No, the problem was Angron getting jumped by a bunch of Space Elfs literally out of the pod--which really shouldn't have been possible because they should still have been shellshocked by the Fall, but it wouldn't be the first time dudes from the future came back to the past to make sure things panned out a certain way I guess.
None of the primarchs actually had any skill in diplomacy, except Guilliman and arguably Horus. They were coasting on supernatural charisma, which is the sole reason anybody followed some of the worst suspects.
When 5 factions were picked during character creation and a D6 was rolled to see which faction was visited, does that mean that there is one unknown faction and one faction that got massively boosted?
It wouldn't be Farsight, it would be either the Fourth Sphere Expansion or the Fifth Sphere Expansion. Let's hope we don't have to deal with the Fourth Sphere Expansion in this Sector or Sub-Sector because the parts of the Fourth Sphere that ended up going north turned out to be xenophobic lunatics.
TBF, that only happened when they had the unfortunate experience of doing Warp Travel without a Gellar Field, and got to witness what happens to species like their auxiliaries who aren't as psychically blunted as the Tau when exposed to the Warp.
Anyways, I seriously doubt we're gonna encounter Tau in this quest b/c we're in the exact opposite side of the galaxy from them, and those wishing for Farsight Enclaves are coping even more since they only have like a single Subsector at most under their control.
In all likelihood, that 6 means we're either going to encounter the Craftworld Eldar who turn out to be more friendly than usual, orrr Neablis rolled for an Iconoclast Human Civilization and so we just found a faction we can be incredibly friendly with right out of the gate.
Anyways, I seriously doubt we're gonna encounter Tau in this quest b/c we're in the exact opposite side of the galaxy from them, and those wishing for Farsight Enclaves are coping even more since they only have like a single Subsector at most under their control.
I've been sick as a dog all day, but seeing such wonderful high rolls has left a smile of anticipation for the update for most of the day to compensate. The quality of writing is so consistently high, I can't wait to see what they come up with suitable for the rolls!
Well yeah to get from one side of a sub-sector to the other would average 2 travel actions with no exploration then multiply that by about 3 per sector so that's already 30 years unless we do nothing but travel but that means no research and no construction which just isn't a good idea because we could get attacked at anytime so we need to be ready.
Guys, I recognize that the scrap code generator is dangerous, but at the same time, the very things that make it dangerous also make it that much more valuable a tool if we can find a way to reverse engineer it or even hack past chaos and fully turn it to our purposes.
Just imagine if we managed to fully uncover how scrap code works and turned it to our purposes! We could mass-produce our scrap code generators and be able to blitz any mechanical enemies with waves of code designed to tear them apart, confuse their programming, trick them into attacking each other, or even take complete control of them and turn them to our side without even a fight!
Just picture it: showing up to a forge world, chuck full of information, manufacturing facilities, and raw materials for us to use, and instead of a long, protracted siege, we just hover in orbit and constantly bombard their systems with hundreds if not thousands of scrap code generators that rip through them repeatedly, hour after hour! Going up against massive fleets and launching wave after wave of massive cyberattacks that lead to the ships initiating their self-destruction or the crew full-on losing control as the ships become ours with barely a struggle!
And that's just against conventional enemies, like the Imperials or the Tau. Imagine the game-changer scrap code would be against the Necrons. Even discounting offensive capabilities entirely, just the amount of defense capabilities we would get from fully understanding how scrap code works makes this gambit worth it. We could go up against Chaos or Dark Mechanicum warships and be entirely unaffected by their code attacks, due to having beefed up and improved our physic shielding significantly with the info we got from successfully studying and reversing engineering the generator we captured here.
Plus, there's the argument about just how difficult it would be to ever come back from this decision. While scrap code generators aren't probably rare exactly, I'm willing to bet that they are going to be extremely difficult to get ahold of, because the places you are most likely to find them would be Chaos Warships or Dark Mechanicum strongholds, and neither is likely to surrender them without a massive fight, which is likely to damage or outright destroy it in the process. We got ahold of this one relatively cheaply, nearly perfectly intact, and with almost no real cost. If we go through with destroying it, there is no guarantee we can ever get our hands on one in such good condition again.
We need to think about this and if destroying the generator is worth it in the long run.
Guys, I recognize that the scrap code generator is dangerous, but at the same time, the very things that make it dangerous also make it that much more valuable a tool if we can find a way to reverse engineer it or even hack past chaos and fully turn it to our purposes.
Just imagine if we managed to fully uncover how scrap code works and turned it to our purposes! We could mass-produce our scrap code generators and be able to blitz any mechanical enemies with waves of code designed to tear them apart, confuse their programming, trick them into attacking each other, or even take complete control of them and turn them to our side without even a fight!
Just picture it: showing up to a forge world, chuck full of information, manufacturing facilities, and raw materials for us to use, and instead of a long, protracted siege, we just hover in orbit and constantly bombard their systems with hundreds if not thousands of scrap code generators that rip through them repeatedly, hour after hour! Going up against massive fleets and launching wave after wave of massive cyberattacks that lead to the ships initiating their self-destruction or the crew full-on losing control as the ships become ours with barely a struggle!
And that's just against conventional enemies, like the Imperials or the Tau. Imagine the game-changer scrap code would be against the Necrons. Even discounting offensive capabilities entirely, just the amount of defense capabilities we would get from fully understanding how scrap code works makes this gambit worth it. We could go up against Chaos or Dark Mechanicum warships and be entirely unaffected by their code attacks, due to having beefed up and improved our physic shielding significantly with the info we got from successfully studying and reversing engineering the generator we captured here.
Plus, there's the argument about just how difficult it would be to ever come back from this decision. While scrap code generators aren't probably rare exactly, I'm willing to bet that they are going to be extremely difficult to get ahold of, because the places you are most likely to find them would be Chaos Warships or Dark Mechanicum strongholds, and neither is likely to surrender them without a massive fight, which is likely to damage or outright destroy it in the process. We got ahold of this one relatively cheaply, nearly perfectly intact, and with almost no real cost. If we go through with destroying it, there is no guarantee we can ever get our hands on one in such good condition again.
We need to think about this and if destroying the generator is worth it in the long run.
We already have the scrapcode generation research revealed, its just stupid expensive right now, and has a bunch of prerequisites. But, hopefully it will come down in price if we keep researching the generator we have our hands on already.
And I think we'd need more than just scrapcode to take a forge world, but it would certainly help, yeah.
We also just voted to keep the scrapcode generator aka bongo, so unless it gets real uppity it seems like the current plan is to keep it around at least until we finish the next research action on it.
It's also worth noting that the juice our scrapcode would be running on would be coming from Cia - so it's bottlenecked by her power/training, and also competing with anything else she could be using that power for.
It's an awesome weapon to have no doubt, and what we lack in psychic bullshit we'll hopefully make up for with the far superior malware Cia is boosting. But I wouldn't be surprised if the latter advantage merely lets us break even, based on rapid hacking being the prerequisite.
We might even see the return of the jammer synergy here, because a mundane stunner sounds like it could help cut through machine spirit psy resistance to reach something on the other side. Keyword might.
TBF, that only happened when they had the unfortunate experience of doing Warp Travel without a Gellar Field, and got to witness what happens to species like their auxiliaries who aren't as psychically blunted as the Tau when exposed to the Warp.
Guys, I recognize that the scrap code generator is dangerous, but at the same time, the very things that make it dangerous also make it that much more valuable a tool if we can find a way to reverse engineer it or even hack past chaos and fully turn it to our purposes.
Just imagine if we managed to fully uncover how scrap code works and turned it to our purposes! We could mass-produce our scrap code generators and be able to blitz any mechanical enemies with waves of code designed to tear them apart, confuse their programming, trick them into attacking each other, or even take complete control of them and turn them to our side without even a fight!
Just picture it: showing up to a forge world, chuck full of information, manufacturing facilities, and raw materials for us to use, and instead of a long, protracted siege, we just hover in orbit and constantly bombard their systems with hundreds if not thousands of scrap code generators that rip through them repeatedly, hour after hour! Going up against massive fleets and launching wave after wave of massive cyberattacks that lead to the ships initiating their self-destruction or the crew full-on losing control as the ships become ours with barely a struggle!
And that's just against conventional enemies, like the Imperials or the Tau. Imagine the game-changer scrap code would be against the Necrons. Even discounting offensive capabilities entirely, just the amount of defense capabilities we would get from fully understanding how scrap code works makes this gambit worth it. We could go up against Chaos or Dark Mechanicum warships and be entirely unaffected by their code attacks, due to having beefed up and improved our physic shielding significantly with the info we got from successfully studying and reversing engineering the generator we captured here.
