[X] Attack the ship
Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest
- Thread starter Neablis
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
If this isn't an option now then we may want to see about a research project for planting back-door overrides in our various blueprints. Although I'd be a little worried that the more tech-savvy of our future opponents might be able to exploit that (Lookin' at you Necrons!). On the other hand though, I'm already sort of worried about the IoM/AdMech, Dark Mechanicum, Dark Eldar, and Necrons figuring out how to jam our control over things in roughly that order, which is another reason I've been all for organic agents and OMC technologies.
- Location
- Earth
I don't think we'll manage to build anything during the combat turn, building is for 5-year turns.
I think less building turn and more stompy robots starting to exit the factory instead of deck plating, boarding action from inside.
- Location
- Austria
Question: can we, in any plan really, kill off Bongo before battle? It sucks to not milk it for all its worth, but given that its Chaos, it will probably try to mess with us, or magically send them (or through them) information on what we actually are, or whatever.
It's still stuck behind shields with not enough power to breach them. Unless the enemy physically breaches them we are fine and if they are physically breaching its shields we have bigger problems on our hands.
I really don't think this is likely. Bongo is locked down and buried under psychic shielding. If they knew he was there ahead of time and either had a seriously powerful sorcerer or just a major ritual prepared in advance, they could maybe punch through to do something or let him out, but at that point it would be just as feasible for them to punch through our core shielding to mind-fuck us directly.
@Neablis questions...
How is ammunition handled for the things that need it? (Macrocannons, missiles, torpedoes) Would a ship need some size of onboard manufactory to handle reloading or could a repair bay do it? Or is it below the level of abstraction?
What would crew quarters look like for ships meant to be controlled via OMC or with OMC as a backup/side option? I can't imagine they'd be anything like as expensive as the living space for a conventional crew, given we're talking about maybe a dozen people rather than tens to hundreds of thousands.
Could we do a research project to design stealthy escape pods to be included in various ship designs? We'd probably only need a few given how far OMC cuts down the crew requirement, and while I like the idea of having organic agents aboard ships to both to help out in case someone thinks to try jamming our own control and to give them the option of being sent to other systems if needed, I'd also like them to have an escape option for emergencies.
Just got a chance to look at the leading vote options and I'm feeling rather confused.
"Attack the ship" seems straightforward enough, but it provides zero tactical considerations or contingencies. Are people voting for this expecting a short update with just the outcome of this dice roll or that Neablis will take this simple directive and generate a full in-character analysis and approach?
"Shot through the Heart" provides more details, but I really don't get the point of this fake pretense of underestimating them. If you're going to do a deception, something like this feels like it has the lowest possibility of success. Also, manufacturing a reason to attack instead of just attacking without warning feels like a military tactic suited for a drama instead of a fight to the death. I do like the boarding preparedness, the hacking attempts, and the coordination with W, though.
"Hammer of an angry explorer" does almost the same thing but without the attempted deception, though I think a higher probability deception or stealth attempt could've been worthwhile. The focus on preventing their escape might cost us damage to our own ship or further damage to Denva.
[X] Plan: Hammer of an angry explorer
"Attack the ship" seems straightforward enough, but it provides zero tactical considerations or contingencies. Are people voting for this expecting a short update with just the outcome of this dice roll or that Neablis will take this simple directive and generate a full in-character analysis and approach?
"Shot through the Heart" provides more details, but I really don't get the point of this fake pretense of underestimating them. If you're going to do a deception, something like this feels like it has the lowest possibility of success. Also, manufacturing a reason to attack instead of just attacking without warning feels like a military tactic suited for a drama instead of a fight to the death. I do like the boarding preparedness, the hacking attempts, and the coordination with W, though.
"Hammer of an angry explorer" does almost the same thing but without the attempted deception, though I think a higher probability deception or stealth attempt could've been worthwhile. The focus on preventing their escape might cost us damage to our own ship or further damage to Denva.
[X] Plan: Hammer of an angry explorer
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not sure! There seems to be an idea going around right now that because Vita is bad at combat, that trying to do planning (or at least, as much planning as Hammer or Heart does) is a double-edged sword, which isn't what Neablis said at all:
The KISS rhetoric I've seen is either pointing out failure modes of Heart, or just... not specifying any specific failure modes at all.
