Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

SirKana · 2025-02-10T06:52:54-0500

Neablis said:
Battlebarge is subset of Battleship. So it's GC->Battleship->Dreadnaught->Worldship. Dreadnaught and worldships are both basically just "Fuckoff big." The line between them is where the ship starts to have a noticeable amount of gravity. I don't think craftworlds are that big? That's more World Engine-type stuff.

Craftworlds vary in size but they are basically miniature planets, like world-engines. Both vary in size to a degree so some Craftworlds are bigger than some world-engines I'd imagine.

Craftworld

"A craftworld is a sentient being, with a hundred thousand minds." —High Inquisitor Czevak A craftworld is a vast, planetoid-sized spacecraft populated by the Asuryani faction of the highly advanced humanoid species known as the Aeldari. The craftworlds travel through the void of space at...

warhammer40k.fandom.com

"A craftworld is a vast, planetoid-sized spacecraft"

TheBarrometer · 2025-02-10T06:53:36-0500

I 100% think we should keep the Necrons because its fun, and 200% bombard the orks and kill them long in advance.

We could presumably look up Orks in our databanks because I imagine they were found (and known to be hostile) before we went afk for a few thousand years

F0lkL0re · 2025-02-10T06:56:18-0500

TheBarrometer said:
We could presumably look up Orks in our databanks because I imagine they were found (and known to be hostile) before we went afk for a few thousand years

We already did that and Vita was more then a bit shocked at what happens when you leave Orks alone for long enough.

Hentaiwizard · 2025-02-10T06:58:43-0500

WHY THE FUCK WAS A PIECE OF THE EMPERORS ARMOUR HERE???? HOW DID IT GET HERE?????

F0lkL0re · 2025-02-10T07:04:51-0500

Hentaiwizard said:
WHY THE FUCK WAS A PIECE OF THE EMPERORS ARMOUR HERE???? HOW DID IT GET HERE?????

It's probably just a random piece of Auramite most likely from a Custodes armour rather then big E's after all each Crux Terminatus is supposed to have a piece of his armour in it as well but if you were to add all of those together you would probably have enough to armour several Emperors.

Varzifar · 2025-02-10T07:12:30-0500

Caldereth blocks access from subsector Tiran to our subsector.
Since there seems to be an Ork presence in Tiran, I think we should leave tech priests (all? I'm not sure how many we still have on board) and manufactories on the planet, with instructions to fortify it using anti-orbital lances, bunkers, bots, etc., while we return to Denva. They will probably only provide a speedbump if there is an Ork attack, but if we go back to Denva, they can send support to relieve them. The continued presence of our tech priest should also make it easier for Denva to gain a foothold in the system.

If we do [][Stankberg] Learn, the tech priests can also help them set up their new manufactory and uplift/recruit from the population.
I also think that instead of researching more terraforming tech, we should research the manned ship and give the blueprint to the people of Caldereth so they can fix the problem on their own. Do they even know that the problem is caused by the seaweed rotting?
Doing it themselfs seems to me like a nice uplift task in that they can do it without much help (because of the masks), but it requires them to learn a reasonable amount of new skills(manufactory operation, production scaling).

TheBarrometer · 2025-02-10T07:35:38-0500

F0lkL0re said:
We already did that and Vita was more then a bit shocked at what happens when you leave Orks alone for long enough.

Shows how good my memory is, thanks. So we already know to shoot first and send decontaminants second?

F0lkL0re · 2025-02-10T07:39:50-0500

I'll admit I kind of want to board the Orks to see what we can grab from their ship.

BeepSmile · 2025-02-10T07:51:54-0500

When it comes time for Cia to report on her research she looks down and kicks at the sand with a bare foot. "Ah, yeah. It - didn't work. The computational requirements were

@Neablis Cia should be Anexa here?
---
First thought: Try and get into position to blow them out of the void. Blow them out of the void.

