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[Powder Miner]

I’m pretty sure that’s completely wrong and that you don’t pay the build cost every single turn, Kashyyk, even ignoring that the revision means it only takes 1 life support and 1 power.

[NUKE9.13]

...to be fair, CW didn't update the project description in the project spoiler, so it still lists the original stats.

[Powder Miner]

Design: "Harvester" Automatic Mining Probes
-1 Power;   -1 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
Produces 50 Noble Gases, 50 Uranics, 100 Hydrogen, 300 Metals, and 400 Non-Metals / Jump
A mining system composed of four drones types launched from the Ark, each with its own human controller. The drones work together in order to maximize efficiency, but clumsy human control combined with a system originally designed for autonomous operations leads to poor results at a high cost.
50 Uranics, 50 Noble Gases, 400 Metal, 400 Non-Metal

This is how it is now, and that price at the bottom is for build, not per jump.

[10ebbor10]

I believe the extra Lifesupport is worth more than the extra Skeleton space. The extra lifesupport would mean that we have a guaranteed, invulnerable bit of LS. This is great, given that all our power and mining systems need Life Support.

That said, I can live with the extra Skelly-space.

Anyway, here's some proposed fixes:

Dust Drive Array

One dust drive is easily damaged and hard to throttle, which is why it has been replaced by an array of 5 smaller Fission Dust Drives taking up the same amount of space as the original large Dust drive. Thanks to independent systems, the Dust drive array can continue operating even with severe damage to some of it's parts.

As an added bonus, the use of the emergency shutdown on some of the drives allows the drive to be throttled fast. (Increasing power is still slow though)

Super Prompt critical Operation

Super prompt criticality is a technical name for an extremely rapid, runaway nuclear reaction. A thing normally avoided in the Dust reactor operation, but which is the core of this new operating protocol. By running the reactor is operating mode where the fission reaction is always maximized, we avoid the problem of uncontrolled power increases as there's no way for the power to increase.

We maximize reactivity by introducing moderators, neutron reflectors and decreasing the size of the magnetic field (causing the dust to become denser). This increases power production, which is countered by putting less dust inside the reactor at any one time. The result is a reactor which can not suffer a runaway criticality event, as the reaction already occurs at the maximum rate sustainable by the amount of fuel inside the reactor.

As an interesting side effect, we lose the ability to control the reactor by controlling it's reactivity, but gain the ability to control the reactor by controlling the amount of fuel inside of it. Thanks to the high reactivity, the dust pellets are rapidly used up, allowing us to easily throttle up and down.



I had suggestions for the Flashlight and Whipple shielding, but they've been rendered redundant by the GM or by me reading the description properly.

[Kashyyk]

If we really want LS, we could just scrap the thing and build the ELS module. That way we'll get 5 LS instead of 2. Wed only have to pay 50 non-metals on top of what we get out of scrapping it, plus 3 units of power per turn. We can then dismantle it later if we need the space for something else.

[Nirur Torir]

Design: "Harvester" Automatic Mining Probes
-1 Power;   -1 LS Capacity;   -1 Skeleton Space
Produces 50 Noble Gases, 50 Uranics, 100 Hydrogen, 300 Metals, and 400 Non-Metals / Jump
Costs 50 Uranics, 50 Noble Gases, 400 Metal, 400 Non-Metal

I like this better than the starter one, since we hardly need the rarer materials to expand.

I really want to buy two, leaving us with 200 metal. That's enough for a flashlight and some armor, if we take the LS option.

[NUKE9.13]

...we are not buying a Flashlight before we know they are using missiles.

[Nirur Torir]

I did some math. The average resource cost of the starting modules is ~65 total resources, with the flashlight costing 250. That's an expected 4 turns to "pay for itself." If we can scrap modules for half cost, we'd be breaking even with it after 2-3 turns, not counting power and LS costs (But we should be able to just skip powering it for a jump if we run into the limit).

If they *do* have missiles, or convert a miner into a strike craft, it may well pay for itself in the first battle.

This is, of course, assuming that we don't have anything better to do with our funds than 2x mining modules, a few armors, and the laser. I'd rather not just hold onto the resources.

[TricMagic]

And what about the drive?

[10ebbor10]

Anyway, I think we should be voting.

AI optimalization

We never finished optimizing the AI for the Harvester drones. Well, we're finishing it now. The project here is a complete pass over the Harvester drone project, ensuring that everything matches up to the original specifications.

Revision:

AI optimalization (1) 10ebbor10

Rooms:
Skeleton Space : (1) 10ebbor10
LS :
Science:

[Nirur Torir]

And what about the drive?

The drive breaks when sneezed at, and we can't afford 2x miners + the drive + armor.

[TricMagic]

Why did we get it then?

[Nirur Torir]

Why did we get it then?

I didn't know the resource spread would be like this when I advocated for it, including that the armor would be cheap enough to use instead of the engine. Plus, we can still get it after a turn to upgrade it and harvest more.

[TricMagic]

+1 Ai optimization.

Vote for Skeleton space.

[Nirur Torir]

Skeleton expansion is pretty expensive. That might be worth it anyway, and if all our reactors fail then we have bigger problems than the crew having to emergency rig up something. The immediate resources are a nice little bonus.

Revision:

AI optimalization (2) 10ebbor10, Nirur

Rooms:
Skeleton Space : (2) 10ebbor10. Nirur
LS :
Science: