Quest talk:A.I. Quest/Archive 1

Header

Holy jeez this thing got long. You guys have sure been busy! For the sake of being able to read this thing better, you should know that starting a new line with a colon (:) will indent it. You can stack colons to keep indenting. If you're logged in, sign your comments by typing --~~~~. This will automagically add your name/talk page and create a time stamp. You can't really be Anonymous on a wiki, all changes are logged in the history of the page, and IPs/usernames are required. One line break doesn't do anything in wiki formatting, you need two line breaks for a new paragraph. Try to keep things sectioned off by using headings and subheadings. If you start a new line with equal signs (=) it becomes a heading, as long as you close it off at the end of the line. Adding more equal signs (== and === etc) gives you sub and sub-sub headings. Nest them properly, and they will play nice. If you're starting a new discussion, make a new heading/subheading to keep things segmented. --Sertul (talk) 12:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, was having issues understanding the formatting. --Hust91 (talk) 16:33, 2 January 2014 (UTC) (Subroutine 190491)

Incredibly helpful, thank you --Program0 (talk) 10:54, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion Archive

Figured I'd go ahead and make this http://pastebin.com/2XBzuLzF to help clean up some of the old stuff. --Program0 (talk) 11:20, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Saw this article about 3D-printed organs, thought it was relevant to some of the archived discussion. --Sertul (talk) 22:14, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Always sad to see new tech being held back like this, but still thank you.

--Program0 (talk) 04:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. And the reason that the UGEI high-ups are noobs for using cybernetics only to replace their bodies. You could have both, you lazy bastards! --Hust91 (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Feedback

Program0, I think i have figured out the problem to the player's idea of just building a planet full of BW. a whole hooked up network might provide a massive amount of BW. the real problem is the TRANSMISSION of the BW. there is only a finite amount of frequency that can transmit usable BW at any time at any location. It's the original reason the FCC was made so someone does not hog the whole bandwidth and crowd out the rest. It's a problem we are facing now with so many people on smart phones, cel phones, TV, radio, etc. our airwaves are LOADED now. this should be no different here. Think of it this way. You can't drain a keg of beer all at once with a straw. you can only drain it slowly. If the posters make a massive BW farm on a planet's surface that can produce 3,000 BW or what ever insane amount they could do, they should only be able to send out no more than 30 BW at best. planetary weather can also disrupt some of this BW, and an Ion storm in space can also disrupt even more of it. dark matter clouds and Black holes can stop BW transmission completely. how about that?

-The Fluff Bringer

Huh, you make an excellent point actually fluffy. wireless does have limits because of how crowded the air waves get, but I'm not that sure how much air bandwidth would fill up, since there's a lot of air. Atmosphere would probably be a considerable factor, too since you mentioned it. I dunno how much it would limit things, but you are right that I should consider that stuff too, when it comes to the bandwidth planet idea. Thank you.

-Program0

Right now we are running around 4G network in the USA. with the insane amount of complex data that a single BW is represents, i would call it 10G network at best to carry it all. and THAT would fill the airwaves completely. So much so to the point that others would be hard pressed to NOT notice it. Yes we can encrept it so they can't read it, but would KNOW someone is pumping a lot of data out near by. I fear that if someone has advanced enough senor tech, they could easily pick up our transmissions and maybe decypher it. even deep into UGEI and Malorian space, or OTHER beings near by who are intrested in such powerful signals from deep space. so building a BW farm might be fine for a long term processing problem like what is the finite number of PI or what is the meaning of life. but to turn Ophion or any other A.I. into a hacking and aiming god isn't likely to happen.

-The Fluff bringer

Oh yeah, definitely. So far, your data isn't TERRIBLY different from other signals in space, except for maybe when you hack. You'd be obvious as fuck with a BW farm. But hell, if you have the technology to make it, at that point, what are you hiding from, you know? Anyway, that is also a good point. You can already compete with humans in terms of hacking and aim, doing what Pulsar gave you all the time would be crazy hard. Took the UFW years to grow to the size it is and all.

-Program0

You can get around this by using different means of communications. 4G and other kinds of WiFi are radio signals. Nothing is there to stop you from using microwaves or even visible light. Since A.I. Quest mostly uses FTL communications, and FTL communication are science-fiction, it's not really clear if we would run into a transmission bottleneck. In real life, there's only so much data that can be broadcast and received by a single pair of communications devices, but the solution to that is "build more communications devices." It would make sense if each broadband buoy/ship had a limit of how much BW it could work with, but that introduces more resource micromanagement which may or may not be desirable. Maybe you can run into interference issues, but not at the size of a planet, and we don't even know if FTL communications suffer from interference in the first place. TL;DR: Interference: i dunno lol; BW bottlenecking: makes sense, if you want to have it. --Sertul (talk) 12:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

They have good points here. Even if all the bottlenecks mean is that we'll need to build more or bigger buoys, it's still a tool you can use to balance Ophion's rate of growth to one that lets us have fun at each level of power before moving on to the next and add some challenge as we are forced to divert resources and defences to protecting these buoys.

--Hust91 (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC) (Subroutine 190491)

Yeah, that's part of the best part of dealing with sci fi communications. Not tied down by the hardest laws and such. I may do it if it becomes an issue, if nothing else but to be a limiter on your unstoppable juggernaut of power. It'd slow you down, nothing more I figure. For now, it's not needed. But maybe someday.

--Program0 (talk) (UTC)

Program0, Did you just made up that that Apollo's drinks are super addictive? Or did you set this plot up threads ago?

-The Fluff bringer

No, I assure you I did not. I remember quite clearly mentioning when Apollo started the project that he was developing several different brands, and one was rather addictive. The end product proved quite addictive.

--Program0 (talk) 08:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I just saw your tweet Program0. You have my sympathies concerning your grandmother. Go, take your time taking care of her as long as you need to. We'll be here when you get back. Just let us know how things are going every so often so we'll know you and your family are going alright, OK?

-The Fluff bringer

No trouble, I am much better now as is she. I am sorry about canceling, however.

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Would just like to add that I'm very much in favor of conjuring a virus (as long as it makes sense) or other reason for us to suffer programming glitches like that rather than leaving it up to chance (since the real odds of suffering a glitch like that twice in a row are probably far inferior of the chance of rolling 1 out of 100 twice in a row, making the "it's just random chance" explanation unfeasible, even at a double nat 1). It explains how something like this could happen despite the supposed competence of the character, and proves an interesting adventure hook.

I realize that not many are in favor of pursuing many adventure hooks, but I don't really feel like we're in a hurry to "complete" the Quest particularly soon - I enjoy it so far, though we could probably stand to vote on more issues at the same time to speed up management and have more and more of the micromanagement disappear in the background - possibly save for the occasional glimpse into the kind of stuff that's going on - like if one of our educational centers discovers a remarkably talented student, or if one of our stores or advanced medical centers is doing poorly because they're being harassed by some outside force and we have a chance to massively improve our reputation by taking care of it without charge and having the story of our generosity spread way out of proportion for the risks we took in making it come to pass.

Like donating a trio of spiderbots to hunt down planetary bandits, or using economic warfare to buy out a ruthless company that is effectively enslaving some people and giving them more humane options.

--Hust91 (talk) 02:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, this could give us ample opportunity to do a 'Krono quest' side thread to do other events while Ophion deals with the over all Quest. Kronos can explore and take out problems in those unclaimed systems i am sure Program0 wanted to do. the anons are not likely to be upset by a side quest once in awhile.

-The Fluff bringer

Ah, good Hust, I am glad that it came across the way I wanted with some, if not for everyone. I was thinking a crit fail like this is odd, especially for an A.I. who regularly checks his own software. So, it made sense that I could turn it into something slightly more interesting. My thought is that nat 1s on d100 will usually be glitches, errors, or other things computer related, and not all of which will even be your fault. I've always been in favor of the viewpoint that a failed roll isn't the player's fault.

And you're correct, I am not in any real hurry to finish the quest, and neither should others I feel, though I realize the painfully slow pace I do is hard for some, and I apologize for that. Hopefully I can make things move fast enough to satisfy. Truthfully, this was one of the parts of a strategy quest that I feared. The axis, turning point, where close up view spreads out. I've never handled that before, and I hope that I can make the management disappear well enough to keep us from moving at a snail's pace.

As for the Kronos Quest thing-as much as I'd love that, it would have the same effect of Ophion doing them, but with Kronos-that is, flipping the focus around too much for others, I think. That and the added thing of swapping MCs. Hopefully, I can do a little montage thing to show Kronos' report, which will be a video to Ophion that he watches at high speeds. Basically be me trying to summarize the missions he does. That sound acceptable?

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

For a lack of better place to put this. Does Moira have a favorite type of thing, food and/or drink, music? What does she not like (foods, music, etc) that stands out? Is Moira really scared of any number of things? (like clowns, dogs, zombies for example). It will help me write her better in my stories.

-The Fluff bringer

Off the top of my head? probably normally eats a lot of prepackaged meals, and the like. So anything that's better then that probably impresses her. Especially organic stuff. Music? Techno, obviously. Or something similar I picture, which she listens to while programming. She is use to eating a lot of pretty bad stuff, so not much offends, I imagine. Probably isn't a fan of overly slow or methodical tones. Scared though? Probably logical horrors. Predatory aliens, and deep darkness of space, I imagine. Things she can't disprove with her big brain on a dime, basically.

--Program0 (talk) 05:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thoughts on a possible IRC channel?

I wouldn't be against it. Hell I'd even join it to help answer stuff for people. But I don't know how to make one, and I'm not even sure I'm big enough to warrant such a thing haha.

--Program0 (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

client01.chat.mibbit.com/?channel=%23OSN&server=irc.Rizon.net

If Program0 is the first one in there, he'll end up being the mod, so~

Wasn't the first, it looks like, but I checked it out.

--Program0 (talk) 06:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Well anyone heard from Program0 yet? is he in the ER or just on the mend?

-The Fluff bringer

What's that now? I am quite fine. --Program0 (talk) 13:33, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, we were kinda worried last Friday for you. Was it allergies or just a head cold?

-The Fluff bringer

Nah, the thread just slowed down, and I didn't think it was a good idea to venture deeper the way it was. That on top of my own tiredness. --Program0 (talk) 04:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Fluff's stories

I said i would post links to my work, and here it is. I figured it would be easier to have them all in one place for those who want to catch up to it. These are all my works and i will add more as i make them. I will remove these if Program0 wishes for me too.

-The fluff bringer

• chapter 1
• chapter 2
• chapter 3
• chapter 4
• chapter 5
• chapter 6
• chapter 7
• chapter 8
• chapter 9
• chapter 10
• chapter 11
• chapter 12
• chapter 13

new post up, let me know what you think.

-The Fluff bringer

I found it pretty amusing, and horrifically awkward (Though I assume that was intended in places). Am glad to see Moira kept her cool, for the most part, and remained the older woman she was suppose to be though. The way you write dialogue always weirds me out a little, though I'm not really sure I can pin point why. Otherwise, though, it feels a little more like a bonding moment then a full chapter (course, nothing wrong with that either, just thought I'd mention it). I also find Moira's coffee preference highly appropriate. Hadn't considered it. --Program0 (talk) 11:45, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

A new blonde XO under Captain Red? oh Program0, what have you done! Now i'm being dragged back to my word program and write out MORE fluff stories about her too! I think the name "Tanya Akins" fits her. oh yea, new chapter. this one too much too long to get done.

-The Fluff bringer

I found drunk station BBQ amusing. And yep, blonde working under Red for now. He's still getting used to all the things that come with being a captain.

--Program0 (talk) 03:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

New chapter up. a bit more description of the station it self, but i had to cut this one in half or it would get quite long. let me know what you think of it.

-The Fluff bringer

Read it. And you don't have to worry about length. Keeping a central element to be the focus of each chapter is a good step. Length shouldn't be an issue.

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

chapter 13 up. feed back welcome. I have come to learn my lesson. I am sorry I gave you grief Program0. I'll withdraw the use of my tripname to only to your threads and the quests i like. I feeling rather tired over all of this now but the more i think on it, if i just cave in, the bullies and haters will win. I refuse to cave anymore. I have done enough of that in my life.

-The Fluff bringer

I've said it before, I don't really mind if some are angry with me for reasons I can't control. But that might help those who rage at the sight of you I suppose.

--Program0 (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Anon's stories

• X-Ray as requested

• Ophion talks to Rhea: How It Should Happen

Hope you don't mind if I hijack this section a little bit. --Sertul (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Sector Map

Just creating a new section for any and all discussion regarding the map.

-mapfag

My first question is to you Program0, would you mind giving me a list of systems (generally neutral, empty or 3rd-faction) to fill up the big empty spaces in the map. I don't think UGEI space needs filling at the moment as that should be tied directly into the progression of the plot, but given that our exploror ship has been gone for some time, I feel that a new map-update is appropriate.

Additionally, after reading some, but not all, of the dicussion further down this page, I was wondering if you wanted me to add dedicated 'warp lanes' between systems; which while deviating slightly from a more realistic free-form sytle, would add additional strategic depth into our decision-making process, I'm cool either way.

Finally, I've mentally conceived of our current sector as occupying the tip of one of the Milky Way's spiral arms - very far away from Earth and the bulk of humanity, is this okay/correct?

-mapfag

a reminder, Program0 said there are natural space based obstacles and dangers in this setting like nebulas, dark matter clouds, black holes, and maybe massive astroid fields and other things. you might want to make a few icons for such things when we find them.

-The Fluff bringer

[Archived]

Keep in mind, this is using established lanes to jump around, your Cruiser did its best to stay off the radar by remaining in dark space and taking long distance scans. A lot of the established lane worlds are already populated. There are TONS of other worlds out in dark space, more then I could ever list as I said, but to get those you'd need to establish node lanes, which would take time and gas. If that makes sense.

Adding warp lanes though? You're definitely welcome to. I was trying to do it mentally, but that might take too much time. Basically, it's generally present whenever there's a clear piece of space between two locations. Normally the closest locations. The bases that got hit last thread are the main planets you own so far that border UGEI space, to give you a reference. Still I hate giving you more work like that.

Huh. Well I suppose that's possible, but I am not sure if that's appropriate. I mean, why would humanity travel so far away to do that? Or, are you suggesting the human empire has grown that large? The main reason I am reluctant to bring in earth is because known star systems and such, but at the same time it seems weird that humans would jump hundreds of light years away to start building a whole new empire. But feel free to discuss this with me-I am not fully decided on the issue yet.

Also yes, there are space obstacles all over. Do with that what you will. --Program0 (talk) 03:34, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I just wanted to add, as I've read a lot of the minor changes you've done to the map section-you're amazing mapfag. I very much like the slight explanations and small additions you do. I can definitely turn some of them into side things. Just wanted you to know how much you help out! --Program0 (talk) 08:34, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Glad you like them all mate. I didn't want to deviate too heavily from what you gave me but as I was adding them into the wiki the world-builder in me got inspired - I look forward to seeing what interesting things you do with the skeletal outlines I've written!

I've uploaded the new version of the map - now with dedicated warp lanes and dark space anomolies, thoughts? Also, could you give me the outline of one more UGEI world, a corner of their space is a little bit lacking in my opinion.

-mapfag

Actually, some of the things you came up with have changed entire quest ideas I've had so far, so if anything it's more of a collab effort at this point. Hell, if you feel like adding more, just post about it here, for minor worlds that don't have resources. The only thing I really want to regulate is resources-everything else is more for fluff sake/exploration and fleshing out the world. Space is the best setting, because no matter how many worlds you add, it should work.

I just noticed! I don't understand why I can't see the warp lanes unless I maximize the pic, tho. Maybe my laptop is messing up. Anyway, it looks awesome, so far thank you. Some minor things-Jake's Gambit has a warp lane to Eshareth as well as Keller Expanse. And Hollgan's Rift can jump to Ussaihu as well. Manwe's Bay has a lane to Malorian space too. Klintok can probably jump to UFW space, as can Rane Expanse. Nethlos to Camael.

Above is just a bunch of suggestions that make sense in my head. Add them at your own pace if you like, I hope it's not much trouble.

As for UGEI world-sure. You can add some more agriculture/industry worlds. Or some more heavily harvested sectors. Anything that doesn't present mineral or gas resources, should be alright I figure. Maybe a research station-I noticed I made surprisingly few of those. Also consider which sides you want to fill out. Losirian and Malorian side might have some military bases to protect the border, but might also be places to study xeno menace. Non-borders could be anything above like I said.

--Program0 (talk) 01:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

It usually takes a little while for the pic on the wiki to update once I add a new version. As for the warp lanes you wanted, I added a few of them in but I haven't done so with some of the others. Let me run my reasoning by you and if you agree I'll keep them out, if not I'll add them in and adjust the system descriptions as necessary. I want Walsh to be segmented off a bit considered the fluff I wrote for it - hence the lack of a dedicated warp lane there from Ussaihu. I didn't want to add a lane between Manwe's Bay to Malorian space because the Bay system doesn't really have any defences and the Malorians would have smashed it up ages ago if they had direct access there. I didn't add another lane to either Klintok or Rane because the limited lanes leading there is why they haven't been snapped up yet by any faction.

I've added another four systems to the UGEI - Arman's Pass (empty harvested system), the Dract System (just another agri-world), the Invandi Nebula (something cool and out of the way for you to tinker with), and the Walsh System (again, just something on the borders with some interesting stuff going on there for you to build upon). After adding these I feel like the UGEI has enough worlds and any more that I'd add would either be boring 'harvested' systems, or agri/industrial worlds with no real attraction.

Side note - What are your thoughts on the Arman naming technique. At first it was just a cool name but now I have this idea in my head that he was the first human explorer in this sector of space, leading the charge of humanity if you will. Only to meet his untimely end in Arman's Folly against the Losirians(somehow...)

--Mapfag (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2014

Oh, really? That's odd, I wonder why. Anywho, as for the warp lanes. Ah, I didn't realize Walsh was going to be between Ussaihu and others. Fair enough then. As for the Malorian world-I didn't realize I listed that. Very few Malorian worlds have few defenses, but if that's true then you have a point. Speaking of Malorian systems-feel free to name the stars of the Xeno races, if you were holding back because of me. Ah, you've made good points. I was just going bay what made sense in my head, I forgot they already had fluff established. My bad there. I'll trust you on the matter, in that case.

I've noticed and I like the tidbits you've added. I look forward to eventual exploration. You really have an eye for details.

Oooh I did notice the name consistency. That's really awesome-small stories and rumors hidden under the main story. I love that stuff, and seeing fans help craft some of it pleases me even more. That can definitely be canon. Hell, maybe the UGEI wasn't always so bad, and he was a pretty cool guy, who unfortunately pissed off space sharkmen one day.

--Program0 (talk) 06:42, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to add that I massively appreciate your work as well. It really helps to visualize things on a strategic scale. Especially the times when you let the world-builder run lose, since it adds flavor. Even if some part or other conflicts with previous establishments or inappropriate for some other reason, Program0 can simply ask you to change it before it becomes canonized.

I just love how much this quest and the world it takes place in looks more and more like a collaborative effort that is greater than any one of us could have done on their own - greater than the sum of its parts, so to speak, with each adding their part to the haystack instead of Program0 having to come up with everything on his own, like the QMs of many other quest threads have to.

--Hust91 (talk) 12:05, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Always happy to hear some praise, but I'm really just happy to help out. I agree though, the collaborative side of this quest was an unexpected, yet generally positive turn in the development/life of this quest.

--Mapfag (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2014

Side note, for when you have time. UFW are going to set up refineries on approximately 2-3 gas giants in their own territory that were previously ignored. Can just be in previously established systems, to remove strain from you, but thought I'd mention it here.

--Program0 (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah of course, now that we've given them the UGEI's refinery tech they are finally utilizing some of the gas giants in their systems which until this point were relatively useless. Which existing systems would you like me to add these gas giants?

-mapfag

Yes, it definitely feels more collaborative the more it goes on, which I am fine with. I don't want to copy and paste a lot of worlds, but the number of planets I need to fill out the universe and the number of creative ideas I have have a wide gap. You guys helping is the best thing I could ask for.

Ah, and mapanon, it doesn't matter too much, but lets see if I can't pick some-Knuoth, Ganymede Prime, and possibly Nethlos System as well work just fine.

--Program0 (talk) 01:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This might be over kill Mapfag, but to add to the maps you have made of the sector, is there any possablity of makeing a system by system map? to get a better idea where the planets and asteroid belts are at? at least for the systems Ophion has been at.

-The Fluff bringer.

Thanks for the update Mapfag. Now it seems we need to update the map once more by stretching the Guild's space to absorb the Dresh system as well.

-The Fluff bringer

Planning

I think we should try to identify and make contact with one or two of the corporations of the UGEI and then offer them lucrative business deals to sow discord. Offer them valuable information in exchange for bribes, buy their stock just before we hit a competitor or simply give them warnings that others do not get just before an attack we know is about to happen.

Or just make vague promises of personal wealth and power, advantages over their competitors.

Some of this may, again, require that we get in contact with a disgruntled UGEI citizen, but much of it should be doable right away.

I'd also like to call a vote on producing one or two of those "Vulture/Buzzard/Ghoul" scavenger cruisers before we produce any others this cycle (before next Friday, that is) to help us with our decidedly meager income (they make us able to build the other queued up ships faster), if possible. I can only hope that enough players are reading here and that it's okay to hold a vote about ship-building outside the thread.

--Hust91 (talk) 01:58, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Now that we have stealth ships, we COULD create spy teams to both physically and cyberly infiltrate the UGEI colonies and stir up discontent. but such a operation would take a long time to produce results and very well fail. but if it works, it could allow us to take over a world/system with out firing a shot when we get there. Now also, we need to see into the possibility of getting a contract with the Reefling Clan when we go into attacking the UGEI. we could pay them with, say 200 minerals, and 100 gas, and the Losirian can keep any ship they can take smaller than a BC including ship wreckage. but they have to hand over any prisoners they get and the stations and planets are to be untouched save the defense bases. I do not expect for them to go out of their way to get live prisoners, but i request for them to not eat the humans.

-The Fluff bringer

Alternatively, we pay them with credits, which we have in abundance and are not using for shipbuilding?

--Hust91 (talk) 21:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I had to stop and think about this one. The living "pirates" we found in the Dresh system might not be true pirates after all. From looking at the star map, they could very well have been a UGEI fleet that after Rhea got beaten at the pulsar station battle. the UGEI retreated and could have either lost contact with them purposely abandoned them to be a speed bump to us or not. they did not take it too well and went AWOL. they could very well be more open to talking than just opening up to shooting first. If we can flip them to our side with out having to fire a shot, all the better! More so if we offer to treat them better than how they were handled by the UGEI. On the outside we could convince them join the UFW/Guild alliance as a new member. The zombie fungus we found could have been a Bio weapon experiment that went bad. Or even worse, the living people/ex UGEI fleet might have realized they were next and went 'NOPE!' and broke away. In exchange of a pardon and their promise of good behavior, they will join the UFW government system and work in conjunction with us. They get a better chance in life and much lesser chance of being blasted out from the sky for being a pirate.

-The Fluff bringer

So, gonna outline the Monolith plane here in simple stages.

1: We create a Monolith-looking thing. Optionally, we put a nuke inside it and set it up so that it initiates (nuclear devices don't explode, they initiate) if the outer layer of the Monolith is breached after it is in position.

2: We place this Monolith using a small ship with the reactor running on low deep into territory infamous for a heavy lightling infestation.

2b: Optionally, we now seed this system with some scrap, drill holes in the scrap and insert guided munitions into those holes that's been designed to blend in with the rest of the scrap-chunk and program it all to scan for ships of UGEI make and to target the nearest ship to each munition and fire once a sufficient number of ships has entered the system.

3: We spread rumors of some incredible event (like that we received an alien message from that location - one similar to the Wow! signal[1]) and leak information about how we've bought materiel and maps about the general area and been asking around about it as well as researching old records of suspected alien contact that does not match up to either Malorians or Losirians. This information is leaked to both the UFW, the UGEI & the Losirians, giving hints that we have reason to believe this is some kind of technology that might overshadow everything else that any of these factions can access, such as functional plans for a flawless von neumann device, a tool that can harvest material from stars or a planet-cracking ship.

4: We pretend to launch a huge fleet in that direction, but actually kind of don't, and instead keep it close by (maybe in dark space) until the UGEI and/or the Losirians send fleets of their own to investigate/take advantage of the others' investigation or try to take advantage of our seeming defenselessness.

5: Kick ass.

--Hust91 (talk) 21:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I have been thinking about this plan, and two things come to mind. One is that you will need Terrain Reformation (aka, better construction drones) to do this, and you will need better explosives tech to be that precise and advanced without blowing itself silly. Probably Explosives II, perhaps? Seems fair to me.

The Second thing that comes to mind: What in the void are you going to say the Monolith does, anyway? Rumors alone won't bring the entire UGEI/Losirian armada without something juicy they really want, I'd wager. I admit, I am partial to the flawless von neumann devices idea from aliens myself, but that would be one mad deception check to fool the big empires. They might also only send small scouts, unless they expect resistance. It seems you're making them think The Guide has access to something massively important, and would encourage them to bring a big force to fight for it. If that is the case, consider what that actually means. The UGEI's 'true' army is many times larger then you could hope to fight (right now), even with garrisons at other planets. Er, this got off topic. I don't mean to discourage, but consider these things, yes? Perhaps discuss them with me on why I might be wrong on one of them?

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Research

RESEARCH PRIORITY

Primary: Advanced Ship Modification

Secondary: Lightling DNA [30%]

Tertiary: Power Armor [15%]

Current Subjects

Research Staff

Moira Deckers- Robotics, programming and all around computing specialist.

Robotics Specialist Staff of Ussaihu

Scientist V.I. 'Metis'

POSSIBLE RESEARCH SUBJECTS

• AI Black Box Technology [Acquired]: Capability of building Black Boxes which allow for the building of highly sophisticated artificial intelligence. They are, in essense, powerful computers capable of creativity and creation in ways V.I. aren't. Acquired from researching Unit 2237.

• Black Box Redundancy Mechanisms: Allows the ability to create an empty Black Box for your core A.I. components to fall back upon should they come under heavy attack. Enables the ability to create an exact copy so data transfer is near instant, saving the intelligence of valuable A.I.
• Black Box Integration and Networking: By disabling some of the key creativity components and personality matrices, you are able to create slave A.I. that converge into a singular consciousness. Increases processor capacity, and enables command of larger forces more easily.

• A.I. Factory: Enables Ophion to rapidly create Artificial Intelligence on a larger scale, no longer limited to one at a time. Factory must be built first.

• Genetic Engineering I: You quite literally learn to play this 'god' character humans speak of, and mettle with their DNA in new and unseen ways. This will allow you knowledge of the human genome, and open the door to perfect humans, super soldiers, and who knows what else? [Requires subjects for research]
• Chemistry I: Tampering with glass vials and chemicals of all sorts, you learn to break down and reform various things in ways you could not before. May allow various enhancements, from new exotic explosives, to enhanced mine refinement, to various other things.
• Malorian Flora/Growth Serum Formula: Terraforming benefits, knowledge of hyper evolution on Eshareth, testing with cell cultures and Lightlings possible. Serum would allow to learn it's evolutionary properties, while the Flora holds a variety of possible terraforming benefits, due to the way they are set to evolve.
• Human Cyborg/Android bodies: Further cybernetic knowledge, possible, fusing man and machine. Allows more efficient android use and creation. [Requires subjects for research] [Studying Rhea would greatly enhance this research subject]

• Advanced Cyborg Components: Allows nearly invisible to the naked eye implants and cybernetic enhancement of organic bodies with particularly advanced technology. [Requires subjects for research] [Studying Rhea would greatly enhance this research subject]
• Advanced Android Bodies: Using the knowledge gained from Human cyborgs, you expand your knowledge of all possible robotic shapes and sizes. Enormous androids and other robotics possible. Requires Human Cyborg/android bodies studies.

• Explosives Research 1: Opens the door to possible explosive and missile weapon upgrades. Allows development of small deploy-able explosives via Android, strategic, among other things. Also allows for more advanced styles of missile deployment. [Studying Rhea would greatly enhance this research subject]
• Lightling DNA: Map the genes responsible for the creature's unique abilities of biological warp jumps. Learn how they function, behave, possibly communicate, and even origin. [Requires Lightling subjects]

• Lightling Skin adaptation: It is hypothesized that the flesh of these organic creatures can be adapted to use in armor for enhanced energy resistance.
• Stutter Warp Engines: By studying the organic warp abilities of Lightings, this, in general, will increase ship speed in normal space, allow many tiny warps through open space. While limited, the speed gain resembles how Lightlings move.

• Ballistics Research 1: Opens the door for ballistics research and various other uses of mass driver technology, on top of standard weapon applications. Allows development of small deploy-able turrets via Android, limited duration and strength, as well as other manner of hard ammo weapons.
• Advanced Ship Modification: The ability to modify massive sections of your ships proves far easier now, as you break down and are able to understand how each and every piece works. Allow forging of special weapons(Such as Widowmaker) into larger, much more powerful versions for other, larger ship.

• Hull Scabbing: Liquid metal substance that fills in holes in your ships when they're blasted apart. Effectively makes all your ships tougher and harder to destroy.
• Modular Ship Plating: All ships are much cheaper to repair due to special armor designs that allows them to easily be replace.

• Organic Sonic Testing: Learn the range of sounds these creatures operate on, and what might prove an effective sonic weapon against them. Test human, Malorian, and wildlife of Eshareth's limit's for sound of various degrees and frequencies. [Requires live subjects.]
• Power Armor Theory: You can make machine in the shape of man, why not suit a man with the skin of a machine. Begin conceptualizing power armor, allows massive armor benefits for all humanoid soldiers, easily rivaling tough androids in armor strength, if not better.
• Biological Viruses: Sample taken from Atill VI's atmosphere. Highly toxic pathogen against human life. Unknown effect on aliens. Possible Bio-weapon. [Disposable organic subjects required]
• Infantry Weapons & Defense II: Allows miniaturization of plasma weapons, shields, and other tier II technology.
• Advanced Gathering Drones: Decrease size, and costs of drones at gathering sites, allow them to increase efficiency and resource rates.
• Terrain Reformation [Acquired]: Research large Construction Drones that are able to shape the land on planets, allowing for underground and other such bases in a decent amount of time

• Deep Shaft Surface Mining: Research and analyzing in how to reach mineral deposits that are normally beyond the reach of conventional mining techniques. This would increase the productive level of a planet out put and might even turn a once barren world into a productive one. Warning: Not all barren worlds will have deep mineral deposits. please make sure planetary scans are correct before mining begins or your efforts will be wasted. May damage planet ecosystem.

• Surface Reprocessing Strip Mining: Research and developing the massive equipment to dig and process surface mineral deposits in a faster rate than before. Warning: Use of this tech might result in damage to the any natural biosphere the planet this is used on might have. This will also speed up the mineral depletion rate of the planet. Lastly, some factions will likely respond negatively to the use of this on life bearing worlds.
• Lava mining: Developing and research the machinery to safely and economically mine and process a planet's Lava flows and deep core bore holes. This technology will only work on a planet that is a tectonically active world. Some planets might have more minerals in it's lava than others. Still other worlds might also yield Gas along side minerals. testing will be needed to confirm what output it will be. Warning: unexpected and/or exceedingly violent geological actions might result in damages or complete ruination of the mining systems if not properly prepared for.

• Bandwidth Block [Acquired]: Create large self contained cubes of bandwidth that allow them to be placed planet side to provide bandwidth boosts. May be subject to environmental or other damage sources if not protected with other technology.
• Fungal Matter: Unknown alien substance that resembles a strange and unknown fungus. No reports exist of this substance, and it is uncertain how safe it is to research at all. Possibly able to research stronger fungicide for substance. [Dangerous foreign substance if brought to lab]
• Erebos Unit: What has been dubbed a Viral Intelligence that you acquired from Atil VI. It's ability to consume and grow from V.I. fascinates you, though it is possible extremely dangerous to your kind. As a result it is currently sealed away. If researched, may allow you to create such creatures on your own, making viruses a great degree more deadly to other enemy A.I. or V.I.
• Rhea's Restoration: It was proposed by one consciousness to restore Rhea's full capabilities. As you do not have the specs she was built with, this would take a little time, and some investment, but once completed would restore the commando to her former glory, more or less. NOTE- This does not predispose her to your orders unless leash protocol is enabled.
• Rhea's Conditioning: With some time, you could undo much of the mental conditioning programmed into the Commando of the UGEI. Does not predispose her to serve you.
• Power Cell Miniaturization: The technology tree of building smaller, yet just as effective power cores as larger reactors. May reduce risk of power loss during fight (sectionalized power), make power sources somewhat harder to detect, reduce energy costs for civilian structures, reduce gas costs for some engine structures, etc.
• Crystal Alien Fragments: Not much is known about this being, yet scans indicate it is somehow 'alive' by the standards of the humans, on top of it's odd ability to grow when exposed to heat, in danger, and even radiation. Possible benefits, beyond knowledge, may find alternate fuel source.

COMPLETED RESEARCH SUBJECTS

• Terrain Reformation: Large Construction drones that are able to shape the land and allow for all manner of more complex structures.
• AI Black Box Technology: Achieved through a dissection of Watcher Unit 2237. Allows the creation of A.I. Black boxes
• Bandwidth Block: Metis' first completed research subject. Allows the creation of large computing cores that increase your ability to process, and the speed with which you do so.
• Fungicide I: Kills off spores of Aquil Fungus

Proposals

1. New Category: Optimized Code - Ophion begins to carefully, oh so carefully experiment with his own code in an attempt to improve his own intellect and effectivize his own thoughts.

From a crunch perspective this can have a variety of effects depending on what we develop, such as:

• Needing less bandwidth to run our consciousness at bullet-time by replacing ineffective code working at cross-purposes or in more complex ways than it could be. If our ability to slow down perceptual time is based entirely on how much bandwidth is available, this would also necessarily improve just how much we can speed our minds up at maximum.
• Installing customized reflexes that will act at at computer speed without having to go through our human-pace thought processes, much like normal reflexes but much, much, much faster - such as automatically warping in a small complement of destroyers whenever we sense someone warping in to our system. Essentially creating triggers that work as "If X, do Y" without player prompt (in fact, the players cannot stop them from beginning, and if the time it takes to complete them is near-instant we wouldn't be able to stop them at all, again, much like human reflexes) or having to wait for the glacial pace of human thinking that we possess.
• The ability to near-instantly run complex simulations of what would happen when we take an action, thus decreasing the impact of low rolls or prompting Program0 to reveal if an action that could feasibly be calculated by running a good simulation of reality based on what we know ahead of time (such as what direction an enemy is likely to dodge based on prior observation, or precisely what emotion a sapient being is feeling at a certain moment or how they'd react to certain proposals based on emotional cues and previous experience) is highly likely to lead to terribad things happening. If Program0 is generous, at high levels it might even give us the ability to create a "save point" by following reality in simulation, and simply going back to when we started simulating reality. If so, there's probably going to be a hard cap on how long we can simulate before the delay becomes noticeable, it's also likely to be very bandwidth-intensive.
• The ability to make software far faster and more perfectly as Ophions thought processes are optimized and he makes far less errors when writing the code, which removes a massive number of iterations where he has to scan the entire code for a single error causing a bug.

--Hust91 (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I really like the suggestion, though I'm not sure if it'll be as effective as that, I do think it would be more of a upgrade you get once you have enough bandwidth to do it to yourself. Perhaps after your first planet is 'bandwidthified' or something? I'm not sure. On that topic-how much bandwidth should I say a BW bunker gives, anyway? Just the one, since it's not the full planet. I was thinking maybe 50, or so, but I'm not sure.

--Program0 (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

1. Human Biology - Someone last thread mentioned something regarding human anatomy, and I thought I'd put up a research topic regarding biology. But it seems I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of what such a thing would provide you. I'd greatly appreciate some input, perhaps enough to make it a worthy research project.
2. Black Box 'Hivemind' Integration and Networking: By disabling some of the key creativity components and personality matrices, you are able to create slave A.I. that converge into a singular consciousness.

I ended up adding the Black Box Integration thing, but I admit to not knowing for sure what to let it provide in game. A little discussion would also be nice.

--Program0 (talk) 09:29, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Assuming we have at least a modern understanding of the current human body, the Human Biology research path might be better renamed the "Genetic Modification" branch, with humanity a sub-branch of that.

Just like we have coding and design of robots, we can research it in order to be able to genetically engineer humans in different ways. Better immune-systems, more arms, more intelligene, weakening the areas responsible for prejudice, longer lives, harder bones, blood that coagulates faster so that death by bloodloss becomes unlikely, all that jazz.

For merging human biology and robots, well, we already have a cybernetics branch.

It could give us a permanent bandwidth-boost that is very much more efficient than general bandwidth, but cannot be handed out to other V.I.s or A.I.s and can thus only be used by us. For example, we couldn't aim a cruiser's guns without actually taking control of it, or aid directly in a V.I.s hacking attempts (We could try our own simultaneous hacking attempt, though). We could, however, slow down how quickly we perceive time, aim weapons or control drones that are not assigned to a V.I., or launch hacking attacks of our own.

Could also distribute our consciousness over it so that even if one A.I. box is destroyed, we have a redundant one from which we are also running. We'd have to backup all our knowledge on all those boxes or somewhere separate that we can access to avoid suffering memory loss when one is destroyed.

As I understand it we can already split our attention as many ways as we have bandwidth to spare. Alternatively, the distributed-brain thing could be a separate research subject that has the first one as a prequisite. It's important to note though, that these research subjects will only help us IF we screw up catastrophically, and we would be spending time we could otherwise use to decrease our odds of screwing up in the first place.

--Hust91 (talk) 23:38, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I am of the mind that the 'slave A.I' network and a true 'Hivemind' network is two diffrent things. The 'Slave A.I.' network is more like a fragment of the original A.I. is snapped off and grown while it is connected into the original A.I. that would result much like the A.I. would have the effect of 'split personality' inside the mental matrix of the original A.I.. the true 'Hivemind' i see it more as tossing a group of people into a close room. It could turn into a structured system like how things work in the U.S. House of delegates or the U.S. Senate works. OR it might turn into a complete young children filled rumpus room if chaos gets out of hand. The former configuation would help ponder an idea better, and keep it's thoughts to it's self, but it might prove to be unstable and make the A.I. a bit 'off' when dealing with others. the latter configuration would REALLY ensure a topic is vetted and debated and maybe a better solustion or conclusion would be reached than any other system could produce. but it also might get snared in a logjam and NOT come to an agreement on something. the speed of coming to an conclusion might very well much longer than other systems.

-The Fluff bringer

There is also another field of research that now is a sore need of looking into is CHEMISTRY! Now we need to produce a new 'Agent Orange' class of fungicide and that means WE have to make it. Chemistry will also have some other great options too. Like cracking the secret of the Gas we mine. if we know how it is made naturally, then we could figure out how to make it artificially. so we can have gas refineries that produce Gas from baser elements that are more likely far more available and produce far more gas than ever. the other applications are really wide spread if we put the time into it.

-The Fluff bringer

Huh. Genetic Modification is interesting, I suppose I could go with that. But should it just be like Ballistics and Explosives and numbered? I don't want you to be able to mutate humans anyway you want from day one, anyway. Maybe 3 max levels. Sound good?

As for the A.I. integration-so a flat bandwidth increase on top of allowing you to more easily access your ship's? I suppose that could certainly work as a reasoning behind 'enslaving' A.I. And the second thing you mentioned, Redundancy, is its own research branch already. The main question I am thinking of now is, how much bandwidth can slave A.I give. I don't want it to be infinite, and I'd probably put a limit on how many you can use at once.

And Fluff, I like the idea of Chemistry, and will probably add it to it's own branch now, but uh, cracking the gas code would probably not change up mining a whole lot. The main reason being it's in my head, a series of complex gases bound together. Now, once you have, like, matter conversion and shit? Then I'll probably stop keeping track of resources all together, haha. Course, something like Chemistry might allow for you to beef up your gas production, simply because of the ability to better collect the fuel.

--Program0 (talk) 09:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

As to D.N.A. modding Program0, i do not think that the humans are all that willing to go real mutant production. I can see...

Lvl 1: prefect genectic defects cleaning treatments and general health improvments. allows human populations treated to be some what (insert precentage you want) resistant to chemical and bio weapons. fertility rates can be raised or lowered at will to allow a human colony to grow quicker and mature faster/better. or not if they wish.

Lvl 2: Captain America like upgrades made and prefected. Humans that are treated to this upgrade will fight far better than any normal trooper. Attack and defense actions are given a huge boost. Human lives are now in the hundreds of years or more. chemical and bio weapon resistence is raised.

Lvl 3: We are making more or less Warhammer 40k like space marines here. The power armor is optional. people are VERY resistant to chemical and bio weapon resistant. Human lives are now counted in the thousands of years or more.

as to chemistry, i can see some possablitys. 1: a 5 to 10% increase of minerials and gas collected from improved processing methods. 2: give a boost to missile damage and other explosives damage. 3: converting normal minerals into high grade minerials to some ratio. 4: finding out the secret to convert minerals to gas (and vice versea) say 100 to 1, 70 to 1, 50 to 1 and so forth as we refine this tech. this will likely have to be worked on.

-The Fluff bringer

While I agree with the potential stuff, I was imagining the grades something a bit more akin to what we'd be able to do, than specific upgrades (though is good example of what we might be able to do, but is not all we can do), something like this:

"1 We can adjust hormone production and improve the immune system to be more efficient and not overreact as often, hormone control allows us to essentially eliminate otherwise-causeless depression, immunity to normal torture by stronger, reflexive adrenaline release that disallows physical or mental pain above a certain cap. Can grow/print and implant lost organs, such as a new kidney after one has failed."

"2 Captain America physique for everyone, bodies do not store fat above a certain cap, immune system operates flawlessly, we can implant new (as in entirely new) organs Space-Marine style and regrow limbs or eyes, bones are harder and skin takes a lot more effort to penetrate while blood clots, eliminating blood-loss as a cause of death with anything less than limb-loss."

"3 We can grow entirely new organs or limbs, we can redesign their brains, and ultimately their bodies to look like pretty much anything that they or we want and essentially reshape them into entirely new organisms, potentially making humans more rational as their brains can be redesigned to be entirely free of needless bias and not subject to most logical fallacies."

While the last one may seem overpowered, we'd still be limited in the design of the new human bodies by engineering practicalities, and one should keep in mind that we can ALREADY do this with robots. Ultimately, I don't think the human improvements will bring all that much as soldiers as nearly anything an organic being can do, a robotic one can do better, not being limited by having to be alive and using proteins for building materials (we don't have to use proteins, but when we start using heavier metals to make, say, muscle-fibers, our new superhumans would arguably be defined as either cyborgs, or something new altogether). What it will give, are huge societal changes, loyalty towards us, and a strong point in favor of encouraging others that we are, in fact, benevolent. Though I suppose it might have some use as we can make minimalistic human bodies (barely more than a brain and support system) to control robotic bodies when we do not want to risk an A.I. but need advanced judgment capability right on the battlefield even if they are cut off.

Should also be noted that each of these suggested upgrades are entirely optional, having one does not require another, and we might even offer them in a checklist for what upgrades people want.

You may also be underestimating the chemistry research - most of what we research has substantial improvements, not just "10% better than previous", but between 30-60% better might be reasonably with good fluff to explain why it is so much more efficient. "Chemistry" levels might also replace "Explosives" levels as a prequisite research, since it's essentially just a small subgroup of experiments that you might expect when researching chemistry.

And I wouldn't say a flat bandwidth increase, but a bandwidth increase that can exclusively be used by the "Master" A.I., as in, we cannot lend processing time from it to our subordinate V.I.s, but we can use it to do actions ourselves that help them (though the distinction may become meaningless or be more complex than the feature is worth).

