Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

[Nightlord256]

@Angle, I am with you on not starting industry build up here. I want to remove the chaos cults, stop their spread, and put the breaks on the humanitarian crisis.

Stopping the ship from making its rounds is a big part of that since it stops cross pollination on the groups.

Next turn, we ideally remove the most dangerous clusters of chaos and set the ship up as a roaming supplier of food / medicine. This should keep the system stable and prevent chaos from growing it's influence for minimal investment on our part.

Then the we either come back with a uplift fleet or ask denva to do it for us.

I can see us staying longer if the chaos presence turns out to be larger than expected or if there is interesting industrial technology to examine.

 

[Aineko]

food stockpiles,basic industrial tooling,patching up and modifying the stations for long term inhabitation,setting up some basic mining operations
we dont need to make them the next local superpower of the region by any means,but making them a "can actually survive in this enviroment" instead of "death over time",should buy enough time for denva to reach them

is a win for me

Click to shrink...

I don't think 8 actions can afford delivering any of those things to the population at large, though it could to a few favored stations.

And, again, there's every reason to think they aren't dying very fast right now, and Denva could get out here in one turn after we get back in contact if motivated sufficiently.

 

[Angle]

my take is staying for 3 turns-ish to set up the foundations so they can survive long enough for a denva task force to arrive
we use those 3 turns to build the basic foundations of warp research (trip wire,psy shield spirits,chaos resistant spirits)
we do improved gellar field

4 research spread across 3 turns should be doable without being crippling overfocus

return to denva,given them the ''warp research 101" tech package,i exchange we trade whatever improvements to basic non-warp tech they done in our absence,tell them where the station survivors live,do our industrial build up and then fuck off to the next adventure

Click to shrink...

We could go to Denva, build a relief fleet, and come back in 3 turns. Like, that's twelve actions - we can be back at Denva in 1. Throw another 1-3 actions on diplomacy, depending on how much we want to prioritize this system versus getting the Stellar Ascendancy set up in general, another 4 or so actions on industrial scaling, (Which would get us a ridiculous amount of extra BP, if we do it on Primus), another 1-2 actions actually building ships (If we'd spend more than this, then we should just use the extra actions building manufactories, we'd get more back that way), a couple actions on research, and then another action to come back... And that might all be able to fit inside 2 turns.

Edit: No, seriously, 4 actions scaling at a 1.75 factor means that we could increase our industrial base by like, 15 times. If we start out with just our ship, that means we get up to 5250 BP. If we get an extra 1000 BP from Denva for the first action, that means we could reasonably expect to get up past 10,000 BP. And if we throw another 4 actions scaling at that, up past 150,000 BP.

The slow start is fixable - we can discard some of our current modular slots and replace them with manufactories to get over the breakpoint.

I don't remember an absolute confirmation, but people keep assuming we can do that with the repair bay refit.

Click to shrink...

Which modular slots would we discard? We get an extra 50 BP per slot - which means with three extra slots, we can get up to 500. But this would itself take actions, probably at least 2. Also, IIRC, the repair bay doesn't work on the contents of our modular slots, as those are ground installations, not ship components.

 

[armentho]

snip

Click to shrink...

snip

Click to shrink...

*shrug*
fair enough i guess

 

[Aineko]

Which modular slots would we discard? We get an extra 50 BP per slot - which means with three extra slots, we can get up to 500. But this would itself take actions, probably at least 2. IIRC, the repair bay doesn't work on the contents of our modular slots, as those are ground installations, not ship components.

Click to shrink...

If I recall correctly, that has never actually been answered, in the face of frequent assumption that it did work. Hence the way I described it.

The obvious sacrifices are the two basic labs and the observatory. They're cheap and most of the time we're not using them. Dropping the medical facility or stripping one of the weapon systems for more slots would be possibilities for a bigger reach.

(And how would you ever figure at least 2 actions? Building three modular manufactories would simply cost 300 BP, no? That's less than one action.)

 

[Angle]

If I recall correctly, that has never actually been answered, in the face of frequent assumption that it did work. Hence the way I described it.

