The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Investigate the Sea?

  • Yes

    Votes: 593 80.4%
  • No

    Votes: 145 19.6%

  • Total voters
    738
Thunder Warriors are short lived warriors intended to be expendable and expended quickly. Producing excess Thunder Warriors hurts our production of more long term assets (Because they will die of old age instead of dying in battle), such as equipping Helguard with better armor, equipping PDF with power armor, etc, etc. Critically, note that the equipment we produce for Helguard and PDF are often pass-down-able when the former owner is killed, while the Thunder Warrior body produced cannot be reused for the next generation of thunder warriors.
If they were a net negative to have, the previous Thunder Warrior actions would've told us that. Like, you're not stating facts, you're making predictions, but the predictions are obsolete and wrong, because our studies have already told us that Thunder Warriors have their place, and it is a good and worthy place. Trust in Durin to give us good options.
 
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If they were a net negative to have, the previous Thunder Warrior actions would've told us that. Like, you're not stating facts, you're making predictions, but the predictions are obsolete and wrong, because our studies have told us that Thunder Warriors have their place, and it is a good and worthy place. Trust in Durin to give us good options.
I never said they were a net negative to have.

But they are really expensive to produce.

BTW Our EM income pre-trade is -140k/year. So you know.
 
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Even if improving Thunder warrior is worth it. Why the hell do it now? All our actions should be optimized toward dealing with the Hive fleet. Once it's dealt with, we can waste a century on it.
 
I never said they were a net negative to have.

But they are really expensive to produce.
Yup. Definitely. But they're worth the cost for what they do. Sometimes you need to focus on the short term (such as just before a war), and for short term stuff, the best thing we can do is pump out Thunder Warriors.

By the way, I'm in agreement that further Thunder Warrior research should be put off until after the tyranids. Just saying they'd be a good thing to implement about now.

Speaking of which.

[X] Plan Shard T127
 
For TWs, there are two potential actions right now. One action is to begin looking into how we could mitigate the flaws inherent in TWs, and the other is learning how to handle making them in mass and training them to use their abilities.

These are two very different projects. While neither project is worthwhile if all TWs are a waste of time (not a claim that is supported by the in-quest fluff), the goals they set achieve very different ends.

The Biologis project is effectively guaranteed to have no impact in the coming fight against the Nids and company. While the action itself will complete before we are expecting them to arrive, the action is akin to the action we had for Tranth to investigate the Titan when we were rebuilding it. The reward is a path forward, but it is several steps short of implementable improvements. That said, it is a very good action if we plan to rely significantly on TWs going forward, as the sequence is likely to provide a significant improvement to all TWs going made after completion with no cost aside from that of the research.

The Munitorum action doesn't do anything for improving the makeup of Thunder Warriors, but is the gateway action to being able to field them wide-scale on Avernus. While it is a fairly long action producing a low number of TWs, it is not characteristic of how long or how many TWs an action will take and produce going forward. It is the equivalent of setting up the training and then making the first batch of Super Elite operatives—it's about figuring out the best way of doing things. This action will produce troops ready in time for the fight against the Nids, and will also likely allow us to mass create more batches in time for the fight should we feel it necessary.

I view the Munitorum action as being less critical to have finished by Nid-day than the training simulator one, but more important than the other Munitorum actions we have—in addition to providing a marginal benefit if finished sooner (by allowing us to train and deploy more TWs against the Nids, whereas the +skill only really matters that we get it done in time). I view the Mechanicus action as well worth it ordinarily, as TWs are likely to become an emergency response going forward as well as providing further options for things like psyker hunting, and are thus worth further investment in, but poorly timed given that we will not see any return on investment in the coming campaign combined with the fact that Biologis examination of the Nids is critical to deriving an accurate threat assessment of them and should thus be done as early as possible. While using a free action on that is also an option, given how much our normal action economy favors Explorator and Fabricator General options I'd rather reserve it for more typically in-demand options.
 