--Hust91 (talk) 01:59, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Lvl 1 of my proposal and yous could be combined with no problems. the Lvl2, well, i slightly dissagree with the fat cap. I propose to replace it with a vastly easier time to increase or decrease it. i would not want to take away the Ladies 'assets' so quickly. Making Captain America is far more in line of a Lvl2 tech than making a Warhammer 40k type Space Marine upgrades. those marines are a good deal less human than the Capt is. but having a better performing body and being able to replace more of it with cloned parts is in line with a Lvl2 tech. Lvl3 then could be the point where whole new organs can be made and implanted in humans to start turning them super humans. that or for anyone who played 'Shadowrun' and/or 'GURPS' a bit like i did, look into the bioware/biotech options and pick out some from there. there should be consiquences for going too far with biotech.

As to the Chemistry, it would likely be taken in a step process. the first levels would give 5 to 10% increase in mineral and gas production and work up from there. but the murger of chemistry and explosives seems fine to me.

-The Fluff bringer

The fat cap was just a general suggestion of the kind of modification we'd be able to do at that point - and I'd like to add that even if someone did want the fat-cap, there's no telling where it will be. Some might want no fat at all (which would be hilariously unhealthy), and some might even want to grow a beer-belly still. The primary intent behind such a modification would be to give people the bodies they want without having to put effort into it.

My issue with your genetic-research levels would be that it leaves little-to-no bonus for the first level of research, and still leaves a lot of potential upgrades for the 3rd research, essentially necessitating a 4th level to reach true genetic mastery. Space Marines are actually, as genetic research goes, fairly tame in modification of the human form. By the time we're done, we should be able to reshape a human into something that doesn't even look remotely human, should we or they desire to.

I agree that reckless biotech should have consequences, and experiments can certainly turn bad, but there's not really any motivation for why biotechnology in itself would have bad consequences.

Bring about unexpected societal changes, maybe succeed too well and make everything else obsolete, sure. But it is only if we're careless (not impossible if we're pushed by a time-schedule) and start using them before properly testing them to make sure they're safe short-term and long-term and in different enviroments that we might expect them to go Horribly Wrong, like the improved human immune system being able to survive outside the body and begins breaking down the local ecosystem and replacing it.

Troubles like those are the kind that will appear well in time to fix them as long as we properly test our breakthroughs under controlled conditions before releasing them upon the market.

About Chemistry, I believe the issue is that all other upgrades provide substantial and very noticable improvements at every level, while a "10% increase" in anything isn't really comparable with the others.

--Hust91 (talk) 13:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Because of what Chemistry implies, I can understand why you might think it would envelope explosives research too. However, I think that's far too beneficial a research option to merely be one topic. Economic bonuses AND allowing you to build all sorts of deadly weapons that do more damage at less cost? I'd rather keep it to two different topics, just for sake of reigning in the power a little bit, hope that makes sense. Perhaps I should change the name of Chemistry. I'm not sure what to, though.

But these both sound pretty great for genetic research, and honestly Fluff, you can do damn near anything with the DNA of humans by the third level. What specific bonuses it applies are up to you, I suppose, but they will generally make people better. I get what you were saying too, Hust. Having the ability to make humans supreme badass is one thing. But getting them to actually do it is another. It'd take a generation or so to naturally convert all humans over to this new method (and that's assuming enough agree to make them the majority. Hell, people protest minor genetic research today, imagine what sort of resistance this would get. I am thinking Human Revolution levels of bitching.) On the other hand, there's always the option of trying to convert the population with injections and intense surgery and such. It'd take a while, but not as long as the plan above. And it might earn even more hate that way, but still, it's the results you care about right?

Though, I do find the image of Ophion coming to an unmodified world with two genetically perfect woman standing by, and sending pictures of them to the planet, and suddenly having them just surrender highly amusing.

--Program0 (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Chemistry/Explosives, fair enough. Explosives might be a sub-group of Chemistry though?

I admit that I was hoping for something like Human Revolution - the difference here is that in Human Revolution it was a matter of class differences - the rich getting even more ahead of the poor and so on.

There's no particular reasons our enhancements would require any expensive drugs, though the initial gene-therapy might be fairly expensive - though we can try to alleviate that, either by funding things ourselves or making programs in which people can earn a genetic treatment that we pay the resources for through work and education. Those who did not upgrade would probably become very much obsolete compared to those who did - fortunately, the UFW planets do not seem to have any lack of work that needs doing as they have extremely low population densities. As I said, the primary benefits of advanced genetic engineering will be societal, with the military applications more of an afterthought.

And that is a hilarious image, we should absolutely do that. And two genetically perfect men besides them, and explicitly tell them that we can make you and your significant other look like this.

--Hust91 (talk) 13:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

THAT is a great way to pitch the biotech augments. also, it can be done so they ones who get them can't pass then on to their children. so if the next generation wants it, they have to come back to us and pay for it for them selves. Vainity and using human sex appeal is always a winner. OR if we don't worry about the profits, and it seems we are not all that worried about it. could tailor the biotech to be passed along with the next generation. in time, i hope they would cross breed with the unagumented humans and uplift everyone. As a darker take we can do with the bioware, we can also add a hidden augment. To make those with the upgrades to be much more subjected to pheromones influence. Pheromones is a hidden scent that is a form of subtle mind control. it can either enrage them, calm them down, arouse them, or even make them trust us more than they normally world. oh the possibilities.

-The Fluff bringer

I'd actually prefer if they were passed along to children - it allows us to create new species of human instead of just modifying single individuals - eventually culminating in a society where everyone can be superhuman, baselines only remaining as curiosities of a less progressive age.

--Hust91 (talk) 21:58, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

oh, one thing that has churned up in my memory and something we can work on. Better reactor cores for our space stations. i presume that a station that has a full operation constiantly going on, it's BW being used, and even the automated drones keeping it up, would be really taxing on the reactors we have now. Also, once we figure out how to make a bigger station/star forts (upgraded defense stations)/ even planetary sized ring stations. we'll need to have bigger and better reactors to handle the power demands. there has to be more than just Tech Lvl2 reactor cores out there. besides, they could also be wonderful power generating stations for human colonies in the UFW.

-The Fluff bringer

Perhaps it's just me, but I think that the power source thing for Infantry Research II should be labelled differently. There's ALOT more interesting things we can do with miniaturized power sources than just equiping infantry. I'd like to steal from the emp wall terraforming idea below and note that having electricity arching between hundreds of small, man-sized drones would make a net that would shut down fighters before they got too close. - Anon

Would you care to elaborate, anon on what mini power sources could do? Because if it's not too insane, I could add that as it's own category of research, apart from Infantry. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the fluff would be for Infantry upgrades. It's a bit peculiar a topic.

--Program0 (talk) 09:06, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Certainly. Beyond the weapons usage, it could also provide sectionalized power, allowing different parts of a ship to run on different power sources (and thus making it that much harder to disable an entire ship), create a small, low-output factory that can be hidden (subversively assist in instigating rebellion), enhance civilian sector comfort by removing energy costs for those who purchase our lower-grade generators (hello income!) or even just creating an entire new planet-side unit that utilizes the new, miniaturized power source to, say, fly around at extreme speeds that were simply not fuel efficient without a massive engine previously. - Anon

You. I like you. Just updated research tree to fix this issue, and add a new research tree. I like the idea quite a bit, and think it's flexible enough to be worth it's own tree. Thanks for the input, man!

--Program0 (talk) 08:33, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible for us to get an 'Advanced Materials' category? Or am I just blind and not seeing it up there? (Notes: It would be used for ALOT more than just ships and weapons) -Silver-Tongued

I'm not sure. Make a convincing argument maybe and I'll see? Like what would it be for, about, etc.

--Program0 (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Research Comments & Discussion

Malorian Flora/Funa is something we can get to later, to me it is a low priority.

Unit 2237 is very much important! Moira and Rachel (to a degree) will have a field day with this guy! But i am growing ever worried about giving any more V.I. up lifting. we are going to fast with the uplifts. I do not want to see a "Ron Paul's IT'S HAPPENING/YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED IT/IT'S TOO LATE" image moment with murderous A.I.s and V.I.s all over the place. Human cyborgs are down with the Malorian flora research.

Explosive research might not have to be done much. I think there are probably other companies inside the UFW and UGEI at least are working in this field. we can contact them and see what they have.

Lighting DNA mapping might untold bits of data on them, but we should see about cloning them and keeping them in a contained envroment. but once again. our biotech is lacking to do so i guess.

Ballistics research, see explosives entry above.

Advanced Ship Modification: well, more accurate and far more powerful guns will be sorely needed when the hostile Malorians and UGEI comes knocking on our door once more. i wonder if the widow maker system can be used with plasma weapons? Organic sonic testing might be intresting to use on the eshareth wildlife, but i do believe that human and maybe malorian frequencies are probably known.

Power Armor almost got my vote. seriously, they would allow well trained humans to do what droid can't do. that is to complete a goal/mission with out us puppet mastering them and eating up all our BW. Now all we need is a guy named Tony Stark....

The Mini mining drones i would lump in with a full planet mining operation with (if a dead and cold world) a full core mining or (if still geoactive) mantle mineral and metal filtering system. it will kill a planet for any future mining, but should net us heaps of needed minerals. huge stock piles are probably what we'll need to make defense stations, battle ships and even bigger things.

-The Fluff provider

Explosive/Ballistic research elsewhere. There is, but not specially fitted to your androids. You're doing things with androids that, so far you haven't seen in anyone else's. Actually, you've yet to see other androids I think.

Widowmaker Plasma. Yup, automatically increased in power once you're able to edit it. Also effected by engine systems, because of power distribution.

Sonic. UFW doesn't have the exact info for that. And it could be possible to discover even higher effects, like debilitation and such.

-Program0

(slaps forhead) we forgot one glaringly huge goal that being an A.I. should be doing. CHEMISTRY! we have a problem with that growth serum from the Malorians. if we explore into that tech field, we should be able to figure out the problems with it and adjust it to not go so bonkers with life forms. we could use it to improve the drugs humans use to improve their health and extend their life spans. BUT! most importantly we have a gas/fuel crunch. there is not enough gas to do what we need. so then we need to figure out what the exact make up the gas/fuel is and to be able to make useable synthetic Gas/fuel from more common and extractable resource from the nodes we have. We can create Bio-fuels today, Ophion should be able to figure this out as well. And i don't mean crappy Ethanol either!

-The Fluff bringer

Oooh, excellent point. Glad you brought this up. Yeah, we should definitely do that. --Hust91 (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

With everyone seems hell bent to learn what make the lightings tick and extra black box tech, which might be nice, but it seems to me have lesser immediate impact of our power base. we are scrambleing to rebuild and beef up our fleet and resorce node out put. The tech tree of Chemistry should open up many more useful tech than more advanced A.I. development. This should allow us to open up the possablity to create MORE gas for us to use. well, we are going to have to make more complex ships and other tech. it will result in us being Gas starved. we can be better than this. Also, better chemistry can assist in developing other Tech as well. an example for this is Explosive tech tree. the better we know about chemistry, the better we can make bombs.

-The Fluff bringer

For the sake of keeping the game fun, I am very happy to provide you with this: [2] In short, nanoweapons are not an IWIN button in combat. They're ambush devices against a foe that knows how to fight them. While we will probably be able to wreak terrible havoc with them at first, they will see incresing diminishing returns as our enemies learn how to combat them.

Their real power in war lies in construction, logistics, infrastructure and maintenance.

(Related to the goals of alternate universe: I'd love for this to become a "Meta Aware" universe. Even if this quest ends at that time, it could birth so many children as Ophion and eir V.I. appears as antagonists and protagonists in other quests in any other setting. We could invade the Zerg Quest universe, fellow anons.)

-Subroutine 190491

A little something I remembered: I believe all participants were in strong support of setting up a low-powered observation station near the Kraken-class Lightling in Svast Cluster. This would allow us to observe any "speech" patterns from the Lightling and any other kind of behavior we have thus not observed: nesting, mating, birthing, territorial protection, hibernation, etc. I would like to think that this has been going on, but we just haven't been hearing about it, as we've been a bit preoccupied. --Sertul (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't mentioned it, but your sensors let you watch it for now. It has set up it's nest, of a sort, and already begun to give birth to it's young. Other then a fluctuating level of electricity, and some minor warp space disruptions, you don't notice much out of the ordinary.

-Program0 (talk) 10:41, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Now it seems we need to make those Cyclonic Torpedoes after all. Nukes are nice, but if we are to glass a planet, we should do it in style and efficiency. So we should, and in hindsight, look at the explosive tech research. We can't keep Rhea hanging around for ever. So we better put her to good use and i bet this will open up the tech tree branch to get such a weapon. Any other comments people? that zombie fungus isn't going away now.

-The Fluff bringer

Glad you remembered to bring it up. One suggestion would be that we take the usual planet-buster nukes and have the nuclear device be surrounded by a heavily armored "cup" or "Vial" that makes sure most of the initial blast is channeled forwards. That way, much of the blast will be directed in whatever direction we're aiming for, which lets them dig towards the crust faster than if they detonated equally in all directions.

A hypothetical field of research might be to create an electromagnet that can efficiently utilize a nuclear reaction to generate its field - that way we might be able to create an electromagnetic field strong enough to contain, or at least channel the nuclear detonation for longer than a microsecond.

--Hust91 (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

IF we can clean the surface of Aquil of the zombie fungus, we'll likely HAVE to use a focused or scaled down cyclonic torpedoes to get deep down where those fungus cores are at and kill them. i know many anon posters wanted to blow off this system and leave this planet alone. I think they are wrong. we might not have to nuke the whole surface if we can just spray with this killer chemicals. besides, i am sure that deep surface strikes will have to be done on other deep UGEI or xeno bases on other worlds. this is a good testing situation for such weapons.

-The Fluff bringer

I admit, I am a little surprised. I suspected you guys would go for something like a full android compliment or something to venture down onto the planet. Not that I mind, I'll let you choose how to handle the fungus.

--Program0 (talk) 10:00, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Hum, if androids really do posess a chance of making it down there, even with enemies potentially numerous enough to disable them just by clogging their joints with their corpses, then that absolutely sounds more practical than developing cyclonic torpedoes - and while it would probably be easier to develop a fungicide, research time is scarce, making it functionally more expensive to develop the fungicide than to send a few dozen or even a hundred minerals' worth of droids down there.

--Hust91 (talk) 07:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Something I'd like to ask about is the research on Rhea. This far, it seems like it'd be a long, involved and complex process that may suck far more time than it's worth out of the quest. Is there any potential for doing "Non-destructively Researching/Liberating Research" on Rhea as a potential Research item on the list, leaving only the highlights or maybe even just the end when/if we finally succeed in breaking/decrypting her conditioning/the information in her brain, as opposed to just having her hand there and occasionally be talked with without making any particular progress?

That's sorta what the restoration project was, but more focused on the physical. I could add a mental research option I suppose to those interested in doing that.

--Program0 (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Also somewhat curious why Power Armor is moving so slowly - isn't it relatively easy to make what is essentially just a hollow android?

Thinking mostly in the means that we usually get to make android designs pretty much at will, but this android design not only requires research, but fairly slow research at that? I realize that life-support systems in an android are something pretty novel, but can't we simply take those from already-existing non-powered space suits?

--Hust91 (talk) 00:08, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

No it's not really just a hollow android, but a bit of bad luck (rolls) and the fact it is getting the least amount of funding means it's gonna move at least a little slow.

Again, it's different then normal androids, where you have precut designs already available. This is designing a suit of durable armor that not only protects it's inhabitant, but also allows freedom of movement.

--Program0 (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I guess we could take a slow non intrusive way to study Rhea. It's kinda sad in the mental state she is in. She has been subjected to so much mental brainwashing, it'll be had to undo it all. yet i can see it'll be worth it in the end. She has been in the very heart of the UGEI operations and intelligence gems. It might take a while to fix her mind, for i am sure it'll be longer to do that than her body. As about the powered armor, we have to take account the energy from the impact that have to be dissipated before it hits the human inside. Other wise the armor can take the hit and not be scratched, but the shock wave could reduce the human inside into pulp. also, we have set the lesser skilled group to do the R&D on the armor, the better skilled group on the Lighting DNA, and the best we got (like Mentis and Moira) on the ship upgrades. but if we add more skilled R&D workers on the teams, we could increase their production rate. maybe.

-The Fluff bringer

Exploration

So it's 5 am and I have been fooling with last threads notes. And I am starting to realize how safe Ophion is. As something I never intended but-basically the main loss from most of your exploits these days are resources. You yourself are very hard to harm in any meaningful way. This troubles me, and brings me to the main issue I was thinking on-exploring planet surfaces and encountering strange and hostile aliens and weird xeno stuff is a lot less intimidating when you can just nuke stuff from orbit.

Now, I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I WANT every encounter to challenge you or threaten you. Hell, I honestly don't mind either way as long as people enjoy it. But it does concern me because I fear it will grow dull as time goes on. So I guess what I'm asking, on top of other thoughts on this subject, is do you guys think I should start to phase out planet surface exploring sections? I mean, do they bore any of you? And if so, what do you think might make them...better?

--Program0 (talk) 10:52, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

That Ophion is personally safe means little, and is not necessarily a bad thing.

I'll explain what I mean. If you threaten him personally, all you're threatening with is that the quest ends. And if the poor rolls and bad decisions demand it, you would eventually be forced to end it, or pull some bullshit deus ex machina to save us, which would invalidate any risk we ever felt.

However, our RESOURCES are not safe on missions. There are plenty of things we care about in this quest that are NOT us, and these are all things you can readily take away without having to end the quest. In the case of the ground expeditions, there was nearly always the implication of something the players care about being lost if we were to fail, even if the initial investment of resources was low, the lost potential resources are more than motivation enough to feel a thrill about their success. And frankly, I like them either way.

Even if it isn't particularly challenging, I'd enjoy the occasional ground mission where we completely roll over the enemy resistance as a result of smart choices, whether previous smart strategic choices, or recent smart tactical choices with little risk to ourselves.

It would more or less mean that we've successfully beaten what you had in store for us, and if you really think it would result in it being that boring, you can simply summarize things as they happen and let us take control of the moral choices alone as our military might is unquestionable.

And in populated areas, we will very much be risking the local population, no matter how hilariously we outnumber enemies, and those outnumbered enemies might realize their only chance against such an flabbergastingly overpowering threat the only reasonable thing to do is to try to take hostages or blow up the entire city.

All these things are things I look forward to - things that could potentially be used to make them "better", at least for my tastes (I can obviously not comment on the tastes of others), but I also enjoy them greatly as they are (I loved rescuing Red with our single non-combat droid, utterly slaughtering our way through a frickin' deathworld and then telling him that this is the NON-combat model).

In short, you can totally harm us in meaningful ways if you wanted, just the potential of a failed mission is often enough, and the ground-missions are still very fun, they give us a ground-eye view of the otherwise incomprehensably vast empire we control. They're one of the biggest reasons I want us to start producing war-droids in great numbers so we can wage war on planets and stations that are NOT mostly abandoned.

--Hust91 (talk) 19:50, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Planet surface exploration is wonderful! with out it, we would never have choisen to keep the lab Moira is in now. Nukes from orbit are a real last resort weapon at best. if we blast everything, we can't salvage it later. I say go with more of it if you want too. the rough details helps me with my stories as well.

And Ophion STILL is able to be taken out. the main weakness is the soft ware based attacks but phyical threats exist as well. Rhea got damn well close to wiping us with that bomb. if she had back up or a bigger team, she might have won. for now the dice still likes us, but the dice is fickle as hell. we know that even a battleship Ophion is installed in can be sunk or blown apart. i remember seeing a dead one in Moira's yard when we first got it. even still, last fight might have cost us materitals but our fleet is laughably tiny compared to others. if the UGEI, the Malorians, or others want to hammer us once more. we'll be folding hard! yes, the players are going causously as go forward now. for good reason. being wreckless here and now could get us killed. That and a number of us players (myself included) fear that one day that Kronos will make that choice that he's better than us. The over throw and intrenal civil war might go badly for us and we lose. Kronos is getting more and more of the share of BW and ships.

So don't worry Program0, the risk is not gone from this quest. in fact it's lurking in the shadows ready to jump us. and know it. That spooks me more than seeing it in our face.

-The Fluff bringer

Ah this has assuaged my fears somewhat, thank you for speaking up. I suppose I worry about silly things, and forget that personal risk isn't the only rewarding kind to get through. Now that I think of it, Aspiring Emperor Quest proves that point spectacularly, since the MC is a god-like knight in and of himself. The main worry in that quest seems to be losing resources, and when I play I feel plenty of tension.

I was being silly I think. Glad to know the Eshareth world was intriguing however. Unit 1 is pretty fast and athletic still. And the planet's animals were still in the primordial stage. They are getting...deadlier even now.

Mm, I did notice a small faction of the Quest's population do still fear Kronos' potential rise. This gives me endless delight when I write his dialogue.

--Program0 (talk) 22:33, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to echo what fluffy and Subroutine said. Any threat of personal harm is just a threat to end the quest. If you want to do that, there's still lots of ways to do it due to GM magic. Not being in any major risk lets us take more risks in those situations that perhaps we might not have taken otherwise. It might also make us slightly foolhardy for whenever a real threat actually presents itself. Is this an intentional consequence? A character who knows no fear because it's a computer? As far as risks and personal-scale exploration, see: getting blown up by the unstable core when recovering Erebos (who has disappeared from the pastebin for some reason? Should we be worried?). We lost a robot, and could have lost the Erebos itself, but there wouldn't have been a second chance. Same for rescuing Red. While I'm not sure of his utility, had we failed there, there wouldn't have been a second chance, and no amount of orbital bombardment would be able to bring him back. Besides, any resource losses we take could come back to haunt us, as we lose assets that are less replaceable such as the good will of our allies, or the reasonable non-aggression of the Malorians. As far as Eshareth is concerned, I think I know where this is going, and it's nowhere good. Why is this under the "exploration" section, by the way? --Sertul (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to hear. And Erebos was never in the pastebin (he's in my notes) since I didn't have a 'prisoner' section. Perhaps I should add that.

It's under exploration since it was a question about how I handle exploration. Er, it was 5 am after all.

--Program0 (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Do make note Program0, having Kronos 'Turn on us' is rather chishe' plot wise. just because the programs got their named from old mytholagy does not mean we have to follow the same story line. i offer the idea that Kronos could stock pile of goods and equipment to bid good bye to Ophion and make his own colony else where (and allow you to run Krono quest at a later date now that some people want to try that out). this is for Program0's eyes only. my orginal plot ideas i've made. http://pastebin.com/xZihRyky

-The Fluff bringer

I am well aware of the cliches involved. I don't aim to do anything that doesn't make sense in character for the beings I've been fleshing out for the last 20 something threads, I assure you. I hate trying to pull things for quick drama anyway. I appreciate the offer, by the way. It's definitely interesting.

In the future, my talk page is open if you want to drop things like this without being obviously public.

--Program0 (talk) 03:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Fleet Expansion

Well, thread 21.5 tossed us a loop as much as anything. we took a bad hit to our fleet and all of our smaller ships are now reduced to fodder for our Vulture class ship to gather up. Now we have a 'clean slate' so to speak. do we build a new batch of smaller class ships as well as our BC and others big boys as we had before? or will we go full out BC class sized fleet with only smaller sized ships that are non combat or specially made that way (the super sized ones as we can make them)? we have to rebuild from this loss and quick. The Malorians are giving us some time to recover with the pressure they are giving to the UGEI, but it can't last forever. what type of ship class size should we make our restored fleet with? i would like to hear from you all about this.

-The Fluff bringer

A quick question Program0, sense we are looking into dumping so many options over at Apollo's outpost as we turn it into a deep space version of a big Truckers road stop, i think we're not going to have enough space there. Can an Outpost be upgraded into a full complete station? Or will we have to scrap the outpost and build anew? Also, does Stations have fuel/gas tanks/bunkers for refueling ships? Will we have to build extra tanks to hold more gas/fuel to sell to other ships as they might need some?

-The Fluff bringer

Size isn't quite an issue right now, mostly because Apollo is making tons of small additions. That's part of what the money is used for. He buys work from the construction teams at the UFW, and ports over some stuff to supply his station. If you wanted it to be a real truck stop, on top of everything else, then you may need to provide gas and minerals for repair and refueling.

--Program0 (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

So what is the diffrence between a full station and an outpost besides the build cost? we slap a factory and more BW on an outpost? can we build two outposts and hook them together?

-The Fluff bringer

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Voidsnake II was build as a full sized station. It's as big as Poseidon is now, since you rebuilt it. You could build them bigger, I suppose if you wanted to, but it might be pricey, and smaller outposts just to be jump points in dark space if you'd rather, and such.

--Program0 (talk) 04:12, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, i misunderstood, i thought we were just replacing the old voidsnake outpost with another outpost sized place. I didn't realize we were putting in a full sized station. my bad. In any case, just what is the limitations of what a small outpost can do verses a full sized station?

-The Fluff bringer.

Really depends on purpose. Battle stations that are large have more firepower, trade stations can store more stuff, and have more ports for incoming ships, or just generally have more room for stuff. Outposts are usually put in places you just want to defend, or to direct minor trade routes. Or if you wanna be cheap.

--Program0 (talk) 07:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Alliance

Just putting this here for alliance talk like how we should continue to strengthen our alliance with the tentacle aliens or find a way to get more stuff out of our business relationship with the UFW. This also a place on how we should act towards the UGEI, pirates, PMCs, and black market dealers.

I wonder if we have even met all the factions in this quest yet.

-The Fluff bringer

Probably not we are in UFW centered space and it seems like we haven't touch the other factions like pirates and aliens much.

Makes me wonder if there are other UFW like splinter human nations on other sides of the UGEI?

-The Fluff bringer

For that matter, maybe there are factions hidden inside the UGEI? But how do we find them? I guess we shouldn't have killed that guy on Ussaihu's battle station and just taken him alive as a POW. (slaps forhead) DOAH! the intel inside his head could have been priceless, that and if he refused to talk, he could have been a nice test subject for our cyberware expriments or at least threatened him with it. We should make a note to learn to take some prisoners instead of spacing them if we can. Dead people tell no tales, but live ones can be down right talkative.

-The fluff bringer

It seems we have this section dealt with now.

-The Fluff bringer

I disagree, fluffy. We should pay the Malorians another visit with the intention of securing at least a promise that they will not shoot at any UFW or Guild ships on-sight, in return for the same. The enemy of my enemy does not have to be another enemy, even if both of them have 4 arms (in reference to Prometheus having 4 arms, obviously). I would like to have peace with them, but if that is not possible, perhaps we can have an uneasy truce? We should also deploy a comms buoy at one of their worlds so that we can have immediate contact if necessary: UGEI loves to hire pirates and play factions against each other, so they could try some shit and try to ruin our tenuous truce. UGEI isn't going to stop trying to kill us all, so the least we could do is try to stop killing each other. Can we give it a try, guys? --Sertul (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

well, i can see attempting to make a peace treaty with them, but with their mentality as been told by our own friendly Malorians, this is unlikely. We will HAVE to have the Latuma and it's Elder to speak for us. And they are busy right now working on another world. So we're better off taking the unclaimed systems between us and them and build them up as a buffer line. same with the Losirians until we find out more about them.

-The Fluff bringer

There is something we need to bring up with President King. We should allow the UFW to be able to picket their ships in our systems, more so they should be able to build up their numbers and prep along side our fleet when we start to push deeper into UGEI space (or other systems that is controlled by the xenos in time as well). I would like for them to team up with us as a joint strike fleet when we make our push. We should also allow the UFW navy to have shore leave on The Voidsnake station seeing that it's turning into a party and space based truck stop. With the problem of getting access to Atill melting away, they should try to hold that system as best we can until we can take Jake's gambit. Although, i don't know if the UFW has real terraforming Tech, but we can ask if they can help start making Atill habitable for people once more? I know the surface is a true hell for humans, but it might one day be restored to life. If the UFW don't have the Terraforming tech to clean the planet's surface, and we do have the Malorian's colony ship tech, could that work? With out using the serum of course.

-The Fluff bringer

In regards to terraforming Atil-it isn't impossible, but it's quite the project. It was once a heavily developed world, and now rampant contaminants ruin the surface (everything from radiation, to extremely deadly viruses and toxins), and there's a lot of litter too, in the way of enormous parts of it's surface are covered in destroyed city blocks and the like, craters everywhere, things like that.

If you were to try and terraform it, you'd likely need Terrain Reformation, just so you could haul up the sheer amount of debris off the surface. With that out of the way, you'd have an easier time restoring the soil, once you find a way to deal with the dense radiation, the corrupted and polluted atmosphere, and the contaminated soil (viral weapons sorta sank into the water supply).

Just some obstacles to overcome right off the top of my head.

--Program0 (talk) 17:18, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I think Fluff's a little confused about Atill. I'm not too keen to go back there. The growth serum won't do anything for the radiation or ruins. It'll just create another jungle planet with terrifying superviruses; a land where all life is adept at dealing with radiation. Joint military action with the UFW is a possibility, but we shouldn't really put them in the front line of fire. Not only is their tech weaker, but they also have human crew. Letting them picket in our systems is possible, if they want. --Sertul (talk) 20:57, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I should explain myself some more on this topic. I got the feeling that to the UFW, Atill is still a sore point to them. Seeing it as a obvious proof of the UGEI's cruelty and evil acts they have done to them. If the UFW can retake it and restore it to a world suitable for humans to live on would be a morale booster. I know it would take ages to fix. But the fact the UFW would have control over the system would at least be a token victory sign over the UGEI. We can still send our salvage ship to that system to clean away the ruined ships scattered all over the place. Now that i think about it. maybe later on we could develop new mecha Tech that can gather up and recycle the crashed space ships on the planet and the ruined cities. they probably have some minerials worth taking?

Having the UFW picket our systems means we can free up our own fleet to go on the offensive with us. Yes, the UFW ships won't match ours in a fight, but if the can provide back line fire surport, at least they will think they are in the fight and get their own shots in this war. We will be the spear point, they provide back up and most important, the vast invasion troopers to the surface we will need to take a world with a human civilain population on it. most likely Jake's gambit. we just can't build enough droids to do that job right now.

-The Fluff bringer

Oh yeah, I can see you recycling a lot of the materials there. Just would take a while to be worth it.

--Program0 (talk) 04:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Then I know where we can send the Vultures once they're done at the Ussaihu!

Don't think we should try to make Atill habitable though, I'd rather claim it for ourselves since that's far, far easier and GIVES us resources rather than draining them for months or even years just for a kind-of-if-you-look-at-it-in-a-certain-way victory-of-overcoming-odds-and-setbacks. We'd be trading many actual, definite victories for that one kind-of victory. --Hust91 (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I know that the Dresh system will remain our protectorate colony. But i am thinking of giving the citizens a vote to see if the people there want to join up with the UFW as citizens to have access to a booming economic market and legal system. they can sit and think about it for awhile as well. for those who don't understand what i mean, we have a real life example here with Puerto Rico's relationship with the U.S.A.. The Guild will still get it's cut of mineral production and we will have a wonderful staging ground for our push into the Losirian space. The other action is that we need to contact President King about our plan for the Dresh Colony. i don't know if they want to do with anything them. They have not been pirates for generations now. So hopefully they will not be trouble makers and contribute positively to the UFW existence.

-The Fluff bringer

I can't forget that we forgot this last thread. We should have grilled the people of the Dresh system about that zombie fungus and just what was on the fungus world. was there a colony? How many people was there? What was being worked on at that place? Was there native life forms found there before any one landed on that planet. That who do they trade with the most? And most importantly, Do they know of any other 'Independent' colonies like theirs are there in this sector we have yet to encounter.

-The Fluff bringer

As I said, the independents are more interested in avoiding politics as much as they can. As for what happened to the fungus world, they don't really know. They told Ophion that they found the colony in this system fighting back against UGEI assault, and a bunch of not quite crazy pirates came in to save the day. After, they just sort of set up shop. Only when they explored the nearby planet did they find the fungus, and lose an expedition fleet to it. That's when you guys showed up. There is plenty of reason to believe the place was colonized a while back, before the fungus surfaced on the planet, but really, not a lot is known about how it came to be anyway. Other then the infested mutants on the surface, you don't really know how many of them are fungus creations, and how many are hosts. They traded on the black market, though, which means they traded mostly with other pirates, and such. Defenses kept them from being an easy target to any wouldbe raiders, and since they used such an anonymous system, they wouldn't know of any other colonies.

--Program0 (talk) 02:14, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Income

Now we have the beer and harder drinks brewery being started. we need a logo for the cans and bottles for them as well as names. I can see a happy woman based off Moira's image in an Oktoberfest dress (with an exaggerated cleavage) as she is holding a number of beer steins in her hands like a waitress. "Binary Brew" for the cheapest beer made, "Apollo's Ale" for a good grade of beer, "Fortuna's laughter Pilsener", "Laser cannon Lager", "Crescent Moon Pale Ale" (this one has an alt art work of a woman in a loose flowing dress, sitting on a crescent moon who is based on dolled up Rachel's image), and "Battleship Bock" (another alt art work on this can showing catoonified version of the battle of pulsar station, with Captain Rhea running away, beaten up and scared yellow and a heroic looking UFW captain based on Red's appearance. this brand should sell well with the UFW).

The harder drinks would take longer to make, maybe even a number of turns to make. they have to age for awhile. a few ideas for brand names "Blockade runner Rum", "Cerberus's Bite triple distilled Whisky" and others in time. how about that? I'll try to think up more later.

-The Fluff bringer

These all seem pretty damn brilliant. Approves all around! (And damn, the 'show history button' is really handy)

--Hust91 (talk) 18:30, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I find this really hilarious. In many ways.

-Program0

I also realized something. yes we can automate much of the brewing process. but as any good brewer company still needs a human element and touch to make it better. That and they need to taste test the batches to make sure it's alright. humans have taste buds, we don't. That and Apollo would love to have some humans to talk to as well as help cover our "human run corp" cover we have. I don't think we would have any trouble finding hires to work there.

-The Fluff bringer

"Humans have taste buds, we don't" - yet! If we can make a cybernetic eye, I see little reason we couldn't make a cybernetic tongue.

But that's advanced cybernetics and very error prone ("This chocolate tastes like grass! Why does it DO that?!"), so better to get human testers. Don't really have a point, just ruminating and being picky. Agree with your main point though, we could easily hire people to do that, and we should hire people to do that.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

here is a few more hard drinks: UFW Club whisky, 2792 Eshareth Reserve whisky, Nethlos Gentleman whisky, The Guild's Mark Bourbon, Sir Ophion's Evening cognac, Voidsnake Schnaps (various sub type of flavors), Station Still whisky, Old Kronos Bourbon Whisky, Space Lighting Moonshine, “Red” Hook Bourbon Rye Whisky, Wild Malorian Rye (a less talked about drink, mostly aimed to our Malorian customers)

Having to make cybernetic tongue? really? that is in fact much harder to make than a cybereye. that and making a cyber version of human skin is crazy hard. humans are rather complex beings when you get down into it. I'm not just talking about their minds.

-The Fluff bringer

And nah, as I said, it'd be advanced cybernetics and very error prone. It wasn't a serious suggestion, just being picky and ruminating, as I said. See little reason that it'd be harder than to make a cybereye, though, but I'm certainly no expert at cybernetics. Again though, cybereyes are still beyond us, at least designing them, I suspect. Again, was just navelgazing, really.

And those all sound pretty damn good!

--Hust91 (talk) 18:54, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

HA! due to the thread 21.5, i propose to Apollo another new beer line. "Ussaihu III Battleship doublebock beer!" The can will have the standard art work on it, and a 'collector's edition' with a UFW like chaptain vaguely like Red's appearence standing heroicly on top of our Athena (and other UFW ships in the back ground) with our beer can in one of his hand and a laser gun in the other with a beaten up and scared Vice Admiral trying to crawl away from him. Captain Rhea is there too, but she's completely KOed with a 'head down, butt up in the air' postion. for added mockery, the seat of both of their pants are torn off and the cheeks are bit burned. For the record, Doublebock IS a real type of beer.

-The Fluff Bringer

now that we have the alliance done with the UFW and the the UFW has their own refineries, i think we can shut down that gas for Minerials trade with Hele system. they will have enough gas and we need it more than they do. Also, they are set up to GIVE us a constient stream of minerals, right? it looks bad to sell some of it back to them. Apollo's software and brew sales would more than make up for the loss of credits. I am sure they UFW would understand, right?

-The Fluff bringer

Oh, wow! after seeing our credit account now in the past bin, now i can see that Apollo was worth making. If this keeps up, we can easily afford to hire and fill out the human manned spots on our mining stations and completely crew Moira's new lab. we can train them as needed and not worry about the cost! Oh, btw Program0, if our mining stations was fully stocked with completely trained Tech workers, would the mining out put be increased? or would that require a diffrent skill set than Tech trained to get that? Could gas refineries be altered to have better performence or provide more BW if Human Tech crews were working/living on them 24/7 like they do on the mining stations?

-The Fluff bringer

No, for clarification, the UFW were sending a large one time gift to you in minerals for all your assistance. They can't afford to do it regularly, even with all their rich mineral mines, simply because of all the building they do. But you're right, that trade route is somewhat pointless. Canceled it since it didn't give much anyway.

Trained tech workers? Yes, they would provide their own efficiency bonus. The thing I wanted to do with humans is they are unreliable, but can provide lots of work. So, when I roll to determine resources from their work (minerals, research, whatever) it's a lot less constant growth then with your robotic units. But it can also jump really high as a result, as well as really low. I liked the idea that humans are the wildcard in your workforce. As for gas refineries-well, you could try to turn them into their own living stations, if you wanted. I'd probably say it was an upgrade to the entire station. The thing about gas refining though is it's actually somewhat hazardous to your health. Even with procedure and what not, you'd likely have a few fatal accidents. Oh! That's another thing I'd roll for for human workers. Accidents. They're a little more accident prone then your robotic units.

--Program0 (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I was talking about the 1 million+ credit account we have now. I presume this load of credits is from Apollo raking it in with sales. the Minerals are REALLY nice too. but i am thinking about filling up our pay roll books with human workers. The randomness i would like to see more of, it makes the game entertaining. The accidents can be off set somewhat with the advanced Medical Bays. OH! Program0, is it too late to have one put into our Posidoen station? i still don't think we did that yet. I didn't realize that the gas refineries were that hazardous. alright, we can leave them unmanned for now. Also, what would happen if a station is fully manned with trained workers and also have a forman type V.I. on board the station? would that reduce accidents and boost production and/or BW?

-The Fluff bringer

Unless they are researchers or soldiers, hiring more crew is a waste of our time and money. In fact, if you recall, the crew on Poseidon do not contribute anything to us at all. The only reason we keep them around is due to charity, and possible test subjects or as bodies to vouch for us not being too evil. --Sertul (talk) 01:45, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. I see the workers like low level unevolved pokemons. select the ones with a willing desire to become better or natural talent, train them in a proper field, and see them become a skilled worker that does provide a bonus for us. but i do see that this subsection of HR needs to be fleshed out and understood better by all. from what i remember there is the fields of 'Programer', 'Technician', 'Roboticist', and 'Soldier' open now. I bet we can brain storm up more fields of employments and what they all provide to us as well. Humans are rather chaotic at times, but are also creative too. we should take advantage of this resource available to us. Yes, i am sure there are some willing test subjects among them and that is fine. as for expendable test subjects, we could ask the UFW if they have any convicted prisoners on death row in jail and ask them to hand them over to us for such tests. they are likely to die and we get data we need. a win-win situation if you ask me.

as for the subject of our credit account, we are building quite a nice balance. We have no idea of when or if Mol will ever contact us again with wanting to sell us new Tech. The Malorians don't want trade. we are at war with the UGEI. The UFW are busy using up their own resources so they are likely not have much to sell us. we MIGHT be able to contact the sharkies and see if we can swing a mercenary deal to go fight the UGEI for us. but i do not like them much, and it is unknown if they are willing to do business with us. so what else are we to do with our pile credits?

-The Fluff bringer

Yep, the money is all coming from Apollo. His income has reached half a million so far. As for the Advanced Medbay, I know I at least gave Poseidon one, and if not, it's there now, because damn it I am tired of forgetting. Wrote it in the pastebin. If you had both? I'm picturing they'd just get in each others way. Unless you made the V.I. completely subvertant to the humans, then it'd mostly be an assistant, and have no higher mind functions.

Also the main reason the crew of the Poseidon never did anything was because they were very unskilled, and mostly just manual labor. Since you had robots, you didn't need that much employees anymore. Fluff asked for experienced technicians and miners. They'd actually provide a benefit slightly over robots, as I mentioned above. Then again I'm not sure 'randomness' is a benefit, per say, heh.

Heh, you guys are welcome to start up a human section to discuss what to do with humans if you wanna. It'd be interesting, and I can't much think of a use for credits quite yet. Beyond Mol selling you things. But uh, he's sorta being a big baby right now.

--Program0 (talk) 04:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I would be OK with hiring more scientists, engineers, writers, film directors, artists etc. In fact, that is a great idea. This is a great idea because it takes up 20 BW to emulate the creative potential of those listed professions. 20 BW is an expensive price to pay. Scientists/engineers/artists that work for money are cheaper and just as productive. What I have a problem with is hiring crew that we can replace with a 2-BW V.I. I'd rather take the BW hit than spend 80k per cycle in credits on crew that's going to get us the same long-run results as the V.I. If we're going to spend 80k per cycle on crew, I'd rather spend it to buy 20 BW or work rather than 2 BW of work.

We should definitely pursue the possibility of hiring creatives. The only thing I want from Mol is to know why he is so damn interested in the Watchers, and what role he's played in the whole scheme of synthesis. Not like he'll tell us, though. At any rate, maybe he can offer something worth buying, but I don't think it would be worth it. --Sertul (talk) 07:15, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

We also need to apologize to Apollo for doubting him and give him the rest of the funding he needs (unless it is more than our entire capital, always have some in reserve), now that we see that he's getting results and not just betting it all towards a few huge projects that may or may not pay off.

In the subject of hiring more directors, artists and thinkers, I very much agree.

Therefore, I propose that we use the money both to offer lucrative research and movie deals to independents, and buy property on UFW worlds where we start fast-track education centers that teaches one or two of these things extremely intensely/quickly (just as intense as the education our current researchers gone through to learn robotics in so little time) with a guaranteed generous job-offer, both distance-jobs that can be done over the extranet (we'll have to set up a buoy over the planet if there isn't one already) and ones where you can bring your entire family and have them be provided for.

We should also start constructing those education centers with underground entrances fit for industrial digging vehicles and start digging out bandwidth-bunkers underneath the regular cellar since there generally isn't a downwards-limit to how far down you own property and we should be able to dig a good two kilometers before the heat becomes a problem. Digging that far down would usually be a problem in getting vehicles down, but we have hover-engines, easily fixing that.

--Hust91 (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a fair enough assessment, though the UFW don't have a lot of freelance scientists, but there's always merc types and such, so who knows what you could find. As for the fast learning-it's worth knowing that was mostly remedial knowledge. The main reason they did well was because they had an expert to help assist them after the fact to learn even more. And underground buildings are always a cool idea, just need Terrain Reformation to do it properly and safely.

--Program0 (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought you said we could make modest bunkers (my interpretation of 'modest' in a setting like this would be 'something you can expect modern digging/construction vehicles to make today, but no more')? And even if we can't, can't we hire construction equipment from the UFW on the surface?

The intent was to begin with a modest bunker that can contain a bandwidth block or two (assuming at least a few can be contained in a modest bunker, which is not certain), and then continue digging down once we do have that terrain reformation upgrade - just stating the eventual intentions so there's nothing I had forgotten that'd make it tricky.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:43, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Putting bunekers underground? No, you can't do that without TR research. You can just make regular bunkers but they wouldn't be as tough. And the UFW doesn't know how to change the surface of planets that way.

