Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Actions:

Each turn lasts roughly five in-game years and will contain four actions. This number will remain static, though the amount you can accomplish with each action will grow as you improve your capabilities. You may find (or construct) subordinates that give you additional actions, but they won't be equivalent to your actions. You will be able to automate certain kinds of actions.

The general categories of action are construction, research, diplomacy and orders. Construction and research are elaborated on in the build points and research points sections below. Diplomacy is used for large-scale interactions with other factions, while Orders are used to direct your active units for military/exploratory/aid missions as well as other special options.

Actions represent a set amount of effort spread over a decent time-period. If you put more actions into something you'll get a better return, though there will be diminishing returns. On the same metric, if you try to spread actions out to accomplish multiple things with one action (mostly relevant for order/exploration) then you'll spread that amount of effort over a larger area.

Dice:

Dice rolls will be in two categories, d6's and d100s. Random events like loot will be d6's, which may sometimes explode on 6's. The effectiveness of actions will be d100s, with high numbers better and fairly few modifiers. As an example, if you explore a new system, then a series of d6's will be rolled to determine if there's anything to find, and whether you find them or not will depend on d100's.

Rolls will occur for exploration, social and combat actions and upon finishing a research project (and likely more). The 'spread' of results will generally be fairly narrow, unless 1's or 100's are rolled. Five destroyers will still lose to a pair of cruisers if they roll a 75 while the cruisers roll a 25, though they may manage to inflict some damage they wouldn't have otherwise.

Here's a guide to interpreting rolls:
0-15 Fail
16-35 Poor success
36-65 Success
66-90 Good success
91+ critical success.
With variance within that - a 87 will have better results than a 67, even if both are good successes.

Resources:

Your primary resources are:
Build points, which sums up your ability to collect raw materials, refine those into usable materials and assemble those materials into functional output. An action spent building will produce a number of build points equal to your build capacity that can be spent to build ships, ground units, defenses, installations, etc. if you choose to start on a planet this will be split between ground and void build capacity. Some things will have prerequisites or be limited by rare resources - you must build shipyards to build ships and adamantium deposits must be found and exploited to build titans & other specialized equipment that require adamantium. You will be able to build more build capacity in the form of mines/factories/etc. but everything beyond the baseline will cost you command points.
Command Points represent the total number of things you can control. Each ship, ground unit, installation and manufactory will cost command points related to their complexity, and you cannot control anything beyond your command point limit. Research can unlock the ability to 'mothball' things, storing them inactive without command point cost against future use. There will also be ways to discount the command point cost of certain kinds of units. You also are unable to control anything outside your current star system (unless you choose a particular option in character creation). Units controlled by others do not cost command points. You can ally/conquer with organics for underlings to do things like operate CP-free factories, ships, installations. Or you can build more AIs with their own command point limits. However, they will all be independent agents that you'll have to keep in line one way or another.
Research points, which represent your research & design capabilities. An action spent on research will generate a number of research points equal to your research capacity. These can then be spent to progress various researches or design new ship/unit/installation blueprints so you can build them. The primary ways to increase research capacity are to recruit or build helpers - one mind can only think so fast. Specialized installations and samples will be required to unlock various research options and may increase the efficiency of specific researches. Rolls upon finishing research will determine follow-on research options and may give bonuses or penalties to it.

Philosophy:

A common failure mode I've observed in Questing has been miscommunication and misunderstanding between Questors and the QM. To that end, I promise to interpret your plans in the best possible light, and ask for confirmation when it seems like you're making an obvious mistake. I'm not going to 'gotcha' you for missing something I think is obvious without asking for clarification first.

In return, I ask that you interpret the events of the quest positively. I'm a professional writer who wants to pick up running a Quest as a hobby, and I want to have fun telling an engaging story with my players. That means there will be setbacks and bad outcomes from time to time. Taking risks is part of the game, and if you try to avoid all risk you'll end up a sad single-system turtle in a very scary universe. But sometimes the risks will blow up in your face. When that happens it's fine to be disappointed, but please don't take that out on me or others. The biggest danger I see in this quest is biting off more than you can chew. Don't piss off an Inquisitorial stronghold if you can only build one destroyer a turn.

Also - be aware of the limits of metagaming. If you know something out-of-character, it may not apply exactly in the way that you think it does in this game. I won't kill you for it, but if you make a plan based on OOC knowledge of how the Tyranids operate, then don't complain when it turns out this tendril is from a different hive fleet that operates differently.

This game will scale hard. We're going to start off dealing with individual shuttles to lift things built on the ground to space (or "convert ground build capacity to space build capacity"), and then will zoom out as your capabilities grow, changing and replacing mechanics as it makes sense.

Write-ins are generally encouraged, but they're not always going to give you better outcomes than existing options. Use a write-in to suggest reasonable options I haven't thought of, not to game the system. If I like a write-in, I'll usually add it as an official option. This is especially true of the research & design sections of the game, which will rely to some extent on write-ins.

Finally, on the topic of dice - dice are meant to determine where in the range of possible outcomes we land. They will only determine the victor in situations where the outcome is truly in doubt, with exceptions for 1s and 100s (and even those will only stretch the bounds of possibility so far). Additionally, truly catastrophic events are quite rare. Rolling a 1 on a research roll probably means a fire broke out and destroyed some samples, but it won't burn down the lab unless you roll below a 20 on a follow-up roll. Now, if you were studying a bunch of hibernating necrons then the outcomes might be a little worse.

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Installations: Installation default is to be built in full view. Basic stealth (building under cover, sensor-absorbing materials) can be applied with 2x BP cost. Ground-based installations can be built entirely underground for 3x BP cost.

For non-military installations, you can upgrade them with psychic shielding by spending extra BP up to 4x the base cost of the installation. The more you spend, the stronger the shielding will be. This is seperate from and stronger than the psychic shielding granted to blueprints in the design section. That's a lighter shielding with reduced HP, this is for when you want something really beefy and are willing to pay for it.

Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP) Will allow you to process basic biological samples, such as flora & fauna. Or captives.

Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP) Will allow you to process basic technological samples, to understand their electronics, materials, etc.

Advanced Technological Research Lab (500 BP, 100 CP) Will allow you to process advanced technological samples, including materials of alien origin. Has advanced scanning, modeling and processing capabilities.

Basic Psychic Experimentation Lab (200 BP, 50 CP) Will allow for safer experimentation with psytech and general psyker powers, at the very least confining the damage from perils of the warp. Can be outfitted with inwards-facing psychic shielding.

High-Energy Physics Research Lab (500 BP or 500 VBP, 100 CP) Will allow you to conduct research on more... excitable branches of physics. Maybe don't put it close to anything you want to keep. (Rolling a 1 while researching something here might turn out badly, but at least you'll have containment measures in place)

Warp Research Lab (500 BP or 500 VBP, 100 CP) Anexa's brainchild. Half mad science lair, half sensible warp research setup. Will allow you to conduct research on the warp, miniature portal generator and all. Will likely help contain poor results, though maybe give it some psychic shielding. (Rolling a 1 while researching something here might turn out badly, but at least you'll have containment measures in place in addition to any psychic shielding you add.)

Captive Holding cells (25 BP, 10 CP) will allow you to hold 500 captives and keep them fed and watered while you interrogate/indoctrinate/talk to them. Basic psychic shielding.

Small automated medical facility (50 BP, 50 CP) 50 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries. Basic psychic shielding.

Large automated medical facility (500 BP, 50 CP) 500 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries. Basic psychic shielding.

Cloning facility (100 BP, 100 CP) All of the facilities necessary to clone 50 babies every year. Childcare not included. Basic psychic shielding.

Directional-control Radio tower (25 BP, 5 CP) improves signal reception quality and allows you to send your own signals across the planet, as well as giving you the capability to bounce them off the atmosphere to disguise their origin. Basic psychic shielding.

Observatory (100 BP, 25 CP) Built on a nearby mountain. Will unlock research projects to map the current system. Basic psychic shielding.

Manufactory (100 BP, 45 CP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +52.5 ground-based build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.

Machine Spirit Manufactory (120 BP, 18 CP) As a manufactory, but controlled primarily by machine spirits. +63 ground-based build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.

Industrial Aquaculture Plant (50 BP, 10 CP) Produces all of the food necessary to feed 15,000 people. The food is very spicy. Basic psychic shielding.

Rocket Launch facility (50 BP, 10 CP) Uses chemical rockets to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to half that amount of void build capacity per action. The opposite of stealthy. Basic psychic shielding.

Spaceport (100 BP, 25 CP) Allows you to use shuttles to convert ground build capacity to Void build capacity with no loss, or as a base to host and rearm fighters. Can host 10 fighters or 10 shuttles, each capable of converting 50 ground BP to void BP per action, built separately. Stealthier than rockets, but not invisible. Basic psychic shielding.

MS-Spaceport (150 BP, 2.5 CP) Allows you to use shuttles to convert ground build capacity to Void build capacity with no loss, or as a base to host and rearm fighters. Can host 10 fighters or 10 shuttles, each capable of converting 50 ground BP to void BP per action, built separately. Stealthier than rockets, but not invisible. Basic psychic shielding.

Magnetic Catapult launch system (1000 BP, 50 CP) Allows you to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to void build capacity per action with no loss. Actually quite stealthy. Basic psychic shielding.

Stasis Pod Bunker (500 BP, 5 CP) Holds up to 1000 people in stasis for a long period of time. Basic psychic shielding.

Medium Void-shield Installation (1000 BP, 50 CP) A void shield capable of stopping medium orbital bombardment, approximately fifty heavy strikes. Basic psychic shielding.

Burg (1515 BP, 5 CP) A heavily fortified base containing firepower equivalent to three anti-orbit lances, six anti-air defenses, six anti-armor bunkers and twelve anti-personnel bunkers. Also contains storage space for troops and supplies. Is equipped with machine spirits, "no" psychic shielding and Machine Spirit Jammers.

Anti-Orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion. Basic psychic shielding.

Anti-Air Defenses (25 BP, 5 CP) A trio of rapid-recharge lascannons backed up by advanced targeting software in a reinforced emplacement with an upwards-facing arc. Will attempt to destroy ballistic missiles, aircraft or shuttles as they approach. Can miss or be saturated by large amounts of incoming fire or miss and fail to destroy their targets.

Anti-personnel Bunker, Psychic Shielding (40 BP, 2 CP) A bunker with a set of high-fire-rate weapons designed to take down humanoid-sized attackers wearing medium or lighter armor. Modified with somewhat heavier psychic shielding.

Machine-spirit Jammer (100 BP, 10 CP) A bank of cogitators capable of jamming a large number of small machine spirits (weapons, doors), several medium machine spirits (vehicles) or one large machine spirit (small ship). Effect is temporary and resistance will build up. Basic psychic shielding.

Basic Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP) A set of carefully-managed vats capable of supplying 50 people with a perennial supply of Juvenat. Basic psychic shielding.

Focused Warpaphone (5000 BP, 100 CP) Allows for interstellar communication, looks like a giant cannon barrel. Basic psychic shielding, which must be turned off for communciations. Is protected by tripwires.
Void Installations: These are built in space. They require 'void BP' which is associated with lift capacity. This is a detail we'll abandon eventually, but for now your lift capacity is limited.

Orbital Aquaculture Plant (250 BP, 25 CP) Produces all the food necessary to feed 75,000 people. The food is very spicy. Basic psychic shielding.

Orbital Manufactory (250 void BP, 40 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +52.5 void build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.

Machine Spirit Orbital Manufactory (300 void BP, 15 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +63 void build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.

Deep Space Manufactory (750 void BP, 40 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +105 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Basic psychic shielding.

Machine Spirit Deep Space Manufactory (900 void BP, 15 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +126 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Basic psychic shielding.

Small Shipyard (1000 void BP, 50 CP) 4 Ship construction slots

Medium Shipyard (3000 void BP, 100 CP) 16 Ship construction slots

Large Shipyard (10,000 void BP, 250 CP) 64 Ship construction slots

Orbital Warpaphone (5000 VBP, 100 CP) Allows for interstellar communication, looks like a giant cannon barrel. Basic psychic shielding, which must be turned off for communciations.

Basic Defense Satellite (300 void BP, 10 CP). Light Defensive platform, 200x200 meters. Light shield, Light armor, 1 light lance battery.

Caltrop (325 VBP, 10 CP), Light Defensive platform, 200x200 meters. Light shield, Light armor, 5 HP Psychic Shielding. 1 light lance battery.

Spark Ambush Platform (1500 VBP, 10 CP), Light Defensive platform, 500x500 meters (400 BP). No shields, Medium armor, 20 HP "veil" Psychic Shielding. Advanced Passive Stealth Profile. Heavy missiles, Medium missiles, 2x Light missiles, Melta payloads.
Strategic Weapons: Nuclear warhead (15 BP, 1 CP) A variable-yield nuclear warhead that can be deployed by ballistic missile or other means to destroy a hive-sized target unless it's heavily dug-in or protected by void shields.

Exterminatus warhead (100 BP, 1 CP) A "variable-yield" nuclear warhead that must be deployed by an orbiting ship. Comes with a ground-penetrating body about the size of a torpedo, and can be shot down. But if not, it'll set off an explosion large enough to crack the crust and cause planetary-scale devastation from the resulting earthquakes, volcanoes, and utter destruction of all planetary cycles. It'll be possible to survive the resulting cataclysm in a bunker on the far side of the planet, but the planet's toast for at least a century.
Small Craft: Basic space stealth missile (5 Void BP, 1 CP) Rests steailthily in orbit, until activated, at which point it can attack nearly any target in orbit. One-shots satellites, many are needed for ships or larger platforms.

Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) Each shuttle converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.

MS-Shuttle (30 BP, 0.5 CP) Each shuttle converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.

Fighter (20 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.

Basic Stealth Fighters (25 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. They shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking, though they won't be able to close all the way to attack range without being spotted. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.

Basic Stealth Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver things other than bombs to your enemies. So let's stick some armor and guns on a shuttle, and make it a bit more maneuverable. They shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking, though they won't be able to close all the way to attack range without being spotted. Can carry 100 troops and provide anti-personnel and light antiarmor fire. Requires a spaceport for rapid transport of troops.
Ships: Crucible manufacturing craft (550 void BP, 60 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Voidborne craft with family-sized crew compartment. In-system only, no defenses but relatively hard to chase down. Gives +100 void build capacity, very mobile.

Anvil Large manufacturing craft (1500 void BP, 120 CP, 2 ship construction slots) Voidborne craft with small crew compartment. In-system only, no defenses but relatively hard to chase down. Gives +350 void build capacity.

Tiny system monitor (950 void BP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1500x300 meters. 7 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Light Shields. 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 light lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.

Small system monitor (2375 void BP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots) Frigate, 2200x600 meters. 5 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. 4x Medium Macrocannons, 1x Medium Lances, 2x Point Defense.

Candle Mk2 destroyer (1650 void BP, 8 CP, 1 ship construction slot) 1600x400 (500 BP), 9 gravities, medium shields, medium armor, "No" Psychic Shields (20 HP) Machine spirit, Warp drive, void abacus. 4x light macrocannons. Vector-shift drives, plasma payloads.

Candle destroyer (1450 void BP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1600x350 meters. 8 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. Living Space, "No" Psychic Shields (20 HP) 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 Medium Lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.

Candle-OMC destroyer (1350 void BP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1600x350 meters. 8 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. "No" Psychic Shields (20 HP) 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 Medium Lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.

Candle-MS destroyer (1400 void BP, 8 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1600x350 meters. 8 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. "No" Psychic Shields (20 HP). Machine spirits. 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 Medium Lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters

Flame-MS torpedo frigate (2400 void BP, 15 CP, 2 ship construction slots) 2000x500 meters, 6 gravities, light shields, medium armor. "No" Psychic Shields (40 HP), Medium Torpedoes, 2x point defense, Prow ram, Light macrocannons. High-maneuverability thrusters, melta torpedo payloads, Alloyed Armor, Light Boarding preparations.

Flame torpedo frigate (2500 void BP, 2 ship construction slots) 2000x500 meters, 6 gravities, light shields, medium armor. Living Space. "No" Psychic Shields (40 HP) Medium Torpedoes, 2x point defense, Prow ram, Light macrocannons. High-maneuverability thrusters, melta torpedo payloads, Alloyed Armor, Light Boarding preparations.

Flame-OMC torpedo frigate (2300 void BP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots) 2000x500 meters, 6 gravities, light shields, medium armor. "No" Psychic Shields (40 HP) Medium Torpedoes, 2x point defense, Prow ram, Light macrocannons. High-maneuverability thrusters, melta torpedo payloads, Alloyed Armor, Light Boarding preparations.

Ember Mk2 Novacannon Frigate (4475 BP, 15 CP, 2 ship construction slots) 2200x600 meters (1000 bp), 8 gravities, heavy shields, medium armor. "Veil" Psychic Shields (40 HP). "No" Psychic Shields (40 HP). Machine spirits, Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Improved passive stealth profile, Novacannon, Ammunition bunker.

Ember Novacannon Frigate (3875 BP, 15 CP, 2 ship construction slots) 2200x600 meters, 7 gravities, Medium shields, light armor. "No" Psychic Shields (20 HP). Machine spirits, Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Improved passive stealth profile, Novacannon, Ammunition bunker.

Searchlight-class Sensor Frigate (3075 BP, 15 CP, 2 ship construction slots) 2200x600 meters (1000 bp), 8 gravities, medium shields, medium armor. "Veil" Psychic Shields (10 HP). "No" Psychic Shields (20 HP). Machine spirits, Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Light Macrocannons, Superb Sensors

Torch Dive Cruiser (7150 BP, 30 CP, 8 ship construction slots) 4400x800m (2000 bp hull), 6 gravities, heavy shields, medium armor. "No" Psychic Shields (200 HP). Machine spirits, Warp Drive, Void Abacus. Improved sensors, tuned shields, medium boarding preparations. 2 point defense, 2 light macrocannon, 1 medium plasma cannon, 1 medium gravity blaster.

Fab manufacturing Cruiser (6400 BP, 30 CP, 8 ship construction slots) 4400x800m (2000 bp hull), 6 gravities, medium shields, medium armor. "No" Psychic Shields (100 HP). Machine spirits, Warp Drive, Void Abacus. Medium Missiles, 2 point defense, Light boarding preparations, light self-destruct, 1800 bp manufactory (produces 414 bp)

Lighter class Manufactory Cruiser (17,100 BP, 300 CP, 32 ship construction slots) 6000x1200 m (6000 bp hull). 5 gravities, heavy shields, medium armor. Crew Quarters, Warp Drive, Void Abacus, "No" Psychic Shields (200 HP), Light boarding preparations, light self-destruct, troop compartment, 20x shipboard aquacultures, medical bay, manufactory (produces 1127 bp)
Units: Avatar (10 BP, 0 CP) 1 human-appearing robot.

Seeker Bot (80 BP, 20 CP). 1000 light infantry bots, light arms, and armor intended to fight lightly armored enemies. Can pass for human, are run by machine spirits, equipped with "No" psychic shields and basic nonlethal weapons mostly consisting of basic knockout gas that sometimes causes fatal side-effects.

Specter (100 BP, 20 CP). 1000 infiltration bots, light arms and armor intended to fight lightly-armored enemies. Can pass for human, are run by machine-spirits, equipped with machine-spirit jamming and are both passively and actively stealthy.

Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor, mostly intended to fight lightly-armored enemies. Good in tight corners and rough terrain. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control.

Light Machine-spirit infantry bots (35 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.

Light Humanized Machine-spirit infantry bots (60 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look like humans. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger.

Medium Infantry Bots (50 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with medium armor and light anti-tank weaponry. Good all-rounders. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control.

Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (75 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.

Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (100 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look like humans. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots.

Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Good in open field combat against heavily armed foes.

Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (150 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.

Heavy Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (175 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look human. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots.

Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (190 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look human. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots. Can jam the weapons and equipment of foes who use machine spirits.

Light tanks (100 BP, 50 CP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons.

Light Machine-spirit tanks (150 BP, 5 CP) As Light tanks, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.

Medium tanks (200 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor.

Medium Machine-spirit tanks (375 BP, 5 CP) As Medium tanks, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.

Basic Artillery (300 BP, 50 CP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication.

Basic Machine-spirit Artillery (450 BP, 5 CP) As Basic Artillery, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.

Ocean Remediation Ship (50 BP, 10 CP) A ship that will dredge up massive amounts of seaweed, compact it and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as a solid lump. 1 ship will fix 1% of the Calderath problem over 1 century. Basic psychic shields.

Machine Spirit Ocean Remediation Ship (75 BP, 1 CP) A ship that will dredge up massive amounts of seaweed, compact it and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as a solid lump. 1 ship will fix 1% of the Calderath problem over 1 century. Controlled by a very serene machine spirit. Basic psychic shields.
Export Goods: Light Infantry Weapons (5 BP) Enough light weapons to outfit 1000 humans. Mostly intended for anti-personnel use. Lasguns, a few stubbers, some grenade launchers and supplies of frag grenades.

Light Infantry Armor (5 BP) Enough light armor to outfit 1000 humans. Roughly equivalent to Imperial guard Flak armor, though with better communication abilities. Comes equipped with basic psychic shields, though not perfectly integrated.

Medium Infantry Weapons (10 BP) Enough medium weapons to outfit 1000 humans. A mix of anti-armor and anti-personnel use with greater specialization. Hotshot las-gun equivalents, some lascannons, some autocannons, some flamers, some sniper rifles, a supply of krak grenades.

Medium Infantry Armor (10 BP) Enough medium armor to outfit 1000 humans. Roughly equivalent to Imperial carapace armor. Comes equipped with basic psychic shields, though not perfectly integrated.

Heavy Infantry Weapons (20 BP) Enough heavy weapons to outfit 1000 humans. Primarily focused on anti-armor, will work well on power-armored foes. Plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers.

Heavy Infantry Armor (5 BP per unit) Enough heavy armor to equip 1000 humans with armor slightly superior to Sisters-of-Battle grade armor. Can be built with integrated void-shields by doubling the price. Comes equipped with basic psychic shields, though not perfectly integrated.

Basic Melee Infantry weapons (10 BP) Why?... alright, fine. 1000 chainswords suitable for humans.

Basic Force Weapons (5 bp) A force weapon in the shape of a sword, axe, spear or glaive. Ideally it gets personally fitted to the user, which is difficult but has a better result, or you can mass-produce weapons that will work but won't be all they could be.

Basic Psychic Hood (5 bp) A basic and somewhat bulky psychic hood that will help protect the wearer from psychic effects, including attacks and negative consequences of their own power. Not infalliable, but certainly better than nothing. Ideally personally fitted to the user, or you can mass-produce worse versions that will work for any psyker.

