We've got the Green Zone areas we have pretty well pacified; we're not fighting constant running battles with Nod guerillas inside them. Garrisoning a few hundred thousand kilometers against people trained by the world's preeminent irregular warfare specialists may require less resources than just keeping an army dug in along a line of fortress towns, but it doesn't require no resources.
The reason that worries me, though, is the transition. Our forces will be getting slowed down and worn down by Clausewitzian friction as the offensive runs on. Our own forces capable of effective offensive action will not be constant in size. By the time we've worn down someone like Gideon enough to free up X units of troops that were fighting pitched battles against him, it's quite possible that X/3 of our troops are too battered to take immediate military action, and another X/2 of our troops are still busy fighting his remnant forces and securing his turf.
You seem to think there's going to be a lot of friction once the Warlord is gone- why? We're not a gas, if Gideon were to vanish tommorow, we wouldn't move in and occupy every population center he controls, we'd start to leverage a lack of organized to better observe the power vacuum, and simply act to keep someone from filling it. Who the hell cares if the mid west is filled with rpg toting militias and would be warlords trying to conquer each with Scorpion tanks. We care about things like Ganas, Specters, Barghests, Avatars, Centurions etc. None of which these insurgents are going to be able to sustainably supply because you need a warlord consolidating resources and husbanding skilled and educated workers. And barring the most indoctrinated, the skilled and educated workers are probably going to be the most class conscientious- and thus liable to assume waiting around for the next warlord to get them under thumb is undesirable.
You act like we have to abandon the Fortress towns once a warlord is dealt with, when the entire advantage of toppling a warlord is we don't need to hold unproductive territory to root them out and deny it to them. Who cares if there's if we mark part of the map with 'Here be NOD' if we're confident Redeemers aren't going to start boiling out of the woodwork?
We do not have to hold every inch of clay- the reward for victory is space and time, barring a few areas like the gulf coast where taking it out of NOD hands buys us even more breathing room elsewhere.
At this point, my main concern about avoiding Karachi is that it sounds like a subset of a more general policy of leaving Nod's presence in and around the Indian Ocean largely alone because of the interlocking presence of Mehretu, the Atomic Shah guy, the Indian warlord, and Bintang. Which is understandable on one level, but also risky because it lets several warlords just keep building up until they're ready to do whatever the hell they want.
Like, if WE can line up a knock-out punch against Giddyboy when given a chance without real interference, why couldn't they line one up against the Arabian Blue Zone or something?
Because we have an infinitely more coordinated and unified chain of command and aren't internally competing. I cannot overstate the difference in the way we fight the war compared to NOD. We literally have 1 perspective, 1 clearly delineated list of facts, assumptions, and objectives- every warlord is going to at least have their own perspective, their own list of facts and assumptions and goals, and they could have multiple- because there are far more concerns for a warlord than a GDI general.
As for this Iron Curtain of interlocking Warlords who are compounding on each other and who knows what foul sorceries they conjure within the Heart of Darkness... Mehretu is busy dealing with a civil war, the Atomic Shah is noticeably isolationist and seems to have a history of securing his power base above all else. Krukov cannot pivot south without conceding Western Russia- and given his turncoat general and the Siberian revolts as well as what we can tell of his own personality- there is practically zero chance Krukov won't be directly commanding the majority of his forces, which massively limits his ability to spread himself around. Bintang is so irritating because of her ability to concentrate and disperse forces, we're never going to bring her to battle without an overwhelming naval advantage or an invasion of Malaysia- so it's moot either way. Karachi does nothing to keep her and the Indian warlord from linking up.
But above all- you seem to be operating under the misconception that these individual Warlords, or a small coalition are capable of building up harder than we are. Unless things are going MAD, the calculus is shifting in our direction. Even with literally all of the Asian continent under NOD's control, which it's not going to be- we still have a larger industrial base. We still have access to far more resources, and given space- literally infinitely more room to expand and exploit. Time, in regard to NOD, is not our enemy. This war is happening entirely because NOD is realizing time is increasingly their enemy and they need to coalesce soon if they want any shot at winning TW 4. So... not only do I think you misrepresent the risk, I think you ignore that NOD's imperative right now is to act. If they were content to build up in secrecy right now, the Regency War would literally not be happening.
This is the exact same problem we've been having all bloody quest. Roll out the platform first, then refit later if we have to. Weapon upgrades mean fuck-all if not having the heavy metal in the first place screws us. A lot can happen in a quarter.
While you are 100% correct, the flip side is not having to spend dice on refits if we design them with the new tech in mind.
I'd wager that if we had immediately deployed everything we wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done as we have. On the other hand we would definitely have more units available to fight a war with.
It's practicality vs efficiency. Neither are wrong until they are.
We crossed that line with the navy but everything else seems to be doing alright.
If needed, I could and would scrunch every development into a single quarter, and deployment in the next, than refits following the next several years, as it is our docket is chock full of bullshit from YEARS ago.
Which would look more like this:
2060 Q4 - HAPC + APC II + Mastadon + Mammoth Mk IV + Paladin + Modular Rapid Assembly System Prototypes + Infantry Recon Support Drone Development + Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment + Heavy Combat Laser Development + Backpack Rocket Launcher Development + Zone Defender + Lancer
So yea, this list is a fucking nightmare, and over the next several years you would see 1 factory of each item for the next 2-3 years, maybe 4 years (at least 2 Factories from each item needed to maintain numbers)
I made a map of the Hub locations, as I can't visualise them from those option lists.
And I'm having difficulty working out how attaching images works, so this is awkward.
But anyway, I have a few comments.
1: RZ4/5 use North and South, when they should use East and West. Very confused compass here.
2: YZ14 is on the south east coast of Africa, which seems a bit crowded for Hubs already. Perhaps Swakopmund in Namibia would be a better site?
