Just mentioned above, but the construction plan was built around ground factories since those are the most BP efficient and thus faster to build. I imagine after our ship we would use the ground factories to build space ones at the same rate we hand over the ground factories.

There does seem to be a lot of potential behind Large scale void manufacturing, but it wouldn't be fast enough. Currently the desire is to get our ship built in two turns.
Yeah, just noting that, for instance, if you shaved out 10 of the manufactories and one of the shuttlebases out of the second construction of your proposal, you'd free up enough BP to make 6 orbital (or 2 deep space) manufactories instead, giving only a little less output while saving almost two more manufacturing sites worth of CP.

Though...
We are currently using 6,045 CP of 12,500. If we get the factory improvement (and it give a 20% reduction like void) that puts us at 5385 CP before construction. After reserving the 1775 CP our flagship needs we have 5340 CP left. This would let us build 90 more manufactories (with spaceports and shuttles) and have 165 CP leftover.

-[]Construction 1 (4850 BP):
--[]48 Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) --- (4800 BP, 2400 CP)
--[]Trade goods (50 BP)
-[]Construction 2 (7250 BP):
--[]42 Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) --- (4,200 BP, 2100 CP)
--[]9 Spaceport (100 BP, 25 CP) --- (900 BP, 225 CP)
--[]90 Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) --- (1,800 BP, 450 CP)
--[]350 leftover
The CP costs you're attributing to the manufactories here don't seem to account for the factory improvement discount that you were assuming? So you should be expecting another 900 CP left over, no?
 
I think we can hold off on improved shields in order to make room for researching manufacturing machine spirits:

Also I don't think we really need the spy satellites or the observatories.

[] Plan: Build our Ship and Scout the System
-[]Research 1 (Completed before building Manufactories)
--[] Ground Manufactory Efficiency Improvements (50 RP)
--[] Manufacturing Machine Spirits (60 + 40 RP)
---[] Axena assists
--[] The Basics of Psytech (55/100 -> +45 RP)
--[] You don't need no stinkin' medical school (All remaining RP, unless needed to boost results for other research)
--[] Improved Psychic shielding: (Any RP that are somehow left over, if there are any)
-[]Order
--[] Your two new destroyers will conduct a shakedown cruise and survey the Denva system, they will take detailed readings from each planet and station.
-[]Construction 1 (4850 BP):
--[]48 Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) --- (4,800 BP, 2,400 CP)
--[]Trade goods (50 BP)
-[]Construction 2 (7250 BP):
--[]46 Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) --- (4,600 BP, 2,300 CP)
--[]7 Spaceport (100 BP, 25 CP) --- (700 BP, 175 CP)
--[]70 Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) --- (1,400 BP, 350 CP)
--[]500 BP for Psy-shield upgrades
--[]Trade goods (50 BP)

I'm really hoping we get a CP discount from one of the first two techs, but if not we'll need to refit or abandon manufactories to fit the ship - which seems perfectly acceptable to me.

With just researching the GMEI, we'd have a 16% chance of getting a poor success with it IIRC. With Anexa also researching MMS, we have an 11% of her getting a poor success with it - so, a 1.76% chance of getting a poor success with both, which is pretty good odds, IMO.
 
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Incorrect. I've already worked out the math with Karnax626 to do it in 6 actions in 2 turns. And it could probably be improved upon, if we either accept going over the CP limit after the ship is activated and letting the manufactories (or other installations) fall into disrepair, research to decrease the CP cost of our manufactories or research on how to mothball the manufactories.

Also, the problem is that we don't know what kind of problem will be arriving here, or with how much forces it will be arriving with. Just that it is probably not the Imperium, as they evacuated their most valuable personel and assets from here in response to something. So I think that aiming for an overkill, while still retaining the ability to run away if needed against a potentially overwhelmingly powerful enemy? Is probably in our best interests.
If we're CP limited, we could convert some of our manufactories to be human-run. But then we'd need to staff them.
[X] Cia Steblin, confidant pyromancer. Zeta (11)
[X] Diplomat-spy
[X] Plan: Time to take up war-yodeling
You might want to remove the Xs here, since otherwise the vote tally will probably count those as votes. (I think there might be a way to set up the scheduled votes to only count votes after the time when the vote opens? But I'm not certain.)
Divination is good for neither, but it's benefits will be more strategic, and you can choose to either
This sentence is cut off.
 