Man-portable Machine-Spirit Jammers (10 BP) Enough small devices in the forms of vox-units, bluescreen grenades and directed antennae to arm 1000 humans with gear that increases their effectiveness against enemies using weapons, armor and vehicles with machine spirits.

Personal Void Shields (5 bp per unit) A void-shield projector capable of protecting a person or bot from weapons fire. Can be fit into an amulet or be a larger unit attached to armor for greater shield strength.

Light crewed tanks (100 BP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Need crew. Roughly equivalent to the Imperial Chimera. Basic psychic shields.

Medium crewed tanks (200 BP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor. Roughly equivalent to the Leman Russ. Basic psychic shields.

Basic Crewed artillery (300 BP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication. Basic psychic shields.

Trade goods (Any cost you wish to spend) A mix of medical supplies, civilian equipment, vehicles and appliances tailored to your trade partner's needs. 5 is a small amount of goods, 10 is decent, 20 is a fair number, 50 starts being quite a lot.

Manned Manufactory (100 BP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +52.5 ground-based build capacity, to be spent as the people running it desire. Basic psychic shields.

Residential Space (10 BP)
Enough living space for 1000 people. Beds, plumbing. Temperature control. Basic psychic shields.

City (1000 BP per 50,000 people)
The complete package for a city. Residential space, power generation, sewage treatment, transit, and offices. No food production. Basic psychic shields.

Orbital habitat (1750 Void BP per 50,000 people) As city but in space. Includes Hydroponics. Basic psychic shields.

Manned Ocean Remediation Ship (50 BP) A ship that will dredge up massive amounts of seaweed, compact it, and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as a solid lump. Also can turn the seaweed into moderately palatable food for the crew. 1 ship will fix 1% of the Calderath problem over 1 century. Basic psychic shields.

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Earning Boons:
Earning a boon is doing a large favor for a civilization. Oftentimes this requires saving their asses in one way or another, or granting them a strategically significant technology or other asset. How you earn a boon is different for each faction, and boons will be harder to earn for some factions than others, depending on their size, power, and opinion of you.

Spending Boons:
Boons are large, civilization-scale favors that are owed to Vita. They are on the scale of detaching a significant chunk of a polity's military to go fight somewhere, asking for a strategic-level asset, or requesting broad-scale social changes. Here are some example use-cases for boons, but I'll try to list specific examples
[Boon] Technology/Asset Transfer:
If a group has valuable technology or samples, you can ask for them in return
[Boon] Crew/Staff:
You can ask for the service of an experienced member of the polity's elite, including leaders, spies, fighters, commanders, psykers, etc. This can be a single exemplar, a small unit of elites, or a larger number of basic troops, depending on the faction and what they have.
[Boon] One-time Social Intervention (write-in what):
Give the culture & government of a place a firm nudge in a direction you want them to go. This could be something like "Go talk to those guys over there and make an alliance if it makes sense" or "hey, listen to this great religion I'm going to sell you." Whatever it is, it'll get in front of the eyes of everybody on the planet and probably convince the government if it's reasonable.
[Boon] Permanent Social intervention (write in what)
Establish long-term hooks to guide a society down a path you want. This will give you some measure of control over their long-term development, with a greater impact the more boons you invest. It could be anything from encouraging people to study science to encouraging a social ethic of xenophila. You'll give it a direction with a free action, and you can have it permanently assist with your diplomacy actions with the culture for a +5 bonus, or a +10 if you invest two boons.

Last updated on Turn 34
An ex-Civilized world of the Imperium of Man, Denva Secundus was treated gently by fate. About 40 years after contact was cut with the rest of the Imperium by the formation of the Great Rift, several groups in coordination rebelled against Imperial control and nuked the Governer's spire. Five representative democracies rose in the place of the Imperial Bureaucracy and have existed for just over a century in relative peace. Just before Vita's departure, she managed to convince them all to unify into the Denvan Stellar Ascendency.
Population:
Denva Secundus has maintained a fairly high level of population, and several billion people call the planet home, a number that has only expanded as automation and technology. Recently, they have begun expanding into the stars, first filling up the void station of Klyssar's nest, and now beginning to expand across the Denva system, especially into void infrastructure around the gas giant Aetherion.
Technology:
Devna Secundus originally reverted to roughly modern Earth levels of technology after being abandoned by the Adeptus Mechanicus, though several small enclaves of the mechanicus still existed, repairing existing Imperial technology for a high price and occasionally accepting applicants from the general population. Since Vita's domination of the mechanicus, they've entirely converted to the exploration, research and education-focused philosophy of the Cogitare Exploratum and been integrated into the local governments. Shortly after that Vita provided a full spread of basic Dark-Age technology, and Denva has been rapidly technologizing, as well as making widespread use of organic-machine implants. They've also begun to incorporate low-level psychic shields equipped with warp sensors into virtually all construction, to prevent chaos cults or corruption from taking root, and enabling them to quickly track down emerging psykers.
Goverment:
The Stellar Ascendency has retained the representative democratic roots of its individual countries, and have a robust constitution, bills of rights and regulatory agencies. There are legal exceptions for psykers, which are modeled after regulation on deadly weapons.
Military:
The Stellar Ascendency military is highly predicated around the use of the "Organic-Machine Control" implant, which allows a single person to control a large amount of machinery, up to several thousand robotic troops or a single ship. With Vita's help they've established the NEPTUNE War College on the Silvertear Islands to train up large numbers of OMC-equipped commanders.
Psykana:
A number of mountain monasteries are scattered throughout the planet, and psykers are mandated to enter them as soon as their abilities are discovered. The monastaries are quite reclusive, but make widespread use of Vita's psychic shields to protect themselves against any psychic attack.

Last updated on Turn 36, prompt me if it's important in later turns.
[Boon] One-time Manufacturing Capacity
Grants +52,500 BP from Denvan manufacturing to a single construction action as you ask for material help. (Current usage limit 1/turn.)
[Boon] Permanent Manufacturing capacity
Gives you a % of Denvan manufacturing every turn as you establish companies & manufacturing concerns within Denvan society. Doubles the voidforge miners BP/turn & growth. You can manage this BP with a free action. Picking it multiple times will increase the amount and how fast it grows, and you'll be able to leave them with a multi-turn project or a general direction if you leave. The value will increase naturally over time as Denva builds up.
[Boon] A Fleet Detachment
A collection of ships from the Stellar Ascendency navy, with a total build cost of half of the one-time manufacturing capacity boon. You can dictate this, or just ask for a fleet within a given parameter set. Includes crew. Only ships that Denva currently builds.
[Boon] Expanded Technology Focus/sharing (write-in two tech trees)
They're already sharing several tech-trees listed in the threadmarks. Pick two more tech trees for them to start investing in and they'll share techs from those trees when they get them. This isn't a zero-sum game. Invest in their research capabilities to get more out of this.
[Boon] Psykers
Get your pick of Stellar Ascendency psykers to join your crew, this could be either a single stellar psyker or 50 lesser psykers that will operate as staff.
[Boon] Specialized Crew (write-in who)
Pick this to get 300 highly-qualified crew. Most importantly, this includes Cogitare members with training and implants that let them either increase Vita's CP cap, contribute to research or generate RP.

Denva prime is a desolate desert planet with deposits of kultrinium and many underground tunnels. It is also the homeworld of the vellkar, a subterranean race of short humanoids with transparent skin, magnetically sensitive horns and a club tail. They're currently uplifting themselves quickly with the help of Vita and the Denvans, trading basing and mineral extraction rites for knowledge and manufactured material necessary for uplift.

The Vellkar are a species obsessed with trade and culturally inclined towards fair dealings, though they also have a strong desire for privacy that stems from the advantage granted by knowledge during negotiations.

Last updated on Turn 37, prompt me if it's important in later turns.
[Vellkar Boon] One-time Manufacturing Capacity
Grants +6,000 BP from Vellkar manufacturing to a single construction action as you ask for material help. (Current usage limit 1/turn.)
[Vellkar Boon] Permanent Manufacturing capacity
Gives you a % of Vellkar manufacturing every turn as you establish companies & manufacturing concerns within Denvan society. Currently at 1/10 of the one-time capacity bonus. You can manage this BP with a free action. Picking it multiple times will increase the amount and how fast it grows, and you'll be able to leave them with a multi-turn project or a general direction if you leave. The value will increase naturally over time as the Vellkar build up.
[Vellkar Boon] Further Basing Rights
Allows you to build +500 manufactories on the surface of Denva Primus.
[Vellkar Boon] Removed Basing Tax
Removes the tax on Denva Primus manufactories, increasing the bonus from Kultrinium from +40% to +50%
[Vellkar Boon] Specialized Crew (write-in what)
Pick this to get 200 highly-qualified crew, including manufactory operators, diplomats and cultural specialists, or 2000 more normal people who could serve as the seed for a subterranean base.

Ascalon Primus is a heavy world, with high gravity a thick atmosphere full of particulates and only a single massive city built into a volcano. It is run by the ecclisarchy and the administratum, and is very invested in bureaucracy.
Population:
The population of Ascalon ranges from hundreds of millions to low billions, all concentrated in the single city imaginatively named Ascalon.
Technology:
Ascalon seems to have maintained a low-imperial level of technology, though they only seem to have a very small number of Tech-priests primarily stationed out of an orbital platform transshipment point.
Government:
The government of Ascalon appears to be a complex rivalry between the Adeptus Ministorium and the Adeptus Administratum. Vita's interaction with them showed that they thrive on dumb paperwork.
Military:
Ascalon is protected by the Order of the Penitent Flame, a convent of Sororitas stationed on the primary moon, in a shielded base. As you learned, it houses a heavy void shield and heavy anti-orbit weapons to prevent easy control of the orbits of the planet.
Psykana:
unknown.

Vorthryn

Vorthryn is a system without any rocky worlds. Instead there are three major asteroid belts and two gas giants, and the human population lives primarily in the outermost asteroid belt in dozens of self-sufficient mining stations, and hundreds of dead and cold stations that only serve as tombs. Many of those stations were home to Chaotic cults that had emerged over the years, though Vita destroyed all of them with her first application of warp sensors.

A single enormous sublight automated ship called the Auric Burden makes an orbit of the asteroid belt every ten years or so. Originally, it was constantly invaded and fought over with every new inhabited station it docks at, even as the passengers are able to pillage the abandoned stations of everything they can grab. However, during Vita's visit to the station she cleared it of many of the chaos cultists and established an enclave of the Cogitare aboard, to attempt to civilize the system. Their status is unknown.
Population:
The population of Vorthryn is likely no more than several million, spread broadly over many different stations around the system.
Technology:
The population of Vorthryn seems to have lost most of their technological prowess, and rely almost entirely on ancient and automated systems. The Cogitare enclave is likely to try to change that, but their status is unknown.
Government:
Each station has its own system of control. Many are little more than tribes, some retain an echo of the worship of the emperor, and many have lapsed into outright heresy, before Vita blew them up. The ship itself is home to two prominent clans called the Ductborn and the Bridgesworn, descended from the ship's original maintenance and officer class, respectively. Both follow a form of ancestor worship derived from the Imperial Creed, though they'd fight to the death if you compared them like that. Neither like Vita or the enclave.
Military:
What? Nothing relevant, as far as you can tell.
Psykana:
What?

Caldereth was an Imperial Agri-world, a warm planet mostly covered in oceans with a scattering of islands. Massive quantities of seaweed were grown and harvested to be shipped across the sector, though it was governed with a light hand and was a somewhat happy and jubilous planet, where the Imperial Sector Governor had a vacation estate in a gorgeous volcano, with prime access to sailing and beaches.

When contact with the broader Imperium was broken off, the harvesting stopped, and the seaweed began proliferating out of control. It then started decomposing, producing what is known as "the stank," a horrendous stench that also carries fine particles that clog up the lungs. Most of the population of the planet was wiped out in a matter of years, except for the city of "Stankberg" which managed to devise a way to weave themselves masks from the fibers of a native plant that could keep the stank out.

When Vita visited, she found and cleared out the Imperial Governor's mansion, destroying the security measures and a death cult of servants. Then she established a cogitare enclave in the mansion, along with several thousand bots and some defenses. Their directive is to expand themselves and educate the people of Stankberg, while also building easily-controlled harvesting ships to begin to harvest the seaweed and bring an end to the Stank.
Population:
Stankberg is a city of a bit over a million people, and has started expanding now they have a supply of technological masks and ships to harvest the algae.
Technology:
The city of Stankberg lost all but fairly rudimentary technology during the rise of the Stank, though it has retained some sailing abilities. Still, it is difficult to maintain technology in the humidity. However, they are acquiring technology from the Cogitare, especially ships that can harvest massive amounts of seaweed.
Government:
Stankberg doesn't have a formal government, and is instead governed in an almost tribal manner by those generally recognized as "wise."
Military:
Nothing relevant. Vita left a few thousand bots and some defenses with the Cogitare enclave at the Volcano Base.
Psykana:
Not known.

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

None. Go make some friends!

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Crew mechanics:

Your crew have their own mechanics. Each one will have the following values:
1. A level, between 0-30.
2. An active trait that boosts one type of action.
3. A passive trait that will be what they do on any turns where you're not actively using them.

Breaking down each of these, levels will be split into 3 "tiers." Levels 0-9 is tier one, where characters are "Skilled." Levels 10-19 are "Heroic," and levels 20-30 are "Legendary. The crew member's traits will evolve at levels 10, 20, 30. Level-ups are accomplished in a few ways - mostly through passive traits at low levels and good rolls/adventures at high levels.

The active trait will be some way they boost your actions. So you assign them to an one action in a given turn to boost the impact of that action - be it through more research or build points or a dice modifier or whatnot. The amount of bonus will depend on level & trait.

The passive trait is meant to be what they're doing when they're not actively helping you - it's only doing anything when you're not using their active trait. For low level characters (0-9) this will usually be a roll to see if they level-up this turn. For higher level characters it'll be a steady trickle of RP, BP or things like defensive actions.

Crew can also be used in other ways - especially in write-ins - and their effects will scale with their level. Keep in mind their aptitudes. Don't send a tech-priest to negotiate with a feral world.

As an example, Anexa's starting stats would look like this:
Anexa, Tech-priest Errant.
Level 0
Active Trait: Can assist a research action, giving +5xLevel RP to the action.
Passive Trait: Rolls a d100 to see if she levels up, with minimum roll of 10+5xLevel

Then, when she hits level 10 both passive and active traits evolve in a way likely determined by a vote. For example the active trait may change to give a modifier to research rolls, or instead give a larger modifier to research rolls. The passive will change to giving a passive RP income or rolling to passively collect samples from the local system.

She could level in three ways - from level 0-9 any turn where you didn't stick her on a research action she'd just roll for it. But then more generally every time she assisted an action that rolled well she'd level too - though it would get harder as she got higher level. And then if you sent out away team missions that got spicy she might level from that too. But again, the higher level the more difficult it will be to level up.

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Ground Blueprint Design:

To design ground installations & non-combat units, use the rules below and then spend the RP necessary to vote on them. This includes bunkers, anti-orbital defenses, ground units, etc.

If there's something you want that's not explicitly on this list, it's probably fair to assume that you can use the nearest reasonable thing - if you want to design psychically shielded armor, the RP cost will be the same as for the appropriately sized bots. Same for manned vehicles and remotely controlled vehicles.

Small Blueprints Design

Blueprint Modification Options: Blueprint Modification system:
We've unlocked various additions to ground blueprints. Instead of attempting to list all possible combination below I'll list the base options, and you can trick them out with the following modifications. In general BP & RP should round up to the nearest 5. CP does not. Note that these are calculated off "base cost," not total cost, so it is not compounding, though some upgrades increase the base cost.

Here's an example of me designing a fancy assault shuttle (I'm not going to keep this up to date, so the numbers here may not reflect the numbers as you improve the modifications available with future research
The base blueprint is 25 RP - Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP), but I want to make it fancy. First, let's make it machine-spirit controlled. That gives +0.5x base BP, -0.9x CP, or +15 BP, -4.5 CP. So the blueprint is now:
25 RP - Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (40 BP, 0.5 CP)
Then I want to give it void shields. That costs +1x base BP cost because it's a small craft, then +1x RP. So +25 BP, +25 RP. Now it's:
50 RP - Void-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (65 BP, 0.5 CP)
Now I want to give it psy shields. That's +4x base BP cost for small craft (which was 25, so +100 BP), and +1x base RP cost (which was 25, so +25 RP). So now it's:
75 RP - Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (165 BP, 0.5 CP)
Oh and screw it, might as well make it stealthy too, which is +1x base RP cost, +0.25x base BP cost, so that's +10 BP (round up to nearest 5) & +25 RP cost, which leaves us with:
100 RP Basic Stealth Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (175 BP, 0.5 CP)
And of course that's a bit of a mouthful, so I'm going to rename it the "Icarus," and the blueprint should look like:
100 RP - Icarus (Basic Stealth Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle, 175 BP, 0.5 CP)

If we'd wanted to also make it humanized (so it looks like it's piloted by people, for example if you wanted to transport allies without them knowing it was flown by robots) then this all changes, since that adds +5 BP to the base cost. That doesn't change the RP or CP cost at all, but it does change BP. Instead of 25+15(0.5x)+25(1x)+100(4x)+10(0.25x)=175 you'd do (25+5)+15(0.5x)+30(1x)+120(4x)+10(1.25x)=205 BP. And then you'd have
100 RP - Basic Stealth Humanized Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (205 BP, 0.5 CP)

Crewed - (No change in RP or BP cost, completely removes CP cost) Makes a unit operable by a crew of trained humans. Incompatible with Humanization, Machine Spirits decreases manpower requirement. Can be applied to: Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations, small utility.

Humanization - (+15 base BP cost for combat bots, +5 base BP for vehicles, small craft & defensive installations) Makes a unit appear to be operated by fully-armored humans. Slightly increases strength and armor of those units. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations, small utility.

Machine Spirit Jammers - (+10 base BP) Adds machine-spirit jamming equipment to the blueprint, enhancing capabilities against forces that use machine spirits. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.

Machine-spirits - (+0.5x base BP cost, -0.9x base CP cost for non-manufactories. +0.2x base BP cost, -0.675x base CP cost and + 0.2x base BP production for manufactories.) Make this blueprint controlled by machine spirits, making it slightly corruption resistant and reducing the load on your systems. Synergistic with Psychic shields. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft, defensive installations, small utility.

Void Shields - (+1x base BP cost for tanks, small craft, defensive insallations, utility, +9x base BP cost for bots, +1x base RP to design blueprint) - Adds void shields to the object, dramatically increasing survivability. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations, small utility.

Psychic Shielding - (+2x base RP to design blueprint) - Adds psychic shields to the object, having a variety of effects based on the type of shielding. Synergistic with Machine Spirits. Choose one of: "No" (offers general protection to warp attacks), "Begone" (coming into contact with warp entities may banish them), "Veil" (Protected from psychic perception, mild antimemetic effect), "Soothe" (Being in contact with or contained within the shield soothes warp-sensitive creatures). This is design-integrated shielding, and is not as strong as what can be acheived by building heavy-duty shields into things (which can only be done for installations & larger). Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations, utility, large utility. A blueprint can currently carry two layers of shielding, with any combination of shielding meanings.

Basic Stealth - (+0.25x base BP cost for vehicles and small craft, +0.5x base BP cost for bots) Makes a unit harder to detect with both active & passive means. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft. Insallations/utility are covered by the "underground" rules, see the blueprint page.

Less-than Lethal armament - (+0.5x base BP cost for vehicles, small craft & bots.) Arms a unit with dispensers for drugs to render human foes unconscious instead of dead. Will be improved by research for flexible. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.

Gravity Weapons - (+2x base BP cost for vehicles, small craft & bots.) Arms a unit with gravity weapons, capable of ignoring armor and ripping apart enemy internals on high power, or fairly effective short-term crowd control on low power. Power-hungry and fairly short ranged, will be improved by research. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.
Combat Bots: 10 RP - Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor.. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Good at rapid pursuit & maneuvering through tight terrain, bad against heavy armor.

25 RP - Medium Infantry Bots (50 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with medium armor and light anti-tank weaponry. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Good all-rounder capable of all roles, though not optimal at either.

25 RP - Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Good at the heaviest fighting over open ground against heavy armor, not well-suited to avoiding collateral damage.
Vehicles: 15 RP - Light tanks (100 BP, 50 CP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Good at rapid pursuit & maneuvering through tight terrain, bad against heavy armor.

25 RP - Medium tanks (250 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons & antipersonnel weapons to fight enemy armor and infantry. Good all-rounder capable of all roles, though not optimal at any.

25 RP - Heavy tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor. Good at the heaviest fighting over open ground against heavy armor, not well-suited to avoiding collateral damage.
Small Craft: 25 RP - Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) A single shuttle which converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity, and shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking for it. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.

25 RP - Bomber (20 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver cargo to your enemies. Can deliver a fair amount of ordinance to a target in atmosphere or out of it. Unlocks a bomber hanger attachment for ships.

25 RP - Fighter (20 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.

25 RP - Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver things other than bombs to your enemies. So let's stick some armor and guns on a shuttle, and make it a bit more maneuverable. Can carry 100 troops and provide anti-personnel and light antiarmor fire. Cannot deliver troops to space targets.
Defensive Installations: 10 RP - Anti-armor Bunker (50 BP, 5 CP) A bunker with a heavy melta cannon, able to take out most armor in a single shot.

5 RP - Anti-personnel Bunker (20 BP, 2 CP) A bunker with a set of high-fire-rate weapons designed to take down humanoid-sized attackers wearing medium or lighter armor.

15 RP - Anti-orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion.

10 RP - Anti-Air Defenses (25 BP, 5 CP) A trio of rapid-recharge lascannons backed up by advanced targeting software in a reinforced emplacement with an upwards-facing arc. Will attempt to destroy ballistic missiles, aircraft or shuttles as they approach. Can miss or be saturated by large amounts of incoming fire or miss and fail to destroy their targets.

50 RP - Fortress Strongpoint (1000 BP, 50 CP). A single integrated and heavily fortified defensive structure containing firepower equivalent to three anti-orbit lances, six anti-air defenses, six anti-armor bunkers and twelve anti-personnel bunkers, as well as storage space for troops and supplies.

25 RP - Light Void-shield installation (250 BP, 25 CP) A void shield capable of stopping light orbital bombardment, approximately ten heavy strikes.

50 RP - Medium Void-Shield Installation (1000 BP, 50 CP) A void shield capable of stopping medium orbital bombardment, approximately fifty heavy strikes. Basic psychic shielding.

25 RP - Ballistic missile (50 BP, 10 CP) A long-range ballistic missile. By default it carries a high-yield explosive head capable of destroying approximately a city block. Can be intercepted by orbital defenses.