1. Why improve the inferior product when you already have a superior product available?
2. If even the other polities don't bother with the Thunder Warriors wouldn't that be a resounding indictment of the Thunder Warriors?
3. I want to see the Thunder Warriors in action before we dedicate 22 years to learning whether it is possible to improve them.
1) Why do you keep ignoring my arguments about the TW not actually being an inferior product and also ignoring that the actions to improve them would remove several things that make them inferior to SMs. Not to mention you conviniently keep ignoring the things that make them actually superior to SMs.
2) As I already pointed out the other polities may have their own reasons for not doing so. Examples, Callamus having access to mechanicus forces(which we don't have) means that they could choose to just focus on their mechanicus forces, Quartus have Trueborn which are vastly superior to even SMs and have all the advantages of TWs, finally Secondus already has the most SMs anywhere and are likely giving their best equipment to the SMs. Just because someone is isn't doing something doesn't mean it's bad. By that logic our psyker stuff mostly suck because the other polities decided to stick what worked for them.
3) That's admittedly a fair point.

I feel that you don't realize that Biologis research actions w.r.t Avernus have provided continual boons to our economy, population growth and military strength. The expected time to implement improvements to the Thunder Warriors is about equivalent to 20 Wildlife Research Actions. You assert that the marginal improvements in Thunder Warriors is greater than the marginal benefits from basically half the species we have done so far.

I disagree.

Every time we research a species we often acquire a benefit. Sometimes it is minor benefit. Somewhat more rarely it is a major, even gamechanging. Always it fills up the world a bit more. We selected Avernus at the beginning of the quest filling it up with all the gribbles that could kill us that that we could possibly fit in. Ignoring all of the ways Avernus comes up with interesting new horrible monsters is frankly boring. Ignoring the Biologis Wildlife options eliminates a great deal of worldbuilding!
No, I am willing to admit that we have gain boons from them and even some pretty good ones. I pointed out that it's just not as good as you are making it out to be and gave some examples of them being duds like the Nog which lot it's main advantage thanks to the food tech we got.

Also you keep ignoring some of my argument like me pointing out that it may not be 100 years and may even be less along with the fact that we can just not due the life extensions to save time.

Finally please don't strawman people. I never said we shouldn't study animals and have repeatedly stated that that wasn't the case, yet you keep ignoring that fact like several others. I would heavily appreciate it if you didn't try to paint me as that just so you can win an argument in a cheap way. Like seriously, if you can't honestly debate in good faith I feel like half a mind to just outright ignore you.

Because Byzantium will be making more and more space marines with an exponential growth. They are essentially taking the 'Make Space Marine' actions every turn.
Problem is that from time to time their SMs tend to die in very large numbers and it takes a while to replace the losses. It literally takes decades for SM implants to finish developing in Marines and even longer to train them fully.
 
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SLOT A - Year 2
-Y2: Personal Attention: Thunder Warriors: Laying the Path
I don't care about improving TW or whatever, but why this, and not PDF Power Armour? Spending 19 years on figuring out new unit when there's existential danger coming seems tremendously idiotic when we can instead get billions of elite soldiers equipped with Power Armour, massively improving their performance. If we want to get them, let's do so later, when there aren't both Tyranids and Orks on the horizon.
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SLOT B - Year 2
-Y2: Personal Attention: Thunder Warriors: Laying the Path
Oh, and in Shard's plan too. So I'll you too - why spend 19 years on it now?
 
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Okay, but it doesn't matter, because the TW action garuntees that we won't get anything useful against either the Nids or the Orks for 22 years minimum, and even then it'll only give us options to improve something we haven't used yet.
Actually a lot of our stuff that we get from the wildlife are things we definitely don't want to use against the Nids since using biological weapons against a race that are and assimilates other biological weapons is one of the stupidest things you can do. We'd be better off having Maximus just examine Nid bodies to gain knowledge about them including ways to fight them and potential weaknesses.
 
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Even if improving Thunder warrior is worth it. Why the hell do it now? All our actions should be optimized toward dealing with the Hive fleet. Once it's dealt with, we can waste a century on it.