Plus, there's the argument about just how difficult it would be to ever come back from this decision. While scrap code generators aren't probably rare exactly, I'm willing to bet that they are going to be extremely difficult to get ahold of, because the places you are most likely to find them would be Chaos Warships or Dark Mechanicum strongholds, and neither is likely to surrender them without a massive fight, which is likely to damage or outright destroy it in the process. We got ahold of this one relatively cheaply, nearly perfectly intact, and with almost no real cost. If we go through with destroying it, there is no guarantee we can ever get our hands on one in such good condition again.
We need to think about this and if destroying the generator is worth it in the long run.
The only reason we probably won't be getting the third mission cutscene is because we are a science and exploration specked Man of Stone in stead of a miner.
[X] Plan: Space, space, gotta go to space!
-[X] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular.
--[X] So, there's a small alien species in the system, you've had your hands full with Denva so far, but now that you're about to start poking around, you're curious if there are any records on them. The Imperium seems to be... uh, remarkably xenocidal, so it's weird that they tolerated one right next door to a major hub system. What's the deal and is this going to blow up in our face?
-[X] Explore
--[X] Denva System
-[X] Diplomacy:
--[X] You had hoped that they'd be able to behave like adults, but apparently you need to get back to treating... Most of Denva like children again. During the downtime of your shakedown, spend some time and energy leveraging the grassroots distaste of... Well... The Fuckfest into something that isn't horribly reactionary in nature. Look, they're most of the way to being a mature society, they just need a bit more help and guidance here and there to help stabilize into something functional. You've got allies too! Between Klyssar Station, Aevon, and... Denva? Huh, alright, sure. That's roughly half the civilian government you can work with to help ease them off the crazyness and hopefully not make you have to come over there again. Come on! You're almost out of the bucket! nooooo fighting! (Help take advantage of the current upheaval to do the last bits of push, mediation, and guidance to put Denva II on the path to being a mature, spacefaring society. I guess stretch goals can be along the lines of helping leverage that initial agreement to get the fundaments of a defense agreement down? Who knows, this is already going kind of wide. Offer industrial assistance to those who end up agreeing.)
--[X] Construction: (7850 BP or VBP)
---[X] Build a new vault, with maximum shielding! (void 2000 BP)
---[X] Repair Psychic Shielding on Ship (Repair Bay covers this!)
---[X] Medium Shipyard (3000 void BP, 100 CP)
---[X] 2x Tiny System Monitor (1900 void BP, 100 CP)
---[X] 2xCaltrop - Basic Defense Satellite (location: medium shipyard) (700 void BP, 20 CP)
---[X] Trade Goods, Aevon (50 BP) (2 Trade Goods -> 52 Trade Goods))
---[X] Trade Goods/???, industrial boost to Denva's space programs (200 BP)
--[X] Research (200 + 45 Anexa RP)
---[X] Scrapcode Cleansing (100 RP)
---[X] Abacus-Warp Interactions (55 + 45 Anexa RP) ---[X] Blueprint: 25 RP – Caltrop - Basic Defense Satellite (300 -> 350 VBP, 10 CP). Light Defensive platform, 200x200 meters. Light shield, Light armor, Psychic Shielding (+50), 1 light lance battery.
---[X] 20 RP reserved to pay off any surcharges we might accumulate this turn. If we don't get any, put it on Med School (20/50)
-[X][ANEXA] Research (Abacus-Warp Interactions)
-[X][VICTAN] Diplomacy (Listed Above)
-[X][CIA] Active Psyker improvement
-[X][SCRAPCODE] Keep
-[X][RENT] Pay rent (52 Trade Goods, Aevon -> 27 Trade Goods, Aevon)
Whatever the truth of the matter, the current appearance is that you're going to be left alone for now - and if that's the case, you might as well seize every advantage you can get your hands on.
That includes the scrapcode generator. It's undeniably dangerous to leave intact, but you still believe the risk is manageable. And most importantly, you're convinced this won't be the last time you have to deal with Chaotic elements. A single evil altar you can stick in a box is about as good an opportunity to learn how to confront Chaos as you can hope for. Thus far it's taught you several invaluable lessons about what kinds of attacks Chaos can bring to bear.
Though I do need to watch out for overspecializing against scrapcode in particular. There's more in the Chaotic arsenal than that. But scrapcode is particularly scary.
Still, you feel justified in your decision to not destroy the generator yet. You have orbital construction bots carefully cut away the remains of your previous vault, all while under the guns of your Flagship. Then you dedicate all of your manufacturing capacity to building a bigger and better vault. One that's tougher, meaner and definitely wouldn't have failed against the last attack you faced.
Improved Scrapcode Vault Completed - 200 HP of psychic Shields! (50 Cp)
Unlocked Further Scrapcode research - (200 RP)
At the same time you focus the repair bays of the Spark of the Ancients on the psychic shielding that was damaged by the initial attack against you. You designed those bays primarily around battle damage - but it doesn't matter if hull plating needs to be replaced because of battle damage or psychic attack, they work regardless.
80 HP of psychic shielding on Spark of the Ancients repaired!
You've also learned your lesson from last time about orbital defenses. You need space defenses to keep an eye on your vault, and they need to not be completely defenseless. So, you whip together a simple little void platform that'll serve to guard the Denva orbits, complete with some minimal psychic shielding that will at least mean the scrapcode generator needs to put some oomph into taking them over if it breaks out again.
They're not really all that formidable, but they'll certainly be able to kill any of your other installations in orbit of Denva Secundus, and that's a plus.
2x Caltrops Completed!
Your plans about Denva are still firming up a bit, but you're definitely not leaving as soon as you're able. And you'd like to regain the local screening capabilities you had, so you rebuild the two destroyers that you so recently turned into debris after they became Chaos-guided missiles.
Medium Shipyard completed!
2x Tiny System Monitors completed!
All of that's going to take a few years to finish up, but you can at least get it started running in the background while you take care of other priorities. Speaking of, you call your crew together on the observation deck of the Spark of the Ancients.
Everybody arrives in fairly good order and takes a moment to appreciate the wonderful view of Denva Secundus from orbit. It's a pretty planet, blue and white and green like so many terrestrial planets scattered across the Galaxy. Just because the sight's common doesn't detract from its beauty, especially when you all know of the civilization that dwells on the surface - and all of the humans present were born there.
The scale of space means that none of your orbital installations are visible from here, but that's simply a matter of scale. You've been in orbit or planets that had glittering rings of artificial habitats, or ones surrounded by interlocking plates like a puzzle.
I'm not sure Denva will ever get there, but hey. Gotta stay hopeful.
You open the meeting by pulling up a hologram of the Denva system, very much not to scale, then waving your hand at it. "I don't think we're quite ready to leave Denva, but I do want to leave orbit. We're going to spend the next few years on a grand tour of the system. There are two particular points of interest."
Denva Primus isn't the innermost planet of the system, but seeing as the innermost is a scorching not-quite molten ball of rock in close orbit to the sun it might as well be. Denva primus is cold and dry despite being closer to the sun than Denva Secundus, likely due to the thin atmosphere and pale surface that's excellent at reflecting light energy back into space. It does have a fairly high gravity and an unusually strong magnetic field.
"Denva Primus was a mining colony maintained by the Imperium to harvest kultonium, which is useful for building superconductors and is helpful for manufacturing. It is also the homeworld for the vellkar, a Xenos species that as far as I can tell have never achieved advanced technology. But they live underground and the Imperium never expended the effort necessary to wipe them out."
"What do we know about them?" Victan asks, intesntly curious about the Xenos.
"Not much," you replay with a shrug. "I'm going to look up what I can in the old databases later.
He subsides with a nod, and gestures for you to continue.
"We know that the ship that evacuated most of the important Imperial presence in Denva stopped over Denva Secundus. The Imperial mining colonies might have been evacuated, they might not. There's no sign of obvious technological activity that there would be if those mines were still operating, but we don't know if that's because they've been destroyed or just that they're no longer operating the heavy machinery involved in mining."
You look around to see if there are any further questions. Nobody speaks up, and the next point of interest lights up. "The next place I'm especially curious about is around the innermost gas giant, named Aerithon. I detected some signs of artificial satellites around the gas giants, and there are number of moons that could house various bases out there. Again, no sign of activity, but from this distance it's very hard to tell what's there."
Anexa's the one who's curious now. "What are you hoping for?"