10 RP - Spy satellite (10 void BP, 5 CP) A small spy satellite that lets you do your own surveillance on the planet below. Under your complete control and with better sensors and communication hardening than any of the local satellites.
Small Utility: 10 RP - Maglev System (5 bp/mile, 50 flat CP) A high-capacity maglev system to transport large amounts of goods across a planetary surface, linking various surface installations together into a single network so production from any of them can be applied at all of them.

20 RP - Industrial Aquaculture Plant (50 BP, 10 CP) Produces all of the food necessary to feed 15,000 people. The food is very spicy. Basic psychic shielding.

30 RP - Orbital Aquaculture Plant (250 BP, 25 CP) Produces all the food necessary to feed 75,000 people. The food is very spicy. Basic psychic shielding.

25 RP - Manufactory (100 BP, 45 CP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +52.5 ground-based build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.

35 RP - Orbital Manufactory (250 void BP, 40 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +52.5 void build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.

50 RP - Deep Space Manufactory (750 void BP, 40 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +105 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Basic psychic shielding.

10 RP - Rocket Launch facility (50 BP, 10 CP) Uses chemical rockets to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to half that amount of void build capacity per action. The opposite of stealthy. Basic psychic shielding.

20 RP - Spaceport (100 BP, 25 CP) Allows you to use shuttles to convert ground build capacity to Void build capacity with no loss, or as a base to host and rearm fighters. Can host 10 fighters or 10 shuttles, each capable of converting 50 ground BP to void BP per action, built separately. Stealthier than rockets, but not invisible. Basic psychic shielding.

25 RP - Stasis Pod Bunker (500 BP, 5 CP) Holds up to 1000 people in stasis for a long period of time. Basic psychic shielding.

80 RP - Basic Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP) A set of carefully-managed vats capable of supplying 50 people with a perennial supply of Juvenat.
Large Utility: 40 RP - Magnetic Catapult launch system (1000 BP, 50 CP) Allows you to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to void build capacity per action with no loss. Actually quite stealthy. Basic psychic shielding.

50 RP - Focused Warpaphone (5000 BP, 100 CP) Allows for interstellar communication, looks like a giant cannon barrel. Basic psychic shielding, which must be turned off for communication, though it does have psychic tripwires.

50 RP - Focused Orbital Warpaphone (5000 VBP, 100 CP) Allows for interstellar communication, looks like a giant cannon barrel. Basic psychic shielding, which must be turned off for communication, though it does have psychic tripwires.

20 RP - Small Shipyard (1000 void BP, 50 CP) 4 Ship construction slots

40 RP - Medium Shipyard (3000 void BP, 100 CP) 16 Ship construction slots

60 RP - Large Shipyard (10,000 void BP, 250 CP) 64 Ship construction slots

25*N RP - Void Manufacturing Platform (1000*N BP, 50*N CP) Design a larger, more efficient deep-space manufactory. Produces 100*N+50*N^2 BP. N must be a positive integer, currently capped at 5.
If N=5 this platform would cost 125 RP to design, 5000 BP to build, 250 CP to run, and produce 100*5+50*5^2=1750 BP. Requires megastructure machine spirits before you can get the machine spirit boost. Further technology will increase max N.

Void Blueprint design:

To design void blueprints, follow these steps:

Choose a starting hull from the list of available void chassis below
Choose the number of Build Points to be spent on the base hull. This corresponds to overall size of the ship - a destroyer with 200 bp will be 1200x200 meters, while a 500 bp base destroyer will be 1600x400 meters. This will set the "hp" of the design as well as determine the total amount of space inside the ship, which is represented by the number of BP spent on the hull. That's your "Budget"
Pick the speed, shields and armor of the design. Shields are recharging temp HP, while armor is damage reduction. Speed is self-explanatory. These do not count towards cramming.
Pick hull equipment to go onto the ship. These do not count towards cramming.
Choose weapons, combat equipment & noncombat equipment to add to the ship. Your budget for these things is the base BP spent on size before you start to get into cramming. You can cram more stuff in, but there will be penalties to maneuvering, maintenance, etc. As an example, if you build a destroyer with a base hull cost of 400, then you have a budget of 400 to spend on weapons/equipment before penalties start kicking in.
Have a vote win which spends the necessary RP to design the planned ship.

(Basic Defense Satellite) Light defense Platform. Base 100 Bp (200x200 meters). No engines, Light shields for 50 bp, light armor for 50 bp. 1x light lance battery for 100 bp. Total is 100+50+50+100 = 300. Weapons+equipment is 100, within the base BP of 100, so no cramming penalty.

(Basic System Monitor) Destroyer chassis. Base BP 350 (1500x300 meters) Engines: 7 gravities for 100 BP. Light Shields for 50 BP. Medium armor for 100 BP. 2x Light Macrocannon batteries for 200 bp, 1x Light Lance battery for 100 bp, High maneuverability thrusters for (1/10 base, round up to nearest 50 =) 50 bp. Total is 350+100+50+100+200+100+50 = 950. Weapons + equipment is 350, within the base BP of 350, so no cramming penalty.

Light defense Platform, 5 RP, 10 CP, (100-400 BP, 200x200-500x500 meters.) Engines: (none) for (0). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)

Destroyer, 12 RP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slots (200-500 BP, 1200x200-1600x400 meters) Engines: (7/8/9 gravities) for (50/100/150 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)

Frigate, 25 RP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots (500-1000 BP, 1600x400-2200x600 meters) Engines: (6/7/8 gravities) for (75/150/225 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/75/150/300) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150)

Light Cruiser, 37 RP, 200 CP, 8 ship construction slots (1000-2000 BP, 3500x400-4400x800 meters) Engines: (4/5/6 gravities) for (100/200/300 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/150/300/600) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200)

Heavy Cruiser, 50 RP, 300 CP, 32 ship construction slots (2000-6000 BP, 4500x600-6000x1200 meters) Engines: (3/4/5 gravities) for (300/400/500 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/200/400/800) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400)

Available Hull Equipment:

These do not count towards hull cramming.

Crew Quarters (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is built to be run and operated by humans. It will require a crew but will not cost CP to command if properly crewed. Comes with fod supply but it's basic (i.e. nutrient paste). Not required for OMC control, ship can still be controlled by CP if desired.
Crew numbers are 5-15k for destroyer, 10-30k for frigate, 20-80k for light cruisers, 40-200k for heavy cruisers, 80-500k for grand cruisers, 160k-3 million for battleships. The lower number is the number required to fully crew the ship with mundane humans, the upper is the most that can fit with this addon. Get the "additional living space" equipment below if you want to stick more people onto the ship.

Machine Spirit (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship is primarily controlled by a sub-sapient machine spirit, reducing the CP cost of the base hull to 15% of what it would be normally and making it slightly more chaos-resistant. Currently limited to light cruisers, medium defense platforms and anythimg smaller).

Warp Drive (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.

Void Abacus (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can navigate through the warp slowly, at a rate of 3 systems per action.

Psychic Shielding (Between 1/10 to 1/2 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, which has an effect based on the type of shielding. Choose one of: "No" (offers general protection to warp attacks), "Begone" (coming into contact with warp entities may banish them), "Veil" (Protected from psychic perception, mild antimemetic effect), "Soothe" (Being in contact with or contained within the shield soothes warp-sensitive creatures). Synergizes with machine spirits. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 5 BP spent on it. A blueprint can currently carry two layers of shield, with any combination of shielding meanings.

Basic Passive Stealth Profile (1/5 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship has it's sensor profile reduced with special coatings and a shape that reduces the cross-section in response to active sensors. It can reasonably expect to stay hidden at long ranges (outside weapon range) as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly.
Improved Passive Stealth Profile (1/2 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship is heavily dedicated to stealth, with not just coatings and a shape but also significant amounts of sensor bafflers and other passive systems designed to prevent it from being spotted. Should be able to stay hidden at medium ranges (or long weapon range) as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly.
Advanced Passive Stealth Profile (base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship tries it's hardest to be a void in space, and so long as it's not moving it generally succeeds. Should be able to stay hidden at close ranges as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Probably not good enough to get into boarding range.

Available Weapons:

These do count towards hull cramming.

Multiply the final weapon cost by 0.9 before applying it to ship designs. So if you have 500 BP of weapons, it only counts as 450 for the purposes of ship packing. But it'll count as 500 for final ship cost.

Prow Ram (1/20 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50). This ship is built to run into things, and hurt them more than it gets hurt.

Light Macrocannons 100 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Medium Macrocannons 200 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Heavy Macrocannons 400 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.

Light Lances 100 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Medium Lances 200 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Heavy Lances 400 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.

Light Missiles 50 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Medium Missiles 100 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Heavy Missiles 200 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.

Light Plasma Cannon 250 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Medium Plasma Cannon 500 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.
Heavy Plasma Cannon 1000 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.

Light Melta cannon 200 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor.
Medium Melta cannon 400 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor.
Heavy Melta cannon 800 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor.

Light Gravity Blaster 300 BP, Fairly short-range, continuous weapon that wrecks enemy internals while ignoring armor. Ineffective against shields.
Medium Gravity Blaster 600 BP, Fairly short-range, continuous weapon that wrecks enemy internals while ignoring armor. Ineffective against shields.
Heavy Gravity Blaster 900 BP, Fairly short-range, continuous weapon that wrecks enemy internals while ignoring armor. Ineffective against shields.

If using a different design than the basic one, take your design's base BP cost and multiply it by 10 to get the cost for a ship component of those craft, which contains 10 ships.
Fighters 250 BP. Parasite craft with short-ranged guns and some missile capability.
Shuttles 250 BP, 50 CP. 10 Shuttlecraft, combined capacity of 500 lift to or from a planet.
Assault Shuttles 250 BP. 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip.

Point Defense 50 BP. A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.

Small Torpedoes 150 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to give destroyers a bad day, hurt frigates and prick cruisers.
Medium Torpedoes 300 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck frigates, hurt cruisers and make grand cruisers know they've been touched.
Large Torpedoes 600 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck cruisers, hurt grand cruisers and make battleships know they've been touched.

Light Teleportarium 100 bp. Can teleport a small number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from close range. Enemy shields must be down.
Medium Teleportarium 200 bp. Can teleport a medium number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from medium-close. Enemy shields must be down.
Heavy Teleportarium 400 bp. Can teleport a large number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from long range. Enemy shields must be down.

Novacannon 1000 bp. Fires a teraton-range shell at extraordinarily long range that does damage in a large area-of-effect. More effective against multiple smaller ships than a single big ship. Aimed by aiming the ship, and extended or repeated engagements can burn through ammunition, which is mitigated with ammunition bunkers.

Available Equipment:

Multiply the final equipment cost (both combat and non-combat) by 0.9 before applying it to ship designs. So if you have 500 BP of equipment it only counts as 450 for the purposes of ship packing. But it'll count as 500 for actually paying for the ship.

These do count towards hull cramming.

Low-emission Systems (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship has been tuned to reduce overall emissions, making it stealthier. Not stealthy. Stealthier.

Improved Sensors 250 BP - increased size and density of sensors, backed up by the necessary computational support, will make it more difficult for anybody to sneak up on this ship.
Excellent Sensors 500 BP - You would say it's impossible to sneak up on a ship with this many sensors, but you saw what the Eldar did, and now it's merely incredibly improbable.
Superb Sensors 1000 BP - This ship has enough sensors of enough modalities that it's basically a mobile scientific research platform. Anything weird will get noticed, investigated, and if it's an enemy ship, pinned down.

High-maneuverability thrusters (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is more maneuverable, able to flip, spin and dodge more quickly. This lets it maneuver well through dense asteroid clusters and dodge/ram more effectively in combat.
Vector-Shift Drives (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50). This ship can re-vector its primary thrusters, making it able to flip, spin, and dodge significantly better. It can't exactly spin on a dime, but it's more maneuverable than a multi-kilometer ship should be.

Plasma payloads (choose novacannons, missile warheads, Macrocannon warheads or torpedoes) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire plasma-warhead ammunition, which has a flat damage increase.

Melta payloads (choose novacannons, missile warheads, Macrocannon warheads or torpedoes) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire melta-warhead ammunition, which is especially effective against enemy armor and hulls.

Tuned Shields Costs the same as the chosen shields cost, and additionally counts towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for tuned shields, so if shields costs 100 bp, then tuned shields cost 100 bp and 100 bp is counted against cramming). These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.

Alloyed Armor Costs the same as the chosen armor cost, and additionally counts towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for alloyed armor, so if armor costs 100 bp, then alloyed armor costs 100 bp and 100 bp is counted against cramming). Armor is much tougher but is harder to repair.

Light Boarding preparations (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying.
Medium Boarding preparations (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) The ship layout is designed to funnel borders into kill-zones in front of armored bunkers, and any borders will take heavy casualties.
Heavy Boarding preparations (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship as essentially a flying dungeon, filled with escherian mazes, hidden turrets, crushing-hallways and other deathtraps.

Light Machine Spirit Jammers (1/20 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Enough to cause significant degradation in an enemy ship's sensors, maneuvering and targeting. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class.
Medium Machine Spirit Jammers (1/10 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Same as light jammers, plus will also affect total thrust, weapons firing rate. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class.
Heavy Machine Spirit Jammers (1/5 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. The same effect as medium, but may also affect friend-foe designation and reactor stability. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class.

Ammunition Bunker (100 BP) Holds a store of ammunition and specialized manufacturing equipment to supply ammunition to all projectile-bearing ammunition on the ship. Stacking more on a ship will reduce ammunition concerns for drawn-out battles and general resupply needs.

Light Self-destruct (1/30 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50). Enough explosives are packed into the hull and critical systems to ensure that should the system be triggered, there won't be much left except an empty hulk, likely in multiple pieces.
Medium Self-destruct (1/10 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50). Forget normal explosives, now we're seeding the ship with nukes. The ship itself is going to be vaporized, and anybody else in boarding range is going to have a really bad day. The effect scales with the size of the ship.
Heavy Self-destruct (1/2 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50). This isn't a ship. It's a flying bomb. When this thing lights off, anybody nearby is going to feel it, and the bigger the ship, the bigger the bomb.

These do count towards hull cramming.

Troop compartment (50 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.

Living Space (50 BP) Living space and life support for 5,000 people. Includes "basic" food production, i.e. nutrient paste.

Shipboard Aquaculture (15 BP) Produces all of the food necessary to feed 5,000 people. The food is very spicy.

Medical bay (25 BP) Can treat 1000 severely injured people at once.

Manufactory (Any cost up to base cost of hull) Generates void BP equivalent to 1/5 of its cost. (plus 5%. If the ship also has the Machine Spirit equipment, add another 10%).

Cloning Bay (100 BP) All of the facilities necessary to clone 100 babies every year. Childcare not included.

Cargo Bay (No cost, free. Designate an amount of BP to fill for cramming purposes) Allows transport of an amount of BP equivalent to the cramming amount from one system to another.

Repair Bay (Any cost up to base cost of hull). Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost. Can be used to refit the ships as well with a +50% markup. Cannot be used to make new ships, bots, manufactories.

Stasis Pod Bay (500 BP) Holds up to 1000 people in stasis for a long period of time. Only costs 5 BP of cramming space.

Modular Space (No cost, free. Designate an amount of BP to fill for cramming purposes) Every 250 bp gives you one modular slot that can be filled as under the flagship rules, with the exceptions that no manufactories can be built in these slots.

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Vita - You were built as an explorer and a surveyor, back when the human race was first expanding into the galaxy. After being trapped in a space-hulk for several thousand years you managed to escape and crash-land on a planet. The whole situation was... traumatic, but you've managed to stay sane with a combination of relentless optimism and a mocking sense of humor. For the original write-in, see the winning character creation vote here.

Basic Technological Chaos Shielding - you have technological shields that protect you from baseline psychic corruption. You don't know how they work.

(Wo)Man of Stone - You were created to travel and explore the stars, and prepare the way for colonists to follow. You will excel at building and controlling civilian infrastructure, and will have +25% command point limit and easier access to further command point upgrades. Your character is built to steer a civilization, and will have a better grasp of general logistics, infrastructure-building and dealing with organics. This will show up in the writing, and you will get a +10 to diplomacy & exploration actions.

Diplomatic Suite - You will automatically translate languages with minimal exposure. You can generate false audio, video and holo images showing people acting realistically. You have a human behavioral model that will enhance negotiations with humans. You also have humanoid robots that can interact in a diplomatic context, though they will be recognizably artificial without further research

Wayfarer - Standing still makes you itchy. You were created to explore the galaxy personally, and cannot tolerate being tied down in one place for too long. There will be special mechanics for building and upgrading your own personal ship. However, you must always be planning and working towards exploration and visiting somewhere new and exciting.

Reality-Simulations - +100% base research capacity, +20 bonus to research rolls, reduced sample requirements. For some options you won't need samples to unlock research.

A Fundamental Physics Module - You have a deep understanding of the fundamental physics of the universe. Grants significant bonuses to understanding and replicating technology based on different principles than you're familiar with.

Juvenat Vats - You can keep a small number of people alive nearly indefinitely, and use some amount of excess juvenat as a very valuable trade good.

Current Asethetic - your ships and bots are built in sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. Something like this. There's a certain allowance for aesthetic in that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties. The design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look.

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

The ways to get new research options are to:

Do research. That'll unlock more research.
Build appropriate installations & potentially acquire samples to research in them (samples could be anything from 'a human' to 'a Norn queen' in rarity).
Ask for them. Often I'll tell you what you need to do to unlock specific research options,

Ship Design: -[] Grand Cruisers (350 RP) Making a ship design that's not spaghetti takes time and effort. It's still boring. But if you want to make queens of the void, its necessary. (unlocks grand cruisers, half of the prereq for battleships)

-[] Medium Defense Platforms (50 RP) You've already got most of the tools you need to build bigger defensive platforms, but these would be a larger platform to stick guns on, with more ability to withstand damage and better capability to jam in more guns and stuff. (Unlocks medium defensive platforms, which may have an inbuilt cramming bonus, potential for other void-based installation options)

-[] Advanced Engine Designs (200 RP) Further improvements to your engines won't be so easy, but they'll make you faster than most other things in space. (Enhances ship speeds at every level. Unlocks further speed & maneuverability & stealth technologies)

-[] Extremely Efficient Equipment Distribution (250 RP) With further optimization, you can fit more stuff in your ships. (Equipment costs count as 0.75x for ship capacity packing. Especially effective for cargo holds on a good roll.)

-[] Extremely Efficient Weapon Distribution (200 RP) You did a good job already in packing more weapons into less space. But you think you see ways to make it even better. (Weapons costs count as 0.75 for ship capacity packing)

-[] Mobile Shipyards (75 RP) Fitting a shipyard inside a ship is an engineering challenge, but an entirely surmountable one. (Unlocks the shipyard equipment for ships, letting ships build ships).

-[] Can I have a new ship please? (150 RP) Triggers a sub-turn to design yourself a new ship. It can be any size, up to one class larger than what you currently have available (This is Vita's unique mechanic, and will let you design new iterations of your ship)

-[] Boarding Capabilities (100 RP) Apparently it's common for ships in this day and age to board each other and for the crew to fight hand-to-hand. Instead of, you know, chucking enormous missiles at each other. Insane. Well, it might be a nice capability to have in case you want to capture ships intact. (Unlocks boarding torpedoes, drop pods, and boarding craft for hangers, may combine with stealth research to unlock stealth borders)

-[] Networked missiles (100 RP) The biggest danger to missiles is that they'll get shot down by fighters and point defense. If you can network them together to cooperate against those threats, more of the warheads will reach their targets. (Unlocks new combat equipment to make missiles & torpedoes more effective. May unlock more technology to make missiles smarter, longer ranged and generally more effective)

-[] Improved Torpedoes (100 RP) Torpedoes are powerful, but there's so many ways to optimize them. Improved range, (Unlocks new variants of the torpedo with more range, better steering, better armor, etc. May unlock more technology along the similar line.)

-[] Fighter-Bombers (100 RP) A small craft designed for both tasks will be less effective at either. Sometimes, the advantage in flexibility is worth it. (Unlocks new small-craft that can fill both fighter and bomber rolls. May lead to further small-craft research.)

-[] Hanger Cramming (50 RP) Your hangers aren't well-optimized for how much space they use up, but that's becauase storing one takes a lot of space. You might be able to figure out better solutions to this problem. Like folding wings. Folding body? (Unlocks a new small-craft modification that reduces cramming space on hangers using this technology)

-[] Improved Novacannon guidance (150 RP) Your current novacannon guidance system is best described as "crude." There's a lot of ways to improve it to reduce the size of the equipment to allow for more warhead, and improve overall accuracy (improves the performance of guided novacannon shells).

-[] Energetic Warheads (250 RP) If you develop even more powerful destructive energies you can likely pack them into a novacannon round, but it'll require engineering them into a pacakage robust enough to survive being fired (Enables vortex/antimatter equipment for novacannons). Requires either vortex weapons or Antimatter is Dang Scary

-[] Eldritch Warheads (300 RP) You've got a few options against enemies with warp-based defenses. For one option, you psychic shielding has the potential to be used offensively, or you could go the simpler route and make the shells delivery mechanisms for sigils of demonic banishment (Enables psychic shielding and anti-daemonic novacannon equipment). Requires either Bell, Book and Candle or Offensive Shielding meanings

-[] Bigger Gun, Bigger Bullet (150 RP) There are all kinds of technical difficulties in scaling up a novacannon. But none of them are true blockers, and the only thing stopping you from hucking shells the size of a small ship at your enemy is your imagination. And a lot of design work. (Unlocks a Heavy Nova cannon that will barely fit on a grand cruiser, with an effect to match).

-[] Streamlined Novacannons (175 RP) You left some improvements on the table in the first go-around with nova cannons. Some might let you effectively miniaturize them, others might let you pack the same punch into a smaller package. (Discounts novacannon weapon, potentially enough to fit on a destroyer. May unlock smaller novacannon suitable for turret-mounting, or other novacannon optimization tech.)

-[] Ship Manufactory Optimization (100 RP) There's a lot of small sacrifices that had to be made in cramming a manufactory into a ship hull. Work on the design to improve those (Increases output of the ship manufactory equipment, likely by about 10%).

-[] Mega Manufacturing, now mobile! (150 RP) You've figured out how to design larger-scale void manufactories with increased efficiency. Taking those same improvements and making them mobile is going to be a tricky proposition, but it's one that will have some huge payoffs when you can cart around enough manufacturing capacity to build entire fleets at once. (Unlocks mechanics for the shipboard manufactory, where it gets more efficient the larger you build it, similar to the void manufacturing platform rules)
General Design: -[] Megastructure Manufacturing (200 RP) You can design larger void manufactories now, and there are corresponding gains in efficiency. (Improves the size of void platform available for construction. May unlock research for other kinds of manufacturing, including core taps, asteroid-eaters, orbital rings, etc.). Requires Advanced Materials

-[] Non-Habitable Ground Manufacturing (150 RP) Your ground manufactories currently rely on fairly mild conditions as far as pressure, temperature, gravity, etc. If you want to build out industrial facilities in less-friendly conditions, it might be nice to work around that. (Unlocks a ground manufactory blueprint for building in less-habitable places).

