. Rooting out corruption will be costly and will eventually pay itself back, but it won't be as fast as our other options. This is more a statement of how expensive it will be to root it out than a claim that we won't get too much money back because of it. 50,000 credits now will go a lot further than +20,000 credits income 3-5 turns from now.

Blonddude42 said:

Income is 10,000 credits I believe.

And while I agree we need to tackle corruption as soon as possible, we need to get credits now. Rooting out corruption will be costly and will eventually pay itself back, but it won't be as fast as our other options. This is more a statement of how expensive it will be to root it out than a claim that we won't get too much money back because of it. 50,000 credits now will go a lot further than +20,000 credits income 3-5 turns from now.

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Not really? If we took these actions we'd have just under half of what we started with this turn, not counting any returns, and there would be several less costly investures we could make next turn while waiting to reap the benefits of our actions.

[ ] Repurposing Production
[ ] Ministry Reorganization
[ ] Taking Stock
[ ] Domestic Affairs
[ ] Medical Information
[ ] Personal Attention

I would take the Railroad over the Mining anyway - we don't really need the 50k credit boost with the current average cost of our actions.

[] Plan Breathing Space
-[] Martial: Expanding Production
-[] Diplomacy: Ministry Reorganization
-[] Stewardship: Off-World Mining
-[] Intrigue: The Sentry Network
-[] Learning: Up To Code
-[] Personal Attention: Up To Code

Cost: Martial - 40k, Diplo - 15k, Stewardship - 10k, Intrigue - 5k, Learning - 25k, Personal - 0k.
Total Cost: 95k.
Potential Gain: 50k, +1k/turn.
Turn 2 Start (Assuming Success): 66k.

Well, not sure how popular this will be, or wise it is, but if I've read this right then there's an opportunity to shoot for net gain vessel production. I was really tempted to advocate for going for the Corruption Purge... but that'd result in us having all of 10k credits on Turn 2.

The priority though is this: Expanding Production brings Vessel Production Rate to Net Stability. Up To Code means any new vessels produced are next generation. Ergo; if we succeed at both the Production Boost and the Refit Program, we'll start building vessels faster than losing them.

The 50k from the Offworld Mining will allow further -hopefully- Military Actions next turn, while still allowing us to go for the Infrastructure Upgrade or starting the Corruption Purge.

Thoughts?

First thing should be purging all corruption and finding where it all goes it won't help if you start a big building project only for half the budget to vanish into bribes and corrupt officials on the lower end.

Inf0mercial said:

First thing should be purging all corruption and finding where it all goes it won't help if you start a big building project only for half the budget to vanish into bribes and corrupt officials on the lower end.

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Going by the description:

[ ] Taking Stock: Your predecessor was a corrupt piece of shit, and under his tenure, your government caught that disease, and badly. Virmire produces everything it needs in embarrassing excess, but you're losing several mountain ranges of the stuff through inefficiencies and bribes. It needs to be fixed...but it's going to be a long project. To start with, you need to figure out where it's all going. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 60%. Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Get an understanding of the staggering monument to excess and greed that is your government at the moment.

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That's not how the Corruption is working. It's cutting into our income, not effecting what we do with the stuff we get.

Keeper Of Storms said:

Going by the description:

That's not how the Corruption is working. It's cutting into our income, not effecting what we do with the stuff we get.

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Part of that is that we aren't really building anything major, if your losing money in corruption and bribes i can guarantee you when you go to build something those corrupt officials are not going to blink at taking dodgy contracts or taking bribes from companies to put their name first for workers or supplies, or inflating the prices of things and pocketing the difference.

It doesn't have to be spelled out in mechanics to be a natural consequence.

Except to do so in such a climate means drawing the attention of the newly elect Prime Minister. I doubt they'd be that foolish given that in the current situation that'd be grounds for a firing squad.

Keeper Of Storms said:

[] Plan Breathing Space
-[] Martial: Expanding Production
-[] Diplomacy: Ministry Reorganization
-[] Stewardship: Off-World Mining
-[] Intrigue: The Sentry Network
-[] Learning: Up To Code
-[] Personal Attention: Up To Code

Cost: Martial - 40k, Diplo - 15k, Stewardship - 10k, Intrigue - 5k, Learning - 25k, Personal - 0k.
Total Cost: 95k.
Potential Gain: 50k, +1k/turn.
Turn 2 Start (Assuming Success): 66k.

