Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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This isn't our planet. We've already committed to abandoning ALL the infrastructure we construct here, and there plenty of capacity for them to build out their own defenses.

Assuming they can run our current facilities? Do we need the aug enhancements for them to take over our factories?

Angle said:
I think that's silly too, though. We don't actually need that much void lift - we have lots and lots of stuff on planet we need to do. Maybe a little bit of extra lift would be nice, but mostly I think we should keep our focus planetside for now.
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Well, no. We've got an infinitely long list of things that would be nice to do, but nothing we need to do.

On the other hand, we *need* to go exploring- that's part of the character creation bake. And so we need a ship.

If we roll really badly and this system gets conquered before we return, we can always just build up from scratch again in some astroid belt.

Prime 2.0 said:
We cannot research psyker biology - and the gene bank chargen operation included a pathway to psyker cloning, there 100% is psyker biology - without first unlocking biology research.
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So? We literally have not even talked to psykers yet. I don't think we can say we need this until after we have the hinted at navigator genetic materials. This is very much putting the car before the horse.

Prime 2.0 said:
The purpose of foundational knowledge is to provide the context to know what is and is not a waste of time and effort - that's why the etymology is drawn from construction where the same is true of how to avoid wasting time having to rebuild because your first attempt was unsound.
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...you write this as if we don't already have the knowledge and ability to build destroyers. We are not starting from ignorance here. We aren't fumbling in the dark.

So I don't know what you expect to get from doing this now, except another 2-3 turn delay in starting to build void craft.

Angle said:
Also, if we want to build a big ship, then that probably means delaying *longer*, so we have time to research all the techs required and scale our industrial base enough to pay for the thing.
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It seems logical that the bigger a ship we want, the more of our construction capacity is going to have to be in the void, and the more CP we are going to need available to build it.
 
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We can't send scouting ships, because we only have one Void Abacus, sending it on an expendable drone is ridiculous.

I'm also not advocating a gigantic gigaship. We could probably get by with a Heavy Cruiser if we had to--which is easily within reach in the next two turns without going all in on it.
 
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Glau said:
Well, no. We've got an infinitely long list of things that would be nice to do, but nothing we need to do.

On the other hand, we *need* to go exploring- that's part of the character creation bake. And so we need a ship.

If we roll really badly and this system gets conquered before we return, we can always just build up from scratch again in some astroid belt.
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First off, that's extremely callous, and if it happened we'd have all the same problems, except scaling up void infrastructure in an asteroid belt is sooo much harder than on a planet - a 10% increase in manufacturing capacity per action, rather than a 50%. Sooo much worse. We'd still have to deal with Wayfarer, and we'd have to worry about things finding us and giving us trouble - we should avoid it if at all possible. So, yes, we *need* to get Denva stable, or we're alone in a cruel universe. Also note, Victan and Anexa would be disappointed in us if we abandoned their planet carelessly.

And there's plenty left to discover in the Denva system. We have the Psykers, Klyssar's Nest, Denva Prime, the gas giants and their stations, and the rest of the system in general. It's far from played out.

Edit: No, wait, it's only a 10% increase if we're next to a planet. For an asteroid belt, its a 6% increase. Even worse!

Alectai said:
We can't send scouting ships, because we only have one Void Abacus, sending it on an expendable drone is ridiculous.
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Of course not, we research the void abacus tech, obviously. It's already unlocked and only costs 200 RP. We should do that anyway, and I'd like it to be sooner, rather than later.

@Neablis How close are we to having Wayfarer problems? And, what all counts for discovery? Does tech count? Doing new things with diplomacy? What about exploring the psyker enclaves, the station, or Denva Prime?
 
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Heavy cruiser is good. Big enough to anchor a small fleet without being too scary to let live if it's an enemy.

Angle said:
First off, that's extremely callous, and if it happened we'd have all the same problems,
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Sure. This is a very callous setting and nothing we can do will prevent the planet from falling if something like 'a demon emerges from the monestaries' or 'the Tyranids descend in force' happens on a natural 1.

Again, this isn't our planet. We can give them tools and warnings but unless you are willing to rule openly...

We are giving them a tech base unseen since the dark age of technology, along with orbital defenses and the plans for more. Why is that not enough?

Angle said:
Of course not, we research the void abacus tech, obviously. It's already unlocked and only costs 200 RP. We should to do that anyway, and I'd like it to be sooner, rather than later.
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Full turn of research added here. I would prefer this to wet bio or physics because it is more immediately useful.
 
Glau said:
Sure. This is a very callous setting and nothing we can do will prevent the planet from falling if something like 'a demon emerges from the monestaries' or 'the Tyranids descend in force' happens on a natural 1.