-[] Can it Swim? (100 RP) Of all of the habitable planetary area in the galaxy, a good chunk of it is underwater. Being able to have access to it would be fairly useful. (Unlocks the aquatic modifier for the blueprint design tab. May unlock the capability to build installations & habitation underwater).

-[] Can it dig? (75 RP) The Vellkar have thought a lot about how to dig out large spaces underground. Surely you can take their approaches and improve on them. (Improved construction of underground bases, likely boon with the Vellkar)

-[] Shuttle automation (150 RP) Surely I don't have to fly these stupid things myself. (Reduce the CP cost of shuttles by 50%)

-[] Stasis Pod Production Optimizations (100 RP) Stasis pods are a bit expensive to build, even in bulk. Maybe it is possible to cut that cost down through designing larger chambers, or parallelizing the support systems (reduces the cost of the 1000-person stasis pod building/ship equipment).

-[] Streamlined Vehicle/Small Craft Design (75 RP) You can improve your tools for designing vehicles and small craft, much the way you did for ships. (Halves the RP cost to design new vehicles and small craft, may unlock other design improvements)

-[] Streamlined Bot Design (100 RP) You can improve your tools for designing bots, much the way you did for ships. (Halves the RP cost to design new combat bots, may unlock other design improvements)

-[] Streamlined Installation Design (75 RP) You can improve your tools for designing installations, much the way you did for ships. (Halves the RP cost to design new installations, may unlock other design improvements)

-[] Walkers (250 RP) Tanks are... kind of boring? Mechs are cooler. (unlock armiger knights, dreadnaughts, starts the knights/titans research tree)

-[] Mothballing (50 RP) Keeping a bunch of systems functional and ready requires attention that is swiftly running out. Maybe you can figure out how to spend less attention on things that are mostly inactive (Unlocks the ability to mothball an installation for 10% of it's build cost, free reactivation that takes a few weeks. May unlock techs to allow you to freely turn things on and off, as well as increasing the speed of reactivation enough for you to keep military installations mothballed until they're needed.)

-[] Habitation Requires Correct Ingredients (200 RP) If a planet lacks an essential element, there's not that much you can do about that. Well, there isn't unless you lack imagination. You could crash comets and asteroids into the planet and get volatiles that way - but it would take a lot of them. Still, doable, if expensive. (Unlocks the ability to add essential elements to planets that lack them. Likely expensive, though further research will reduce the cost).
Stealth: -[] Improved Spaceship Passive Stealth (200 RP) Your current stealth systems are effective, but it would be nice if they were a little bit more effective. And maybe a bit cheaper. (Improves the effect and cost of stealth hull equipment. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth.)

-[] Low-Emission equipment (150 RP) Hiding a ship's profile versus active and passive sensors is one thing, but hiding engine signatures and heat dumping is entirely another. (Unlocks new non-combat equipment to allow ships to maneuver and do other things without destroying their stealth. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. May unlock technology to allow weapons fire without breaking stealth.)

-[] Reduced Thruster Emissions (100 RP). Your thrusters work by spitting high-energy particles into space, which inherently emit energy. It might be possible to tune those emission ranges so that your thruster plumes blend into the cosmic background. Or something. (Unlocks new equipment to reduce the signal of ships under thrust. Unlocks further technology to hide ship movement, or fake out enemy targeting predictions.)

-[] Active Spaceship Stealth (150 RP) Not returning a sensor signal is one thing, but actively providing false signals is another, and something that the Drukhari are evident masters of. (Unlocks new equipment to improve ship stealth against various sensors that you can't trick any other way. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. May unlock technology to hide your position and prevent enemies from getting good targeting.)

-[] Ground force stealth standardization (150 RP) It takes some time and effort to design stealth versions of various units, and they end up more expensive to produce. If you take another look at the process with an eye towards standardizing it you could probably improve that. (Reduces the BP & RP cost of stealth modifications for ground forces, potentially to zero.)

-[] Improved Passive Stealth (50 RP) Ok, you've figured out the basics of hiding your small craft, but you have ideas on what you can do better, that might allow them to hide from even fully-alert enemies. They probably won't be able to close all the way to attack range, but they'll be able to get a lot closer (Unlocks improved stealth designs with improved performance. Unlocks further research for advanced passive stealth technologies. Will synergize with other stealth research.)

-[] Improved Active Stealth (150 RP) Again, moving towards the idea of actively countering sensors so they can't see you. It's a cat-and-mouse game with sensors, and you want to be the cat. (Improved stealth designs for actively hiding signatures. Unlocks further research for advanced active stealth, and will synergize with other stealth research.)

-[] Optical Camouflage (300 RP) Covering your units with holograms to make them harder to see with the naked eye sounds like a simple concept, but it very much is not. You need to know where the watcher is, project an image of what's behind you, and make it account for the movement of both the viewer and object. Unless you can think of a better idea. (Unlocks a blueprint modification to make your units harder to see. Unlocks further visual camouflage capabilities that might be closer to true invisibility)

-[] Examine the Dark Eldar Craft (150 RP) The Dark Eldar boarding craft showed incredible stealth capabilities. If you can figure out how it works that would be a great way to improve your own stealth capabilities (Discounts all stealth technology, may unlock unique stealth research and let you see through Eldar stealth better) Requires Advanced Technological Research Lab, which you have.
Shields: -[] Heavy Void Shield Miniaturization (150 RP) Your best shields require multiple emitters, with heavier power demands. That means they can't be fit on anything smaller than a ship. (Unlocks heavy void shields for destroyers, as well as improving void shields mounted on vehicles and small craft. Unlocks improved personal void shields.)

-[] Heavy In-atmosphere void shields (100 RP) Well, the void shields you have are nice. But it would be nice to be able to build bigger ones, that can shrug off essentially any possible orbital bombardment. You need to figure out how to take advantage of the ridiculous energy and heat dissipation capabilities of being on a planet. (Unlocks heavy and super-heavy void shield installations. May unlock research towards better overall void shielding.)

-[] Void Shield Layering (300 RP) If you could layer multiple shields together, then when one failed the second could take damage while the first recharged. Right now there's harmonics that prevent this, but you are sure you can figure it out... with a full redesign. (Unlocks the ability to layer two sets of shields. Will unlock research for more layers of shielding, weirder shapes of shields and other specialty modules)

-[] Void Shield Discounts (200 RP) You have some ideas on how to swap out materials or simplify designs to reduce the costs of void shields. (Reduces the cost of void shields across the board. May lead to new kinds of mundane applications for void shields, such as manufacturing modules, shielded fighters or shuttles)
Materials & Armor: -[] Superheavy Armor (200 RP) Let's just stick starship armor on them and call it a day. (Unlocks superheavy tanks. Prerequisite for space-marine-quality power armor)

-[] Chaos Space Marine Armor Investigation (100 RP) Between the dozen corpses you can almost certainly piece together a full suit or two of armor from the chaos space marines. What does it do? Why is it covered with horns? (Significant discounts on space-marine power armor research, potential discounts on robotics and cybernetics, may unlock further research to improve power armor. Potential identification of strengths and weaknesses of Black Legion power armor).

-[] Advanced Materials (250 RP) You know there are exotic elements with absurd physical properties. But it's also possible to build absurdly strong materials with common elements. How does that work? Time to dust off some ancient research projects and figure this stuff out. (Unlocks improved armor, as well as research to unlock megastructures. Also required for battleships and larger walkers)

-[] Heavy Armor Production Line (100 RP) You can make Heavy armor, but you solved the problem by effectively making each suit into a custom-crafted suit full of expensive actuators. Maybe a redesign will make it cheap enough to mass-produce, and unlock follow-on research. (Dramatically reduces cost for heavy armor, and subsequent superheavy armor. May unlock more options for heavy armor, including integrated mobility options)

-[] Armor Device Integration (200 RP) Your armor blocks blows, which is its basic purpose. Still, it would be great to be able to integrate different devices into it - void shields, psytech, mobility options like jetpacks, holdout weapons and more. (Unlocks the ability to design specialty types of medium, heavy and superheavy armor that contain additional functions, many of which will be unlocked by other technology.)

-[] Temperature? Let's talk Albedo (150 RP) To change the temperature of a planet, you simply need to change how much it's absorbing and re-radiating, then let the energy of a local star do the rest. (Unlocks projects to heat or cool planets over decades with surprisingly minimal investment. Unlocks further improvements and potential weaponization.)

-[] The Golden Metal (200 RP) On Calderath, inside the Sector Governer's Hall of Wonders, in place of pride, you found a piece of golden metal supposedly from the Emporer's armor. What is it? What can it do? Why does it react stragely to psychic energy? Can you shape it into something for Cia? How can you find more? (A basic understanding of auramite and how to work it. Will unlock further research to prospect for it more efficiently - or potentially synthesize it eventually). Write in if you'd like to fashion what you have into the edge of a weapon or part of a piece of psytech for Cia.
Necrons: -[] Necron Initial Investigations (200 RP) You've got these scary robots lying in prison cells as if you're afraid they'll come to life and attack. Which you are. But the reason you have them is to study them, so start studying them. Everything about them is fascinating, from the materials they're made from to their mode of articulation to their processing units and even some faint radiation they're giving off. (Begins the necron research tree). Requires advanced technological research lab, which you have.
Robotics: -[] Avatar self-customization (100 RP) Your previous avatar was capable of changing its appearance at your whim, changing the hair, eye and skim color rapidly. Hair length and body size changes took a bit longer but were also possible. Is this worth figuring out? It might just be you being vain. (Unlocks some disguise-style cybernetics... once you get good cybernetics and can do things like skin/eye replacements).

-[] Improved Armor Articulation (50 RP) From your research on humanizing combat bots you have some ideas about improving the points of articulation on armor to increase the range of motion and make the suits more responsive. (Increased performance & mobility for heavier armor, both for combat bots & people wearing heavy armor you make. May unlock further armor upgrade techs)

-[] Combat Bot Melee Combat (150 RP) Your bots aren't armed for melee combat, and don't really have the articulation for it. If you could fix that, maybe they wouldn't be so vulnerable to close-range combat. (Gives your combat bots melee weapons and basic proficiency with them. Will unlock technology for improved melee proficiency, as well as synergize well and potentially unlock technology for improved melee weaponry.)

-[] Cradle Facilities (150 RP) Making a human being is just the first step in creating a person. Then you gotta raise them, which is a dangerous and difficult process. Designing the robotics to do that doesn't involve a single enormous breakthrough, but rather a million small advancements and integrations to care for children as they grow. (Unlocks facilities to raise & educate babies to adulthood, as well as further research for full eduction of people).

-[] Really good Robotics: (600 RP) You know it's possible to make robots that are really strong. You've seen the specs floating around. You just don't quite know how to do it, though you've got some ideas on the matter... it would take quite a bit of simulation and a lot of trial and error to bring them into reality (Unlocks improvements to avatars, power armor, cybernetics, combat bots, improved manufactories). Acquire samples of advanced robots to reduce this cost.
Artifical Intelligence: -[] Improved Reasoning Capacity (300 RP) You're already extremely good at connecting the dots, doing analysis on confusing data and creative thought. Improving your capabilities on this front will be tricky, but may be very rewarding (Improves RP produced per action by an amount depending on your roll. May lead to further RP-generating techs, or techs to improve the output of organics with your implants)

-[] Grafted Memory Modules (100 RP) You appear to have built out a fairly modular network of keeping track of everything already, so it shouldn't be too hard to add some more capacity in that respect. (Improves CP cap by an amount depending on your roll. Likely leads to further CP-improvement capabilities, as well as installations that improve local CP efficiency).

-[] Assembling Awareness (250 RP) You think you understand how to build another AI core. It won't be a copy of you, but rather its own person that you will need to raise, which will probably take about the same amount of time as raising a human. (Figure out how to build a new AI core with capabilities depending on rolls, which will become an option under blueprints. Does not automatically build a new AI, merely unlocks the option. Unlocks more technologies to improve their capabilities, guide their development, or streamline production).

-[] Enemy Action Simulation (250 RP) You've never been good at military matters, and it's probably because you're bad at putting yourself in the shoes of somebody who wants to kill you. But there's probably a way around that, if you're willing to put in the work. (Grants Vita a bonus to military rolls, like she has for diplomacy & research. Likely to be smaller at first, but leads to future technology that may raise it to +10).

-[] The Soul in the Machine (200 RP) Anexa has demonstrated proof that you have a soul. There are a lot of potential implications here, but the one she's locked onto is that this might be the key to uploading a human into an AI core. (Unlocks & discounts further technology for Vita to directly interface with psychic technology and potentially wield psytech herself. Part of a tech-tree along with some cybernetics and other AI techs to upload people into empty AI cores.)

- [] Personality-Checking Routines (100 RP) All of this chaos-corruption is making you nervous. People changing according to the will of some warp-entity? Becoming different in ways that would disgust their past selves? That gives you the heebee-jeebies. Maybe - just maybe - it would be good to develop some ways to automatically check if aspects of your personality are diverging ways you don't want them to. Then you might be able to fix the problem before you become somebody who doesn't want (Gives you some algorithms to check for personality divergence in AIs. Doesn't do anything, just alerts you to changes and lets you decide what steps to take. Unlocks further research to prevent/rollback personality change, as well as potentially extend this research to humans with neural implants).
Psychic Shielding: -[] Better Psychic Shielding Efficiency (125 RP) You've figured out how to make your shielding modular, but each panel is still tricky to make. If you spent some time iterating that design you think you could make them even easier to make, and potentially power powerful (Further Improves the BP/HP ratio for psychic shields, may improve the HP of shielding you can pack into a unit of space.)

-[] Large-scale Design-integrated psychic shielding (150 RP) Figure out how to build psychically-shielded hull plating on the cheap. Start installing psychic shielding into hull plates as the norm. Every ship will have psychic shielding (Makes the cheapest version of psychic shielding free & automatic for all ships and platforms. Will unlock research to make cheaper shielding better)

-[] Offensive Shielding meanings (200 RP) You're starting to figure out the rules behind designing new kinds of psychic shielding, but you think that the designs branch by intent. Using the psychic shielding offensively might let you do things like put it into projectiles, project the effect away from the physical shielding, and maybe even enhance the descrutive power of weapons. (Unlocks new shielding meanings that can be used offensively, including in ranged weaponry. May lead to further techs to impose nasty warp effects on local areas, entirely technologically).

-[] Defensive Shielding meanings (200 RP) Your "no" shielding works well, but there's a lot of room to improve it in all sorts of ways, from strength to the area protected to extending to the material properties of armor. (Unlocks new shielding meanings that improve the defensive capabilities of psychic shields, unlocks research for meanings that improve the base toughness of whatever the shielding is attached to.)

-[] Utility Shielding meanings (200 RP) There's a lot of potential in your psychic shields to influence the local warp, to have all kinds of impacts on the local area. Who knows what kinds of powers that will unlock? (Unlocks new shielding meanings that do various things, including better stealth, improved psytech, faster movement etc. Will lead to future research for various random utility meanings.)

-[] Self-repairing psychic shielding (175 RP) Once you have a thinking, even if non-sapient, being in the loop on your psychic shielding, you can start to think about building it out of a material that'll let it self-repair after damage. (Your psychic shielding will repair when not in combat).

-[] Tiny Psychic shielding (250 RP) You were able to make your smaller psychic shielding by stacking the components and using the interference caused to generate the proper effect. However, you don't understand that interference well enough to go any smaller. Once you do, you can start to try to make actually tiny versions of the psychic shielding, small enough to fit in implants, or potentially into totems that project the shielding effect outside of themselves. (Fixes the issues with personal psychic shields, unlocks the ability to create implants with psychic shielding capability and potentially allows you to make amulets with psychic shields. May unlock additional technology to make all of that better.) Requires Triple Nested Psychic shielding

-[] Triple Nested Psychic shielding (200 RP) You've had two shields, yes. What about three? (Allows you to have three layers of shielding active at once. May unlock tech to allow inner shields to boost outer shields to be greater than the sum of their parts)

-[] Multi-meaning shields (250 RP) Your current shields say "No." Other sayings probably exist, and saying multiple things at the same time might have more esoteric effects, such as damaging attackers or defending better against certain types of attacks. Combining multiple of those into one shield could be powerful. (Allows you to combine two shield types together into one shield. May unlock further research for further combination, or to say one meaning EXTRA HARD.)

-[] Scrapcode Denial (250 RP) Scrapcode - and psychic corruption in general - is a difficult opponent. It's hard to enforce mistakes when it can magically see through your defenses. But if you could incorporate psychic encryption into that approach, it becomes viable again. (Makes your shielding Extraordinarily resistant to potentially completely immune to scrapcode-based attacks. Does not apply to machine spirits yet. May unlock technology to apply to other kinds of corruption. Likely synergistic with generating your own scrapcode)

-[] Psychic Shield Tuning (125 RP) Your new scrapcode defenses help against scrapcode, but not necessarily other threats. This research would potentially allow you to tune the capabilities of your shielding on the fly to improve performance against other angles of attack. Likely to allow psychic shielding to physcially block demons. (Resistance to specific types of attack will improve with exposure, up to a cap. Unlocks more research to allow for more flexible shielding that can target specific weaknesses of various psychic enemies. Synergizes with mutli-meaning shielding.)

-[] Enhanced Psychic Encryption (150 RP) You can block normal scrying and warp communication, as if you were encrypting everything. But it's possible that really good scryers could unscramble the signals somehow. Maybe? You're not sure. Still, it would be good to cut off the possibility. (New versions of psychic shielding that block even scrying & communication by expert seers. Likely to unlock specialized research to build installations that will deny scrying and foresight over a larger area - like a planet or system.) Requires Immaterium Understanding
The Warp: -[] Help Aurora's Training (50 RP) By spending more analysis time monitoring Aurora's training, you can provide feedback that will help her understand her powers and avoid bad outcomes (Gives a +10 to any Aurora training dice this turn. Repeatable.) Requires that Aurora be doing the training action.

-[] Teleportation is like skipping a stone (150 RP) Teleporters work by skipping a cargo across the shallow warp, linking two places for a moment. They are limited in many ways. Now that you understand that, you can find the limits to extend range, capacity and think about other ways to utilize the same general idea. (Improves teleporters for boarding, may lead to the ability to directly teleport to planetary surfaces. Unlocks further research for further improving the teleporter, as well as potentially leading to warp portals, which is likely required for webway understanding).

-[] The Epicure of Chaos (50 RP) You can bin warp signatures into blessings, artifacts or rituals, as well as distinguish what god they came from. But you're not sure if you could tell apart a ritual of summoning from a ritual of empowerment or a ritual meant to attack an enemy. Work on that. (Allows you to detect what kind of ritual/blessing/artifact you're dealing with on the fly. Unlocks new intelligence when dealing with chaos, as well as the potential for actively countering or interfering with chaos when paired with alternative shielding meanings).

-[] The faintest whiff of the Chaos-Touched (100 RP) Warp signatures linger on objects and people. It'll be a short range-sensor, and may end up being some kind of scanner, but you can probably tease out the passive remnants of a ritual or even association with chaos-blessed objects on a person. (Unlocks improvements to sensors that will let you detect people who've been in proximity to a chaos ritual or have touched a chaos artifact, even if they bear no blessing.)

-[] Shards of Humming Gemstone (100 RP) The shards of crystal you recovered from the ritual don't carry an inherent chaos taint of their own, but they resonate with the warp somehow. The largest piece you have is the size of a human hand, maybe you can figure out what it is and how to use it? (May unlock new options for using, finding or synthesizing this warp-reactive substance, as well as discounts to technologies that involve resonance with the warp.)

-[] Mobile Warpaphones (225 RP) Your warp senders are currently impossible to move - they need to be constructed in tune with the local warp environment in order to send clear signals over massive distances. Making them continually tunable would likely allow mobile warpaphones, and may be the first step towards overcoming jamming or warp phenomenon that would otherwise disrupt communication. (Unlocks warpaphone ship equipment, unlocks further research to harden the warphaphone against jamming or other things that might distort the signals, may lead to techs that make comms robust against warp storms or the shadow in the warp).

-[] Smaller Warpaphones (100 RP) The current warpaphone is a massive and expensive construct, using raw power to overcome a few of the technical challenges involved in sending a clear signal over light years. It's probably possible to solve those challenges in a more efficent way (reduces the cost, and size of the warpaphone.)

-[] Boosted Warpaphones (125 RP) 3 systems is an impressive range, but it's not as far as you would like. It's probably possible to boost that range, though it may require an even larger warpaphone construct. (Boosts the range of the existing warpaphone, on a low roll unlocks a bigger version with longer range. May unlock further research for even further range or versions that aid in warp navigation) Requires Immaterium Understanding

-[] Warpaphone Amplification (150 RP) If you boost the strength of the warpaphone, you might be able to work out ways to have it constructively interfere with itself, potentially boosting the signal of smaller warpaphones or letting the larger ones reach ridiculous distances (Increases the range of warpaphones in parallel to boosted warpaohones).

-[] Precise Warpaphones (250 RP) Right now the precision on your warpaphones is pretty good - it can hit a single system from light-years away. But it might be possible to refine that even further, to hit a single planet in that system without anybody off-planet being the wiser. It might also help make a offensive version of the warpaphone more effective (Boosts the precision of the warpaphone, further reduces the chance of eavesdropping, improves effects of offensive warpaphones)

-[] Modulated Warpaphones (250 RP) Meaningfully increasing the transmission throughput of the warpaphone is... hard. You need to increase the throughput of information by a couple of orders of magnitude, through some combination of increasing the numbers of signals you can distinguish and increasing the speed at which you can send them. (Allows sending techs and design details over interstellar distances, unlocks techs for continual control of CP-requiring units over interstellar distances).

-[] Psychic Triangulation (150 RP) Your psychic sensors give you directionality for nearby things, but for things that are farther away there's less clarity because warp signals don't propagate smoothly. Maybe you can figure out a workaround? (allows precise targeting of psychic signals from long range, useful to identify which ships to target, or exactly which compartment of a station houses a ritual. Leads to research to pinpoint signals like scrying over interstellar distances)

-[] Emotional Interpretation (200 RP) If your psychic shielding is so sensitive, you could develop it into a way to read strong emotions off of people in close proximity, as a kind of technological telepathy. (Unlocks new capabilities for interrogation and intelligence gathering, as well as potential narrative effects).

