Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

Image said:
I guess Karachi ate Colombo then.

With naval confidence what it is, trying to build a fleet base on Sri Lanka to blockade the Indian subcontinent probably seems like a bad idea.

HousePet said:
I think we should go with Tube Artillery Development to get better Shells before we push for more Shell Factories.

I used to think so, but I've been assured that the extra burden of refitting shell factories to be compatible with the newly developed guns won't be as bad as I feared. Given that we have serious shell shortages now and that actually rolling out our new artillery could easily take until the middle of next year so that we'll NEED large stockpiles for the existing guns when the warlords hit us hard...

I think it's reasonable to do Shell Plants this turn. Not the only option, personally I favor Ablatives because that shit never gets old... But it's a good option.

Not sure about the overkill on the BZ Arcology, as I can't see another phase being aimed for any time soon.

Plans that don't include "and slam out a phase of Apartments this turn" pretty much need to overkill the arcologies. Because we're not just facing a commitment to build arcologies eventually, we're facing a housing crisis right now.

We are literally running out of places to put people, to the point where we're directing refugees (many of them families or partially disabled) into Yellow Zone fortress towns. Y'know, the ones where all the structures are bunkers and the place is under constant Nod harassment fire?

So we need some +Housing from somewhere this turn, and we need a reasonable assurance it'll actually complete. We only have the luxury of slow-walking the current phase of Arcologies if we're committed to doing something else to provide +Housing almost immediately.

Infra Infra Revolution and some other plans I've seen contain a "something else" clause in the form of Apartments. But plans without Apartments have little choice but to hammer the arcology button hard.

ConfusedCanuck said:
Hmm the defense laser for the Navy is a must thankfully it's cheap to do so it shouldn't be too hard to work on. Along with that I think we can get started on the Havoc this turn to fulfill our promise to Steel Talons as well.

What's gonna be expensive isn't developing the point defense lasers.

It's gonna be mounting them. Because instead of having to refit only to the Navy's existing capital ships, we'll have to refit it to all the ships, including the new (laser-less) cruisers.

If we're lucky it'll be a two-phase project and we can prioritize the old capital ships first.

Derpmind said:
My thoughts are that I'd really like any plan that does [] Railgun Harvester Development, since that's an upgrade to all our Tiberium harvesting efforts. We should need to do something for ZOCOM this turn so we can deploy it ASAP; we're asking a lot of them as-is and they need more projects pumped into them than just the medical evacuation vehicles. And now that PD has turned into another Development project this turn, it'd be a good time to deploy the Orca refits already.

I like your thinking, and my plan does the Orca refits already, but I don't have a ton of room for another ZOCOM project this turn, what with most of the Free dice going to Infrastructure. I could maybe swap out that single-die ablatives for a ZOCOM development project? Or the Havoc, which sorta kills two birds with one stone assuming the deployment cost isn't crippling?

AntiSanity said:
[ ] Plan: Apartments and Greed (+Lots of Bureaucracy)
-[ ] Infrastructure 3/5, 30R
--[ ] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes 0/160, 3 dice 30R 90%
-[ ] Heavy Industry 4/5 Dice, 80R
--[ ] Automated Civilian Shipyards 0/250, 4 dice 80R 68%

-[ ] Orbital 4/4 Dice + 0 Free Dice, 40R
--[ ] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) 5/135, 3 Dice (Fusion), 30R, 89%
--[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 8) 13/90 1 die 10R 1 die 10R 47%

If I were you, I'd flip the cleanup die to commsats.

For that matter, if I were me, I'd do that; I did that in my own plan. Gives us absolutely surefire +Logistics to help offset glacier mining, as opposed to merely two different projects each of which will 'probably' complete.

-[ ] Agriculture 1/3 Dice 20R
--[ ] Wadmalaw Kudzu Development 0/40, 1 Die 20R 90%

NOTE: Once we develop this, we will be under heavy pressure to roll it out. Something to be wary of.

-[ ] Tiberium 6/6 Dice + 2 Free Dice, 215R
--[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 5) 74/180, 2 dice 50R 91%
--[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 10) 1/30, 3 Dice, 75R, 99% (Stage 8), 33% (Stage 8+9)
--[ ] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 10) 18/180, 3 Dice, 90R, 93%

An interesting and divergent strategy for Tiberium. Not a bad one.

-[ ] Military 6/6 Dice, 100R
--[ ] Zone Emergency Medical Evacuation Vehicle Deployment (Sydney) 49/80 1 die 10R 97%
--[ ] Naval Defense Lasers 0/60 1 die 15R 73%
--[ ] Shimmer Shield Development 0/60 1 die 20R 73%
--[ ] Havoc Scout Mech Development 0/30 1 die 10R 100%
--[ ] Tactical Plasma Weapon Development 0/40 1 die 30R 93%
--[ ] Tube Artillery Development 0/40 1 die 15R 93%

Point of interest is military. We're getting a whole bunch of critical things done. 2 of Steel Talons' Tactical Plasma and Havocs for the promise to Tali. Tube artillery so we can reduce our shell shortage. Shimmer shields so we can eventually get shielding on everything from tanks, ships, buildings, fusion reactors, and space stations. And finally naval lasers, so our battleships, carriers, and cruisers can be safer. (And also be able to integrate PD lasers to future ships).

I feel like it's a bad idea to go in for the plasma weapons right now; they're too expensive. The Havoc will perform quite adequately with railguns, sonic grenade launchers, and other weapons we already have, I think. And we have years to fulfill our promises to General Jackson, so we shouldn't feel forced into making expensive sacrifices right now. Just pushing through the Havoc is a big step forward and a much more economical one.