The obvious sacrifices are the two basic labs and the observatory. They're cheap and most of the time we're not using them. Dropping the medical facility or stripping one of the weapon systems for more slots would be possibilities for a bigger reach.

(And how would you ever figure at least 2 actions? Building three modular manufactories would simply cost 300 BP, no? That's less than one action.)

Click to shrink...

There's probably also a refit cost, on top of whatever cost is required for setting up the modular slots themselves. And I could swear I saw @Neablis saying that the repair bay can't work with modular slots, but I guess we'll see what they have to say about it?

 

[LightLan]

If I recall correctly, that has never actually been answered, in the face of frequent assumption that it did work. Hence the way I described it.

The obvious sacrifices are the two basic labs and the observatory. They're cheap and most of the time we're not using them. Dropping the medical facility or stripping one of the weapon systems for more slots would be possibilities for a bigger reach.

(And how would you ever figure at least 2 actions? Building three modular manufactories would simply cost 300 BP, no? That's less than one action.)

Click to shrink...

The labs are required for research. We use them all the time.

The medical facility we used to reattach Cia's hand.

 

[Aineko]

There's probably also a refit cost, on top of whatever cost is required for setting up the modular slots themselves.

Click to shrink...

This does seem to add up with the psy lab costing 300 BP here: Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest Mature - Sci-Fi

The labs are required for research. We use them all the time.

The medical facility we used to reattach Cia's hand.

Click to shrink...

The labs are not required for research in general. They're required for processing certain samples. We have some samples that we would need those labs to process, and might get more, but we haven't been researching those samples, and there's no reason to think we'd suddenly need to in the middle of the roll-out.

The medical facility would, indeed, be a bit more reckless to remove - we hardly ever use it, but it's a thing you really want when you need it. I'd probably suggest removing a weapon (or 'weapon', we would be fine with one instead of two shuttle units) instead, if we were going to those lengths.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

Okay, so there's one curious thing that I don't seem to have seen anyone answer: why do you all believe the 250BP cost for getting a single station back to supporting itself is actually a 250BP cost 'in truth'?

Instead of more or less 'this is the cost if we go in intending to rip out all the systems that were there before and using the hollowed out area to put in a new life support system that might be connected to the pre-existing vents, pipes and wires whilst also making sure said parts of the station infrastructure are patched up'. Which more or less means, even if we do no further true research beyond what's absolutely essential to unlock options (so more or less just the 'Learn How Agriculture Works' one), we should be able to get massive discounts to that cost.

After all, what's stopping us from investigating the pre-existing life support and sustainment systems on one of the stations and coming up with a 'repair and refurbishment' kit that we can hand out to the natives to... Well, more or less do what they've already been doing of scavenging parts and using those to maintain their existing machinery. We're just swapping 'scavenging' with 'acquiring from industry constructed to produce the parts' and 'maintain their existing machinery' with 'use the new parts to restore the existing machinery into something that is likely mildly better than it was when freshly installed into the station at construction yet which is still very similar to the existing machinery in how it works and the parts going into it'. That is likely to drastically reduce the BP cost per station and best of all?

It should be something where we can relatively cheaply set up either a handful of centralised or (and this is better if we're worried about say, the automated ship getting destroyed) a lot of decentralised facilities scattered across the inhabited stations which produce the needed maintenance parts for the life support, sustainment and the industrial machinery along with the mining machinery to feed them once we actually learn what the existing systems are. I'm expecting there to be a relatively wide variety in systems that need 'repair' due to Imperial standardisation being less standardised than it should be, but the locals have already been doing a good job solving that themselves as they scavenge parts so we should be able to mostly leave it in their hands after giving them a list of 'common modifications that might be needed'.

More or less what I'm saying is: sure, if we want to set up a full, advanced and self-sustaining civilisation in this system, then it's going to take a lot of time and effort to build up the needed industry and skilled personnel to support it. But why do we want that?

