Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

[F0lkL0re]

You know thinking on it this may one of the better places to research Demonology at as there seems to be little here for Bongo to effect and if we build a Warp Research Lab with psychic shielding in orbit then that will technically be three layers it needs to get through to get at Vita, and on that note @Neablis do we need to spend RP to add psy shields to a warp lab? because I can't find anything on whether or not it just requires adding extra BP when building it or spending RP on a design in the turn info.

 

[Angle]

You know thinking on it this may one of the better places to research Demonology at as there seems to be little here for Bongo to effect and if we build a Warp Research Lab with psychic shielding in orbit then that will technically be three layers it needs to get through to get at Vita, and on that note @Neablis do we need to spend RP to add psy shields to a warp lab? because I can't find anything on whether or not it just requires adding extra BP when building it or spending RP on a design in the turn info.

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If we follow the plan I laid out, then I'm down to build a warp lab here next turn and research Demonology then, sure. We can even stay and do Immaterium Understanding afterwards, if people really want to. I still think we'd get better results on it by unlocking more tech first, but okay, whatever, we don't have to get too hung up on it.

 

[LightLan]

[] Plan: lot of little improvements
-[][FREE] Refit the 7x manufactories to 7x Machine-spirit Manufactories (630 BP), Outer Hull 232/240 HP -> 240/240 HP (40 BP), Bongo Oubliette 535/540 HP -> 540/540 HP (25 BP), 305 BP left.
-[] Explore: Sector governor's palace with light and heavy bots and Cia via drop pods and assault shuttles. Use fighters to distract and disable orbital defenses.
-[] Construction (600 VBP / 500 LC):
--[] Gas Masks to give the locals (100 BP)
--[] build drop pods (?? BP) and any other needed or helpful equipment for exploring the governor's palace.
--[] MS Manufactory up to 3x (360 BP) depending on costs for drop pods and other equipment for the explore-action
-[] Research x2 (400 + 75 + 20 = 495 RP)
--[] Boarding Capabilities (100 RP)
--[] Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Efficient Equipment Distribution (100 RP)
--[] Improved Passive Stealth (50 RP)
--[] Basic Ground force stealth (50 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (41/75 RP) -> (75/75 RP)
--[] Mothballing (50 RP)
--[] Combat Neural Implants (25 RP)
--[] Machine Spirit Hallucinations(11/300 RP)
-[] Anexa active Action: Research
-[] Victan passive action: Counterespionage & Alliance-building
-[] Cia deployment on sector governer palace
-[][Cia] Focus
-[][Quorath] Goods (6 Void Shields), Other (1k Heavy Bots)

 

[F0lkL0re]

I still think we'd get better results on it by unlocking more tech first, but okay, whatever, we don't have to get too hung up on it.

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Dude this is the first time I've mentioned doing this sort of thing at all so I don't understand why your taking that kind of tone with me.

Personally I wouldn't mind developing some more techs as well but with the conditions here and how it's build up power again I feel that this seems like an opportune moment to build a warp lab and have at that's all no need to get all stroppy with me about it.

 

[Angle]

Dude this is the first time I've mentioned doing this sort of thing at all so I don't understand why your taking that kind of tone with me.

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Sorry, I'm just frustrated in general and bad at talking to people. You can read my deal here if you're curious.

--[] Efficient Equipment Distribution (100 RP)
--[] Mothballing (50 RP)

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Can I convince you to leave these until we get back to Denva? We can't really use them until then, and they've probably researched them for us - and we could fit Alternative Shielding Meanings in their place.

 

[Haganeko]

I mean, I'd love to do stuff here - but Wayfarer means we also need to go exploring. So, by far the best way we can invest in a static location long term is to get warp comms, so we can do stuff remotely while exploring.

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Automation is also an option, as is just behaving like a snail and bringing everything we need with us.

Can I convince you to leave these until we get back to Denva? We can't really use them until then, and they've probably researched them for us - and we could fit Alternative Shielding Meanings in their place.

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I think we can use the distribution tech—it would mean refitting the whole equipment structure, but we can.

 

[dgr11897]

I kind of want to get fully autonomous Manufacturies and drop some manufactury makers somewhere and pop out our own discount, or not so discount, forgeworld. This is maybe a good candidate planet for that, since the planet being manufacturies would probably help with the stank. Or at least a small portion of the production can go towards sealed shelters from it.

