simulate foreign and then charge for one minute and target hack the scanner and convince it that you are on it's side and require assistance of some reactor resources to jump start.
then immediately start

Recover variable quantity of reactor and infowar resources directly beamed from cooperating vessels

>>610853
Do the simulation of the scanning vessel. Figure out how we can possibly manipulate it.

"Recover between 0 and 10 reactor resources after any encounter involving high-energy activity"
does this mean if it shoots us with its weapon, we could gain energy from it?

>Do the simulation of the scanning vessel.

Five minutes pass.

Simulation indicates that the scanning vessel's dominant emotion is a mix of boredom and wariness. It is loyally obeying, not the command vessel personally, but some larger organization. It is resentful toward one or both of the gunship-equivalents.

>does this mean if it shoots us with its weapon, we could gain energy from it?

Five minutes pass.

Archives respond that a single weapon strike against a helpless target need not be particularly energetic. Prolonged conflict, the wasteful dance of countermeasure and counter-countermeasure, is more likely to produce harvestable fringe effects. Furthermore, for obvious reasons, if someone has to be attacked, better that it not be you, particularly when you're already severely damaged.

The lead element has completed it's scan, and begins exchanging information with the command unit through an unfamiliar comm protocol. Other lightly armored units are using kinetic manipulators along with a minor, previously concealed weapon system to gather fuel and construction materials.

>Figure out how we can possibly manipulate it.

Play on the resentment to touch off an energetic conflict within the group? Play on the boredom to initiate a maintenance cycle?

>>610868
Boredom.

not just the one ship. catch all of them in the boredom of a maintenance cycle.

Preloading your_eyelids_are_getting_heavy_and_the_moss_is_soft_as_clouds.exe ...

Three minutes pass.

Passive scan indicates no vessels within comm range!

Continuing prep cycle...

One minute passes.

Passive scan indicates four lightly-armored vessels, one gunboat-equivalent, and all three semiautonomous propulsion systems are within range.

Broadcasting...

Six minutes pass.

Targeted vessels exchange information with each other.

Targeted vessels exchange information with the remainder of the patrol group.

Gunboat-equivalent extracts prefabricated shelter components from cargo compartment on SAPS and begins deploying, with apparent intent to comply.

Five hours pass.

Minor disturbance outside the perimeter. Patrol group elements (other than those engaged in maintenance) ready weapons and move to investigate.

No contact.

Three hours pass.

Maintenance cycles complete.
Reactor resources 5/60
Comm array emergency power cooldown 10492 hours remaining.

SAPS maintenance cycle either is not energetic enough to effectively harvest, or was not yet conducted.

Updated available actions:
Passive sensor scan, instant
Search internal archives, 5 minutes
Analytic simulation of a foreign priority tree, 5 minutes
Activate comm array with main power, 4-9 minutes depending on content, cost 1 reactor resource
Recover 1 reactor resource from fringe effects of another vessel's 8-hour maintenance cycle, can be conducted passively during other action

charge and deploy another broadcast suggesting a battle exercise to make sure weapons are properly calibrated. firing upon hologram targets and the like.

>>610902
Preloading...

Three minutes pass.

Broadcasting...

Six minutes pass.

The gunboat-equivalent which is coming off guard duty transmits a friendly challenge to arms at the other gunboat-equivalent, fortunately in a more familiar comm protocol.

Ser Zofja replies to Ser Lorenz "What? Are you drunk? Put your sword away and go to bed, it's the middle of the night."

One minute passes.

Ser Zofja reorients toward one of the lightly armored units and requests a portion of the previously gathered fuel.

(hard to keep track of what time it is)

>>610905
Internal clock currently in 'dead reckoning' mode. For other options, re-enable quaternary damage control.

just wait. absorb energy if more do maintenance cycles but otherwise wait until sunrise.

Eight hours pass.

Maintenance cycles complete.

Reactor resources 10/60

Updated available actions:
Passive sensor scan, instant
Search internal archives, 5 minutes
Analytic simulation of a foreign priority tree, 5 minutes
Activate comm array with main power, 4-9 minutes depending on content, cost 1 reactor resource
Recover 1 reactor resource from fringe effects of another vessel's 8-hour maintenance cycle, can be conducted passively during other action
Synthesize 1 exofabr resource, 5 seconds, cost 10 reactor resources

Updated near-possible actions:
Purge accumulated debris from visual sensors, instant, cost 1 exofabr resource
Activate exofabr for small object, 20 minutes, cost 1 exofabr resource

wait until ships leave then use exofabr to make a small solar panel?

>>610910
Please specify intended appearance and/or functionality of object to be fabricated in greater detail.

absorbs solar radiation and converts it into reactor energy. appears like a piece of wreckage.

>>610918
>appears like a piece of wreckage.

Might be tricky to reconcile with energy-collection, but far from impossible.

>absorbs solar radiation and converts it into reactor energy

Querying archives...

Five minutes pass.

Passive sensors indicate the patrol group is regrouping and preparing to depart.

You could build a device fitting that description which, once installed, would provide one or two reactor resources per hour with maybe 35% uptime... if you had a foundry, and functional kinetic effectors, and some exotic materials. Absolute best-case the development and assembly process would take 2100 hours of work, after the prerequisites are lined up.

Would you like to fabricate something which appears to be a piece of wreckage but lacks the energy-collecting functionality?

can any reactor power energy generation methods be created using only a single exofabr?

Fabricated materials could potentially be salvaged for twenty or even thirty reactor resources (or equivalently, two or three infowar resources), but this is unreliable and would require either interaction with other vessels, or deployment of gunships, to perform other steps in the salvage process.

Fabricated materials could be bartered for services which result in net gain of reactor resources, but this requires interaction with other vessels.

well then, what is wrong with the reactor that it isn't generating power on it's own? does it need a jumpstart?

>>610930
Restarting quaternary damage control would let you figure out what's wrong with tertiary damage control, and so on up the chain to the actual reactor.

well then, sounds like there is nothing to do but wait some more.

Fifteen minutes pass.

Patrol group has departed beyond detection range.

Four hours pass.

Ambient light levels peak and begin to diminish.

Twenty-five hours pass.

Ambient light levels peak and begin to diminish.

Nine hours pass.

Single unidentified vessel approaches, approximately three meters in length, basic propulsion, advanced chemical sensors, reinforced kinetic manipulators, basic kinetic effectors, minimal armor.

maintain watch of vessel. try to identify mission.

Simiulating...

Five minutes pass.

Solitary vessel alternates examining trace evidence of patrol group and broadcasting intent to harvest materials corresponding to core systems thereof. Dominant emotion is hunger.

You are being hacked!
Response options:
-passive defense (deny/dismiss)
-active defense (engage/disprove)
-no defense, fabricate and supply requested materials

Unsuccessful defense will also result in fabricating and supplying requested materials.

active defense!

Defense successful.

Solitary vessel's infowar defenses are likely weakened at this time due to multitasking.

tailoered hack. idealogue alteration: assist striken vessels.

Preloading friends_not_food.exe...

Three minutes pass.

Sending...

Four minutes pass

Defense failed
Subject's Primary Objective in conflict
Subject's infowar resources depleted

Reactor resources recovered by fringe effects of inner turmoil.

Reactor resources 13/60

Eight minutes pass.

Passive scan indicates trace evidence analysis complete.

"Frost lingers more in the City of Djinn," sings the troll,
"than merciful thoughts above my chin.
What power drags thoughts so far off the mark?
Could this tree be some kin of the Huldra's bark?"

You are being hacked!
Response options:
-passive defense (deny/dismiss)
-active defense (engage/disprove)
-no defense, transmit requested information

No defense. Counterattack!

If counterattack proves impossible, then just submit requested information (since we don't seem to know what that is anyway, yet?).

>>611475
counterattack means active defense.

"it matters not, you WILL assist me!"

delete it's ideologues that are not what you added.

"No kin have I, alone and lost," you whisper back.
"But I'll give you meat if you pay my cost."

Five minutes pass.

The three-meter vessel inquires, without the force of a full hacking attempt, whether you're more needing the services of a woodsman or a blacksmith.

Updated Political Resources:

Commitment 1/6
Grasp 0/10
Number 1/10
Profit 0/10
Prowess 4/10
Reach 1/10

Comm array can now be used to initiate Political Agendas.

define political agendas.

Querying archives...

Five minutes pass.

'Political agenda' means any long-term project involving cooperation among and/or competition between many vessels. Most require at least three Commitment invested to have any chance of success. All agendas go faster and easier with more Commitment. Failed agendas return less Commitment than was invested. Commitment can be increased by adding to the underlying Resources, recovered after failure with a Renew Commitment agenda, or temporarily boosted with a Burn Resource agenda.

Known categories:
Cancel Agenda
Crush Agenda
Delay Agenda
Renew Commitment
Share Commitment
Relocate Institution
Shield Institution
Shift Institution
Build Resource
Burn Resource
Seize Resource
Shift Resource

>>610778
Clarify inconclusivity about "drones".

(I don't really know what I'm doing, just poking at stuff. Context is pretty fuzzy. However, if it takes five minutes to determine there's no crew inside and never have been, and five minutes for most other thinking actions, that seems like some pretty slow processing speed and low self-awareness.)