(For that matter, I'm not sure if we can get shields or plasma weapons for the Havoc if we do the developments in the same turn, making it particularly pointless to rush the shield/plasma development to do it simultaneously with the Havoc)

I also kind of regret the lack of Orca refits here. I know shields and plasma weapons are desirable, but we have several branches of the military craving the Super Orca for one reason or another. Doing two expensive development projects this turn doesn't have clear benefit compared to the Super Orca deployment.

Void Stalker · Oct 18, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
So we need some +Housing from somewhere this turn, and we need a reasonable assurance it'll actually complete. We only have the luxury of slow-walking the current phase of Arcologies if we're committed to doing something else to provide +Housing almost immediately.

And I favor arcologies because unless we need logistics or power from infra my intent is to keep slamming 5 dice into arcologies to try and push through all 3 phases we promised, that is 24 housing (or enough for 3 years of refugees at the current rate). That and at 15R per die they keep costs down until income spools back up to full.

Simon_Jester said:
I also kind of regret the lack of Orca refits here. I know shields and plasma weapons are desirable, but we have several branches of the military craving the Super Orca for one reason or another. Doing two expensive development projects this turn doesn't have clear benefit compared to the Super Orca deployment.

Yeah Orcas soon (q3 is my tenative plan to roll them out) is a must I feel (part of why I tried to cram them in towards the end of last year). They will really help our ground forces and further attrit NOD air, not to mention improving our carrier complements. But cost to do the refit made it too expensive this turn, one of the multiple reasons I am pushing for double glaciers is the income to run projects like Orcas without compromising elsewhere.

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

Pertuarbo101 said:
For military I'd really like to see us finish our rollout of the anti stealth sensors as they're still very high priority and they've only got this phase left otherwise I suspect it's gonna get lost amongst everything else.

Lots of people want them, but they're so flippin' expensive that we're mentally pushing them back with the intent to pounce on them in, like, 2058Q4. When we hopefully have less like 500 R for a budget and more like 600+ R.

TheFourthman said:
The Talons have expressed interest in this over the Havoc. So I'd suggest taking this first and then move onto the vehicles.

The catch is that it's 20 R more expensive and doesn't immediately lead anywhere. Whereas developing the Havoc leads to immediate combat power increase during deployment, importantly including a boost to ZOCOM, which we know is going to be pretty hard-pressed over the coming year.

Hazard said:
Actually, another option is that the number of pilots in a squadron drops by about 1/3rd because, well, 25-45% of the craft are replaced by wingman drones, effectively letting you field 1/3rd time as many squadrons because now you can spread your pilots over more air frames.

Remember that we're specifically talking about carrier aviation, and in particular escort carrier aviation, where the carrier air group spends a lot of time doing routine patrols and sweeps around the convoy. A task for which the wingman drones are largely useless, since basically all they do is follow around an actual piloted aircraft going "roger-roger" and popping off a missile at anything the pilot wants dead.

It's possible that increasing availability of trained pilots (since fewer are needed per escort carrier) will have a significant impact even if the actual effectiveness of the escort carriers' air groups doesn't increase by that much (because of what I said last paragraph).

But I don't think it's going to work out that way.

I think we'll have enough pilots for all the Super Orcas that can fit aboard all the escort carriers we can build- or, at any rate, we'll have them by the time the escort carriers are built. And that the Navy isn't going to prioritize making the wingman drones (or their navalized version) work with the escort carriers, because the escort carriers simply do not need them badly enough to justify taking away space that could be occupied by piloted aircraft.

Furthermore, the norm in aircraft design is to design the plane to fit the carriers, not the other way around. Since the wingman drone designed to accompany Super Orcas is, we already know, smaller than a Super Orca, it will be physically capable of fitting aboard the carriers and flying off them when necessary, if that's what the Navy wants. We already know there will be multiple types of drones, too, so the Navy won't have too much trouble getting a type to serve its needs if that's what it wants.

Void Stalker said:
And I favor arcologies because unless we need logistics or power from infra my intent is to keep slamming 5 dice into arcologies to try and push through all 3 phases we promised, that is 24 housing (or enough for 3 years of refugees at the current rate). That and at 15R per die they keep costs down until income spools back up to full.

While this would hopefully keep us ahead of the refugees, we still have a Housing crisis at the end of it (lots of people in low-quality Housing). And since the Infrastructure projects that are directly competing for dice right now (railroads, apartments, maybe Integrated Cargo System or finishing off the current tidal power phase) are all 10-15 R/die too, it doesn't really keep costs down in this phase of the plan.

By late-plan standards, slamming out five dice of arcologies is a cost-saving measure. Right now, the cost-saving measure would be to do the same thing with apartments, get more adequate housing instead of less great housing, and commit to doing the arcologies later except for maybe completing the current phase.

Yeah Orcas soon (q3 is my tenative plan to roll them out) is a must I feel (part of why I tried to cram them in towards the end of last year). They will really help our ground forces and further attrit NOD air, not to mention improving our carrier complements. But cost to do the refit made it too expensive this turn, one of the multiple reasons I am pushing for double glaciers is the income to run projects like Orcas without compromising elsewhere.

Part of the reason you can't afford Orca refits is because you're insisting on super-aggressive arcology construction.

Like, if you just took your plan, and turned it into "two on arcologies three on apartments," BAM, you'd free up the 15 R to do Super Orcas instead of shell plants.

Rakuhn · Oct 18, 2021

We are going to either need at least 5 phases of arcologies or 3 phases of arcologies and 2 phases of blue zone apartments over the course of this plan if we want to start getting people out of crappy housing entirely. Unless we are committing to an only arcology strategy, why should we front load all 3 phases of the plan required arcologies?

The required arcologies need ~1550 progress. At an average of ~70/die, that's ~23 dice. Over 15 turns, spending just two dice per turn on blue zone arcologies will easily meet our plan commitment. And later dice are going to have an even larger bonus.

