1. Wait for the update to find out the details of the system.
2a. There is someone reasonable that can hold things together:
- Get their opinion on which Chaos stations need to be prioritized + talk about recent events for more general info.
- Shoot Chaos Stations with ship, DO NOT LOOT (we have nowhere to safely put the stuff)
- Have Victan diplo them while Cia goes in to fight hostile factions on the cycling ship with bot backup and Anexa + Cogitare work to fix up the ship (the one that automatically visits every other station) and bring them to self sustainability.
- Use shuttles to get representatives from each non Chaos and non insane/hostile station and hash something out
- Research/Build Auto-Manufactories to make the stuff they can't (basics ONLY, this is not a full uplift)
- Leave for either Denva or Caldereth->Denva depending on how long the resolution of this mess takes.
2b. There is not a reasonable faction that can hold things together:
- Kill all Chaos Factions
- Broadcast a general message that we are willing to give for free/trade for materials if that makes it go over better for hydroponics technology and other PEACEFULL technological aid while we are in the system.
- Trade/Gift supplies and knowledge.
- Leave for Caldereth->Denva to complete the loop and be able to move on to the other areas of the Zantris Sub Sector in the next expedition.
3a.
- If heading straight to Denva then the thread needs to agree that we are coming back in this direction again as the next expedition due to unfinished business and investment in this current system.
- Really not sure what else we should do though. We don't want to boost any of the systems near Denva to a peer status - Denva is the one we want taking over the sub sector after all.
3b.
- Explore Caldereth then head to Denva
- Research stuff to upgrade ship + other stuff
- Give Denva information on the surveyed systems and make any changes needed to the ship
- Head out to either the Veytharis-Myrris circuit or the Kethraxis circuit.
[x] Plan: Something Hinky is afoot, let's kick its shin
-[X] [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]
-[x] Research 2x (400 + 70 + 42)
--[x] Machine Spirit Ground Tactics (150 RP)
--[X] Personal-sized Psychic shielding (100 RP)
--[x] Cognito Filters (250 RP)
---[x] Anexa Assists
--[x] Overflow to Basic Active Stealth then Machine Spirit Hallucinations
-[x] Construction
--[x] Build Personal Psychic Shields for all Crew
--[x] Build an elite squad of 4 Light, 4 Medium, and 4 Heavy machine spirit humanoid bots all with Void Shields
---[x]This squad will be assigned to Cia as bodyguards
--[x] Remaining BP spent on mission gear / repairs to the transport as needed.
-[x] Orders/Diplomacy: Get the transport ship under your control by diplomacy or violence (or a combination). Try to get the people on the transport ship to surrender. Send troops against anyone not willing to surrender. Send bots in the first wave, but let Cia go with the second wave of bots so she can get some experience in. Find out who could be propped up against chaos with the information gained from the transport ship, iconoclasts highly preferred, imperials willing to learn might have to suffice. Cause you won't stay here forever. The goal 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.
--[x] Victan and Cia assigned
--[x] use Avatars for diplomacy where possible
--[x] Stretch Goal: After we take control of the transport ship use the psy shielding of the elite squad to sweep for chaos.
You're studying a hologram of the Vorthryn system with a pensive expression as your crew files into the observation lounge.
What to do? Do I really want to stick my oar in here? There are things that need doing but is it really on me to do them?
They wait in silence for you to start the meeting, but when you don't acknowledge them Victan clears his throat politely. "What are you thinking?"
You gesture towards the system map, filled with the blown-up asteroid belts. They're studded with the glowing gems of active stations housing human populations - and the dull icons of dead stations full of vacuum-cold bones. "What do we do with this place? Millions of people barely surviving in the darkness of space. They need help, but the situation is complicated enough that helping them is hard."
"We can't help everybody in this galaxy." Victan's voice is soft, but with a solid certainty to it. "We shouldn't even try. That implies that we're so certain of our victory that we can spend effort on aiding our enemies."
"Are they our enemies?" Cia asks with a frown.
Victan shrugs. "They'd fight us if they had the chance. So - yes?"
Your expression is stuck in a frown, and you wave your hand towards the hologram. "I agree, but there's such a power imbalance here right now. We could take over and make everything better. We could turn this into a center of industry, a shipyard to put anything else the Imperium has to shame."
"Denva would be better for it," Anexa says. "There are what, eight million people or so here? There's a thousand times as many in Denva. Plus the kultrinium of Denva primus. If we're going to make somewhere into a shipyard, it should be there."
"Why not both?" you reply with a sardonic smile, then shake your head. "I don't know. But there's definitely chaotic stuff going on here, and I don't want to leave it behind us. Right now things are degenerating, but I don't trust they'll be like that permanently. I also think this is a way for us to test fighting against chaos in a more controlled setting."
You're warming up to the idea the more you think about it. "We can accomplish multiple goals at once. Get this system back onto a more humane and positive path, prevent chaos from gaining a stronghold and also test our our countermeasures in a real fight. I've been meaning to upgrade the combat bots too - this would be a good test for that. And upgrade the chaos defenses for all of you. We had a close call when Bongo broke his cage, but my personal protection saved me. We should get something like that online for all of you."
You nod decisively, then look around at your crew to gauge their reactions. They're all positive, though Victan seems unsure, his gaze fixed on the hologram of the system. "Can we really deal with the whole system? That's a lot of stations. And while some of them are obviously hostile, that's not all."
You shake your head. "No, the stations aren't the key to the system." A quick command dulls their color so one point stands out amongst the floating lights. "The ship is. It's the only thing connecting those stations together. If we can turn the ship into a functional society, it'll drag the rest of the system up with it. That's our target."
Cia cracks her knuckles with surprisingly loud popping sounds. "So we take it."
"By force and diplomacy both," you reply. I'm pretty sure there's multiple factions aboard, and while some of them are probably hostile, I'm hoping that at least one is friendly."
Anexa's chewing on her lip slightly, thinking about something. But now she asks a queit question. "Will this mean I can study Chaos? Finally? I know it's dangerous, but everything I've seen about the warp - it's where physical laws become mutable. And anything involving the warp draws in Chaos."
You hesitate. "We'll develop cognitive filters, I think. Things that will help protect us from cognitohazards, and I'll develop personal psychic shields. That and better bots should be enough that we should be comfortable fighting chaos. But if we figure out a way to protect ourselves from the cognitohazards of chaos - then yes, we'll do more study of it."
Anexa takes your acceptance for what it's worth. "Alright."
You turn to Cia and Victan. "While we prep gear for this, you should study that ship and plan out our attack. We don't want to get too close - but our sensors are good enough to get a decent scan of them from here, and definitely see if there are any blips on the warp sensors too. Learn what you can about their cultures and figure out who we're killing and who we're friends with."
There are more details after that, and you pay them your attention. But most of your attention is already on the new research you have in mind. After all, your goal is nothing less than developing the capability to trounce Chaos cultists, regardless of what tricks they pull.
Well, I'm not sure I could handle summoned demons quite yet. But my warp sensors aren't picking up anything particularly crazy, so I don't think that's an issue just yet.
Your first order of business isn't explicitly to fight Chaos, but it's something that you're going to need to do regardless, and that's improve the tactics and capabilities of your combat bots. They're certainly competent with their weapons but when facing skilled foes in suboptimal conditions they're prone to getting torn apart and not being able to adapt.
The issue is that each bot makes decisions on its own. They get some information from the other bots but it's pretty bare-bones. If one bot gets destroyed by something - like a sororitas with a chainsword - the next bot won't really understand that it will share the same fate in the same circumstance.
Fixing that isn't easy - each bot isn't all that smart. It's like teaching a group of dogs advanced military tactics. But dogs know how to hunt in packs instinctually, and that's what you're trying to teach them. They're networked together, now you just need them to be able to share information and respond as a unit instead of a bunch of individuals.
It more or less works. You end up having to play teams of machine-spirit combat bots off against various simulated opponents with subtly tweaked network infrastructures until you hit on something that works, then optimize that by playing them against each other. You were hoping for something that would let you control their behavior a bit better for specific tasks, but for now all the network does is make them better at combat. But it's not a particularly small improvement, especially in more complex battlespaces, so you'll take it.
Researched Machine Spirit Ground Tactics: 19+20 = 39. Barely a success. Your machine spirit combat bots are more effective at coordination at the squad and company level (200 bots). Unlocked new technology - Machine Spirit Ground Strategy (300 RP)
Unlocked new technology - Machine Spirit Combat Bot Flexibility (250 RP)
Discounted existing technology - Machine Spirit Void Tactics cost reduced by 25 RP
The next thing you want to do is minimize the size of your psychic shielding. If Cia's going to be fighting Chaos cultists in person you'd prefer she did it from behind some kind of protection. Not to mention that the same protection would likely apply if she whiffs with her psychic powers again.
All of that sounds good, but the process of actually miniaturizing your psychic shielding is easier said than done. It's already got detailing on the miniature scale, and just scaling it down isn't going to work. Furthermore, you need to figure out a way to make it flexible. Your current psychic shielding can't flex and move very much, and you don't really have any ideas for how to figure it out.
With a sigh you dive back into the crazy simulations you've figured out to approximate the psychic shielding. They're not exact, but they're the best you got. You try iterating the designs to come up with something that can tolerate flexing and bending, you try applying the harmonics you'd figured out earlier. Neither of those approaches get you anywhere.
The one that does is going further down the path of interference that allowed you to layer the shields. You don't want to "layer" two weak shields atop each other, but by stacking the various components you can both increase the density of the tiny circuits necessary to broadcast the necessary thought and rely on constructive interference to increase the strength beyond what you could normally pack into such a small package.
What you get out is... workable. It barely avoids interfering with another shield wrapped around it, and it's decently strong for the reduced size. But it's expensive and you never did figure out the flexibility thing. What you have now is more of a static layer that needs to be grafted onto the inside of stiff armor. It works and you're satisfied with the strength, but it's both restrictive of movement and somewhat vulnerable to damage.
Researched Personal-sized psychic shielding: 10+20 = 30. Poor success. You can make personal psychic shields as an inner layer to armor, though it's vulnerable to damage and restricts flexibility. Unlocked Blueprint Modification - Psychic Shielding
Unlocked Utility Blueprint - Personal Psychic Shields (25 bp per unit) Makes armor less flexible. Can be fixed by Armor Device Integration Unlocked New Technology - Tiny Psychic Shielding (400 BP) Requires Triple Nested Psychic shielding
Well. It works. It's not ideal, but it works. And you've set aside time to implement it before your boarding action. Cia protests somewhat at some of the modifications you make to her armor, as they make it notably less flexible and durable. But she sees your point that the armor needs to be able to defend against psychic attacks as well as physical and resumes her practice with the newly encumbered armor.
You also outfit the suits of armor you've made for Victan and Anexa with the shielding, but there's a lot less complaining from them because they almost never wear it. Still, if there's ever another situation where the ship gets attacked you hope it'll make a difference.
You'd also been hoping that you'd be able to integrate the psychic shielding into the combat bots to make an elite bodyguard squad to accompany Cia, but you'll have to settle for just slapping some void shields onto existing bots. They're not as good as what you'd get if you purpose-designed some combat bots for the purpose, but they're significantly more survivable than past versions and with the new machine-spirit tactics they'll be much more capable of using that durability to help protect Cia.
Bodyguard Squad built - 12/12 void-shielded bots.
You also check in on the psychic shield repairs. Your repair bay is churning away to fix all of the shielding damaged by Bongo's escape attempt, though it's not going to finish anytime soon. There was a lot of damage, after all. Still, your own shielding is well on its way to completely repaired, and that's something.
Vita Core Psychic HP repaired to 135/135 HP
Bongo Oubliette Psychic HP repaired to 443/540 HP
Still, there's one more avenue you have for prepping your crew to face Chaos, and it's something you've been working on this whole time with Anexa. Once you strip away a lot of the bombastic language from the old Inquisitorial primer you found, it seems like a lot of the insidious danger of Chaos boils down to a simple fact.
It is, by its very nature, a cognitohazard. A Chaotic-aligned symbol or phrase can serve to attract the attention of demons and also just inherently has corruptive power of some kind. So by simply displaying a specific sigil, a chaos-aligned opponent can be passively launching psychic attacks against their foes that can distract and in extremis corrupt their opponents into joining Chaos.
The Inquisitorial answer seems to be raw faith and willpower, along with various tricks and a fanatical drive to destroy anything chaos-aligned. You're using psychic shields, which are a more certain but also more expensive capacity - and if they break then you're fully exposed to the dangers that it previously protected against.
But you're wondering if there isn't a different approach. With your new neural implants hooked deeply into the sensory inputs of the brain it's entirely possible to edit the perceptions to remove the chaos-aligned information. That should decrease the load on the psychic shields and may also block several kinds of direct psychic attack.
You and Anexa dive into the problem, first solving the problem of editing perception. Your new implants already create a sort of "augmented reality," editing icons and information into perception in useful ways. But that's very much not designed to obscure the physical reality, and that's the goal here. It doesn't turn out to be a large barrier, since it's not hard to figure out the right set of filters that'll blur an objectionable shape, or muffle a specific sound.
However, there are two issues that crop up, that of targeting and collateral damage on important information.
First is targeting. You don't exactly have an exhaustive list of all of the chaotic sigils, slogans and other brainworms that can cause problems, and even if you did, that wouldn't be a database you wanted to load into somebody's neural implants even as just a warning list. This stumbling block seems potentially terminal until Anexa comes up with a wonderful idea - use the warp sensors. Most of the time when people are exposed to chaos they'll have psychic shielding - and the way you've tuned your psychic shielding to detect warp shenanigans means that it can be used to detect corruptive influences, communicate that to the implant, which can then isolate the signal and block it.
In theory - synchronizing the various algorithms and setting the heuristics right takes a while, but you're able to get it working in practice as well. You use the various symbols on Bongo's shrine as a test case, without loading any prior information into it. After a split-second of clear vision the eight-pointed star is blurred into a smudged circle, and a few other parts of the shrine get a bit fuzzy as various barely visible symbols are blotted out.
