Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

[Nightlord256]

It occurs to me that with all of these isolated stations, we have a lot of different religions in their own quasi-isolated petri dishes. So I'd like to find out what is going on with them and study the system in more detail. Here is my thought.

We do a loops or two of the stations. We study and analyze the stations capturing as much data as we can remotely. Victan can help analyze this information and start to categorize the different stations. During this time we will work on improving our warp sensors and analyzing the different faith structures of the stations. As we develop the sensors we can practice identifying stations at range and see if we can correctly identify their faith by the warp impression. At the same time we deploy Cia and bots to take over some of the abandoned stations so that we can study the automated mining technology in detail. This will also give Cia some practice in boarding actions and leading bots. Finally we end the turn by turning our new sensors on Bongo and using our new knowledge of faith to take him apart and destroy him.

Here is the plan outline

[] Plan: Something Hinky is Afoot
-[] Research 2x (400 + 70 + 42)
--[] Faith is my shield? (75 RP)
--[] Empathy at Range (200 RP)
---[] Anexa Assists
--[] Destructive Scrapcode Investigation (200 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (22 -> 59 RP)
--[] Overflow to Basic Active Stealth then Machine Spirit Hallucinations
-[] Explore - Do a loop or two of the asteroid belt exploring the stations from a distance. Explicitly use this to work on our empathy sensors and study multiple different faiths in action.
--[] Victan assists with signal analysis and categorizing different groups to help with the above and find a sane faction for us to work with.
-[] Order/Explore – Board and secure several of the, hopefully abandoned, stations for study
--[] Cia assists the bots with gaining control of the stations. It will be great experience in a mostly safe environment to learn how to lead bots

I use two explore actions because one is explicitly focused on the Factions, Faith, and Warp signals and the other is focused on taking over stations for research study. I set the second one as order/explore because I'm not sure the level of resistance we will encounter on abandoned stations.

I hope this will give us the background to make a diplomatic approach the following turn to the faction or the supply ship.

Thoughts?

 

[chryssalideater]

But, like, why? We'd be endeavoring to 'save' a society of effectively Dr. Mengeles, cannibals, sex cultists, and war fanatics. Why waste our time and effort on people that are actively, on both on a cultural and a metaphysical level, inherently antithetical to us and the universe as a whole? They're a danger to not only us, but any species in general. None of them are innocent, there's no way more than the smallest handful aren't chaos cultists after 200 years in an environment with shitall resources, knowingly or not. Yeah, they were in a shit situation, what's new in 40k, but it doesn't excuse them, nor does it change what we have to do. Leaving them alone isn't a good idea either, they're a threat to Denva when they inevitably scout this sector.

That's getting into annoying stereotypical Mary Sue-levels of mental gymnastics because you don't want to treat 40k with any sort of respect regardig the difficulties of the setting. This is 40k, we don't want to help every evil asshole we come along, and you have to be realistic rather than having the expectation that we can or SHOULD solve everything by researching for a turn or two and never ever solve a problem thriugh any means but a diplomatic one. What's next, we run into the daemon planet or genestealer cult and our first thought will be 'I can fix them!', then hand over our finished product to Denva to 'manage' wherein it blows up in our face predictably? Or maybe we head over to Commorragh, and our first thought will be 'I'll find a way to cure the Drukhuri, there are good ones, I'm sure', or 'I can't blow up the place because there's a few innocents in some dungeon somewhere, clearly we need to execute an impossible rescue mission instead of blowing the place up'!

Fuck that. Be more pragmatic, people, we aren't Madokami (who is ironically a lot more sensible in that quest despite having an order of magnitude more resources than us), we're an AI in a ship and are nothing particularly special or unique in this universe, either technologically or by our nature, and the universe gobbled the others up all the same. That can change, but for now, we aren't anything new, stop acting like we're Madokami's gift to the universe.

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BTW, what quest are you referring to?