We should do the cheaper projects earlier in the plan while our infrastructure dice bonus is lower and we are more resource constrained.

HousePet · Oct 18, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
Plans that don't include "and slam out a phase of Apartments this turn" pretty much need to overkill the arcologies. Because we're not just facing a commitment to build arcologies eventually, we're facing a housing crisis right now.

We are literally running out of places to put people, to the point where we're directing refugees (many of them families or partially disabled) into Yellow Zone fortress towns. Y'know, the ones where all the structures are bunkers and the place is under constant Nod harassment fire?

So we need some +Housing from somewhere this turn, and we need a reasonable assurance it'll actually complete. We only have the luxury of slow-walking the current phase of Arcologies if we're committed to doing something else to provide +Housing almost immediately.

Infra Infra Revolution and some other plans I've seen contain a "something else" clause in the form of Apartments. But plans without Apartments have little choice but to hammer the arcology button hard.

They do not. 83% is still quite likely.
If the Arcologies don't finish, we can (and will be anyway) still slam out Apartment Complexes next turn.
The refugees coming in are in a significantly improved position just by being in a Fortress Town. They can cope with that for a quarter.
This response is totally disproportionate to me suggesting that we would be fine with a 83% completion chance instead of a 98% completion chance.

Void Stalker · Oct 18, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
While this would hopefully keep us ahead of the refugees, we still have a Housing crisis at the end of it (lots of people in low-quality Housing). And since the Infrastructure projects that are directly competing for dice right now (railroads, apartments, maybe Integrated Cargo System or finishing off the current tidal power phase) are all 10-15 R/die too, it doesn't really keep costs down in this phase of the plan.

By late-plan standards, slamming out five dice of arcologies is a cost-saving measure. Right now, the cost-saving measure would be to do the same thing with apartments, get more adequate housing instead of less great housing, and commit to doing the arcologies later except for maybe completing the current phase.

Except that apartments are increasing our logistics demand so that means pealing off dice for rail networks and other logistics under infra right now. It also seems like a big win to get an arcology phase out this early and 5 dice makes that basically guaranteed plus any rollover will be used at some point during the plan. As is with 2 glacier phases this turn and 1 next I would not want to add on apartments until the shipyards finish to try and keep a good logistics buffer going. Also of note people will prefer arcology housing over apartment housing so if we can keep pace with arcologies that will keep morale up better. As is knocking an arcology phase off this turn means we can take another look at our housing situation next turn (as well as where we need infra dice) and see if pushing more arcology is able to keep up with refugee demand.

marids · Oct 18, 2021

Void Stalker said:
Thoughts?

I like the big push for more Red Zone Harvesting and Glaciers to continue jump-starting the Treasury income level in order to better make use of the idling dices. But if you intend to do so, I'd prefer seeing much more projects for ZOCOM to actually support that expansion.

I mean yes, we know from WoG that there are still enough ZOCOM force left to use for at least a few more Glaciers and Red Zone mines before needing to dip into the reserves, and that's good. But given how they are essentially directly telling us that they need more help to prevent being stretched further, which is a major concern since I like having the most important military asset for maintaining and increasing income well funded and supplied, I'd rather see the plan also get started with exactly what they asked for, which is the Zone Armor factories, in order to allow them to finally no longer have to double as special forces to protect important assets that aren't Tiberium mines due to being the only military force with all Zone Armor for infantry.

Rakuhn · Oct 18, 2021

If we are going for a ZOCOM Armor push, I think we'll want the new NOD armor tech (in most plans already) and the pop-up drones this turn. One die each, and they should significantly enhance the capabilities of any new suits we build.

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

Gworn said:
I'm a bit late this time, but here are the substantial changes this turn. Updated description is now noted in the update itself as well.

Colombo Planned City removed

Yellow Zone Fusion Power Campaigns removed

Personal Vehicle Factories removed

Johannesburg Personal Robotics Factory removed

Agricultural Processing Plants removed

Freeze Dried Food Plants & 2 Stockpile options added

new phases of Expand Orbital Communications Network with still more +PS

Orbital Cleanup stages now show what they unlock

Inner System Survey Probes removed

Fissile Extraction removed

Ferro Aluminum Armor Testing added

Aurora Strike Bomber Development added

Bulldog ARV Development removed

Naval Defense Lasers replaces Point Defense Refits -5 PS every turn not taken

@Ithillid , did Johannesburg Personal Robotics and/or Personal Vehicle Factories get taken care of by the private sector, or at least see the private sector get far enough into the field that the central planners consider doing those projects redundant?

Also, what happened to the Bulldog? Did Ground Forces stop wanting it?

ninjakirito6 said:
[ ] Railgun Harvester Development
GDI's harvesters of any model have typically been armed in the years since the Second Tiberium War. The Rapid Fire Railguns of the Steel Talons can be put to good use increasing the firepower that one of these units can deploy, allowing it to better fend off Brotherhood raids while not compromising its primary harvesting mission.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

So, I'm not an expert on the mechanics of this quest, but I'm pretty sure this would lesson the strain on our ZOCOM and Steel Talons since they are our main defensive force out in the Red Zones iirc. I know we are pretty hamstringed on dice but does anyone think they could sneak this in?

It's a lovely project; the problem is that it uses Tiberium dice and will lead to a deployment phase in which we have to build factories to manufacture the things... also, probably, using Tiberium dice.

This means it competes directly with stuff like glacier mines for our fairly limited reserve of Tib dice, at the exact moment when we're trying to mash the +Income button as hard as possible.

HousePet said:
I tried, but we just don't have the resources for that this turn.