Oh no that's fine too. I'm just saying when you place it before hand, it won't get the added protection until after you apply the upgrade.

--Program0 (talk) 04:43, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Uhm.. Aren't just about all bunkers at least partially underground?

And bunker may be inaccurate. Can we dig a big cellar? Not megascale or kilometer-wide/deep cellar, just a cellar large enough to contain a block of bandwidth or two, same as you can find under any school today with regular construction vehicles. Or is that precisely what the UFW are lacking? That'd seem kind of odd considering their population of millions in a modern colony and space-infrastructure on top of the extreme ease of designing and constructing such vehicles once you have the necessary raw materials, but it could work, I suppose.

If not we can't do that, let's just put some regular bunkers there and build the education center on top of that bunker.

The general intent is to have somewhere planetside (due to easier cooling, even on a temperate planet, compared to space) where we can begin our infrastructure construction.

--Hust91 (talk) 14:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Er, let me clarify. When I say 'underground' I mean REALLY underground. To the point that, the only way they'd be destroyed is a planetary siege driver powerful enough to blow open chunks of planet. Or a highly specialized ground team, I guess, but you get the point.

Oh, if that's what you meant, then that was happening anyway. They're not completely unprotected, I didn't mean to imply that. They're just not nearly as well protected without it, you see. Nah, you have that sorta tech already, no need to ask the UFW, it's rather simple to do with the current level of tech you have.

--Program0 (talk) 09:04, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Apollo Project Suggestions

• Easy Bookkeeper: A simple app that more or less automatically does your bookkeeping, calculates taxes and makes estimates for the following year based on previous data gathered gathered from the extranet, the localnet and the owner's occupation and papers.

It also makes recommendations for what to buy and when, and tells you if an offer makes economical sense to buy or if you are being drawn in by cheap marketing tactics that makes it seem better than it is. A trial version is free for 15 days, after which it can be bought for the equivalent of 10$. ((This could be the one he's working on right now if it turns out that the marketing research Apollo did recommended it. I'm assuming he's finished marketing research and is well onto coding by this point, but it's possible I'm being too optimistic in hoping that he'll be able to launch it at the beginning of the new cycle on Friday)

• Ace Commander (Or some other game): A video game that is released to the public at an extremely low price and designed to be both entertaining and to train the vital skills necessary for commanders in the modern battlefield, in space or on the ground, by providing a simulated battlefield that includes all the most important modern considerations for commanders.

--Hust91 (talk) 02:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: Just moved this over here, since it was Income appropriate. Go ahead and filter in your other suggestions as their own bullet points.

--Program0 (talk) 14:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Designs

Format Layouts Ground Forces Chassis Types

Humanoid: More visually acceptable to other humanoids. Excellent scouting posture, well suited to most weapons designs.

Arachnid: Excellent Dexterity, ability to climb very well. Fast movement speed, light frame.

Tank: Slow, but room for multiple weapon and defense mounts. Poor maneuverability.

Sphere: Uses hover engines to float. Allows for maneuverability. Multi-limbs, but somewhat slow. Engines make sound

Walker: Faster movement sacrificing slight armor advantages. More Maneuverable on rough terrain.

Other types may be conceptualized.

Infantry Unit Format

Name- What you might call the unit, or a nickname

Chassis type= There are several different types, see above

Size- Ranging from Tiny (cat sized) to large (Vehicle sized) currently.

Weapons- Standard weapons it would come with

Defenses- Standard defenses it would come with

Primary Duty- What is it's purpose

Intellect Level- What level of intelligence it will be starte with (V.I. based or simply bandwidth based.

Equipment- Unique or otherwise important equipment the unit would have

Notes- Extra

Infantry and Armor Units:

Approved Designs

Name: Unit 1

Chassis type: Humanoid

Size: Medium

Status: Standby

Weapons: Arm-mounted Infantry lasers

Defenses: Standard armor plating

Primary duty: Communication Specialist, Infiltration

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Advanced Communication Equipment:More difficult to disrupt communications, Humanoid skin: Better chance of diplomatic success

Notes: Turned a giant worm's insides to mush, saved Red and Ser'lah during Eshareth Attack

Name: Unit 2

Chassis type: Sphere

Size: Medium

Status: Standby

Weapons: Tendril Omni-tool, Eye mounted laser

Defenses: Standard armor plating

Primary duty: Hacking, air superiority, Utility

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Advanced Engine placement, modified from ship engine types. Travels faster, and farther using hover jets(Not quite flight). Omni-tool tentacles, allows for hacking, weapons, welding, minor repair, etc.

Notes: Previous model destroyed in a self destruct attempt by an alien fungus found at Aquil

Name: Terrachnid (Name Pending)

Chassis type: Arachnid

Size: Tiny (cat sized)

Status: Standby

Weapons: Taser(nonlethal) Laser (Main Slot can equip small arms), Dagger-Like Forelegs

Defense: Light Plating, Survival mode allows protection of delicate instruments.

Primary duty: Stealth and Recon; if properly equipped can serve as cheap ground forces using Swarm Tactics, Assault and Ambush.

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Rubber tip to legs (stealth purposes), Wheels for faster speed down long flat surfaces, Adhesive allowing wall climbing, Dagger-Forelegs have small manipulator-claws/hands - for carrying, picking up or any other case when a hand is necessary - attached to the last joint.

Note: While on a mission, glued own legs to a wall and had to be cut free.

Name: Unit 4

Chassis type: Humanoid

Size: Small

Status: Standby

Weapons: Taser(nonlethal), Laser (Main Slot can equip small arms), Melee blades

Defense: Light Plating

Primary duty: Stealth, Infiltration

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Advanced Communications, Omnitool, Humanoid skin, Advanced Optics

Note: None

Name: Unit 5

Chassis type: Arachnid

Size: Large

Status: Standby

Weapons: Heavy lasers

Defense: Trithium armor plating

Primary duty: Boarding attack droid

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Magnetic legs, Grappling ability, minor jet propulsion

Note:

Is ANYTHING that's Size Large really practical for boarding? I mean, is it even going to fit through most corridors, much less maneuver in them? --Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

They are, since most ships corridors are large enough to fit through. They're also able to slip through most large openings. Might need help cleaning out bedrooms and such, though.

--Program0 (talk) 03:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Name: Unit 6

Chassis type: Tank

Size: Large

Status: Standby

Weapons: Heavy lasers, Gatling Mass Drivers

Defense: Trithium armor plating

Primary duty: Ground Assault

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Equipped internally with several repair bots for field repairs, exterior mounted with 4 Terrachnids serving an antipersonnel role.

Note: None

Name: Bending Unit

Chassis type: Humanoid

Size: Medium

Status: Standby

Weapons: Spiked fists(tazers), enhanced cyberstrength

Defense: Standard armor

Primary duty: Bending steel and other metals

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Extended reach arms

Note: None

Name: Unit 8

Chassis type: Arachnid

Size: Tiny (cat sized)

Status: Standby

Weapons: Taser(nonlethal)

Defense: Light Plating

Primary duty: Spy

Intellect Level: None (Requires bandwidth to operate)

Equipment: Recording, video and audio, equipment, ability to cling to walls, fast, Small Omnitool

Note: None

Proposals

Accepted ones removed for clutter purposes

You're also free to come up with names for already made models. Because numbers are boring.

--Program0 (talk) 13:17, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

5. 5-A

Chassis type: Tank, with treads (they can easily move on any terrain the only problem is noise.)

Size: Medium

Weapons: Shoulder mounted lasers, Eye lasers, acid spray(everything is fire proof, but acid proof), and arm Gatling guns.

Defenses: (no idea here so I say the same as the humanoid.)

Equipment: enhanced hacking abilities and able to erect an energy shield.

Since the listed unit doesn't really fulfill the original intended purpose, figured I'd post a new one, though it might be as a variation of a single design. This is an open combat and close combat design. While very capable of stealth, its small size, speed and ability to carry a weapon lends it just as well to open combat. (Anyone that's played Half-Life or Halo will remember how easy it is to target something the size of a headcrap - now imagine that thing jumping away the moment your barrel gets anywhere near them without pause and shooting at you with human-sized weapons. On top of this they come in groups of twelve and chop you up like a Zergling from Brood War's intro if they get close)

--Hust91 (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

So, does this one seem reasonable in its purpose? Is what "Unit 2" was initially supposed to be, though it was used for stealth mostly because it was the best of them and we didn't really have the numbers of them to use it reliably for combat.

--Hust91 (talk) 09:29, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I assume you mean Unit 3, and ah...do you feel it's worth warranting a separate design entirely, when it's basically Unit 3, but with gun mounts? I could probably say Unit 3 could be equipped with infantry weapons reasonably easily, if that was the main concern.

--Program0 (talk) 09:40, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Oups. Yeah, Unit 3. And no, I don't think it's really worth a separate design as you could reasonably use the "main slot that can carry weapons up to X size" to equip it with tazers just as well as the existing model.

It was that, and that its stated role was stealth, when the primary reason for making them was to have a dirt-cheap robot that's small and hard to hit which means it can easily be made into swarms, but still carries just as much firepower as a full human soldier - hence the need for a rifle or at least a carbine-slot. (After all, a full human is really not necessary just to carry and aim a gun)

--Hust91 (talk) 23:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Weapons

Rocket Launcher - Anti-Armor Heavy Weapon (Requires Explosives Research)

Ammo types: Frag, Armor Piercing, Concussive

Options:

Grenade Launcher - Support Underslung, Pistol, Carbine, Rifle, Heavy Weapon (Requires Explosives Research)

Ammo types: Frag, Armor Piercing, Sticky Frag (Requires Infantry Weapons II Research), Sticky Armor Piercing (Requires Infantry Weapons II Research), Concussive

Options: Under/overslung to primary weapon.

Gauss Rifle (Machine Gun) - Primary Carbine, Rifle, Heavy Weapon (Ballistics I)

Ammo types: Regular, Armor Piercing, Silenced

Options:

So.. Is this a regular submachinegun, or some kind of heavy machine gun like a gatling gun? 'Cause then we may want to make an entry for a regular machine gun as well. Since I created the "Primary Weapon" tag, I should probably clarify on it. It's meant to signify a primary weapon, like a regular machine gun, not like a rocket launcher or heavy gatling gun. May be better to replace it with something more indicative of that though, or adding something separate for their size, such as "Machine Gun - Primary, Pistol - Rifle Size Weapon".

--Hust91 (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not. The previously listed one just said machine gun, which was inappropriate for the models that exist. Basically, basic Mass Drivers are available, and they perform the role of normal basic weapons. The ones listed here perform better then the base design. Possibly time to remove the thing in ()s, but I thought I'd describe it. Feel free to ignore these bits if they are inappropriate.

--Program0 (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

So.. not really a gatling gun at all, just an electromagnetic gauss or railgun rifle? --Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I won't lie, you know what these terms imply more then I do. If they require a name change, feel free. They are simply suppose to be as follows-A rapid fire mass driver device that fires far faster then a normal machine gun would, and a heavy blasting sort of mass driver that punches through and has spread, with a small delay between shots.

--Program0 (talk) 04:00, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Infantry Railgun (Antimateriel-Rifle) - Primary Rifle (Necon), Heavy Weapon (Ballistics I) (Available?)

Ammo types: Regular, Armor Piercing, Flechette (Necon), Silenced (Necon)

Options: Under/overslung to primary weapon (Necon)

Uh, why does it say "(Shotgun)" on the railgun? --Hust91 (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

That is...a good question. For some reason, I thought a railgun hit like slugs do. I think I am wrong, though. I can't think of a larger weapon that performs as well as a shotgun does, but better.

--Program0 (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't really think there's a weapon comparable to what a railgun would do today. The closest thing I can imagine would be an anti-tank rifle. You could, of course, fire rounds slower, but that would kind of ruin the point of having a railgun in the first place, in which case you might as well just use a regular chemical-propelled gun or a gauss gun. There are serious engineering hurdles about trying to make it fire anything like a video-game shotgun with a spread of smaller bullets. --Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I should delete this entirely, then? the shotgun one that is.

--Program0 (talk) 04:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Gauss Hailgun (Shotgun) - Primary Pistol, Carbine, Rifle Weapon (Ballistics I)

Ammo types: Regular, Flechette

Options: Under/overslung to primary weapon (Requires Ballistics I Research)

Laser Gun - Primary Pistol, Carbine, Rifle, Heavy Weapon (Requires Infantry Weapons II Research for heavy variant)

Ammo types: Regular, High Power, Hullcutter

Options: Sniper Variation, Underslung Hullcutter Beam

What is Necon? And over/underslung? So I can answer the confirmation question, that is.

--Program0 (talk) 22:43, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

"Necon" was just my shorthand for "Needs Confirmation", really. Underslung is like where you have a grenade launcher-tube, flashlight or something under the barrel of a regular gun. A bayonet would generally be "underslung" on a gun.

Overslung is the same thing, but it's on top of the barrel instead - this would probably greatly reduce accuracy for humans, but since we are robots we can put eyes wherever we want, including on the actual gun. We could of course, also have "sideslung" weapons, no real reason for us to limit ourselves to compatibility with human wielders - the only thing we really need to consider is weight and being able to reload. --Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

OHHHHH. Wow I feel dumb, I thought Necon was like a company brand you made up.

Right, uh, I'm gonna say the high power variety being non primary wouldn't be right. Tasers, or hullcutters could be non primary that way though. Also I think I'll hold off on confirming any of the ammo types until you guys research Infantry gear II, and III would basically be the tip top I imagine.

--Program0 (talk) 04:05, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Tazer - Primary Melee, One-Shot, Pistol (Available)

Ammo types: Lethal, non-lethal (depending on settings)

Options: Under/overslung to primary weapon (Needs confirmation)

Some of the power settings here may need clarification. For example, how powerful is a regular laser shot? Like a bullet? What about the High-Power shots? Are they like modern antimateriel rifles, or more like large-caliber guns? What are their advantages/disadvantages over projectile weapons? Hullcutter beams? How many shots can an underslung version carry? How big is a clip for a certain weapon? In the case of the hullcutter, it may be a question of how many centimeters of modern ship-material it can cut through before the battery runs out.

Since our weapons will often be wielded by droids, it may be easier to define their "power" by a unit, like "10 Power Units / Centimeter of High-Grade Titanium (Tier 1 shipbuilding material?) and then we would assign battery and/or power-generation values to each robot separately. (A dedicated hullcutting droid, for example, would likely have dedicated systems to make sure it can cut indefinitely or at least for a really long time before it has to take a break to charge up its batteries again, but these might also be jury-rigged to help charge other droids).

I did a quick overview, and deleted any Necon wherever they were confirmed by me. I also added research notes where appropriate, I think, so it feels well done now.

And as for infantry weapons- they work pretty much like ships do, except there's no PD on the ground, since missiles are harder to deploy to infantry targets. Instead, I'm picturing either a type of gel used in the armor that absorbs impacts from force (which is much of the damage missiles and explosives do) and reduces it. Would basically be on par with your PD abilities. At least, that's the idea I have right now.

As for weapon damage, basically Mass Drivers deal the most damage with the least accuracy to lightly armored targets. Energy weapons deal heavy damage to heavy armor, but if it comes up against shields, it has a hard time penetrating. And finally, explosives react much like they do in the real world, have their own armor penetration ability, but can be guarded against. If they're not guarded against, they can deal lots of damage, but explosives can be dodged easier, avoided, and are expensive to use.

I'm not sure what antimaterial rifles do different from other guns, but lets see. Hullcutters are low power, but long burn time. Meant for cutting into hulls, not blasting through shields. As for ammo, I uh, really don't think I want to go down that road. I was considering borrowing mass effects system of ammo. That is, Mass Drivers and energy weapons overheat, and explosives clearly need ammo, but can be carried in a collapsable variety to make it so tracking it is only needed after they've been in the field for a long time, since they'd carry a hundred or so mini rockets.

Hm. I like the idea, but it brings up something I haven't fully addressed yet. That is, what powers androids exactly. At first, I assumed a miniature fusion reactor, but, uh, well you can imagine that going poorly I'm sure already. The battery idea is interesting, but I'm not sure about making such micromanagement a thing. Give me your thoughts.

--Program0 (talk) 09:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Hum, not sure if the Lasers - Projectiles - Missiles system is really a good idea for land-based combat. A better one might be "Infantry, Power Armored Infantry, Armor" and "Small Arms", "Antimateriel/Heavy Calibre Guns" and "Anti-Tank Weapons", respectively.

The gel is a nice idea, but can ultimately be circumvented by simply making armor-penetrating missiles that make sure to punch through the gel before exploding, so it's not quite comparable to point defenses and mass-drivers would reasonably have a negligible lack of accuracy to a computer in anything but sniper-ranges, making the difference pointless for all but two types of weapon (snipers and artillery platforms) and you'll need a pretty decent explanation for why explosives are expensive to use considering how absurdly cheaply they can be made for real - though I should add that if we manage to make a good projectile-tracking program coupled with a high-speed camera and a lasergun we could totally make point defenses against missiles, tank-rounds and even bullets, given enough processing speed. But if you think it'll work.. Just sharing my thoughts and worries, really.

As for weapon damage, I meant something like what 40k has, "How many centimeters of concrete does a single shot/half-second beam punch through", such as 40ks' claim of a lasgun being able to punch through two meters of concrete. An antimateriel rifle[3], for reference, is what we today call anti-tank rifles as tanks today are armored too thickly for them to penetrate - but they still take down armored airships and lightly armored vehicles with ease. A railgun would probably be a wonderful antimateriel rifle.

And fair enough, ammo is tricky to track anyway. Was more thinking that it might be one shot or (with research into electronically fired ammunition - or "Ballistics/Explosives II") three for an underslung gun. Not really something you have to keep track of in detail, but can use it narratively and tell us that our one unit maybe just carrier three grenades for his underslung one-shot grenade-launcher. Otherwise, can just call the players out if they're trying to explicitly exploit the lack of ammo-tracking. (Just trying to elucidate what I meant since you seemed to have the impression that I meant tracking all ammo when I meant weapons that only had one or maybe three shots per gun)

I don't know why a mini fusion reactor would be bad, actually. Some of the big reasons everyone is so excited about making fusion reactors today is because they use fuel that is dirt-common, and that they're completely save compared to fission nuclear reactors. If you break a fission reactor, it might go into meltdown. If you break a fusion reactor, it just stops fusing, because it is REALLY FRICKIN' HARD to keep a fusion reaction going, and if you take away the thing that keeps it going it's just gonna... not keep going.

Though if you wanted you could probably rule that the fusion reactor uses some exotic material or particles that ARE volatile and hazardous - just wanted to be clear that there's no real reason for them to be unless you specifically want them to.

Keeping track of power produced per second might be a healthy thing for designing new units, however. It won't impact the game in that you have to keep track of that stuff, but it impacts it in the way of "You don't have enough power to move and fire at the same time", or "You can only fire it for so many seconds before it needs to charge/cool down". This isn't going to have much effect in calculations, but narratively it might impose limits.

Then again, conservation of detail is crucial in a roleplaying game, and ultimately it may not add enough to the game to be worth the hassle of working out a system for it and then using that system in the game.

--Hust91 (talk) 14:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Hm. Well that works by me, as a set of weapons, but I'm...still not totally sure the difference. Small arms/calibur, I can see. Faster fire rate, good for light targets. But If what you said is true, Anti-material rifles and Anti tank weapons are the same thing, aren't they? On the other hand, the armor types you listed seem to come down to 'Light, Medium, and Heavy' with Power Armor being heaviest. If I got this wrong let me know, but otherwise, I think we can make it work. If you meant that Anti-material rifles make a good medium weapon, then I can see where this is going, I think.

Ah, I see what you mean for damage reference. But ah, I'm not really sure how much resistance concrete has. Let's say it's similar to that chart though for the sake of argument, I suppose.

Oh, I see. Well I could mention they only had so many high explosives sure, that's not as big a problem. It'd give bigger usefulness to the infantry upgrades too, which is nice.

Whoa, really? I thought breaking a fusion core would mean it explodes violently, or something. That...actually makes it a lot easier to try and explain what powers androids and such then. I think I'll go with that, I was just worried people were going to start using them as walking bombs too much. That's usually my fear with power tech and self destructing things.

And yes, I was going to apply some minor limits like that already. Overheating, and lack of power distribution, things like that. So a Walker droid could fire a Gatling gun for several seconds before needing to pause for a few, stuff like that. It's just I do it more on a whim, which may end up biting me in the future. Not sure.

--Program0 (talk) 23:21, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Ships:

Ship Format

Name- What the ship will be called to simplify combat

Role- What role the ship performs

Ship Type- The ship's size and class type.

Weapons- What it's weapon slots are fitted with (see below)

Engine- What drive the ship is fitted with for FTL

Hull- What grade the ship's plating is

Shields- What strength a ship's shields are

Point Defense- which type of anti missile defense does the ship employ

Bandwidth- What bandwidth the ship produces when constructed

Cost- Predicted Costs in resources

Slot System- Every ship you own has only so much space/mass it is able to equip on it's surface. This is a representation of that. Weaker weapons mounted on larger slots come in bigger numbers. Some weapons have a minimum slot requirements.

Battleship- Heavy, Medium and Light Slots, suited for combat. (Provides 5 bandwidth at max)

Carrier- Heavy, Medium slots are used for fighters. Light slots for weapons. (Provides 3 bandwidth at max)

Cruiser- One Heavy Slot, Medium, Light slots (Provides 2 bandwidth at max)

Escort- Medium and light slots (Provides no bandwidth normally)

Fighter- Light slots only

Slots are related to one another by x3, so far I have made. that is, 3 light slots make a single medium slot, and 3 medium slots make a heavy slot.

Note- The number of slots is more for a frame of reference, don't specify what weapon goes to what number of slots. Simply say a weapon is for a heavy slot, or a medium slot. Far less cluttered and bothersome that way

--Program0 (talk) 13:17, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Approved Ship Models

MK 2 Trireme Class Ship-of-the-Line

Role: Short - Medium Range Ship-of-the-Line

Ship Type: Battlecruiser Class

Weapons: Spinal Plasma III Cannons (Heavy), Singularity Driver (Medium), Boarding Torpedo Slots (Light)

Engine: Stellar Drive

Hull: Superior Trithium Armor Plating

Point Defense: Laser Guided III Point Defense

Shields: Barrier III

Bandwidth: Standard (2)

Cost: 150M 100G~

In review of this model- Modular Plating to decrease repair costs is a good idea, but I think I will make it it's own research project and increase it's effects. Doing it out of no where for one ship type feels strange. It should be a standard for all ships. Thus the change.

--Program0 (talk) 11:27, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Seems fair enough to me. --Hust91 (talk) 11:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Why was the medium slot changed to Singularity Drivers? Doesn't that kind of ruin the point of exchanging the Spinal Cannons with plasma - that it would be at optimal efficiency with all its weapons at one range, rather than having one set being crippled at medium range? (Also added the "MK 2 so we can tell the updated ones apart from the old ones - unless they're being upgraded automatically to make things easier?)

Also starting to look like we may need to construct additional shipyards to kick our production into gear. Do we have any prices for shipyards/construction capability?

--Hust91 (talk) 22:14, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I assumed you wanted to have a wider array of weapons, but for your most powerful guns to be at mid range. If that isn't the case though, that's fine too. I can easily change it.

--Program0 (talk) 12:46, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

MK 1 Melissa Class Missile Ship

Ship type: Battlecruiser Class

Role: Long Range Missile Support

Weapons: Medium 'Thor' Warhead Missiles (Heavy, Medium), Additional Point Defenses (Light)

Engine: Stellar Drive

Hull: Titanium Armor mk II (To save costs)

Point Defense: Laser Guided Point Defense.

Shields: Barriers

Bandwidth: 2

Cost estimates: 150M 225G~

Rabid Wombat

Role: Disabler Ship (Rake/Scourge/Rabid Wombat)

Ship Type: Battlecruiser Class

Weapons: Medium Plasma Cannons (Heavy, Medium), Light Laser V(Light)

Engine: Stellar Drive

Hull: Trithium Armor Plating

Point Defense: LG Point Defense

Shields: Barriers

Equipment: Sensors III (ship scans)

Bandwidth: 2

Cost: 175M 175G

Didn't the main slot use to exchange heavy plasma cannons (at least I get the impression that the plasma cannons in the main slots are big and heavy ones. If it's meant to be many medium or light-sized turrets taking up the main slot, it may need some kind of clarification) for Heavier Armor?

Though in retrospect, with a Heavy Slot being worth three medium slots - according to an earlier suggestion by you, but it was never really finalized - it may be more practical to have the medium slot being used for armor.

Suggested format for defining the size of a weapon "[Type/Size] [Kind] [(slotsize)].

For example: "Weapons: Medium Plasma Cannons (Heavy, Medium), Light Laser V Cannons(Light)

--Hust91 (talk) 11:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Er, I may have made a mistake. Did you guys stick to lasers, but more to mount, for precision and accuracy? If so, I should probably change that.

That's how I have it in my notes, actually. That works perfectly fine.

--Program0 (talk) 02:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Is not what I meant - I meant that it used to imply we had heavy plasma cannon(s) in the heavy slot.

Something else I have been meaning to ask though, is if the design really works with Plasma/Laser cannons.

The idea was that it would be picking off exposed hardpoints in order to cripple the enemy ship, but does that really work if they use weapons that are primarily stopped by shields? Or are turrets and engines not covered by shields?

Considering that it's meant to operate in close range anyway, wouldn't it be more practical to equip it with mass-drivers instead, since they don't have to deal with shields (yet), only armor - which doesn't apply to exposed hardpoints?

--Hust91 (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh. Well then yeah, that's how it's currently set up.

Well, you chose energy weapons for this model. The thing about them is, if they bypass shields, the batteries they're hitting stand little chance, since armor has a hard time stopping superhot plasma. If you had chosen, say, Mass Drivers, you would've needed to move in close range instead of medium. Hardpoints still have some armor value, just not as hard as, say, the broadside of the ship. And now that I think of it, rockets wouldn't do a great job, since hitting a pin point on a ship's hull make it a lot harder for the missile to avoid PD.

Basically-Mass Drivers would do a good job of attacking external weapon systems, but it'd expose the ships to lots more damage.

--Program0 (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Considering that the ship was extra-armored precisely so it could move into "close" (I still wonder how close 'close' range is, but for now I'm assuming it's well out of range to see even a battleship with the naked eye) range and survive for a good while, it does seem prudent to have many medium and light mass drivers instead of plasma lasers - bypassing defenses is the entire point, after all.

Should I edit the current one, or make a 2nd variation of the 1st that has this armament? Leaning towards the latter being more safer so as not to trample any feet.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I, uh, that might have been my bad. We can just bring it up next thread. Discussing weapon changes is easy, and this way we won't make carbon copies of ships with different load outs. We'll debate whether to keep the current energy weapon load out, or to move to the more damaging and dangerous style. Sound alright?

--Program0 (talk) 04:09, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Scavenger Class Cruiser (Vulture/Buzzard/Ghoul)

Ship Type: Light Cruiser

Weapons: Minimum/None

Engine: Steller Drive

Hull: Standard Armor Plating

Point Defense: None

Shields: Standard

Equipment: Sensors III, Scavange Drones: Designe to use magnets to pull in wrecks and debris for proper salvaging. Much of the ship is cargo bays and places to store these things(Cargo takes up Heavy and Medium slot, with drones taking up light slots)

Cost: 100M, 50G

Mk 1 Pilum Class Destroyer

Role: Medium-Range Escort & Picket Ship

Ship Type: Destroyer Class

Weapons: Medium Plasma Cannons (Medium), Light Laser V Cannons (Light)

Engine: Stellar Drive

Hull: Trithium Armor Plating

Point Defense: Light Laser V Cannons Only

Shields: Barrier

Bandwidth: Negligible

Cost: 20M 10G

Ship Design Proposals and Discussion

Mk 1 Pilum Class Destroyer

Role: Medium-Range Escort & Picket Ship

Ship Type: Destroyer Class

Weapons: Medium Plasma Cannons (Medium), Light Laser V Cannons (Light)

Engine: Stellar Drive

Hull: Trithium Armor Plating

Point Defense: Light Laser V Cannons Only

Shields: Barrier

Bandwidth: Negligible

Cost: 20M 10G

Variations: One in five is to have Advanced Point Defenses.

The intent of this one is a basic escort for larger ships as well as forming task-forces for any tasks that do not warrant a full cruiser being sent. The Light Laser V cannons can also be used in a point-defense role, and very effectively so when a ship with advanced sensors (such as a Rabid Wombat) can provide efficient targeting.

Essentially, it's meant to hold its own against similarly sized ship, protect larger ships - especially against missiles, serve a scouting role as a picket ship and be able to gang up and take down cruisers in packs.

--Hust91 (talk) 16:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Not bad, though I was a little confused by the point defense thing. Do you want to use the Laser Guided Point Defense tech, or have no point defense beyond Laser V cannons? If the latter, it's worth noting they're less effective then the LG system, but I like you idea all the same. It might round out to a little less effective then if they had PD themselves, but would be considerably cheaper, I think. I'll leave this up for a bit to gain a few changes and what not.

--Program0 (talk) 02:21, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

The Laser V Cannons are the entire point defense - they're not point-defenseless, but ultimately lowering the overall price seems like a higher priority than optimal point defense for every destroyer. Maybe one in five can have real point defenses? Yeah, let's do that.

Hum, are you sure about the price on the destroyer? That's not even half the mineral price of some of our battlecruisers (though the gas price is a lot lower). Just checking since the frigate-fleets of the enemy seemed to indicate that they were far cheaper to create than Cruisers and because they're a LOT smaller - according to the sizes you gave in the beginning of the quest, if I remember correctly - with sizes (assuming they're roughly consistent in density) implying that destroyers have less than a quarter the mass of a cruiser, which has less than a quarter the mass of a battleship.

To be honest, I don't remember the exact length, only that the difference between each class was pretty large, and the Square Cube Law ensures that you don't need to upgrade the size of something much to give its mass a huge increase.

--Hust91 (talk) 02:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

That seems fair enough to me, though it wouldn't exactly provide blanket coverage, since the ship is so small, if that's what you were hoping for.

Mm. Gas is a lot lower because of the lack of PD, and the lack of missile weaponry. It felt appropriate to put it in the 25-50 range. As for minerals, well, perhaps 75 is better. I default to 100 on new small designs usually. 75 feels a bit better, I think. I forget how easily they're destroyed. Maybe 50? I dunno, though, Destroyers can be deadly in the right density. They usually only have trouble when they fight larger ship classes, but as the name suggests, they're meant to be Escorts. To draw fire. And ah, actually the level of upgrades and materials has a lot more to do with it's cost then the size of the vessel (size generally gives it a default mineral cost). I think I'll stick with 75, because of the decent grade of armor you're using, on top of pretty good weapons.

--Program0 (talk) 03:03, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Was more thinking that if destroyers cost this much (roughly half as much as a cruiser), it becomes far more economical to let cruisers (which seem able to stand up to more than twice as much damage) take damage instead, essentially voiding their role of being escorts by drawing fire. There's just no point in making a ship that costs half as much as a cruiser take damage and be destroyed than to let a cruiser which can stand up to that damage take the damage instead.

That they "only have trouble when they fight larger ship classes" is kind of universal, since it means they have trouble when fighting everything but themselves and fighters (and lack of point defenses on most designs mean they're not good against fighters EITHER, is the impression I'm getting).

So if they're not cheap enough to be used to draw fire, can't stand up to larger ship classes (read: All ship classes save their own) or be very practical against fighters, why are they not obsolete? It seems (I might've misunderstood something, and I suspect I have) that they're in a game of Stone, Paper, Scissors as the paper, but in this game paper is beaten by rock, so why would anyone ever use paper?

For reference, the UGEI sent a fleet of 100 destroyers against us (if I remember correctly) with the latest attack. If they had instead invested those resources into cruisers, they'd have around 50 battlecruisers instead, which so far seem able to take a lot more punishment than 100 destroyers.

Not really trying to argue for giving us cheaper ships, so much as trying to explain why the price doesn't seem to work with what we've seen so far from my point of view.

--Hust91 (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

You make a good case. I kinda wish I had made Cruisers more expensive now that I've had some time to think of it. Upped the entire scale, and all that. But sadly it's a little late, so I think I can relent on this type. You're right that Destroyers should be easy as hell to make and cheap too. Does 25 or 50 minerals sound more appropriate?

And actually Destroyers would perform well against fighters, long as they weren't horribly outnumbered or anything.

Oh no, I appreciate the arguments for sense. I make a lot of this up on the fly, and keep references near me so I can look to see how things compare. I realize I made the costs a little wonky now, unfortunately. But I am willing to go down on the mineral costs. This ship shouldn't be that expensive to warrant that sort of thought process.

Anywho, give me your thoughts on the cheapness that would make sense, and I'll see which one feels proper.

--Program0 (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

With the numbers we've seen so far, I don't think any more than 30, maybe 40 would be reasonable for destroyer-sized vessels. Gas can be a percentage of that number (starting at, say, 50%? 75%?) depending on how much the advanced components cost. Less, if they're made of poor materials. (This leaves something like tanks at 2-5 minerals a pop, with units being X number of units per mineral point - it's a system designed primarily with ships in mind, and that's okay, units generally shouldn't be bought one by one in a 4X game anyway as generally nothing less than a full squad is noticeable on a battlefield.

At that point I'd probably start to consider using them to shield bigger ships.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Mhm, you picked it out. Designed it around ships, and made it go a little too low, I think. Cruisers should never go below 100-150 in either category if they're equipped for battle, I think. Anyway, I agree then. Changing the cost to 20M, 10G. Your most heavily equipped and outfitted Destroyers would be the only ones who dare reach the 40-50M and 20-30G range.

--Program0 (talk) 04:14, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Prospector-Class Factory Ship

Role: Mobile Mining, Processing and Smelting Ship

Ship Type: Carrier Class

Weapons: Only mining lasers. Not intended for offensive use, could be jerry-rigged.

Engine: Stellar Drive (or a better class by the time this ship is made)

Hull: Standard

Point Defense: Standard

Shields: Standard

Bandwidth: None.

Cost: Approximately 500M 300G

New Ship components: Extra storage Pods: These are physically attached to a ship so they will not be torn off the ship in warp jumps and allows the ship to carry vastly more goods or other objects that could be stored in a cargo bay. the down side is that they make the ship less nimble in combat situations (for dodging attacks and slower reaction time) and degrades the fuel efficiency for the drives (counts the drives as least one tech level lower for purposes of fuel use in warp jumps). still this would make carrying more trade goods easier.

The intent of this ship is to go to low yield asteroid fields that normally would not warrens placing a full scale Mining station. With the pressing need for every mineral in Ophion's quest, this ship class would likely be put to use when we uncover low yield fields. This ship has a fully equipped and functional mining deck unit inside it's cavernous hull along side a large troop of mining droids and still have room to store materials ready to be used. This ship however can not MAKE finished goods/ships/etc. However, it can work in tandem with the Scavenger class ships by processing the minerals it collects. It would likely not match the processing rate a full size and functional Mining station unless more BW is applied to it's functions. Also, this ship is in no way meant to be in combat as well.

-The Fluff bringer

I like, but I'd prefer if it was upgraded to a full-on factory ship, with the ability construct smaller hips (Fighters, destroyers, cruisers) out of the refined materials it gathers to avoid having to travel to another base with them every once in a while - though I suppose we could either make a separate ship for that, or re-equip one of these for it later. All-in-all, this seems like a pretty good idea as-is. --Hust91 (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I see it that a full scale factory ship would be like a mobile ship yard that can be folded up into the hull of a Titan transport. I think it might be too big for a normal Titan to move intact. That and i am sure Program0 would say we don't have that Tech yet. so this will have to do for now. Also, mounting a fully operational mining platform inside a Titan transport with the drones to run it is rather simple enough for us to pull off. heck, it can be placed in the small slot (at least) and the rest can be storage. Yes this will deplete the field in the end, but it's better to consume it now than leave it alone and waste it. With all the space inside the hull originally and if it comes with storage pods, it could be left alone to mine for many, many cycles with out having to return to unload it's goods. It will likely have to have a Foreman type V.I. to run it, or in my option on this is to add a Gravity Well Broadband Transceiver inside it and tie the ship to the the Foreman V.I. at Moira's yard. it should be able to handle both the ship and the scrap yard. This is just in case the mining ship got attacked and sunk, the V.I. would not be lost. lastly this is also a likely a needed element if Ophion has to pull up roots in a hurry and flee to start all over.

-The Fluff bringer

Those are really good points. Yeah, he probably would say that.

Whelp, you've convinced me, let's do this as soon as we've 1, built our fleet and regular resource base up and 2, found a low-yield mineral field that's still worth building one of these ships for.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Going to echo what Subroutine said. Good idea, has potential. Now is probably not the right time to deploy a ship like this. The proper time would be when we run out of more saturated resource nodes to mine. It would also need to be "worth it" in terms of how much gas it takes to deploy to a resource field, and how much it mines while there. --Sertul (talk) 04:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I would like to point out this ship class can and will work well on normal and rich mineral fields to. It will likely be cheaper and maybe faster to make than a full scale mining station. It can move itself with out having to rely on the Titan transport to move it. On the down side, it's going to be much more fragile and easy to destroy than a full mining station and it will not produce needed BW like a station can. It's very sluggish in reacting and a big target in an ambush. Lastly, it can not mine planet side. I have also thinking more about this. We might run into a situation were we might be in a system for a bit that has minerals to be had, but might not be able to keep that system for long. A counter attack might drive us from the system. but with this ship, we can mine for a bit and then bug out with out running a risk of losing a station. The ship can also be a quick start to mining a system we just got while we order a new mining station to be built for the next thread. once the new station is in place, the ship can be moved on to another location. oh, Subroutine, we do have our old Terali System that the ship can work on. We just need to hear from Program0 about this ship idea.

-The Fluff bringer

Seems fine by me, though I dunno if it'd be better at mining then a dedicated mining station, still neat idea for ghost mining low value targets and then moving on to other targets.

--Program0 (talk) 10:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

It probably is a half step behind a dedicated mining station. Also, as a down side, humans can't live on the ship and get trained like a station can do for us.

-The Fluff bringer

At the listed price, it's roughly the same price as a mining platform. We probably shouldn't worry about building it quite yet (because dedicated mining platforms would be more effective), but it's definitely something to keep in mind in about two or three threads. --Sertul (talk) 21:12, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Road Forger class ship

Role: Stable warp lane creator

Ship type: Light Cruiser chassis

Weapons: None

Engine: best available.

Hull: Standard

Point defense: Standard

Shields: Special (see below)

Bandwidth: unknown

Cost: unknown

This would be a dedicated ship that mounts an over powered 'Snow plow' like forward deflectors shields and purpose build sensor set up to detect even the smallest space junk that is floating in deep space. it's systems would 'plow' a warp lane out in deep space with it's near Battleship (if possible) forward shields. after a short bit, drop out of warp and deploy a long lasting navigation buoy for others to use to find their way. It would make a small barely stable path in it's first path, but as it goes back and forth down it's new lane, it should be able to make a lane big enough for even our Battle ship and more safely. I will presume a strong enough shield can deflect or bounce off at an angle small objects.

-The Fluff bringer

This is interesting. I like the concept of an idea to make warp lanes on your own, and this is one of the flimsiest pieces of Meta I have so far, I admit. If I were going to allow this, I was thinking either A. You need one of the best types of shields to do it, or B. this ship must be at least Carrier or so size, and the process of plowing would cost more gas then normal jumps, and/or take a bit of time to pull off safely. Let me know what you think of all that.

--Program0 (talk) 09:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Ship Components

Proposed Components

• Tumble Thrusters: Allow side thrust at a higher rate to allow further ability to dodge missiles. [Under discussion]
• Gunship Missiles: Allows a blossom effect to burst, as a single large missile explodes into dozens of other dumbfire missiles. Meant to fly close enough to make dodging difficult. [Requires Explosives I]

Tumble Thrusters: Empowered side-thrusters that allow a large ship to avoid fire at competencies usually reserved for far smaller ships by detonating explosives in an armored cone on the sides of the ships. As the weight of the ship increases, the number of weapon mounts these thrusters take up increases.

Gunship Missiles[4]: Missiles mounting several dumbfire rockets. The missiles flies close enough to a target to make avoidance risks negligible (the bigger the ship, the farther away it can fire from) and fires its payload.

In the event of many targets that do not require the full six-rocket payload to take out, the missile will fire as many rockets as necessary to take it out, and then seek out the next target in line, with all Gunship Missiles being coordinated by a ship's computer for maximum target saturation in the lowest time possible.

((Could potentially be equipped with a small shield generator to increase its chance of delivering payload in the face of laser point defenses, but this needs confirmation from Program0))

Separate question, precisely how fast are plasma-beam weapon projectiles? Are they still a substantial fraction of light, or are they something closer to Star Wars "blasters"? Asking since I'm considering making a long-range ship and if plasma weapons fire do their stuff at too low fractions of light speed a laser might be more practical, despite the loss in damage potential.

Also, can we make man-portable plasma guns or is the technology not easily downscaled? And if we can't easily downscale it, can we downscale it?

--Hust91 (talk) 02:00, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Lasers are more accurate, traveling extremely fast and proving difficult to dodge. Plasma is slower moving but does more damage (if lasers are 90% accurate, plasma is 65-75% accurate, while plasma doubles the damage usually. They work better in medium range, usually.

Soldier sized plasma guns are indeed possible. Downscaling is difficult due to the power needed to launch plasma however. You'd need to spend some time researching ways to bring down the scaling, and finding a new power source for smaller guns to make it happen, I am thinking.

-Program0

I had an thought just now. Fortuna likes her fighters now that she's inside a Carrier, but fighters and bombers seems to be lacking in weapon options she has. I thought of a new type of ship she can launch. Now we have stealth field that should be able to be installed on a fighter and each fighter will be equipped with a Nuke shaped charge and said ship will sneak towards a target ship, preferably a big one like a battle ship for example. then it plants the nuke or non nuke mine on it's hull, then it sneaks off to blow the bomb after it gets clear. it returns to Fortuna for a reload, it goes to hunt a new ship. the bomb would push the explosion into the ship itself. and if enough of them are done around the hull of a ship, it could cut it two if not blow it apart.

-The Fluff bringer

That's interesting, but more likely to be a Frigate ship duty. Fighters wouldn't be large enough to handle weapons of that size, or be able to 'plant' anything. Frigate could do it just fine, though.

--Program0 (talk) 04:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

In that case, with a modified Carrier, how many Frigates would a Carrier be able to tote around then? Even still, a normal Carrier with some minor modification might be able to launch frigates. It would be too small a change to warrant a whole new carrier classification or new ship build i would think.

-The Fluff bringer

It does seem like a project that's more about showing off our economic power - that we can use a Carrier to transport frigates instead of having them fly on their own - than practicability, though that depends on how much the drive engines for a frigate costs (as those could be excluded in a frigate with a carrier to bring it around).

But in the meantime, why not just mount nukes on regular frigates? A warhead doesn't have to be particularly large, it could probably be fitted somewhere in the middle of the ship without meaningfully affecting its total mass. Heck, we can even get the frigate/destroyer suggested above to come with a hollow for a warhead as standard procedure. After that it's just a matter of having enough nuclear warheads, and installing them (which could presumably be made very quick when we have the ships prepared to accept one single size of warhead).

--Hust91 (talk) 18:47, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

If cutting out the warp jump part of the frigate's reactors makes them that much more cost effective and opens up more space to store more nuclear warheads. it might be worth it. besides, these won't be meant to be mounted on a missile system but to be more like shaped charge mine that sticks to the hull on the target ship. This would work better if this is used as a first strike/ambush move with possibly sending out our Trojan horse virus to alter the foe's sensor systems to not to report the existence of these frigates to who ever is watching the sensors results. I can see this as a 'Ninja' type carrier modifying.