 

[Shogeton]

Much the opposite really, given they meet and fight every so often, contamination between is guaranteed. If they were truly segmented this would be different, but they aren't.

Just because we don't want to be the Imperium, doesn't mean we have to take the most unrealistic braindead choice every time while acting as the fairy godmother to a bunch of resource starved chaos cultists, or taking the riskiest possible option every time. Fact of the matter, diplomacy does shitall for chaos and will sabotage our allies, we can't rely on it for everything.

Mark my words, if we try to deal with these yahoos as anything but targets to mercy kill, and then introduce them to Denva, Denva will gain a chaos cult, almost guaranteed. Even if we de-chaosify everyone with some sort of magic, due to their culture, a good chunk would regain it the moment they leave a psionic shield. What, we want to somehow change their chaos-worshipping culture engrained from 200 years of suffering, entirely too so they stop marking their newborns, for example? Well, good fucking luck with that.

Chaos is not a 'disease' to realistically cure. Minor corruption, sure, but anything past that? Glglgl Like spending 3 more turns researching more Chaos shit when all our other techs continue to die by the wayside because we've invested like all of our turns thus far primarily on Chaos research. Not to mention that, for the most part, they joined and acted by their own will. What, do you guys really want to save a bunch of evil chaos worshippers and inevitably practices ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism, all that makes the worst from our world seem like moral paragons? Priorities.

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If we are only going to preserve humans that aren't involved somehow in a monstrous atrocity laden regime, then we're gonna be wiping out about 99% of humanity.

Also: of their own free will? I don't imagine that if you tell the rulers of that place 'yeah, I'm not sure I'm feeling the Chaos Gods. I'm just gonna do my own thing, I won't get in your way' is an option. You live on that station, I imagine you perform acts of worship to Chaos or you die. I mean, there's kids on those station. I'm not about to put the moral weight of his choice on a six year old that is proud he finally gets to take part in some ritual with his parents.

(Added note to keep things cool that I recgonise that all of this is fictional, and I'm explicitly not making any suggestions about people's feelings in real life.)

 

[Speedemon22]

Since I doubt I'm going to get anyone to vote for a plan that involves building a fleet until we get back to Denva, I whipped up this plan to deal with the chaos cultists on the stations and get some (I think) important research done. Thoughts?

[ ] Plan some chatoic clean up
-[Free] Repair the Spark of the Ancients (1000BP in repairs)
-[Free] If you're going to clear out the stations of the taint of the four, it might be a good idea to study how the Inquisitors go about it, just to make sure no trace is left behind.
-[ ] ResearchX2 (400+42(tech Priests)+70(Anexa)=512RP)
--[ ]Machine Spirit Ground Tactics (150 RP):This will give the combat bots and Cia a better chance when board the chaos aligned stations.
--[ ] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (100 RP): ensuring they can resist the taint on the stations will be important
--[ ] Basic Active Stealth (22+53/75 RP): Wrapping this up
--[ ] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (30+70(Anexa) RP): The first part of, hopefully, getting the Navigator for better exploration.
--[ ]Personal-sized Psychic shielding (100 RP) If everyone is so worried about Chaos, this should help assuage fears.
--[ ]Psychic Shield Tuning (9/200 RP) To help against more general threats of Chaos since scrapcode isn't their only weapon in their arsenal, among other things.
-[ ] Construction (350BP)
--[ ] Personnel void shield for the whole crew (225BP)
--[ ] 125 available for suggestions
-[ ]Command: Cia is getting rather frustrated with how you interact with Chaos, which is fair in all honestly. Clearing out the stations with chaos cultists with some bot backup should help her vent her frustrations after some improvements are made to their coding.
-[ ]Anexa active Action: Research Does in vitro have something to do with wine?
-[ ] Victan passive action: Counterespionage & Alliance-building
-[ ]Cia Active Psyker improvement

 

[Nightlord256]

