Okay, so I fell asleep for the night right before the vote started...
I like how my suggested ZOCOM priority is hugely influential, despite the fact that I created it to make the thread shoot themselves in the foot.
Well, "finish the Santiago factory" and "finish the zrbite guns" were already things we wanted to do anyway. I'll be surprised if the thread ends up voting to finish the drones that fast or greatly delaying the border offensives given existing conflicting promises.
So, thank you for your sabotage!
-[] Heavy Industry (5/5 Dice + 5 Free Dice, +34 bonus, 300 R)
--[] Chicago Planned City (Phase 5) 387/995 (1 die, 20 R) (see Infrastructure)
--[] U Series Alloy Foundries (Phase 3) 186/550 (5 dice, 200 R) (87% chance)
--[] 2nd Gen. CC Fusion Plants (Phase 1) 144/325 (3 dice, 60 R) (96% chance)
--[] Second Generation Repulsorplate Development 0/60 (1 die, 20 R) (95% chance)
I respect the idea here, though personally my desire to get us close to Chicago completion (32% chance of success means it should probably get
at least close enough to finish with a single die next turn, and may not even need one) outstrips my desire to be sure of finishing the fusion plants next turn (as you note, we don't
need the +19 Energy next turn).
-[] Light Industry (5/5 Dice, +24 bonus, 150 R)
--[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 4) 235/690 (5 dice, 150 R) (15% chance)
Can someone
please explain to me why we're beelining Bergen? It's a bad idea to use it as an "industrial capstone" for our Plan target because of how expensive Phase 5 is, it's not all that Capital Goods efficient, we have plenty of Energy, and if we get to keep that "three dice per turn on fusion power" thing then we're not being bottlenecked unacceptably by superconductor production.
We don't actually have a real need to put 4+ dice on fusion power per turn here, not if we're working hard and planning ahead. This isn't wartime where we're constantly rush-building new shipyards into existence every turn and regularly using -5 and -6 Energy and sometimes both at once in just that one category.
I wish someone would explain this to me, and as of this writing I haven't seen it. Wanna do Reykjavik. Poor lonely Reykjavik.
-[] Tiberium (7/7 dice, +39 bonus, 200 R)
--[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 9) 22/175 (2 dice, 40 R) (83% chance)
--[] IHG Refits (Phase 1) 0/240 (4 dice, 140 R) (100% chance, Phase 2 3% chance)
--[] Tiberian Prediction Algorithms 80/120 (1 die, 20 R) (100% chance)
Also why are you doing the vein mines? -2 Capital Goods is expensive, and we have a huge second wave of Red Zone income coming up later this year to keep our budget topped off.
I get that underground tiberium is bad, but if we're chasing it over a kilometer deep in remote areas, we may need to take a brief pause and figure out if we need to be approaching this with better technology or just more infrastructure, or for that matter
support for the field in terms of actually having enough Capital Goods production to make -2/phase sustainable.
-[] Orbital (7/7 Dice + Erewhon, +34 bonus, 170 R)
--[] Medium Density Housing 310/335 (E die, 20 R) (91% chance)
--[] Gravitic Shipyard 292/430 (1 die, 30 R) (17% chance)
--[] Fusion Shipyard 380/475 (1 die, 20 R) (60% chance)
--[] GDSS Shala (Phase 4) 92/530 (4 dice, 80 R) (14% chance)
--[] Fruticulture Bay 225/335 (1 die, 20 R) (45% chance)
-[] Services (4/4 Dice, +35 bonus, 90 R)
--[] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 2) 4/285 (2 dice 50 R) (2/3 dice median)
--[] Kamisuwa Optical Laboratories 79/240 (2 dice, 40 R) (72% chance)
I can work with this. I wanted to do the autodoc research and don't mind putting only one die on the hospital expansions, though, because I'm trying to slow-walk projects a bit. I don't want to be in a position where there's nothing left in Services except "build AEVAs" and "deploy autodocs." I'm really hoping we get some more projects involving civil services in general, things like building amenities and parks and stadiums in the new cities GDI is building up deeper in the inland Blue Zones, or something like the old VR arcades we had as an option in the '50s, or... anything really.