You pause, without an easy answer. "I'm not sure. Maybe a gas extractor? It looks like a methane-rich gas giant with a strong magnetic field. That's a good combination for a productive series of habitats." Then you shrug. "But it could be just about anything."
There's a series of thoughtful nods and Victan asks the question that everybody's probably thinking. "How long do we have, and what should we be doing? I've got some ideas..." he trails off suggestively.
"Yes. We might be departing Denva soon, and there are things to take care of while we're here. Victan, I think we're both in agreement that it would be nice to settle Denva Secundus further. Neither of us are satisfied with where they're at, and I have some ideas to go over about what we can do about that."
He seems satisfied by that, and your gaze tracks towards Anexa. "We're about to embark on warp travel for the first time, and I want to understand it better before then. I also think that there's some clues there that will help me with some other research, related to the certain difficulties we had recently."
Your crew looks serious for a moment. You've discussed Chaos with all of them, and gone over at least the vague details of what happened when the scrapcode generator broke containment. The general vibe seems to be that they're happy you're the one dealing with it, and nobody is going to object to anything that improves your insight into Chaotic shenanigans.
You pick up the flow after the brief break. "There's a hint into that from my research into the warp abacus. So we're going to read up on that and see where we can get."
Anexa smiles excitedly. "Excellent. I've been so curious about something named the immaterium. It will be fun to examine it in greater detail."
Cia snorts. "You and me both, sister. Though I think my study's going to be a bit more personal than yours." She cocks an eyebrow at you. "Am I free to experiment with my powers."
You give her a firm nod. "We have the new psychic lab. Don't hurt yourself, and pay attention to the material you got from the monasteries. You're behind psychic shielding now, but it's not perfect."
"Of course," she replies seriously. She's taking your warning to heart, but you sympathize that it's hard not to be excited about learning to do something that equates to magic.
After all, you're nearly as excited as she is to watch the development of psychic powers.
You take some time for a nice meal and chit-chat around topics both serious and not, but eventually you and Victan end up sitting alone, looking out over Denva with thoughtful expressions.
He breaks the silence with a chuckle. "It's just funny. I love Denva Secundus with all my heart. The ideals we have - democracy, equality - every time I learn more of the Imperium I am more proud of what we have become."
Victan gestures down at the planet with a snort. "But here we are, looking down on the planet from a position of high authority, deciding their future for them. In trying to boost them up I'm betraying the ideals I hold dear. To some extant, at least."
You give that a bit of thought before replying. "If you want to look at it as forcing Denva onto the path you want, maybe. But you could also look at it as offering a better vision for the future, much like any politician does. Yes, you have advantages." You indicate the ship all around you. "But that doesn't invalidate your voice. If you don't give them a choice, or seek to gain more control to better dictate future actions then I agree that's betraying those principles."
He shrugs. "I don't disagree. But there are times I definitely want to get all of the politicians in a room, yell at them for an hour, then pull a pistol and demand that they're not leaving until we've hashed out a defense treaty at the least."
You toy with a strand of hair, pursing your lips before replying. "I think we might be focusing on the wrong group. We've been thinking about convincing the politicians so far. But they're the ones entrenched in the status quo. They're the crabs. What we've been missing is that all of the nations are democracies. The ultimate power rests with the people, and if want to break the bucket it'll be the people who do it, not the polticians."
Victan gestures for you to continue, sensing that your thought isn't quite done.
"I think one of the biggest things that's different between now and when I was made is the sense of excitement about the future." You're chasing down the thought as you speak, but it's coming together. "There was a sense of wonder at the galaxy, the idea that the future would be better than the present, that human potential was unlimited."
You frown - not at Denva, but at the galaxy as a whole. "That's gone now. The Imperium, fifteen thousand years of warfare. That spirit is crushed. It's all duty and denial, not hope and wonder."
You point down towards Denva. "I want them to imagine a better future. A future where they're not constrained to one planet, where any passing power can swat their world like a fly. And I don't want to speak that dream to the current politicians. They'll just think about how they can twist it to their own benefits. They can't help it, they've only ever known the bucket. But if we can teach the people of Denva to hope, to dream... that's how we break the bucket. Forget unifying the nations. If the people want to expand off the planet it'll happen."
Victan nods slowly, considering. "There's a lot of general disgust right now with the attempted attack. Denva, Aevon and Kylssar's Nest are pissed the attempt was made, and Nyvaros, Pryath and Estrana are dejected at the failure. If I can channel all of that as delaying a brighter future..."
His expression is thoughful, and then he looks at you. "Historical records from your time. Can I use them to show people what's possible? Give them a future that's worth working towards?"
You smile. "Of course."
He returns the expression, excitement glinting in his eyes as he looks back at the world below. "We just need to show the people could be, and then the will of the people will do the rest."
You start pulling up examples to show Victan, starting with historical and then delving into entertainment. You could generate a mockup of the wonders of the past, but past holopics and games did it better, framed the shots to generate wonder and awe. Then it's time to decide how best to introduce this content to the people of Denva.
Together you decide on a multipronged approach, combining a media blitz with direct outreach in your public persona and governmental press through your friendly contacts. Victan gets in touch with W, who listens to his proposal with interest and then agrees to help with an air of amusement and a comment that doing something publicly would be a nice change of pace.
You leave them to it, though you're going to be contributing throughout the project in the form of valuable materials to buy airtime, negotiation abilities and more.
But for now you can leave them to it, and turn your attention to your next priority. Which for all that it's fairly mundane is incredibly important. Because you're not completely sure that there isn't any more scrapcode hiding in any of your installations everywhere. Your top priority is ensuring that there isn't because that has the potential to turn very nasty, but your second priority is trying to isolate it and put it in a sandbox for the purposes of testing. It should be cut off from the scrapcode generator now, and that means this is a great opportunity to catch it in a sandbox and probe to see if you can figure out any exploitable behavior.
But first you have to go through the laborious task of screening every bit of code in every single one of your installations. If there's scrapcode there it's hidden enough that the automatic scans haven't found it, and that means you need to do this manually.
It just takes time and attention to detail. This sort of task isn't your favorite thing. There were other AIs more suited for this kind of work, clerical and administrative mostly. But it needs to be done.
In the end you find what you were looking for, buried away in backups and individual manufactory processes. Worms, hidden and cautious. They aren't connected to one another, and each time you find one it expends whatever psychic energy is left in an attempt to flee, and in each case you force them to jump through quarantined connections and multiple levels of firewalls, draining the magic mojo that lets such basic code bypass otherwise impassable obstacles.
This wouldn't work against anything with more juice or an intelligence behind them, but against these viruses it suffices. Which is an answer in and of itself - while they still have psychic power, that doesn't necessarily convey intelligence. Just mojo.
In several ideal cases you attempt to catch the viruses in stable sandbox environments but they all quickly realize they're trapped despite your best efforts to the contrary, quickly expending all of their power to escape and becoming reduced to the simple fragments of code.
Examining that code, you figure out what the Scrapcode Generator had planned, and are glad you caught it earlier. These worms were intended to spread, to replicate themselves across as much of your manufacturing infrastructure as possible before striking. What exactly that strike would look like isn't clear - it could have been using the raw compute of every connection to strike against the outside of the vault, it could have just been to destroy every infected manufactory. You're not sure.
Regardless, after an enormous amount of effort what you are sure is that there are no more bugs to catch. You've gotten them all, and learned a little bit more about scrapcode in the process.
Completed Scrapcode Cleansing - rolled 26+20=46. Success. There's no more scrapcode in your manufactory systems. Threat averted. Research discounted - Further Scrapcode research cost reduced by 50 RP
Research discounted - Scrapcode Generation cost reduced by 100 RP
You check in on Anexa, but she's not quite done catching up on the specs of the warp abacus. She's getting there, but it'll be more productive if you wait for her to finish and then you can start at the same level.
So instead you take a moment to find every article on the vellkar you can find from every databased you've managed to collect. They're the native inhabitants of Denva Primus, and you want to learn everything you can about them before you go exploring that planet.
The Imperial records on them are... sketchy. They read like what they are, which is the pseudoscientific justification for xenocide. They also appear to have led the Imperium to completely dismiss the vellkar as a threat because of their small size, lacking technology and poor discipline, though the Imperium has done a good job vilifying them to the local humans, and that hasn't been aided by the vellkar physiology.