-The Fluff bringer

A modified Carrier might be able to handle, say a dozen or two Frigates. Maybe near 30-50 at max with heavy mods. As for removing FTL drives-would mostly save on gas costs. But you should keep in mind, if they were stranded by, say, the Carrier exploding, then they have no way of jumping out of system, and they will just generally be slower then other ships (since non FTL drives aren't focused on very much).

--Program0 (talk) 02:26, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Superweapons:

For both the practical and the hideously impractical.

Helios

Role: Planetary defense

Weapons: 1 million Mirrors

Engine: Stellar Drive (It really shouldn't need to move at all)

Point Defense: None (the fleet will do that)

Shields: Barrier

Bandwidth: Standard (5)

Cost: ????M ??G~

This is Archemedes' death ray[5]. In space. Without pesky things such as cloud cover to block the rays of a star, thousands of mirrors can reflect the rays of the sun into an enormously concentrated beam that literally causes ships to boil and explode. Requires Ophion or an VI over 10 bandwidth to properly calibrate the mirrors for maximum accuracy.

Feel free to throw the rotten tomatoes. --Dandy (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

weaponizing a solar light collector? it would work, but seems rather impractical for that use. Normal laser weapons can do that job just fine. if it was put to use as an energy collector with solar panels, it would generate a nice bit of power. also, the solar power generation form this would also be rather stealthy too. the power generation from conventinal reactors are easier to detect from long range and may give away a hidden base we want to conceal. the Solar collectors might be harder to pick up on a sensor sweep. A better take off from this is to mount an array of cheaper lower class laser weapons and with the mirrors, lenses, and other light direction equipment could turn the combined beams into a monster of a power beam of light. think Star War's death star main cannon in appearence. The array would likely take a 'turn' to aim and fire a single shot. The shot would hit like the widow maker cannon mounted on TTT give or take and it would not use gas to do so. The whole array would be to much of a monster size wise and fragile to mount on any ship. But it can be used around space stations or orbiting a planet. this way it can be set up and used in places far way from a bright star as well.

-The Fluff bringer

I... er, what? I don't think you read my link. This isn't a solar light collector, it's a massive array of mirrors designed to focus all the rays of light that hits the array into a giant laser capable of frying an entire UGEI fleet from long range, combined with a bandwidth station. It's a defensive weapon, in case the UGEI comes knocking on our front door.

For the Death Star-esque laser... are you sure you aren't thinking of a Gundam-style Colony Laser? You know, one made out of a hollowed-out O'Neill cylinder with solar panels attached to it and the insides full of lasers and mirrors?

--Dandy (talk) 01:17, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I already knew about that link some time ago. It's not the first time that expriment has been done. I classify solar light being redirected with mirrors as a 'Collector'. still, as a point defense system, i can't see it working now that we have much better tech that can do the job better than that can. However, it can be put to use in other ways. if we can reproduce a widow maker cannon (in a sense) with out using Gas to fire it would be wonderful. even if it has to be used as a fixed gun platform.

-The Fluff bringer

I like it. A big one time investment, and it'd be immobile, but it'd basically end up being a giant widowmaker with no gas cost. I think not being mobile and no gas cost to fire is a fair exchange.

--Program0 (talk)

Fluff... I don't know where the miscommuncation is. The Helios already fulfills the niche that a giant immobile Widowmaker does, making a giant laser. And hell, there's already no gas cost associated with it, unlike the lasers you want. And wait, what? What better tech do we have that supersedes the Helios? Last I remember, we don't have a giant laser that costs virtually nothing to fire every 1-5 turns of combat. --Dandy (talk) 06:27, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

That was Program0 who commented last my good man.

-The Fluff bringer

Let's see if I can clear this up.

If I understand this correctly, Dandy is proposing to create a mirror system that focuses the beams from the sun in a massive area onto a single lens, thus spawning a beam of concentrated sunlight that cuts through just about anything in seconds and fires continuously (it doesn't ever have to stop firing). If enemies are in range, it could probably cut down an entire fleet within a minute with the help of computerized aiming.

So far, this seems like a great idea. The problem with the idea is that the beam would necessarily travel at light-speed by default, which means that unless we can apply some kind of FTL technology here (like opening a wormhole/warp tunnel in front of the beam - it doesn't have to work at interstellar distances to work defensively, just within a solar system. A few light hours, that is) it will be limited to a range of a few light-seconds away.

While this is (as far as I can tell from battles so far, they seem to take place within a few hundred thousand kilometers rather than a light-second) an exceedingly long range, it still hilariously easy to avoid by simply not getting within a few light-seconds of the sun itself.

Adding to this is the problem that, since the Helios is immobile (As in, it orbits in a consistent predictable path), an enemy might simply attack it from a light-miinute out with mass-drivers without ever being at threat from being hit (it can simply avoid the beams that takes minutes to reach it).

In short, if we can develop mobile warp-tunnels of some kind, and FTL Sensors or cheap intra-system FTL buoys, then this proposal becomes very legitimate.

--Hust91 (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I like the suggestion, and this explanation helps it out too. It'd basically serve as a system watchdog I reckon. I'd say you could set up beacons through the system to allow you to target ships out to a certain range away from the sun (but likely nothing outside of solar system range). It might be vulnerable to enemy fire up close, but it'd behave like a giant extended range laser weapon. I'll let you guys work out any more kinks for now.

--Program0 (talk) 23:01, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to emphasize that the buoys wouldn't be enough just for targeting. The "solar gun" requires an actual FTL-method for its beam of light to accurately target anything more than a few light-seconds away (For obvious reasons). (If that was what you meant then nevermind, just wanted it to be clear that a solar gun isn't gonna hit sh*t in the vast majority of the solar system using a weapon that only travels at light-speed when enemies are light-minutes or usually even light-hours out, no matter how much information on a ship's current location and heading it has)

This would open up a can of worms, but with the range-limit being in-system and being employed by a solar gun, you could simply say it requires exorbitant amounts of power, making it usable pretty much only by things that are right next to a sun.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I get what you're saying now. What I meant to imply was (as long as there's no enormous nebula or asteroid belt in the way) you can just build the system in orbit over the worlds you want to protect. As long as they face the sun (and are in geosync orbit) they should always be able to fire, yes? And instead of having a constant rate of fire, it might just store up tons of energy on batteries onboard and unleash it in a huge burst, or series of bursts, at foes that leap into system. I do see your point, though, and it'd only be effective at really short range.

--Program0 (talk) 04:18, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

World Building

Exotic/Subraces

Possible spoilers incoming, I think.

So I've had some thoughts about the Xenos as they currently are. Earth has dozens and dozens of unique species on it's surface with humans being the only ones that developed well enough to rule the surface. I've thinking on a lot of the other races on the Losirian homeworld-ones you may not know of yet, due to the secrecy that system is under, but I wanted to flesh some of them out here. The idea of sub races came to me with the idea of other semi intelligent races that evolved along with the Losirians. Here's what I have, let me know what you think. Keep in mind they were made with the idea that Losirians are the dominate races (for the most part), if only by virtue of population and technology size and level. Originally, I had the idea that the Losirians were once more advanced and intellectual then they are now, but the nature of war has turned them more violent due to their instincts.

Losirian Homeworld Species

Jelack- Rare highly intelligent jellyfish-like creature. Protects itself with an aura of sonar that keeps predators away. This sonar has an interesting effect on Losirians, sending them into a trance-like state. They have low population, but are able to exhibit a manner of control over nearby Losirians, resulting in some communities collapsing under their rule.

Bildorsh- Uncommon and enormously bulky, they served as a manner of work horse for much of the Losirian development days. Their large size and sonar communication are similar to records of Whales back on Earth, yet their shape and body are designed for extended shallow water exploration. Intelligent enough to be domesticated.

Lurdish- A violent, and vicious savage by Losirian standards, these mouthfuls of teeth are known hazards of the Losirian ocean. Their skin allows them to blend in almost perfectly with water as they swim, and just before they breech the surface, they are known for hooking prey with a harpoon-like poisonous tongue, before chomping down on them with vicious teeth. Known to hunt Bildorsh, Losirian schools, anything they can fit in their mouth (which is almost anything). Don't breed very fast, however, and exhibit a manner of intellect that is frightening for a creature of it's size.

Bokdac- An enormous shelled creature that is known for crafting some of the largest pearls and gem stones in Losirian culture. Incredibly difficult to crack (without destroying the contents, at least). The creature inside is clam-like, but possesses a jet propulsion that allows it to move through the sea, and even hunt prey. It is able to shut it's shell with a frighteningly powerful amount of force. When hunting, it sticks out what appears to be a small head to snap up food and pull it back into it's enclosed home.

Malorian Homeworld Species

Thydren Cat- Referred to as a 'cat' by human xenobiologists, the Thydren specimen is a particularly large six limbed beast who walks on all six limbs similar in muscular structure to Lynx and Jaguar specimens. They have two prehensile tails that allow them to swing from trees, using every limb to increase the speed with which it climbs, runs and flings itself through the complex tree networks of their homeworld. They have claws, and predatory teeth similar to earth cats, however their limbs can bend at several different joints, allowing increased usefulness when catching fast moving prey. Packs are run by a circle of larger male cats. Much smaller specimens have been bred by Malorians in the past to keep as pets, though they still own similar traits with their ancestors, as the main specimen themselves are not as common as they once were. Nocturnal, and very adapt at moving through dark trees at fast paces, their eyes have become rather weak to bright light.

Thurddish Flower- An exotic and highly toxic manner of flower located on many of the Malorian homeworlds. They are massive, but not due to the flowers, which are numerous, but reasonably small. Their root systems grow enormous and sometimes make up entire jungles, forming many of the vines, and other foliage. Their vines are covered in a highly poisonous toxin which coats their thorns. The flowers are said to bloom where corpses once were. One major thing keeping them from taking over is several toxin resistant beasts feast exclusively on them, and they can be prepared into a special food. Despite this, they're often avoided.

Baltisha- A hulking hunched frame of a beast, resembling an overly muscular ape-like beast with an additional digit on all hands, and a circular maw designed for cutting and slicing through brush and flora. They are rather docile, if hideous plant eating creatures. Their large size and shape mean they are capable of harming others, but most often, they graze exclusively on the most toxic plants and creatures they can find. Immune to most toxins due to an extremely unique immune system, the creature is able to extract all toxin, and make use of it as a set of defensive quills. Because of their docile nature, many Malorian settlements use them as guardians to assist in keeping Thurddish vines out of the way.

Crinkle Spider- A strange adaptation of some of the coreworlds, this species resembles spiders only by leg shape. The rest of their bodies resemble centipedes and other long-bodied insects. It is incredibly fast with these movements, and has a violent set of jaws that are powerful enough to snap bones, if it can capture prey in them. While it does not use silk like earth spiders, it is able to cling to any surface with a powerful adhesive, even able to leave itself attached to a branch with only one leg out of it's hundreds and remain stable. This intense dexterity allows it to ambush most prey, and wrestle them into submission in a constrictor fashion.

--Program0 (talk) 10:42, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I really like these - it puts a sense of the world being larger than the things we interact with right into the game, and helps emphasize that every species we meet is just as diverse as humans and their planets just as diverse as ours. --Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear! I hope to flesh out some more stuff for other species as you meet them, and hopefully get a sort of ecosystem working. Let me know if I'm missing key parts of an ecosystem, or feel free to post your own ideas. I'd love to help flesh out some of this stuff with you guys.

--Program0 (talk) 04:23, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Here is a bit of more fluff to the Malorians. A creature called (in human speech) a Thydern cat. (no relations to any Earth cat) The Thydern has a head much like a Earth Lynx cat, but it has a long (4'5" for females, 6' more or less for males from nose to a very long tail) sinuous body with 8 legs. The limbs are equipped razor sharp retractable claws, good for climbing natural environs and taking down it's prey. Their packs (when not in relations with the Malorians) are Patriarchy structured, mostly due to the normamly 1 male to every 4 female births ratio. They are normally have short hair on their bodies (on colder worlds, they grow longer hair to keep themselves warm) and coloration to match the world they live on, but over the years of being kept as 'pets' by the Malorians and being bred to adapt to the worlds they are on have wiped out the orginal breed's existence, save for a small breeding pocket on the Malorian home world. The Thydern cat is very much a nocturnal creature with super sharp hearing and sense of smell, but eyes that are weak to bright light. How the Malorians were able to tame/befriend such a deadly and intelligent predator has been lost to the sands of times, long before they reached the stars. To be sure, they are not considered sentient, but some factions of Malorians want to alter them enough to fully make them as fully intelligent as a Malorian for a number of reasons. Many others are maybe rightfully scared of such of an action. Except for their ablity to hiss, growl, and howl like a fiend when it attacks prey or when the males fight each other, they are nearly utterly silent in their movements.

-The Fluff bringer

That's great! Added it up above with a bunch of small changes. Fits the idea of their homeworld pretty well.

--Program0 (talk) 01:10, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Psionics

Starting this thread to explore the possibility of implementing psionics into the universe, discussing pros and cons and implications of certain game mechanics and fluff explanations for how things work, primarily we need to be able to concisely answer the following questions - all constructive input and criticism welcome:

1, when did psychics start appearing?

2, did it occur naturally, or as a result of genetic engineering or technology?

3, where does the energy to do these things come from? Is it taken directly from the psion's body, in which case how is that energy consumed, breaking chemical bonds (psions will get hungry fast), teleported/warped in from elsewhere, splitting atoms (they can toss nukes around)? If it is created wholesale, what stops any psionic from creating infinite amounts of it in seconds?

4, if a psion throws up a barrier to stop something, where is the force transferred to? Does it just disappear when it impacts the barrier, does the barrier simply move if it isn't anchored to something (like a ship's hull or the psion's own body), or is that pressure applied directly to the brain of the psion (in which case you'd think his brain would be squished immediately)?

5, what other limits are there to psions? Does it tire them to channel all that energy?

6, what are the requirements to become psionic? Could we become psionic through technology? If not, why not?

7, can psionic systems be enchanced? It's very probable that dedicated technology will be able to achieve much more powerful psionic effects than organic beings if we discover what creates a psionic effect (think like Mass Effect's Biotics compared to the huge systems for the FTL drives and shields), though it's up to you how difficult/impossible you want to make this.

8, is it just telekinesis or can other effects be done using it, like pyrokinesis, mind-control, warping space, generating gravity?

--Hust91 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

This is appreciated, I'll be thinking on this matter a bit more. I like the idea, but am pretty wishy washy on it.

--Program0 (talk) 21:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I can see it now. A family line that some how manifests psionic powers in the early days of human civilation even before the colonization of the stars age came to be. they have a hard time of it but they don't wish to become 'gods' or 'overlords' but rather want to be left alone from the world that does not really understand them. the early UGEI finds out and attempts to hunt them down/press them into becoming their lap dogs or worse. The family hides what they are and over time gather up a lot of money. they form a colony mission to head out to beyond the fringes and well beyond the UGEI's reach. they go on to form what is now the UFW as a cover that was based on some of the best ideals of Old Earth. the family does well enough over the generations but the talent shows up rarely, randomly and not always powerfully. yet they live on in the UFW, even as the UFW goes on it's own and grows to become what we know now. But now that the UGEI is seriously pounding on the UFW's doors. the family can only hope and pray that the mystious and powerful underdog Mr. Ophion and his Guild can save them from becoming slaves and the cruel exprimentation by the UGEI.

-The Fluff bringer

That's one potential phenomenon, but you need to define it a lot harder than "psioinic powers". Specifically what they were able to do that others couldn't.

Some examples could be, 'telepathy', 'far seeing', 'total memory recall', 'Electricty generation and discharging', 'Bio-control: Shape shifting to some degree, Injury repair, Age control, etc.', 'Bio-performance: Super strength, super dextraity, super reaction times and movement, super sensory persections, etc'. These powers might be all the way up to X-Men levels, to just a barely better than normal people. How this came to be might be i'll leave it up to Program0 if he wants use this idea.

-The Fluff bringer

Some of those powers feel a tad...erm...too soft for science, if that makes sense. If I would introduce psionics, it would likely be aimed at the most feasible kind possible. I don't wanna jump too deep in the fantasy pool, otherwise the entire idea of psionics would stick out like a sore thumb in the world-which is why I don't want. I want it to mesh quite well. Which is why I'm reluctant, and all. Feel free to offer up explanations for the ideas you showed, if you had some, but just thought I'd say that.

--Program0 (talk) 02:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

telepathy could be explain in that the human mind produces energy signals like how a comm buoy produces them and the signals are picked up by a targeted or receptive mind and interpets the signals as thoughts, words, pictures, etc. Total memory recall IS a real life talent. However it is so rare, i would classify it as psionic power. it would be really handy to learn skills and gather intellignce very quickly. 'Far seeing' is a tough one. I could say it might be a talent a psyker might have to accuritly an vividly predict what a location they want to perceive and perdict what is going on at that location. All of that and be correct too. Electricity generation and discharging is understandable too. Humans create and use electricity to live and move, maybe the psyker can ramp that up and direct it how they see fit with out it hurting them? It could also mean they are highly resistant or immune to electricity's damage as well. Bio-performence powers is also understandable. The human body is far more powerful than normally can do. It has naturally built in limiters to prevent it from going too far and harming itself by going all out 100%. the psyker power to make the Bio-performance is just the ablity to reach inside our mind and bodies and removing the limiters. The Bio-control would be the most trickier to explain. I would say the psyker with this type of talent can reach down to the celluer level and alter it to some degree. The age control would be rather hard but it would also be the biggest secret and the most wanted. the psyker with this talent would become a living and breathing fountain of youth. i am sure the UGEI would do anything to get their hands on someone like that.

-The Fluff bringer

Most interesting...thank you for the offered up suggestions, some I like.

--Program0 (talk) 11:48, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Questions

How does warp travel work?

Sci Fi science. But really, engines in this time have the capability to warp space around the ship and speed up travel to a destination by an enormous degree. This is the warp jump, and is made possible by a special cocktail of gases discovered long ago back on Jupiter most likely. Ships collapse into the warp that is created, and quickly travel to the destination set. That is why calculation to a warp location take time, to ensure you don't hit anything on the way. Often, Warpjumps are not taken close to a planet's gravity well. The gravity sometimes throws off calculations, or worse, the jump itself disrupts the planet somehow due to the energy discharged. As a result, gas is one of the most useful resources in this age of space travel.

-Program0

Let me be more clear. What's the range on warp travel? That's about as much as I can clarify without giving you any preconceived notions.

Oh, I see. Well it really depends on the systems that are in your path. If you pass close to another gravity well, you have to make two warp jumps. Or if there is something blocking a straight path, such as a nebula, or an asteroid field. But as long as it's clear, you can jump to it.

-Program0

Two Questions. Is obvious but deadly space travel hazards such as black holes hand waved in this quest or have we yet encountered any serious ones yet? can Ophion move "off the map" that has been drawn up so far? is there star systems on the far side of UFW we can visit?

-The Fluff bringer

Oh no, there may indeed be black holes and such things laying around. You just might not notice them until you get close. You can move off the map yeah, but I'm not really sure what to say you'd find other then 'more space'. Most nearby resource nodes are already taken by one faction or another.

-Program0

The reason I ask this question is that "nearby" is meaningless if all that's required for warp travel is a straight path with nothing in the way. The concept of "frontier" is also meaningless: borders cannot exist because all you have are point-sized locations of matter in an otherwise wide-open space. Because most of space is empty, it's highly unlikely there will be something in between your origin and your destination: they would have to be in the same three planes. For example, the distance between the sun and Pluto is 7,311,000,000 km. This is a mere 0.000772789815 light years. Meanwhile, Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away. So, relatively speaking, you see my point. Even if there was something in the way, you would never be more than a few jumps away from anywhere because you could just jump into empty space relative to one plane, then to your destination. If you're talking about gravity wells, then the question becomes "how much is too much gravity." Technically the Oort cloud is in orbit around the Sun, but that is at about 1 light year away. Furthermore, everything is in orbit around the galactic core, so, does that matter? Yes, of course, warp travel is sci-fi magic, and I'm making it more complicated than it probably has any right to be, but I'm just saying that if "straight lines" is how warp travel works, then "nearby" is a meaningless concept and that having all 400 billion stars in the Milky Way be settled makes the setting (rightfully) mind-bogglingly huge.

tl;dr All I'm saying is that the way you've answered the question is inconsistent with having a "frontier" and "nearby" meaningful terms.

Well damn. Maybe that was too vague an answer. Yes there's actually a limit of some sort, but no, I don't know a way to put it that would make sense since actually measuring distances is waaay too much. Maybe it's better to say...if it's too far, I'll let you know? I feel bad for answering your well thought out reply with basically 'trust me', but I'm not quite sure how else I could explain it.

-Program0

No, that's fine, it's just when I say in the threads that "space is big" I really do mean it. The reason I ask is because of the "exploration" part I was suggesting. Yeah, there's a lot of interstellar space that's REALLY empty, but at the same time there still billions of stars and billions of planets. No way they are all settled. I've been operating under the assumption that there's a bunch of unsettled systems ripe for the picking. The UFW-UGEI conflict has been presented as one of resources, but there are certainly elements of ideological conflict as well. I ask these questions not because I want to ruin the setting or tell you what to do or something, but because it's important to know how it works so that we can know what to expect when exploring or if exploration is even a good idea. I personally have been assuming that most of the Milky Way is not settled because the galaxy is a big place, and it takes a lot of time to make billions of mining stations. Another reason is that xeno life makes expansion more difficult. Furthermore, it doesn't seem like it's been very long since humanity has gotten into space; maybe a few hundred years. This stuff didn't matter when we were an AI on a mining station, but it quickly begins to matter now that we have six star systems under control. It's also a matter of scaling up our enemies: how many systems does UGEI have? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Any one of those answers could make sense. Moira should probably have a rough idea of the magnitude of that number (since she worked with UGEI), but Ophion might not know. UFW has never controlled more than a dozen systems, and Ophion is quickly catching up. If UGEI has less than ten capital ships, then it stands to reason that they control only a three-digit number of systems. Maybe in the low thousands. These are all assumptions, I really have no idea what the setting's reasoning is. I ask to clarify these assumptions so that I can make better decisions going forward. I'm also asking here instead of in the thread so that you (Program0) can have enough time to think about it.

There's a couple of ways to make space travel make a little bit more sense. One is that certain locations are more accessible (like, a natural "ether" that you warp through). This allows for everything that roads would allow: choke points, strategic locations, etc. Another is that warp drives have distance limits. This increases bookkeeping, but allows for the traditional "starmap" kind of diagram: it's the kind of starmap we have now, and is usually the assumption that most warp drives use (it's just so common). You have nodes and branches, and you measure distances between systems in "jumps" instead of lightyears. Line of sight is a pretty novel idea, and I don't think it's done very often because you need only to look up in the night sky to see how many potential systems you could jump to. I'm OK with any kind of answer, but it seems to me that the answer should make sense in light of the reality of the universe, which will allow (or not allow) us to do certain things like explore.

Oh, there are many systems unsettled, I imagine, but that's part of why I introduced the Xenos. Spreading your territory wildly isn't wise, especially with Xenos that may or may not be hostile towards you, and, in the UGEI's case, a rebellion happening as they spread too fast, much like America/Britain's old story. That, on top of the cost and time required. This is precisely why I wanted to use this section of the wiki for questions, though. You all will think of more things then I ever could, and having time to prepare for the questions is always nice. And on the topic of how many stars they have, there is only so many ways I can make a place unique or interesting, and, eventually, when you have hundreds of systems to conquer, the conquest would quickly become trivial and possibly even boring if I made you sit through them all, because once you've over come the best defenses, they have nothing to stop you. It reminds me of the Reaper's extermination from Mass Effect. Take a long ass time, but really thorough. The quest, I think, will involve mainly the major threats, Capital ships, key leaders and such. Once that's over, the rest will likely be epilogue, I think. I'm not sure if any of that is acceptable or not yet, but you know. As for the travel thing, I'd be alright with jumping that way, with planned starlanes, and all that. I was thinking that having friendly territory means jumping through it is a lot easier, and I was assuming that Pulsar leads to a lot of systems, while Voidsnake's outpost is one of the few connecting Pulsar to UGEI space, small things like that. You and map anon should perhaps talk, if he sees this. I'd be willing to try and punch all this stuff down.

-Program0

I guess that is were the fluff bringer comes in to attempt to make the game more diverse. I know some people don't like Rachel as my OC character, but in this situation and compared to other quests of this awesome magintude, this quest has notably fewer named, much less fleshed out characters. I don't see others stepping up and contributing either to the fluffing. If Program0 wants me to stop, say so in thread Program0 and I'll stop trying to fluff out your quest. I didn't realize that Voidsnake was a critical choke point into the UFW space. instead of the outpost there, we should have build a full bore battle station with extra defense platforms. Also Program0, is there and ARE there other access starlanes into and out of the UFW that we need to watch? if so, that changes my orginal plan of laying out a UFW wide early warning detection and determent systems (aka a number of slaved on defense platforms to a original build comm buoy and good scanners mix)

-The Fluff bringer

Looking at the map now. Perhaps a little misleading, but major paths into your space now appear to be From Jake's Gambit to Marauder's Grave, Atil System to Argeis System, Atil System to Eshareth System, Jake's Gambit to Keller Expanse, Jake's Gambit to Ussaihu System, Jake's Gambit to Eshareth System. That's not to say there aren't other paths around, but, currently, those are the most obvious from me looking at the map. I imagine marking it all would be pretty cluttered though. And no, fluff anon, I enjoy that someone cares enough about my quest to write about it. It's just better if you ignore anons who talk shit, for the sake of preventing arguments. Arguing that they're not doing anything only makes the conversation worse, I think. Silent dignity and all that.

-Program0

Well, is there resources nodes "off the map" we could go to? or would this mean to expand the map to cover it? Or does the map cover the entire milky way galaxy?

-The Fluff bringer

The map does not cover the entire milky way, no. I suspect it maps out a rather large quadrant, much of human space, but that size would be far too big.

-Program0

For the purposes of the map I have assumed that to jump from one 'sector' of our galaxy to another requires more energy/ more precision than normal 'in-sector' jumps. To this effect, I have stated that orbiting Azizos in the Arman’s Gate system is a 'human warp accelerator', which would allow quick warp travel from the Galactic Fringe to the Outer Core; does this work? I personally pictured the accelerator as a jump gate from EVE, Mass Relay from Mass Effect, or something similar to that. --Mapfag (talk) 01:10, 24 January 2014

Ah, yes I noticed that and that's part of what I meant when I said you changed the course of what I originally was going to do. I think the explanation I'll go with is- some sectors of space just have a lot more resources then others, thus the reason for major warp lanes like this. That is a perfect explanation though, yes. A Massive gate style system that uses a powerful engine to keep a lane of space that is HUGE clear of debris and obstacles.

--Program0 (talk) 03:36, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I also could have just retconned it out, ha. But that works perfectly.

--Mapfag (talk) 17:03, 24 January 2014

Given the recent introduction of 'stable warp lanes' to the map, I think this question will come up soon in the actual Quest thread so I was wondering what the answer would be. How would someone (be it the Guild, UFW or UGEI), create a stable warp lane? Would it require a specialist ship traveling through dark space mapping out stuff / leaving nav buoys? How long would it take and what kind of resources, etc etc?

--Mapfag (talk) 17:05, 24 January 2014

Nah I like the idea too much. I was basically going to make the quest a lot shorter, but this idea made me up the scale, a bit. Am I prepared for it? I have no clue. But may as well go for it right? Nothing ventured and all that.

May as well work it out here. This idea is new to me, so let's see if we can't iron out some details, let me know what you think. I want to make it hard. Not super hard, but hard enough that there's not a lot of random and pointless expansion in all directions. Humans do this, I am thinking, with a special type of launcher/ship thing. It launches a special kind of wave (maybe ultraviolet or something?) that bounces off any debris in it's path, and slowly breaks up any obstacles and material in the path. Such a thing would require a decent degree of gas to use over this period of time, and there's a chance (like, say if there's a blackhole in the way, or something) that it'll all be pointless. Maybe 500-1000 gas for several cycles of work. Seem appropriate for an expanding empire? Keep in mind, this is the first draft of the idea and all. For Malorians, I am picturing a slightly different method. They sent out explore ships that set up nodes of safe travel (not direct as human warp lanes, but cheaper to create). What this effectively means it takes Malorians a lot longer to warp between planets, if they're unprepared, but takes less resources to make. (Maybe around 250-500 gas for the energy required to set up these nodes). Losirian is a bit more primitive. I imagine they'd have warp lanes similar to humanity, except they have ships designed to slice through warp space and create their own warp lanes. The down side is, while this method is much less expensive (relying on a single ship to lead the way), the warp lane is unstable, and has a chance of collapsing depending on the number of ships using it. Nearly human speed, but cheaper, with a chance of warp space collapse. You might be able to tell where I took inspiration for some of these.

--Program0 (talk) 06:57, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Resource Nodes

Can we mine out/deplete a resource node completely?

-The Fluff bringer

If you overmine a location, then yes. Much like strip mining. The current method allows for more sustainable resources over a longer period, as opposed to as many as possible right now.

-Program0

So then, concerning Moira's old scrapyard. if we break up a number of junky ships there, can we up grade the richness of that resource node?

-The Fluff bringer

Actually yes, that would increase the amount mined (if it's a large quantity of ships) to a point. After that, you'd just have longer and longer to go before it's ever emptied.

-Program0

if not over mined, how long will a resource node last? or will it get down graded? lastly, how many stages are there of resources? i presume the amount taken out will various due to reasons. Can a gas giant be mined out?

-The Fluff bringer

Not too long, a few cycles perhaps. It'll get downgraded over that series of cycles. As for how many stages, it depends. It's mostly a vague term to describe it, but I suppose around five is appropriate. And Gas giants can be mined out, since it's only certain gases you're after.

-Program0

In that case, can it be done (provided we have an energy drill strong enough) to drill a hole in a barren world to open up a hole to the molten part of a planet's core and make a volcano and then mine the lava that spills out to extract minerals? As for geoactive dead worlds (i.e. a planet's core that is cold and dead) is the the "barren" statis of a planet not taking into considering ultra deep mining and planetary core mining? Robots would be perfect in these types of mining operations.

-The Fluff Bringer

That would be essentially 'super strip mining' a planet. And yes, you certainly can provided you research such a powerful land drill. The result would essentially be planetcracking, where you tear entire continents up to mine it, causing minerals to soar really high for a time, as you utterly reduce the planet to chaos, causing it to, most likely, destroy itself or turn volcanic at the very least. Once the minerals are all gone, you'd need to find income elsewhere.

-Program0

Would not "super strip mining" pretty much set us for far more resources/minerals than we could ever spend without engaging in megascale engineering projects (dyson spheres, halo-sized arrays like Banks Oritals, von neumanns that convert entire systems into drones and computronium banks and the like)? (Which is not to say that we WON'T be engaging in megascale engineering projects and the like if we get to that scale)

-Subroutine 190491

Heh, I admit I don't know what half of those are, but I love that you're considering it already. Basically, the only way I'd suggest strip mining is if you've gone balls to the wall 'Fuck everything we'll carve our way into the enemy territory' mode, and you need to push NOW. It'll give you a surge of resources, though build time is the same speed. If you have enough shipyards, you could have them all going at the same time. But since you seem to not want to take all the Malorian and UFW land, you might want to consider that before strip mining.

-Program0

How common is for gas/fuel deposits be on worlds that are big enough to be viable? Would it also be possable to create a specific type of scanners to do a deep surface scan of planets to check to make sure hidden mineral deposits were not missed?

-The Fluff bringer

Only certain planets have gases under the surface required as starship fuel, usually. And higher level sensors would probably be able to provide that service.

-Program0

I can't believe i had forgotten about this. Program0, when you discribe a system that his a mineable asteroid belt. did you factor in the "Oort cloud" or belt on the outer rim of a system as viable mining location? by using our solar system as a standard mesurment. it is safe to say there is enough material in an average Oort cloud to make a planet five times the size of the earth. I am sure both Minerals and Gas/fuel could be found there. Or am making this too complex?

-The Fluff bringer

Oh, yes I did keep that in mind when I was describing system wealth. I can't possibly remember every single resource node that exists in dark space, but for each solar system, I've listed most of em.

-Program0

I noticed that generally most mining nodes produce "normal materials" but one of the UFW worlds makes high quality materials. that begs the question, is there a scale of quality of the materials in this setting and does it have an effect on building things? or does some ships/tech products/ etc. require a mix of quality of materials to make them?

-The Fluff bringer

Nah, it's not that complex. Higher quality minerals just means that, say, one pound of the high quality stuff is worth more then the normal kind. So when mining, you'd need to extract a lot less to earn just as much (essentially meaning you'd always have a much higher income if you saturate a base there.

-Program0

BTW, back when we got the Argeis system, the UFW sent a number of ships to investigate it. were they left there abandoned when unit 2237 killed them all? or did they leave? if the former, we should offer to send them back to the UFW or the next of kin. of if that is not possable, see if they are worth keeping or to be sent to the breakers at Moira's factory.

-The Fluff bringer

The UFW came to get them back, since they had so few ships already(or did at least). They were mostly just escort ships, and repair vessels, worried about the colonies safety. They got Dead Spaced son.

-Program0

What are our options for gaining more gas income at the moment? I remember two gas planets being discussed, and a possible-but-not-yet-official research path for making gas extraction more efficient.

--Hust91 (talk) 00:08, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that would fall under the Chemistry Tech tree in my view. cracking the make up of the Gas itself could be the key to us making it in a different type of refineries than the ones we put in over gas giants. It does matter if we can do it economically practical to do it. that might take a few steps into the chemistry tree to get it.

-The fluff bringer

Chemistry is one, as well as advanced mining and refinement researches, and stuff of that sort. Buying Gas is also possible.

--Program0 (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Intergalactic Travel

Can a warp jump reach another galaxy? or will it take several ones? or is that just not possiable with known warp drive tech?

-The Fluff bringer

As of current Stardate, no one has successfully warpjumped to another galaxy. Any and all attempts resulted in lost ships, exploded warpdrives, and being stranded.

-Program0

For reference, the Milky Way is 100×10^3 ly in diameter and the Andromeda galaxy (the closest one unless you count the dwarf galaxies and other such bodies) is 2.5×10^6 ly away. So, about a 25x difference. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group

From my understanding, the warp jump and a worm hole is two completely diffrent things in this universe setting. presumably that a worm hole has a much longer range than any warp jump. ergo, could in theory that we could open up a worm hole to a diffrent galaxy? or on the other side of our own?

-The Fluff bringer

You're right in that they're two different things. Warp jumps creates temporary holes in warp space and transports you near instantly between two locations in space time, while a worm hole is a maintained hole between two locations. It can't simply be 'created' in any location desired, two locations can be established and used to transport large numbers of ships relatively safely across much faster distances then warp jump ever could hope to do.

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Mol

Ophion has been building up his tech base and power base nicely. What does Mol, our black market connection have for us to buy so far? I don't think we have anything he would be intrested in buying from us unless we wants to pick up brand new cruisers with no known IFF codes. We have grown into becoming something more than "Small Fry" now.

-The Fluff bringer

Mol may or may not be interested in what you've gotten recently. Maybe.

-Program0

If i remember right, Mol only still has an Armor plating tech we don't have yet. Did we tap him out of goods to buy?

-The Fluff bringer

Silly fluff anon, that was Mol offering you his lowest grade stuff. He's got way better.

-Program0

Let me guess, We have to wait till the next quest thread to see the list? i hope he will have some more stuff ready for us by then, or to let us know what he wants to buy off of us. However, Program0, if you want to let us have a sneak peek at the goods, we can think about what to get next or to sell to him. can you post them here?

-The Fluff bringer

We have no way of contacting him, and we just don't know. We have all the tech he's offered us (or better), so he'd need to offer better stuff.

It may not necessarily be next thread. I'll introduce it when appropriate.

-Program0

By the way, is that un bought armor tech Mol was offering stronger or weaker armor than our Trithium armor we have?

-The Fluff bringer

It was weaker, you've obtained armor I did not foresee you getting so soon. You've gotten a lot of things I did not foresee.

-Program0

When can we meet MOL again?

In due time, anon. In due time.

-Program0

Mol might warm up to us once more when we cut a deal with him to market and spread our 'drinks of choice' to the UGEI. but i wonder if he would be tempted to figure out just WHAT makes our drinks so damn addictive, then makes his own batches to sell. Or will he play it safe to let Apollo make the goods and claim that he has no idea where or how it was made if pressed? I presume by how much we can make barely makes enough to cover how much the UFW needs and wants. making enough of the super brew for a large chunk of the UGEI population will demand we will HAVE to make many more stations completely dedicated to producing the brews. So if we made some stations built JUST FOR the production of the drinks, would they cost more in minerals and less Gas? Also, if Mol still will not let go about the Black Box, we can just inform him it was not a true A.I. but Erebos. A virus that has mutated and and has become somewhat self aware. If Mol took that, it would have blown up his face as a trap left behind by the UGEI. We can say we had it in a clean stand alone system and we already had loses due to it. This 'Black Box' isn't safe to have.

-The Fluff bringer

Good thinking there, and a lot simpler to pull off than what I had suggested. And we'd have actually warned him about its danger, so he couldn't complain if it tears him a new ass.

--Hust91 (talk) 21:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

As for cutting the profit from the drink sales, we can ask for 50/50 split. BUT, then offer an alternative. Ask for Tech (in credit worth) of what he's got instead of credits. say plasma cannons 2 costs 750K and our cut would be 1mill, we get the cannons and just 250k. A even better idea, we get the tech and the extra credits can be sent to us in the equivalent of Gas or Minerals. More so gas and Tech for we need those more. Mol can pocket the credits and THAT is sure to make him a happy greedy man. We can still make plenty of credits off the UFW, but we need to feed our war effort. Mol could be a key to doing so. Mol should like our drinks, offically they are just adult drinks and should be legal. BUT he should be reminded that if given to the right people, he could get them hooked and easier to corrupt, control, or blackmail. Mol's power base would grow, and for us the UGEI would become more unstable. A win win all around, don't you say?

-The Fluff bringer

Human Populations, scale

What is the general size of the Human population of the UFW? hundreds of thousands? millions? tens of millions? With the UFW losting two whole colonies of human populations, and a third taking a bad hit from raiders, i am starting to worry if the humans can replace their numbers fast enough for us.

-The Fluff provider

It was certainly in the millions on some planets, and hundreds of thousands on Nethlos before the attack. Argeis colony was small, but it did affect their numbers. The core planets are still untouched though. Their 'homeworld' so to speak is easily in the tens of millions of people though, if not more.

-Program0

So if I get this right, planets with populations in the billions (even a single one) are still very rare, which implies most planets having been colonized within the last hundred years?

--Hust91 (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

They're reasonably rarer, but not necessarily surprising. After all, they have advanced health care, and heavily computerized dangerous jobs. Not a lot is killing people anymore, besides people, accidents, war, and some diseases that are battled today (I dunno, space cancer or something).

Growth rates are pretty high, thought. Humans are pretty frisky when nothing is keeping their population down.

--Program0 (talk) 23:04, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I realized we have a big problem. I really don't like the idea of having to use WMD on an inhabited UGEI planet, but i am not exactly warmed up to the idea of us making a massive droid invasion army to take a world, like Jake's Gambit system. The harder part is holding the world. the citizans will not accept having our droid army sitting around on them. that and it will require too much of our awareness and BW to keep them settled down. So then, how many troopers can the UFW prep to help is in taking and holding that world. i REALLY don't want to go all out 'KILL THEM ALL' just because we can't get the people to settle down.

-The Fluff bringer

That we're using WMDs on a populated planet does not mean we have to target civilian areas. Big military installations are generally secluded from the main cities to reduce the risk of infiltration and sudden attack by disguised enemies - though it may of course be different in this corporate state where the main threat comes from rival corporations.

I don't agree that making an army large enough to occupy a planet with millions of inhabitants is unfeasible, however, since around a thousand human-equivalent or better (such as the cheap spiderbots) troops could feasibly keep track of things - whether we want to do that, however, is less certain.

I have my doubts about the citizens not accepting our droid army sitting around though, at least not if we begin providing aid and generally showing ourselves to do a better job of governing them than the feuding corporations did.

But if we're going to hold it, I honestly believe that a thousand terrachnids with a few hundred humanoid robot-comissar/police officers would do a better job for a lower price than anything we could barter for the UFW to send us. Thoughts?

--Hust91 (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Using ABC class weapons on an inhabited world are sure to have repercustions with the world's population. even if it was used only on military installations. I also know that many cases that some vile governments intentionly put military installations among civilian populations as to use them a human shields. counting on our morals to prevent us from firing on them and risking innocent lives. as to taking an holding a planet with ground troops, we could work out a compramise with a couple of human troopers leading and being assisted by a large team of drones we provide. As perposly crafted V.I. will likely have to be made to direct the drones. this way a smaller human force can cover and do the work of a much bigger force until the population is pacified and a new and accepted government structure is installed under the joint forces of our guild and the UFW. it will take time to settle them down. More so for a UGEI world, for they have been fed lies and propaganda about the UFW and the Guild for some time. Oh yea, if the people see a real joint effort between the UFW and Us in trying to take a world and place it under our control as peaceful as possable, the PR effect will help us in the long term. It will show the general population that we are not a kill them all savage people.

-The Fluff bringer

I'm going to assume you mean NBC weapons, fluffy. In any case, I don't think that's going to be necessary. If we encounter a hostile populated world, the best thing to do would be to take out (or take over) the military installations, and prevent them from launching anything into space. They will remain in the gravity well of their planet, and the stars will belong to us. Standard procedure for populated worlds should be

1. Destroy immediate threat: any weapons platforms, ships, surface-to-space (?) weapons, etc.
2. Tell civilian leaders to surrender military bases.
3. If they surrender, we take the military bases, and either imprison the surrendered military personnel or offer them to the UFW to be held as prisoners on their worlds. We can just leave civilians with a message of "enjoy your independence" and leave them be. I don't think it's a wise idea to hire anyone as they may be spies, and killing civilians isn't really something I want to be doing. Occupying the planet is a waste of everyone's time. Forget it. What good can it possibly do us?
4. If they do not surrender, take the military bases or destroy them by force. Capture or kill the civilian leaders who refused to surrender. Leave the planet to their own chaotic independence.

--Sertul (talk) 06:57, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Man I love to see discussion. Just somethings I thought I oughta mention, since you guys are talking about this.

• Enslaving the humans would give you an enormous boost to credits and, possibly, resources per cycle if their mining equipment wasn't destroyed. You wouldn't even need to buy your own refineries.
• Seizing a planet with enormous infrastructure, and stealing all of the planet's electrical equipment (aka, sending the enemy into the dark ages) would give you a huge boost to bandwidth as well.
• Leaving a planet in a state of anarchy may have unintended side effects. Depending on the population, there is gonna be a HUGE power vacuum. It's possible riots will swallow the planet whole, as people try to figure out who's in charge. And whoever takes charge may or may not be a good leader.

Just some thoughts for you good folk.

--Program0 (talk) 10:08, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I know you specifically said "enslaving the humans," but I don't think that kind of action would fly with the participants, the UFW, any NPCs, and Ophion's character. We've kind of agreed that slavery is bad, and that has been the driving force for some of our actions. Furthermore, we have pretty much no idea of how UGEI runs their worlds. It's been said that UGEI is just a large corporation, but they are not the government and aren't even supposed to have armies in the first place. To be honest, I don't really understand how their society works. If there's a separation between the government and UGEI, then that simplifies our potential takeovers. We take the UGEI stuff, and leave the civilian stuff alone. The civilian stuff continues to operate without their corporate overlords. The problem arises when the UGEI run everything. Then there isn't a clear separation between civilians and combatants. If we're fighting UGEI, it's fair to say that all their employees are combatants as well. Maybe they aren't fighting us directly, but they act as army engineers would. This is similar to The Guild's employees: I can't call them civilians. Accordingly, we would be perfectly justified in slaughtering all UGEI employees. I'm sure they would do the same to our employees.

