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[Blood_Librarian]

aah, I see. I'll write up a new version of my Spitter plan, and edit it into my post.
Spitter Revision: Plan A2
 This plan is designed to reduce both the burden on the queen and the metabolic process.

• Shared Acidic Production: When a Spitter is born, a mature spitter can transplant some of its own acidic production organisms to the newborn, managing the creation of a complex system that would otherwise take queen oversight. In problem situations, a queen can take over this process.
• Streamlining: by placing our attention of the thinking caste and the Queen on the metabolic process of the Spitter Caste, deadend and and resource intensive metabolic processes are replaced in favor of systems that are both more efficient and require far less oversight on creation, while hopefully keeping the majority of its functionality. This also means a corresponding size decrease of about 10%.
• Adaptive process(!): By making the internal metabolic system modifiable through the use of additives, symbioses and various  processes that allow a Spitter Caste to intuitively modify its own acid production system for efficiency and streamlining, a range of effective systems can be made using different resources, with the chance of new ones discovered by particuarly bright and or fool hardy Spitters. Although this may be so complex that it would require a design phase rather then a Revision. This is optional.

[Strongpoint]

We don't want to revise spitters. We want to keep them on one front

[10ebbor10]

An interesting point.

If we de-national effort the spitters, then we can no longer freely move them around as our national effort action. This is a problem, as they are a powerful mobile task force. Then again, having Spitters everywhere would probably be better.

[NUKE9.13]

We don't want to revise spitters. We want to keep them on one front

...you realise we could freely increase the percentage of our force that is Spitters to 15% if they weren't NE.
And before you say "But they we'd lose other drones", Spitters are by far the most cost-effective way of killing the enemy.

[FallacyofUrist]

Dice 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (1) Blood_Librarian
Spitter Revision plan B (1) Detoxicated
Spitter Revision plan C (2) Nuke9.13, FallacyofUrist

Dice 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (3) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist

I like the idea of tougher armor and I like the idea of fixing our Spitters to not be a national effort.

[Strongpoint]

I am sure that we need to push front 2. That we need to all our spitter there and they are better as national effort. I am sure that to win plains on road to the city we need cavalry. And my production plan is to switch 10% from warriors to hunters and I want two revisions to hunters

Improve explosive muscles power
By dissecting and studying mammals effort is made to make explosive muscles stronger. While strength is the main focus, attempt to make such muscles more flexible and more energy efficient are also made.

Dice 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (1) Blood_Librarian
Spitter Revision plan B (1) Detoxicated
Spitter Revision plan C (2) Nuke9.13, FallacyofUrist
Improve explosive muscles power (1) strongpoint

Dice 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (4) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint

10ebbor10
Will it be a stretch to introduce this kind of armor both to hunters and workers as a single revision?

[Detoxicated]

Dice 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (1) Blood_Librarian
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (2) Nuke9.13, FallacyofUrist
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated

Dice 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (5) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated

[Blood_Librarian]

Dice 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (0)
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (3) Nuke9.13, FallacyofUrist, Blood_Librarian
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated

Dice 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (5) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated

[flazeo25]

Dice 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (0)
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (4) Nuke9.13, FallacyofUrist, Blood_Librarian, flazeo25
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated

Dice 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (6) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated, flazeo25

[10ebbor10]

10ebbor10
Will it be a stretch to introduce this kind of armor both to hunters and workers as a single revision?

That is the intention, if possible, but I'm not making it a primary focus.

[NUKE9.13]

NUKE9.13 - Today at 6:04 PM
I think ebbor meant what specifically is complicated about the  Spitter
Iituem - Today at 6:07 PM
Mostly the fact that it's a centuries old design that involves a lot of fiddly details and slightly weird production processes.  Standardising or streamlining the parts would work, as would recoding its genetics to be more self-assembling (and then putting it out at an earlier stage).  National Efforts have complex genetics that need their metabolism triggered at very specific points by the Queen during the gestation process in order to come out right.  It's essentially the prototype problem; it's fine that you can make your sewing machine with a hammer, a screwdriver and a workbench, but sooner or later you've got to make all the parts match up so they can be mass produced, or you'll always be limited by hand production.

So, this is a thing.

Spitter Revision: Plan D: The Spitter is a demanding creature for our glorious Queen to create. Its advanced biology requires an extensive gestation period. Well, that's just unacceptable. So we divided the growth of a Spitter into several stages. The stage that emerges from the queen resembles a regular worker, in that it possesses none of the special features that make a Spitter a Spitter- only slight hints; slightly larger eyes, a somewhat curiously shaped proboscis, and should one care to dissect one, uselses protoglands. However, as it feeds, it grows larger, and its features mature. Its eyes acquire their signature shape, its proboscis awkwardly reforms itself into one capable of launching phlegm vast distances, and its torso engorges as its acid-producing biology comes online.
It requires some modification of the genes to allow these features to mature without the aid of the Queen, but we are confident that we can pull it off.

Die 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (0)
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (3) FallacyofUrist, Blood_Librarian, flazeo25
Spitter Revision plan D (1) NUKE9.13
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated

Die 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (7) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated, flazeo25, NUKE9.13

[Blood_Librarian]

Die 1

Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (0)
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (2) FallacyofUrist,, flazeo25
Spitter Revision plan D (2) NUKE9.13, Blood_Librarian
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated

Die 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (7) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated, flazeo25, NUKE9.13

[flazeo25]

Die 1

Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (0)
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (1) FallacyofUrist,
Spitter Revision plan D (3) NUKE9.13, Blood_Librarian, flazeo25
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated,

Die 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor (7) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated, flazeo25, NUKE9.13

[Puppyguard]

Die 1
Don't Spend (0)
 Symbiotic Digestive Organisms (1) 10ebbor10
Spitter Revision plan A2 (0)
Spitter Revision plan B (0)
Spitter Revision plan C (1) FallacyofUrist,
Spitter Revision plan D (4) NUKE9.13, Blood_Librarian, flazeo25, Puppyguard
Improve explosive muscles power (2) strongpoint, Detoxicated,

Die 2
Don't Spend (0)
Reinforced Chitinous Armor ( 8 ) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, FallacyofUrist, strongpoint, detoxicated, flazeo25, NUKE9.13, Puppyguard

[Strongpoint]

Some math

40 spitters (420 manpower cost killed)

[ranged] 7 skirmishers, 1 bowmen, 5 hoplites, 5 cavalry, 86 spearmen, 1037 slaves and this

This is 0.017 skirmisher, 0,002 bowmen, 0.012 hoplites, 0.012 cavalry, 0.204 spearmen and 2.469 slave per unit of manpower.

On the same front 8(14 manpower) hunters killed  3 spearmen, 26 slaves and this is 0.21 spearmen and 1.85 slave per manpower

If we assume that hunters do absolutely nothing in skirmish\melee (unlikely), they are worse in killing slaves but roughly equal in killing spearmen.
It is hard to evaluate their effectiveness against stronger targets because they are too few of them. If they are as effective as spitters against skirmisher, then it would be 0.204 total and this is simply not enough.

Spitters do kill one stage earlier and have far better attrition rate and probably producing 10% more of them is slightly better than producing unupgraded hunters BUT if we keep spitters as nat effort, we retain their strategic mobility to use them on any front we want.


I insist that we should double upgrade hunters and then raise their producion rate from 2% to 12%


Edit: It is not 8, it is 6 hunters, so hunters are actually better in killing both spearmen and slaves. (0.285 and 2.476 vs 0.204 and 2.469)

I think I should leave those to 10ebbor10...