Circular Reasoning [Babylon 5 AU splinter colony quest]

[Servetus]

In twenty years we might be trying to leave this system. James will be seventy and his and Mira's grandchildren may have already started on great-grandchildren.

For neighbors we lucked out with the Hyach, and the Brakiri and Drazi aren't bad. The Pak'Ma'Ra might have been cool neighbors, if a bit smelly.

Arming non-sentients as soldiers crosses a moral line for me, so I won't be writing any plans that involve that or voting for them. Someone else could if they want, but they will have to write the plan in that case.

I am concerned about resolving the Blight before we start spreading offplanet or any visitors show up. Wiping out a species because we didn't warn them and they killed off all the plants on their homeworld would be terrible. It looks like we will be able to stop infections within an area, but we need a sense of how far it has spread, or if it's now endemic to the planet.

 

[Logos01]

I am concerned about resolving the Blight before we start spreading offplanet or any visitors show up. Wiping out a species because we didn't warn them and they killed off all the plants on their homeworld would be terrible. It looks like we will be able to stop infections within an area, but we need a sense of how far it has spread, or if it's now endemic to the planet.

Click to shrink...

Further, your researchers are convinced that the Storm Nullifier system could be retuned to use the stimulation frequencies that trigger the Blight burnout on a truly wide area effect, possibly eliminating the threat of the Blight permanently.

Click to shrink...

You're pretty close to the Blight narrative being ended, actually. You might have to face a single Storm Year at heightened impact from the Nullifier focusing on propagating the stimulus frequency in the planet-covering storm clouds instead of reducing the storm intensity -- but that would largely be it aside from things like keeping the wide area "blight jammers" active in your cities and space stations to prevent recurrence.

 

[Servetus]

Alright, I completely misread that the first time.

2 questions:

What's the situation with the Psi-Drones/Neuro-Throne? I notice our 2 Psi-drone pops are crossed out.

How much production capacity would it take to manufacture probes? Per probe launch Orbital Action.

 

[Servetus]

Not up to writing up a draft plan tonight, but here are some thoughts:
Industry
We will need to build more power infrastructure, and 2-3 more militarized shuttles. Thinking of handing an Autofactory and a Psi-Crystal machine over to the Militia, or maybe over to the Clans. Or we could just add a second civilian Psi-Crystal machine. If we will need to spend a Storm year with reduced protection to end the Blight it's worth thinking about what can be done to make that more survivable, stockpile resources.

Military
Probably best to focus on bringing more people up to standard with the new thruster packs. Maybe try modifying some of that gear for EVAs.

Exploration
It's a Storm year, so no sending people out exploring in the Hurricane. Either stay inside or focus on space stuff for exploration. So either send probes to planets or try to start doing cryptography on alien communications

Research
We only have the one open slot, and we probably want to push ahead with Blight research so we can finish this chapter in 5 years time in the next Storm year.

Diplomacy
Bureau/Department of Kobold Welfare. Set PPE standards for Kobolds in dangerous environments like space installations. Try to gather DNA samples from Kobold pets to start the Gene Bank for Kobolds.

Personal
James is becoming a grandfather. A lot of preparations needed in the household.

He's just going to need to deal with the fact that both his 17 year old daughters are expecting and there is not even a man in the picture to threaten with a shotgun.

I may manage a plan in a day or so but I'm beat right now.

 

[KNakamura]

Clearly we should petition the First One to get us uptime Sheridan.

More specifically, I agree. I don't think we're quite at the point of giving the Militia access to a autofactory, but we do need to give them a psi-crystal.

 

[Servetus]

Clearly we should petition the First One to get us uptime Sheridan.

More specifically, I agree. I don't think we're quite at the point of giving the Militia access to a autofactory, but we do need to give them a psi-crystal.

Click to shrink...

Without at least an Autofabber they can't do anything with the Psi-crystal machine. We could just give them 1 or more Autofabbers

 

[KNakamura]

Mm. Fair. I think planning to build an autofactory isn't a bad idea then.

 

[Logos01]

Alright, I completely misread that the first time.

2 questions:

What's the situation with the Psi-Drones/Neuro-Throne? I notice our 2 Psi-drone pops are crossed out.

How much production capacity would it take to manufacture probes? Per probe launch Orbital Action.

Click to shrink...