Well, not sure how popular this will be, or wise it is, but if I've read this right then there's an opportunity to shoot for net gain vessel production. I was really tempted to advocate for going for the Corruption Purge... but that'd result in us having all of 10k credits on Turn 2.

The priority though is this: Expanding Production brings Vessel Production Rate to Net Stability. Up To Code means any new vessels produced are next generation. Ergo; if we succeed at both the Production Boost and the Refit Program, we'll start building vessels faster than losing them.

The 50k from the Offworld Mining will allow further -hopefully- Military Actions next turn, while still allowing us to go for the Infrastructure Upgrade or starting the Corruption Purge.

Thoughts?

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Curious why you chose expanding production over repurposing which does the same while being cheaper (for the "short" term). It takes 40 turns for expanding to break even compared to repurposing. It's just plainly more cost effective to repurpose it. Other than that everything looks fine

My 5 cents.

0) Early money are early money. It is generally a good idea to grab early money and then cash them into growth of industry.
1) We need to boost our production by ton. not only we need net stabilization of ship production, we need surplus to break the blockade.
2) We need to look into neighbouring systems in case there is someone out there.

So, this turn we should grab early money, perform initial stabilization of ship production and look into nearby systems. next turn we might send actual reconnaissance into systems we find worth it from initial observation and further boost our production.

Everything else is secondary to these goals, at least for the next 2-4 turns. Next we should look into losses of qualified personnel if it is a thing. Like, if we start loosing pilots faster than teaching them, it would be a problem. So, the next order of business would be upping education programs and (if we project the war to continue long enough) birthrate stimulations. It probably would be wise to make salarians our main cannon fodder, as they have (potentially) the shortest growth and teaching time.

So, i think about something like this

[] Plan industrial development
- [] Expanding Production
- - Damaging our own economy can wait. We can always do it later 40 k
- [] Draft First Contact Protocols: 5k
- - It's cheap and frankly speaking we have nothing better to do with it yet. Next turn we might make something more relevant.
- [] Off-World Mining: 10 k
- - We need fast money
- [] The Sentry Network: 5k
- - This is the second most important thing to do this turn: we need to know what is out there. depending on that we might send scouts or attempt to establish communications.
- [ ] Up To Code: 25k
- - To boldly go is for the next turn, when we shall know what we are running into. So, I'm torn between this and medical upgrade. Argueably, to sinergize with our ship upgrades, we should go for Up To Code, but breaking of plague might ruin our day for good.
- [ ] Personal Attention:
- - [ ] Off-World Mining
- - - We need a sizeable chunk of cash for next turn, so we cannot afford this to fail.

Total cost: 40 + 5 + 10 + 5+25 = 85

Now it's time for risk estimates, I need some time to think on it. It might be reasonable to delay [] Expanding Production for one turn and do emergency refits for this year, since if [] Expanding Production fails we lost 40k, and this can't be shrugged off.

Blonddude42 said:

Curious why you chose expanding production over repurposing which does the same while being cheaper (for the "short" term). It takes 40 turns for expanding to break even compared to repurposing. It's just plainly more cost effective to repurpose it. Other than that everything looks fine

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Three reasons:
1) I'm somewhat hoping that the Corruption Purge will result in that extra funding being worth more than it would initially seem.
2) Going by the rustbucket stopgap option, we'll be able to repurpose/expand shipyards later on if given cause. I consider it more likely that we'll have the funds spare for a repurposing in three or four turns than an expansion.
3) I trust dedicated military shipyards more than repurposed civilian yards. I'm not sure if that's a valid concern or not, but I don't want to have to deal with the yards being under strain or whatever.

[X] Repurposing Production
[X] Draft First Contact Protocols:
[X] Off-World Mining:
[X] The Sentry Network
[X] Up To Code:
[X] Personal Attention: Off-World Mining.

My suggestions, what I'm aiming to do is to boost the military to the point that they don't need significant further support in order to run over the next few turns, then we're going to cycle our actions over our other crises over the next couple of turns. In order to do this I'm using Up to Code. Repurposing puts us on a stable footing, therefore Up to Code should allow us to start making gains as we become more efficient with our superior ships.
Diplo and Intrigue are stuck with the cheap options, in order to preserve our budget.
Econ and personal attention are being used on off world mining in order to keep us stable. With some of the more expensive options taken care of we ought to be able to start taking the long term actions then due to the lower budget strains.
Arguably putting the personal attention on up to code is a better use of the action in order to guarantee success across the board however if Mining fails then we're up shit creek without a paddle.