-[] Military (7/7 Dice + 2 Free die + 1 AA die, +31 bonus, 175 R)
--[] SADN (Phase 1) 0/250 (3 dice, 60 R) (57% chance)
--[] Zrbite Sonic Weapons Deployment (Phase 1) 317/380 (1 die, 20 R) (84% chance)
--[] Infantry Recon Support Drone Deployment 0/180 (2 dice + 1 AA die, 30 R) (83% chance)
--[] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 1) (Phase 6) 28/165 (2 dice, 40 R) (83% chance)
--[] Combat Laser Development 0/80 (1 die, 25 R) (72% chance)
Hm. Honestly, I'd rather have a 100% chance of getting the zrbite guns than an eightysomething percent chance of getting the guns but also an eightysomething percent chance of getting the drones. If I were in your shoes I'd
at least rummage up a second AA die for one of my ZOCOM-friendly projects. Because nothing else you're doing in Bureaucracy is time-critical; all those promise opportunities will still be there next turn except possibly the ZOCOM one, and if the ZOCOM one
isn't still there, it'ls because
they got what they wanted.
Personally, I'm reluctant to make the "infantry drone" promise, because either we'd have to go to work on infantry drones
now and divert effort from SADN in a big way, or we'd have to go to work on them in Q2 or later and delay the border offensives.
If it were just about the other two, I'd make the agreement in a heartbeat- you'll note that
Plan Attempting to Stoke The Fires Of Industry does indeed put heavy work on them.
Orbital: A die on each of the Bays we worked on last turn to drive them towards completion, with the one on the Medium Housing Bay being Erewhon. The remaining 4 dice on Shala to give a chance of that completing.
I'm trying to balance that with low-level ongoing work on
Columbia, because I'd rather work gradually on both stations than rush one or the other at the moment. We've had several consecutive turns of intensive heavy Free dice investment, and I'm worried that 'shock labor' effects are getting baked in, so this seems like a good opportunity both to let the crews slow down a bit
and to make sure that active work continues on both major stations without it going at a breakneck "no time to fix the bugs" pace.
Much like the Ranching Domes, I'd rather put off the Dairy Ranches until closer to the election. We still don't have enough live stock for the ranches we do have, it'll keep. I'd be happy with Lab Meat instead, or just moving it to one of the frankenplants.
Hrm. Well, I was kind of running on a reflexive "finish what we start" impulse. When I put up the actual 'Stoke The Fires Original" plan draft I think I'll make the swap.
I'd prefer Tiberium Wildlife here, both because I feel it'd be helpful with the Forgotten Experimentation and because it feels like a idea we could turn into something useful fast. Could you explain your reasoning?
Hrrrm. Now that you mention it, there isn't really a reason. Yeah, I can change that...
EDIT:
Ah, shit. Now I remember.
It's because we're at 4/4 Mad Science right now and I was thinking in terms of just putting a die into
one of the Mad Science projects to prepare for later without finishing it. Whereas the wildlife studies would be nearly certain to finish immediately. On the other hand, we're pushing back into the Red Zones later this year, so there's no harm in us remedying our ignorance, and it's not like Seo's ever going to run out of mad science ideas.
Probably valid, but getting more meat+cheese out there will ease political pressure. But, on the tiberium-mutated third hand, we probably want to do other things in Agriculture. May get axed.
The trick with the dairy ranches is that it's not clear that building more ranch domes right away would actually translate into more cheese, let alone more meat. Right now we're up against the limit of how long it takes a baby calf to come to term and for the heifers to start producing milk. The existing domes have more than enough space to support the existing dairy herds, so waiting a quarter or two to finish Phase 2 of the domes won't meaningfully impact dairy production.
We should not do any more AEVA projects until we get at least North Boston complete.
I am in tentative agreement, though if we had more like a +20 Capital Goods bonus for unrelated reasons you could probably sell me on the Heavy Industry or Tiberium AEVAs just because of the importance of those categories.
However, in reality, we don't have that kind of surplus, so I firmly agree with you.
For Vein Mining, I'm hoping that when we finish Stage 10, we will get boreholes. But maybe we need time, rather than progress.
SADN - You have a point on the sonics, but having a good chance of doing 2 phases of nuke-defense, as opposed to "probably just one", seems to be worth it to me.