3: Is Lhasa (BZ18 Hub site) even in a Blue Zone? I can't tell if it is actually in a Yellow Zone, or the map projection is throwing me off.
4: YZ7 hub (Adelaide) looks really close to RZ8 South and BZ9. Perhaps the YZ7 hub would be better up at Townsville instead? If that was done, relocate the RZ8 South Hub site from Eucla to Ceduna. There appears to be a natural harbor there.
5: No Hub options for Canada?
6: It is sad looking at the South American Hubs barely making a difference.
7: The YZ16 site is not going to be vaguely Yellow much longer.
8: I should use a bigger font size next time...
Because we have an infinitely more coordinated and unified chain of command and aren't internally competing. I cannot overstate the difference in the way we fight the war compared to NOD. We literally have 1 perspective, 1 clearly delineated list of facts, assumptions, and objectives-
One thing to keep in mind is that Nod's policies and GDI's policies work together to inhibit guerilla operations rather substantially. You can't fight a war without a supply line, and guerilla need to be able to coopt a civilian supply line, or at least hide in it. When GDI takes a place it has a policy of moving as many people as are willing to secured, safer and less contaminated Green Zones before working their way through the population to look for Nod sympathizers and sending as many as possible to the very pleasant to live BZs.
Nod outright forces its population to move in the face of advancing GDI offensives, mostly to prevent GDI from running off with the population and industry, admittedly. But this means that what is left is a dead zone, an area with no or almost no population to hide among, no supply lines you can use as a cover for your own activities.
That is not to say that taking and holding territory is going to be easy, or without risk. But Nod's greater strategy is actually inhibiting its doctrine, and they haven't figured out how to deal with that, yet. Given Stahl's general successes on the field of battle, I would suspect that Nod will start to adopt his approach to warfare to a greater extent. But while it's a good way to do battle, it's not to Nod's advantage long term. GDI simply has too much industrial advantage.
That the latin american hubs are carving yellow zone out of red zone is frankly amazing. And the areas are huge, looking at it through the map it might not seem much.
400000 square kilometers, Macapá-Bélem-Santarém, estimated.
20000 square kilometers, Lima & surroundings, estimated.
420000 total yellow zone, estimated. Total earth surface above water, 148.94 million square kilometers.
So the areas around the hubs make up for 0,281% of earths surface above water.
If my sleep deprived, quick head math is correct, that is.
You misplaced a decimal point; 1% of Earth's land surface would be roughly 1.5 million square kilometers (since the whole thing is 150 million). So those MARV hubs are around 0.3% or so... which is fully consistent with the kind of gradual progress we've made in advancing Red Zones combined with how much of our abatement is specifically due to those actual projects.
You misplaced a decimal point; 1% of Earth's land surface would be roughly 1.5 million square kilometers (since the whole thing is 150 million). So those MARV hubs are around 0.3% or so... which is fully consistent with the kind of gradual progress we've made in advancing Red Zones combined with how much of our abatement is specifically due to those actual projects.
I made a map of the Hub locations, as I can't visualise them from those option lists.
And I'm having difficulty working out how attaching images works, so this is awkward.
But anyway, I have a few comments.
1: RZ4/5 use North and South, when they should use East and West. Very confused compass here.
2: YZ14 is on the south east coast of Africa, which seems a bit crowded for Hubs already. Perhaps Swakopmund in Namibia would be a better site?
3: Is Lhasa (BZ18 Hub site) even in a Blue Zone? I can't tell if it is actually in a Yellow Zone, or the map projection is throwing me off.
4: YZ7 hub (Adelaide) looks really close to RZ8 South and BZ9. Perhaps the YZ7 hub would be better up at Townsville instead? If that was done, relocate the RZ8 South Hub site from Eucla to Ceduna. There appears to be a natural harbor there.
5: No Hub options for Canada?
6: It is sad looking at the South American Hubs barely making a difference.
7: The YZ16 site is not going to be vaguely Yellow much longer.
8: I should use a bigger font size next time...
It's only looking at this map right now that I'm getting curious about Antarctica.
Logically, there's got to be some Tib down there, via the oceans of nothing else, but our maps don't show any, or to what degree.
While there were agreements to not colonise it back when then were multiple nations, that's kinda defunct now because there's only us and Nod. Lots of space, likely some resources, and the cold and weather is likely only about as bad as Tib.
Would not surprise me at all if Nod was down there.
Afaik it doesn't come up at all in the games. Red Alert, yes, but not C&C (and the Antarctica buildup got erased from the timeline anyway).
SCEDQuest updoot soon probably. Small teaser for Createrscope projects which even non-SCED-interested people may find interesting, due to main-quest interaction:
[]Leopard Mk II Development 0/275 (6C/Die+6IP/Die)
A large number of advancements in fusion engines, materials, electronics and other fields have made the original Leopard almost obsolete. A second generation leopard would be an iterative improvement to GDIs orbital construction efforts and may also enable the creation of more specialized craft for personnel and VIP transfer.
[]Union Fabricator Craft Development 0/225 (6C/Die+6IP/Die)
Another idea is more or less sticking a machine shop on a Union fusion craft, which would allow for advanced fabrication on site. Probably not quite to the point where putting together a station out of bar stock is possible, but significantly more than any current systems available.
Craterscope Projects (Warning: Some of these will have quality rolls; Quality can be improved)
[]Craterscope Structure Development 0/600 (6C/Die)(Required)
The Structure will be the glue holding the systems together. Providing power, computational capacity, accommodations for maintenance and research staff and protection from asteroids and solar rads when the system is not in use.
[]Craterscope Mirror System Development 0/400 (4C/Die+1IP/Die)(Required)
The mirror system will collect the light from a tiny portion of the sky over hundreds of square meters and focus it onto a point as small as a stamp. It will require absolute precision in the micrometer range in both tilt control and manufacturing.
[]Craterscope Imaging Sensor Development 0/500 (8C/Die+1IP/Die)(Required)
The craterscope Imaging sensor will be one of the most advanced pieces of technology GDI currently is capable of producing. It will need to be capable of detecting single photons in a wide frequency range and allow the SCED to extract useful data from the minimal data collected.
[]Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer Development 0/200 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Using Spectroscopy on the light given off by a planet's atmosphere, the makeup of that atmosphere can be extrapolated. However given the distances and projected minimal data required the Analyzer will need to be able to extract even more information out of an even smaller area of the sky.
[]Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 0/200 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Detection of an Asteroid belt will be an even greater challenge since they are barely hotter than the cosmic background in most cases. However, using anomalies in photon gravitic phase shift should allow for at least confirming the position of asteroid belts in a solar system as long as they are not too far away from their center star.
[]Craterscope Tiberium Detector 0/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Tiberium gives off very particular frequencies of light and radiation patterns. By adding a sensor module tweaked for these frequencies and particles, we could detect Tiberium in planets in other solar systems.
[]Craterscope Moon Detector 0/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Moons are in a similar spot as Asteroid belts, but require a less specialized sensor module to detect the subtle shifts in orbital movement and gravitic redshift caused by orbiting moons.
Because we have an infinitely more coordinated and unified chain of command and aren't internally competing. I cannot overstate the difference in the way we fight the war compared to NOD. We literally have 1 perspective, 1 clearly delineated list of facts, assumptions, and objectives- every warlord is going to at least have their own perspective, their own list of facts and assumptions and goals, and they could have multiple- because there are far more concerns for a warlord than a GDI general.
Yeah I agree with you in general in that NOD does have a hard time working together, but that only happens until Kane decides to start rallying the disparate factions. Then NOD is all 'One Vision. One Purpose. Peace Through Power!' So even if at present the warlords are working at semi-cross purposes here, I would rather identify the specific capabilities of the individual warlords prior to Kane forcing encouraging them to use all of the best toys they would rather keep for themselves. This is especially important in India where we have minimal intel and only know about the Ghana they've loaned out to other warlords.
As for this Iron Curtain of interlocking Warlords who are compounding on each other and who knows what foul sorceries they conjure within the Heart of Darkness... Mehretu is busy dealing with a civil war, the Atomic Shah is noticeably isolationist and seems to have a history of securing his power base above all else. Krukov cannot pivot south without conceding Western Russia- and given his turncoat general and the Siberian revolts as well as what we can tell of his own personality- there is practically zero chance Krukov won't be directly commanding the majority of his forces, which massively limits his ability to spread himself around. Bintang is so irritating because of her ability to concentrate and disperse forces, we're never going to bring her to battle without an overwhelming naval advantage or an invasion of Malaysia- so it's moot either way. Karachi does nothing to keep her and the Indian warlord from linking up.
I'm not worried about Mehretu, he, with the 10 Rings, can smash their heads against the Caravanserai for all I care. That is more then enough of a distraction for him.
It was not a paltry attack by any means, but it was one that relied on surprise. A telltale blow of the Ten Rings, of hidden ships designed in the same manner as the Queen of the Seas advised. But then, it's not the Ten Rings. They're now worn by Mehretu, the faction vassalized under the weight of his accomplishments and threats. Threats that terrorized and 'reminded' the Caravanserai then. Zayyin had enough of those.
...
The Arabian Peninsula is theirs, and though this act of rebellion is not enough a recompense for the murder of his grandson and others, this is the most effective method. Isfahani's nukes would not reach Mehretu. Neither will the Gana of the Ganges. The arch-culprit shall starve, and his end will not be swift.
This endeavor is risky, however. Any misstep or overreach would count this as more than mutiny, but rather that of open rebellion. Changing chitin for feathers. That would have courted more than resignation from Isfahani and indifference from India. But as long as they keep to the Peninsula, Insha Allah they're safe.
Not only is Mehretu busy with digesting the 10 Rings and integrating them into his command, he is also dealing with the Caravanserai cutting his supply lines from India and Iran. Which is a massive win in my book as anything that stops/stymies the only warlord with no noted major weaknesses and a specialty in infiltration and espionage is huge. I'm not worried about Mehretu. Our main weakness on that front is the Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner but now that Rekjavik is spooling up and has surpassed it, that is far less of a concern.
For Krukov, you are absolutely correct that he is not coming south. Especially now that one of his super-weapons was captured by the Initiative. While I'm fairly certain he has put down the revolts and resistance against his control. It is possible he has only driven it under ground. I don't know. But in any event he would find it difficult to move south anyway as that area is a massive Red Zone with the only viable paths being right next to a fortress known as BZ-18 on the Tibetan Plateau, and even before all that, moving a lot of metal through Central Asia has historically been a logistical nightmare. But he and his subordinates are supported by favor trading from India through that route. How else did the Gana used in the Remembrancer raids get to the north? It wasn't by sailing all the way around from the Indian Ocean up through the Pacific or Atlantic to the Arctic that is for sure. By getting Karachi we can put pressure on those routes, which we know to exist. Especially if a link can be made from Karachi to BZ-18, that would cut off half the routes north from India to Krukov and limit their support for his attempts to smash his face into our fortresses.
As noted in the 'The Regency War: Part 2' Isfahani's nukes and Ganas from India are being traded with other warlords. In specific with Mehretu. Those deals are not happening by sea. They are happening by land because otherwise the Caravanserai wouldn't be able to intercept them. Which makes sense. There are a limited number of cargo subs NOD as a whole has available, and unlike the ICS what they definitely aren't is cheep. They simply can't trade massive volumes of goods through subs. Especially biological and semi-biological organisms like Gana which require food, water, waste disposal systems, a certain amount of space to keep muscles from locking up, caretakers, etc. So they have to go over land. Or if they are transported by sub, it takes a lot more volume then transporting weapons or ammunition would.
