Ah, if you want an ear just send me PM, im always interested in learning more and im going to study something along those lines so its good knowledge to have.
but we are getting a lil bit off topic, im not good at math so ill let that to the experts.
not many names that come to mind but i want to call it "The Officio System" if only for the references, and it might as well be how we end up in the future, odd jobs are abound if you look hard enough, can we scout for someone with criminal connections or past in our little group? in the near future we could start taking contracts and taking ill-gotten money from criminals would help us economically and might start some rumors and reputation is good to have, might want to hold on and select some good veterans for that tough.
By the way Helix, what is the explanation of the masquerade QB gave us? what is his stance for people who involve mundanes like that? and the most important question.......does he like Mami´s pancakes?
The fact that there's a tradeoff in each is what I'm going for. Though keep in mind that the long run growth will be different as well. I mean the total market size for courier service is fairly small, though you're likely to be able to take over the entire market in relatively short order. A city's demand for food is far larger, but you'll probably have to work more and risk more expanding in that market.
That being said the issues you've raised about healing as a business make it less of a balance black hole for me. Though I still don't think I buy that you can get that much money out of people with no reputation, but I suppose con artists manage similarly. Also if you try to set it up as being miko, aren't you going to need a shrine? I'm pretty sure that would be pretty costly to acquire.
Also I feel like I should mention your math is a bit sketchy on grief cubes. A vet hunting produces 2.8, if you count the upkeep on the hunting vet though you only have 1.8 to spare. Then you count the upkeep on the healing vet (though that's more of a fixed cost depending).
Also it's been a day with only 3 separate votes. Kind of troublesome.
Another thing I've been wondering is if it's time for a name for your group.
True, in my math I meant a veteran hunting in addition to the hunting that needs to go on to pay our upkeep. What I meant was that the constraint on healing becomes not our healers as much as the hunting that supplies our healers with grief cubes. Which means we've probably got to charge at least $1,000 a patient to just break even on the operating costs. With the variables of possible injury, and lack of customers, I wouldn't want to start the healing business at anything less then $2,000 as our starting price. Plus we need a much bigger territory for the same number of girls. That is the real negative actually.
And that does not assume the need for a shrine (which would be extremely expensive). I was thinking that we would basically have a website, and use paypal or something to transfer money. Then dispatch the healer, who I suggested go in a miko outfit mainly as part of the ruse that we are summoning healing spirits or something. I didn't think we needed a shrine to go with it, all though that would be a great add on if we ever get fully established, legitimized, and want to open up something more like a hospice. I picked miko because we are in Japan, but I suppose we could also get some nun outfits, and occult witch type outfits for people who perfer that. We could even offer it as part of our service: "Would you prefer a miko, a nun, or a witch to perform you healing ceremony?" Heck, that might even make people take less notice of us and treat us as entertainment instead of actual healers. Until of course people are actually healed, at which point the money will flow in.
It will take several months to really get going, but the low start up costs makes it pretty attractive. The real disadvantage is that it means we need an even larger territory to support fewer girls.
I'd like to hear what other people think, but it would probably rank them something like this:
Couriers: Safest choice, lowest rewards
Food: Riskiest choice, medium rewards
Healing: Turns grief cubes into lots of money. Probably the cheapest legal way to make lots of money, but... do we really want to turn grief cubes into money?
I assume we aren't going to be allowed to go public with anything, right? No winning $1,000,000 from James Randi for provably doing anything magic, no submitting our healing powers to scientific tests at the nearest research hospital, etc.
Because if not...
As for the business plan, I think it's a good idea to wait another turn or two. If we can switch to efficient hunting then we get a massive increase in free people which can be spent on the business stuff. Right now we just don't have the people free to actually make a business and still have enough in reserve in case something important comes up. Also, many businesses are unprofitable for the first several months of their existence and, while magic may help, we definitely want to have more of a buffer to be safe.
@Elder Haman I think our morale is high enough for now that the benefits of scouting outweigh the sports day. We're only losing a few GCs to grief spirals and getting more territory will let us drop our hunting casualty rate down really fast. If you swap that I'm willing to move my intimidation action to hunting, making our two plans equal.
I assume we aren't going to be allowed to go public with anything, right? No winning $1,000,000 from James Randi for provably doing anything magic, no submitting our healing powers to scientific tests at the nearest research hospital, etc.
Because if not...
As for the business plan, I think it's a good idea to wait another turn or two. If we can switch to efficient hunting then we get a massive increase in free people which can be spent on the business stuff. Right now we just don't have the people free to actually make a business and still have enough in reserve in case something important comes up. Also, many businesses are unprofitable for the first several months of their existence and, while magic may help, we definitely want to have more of a buffer to be safe.
@Elder Haman I think our morale is high enough for now that the benefits of scouting outweigh the sports day. We're only losing a few GCs to grief spirals and getting more territory will let us drop our hunting casualty rate down really fast. If you swap that I'm willing to move my intimidation action to hunting, making our two plans equal.
Well what you are suggesting is quite extreme in my opinion, i would preffer if it was more of a secret while using magic to stack the deck in our favor more you know? just think on the many uses an enhanced human has, something on a need to know basis you know? you just need to look for the right persons who wont ask questions.
I'd be pretty concerned about the market for courier services. It's a small market largely dependent on reputation for getting clients, and if we DO undercut our competitors or win clients away from them they will be pushing a lot of attention at us. The sort of attention that already figures something is up, not the bored 'routine inspection' attention.