Again, this isn't our planet. We can give them tools and warnings but unless you are willing to rule openly...

We are giving them a tech base unseen since the dark age of technology, along with orbital defenses and the plans for more. Why is that not enough?
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Because technology is only as good as the choices you make while using it - and in order for them to use it well, they need good institutions, and we need to stick around a few turns and spend actions giving them said institutions.

As for the callousness, it's not just callous, it's wasteful and careless. We would gain huge benefits from having a safe, reliable port to return home too. It's not charity, it's an investment, and investments are important. They can supply us with manufacturing capacity, research, manpower, and reputation. All of those are valuable and worth investing in.

Glau said:
Full turn of research added here. I would prefer this to wet bio or physics because it is more immediately useful.
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Not a full turn, merely a full action. And I still agree with prime about research, fundamentals are important.

Actually, @Neablis, while we're on the subject, how hard would it be to get RP out of Denva Secundus? How much investment would that take?
 
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Angle said:
they need good institutions, and we need to stick around a few turns and spend actions giving them said institutions.
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Why do you think their existing institutions aren't good? Your whole argument basically comes across as not trusting the humans to do the smart things without an older, wiser, more powerful entity telling them to do them.

I'd prefer to trust the liberal democracies, and get into space.

Angle said:
Not a full turn, merely a full action. And I still agree with prime about research, fundamentals are important.
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Point conceded on the action vs turn.

How many additional turns would you like to delay getting off planet so we can do basic research? Prime? Question goes to you too.
 
Glau said:
Why do you think their existing institutions aren't good? Your whole argument basically comes across as not trusting the humans to do the smart things without an older, wiser, more powerful entity telling them to do them.

I'd prefer to trust the liberal democracies, and get into space.
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Oh I'm sure their current institutions are fine - for the circumstances they were built for. We're about to flip their entire world upside down, we should stick around to help them sort it out, not immediately fuck off and leave them to clean up the mess. I don't think we should tell them what to do - but we can offer *a lot* as an advisor. Perfect recall, the ability to stay up all night, the ability to juggle several different conversations, a huge body of knowledge we can dip into...

Glau said:
How many additional turns would you like to delay getting off planet so we can do basic research? Prime? Question goes to you too.
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Four to six, (actions, not turns) probably, spread out over several turns. We want the abacus, machine spirits, warp understanding, biology and physics, and ideally I'd like to pick up Intelligence Coding, despite its expense. Maybe another thing or two, we'll see. We also need to help get Denva's institutions sorted out, we need to build the infra to make our ship, and there's plenty of stuff to poke at while we're here.
 
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Angle said:
Oh I'm sure their current institutions are fine - for the circumstances they were built for. We're about to flip their entire world upside down, we should stick around to help them sort it out, not immediately fuck off and leave them to clean up the mess. I don't think we should tell them what to do - but we can offer *a lot* as an advisor. Perfect recall, the ability to stay up all night, the ability to juggle several different conversations, a huge body of knowledge we can dip into...
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Problem is if we try to stay wayfarer will kick in and GM will send as on our way as we are suppose to do.
This quest is not about building civilisation it is about exploring.
 
Picio said:
Problem is if we try to stay wayfarer will kick in and GM will send as on our way as we are suppose to do.
This quest is not about building civilisation it is about exploring.
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We've spent 13 turns here without wayfarer doing anything to us. I think we can stay for a while yet, especially if we spend some of that time exploring all the cool stuff still in system.
 
Picio said:
It did in turn 4 or so.
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Did it? Well:

Neablis said:
You can send messages to all of your newfound acolytes, but it seems like Anexa in particular is somewhat of an underutilized genius, though you're not entirely sure how you to harness that. She's stuck under the thumb of Magos Orynn for the foreseeable future, and is unlikely to be promoted to full Magos in her own right for at least a hundred years and until the Mechanicus as a whole is more confident in her orthodoxy.

I might still be here then, but I damn well better not still be stick in a hole in the ground hiding every movement.
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So, apparently Vita would be willing to accept us still being on Denva at turn 24 so long as weren't just stuck in a hole hiding all the time. Which we've already accomplished! So good news, we should have more than enough time to sort out Denva before Vita feels compelled to leave.
 
The issue is that we need to be making constant steps forward, we can't just spin our wheels for a century because we wanted perfect instead of "Good enough"
 
Glau said:
...you write this as if we don't already have the knowledge and ability to build destroyers. We are not starting from ignorance here. We aren't fumbling in the dark.

