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[BBBence1111]

Instant Prototyping: [11] Draignean, kot, 10ebbor10, Milo, Jilladilla, Tack, Kashyyk, NUKE9.13, Talion, Madman, BBBence
No Instant Prototyping: [3] helmacon, Doomblade187, NAV
Re-Roll Prototypes: [6] Draignean, helmacon, kot, Doomblade187, Kashyyk, Talion
No Re-rolling prototypes: [8] 10ebbor10, Milo, Jilladilla, Tack, NUKE9.13, Madman, NAV, BBBence

[Draignean]

Alright, I'd intended to wait until the end of tactics phase to close voting, but since both sides appear to be waiting for the results, I'll close this out when I get back from laundry.

[Draignean]

The referendum has closed.

Henceforth, all designs will instantly generate prototypes, and all projects not currently at prototype will be bumped up to prototype and reevaluated on the next design phase.

[Draignean]

FREE MARKET CLARIFICATION/MODIFICATION UPDATE 2017

Also Titled: Money, how does it work.

In an earlier update on production lines, I showed how to calculate how much production lines could actually handle given a current snapshot of your resources. However, there are some side-issues with that, notably that it can make other resources spike up in price far more than is reasonable- to the point where it can be practical to try and shuffle your resource generation rates to game the system.

So we're fixing that.

When calculating the production line value of a resource, don't divide by the sum of all resources. Instead, divide by 60. It's a simple number that enforces a uniform logic:

If you double the production of a resource, you will halve how much it costs for a production line to use.

[Tack]

I feel I should give some random praise to this game which has persisted despite the incredible timeline, and hasn't yet had a sub-GM come in, nor the fluff texts become less eloquent and imaginative.
Not sure if it's unusual here, but it's certainly rare amongst the games I've seen and played.

So... Kudos Draignean. Please don't hurt me.

[Draignean]

Eh, I still need to unfuck a couple of the Ship's spoilers, as I'm pretty sure there's some kind of interesting propagated error in at least one of them. There is some fatigue, particularly in the 'oh dear, that's not right, is it? How far back do I have to go to fix it...' department, but I genuinely like running the game, even if the tech progression isn't quite what I hoped.

Still, thanks for the praise.

[Tack]

Oh? Not going the route you expected or not fast enough?

[Draignean]

Oh? Not going the route you expected or not fast enough?

Not quite as... daring, I suppose. Quickness is all a fault of my own, but all sides involved have been terribly conservative.

[10ebbor10]

Given that even the simple projects are multi-turn, that's not suprising.

[Kashyyk]

If you did want faster tech advancement, I imagine the easiest would be to reduce the total progress cost.

[andrea]

every project is a significant investment, and it takes 1 bad roll out of 6 to mess it up on the development or deployment side.
It is no surprise that people aren't trying to be revolutionary, we can't really afford that.

[Tack]

Might be a flaw in the genre.

[milo christiansen]

It has come to the attention of the Director that productivity is at an all-time low. Many loyal servants of the Department are now required to make and file extra duplicates in case of archive damage, forms that were formerly rarely used are now common, and the segment of the archive dedicated to the Department of Defense and Forced Acquisition is growing at an explosive rate.

Most of the sub-department heads are of the opinion that more manpower can solve these issues, but a few hold to the novel idea that peace with Kasgyre is a longer term solution. This memo explores this idea, listing pros and cons in detail.

The first and most obvious argument in favor of seeking a peace treaty, is that with peace all would go back to the way it was before. This would mean our Glorious Spire could return to the well-oiled procedures and carefully planned bureaucracy that served us so well before the war. True, a new generation is rising that is accustomed to the new order, but those who remember both agree that things operated much more smoothly before the war. To this end, peace is likely the swiftest way to return the bureaucracy to its proper path.

There is a popular argument that rather than consider peace, we should push forward and end the war more quickly. Our colleagues in the Department of Defense and Forced Acquisition would like to let the holders of this opinion know that they are already doing all that they can without risking the safety of our Glorious Spire to an unacceptable degree. Pushing for a total victory would greatly expand the influence of our departments, but not without risk. Should the unthinkable happen, and Kasgyre fields a new tech we are not able to match in time, it could be possible that the current situation would become much worse. Clearly a total victory will take a great deal of time and no small risk, leaving peace as a safe and fast option.