[] Plan: Kick Chaos in the Shins
-[] [Free] Fix damage to psychic shields. Vita Core (75/135->135/135 @ 300 BP), Bongo Oubliette (303/540->443/540 @ 700 BP) [1000/1000BP repair bay expended, 485BP of damage left]
-[] [Free][DATA] how do the inquisitors deal with chaos infiltration?
-[] Orders: Attack, conquer and fortify/repair one or more of the chaos cultist stations with bots and Cia
-[] Construction: build personal psychic shields for Crew. Build stuff for repairing and fortifying.
-[] Research x2 (400 RP + 70 Anexa RP + 42 Tech-Priest RP)
--[] Personal-sized Psychic shielding (100 RP)
--[] Help Cia's Training (50 RP)
--[] Empathy at Range (200 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (100 RP)
--[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (22->34/75 RP)
-[] Anexa active Action: Research
-[] Victan active action: Study the reactions to us kicking over the anthill, find out who could be propped up against chaos with the information gained from the station. Cause you won't stay here forever. Plan is to only prop them up enough against chaos, not nearly as much as the Denvans, especially if besides chaos there are only hardcore imperialists left.
-[] Cia Active Psyker improvement

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I like the thrust of this plan, but I'd prefer to get information on the stations before an attack. Also I'm not sure Cia can be assigned to both the attack order and to her own training.

@Neablis, can Cia (or other characters) do both a personal action (training) and a vita action (attack order)?

 

[Cookiesndip]

BTW, what quest are you referring to?

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A Song Of Peace: Imperial Regent Quest [40k]

You are Pandora, and once, your father sang to you the song of peace. But in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium, there is only war. You are Pandora, and you were forgotten to history after an incident that happened in your adolescence raised you to the Astral Throne of Sacrifice, but the...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

If we are only going to preserve humans that aren't involved somehow in a monstrous atrocity laden regime, then we're gonna be wiping out about 99% of humanity.

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Taking it to hyperbole here. Imperials you can communicate and negotiate with, they aren't inherently evil from anything but a societal perspective. They can be reasoned with, and they are disconnected enough that they drastically vary planet to planet, and we could hypothetically take over a planet and fix it without anyone knowing or caring. As we can reason with the Eldar, the T'au, or any other species we run into with language and intelligence. And yes, if we got our hands on a Imperial colony, we'd inevitably want to change the culture, but them worshipping the Emperor or isn't inherently going to get everyone killed, nor corrupt them.

Chaos, Tyranids, and Drukhuri meanwhile are all cancer and rot. None can be trusted, all are antithetical to all who live in reality, and should be destroyed with extreme prejudice. Every little bit of the culture from the last 200 years for ALL OF THEM would need to be destroyed, all of their memories expunged and forcibly wiped, and the whole thing damnatio to prevent them from adopting ANYTHING from their old culture, like cannibalism, or worshipping the chaos gods, or drawing a chaos star on children's heads - everything that kept them alive for 200 years with no resources. Otherwise, even if we 'solved' the problem and somehow removed the chaos taint and killed everyone too far gone, they'd just go down the exact same path yet again, and suddenly the majority are back to being a cult.

Take Chaos seriously.

 

[JuliusClonkus]

...why are people acting like there's an easy fix to Chaos corruption? We're talking about a force of indisputable ontological evil that, as it corrupts you, replaces you bit by bit with little pieces of ontological evil. It might as well be soul cancer.
Until we surpass the actual psychic heavyweights of the setting and figure out a way to essentially perform surgery on someone's soul to excise it, there's fuck all we can do except kill any Chaos worshippers we come across.

And look, Bongo kicks us in the teeth yet again, once more getting closer to breaking through to Vita. Can we please just get rid of the thing already?

 

[LightLan]

I like the thrust of this plan, but I'd prefer to get information on the stations before an attack. Also I'm not sure Cia can be assigned to both the attack order and to her own training.

@Neablis, can Cia (or other characters) do both a personal action (training) and a vita action (attack order)?

Click to shrink...