As for Bintang, at present there are reasons she hasn't left the area of the South China Sea and Indonesia, which are exactly what enables her to be so irritating in concentrating and dispersing her forces. Those islands are filled with hidden shipyards and ports. Which allows her to hit and fade the trade that passes though her area especially that which goes from Japan and Korea to Australia and new Zealand, and from either of those to BZ 4 in the Arabian Peninsula. She can sustain operations away from her haunting grounds for two reasons, first is we'd hit her support structure if we found out she was raiding as far afield as the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. Even if her ships could travel at 40 kts its a 2900 nm trip from Karachi to Singapore and that would take her 3 days if she found out and started returning immediately when we started hitting her. That is more than enough time to cripple her infrastructure and retreat back to Australia or Japan if necessary. The second is she'd have few places to hide on the trip from Indonesia to the Arabian Sea. That is a lot of open water, and while you can hide in that it's a lot harder when your opponent has orbital support. So I don't think she could raid that far and as such she couldn't raid a hypothetical supply line from Oman to Karachi.
What does worry me about Karachi is the general weakening of our fleet over all. Not the specific supplies to Karachi, but because we would need to pull ships to support that line, it would weaken our escorts elsewhere. Its why I'm so in favor of beefing up our convoy escort navy in general, even if it will take time for the ships to fully roll off the line. We even now need hulls to secure our supply lines.
Still, I believe it is worth it (once we have Carrier Conversions are in the water and the first set of Frigates rolling out of the yard) to secure a link to BZ-18 and put pressure on India. The goal isn't to take all of India, its to restrict their options and movements.
But above all- you seem to be operating under the misconception that these individual Warlords, or a small coalition are capable of building up harder than we are. Unless things are going MAD, the calculus is shifting in our direction. Even with literally all of the Asian continent under NOD's control, which it's not going to be- we still have a larger industrial base. We still have access to far more resources, and given space- literally infinitely more room to expand and exploit. Time, in regard to NOD, is not our enemy. This war is happening entirely because NOD is realizing time is increasingly their enemy and they need to coalesce soon if they want any shot at winning TW 4. So... not only do I think you misrepresent the risk, I think you ignore that NOD's imperative right now is to act. If they were content to build up in secrecy right now, the Regency War would literally not be happening.
I don't think we will lose if we don't put pressure on India/Iran but I do think that in the long run it will be easier for us. Just because certain warlords are feeling the pressure not all of them are. NOD isn't a unified block, India especially has enormous amounts of territory not restricted by us or the Red Zones. A supposition supported by how India isn't attacking BZ-18, while Krukov and his subordinates have. With Karachi we'd start applying that pressure to make sure they are thinking more about securing their backyard then selling Gana to Gideon, Krukov, or Mehretu. With Karachi we have we'd have more up-to-date intel on the Ghana as well, instead of the first we hear of a new species is the finalized product raiding a research facility, we'd have then sending more prototypes against us, and while that could let them improve their designs faster, it would also give us time to analyze their designs and develop countermeasures before the final product hits us. Because thats just it, India is content to build up in secrecy. They could be constantly attacking Tibet or raiding Oman, but they aren't. We've faced attacks from a lot of directions but not one from there. And that concerns me deeply.
Hey im new to this quest and enjoyed reading it it a great deal.
Just a quick question, what happened to the income inbetween plans? I mean it would be almost 1000 by this point, where does it go?
It goes to literally everyone else. Total GDI income is fairly close to 2000 resources per quarter, but you don't get to keep all of it. Some of it goes to upkeep of what you build, some of it goes to things like the Welfare department to actually pay doctors. Some of it goes to the military, some of it goes to the dozens of other things that need doing.
The only thing we get out of going to Karachi is intelligence.
Nod India isn't forced to attack because we build a fortress in Pakistan. Karachi isn't going to prevent them from shipping Gana to other warlords. Looking at the map, it's clear that there are multiple routes from India into Central Asia.
Once we build Karachi, we will have to install a substantial garrison force there, because Nod India could decide to launch a major offensive against the city at any time. Krukov has a large air force, along with an elite force of airmobile infantry, so he could also attack the city at any time. And Karachi is very far from GDI's centers of power; the only nearby Blue Zone is Oman, which I believe is a relative backwater.
We don't need to apply pressure to every warlord. We need to focus on crushing the warlords in our own backyard, reducing them to the level of the Taliban. Once they lack the military assets to oppose us in the field, we can just move in and start sweeping up the civilian population. Send out enormous convoys with armored transports and tell everyone that there's a tiny tiny apartment waiting for them in a Green Zone.
We're not going to try to plant garrisons in every part of Europe or North America. We can just move in and start gathering up the people. Nod Europe can hide in the Pyrenees for the next century, but they won't have the population to be more than an unusually capable band of rebels.
Nod will probably end up controlling a lot of territory, especially in North America. That won't matter much, because GDI can keep sweeping through and taking everyone who wants to leave. They'll be left without the civilian workforce they need to sustain a proper military, and we can live with Nod technicals raiding frontier towns for the next fifty years. That kind of endemic warfare is normal in the Tiberium world.
Europe. Australia. North America. If things go well, perhaps Mexico or even North Africa? We consolidate, we fight close to our centers of power, and we gather more people. Territory, too, but the land is secondary. What matters is that Nod won't have the ability to stop us from moving through an area and taking the civilian population.
The insurgent swims in the sea of the people. Drain the sea, and Nod Europe and Nod North America will be reduced to second-rate warlords.
But we do need info on India. We know for a fact that they're shipping out nukes and bioweapons, and that the bioweapons are improving. We will need to stop them shipping out, preferably sooner rather than later, and info is what we need on India most right now. Or at the very least, ignoring it is the worst option.