Expenses 100 -20 -10 -5-5-25=40
Income +10 (+1+50)*80(98)%chance
Final Budget expected =99

@PoptartProdigy
Can you clarify how personal attention works exactly? Is it just a bonus for project we already chosen in some category, or does it allow to complete second project in that category (like how it works in Durin's Embers in the dusk)?

Also, how do we vote? Plan voting or option voting? I hope it is plan voting, otherwise we may end up with nonsensical option combos.

Tentatively, if we can choose second project, then:
[] Plan "Deal with this shit right now"
- [] Repurposing Production
- [] Ministry Reorganization
- [] Taking Stock
- [] Domestic Affairs
- [] Medical Information
- [] Personal Attention: Off-world Mining
Lose 75k, gain 50k, start dealing with corruption and inefficiency

If we cannot, then:
[] Plan "Take it slower"
- [] Repurposing production
- [] Ministry Reorganization
- [] Off-world Mining
- [] The Sentry Network
- [] Medical Information
- [] Get To Know San

Lose 60k, gain 50k, start dealing with inefficiency, hopefully know our intrigue minister better before we sic her on corrupt officials next turn.

[ ] Repurposing Production
I could be convinced to go with Expansion, though that would limit our budget quite a bit next turn (assuming no returns from pursuing corruption). As it stands, it's a loss of 500 credits per turn, and as such would take 40 turns to break even.
Unintended Consequences: Civilians may be upset at seizure of assets, though I'd expect them to be at least somewhat understanding given the looming threat of the Rachni.
[ ] Ministry Reorganization
The only currently worthwhile option here, in my opinion. Option three could easily backfire, option one doesn't have a stellar chance of success and is rather irrelevant at the moment, as we should be focusing on the corruption within. This enables us to make the ministry more competent in all subsequent actions.
[ ] Taking Stock
Tear our the corruption before it can entrench itself any deeper. Given the loss of assets its causing, I imagine that the numbers we see from other actions such as mining are coloured by the predicted loss which is endemic throughout our government.

May also allow us to reclaim assets that were previously lost.

As for why I'm against railroads? We need to cleanse the corruption, and developing infrastructure means that it will become easier for the corrupt elements to move stolen money and resources, making them harder to track and recover.

Why I'm against mining? The railroad is simply the better option between the two, and we're liable to lose assets in the process of doing this since the greed and corruption are so prolific throughout our government.
[ ] Domestic Affairs
Improve the success chance of taking stock, while simultaneously reducing the cost and difficulty of follow-up actions to taking stock (continued purge of the corruption).
[ ] Medical Information
Continue purging incompetence/corruption. May actually have something to do with the corruption in the government, definitely worth investigating.

Why not up-to-code? The success rate isn't great, and it's far too costly to chance failing at the moment. Will also lead to more costs next turn, since the current fleet will need to be refit which will likely cost more money and resources.

Why not boldy go? Weakens our fleet, and as I said before we really need to focus on straightening our internal affairs first, before we start delving into foreign affairs.
[ ] Personal Attention
I'm flexible here, but we'd probably want to take to help ensure success.

BlessedYetDamned said:

Why not up-to-code? The success rate isn't great, and it's far too costly to chance failing at the moment. Will also lead to more costs next turn, since the current fleet will need to be refit which will likely cost more money and resources.

[ ] Personal Attention
I'm flexible here, but we'd probably want to take to help ensure success.

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You should re-read Up-To-Code. The benefits are applied straight away to all new ships created, and a refit is optional. If you stack PA on top of it, Chance of Success rises to 77%.

Keeper Of Storms said:

You should re-read Up-To-Code. The benefits are applied straight away to all new ships created, and a refit is optional. If you stack PA on top of it, Chance of Success rises to 77%.

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PoptartProdigy said:

If they find something, the military will need the budget and breathing space to put vessels in for refit, but it would be well worth it.

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PoptartProdigy said:

Effects: Gain access to modern-day refits for present vessels, and begin constructing such vessels by default.

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I was given the impression that "gaining access to" is not the same as "actively refitting in the same action".

Either way the default success chance is 60%, even boosted to 72% there's still a fair chance it would fail, which would be far too costly at present.

I'd also rather use the PA to boost one of our other options, such as diplomacy, which straight up don't have a great chance of success for all three options.