Psi-Drone "Pops" no longer exist mechanically. Instead, you can now build Neuro-Throne Rooms, which cost 2 Autofactory Actions and 1 Psi-Machine Action, and require 1 Human Job and 1 Energy/t. In exchange you get 3 Psi-Drone Jobs you can assign, each of which give +1 yield. You can have up to 3 Neuro-Throne Rooms per Human Pop.

As to the manufacturing of probes -- it depends on what you want them to do. If all you want is a basic sensor package and transmitter you can just perform the operation because it's below abstraction. If you want something more than just a "Vegeta, what does the scanner say" about the thing the probe is being launched to you'll need to invest more. A couple of Minerals, some Energy, and an autofab action would get you a recurring bonus on research rolls related to the target for example.

Probably best to focus on bringing more people up to standard with the new thruster packs. Maybe try modifying some of that gear for EVAs.

Click to shrink...

I know I didn't make that very clear but the Irregulars squads are limited in how many you can have by the fact that they require stronger base P-rating telepaths to make them work in any credible sense. Anyone with a P3-P5 rating would barely be able to use them for careful "double-jump" or 'parachuting' sort of stuff. They certainly couldn't use them for combat EVA ops or mid-fight. The colony only has so many P6-P7's and Jason is the only P8.

2nd-gen native colonists might have higher P-rating averages but that's then, not now. In the meantime, the psi-amps can only do so much to amplify the ability of the users, and while any teep regardless of basic strength can draw on psi-amp battery power to "punch upwards", it takes more power draw the lower their base P-rating.

Basically, those jump-packs won't be basic Militia gear anytime soon. It's specialist/elite equipment. It could maybe be worth training them on the use of jump-packs for basic parachuting type work but they're not going to be pulling 3D Maneuver Gear with them anytime soon -- forget the P-rating requirement, the sheer skill of operation is an issue unto itself.

 

[Logos01]

So I have a netfriend who is experimenting with training image AIs and I maaaay have mentioned the space kobolds in hardhats and safety gear to him and he gave me this out of "squee".


View: https://i.imgur.com/Hb044fe.png


View: https://i.imgur.com/CTPrgJV.png


So now you guys also know that exists.

 

[FeepingCreature]

For the record, to clarify this is just stock Stable Diffusion XL (comfyui, 20 iters, 8 cfg euler) with the prompt "cute anime drawing of a floating green cutebold kobold working on a space station IN SPACE in a bright yellow hard hat and safety gear and industrial tools".

Which is a prompt I recommend to everybody, really.

 

[Servetus]

[X] Preparing for the big one
-[X] Industry:
--[X] 1 Autofactory will serve as 3 Autofabbers this Turn (1/11)
--[X] 1 Storm hardened Basic Autofactory: Cost: 2 Autofab Actions (2/6). -6 Minerals.
--[X] 1 Storm hardened Basic Autofactory, assigned to support the Militia permanently: Cost: 2 Autofab Actions (4/6). -6 Minerals.
--[X] 1 Storm hardened Syngas Reactor. Cost: -2 Minerals, -1 Biomass. 1 Autofab Action (5/6)
--[X] 1 Storm hardened Syngas Storage tank (24 Capacity). Cost: 1 Autofab Action (6/6) -13 Minerals
--[X] 3 Militarized Shuttles. Cost: 3 Autofactory Actions (4/12), 1 Psi-Crystal Machine Action (3/5), -21 Minerals, -18 Biomass.
--[X] 1 Storm hardened Psi-Crystal Machine assigned to support the Militia permanently: Cost: -6 Minerals, -2 Biomass, 1 Psi-Crystal Machine Action (4/5), 1 Autofactory Action (5/12)
--[X] 1 Storm hardened Shipscale Fusion Reactor. Cost: -10 Minerals, -6 Biomass, 4 Autofactories (9/12).
--[X] Total build Cost: -58 Minerals, -27 Biomass
--[X] 3 Autofactories (12/12) and 1 Psi-Crystal machine (5/5) left on standby to fulfill other Actions
--[X] Convert Biomass to Syngas and store at rate (6/6)
--[X] Assign 1 psi-drone job each to Labs 1, 2, and 3.
-[X] Orbital
--[X] 1 Supply Operation (1/11)
--[X] 4 Asteroid Mining Operation (5/11)
--[X] 5 Capture Asteroid Operations (10/11)
--[X] 1 harvest Biomass Operation (11/11)
- [X] Military:
--[X] Disaster Preparedness: Shelters. Look through the database and try to find designs for Hurricane shelters or Bomb shelters. Fabricate some test models and see how they stand up to the storms this year, or maybe do some destructive testing. The data may be useful in designing shelters for people to temporarily relocate to during a disaster.
-[X] Exploration:
--[X] Storm Study. Use the Orbital sensor net to observe the Storms. This is the first Storm year we have had this capability for, so we may learn some things.
-[X] Research:
--[X] Lab 1 will begin Research on Blight Cure II, hopefully the last one
--[X] All other labs will continue current projects
-[X] Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
--[X] Bureau of Kobold Welfare. Organize policies and monitoring of Kobold Welfare and ensure they are not being exploited or unduly endangered. Set PPE standards for Kobolds in dangerous environments like space installations. Try to gather DNA samples from Kobold pets to start the Gene Bank for Kobolds.
-[X] Personal:
--[X] Just get ready to be a grandfather. Willow and Aspen probably have no idea what they are getting into.