Can't we just, you know, go down the 'Morally Decent Imperial' route where no one really knows the why or even how behind a lot of the systems they're using, most of the knowledge that is known is only known by folks dealing with a specific system that is 'their domain' but so long as they have instructions on what to produce and do, they can keep it going for long enough to start building up their own knowledge base from poking and investigating the systems as they maintain them (or even build new copies of the systems on their stations or reclaimed lost stations as I'd expect our industry to produce all the needed parts even if 'assembly required' is part of the description of the machines) which might allow them to flourish if we or anyone else never appeared again.

This sort of set up is absolutely somewhere where we might need to do a Research Action worth of designing to set it up once we investigate the stations to find out what they use, and then see a 50 or even 75% decrease in the needed BP per station whilst also being able to use the existing industry of the stations to spread across the remaining 'derelict' ones. Instead of needing to produce all the necessary industry ourselves and then use said industry to produce and install the parts.

 

[Aineko]

Okay, so there's one curious thing that I don't seem to have seen anyone answer: why do you all believe the 250BP cost for getting a single station back to supporting itself is actually a 250BP cost 'in truth'?

Instead of more or less 'this is the cost if we go in intending to rip out all the systems that were there before and using the hollowed out area to put in a new life support system that might be connected to the pre-existing vents, pipes and wires whilst also making sure said parts of the station infrastructure are patched up'. Which more or less means, even if we do no further true research beyond what's absolutely essential to unlock options (so more or less just the 'Learn How Agriculture Works' one), we should be able to get massive discounts to that cost.

After all, what's stopping us from investigating the pre-existing life support and sustainment systems on one of the stations and coming up with a 'repair and refurbishment' kit that we can hand out to the natives to... Well, more or less do what they've already been doing of scavenging parts and using those to maintain their existing machinery. We're just swapping 'scavenging' with 'acquiring from industry constructed to produce the parts' and 'maintain their existing machinery' with 'use the new parts to restore the existing machinery into something that is likely mildly better than it was when freshly installed into the station at construction yet which is still very similar to the existing machinery in how it works and the parts going into it'. That is likely to drastically reduce the BP cost per station and best of all?

It should be something where we can relatively cheaply set up either a handful of centralised or (and this is better if we're worried about say, the automated ship getting destroyed) a lot of decentralised facilities scattered across the inhabited stations which produce the needed maintenance parts for the life support, sustainment and the industrial machinery along with the mining machinery to feed them once we actually learn what the existing systems are. I'm expecting there to be a relatively wide variety in systems that need 'repair' due to Imperial standardisation being less standardised than it should be, but the locals have already been doing a good job solving that themselves as they scavenge parts so we should be able to mostly leave it in their hands after giving them a list of 'common modifications that might be needed'.

More or less what I'm saying is: sure, if we want to set up a full, advanced and self-sustaining civilisation in this system, then it's going to take a lot of time and effort to build up the needed industry and skilled personnel to support it. But why do we want that?

Can't we just, you know, go down the 'Morally Decent Imperial' route where no one really knows the why or even how behind a lot of the systems they're using, most of the knowledge that is known is only known by folks dealing with a specific system that is 'their domain' but so long as they have instructions on what to produce and do, they can keep it going for long enough to start building up their own knowledge base from poking and investigating the systems as they maintain them (or even build new copies of the systems on their stations or reclaimed lost stations as I'd expect our industry to produce all the needed parts even if 'assembly required' is part of the description of the machines) which might allow them to flourish if we or anyone else never appeared again.

Click to shrink...

We were explicitly told:

Each station could probably be stabilized with about 250 BP of trade goods, less if you could get direct access to repair their existing systems. Negotiating that might be... hard.

Click to shrink...

So, yes, your core idea of repairing their existing systems for a discount is an established possibility.

 

[Angle]

This does seem to add up with the psy lab costing 300 BP here: Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest Mature - Sci-Fi

The labs are not required for research in general. They're required for processing certain samples. We have some samples that we would need those labs to process, and might get more, but we haven't been researching those samples, and there's no reason to think we'd suddenly need to in the middle of the roll-out.