Second thought: Try and contact them while approaching: with a bloodthirsty grin "Well ya gits! Heard there were some good scrappers in the area! Don't suppose you got any maps that can point me in the direction of yer warboss? Me and my mates want to know where we can go for a proppa foight!"

Get maps/information (if in person, send over only avatars/bots on a shuttle), (don't let the shuttle return to the ship until it has been checked over.)
If the data is not transferred not in-person, be prepared for psychically empowered hacking attempts.

Then blow them out of the void.

Picio · 2025-02-10T07:52:59-0500

Destroy the orcs and then collect some spores from the wreckage is the best option in my opinion.

DragonParadox · 2025-02-10T07:54:37-0500

BeepSmile said:
@Neablis Cia should be Anexa here?
---
First thought: Try and get into position to blow them out of the void. Blow them out of the void.

Second thought: Try and contact them while approaching: with a bloodthirsty grin "Well ya gits! Heard there were some good scrappers in the area! Don't suppose you got any maps that can point me in the direction of yer warboss? Me and my mates want to know where we can go for a proppa foight!"

Get maps/information (if in person, send over only avatars/bots on a shuttle), (don't let the shuttle return to the ship until it has been checked over.)
If the data is not transferred not in-person, be prepared for psychically empowered hacking attempts.

Then blow them out of the void.

Just send some insults and show them pictures of plasma armed bots blasting things, they are going to want to loot all the dakka and also they'd enjoy getting shot at with such rare and impressive guns.

F0lkL0re · 2025-02-10T08:00:43-0500

Proto plan for boarding the Ork ship

[] Plan
-[][FREE] if there's enough time convert the ships assault shuttles over to boarding shuttles and then reserve the rest of the bays repair capability for any incoming damage from the Ork ship
-[][FREE] Those robots look familiar check the databases for anything that might be related to them.
-[] Construction X 2
--[] 3000 Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (300 BP)
--[] 1000 Specters (100 BP)
--[] 3 Machine Spirit Manufactories (360 BP)
--[] 1 Manned Manufactory (100 BP)
--[] orbital warp lab with maximum psychic shielding (340/1500 BP)
-[] Research X2
--[] Boarding Capabilities (100 RP)
---[] reserve 50 RP in case of poor rolling here and if unneeded then use that RP for Advanced Technological Research Lab (50RP)
--[] Combat Bot Melee Combat (150 RP)
---[] reserve 95 RP in case of poor rolling here and if unneeded then use that RP for Gravity Weapons (200 RP)
--[] Combat Neural Implants (50 RP)
---[] reserve 50 RP in case of poor rolling here and if unneeded then use that RP for Intelligence Coding (50/400 RP)
-[] Anexa's and the Tech Gremlins Research focus
--[] Combat Neural Implants
-[] Victan active action: goad the Orks into coming close for a boarding action
-[] Cia Active: Cia is again in the second wave of fighting just like with the Auric Burden
-[] [Stankberg] Learn
--[] make sure that they have plans for the Manned Ocean Remediation Ship as well what's normally in the technical primers
-[][Orks] Destroy.

The tech lab is so that we can do the Dark Eldar tech research and since we have 2 spare slots right now we could upgrade our basic tech lab to an advanced one.

Why yes I am still a bit annoyed at the past poor rolls on research why do you ask?

EDIT: changed Gravity Weapons over to Combat Bot Melee Combat and Machine Spirit Chaos resistance over to Gravity Weapons

Dmol8 · 2025-02-10T08:07:24-0500

OK errors I noticed:

Neablis said:
You nod. "I'll be working on that, along with some better stealthtech to be sure that we can get close to the villa unobserved. But I want you working on combat implants. If Anexa's getting in a fight - or if you do - then I want you to be at your best."

The bolded should be Victan since Vita is talking to Anexa in this part and Cia already has combat training.