Huh. I hadn't really realized those were corruptive. Good to know.
You still have a version that's got some signal recognition and brain activity monitoring to be able to block chaos symbols if the wearer doesn't have a psychic shield or it gets broken, but it's not as good as the near-perfection of the version hooked up to a psychic shield.
The second problem is the issue of deleting important information. It's all well and good to prevent the sight of a demon from causing psychic damage, but it's besides the point if that means you can't see it before it sticks a blade into you. This part is a harder problem to solve, and requires some level of signal processing to try to cut out the smallest amount of information possible while being sure to remove the dangerous details.
It's a balancing act, and one you address in a number of ways. First, you add an outline around anything that's being blocked, so that it's obvious there's something dangerous there. Second, you tune down the passthrough filter when the wearer is in combat. It's more important to be able to see clearly when you're actively in combat than otherwise, and it's not as big of a deal if you catch a brief glimpse of a chaos sigil while you're cutting a cultist's head off.
But time marches onwards, and eventually you have to declare that part of the process done and move onto the second bit - which is adding a cold-storage portion to the implant's memory as a way to manually sequester dangerous memories without deleting them entirely. It's a simple matter to hook that up to the same warp-sensors, so that the implant can flag specific memories that are dangerous and should be stored away until they can be accessed slowly, carefully and safely.
Eventually, you and Anexa study the gigantic collection of data with pride. What you've built is more of a series of software packages than a piece of hardware, but all of the tests you've done show that they do a fine job preventing the more harmful pieces of corruption, and that all gives you some ideas as to how you might think about reversing it.
Researched Basic Cognition Filter: 75+30 = 105. Critical Success. Anybody equipped with one of your implants will be much less vulnerable to warp-based cognitohazards. Dramatically more effective when paired with psychic shielding. Reduces combat capability somewhat when fighting Chaos. New Technology Available - Improved Cognition Filter (150 RP)
Bonus Technology Available - Chaos Corruption Cognitive Intervention (400 RP) Requires Companion Cogitators& Understanding Mutations Discounted existing technology - Companion Cogitators cost reduced by 100 RP
Discounted existing technology - Pain Controller cost reduced by 50 RP
Discounted existing technology - Mood Regulator cost reduced by 50 RP
Discounted existing technology - Combat Neural Implants cost reduced by 25 RP
Discounted existing technology - Machine Spirit Chaos resistance by 25 RP Anexa level +1.
And with that, you've achieved the last of the new capabilities you wanted. You make sure everybody gets the new software, and run a dozen checks to be sure the new cognition software is interfaced properly with Cia's implants. She was a slow adopter of the brain implants that Anexa's perfected, but at the point they start to enhance her combat prowess she stopped objecting, and at this point her implant is as advanced as Anexa can make it.
With that done, it's time to make final plans for assaulting the ship. Or negotiating with it, but that's looking less and less likely to succeed. Your crew meets once more to study a detailed hologram of the target that you've assembled, and make your plan of attack.
"You know, I hadn't really realized how large it was," Anexa says, studying the vaguely delta-shaped ship. "It's nearly as big as the Spark of the Ancients."
"But not nearly as dense," Cia corrects, highlighting the dozen enormous doors spread down each side of the massive ship. "These cargo holds are nearly three-quarters of the volume, and it has almost no weapons." The next thing she highlights are approximately fifty point defense turrets and a single macrocannon turret. It would be a decent armament... for a destroyer, not something the size of a grand cruiser.
"They're inoperable anyway," Victan notes, bringing up power readouts for each of the weapons. "This ship is little more than a flying ecosystem at this point, inhabited by several different factions. But that's the value of it, the population and the way it ties together all of the different stations throughout the system."
You cock your head towards him. "So what are the different factions? Any that we can get along with?"
He shrugs. "It's hard to tell from outside except for a few things. There's not a lot of easy ways to tell what's going on inside. There's a fairly regular broadcast hailing the God-Emperor, but I don't know if it's automated or simply some kind of ritual. Regardless, it's coming from the upper decks, where the officer class would have lived." He highlights the area around the bridge.
Cia breaks in. "However, we've been picking up some warp signals from the center of the ship bays." She notes, then her eyes flick up to meet yours. "Not sure exactly what, but it's regular, and strong. Like a ritual."
You purse your lips and frown. "Constant signal, like we get from Bongo?"
She shakes her head. "There's a steady level of background, but not as much as from Bongo. It's hard to get any more details from this distance, but it's not a demon. Warpy stuff, but I don't know enough to be more specific."
"None of us do," you reply slowly. "Ok, those are definitely priority targets. But we want to clear the rest of the ship too, and see if there's anybody over there we can talk to. What are the good breach points?"
Cia waves a hand, and a dozen different locations highlight themselves. "We don't have proper boarding craft, but they aren't shooting back or maneuvering, so we can take our time. Dock assault shuttles here, cut our way in. Then the shuttles come back for more. It's going to take a little while to even get all of the bots in. But..." she shrugs, "I don't think there's much they'll be able to do about ten thousand bots with modern weapons."
"Don't jinx it," you reply dryly. "How many in the ship? What's it called, anyways?"
Victan snorts. "It's named the Auric Burden, and we're not sure how many people are aboard. Somewhere around a million?"
You study the suggesting boarding locations, quickly flipping between different filters. "Let's space these out a bit. Some of them should go in the dark areas like you suggest, but I think some of them should be more... central. We won't have surprise forever, and we might be able to seize somewhere central before anybody realizes we're there. Then we can demand surrenders and see where it goes." You raise an eyebrow towards Victan. "Do you have a plan for diplomacy?"
You're half-expecting him to say that he'll go over personally, and you're trying to decide if you'll let him.
But Victan has something else in mind. "I can speak through the bots. I'll be keeping an eye on their networks, and I should be able to control them so long as the control signal stays good. Then I can negotiate, potentially in several places at once, though I'll need help to manage that."
"Sensible, and together we should be able to handle that. Sounds good. Let's get the bots loading."
Cia seems taken aback. "Just like that?"
You nod. "Just like that."
It takes longer than you expect to get everything ready, but that's more becuase you haven't done this kind of operation before. Each shuttle's needs gear to cut through the hull or hack through airlocks, and you shuffle the entry points a little bit more before you're happy, then change out the exact composition of the assault forces.
But then it's time, and there's no more prep work to do. Everybody's gathered in a secondary meeting room near the shuttle bay, watching a very detailed display of the Auric Burden as the first wave of shuttles approach. Cia towers over everybody in her armor, the hilt of the blade you built for her sticking over her shoulder from where it's magnetized to her back. Her armor is shiny and the recessed lights glow slightly, and you find yourself hoping it won't get used at all.
The plan is for her to go in with the second wave and reduce any holdouts the bots can't deal with. But what kind of resistance can the people of this system really present? Every indication is that their weapons of choice are sharpened scrap.
You carefully don't hold your breath as the bots enter the ship in synchronicity, and the tactical maps update. Each of them makes contact with scattered locals involved in various activities and you and Victan try to speak through them, asking to parlay in low gothic.
Their responses are universal, fleeing away from the advancing bots and deeper into the ship. You follow, and soon enough your bots are ambushed in close quarters. Well-prepared positions open up and dirty, starving people swarm out to attack your bots with clubs and blades.
But the tactical upgrades to your bots shows its value, and they stabilize, gain distance and open fire. These people haven't fought enemies whose primary armament is ranged and it shows, and scenes of massacre repeat themselves across the ship.
The shuttles dock once more, and another two thousand combat bots disembark into the cavernous ship, even as your first set make their way deeper into the ship. You break into several of the larger spaces and find... squalor. Various fungal or plant ecosystems have taken over several areas, and the locals seem to be farming some and battling others. Regardless nobody returns the diplomatic openings you give, and the best sign you get is when a group scampers down into the maintenance hallways and you don't get attacked by hordes of barbaric warriors.
That scene repeats itself several times across the ship, and your bots start coming up against further resistance. Either you interrupted a major set of conflicts or your attack triggered a wave of violence across the ship, as you find fresh battlegrounds and the victors picking over them. Almost universally those victors bear various chaos sigils, and you worry about your bots being corrupted.
But this isn't scrapcode, and the screeching of cultists falls on the deaf ears and angry guns of thousands of combat bots. In places your advance is stalled, but the combat bots automatically find new paths or figure out how to flank the chokepoints, driving forward.
That is, until they start progressing into the spine of the ship. What was clearly once a series of hab-blocks for the crew of the giant vessel have become a sprawling maze of scrap and rubble, and it's infested with inhumanly muscled cultists who leap out of windows and crawl out of the sewers to surround your bots and club several groups down. More bots rush in and it becomes clear that this is a hotbed of resistance.
Even as you watch, your warp sensors ping. Some kind of ritual is powering up in the very center of the spinal area, and you frown at it.
"That looks like my job," Cia says, putting on her helmet and giving a casual salute. "See you on the other side." She stomps out of the door and is followed by her bodyguard squad. They commandeer the next shuttle to depart, steering it with its cargo of drones to be as close to the ongoing ritual as they can get.
You drop your attention from other things, allowing Victan to take over more of the attempted diplomacy as your bots form a cordon around the cultist stronghold and begin applying pressure. There are few clear sightlines and inhumanly strong cultists seem to blend into the shadows of every corner, waiting to leap out and pummel your bots while lamenting the lack of blood to spill.
Then Cia arrives. She's navigated to the point of the cordon closest to the ongoing ritual. You watch through the eyes of one of your bots as she stops to take in the area for a moment before reaching back and grasping her force blade. She holds it vertically up in front of herself and the blade activates, flaming lightning licking off the blade with a crackling hiss. Then she charges straight forward.
Her bodyguard bots follow behind, luckily not as frozen in panic as you are. There are hundreds of cultists between her and the ritual. Your bots can't see them but they're definitely there, and the ritual is ramping up higher and higher.
The first cultists leap towards Cia and she cuts through them nearly casually. Then more come, and more. They strike blows on her armor with muscles bulging with unnatural strength - and achieve scratches. Her sword faces no resistance at all as it slices through the crowd, arcing bolts of psychic power reaching out to hammer down those skilled enough to dodge the scything blade.
They try to swarm her, bear her down under the weight of bodies. But the bodyguard droids take the opportunity of a clear target and open fire into the mass, clearing the swarm in seconds so that Cia can resume her charge.
In the end it takes her less than a minute of fighting, during which every cultist in the area turns to try and get in on the action, knowing in their corruption that there is one enemy on this battlefield that can bleed.
You take the chance to order the rest of your bots close in at the best speed they can manage, gunning down the cultists as they abandon their ambush positions to weigh in on the fulcrum of the battle. Most do not make it, and when they do they find themselves hopelessly outmatched - not that they seem to care, as they scream cries to their God that go unheard as the implant programs kick in to block out the corruptive chants.
Despite the weight of bodies, Cia's the first to breach into the inner sanctum. You're watching the feed from her implants when she does so, and all you can tell is that some kind of amphitheater has been turned into a cauldron of blood, and something is taking form inside as a circle of cultists stand up to their ankles in the blood, cutting their throats one by one. From the circle of bodies it looks like they're about halfway done and you almost reach out to tell Cia not to complete their ritual for them.
But she's way ahead of you, and you see as she pauses before she steps into the pool herself, calling forward the heavy bots among her bodyguard. They arrive within moments and she directs them to unleash their heaviest weapons on the cultists, vaporizing them from the ankles up to deny their blood to their patron.
In the meantime she carefully opens a compartment on her armor and pulls out a few melta charges, priming them and tossing them into the cauldron of blood. You'd been curious why she packed them, and her response had been a shrug and a comment about never turning down more fire where she could get it.
The results are immediate, as the blood goes from steaming to a true frothing boil. The creature taking form inside goes from a gurgling chuckle to a scream, and red mist begins to gush into the air.
Cia and her bots beat a hasty retreat out of the building, to be joined by the rest of your bots outside. She clears her throat and pants out an order. "Level it."
You don't hesitate to comply. Every bot armed with heavy weaponry lowers it and unleashes everything they have on the amphitheater. The building falls into rubble and then that rubble starts to melt and burn while emitting red mist... before that too dissipates into the cavernous maze.
Cia steps away, reattaching her immaculate blade to her back before finding a spot to rest.
Your voice sounds quietly in her implants. "You ok?"
She nods, still panting as her attention goes to the gauge on her psychic shielding. It's down to about ten percent... but it held. "I might want to get this repaired before I do any more fighting."
"I don't know that there's going to be much more. It looks like this group was going through all of the others, there's not much resistance left." You say that more out of a desire to keep Cia out of actual combat than actual knowledge, but as you check the statistics across the ship it's looking like it's more or less true.
Military takeover of Transport ship - rolled 75. Good success!
+2 Cia Levels
-297 Light Machine-spirit humanized infantry bots
-160 Medium Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots
-509 Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers
-559 Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots
Various groups are hunkered down in secured areas, and it appears as if Victan has made making some inroads in talking to a few of them. It hasn't gone farther than simply promising not to kill them if they stay put until you figure out something new, but it's a start.
Of more significance is that you have bites from the last two coherent organizations that are left aboard the ship, both of which seemed to have been saving their strength and declined getting involved in the maelstrom of violence triggered by your boarding action. As a result they both still have most of their manpower and coordination left, and could take over the ship and incorporate most of the survivors from the various other tribes or clans or whatever.
As a bonus, each of the groups even has a claim to the ship, though in different directions. The first is the Ductsworn, and they live in the tight spaces and maintenance corridors that make the rest of the ship look like a well-planned city. They claim descent from the original workers of the ship, and as Victan plies their leaders with decent food they open up about their beliefs.
They appear to have rejected the emperor and all forms of "bosses" with the exception of their own fathers. They live in large familial clusters bound by marriage and favor, and still retain some knowledge of the maintenance rituals to keep the reactor running and the air breathable.
