Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Kinematics]

No posts for a full day and only one kinematic's plan it seems like? @Elder Haman I only saw a rough plan marked from you and no indications of it being finished. I'd like to get a plan soonish, so let me know if there's any further questions I need to answer.

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Well, mine is sort of an amalgamation of ideas from several people, with my main duty being to make sure the numbers add up right. This type of quest is nice in that different people can have focus in different areas, and the trick is figuring out how to make them all fit together, instead of (too much) fighting over which single vote is 'best'. Lends itself towards fewer votes, and more discussion over the details.

I think Haman only had one unanswered question pending, regarding the cost of expanding the courier business into Seto's territory.

I'm considering broadening the world a bit but I'm hesitant.

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Right now we've reached a sort of plateau. We don't really have any options for further expansion in the short term, with the expansions we can see as possible being long-term efforts. At the same time we've finally reached a stable maintenance level for cube harvests, and a decent income financially.

Up til now, it was a constant fight to expand and survive; a sort of outward growth. From here on, though, we need upward growth: research, defenses, finances, long-term education prospects, exploration rather than expansion, etc. We've reached stability, and we'll need at least a few turns to shake out the issues with that, but beyond that I definitely expect the types of challenges we'll face to be different.

Things like: Other groups scouting our territory; diplomatic liaisons and conflicts; sending people out to explore the larger world; advancing research; political favor trading; being caught between two other major powers (eg: Nagoya and Tokyo groups); etc.

The main issue is that while it feels to be at that point thematically, numerically we can't actually say we're there yet. As I noted earlier, only about 1/6 of the organization is free from 'mandatory' requirements, and research is expensive, and takes a lot of time for the advanced research topics (which, at best, we'll only be able to focus on one at a time for, meaning we'll be lucky to get two completed per game year).

Basically, it feels like we need a year or two of research and financial growth before we'll be at a point where we can actually start moving to the next stage of the game.

The alternative is needing 3 to 4 years of research time, and spending the interim mixing it with more attempts to expand (which, as noted, is a slow process), which may expand the population enough that the fraction available for research gets to a point where we can do both.


So, broadening of the world: I'm fine with that. There are lots of ways it can develop. The main trick is being able to move to the next stage without being crushed by the resource requirements. It's sort of a shame that Kyuubey has such a hardline rule on the masquerade, because the involvement of non-meguca would really expand the options available.

Hmmm. Ideas percolating..

 

[TheEyes]

So, broadening of the world: I'm fine with that. There are lots of ways it can develop. The main trick is being able to move to the next stage without being crushed by the resource requirements. It's sort of a shame that Kyuubey has such a hardline rule on the masquerade, because the involvement of non-meguca would really expand the options available.

Hmmm. Ideas percolating..

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Hey, now that is an interesting point. Kyuubey hasn't actually forbidden us from involving non-meguca--Ayase has been part of our organization for over a year now--it's just been insistent that we don't expose our existence to the wider world, which I kind of agree with. The only reason that breaking the masquerade didn't end in complete disaster in TTS is that the MSY had managed to completely co-opt the one-world government before they were forced to expose themselves.

It might be interesting, however, to bring in more associates like Ayase. Would probably require an omake detailing her motivation for even being an associate, though. As I see it, Ayase views her work for the Serene as charity work. Maybe she has a father or mother who volunteers for Doctors Without Borders or some other charity organization; maybe she sees demons as a massive existential threat to humanity and wants to help. In any case, she's willing to work essentially for free; those who understand her motivations must love her dearly, but even those who don't must realize how useful she is.

 

[Aranfan]

Well, in my 20 Years Later omake, it was a combination of her being a massive fan of magical girls and viewing wraiths as massive threats to humanity. As such, it was her duty to help the magical girls (including her two best friends) fight them, even to the point of working for them and forgoing most of her pay.

But that omake is non-canon, so her actual motivations are probably still open to being nailed down.

