So I was thinking on the subject of Inhibitors, and the increasing amount of flavour text around sudden eruptions of Tiberium causing us problems. So for the benefit of those who like having a visual aid (me) I've endeavoured to collate a list of our major industrial builds and other high-value facilities - with an idea of triaging Inhibitor deployment to the most high-investment areas first. I've done the best I could find with an afternoon of searching, but this may not be comprehensive.
  • BZ-1 (Northern Europe)
    • Aurora bomber factory (Oslo)
    • Bogatyr research facility - potentially to be dissolved
    • Rapier hydrofoil shipyard (Copenhagen)
    • Superconductor foundry (Bergen) - unique
  • BZ-2/YZ-10 (NA Eastern Seaboard/Midwest)
    • Apollo fighter factory (Toronto)
    • Chicago Planned City - unique; has lost capstone
    • Chip foundry (Boston) - unique
    • Shark destroyer shipyard (Quonset Point)
    • Escort carrier shipyard (Newark)
    • Railgun harvester factory (Albany)
    • Zone Armour factory (New York)
  • BZ-3 (British Isles)
    • ASAT ground control station (Halstead) - relegated to backup status with ASAT 3-4
    • Escort carrier shipyard (Dublin)
    • Governor cruiser shipyard (Hampton Roads)
    • Governor cruiser shipyard (Rosyth)
    • Portal research facility - unique
    • Zone Armour factory (London)
  • BZ-4/YZ-8 (Arabian Peninsula)
    • Mecca/Medina/Jeddah Planned City cluster - unique; supported by Caravanserai abatement efforts
    • Rapier hydrofoil shipyard (Duqm)
  • BZ-5 (Southern/Western Europe)
    • Havoc mech factory (Brest)
    • Mastodon mech factory (Carentan)
    • Railgun harvester factory (Porto)
  • BZ-6 (Japan)
    • Escort carrier shipyard (Nagoya)
    • Governor cruiser shipyard (Yokohama)
  • BZ-7 (Korean Peninsula/Manchuria)
    • Havoc mech factory (Seoul)
    • Governor cruiser shipyard (Vladivostok)
    • Mastodon mech factory (Wonsan)
    • Railgun harvester factory (Dandong)
    • Rapier hydrofoil shipyard (Busan-Ulsan)
  • BZ-10/19 (South Africa/Mozambique coterminous BZ)
    • Governor cruiser shipyard (Durban)
    • Myomer plant (Johannesburg) - secondary to Reyk
    • Railgun harvester factory (Maputo)
  • BZ-11 (NA West Coast)
    • Aurora bomber factory (Anchorage)
  • BZ-13 (Western Africa)
    • Governor cruiser shipyard (Dakar)
    • Leopard shuttle factory (Monrovia) - may be relegated to secondary importance with construction of Leopard II factory
    • Railgun harvester factory (Bissau)
  • BZ-15 (Iceland)
    • Apollo fighter factory (Reykjavik)
    • Myomer plant (Reykjavik) - 1/2, primary location
  • BZ-16 (Siberia)
    • Isolinear chip foundry (Anadyr) - unique, but may be relegated to secondary importance if a larger site is established
  • BZ-17 (Greenland/Arctic Archipelago)
    • Robotics plant (Nuuk) - unique
 
I tried looking for the discussion, but is there a reason we're splitting the focus on Station Bay and Leopard II Factory? They cost the same, but the Leopard II give us bonuses for Luna & Stations, plus SCED has civilian & VIP designs ready to go into production.

Primarily there is an expectation that part of the Plan goals for the next plan will include completing both Columbia and Shala. As such we want the cost reductions which will save us a whole bunch of dice in the long term. The Station Bay Alone saves double its cost in dice just with Columbia and Shala, to say nothing of any future Station projects. Which we expect to occur (not only the shipyard post finishing the Crown Jewels, but also defensive stations for Earth Orbit, and colony stations elsewhere.

Then the bonuses for Luna from the Leopard II Factory will be useful when we get to the Lunar Colonies and for the expansion of our Lunar Mines. Something which is certainly something to pursue with the completion of the Crown Jewel Stations.


Edit:
[X] Plan Attempting To Have Banks In Chicago

♪Chicago~, Chicago~ That Toddling Town~♪
 
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Primarily there is an expectation that part of the Plan goals for the next plan will include completing both Columbia and Shala. As such we want the cost reductions which will save us a whole bunch of dice in the long term. The Station Bay Alone saves double its cost in dice just with Columbia and Shala, to say nothing of any future Station projects.