To separate truth from propaganda, you dig deep enough into the autopsy (and vivisection!) records to get a good sense for the vellkar's biology. They're small humanoids with transparent skin that only rarely exceed four feet in height, with gangly arms that secrete a kind of sticky mucus that allows them exceptional climbing grip. They have four stubby horns atop their head that appear to be magnetically active, though the Imperium never investigated what capabilities that allow them. They have a short tail that's their primary weapon, as it's tipped with a bone club. Their eyes are large and bulbous and their mouths are a bit too wide, filled with jagged teeth that are in fact quite blunt.
All of this is to say that they look horrifying, and you're surprised to find a few skimmed files that contain execution records for miners that were caught trading with the vellkar. The reports don't say what was being traded, but the fact that they were trading with people who occasionally tried to exterminate them paints a rather interesting picture.
There's one other report you read in detail - from a team of PDF troopers sent into the caverns on an extermination mission. The surface of Denva Primus is cold, arid and relatively lifeless, but the crust is lousy with tunnels ranging in size from a dozen feet across to hundreds, and the report describes a veritable ecosystem that infests the tunnels. It's nothing like what you've heard before, with the primary producer appearing to be some kind of long tendrils that burrow through the rock, and dozens of different plant-analogues and animals subsist on the mazelike tunnels.
It doesn't sound like the most hostile environment, as none of the troopers on this particular mission died, though one suffered a concussion from an ambushing vellkar's tail-strike. But it's also not the most friendly to life, requiring rebreathers for any kind of extended activity outside of sealed areas.
You surface from the ocean of reports with more than a little curiosity. There's very little speculation in the Imperial reports on how the ecosystem of Denva primus works or what the society of the vellkar is like - and you're curious to find answers to both questions.
You ping Anexa again, and she answers in the affirmative, so you record your conclusions and shelve the rest of the vellkar reading. Hopefully you'll be able to get a close-up look soon enough.
Then it's time to get into the warp abacus, and you and Anexa pick up where you left off. She's just as confused as you were about how the quantum uncertainty collapses to provide the data that the rest of the instrument parses, but now you've got the time and distance to give the problem another try and maybe find a new answer.
Immediately Anexa helps out as she points out something you hadn't seen before - the arrangement of qubits isn't the standard grid that is optimized for the fastest and lowest-error quantum computations. Instead the qubits are laid out in spirals and are only entangled with a couple of others and connected to various nodes at either end. It's a detail you'd dismissed before as irrelevant, but once Anexa stretches out the spirals and highlights the nodes the graph takes on a whole new apperance.
"They look like nerves. Is it another neural network? But of qubits."
Anexa studies the enormously complicated holograph. In this display it looks almost like a starmap, with each system connected by strings of glowing lights. She tilts her head back and forth, studying it from different angles. "Kind of. It reminds me of how machine spirits are designed."
She uses her implants to access the controls on the display, highlighting a portion of it. "See how this portion is fairly disconnected from the rest? It's a much denser graph there, without a lot of connections out of it."
"Ah." You see what she's saying, and quickly run some graph analysis, segregating the whole network into about two-dozen different nodes. "So... it's like a machine spirit?"
"Not quite. Overall the complexity is much lower than an individual machine spirit - but it can do entanglement for interference." She spreads her hands in a shrug. "I don't know what that allows for."
You smile, maybe with a slightly manic edge. "Let's find out."
And you do. Over the course of the next few months you believe you understand how each module simulates a different course, then entangles with all of the other courses. Then the whole system collapses to a single state that represents the correct next course. The abacus is holding to the truth that some kind of thought is required to have a psychic presence, but it's coming at it from a pretty different direction from the other examples you have - most notably machine spirits and your psychic shielding.
Still, the Insights you've learned both pave the way for you to begin examining the science of the Warp, as well as trying to improve on the design of the warp abacus. There's also some potential interesting leads for understanding what precisely about neural networks let them have psychic weights.
Researched Abacus-Warp interactions - rolled 79+20=99, Critical Success! You understand how the Void Abacus consults the warp for directions. It's weird.
+2 Anexa Levels, she's now level 11, and has picked up a second Specialty - The Warp. Vote below on how she develops at level 10 - separate from plan vote. New Research unlocked - Immaterium Investigations (200 RP)
New Research unlocked - Improved Void Abacus (300 RP)
Bonus Research unlocked - The Basics of Psychic Computation (600 RP)
You continue riffing off each other's ideas for weeks, jumping from one field to another to imagine all of the potential applications for this understanding - and it's immense. It would be an incredibly demanding research project, but both of you are enthralled by the possibilities.
At the end of it you examine the incredible spread of notes, most electronic but enough physical to make it look like somebody decided to use handwritten pages as wallpaper. You give Anexa a grin and gesture around at the room, and the spread of ideas it contains. "I'm glad to be able to talk to somebody about this."
She returns the expression, her own grin a bit smug. "It's hard to find people who can join you at the top." Then she chuckles. "And now I know how to build a warp abacus. A secret that would make any tech-priest into a Magos." She pauses, considering. "Or dead. More likely dead."
You shrug. "Yup. sounds about right."
Then you both set to the task of organizing the insane number of ideas into something coherent that you'll be able to reference later. You wish there were still journals to publish in - you were never an academic, but you bet that a proposal for how machines could become psychic would make for a killer paper.
Then you check your list of priorities again. You've been neglecting Victan for too long, and go to check on him now. He's on a call with W, but invites you in when you ping him. You take the apperance of the older dark-skinned woman that W knows.
The dark-skinned woman greets you with pleasure. "V! Or should I call you Vita?"
"Either works. Am I ever going to learn what W stands for?"
her smile grows slanted. "You could figure it out if you wanted. I'm not sure if I should be insulted or appreciative that you haven't yet."
Victan rolls his eyes. "She could always just ask me. I'd tell her, at this point."
W gasps, grasping her chest as if mortally wounded. "Betrayal most foul!" The grin remains on her face, giving the lie to the drama.
"Regardless, let's update Vita on what we've been up to," Victan continues, ignoring W's antics. "We've seeded your resources in various places and generally tried to stoke up the populace's hope and excitement. It's working, but it's hard to tell if it's a fad or something more serious."
"It's serious," W says. "The polls aren't measuring it right, I'm almost certain. But especially among the younger generations - the ones who are getting educated according to your uplift primers. They're never going to forgive their elders for what they pulled. To them, every factory not building space-capability, or improving manufacturing is a waste. They're not pacifists, but there's a growing rise of anger at the waste of terrestrial military costs. We have the media cabal to thank for that."
You raise an eyebrow. "The media cabal?"
Victan gives you an apologetic look. "We brought in several large media conglomerates on the secret. We handed out five more more doses of juvenat for it. I hope that isn't out of line."
"We can't exactly take the juvenat production in the crashed ship with us, so it's better off doing what good it can."
W shoots a quick look at Victan. "Does that mean when you leave..."
He shakes his head. "There's more aboard the ship. From what I understand it's impossible to make in large quantities, but I'll be fine."
W nods, then picks back up the earlier subject. "Regardless, we'll know in about a year. There's a series of elections scheduled then. If the poll numbers last, then the governments across the planet are going to change - in the directions you want." She shrugs. "There's even an initiatives to get a constitutional amendment offering planetary unification on the ballot for Aevon. I can't imagine how that got there."
You chuckle at the sarcasm dripping from W's words, then give both her and Victan a nod. "Sounds like everything's well in hand. Keep asking for what you need, and let's hope this all works."
"And whatever happens, follow the will of the people," Victan says in an upbeat voice. "But we can certainly lay out our argument first!"
Next you check in on Cia. You've been monitoring her the whole time and occasionally chatting, but now you want to do a more detailed overview of her progress so far. Generally everything's going well - she's learning to manage her powers, focusing heavily on conjuring flame.
She's lost control of it several time, but never in the ways that summon demon. More in the ways that cause uncontrollable blasts of fire. And luckily that's where the psy-lab excels. Several blast shields are scorched, but that's what they're designed for.
Cia apologizes for the damage and you wave her off. "Those scorch marks would piss me off a lot more on you. Keep going."
While everything else was going on, you've started your exploration of the system, and now it's time to find out what's going on with Denva Primus. At first glance it's a dead planet. There's some vague life-signs where the tunnels breach the surface, but it's clear that most of the life on the planet exists underground.
On the other hand the Imperial mines do appear to be fully dead. Every one of them is completely inactive, without reactor signatures or signs that any of of the giant hab-buildings is pressurized. If there's human life left on Denva primus, it's not in those bases. They don't even seem very badly damaged - except for a few notable internal barricades that seem more like signs of internal violence than external attack. They're just dead.
Well. That's - not really unexpected. But you'd still like to understand something about what happened. And get some samples of the kultrinium ore. And maybe make contact with the vellkar, but that seems difficult.