The food thing is a bit risky to start up, but in all honesty health inspectors usually only visit restaraunts once or twice a year at most unless there has been a report of food poisoning. What we MIGHT actually be able to do is find a food delivery place that has an owner who has taken ill and use healing and money to buy in as a PARTNER. Maybe even open up a new shop with their assistance as a chain or whatever. Much less risky than a pure solo startup.
I assume we aren't going to be allowed to go public with anything, right? No winning $1,000,000 from James Randi for provably doing anything magic, no submitting our healing powers to scientific tests at the nearest research hospital, etc.
Because if not...
As for the business plan, I think it's a good idea to wait another turn or two. If we can switch to efficient hunting then we get a massive increase in free people which can be spent on the business stuff. Right now we just don't have the people free to actually make a business and still have enough in reserve in case something important comes up. Also, many businesses are unprofitable for the first several months of their existence and, while magic may help, we definitely want to have more of a buffer to be safe.
@Elder Haman I think our morale is high enough for now that the benefits of scouting outweigh the sports day. We're only losing a few GCs to grief spirals and getting more territory will let us drop our hunting casualty rate down really fast. If you swap that I'm willing to move my intimidation action to hunting, making our two plans equal.
By the way Helix, what is the explanation of the masquerade QB gave us? what is his stance for people who involve mundanes like that? and the most important question.......does he like Mami´s pancakes?
I assume we aren't going to be allowed to go public with anything, right? No winning $1,000,000 from James Randi for provably doing anything magic, no submitting our healing powers to scientific tests at the nearest research hospital, etc.
Humans have reacted poorly to previous attempts to reveal magic to the point that it is considered an intractable defect. Humans fear what they do not understand, and they lash out against what they fear. While emotions are useful in allowing for magic they are quite a negative influence in other aspects. While some can come to accept the existence of magic, others destroy their lives and those of the contracted. Tail swish.
Even in such cases where they do not react in a directly negative fashion they often find it unacceptable that their young must lay their lives on the line, particularly the progenitors of the girls in question. This however is usually a self correcting state as without contracted fighting the demon population the human population inevitably collapses. It has been described by many contracted as a kindness for them not to know, but it is more efficient for them not to know as the intervention of such individuals is counterproductive.
Extensive experiments have been done on the matter and the most efficient result has been to enforce a veil of secrecy which is relatively simple to maintain against inferior human technology and biology. It is projected to remain the most efficient for several hundred years based on the current rate of human technological development. Actions which jeopardize this efficiency are not condoned.
I do not consume pancakes and have no basis for a value judgement.
Took me a surprising amount of thought to come up with that explanation.
Would QB be receptive to using our powers to get profit while not confirming anything? better living conditions and a goal makes the MGs work harder, which means more demons exterminated.
what does he think of the little system we came up with? would he be willing to provide some of his services in memory manipulation to facilitate some of the endeavors we have in mind?
I was calling it south, but more descriptive names are fine and it is sorta southwest too. Perhaps a numbered identification system would make more sense? In the meantime I simply copied your updated vote.
So it seems that two votes of notgreat and elder haman for their compromise plan is the best I'm getting this turn. Odd given all the discussion. Especially so that nothing ended up being voted for on the business front, lol.
I was waiting for a business proposal from Haman to go through the bother of changing my vote. After all, he is the econ major here. I'm good with the compromise plan as well.
This month Mami begins as she has come accustomed to with visiting each girl and complimenting them on their hard work as she distributes their allowance for the month. It's through their hard work that their lives have improved so much this year and she hopes to see that continue into the future. She reassures them that despite the loss last month things are getting better and will continue to do so. The death of one of your original veterans that helped protect and guide the core of your group through its beginnings has a lingering impact on your whole group though, and the shrine sees more use. A lot of girls felt they owed her. (-$1200)
This month is pretty normal for your workforce as after much deliberating you decided to put off starting a business and gather a bit more resources first. Somehow Hainako manages to screw up again; your third courier Haruka has claimed quite confidently that Hainako is cursed. Hainako's only reply was what you assume were curses of her own, but scattered across a dozen languages so you couldn't be sure. Though at least this time she managed to save the bike, and only got docked a little bit on her pay. It occurs to you that some of your girls are actually quite superstitious given that they are living proof magic exists, while others have decided that they are living proof that the myths are wrong.(+$7300)
Mami spends much of the month meeting with the girls in the northeast and convincing them of the benefits of joining a larger group. She emphasizes the benefits of being in a true team, the ability to regularly socialize with people that understand your issues without worrying that they might turn on you and the security of having a group strong enough that no one is going to push them out of their territory. The fact that working together can let them achieve far more than they ever did apart, she points out her own group's survival rate. Mami manages to persuade them all to join in the end. Though they keep whatever grief cubes they had of their own to themselves just in case. Your housing is now at its limit as well, so you should probably deal with that before recruiting anyone else. (+3 Veterans, + NE Territory 5 sustainable, -$450)
The scouting efforts on the other hand end in fiasco. The area west of their current territory a magical girl managed to find the scout before the scout found her and gave her quite the verbal thrashing before booting her out of the territory without any chance to find out anything of value. (Scouting failed, -10% diplomacy, -20% future scouting attempts)
The scout sent to the urban area to the southwest met with equal lack of success, spending much of the month supposedly wandering the area without finding any magical girls at all. Yet one day when she returned had a message pinned to her back that she'd never even noticed, indicating a lack of appreciation for her continued spying as well as disdain for her ineptitude at the task and threatening retaliation. The girl involved was rather mortified when the note was pointed out. (Scouting failed, -10% diplomacy, -40% future scouting attempts)
Hunting this month went a little better than last month as the demon strength continues to gradually decline and make things less risky. However Yui was injured quite severely this month when an alarmingly large feline demon shattered its way through her barriers to disarm her, literally. The blood loss was staggering and things seemed touch and go for a while, but Yuma managed to repair the damage completely. Your dispatchers are also run increasingly to exhaustion with your increased territory and wore an expression of exasperation at the idea of you adding still more territory to their patrol area next month. They tell you they need more help and something to speed up their movements would be very helpful as well, preferably both, otherwise their effectiveness is likely to sharply decline.(+28 grief cubes)
Somehow you manage to get through another month without any grief spirals, you find yourself a bit anxious for the other shoe to drop.