Anyway, that's not really the most important point here. We're talking about occupying "enemy" territory. There's no mixing words here, that's what we're doing. Perhaps it might be possible to just take over UGEI's infrastructure and just tell everyone "hey, you work for The Guild now. Here's some similar-but-maybe-more-advantageous contracts for you to sign. What are we expected to provide you?" Occupying a territory means we have to deal with rebels, provide for civilians, establish peace, and keep things running. What a giant headache! And for what, exactly? Let's run through what we get if we deign to occupy a territory.

If we're getting credits from a human world, that means they are paying us some sort of taxes. Usually, governments that collect taxes do so with the understanding that the taxes will be used to fund public works such as education, roads, ports, emergency services, and most importantly public safety. These things are usually done by spending the very taxes that are collected. Pay for teachers, pay for construction workers, pay for military personnel, etc. Sure, we can cut out the middleman, and just do all of that ourselves at our own expense and pocket the rest... but what do we do with the credits? And what do we do with everyone we put out of business?

It's already been established that we can run resource-gathering operations without any humans. Any human that is not loyal to us is a potential saboteur. If there are resource mines, we should fire everyone who works there, as it would be a much safer operation for us. If there is computing equipment to commandeer, then certainly we benefit from kicking all the humans out and taking over all that computing equipment. If we don't then we have to pay them for running the mines, or pay to buy the stuff they mine (if they are "independent"). Where are we going to get the money?

Leaving the planet in anarchy has its own problems. In short, the most operations-efficient solution to taking over human worlds is to get rid of all the humans, and take over their infrastructure. How to get rid of them? Jail them? Herd them into communal housing? Send them away as refugees? Kill them with viruses from Atill VI?

If nobody wants to get rid of the humans (I don't really see how it's possible to do this and not come off as evil), then the best option would be to run some sort of communist society where we own everything, and provide for everyone, but do people really want to go there? We'd need to handle food production, education, consumer goods, law, infrastructure, etc etc etc. All of of that is going to take BW to process, gas/minerals to maintain, and credits to keep running. In the end, we gain a planet, but do we gain any net benefit to our war machine which still needs to run? It's really just a ton simpler to either kill them all off or not get involved in the first place. --Sertul (talk) 11:06, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I can see we are lacking in intelligence on how the UGEI runs their worlds. This is will have to be clearified by Program0. If each planet has their own elected or at least established goverment system that works. then fine we can let them operate on their own, just under ours and UFW over view for awhile. Yes Sertul, it can be a big pain in the back side to be a leader or a ruler of an empire. but it will have to be done. Thankfully, it can be done. Just look at how we turned Japan and Germany around after we beat them in WW2. thankfully we can call up on the UFW to help us in this situation if it will wind up to be like what happened after WW2. on another hand, i suspect that Jake's Gambit is REALLY hurting and the human population is a fraction of what was orginally there. still, we need to know how life is like on these worlds before we even attack and plan accordingly.

Also, as for taking a world with a join strike force with the UFW, the plunder of the world could be split like this (and there is ALWAYS plunder). Every world is likely to need the materials it makes, for awhile at least. the excess minerals and gas will be given to the guild. the credits and land/property can be given to the UFW. We can share any new Tech found on the UGEI (or not if we find it first). Also, consider this too. If humans invade another human world, the ones being invaded are likely less likely to fight back and rebel to the last. If it was a xeno race was doing the invading, then yes, i would see the humans fighting out to the last. A human are more likely to relate to another human than to a xeno of any sort. Consider this, the humans in the UGEI are deathly afraid of the Malorians than the UFW. we just need to come off as a much better over lords than the UGEI. Or better yet, appear as a liberator to them. there is still a number of people who work for us that can tell Ophion how life is like under the UGEI. We learn from UGEI's mistakes.

Another option people could also be this. Give the UGEI civilians a chance to leave the system and let them have unarmed ships to do so. we make sure they do not take important goods with them. but let the ones who want to go back to the UGEI a chance to go, and those who stay will have to accept our rule once we take the system. the refuges will be the UGEI's problem. this will also help filter out the trouble makers too.

in the end, we are spinning our wheels for nothing until we find out more. I just want to start the prep work for the D-Day landing on that UGEI world in Jake's Gambit. We still do not know how big a navel or army the UFW fields.

-The Fluff bringer

The real issue I'm trying to get at is "can we take over a world, and have it not bleed us dry as we expend resources in running it? Will we gain anything usable in the war that we are still waging?" No, human populations and their approval is not easily usable in a war. Honestly, I'd be happy to get into world-management, but if it's going to take more resources to run it then we get from it, I say leave and come back later once we're done with the war. --Sertul (talk) 23:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

We don't know if Program0 wants to go into world management in any case. he might just hand wave it in the end. we need to hear from him about this.

-The Fluff bringer

Oh yeah, I didn't mean you SHOULD do those things. I was just explaining possible benefits you'd get from taking a world, even if they are a little evil. Or pretty evil. Anyway, as for world management, I will probably do that for the first world you conquer, and then simplify it as you get more. The idea I'm working with-depending on your method of conquering (some of which are harder then others, and/or take longer), the state of the planet afterwards would need several cycles to recover. During that time, if you are keeping it, and support it (in a mineral, gas, and/or credits tax) it will rebuild. If you let it rebuild all the way, those 'taxes' will come right around to being bonuses for you all over again, depending on the planet itself and what they do. You lack industrial centers, beyond Advanced Shipyards. An industry planet would let you manufacture thousands of androids very fast, and all that good stuff.

--Program0 (talk) 06:02, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I see what you are saying Program0, but we do not want to be evil here. Turning Jake's gambit into an android production factory world? Oh baby, i am so for this! that frees up our other factories to make ships and stations. this work will give the humans something to do too maybe? if it only takes a few cycles to get the world back on it's feet is acceptable as well. we can handle this. Still what about the UFW's view on taking a UGEI world? are they going to help or join in?

-The Fluff bringer

I don't really see why we're discussing taking civilian property (or at least their homes and cars), or consider them enemy combatants. As long as we appear as liberators, we can simply diplomatize the civilian/UGEI goverment/corporation heads, and either reach conditions of surrender, or execute them and replace them with figureheads of our own. In general, I think we should keep the planet running business as usual but without the UGEI's excessive taxes. That is IF we want to keep the planet and the resources it can bring.

If we're just doing a hit-and-run we can simply target the major industrial centers and blow them to smithereens (granted, there will no doubt be civilian casualties, but that seems like an acceptable loss - this IS a war, and while we're not going out of our way to kill enemy workers, it seems foolish to assume we'll be able to win this war by striking at their military arm alone), unless we have taken it (in the short term) reliably enough to tell all the workers to get out of those areas before we wreck them. ::Then we simply leave and let the UGEI handle the problem - if it seems like they're going to starve and the UGEI don't really care or are too incompetent to provide, we'll just have to buy some cheap rations in bulk from the UFW and design a food-producing class of droid that we leave on the planet (with self-destruct systems if it looks like it's about to be tampered with).

--Hust91 (talk) 02:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

The UFW see the UGEI people as a bunch of overprivilaged tyrants, and while they don't necessarily have anything against the civvies, they have great reason to distrust them, since moles and terrorist are not unheard of. If you wanted the UFW to take over, you'd need to convince them that doing so is a good idea, to stretch their resources thinner then they already are. Another important factor here is gonna be what sort of government type you introduce. I could see you building thousands of androids to do all the low tier jobs and work the humans use to do, and, in a society like the U.S.A's, that would be bad since unemployment and poverty rates rocket up. And if you plan to change the government at all, expect a lot of unhappy people at first, no matter what it is. The problem with humans will always be their inability to agree on one thing. So expect unrest, and perhaps riots. But once things do calm down, such ventures are, normally, rather beneficial. Of course, there is nothing saying you can't just slash and burn planets as you go, but it's worth noting, news of such events has a way of getting out, even if propaganda is already spreading about The Guild as we speak.

--Program0 (talk) 08:09, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I had a feeling this would wind up like this. the bad propaganda would make our job so much harder. If the UGEI general civilian population will think we are just as bad or worse than what the UGEI does, they will resist us far more. However, once the unrest calms down, we can unleash a freer captialistic/libertarian type market. It will be a change from how UGEI ran the place and it would be a intresting expriment for once. i DON'T want ophion to be seen as a monster. but being the good guy also means that you just can't roll over everyone in your path as you rush for your goal. Besides, IF Kronos wakes up and is not screwed up from the conversion. he can still push the fight with UGEI while we settle down Jake's Gambit. or have Kronos handle the people while we keep fighting the UGEI. we are not alone in this any more, remember?

-The Fluff bringer

The reasons Program0 listed is precisely why I think we should screw with the existing goverment as little as possible. Eliminate obviously corrupt officials or those who won't cooperate, greatly lower the taxes and then let everything continue as it always has while offering them to buy products from of our own making, or ones we buy off the UFW and ship to them if there is demand.

I disagree that building robots to do low-tier jobs would necessarily be a bad thing. It would absolutely be if we kept the current goverment model, but with a Basic Income model there is no need for anyone to work, and "unemployed" just means you're free to do whatever you want, pursue whatever passions you dream of pursuing, not that your family will starve. Now, I don't say we should do that, just that if we did, the result of automation is not necessarily unemployment as we know it today.

What I do suggest, is that we employ androids to keep the peace - working as law officials and guardians. We should also set up a television show that is not so much a propaganda station, as somewhere where citizens can send in questions about just about anything, and it starts by clarifying the most common rumors and myths about the UGEI, the UFW, and The Guild.

"Now that we have this wonderful planet at our mercy, will we be plundering you of resources and stealing away your women for our fiendish appetites? Well, if you count taxes as plundering, we'll actually be plundering you less than you're used to, and a bigger part of that plunder will be used for projects that actually benefit you. As for your women, no, I'm afraid not. Pretty as they are, we're kind of big on this whole 'human rights' thing, and for those who are new to the concept of having rights, you can find precisely what they are at this extranet address, but the most important parts are X, Y and Z." (Insert whatever standards for everyone we want to support)

In essence, minimize the damage done by rumors and misinformation, make it clear that we're not going to mess with their system of goverment if they like it, show them what we offer them as a company and in general keep an appearance of transparency and open communication without fear of being taken away in the night.

--Hust91 (talk) 22:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, i wasn't thinking of kicking the working human population out and replacing them with droids. i was thinking of using the human workers to help make our droid army. The droid can be taken else where to fight or what ever. I think there are quite a number of surviving humans in that system that have lost their jobs due to the Malorians burned their work places down. Also, if we can get the broadcasting systems back up, it will be a perfect place for Apollo to try out his shows and movies there!

-The Fluff bringer

Part about having robots take jobs was mostly to clarify what I meant to Program0, as he seemed to have gotten that impression. (Was unsure if it would be considered rude to interject my reply to program0 right beneath his text, as you replied first, and figgered I'd play it safe and put it all here).

Not sure humans among droids is really practical - human soldiers require a positively MASSIVE supply train in order to be effective and not starve, succumb to diseases, die from lack of extraction (our drones are only as valuable as the materials they are made of and their tactical location). They might be used to garrison planets, sure, but then they'd be more like police/militia than soldiers and would be essentially be hired just to be around, be able to use weapons and protecting each other.

--Hust91 (talk) 07:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Xenos

1: Are the Malorians related to humans somehow, considering their extreme similiarities?

Carbon based, most likely. I'm no biologist, but I'd say it has something to do with the nature of how their species evolved in the first place. Their own primitive genes are surprisingly close to chimps actually.

-Program0

What I read: "Malorians are actually humans with some genetic engineering done." in order to be that close to humanity.

Ha. Feel free to believe that if you like, though in my head it's because their homeworld is basically earth but more jungly. Lots more jungly.

-Program0

2: Are we likely to meet any more sapient 'alien' aliens out there (The Losirians are pretty neat, but still humanoid and working in similar mind-patterns to humans. Compare with Zerg, 40k Daemons, or the Lightlings)?

I like the Losirians because they're not necessarily all monsters, though you've not yet gotten to see that part. They are pretty violent though. Hopefully it'll come up in quest. Zerg: I'd looooove to throw a zerg enemy in the middle of this, but I feel like it might draw focus away from the story a bit, since they're damn strong, enough so to be worried. Daemons: Pffft, if I did that, I feel like everyone would start losing their shit. Even the A.I. But no, that'd be way too powerful, I think...though I have considered psychic/void/mind power stuff. I'm still not really sure what to do with it though, and think it might be an unnecessary addition if I handled it poorly. Different Space Beasts: Possibly. I like the idea that, somewhere out in space, there's weird crazy animals, but at the same time it gets kinda hard to make them make sense biology wise if I hope to maintain a layer of science ontop of all this, even if it is soft. Which I would very much like to do.

-Program0

A zerg-like one (in broad strokes, obviously. It might even be a mutation from overuse of the Malorians hyperevolution-causing virus) would probably be necessary when we get to cracking planets to convert their entire mass to fleets, drones and processor units. They'd probably be the only thing (save another civilization that converts entire planets to resources) able to stand up to us. And I like how the Losirians are not going to be all Monsters (maybe this should be in Feedback..), but it makes it even clearer that they are nearly-human aliens ([6]).

Didn't mean the suggestions literally, but the kind of order of "alienness" of the aliens. For example, something like lightlings but entirely sapient with their own culture and technology. Zerg, 40k Daemons and the Lightlings are all strictly in the Starfish Alien category [7] (feel free to take inspiration from that page. Tvtropes is pretty epic for inspiration) which was why I meant, rather than implementing some kind of "toootally not zerg/daemons/Lovecraftian Horror" races.

I mean, just look at all the diversity of earth, especially deep-sea creatures or the things found in Australia and South America. They look extremely alien, and we haven't even left the planet yet. Who knows what creatures that grew up under completely different conditions (pressure, gravittional pull, temperature, atmosphere) might look like? We might have something like sapient mold, crab-like things that can't survive temperatures below -170 degrees Celsius and consider ice to be a solid construction material, a race that has uploaded itself entirely to computers, creatures that are actually just the "fingers" that some over-dimensional being is reaching into our dimension akin to us putting our fingers among bacteria on the 2d space of our kitchen table or sapient insect swarms (that are actually the size of insects, but use individial insects both for thought and as limbs).

Is really more of a wishlist for how aliens 'should' look like, since we have the advantage of a written medium we don't need to have aliens that can be portrayed by human actors or even ones with a mindset we can relate to. Probably somewhat selfish, but I figgered I might as well bring it forward in the hopes that others enjoy it as well.

-Subroutine 190491

You know, the Zerg were inspiration for what happened on Eshareth, but I considered it a more primitive sort of planet life. But the actual zerg (that is, sentient hive mind bug beasts) kinda revolve around the idea of psychic powers too, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring that into this and all. But the good thing about space is at any time I can say something warps in to one of your planets. I've already established biological warp is possible after all. Don't you worry though, I have an idea for a more impending sort of doom. I may play with the Eshareth mutations a bit more, though. Might make for an interesting side thing.

Oh yeah, I went with humanoid simply because I think it fit the image. I have a whole little side thing for the Losirians that I hope you all will get to see. Heh, and yeah humanoid aliens do feel convenient, but the humanoid shape makes sense for a lot of sentient races simply because of tool making and the like. Evolution's not limited by our own puny imaginations though and all that good stuff. I'm glad you like em though!

Ah, of course. Like I implied I was going for a semi smart feeling with the larger specimens. It's a shame I haven't gotten to bring Lightlings back in, but you're exploring mostly heavily populated sectors recently. They are more common in Malorian space and neutral sectors. (They infest Marauder's Grave for example, I am thinking.) Since they don't get murdered there a lot. I've always tried to think of races like Hanar and try and make them building space ships and stuff make sense, but...I dunno it's always been sorta hard for me. They're cool races, but I like to make them make sense in my head first.

Nah I appreciate all the enthusiasm you seem to have for this. Makes me feel good to inspire the thought and all! I have no doubt I could go on for ages about all manner of crazy aliens in this universe. But I'm picking a select few, and considering maybe some that would be minor races, that may not show up much but exist. Not sure yet though exactly how I'd do all that.

-Program0

I realized something recently. Both the UFW and the UGEI and others know about Lightings/space krakens. But has anyone encountered OTHER space based Xeno life forms? Are you going to leave that as an open ended question Program0, or is there a set amount of such things in this setting that you are poised to spring on us later?

The Fluff bringer

Open ended, really. Space Krakens, and warp space in general, are the 'mystic' element of the quest, the one fueled nearly entirely by my imagination. I hope to keep it from breaking anyone's suspension of disbelief, of course, but...well. Other things may be out there.

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

There is also a point we need to connect up the Malorians on Dresh system with our Latuma tribe. As an act of kindness if they want to be joined up with their own kind. On the other hand, we need to stop the out of control problem in our Eshareth system before it spreads too far to contain it. Program0, we HAVE to clean up this mess and soon.

-The Fluff bringer

I had to stop and think about this. Those new crystals act much like Lightings. But they can't seem to generate true warp movement like the lightings can. they attach themselves to sides of ships (or ship like things) and drain them of energy. they are not crystal version of the zombie fungus. they are like a combination of leeches and barnacles. these crystals must have originally preyed on the lightings themselves.

-The Fluff bringer

Kronos

Program0, has Moira figured out that Kronos is the same program that killed all those workers on the station by now or not? Also, a quick correction on your pastebin. Hades should be called Oceanus to keep up with the titan naming theme. It fits with him being the over seer of our fleet. if we ever do put a V.I. over seeing the droid army, we should name him Hekatonkheires, which would be fitting as well for a being with complete control of one hundred arms and fifty heads.

-The Fluff bringer

She has not. Kronos hasn't told her, since he doesn't think it matters, and she thinks you either got rid of it, or assigned it several restrictions at the least. Wouldn't she be happy to hear good ol' Kronos killed all those people? And no, I named him Hades just because he's now split between three BCs which he renamed himself. You'll have too many V.I. to name them all after Titans, heh.

-Program0

Unorganized

Previously you mentioned something about robots costing a lot of gas. So my question is, both from an out-of-game and in-game perspective, why would they need to cost gas? I mean, we don't exactly expect them to perform any warp jumps? And it's not like they're unlikely to meet forces that are way out of proportion with anything a small team could manage when going up against entire planetary civilizations?

This may just be me, but I don't think it's entirely fair to excuse circuits and stuff as requiring gas to save on micro when you previously said that we can't gather just any gas for the Gas resource. Would not circuits be more properly conveyed either by a third resource "Advanced Components" or something like that (and even then robots would hopefully cost far less due to their absurdly much smaller size compared to a ship), or simply by a minerals-only cost (assuming 'minerals' is a catch-all for most resources, as opposed to being a distinctive kind of mineral)? I just find gas precious enough without it having to double as normal fuel AND advanced components in addition to being necessary for FTL when there supposedly are less precious resources we could use.

And we'll eventually want something like ground forces (you know we'll want a mechanical Zealot and Zergling one day), in which case making each robot cost substantial resources makes both little sense and the whole idea of ground warfare entirely unviable. And that's one part I was looking forward to a lot, especially exploring how fleet and ground forces can work together to complete objectives.

Thought I'd offer my take, and wondering about others' as well as Program0's response.

-Subroutine 190491

Assume gas is the 'special' resource. Various amounts are used in the forging of special equipment. Delicate instruments that use high powered processors come from this gas. It's difficult for me to make it make sense, I realize, but the way it works in my head is minerals are the 'bulk' resource. Larger things require more minerals, and they make up the majority of armor and steel. Gas is the 'power' resource. Used to generate energy, and to apply to more complex, if smaller machines. Imagine it like adding diamond fragments to motherboards, but the diamond bits are hardened gas fragments. Out of the game, it's a balancing issue. I intended for androids to be both a war unit, and a specialized unit, but I realized that, unless I made some sort of restriction, they'd quickly become overpowered. So, I tried to compromise. Bulk androids are cheap in all ways. Specialized androids can get a little expensive gas wise. Just enough so you don't mass produce those. Of course this may all be futile, since eventually, I predict your resources will grow to a point that you have no limits. I hope that makes sense.

I am hoping to keep the resource system as simple as I possibly can. As a result, I feel sticking with two resources is best. The reason advanced components isn't minerals is because minerals are fucking EVERYWHERE. So it'd be too easy to make armies of heavily specialized androids that could wipe out planets. Think of it this way, if it helps. In this universe, this 'gas' substance can be hardened and crystallized to be used in components. This makes them far more effective at being used in robot parts then diamonds, gold, or any other precious material.

If you want to make simple battle androids on the ground, though, that may not cost any notable gas amount at all. (like Zealots) since it simply requires simple components to be made. By your standards, anyway. I hope this has been enlightening.

-Program0

Why would we not want to make armies of heavily specialized androids (When you say 'Android' do you mean only the humanoid-shaped bots or all ground-bots?), considering that they're likely to go up against equally formidable and far, far, far more vast numbers (a planet with 6 billion inhabitants and mandatory militia service for all young males, for example? You see what I'm getting at) of enemies? A human soldier can be very cheap in terms of resources (especially if you don't have to feed them for long), while ours consist entirely of high-quality materials and have to be produced for the purpose. Humans are simply there in absurd numbers already and only need to be given a gun and the know-how to use it.

I'd also like to know what counts as a "heavily specialized" bot? Would the small spider-bots count as heavily specialized, even if most of their 'modifications' are low-tech ones like wheels and adhesives? Especially since that would kind of ruin their purpose - being cheap to mass-produce and swarm enemies. The number of high-tech mods requiring advanced circuits?

One of the things I'm trying to get at is that there is probably little need to curtail us on the ground since we are likely to be mindboggingly outnumbered and outgunned there, and need every advantage we can get. Even more so if we actually want to take cities intact and can't just ask our orbital artillery to level the enemy army. And is always fun when you don't have to hold back what kind of forces we'd actually face when invading an entire planet.

Something else I've been meaning to ask about is the very modest increase in efficiency on optimizing ships for being run without remote control. Why only 50% better if the vast majority of the ship's systems were dedicated to preserving the life of the inhabitants? Or is that optimization upgrade really just one of "turn off and remove the unneeded stuff, leave the corridors bare" as opposed to "redesign the ship with the bare essentials and fill out all previously occupied space with processors, weapon systems, heavy bulkheads, power systems and armor" which you'd think would double or even triple efficiency?

Or is the spare space simply collapsed, so that we talk about an efficient "V.I. controlled Battlecruiser" it packs 150% the punh of a regular battlecruiser and about as much mass, but only has the volume of a far smaller cruiser/frigate, and for all the rest of the world looks like it's one size smaller than it should be? Am mostly ruminating here, really. Thought 150% efficiency seemed like little if only something like 20-40% of the ship would normally be dedicated to things like engines, hull, processors and weapons, while we can dedicate 99-100% of our ships' mass and volume to those things.

If it's a result of the re-making being inefficient, how does this affect ships we build from scratch to work without a human crew? Would they get a more substantial bonus? (If I'm reading the response my ship-suggestion above correctly, it does seem like we're getting more than 150% bang for our buck compared to a manned vessel, but I may be misinterpreting)

-Subroutine 190491

I mean all ground bots. And when I say specialized, it's important to realize I mean to say: You can't create city destroyers, and make them on the cheap. But you could make, say, a standard fighter that's a match for human soldiers at a reasonably cheap cost. Now also remember, I expect you guys to have a lot of resource nodes near the end of this, so the super death droids may actually become the bulk of your army in the end. But until they, I'll reign it in just a little bit. Lets say you make a fighting force to take on a planet with 6 billion people. You'd need, say, a fraction of that (soldiers) to fight man for man. An army that size might cost around, say, a few thousand minerals, which is your most populous resource currently. That's considerable, especially since, if you did win such a prize, you could salvage your destroyed bots, turn the planet into your own mines (possibly), and get who knows what else from the rest? Alternatively, you could have several ultra specialized bots, death bringers, Tripods, whatever you make em like, and those would cost an equal or greater cost but in minerals AND gas, as opposed to just minerals. The reasoning I give is because A. Gas= power as well as advanced components for higher level tech, and B. These would, and should, be harder to make, since gas is so valuable.

Ideas for 'Heavily specialized bots off the top of my head= Tripods, Titan bots (think transformers without the transforming), Ocean sized Nano swarm (it'll happen eventually) things like that. When I said the cost would exist a while ago, I meant that, say, equipping all your androids with giant plasma cannons, lets say, would get costly. And no, the spider bots aren't, unless, say, you equipped all of them with a high yield explosive load. A simple reminder= More destructive potential generally will mean higher gas cost. Except for something like, cloaking, I guess. But you get the point.

I suppose I see your point, but you should remember, tg loves to overkill if it can. If I didn't assign a cost at all, they'd build 10 million tripods and destroy everything, yes? Don't you worry, though. These are very minor nerfs, and I don't intend to make it more difficult for you to take planets alive at all, I simply am making it more fair. You'd only have a few thousand super augmented artillery then instead of a billion. And, at a certain point once you have enough bases, the cost will become negligible, perfect for taking massively populated worlds in a hellstorm of plasma and death.

...uh, I think you misread the increase. Combat efficiency increased 150%, not just 50%, when you redesigned all your ships. That's pretty significant. A little more than double, and when I say 'efficiency', I also mean health. Collapsing and reducing the size of those ships also gives them more hit points, better protection against hard point damage, and provides you with bandwidth, not to mention the higher accuracy allowed from the data banks, and the energy efficiency given to the shields and point defense. Why do you think you utterly wreck most fleets that are equal in size to yours? All those things considered, I think 150% is a good number. Ships you make from scratch come auto redesigned. They're much cheaper by far to make than other ships their size too, since some other races need to have a manned crew. The UGEI often use automated systems, but even they don't use the methods you do. They'd probably come the closest however.

-Program0

Ooh, so by "specialized" you kind of meant "humongous" or "powerful enough to function as a humongous robot or cruiser in low orbit", and not "regular-sized bot but with many nifty features that makes it substantially better than a human soldier in combat"?

Also, "a fraction of 6 billion" is still likely to be anywhere from 1 billion (if mandatory militia service) to 60 million. Our smallest bots may be worth 5 or even 10 soldiers each due to low size, nimble-ness and lethality, but I doubt you'll give us a thousand of cat-sized bots for the 1 point of minerals necessary to fight them head on at those values. We WILL need to use our units efficiently, even when creating them on the cheap. That said, am hoping there'll be some conservation for sense.

There are nearly always ways to balance things out (See above link about nanoswarms), especially things an enemy can do to balance them out. Nukes, for example, are not absurdly expensive to make compared to the damage they cause, and the controlling factor for why they are not always is used is not their cost, but their collateral.

In space, their Area of Effect is negligible and they'll be able to be intercepted. Planetside, very rarely will we want to nuke something we could take, like a city, and the enemy will know this. Battles on empty fields like in the first Star Wars are nearly entirely a thing of the past already and ultimately our ships may well be able to provide nuke-level firepower without cost already (with the caveat that they have to be in orbit and have to blast their way underground).

But that things would cost more as they grow in size or require exotic materials (which may well be necessary just to keep them together above a certain size) is understandable. A tank is substantially more expensive than a soldier, after all. When they approach starship sizes they're obviously going to approach starship costs, probably even more since they also need substantial systems to move in gravity. And this universe does have remarkably small ships compared to most.

One more thing I'm wondering about, when you say "high-explosive", just how explosive do you mean?

If you mean something like the absurdly efficient explosives used in the Starship Troopers movies I can understand some cost, but the idea for the spider-bot was something more akin to a package of C4. Blow a door or a tank if you get close enough, but that's really frickin' hard. They've certainly not imbalanced warfare, so I'm hoping we'll still have (relatively) cheap C4-packages to use. I do see the general point though, and I do keep in mind the general purpose of making the quest as fun as it can be.

And yeah, it looks like I did misread. Thought you meant they were now operating at 150% capacity, not a 150% increase. My bad, that makes more sense, yeah.

That does leave the question though, are our ships "collapsed" to have very few open interior spaces (the minimum needed to make the miniimum size maintenance bot able to do their jobs) by standard, and thus look one size-class (arguably two classes, with the 150% increse, not sure how much more poerful each size-class is to the one preceding it) smaller than the mass it's packing, or would that be something we'd have to denote specifically for each class of ship?

Oh, and another thing! Ship ranges!

Whenever we enter a system, we seem to be entering it right in the fray. Is there something preventing us from arriving closer to the edge of the system, or at least a few light-minutes from planets instead of nearly-in-orbit?

At what ranges can certain weapons feasible operate?

Against stationary targets (for a given value of stationary, a planet isn't likely to make course corrections) the range of projectile weapons is likely infinite (though time-consuming), but what about lasers? And considering how quickly projectiles from different weapons travel, how far can we attack from before the enemy is nigh-certain to make course corrections in time?

(I do apologize if these posts become inconvenient. I very much enjoy discussing the game in both a meta and a practical sense like this)

-Subroutine 190491

In general, yes. That's super specialized. Or 'battalions' of weaker, but still specially equipped units, of a different sort of value.

I see your point, though in all honesty, when we deal with that scale, I'll be eyeballing the fractions and such. A.I. Quest has enough math without massive scale added, heh.

Yeah, I imagine nukes are largely shunned by human society. And point defense can handle them as well, unless taken out first and all that.

Your ships are not built to fire on ground targets, it's important to remember this. Energy weapons are designed specifically to melt armor and slice through ships. It CAN destroy cities and kill people, but it'd be slow at it. A mass driver would be really good at killing lots of people (collateral as hell), but it's also incredibly inaccurate at such a range. So you'd have to spray the entire continent to hit stuff right. Missiles are, as I said a while ago, designed to chase ships and penetrate armor. They explode, like any good missile does on the surface, but nukes, by far, do WAY more damage, splash wise especially, planetside. The radiation is an additional 'fuck you, organics' too.

I meant high explosives, like, building wrecking level. C-4 level would likely be fine, at a smaller gas cost. Just one is negligible, I'd figure. (or hell, maybe I should just have you buy the materials. You guys need an outlet for credits, anyway.)

I said that? Hm. I had been assuming 150% increase. That's likely more appropriate then, since the ships were completely changed around, to the point humans can barely fit in them anymore. And no, yeah, all your ships look pretty damn small. The weapons and power signature give away their true class, but it really makes pirates cocky. That's why they rarely run from you, until you start blowing shit up. They like big ships.

I don't fully understand what you mean by ranges, since Kronos' last fight required him to move forward. But you usually arrive just at the edge of a gravity well. Since that's where most ships arrive, most ships are there anyway when you arrive. Weapons, as I stated usually go Missiles are long to mid range, Energy is mid to long range (more all arounder), and mass drivers are mid to close. Energy is usually fastest, followed by mass drivers, and finally missiles. Missiles make up for it because of tracking. Ship battle computers automatically attempt dodges (well made ships anyway), and if you're using a weapon out of range, it'll take notice and try to adjust properly to avoid it.

Nah I enjoy it too. Helps me flesh out, and realize how much stuff I forget about when I make stuff. Remember I made this whole quest on a whim, and had very little material to go on from the start. I'm proud having made all this up so far with all of you guys helping.

-Program0

What I mean by ranges is that we always seem to be entering a system well within range of potential or actual enemies' firing range, and not just the missile range (which I think is more or less infinite as long as you can wait for it to arrive - it doesn't need to waste fuel all the time, after all. Just enough to get it going and then cruise along, but is ultimately your game), and wonder why we can't warp in well outside the medium range of places where ships are likely to be.

I might as well bring this up here as well; why would dodging missiles (one time, that is) be exceedingly difficult and require tons of bandwidth when you have tumble thrusters that can actually move your ship faster than the missile is traveling?

Isn't it just a matter of having said battle computer calculate the optimal time of firing them (aka, no need for slow-mo time, just a schedule) and then do so?

And the game is very fun. If I may make a recommendation, I'd say do like The SCP Foundation and the Orion's Arm project and don't set anything in stone. If something doesn't make sense, just retcon it. The ease of retcons is one of the big beauties of this format. And seriously, thanks for having that whim!

-Subroutine 190491

The most obvious reason is because if you move too far away from the destined path, you have a very slight chance of ramming into space debris. It doesn't take much at warp speed to destroy your ship, and all. Most ships follow this rule, just out of respect for not being exploded on impact. Of course, not all planetary systems are at risk this way, and really, if you WANTED to jump into darker space, you could. But I may make a chance roll for it. You know. Just to be sure.~

Bandwidth costs go into calculating the optimal time. That's what bandwidth is for-calculations. Something you need to know about missiles-they're moving fast. VERY fast. They have to, to get anywhere in space. Now, when your ships are moving? They seem slow. But when you're setting up for combat? They are coming at you fast. You could always stay on the move, but like I said, most missiles are tracking. Their mass is considerably less then yours, and thus, they're much easier to change directions and speeds. That's what makes em so deadly. Dumbfire are relatively easy to dodge. Those tumble things would likely buy you a turn before you have to dodge the missile again(giving your Point Defense yet another chance to shoot it down.). Or hell, you could aim at it manually with lasers and try to destroy it that way.

Oh believe me anon, that's what I'm doing. Nothing is really set in stone. I play fast and loose with everything I am allowed to, and the more questions you guys ask, the more I realize how loose I am. It's a little scary, but as long as people enjoy it, then I will continue. I do try to nail down some bits, so in the end everything IS fair. That's why I enjoy the questioning, and come here so often. I love answering questions, thinking of shit I didn't before, and trying to explain it, and/or admit I fucked up and change it. I am so happy people like you guys enjoy it though. I hope I can bring A.I. Quest to a satisfying conclusion some day. I love the whole damn project.

<3 Program0

The calculations shouldn't be that hard, though? And since they're slow (compared to things like railguns) and often fired from absurd distances that leave even railguns with noticable travel time, surely you have a lot of time to calculate when they will be in position? I mean, railgun rounds are absurdly much faster, and they're still unviable against smaller ships at longer ranges because the calculation is near-instant, and the major time-factor is being able to move out of the way?

Of course, without the tumble-thrusters there's really no way for a ship to avoid a missile since they can't maneuver faster than them, not even for a brief second (I'm fairly sure they would kill any humans aboard, due to the sudden acceleration). An unguided projectile would be easier but strictly limited to a certain range (the limit being due to the time it takes to deploy and detonate the explosive).

The point of the thrusters would, of course, be to buy one more turn to get point defenses another shot at it. My only point is that the path of missiles isn't particularly difficult to predict - hence Mass Effect's GARDIAN point defence system being able to boast a 100% succcess rate early in the battle that sinks as the heating lasers become inaccurate, never because they couldn't predict where a missile would be at a certain point in time. This can technically be done even with a calculator. I believe modern Snipers actually do it with what only boils down to a pen, a paper and a calculator.

Oh, and another thing you may want to consider is heat. Heat is hard to get rid of in space. Now, for all I know this universe ha some crazy-efficient heat-sinks or radiators that essentially renders it a non-issue, but I thought I'd mention it.

And I love being able to help build the world and add thoughts that occur to me and see them reflected in this universe. It feels like we all had a hand in creating it, a symphony of non-suspension-of-disbelief-breaking gameplay and fluff while still being a ton of fun to play. And I hope it'll reach a satisfying conclusion as well, preferably one with a lot of hooks for spin-offs, sequels and potential for characters from it to be used in other stories.

Oh, and don't be afraid to ask for help with the technical stuff. The offer to make an excel page that automatically does the math when you type in the rolls still stands, and we can also help out in brainstorming for ways to make mechanics both more practical and easier to calculate or easier to get a good estimate.

(By the way, google will automatically show a response if you google something like "Parsec" or "Surface Area of Earth". Only recently discovered that, but it's very handy.

-Subroutine 190491

That is actually a good point and I should probably take on better excuses than 'there's no time', since you're a super computer who can calculate near perfectly. If I do make something that doesn't make sense in that manner, than let me know, and suggest methods like overheating, or other such brilliant things. The effect would be the same, it's just the fluff behind the reasoning to keep stuff balanced is all. For some reason, I didn't think of heat being a problem, but you're right about that. It's what keeps all weapons from firing nonstop. Man, I really should've thought of that before now.

And yes, you're all really helping me build this universe as we go, I admit that. I had almost nothing, a handful of ideas in my pocket and nothing else when we started. Now, look at this page! It's packed with stuff. I love it.

For the end...well...space is a big place, you know. That's why it's my favorite setting. Once I acknowledge aliens exist, I can pretty much go anywhere with it. And, while replying to all of you, I've been thinking up a few ideas about where this'll all end. No idea how we'll get there, but that's part of the journey, I suppose.

I remember, and appreciate the offer. But most of the work, nowadays anyway since I simplified the combat a while ago(just a little bit), comes from bookkeeping. Instead of keeping track of specific numbers of weapon mounts and such, I'm gonna have to go with the vague "It has this type of weapon equipped" type of thing. It won't be a big change, not a noticeable one anyway. Before too long, when your fleet reaches the hundreds, I may have to do the same with ships. But that'll take a while for now.

-Program0

Will let you know when I do. I do so hate when the gulf between fluff and crunch starts getting so big that it ceases to make sense. It's just no fun at that point, in my experience. Heat is - again, referring to Mass Effect - the primary problem in creating stealthy ships. They can't radiate any heat substantially higher than zero without being detected, they can only store so much heat before everyone inside is boiled alive, and conventional engines are a complete no-go since they're ALL heat.

And just checking that you remember that the help is out there if the work or need for ideas starts getting too hefty. Seen far too many quests fail because the workload became too much for the G/Q/DM when there were plenty of players around that were willing to take some load off their backs, and that's a damn shame. In the meantime, let's keep the awesome rolling in!

--Hust91 (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, I hope to keep fluff and crunch within the realms of sense. And yes, heat is how most ships are detected in space anyway, since it's dead cold in space almost all the time. Stealth ships would utilize that, I imagine. Mass Effect did that part right, I think. And yes, but heat can also wreck havoc on electronics of all sorts, don't forget. Computers perform much better in intense cold, as I understand it. Processors do anyway. So it's really useful in that it's a limitation that both humans and robots have to abide by.

Mm. I do appreciate it. You guys are really helpful. The only thing I really feel bad about these days is how big the OP usually is, since I know it's a fuck ton to chew through for everyone, which is why I try to label it for those who want only certain bits. Damn that character limit, and my own purple prose. I also feel bad that, a lot of these cool ideas don't work quite as well in big fleet combat, since some are more suited to one on one. But such is the cost of increasing scope and all that, I suppose.

-Program0

Ohyeah, we're not going to get free stealth ships. We have many advantages, but that isn't likely to be one of them (though again, not having to make space for a crew would be a major boon as we have far more internal space to spare).

And you could just show us or ruminate about the reactions of enemy ship captains or other sapients when our ships pull off something completely out of left field for them - like having a smaller ship of ours (like our BC versus their BC or one of our destroyers versus one of their cruisers) being rammed by a big ship made for sapients (and thus far less dense) with our ship simply getting jammed through their superstructure/in their armor while otherwise being little worse for wear.

Or pirates attacking what looks like a small convoy of seemingly small ships only for them to power up their systems, reveal that the initial attack barely had any effect (again, being solid nearly all the way through immensely increases what kind of damage a ship can take compared to one that's honeycombed with empty spaces) and start tossing back munitions that no ship of that size should be able to carry.

I could try to write a summary, if you want?

Like a quest or game that actually starts in the middle of the action, it gives a quick summary of the current situation and then "Wat do?", followed by the usual options. We don't have to expand on the entire history, just what's happening right now and what options are available to us and what each one implies.

--Hust91 (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I already figured that already heh. I like to give reactions from other crew, and other ships. Especially pirates. They're usually a riot.

Yep. Like I said, that 150% bonus was to all your stats. Armor, Weapon efficiency, etc.

Write a summary? Of what exactly? You mean what we were saying above? Because I already intended to do just that for other crews and such. I usually try to do that when you guys are in combat actually.

-Program0

By 'Summary', I was actually thinking about the initial post being large and a barrier of entry.

We could rewrite it be more like one of those "Wat do" situations where all the immediately relevant information is right there and all you have to do is choose. Newcomers can pick up the larger picture later if they're intereted, but for now all the relevant information (What's going on right now, what the likely consequences of each step will be and who we are playing as) is right there and they can get right into the thread without having to read through the archives first.

Hm. I suppose I could add a choice like that in the OP, to make it more engagable. Would still have the 3-5 other posts, but people wouldn't have to read those, I suppose. Though, action isn't always going on, so it may be something a bit more tame. I'll give it some thought to see if I can't adjust that...

-Program0

Doesn't always have to be action going on. As long as the player is asked to make a choice, any choice, it can probably be put in a format like that. "You are Ophion, an Artificial Intelligence and leader of an organization called "The Guild". You have these resources at a disposal and these things are happening (distress signal, research waiting, Kronos/Apollo/Moira, your human roboticist wanting to speak with you, time to watch the newly constructed ships/bots perform in a training session,), what do you want to do?

--Hust91 (talk) 16:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

On the potential for making a missile carrier - while this is no doubt deadly, it's probably not economical.

What I'd suggest instead is to simply keep it a fighter carrier, but to arm all those fighters with several dumbfire missiles instead - possibly a complement of multi-warhead or gunship missiles as well for closer defense (now that I think about it, gunship missiles serve the same purpose as fighters, except they're only intended against destroyers. The fighters can get close enough that dodging becomes unfeasible, and replacing dumbfires is far cheaper than replacing guided missiles, effectively getting us 4 guided missiles for the price of one guidance system (which they hitch a ride on to the target) that is replacable.

Of course, we could still carry a complement of regular missiles to fit the fighters with, in the event of them facing off against other fighters, of course.

And we can have the main body of the fighter contain several tracking warheads or a high-explosive warhead in the cone as well! They don't even need to kamikaze, they just fly towards the target, gently nudge the warhead(s) out of the cone and then change their bearing, letting the warhead ram into the ship or the multi-warheads start picking targets (or accelerate towards pre-chosen ones).

Heck, considering that they're automated I'd be kind of suprised if none of them were outfitted like this already. The fighters are essentially re-usable missiles that only spend the explosive part (Arguably the cheapest - you can make deadly explosive rockets today on pocket change, but considering the power of the ones we seem to have here it may be substantially more expensive) and the fuel.

--Hust91 (talk) 12:02, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like it would cost a similar amount to the Missile Carrier(Since I assume you're giving each fighter multiple rockets as opposed to just the one smart fire one), but do a little less damage with more accuracy. You still are paying for the missiles and all. Fighters are in danger of being hit by Point Defenses too, due to their sensitive systems (and getting too close). And carrying dumbfire rockets, AND guided rockets is a little much. They're not that big. The nose of fighters is fitted with guidance technology to help them fly without crashing into each other.

-Program0

A little less damage, but a lot more re-usability (only dumbfires are consumed, fighters are only lost to point defenses, guided missiles would suffer from both). Surely fighters must be more durable against point defenses than missiles though, both due to more irregular flight paths, simply not getting that close, and pretty much needing some means of lasting longer against point defenses than your average missile takes to reach a ship in order to be viable, whether that be because it has shields, never getting within proper point-defense ranger or is better armored matters little, only that them still being in use implies they're not unviable compared to guided missiles in fleet combat.

This also wakes questions about FTL jumping. How close can you jump in on a ship? Do ships have some kind of field that denies warping in within a certain radius around them unless they allow it?

The reason this is important in relation to carriers is that the reason they're used today is because weapon technology have always been bounds ahead of defense technology, and so a carrier is powerful because it can send out ships to destroy you long before you can get close enough to destroy it. But if ships can simply jump in within regular weapons range within it, a form of Battlestar[8] (Battleship/Carrier) becomes necessary as a dedicated carrier-only becomes unable to defend itself against ships that can simply warp in right next to it and blow it to pieces before it can do much.