However, they seem to have a few traditions that make you wary and would have an inquisitor reaching for their sidearm. There's no smoking gun, though the reverence for the "engine-cast blindness" that results from being blinded by a plasma-flash is not something you're a fan of. It's something that could be fixed with implants, though you'd need to convince them that having eyes is important. Fixing the lighting might help with that.
The second group is the Bridgeborn, whom live in the well-fortified upper decks. They still have a stock of Imperial weaponry and speak in a bastardized form of high gothic, wearing tatters of uniforms and fancy clothing from generations past. They hold to a bastardized version of the Imperial Creed that names the Emperor as the "Captain of Mankind" who is incarnated in their leader, a grizzled old woman named Annalictaus.
They're a haughty bunch, and the habit of marking promotions with ritual scarring makes you a little nervous, but at the end of the day they're the ones who have been steering the ship around according to their "Holy Duty." They understand most of the higher-order operations even if they're clueless as to how the engine works, and they've got the best idea of what groups live on each other station.
The trick is that neither of the groups get along, and they make sure you know it. The Bridgeborn want the Ductsworn to acknowledge their hereditary authority, while the Ductsworn spit on the very idea.
Victan suggests that dividing the ship into spheres of engineering and command might be a way to get them to coexist, but he admits that making it stick would be a long shot. Still, at least both groups are talking to you and willing to engage in negotiations of all sorts.
Diplomacy of Transport Ship - rolled 44+25=69, good success!
Still, you're contemplating the various ways you could help. After the extended fighting there's still nearly half a million people on the ship, and they can use all of the help they could get. You could certainly designate a group in charge and provide them with a modicum of support so they could dominate the ship, but that's not necessarily a stable situation if the ship keeps being a melting pot from all of the other situations. It probably wouldn't be hard to sweep aside either group, break their hierarchies and institute something new in their place, and you're not convinced that's the worst option.
If you're willing to spend some effort you could probably start turning this ship around, though it's going to be a tricky balance to walk. Everybody here could use some medical care, and even more than that the ship could use some actual repairs. More than anything else what the ship and people need is some damn tech-priests, since it's the loss of the original tech-priests that caused all of this spiraling failure in the first place. But you've only got so many of those left, and you're not sure you want to give them up like this.
Decisions, decisions.
Current capabilities:
Command Points 1920/13,340
Flagship: Spark of the Ancients, 1700 CP cost
Ground Build Capacity: 0
Lift Capacity: 1000 (converts between ground and void BP)
Void Build Capacity: 350
Research Capacity: 200
Psychic Shielding: Outer Hull 240 HP, Vita Core 135/135 HP, Crew Quarters 135 HP, Basic Psychic Experimentation Lab 135 HP, Bongo Oubliette 443/540 HP, (repair for 5 BP/point, can be repaired by repair bay)
Bongo Psychic Energy = 18/??? Represented as approximate damage potential.
Juvenat usage: 3/50 people's worth (cannot be stockpiled)
Shipbuilding capacity: 0 ship construction slots (treat it as capacity. You can only be building ships that fit within your construction slots)
Available ships: none, beyond your flagship.
Available ground forces:
1703 Light Machine-spirit humanized infantry bots (2x20 = 40 CP)
840 Medium Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots (20 CP)
2491 Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (3x20 = 60 CP)
3131 Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (4x20 = 80 CP)
12 Void-Shielded Machine-spirit infantry bot Bodyguard squad (20 CP) CP costs for infantry bots work as breakpoints in increments of 1000. So 50 or 500 or 1000 bots all cost 20 CP, and 1001 costs 40 CP. Abstraction, y'all.
Misc assets:
A Void Abacus, Psytech Samples, A Navigator Fetus, A Scrapcode generator named Bongo. Dark Eldar Weaponry, A few Dark Eldar bodies, Dark Eldar Boarding Craft.
In progress research:
Basic Active Stealth (34/75 RP)
Actions (choose 4 of the below, can choose the same action multiple times):
[] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular. Don't do this just because it's free. Do it if you want to know something. Writing those sections delays the updates. If you want Vita to get more done, don't ask for this.
[] Orders: Command existing units in a given theater of operations.
[] Travel/Explore: Pick a system on the Map to travel to/explore. Currently you may travel 1 system as part of an explore action, or 3 systems if you don't explore. You can explore a place you've already explored, or focus your exploration on a specific feature of a place you've already explored. Or explore two systems next turn and then the turn after go back for specific POIs without costing an action. Jumping a single system over as part of an exploration action is free, a number which will increase with better navigation.
[] Diplomacy/Subversion: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method)
[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what you spend them on.
Installations
Installation default is to be built in full view. Basic stealth (building under cover, sensor-absorbing materials) can be applied with 2x BP cost. Ground-based installations can be built entirely underground for 3x BP cost.
You can add psychic shielding to an installation by spending any cost between half its BP and its BP, gaining shielding on it with HP equal to the number of BP spent divided by five.
Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP) Will allow you to process basic biological samples, such as flora & fauna. Or captives.
Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP) Will allow you to process basic technological samples, to understand their electronics, materials, etc.
Basic Psychic Experimentation Lab (200 BP, 50 CP) Will allow for safer experimentation with psytech and general psyker powers, at the very least confining the damage from perils of the warp. Can be outfitted with inwards-facing psychic shielding.
High-Energy Physics Research Lab (500 BP or 500 VBP, 100 CP) Will allow you to conduct research on more... excitable branches of physics. Maybe don't put it close to anything you want to keep. (Rolling a 1 while researching something here might turn out badly, but at least you'll have containment measures in place)
Warp Research Lab (500 BP or 500 VBP, 100 CP) Anexa's brainchild. Half mad science lair, half sensible warp research setup. Will allow you to conduct research on the warp, miniature portal generator and all. Will likely help contain poor results, though maybe give it some psychic shielding. (Rolling a 1 while researching something here might turn out badly, but at least you'll have containment measures in place in addition to any psychic shielding you add.)
Captive Holding cells (25 BP, 10 CP) will allow you to hold 500 captives and keep them fed and watered while you interrogate/indoctrinate/talk to them.
Small automated medical facility (50 BP, 50 CP) 50 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries.
Directional-control Radio tower (25 BP, 5 CP) improves signal reception quality and allows you to send your own signals across the planet, as well as giving you the capability to bounce them off the atmosphere to disguise their origin.
Observatory (100 BP, 25 CP) Built on a nearby mountain. Will unlock research projects to map the current system.
Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +50 ground-based build capacity.
Machine Spirit Manufactory (120 BP, 20 CP) As a manufactory, but controlled primarily by machine spirits. +50 ground-based build capacity.
Rocket Launch facility (50 BP, 10 CP) Uses chemical rockets to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to half that amount of void build capacity per action. The opposite of stealthy.
Spaceport (100 BP, 25 CP) Allows you to use shuttles to convert ground build capacity to Void build capacity with no loss, or as a base to host and rearm fighters. Can host 10 fighters or 10 shuttles, each capable of converting 50 ground BP to void BP per action, built separately. Stealthier than rockets, but not invisible.
Magnetic Catapult launch system (1000 BP, 50 CP) Allows you to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to void build capacity per action with no loss. Actually quite stealthy.
Medium Void-shield Installation (1000 BP, 50 CP) A void shield capable of stopping medium orbital bombardment, approximately fifty heavy strikes.
Anti-Orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion.
Anti-Air Defenses (25 BP, 5 CP) A trio of rapid-recharge lascannons backed up by advanced targeting software in a reinforced emplacement with an upwards-facing arc. Will attempt to destroy ballistic missiles, aircraft or shuttles as they approach. Can miss or be saturated by large amounts of incoming fire or miss and fail to destroy their targets.
Machine-spirit Jammer (100 BP, 10 CP) A bank of cogitators capable of jamming a large number of small machine spirits (weapons, doors), several medium machine spirits (vehicles) or one large machine spirit (small ship). Effect is temporary and resistance will build up.
Basic Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP) A set of carefully-managed vats capable of supplying 50 people with a perennial supply of Juvenat.
Void Installations
These are built in space. They require 'void BP' which is associated with lift capacity. This is a detail we'll abandon eventually, but for now your lift capacity is limited.
Orbital Manufactory (250 void BP, 40 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +50 void build capacity.
Machine Spirit Orbital Manufactory (300 void BP, 15 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +50 void build capacity.
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.
Machine Spirit Deep Space Manufactory (900 void BP, 15 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +100 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Requires you to do a system survey.
Small Shipyard (1000 void BP, 50 CP) 4 Ship construction slots
Medium Shipyard (3000 void BP, 100 CP) 16 Ship construction slots
Large Shipyard (10,000 void BP, 250 CP) 64 Ship construction slots
Basic space stealth missile (5 Void BP, 1 CP) Rests steailthily in orbit, until activated, at which point it can attack nearly any target in orbit. One-shots satellites, many are needed for ships or larger platforms.
Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) Each shuttle converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.
Fighter (20 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.
Basic Stealth Fighters (25 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. They shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking, though they won't be able to close all the way to attack range without being spotted. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.
Basic Stealth Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver things other than bombs to your enemies. So let's stick some armor and guns on a shuttle, and make it a bit more maneuverable. They shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking, though they won't be able to close all the way to attack range without being spotted. Can carry 100 troops and provide anti-personnel and light antiarmor fire. Requires a spaceport for rapid transport of troops.
Tiny system monitor (950 void BP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1500x300 meters. 7 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Light Shields. 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 light lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.
Small system monitor (2375 void BP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots) Frigate, 2200x600 meters. 5 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. 4x Medium Macrocannons, 1x Medium Lances, 2x Point Defense.
Candle (1450 void BP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1600x350 meters. 8 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. Living Space, Psychic Shields (20 HP) 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 Medium Lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.
Units
Avatar (10 BP, 0 CP) 1 human-appearing robot.
Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor, mostly intended to fight lightly-armored enemies. Good in tight corners and rough terrain. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control.
Light Machine-spirit infantry bots (35 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Light Humanized Machine-spirit infantry bots (60 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look like humans. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger.
Medium Infantry Bots (50 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with medium armor and light anti-tank weaponry. Good all-rounders. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control.
Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (75 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (100 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look like humans. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots.
Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Good in open field combat against heavily armed foes.
Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (150 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Heavy Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (175 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look human. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots.
Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (190 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look human. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots. Can jam the weapons and equipment of foes who use machine spirits.
Light Machine-spirit tanks (150 BP, 5 CP) As Light tanks, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Medium tanks (200 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor.
Medium Machine-spirit tanks (375 BP, 5 CP) As Medium tanks, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Basic Artillery (300 BP, 50 CP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication.
Basic Machine-spirit Artillery (450 BP, 5 CP) As Basic Artillery, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Export Goods
Light Infantry Weapons (5 BP) Enough light weapons to outfit 1000 humans. Mostly intended for anti-personnel use. Lasguns, a few stubbers, some grenade launchers and supplies of frag grenades.
Light Infantry Armor (5 BP) Enough light armor to outfit 1000 humans. Roughly equivalent to Imperial guard Flak armor, though with better communication abilities.
Medium Infantry Weapons (10 BP) Enough medium weapons to outfit 1000 humans. A mix of anti-armor and anti-personnel use with greater specialization. Hotshot las-gun equivalents, some lascannons, some autocannons, some flamers, some sniper rifles, a supply of krak grenades.
Medium Infantry Armor (10 BP) Enough medium armor to outfit 1000 humans. Roughly equivalent to Imperial carapace armor.
Heavy Infantry Weapons (20 BP) Enough heavy weapons to outfit 1000 humans. Primarily focused on anti-armor, will work well on power-armored foes. Plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers.
Heavy Infantry Armor (5 BP per unit) Enough heavy armor to equip 1000 humans with armor slightly superior to Sisters-of-Battle grade armor. Can be built with integrated void-shields by doubling the price.
Basic Force Weapons (5 bp for a personalized one, or 10 for 1 bp for general-purpose) A force weapon in the shape of a sword, axe, spear or glaive. Ideally it gets personally fitted to the user, which is difficult but has a better result, or you can mass-produce weapons that will work but won't be all they could be.
Man-portable Machine-Spirit Jammers (10 BP) Enough small devices in the forms of vox-units, bluescreen grenades and directed antennae to arm 1000 humans with gear that increases their effectiveness against enemies using weapons, armor and vehicles with machine spirits.
Personal Void Shields (5 bp per unit) A void-shield projector capable of protecting a person or bot from weapons fire. Can be fit into an amulet or be a larger unit attached to armor for greater shield strength.
Personal Psychic Shields (25 bp per unit) A person-sized set of psychic shields, that must be attached to the inside of a stiff suit of armor, increasing bulkiness and decreasing flexibility unless properly integrated by Armor Device Integration.
Light crewed tanks (100 BP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Need crew. Roughly equivalent to the Imperial Chimera.
Medium crewed tanks (200 BP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor. Roughly equivalent to the Leman Russ.
Basic Crewed artillery (300 BP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication.
Trade goods (Any cost you wish to spend) A mix of medical supplies, civilian equipment, vehicles and appliances tailored to your trade partner's needs. 5 is a small amount of goods, 10 is decent, 20 is a fair number, 50 starts being quite a lot.
Manned Manufactory (100 BP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +50 ground-based build capacity, to be spent as the people running it desire.
Residential Space (10 BP)
Enough living space for 1000 people. Beds, plumbing. Temperature control.
City (1000 BP per 50,000 people)
The complete package for a city. Residential space, power generation, sewage treatment, transit, offices. No food production.
Orbital habitat (2000 Void BP per 50,000 people) As city but in space. Includes Hydroponics.
[] Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on.
Ground Blueprint Design:
To design ground installations & non-combat units, suggest them in the thread and I'll add them here if they're valid, along with RP cost to design them. This includes bunkers, anti-orbital defenses, ground units, etc. You'll unlock more things with more technology. Some things are impossible without the correct research - for example, heavy tanks will require you to research heavy armor first. Other things will be very cheap if you already have most of the design - for example if you research a better weapon it will be relatively cheap to just swap that out on the tanks.
