Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

Angle · Friday at 4:43 PM

LightLan said:
Empathy at Range (200 RP).

Improved Warp sensors are directly available.
We also have gotten discounts from warp travel in the past before (Abacus), now with literal warp sensors there we might get something discounted again.

It's expensive... Not that bad though I guess. I'd accept it as an overflow tech now, or as a main tech later after we research all the stuff that's really cheap, or if it comes down in price.

sciencegeek said:
At a bare minimum I think we should do those two as they are very cheap for the potential reward. We especially should dive into the research on faith to see what else can be researched and if we can make maximal use of Denva. If we get a crit or high roll we might even be able to mix faith-tech with MS for maximal chaos blocking.

As an aside, does anyone know if getting a research discounted to 0 is possible? Because that sounds both plausible and possibly useful.

Warp sensors is relatively expensive, but yeah, I think we should aim for it soon.

Nightlord256 said:
Hmm, a thought. Do we want to attempt the Daemonology research before getting the warp lab now that we know the lab makes it safer? If there is one tech I'd want us to have containment measures for, Daemonology would be it.

I'd be down to wait for it - I want a bunch of other stuff first anyway.

Nightlord256 said:
Yes, the machine spirit design we just completed had the potential to unlock a new research tech that would improve RP per action.

Human Design Interfaces also has a lot of hidden potential. Discounting our design options further would be very nice, but I think it would be a huge gift to Denva upon our return. Auto-CAD that responds to your thoughts would be a game changer for engineering.

Also expensive, but something I'd be down to research once we get back to Denva, yeah. Though maybe pick up a bunch of the cheaper OMC stuff first.

Also, not sure we got the RP tech - we barely had a good success on MS Design. Maybe it got punted behind MS Cramming and we unlocked that?

LightLan · Friday at 5:00 PM

Angle said:
Also, not sure we got the RP tech - we barely had a good success on MS Design. Maybe it got punted behind MS Cramming and we unlocked that?

We'll see when the update drops. No use speculating about that now.

I want to give the Advanced Technological Research Lab for consideration. With the MS Design it should be cheaper than the 100 RP now and it fits right into where our Technological Research Lab is as an upgrade.

Neablis said:
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.

Angle · Friday at 5:06 PM

LightLan said:
I want to give the Advanced Technological Research Lab for consideration. With the MS Design it should be cheaper than the 100 RP now and it fits right into where our Technological Research Lab is as an upgrade.

We're probably not going to be able to actually build it until we get back to Denva, unless we clear up a bunch of space in our ship. So, I'd put off researching it until then, and focus on other stuff.

Specifically:

Angle said:
I really want to try and focus our efforts. I think our primary goals right now should be:

Finish exploring Ascalons neighbors and then return to Denva.

Develop Cia and support her properly.

Further protect ourselves against warp threats.

Wrap Bongo up for long term handling.

Further our understanding of the warp, and improve our ability to make use of it.

Develop Warp comms.

Develop machine spirits as a cheap way to boost the effectiveness of, like, all our tech.

Develop better sensors and get a handle on stealth tech, so the Druhkari are less of a problem in the future.

The last two can wait till we get back to Denva to fully go in on, but I'd like to nibble around the edges for them, and be most of the way done with most of the rest before we get to Denva.

LightLan · Friday at 5:07 PM

Angle said:
We're probably not going to be able to actually build it until we get back to Denva, unless we clear up a bunch of space in our ship. So, I'd put off researching it until then, and focus on other stuff.

We do not have to clear up any space, it replaces the current Tech research lab 1:1.

Angle · Friday at 5:11 PM

LightLan said:
We do not have to clear up any space, it replaces the current Tech research lab 1:1.

...Does it? It costs like 5 times as much BP.

Edit: No sorry, 10 times as much BP.

Nightlord256 · Friday at 5:24 PM

sciencegeek said:
As an aside, does anyone know if getting a research discounted to 0 is possible? Because that sounds both plausible and possibly useful.

Technically possible, but very unlikely. Even if we have all the knowledge it would still take some though to put the idea together. See Psychic Tripwires at 25 RP

LightLan said:
I want to give the Advanced Technological Research Lab for consideration. With the MS Design it should be cheaper than the 100 RP now and it fits right into where our Technological Research Lab is as an upgrade.

Point of Information, the advanced tech lab will take 3 slots total (like the warp lab or high energy physics). It just replaces the capabilities of the basic version, so we don't need both. After the slot from the basic tech lab we will need to free up two more. With 20 BP currently over the last slot we only need to free up 180 BP of space. With our current cramming this would be any two light weapons, or one medium, or any 2 slots of existing equipment.

