Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Mad Science is Mad Expensive
As the only leading plan that doesn't make the mistake of developing the havoc before shields are done, this is the only pick I can realistically take. Helps that the thesis about the tech piñatas is appealing, too.
Would be nice if we could get shields instead of factory refits though, the latter isn't a lead time bottleneck for our other development projects after all.
As the only leading plan that doesn't make the mistake of developing the havoc before shields are done, this is the only pick I can realistically take. Helps that the thesis about the tech piñatas is appealing, too.
Would be nice if we could get shields instead of factory refits though, the latter isn't a lead time bottleneck for our other development projects after all.
Well you asked. Customary disclaimer: not a professional military anything.
On patrol, the big advantage of wingman drones you are missing is the fact they are carrying a second set of sensors. Radar/EO/IR for AtA and AtG, or EO/IR/MAD/SQUID/wake detection and dipping sonar for ASW. That means everything they see is transmitted back to the controlling aircraft, just like Pitbulls or Orca scanner pods share all sensor data of stealth detection with other units.
This matters, because unless things are massively different in 2058, tactical aircraft sensors like IR and radar have a limited field of view at a time. You need multiple sets of sensors to cover most directions simultaneously.
If 1x Orca can only scan an area of ocean 20km wide at a time, the addition of a wingman drone with the same sensors 15km away expands that to an area of 35km wide with a 5km overlap. If a Hammerhead + wingman is hunting a sub, it has 2 sets of dipping sonar not one, which allows for herding tactics, where one plays beater to herd the sub into the other.
It even enables shenanigans like having a command Orca turn off its own radar, run silent and only rely on passive EO/IR and the datastream from the wingman, otherwise looking like there's just one aircraft there. GDI might not have stealth generators but theyre not above playing games with electronic emissions.
Furthermore, two or more sets of sensors are harder to fool than one, and can synthesize a fuller picture.
And if you should get attacked on patrol faster than you can get reinforcements up from the escort, which will probably happen sooner or later? Two sets of QAAMs and jammers and decoys are better than one.
Strike is only a fraction of the utility of a UCAV.
Anyway, thats my own 2 cents.
Its ultimately your own decision for whether or not you want wingman drones on escort carriers.
Just let us know when you make a ruling.
Or not; waiting to see if we research Wingman Drones first, just in case, is fine too.
Its worth considering how far their distrust reaches. Armed drones, autonomous drones yes.
But what of support drones?
Because there's a lot of labor saving where semiautonomous military drones and increased smart automation would help relieve GDI's impending Labor crunch or replace military personnel in some hazardous roles ; for example, allowing one military truck driver to drive one supply truck and command a couple more self-driving trucks to follow him as their own mini-convoy.
Might cost Cap goods though.
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
All of the above.
Plus. Metal is cheap, meat is expensive.
A drone scouting ahead and getting shot down from AA either gives you a location to shoot at or gives you a warning to pull human pilots back and send in more recon drones until you find the hostile platform. (or just to pull back and abort)
GDI can send in as many drones as it can crank out from it's factory's. It's our pilots that are expensive because they take a lifetime to make more and even starting with adults it takes time to train. Drones meanwhile are measured in how much tib we can rip out the ground and how fast we can process it into end result products. Which is pretty fast.
Plus. Metal is cheap, meat is expensive.
A drone scouting ahead and getting shot down from AA either gives you a location to shoot at or gives you a warning to pull human pilots back and send in more recon drones until you find the hostile platform. (or just to pull back and abort)
GDI can send in as many drones as it can crank out from it's factory's. It's our pilots that are expensive because they take a lifetime to make more and even starting with adults it takes time to train. Drones meanwhile are measured in how much tib we can rip out the ground and how fast we can process it into end result products. Which is pretty fast.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm gonna be up front with you, I fully expect shields to be impractically expensive for a mass-produced ground combat unit of any kind in the opening phase of the development. They're probably going to involve transuranics and a lot of fiddly wiring.
They might show up on aircraft because military aircraft are already insanely expensive (think "literally worth their weight in silver, and they weigh double-digit tons") and also because aircraft are hard to armor or to slather in ablatives.
