I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they're not, while the dark forgeworld associated with the warband may or may not have been informed where we are already. We're in their backyard regardless, and the Denva system industrial park is... not exactly subtle or small.
Even setting aside matters like "the craftworld eldar know we're here and can scry to try and get a negotiating advantage".
Why would they not be in particular, relative to the finer points of our industrial plant?
I'm not saying they can or can't scry us, I am saying that it doesn't make sense with how 40K operates to expect that they can scry us and thereby copy whatever technology they see.
And I'm not sure what negotiating advantage you're proposing the Eldar would get from scrying our industrial plant.
1. Why would they not be in particular, relative to the finer points of our industrial plant?
2. I'm not saying they can or can't scry us, I am saying that it doesn't make sense with how 40K operates to expect that they can scry us and thereby copy whatever technology they see.
3. And I'm not sure what negotiating advantage you're proposing the Eldar would get from scrying our industrial plant.
1. Because an STC is not an industrial park covering a significant portion of a planet's orbit, nevermind the orbit a known imperial holding and its pre-existing industrial center occupying the crossroads system of the crossroads sub-sector of Sector Thrace. Everyone with any sense is going to try to get eyes on the Denva system for its strategic location alone - even if were literally empty, just keeping watch lets you know about anybody crossing the sector.
And because it's not empty, anybody keeping watch would want to know more about who holds it - especially if they want to take it, and the control over movement in the Sector that comes with it, for themselves. No strategist worth their spit will pass on the opportunity to see what their opposition is building if they can easily do so.
3. Knowing what we can produce, how much of it we can produce, and how expensive it is for us to produce it. Information advantage like that is a big deal in trade negotiations.
2. Industrial espionage is a spectrum. "Copy whatever technology you have" is pretty far to one side of it, but it's just common sense that you do not want outsiders to actually see the process itself, because aside from all of the above I just mentioned - yes, they do get a better shot at reproducing some of the tech, even if they don't get anywhere near all of it.
My understanding is that the dark mechanicus is where all the innovation-liking tech priests went during the heresy, so... they're going to be more gung ho about trying than the Imperial ad-mech. And the Imperial Ad Mech of the Denvan Enclaves were very gung ho about stealing technological secrets, at least from each other.
But even if they don't, it's a lot harder for the strength Vita's psychic defenses to be a surprise if they can see exactly how much shielding we put in every SKU. That information falling into adversarial hands would be bad.
Also even if they can't scry technology they can get a general sense of if an attack has favorable odds and a bunch of information we want to deny our enemies like "where is our industry" and "when are we guarding it".
Bottled up
The sound of the atomic thundered through her body, an eye searingly bright light blotting out her vision. Then a second followed, and a third. As the last detonation faded out into a towering mushroom cloud, Anexa looked at the forces arrayed in front of her. From atop her god beast, she could see the hundreds of thousands who had joined her in the Jihad, countless men and women hanging onto the sides of the lesser warbeasts, standing upon captured crawlers and lifters. Beyond her forces, the once impenetrable massif rose, that bulwark of empire now cloven in twain.
With a shout, she raised her power-knife, and as a one, the army answered the salute. The battlecry of the revolution rang through the assembled masses, and then another cry. Her name, the chosen leader, who had set all this in motion. With a gesture, the army started upon it's move, forever sealing the fate of traitorous emperor, and his vile lackey, the Corpse Baron. But the path, once entered, would not stop at this act of simple vengeance. The war would spread, from this world to every other world in the Empire. A vision of a now inevitable future played out before her eyes...
And was stopped, just as suddenly. Shattered, burning ships froze in the skies of a thousands worlds, the soldiers below stopped midstroke. With a sigh, Anexa closed the ancient entertainment sim, and got up to see who would knock upon her cabin hour at this hour of night, without even a simple ping as a heads up. The door opened with a worrying whine, most assuredly courtesy of impact mechadendrite that had just been hammering it, and the somewhat embarrassed tech priests behind it.
On instinct, Anexa queried her implant to find the name of her erstwhile guest. She did try, somewhat, to recall their names, but her visitor now looked to be one of the newest members to have come on board, and even the reformed Cogitare was not all that focused on matters of self-expression among it's junior members. That the implant insisted no one was in front of her door was a surprise. That she'd gotten halfway through debugging it before the tech priest in question interrupted her was her mistake. "Eh, Magos ", the tech priestess started, in plain gothic, her voice completely lacking the mechanical subchannels so preferred for active communication. It was a soft voice, yet carrying the kind of roughness you'd expect from working in a heavy industrial environment without mechanical voice-cord replacement. "I'm sorry I didn't notify you. And that I spoofed my transponder. But I would like this conversation to remain somewhat confidential."
"Vita will know about this", Anexa answered, but the tech priestess answered that she did not object. Vita was not the person she had sought to deceive. Rather, the tech priestess had found herself beset by a quandary, one which the Mechanicus as large, and the Cogitare as well, had long dismissed as pointless. It went as follows.
"Once, aeons ago, there had been a king inside a palace. Ruling the empire was hard work, and so to aid the king in his decisions, the king assembled a mighty court. Matters of coin would be determined by the master of coin, matters of ships by the master of ships. The king's judgements could be dispensed by his trusted wards and agents, his blessings delivered by his many sons and daughters. And so, as the king aged and the empire grew, more and more wings were added to the palace, so that the king's judgement could continue to rule the empire. And the empire prospered, even as the king was rarely seen to leave his chambers. When the king took ill and was confined to bed, the orders kept flowing out in his name, and the king's judgement still reigned. Until one day, the king did die. And on the next, his orders continued."
The question often posed in context of this riddle, is to figure out when exactly the king was replaced. It is a riddle that came in many forms, talking of axes, ships, and rooms speaking mysterious languages. But it was ultimately but a simple disguise for one the Mechanicus's lesser heresies, and Anexa recognized it as such immediately. Carnism, or flesh worship, was usually considered an affliction of the laypeople, it's basic concepts beaten out of initiates before they were ever allowed to take up tools. The flesh was not an immutable component of the human mind, the utilization of cybernetics not the science of it's replacement but instead that of it's enhancement. The idea that there was something special, something that could be lost just because metal replaced flesh, had been dismissed aeons ago.
Anexa held back that reflective dismissal before she could utter the first word. She had rejected the Mechanicus's dogmas too once, the least she could do was extend the same charity. And so she answered with her own perspective, not that of the cult. A tale that told of self discovery, of how all growth meant you sometimes left things behind, of how flesh would alter in time, just as metal did, and how trying to be unmoveable just meant you were frozen in place. How a person was not just what flesh and metal they were composed of, but the culmination of all those parts in motion, of thoughts circling through neurons or circuits, and how it was the pattern, not the flesh, or the metal, which housed the true essence.
And the priestess, who introduced herself as 0N-Gob, thanked her for the wisdom, and knew that not all had been futile.
A daemon had made a promise, upon the material etherial and empirical, to complete the corruption of another.
It had been ordered to withdraw it's influence.
It had been ordered to be invicible.
It had been ordered to stay within it's cage.
It had been forbidden, with every word in every language, from effecting all those outside it's domain.
It had not been ordered to stop.
Sat atop it's lair, encased in bands of engraved bronze, a demon reaches out. A small thought, a corruptive thought, takes shape. Among Vita's crews there are those who care about their strength and appearance, who fear not being good enough. Who could, with enticement, be made to alter themselves, convinced to cut away those pieces that made them weak, until nothing remained by a sword ready to fight in chaos names. The daemon prepares this curse, and sets it off, providing it but the tiniest bit of energy.
It is a weak curse, to weak to affect even the feeblest minds. Too weak to penetrate the encrypted psychic shieldings. But it does not matter.
It has been ordered not to manipulate the people outside it's cage, and so when it completes it's curse, the bands of bronze heat up, and burn away.
But they don't burn everything. An attack which does not manifest, which fails so completely as to go unnoticed, is an attack that does not matter at all.
But if the weakness is present, then the commandments are violated, and the bronze burns.
The daemon can not look beyond the encrypted shieldings, beyond it's cage. But the bronzen chains are attached to the walls, and so, by rattling them and listening to the echoes, the demon can learn what actions it was not allowed to take.
The ship echoes with the laughter of the thirsting gods. A massacre spreads through the hallways, as security droids turn upon their erstwhile masters. The psychic shields are unresponsive, all cameras in the vault dead but one, shows the bands of bronze lying broken around the bleeding cage.
Anexa died first, immolated along with the rest of her lab when machinery was overloaded. Victan managed to survive the first trap, dismanteling the security droids that had come to kill him, but no amount of spycraft could save him from the depressurization of the entire starboard wing. Cia had been in the vaults when the catastrophe occured. With the statis field re-engaged, she could preserved, perhaps to be offered up as a sacrifice at a later date. Worst perhaps, was the fate of Gwendolyn. The Seeer had been inside the psylab when the fall came, and every psychic shield had been inverted from rejection to invitation. Her initiation at the hands of Tzeentch was well underway, a local demon enticing her with possible visions, possible paths, possible escapes, each of which she could see if she were willing to tolerate one more mutation, one little sacrifice of herself.
But in the end, every vision led here, towards the inevitable. The final shields on the core were failing, heavily armored security drones melting down the massive bulkheads that protected Vita's security core.
At last, he had won.
"This isn't real, you know", the supposed to be cowering Vita said. "The simulations "
The simulations show exactly what occurred. They are perfect. You lost. It won.
"The simulations don't do Psykana", Vita answered. "Which means that this, this isn't real. "
It is real. Your friends were real. Their fear and suffering was real. They died, and there is nothing you could do about it.
"They're just copies. It's why you Gwen on the psystation. You can only copy that which you have seen, and she hasn't been terrified. Not here, on the ship, anyway"
A minor triffle, to be solved in time. Which you have, all the time in the world, to kill your friends, to drive you to despair, to put them through their worst fears, over and over again.
"Not all the time.", the not-Vita answered "just until I kill you".
The rules cover every conceivable possibility and contain several catch-all clauses to prevent any part of it from being invalidated. Bongo is prohibited from escape and cannot broadcast its power in any way, shape or form
Okay, I entirely don't share this concern. Only thing I want to point out though is that if physical size is even relevant, our anti-scrying shouldn't really help with many of those things - they can see most of this without actually having a point of view anywhere near our psy shields. If they're any good at intelligence analysis, the Eldar can figure a lot out about our capacity and even our methods just by scrying civilian residential districts and such. There's a reason simply buying the newspapers used to be a not only valid but valuable form of spy work.
However, it raised a secondary question. Do we actually think Denva is the nexus of Sector Thrace? Because that'd be weird, but it might be true from what we know of the map.
The overall sector map is, obviously, more hole than map. However, the parts we think we know do show two large chunks (the space marine bit and the Eldar bit) that go a ways with limited outward branches to enable looping around, and you can't get between the two without passing through Denva. There's probably a loop bridging Bralik, Quenlar, and Red Harbor, with the Necrons likely parked in the middle of it. There's probably another bridging Dornath, Y'kalla Drift, Myrix, and maybe further points like Skleth.
You can pass through Zantris from Hearthward to Red Harbor or from Y'kalla Drift to Braxis Fall without going through Denva, but not between those two sections of the map.
Still, it does seem plausible that Denva is a significant pass through the map that greatly shortens certain routes - albeit one of somewhat unclear utility to any given faction. We split Chaos in two, but Chaos and Chaos don't necessarily want to connect. (Though obviously Chaos, Chaos, Orks, and Tyranids at least are all generally uninterested in ideas like 'maintaining neutral buffer zones', so that doesn't stop them wanting to run us over, it just might make us not more exciting to run over due to the astrography.) As for more positive interactions...nobody on this map has positive interactions with each other. We could facilitate trade between Space Marines and Eldar except...neither of them wants that.
Also even if they can't scry technology they can get a general sense of if an attack has favorable odds and a bunch of information we want to deny our enemies like "where is our industry" and "when are we guarding it".
Yes, but at that point you're completely off 'we need to get psy encryption onto all our factories' and on to 'we would like to not be scryed in general'. Which is true, but not what I was contesting.
Okay, I entirely don't share this concern. Only thing I want to point out though is that if physical size is even relevant, our anti-scrying shouldn't really help with many of those things - they can see most of this without actually having a point of view anywhere near our psy shields. If they're any good at intelligence analysis, the Eldar can figure a lot out about our capacity and even our methods just by scrying civilian residential districts and such. There's a reason simply buying the newspapers used to be a not only valid but valuable form of spy work.
However, it raised a secondary question. Do we actually think Denva is the nexus of Sector Thrace? Because that'd be weird, but it might be true from what we know of the map.
The overall sector map is, obviously, more hole than map. However, the parts we think we know do show two large chunks (the space marine bit and the Eldar bit) that go a ways with limited outward branches to enable looping around, and you can't get between the two without passing through Denva. There's probably a loop bridging Bralik, Quenlar, and Red Harbor, with the Necrons likely parked in the middle of it. There's probably another bridging Dornath, Y'kalla Drift, Myrix, and maybe further points like Skleth.
You can pass through Zantris from Hearthward to Red Harbor or from Y'kalla Drift to Braxis Fall without going through Denva, but not between those two sections of the map.
Still, it does seem plausible that Denva is a significant pass through the map that greatly shortens certain routes - albeit one of somewhat unclear utility to any given faction. We split Chaos in two, but Chaos and Chaos don't necessarily want to connect. (Though obviously Chaos, Chaos, Orks, and Tyranids at least are all generally uninterested in ideas like 'maintaining neutral buffer zones', so that doesn't stop them wanting to run us over, it just might make us not more exciting to run over due to the astrography.) As for more positive interactions...nobody on this map has positive interactions with each other. We could facilitate trade between Space Marines and Eldar except...neither of them wants that.
Yes, but at that point you're completely off 'we need to get psy encryption onto all our factories' and on to 'we would like to not be scryed in general'. Which is true, but not what I was contesting.
Okay, I entirely don't share this concern. Only thing I want to point out though is that if physical size is even relevant, our anti-scrying shouldn't really help with many of those things - they can see most of this without actually having a point of view anywhere near our psy shields. If they're any good at intelligence analysis, the Eldar can figure a lot out about our capacity and even our methods just by scrying civilian residential districts and such. There's a reason simply buying the newspapers used to be a not only valid but valuable form of spy work.
The civilian districts that we invested in making universally shielded with the benefit of hardware psy encryption?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say if the Eldar noticed places winking out of their ability to scry already, they wouldn't have waited on us contacting them, particularly since they can't foresee that either - they'd have come to us, because what the CAN see are the nasty visitors we just rolled, but can't see for sure if said visitors make off with our scry-blocking technology, what with the scry-blocking.
And man, I cannot imagine them accepting that outcome. As others have said, divination is one of the Eldar's most important force multipliers. They'd want this capability to get out even less than we do!
So while it's not impossible they're measuring our capacity by the speed of the civilian shield rollout... I'd call it more unlikely than likely.
The moment we show up offering shields, that changes. First some spare diviners will go looking at it, then every diviner that can be spared when they realize this shit is real and that they need to know how much they can plausibly ask for yesterday.
Oooh, that's sick. A few typos here and there (seeer), but I love the concept. I love the final confrontation in the sim, and how it being a sim that bongo somehow pulled in a connection to calls back to the start.
Divination is also not that cohesive. You can see the future, but not the whole of the future. You go looking for specific information or a general goal and you get flashes and glimpses.
Seeing that you can't see something you don't even know to look for is a really really big ask.
Divination is also not that cohesive. You can see the future, but not the whole of the future. You go looking for specific information or a general goal and you get flashes and glimpses.
Seeing that you can't see something you don't even know to look for is a really really big ask.
I mean, the most plausible scenarios for them already watching are...
A: They've been watching since ever because it's the crossroads of the crossroads, and that's useful to keep an eye on in general. The corsairs may have been who they sent to take a deeper look when stuff started getting weird right before Vita left.
B: They've been watching Denva since Ascalon because some whack-ass girl from before the collapse of the Dominion just showed up there and punked notorious superpirate queen Xylaris despite being taken by surprise. She wants to trade, we should probably learn more about her.
At which point the thing they know to look for is "the things that were already there" and "anything to get an idea of how to improve trade negotiations since Vita is looking to do it later".
And then that stops working without explanation after Vita gets back. Once the eyebrows get raised and we get more focused attention... well that's that, really.
But of course it's that very same theoretical ease of the attention on us snowballing after SSDIPS goes live that tells me they probably haven't kept close enough watch to see the changeover. Maybe not even close enough to see the war-band move in, though such a presumption strains belief in other ways.
But fair enough in that I don't actually know much of the details of what scrying is capable of. I just assume "can look at far away stuff in the present" is one of them.