On another front, I've been thinking about eventual fleet composition. To put some constraints on my designs I've set an arbitrary budget of 30,000 BP for all the ships. For cramming, I used 0.75 weapons and 0.9 equipment since that is what we have visible (except for the factory ship which has its assumptions listed).

Designs:

Assumes we can get to 0.75 cramming for manufactories and get their production up to 1/4 (high probability with average rolls on visible techs)

Prospector mk II - Destroyer (1500 VBP, 50 CP, 50 RP), Hull: (500, 1600m x 400m), Engines: 6 Gravities, Shields: Light, Armor: Light, Hull Equipment (200 BP): Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Psychic Shielding: 20 HP, Weapons (50 BP, 45 Size): 1x Point Defense, Non-Combat Equipment (600 BP, 450 Size): Manufactory (150 VBP),

Ranger - Destroyer (1600 VBP, 50 CP, 50 RP), Hull: (500, 1600m x 400m), Engines: 7 Gravities, Shields: Medium, Armor: Medium, Hull Equipment (200 BP): Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Psychic Shielding: 20 HP, Weapons (500 BP, 375 Size): 1x Medium Lance, 2x Light Macrocannon, 2x Point Defense, Combat Equipment (100 BP, 90 Size): Low-Emission System, High-maneuverability thrusters

Strider (Sniper - Variant A) - Frigate (3125 VBP, 100 CP, 100 RP), Hull: (1000, 2200m x 600m), Engines: 7 Gravities, Shields: Medium, Armor: Medium, Hull Equipment (400 BP): Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Psychic Shielding: 40 HP, Weapons (600 BP, 450 Size): 1x Heavy Lance, 4x Point Defense, Combat Equipment (600 BP, 540 Size): High-maneuverability thrusters, Medium Sensors

Strider (Sniper - Variant B) - Frigate (3175 VBP, 100 CP, 100 RP), Hull: (1000, 2200m x 600m), Engines: 7 Gravities, Shields: Medium, Armor: Medium, Hull Equipment (400 BP): Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Psychic Shielding: 40 HP, Weapons (900 BP, 675 Size): 2x Heavy Lance, 2x Point Defense, Combat Equipment (350 BP, 315 Size): High-maneuverability thrusters, Light Sensors

Strider (Brawler - Variant A) - Frigate (3125 VBP, 100 CP, 100 RP), Hull: (1000, 2200m x 600m), Engines: 7 Gravities, Shields: Medium, Armor: Medium, Hull Equipment (400 BP): Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Psychic Shielding: 40 HP, Weapons (600 BP, 450 Size): 1x Medium Plasma Cannon, 2x Point Defense, Combat Equipment (600 BP, 540 Size): High-maneuverability thrusters, Medium Sensors,

Strider (Brawler - Variant B) - Frigate (3175 VBP, 100 CP, 100 RP), Hull: (1000, 2200m x 600m), Engines: 7 Gravities, Shields: Medium, Armor: Medium, Hull Equipment (400 BP): Warp Drive, Void Abacus, Psychic Shielding: 40 HP, Weapons (900 BP, 675 Size): 1x Medium Plasma Cannon, 2x Light Macrocannon, 4x Point Defense, Combat Equipment (350 BP, 315 Size): High-maneuverability thrusters, Light Sensors

The fleet list would be:

8x Prospectors - 12,000 BP
4x Rangers - 6,400 BP
2x Striders - 6,350 BP (max, model dependant)
1x Mobile Shipyard - 5,000*

*Neablis has said its possible but we can't see the tech yet, which is behind large-scale void manufacturing. In this case I assume we can get 2 building slots into a light cruiser for a total cost of ~5,000 BP. If a mobile shipyard isn't feasible I'd drop it and 2 prospectors and bring the Ranger count up to 9.

This would give us a 2 small patrol groups (2x Rangers, 1x Strider each) to screen our fleet with. The factory ships give us 1,550 BP output, 150 each + 350 from flagship, which lets us produce a prospector or ranger with just a single construction action which lets our fleet scale nicely. I'd envision adding 2-6 Rangers to the group in the following turns.

I'm curious to get feedback from ya'll on the general fleet composition and especially the various strider designs I made. I couldn't decide if it should be a mid-range or long range combatant or the level of sensors it should have.

Edit: my hope is to narrow down our wish list to help inform the techs we want to get done by our return.