Edit: also "it won't be a complete fix so don't even try to interfere at all" is a pretty bad argument.
Missions:
Tiberium Heist
Preparations for the heist had begun months ago. Carter and associates had carefully put together a team of experts to perform this delicate mission. Together they had developed the plan and overcome "the first stages of their characters arcs" as the Admiral had put it. Once all developments were completed and all equipment manufactured and delivered into orbit, the heist was on.
A few days later, Pathfinder arrived at Venus, quietly entering orbit due to its reactionless drive. Equipment was checked and the plan discussed one more time, before the first stage of the Heist began. Sonic bombs, courtesy of Zone Command, were dropped onto the Tiberium field beneath them. The explosions barely disturbed the apocalyptic storms of hot acid that waged eternally on the surface beneath them. Disposable probes revealed the first stage had been successful and thus stage two was on.
Quickly, a score of grabber probes were released from pathfinder cargo bay, high precision guidance modules directing them to where the bombs had dropped. Due to their simplicity there was not much actual control the teams had over the probes once they entered the lower atmosphere and they had to watch as many of them were blown off course by the strong wind.
Yet one of them made it through. Probe number fifteen landed perfectly, immediately scooping up a piece of Tiberium, before activating its balloons. The team went over to stage three, the extraction part of the heist was on.
Remote controlled from Pathfinder, the atmospheric drone circled above where the prize would rise over the acid clouds. They were slightly off, the drone controller being required to use the emergency fuel reserve before she hooked the probe container in the last minute of atmospheric operational time.
With the atmospheric fuel expended, the drone activated its rocket drive and sped upwards, away from the horrific hell beneath it and towards the stars. It took Pathfinder only minutes to match the orbit. The containment of the sample in the Tomb had been planned and trained for at length and it went ahead without a hitch. The Tomb was pulled back into the ship and connected to power systems in the cargo hold ahead of schedule and the team took a minute to say goodbye to the drone and probe that had brought them here, watching it slowly drift away from Pathfinder, on an orbit that would see it crashing back into the Veneran Tiberium field in a few hours.
The ride home and the transfer of the sample onto Thanatos Station was only noteworthy in the orbit Pathfinder took to get there, carefully approaching in the moon's shadow. The actual transfer was unproblematic, requiring only a switch of power and coolant pipes before Pathfinder returned to Earth.
Rover Delivery-Mars
Deployment of two rovers with martian landing modules has not been of great spectacle.
Belt Probing
Belt probing continues, finally exploring all the planned asteroid clusters. While not much data of scientific interest was discovered this quarter, the Treasury department has been quite interested in the full analysis. The Asteroid Belt is potentially the largest source of resources outside of Tiberium Glaciers, though any development of the Belt is outside SCED's remit.
Test Asteroid Collection
Collection of the satellite was a difficult operation. Its unusual shape and mass distribution made maneuvering it needlessly difficult. Transport was simple, since the GDrive does not care for the mass it carries. Arriving at Enterprise station, the asteroid was removed from the cargo hold and carefully maneuvered over for observation and documentation before being chucked into Enterprise's refineries.
New Johnson Training Center (Stage 5) 438/400
Following another round of investment even more classes, facilities and training programs for Astrotechs are added. However, the small organization rapidly races towards the limits of its training, administration and organizational capabilities. One more expansion is in the cards, bringing the SCEDs training output to 200 new Astrotechs per year, but after that either the Treasury picks up the slack or the SCED will need to invest in automating part of the work its space rated workforce handles.
Advanced Lunar Base Stage 2 10/10 Facilities 50C 50LC 50 E-IP
The next generation lunar habitat serving the basis for the SCEDs research outpost has been completed. Reminiscent of a tiny open air village under a hardened dome of steel and pressed regolith protecting the inhabitants from micrometeorites and radiation, the base is at the moment certainly the nicest place on Luna, with vastly more room for personal space and green areas illuminated by soft artificial lights on the ceiling. From here the base crew can start working on the more advanced lunar projects, testing and building up infrastructure to hopefully make the overall effort of colonization a little easier.
Grav Plate Rover Integration 38/250
Grav Plate integration has only progressed slowly. Since the high-tech machines can and are supposed to operate with speeds unthinkable for Earthside vehicles a number of safety features need to be considered, developed and integrated to avoid the pilots, passengers and cargo becoming streaks of metallic and organic debris on the Moon's surface.
Radiation Shimmer Shield Development 188/100
Completing the integration of the radiation blocking Shimmer Shield variant was not only about figuring out the technology for the SCED's use, but also about gathering experience with the still very novel technology. For future projects, RnD is no longer dependent on manually adjusting the emitters themselves and instead can focus on optimizing the plasma waveform pattern and bubble shape coefficients.
Mark II Fusion Engine 343/300
The prototype for the MK II engine has reached operational and optimized status. While only offering marginally improved performance compared to the original, the new ignition system is the true technological advancement. It took some cooperation with a separate GDI Research group experimenting on Scrin Microfusion to tweak and optimize the igniter, but the collaborationcooperation was a success. Utilizing deuterium pellets, a superconductor wrapped magnetic ignition-concentration chamber and a series of crystal laser flash arrays, the Ignition System can restart the fusion press with reasonable power usage at a button press. In theory the new engine allows for many successive burns of arbitrary length instead of the handful of engine activations that limited previous operations. With the formfactor being very different, a refit of existing craft would be very costly and with the advances made a completely new Leopard and Union model is now in consideration.
He3-extraction Experiments 120/100
After many failures and delays, the extraction experiments have finally born fruit. The regolith first has to be crushed into microscopic powder before it is funneled into a specialized, Helium-tight chamber. Here, it is slowly heated and the released gas pumped into a cryogenic separator that separates the different elements, expected to be water, oxygen and trace gasses, including Helium. The relative yield is high, the absolute yield low, and it is expected to be just barely worth the effort once implemented at industrial scales.