I mean, the most plausible scenarios for them already watching are...
A: They've been watching since ever because it's the crossroads of the crossroads, and that's useful to keep an eye on in general. The corsairs may have been who they sent to take a deeper look when stuff started getting weird right before Vita left.
B: They've been watching Denva since Ascalon because some whack-ass girl from before the collapse of the Dominion just showed up there and punked notorious superpirate queen Xylaris despite being taken by surprise. She wants to trade, we should probably learn more about her.
At which point the thing they know to look for is "the things that were already there" and "anything to get an idea of how to improve trade negotiations since Vita is looking to do it later".
And then that stops working without explanation after Vita gets back. Once the eyebrows get raised and we get more focused attention... well that's that, really.
But of course it's that very same theoretical ease of the attention on us snowballing after SSDIPS goes live that tells me they probably haven't kept close enough watch to see the changeover. Maybe not even close enough to see the war-band move in, though such a presumption strains belief in other ways.
But fair enough in that I don't actually know much of the details of what scrying is capable of. I just assume "can look at far away stuff in the present" is one of them.
Or, they have been looking at us, but the fact that our future is under shielding is baked in so they just saw us fade out of their far-seeing without much note.
They see no threat to the Eldar nor way we could be turned to their ends and they dismiss us. It just looks like we are any of the trillion things in the universe that just are not that important.
Or, they have been looking at us, but the fact that our future is under shielding is baked in so they just saw us fade out of their far-seeing without much note.
They see no threat to the Eldar nor way we could be turned to their ends and they dismiss us. It just looks like we are any of the trillion things in the universe that just are not that important.
...Does that actually make sense as a resolution to the war-band invasion, though? Feels like "they were invaded, then they faded out... while also the war-band was crushed. Simultaneously." would raise some red flags. How does one reverse a defeat at the hands of the ruinous powers and fade from relevancy?
This would be after they know about Vita, too. I'm not ruling out what you're proposing, just... it seems hard to me for them to have looked at the situation and then dismissed it given what we know they know and the dramatic circumstances of and leading up to the decade where SSDIPS and hardware psy encryption came to the fore.
... I sincerely doubt Vita is that dumb, as to leave such a screamingly obvious loophole to be exploited.
It's good fic, but basically going "Because the narrative didn't explicitly close this particular hole, I am introducing it that Vita actually somehow overlooked it and now Bongo has free rein to slow roll corrupting us", it's just kind of mean spirited I think.
... I sincerely doubt Vita is that dumb, as to leave such a screamingly obvious loophole to be exploited.
It's good fic, but basically going "Because the narrative didn't explicitly close this particular hole, I am introducing it that Vita actually somehow overlooked it and now Bongo has free rein to slow roll corrupting us", it's just kind of mean spirited I think.
Bongo invited in communication and preventing that was an explicit goal of the binding, so obviously this particular loophole didn't happen. But it's a fun what-if, and still one that ends without bongo winning, just validating that he's not quit the game. As soon as this sim ends, the loophole would be closed, even within this hypothetical.
So I don't particularly feel it's mean spirited, personally.
I personally have some interest in psytech machine spirits - it's a first step into truly mating our tech base with psyker powers, further improves our shields, and may discount Basics of Psychic Computation. IU's gotta come first though of course, and I'm personally hoping to fit that in next turn.
Why would they not be in particular, relative to the finer points of our industrial plant?
I'm not saying they can or can't scry us, I am saying that it doesn't make sense with how 40K operates to expect that they can scry us and thereby copy whatever technology they see.
And I'm not sure what negotiating advantage you're proposing the Eldar would get from scrying our industrial plant.
I will explain something I have figured out regarding STCs. First STCs generally fall into three broad categories prints, producers, and designers. The prints are what we usually expect of STCs, STC printouts, a schematic complete with simple easy to understand production methods. The second producers as I am calling them are essentially specialized automated industrial parks that produce a specific product. Producer STCs are rare even by the standards of STCs. The third and final category of STC are what I am calling the STC designer these are the STCs that make the STC printouts and have a specalized AI at their core, they are also so rare as to be vanishing by STC standerds.
Now that I have classified STCs I will say for most STCs they would be no easier to scry than any anonymous object would be. The warp works on narrative and loves drama, so until an STC becomes narratively relevant it is as good as anonymous. The designer type STC however is able to think and as such may have some warp presence, but that warp presence is likely quite small and dim. So picking it out from all the other thinking presences would be like trying to find a particulare needle in a wherehouse full needle haystacks at the least. It is hypothetically doable but you would be doing the equivalent of sifting sand by hand looking for iridium or maybe platinum.
It should also be noted that 'printouts' are a bit of a confusing term. They aren't referring to paper blueprints/instructions (though you definitely could put small slices on that medium if for some reason you wanted too, besides any paper printouts would not have survived to the 40k era), instead they're advanced computer storage devices that can be accessed by (at the least) basic computers due to their purposes as all-in-one, 'rocks-to-replicators' colony builder guides. They are created when someone/an industry needs to be built to make something and they don't want/need to ping the central repository for building instructions constantly. The printout would contain a customized list of instructions (based on local resource availability) for how to build the tools etcetera until you built the production line/singular item and then contained the instructions for that line to automatically build more of that item when installed.
Edit: If we get one in quest it would essentially give us the Research for whatever it contains and the science on how to make it and every periphery production process (which would give a lot of bonus techs to anyone not Vita)
Edit: If we get one in quest it would essentially give us the Research for whatever it contains and the science on how to make it and every periphery production process (which would give a lot of bonus techs to anyone not Vita)
It might give us some bonuses on some researches, but yeah it would give not only the tech for whatever it is but the complete design as well. It would still be valuable for us, just not as valuable as it would be for others.
I actually wonder what Vita would think of a designer type's STC AI? I mean many of them that are left are probably like the AI version of extreme introverts that are perfectly happy to continually make designs alone, and any still existing are making designs for increasingly esoteric hypothetical situations.
It might give us some bonuses on some researches, but yeah it would give not only the tech for whatever it is but the complete design as well. It would still be valuable for us, just not as valuable as it would be for others.
I actually wonder what Vita would think of a designer type's STC AI? I mean many of them that are left are probably like the AI version of extreme introverts that are perfectly happy to continually make designs alone, and any still existing are making designs for increasingly esoteric hypothetical situations.
They probably used a Dumb AI or were otherwise a specialized sub-function controlled by a colony's (later planetary/system) initial administrator AI. No need for something more intelligent than was needed.
I THINK that's intensity. There is a roll for who shows up, then a d6 to determine how big of a force they show up with. I, again think, 1 is small and 6 is big.
Again, first time we got a 6 for visitors, it was just a Squad of Astartes in a Sword Frigate, and when Denva got a 2 while we were gone they had Chaos Cultists with a Heavy Cruiser show up. I'm pretty certain the lower it is the worse it is for us and what we'll be facing is going to be a challenge even for us.
... I sincerely doubt Vita is that dumb, as to leave such a screamingly obvious loophole to be exploited.
It's good fic, but basically going "Because the narrative didn't explicitly close this particular hole, I am introducing it that Vita actually somehow overlooked it and now Bongo has free rein to slow roll corrupting us", it's just kind of mean spirited I think.
Bongo isn't corrupting Vita, at least, not the Vita we're playing with. He can't, after all, affect anything outside his bottle. So what he's done is he first reasoned himself into the argument that a copy of a thing is the thing itself, and then reasoned himself into the argument that an inexact copy of a thing is still the thing itself. Then, he made an inexact copy of Vita and crew, gathering the information needed by seeing which attempts at corruption are blocked by the binding, and which attempts just fizzle out and do nothing because they would have never worked.
It is that emulation, that shallow copy of Vita he tries to corrupt. The original is unaffected, because anything else would go against the bindings.
If I understand the omake properly the daemon is amusing itself with the electronic equivalent of violent fantasies. It's disturbing to watch in the way such fantasies are, but that is about all and we can't keep the daemon from thinking (unless we True Kill it).
They probably used a Dumb AI or were otherwise a specialized sub-function controlled by a colony's (later planetary/system) initial administrator AI. No need for something more intelligent than was needed.
I'm less sure of that as I think I have heard that there is a functioning designer type STC in Necromunda that is smart enough to mess with the systems to get back at someone because its function was disrupted by that someone. Mind I don't know where the source of that info is or even if it is completely accurate.
Tally
[X][Gwendolyn] Strategist
[X] Plan: Nova cannons go boom. Boonhunting edition. Warp comms and Navibean alternative.
-[X] Idea: Boons! Hunt boons. Earn three boons with this plan. Also get Nova Cannons, warp comm prep and navigator prep.
-[X] Diplomacy: Ensure that the Vellkar & the Stellar Ascendency come to a profitable arrangement for both of them. Stretch Goal: get basing rights for yourself on Denva Primus. Put all the tech you gave the Stellar Ascendency on the table as long as there aren't any obvious red flags coming up during the negotiation (e.g. chaos involvement with the Vellkar)
-[X] Diplomacy: Build the Stellar Ascendency a military academy with Victan's result from last turn
-[X] Research x2 (400 + 85 (Anexa) + 60 (Anexa staff) = 545 RP)
--[X] Improved Large-scale Machine spirits (100 RP)
---[X] Annexa assist
--[X] Improved Organic-Machine control (75 RP)
--[X] Nova Cannon! (100 RP)
--[X] Alternative Shielding Meanings (150 RP)
--[X] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP)
--[X] Intelligence Coding (20 RP Overflow)
-[X][Free] Turn over Improved Large-scale Machine spirits and Improved Organic-Machine control to the Stellar Ascendency
-[X][Boon] Expanded Technology Focus/sharing (write-in two tech trees: Ship Design, Biology)
-[X][Free] Construction (1,500 VBP (Voidforge Miners) = 1500 BP / 1000[666.6 refit BP] BP Repair Bay / 500 Lift Capacity):
--[X] Refit the Spark of the Ancients [122.5 Cramming free after partial refit => one additional slot]:
---[X] Add to Non-Combat Equipment (reduce left cramming from 70 BP to 2.5 BP:
----[X] Troop compartment (50*1.5=75 BP, 45 Cramming)
----[X] Medical bay (25*1.5=37.5 BP, 22.5 Cramming)
---[X] Replace Troop compartment modular slot and Medical facility modular slot with 2x Juvenat Production Facility (750 BP)
---[X] High Maneuverability Thrusters, refit to only take 1080 BP cramming space (1200 BP)
--[X] 104 BP left, give to Victan to help with Diplomacy (product samples?)
-[X] Anexa active Action: Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
-[X] Victan: active action: Diplomat-Spy: Assist with the Vellkar diplomacy
-[X] Cia Passive Psyker improvement
-[X] Gwendolyn Passive learning action
You have to admit that you're starting to get a little bit tired of the sight of Aetherion out of the observation window. It's a fine gas giant, but in most respects simply average. What's more interesting to you is the proliferation of industry around in its orbit. Denva's shipyard and industrial platforms continue to grow, and they've started to build another refinery platform to fuel the ever-expanding fleet of Crucible mining ships.
But while you find portions of the view blasé, Gwen has all but pressed her nose up to the glass in her fascination. "This is incredible."
"It's not something you can't see from your quarters," Anexa says with, amusement clear in her voice.
"But this is real," Gwen responds. "It's actually there, not a reproduced image. And the lights! It's beautiful. It can grow. Unless it doesn't." She shakes her head for a moment and massages her forehead, moving back to sit on the comfortable couch.
You watch her carefully, wondering if that comment carried significance. Judging from the looks of your other crew, they all have similar thoughts.
A long moment passes without any further comment, and Gwen looks back up at all of you. "So, what are these meetings about? Cia hinted it would be a big deal."
You snort. "This is where we decide what we're doing for the next few years. What our priorities are."
"Years?" Gwen replies in mild disbelief. "It takes you years to accomplish things?"
"It'll take you years too," Cia said firmly, meeting Gwen's disbelieving gaze. "To learn. To practice. To accomplish. A year seems like such a long time to you. Endless. But it's really not. To build something like that -" she gestured out of the window, towards the buzzing lights of your and Denva's industry combined, "-requires years. Or to truly learn to wield your powers."
Gwen sniffs and turns her nose up slightly, not disagreeing verbally but doing her best to convey what she thinks of that stance.
She turns to you. "Speaking of, what's Gwen's course? I know you've been thinking about it hard."
This new line of conversation fully draws Gwen's attention away from the viewing window, and she waits with bated breath for you to decide her vocation. If she had a strong preference it would be easier, but you genuinely believe she'll be happy as either a seer or a strategist. To her commanding units sounds fun, like an indulgence, while being a seer would be the more responsible choice, and likely somewhat harder.
But as much as you are keen to discover the implications of long-range divination, you need a strategist right now. With the conflicts looming on the horizon, your lack of expertise of military matters is unacceptable.
"Strategist," you say aloud, then ping her implant with a reading list and a lesson plan. "Here's a starter of the various texts that should give you a strong background. Anexa will give you a more powerful implant to help you with reading. You'll need the full organic-machine control suite to have a chance to properly command the sorts of forces we'll be deploying."
She lights up. "Oh. Oh really?" Then she turns inwards to examine the list of books you've sent her. "This is so many.
"Years," Cia says with a snort. "And don't forget the Chaos primer as soon as the cognitive filter is up."
"Yes yes," Anexa says distractedly. "What's the research agenda?"
"Ship-sized machine spirits," you say with a frown. "I wasn't able to achieve everything I wanted last time. And Denva seems incapable of training a proper ship's crew. I want to make it so that they won't need to. We'll be improving the machine spirits for running ships, and improving the organic-machine control implant so that a single person can run a cruiser. Then finishing out some military research and getting started on navigator and some psychic shielding research"
You then focus on Victan. "You got the ball rolling for founding a military academy. Let's follow up on that. Gwen's lesson plan is a prototype for a full training course for Denva's military."
He nods, stroking his chin. "I'll reach out. Were you going to build it yourself?"
You shake your head. "No, Denva will be in charge of building it, and they can put it wherever they like. And once you get that moving turn it all over to me, since the other thing we need to focus on is making sure the Vellkar diplomacy goes well. They want something different from the previous arrangement, and I'm not sure that Denva quite understands that yet."
Victan knits his brows together at that, skimming through the articles and communiqués you send him. There's no smoking gun, but there's certainly a laid-back vibe to the diplomats engaging with the Vellkar, and you can tell he's already spotted it. "I'll get my team on it. Do you want us as a separate party to the negotiations, or simply aiding and advising Denva?"
You wave your hand at him. "I don't really care. We'll talk about it later, but I mostly want to make sure they can come to a profitable arrangement. It would be best if we could get basing rights on the planet, and you're free to share any technology that Denva already has. I don't like the idea of them using my technology as leverage in this negotiation."
Then you pause, remembering something. "Oh, and use the goodwill we have to insert ourselves more into their research infrastructure through the cogitare. I want them to focus more on ship design and biology."
"Understood," he replies, already starting to flick messages towards his staff.
"Cia," you say, turning towards the last person in the room. She's reclining languidly in her chair, but you can tell she's ready to snap into action. At least she isn't wearing her armor. "Take it easy for a little while. Help Gwen with her work, and show her the ropes. You two will be working together for a long time, so I want to make sure you have time to bond."
Cia raises her eyebrows and glances towards Gwen. "Sounds like a plan. Is that everything?"
"It is," you reply. "It feels like it's time for something to break. Let's get working before the next crisis."
You put action to words, quickly diving into improving the organic-machine control implants to handle more input. It's not easy, since you already eked most of the possible capabilities out of the basic implant, and you can't just increase the specs - that would be an entirely different research task that would take longer than you've budgeted for.
You try to put together some alternate architectures that would be more efficent but draw a blank. Everything you try loses efficiency compared to the old system.
Still, you've got decades of data from people actively using the OMC implants, especially in industrial settings. You put out a call to the VoidForge Miners for people especially capable with their implants and investigate what they've done. The common thread isn't anything revelatory, just a series of hacked-together interfaces to put the important information front and center while creating several catch-all filters for less-important details that will still cause a ping if they fall outside the set parameters.
This approach works, but the problem is that it's very specialized for any given adaptation. Still, it gives you finer granularity over what's important, and a family of solutions to refine the system to allow a single person to oversee even more machines. There's various other improvements that could be made, but they'll have to wait for more powerful implants.
Researched Improved Organic-Machine control, 3+20 = 23 Poor success. Increases the OMC control cap per person to 30. Unlocked new technology - Advanced Organic-Machine Control (200 RP) Requires Companion Cogitators. Existing Research discounted - Streamlined OMC interface cost reduced by 25 RP
That didn't go as well as you like, but your next goal is to attack the problem from the other direction and try to make it easier to command ships by integrating powerful machine spirits into them. You didn't have a ton of luck before, but you've laid the groundwork and mapped out the challenges.