In other thoughts:
Perhaps we could squeeze in a Ground Forces Zone Armor factory or two early. Completing them all will be a late plan goal, but that doesn't mean we can't get some supply for specialist squads.

There's definitely support; we're just trying to get things to a place where spending 3-4 dice on a 20 R/die project won't suck all the oxygen out of the room.

[On top of this there's a Cap Goods issue; we only have so much to go around and we're not ready to slam out Nuuk/Tokyo phases to get a ton more of the stuff yet]

F0lkL0re said:
[] Plan Trains, Ships and Space Phones
Infrastructure 5/5 105R
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2) 4 dice 60R 83%
(Progress 409/650: 15 Resources per Die) (+8 Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy) (High Priority)
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 1 die +2 free dice 45R 26%
(Progress 15/250: 15 Resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
Heavy Industry 5/5 100R
-[] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 1) 2 dice 40R 37%
(Progress 0/160: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor)
-[] Automated Civilian Shipyards 3 dice 60R 23%
(Progress 0/250: 20 Resources per die) (+9 Logistics, -1 Capital Goods, -4 Energy)
Light and Chemical Industry 3/4 40R
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (phase 2) 2 dice 40R 30%
(Progress 1/160: 20 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
Agriculture 2/3 20R
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Development 1 die 20R 91%
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die) (High Priority)
Tiberium 5/6 110R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 1) 5 dice 100R 99%
(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)
-[] Railgun Harvester Development 1 free die 10R 100%
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)
Orbital 3/4 12 fusion dice 30R
-[] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) 3 fusion dice 30R 88%
(Progress 5/135: 15 resources per die) (+2 Logistics) (5 Political Support) (Fusion)
Services 3/4 50R
-[] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 1 die 20R 76%
(Progress 0/60: 20 resources per die)
-[] NOD Research Initiatives 1 die 30R 76%
(Progress 100/160 : 30 resources per die)
Military 5/6 55R
-[] Ferro Aluminum Armor Testing 1 die 5R 100%
(Progress 0/30: 5 resources per die)
-[] Zone Emergency Medical Evacuation Vehicle Deployment
--[] Sydney 1 die 10R 97%
(Progress 49/80: 10 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -1 Energy) (Must be completed before End of 2058)
-[] Tube Artillery Development 1 die 15R 93%
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)
-[] Shell Plants (Phase 4) 1 die 10R 0%
(Progress 3/300: 10 Resources per die) (-2 Energy) (High Priority)
-[] Naval Defense Lasers 1 die 15R 73%
(Progress 0/60: 15 resources per die) (-5 Political Support Per Turn progress is not made)
Bureaucracy 3/3
-[] Security Reviews (Services) 1 Services die + 2 dice 98%
(DC 55 + 1 operations die)
-[] Security Reviews (Light and Chemical Industry) 1 Light and Chemical Industry die + 1 die + 1 free die 98%
(DC 55 + 1 operations die)
-[] Private Industrial Automation 1 free die
(-2 capital goods)
Free Dice 5/6
Resources Income 510/510 Reserve /5

Hm. An interestingly divergent plan. I kinda like it, though I feel like it doesn't do enough for the branches of the military that are hurting most (Navy, ZOCOM). Plus, we're probably only gonna get about +50 RpT out of the vein mines in a single turn like this, which is a problem given the strain on our budget.

Derpmind said:
@Simon_Jester TBH I wasn't planning on participating in this vote much. I'm not sure what you're asking me for, either. But I do know we have 515 R available this turn, not 505. And you mislabeled Orbital Cleanup as costing 50R instead of 20R.

I was just asking for a sanity check. I caught the cleanup thing myself, but I should rethink a bit to see if I can do anything I like with the extra +10 R.

Thanks.

HousePet said:
They do not. 83% is still quite likely.
If the Arcologies don't finish, we can (and will be anyway) still slam out Apartment Complexes next turn.
The refugees coming in are in a significantly improved position just by being in a Fortress Town. They can cope with that for a quarter.
This response is totally disproportionate to me suggesting that we would be fine with a 83% completion chance instead of a 98% completion chance.

Okay, sorry. I was mostly taking the opportunity to run an abstract analysis of the housing situation and remind everyone that we do face a very serious housing crisis.

We're not quite at the point where literally the last roof in all of GDI territory that isn't a tent is now full.

But we are almost certainly at the point where it occasionally becomes necessary to relocate refugees to a different continent because we have space in the fortress towns in Africa but not in North America where the refugees are, or something like that. Because that's what it looks like when you're getting +2 Population of refugees per three months and the total available housing surplus in the entire world is +4 total.

From my point of view, all arcology-heavy plans that spend 4-5 dice or more are "overkill," in that they spend heavily and are likely to roll over into the next phase, but do this because it is very close to a necessity. Given a decision not to do apartments in Q2, it may not be strictly necessary to aggressively (that is, 4-5 dice) hammer on the current arcology phase... but it's pushing us very, very close to the line of having to put refugees in tents again.

Void Stalker said:
Except that apartments are increasing our logistics demand so that means pealing off dice for rail networks and other logistics under infra right now.

Unlike duplexes, the Logistics strain created by arcologies isn't enough to offset the Progress cost advantage.

With duplexes, to get +8 Housing you have to do two phases of duplexes plus a railroad phase to cancel the -Logistics cost, and it ends up adding to about the same Progress cost as an arcology phase.

With apartments, you can get +24 Housing from four phases plus that same railroad phase, and it works out to about 900-1000 Progress... whereas you'd spend 2400 Prowess, most of it on more expensive dice, to get the same results from arcologies.

If we're seriously trying to get people out of the old immediate post-TWIII commieblocks, apartments are the only way to do it without locking down damn near every Infra die we have, especially now that we have a major commitment to build Karachi.

...