Dispatch service (+30% grief cubes, -1% hunting casualties)
4 veterans and 2 greens working jobs (+$7400)
Grief Cubes 27
Money: $14,200
$400 upkeep on cellphones (-2% solo hunting)
$200 upkeep on cable
$3000 upkeep on apartments
Morale: [Medium] Morale didn't change much this month, held down as it was by Yui's injury and your scouts' total embarrassment.
Assets
Tiny household shrine: Somewhat reduces losses to morale from deaths.
Shields: -3% Casualties
Basic General Combat Training: -2% Casualties (May decay with losses or recruitment).
Basic Solo Combat Training: -1% Pack Hunting, -3% Solo Hunting (May decay with losses or recruitment).
Cramped Apartments (max capacity)
Mami's Apartment (HQ of sorts) (Can be traded for $1200 per turn)
Territory
Demon Status: Strong +11
Sustainable Harvest: 35
Turn 12 Options
[] Dispersed Hunting: Magical Girl will individually hunt demons throughout your territory and gather the grief cubes for the central supply. This can be dangerous.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: 2 grief cubes per Meguca assigned. 20% base casualty (significant injury or death) chance.
[] Pack Hunting: Magical Girls will hunt in groups vastly reducing the danger, but because they are not covering as much area their efficiency is reduced. Death is significantly less likely.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward 1.25 Grief Cubes per Meguca assigned; 10% base casualty chance
[] Optional addon, Rotating Tactics: You could have your meguca rotate their ability use week by week in order to reduce the level of adaptation the demons develop. While it would result in an immediate increase in casualty rate due to loss of effectiveness compared to the current approach, it would reduce the ability of the demons to adapt.
Cost: +5% casualty rate; Reward: Reduction in rate of demon strength increase from overhunting, exact value unknown
[] Gather money, illegally: Magical Girls assigned to this role will commit crime to gather mundane currency which can be used to improve living conditions, using powers to commit simple burglaries or cheat in games of chance. Your Magical Girls have joined in search of a better life they are unlikely to much enjoy this and wish to avoid harsher crimes. You also lack connections with the criminal underworld, so the take is not all that good. There might also be complications with other criminals or the law.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: ~$3,000 per month per Meguca assigned, but it is highly variable
[] Gather money, legally: There are not a great number of jobs that will take young girls as workers: working as a bike courier, waitress, or maid are likely options. This project benefits from regularity, and discontinuous execution may have negative side effects. Chance of success 50% per Meguca (since it's summer again), following up on a previous month's success brings the chance to 100%.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: $1,000 per month per Meguca assigned.
[] Improve Housing: More Apartments: Currently the girls are packed in around 5 to an apartment. You could get some more apartments and reduce the crowding.
Cost: $6,000 and 1 Veteran Meguca; Reward More housing capacity (Limit increased from 25 to 40), ongoing cost +3000$ per month or you get kicked out. Payable at the beginning of the month. (not repeatable)
[] Improve Housing: House: Instead of a dinky apartment you could pool your resources for a small house, giving everyone a bit more room. Will still be quite a few people per bedroom, but gives more of a feeling of home.
Cost: $10,000 and 3 Veteran Meguca; Reward House (for up to 25 Meguca extra capacity), ongoing cost 4000$ per month or you get kicked out. Payable at the beginning of the month.
[] Stipend: Giving your magical girls a small amount of money to spend on themselves. At their current level of lifestyle this no longer really further boosts their morale, but will help prevent its decay.
Cost: $50 per Meguca; Reward: Maintained morale. Chance of success: 100%
[] Increased Stipend: Giving the girls more money will further improve their morale a little bit.
Cost: $100 per Meguca; Reward: Increased morale. Chance of success: 100%
[] Purchase Bicycles: While getting bicycles for everyone is quite expensive given you have so many people and so little income; it would make your girls somewhat more mobile. You could of course have them share bicycles as well, since it's likely that you won't need them all at the same time much.
Cost: $150 per bicycle, specify amount; Reward: More mobility
[] Makeshift skateboards: It also occurs to you that you could probably get by with just whipping up some basic skateboards by hand. It would save a lot of money but cost a little labor, it's also not something anyone has experience with doing, so success is chancy.
Cost: $1000, 2 Meguca; Chance of success 50% (only part of monetary cost lost on failure); Reward: Makeshift skateboards for everyone, more mobility
[] Start your own business, couriers: It will take more than a bit of creativity to start a real business, and some significant startup funds. You'd likely also need some help from Kyuubey to cover up the details with some false identities. You have some significant experience amongst your group with courier work, though there's a fairly limited amount in the city.