Sorry, I didn't mean don't build the Station Bay. For sure build both! I was just thinking it would be better to do 5: Leopard II and 1:Station Bay and reverse the next quarter instead of doing 3:3 for two quarters.
 
This is Plan Attempting To Have Banks In Chicago with one change a dice got moved from Vertical Farming Projects to Light Combat Laser Development as there is no 3rd phase listed for the farms and I want the combat lasers for the Governor-A and the ground vehicles refits.

[X] Plan Attempting To Have Banks In Chicago with light combat lasers
-[X] Infrastructure (5 dice + 2 Free dice, +32 bonus, 140 R)
--[X] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns Phase 6 273/300 (1 die, 20 R) (100% chance)
--[X] Chicago Planned City (Phase 4) 3/550 (6 dice + HI die, 120 R) (71% chance)
-[X] Heavy Industry (4 dice + 2 Free dice, +29 bonus, 110 R)
--[X] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 9) 236/300 (1 die, 20 R) (81% chance)
--[X] Advanced Alloys Development 0/120 (2 dice, 30 R) (94% chance)
--[X] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory 0/175 (2 dice, 40 R) (50% chance)
--[X] Chicago Planned City Phase 4 (1 die, 20 R) (see above)
-[X] Light Industry (4 dice, +24 bonus, 80 R)
--[X] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 3) 251/380 (2 dice, 60 R) (79% chance)
--[X] Civilian Drone Factories 292/380 (1 die, 10 R) (52% chance)
--[X] Artificial Wood Development 0/60 (1 die, 10 R) (85% chance)
-[X] Agriculture (4 dice, +24 bonus, 50 R)
--[X] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction Phase 4 134/200 (2 dice, 20 R) (99.99% chance of Phase 4)
--[X] Vertical Farming Projects (Stage 2) 65/240 2 dice 30R 40%
-[X] Tiberium (7 dice + EREWHON!!!, +39 bonus, 170 R)
--[X] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1) 0/250 (3 dice, 75 R) (74% chance)
--[X] Liquid Tiberium Power Cells (Phase 1+2) 41/280 (2 dice, 40 R) (99% Phase 1, 15% Phase 2) (-5/?? PS from Phase 1/2)
--[X] Visceroid Research Programs 0/120 (2 dice, 30 R) (99% chance) (-10 PS)
--[X] Venusian Tiberium Studies 95/120 (E die, 25 R) (91% chance)
--[X] Tiberium Harvesting Claw Deployment 363/380 (autocompletes without dice)
-[X] Orbital (6 dice, +26 bonus, 120 R)
--[X] Station Bay 0/400 (3 dice, 60 R) (3/5 median)
--[X] Leopard II Factory 0/350 (3 dice, 60 R) (2% chance)
-[X] Services (5 dice, +27 bonus, 110 R)
--[X] Human Genetic Engineering Programs 77/120 (1 die, 25 R) (100% chance) (-5 PS)
--[X] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 1) 121/300 (2 dice, 50 R) (42% chance)
--[X] Ocular Implant Deployment 83/120 (1 die, 20 R) (100% chance)
--[X] Hallucinogen Research 0/60 (1 die, 15 R) (88% chance)
-[X] Military (8 dice + 3 Free dice + AA die, +26 bonus, 265 R)
--[X] Ground Forces Zone Armor (London) 121/180 (1+AA dice, 40 R) (98.6% chance)
--[X] Island Class Assault Ship Development 0/40 (1 die, 20 R) (100% chance)
--[X] Light Combat Laser Development 0/40 1 die 25R 100%
--[X] Sparkle Shield Module 0/120 (2 dice, 60 R) (91% chance)
--[X] OSRCT Stations (Phase 4) 319/395 (2 dice, 40 R) (100% with Seo bonus)
--[X] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4) 36/220 (4 dice, 80 R) (99.9% with Seo bonus)
---[X] Deliberate overkill onto Phase 5, because this is foreseeably needed in the next Plan
-[X] Bureaucracy (4 dice, 100 R)
--[X] Erewhon: I Hear You Like Space and Tiberium Research So Here Is Space Tiberium Research
--[X] Administrative Assistance: Awoo Zone Troopers Of London
--[X] Banking Reforms (-100 R)
--[X] Make Political Promises (Updated)
---[X] FMP: ‌Complete Electric Vehicle Factory in Next Plan: +1d6 steps.
---[X] Market‌ ‌Socialist‌: Complete Electric Vehicle Factory in next Plan: +2d6 steps.
---[X] Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: Complete 2+ BZ Inhibitors by end of next plan: +3d6 Steps.
---[X] Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: Compete Dairy Ranching Domes phase 2 by end of next plan: 1d10 steps.