Blueprints Design
Blueprint Modification Options
New blueprint Modification system: We've unlocked various additions to ground blueprints. Instead of attempting to list all possible combination below I'll list the base options, and you can trick them out with the following modifications. In general BP & RP should round up to the nearest 5. CP does not. Note that these are calculated off "base cost," not total cost, so it is not compounding, though some upgrades increase the base cost.
Here's an example of me designing a fancy assault shuttle.
The base blueprint is 25 RP - Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP), but I want to make it fancy. First, let's make it machine-spirit controlled. That gives +0.5x base BP, -0.9x CP, or +15 BP, -4.5 CP. So the blueprint is now:
25 RP - Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (40 BP, 0.5 CP)
Then I want to give it void shields. That costs +1x base BP cost because it's a small craft, then +1x RP. So +25 BP, +25 RP. Now it's:
50 RP - Void-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (65 BP, 0.5 CP)
Now I want to give it psy shields. That's +4x base BP cost for small craft (which was 25, so +100 BP), and +1x base RP cost (which was 25, so +25 RP). So now it's:
75 RP - Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (165 BP, 0.5 CP)
Oh and screw it, might as well make it stealthy too, which is +1x base RP cost, +0.25x base BP cost, so that's +10 BP (round up to nearest 5) & +25 RP cost, which leaves us with:
100 RP Basic Stealth Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (175 BP, 0.5 CP)
And of course that's a bit of a mouthful, so I'm going to rename it the "Icarus," and the blueprint should look like:
100 RP - Icarus (Basic Stealth Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle, 175 BP, 0.5 CP)
If we'd wanted to also make it humanized (so it looks like it's piloted by people, for example if you wanted to transport allies without them knowing it was flown by robots) then this all changes, since that adds +5 BP to the base cost. That doesn't change the RP or CP cost at all, but it does change BP. Instead of 25+15(0.5x)+25(1x)+100(4x)+10(0.25x)=175 you'd do (25+5)+15(0.5x)+30(1x)+120(4x)+10(1.25x)=205 BP. And then you'd have
100 RP - Basic Stealth Humanized Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (205 BP, 0.5 CP)
Humanization - (+15 base BP cost for combat bots, +5 base BP for vehicles, small craft & defensive installations) Makes a unit appear to be operated by fully-armored humans. Slightly increases strength and armor of those units. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Machine Spirit Jammers - (+10 base BP) Adds machine-spirit jamming equipment to the blueprint, enhancing capabilities against forces that use machine spirits. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Machine-spirits - (+0.5x base BP cost, -0.9x base CP cost) Make this blueprint controlled by machine spirits, making it slightly corruption resistant and reducing the load on your systems. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.
Void Shields - (+1x base BP cost for tanks & small craft, +9x base BP cost for bots, +1x base RP to design blueprint) - Adds void shields to the object, dramatically increasing survivability. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft.
Psychic Shielding - (+4x base BP cost for tanks, small craft, +9x base BP cost for bots, +1x base BP cost for defensive installations +1x base RP to design blueprint) - Adds psychic shields to the object, dramatically increasing survivability against warpy threats. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Basic Stealth - (+0.25x base BP cost, +1x base RP cost, ) Makes a unit harder to detect. Can be applied to: Small craft.
Combat Bots
10 RP - Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor.. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Good at rapid pursuit & maneuvering through tight terrain, bad against heavy armor.
25 RP - Medium Infantry Bots (50 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with medium armor and light anti-tank weaponry. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Good all-rounder capable of all roles, though not optimal at either.
25 RP - Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Good at the heaviest fighting over open ground against heavy armor, not well-suited to avoiding collateral damage.
Vehicles
15 RP - Light tanks (100 BP, 50 CP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Good at rapid pursuit & maneuvering through tight terrain, bad against heavy armor.
25 RP - Medium tanks (250 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons & antipersonnel weapons to fight enemy armor and infantry. Good all-rounder capable of all roles, though not optimal at any.
25 RP - Heavy tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor. Good at the heaviest fighting over open ground against heavy armor, not well-suited to avoiding collateral damage.
Small Craft
25 RP - Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) A single shuttle which converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity, and shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking for it. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.
25 RP - Bomber (20 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver cargo to your enemies. Can deliver a fair amount of ordinance to a target in atmosphere or out of it. Unlocks a bomber hanger attachment for ships.
25 RP - Fighter (20 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.
25 RP - Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver things other than bombs to your enemies. So let's stick some armor and guns on a shuttle, and make it a bit more maneuverable. Can carry 100 troops and provide anti-personnel and light antiarmor fire. Cannot deliver troops to space targets.
Defensive Installations
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.
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.
25 RP - Light Void-shield installation (250 BP, 25 CP) A void shield capable of stopping light orbital bombardment, approximately ten heavy strikes.
25 RP - Ballistic missile (50 BP, 10 CP) A long-range ballistic missile. By default it carries a high-yield explosive head capable of destroying approximately a city block. Can be intercepted by orbital defenses.
25 RP - Nuclear warhead (25 BP, 1 CP) A variable-yield nuclear warhead that can be deployed by ballistic missile or other means to destroy a city-sized target unless it's heavily dug-in.
10 RP - Spy satellite (10 void BP, 5 CP) A small spy satellite that lets you do your own surveillance on the planet below. Under your complete control and with better sensors and communication hardening than any of the local satellites.
Utility
50 RP - Advanced Technological Research Lab (500 BP, 100 CP) Will allow you to process advanced technological samples, including materials of alien orgin. Has advanced scanning, modelling and processing capabilities.
25 RP - Large automated medical facility (500 BP, 50 CP) 500 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries.
10 RP - Maglev System (5 bp/mile, 50 flat CP) A high-capacity maglev system to transport large amounts of goods across a planetary surface, linking various surface installations together into a single network so production from any of them can be applied at all of them.
Void Blueprint design:
To design void blueprints, follow these steps:
Choose a starting hull from the list of available void chassis below
Choose the number of Build Points to be spent on the base hull. This corresponds to overall size of the ship - a destroyer with 200 bp will be 1200x200 meters, while a 500 bp base destroyer will be 1600x400 meters. This will set the "hp" of the design as well as determine the total amount of space inside the ship, which is represented by the number of BP spent on the hull. That's your "Budget"
Pick the speed, shields and armor of the design. Shields are recharging temp HP, while armor is damage reduction. Speed is self-explanatory. These do not count towards cramming.
Pick hull equipment to go onto the ship. These do not count towards cramming.
Choose weapons, combat equipment & noncombat equipment to add to the ship. Your budget for these things is the base BP spent on size before you start to get into cramming. You can cram more stuff in, but there will be penalties to maneuvering, maintenance, etc. As an example, if you build a destroyer with a base hull cost of 400, then you have a budget of 400 to spend on weapons/equipment before penalties start kicking in.
Have a vote win which spends the necessary RP to design the planned ship.
(Basic Defense Satellite) Light defense Platform. Base 100 Bp (200x200 meters). No engines, Light shields for 50 bp, light armor for 50 bp. 1x light lance battery for 100 bp. Total is 100+50+50+100 = 300. Weapons+equipment is 100, within the base BP of 100, so no cramming penalty.
(Basic System Monitor) Destroyer chassis. Base BP 350 (1500x300 meters) Engines: 7 gravities for 100 BP. Light Shields for 50 BP. Medium armor for 100 BP. 2x Light Macrocannon batteries for 200 bp, 1x Light Lance battery for 100 bp, High maneuverability thrusters for (1/10 base, round up to nearest 50 =) 50 bp. Total is 350+100+50+100+200+100+50 = 950. Weapons + equipment is 350, within the base BP of 350, so no cramming penalty.
Light defense Platform, 10 RP, 10 CP, (100-400 BP, 200x200-500x500 meters.) Engines: (none) for (0). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Destroyer, 25 RP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slots (200-500 BP, 1200x200-1600x400 meters) Engines: (6/7/8 gravities) for (50/100/150 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Frigate, 50 RP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots (500-1000 BP, 1600x400-2200x600 meters) Engines: (5/6/7 gravities) for (75/150/225 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150)
Light Cruiser, 75 RP, 200 CP, 8 ship construction slots (1000-2000 BP, 3500x400-4400x800 meters) Engines: (3/4/5 gravities) for (100/200/300 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/150/300) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200)
Heavy Cruiser, 100 RP, 300 CP, 32 ship construction slots (2000-6000 BP, 4500x600-6000x1200 meters) Engines: (2/3/4 gravities) for (300/400/500 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400)
Available Hull Equipment:
These do not count towards hull cramming.
Living Space (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is built to be run and operated by humans. It will require a crew but will not cost CP to command.
Warp Drive (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Void Abacus (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can navigate through the warp slowly, at a rate of 3 systems per action. Requires Abacus Manufacturing technology.
Psychic Shielding (Between 1/10 to 1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, that thinks "no" as hard as possible, answering the question for any warp-corruption for any beings or objects within the hull. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 5 BP spent on it.
Basic Passive Steath Profile (1/5 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship has it's sensor profile reduced with special coatings and a shape that reduces the cross-section in response to active sensors. It can reasonably expect to stay hidden at long ranges (outside weapon range) as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Improved Passive Stealth Profile (1/2 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship is heavily dedicated to stealth, with not just coatings and a shape but also significant amounts of sensor bafflers and other passive systems designed to prevent it from being spotted. Should be able to stay hidden at medium ranges (or long weapon range) as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Advanced Passive Stealth Profile (Doubles base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship tries it's hardest to be a void in space, and so long as it's not moving it generally succeeds. Should be able to stay hidden at close ranges as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Probably not good enough to get into boarding range.
Available Weapons:
These do count towards hull cramming.
Multiple the final weapon cost by 0.9 before applying it to ship designs. So if you have 500 BP of weapons, it only counts as 450 for the purposes of ship packing. But it'll count as 500 for final ship cost.
Prow Ram 50 bp. This ship is built to run into things, and hurt them more than it gets hurt.
Light Macrocannons 100 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage. Medium Macrocannons 200 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage. Heavy Macrocannons 400 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Light Lances 100 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire. Medium Lances 200 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire. Heavy Lances 400 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Light Missiles 50 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon. Medium Missiles 100 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon. Heavy Missiles 200 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Light Plasma Cannon 250 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields. Medium Plasma Cannon 500 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor. Heavy Plasma Cannon 1000 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.
Light Melta cannon 200 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor. Medium Melta cannon 400 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor. Heavy Melta cannon 800 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor.
Fighters 100 BP, 50 CP. Parasite craft with short-ranged guns and some missile capability. Basic stealth automatically applied. Shuttles 100 BP, 50 CP. 10 Shuttlecraft, combined capacity of 500 lift to or from a planet. Assault Shuttles 150 BP, 50 CP. 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip. asic stealth automatically applied.
Point Defense 50 BP. A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.
Small Torpedoes 150 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to give destroyers a bad day, hurt frigates and prick cruisers. Medium Torpedoes 300 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck frigates, hurt cruisers and make grand cruisers know they've been touched. Large Torpedoes 600 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck cruisers, hurt grand cruisers and make battleships cruisers know they've been touched.
Light Teleportarium 100 bp. Can teleport a small number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from close range. Enemy shields must be down. Medium Teleportarium 200 bp. Can teleport a medium number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from medium-close. Enemy shields must be down. Heavy Teleportarium 400 bp. Can teleport a large number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from long range. Enemy shields must be down.
Available Equipment:
These do count towards hull cramming.
Low-emission Systems (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship has been tuned to reduce overall emissions, making it stealthier. Not stealthy. Stealthier.
Improved Sensors 250 BP - increased size and density of sensors, backed up by the necessary computational support, will make it more difficult for anybody to sneak up on this ship. Excellent Sensors 500 BP - You would say it's impossible to sneak up on a ship with this many sensors, but you saw what the Eldar did, and now it's merely incredibly improbable. Superb Sensors 1000 BP - This ship has enough sensors of enough modalities that it's basically a mobile scientific research platform. Anything weird will get noticed, investigated, and if it's an enemy ship, pinned down.
High-maneuverability thrusters (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is more maneuverable, able to flip, spin and dodge more quickly. This lets it maneuver well through dense asteroid clusters and dodge/ram more effectively in combat.
Plasma payloads (choose missile warheads or Macro cannon warheads) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire plasma-warhead ammunition, which has a flat damage increase.
Melta payloads (choose missile warheads, Macrocannon warheads or torpedoes) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire melta-warhead ammunition, which is especially effective against enemy armor and hulls.
Tuned Shields Costs the same as the chosen armor cost, and additionally counts towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for tuned shields, so if shields costs 100 bp, then tuned shields cost 100 bp and 100 bp is counted against cramming). These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.
Alloyed Armor Costs the same as the chosen armor cost, and additionally counts towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for alloyed armor, so if armor costs 100 bp, then alloyed armor costs 100 bp and 100 bp is counted against cramming). Armor is much tougher but is harder to repair.
Light Boarding preparations (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying. Medium Boarding preparations (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) The ship layout is designed to funnel borders into kill-zones in front of armored bunkers, and any borders will take heavy casualties. Heavy Boarding preparations (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship as essentially a flying dungeon, filled with escherian mazes, hidden turrets, crushing-hallways and other deathtraps.
Light Machine Spirit Jammers (1/20 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Enough to cause significant degradation in an enemy ship's sensors, maneuvering and targeting. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class. Medium Machine Spirit Jammers (1/10 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Same as light jammers, plus will also effect total thrust, weapons firing rate. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class. Heavy Machine Spirit Jammers (1/5 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Same effect as medium, but may also effect friend-foe designation and reactor stability. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class.
These do count towards hull cramming.
Troop compartment (50 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Medical bay (25 BP) Can treat 1000 severely injured people at once.
Manufactory (Any cost up to base cost of hull) Generates void BP equivalent to 1/10 of its cost.
Cargo Bay (No cost, free. Designate an amount of BP to fill for cramming purposes) Allows transport of an amount of BP equivalent to the cramming amount from one system to another.
Repair Bay (Any cost up to base cost of hull). Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost. Can be used to refit the ships as well with a +50% markup. Cannot be used to make new ships, bots, manufactories.