Cost: $10,000, 3 grief cubes, 3 Veteran +3 Meguca; Reward: Income scaling up over initial 3 month startup period to 9k a month. Chance of Success: 70%
[] Start your own business, restaurant: Starting a restaurant is a fairly complex proposition. You can get a family rate loan to get the startup capital but it will still be tough going breaking into the market, most restaurants do fail afterall. You at least have the advantage that you count labor costs as a profit to your group though. Smoothing out the paperwork will also be a bit more costly with Kyuubey. You'll have to deal with a tougher market and one you don't have experience in, but the potential market size is much larger if you manage to do well.
Cost: $500k debt, 4 grief cubes, 2 Veteran +4 Meguca; Reward: Income scaling up over initial 3 month startup period to 10k a month after loan payment; potential to increase size of operation. Chance of Success: 60%
[] Start your own business, healing: Specify methodology.
Cost: Minimum 1 veteran meguca, .5-1 grief cubes per customer, attention; Reward: ??? Highly variable. Likely to increase over time.
[]Training, Raise Veteran: Raise one of the Green Girls to be a veteran
Cost: 3 Meguca, 1 Veteran Meguca; Reward: Raises one Green Meguca to veteran status.
[] Group sports day: You'll take the time to organize a full group outing to have some fun in a park and play some games, it will have to be fully mundane though as going out to somewhere secluded likely would take too much time.
Cost: 1 Veteran Meguca (representative of one day for everyone essentially, since you are now mostly vets); Reward: Increase to morale (group cohesion)
[] Fun with magic: It's kind of a sad statement about magical girl life that you don't really get to play with your magic, it's too costly to use it much beyond what you need to use to get grief cubes. You might be able to afford to ease up on such restrictions and let people have fun with magic for once.
Cost: +0.1 grief cube to upkeep cost per girl; Reward: Increase to morale, you actually get to play with magic a little rather than just use it to fight, possible other effects
[] Enchanting, Secondary Properties: Further investigate the secondary properties that individual materials exhibit. This will include buying some simple tools to test more properties.
Cost:2 months of: 2 Veteran Meguca, 1 Grief Cube, $1000; Reward: Information on deeper effects of enchanting.
[] Enchanting, Duration: Your budding researchers picked up a sort of effect similar to layered insulation holding in heat longer. They would like more resources to investigate this. They might be able to make enchantments last longer after a magical girl lets go of them this way, though they don't have much immediate idea as to the usefulness of that.
Cost:2 months of: 2 Veteran Meguca, 2 Grief Cube, $1000; Reward: Step towards long term enchantments.
[] Morale assessment: Mami has gotten a lot better at feeling the mood of her subordinates over the past year and suspects she could codify it quite a bit better now.
Cost: Mami; Reward: Morale indicator refined to a 1-10 numeric from it's current 3 stage indicator. Chance of Success: 80%
[] Scout Area X: You can deploy a veteran to scout out one of the territories around you stealthily. They should be able to gauge the demon strength there and the magical girls status there without tipping them off, hopefully.
Cost: 1 Veteran; Chance of success: 70%; Reward: information on demon strength, support capacity of the territory, and status of current magical girls in the territory, bonus to diplomatic efforts.
[] Expand territory X, by force: The demons in Mitakihara have grown strong, but you could try to take over adjacent territories where they aren't as strong. The magical girls in those areas probably won't take kindly to this.
Cost: PvP combat; Reward: New territory with weaker demons
[] Expand territory X, by diplomacy: If you can convince them to join your group you may be able to safely incorporate others' territories.
Cost: 1 Green, 1 Veteran; Reward: Meguca from territory recruited, new territory; Chance of Success: 30% (Mami bonus applicable)
-[] Addon, Bribery: Giving the girls some money might help them realize just how good for them cooperation could be.
Cost: $150 per girl in the territory; Reward: +1d10% success chance
-[] Addon, Intimidate: Bring additional Veterans to intimidate the other girls into accepting if they know what is good for them
Cost 1 extra Veteran, -morale of new girls if successfully recruited; Reward: +5% chance of success. Can be chosen repeatedly.
[] Recruitment, via Kyuubey: Ask Kyuubey to tell other Magical Girls in the area about you. He'll want something in return though, and he makes no promises of the efficacy.
Cost: 2 grief cubes; Reward: 1-3 girls; Chance of success: 50%
________________________________________________________________________________________
Well Keiko's kitten sacrifice got you an immediately successful roll on recruiting the girls to the northeast. As well as somehow manage to yet again avoid any grief spirals. Though actually your rolls overall this month were below the average for a d100 (much less the average for this quest). Failing both scouting actions was pretty bad luck, though you rolled high enough that it didn't result in direct attack on your scouts at least.
Also Hainako is totally cursed. She's the only one of your workers that has ever rolled sub 10, and she does it on such a regular basis it's comical.
It's rather embarrassing for me how many spelling mistakes I've made in this quest that get copy pasted forever. Also did a couple tweaks to the housing entries.