So I don't know what you expect to get from doing this now, except another 2-3 turn delay in starting to build void craft.
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Sure, sure. Except for the part where we have to research how to make bigger ships. And how to arrange weapons on them. And literally anything to do with the warp and psychic powers that we want to protect ourselves from. I won't even bother bringing up how in the dark we are on biology, that should be self-evident.

We are not planning to make our ship by doing what we already know how to do by rote. We are first trying to make sure we make a good ship that can survive the nasty neighborhood our chargen gave us.

What I expect to get from physics? Upgraded and discounted actions of course, the mechanical implementation of what foundational knowledge gives any real life endeavor. If you know the right questions to ask when faced with a new challenge, you save a boatload of time correcting for answering the wrong ones.
Glau said:
How many additional turns would you like to delay getting off planet so we can do basic research? Prime? Question goes to you too.
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More like turns we save by doing things in order. I gave my docket last turn - I want to take the easy manufacturing and blueprint research savings, I want to be prepared to hit the ground running on getting the research potential out of the psyker monastaries as we sort them out (and potentially get a crewmember from them depending on rolls - these folks are a harder target than the general population, but a softer one than we'll find anywhere else), and I refuse to leave without upgrading our protections from chaos, most of our options for which will probably be improved and/or discounted by researching that psytech which itself dovetails with diplomacy with the monastaries to get their psychic shielding tech.

And, well, as others have pointed out, having a friendly civilization that we can come back to is a massive asset, and one that Vita has expressed deep interest in already - and one that we spent two shinies on having. This is a foothold towards making a sector friendly to who we really are that we should not throw away. And that means we have to be efficient about the time we spent bootstrapping them, by say, making sure we can walk the walk when we talk the talk to the mechanicus during this time of transition.
 
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Angle said:
We've spent 13 turns here without wayfarer doing anything to us. I think we can stay for a while yet, especially if we spend some of that time exploring all the cool stuff still in system.
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Yeah, because we physically couldn't leave without risking the Mechanicus blowing the planet to kingdom come.

I agree we don't have to leave the planet right this turn or the next, but she'll need a good reason not to be actively prepping for the trip now that threat is gone.
Alectai said:
I'm also not advocating a gigantic gigaship. We could probably get by with a Heavy Cruiser if we had to--which is easily within reach in the next two turns without going all in on it.
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I'm not actually sure about that. It's 300 RP to unlock Heavy Cruiser designs, but then the current biggest shipyard we can make can only do Light Cruisers, so wouldn't we need to unlock the next biggest size of that as well? There's enough on our plate research wise it might be better to just go for a LC with a half decent set of attendant ships.
 
Karnax626 said:
Yeah, because we physically couldn't leave without risking the Mechanicus blowing the planet to kingdom come.

I agree we don't have to leave the planet right this turn or the next, but she'll need a good reason not to be actively prepping for the trip now that threat is gone.

I'm not actually sure about that. It's 300 RP to unlock Heavy Cruiser designs, but then the current biggest shipyard we can make can only do Light Cruisers, so wouldn't we need to unlock the next biggest size of that as well? There's enough on our plate research wise it might be better to just go for a LC with a half decent set of attendant ships.
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Nah, we can build one size bigger, so we can build Heavy Cruiser ship right now.
 
Alectai said:
The issue is that we need to be making constant steps forward, we can't just spin our wheels for a century because we wanted perfect instead of "Good enough"
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It's not spinning our wheels, nor am I aiming for perfect! This is a necessary action to sustain our operations going forwards.

Karnax626 said:
Yeah, because we physically couldn't leave without risking the Mechanicus blowing the planet to kingdom come.

I agree we don't have to leave the planet right this turn or the next, but she'll need a good reason not to be actively prepping for the trip now that threat is gone.
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"Making sure the planet is safe so she can come back later" Isn't a good reason? And I really don't think we need to leave nearly so quickly - there's still tons to do in system! Again, I keep repeating this - Psyker Monasteries, Klyssars Nest, Denva Prime...

Also note, spending time building industry and doing research *is* preparing. We'll need that industry to build our ship, and to build the infra to repair, refuel, and maybe expand and build us a new one when we come back. And the research goes towards expanding our capabilities more generally.
 