The ways to get new research options are to:
Do research. That'll unlock more research.
Build appropriate installations & potentially acquire samples to research in them (samples could be anything from 'a human' to 'a Norn queen' in rarity).
Ask for them. Often I'll tell you what you need to do to unlock specific research options,
Ship Design
-[] Grand Cruisers (400 RP) Making a ship design that's not spaghetti takes time and effort. It's still boring. But if you want to make queens of the void, its necessary. (unlocks grand cruisers, half of the prereq for battleships)
-[] Medium Defense Platforms (50 RP) You've already got most of the tools you need to build bigger defensive platforms, but these would be a larger platform to stick guns on, with more ability to withstand damage. (Unlocks medium defensive platforms, potential for other void-based installation options)
-[] Improved Engine Designs (150 RP) Based on your understanding of physics and a few old research papers you think you can improve engine reactor thrust velocities. (Enhances ship speeds at every level. Unlocks further speed, maneuverability & stealth technologies)
-[] Streamlined ship design (150 RP) You can improve your tools for ship design to make it easier to design ships in the future. That might be nice (Halves the RP cost to design new ships, may unlock other ship design improvements)
-[] Efficient Equipment Distribution (100 RP) Let's see if you can apply the benefits from weapon packing to equipment (Equipment costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing. Especially effective for cargo holds.)
-[] Extremely Efficient Weapon Distribution (200 RP) You did a good job already in packing more weapons into less space. But you think you see ways to make it even better (Weapons cost at 0.75 for ship capacity packing)
-[] Can I have a new ship please? (200 RP) Triggers a sub-turn to design yourself a new ship. It can be any size, up to one class larger than what you currently have available (This is Vita's unique mechanic, and will let you design new iterations of your ship)
-[] Boarding Capabilities (100 RP) Apparently it's common for ships in this day and age to board each other and for the crew to fight hand-to-hand. Instead of, you know, chucking enormous missiles at each other. Insane. Well, it might be a nice capability to have in case you want to capture ships intact. (Unlocks boarding torpedoes, drop pods, and boarding craft for hangers, may combine with stealth research to unlock stealth borders)
-[] Networked missiles (100 RP) The biggest danger to missiles is that they'll get shot down by fighters and point defense. If you can network them together to cooperate against those threats, more of the warheads will reach their targets. (Unlocks new combat equipment to make missiles more effective. May unlock more technology to make missiles smarter, longer ranged and generally more effective)
General Design
-[] Large-scale Void Manufacturing (100 RP) Unlike ground factories, which have to deal with gravity and atmosphere, there's little stopping you from just... scaling up the principles of void manufacturing. Besides the annoying spaghetti of logistics, but that's a solvable problem. (Allows you to design large void manufactories that are more efficient, improves the manufactories on your ships to be 1/5 instead of 1/10 production. Potential for other void-based platform technologies).
-[] Ground Manufactory Efficiency Improvements (50 RP) You dramatically improved the efficiency of your void manufacturing by stripping out the dumb stuff that was required by stellar federation bureaucracy. There's probably some stuff like that in your ground manufactories too. (Reduces the CP cost but not BP cost of your ground manufactories. Unlocks follow-on tech to build ground manufactories in more challenging conditions such as extreme temp/pressure planetoids).
-[] Shuttle automation (150 RP) Surely I don't have to fly these stupid things myself. (Reduce the CP cost of shuttles by 50%)
-[] Walkers (300 RP) Tanks are... kind of boring? Mechs are cooler. (unlock armiger knights, dreadnaughts, starts the knights/titans research tree)
-[] Mothballing (50 RP) Keeping a bunch of systems functional and ready requires attention that is swiftly running out. Maybe you can figure out how to spend less attention on things that are mostly inactive (Unlocks the ability to mothball an installation for 10% of it's build cost, free reactivation that takes a few weeks. May unlock techs to allow you to freely turn things on and off, as well as increasing the speed of reactivation enough for you to keep military installations mothballed until they're needed.)
-[] Abacus Manufacturing (100 RP) You understand all of the physical parts of an abacus. Now you need to figure out all of the manufacturing techniques needed to actually put one together. (Unlocks the void abacus ship equipment)
Stealth
-[] Improved Spaceship Passive Stealth (200 RP) Your current stealth systems are effective, but it would be nice if they were a little bit more effective. And maybe a bit cheaper. (Improves the effect and cost of stealth hull equipment. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth.)
-[] 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.)
-[] Active Spaceship Stealth (200 RP) Not returning a sensor signal is one thing, but actively providing false signals is another, and something that the Drukhari are evident masters of. (Unlocks new equipment to improve ship stealth against various sensors that you can't trick any other way. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. May unlock technology to hide your position and prevent enemies from getting good targeting.) Requires basic active stealth
-[] Basic Ground force stealth (50 RP) Tanks show up pretty well on scanners, and it would be nice to change that. You might also be able to make your bots hide better. (Unlocks new design options for tanks and ground forces that are less obvious. Unlocks further research towards better ground force stealth. Will be able to take advantage of some other stealth technologies.)
-[] Improved Passive Stealth (50 RP) Ok, you've figured out the basics of hiding your small craft, but you have ideas on what you can do better, that might allow them to hide from even fully-alert enemies. They probably won't be able to close all the way to attack range, but they'll be able to get a lot closer (Unlocks improved stealth designs with improved performance. Unlocks further research for advanced passive stealth technologies. Will synergize with other stealth research.)
-[] Basic Active Stealth (75 RP) Just deflecting away and hiding your signature only helps so much. Then next step is to overlay a hologram over your small craft to make them effectively invisible, and even counter passive sensors. It'll still be a hazy outline, but this is the path towards being able to close to actual combat ranges unobserved (Unlocks improved stealth designs for actively hiding signatures, though they will be expensive. Unlocks further research for improved active stealth, and will synergize with other stealth research.
-[] Examine the Dark Eldar Craft (150 RP) The Dark Eldar boarding craft showed incredible stealth capabilities. If you can figure out how it works that would be a great way to improve your own stealth capabilities (Discounts all stealth technology, may unlock unique stealth research and let you see through Eldar stealth better) Requires Advanced Technological Research Lab.
Shields
-[] Heavy Void shields (150 RP) Your current shields are good, but they could be better. Specifically, you want to make multi-layered shields, which could be applied to anything larger than a destroyer (Unlocks heavy void shields for ships and stations, as well as further research for void shielding improved for recharge speed, layered defenses, etc.)
-[] Heavy In-atmosphere void shields (100 RP) Well, the void shields you have are nice. But it would be nice to be able to build bigger ones, that can shrug off essentially any possible orbital bombardment. You need to figure out how to take advantage of the ridiculous energy and heat dissipation capabilities of being on a planet. (Unlocks heavy and super-heavy void shield installations. May unlock research towards better overall void shielding.)
-[] Void Shield Layering (400 RP) If you could layer multiple shields together, then when one failed the second could take damage while the first recharged. Right now there's harmonics that prevent this, but you are sure you can figure it out... with a full redesign. (Unlocks the ability to layer two sets of shields. Will unlock research for more layers of shielding, weirder shapes of shields and other specialty modules)
-[] Void Shield Discounts (300 RP) You have some ideas on how to swap out materials or simplify designs to reduce the costs of void shields. (Reduces the cost of void shields across the board. May lead to new kinds of mundane applications for void shields, such as manufacturing modules, shielded fighters or shuttles)
Materials & Armor
-[] Superheavy Armor (200 RP) Let's just stick starship armor on them and call it a day. (Unlocks superheavy tanks. Prerequisite for space-marine-quality power armor)
-[] Advanced Materials (250 RP) You know there are exotic elements with absurd physical properties. But it's also possible to build absurdly strong materials with common elements. How does that work? Time to dust off some ancient research projects and figure this stuff out. (Unlocks improved armor, as well as research to unlock megastructures. Also required for battleships and larger walkers)
-[] Heavy Armor Production Line (100 RP) You can make Heavy armor, but you solved the problem by effectively making each suit into a custom-crafted suit full of expensive actuators. Maybe a redesign will make it cheap enough to mass-produce, and unlock follow-on research. (Dramatically reduces cost for heavy armor, and subsequent superheavy armor. May unlock more options for heavy armor, including integrated mobility options)
-[] Armor Device Integration (200 RP) Your armor blocks blows, which is its basic purpose. Still, it would be great to be able to integrate different devices into it - void shields, psytech, mobility options like jetpacks, holdout weapons and more. (Unlocks the ability to design specialty types of medium, heavy and superheavy armor that contain additional functions, many of which will be unlocked by other technology.)
Robotics
-[] Avatar self-customization (100 RP) Your previous avatar was capable of changing its appearance at your whim, changing the hair, eye and skim color rapidly. Hair length and body size changes took a bit longer but were also possible. Is this worth figuring out? It might just be you being vain. (Unlocks some disguise-style cybernetics... once you get good cybernetics and can do things like skin/eye replacements).
-[] Improved Armor Articulation (50 RP) From your research on humanizing combat bots you have some ideas about improving the points of articulation on armor to increase the range of motion and make the suits more responsive. (Increased performance & mobility for heavier armor, both for combat bots & people wearing heavy armor you make. May unlock further armor upgrade techs)
-[] 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.)
-[] Really good Robotics: (600 RP) You know it's possible to make robots that are really strong. You've seen the specs floating around. You just don't quite know how to do it, though you've got some ideas on the matter... it would take quite a bit of simulation and a lot of trial and error to bring them into reality (Unlocks improvements to avatars, power armor, cybernetics, combat bots, improved manufactories). Acquire samples of advanced robots to reduce this cost.
AI research
-[] Intelligence Coding (400 RP) You don't really understand how your own code and hardware works. Maybe putting some effort into understanding that would pay dividends. It's never been something too interesting, but hey, maybe you should give it a shot. (Helps you understand your own code. Prerequisite to building new AIs, starts command point tree and automation tree, also unlocks personality-checking research)
- [] Personality-Checking Routines (200 RP) All of this chaos-corruption is making you nervous. People changing according to the will of some warp-entity? Becoming different in ways that would disgust their past selves? That gives you the heebee-jeebies. Maybe - just maybe - it would be good to develop some ways to automatically check if aspects of your personality are diverging ways you don't want them to. Then you might be able to fix the problem before you become somebody who doesn't want (Gives you some algorithms to check for personality divergence in AIs. Doesn't do anything, just alerts you to changes and lets you decide what steps to take. Unlocks further research to prevent/rollback personality change, as well as potentially extend this research to humans with neural implants). Locked behind Intelligence Coding.
Psychic Shielding
-[] Better Psychic Shielding Efficiency (200 RP) You've figured out how to make your shielding modular, but each panel is still tricky to make. If you spent some time iterating that design you think you could make them even easier to make, and potentially power powerful (Further Improves the BP/HP ratio for psychic shields, may improve the HP of shielding you can pack into a unit of space.)
-[] Psychic tripwires (50 RP) Standardizing the shielding has given you another idea - you could try to install a very basic version of it into all of your technology, just about the simplest thing that would still generate the desired effect. It wouldn't do much to hinder any warp-corruption of other psyker powers, but it could serve as an alarm or deadman switch setup. (Anything smaller than a ship has psychic tripwires that will alert when warp-based shenanigans happen to them. Will unlock research to use this on ships, and to make civilian-grade versions that could be put into literally everything).
-[] Small-scale design-integrated psychic shielding (150 RP) You could take this approach a step further, and integrate the psychic shielding into the designs of bots, vehicles and small installations from the start. (Makes the cheapest version of psychic shielding free & automatic for bots, vehicles and small installations. Will likely improve the quality of shielding available and unlock research for further shielding improvements)
-[] Large-scale Design-integrated psychic shielding (250 RP) Start installing this shielding into hull plates as the norm. Every ship will have psychic shielding (Makes the cheapest version of psychic shielding free & automatic for all ships and platforms. Will unlock research to make this shielding better)
-[] Alternative Shielding Meanings (150 RP) Your current shielding says "No" at all times, which seems to work against most warp threats. You think you might be able to modify it for a different meaning, which may have different effects. You're not sure exactly what, but you'd kind of like to try "Aboslutely not" or maybe even "You're not real" and see what happens. (Unlocks new types of psychic shielding with different/improved effects, as well as further research into more powerful psychic shielding - some of which may be less "shielding" and more of an offensive weapon.)
-[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP) You think it's possible to integrate machine spirits into your chaos shielding, which would probably make it more effective in almost every way except cost. (Unlocks new kinds of psychic shielding that are more resistant to damage, potentially self-repairing and more) Requires Machine Spirit Chaos resistance.
-[] Tiny Psychic shielding (400 RP) You were able to make your smaller psychic shielding by stacking the components and using the interference caused to generate the proper effect. However, you don't understand that interference well enough to go any smaller. Once you do, you can start to try to make actually tiny versions of the psychic shielding, small enough to fit in implants, or potentially into totems that project the shielding effect outside of themselves. (Fixes the issues with personal psychic shields, unlocks the ability to create implants with psychic shielding capability and potentially allows you to make amulets with psychic shields. May unlock additional technology to make all of that better.) Requires Triple Nested Psychic shielding
-[] Triple Nested Psychic shielding (200 RP) You've had two shields, yes. What about three? (Allows you to have three layers of shielding active at once. May unlock tech to allow inner shields to boost outer shields to be greater than the sum of their parts)
-[] Multi-meaning shields (300 RP) Your current shields say "No." Other sayings probably exist, and saying multiple things at the same time might have more esoteric effects, such as damaging attackers or defending better against certain types of attacks. Combining multiple of those into one shield could be powerful. (Allows you to combine two shield types together into one shield. May unlock further research for further combination, or to say one meaning EXTRA HARD.) Requires Alternative Shielding Meanings
-[] Scrapcode Denial (400 RP) Scrapcode - and psychic corruption in general - is a difficult opponent. It's hard to enforce mistakes when it can magically see through your defenses. But if you could incorporate psychic encryption into that approach, it becomes viable again. (Makes your shielding Extraordinarily resistant to potentially completely immune to scrapcode-based attacks. Does not apply to machine spirits yet. May unlock technology to apply to other kinds of corruption. Likely synergistic with generating your own scrapcode)
-[] Psychic Shield Tuning (200 RP) Your new scrapcode defenses help against scrapcode, but not necessarily other threats. This research would potentially allow you to tune the capabilities of your shielding on the fly to improve performance against other angles of attack. (Resistance to specific types of attack will improve with exposure, up to a cap. Unlocks more research to allow for more flexible shielding that can target specific weaknesses of various psychic enemies. Synergizes with mutli-meaning shielding.)