1150/1265

This is synergetic, but dear God the budget pain of eating -30 RpT extra costs in the first couple of turns of the next Four Year Plan...

I strongly, strongly recommend postponing this course of action until we're back on our feet in 2062.
The department of refits is worth it even if we need to idle military dice to afford it as we can have 7 running at one time: the Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits, Infernium Laser Refits, Governor A, and four vehicles(Light Combat Laser, Sparkle Shield Module might also result in refit projects). A lot of the projects for the platforms are 10R or 15R so the cost of this is doable and with 7+ refits running i can see us spending less free dice in military and more in elsewhere.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean don't build the Station Bay. For sure build both! I was just thinking it would be better to do 5: Leopard II and 1:Station Bay and reverse the next quarter instead of doing 3:3 for two quarters.

The idea is to put both of them in a position to be completed in Q1 by reducing uncertainty. Because there is variance in the die rolls, we could roll particularly well on one or the other. Or we could roll exceptionally well and end up wasting a die by over rolling on one or there other. For example there is a chance, if faint that the Leopard II factory will finish with 3 dice. It allows us to fine tune our dice allocations to potentially save some dice.

6 dice on either of the projects is probably over kill, and as such to save dice for the large station commitments we anticipate, where we want to avoid having to over spend dice in the long run is to roll minimally. This saves us dice as it gives us the most chances to finish the projects with minimal dice.
 
[X] Plan Attempting To Have Banks In Chicago

[X] Plan Attempting To Have Banks And Walls Of Guns

These two have just about everything I want, and while I would have wanted both Chicago and MRASP in one plan it seems to be non optimal while still getting sparkle shields, so rather then have to decide between the two I can conveniently vote for both.
 
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.

I think it's very important for us to get both projects close to finished, and that this is more important in this case than trying to bank on a long-shot of one finishing and leaving the other one nowhere near finished.
Simon, if one of them is 'nowhere near finished' then you can invest the two dice you would have spent on the other project in the unfinished one. It's not the end of the world to have one project finish before the other. If you want to finish both projects with two dice each, then finishing one project with four dice is also valid.
 
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.

I think it's very important for us to get both projects close to finished, and that this is more important in this case than trying to bank on a long-shot of one finishing and leaving the other one nowhere near finished.
Why? What's the point to starting Columbia in Q2 instead of Q3? Again, the entire point to doing the Station Bay and the Leopard II is to save dice, not time. Here's the math, which you should know of already:

Currently, the Columbia and Shala each cost 80, 165, 335, 675, and 1355 progress. Total: 2630. Divided by the average Orbital die of 81.5, (50.5 is the average d100 roll, then we add the +26 dice bonus and the +5 Station bonus) we get an average cost of 32 dice.

With the Station Bay and Leopard II completed, the progress costs for a Station will go down to 65, 135, 275, 555, and 1115. Total: 2145. That's on average 26 dice. So it'll cost 6 dice less for each station, for a savings of 12 dice total.

Here's the kicker, though: The Station Bay costs 5 dice on average, and the Leopard II factory costs 4.5 dice on average. Together they cost 9.5 dice on average. Building the two Stations without the Bay and the Leopards would cost (32 + 32) 64 average dice. With them, it costs (5 + 4.5 + 26 + 26) 61.5 average dice.

The Station bay and Leopard II factory together saves us 2.5 dice on average, total.

That's it. It's not a huge advantage, no. But if you look at Orbital over the last four years, we often struggled to fit in enough dice to do the projects we wanted while also fulfilling our Plan Goals, eventually requiring a bunch of free dice to be used in Orbital to get things done. Deliberately overkilling the Station Bay and Leopard II factory with extra dice in Q1 is basically throwing those dice away to no end. And this has been the plan for a number of in-game years and IRL months. I don't know why you've suddenly decided to rush things. Orbital is not a sprint. It's an endurance run.