It's practical training

 

[MSH]

To treat Chaos in this overtly paranoid manner is to repeat the sins of the Imperium, and to believe the propaganda of the Imperium. Consider realistically what this perspective of Chaos would mean, and ask yourself if the verifiable facts of the universe fit it.

They don't. The seeds of Chaos would have bloomed long ago and completely consumed humanity, were it so easy. Casual Chaos corruption is everywhere and the Imperium actively if unknowingly aids it. Knowing how to draw the Eight-Pointed Star and chant the name of a daemon is helpful for cultists, but it is by no means necessary to gain the attentions of the Warp.

Anything with a soul is Chaos-resistant. A soul is a sovereign fortress that prevents the basic level of cognition hazards from taking root without consent. That is why Vita is in such a bind, as she is soulless. Even the weak souls of humans can stave off Chaotic predations by practicing armor of contempt, and eldar can basically only fall by choice.

Powerful daemons can try to force the door, but ultimately it is a battle of wills. And it is doubtful there are any powerful daemons in this low and hollowed-out place. Regardless, chaotic societies are not created equal. Chaos is insidious, but that insidiousness means the war is not as unwinnable as some of you are keen to believe.

Oh, and on the drukhuri - they're born innocent, as per recent canon. They have to be broken into it, and some absolutely do defect or rebel.

 

[KyleDaScourge]

A simple plan focused on getting what I view as necessary research out of the way while halting the main source of ongoing conflict within the system and trying to determine if any of these people seem like the sort we can work with.

[] Plan: Humanitarian Triage
-[] [Free] Fix damage to psychic shields. Vita Core (75/135->135/135 @ 300 BP), Bongo Oubliette (303/540->443/540 @ 700 BP) [1000/1000BP repair bay expended, 485BP of damage left]
-[] [Free][DATA] how do the inquisitors deal with chaos infiltration?
-[] Orders: Stop the transport from continuing to dock with inhabited stations, either by hacking, hijacking, or disabling and towing into a new orbit.
-[] Construction: Begin construction of a Machine Spirit Deep Space Manufactory.
-[] Research x2 (400 RP + 70 Anexa RP + 42 Tech-Priest RP)
--[] Reliable Gellar Fields (300 RP)
--[] Abacus Manufacturing (100 RP)
--[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (100 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Basic Active Stealth (22->34/75 RP)
-[] Anexa active Action: Research
-[] Victan active action: Study the reactions to us kicking over the anthill, find out which stations are in the worst shape based on information from the ship, try to determine if anyone could be trusted to act towards helping the entire system given the absolute minimum technological help to do so or if we need to appoint some of our tech-priests or go get some Denvans.
-[] Cia Active Psyker improvement

 

[Nightlord256]

It's practical training

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Very true, I'm a fan of it. Just want to make sure it works mechanically.

And look, Bongo kicks us in the teeth yet again, once more getting closer to breaking through to Vita. Can we please just get rid of the thing already?

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I agree, I've hit my stop loss point on Bongo. He is currently saving us 300 RP on Daemonology, which is teach we primarily want to get because we have him onboard.

I think there is still some value on the table, which is why I prefer the Destructive Investigate, but it wouldn't take much of an argument for me to toss him into the sun.

[] Plan: Humanitarian Triage
-[] [Free] Fix damage to psychic shields. Vita Core (75/135->135/135 @ 300 BP), Bongo Oubliette (303/540->443/540 @ 700 BP) [1000/1000BP repair bay expended, 485BP of damage left]
-[] [Free][DATA] how do the inquisitors deal with chaos infiltration?
-[] Orders: Stop the transport from continuing to dock with inhabited stations, either by hacking, hijacking, or disabling and towing into a new orbit.
-[] Construction: Begin construction of a Machine Spirit Deep Space Manufactory.

Click to shrink...