Craterscope 420/300
The Craterscope will be large, it will be powerful, it will be able to detect the presence of planets around stars lightyears away, and most notably, it will be expensive. Each part of the telescope will require absurdly high precision in development, manufacturing, construction and operation. Development for the base components alone will require upwards of 1.3 Billion GDI credits (130 Capital) and unclear amounts for optimization and construction, with the planners hoping for the minimum viable price not to exceed 10 Billion credits (1000 Capital). One of the main causes for the high cost is the need to outsource some of the components to a factory capable of large-volume and high-precision production, something the SCED's modular manufacturing is unsuited for. One finished, the Craterscope will observe the night sky and over months and years collect light from distant stars. using high end computers to find patterns in the data that suggest the presence of planets and more.
Orbital Scan Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume Saturn is over 95 times more massive.
Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock. Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but which has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's. The outer atmosphere is generally bland and lacking in contrast, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h, higher than on Jupiter but not as high as on Neptune.
With most of the theory of Jupiter's and Saturns inner makeup derived from the current theories of planetary formation, an observation array is required to collect data to support or cast doubt on that theory.
Orbital Scan Saturn's rings + minor moons
Saturn's satellite system is very lopsided: one moon, Titan, comprises more than 96% of the mass in orbit around the planet. The six other planemo moons constitute roughly 4% of the mass, and the remaining 75 small moons, together with the rings, comprise only 0.04%. So far out from the sun the SCED expects to mainly find water, but maybe they'll be surprised.
SCEDQuest Q2 2060
This Side Quest was allowed by Ithillid and is supposed to be fun. Things happening in SCEDQuest will be affected by the main one, but unless Ithillid says otherwise it is only semi-canon.
Budget: 125 Capital + 928 Capital Reserve
Industrial Capacity: 120 IP
Pathfinder Time: 90 Days
Astronaut Teams: 3 (+4 per Plan)
Astrotech Teams: -2 (+1 per turn, +3 per year)
Earth-Luna:
Earthside Facilities (Unlimited Dice)
[]Tanegashima Space Center (Stage 5: Last Stage)
The last few years have seen a number of industrial manufacturing advancements that can be applied to the site's diverse set of facilities.
(20 Capital per Die 88/500)(+50IP)
[]Isolinear Chip Printer (Phase 1)
Iso-computers have massive implications for space electronics, where their efficient, compact nature could lead to better control electronics. With the current supply extremely limited, the SCED would need to build their own printer to get access to the precious crystals.
(15 Capital per Die 0/200)
(Phase 2)(0/50 IP)(Enables Iso Projects)
[]New Johnson Training Center (Stage 6: Last Stage)
With the pool of qualified astronaut candidates thinning, SCED looks at more specialized personnel to bolster their ranks. Qualifications to become an Astrotech are still fairly high and require the right training and preparation facilities.
(25 Capital per Die 38/400)(+1 Astronaut Team per Plan, +2 Astrotech Team per year)
Earth-Orbit Facilities:
[]Gagarin Station (Stage 4)
(1/10 Gagarin Station Parts; 5C and 10 IP per Part)(-1 Pathfinder maintenance time, +2 Mission planning die, +1 Research Die)(-3 Astrotech Teams)(For one station part per turn, the E-IP cost is waived)
[]Enterprise Orbital Assembler (Phase 1 of 4)
With the industrial space and resources available on Enterprise station steadily growing has come the possibility of other GDI departments besides the Treasury to get a piece of the orbital manufacturing station's capacity. Luckily Developmentalist, Starbound and even a few Militarist politicians continue to look out for the SCED and have reserved some of the station space for the small organization.
(0/100 IP)(+30 IP)
Lunar Facilities (1 Die available):
[]Craterscope Foundations (Phase 1)
The crater chosen to house the Craterscope will require some preparations and cleanup before any kind of large scale facility can be built there.
(0/10 Foundation Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part)
(Phase 2)(0/300)
[]Ore Electrolysis Test Facility Foundations (Phase 1)
With Luna not really offering potential for a chemical industry, ore will need to be refined with other methods. Electrolysis is not a new process to GDI, but trying it on Luna is no doubt going to result in new issues that need solving. The SCED can try to work out some of these kinks before work begins in earnest. Step 1 is a building to house the test facility.
(0/4 Foundation Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part))
(Phase 2)(0/85)
[]Aquaponics Test Facility (Phase 1)
While large scale agriculture is not yet required with the limited lunar population, a proper test site will not only make fresh food available to the astronauts, but also offer valuable experience.
(0/4 Foundation Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part))
(Phase 2)(0/85)
(Phase 3)(0/20 IP)(-1 Astrotech)(Enables practical lunar agriculture tests)
[]Lunar Imaging Seismic Array (Phase 1)
LISA can be deployed from orbit, the pods landing and burying their sensors by themselves. The SCED will expand the array region by region, scanning each for available volcanic caves.
(0/10 Sensor Pods; 4C, 2 Launch Cap and 4 E-IP per Sensor Pod)
[]Pathfinder Landing Dock (Phase 1)
Pathfinder theoretically has the capability to land on and leave the lunar surface under its own power, but without the proper facilities this is only a theoretical possibility.
(0/3 Foundation Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part))
(Phase 2)(0/65)
[]Fusion Craft Landing Platform (Phase 1)
Currently, there is no proper landing and take off space for Leopards and Unions near the SCED base, construction of a few dedicated platforms free of dust would assist operations massively.
