- Location
- The Underdark
Harvesting Claws. Bit better than what you have as standard in some ways, worse in others. Now you have both options so you can get a bit more efficiency out of mining operations cheaply compared to the tendrils.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Location
- USA
Wow. That's excellent. Now we can do both and have clawed harvesting tendrils.
They double as giant Dr. Octopus tentacles for self defense!
They double as giant Dr. Octopus tentacles for self defense!
Why do I suddenly have this mental image of Cthulhu'esk crabs harvesting Tiberium? :rubs temples:
- Location
- USA
The aliens come back and see what we've done with their tech.
"...what is that?!? That is so weird."
"...what is that?!? That is so weird."
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hm.
My thought is this.
Scrin harvester tendrils sound like they're ideal for environments where you need versatility and the ability to hoover up lots of tiberium efficiently, and expense isn't so much of an object. Like MARVs and vein mines. (Especially vein mines, because now you can just have a single robot that burrows its way down the tiberium vein, hoovering stuff up as it goes with its forward-mounted tentacles, I'd think...)
For regular harvesters, especially regular harvesters in Yellow/Red Zones that might be exposed to Nod attack, the Nod claws are arguably better because they're more efficient without either (1) having tech Nod doesn't already have, or (2) using precious STUs on something that's likely to get blown up in the middle of a tiberium field and wind up as a pile of rubble in the process of getting converted into a pile of tib.
- Location
- USA
As if I did not view harvesting tendrils as a priority rollout in tib before- if it can increase our ability to combat the tib growing beneath us than that is big.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Honestly, I think they'd be more useful down there than in mining surface tiberium.
Our existing surface harvesters work and can chew up big deposits. Depending on what the tendrils actually do, they could be revolutionary at mining out underground deposits, especially ones that are twisty or narrow.
The unique way they vacuum up Tib will probably be revolutionary for filtering particulates of it out of water.
- Location
- USA
They could combo in some way.
The claws could increase harvesters ability to grab tiberium deposits and internal tendrils could strip the tiberium out, condense and store it efficiently, then have the harvester expel whatevers left.
Or multiple harvester types. Huge claw based ones attacking big deposits and smaller tendril based ones following after to filter any tiberium bits from the ground.
Lots of options. Definitely in favor of researching both.
The claws could increase harvesters ability to grab tiberium deposits and internal tendrils could strip the tiberium out, condense and store it efficiently, then have the harvester expel whatevers left.
Or multiple harvester types. Huge claw based ones attacking big deposits and smaller tendril based ones following after to filter any tiberium bits from the ground.
Lots of options. Definitely in favor of researching both.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Both would be great, but the claws are probably about three turns from the development stage. And personally, I'm in favor of developing tendrils later, war isn't the time to be looking at Harvester redesigns anyway. So do we want to put them off until tendrils and claws can be codeveloped?
Yeah there's no rush for either right this moment, unlike Tick Tank which would actively help our ongoing construction projects. Something to throw a spare dice or two if we have them just to see what options get unlocked, but no need to prioritise them in the middle of a war.
- Location
- USA
I think one of the lessons we needed to learn from the navy debacle is to develop stuff when we can.
I don't think we are committed to any particular design until we actually build them.
So we can research tendrils now. See what we can get from them. If stuff passively gets phased in. If we need to do redesigns or retrofits, or if we get something totally unexpected like T-Glass.
I don't think anyone wants to do redesigns at the moment (unless they are so amazing we absolutely want them now) so those can sit for a bit.
We research other stuff. Get the claws. Maybe level hovertech up. THEN commit to a redesign.
Shouldn't be too big of a deal.
I don't think we are committed to any particular design until we actually build them.
So we can research tendrils now. See what we can get from them. If stuff passively gets phased in. If we need to do redesigns or retrofits, or if we get something totally unexpected like T-Glass.
I don't think anyone wants to do redesigns at the moment (unless they are so amazing we absolutely want them now) so those can sit for a bit.
We research other stuff. Get the claws. Maybe level hovertech up. THEN commit to a redesign.
Shouldn't be too big of a deal.
There are two types of development options:
-platforms
-technologies
Technologies start iterating as soon as we develop them, so the earlier we develop them (all else being equal) the better off we'll be in the long run.
Platforms freeze the design based on our technology level at time of development, as seen with the Orcas. Platforms should only be developed immediately prior to when we intend to deploy them.
-platforms
-technologies
Technologies start iterating as soon as we develop them, so the earlier we develop them (all else being equal) the better off we'll be in the long run.
Platforms freeze the design based on our technology level at time of development, as seen with the Orcas. Platforms should only be developed immediately prior to when we intend to deploy them.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
We followed that strategy with the Navy, and that was the problem. The Navy has a 3-6 turn delay between when we finish the shipyard and when the ships enter service. So it might be best if once we finish this yard rush for the frigates and carriers that we develop another ship and then start investing in the next set of yards.
Maybe this is a problem of terminology? By development I mean doing the development research. By deploy I mean work on the factories with the intention of completing them.
Developing and then immediately working on the next ship class after the current slate is perfectly fine.
It would be developing the next ship class while having no intention of working on it for the near future that would be the problem.
