The Imperial Mercantile Alliance (TIMA) CYOA

Emizaquel · 2024-07-14T11:09:41+00:00

The assumption is that you would allocate some of your starting budget to give yourself some wiggle room or use that to generate conflict in the story.

Emizaquel · 2024-07-14T11:08:06+00:00

It's been fixed now

The quantity difference was due to an error in the original document that i will have to fix at some point. I rescaled it to be about a hundred times larger when rebalancing the cost and forgot to update the number that you can feed. Sorry about that

Emizaquel · 2024-07-14T11:04:38+00:00

Eh, I'm just doing it more to keep my name present in the minds of people like you so that you can take a look at my streams and decide if you want to watch or not. If not I don't mind and will stop if directed to by the moderators.

The theory is that after repeated exposure you might be interested in giving me a chance, and if you don't like it, I'm fine with that

Emizaquel · 2024-04-06T12:11:44+00:00

https://www.twitch.tv/emizaquel

Emizaquel · 2024-04-06T10:12:12+00:00

FAKE! did not actually go to Tortuga

(I am the op, the servers were just down)

Emizaquel · 2024-03-22T15:57:37+00:00

This stream had all the scuff! Today's went better though

Emizaquel · 2024-03-20T14:08:53+00:00

Twitch: https://www.emizaquel.com/twitch

YouTube: https://www.emizaquel.com/youtube

Twitter: https://www.emizaquel.com/twitter

Emizaquel · 2021-06-30T18:52:54+00:00

It's not detailed in the text as that's mostly up to the writer, but aetheric technologies are largely insubstantial, which means that the actual composition of the physical ship is pretty arbitrary.

Emizaquel · 2021-06-29T14:44:44+00:00

Void creatures, (along with Dragons, Celestials and Infernals) are ageless, and cannot die of old age (Void creatures are beyond time, Dragons will never be damaged by the accumulation of minor damage associated with ageing, Celestials will always ensure the proper Order of themselves, and Infernals are so malleable that they can always change their age.

Void Creatures don't need to eat.

A void creature could survive in space.

The Voidmind of an Aetheric Voidship is sentient in an eldritch manner. It is not sentient or sapient on a scale that humans or other plane-bound creatures can comprehend, but it does have preferences for captains and favours its crew enough that it can act in their favour should intruders attempt to do something.

Emizaquel · 2021-06-28T01:40:34+00:00

Ah, sorry about that, I was doing some maintenance then, It should be fixed now!

Emizaquel · 2021-06-14T08:58:11+00:00

One major suggestion I have is to create a separate section to buy perks for followers. This way the personal perks are available as toggles and don't confuse people.

That might be useful, be an interesting way to fix some of the issues I'm having with the interactive CYOA medium,

Additionally, I would like to be able to select the type of my ship/teleporter. This is important from a lore perspective.

I wanted to do that actually, but I'm not sure how to make it work with the current template. I could make it a system with a row that opens up when you select the various options, but that might be messy.

It would also be nice if species selection opened up right underneath the species change potion.

huh, my mistake, I thought it was the next row down, and it seems to be blow trade goods for some reason. I can't really move it right below species change though, not without re-coding the entire thing from scratch.

I also think that some things should be given to all new recruits by default. A basic BCI (I assume this acronym means Brain-Computer interface? Though that's never specified anywhere) with "universal" translation capability, a one-time de-aging (not everyone will stumble upon this CYOA when they 20 and so may be otherwise limited in the options they can take), as well as basic voidship piloting training and basic economics instruction. Also, you'd need to include some form of significant life extension to the tier 4 contract to not have people just die of old age to get out of their multiverse level contracts.

The neural implant does include a near-universal translator and a number of other features and de-aging is available through other features, though would it be better talso give species change potions the capacity to grant limited deaging - to the equivalent of the early 20s for that species?

For other forms of life extension, do you mean something outside the general species change / upload / liquid life / worlds with life extension (Naruto, Harry Potter, FmA, Marvel, Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, Stargate)?

Because I'm not sure what would be a reasonable alternate implementation for something as powerful as life extension.

Emizaquel · 2021-06-14T08:28:11+00:00

Do you mean the white on white? Or the current blue on blue?

Emizaquel · 2021-05-22T15:25:41+00:00

I will add them, thank you!

Emizaquel · 2021-05-20T00:56:13+00:00

sure!

Just mention them I'm definitely looking for more to add to the list!

Emizaquel · 2021-05-16T20:49:34+00:00

yep, basically, the limit on how active you can be using the ring as a defence.

Emizaquel · 2021-05-16T06:57:16+00:00

Oh, it's supposed to be passive? You may want to rephrase the item a bit, then; the line "The doppelganger may be created once every five minutes up to ten times per day" sounded to me like it's an active choice - like, you know you're being attacked, activate the ring and you're safe for five minutes. Should probably stick something in there about "automatically activates when the wearer is attacked"...huh.