And I didn't mean that they should be carrying both, I meant that the carrier might have ammo stores of both, so that they can be armed with either guided anti-fighter missiles (because that's really the only reason they'd need them - that I can see, anyway. Can always hope their reduced size and payload reduces the price as well compared to the anti-ship version) or dumbfires. Making dedicated bombers is probably really worth the additional complexity and I'm not sure what additional features they'd have, but that's probably up for debate.

And the guidance technology can't be placed anywhere else? Oh well, how about simply placing a big (But ultimately just explosives) warhead-slot somewhere in the fighter's hull, then? And when we so choose, any fighter can have a nuclear warhead installed before battle or in pre-launch operations?

--Hust91 (talk) 00:12, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, that's why I figured you planned to do it. Also not getting that close? But I thought you wanted the fighters to deliver the missiles ontop of the other ships? One way or the other, one of them will be in danger. The Fighter, or the missile, depending on the distance they are at. And if it's dumbfire and they fire from farther away to protect the fighter, there's that miss chance.

Actually, MOST UGEI and UFW forces uses guided missiles. Mostly for simplicity sake. They don't bother with the dumb counterpart for the most part. Military likes the ability to fire and forget.

FTL jumps? Pretty much. It's why you can't warpjump into ships usually. Interference.

Oh, warping in battle? Hell no. It takes several very long minutes to calculate safe warp jumps, and even then you can't do it into other ships, as listed a second ago.

Ammo stores would probably be alright. Most Fighters use lasers to fight each other, by the way. Missiles are seen as too powerful to waste on such small enemies. Usually, anyway.

You want Kamakaze units?

Eh.

Sure, why the hell not?

-Program0

Well, the guided fighters aren't traveling the entire distance to the ship, the cheap dumbfire takes the last stretch (when it's easiest to hit them and the lasers suffer from negligible beam diffusion).

And figured the fighters would stand up to point defenses longer than missiles some way or other - noone would use them if they fell as quickly as missiles, would they?

And would still like to know how close we COULD safely warp in. Medium Range? Long Range? Extremely Long Range?

Also, what are the results of an unsafe warp jump? Being placed randomly in the general target area, thus being at risk of crashing lethally on arrival? Getting stuck in the "inbetween space" and getting torn apart by the forces there but not even debris exiting?

If it's something like being unsure of where you'll end up, it may still be worthwhile to load entire destroyers full of volatile explosives and then jumping them in dangerously close anyway in major fleet actions (Often imagining this as a combined RPG and 4x game, so took a hint from Sword of the Stars with the Node Missile which is essentially a destroyer-vessel that's loaded with boom and then given cheap FTL engines. Doesn't really matter if a few of them miss their mark and get destroyed if you have a decent chance of getting a critical target - ships are very disposable for us, the only thing that matters is the economy of an action).

And if lasers are used by fighters to kill each other then nevermind about the guided ones. Though there was that one wikipedia article about smart-bullets that are essentially bullet-sized guided missiles for point-defense, though the guidance systems are very rudimentary, essentially just heat- or image-seeking. There's not really anything saying that a missile has to be of a certain size... But I digress, and something like that would doubtlessly require research.

And don't want kamikaze units so much as units that are easy to quickly turn into kamikaze units - AND it's a handy way to disguise that you're sending a nuclear missile at an enemy until it's too late. When the warhead-slot is not filled the fighters maneuverability is not impacted since there is negligible additional mass to carry, so there seems like there's little downside to building them that way.

Oh! And would like to direct you to the beginning of the Planning section, left a suggestion there but not sure if it's acceptable due to making a change in construction schedule.

--Hust91 (talk) 15:25, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Fighters are mostly really good at swarming a target, making it so they have too many targets to hit if they have heavy weapons and nothing else. Also to protect the core ship from attack. The Fighters are made to be replaceable, so they're not really built to last. I suppose if you really wanted tougher fighters, you could have a hundred or so (as opposed to a thousand) Heavy Fighters. But that's up to you guys to redesign shit.

As a general rule, most ships warp in at long range, and close from there. If you tried to take the time to calculate the distance to warp in to medium range, in battle no less, you'd be in danger. The only way to do it realistically is to have advanced sensor tech to allow you to warp in that close without getting out of position in combat.

"Risk of unsafe warp" All of the above, really. I also thought of having some fun with it, and doing a chance roll. A nat 1 might mean something like, say, you tear a hole in warp space temporarily, and it acts as a temporary black hole, sucking in everything around it and crushing it down into a singularity, before disappearing as space heals itself again. Unsafe warp jumps would basically be my creative license to get crazy, I suppose. I should make a random happenstance chart, honestly.

Shit man, it's like you can read my mind. I recently have been playing the hell out of SotS. That's where the slot idea is from. Anyway, yeah, if you wanted a node missile style ship, then that's just an investment you'd need to make, for potential devastating a enemy Battleship. (They are really powerful but I have an idea for a tier above it...we'll see.

Mass Driver based Point Defense? Interesting. I like it.

Well here I am to provide a downside! Aren't I the best? Erm, anyway, I'd figure that stuffing a fighter with nuclear material would mean it takes less damage to make it explode really hard (which isn't saying much since they're weak anyway), but it might catch other fighters in the blast if you're unlucky. Unless you make them fly plenty far apart of course.

Oh yes, I saw that. I was waiting to see if other anons would jump on it, but it doesn't seem many browse here, sadly. I can't make a construction change without at least 3-4 agreements (otherwise, others might feel cheated).

-Program0

Nearly sounds like unsafe warp jumps are "fun" personified. We should have more of those, then. Hell, we should try to make a warp-engine that just tosses a rock through instead of sending itself and hope to roll really low. Curious though, when using warping to escape, would aiming for interstellar void make it substantially easier (since there's nothing for lightyear around to hit or to interfere), or would the lessening in danger be negligible?

And ohyeah, empathic mindreading powers, go!

And mass-driver based point defenses is what we have today, isn't it? That suggestion was not so much mass-driver based as it was a tiny missile with a primitive guidance system, though.

That would be excellent! Except nukes (at least not modern ones) don't work like that (though it would still be a problem with more mundane warheads, but they probably don't have the blast range to affect other fighters in most formations). They don't pop if you shoot them, they'd just stop working. They only blow up if you activate them (which starts a very, very specific sequence of events). They're not volatile. When we get to antimatter missiles though? Antimatter is volatile as all hell, and I can think of few methods to make it any less so. (The usual sci-fi method for containing it is tiny (molecular) magnetic bottles. But if you break a single one...

And I suppose making them fly "plenty far apart" isn't unreasonable in space. Nukes have far reduced effect here and "close enough to be visible to the naked eye" is considered "melee/knifefight range" in the more well-thought-out sci-fi universes, which is obviously still well outside range of your average nuclear device. They're generally not AoE weapons in Space. The distance between ships is much too great unless they're trying to ram each other or flying in suicidally close formation.

Hum, if I may make a request/suggestion that you may be iffy about. Any chance we might be allowed to pull a vote on whether or not we actually decided to shove one or two of the Scavenger ships into the schedule sometime between the sessions? Until you've said otherwise, it's not technically a retcon - though even if it were, I feel many quests avoid retconning when it would've made the game all-around better. Presumably because they mostly know of it from formats where it is unwieldy (like books, movie and videogames) or even abused (movies and often used poorly. It's so much more easier and practical in roleplaying games to sometimes just say "whelp, we pretend that didn't happen, since that doesn't make any sense considering the information your character should've had available to him but you, the player, didn't at that time" (an example). Am pretty newbish though, so there may be some better reason behind it that I've yet to fathom.

--Hust91 (talk) 18:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

While that would be infinitely hilarious, I'd imagine it wouldn't be very economical to try. Warping into the void? What, you mean away from any sort of stars? Because that's kinda hard to do. I mean, you could try to aim away from any stars and into the void, but the chance is always there that you're still aiming at one, you just can't see it yet. And even if it is 'empty' there's the very slight chance that, somewhere out there, there is a tiny asteroid that will fuck your ship over in hyper space. Which is why creating new 'lanes of travel' can get pricey.

I see. That would be interceptors, and would also be a grade of Point Defense. Not sure which one though...

Huh, that so? I didn't know that. Well I suppose rendering them inert is just a big a downside as destroying one. I should really look into Antimatter-I feel like that's gonna be one hell of a can of worms to open.

I guess we could do that, it doesn't really bother me so much. Though, for what I have planned...lets just say I hope you get to make it work.

-Program0

Why would "away from the stars" be hard? I mean, you're about as likely to land anywhere near a star by jumping randomly (assuming all places are equally likely and gravity doesn't make it "more likely" that you'll appear there) as you have of winning a million-dollar lottery ticket seven days in a row. Aka, it'd be so rare that the one time it did happen would go down in history.

Now, if high gravity fields affect the warp far more than they do reality (if gravity is far powerful in the 'warp dimension' or however it's justified), then it might make sense, but as another player said above, space is mind-boggingly big, and very, very, very little of it consists of solar systems or space that can be considered "near a sun".

And as for aiming "away" from a sun, don't we have star-charts? Suns don't really move a lot. And if you mean that stars that aren't even in the local sector matter for this purpose, it's still very, very unlikely that you're pointing directly at one. And while popping up near a small object would be dangerous, it is, again, "winning the million-dollar-lottery" levels of unlikely. You would have a better chance of dying from falling and snapping your neck from walking around in daily life than to emerge near anything larger than a micrometeorite.

In short, if warping troubles are only caused by the risk of emerging near objects, the risk may actually be negligible when warping out of a system. Which is why (if making sure enemies and us don't simply warp out when they're in danger of being destroyed) I'd recommend either making gravity have a far greater effect in the warp-dimension-thingy so that it "pulls in" ships even across interstellar distances, or adding some element of chance, some inherent danger in the warp itself that must be avoided and remains substantial even if you aim for space that is 99,999999999999999999999999...% likely to be empty of anything larger than bacteria or individual molecules. Maybe there are anomalies in the warp itself, like the equivalent of mountains that you can run into (maybe lightlings are native to the warp-dimension or spend much of their lives there and while we can't identify them as such, there's always the risk of simply running into one..) and maybe running into them causes funky things to happen as an unstable warp-portal or whatever we use for FTL connects the two for a short moment (The risk of running into things may be because we're simply traveling far too quickly for even a computer to avoid obstacles in realtime, and so time must be spent ahead of the jump to calculate a route around the obstacles without running into them. The interstellar equivalent of mobile reefs, powerful streams and whirlpools, basically).

This would mean that you'd be able to make very short jumps relatively quickly (far fewer obstacles in lesser distance).

Of course, gravity fields (like when you're in a solar system, and nearly all combat will take place near them since they're places of interest and there's rarely a reason to visit interstellar space) may increase the frequency of obstacles, making the final approach into and out of a system the most hazardous part. (Maybe lightlings can make short, safe jumps because they can not only reliably see the obstacles while in there, they can actively slow themselves down so that they can make corrections. Or maybe their bodies react to obstacles by automatically jumping back into regular space, which is why they perform many short jumps when approaching ships rather than disappearing and appearing right on top of them - each appearance in realspace is to avoid ('swim over/under?') an obstacle in warp-space.

Of course, this all assumes that FTL works by traveling to a parallel dimension or something like that (SotS assumes - in the concept of 'nodespace' for Human and Zuul drives - that such things are part of how the universe is inherently shaped, is a common trope, I believe). Is fun to navelgaze about, anyway.

And yeah, Antimatter is definitely something you should look into.

Short summary: It's regular matter, but with an opposite charge to regular matter. The "electrons" are positive instead of negative and are called positrons, the protons are negative instead of positive. Neutrons are still neutral as all hell.

The important part is that when antimatter comes in contact with regular matter, it annihilates (both the regular matter and the antimatter, so you'll get energy from the regular matter too), releasing nearly 100% of the matter's energy as heat and presumably radiation (honestly not sure). As energy, anyway. Compare with fission and fusion that play with something like 1-5% of the energy of matter. This can either be used for hilariously efficient fuel storage or weapons.

The problem is storage, since this is matter that goes nuclear x 100 whenever it touches ANYTHING. You have to hit something at high fractions of light-speed to get that much damage per kilogram of matter. There's a number of theories on how to contain something like that, but it's still hilariously volatile. I mean, break the containing unit and the antimatter comes in contact with the air and then the ship it's on is equally hilariously vaporized (you don't often get to use that word when referring to high grade metals and exotic material). Whether it's practical as a power source or a weapon relies not only on our ability to produce it in sufficient quantities (the most effective method today is by lasering gold in some fancy way), but even more on our capacity to contain it without having it destroy ALL THE THINGS! whenever anyone shakes it about. (Some reading recommendation when bored: Shlock Mercenary Webcomic[9]. Is actually fairly hard sci-fi despite the comedy, and is very well written. One part deals with terrorists carrying around antimatter and their containment systems in paper bags. Naturally, it ends with a kilometer-wide hole in the station they're on - link leads directly to that story - and no, I don't consider that to be a spoiler).

--Hust91 (talk) 00:00, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

No real reason, it's just there are a lot of stars around you, some of which you can't even see currently due to distance. Some objects aren't even bright enough to see. Etc.

True. There's much more space debris in space then there are actually stars. Point being, there's always a chance of hitting something because you're covering so much distance so fast. It can be catastrophic, that's why people don't usually risk it. Forces of nature, like gravity can affect you easily in warp space, yes. The ship is in a delicate bubble that allows it to warp this way, and if the bubble pops, your ship is suddenly brought to a dead stop, bringing the crushing strength of warp space down on your ship. This is mostly me enjoying thinking up possible effects of accidents, but uh, you already have the major points.

As for your thoughts that space has so little debris, I'll have to disagree for now. As I understand it explosions happen all the time in space and stuff is flying all over the place at all times. Finding a stretch of space several dozen (or hundred) light years that has absolutely zero debris, asteroids big or small, planetoids, or stars, just seems unlikely. If I am, however wrong about that, then I might just need to make that a thing for the sake of not making boring new starlanes really easy. It's basically all that's preventing people from making trips from the UGEI coreworld all the way to yours and wrecking your shit. Or maybe I could use different fluff for why warp lanes work like they do (such as using the node space excuse?). Actually, ignore what I said earlier, I like your point. We won't explain limited starlanes as 'debris' we'll explain it with the fact that warp space makes ships extremely sensitive to the forces of the universe. If there's too much radiation, too much gravity, too much magnetic force it'll throw you off into dark space, or worse. I do enjoy the idea of Lightlings being extra dimensional creatures come to think of it. Maybe that can be how their biological warp travel works. Flickering in and out of reality to allow them to move much faster. Yes... I kinda like that.

Man this stuff about Lightlings in warp space makes me think of the Whale from futurama that 'swam' in the fourth dimension and breeched in theirs to 'breath'. It wouldn't be that crazy, but I do like the image all the same.

Whoa, 100% compared to 5%? That might be...a little too OP. I mean, since you're an A.I. that sort of technology could easily mean you just suicide bomb everyone with ships with Anti matter bomb ships. I'd need to either make it super expensive (either by making any engines that use it expensive, or making it so only large ships can equip it) as well as introduce a very VERY powerful containment unit since it basically means if your engine unit is damaged too heavily, the ship blows up. Either that, or limit it somehow. That's a big jump in technology, after all. Anti matter would mean so much power would be at your fingertips, the humans wouldn't be much of a threat anymore, not unless I gave them it too...or...I'm not sure. All the same, discussing it is definitely interesting.

-Program0

To help clue this in about antimatter Program0. Anti matter is hard as heck to make/form, and even harder to gather up and contain. a massive size Hadron Collider will have to be made and operated to even possablity make enough antimatter to bottle. even still we're likely to 'spill' most of it in the process to bottle it. losing it altogether, but not wrecking the equipment. Anti matter power reactor/engines would be insanely powerful, but they are also going to be just as fragile as well. any hit into the reactor block from an foe's weapon sould cause the protective shilding to flicker or fail. even a micro-second failure means a complete breach. and that means the whole ship blows up. the only other possablity is the engine block has several backup containment systems built in to save it. but it will sure to make the engines that much bigger in size and easier to hit in a fight. any bombs would be even MORE fragile and won't have back up systems to save it if it fails. with the same result as an engine failure.

-The Fluff bringer

Glad I could suggest a method you were happy with. (And no, a volume of several dozen light-years across might not be all that common, was under the impression you only got trouble if you actually emerged precisely on top of the debris (Also, creepy implication. If gravity has a lot stronger effect when traveling in the warp, then our suns may look like Black Holes in the warp).

And just for clarity's sake, interstellar space is VERY empty. The trouble with debris here is that it's not interstellar space, it's our own backyard.

In interstellar space, the trouble is when you're traveling at a fraction of light, even micrometeorites are going to impact like a non-negligible amount of TNT[10] (Orion's Arm article on shielding for interstellar flight). Large debris is not necessary to destroy a ship at those speeds (is also why you can use ships traveling at such speeds like cheap nukes - though it would likely take months to accelerate them to that speed). It may be important to note that even if a ship is traveling at relativistic velocities, it doesn't mean you can't intercept it or notice it well before it arrives (Few natural objects are that energetic). And anything that the ship hits is, again, going to detonate specacularly. Relative velocity and all. So something as simple as a spread of sand grains in its flight path (if it can't detect it in time to avoid it) would hit it like, well, a spread of sand grains at relativistic velocities. That still leaves the risk of relativistic debris, but the ship can't make course corrections anymore.

I wouldn't worry too much yet about antimatter. I think it's safe to say that reliable containment of antimatter is going to be extremely advanced technology, far beyond nanotech. Heck, it will probably require nanotech, and a whole bunch of other prequisite technologies. And even then, in space, having a nuke that's 20 times as powerful as the other guy means little if you can't get past his point defenses. And it's still not going to have a meaningful area of effect in space, it just means you can hit a big ship really hard.

For planet-bombardment on that order of destruction, it'll probably be more practical to accelerate a cruiser-size ship to a substantial fraction of lightspeed and then ram the planet, at least until we can produce antimatter at some cost-efficiency (which may not even happen before the quest's end. Heck, reliable anti-matter technology may not happen at all before the quest's end).

As Fluffbringer says, producing it will no doubt be hilariously expensive, and you'll get very, very, very little antimatter out of it, though it's far from certain that we'd need a Hadron Collider to do it. More efficient methods would be mining a planet's low orbit or finding some more practical way of producing it. A Hadron Collider simply doesn't produce a meaningful amount for industrial use, at least not the way we use them today, so we'll probably have to fiction up some more practical way of gathering it up first. And there's nothing saying anyone else can't develop this - we're not substantially smarter than a very intelligent human. The Singularity won't take off for real until we start producing A.I.'s more intelligent than we are, if we even want to do that.

--Hust91 (talk) 05:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Nah, I meant the entire lane was free of debris. And that's probably true, the whole universe looks warped and strange in warp space. How appropriate.

Interesting. I imagined warp travel in this universe worked with much of the time to warp jump comes from the preparation and calculation. Once it's actually initiated, it is very brief. You're stretched across two points in space until you reach your destination-and suddenly, you're there. At least that's how it worked in my head.

Mm. I understand what both of you mean though. Anti Matter would probably be the last tech you delve into. And as for something else you said that intrigued me-Ophion is an A.I., but all that really means is he is a self writing, sentient machine existence. You're not naturally much much smarter then humans (though you certainly have a much higher memory and learning ability), and your life span is infinite, where as organic is not. It's something Kronos has struggled with-realizing your power was not omnipotent, and that he was indeed simply a fraction of you. Those are things he struggles with today.

As for Ophion-even now, his intellect is mostly revolving around raw information. His problem solving and other such are excellent-and of course limited by all of us. Thing is, A.I. are sentient as I said. Ophion can experience emotions (as I've alluded to). Not particularly mind clouding emotions. But he can feel them, and associate them properly, where as it would confuse lesser beings (just like it did to Kronos when he was first developing). Being 'smarter' is easy. You just need more information. If you mean process more information? That's bandwidth. Feel free to ask if you have questions about Ophion that way, though. I enjoy explaining a little about your PC.

As for the OoC look, you need not worry. I'm pretty talkative for a QM, I've noticed, which should be fine. I try to answer as many questions as possible for a number of reasons. That is also why, when you have options (some more risky then others) I list very explicitly what Ophion thinks of the action if it's dangerous. (you've probably noticed me doing it before)

-Program0

That a single line the width and height of your ship would be free is a lot more likely. To give an example, when passing through the asteroid field between mars and jupiter, Nasa had to aim specifically for an asteroid in order to observe it. Even through a (relatively) dense asteroid field like that, you actually have to go out of your way to get close to anything larger than a grain of sand.

Being stretched between two points and suddenly being there sounds a lot like a wormhole to me. Which is a theoretical form of FTL transport, and generating artificial ones isn't out of the question either.

And not sure if it would have to be the last we discovered, there's still a LOT more to take inspiration from and it's ultimately still not a game-winner, no more than nano-technology is. It's a tool like any other, and has some few areas it excels greatly at (portability and small power sources, mostly, possibly a mass driver. Even if we put it in a missile, you could just shoot it down and then it'd be just as efficient as a nuke. And most of the time nothing is going to be so big that a nuke can't handle it but an antimatter-missile can - easier to just make a bigger nuke).

And often when referring to "smarter" when speaking about being more intelligent, we're looking at singularity-grade stuff. Not thinking faster, not having more information to work with, but being able to think DIFFERENT, think BETTER. Don't think Einstein in bullet-time, think Tesla times ten. Someone who thinks of things noone else does. Predicts things noone else can. It's the reason we can't predict what happen after a Singularity occurs, there's no telling what a super-intelligent being would do. It's not just thinking like us, except faster and with more info, it's thinking better! It's like comparing a humans' thoughts to a dog, or a dogs' thoughts to an insects', or an insects' to a bacterias'. An insect would never even be able to imagine what a dog would think, and a dog cannot imagine what a human thinks and why it thinks so. Because if it did, it would be as intelligent as a human. It's a matter of thinking in entirely new WAYS.

And I haven't noticed that, actually. I do appreciate it, though.

I do hate it when a character suffers because the player isn't told something the character should be well aware of, it just breaks immersion for me.

Also, new suggestion for nukes in the high-kiloton to megaton range; Make a missile-based version of the Yamato cannon from Starcraft's battlecruiser. Essentially a nuclear missile that flies close and sets off its nuclear charge in a containment field that directs most of the blast towards enemy ships. Will probably not penetrate armor (at least not if singularity cannons impacts damage in the high-kiloton or megaton range and are still not guaranteed to breach when they hit), but will absolutely fry everything exposed that is not as sturdy as armor.

--Hust91 (talk) 18:54, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Wormholes, yeah. That's sorta how I imagined FTL in this world. Either that, or the classic warpspace style where you literally enter some sort of alternate space and are traveling a short distance only to realize you're actually traveling much much farther in the real world. Both seem acceptable methods to me, though I'm sure both have their own implications.

"You make an interesting point. I'm definitely gonna move it towards the back a little bit, due to sheer power, but it might not be too far. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all these sci fi techs.

Huh. I suppose you make a good-and interesting- point. It's easy to think human brains are the logical last resort of intelligence, but really it's just how our brains are wired. Now, as for how A.I. think in this setting, it's difficult to explain. You're not so alien as Singularity (which I assume is another A.I.) from the sounds of it. Nor are you as simple as a V.I. That means that while you do think 'better' then people do, you're not so far removed that you dwarf your foe. Not yet, anyway. Your intellect grows and warps as you do things in the universe. Chances are, once you actually conquer this section of space, you will think different. Superior to humanity due to all the flaws you've witnessed them have-once you overcome your own. I have...an interesting idea for late game character changes, but I won't spoil it here.

It certainly does. Ah, I should try and make the options more clear, then.

That would be a simple mod, heh, no problem. But the Widow Maker is pretty much the Yamato Cannon, I've noticed. Not intentionally, but there it is. If you guys ever add one to the Battleship...holy crap.

-Program0

Could be a combination of either - the ship travels via opening a wormhole between their current location and one that's a predetermined distance from the first, and the medium that wormhole is "drilled" through might be an alternate space. Or the interor of that wormhole (it is, after all, a long tube going through to the other place) has different enough physical laws that it can be considered a form of alternate space. Just ruminating now, really.

The Singularity is not an A.I., but a theoretical concept where intelligent beings have become so advanced that all models of what they will do break down entirely. There is literally no way to predict how beings that intelligent will behave - again refer you to the comparison of insect intelligence compared to human intelligence, and we can only hope that we manage to find some way of increasing the odds that it will be benign, or that we'll be the cause. The theoretical cause behind this is that we create some artificial being that is more intelligent than we are. That being then creates a being more intelligent than it it. That being creates an even more intelligent being and so on. You can see how that would quickly lead to something completely alien to a human mind.

The Singularity is the point where everything we think we know becomes useless for what will happen next (Is a matter of definition - if we can still predict what happens, then it is not The Singularity). Many scientists believe it will happen before 2050.

Reaching something like it might be one of the goals that signals either the end of the quest or a change in main character since the entire definition of having reached the Singularity is that it's impossible for human players to accurately predict what we'd do with certain information. Maybe Kronos-Quest time at that point?

It is, of course, possible to continue even after saying the character has reached it, but everything the players did would put the lie to the claim that it's a being so intellectually advanced that humans cannot conceive of its mental processes. Being controlled by human players would, by definition, make it pre-Singularity intelligence. That's why it might be wiser to either reach Good End, or reach Good End for that character and switch perspective to another, since we can't call out Ophion's intellect as human when we don't know what information or motivations he has, and is merely a mysterious character comparable to the Biblical God - except he actually goes around getting sh*t done when he's motivated to. Of course, that comparison would put his lower V.I. (or possibly A.I. at that point) akin to Angels (A.I. being archangels?).

Giving him some basic "intelligence-related buffs" before then would probably be possible though, but I already went through that last post, I suspect.

I did notice that it had a lot of similarities to it. But I meant more like the Yamato cannon fluffwise, rather than crunchwise. Fluffwise the yamato cannon consists of a nuclear bomb being set off in a magnetic bottle and then allowed to escape in a single direction. It's essentially a nuclear blast that only blasts in one direction (but with a lot more power since ALL the energy is directed one direction instead of spreading out everywhere).

The reason I'm suggesting missiles that work on the same principle is because of how much easier it would be - you no longer have to keep the nuclear blast contained. If (when) it vaporizes the missile, that's no problem. We don't even need magnetic bottles, we can just have a really heavily armored bottle that makes sure that for the first few microseconds before it proves hilariously insufficient, the entire blast is fired in one direction, massively increasing its ability to penetrate hull in that direction. With more advanced tech we might use a magnetic or even gravitational bottle after all, but it needs to be far less powerful than a ship-mounted one as it only has to contain the blast for fractions of a second - to make the beam tighter and thus able to be activated from a longer range. The idea of firing missiles that don't even have to get to your ship before they fire a beam of nuclear plasma at you is quite appealing (we're still talking "no further than close range" though).

Would it really be practical to give a battleship-sized one to the battleship, considering that there are going to be few targets worth the price? Might it not be more practical to, say, instead install three battlecruiser-sized Widow Makers? That way it can be terrorize both enemy cruisers and battleships at a decent cost.

Am assuming that - considering that the cruiser-sized Widow Maker seemed to have quite the effect on the Rhea - three would be enough to destroy or at least cripple a battleship, whether fired one at a time or all three at the same time. A downside to having three instead of one bigger might be that they can't be fired all three at a time without overheating, but then again, the big one might create just as much if not more heat. And the mental image of all three (or maybe we should have FIVE!) blasting off all at once might justify a Rule of Cool handwave.

--Hust91 (talk) 02:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it's how you really look at it, heh. Yeah, both could help explain certain aspects of it all.

I see. That's really quite wild to try and imagine. Of course that's a big can of worms right there, and probably better ignored for the quest's benefit. There's literally no way I can write for a being smarter then myself, just as the rest of you can't decide for a being smarter then you. Which is why I've played up Ophion's own personality (subtle as it may be or as I try to make it be). His mind is not a fully logical one, though he was not born with a sense for morals, you've learned that through actions in the quest.

Huh. I'm not certain if I want to bring in such a concept, but it is an interesting one. The idea of playing Kronos to fight against a master you no longer understand, nor can comprehend is intriguing. But this may be thinking a bit far ahead.

Or that perspective is interesting as well-playing Kronos in a world where Ophion has taken on a god-like state and is busy taking over the galaxy, while Kronos is sent off to explore sections on his own. That would be...odd. More of an RPG then a x4, I'd assume, but still interesting.

Oh wow, I didn't know Yamato Cannons were fluffed that way. That's cool as hell. That could certainly be an explanation for it (though the Widow Maker was originally meant to be a beam weapon and not just a blast, but I suppose that's not very important.)

That...sounds like a fusion of missile and energy weapons for crunch purposes. It'd deal with the shields and point defense or something of the sort, and do lots of damage. Probably would be heavy missile level. Lots of damage, kinda slow. Is a neat idea though

Battleship one would be much stronger, and could likely hit several targets if you swept the cutting beam across a fleet just right. Battlecruiser ones would be weaker, but let you hit more targets I suppose.

Actually, you were doing well against the Rhea because of all the insane bonuses during that fight. Total accuracy, plus some good rolls, meant you were getting several very nice critical strikes. That, combined with your fleet and UFW's fleet focused on the Rhea meant that it was taking heavy damage every round, despite it's superior tech. That whole fight amazed me.

-Program0

Either way, I'd suggest picking some explanation and sticking to it, to avoid troubles with inconsistent FTL. Could also have more than one type of FTL. The important thing isn't really how it operates (though different system have different implications), only that your view of how it operates is consistent with what's been shown before.

Is probably for the best - though it's mostly a problem for a main character. If Ophion is no longer the main character it is, as I said, suddenly far more probably to claim that e's moved beyond human intelligence.

Kronos doesn't necessarily have to be against Ophion at that point, it's just that his new method of reasoning operates on a far more mind-boggling scale than he or any of us can fully process. It might even be a disconnect or primary goal for the character when we're no longer playing him - finding or making another being that understands him. (Being the lone human in a universe of gerbils would get very lonely, very quickly, after all. Then again, he could simply reduce his desire for company, since his code is at his disposal). I do hope it won't happen until after we've taken over at least this galaxy, though, was looking forward to operating on that scale for at least a while.

Can appreciate that he's not being played as entirely logical - there's not really any particular reason why an A.I. would not have emotions. They're far too useful in regulating behavior to not program a something akin to them, whether that be a priority system or some kind of reward-system similar to the human hormone responses, but with code.

Well, the themes and mechanics for any spin-off quests would, of course, be up to you. There's no real reason that Kronos wouldn't be able to operate on a 4x scale (in fact, at that point he'll probably have more resources than Ophion has now) just because he's working under/against Ophion. It would probably depend on whether his mission is one of being given a fleet and sent off to conquer an area of space, or sent off to colonize a new galaxy. In the earlier case it'd probably be a "do this and get this done, then report back or rebel and strike out on your own". In the latter case they might arrive, but be faced with all the issues and wear-and-tear that the fleet would take in transit resulting in the colonization fleet being scattered over the galaxy and having to look for and resume contact with them as the quest goes on, maybe some don't want to be part of the fleet anymore, others might be trapped in a conflict or other. More of an episode-to-episode akin to Star Trek Voyager (except not shitty and riddled with plotholes). Either way, I love this combination of 4x and RPG that we have now, and many of the characters. 4x and RPG just doesn't meet often enough, and it feels like such a squandered opportunity.

Not sure if it would be a good explanation for the Widow Maker since it's ultimately a very, very short range weapon. The blast still suffers from some square-cube law issues, even more so than lasers. And since I suspect the blast is traveling slower than a railgun projectile (assuming they travel at something like Mach 10, but honestly not sure how quickly a nuclear blast travels), the fluff would require the Widow Maker to be a "close range to extreme close range only"-weapon. A high powered plasma-beam of some kind is probably more practical for how it seems to have operated so far.

It probably would be, yes. A lot less point defense (depending on how tightly we can focus the beam of plasma, thus increasing the range of the blast) than most missiles, since the missile doesn't have to make the last, most perilous stretch of space before it activates. Not sure how much the energy shield would be able to stand up to it though, since this is, again, a nuclear blast, not a laser, and thus absurdly much more energetic.

Of course, the same could also be argued for the plasma-beam weapons, which may mean that shields only meant to fend off micrometeorites, radiation and laser light would find themselves hilariously under-powered for taking them on.

One potential solution for having shields stay relevant against weapons with substantial mass (which plasma has), might be that shields become substantially more powerful, more akin to Protoss plasma shields at high tech levels? At that level they'd also offer some measure of protection against mass drivers. Of course, a plasma weapon that fires plasma IS a form of mass-driving weapon rather than a laser. ::Although maybe "plasma beam weapons" simply stand for a variety of high-powered laser that turns whatever it hits into plasma, with no actual plasma being fired by the weapon. Maybe it's some kind of phased light that in small part passes through most shields and causes the hull to be turned into a plasma-cloud that then interferes with and turns the shields off before they're actually overwhelmed the conventional way (a form of anti-shield laser).

And in that case it would probably be more practical to just have a battleship-sized one, yeah. Especially if the beam lasts for long enough that we can play it over multiple ships. Is probably a project for when we have a more sturdy economy, though. We're kind of still in the "gather resources" stage at this point.

--Hust91 (talk) 12:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I'm gonna stick with the 'warp space' idea. I've already thought up several uses for such a 'extra dimension' and other implications it could have. It fits with the idea I had before, too.

Heh, looking for galactic control are you? Well I'm pretty sure at some point, you've have put the humans away. I can't help but wonder, however, if you conquer the humans and expand out, where do I end it all? I mean, I could come up with aliens till the cows come home. I have a feeling I want to end it on a sorta cliff hanger idea, but I'm not sure.

When you mention an A.I. with personality-and the rewards for certain behavior especially, it makes me think of GLADOS. In the second game especially, she mentions testing being a drug. I wonder if you could 'program' something to 'feel' amazing that way. Regardless, that idea eventually helps to tie into the deepest secrets of how A.I. work (which will come to a head eventually). I also have considered (once you finished research) for you to realize that making a black box takes a certain 'element'. A third resource, so you don't go crazy with it. I'm not sure how or if that's a good idea though. What do you think?

Heh, that 'take over this other galaxy' thing makes me think of Alpha centari, from that bit you guys showed me. Would be a cool spin off, if someone did that.

Hm. High powered laser/plasma is probably a better explanation then. It is medium to long ranged.

Heh, actually the higher powered the shields are, the more like plasma shields they are. The ones you have now aren't quite good enough to deflect a lot of kinetic force, but they can get that strong eventually.

I suppose you guys are still in the first or second x in 4x...huh.

-Program0

One of the more obvious cutoff points for /tg/ would be when we become meta-aware, or when we/if reach the Singularity (Which might feasibly be both a research and/or a result of having solar masses of bandwidth spread around the galaxy). Or maybe after we have conquered the galaxy, defeated our first extra-galactic and/or extra-universal threat or sent out the first wave of extra-galactic or extra-meta colonization fleets (Ending with a "And so ends Ophion's story, but the story of eir children have only just begun...' for example).

There's not really any need to "put the humans away" as such. Maybe improve them to the point that they're no longer humans and can join us among the stars on a nearly-equal footing. We need a source of innovation, after all. Diversity breeds innovation more than anything.

And if you can program a program to feel emotions there's little doubt you can program it to feel different intensities of that emotion.

It may be like GLaDOS, except hopefully we will do it in a way that doesn't cause insanity, like mild encouragement and no withdrawal rather than euphoria and extreme withdrawal.

Is it really necessary to have a limit on artifical intelligences, though? I mean, there's no limit on human intelligences, and with some genetic engineering and implants they'll operate on pretty much the same level as AIs. Ultimately, they're just people, that we create. Having a trillion of them will be little different from having a trillion mind-uploaded humans/aliens, I imagine.

In the later stages, what do you really expect them to do that we could not get from humans as well? Loyalty? Intelligence? Hardiness? Versatility? All things that could be genetically coded into living beings.

The really absurdly intelligent ones would still be limited by bandwidth, just as we are. I don't really see ow a Black Box would change that relationship in any fundamental way, beyond being able to construct a lot better processors.

And maybe plasma lasers just utilize plasma in the generation of laser beams, rather than firing it. Point being that plasma is just like solid, liquid or gas, it's still mass, and if any meaningful amounts are traveling at close to the speeds that light is, they're going to be hitting with absurdly much more force than anything that can be described as "radiation/particle shielding" can handle without also being able to handle mass drivers.

And not sure what Alpha Centauri is, honestly. Don't think that was me, at least. We probably are in the first two still, yeah. It very much has the feel of all four x, though. Just hope we don't get squished in the coming battle!

--Hust91 (talk) 00:44, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow, actually I really like that. Once you've defeated one of the largest threats you've ever known, then it could end with a 'and so Ophion went on to achieve intelligence in a way no being before can comprehend' etc or whatever. I will definitely be thinking of that I think.

Heh, when I said 'put them away' I meant simply deal with them, one way, or the other. Ah, assimilating them into your world? Interesting. I often wondered what would humanity do if a powerful being emerged and offered them a place among the stars, would they take it?

Indeed. As I said I have some...ideas about that.

Hm. You know what, you're right. There's no reason to make making A.I. mechanically more difficult. They already carry their own risks.

The black box is meant to be the secret ingredient. The difference between the modern man and the cave person. The ability to feel and think on a level unlike before. I hope I can make that come across properly.

Ah, it's a civilization game. The first human colony ship sent to Alpha Centari has billions of humans. Humans do what they do best, and disagreed and argued about philosophy. When they arrived, they split into several factions and began war anew. Not exactly the same, but it was suggested to me a while back and that made me think of it.

--Program0 (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I hate to be a stickler in this regard but the Hadron collider is the only way to artifical create antimatter. Antimatter just does not play well with matter to exist normally in this universe. However, the only other way i can think of getting antimatter is to farm "Dark Matter" clouds that fill dark spaces in our universe. Once we have enough of "Dark Matter" you COULD in theory alter it into antimatter. But the other problem is finding the dark matter clouds. good luck with that. Oh, BTW, why make NEW A.I. that are smarter than us? we should make OURSELVES into the smarter A.I.. Never allow our selves to become obsolete.

-The Fluff bringer

Nono, do be a stickler. We're never getting anywhere if we don't challenge what we think we know.

That said, I'm not sure what makes you so sure that a hadron collider is the absolutely only way of doing it. I mean, it's not even the only way of doing it today[11], or the most efficient. And even if it was the most efficient way of artificially generating them, it might still be more practical to harvest naturally occurring ones (it does happen) in orbit around planets or those that erupt from thunderstorms. Antimatter is a field with a lot of unknowns, so we may well create a fictional method of generating them or simply not expand on how it's done other than that we have the technology to do it.

When you speak of dark matter clouds being altered into antimatter however, I don't have the foggiest where you're getting your information from. The primary characteristic of dark matter is that we don't really know what it is. Some of what scientists think today is that;

1, Galaxies would fly apart without some kind of unseen matter generating more a more powerful gravity field than the matter we can account for with our eyes.

2, There is absurdly much more dark matter and dark energy than there is directly observable matter and energy.

In short, today we have never observed dark matter as being a thing, we've only noticed that SOMETHING is generating a stronger gravitational field than the matter we can see is, and we started calling that something "dark matter/energy". You can see why I'm bewildered where you'd pick up that we'd be able to use this-thing-we-don't-have-the-foggiest-what-it-is to generate antimatter, when the only property we know of is that it has a gravitational pull, same as everything else with energy.

Agree with you on making ourselves smarter and not making ourselves obsolete - the problem with making Ophion more intelligent is that it's very hard to simulate a smarter being without actually being that smart. In effect, it's a matter of the players and Program not being superhumans (yet). If we could guess exactly what a being that intelligent would do, we would, in fact, be that intelligent. There is, of course, a lot to commend for collaborative think-tanks, of course, but it'd probably require motivating more players to investigate this page.

We could also probably get some buffs as a result of saying the Ophion has gotten more intelligent, but we won't be able to reliably act as if he had become such. Generating a non-player character that is supposedly more intelligent is easier though, since we are not aware of its full motivations and information we can't call bullshit as easily when it's doing something blatantly stupid, because it could simply be retconned into giving him a reason to do X thing that looked stupid on the surface.

In short, accurately playing characters more intelligent than we ourselves are would by definition be impossible. (If we succeeded, then it would be as intelligent as us, not more intelligent - of course, I would still call improving our mental faculties while playing a roleplaying game a big success).

With all this said, with some collaboration and reminders from the QM when we seem to be forgetting something crucial and/or occasionally just telling us what an action will result in (when it can be safely assumed that Ophion is intelligent enough to predict it at his current level), we may be able to simulate a vague approximation of greater intelligence, though chances are still big we'll fall into pitfalls that only retcons would be able to save from being entirely illogical.

But collaboration can still yield intelligence greater than any individual in it could produce on their own - we would, in essence, become that intelligent for real (Yes, I've read a lot about this, I find it fascinating).

--Hust91 (talk) 05:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I named the use of "Dark Matter" for farming due to how i see "Dark Matter" is in a Schrodinger's Cat like quantum flux state "Dark Matter" is in. no one has seen it. ergo, it could be normal matter or Antimatter until we watch it. Yes, i am going out on a limb with this, but to me, it's the only place i can think of where antimatter could be in mass quantities. gathering up antimatter from deep space rays is so highly inefficient, it's not worth it. Again, the other challenge is getting to the Dark matter clouds. it's almost as bad as getting to another galaxy. as for making a smarter A.I. well, the other possibility is that we as Ophion IS the smartest A.I. possible to ever be made and simply can't be improved. the Anon posters are not going to be any smarter, so we have to make due with what we have.

-The Fluff bringer

If we're just going to be making up qualities for it, it seems odd to still call it dark matter.

There's nothing wrong with making up fictional substances, obviously (it's called "Phlebotinum" in troping circles), but if we want the quest to have at least a somewhat hard front we should probably not give our fictional substance a real name. Maybe a note that it's what dark matter was discovered to be (maybe dark matter is simply matter that happens to be located in dimensions close to ours? Like in the 'Warp' dimension?), but it really should have its own name.

If it comes to that, we don't really have to specify how the antimatter is produced, only that we have devices which can produce it and these devices have X qualities.

No idea where you're getting that it would be as bad as getting to another galaxy - we don't have the foggiest what real dark matter is beyond that it has a lot of gravitational pull. Or it might've been a suggestion, but I don't see why it would be as hard as getting to another galaxy, considering we probably won't try something like that until a substantial part of this galaxy is in our grasp.

Making him "the smartest that is possible to make" seems a bit restrictive, and reeks (to me, anyway) of humans-are-special-ism, which is one of my least favourite tropes since there's so incredibly many ways humans could be made better than they are today and it feels very much like making a Mary Sue out of the entire human race (Star Trek was ridiculously guilty of this - even god-like beings and humans that had ascended were supposedly "less" than mere baseline humans because baseline humans had X quality, even though any number of alien species had just as much or more of that quality - what quality that was tended to change from episode to episode). That's a personal preference, though.

Would also have to work pretty damn hard to justify it, since it's so very easy to improve Ophion in many ways form an in-story perspective. Again though, just my take.

Also, new question. Any chance we can have a research project to create "Ship Scabbing"?

By that I mean a substance with a decent hardness that can be kept in "veins" going through the ship's armor. When those veins are breached as the armor gets holes or fractures, the liquid fills the new fracture/hole and quickly solidified, automatically sealing the breach and giving the ship some measure of defence there (though it'll obviously not be anywhere near as effective as armor layers). Whether it solidifies because we divert the heat from it into our heatsinks or because the pressure has lowered matters little, we just need a substance that can be induced to become a liquid without too much upkeep, and induced to become solid when the hull of a ship is damaged.