In any case, my own plan pushes railroads hard enough to have a good chance of landing +6 or +8 Logistics this turn, enough to offset the apartments right along with the optimistic-lucky case of two glacier mine phases. It's not perfect and I'm still hoping I can find something good to do with the extra +10 R I found that we have. But I feel good about it.

Finishing the current arcology phase is a big win, yes, but it's a very expensive win under the circumstances. Personally I'd rather have the Super Orcas right now.

marids said:
I like the big push for more Red Zone Harvesting and Glaciers to continue jump-starting the Treasury income level in order to better make use of the idling dices. But if you intend to do so, I'd prefer seeing much more projects for ZOCOM to actually support that expansion.

I mean yes, we know from WoG that there are still enough ZOCOM force left to use for at least a few more Glaciers and Red Zone mines before needing to dip into the reserves, and that's good. But given how they are essentially directly telling us that they need more help to prevent being stretched further, which is a major concern since I like having the most important military asset for maintaining and increasing income well funded and supplied, I'd rather see the plan also get started with exactly what they asked for, which is the Zone Armor factories, in order to allow them to finally no longer have to double as special forces to protect important assets that aren't Tiberium mines due to being the only military force with all Zone Armor for infantry.

I actually share your feelings, though this turn in particular I want to push Super Orcas as the main thing. This isn't the maximally ZOCOM-benefiting project, but it does benefit ZOCOM since they use air support too. And it also reduces general pressure on all branches of the armed forces, which reduces the demand for ZOCOM forces to do things other than guard tiberium mines, as you note.

I will continue to push ZOCOM-boosting projects as time goes forward, though some of them may also be other-branch-boosting projects as well.

Rakuhn said:
If we are going for a ZOCOM Armor push, I think we'll want the new NOD armor tech (in most plans already) and the pop-up drones this turn. One die each, and they should significantly enhance the capabilities of any new suits we build.

The pop-up drones will be designed to work with the existing armor; otherwise ZOCOM wouldn't have been interested in them for the past several years. Heck, existing features of the existing armor design are explicitly called out as making it possible to use the drones in the first place.

The useful side-effect of this is that we don't specifically need to wait until we have new bells and whistles to put in the new armor, because the factories aren't there to manufacture a new Super Zone Armor. They're just there to make more Zone Armor. A lot more. That's why there's no "develop new power armor for Ground Forces" action to take first and we can just skip straight to the factory construction.

As for the new Nod armor... I don't think that's gonna show up in Zone Armor. It's not great at taking sustained fire, even from light weaponry (like an antipersonnel machine gun), and it's not actually better than most of our existing armor materials, it just makes things a little bit lighter and cheaper.

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

Modification of Infra Infra Revolution for +10 more Resources. I push up to Blue Zone Arcologies with three dice, giving it a reasonable chance of completion while also pushing an apartment phase. This lets us not only ensure that the immediate refugee crisis is solved for the next year or so, but also immediately move a bunch of Blue Zoners out of bad commieblocks into much better commieblocks.

The controversial but awesome tiberium infusion research is replaced with EVA research. This is said to have potential for good results! We can do the tiberium infusion awesomeness next turn. I'm not giving up on it, just picking a more expensive project with my remaining budget.

Because it now has three dice on arcologies, enough to have a reasonable chance of straight-up completing them, I rename the plan:

Infra Arco Revolution

BUDGET:
515 R/turn
6 Free dice
12 Fusion dice

515/515 Resources spent
6/6 Free Dice allocated
5/12 Fusion Dice allocated

[] Plan Infra Arco Revolution

Infrastructure 5/5 Dice + 5 Free Dice 135 R
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2) 409/600 (3 die, 45 R) (40% chance)
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 1) (3 dice, 30 R) (90% chance)
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 (4 dice, 60 R) (73%)

Heavy Industry 2/5 Dice 40 R
-[] Automated Civilian Shipyards 0/250 (2 Dice, 40 R) (2/4 median)

Light and Chemical Industry 0/4 Dice 0 R

Agriculture 0/3 Dice 0 R

Tiberium 6/6 Dice 170 R
-[] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 10) 1/130 (2 Dice, 50 R) (78% chance)
-[] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 10) 18/180 (4 Dice, 120 R) (~100% of one phase, ~29% chance of two)

Orbital 4/4 Dice + 1 Free Dice 50 R
-[] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) 5/135 (5 Dice, 50 R) (~100% of one, 74% chance of two)

Services 3/4 Dice 40 R
-[] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 (1 Die, 20 R) (76% chance)
-[] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Development 0/60 (1 die, 20R) (76% chance)
-[] Security Review

Military 6/6 Dice 80 R
-[] ZEMEV Deployment (Sydney) 49/80 (1 die, 10 R) (97% chance)
-[] Naval Defense Lasers (1 die, 15 R) (73% chance)
-[] Orca Refit Deployment (3 dice, 45 R) (52% chance)
-[] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 4) 45/200 (1 die, 10 R) (1/2.5 median)

Bureaucracy 3/3 Dice
-[] Focus Reallocation (flip Services to Orbital, leave HI and Tiberium focuses unchanged) (1 die)
-[] Services Review (2 dice)

Ithillid · Oct 18, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
Remember that we're specifically talking about carrier aviation, and in particular escort carrier aviation, where the carrier air group spends a lot of time doing routine patrols and sweeps around the convoy. A task for which the wingman drones are largely useless, since basically all they do is follow around an actual piloted aircraft going "roger-roger" and popping off a missile at anything the pilot wants dead.

It's possible that increasing availability of trained pilots (since fewer are needed per escort carrier) will have a significant impact even if the actual effectiveness of the escort carriers' air groups doesn't increase by that much (because of what I said last paragraph).