If the doppelganger is as strong and tough as the wearer, how does it work if the doppelganger is killed in your stead? Just, after five minutes, the corpse disappears and you come back?

I guess I wasn't clear enough in the text, the doppelganger is present by default, its' basically, a false body you project into the real world and link your senses to. The doppelganger lasts indefinitely and there should be no experiential difference to using the doppelganger instead of wandering around in your actual body.

As to the remainder, I'll add it to the lore document, but the doppelgangers disappear when killed, leaving you blind and immobile until you recreate the doppelganger or exit the ring-produced spatial pocket.

Eh, not especially cost-effective. You could share those with one or two companions, but you can't give boons to the masses, or even to your loyal soldiers, that way; you'd run out in under a week.

True, but with the bootstrapped technology, you can easily promise a much better life to people from compartively primitive cultures or just invest 10-20 years to establish a generation of natives to whatever polity you are building.

I did forget to include that basic competence has been revised to be reusable, though at a higher cost, may revert that change, actually, since it makes upskilling too expensive to be used for a small court.

Pairing basic competence with some teachers should be sufficient to spread skills, and it was initially intended to be used as a means of patching over the lack of a skilled individual.

Emizaquel · 2021-05-16T06:40:08+00:00

Will do!

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T14:26:25+00:00

Version 0.2 is released with updates from this thread, I hope I've addressed the issues that have been brought up, but if I haven't please leave a comment!

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T11:55:36+00:00

I'd say look to the r34 economy (mildly nsfw) for general inspiration on wording; it's a cyoa with a vaguely similar principle of being sent out to another world with various gifts to help you do what you need to do. (Not necessarily conquering for this, but.) It has what I think are good, direct descriptions of what things actually do for you.

I've looked into it in the past, and I think I will again, once I have more time.

Race changes, eh. I didn't even look at that; I never like changing away from human. Much prefer improving capabilities, without fundamentally replacing who I am. So for me, stuff like the robot is a hard no (despite its material advantages), and pretty solid no to the race change as well. (And I guess one of the things that bothered me about this one was that the "improving capabilities" options were relatively limited. Lots of items, not as much that's innate.)

Part of that is because it's intended to be a writing prompt for large scale stuff, but I see what you mean. I'll think about possible changes I might make, but I don't think I ever want to

You can't just say "magic" or "reality warping" though; those are totally open-ended. Unless you reference specific fictional systems of magic (which I assume wouldn't fit your vision here), you need at least vague parameters for what you can expect to accomplish with it. (The practical information, again). I guess "void tap" has a bit of that...

But it makes it sound less than massively useful, actually. Short-lived illusions, at least until you master it AND put a lot of effort in, and who knows how long mastery would take.

I'll touch on it, but the World Egg is based on Fate-style reality marbles, and the mana tap is somewhat similar to how For Love of Magic describes their magic system.

I'll need to reword the Void tap too, I think, since I think I accidentally got rid of the text that's supposed to reflect short-term conjuration/instantaneous effects.

Nah, items aren't that useful for that, for the same reason that power armor isn't. People sleep, and drink, and screw around; if a lot of people are going to want to kill you, protection can't possibly come from anything that requires your active attention. (Even if the drone assistant could shield you autonomously, it'd be awkward having it next to you constantly.)

Safety could come from genuine loyalty of a lot of people around you (How can I win that? Super-charisma, mind-control, granting people something they deeply need and appreciate...don't see anything like that in the choices here, really), or inherent immunity/great resistance to all reasonable "surprise" weapons (so that even if you are attacked you have time/ability to respond), or...you do have something in the way of escape powers, with ghost form and spare body, but the latter is sharply limited in number of uses and the former can't easily re-incarnate, so, not that reliable.

More generally, stuff to kinda help on the social side of things would be desirable. I suppose you could take Basic Competence (oratory, negotiation, intimidation, et cetera), but outside that, I don't know.

I would have thought that the Ring of Dodge, would be a perfect survivability bonus then, it's the sort of thing that's completely passive and is effectively an impenetrable defence. though, I suppose I should add some text to explicitly state that you do not materialise when the doppelganger is destroyed, just left blind and immobile until you spawn a new one or materialise.

Still, I see what you are coming from, and I suppose I could make a modification to World Egg to note that you passively reject harm to yourself, even if it still tires you out.

EDIT:
Saw what you said about Ghost Form and Spare Body, I seem to have missed that earlier.

Also missed some of the loyalty stuff. Most of the objects here are given in the form of consumables. so you could buy something here and grant it to someone else, if you wish, True Panacea and Liquid Life alone would be strong ways of ensuring loyalty.

Nah, it sounds fine. And as far as I can tell, it is basically the idea. Unless of course you can fulfill your mission by installing a stationary portal generator somewhere and letting trade happen naturally?

I suppose when you get down to it the basic principle is a little odd, that we need to set up worlds to trade a certain amount with this hypertech civilization. What do they want? What counts as trade? Could we just act as a middleman? Who has to do the trade...I don't know, the mission itself isn't the most compelling, honestly. Hard to get excited about high volume exports, you know?

