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[RAM]

Tight Genes
Those clawed workers just didn't work. It seems that the claws were inserted into a particularly unstable piece of biology. Tighten up the code a bit to improve the reliability.

We need more puns siege equipment. Hopefully fixing the climbing claws would add a small bonus to workers versus walls...

[Iituem]

Oh well. Turns out we should have listened to Strongpoint. I'd hoped for some immediate advantages.

So, hang on. Was Forest Queens the only thing we got out of that? We didn't increase our regular food output at all?

If so, then a revision to fix that would the way to go. There must surely be, I dunno, overgrown fields of wheat on the outskirts of Menotos. It should be possible to use these Emitics here.

You gained a significant bonus to food production (or at least, food availability) in standard food producing provinces, hence the 'grains, roots and legumes' being easier to digest than leaves.  You are actually immensely terrible at surviving in Forests, that was more of a bonus.  Emitics are indeed being deployed to forage what's left of Menotos' grain fields (which have gone pretty fallow for the most part with nobody working them for 3 years, but you don't really have agriculture).

[10ebbor10]

Ah.

You didn't note that in bold, so I assumed it was only the forest thing.

[NUKE9.13]

Ah, good. Well, in that case, we should fix that partial digestion problem. I'm not sure that we want sharper mandibles, though. Ruminants are generally not known for their razor-sharp teeth. We could improve the symbiotic bacteria we use to digest plant matter, perhaps. Or we could make our "ruminants" be actual ruminants, and have them re-chew and re-digest the vomited food.

[Strongpoint]

We benefit more from plants, lets make a step to get more plants.

Natural Fertilizers
In their first agriculture-like activity Hive starts systematically use its manure as a natural fertilizer spreading it in areas used for gathering food. By doing so they significantly improve effectiveness of their hunter-gathering.


More meat can't hurt either. And some of the lessons may be used on the battlefield later.

Hunting traps
In effort of getting more game while spending less valuable getting it, the hive mind developed various simple traps like falling rocks, snares or spiked pits.


Yes, I offer two separate revision to improve effectiveness of hunter-gathering here. If we went for food and numbers... lets focus on it more.

Revise Digestive System (1) Detoxicated
Revision - Sharper Mandibles (2) Crazyabe, Puppyguard
Revision - Spikeridged Mandibles (1) Shadowclaw
Revision - Natural Fertilizers (1) strongpoint
Revision - Hunting traps (1) strongpoint
Spitter Vomitting()

[NUKE9.13]

There is also another drawback.  Digestion is not a perfect process, so the finished slurry often contains significant traces of gluten and undigested cellulose.  This has the effect of causing trouble for the digestion of slurry-eaters. resulting in slowed reaction times and occasional weakness.

How bad is this issue? Are we talking a 1% decrease in combat effectiveness, 10%, 25%?
Also, does it affect the entire hive, or only the 'extra' individuals drones we get from the increased food production?

[FallacyofUrist]

Revise Digestive System (1) Detoxicated
Revision - Sharper Mandibles (2) Crazyabe, Puppyguard
Revision - Spikeridged Mandibles (1) Shadowclaw
Revision - Natural Fertilizers (1) strongpoint
Revision - Hunting traps (1) strongpoint
Spitter Vomitting(2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist

I like the idea of giving our Spitters a last-ditch defense.

[Iituem]

There is also another drawback.  Digestion is not a perfect process, so the finished slurry often contains significant traces of gluten and undigested cellulose.  This has the effect of causing trouble for the digestion of slurry-eaters. resulting in slowed reaction times and occasional weakness.

How bad is this issue? Are we talking a 1% decrease in combat effectiveness, 10%, 25%?
Also, does it affect the entire hive, or only the 'extra' individuals drones we get from the increased food production?

Between 1-2% decrease.  Almost every Design will generate bugs, which depending on the design may only affect a given unit or may affect all units if the effects are broad enough (in this case, increased food production affects all units very slightly, so there is a very slight effect across everything).  This is the counter-balance to Designs; they are more powerful, but more fraught with danger than Revisions.

Bugs are rarely ever all that bad on their own, but what makes them insidious is that they pile up across the whole game unless caught and revised away.  It is up to you to decide whether and when it is worth spending dice getting rid of them.  [The League has a similar problem on their end.]

[NUKE9.13]

Hmm, hmm. 1-2% is acceptable. (Also, isn't bugs piling up our raison d'etre?)

In that case, I'm going to say... No Revision. I think we'd be better off saving the dice so we can do two designs next turn, and still have one left over for a revision/strategy action.

Revise Digestive System (1) Detoxicated
Revision - Sharper Mandibles (2) Crazyabe, Puppyguard
Revision - Spikeridged Mandibles (1) Shadowclaw
Revision - Natural Fertilizers (1) strongpoint
Revision - Hunting traps (1) strongpoint
Spitter Vomitting(2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist

No Revision: (1) NUKE9.13

Reasons not to do the above revisions:
-Revise Digestive System: Making the Emitics spit glue might be useful if they were at all combat capable, but they aren't, so it isn't.
-Sharper Mandibles: If it works perfectly, and the food is digested into nothing but simple sugars, it would increase combat effectiveness by 1-2%. Not enough bang for my buck.
-Spikeridged Mandibles: A)Insects don't have bones, B)See Sharper Mandibles
-Natural Fertilizers & Hunting Traps: I feel like improving our agricultural techniques from zero to anything is worthy of a design, and that a revision will have only a minimal impact- certainly less than a third of what a design would have.
-Spitter Vomiting: Sounds like it would increase Spitter's melee attack, but not do so much for their defence. It is their lack of mobility that is cited as their weakness, after all, and vomiting acid in front of you ain't gonna stop dudes dancing round you like a godsdamned maypole.