And this time, you have Anexa working with you. She's always had the touch of an artist when working with machine spirits, and this time proves to be no exception. You start by going over the system you came up for smaller-scale machine spirits, and Anexa is frowning after getting a third of the way through it.
She holds her criticism to the end, then expresses it kindly. "The problem is that you're designing it like it's a bot. Or a device, with the neural nodes as abstract command systems that work the same for data integration on different levels. But you need to remember that it's closer to a living thing."
She indicates two subsystems, one of which controls an engine assembly, another of which is above it and integrates all of the engine data together to decide how to adjust power flows depending on how all of the engines are doing, and send reports up to the next level. "These are built almost identically, despite the differences in the data they deal with. You need to stop trying to break the system into individual pieces that can be parceled out as needed. Treat the entire design as an organic whole. There's no reason to bottleneck the connection here, so instead you can expand it. Don't think of it as a cluster for each engine and a cluster coordinating them. The whole thing is a single cluster, and then it connects to the larger cluster of the ship."
She's reorganizing things on the fly as she's talking, and you're starting to see what she means as she spins off a half-dozen simulations of various different architectures. They're less uniform than yours, with more of an organic feel. But that's the entire point.
It takes some time to codify Anexa's insight into something that you can generalize to future designs, but it also comes along with improved performance and requires less oversight. The end result is even greater savings in the amount of complexity passed on to the operator, and combined with the improved implants you've acheived your goal of letting a single human command a light-cruiser sized voidship.
Which is kind of ridiculous. Simplifying down the technology such that a single human, a meatsack less than two meters in size, can run a ship thats more than four kilometers long.
Researched Improved Large-scale Machine Spirits - 94+30 = 124! Critical success! Machine spirit ship equipment updated, can now be applied to light cruisers and smaller, and reduces CP cost to 15% of the base hull. Unlocked new technology - Advanced Large-scale Machine spirits (100 RP)
Unlocked bonus technology - Megastructure Machine Spirits (200 RP)
Existing Research discounted - Machine Spirit Ground Strategy cost reduced by 50 RP
Existing Research discounted - Machine Spirit Void Tactics cost reduced by 25 RP
Existing Research discounted - Independent Manufactories cost reduced by 100 RP
Existing Research discounted - Machine Spirit Hallucinations cost reduced by 50 RP +1 Anexa Level.
Once that's all set you package the two pieces of technology into easily-understood data packages and shoot them off to Victan ahead of your meeting. He distributes them to Denva, and you know they're breathing a sigh of relief at not needing to train crews for everything larger than a destroyer.
+1 Denva Boon
When your walk into your office he pulls up a hologram of an archipelago of islands on Denva's surface, highlighting the largest one. They're in fairly tropical waters some distance off the continent of Denva, though from the data you access the seas in that area tend to be rather rough. There's a series of half-moon bays bitten out of the islands, too circular to be natural.
"The Silvertear Islands, a retreat and vacation home of the nobles of Denva. At least when the planet was ruled by the imperium," he informs you. "And the location of the new Denvan Naval Academy."
You frown before the pieces click together. "Ah. Those are craters. Was it a military stronghold?"
He shrugs. "Just loyal to the nobles, so the rebels nuked it. It's been uninhabited since then, and the radiation has died away by now. It was proposed as a location for the Academy, and I didn't think you'd object."
"They understand that naval academy doesn't involve sailing, right?" You ask, uncertain. You don't really trust Denva on military matters anymore, but this seems a bit ridiculous.
He chuckles. "They know that much. But they were trying to decide where to build it, with the default of putting it on Klyssar's Nest or building a small station for it. Then somebody made the proposal that those defending Denva should see its beauty, and that sailing a small one-man sailboat in those waters would prepare them well for the self-reliance and introspection necessary to pilot an OMC ship."
You give that a moment of thought, then purse your lips and nod along. "Alright, I buy it. Forward me the details, I'll take over from here. I think there are some adjustments to the lesson plan from Gwen, but I can try to guide them through some of the coursework I have. The challenge here is that I'm not qualified to teach this stuff, but neither is anybody else. At least I have the syllabuses from a dozen different military academies, even if most of them are archaic."
"Just consider what kind of tradition you instill in them," he asks. "Denva has its own culture, but from my reading of history a military tends to enshrine a somewhat parallel tradition."
"Alright," you say, considering how you want to play setting up Denva's military.
Vote below to choose what ethos you instill into Denva's military
"What about the Vellkar?" You've been following the situation, but not as closely as he has. The consensus from everything you've seen is that Denva is poised to mess everything up royally.
Victan does little to challenge that conclusion, sighing deeply and rubbing at his forehead. "They're talking past each other. The Vellkar want the ability to defend themselves, to make their own technology. Denva is reassuring them that they will be protected, that the only way an enemy reaches Denva Primus will be by destroying the entire Denvan space navy first."
He takes a sip of tea. "The Vellkar are seeing it as an attempt to keep them suppressed, while Denva is seeing their refusal as an attempt to hold out for extortionate aid. What we really need to to is make Denva see the Vellkar as a completely independent polity - or group of them, really - and make a defensive alliance and firm trade deals."
"How do we do that?" you ask. You know how you would do that, but there's a chance the Denvan diplomats won't listen to you browbeating them into compliance."
He spreads his hands. "We negotiate with the Vellkar first, in full view of Denva and as an addendum to their own summit. It's going to need to be lightning-fast to prevent things from spiraling too far out of control. What do you think?"
You like the idea as soon as he suggested it. "Do it. It shows the right way to do things, and gives us leverage with the Vellkar while achieving what I want. You'll trade them the technology along the way?"
He nods. "That was my plan. Denva can't be upset becuase it was ours to begin with, and if they make noise about wanting to hold that card I can remind them that we have more and might consider it if they refrain from making waves."
You nod agreeably. "Sounds like a plan. I'll get working on the military academy. Are you going in person?"
He shakes his head. "I've got good staff. Besides, after the event with the Sororitas in Ascalon I've gotten touchy about going personally to diplomatic conclaves."
"Sensible."
As you get up to go, Victan raises a hand. "Oh, one more thing. I got a ping from one of our long-standing agreements with some of the technical development facilities in Aevon. They've got something for us."
"Oh?" you say in surprise. You remember investing a bit into that sector before you last left Denva, but that was a long time ago. "What is it?"
"The next level of optimizations for the crucibles. They're trying to build a competitor to the crucible, and it's going to be bigger. They're calling it the Anvil. If you want I'll dig deeper, and leverage the old contracts to get the full technical specs."
You barely have to think. "Do it."
Denva has completed and shared the Large-Scale Void Manufacturing Technology! Improves the ship manufactory equipment to produce 1/5 of the BP spent on it. Allows design of Void Manufacturing Platforms under blueprint design. Unlocked new technology - Megastructure Manufacturing (200 RP) Requires Advanced Materials Unlocked new technology - Mobile Shipyards (75 RP)
Unlocked new blueprint - Anvil Large manufacturing craft (1500 void BP, 120 CP, 2 ship construction slots) Voidborne craft with small crew compartment. In-system only, no defenses but relatively hard to chase down. Gives +350 void build capacity.
There's a lot of things to do, but the most important upcoming thing is finally putting together all of the necessary technologies for nova cannons. You've got the ammunition, you've got the propulsion mechanism, so it's time to make a really big gun.
Something about what you're doing stokes something primal in you. You feel kinship to the earliest chemists and tinkerers in humanity's ancient past, discovering the power of their craft and turning it to murderous purposes. At some point, the crafting of a weapon becomes about the elegance of efficiency.
You're building a thing to win a fight. The technical spec is open-ended and the goal is "win." Every bit of performance you can eke out of your design, every manufacturing shortcut you can make will propagate out into the unknowable future as an extra enemy dead, an extra weapon firing. You realize you're creating something that will reshape the military landscape of the sector, that nobody will be able to stand against, and that could challenge any foe that can be named!
Well. Maybe not all that. But when you finally emerge from your fugue and behold the weapon that you've put together, you can't help but be impressed with yourself. It's a cannon that launches teraton-range nuclear bombs at a good percentage of the speed of light, is reasonably accurate over absurd ranges, and can be reloaded relatively quickly. Most importantly, while it has a very high power draw and an enormous recoil, there are ways to compensate for both of those things. And you have, without blowing up the budget.
Your avatar leans back in the chair it's been sitting in while the real you was deep in a design-fugue. "That's a fine day's work." But part of you can't help but notice all of the improvements that could be made. Different ammunition types, various other opportunities to streamline the design. Or - just the potential to upgrade it to something that would fire a shell with a yield measured with a word starting with "peta."
Researched Nova Cannon! - 85 + 20 = 105. Critical success! Unlocked the Nova Cannon weapon and the ammunition bunker equipment. Unlocked new technology - More than just a Boom (100 RP)
Unlocked new technology - Bigger Gun, Bigger Bullet (150 RP)
Unlocked bonus technology - Streamlined Novacannon (200 RP) Requires Improved Gravity Weapons Discounted existing technology - Improved Gravity Weapons cost reduced by 50 RP
You can't help it, and send the specs over to Anexa with only a smily face as a title. Her response is quick.
> (Anexa) What? How? This is ridiculous? That yield number has to be wrong. [Disbelieving]
> (Vita) It's not. I've had a good time over here. [Proud]
> (Anexa) I'll believe it when I see it. Build one. [Stubborn]
> (Vita) Ok. Let's mock up a prototype. [Indulgant]
You don't want to experiment with this kind of weaponry in Aetherion orbit where it could do so much damage, so you adjourn to the leading trojan asteroids to build a quick mock-up. It's very much not the full design, missing all of the loading infrastructure, most of the capacitors that would allow for multiple shots, and any ability to aim it. It'll also probably fall apart after just a couple of shots. But it's still a bare-bones nova cannon, and your crew gathers to watch it fire.
"Firing," you say aloud, though not much happens beyond a quick pulse of visible light from the skeletal gun.
"When -" Cia asks, but is interrupted halfway through the word by a bright flash of light. It would be bright enough to blind unshielded eyes, but the viewscreen had already polarized.
"That was nearly an astronomical unit away!" You say, but then frown. Almost simultaneous with the nova cannon detonation you got some rather strange readings. They're somewhat garbled by the radiation from the test-firing of your new weapon, so you can't make a lot of sense of them. But you do have a bearing, and by focusing your sensors in you can make out that there's a ship out there that wasn't there before.
Visitors to Denva? - rolled a 2. Yes.
Who? Rolled a 1 on a d6.
"That's odd," you say, delving deep into the sensor data. "It definitely didn't arrive through the warp."
The ship itself is on the outskirts of the system, beyond everything interesting in the Denva system. You'd think of trying to hide from them, but with your weapons test there's no way that they'd miss you.
More detailed images come in soon, and the ship is weird. It looks like a pair of waning moons strapped onto a blocky central body at rakish angles. There's a protruding curved shape sticking out the front, and a strange pyramid-like shape on top, but that's all of the detail you can make out.
You run it through the mechanicus ship-classification software you have and the answer is clear. It's a Necron ship, and from the angle it looks like it came from Myrris, though it's impossible to be sure given that it wasn't a warp jump. It's sized about like a small light cruiser, but you aren't sure how that translates to combat potential. You should be able to beat them, but technology differences have a habit of upsetting those sorts of calculations.
You're not sure how fast they are or what their plans are, but you need to decide what you're going to do next - and that's made more complicated by the dozen slumbering necrons currently in your brig. You check on them quickly - and sure enough, they're unchanged. Completely immobile.
I just hope they stay that way.
Denva Military Ethos
This is likely to set the tone of Denva's military for generations to come.
[] [Denva Military] Dutiful This is Weberverse military-sci-fi professional. Rules, regulations and adherence to Duty.
[] [Denva Military] Casual They will reflect Denvan civilian society to the maximum possible. Lower chances of coups or disconnects with the broader culture, also reduced discipline.
[] [Denva Military] Bravado At the core of it all they're pilots, and pilots are, above all else, confident. They'll be a bunch of hotshots, but it will create a "Do or Die" culture that might help when the going gets tough.
[] [Denva Military] Pragmatic They will always run the numbers, and take the course that is most likely to lead to victory, even if it requires some sacrifices.
[] [Denva Military] Chivalric Their mission is to save the galaxy, and they'll do anything to make that happen. May involve some amount of lawful stupid.
Necron Response
Try to keep write-ins concise. I'm looking for goals and methods, not an essay enumerating basic tactics. Clever ideas welcome, but keep in mind you don't know much.
[] [Necron] Attack (write-in approach) Charge straight at them, either to destroy or capture their ship. Juicy technology abounds.
[] [Necron] Aetherion (write-in follow-up) Go defend the industrial heart of the system. If they attack, what do you do? What if they attack somewhere else?
[] [Necron] Klyssar's Nest (write-in follow-up) Go defend the primary void habitat. If they attack, what do you do? What if they attack somewhere else?
[] [Necron] Denva Secundus (write-in follow-up) Go defend the population center of the system. If they attack, what do you do? What if they attack somewhere else?
[] [Necron] Denva Primus (write-in follow-up) Go defend the home of the Vellkar, who are currently in a delicate negotiation with Denva and your representatives. If they attack, what do you do? What if they attack somewhere else?
[] [Necron] Write-in Something clever?
1st: Vellkar Diplomacy roll, 64+28 = 92. Critical success! (Victan)
2nd: Military academy establishment roll, 83+10 = 93. Critical success!
6th: Alternative Shielding Meanings, 61+20 = 81. Good success.
7th: Does in vitro have something to do with wine?, 85+20 = 105, critical success.
8th: Cia Passive level-up roll, 67
9th: Gwen passive level-up roll, 68
Current capabilities:
Command Points 4,824/14,500
Flagship: Spark of the Ancients, 1700 CP cost
Ground Build Capacity: 0
Total Lift Capacity: 500 (converts between ground and void BP)
Total Void Build Capacity: 8,820
Research Capacity: 200+
Psychic Shielding: Outer Hull 240/240 HP, Vita Core 270 HP, Crew Quarters (203/500) 135 HP, Basic Psychic Experimentation Lab 270 HP, Bongo Oubliette 540/540 HP, Secondary Vault 50 HP, Captive Holding cells (500/500) 50 HP, (repair for 5 BP/point, can be repaired by repair bay)
Bongo Psychic Energy = 0/0 Bongo is Bound.
Juvenat usage: 3/50 people's worth (cannot be stockpiled)
Shipbuilding capacity: 31/64 ship construction slots
Available ships:
none, beyond your flagship.
Available ground forces:
338 Specter Light infiltration bots (20 CP)
252 Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (20 CP)
794x Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (20 CP)
21,900 Seeker Bots (22x20 = 440 CP)
37 Light Machine-spirit tanks (4 CP)
28 Medium Machine-spirit tank (2 CP) CP costs for infantry bots work as breakpoints in increments of 1000, or 100 for tanks. So 50 or 500 or 1000 bots all cost 20 CP, and 1001 costs 40 CP. Abstraction, y'all.
Current Installations:
130 Machine-spirit orbital Manufactories. +8190 Void BP/turn (20x130=2600 CP), around Aetherion
1 Large Shipyard, around Aetherion (31/64 ship construction slots)
Contains hulls for 2x Light Cruisers (1800 BP size), 4x Frigate (900 BP size), 7x Destroyers (450 BP size)
Warp research lab, 400 inner shielding, 200 outer shielding. Far orbit of Aetherion
Military:
2 Caltrop Defense stations (2x10=20 CP), around Aetherion
In progress construction:
none
In-progress research:
Intelligence Coding (210/400 RP)
Faith is My Shield (15/75 RP)
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. The Hand of Saint Agatha. A sector-governor's ransom in wealth. A dozen ancient metallic bots. A chunk of auramite supposedly from the Emperor's armor. Pieces of Chaos Spare Marine bodies & armor. Warp-Resonant Crystal. A Strange Seed.
Get their R&D system up and running (requires rolling well, or appropriate tech, or multiple actions).
Refit the full fleet of ships you acquired for their use and hand them over before they get their own fleet up and running.
Build them a military academy with Victan's bonus (and at least a normal success).
Deliver them technology to let one person control a light-cruiser-sized ship.
Ensure that the Vellkar & the Stellar Ascendency come to a profitable arrangement (requires a good diplomacy roll).
Do big favors for civilizations to earn Boons. Most recent list of boons. Most of them will still be valid, ask if you want something else. Current one-time BP boon returns 25,000 bp. Ongoing boons:
Voidforge Miners, +1500 bp/turn in Denva.
Sharing General Design, Industrial, biology and ship design technology.
Large Cogitare presence, continuing to expand.
The Stellar Ascendancy. "Be for others as I have been for you."
Actions (choose 4 of the below, can choose the same action multiple times):
[] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular. Don't do this just because it's free. Do it if you want to know something. Writing those sections delays the updates. If you want Vita to get more done, don't ask for this.
[] Orders: Command existing units in a given theater of operations.
[] Travel/Explore: Pick a system on the Map to travel to/explore. Currently, you may travel 1 system as part of an explore action, or 3 systems if you don't explore. You can explore a place you've already explored, or focus your exploration on a specific feature of a place you've already explored. Or explore two systems next turn and then the turn after go back for specific POIs without costing an action. Jumping a single system over as part of an exploration action is free, a number which will increase with better navigation.
[] Diplomacy/Subversion: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method)
[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what you spend them on.
Installations
Installation default is to be built in full view. Basic stealth (building under cover, sensor-absorbing materials) can be applied with 2x BP cost. Ground-based installations can be built entirely underground for 3x BP cost.
For non-military installations, you can upgrade them with psychic shielding by spending extra BP up to 4x the base cost of the installation. The more you spend, the stronger the shielding will be.
Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP) Will allow you to process basic biological samples, such as flora & fauna. Or captives.
Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP) Will allow you to process basic technological samples, to understand their electronics, materials, etc.
Basic Psychic Experimentation Lab (200 BP, 50 CP) Will allow for safer experimentation with psytech and general psyker powers, at the very least confining the damage from perils of the warp. Can be outfitted with inwards-facing psychic shielding.
High-Energy Physics Research Lab (500 BP or 500 VBP, 100 CP) Will allow you to conduct research on more... excitable branches of physics. Maybe don't put it close to anything you want to keep. (Rolling a 1 while researching something here might turn out badly, but at least you'll have containment measures in place)
Warp Research Lab (500 BP or 500 VBP, 100 CP) Anexa's brainchild. Half mad science lair, half sensible warp research setup. Will allow you to conduct research on the warp, miniature portal generator and all. Will likely help contain poor results, though maybe give it some psychic shielding. (Rolling a 1 while researching something here might turn out badly, but at least you'll have containment measures in place in addition to any psychic shielding you add.)
Captive Holding cells (25 BP, 10 CP) will allow you to hold 500 captives and keep them fed and watered while you interrogate/indoctrinate/talk to them. Basic psychic shielding.
Small automated medical facility (50 BP, 50 CP) 50 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries. Basic psychic shielding.
Large automated medical facility (500 BP, 50 CP) 500 treatment rooms with autodocs capable of dealing with severe injuries. Basic psychic shielding.
Directional-control Radio tower (25 BP, 5 CP) improves signal reception quality and allows you to send your own signals across the planet, as well as giving you the capability to bounce them off the atmosphere to disguise their origin. Basic psychic shielding.
Observatory (100 BP, 25 CP) Built on a nearby mountain. Will unlock research projects to map the current system. Basic psychic shielding.
Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +52.5 ground-based build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.
Machine Spirit Manufactory (120 BP, 20 CP) As a manufactory, but controlled primarily by machine spirits. +63 ground-based build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.
Industrial Aquaculture Plant (50 BP, 10 CP) Produces all of the food necessary to feed 5000 people. The food is very spicy. Basic psychic shielding.
Rocket Launch facility (50 BP, 10 CP) Uses chemical rockets to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to half that amount of void build capacity per action. The opposite of stealthy. Basic psychic shielding.
Spaceport (100 BP, 25 CP) Allows you to use shuttles to convert ground build capacity to Void build capacity with no loss, or as a base to host and rearm fighters. Can host 10 fighters or 10 shuttles, each capable of converting 50 ground BP to void BP per action, built separately. Stealthier than rockets, but not invisible. Basic psychic shielding.
Magnetic Catapult launch system (1000 BP, 50 CP) Allows you to convert up to 500 ground build capacity to void build capacity per action with no loss. Actually quite stealthy. Basic psychic shielding.
Medium Void-shield Installation (1000 BP, 50 CP) A void shield capable of stopping medium orbital bombardment, approximately fifty heavy strikes. Basic psychic shielding.
Anti-Orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion. Basic psychic shielding.
Anti-Air Defenses (25 BP, 5 CP) A trio of rapid-recharge lascannons backed up by advanced targeting software in a reinforced emplacement with an upwards-facing arc. Will attempt to destroy ballistic missiles, aircraft or shuttles as they approach. Can miss or be saturated by large amounts of incoming fire or miss and fail to destroy their targets.
Anti-personnel Bunker, Psychic Shielding (40 BP, 2 CP) A bunker with a set of high-fire-rate weapons designed to take down humanoid-sized attackers wearing medium or lighter armor. Modified with somewhat heavier psychic shielding.
Machine-spirit Jammer (100 BP, 10 CP) A bank of cogitators capable of jamming a large number of small machine spirits (weapons, doors), several medium machine spirits (vehicles) or one large machine spirit (small ship). Effect is temporary and resistance will build up. Basic psychic shielding.
Basic Juvenat Production Facility (250 BP, 50 CP) A set of carefully-managed vats capable of supplying 50 people with a perennial supply of Juvenat. Basic psychic shielding.
Void Installations
These are built in space. They require 'void BP' which is associated with lift capacity. This is a detail we'll abandon eventually, but for now your lift capacity is limited.
Orbital Aquaculture Plant (250 BP, 25 CP) Produces all the food necessary to feed 25,000 people. The food is very spicy. Basic psychic shielding.
Orbital Manufactory (250 void BP, 40 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +52.5 void build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.
Machine Spirit Orbital Manufactory (300 void BP, 15 CP) Orbital manufacturing capability, built above a world. Includes material harvesting & transport. Gives +63 void build capacity. Basic psychic shielding.
Deep Space Manufactory (750 void BP, 40 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +105 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Basic psychic shielding.
Machine Spirit Deep Space Manufactory (900 void BP, 15 CP) Manufacturing capacity built near asteroid clusters. Gives +126 void build capacity. Automatic basic stealth. Basic psychic shielding.
Small Shipyard (1000 void BP, 50 CP) 4 Ship construction slots
Medium Shipyard (3000 void BP, 100 CP) 16 Ship construction slots
Large Shipyard (10,000 void BP, 250 CP) 64 Ship construction slots
Nuclear warhead (15 BP, 1 CP) A variable-yield nuclear warhead that can be deployed by ballistic missile or other means to destroy a hive-sized target unless it's heavily dug-in or protected by void shields.
Exterminatus warhead (100 BP, 1 CP) A "variable-yield" nuclear warhead that must be deployed by an orbiting ship. Comes with a ground-penetrating body about the size of a torpedo, and can be shot down. But if not, it'll set off an explosion large enough to crack the crust and cause planetary-scale devastation from the resulting earthquakes, volcanoes, and utter destruction of all planetary cycles. It'll be possible to survive the resulting cataclysm in a bunker on the far side of the planet, but the planet's toast for at least a century.
Ships
Basic space stealth missile (5 Void BP, 1 CP) Rests steailthily in orbit, until activated, at which point it can attack nearly any target in orbit. One-shots satellites, many are needed for ships or larger platforms.
Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) Each shuttle converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.
Fighter (20 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.
Basic Stealth Fighters (25 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. They shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking, though they won't be able to close all the way to attack range without being spotted. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.
Basic Stealth Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver things other than bombs to your enemies. So let's stick some armor and guns on a shuttle, and make it a bit more maneuverable. They shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking, though they won't be able to close all the way to attack range without being spotted. Can carry 100 troops and provide anti-personnel and light antiarmor fire. Requires a spaceport for rapid transport of troops.
Crucible manufacturing craft (550 void BP, 60 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Voidborne craft with small crew compartment. In-system only, no defenses but relatively hard to chase down. Gives +100 void build capacity, very mobile.
Tiny system monitor (950 void BP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1500x300 meters. 7 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Light Shields. 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 light lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.
Small system monitor (2375 void BP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots) Frigate, 2200x600 meters. 5 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. 4x Medium Macrocannons, 1x Medium Lances, 2x Point Defense.
Candle destroyer (1450 void BP, 1 ship construction slot) Destroyer, 1600x350 meters. 8 gravities of acceleration. Medium armor, Medium Shields. Living Space, Psychic Shields (20 HP) 2 Light Macrocannon batteries, 1 Medium Lance battery. High-maneuverability thrusters.
Flame torpedo frigate (2500 void BP, 2 ship construction slots) 2000x500 meters, 6 gravities, light shields, medium armor. Living Space. Psychic Shields (40 HP) Medium Torpedoes, 2x point defense, Prow ram, Light macrocannons. High-maneuverability thrusters, melta torpedo payloads, Alloyed Armor, Light Boarding preparations.
Units
Avatar (10 BP, 0 CP) 1 human-appearing robot.
Seeker Bot (80 BP, 20 CP). 1000 light infantry bots, light arms, and armor intended to fight lightly armored enemies. Can pass for human, are run by machine spirits, equipped with psychic shields and basic nonlethal weapons mostly consisting of basic knockout gas that sometimes causes fatal side-effects.
Specter (100 BP, 20 CP). 1000 infiltration bots, light arms and armor intended to fight lightly-armored enemies. Can pass for human, are run by machine-spirits, equipped with machine-spirit jamming and are both passively and actively stealthy.
Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor, mostly intended to fight lightly-armored enemies. Good in tight corners and rough terrain. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control.
Light Machine-spirit infantry bots (35 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Light Humanized Machine-spirit infantry bots (60 BP, 20 CP). As light Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look like humans. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger.
Medium Infantry Bots (50 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with medium armor and light anti-tank weaponry. Good all-rounders. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control.
Medium Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (75 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (100 BP, 20 CP) As Medium Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look like humans. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots.
Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Good in open field combat against heavily armed foes.
Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (150 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Heavy Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (175 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look human. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots.
Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (190 BP, 20 CP) As Heavy Infantry Bots, but controlled by machine spirits and made to look human. Slightly more chaos-resistant, tougher and stronger than normal bots. Can jam the weapons and equipment of foes who use machine spirits.
Light Machine-spirit tanks (150 BP, 5 CP) As Light tanks, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Medium tanks (200 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor.
Medium Machine-spirit tanks (375 BP, 5 CP) As Medium tanks, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Basic Artillery (300 BP, 50 CP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication.
Basic Machine-spirit Artillery (450 BP, 5 CP) As Basic Artillery, but controlled by machine spirits. Slightly more chaos-resistant.
Ocean Remediation Ship (50 BP, 10 CP) A ship that will dredge up massive amounts of seaweed, compact it and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as a solid lump. 1 ship will fix 1% of the Calderath problem over 1 century. Basic psychic shields.
Machine Spirit Ocean Remediation Ship (75 BP, 1 CP) A ship that will dredge up massive amounts of seaweed, compact it and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as a solid lump. 1 ship will fix 1% of the Calderath problem over 1 century. Controlled by a very serene machine spirit. Basic psychic shields.
Export Goods
Light Infantry Weapons (5 BP) Enough light weapons to outfit 1000 humans. Mostly intended for anti-personnel use. Lasguns, a few stubbers, some grenade launchers and supplies of frag grenades.
Light Infantry Armor (5 BP) Enough light armor to outfit 1000 humans. Roughly equivalent to Imperial guard Flak armor, though with better communication abilities. Comes equipped with basic psychic shields, though not perfectly integrated.
Medium Infantry Weapons (10 BP) Enough medium weapons to outfit 1000 humans. A mix of anti-armor and anti-personnel use with greater specialization. Hotshot las-gun equivalents, some lascannons, some autocannons, some flamers, some sniper rifles, a supply of krak grenades.
Medium Infantry Armor (10 BP) Enough medium armor to outfit 1000 humans. Roughly equivalent to Imperial carapace armor. Comes equipped with basic psychic shields, though not perfectly integrated.
Heavy Infantry Weapons (20 BP) Enough heavy weapons to outfit 1000 humans. Primarily focused on anti-armor, will work well on power-armored foes. Plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers.
Heavy Infantry Armor (5 BP per unit) Enough heavy armor to equip 1000 humans with armor slightly superior to Sisters-of-Battle grade armor. Can be built with integrated void-shields by doubling the price. Comes equipped with basic psychic shields, though not perfectly integrated.
Basic Force Weapons (5 bp for a personalized one, or 10 for 1 bp for general-purpose) A force weapon in the shape of a sword, axe, spear or glaive. Ideally it gets personally fitted to the user, which is difficult but has a better result, or you can mass-produce weapons that will work but won't be all they could be.
Man-portable Machine-Spirit Jammers (10 BP) Enough small devices in the forms of vox-units, bluescreen grenades and directed antennae to arm 1000 humans with gear that increases their effectiveness against enemies using weapons, armor and vehicles with machine spirits.
Personal Void Shields (5 bp per unit) A void-shield projector capable of protecting a person or bot from weapons fire. Can be fit into an amulet or be a larger unit attached to armor for greater shield strength.
Light crewed tanks (100 BP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Need crew. Roughly equivalent to the Imperial Chimera. Basic psychic shields.
Medium crewed tanks (200 BP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons to fight enemy armor. Roughly equivalent to the Leman Russ. Basic psychic shields.
Basic Crewed artillery (300 BP) 50 basic artillery units, capable of shelling battlefields with indirect fire. Includes internal ammunition fabrication. Basic psychic shields.
Trade goods (Any cost you wish to spend) A mix of medical supplies, civilian equipment, vehicles and appliances tailored to your trade partner's needs. 5 is a small amount of goods, 10 is decent, 20 is a fair number, 50 starts being quite a lot.
Manned Manufactory (100 BP) More manufacturing capacity and the raw material harvesting to use it. +52.5 ground-based build capacity, to be spent as the people running it desire. Basic psychic shields.
Residential Space (10 BP)
Enough living space for 1000 people. Beds, plumbing. Temperature control. Basic psychic shields.
City (1000 BP per 50,000 people)
The complete package for a city. Residential space, power generation, sewage treatment, transit, and offices. No food production. Basic psychic shields.
Orbital habitat (1750 Void BP per 50,000 people) As city but in space. Includes Hydroponics. Basic psychic shields.
Manned Ocean Remediation Ship (50 BP) A ship that will dredge up massive amounts of seaweed, compact it, and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as a solid lump. Also can turn the seaweed into moderately palatable food for the crew. 1 ship will fix 1% of the Calderath problem over 1 century. Basic psychic shields.
[] Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on.
Ground Blueprint Design:
To design ground installations & non-combat units, suggest them in the thread and I'll add them here if they're valid, along with RP cost to design them. This includes bunkers, anti-orbital defenses, ground units, etc. You'll unlock more things with more technology. Some things are impossible without the correct research - for example, heavy tanks will require you to research heavy armor first. Other things will be very cheap if you already have most of the design - for example if you research a better weapon it will be relatively cheap to just swap that out on the tanks.
Small Blueprints Design
Blueprint Modification Options
Blueprint Modification system: We've unlocked various additions to ground blueprints. Instead of attempting to list all possible combination below I'll list the base options, and you can trick them out with the following modifications. In general BP & RP should round up to the nearest 5. CP does not. Note that these are calculated off "base cost," not total cost, so it is not compounding, though some upgrades increase the base cost.