The first two objectives seem easy enough to accomplish - you drop a few assasult shuttles full of heavy bots onto the planet to investigate the bases. Most of the hab-blocks are open to the elements, and are full of the dead. They haven't even been looted, despite the number of things that you're sure would be valuable to the vellkar - everything from knives to fabric to promethium is all there for the taking, but as far as you can tell it hasn't been touched.
With absolutely zero resistance you set to your first two objectives. The kultrinium is easy - there's several loads of ore sitting in the mining machinery from when it was last used, and several loads of refined material waiting in storehouses. It looks like some of that has been looted, but the warehouses are massive, built to fill the holds of spacegoing freighters measured in kilometers, so there's plenty to go around. With samples of it, you see that the Imperium has actually figured out how to use it to make a stable, room-temperature metal alloy with nearly infinite conductivity. It's not exactly a superconductor, but it's close enough for most applications.
Technology discounted - Superconductive Shenanigans cost reduced by 100 RP! Any manufactories built on the surface of Denva Primus will produce +50% BP due to being able to mine kultrinium and use it for myriad purposes.
Figuring out what happened to the Imperial bases is a bit tricky, but it's quickly solved with some detective work and a few lucky logs. It seems like their fate was both boring and prosaic. The last Imperial ships to visit evacuated important personnel - including many of the administrators and tech-priests who kept the mines running - and took all of the kultrinium that was available while leaving the workers behind. You do a quick calculation and it's very clear that those ships probably could have evacuated everybody on the planet if they'd left most of the kultrinium behind.
But that's not how the Imperium functions, nooo.
In the absence of resupply and the technical expertise to keep the reactors running indefinitely, the hydroponics and life support functional, the mines slowly failed. They continued to mine and refine kultrinium for a while, likely hoping that they could trade it to any ships passing by for the necessary expertise to survive - but no such ship appeared.
The bases simply failed due to a lack of expertise, and internal conflict over dwindling supplies of food, air and power merely hastened their demise. It's a potent mix of horrifying, unnecessary and so very representative of the worst nature of humanity that you need to take some time away from the exploration to spend time with your crew and remind yourself of the other side of humanity as well. The good side.
You leave your bots inactive on the surface for that period, and when you reactivate them to continue sweeping the surface bases for clues you catch a group of vellkar who are surreptitiously looting the habitation block. They scatter and fleet in panic, only to run into another group of bots in the open and freeze.
The machine spirits commanding your bots cause them to raise their weapons, but you give the order to hold fire and lower the weapons again. The bots obey, and you consider how best to make contact with the group. But you're not convinced that this is the best time for it - not only do these vellkar seem absolutely paralyzed with fear, they're smaller than usual. You're not sure if that means they're juviniles or from a group that the Imperium didn't describe in their reports. But in general this seems like a good time to build goodwill that you can use later.
You order your combat bots to stand aside and gesture the vellkar towards the mines that they emerged from. The group of Xenos seem shocked that they're not being cut down, and after a moment of stunned disbelief one of them skitters forward and towards safety. When that one isn't killed the rest break into a panicked run, easily scaling tall equipment to get out of sight.
You position bots at the entrances to caverns across the planet, without weapons. Your hope is to engage the vellkar in some kind of dialogue, but you have no such luck. The one thing you don't want to do is invade their territory without permission, as the Imperium did so many times in the past.
You're about to give up and leave Denva Primus when the bots from the same base where you let the smaller vellkar go recieve a vox signal. It's coming in on old imperial channels, and everything about the signal tell you it's coming from an imperial vox unit.
The words are broken low gothic spoken by a throat not designed for this kind of speech, but you can parse them decently enough.
"Are you man?"
It doesn't take you long to consider your response. "I am not from the Imperium of Man. But I am a representative of humans. An explorer."
"Why you here?"
You take a second to send Victan a high-priority ping. You don't necessarily want him to take over here, but it seems like he should be involved. "To explore. To speak. To discover what happened."
"No you kill?"
You trace the signal - it's coming from underground, near the base. From the same tunnel that the vellkar fled down. That's promising. "No. I'm not here to kill. I'm here to talk. Do you want to talk?"
"Yes, talk you."
"What do you want to talk about?"
"Allowed take from surface-boxes? Or invader-death follow?"
Ah. They're asking if they can loot the bases, or if you'll retaliate for that. That's not really your decision to make, but you don't think it'll make much of a difference one way or another. And the situation is too complicated to really explain. You send Victan a quick message.
> Denva doesn't have a claim on those mines, right? [Unsure]
> No. And I don't think we want to give them one. Let the vellkar have them. And try to establish an open line of communication. I think if we can establish the vellkar as friendly that will only help on Denva Secundus - it reinforces the message of hope. [Tentative]
> Will do. [Agreement]
You try to communicate the complexities of the situation to the vellkar you're speaking with. You're not sure it all came across, but the one thing that both of you seem sure of is that you both want to speak more. You're not going to establish a full-blown diplomatic relationship here, but you spend some time learning about them.
It seems like the vellkar have a clan-based tribal structure, and they're intensely commerce-focused. Clans in different areas have access to different resources that they trade for to ensure everybody has a balanced diet and the necessary materials for what you're pretty sure are their homes, but could just as well be mating rituals.
Regardless, they seem eager to talk instead of be hunted, and you assure them that their days of being hunted are over, and that the only humans left are different from the ones from their stories.
Diplomatic contact with the vellkar tribes unlocked. They're at a primative level of technology and seem eager to talk and engage in trade of any kinds. You're not sure how amenable they might be to uplift.
You wish you could have spent more time in orbit over Denva Primus, but if you want to explore the rest of the system you do need to leave. It's quite a trek out to the outer planets and you were going to stop by Denva Secundus on the way to be around for the votes.
On the way you check back in with Cia. She's currently wearing wraps to help heal burned hands, but seems thrilled with her progress. You check the logs and can't help but agree. She's learned to both conjure fire and control it to a limited degree to protect herself from burns. She's progressed to sheathing her hands with flame and striking at objects, and seems to be gaining proficency rapidly without much damage to show for it.
Cia active psyker practice - rolled 94, 38! Critical success, no Perils of the Warp! +2 Cia levels. I know in some systems you're supposed to roll for perils on critical successes. I'm not doing that. Perils is what happens when you mess up, and she didn't. I'm not going to codify exactly what powers she's learning every time, but for now it's Call Flame, Burning Fist and the beginning of Sculpt Flame.
"So. Can I fight against some combat bots with my powers?" She asks.
You raise an eyebrow, and she explains. "Not just once. It's easier when I'm in the flow. Like when I'm exercising, or fighting. It helps with concentration, and I want to learn to use my powers when fighting."
She's obviously fired up about this, and you need to decide if you want her to start training to use her powers in combat so soon. It'll likely shape how she develops her abilities for the rest of her training.
Vote below on how you encourage Cia to continue her training.
Denva Secundus is your next stop, and you're just in time for the voting. With your help Victan drops the bombshell that's the news of the vellkar. It's masterfully couched to make it seem like xenos they share the system with are looking for an outstretched hand, and could be companions among the stars if only the humans of Denva take their hand.
The older generations are suspicious and unsure, but the news ignites a storm of enthusiasm among the younger generations, and the turnout for the votes in every nation is immense - and cheered on by Klyssar's Nest, who stand as a shining beacon of what's possible for Denva Secundus in space.
One news anchor - subordinate to your media cabal - describes it as a "Mandate to Travel to the Stars," and in the immediate months afterwards the political environment is completely different - not just because many of the older politicians have been replaced, but because everybody understands that the future will be different from the past, and that the old games are irrelevant in the face of the new culture developing, that holds that the future of Denva Secundus is in the stars, and it will be achieved through technical literacy and hard work.
Denva Diplomacy roll - Natural 100 + 21 = 121. Very Critical Success. Denva Secundus isn't quite unified in actual politics, but it's unified in spirit and aspiration. They want to reach for the stars now.
It's harder to level once you get past level 10. But a nat 100 is still worth 2 levels for Victan. He's level 13 now.
You host a party to laud Victan for his success, the entire crew gathered in the observation lounge to celebrate his efforts.
You start the toasts off with your perspective. "Denva Secundus is still a single planet, with a population of several billion. Nothing much has changed from a few years ago. Except one thing. They're hungry for more. The people of Denva Secundus will come for the stars, and are going to be an interstellar power in short order."
"Especially if we have anything to say about it," Anexa replies.