Here's a possible free action for the database checking. "On a whim, you look up 'Exploration Ships' of the Imperium, and find an actually recently made and decently popular ship design for the purpose, in the 'Hawking Class Exploration Cruiser'. Curiosity leads you to investigate similar ships, like the 'Dauntless Class Light Cruiser', and typical 'Explorator Fleet' upgrades for it, as well as 'Explorator Fleet' modifications for the Dictator Cruiser, itself a modification of the 'Lunar Class Cruiser' (since the Hawking itself seems to be based primarily on the Dauntless and the Dictator), and other ships that mixed extreme independent operating range, good sensors, and flight decks of some sort, such as the 'Punisher Class Arbites Strike Cruiser', and the 'Vanguard Class Astartes Strike Cruiser'. A search to find something truly exploration focused in what you would consider the upper end of the mass of the Heavy Cruiser range finds very little -- there's an old design called the 'Exorcist Class Grand Cruiser', but its replacement, the 'Mars Class Battlecruiser', doesn't even seem to have any modification package to add extended independent operating time and range or improved sensor packages. Why didn't the Imperium make any big exploration ships, you wonder. Still, you ponder the benefits and downsides of making a ship able to 'pass' as a reasonably common Imperial Ship, or using the design of one as a starting point."

Thoughts, @Neablis? Is this valid, or too specific?
 
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[]Plan: Hearts and Minds
- [] Free so far you have only worked directly with Avon, and when you first made contact with them, it almost ended with you blowing yourself up. It would be best if you spent some time to research the other nations so you aren't caught unawares.
- [] Diplomacy/Subversion:
-- [] Before you can make the mechanicus into a more respectable power that can work harmoniously with the people of Denva, you must first make sure they don't revert back to their old ways. Unfortunately, loath as you are to admit it, it seems unlikely that you will be able to get rid of all of the religious dogma the mechanicus couch themselves in. And, indeed, you have learned that the faith serves a purpose, though the exact reasons for that lay beyond your partition. Rather than completely dismantling the Mechanicus faith, it would be better to modernize it. Build it into something that can actually help people. In addition, you did just do a hostile take-over. Some people might even call it a coup. You *need* to do some image rehabilitation. Fortunately, both of these objectives can be accomplished in the same way. Teach. Teach loudly and in public, to everyone who will listen. Teach quietly in the shadows, to those who you know will do good with the knowledge. Teach those who support you, so they know you practice what you preach. Teach those who hate you, with action rather than words. And make sure, when you teach knowledge, you also teach wisdom. (TLDR: try and turn the mechanicus dogma around into something useful, and look good doing it)

- []Diplomacy/Subversion:
-- [] Whilst Avon has been kept relatively abreast of your actions and developments, no one else has. This needs to change. The fact of the matter is that if you keep dealing solely with Avon, then the other countries will invariably fall behind. Inevitably, that will lead to resentment, and perhaps even war. It would be best to nip that problem in the bud. Create a Council of Nations (wait, maybe something with the acronym "CoN" is a bad idea, workshop the name) where you can talk to all the nations at once. If there is already one such organization, co-opt it. Ensure it has some amount of governing power by offering incentives in the form of tech and aid. Give it legitimacy by bringing the mechanicus to the table. And do your absolute best to build in checks and balances so it dosn't go corrupt the second you take your eyes off it. (TLDR: Make the UN and give it some oompf with our tech and control over the mechanicus)

-[ ] Construction: (2,750 Ground BP, 500 Void BP)
--[ ] 6x Spaceports (-600 BP, -150 CP)
---[ ] We're going to build these on the spot they already nuked, because hey, it's Free Real Estate.
--[ ] 60x Shuttles (-1200 BP, -300 CP)
--[ ] Make good our Combat Losses (-270 BP)
--[ ] Klyssa Station Dig Supplies (-250 BP, shipped using available infrastructure this turn)
--[ ] Incentive Budget for the Summit and Rent (-430 BP)
--[ ] 1x Orbital Manufactory (-500 VBP, -50 CP)
(construction actions taken directly from Gale's plan)
(Edit: Construction action take directly from Alectai's plan)

- []Research: (200 RP + 25 Anexa)
-- []Biology is kinda wet actually (75+25 Anexa)
-- []Advanced materials(125/300)

Basically, I wanted to tweak the diplomacy actions so that we focused solely on Denva and left the space station for a turn. Give them some time before we start messing with them, let them get comfortable. It's my first time posting a plan here, and I'm not married to either the construction section or the free lookup, so suggestions would be appreciated on those. Also I really want to start working on mega-structures.
 
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Karnax626 said:
The research option says we can design up to one tier bigger than our current ship, but I thought we still needed an appropriately sized shipyard to actually build the thing?
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...I think we'll get that from the heavy cruisers tech too? Seems silly if we didn't, and didn't also have it as a visible tech.

ArticulateJargon said:
-- [] 1x Small Shipyard (1000 void BP, 50 CP)
-- [] Tiny system monitor (950 void BP, 50 CP)
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These need Void BP, not ground side BP, I'm afraid - and we only have ~500 of that right now.
 
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