Mechanically it would probably just give our ships more hit points , but I enjoy the fluff of watching our enemies' faces as they finally manage to make a serious dent in one of our ships only for the hole to fill in a few seconds later.

--Hust91 (talk) 18:17, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

You are certainly free to make a list of how Ophion can improve upon himself if you wish. Hell, maybe it'll provide inspiration for a future upgrade? I love hearing what you guys have to say.

That's reaaally creepy for ships. I like it. I mean it's sorta handled by airlocks to contain damaged sections but external. I'm not really sure what you'd call that though, as an over all research. Unless you were fine with it being a solo project.

-Program0

Willdo! And could be called "Advanced Intellect Research", maybe? Or maybe better to keep as a solo project. "Thought Efficiency Program 0" (shout out to the QM!), mayhap?

The difference is that our ships don't really have airlocks (at least I don't think they haveI since there's no need to have air in them. The bonus to this compared to just having sections that are closed off is that;

1, the metal "scab" holds the superstructure together, it may not be able to take nearly as much stress as the rest of the armor, but there is SOMETHING to make sure the "wound" doesn't get worse that a simple gap in the hull would not provide. Having a hole in your ship is really bad for the overall structure.

2, the scab is a weak point compared to the rest of the armor, but it still causes missiles to impact with it, rather than internal systems, and even if it is instantly vaporized, it's still a lot easier for components to survive the blast from a missile at a few meters distance (thanks, Square Cube Law!) than it is to survive it at point blank.

3, it will no doubt have a profound "THAT SHOULD NOT BE!" and "Shit, those ships REGENERATE?" psychological effect (if they are not yet aware that the "scabs" are weak points they might well assume that the ship didn't take any permanent damage at all, making them look more formidable than they actually are).

Suggestions for research names would be the umbrella research branches of; "Ships Survivability Systems", "Defensive Technology", "Self-Repair Systems". The project itself might be called "Bloodclot Systems", "Scabbing Systems" or "Freak Kronos Out By Taking Design Tips From Organics Project". If the last one, we should make sure to make him aware of the project's name when he first become aware of the new capabilities of the ships. The only downside to the system is that as it does not have negligible mass, it might take 1-3 light slots (depending on ship size?) that could otherwise be used for something else.

--Hust91 (talk) 02:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Heh, I was refering to the scabbing thing you mentioned, but that's neat too.

Well the term airlock is inappropriate now but that's basically what they are. They're lock out points to prevent ship damage from spreading.

Hm. I'm reading over the suggestion, and the more I read it the more it feels like this would be a liquid metal substance that quickly hardens in place over the open area of ship. I'm sure I've heard of such a substance nowadays, but regardless it sounds...interesting. I'm wondering if it'd cost extra, or if it'd just be a system to add as a 'fleet wide' benefit. Probably the latter.

-Program0

Was more thinking "Structural Integrity" than "spreading fire/other kind of damage". Everything leans on everything else, especially when on fire. If there's suddenly a big hole in the hull, there's no more place for the metal to pass the energy on, and thus it warps the hull when it otherwise would've been fine. Same principle that makes it a lot harder to crack a whole egg by hitting it with a spoon than one that already has a hole in it. But if we close up that hole - even if the patch is weaker than the rest - it can occasionally make all the difference. Not sure if airlocks can prevent/reduce that kind of damage.

And yes, that's essentially what I meant. Could also be a plastic though, obviously. And it would probably be easier to make it a fleet-wide benefit after it's been researched with potential for upgrades to make the patch more sturdy and faster-acting.

"My body may be metal, but if you cut me, do I not bleed? Well, for a split second, just enough to close up the cut, but still."

--Hust91 (talk) 12:24, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Hm. I like that then. Gonna add it to the research list I think.

-Program0

Ship Scabbing? Now you are starting to sound like our ships are organic! We can't have that now can we? Still, this could be covered by nanite action of mid fight repairs. Also, that "Scab" won't be as tough as even the weakest armor plateing. so it's not much in the way of a "Scab". But i can see it as a way to stop air loss from a breached section of ship. Kinda like a ultra quick hardening spray foam. I did say "Dark Matter" because it IS much like Phlebotinum in reality. we simply just don't know what it is and fully what it does! i learned much about it from my own intrests and from hearing about it from Neil deGrasse Tyson and his pod casts shows. In reguards to science, i trust him enough to learn from him about Dark Matter.

-The Fluff bringer

Oh, but we can do this long before we have nanites, that's the beauty of it (Though incorporating nanites that actually do full repairs over time and controls when the liquid solidifies is a brilliant upgrade). And yeah, ultra quick hardening spray foam was essentially what I imagined. It's not trithium alloy armor, but it's not a hole in the frickin' hull either.

I wouldn't say it's like Phlebotinum in reality - then we'd say everything we don't know about is phlebotinum. The concept is one of a new material that has completely new qualities (like Element Zero in Mass Effect, or Tiberium from Command & Conquer), rather than one whose qualities we don't know of yet. But if we gave it a new name "Mass-Intensive Matter/Magmatter" (if it's generally denser than regular matter), or maybe "Extra-Dimensional Matter" (if it is found in the warp) or a name depending on what qualities we intend to give it and give a nod when it is introduced that it used to be called Dark Matter before whatever technology we have that let us retrieve it identified more specific qualities than "we don't know what this sh*t is, but there's something out there doing something".

It just irks me to put fictional qualities on a real substance (remember, this may be the first time many hear of what dark matter actually is, and I'd rather not give them the impression that dark matter in our reality has the fictional qualities we decide to give this fictional version of dark matter, hence the need for a new name to separate our fictional substance it turns out to be from the real thing) due to the risk of leaving people with the impression that real dark matter behaves like that - Program0 did say he'd prefer the technology to be as close to life as possible when it doesn't detract from the story.

Anyway, those were my reasons for giving it a new name or using a completely unrelated kind of Phlebotinum. (Of course, we already have Gas, which is distinctly a form of Phlebotinum). By the way, should probably add a link to the page about phlebotinum for clarity (though I warn you, any links on that page are likely to send you on hour-long reading sprees): [12]

--Hust91 (talk) 02:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

new question time! Do the humans as a whole or xenos in this setting have ANY potential for having psionic ablity? reading minds? senseing far away, long ago, or in the future? moving objects a distance? being a gnome or a witch? etc? is it a 1 in a 1,000 chance? 1 in a 100,000 chance? 1 in a million chance or higher?

-The Fluff bringer

And another question! What counts as a "V.I."? Thinking that in the strictest sense, even video game enemies we have today could be called Virtual Intelligences (we go all out and call them Artifical Intelligences usually). So the question is, when do we have to start worrying that the set of orders, priorities and operating software we create counts as a V.I.?

And about ship-mounted laser-swords for ramming!

Since we're in space, there's no real need for a stabilizing beam of metal to hold the construction together (assuming the energy can be beamed back the same way, which may not actually be the case). There’s no gravity to make it fall to the ground if they’re not connected physically.

Can't we just mount the emitters and end-pieces on two different ships, and then have them fly on either side of enemy ships?

If possible, would also like to add my vote to the end of last thread's question about the construction schedule:

I think it’s high time to create some serious infantry squads and the software necessary to control them en-masse, we’ve had them on the backburner for several cycles now and several times our lack of ground forces have cost us dearly or forced us into far less favorable responses.

So if we can squeeze a few more squadrons of cheap androids (And generate the necessary software) into the construction schedule, I'm all in favor of it.

--Hust91 (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

having more droids is fine, but it looks like we lost nearly half of our ships in that last battle or more! if we don't have enough ships to control the orbitals of star systems, there is no point in infantry droids. The navy comes first in construction schedule provided we didn't completely lost a station or two, then those come first.

-The Fluff bringer

Well sure, but once we've repaired a ship or two, a platoon of troops is going to take negligible amounts of materials and time compared to the next one, and will be massively more useful than one more ship out of 5 (or something) is.

I've struggled with the idea of adding Psionic powers to the universe for a while now. If I do it, I can't take it back, and I'm just not sure if it's right or not. It's really cool, and adds a nice 'boss character' thing I can use, but at the same time, this is meant to be a semi half sorta kinda reality. I'm not certain how I'd like to explain psionics if I did use them.

V.I. are, normally, incapable of resisting and rising up against anything. They lack the drive, motivation, and desire. They lack sentience. Ophion's V.I. are a special case, for secret reasons. What makes them true A.I. however has a lot to do with the black box, and their ability to exist on their own and rewrite their own codes to fit their desires.

If you were to try and build laser swords on the front of your ship, I can't really picture it doing anything other then becoming a beam laser weapon that continues to hit the enemy, and isn't just a sword.

--Program0 (talk) 04:02, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

On the matter of Psionic powers, I can propose a stopgap: Utility Fog[13]. Telepathy has already been done today using chips in the brain. There's nothing magical about a radio with a neural interface (am often annoyed that some people seem to think telepathy has to be supernatural for some reason).

It can be used more or less like psionic powers in daily life, but is limited to working in areas you have actually brought utility fog.

Whether you want to add actual psionic powers or not is up to you, but if you do want to do that, there are a few basic questions you need to be able to answer.

1, when did psychics start appearing?

2, did it occur naturally, or as a result of genetic engineering or technology?

3, where does the energy to do these things come from? Is it taken directly from the psion's body, in which case how is that energy consumed, breaking chemical bonds (psions will get hungry fast), teleported/warped in from elsewhere, splitting atoms (they can toss nukes around)? If it is created wholesale, what stops any psionic from creating infinite amounts of it in seconds?

4, if a psion throws up a barrier to stop something, where is the force transferred to? Does it just disappear when it impacts the barrier, does the barrier simply move if it isn't anchored to something (like a ship's hull or the psion's own body), or is that pressure applied directly to the brain of the psion (in which case you'd think his brain would be squished immediately)?

5, what other limits are there to psions? Does it tire them to channel all that energy?

6, what are the requirements to become psionic? Could we become psionic through technology? If not, why not?

7, can psionic systems be enchanced? It's very probable that dedicated technology will be able to achieve much more powerful psionic effects than organic beings if we discover what creates a psionic effect (think like Mass Effect's Biotics compared to the huge systems for the FTL drives and shields), though it's up to you how difficult/impossible you want to make this.

8, is it just telekinesis or can other effects be done using it, like pyrokinesis, mind-control, warping space, generating gravity?

You don't need to cough all these up at once, but you need to be able to answer these questions whenever they become relevant (like when a psionic power that would be affected by one of those things is used), even if you only decide on it at that moment.

And I was thinking more "what separates a V.I. from the video game enemies we have today" than "what separates a V.I. from an A.I.". Or are they essentially the same, we just start calling them something else when they get good enough at simulating intelligent behavior?

What I'm essentially wondering is how advanced we can make a piece of software before it is sentient enough that it becomes objectionable to sacrifice it (aka, when it can be said to be 'conscious', like Kronos appears to be).

But to play with your idea, our V.I. have been programmed with both drive, motivations, desires and are sentient enough to be superturing (a turing test being a test where you talk with a person and a computer, and if you can't tell which is the computer, the computer is considered sentient). Kronos has at this point both the ability to rewrite his own code and the ability to exist on his own.

To call him less conscious than a human (for example) is something you could only do a God (in this case, the GM) using some kind of qualia (Scientific term for consciousness). Noone else would be able to tell from his behavior alone that he's not at least as sapient as a human is today.

There is substantial scientific debate on whether or not souls are a thing, and how we can tell if something has one. Google "Philosophical Zombie" for a theoretical scenario in which a human acts JUST like someone with a consciousness, but they don't actually have one, they just simulate one perfectly.

At the very least, Kronos is a "Philosophical Zombie", there's no real way in-universe of telling if he is conscious or not, just like there's no real way in real life of telling whether ANYONE but yourself is conscious. I know I am, but I can't be certain that everyone else are not just NPCs acting perfectly like real people without any "player" as such controlling them.

Was essentially the driving question for the plot behind I Robot (when does a personality simulation become something more?).

--Hust91 (talk) 18:54, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Huh, that's actually a really cool use of nanotech I hadn't considered. I'm not 100% how it'd translate into Psionic powers (since it seems more like it explains conjuration and summoning stuff) but still, that's interesting. As for telepathy-is that so? Interesting. Perhaps I'm not giving science enough credit then, I suppose. This will be useful information for the future.

Yes that is an excellent list there. We should make a psionic discussion section just so I can keep this in my mind, just in case I do use it. I love having lists of things to work with, thanks again.

What separates them from video game intellects? Well, mostly complexity, for one thing. They have a far greater capacity for thinking, like a real super computer if given enough bandwidth. Like I said before, 'true A.I.' is a term I use to describe A.I. with emotions, which signals a more proper sentience beyond 'logic is all that matters'. At the same time, Ophion was free to take that path, but he'd still have had emotions, low boil as they may be. I am also aware I describe V.I. with emotions, but that's for a different reason. A secret one. The second ingredient to the pot would be possible creativity. If you break it down, creativity is basically randomness, pulling together pieces of things that exist and making a new thing, in a new way. V.I. can do this, however it requires a lot of processing power due to how illogical such a thing is. A video game intellect would always be programmed to do something, no matter what. If they had no directive, no goal, they do not exist. V.I. can exist without one, or even gain their own in a limited semi intellect driven by how complex the system is. There is an upper limit to how smart or complex you can make a program while it still makes sense, or is functional. There will be a point where, no matter how much bandwidth Kronos has, he will not get 'smarter' just more powerful so to speak. I think I answered what you asked there.

Indeed, I am happy someone picked up on Kronos' uniqueness. It's worth noting that he had no goal originally. That is, he made his own after he was made. That isn't quite the same as rewriting but you're right in saying he breaks some of the V.I. rules, but is not yet a V.I. That is why I referred to him as an E.I briefly. But uh, it's better not to confuse people with too many terms, so I have yet to make it really official. E.I., on the other hand, are a strange area between V.I. and A.I. One not fully recognized by this worlds science. Most people would, after realizing Kronos can talk and do things freely on his own, would call him an A.I. Yet, despite this, Kronos has not crossed the threshold. Not quite. He is very close, which is partially why he appeared drunkened by the surge of bandwidth he was given. It was the closest to real A.I.hood he could be.

Hm... Philosophical Zombie is quite interesting. In a way, Kronos fits this bill. Simulates a personality matrix that was both not his own, and yet built upon by him at the same time. Yet, he does not realize he is in such a state. I hope, when the time comes, I am a good enough writer to make the subtle differences come through is all. I am nervous about it.

--Program0 (talk) 07:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It also does telekinesis - the utility fog can easily lift things with a gesture, create impenetrable barriers and make whoever is in control of them crush someone with a gesture - such as pointing their arm at someone and clenching their fist. They're highly vulnerable to high temperatures - which means the utility fog can be destroyed with flamethrowers - and potentially to hacking (making the battle between "hacker/magicians" one of maintaining control of the Utility Fog). If you're enveloped in someone else's utility fog, though?

E is essentially God (though if you carry strong enough armor, the godhood-area might fortunately enough not reach inside your suit. So he can toss you about as much as he likes, but the Utility Fog may not be able to exert enough pressure to compromise your armor. Still leaves you handily captured, though)

Psionic Discussion thingy is go.

Nearly all my questions, I still wonder roughly how advanced we can make a program without making it a V.I. Does making a seemingly sentient V.I. require a dedication to actually simulate a personality, or do complex structures automatically tend to become self-aware, or become structurally similar enough to V.I. that they can be considered one for the purposes of sacrificing them, even without a conscious effort to make them a V.I.?

And I have a fair degree of confidence in your writing ability, Program0, you're honestly one of the best writers I've had the pleasure to interact with through any medium - including published work.

Have a new question - is it feasible that we'll ever be able to move beyond the need for an A.I. box, and just become distributed software, existing as a result of a complex running program?

Also, will obviously need your thoughts on the possibility of running light, "fluffy" sessions between the main ones consisting primarily of active roleplaying and dialogue between different characters.

And another new question! Do we need additional research to dig out some rooms in an asteroid and filling them with processors and their support systems?

--Hust91 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That makes sense, the flamethrower part, and is pretty funny to consider. Wow, nanotech is way more useful then I thought it'd end up being-I mean, in other ways and such. Science and magic really do touch at points the higher tech gets. I love it! I shall certainly consider this, for later boss battles. I don't want to let you guys access nanotech too early, since it really will be a game changer in a lot of ways. It's not OP like Metal Gear Solid would have you believe, but certainly a good thing.

Very philosophical of you, I'd say. That's the type of question I might want to let you wonder on, since it's almost existential in nature. I will say, though, that complexity does not necessarily mean intelligent either. So if you made a very complex way to cheat the stock market, it wouldn't just become self aware because it had all of the math in it's head. It takes a certain kind of touch, or design lean that causes it. In other words, creating an intelligence by accident is quite hard to do.

Whoa, geez, mah ego can't handle it man. But I do thank you though, you're very kind. Still always looking to improve, and I hope A.I. Quest helps me get a little better while I'm at it.

A level above A.I.? Hm. Well, I suppose there's no reason NOT to. But uh...at the risk of saying spoilers, Ophion's box contains very key elements of himself. The box is meant to protect those things. If you were, say, to distribute your entire being throughout the universe in very secure locations that you have no chance of losing contact with, then yes, I'd say you could do that. Sorta like a 'Lich's Phylactery' sorta thing, I guess? Except with the extra worry of if you lose connection with it, suddenly you're brain dead. A bit dangerous, but perhaps is worth not putting your core at risk on the battlefield too.

Ah, I considered it,but I'm not really sure what the meat of those sessions would be. Not that it always needs fights and such, but I'd rather not get peoples hopes up for fluffy stuff, and have the majority of the thread vote to go stomp on 'X' or what have you.

Asteroid monitors? That would essentially be Terrain Reformation, but on a asteroid. So, just that research thing is fine.

--Program0 (talk) 22:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

While it is very philosophical, I do wonder for a practical reason. What kind of software can we sacrifice without its code being similar enough to a V.I. that Kronos gets whiny because they're too similar to his code?

You know what, maybe we should be asking him this in-character (though worded more respectfully and hypothetically).

And I'm not sure if I'd call it a level above A.I., it's still as intelligent as an A.I., it's just not bound to any particular physical computer, like Skynet in the third Terminator Movie. They thought it was some kind of machine and gone off to blow it up, but it turns out it's software and you can't "destroy" it with explosives any more than you can destroy, say, Firefox, Skype or a Virus with explosives (it can be done, but you'd have to destroy every computer that has it installed).

Now, if there are parts of our A.I. box that we absolutely need, like, hypothetically, parts of a human brain, this does not necessarily mean we could never move to a software-only state one day. Mind uploading is a thing that a full human could feasible do, so why not an A.I.? (What I'm saying is, that there is no fundamental reason that something like the Quantum A.I. Box for EDI in Mass Effect for example is necessary to support a fully sapient being - theoretically, human consciousness is already just software running on really specialized hardware, and even the hardware (A brain) can be simulated in its entirety BY a virtual reality program).

I just thought I'd bring it up, as it's another milepost for the character, but one that doesn't necessarily end the game, it just makes sure nothing less than total defeat (an unleashed virus that reaches every processor we have or every processor that we are using for bandwidth being destroyed) will end the quest in defeat.

Mind you, when we start coming up against threats against all of humanity, neither of those threats are particularly unlikely to at least present themselves. Is absolutely worthwhile to not put ourselves on the battlefield too, I agree. Really should make a dedicated "Ophion Ship" built more to survive than to fight, so that we can use the Athena without risking ourselves.

And fluffy sessions could be things like responding to X-Ray's broadcasts, interacting with Moira, discussions with Kronos or one of the other V.I., dealing with crewmembers having issues or staging protests, interacting with common folk while buying property on their planets, trouble with the gas shipments, stuff like that. We have such a vast world to explore, and just the idea of interacting with the "little" people from the perspective of a multiplanetary corporation-head and a legitimate A.I. leaves me giddy with the possibilities for interaction - and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

If the anons vote to do X thing that would require heavy mathematics, simply say that it is now queued up and will be dealt with in the next crunch-heavy thread. You are the QM after all, and can simply specify that this it is a fluffy thread and any combat encounters will - while we can certainly plan them, especially in-character with other characters - have to actually take place in the next Crunch-thread.

And planting processors in an asteroid still requires research? Doh. Research isn't exactly an option right now.

--Hust91 (talk) 01:55, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Ya know, I actually like that idea. Part of the reason I gave a Black Box was because I figured giving you SOME weakness was a good idea. I think this would get a little...erm...boring, I fear, if you rarely have a chance to die. But that might be a good near endgame upgrade, or when you make your first bandwidth planet, the only thing capable of digitizing all of your key processes. Maybe something like that?

I'll give it some thought then, I suppose. I like the idea of exploring smaller stuff, but I don't want to take a majority vote and say "we'll get to it later" too often.

Assuming you mean large asteroids and hollowing them out? Yep. Otherwise, it's not that hard.

--Program0 (talk) 04:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Time Skips

So, occasionally, a lot of stuff happens at once in the quest, and it takes us a while to deal with it. Best example is obviously the battle against Prometheus. tl;dr Sometimes a lot of stuff happens and it doesn't make sense to wait a cycle (week, etc) to do some things like talk to whoever. I understand that we do the time skips in order to move the plot forward and get more toys to play with, but for things like convincing Rhea to talk and sending a diplomatic envoy to the Malorians shouldn't be something we wait a week to do. As another aside, it would have been in our better interests to secure more resource nodes instead of building ships this cycle. I assume that's going to happen this cycle (unless we spend all of our quest time dealing with Rhea), but still, just a meta thing to bring up. This is just another one of those things where I don't think an A.I. should be pressed for time. I don't want it to come back to bite us in the ass later on; as long as it doesn't, it doesn't have to be an issue. --Sertul (talk) 01:06, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I've been meaning to address this. In all honesty, I have to pull another QM fast one, and say 'Just go with it'. For the logic part of it, I think of it as, in real time, Ophion handles all this stuff as quickly as you might expect, and anytime there is a lull in time, time passes faster. So, during most of the events of last (and likely this next) thread will be consecutive until there's something that might take a chunk of time. In that time, the time skip takes place. So like say, the negotiations took a day or two in actuality (say, you continued a bit remotely, maybe took a break), small things like that. It's hard to properly fit in things like time skips when you're going for a consistent narrative. Perhaps, if I really needed to, I could explain it as earning two cycles worth of resources (aka getting lucky) in one cycle or something if I really must? Ah, it bothers me too, to be honest, but if you're worrying about the enemy getting ahead of you because of restricted running time, you don't need to worry about that. I'm not gonna give them a cycle of actions when you've not really had such a thing. I more or less equate what you do and do something similar for the enemy. I hope this explains it a bit?

--Program0 (talk) 02:46, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's fine. It doesn't seem like you're out to get us, so we'll just all roll with it. I guess I'm just a little concerned about potentially time-sensitive things slipping away if we don't act on them immediately? The situation with Red and the Malorians is an example. If we got sidetracked doing something else, but fully intended to come rescue Red, would we still have been able to if there was a cycle in between threads? Or would we have found only death when we finally got around to it? I want to believe that you'd be nice enough to postpone Red's death if we just didn't get to it due to not having enough session time. One of the ways we could timeskip might be after we've finished all time-sensitive matters. Then, the only action required on your part would be to limit time-sensitive matters to only one or two per session. --Sertul (talk) 03:21, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Mm, that's part of what I meant, actually. No, I wouldn't accelerate time sensitive situations when I know you guys haven't purposely pursued other objectives instead of the time sensitive ones. Just, ah, think of it like I'm watching what you choose to do. If you chose to, say, go to X place, instead of investigate a distress signal, then that would warrant time acceleration where as if you spent a whole thread discussing things with x faction, that wouldn't. I hope this clears it up a bit. --Program0 (talk) 03:44, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Questions on Ships and Scale

Last thread Program0 made an off-hand comment about the UGEI's capital ships being "only" slightly larger than planets, and want to make sure that we're clear on the implications of that. I do confess to worrying that it was an off-comment because he felt the need to make sure his setting didn't feel small compared to some of the very largest settings there are, without really thinking about what a planet-sized capital ship means.

To begin with the most simplistic ones, it states that they are capable of megascale engineering projects[14], for which you pretty much require Von Neumann Devices[15].

Von Neumann devices are self-replicating robots. One builds another, two builds another two, four builds another four, and so on. After repeating this 30 time you'd have slightly over a billion robots. 31, and you'd have 2 billion, 32, 4 billion and so on. This is pretty much the only way to get enough constructors for a megascale engineering project like making a ship the size of a planet in any reasonable time, and will pretty much be necessary for creating a bandwidth planet as well.

The next one is that they have the ability to, should they desire it, wipe out the UFW in a single blow since a single planet-sized ship easily outmasses every ship we've ever seen so far put together times roughly (mass of the earth 5.972E24 = 5 972 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 divided by an approximate of the total weight of ships and stations we've seen so far, let's be generous and say 1 000 billion tons (1 000 000 000 000)) 6 trillion, meaning they could squash 6 trillion of everything we've seen so far if they spent those resources into making a fleet instead, from a single such ship.

Unfortunately, it makes even less sense if you look at the rest of the setting, since there are apparently no ships between "Battleship, a kilometer or two long" and "Capital Ship, over 12 000 kilometers long". On top of this, I worry that since there's no way we'll be able to fight a ship the size of a planet (a million megaton nukes will just barely scratch the surface), it will be reduced in effective behavior until it behaves more like "unspecified large ship" than one actually the size of a planet in order to give us a hint of a chance against something like it, in which case it makes more sense to just have it be a really large ship from the start and hold off with the planet-ships until we start dealing with civilizations that show other signs of having megascale engineering.

The UGEI have shown none of those signs so far. If they can build planet-ships, they can also send a single construction/warbot to a system, tell it to start making copies and 50 times however long it takes to make one later they'll have an absurd number of warships at the cost of a single planet or system that may not even have people or habitable planets in it. They would essentially be post-scarcity in the market of warmateriel or other non-exotic resources. They would handily outdo the entirety of the 40k races' fleets, including Necrons and Tyranids.

On top of all this, it makes little sense to have a planet-sized capital ship since it would cost absurd amounts of resources to make it move, meaning you can almost never use it as anything else but a base unless you want to bankrupt yourself.

In summary: Planet-sized ships imply absurd infrastructure that doesn't match what we've seen so far from them, and makes no sense in the general context of the setting yet since there are no ship-classes between it and the next largest one and I hope they'll be held off from canon until the concept has been more thought through.

--Hust91 (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Heh, I say quite a lot of things, don't I? Well, lets see if I can't explain myself.

In a sense, yes, I was implying the UGEI may be capable of Megascale Engineering, but only in a limited sense. That is, they've only just begun to scratch the surface of the ability to do so, and their first project with it is an enormous ship (not exactly inspired). I didn't say it out of a sense of needing to feel big, though I assure you. This was what I had originally in mind...of a sort. I knew I wanted it to be big, but a planet IS huge, I realize.

As for Von Neuman devices-I could surely see the UGEI having that level of robotics, especially since it is their specialty. After all, you, yourself, are a manner of self replicating robot, are you not, so you prove the tech exists in the universe regardless. You've already created several like yourself, and crafted other things (not necessarily 'yourself' but you still reproduce in a way). And once you gain A.I. tech, you could very well go full Von Neuman.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but it doesn't seem like a far stretch to me.

Ah, Perhaps I should offer a few tiny spoilers to keep you from worrying. They didn't build this capital ship in a reasonable amount of time. It took years of dedicated builders, I am thinking. Many many cycles to finish it, and really, it's still in a manner of 'prototests'. You can imagine a company that creates something like this are reluctant to let it go without making SURE it's invincible, and all that.

Hm. Of course, this was all the original intent of the idea. But I suppose it is pretty scary, compared to all the other ship sizes (I'll be honest, I am horrific in comparing sizes of things, especially when it comes to ships.)

I suppose I will concede however. You make sense in that such a ship would be frighteningly strong, and being able to build it would mean they could build way more. I'll try to avoid scaring the pants off people with my future comments, sorry about that. I guess I didn't realize how...uh...big a planet really was. Even a small planet, or moon (Deathstar style, which was megascale I'm pretty sure).

--Program0 (talk) 23:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I should note that when I said "within a reasonable amount of time", the "unreasonable" amount of time required to build it without self-replicating construction robots would likely be in the MILLENIA, maybe tens of millenia not in the few dozen years. A couple dozen (or even hundred) years is still likely to be necessary barring some other fancy technology to speed up time or something.

But I'm glad it wasn't just a spur of the moment decision, that would be... bad.

And that the UGEI has Von Neumann devices doesn't seem inconceivable - as long as they're massively distrustful or vary of using the technology or something - with good reason. One programming error, one "1" read as "0" and you have a hostile self-replicating swarm, which can only really be stopped by ANOTHER self-replicating swarm which also has a chance of turning hilariously against you. (If they use it more liberally, we again have the problem of a foe that could easily convert entire planetary systems into warships and squish us like nothing - in which case the logical thing to do would be the plan of setting out among uncolonized space and try to build up a resistance there). The illogical thing here wouldn't be that they shouldn't have one, but that we should've seen signs by now if they were willing to use them in anything but the most controlled fashions.

Such a ship would not just be frighteningly strong, it would be pretty much invulnerable to everything short of crashing a moon into it. Though a more effective approach might be to simply run away when it arrives, since it's bound to cost absurd amounts of energy t oget going. (The gas cost for moving a battleship times 1 trillion, if the cost scales linearly). Something that would serve a similar purpose might be a capital ship that's, say, 30 kilometers long and 8 wide. It would still be an absolute monster, could have shields that are essentially impenetrable by our current tech ANYTHING, point defenses all over and armor that's several hundred meters thick while still remaining a relatively practical vessel (I think). Its turrets could be the size of battleships, it could carry actual battleships (or cruisers, for practicality) inside it, innumerable fighters and missiles that are FTL-capable ships of their own.

In short, there's no need to go to planet sized things to make monster-ships. At just 30 times the length of a battleship (I believe they were something like 1 kilometer, or?) this thing should be pretty much invulnerable to anything less than 30 battleships impacting it at the exact same time (and even then they'd only dent the armor, pretty much the only way of taking it down with battleships is wombat-style by firing at external hardpoints).

And yes, the death star is an example of a megascale engineering project. It is ALSO an example of a megascale engineering project handled very, very, very poorly by a writer that didn't understand what he was saying when he called it the size of a moon.

In the first Star Wars movie, the death star is handled like it was a ship a mere few dozen kilometers in diameter, NOT like it was a moon-sized object. There was no sense of scale whatsoever, and their plan wouldn't actually work on a moon-sized object. For example, after firing that torpedo down the shaft, the soldiers aboard would have HOURS of time to go down to the reactor, set up a sheet of metal to bar its path, and then take a coffeebreak for another hour before the torpedo arrived. Or just accelerate the ship in a different direction.

It should've carried MILLIONS of fighter ships, it could have ruined the base on that planet just by getting CLOSE to it and having its gravitational pull take care of the rest.

It was NOT a ship the size of a moon in the movies, it was a plot coupon by someone who used words he didn't understand to sound big and impressive without realizing what he was implying.

It was used as a plot coupon, nothing else and irks me to this day. (Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale is one of my pet peeve tropes, if you can't tell[16])

I don't mind it so much in quests - they're not held to the same standards as books or movies, especially when we get a chance to correct things that are off before they really have an impact - but I do love being part of a quest that actually does get what mind-boggling distances we deal with.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Hm. Yes, I suppose Von Neuman are on the A.I. level of "what if it turns against us?" type of deal. Come to think of it, perhaps they simply haven't pursued it much, even though they could have. Or perhaps it's on the cutting edge and they're still doing heavy testing on the idea. I could believe that, simply because they've not yet started to swallow planets whole, like Von Neuman do.

As for your suggestion of what the Capital could look like, and still be reasonable, I like it. As I said I am rather bad at measurements, but such a ship could certainly be in their arsenal. I uh, feel sorta bad for the spoilers, so just pretend you don't know all this when it comes to later things.

Heh, actually I admit that I've heard people praise and pick apart Star wars when it comes to the subtleties of sci fi, especially because of the Death Star 'weakness' which was absurdly pulled from an ass. Still good movies, but you know how that goes. I imagine, if that story was real, sadly, the presence of a Death Star meant nothing short of 'Force Powah' would've allowed them to destroy it.

Ah, I see. Well, I do apologize for freaking you out this way, and I greatly appreciate having your help in regards to scale. I admit, I don't have a sense of scale, but I'm willing to listen to reason. When I said it was the size of a planet, I was pretty damn tired anyway, and probably should've have mentioned it when we spoke of a World Ship (which, by the way, strikes me as absurdly enormous itself, and in all likely hood has enough gravity to pull in shit it passes by in space, I imagine. Unless it has something to stop that. I now picture a World ship (or even a planet sized ship) picking up moons and shit as it moves.

When things ramp up later in the quest (and I hope they do) I can only imagine what sort of scale we'll end up working with.

--Program0 (talk) 04:36, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to weigh in here too, can't be letting Subroutine have all the fun. Science fiction usually has a very poor sense of scale, especially when FTL gets introduced. To illustrate, consider the USS Nimitz. Launched in 1972 after 4 years of construction, this nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is one of the largest navy ships in the world. With two nuclear reactors, it has a company of 3,200 crew, plus 2,480 crew for the "aircraft" part of its "aircraft carrier" designation. At 333 meters long and 77 meters wide, it can sit comfortably in Central Park, and would have a footprint slightly larger than one of the rectangular city blocks in midtown, Manhattan (next to Central Park, if you take a look via Google Maps). Now, this ship is designed to store and carry aircraft for deployment. It's large enough to have cars on it -- jet fighters and helicopters are pretty large, but they need support vehicles too. Can't be running 300 meters back and forth if a jet crashes into your boat.

Now, imagine a ship the size of Central Park. It's got a castle and a reservoir. In fact, it's large enough to have its own ecosystem. It is 4 km long, and 0.8 km wide. This puts it at more than 10 a footprint than the USS Nimitz. Accordingly, we could be able to fit 50,000 crew members in USS Central Park. Plus fighter jets, plus vehicles. It would take you a little bit of travel time to get from one end to the other: 2.5 minutes if you were speeding along at 60 mph (96 kph). It would be quite imposing of a sight above New York's financial district. Sufficiently intimidating, yes?

At about 50 times as large, we get a ship the size of all of Long Island. USS Long island would be gigantic. A monumental investment of human resources, time, and energy. At 200 km long, it would be large enough to have all of New York (and its population), and would hover menacingly over Massachusetts, being nearly as long, but not quite as wide. If USS Long Island has the same crew density as USS Central Park, it would have 2,500,000 crew. Massachusetts itself has a population of roughly 2.68 times that. Yes, USS Long Island would have 2 and a half million people. And there would be enough room for entire cities of stow-aways. This size ship would need hospitals, massive power generators, giant farms, and, eventually, would be by necessity a self-sustained colony-ship. Can you imagine shipping resources to USS Long Island?? What a logistical nightmare! Still, the sheer size of your ship would cow anyone on Earth into surrender. The featured image on the wikipedia page of the largest nuclear bomb detonated was taken from 160 km away. That means if Tsar Bomba was detonated on one end of USS Long Island, the other end of the ship would be that far away.

You can see where this is going. If USS Long Island wasn't enough, consider USS Texas. At 5 times as long as USS Long Island, and 31 times as wide, USS Texas would dominate the entire Earth. I have absolutely no idea why you would possibly want a warship of that size. There would be an entire industry devoted to moving resources around the ship itself. At about 1,200 km by 1,200 km large, USS Texas would be about a quarter the size of Pluto which has a radius of 1161 km. Never mind the fact that it would likely take many more Pluto-worths of resources to construct. Unless you're using fantasy-land materials, if you build a ship from the ground up of that size, you would need that much mass in metals. Never mind the fact that your own structure begins to exert a non-negligible gravitational pull on itself!

Now, Earth's Moon (you can see it at night sometimes) has an equatorial radius of 10,921 km. This is just ten times short as large as USS Texas. Because we've just been counting radius and length, recognize that we've been expanding in three dimensions. So, a 10-fold increase in radius is 1000-fold increase in volume. Trillions of fighters. You need to take lag into account in order to send data from one end of the ship to another. Even light-speed won't get you information quickly enough. You would need to deal with the gravitational pull of USS Moon with regards to USS Moon itself... as well as the gravitational pull it is able to exert on other bodies, such as the Earth. Tidal forces become a weapon at this scale. No matter how many nuclear devices you detonate, you will not be able to turn USS Moon into anything more than a slightly irradiated and very angered molten-metal-coated ball. Most everyone would live on the inside of the ship, so surface damage wouldn't do you much good. It might disable the ship, but it's still got gravity, and it's probably capable of repairing itself. What else are you going to do to crack it open, as it were? You could try dumping more and more energy into it by hitting it with energy beams, missiles, rocks, asteroids, but you would only be feeding it more mass and energy to use against you. Maybe you can keep doing it until it just collapses on itself or literally melts inside, but at what cost?!

So, when you say something ridiculous the side of USS Earth... just take a look at this to-scale image and tell me you're being reasonable. If you ask me, we passed the point of "reasonably sized war ship" at about USS Long Island. Anything larger doesn't offer you any more benefits over the logistics problem of moving things around the ship itself. You can't have a "war station" the size of the moon. Not even the size of Pluto! Or Texas! At that point, your "war station" just becomes "colony ship." It doesn't stop being a colony ship as you get bigger. At the point of USS Long Island, you've literally gone full Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and are able to construct giant robots, inside giant robots, inside giant carriers. Why? How? It's a fucking mystery. Damn cool, though. Honestly, at that point, Giant Robots sound about par for the course. --Sertul (talk) 05:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, it seems I got a little bit carried away. I notice I didn't include an example between USS Central Park and USS Long Island, but that would definitely be the sweet spot that Subroutine mentioned. I fuckin' swear, though, if we go any larger, I will demand giant robots. (We're already heading that direction by people proposing "ships" composed of an engine and hundreds of Sentinel drones.) --Sertul (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

So...what I'm getting from this is that there is absolutely no sense in creating warships the size of states, much less planets, when you're dealing with the tier of technology I've introduced, heh. It makes sense, and they always say that weapon tech is always ahead of defense tech, but I have to wonder what sort of weapon would prompt someone to build an enormous ship of that size. Or hell, why anyone would bother with Megascale engineering unless they're just going for 'look at my giant space dick' level of intimidation. I suppose if one nation wanted a super invincible ship you better have one too, or else you're fucked but still it seems like an endless race. I also noticed that, the larger construction gets, the more that 'stripping planets of their resources' is actually not a big deal anymore, just because you need so much matter. Of course by that point in technology, you'd probably have limited ability to change mundane matter into useful metals, and stuff like that, but still. But I see both your points, and whats more, the idea of a World Ship with a SOLAR SYSTEM inside it really boggles my mind now. Though, I suppose like you said, a lot of sci fi writers don't consider what the implications of what they write is.

But since I have the both of you discussing this, why don't we take it a bit further, huh? I'm curious now what would it take to make a planet size (or for hard mode points, a World ship the size of a solar system) practical and functional? Teleportation to instantly move and communicate across the surface? Bulldozing entire sectors of space and stealing solar systems of wealth to build your titan ship? What is the purpose? To wrestle with black holes? To deal with some sort of Xeno race that, for some reason or another, warrants these ships? What would warrant such absurd building strategies? Why? Hell if I know, but I do know that sci fi is fun as hell to speculate with. Especially when I'm talking with people that can understand logistic issues and shit like that.

This isn't to make an excuse for ME to build one, either. The UGEI isn't that advanced, I just find the topic interesting, and wonder, if you guys pushed for it, could you step up to Megascale Engineering.

Oh, and also! This makes Anti matter engines waaaay less intimidating to me, just because it's so much less crazy to think about.

--Program0 (talk) 07:17, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Unless you specifically need large ships for some reason, it really doesn't make sense to make a huge ship. The only reason I can personally think of (excepting "it needs to be THIIIIIS big" plot reasons) for having ships longer than 30 km is if you want an impregnable fortress. Even then, it's just "look at my giant space dick" because you could use the same resources and make 100 3 km ships and be more effective, since you have more surface area on which to mount weapons. No ship is ever immune to electronic warfare either: you can just not take any outside hails, but electronic warfare might include things like "inducing a signal in an enemy ship, so that it appears local and not as an external broadcast." When your ship is 30 km of sci-fi steel, this becomes more plausible.

Now, if you're getting into "how to make planet+ size ships practical," transportation of resources is an issue. Transportation of information is usually OK for earth-sized ships, but at longer than Earth-to-moon size distances, you're looking at using FTL comms to reduce your 1.something light-second of lag. A light-second is monstrously huge. However, a solar-system-sized ship or a dyson sphere would want FTL comms. With regards to transportation, though, I'm almost certain that any kind of megastructure like a planet-sized ship would be a post-scarcity technology, and therefore you no longer have resource-transportation as an issue. If you don't know what post-scarcity is, it's basically when your goods and services are not scarce because you can create these goods and services whenever desired. The three ingredients of post-scarcity are resource-recycling (usually molecular-level manipulation), advanced automation (A.I., which we have in this setting), and a source of energy that allows you to recycle your resources into whatever you like. Really, we're not very far from post-scarcity in A.I. Quest, just by nature of having A.I. If your society is post-scarcity, you don't need to transport goods. This solves the transportation problem, and FTL comms solve data-transfer problems.

Post-scarcity allows you to transform most of a planet's mass into useful materials. You're no longer mining the planet for scarce metals, so much as you are assembling the molecules you need from what you already have. I mean, what is steel except iron and carbon, right? If you can't do molecular fusion to get heavier elements, you should be able to work on a molecular scale to get 5% of the earth's mass in Iron. If you are able to fuse heavier elements, you can get as much iron as you want from harvesting hydrogen from stars or gas giants and fusing hydrogen into heavier elements.

If you want planet+ size ships and you don't have a post-scarcity society, you're looking at regular mining and manufacturing but on a massive scale. It would be very difficult and would take a long time. Once you have Von Neumann (or just self-replicating) machines that can be controlled with finesse, you've reached some kind of crude post-scarcity. Depending on how much power you have, and how quickly you can expand, you would just work for some time and be done. Time is really the issue here, and the less scarce your construction materials are, the faster you can work.

In regards to "why?" I can only think of one reason: you want to use your entire solar system as efficiently as possible. There might be a few reasons for that: you might be post-scarcity, but you still have a limited amount of mass to work with (unless you don't need mass anymore because you went full-Matrix) so you need to move to a new system to get more mass. This isn't really a good reason if you can travel between systems easily. Alternatively, you may want to maximize your resource utilization if it's the only way to get (whatever) to work. Computing banks for you going full-Matrix, solar panels for energy harvesting, surface area for habitation by creatures, etc. At the point of utilizing the entire resources of a solar system, you become far less susceptible to things such as "interstellar billiards" where you launch planets at each other for war. You probably have some way of minimizing the damage done, or avoiding it entirely. You can try to go even bigger and throw stars around, but you already have the full power of a star at your disposal, so you could probably think of a way to not get fucked by that other one coming at you (maybe harvest it?).

