TBF, a Daughter of Stone doesn't actually need a major human population. Some Crew-candidates to stay sane, yes. Actual population? Nah. A dead world would be ideal for building.
The idea is more creating a population from the "ground up". Wich for better or worse are humans. Creating anything that would be a hero Unit, basically being the primarch equivalent, is something we need to do carefully. Very carefully and warded really.
TBF, a Daughter of Stone doesn't actually need a major human population. Some Crew-candidates to stay sane, yes. Actual population? Nah. A dead world would be ideal for building.
Yeah. To be clear, actually using the local population is a last resort or distant tertiary benefit. Feral Worlds are just the easiest choice because all the worlds we can build our industry on are inhabited and Feral Worlds have the smallest and easiest to bribe/ignore population when it comes to inhabited planets. Building them a city to live in is just a nice thing to do once it doesn't meaningfully cost us anything. We could also just find a planet only inhabited by Feral Orks, Exterminatus them and build in the ashes.
The idea is more creating a population from the "ground up". Wich for better or worse are humans. Creating anything that would be a hero Unit, basically being the primarch equivalent, is something we need to do carefully. Very carefully and warded really.
I was actually just thinking of setting up a subordinate base to handle some of our industry and research needs so we can focus on exploring rather than getting caught up actively dealing with every problem our exploration stumbles across. Being able to tap into their native population for naturally spawning hero units is just icing.
I was actually just thinking of setting up a subordinate base to handle some of our industry and research needs so we can focus on exploring rather than getting caught up actively dealing with every problem our exploration stumbles across. Being able to tap into their native population for naturally spawning hero units is just icing.
Honestly about that directly.
We are relatively safer having Humans sufficiently upgraded to manage it than a AI.
It's less risky than have one big point of failure in the form of one AI and between all the projects we can have to help it (genetics and cybernetic as well as cultural) we can make something that works very well. Ideally we would want to put those people in the arkship when we get that thing done as well as a escort fleet.
Honestly about that directly.
We are relatively safer having Humans sufficiently upgraded to manage it than a AI.
It's less risky than have one big point of failure in the form of one AI and between all the projects we can have to help it (genetics and cybernetic as well as cultural) we can make something that works very well. Ideally we would want to put those people in the arkship when we get that thing done as well as a escort fleet.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's less risky. Just a different kind of risk. And most threats that could take out a fortified AI could also take out a governing structure of humans.
Human agents empowered via OMC, the appropriate automation and machine spirit technologies, and anti-corruption measures should be capable of massively outclassing most local threats with the exception of sufficiently pissed off Dark Eldar or Necrons, neither of which I'd rate an AI as having much of a better chance against.
They also remove the single point of failure, although staying on a planet brings it back, which is why stationary population centers are for losers.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's less risky. Just a different kind of risk. And most threats that could take out a fortified AI could also take out a governing structure of humans.
Ok correction less risky on the medium term, we eventually can make a full AI safe-ish but this currently a big shinny that Vita probably will not getting before the tech to make a Arkship.
Human agents empowered via OMC, the appropriate automation and machine spirit technologies, and anti-corruption measures should be capable of massively outclassing most local threats with the exception of sufficiently pissed off Dark Eldar or Necrons, neither of which I'd rate an AI as having much of a better chance against.
They also remove the single point of failure, although staying on a planet brings it back, which is why stationary population centers are for losers.
Our industry and ability to empower people to employ it are sufficiently good that we can take the hit and still come out at the top. Even disregarding how much good that stationary industry will do us once we sufficiently irritate someone with the ability to destroy the planet it's on.
Our industry and ability to empower people to employ it are sufficiently good that we can take the hit and still come out at the top. Even disregarding how much good that stationary industry will do us once we sufficiently irritate someone with the ability to destroy the planet it's on.
To quote the QM "Taking risks is part of the game, and if you try to avoid all risk you'll end up a sad single-system turtle in a very scary universe."
Refusing to invest in any system is basically the same as turtling in a single one, just trading vastly improved maneuverability for vastly reduced maximum capacity. Eventually we'll run into a bigger fish, and without the backing of a multi-system group of our own, we'll get eaten. We need to be able to both act fluidly as a mobile agent and mobilize the resources of a solid industry or we'll just be spitting into the wind.