Neablis said:
It's never going to be perfect because EM reflection from a complex object is a chaotic solution space, but even a simple approximation of the solution should let you reduce the signal return dramatically. And seeing how it's done also gives you some ideas on how to

Paragraph just abruptly cuts off.

Neablis said:
You spend some more time reading about ocean chemical cycles, and come up with a potential solution. You need to sink the seaweed, bury it in the ocean sediment so its not actively being degraded. Over millennia it'll turn to coal and then oil, but that's not the point, you just need it to stop decaying now. One path to do that would be to make a microbe that could anaerobically degrade the seaweed, focused not on perfect recycling but rather on breaking up and sinking most of it. If the process works you could release the but and the world could be livable again in as soon as twenty years. If it all works.

The bolded is a word salad. Unscramble it.

Neablis said:
The resistance is light for a little while until it very much isn't. The locals have realized they're under attack and opened their armory, picking the positions with the perfection of people defending familiar terrain. You're still facing butlers and maids, but now they're dressed in flak armor and wielding weapons that any guardsman would be proud to carry. Their

Paragraph just abruptly cuts off.

Neablis said:
In short order, Cia breaches the last defenses and finds the servants quarters - and it's a scene of bloodshed. A woman stands before an alter and stabs herself in the heart while mouthing prayers, and behind her dozens more people of all ages are kneeling, heads against the floor as if in prayer. But the spreading pools of red around them tell the true story.

altar not alter this isn't Fate/Type-Moon.

Neablis said:
The inscription is simple. "Fragment of the Emporer's Armor."

Neablis said:
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. Khornish Cultist corpses & artifacts. The Hand of Saint Agatha. A dozen ancient metallic bots (pending vote). A chunk of auramite supposedly from the Emporer's armor.

Are the bolded and underlined misspellings of Emperor's intentional?

Neablis said:
When it comes time for Cia to report on her research she looks down and kicks at the sand with a bare foot. "Ah, yeah. It - didn't work. The computational requirements were too much."

Anexa not Cia.

Neablis said:
You all enjoy another few days in the sun before you get an alert that somebody has jumped into the system from the direction of

Paragraph just abruptly cuts off.

Also:

SigmaVanDyke said:
EDIT: I dont have an encyclopedic knowledge of 40K lore, But since we just picked up auramite and necrodermis, other than aeldari psychoplastics and Blackstone, what other supermaterials are still out there for us to find?

Of the top of my head there's phase-iron which is one of the pinnacles of the DAoT materials engineering and an anti-psychic material, but came to late to save Humanity from the Fall/Age of Strife and is now used by some Inquisitors/Inquisitor Lords as a prison/manacle/torture material.

Edit:

Forgot to respond to this:

Neablis said:
The nanoparticle aeresols thing is real. My research area is adjacent to terraforming, so I know quite a lot about it. Thus the complexity of the terraforming tree. Please don't be dissuaded how much is there - you're currently at a state where Vita could terraform Mars to be minimally habitable with 5-6ish actions of effort. If you research the microbes and the warming tech that'll halve and would also unlock the terraformation of Venus. Going even a little way into the tree will pay off if you ever want to terraform things, and it'll also be useful for other planetary-scale ecology projects. Such as reseeding a Tyranid-devoured planet or de-orking a planet, though those techs will actually unlock once you have firsthand experience with those problems. If you go a ways down the tree there won't be a lot of planets you can't terraform fairly easily. Pretty much the only requirement is a ball of rock with sufficient gravity to hold an atmosphere, and somewhere there's a forcefield tech that'll let you green an asteroid belt.

Alright physicist what does the lux calculation look like for something like that?

I'm a chemist, unless you can show me how such wavelengths interact at scale, depth and the Avogadro constant all I'm seeing in that article is physicists editing around the ideal gas law. Again.

Nightlord256 · 2025-02-10T08:16:13-0500

That was a fantastic update!

I'm going to nerd out about the Necrons and Auramite all day

On my phone so I'll do a detailed post later, but quick thoughts:

-keep the Necrons
--will need to quickly build advanced tech lab

-fight the orks
--develop melee robots?