-[] Warp Weather Prediction (150 RP) The Warp has been said to have "weather." Well, at least storms. But if you're constantly monitoring the signals from your psychic shielding, you can start to make predictions about what will come. That... might be useful. (Likely to give you advance warning of significant warp-effects, especially warp storms. May unlock further research to improve warp navigation, and if you crit again, a strange kind of warp-based technological foresight.)

-[] Warp Manufacturing (125 RP) The laws of physics break down in the warp, and in spaces influenced by the warp. This includes creating impossible structures and pushing materials beyond their limits. Figuring out how to use that might be tricky, but will probably be quite rewarding. (Figure out ways to use warptech to improve mundane manufacturing, unlocks techs for both mass-production and relic-tier artificing). Requires Immaterium understanding.

-[] Vortex Weapons (250 RP) When you first read about them vortex weapons sounded... terrifying. Now you're even more scared. Still, that might be a nice thing to have in your arsenal at some point. (Unlocks basic vortex weaponry. Likely further research for larger and smaller vortex weapons). Locked behind High-energy Physics

-[] Reliable Gellar Fields (200 RP) Your gellar field technology is capable, but for something that important you want it to be rock-solid. That'll probably require a full redesign, but having a gellar field that cannot be knocked out without destroying a good chunk of your ship seems like it might be a good investment. (Improves your gellar field technology to make it more reliable and redundant. Will help you resist demonic attacks in the warp.)

-[] Faith is my shield? (75 RP) Clearly the Imperium believes that faith can protect you from warp gribblies. It even seems like it might be true. How? Is there a way you can harness the effect without having to dedicate yourself to the Imperial creed? Also, what's going on with this skeletal hand you found? (Understanding the benefits of Faith. May unlock further research to allow Vita to design a less objectionable faith optimized for warp protection, and help develop better psyker training programs. Likely to unlock further understanding of relics and their usage.)

-[] Bell, Book and Candle (200 RP) Needing to set up a whole ritual for demonic binding and banishment is... potentially an issue. Trying to come up with all-purpose rituals that can be deployed offensively might be a useful tool to have in your pocket. (Develops anti-daemonic equipment for blueprint modification, as well as unlocks new narrative options for dealing with demons. May lead to research for ship-scale anti-daemonic equipment.)

-[] Read the Fine Print (200 RP) Summoning Demons is generally viewed as a bad idea. However, if you take the appropriate precautions, it can be an effective way to gain information, recruit footsoldiers, leave some damned nasty booby traps or even bind them into objects for an extra oomph. (Gains the ability to summon demons without significant investment. May lead to further research to bind demons into objects to make some pretty crazy items. Synergistic with warp manufacturing).

-[] Immaterium Understanding (200 RP) Anexa believes she understands something fundamental about the warp. Do some experiments to see if she's right. (Further discounts on all warp-related research, potential to unlock a research from farther down a warp research tree while skipping prerequisites) Anexa must work on this action. Likelier level(s) for her. Requires Warp Research Lab.

-[] Improved Void Abacus (125 RP) You understand how the Void Abacus works now, and you think you can tweak it to be better. That involves some amount of expanding and improving its connection to the warp though, so you're far from certain (Improves your Void Abacus design to be faster and better at warp jumps, though still inferior to an average navigator. May unlock further optimization of Void Abaci, including for cost/unstable warp jumps).

-[] The Basics of Psychic Computation (200 RP) You have several examples of different kinds of cogitators that interact with the warp in some way. They all share some kind of neural network system, but are very different in other ways. If you can figure out the minimal requirement for something to be psychically active - well. That would have implications. (Improves psychic shielding research, psytech research, some machine spirit research, may improve scrapcode research. Will help genetic manipulation to create psykers. May lead to a research tree to make psychic AIs or implants that grant psychic powers).
Psytech: -[] Help Cia's Training (50 RP) By spending more time with Cia, actively monitoring her use of her powers and providing feedback, you can improve the quality and outcomes of her training (Gives a +10 to any Cia training dice this turn, and may result in new kinds of outcomes. Can be improved by further pyromantic research. Repeatable)

-[] The Sight of the Navigator (250 RP) Understanding a navigator's sight is one thing. Boosting it is quite another. But better vision should allow Aurora to pick out even better paths through the warp, and that will let you move faster (Enhances the speed gained from Aurora's Navigate action, may unlock additional uses for a navigator's sight). Requires Complex Psytech Implants

-[] Basic Psychic Amplification Devices (75 RP) You think you understand the principles of psychic amplification, but to actually confirm that you need to build one and see if it works. (Allows you to build basic psychic staffs or other personal psychic amplification devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic amplification, as well as larger amplification constructs.)

-[] Advanced Psychic Suppression Devices (200 RP) Your psyker hoods are basic. There are a number of ways to make them more powerful, capable of more impressive feats of suppression. (Unlocks improved psychic hoods and potentially other types of psychic suppression devices, leads to further research for both passive and active )

- [] Big Psychic Suppression devices (250 RP) There's no reason the principle of psychic suppression can't be expanded to larger areas, allowing your psykers to actively counteract psychic effects on the scale of ships or maybe even planets. (Allows you to build larger-scale ship- or installation-sized psychic supression systems. Unlocks research to make even bigger versions.)

-[] Complex Psytech Implants (250 RP) Adapting what you know from organic-machine control implants, you can give a psyker greater control over their implants, in turn allowing you to give psytech implants more capabilities and more power that requires active tuning on the fly. (Improves psytech implants in terms of both precision and raw power)

- [] Improved Psychic weapons (250 RP) You are starting to understand how force weapons work, but you're far from perfecting them. There's definitely work to be done on the composition of the main weapon, and if you can figure out how to grow crystals into the proper orientation that will help, and the psi-convectors and... well. It's almost easier to list the ways you can't improve them. (Further improves force weapons in every way. Potential to unlock specialized kinds of force weapons, such as versions specialized to fight specific foes and maybe large-scale force weapons such as ship rams).

- [] Psychic Aegis (200 RP) Psychically enhancing a weapon in combat is an obvious application, but the equally-obvious follow-on is enhancing armor. Or shields. Whatever. General defensive measures. It would be significantly more complicated than a simple weapon, and shields are probably the first step. But still - that would be a path to near-invincibility. (Allows you to create force shields and armor. Unlocks further research for improved force armor and other kinds of large-scale defensive psytech).

- [] Psychic Materials (250 RP) Silver. Specific kinds of crystals. Chitin? What unifies those things? What is it that makes them warp-conductive? If you can figure that out, maybe you can start designing new warp-capable materials that are better. (Psytech improvements across the board in terms of new materials, likely follow-on research into specific specialty materials and applications. Will be improved by samples of additional psionically active materials).

- [] Pyromancy Staff (200 RP) Amplifying a specific kind of psyker powers should allow you to amplify them even more. (Allows you to build pyromancy-focused psychic amplifiers, with the most common one being in the shape of a staff. Will unlock further pyromancy-specialized equipment, including larger-scale and more powerful amplifiers that may be relevant in ship combat.)

- [] Improved Pyromantic understanding (300 RP) Cia's eager to delve further into the secrets of pyromancy, and if you tried you could follow along for the ride. Any maybe figure out how to model this specific kind of psychic power. (Improves all pyromancy-focused psytech, improves the Help Cia's Training action and may unlock research towards influencing young psykers towards pyromancy.)

-[] Basic Divination understanding (100 RP) Gwen's naturally inclined towards futuresight with her power. You could try and figure out more details about how that works, though it'll rely on her to generate somewhat larger-scale effects. (Allows you to build divination- focused psytech, and potentially unlock new kinds of actions or narrative options for Gwen) Locked until Gwen reaches level 5.

-[] Basic Telepathic understanding (100 RP) Telepathy psytech would be a powerful addition to your staff's abilities, especially for covert ops, interrogation and crowd control capabilities. (Allows you to build telepathy-focused psytech, and potentially unlock new kinds of actions or narrative options for Gwen's staff) Locked until Gwen's staff reaches level 5.

-[] Basic Telekinetic understanding (100 RP) Telekinetic psytech would be a powerful addition to your staff's abilities, especially for more controlled combat, manufacturing and other potential advantages. (Allows you to build telekinetic-focused psytech, and potentially unlock new kinds of actions or narrative options for Gwen's staff) Locked until Gwen's staff reaches level 5.

-[] Basic Biomantic understanding (100 RP) Biomantic psytech would be a powerful addition to your staff's abilities, especially for healing, enhancement and understanding biological samples. (Allows you to build biomancy-focused psytech, and potentially unlock new kinds of actions or narrative options for Gwen's staff) Locked until Gwen's staff reaches level 5.

-[] Cross-Discipline Psytech usage (300 RP) Understanding the differences between the disciplines is an imposing task. But if you understand something about what differentiates their psytech, you may be able to adapt them such that somebody in one discipline can use psytech belonging to another. It won't work as well, but you think it's possible. (Allows psykers of one discipline to use psytech from another discipline to replicate some effects of that discipline. May lead to further improvements, and allowing psykers branch into other disciplines more easily). Requires all five of the "basic psytech understanding" techs.

-[] Destructive Scrapcode Investigation (200 RP) Well, if Bongo doesn't want to play ball, maybe you need to go in there and figure out what makes the scrapcode generator tick. Time to bring out the power tools. (Discounts existing scrapcode research, may unlock new research around psytech/psychic shielding. Gives better understanding of Chaos Demons. Destroys the scrapcode generator and likely banishes Bongo back to the warp.)

-[] Scrapcode Generation (300 RP) You have the barest hints as to how you might start generating scrapcode. You need to imbue psychic meaning into code. You're not quite sure how you might go about that, but it's an interesting avenue to chase down. (Unlocks the ability to create and hack with your own brand of scrapcode) Requires psytech past Basic Psychic Amplification Devices, as well as Rapid hacking

-[] Sigils of Power (250 RP) There are various sigils that are effective in binding, banishing and damaging demons. They can probably be integrated with psytech to be even more effective. (Modifies psytech to be especially effective at hurting, protecting against and evading demons. May unlock further research towards demon-interacting psytech).
Physics: -[] Dark Eldar Weaponry (150 RP) You have a few examples of Dark Eldar weaponry. Some of it just uses esoteric poisons, but other parts seem based on physical princples you can't identify. That's exciting (Unlocks new weapons based on Dark Eldar small-arms weaponry) Requires Advanced Technological Research Lab, which you have.

-[] Grav Weapon Lensing (150 RP) Grav weapons are powerful, but a big problem is their range. You think you have the solution if you can successfully lens the gravity effect, but it's going to be tricky. (Unlocks the grav lance, a medium-range gravity weapon. May lead to further gravity weapons & finer control of gravity effects.)

-[] Grav weapon overclocking (150 RP) The big advantage of gravity weapons is their ability to go straight through armor. But your current gravity weapons are continuous, meaning they need to be locked on for a period of time to have an effect. If you can pulse the effect, that may lead to something rather destructive. (unlocks the grav pulsar, a short-range burst weapon that causes high damage instantly before needing to recharge. May unlock more research for exotic weaponry, such as grav-equipped melee weapons and rams).

-[] Bootstrapping a magnetic field (200 RP) If a planet's magnetic field is dead then in the short term it'll be bombarded with hazardous levels of radiation, and in the long term whatever atmosphere is present will get blown off into space by stellar wind. But there might be a way to fix that? (Unlocks a rather expensive semi-megastructure project to start up magnetic fields. Unlocks further research to cheapen the process. May lead to some crazy research into utilizing or messing with star or gas-giant magnetic fields.) Requires Advanced Materials.

-[] The Promise of Superconductivity (250 RP) Now that you know the scope of the challenge, you think there's actually a lot of promise here. The problem is that you're not going to be able to just read literature, but actually come up with something yourself. (Discounts across many researches involving high current, a flat production boost of 10-20% depending on rolls, and potentially discounts on ship/bot equipment depending on rolls.)

-[] Miniaturized antigrav (50 RP) You can make antigrav that reduces the weight of things like shuttles to make them able to make orbit. But there's a floor on how small you can make that technology. The Imperium seems to have solved that. (Unlocks drones, jump-packs etc, as well as additional research to make antigrav vehicles/walkers)

-[] Large-scale Grav manipulation (200 RP) Your gravity-manipulation is fine for small craft, but not ideal for bigger structures. This limits the scale of what you can control with antigrav. If you can build bigger system, that unlocks all sorts of interesting possibilities (Unlocks ship modules to allow ground landings, floating cities for colonizing gas giants, new lift capabilities and research for new kinds of megastructures)

-[] High-energy Physics (200 RP) There's some pretty crazy stuff you can do with physics. Especially when the energy exponents really start getting insane. However, that's going to take a bit of testing - maybe on a planetoid you don't care too much about. Or in space. (The next steps towards bigger, badder weapons, such as fusion beamers, volkite weapons, disintegration weapons. Half of the research for vortex weaponry.) Requires a High-Energy Physics Research Lab

-[] Antimatter is Dang Scary (250 RP) So. Antimatter. A staple of science fiction since time immemorial. The problem with dealing with antimatter is that it requires nothing less than perfection in every respect. One flaw in containment and suddenly you've got an anhillation reaction on your hands. Another problem is actually reacting it in a controlled way, since it favors incomplete reactions which result in the rest of the antimatter going the other direction at a speed close to light. Hmm. That might be interesting to weaponize (Unlocks methods to manufacture antimatter, which is a special resource that can be used to upgrade explosive weapons to incredible yields. May unlock technologies for weapons that fire beams of antimatter, which would be... dangerous.) Requires High-energy Physics.

-[] Better Sensors are just Physics (150 RP) You've made some progress on better sensors, but if you're really going to go to the next level you're going to start looking for edge cases. Things that are hard or downright impossible to hide, and will give away an enemy ship no matter its stealth. (Unlocks better basal sensors across the board, as well as improves specific stealth technologies. Synergizes with stealth research, unlocks even better sensors and may unlock long-range sensors to do detailed scans from across the system).

-[] Combat Information Gathering (200 RP) Many ship weapons are slow-firing and demand specific responses. If you can tell what an enemy ship is going to do before it does it, that will give you a tactical advantage. (Allows you to detect and decode energy signals to predict enemy ship activities, giving an advantage in combat. Will help more the better your sensors are. Will synergize well with boarding, may unlock targeted-teleportation technology and technology to target weak-points).
Machine Spirits: -[] Machine Spirit Ground Strategy (250 RP) Your bots can coordinate on the small scale, but being able to manage larger battles and fights is beyond them. If you can figure out how to connect individual squad networks together you can improve their performance. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued infantry & vehicle forces over the scale of theaters. Will unlock further technology for improved strategic coordination.)

-[] Machine Spirit Combat Bot Flexibility (250 RP) Your bots can do one thing, and that's win fights with lethal force. If you want them to do things like take captives, or avoid collateral damage, then you're going to need to teach them to do that. (Enables enhanced flexibility of orders for your combat bots. May unlock greater creativity in problem-solving on the part of your combat bots, as well as the capability for the bots to be effective at medicine or other tasks)

-[] Machine Spirit Void Tactics (100 RP) Fighting a ship is a very different thing from fighting on the ground, but many of the principles are similar. Adapt them. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued ships and void fighters. May unlock technology for improved strategic coordination. If you want to point your fleet at a system and say "Conquer it, spare the civilians" this is a good tech to have.)

-[] Advanced Large-scale Machine spirits (100 RP) Machine spirits scale strangely, and the effort of trying to keep them functional and stable as they get bigger is hard. But the value of them being so much easier to control is substantial (Raises the size limit on machine-spirit hull equipment.)

-[] Megastructure Machine Spirits (200 RP) A ship is a single entity that must be lean and efficient. But they also tend to be heavily standardized, with rugged construction and easy repairs. But a larger strucutre doesn't share those things, and needs to be able to deal with a greater diversity of modules (Unlocks machine spirit-improvements for larger facilities, including shipyards, larger manufactories and other potential megastructure-scale constructions).

-[] Independent Manufactories (300 RP) Your manufacturing machine spirits are pretty good at being independent but still require some direction on sourcing materials, and various types of blockages. If you give them more independence then they'd need even less management. But at the same time, building in that much independence would require appropriate safeguards so they didn't go off the rails. (Further reduce CP requirements of machine-spirit manufactories).

-[] Basic Automated Manufactories (150 RP) If you tool a factory and install a machine spirit optimized to make just one thing, then it can just keep doing it without your oversight. (Unlocks automated ground/orbital/deep space manufactories, which will continue to produce a single kind of product without requiring actions. Will require CP, and cannot make starships or installations. Unlocks further research to increase productivity, and flexibility, remove the CP requirement, as well as allow the automated manufactories to produce ships, installations and eventually megastructures).

-[] Machine Spirit Ship Design Improvements (200 RP) By encouraging creative and complex solutions to problems you can use the design-specialized machine spirits to improve your ship designs in exciting new ways. (Allows you to cram more things into void ships, depending on rolls. May unlock further research to further optimize cramming, as well as discount the absolute cost of various categories of ship components).

-[] Machine Spirit Hallucinations (150 RP) Your new machine spirits are capable of incredible creativity when you push them to solve impossible problems. A lot of it is silly and impossible, but buried within the morass are occasional nuggets of gold. Every good idea starts as a bad idea, so let's generate more ideas. (Improves the number of RP you get per action, though not by a huge amount. May unlock more research to further improve this number).

-[] Machine Spirit Chaos Immunity? (250 RP) You might be able to make your machine spirits "super-sane" and nearly impossible to hack with chaos shielding. It's likely to make them more expensive, but it may be worth it. (Unlocks blueprint options for ships & smaller units that makes them virtually immune to chaos takeover.)

-[] Psytech Machine spirits (100 RP) You don't think that machine spirits can be psychically active. However, from what you understand of psytech it's a temperamental and difficult discipline, and you think that integrating machine spirits into the construction of psytech might improve its reliability and performance. (Improves psytech, at the cost of making it somewhat more expensive. May lead to more advanced versions for more advanced psytech, and may contribute to better psychic shields)
Biology: -[] Cryogenics (200 RP) Freezing somebody and waking them up again without harm is a tricky thing, but it's most likely cheaper and more space-efficient than stasis fields. Though it'll be slower and likely only effective at larger scales (Unlocks cryosleep chambers for transporting large numbers of people.)

-[] Servitorization (50 RP) You find it repulsive, but being able to replace somebody's brain with a computer that drives them around would have its uses. (Unlocks the ability to servitorize people in the medbay. Unlocks follow-on research to replicate their personality as well)

-[] Variety is the Spice of Life (25 RP) Your current foray into aquaculture production is fully effective at feeding large numbers of people, but it also makes them try to drink an ocean the first time they eat it. And several times after that. And kind of kills their taste buds toward anything else. Maybe get some other versions of aquaculture working that don't do that? (Fixes the spice problem).

-[] Enhance the Agriculture! (150 RP) 15,000 people being fed from one facility sounds like a lot. But it's really not when you start to consider things like star systems. So far you've been playing with the hobby-version of aquaculture. More commercial versions used heavier food-manufacturing systems that are closer to organic printers. They'd probably be much more effective for feeding extremely large numbers of people. (Unlocks blueprints for extremely efficient methods to produce large amounts of food. Unlocks research to install tiny systems that fully substitute food needs, such as installing something onto a spacesuit that fully converts waste into delicious food).

-[] Calderath Stank-Be-Gone (150 RP) Calderath is an interesting case of a planet that doesn't need to be terraformed so much as ecologically engineered. You think you know how to do it - make a microbe that sinks the stupendous amount of seaweed standing up the oceans and buries it in ocean sediment. Actually making and deploying such a thing and having it do what you want is a different matter. (Potentially makes Calderath livable to humans again without breathing masks. Will cross-synergize with MICROBES, and both techs will discount each other) Write-in a risk tolerance. Depending on how well you roll you might not release it and instead get a follow-up action to further improve your solution. Even if you roll poorly and release it there will be a subsequent roll to determine success or failure.

-[] MICROBES: Miniaturized climate regulatory and optimized biogeochemical engineering symbionts (200 RP) Microbes are the chemical factories that reshape the chemistry of the planetary surface and atmosphere to your liking. Delving into the techniques used in the distance past to figure out how to engineer them would let you design better, faster terraforming organisms, as well as let them be applied to more extreme starting conditions (Improves, cheapens, accelerates and broadens the terraforming projects you have available. Unlocks further improvements and potential weaponization.)

-[] Study the Strange Seed (150 RP) Gwendolyn has a strange seed that occasionally seems to glint with golden light. What's... going on with that? Can you figure out what it is? Maybe clone it? (More information on the strange seed, potentially unlocks the ability to clone it, may unlock a questline of some kind). Requires Gwendolyn active action to research.

-[] Superhuman enhancements (150 RP) You know how to... optimize the human genome for enhanced performance. But there's room for improvement. How far can you push biology? (You can clone and edit humans with superhuman levels of performance.)

-[] Psyker genetics (100 RP) What makes somebody psychic? You have a psyker, and some genetic samples from others acquired from various trips to the monasteries. (Allows you to develop a test to determine psychic ability, though it won't be perfect. Unlocks further technology to clone psykers and potentially induce psychic abilities in adults.)

-[] Triggering mutations (150 RP) Mutations can sometimes have beneficial effects. Learning how to trigger those in particular might be an effective way to enhance people's bodies and souls. (Unlocks a new category of enhancements, though not one without risk) Requires Immaterium understanding.

-[] A Cure (200 RP) What are commonly termed "mutations" are not actually, precisely mutations. They're a mark on the body and the soul, requiring treatment across both fronts. Luckily enough, you have the tools to do so. (Allows for permanent curing of mutations.)

-[] Freedom of Form (150 RP) Your Cogitare requested that you modify them to have all sorts of nonhuman aesthetics. You're not quite sure how to do that, but you could figure it out. And then go further. Feathers, scales, fur, new body shapes, and more. Who knows what's possible? (Allows for a significant amount of cosmetic and not-so-cosmetic genetic augmentation. Abhumans on demand).

-[] New Body, Brain Missing (100 RP) Unlocks the ability to clone humans without fully developed brains, ripe for harvesting for organs or being used as new bodies if you can figure out mind-uploading (Improves medical devices, along with companion cogitators will unlock technology to allow for mind backup and uploading).

-[] The Tank-bred (100 RP) You know a number of mutations that can enhance human capabilities, and you're on the path to figuring out more. But cloning people carrying those traits is another matter. (Unlocks the ability to clone enhanced humans. That means people who are significantly smarter, stronger & faster than baseline, but with new technologies, it may include navigators, psykers or people with space-marine level augments).

-[] Alien Cloning (250 RP) Cloning humans is one thing, but extending those same capabilities to aliens... that would be dramatic indeed. Still, it's worth investigating (Can attempt to clone other generally humanoid species. may lead to techs to further enhance this capability).