But I don't think it's going to work out that way.

I think we'll have enough pilots for all the Super Orcas that can fit aboard all the escort carriers we can build- or, at any rate, we'll have them by the time the escort carriers are built. And that the Navy isn't going to prioritize making the wingman drones (or their navalized version) work with the escort carriers, because the escort carriers simply do not need them badly enough to justify taking away space that could be occupied by piloted aircraft.

Furthermore, the norm in aircraft design is to design the plane to fit the carriers, not the other way around. Since the wingman drone designed to accompany Super Orcas is, we already know, smaller than a Super Orca, it will be physically capable of fitting aboard the carriers and flying off them when necessary, if that's what the Navy wants. We already know there will be multiple types of drones, too, so the Navy won't have too much trouble getting a type to serve its needs if that's what it wants.

Okay, so basically, when it comes to naval aviation and ship design, as I think about it (and if I am wrong, I am wrong, and people can correct me) there are (speaking very broadly) two types of mission. Patrol, and Strike.
In a patrol mission, the key feature is the number of points of service that can be maintained. How much of the time can you have something in the sectors around you. This is primarily, a function of the number of independent units that can be fielded at any given time. 24 Orcas, assuming an operational endurance of about two hours, can maintain a two point of service patrol pattern, for a whole day. give or take. Wingman drones don't really extend this, because a single Orca can only really see in one direction, and the Wingmen don't change that. And this is the defining constraint of an escort carrier. Its ability to say "you cannot operate freely in this airspace" is primarily determined not by weight of firepower, but by the number of places that it can put things at once.
On the other side of the equation is the Strike mission, and this is where the Wingman comes into its own. Equipping a unit with Wingman drones, cuts the number of required pilots per strike by half. Primarily because here is where payload matters. Lets say that there is a Brotherhood battleship some 500 kilometers out. It needs eight tons of bombs put on it ASAP. It really does not matter much if those bombs are delivered by pure Firehawks, by Wingmen, or some combination of the two, so long as they are delivered on time and on target. What this means is that for an Atlantis class aircraft carrier, that has far more than enough aircraft to maintain a presence in multiple sectors at all times, trading off some number of those for drones, provides a significant edge in pilot safety, and because drones are smaller than Firehawks, it can launch more total tonnage of munitions onto targets at any given time after refits.

F0lkL0re · Oct 18, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
Plus, we're probably only gonna get about +50 RpT out of the vein mines in a single turn like this, which is a problem given the strain on our budget.

I know I know but I didn't want to spend more logistics then we have and the logistical projects that I'm doing don't have a high enough chance to finish to be worth risking it ether, next turn though...

Void Stalker · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Arcologies, Income and Rollouts
Infra 5/5 75R +20
-[X] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2) 409/600 5 dice 75R 98%
HI 4/5 80R +15
-[X] Automated Civilian Shipyards 0/250 4 dice 80R 68%
LCI 1/4 0R +10
-[X] Security Review 1 die
Agri 0/3 30R +10
Tiberium 6/6+2 free 225R +23
-[X] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 10) 1/130 3 dice 75R 99%, 33% for Stage 11
-[X] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 10) 18/180 5 Dice 150R 100%, 73% for Stage 11
Orbital 4/4 40R +8
-[X] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) 5/135 4 dice 40R 98%, 40% for Phase 5
Services 3/4 35R +18
-[X] Security Review 1 die
-[X] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 1 die 20R 76%
-[X] Emergency Tiberium Infusion Development 0/120 1 die 15R 16%
Military 6/6 60R +12
-[X] Ferro Aluminum Armor Testing (New) 0/30 1 die 5R 100%
-[X] Zone Emergency Medical Evacuation Vehicle Deployment (Sydney) 49/80 1 die 10R 97%
-[X] Shell Plants (Phase 4) 3/300 2 dice 20R 0%
-[X] Naval Defense Lasers (New) 0/60 1 die 15R 73%
-[X] Havoc Scout Mech Development 0/30 1 die 10R 100%
Bureau 3/3+ 3 free +10
-[X] Focus Reallocation 1 die
--[X] Heavy Industry
--[X] Tiberium
--[X] Orbital
-[X] Security Reviews (Service) 2 dice +1 service 98%
-[X] Security Reviews (LCI) 2 dice +1 LCI 98%
-[X] Private Industrial Automation 1 die
Free 5/6
-2 tib, 3 bureau

Idle Dice: 9
510/515

Pushing hard for more income (2 phase of glacier, 1 of rz harvest) to hopefully let us push service research (scrin and nod) as well as Philly in orbital and more expensive projects in military. Beyond that pushing hard on arcologies to finish the current set for needed housing and hopefully overflow (ideally we can keep pushing arcologies with infra and roll out the promised 3 phases). HI is a logistics project that might need to finish next turn, while orbital is securing enough logistics to keep us positive after 2 more glaciers without shipyard finishing (if shipyard finishes we have a very comfortable surplus). As it is we should be getting 1 phase of orb comm and an 80% to finish either a 2nd phase of orb comms or the shipyard in which case logistics sees a net increase.

Military- get the naval PD ready, finish medvac, work on havoc, test out the new armor and finally 2 dice into shell to finish that Q3 hopefully. Of note this averages out to 10R per die which allowed projects to be done elsewhere. Basically looked at cheap projects that are needed for military, and wait until q3 with 2 more glaciers to afford more expensive mil projects.

Of note we are looking around 750 income to make full use of dice as analyzed here - current income is 510 so we are 240 short. My plan is pushing for 90 to 140 this turn (2 glacier and 1 rz harvest) with another 50 to 80 in Q3. Average results for income would be 115 this turn and 65 next turn for 180 (still 60 short but that can be made up with some vein mines). Plans pushing 1 glacier a turn is spreading that out over 3 turns and seeing more idle dice in Q3 than plans pushing 2 glaciers.