-develop bacterial fix for planet

-Base some Cogitare out of the palace with control of the defenses

DragonParadox · 2025-02-10T08:16:44-0500

F0lkL0re said:
It's probably just a random piece of Auramite most likely from a Custodes armour rather then big E's after all each Crux Terminatus is supposed to have a piece of his armour in it as well but if you were to add all of those together you would probably have enough to armour several Emperors.

To be fair he could also have had several armor sets and several of them could have been blown to bits over the years.

Cookiesndip · 2025-02-10T08:37:18-0500

Neablis said:
I generally believe in failing forward on rolls. I thought about constructing a whole elaborate storyline around the failed neural implants requiring more processing power, but at the end of the day decided it was fine to have this be a flat failure and price increase.

I contend that if a 100 gets us a piece of the fricking Emperor's armor, a 1 should be proportionally bad. To be frank, that definitely wasn't a critfail, that's was just a plain normal failure when it shouldn't have been.

It's very disappointing, at least cut off direct research on it, or at least massively boost the price. A +25 RP is a complete nothingburger, a critfail is a critfail. Last time there were mitigating factors, so it made sense, but now though? Why are we even rolling if we aren't even allowed to fail in any major sense because the QM will render any rolls effectively meaningless? Just turn it into a pure narrative quest already.

KyleDaScourge · 2025-02-10T08:40:13-0500

F0lkL0re said:
Proto plan for boarding the Ork ship

Snip

Per my understanding, the Orks are here as of the end of the current turn. So whatever we do about them, it'll probably be the very first thing that happens in the next turn. I don't see us having time to do all this and I'm not really sure why you want to board the Orks anyway? There may be something to be gained from capturing an Ork ship, but we have so much other loot to focus on already and it's not like it'd be very hard to find another one later.

After thinking about it some more and being unable to sleep, I'm inclined to destroy the Orks. Plus or minus a good write-in to lure them in close enough that we can minimize their chance of successfully running away. Even the best case of them deciding this system is uninteresting has them heading further into the subsector, which is still a bad outcome.

Better to destroy them and set up an exclave of Cogitare in the volcano lair to start helping the locals tech-up and fortify while we run back to Denva to start some crash-upgrades and industrialization before the real fighting kicks off.

Haganeko · 2025-02-10T08:42:50-0500

Haganeko said:
[Old list snip]

Gentlefolk, I bring you: the cheap research list update!

Ship Design: -[] 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)
General Design: -[] 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).

-[] 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.)
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.)
Robotics: -[] 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)
Psychic Shielding: -[] 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.
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.)
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)
Physics: -[] 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)
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 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).

-[] 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.)
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)

-[] Variety is the Spice of Life (50 RP) Your current foray into aquaculture production is fully effective at feeding large numbers of people, but it also makes them try to drink an ocean the first time they eat it. And several times after that. And kind of kills their taste buds toward anything else. Maybe get some other versions of aquaculture working that don't do that? (Fixes the spice problem).

-[] 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.)

-[] 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 Neural Implants (50 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)

-[] 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.)

Ship Design: 50 RP
General Design: 100 RP
Stealth: 50 RP
Robotics: 50 RP
Psychic Shielding: 50 RP
The Warp: 75 RP
Psytech: 50 RP, repeatable
Physics: 50 RP
Machine Spirit: 225 RP
Biology: 250 RP
Cybernetics: 100 RP

Total: 1050

Stuff that catches my attention:

Improved Passive Stealth (50)—just better hiding from all the random issues around, plus good for sleeper automation
Improved Armor Articulation (50)—should help with Cia's complaints
Machine Spirit Psychic Shields (50)—cheap way to improve our shields; locked behind another cheap tech
Faith is my Shield? (75)—first step on making a better faith
The whole Machine-Spirit tree (3x75)—we have those everywhere we can. Let's improve them! Large Scale, specifically, has potential for Int Coding discounts
Combat Neural Implants (50)—it's super cheap and should help Cia! Plus, might also help our cognition filters.
Total 500. We can knock these off in small chunks of 100–200 RP, very easily.