Here's an example of me designing a fancy assault shuttle (I'm not going to keep this up to date, so the numbers here may not reflect the numbers as you improve the modifications available with future research
The base blueprint is 25 RP - Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP), but I want to make it fancy. First, let's make it machine-spirit controlled. That gives +0.5x base BP, -0.9x CP, or +15 BP, -4.5 CP. So the blueprint is now:
25 RP - Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (40 BP, 0.5 CP)
Then I want to give it void shields. That costs +1x base BP cost because it's a small craft, then +1x RP. So +25 BP, +25 RP. Now it's:
50 RP - Void-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (65 BP, 0.5 CP)
Now I want to give it psy shields. That's +4x base BP cost for small craft (which was 25, so +100 BP), and +1x base RP cost (which was 25, so +25 RP). So now it's:
75 RP - Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (165 BP, 0.5 CP)
Oh and screw it, might as well make it stealthy too, which is +1x base RP cost, +0.25x base BP cost, so that's +10 BP (round up to nearest 5) & +25 RP cost, which leaves us with:
100 RP Basic Stealth Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (175 BP, 0.5 CP)
And of course that's a bit of a mouthful, so I'm going to rename it the "Icarus," and the blueprint should look like:
100 RP - Icarus (Basic Stealth Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle, 175 BP, 0.5 CP)
If we'd wanted to also make it humanized (so it looks like it's piloted by people, for example if you wanted to transport allies without them knowing it was flown by robots) then this all changes, since that adds +5 BP to the base cost. That doesn't change the RP or CP cost at all, but it does change BP. Instead of 25+15(0.5x)+25(1x)+100(4x)+10(0.25x)=175 you'd do (25+5)+15(0.5x)+30(1x)+120(4x)+10(1.25x)=205 BP. And then you'd have
100 RP - Basic Stealth Humanized Void & Psy-shielded Machine Spirit Assault Shuttle (205 BP, 0.5 CP)
Crewed - (No change in RP or BP cost, completely removes CP cost) Makes a unit operable by a crew of trained humans. Incompatible with Humanization, Machine Spirits decreases manpower requirement. Can be applied to: Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Humanization - (+15 base BP cost for combat bots, +5 base BP for vehicles, small craft & defensive installations) Makes a unit appear to be operated by fully-armored humans. Slightly increases strength and armor of those units. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Machine Spirit Jammers - (+10 base BP) Adds machine-spirit jamming equipment to the blueprint, enhancing capabilities against forces that use machine spirits. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Machine-spirits - (+0.5x base BP cost, -0.9x base CP cost) Make this blueprint controlled by machine spirits, making it slightly corruption resistant and reducing the load on your systems. Synergistic with Psychic shields. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.
Void Shields - (+1x base BP cost for tanks & small craft, +9x base BP cost for bots, +1x base RP to design blueprint) - Adds void shields to the object, dramatically increasing survivability. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft.
Psychic Shielding - (+2x base RP to design blueprint) - Adds psychic shields to the object, dramatically increasing survivability against warpy threats. Synergistic with Machine Spirits. Can be applied to: Combat Bots, Vehicles, Small craft, defensive installations.
Basic Stealth - (+0.25x base BP cost for vehicles and small craft, +0.5x base BP cost for bots, +1x base RP cost, ) Makes a unit harder to detect with both active & passive means. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.
Less-than Lethal armament - (+0.5x base BP cost for vehicles, small craft & bots.) Arms a unit with dispensers for drugs to render human foes unconscious instead of dead. Will be improved by research for flexible. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.
Gravity Weapons - (+2x base BP cost for vehicles, small craft & bots.) Arms a unit with gravity weapons, capable of ignoring armor and ripping apart enemy internals on high power, or fairly effective short-term crowd control on low power. Power-hungry and short ranged, will be improved by research. Can be applied to: Combat bots, vehicles, small craft.
Combat Bots
10 RP - Light infantry bots (25 BP, 200 CP). 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with light arms and armor.. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Good at rapid pursuit & maneuvering through tight terrain, bad against heavy armor.
25 RP - Medium Infantry Bots (50 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with medium armor and light anti-tank weaponry. Expensive CP cost due to need for close control. Good all-rounder capable of all roles, though not optimal at either.
25 RP - Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers. Good at the heaviest fighting over open ground against heavy armor, not well-suited to avoiding collateral damage.
Vehicles
15 RP - Light tanks (100 BP, 50 CP) 100 light battle tanks, primarily armed with anti-personnel weapons. Good at rapid pursuit & maneuvering through tight terrain, bad against heavy armor.
25 RP - Medium tanks (250 BP, 50 CP) 100 medium battle tanks with battle cannons & antipersonnel weapons to fight enemy armor and infantry. Good all-rounder capable of all roles, though not optimal at any.
25 RP - Heavy tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor. Good at the heaviest fighting over open ground against heavy armor, not well-suited to avoiding collateral damage.
Small Craft
25 RP - Shuttle (20 BP, 5 CP) A single shuttle which converts up to 50 ground build capacity to void build capacity, and shouldn't be especially noticeable to anybody not actively looking for it. Requires a spaceport for efficient transfer of materials.
25 RP - Bomber (20 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver cargo to your enemies. Can deliver a fair amount of ordinance to a target in atmosphere or out of it. Unlocks a bomber hanger attachment for ships.
25 RP - Fighter (20 BP, 5 CP) These fighters have twin-linked lascannons to attack ground and orbital targets, and can carry a couple of small bombs. Requires a spaceport for rapid launch and rearming.
25 RP - Assault Shuttle (25 BP, 5 CP) Sometimes you want to deliver things other than bombs to your enemies. So let's stick some armor and guns on a shuttle, and make it a bit more maneuverable. Can carry 100 troops and provide anti-personnel and light antiarmor fire. Cannot deliver troops to space targets.
Defensive Installations
10 RP - Anti-armor Bunker (50 BP, 5 CP) A bunker with a heavy melta cannon, able to take out most armor in a single shot.
5 RP - Anti-personnel Bunker (20 BP, 2 CP) A bunker with a set of high-fire-rate weapons designed to take down humanoid-sized attackers wearing medium or lighter armor.
15 RP - Anti-orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion.
10 RP - Anti-Air Defenses (25 BP, 5 CP) A trio of rapid-recharge lascannons backed up by advanced targeting software in a reinforced emplacement with an upwards-facing arc. Will attempt to destroy ballistic missiles, aircraft or shuttles as they approach. Can miss or be saturated by large amounts of incoming fire or miss and fail to destroy their targets.
25 RP - Light Void-shield installation (250 BP, 25 CP) A void shield capable of stopping light orbital bombardment, approximately ten heavy strikes.
25 RP - Ballistic missile (50 BP, 10 CP) A long-range ballistic missile. By default it carries a high-yield explosive head capable of destroying approximately a city block. Can be intercepted by orbital defenses.
10 RP - Spy satellite (10 void BP, 5 CP) A small spy satellite that lets you do your own surveillance on the planet below. Under your complete control and with better sensors and communication hardening than any of the local satellites.
Utility
50 RP - Advanced Technological Research Lab (500 BP, 100 CP) Will allow you to process advanced technological samples, including materials of alien origin. Has advanced scanning, modeling and processing capabilities.
10 RP - Maglev System (5 bp/mile, 50 flat CP) A high-capacity maglev system to transport large amounts of goods across a planetary surface, linking various surface installations together into a single network so production from any of them can be applied at all of them.
25*N RP - Void Manufacturing Platform (1000*N BP, 50*N CP) Design a larger, more efficient deep-space manufactory. Produces 100*N+50*N^2 BP. N must be a positive integer, currently capped at 5. If N=5 this platform would cost 125 RP to design, 5000 BP to build, 250 CP to run, and produce 100*5+50*5^2=1750 BP. Requires megastructure machine spirits before you can get the machine spirit boost. Further technology will increase max N.
Void Blueprint design:
To design void blueprints, follow these steps:
Choose a starting hull from the list of available void chassis below
Choose the number of Build Points to be spent on the base hull. This corresponds to overall size of the ship - a destroyer with 200 bp will be 1200x200 meters, while a 500 bp base destroyer will be 1600x400 meters. This will set the "hp" of the design as well as determine the total amount of space inside the ship, which is represented by the number of BP spent on the hull. That's your "Budget"
Pick the speed, shields and armor of the design. Shields are recharging temp HP, while armor is damage reduction. Speed is self-explanatory. These do not count towards cramming.
Pick hull equipment to go onto the ship. These do not count towards cramming.
Choose weapons, combat equipment & noncombat equipment to add to the ship. Your budget for these things is the base BP spent on size before you start to get into cramming. You can cram more stuff in, but there will be penalties to maneuvering, maintenance, etc. As an example, if you build a destroyer with a base hull cost of 400, then you have a budget of 400 to spend on weapons/equipment before penalties start kicking in.
Have a vote win which spends the necessary RP to design the planned ship.
(Basic Defense Satellite) Light defense Platform. Base 100 Bp (200x200 meters). No engines, Light shields for 50 bp, light armor for 50 bp. 1x light lance battery for 100 bp. Total is 100+50+50+100 = 300. Weapons+equipment is 100, within the base BP of 100, so no cramming penalty.
(Basic System Monitor) Destroyer chassis. Base BP 350 (1500x300 meters) Engines: 7 gravities for 100 BP. Light Shields for 50 BP. Medium armor for 100 BP. 2x Light Macrocannon batteries for 200 bp, 1x Light Lance battery for 100 bp, High maneuverability thrusters for (1/10 base, round up to nearest 50 =) 50 bp. Total is 350+100+50+100+200+100+50 = 950. Weapons + equipment is 350, within the base BP of 350, so no cramming penalty.
Light defense Platform, 10 RP, 10 CP, (100-400 BP, 200x200-500x500 meters.) Engines: (none) for (0). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Destroyer, 25 RP, 50 CP, 1 ship construction slots (200-500 BP, 1200x200-1600x400 meters) Engines: (6/7/8 gravities) for (50/100/150 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Frigate, 50 RP, 100 CP, 2 ship construction slots (500-1000 BP, 1600x400-2200x600 meters) Engines: (5/6/7 gravities) for (75/150/225 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/75/150)
Light Cruiser, 75 RP, 200 CP, 8 ship construction slots (1000-2000 BP, 3500x400-4400x800 meters) Engines: (3/4/5 gravities) for (100/200/300 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/150/300) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200)
Heavy Cruiser, 100 RP, 300 CP, 32 ship construction slots (2000-6000 BP, 4500x600-6000x1200 meters) Engines: (2/3/4 gravities) for (300/400/500 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/200/400)
Available Hull Equipment:
These do not count towards hull cramming.
Living Space (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is built to be run and operated by humans. It will require a crew but will not cost CP to command. Not required for OMC control.
Machine Spirit (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship is primarily controlled by a sub-sapient machine spirit, reducing the CP cost of the base hull to 15% of what it would be normally. Currently limited to light cruisers, medium defense platforms and anythimg smaller).
Warp Drive (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Void Abacus (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can navigate through the warp slowly, at a rate of 3 systems per action.
Psychic Shielding (Between 1/10 to 1/2 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship has a neural network integrated throughout the whole thing, that thinks "no" as hard as possible, answering the question for any warp-corruption for any beings or objects within the hull. HP of the shield is 1 HP per 5 BP spent on it.
Basic Passive Stealth Profile (1/5 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship has it's sensor profile reduced with special coatings and a shape that reduces the cross-section in response to active sensors. It can reasonably expect to stay hidden at long ranges (outside weapon range) as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Improved Passive Stealth Profile (1/2 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship is heavily dedicated to stealth, with not just coatings and a shape but also significant amounts of sensor bafflers and other passive systems designed to prevent it from being spotted. Should be able to stay hidden at medium ranges (or long weapon range) as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Advanced Passive Stealth Profile (Doubles base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship tries it's hardest to be a void in space, and so long as it's not moving it generally succeeds. Should be able to stay hidden at close ranges as long as it's not moving, or moving very slowly. Probably not good enough to get into boarding range.
Available Weapons:
These do count towards hull cramming.
Multiple the final weapon cost by 0.9 before applying it to ship designs. So if you have 500 BP of weapons, it only counts as 450 for the purposes of ship packing. But it'll count as 500 for final ship cost.
Prow Ram (1/20 base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50). This ship is built to run into things, and hurt them more than it gets hurt.
Light Macrocannons 100 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage. Medium Macrocannons 200 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage. Heavy Macrocannons 400 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Light Lances 100 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire. Medium Lances 200 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire. Heavy Lances 400 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Light Missiles 50 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon. Medium Missiles 100 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon. Heavy Missiles 200 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Light Plasma Cannon 250 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields. Medium Plasma Cannon 500 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor. Heavy Plasma Cannon 1000 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.
Light Melta cannon 200 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor. Medium Melta cannon 400 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor. Heavy Melta cannon 800 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against armor.
Light Gravity Blaster 300 BP, Very short-range, continuous weapon that wrecks enemy internals while ignoring armor. Ineffective against shields. Medium Gravity Blaster 600 BP, Very short-range, continuous weapon that wrecks enemy internals while ignoring armor. Ineffective against shields. Heavy Gravity Blaster 900 BP, Very short-range, continuous weapon that wrecks enemy internals while ignoring armor. Ineffective against shields.
Fighters 100 BP, 50 CP. Parasite craft with short-ranged guns and some missile capability. Basic stealth automatically applied. Shuttles 100 BP, 50 CP. 10 Shuttlecraft, combined capacity of 500 lift to or from a planet. Assault Shuttles 150 BP, 50 CP. 10 Assault shuttles, with combined capacity of 1000 troops or 10 tanks in one trip. asic stealth automatically applied.
Point Defense 50 BP. A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.
Small Torpedoes 150 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to give destroyers a bad day, hurt frigates and prick cruisers. Medium Torpedoes 300 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck frigates, hurt cruisers and make grand cruisers know they've been touched. Large Torpedoes 600 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck cruisers, hurt grand cruisers and make battleships know they've been touched.
Light Teleportarium 100 bp. Can teleport a small number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from close range. Enemy shields must be down. Medium Teleportarium 200 bp. Can teleport a medium number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from medium-close. Enemy shields must be down. Heavy Teleportarium 400 bp. Can teleport a large number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from long range. Enemy shields must be down.
Novacannon 1000 bp. Fires a teraton-range shell at extraordinarily long range that does damage in a large area-of-effect. More effective against multiple smaller ships than a single big ship. Aimed by aiming the ship, and extended or repeated engagements can burn through ammunition, which is mitigated with ammunition bunkers.
Available Equipment:
Multiply the final equipment cost (both combat and non-combat) by 0.9 before applying it to ship designs. So if you have 500 BP of equipment it only counts as 450 for the purposes of ship packing. But it'll count as 500 for actually paying for the ship.
These do count towards hull cramming.
Low-emission Systems (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship has been tuned to reduce overall emissions, making it stealthier. Not stealthy. Stealthier.
Improved Sensors 250 BP - increased size and density of sensors, backed up by the necessary computational support, will make it more difficult for anybody to sneak up on this ship. Excellent Sensors 500 BP - You would say it's impossible to sneak up on a ship with this many sensors, but you saw what the Eldar did, and now it's merely incredibly improbable. Superb Sensors 1000 BP - This ship has enough sensors of enough modalities that it's basically a mobile scientific research platform. Anything weird will get noticed, investigated, and if it's an enemy ship, pinned down.
High-maneuverability thrusters (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is more maneuverable, able to flip, spin and dodge more quickly. This lets it maneuver well through dense asteroid clusters and dodge/ram more effectively in combat.
Plasma payloads (choose missile warheads or Macro cannon warheads) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire plasma-warhead ammunition, which has a flat damage increase.
Melta payloads (choose missile warheads, Macrocannon warheads or torpedoes) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire melta-warhead ammunition, which is especially effective against enemy armor and hulls.
Tuned Shields Costs the same as the chosen armor cost, and additionally counts towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for tuned shields, so if shields costs 100 bp, then tuned shields cost 100 bp and 100 bp is counted against cramming). These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.
Alloyed Armor Costs the same as the chosen armor cost, and additionally counts towards cramming (not the total cost, just the extra cost for alloyed armor, so if armor costs 100 bp, then alloyed armor costs 100 bp and 100 bp is counted against cramming). Armor is much tougher but is harder to repair.
Light Boarding preparations (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying. Medium Boarding preparations (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) The ship layout is designed to funnel borders into kill-zones in front of armored bunkers, and any borders will take heavy casualties. Heavy Boarding preparations (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship as essentially a flying dungeon, filled with escherian mazes, hidden turrets, crushing-hallways and other deathtraps.
Light Machine Spirit Jammers (1/20 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Enough to cause significant degradation in an enemy ship's sensors, maneuvering and targeting. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class. Medium Machine Spirit Jammers (1/10 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. Same as light jammers, plus will also affect total thrust, weapons firing rate. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class. Heavy Machine Spirit Jammers (1/5 of the base cost of hull, rounded up to nearest 50) Banks of cogitators with code to disable machine spirits. The same effect as medium, but may also affect friend-foe designation and reactor stability. Primarily effective against ships of the same weight class.
Ammunition Bunker (100 BP) Holds a store of ammunition and specialized manufacturing equipment to supply ammunition to all projectile-bearing ammunition on the ship. Stacking more on a ship will reduce ammunition concerns for drawn-out battles and general resupply needs.
These do count towards hull cramming.
Troop compartment (50 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Medical bay (25 BP) Can treat 1000 severely injured people at once.
Manufactory (Any cost up to base cost of hull) Generates void BP equivalent to 1/5 of its cost. (plus 5%)
Cargo Bay (No cost, free. Designate an amount of BP to fill for cramming purposes) Allows transport of an amount of BP equivalent to the cramming amount from one system to another.