And yes, Erewhon on space housing would be fun, but I counter with autodocs voiced by HK-47.
Phase 2 of the project mostly covers targets out of Al-Isfahani's likely striking distance, and a one quarter delay in its completion is unlikely to make that much difference. The Mecca-Medina-Jeddah area is covered under Phase 1, due to the great importance of the refinery complex.
Meanwhile, we are highly likely to go into the border offensives in 2063Q2 on schedule, zrbite guns or no, so I'd rather have 'yes' than 'no.'
And yes, autodocs voiced by HK-47 is a valid counter-argument.
And also, as mentioned Inhibs are not applicable to BZ-6 for now, so maybe BZ… which zone is US East Coast?
I'll definitely switch my inhibitor location over to another Blue Zone if it turns out that Treasury doesn't share my previous reasons for thinking BZ-6 would be a good choice.
Maybe BZ-2, where we've had actual industrial problems caused by tiberium outbreaks. But maybe somewhere else, somewhere with a track record of vulcanism or something, because sometimes I feel like the US-centrism gets amped up a bit much and I like to push back against that.
This is Simon's plan, but modified to my preferences. Which is to say I swapped out the die on Dairy Ranches to Agriculture Mechanization, changed Forgotten Experimentation to Tiberium Wildlife Experiments, and made Combat Laser Development the Steel Talon project. Makes the plan very slightly cheaper, though I don't feel that's important, but doesn't otherwise change the Energy and Capital Goods counts.
I'm about to put up an 'OG' version, though the OG version is, ironically, significantly altered in line with your suggestions. Dairy ranches are swapped out for lab-grown meat research (I'll be doing mechanization soon, I've been pushing it for a long time), Forgotten research is switched out for tiberium monster research.
MRAP production is not swapped out for lasers, because I don't think we have the infernium budget to mass-deploy
more advanced laser weaponry right now and because MRAP deployment is actually legit important for the ability of our Deep Red forces to have tenable long-term logistics. It's a project we've already delayed a long time and I'd like to advocate it strongly.
BZ-6 will be swapped out for another Blue Zone inhibitor as soon as I get QM confirmation, though I'm not sure the target will be BZ-7 Korea
in particular
Simon, maybe throw AAs at Zrbite, and focus Mil dice at SADN?
I see no advantage in doing so.
Both the zrbite guns and SADN are rollover projects where we'll want to complete the subsequent phases. But SADN is a project where we'll want to complete the subsequent phases
quickly,
Statistically, two AA dice are worth 101 Progress, while a normal Military die is worth 82.5 Progress. switching the two AA dice to the zrbite guns and the Military die to SADN would mean more progress on
Zrbite Weapons Phase 2, a project we probably aren't going to work on immediately because of other priorities, and less progress on
SADN Phase 2, which we will want to complete immediately as soon as possible. I'm not seeing the advantage.
Furthermore, flavorwise, a lot of administrative assistance on SADN makes narrative sense to me (removing red tape around things like clearing the construction sites and getting the equipment to build the laser towers), whereas a lot of administrative assistance on the zrbite gun factories (which are nearly already complete) seems like less of a good fit.
Now, switching
one of the AA dice to the zrbite gun project, then flipping the Military die over to SADN, might not be a bad idea from a mechanical standpoint, in terms of "the odds of finishing
Zrbite Weapons Phase 1 are still really good and now you get +31 Progress on SADN."
Is that what you meant?
Like the plan, but as mentioned earlier, maybe swap Mil dice on Zrbite with 2 AAs and send 6 Mil dice on SADN?
Or maybe 1 Mil and AA on Zrbite, 5 Mil and AA on SADN?
To Maximise SADN Progress.
Ohh, it was. Let me math out the probabilities of project success. That's... interesting. Hm.
Okay, right now I have
SADN (4+2AA dice) (99.8% Phase 1, 7.5% chance Phase 2)
Zrbite (2 dice) (100% chance)
If I exchanged an AA die on SADN for a 'full' die on zrbite, this would become...
SADN (5+AA dice) (100% Phase 1, 16% chance Phase 2)
Zrbite (1+AA dice) (98.8% chance)
I'm a little unsure about whether this is worth it, but I'm not saying
absolutely not.
EDIT:
Starting to think of it.