The CP costs you're attributing to the manufactories here don't seem to account for the factory improvement discount that you were assuming? So you should be expecting another 900 CP left over, no?

.... darn it

Well this is why you show your work folks. We would have 1,065 CP leftover with this build, which makes it much more palatable. I'm going to take a nap and revisit my plans after that.

-[]Order
--[] Your two new destroyers will conduct a shakedown cruise and survey the Denva system, they will take detailed readings from each planet and station and leave behind a small monitoring satellite to keep an eye on things.

You mention satellites, but your plan doesn't research or build them.
 
Sounds good to me, I'll let you designate that as a free action during a vote, and probably throw in a small efficiency-of-scale bonus at the cost of it being hard to break up the brigade for separate tasks.
It's been a while, but I've finally returned with my stuff!

Medium Mechanized Infantry Brigade:
3x Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots w/transports (75 BP, 20 CP) + transports
2x Medium Tank unit Medium Machine-spirit tanks (225 BP, 5 CP)
1x Basic Machine-spirit Artillery (350 BP, 5 CP)
1x Support unit (logistics and transports) (???, not sure if needed)
Total cost: 1025 BP, 75 CP
Purpose: all round formation that does basic mechanized combat stuff. Holds the line, exploits openings. Intended to be an all in one package without obvious weaknesses

Heavy Armored Brigade
2x Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots w/transports (150 BP, 20 CP) + transports
3x Heavy Machine Spirit Shielded tanks (1250 BP, 5 CP)
1x Basic Machine-spirit Artillery (350 BP, 5 CP)
1x Support unit (logistics and transports) (???, not sure if needed)
Total cost: 4400 BP, 60 CP
Purpose: Extremely expensive offensive formation designed to smash a hole through the enemy battleline to allow mechanized formations to follow through and unhinge enemy defenses. Can also be used as a counter breakthrough unit if needed

Airborne Assault Brigade
2x Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots w/ air transports (150 BP, 20 CP) + transports
3x Atmospheric gunships ???
1x Atmospheric fighters ???
Total costs ??
Purpose: airborne regiment designed to do fancy airborne things like deep landings and other dramatics

Artillery Brigade
3x Artillery unit Basic Machine-spirit Artillery (350 BP, 5 CP)
1x Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (75 BP, 20 CP)
Total Costs 775 BP, 35 CP
Purpose: consolidated Heavy Artillery support and enough medium infantry to provide basic security, Intended to provide heavy fire support to key areas of the theater.

Boarding Brigade
4x Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots w/transports (150 BP, 20 CP)
2x Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots w/transports (75 BP, 20 CP)
Total cost: 750 BP 120 CP
Purpose: Heavy boarding forces. Can also be used as elite infantry in city and hive fighting.

Basic doctrine:
Medium Mechanized Brigades form the main battleline, while heavy armored and Airborne Assault brigades work as force multipliers that unhinge key enemy positions that the mechanized brigades then exploit to defeat the enemy, often after one or more Artillery brigades pound the area flat. From a user perspective, it's designed to make ensuring that we have the right mix of units much easier, rather than trying to manually balance them and adds a standard doctrine that, while not perfect, is good enough that we can use it much of the time.

New designs needed:
Combat transport (rhino/chimera equivalent)
Air Transport (not sure if overlapping with shuttles)
Air Gunship (Valkyrie equivalent)
Atmospheric fighter
Support Unit (not sure if it's needed, but its basically a unit that exists to say that logistics are handled so you don't need to worry about them)

I may have gone slightly overboard, but hopefully the things things I designed the brigades to be good at are actually things they are good at.
 