Edit the Second: For reference, here are the techs this list would require (besides the mobile shipyard tech):

-[] Efficient Equipment Distribution (100 RP) Let's see if you can apply the benefits from weapon packing to equipment (Equipment costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing. Especially effective for cargo holds.)

-[] 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)

-[] 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).

-[] Machine Spirit Shipboard Manufactories (100 RP) The constraints on shipboard manufactories make them different enough that you haven't been able to apply the machine spirit technology to them. (Improves the BP produced by the shipboard manufactory equipment, likely by about 20%. May unlock tech allowing better cramming for ship manufactories).

Aerrow Shadow · Friday at 5:40 PM

@Angle
I want the Cognition Filter because Psychic shields don't prevent infestation with cognitohazard.

sciencegeek · Friday at 5:41 PM

Nightlord256 said:
I'm curious to get feedback from ya'll on the general fleet composition and especially the various strider designs I made. I couldn't decide if it should be a mid-range or long range combatant or the level of sensors it should have.

I think the kind of sensors used should wait a bit as we have a decent amount of stealth/sensor tech to work through. We have a while until any of this will get built (at minimum 3-5 turns) and the quality of our sensors could vastly change depending on what we research.

Aineko · Friday at 5:45 PM

Nightlord256 said:
I'm curious to get feedback from ya'll on the general fleet composition and especially the various strider designs I made. I couldn't decide if it should be a mid-range or long range combatant or the level of sensors it should have.

I notice no weapons tuned to attack armor on those? Unless lances have an armor-defeating behavior which I haven't seen documented in this quest but have seen in other contexts. Not that large lances and medium plasma shouldn't be fairly adequate there.

I would argue against fitting line gunboats with medium sensors, especially ones as small as frigates. Even small added sensors are a large sacrifice at that hull size. For a recon ship or some escort roles where the main artillery is on a separate platform, sure. But I'm reading these as more a pocket line of battle.

I'd also want to consider (A) a full cruiser so Spark isn't the only thing that's outside the escort classification - not everything we face is going to be bite-sized - and (B) some platform with a bunch more repair bay in it - Spark's is not necessarily enough to keep a fleet in good condition going from how we've been collecting damage.

Oh, and while I see why you did it it pains me for the Rangers to not take the 8 G option when they have it.

Angle · Friday at 5:53 PM

Aerrow Shadow said:
@Angle
I want the Cognition Filter because Psychic shields don't prevent infestation with cognitohazard.

In our experience so far though, they absolutely have. We haven't once had anything break past our psychic shields to afflict us with cognitohazards. And if we do end up with cognitohazards capable of bypassing psy shields, then we probably want the warp knowledge that lies past Faith Studies to deal with it, not cognition filters. Or at least, in addition to cognitofilters.

Aineko said:
I would argue against fitting line gunboats with medium sensors, especially ones as small as frigates. Even small added sensors are a large sacrifice at that hull size. For a recon ship or some escort roles where the main artillery is on a separate platform, sure. But I'm reading these as more a pocket line of battle.

I'm a big fan of dedicated sensor ships, personally. Though once we have Combat Information Gathering, then we might start wanting major sensors on all combat ships?

Nightlord256 · Friday at 5:59 PM

Aineko said:
I notice no weapons tuned to attack armor on those? Unless lances have an armor-defeating behavior which I haven't seen documented in this quest but have seen in other contexts. Not that large lances and medium plasma shouldn't be fairly adequate there.

Just because it is not tuned for armor doesn't mean it can't hurt as we saw when the planetary defense lances from the Sisters of Battle hit our ship. I was aiming for a very generalist weapons mix. The plasma was a passing idea that I liked, since it would pop shields quick and let the rangers start hitting armor.

Aineko said:
I would argue against fitting line gunboats with medium sensors, especially ones as small as frigates. Even small added sensors are a large sacrifice at that hull size. For a recon ship or some escort roles where the main artillery is on a separate platform, sure. But I'm reading these as more a pocket line of battle.

I actually did envision both the ranger and striders as recon / escort ships. The long term ideal would be 4-8 rangers screening the flag + factory train with two squads of 4 ranger led by a strider patrolling the near space we are in. Short term it would be a squad of 2 and 1 screening while one patrolled.

Aineko said:
I'd also want to consider (A) a full cruiser so Spark isn't the only thing that's outside the escort classification - not everything we face is going to be bite-sized - and (B) some platform with a bunch more repair bay in it - Spark's is not necessarily enough to keep a fleet in good condition going from how we've been collecting damage.

