Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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Haganeko said:
Oh gee. I guess I have to hand it to Prime—perhaps excessive preparation isn't excessive at all when the dice are actually out to get you.

I guess I'm happy we went with the plan that went all-in on anti-Chaos on the turn where Chaos hunting got two poor successes. At least Denva rolled better than us!
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It's what I do. :V

Honestly, these rolls weren't even that bad; the worst ones just happened to land at the tip of the spear. Unfortunately for the cultists, the heart of this plan was the logistics, and those went splendidly.

Our force superiority is damn near absolute, can operate in an urban setting with minimal collateral damage, and with MS controlled shielding can find them wherever they hide within. If they stay they'll be found, and if they fight they'll lose even if they take down 20 bots for every one cultist.

And if they leave, they will never, ever have the opportunity to enter that city again. SSDIPS rolled a good success - this means design integrated blueprints costs the same RP as the old psy shield modifier did, the overflow into assisting Denva is large and will count for more once it's there. Denva rolled a regular success for their part of the op, and that's the construction part where they build out what they designed.

Machine Spirit Chaos Resistance crit, and that's one of the only things that applies everywhere right-the-fuck-now. A lot of formerly soft targets that might have done widespread damage suddenly became a lot harder before this campaign of urban renewal even started.

Maybe the cleanse took longer than we hoped. Maybe some managed to go to ground in some remote location, far from other people or prying eyes. Maybe it was unusually bloody, or otherwise had bad optics - the quarantine zone omake didn't paint a pretty picture. But anywhere we took, it's clean now, and will stay clean basically for good.


Cultists, if any still exist, being in hiding outside of inassailable cities rather than spread out more evenly but unable to operate like an orbital plan might have gotten... is that an important distinction?

Well, it is for a few things, at least. Bad news: It means they're more plausibly able to pool resources to get up to mischief, albiet anything they can try to target should be able to withstand it. Not ideal, but workable - even once the cultists are staying away from these sensor-laden cities, the sensors are still shields, after all.

But then there's the good news: it means there's no meaningful drawback to bootstrapping Denva's R&D sector or any other tech sharing now. Keeping people with sensitive knowledge in spotting distance of the shields-that-are-absolutely-everywhere will be a relatively painless security stipulation even if it turns out chaos isn't technically eradicated on Secondus yet.

At the risk of counting our chickens before they hatch - I think we did it.

I believe that for the purpose of picking back up where we left off and strapping rocket boosters to the stellar ascendency, chaos infiltration is no longer a meaningful factor.

Just as planned.
 
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Okay, so Large Scale Machine Spirits and Psytech Machine Spirits just jumped in value - being able to make *everything* strongly resistant to chaos is a big deal. I still want Faith, but I feel a lot better about doing Demonology next turn while we're at it. And I still want ASM... And there's lot of other techs to consider, we haven't even gotten superconductors yet.

Large-scale Machine spirits (75 RP)
Psytech Machine spirits (100 RP)
Faith is my shield? (75 RP)
Alternative Shielding Meanings (150 RP)
Demonology (100 RP)
Superconductive Shenanigans (50 RP)

Psytech MS will probably need to wait, we don't actually use Psytech for much yet. Just Cia's sword, IIUC.
 
I'm waiting to see what all is unlocked in the upcoming turn, but my initial thought is that we may want to do a single research action to get Large-Scale Machine Spirits and Collaborative Computational R&D, then go with Nightlord's idea to use the boon we hopefully still managed to get for revolutionizing the fight against chaos to get a one-time production boost along with three construction actions to explode our industrial capacity. That would leave us in a very good position the turn after to revolutionize Denva's R&D Industry for another boon and start crash-building a fleet of machine spirit ships, possibly including building out the hulls and giving them back to Denva for yet another boon.
 
At the end of the day we are a tech AI, there are more planets out there than Denva, it is more important that we give them the tools to fight Chaos than it is if this one planet manages a very good fight against Chaos in any one instance.
 
Did some quick math on the thinking that we'd want to go ahead and use three construction actions for compounding our industry, so that we have LS-MS and can design and build ships with it the following turn...

Starting the turn with 130 MS Orbital Manufactories and the Spark, plus the Voidforge Miners and a one-time boon of 15k VBP both of the latter only being good for the first action.

Total VBP for Action 1: 24,500

Action 1: 24,500 BP -> 81 New Manufactories

(130 + 81) * 60 = 12,660 + 600 = 13,260

Action 2: 13,260 BP -> 44 New Manufactories

(130 + 81 + 44) * 60 = 15,300 + 600 = 15,900

Action 3: 15,900 BP -> 53 New Manufactories

(130 + 81 + 44 + 53) * 60 = 15,300 + 600 = 19,080 VBP Per Action going into the next turn.

308 Machine Spirit Orbital Manufactories = (308*15) = 4,620 CP.

Average price of a Destroyer based on the Harrier I designed a while back: 1,550 BP

Destroyers Built Per Action: 12.3

Average Price of a Heavy Cruiser based on the Hammer I designed a while back: 16,100 BP

Heavy Cruisers Built Per Action: 1 with enough left over for 1.92 destroyers.
 