The medical facility would, indeed, be a bit more reckless to remove - we hardly ever use it, but it's a thing you really want when you need it. I'd probably suggest removing a weapon (or 'weapon', we would be fine with one instead of two shuttle units) instead, if we were going to those lengths.

Click to shrink...

I'll also note, an extra 150 BP to start things off really doesn't mean much. This system just isn't that good for scaling with our existing tech, and we don't know how much research it takes to make it good - so we should just go back to Denva and scale there. We can come back with a relief fleet in like 2-3 turns, it's really not that hard.

So, yes, your core idea of repairing their existing systems for a discount is an established possibility.

Click to shrink...

Bu also that negotiating it would be hard. And, IMO, it really should be more expensive? It's quite common for it to cost more to repair existing things than to replace old ones IRL. I suppose we'll see how it works out - but that still leaves us looking at hundreds of thousands of BP, even with a significant discount. Which is a wildly impractical price for us to be paying.

 

[Aineko]

I'll also note, an extra 150 BP to start things off really doesn't mean much.

Click to shrink...

It should save at least one action, since it's more than the scale-out factor of our current manufactory option.

 

[Angle]

It should save at least one action, since it's more than the scale-out factor of our current manufactory option.

Click to shrink...

Saving 1 action off of a 4-12 action investment really isn't that much.

 

[Robinton]

Interesting! Watched!

Our biggest limiter here is, essentially, Research. If we could figure out a way to mass-produce Research effectively - we'd be in a truly spectacular spot.

Technologies along those lines: Machine Spirits, AI, Cybernetics (particularly the Cogitator improvement). Note also the possibility of uplifting a faction until it can do research for us.

Spoiler: Minor Typos

-[] Low-Emission equipment (200 RP) Hiding a ship's profile versus active and passive sensors is one thing, but hiding engine signatures and head dumping is entirely another (Unlocks new non-combat equipment to allow ships to maneuver and do other things without destroying their stealth. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. May unlock technology to allow weapons fire without breaking stealth.)

Click to shrink...

heat

-[] Reliable Gellar Fields (300 RP) Your gellar field technology is capable, but for something that important you want it to be rock-solid. That'll probably require a full redesign, but having a gellar field that cannot be knocked out with destroying a good chunk of your ship seems like it might be a good investment. (Improves your gellar field technology to make it more reliable and redundant. Will help you resist demonic attacks in the warp.)

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure this should be "without"

 

[Aineko]

Saving 1 action off of a 4-12 action investment really isn't that much.

Click to shrink...

Saving one action for free is pretty good, though. (Not sure what the 4 action version is, here?)

Interesting! Watched!

Our biggest limiter here is, essentially, Research. If we could figure out a way to mass-produce Research effectively - we'd be in a truly spectacular spot.

Technologies along those lines: Machine Spirits, AI, Cybernetics (particularly the Cogitator improvement). Note also the possibility of uplifting a faction until it can do research for us.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, we've done some of that, and there's some more we can do.

Completed more-RP options: Recruiting Anexa, Human Simulation Implants

Known more-RP option: Machine Spirit Hallucinations, follow-ups to that. Continuing to raise Anexa's level. Recruiting some more tech-priest crew. (Last one has nearby diminishing returns.)

Known RP discount option: Human Design Interface.

Faction that is doing some research for us: the Stellar Ascension, AKA Denva.

 

[meianmaru]

Saving 1 action off of a 4-12 action investment really isn't that much.

Click to shrink...

Agreed on this. Because I would like to remind everyone that our grace period is ending. The various players surrounding Denva have already started to become aware of its current state, and thus, about us. As we will soon have blunted the best weapons of Chaos with our psychic shielding to a good degree, we will start needing to develop our more conventional military equipment too.

The quality of weapons and defensive measures, both void and ground warfare, will become important soon. Because besides of an superior industry to even get the raw numbers for us and Denva to matter on a larger scale instead of just being a speed bumb? We will still likely be outnumbered. And this is where force multipliers would become handy, like bots equipped with volkite weaponry as their standard gun, or even limited production runs of newly designed bots with integrated void shields. And the power of weapons and shields become even more important when it comes to ships.

