Well, if we build them correctly, the others should also be true. Of course, that would apply to any well-made genetically designed mount, so I propose we make superhuman* mounts for our dinosaur supersoldiers.
We can definitely find a use for a mount with opposable thumbs I think.
[X] [Origin] Talented Prodigy (+2 Research, +2 Engineering,)
[X] [Background] Renowned Innovator (Gain Trait 'Pioneer of the Future', Support from Emperor Gardolf Kaiser)
You are Bran Brennus, one of the smartest people in your generation and inventor of the gene-splicer and the stimulant B-Booster. You do not come from any important noble or merchant houses within the Ascendant Hierarchy and for that reason, you never felt that you could reach the heights of greatness.
You certainly couldn't get into a good university without the right connections and it was common knowledge that all the high positions of authority were less about being the most qualified for the job and more about knowing the right people. Oh, you will needed to be competent enough for the position, but you would never get the opportunity without the right connections.
So when you were offered the position as the director of a new Imperial Department, you were shocked at such a thing happening. It should have been impossible for you to be given the job, but here you are.
While you knew that you were one of the smartest around and you had managed to create a couple of famous inventions, you never expected to come to the attention of the Emperor himself.
By the Forgers, the Emperor himself…
But it is what it is and things are hardly going badly for you. No, it is the opposite as are now in charge of a new Imperial Department, Department of Designing Genetically Engineered Soldiers or DODGES.
Its purpose is unconventional and you can't think of anything similar in the history of the Ascendant Hierarchy so the whole affair is a new path to be explore. And you would hardly call yourself unqualified for the position.
Now, time to go through the metaphorical paperwork and get started on your new job.
***
[] [Research] Boosted Toughness (Biology) Humans are surprising durable in some ways, but in others, they are rather weak. Looking into ways of improving the toughness of the humans so they can survive taking more damage.
Progress: 0/5
Cost: 5,000
Rewards: Basic Toughness Enhancement I, [] [Research] Enhanced Strength (Biology) In the right circumstances, the humans can use great physical strength. Try to figure out how to give them that strength all the time.
Progress: 0/5
Cost: 5,000
Rewards: Basic Strength Enhancement I,
[] [Research] Increased Speed (Biology) While the humans seem to favour stamina and persistence over raw speed, they could be more useful to Hierarchy if they could move at a faster rate.
Progress 0/5
Cost: 5,000
Rewards: Basic Speed Enhancement I,
[] [Research] Sharpen Vison (Biology) Compared to some of the other species on their homeworld, the humans are lacking when it comes to sense. Time to figure out how to change that, starting with their eyesight.
Progress: 0.5
Cost: 5,000
Rewards: Enhanced Vison
[] [Research] Neural Interface (Cybernetics) With technology as commonplace in everyday life as it is, almost everyone, including yourself, has a neural interface to allow them to interface with Hierarchy technology. Figure out how to make a neural interface for the humans.
Progress: 0/5
Cost: 5,000
Rewards: Basic Neural Interface I,
[] [Research] Heldyna IV Artefact (Precusor) An archaeologist expedition on the border world of Heldyna IV has made an interesting discovery as they have uncovered an unknown precursor artefact. For some reason, the artefact has been sent to your department for you to study and unlock its secrets for your work.
Progress: 0/10
Cost: 20,000
Rewards: ???,
Not enough research done to create a new geneline.
Traits
Pioneer of the Future: Chance to unlock advanced versions of basic technology earlier.
Relations
Emperor Gardolf Kaiser = +2
Crown Prince Brandr Kaiser = 0
Princess Juden Kaiser = 0
Prince Philik Kaiser = 0
Imperial Council = 0
Grand Admiral Jakob Bolberg = 0
Grand Marshall Kathalee Gunther = 0
House Konig = 0
House Kron = 0
House Kraus = 0
House Konrad = 0
Funding: 50,000 (+10,000)
None
None
***
Alright, I have changed the game mechanics a bit as I have refined them between this update and the last. Rather than have to worry about lab buildings and upkeep, I have decided to give you a set amount of actions each turn.