 

[Elder Haman]

I think it's more that Ayase is a card capture Sakura fan, and thinks this is the most awesome thing ever that she gets to be involved for real. The occasional times when she is asked to help with research? How cool is that? And being given more and more responsibility? Flattering. I've actually thought the Ayase might be one of the better girls to put on paperwork, as she being the grief cube accountant would give her no motivation to steal.

There were also some hints that she's a little terrified of the combat side of things, and getting to be the normal best friend secret keeper is right in her sweet spot.

 

[inverted_helix]

Things like: Other groups scouting our territory; diplomatic liaisons and conflicts; sending people out to explore the larger world; advancing research; political favor trading; being caught between two other major powers (eg: Nagoya and Tokyo groups); etc.

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The thing with other people scouting you is essentially that everyone has had the same difficulties expanding you have. So you can't expect there to be a bunch of 100+ girl groups every which direction.

You'll run into some of these things in future turns, but every other group runs into the same constraints you have. So the fact that you're distant from Tokyo and Nagoya means that diplomats from those areas don't really reach you very well for similar reasons to you not sending diplomats to them. Though I do have some slated to arrive in the future since surviving groups in general are achieving more stability at this point.

I don't know if I object so much as find it a bit strange. I was expecting more of our research to be related to demon-hunting and martial tactics; in particular I figured our biggest long-term project, other than intra- and inter-team politics and maybe working to promote some of our girls to Legendary status (maybe Legendary should have levels, like D&D character levels?) was going to be trying to bring up the cubes/girl and cubes/land area ratios enough that the Incubators won't just decide to eventually kill us all.

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Well one of the issues with this is that this research system is basically players come up with an idea, and I price it out. Players haven't come up with all that many reasonable ideas in that line.

I may well change the system of ranks amongst meguca to a more graduated level system though. I've been considering that but on the balance it seems like it would increase complexity without really adding much value.

Having enchantment be a research topic rather than something that meguca just sort of do is unexpected, and taking a bit of mental readjustment, but it's actually pretty cool, even if I can't find any use for the stuff we've currently done outside of curiosities and lab-only applications like limited maglev via superconductors.

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I'm glad you think that.

If a MG needs to travel and they think poorly of us, they need to go all the way around our territory. I've been kinda expecting at least one of the groups around us trying to get girls together to take us down a peg. Otherwise, who know when we'll decide to swoop in and take their territory?! Last year, they only girls who didn't disappear and lose their territory (we absorbed them peaceably) were those who didn't let them scout them out properly! Those crazy serene girls don't make any sense! Paranoia runs rampant!

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See much of this there's just no real way for you to hear. If they're trying to ally against you in the background they aren't going to talk to you about it.

 

[Kinematics]

Including the support network, and once we stabilize the territory balance for RT, the total number of meguca we have dedicated towards supplying the group with grief cubes will be about 30 (varying slightly depending on which territory is on the upswing, and how many elites are on hunting duty). That's a bit over 50% of the entire organization that's essentially been given the job of 'farmer'.

--

In the US, in the 1850's 90% of the population were farmers. By 1870, with advances in machinery to improve farming productivity, that had dropped to just under 50%, and stayed there for a few decades. By 1920, 30% of the population were farmers.

In the 1930's, during the Dust Bowl era, there were lots of programs to counter the problems of soil erosion, pushing for things like crop rotation, terraced farming, cover crops, conservation buffers, and various other techniques.

Advances in technology from 1940 onwards led to a rapid downward spiral in the number of farmers, reaching 3% by 1981, and under 2% today. This is largely because technology allows each individual farmer to cover a much larger area of land (average farm size doubled between 1940 and 1974, while the number of workers decreased).

--

Now, comparing with the meguca situation:

With just greens, safety concerns put the number of hunters needed at near 100%.

With vets, that can drop to perhaps 65% (though that gives very little surplus).

With improved technology (support personnel, dispatches, etc), an organization of around 30 meguca could probably drop that to around 60%.

Slight improvements in efficiency, combined with proportional decreases in the needed support costs with organization size, have put us at 52.5%. If we add the mopeds, we'd be right at 50%.