-[] Lazarus Protocol (150 RP) So long as the brain isn't fully destroyed, it's possible to revive a body. Often with permanent, long-lasting damage to memory and body, but hey, they're alive. (Medical care can revive somebody from recently dead, or much, much longer if they were properly preserved.)

-[] Flesh is Clay (100 RP) So long as you have the parts, you can stitch them together as you like. This can be used to help people recover from even the most terrible wounds, or to create the kinds of abominations that cause terrible wounds. (Improved medical care, and unlocks the ability to build flesh abominations).

-[] Physical Apperance is Skin-deep (25 RP) Being able to do surgery on somebody's inside is one thing. But what about their outsides? (Unlocks cosmetic surgery to fix scars, alter appearances and even change skin tones. Unlocks follow-up research to allow you to disguise humans as xenos species whose biology you understand, or vice versa. May discount juvenat research.)

-[] Regeneration is just a matter of applied Growth (150 RP) You can make sure everything lines up properly to stimulate natural growth, but you can't actually accelerate it. Trying is a quick path to cancer and needs to be tweaked for every patient. That's why it wasn't common even in your time. But it should be possible, and you don't have to worry about pharmaceutical patents. (Your medical treatments have vastly accelerated healing timelines. Normally a prereq of juvenat, but in this case will simply have synergy. Unlocks further research for video-game-like med-kits and the ability to give people new organs without surgery)

-[] Perfect Knockout (75 RP) Your knockout gas is good, but it could be great. Increase dosage window, increase duration, decrease side effects. Make it absorb through exposed skin. (Dramatically improves effectiveness of knockout gas).

-[] Superhuman Uppers (75 RP) Pushing beyond the realm of what's normally possible for the human body is a recipie for disaster - unless you design the drugs right. (Unlocks drugs to boost human mental and physical characterstics beyond norms. Includes basic psytech drugs. Half of unlocking further psytech drugs).

-[] Juvenat Beginnings (150 RP) Ok. Juvenat is complicated. You're able to make it by following a formula that is at times precise, at times general and at times just - what? Maybe start to delve into the science of that. (Unlocks a basic understanding of juvenat, and may make it more efficient to produce. Tech cost will be reduced by other biomedical researchers. The start of the juvenat research tree.)

-[] Navigator Gestation (125 RP) Actually creating new navigators through cloning is something that the people who originally engineered them tried very hard to prevent. You think you can get around that. (Allows you to produce navigators through cloning.) Requires The Tank-Bred

-[] Navigator Medical Care (50 RP) The Navigators were a carefully designed sub-species of humanity. But ten thousand years of inbreeding and ham-handed solutions mean they have... issues. Maybe work on addressing those. (Dramatically reduced navigator health issues.)

-[] The Design of a Third Eye (300 RP) The design of the navigator's third eye is a work of dark genius. A warp portal inside somebody's head? Who thought that was a good idea? Why does it work? Can you make it better? Or steal it? (Potential to unlock enhancements to a navigator's third eye. May lead to enhancement of navigator movement speed or ways to integrate cloned navigator eyes into void abacus function.)

-[] Dubious Dark Eldar Dissections (75 RP) You've got some corpses of Dark Eldar. Time to take them apart and see what you can learn! (Gives you some details on Dark Eldar physiology. May provide bonuses towards psyker genetics, or develop medical techniques, drugs or implants for Eldar)
Cybernetics: -[] Combat Mobility Cybernetics (100 RP) Sticking rockets and grappling hooks into cybernetics isn't just cool. It's also useful - it'll let the wearers utilize more of the strength of their new limb without tearing apart their organic body. It'll also give them new maneuverability options. (Unlocks new parts for augments that enhance the wearer's strength and mobility. Synergizes with other technology, may unlock enhanced mobility for bots & armors)

-[] Combat Neural Implants (50 RP) Allows you to install neural implants to calculate trajectories, assist with aiming, further improve reaction time and generally improve human capabilities in combat. (Unlocks combat-focused neural implants. Will synergize with other cybernetics and neural implant technologies)

-[] Advanced organ replacements (50 RP) Your organ replacements almost fully replicate the real thing, but not quite. But they can't adjust to shocks in body homeostasis and they do need to be replaced every decade or so. You think you can make them as good or slightly better than the real thing, including the potential to grow with the bearer. (Unlocks organs which actually just replace normal organs almost perfectly. Likely to synergize with other implant/cybernetics/enhancement techs).

-[] Superhuman organ replacements (200 RP) Your organ replacements almost fully replicate the real thing, and have some useful auxiliary functions. But there's another level of improvement that's possible here. You could make organs that conveyed superhuman characteristics on the wearers. Improved oxygen transfer rate, improved bone density, immunity to most toxins, improved healing rate. (Unlocks advanced organs implants which grant superhuman capabilities. Not quite space-marine-level, but that's the next tech, though these are still artificial). Locked behind Advanced Combat cybernetics.

-[] Companion Cogitators (250 RP) Your implants are good. But they still rely on external computers for any heavy lifting. But with a good deal of work, and some effort at miniaturizing computation, data storage and power units you could fit a full computer into somebody, giving them access to a full suite of capabilities. (Powerful neural implants capable of incredible amounts of data crunching/cryptography, as well as full virtual presences. Further improves Organic-machine control, unlocks very powerful types of implants, including implanted machine spirits, full-dive VR, personality-backups and depending on other technology, minor AI assistants).

-[] Mood Regulators (100 RP) Interfacing the implant with the brain's emotional centers will allow it to regulate emotional states. Potentially useful to help the bearer regulate dangerous emotions like fear, lust, anger, greed, sloth, as well as emotional outbursts when such would be dangerous for them. Also potetnialyl useful for interrogation. (Your implants that can help with - or destroy - mental stability. Useful for those engaged with Chaos, and for unstable psykers. May unlock more technology geared towards ensuring a stable mental condition). Locked behind Drugs? Drugs.

-[] Pain Controller (100 RP) Pain is an incredibly deeply seated stimulus, and it's hard to block it without destroying a lot of senses. But if you manage it it could help immesurably with combat implants. (Your implants allow the deadening of pain, allowing people so implanted to fight or last through injuries and other bad feedback).

-[] Advanced Combat cybernetics (150 RP) Your cybernetics can easily contain light and some medium weapons, but they're not really suited to heavy combat. Yet. You could make them tougher, beefier, and figure out how to fit the power sources for larger weapons inside. (Unlocks advanced combat augments. Half of the technology for excellent combat augments, unlocks further cybernetics/research). Locked behind Really good Robotics.

-[] Advanced Cognition Filter (150 RP) Your existing Cognition Filter works very well, but you worry that it's prone to remove important details. It's hard to see how long an enemy's sword is when that sword is covered with Chaotic sigils, for example. Some amount of modelling and virtual reality augmentation could just replace that with an unadorned sword, circumventing the drawbacks of the first-generation cognition filter. (Improves Cognition filters to remove any downsides to filtering out chaotic information from perception.)

-[] Sanity Module (150 RP) By integrating your learnings from chaos-resistant machine spirits into implants, you can help ensure that people with your implants keep a firm grip on sanity. (Reduces the vulnerability of people with your implants to corruption of all kinds, as well as more normal psychoses. Helps stabilize psykers). Requires Companion Cogitators.

-[] Chaos Corruption Cognitive Intervention (225 RP) Chaos corruption is a lot of things. However, it almost certainly involves some amount of neural rewiring to think more Chaotic thoughts. With your neural implants, you believe you might be able to reverse that, using warp sensors to detect harmful thoughts, then a combination of memory editing, negative feedback and induced plasticity to undo the Chaotic brain patterns. This is unlikely to return them to how they were before, but it'll give them a chance to be somebody new without demons twisting their brain. (Your brain implants can slowly un-corrupt the mental side of chaos corruption). Requires Companion Cogitators & Understanding Mutations

-[] Vellkar Organic-Machine Control (200 RP) Adapting the organic-machine control implants to a new species is a tall challenge, and only one you'd really consider with their full cooperation and provisioning of willing test subjects. But it's not surprising, since it'll let the Vellkar match Denva's rate of technological development. (Enables your full suite of organic-machine control systems to work for the Vellkar, likely earning a significant amount of goodwill and enabling them to industrialize faster).

-[] Advanced Organic-Machine Control (150 RP) Given improved technology you think you can let a single person control an unprecedented amount of machinery. At some point a crew of humans will be able to have as much CP as you will. (Approximately doubles the capacity of organic-machine control, letting a single human command more CP worth of units. Leads to further follow-on improvements.) Requires Companion Cogitators.

-[] Collaborative Design Frameworks (100 RP) It's hard for a group of researchers to work together on a design, since it's nearly impossible for them to share the same vision. With your implants, that's fixable. (Allows teams of researchers to entriely design blueprints.)

-[] Collaborative Strategic R&D (200 RP) You've built tools to enable multiple teams to work together, but it's still hard to communicate discoveries to people in adjacent fields. Fixing that would enable the integration of an entire research ecosystem. (Further increases size of research team before RP/turn limit is reached, especially for many teams working on different topics. Will significantly boost research organizations comprised entirely of organics.)

-[] Streamlined OMC interface (50 RP) Your Organic-machine control implants are a beast to learn how to use, and the learning curve to true mastery is measured in decades if not centuries. With a further redesign focused on effective tooltips, detailed tutorials on every facet of their function and further optimization to work with various kinds of robots you can help new operators figure out the ropes and get up to speed quickly. (Increases effectiveness of humans equipped with OMC implants, both for combat and manufacturing)

-[] Gameified OMC (50 RP) You have the combat simulation part of it down, but a game is more than just fighting. You need a framework for why the fighting is happening, some kind of tie-in to manufacturing and the ability to make people care about the results of the combat. You can solve all of those problems, but doing it properly so that people actually learn useful skills and enjoy doing it will be tricky. Adding a higher-level strategy layer that can interface with the lower-level fighting sim version can also help identify and train capable strategeist. (Create a game that teaches OMC-skills to the general populace, both providing basic training and helping find individuals with above-average proficiency. Synergizes well with Lower OMC Implant Specs. Also develops higher-level strategic skills.)

-[] Lower OMC Implant Specs (150 RP) Your OMC implants are fairly intense, and only growing more so as you improve their capabilities. If you figured out how to dial down the requirements for the software, then it would be possible for less-sophisticated and invasive implants to also work with the system. They wouldn't operate at the same capabilities of control, but it would allow people with civilian-grade implants to control a CP or two worth. (Dramatically lowers the barrier to entry into OMC-style work, allowing a much larger fraction of the population to work with organic-machine control, and likely accelerating training as lower-scale implants are required to successfully work with OMC-technology. May unlock future technology to allow implant-less people to operate OMC effectively through normal cogitators).
Hacking: -[] Rapid hacking (400RP) You need to figure out a new approach to subverting machine spirits. It might involve some combination of confusing them with a burst of signals, then showing up and 'relieving' the issue. But it would take a lot of trial-and-error to get right. (Improves hacking of imperial tech. Potentially enough for use in combat situations? Will unlock further hacking technology).

-[] Improved Machine-spirit Jamming (300 RP) Well, you can't combine it with hacking, but you can still try to improve what you have to be more efficent, target more machine spirits at a time, etc. (Improves success rate of jamming imperial tech, decreases failure penalties. May unlock further jamming technology)

Neablis · Nov 11, 2024

Turn 1:
-[] Understand local culture (50 RP) You could gain access to the local datanet and do a survey to get a better picture of what's going on in the local setting.
-[] Better robotics (150 RP) You've got those infantry bots, but they're clumsy. And those diplomatic bots, but they're weak. The secrets to good humanoid robots is somewhere in there. (Unlocks basic power armor, other half of space-marine-quality power armor prerequisite, start of the cybernetics tree, as well as making better infantry/diplomatic bots. Avatar this way.)

Turn 2:
-[] Avatar (200 RP) You once had a really nice avatar that was nearly indistinguishable from human. But it's been broken for a long, long time. But you still have the manuals and could probably figure out how to synthesize all of the parts. Is this worth spending time on? Probably. It would be nice to have a body that could emote. (Researches and builds a human-like robotic avatar. Has essentially human levels of strength & durability. Can be upgraded with further robotics/armor upgrades)
-[] Hack into secure governmental databases (100 RP) You have access to the datanet. You could probably hack into the governmental databases and learn what secrets they're hiding. Helps you understand how they'd react if you contacted them directly. Maybe other secrets, like why this world is named Denva Secundus and not Denva Prime. (Half of the prereq for basic hacking of low imperial systems).
-[] Hack into Mechanicus databases (250 RP) You have next to no information on the Adeptus Mechanicus, though there aren't very many of them here. You could hack into their databases and see what you can find. Learned what their tech-priests know might tell you a lot about how the Imperium functioned. (Half of the prereq for basic hacking of mechanicus systems).

Turn 3:
Nothing.

Turn 4:
-[] Combat bot Humanization (100 RP) Your combat robots are obviously artificial, with metal skeletons and obvious sensors. But with a bit of tweaking you could make them look like humans in full-body armor. That would include the ability to speak and be mistaken for a human. They wouldn't be able to remove their helmets, and any investigation of wrecks would expose them as machines, but... it still might be useful. (No obvious follow-on tech, humanized versions of combat bots cost +15 BP). Poor success.

Turn 5:
-[] Psychic shielding: (300 RP) How does your shielding even work? What does it do? You've got the manuals, but it's going to require some brain-sweat to understand the darn thing. (Gives you a stability metric and a readout on your shielding. The first step towards building more/better psychic shielding. Half of unlocking research for better warp understanding). Basic success.

Turn 6:
Nothing.

Turn 7:
-[] Cybernetics (200 RP) Interfacing robotics with organics is an old art, and one you haven't dabbled in at all. You've got some medical literature on nerve-interfacing chips that will help, but you're going to need (consenting) test subjects and appropriate equipment to get started. (Allows you to build and install basic limb replacements. Nothing combat-capable. Unlocks research for more combat-capable cybernetics, brain implants and organ replacements) Poor success.

Turn 8:
-[] What's up with this tech? (100 RP, requires samples of imperial technology from locals) You know some of how it works, but you need to get your hands on it to properly replicate it. What's up? (unlocks machine spirits/servitor construction, as well as half of the prereq for hacking imperial technology). Basic success
-[] Let's fix the lag issue (50 RP) Your cybernetics... aren't great. There's sort of an unacceptable amount of lag between the organic and machine parts right now. You have some ideas on how to fix that Critical success
-[] Basic Imperial Hacking (150 RP) Imperial technology is surprisingly well-hardened, and machine spirits are a pretty effective counter to most hacking. But with time and preparation you can probably subvert specific pieces of imperial technology. (Allows better penetration of Imperial & Mechanicus systems and the ability to subvert specific systems. Unlocks further hacking technology, though it will likely require specific installations/ship equipment to utilize) Poor success converted to basic success by spending more RP on it.
-[] System survey (50 RP) What else is there in the system? You're not even sure what planet you're on. (Intel on local system). Basic success
-[] In-atmosphere void shields (100 RP) You know it's possible to generate void-shields in atmosphere. You even think you have an academic paper theorizing on it lying around somewhere. But you don't have any schematics for it. But if you can figure it out then you'll be able to build yourself a something to protect against orbital or WMD bombardment, as well as build scaled-down versions for your armored units. (Unlocks the ability to design shield installations and add shields to tanks, titans. Unlocks further research for person-sized void shields, as well as potentially stronger overall shielding.) Basic success
-[] Mechanicus files on the Archenemy (100 RP) You've seen refences here and there to the "Archenemy" and the "Corruption" that it causes. It seems like a more specific and terrible danger than just a generalized lure of going against cult doctrine, but... what? It's almost like they're treating it as a infohazard that needs to be locked behind higher access. Critical success.

Turn 9:
-[] Small-craft Stealth (100 RP) How do I keep these ships better hidden? Hmm - radar absorption, better chassis design to deflect signals? Hiding or dispersing the drive plume? All good ideas. (Unlocks the ability to design versions of fighters, bombers, boarding craft and shuttles with basic passive stealth. Unlocks advanced passive stealth, basic active stealth and research to apply stealth to both smaller combat bots and larger ships) Good success!
-[] Brain implants (50 RP) Direct interfacing with the brain is complicated, and you're not pleased by how the mechanicus has chosen to do it. Proper brain implants improve people's reaction speed, memory and let you directly interface new senses with the brain. All without cutting out existing portions. (Unlocks basic neural implants. Half of the technology needed for neural-interface psytech. A third of the technology needed for advanced neural implants. Also a prereq for man-machine control) Good success!
-[] Faster hacking (150 RP) If you can vary your approach quickly, you can prevent the machine spirits from getting suspicious of you, and hack them quicker (Increases the amount of hacking you can get done at once, and unlocks further research to make it fast enough for potential combat settings) Poor success.

Turn 10:
No research.

Turn 11:
-[] Machine Spirit Emotional Hacking (150 RP) If you can toy with a machine spirits' emotions, then you'll probably be better at hacking them. (Improves success rate of hacking of Imperial tech, decrease failure penalties. Will synergize with other hacking technology. May unlock better jamming and hacking technology.) Rolled Nat 1 - Failed. Technology lost.

Turn 12:
-[] Combat Bot Humanization, Redux (50 RP) Your first try at making humanoid-looking combat bots worked, but you had to make some annoying compromises. You have some ideas on how to fix it, you just need to implement them. (Fixes the combat malus that comes from humanizing combat bots). Good success
-[] Combat cybernetics (50 RP) Your limb cybernetics are fine for most purposes, but they're not strong enough or durable enough for use in combat situations. You also could figure out how to do things like integrate internal weapons or cutting edges to make them more dangerous. (Unlocks basic combat augments. Half of the technology for advanced combat augments, the other half is Really good Robotics) Critical success!
-[] Organ replacements (100 RP) Well, one area where lag isn't a problem is in organ replacements. It's not the same as juvenat, but it's less complicated and a good way to extend peoples' lives by a bit since you can replace most of their organs as they fail, though the technological versions aren't perfect. Also lets you provide more advanced medical care, as well as install things like adrenaline glands, toxin-filters & other miscellaneous internal augments. Not as good as genetic engineering, but easier. (Unlocks advanced organ replacements that are effectively as good as biological ones, and improved internal augments). Poor success

Turn 13:
-[] Biology is kinda wet (100 RP) Unlocks basic biology research. (The first step towards research projects related to improving juvenat yield, as well as human/xeno genetics, improved medical care, interrogaton drugs etc.) Normal success.

Turn 14:
-[] A Study of Physics (150 RP) You have a good understanding of physics, and access to a huge network of academic papers from several different eras on physics theory. But being able to query it and understand it are different things. It's actually kind of interesting, you have to admit. (First steps towards more exotic weapon types like nova cannons, graviton weapons, vortex bombs, fusion beamers, as well as some new potential manufacturing techniques). Good success.
-[] Void Manufacturing Efficiency (50 RP) Now that you've built your first void manufacturing platform, you realize that there are much more efficient ways to do it. Especially in acquiring raw material - you can just send out some light tugs to grab inner-system comets and asteroids instead of building the infrastructure to haul raw materials up from the surface before refining them. (Halves the BP cost of Orbital Manufactories & Deep Space Manufactories). Critical success.

Turn 15:
-[] Heavy Cruisers (300 RP) How to make a bigger ship? Let's figure that out. Surely it's not much more complicated than just multiplying all of the dimensons by two! (unlocks heavy cruisers) Normal success.
-[] Efficient Weapon Distribution (100 RP) Ok, there must be more efficient ways to lay weapons out on these ships! (Weapon costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing.) Good success
-[] The workings of a Void Abacus (150 RP) You have a void abacus. It's pretty complicated, but you also have the manual, and you've always been good at physics. (You're better at using your void abacus, and unlocks the technology to figure out how to manufacture them, half of unlocking research for better warp understanding). Poor success
-[] Secrets of the Machine Spirits (200 RP) You can imagine a lot of uses for these machine spirits in your own work. If they're included in the command loop on various pieces of machinery then that would reduce their command cost, and likely make them harder to hack. And if the Imperial literature is to be believed, corrupt? (Unlocks the ability to stick machine spirits into your combat bots, reducing CP cost. Unlocks follow-up research to use them for chaos shielding, as well as the ability to put machine spirits into installations or ships) Critical Success!
-[] Organ replacements, Redux (50 RP) Your organ replacements need work. They need to cover more of the functions of a given organ than the primary one, and that's going to take a bit more work. You also have some ideas around some improvements like adrenaline glands, toxin-filters & other miscellaneous internal augments. Not as good as genetic engineering, but easier. (Removes the malus on your artifical organs, unlocks advanced organ replacements that are effectively as good as biological ones, and improved internal augments). Good success.

Turn 16:
-[] Can I have a new ship please? (200 RP) Triggers a sub-turn to design yourself a new ship. It can be any size, up to one class larger than what you currently have available (This is Vita's unique mechanic, and will let you design new iterations of your ship) Success
-[] Miniaturized psychic shielding: (200 RP) Right now you can build and repair psychic shielding that's roughly ship-sized. Maybe aiming for building-sized next? (Lets you build smaller and less expensive versions of the psychic shielding. Unlocks further research to "nest" the shielding, as well as build person-sized versions). Success

Turn 17:
-[] Improved Psychic shielding: (100 RP) Your "no" shielding seems to have worked to protect you from attack so far. But the design is really just a first-generation version. You could develop the second generation, make it capable of more complex and powerful thoughts? (Gives you the ability to build improved psychic shielding, and further upgrades down the path to make it even stronger, half of the research towards using this as some kind of attack against warp beings, as well as half of the requirements to integrate machine spirits with psychic shielding). Poor success
- [] The Basics of Psytech (100 RP) You have that pile of samples from Prospero. You were supposed to see if anybody was interested in them, but you doubt the people who gave them to you will care much what you do with them anymore. Maybe poke around and figure out what's what. (Beginner psytech learnings. Unlocks research projects to build individual pieces of psytech) Success
-[] You don't need no stinkin' medical school (50 RP) You've got a few auto-doc modules that can prescribe drugs based on symptoms or do basic surgeries. If you actually understood the medicine you'd be able to perform better care, as well as do more advanced surgeries (Unlocks better medical care, as well as general enhancements to surgeries, cybernetic augmentations and more. May be a prerequisite to further biomedical research. Also unlocks more research for advanced medical care, which will likely reduce other research costs and be a prerequisite for advanced augmentations.) Poor Success

Turn 18:
-[] Scrapcode Research (200 RP) How does scrapcode work? Obviously the answer is "psychic shenanigans," but you'd like to get a little bit more detail than that. Maybe you'll be able to defend against it in some way. (Understanding of scrapcode that's likely useful for defending against it. Grants light reduction to shield damage from scrapcode and unlocks technology to further reduce psychic damage from scrapcode, and potential technologies to generate or store scrapcode for your own use.) Poor success.