If that doesn't matter to you, and all you want is the Columbia and Shala done ASAP, here's what you should do: Don't build the Station Bay. Don't build the Leopard II Factory. Just put dice immediately on Columbia this turn. If your priority is doing the stations as quickly as possible, then spending two turns to build two dice-efficiency projects is wasteful. You can get the Stations done two turns faster by just throwing in a few extra dice, and it doesn't even cost you those dice now but during future turns. So why bother?

(Sidenote: The Station bay by itself saves 3 dice on average. But then we got the Leopard II Factory project from SCED, which by the numbers "costs" only 0.5 dice, so long as we do it before we build the Columbia/Shala. And the Leopard IIs also gives a Lunar mining discount and may give other benefits.)
 
Err... Other than there still be 2 dice needed to finish Orbital Clean Up to suck up dice. Surely it isn't a major disaster if we don't have all the discounts before we start Phase 1 of a station.
At worst, we would only be missing out on 5-10 points of progress reduction. Or do we somehow think that starting a station before finishing the Yards/Bay will make it so that we don't get the benefits?
 
[X]Plan Attempting to Increase the Budget 1180R
-[X]Infrastructure (5 industry dice, 1 Heavy Industry dice) 120R
--[X] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6+7) 273/600 3 dice 60R 11%
--[X] Chicago Planned City (Phase 4) 3/550 2 Infra Dice 1 Heavy Industry dice 60R 0%
-[X]Heavy Industry (3 dice, Plus 1 heavy industry dice under Chicago) 50 R
--[X] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 9) 236/300, 2 dice 40R 100%
--[X] Personal Electric Vehicle Plants 0/300 1 dice 10R
-[X]Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice) 100R
--[X] Civilian Drone Factories 292/380 1 die 10R 52%
--[X] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 3) 251/380, 3 dice 90R 99%
-[X]Agriculture (4 dice) 55R
--[X] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 4) (Updated) 134/200, 2 dice 20R 100%
--[X] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 2) 26/250 1 Dice 15 R
--[X] Poulticeplant Development 0/50 1 die 20R 95%
-[X]Tiberium (7 dice +1 Free Dice +1 Erewhon Dice +1 AA Dice) 245R
--[X] Venusian Tiberium Studies 95/120 1 Erewhorn die 25R 91%
--[X] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Blue Zone 4) 0/100 2 dice 60R 99%
--[X] Improved Hewlett Gardener Process Development 0/160 1 tib dice 1 AA Dice 40R
--[X] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1+2) 0/500 4 dice +1 free dice 125R 29%
-[X]Orbital (6 dice) 110R
--[X] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 11+12) 32/170 , 2 dice 20R 76%
--[X] Conestoga Class Development 0/60 1 die 30R 87%
--[X] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 3) 57/290 3 dice 60R 59%
-[X]Services (5 dice) 120R
--[X] Human Genetic Engineering Programs 77/120 1 die 25R 100%
--[X] Ocular Implant Development 83/120 1 die 20R 100%
--[X] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 1) 121/300 3 dice 75R 91%
-[X]Military (8 dice +6 free dice) 275R
--[X] OSRCT Stations (Phase 4) 319/395 2 dice, 40 R 100% with Seo bonus
--[X] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4) 36/220 4 dice, 80 R 99.9% with Seo bonus
--[X] Ground Forces Zone Armor (London) (Updated) 121/180 2 dice 40R 100%
--[X] Heavy Combat Laser Development 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
--[X] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards (Seattle) 0/300 3 dice 60R 14%
--[X] Island Class Assault Ships 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
--[X] Apollo Fighter Factory San Francisco 0/80 1 die 15R 62%
-[X]Bureaucracy (4 dice) 100R
--[X] Administrative Assistance 2 die auto
--[X] Make Political Promises (Updated)
---[X] Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌461 ‌seats‌ ‌(300; 90;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌21)‌: Complete Columbia Phase 1: +2d20 Steps.
---[X] Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: 50 ‌seats (15; 32; 3; 0): Complete at least two Blue Zone Inhibitors by end of next plan: +3d6 Steps.
---[X] Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: ‌34 ‌seats (4; 10; 20; 0): Commit to completing Dairy Ranching Domes phase 2 by end of next plan: 1d10 steps.
---[X] Reclamation Party: 12 Seats (3; 9; 0; 0): Complete at least three blue zone inhibitors by the end of next plan: +1d6 Steps.
--[X] Banking Reforms 1 die -100R auto
 