Basically, we're living in the late 19th century, as far as the 'food' side of our meguca needs goes. We've already added in crop rotation, without needing to reach a Dust Bowl-type problem to prompt it.

On the other hand, we now have enough surplus that we can actually start making investments to advance beyond that level. I would say we want to get to a 30% overall rate as a primary target that's both within conceivable reach, while also vastly improving our manpower situation.

--

Now, what sort of distribution of duties would we need for a 30% farming level?

30% of 57 meguca would be 17 individuals. Will round up to 18 for a little buffer.

We currently have a 2:1 split between hunters and support. That means we'd want a split of 12 hunters and 6 support.

12 hunters means we need an average of 6.5 cubes harvested per hunter, to match our current harvests. That means a 50% multiplier on top of everything else, -after- we add the mopeds (if they keep hunting in pairs), or a 20% additional multiplier if hunting solo.

Pairs: 1.5 (vet) * 1.6 (pairs) * 1.5 (current bonus) * 1.1 (demon forecasting) * 1.1 (mopeds) * 1.5 (advanced multiplier) = 6.534
Solo: 1.5 (vet) * 2.0 (solo) * 1.5 (current bonus) * 1.1 (demon forecasting) * 1.1 (mopeds) * 1.2 (advanced multiplier) = 6.534

Note that this could be accomplished by modifying the other multipliers as well. For example, increasing the base cubes for vets from 1.5 to 1.8 would work for the solo calculation, or increasing the pairs hunting return from 1.6 to 2.4.

The vet average can also be a little lower if we factor in elites raising the average a bit.


At the same time, we have to increase those bonuses while decreasing the number of people dedicated to support, from 10 down to 6. The easiest way to do that is to find ways to reduce the casualty risk level without needing to dedicate constant support to that function — more casualty reduction that can go into assets rather than upkeep. That means: Research and technology.

--

Of our current upkeep, we first have:

1 Veteran, Paperpushing

This covers a wide range of duties, and isn't exclusive to hunting, so won't be included in the 6 meguca upkeep support.

We then have, in order of importance:

2 vets on dispatch service (+30% grief cubes additive with demon finding, -1% casualties)
2.5 vet + 0.5 green demon finding training (+20% grief cubes)
2.5 vet + 0.5 green on pack tactics (-4% pack hunting, -2% pair hunting)
1.5 vet on telepathic communication (-2% pair hunting, -1% pack hunting)

If we created two more support services approximating the value of the dispatch service, we could have something like:

2 vets on dispatch service 1 (+30% grief cubes additive with demon finding, -1% casualties)
2 vets on dispatch service 2 (+30% grief cubes additive with demon finding, -1% casualties)
2 vets on dispatch service 3 (+30% grief cubes additive with demon finding, -1% casualties)

That would get us to 5.5 cubes per vet for pairs, or 6.9 for solo. That would reduce the number of pair hunters needed by 5 compared to present (though part of that comes from the mopeds), though total number of hunters is still at 15 rather than the targeted 12. Overall, would require 8 fewer meguca, though we'd have to make up for the reduction in casualty safety.


So, we need ideas on how to enhance hunting productivity substantially, from the support level, or possibly from the research level (eg: the Strength research project). That would give us many more options for how to proceed in the future, for anything from research to getting girls through college.

 

[mastigos]

So, broadening of the world: I'm fine with that. There are lots of ways it can develop. The main trick is being able to move to the next stage without being crushed by the resource requirements. It's sort of a shame that Kyuubey has such a hardline rule on the masquerade, because the involvement of non-meguca would really expand the options available.

Hmmm. Ideas percolating..

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We could always start using non-meguca employees in the jobs that don't really need a magical girl. Like actually hiring employees for our businesses.

Or, to keep things more in-house, we could start recruiting mundane homeless girls to work for us and live in our housing.

Another way to involve mundanes that might or might not work out is asking Kyuubi to identify girls with the potential to become Magical Girls and then reaching out to them while they're still mundanes.

 

[Kinematics]

It might be interesting, however, to bring in more associates like Ayase.