Turn 19:
-[] Scrapcode Cleansing (100 RP) You're pretty sure no scrapcode slipped by your notice and into your manufactories or other units. Everything seems to be working right. But you're not completely sure. And you would like to be. (Checks to see if there's leftover scrapcode in any of your stuff). Success.
-[] Abacus-Warp interactions (100 RP) The one part of the abacus you don't understand is how it interacts with the warp. That part is just weird, and you need to put in some more brain-sweat to figure it out. (Better understanding of the void abacus, necessary for any improvements on the basic design, and unlocks technology for better warp understanding). Critical success

Turn 20:
-[] Organic-Machine control (150 RP) Allows you to hook humans into your own command-and-control loop, allowing you to turn over command duties of various bots to humans - though they'll only be able to command combat units. (Unlocks brain implants that allow a human to control some number of CP worth of combat bots/ships. There are more technologies to allow humans to command larger ships/manufacturing systems as well) Success
An implanted human can control 10 CP worth of combat units, including combat bots, tanks, fighters, etc. Does not include void ships or manufactories.
-[] Manufacturing Machine Spirits (100 RP) Making machine spirits run reactors and shoot guns is one thing, but making them build something? That poses another challenge. You don't think it's insurmountable though. (Unlocks machine-spirit controlled manufactories, orbital manufactories and deep-space manufactories. Unlocks more research for other kinds of machine-spirit aided manufacturing). Critical success.
You can upgrade machine manufactories with machine spirits, reducing their CP requirements.
-[] Immaterium Investigations (200 RP) The Warp. The Empyrean. Many names for something best described by poetry. It it a place? An idea? A dimension? A shared dream of all sapient beings that's somehow impressed itself onto reality? Probably all of the above. The important question is - how do you interface with it? Can you get reproducible data out of something so - insane? (Likely discounts other research related to psychic phenomena, and be a prerequisite for many more advanced techs. Unlocks further warp-based research including improved teleportation that may eventually lead to warp portals, better sensors for warp phenomena, investigation of the effect of human belief, and potential demonology).
You now understand the Warp better than you did before. This doesn't do anything mechanical, but Vita's greater understanding of the Warp will show up later on, and it'll cause new techs to be unlocked.
-[] Nested Psychic shielding: (150 RP) With multiple sizes of shielding comes the question - can you simply layer different kinds of shielding to protect against psychic attacks. The current answer is no due to some unfortunate resonance between different layers of shielding. You think you can solve for that, though it involves you making some assumptions about warp-psyker-stuff that you'll need to validate experimentally (Allows you to have multiple layers of shielding active at once. Unlocks additional technology for templating multiple effects into one shield, which will also require improved psychic shielding.) Locked behind warp understanding. Success
You can now build one psychic shield inside another. Remember the rules that you get 1 HP per 10 BP spent. The maximum you can spend to shield one modular slot is currently 200 BP = 20 HP, but every additional slot is a factor of 3. So two slots is 600 BP= 60 HP, 3 is 1800 = 180 HP.

Turn 21
-[] An Introduction to Human Genetics (100 RP) Humans are complex creatures, but apparently their manufacturing instructions are just 6 billion bits long, and most of that seems redundant. Interesting. (Unlocks very basic genetic enhancements, as well as a basic understanding of mutations. Unlocks research for more complex genetic engineering, and may lead to research to fix mutations)
You understand basic genetics, enough to tell if humans are modified, and enough to do basic enhancement of embryos for better health, slightly improved intelligence and cosmetic traits.
-[] Efficient Psychic Shielding (100 RP) Your "fractal" method is painfully difficult to manufacture, and is bottlenecking further design. If you spend some more time on it you think you could either improve the manufacturing techniques or figure out a more efficient solution to the same problem (Improves the BP/HP ratio for psychic shields, unlocks cost discounts on other kinds of psychic shielding, may unlock further research towards cheaper or more ubiquitous shielding, including extremely minimal shielding that serves to trip an alarm upon damage). Good Success.
Halves BP cost of psychic shielding across the board.
-[] Industrial Organic-Machine control (150 RP) Controlling a combat bot, tank or aircraft is something a human bran can intuitively understand. Machining to incredibly small precisions not so much. (Allows OMC implants to control industrial capacity. Leads to some further research to allow OMC to control shipyards and larger installations, as well as to improve human capacity for research & development, and potential psytech improvements)
Allows OMC implants to control industrial capacity. Anexa has gained the cybernetics specialty.
-[] Scrapcode-resistant Psychic shielding (100 RP) You understand how scrapcode attacks psychic shielding better, and can tune your shields to be more resistant to attacks from scrapcode (Gives your shields improved defense against scrapcode, may unlock techs for even further improved defenses, or broadened defenses against specific entities) Natural 100.
All of your products are much more resistant to scrapcode-based attacks, which will deal approximately a quarter as much damage as previously.
-[] Further Scrapcode research (100 RP) You have more data on how scrapcode works, but it's only left you with more questions. The power of the generator was steadily rising but it spiked when it attacked - where did that energy come from? Can you get a better hint as to how it works? (Discounts existing scrapcode research, may unlock new research around psytech/psychic shielding. Gives better understanding of Chaos Demons. Half of what is needed to bind the Demon inside the scrapcode generator) Poor success.

Turn 22:
-[] Tiny In-atmosphere void shields (100 RP) Instead of scaling up a void shield, can you scale one down to the size of a person? It won't be as capable of the big ones, but if it's only meant to block small-arms fire it could be quite effective. (Unlocks the ability to build personal void shields, as well as add them to combat bots. May unlock research towards better overall void shielding)
Unlocked new Export Goods blueprint - Personal Void Shields (5 bp/person)
-[] Advanced Neural Implants (150 RP) Well, your current neural implants are good, but what if you further integrated them into the brain, improving throughput and allowing the recipient even further integrate themselves with digital systems (unlocks advanced neural implants, unlocks further technologies related to neural implants, such as basic cognition filters. Basal improvements to Organic-machine control).
Your implants are generally more powerful and humans with your implants will be capable of greater control and interaction. +10 to the capacity of organic-machine control per human, it's now at 20.

Turn 23:
-[] Ok, maybe there's a point to medical school (50 RP) You have a textbook understanding of medicine, but it's not enough for you to speculate and unlock new research, or generalize what you know to other areas. (Unlocks discounts for medical tech, cybernetic augmentations and more. May be a prerequisite to further biomedical research. Also unlocks more research for advanced medical care) Critical success.
You're now capable of administering fairly complicated surgeries and advanced medical care. Your auto-docs and medical facilities are all improved.
-[] Better Sensors (200 RP) Trying to find the Eldar was a frustrating experience, and normal sensors didn't cut it. If you're willing to explore more esoteric branches of physics you think you could do a better job. (Unlocks slightly better basal sensors across the board, as well as equipment to cut through stealth technologies. Unlocks more research for better sensors. May unlock research for sensors that will detect what's going on inside enemy ships, improving combat predictions).
You will now be able to detect stealthed ships at longer ranges. Likely will prevent ships from getting into boarding range without you noticing.
-[] Empathy as Sensors (100 RP) The warp is a place of emotion, and sensing emotions is hard. Still, when emotion determines what is true you think you can work it out. You can probably also make them work in physical reality as well, at least to an extent. (Unlocks better sensors for warp shenanigans. Likely to give you some warning of warp shenanigans. Will likely have synergy with psytech, further warp research, and unlock research towards warp-based FTL communication)
Your psychic shielding is universally sensitive to psychic disturbances beyond just attacks. This includes sensing active psytech, passive psykers, manifested demons and even eyes on you from across the veil.
-[] Basic power armor (100 RP) Putting heavy armor on a person doesn't work well because... well. It's heavy. If you can give it some robotic actuation then they don't need to carry all of it. (Unlocks humanoid heavy armor, as well as being a prereq for superheavy-humanoid armor, i.e. for space marine-quality, once you research superheavy armor.) Poor Success.
You have built basic power armor, and have a suit for Cia. It's good, but it's way more expensive than it needs to be.
-[] Improved combat Machine spirits (100 RP) Right now the machine spirits can match the performance of bots you directly control. However, with some tweaking of their networks, structure and code you think you can make an across-the-board improvement in aim, tactics and decision-making of the machine spirits in combat. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued infantry & vehicle forces. May unlock technology for improved tactical coordination, as well as improved combat performance of machine-spirit equipped ships/larger installations) Good success.
Your combat bots are more proficient and better at combat across the board. They're still vulnerable to close-in fighting though.
-[] Human Simulation Implants (150 RP) You can simulate reality quite accurately. Adapting these neural implants to do that might yield some impressive benefits. (Improves human capacity for research & development. Tech-priest crew will contribute RP, may unlock further tech for improved help with research & design). Good Success.
Each tech-priest contributes 1 RP/turn. Will have diminishing returns beyond 50 people.

Turn 24:
-[] Improved Gellar Fields (100 RP) Your gellar field technology is fine... but outdated. You think you can figure out how to improve it. (Improves your gellar field technology, reducing the risk for warp travel, specifically the amount of damage you take to your psychic shield.) Success.
You take dramatically reduced damage on warp travel.
-[] Scrapcode Immunity (100 RP) You thought your new algorithms would make you immune to scrapcode, but it's a squirely opponent. But with some more thought you think you can still reach that bar. (Makes your shielding Extraordinarily resistant to potentially completely immune to scrapcode-based attacks. Does not apply to machine spirits. Likely synergistic with generating your own scrapcode) Failed, natural 1. Tech lost.
You've reverted your shield back to the scrapcode resistance versions that take 1/4 damage.
- [] Basic Psychic weapons (150 RP) The most basic application of psychic energy to materials is to make more powerful weapons. Let's try to figure out how to build those, and think about how to expand out to other devices. (Allows you to build basic force weapons, unlocks more technology for advanced force weapons, as well as psychically attuned armor or larger material effects). Success.
You can now manufacture force weapons. Ideally they're manufactured for individuals, but you can also make "general purpose" ones that work but aren't as good.
-[] Basic Spaceship Stealth (50 RP) Spaceships are big, and emit a lot of energy. It's hard to hide them. Nonetheless, by making them show up worse on active sensors you could make an inactive spaceship much harder to spot. (Unlocks new non-combat equipment to improve ship stealth. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. Will be able to take advantage of some other stealth technologies.) Good Success.
You can now build void ships with passive stealth systems.
- [] Basic Pyromantic understanding (100 RP) Cia's naturally inclined towards energy manipulation with her power. You could try and figure out more details about how that works, though it'll rely on her to generate somewhat larger-scale effects. (Allows you to build pyromancy focused psytech, and potentially unlock new kinds of actions or narrative options for Cia) Barely a success.
You understand pyromancy a bit better now, and can more actively help Cia level-up.
-[] Machine Spirit Design (200 RP) The potential of industrial machine spirits to improve the design process could be incredible. It might get to a point where you can simply input a design parameter and they could spit out a new design. And you could theoretically use them to generate new research ideas too... (Discounts all designs, from ships to installations to units. Unlocks technology to further optimize ship cramming, as well as potential technology to incorporate machine spirits into your research process, improving the number of RP you get per action). Barely a good success
Cost of all design actions is halved.
Turn 25:
-[] Machine Spirit Ground Tactics (150 RP) Your bots can fight, but they aren't great at coordination. If you figure out how to network them together, you can help fix that. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued infantry & vehicle forces. May unlock technology for improved strategic coordination. If you want to point your army at a planet and say "Conquer it, spare the civilians" this is a good tech to have.) Success.
Your machine spirit combat bots are more effective at coordination at the squad and company level (200 bots).
-[] Personal-sized Psychic shielding (100 RP) You were able to break your psychic shielding down into components to rescale it, but that gets you down to a size measured in tens of meters. If you want to make another one that's even smaller, then you're going to have to break it down into even smaller pieces and build something back up again. But doing that would let you start weaving the shielding into armor or individual bots. (Allows you to outfit individuals with psychic shielding, though it may be less powerful than what you can build into larger structures. Unlocks additional technology for further miniaturization to put it into totems or implants.) Poor success
You can make personal psychic shields as an inner layer to armor, though it's vulnerable to damage and restricts flexibility.
-[] Basic Cognition Filter: (250 RP) Antimemetic threats are such a hassle. Even the programs you've written to partion your own knowledge are an ad-hoc solution. And aside from having an innate resistance above the zero-tolerance you likely have, humans have a really hard time not thinking about something. Fix it. Work out a method for existing brain-augments to isolate knowledge on cognitohazards to the augment's machine spirit in inert memory vaults. The user will have to instead consciously override the locks on the chosen memories to access them temporarily. That way, stray thoughts about the isolated memories cannot happen, and long-term memories in the brain when the memory vaults are unlocked get instead rerouted to the machine spirit of the brain implant. Will have a harder time isolating knowledge from existing long-term memories formed when not actively using the cognition filter. (Unlocks cognition filter modification to brain implants, unlocks further technologies related to cognition filter and methods for mitigating cognitohazards, basilisk hacks, etc. perceived in real-time.) Critical Success
Anybody equipped with one of your implants will be much less vulnerable to warp-based cognitohazards. Dramatically more effective when paired with psychic shielding.
Turn 26:
-[] Psychic tripwires (50 RP) Standardizing the shielding has given you another idea - you could try to install a very basic version of it into all of your technology, just about the simplest thing that would still generate the desired effect. It wouldn't do much to hinder any warp-corruption of other psyker powers, but it could serve as an alarm or deadman switch setup. (Anything smaller than a ship has psychic tripwires that will alert when warp-based shenanigans happen to them. Will unlock research to use this on ships, and to make civilian-grade versions that could be put into literally everything). Poor Success
Anything smaller than a ship will automatically get psychic tripwires that will detect when the device gets influenced by chaos. Will not always trigger, and it may be possible for slow and careful corruption to proceed without triggering the alarm.
-[] Machine Sprit Production Improvements (75 RP) Your machine spirits seem to be able to suggest more optimal choices than the default under some situations, but you're not confident enough to standardize it. Investigate that, and figure out how to encourage that behavior. (Improves productivity of machine-spirit manufacturing systems, may unlock further boosts to manufactory production or CP discounts). Success
Your Machine Spirit Manufactories produce 20% more BP.
-[] Mechanized agriculture (150 RP) You can synthesize small amounts of food with the modules attached to your crew quarters, but that doesn't scale to larger populations. You don't have the understanding to automatically grow and harvest food, but surely you can figure it out? (Unlocks blueprints for orbital & ground-based food production. Unlocks more technology for improving yield, optimizing for small-scale cultivation in zero-gravity, and generally making human populations self-sufficient in low-resource environments). Poor Success
You can now grow large amounts of food in an industrailized setting effectively. But it's very spicy. Like Thai-grandma spicy. And also colored like flame, because a DaoT biohacker thought it was fun and you didn't read the readme.

Turn 27:
-[] Basic Active Stealth (75 RP) Just deflecting away and hiding your signature only helps so much. Then next step is to overlay a hologram over your small craft to make them effectively invisible, and even counter passive sensors. It'll still be a hazy outline, but this is the path towards being able to close to actual combat ranges unobserved (Unlocks improved stealth designs for actively hiding signatures, though they will be expensive. Unlocks further research for improved active stealth, and will synergize with other stealth research. Critical Success
The Basic Stealth blueprint modification now includes active stealth.
-[] Basic Ground force stealth (50 RP) Tanks show up pretty well on scanners, and it would be nice to change that. You might also be able to make your bots hide better. (Unlocks new design options for tanks and ground forces that are less obvious. Unlocks further research towards better ground force stealth. Will be able to take advantage of some other stealth technologies.) Good success.
The Basic Stealth blueprint modification now can be applied to combat bots & vehicles. The cost is 0.5x base BP cost for bots, 0.25x base BP for vehicles.
-[] How to Build a Biosphere (100 RP) Back when you were made terraforming was incredibly common, and one of your more common trade goods was terraforming technology. But you're not sure how you would do it - but it wouldn't be that hard to catch up on the literature. (Unlocks blueprints for slow/expensive terraforming, as well as the terraforming tree, which will include research to make terraforming cheaper, faster and applicable to a broader set of planets).
You'll have some idea of how to improve the livability of various worlds you run across with basic methods. Nothing radical yet, but any planet you run into you can do a project to tune temperature and basic chemistry.
-[] Combat Neural Implants (50 RP) Allows you to install neural implants to calculate trajectories, assist with aiming, further improve reaction time and generally improve human capabilities in combat. (Unlocks combat-focused neural implants. Will synergize with other cybernetics and neural implant technologies) Failed.
You do not get combat neural implants. The tech remains on the tree, and now costs +25 RP.
Turn 28:
-[] Remote Organic-Machine control (50 RP) One of the current limitations of the OMC technology is that it requires the controller to be on-site. But if that wasn't true, then you could imagine truly bloodless wars, or operators living in comfortable cities while they controlled factories in orbit. Something to look into. (Allows OMC implants to control installations or units within the same system. Leads to further research for interoperable units, as well as making it possible for human staff to directly contribute to Vita's CP cap.) Critical Success.
People can control CP-requiring technology like manufactories, combat units & more while within the same planetary system. They are fully functional during this process, able to take care of themselves & even do simple tasks.
-[] Human Virtual OMC simulations (150 RP) Simulation of the organic-machine control interfaces is tricky, but it has some pretty significant benefits. Not only will it make it far easier to train people on how to use the OMC technology, it'll let people virtually fight each other to discover new strategies. Besides, that might be fun. (Dramatically improved OMC competence. This may result in an increase in manufacturing efficiency for OMC-controlled manufactories, and will result in increased effectiveness of OMC-controlled military units.). Critical Success.
All Organic-machine control happens at a higher level of competency, increasing the productivity of manufactories entirely controlled by OMC-equipped personnel, and increasing the combat capabilities of OMC-controlled combat units.
-[] Human Design Interfaces (200 RP) You've adapted your simulation software to work with advanced neural implants, but what about your design software? If humans could play with your auto-cad as well as you can then that would help you design or even entirely farm out the design of things. (Discounts design options, may unlock technology to improve the RP generated from humans with simulation implants, either per-person or simply raising the cap.) Good success.
Humans equipped with your implants, especially the OMC variety, can make their own designs. If you assign 20 people under your command with such implants to a design task it halves the cost of that design task.
-[] Void Organic-Machine control (75 RP) A voidship can be thought of as a living creature, with veins of coolant, a reactor heart and an undying thirst for fuel. How can a single human understand it, much less understand it? (Allows OMC implants to control voidships. Leads to further research to boost CP capacity of OMC specifically for controlling voidships, as well as improvements to allow improved piloting) Researched by Denva.
Allows OMC implants to control voidships.

Turn 29:
-[] Drugs? Drugs. (75 RP) Human biochemistry is... weird. You've got a standard list of recipies for basic drugs, but if you wanted to get further into it you could start pulling out some stranger and more illicit ones from your research databanks. (Unlocks a wide variety of drugs for things like interrogation, combat, sedation, etc. May lead to research for things like perfect knockout gas, super-adrenaline, psytech drugs, etc.) Critical success!
You can custom-design drugs for various applications. Bonus to medical care, interrogation, taking prisoners, etc.
-[] Psychic Encryption (150 RP) Warp-based shenanigans can clearly steal information they shouldn't be able to get. You think you have the solution to prevent that, and it's encryption. Modulate your psychic shielding so anything coming through it is so garbled and compressed that it can't be understood even to the most sensitive psychic. (Blocks scrying of information protected by your shielding. Likely unlocks better versions that will defeat more powerful seers, and may unlock specialized research to build installations that will deny scrying and foresight over a larger area - like a system) Poor success.
Your psychic shields are better at blocking scrying and warp communication, but you're not sure by how much.
-[] A Curio Cabinet of Cultists (100 RP) You have a haul of items and bodies from the Chaos cult aboard the Auric Burden . Investigate them, and see what you can learn. (Improved knowledge about Chaos Cults. May lead to enhanced detection of Chaos cults & cultists. May lead to some understanding of how to use warp rituals to enhance items. May unlock further research once you have more samples.) Critical success.
You understand Chaotic items and rituals better, and will be better at detecting them.
Turn 30:
-[] Hardware Psychic Encryption (50 RP) To properly block scrying, you need to design new psychic shielding. You don't think it'll be more expensive, but you could be wrong. (New versions of psychic shielding that block scrying with much greater effectiveness. Likely unlocks better versions that will defeat the most powerful seers, and may unlock specialized research to build installations that will deny scrying and foresight over a larger area - like a system) Barely a good success.
All of the psychic shields you build from here on out will block normal scrying and warp communication.
-[] Small-scale design-integrated psychic shielding (150 RP) You could take this approach a step further, and integrate the psychic shielding into the designs of bots, vehicles and small installations from the start. (Makes the cheapest version of psychic shielding free & automatic to build into bots, vehicles and small installations. Will likely improve the quality of shielding available and unlock research for further shielding improvements) Good Success
You can design psychic shielding on bots & other small objects that will not increase manufacturing costs. Can't break the rules for multiple layers of shielding.
-[] The Taste of Chaos (100 RP) When investigating the stations in Vorthryn, and again when investigating the artifacts you found a flavor to the warp signatures hanging around the chaos-corrupted stations. If you do more analysis on it, you should be able to set up some filters that can tell you when a signature is chaos-associated or identify active Chaos-cults, chaotic blessings or chaoticlly-enhanced items through sensors alone (Makes your warp sensors very sensitive to Chaos-associated markers. More useful in detecting cults than individuals, though will be able to detect chaos blessings. Like to unlock further research to screen for ever-smaller amounts of chaotic influence). Good (almost critical) success.
Your warp-sensors are sensitive to chaos signatures, including chaos blessings & inactive artifacts at close range, and active chaos rituals at long range. You will have some idea of what the blessing/ritual is when you detect it, and who its dedicated to.
-[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (75 RP) You think the reason that the machine spirits resist chaos is because they understand their purpose to some extent, and the entire neural network needs to be corrupted to corrupt that purpose, which is harder. There's also emotional simulation that's going on in there. (Improves the basal resistance of machine spirits to chaos corruption. May unlock further technology down this chain, as well as half of the requirements to integrate machine spirits with psychic shielding.) Critical success.
Your machine spirits are much harder for Chaotic and other kinds of warp-based attacks to corrupt.
-[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP) You think it's possible to integrate machine spirits into your chaos shielding, which would probably make it more effective in almost every way except cost. (Unlocks new kinds of psychic shielding that are more resistant to damage, potentially self-repairing and more)
The psychic shielding & machine-spirit blueprint modifications are now synergistic. Anything you spend BP on for psychic shielding HP, you can now spend twice as much (includes shipboard equipment & installations).