"Speaking of," Victan says with a innocent tone. "We could share more technology and blueprints with them. You've shared civilian technnology already, but very little knowledge that could be militarized. A good decision as of a few years ago. But now maybe it's time to be a little more generous. What do you say?" He swirls his glass casually, but you can tell the question is far from casual.
How much technology will you share with Denva Secundus? Vote below - as part of the plan vote.
Once that's cleared up, you're on your way to the outer system and the gas giant of Aerithon. There's a lot of radiation and magnetic signals spilling out from the mini-system of the gas giant, so you'll need to get close before you can really resolve what's going on.
So you do. And what you find - well, it's isn't beyond your wildest expectations. But it's pretty nice. You're pretty sure it's a Imperial Navy refueling base. Not a huge one, but it's centered around a pair of stations in close orbit of the gas giant. They are definitely designed to lower hoses and suck up materials from the methane-rich gas giant Aerithon for processing into a variety of raw materials, and unless you're mistaken they're also set up to harvest other raw materials from the resource-rich ring of the gas giant.
I didn't know the Imperium could build stuff like this. Neat.
The spectrographic readings indicate that you might be right about that - the two stations are at least eight thousand years old, and could be older. You're certainly not familiar with the designs, but they're definitely human-made. Also completely abandoned.
What's not eight-thousand years old is the massive logistics base that accompanies the two platforms in a slightly higher orbit. It's basically a giant warehouse floating in space, and you have no idea what's in it. And it's going to take some effort to find out, because there are nearly a dozen defensive platforms securing the orbital space. They appear to be armed with a combination of lances, macrocannons and missiles and there's some level of power sources still present.
After your experience with Klyssar's Nest you're expecting them to fire upon you, and while your current ship probably could blast through everything there's a good chance you took some damage, and no guarantee you wouldn't damage the logistics base or the gas extraction platforms when you did it.
So instead you reach out on imperial channels, and are immediately queried for Imperial Navy identification. You don't have that, but what you do have is the capability to hack machine spirits. And these machine spirits haven't received a lot of stimulation for a couple hundred years, and you judge it worthwhile to spend the time to get them on your side.
You float some distance out of range for several months, slowly coaxing the machine spirits to view you as a friend. These are smarter than most you've dealt with in the past - but you get the sense there are still servitors in the loop. Still, there's no living humans either, and finally you manage to close with the stations without issue. You wouldn't say you're in complete control, but that's quickly solved by sending some stealthy shuttles on low-powered approaches and docking with the stations. They're not set up to repel or even recognize borders without a crew, and you manage to depower the defensive stations without too much trouble - though you don't think you can refit them to work under your control too easily. They were built to function in the long term with a crew.
From there on, it's time to figure out the full prize you've collected. You send bots aboard the logistics station to find it entirely cleaned out. It looks to have mostly been a place to store fuel and munitions, and when the Imperium abandoned Denva they took everything that wasn't nailed down.
But the station itself is basically in working order, and you could start using it for a variety of purposes almost immediately. The same can't quite be said for the gas extractors. The design is ingenious as a matter of fact - they come equipped with long cables that harvest all of the energy they need from the powerful magnetic flux of the gas giant, to power the separation and refining processes. But the problem is that they weren't quite shut down correctly, and there's been an extensive amount of wear and tear on several systems in the last two hundred years.
Denva System Exploration, 93+10=103 Critical success! You've found everything there is to find in the Denva system. Research discounted - Large-scale Void Manufacturing cost reduced by 100.
Research discounted - Mothballing cost reduced by 50.
Research discounted - Medium Defense Platforms cost reduced by 50.
Still, you figure you could get them running again with some large-scale replacements, and that's a solid amount of industry that could serve as the nexus for a good amount of void industry in Denva. Or you could turn all of this over to Denva Secundus, though they'd likely need some help getting everything back in working order, and some advice on how to keep it that way.
Vote below on what to do with the Aerithon installations. It will cost you 1500 BP to bring them back to working order, and they'll produce 1000 BP/turn that can only be used for void construction. If you control them they'll cost 250 CP.
You're leaving Aerithon behind to head back to Denva Secundus when the other shoe finally drops. The thing you've been dreading finally happens. A ship drops out of the warp coming from out-system, heading from the direction of Kethraxis.
You scan it and see that it's a sword-class frigate, broadcasting Imperial codes that proclaim it to be the Iron Zeal. It's clearly seen you, and is aiming a transmission in your direction.
You send an alert out to your crew. Everything you were doing is going to have to be revisited, because the broader galaxy has just come knocking. You might as well see what it has to say, so you open the channel.
The face that stares back at you is angelically beautiful, blonde locks falling delicately on either side of the man's head. His face appears chiseled from anguler panes of marble, and bright red eyes glare out at you in challenge. The rest of the image is filled by his armor, which is red-and-black with gold accents.
Oh hot damn, it's a space marine. In the flesh.
He speaks with a voice that sounds like it should be accompanied by a clarion call of trumpets, though the tone is harsh. It sounds like a divine judgement. "I am Sergeant Cyras of the Knights of the Crimson Vigil. You will tell me whom you represent, and if you are an enemy of the God-Emperor of Mankind, the Master of the Galaxy."
Rolled for outside faction visit - 48. Visit happens this turn, at the end of the turn. You are not in weapons range.
Rolled for which faction - 6. Space Marines.
Vote below on how to respond to the hail from the Space Marine.
How do you respond to the Space marine?
-[] Space Marine: Talk (write in) This is just one conversation. If you want a full diplomatic interaction you can spend an action later to hammer things out.
-[] Space Marine: Shoot You can blow them to dust bunnies if you get in range. But they might not let you.
-[] Space Marine: Run You can't move faster than they can, but they probably won't chase a grand cruiser in a frigate.
What is Anexa's Level 10 reward?
For the first three vote options Anexa's passive action is going to be replaced by her rolling to discount random techs by an amount that scales with level. She'll only level on a crit, in which case she'll probably also unlock a bonus tech from her specialties.
[] Anexa: Master of Many Talents Doubles specialty capacity & bonuses (so will be able to have 4 specialties, and each give +10 to the dice roll and potentially unlock new technologies when she uses them). This bonus will apply to her passive action, which will only work on specialties.
[] Anexa: Jack of All knowledge Anexa now contributes +level/3 (round up) to the research roll in addition to additional RP. Her passive action gets this bonus and can hit any tech.
[] Anexa: High Throughput Researcher Anexa contributes +10xlevel RP to research actions. The passive action discounts techs more, but has no bonus.
[] Anexa: Industrial Planner Anexa's secondary action becomes one that improves construction actions, contributing +5xlevel% BP to a construction action.
Do you allow Cia to train her powers through
combat?
[] Cia: Yes She will begin training her psyker powers in simulated combat against bots and target dummies. This means that she will specialize towards personal combat, more of a champion role. But she'll be less able to use large-scale psytech and won't lean into commanding as much.
[] Cia: No She will continue training her powers in a more general context, aiming for the ability to summon and control her powers in any situation. She will be less specialized towards personal combat, and better at using big psytech for things like destroying ships. If you intend to build her towards a commander or strategic-level tool this is probably better.
Edit: I've decided to change this vote to focus on the non-plan aspects of the vote, particularly the Space Marine conversation vote. Then that conversation will be a mini-update and we'll do the full vote. This is so you can make decisions after having the conversation.
Current capabilities:
Command Points 10,745/12,500
Flagship: Spark of the Ancients
Ground Build Capacity: 6000
Lift Capacity: 7000 (converts between ground and void BP)
Void Build Capacity: 1850
Research Capacity: 200
Psychic Shielding: 240/240 (repair for 10 BP/point)
Juvenat usage: 29/100 people's worth (cannot be stockpiled)
Shipbuilding capacity: 20 ship construction slots (treat it as capacity. You can only be building ships that fit within your construction slots)
Available ground forces:
1000 Light Machine-spirit infantry bots (20 CP)
2000 Light Machine-spirit humanized infantry bots (2x20 CP)
1000 Medium Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots (20 CP)
3000 Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (60 CP)
4000 Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (80 CP) CP costs for infantry bots work as breakpoints in increments of 1000. So 50 or 500 or 1000 bots all cost 20 CP, and 1001 costs 40 CP. Abstraction, y'all.
Misc assets:
27 BP of trade goods that Aevon will accept as rent.
In progress research:
Introduction to Human Genetics (45/100)
Ok, maybe there's a point to medical school (20/50)
Actions (choose 4 of the below, can choose the same action multiple times):
[] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular. I'm not going to write out every aspect of Vita going through the databases she yoinked. If you want to ask if something in particular is present because it's important, do so here. Please keep it to one or two items per turn, and if I'm busy writing database stuff I'm not writing the story.