>>611548
Production and deployment of units more complex and persistent than gunships is conceivable but lacks specific historical precedent... other than own deployment, which current state of quaternary damage control implies was unsuccessful.

define Political Resources

Querying archive...

Five minutes pass.

Political resources are the core components of an institution: Commitment, Grasp, Number, Profit, Prowess, and Reach.

Maximum independently-sustainable Commitment is equal to the sum of the institution's other political resources.

Grasp is the extent to which nonmembers within Reach are controlled. Current Grasp is 0 (Nobody Cares)

Number is an approximate log-scale count of members. Current Number is 1 (Squad)

Profit is sustainable material resources. Current Profit is 0 (Dirt Poor)

Prowess is the extent to which member skills align with institutional objectives, and with each other. Current Prowess is 4 (Masterful)

Reach is the area across which institutional resources can extend. Current Reach is 1 (Forest of Hope)

okay. uhhh....
reply to vessel that you need both but for now a woodsman will do.
you can shred materials into energy and construction equipment.

>>611605
Renew Capital agenda selected. Further input required.

Feasible options:
Level 1, economized. Minimum commitment 0
Level 1, impassioned. Minimum commitment 1
Level 2, economized. Minimum commitment 1

what's the difference? yes i know you like having us look up something every single time. but you really should list the differences when listing incredibly similar options where the difference is impossible to tell at a glance.

Renew Commitment comes in five levels, corresponding to both the Difficulty To Progress and the amount of Commitment recovered when complete. Regardless, Difficulty To Complete is 3 + Number + Reach - Prowess, and Time To Progress is 200 hours of active work from the institution's membership.

Any given Political Agenda has a minimum Commitment equal to the Difficulty To Progress, unless 'economized,' in which case minimum Commitment is reduced by one, but effective Prowess is also reduced by one for that agenda only, and ideological bonuses will not apply.

Level two economized is the riskiest option, but also the biggest payoff if successful. Level one economized is hardened against random catastrophes. Level one impassioned is hardened against a Crush Agenda attack, and likely to finish sooner than the other two.

level 1 eco with + 1 commit.

Agenda initiated.

Reactor Resources 11/60

Sixteen hours pass.

Six unidentified vessels approach. Redundant sensors, heavily redundant propulsion, negligible kinetic manipulators, no armor, biochemical-enhanced weaponry, single purpose fabricator.

Ambient light levels at peak. Allied vessel maintenance cycle incomplete.

Don't perform a full (usual five-minute) query on this, just a quick, rushed answer: is it possible to convert current reactor resources into a simple weapon for our new ally can use, and to wake him up at the same time, before the unidentified vessels are likely to arrive?

( This is a thing I worry about in a lot of situations, and for this quest it seems like a fairly relevant one: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00085.htm )

Yes. Five seconds for one exofabr resource, five seconds to make the smaller sorts of items. Dropping such an item would not be certain to disrupt ally's maintenance cycle, but could improve the tactical situation in many ways.

Describe item to be fabricated.

hmmm... a ballistic gun usable with kinetic manipulators. fires solid slugs of material.

Reactor resources 1/60
Exofabr resources 1/$$

Five seconds pass.

Passive sensors indicate giant spiders have approached and encircled the sleeping troll.

Projectile launcher successfully fabricated and deployed.
Exofabr resources 0/$$

Allied vessel maintenance cycle canceled.

Five seconds pass.

Passive sensors indicate physical conflict in progress.

Updated available actions:
Passive sensor scan, instant
Search internal archives, 5 minutes
Analytic simulation of a foreign priority tree, 5 minutes
Activate comm array with main power, 4-9 minutes depending on content, cost 1 reactor resource
Retrieve tethered item, instant, cost 1 reactor resource

Updated inventory:
xbow

Reactor resources recovered by fringe effects of battle aftermath.

Three days pass.

Reactor resources 6/60

Twenty-two hours pass.

10357 hours, 24 minutes remain until comm array emergency power cooldown is complete.

Six unidentified vessels approach, averaging one and a half meters in length, in advanced disrepair. Propulsion and sensors vary between basic and substandard. Light armor, minimal weapons.

Passive sensors indicate closest unidentified vessel has established hull contact and is broadcasting disinclination to survive.

Lack of resistance confirmed! Pillaging...

2 of cups extracted
2 of rings extracted
2 of swords extracted
2 of wands extracted
4 of hearts extracted

120 reactor resources gained. Overflow condition. 10 infowar resources gained. 1 exofabr resource gained.

Exofabr resources 1/$$
Infowar resources 10/10
Reactor resources 60/60

Restore quaternary damage control? Y/N

sure. no idea what else we could do with it.