Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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I do think people are undervalueing pyromancy. It's a combat focused discipline yes, but that's not necesarily a bad thing. Not for nothing is it considered the best discipline for making things dead, even normally difficult things like demons.
 
Toboe said:
Could we, long term, establish a new specialization?
Technomancer, using psychic power to supplement hacking, jamming, operation etc of technology.
(With the Scrapcode generator being like "legendary psychic power, very disappointing tech prowess" our technomancers would be weaker psychically but have much better tech prowess (or even Vita grade if she helps))
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Forgot to @Neablis
 
Angle said:
I prefer numbers. :p
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Then they are good for you for making your decision. Good if they work for you, but doesn't mean they work the same for everyone. Hell, IronFist came up with their own different calculations, it seems. Anyway, what it means that they might be good, like it has been said by Alectai earlier, for you to make your own subjective choices. But not for working out the objective truth for everyone else too.
 
Anyway, all that aside, here's the prototype for the plan.

[ ] Plan: Expand your Ship, Vita!
-[ ] Construction x3
--[ ] First Construction: (4,850 BP, there's enough lift to make the difference between VBP and BP irrelevant)
---[ ] +43 Manufactories (4,300 BP, 2,150 CP), 2 Spaceports (200 BP, 50 CP), 15 Shuttles (300 BP, 75 CP), Trade Goods (50 BP)
--[ ] Second Construction (7,000 BP, natch)
---[ ] +7 Manufactories (700 BP, 350 CP), 3 Spaceports (300 BP, 75 CP), 35 Shuttles (700 BP, 175 CP). Ship!: 5,300/33,650 BP
--[ ] Third Construction (7,350 BP, Natch)
---[ ] Ship!: 12,650/33,650 BP
-[ ] Research (200 RP + 40 Anexa RP)
--[ ] Improved Psychic Shielding (20 + 40 Anexa RP, Complete!)
--[ ] The Basics of Psytech (85,Complete!)
--[ ] You don't need no Stinkin' Med School! (50/50, Complete!)
--[ ] Introduction to Human Genetics (45/100)

Halfway finished THE BUILD ORDER, we get Improved Psychic Shielding online along with Basics of Psytech, and we get most of the way through our Tier 1 Biology research between Med School and Intro to Genetics.
 
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Questwolf said:
I do think people are undervalueing pyromancy. It's a combat focused discipline yes, but that's not necesarily a bad thing. Not for nothing is it considered the best discipline for making things dead, even normally difficult things like demons.
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We have so many other options for making things dead though, like 'nuclear bombardment from orbit' and 'endless hordes of plasma equipped combat robots'. Though, Pyrokinesis can do this in a convenient person sized package, much easier to deliver stealthily and much less likely to trigger a full scale war, so there is that to be said about it...

meianmaru said:
Then they are good for you for making your decision. Good if they work for you, but doesn't mean they work the same for everyone. Hell, IronFist came up with their own different calculations, it seems. Anyway, what it means that they might be good, like it has been said by Alectai earlier, for you to make your own subjective choices. But not for working out the objective truth for everyone else too.
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Well sure. Objective truth is notoriously hard to get at. But steady approximation of a useful subjective truth has it's own value.
 
Angle said:
We have so many other options for making things dead though, like 'nuclear bombardment from orbit' and 'endless hordes of plasma equipped combat robots'. Though, Pyrokinesis can do this in a convenient person sized package, much easier to deliver stealthily and much less likely to trigger a full scale war, so there is that to be said about it...



Well sure. Objective truth is notoriously hard to get at. But steady approximation of a useful subjective truth has it's own value.
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Plus, Pyromancy doesn't suffer damage reduction when fighting Daemons, and oh look there's a Daemon World in this sector.

(It's also one of the only reliable ways to True Kill a Daemon, though that's a high level feat like Teleportation is for Telekinesis)
 
Glau said:
@Angle, why are you ranking pyromancy below telekinesis? It's more useful for the roles we need filled.
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Is it? As I said, we have lots of options for killing things. Where as telekinesis can do things like 'explore places we can't just overwhelm with combat robots'. Though I suppose we could accomplish the same with antigravity research...? And yeah, 'killing demons' is certainly worthwhile... I will hesitantly agree to valuing pyromancy on par with telekinesis, then:

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

That's enough to put Cia on even footing with Ker, or above if we slightly increase our value of her more positive disposition.
 