I mean there's one thing about having a planet or stationary population. We can make things BIG.
A fortress wrold can have more than enough weaponry to make anything the Imperium can make trough the warp stay the hell away. Meaning they would try to take said fortress full of likely murrderdrones on foot.
And the fortress can still outproduce the sector.
Honestly there's a mirriad of ways to deter anything the Imperium can reasonably send our direction on this side of the rift.
I mean there's one thing about having a planet or stationary population. We can make things BIG.
A fortress wrold can have more than enough weaponry to make anything the Imperium can make trough the warp stay the hell away. Meaning they would try to take said fortress full of likely murrderdrones on foot.
And the fortress can still outproduce the sector.
Honestly there's a mirriad of ways to deter anything the Imperium can reasonably send our direction on this side of the rift.
Admittedly, the Necrons and Chaos are somewhat iffier but that's why we're continuing to research psy-shielding and moving in the opposite direction of the Tomb World.
To be honest I'm less worried about the Imperium then I am the Dark Eldar or Necrons, both of which have even more effective planet killers, better delivery systems, and at least as much willingness to employ them.
Refusing to invest in any system is basically the same as turtling in a single one, just trading vastly improved maneuverability for vastly reduced maximum capacity. Eventually we'll run into a bigger fish, and without the backing of a multi-system group of our own, we'll get eaten. We need to be able to both act fluidly as a mobile agent and mobilize the resources of a solid industry or we'll just be spitting into the wind.
I think it's more shuffling the numbers around. The Spark is not especially amazing for what it is, and we're not too far off from being able to build better, but even it as-is has advanced technology sufficient to go toe to toe with an equivalent imperial ship in a fight, could be run by a crew around two full orders of magnitude smaller than that same imperial ship, and can build a copy of itself from scratch with no other industry in around one hundred and eighty years. That's assuming all it does is build a sister ship rather than additional temporary industry to help.
I fully believe that a few turns of research could grant us the capacity to create a ship-based civilization that could take on the majority of competitors and avoid the rest.
Admittedly, the Necrons and Chaos are somewhat iffier but that's why we're continuing to research psy-shielding and moving in the opposite direction of the Tomb World.
Necrons buy an large don't botter humans too much a long we stay the hell way from their law and don't mess with their stuff.
Chaos is... Well there's a reason i call them GW villain Sue faction but they aren't really big on supertech so as long you can avoid the more warpy issues they are a longer term issue.
Honestly what really worries me would be Orks. Orks don't need a reson or explain themselves if there's a possible fade to run the bois are running.
An existing civilization is almost exclusively a hinderance to us, since they'd object to us setting up industry and we don't want to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. As mentioned, we can get the raw BP output within 3 turns of half effort (assuming we invest some of our research capacity in Superconductors and MS Production) and at that point we just need to invest in a governing AI (researching, building and then spending a turn or two hanging out to make sure they're chill) and they'd be fine. Literally the only thing Denva gave us that wasn't "help avoiding other problems on Denva" was hero units and we're not that desperate for more crew. And even if we were, we could still house and feed the maximum expected population of a Feral world and start screening them for psychic, combat, social or technical talent well before the tenth turn of investment, again if we're taking it relatively slow so we can do related research.
Construction Action 1 (700BP*)
*I'm assuming we're going to develop Large Scale Void Manufactuing before this
-MS Manufactory x5 600/600
-MS Light Infantry 30/30
-Bribes for Locals So We Don't Need to Use Infantry 60
-MS Manufactory 6 10/120
Construction Action 2 (950BP)
-MS Manufactory 6 10-120/120
-MS Manufactories 7-14 840/840
Research ~350
-Superconductors 100/100
-Ground Manufactory Efficiency 50/50
-Mothballing 50/50
-Machine Spirit Production 75/75
-Machine Spirit Shipboard Production 75/75
Diplomacy
-Get the locals off our back via bribery and implicit threats.
This gets our initial industry and defenses set up, plus grabs some low hanging research for making said industry way better.