 

[F0lkL0re]

Draft plan for everyone's consideration

[] Plan Hi-diddly-ho, neighborino please ignore the box of doom in the sky
-[] [repair bay] [Free] fix the damage to the psy shields and use the remaining capability to swap ship manufactories for machine spirit manufactories
-[] Diplomacy: introduce ourselves to the locals, see what aid they need and if they know anything about the governors vacation palace or if the Imperials left behind anything of interest.
-[] Construction X 2
--[] orbital warp lab with psychic shielding ( BP)
--[] BP of aid for the people of Calderath
-[] Research
--[] Variety is the Spice of Life (50 RP)
--[] Improved Armor Articulation (50 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (34 RP)
--[] Intelligence Coding (50 RP)
--[] Basic Ground force stealth (50 RP) 16RP
-[] Anexa's and the Tech Gremlins Research
--[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (75 RP)
-[] Victan active action: assist in diplomacy
-[] Cia Active Psyker improvement

Sorry, I'm just frustrated in general and bad at talking to people. You can read my deal here if you're curious.

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It's alright being on the spectrum can be all kinds of not fun just remember to consider taking a break for a bit if you start to get overly frustrated.

 

[MrRobot]

That planet is possibly the worst option to a manufactory center. It's a ocean wrold, it do proces "Yes" fold trough so qt the long term you would want a orbital ring on it with a full population but that is not something feeseble on the near future.

 

[Angle]

Automation is also an option, as is just behaving like a snail and bringing everything we need with us.

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Yeah, but both of those are as expensive, or even more so, for worse results.

I think we can use the distribution tech—it would mean refitting the whole equipment structure, but we can.

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Okay, yes, but that would be super expensive for limited returns. Better to just do other things and wait a few turns.

I kind of want to get fully autonomous Manufacturies and drop some manufactury makers somewhere and pop out our own discount, or not so discount, forgeworld. This is maybe a good candidate planet for that, since the planet being manufacturies would probably help with the stank. Or at least a small portion of the production can go towards sealed shelters from it.

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That requires a lot of techs. Like,

-[] Independent Manufactories (400 RP) Your manufacturing machine spirits are pretty good at being independent but still require some direction on sourcing materials, and various types of blockages. If you give them more independence then they'd need even less management. But at the same time, building in that much independence would require appropriate safeguards so they didn't go off the rails. (Further reduce CP requirements of machine-spirit manufactories).

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-[] Basic Automated Manufactories (150 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, and flexibility, remove the CP requirement, as well as allow the automated manufactories to produce ships, installations and eventually megastructures).

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At least, probably more - the first says reduce, not eliminate, so we'll probably need more tech to make them fully independent. Then we'll need a follow on tech to let them make installations, and probably another follow on tech to make those installations automatically configure themselves to make more installations? And then whatever it requires to let this whole thing actually defend itself, and maybe also something to harden it against hacking... It's not a small investment. Though if we get warp comms and then just spend an action on it every couple of turns, it gets way, way easier.

 

[BigBadBob7070]

Sadly can't do Biosphere

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I'm sorry, but you want to have Manufactorums terraforming a planet without knowing how to terraform a planet?!!?

 

[Angle]

It's alright being on the spectrum can be all kinds of not fun just remember to consider taking a break for a bit if you start to get overly frustrated.

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Yeah, and I do that - but I have to balance it against other things, or I would simply never do anything.

That planet is possibly the worst option to a manufactory center. It's a ocean wrold, it do proces "Yes" fold trough so qt the long term you would want a orbital ring on it with a full population but that is not something feeseble on the near future.

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Eh, Neablis didn't say anything about us being limited in how many manufactories we can put on it or how effective they'd be, right? And with most of the planet up for grabs, we have plenty of space to build without the locals even being able to notice.

 

[dgr11897]

At least, probably more - the first says reduce, not eliminate, so we'll probably need more tech to make them fully independent. Then we'll need a follow on tech to let them make installations, and probably another follow on tech to make those installations automatically configure themselves to make more installations? And then whatever it requires to let this whole thing actually defend itself, and maybe also something to harden it against hacking... It's not a small investment. Though if we get warp comms and then just spend an action on it every couple of turns, it gets way, way easier.

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Unless we have some human operators, part of why this is a good location for a discount forgeworld. There's a population here who we could recruit to direct and maintain the system. It'd take some diplomacy and training, but I think they'd be willing to do it, since it'd probably help a lot with the Stank if they replace the oceans of rotting seaweed with oceans of metal and machinery. They get a portion of the output to help manage their own situation and in exchange they build out the manufacturies as much as they can.

 

[Prime 2.0]

I use the ground force stealth in the design of the Spector light bot, which cannot have stealth without it.

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Oh, whoops! Honestly I totally glossed over the bot design and assumed it was some kind of in-atmosphere craft for flying under the radar or something lol. Sorry about that.

Unless Hallucinations is very very weak, I don't think that's true. Even if your assumptions hold.

Consider, if it gives us 25 RP per action. Which would be not great.

How big a discount do you think AI will give, out of 300 RP for hallucinations? Compared to how many actions delay?

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Going from black box trial and error research to "actually, I have a theory about why this is happening, let's test that and work from there" is an extreme increase in efficacy. It would not be surprising if the RP cost was chopped in half outright, but I'd definitely expect no less than 50.