Hmmm, why a Deep Space Manufactory? It will take us three construction actions to build and a 100 BP doesn't push us towards any breakpoints. If we want more industry I'd prefer to look at the abandoned stations either to reactivate them or get a discount for building our own.

Edit: also want to avoid damage to the transport ship. A highly automated ship like that could give us lots of discounts if we can study it intact.

 

[ShadeFiende]

Long diatribe

Part 1: The people here aren't worth it, don't deserve our help, and are actively dangerous to Denva in the future because Chaos Cults.

Part 2: People are making insane justification for stupid ideas and overexaggerations of the threads ability to rationalize pacifism in the face of a literal Tyranid cult or Chaos planet or Commorragh itself.

Part 3: Call to the users definition of pragmatism and abandonment of the current state of mind of the thread.

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To address point 1.
Yes, they are potentially dangerous and I want to destroy the obviously Chaos affected stations. However, our sensors- if upgraded to be capable of detecting at range- can probably use our untainted people and the obviously tainted chaos stations and Bongo itself to make an approximate measurement scale of corruption and Chaos presence in an area. That's valuable research.

That would then let us know which stations are more or less corrupted, and which ones to target or attempt to save. Which is another thing. This isn't being done because we're too soft- I want Cia to get a chance to storm a Chaos station and 'go for a walk' as it were. The rest are practice for Victan's diplomacy and subversion skills, and an easy target for researching Techs focused around Faith and religion. This is also a great area to build up a secondary manufacturing base strategy from Denva- at least until they reach it.


To address point 2.
You've got a number of personal attacks against the thread in general and frankly ridiculous over exaggeration of traits you dislike in the thread. No one is going to argue in favor of 'diplomancing a chaos planet'. No one will argue that Commorragh deserves anything but a thorough cleansing. Because the fastest, most effective method to save those innocent victims is to wipe such things out.

We mostly know our limits and are aware that those are WELL outside of our ability to fix. The implication that the thread is dumb or idiotic enough to do so purely because we view Vita as selfless and inherently good enough that we want her want to help some random humans (that no one else knows about and whom are trapped in a hellish circumstance with no way out) is… really insulting. We're not that dumb, and overly exaggerating an impossible future, making it out to be something anyone would actually consider- without a MASSIVE improvement in our Tech, abilities, and some serious changes in our circumstances- is just ridiculous and made me want to dismiss the rest of what you'd said entirely without consideration.

To address point 3.
Vita is a self aware AI from the DAOT. More than that, she has EXTREMELY advanced research and development capabilities above and beyond literally every other faction so far as we know, other than the Tau. She's also Star Trek in mind and outlook, and has shields that actively repel The Warp unlike literally every other faction. Not in the way that Nulls or Necrons do, either.

Vita is active and proactive, consistently working to resist Chaos and defend against the worst aspects of The Warp. She is single-handedly progressing more every few turns than the entire Imperium of man has in 10,000 years. She has single-handedly managed to gather allies and form a faction of her own, and then used that faction to unite and uplift Denva into a space faring society. She's already making plans to make them into a multi-system polity with a xenophilic outlook, friendly intentions, and better combat prowess than the Imperium.

She's made allies of the Eldar, survived a DEldar attack, and has safely kept an active Daemon contained on her personal ship despite having NO understanding of the binding or sealing of such creatures, while it actively fights to get free whenever it gets the chance.

Vita is special. She is unique. She is entirely unseen in the modern Galaxy and can single-handedly, fundamentally change the entirety of the 40K universe, Galaxy and Warp alike. Her thinking is from a fundamentally brighter and better time, and she is both willing and able to drag the rest of the Galaxy up to that brighter future with her.



Please don't argue so… cruelly? So insultingly? The rest of the thread isn't your enemy, and Neabolis has proven they can write fascinating and enthralling stories no matter what we decide Vita should do.

Argue for what you want, try to encourage the thread to your way of thinking, be proactive! But don't tear others down, insult others, or belittle the rest of the thread in the process.

