Notes on the turn:
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +72 (9 population in low quality housing) (+1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +34 (+5 in reserve)(+5 per turn from sub-departments)
Logistics: +26 (-2 from military activity)
Food: +29 (+24 backed reserve, +5 unbacked reserve) (Perennials: +1 on Q4 2063)
Health: +23 (-8 from refugees)
Capital Goods: +25 (+2 per turn from Distributed Industrial Authority) (+304 in reserve)
STUs: +6
Consumer Goods: +242 (+10 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (+1 per turn from perennials) (-1 per turn Q1 2064) (Net +14 per turn)
Labor: +28 (+3 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-4 per turn from private industry) (-1 per turn from other government) (Net +0)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (2760/3800) (900 IHG)
Tiberium Reserve (0/500)
Taxation Per Turn: +140 (+20 per turn from Private Industry)
We should have everyone out of Low-Quality Housing who wants out next turn, if we get the arcologies finished.
Energy is looking much more comfortable, but we need to keep working at it to absorb the losses from offlining plants, and also possibly private industry eating some.
Other indicators are looking decently comfortable as well for now, but we can easily drop double-digits in several of them, so we need to pay attention on that.
Private Industry is now generating +10 Consumer Goods per turn, which I feel makes doing a trade deal with Nod regarding them next turn quite justifiable. Also, we're up from +15Rpt to +20 from taxes, which is nice.
Tiberium Spread
24.99 (+0.04) Blue Zone
0.06 (+0.01) Cyan Zone
23.05 (+.02) Yellow Zone (104 points of mitigation)
51.90 (-.07) Red Zone (86 points of mitigation)
Well, we've run out of Green Zone, and so YZ mitigation is just applying to GDI's share of what we claw from the Red Zones.
Politics
With campaigning for the coming election in full swing, GDI is preparing to see a significant shift in political fortunes, and a likely increase in polarization. With victory over the Brotherhood seemingly attained for the moment, and multiple warlords willing to work with GDI against their erstwhile brothers in arms, Litvinov is riding a notable high. While negotiation with the Brotherhood is always a fraught position, and one that the vast majority of the Initiative does not support, it has been somewhat successful so far, and the overall political winds await the fallout, positive or negative.
Hooray for Litvinov! Here's hoping that peace works out, at least with some of the major warlords.
On the other side, there is the 'dazzle camouflage' approach, more appropriate to the world of fashion than the battlefield. The simplest, and usually easiest way to use adaptive cloth, is to simply integrate a set of microcontrollers, and play regulated patterns across the cloth, with most patterns using simple geometric or natural arrays to create flashing visual interest. The other approach is to actually use a set of heat sensors placed against the body and apply the feedback from those to adjust the coloration on the surface.
Now we can have animated hawaiian shirts!
[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 9)
The rapid development of underground Tiberium mining has pushed the Initiative towards digging deeply and greedily, searching for dangerous treasures deep below ground. While the mines are becoming progressively more expensive, they are still worthwhile from both environmental and economic perspectives.
(Progress 160/160: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (-2 Capital Goods)
(Progress 36/155: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (-2 Capital Goods) [nat 1, 95]
Income 1d3: [2] = +30 RpT
On 19th September, the Mount Belaya Tiberium mining complex detonated in a multi-kiloton explosion, throwing clouds of dust in a blast radius that covered much of the Anadyr highlands and the Siberian Blue Zone, with some clouds even reaching as far south as Hokkaido.
While it is difficult to find the cause due to a combination of factors, most notably the recording backups actually being within the blast radius of the detonation, the most likely answer is that the complex hit a previously unknown pressurized pocket of liquid Tiberium that created a fuel-air explosion and propagated back into the pocket.
Immediate casualties were limited to the few dozen men and women working the immediate mining complex largely working in the surface worksites, the maintenance barn, and the control center. Casualties from the after effects of the event are still trickling in, and are substantially higher, especially as GDI was forced to rush significant numbers of abatement assets into the region.