Construction Action 1 (1,820BP*)
*Assuming average Superconductor and MS Production rolls.
-MS Manufactories x14 1680/1680
-Bio Lab 50/50
-Tech Lab 50/50
-MS Manufactory 40/120
Construction Action 2 (2,730BP)
-MS Manufactory x23 2720+40/2760
Research x2 (~550RP)
-Intelligence Coding 400/400
-Mechanized Agriculture 150/150
Continue scaling industry, plus unlock the basics for setting up a base, Intelligence Coding and making food for any humans who live there.
At this point the hard math of it all kind of breaks down since we don't know how much the unlocked technologies (or any requisite follow up researches) will cost, so I'll just extrapolate BP production and assume we can finish up any research or ancillary construction along the way. Keep in mind that with Superconductors and MS Production, we'll be getting an increasing margin of free BP to do non-industry stuff with since I'm going to limit my projections to doubling rather than squeezing every last bit of efficiency out.
Turn 8: At this point a single Construction Action could build enough housing and (probably, assuming reasonable costs) farming to sustain the upper end of the "100k-5m" population of a Feral World, and we can almost certainly make an AI with sufficient physical and esoteric defenses to feel comfortable leaving behind.
Then we can spend a turn or two helping our Baby of Stone get settled in, maybe getting a better ship or vetting additional crew and bounce, content in the knowledge that there's someone competent we can go to if we, say, stumble across a system that requires thousands of BP of material aide while we continue looking at stuff, all in less than half the time it took to even get our first flagship. And, in all honesty, we could probably set things up to progress without us a few turns earlier.
Admittedly, it's entirely possible that I'm underestimating how deep the AI research tree to get to that point is, but even then, a human generation is only something like four turns, so if we get the housing for a hundred thousand people on turn 4, we could have them solidly educated and with the requisite cybernetics by turn 8 still.
... Hmm. Yes. That's a valid request. Added this option:
-[] Denva: Permanent Manufacturing Assistance They've already agreed to give you a large chunk of manufacturing down the line. But you started up their their whole industry, and it's not unreasonable to be able to request a smaller chunk whenever you're present.
A further follow-on boon may be spent to set them manufacturing tasks to do while you're gone, so you could leave and then come back to pick up the ships they've built while you were gone, or something along those lines.
This would require spending another boon to get, but it's an option and would mean that any manufacturing Denva makes here could also be covered, and ultimately benefit us.
The second is a reminder that even without having gone into the dedicated automation tree, we have this:
-[] Basic Automated Manufactories (175 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).
Which, yeah, it's not clear how Basic Automated Manufactories would... work, when there's no Vita for actions to be saved, but one way or another we can set things up to expedite refitting all of the run down imperial factories in the system into stealthy modern things that can be transitioned into general use.
All of which is to say - who does the building isn't an issue, and where to build isn't a matter of Denva Primus versus Vorthryn manufacturing, nor deep space versus ground because Vita and Denva can do it all! So I think we should just focus on the best way to bootstrap and get things snowballing everywhere rather than arguing which build site is better.
We're here now, so it stands to reason we should do something to get the ball rolling. Non-rhetorical question: What do y'all think that something be?
Go back to Denva, get warp comms, and bootstrap on primus.
Like, the scaling is just better, we can get a one time or maybe a permanent boost, we can get extra techs, we can establish a research institute for extra RP, and then we can set up warp comms and also go exploring. Once we've scaled on Denva a bunch, we can come back here with a relief fleet and maybe also set up some more manufacturing here if we want to, but it shouldn't be where we start.
Like, I'm sorry, but, 'the best way to bootstrap' is precisely what we've been arguing about this whole time.
All of which is to say - who does the building isn't an issue, and where to build isn't a matter of Denva Primus versus Vorthryn manufacturing, nor deep space versus ground because Vita and Denva can do it all! So I think we should just focus on the best way to bootstrap and get things snowballing everywhere rather than arguing which build site is better.
We're here now, so it stands to reason we should do something to get the ball rolling. Non-rhetorical question: What do y'all think that something be?