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Actually, I was thinking a little more loosely tied, though more associates wouldn't be bed, either. A detective we keep on retainer. A machinist who does parts work for us. A collectables dealer who will sell artwork we craft. Actual connections with the yakuza, to make sure we don't end up butting heads, but have mutual benefits, such as their information network. Connections in the shipyards, since we're a coastal city.

Heck, setting up a girl to learn mahjong and spend all her time at mahjong parlors making contacts and collecting information. There's plenty of deals made in the private rooms there, as an alternative to golf, given limitations on where you can have golf courses in Japan. (Though this one would be better with an actual meguca.)

There are tons of little things like that that are possible, but just not feasible because of our meguca limits.

 

[Kinematics]

We could always start using non-meguca employees in the jobs that don't really need a magical girl. Like actually hiring employees for our businesses.

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The main problem with that is that we lose the money we'd otherwise be keeping as income. Despite the successes we've had with the businesses, we'd be at borderline nothing if we had to pay actual hired employees.

Or, to keep things more in-house, we could start recruiting mundane homeless girls to work for us and live in our housing.

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Somewhat more inclined to this, though we'd need to expand the housing space a fair bit to accommodate them. Allowing them to replace the meguca in the businesses would free up the meguca for other activities, though we'd also be penalizing ourselves in income (presuming that we'd still be paying them the standard stipend). They'd have to reach Associate level because of working in close proximity with the meguca, too.

 

[tenchifew]

[X] Kinematics

 

[mastigos]

Well one of the issues with this is that this research system is basically players come up with an idea, and I price it out. Players haven't come up with all that many reasonable ideas in that line.

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Part of the issue is that we're essentially researching from first principle,but we don't have access to the raw observational data ("oh hey that looks interesting, I wonder how" ...) necessary to give us a rough framework from which to extrapolate what is reasonable.

Particularly since un-researched magic seems to be several orders of magnitude more efficient, powerful and versatile than anything our researchers seem to be capable of doing while researching magic. Its like they lose 99.999% of their magic as soon as they start researching and then get it back as soon as they stop.

I mean Mami was able to somehow manipulate ribbon magic into functioning as musket magic, efficiently enough to be her goto combat technique. And she also casually made Madoka an anti-Witch bat out of raw magic ... meanwhile our researchers can inefficiently make a baseball bat a little stronger, and decrease the inefficiency a little if they coat it with rubber. There's a distinct gap there.

As for a few new research ideas:

• Mami: explain what the fuck you do to make muskets out of ribbons
• if magic enhances purpose, what about if a magical girl makes something with a specific (possibly arbitrary) purpose, with the intent that it be enchanted? Like writing ofuda as weapons or wards against demons, or making a "magic mirror" via excessive use of glitter with the intent of reflecting the mental disruption of a demon back at it?
• magic vacuums vs miasma

 

[inverted_helix]

Particularly since un-researched magic seems to be several orders of magnitude more efficient, powerful and versatile than anything our researchers seem to be capable of doing while researching magic. Its like they lose 99.999% of their magic as soon as they start researching and then get it back as soon as they stop.

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Not really sure what you mean here. Though the magic you start out with is much better than any individual line item o research I don't think that really a fair comparison. I mean that's like claiming humans never should have developed technology because the stick didn't increase human effectiveness more than the starting value of a human from biology. Technology has always been about accumulation of effect over a prolonged period of research.

And she also casually made Madoka an anti-Witch bat out of raw magic ... meanwhile our researchers can inefficiently make a baseball bat a little stronger, and decrease the inefficiency a little if they coat it with rubber. There's a distinct gap there.

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This is something that she couldn't do in this case. Though players missed what seemed to me an obvious route to get to that ability. I'll likely introduce it via some other meguca group having already figured it out.

Part of the issue is that we're essentially researching from first principle,but we don't have access to the raw observational data ("oh hey that looks interesting, I wonder how" ...) necessary to give us a rough framework from which to extrapolate what is reasonable.