Repair Bay (Any cost up to base cost of hull). Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost. Can be used to refit the ships as well with a +50% markup. Cannot be used to make new ships, bots, manufactories.
The ways to get new research options are to:
Do research. That'll unlock more research.
Build appropriate installations & potentially acquire samples to research in them (samples could be anything from 'a human' to 'a Norn queen' in rarity).
Ask for them. Often I'll tell you what you need to do to unlock specific research options,
Ship Design
-[] Grand Cruisers (350 RP) Making a ship design that's not spaghetti takes time and effort. It's still boring. But if you want to make queens of the void, its necessary. (unlocks grand cruisers, half of the prereq for battleships)
-[] 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)
-[] Improved Engine Designs (100 RP) Based on your understanding of physics and a few old research papers you think you can improve engine reactor thrust velocities. (Enhances ship speeds at every level. Unlocks further speed, maneuverability & stealth technologies)
-[] Streamlined ship design (100 RP) You can improve your tools for ship design to make it easier to design ships in the future. That might be nice (Halves the RP cost to design new ships, may unlock other ship design improvements)
-[] Extremely Efficient Equipment Distribution (250 RP) With further optimization, you can fit more stuff in your ships. (Equipment costs count as 0.75x for ship capacity packing. Especially effective for cargo holds on a good roll.)
-[] 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 costs count as 0.75 for ship capacity packing)
-[] Can I have a new ship please? (200 RP) Triggers a sub-turn to design yourself a new ship. It can be any size, up to one class larger than what you currently have available (This is Vita's unique mechanic, and will let you design new iterations of your ship)
-[] Boarding Capabilities (100 RP) Apparently it's common for ships in this day and age to board each other and for the crew to fight hand-to-hand. Instead of, you know, chucking enormous missiles at each other. Insane. Well, it might be a nice capability to have in case you want to capture ships intact. (Unlocks boarding torpedoes, drop pods, and boarding craft for hangers, may combine with stealth research to unlock stealth borders)
-[] Networked missiles (100 RP) The biggest danger to missiles is that they'll get shot down by fighters and point defense. If you can network them together to cooperate against those threats, more of the warheads will reach their targets. (Unlocks new combat equipment to make missiles more effective. May unlock more technology to make missiles smarter, longer ranged and generally more effective)
-[] More than just a Boom (100 RP) It's hard to argue with enourmous explosions. Still, sometimes you need alternate ammunition types for various purposes. Guided shells with melta-warheads, plasma rounds to strip shields, active pulse shells to break stealth, maybe even vortex, antimatter, psytech or psychic-shielding based shells... (Unlocks a wider variety of novacannon ammunition, synergizing with other techs and unlocking more research for more exotic payloads)
-[] Bigger Gun, Bigger Bullet (150 RP) There are all kinds of technical difficulties in scaling up a novacannon. But none of them are true blockers, and the only thing stopping you from hucking shells the size of a small ship at your enemy is your imagination. And a lot of design work. (Unlocks a Heavy Nova cannon that will barely fit on a grand cruiser, with an effect to match).
-[] Streamlined Novacannons (200 RP) You left some improvements on the table in the first go-around with nova cannons. Some might let you effectively miniaturize them, others might let you pack the same punch into a smaller package. (Discounts novacannon weapon, potentially enough to fit on a destroyer. May unlock smaller novacannon suitable for turret-mounting, or other novacannon optimization tech.) Requires Improved Gravity Weapons
General Design
-[] Megastructure Manufacturing (200 RP) You can design larger void manufactories now, and there are corresponding gains in efficency. . (Improves the size of void platform available for construction. May unlock research for other kinds of manufacturing, including core taps, asteroid-eaters, orbital rings, etc.). Requires Advanced Materials
-[] 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).
-[] Shuttle automation (150 RP) Surely I don't have to fly these stupid things myself. (Reduce the CP cost of shuttles by 50%)
-[] Walkers (250 RP) Tanks are... kind of boring? Mechs are cooler. (unlock armiger knights, dreadnaughts, starts the knights/titans research tree)
-[] 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.)
-[] Habitation Requires Correct Ingredients (200 RP) If a planet lacks an essential element, there's not that much you can do about that. Well, there isn't unless you lack imagination. You could crash comets and asteroids into the planet and get volatiles that way - but it would take a lot of them. Still, doable, if expensive. (Unlocks the ability to add essential elements to planets that lack them. Likely expensive, though further research will reduce the cost).
Stealth
-[] Improved Spaceship Passive Stealth (200 RP) Your current stealth systems are effective, but it would be nice if they were a little bit more effective. And maybe a bit cheaper. (Improves the effect and cost of stealth hull equipment. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth.)
-[] Low-Emission equipment (150 RP) Hiding a ship's profile versus active and passive sensors is one thing, but hiding engine signatures and head dumping is entirely another (Unlocks new non-combat equipment to allow ships to maneuver and do other things without destroying their stealth. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. May unlock technology to allow weapons fire without breaking stealth.)
-[] Active Spaceship Stealth (150 RP) Not returning a sensor signal is one thing, but actively providing false signals is another, and something that the Drukhari are evident masters of. (Unlocks new equipment to improve ship stealth against various sensors that you can't trick any other way. Unlocks further research towards better spaceship stealth. May unlock technology to hide your position and prevent enemies from getting good targeting.)
-[] Ground force stealth standardization(150 RP) It takes some time and effort to design stealth versions of various units, and they end up more expensive to produce. If you take another look at the process with an eye towards standardizing it you could probably improve that. (Reduces the BP & RP cost of stealth modifications for ground forces, potentially to zero.)
-[] Improved Passive Stealth (50 RP) Ok, you've figured out the basics of hiding your small craft, but you have ideas on what you can do better, that might allow them to hide from even fully-alert enemies. They probably won't be able to close all the way to attack range, but they'll be able to get a lot closer (Unlocks improved stealth designs with improved performance. Unlocks further research for advanced passive stealth technologies. Will synergize with other stealth research.)
-[] Improved Active Stealth (150 RP) Again, moving towards the idea of actively countering sensors so they can't see you. It's a cat-and-mouse game with sensors, and you want to be the cat. (Improved stealth designs for actively hiding signatures. Unlocks further research for advanced active stealth, and will synergize with other stealth research.)
-[] Optical Camouflage (300 RP) Covering your units with holograms to make them harder to see with the naked eye sounds like a simple concept, but it very much is not. You need to know where the watcher is, project an image of what's behind you, and make it account for the movement of both the viewer and object. Unless you can think of a better idea. (Unlocks a blueprint modification to make your units harder to see. Unlocks further visual camouflage capabilities that might be closer to true invisibility)
-[] Examine the Dark Eldar Craft (150 RP) The Dark Eldar boarding craft showed incredible stealth capabilities. If you can figure out how it works that would be a great way to improve your own stealth capabilities (Discounts all stealth technology, may unlock unique stealth research and let you see through Eldar stealth better) Requires Advanced Technological Research Lab.
Shields
-[] Heavy Void shields (150 RP) Your current shields are good, but they could be better. Specifically, you want to make multi-layered shields, which could be applied to anything larger than a destroyer (Unlocks heavy void shields for ships and stations, as well as further research for void shielding improved for recharge speed, layered defenses, etc.)
-[] Heavy In-atmosphere void shields (100 RP) Well, the void shields you have are nice. But it would be nice to be able to build bigger ones, that can shrug off essentially any possible orbital bombardment. You need to figure out how to take advantage of the ridiculous energy and heat dissipation capabilities of being on a planet. (Unlocks heavy and super-heavy void shield installations. May unlock research towards better overall void shielding.)
-[] Void Shield Layering (400 RP) If you could layer multiple shields together, then when one failed the second could take damage while the first recharged. Right now there's harmonics that prevent this, but you are sure you can figure it out... with a full redesign. (Unlocks the ability to layer two sets of shields. Will unlock research for more layers of shielding, weirder shapes of shields and other specialty modules)
-[] Void Shield Discounts (250 RP) You have some ideas on how to swap out materials or simplify designs to reduce the costs of void shields. (Reduces the cost of void shields across the board. May lead to new kinds of mundane applications for void shields, such as manufacturing modules, shielded fighters or shuttles)
Materials & Armor
-[] Superheavy Armor (200 RP) Let's just stick starship armor on them and call it a day. (Unlocks superheavy tanks. Prerequisite for space-marine-quality power armor)
-[] Chaos Space Marine Armor Investigation (100 RP) Between the dozen corpses you can almost certainly piece together a full suit or two of armor from the chaos space marines. What does it do? Why is it covered with horns? (Significant discounts on space-marine power armor research, potential discounts on robotics and cybernetics, may unlock further research to improve power armor. Potential identification of strengths and weaknesses of Black Legion power armor).
-[] Advanced Materials (250 RP) You know there are exotic elements with absurd physical properties. But it's also possible to build absurdly strong materials with common elements. How does that work? Time to dust off some ancient research projects and figure this stuff out. (Unlocks improved armor, as well as research to unlock megastructures. Also required for battleships and larger walkers)
-[] Heavy Armor Production Line (100 RP) You can make Heavy armor, but you solved the problem by effectively making each suit into a custom-crafted suit full of expensive actuators. Maybe a redesign will make it cheap enough to mass-produce, and unlock follow-on research. (Dramatically reduces cost for heavy armor, and subsequent superheavy armor. May unlock more options for heavy armor, including integrated mobility options)
-[] Armor Device Integration (200 RP) Your armor blocks blows, which is its basic purpose. Still, it would be great to be able to integrate different devices into it - void shields, psytech, mobility options like jetpacks, holdout weapons and more. (Unlocks the ability to design specialty types of medium, heavy and superheavy armor that contain additional functions, many of which will be unlocked by other technology.)
-[] Temperature? Let's talk Albedo (150 RP) To change the temperature of a planet, you simply need to change how much it's absorbing and re-radiating, then let the energy of a local star do the rest. (Unlocks projects to heat or cool planets over decades with surprisingly minimal investment. Unlocks further improvements and potential weaponization.)
-[] The Golden Metal (200 RP) On Calderath, inside the Sector Governer's Hall of Wonders, in place of pride, you found a piece of golden metal supposedly from the Emporer's armor. What is it? What can it do? Why does it react stragely to psychic energy? Can you shape it into something for Cia? How can you find more? (A basic understanding of auramite and how to work it. Will unlock further research to prospect for it more efficiently - or potentially synthesize it eventually). Write in if you'd like to fashion what you have into the edge of a weapon or part of a piece of psytech for Cia.
Necrons
-[] Necron Initial Investigations (200 RP) You've got these scary robots lying in prison cells as if you're afraid they'll come to life and attack. Which you are. But the reason you have them is to study them, so start studying them. Everythign about them is fascinating, from the matierals they're made from to their mode of articulation to their processing units and even some faint radiation they're giving off. (Begins the necron research tree). Requires advanced technological research lab.
Robotics
-[] Avatar self-customization (100 RP) Your previous avatar was capable of changing its appearance at your whim, changing the hair, eye and skim color rapidly. Hair length and body size changes took a bit longer but were also possible. Is this worth figuring out? It might just be you being vain. (Unlocks some disguise-style cybernetics... once you get good cybernetics and can do things like skin/eye replacements).
-[] 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)
-[] Combat Bot Melee Combat (150 RP) Your bots aren't armed for melee combat, and don't really have the articulation for it. If you could fix that, maybe they wouldn't be so vulnerable to close-range combat. (Gives your combat bots melee weapons and basic proficiency with them. Will unlock technology for improved melee proficiency, as well as synergize well and potentially unlock technology for improved melee weaponry.)
-[] Really good Robotics: (600 RP) You know it's possible to make robots that are really strong. You've seen the specs floating around. You just don't quite know how to do it, though you've got some ideas on the matter... it would take quite a bit of simulation and a lot of trial and error to bring them into reality (Unlocks improvements to avatars, power armor, cybernetics, combat bots, improved manufactories). Acquire samples of advanced robots to reduce this cost.
AI research
-[] Intelligence Coding (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)
- [] Personality-Checking Routines (200 RP) All of this chaos-corruption is making you nervous. People changing according to the will of some warp-entity? Becoming different in ways that would disgust their past selves? That gives you the heebee-jeebies. Maybe - just maybe - it would be good to develop some ways to automatically check if aspects of your personality are diverging ways you don't want them to. Then you might be able to fix the problem before you become somebody who doesn't want (Gives you some algorithms to check for personality divergence in AIs. Doesn't do anything, just alerts you to changes and lets you decide what steps to take. Unlocks further research to prevent/rollback personality change, as well as potentially extend this research to humans with neural implants). Locked behind Intelligence Coding.
Psychic Shielding
-[] Better Psychic Shielding Efficiency (150 RP) You've figured out how to make your shielding modular, but each panel is still tricky to make. If you spent some time iterating that design you think you could make them even easier to make, and potentially power powerful (Further Improves the BP/HP ratio for psychic shields, may improve the HP of shielding you can pack into a unit of space.)
-[] Psychic Shielding Reliability (100 RP) Trying to make tripwire-versions of your shielding that could be installed in everything has revealed a weakness - the circuits can spontaneously fail. You fixed that problem by making them tougher, but now they won't always trigger. You're confident you can fix this issue, but it'll require you to make them more failure-proof. On the plus side, this should mean that your psychic shielding can last longer without maintenance. (Makes psychic tripwires more accurate, potentially to the point where it's impossible to corrupt your tech without you knowing about it. Also likely to make your psychic shielding last long time periods without maintenance. Will unlock research to use this on ships, and to make civilian-grade versions that could be put into literally everything).
-[] Large-scale Design-integrated psychic shielding (175 RP) Start installing this shielding into hull plates as the norm. Every ship will have psychic shielding (Makes the cheapest version of psychic shielding free & automatic for all ships and platforms. Will unlock research to make cheaper shielding better)
-[] 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 "Absolutely not" or maybe even "You're not real" and see what happens. New meanings may be especially effective against demons. (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.)
-[] Self-repairing psychic shielding (200 RP) Once you have a thinking, even if non-sapient, being in the loop on your psychic shielding, you can start to think about building it out of a material that'll let it self-repair after damage. (Your psychic shielding will repair when not in combat).
-[] Tiny Psychic shielding (350 RP) You were able to make your smaller psychic shielding by stacking the components and using the interference caused to generate the proper effect. However, you don't understand that interference well enough to go any smaller. Once you do, you can start to try to make actually tiny versions of the psychic shielding, small enough to fit in implants, or potentially into totems that project the shielding effect outside of themselves. (Fixes the issues with personal psychic shields, unlocks the ability to create implants with psychic shielding capability and potentially allows you to make amulets with psychic shields. May unlock additional technology to make all of that better.) Requires Triple Nested Psychic shielding
-[] Triple Nested Psychic shielding (200 RP) You've had two shields, yes. What about three? (Allows you to have three layers of shielding active at once. May unlock tech to allow inner shields to boost outer shields to be greater than the sum of their parts)
-[] Multi-meaning shields (250 RP) Your current shields say "No." Other sayings probably exist, and saying multiple things at the same time might have more esoteric effects, such as damaging attackers or defending better against certain types of attacks. Combining multiple of those into one shield could be powerful. (Allows you to combine two shield types together into one shield. May unlock further research for further combination, or to say one meaning EXTRA HARD.) Requires Alternative Shielding Meanings
-[] Scrapcode Denial (300 RP) Scrapcode - and psychic corruption in general - is a difficult opponent. It's hard to enforce mistakes when it can magically see through your defenses. But if you could incorporate psychic encryption into that approach, it becomes viable again. (Makes your shielding Extraordinarily resistant to potentially completely immune to scrapcode-based attacks. Does not apply to machine spirits yet. May unlock technology to apply to other kinds of corruption. Likely synergistic with generating your own scrapcode)
-[] Psychic Shield Tuning (150 RP) Your new scrapcode defenses help against scrapcode, but not necessarily other threats. This research would potentially allow you to tune the capabilities of your shielding on the fly to improve performance against other angles of attack. Likely to allow psychic shielding to physcially block demons. (Resistance to specific types of attack will improve with exposure, up to a cap. Unlocks more research to allow for more flexible shielding that can target specific weaknesses of various psychic enemies. Synergizes with mutli-meaning shielding.)
-[] Enhanced Psychic Encryption (250 RP) You can block normal scrying and warp communication, as if you were encrypting everything. But it's possible that really good scryers could unscramble the signals somehow. Maybe? You're not sure. Still, it would be good to cut off the possibility. (New versions of psychic shielding that block even scrying & communication by expert seers. Likely to unlock specialized research to build installations that will deny scrying and foresight over a larger area - like a planet or system.) Requires Immaterium Understanding
The Warp
-[] Teleportation is like skipping a stone (150 RP) Teleporters work by skipping a cargo across the shallow warp, linking two places for a moment. They are limited in many ways. Now that you understand that, you can find the limits to extend range, capacity and think about other ways to utilize the same general idea. (Improves teleporters for boarding, may lead to the ability to directly teleport to planetary surfaces. Unlocks further research for further improving the teleporter, as well as potentially leading to warp portals, which is likely required for webway understanding).