Furthermore, having outdated medical facilities following rapid expansion, with a plague going about to boot, is just a recipe for disaster.

If our citizens become sick, then military, econ, everything suffers.

"Effects: Gain access to modern-day refits for present vessels, and begin constructing such vessels by default."

It takes an action to Refit the Fleet, yes, but the Shipyards are explicitly cranking out ships as fast as they can. If Up To Code succeeds, those ships coming out of the yards are built to the new standards by default. I'd agree with you on everything else if we weren't in the middle of a holding action, but as it stands <Military Power> is our capability being strained to the breaking point right now. Not infrastructure.

Keeper Of Storms said:

"Effects: Gain access to modern-day refits for present vessels, and begin constructing such vessels by default."

It takes an action to Refit the Fleet, yes, but the Shipyards are explicitly cranking out ships as fast as they can. If Up To Code succeeds, those ships coming out of the yards are built to the new standards by default. I'd agree with you on everything else if we weren't in the middle of a holding action, but as it stands <Military Power> is our capability being strained to the breaking point right now. Not infrastructure.

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Except we could be producing so much more, if only our infrastructure weren't so utterly polluted by corruption and incompetence to the point that we're effectively crippled.

And there's a literal plague going about.

Whereas our ships have been holding as they are, a plague could quite possibly become a pandemic that destroys our colony.

BlessedYetDamned said:

Except we could be producing so much more, if only our infrastructure weren't so utterly polluted by corruption and incompetence to the point that we're effectively crippled.

And there's a literal plague going about.

Whereas our ships have been holding as they are, a plague could quite possibly become a pandemic that destroys our colony.

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That plague WAS a pandemic until our science advisor developed a cure, it seems.

Mmm... by my reading, the cap on production is shipyard berths. We still have a surplus of materials, even with the corruption, but we simply don't have enough berths for Military Vessels. The plague seems to be dying down, and if both the Production Increase and the Tech Boost combine it should be able to achieve net fleet growth.

Hm, in retrospect I probably should have upped the income penalty from, "Repurposing Production." That said, there's still a reason why you might want to skip it; if you repurpose civilian factories, those civilians are at some point (not now, or at any time within the next few years) going to want them back, which could lead to a production crunch depending on how much you rely on repurposed factories.

NightKings said:

[X] Plan Breathing Space

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Vote's still closed for about two more hours, mate.

@PoptartProdigy , could you check this vote and numbers ?

[] Plan Military + Fast Money.
- [] Expanding Production 40 k
-- 90 % success + 20 martial - should be auto-success.
- [] Draft First Contact Protocols: 5k
- - 65 + 12 + 10 = 77% success chance, decent and the cost is low to begin with. Good enough.
- [] Off-World Mining
-- 80% +18 +10 - should be auto-success.
- [] The Sentry Network: 5k
- 90% + meh + 11 from advisour - should be auto-success.
- [] Up To Code: 25k
- - 60 + 17 + 9 = 86. oookay, this needs personal attention as we cannot afford failure. With it, should be autosuccess.
- [] Personal Attention:
- - [] Up To Code:

Total cost: 40 + 5 + 10 + 5+25 = 85,
Next turn 15 letftover, +50 next turn one time, +10 income = 75;

permeakra said:

@PoptartProdigy , could you check this vote and numbers ?

[] Plan Military + Fast Money.
- [] Expanding Production 40 k
-- 90 % success + 20 martial - should be auto-success.
- [] Draft First Contact Protocols: 5k
- - 65 + 12 + 10 = 77% success chance, decent and the cost is low to begin with. Good enough.
- [] Off-World Mining
-- 80% +18 +10 - should be auto-success.
- [] The Sentry Network: 5k
- 90% + meh + 11 from advisour - should be auto-success.
- [] Up To Code: 25k
- - 60 + 17 + 9 = 86. oookay, this needs personal attention as we cannot afford failure. With it, should be autosuccess.
- [] Personal Attention:
- - [] Up To Code:

Total cost: 40 + 5 + 10 + 5+25 = 85,
Next turn 15 letftover, +50 next turn one time, +10 income = 75;

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Off-World Mining gives you a +1,000 boost to income, so your income next turn would actually be +11,000, giving you a stockpile of 76,000 next turn. Also, bear in mind for your probability calculations that by default you don't add your PC's stat to actions. You need to take Personal Attention to do that.