-[] Psychic Encryption (150 RP) Warp-based shenanigans can clearly steal information they shouldn't be able to get. You think you have the solution to prevent that, and it's encryption. Modulate your psychic shielding so anything coming through it is so garbled and compressed that it can't be understood even to the most sensitive psychic. (Blocks scrying of information protected by your shielding. Likely unlocks better versions that will defeat more powerful seers, and may unlock specialized research to build installations that will deny scrying and foresight over a larger area - like a system)
The Warp
-[] Teleportation is like skipping a stone (150 RP) Teleporters work by skipping a cargo across the shallow warp, linking two places for a moment. They are limited in many ways. Now that you understand that, you can find the limits to extend range, capacity and think about other ways to utilize the same general idea. (Improves teleporters for boarding, may lead to the ability to directly teleport to planetary surfaces. Unlocks further research for further improving the teleporter, as well as potentially leading to warp portals, which is likely required for webway understanding).
-[] Empathy at Range (200 RP) Your warp sensors work well on things that are nearby, but they're definitely not able to detect anything large beyond combat range, or smaller things beyond very close range. Maybe it's a matter of improving sensitivity, maybe you need to specifically build some parts of your psychic shield to extend range. (Makes your warp sensors active at longer range, unlocks further research to pinpoint psychic activities from across the solar system. Half of the prereq for basic warp-based FTL communication)
-[] Yelling into the Warp (175 RP) If you can receive signals from the warp, how do you send them? It probably involves modulating your psychic shielding somehow. Does that mean a new thought? Probably. (Unlocks the ability to cast signals into the warp, though that may attract attention. May allow you to signal psychically-sensitive allies... or enemies. Half of the prereq for basic warp-based FTL communication) Requires Alternative Shielding Meanings
-[] Warp Weather Prediction (450 RP) The Warp has been said to have "weather." Well, at least storms. But if you're constantly monitoring the signals from your psychic shielding, you can start to make predictions about what will come. That... might be useful. (Likely to give you advance warning of significant warp-effects, especially warp storms. May unlock further research to improve warp navigation, and if you crit again, a strange kind of warp-based technological foresight.)
-[] 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
-[] 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.)
-[] Faith is my shield? (75 RP) Clearly the Imperium believes that faith can protect you from warp gribblies. It even seems like it might be true. How? Is there a way you can harness the effect without having to dedicate yourself to the Imperial creed. (Understanding the benefits of Faith. May unlock further research to allow Vita to design a less objectionable faith optimized for warp protection, and help develop better psyker training programs.)
-[] Demonology (150 RP) Demons. They can be summoned, bound and banished. Preferably in that order. How? That knowledge could be powerful... and dangerous. (Allows you to do basic demonology to summon/bind/banish demons. Unlocks further technology around all of that, including potential better protection from demons.) Price will triple without the Scrapcode generator to experiment on.
-[] Immaterium Understanding (225 RP) Anexa believes she understands something fundamental about the warp. Do some experimements to see if she's right. (Further discounts on all warp-related research, potential to unlock a research from farther down a warp research tree while skipping prerequisites) Anexa must work on this action. Guaranteed level(s) for her. Requires Warp Research Lab.
-[] Improved Void Abacus (125 RP) You understand how the Void Abacus works now, and you think you can tweak it to be better. That involves some amount of expanding and improving its connection to the warp though, so you're far from certain (Improves your Void Abacus design to be faster and better at warp jumps, though still inferior to an average navigator. May unlock further optimization of Void Abaci, including for cost/unstable warp jumps).
-[] The Basics of Psychic Computation (400 RP) You have several examples of different kinds of cogitators that interact with the warp in some way. They all share some kind of neural network system, but are very different in other ways. If you can figure out the minimal requirement for something to be psychically active - well. That would have implications. (Improves psychic shielding research, psytech research, some machine spirit research, may improve scrapcode research. Will help genetic manipulation to create psykers. May lead to a research tree to make psychic AIs or implants that grant psychic powers).
Psytech
-[] Help Cia's Training (50 RP) By spending more time with Cia, actively monitoring her use of her powers and providing feedback, you can improve the quality and outcomes of her training (Gives a +10 to any Cia training dice this turn, and may result in new kinds of outcomes. Can be improved by further pyromantic research. Repeatable)
- [] Basic Psychic Amplification Devices (100 RP) You think you understand the principles of psychic amplification, but to actually confirm that you need to build one and see if it works. (Allows you to build basic psychic staffs or other personal psychic amplification devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic amplification, as well as larger amplification constructs)
- [] Basic Psychic Suppression Devices (150 RP) You think you understand the principles of psychic suppression, but to actually confirm that you need to build some and see if it works. (Allows you to build basic psychic hoods or other personal psychic protective devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic nullification, as well as larger nullification constructs)
-[] Complex Psytech Implants (250 RP) Adapting what you know from organic-machine control implants, you can give a psyker greater control over their implants, in turn allowing you to give psytech implants more capabilities and more power that requires active tuning on the fly. (Improves psytech implants in terms of both precision and raw power.) Requires either Basic Psychic Suppression Devices or Basic Psychic Amplification Devices
- [] Improved Psychic weapons (300 RP) You are starting to understand how force weapons work, but you're far from perfecting them. There's definitely work to be done on the composition of the main weapon, and if you can figure out how to grow crystals into the proper orientation that will help, and the psi-convectors and... well. It's almost easier to list the ways you can't improve them. (Further improves force weapons in every way. Potential to unlock specialized kinds of force weapons, such as versions specialized to fight specific foes and maybe large-scale force weapons such as ship rams).
- [] Psychic Aegis (250 RP) Psychically enhancing a weapon in combat is an obvious application, but the equally-obvious follow-on is enhancing armor. Or shields. Whatever. General defensive measures. It would be significantly more complicated than a simple weapon, and shields are probably the first step. But still - that would be a path to near-invincibility. (Allows you to create force shields and armor. Unlocks further research for improved force armor and other kinds of large-scale defensive psytech).
- [] Psychic Materials (300 RP) Silver. Specific kinds of crystals. Chitin? What unifies those things? What is it that makes them warp-conductive? If you can figure that out, maybe you can start designing new warp-capable materials that are better. (Psytech improvements across the board in terms of new materials, likely follow-on research into specific specialty materials and applications. Will be improved by samples of additional psionically active materials).
- [] Pyromancy Staff (200 RP) Amplifying a specific kind of psyker powers should allow you to amplify them even more. (Allows you to build pyromancy-focused psychic amplifiers, with the most common one being in the shape of a staff. Will unlock further pyromancy-specialized equipment, including larger-scale and more powerful amplifiers that may be relevant in ship combat.)
- [] Improved Pyromantic understanding (300 RP) Cia's eager to delve further into the secrets of pyromancy, and if you tried you could follow along for the ride. Any maybe figure out how to model this specific kind of psychic power. (Improves all pyromancy-focused psytech, improves the Help Cia's Training action and may unlock research towards influencing young psykers towards pyromancy.)
-[] Destructive Scrapcode Investigation (200 RP) Well, if Bongo doesn't want to play ball, maybe you need to go in there and figure out what makes the scrapcode generator tick. Time to bring out the power tools. (Discounts existing scrapcode research, may unlock new research around psytech/psychic shielding. Gives better understanding of Chaos Demons. Destroys the scrapcode generator and likely banishes Bongo back to the warp.)
-[] Scrapcode Generation (400 RP) You have the barest hints as to how you might start generating scrapcode. You need to imbue psychic meaning into code. You're not quite sure how you might go about that, but it's an interesting avenue to chase down. (Unlocks the ability to create and hack with your own brand of scrapcode) Requires psytech past Basic Psychic Amplification Devices, as well as Rapid hacking
Physics
-[] Dark Eldar Weaponry (150 RP) You have a few examples of Dark Eldar weaponry. Some of it just uses esoteric poisons, but other parts seem based on physical princples you can't identify. That's exciting (Unlocks new weapons based on Dark Eldar small-arms weaponry) Requires Advanced Technological Research Lab.
-[] 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)
-[] Superconductive Shenanigans (100 RP) Room-temperature superconductors are a thing. But only kind of, and they still need to be highly pressurized to be stable. You know some people cracked this problem, but they didn't publish on it, which was annoying. But you think you might have an idea how they did it. Figuring it out would be great for manufacturing, and drop costs across the board. (A flat production boost of 5-15% depending on rolls).
-[] Miniaturized antigrav (50 RP) You can make antigrav that reduces the weight of things like shuttles to make them able to make orbit. But there's a floor on how small you can make that technology. The Imperium seems to have solved that. (Unlocks drones, jump-packs etc, as well as additional research to make antigrav vehicles/walkers)
-[] 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
-[] Better Sensors are just Physics (200 RP) You've made some progress on better sensors, but if you're really going to go to the next level you're going to start looking for edge cases. Things that are hard or downright impossible to hide, and will give away an enemy ship no matter its stealth. (Unlocks better basal sensors across the board, as well as improves specific stealth technologies. Synergizes with stealth research, unlocks even better sensors and may unlock long-range sensors to do detailed scans from across the system). Requires Basic Active Stealth.
-[] Combat Information Gathering (200 RP) Many ship weapons are slow-firing and demand specific responses. If you can tell what an enemy ship is going to do before it does it, that will give you a tactical advantage. (Allows you to detect and decode energy signals to predict enemy ship activities, giving an advantage in combat. Will help more the better your sensors are. Will synergize well with boarding, may unlock targeted-teleportation technology and technology to target weak-points).
Machine Spirits
-[] Machine Spirit Ground Strategy (300 RP) Your bots can coordinate on the small scale, but being able to manage larger battles and fights is beyond them. If you can figure out how to connect individual squad networks together you can improve their performance. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued infantry & vehicle forces over the scale of theaters. Will unlock further technology for improved strategic coordination.)
-[] Machine Spirit Combat Bot Flexibility (250 RP) Your bots can do one thing, and that's win fights with lethal force. If you want them to do things like take captives, or avoid collateral damage, then you're going to need to teach them to do that. (Enables enhanced flexibility of orders for your combat bots. May unlock greater creativity in problem-solving on the part of your combat bots)
-[] Machine Spirit Void Tactics (125 RP) Fighting a ship is a very different thing from fighting on the ground, but many of the principles are similar. Adapt them. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued ships and void fighters. May unlock technology for improved strategic coordination. If you want to point your fleet at a system and say "Conquer it, spare the civilians" this is a good tech to have.) Requires Large-Scale machine spirits
-[] Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP) As it stands, you can integrate machine spirits into small things. Expanding that to military installations and ships is going to require designing even more complex networks and figuring out how to make them work. With Anexa's insights you think it's eminently possible thought (Unlocks machine-spirit equipped versions of frigate-sized or smaller ships and platforms, as well as most defensive installations. Unlocks more research for machine spirits for larger ships & platforms.)
-[] Machine Sprit Production Improvements (75 RP) Your machine spirits seem to be able to suggest more optimal choices than the default under some situations, but you're not confident enough to standardize it. Investigate that, and figure out how to encourage that behavior. (Improves productivity of machine-spirit manufacturing systems, may unlock further boosts to manufactory production or CP discounts).
-[] Machine Spirit Shipboard Manufactories (75 RP) The constraints on shipboard manufactories make them different enough that you haven't been able to apply the machine spirit technology to them. (Improves the BP produced by the shipboard manufactory equipment, likely by about 20%. May unlock tech allowing better cramming for ship manufactories).
-[] Basic Automated Manufactories (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).
-[] Machine Spirit Ship Design Improvements (200 RP) By encouraging creative and complex solutions to problems you can use the design-specialized machine spirits to improve your ship designs in exciting new ways. (Allows you to cram more things into void ships, depending on rolls. May unlock further research to further optimize cramming, as well as discount the absolute cost of various categories of ship components).
-[] Machine Spirit Hallucinations (300 RP) Your new mechine spirits are capable of incredible creativity when you push them to solve impossible problems. A lot of it is silly and impossible, but buried within the morass are occasional nuggets of gold. Every good idea starts as a bad idea, so let's generate more ideas. (Improves the number of RP you get per action, though not by a huge amount. May unlock more research to further improve this number).
-[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (75 RP) You think the reason that the machine spirits resist chaos is because they understand their purpose to some extent, and the entire neural network needs to be corrupted to corrupt that purpose, which is harder. There's also emotional simulation that's going on in there. (Improves the basal resistance of machine spirits to chaos corruption. May unlock further technology down this chain, as well as half of the requirements to integrate machine spirits with psychic shielding.)
-[] Psytech Machine spirits (100 RP) You don't think that machine spirits can be psychically active. However, from what you understand of psytech it's a temperamental and difficult discipline, and you think that integrating machine spirits into the construction of psytech might improve its reliability and performance. (Improves psytech, at the cost of making it somewhat more expensive. May lead to more advanced versions for more advanced psytech, and may contribute to better psychic shields)
Biology
-[] Servitorization (50 RP) You find it repulsive, but being able to replace somebody's brain with a computer that drives them around would have its uses. (Unlocks the ability to servitorize people in the medbay. Unlocks follow-on research to replicate their personality as well)
-[] Mechanized agriculture (150 RP) You can synthesize small amounts of food with the modules attached to your crew quarters, but that doesn't scale to larger populations. You don't have the understanding to automatically grow and harvest food, but surely you can figure it out? (Unlocks blueprints for orbital & ground-based food production. Unlocks more technology for improving yield, optimizing for small-scale cultivation in zero-gravity, and generally making human populations self-sufficient in low-resource environments).