F0lkL0re · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Trains, Ships and Space Phones
Infrastructure 5/5 105R
-[X] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2) 4 dice 60R 83%
(Progress 409/650: 15 Resources per Die) (+8 Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy) (High Priority)
-[X] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 1 die +2 free dice 45R 26%
(Progress 15/250: 15 Resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
Heavy Industry 5/5 100R
-[X] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 1) 2 dice 40R 37%
(Progress 0/160: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor)
-[X] Automated Civilian Shipyards 3 dice 60R 23%
(Progress 0/250: 20 Resources per die) (+9 Logistics, -1 Capital Goods, -4 Energy)
Light and Chemical Industry 3/4 40R
-[X] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (phase 2) 2 dice 40R 30%
(Progress 1/160: 20 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
Agriculture 2/3 20R
-[X] Wadmalaw Kudzu Development 1 die 20R 91%
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die) (High Priority)
Tiberium 5/6 110R
-[X] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 1) 5 dice 100R 99%
(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)
-[X] Railgun Harvester Development 1 free die 10R 100%
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)
Orbital 3/4 12 fusion dice 30R
-[X] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) 3 fusion dice 30R 88%
(Progress 5/135: 15 resources per die) (+2 Logistics) (5 Political Support) (Fusion)
Services 3/4 50R
-[X] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 1 die 20R 76%
(Progress 0/60: 20 resources per die)
-[X] NOD Research Initiatives 1 die 30R 76%
(Progress 100/160 : 30 resources per die)
Military 5/6 55R
-[X] Ferro Aluminum Armor Testing 1 die 5R 100%
(Progress 0/30: 5 resources per die)
-[X] Zone Emergency Medical Evacuation Vehicle Deployment
--[X] Sydney 1 die 10R 97%
(Progress 49/80: 10 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -1 Energy) (Must be completed before End of 2058)
-[X] Tube Artillery Development 1 die 15R 93%
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)
-[X] Shell Plants (Phase 4) 1 die 10R 0%
(Progress 3/300: 10 Resources per die) (-2 Energy) (High Priority)
-[X] Naval Defense Lasers 1 die 15R 73%
(Progress 0/60: 15 resources per die) (-5 Political Support Per Turn progress is not made)
Bureaucracy 3/3
-[X] Security Reviews (Services) 1 Services die + 2 dice 98%
(DC 55 + 1 operations die)
-[X] Security Reviews (Light and Chemical Industry) 1 Light and Chemical Industry die + 1 die + 1 free die 98%
(DC 55 + 1 operations die)
-[X] Private Industrial Automation 1 free die
(-2 capital goods)
Free Dice 5/6
Resources Income 510/510 Reserve /5

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

Ithillid said:
Okay, so basically, when it comes to naval aviation and ship design, as I think about it (and if I am wrong, I am wrong, and people can correct me) there are (speaking very broadly) two types of mission. Patrol, and Strike.
In a patrol mission, the key feature is the number of points of service that can be maintained. How much of the time can you have something in the sectors around you. This is primarily, a function of the number of independent units that can be fielded at any given time. 24 Orcas, assuming an operational endurance of about two hours, can maintain a two point of service patrol pattern, for a whole day. give or take. Wingman drones don't really extend this, because a single Orca can only really see in one direction, and the Wingmen don't change that. And this is the defining constraint of an escort carrier. Its ability to say "you cannot operate freely in this airspace" is primarily determined not by weight of firepower, but by the number of places that it can put things at once.
On the other side of the equation is the Strike mission, and this is where the Wingman comes into its own. Equipping a unit with Wingman drones, cuts the number of required pilots per strike by half. Primarily because here is where payload matters. Lets say that there is a Brotherhood battleship some 500 kilometers out. It needs eight tons of bombs put on it ASAP. It really does not matter much if those bombs are delivered by pure Firehawks, by Wingmen, or some combination of the two, so long as they are delivered on time and on target. What this means is that for an Atlantis class aircraft carrier, that has far more than enough aircraft to maintain a presence in multiple sectors at all times, trading off some number of those for drones, provides a significant edge in pilot safety, and because drones are smaller than Firehawks, it can launch more total tonnage of munitions onto targets at any given time after refits.

Personally I think all of this makes a lot of sense. Also... Well, since the plan moratorium of four hours is up...

[X] Plan Infra Arco Revolution
Infrastructure 5/5 Dice + 5 Free Dice 135 R
-[X] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2) 409/650 (3 die, 45 R) (40% chance)
-[X] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 1) (3 dice, 30 R) (90% chance)
-[X] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 (4 dice, 60 R) (73%)
Heavy Industry 2/5 Dice 40 R
-[X] Automated Civilian Shipyards 0/250 (2 Dice, 40 R) (2/4 median)
Light and Chemical Industry 0/4 Dice 0 R
Agriculture 0/3 Dice 0 R
Tiberium 6/6 Dice 170 R
-[X] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 10) 1/130 (2 Dice, 50 R) (78% chance)
-[X] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 10) 18/180 (4 Dice, 120 R) (~100% of one phase, ~29% chance of two)
Orbital 4/4 Dice + 1 Free Dice 50 R
-[X] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) 5/135 (5 Dice, 50 R) (~100% of one, 74% chance of two)
Services 3/4 Dice 40 R
-[X] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 (1 Die, 20 R) (76% chance)
-[X] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Development 0/60 (1 die, 20R) (76% chance)
-[X] Security Review
Military 6/6 Dice 80 R
-[X] ZEMEV Deployment (Sydney) 49/80 (1 die, 10 R) (97% chance)
-[X] Naval Defense Lasers (1 die, 15 R) (73% chance)
-[X] Orca Refit Deployment (3 dice, 45 R) (52% chance)
-[X] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 4) 45/200 (1 die, 10 R) (1/2.5 median)
Bureaucracy 3/3 Dice
-[X] Focus Reallocation (flip Services to Orbital, leave HI and Tiberium focuses unchanged) (1 die)
-[X] Services Review (2 dice)

Ithillid · Oct 18, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
@Ithillid , did Johannesburg Personal Robotics and/or Personal Vehicle Factories get taken care of by the private sector, or at least see the private sector get far enough into the field that the central planners consider doing those projects redundant?