Well, how about that scouting? Ugh. I do agree that we were fortunate that they didn't die from the failures, that would have been terrible for Mami, to send them off and they just never came back...so soon after Hitomi died. So, housing is at max, and our dispatchers are at max as well, so the utter failure at scouting isn't as much of a big deal. We should buy enough bikes so that the dispatchers have them, as well as maybe one or two extra in case of an emergency, I'm thinking. The housing problem will need to be dealt with soon. We're 8 under capacity, so our so helpful Incubator will be trying to increase our numbers soon. I'd prefer to get the small house, since the cost per additional Meduca is identical between the options, but the house is higher quality space.
That 60% success rate for that 500K loan scares me. I think for the size of our operation the courier business, perhaps supplemented by the Healer option if we really needed it (the terminal care wing/hospice centers may be good places to look for clients), will work fine for us. We can keep that option open if the courier business fails and we're scrambling to pay the bills. If that then fails, we'd be desperate enough at that point to consider options I think are out of bounds currently due to IC reasons.
courier business can be used as a legitimate way of scouting due to having an excuse to be there
(no dying, but less information due to having to stay undercover, meaning you know either the amount of magical girls, or a rough estimate of the amount of demons both with error)
The housing problem will need to be dealt with soon. We're 8 under capacity, so our so helpful Incubator will be trying to increase our numbers soon. I'd prefer to get the small house, since the cost per additional Meduca is identical between the options, but the house is higher quality space.
In fairness getting the apartments I basically put it down as doubling your space without doubling your capacity, so it will be more room per person. The house I'm leaning towards pushing the capacity down to 20 since I originally had it up as 25, but it doesn't quite make logical sense check for 25 people to fit in one house comfortably.
Keep in mind that the majority of first time opening restaurants fail. I'm trying to represent that. Especially given you have no unique advantage to that. Also it leads to much larger possible market. You can invest more time and effort on advertising and building up your restaurant later to increase it's output. Whereas the courier business is quite a bit more finite market. Though you could push out from that to food delivery to a degree I suppose.
I suspect I should draw up one for food delivery as well, but I worry it shares too much of the advantages of both and too few of the draw backs and makes an obvious choice, which I dislike.
This is actually more of a drawback for you on being a courier. Since your territory pretty much covers the whole city now it's not too much of an issue. They can't necessarily detect that you're a magical girl when you're untransformed (barring supersensory wish magic) but if they catch you they are going to remember you later if you come by. They're still going to take notice if you're following them around whether you have an excuse to be in the area or not as well.
This month Mami begins as she has come accustomed to with visiting each girl and complimenting them on their hard work as she distributes their allowance for the month. It's through their hard work that their lives have improved so much this year and she hopes to see that continue into the future. She reassures them that despite the loss last month things are getting better and will continue to do so. The death of one of your original veterans that helped protect and guide the core of your group through its beginnings has a lingering impact on your whole group though, and the shrine sees more use. A lot of girls felt they owed her. (-$1200)
This month is pretty normal for your workforce as after much deliberating you decided to put off starting a business and gather a bit more resources first. Somehow Hainako manages to screw up again; your third courier Haruka has claimed quite confidently that Hainako is cursed. Hainako's only reply was what you assume were curses of her own, but scattered across a dozen languages so you couldn't be sure. Though at least this time she managed to save the bike, and only got docked a little bit on her pay. It occurs to you that some of your girls are actually quite superstitious given that they are living proof magic exists, while others have decided that they are living proof that the myths are wrong.(+$7300)
Mami spends much of the month meeting with the girls in the northeast and convincing them of the benefits of joining a larger group. She emphasizes the benefits of being in a true team, the ability to regularly socialize with people that understand your issues without worrying that they might turn on you and the security of having a group strong enough that no one is going to push them out of their territory. The fact that working together can let them achieve far more than they ever did apart, she points out her own group's survival rate. Mami manages to persuade them all to join in the end. Though they keep whatever grief cubes they had of their own to themselves just in case. Your housing is now at its limit as well, so you should probably deal with that before recruiting anyone else. (+3 Veterans, + NE Territory 5 sustainable, -$450)
The scouting efforts on the other hand end in fiasco. The area west of their current territory a magical girl managed to find the scout before the scout found her and gave her quite the verbal thrashing before booting her out of the territory without any chance to find out anything of value. (Scouting failed, -10% diplomacy, -20% future scouting attempts)
The scout sent to the urban area to the southwest met with equal lack of success, spending much of the month supposedly wandering the area without finding any magical girls at all. Yet one day when she returned had a message pinned to her back that she'd never even noticed, indicating a lack of appreciation for her continued spying as well as disdain for her ineptitude at the task and threatening retaliation. The girl involved was rather mortified when the note was pointed out. (Scouting failed, -10% diplomacy, -40% future scouting attempts)
Hunting this month went a little better than last month as the demon strength continues to gradually decline and make things less risky. However Yui was injured quite severely this month when an alarmingly large feline demon shattered its way through her barriers to disarm her, literally. The blood loss was staggering and things seemed touch and go for a while, but Yuma managed to repair the damage completely. Your dispatchers are also run increasingly to exhaustion with your increased territory and wore an expression of exasperation at the idea of you adding still more territory to their patrol area next month. They tell you they need more help and something to speed up their movements would be very helpful as well, preferably both, otherwise their effectiveness is likely to sharply decline.(+28 grief cubes)
Somehow you manage to get through another month without any grief spirals, you find yourself a bit anxious for the other shoe to drop.