Turn 31:
-[] Efficient Equipment Distribution (100 RP) Let's see if you can apply the benefits from weapon packing to equipment (Equipment costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing. Especially effective for cargo holds.) Poor/normal success.
Equipment costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing.
-[] Gravity Weapons (200 RP) You know it's possible to use gravity as a weapon, though it sounds a bit crazy. But still, it might be worth trying? (Unlocks basic graviton weapons for infantry, vehicles and warships, as well as research for more advanced graviton weapons. Half of the research necessary for Nova Cannons) Good success.
You can build basic gravity weapons now.
-[] The Biggest Boom (150 RP) So. There's no actual upper limit for how big a fusion warhead can get. But it does get more complicated to build bigger and bigger bombs. Let's figure that out. (Unlocks bigger, exterminatus-grade warheads for nukes. The other half of the research necessary for Nova Cannons) Critical success
You can build nukes now. Including exterminatus-grade ones. Have fun! Also self-destructs for your ships.
-[] Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP) As it stands, you can integrate machine spirits into small things. Expanding that to military installations and ships is going to require designing even more complex networks and figuring out how to make them work. With Anexa's insights you think it's eminently possible thought (Unlocks machine-spirit equipped versions of frigate-sized or smaller ships and platforms, as well as most defensive installations. Unlocks more research for machine spirits for larger ships & platforms.) Poor success
You can build machine spirits for destroyers.
-[] Superconductive Shenanigans (50 RP) Room-temperature superconductors are a thing. But only kind of, and they still need to be highly pressurized to be stable. You know some people cracked this problem, but they didn't publish on it, which was annoying. But you think you might have an idea how they did it. Figuring it out would be great for manufacturing, and drop costs across the board. (A flat production boost of 5-15% depending on rolls). Poor success.
Your manufacturing capability is increased by 5% across the board.
-[] Abacus Manufacturing (100 RP) You understand all of the physical parts of an abacus. Now you need to figure out all of the manufacturing techniques needed to actually put one together. (Unlocks the void abacus ship equipment) Good success.
You can build warp abacuses without any significant challenge.
-[] Demonology (100 RP) Demons. They can be summoned, bound and banished. Preferably in that order. How? That knowledge could be powerful... and dangerous. (Allows you to do basic demonology to summon/bind/banish demons. Unlocks further technology around all of that, including potential better protection from demons.) Good success.
Bongo is now bound. You can now summon, bind and banish demons when you want to. Requires some amount of insights and preparation for any of the above.

Turn 32:
-[] Improved Organic-Machine control (75 RP) You think you can about double the capacity of the machine-control implants with a full redesign. (Approximately doubles the capacity of organic-machine control, letting a single human command more CP worth of units. Leads to further follow-on improvements.) Poor Success
Increases the OMC control cap per person to 30.
-[] Improved Large-scale Machine spirits (100 RP) You haven't quite cracked the code on incorporating machine spirits into things as large as ships. They act differently at such large scales, and ensuring that they stay predictible is a somewhat difficult task. (Raises the size limit on the machine-spirit hull equipment, leads to further research for larger ship sizes and potentaily machine spirits for megastructures). Critical success!
Machine spirit ship equipment updated, can now be applied to light cruisers and smaller, and reduces CP cost to 15% of the base hull.
-[] Large-scale Void Manufacturing (100 RP) Unlike ground factories, which have to deal with gravity and atmosphere, there's little stopping you from just... scaling up the principles of void manufacturing. Besides the annoying spaghetti of logistics, but that's a solvable problem. (Allows you to design large void manufactories that are more efficient, improves the manufactories on your ships to be 1/5 instead of 1/10 production. Potential for other void-based platform technologies). Completed by Denva.
Improves the ship manufactory equipment to produce 1/5 of the BP spent on it. Allows design of Void Manufacturing Platforms under blueprint design.
-[] Nova Cannon! (100 RP) This is a dangerous technology in every respect of the word. Hucking teraton-yield nuclear weapons at people at percentages of lightspeed is a great way to win a space battle, but it's also quite difficult. Just knowing the individual technologies isn't enough, you've got to combine them all together into a single package. (Unlocks the ability to build nova cannons. May lead to further research to launch other kinds of payloads, or to build the kind of nova cannon that's the man gun of a battleship.) Critical Success
Unlocked the Nova Cannon weapon and the ammunition bunker equipment.

Turn 32.5
-[] Alternative Shielding Meanings (150 RP) Your current shielding says "No" at all times, which seems to work against most warp threats. You think you might be able to modify it for a different meaning, which may have different effects. You're not sure exactly what, but you'd kind of like to try "Absolutely not" or maybe even "You're not real" and see what happens. New meanings may be especially effective against demons. (Unlocks new types of psychic shielding with different/improved effects, as well as further research into more powerful psychic shielding - some of which may be less "shielding" and more of an offensive weapon.) Good Success.
You have unlocked the new psychic shielding meanings of: Begone, Hey!, Veil, and Soothe. Blueprint pages for psychic shielding have been updated.
Begone - Warp entities who come in contact with the shield must resist and overpower the shield or be banished.
Hey! - You can build warp devices that send a long-range semi-directional signal through the warp. Needs an appropriate listening device at the other end.
Veil - Shields built with this meaning will be invisible to warp-senses. Also carries a mild antimemetic effect.
Soothe - Calms those within, especially against warp-induced trauma.
-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP) Unlocks the ability to clone basic humans (Unlocks the cloning bay, as well as further technology to clone things other than baseline humans, like humans without brains for organs or humans with more dramatic genetic mutations. Along with brain implants may lead to personality backups). Critical success.
Unlocked the cloning bay installation & ship equipment.

Turn 33
-[] Streamlined ship design (100 RP) You can improve your tools for ship design to make it easier to design ships in the future. That might be nice (Halves the RP cost to design new ships, may unlock other ship design improvements). Success.
Halved the RP cost of ship design.
-[] Heavy Void shields (150 RP) Your current shields are good, but they could be better. Specifically, you want to make multi-layered shields, which could be applied to anything larger than a destroyer (Unlocks heavy void shields for ships and stations, as well as further research for void shielding improved for recharge speed, layered defenses, etc.) Good success.
Unlocked heavy void shields for frigates and larger ships.
-[] Improved Engine Designs (100 RP) Based on your understanding of physics and a few old research papers you think you can improve engine reactor thrust velocities. (Enhances ship speeds at every level. Unlocks further speed, maneuverability & stealth technologies). Success.
Improved ship engine output across the board, as well as the vector-shift drives equipment.
-[] Collaborative Computational R&D (250 RP) You've set it up so that humans can help you with research and development, but the gains are limited because there's only so much they can help you with before you get diminishing returns on team size. Figure out better ways to utilize your research teams and let bigger teams contribute to projects. (Increases size of research team before RP/turn limit is reached. May assign more technical staff to further reduce design costs.) Critical success.
Soft cap of researchers increased to 150, hard cap at 500. Can assign 50 researchers to a design to reduce the cost to 25% of the original price.
-[] Navigator Gestation (50 RP) You have a navigator fetus. You don't know what to do with that beyond the obvious. So, how would you do it? Well, you doubt you could just implant it into somebody. From the traces left behind on Klyssar's nest you should do this in a tank. (Allows you to turn the navigator fetus into a navigator baby) Good Success.
You've got a kid now.

Turn 34:
-[] Large-Scale organic-machine Control (75 RP) A manufactory is one thing, a shipyard or gas refinery is another. But at this point it's mostly a matter of scale and networking. (Allows OMC implants to control any kind of industrial production, including shipyards and non-military megastructures. Leads to further technology to improve the amount of CP one person can control.) Good Success.
OMC-equipped people can control shipyards or any other scale of industrial facility.
-[] Interchangeable OMC control (50 RP) Right now it's somewhat tricky for somebody to take over a new OMC system. There's a lengthy process of familarization & customization as they feel out the new system and get it all running. All of this means that it's hard for people to easily switch off between constructs or take over new ones when the old ones are destroyed. If you can streamline the user interface and make everything more standardized, then it'll be possible for operators to "plug and play" with new hardware. (Makes it possible for people with OMC implants to quickly swap between controlled systems, letting them do things like just jump control to a new fighter when the old one is destroyed, keep manufactory systems operating through multiple shifts and ease collaboration.) Completed by the Stellar Ascendency.
Easier for people with the OMC implant to quickly swap between systems, allowing in-combat switching of units between controllers.
-[] Improved OMC Implantation (???) Techniques for faster and easier surgical implantation of the OMC implant, including faster healing times. Completed by the Stellar Ascendency)
Streamlined implantation of OMC implants. It can now be done en-masse in a normal medical facilty.
-[] Yelling into the Warp (150 RP) If you can receive signals from the warp, how do you send them? It probably involves modulating your psychic shielding somehow. Does that mean a new thought? Probably. (Unlocks the ability to cast signals into the warp, though that may attract attention. May allow you to signal psychically-sensitive allies... or enemies. Half of the prereq for basic warp-based FTL communication). Success.
You can build big "Hey!" psychic tubes that can theoretically be used for warp communications.
-[] Empathy at Range (150 RP) Your warp sensors work well on things that are nearby, but they're definitely not able to detect anything large beyond combat range, or smaller things beyond very close range. Maybe it's a matter of improving sensitivity, maybe you need to specifically build some parts of your psychic shield to extend range. (Makes your warp sensors active at longer range, unlocks further research to pinpoint psychic activities from across the solar system. Half of the prereq for basic warp-based FTL communication) Critical success.
Your psychic sensors on your psychic shields are now significantly more sensitive and capable of distinguishing the intent behind specific signatures.
-[] Machine Spirit Shipboard Manufactories (75 RP) The constraints on shipboard manufactories make them different enough that you haven't been able to apply the machine spirit technology to them. (Improves the BP produced by the shipboard manufactory equipment, likely by about 20%. May unlock tech allowing better cramming for ship manufactories). Poor success.
Ships with machine spirits produce 10% more BP. Not applicable to Crucibles/Anvils.
-[] Ground Manufactory Efficiency Improvements (50 RP) You dramatically improved the efficiency of your void manufacturing by stripping out the dumb stuff that was required by stellar federation bureaucracy. There's probably some stuff like that in your ground manufactories too. (Reduces the CP cost but not BP cost of your ground manufactories. Unlocks follow-on tech to build ground manufactories in more challenging conditions such as extreme temp/pressure planetoids). Poor success.
Reduced Ground manufactory CP costs by 10%.
-[] Intelligence Coding (400 RP) You don't really understand how your own code and hardware works. Maybe putting some effort into understanding that would pay dividends. It's never been something too interesting, but hey, maybe you should give it a shot. (Helps you understand your own code. Prerequisite to building new AIs, starts command point tree and automation tree, also unlocks personality-checking research). Critical Success!
You've unlocked the AI research tree!
+1 Anexa Level. Anexa has gained a specialty in the Artifical Intelligence Tree.

Turn 35:
-[] The key to Expert surgery is Ego (75 RP) You can do fairly effective surgery, but the most complicated surgeries are beyond you. From all of the literature you have available, to truly break into the next level you merely need confidence. The confidence of somebody who believes they cannot be wrong. (Unlocks further discounts for advanced medical tech, cybernetic augmentations and more. Unlocks very advanced medical care, and further technology for reviving technically-dead bodies and brain transplants). Poor success.
Your base level of medical care is improved. As long as somebody's still technically alive you can bring them back.
-[] That's two levels of augmentation too many (150 RP) The Chaos Space Marines you fought are not really intact anymore, but there's enough accumulated gore spread around that you should be able to get a decent sample of their genetics and stuff like extra organs and surgical enhancements. And maybe mutations? (Discounts genetics, mutation, augmentation research. May unlock special researches around geneseed and space marine-specific augments.) Poor success
Discounts additional technologies, greater understanding of warp-associated mutations.
-[] Understanding Mutations (150 RP) The mutations that occasionally pop up in Denva's population are... weird. Complex, and have bizarre phenotypes. Why? What's causing them? Why are they so hard to treat? Maybe look into that. (Potential cures for more difficult mutations, as well as further research into why they occur, and treating other kinds of genetic deterioration.) Critical success
You've developed a comprehensive suite of treatments for mutation, and as long as the regimen is followed, it should keep mutations supressed. Adult genetic engineering can cure normal mutants.
-[] More than just a Boom (100 RP) It's hard to argue with enourmous explosions. Still, sometimes you need alternate ammunition types for various purposes. Guided shells with melta-warheads, plasma rounds to strip shields, active pulse shells to break stealth, maybe even vortex, antimatter, psytech or psychic-shielding based shells... (Unlocks a wider variety of novacannon ammunition, synergizing with other techs and unlocking more research for more exotic payloads)
All Novacannon-equipped ships carry sounding shells, effective at revealing stealthed enemies. Melta & plasma payloads may now apply to novacannons.
-[] An Emotional Ansible (150 RP) You can build transmitters and receivers that should be capable of talking across interstellar distances, now all that's left is to make it work. It won't be easy because the warp is not the easiest medium to work with, and the resulting installations are likely to be large, immobile, and only capable of very low throughput. But every technology has to start somewhere. (unlocks the capability to build installations that enable low-throughput interstellar communication, unlocks multiple technologies to improve security, size, throughput and mobility)
You can build Warpaphones in orbit or on the ground - large, stationary installations that can send messages across the warp. They have low signal transmission rates, can only reach three systems away (so from Denva to Zarithune's Maw), and may be detected by enemies at further distances, though the signal will be hopelessly garbled.

Turn 37:
-[] Focused Warpaphones (150 RP) Your current warpaphone are less "dear friend" and more "to whom it may concern." If you want to keep your signals away from potential eavesdroppers it might be important to focus down the warp signals so they're only received by the intended party. It won't be perfect since you still need to know where they are, but it will reduce the chance that your message intersects with an unfriendly ear regardless (Makes your messages increasingly private, may lead to further tech to refine targeting, range and precision for the warpaphone). Good success
Your warpaphones are Focused now, and have significantly less signal bleed-off for unfriendly recipients to pick up on.
-[] Psychic Shielding Reliability (100 RP) Trying to make tripwire-versions of your shielding that could be installed in everything has revealed a weakness - the circuits can spontaneously fail. You fixed that problem by making them tougher, but now they won't always trigger. You're confident you can fix this issue, but it'll require you to make them more failure-proof. On the plus side, this should mean that your psychic shielding can last longer without maintenance, and can be applied to more warp-active constructs. (Makes psychic tripwires more accurate, potentially to the point where it's impossible to corrupt your tech without you knowing about it. Also likely to make your psychic shielding last long time periods without maintenance, and allow you to install psychic shielding into warp-active constructs like the warpaphone). Good success.
Your psychic tripwires are automatically installed into every piece of technology you have, and will sound an alarm if they get corrupted by warp-shenanigans. Furthermore, psychic tripwires and shielding will also last effectively forever without maintenance so long as it isn't attacked.
- [] Basic Psychic Suppression Devices (150 RP) You think you understand the principles of psychic suppression, but to actually confirm that you need to build some and see if it works. (Allows you to build basic psychic hoods or other personal psychic protective devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic nullification, as well as larger nullification constructs) Success.
You can now construct basic psychic hoods.
-[] The Vagaries of a Third Eye (100 RP) Aurora's third eye gives her a view into the Warp. What does that mean? Is there a way to help her look safely into a realm of madness? What is the interaction with psychic shielding? Is this dangerous for others too? (Better understanding and protection for Aurora and others as she begins to access her inborn powers.) Critical Success.
Aurora has a good start on understanding her vision, and so do you.
-[] Complex genetic enhancement (100 RP) The complexity of human genetics lies in the epistasis between multiple different alleles. Put more simply, this shit is complicated. Figure it out. (Unlocks more advanced enhancements, including significantly improved strength, intelligence, etc. Unlocks research for even more dramatic engineering, and is likely required to try to make psykers). Success.
Can modify humans for significantly enhanced characteristics.
-[] Navigator Genetics (200 RP) So... you have some navigator genetic material. You can poke at that, see if you can figure out how it works. They had a reputation even back in your day, and it only seems to have gotten worse. Still, tempting. (Unlocks basic understanding of navigator genetics. Will unlock further technology to improve the health of navigators, as well as technology to allow you to clone navigators.) Good success.
You can make genetic modifications to navigators now, but they're fairly basic.
-[] Adult genetic engineering (100 RP) Genetically modifying an adult comes with all sorts of complications. Doing it without killing them or incapacitating them for months is even harder. (Allows your genetic enhancements/therapies to apply to adult humans. Will help cure mutants. Likely required for a full understanding of juvenat.) Critical success.
It's trivial to make nearly any genetic modification in humans without side effects. Knowing what modification to make is trickier.
-[] Improved Gravity Weapons (125 RP) Your gravity weapons are fairly rudimentary and could be made significantly more elegant. Start by tuning the power flow, then by decreasing the graviton interference... (Improves the range and reduces the cost for gravity weapons. Likely to improve the range for nova cannons, may unlock other applications of gravity technology.) Done by the Stellar Ascendency.
Gravity weapon performance has been improved slightly across the board in terms of damage and range. Novacannon range slightly increased.

Neablis · Dec 18, 2024

Flagship - Spark of the Ancients

Grand Cruiser, 9Km x 2Km in size. Reference Image. 1100 CP Cost, 12,000 cramming budget.
3 Gravities of Acceleration, Medium Armor, Heavy Shields
Hull: Warp Drive, Warp Abacus, Outer Hull psychic shielding 240 HP, Vita Core psychic Shielding 270 HP,
Combat equipment: Tuned Shields (1440 cramming), High Maneuverability Thrusters (refit to take 1080 cramming), Melta Macrocannon Payloads (540 cramming), Medium Boarding Preparations (1080 cramming), Improved Sensors (225 cramming)
Weapons: 2x Heavy Plasma Cannons, 1x Heavy Lances, 4x Light Lances, 2x Medium Macrocannons, 2x Light Macrocannons, 4x Point Defense, 2x Fighters (100 bp cramming each), 1x Shuttles (500 lift/action)(100 bp cramming each), 2x Assault Shuttles (2000 troop capacity) (100 bp cramming each)
Non-combat Equipment: 2x Troop compartment (10,000 capacity each), Medical bay (1000 capacity) (270 hp of "soothe" shielding), Repair Bay (1000 BP repair & refit/turn, 900 cramming)
Modules: 28 slots, 25 of which are filled with 10x Machine-spirit Manufactories (600 BP/action), 2x Crew Quarters (500 capacity) (270 HP), 3x Basic Juvenat Production Facility (150 capacity), 1x Observatory, 1x advanced Technological Research Lab (2 slots), 1x Basic Biology research lab, Basic Psychic Experimentation Lab (270 HP), Oubliette Psychic Experimention Lab (1040 HP, 4 slots), 1x Captive Holding cells (500 capacity) (50 HP).

Flagships are built a lot like normal ships using the ship design rules, with some special rules.
1. They're unique. Whenever you do the "Can I have a new ship please?" technology you can design a ship, which will give you a project to build it. You can't build more than one of each, and they can only be operated if Vita (or another AI) is physically present inside of them.
2. They can be built as a size category larger than what your technology would otherwise allow.
3. They can be built without a shipyard for a +125/250/500/1250/2500/7500 cost for a destroyer/frigate/light cruiser/heavy cruiser/grand cruiser/battleship.
4. They can be refit at a later point in time, though you can't change the ship's size, armor or hull equipment. You can change the shield generators and enginies. Scrapping things is free, but building anything comes with a +50% BP cost. You can use repair bays on refit costs, as well as void BP.
5. They have "modular slots" that can be used for installations from the blueprint page. The number of modular slots available is equal to the extra cramming space in the ship, and you get 1 slot per 100 bp of space left on the ship. Each installation costs more slots depending on its base BP build cost.

# slots	BP cost of installation
1	150
2	350
3	600
4	900
5	1200
6	1500
7	1800
8	2200
9	2600
10	3000
11	3400
12	3900
13	4400
14	4900
15	5400
16	5900
17	6400
18	6900
19	7400
20	7900

In addition, there are a few unique installations that can only be built on your flagship:

Crew Quarters (50 BP, 15 CP, 1 slot) Enough crew space for 500 crew to live in comfort with all necessary amenities.
Basic Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP, 1 slot) A set of carefully-managed vats capable of supplying 50 people with a perennial supply of Juvenat.

[X] Plan: Spark of the Ancients
-[X] Reference Image
-[X] Hull: Grand Cruiser (12000 BP, 500 CP)
-[X] Engines: 2.5 Gravities (1100 BP)
-[X] Shields: Medium (800 BP)
-[X] Armor: Medium (800 BP)
-[X] FINAL HULL COST: 14700 + 2500 (No Shipyard Tax) = 17200. Total Cramming Budget: 12000 BP
-[X] Non-Combat Equipment (Does not contribute to Cramming)
--[X] Warp Drive (1200 BP)
--[X] Warp Abacus Mounting (600 BP)
--[X] Psychic Shielding (2400 BP)
--[X] Repair Bay (1000 BP) (Counts as combat equipment for space budget)
---[X] Hull + Non Combat Equipment Cost: 22400 BP
---[X] Total Cost: 22400 BP, 1000 in the Cramming Budget
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] 2x Heavy Plasma Cannons (2000 BP)
--[X] 1x Heavy Lances (400 BP)
--[X] 4x Light Lances (400 BP)
--[X] 3x Medium Macrocannons (600 BP)
--[X] 2x Light Macrocannons (200 BP)
--[X] 4x Point Defense (200 BP)
--[X] 1x Medium Teleportarium (200 BP)
--[X] 4x Fighters (400 BP, 200 CP)
--[X] 2x Shuttles (200 BP, 100 CP)
--[X] 2x Assault Shuttles (300 BP, 100 CP)
---[X] Total Cost: 27300 BP, 5410 in the Cramming Budget
-[X] Combat Equipment:
--[X] Tuned Shields (800 BP)
--[X] Alloyed Armor (800 BP)
--[X] High Manueverabilty Thrusters (1200 BP)
--[X] Melta Macrocannon Payloads (600 BP)
--[X] Medium Boarding Preparations (1200 BP)
---[X] Total Cost: 31900 BP, 10010 in the Cramming Budget
-[X] Installations: 12000-10010 = leftover BP means 19 modular build slots.
--[X] 10x Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP, 1 slot) (1000 BP, 500 CP)
--[X] 1x Crew Quarters (50 BP, 15 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Basic Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Observatory (100 BP, 25 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Troop compartment (25 BP, 5 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Medical facility (200 BP, 50 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1x Captive Holding cells (25 BP, 10 CP, 1 slot)
--[X] 1 Empty modular slots (free)
-[X] Final Cost: 33650 BP, 1775 CP

Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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Flagship - Spark of the Ancients

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