Each turn, you get 3 Research Actions, 1 Design Action and 1 Testing Action. Research actions have a cost that applies each time you select it and each time you select a research option, you get progress towards it being completed. Each completed research option unlocks both new modifications for your future genelines, but also unlocks more research options.
I will cover Design Actions and Testing Actions when they are a thing you can do.
So can we pick one research option more than once? And is the progress bar "number of actions used on this so far", or is it affected by stuff like dice rolls?
[] [Research] Neural Interface (Cybernetics) With technology as commonplace in everyday life as it is, almost everyone, including yourself, has a neural interface to allow them to interface with Hierarchy technology. Figure out how to make a neural interface for the humans.
... How GOOD are our Neural interfaces? Because, for a lot of bodily functions, we will probably get a lot more bang for our buck with a piece of machinery than trying to make an organic equivalent. Like eyes. You can TRY to make a good organic eye, or you can just get a Camera. Cameras are cheap, and are very good, especially the cameras we presumably have in our super sci-fi empire. The only thing we need, is the ability to get our brain to treat the camera like eyes, which you can do for a good enough Neural Interface, hence the question.
I think we should prioritise the other options first, though. We can only afford 20-30% of the artifact before we go broke, and we don't yet know how expensive design and testing are going to be.
Better to pick one of the cheaper options first and get some cashflow in through the door, maybe picking a single research in the artifact just to get our foot in the door.
... How GOOD are our Neural interfaces? Because, for a lot of bodily functions, we will probably get a lot more bang for our buck with a piece of machinery than trying to make an organic equivalent. Like eyes. You can TRY to make a good organic eye, or you can just get a Camera. Cameras are cheap, and are very good, especially the cameras we presumably have in our super sci-fi empire. The only thing we need, is the ability to get our brain to treat the camera like eyes, which you can do for a good enough Neural Interface, hence the question.
The Ascendant Hierarchy has very good neural interfaces, but in practice, it varies. The nobles, the rich and the otherwise important have very good neural interfaces while the poor don't any or have cheap knock-offs. You will need to figure out how to adapt them to the humans, starting with the cheap basic ones.
[X] [Research] Increased Speed (Biology)
[X] [Research] Sharpen Vison (Biology)
[X] [Research] Heldyna IV Artefact (Precusor)
30 out of 50K used funds, LET'S DO THIS PEOPLE!
Okay so for research we are d20+2 and currently most actions are progress 5 so needing a 3+ to finish in one turn, or a 90% chance. Artifact is a 60% chance.
The key to victory is surprise, the key to surprise speed. -Matrim Cauthon.
Seriously, if we want super soldiers, super speed is the thing to go for. Extra strength and toughness are nice, but if we use guns, that really doesn't matter much. Having improved speed makes us harder to kill, make us easier to get into position, makes it harder to trap us. its just all around the best upgrade we can conceivably get. So lets get to it, get our research mostly done, and hopefully next turn we'll have enough progress going to finish it, and maybe even get the design action up because we'll have the research finished before our turn ends.
Either way, we need to focus on a specific research to completion so we aren't wasting actions.
Edit: Oh. okay well that 1d20 + research option totally changes everything. Nevermind then.
So, what happens if you over research something? Do you get progress towards the next level of that thing?
The key to victory is surprise, the key to surprise speed. -Matrim Cauthon.
Seriously, if we want super soldiers, super speed is the thing to go for. Extra strength and toughness are nice, but if we use guns, that really doesn't matter much. Having improved speed makes us harder to kill, make us easier to get into position, makes it harder to trap us. its just all around the best upgrade we can conceivably get. So lets get to it, get our research mostly done, and hopefully next turn we'll have enough progress going to finish it, and maybe even get the design action up because we'll have the research finished before our turn ends.
Either way, we need to focus on a specific research to completion so we aren't wasting actions.
d20+2 gives us a 90% chance to finish increased speed with a single action. Mainly because these are the easy research we are doing right now that have probably been done on other species, just need to get the basics tweaked for humans now. So doing the same action 3 times is a waste.
d20+2 gives us a 90% chance to finish increased speed with a single action. Mainly because these are the easy research we are doing right now that have probably been done on other species, just need to get the basics tweaked for humans now. So doing the same action 3 times is a waste.