[10ebbor10]

That makes me wonder. Did we fix the bug with the Night vision?

[Strongpoint]

-Natural Fertilizers & Hunting Traps: I feel like improving our agricultural techniques from zero to anything is worthy of a design, and that a revision will have only a minimal impact- certainly less than a third of what a design would have.

You persuaded me to drop my vote from natural fertilizers, true, effect may be too minor and can be rolled into but I disagree on traps
1) They give immediate effect this turn unlike any potential agriculture later. Note that while we'll get more reinforcements.
2) Agriculture doesn't cancel hunting in any way. In fact it may make it more important to save fields from herbivores and livestock from predators
3) Unlike design that can give us something completely unusable, effectiveness revisions give positive effect with any kind of roll.
4) It gives us useful experience in construction\tools and may open the road to having something in the trap phase.
5) I don't think we can afford ourself another more food only design any time soon. I am unhappy that we did this one, adding one more will leave us with bad units. I still consider this turn design action to be quite questionable investment.

Revise Digestive System (1) Detoxicated
Revision - Sharper Mandibles (2) Crazyabe, Puppyguard
Revision - Spikeridged Mandibles (1) Shadowclaw
Revision - Natural Fertilizers (0)
Revision - Hunting traps (1) strongpoint
Spitter Vomitting(2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist

No Revision: (1) NUKE9.13

[Puppyguard]

Uhh, Strongpoint, you changed crazyabe's vote from spikeridged mandibles to sharper mandibles.

Revise Digestive System (1) Detoxicated
Revision - Sharper Mandibles (1) Puppyguard
Revision - Spikeridged Mandibles (2) Crazyabe, Shadowclaw
Revision - Natural Fertilizers (0)
Revision - Hunting traps (1) strongpoint
Spitter Vomitting(2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist

No Revision: (1) NUKE9.13

You know you can just quote the previous person's post and remove their message leaving the vote quote intact, right?

[NUKE9.13]

-Natural Fertilizers & Hunting Traps: I feel like improving our agricultural techniques from zero to anything is worthy of a design, and that a revision will have only a minimal impact- certainly less than a third of what a design would have.

You persuaded me to drop my vote from natural fertilizers, true, effect may be too minor and can be rolled into but I disagree on traps
1) They give immediate effect this turn unlike any potential agriculture later. Note that while we'll get more reinforcements.
2) Agriculture doesn't cancel hunting in any way. In fact it may make it more important to save fields from herbivores and livestock from predators
3) Unlike design that can give us something completely unusable, effectiveness revisions give positive effect with any kind of roll.
4) It gives us useful experience in construction\tools and may open the road to having something in the trap phase.
5) I don't think we can afford ourself another more food only design any time soon. I am unhappy that we did this one, adding one more will leave us with bad units. I still consider this turn design action to be quite questionable investment.

Hmm. Thing is, right, we have zero experience with making traps or trap-like objects either. I worry that it may be too ambitious for a revision.
...although, we do have basic construction techniques. Digging a pit clearly isn't beyond our abilities. Hmm.
...I might be tempted to vote for traps, but I like the idea of creating two designs next turn with a die left over better.

Also, before you complain about us spending a design on increasing food production, wait to see what sort of results it yields. I'm assuming we'll see at least a 10% increase in max manpower, probably more. If we see a 20% increase, that would be better than almost any other design we could've feasibly done. Above that, and we're talking game-changing numbers.


Hey, Puppyguard. Why're you supporting Sharper Mandibles? What do you think it'll get us?

[Strongpoint]

Uhh, Strongpoint, you changed crazyabe's vote from spikeridged mandibles to sharper mandibles.

Hm.. I don't know how this change slipped in. It is quite strange. Sorry

Hmm. Thing is, right, we have zero experience with making traps or trap-like objects either. I worry that it may be too ambitious for a revision.
...although, we do have basic construction techniques. Digging a pit clearly isn't beyond our abilities. Hmm.
...I might be tempted to vote for traps, but I like the idea of creating two designs next turn with a die left over better.

This kind of traps is something that stone age people are capable to do and we are on that level of tech.  Mechanically it is not develop traps but improve effectiveness of hunting-gathering by using traps

I can see why you want to go for two designs next turn but I think we need to invest our actions now to keep pushing the enemy before they have a chance to regain initiative. Every% of reinforcement rate matters.

[Puppyguard]

Hey, Puppyguard. Why're you supporting Sharper Mandibles? What do you think it'll get us?

I'm hoping that it will increase our food income, and maybe, just maybe we might be able to get our workers slightly stronger.