[] Orders: Command existing units in a given theater of operations.
[] Travel/Explore: Pick a system on the Map to travel to/explore. Currently you may travel 1 system and explore your new location, or 3 systems if you don't explore. You may also spend an action to explore your current location.
[] Diplomacy/Subversion: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method) The nations of Denva are in some amount of turmoil, but it seems to be headed in a good direction. Though they're understandably concerned by the sudden space battle overhead, they don't really have good enough sensors to determine what happened beyond "Lots of boom."
[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what you spend them on.
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.
You can add psychic shielding to an installation by spending any cost between it's BP and twice its BP, gaining shielding on it with HP equal to the number of BP spent divided by ten.
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.
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)
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.
Small automated medical facility (50 BP, 50 CP) 50 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries.
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.
Observatory (100 BP, 25 CP) Built on a nearby mountain. Will unlock research projects to map the current system.
Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +50 ground-based build capacity.
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.
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.
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.
Medium Void-shield Installation (1000 BP, 50 CP) A void shield capable of stopping medium orbital bombardment, approximately fifty heavy strikes.
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.
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.
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 Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP) A set of carefully-managed vats capable of supplying 50 people with a perennial supply of Juvenat.
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 Manufactory (250 void BP, 40 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +50 void build capacity.
Deep Space Manufactory (750 void BP, 40 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +100 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Requires you to do a system survey.
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
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.
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.
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.
Units
Avatar (10 BP, 0 CP) 1 human-appearing robot.
Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor, mostly intended to fight lightly-armored enemies. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Can be humanized for +15 BP to appear humanoid unless bodies are investigated, with a slight bonus to strength and armor.
Light Machine-spirit infantry bots (30 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
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. Can be humanized for +15 BP to appear humanoid unless bodies are investigated, with a slight bonus to strength and armor.
Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (75 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, roughly equivalent to the Sisters of Battle, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Can be humanized for +15 BP to appear humanoid unless bodies are investigated, with a slight bonus to strength and armor.
Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (150 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Light Machine-spirit tanks (110 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 (225 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 (350 BP, 5 CP) As Basic Artillery, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
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.
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.
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.
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 or combat bots with gear that increases their effectiveness against enemies using weapons, armor and vehicles with machine spirits.
Light crewed tanks (100 BP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Need crew. Roughly equivalent to the Imperial Chimera.
Medium crewed tanks (200 BP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor. Roughly equivalent to the Leman Russ.
Basic Crewed artillery (300 BP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication.
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. +50 ground-based build capacity, to be spent as the people running it desire.
Residential Space (10 BP)
Enough living space for 1000 people. Beds, plumbing. Temperature control.
City (1000 BP per 50,000 people)
The complete package for a city. Residential space, power generation, sewage treatment, transit, offices.
Orbital habitat (2000 Void BP per 50,000 people) As city but in space.
[] Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on.
Designable Blueprints:
50 RP - Heavy tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor. Also unlocks the machine-spirit versions.
50 RP - Medium Shielded tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons & antipersonnel weapons to fight enemy armor and infantry. Very survivable. Also unlocks the machine-spirit versions.
100 RP - Heavy Shielded tanks (1000 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons and void shields to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor. Very survivable. Also unlocks the machine-spirit versions.
50 RP - BasicStealth Shuttles (25 BP, 5 CP) Each shuttle 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.
50 RP - Bombers (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.
75 RP - Basic StealthBombers (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. 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. Unlocks a bomber hanger attachment for ships.
50 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.
25 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.
15 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.
50 RP - Light Void-shield installation (250 BP, 25 CP) A void shield capable of stopping light orbital bombardment, approximately ten heavy strikes.
50 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.
50 RP - Nuclear warhead (25 BP, 1 CP) A variable-yield nuclear warhead that can be deployed by ballistic missile or other means to destroy a city-sized target unless it's heavily dug-in.
25 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.
100 RP - Advanced Technological Research Lab (500 BP, 100 CP) Will allow you to process advanced technological samples, including materials of alien orgin. Has advanced scanning, modelling and processing capabilities.
50 RP - Large automated medical facility (500 BP, 50 CP) 500 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries.
25 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.
Ground Blueprint Design:
To design ground installations & non-combat units, post them and I'll add them here if they're valid, along with RP cost to design them. This includes bunkers, anti-orbital defenses, ground units, etc. You'll unlock more things with more technology. Some things are impossible without the correct research - for example, heavy tanks will require you to research heavy armor first. Other things will be very cheap if you already have most of the design - for example if you research a better weapon it will be relatively cheap to just swap that out on the tanks.
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 noncombat equipment to go onto the ship. These do not count towards cramming.
Choose weapons and combat 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.
Here are two examples of me designing the two blueprints you have available:
(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.
Available Void Chassis:
Light defense Platform, 25 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, 50 RP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slots (200-500 BP, 1200x200-1600x400 meters) Engines: (6/7/8 gravities) for (50/100/150 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Frigate, 100 RP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots (500-1000 BP, 1600x400-2200x600 meters) Engines: (5/6/7 gravities) for (75/150/225 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150)
Light Cruiser, 150 RP, 200 CP, 8 ship construction slots (1000-2000 BP, 3500x400-4400x800 meters) Engines: (3/4/5 gravities) for (100/200/300 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/150/300) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200)
Heavy Cruiser, 200 RP, 300 CP, 32 ship construction slots (2000-6000 BP, 4500x600-6000x1200 meters) Engines: (2/3/4 gravities) for (300/400/500 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400)
Available Non-combat Equipment:
Living Space (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.
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. Requires Abacus Manufacturing technology.
Psychic Shielding (1/5 or 1/2.5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, that thinks "no" as hard as possible, answering the question for any warp-corruption for any beings or objects within the hull. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 10 BP spent on it.
Troop compartment (25 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Medical bay (25 BP) Can treat 1000 severely injured people at once.
Manufactory (Any cost up to base cost of hull, counts as combat equipment for cramming purposes) Generates void BP equivalent to 1/10 of its cost.
Repair Bay (Any cost up to base cost of hull, counts as combat equipment for cramming purposes). Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost in repairs.
Available Weapons:
Multiple 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 50 bp. 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.
Fighters 100 BP, 50 CP. Parasite craft with short-ranged guns and some missile capability. Basic stealth automatically applied. Shuttles 100 BP, 50 CP. 10 Shuttlecraft, combined capacity of 500 lift to or from a planet. Assault Shuttles 150 BP, 50 CP. 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip. asic stealth automatically applied.
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 cruisers 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.
Available Combat Equipment:
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.
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.
Plasma payloads (choose missile warheads or Macro cannon warheads) (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 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 armor cost, but does count 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, does count towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for tuned shields, 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 effect 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. Same effect as medium, but may also effect friend-foe designation and reactor stability. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class.
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 (400 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. (Unlocks medium defensive platforms, potential for other void-based installation options)
-[] Improved Engine Designs (150 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)
-[] Streamlined ship design (150 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)
-[] Efficient Equipment Distribution (100 RP) Let's see if you can apply the benefits from weapon packing to equipment (Combat equipment costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing.)
-[] 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 cost at 0.75 for ship capacity packing)
-[] 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)
-[] 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 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 more effective. May unlock more technology to make missiles smarter, longer ranged and generally more effective)
General Design:
-[] 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).
-[] 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 beauracracy. There's probably some stuff like that in your ground manufactories too. (Reduces the CP cost but not BP cost of your ground manufactories).
-[] Shuttle automation (150 RP) Surely I don't have to fly these stupid things myself. (Reduce the CP cost of shuttles by 50%)
-[] Walkers (300 RP) Tanks are... kind of boring? Mechs are cooler. (unlock armiger knights, 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.)
-[] Abacus Manufacturing (200 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)
Stealth Technology:
-[] Basic Spaceship Stealth (100 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.)
-[] 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.)
-[] 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.)
-[] Basic Active Stealth (100 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.
Shield technology:
-[] Heavy Void shields (200 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.)
-[] 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.)
-[] 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)
Materials & Armor:
-[] Superheavy Armor (200 RP) Let's just stick starship armor on them and call it a day. (Unlocks superheavy tanks and is half of the puzzle for space-marine-quality 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)
-[] 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.)
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)
-[] 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.
AI research:
-[] 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)
- [] Personality-Checking Routines (200 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). Locked behind Intelligence Coding.