I agree on both points, but that would put the fleet well over the budget I set. I'd put the fleet support ship at a higher priority than a full cruiser, but I think both are important. This fleet is still very much designed to catch anything we want to fight or run from anything we don't want to.

Aineko said:
Oh, and while I see why you did it it pains me for the Rangers to not take the 8 G option when they have it.

Yeah, it hurt me as well but that was the point of setting arbitrary limits for myself. In a 'Real' build I'd absolutely do 8Gs.

Angle said:
Though once we have Combat Information Gathering, then we might start wanting major sensors on all combat ships?

I hope CIG either gives us or unlocks further research for networked sensors. That way only a few ships needs the good array.

Aerrow Shadow · Friday at 6:17 PM

Angle said:
In our experience so far though, they absolutely have. We haven't once had anything break past our psychic shields to afflict us with cognitohazards. And if we do end up with cognitohazards capable of bypassing psy shields, then we probably want the warp knowledge that lies past Faith Studies to deal with it, not cognition filters. Or at least, in addition to cognitofilters.

No our Psy shields prevented/absorbed damage from cognitohazards, vita then implement cognito filters in themself (see Turn 9).
The Research is just to give the same ability to non AIs.

Aineko · Friday at 6:18 PM

Nightlord256 said:
I actually did envision both the ranger and striders as recon / escort ships. The long term ideal would be 4-8 rangers screening the flag + factory train with two squads of 4 ranger led by a strider patrolling the near space we are in. Short term it would be a squad of 2 and 1 screening while one patrolled.

So in this concept the Spark alone constitutes the line of battle? She is big and tough, though an aggressively-designed heavy cruiser could exceed her firepower.

I don't think dedicated escort is a sufficiently important role to justify that much with this little fleet to be escorted. I'd philosophize more towards core battleships (which might be frigates or light cruisers in a small fleet) or fast response ships (which, TBF, doesn't call for a wildly different design from your Rangers or even your B-type Striders.)

EDIT: I'd note that while the ships you're building are presumably meant to be fast, the Spark herself isn't. We haven't met anyone packing around an actual fleet. Spark is probably enough to fight off a single Craftworld cruiser like we saw. But any two full Cruisers, I'd start to get nervous, and most cruisers could dictate range to us if they wanted to. Forces that Vita can neither outrun nor dominate are highly plausible.

Angle · Friday at 6:21 PM

Once we get back to Denva, we're probably going to want to spend a few turns there. Some stuff I think we should work on then:

Vellkar Diplomacy
- Access to superconductors
- Begin uplifting Vellkar
- Maybe see if they have anything else they want to trade?
- They like trading, IIRC.
New Stellar Federation
- Starting members would be Denva, Vita, and maybe the Vellkar.
- Federation would be very loose, at least to start with.
- Information sharing, research sharing, mutual defense treaties, maybe economic cooperation?
Research Pact
- Part of the new Stellar Federation.
- Make sure we have warp comms first.
Build shipyard, new fleet?
- Not entirely sure what we want here, but odds are we want something.
Develop Technology:
- Better Manufacturing
- Better Spaceships
- Better Cybernetics
- Better Biology
Start work on growing Navigator?
- Want better warp protections and understanding first, and cybernetics so we can do cognition filters, and biology so we can see to their health...

Anyone have any opinions?

Aineko · Friday at 6:34 PM

Just because I'm not seeing it talked about - and it's way over many posters' cost comfort level, I think - Companion Cogitators is the tech that would let our little clutch of transhumans really discover their wings.

Angle · Friday at 6:36 PM

Aineko said:
Just because I'm not seeing it talked about - and it's way over many posters' cost comfort level, I think - Companion Cogitators is the tech that would let our little clutch of transhumans really discover their wings.

Yeah, but it's also suuuuper expensive. Improved OMC is much cheaper, and while its a lot more restricted it would still provide a lot of benefits and lead to all sorts of interesting possibilities, IMO.

Glau · Friday at 6:43 PM

Overall I think we need more punch than we do more psy armor, we need a mobile shipyard more than we need a research ship, and we need to be ready to fight something like orcs sooner rather than later.

Punch over psyshields because no matter how good the armor is, it can be defeated by spending long enough grinding at it. We need to be able to knock out the sources of the attack else we are just sitting a lot of time and resources just to drag it out of longer.

Mobile shipyard above other ships because we need to be able to leverage the one turn of denva's production into building an entire fleet, and this is the biggest shortcut there.