I may have gone slightly overboard, but hopefully the things things I designed the brigades to be good at are actually things they are good at.
It does beg the question of if our current assault shuttles are good enough. I know each one carries a 100 infantry--almost exactly a company--but I don't know how many tanks each can carry, or other vehicles, or if that figure changes for medium/heavy infantry.

EDIT: Also I don't think we know what kind of logistical tail our forces have. The description for the artillery states that it includes ammo fabrication internal to the unit, but I don't know if that means 'can fabricate with the right feedstock' or 'can fabricate with materials in situ."
 
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So, on the topic of our lovely new psyker beans! I want to try analyzing them numerically - that is, assigning numbers to the various criteria and seeing how they add up.

To start with, three different criteria readily present themselves - disposition, power, and specialty. We can assign them values for each, starting with just plain ranking:

Ker Bemsk: Disposition 2, Power 3, Specialty 2 (Telekinesis)
This guy is second best in both specialty and disposition, and the best in power.

Cia Steblin: Disposition 3, Power 2, Specialty 1 (Pyrokinesis)
This girl is best in disposition, second in power, and third in specialty

Kezathi Zenza: Disposition 1, Power 1, Specialty 3 (Divination)
The best specialty, but the worst in both other categories.

Next, we can assign a weight to each of the different criteria. Say:

Disposition: 1.0
Power: 0.9
Specialty: 1.2

And, doing some quick math:

Ker Bemsk: 2 + 2.7 + 2.4 = 7.1
Cia Steblin: 3 + 1.8 + 1.2 = 6
Kezathi Zenza: 1 + 0.9 + 3.6 = 5.5

If we mess around with the weights and values, we can see a few other possibilities:

Ker Bemsk: Disposition 2.5, Power 4, Specialty 2 = 2.5 + 3.6 + 2.4 = 8.5
Cia Steblin: Disposition 3, Power 2, Specialty 1.5 = 3 + 1.8 + 1.8 = 6.6
Kezathi Zenza: Disposition 1, Power 1.5, Specialty 3 = 1 + 1.35 + 3.6 = 5.95

Disposition: 1.2
Power: 0.8
Specialty: 1.4

Ker Bemsk: Disposition 2, Power 3, Specialty 2 = 2.4 + 2.4 + 2.8 = 7.6
Cia Steblin: Disposition 3, Power 2, Specialty 1 = 3.6 + 1.6 + 1.4 = 6.6
Kezathi Zenza: Disposition 1, Power 1, Specialty 3 = 1.2 + 0.8 + 4.2 = 6.2

In summary: Ker Bemsk is very well rounded and has a standout feature (Raw Power), meaning that in order for him to lose, we either need to value Cia's disposition or Kezathi's divination specialty waaay in excess of everything else.
 
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I mean, from the start, you're assigning an Objective Ranking to their Discipline when it's purely just their "character class". So that kind of comes off as deceptive? Especially since you've then gone on and overly weighted Specialty in your chart to "Justify" why Ker is Objectively the Best Choice, by reducing the value on every other category, enough that despite being bottom of the barrel in your rubric in every respect except for their specialty, the Diviner option is still within spitting distance of the Pyromancer option (Who you rated the worst in Specialty despite Speciality being Character Class, not some objective ranking)
 
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I mean, from the start, you're assigning an Objective Ranking to their Discipline when it's purely just their "character class".

It's a criteria by which we need to pick a psyker. So, we need to decide how we feel about it and how it stacks up against anything else - and if we want to do a very detailed analysis, then that means assigning made up numbers and judging how we feel about them. This is subjective, sure - but we need to make a subjective decision, and that's a good way to go about it, IMO. See: If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing With Made-Up Statistics
 
It's a criteria by which we need to pick a psyker. So, we need to decide how we feel about it and how it stacks up against anything else - and if we want to do a very detailed analysis, then that means assigning made up numbers and judging how we feel about them. This is subjective, sure - but we need to make a subjective decision, and that's a good way to go about it, IMO. See: If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing With Made-Up Statistics

Yeah, but the fact your rubric spits out your favored option as Objectively the Best by a large margin (While closely ranking the other two despite you openly stating that the third is the worst of the bunch in every category except Discipline, which is purely subjective) kind of makes it feel like you're just trying to justify your gut feeling with made up numbers.