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Resources:‌ ‌1200-30+5-20 = 1155 + 0+1200-60-110-120-50-160-160-125-285 = 130 in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(-15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(-35-20 = -55 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25? from Taxes) (-5 from Resettlement) (-30 from Reconstruction commissions) (-15 from Bureau of Arcologies) (-15 from Consumer Industrial Development) + (-30 from Distributed Heavy Industrial Authority)(-60 in Q4 of 2062, -60 in Q4 of 2063, -60 in Q4 of 2064, -60 in Q4 of 2065)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 75+5+2+10+5+5+5+10 = 117? Can we go above 100 PS?
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Erewhon Dice: 1
Dice Capacity 55-1 HI = 54/60

Tiberium Spread
22.47-0.14+0.93 = 23.26 Blue Zone
0.01+??.?? = ??.?? Cyan Zone
1.69+0.14-0.93 = 0.90 Green Zone
22.32-0.19+0.67-??.?? = 22.80? Yellow Zone (93 points of mitigation)
53.51+0.19-0.67 = 53.03 Red Zone (65+2 = 67 points of mitigation)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +47+1+6-10 = 44 (20-1-6+10 = 23 population in low quality housing) (-10 per turn from refugees) (+1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +17+10-2-4-3?-5-3 = +10? (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +30-6 = +24? (-3? from military activity)
Food: +27-3-4-3 = +17 (+20+5+2 = 27 in reserve)(-3 per turn from increasing population) (Perennials: +1 on Q4 2061, +1 on Q1 2062, +1 on Q4 2062, +1 on Q1 2063, +1 on Q4 2063)
Health: +13 (-3 from Wartime Demand) (-10 from refugees)
Capital Goods: +16+6+2+2-1?-2-1-5 = +17? (+130 in reserve) + (+2 per turn from sub-departments)
STUs: +11-1 = 10
Consumer Goods: +58-4+3+3+2+8+2 = +70 (-10 from demand spike) (-4 per turn from increased population) (+3 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (+2 per turn from perennials. -1 per turn Q2 2063, -1 per turn Q1 2064) (Net +4)
Labor: +47+4+2-1-1-2-2?-1 = 46? (+4 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-1 per turn from private industry) (-1 per turn from other government) (Net +4)
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(2115/2470+600 = 3070)‌ ‌
Taxation Per Turn: +30?
Space Mining Per Turn: +95+5 = +100
Maintenance Reductions: +40
Green Zone Water: +6

Resources: 1155 + 110 in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(-15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(-55 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25 from Taxes) (-5 from Resettlement) (-30 from Reconstruction commissions) (-15 from Bureau of Arcologies) (-15 from Consumer Industrial Development) (-30 from Distributed Heavy Industrial Authority)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 117
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4

Free ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Erewhon Dice: 1
Dice Capacity 54/60

Tiberium Spread
23.26 Blue Zone
0.02 Cyan Zone
0.97 Green Zone
22.72 Yellow Zone (93 points of mitigation)
53.03 Red Zone (67 points of mitigation)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +44 (23 population in low quality housing) (-10 per turn from refugees) (+1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +9 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +24 (-3 from military activity)
Food: +17 (+22 backed reserve, +5 unbacked reserve)(-3 per turn from increasing population) (Perennials: +1 on Q4 2061, +1 on Q1 2062, +1 on Q4 2062, +1 on Q1 2063, +1 on Q4 2063)
Health: +13 (-3 from Wartime Demand) (-10 from refugees)
Capital Goods: +17 (+2 per turn from Distributed Industrial Authority) (+147 in reserve)
STUs: +10
Consumer Goods: +72 (-10 from demand spike) (-4 per turn from increased population) (+3 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (+2 per turn from perennials. -1 per turn Q2 2063, -1 per turn Q1 2064) (Net +4)
Labor: +46 (+4 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-1 per turn from private industry) (-1 per turn from other government) (Net +4)
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(2115/3070)‌ ‌
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +100
Maintenance Reductions: +40
Green Zone Water: +6

[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 9)
While the pace of factory construction is likely to decline as GDI stands down from ongoing offensives, more immediate fusion generation is likely to continue to be a high priority. At the same time, there are significant concerns about the longevity of the class.
(Progress 236/300: 20 resources per Die) (+16 Energy) (-2 Labor)

Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 9) (Updated) 137+78+29 = 244/300

:wtf: Uh @Ithillid my math is off again. What am I doing wrong here?:

- I calculated 130 Resources in Reserve and you posted 110.
- My Green Zone says 0.90, you posted 0.97
- My Yellow Zone says 22.80?, you posted 22.72
- My energy surplus is +10, you posted +9
- My consumer goods surplus is +70, you posted +72
- My Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants progress is at 244/300, you posted 236/300.