Orcs, because we know they are around now, and they are a bad match for us as we are. Necrons might be worse, but we've got sensors started to offset Eldar advantages and psyshields to offset chaos advantages.

Worst case scenario for us right now is a superior force showing up while we are at denva, I think.

Aineko · Friday at 6:50 PM

Angle said:
Yeah, but it's also suuuuper expensive. Improved OMC is much cheaper, and while its a lot more restricted it would still provide a lot of benefits and lead to all sorts of interesting possibilities, IMO.

Improved OMC does just one thing? It's not described as a big unlocker, it's just a quantitative performance improvement. And is almost totally useless to Vita at present, though probably quite useful to Denva.

Companion Cogitators appears to be the next backbone tech for the cybernetics tree. Like Advanced Neural Implants was. (And like ANI, it probably buffs OMC capacity, but the interesting part is what it unlocks.)

Glau said:
Worst case scenario for us right now is a superior force showing up while we are at denva, I think.

That seems like the best case scenario for a superior force showing up at Denva.

Angle · Friday at 6:57 PM

Techs that I'm really hoping we get a decent chunk of progress on from Denva, and would want to start aiming for after we get back if they haven't already unlocked them:

Neablis said:
-[] 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 bureaucracy. There's probably some stuff like that in your ground manufactories too. (Reduces the CP cost but not BP cost of your ground manufactories. Unlocks follow-on tech to build ground manufactories in more challenging conditions such as extreme temp/pressure planetoids).

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

Neablis said:
-[] 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 (100 RP) You understand all of the physical parts of an abacus. Now you need to figure out all of the manufacturing techniques needed to actually put one together. (Unlocks the void abacus ship equipment)

Neablis said:
-[] 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)

Neablis said:
-[] Machine Sprit Production Improvements (100 RP) Your machine spirits seem to be able to suggest more optimal choices than the default under some situations, but you're not confident enough to standardize it. Investigate that, and figure out how to encourage that behavior. (Improves productivity of machine-spirit manufacturing systems, may unlock further boosts to manufactory production or CP discounts).

-[] Machine Spirit Shipboard Manufactories (100 RP) The constraints on shipboard manufactories make them different enough that you haven't been able to apply the machine spirit technology to them. (Improves the BP produced by the shipboard manufactory equipment, likely by about 20%. May unlock tech allowing better cramming for ship manufactories).

-[] Basic Automated Manufactories (225 RP) If you tool a factory and install a machine spirit optimized to make just one thing, then it can just keep doing it without your oversight. (Unlocks automated ground/orbital/deep space manufactories, which will continue to produce a single kind of product without requiring actions. Will require CP, and cannot make starships or installations. Unlocks further research to increase productivity, flexibility, remove the CP requirement, as well as allow the automated manufactories to produce ships, installations and eventually megastructures).

Neablis said:
-[] 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 (Equipment costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing. Especially effective for cargo holds.)

-[] 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)

Neablis said:
-[] 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)

Neablis said:
-[] Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP) As it stands, you can integrate machine spirits into small things. Expanding that to military installations and ships is going to require designing even more complex networks and figuring out how to make them work. With Anexa's insights you think it's eminently possible thought (Unlocks machine-spirit equipped versions of frigate-sized or smaller ships and platforms, as well as most defensive installations. Unlocks more research for machine spirits for larger ships & platforms.)

Neablis said:
-[] 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 (100 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).

Neablis said:
-[] Improved Organic-Machine control (100 RP) You think you can about double the capacity of the machine-control implants with a full redesign. (Approximately doubles the capacity of organic-machine control, letting a single human command more CP worth of units. Leads to further follow-on improvements.)

-[] Large-Scale organic-machine Control (100 RP) A manufactory is one thing, a shipyard or gas refinery is another. But at this point it's mostly a matter of scale and networking. (Allows OMC implants to control any kind of industrial production, including shipyards and non-military megastructures. Leads to further technology to improve the amount of CP one person can control.)

Neablis said:
-[] Human Virtual OMC simulations (150 RP) Simulation of the organic-machine control interfaces is tricky, but it has some pretty significant benefits. Not only will it make it far easier to train people on how to use the OMC technology, it'll let people virtually fight each other to discover new strategies. Besides, that might be fun. (Dramatically improved OMC competence. This may result in an increase in manufacturing efficiency for OMC-controlled manufactories, and will result in increased effectiveness of OMC-controlled military units.).