I'm mildly annoyed at how heavy the Warp Focus has been as well, and diplomacy has concerned me with how heavy the focus on it is. But the thing is, I don't tell people I think they would try diplomacy with a daemon world because of it.

I want a more material focus, yes. I want to avoid the issues that the Eldar had when they mono-focused on Warp-Tech. We need more of a combination of Warp and Material sciences if we want to do better than IoM and Eldar. But I'm not insulting others for wanting to focus on The Warp.

I feel like we can and should do better. Be better. In and out of the Story. Vita is good. Yes she'll go to War, and should sometimes- the Admech of Denva proved that. The DEldar proved that. Cia as a Champion meant to slay Daemons proves that.

I'm not saying we can or even should try to cure Chaos corruption. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But we can try to figure out where Chaos actually is, and be humane about our actions. If we CAN be better, we SHOULD be.

Otherwise, what's the point of being from a better, brighter time? If we allow the modern darkness to overwhelm us and determine our choices… how are we any better than the IoM? What's the point of making Denva a second Stellar ascendancy if they can't be better and make everything around them better as well?

Yes we need better materials and weapons and physical shields. That's important for both us AND Denva surviving. But how we use them decides how bright and good the results will be.

Edit: corrected some spelling and the positioning of a few words.

 

[LightLan]

-[] Construction: Begin construction of a Machine Spirit Deep Space Manufactory.

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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.

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750 BP cost takes more than two construction actions to build. We only get 350BP currently.

We are better off conquering one of the stations.
@Neablis how much does it cost to fix up one of the stations for BP-production and how much BP will we gain?

 

[KyleDaScourge]

Hmmm, why a Deep Space Manufactory? It will take us three construction actions to build and a 100 BP doesn't push us towards any breakpoints. If we want more industry I'd prefer to look at the abandoned stations either to reactivate them or get a discount for building our own.

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In no particular order...

I don't see the local stations having any kind of manufacturing capacity even remotely similar to our own and thus doubt they'd be useful as anything but scrap to be broken down for construction, and even that's a toss-up as to whether it'd be worth the effort. I could easily be wrong though.

We're going to want one in this system eventually, so we may as well get started now. Second best time to plant a tree and all that.

It just seemed the best thing to pick while I was scanning the list of options under the informational threadmark, and this is an early plan draft.

 

[Alectai]

I've got some thoughts on this matter, I'll drop them in once I finish reading something unrelated.

 

[Nightlord256]

I don't see the local stations having any kind of manufacturing capacity even remotely similar to our own and thus doubt they'd be useful as anything but scrap to be broken down for construction, and even that's a toss-up as to whether it'd be worth the effort. I could easily be wrong though.

We're going to want one in this system eventually, so we may as well get started now. Second best time to plant a tree and all that.

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As a point of information, when we took Kysslar's Nest (sp?) we had the option to turn it into orbital manufactories for a 50% discount even though it had no industry of note on it. So that is why I want to capture/explore some of the abandoned stations. I certainly agree that this system would make a great industrial hub in the long run.

Edit: an unrelated thought. @LightLan, if we are going to do combat/boarding actions it would be nice to get melee robots.

 

[KyleDaScourge]

Edit: also want to avoid damage to the transport ship. A highly automated ship like that could give us lots of discounts if we can study it intact.

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I don't foresee my plan doing any significant damage to any parts of the ship we'd be interested in even in the absolute worst case. But I can add something specific about trying to keep it intact?

750 BP cost takes more than two construction actions to build. We only get 350BP currently.

We are better off conquering one of the stations.
Neablis how much does it cost to fix up one of the stations for BP-production and how much BP will we gain?

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I'm aware it wouldn't be done this turn, but unless the DM chimes in to confirm, I don't share your optimism about being able to get anything useful out of the local stations. If they had even remotely the sort of industry we could use, I don't think the system would have descended to it's current state.

EDIT - And the post right above this has some useful info re: recycling stations. I'll still wait on word for the DM, but it may be more viable than I'd thought.