4 Green Meguca, 22 Veteran Meguca, 1 Elite Meguca (Mami)
Upkeep: 7 Veteran, 3 Green
demon finding training (+20% grief cubes)
on pack tactics (-4% pack hunting)
Dispatch service (+30% grief cubes, -1% hunting casualties)
4 veterans and 2 greens working jobs (+$7400)
Grief Cubes 27
Money: $14,200
$400 upkeep on cellphones (-2% solo hunting)
$200 upkeep on cable
$3000 upkeep on apartments
Morale: [Medium] Morale didn't change much this month, held down as it was by Yui's injury and your scouts' total embarrassment.
Assets
Tiny household shrine: Somewhat reduces losses to morale from deaths.
Shields: -3% Casualties
Basic General Combat Training: -2% Casualties (May decay with losses or recruitment).
Basic Solo Combat Training: -1% Pack Hunting, -3% Solo Hunting (May decay with losses or recruitment).
Cramped Apartments (max capacity)
Mami's Apartment (HQ of sorts) (Can be traded for $1200 per turn)
Territory
Demon Status: Strong +11
Sustainable Harvest: 35
Turn 12 Options
[] Dispersed Hunting: Magical Girl will individually hunt demons throughout your territory and gather the grief cubes for the central supply. This can be dangerous.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: 2 grief cubes per Meguca assigned. 20% base casualty (significant injury or death) chance.
[] Pack Hunting: Magical Girls will hunt in groups vastly reducing the danger, but because they are not covering as much area their efficiency is reduced. Death is significantly less likely.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward 1.25 Grief Cubes per Meguca assigned; 10% base casualty chance
[] Optional addon, Rotating Tactics: You could have your meguca rotate their ability use week by week in order to reduce the level of adaptation the demons develop. While it would result in an immediate increase in casualty rate due to loss of effectiveness compared to the current approach, it would reduce the ability of the demons to adapt.
Cost: +5% casualty rate; Reward: Reduction in rate of demon strength increase from overhunting, exact value unknown
[] Gather money, illegally: Magical Girls assigned to this role will commit crime to gather mundane currency which can be used to improve living conditions, using powers to commit simple burglaries or cheat in games of chance. Your Magical Girls have joined in search of a better life they are unlikely to much enjoy this and wish to avoid harsher crimes. You also lack connections with the criminal underworld, so the take is not all that good. There might also be complications with other criminals or the law.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: ~$3,000 per month per Meguca assigned, but it is highly variable
[] Gather money, legally: There are not a great number of jobs that will take young girls as workers: working as a bike courier, waitress, or maid are likely options. This project benefits from regularity, and discontinuous execution may have negative side effects. Chance of success 25% per Meguca, following up on a previous month's success brings the chance to 100%.
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: $1,000 per month per Meguca assigned.
[] Improve Housing: More Apartments: Currently the girls are packed in around 5 to an apartment. You could get some more apartments and reduce the crowding.
Cost: $6,000 and 1 Veteran Meguca; Reward More housing capacity (Limit increased from 25 to 40), ongoing cost +3000$ per month or you get kicked out. Payable at the beginning of the month. (not repeatable)
[] Improve Housing: House: Instead of a dinky apartment you could pool your resources for a small house, giving everyone a bit more room. Will still be quite a few people per bedroom, but gives more of a feeling of home.
Cost: $10,000 and 3 Veteran Meguca; Reward House (for up to 25 Meguca extra capacity), ongoing cost 4000$ per month or you get kicked out. Payable at the beginning of the month.
[] Stipend: Giving your magical girls a small amount of money to spend on themselves. At their current level of lifestyle this no longer really further boosts their morale, but will help prevent its decay.
Cost: $50 per Meguca; Reward: Maintained morale. Chance of success: 100%
[] Increased Stipend: Giving the girls more money will further improve their morale a little bit.
Cost: $100 per Meguca; Reward: Increased morale. Chance of success: 100%
[] Purchase Bicycles: While getting bicycles for everyone is quite expensive given you have so many people and so little income; it would make your girls somewhat more mobile. You could of course have them share bicycles as well, since it's likely that you won't need them all at the same time much.
Cost: $150 per bicycle, specify amount; Reward: More mobility
[] Makeshift skateboards: It also occurs to you that you could probably get by with just whipping up some basic skateboards by hand. It would save a lot of money but cost a little labor, it's also not something anyone has experience with doing, so success is chancy.
Cost: $1000, 2 Meguca; Chance of success 50% (only part of monetary cost lost on failure); Reward: Makeshift skateboards for everyone, more mobility
[] Start your own business, couriers: It will take more than a bit of creativity to start a real business, and some significant startup funds. You'd likely also need some help from Kyuubey to cover up the details with some false identities. You have some significant experience amongst your group with courier work, though there's a fairly limited amount in the city.
Cost: $10,000, 3 grief cubes, 3 Veteran +3 Meguca; Reward: Income scaling up over initial 3 month startup period to 9k a month. Chance of Success: 70%
[] Start your own business, restaurant: Starting a restaurant is a fairly complex proposition. You can get a family rate loan to get the startup capital but it will still be tough going breaking into the market, most restaurants do fail afterall. You at least have the advantage that you count labor costs as a profit to your group though. Smoothing out the paperwork will also be a bit more costly with Kyuubey. You'll have to deal with a tougher market and one you don't have experience in, but the potential market size is much larger if you manage to do well.
Cost: $500k debt, 4 grief cubes, 2 Veteran +4 Meguca; Reward: Income scaling up over initial 3 month startup period to 10k a month after loan payment; potential to increase size of operation. Chance of Success: 60%
[] Start your own business, healing: Specify methodology.
