- Location
- USA
Given what they asked for this is tempting---[] Initiative First: Ahahaha Go Play Hopscotch In A Yellow Zone Minefield: -??? steps.
Given what they asked for this is tempting---[] Initiative First: Ahahaha Go Play Hopscotch In A Yellow Zone Minefield: -??? steps.
My plan puts us in a position to easily knock off Chicago Phase 4; many do not. Focusing down Nuuk Phase 4 in two turns or even three is going to be easier said than done, with all the other competing demands on our time and Free dice.This is an answered question.
*And if we don't produce a significant number of Capital Goods early in the Plan.
(Added asterisk in your quote)
Because we can complete Chicago Phase 4 pretty easily in 1 turn, possibly 2 if dice are unkind, and if we focus on it, we can complete Nuuk 4 in 2 turns (3 if dice are unkind, again). Whether we're at +18 or +12 for 3-4 turns means very little when after that we jump up to +44 or +50.
It's not technically part of the plan itself, but Seo's said it in-character in-quest ("Ozawa can go play hopscotch in a Yellow Zone minefield if...") to Dr. Granger. It's his signature.
First off, a 9% completion chance is 4.5 times more likely to pay off than a 2% chance. If you'll recall, just three turns ago we completed an Escort shipyard on only two dice despite that only having a 4% completion chance. You don't need to count on it completing, but you can certainly benefit from it if you allow for it to happen.
Secondly, the entire point of doing these projects is dice efficiency, not construction speed. And slow-walking them is easy enough to do. We can put a few extra dice into Orbital Cleanup or one of the other Bays without losing anything long-term. But if we over-invest a few dice, we lose out on whatever progress in other projects we could have gained from them.
It'd feel pretty mean to take Political Promises but not give Erewhon reassurance that we'll work on the project that can keep it from dying.
Pretty much agree with both points of @Derpmind here.I'll think about it. The problem is that if I go two-and-four, the odds of the Leopard yard being close enough to completion that we can decide with confidence whether it gets one die or two in 2062Q1 decreases.
See, I agree that it's about dice efficiency, but we also really do want to actually get the things done. Knowing whether we're in a situation in 2062Q1 where "one more die will probably do it" versus "crap, need at least two more, maybe three" is valuable, and ideally we really want to be in the former situation on both projects.
So there's a balance to be struck. I don't want to be fooling around in 2062Q3 still waiting to start Columbia because we accidentally appointed the same project manager for the station bay that we previously had handling our freeze-drying plants.
I fully intend to take that same promise as part of the Four Year Plan reallocation and surprise Erewhon with it, in exchange for Erewhon agreeing to do literally nothing.
I'm hoping to use the plasma guns as a bargaining chip later. I am pretty sure that just the act of putting three dice on any set of Talons projects will be a step in the right direction and show of good faith, and I already put two 30 R/die dice on Talons projects. All told they're getting 80 R from my Wall of Guns variant (60 R in the Chicago variant). I'm pretty sure one or both of those are records for maximum amount of money the Talons have ever gotten in any one quarter.Ways I am unhappy:
I would prefer the Plasma Deployment to the MRAS Prototype but that might be just me, part of it that the plasma is more expensive and money is more available now, and partly its a smaller project that can be more easily completed by one die, partly it feels like Tali would like it more.
Again, I'm not even really interested in the chance of either of them completing; it's irrelevant to me. The point of the plan here is to get both projects comfortably within shouting distance of completion so that in 2062Q1 I have a reasonable chance of being able to finish both projects with, say, two dice each. What I do not want is a situation where, say, the Leopard II yard is at 150/350, because that's a situation where I have to either invest too many dice to have any chance of finishing in Q1 (as I'd like to do) or be fairly sure the yard will take until Q2 to complete and we can't begin Columbia until Q3 or later.Pretty much agree with both points here.
Adding a die to go from 1 in 50 to nearly 1 in 10 chance for basically no downside since the other project does not have a chance to complete either way is a very good move, unless we want to bet on extreme luck and the 2 percent chance being enough.
Again, the problem is that I have no idea how we're going to navigate reallocation. North Boston is one of a fairly short list of known major bargaining chips. I'm not saying I won't do it, but I'm not sure I want to specifically spend a Bureaucracy die specifically to nail our feet to the floor on the subject right this minute in exchange for Political Support we don't need.The situation with Erewhon is similar- yes, promising a 2400 points project for 5 PS is overpaying ridiculously, but for one we need to start actually committing to capstones anyway, and for another look at it from the narrative perspective - Erewhon, our basement dwelling teenager goth, who was for quite some time unsure if he liked us or hated us for creating him, is actually reaching out, asking for help and offering his support in return.
I think not supporting it would be a big mistake.