 

[Asheram]

So, I got bored and a bit frustrated with the research tabs. All kudos to Neablis for curating it, but the format is a bit cumbersome, so I threw up a basic Google Docs document to have an easy overview of the tech and tech that's locked behind certain other actions, along with cross-referencing. It's not finished yet, but have a look.

 

[LightLan]

[] Plan: Kick Chaos in the Shins
-[] [Free] Fix damage to psychic shields. Vita Core (75/135->135/135 @ 300 BP), Bongo Oubliette (303/540->443/540 @ 700 BP) [1000/1000BP repair bay expended, 485BP of damage left]
-[] [Free][DATA] how do the inquisitors deal with chaos infiltration?
-[] Orders: Attack, conquer and fortify/repair one or more of the chaos cultist stations with bots and Cia
-[] Construction: build personal psychic shields for Crew. Build stuff for repairing and fortifying (anti-personnel Bunker).
-[] Research x2 (400 RP + 70 Anexa RP + 42 Tech-Priest RP)
--[] Personal-sized Psychic shielding (100 RP)
--[] Help Cia's Training (50 RP)
--[] Empathy at Range (200 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (100 RP)
--[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP)
--[] Anti-personnel Bunker (5 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (22->29/75 RP)
-[] Anexa active Action: Research
-[] Victan active action: Study the reactions to us kicking over the anthill, find out who could be propped up against chaos with the information gained from the station. Cause you won't stay here forever. Plan is to only prop them up enough against chaos, not nearly as much as the Denvans, especially if besides chaos there are only hardcore imperialists left.
-[] Cia Active Psyker improvement

I added some nice bunker-blue print design for hunkering down and securing our gains. We can only do one of the two without dropping some other research, but armor seems to be rare from what the update says.

5 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.

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10 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.

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Edit: an unrelated thought. @LightLan, if we are going to do combat/boarding actions it would be nice to get melee robots.

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That's cost 150 RP, would have to drop the machine spirit chaos resistance and Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields. Hm. Thinking..

-[] Combat Bot Melee Combat (150 RP) Your bots aren't armed for melee combat, and don't really have the articulation for it. If you could fix that, maybe they wouldn't be so vulnerable to close-range combat. (Gives your combat bots melee weapons and basic proficiency with them. Will unlock technology for improved melee proficiency, as well as synergize well and potentially unlock technology for improved melee weaponry.)

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[astergremlin]

What would be the cost for repurposing the existing defunct asteroid mining stations into void manufactories? Presumably that might even be cheaper than a ground manufactory. Since all the materials are right at hand and don't require moving mass under a strong gravitational field.

It could make it feasible to stick around for just a couple turns and help out the miners, build some system defenses, conduct repairs/refits, explore where all the metal is going etc.

 

[Aerrow Shadow]

Can we now get Cognition Filter so our Crew isn't infected with cognitohazards?

 

[Angle]

Researched Scrapcode Immunity - rolled 1+20=21, Poor success.
Your psychic shielding is (almost) entirely immune to scrapcode. Or is it?
New research unlocked - Machine Spirit Scrapcode Immunity (350 RP)
New research unlocked - Manufactory Scrapcode Immunity (300 RP)
New research unlocked - Ship system Scrapcode Immunity (300 RP)
New research unlocked - Implant Scrapcode Immunity (250 RP)

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Uh oh. Time to be really paranoid...

Researched Scrapcode Immunity - rolled 1+20=21, Poor success. Failure, tech lost (though you've gained a replacement)
You've reverted your shield back to the scrapcode resistance versions that take 1/4 damage.
New research unlocked - Machine Spirit Scrapcode Immunity (350 RP)
New research unlocked - Manufactory Scrapcode Immunity (300 RP)
New research unlocked - Ship system Scrapcode Immunity (300 RP)
New research unlocked - Implant Scrapcode Immunity (250 RP)
New research unlocked - Scrapcode Denial? (400 RP) Requires Psychic Encryption
Existing research cost increased - Psychic Shield Tuning cost +50 RP
Existing research cost increased - Psychic tripwires +25 RP

Click to shrink...