They could well show up on our superheavy ground combat units- MARVs, the Mastodon walkers, and the Mammoth tank. If it's even possible to engineer a unit down to something close to humanoid scale, we may see commandos carrying them.
But I suspect that they won't show up on the Paladin tank, simply because you could damn near buy a whole new tank for the price of the shield generator alone. I will be pleasantly surprised if they show up on the Havoc.
Getting the ball rolling on that is likely to have some positive military effects- especially since we're doing a ton of rapid base expansion in the Middle East, and since two of the things we'll explicitly be improving production of are MCVs and Rigs, which are the cornerstones of GDI's deployable base infrastructure. Also Firehawks, which are our main multirole fighter-bomber.
Phase 2 will probably also have some good stuff.
Problem: the wingman drones aren't very independent. You might be able to program them for some of the more complicated shenanigans you describe, but it'd likely require a second generation of wingman drones that take advantage of AI/VI innovations we're only now considering researching.
I think GDI already uses drones to some extent for things like that- though maybe not entire trucks, for fear of hijacking.
Remember that as per doctrine, escort carriers aren't normally flying their aircraft into places they expect to encounter AA fire. They're sweeping huge swathes of ocean for potential Nod threats, where if the Noddies take a potshot at a given recon Orca, they're likely to give their position away and get struck by a dozen or more of them shortly thereafter.
I can see the logic of the thing- but if it turns out to be cost-effective, we'll probably see it trialed on the fleet carriers first, then a second wave of escort carriers (hopefully built in the same yards or requiring only slight modifications) that do much the same mission as the old ones, but with drones.
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
This stuff would be awesome Wild Weasel/Air defense suppression. You could poke and prod at air defenses and then either use a wingman for the attack. Or hit multiple parts of the air defense site at the same time.
You have a point there, but I imagine that it would be a lot more space/airframe efficient to stick sensor pods on the patrolling Orca, than to use an entire second aircraft. Yes, the single Orca may be less effective, even with said pods, but I doubt that it will be sufficiently less effective that nearly halving an escort carrier's patrol endurance is worthwhile.
Wingman drones are great on strike/interception missions, including SEAD, but the point of an escort carrier is to be as small/cheap as possible, while still accomplishing the mission. And, from what Ithillid is saying, a wingman drone is more a firepower extension than a sensory extension, and one Orca is sufficient to provide one point of the 2-point coverage that is desired. Remember, the EVA VIs running them are pretty dumb.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
To be fair, we're working on better EVAs, and we can probably at least program them to follow more sophisticated orders in the second generation of the tech.
But that's later. That's for the Air Force of the late 2060s.
But that's later. That's for the Air Force of the late 2060s.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Mad Science is Mad Expensive
Yeah. But currently, from what I believe, they are mostly going to be able to fly near their control craft, and take targeting data for missiles.
staplesdex2
CLASSFIED
Hope next turn we give Steel Talons some funding and not get some sort of penalty after taking in Gen. Jackson.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
That was awesome phrasing.Yeah same, but it is what it is. They'll become the new commieblocks over time and we will deal with that.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If we actually want the voters happy with the housing situation by 2062, let alone 2060, we need apartments.
I think Jackson can stand waiting for some months as long as she gets what she was promised.
They're not even commieblocks; they're not bad places to live.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
By the time we are done building up GDI they will be considered poor places to live in.
trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
Not getting where apartment complexes are considered bad other than them not being arcologies. It even says 'high quality' twice in the description.
remember we had large scale refugee camps at the start of the quest and poor housing around that MARV hub so the standards the GDI population are used to are lower then what most in the western world have so for a large section the apartments are better then what they ever had and we can house our population in apartments a lot faster then in Arcologies. Based on the cost it will be do you want a Arcologies this year or a spot in the Arcologiy in 4 to 6 years as we can build 4 apparments for the same amount of progess as one Arcology.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
So after some discussions about housing and residents here I have some assumptions I want to share:
1) Regarding the demographics of the refugees. As TW3 began to demolish infrastructure and YZs began to encroach on BZs, and especially when the aliens began wrecking shit, the GDI citizens living in the increasingly less habitable Blue Zones didn't stay there and wait for Tib to arrive - they took refuge in the inner BZs, fleeing their homes.