-[] Void Organic-Machine control (100 RP) A voidship can be thought of as a living creature, with veins of coolant, a reactor heart and an undying thirst for fuel. How can a single human understand it, much less understand it? (Allows OMC implants to control voidships. Leads to further research to boost CP capacity of OMC specifically for controlling voidships, as well as improvements to allow improved piloting)

-[] Remote Organic-Machine control (50 RP) One of the current limitations of the OMC technology is that it requires the controller to be on-site. But if that wasn't true, then you could imagine truly bloodless wars, or operators living in comfortable cities while they controlled factories in orbit. Something to look into. (Allows OMC implants to control installations or units within the same system. Leads to further research for interoperable units, as well as making it possible for human staff to directly contribute to Vita's CP cap.)

Neablis said:
-[] Human Design Interfaces (200 RP) You've adapted your simulation software to work with advanced neural implants, but what about your design software? If humans could play with your auto-cad as well as you can then that would help you design or even entirely farm out the design of things. (Discounts design options, may unlock technology to improve the RP generated from humans with simulation implants, either per-person or simply raising the cap.)

Neablis said:
-[] Companion Cogitators (450 RP) Your implants are good. But they still rely on external computers for any heavy lifting. But with a good deal of work, and some effort at miniaturizing computation, data storage and power units you could fit a full computer into somebody, giving them access to a full suite (Powerful neural implants capable of incredible amounts of data crunching/cryptography, as well as full virtual presences. Further improves Organic-machine control, unlocks very powerful types of implants, including implanted machine spirits, personality-backups and depending on other technology minor AIs).

-[] Mood Regulators (150 RP) Interfacing the implant with the brain's emotional centers will allow it to regulate emotional states. Potentially useful to help the bearer regulate dangerous emotions like fear, lust, anger, greed, sloth, as well as emotional outbursts when such would be dangerous for them. Also potetnialyl useful for interrogation. (Your implants that can help with - or destroy - mental stability. Useful for those engaged with Chaos, and for unstable psykers. May unlock more technology geared towards ensuring a stable mental condition). Locked behind Drugs? Drugs.

-[] Pain Controller (150 RP) Pain is an incredibly deeply seated stimulus, and it's hard to block it without destroying a lot of senses. But if you manage it it could help immesurably with combat implants. (Your implants allow the deadening of pain, allowing people so implanted to fight or last through injuries and other bad feedback).

Neablis said:
-[] Basic Cognition Filter: (250 RP) Antimemetic threats are such a hassle. Even the programs you've written to partion your own knowledge are an ad-hoc solution. And aside from having an innate resistance above the zero-tolerance you likely have, humans have a really hard time not thinking about something. Fix it. Work out a method for existing brain-augments to isolate knowledge on cognitohazards to the augment's machine spirit in inert memory vaults. The user will have to instead consciously override the locks on the chosen memories to access them temporarily. That way, stray thoughts about the isolated memories cannot happen, and long-term memories in the brain when the memory vaults are unlocked get instead rerouted to the machine spirit of the brain implant. Will have a harder time isolating knowledge from existing long-term memories formed when not actively using the cognition filter. (Unlocks cognition filter modification to brain implants, unlocks further technologies related to cognition filter and methods for mitigating cognitohazards, basilisk hacks, etc. perceived in real-time.)

Neablis said:
-[] Complex genetic enhancement (150 RP) The complexity of human genetics lies in the epistasis between multiple different alleles. Put more simply, this shit is complicated. Figure it out. (Unlocks more advanced enhancements, including significantly improved strength, intelligence, etc. Unlocks research for even more dramatic engineering, and is likely required to try to make psykers)

Neablis said:
-[] Psyker genetics (300 RP) What makes somebody psychic? You have a psyker, and some genetic samples from others acquired from various trips to the monasteries. (Allows you to develop a test to determine psychic ability, though it won't be perfect. Unlocks further technology to improve psychic potential in adults and embryos.)

-[] Understanding Mutations (150 RP) The mutations that occasionally pop up in Denva's population are... weird. Complex, and have bizarre phenotypes. Why? What's causing them? Why are they so hard to treat? Maybe look into that. (Potential cures for more difficult mutations, as well as further research into why they occur, and treating other kinds of genetic deterioration.)

-[] Adult genetic engineering (100 RP) Genetically modifying an adult comes with all sorts of complications. Doing it without killing them or incapacitating them for months is even harder. (Allows your genetic enhancements/therapies to apply to adult humans. Likely required for a full understanding of juvenat.)