Psi-Drone "Pops" no longer exist mechanically. Instead, you can now build Neuro-Throne Rooms, which cost 2 Autofactory Actions and 1 Psi-Machine Action, and require 1 Human Job and 1 Energy/t. In exchange you get 3 Psi-Drone Jobs you can assign, each of which give +1 yield. You can have up to 3 Neuro-Throne Rooms per Human Pop.

Click to shrink...

So if I understand this correctly we have 1 unassigned Throne at the moment, with another assigned to the Civilian Lab. Would it require only 1 Orbital Operation to install 1 in the Astro-mining bay; or would we need to boost another Basic Fusion Reactor for it?

Will hold off on the probes for the moment. The other Exploration option seemed more pressing.

 

[Vortix]

[X] Preparing for the big one

 

[HeruKane]

Awesome Logos01 and FeepingCreature, awesome! What a cute pic, so bro!

And I bet that even if they don't understand it they will feel our delight when they wear the clothes. hehe

--

Awesome plan Servetus!

I will need to think on it but yeah it basically is what I was thinking too.

I do wonder if we can do something that is like underground, create a subway or tranist system between our colony buildings. (Or does that already exist)

And I wonder if we can send a probe into the rift again, to see more of local hyperspace. Its a fact finding thing and could be useful.

I'm really good on us creating designated civilian (not clan, just general civilian which means clan yeah but isn't controlled by them) factory stuff.

More thoughts in a bit.

But kudos and good stuff. And thank you!

 

[wanje]

[X] Preparing for the big one

 

[Logos01]

So if I understand this correctly we have 1 unassigned Throne at the moment, with another assigned to the Civilian Lab. Would it require only 1 Orbital Operation to install 1 in the Astro-mining bay; or would we need to boost another Basic Fusion Reactor for it?

Click to shrink...

Needs to have a Module developed and built for it. This would be a 100pt research task. (It will also be the Private Research for next turn. Which will be a roll of 1d100+108, so you can /basically/ assume the roll will be completing... <_< )

The Facility isn't an individual chair, it's a building housing enough chairs and the transmitter and maintenance equipment to house the drones and operators. So deploying a Neuro-Throne Room to the station would require a Module, a throne room, and a Basic Fusion Reactor.

You don't assign Neuro-Throne Rooms themselves, you assign the 3x Psi-Drone Jobs they produce. Each of the 3 Jobs have a +1 yield bonus to whatever Facility they are assigned to and replace a Human Job (no assigning Psi-Drones to Neuro-Throne Rooms.)

Awesome Logos01 and FeepingCreature, awesome! What a cute pic, so bro!

Click to shrink...

I myself may be the kind of guy who finds it more rewarding to do his own home appliance and car maintenance, has opinions about brands of power drills, and goes out of his way to have his beard smell like sawdust -- but if my friend wants to be cute and WAFFy I will endorse and support that because ManCode says you stick by your friends.

I won't understand a damn thing that's going on but I'll sure back my squad.

I do wonder if we can do something that is like underground, create a subway or tranist system between our colony buildings. (Or does that already exist)

Click to shrink...

Stuff like that is what eliminated the -1 penalty the early Storm Hardening builds had.