We already have an I win button for the Hive Fleet, in fact we have 2. If we can get the Nids to come at Avernus itself, the PM will defend itself from them, and the Hive Fleet won't stand a ghost of a chance. We also have a Major Favor that Durin has stated can easily handle the threat if we used. The Tyranids are a threat, but not an insurmountable one. Future threats still exist, and planning for those while also preparing for this threat seems like a good idea. Thunder Warriors are powerful units that will increase the effectiveness of our military. The more improvements we can make to them the better they will do so, as well as likely giving traits to Maximal, which is further beneficial. Beyond that, having Thunder Warriors should increase the survival rate of our people on Avernus as we'll have stronger soldiers to defend us, increasing our population growth and thereby increasing our economy. Plus their effectiveness against Psykers, further improving our ability to survive. Just about all of that are long term issues that the Thunder Warrior Biologis action has the potential to improve. Its not a short term thing I agree, but it is a long term thing with potentially significant benefits. Significant benefits that I personally consider worthwhile. There is also no reason to think that we have to do TW actions in one continuous stream. We can almost certainly take breaks between TW actions, which might very well be beneficial. I've got no issues with taking a Nid study action immediately after finishing the TW study. Which should still be done before they get to us.

I don't care about improving TW or whatever, but why this, and not PDF Power Armour? Spending 19 years on figuring out new unit when there's existential danger coming seems tremendously idiotic when we can instead get billions of elite soldiers equipped with Power Armour, massively improving their performance. If we want to get them, let's do so later, when there aren't both Tyranids and Orks on the horizon.
There will always be another threat on the Horizon, not taking long term actions at all for fear of short term threats is not a viable strategy to survive.
 
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Actually a lot of our stuff that we get from the wildlife are things we definitely don't want to use against the Nids since using biological weapons against a race that are and assimilates other biological weapons is one of the stupidest things you can do. We'd be better off having Maximus just examine Nid bodies to gain knowledge about them.

we get 3 things from wildlife, psychic powers, new war beasts, and resource boosters. psychic powers are of middling use due to the deep action backlog of the telpahticka, but sometimes the powers are massive so are still worth it, but resource boosters are just always great.

nids are for sure worth looking into once we get options to do so, but wildlife has decent odds of paying off decently over the next decade or two.
 
I don't care about improving TW or whatever, but why this, and not PDF Power Armour? Spending 19 years on figuring out new unit when there's existential danger coming seems tremendously idiotic when we can instead get billions of elite soldiers equipped with Power Armour, massively improving their performance. If we want to get them, let's do so later, when there aren't both Tyranids and Orks on the horizon.
First off the PDF is meant to defend Avernus not fight in other wars, that's the militaries job. Second TWs are literally meant for these kind situations and are one of the most elite units around consisting of super humans that can be created quickly by the thousands.
we get 3 things from wildlife, psychic powers, new war beasts, and resource boosters. psychic powers are of middling use due to the deep action backlog of the telpahticka, but sometimes the powers are massive so are still worth it, but resource boosters are just always great.

nids are for sure worth looking into once we get options to do so, but wildlife has decent odds of paying off decently over the next decade or two.
As I said, the issue is that wildlife research is a crap shoot and we arent' sure if what we get would be what we are looking for. It just makes more sense to research the Nids directly if we are going to be doing research to combat them mainly.
 
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First off the PDF is meant to defend Avernus not fight in other wars, that's the militaries job. Second TWs are literally meant for these kind situations and are one of the most elite units around consisting of super humans that can be created quickly by the thousands.

As I said, the issue is that wildlife research is a crap shoot and we arent' sure if what we get would be what we are looking for. It just makes more sense to research the Nids directly if we are going to be doing research to combat them mainly.
You are greatly mistaken, a huge part of Trust 's Military power comes from PDF. If we get our PDF PA, they wilL certainly fight in the war against Tyranids. PDF at this point is a misnomer.
 
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First off the PDF is meant to defend Avernus not fight in other wars, that's the militaries job. Second TWs are literally meant for these kind situations and are one of the most elite units around consisting of super humans that can be created quickly by the thousands.
Not Avernus PDF, which is as capable as other planets Grenadiers. We can leave defence of the planet to the militia.

And how much TW are we gonna make in time, a million? Less? Each costs as much as Helguard platoon, so we won't get a lot of them in time for that war anyhow. So no, I don't see how they are made for this situation. Maybe for a future crisis when we will have them figured out.
 