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I've tried to drop various hints, but this is fundamentally more an issue of me not being a very good writer and players not being in universe.

explain what the fuck you do to make muskets out of ribbons

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I've never honestly understood this one either. I mean I'd love it if someone could explain this to me because it's a real wtf thing for me too. I don't even have any headcanon explanation for it.

 

[Elder Haman]

12 hunters means we need an average of 6.5 cubes harvested per hunter, to match our current harvests. That means a 50% multiplier on top of everything else, -after- we add the mopeds (if they keep hunting in pairs), or a 20% additional multiplier if hunting solo.

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Interestingly enough Solo Elites produce at 6.6 cubes.

Vet Pairs produce at 3.96 while Vets Solo produce at 5.28 cubes.

So reducing casualty danger by -10% would increase vets production by 1.3 cubes per a vet. That's increasing production efficiency by 1/3rd.

We could switch to vet solo on the underhunt with only an additional -5% casualty danger.

 

[Kinematics]

Research: What is the prime limiter in grief harvesting right now?

1) Time to kill demons? If you doubled demon kill speed, would you double grief cube harvests, or just spend more time waiting around for the next fight?

2) Time to find demons? Is a substantial portion of each hunter's evening spent waiting for demon location info? Or is that information always ready when they finish a fight?

3) Time to travel between demon spawn points? Are the demons located so far apart that you're spending most of your time traveling between points rather than fighting?

4) Demon respawn rates? Similar to #2, but not a problem with slow dispatchers; there just aren't any demons there to be found.

5) Demon grief cube drop rates? If there are no problems in any of the above, then is it just a matter of the rate at which demons drop cubes?



We need an answer to the above to decide on which area to research.

1) Combat tech and strength improvements.

2) Advanced detection methodologies.

3) Improved transport and patrol planning.

4) ?? Something to draw demons into existence.

5) ?? Something to draw out the energy that creates grief cubes


Some of them link together. For example, improved detection may allow many more choices to pull from when giving hunters their next fight route, significantly reducing travel time. Likewise, current detection may only pick out the stronger readings, leading to needing greater combat strength, whereas greater detection sensitivity may allow many more of the weaker demons to be found, limiting the need for higher combat capability.

Overall... I think advanced detection capabilities will get us the greatest overall gain: Better border protection (assuming we can tie it to enchantments), better ability to detect weaker demons (thus reducing combat risks as well as combat time), and just plain more options to choose from within a given area (making travel time a non-issue). Caveat: We need someone to crunch the numbers from the dispatch service.

After that would probably be something to improve #5 (long term item).

 

[Kinematics]

@inverted_helix : What would be required on the research side of the above project? Presumably we have a lot of that data already, from the dispatch service, though they might need a month to refine it or get more precise data points. Then someone to spend a day crunching the numbers to figure out what the best line of advancement would be.

1) Is it going to take a month of data collection prep time?

2) Is it going to require meguca-month allocations on top of the standard dispatch service to collect and crunch the data, even before we get to the R&D stage?

 

[TheEyes]

I may well change the system of ranks amongst meguca to a more graduated level system though. I've been considering that but on the balance it seems like it would increase complexity without really adding much value.

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I was just sort of figuring that Legendary status would itself have ranks, sort of like D&D levels or divine ranks, each rank giving a different or increased benefit unique to the girl.

Not really sure what you mean here. Though the magic you start out with is much better than any individual line item o research I don't think that really a fair comparison. I mean that's like claiming humans never should have developed technology because the stick didn't increase human effectiveness more than the starting value of a human from biology. Technology has always been about accumulation of effect over a prolonged period of research.

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Well, not always. In fact the stick is a bad example for your case, as clubs, spears, spear-throwers, axes/hand-axes and other simple weapons and force-multipliers were pretty immediately useful and powerful tools right from the beginning. Our magitech efforts seem to be closer to human developments in electricity or computers, where it took decades to produce technology that was more than a scientific curiosity.

This is something that she couldn't do in this case. Though players missed what seemed to me an obvious route to get to that ability. I'll likely introduce it via some other meguca group having already figured it out.