Angle said:
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...
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I weighted it so heavily, because of Victan's reaction:
> Not her. [Spooked]
> I'm not sure. He seems... challenging to work with. [Demurring]
> I like her. [Pleased]

Questwolf said:
I do think people are undervalueing pyromancy. It's a combat focused discipline yes, but that's not necesarily a bad thing. Not for nothing is it considered the best discipline for making things dead, even normally difficult things like demons.
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At high levels, all disciplines are great.
I didn't give them a heavy weight in my calculation, because the Psykers start at a low level and can learn other disciplines eventually.

But Telekinesis at lower levels is better than Pyromancy, as it can do both attack and defence.
Lifting heavy shit is cool, but so are cranes and robotic arms :p
Divination gets the edge because it has non combat uses as well.
 
I feel like if we are relying on our combat bots to kill things, we really should get a general who knows how to command armies and fight wars. Not sure if that could be Cia, but I'm pretty sure Ker is too close to Vita personality-wise to be better at that niche than her.
 
Alright! Enough with objectifying the three of them! This is a Quest about an Artificial Intelligence in a galaxy that would destroy her on principle! This may play like an RPG but it's also about the story! Their specialty does factor in the decision but that should not be the only factor. Good grief!
 
I think having a bundle of energy is a nice bit of spice to our inquisitive AI, our giant nerd scientist, and our sauve, confident diplospy.
 
rando1234 said:
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
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Ish. More powerful in this quest probably means the dc to level is lower, but the dc to not cause perils is higher. Haven't decided on that one. It may be possible for a delta to both cause perils and level at the same time.

Toboe said:
Forgot to @Neablis
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That's probably telepathy plus lots of psytech and neural augmentation. A similar setup for a pyronancer might let them channel their powers remotely.

meianmaru said:
I think we can bury this subject here. It has started circling. Lets just say that different methods for different people.
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Maybe this particular branch is circling, but in general this topic is important and should continue to be discussed.

The psyker(s) you get now will influence what branch of psytech you can go down, and how good they'll be at it. Think of it as choosing between the 50-turn payoff of a teleporting super-spy (or whatever else you spec Ker into), a champion who can square up to greater demons (and/or cast fleet-scale psyker attacks), and a seer who can tell you what every other player in the sector is planning (and/or let you reroll your lowest roll or roll a specific roll twice and take the higher). Or letting you explore the basics of every tree, at the cost of the high-level portions being locked out.

It'll take work to fill that out, but this is where you choose which path you want to start walking.

Beyond that, please consider which character you most want to read. Who would create the most interesting dynamic with who you currently have, for you? There's no right answer, but the biggest danger of this quest ending is everybody (including me) getting bored, not Vita mechanically losing.
 
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Decided to drop the scouting action:

[] Plan: Improved Manufactories and building the ship
-[] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular.
--[] Look for information on nearby xenos, both friendly and hostile.
-[] Research 1 (Completed before building Manufactories, hopefully discounting their CP)
--[] Ground Manufactory Efficiency Improvements (50 RP)
--[] Manufacturing Machine Spirits (60 + 40 RP)
---[] Anexa assists
--[] Improved Psychic shielding: (60 RP, unless needed to boost results for earlier research)
--[] You don't need no stinkin' medical school (30 RP, unless needed to boost results for earlier research)
-[] Construction 1 (3500 GBP, 1350 VBP, 3500 Lift, 4850 BP total):
--[] 48 Manufactory (100 GBP, 50 CP) --- (4,800 GBP, 2,400 CP) (4055 left, barring CP discounts from tech)
--[] 2.5 Shuttles (20 GBP, 5 CP) --- (50 GBP, 15 CP) (570 CP left, barring CP discounts from tech) (+150 Lift capacity, pending spceports)
-[] Construction 2 (5900 GBP, 1350 VBP, 3500 Lift, 7250 BP total):
--[] 67 Manufactory (100 GBP, 50 CP) --- (6,700 GBP, 3,350 CP) (705 CP left, barring CP discounts from tech)
--[] 2 Spaceport (100 GBP, 25 CP) --- (200 GBP, 50 CP) (655 CP left, barring CP discounts from tech)
--[] 17.5 Shuttle (20 GBP, 5 CP) --- (350 GBP, 85 CP) (570 CP left, barring CP discounts from tech) (+1000 Lift capacity = 4500)
-[] Construction 3 (9250 GBP, 1350 VBP, 4500 Lift Capacity, 10,600 BP total)
--[] 10 Spaceport (100 GBP, 25 CP) --- (1000 GBP, 250 CP) (320 CP left, barring CP discounts from tech)
--[] 95 Shuttle (20 GBP, 5 CP) --- (1900 GBP, 475 CP) (-170 CP left, barring CP discounts from tech) (+4750 Lift capacity = 9250)
--[] 500 GBP for Psy-shield upgrades
--[] 1250 GBP for various bribes, uplift assistance, and other forms of commercial lubrication, including refitting manufactories for machine spirits to reduce CP costs.)
--[] Trade goods (100 GBP)
--[] Ship!: 5850/33,650 VBP
-[] Anexa active Action: Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
-[] Victan passive action: Counterespionage & communication - Defends against covert action, as well as gathering information on your foes and keeping communication channels open with any allies present. Will only level if something interesting happens.

This plan comes out a bit behind Alectai's on current ship progress, but has almost 50% more BP per turn going forwards. It relies on getting CP discounts from GMEI and/or MMS to handle the CP cap, but it's less than a 2% chance of us getting a poor success or worse on both of those - and even then, I would expect at least a 5-10% CP discount for our manufactories, between the two of them. If necessary, we can spend some of our production next turn to refit manufactories for machine spirits or manual control to clear up the CP cap for the ship, but I don't think that will be necessary.

Edit: Repeatedly fixed various math errors. And removed psytech, which is 40 RP lower than I thought it was.
 
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Do we believe MMS will upgrade the manufactory pattern we've been building rather than drop distinct blueprints that would likely cost a little more BP the way machine spirit ground troops do?
Neablis said:
-[] 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).
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The phrasing here sounds more like the latter to me.
 
Aineko said:
Do we believe MMS will upgrade the manufactory pattern we've been building rather than drop distinct blueprints that would likely cost a little more BP the way machine spirit ground troops do?

The phrasing here sounds more like the latter to me.
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Hmm, that's a point. It shouldn't matter a ton though - manufactories pay for themselves in two actions, and we're getting 3 or 4 actions out of them over the next couple turns, so we should easily be able to shrug off any refit fees. It does make me a *bit* less excited about playing chicken with the CP cap like that though - we could theoretically hit it with just a failure on GMEI, and a success on MMS that requires refits. All in all though, I think we're safe? I also have a note to use left over BP to boost poor results, which isn't a trick we should use every turn, but I think this is a reasonable turn to use it. We have a *lot* of wiggle room regarding BP with this plan, though unfortunately probably not quite enough to drop a build action next turn.
 
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honestly, even though I like the explore guy, I've been more convinced on the pyro, because I dont really want another spy like person on the crew. Still going to vote for the low c crew though to get a well rounded base (sure we dont get high tier psy stuff, but we'll now what each discipline can do reasonably well. unless we spend another action/get a psy Crew latter)
 
Alectai said:
Promised Improved Psychic Shielding, and once that's on the table, there's not a lot left for construction boosting stuff that doesn't require a rebuild.
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...Wait, did we promise that? Hold on, lemme check the update, I don't remember that...

Neablis said:
All three of the elderly people seemed to react strongly to that, though they controlled it well. Meeni was the first to speak, biting her lip. "If we can control this, I would like two. One on an outbulding like this, and one covering the central monastary. As well as full technical details such that the nations of Denva can repair it. You are giving them the technology for such a thing, yes?" She tried to frame it agressivly, but the words came out with an edge of pleading.
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That only seems to mention the miniaturized psychic shields, which we already got.
 
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