While the earliest refugees at the Q1 2050 were, I expect, primarily displaced BZ citizens, any refugees that came later were originally YZ residents.
2) Regarding the old commieblocks. I suspect that, if we manage to create a surplus of decent-quality housing (remove everyone from low quality housing and have a surplus), we will get the Logistics costs down for further Apartment Complexes, justified by extant commieblocks being renovated and expanded to fit a new standard.
1) Regarding the demographics of the refugees. As TW3 began to demolish infrastructure and YZs began to encroach on BZs, and especially when the aliens began wrecking shit, the GDI citizens living in the increasingly less habitable Blue Zones didn't stay there and wait for Tib to arrive - they took refuge in the inner BZs, fleeing their homes.
While the earliest refugees at the Q1 2050 were, I expect, primarily displaced BZ citizens, any refugees that came later were originally YZ residents.
2) Regarding the old commieblocks. I suspect that, if we manage to create a surplus of decent-quality housing (remove everyone from low quality housing and have a surplus), we will get the Logistics costs down for further Apartment Complexes, justified by extant commieblocks being renovated and expanded to fit a new standard.
1) This is not VF. Lind's dystopia is such a horrid mess that the effort to use it as source material for a story that makes sense means both players and GM are engaged in an ongoing process of balancing and recalibrating expectations as the story progresses. Especially as it intersects with RL technological and political realities.
Thats not the same in the Tiberiumverse.
The setting is much better defined here. The timeline, the technologies, all are much more settled affairs.
There is much less in dispute.
2)I am not rejecting their advice.
Im just keeping in mind that it IS advice and not a mandate, and that there might well be other paths to the same goal.
Feel free to not take my word for it though.
3)Notice that the GM has not actually ruled out wingman drones on said escort carriers.
If the ship designers have the specifications for Wingman Drones on hand, but dont think its worthwhile to incorporate capacity for them in their escort carrier designs? Thats fine. Disappointing, but fine.
But I want them to have the option before beginning design work.
Because while I like the Navy, I do not intend to repeat this project in 10-20 turns because we did not do our due diligence and futureproof our stuff.
1) Scrin shields may have used exotics. Ours are not as good.
We dont know whether our knockoff shield generator designs use exotic materials at all, or in what quantity if they do, because we havent actually done the research. There may be no transuranics involved at all, or we might be dealing with nanograms per working generator. No idea until the RnD is done.
2)We built and launched a little over 450,000 tons of satellites(3000ish satellites, 150ish tons each) into orbit over nine months, each of which had an unknown amount of transuranics incorporated to help modulate the radio transmission system used to retard Tiberium mutation. Without running short on transuranics for the Pathfinder, or other uses.
I think we're probably well capable of producing transuranics for a carrier class if necessary.
3) We just got done expanding GDI's Tiberium processing capacity in the Mecca Planned Zone by 120 capacity with the completion of Medina. And in addition to that we are supposed to add 600-1200(200 Progress at 30R/die for 600 capacity) capacity worth of the new HG process before the end of either this year or the next just to handle our new harvest from the glaciers and to diversify our generating capacity.
We are quite capable of surging our production of transuranics. Raw material should not be an issue.
1)To my recollection, none of those details were given before []Super MARV Development became an RnD option
We're not even at the point yet here.
2) NotSamar is not a likely scenario IMO.
What I'm worried about is getting Battle of Malaya'd by a Nod air group. Which IS an ongoing concern in the current threat environment, since Nod have tried this before on a pair of cruisers.
And it would be nice to be have the reserve capacity to back up the fleet carriers at need in the event of Kane Interrupt.
3)There's no current indication that a modest(25-33%) increase in displacement translates to fewer escort carriers.
An increase in marginal cost per carrier maybe, but even that is limited, because the major cost drivers of a nuclear carrier design, the radars and electronics and propulsion and defenses, are all fixed costs that are paid for anyway.
Increasing volume is a relatively minor cost. And in naval construction, steel is cheap.
The LHA USS America at 45,000 tons was contracted for roughly 3.4 billion dollars(10 billion dollars for 3 ships) as the first ship of its class. Its immediate predecessor, 41,000 ton USS Makin Island, cost around 2.5 billion dollars. The STOVL carrier Queen Elizabeth II at 70,000 tons is about 4.1 billion dollars(half of 6.2 billion pounds for two carriers) despite being only about 23m longer than the America.