Like, if you prefer the telekinesis (Which I'm not a huge fan of, but that's because Pyromancer and Diviner both perform a niche we don't already have, while Telekinesis is more a jack of all trades that doesn't expand our Psytech options very much), that's fine! But don't try to make up some fake numbers to try and trick people who are just skimming into thinking it's somehow mathematically the best option.
 
Yeah, I'm looking for arguments as to why those numbers got assigned, not what the calc outcome is once we assume those numbers.
 
Yeah, but the fact your rubric spits out your favored option as Objectively the Best by a large margin (While closely ranking the other two despite you openly stating that the third is the worst of the bunch in every category except Discipline, which is purely subjective) kind of makes it feel like you're just trying to justify your gut feeling with made up numbers.

Like, if you prefer the telekinesis (Which I'm not a huge fan of, but that's because Pyromancer and Diviner both perform a niche we don't already have, while Telekinesis is more a jack of all trades that doesn't expand our Psytech options very much), that's fine! But don't try to make up some fake numbers to try and trick people who are just skimming into thinking it's somehow mathematically the best option.

You have the cauusality backwards - I was favoring Cia before I did this analysis, with a definite leaning towards Kezathi. It's only after I crunched the numbers that I decided Ker was hard to argue with. I definitely prefer divination to telekinesis, and I think there's a strong argument to be made for pyrokinesis, but the overall balance of 'first or second in every category' is very compelling.
 
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It's a criteria by which we need to pick a psyker. So, we need to decide how we feel about it and how it stacks up against anything else - and if we want to do a very detailed analysis, then that means assigning made up numbers and judging how we feel about them. This is subjective, sure - but we need to make a subjective decision, and that's a good way to go about it, IMO. See: If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing With Made-Up Statistics
But making up numbers makes it actively harder to rank them, because it's mostly about what we want from these guys, which is as you said subjective.
while Telekinesis is more a jack of all trades that doesn't expand our Psytech options very much)
I don't think that's the case? It just said it scales the worst for the physically larger psytech, when you're throwing around biggatons, the variety of psytech we can research and use shouldn't be less.
 
It seems like the real discussion to have here is how to rank the different disciplines, and how to weight stability compared to raw psychic power.

I'm trying to roughly balance what all the disciplines do in terms of power, but it's a question of what abilities you want to aquire.

And stability versus power is a narrative difference, but an important one. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Ker rolls badly and refuses to do anything or requires some babysitting while Cia is much more likely to bounce back from things. At the same time he'll definitely find it easier to pull off some pretty impressive things, and if he doesn't roll badly enough he'll probably level faster.
 
In summary: Ker Bemsk is very well rounded and has a standout feature (Raw Power), meaning that in order for him to lose, we either need to value Cia's disposition or Kezathi's divination specialty waaay in excess of everything else.
...Sorry, but this was pure nonsense to my eyes. Only thing where numerically something is better in this case is in how powerful each of our psykers are. And that is balanced by how unstable and dangerous they are to us.

Using pure numbers here is very unlikely to give us any kind of good analysis. Instead, we should ask: What we want our psyker to do? Do we want a champion who will become extra killy as she levels up, even against Daemons? Do we want to burn ships with battleship-augmented psychic powers. A very friendly and stable psyker with considerable power (quite rare actually)? Then pick Cia. Maybe even get biomancy as her second discipline to make her even more of a monster in melee.

Do we want someone who has a lot of flexibility in what they can do, and probably has crazy mobility at higher levels? Who, with more experience can likely get very innovative with their psychic powers? Who, as an example, could probably get a lot out of divination as their second discipline, if we don't just stack more telekinesis? Someone with actually a desire to explore, even they are somewhat awkward socially? Pick Ker.