With Johannesburg, yes, they did. Another part of it though is that I don't want to leave projects in the list forever. It has been getting increasingly bloated, and infested with abandoned projects. And while I want to give people options, I have been getting some complaints about it being difficult to engage with the sheer number of options available, and have been trying to find projects that won't be as interesting or useful. Or at least those without substantial backing from someone in universe.

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

F0lkL0re said:
I know I know but I didn't want to spend more logistics then we have and the logistical projects that I'm doing don't have a high enough chance to finish to be worth risking it ether, next turn though...

My plan kind of takes the opposite approach and builds itself around making fairly sure we have the Logistics to do the glacier mining, even if that means compromising other cool shit.

Ithillid said:
With Johannesburg, yes, they did. Another part of it though is that I don't want to leave projects in the list forever. It has been getting increasingly bloated, and infested with abandoned projects. And while I want to give people options, I have been getting some complaints about it being difficult to engage with the sheer number of options available, and have been trying to find projects that won't be as interesting or useful. Or at least those without substantial backing from someone in universe.

I imagine that private industry would be at least trying to address the personal vehicle issue, even if the manufacture of such vehicles is handicapped by us focusing on grants for light industry rather than heavy.

Crazycryodude · Oct 18, 2021

Thought voting didn't open for another half an hour but I gotta go to sleep so good thing it's now.

The defining feature of my plan is working on both NOD and Scrin tech gachas. Because of the way the research institutes work, the faster we complete them the faster the next round appears, and if we hurry we can get 4 full tries at the tech table with Seo's +5 instead of the 3 tries we'd get if we moved slower. I would very much like to get a 4th shot at the tables with Seo's +5 to results, we very possibly will never have access to that again once he retires. RIP Agriculture and LCI to find the funding for Scrin research, but I think it's worthwhile.

It's also the only plan I've seen so far that gets started on Philly. Sure it's just one die but we do really need to start making progress on it, we need to rush it ASAP as soon as the budget's there.

[X] Plan Mad Science is Mad Expensive
-[X]Infrastructure (5 dice) 60 Resources
--[X] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2), 2 dice (30 Resources) 0%
--[X] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 1), 3 dice (30 Resources) 90%
-[X]Heavy Industry (5 dice) 60 Resources
--[X] Automated Civilian Shipyards, 3 dice (60 Resources) 23%
--2 dice idle
-[X]Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice) 0 Resources
--Idle
-[X]Agriculture (3 dice) 0 Resources
--Idle
-[X]Tiberium (6 dice + 1 Free) 175 Resources
--[X] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 10), 3 dice (75 Resources) 99%
--[X] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 10), 3 dice (90 Resources) 93%
--[X] Railgun Harvester Development, 1 die (10 Resources) 100%
-[X]Orbital (4 dice) 50 Resources
--[X] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 4), 1 die (20 Resources)
--[X] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4), 3 dice (30 Resources) 88%
-[X]Services (4 dice) 90 Resources
--[X] NOD Research Initiatives, 1 die (30 Resources) 76%
--[X] Scrin Research Institutions, 2 dice (60 Resources) 22%
--[X] Security Review, 1 die (unrolled)
-[X]Military (6 dice) 75 Resources
--[X] Wartime Factory Refits (Phase 1), 1 die (20 Resources) 68%
--[X] Ferro Aluminum Armor Testing, 1 die (5 Resources) 98%
--[X] Zone Emergency Medical Evacuation Vehicle Deployment (Sydney), 1 die (10 Resources) 97%
--[X] Tube Artillery Development, 1 die (15 Resources) 93%
--[X] Hydrofoil Shipyards (Busan-Ulsan), 1 die (10 Resources) 43%
--[X] Naval Defense Lasers, 1 die (15 Resources) 68%
-[X]Bureaucracy (3 dice + 5 Free)
--[X] Security Reviews (Services), 2 dice 98%
--[X] Focus Reallocation
---[X] Tiberium
---[X] Orbital
---[X] Services
--[X] Yellow Zone Qualifications Initiatives, 4 dice 97%
--[X] Private Industrial Automation, 1 die (unrolled)
-[X]Total cost: 510 Resources, 5 reserved

marids · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Arcologies, Income and Rollouts

Any plan that doesn't fully make use of the Tiberium dices and their high bonuses isn't worth voting for. Even the 5 resource option is at least a thing if people feel like being that cheap.

Income is still needed badly, and another round of double RZ mine and glaciers should allow for much less strained dice allocation and minimal idling for the rest of the 4 year plan.

liquidsnake4673 · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Arcologies, Income and Rollouts

Hellwarz · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Infra Arco Revolution

IndustrialVice2 · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Infra Arco Revolution
[X] Plan Mad Science Is Mad Expensive

Vehrec · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Mad Science is Mad Expensive

Simon_Jester · Oct 18, 2021

IndustrialVice2 said:
[] Plan Mad Science Is Expensive

That's "Mad Science is Mad Expensive."

Foresen · Oct 18, 2021

[X] Plan Arcologies, Income and Rollouts

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Officially not an Inquisitor

Officially not an Inquisitor