The peaker plant project provided +4 Energy, of which we've lost 1.
Well yes, but there were also the phase of plants after the first peaker prototypes, which were good for +8 Energy and ran on the principle of "what if we built like six peaker plants and switched each one on just as we needed to switch the last one off, then ganged them together and called it a power plant."
Since those use the same basic reactor design as our +4 Energy peaker plants, I'd expect them to have to shut down too for the same reasons. And probably for our first generations of prototypes (which as I recall contributed +1 and/or +2 Energy) to need to be shut down as well.
So if we
didn't have to worry about the first-generation
continuous cycle power plants, only everything built on the peaker plant design, we'd have about 12-15 Energy worth of fusion plants to worry about.
I dont think we have another way to increase our processing capacity with Chicago done so yeah we will need to do so at some point. When is the question.
Well, building new refineries sooner rather than later means more tiberium goes through the IHG process, and may get us a smidge more STU's than we otherwise would at some point.
And since building new refineries is actually cheaper than refitting old ones, we might as well do the new refineries soon if we're willing to spend dice on IHG upgrades at all anyway.
(Also, the refinery upgrades are a promise to a
party and will need to be upheld pretty much no matter how the election plays out. Cynically, it is possible that Litvinov will no longer be head of state after the 2064 elections, and that we will no longer need to worry too much about whether every last plant including the ones we aren't even using is running the IHG process, as long as the plants we ARE using are running it)
I take it we have not heard one way or the other?
I'm very rarely on Discord, so I don't get privileged information on subjects like this. It's just speculation since the text explicitly says "you're looting some cool Scrin stuff that looks cool."
My point is we do have a buffer for if plants started offlining faster than expected, we could have RZER, as a backup energy supply in case we have a "shit hit the fan, took the fan, ceiling, and the roof" scenario, which knowing how we might do things, is entirely probably, even with us going for 2D for the next 2 to 3 years in CCF2, we could still be redlined on energy and have to do some janky accounting.
I've actually put considerable effort into convincing people to plan ahead for this exact scenario for quite some time, and so far people have come through and been working on it. So... like, I'm not going to get mad at you for suggesting that we might need to panic and "oh shit" a bunch of power plants into existence at an extreme hurry, even at the price of inefficiently burning dice we really do need doing other things.
But please believe me when I say I don't think it'll come to that. Considerable time, effort, and preparation are going into keeping us from needing to do that.
So, we owe (9*16+3) 147 energy.
+8 more, I think, because I'm pretty sure there was that phase of "round-robin" peaker plant arrays I mentioned to Lightwhispers. If the original peaker prototypes are coming offline, so are those, and soon.
We make +4 energy/turn from DAE.
From Fusion, (84 progress / die, 19 energy/290 progress) +5.5 energy/die.
The final phase of fusion would be 'due' in 2068 Q2, or 20 turns from now.
For a heavily simplified (147/20) 7.35 Energy/turn.
9.5 - 7.35 = 2.15 net Energy/turn
---------
Or, if we want to handle preparations for every plant simultaneously (I doubt it, but it's fun to look at it this way),
Assuming we don't want to touch our current energy, or energy reserves outside of the peaker plants.
Using the lowest risk option (6.5 years), our due dates are:
1 - 2064 Q3 (16 Energy due in 05 turns) (-3.2 Energy/turn)
2 - 2065 Q2 (16 Energy due in 08 turns) (-2.0 Energy/turn)
3 - 2066 Q1 (16 Energy due in 11 turns) (-1.5 Energy/turn)
4 - 2066 Q2 (16 Energy due in 12 turns) (-1.3 Energy/turn)
5 - 2066 Q4 (16 Energy due in 14 turns) (-1.1 Energy/turn)
6 - 2067 Q1 (16 Energy due in 15 turns) (-1.1 Energy/turn)
7 - 2067 Q2 (16 Energy due in 16 turns) (-1.0 Energy/turn)
8 - 2067 Q4 (16 Energy due in 18 turns) (-0.9 Energy/turn)
9 - 2068 Q2 (16 Energy due in 20 turns) (-0.8 Energy/turn)
12.9 Energy/turn (decreasing as we hit each phase of replacement)
So, 2 Dice + DAE = 15 Energy/turn
15-12.9 = 2.1 net Energy/turn
I'm a little confused by what these numbers are supposed to be telling us.
If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that if we only spend exactly two dice on fusion plants per turn, and also benefit from the DAE, and if there are no other +Energy projects, then with the 6.5-year option, we'd be averaging about +2 Energy surplus per turn, with DAE and the fusion plants just barely keeping our heads above water.
Given that we
will need Energy for plenty of new projects during the time between now and 2068, that's a problem, of course. Fortunately Bergen will help, among other things, but it's definitely sobering.
Still, personally I favor pushing the seven-year timeline, which I think stretches things out just a bit more and gives us a bit more wiggle room. Especially since Bergen is likely to be next on the menu for Light Industry and we'll be more free to rapid-construct fusion plants if we have to after we get farther along there.
It saves you one die-but then costs you 3-5 dice long term as you still have to do all the refits, so the payoff isn't actually much faster and you do have to pay 1/2 a fusion plant and 1 phase of suborbital shuttles.
I disagree with your assessment.
We have an "expand refinery capacity" target to hit and not just a "refit existing refineries" target. Thus, while doing all the refit phases is
necessary for us to fulfill our current Plan targets, it is not
sufficient. Because we aren't getting more actual refining capacity out of the IHG refits.
So we still have to build new refineries somewhere in the world at some point during the plan, and doing so falls under the same "have to bite the bullet and do it by late 2065 anyway" category as the refits themselves.
And honestly, as long as the refits aren't yet finished and we still have tiberium going to first-generation H-G refineries, I'd argue that building one phase of the new refineries is a better way of helping with our short-term problems than refitting one phase of refineries.
Narratively, there's some synergy, too, because building new IHG refineries will make it a lot easier to shut down and overhaul old H-G refineries.