Anyway, time is precious, and we can't waste it here. So I'm going to keep advocating that we do the uplift mission here the most efficient way, that being not doing it ourselves.

Interesting! Watched!

Our biggest limiter here is, essentially, Research. If we could figure out a way to mass-produce Research effectively - we'd be in a truly spectacular spot.

Technologies along those lines: Machine Spirits, AI, Cybernetics (particularly the Cogitator improvement). Note also the possibility of uplifting a faction until it can do research for us.

Click to shrink...

Hello new person, always nice to see more people here! I've been also pondering about how to widen our research bottleneck, and would like to and would like to add Basic Automated Manufactories and more specifically its follow-ups to the pile. Because it seems to me that we've been doing a lot of single construction actions since we've started exploring.

And so getting our automation to the point where we have the same flexibility as our manufactories, well that would mean that we basically free up one action every single time we need one construction action in the future. Which would probably pay itself back very fast.

Hell, we could even replace repair bay with automated manufactories, because raw numbers could easily compensate for the inefficiency. Just need some cramming techs to get the room on our flagship, and upgrades to the productivity of the manufactories to bridge the efficiency-gap at least a bit. And the latter could even be done as something that we gradually upgrade over time, instead of trying to get done immediately together with everything else.

 

[LightLan]

The quality of weapons and defensive measures, both void and ground warfare, will become important soon. Because besides of an superior industry to even get the raw numbers for us and Denva to matter on a larger scale instead of just being a speed bumb? We will still likely be outnumbered. And this is where force multipliers would become handy, like bots equipped with volkite weaponry as their standard gun, or even limited production runs of newly designed bots with integrated void shields. And the power of weapons and shields become even more important when it comes to ships.

Click to shrink...

Nova cannons are likely our most easily accessible ship vs ship weapon.

-[] Gravity Weapons (200 RP) You know it's possible to use gravity as a weapon, though it sounds a bit crazy. But still, it might be worth trying? (Unlocks basic graviton weapons for infantry, vehicles and warships, as well as research for more advanced graviton weapons. Half of the research necessary for Nova Cannons)

-[] The Biggest Boom (150 RP) So. There's no actual upper limit for how big a fusion warhead can get. But it does get more complicated to build bigger and bigger bombs. Let's figure that out. (Unlocks bigger, exterminatus-grade warheads for nukes. The other half of the research necessary for Nova Cannons)

Click to shrink...

We need High-energy physics for the volkite option you mentioned.

-[] High-energy Physics (300 RP) There's some pretty crazy stuff you can do with physics. Especially when the energy exponents really start getting insane. However, that's going to take a bit of testing - maybe on a planetoid you don't care too much about. Or in space. (The next steps towards bigger, badder weapons, such as fusion beamers, volkite weapons, disintegration weapons. Half of the research for vortex weaponry.) Locked behind a High-Energy Physics Research Lab

Click to shrink...

This also puts us close to Vortex Weapons, though given their... volatility, we might be careful about when and how we use those.

-[] Vortex Weapons (250 RP) When you first read about them vortex weapons sounded... terrifying. Now you're even more scared. Still, that might be a nice thing to have in your arsenal at some point. (Unlocks basic vortex weaponry. Likely further research for larger and smaller vortex weapons). Locked behind High-energy Physics

Click to shrink...

 

[Aineko]

And so getting our automation to the point where we have the same flexibility as our manufactories, well that would mean that we basically free up one action every single time we need one construction action in the future. Which would probably pay itself back very fast.

Click to shrink...

We've only spent two such actions since leaving Denva, counting the latest vote.

We might have been able to save both of those if we instead had flexible automated manufactories in those slots, yes. They might be much worse for building a new industrial base, but better for small asks.

Also might be the thing to tilt the 'factory ship vs. cargo' question all the way in favor of 'both'. Depending on how automated interacts with non-flagship factory ships, potentially.

But we do need to spend a couple actions of research to get it, and at least one to even have a good picture of the stats.

 

[meianmaru]

Nova cannons are likely our most easily accessible ship vs ship weapon.