I don't understand how this makes any sense. You say we should focus on the best way to bootstrap, but then dismiss a central question of what the best way to bootstrap is. Snowballing everywhere isn't how anything we've got on our planning horizons works, and isn't even how our core economic logic works until we start getting told we're not allowed to just add more factories.
The best way to bootstrap is to pick the best place to bootstrap, research things that buff our build point turn-around there, and start building the most efficient possible factories there until we have lots. The last part is just the only way to bootstrap, the first two are what make it best.
(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).
Well, sort of. It's specifically the flagships modular slots, that it doesn't apply to - but those are what we used for our flagships manufactories cause they're generally way better.
I quoted Neablis on this a couple pages back, y'all can go dig for it if you're curious.
Go back to Denva, get warp comms, and bootstrap on primus.
Like, the scaling is just better, we can get a one time or maybe a permanent boost, we can get extra techs, we can establish a research institute for extra RP, and then we can set up warp comms and also go exploring. Once we've scaled on Denva a bunch, we can come back here with a relief fleet and maybe also set up some more manufacturing here if we want to, but it shouldn't be where we start.
Like, I'm sorry, but, 'the best way to bootstrap' is precisely what we've been arguing about this whole time.
I don't understand how this makes any sense. You say we should focus on the best way to bootstrap, but then dismiss a central question of what the best way to bootstrap is. Snowballing everywhere isn't how anything we've got on our planning horizons works, and isn't even how our core economic logic works until we start getting told we're not allowed to just add more factories.
The best way to bootstrap is to pick the best place to bootstrap, research things that buff our build point turn-around there, and start building the most efficient possible factories there until we have lots. The last part is just the only way to bootstrap, the first two are what make it best.
We are not making build decisions in a vacuum, bootstrapping industry is not our only goal. Yes, if focusing purely on bootstrapping, "book it for Denva Primus and crash build there" is unambiguously the best choice. And yes, "where can you build manufactories to build manufactories the fastest/cheapest" is the central if not only question when there are no opportunity costs.
But right now, we have an opportunity cost called "people are dying of starvation and station failure right the fuck now", and generally are planning leaving behind some tech priests with the ship and perhaps a starter factory to run humanitarian aid while we continue traveling, to Denva or otherwise.
And I'm sorry Angle, but you're kind of on the fringe with how hard and long you've stuck to "go back to Denva, skip the rest of the road trip". I know, I know! This very topic is a big part of why you hold that position, and I'm sympathetic! I have stuff I want to do there too!
But if you're not thinking about how to best serve your manufacturing bootstrapping goals without abandoning the plans most people have that are mutually exclusive with "going back to denva right now", a lot of your time and planning is pretty likely to get wasted. I assume that if nothing flips the table, we're still going to the third system before heading back, and you probably should too.
Neablis pegged the uplift time for the feral stations at about 20-30 years - and wouldn't you know it, that's a pretty good estimate for how long it would take for us to circle back here. Wouldn't it be grand if by the time we did, there was an entire techpriest-trained workforce ready to man all the new factories Denva will help refit, complete with on-site training from the factories those same techpriests already rebuilt on their own?
Y'all know how I plan by now. I consider multiple goals at a time and see how I can make progress on all them - if I'm considering a new goal, I see what actions we were planning on already, and see if I can reorder them to help satisfy the new priority.
This is no different. We have shit still left to do here, and with a bit of research, Q&A and elbow grease we could see how we could get that shit done while simultaneously putting the factory buildup iron in the fire to keep cooking while we're away. I maintain that this is a better use of our time than arguing over which build site is better if we dropped everything to focus on it now, since while the answer to that is obviously Denva Primus, that's not at all the same as answering what the best approach is.
...We can come back with the relief fleet. Like, that's the entire point. And the sooner we go get started on it, the sooner we can be back.
As for scaling here, not very efficently. We'd have to spend, like, an entire turn and a half just to get the ball rolling, and then it'd roll very slowly. I'll do the math in the morning, but like, it's bad. We shouldn't do it.
...We can come back with the relief fleet. Like, that's the entire point. And the sooner we go get started on it, the sooner we can be back.
As for scaling here, not very efficently. We'd have to spend, like, an entire turn and a half just to get the ball rolling, and then it'd roll very slowly. I'll do the math in the morning, but like, it's bad. We shouldn't do it.