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As I understand it, we haven't actually tried to enchant whole objects yet, other than a human being which doesn't work well (maybe if we put said person in kevlar clothes?). Enchanting base materials so far provides a modest boost to strength and durability, along with a minor boost to a secondary characteristic that seems intrinsic to each material. Maybe we can aim to enhance specific attributes in objects, and maybe said attributes will be easier/more effective to enhance if the object is purpose-built for that attribute? For example, enhancing the sharpness/cutting power of a knife/sword, or the hitting power--I dunno what you'd call it, maybe "whamminess"?--of a bat?

I've never honestly understood this one either. I mean I'd love it if someone could explain this to me because it's a real wtf thing for me too. I don't even have any headcanon explanation for it.

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Oh, well it's simple: Mami uses magic to distill the essence of Being a Classy Ojou-sama out of her own soul, and then weaponize it. It's basically a well of infinite power for her, much like Kyouko has too much tomboyish awesome for one person, so has to conjure another body in which to contain it.

What, you expected something sensible? We're talking about magical teenagers.

Research: What is the prime limiter in grief harvesting right now?

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Heheheh: @inverted_helix: Research proposal: Time and Motion Study for demon-hunting. This wouldn't cost grief cubes, but it would require megucas who are familiar with the principles of industrial engineering and operations research. This would be a separate topic to my previous research study on improving rotating tactics, but complimentary...

Aha! Training topic: demon hunting logbooks! All hunters record date/time, GPS location, and tactics used to defeat demons at said location, as well as tactics used by the demons themselves. Should actually provide a benefit to the hunt itself too, as hunters will be training their situational awareness in order to submit accurate reports. Would provide a bonus to Time and Motion research topic, as well as Improved RT research. Should also weird out Seto's group nicely, as the quant nerds in the Serene continue to rage.

 

[Sereg]

Re: Mami's ribbons:

Think of it like this, she can make a sculpture of something out of ribbons. Then she can make the sculpture act like the thing it's a sculpture of. With creativity, it's pretty broken.

EDIT: Possible research topic: Demon bait.

 

[mastigos]

Not really sure what you mean here. Though the magic you start out with is much better than any individual line item o research I don't think that really a fair comparison. I mean that's like claiming humans never should have developed technology because the stick didn't increase human effectiveness more than the starting value of a human from biology. Technology has always been about accumulation of effect over a prolonged period of research.

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Actually the stick does. Significantly. Greater reach, if it gets hit it doesn't mean an injury for the wielder, far greater impact velocity and increased kinetic energy. As far as technology goes, sticks were fucking awesome improvements given how little effort needed to be put into them.

And that's the problem with the way you're modeling research right now. Research doesn't start out going for tiny incremental increases, it starts out going for the low hanging fruit. The low effort, high reward easy stuff. It's only once most of those have been plucked that the slow grind of "little bit more" starts happening.

But more than that, what I'm getting at is that you seem to be treating researched magic as something wholly separate from from intrinsic magic. You're treating the researchers as if they were mundane humans who happened to have discovered magical physics and are fumbling around barely able to effect it, instead of people who can already do magic. And not just any magic, but magic they can instinctively mold and improvise with. For instance for strengthening objects they already have "well how do I magically reinforce my magical girl weapon?", "how does my magical girl uniform work?" and "what does it feel like to make my body magically stronger as I transform" as a starting point. Not to mention Sayaka style "how do I harden the air ot the point I can push off of it?". It's not a matter of "how do I do this at all?" it's a matter of "I can already do this, how do I make it last longer? How do I make it stable?"

Basically: you're treating this like we're researching nuke (complicated, tetchy, tiny increments of progress, lots of pre-requisites) when at this point we're trying to research "how do I pick up a stick and hit things with it?"

We're aiming to leverage and enhance our abilities, not surpass them. Natural, organic extensions that should seem fairly obvious in-universe. The problem being that we're not in-universe.

 

[Kinematics]

It's not a matter of "how do I do this at all?" it's a matter of "I can already do this, how do I make it last longer? How do I make it stable?"