As a side note: Kezathi? I didn't really like, even if divination is useful. But so is every single other discipline, don't get blinded by words "dice manipulation". I trust Neablis to fairly balance how the disciplines work.
while Telekinesis is more a jack of all trades that doesn't expand our Psytech options very much)
I don't think that's the case? It just said it scales the worst for the physically larger psytech, when you're throwing around biggatons, the variety of psytech we can research and use shouldn't be less.
Not sure if this appliable here, but Neablis updated the part about the psychic powers in the earlier post. So just gonna put it here if anyone wants to take a look for more clarity for how psychic powers will be handled in this quest.
None of the psychic disciplines are inherently better than the others, but they've certainly got different focuses.

Pyromancy will be most champion-focused, and will scale with psytech into voidship & army-scale effects. It's very much the "now you die" discipline.

Telekinesis is more flexible, with both the ability to attack and defend and some mobility sprinkled in. It'll be significantly less effective at killing things, but can manage it in a pinch. It's probably the one the scales the worst with huge psytech. It'll be pretty effective for things like infiltration.

Divination isn't good in direct conflict, but it's benefits will be more strategic, and you can choose to either use it to learn what your enemies are up to or to manipulate your dice.

Biomancy is more around healing & buffing. A biomancer can be quite powerful in direct combat, but more in the "very strong and self-healing champion" then the "melt you and the room you're standing in" sense. Will also have applications in medical/enhancement/augmentation fields.

And then a telepath is weird. They're in some senses the ideal spy and diplomat, while also having the ability to directly attack people. Almost more versatile than the telekinetic, but with the limitations of not being able to interface with robots without psytech and being the easiest discipline to actively shield agaisnt.

And of course, all disciplines can use force weaponry, which is a big deal.

Regardless it'll be a while before these psykers are up and running - they'll start at level 0, and levelling them will either be slow or risky.
 
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So, on the topic of our lovely new psyker beans! I want to try analyzing them numerically - that is, assigning numbers to the various criteria and seeing how they add up.
If you want numerical analysis to be fair, you should assign numbers on a more granular scale than 1-3.

Discipline should either be disregarded as a factor, or given only a slight weight difference, maybe 0.8, 1 and 1.2.
Again, this is mostly arbitrary, but there isn't too much of a difference between the disciplines, and psykers can get other disciplines eventually, so it's not a deciding factor. I used your ordering. Pyromancy is a one trick pony, and divination has very hard to replicate capabilities.

Give the Psyker power the weight from the chart, so 10, 11 and 13, with a divisor of 10, so 1.0, 1.1 and 1.3.
Less arbitrary, but it's a convenient numerical system that comes out of the box.

Disposition can stay on a 1-3 scale, but you could scale it down to 0.5-1.5 scale, to not skew the results too heavily.
However, it's very important, so it's got a broader range than the other two, due to how important i think chemistry is.

Again, arbitrary and subjective.

That way you have:
Ker Bemsk: Disposition 1, Power 1.3, Specialty 1 = 3.3
Cia Steblin: Disposition 1.5, Power 1.1, Specialty 0.8 = 3.4
Kezathi Zenza: Disposition 0.5, Power 1.0, Specialty 1.2 = 2.7

Other useful measurements would be Danger level, which is a negative. Both Ker and Cia score higher (lower) on this one due to Higher power and incredibly destructive discipline (respectively). Divination and Low Power, otoh would score lower, as the accidents would be less dangerous.
 
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Using pure numbers here is very unlikely to give us any kind of good analysis. Instead, we should ask: What we want our psyker to do? Do we want a champion who will become extra killy as she levels up, even against Daemons? Do we want to burn ships with battleship-augmented psychic powers. A very friendly and stable psyker with considerable power (quite rare actually)? Then pick Cia. Maybe even get biomancy as her second discipline to make her even more of a monster in melee.

That's the whole point though, assigning numbers to things gives us a chance to directly compare values. How much do we value friendliness versus power versus the various disciplines. If you think friendliness is all that matters, then give it a multiplier of 2 or 3 to everything else's 0.5, for example.
 