Neablis pegged the uplift time for the feral stations at about 20-30 years - and wouldn't you know it, that's a pretty good estimate for how long it would take for us to circle back here. Wouldn't it be grand if by the time we did, there was an entire techpriest-educated workforce ready to man all the new factories Denva will help refit, complete with on-the-job training from the factories those same techpriests already rebuilt on their own?
Success on humanitarian goals with enough initial investment for our techpriest detachment to do uplift could pay off big. We've given denva a lot of technologies, but cloning wasn't one of them. Thus, workforce will be a bottleneck to their expansion, and we might be able to mitigate that here.
Q&A with neablis for feasibility pending, of course. But that's what discussing options is for, no?
The math on which site snowballs factories better is already clear. This part, not so much.
When I started this back and forth, I was suggesting fully automated factories, after all. Now that I've noticed that those are besides the point of why we'd want preliminary build-up here - well, goes to show how early the thonks are, and why I suggested more open discussion happen.
We are not making build decisions in a vacuum, bootstrapping industry is not our only goal. Yes, "where can you build manufactories to build manufactories the fastest/cheapest" is the central if not only question when there are no opportunity costs.
But right now, we have an opportunity cost called "people are dying of starvation and station failure right the fuck now", and generally are planning leaving behind some tech priests with the ship and perhaps a starter factory to run humanitarian aid while we continue traveling, to Denva or otherwise.
And I'm sorry Angle, but you're kind of on the fringe with how hard and long you've stuck to "go back to Denva, skip the rest of the road trip". I know, I know! This very topic is a big part of why you hold that position, and I'm sympathetic! I have stuff I want to do there too!
But if you're not thinking about how to best serve your manufacturing bootstrapping goals without abandoning the plans most people have that are mutually exclusive with "going back to denva right now", your planning is pretty likely to get wasted.
Y'all know how I plan by now. I consider multiple goals at a time and see how I can make progress on all them - if I'm considering a new goal, I see what actions we were planning on already, and see if I can reorder them to help satisfy the new priority.
This is no different. We have shit still left to do here, and with a bit of research, Q&A and elbow grease we could see how we could get that shit done while simultaneously putting the factory buildup iron in the fire to keep cooking while we're away. I maintain that this is a better use of our time than arguing over which build site is better if we dropped everything to focus on it now, since while the answer to that is obviously Denva Primus, that's not at all the same as answering what the best approach is.
Do you have a plan that actually allows substantive bootstrapping here while Vita is elsewhere? Our tech-priest crew only has 840 CP in total. I don't know how fast they would build without Vita present, but they have a somewhat limiting ceiling on building up even using machine spirit deep space manufactories - and that's if we drop off the lot of them. (Admittedly, 6750 VBP is pretty substantial, if they devoted almost all their CP to MS-DSM.)
(And autonomous manufactories we don't know the stats of but do know we'd need at least one and probably two additional techs to make useful for this.)
Do you have a plan that actually allows substantive bootstrapping here while Vita is elsewhere? Our tech-priest crew only has 840 CP in total. I don't know how fast they would build without Vita present, but they have a somewhat limiting ceiling on building up even using machine spirit deep space manufactories - and that's if we drop off the lot of them. (Admittedly, 6750 VBP is pretty substantial, if they devoted almost all their CP to MS-DSM.)
(And autonomous manufactories we don't know the stats of but do know we'd need at least one and probably two additional techs to make useful for this.)
When I started this back and forth, I was suggesting fully automated factories, after all. Now that I've noticed that those are besides the point of why we'd want preliminary build-up here - well, goes to show how early the thonks are, and why I suggested more open discussion happen.
Which, to finish the thought: because there is much analysis left to do about how to hit all our birds with fewer stones.
It's past midnight, you see - this was all brainstorming for me rather than arguing for a specific thing for vita to do, because I'm going to bed shortly. Normally I do this kind of workshopping on discord with alectai or meianmaru first, rapid fire back and forth analysis and such, but I figured I'd take a stab at doing a bit of the early work in the thread this time instead.