The political and practical consequences of the detonation are likely to be far more lasting. The blast was impossible to downplay, especially since the detonation of Temple Prime GDI has seen significant paranoia about the potential of liquid Tiberium explosions, and in light of the detonation, that paranoia has become not only justified, but if anything, understated. The Initiative has seen substantial public pressure to increase safety margins, and maintain far larger and more capable reserve forces to respond to future detonations, both of which will steal away significant assets that could otherwise be moved to the front lines of the war on Tiberium.
Well, that's an unfortunate boom. Note that at least this stage and maybe the next are not giving YZ abatement, but given our having run out of Green Zone, that's much less of a problem.
In Australia, the process has been complicated and hampered by the pattern of growth of the Tiberium. Back in the 2030s and 2040s, before the destruction of GDI's research program into liquid Tiberium in the Australian outback turned much of the area into a Red Zone, Tib had been substantively, although certainly far from entirely, controlled. The thing is that unlike most other Red Zones, Tiberium has not had the time to penetrate deeply into the soil. The veins and rivers of deep Tib simply don't exist in the Australian outback in the same way that they do elsewhere, with much of the Tiberium contamination distinctly shallow, with fragmented deeper incursions.
This has meant the need for far more inhibitors than initially budgeted for, and the construction of a number of small bases across the Outback to support them, due to the way that all human settlement has hugged the coast. While neither have actually stopped the project from completing, it has meant that many of the construction crews will need to be rotated back to the back lines for rest and relaxation in the coming months.
[ ] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 5)
A final major offensive across the northern section of Australia will see GDI make good the last of the gains of the Regency War, and reap the economic benefits of the conflict. While still a serious strain on the Zone Operations Command, it is one that likely can be borne, especially if GDI slows down on other red zone operations.
(Progress 245/210: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-35 resources]) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+2 Energy) [48]
Income 1d5: [2] = +20 RpT
The final phase of Red Zone Border offensives has been unleashed with Initiative teams forcing Tiberium back, one bloody step at a time. But forced back it has been, with the campaigns first formulated in the wake of the Regency War now completed, the grounds prepared to switch from securing against Tiberium attack to sieging the newly taken territory and cleansing a gaping, rotting wound in the Earth.
Australia having fewer deep veins of Tiberium is interesting, and may mean that mining out the Central Australian Red Zone could perhaps not result in an inland sea. I definitely think we should at least consider working on a Deep RZ Glacier Mine next turn.
One bright spot is in how the actual harvesting crews have begun to work together, with especially Yao but also Bintang and the Bannerjees encouraging the effort. While GDI and Brotherhood methodologies are distinctly different, and have different goals, the harvesting crews out at the tip of the spear have been able to exchange tips, tricks, and safety measures to try and help both of them stay safe in their toxic environments. At the same time, reports of fraternization have increased notably, with the two sides exchanging food, supplies, and a number of basic luxuries.
Again, yay for a common enemy helping with diplomacy.
"To unofficially Report, this meeting is Unnecessary. You have been Informed of My progress and issues to this time Previously. To unofficially Report, I have made Satisfactory progress in developing the Largest Ambulance ever constructed."
[Other officials question what that means.]
"This Hospital is constantly moving and meant to allow You wounded above Earth to Survive until they can be transported down. This is an Ambulance. To Officially State, I would like to go back to Working Now."
I love this. And hereby propose a small subsidiary station to follow in Columbia's orbit designed specifically for law offices.
The Sharks were, for the most part, too late for the Regency War, but have since proven themselves to be quite effective, both as submarine hunters, and as general service platforms. Dozens of old destroyers and frigates, the obsolescent verging on obsolete missile platforms of the late 20th and early 21st century, have been retired, most going immediately to the scrapyards as between rusting hulls, rapidly repaired battle damage, and decades of hard use, they are too worn out to actually be effectively converted into museum ships.
o7 to all those old ships... and I imagine that the sailors will be very happy to get off of them.