...Yup, there it is. :X

Not the worst that could have gone, but still really expensive. Gonna take a couple turns to repair the shields...

[] Plan: ???
-[] [Free] Fix damage to psychic shields. Vita Core (75/135->135/135 @ 300 BP), Bongo Oubliette (303/540->443/540 @ 700 BP) [1000/1000BP repair bay expended, 485BP of damage left]
-[] [Free][DATA] how do the inquisitors deal with chaos infiltration?
-[] Spend 2 actions doing something with the stations?
-[] Research x2 (400 RP + 70 Anexa RP + 42 Tech-Priest RP)
--[] Faith is my shield? (75 RP)
--[] Help Cia's Training (50 RP)
--[] Empathy at Range (200 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (100 RP)
--[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (22->59/75 RP)
-[] Anexa active Action: Research
-[] Cia Active Psyker improvement

My current thoughts. There's an argument to be made that the best thing overall is to just grab what can be easily grabbed, make some cheap but temporary interventions, and see about heading back to Denva to organize a more systematic intervention. Also, I'm not entirely sold on Empathy at Range, it's really expensive, but it would be really helpful and I do see the logic in taking it.

I don't foresee my plan doing any significant damage to any parts of the ship we'd be interested in even in the absolute worst case. But I can add something specific about trying to keep it intact?



I'm aware it wouldn't be done this turn, but unless the DM chimes in to confirm, I don't share your optimism about being able to get anything useful out of the local stations. If they had even remotely the sort of industry we could use, I don't think the system would have descended to it's current state.

EDIT - And the post right above this has some useful info re: recycling stations. I'll still wait on word for the DM, but it may be more viable than I'd thought.

Click to shrink...

I'll note, there's a ton of stuff we can make use of that they can't. See the navigator gestation pod - House Klyssar left it behind cause it had a single broken part they couldn't replace, which Vita was able to replace trivially as an afterthought. And they were comparatively well resourced! These stations might have a ton of industry on them in perfect working order that the locals simply can't find the on button for. That would be one of the luckier outcomes for us, granted, but it's not out of the realms of possibility.

 

[Somic]

@Shogeton you have a great point, but this quest's portrayal of Chaos went with the extreme "one look and you're corrupted" interpretation, like really extreme. The people you're arguing with can just point to how chaos exposure has been handled before, and unfortunately they would be right, because the QM's interpretation is quest canon.

 

[Angle]

So, how important do y'all think Empathy at Range is? We could get Improved Passive Stealth, Psychic Tripwires, and Psytech Machine Spirits for the same price, which I think would be more useful in the short term. I would still want EaR, like, next turn though, so we can progress towards warp comms...

@Shogeton you have a great point, but this quest's portrayal of Chaos went with the extreme "one look and you're corrupted" interpretation, like really extreme. The people you're arguing with can just point to how chaos exposure has been handled before, and unfortunately they would be right, because the QM's interpretation is quest canon.

Click to shrink...

...Does it? We haven't actually had much experience with serious chaos corruption beyond Bongo, and he's literally a warp demon, so I'm not sure he's representative of chaos corruption in any other form. It might be worth poking at the chaos corrupted stations just to get a better view of what chaos actually looks like in the wild...? Though, then again, there are a lot of risks to that. Maybe it should wait for later, I dunno...?

 

[LightLan]

So, how important do y'all think Empathy at Range is? We could get Improved Passive Stealth, Psychic Tripwires, and Psytech Machine Spirits for the same price, which I think would be more useful in the short term. I would still want EaR, like, next turn though, so we can progress towards warp comms...

Click to shrink...

We are in a system with active chaos cults.
Empathy at Range is our best bet to get a warning should they choose to start summoning Daemons.