(0/4 Foundation Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part))
(Phase 2)(0/65)(-1 Astrotechs)(+1 Lunar Die)
Martian Facilities (13 Pathfinder days):
[]Initial Martian SCED Research Base
The initial base will follow a similar pattern to the lunar one. A number of prefabricated habitat units, connected to life support and power. However, the different environmental needs require custom-built facilities to deal with the slight atmosphere, windblown dust, and more normalized day-night cycle.
(0/10 Facilities; 7C, 5 Launch Cap and 5 E-IP per Facility)(-1 Astronaut Team)
[]Mars Gate Station
Since Mars is not in Leopard or Union range from Earth, a station needs to be constructed to serve as a gateway between Pathfinder and the groundside bases. From there, fuel, supplies and personnel can be transferred into the Multi-Use Landing Vehicles for transfer between the ground and orbit.
(0/5 Station Parts; 10 E-Launch Cap, 5C and 10 E-IP per Part)(Astrotech Teams -2)(For one station part per turn, the E-IP cost is waived)
Assembly
[]Pathfinder Shielding Refit (0/30C, 0/10IP, 30 Pathfinder days)
Refitting Pathfinder with Shimmer Shield projectors will require some dock work at Gagarin station to rewire the power systems and fiddle around with the hull.
(Enables operations inside gas giant radiation belts)
[]Lunar Base Hard Case Space Suit Outfit(0/25IP, 0/12C)
When the SCED started out they had enough hardcase void armors for every astronaut on site. Now this is no longer the case; another production run is required to outfit the Astrotechs on site.
(+1 Lunar Die)
Development (7 Dice) +20
[]Grav Plate Rover Integration 38/250 (8C/Die+8IP/Die)
The grav plate technology is ready for integration. Most interesting for the SCED would be using the technology for rovers as the rocky surface of planets make traversal via ground contact wheels difficult. Grav plates would enable rovers to travel vast distances safely at absurd speeds due to the lower air and ground resistance.
[]Ore Electrolysis Smelter Development 0/200 (2C/Die+4IP/DIe)
Electrolysis can be used to extract metal from oxidized ore. With Luna lacking the prerequisites for a chemical industry, electro-chemistry will be needed for all on-site refinement. While Enterprise has seen and solved many of the issues involved already, it does so through sheer brute force. SCED is looking to refine the ores without needing to dedicate as much space, power and other resources for the production of raw material in a lunar environment.
[]Atmospheric Containment Shimmer Optimization 0/400 (1C/Die)
Hypothetically, a shimmer shield could be used to keep oxygen atoms from being sucked out into vacuum, however doing so will require a lot of tweaking of shield parameters.
[]Microteorite Shimmer Optimization 0/200 (1C/Die)
Micrometeorites, anything sized from tennis balls to dust grains, are a constant threat to orbital infrastructure. Tweaking shimmer projectors to protect against these projectiles should be relatively easy.
[]Leopard Mk II Development 0/275 (6C/Die+6IP/Die) (High Priority)
A large number of advancements in fusion engines, materials, electronics and other fields have made the original Leopard almost obsolete. A second generation Leopard would be an iterative improvement to GDIs orbital construction efforts and may also enable the creation of more specialized craft for personnel and VIP transfer.
[]Union Fabricator Craft Development 0/225 (6C/Die+6IP/Die)
Another idea is more or less sticking a machine shop on a Union fusion craft, which would allow for advanced fabrication on site. Probably not quite to the point where putting together a station out of bar stock is possible, but significantly more than any current systems available.
[]Tick Tank Dig Experiments 0/150 (3C/Die+4IP/Die)
The Tick Tank has a unique digging system that may be useful in extraterrestrial construction, but first a few groundside experiments will need to be performed.
Craterscope Projects (Warning: Some of these will have quality rolls; Quality can be improved)(Access to up to 5 Outside Dev Dice, each costs an extra 10C/Die)
[]Craterscope Structure Development 0/600 (6C/Die)(Required)
The Structure will be the glue holding the systems together. Providing power, computational capacity, accommodations for maintenance and research staff and protection from asteroids and solar radiation when the system is not in use.
[]Craterscope Mirror System Development 0/400 (4C/Die+1IP/Die)(Required)
The mirror system will collect the light from a tiny portion of the sky over hundreds of square meters and focus it onto a point as small as a stamp. It will require absolute precision in the micrometer range in both tilt control and manufacturing.
[]Craterscope Imaging Sensor Development 0/500 (8C/Die+1IP/Die)(Required)
The craterscope Imaging sensor will be one of the most advanced pieces of technology GDI currently is capable of producing. It will need to be capable of detecting single photons in a wide frequency range and allow the SCED to extract useful data from the minimal data collected.
[]Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer Development 0/200 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Using spectroscopy on the light given off by a planet's atmosphere, the makeup of that atmosphere can be extrapolated. Given the distances and projected minimum data required the Analyzer will need to be able to extract even more information out of an even smaller area of the sky.
[]Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 0/200 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Detection of an Asteroid belt will be an even greater challenge since they are barely hotter than the cosmic background in most cases. However, using anomalies in photon gravitic phase shift should allow for at least confirming the position of asteroid belts in a solar system as long as they are not too far away from their center star.
[]Craterscope Tiberium Detector 0/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Tiberium gives off very particular frequencies of light and radiation patterns. By adding a sensor module tweaked for these frequencies and particles, we could detect Tiberium on planets in other solar systems.
[]Craterscope Moon Detector 0/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Moons are in a similar spot as Asteroid belts, but require a less specialized sensor module to detect the subtle shifts in orbital movement and gravitic redshift caused by orbiting moons.
Space Command Mission Planning (4 Dice) +5
[]Mission: Orbital Scan (Write-in) (for example: Luna, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter) (Requires one Die)(Gas Giants have the main planet, each major moon, and rings+minor moons as locations)
-Charon (Requires one Die)
[]Voyager Visitation 0/150
The Voyager probes were the first and only of Mankind's creations that reached the Interstellar void between the stars. Their position has long been lost, but it could be extrapolated and, using Pathfinder, the SCED could catch up to their theoretical position to place a higher power beacon next to them and the probes inside a protective, armored shell if found.