Obviously yours are the correct numbers, but as someone who does mathposts having my math this off is disturbing. I'll see you all in a few hours to post my plan and then go write.
 
I tried looking for the discussion, but is there a reason we're splitting the focus on Station Bay and Leopard II Factory? They cost the same, but the Leopard II give us bonuses for Luna & Stations, plus SCED has civilian & VIP designs ready to go into production.
Basically what Doruma said. We need both,* and we need the projects done in a reasonable amount of time. Single-turn completion cannot be assured for both projects at once (at least not without blowing more or less ALL our Free dice and wasting a lot of dice capacity), but slow-walking out two of these projects in succession would take an unreasonably long time, when we need to begin Columbia in a timely manner starting some time in 2062. So I'm trying to make a fair amount of progress on both projects, in hopes of pushing both projects far enough forward that 1-2 dice make it quite likely that they will complete.

Imagine if we did it your way and got fairly typical dice rolls. Five dice on the shuttle plant, one die on the station bay. Assume for the sake of argument that the Leopard II yard completes, as it has a 77% chance of doing so. The station bay, oh... let's say rolls a 44 on d100, giving us 75/400 Progress.

Now what? Fast forward to 2062Q1, and we're left with uncertainty as to how many dice to invest. We could roll three dice for a 10% chance, four dice for a 61% chance, or five dice for a 93.4% chance. If we take "three" it's overwhelmingly likely that the station bay doesn't complete until Q2 at the earliest, delaying the start of Columbia until Q3 or maybe even later. If we take "five," we've probably wasted at least one die on a project intended to save us dice. If we take "four," the logical compromise... Well, we're courting a 39% chance of having to push the completion of Columbia back until Q3 because of how the dice work out.

There's less uncertainty if we do more to get the project farther along sooner. Since both projects need that, I'm splitting my dice evenly between them. This is a rare case where there's no advantage to us in having one project done and the other almost totally undone, as opposed to having two half-done projects.
_______________________

*(note that the station bay provides double the bonus to stations that the Leopard II yard does, it just doesn't provide secondary advantages)

Simon, if one of them is 'nowhere near finished' then you can invest the two dice you would have spent on the other project in the unfinished one. It's not the end of the world to have one project finish before the other. If you want to finish both projects with two dice each, then finishing one project with four dice is also valid.
While the uncertainty in a die roll doesn't increase as fast as the number of dice committed to the roll (the law of averages kicks in), it does increase. So it's not as simple as "two plus two is the same as four."

In this very specific scenario, I would much rather allocate dice in a situation where two projects both have 125 Progress on the clock, let us say, than in a situation where one project has 25 Progress on the clock and the other has 225 Progress on the clock.

That's it. It's not a huge advantage, no. But if you look at Orbital over the last four years, we often struggled to fit in enough dice to do the projects we wanted while also fulfilling our Plan Goals, eventually requiring a bunch of free dice to be used in Orbital to get things done. Deliberately overkilling the Station Bay and Leopard II factory with extra dice in Q1 is basically throwing those dice away to no end.
I don't plan to do that, barring bizarre edge cases where the odds are, say, 25% with one die and 87% with two dice or something like that.

But it's a lot easier to assess the number of dice you need to have an acceptable and reasonable chance of completing a project with no wastage when you're looking at 120 Progress left on the clock than a project with 200 Progress left on the clock. Thus, I think it best to position ourselves to have a relatively simple decision regarding how many dice to allocate and to which projects in 2062Q1. Which goal I think is best served by making sure the work is something like half-done or more on both projects, rather than neglecting one of the projects to get a marginally higher chance of completion on the other.