 

[Servetus]

Okay, so we'll hold off on helping the Asteroid miners until we can get a module designed and built. All 3 Psi-drones got assigned to Labs so we can hopefully clear some research slots.

 

[TeaMug]

I'm too fog-brained to chase it down right now.

Click to shrink...

Still fog brained, also going to be traveling for a bit. I probably won't be able to do State of the Colony posts for the next 2-ish weeks. If anyone wants to take over or try their own version, feel free.

[X] Preparing for the big one
good plan. Reminder re bunkers: we have lava tubes connected/abutting the basement of one (the first?) fo our autofactories. Were described as unsafe (unstable?) but could probably be shored up. May lead to / provide easier access to deeper crust; a bunker in an extinct magma chamber would be pretty cool.

Cutebolds are cute; looks like the ai interpreted the prompt to mean that the ppe was the same yellow as the hard hats.

 

[KNakamura]

[X] Preparing for the big one

 

[HeruKane]

Oh let me vote before I get even more distracted thinking on a background list.

[X] Preparing for the big one

Its pretty much exactly it. It has us continuing to work on the things we started (which I consider super important) and also flows into new things that make sense.

I do wonder about us sending another probe into the hyperspace rift. Let us see what else we can learn from that act.

That said I'm good with what we have here! So thanks for writing it.

I do have to admit, as a general thing, I wish personal actions were less about spending time with family and more like practical things. I guess the gamer in me is like "personal actions need to benefit, family time happens between the scenes" and stuff.

 

[Servetus]

@Logos01 Once we complete the new Blight research will we have a sense of how much the Nullifier's effects will be reduced? As I recall it reduces the chances of storm-hardened buildings being destroyed from 10% to 0%, which is pretty major when you consider how many buildings we have. Losing a Habitation Complex would be a huge blow to the Kith's survival.

The other 2 major failure point are the Spaceport and the Rectenna, losing one of those would seriously impact us.

 

[Logos01]

@Logos01 Once we complete the new Blight research will we have a sense of how much the Nullifier's effects will be reduced? As I recall it reduces the chances of storm-hardened buildings being destroyed from 10% to 0%, which is pretty major when you consider how many buildings we have. Losing a Habitation Complex would be a huge blow to the Kith's survival.

The other 2 major failure point are the Spaceport and the Rectenna, losing one of those would seriously impact us.

Click to shrink...

Yes, you'll know. It's worth noting that the fully encompassing planetary storms only last a month, though the storms progress up to and recede back from that point and their minimum of polar cap storms over the five year cycle.

The point being, there are emergency shelter options y'all could take to ensure no permanent casualties. Temporary habitat modules for the space station, redundant Hab Complexes, or just stockpiling spare resources and reserving autofactory build queue to reconstruct/repair things would see you through the worst of it.

Worst case scenario the Nullifier would have to actually increase the storm severity a step rather than reducing, meaning that you'd have a 25% chance for losing any given building.

 

[HeruKane]

Future project could us building Starcraft style Bunkers all throughout the world. Emergency shelters within a few hours of each other in a grid like area on the main continent and stuff.

While not feasible now it could be potentially possible later on. Especially after we discover how to create programmed biomatter that starts as like an egg and then uses local materials to construct a programmed structure.

 

[Servetus]

We are already living in fairly bunker-like habitations.

Besides shelters and having an excess stockpile the other thought I had is that we might announce an interruption of service at the exo-womb nurseries a few years ahead of time. I can't imagine the incubators could be hustled down to a shelter in an emergency and people would be understandably upset if the building collapsed on their unborn progeny. Better to run at reduced function so that those buildings aren't in use when the Storms hit, and communicate it well ahead of time so people have time to make their plans around that.

 

[Logos01]

While not feasible now it could be potentially possible later on. Especially after we discover how to create programmed biomatter that starts as like an egg and then uses local materials to construct a programmed structure.

Click to shrink...

<cough> The storm anemone "stones" might be an avenue of research for your biomech materials -- if you could get it to mimic their defensive mechanisms that would make one hell of a armor cladding material... </cough>

 

[Servetus]

It's on the list of things to study...I was going to send out the Exploration teams but then the Civilians were trying to send Kobolds to space and we had to have some basic information on them before we could let that happen.

Realistically I think we may need to halt work on several long term projects once the current stages are finished to do some catch up. There are things we need more than Fusion Torches and Grav Plating right now.