Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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DragonParadox said:
We definitely can make escorts and they can even enter the warp with a blind jump, they just don't have very good chances of coming back out.
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Depends on whether or not we can add the void advocates later. If so, we can make them warp capable and just use them as monitors until we add the navigation capability.
meianmaru said:
However, that is in the vacuum without any other of our countermeasures.
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Countermeasures like:

1. Machine spirit chaos resistance,
2. Putting those trip wires under the direct control of said machine spirit using machine spirit controlled psy shield technology,
3? Taste of chaos almost-crit might make the tripwires better at sounding the alarm for chaos corruption in particular.

For Vita's own purposes, the shield reliability research is extra credit at this point. The lower hanging fruit right now is large-scale machine spirits, so that any ships we build get their chaos resistance and shield buffs.
LightLan said:
Before this research psychic integrated shields cost 9x base BP for bots. With this research it's 0. After the new Blueprint RP tax got paid.
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Nah, it's even better than that.
Neablis said:
As ever, depends on rolls. A good success and up will probably leave the RP cost for psychic shielding unchanged (i.e, doubling it over the base design).
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There is no new RP tax. For any new unit designs, the psychic shielding modification has effectively been wholly replaced by SSDIPS.

Meaning the maximum RP that could have overflowed to Denvan SSDIPS designs did which is of course countermeasure number 4: Putting absolutely everything and everyone under its own individual psy shield.
 
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Prime 2.0 said:
There is no new RP tax. For units, the psychic shielding modification has effectively been wholly replaced by SSDIPS in all new designs. Installations probably let us spend more BP (and RP?) to apply a larger amount of shielding though, to be fair.
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I meant that as in we needed to design a new blueprint that uses psychic shielding.
Our specters are not getting an auto-upgrade.
 
LightLan said:
I meant that as in we needed to design a new blueprint that uses psychic shielding.
Our specters are not getting an auto-upgrade.
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The description of the tech can be read as they do upgrade automatically:
-[] 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 to build into bots, vehicles and small installations. Will likely improve the quality of shielding available and unlock research for further shielding improvements)
 
henkalv said:
The description of the tech can be read as they do upgrade automatically:
-[] 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 to build into bots, vehicles and small installations. Will likely improve the quality of shielding available and unlock research for further shielding improvements)
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Honestly I feel that mechanics text is misleading, in the context of Neablis's clarifications.

A crit might have done that? I mean, it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that the good success could upgrade our existing psy shielded unit designs either, it makes sense that Vita might test/validate her research by applying it to something she already puts small scale shielding on, but it's not clear yet if that's what happened.
LightLan said:
I meant that as in we needed to design a new blueprint that uses psychic shielding.
Our specters are not getting an auto-upgrade.
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Fair, fair.

Also, non-sequitor?
LightLan said:
Just this plan we reduced a 440BP cost psyshielded 1000 bots to a mere 80BP cost.

We got a research to make void shields cheaper too.

We got a research to make power armor cheaper too.
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We got a research to make ground unit stealth cheaper too.
 
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henkalv said:
The description of the tech can be read as they do upgrade automatically:
-[] 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 to build into bots, vehicles and small installations. Will likely improve the quality of shielding available and unlock research for further shielding improvements)
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It can be indeed read that way, but we asked Neablis and it does need a blueprint for the specific stuff (bot, building, whatever) which needs to be designed. Is only free afterward.
 
Prime 2.0 said:
And you were the 100th 100 this month, click here to claim your prize!
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"Calling Agent Squirrel, Calling Agent Squirrel, what's the [EXPLETIVE REDACTED] holdup?"
"Can't ingress this [EXPLETIVE REDACTED] isn't opening the door."
"Is there no other ingress?"
"Negative, windows locked, vent grate's screwed down and I think the AC's alarmed. This [EXPLETIVE REDACTED] locked up tight."
"Alright, sit tight, we're working up ingress options right now."
"Well hurry I've been stuck up here for hours."
"I got an idea."
"Is it the--"
"Yeah."
"Ah [EXPLETIVE REDACTED]."
---
"Control, we can't keep calling this guy, he's getting traumatized."
 
I would initially expect it to just be a set distance from the star, but given that warp lanes are a thing it could functionally be one or more general regions at the edge of a system in the direction of each neighboring system with a connecting warp lane.

There is some evidence of that, I'm pretty sure, though all that really jumps to mind is that the incident where orks ambushed an imperial fleet in the warp at the edge of the Perlia system in one of the Ciaphas Cain books would have been a hell of a coincidence if they could have theoretically been approaching the system from any direction.

On the subject of defending a system, do we know anything about if and/or how Eldar are able to get places that don't have webway gates?
 