Missions
Total Pathfinder Time: 90 days
Current Maintenance time: 3 days
Mercury: 9 days
Venus: 9 days
Mars: 10 days
Asteroid Belt: 13 days
Jupiter: 20 days
Saturn: 26 days
Uranus: 36 days
Neptune: 45 days
Pluto: 51 days
Mercury (12 Pathfinder days)
---
Venus (12 Pathfinder days)
---
Luna
[]Pardus Mission-Luna
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location, 1 Manned Mission)
(19/20 Locations surveyed)
Mars (13 Pathfinder days)
[]Rover Delivery-Mars
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location)(22/50 locations surveyed)
Asteroid Belt (16 Pathfinder days)
[]Ceres Rover Delivery
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location)(0/15 Locations surveyed)
Jupiter (23 Pathfinder days)
[]Observation Array - Jupiter
(0/10 Observation Satellites 6IP+3 Capital per Satellite)
[]Surface Scan - Callisto
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 5 Pathfinder days)
[]Surface Scan - Ganymede
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 5 Pathfinder days if Shields are refitted)
[]Surface Scan - Io
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 5 Pathfinder days if Shields are refitted)
[]Surface Scan - Europa
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 5 Pathfinder days if Shields are refitted)
[]Observation Probes - Minor Moons + Rings
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 5 Pathfinder days if Shields are refitted)
Saturn (29 Pathfinder days)
[]Observation Array - Saturn
(0/10 Observation Satellites 6IP+3 Capital per Satellite)
[]Observation Probes - Minor Moons + Rings
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 5 Pathfinder days if Shields are refitted)
--Derpmind Note: This SCED Probability Array may or may not be updated in the future, depending on if I can train BOT-cat to do it himself or not. Vote by Plan. Comments and critiques are welcome.
But we do need info on India. We know for a fact that they're shipping out nukes and bioweapons, and that the bioweapons are improving. We will need to stop them shipping out, preferably sooner rather than later, and info is what we need on India most right now. Or at the very least, ignoring it is the worst option.
Edit: also "it won't be a complete fix so don't even try to interfere at all" is a pretty bad argument.
The nukes come from the "Shah of Atom", not India. We have no means of stopping India from shipping out bioweapons. Looking at a map, it's clear that a city on the west coast would do nothing to prevent them from sending bioweapons east to Bintang or north to Krukov.
It won't be a complete fix, or even a partial fix. It will be a very expensive intelligence-gathering operation. We should spend our resources to cripple the Nod presence in our own territory before we start a fight halfway around the world.
hmm, so we actually have a piece of Venusian Tiberium on hand now.
Think that should be a relatively high priority to study as soon as we can, as being able to study how its mutated and compare two entirely different strains of Tiberium should drastically increase GDI's knowledge of how Tib works in general.
[X] Plan Sunrise
-[X]Earthside Facilities (Unlimited Dice)
--[X]Isolinear Chip Printer (Phase 1) 5 dice 75C, 50IP 79%
(15 Capital per Die 0/200)
(Phase 2)(0/50 IP)(Enables Iso Projects)
--[X]New Johnson Training Center (25 Capital per Die 38/400)(+1 Astronaut Team per Plan, +2 Astrotech Team per year) 7 dice 175C 46%
--[X]Tanegashima Space Cente(20 Capital per Die 88/500)(+50IP) 10 dice 200C 84%
-[X]Earth-Orbit Facilities
--[X]Enterprise Orbital Assembler (Phase 1 of 4)(0/100 IP)(+30 IP) 1 IP
-[X]Lunar Facilities (1 Die available
-[X]Fusion Craft Landing Platform (0/4 Foundation Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part)(0/65)(+1 Lunar Die) 1 Lunar die, 16IP 16C
(Phase 2)(0/65)(-1 Astrotechs)(+1 Lunar Die)
-[X] Martian Facilities (13 Pathfinder days):
--[X] Mars Gate Station 0/5 1 fee part
-[X]Assembly 25IP 12C
--[X]Lunar Base Hard Case Space Suit Outfit(0/25IP, 0/12C)(+1 Lunar Die)
-[X]Development (7 Dice) +20 (Outside Dev Dice cost an extra 25C/Die) 12 dice = 5 outside = 50C
-[X]Leopard Mk II Development 0/275 (6C/Die+6IP/Die) (High Priority) 4 dice 24C 24IP 55%
-[X]Craterscope Structure Development 0/600 (6C/Die)(Required) 8 dice 48C 33%
-[X]Space Command Mission Planning (4 Dice) +5
-[X] Manned Landing (Ceres) 0/100 2 dice 61%
-[X] Manned Landing (Europa) 0/100 2 dice 61%
-[X] Asteroid Belt (16 Pathfinder days)
-[X]Pardus Mission-Luna 4IP 2C
-[X]Jupiter (23 Pathfinder days)
--[X]Surface Scan - Callisto(5 Pathfinder days)
120/120 IP
561/1053C rest is reserved for the carterscope later phases
As the foundations of the Carterscope will take a few more turns, it needs 300 progress and we have 3 lunar dice we can use on it at the next turn we can do the first high priority project of SCED Quest: Leopard Mk II Development.
More dice on the leopards would cut into trying to get 3 lunar dice or getting a factory for the new Isolinear operational.
Not true. Karachi gets us a shorter, more defensible logistics corridor to the Himalaya BZ--you'll note the reason it's a Plan goal in the first place was that was the deal we made for a +10 Infrastructure bonus. The India stuff is just a side bonus.
If nothing else, consider that it obviates the need to discover if the Himalaya's siege preparations have paid off the hard way.