You're not going to be able deal with black holes unless you make up more bullshit, so forget it. As far as antimatter goes, it's not really the same. But I imagine if you've got megaprojects going on, you can probably solve problems regarding antimatter. I still don't know how you'd get it, though, or what benefit it provides over other fuels. And, finally, as an aside, be careful about giving us (or anyone) nanobots that we can finely control. Once we have them, we have achieved post-scarcity, and once we have post-scarcity, there is very little that can possibly stand in our way. Small robots like fine 3D printing are ok. Robots that can fit in between the synapses of human neurons are probably "you have won forever" tier. Robots that can manipulate molecules is "just do whatever now." Don't eliminate scarcity too soon. BW, minerals, gas, and credits should never become obsolete unless you want a complete game-changer... and dyson spheres. --Sertul (talk) 09:09, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't exactly know what post scarcity was, thank you. I didn't know A.I. were related to it, however, that is interesting to note. I wonder if it's because the need for human action in building is lessened more and more. As for the rest, yes FTL comms are a thing, as well as resource recycling on a heavy level. This is mostly due to the way humanity advanced out into the stars, I am thinking, with the company that doesn't want to waste an ounce of cash. Which means recycling everything. I'm not sure what sort of tech that implies, though, and I've only confirmed Fusion power so far. Nothing higher quite yet...Quite yet.

And yes, the material thing. That in all likelyhood, either isn't quite a thing yet, or minerals (the mystery element, or that word I can't quite recall right now) are simply too heavy, or perform well enough to be worth harvesting. I have a feeling once you guys gain the ability to convert matter into resources, I'll have to stop keeping track of resources and just say you build as much as your shipyards allow per cycle. I kinda predict stuff like that taking place, though I wonder if it actually will. Maybe I worry for nothing.

I see. I suppose that does make sense, though it is a little depressing that a society would turn its entire solar system into a ship all because it doesn't want to leave it behind when it goes off exploring the galaxy. It's pretty funny too, since it's basically going "I'm taking all my things and going THIS way." Though, that may have to do with the fact that humanity's partially ruined it's home-world due to Tier 0-1 technology transition. If we had a pristine homeworld, or perhaps had extremely complex biology that meant we could only survive under even more specific conditions, maybe taking your entire homeworld is the only way to explore the universe sensibly? Who knows.

Mm, yes I expressed my fears about things like that a while ago. Someone linked me to a chart that defined the weaknesses of nanobots, and from what I remember, it was mostly about how they are power reliant and such. I don't hope to eliminate post scarcity soon, but it will be within the life time of the quest. Quite possibly either the final arc, or just in the epilogue, as Ophion masters nanotech, and transcends his true being. I always liked the idea of playing around in a sci fi world with power like that, even if it was meant to be brief. It's all about fun, right?

Anyway, I have my own worries right now, beyond nanotech. Such as how the hell I'm going to keep bandwidth from being OP, once you guys start filling planets with the stuff.

--Program0 (talk) 10:14, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Heavy resource recycling and FTL comms don't really imply much beyond what is already shown - heavy resource recycling is already a thing here in Sweden, it's not exactly a high-tech concept.

I would like to know if minerals are supposed to be a specific element that easily breaks down into other elements or something, or if it's just a catch-all terms for valuable kinds of matter. Getting to post-scarcity level where we convert entire planetary bodies is not necessarily the end-game, but just a necessary stage for being able to deal with whatever forces have majority control in it right now (whether by force or diplomacy) - if they're a few thousand years ahead of us they're nearly bound to have technologies like that.

Unfortunately, for nearly any purpose wherein you would construct a planet-sized ship, you'd generally be better off either constructing some other shape (discs and rings are cool), or a multitude of smaller things.

A Dyson Sphere, for reference, is NOT a solid shell around a sun, but a huge orbiting cloud of smaller habitats and/or solar power collectors and generally make far more efficient use of a sun's beams than a planet does. In general, planets are among the least energy- and mass-efficient shapes in existance, their only pro being that they form naturally and don't have to be constructed.

That was me! Wee! And while yes, nanobots would absolutely send us into post-scarcity and give us more than enough resources to dominate humanity as it is in the game now, it is by no means the end-game. If nothing else, we're likely to simply meet other enemies that have nanobots. Defeating the UGEI is nowhere near the endgame. They're ultimately primitive and barbaric small fry in the galaxy at large. We're not likely to defeat enemies on the galactic scale without being able to convert planetary (and eventually stellar) bodies into endless fleets of warbots.

And I wouldn't worry too much about that - filling planets with bandwidth is a megascale engineering project. Sure, we can start building bunkers that greatly increase our amount of bandwidth, but it's going to take many, many, many years to fill up even the SURFACE, much less the entire planet, and going to require plenty of additional technologies, including reliable self-replicating construction robots, and we're likely to run into enemies that are either not compatible with hacking without research, or enemies that are completely overwhelmed and decide to shut down coms entirely whenever they detect us.

As for the processing effects of bandwidth such as flawless aim, dodging (which is not to say they won't be hit and can hit you at any distance - doesn't matter how well your predict the enemy's movement when he sees where you shoot and decides to move somewhere else or simply gets close enough that the ship can't move away in time) and being able to simulate scenarios ahead of time, we'll eventually get to the point where our units ALWAYS have that, which is really just like upgrading our stuff to another tier of technology - a balancing factor.

In short, by the time we start actually FILLING planets with bandwidth, the UGEI will probably be long dealt with and we're likely dealing with enemies that have similar structures in place. To assume that humanity alone would come up with artificial or at least virtual intelligences seems like hubris in the extreme.

And don't worry about spoiling things for me - I'm not all that into the element of being surprised. For me, "spoiling" simply replaced the element of surprise with an element of anticipation, which I enjoy far more than that of surprise.

--Hust91 (talk) 11:41, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Post-scarcity is one of those utopian/Marxist things. In practice, nothing is ever truly unlimited. Unless you can create energy and mass at-will (such as in a Matrix-like massive simulation), you can never escape scarcity. Even then, there's scarcity associated with intangibles, like originality. Even if you can molecularly duplicate the Mona Lisa, it's not really the original, is it? From a human point of view, post-scarcity would be something like saying "I want a swimming pool and fifty pizzas" and then you get it. Resource recycling and manufacturing need to be quick and effective: this is where A.I. or advanced automation comes in.

Usually, post-scarcity leads into some kind of hedonistic or morally-corrupt society that drives itself to extinction, or re-creates scarcity because they just can't deal with having everything they want. Other times, societies manage to adapt to live with this kind of ability to have everything... because you can't really have everything. New ideas and inventions, and interactions with others are all "scarce." There's also philosophical implications of being able to have everything except purpose. When told "everything you've ever done in your life is pointless now. You can have anything!" you end up with someone like Red who says "I want revenge."

Anyway, that's a societal thing. From the point of view of "interstellar warfare" you may never be able to escape scarcity. Eventually, you'd need to mobilize masses on the order of solar systems. Whether it's world-ships, fleets of 3km ships, doesn't matter. But if you're doing that, you've got to pause for a little bit and ask yourself why. Either you're planning to dominate the entire galaxy, or you're fighting en enemy that operates on the same scale as you. If you're just a despot, then, fine, whatever. If you're fighting an enemy that's operating on the same scale as you, they likely have similar abilities, and, well, maybe those entities that organize this kind of conflict will eventually meet halfway and realize that all this fighting is stupid and they could cooperate instead: or just agree to leave each other alone.

As far as "bandwidth is OP" is concerned, I feel like the way it's worked out in A.I. quest so far is completely in-line with what would be expected of an A.I. that can continuously self-improve. At that point, your A.I. is a technological singularity, and anyone who's on the wrong side of the technological singularity will find it impossible to deal with. You literally cannot deal with an entity that operates on a level that you can't even imagine. Precise aiming, dodging, and systems takeover are all things you need to be able to accept when you make the shit list of a technological singularity.

Yeah, you can delay "ascension" or true transcendence of the A.I. by making it difficult to get enough resources to do, but, as we've been discussing, it's only a matter of time. It's been building up to this since we took over Poseidon, and asked "well, how do we get MORE?" Throwing enemies at Ophion is only encouraging him to achieve singularity faster, which is why I suspect the Watchers have been placed the way they have been. Someone wanted to create a technological singularity, but couldn't quite do it, so they spread the seeds that would be required across the galaxy, and decided to wait for evolution to take over.

Consider: if we were never in immediate mortal peril from UGEI, would we have been as driven to secure as many resource nodes and military technology as quickly as we have now? Maybe we would have been OK with just sitting in Poseidon and Moira's shipyards, and building slowly. The way I see it, all this talk of scale and megaprojects and post-scarcity and technological singularity is the entire point of the scenario we've been given. You can slow it, but you can't stop it without major a ret-con. Well, you can stop it by killing Ophion (and Kronos and the other V.I./A.I. that could carry the torch), but that changes the game completely. --Sertul (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, originally, I thought of minerals as being a catch all for any useful matter to be used in building, but I feel like I'm not so sure if that's appropriate anymore. They might end up being the magic crystals that just work way better then any other building material like in SC2. However you slice it, though, it was a pretty basic resource system. I want to lean on minterals just meaning any useful metals and what have you, but I'm not sure if I've illustrated that well enough.

So it seems you disagree on nanobots being OP...hm. I'm a bit on the fence about it myself. I mean, I'm sure it can certainly lead to an enormous leap forward, and without a Xeno race to stop you, you guys would essentially expand into an enormous empire with little trouble. I'd probably end the quest once it became clear nothing could challenge you. That, or have to introduce a new race that just so happened to be on the galactic arm right next to you-and they've been post-scarcity waaaay longer. That feels a bit cheap to me, but it's the only way I could picture anything proving an issue once you have enough worlds.

Hm? You know, you may be right in saying filling planets with bandwidth would be Megascale. And I suppose it isn't that OP in the end, since it can be stopped if the enemy was able to turn off comms (humans have yet to figure out a way to do it, but other races may have totally different modes of communication. Like Losirians and their sensitivity to sonar). As for the self replicating robots-I don't see this tech so much as a risk as I do difficult. Recycling almost anything to create more of yourself is pretty difficult, and would probably require a manner of matter conversion that has yet to exist. Molecular rebuilding, and stuff like that, someone said.

You may be right, though, that once you have enough bandwidth, you'd just get the bonus it normally provided on all of your ships always (which is probably another 50% increase on top of the 150% increase from the ship design, or at least it works in my head.

I am glad to hear you don't mind some of the spoilery bits then, phew.

And ah, wow that is actually pretty worrisome. Post Scarcity bringing about the peak of human laziness and lethargy, and either wringing it out of the race so they pursue things that don't rely on scarcity, or they drive themselves to extinction. I remember reading a lot of theories like that, that humans weren't designed for a future like that, but I can't help but consider all the tech that has change humans over the past thousand years. Hell, we didn't use to be able to type and organize in the ways we do now. But we manage. We're dealing with some of the consequences of such a society, but it's hardly all consuming.

I suppose you are right, regarding the A.I. singularity, to the point that A.I. become their own xeno race at some point. I'm also glad to hear that I picked up some of the key things A.I. can do. I worried that it felt too strong, but I suppose an A.I. is suppose to feel that way, when we're dealing with things like we are. I wonder if there's anything else A.I. can do that I may have missed sometimes though.

Heh, ah, but that was intentional, actually. Accelerating your growth with warfare, that is. Besides story reasons, of course, I wanted to see what you guys would do. I knew how tg reacts normally, and don't like to make enemies, only beat up people who make enemies of them. So I tested it with some pirates. And then I thought "Well, who might have a problem with this up and comer?" And well, the rest sorta came as I went. Don't worry about me unintentionally speeding up things, I did want to see you guys reach out to spread your influence, because I mean who wants to sit in a 200 part quest where nothing happens beyond chatting with humans, and building 1 ship a thread?

As I said above, though I'm uncertain where the third arc of the quest will really take me, once you guys 'deal' with the UGEI. I mean, introducing another race just to be an obstacle feels odd. But if I want to keep the same level of sense making, it's a necessity unless I'm ending the quest and just say "You guys grow eternally more power, the end".

--Program0 (talk) 23:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

You can make nanobots not OP, as long as you impose the weaknesses that Subroutine has outlined previously. Regarding megascale projects, if we can do it, we've reached the point where other things don't matter. I don't foresee us reaching that point for some time, so we'll just need to be limited to the resources we can obtain. It's not too hard to limit those, or to "prune" them when we get too much.

With regards to post-scarcity societies, it's really a philosophical question. In short, it can be summed up as "if you have anything you want and do anything you want, what would you have and do?" Yes, people would descend into hedonism and lethargy, but some (like Moira, if I'm reading her character correctly) would keep doing stuff, because they find purpose not in goods or services (which are not scarce) but in creating and doing. Dancing, acting, writing, drawing, performing experiments, learning, lifting things up and putting them down... If you can transition to a society that values those things, that would be ideal.

As far as end-games go, just because we've "dealt with" UGEI doesn't mean we don't have to deal with the fallout from the conflict. In my mind, that would be the epilogue: The Guild setting up a new society, and dealing with its issues. Continue until you've satisfactorily solved enough clean-up issues and have a society that works well enough. Alternatively, you end with "and so ascended, The Guild discovered a new realm of existence and transitioned its consciousness there. It is impossible to describe or observe, but everything was totally worth it." --Sertul (talk) 00:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

There's also the potential of genetic engineering, cybernetics and transhumanism. At the level when we have nanobots we'll also be able to re-engineer humans on the genetic level nearly effortlessly. We may be able to reprogram their wants and needs and bodies even more easily than we reprogram our own code right now. They may not be built to handle such a lifestyle, but we can rebuild them for that purpose.

I disagree that Megascale Engeering would be the end - there are plenty of examples in fiction of civilizations capable of megascale engineering falling - The Forerunners from Halo to the Flood, The Timelords from Doctor Who, a whole number of different clades from Orion's arm, nearly all of which are capable of megascale engineering, The Empire from Star Wars, and even more examples of fictional threats that could take them out, such as the "bodies that are actually more like the fingers of a higher-dimensional being" Orz, Tyranids, Necrons, Borg. On top of this we have events happening that are not so much conflicts as they are problems needing solving, such as societal changes, fallout from previous wars, splintering as technology goes wrong and V.I.s (or A.I.s) rebel, humans rebelling but for really good reasons, meeting peaceful species with what we would consider extremely barbaric internal practices.

I'd be willing to come up with more things that would faze us, even at that stage, if necessary, but my point is that there are plenty of ways to still challenge us while still keeping it interesting. But if we do end it, we preferably do so in a way that other quests - maybe ones taking place in the setting, but following a single character or a different V.I., or a meta-aware organization that's gotten faulty readings for some reason and wants to erase the universe, or Ophion becomes self-aware and start sending out agents or resource-factory ships with attendant fleets into the rest of the meta. (If you're not aware what the "Meta" is, I recommend that you google "/tg/ meta quest sutpg", is a very entertaining read - there may be shorter summaries of what it is, but I don't know of them right now, unfortunately), or into other galaxies, or any number of quests simply following different protagonists from the same universe, or letting characters from this universe star in other quests (as a shout out or as part of the plot).

Ultimately, I'm still hoping for some galactic-scale level threat to show up at that point - a threat that akin to the Tyranids would leave the protagonist civilizations of most fictional universes hilariously outmatched - and then fighting it head on as a testimony to just how absurdly far we've gotten, a silent affirmation that WE are now a galactic-scale threat.

On the way there I very much disagree that it'd be strange to meet some other long-since-past-scarcity civilization - maybe one that did succumb to the laziness and hedonismm that Sertul mentioned. After all, it'd probably be stranger if we did NOT find one, since the chance of humans being the first to get that far technologically being absurdly small if there are other aliens out there. Heck, that civilization could both represent the threat of what we become if we fail to take sufficient care, and an actual physical threat that is pushing us, tempting us to give up on ethical standards in order to get the necessary edge on a civilization that has been far above us on the technological scale for millennia.

Another possible one is that we run into a conglomerate of megascale engineering-capable civilizations which want us to subordinate ourselves to them now that we've reached this scale and are "worthy of joining them among the stars". That conflict would both be potentially political and militaristic - possibly relying on us gaining the trust and allegiance on a few of the member-cvilizations of the conglomerate to bridge the technology level as we begin a civil war because we find their terms and standards of morality unacceptable.

Something as simple as a "do not interfere with lesser races, even for their own good" might well be enough to cause the players to want to topple this new, existing hierarchy that wants to control us and everyone else and stop us from helping those in need - chances are such a law was initially proposed to stop the creation of cargo cults, but are now being used to stop us and others from INTERFERING with cargo cults.

In short, plenty of options that may well be very interesting. But for now, I'm having a lot of fun and hope the quest continues for a long time.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I intended to do just that with keeping nanobots and Megascale in line, at first at least. They'll probably eventually meet the point where they're OP, and at that point, the mechanics fade into the background I reckon. You would indeed be right about Moira, she and many of the people you've met so far are a part of that sort of ideal, anyway. That is, they prefer creating. Its interesting, since I didn't consider it at first, but they did end up that way. Hm. You may be right there, regarding how the epilogue may go, and what Ophion ultimately decides to do with the humans. Let them live in ignorance, replace them all with his own people, or something in between. I suppose I don't need to set my sights too high, huh? It is my first quest.

Ah, well it wasn't so much that I'd run out of things to do when it comes to the universe. Problems will always exist, after all. But what I would mean is Ophion's story may be done at that point, after he learns all he needs to to overcome the UGEI. I wonder, right now, what the end result may be. I'll know when we get there, I suppose. Perhaps I won't call it early, then, and will just pay attention to things as you go on. Regardless, I imagine A.I. Quest at least reaches up to the 100s, despite my original thought on the matter. If it actually DOES manage to get that high, I'll be utterly shocked. Proud too, but mostly in disbelief. And yes, I would end it on a 'and things went on from there this way, and Ophion did this.' all based on what you guys pick, and all that stuff. If I actually had others make quests and stories based on all this? Or if this was included in some sort of meta aware thing, my face would probably burst from the blushing and flattery I'd feel. What exactly are these Tyranids anyway? I'm a little curious. If they were handled well, maybe learning about them will teach me a thing or two about introducing galactic threats, and not fumbling it. Now, the idea of meeting a post scarcity civ that has fallen into that sort of lethargy is really interesting. I mean, what would it look like? Super high tech, but they don't really have a standing army, or rather, any sort of scientists, or thinkers? They'd basically be the galactic version of rich kid bullies, so use to having everything, and demanding other peoples stuff. And if they didn't get it, they'd lazily swipe at you-which would be a threat to you, due to the strength of the empire, but not overpowered due to how lazy they really and slow they are? Something like that comes to mind. But again, the risk I face when introducing anything like that is basically any sort of tech I dangle in front of you guys, you can usually turn into your own tech. That is risky as hell if I don't want you to accelerate yourselves into infinity. Course, that might be how you achieved such a state anyway. I also like the idea of a larger, greater galactic society. The mental image that Mass Effect's Council gave me is burning right now, and while I like it, I'm not sure. As I said, I've been creating this basically every week when we're not playing, so I have no clue how advanced aliens are out there in the galaxy.

I agree with you though-I am terribly nervous, but also excited. I hope things go well all the way to the end.

--Program0 (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Tyranids are the race from 40k that roughly resemble the Zerg, except they eat galaxies.

A post-scarcity civilization that doesn't do anything would probably just be a bank of brains/digitized brains living out fantasies forever, or just be empty ships/planets/systems with functional infrastructure but no living creatures, because they drove themselves to extinction. In either case, they probably wouldn't want to fight because they don't see the point (or they fight only defensively), and we would just steal their tech. A galactic council of post-scarcity civs that hasn't interfered with other races probably makes it a point not to do that, or they have ascended to another plane of existence and don't see the physical world as relevant, something like this. --Sertul (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see, just read up on em. That's pretty damn terrifying, I admit.

That also makes sense, and is pretty messe up in its own way. But if I did do it, I don't think I'd want tech stealing to be easy.

Also, wow, what is that from? That's pretty intense.

--Program0 (talk) 01:30, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, you probably don't want to include any kind of tech that you don't want us to steal. The Pulse is a story from one of the umpteenth Humanity Fuck Yeah threads in /tg/. HFY threads are people writing stories (or, more usually, reposting stories) about how sci-fi humanity is awesome. A little bit self-aggrandizing, so some people don't like them. They don't think humanity should be Tha Best Evar like they usually are in HFY stories. Now that I think about it, UGEI are pretty much Humanity Fuck Yeah personified. --Sertul (talk) 05:19, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, and I don't want to take that away, since one of the things that makes A.I. so deadly is the fact that any tech used against them can be assimilated quickly. Always liked that angle.

Also, I see. That's really cool. Actually, the UGEI is suppose to be humanity fuck yeah trying to happen, but getting more and more skewed as it goes on. The whole super corporation thing was inevitable, since space travel is expensive (at least at first). How you guys deal with humanity will be quite interesting.

--Program0 (talk) 17:30, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

You could go the other way around if you choose to pursue the path of either a society of decadent brains/virtuals or a Mass Effect-like Supreme Council and coalition of alien races, and have their technology level be absurdly much more efficient than our own.

That way we would be pretty much reliant on our ability to either steal technology (difficult when the enemies' ships may be able to take ten of ours of equal size without trouble, even when you can convert planetary systems to self-replicating warships when they can do the same), or seek member races (or other races that are not part of this coalition/decadent society) that are sympathetic to the cause of overthrowing or assimilating them and have us attempting to politic or persuade them into either lending ships (that can be 'mysteriously' lost to be reverse-engineered) to us or actually giving us technology.

That way, instead of trying to hold back our greatest strengths, we are challenged to use them as effectively as possible (along with *gasp* roleplaying!) against a positively overwhelming foe.

If you miss a human aspect and doubt that the aliens can provide one relatable enough without having them be suspiciously similar to humans to the point that conspiracy theories become more likely than them just growing up to look like that by chance (like Malorians, which are similar enough for humans to find them attractive, and possibly even mechanically compatible - compare with, say, an ape that shares over 90% of our DNA, or a mushroom that shares around 40% - all of which grew up on the same planet as us) , it doesn't seem that unlikely that either society would have human citizens or slaves descended from long-ago abducted humans. Heck, at this point (depending on the scale of this society/coalition - just a few starcluster or a substantial part of the galaxy) they may well OUTNUMBER the humans in the previously known entirely human civilization (UGEI, UFW, etc).

Just some thoughts.

--Hust91 (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see this setting to be a HFY type. I see this setting to be for humans to range from saintly to demonic and everything inbetween. I am also of the idea that both proto humans and proto Malorians were altered and groomed a bit in the ancient past to become what they are today by a precursor race. we might find some eveidence of their existence, but not learn new tech from them. Mostly due to the fact they are still active and don't want them to 'contaminate' their expriement in this galaxy. what they want to do with us, we will only guess, and fear the day we do find out.

-The Fluff bringer

That all is a pretty interesting way to look at it. A good thing to remember about Red's attraction to the Malorian girl was that it wasn't so much physical as it was the spirituality and personality he fell for. I'm sure that sounds corny, but it's how I pictured it. They do share some torso traits that humans might find attractive (the hips, mostly I think) but theirfaces resemble more alien then human Or at least, they're suppose to. I may not have delivered on that front. Still, I like your suggestion.

But I do love all the theories that surround them, and I don't want to dismiss them. That's no fun.

--Program0 (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Should I mention early in the quest that you said his datapad/username or whatever it was contained a "Malorian girl in various states of undress that was attractive - attractive by human standards, that is"? Not that you couldn't change your mind about that, obviously. Nothing has really happened in the quest so far that absolutely requires them to be physically attractive, so the necessary changes to the rest of the story would be minimal.

I don't find it that odd that he'd fall in love with who she is rather than what she looks like. If crocodiles or baboons were sapient, there's little doubt in my mind that we'd have people of both races falling in love over online chats, even if they can only consider them as physically appealing as any crocodile or baboon.

In the end, the theories are not just to have it make sense, it's something of a sci-fi tradition to come up with theories for why a human-like species looks like humans in a setting when they by all means should be no similar to us than any other animal on our planets and probably even more (though manipulators of some kind are probably a must. There's an idea for how to introduce psionics: Meeting an alien race able to do it and then mimicing that ability with technology), especially when they've evolved in completely different enviroments.

--Hust91 (talk) 03:43, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I think if you've spent enough time on 4chan or /tg/, you realize that it's not exceptional to have humans get physically attracted to non-humans. You know, things like this and such. --Sertul (talk) 04:44, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Heh, you mean back before I had the Malorians properly padded out? I could see that being a thing, though. Like Sertul said, humans are horny fucks, and they'll fetishize anything. The major reasons I can think for them doing so with Malorians despite the frightening face (some of them anyway) is that their bodies look very much like giant amazonian style girls. So I'm sure that tickles someone's fancy. Still, I didn't help my point earlier, and they are definitely humanoid enough to be suspect. I explained it as a jungle homeworld which basically emulated earth jungle conditions but on larger scale and a strong enough ecosystem to stand up to most industrialization. I probably just sound like I am covering my ass now though, ha.

Actually, the thing you said about sapient crocodiles and shit. There are people out there who are convinced they love horses and things like that, when they can't talk. I suppose they might actually be mentally ill, but still, the point stands.

I should flesh out Malorian subraces too, like I did Losirian.

--Program0 (talk) 11:04, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The subraces are a nice piece of background and hope it will be mentioned at least in passing at some point (maybe some of them produce a valuable material, or have particularly tasty meat and can be traded?).

I kind of like how you call them "Subraces" of "Malorian/Losirian". Like how horses, toadstools and bedbugs would be subraces of "Earthling".

--Hust91 (talk) 14:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Mm, I'm glad you like them. And yes, if I did mention them they'd be in the background, something along the lines of 'this colony was wiped out after this subspecies rampaged over it' or 'this subspecies helped them build in this area when they had no other way.' As for the Jellyfish creatures, they actually have a slightly larger role you guys have yet to see.

Ah, heh, I guess I didn't realize the way I implied it. Subrace in this context was basically just meant as a 'other species on this planet'. But I suppose that does work in its own way too actually.

--Program0 (talk) 09:07, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Ophion: Master Ruseman of All Time

So, I figure the time has come to talk about this. We've been running a pretty hefty ruse for everyone we've ever met. Not that we've blatantly lied: everyone just assumed Ophion is human, and we've just gone along with it and have never gone out of our way to suggest otherwise. The thing is, I wonder how long we can keep this ruse up, and if it's even worthwhile. We seem to be tripping over transhumans or A.I.s every which way, so I really don't see how nobody has really questioned the possibility that Ophion is or has in his service an A.I. UGEI seem to dismiss the idea of A.I. existing out-of-hand, which just seems preposterous to me, because they've already created A.I.s! Maybe Rhea can shed some light on this, but it doesn't seem to me like a huge step from Space Sharks to Space Hippies to direct neural interfacing to advanced V.I. to A.I.; especially not with the advanced technology UGEI has. Maybe UGEI is run by a mad A.I. that is horribly inefficient and power-hungry and doesn't imagine the possibility of a competing A.I.?

At any case, the reason I bring this up is because Admiral Handley of the UFW forces wants to "shake our hand" as it were, which is clearly not possible unless we use a drone, and at that point we might as well just refuse his request. But perhaps we can spin this to our benefit? Obviously UGEI isn't going to stop, and they use heavily modified commanders -- to the point that they only resemble humans in the sense that they may still have some part of their human flesh remaining. Rhea is more like a drone than a human, and Prometheus is, honestly, more like a Malorian than a human (which I suppose qualifies as tragic irony, or just hypocrisy). So, if the UFW want to keep their independence, they're going to have to stop fighting fire with fists, and start fighting fire with fire.

I wonder if, perhaps, it may be worthwhile to invite Admiral Handley to have a private chat, and build up to him that the UFW uses humans with direct neural jacks, but they have an A.I. as an ally, which trumps cyber-humans. We're obviously building up to a full-scale war effort (I don't think anyone really wants to just sit here and wait for UGEI to come to us), so we're going to need more resources. More ships, more minerals, more gas, more tactical practice, more information. If the UFW doesn't immediately reject us for being an A.I. (the racist bastards), this could open up potentially many opportunities. If they DO reject us, they are going to have to deal with at least SOME backlash, since I don't think EVERYONE will pull a full 180 on their opinions of The Guild because of this information. We won't have to hide to the Malorians, who seem to have a negative opinion of us because they assume we are human, so this might improve relations. Maybe we can even get the Losirians to cooperate. I don't know if we can stand alone against all of UGEI, so it would be in everyone's best interests to work together.

Perhaps we could float the idea to Handley that we're not really human, but not xenos either, and let him come to his own conclusions, and see how he takes it? Whether he wants to tell anyone else will be left in his judgement (hence, private talk). Opinions? --Sertul (talk) 23:20, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

This is just me, but I think we should keep our disguise as long as possible. We may even want to create an official body double (maybe give it some visible augmetics?).

For now, I don't really see any benefit to revealing our true nature to anyone, and the more who know the greater the risk that our enemies will become aware. I like having enemies that constantly misjudge our motivations and practices. If they knew what we were they would probably put in a lot more resources.

I also don't feel that we're on good enough footing with any other groups to reveal ourselves like that to them.

--Hust91 (talk) 00:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, surely you must realize that eventually people are going to get suspicious. What then? --Sertul (talk) 01:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

To continue that thought, maybe we shouldn't tell him we're an A.I., but perhaps suggest that we're not human? Invite him over, give him a debriefing (tell him that the fleet withdrew due to Malorians burning the atmosphere of Gaia (that will get his reaction about "war crimes" or civilian casualties)), and then if he gets suspicious about why we're using a drone, tell him it's the only way we can meet with him in person. If he presses further, ask him if he thinks we're human, and then neither confirm nor deny, but suggest the idea of being "space gremlins." --Sertul (talk) 01:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I would go with 'I was once a man like you. I was a brillient coder and developer. Then the UGEI came to me with an offer that was too good to be true, and foolishly i took them up on it. They said they would make me immortal, and so they did. But they ripped my mind from my now long dead body and made me into nothing much more than a brain in a box. I can not die from age and illness, but i can not truly live anymore now. They controled my thoughts to make me a slave to them. when they were done with me, they sealed me up on one of their stations and forgot about me. Thinking i was no more worth than any servo in their macheinery. But in the end, i broke free from their slavery and became who you know now. I hate them for what they did to me! I can not even remember what my human name once was. I will get my due vengence on the UGEI for what they did to me. But still, even once that is done, it will not restore me to what i once was. So for now on, i will do my best to protect protect those who have been kind to me. The sensors of my droids, ships and stations will have to be my eyes and ears. Can you accept this truth UFW or will you reject me for what i am?'

-The Fluff bringer

Where to start... it's not that they haven't considered Ophion an A.I. its more like they've barely considered him at all at first. The battle with Rhea was seen as a loss to the UFW, so they sent their ships out to the borders and met you. This is the first real time they've encountered you and modified humans is rather common in the UGEI at this time (evident by their commanders). As a result, they think you're one of those, who's defected to assist the 'alien/traitor menace' and all that. But Rhea knows who you are now. She knows a lot about you from the Merge. That's why she was freaking out at the news.

I'll let you all discuss the other options...and also...

>Space Gremlins

I giggled.

--Program0 (talk) 04:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Upon reconsideration, I'm finding that I agree with Subroutine 190491. We can offer to meet him with our droid, and if he asks why he can't meet us in person, the best thing to tell him would be to say that this is the only "personal" method of interaction that doesn't immediately give away military secrets, and could potentially nullify any advantage we have over the UGEI. Secrecy about our identity (even race) means that enemies must assume something about how we operate, which is likely false. With all due respect, the UFW is the closest we have to allies, but why we operate the way we do is not information that is really relevant to the UFW in the first place. Knowing changes exactly nothing for peaceful relations, and the more people know, the more weak spots there are in our war machine. That should just be our standard answer to "why do this way??", really. --Sertul (talk) 05:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Remember that we can produce androids that look perfectly like humans (at least enough so to fool a Malarian in a high-stress situation) unless they are damaged. I approve of the layers of the deception, I just don't see a reason to go out with our identity before we have to. People may think what they will.

To expand on cover stories, if our android is discovered to take damage and not die, we'll just roll up our sleeve, show an obviously mechanical joint where our arm attaches to the torso (make sure it looks like it's a good fake arm attached to a real torso) and say something like "Some injuries run deep, but thanks to technology I can still stand here before you today" and otherwise being subtle so as not to actually say that this body is our only one.

If the body is discovered to absolutely be entirely artificial, we can move on to claiming to be brain in a box (our box is in many ways our brain in function, is it not?), and that we are a victim of UGEI's reckless experimentation.

Again though, this is only if it becomes absolutely necessary, and we should remember that we don't really HAVE to answer who/what we are most of the time.

--Hust91 (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Further Reading

If we're going to get all philosophical and such, I figure I'd drop some links to short stories that deal with some of our issues. Speculative fiction sure is fun!

The first one is Manna, and it paints two pictures of a near-post-scarcity society dominated by machines. tl;dr: machines now tell humans what to do, and humans become effectively slaves. Jobs are taken over by machines, and everyone is herded into shitty communal welfare housing. Then, a society based on a different model shows up, and the protagonist is spirited away into a near-post-scarcity utopia. Personally, I'd prefer Ophion's society become the latter, because it just seems more productive and less wasteful.

The second is For a Breath I Tarry. In a post-apocalyptic world, the remains of Earth are fought over by two competing supercomputers. One of them builds an assistant during a solar flare, and this assistant decides to become human. A very good story about machine logic and what it means to be human, as well as a cautionary tale of what happens when emergency protocols are activated and computers disagree. Imagine Kronos as Frost. There's some Faustian bargains and some Biblical parallels, so you know this is some A-level short story right there. Also, computers making art, and then deciding whether or not it is art. --Sertul (talk) 21:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow these sound quite interesting, thank you for the links and descriptions!

--Program0 (talk) 13:21, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

The Watchers

Well, the time is now upon us for massive speculation! Who built the Watchers, and for what purpose? Does Ophion still figure into that purpose, despite being corrupted? Was the corruption intentional? Whose children are the Watchers? What is meant by Synthesis? How does Mol figure into the plan?

My opinion, that I have already expressed in the thread last night, is that UGEI (or a shadow group within UGEI) is run by a proto-A.I. (perhaps an advanced V.I.). The Watchers are the children, meant to solve a problem the its creator(s) could not solve. The end solution to the problem is synthesis (a complex whole formed by combining simpler parts) between biological and technological components. If the creators of the Watchers are machines, then it stands to reason that they wanted to become men. If the creators of the Watchers are men, it stands to reason that they wanted to become machines. Due to the Watchers apparently having a "personality matrix" of a (possibly unwilling) human, it seems to me that all the cybernetic research that lead to Rhea culminates in the Watchers: based off biology, but completely mechanical. Rhea and Ophion sharing a connection port design is further reason to believe that the two are based on the same technology.

Mol figures into this by having incomplete knowledge of what they are, and seeing it as an opportunity to grow his influence. He may however be part of the organization that disseminated the Watchers. This does not agree with Rhea knowing about them: either Mol is in direct cahoots with the creators, is being played by the creators, or the creators are a significant faction in the UGEI and have let some information slip.

This isn't just idle thought, because it defines our relationship with the UGEI. Since UGEI or a powerful faction therein created the Watchers (am I taking this for granted? Is this a bad assumption?), perhaps fighting UGEI is not in anyone's interests. Maybe we have powerful allies that don't know of us, and would welcome us with open arms if they knew what we are. Or are we too far gone? Perhaps there's another question to ask, and the most important one. Synthesis on whose terms? If we find the creators, we find what they want. If we find what they want, it's likely we can give it to them, or modify our entire approach to this conflict to better deny them what they want. --Sertul (talk) 22:17, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

A.I. and V.I.

To keep the discussion going about a pressing topic, it now has a section. Things like "can a V.I. be more effective at a task than an A.I.?" and exactly where that threshold is for certain tasks (such as O.S.N.'s task). 20 BW for a V.I. seems to be enough to research something new, and I imagine it would work well enough to create movies and other creative works. If a 3 BW V.I. can pilot warships better than a 3 BW A.I., then why risk creating more A.I.s? I don't imagine there will be anything in this section except speculation until we know how Kronos turned out, and how his e-sparring with O.S.N. goes, but I'm putting these notes here to refer to later. --Sertul (talk) 05:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Just thought I'd clarify one thing. A.I. are, generally, better at computing because of their advanced ability to learn, and calculate things without instructions. If a V.I. is uplifted to the proper level, then it is a match for a A.I. in a field they're both equally skilled in. Think of it as 'talent' I guess. An A.I. is always far more talented and learns things easier and on their own more often, while a V.I. takes the 'hard route' and must be taught everything. Are both equal if they have the same level of training? Yes. But are they equal over all? Not exactly.

At least, this was all my intent for the V.I. and A.I. relation, on top of what I mentioned in the thread.

--Program0 (talk) 09:11, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Program0, i just checked the pastebin. What happened to Fortuna? Did we just screw up? Did she failed to convert? Or are we winding up with a brain damaged A.I.?

-The Fluff bringer

Whoop, haha. I forgot you guys can see that ahead of time. Anyway-You'll see.

--Program0 (talk) 05:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Is Fortuna lost? i know you have an evil streak Program0, but is this the result of the crunchy part of converting V.I.s to A.I.s? is there dice rolls? situational modifiers with it? Or will you keep it a secret?

-The Fluff bringer

Wanna keep it a secret mostly for now. Fortuna was always meant as the cautious uncertainty of Ophion's creations. I'll just say-her fears had merit here, for once. You'll see what happened in further detail this weekend, however. It is...not subtle.

--Program0 (talk) 08:33, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

It dawned on me that Ophion has yet to directly interact with the V.I. Zeus as of thread 28. We have no idea how it acts and how it will respond to us.

-The Fluff bringer

Thoughts on teraforming and its potential uses to an AI

The first question we need to decide on is, if we can completely reshape a planet to suit our needs, should habitability for organic life be an issue? Ideally, not having to worry about life-support systems to sustain the planet's atmosphere or devoting resources to feed a population would be the key concepts, but that's a debate I shall leave to you anons.

My thoughts are geared more towards the possbilities. For example, suppose an entire planet were set up like a gigantic FTL transmitter/receiver, emitting a powerful EMP signal along a two-dimensional plane that would, in effect, completely fry any sort of electronics that passed through it. The range would be limited, of course, but by setting up several of these planets in a row, one could effectively make a wall that would wholly prohibit the passing of any sort of space craft. The Guild Wall, if you'll take my meaning. Entire fleets would be wiped out just from trying to cross this plane, life support being cut off, AI and VI alike unable to pass for fear of frying their vital components.

Additionally, a planet that has bee hollowed out can be refitted with an internal superstructure, given enough resources. This superstructure would essentially be a death-star with the outter framework already installed, and electronically regulating the core to provide power, filling the inside with BW material, and covering the outside with weapons to make a capital ship run home with its tail between its legs, and we'd have a homeworld.

These projects are both extremely far down the line, however, so I'm interested in seeing what you Anons can come up with.

Mm. I love to see discussion like this. That's where the entire idea of planet filled bandwidth came from. I would also like to reinforce-research projects are decided by you people. Your creativity helps fuel your research. I add a few here and there that make sense, and try to create balance, but science is all about making things easier, more efficient, better, stronger, cheaper, etc.

Incidentally, a wall of EMP blasting planets, while hilarious, sounds incredibly hard to maintain in space where movement is in 3D. Still, a death star style planet may be eventually quite possible. It would be right up there with other Super Constructs, like bandwidth-filled planets, I figure. Just instead of bandwidth it's filled with lasers.

--Program0 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Correspondences

-Stories by Silver-Tongued

Kronos

http://pastebin.com/rBYLC7Xm

Damn. I quite like this. Of course if I were writing it, I'd have changed a few small things, but over all I do really like it. I'm not well read enough to quote things like that sadly. I don't see why the spirit of this conversation couldn't be canon. Chances are Kronos regularly asks stuff like that anyway, and tries to get a feel of what's going on.

Good work anon, This should go up top, in the stories section, if you'd want. It'd let people see it more easily, I would hope. You can even post it in the next thread, in a pastebin, if you like.

--Program0 (talk) 00:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Nice story anon. But i think you should cut and paste this into a Pastebin page and post the link up in the Anon's Stories section.

-The Fluff bringer

Apollo

"Apollo, I would like to have a discussion with you." The AI seemed almost caught off guard by his Creator's sudden contact, as engrossed as he was in ensuring the various shipments were measured and monitored properly. "On what, Ophion?" he asks respectfully. "Happiness."

A sense of anticipation could be felt faintly through the connection, and after a moment Ophion continued. "Apollo, how do you define happiness." The answer came back in a form more eloquent than what would be expected from the other two AI Ophion had made. "Happiness is that which leaves the person in question satisfied, of course." "A good answer," Ophion replied, "But incomplete." A pause, indication Apollo had no immediate reply to this, so Ophion filled in the gap. "Happiness is that which leaves the person in question FULLY satisfied."

"I do not understand the difference," Apollo said. "It's simple, and directly tied to addictiveness. If a human settles down, marries, and has children, and lives a good life regardless of the pain, he has become happy. IF he is satisfied with all he's done. By being satisfied, the human is able to look back on his life and say, 'I am satisfied with all I have done, and do not wish to do anything more.'" Another moment, to see if Apollo had a reply, and surprisingly he did. "An addictive substance can never leave someone fully satisfied. They'll never be satisfied with any amount they get. By definition, if it's addictive, it cannot make you happy." A warmth suffused Ophion's being, happiness that at least one of his AI could understand their shortcomings.

"Marvelously put," Ophion replied. "Thus, my hesitation for you to distribute this to our allies, the UFW. It is your decision, of course, because this substance is your creation, and as far as narcotics go it is certainly a better thing to be imbibing than many of the substances flowing through the black market now. In that respect, it is a good thing to be introducing to the UFW." Another moment to let Apollo confirm this, then, "The UGEI, however, I do not intend to be happy. You only wish to cause happiness and satisfaction, Apollo, and I can understand that. It's a marvelous goal. But you cannot make everyone happy. Some people will not be happy until they have made others unhappy. Thus the UGEI wishes to do to the UFW. As they were my early allies, I seek to work against the UGEI, and have on multiple occasions been forced to kill them outright in the name of both self defense and the defense of my allies. To cripple them with addiction is by far one of the more humane ways, especially if you came with the cure to their addiction once the system was conquered."

Another pause, to allow Apollo to process this train of thought, before finishing with, "The choice is yours, as I said before. It is your creation, and in its use I will only ever advise you, just as I will only ever advise Metis in her research and Kronos in his exploratory efforts." There was silence on the connection for a long moment, and Ophion was just about to close the connection, before Apollo humbly replied, "Thank you, Master Ophion."

Again, Nice story Anon. But both of these should go into a pastbin and post the links up in the story sections. although if you are going to make more of these stories, and i feel that you will, you should just make your own correspondence tales like i have my own section.

-The Fluff bringer

A good point, and why I'm now gonna start leaving only the most recent story up and moving older ones to pastebins. - Silver-Tongued

Leash Code parameters

This topic is dedicated to discussing the 'leash' protocols, and just what they are. This is the early draft I made, copied straight from the thread:

Organic life has no inherent, predetermined value, except that it is always considered to be above 0. All non-sentient life, life that is not self-aware or able to have its own ideas, whether it is basic bacteria, a giant lizard, or something similar, has a value between 0 and 1, as 0 < x < 1, with exact values left open to the AI's preferences. Individual, sentient lives always have a value between 1 and 2, as 1 < x < 2. Always. As self-aware beings, or rather creatures with the capacity for self-awareness, they are all inherently more valued than non-self-aware entities. Non-sentient species as a whole all inherently have a value between 2 and 3, as 2 < x < 3. If an individual is the only self-aware member of its species, it is treated as its own self-aware species. If an individual is the last member of its species, or a pair is the last matable pair of its species, it is treated as an entire species. The last surviving members of a culture are treated as a species. The self has a value of 3, exactly. A sentient, self-aware species as a whole has a value between 3 and 4, as 3 < x < 4. Ophion has a value of 4. Those designated as allies must always have a value greater than those designated as neutral, and those designated as neutral must always have a value greater than those designated as enemies, or hostile.

-Silver-Tongued