-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP) Unlocks the ability to clone basic humans (Unlocks the cloning bay, as well as further technology to clone things other than baseline humans, like humans without brains for organs or humans with more dramatic genetic mutations. Along with brain implants may lead to personality backups).

Neablis said:
-[] The key to Expert surgery is Ego (200 RP) You can do fairly effective surgery, but the most complicated surgeries are beyond you. From all of the literature you have available, to truly break into the next level you merely need confidence. The confidence of somebody who believes they cannot be wrong. (Unlocks further discounts for advanced medical tech, cybernetic augmentations and more. Unlocks very advanced medical care, and further technology for reviving technically-dead bodies and brain transplants).

Neablis said:
-[] Regeneration is just a matter of applied Growth (400 RP) You can make sure everything lines up properly to stimulate natural growth, but you can't actually accelerate it. Trying is a quick path to cancer and needs to be tweaked for every patient. That's why it wasn't common even in your time. But it should be possible, and you don't have to worry about pharmaceutical patents. (Your medical treatments have vastly accelerated healing timelines. Normally a prereq of juvenat, but in this case will simply have synergy. Unlocks further research for video-game-like med-kits and the ability to give people new organs without surgery)

-[] Drugs? Drugs. (75 RP) Human biochemistry is... weird. You've got a standard list of recipies for basic drugs, but if you wanted to get further into it you could start pulling out some stranger and more illicit ones from your research databanks. (Unlocks a wide variety of drugs for things like interrogation, combat, sedation, etc. May lead to research for things like perfect knockout gas, super-adrenaline, psytech drugs, etc.)

-[] Juvenat Beginnings (400 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 (400 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 Complex genetic enhancement

-[] 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.

-[] Dubious Dark Eldar Dissections (75 RP) You've got some corpses of Dark Eldar. Time to take them apart and see what you can learn! (Gives you some details on Dark Eldar physiology. May provide bonuses towards psyker genetics, or develop medical techniques, drugs or implants for Eldar)

This is all getting really speculative, as it's probably at least 2 or 3 turns out. Still, there's a lot of potential here. I definitely think we should try and prioritize well.

Glau said:
Overall I think we need more punch than we do more psy armor, we need a mobile shipyard more than we need a research ship, and we need to be ready to fight something like orcs sooner rather than later.

Punch over psyshields because no matter how good the armor is, it can be defeated by spending long enough grinding at it. We need to be able to knock out the sources of the attack else we are just sitting a lot of time and resources just to drag it out of longer.

Mobile shipyard above other ships because we need to be able to leverage the one turn of denva's production into building an entire fleet, and this is the biggest shortcut there.

Orcs, because we know they are around now, and they are a bad match for us as we are. Necrons might be worse, but we've got sensors started to offset Eldar advantages and psyshields to offset chaos advantages.

Worst case scenario for us right now is a superior force showing up while we are at denva, I think.

We have no sign of Orks being anywhere near us - The ones we hear about were several subsectors away, no closer than the chaos forces or the necrons. And if they do show up, we probably need industry improvements more than anything else or they'll drown us under sheer weight of numbers, or bypass us to swarm Denva directly.

Meanwhile, Psy shields are necessary to protect our psykers, to protect us during warp travel, and they feed into our warp research and thus into warp comms. Even without Bongo, they're very important, not something we can neglect.

Aineko said:
Improved OMC does just one thing? It's not described as a big unlocker, it's just a quantitative performance improvement. And is almost totally useless to Vita at present, though probably quite useful to Denva.

Companion Cogitators appears to be the next backbone tech for the cybernetics tree. Like Advanced Neural Implants was. (And like ANI, it probably buffs OMC capacity, but the interesting part is what it unlocks.)

I. OMC mainly does that one thing directly, but it has follow on research, and given how fundamental it is I bet it'll help boost HSI, Human Design interfaces, and other tech that follows from OMC, either through discounts or as a prerequisite for more advanced versions. Though we'll probably want Companion Cogitators soon after, yeah.

Aineko · Friday at 7:05 PM

Angle said:
I. OMC mainly does that one thing, but it has follow on research, and given how fundamental it is I bet it'll help boost HSI, Human Design interfaces, and other tech that follows from OMC, either through discounts or as a prerequisite for more advanced versions. Though we'll probably want Companion Cogitators soon after, yeah.

I don't see why you think Improved OMC is a fundamental tech. To me it looks like a focused 'make number bigger' option. I don't think it's more relevant to HSI or HDI than any other cybernetics would be.