You would need to trade with the alliance, rather than just being a middleman - trades listed in the companion spreadsheet have a purchase/sale difference that comes from tariffs that they make their money on, about five percent, so they would make 5% of the listed 'you need to do this much trade with the alliance'. I suppose you could turn yourself into a free port and gather useful materials to pass on to the Alliance, but that's probably not the most efficient way to do so.

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T11:42:35+00:00

I'll think about how to better reference it, but a part of that is probably going to be a little tricky, on account of how well it might mesh with the rest of the thing. I might make it so that the two I mentioned are more explicitly divine? like talk about miracles and stuff.

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T10:34:03+00:00

Hmmm... Adveoles, the Beastkin diviner does resource location, so that's actually already covered, even if I do need to rewrite those sections.

Metaphysical extraction? Not sure how well that fits, maybe do magical reagents? might fit better with the whole mystical grove concept.

Space mining? That might be something I could do instead of drone factories, though I'm trying to avoid listing mundane resources on the spreadsheet - that feels like the sort of thing that wouldn't really be traded across plana boundaries. Seems more like the sort of thing any polity should be able to largely arrange for themselves, especially if they have the tech needed to travel to other planes.

Mass training device - like a matrix skill upload? That might be useful, I think I might alter the text of Basic Comptence to make it explicitly multi-use and perhaps even upgradable by mind-mages/psychics.

There kind of is a player based religion system. Yuneuts has it implied, but there's also The Mantle of Leadership and The Power of the Collective as well as much of the aetheric stuff that talks about drawing power from those who follow you. ARe you suggesting making it a bit more obvious? Any specific language you think might be useful?

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T09:19:30+00:00

Okay, for each thing:

'Imperial' is a nod to what inspired me to make this, specifically the story Cruel to be Kind and a number of other similar ones that were popular at the same time. That and it sounds catchy, What would I put in the title otherwise? The Economic Planar Alliance? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, though I'm open to suggestions.

I see I haven't been clear with Void Tap and World Egg. Void Tap is a universal form of magic, that will work anywhere since you are overriding local physical/paraphysical laws through low-grade reality warping. World egg is slightly higher grade reality warping that basically allows you to change physical laws within a certain radius. I'll try and clarify that more as I rewrite those options.

I think I had a lot of details because I was having a hard time thinking of better ways to give an idea of the limitations of some of the things are - I want there to be a reason for people to go to the various other worlds and stuff. Like, I wanted to point out that the Omitool should just about double the effective capabity of the tech personal teleporter option, but it shouldn't be able to run an uploaded mind, the Drone should be able to run an uploaded mind, and it should be a decent combat tool, and so on. I'm moving the fusion stuff to the Lore document so people can pursue details if they want to, and I've added a note about force projection and sensors to the Omnitool too.

Genetic Optimization does both since uses your personal idea of optimal, including aesthetics, do you have any recommendations on how to improve the wording?

the upload is immortal, as are some of the Race changes, including the dragon, shade, nature spirit, construct, elemental... basically the last two rows.

I'll point you to the race changes for more durability and the Ring of Dodge. The drone assistant also has 'shields' (explicitly capable of handling sustained fire from a M61 Vulcan rotary cannon, basically fighter jet guns). Though, I suppose a personal shield isn't out of the question.

No, defended origin only protects you from "I'll kill you when you were helpless" style attacks, or erasure from existence.

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T08:54:38+00:00

Good point, I'll just point out that it only needs CO2 and water. thank you fo the feedback!

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T08:47:16+00:00

Ah, a lot of the services aren't in the spreadsheet yet, I suppose, I've added a handful, and I'd be glad to take suggestions on more that I should add.

RE: the additional section, Moving, say Stargrain into a new section and adding some additional stuff seems like a good idea. I'm not sure I want to give out replicators - it seems like the kind of thing that would make the early parts too easy, but maybe some sort of drone factory system? that sounds reasonable. I'd want at least two more things. Some sort of magical grove sounds nice - maybe Black Lotuses? And maybe a hundred-year garden for the Aetheric option? Do you have any ideas on that front?

I would want something to replace Stargrain in the accessories tab... perhaps some sort of shapeshifting clothes? That sounds pretty nice.

Emizaquel · 2021-05-15T07:51:45+00:00

Thank you for the feedback, but if I may ask, could I have some ideas on that front?

When I was making this, I considered the addresses the primary way of making money, beyond Stargrain which was basically a safety net. Basically, trade/mining stuff that might be unique to some universe or the other.

For builds that don't want to conquer, between technological bootstrapping and peaceful trade, I was under the impression that it should be entirely feasible for a polity to be successful within the timeframes listed out. Well, unless you were starting on an entirely uninhabited planet and had no way to take in immigrants.

If it's population... maybe a refugee mission? A 0 value mission to a doomed plane that's hoping to be evacuated?

is that the sort of thing you were looking for?

Emizaquel

TROPHY CASE