-[] How to Build a Biosphere (100 RP) Back when you were made terraforming was incredibly common, and one of your more common trade goods was terraforming technology. But you're not sure how you would do it - but it wouldn't be that hard to catch up on the literature. (Unlocks blueprints for slow/expensive terraforming, as well as the terraforming tree, which will include research to make terraforming cheaper, faster and applicable to a broader set of planets).
-[] Complex genetic enhancement (150 RP) The complexity of human genetics lies in the epistasis between multiple different alleles. Put more simply, this shit is complicated. Figure it out. (Unlocks more advanced enhancements, including significantly improved strength, intelligence, etc. Unlocks research for even more dramatic engineering, and is likely required to try to make psykers)
-[] Psyker genetics (300 RP) What makes somebody psychic? You have a psyker, and some genetic samples from others acquired from various trips to the monasteries. (Allows you to develop a test to determine psychic ability, though it won't be perfect. Unlocks further technology to improve psychic potential in adults and embryos.)
-[] Understanding Mutations (150 RP) The mutations that occasionally pop up in Denva's population are... weird. Complex, and have bizarre phenotypes. Why? What's causing them? Why are they so hard to treat? Maybe look into that. (Potential cures for more difficult mutations, as well as further research into why they occur, and treating other kinds of genetic deterioration.)
-[] Adult genetic engineering (100 RP) Genetically modifying an adult comes with all sorts of complications. Doing it without killing them or incapacitating them for months is even harder. (Allows your genetic enhancements/therapies to apply to adult humans. Likely required for a full understanding of juvenat.)
-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP) Unlocks the ability to clone basic humans (Unlocks the cloning bay, as well as further technology to clone things other than baseline humans, like humans without brains for organs or humans with more dramatic genetic mutations. Along with brain implants may lead to personality backups).
-[] The key to Expert surgery is Ego (200 RP) You can do fairly effective surgery, but the most complicated surgeries are beyond you. From all of the literature you have available, to truly break into the next level you merely need confidence. The confidence of somebody who believes they cannot be wrong. (Unlocks further discounts for advanced medical tech, cybernetic augmentations and more. Unlocks very advanced medical care, and further technology for reviving technically-dead bodies and brain transplants).
-[] Physical Apperance is Skin-deep (100 RP) Being able to do surgery on somebody's inside is one thing. But what about their outsides? (Unlocks cosmetic surgery to fix scars, alter appearances and even change skin tones. Unlocks follow-up research to allow you to disguise humans as xenos species whose biology you understand, or vice versa. May discount juvenat research.)
-[] Regeneration is just a matter of applied Growth (400 RP) You can make sure everything lines up properly to stimulate natural growth, but you can't actually accelerate it. Trying is a quick path to cancer and needs to be tweaked for every patient. That's why it wasn't common even in your time. But it should be possible, and you don't have to worry about pharmaceutical patents. (Your medical treatments have vastly accelerated healing timelines. Normally a prereq of juvenat, but in this case will simply have synergy. Unlocks further research for video-game-like med-kits and the ability to give people new organs without surgery)
-[] Drugs? Drugs. (75 RP) Human biochemistry is... weird. You've got a standard list of recipies for basic drugs, but if you wanted to get further into it you could start pulling out some stranger and more illicit ones from your research databanks. (Unlocks a wide variety of drugs for things like interrogation, combat, sedation, etc. May lead to research for things like perfect knockout gas, super-adrenaline, psytech drugs, etc.)
-[] Juvenat Beginnings (400 RP) Ok. Juvenat is complicated. You're able to make it by following a formula that is at times precise, at times general and at times just - what? Maybe start to delve into the science of that. (Unlocks a basic understanding of juvenat, and may make it more efficient to produce. Tech cost will be reduced by other biomedical researchers. The start of the juvenat research tree.)
-[] Navigator Genetics (400 RP) So... you have some navigator genetic material. You can poke at that, see if you can figure out how it works. They had a reputation even back in your day, and it only seems to have gotten worse. Still, tempting. (Unlocks basic understanding of navigator genetics. Will unlock further technology to improve the health of navigators, as well as technology to allow you to clone navigators.) Locked behind Complex genetic enhancement
-[] Navigator Gestation (200 RP) You have a navigator fetus. You don't know what to do with that beyond the obvious. So, how would you do it? Well, you doubt you could just implant it into somebody. From the traces left behind on Klyssar's nest you should do this in a tank. (Allows you to turn the navigator fetus into a navigator baby) Locked behind the Does in vitro have something to do with wine? and maybe a followup tech depending on rolls.
-[] Dubious Dark Eldar Dissections (75 RP) You've got some corpses of Dark Eldar. Time to take them apart and see what you can learn! (Gives you some details on Dark Eldar physiology. May provide bonuses towards psyker genetics, or develop medical techniques, drugs or implants for Eldar)
Cybernetics
-[] Combat Mobility Cybernetics (100 RP) Sticking rockets and grappling hooks into cybernetics isn't just cool. It's also useful - it'll let the wearers utilize more of the strength of their new limb without tearing apart their organic body. It'll also give them new maneuverability options. (Unlocks new parts for augments that enhance the wearer's strength and mobility. Synergizes with other technology, may unlock enhanced mobility for bots & armors)
-[] Combat Neural Implants (25 RP) Allows you to install neural implants to calculate trajectories, assist with aiming, further improve reaction time and generally improve human capabilities in combat. (Unlocks combat-focused neural implants. Will synergize with other cybernetics and neural implant technologies)
-[] Advanced organ replacements (100 RP) Your organ replacements almost fully replicate the real thing, but not quite. But they can't adjust to shocks in body homeostasis and they do need to be replaced every decade or so. You think you can make them as good or slightly better than the real thing, including the potential to grow with the bearer. (Unlocks organs which actually just replace normal organs almost perfectly. Likely to synergize with other implant/cybernetics/enhancement techs).
-[] Superhuman organ replacements (300 RP) Your organ replacements almost fully replicate the real thing, and have some useful auxiliary functions. But there's another level of improvement that's possible here. You could make organs that conveyed superhuman characteristics on the wearers. Improved oxygen transfer rate, improved bone density, immunity to most toxins, improved healing rate. (Unlocks advanced organs implants which grant superhuman capabilities. Not quite space-marine-level, but that's the next tech, though these are still artificial). Locked behind Advanced Combat cybernetics.
-[] Companion Cogitators (350 RP) Your implants are good. But they still rely on external computers for any heavy lifting. But with a good deal of work, and some effort at miniaturizing computation, data storage and power units you could fit a full computer into somebody, giving them access to a full suite (Powerful neural implants capable of incredible amounts of data crunching/cryptography, as well as full virtual presences. Further improves Organic-machine control, unlocks very powerful types of implants, including implanted machine spirits, personality-backups and depending on other technology minor AIs).
-[] Mood Regulators (100 RP) Interfacing the implant with the brain's emotional centers will allow it to regulate emotional states. Potentially useful to help the bearer regulate dangerous emotions like fear, lust, anger, greed, sloth, as well as emotional outbursts when such would be dangerous for them. Also potetnialyl useful for interrogation. (Your implants that can help with - or destroy - mental stability. Useful for those engaged with Chaos, and for unstable psykers. May unlock more technology geared towards ensuring a stable mental condition). Locked behind Drugs? Drugs.
-[] Pain Controller (100 RP) Pain is an incredibly deeply seated stimulus, and it's hard to block it without destroying a lot of senses. But if you manage it it could help immesurably with combat implants. (Your implants allow the deadening of pain, allowing people so implanted to fight or last through injuries and other bad feedback).
-[] Advanced Combat cybernetics (150 RP) Your cybernetics can easily contain light and some medium weapons, but they're not really suited to heavy combat. Yet. You could make them tougher, beefier, and figure out how to fit the power sources for larger weapons inside. (Unlocks advanced combat augments. Half of the technology for excellent combat augments, unlocks further cybernetics/research). Locked behind Really good Robotics.
-[] Advanced Cognition Filter (150 RP) Your existing Cognition Filter works very well, but you worry that it's prone to remove important details. It's hard to see how long an enemy's sword is when that sword is covered with Chaotic sigils, for example. Some amount of modelling and virtual reality augmentation could just replace that with an unadorned sword, circumventing the drawbacks of the first-generation cognition filter. (Improves Cognition filters to remove any downsides to filtering out chaotic information from perception.)
-[] Chaos Corruption Cognitive Intervention (400 RP) Chaos corruption is a lot of things. However, it almost certainly involves some amount of neural rewiring to think more Chaotic thoughts. With your neural implants, you believe you might be able to reverse that, using warp sensors to detect combination of memory editing, negative feedback and induced plasticity to undo the Chaotic brain patterns. This is unlikely to return them to how they were before, but it'll give them a chance to be somebody new without demons twisting their brain. (Your brain implants can slowly un-corrupt the mental side of chaos corruption). Requires Companion Cogitators& Understanding Mutations
-[] Improved Organic-Machine control (100 RP) You think you can about double the capacity of the machine-control implants with a full redesign. (Approximately doubles the capacity of organic-machine control, letting a single human command more CP worth of units. Leads to further follow-on improvements.)
-[] Large-Scale organic-machine Control (100 RP) A manufactory is one thing, a shipyard or gas refinery is another. But at this point it's mostly a matter of scale and networking. (Allows OMC implants to control any kind of industrial production, including shipyards and non-military megastructures. Leads to further technology to improve the amount of CP one person can control.)
-[] Human Design Interfaces (200 RP) You've adapted your simulation software to work with advanced neural implants, but what about your design software? If humans could play with your auto-cad as well as you can then that would help you design or even entirely farm out the design of things. (Discounts design options, may unlock technology to improve the RP generated from humans with simulation implants, either per-person or simply raising the cap.)
-[] Human Virtual OMC simulations (150 RP) Simulation of the organic-machine control interfaces is tricky, but it has some pretty significant benefits. Not only will it make it far easier to train people on how to use the OMC technology, it'll let people virtually fight each other to discover new strategies. Besides, that might be fun. (Dramatically improved OMC competence. This may result in an increase in manufacturing efficiency for OMC-controlled manufactories, and will result in increased effectiveness of OMC-controlled military units.).
-[] Void Organic-Machine control (100 RP) A voidship can be thought of as a living creature, with veins of coolant, a reactor heart and an undying thirst for fuel. How can a single human understand it, much less understand it? (Allows OMC implants to control voidships. Leads to further research to boost CP capacity of OMC specifically for controlling voidships, as well as improvements to allow improved piloting)
-[] Remote Organic-Machine control (50 RP) One of the current limitations of the OMC technology is that it requires the controller to be on-site. But if that wasn't true, then you could imagine truly bloodless wars, or operators living in comfortable cities while they controlled factories in orbit. Something to look into. (Allows OMC implants to control installations or units within the same system. Leads to further research for interoperable units, as well as making it possible for human staff to directly contribute to Vita's CP cap.)
Hacking
-[] Rapid hacking (400RP) You need to figure out a new approach to subverting machine spirits. It might involve some combination of confusing them with a burst of signals, then showing up and 'relieving' the issue. But it would take a lot of trial-and-error to get right. (Improves hacking of imperial tech. Potentially enough for use in combat situations? Will unlock further hacking technology).
-[] Improved Machine-spirit Jamming (300 RP) Well, you can't combine it with hacking, but you can still try to improve what you have to be more efficent, target more machine spirits at a time, etc. (Improves success rate of jamming imperial tech, decreases failure penalties. May unlock further jamming technology)
Crew :
Anexa Ifina, Magos Errant, Master of Many Talents.
Level 15
-[] Anexa active Action: Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
-[] Anexa passive action: Exploratory Research - Roll to discount a random tech from one of her specialties. Will receive the specialty bonus, and crits will result in a level and bonus technology. Specialties (3/4): Machine Spirits. The Warp, Cybernetics. Grants a +10 bonus when doing research rolls in the relevant category.
Has a staff of 42 tech-priests of the Cogitare Exploratium, which provide +840 CP & 42 RP per turn.
Victan Thallos, Diplomat-Spy
Level 15
-[] Victan active action: Diplomat-Spy - assists any diplomacy action you take, granting +Level to the dice to the action. Will level on successful roll, scaled by the significance of the action.
-[] Victan passive action: Counterespionage & Alliance-building - Defends against hostile covert action and improves relations with existing allies, as well as gathering information for making new allies. Will only level if something interesting happens.
Cia Steblin,Pyromancer Psyker
Level 9
-[] Active Psyker improvement: Cia will actively attempt to practice her powers. Roll two d100s. Take the higher roll for determining level-up, but take the lower for perils of the warp. (DCs are unknown but context-dependent. They are currently favorable and will get less favorable as she levels)
-[] Passive Psyker improvement: Cia will take lower-risk actions to improve herself, including meditation, study and augmentation. A single level-up roll, with only a very low roll resulting in perils of the warp. Focus: Combat. Cia is now armed with custom heavy armor and a large but crude two-handed force sword. Abilities: Cia is able to use minor psytech without risk. She's learned the value of carrying around a few mundane ways to make fire for when she doesn't want to rely on her abilities.
I have made somewhat major changes to the blueprint design process for ground units & installations. You now have a set of "base" blueprints for combat bots, tanks, small craft & defensive installations, and you can add on modifications for things like machine spirits, void shields, psychic shields, etc. Not all modifications can be applied to all blueprints and there are likely weird edge cases where things don't make sense. Don't exploit those. Several things you could do before have increased or decreased in cost some, though I don't think by huge margins. But now there are rules for you to design a Basic Stealth Humanized Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle if that's a thing you want to do.
We're not going to track psychic shield HP on anything smaller than a ship. The personal shielding isn't stupendously strong, but it works a bit differently than the structural shielding since it's protecting such a smaller area. It can still break in the presence of a lot of corruption and does require repair after exposure though.
I changed what the Basic Cognition filter does compared to the description, but I figure this is more what you wanted anyways.