We need High-energy physics for the volkite option you mentioned.

This also puts us close to Vortex Weapons, though given their... volatility, we might be careful about when and how we use those.

Click to shrink...

Depending on how efficient we can get with both cramming and the amount of space it takes, Nova Cannons could be a good addition yes. I'd still want other options too, because not only it would have good to upgrade our ship's weaponry on every level in addition of strapping a giant space cannon to it. Still not sure if we should anyway pursue high-energy physics first, because we could apply it to both ship-weaponry and our ground troops, if I've understood things correctly.

And yes, Vortex weapons are fucking terrifying. Still good to have if we run into something that requires that level of firepower.

We've only spent two such actions since leaving Denva, counting the latest vote.

We might have been able to save both of those if we instead had flexible automated manufactories in those slots, yes. They might be much worse for building a new industrial base, but better for small asks.

Also might be the thing to tilt the 'factory ship vs. cargo' question all the way in favor of 'both'. Depending on how automated interacts with non-flagship factory ships, potentially.

But we do need to spend a couple actions of research to get it, and at least one to even have a good picture of the stats.

Click to shrink...

Looking at how we've been exploring only for four turns (and one extra action), also counting the latest vote, I'd still say that it has been pretty frequent thus far. And if we get a free construction action for every turn, besides the construction actions we've decided to take because they've been worth it...

Well, that is an enormous flexibility upgrade to what we could use our precious BP for, even if it won't necessarily be as efficient full construction actions (which might depend on the rolls?). Regardless, though I'm hoping that we can get our automation to our normal efficiency at some point, even partial capabilities would be a major boon.

 

[LightLan]

Looking at how we've been exploring only for four turns (and one extra action), also counting the latest vote, I'd still say that it has been pretty frequent thus far. And if we get a free construction action for every turn, besides the construction actions we've decided to take because they've been worth it...

Well, that is an enormous flexibility upgrade to what we could use our precious BP for, even if it won't necessarily be as efficient full construction actions (which might depend on the rolls?). Regardless, though I'm hoping that we can get our automation to our normal efficiency at some point, even partial capabilities would be a major boon.

Click to shrink...

We should be able to get stuff like automatically refill/create ?? BP of destroyed bots without an action if we go far enough into automation.

 

[Aineko]

Regarding weapons research, there's also starting on those Dark Eldar weapons. I don't know a lot about their gear, but I think they have much more sophisticated energy weapons than we do. Darklight Lances might wildly outclass our plasma and melta, though we might need to do resource extraction at that nearby black hole. And getting those into production from the samples might take a good deal of research.

(Also, the diplomatic impacts of using weapons normally exclusive to Drukhari might be interesting.)

Looking at how we've been exploring only for four turns (and one extra action), also counting the latest vote, I'd still say that it has been pretty frequent thus far. And if we get a free construction action for every turn, besides the construction actions we've decided to take because they've been worth it...

Well, that is an enormous flexibility upgrade to what we could use our precious BP for, even if it won't necessarily be as efficient full construction actions (which might depend on the rolls?). Regardless, though I'm hoping that we can get our automation to our normal efficiency at some point, even partial capabilities would be a major boon.

Click to shrink...

My expectation for their behavior is that they give a certain amount of BP per turn with no action - and that's it. We'd be able to spend those BP, but we would not be able to use construction actions to get more BP out of them.

For their output, I only predict 'not more than one action from a similar-size manufactory per turn for generalist autofactories'.

Which, yeah, could be a much better deal than regular factories for the way we've been using it during the expedition so far, though I would not expect them to be good at replacing the repair bay any time soon - our repair bay's good action economy wouldn't be enough to deliver the value it has if it wasn't also yielding a remarkably large amount of BP.

I would expect them to be definitively inferior for high-intensity industrial rush situations, but our flagship manufacturing has never been able to be all that well suited there.