There won't always be a Part 1 ending extremely dangerous threat, however. And PDF PA is not exactly short term either.
Sure, I totally understand wanting to do PDF over Thunder Warriors, I can understand that logic, I'm just less certain that it'll actually have a stronger effect than the Thunder Warriors will be able to have. The Thunder Warriors seem to me like the kind of thing we'd use to do crazy risky stuff that only they could pull off but would have massive effects on the campaign, basically they'd be the closest thing we had to Space Marines that we fully controlled. Seems like they'd be extremely useful against major Synapse Creatures and the like, or Nobs/Warbosses. We don't actually know how effective either will be, so its a bit of a die-roll which would be better.
My main concern is the idea of not studying a way to improve the Thunder Warriors. That to me seems like a very poor idea, long term. It seems like the kind of action that would have a good chance to get traits, has massive potential long term use, meshes well with study of Space Marines that I'd definitely like to do sometime, and just seems to me to be better than studying the wild-life, at least for awhile.

As for the extremely dangerous threats... we've got I win buttons for the Nids, and the Orks can be targeted elsewhere.

Not Avernus PDF, which is as capable as other planets Grenadiers. We can leave defence of the planet to the militia.

And how much TW are we gonna make in time, a million? Less? Each costs as much as Helguard platoon, so we won't get a lot of them in time for that war anyhow. So no, I don't see how they are made for this situation. Maybe for a future crisis when we will have them figured out.
Where do you get the information for their cost? The current action for them is significantly greater than the normal cost for them, since this is just a test run for them isn't it?
 
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You are greatly mistaken, a huge part of Trust 's Military power comes from PDF. If we get our PDF PA, they wilL certainly fight in the war against Tyranids. PDF at this point is a misnomer.
No, pretty sure that PDF and the Trust's main military forces are two different things. Like the Imperial Guardsman and the PDF.
Not Avernus PDF, which is as capable as other planets Grenadiers. We can leave defence of the planet to the militia.

And how much TW are we gonna make in time, a million? Less? Each costs as much as Helguard platoon, so we won't get a lot of them in time for that war anyhow. So no, I don't see how they are made for this situation. Maybe for a future crisis when we will have them figured out.
We went over this and it's been repeatedly noted that taking out most of our military is bad enough and that taking out our PDF would lead to insane casualties. The PDFs job is literally to defend the planet they are from and Avernus is literally the planet in the Trust that needs theirs the most.

As for the TW it's been noted that we can easily create one TW in just a year and the 19 year project is to figure out how to implement them which shouldn't be that hard since we have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. We have around 30 years and it will likely be longer if we warn the rest of the chaos polities to work together to better stall the Nids longer.

Not to mention that TWs would be worth way more soldiers on their own the same way that SMs are worth hundreds of guardsman.
 
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putting down a tally.
probably voting for shard.
Adhoc vote count started by Shard on Mar 26, 2019 at 1:16 AM, finished with 390 posts and 24 votes.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Andres110 on Mar 26, 2019 at 2:55 AM, finished with 432 posts and 28 votes.
 
First off the PDF is meant to defend Avernus not fight in other wars, that's the militaries job. Second TWs are literally meant for these kind situations and are one of the most elite units around consisting of super humans that can be created quickly by the thousands.

No the PDF is deployed with the Trust military we like everyone else tithe PDF forces to the Trust. And when we deploy our own forces a lot of it is the PDFs of the worlds. The PDF is only called that because of momentum and because we never bothered to change the name. They defend the worlds they are raised from but so do all the other forces that are trained.
 
ok, to be honest, I don't like any of the plans all that much, but I'm voting for
[X] Plan Shard T127

cas he at least doenst tie up a biologist right before (at least) one major battle that, worse case scenario turns into SEVERAL major battles. and we REALLY don't want to have to spend a major favor over this (I'm pretty sure we'd have to split our honor bound right? but even if not...)

and yes, we will always have a major threat. but I'm pretty sure this one is potentially bigger then most of the regular threats because it has a decent chance of snowballing (more so then most i mean). so even a metaphorical (or literal) +10 bonus in the right place could change a minor loss that turns into several major battles (due to nid-snowballing) into a minor victory with little to no snowballing.....and the flaws of thunder (even if they were guranteed fix, which its not), would not help us in time.

I would note (not that its likely to change anything) that I don't like the impaler (maybe somebody could give stats on why melta-impalers would actually be good? I was under the impression that pulse rifles were better then implalers, so when the melta-ones come at even more general stats to be better armor-piercing, well, I'm finding it hard to approve of them.

I also don't like hte clense medium-tainted world, but it seems like the major plan-makers have already decided to do that so I guess I'm missing something about why we should.....?
 
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