That said, the problem with our navy strategy was primarily:
We kept planning on doing Karachi before the first ships were projected to leave their slips, and thus land projects/airforce projects seemed like they were going to be much more helpful for the invasion. But every couple of quarters we learned new information that pushed back our planned invasion date (monsoon season pushed back the invasion to '60, combat pushed back the invasion to '61, and the latest naval rolls make it look like the earliest plausible invasion might be '62). If we had planned for a late-plan completion, or at least knew about the monsoon season in Q2 planning, we'd have made naval construction a larger priority since the ships would be projected to be able to help.
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There were issues with doing Karachi way before the monsoon came up. We messed up and left naval deployment too late, it's as simple as that.
Naval Procurement is one of the longest lead items possible besides Orbital Infrastructure and Support:
Frigates are a year long Keel to Shakedown for a 6K Ton vessel
Destroyers are a year and a quarter for a 9,000-12,000 Ton Vessel
Cruisers between 1.5 and 2 years for a 20-ish thousand ton Vessel
The Light Carriers (which went from 35,000 Tons to 50,000 Tons) are a full 3 Years atm
Battleships are a full 3 Years
Supercarriers are 5 Years.
So yea, thats how this shakes out to be, and right now those Frigates still got 2 turns before the first batch is out
Frigates are a year long Keel to Shakedown for a 6K Ton vessel
Destroyers are a year and a quarter for a 9,000-12,000 Ton Vessel
Cruisers between 1.5 and 2 years for a 20-ish thousand ton Vessel
The Light Carriers (which went from 35,000 Tons to 50,000 Tons) are a full 3 Years atm
Battleships are a full 3 Years
Supercarriers are 5 Years.
So yea, thats how this shakes out to be, and right now those Frigates still got 2 turns before the first batch is out
I won't disagree that our Karachi invasion timeline was poorly considered. My contention is that each quarter of delay without a commensurate improvement in our navy significantly increased the riskiness of the endeavor. And that we kept pushing back the Karachi invasion to the earliest possible date, rather than pushing it out to the last possible moment in the plan meant that any naval investments would only be useful in the post-Karachi invasion environment (in which they would still be important, but not the necessity that they would be if they were projected to be used for Karachi itself). Leading us into the situation that we are in now.
But the initial topic was only doing developments immediately prior to their intended deployment. Developing carriers or frigates earlier in the plan, but leaving the deployment until now, would leave us in just as bad or worse position than we are currently in. Our problem was the timing of when we started deploying ships, not that we didn't develop the ships early enough.
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Its not even like we're going to be doing Karachi for another 2 years anyways, we need to unfuck our Naval forces and also begin getting ZA out to Ground Forces.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Like in here, I've planned out a somewhat flexible 8 Year system for all 4 Military forces procurements.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Military Procurement List Cost - 100 Energy, 25 Cap Goods Ground Forces Procurement 2060 Q4 - Mastadon + Zone Defender + Lancer + Railgun Munitions Development 2061 Q1 - Mastadon Factory 1 + Zone Armor 1 + Infantry Recon Support Drone Development + Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Like in here, I've planned out a somewhat flexible 8 Year system for all 4 Military forces procurements.
- Location
- USA
I think the navy situation was caused by two separate issues.
The first is that it never felt urgent. Our convoys were running and we had the occasional skirmish but everything seemed alright. And we were doing plenty of upgrades that would help them as well.
Our air and ground forces felt much more urgent and whatever we did for them felt much more immediate. So new ships just got pushed farther and farther down in priority.
The second issue, and the one I'm personally guilty of promoting, is pushing developing escorts back till we researched other tech.
We knew wingmen would change how carriers would be designed, so we waited till the same turn we got wingmen to do escorts.
We definitely have a better ship designed than we would have but that delayed escorts by at least a year.
And since escorts were the only ships marked as priority... why spend dice on the other ships?
The first is that it never felt urgent. Our convoys were running and we had the occasional skirmish but everything seemed alright. And we were doing plenty of upgrades that would help them as well.
Our air and ground forces felt much more urgent and whatever we did for them felt much more immediate. So new ships just got pushed farther and farther down in priority.
The second issue, and the one I'm personally guilty of promoting, is pushing developing escorts back till we researched other tech.
We knew wingmen would change how carriers would be designed, so we waited till the same turn we got wingmen to do escorts.
We definitely have a better ship designed than we would have but that delayed escorts by at least a year.
And since escorts were the only ships marked as priority... why spend dice on the other ships?
There really should have been a pivot immediately after selecting Karachi but while a great deal of brainpower was put into the dice probabilities and construction challenges the perils of the operation to get in there were broadly dismissed.
I'm begging you folks, just negotiate and push it back.
I'm begging you folks, just negotiate and push it back.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I suspect we can reasonably develop them separately. What would need/'need' to be delayed is rolling out any harvester designs based on the tech. That's the thing to think about...
Basically, I want the tendrils soon in case there are specific applications we don't know about. The big, obvious one to me is (again) improved vein mining efficiency. Since we will probably have good reason to want to do a lot of vein mining in 2062,* that's something we want to gain access to sooner rather than later if it's an option.