Which, considering intelligence coding is a 400 RP project which we can do in 2 actions, is quite fine - and supposing that we finish it and get that discount, hallucinations is basically going to be an autopick, especially in the current context where we have no crisis on our hands and are otherwise about to do our victory lap heading back to denva.

That said, why wouldn't 25RP/action be great? Given a typical 2 research turn, that's 50/turn for us, and who knows how much for Denva. But maybe we can find out ahead of time?

@Neablis , what's the ballpark range of RP/action bonus from MS hallucinations? And, would Intelligence Coding discount researching MS Hallucinations? (and if so, in what ballpark would that discount be?)

 

[Angle]

Unless we have some human operators, part of why this is a good location for a discount forgeworld. There's a population here who we could recruit to direct and maintain the system. It'd take some diplomacy and training, but I think they'd be willing to do it, since it'd probably help a lot with the Stank if they replace the oceans of rotting seaweed with oceans of metal and machinery. They get a portion of the output to help manage their own situation and in exchange they build out the manufacturies as much as they can.

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We'd need educated operators, which is it's own difficult problem - these people are pretty primitive, so it'd take a lot of education to get the operating manufactories.

 

[MrRobot]

Eh, Neablis didn't say anything about us being limited in how many manufactories we can put on it or how effective they'd be, right?

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We got a 99 on the survey if the planet was meant to be prone to industry it would be noted. For the fact it was show with the 10 max orbital industry discount.

Nothing narratively says here is particularly profitable to build manufactory instead last system or your actual target denva primus.

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There's one way I see myself eating crow and that is if for some reason the segmentum governor beach house can be converted on a giant factory with a 90% discount or something but being honest i find that unlikely.

 

[Angle]

We got a 99 on the survey if the planet was meant to be prone to industry it would be noted. For the fact it was show with the 10 max orbital industry discount.

Nothing narratively says here is particularly profitable to build manufactory instead last system or your actual target denva primus.

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Sure, but 'Regular world where you can build as many manufactories as you want with no bonuses or penalties' is pretty good - if we could stick around and use them.

I suppose that is the part that's particularly good - 'You can just do what you want here and nobody will even notice, let alone care'.

This still gets us a 1.50 scaling factor, compared to the last systems 1.33, not counting the ship. Quite competitive. Not Denva Primus's 1.75, but still very good.

 

[MrRobot]

Sure, but 'Regular world where you can build as many manufactories as you want with no bonuses or penalties' is pretty good - if we could stick around and use them.

I suppose that is the part that's particularly good - 'You can just do what you want here and nobody will even notice, let alone care'.

This still gets us a 1.50 scaling factor, compared to the last systems 1.33, not counting the ship. Quite competitive. Not Denva Primus's 1.75, but still very good.

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The last system also have a indefite production bonus, and was not majorly a ocean wrold, remember the time on Denva where space was a concern at the time? We will be running on problema with ground manufactories eventually, by nature they do not have a escalation of "yes" they have a escalation of "as much factory footprint you can have".

 

[Angle]

The last system also have a indefite production bonus, and was not majorly a ocean wrold, remember the time on Denva where space was a concern at the time? We will be running on problema with ground manufactories eventually, by nature they do not have a escalation of "yes" they have a escalation of "as much factory footprint you can have".

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Not compared to this! I just gave you the numbers - after bonuses, the last system was a 1.33 scaling factor, which is the most important number, while this one offers us a 1.5, which is way better. Not counting the ship from the last system, but that was explicitly a limited opportunity that would have to trade off against other things.

Which isn't to say I particularly want to build here - I want to get warp comms and go back to Denva. But if we want to build somewhere and don't want it to be Denva for some reason, then this is probably our second best option.

 

[Haganeko]

Yeah, but both of those are as expensive, or even more so, for worse results.

Okay, yes, but that would be super expensive for limited returns. Better to just do other things and wait a few turns.

That requires a lot of techs. Like,

At least, probably more - the first says reduce, not eliminate, so we'll probably need more tech to make them fully independent. Then we'll need a follow on tech to let them make installations, and probably another follow on tech to make those installations automatically configure themselves to make more installations? And then whatever it requires to let this whole thing actually defend itself, and maybe also something to harden it against hacking... It's not a small investment. Though if we get warp comms and then just spend an action on it every couple of turns, it gets way, way easier.

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The results aren't worse—with warp comms we'd still need to spend CP (which means being CP capped) and spend the actions building things, while automated manufactories would need an action to queue production and naught else. Additionally, I doubt the first tech for warp comms would immediately allow seamless long-distance production.

As an extra issue, even if we encrypt our comms, there would still be things obviously being consytantly transmitted through the warp, and I have no doubt that would attract attention.