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But also, "How can I make it so that anybody can do this?" Sayaka can make magical platforms; how does she teach Yuma (also a healer, but not musically-based) to do that? How does she teach Kaoru (musically-based, but not a healer) to do that? How does she teach Hainako (universal translator; completely different power) to do that?

There are certainly arguments that there are still things that require basic research before they can be broadly applied, even if you already know how to do it. Going back to the stick analogy: You've got a stick; I've got a pointy stick. How do I work out how to teach you how to turn your normal stick into a pointy stick?

 

[mastigos]

But also, "How can I make it so that anybody can do this?" Sayaka can make magical platforms; how does she teach Yuma (also a healer, but not musically-based) to do that? How does she teach Kaoru (musically-based, but not a healer) to do that? How does she teach Hainako (universal translator; completely different power) to do that?

There are certainly arguments that there are still things that require basic research before they can be broadly applied, even if you already know how to do it. Going back to the stick analogy: You've got a stick; I've got a pointy stick. How do I work out how to teach you how to turn your normal stick into a pointy stick?

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Pointy sticks are pretty easy to show how to make.

 

[Kinematics]

Pointy sticks are pretty easy to show how to make.

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But they tend to require other tools, first.

 

[mastigos]

Before we devlolve into a long off topic rant, I guess what I'm saying is that we're trying to research stuff involved in the training processes transitioning from green to veteran and veteran to elite, and how to make the magic tuaght in that more effective and more widely applicable.

 

[Kinematics]

Advanced detection network:

As far as the actual detection system goes... I'm thinking something akin to a cell tower network. Enchanted detector/relays that carry a strong signal to the clairvoyants (and nearby hunters), to enhance the sensitivity of detecting miasma near each one. A network distributed throughout the city territory would vastly improve the ability to safely and effectively hunt demons.

Two main requirements:

1) An enchantment to enhance sensitivity to demon miasma

2) A sufficiently long duration to that enchantment.

Our current main territory is somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of 1250 sq. km (though not all of that is the urban area). If we need to set up a node per square km, and if the enchantment lasted a month, we'd need up to maybe 5 meguca to spend one day each month to re-enchant them all (about 1/6 of a meguca-month). If the enchantments lasted 5 days each, we'd need 1 meguca-month just to keep them all active.



If we do the long-duration materials research soon, then the main barrier is getting something that's sensitive to the demon miasma. Perhaps something akin to ofuda? That would be easily transportable. Needing some kind of plastic sealant does seem a bit silly, but it would keep it dry in the rain, so there's a decent enough reason for it. Wouldn't want to have to replace them after every rainstorm.

Further advancement along this line might allow us to set up wards and seals, as well, allowing us to protect regions from demons, or possibly channel them to controlled locations.


On the security side, we'd also want to make sure that nobody could just walk up to the edge of our territory and use the ward network to examine our entire territory for free. Having a 'key' into the network is probably desired. Can provide one to each hunter and each dispatcher. The hunters get a boost from the handful of wards near their location, while the clairvoyants on dispatch can get a view of large swaths of the network at a time.

That can be done as a followup project, though: Means of limiting who can use an enchantment.

 

[Elder Haman]

Mami: explain what the fuck you do to make muskets out of ribbons

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That sounds more like an action to setup a real official dedicated research team. Right now we've been sort of amateurishly doing it when we got resources. This would mean something like dedicating Keiko + assistant to research, which would then become an upkeep cost. Benefits would be:

Members of research team can be devoted to a specific research task.
Small bonus to research done with Keiko and dedicated assistants assigned to that research task.
Research team can spends their time and resources on independent research: Generate new ideas to explore (a way for the GM to slip some more of his hints out to us in a more explicit manner), dependent on some dice roll.
Research Team can receive lessons in magical theory. ie: Mami gives a lecture to the researchers on how she makes muskets out of ribbons, and then spends a month conjuring muskets in slow mo allowing the researchers to research. Researchers gain bonus to summoning of material magic, and transformation of material magic, etc. Kyouko give lecture on how to make illusions gain physical power, etc.