 

[meianmaru]

Well, the best way to find out what manufactory automation can and cannot do is probably just researching it. And even the very first automation tech from that tree would probably be even bigger boon for the Stellar Ascendancy than us, considering that a civilization has much more consistent and larger need for manufacturing than a single ship. So accelerating their industrial expansion even further, and maybe getting a boon out of it. Though the boon might be only from a bigger package of techs being given to them depending on their current needs, I admit.

 

[Aineko]

Well, the best way to find out what manufactory automation can and cannot do is probably just researching it. And even the very first automation tech from that tree would probably be even bigger boon for the Stellar Ascendancy than us, considering that a civilization has much more consistent and larger need for manufacturing than a single ship. So accelerating their industrial expansion even further, and maybe getting a boon out of it. Though the boon might be only from a bigger package of techs being given to them depending on their current needs, I admit.

Click to shrink...

All true, though I would slot it under 'are you sure we're going to use this in time that it matters for this particular research turn'.

Although on the other hand, since we don't see the techs behind it until we pick up the first one, that information is an incentive on its own to pick up the first tech.

(I am pretty sure our next tech dump to Denva easily secures at least one boon already - we've got HSI and interstellar travel to hand over! No real picture of the economy of how many boons from one tech dump. But yeah, it does make sense that the basic units would be way more useful for them than they usually are for us.)

 

[Prime 2.0]

Agreed. And while on our ship, every single one of them is contributing to our research with extra RP. Just throw this job as a long-term job to the Stellar Ascendancy after stabilizing it a bit first.

Click to shrink...

You misunderstand. I AM throwing this to the ascendency long term - the tech priests are a stopgap. When I say the success stories will provide a workforce, the corollary is that they aren't all going to be success stories.

And it's not a matter of whether or not we leave behind techpriests to do this - we are entreating with cavemen in space. Leaving the stopgap humanitarian operation to the locals is not an option, they can't even steer the ship much less direct a build-out of critical station components and mechanized agriculture for mass food aid.

And even if they could do those things, any time they distribute aid they would have to risk their lives - most stations' existing relationship with the ship is a violent one. How would you ensure they continue to do that when we're gone? We had a good success on diplomacy, not a crit. Our techpriests can just use bots via OMC, problem solved.

Meanwhile - if we're lucky, there is shipboard manufacturing and food production we can refit for a better cost/benefit than converting one of the mining stations for a deep space manufactory, but I wouldn't count on that. If we're really lucky we can use our repair bay to do those refits, but that would be competing with the psy shield repairs we need to leave the system.

Basically, no matter the particulars of the scale and scope of the stopgap effort, we're leaving techpriests there. How many, and what we'd like them to be doing is up in the air, but I can't imagine a plan where we don't leave any as being feasible.

My rough expectation is for next turn to be 1 research, 2 construction, 1 exploration - ideally heading back to Denva to start the crash build. We can top up on techpriests there on the turn after to spare ourselves the RP loss - that would also let us leave behind more, or all our (volunteering) techpriests for the stopgap effort without lengthening the the timetable.

Well, the best way to find out what manufactory automation can and cannot do is probably just researching it. And even the very first automation tech from that tree would probably be even bigger boon for the Stellar Ascendancy than us, considering that a civilization has much more consistent and larger need for manufacturing than a single ship. So accelerating their industrial expansion even further, and maybe getting a boon out of it. Though the boon might be only from a bigger package of techs being given to them depending on their current needs, I admit.

Click to shrink...

This I can certainly get behind. Intel Coding will be where the bulk of automation tech is behind though, so pen that in for later maybe.

 

[meianmaru]

Basically, no matter the particulars of the scale and scope of the stopgap effort, we're leaving techpriests there. How many, and what we'd like them to be doing is up in the air, but I can't imagine a plan where we don't leave any as being feasible.

Click to shrink...

Even then, that is not enough of a reason for me for one reason: They know that Vita is an AI.

Because seriously, they would be completely undefended here for many years. And 40k quite many factions that can extract information from unwilling subjects. And methods to find those subjects in the first place. No matter what, I won't accept increasing the risk Vita's secret of being an AI leaking out. Even if its only a small chance. Because we are still nowhere near the point to be able to stand the attention it might bring if leaked.