Psychic Shielding:
-[] Efficent Psychic Shielding (150 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 efficent solution to the same problem (Improves the BP/HP ratio for psychic shields, unlocks discounts on other psychic shielding, may unlock further research towards cheaper or more ubiquitous shielding).
-[] Alternative Shielding Meanings. (350 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 "Aboslutely not" or maybe even "You're not real" and see what happens. (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.)
-[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (200 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) Requires Machine Spirit Chaos resistance.
-[] Personal-sized Psychic shielding: (150 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.)
-[] 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.
-[] Scrapcode-resistant Psychic shielding (150 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)
The Warp:
-[] 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, and potential demonology).
-[] Improved Void Abacus (300 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 (600 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:
- [] Basic Psychic Amplification Devices (200 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 amplificiation devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic amplification, as well as larger amplification constructs)
- [] Basic Psychic Suppression Devices (200 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)
- [] 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).
- [] Basic Pyromantic understanding (150 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) Locked behind Cia reaching level 5.
-[] Further Scrapcode research (150 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. Synergizes with warp understanding.)
-[] Scrapcode Generation (700 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
Physics:
-[] 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)
-[] 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)
-[] Superconductive Shenanigans (100 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).
-[] 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)
-[] High-energy Physics (300 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, disintegration weapons. Half of the research for vortex weaponry.) Locked behind a High-Energy Physics Research Lab
Machine Spirits
-[] 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)
-[] Large-scale Machine spirits (150 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 eminantly 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.)
-[] 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).
-[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (250 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.)
-[] 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)
Medical Technology:
-[] 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)
-[] 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)
-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (200 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).
-[] 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)
-[] Drugs? Drugs. (100 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.)
-[] Juvenat Beginnings (600 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 Genetics (500 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.) Locked behind tech you haven't unlocked yet - probably 1-2 down the human genetics chain depending on rolls.
-[] Navigator Gestation (200 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) Locked behind the Does in vitro have something to do with wine? and maybe a followup tech depending on rolls.
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 (150 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 (300 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.
-[] 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).
-[] 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.
-[] Basic Cognition Filter: (??? 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.) Locked behind Advanced Neural Implants, cost to be determined by the roll on that research.
-[] 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)
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)
Crew :
Anexa Ifina, Tech-priest Errant.
Level 11
-[] 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. -[] Anexa passive action: Education - Roll to level, difficulty is 10+5xLevel The passive action is going to change, depending on the vote below. Specialty (2/2): Machine Spirits. The Warp. Grants a +5 bonus when doing research rolls in the relevant category.
Victan Thallos, Diplomat-Spy
Level 13
-[] Victan active action: Diplomat-Spy - assists any diplomacy action you take, granting +Level to the dice to the action. Will level on successful roll, scaled by the significance of the action.
-[] Victan passive action: Counterespionage & Alliance-building - Defends against hostile covert action and improves relations with existing allies, as well as gathering information for making new allies. Will only level if something interesting happens.
Cia Steblin, Pyromancer Psyker
Level 3
-[] Active Psyker improvement: Cia will actively attempt to practice her powers. Roll two d100s. Take the higher roll for determining level-up, but take the lower for perils of the warp. (DCs are unknown but context-dependent. They are currently favorable and will get less favorable as she levels)
-[] Passive Psyker improvement: Cia will take lower-risk actions to improve herself, including meditation, study and augmentation. A single level-up roll, with only a very low roll resulting in perils of the warp.
How much Technology will you share with Denva Secundus? (Part of plan vote)
-[] Denva: Nothing They've got civilian-level outer-galaxy Dark-Age of Technology equipment, especially focused on manufacturing. That's enough for now.
-[] Denva: Some (write-in) You should share some specific areas with them. Write in what (such as psychic shielding).
-[] Denva: All of it. They won't be able to use most of it for a while yet, but they'll have the literature and notes to be able to replicate everything you can build, including plasma weapons, orbital manufactories and heavy cruisers. Eventually.
What do you do with the Aerithon installations? (Part of plan vote)
It will cost you 1500 BP to bring them back to working order, and they'll produce 1000 BP/turn that can only be used for void construction. If you run them they'll cost 250 CP.
-[] Aerithon installations: Destroy them You could destroy them now, if you want to be sure they won't fall into the hands of anybody unfriendly.
-[] Aerithon installations: Keep them You always need more void manufacturing capability. You'll also gain the ability to use the logistics base to build 50x void manufactories for half-price.
-[] Aerithon installations: Give them to Denva Secundus You can repair them or not. They'll be able to do it, it just might take a while. There's enough expertise on Klyssar's nest to run them, though not at maximum capacity for a little while. This would be a big leg up for their spaceborne industry, and they'd be able to build out the logistics base as a shipyard/industrial platform.
Ask if there's any uncertainty around the Anexa options. I tried to workshop this earlier and I think I landed in a good place.
I've done some quantum computation stuff, so apologies for geeking out about that a bit.
I changed the description of the vellkar from what it was earlier. I think this is more interesting. You still don't know much about their culture, or the underground ecosystem they live in. Building manufactories on Denva Primus would necessarily invade their territory for mining.
Denva is now ambitious and active. They want to go to space, and will start up void manufacturing, research, ship design, better education, moving population off-world. You can dramatically accelerate any of that by spending actions.
The critical success on exploration cut off two additional actions you'd have had to do - both to get in diplomatic contact with the vellkar & to get past the defensive installations around the gas giant base.
The space marine vote is for how you respond in the moment, for one conversation. This isn't the time to try to hash out a full negotiation, but rather to set the tone and how you'll explain yourself to the first major power of the sector that's come knocking. At least they're willing to talk.
If you're still reading this beast of an update, go vote in the best new work poll!
I'm exhausted and going to be travelling for a few days. Two days of moratorium, a day and a half of voting. Happy Holidays.
The thing about commanders is they are going to have to interact with allies. Most of the allies we could have are likely to be weary of psykers. I think it might be best for her to remain a champion, especially since that is one of the things pyromancy does best.
I know some 40k systems do that. I'm not. Perils happen if you roll low. Active practice means you roll twice, which means you're somewhat likely to both succeed and get a perils.
@Neablis How would two Anexa specialities overlapping on a Tech affect the outcome? Improve it? Just narrative flavoring? Reducing possible bad outcomes? Something else? Not at all…?
I think this was mostly for organizational rather than game balance purposes - for mechanical purposes, a tagging/keyword system would probably be more manageable - there are machine spirit techs outside of the machine spirit category, for instance. If it's solely things in "The Warp" category, then the specialty might actually be quite narrow... but if it's everything warpy, that'd be stupidly broad instead, lol.
No, this is mechanical, and I'm not tagging because everything gets one tag. The Warp means a lot of stuff, including warp navigation, warp sensing, demonology. There's a lot of overlap with psychic shielding, psytech, etc. But "warpier" techs from each of those trees are likely to land in the warp bucket. It's not perfect, but the research system is already beastly. This is one compromise out of many that will prevent it from becoming an absolute monster.
It's possible, but it seems like it depends a lot on how much behind-the-curtain sim there is. Are the factions already on the map somewhere, or will they have always been there starting when we find them? (We may never know, the behind-the-curtain QM strategy itself is something that can often remain behind the curtain.)
Everybody's already on the map. Who you run into depends on which direction you go, not what you roll. But who comes to find you is dependent on a roll. Does that seem like a good distinction?
A +20 is actually that in this system, it means you can't fail, though levels of success vary, like Vita and research. That seems pretty accurate for primarchs, at least young ones.
This is more of an implication of my gaming philosophy - "Fail Forward." I don't believe in failure without consequences. Either you mess up bad and bad things happen, or you technically succeed but cause another problem that requires additional investment (and another roll) to fix. That's what a poor success is. It should usually cause another problem, or consume resources that require more effort to replace.
"No, you fail and that's it." should be a pretty rare result, and only for failures on actions that don't have consequences.
Also, how fast did you folks read? That was a 10k chapter.
Your quest audience are dedicated questers. Reading is basically a mastered skill for most of them, I suspect WPM for most readers is 500+ on average, possibly 1k+.
You called 6 d100's a lot of dice on Sufficient Velocity where the average roll in a quest is about 7-8 d100's and where planquests where 20-30 d100's are rolled were if not invented at least codified.
That is very much a sweatdrop level of weird for this site.
You called 6 d100's a lot of dice on Sufficient Velocity where the average roll in a quest is about 7-8 d100's and where planquests where 20-30 d100's are rolled were if not invented at least codified.
That is very much a sweatdrop level of weird for this site.