KyleDaScourge said:
I would initially expect it to just be a set distance from the star, but given that warp lanes are a thing it could functionally be one or more general regions at the edge of a system in the direction of each neighboring system with a connecting warp lane.

There is some evidence of that, I'm pretty sure, though all that really jumps to mind is that the incident where orks ambushed an imperial fleet in the warp at the edge of the Perlia system in one of the Ciaphas Cain books would have been a hell of a coincidence if they could have theoretically been approaching the system from any direction.

On the subject of defending a system, do we know anything about if and/or how Eldar are able to get places that don't have webway gates?
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Well, the corsair apparently traversed the Warp to Denva, as best we could discern.
 
So question do we have any reason to keep the cultists we currently have in our captive holding cells?

Nightlord256 said:
Random question, are Mandeville Points fixed regions of space or do ships just need to be a set distance from the star?

If it's a fixed point or region, static defenses for a a system are a lot more feasible.
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It's probably a little bit of both you can leave from anywhere a set distance from a star but you can only access the stable warp routes from particular points.
 
I've always thought of 'warp lanes' as we have them on the map being a useful abstraction, not reflective of the reality of Warp navigation which is more like deep sea navigation if the stars you take fixes on were pyres of sacrifice to an unwilling god. There's currents and Warp weather, but no strictly fixed routes.

If nothing else, it fits better with the 'feel' of Battlefleet Gothic, which is very Age of Sail with maybe a splash of pre-war dreadnought.
 
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F0lkL0re said:
So question do we have any reason to keep the cultists we currently have in our captive holding cells?
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Aineko said:
Test subjects for further Chaos cleansing techniques? Other than that, not much I can see.
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We don't yet have the ability to reliably detect individual cultists and corruptees, just general warp activity with a new specialization in chaos cults and blessings.

So having some safely detained people who we are certain are corrupted should prove useful as a control group when we get around to further refinements on that front, in addition to eventual work on outright reversing corruption.
 
LightLan said:
A single shot of a nova cannon can cripple a battleship.

They are damn good.
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Can you comment on whether a vortex cannon would do more? Though I must admit I am wary of mounting those on ships.
Aineko said:
This lore does not match the wargame very well, unless you make some extremely generous assumptions. The inner blast zone could, on a lucky damage roll, cripple a battleship...if the battleship's shields were already down. If they're up, it's likely to not get any damage through to the hull at all. The outer blast zone would kill an escort...under the same condition. (Also, cripple is a term of art here - a crippled battleship is badly damaged and significantly weakened but not incapacitated, it can still fight on a level a cruiser would have to respect and/or withdraw slowly.

Unless 10 Mm is supposed to be the inner radius rather than the outer, which will usually one-shot escorts.

Plus, yes, the accuracy issue. Doing close fire support with nova cannon would be...brave.

If we research abacus manufacturing the same turn, we shouldn't even need to?
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For accuracy... maybe once we get that warp weather tech to allow some divination? Or even put a diviner psyker in charge of it...
Aineko said:
Because the problem I was trying to imply was not 'Vita is insufficiently courageous to shell her own positions'.

It's that shelling your own positions is questionable at best.

Our ships aren't cheap. And if the fight is dangerous enough to be worth making such a gamble, well, you'll be that much more unhappy if you wind up botching the shot and weakening yourself instead of the enemy.

Barraging multiple nova cannons (BFG loves massing fire due to the way shields work) against enemies who aren't closely engaged, of course, is really rather nice.
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I think there is projectile speed to consider. Aren't the projectiles notedly slow and inaccurate?
Angle said:
My current plans:

Turn 32:
-[] Voidforge Miners: Build more manufactories for us?
-[] Construction: repair shipyard, build 6 candles. Turn over candles to Denva.
-[] Diplomacy: Help Denva get their R&D up and running, in cooperation W/ Cogitare. Let Cogitare use our manufacturing capacity when we're not using it.
-[] Research x2 (400 + 85 (Anexa) + 60 (Anexa staff) = 545 RP)
--[] Collaborative Computational R&D (250 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Faith is my shield? (60 RP)
--[] Large Scale Machine Spirits (75 RP)
--[] Alternative Shielding Meanings (150 RP)
--[] Abacus Manufacturing (+10 RP)
-[] Turn over Collaborative R&D to earn a boon together with the diplomacy action.

Yes, this shoves Demonology off another turn... But I think the other things are a greater priority. It does progress towards warp comms, it gets the R&D boost running, it gets LSMS for our ships, and it gets Faith Studies in support of demonology, and for understanding the warp more broadly. (How do regular peoples thoughts affect it? How does it affect them? What's the connection there???)