That's the whole point though, assigning numbers to things gives us a chance to directly compare values. How much do we value friendliness versus power versus the various disciplines. If you think friendliness is all that matters, then give it a multiplier of 2 or 3 to everything else's 0.5, for example.

Yeah, but if you're assigning those values based on your subjective experience--and openly--it's just going to confirm what you already think. Thus, there's no real point to it.
 
I think seer is far and away the best option for adding capabilities we cannot get any other way.

I think Cia is the best for filling a role we need filled, for meshing well with the rest of our crew, and for being the face of a newer, safer order of psykers when we go out uplifting.

I think the telekinetic is the most "he like me, 4 real 4 real" option we've got, but I don't expect him having similar motives to Vita will make him mesh with the crew, allow us to do things we cannot otherwise do, or fill a role that Vita dies not fill.
 
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That's the whole point though, assigning numbers to things gives us a chance to directly compare values. How much do we value friendliness versus power versus the various disciplines. If you think friendliness is all that matters, then give it a multiplier of 2 or 3 to everything else's 0.5, for example.
Why would I need numbers when I can go with vibes? Because vibes are, in this case, a superior way of making the choice. I'm not kidding.
 
if i remember correctly, it is easier for powerful psykers to learn and use techniques from other disciplines.

Don't know if that is the case in this quest
 
Yeah, but if you're assigning those values based on your subjective experience--and openly--it's just going to confirm what you already think. Thus, there's no real point to it.

That's the point though, to reveal and examine what I already think. In this case, it revealed that I don't actually prefer any of the criteria that strongly, and that I want a well balanced candidate.

If you want numerical analysis to be fair, you should assign numbers on a more granular scale than 1-3.

Discipline should either be disregarded as a factor, or given only a slight weight difference, maybe 0.8, 1 and 1.2.
Again, this is mostly arbitrary, but there isn't too much of a difference between the disciplines, and psykers can get other disciplines eventually, so it's not a deciding factor. I used your ordering. Pyromancy is a one trick pony, and divination has very hard to replicate capabilities.

Give the Psyker power the weight from the chart, so 10, 11 and 13, with a divisor of 10, so 1.0, 1.1 and 1.3.
Less arbitrary, but it's a convenient numerical system that comes out of the box.

Disposition can stay on a 1-3 scale, but you could scale it down to 0.5-1.5 scale, to not skew the results too heavily.
However, it's very important, so it's got a broader range than the other two, due to how important i think chemistry is.

That way you have:
Ker Bemsk: Disposition 1, Power 1.3, Specialty 1 = 3.3
Cia Steblin: Disposition 1.5, Power 1.1, Specialty 0.8 = 3.4
Kezathi Zenza: Disposition 0.5, Power 1.0, Specialty 1.2 = 2.7

Like this, yeah. That's a fairly straightforwards analysis, though one heavily weighted in favor of disposition.

Personally, I find it hard to weight specialty and power so low? And having the highest disposition be three times the lowest raises my eyebrows... If we dropped the disposition spread to 0.8 - 1.2, same as specialty, and gave divination a bonus for bing really shiny (No seriously, look at some of these things. Imagine knowing enemy fleet movements in advance, or screwing with enemy aim on the level of a spacebattle) then it gets a lot narrower:

Ker Bemsk: Disposition 1, Power 1.3, Specialty 1 = 3.3
Cia Steblin: Disposition 1.2, Power 1.1, Specialty 0.8 = 3.1
Kezathi Zenza: Disposition 0.8, Power 1.0, Specialty 1.4 = 3.2

Though on the other hand, if we increase Cia's disposition and specialty values by 0.1 each, then that puts her tied with Ker, so she's certainly close.


Maybe we should focus on nailing down how much we value disposition? It seems to me that none of them are very far apart in disposition - the worst is just 'scared and withdrawn', and the best is 'open and driven', which isn't a huge difference IMO. Though it might be enough that we would want to spend a diplo action on Kezathi if we got her? Which is a pretty big investment...

Why would I need numbers when I can go with vibes? Because vibes are, in this case, a superior way of making the choice. I'm not kidding.

I prefer numbers. :p
 
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