Oh, and taking stuff with us is basically free—Denva owes us some manufacturing, we use it to build factory/assembler ships, and we're golden. Would need Machine Spirit Shipboard Manufacturies and probably Void Abacus Manufacturing, but that's fine.

I'm sorry, but you want to have Manufactorums terraforming a planet without knowing how to terraform a planet?!!?

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That was a mistype. You can see I have How to Build a Biosphere in the plan.
EDIT: Actually, it wasn't; you took it out of context. Please reread my post.

Not compared to this! I just gave you the numbers - after bonuses, the last system was a 1.33 scaling factor, which is the most important number, while this one offers us a 1.5, which is way better. Not counting the ship from the last system, but that was explicitly a limited opportunity that would have to trade off against other things.

Which isn't to say I particularly want to build here - I want to get warp comms and go back to Denva. But if we want to build somewhere and don't want it to be Denva for some reason, then this is probably our second best option.

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Deep space manufactories are inherently stealthy, ground manufactories and that station aren't.

Additionally, Large-Scale Void Manufacturing could make it much more efficient. And this is before we take into account the possibility of scaling for longer.

 

[Angle]

The results aren't worse—with warp comms we'd still need to spend CP (which means being CP capped) and spend the actions building things, while automated manufactories would need an action to queue production and naught else. Additionally, I doubt the first tech for warp comms would immediately allow seamless long-distance production.

As an extra issue, even if we encrypt our comms, there would still be things obviously being consytantly transmitted through the warp, and I have no doubt that would attract attention.

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Hmm, points... I still think it's worse overall, but not *strictly* worse. And the 'attracts attention' thing could be a problem, yes. We'll attract attention eventually no matter what we do, but warp comms might bring the timetable forwards by a few turns? But it also lets us bring our preparations forwards by a lot, and it means we'll have much better ability to surveil the area, so I think it's still much better overall.

 

[MrRobot]

Not compared to this

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Im gonna be honest im don't quite buy on this calculation, they are based on the current tech costs and ignore a major upgrade. By the standard set there's no reason to make anything but ground factories wich is honestly bad game desing. Call it unfounded gut feeling if you want but i don't found a all that convincing argument.

 

[Angle]

Im gonna be honest im don't quite buy on this calculation, they are based on the current tech costs and ignore a major upgrade. By the standard set there's no reason to make anything but ground factories wich is honestly bad game desing. Call it unfounded gut feeling if you want but i don't found a all that convincing argument.

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You mean the boost to MS manufactories? That just brings MS manufactories into being in line with regular manufactories in terms of BP produced / BP cost. See:

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. +60 ground-based build capacity.

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Both are 0.5 now, where previously the MS ones were worse.

And yeah, at the moment I don't think there's much reason to make anything but ground manufactories. That's how the numbers work out - and probably why Neablis gave us the ability to make ground manufactories on our flagship, or on the Auric Burden last system. As we research more techs that will likely change, but that requires a significant RP investment we haven't made yet.

 

[Aineko]

Can I convince you to leave these until we get back to Denva? We can't really use them until then, and they've probably researched them for us - and we could fit Alternative Shielding Meanings in their place.

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Why would Denva have researched those? Did you indicate the right techs?

Going from black box trial and error research to "actually, I have a theory about why this is happening, let's test that and work from there" is an extreme increase in efficacy. It would not be surprising if the RP cost was chopped in half outright, but I'd definitely expect no less than 50.

Which, considering intelligence coding is a 400 RP project which we can do in 2 actions, is quite fine - and supposing that we finish it and get that discount, hallucinations is basically going to be an autopick, especially in the current context where we have no crisis on our hands and are otherwise about to do our victory lap heading back to denva.

That said, why wouldn't 25RP/action be great? Given a typical 2 research turn, that's 50/turn for us, and who knows how much for Denva. But maybe we can find out ahead of time?

@Neablis , what's the ballpark range of RP/action bonus from MS hallucinations? And, would Intelligence Coding discount researching MS Hallucinations? (and if so, in what ballpark would that discount be?)

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As I said, if our next three actions researched the AI tech and the Hallucinations, then you might have a point - though I don't see why you've decided that AI principles are machine spirit principles.

However, also as I said, I absolutely do not believe those researches being done immediately and back to back will happen. At which point you need a higher discount to yield ratio for your "waiting pays off" argument to hold water. I am trying to not have the RP bonus pushed off into infinity. You dragging a more-expensive, long-avoided tech in as a self-imposed prerequisite is a pretty direct opposition to that.

25 per action, so 12 research actions before the research makes us better off than not doing the research, would not impress. I do believe that might be the result, though! Very little is certain.

 

[MrRobot]

You mean the boost to MS manufactories?

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No the redesign of space manufactories that take advantage of the zero G environment.

Here
Large scale Void manufactories.

[] 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).

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