Angle · Friday at 7:06 PM

Aineko said:
I don't see why you think Improved OMC is a fundamental tech. To me it looks like a focused 'make number bigger' option. I don't think it's more relevant to HSI or HDI than any other cybernetics would be.

In order to make that number bigger, you need to re-engineer some pretty fundamental stuff, IMO. I mean, I could be wrong, but it looks important to me.

redpotato4 · Friday at 7:11 PM

I'm just sad that there's no justification I can think of to research building mechs

Aineko · Friday at 7:16 PM

redpotato4 said:
I'm just sad that there's no justification I can think of to research building mechs

Combine it with boarding, design dreadnought-class boarding units?

But yeah getting a 300 point tech for land wars seems like a hard sell.

If we find a discounting sample maybe?

Prime 2.0 · Friday at 7:36 PM

Angle said:
In order to make that number bigger, you need to re-engineer some pretty fundamental stuff, IMO. I mean, I could be wrong, but it looks important to me.

If it says it unlocks stuff, it unlocks stuff. If it doesn't, it's probably not foundational.

I'm gonna be real, I think the focus on "let's get a whole bunch of smaller techs because they're less expensive" kind of misses the point - it's not "number of techs" that helps us, it's the importance and applicability of techs that does.

Intelligence Coding is the AI tech. It is the tech that opens up the ability to make AIs, and to improve vita herself. It is very easy to argue that it is the single most important tech tree on the table, the one that starts slow but speeds up everything else.

Avoiding taking it because "maybe we can find some discounts over here!" is penny wise and pound foolish when none of those are actually guaranteed, and planning with no eyes on what the core capabilities of AI are is just...

Like, why?

Honest to god, I'm really contemplating doing a 3x research turn where we just buy the damn thing already, because the rampant sticker shock is hurting us and I think it's time to get it over with, absent a crisis.

Assuming we don't already have one and don't know it because we still have no way to check vita herself for issues.

Angle said:
In our experience so far though, they absolutely have. We haven't once had anything break past our psychic shields to afflict us with cognitohazards.

That time in Turn 19 when something might have broken past our shields said:
> YOU SHALL JOIN US. MAY YOUR HEART FILL WITH SPITE, YOUR MIND FOCUS ON HATRED AND YOUR WILL BE IRON IN SERVICE TO THE EIGHTFOLD STAR

Those words hurt in a way that's hard to describe, and psychic shielding sparks and dies across the ship.

-80 psychic shielding on The Spark of the Ancients

"Hurt".

Pain.

What, exactly, was that pain? How did Vita get hurt, from behind our shields? What does that imply? A weakness that almost but not quite got exploited, possible because we directly connected? ~~Something that actually did have some lasting, if minor effect that we haven't noticed?~~ (edit: turns out neablis said we weren't infected or w/e, so it's not that second one at least)

Until we take Intelligence coding, we don't know.

Just like we don't know if we'll actually score any discounts to intelligence coding in practice.

Just like we don't know what we're missing behind arguably the single most important tech category in the game until we nut up and take it.

I'm tired of not knowing.

In the immortal words of Boney, I want to finally try it and find out.

SightUnseen · Friday at 7:53 PM

Aineko said:
I notice no weapons tuned to attack armor on those? Unless lances have an armor-defeating behavior which I haven't seen documented in this quest but have seen in other contexts. Not that large lances and medium plasma shouldn't be fairly adequate there.

I would argue against fitting line gunboats with medium sensors, especially ones as small as frigates. Even small added sensors are a large sacrifice at that hull size. For a recon ship or some escort roles where the main artillery is on a separate platform, sure. But I'm reading these as more a pocket line of battle.

I'd also want to consider (A) a full cruiser so Spark isn't the only thing that's outside the escort classification - not everything we face is going to be bite-sized - and (B) some platform with a bunch more repair bay in it - Spark's is not necessarily enough to keep a fleet in good condition going from how we've been collecting damage.

Oh, and while I see why you did it it pains me for the Rangers to not take the 8 G option when they have it.

I would like to direct your attention to the Peltast Missile DD design, which has a 40BP repair bay *with current tech.* It doesn't have the medium lance of the Ranger, but it does have similar throw weight and wants to skirmish.

I'm at work and not able to toy with it, but if @Nightlord256 is willing to experiment with updating the design to maintain the current principles but meet his updated tech criteria, it may be a better "fast screen"/"intercept" vessel - that also supports flotilla-wide refit as it comes up.

I like self-updating forces.

Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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