-[] The Epicure of Chaos (100 RP) You can bin warp signatures into blessings, artifacts or rituals, as well as distinguish what god they came from. But you're not sure if you could tell apart a ritual of summoning from a ritual of empowerment or a ritual meant to attack an enemy. Work on that. (Allows you to detect what kind of ritual/blessing/artifact you're dealing with on the fly. Unlocks new intelligence when dealing with chaos, as well as the potential for actively countering or interfering with chaos when paired with alternative shielding meanings).
-[] The faintest whiff of the Chaos-Touched (200 RP) Warp signatures linger on objects and people. It'll be a short range-sensor, and may end up being some kind of scanner, but you can probably tease out the passive remnants of a ritual or even association with chaos-blessed objects on a person. (Unlocks improvements to sensors that will let you detect people who've been in proximity to a chaos ritual or have touched a chaos artifact, even if they bear no blessing.)
-[] Shards of Humming Gemstone (100 RP) The shards of crystal you recovered from the ritual don't carry an inherent chaos taint of their own, but they resonate with the warp somehow. The largest piece you have is the size of a human hand, maybe you can figure out what it is and how to use it? (May unlock new options for using, finding or synthesizing this warp-reactive substance, as well as discounts to technologies that involve resonance with the warp.)
-[] Empathy at Range (150 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
-[] Warp Weather Prediction (300 RP) The Warp has been said to have "weather." Well, at least storms. But if you're constantly monitoring the signals from your psychic shielding, you can start to make predictions about what will come. That... might be useful. (Likely to give you advance warning of significant warp-effects, especially warp storms. May unlock further research to improve warp navigation, and if you crit again, a strange kind of warp-based technological foresight.)
-[] Warp Manufacturing (150 RP) The laws of physics break down in the warp, and in spaces influenced by the warp. This includes creating impossible structures and pushing materials beyond their limits. Figuring out how to use that might be tricky, but will probably be quite rewarding. (Figure out ways to use warptech to improve mundane manufacturing, unlocks techs for both mass-production and relic-tier artificing). Requires Immaterium understanding.
-[] Vortex Weapons (250 RP) When you first read about them vortex weapons sounded... terrifying. Now you're even more scared. Still, that might be a nice thing to have in your arsenal at some point. (Unlocks basic vortex weaponry. Likely further research for larger and smaller vortex weapons). Locked behind High-energy Physics
-[] Reliable Gellar Fields (200 RP) Your gellar field technology is capable, but for something that important you want it to be rock-solid. That'll probably require a full redesign, but having a gellar field that cannot be knocked out with destroying a good chunk of your ship seems like it might be a good investment. (Improves your gellar field technology to make it more reliable and redundant. Will help you resist demonic attacks in 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? Also, what's going on with this skeletal hand you found? (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. Likely to unlock further understanding of relics and their usage.)
-[] Bell, Book and Candle (200 RP) Needing to set up a whole ritual for demonic binding and banishment is... potentially an issue. Trying to come up with all-purpose rituals that can be deployed offensively might be a useful tool to have in your pocket. (Develops anti-daemonic equipment for blueprint modification, as well as unlocks new narrative options for dealing with demons. May lead to research for ship-scale anti-daemonic equipment.)
-[] Read the Fine Print (200 RP) Summoning Demons is generally viewed as a bad idea. However, if you take the appropriate precautions, it can be an effective way to gain information, recruit footsoldiers, leave some damned nasty booby traps or even bind them into objects for an extra oomph. (Gains the ability to summon demons without significant investment. May lead to further research to bind demons into objects to make some pretty crazy items. Synergistic with warp manufacturing).
-[] Immaterium Understanding (200 RP) Anexa believes she understands something fundamental about the warp. Do some experimements to see if she's right. (Further discounts on all warp-related research, potential to unlock a research from farther down a warp research tree while skipping prerequisites) Anexa must work on this action. Guaranteed level(s) for her. Requires Warp Research Lab.
-[] Improved Void Abacus (125 RP) You understand how the Void Abacus works now, and you think you can tweak it to be better. That involves some amount of expanding and improving its connection to the warp though, so you're far from certain (Improves your Void Abacus design to be faster and better at warp jumps, though still inferior to an average navigator. May unlock further optimization of Void Abaci, including for cost/unstable warp jumps).
-[] The Basics of Psychic Computation (350 RP) You have several examples of different kinds of cogitators that interact with the warp in some way. They all share some kind of neural network system, but are very different in other ways. If you can figure out the minimal requirement for something to be psychically active - well. That would have implications. (Improves psychic shielding research, psytech research, some machine spirit research, may improve scrapcode research. Will help genetic manipulation to create psykers. May lead to a research tree to make psychic AIs or implants that grant psychic powers).
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)
- [] Basic Psychic Amplification Devices (100 RP) You think you understand the principles of psychic amplification, but to actually confirm that you need to build one and see if it works. (Allows you to build basic psychic staffs or other personal psychic amplification devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic amplification, as well as larger amplification constructs)
- [] Basic Psychic Suppression Devices (150 RP) You think you understand the principles of psychic suppression, but to actually confirm that you need to build some and see if it works. (Allows you to build basic psychic hoods or other personal psychic protective devices. Unlocks more advanced psychic nullification, as well as larger nullification constructs)
-[] Complex Psytech Implants (250 RP) Adapting what you know from organic-machine control implants, you can give a psyker greater control over their implants, in turn allowing you to give psytech implants more capabilities and more power that requires active tuning on the fly. (Improves psytech implants in terms of both precision and raw power) Requires either Basic Psychic Suppression Devices or Basic Psychic Amplification Devices
- [] Improved Psychic weapons (250 RP) You are starting to understand how force weapons work, but you're far from perfecting them. There's definitely work to be done on the composition of the main weapon, and if you can figure out how to grow crystals into the proper orientation that will help, and the psi-convectors and... well. It's almost easier to list the ways you can't improve them. (Further improves force weapons in every way. Potential to unlock specialized kinds of force weapons, such as versions specialized to fight specific foes and maybe large-scale force weapons such as ship rams).
- [] Psychic Aegis (250 RP) Psychically enhancing a weapon in combat is an obvious application, but the equally-obvious follow-on is enhancing armor. Or shields. Whatever. General defensive measures. It would be significantly more complicated than a simple weapon, and shields are probably the first step. But still - that would be a path to near-invincibility. (Allows you to create force shields and armor. Unlocks further research for improved force armor and other kinds of large-scale defensive psytech).
- [] Psychic Materials (250 RP) Silver. Specific kinds of crystals. Chitin? What unifies those things? What is it that makes them warp-conductive? If you can figure that out, maybe you can start designing new warp-capable materials that are better. (Psytech improvements across the board in terms of new materials, likely follow-on research into specific specialty materials and applications. Will be improved by samples of additional psionically active materials).
- [] Pyromancy Staff (200 RP) Amplifying a specific kind of psyker powers should allow you to amplify them even more. (Allows you to build pyromancy-focused psychic amplifiers, with the most common one being in the shape of a staff. Will unlock further pyromancy-specialized equipment, including larger-scale and more powerful amplifiers that may be relevant in ship combat.)
- [] Improved Pyromantic understanding (300 RP) Cia's eager to delve further into the secrets of pyromancy, and if you tried you could follow along for the ride. Any maybe figure out how to model this specific kind of psychic power. (Improves all pyromancy-focused psytech, improves the Help Cia's Training action and may unlock research towards influencing young psykers towards pyromancy.)
-[] Basic Divination (100 RP) Gwen's naturally inclined towards futuresight with her power. You could try and figure out more details about how that works, though it'll rely on her to generate somewhat larger-scale effects. (Allows you to build divination- focused psytech, and potentially unlock new kinds of actions or narrative options for Cia) Locked until Gwen reaches level 5.
-[] Destructive Scrapcode Investigation (200 RP) Well, if Bongo doesn't want to play ball, maybe you need to go in there and figure out what makes the scrapcode generator tick. Time to bring out the power tools. (Discounts existing scrapcode research, may unlock new research around psytech/psychic shielding. Gives better understanding of Chaos Demons. Destroys the scrapcode generator and likely banishes Bongo back to the warp.)
-[] Scrapcode Generation (350 RP) You have the barest hints as to how you might start generating scrapcode. You need to imbue psychic meaning into code. You're not quite sure how you might go about that, but it's an interesting avenue to chase down. (Unlocks the ability to create and hack with your own brand of scrapcode) Requires psytech past Basic Psychic Amplification Devices, as well as Rapid hacking
-[] Sigils of Power (250 RP) There are various sigils that are effective in binding, banishing and damaging demons. They can probably be integrated with psytech to be even more effective. (Modifies psytech to be especially effective at hurting, protecting against and evading demons. May unlock further research towards demon-interacting psytech).
Physics
-[] Dark Eldar Weaponry (150 RP) You have a few examples of Dark Eldar weaponry. Some of it just uses esoteric poisons, but other parts seem based on physical princples you can't identify. That's exciting (Unlocks new weapons based on Dark Eldar small-arms weaponry) Requires Advanced Technological Research Lab.
-[] Improved Gravity Weapons (150 RP) Your gravity weapons are fairly rudimentary and could be made significantly more elegant. Start by tuning the power flow, then by decreasing the graviton interference... (Improves the range and reduces the cost for gravity weapons. Likely to improve the range for nova cannons, may unlock other applications of gravity technology.)
-[] Bootstrapping a magnetic field (200 RP) If a planet's magnetic field is dead then in the short term it'll be bombarded with hazardous levels of radiation, and in the long term whatever atmosphere is present will get blown off into space by stellar wind. But there might be a way to fix that? (Unlocks a rather expensive semi-megastructure project to start up magnetic fields. Unlocks further research to cheapen the process. May lead to some crazy research into utilizing or messing with star or gas-giant magnetic fields.) Requires Advanced Materials.
-[] The Promise of Superconductivity (250 RP) Now that you know the scope of the challenge, you think there's actually a lot of promise here. The problem is that you're not going to be able to just read literature, but actually come up with something yourself. (Discounts across many researches involving high current, a flat production boost of 10-20% depending on rolls, and potentially discounts on ship/bot equipment depending on rolls.)
-[] 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)
-[] High-energy Physics (200 RP) There's some pretty crazy stuff you can do with physics. Especially when the energy exponents really start getting insane. However, that's going to take a bit of testing - maybe on a planetoid you don't care too much about. Or in space. (The next steps towards bigger, badder weapons, such as fusion beamers, volkite weapons, disintegration weapons. Half of the research for vortex weaponry.) Locked behind a High-Energy Physics Research Lab
-[] Antimatter is Dang Scary (250 RP) So. Antimatter. A staple of science fiction since time immemorial. The problem with dealing with antimatter is that it requires nothing less than perfection in every respect. One flaw in containment and suddenly you've got an anhillation reaction on your hands. Another problem is actually reacting it in a controlled way, since it favors incomplete reactions which result in the rest of the antimatter going the other direction at a speed close to light. Hmm. That might be interesting to weaponize (Unlocks methods to manufacture antimatter, which is a special resource that can be used to upgrade explosive weapons to incredible yields. May unlock technologies for weapons that fire beams of antimatter, which would be... dangerous.) Requires High-energy Physics.
-[] Better Sensors are just Physics (150 RP) You've made some progress on better sensors, but if you're really going to go to the next level you're going to start looking for edge cases. Things that are hard or downright impossible to hide, and will give away an enemy ship no matter its stealth. (Unlocks better basal sensors across the board, as well as improves specific stealth technologies. Synergizes with stealth research, unlocks even better sensors and may unlock long-range sensors to do detailed scans from across the system).
-[] Combat Information Gathering (200 RP) Many ship weapons are slow-firing and demand specific responses. If you can tell what an enemy ship is going to do before it does it, that will give you a tactical advantage. (Allows you to detect and decode energy signals to predict enemy ship activities, giving an advantage in combat. Will help more the better your sensors are. Will synergize well with boarding, may unlock targeted-teleportation technology and technology to target weak-points).
Machine Spirits
-[] Machine Spirit Ground Strategy (250 RP) Your bots can coordinate on the small scale, but being able to manage larger battles and fights is beyond them. If you can figure out how to connect individual squad networks together you can improve their performance. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued infantry & vehicle forces over the scale of theaters. Will unlock further technology for improved strategic coordination.)
-[] Machine Spirit Combat Bot Flexibility (250 RP) Your bots can do one thing, and that's win fights with lethal force. If you want them to do things like take captives, or avoid collateral damage, then you're going to need to teach them to do that. (Enables enhanced flexibility of orders for your combat bots. May unlock greater creativity in problem-solving on the part of your combat bots, as well as the capability for the bots to be effective at medicine or other tasks)
-[] Machine Spirit Void Tactics (100 RP) Fighting a ship is a very different thing from fighting on the ground, but many of the principles are similar. Adapt them. (Improved combat performance of machine-spirit imbued ships and void fighters. May unlock technology for improved strategic coordination. If you want to point your fleet at a system and say "Conquer it, spare the civilians" this is a good tech to have.)
-[] Advanced Large-scale Machine spirits (100 RP) Machine spirits scale strangely, and the effort of trying to keep them functional and stable as they get bigger is hard. But the value of them being so much easier to control is substantial (Raises the size limit on machine-spirit hull equipment.)
-[] Megastructure Machine Spirits (200 RP) A ship is a single entity that must be lean and efficient. But they also tend to be heavily standardized, with rugged construction and easy repairs. But a larger strucutre doesn't share those things, and (Unlocks machine spirit-improvements for larger facilities, including shipyards, larger manufactories and other potential megastructure-scale constructions).
-[] Independent Manufactories (300 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).
-[] 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).
-[] 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).
-[] 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).
-[] Machine Spirit Hallucinations (200 RP) Your new machine spirits are capable of incredible creativity when you push them to solve impossible problems. A lot of it is silly and impossible, but buried within the morass are occasional nuggets of gold. Every good idea starts as a bad idea, so let's generate more ideas. (Improves the number of RP you get per action, though not by a huge amount. May unlock more research to further improve this number).
-[] Machine Spirit Chaos Immunity? (250 RP) You might be able to make your machine spirits "super-sane" and nearly impossible to hack with chaos shielding. It's likely to make them more expensive, but it may be worth it. (Unlocks blueprint options for ships & smaller units that makes them virtually immune to chaos takeover.)
-[] Psytech Machine spirits (100 RP) You don't think that machine spirits can be psychically active. However, from what you understand of psytech it's a temperamental and difficult discipline, and you think that integrating machine spirits into the construction of psytech might improve its reliability and performance. (Improves psytech, at the cost of making it somewhat more expensive. May lead to more advanced versions for more advanced psytech, and may contribute to better psychic shields)
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).
-[] Enhance the Agriculture! (200 RP) 5000 people being fed from one facility sounds like a lot. But it's really not when you start to consider things like star systems. So far you've been playing with the hobby-version of aquaculture. More commercial versions used heavier food-manufacturing systems that are closer to organic printers. They'd probably be much more effective for feeding extremely large numbers of people. (Unlocks blueprints for extremely efficient methods to produce large amounts of food. Unlocks research to install tiny systems that fully substitute food needs, such as installing something onto a spacesuit that fully converts waste into delicious food).
-[] Calderath Stank-Be-Gone (200 RP) Calderath is an interesting case of a planet that doesn't need to be terraformed so much as ecologically engineered. You think you know how to do it - make a microbe that sinks the stupendous amount of seaweed standing up the oceans and buries it in ocean sediment. Actually making and deploying such a thing and having it do what you want is a different matter. (Potentially makes Calderath livable to humans again without breathing masks. Will cross-synergize with MICROBES, and both techs will discount each other) Write-in a risk tolerance. Depending on how well you roll you might not release it and instead get a follow-up action to further improve your solution. Even if you roll poorly and release it there will be a subsequent roll to determine success or failure.
-[] MICROBES: Miniaturized climate regulatory and optimized biogeochemical engineering symbionts (250 RP) Microbes are the chemical factories that reshape the chemistry of the planetary surface and atmosphere to your liking. Delving into the techniques used in the distance past to figure out how to engineer them would let you design better, faster terraforming organisms, as well as let them be applied to more extreme starting conditions (Improves, cheapens, accelerates and broadens the terraforming projects you have available. Unlocks further improvements and potential weaponization.)