So I was thinking on the subject of Inhibitors, and the increasing amount of flavour text around sudden eruptions of Tiberium causing us problems. So for the benefit of those who like having a visual aid (me) I've endeavoured to collate a list of our major industrial builds and other high-value facilities - with an idea of triaging Inhibitor deployment to the most high-investment areas first. I've done the best I could find with an afternoon of searching, but this may not be comprehensive.
This is very good, Strunk.

One thing that will make this analysis a bit more complex/interesting/nuanced is that I'm not sure all Blue Zones are created equal as far as tiberium risk is concerned. Tiberium historically never did as well in the Arctic (though it wasn't entirely absent), and it was never seeded as heavily in some of those regions to begin with. The Greenland Blue Zone or the British isles (BZ-3, I think) might well have less of a subterranean tiberium problem than some other zones. Then again, I could be wrong.

The department of refits is worth it even if we need to idle military dice to afford it as we can have 7 running at one time: the Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits, Infernium Laser Refits, Governor A, and four vehicles(Light Combat Laser, Sparkle Shield Module might also result in refit projects). A lot of the projects for the platforms are 10R or 15R so the cost of this is doable and with 7+ refits running i can see us spending less free dice in military and more in elsewhere.
I'm sure the project is worth it in general, but can we please wait at least one turn until we know what our income is like and have gotten through the worst crunch? This is just the worst imaginable time to be doing this.

It looks great, though I'm a bit confused about how, anatomically speaking, the middle pair of legs contribute to the Mastodon's walking motion.

Err... Other than there still be 2 dice needed to finish Orbital Clean Up to suck up dice. Surely it isn't a major disaster if we don't have all the discounts before we start Phase 1 of a station.
At worst, we would only be missing out on 5-10 points of progress reduction. Or do we somehow think that starting a station before finishing the Yards/Bay will make it so that we don't get the benefits?
The benefits double with each successive phase. If we have a -10 cost reduction in Phase 1, that balloons to a -160 reduction in Phase 5. But if we don't get the -10 reduction until Phase 2, we only get three doublings and Phase 5's cost is only reduced by -80. So if you're trying to save time and effort overall by getting station cost reductions, you need to lock in those reductions before you start cutting metal on Phase 1 of the station. Otherwise the cost reductions are greatly diminished... which tends to defeat the purpose of seeking them out in the first place.
 
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Err... Other than there still be 2 dice needed to finish Orbital Clean Up to suck up dice. Surely it isn't a major disaster if we don't have all the discounts before we start Phase 1 of a station.
At worst, we would only be missing out on 5-10 points of progress reduction. Or do we somehow think that starting a station before finishing the Yards/Bay will make it so that we don't get the benefits?
Well, yes. We would miss out on the benefits. Here's how it works: Each Phase of a Station costs X*2 +5 progress more than the previous Phase did. Columbia Phase 1 currently costs 80 progress, so Phase 2 is (80*2 +5) 165 progress, then Phase 3 costs (165*2 +5) 335 progress, then 675 and 1355 progress. (Total: 2630.)

The discounts reduce Phase 1 by 15 points of progress, down to 65. That makes Phase 2 cost 135 progress, 30 points less than the 165 points it would cost without the discounts. And then Phase 3 costs 275 progress, 60 points less than before. (Phase 4 is 555 and Phase 5 is 1115. Total: 2145) The amount of progress saved doubles each Phase, from 15 points to 30, 60, 120, and finally 240 points saved. In total, by doing the Bay and the Leopards before we do Phase 1, we save 485 progress. (Or 6 average dice saved.)

But, if we build Phase 1 of Columbia or Shala before we get the discounts? The discounts will only apply starting to the current Phases. (As we saw happen to the Philadelphia and Enterprise stations with other discounts.) We build Phase 1 at 80 progress, then Phase 2 goes from 165 progress down to 150 progress. So then Phase 3 would be (150*2 +5) 305 progress, then 615 and then 1235. The total here is 2385 progress. Compare that to 2145 progress, if we'd waited to finish the discount projects first. Doing it this way would lose us 240 progress, or 3 average dice. That's a lot more than just 5-10 points.
 
It looks great, though I'm a bit confused about how, anatomically speaking, the middle pair of legs contribute to the Mastodon's walking motion.
The legs are all on shoulder joints with z-axis rotational motion. The front and back legs have enoguh range of motion to mirror what we know of the Mammoth MK II and the ATAT. The center legs contribute to the movement via rotating on that axis.
 
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