The volume of incoming documents from the Department of Manufacturing and Shipbuilding has reached levels unimaginable before the war. Department head meetings have brought complaints from them about constant need to replace ships long before their scheduled replacement. In a similar vein, the Department of Training and Personnel is having issues with producing enough ship crews to man the new production. These are but a small part of the problems in the entire supply chain. Constant resource shortages caused by the need to quickly make up unplanned loses are crippling the projected spire infrastructure expansion plans finalized before the war. Continuing to push Kasgyre back will only make these issues worse as time goes on, where an immediate peace would allow us to get back on track in 17.89 years (as of last calculation).

The main downside to peace that its opponents cite is the fact that it will remove our chance to bring more spires under Wreth control. This is a valid concern, however current projections are that with the current holding, we have enough resources to last 649.36 years with projected expansion in surveyed deposits alone, and many times that in unsurveyed deposits. Living space is also not an issue, as with current growth rates Wreth and the local spires will not need more residential areas excavated for 11.42 years, and at that time mining will have cleared enough area to handle further increase. It is projected that with planned mining efforts resources and population will not be a problem for at least 5000 years. At this point, more spires only provide more easy-to-reach deposits vital to increasing production as needed by the war. Without the war, all needs will be more than adequately supplied by current holdings.

In short, manpower and production are stretched enough keeping up with the needs of the war, and the increased documentation requirements are adding even more strain. More manpower would help with the latter, but only at the cost of worsening the former. Peace would neatly solve both issues, and so it is the opion of the Directorate that it should be at least attempted.

The greatest obstacle to peace is likely Kasgyre. The Spider Queen's subjects are unlikely to give up their crusade against the peaceful bureaucrats of Wreth, however, we must try.

[10ebbor10]

In the New Quarter of Spire Wreth stands an ostentatious building. It's smooth marble facade is lit by faint glow crystals unmarred by smoke. It's floors are impeccably clean, not single speck of dust to see. A small bronze plaque on the wall notes the build date, 20 years ago to the day. Past the entrance, one enters in a large open room. In front, there's a counter and a ticked machine. To the sides, there are rows of seats for people to wait, and a few plants for them to admire while doing so. No single seat is moved out of line and the counter stands at 0000.

Past the reception, you enter a long empty corridor. Pristine white walls stretch out on either side of you, with graceful wooden doors set into them. Each door gives access to a room, filled with a metal framed bed, a soft glow crystal, several chairs and yet another potted plant. This goes on for room after room, each as neat and pristine as the last. No men or woman have slept within these beds. Not now, nor ever before.

Past another set of double doors, the rooms change suddenly. More beds, but now equipped with all sorts of contraptions. Saws, knives, hammers, scalpels arranged meticulously on the walls. The light here seems harsher somehow, purified of any softness. It's cold, sharp, clinical. There's no room here for shadows.
Continuing onward, you pass more and more of these rooms. The tools in them vary, but all are neatly attached to the walls or organized in cabinets, exactly where they're supposed to be.

One more set of doors and you enter the heart of the building. But even here, there's no sound, no sign of life. The lights shine upon empty desks, upon feathers put neatly in place, upon carefully sealed quills. Stacks of paper and forms lie motionless to the side, dead without a bureaucrat to give them life. Despite the sight, you push onward deeper into the facility, until you suddenly hear a single movement coming from a small office.

In the office sits a single elderly clerk. With patient, gracious movement, he sharpens his quill, opens the tome in front on him, dips his feather in ink and writes a single line :
"Patients admitted : 0, Patients deceased : 0, Patients released : 0, Patients expected from the front : 0".
The head Administrator of Wreth's Expeditionary Forces Hospital closes his book, and finishes another day.

[Kashyyk]

When our demi-spire was struck, the people were angry. Attacked without provocation or warning it was understandable that Kasgyre wanted justice and vengeance. We chose the voices of cannons and cutlasses to speak for us, but what if we instead had chosen reason and compassion? That fateful day would have gone down in history as a tragedy, a day of mourning for those lost. A single monument would have been built, we would have read the names from the plaque with sadness, and life would have gone on. Instead we chose to fail ourselves and our children, chose to exact revenge without thought for the consequence and thus instead of a single plaque to remember the fallen, we have the Pillars of Remembrance, each day growing, as more names are added. Everyone has lost someone. Fathers have lost sons, mothers have lost daughters, husbands lost wives wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. All bravely fought for the memories of the fallen, until they joined them.

This cycle cannot continue. There must surely be a moment, when all those who have been lost in the fight for what is "right" outweighs that day. Surely we realise that grand ideals of fighting to save ourselves, to save the Wrethi, to save the spires, it is all a bandage, a dressing to hide the parasite that is this dreadful war. We feed our integrity, our economy, our children to this beast and claim we do it for the good of everyone. If we ended this war, everyone would live.