-[] Study the Strange Seed (150 RP) Gwendolyn has a strange seed that occasionally seems to glint with golden light. What's... going on with that? Can you figure out what it is? Maybe clone it? (More information on the strange seed, potentially unlocks the ability to clone it, may unlock a questline of some kind). Requires Gwendolyn active action to research.
-[] Complex genetic enhancement (150 RP) The complexity of human genetics lies in the epistasis between multiple different alleles. Put more simply, this shit is complicated. Figure it out. (Unlocks more advanced enhancements, including significantly improved strength, intelligence, etc. Unlocks research for even more dramatic engineering, and is likely required to try to make psykers)
-[] Psyker genetics (300 RP) What makes somebody psychic? You have a psyker, and some genetic samples from others acquired from various trips to the monasteries. (Allows you to develop a test to determine psychic ability, though it won't be perfect. Unlocks further technology to improve psychic potential in adults and embryos.)
-[] 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.)
-[] That's two levels of augmentation too many (150 RP) The Chaos Space Marines you fought are not really intact anymore, but there's enough accumulated gore spread around that you should be able to get a decent sample of their genetics and stuff like extra organs and surgical enhancements. And maybe mutations? (Discounts genetics, mutation, augmentation research. May unlock special researches around geneseed and space marine-specific augments.)
-[] Adult genetic engineering (100 RP) Genetically modifying an adult comes with all sorts of complications. Doing it without killing them or incapacitating them for months is even harder. (Allows your genetic enhancements/therapies to apply to adult humans. Likely required for a full understanding of juvenat.)
-[] 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).
-[] The key to Expert surgery is Ego (150 RP) You can do fairly effective surgery, but the most complicated surgeries are beyond you. From all of the literature you have available, to truly break into the next level you merely need confidence. The confidence of somebody who believes they cannot be wrong. (Unlocks further discounts for advanced medical tech, cybernetic augmentations and more. Unlocks very advanced medical care, and further technology for reviving technically-dead bodies and brain transplants).
-[] Physical Apperance is Skin-deep (100 RP) Being able to do surgery on somebody's inside is one thing. But what about their outsides? (Unlocks cosmetic surgery to fix scars, alter appearances and even change skin tones. Unlocks follow-up research to allow you to disguise humans as xenos species whose biology you understand, or vice versa. May discount juvenat research.)
-[] Regeneration is just a matter of applied Growth (300 RP) You can make sure everything lines up properly to stimulate natural growth, but you can't actually accelerate it. Trying is a quick path to cancer and needs to be tweaked for every patient. That's why it wasn't common even in your time. But it should be possible, and you don't have to worry about pharmaceutical patents. (Your medical treatments have vastly accelerated healing timelines. Normally a prereq of juvenat, but in this case will simply have synergy. Unlocks further research for video-game-like med-kits and the ability to give people new organs without surgery)
-[] Perfect Knockout (75 RP) Your knockout gas is good, but it could be great. Increase dosage window, increase duration, decrease side effects. Make it absorb through exposed skin. (Dramatically improves effectiveness of knockout gas).
-[] Superhuman Uppers (100 RP) Pushing beyond the realm of what's normally possible for the human body is a recipie for disaster - unless you design the drugs right. (Unlocks drugs to boost human mental and physical characterstics beyond norms. Includes basic psytech drugs. Half of unlocking further psytech drugs).
-[] Juvenat Beginnings (325 RP) Ok. Juvenat is complicated. You're able to make it by following a formula that is at times precise, at times general and at times just - what? Maybe start to delve into the science of that. (Unlocks a basic understanding of juvenat, and may make it more efficient to produce. Tech cost will be reduced by other biomedical researchers. The start of the juvenat research tree.)
-[] Navigator Genetics (400 RP) So... you have some navigator genetic material. You can poke at that, see if you can figure out how it works. They had a reputation even back in your day, and it only seems to have gotten worse. Still, tempting. (Unlocks basic understanding of navigator genetics. Will unlock further technology to improve the health of navigators, as well as technology to allow you to clone navigators.) Locked behind Complex genetic enhancement
-[] 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.
-[] 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 Mobility Cybernetics (100 RP) Sticking rockets and grappling hooks into cybernetics isn't just cool. It's also useful - it'll let the wearers utilize more of the strength of their new limb without tearing apart their organic body. It'll also give them new maneuverability options. (Unlocks new parts for augments that enhance the wearer's strength and mobility. Synergizes with other technology, may unlock enhanced mobility for bots & armors)
-[] 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)
-[] Advanced organ replacements (100 RP) Your organ replacements almost fully replicate the real thing, but not quite. But they can't adjust to shocks in body homeostasis and they do need to be replaced every decade or so. You think you can make them as good or slightly better than the real thing, including the potential to grow with the bearer. (Unlocks organs which actually just replace normal organs almost perfectly. Likely to synergize with other implant/cybernetics/enhancement techs).
-[] Superhuman organ replacements (300 RP) Your organ replacements almost fully replicate the real thing, and have some useful auxiliary functions. But there's another level of improvement that's possible here. You could make organs that conveyed superhuman characteristics on the wearers. Improved oxygen transfer rate, improved bone density, immunity to most toxins, improved healing rate. (Unlocks advanced organs implants which grant superhuman capabilities. Not quite space-marine-level, but that's the next tech, though these are still artificial). Locked behind Advanced Combat cybernetics.
-[] Companion Cogitators (350 RP) Your implants are good. But they still rely on external computers for any heavy lifting. But with a good deal of work, and some effort at miniaturizing computation, data storage and power units you could fit a full computer into somebody, giving them access to a full suite (Powerful neural implants capable of incredible amounts of data crunching/cryptography, as well as full virtual presences. Further improves Organic-machine control, unlocks very powerful types of implants, including implanted machine spirits, personality-backups and depending on other technology minor AIs).
-[] Mood Regulators (100 RP) Interfacing the implant with the brain's emotional centers will allow it to regulate emotional states. Potentially useful to help the bearer regulate dangerous emotions like fear, lust, anger, greed, sloth, as well as emotional outbursts when such would be dangerous for them. Also potetnialyl useful for interrogation. (Your implants that can help with - or destroy - mental stability. Useful for those engaged with Chaos, and for unstable psykers. May unlock more technology geared towards ensuring a stable mental condition). Locked behind Drugs? Drugs.
-[] Pain Controller (100 RP) Pain is an incredibly deeply seated stimulus, and it's hard to block it without destroying a lot of senses. But if you manage it it could help immesurably with combat implants. (Your implants allow the deadening of pain, allowing people so implanted to fight or last through injuries and other bad feedback).
-[] Advanced Combat cybernetics (150 RP) Your cybernetics can easily contain light and some medium weapons, but they're not really suited to heavy combat. Yet. You could make them tougher, beefier, and figure out how to fit the power sources for larger weapons inside. (Unlocks advanced combat augments. Half of the technology for excellent combat augments, unlocks further cybernetics/research). Locked behind Really good Robotics.
-[] Advanced Cognition Filter (150 RP) Your existing Cognition Filter works very well, but you worry that it's prone to remove important details. It's hard to see how long an enemy's sword is when that sword is covered with Chaotic sigils, for example. Some amount of modelling and virtual reality augmentation could just replace that with an unadorned sword, circumventing the drawbacks of the first-generation cognition filter. (Improves Cognition filters to remove any downsides to filtering out chaotic information from perception.)
-[] Sanity Module (150 RP) By integrating your learnings from chaos-resistant machine spirits into implants, you can help ensure that people with your implants keep a firm grip on sanity. (Reduces the vulnerability of people with your implants to corruption of all kinds, as well as more normal psychoses. Helps stabilize psykers). Requires Companion Cogitators.
-[] Chaos Corruption Cognitive Intervention (300 RP) Chaos corruption is a lot of things. However, it almost certainly involves some amount of neural rewiring to think more Chaotic thoughts. With your neural implants, you believe you might be able to reverse that, using warp sensors to detect harmful thoughts, then a combination of memory editing, negative feedback and induced plasticity to undo the Chaotic brain patterns. This is unlikely to return them to how they were before, but it'll give them a chance to be somebody new without demons twisting their brain. (Your brain implants can slowly un-corrupt the mental side of chaos corruption). Requires Companion Cogitators& Understanding Mutations
-[] Advanced Organic-Machine Control (200 RP) Given improved technology you think you can let a single person control an unprecedented amount of machinery. At some point a crew of humans will be able to have as much CP as you will. (Approximately doubles the capacity of organic-machine control, letting a single human command more CP worth of units. Leads to further follow-on improvements.) Requires Companion Cogitators.
-[] Large-Scale organic-machine Control (75 RP) A manufactory is one thing, a shipyard or gas refinery is another. But at this point it's mostly a matter of scale and networking. (Allows OMC implants to control any kind of industrial production, including shipyards and non-military megastructures. Leads to further technology to improve the amount of CP one person can control.)
-[] Collaborative 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.)
-[] Streamlined OMC interface (125 RP) Your Organic-machine control implants are a beast to learn how to use, and the learning curve to true mastery is measured in decades if not centuries. With a further redesign focused on effective tooltips, detailed tutorials on every facet of their function and further optimization to work with various kinds of robots you can help new operators figure out the ropes and get up to speed quickly. (Increases effectiveness of humans equipped with OMC implants, both for combat and manufacturing)
-[] Gameified OMC (75 RP) You have the combat simulation part of it down, but a game is more than just fighting. You need a framework for why the fighting is happening, some kind of tie-in to manufacturing and the ability to make people care about the results of the combat. You can solve all of those problems, but doing it properly so that people actually learn useful skills and enjoy doing it will be tricky. (Create a game that teaches OMC-skills to the general populace, both providing basic training and helping find individuals with above-average proficiency. Synergizes well with Lower OMC Implant Specs)
-[] Interchangeable OMC control (100 RP) Right now it's somewhat tricky for somebody to take over a new OMC system. There's a lengthy process of familarization & customization as they feel out the new system and get it all running. All of this means that it's hard for people to easily switch off between constructs or take over new ones when the old ones are destroyed. If you can streamline the user interface and make everything more standardized, then it'll be possible for operators to "plug and play" with new hardware. (Makes it possible for people with OMC implants to quickly swap between controlled systems, letting them do things like just jump control to a new fighter when the old one is destroyed, keep manufactory systems operating through multiple shifts and ease collaboration.)
-[] Lower OMC Implant Specs (150 RP) Your OMC implants are fairly intense, and only growing more so as you improve their capabilities. If you figured out how to dial down the requirements for the software, then it would be possible for less-sophisticated and invasive implants to also work with the system. They wouldn't operate at the same capabilities of control, but it would allow people with civilian-grade implants to control a CP or two worth. (Dramatically lowers the barrier to entry into OMC-style work, allowing a much larger fraction of the population to work with organic-machine control, and likely accelerating training as lower-scale implants are required to successfully work with OMC-technology. May unlock future technology to allow implant-less people to operate OMC effectively through normal cogitators).
Hacking
-[] Rapid hacking (400RP) You need to figure out a new approach to subverting machine spirits. It might involve some combination of confusing them with a burst of signals, then showing up and 'relieving' the issue. But it would take a lot of trial-and-error to get right. (Improves hacking of imperial tech. Potentially enough for use in combat situations? Will unlock further hacking technology).
-[] Improved Machine-spirit Jamming (300 RP) Well, you can't combine it with hacking, but you can still try to improve what you have to be more efficent, target more machine spirits at a time, etc. (Improves success rate of jamming imperial tech, decreases failure penalties. May unlock further jamming technology)
Anexa Ifina, Magos Errant, Master of Many Talents.
Level 18
-[] Anexa active Action: Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
-[] Anexa passive action: Exploratory Research - Roll to discount a random tech from one of her specialties, a success will discount an amount similar to her +5xLevel RP bonus but modified with the roll. Will receive the specialty bonus, and a crit will result in a level-up and unlocking a new bonus technology, like what you get for a crit on a research action.
Specialties (3/4): Machine Spirits. The Warp, Cybernetics. Grants a +10 bonus when doing research rolls in the relevant category. Staff: 100 tech-priests of the Cogitare Exploratium, which provide +20 CP each (2000) & 1 RP each (60) per turn, with people beyond 50 providing 0.2 and people beyond 100 providing 0. For design, 20 can be assigned to a design task to halve its RP cost. Those so assigned will not produce RP
Victan Thallos, Diplomat-Spy
Level 18
-[] Victan active action: Diplomat-Spy - assists any diplomacy action you take, granting +Level to the dice to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the significance of the action.
-[] Victan passive action: Counterespionage & Alliance-building - Defends against hostile covert action and improves relations with existing allies, as well as gathering information for making new allies. Will only level if something interesting happens. Staff: 100 assorted diplomats, analysts and spies from Aevon Intelligence & Counterintelligence. Will provide narrative bonuses to spying, diplomacy, infiltration, etc. (It's now valid to insert them covertly and you'll be provided more information on new worlds you talk to.)
Cia Steblin, FocusedPyromancer Psyker
Level 15
-[] Cia Active: Psyker improvement - Cia will actively attempt to practice her powers. Roll two d100s. Take the higher roll for determining level-up, but take the lower for perils of the warp. (DCs are unknown but context-dependent. They are currently favorable and will get less favorable as she levels)
-[] Cia Passive: Psyker improvement - Cia will take lower-risk actions to improve herself, including meditation, study and augmentation. A single level-up roll, with only a low roll resulting in perils of the warp.
Focus: Combat. Cia is now armed with custom heavy armor and a large but crude two-handed force sword.
Abilities: Cia is able to use minor psytech without risk. She's learned the value of carrying around a few mundane ways to make fire for when she doesn't want to rely on her abilities, but is focusing on improving her pyromancy, which is currently ranked at Epsilon.
Gwendolyn Kytante, Strategist
Level 0
-[] Gwen Active action: Military Command - Gwen will help coordinate and run a military campaign. She will contribute her level as a bonus to an order action that involves military action. Required a critical failure for perils of the warp.
-[] Gwen Passive: Training & Psyker improvement: Gwen will roll to improve her understanding of strategy and tactics by reading literature and studying past battles. She will seek to improve her psyker abilities, but only as a secondary foucus. Will only roll on perils of the warp with a failure.
Focus: Stategy. Gwen is armed with custom heavy armor and a crude two-handed force sword. She's not really that invested in personal combat, and will become involved in any surprise military actions.
Abilities: Gwendolyn is a diviner-specialized psyker, currently ranked at Delta
You haven't really gotten into megastructures yet. There are a couple of routes in, which you're starting to unlock. They're powerful, but kind of meant to be expensive even in midgame. The biggest void manufacturing platform you can design and build is still kind of piddling compared to what's possible.
You got the Large-Scale Void Manufacturing tech because of the boon you spent way back in the day on having Denva do and share industrial techs with you. This sort of thing may become more common as you spend more boons (like you did this turn) and get their research infrastructure rolling.
I've been reminded that small-scale design-integrated psychic shielding should apply to small installations, including your manufactories. The wording has been changed. Remember this is basic stuff. Warpy stuff won't have free rein, but it can still punch through with effort.
I was going to add limitations on how many novacannons you can put on a ship, and limit them to light cruisers and larger... but then you crit. You can put one on a frigate if you want. It'll just have limited ammo. Probably enough for a single fight, but not much more than that.
The lore can be kind of inconsistent on whether the Necrons are absolutely terrifying or merely very powerful, so it's up to my interpretation how much of a force equalizer their technology is. Your ship is at least five times larger than theirs, but how much does that matter in the face of technology that predates the evolution of humans? You don't know and I'm not telling you, which suits the fact that Vita doesn't know either. You also have no clue what they want.
A lot of the actions for this turn haven't happened yet. They'll happen after this little interrupt gets solved. Victan's level, for example, and the boons that will come from his action and the military academy action.
No, your test novacannon is not functional for this, and you can't get it functional quickly. It was supposed to be a technical demonstration, not a real weapon. Most of what it did was draw their attention in your direction.
Moratorium for 36 hours. Then the vote's open until I close it.
I'm less sure of that as I think I have heard that there is a functioning designer type STC in Necromunda that is smart enough to mess with the systems to get back at someone because its function was disrupted by that someone. Mind I don't know where the source of that info is or even if it is completely accurate.
Kind of, House Van Saar have an STC constructor but every time they use it they get irradiated and since this is a noble house with a rather shallow gene pool and they can't show it to outsiders or Mars would murder all of them and take it, they are limited by how much damage they are willing to cause to their own DNA. They also manifestly cannot produce the shielding needed to keep themselves from being irradiated or the bio-tech needed to repair it.