I'm hoping we can fit Demonology in as well, if we get a lot of discounts? Maybe Abacus Manufacturing too? But if not, they can wait till next turn.
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Every turn we delay Demonology is another turn for Bongo to charge up. If we're not makong ships this turn, we shouldn't get LSMS, and I'd argue that construction action would be better spent on diplomacy with Denva Primus. We haven't checked on them. There could be chaos there, and we also want the possibility of a mining contract with them.
Prime 2.0 said:
We got a research to make ground unit stealth cheaper too.
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It would be very cool to have that, eventually. Just make our bots as good as they can be. Then again, that's not urgent... and the big urgent robotics project right now is the necrons.
 
Haganeko said:
Every turn we delay Demonology is another turn for Bongo to charge up. If we're not makong ships this turn, we shouldn't get LSMS, and I'd argue that construction action would be better spent on diplomacy with Denva Primus. We haven't checked on them. There could be chaos there, and we also want the possibility of a mining contract with them.
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Eh, I haven't been impressed by any of Bongo's moves so far. I'm not afraid of giving him an extra turn - especially cause we just got a major step up on him. And the sooner we get LSMS, the sooner we can give it to the Denvans, and start putting MS in everything - including hospitals, prisons, water treatment plants, and the like. Also the sooner we can unlock follow on technology and get discounts to MS more generally.

Also, we'd have to cancel more than just LSMS to fit Bongo in this turn.
 
I don't think we can start building ships on the same turn that we research LSMS, because how that works and how the machine spirits fit into the ship design is going to be at least in part determined by the research roll.

We can design and build a ship in the same turn, but using the Seeker bots and SSDIPS as an example, trying to research, design, and build something in one turn requires at minimum leaving a ton of wiggle room in the budget and getting the active cooperation of the QM, and even then we might have rolled a 1 on the research.
 
Haganeko said:
For accuracy... maybe once we get that warp weather tech to allow some divination? Or even put a diviner psyker in charge of it...


I think there is projectile speed to consider. Aren't the projectiles notedly slow and inaccurate?
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Nova weapons aren't really warpy, though I suppose precognitive aiming could be applicable.

BFGA models nova cannons as taking a chunk of delay time before their effect, while BFG tabletop rules model it as immediate but scattering. They're not described as slow in lore that I'm aware of.
Haganeko said:
Can you comment on whether a vortex cannon would do more? Though I must admit I am wary of mounting those on ships.
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Vortex cannons probably aren't what we'd get at first. Most 40k vortex weapons are warheads, not emitters, as best I can tell. The Eldar do have D-cannons, which seem to be vortex guns, and the Imperium did have an 'Annihilator Cannon' back in the Heresy era, though I don't know if even then they had more than one.
 
There's also the prospect of vortex weapons not being that effective against a void shield or more importantly a gellar field. Since vortex is just trowing something into the warp.

KyleDaScourge said:
On the subject of defending a system, do we know anything about if and/or how Eldar are able to get places that don't have webway gates?
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Short distance warp jumps with great gellar fields and likely some form of incription.

Long jumps are more dangerous.
 
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Angle said:
Eh, I haven't been impressed by any of Bongo's moves so far. I'm not afraid of giving him an extra turn - especially cause we just got a major step up on him. And the sooner we get LSMS, the sooner we can give it to the Denvans, and start putting MS in everything - including hospitals, prisons, water treatment plants, and the like. Also the sooner we can unlock follow on technology and get discounts to MS more generally.

Also, we'd have to cancel more than just LSMS to fit Bongo in this turn.
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To expand on this: Bongo tried really hard to backstab us when we retook Denva - and the main thing he accomplished was getting us new stuff to research. I'm not impressed by this, nor am I scared. We'll research Demonology this turn if we get a lot of discounts, or the turn after if we don't, just for the knowledge, but I'm not scared of Bongo.
 
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It'd be nice if we could stuff Bongo in a different shell so that we can replace the oubliette with something else like more juvenat production for our crew.
 
F0lkL0re said:
It'd be nice if we could stuff Bongo in a different shell so that we can replace the oubliette with something else like more juvenat production for our crew.
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Yeah that's another thing - but again, it can wait a turn if necessary. We have other priorities in the short term anyway.
 
I wouldn't object to leaving Bongo in the system when we leave, although I'd like to sort out the Cogitare a bit before leaving directions for them to guard him.

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to fit a fifty-thousand person orbital habitat around Aetherion into the build order to be Cogitare HQ and I'm hoping we can find at least one diplomacy action to get them a bit more organized than "a bunch of more-or-less individual science-monks that might technically answer to Vita and Anexa.", which is what they seem to be now aside from the ones actually aboard the Spark.
 
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