Cost: Minimum 1 veteran meguca, .5-1 grief cubes per customer, attention; Reward: ??? Highly variable. Likely to increase over time.
[]Training, Raise Veteran: Raise one of the Green Girls to be a veteran
Cost: 3 Meguca, 1 Veteran Meguca; Reward: Raises one Green Meguca to veteran status.
[] Group sports day: You'll take the time to organize a full group outing to have some fun in a park and play some games, it will have to be fully mundane though as going out to somewhere secluded likely would take too much time.
Cost: 1 Veteran Meguca (representative of one day for everyone essentially, since you are now mostly vets); Reward: Increase to morale (group cohesion)
[] Fun with magic: It's kind of a sad statement about magical girl life that you don't really get to play with your magic, it's too costly to use it much beyond what you need to use to get grief cubes. You might be able to afford to ease up on such restrictions and let people have fun with magic for once.
Cost: +0.1 grief cube to upkeep cost per girl; Reward: Increase to morale, you actually get to play with magic a little rather than just use it to fight, possible other effects
[] Enchanting, Secondary Properties: Further investigate the secondary properties that individual materials exhibit. This will include buying some simple tools to test more properties.
Cost:2 months of: 2 Veteran Meguca, 1 Grief Cube, $1000; Reward: Information on deeper effects of enchanting.
[] Enchanting, Duration: Your budding researchers picked up a sort of effect similar to layered insulation holding in heat longer. They would like more resources to investigate this. They might be able to make enchantments last longer after a magical girl lets go of them this way, though they don't have much immediate idea as to the usefulness of that.
Cost:2 months of: 2 Veteran Meguca, 2 Grief Cube, $1000; Reward: Step towards long term enchantments.
[] Morale assessment: Mami has gotten a lot better at feeling the mood of her subordinates over the past year and suspects she could codify it quite a bit better now.
Cost: Mami; Reward: Morale indicator refined to a 1-10 numeric from it's current 3 stage indicator. Chance of Success: 80%
[] Scout Area X: You can deploy a veteran to scout out one of the territories around you stealthily. They should be able to gauge the demon strength there and the magical girls status there without tipping them off, hopefully.
Cost: 1 Veteran; Chance of success: 70%; Reward: information on demon strength, support capacity of the territory, and status of current magical girls in the territory, bonus to diplomatic efforts.
[] Expand territory X, by force: The demons in Mitakihara have grown strong, but you could try to take over adjacent territories where they aren't as strong. The magical girls in those areas probably won't take kindly to this.
Cost: PvP combat; Reward: New territory with weaker demons
[] Expand territory X, by diplomacy: If you can convince them to join your group you may be able to safely incorporate others' territories.
Cost: 1 Green, 1 Veteran; Reward: Meguca from territory recruited, new territory; Chance of Success: 30% (Mami bonus applicable)
-[] Addon, Bribery: Giving the girls some money might help them realize just how good for them cooperation could be.
Cost: $150 per girl in the territory; Reward: +1d10% success chance
-[] Addon, Intimidate: Bring additional Veterans to intimidate the other girls into accepting if they know what is good for them
Cost 1 extra Veteran, -morale of new girls if successfully recruited; Reward: +5% chance of success. Can be chosen repeatedly.
[] Recruitment, via Kyuubey: Ask Kyuubey to tell other Magical Girls in the area about you. He'll want something in return though, and he makes no promises of the efficacy.
Cost: 2 grief cubes; Reward: 1-3 girls; Chance of success: 50%
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Well Keiko's kitten sacrifice got you an immediately successful roll on recruiting the girls to the northeast. As well as somehow manage to yet again avoid any grief spirals. Though actually your rolls overall this month were below the average for a d100 (much less the average for this quest). Failing both scouting actions was pretty bad luck, though you rolled high enough that it didn't result in direct attack on your scouts at least.
Also Hainako is totally cursed. She's the only one of your workers that has ever rolled sub 10, and she does it on such a regular basis it's comical.
It's rather embarrassing for me how many spelling mistakes I've made in this quest that get copy pasted forever. Also did a couple tweaks to the housing entries.
Over all a nice turn. The gaining of the girls to the NorthEast is a huge bonus, well worth the difficulty to the southwest. No grief spirals, and we have some new options. Definitely need to add an additional vet to the Dispatch Team. That will make our upkeep 8 Vets and 3 Green. We also need to have minimum 11 vets hunting a turn now (approx 31 grief cubes harvested). That still gives us an extra veteran to work with, and a bit more breathing room in our sustainable harvest.
Let's see, that 1 Green, 3 Vets, and 1 Mami not yet assigned.
We're pretty much at our limit on the territory front until we get some more income. We completely control Mitahikara though, so that's nice.
On the business front I think the restaurant is too risky. Keiko's tortured kittens can only do so much. The healing gig is actually really attractive, I just don't know if we are entrenched enough to deal with the extra attention...
The courier business actually does play to our strengths. We could pull the 2 greens (making $1000 each) off their mail room jobs and we would then have 3 Vets and 3 Greens available to start it. I'm hesitant to reassign our current couriers as they are together worth $4200 a month, and we can't afford to lose that income. Unless they offer some kind of bonus due to their extensive experience and reputation for speed...
@inverted_helix If we assign Hainako, Haruka, or Akeno to our start up courier service do we receive any bonuses?