Yeah, I posted that before I saw how the research worked. So I thought we needed 5 actions to finish one. Course, we may be able to get the improved speed stuff. Which, might still be worthwhile. High speed is super important in a modern firefight.
[] [Research] Heldyna IV Artefact (Precusor)
[] [Research] Heldyna IV Artefact (Precusor) x2
[] [Research] Neural Interface (Cybernetics)
The artifact is important, because interdepartmental rivalry and the like. Gotta prove we can handle this stuff.
Neural interfaces will be useful not only for supersoldiers, but also for research, so the better we understand them the better.
The Ascendant Hierarchy has very good neural interfaces, but in practice, it varies. The nobles, the rich and the otherwise important have very good neural interfaces while the poor don't any or have cheap knock-offs. You will need to figure out how to adapt them to the humans, starting with the cheap basic ones.
Doesn't exactly say much. How good is "very good"? How basic is "basic"? Very Good could mean anything from "Just shy of complete uploading" to "Can control robotic limbs like normal ones", and Basic can mean anything from "Control robotic limbs" to "Open doors"
[X] [Research] Boosted Toughness (Biology)
[X] [Research] Neural Interface (Cybernetics)
[X] [Research] Heldyna IV Artefact (Precusor)
Toughness will vastly increase their survivability, and probably help allow us to fiddle with their bodies more.
Neural Interfaces are a must have for them to be able ot use any of our Tech, and will probably allow us to short-cut our way on various bits of research
Artefact for shiny
So, I suppose I might as well justify why I vote what I do.
The Artifact is just standard SV shiny megaproject hunting. It is expensive, risky and the part of my vote I am the most willing to shift. However, we know that these research options unlock higher options, and to be frank I am curious what lies beyond this particular tech tree.
Now, I used the remaining two options for biology. I don't know if any of you have caught on yet, but I like dinosaurs and would like to get as much of them into our soldiers as possible. This is why I go biology before cybernetics, because while cyborg dinosaurs are undoubtably cool and something that should come out of any self-respecting genetic engieneering quest, I would rather have non-cyborg dinosaurs than non-dinosaur cyborgs.
But this is also where I have to correct a misunderstanding that I saw pop up in this quest. When you make your dinosaur genes, you do not start with contemporary reptiles like crocodiles or iguanas. That's like looking at a lemur to figure out how humans work. Not fully unthinkable, but kinda silly when you have perfectly good homo sapiens around. And we have plenty of dinosaurs on this pale blue dot.
As for why I picked Speed and Vision? Well, the fastest animal alive is the pregerine falcon, so that seems like an obvious thing to include to make our soldiers more dinosaur-like. Vision is symbolic instead, but we humans have a history of comparing our keen-eyed members to birds, to the point where I had to stop myself from writing "eagle-eyed" instead of "keen-eyed". It even shows up in our anime for crying out loud, that's how you know its universal.
... Also, being able to sense your opponents is an obvious requirement to be able to fight them, that goes without saying.
Doesn't exactly say much. How good is "very good"? How basic is "basic"? Very Good could mean anything from "Just shy of complete uploading" to "Can control robotic limbs like normal ones", and Basic can mean anything from "Control robotic limbs" to "Open doors"
Basic is like a modern smart phone or computer, but with thoughts over a mouse or computer. Very good is just shy of complete uploading and would go all the way. I haven't put much thoughts into the details beyond that.
As for why I picked Speed and Vision? Well, the fastest animal alive is the pregerine falcon, so that seems like an obvious thing to include to make our soldiers more dinosaur-like. Vision is symbolic instead, but we humans have a history of comparing our keen-eyed members to birds, to the point where I had to stop myself from writing "eagle-eyed" instead of "keen-eyed". It even shows up in our anime for crying out loud, that's how you know its universal.
Pregerine Falcons can only achieve that top speed mid dive. So we might be able to learn how to make our humans very good at falling very fast, but that's about it. If you DO want dinosaur stuff, probably better to go for Toughness, since that is something they had a fair bit of.
Robotic Eyes will be better than any biological eye we can create for a _long_ time.
Basic is like a modern smart phone or computer, but with thoughts over a mouse or computer. Very good is just shy of complete uploading and would go all the way. I haven't put much thoughts into the details beyond that.