Haganeko · 2025-02-10T08:46:12-0500

Cookiesndip said:
I contend that if a 100 gets us a piece of the fricking Emperor's armor, a 1 should be proportionally bad. To be frank, that definitely wasn't a critfail, that's was just a plain normal failure when it shouldn't have been.

It's very disappointing, at least cut off direct research on it, or at least massively boost the price. A +25 RP is a complete nothingburger, a critfail is a critfail. Last time there were mitigating factors, so it made sense, but now though? Why are we even rolling if we aren't even allowed to fail in any major sense because the QM will render any rolls effectively meaningless? Just turn it into a pure narrative quest already.

You must also understand that we've also wasted the action, so in a sense the tech tripled in price. It also wasted Anexa's action. Additionally, the place where the combat implants might have caused trouble would have been in combat... but we got a crit success on the infiltration and there were very well prepared for it.

SigmaVanDyke · 2025-02-10T08:47:43-0500

We have suffered quite heavy losses in melee with our bots so far, probably due to lacking the bot melee combat and armour articulation techs, And i feel like trying to board an ork ship is a losing prospect because of that.
I'm in favour of just shooting them, and optionally sifting through the wreckage.

sun tzu · 2025-02-10T08:47:43-0500

The opportunity to research Necrons is great, but... I would be more comfortable about it if we didn't keep more than one of them at a single location.
The opportunity to research auramite and the saint's relic are no less welcome.

Haganeko · 2025-02-10T08:53:14-0500

I would suggest we do:

Faith is My Shield?
Study the armour (synergy!)

Take the necrons
Explode the orcs

Fix your planet
Get microbes

That would probably require two research actions, one build action (deployment), and one order (explode orks).

zack omega24 · 2025-02-10T08:54:16-0500

If we stick with the Necrons, would we see the Advanced Technological Research Lab built on Calderath Primus?

F0lkL0re · 2025-02-10T08:55:37-0500

KyleDaScourge said:
Per my understanding, the Orks are here as of the end of the current turn. So whatever we do about them, it'll probably be the very first thing that happens in the next turn. I don't see us having time to do all this and I'm not really sure why you want to board the Orks anyway? There may be something to be gained from capturing an Ork ship, but we have so much other loot to focus on already and it's not like it'd be very hard to find another one later.

Eh their probably dragging a load of loot and slaves with them so this could be argued to be a rescue mission, I'm not super invested but I do want a chance to do a proper investigation of the WAAARGH!!! field and see if we can do about getting rid of Orkifcation of planets which if I remember correctly is something that the Necrons, pre-fall Eldar and DAoT humanity couldn't do or if they could took extreme measures.

You have a point about the time @Neablis do we have enough time to research boarding capabilities and close combat and upgrade things to use them?

DragonParadox · 2025-02-10T08:56:26-0500

Cookiesndip said:
I contend that if a 100 gets us a piece of the fricking Emperor's armor, a 1 should be proportionally bad.

I'm honestly not sure how it could be proportionally bad. Anexa accidentally gives herself faulty implants and needs to be saved from life-threatening danger maybe? Everything that I can think of which would be proportionally bad on this action, a simple research action into non-warp tech would require that either Vita, Anexa or most likely both to have screwed up in a way that seems like it should have had less than a 1% chance. I think it's more reasonable to accept that just as all 100s are not created equal, it is more valuable to get them on basic techs, so all 1s are not equal, it is safer to get them on simple research rolls.

Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

Officially not an Inquisitor

Grand Magus of the Lewd

Officially not an Inquisitor

Officially not an Inquisitor

Officially not an Inquisitor

The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web

Officially not an Inquisitor