If we do go that route... would there be any benefit for assigning Mami for the initial setup? She is older, and so should have an easier time passing as an adult. It might also benefit us to have Mami as the CEO. That's another benefit of the courier business is that people expect teenagers to be couriers. Teenage waitresses in the restaurant are expected too, but usually there is at least an adult manager...
@inverted_helix If we assign Mami to the initial setup of the business is there any benefit from doing so?
If we don't assign Mami, then I would like to assign her to do the Morale Assessment. Otherwise we can use our extra veteran either to support a sports day, or scout toward Kasamino and Kyouko (another Elite unit... and an Illusion specialist, might open up some training options there).
Keep in mind that the majority of first time opening restaurants fail. I'm trying to represent that. Especially given you have no unique advantage to that. Also it leads to much larger possible market. You can invest more time and effort on advertising and building up your restaurant later to increase it's output. Whereas the courier business is quite a bit more finite market. Though you could push out from that to food delivery to a degree I suppose.
I suspect I should draw up one for food delivery as well, but I worry it shares too much of the advantages of both and too few of the draw backs and makes an obvious choice, which I dislike.
Just make Food Delivery as a future add-on business to either the Courier or Restaurant business, after they are successfully established. Use GM fiat to say we need to establish one or the other portions of that business before being able to add the other.
The courier business actually does play to our strengths. We could pull the 2 greens (making $1000 each) off their mail room jobs and we would then have 3 Vets and 3 Greens available to start it. I'm hesitant to reassign our current couriers as they are together worth $4200 a month, and we can't afford to lose that income. Unless they offer some kind of bonus due to their extensive experience and reputation for speed...
@inverted_helix If we assign Hainako, Haruka, or Akeno to our start up courier service do we receive any bonuses?
I had tuned the success rate with the expectation you would assign them actually and they'd try to persuade their current customers to stay with them rather than their original company. Though setting up a competing courier business is going to negatively impact the amount of work they get anyways. You can expect a big penalty to be assessed if you don't pull them off and try to set up the courier business without them. Around -20% and an extra month or two ramp up time, plus they'll be suffering penalties to their own income as well from you competing with yourself.
If we do go that route... would there be any benefit for assigning Mami for the initial setup? She is older, and so should have an easier time passing as an adult. It might also benefit us to have Mami as the CEO. That's another benefit of the courier business is that people expect teenagers to be couriers. Teenage waitresses in the restaurant are expected too, but usually there is at least an adult manager...
@inverted_helix If we assign Mami to the initial setup of the business is there any benefit from doing so?
Based on this sort of logic I'll let you apply Mami's +10% diplomacy bonus, since I suppose it can be more broadly interpreted as applying to this matter as well. She's just good at convincing people of things. (From joining her cult to buying her goods and services, the principles are largely the same.)
Keep in mind that nearly all of your girls can look like an adult, so can theoretically pull off being an adult manager. Though the logic that people expect teenage couriers and waitresses is why much of the workforce can be greens, but you still need at least a couple vets.
I find myself a bit disappointed that no one comments on the fluff. I mean last turn part of it was showing that the two green girls had partially rewritten their families with their wishes, (and that Mami suspected it to some degree), but it drew no comment. Significantly earlier when asking Kyuubey about demon population dynamics he revealed they've used orbital bombardment as part of their experimental method and only one person commented, though I suppose that could just show what the general prevailing opinion about Incubators is that it draws no comment if they do something like that.
I had tuned the success rate with the expectation you would assign them actually and they'd try to persuade their current customers to stay with them rather than their original company. Though setting up a competing courier business is going to negatively impact the amount of work they get anyways. You can expect a big penalty to be assessed if you don't pull them off and try to set up the courier business without them. Around -20% and an extra month or two ramp up time, plus they'll be suffering penalties to their own income as well from you competing with yourself.
Based on this sort of logic I'll let you apply Mami's +10% diplomacy bonus, since I suppose it can be more broadly interpreted as applying to this matter as well. She's just good at convincing people of things. (From joining her cult to buying her goods and services, the principles are largely the same.)
Keep in mind that nearly all of your girls can look like an adult, so can theoretically pull off being an adult manager. Though the logic that people expect teenage couriers and waitresses is why much of the workforce can be greens, but you still need at least a couple vets.
I find myself a bit disappointed that no one comments on the fluff. I mean last turn part of it was showing that the two green girls had partially rewritten their families with their wishes, (and that Mami suspected it to some degree), but it drew no comment.
Ahh... well that figures actually on the courier business needing our experienced girls...
At least Mami can apply her "diplomacy" bonus.
As for the fluff... well, I completely missed that hint. ... ... ... I'm actually not sure how to read that. What did they do to change their family? Just more income? Did they wish to become sisters? I need someone who is more skilled at parsing these types of hints to take a look at it.
We could probably manage the more apartments route. For the house we need more income, either 2 more Megucas working, or starting our business and getting it running well.
Aw dont get deppresed master helix, i really enjoy the fluff and am still a little pissed off about Hitomi dying, its just that there is not much to comment.
Ahh... well that figures actually on the courier business needing our experienced girls...
At least Mami can apply her "diplomacy" bonus.
As for the fluff... well, I completely missed that hint. ... ... ... I'm actually not sure how to read that. What did they do to change their family? Just more income? Did they wish to become sisters? I need someone who is more skilled at parsing these types of hints to take a look at it.