If we're going to do a crash industrial build-out, it might be better to wait until we re-establish contact with Primus so we can do it there and benefit from the mining buff.

Dovetails with making sure there aren't any holdouts getting up to something there too, which is nice.
 
DragonParadox said:
At the end of the day we are a tech AI, there are more planets out there than Denva, it is more important that we give them the tools to fight Chaos than it is if this one planet manages a very good fight against Chaos in any one instance.
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Best of all is if we can provide the tools they need to fight chaos together, rather than separately. And all the other gribblies, too. It's a dangerous galaxy to go alone in.

Also, being able to know about whatever horrors are incoming *ahead of time* would be rather handy.
 
Alectai said:
I really want to get the Navibean planted next turn, but I also want Daemonology, arrrgh.
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We wanted Understanding Mutations first, right? Might be able to get both that and... oh, we don't even have wine yet, do we.

Yeah, I don't think navibean is happening next turn. Chaos probably discounted mutations though, so we might get most of the way there while still getting to do something else like daemonology, faith, and abacus?
 
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DragonParadox said:
I think we need to get Abacus and warp coms this turn, hedge against wanderlust kicking us in when we are not expecting
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Well we're still three turns out from warp comms, most likely... But we've *probably* got three turns, so we might as well get started on it. Need to do ASM first, at least, though we could do EaR as well if we can find the RP.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think we need to get Abacus and warp coms this turn, hedge against wanderlust kicking us in when we are not expecting
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Hm. Flip side to doing so many psy shield techs, there's a good chance the prereqs just got cheaper. And also the two techs that weren't psychic shield techs were only by technicality, with one of them being about sensor utility in specific and the other being about the quasi-alive neural network we're putting in charge of the psy shields, which are also a neural network.

And also the worst we did on any of them was a single solitary regular success, with the rest being good successes and a crit.

...

I suppose when I put it like that I'd be surprised if the warp comms tech discounts didn't reach triple digits, at least in total.
 
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Prime 2.0 said:
Hm. Flip side to doing so many psy shield techs, there's a good chance the prereqs just got cheaper. And also the two techs that weren't psychic shield techs were only by technicality, with one of them being about sensor utility in specific and the other being about the quasi-alive neural network we're putting in charge of the psy shields, which are also a neural network.

And also the worst we did on any of them was a single solitary regular success, with the rest being good successes and a crit.

...

I suppose when I put it like that I'd be surprised if the warp comms tech discounts didn't reach triple digits, at least in total.
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Oooooohhhhhhh, pleeeeease...! :0

Hoping for discounts to faith studies, demonology, maybe psytech and largescale MS too? Maaaaaybe...!
 
Overall pretty great results on the tech, excited to see what the misc 100 roll turns out to be.

Had a look through the tech tree, and besides the Albedo terraforming tech being in armor which seemed odd (radiation shielding maybe?) I also noticed that dissecting the drukhari and analysing the chaos marine armor doesn't have any prerequisites, and are relatively cheap. Though I guess that we might get more out of the dissection if we have more foundational tech first.

do we have a plan on what direction we are going in if wanderlust kicks in?
 
I want to go to Kethraxis because I seem to remember that it is/was a Feral World.
 
I kinda think the crystal that resonates with the warp miiight have some relevance to the warp comms path. (And the warp manufacturing which I remain extremely excited about.)

Also, I generally think researching our samples is likely to be fun - we've been stacking them up but not using them quite a bit.
Dmol8 said:
I want to go to Kethraxis because I seem to remember that it is/was a Feral World.
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That's correct (see the map post) but what's the attraction?
 
Dmol8 said:
Dude Wayfinder only procs if we aren't doing revolutionary/bleeding edge research. If the Taste of Chaos doesn't count Immaterium Understanding definitely does.
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I remember Neablis said that was explicitly false - we need to do actual exploring, in physical space. Though it was also said we had 'a while' here, sooo? We can probably finish warp comms if we stick to them...?

Aineko said:
I kinda think the crystal that resonates with the warp miiight have some relevance to the warp comms path. (And the warp manufacturing which I remain extremely excited about.)
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It's a complete mystery box. I am tempted though, yeah...
 
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-[] 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.)

-[] 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 (150 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

-[] Collaberative Computational R&D (250 RP) You've set it up so that humans can help you with research and development, but the gains are limited because there's only so much they can help you with before you get diminishing returns on team size. Figure out better ways to utilize your research teams and let bigger teams contribute to projects. (Increases size of research team before RP/turn limit is reached. May assign more technical staff to further reduce design costs.)

-[] Intelligence Coding (170/400 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)

-[] 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.)
-[] Abacus Manufacturing (50/100 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)
-[] 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)
-[] 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).
-[] 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)

Navigator (400 RP+):
-[] 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).

-[] Navigator Gestation (150 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.

-[] 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.)

This is the complete list of stuff I want to research before we bugger off again.
It's a total of 2305 RP. At 545 RP for 2 research actions + Anexa that would take just over 4 turns (4.22).

The question is how to prioritize it.
Frontloading Collaberative Computational R&D should reduce that to 4, which makes it a priority.

Ship research needs to happen before ships get designed and built. Which aren't yet included.
Which new ships do we want to design?
 
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