Its generally better to have and not need, than to need and not have.
Especially given the lead times on naval construction.
4)Let me reiterate, because the central thrust of my argument is in danger of getting lost:
I am not asserting that our escort carriers must carry wingman drones. I'd like them to, but its not a hard requirement.
I am saying that the ship designers should have the option available to them when they start design.
So they can make their best IC decision based on IC knowledge and technological trends.
Thats all.
We dont know how independent they are because we havent designed them yet.
The GM does seem to imply that capability is bottlenecked more by distrust than by technology; I quote:
GDI has allegedly been using their EVAs for strategic analysis since TibWar2 according to the CnC Wiki on EVAs.
Which requires a significantly higher level of algorithmic sophistication than aerial combat.
Probably not.
Both because of the likely Cap goods cost, and because until recently Labor was pretty cheap and plentiful.
Why build a semiautonomous truck when you have drivers without jobs?
1)There are hard surface area, power generation and airframe strength limitations to adding more stuff onto an aircraft.
You can hang an additional EO/IR pod or two off a wing or airframe hardpoint at the cost of range, endurance and maneuverability(due to drag and weight) as well as cuts in weapon payload.
You cannot however add an additional radar. Or a set of offensive jammers.
And stuff like a second dipping sonar suite requires a second airframe in play, because you need the spatial separation.
2) I dont know how dumb the QM's interpretation of combat VIs/EVAs here is supposed to be.
That probably has to wait until we have the RnD done.
But in order to not be essentially a flying target that gets popped by the first hostile that looks in their direction, there is a hard floor on how dumb it can be. Or it becomes
And we're in the position of the drones in Kosovo that literally had Serbian helicopters roll up beside them and machinegun them to death without any reaction.
Unless we happen to totally crush the Nod naval threat between now and then, or there's a massive paradigm shift in GDI aerial and naval warfare in the next decade, these escort carriers will still be in operation in the late 2060s, 30-40 turns from now.
Hell, there's significant odds that you'll see the next generation of wingman drones show up as a project before the escort carriers finish building. The foundational technology is already on our RnD list in the Services right now.
We're on track to push out Advanced EVAs into service before half of the escort carriers are even built, assuming 6 month build times. Planning ahead for dropin upgrades seems like just good sense.
Okay.
This took a lot more time than I expected.
I should probably shut up now.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
That sounds like something the Serbian Army could have pulled in the Kosovo War, but I've never heard of it. I'll need to look into that later.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's probably going to happen that way on its own. [] Wingman Drone Development is semi-gated behind the [] Orca Refit Deployment. That is, we're unlikely to do the former until the latter has been completed or is being worked on. Our Air Force has been waiting a long time for the Orca Refits, and they won't appreciate us developing another project before even working on doing the refits. Similarly, [] Escort Carrier Development is also semi-gated behind deploying the [] Naval Defense Laser. And we're likely to do those next turn or the turn after. So depending on the timing and the rolls, I think we're fairly likely to do both the Wingman and Escort developments together on the same turn. (Which does mean the latter will take into account the former.)
That said, I think you're vastly overemphasizing the importance of all this. GDI dominates the oceans. We have the ports and global economy to build ship after ship. NOD doesn't. If NOD tried to build a conventional fleet and contest us directly on the seas, we'd counter by flooding the waters with metal. Tech advancements like Wingman Drones and Shimmer Shields and such are besides the point. We don't need a better navy, we need more navy. We still have a pile of super-heavy capital ships from before the 3rd war that are largely ineffective because they were built to fight against a peer opponent rather than NOD's strategy of piracy and bombing runs. What we're doing with the Governors and the Hydrofoils (and Frigates and Monitors) is downscaling. We're designing smaller ships so we can build more of them, and have them operate close to shore. The most important thing we can do to improve our Navy is just building them more ships.
(That's not to say tech development is bad. The laser PD is going to be more effective than the previous gen PD, and we're going to see ship-scale fusion reactors soon enough. But for the Navy, it's just not nearly important enough to delay more ship construction for.)