Still, the stuff I pointed out above, about what the MS techs you were thinking of do and don't do for us short term - it's all still valid. We don't need any of those three MS techs right this moment, absent pressing new information we can get any of them the turn after instead and it'll make no difference.
At the moment though, *nothing* is truly a priority, unless something explodes in the turn Neablis is currently writing. Which means we have the chance to seek out longer term opportunities. To that end:
- Machine Spirit Psytechis an add-on for the utility of our champion who isn't yet ready to act in that role, so it only has utility in an emergency, especially if we don't get it with the psy hood tech.
- In such an emergency, machine spirit upgrades for our bots would be higher impact anyways, besides making "cia has to deploy" less likely in the first place.
- Being an entry of MS tech into the psytech field, we'd want Anexa on this when we do do it.
- Machine Spirit Controlled Psychic Shieldsis mainly useful for saving BP on repairs after and producing psy shields we can export. But neither of those things are relevant to us right now because:
- This turn's travel repairs are already covered by the repair bay before the next vote, and we're likely to spend another turn in the destination system, so we can get MSCPS before we leave without getting it next turn and lose 0 BP.
- We just left the system so we won't be next to anyone we've vetted for trade yet. As I've discussed earlier, we have to be careful who we give psy shields to right now. We could vet them as part diplomacy during the next vote, and then if we think it's safe research MSCPS the turn after to make some for same-turn trade.
- Machine Spirit Chaos Resistanceis of uncertain short-term utility absent also getting MSCPS - we're not traveling in the direction of the daemon world, and despite the nat 1 on immunity bongo is currently well secured.
- ...This is also something we'd really want Anexa on. But, she can only be on one thing a turn.
Faith studies is a maybe, but... also foundational, something we want Anexa on.
I think these are all foundational. The immediate benefits are nice but not amazing, but the longer term benefits? I think those are very promising - and they're vastly cheaper than IC. They would allow using MS to enhance two new, related, and very important categories of our techbase, and for barely more than half the cost of IC, while providing far more immediate benefit. And they don't just protect us in an emergency, they protect us everytime we make a warp jump, they protect Cia everytime she trains, and they help us progress towards warp comms and greater warp understanding in general.
Points about Anexa, but unfortunately, we simply can;t put her on all of them and I don;t think we should wait to try, so nothing for it.
On my part I would advocate dismantling Bongo for research. Yes, Bongo unlocks stuff, but like, the Research tree is literally endless. We've likely upgraded our Scrapcode resistance to late-game ish levels of resistance by this point.
I don't believe that for a second. We haven't even gotten the Psy Shield tech required for Warp Comms. IMO, the main utility of psy shields isn't even defensive - our warp sensors are integrated into them now, which means they serve as an important source of information and a means of furthering warp research in general.
That's one thing about the quest that I really enjoy - the way that it shows the unlimited nature of knowledge, how things can have unexpected importance, there's always more to discover, and things can feed back into each other in unexpected ways. Huge Kudos,
@Neablis!