I've never honestly understood this one either. I mean I'd love it if someone could explain this to me because it's a real wtf thing for me too. I don't even have any headcanon explanation for it.

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Well, first of all, Mami has wish magic that reduces her expenditure of magical soul power. (This is canon actually, based on the comment Kyubey makes to Sayaka). This allowed her to spend a lot more magic on research then most girls can afford.

It's never said, but my head canon is that Mami's family must have had an heirloom musket (probably from an Italian grandfather or something) that Mami had access to and so could take apart and inspect.

Making the barrel, handle, and springs was easy. Mami just shaped her ribbons and hardened them till they became like steel. (I think I remember some comment somewhere in extra materials that she looked at the folding of steel to make it stronger and tried to replicate it with her ribbons).

The hard part was the explosion. Mami managed to figure out how to generate a blast of raw mana. This may be an ability that any magical girl can do, as we saw Homura do this in her first attack on Kuybey (that we saw) in the final timeline. We also saw Kyouko do something like this in her suicidal attack.

Next Mami had to figure out how to make this into a containable and releasable form. In her case the flintlock musket form gave her the answer. Mami concentrated the raw mana into an unstable crystallized form. This is then incorporated on her muskets in the location where the flint would be in a mundane flintlock. The lock mechanism then slammed this unstable crystal down at the rear of the musket barrel creating an explosion to launch Mami's projectile, similar to the explosion caused by gunpowder. (Yellow crystal flint can be clearly seen in the series).

This caused a bit of a set back as Mami next had to figure out how to strengthen her ribbon musket further to withstand magic powered explosions, but this became an advantage when Mami reached the point of developing her projectile. Which thanks to Homura's time stop power in Rebellion we can see is clearly just a ribbon ball containing raw magical power. Thus Mami's muskets are launching a hardened ribbon ball that penetrates the enemy's skin before releasing the internal magical power in a small explosion inside the enemy.

Which is why Mami's muskets are so powerful.

What. I thought that was all pretty obvious.

if magic enhances purpose, what about if a magical girl makes something with a specific (possibly arbitrary) purpose, with the intent that it be enchanted? Like writing ofuda as weapons or wards against demons, or making a "magic mirror" via excessive use of glitter with the intent of reflecting the mental disruption of a demon back at it?

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Hmm... interesting ideas... particularly the ofuda. Obviously we need a Sailor Mars fan to show up.

 

[Kinematics]

From my rough estimate of next turn's meguca availability, assuming we train Kaoru and have 1 person allocated to some aspect of the manual, we'll have 5 meguca free for research (or diplomacy).

Options are:

1 vet - Long term duration material check
3 vets + 1 green - Personal effects (80% success chance)
2 vets (2 months) - Technology
3 vets (2 months) - Tandem casting
2 vets (3 months) - Secondary properties
3 vets + 1 green (long-term) - Strength/Speed/Durability (each)
Advanced Detection Network has no pricing available.

We have various ways of combining two research projects. The duration test is the simplest and least expensive. Personal effects will only take one month (probably), but takes 4 meguca. Tandem Casting and Technology are each two-month projects, and take 2-3 vets. All of our important long-term projects cost 4 meguca.


We do have the option to continue to delay Kaoru's training, which will free up a couple meguca. Put Taya on hunting, and we could have 8 on research, which would allow something like: Speed, Tandem, Duration research set (or maybe replace Speed with the ADN, and push the long-term research back yet again). Speed and Tandem will both occupy 2+ months (unless we get ridiculously lucky on the speed research), so we'll need to be ready to dedicate those 7 meguca to research for two turns running.

Basically, if we want to make progress on research, we're going to be spending pretty much all of our optional meguca on that for several months. That means almost nothing else going on other than the hunting and working groups, which are all pretty much fixed. That means that, on the player side, we'll be doing almost nothing for several turns, if everything remains bound to meguca-months.

Maybe we can push more for a lot of smaller side-projects that don't eat (much) into actual meguca-month time. Stuff like non-meguca contacts, relations, and general info-gathering.