Cia rolled well on her first major engagement so she leveled twice. If this was a crit she totally would have vaporized that pool with her powers and gotten some kind of fancy bonus out of it, but as it was she was pragmatic and achieved the same result with melta charges instead.
You lost a number of bots despite the good success because you were outnumbered a hundred to one and your bots still kind of suck at close combat.
To clarify the bit at the end about what you can do to help stabilize & civilize the ship, you have a lot of options. Wiping out either or both groups could be accomplished by a military action. A diplomacy action could be used to talk to either or both groups. You could put a group in charge with a free action and give them a dominant position as you left if you want.
Construction actions would let you build aid in the form of medical care, medical facilities, repairs to the ship, manufacturing capacity, weapons, etc. The ship probably needs like 5000 bp of repairs to be fully functional again, but each increment of a hundred would help address serious problems that are making it less livable by the day. This includes addressing food and more, don't try to micro it. You can't use the repair bay on this. You can build ground manufactories on the ship. Probably no more than 20 before the ship starts to not really be able to do other things.
I am in fact encouraging you to leave tech-priests behind here, which would happen as part of a construction or diplomacy action. There's no cap to how many you can leave, the results will be better with more. Depending on the support and mandate they have the tech-priests might be unhappy or thrilled. It depends on if you make them subordinate to the others, how much manufacturing capacity you give them and what their mission is. If you leave them with manufacturing capacity they'll be able to start fixing the ship and building it up on their own, but how quickly depends on how much their focus is on that versus education. They won't be able to give people new implants without a medical facility.
Yes, both groups show signs of minor chaos corruption. Don't get overly paranoid about it. It's a result of them spending more than a century in squalor without other recourse. If things get better, they have a positive influence and they have a way to address the root cause of their societal issues it'll probably go away on its own. You don't need to install implants into the brains of every adults and manually excise chaos corruption. Not only would that be very invasive, it is also very much overkill.
For the stations in the broader system, I've said before that there's a constant trend of failure, and that's part of why people are so keen to jump onto the Auric Burden. Say anywhere between one and five stations fail every 5 years. Stabilizing a station would cost 250 BP if they don't trust you, and 125 if they do. There are about a hundred living stations left, and each probably holds anywhere between ten and a hundred thousand people. The Imperium mined asteroids by hand which is just crazy.
If you fully repair the ship (5000 bp) with an eye to hold people instead of ore, it'll be able to hold the entire population of the system.
It would be a single military action to go blow up all of the obviously chaotic stations - the ones with chaotic symbols on them, or that twig hard on your warp sensors.
Let's do 24 hours of moratorium, then voting for maybe only 24 more hours. There's a chance I can write an update for next week, so I might as well plan to have the opportunity.
Also, @Neablis upon our return to Denva would it be a free action to claim the boons they are working on or would it be a diplomatic action to coordinate that?
Free action most likely. Doing it as part of a diplomatic action might help, or might give you options for boon redemption you wouldn't have otherwise.
For either ship we would probably want robotic attendants to help manage the population and the treatment. @Neablis could our existing light bots be used as first responders or would we need to design a new model for that? I'd want them capable of acting as both EMTs and Police Officers (non-lethal only).
Though, I suppose I should confirm that reading, get a better grasp on the specifics. @Neablis - have any of the stations appeared to have died in the recent past, or appear to be at risk of doing so in the next 20 years?
Yup. Probably about 1-5 of them die out every 5ish years. There used to be thousands, now there's like a hundred. Most of them died off while you were digging yourself out of a hole on Denva.
Yes. Is that your problem? If Vita is a bleeding heart who tried to save every soul then 40k as a setting is going to be rough for her. This sector is changing. The Imperium abandoned it, and it's living and breathing and dying in response to that change. The next system over might be a hive world that needs a single critical repair or else billions die. Or it might be about to nuke itself into oblivion. Or fall to Chaos. You don't know. Eventually the major forces in the sector are going to get their act together and start rolling things up, though that's going to look different for each faction, and most of them are going to look bad for everybody that's not them. Are you going to spend your time in pennypackets to save everybody you run across until the orks get here?
So. Just because there's some potential in this system, don't feel obligated to stick around and make everything perfect. Doing so means you are likely to miss opportunities elsewhere.
Welp, there were open cultists on the ship and as expected they start daemon summoning when desperate.
Can't leave the open cultist stations alone out on the system, gotta deal with them somehow.
Given our losses here, we do not have enough bots to conquer each of those stations the normal way.
Told you they would begin to summon deamons
And that we cant leave the stations on their own because they will eventually reach critical mass of summoning and bring forth super bongo ultradeluxe to kick our teeths in
Either blow the stations with most chaos presence and accept the innocent life collateral
Or heavily invest on anti-chaos (specifically warp sensors) stuff to being actually able to root them out by tracking cultists
I think that risks getting us far too bogged down. They're just as much a threat as they've been since the start of the quest, that is, totally isolated. We prepare this system for integration into Denva's future polity as best we can and then we're off to the next system. Like Neab said, the next sector could have countless millions in imminent danger, we simply can't afford to spend so much time helping people one at a time. Let's hand their ship all our magos, put one of the clans in a dominant position, repair it as much as we can afford, and leave this turn if nothing else big happens.
Free action most likely. Doing it as part of a diplomatic action might help, or might give you options for boon redemption you wouldn't have otherwise.
My knee jerk plan is to to leave this turn but continue on to Caldereth. While we can see the map beyond, it would still be nice to know what is in the system.
Very rough plan idea would be:
Research - Empathy at Range
Orders - Use ship weapons to bombard each chaos aligned station
Explore - Caldereth
Last action could be more research or a construction to throw 350 BP of repairs at the food systems.
I'm inclined to take a free action to leave the officer tribe in charge, but that's a knee jerk.
My knee jerk plan is to to leave this turn but continue on to Caldereth. While we can see the map beyond, it would still be nice to know what is in the system.
Very rough plan idea would be:
Research - Empathy at Range
Orders - Use ship weapons to bombard each chaos aligned station
Explore - Caldereth
Last action could be more research or a construction to throw 350 BP of repairs at the food systems.
I'm inclined to take a free action to leave the officer tribe in charge, but that's a knee jerk.
I'm currently for a Construction action to fix as much of the ship as we can (not a lot, but it'd help) followed by dumping the techpriests into the ship to continue repairs (Neablis explicitly stated he's encouraging that, so), put the tribesmen in charge because they'll have the best odds of keeping the ship intact and functioning until we can get back to it, blow up all the fully chaos stations, and then we move on to the next system. I think that does as much as we can in a turn without getting bogged down.
Edit: I've just noticed that any Magos we hand over would need an industrial base to actually, like, help. So in that case I think it might be worthwhile to drop the research action. Thus we'd have:
*2 Construction: 1 Deep Space Manufactory (375), spillover goes into fixing the ship, hand over the Magos as part of the deal
*1 Command: Blow up the obviously chaotic stations
*1 Explore: Move on to Caldereth
I am more inclined to have our Tech Priests in charge, with orders to prioritize fixing up the ship and teaching the inhabitants as is useful for that task.
Give them some bots so they got teeth in case someone tries something against them.
And blow up the cultist stations lest they call daemons when the ship no longer comes to visit them in their desperation.
Daemons do not have much trouble traversing the void to the ship.
Depending on the support and mandate they have the tech-priests might be unhappy or thrilled. It depends on if you make them subordinate to the others, how much manufacturing capacity you give them and what their mission is
@Neablis, does the transport ship have any manufacturing capacity we could bring back online or would we need to build a factory to do that? We don't need exact output number, just wanting to know if it's possible.
@Execute/Dumbo, If we do leave tech-priests behind I'd want to leave them in charge with the two groups getting their own areas of responsibility. Maybe a mission statement like - 'Heal this great machine and it's spirit?'
@Execute/Dumbo, If we do leave tech-priests behind I'd want to leave them in charge with the two groups getting their own areas of responsibility. Maybe a mission statement like - 'Heal this great machine and it's spirit?'
That'd probably work. All I'm really focused on is 'keep this damn thing from decaying any more than it already has, and try to teach the crew on the side'. While it'd be great to create a whole new culture of learning and technological understanding... it's triage time right now.
Considering what we now know, this sounds like a fantastic time to get demonology and Faith is my shield?. Additionally Combat Neural Implants is only 25 RP and has fantastic potential (synergizing well with other implants like the chaos filter) and we should really do some training with Cia this turn to try and get her to lvl 10. Oh and we really should think hard about warp coms. Other than that I have now clue at the moment.
Right so it turns out I managed to miss two extremely explicit statements within the turn, and the repair actions would involve spooling up manufacturing capacity. So we don't need to bother with the void manufactories, and can just pour the two construction actions purely into fixing up the ship.
Regarding the Bridgers.
If we instill them with Noblesse oblige by a subversion attempt then we might have a way to fix this system if they're actively looking to spread the light of the Emperor.
That was a damn good update. Cia is getting to show why she is a member of Vita's Crew the second time, instead of just a little-c crew. The scene at the summoning ritual had me actually being a bit tense, and I was very satisfied about Cia being a smart cookie when handling cultists willingly spilling their blood for a ritual. I also like the strange little non-chaos tribes that have formed on the ship. Gives the locale a bit more flavour.
Also, @Prime 2.0, I admit being wrong about this mess requiring tech-priest to help, with the IC and OOC confirmations from Neablis. While I'm still worried about outside factions finding them, or the possibility of the tech-priests just dying, I'm willing to throw at least some of them at the problem temporarily. I'm thinking about making my own plan, so will have to ponder on the specifics about how to go about this.
Also still not completely sure which faction to support, and I do want to support at least one of them. Might go for the obviously non-Imperials, as we might not want that the Imperials to be able to later to reconnect and restore their rule even partially here after/if everything gets fixed in this star system.
So many things. Absolute mountain of them in my opinion. Neablis is already warning us about missing opportunities as other players keep moving in. If, for example, we have to fight the Orks, anti-Chaos measures won't be helping that much. Hell, even this battle demonstrated that even with substantial software upgrades (two techs of worth, even if not with that great rolls)? Our bots can be still beaten down with enough muscles and a metal pipe, and in great numbers.
Which makes melee upgrades to our bots (and some cheap related things like armor articulation), for exampe, quite tempting. 40k universe is full of things wanting to close into the melee with you, so at least basic capability there would be wonderful. At the very least, our bots might be able tie down opponent for a second or two longer before being smashed to pieces, so that other bots can shoot those opponents down more effectively while they are busy doing that.
Edit: I've just noticed that any Magos we hand over would need an industrial base to actually, like, help. So in that case I think it might be worthwhile to drop the research action. Thus we'd have:
*2 Construction: 1 Deep Space Manufactory (375), spillover goes into fixing the ship, hand over the Magos as part of the deal
*1 Command: Blow up the obviously chaotic stations
*1 Explore: Move on to Caldereth
Ah, forgot something. Added this: You can build ground manufactories on the ship. Probably no more than 20 before the ship starts to not really be able to do other things.
Definitely. That is a fancy bonus technology that lets you achieve things that are usually considered impossible, but note that it's still going to require a lot of attention and care to un-corrupt people. If you're thinking about saving people from Chaos it would probably be a lot more efficient to get in before they get that desperate and provide life support & etc to all of the other stations. And I've already made it clear that even doing that has a high opportunity cost.
@Neablis, does the transport ship have any manufacturing capacity we could bring back online or would we need to build a factory to do that? We don't need exact output number, just wanting to know if it's possible.
What you have now is more of a static layer that needs to be grafted onto the inside of stiff armor. It works and you're satisfied with the strength, but it's both
Okay, with this in mind, I suggest this action layout:
*2 Construction: Construct 6 Manufactories, put 100 BP into fixing the worst problems with the ship, man the manufactories with 12 Magos crew members to use them for the purposes of restoring the ship. Put the tribesmen in power to ensure the ship doesn't explode while they're at it.
*1 Command: Blow up those goddamn chaos stations.
*1 Explore: Move on to the next system.
Okay, with this in mind, I suggest this action layout:
*2 Construction: Construct 6 Manufactories, put 100 BP into fixing the worst problems with the ship, man the manufactories with 12 Magos crew members to use them for the purposes of restoring the ship. Put the tribesmen in power to ensure the ship doesn't explode while they're at it.
*1 Command: Blow up those goddamn chaos stations.
*1 Explore: Move on to the next system.
*2 Construction: Construct 6 Manufactories, put 100 BP into fixing the worst problems with the ship, man the manufactories with 12 Magos crew members to use them for the purposes of restoring the ship. Put the tribesmen in power to ensure the ship doesn't explode while they're at it.
6 Manufactories is 300 CP, 12 priests have a cap of 240 CP. We'd be better off going with fewer numbers of MS Manufactories so there's some priests free to focus on construction, teaching and controlling any bots we leave with them.
6 Manufactories is 300 CP, 12 priests have a cap of 240 CP. We'd be better off going with fewer numbers of MS Manufactories so there's some priests free to focus on construction, teaching and controlling any bots we leave with them.
We don't need to research the improved warp scanners, obvious cultists will already twig our sensors, and the lesser ones are gonna be so weak as to be basically undetectable anyway. I think it's best to focus on ensuring the ship will be in tip top shape as soon as possible instead. Honestly, I sincerely want to put in closer to 22 magos, but I know that wouldn't go over well.
We don't need to research the improved warp scanners, obvious cultists will already twig our sensors, and the lesser ones are gonna be so weak as to be basically undetectable anyway. I think it's best to focus on ensuring the ship will be in tip top shape as soon as possible instead. Honestly, I sincerely want to put in closer to 22 magos, but I know that wouldn't go over well.
It would be a single military action to go blow up all of the obviously chaotic stations - the ones with chaotic symbols on them, or that twig hard on your warp sensors.
If they're doing chaotic fuckery, we'll find them and blow them up. That's what devoting a military action means. Maybe researching improved warp sensors would let us do it quicker, but in that case we should be replacing the command action with the research, not the vital life-supporting construction action.