But then we wait a bit to actually redesign any harvesters, and until the immediate current war ends to design the second-generation MARV.
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*(ZOCOM is still going to be under strain, glacier mining will be possible but there's no guarantee that we can do a lot of it safely, and we'll be awash in Capital Goods unless we utterly splurge on spending it on AEVAs, so there may never be a better time to do a lot of vein mining)
I'm a bit confused by what you're recommending here. Develop stuff when we can, but don't do designs until we want to... That's pretty much how we were doing things before. Arguably it contributed (slightly) to the naval debacle, because we had quite a bit of thread resistance to developing light carriers until we could "future-proof" them by designing them for the prospect of eventually having Orca wingman drones. Since it took us a while to get around to wingman drone development, that in turn meant we only got the option to even build carrier yards in 2060Q2, by which time it was too late, realistically, for the Navy to get any for the Regency War. Also that the drone-capable carriers are big 'light carriers' compared to the smaller and more easily manufactured 'escort carriers' the Navy originally envisioned, slowing construction at a time when the Navy is hammering the "we need hulls NOW dammit" button as hard as they can.*
Anyway, if you're right, then the argument is that we should do new platform developments sooner and rely on refits and retrofits to put the most important tech onto our newly developed platforms, instead of waiting for all the technological ducks to be in a row.
__________________________
*(I am a bit salty about this because I specifically predicted parts of that outcome. I missed the specific point that bigger, slower-completing ships would probably take longer to get into the water and that this would be a big deal during wartime, but I predicted the rest. I became persuaded that it was important and not really a problem to wait for the wingman drones, so I can't be very salty about the consequences of a decision I came to accept and indeed argued in favor of myself... but I'm still a bit grumbly about this.)
Although notably, we were talking about harvesters and MARVs, which are different (though I bet MARVs have nontrivial production lead time since they're practically land battleships).
The trick, though, is that there's a strong virtuous economic cycle to developing better harvesters. If we can gather more tiberium and push it back more aggressively sooner rather than later, that pays off in many other ways. As such, I don't think we should wait "until there is a need" so much as "until we have the foundational tech we want" when it comes to developing the next generation hover/tentacle harvester and the third-generation MARV. The third-generation MARV is particularly likely to become an issue because those are militarily exposed. So far, none of the big warlords have tried to tangle with a fully operational MARV fleet, but as their tech continues to improve and the MARVs' tech remains static, they may reach a state where fucking around and finding out starts to seem desirable to them.
The trick is that until we develop a ship, we don't have a realistic appreciation of what it's going to take to build it in the first place and it doesn't seem psychologically 'available' as an option to pursue. Projects we've developed usually at least start to take shape as a deployment (there have admittedly been exceptions), but projects we haven't developed can sit around for years and years quite routinely because we're already aware we can't develop everything and tend to prioritize the stuff we know.
I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with such a comprehensive plan for the future in that area, because the enemy gets a vote too and we may not be politically free to make all our own decisions.Its not even like we're going to be doing Karachi for another 2 years anyways, we need to unfuck our Naval forces and also begin getting ZA out to Ground Forces.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Military Procurement List Cost - 100 Energy, 25 Cap Goods Ground Forces Procurement 2060 Q4 - Mastadon + Zone Defender + Lancer + Railgun Munitions Development 2061 Q1 - Mastadon Factory 1 + Zone Armor 1 + Infantry Recon Support Drone Development + Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment...
Like in here, I've planned out a somewhat flexible 8 Year system for all 4 Military forces procurements.
With that said, I will note that I don't consider Ground Force power armor to be a prerequisite for Karachi. I say this because Ground Forces themselves doesn't consider it a prerequisite. They were ready to go for Eastern Paris without power armor; it was only the Navy informing us of the requirements and the price we'd have to pay because they lack the hulls to go on the offensive without stripping the convoy routes bare that there's even a problem.
Were you arguing for those perils at the time?
Because I feel like your position leans heavily on the idea that you're watching a bunch of idiots be idiots for not being willing to do what is obviously necessary, when in reality you're just the person who's most willing to lecture the rest of us on how idiotic it would be to do something we're all grudgingly agreeing we may not be able to do.
There's a significant incentive to wait on renegotiation until the war situation clarifies a bit, because we want to only have to do renegotiation ONCE. If Nod does something that makes, say, the Capital Goods target unreachable in 2060Q4, we don't want to have to go back and go "well shit, we need another round of renegotiations."
Next to getting the Navy sorted, and another round of wingman drones, it is likely the best force multiplier option we have, though. "Not necessary" doesn't mean "not a very good idea to take". It's a huge upgrade to our ground forces, and frees up ZOCOM. Massively expands our offensive capabilities.
Considering how much damage the minor raiders are doing to our shorelines (and either avoiding or eviscerating our hydrofoils), we might want to do the monitor development next turns. A shipyard or two could be useful as a stopgap measure until the shipyards finish the carriers and frigates.
They'd be of minimal value in straight fleet-to-fleet fighting, or in convoy escort rolls though.
They'd be of minimal value in straight fleet-to-fleet fighting, or in convoy escort rolls though.