But KISS doesn't extend to not specifying priorities or avenues of attack. Speaking of:
Because these are factories that Vita designed, and many of which she personally built, we actually get to try this time:
Neablis may or may not take thread discussion as a cue to have Vita try hacking during all of this - but the "Attack the ship" vote does not include it, so he's not obligated to have Vita come up with it if we don't put it in the vote.
Cool plans do actually provide advantages - and recognizing potential weaknesses to exploit like the fact that we built these factories and can hack them more easily is one such.
Especially since Vita is not in-character good at this, so we can't just defer planning to her. If we want her to seize a tactical opportunity, then it's up to us to make sure she thinks of it first.
I explain my rationale for attempting a deception here: mouse-over commentary added after the fact.
I explain my rationale for the pretext here:
But mostly, I just want SOMETHING with an actual plan to win rather than the roll and pray "Attack the ship" option. Player-created battle planning has provided Vita with tremendous advantages throughout the quests. It works. We shouldn't stop doing something that works.
Thus, my preferred votes.
Last edited:
Because it is long past time that this thread start reeling it in on recursive contingency planning and be made to practice simple votes, in line with the quest philosophy and also practical limits on Neablis' time.
This is a widespread issue with quests, but it has been especially pronounced in this one, insisting on spending thousands of words expanding out literal one-line actions and burdening updates with the expectation of them.
This is such a plain thing. We have one ship. They have one (working) ship. We have to kill them. It does not and ought not to take a novel of planning and paranoid death spirals to resolve this subvote. It is also the option that Neablis offered to us directly.
Frankly, I hope after this we are no longer offered [] Write-In at all, or at least that some kind of strict limitation is put on it. This thread has actually, literally, gone and done this sort of thing in the middle of routine Construction actions to try and make it Just So. It's self-destructive to the quest on top of everything else, since Neablis does have to actually write the thing.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Your post came pretty soon after mine, so maybe you missed it. But I make a pretty strong argument at the start of my post that you're going too far in the other direction.
Neablis pretty clearly does want write ins, and was fine with the substance of the ones here.
Last edited:
It's hardly paranoia death spiral to specify what our crew are doing in the battle when the whole character concept for Vita was 'AI who synergizes with heroic crew.' This is how the game broadly is meant to be played.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Plan: Hammer of an angry explorer.
-[X] Destroy the fuckers ship, make sure they do not escape.
-[X] Keep Cia/Bots on reserve for boarding resistance
-[X] Contact W securely if possible/ inform rest of the space assets in system that time to attack is now. (Victan)
--[X] Get her to deploy any trump card she may have to keep the ship from running
---[X] Attempt to position ourselves and the cruiser as required
-[X] Attempt to hack any and all stations, shipyards and start bot/other useful machines manufacturing. (Anexa Hepls)
--[X] Begin explaining EULA to unauthorised users, with prejudice.
-[X] Destroy the fuckers ship, make sure they do not escape.
-[X] Keep Cia/Bots on reserve for boarding resistance
-[X] Contact W securely if possible/ inform rest of the space assets in system that time to attack is now. (Victan)
--[X] Get her to deploy any trump card she may have to keep the ship from running
---[X] Attempt to position ourselves and the cruiser as required
-[X] Attempt to hack any and all stations, shipyards and start bot/other useful machines manufacturing. (Anexa Hepls)
--[X] Begin explaining EULA to unauthorised users, with prejudice.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan: Hammer of an angry explorer
Turn 28.5 vote closed
- Location
- Don't know
- Pronouns
- Whats/That
Why is my vote separate from the rest?
Minor correction with only calling space assets to war.
I agree with you that exhaustive micro-managing is terrible to read and interact with. Some quests I've read have gone off the deep end in that regard at times and it always proves to become a strain on the average reader's ability and willingness to engage with the decision-making process.
We should not however jump to the opposite extreme of oversimplifying our choices. This is not a pure narrative quest like something run by Maugan Ra or Omicron. Those are great too, but in the context of this WH40K AI exploration quest, details and cleverness matter. I think a good middle ground is including subfields on the vote with creative ideas for high-level approaches. It's good for ensuring the facets of a situation are properly discussed. Some quests encourage this by rewarding good ideas with lower DCs for success.
Last edited:
- Location
- Boston
the Rubicon crossed