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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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The reduction of NOD forces in the Arabian Sea is a good sign, but the naval situation generally continues to be poor. Bintang's losses also are a good sign, but I think we should continue to heavily invest in the Navy in the coming turn. Potentially at the expense of the wingmen. Karachi is still not looking good, but I am maintaining that we should wait to renegotiate until Q1. More things can go wrong, and the Admin dice we would lose continue to be useful to clean up R and progress cheap projects. We want to renegotiate everything at once and if something catastrophic happens to our power generation that would cause a cascade that would prevent Capital Goods and Carrier goals, or if NOD managed an Orbital hit that would prevent the Lunar Mine and Enterprise goals. We can afford to be patient in this, just in case.
 
doruma1920 said:
The reduction of NOD forces in the Arabian Sea is a good sign, but the naval situation generally continues to be poor. Bintang's losses also are a good sign, but I think we should continue to heavily invest in the Navy in the coming turn. Potentially at the expense of the wingmen. Karachi is still not looking good, but I am maintaining that we should wait to renegotiate until Q1. More things can go wrong, and the Admin dice we would lose continue to be useful to clean up R and progress cheap projects. We want to renegotiate everything at once and if something catastrophic happens to our power generation that would cause a cascade that would prevent Capital Goods and Carrier goals, or if NOD managed an Orbital hit that would prevent the Lunar Mine and Enterprise goals. We can afford to be patient in this, just in case.
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Oh, I agree with waiting till Q1, we still do have a chance, but while I was mildly optimistic that we would not even need to renegotiate at all, I am less optimistic now. This said, waiting for now is something I support.
 
I'm pretty sure that we are going to see some penalties from waiting until the last minute to renegotiate. If based on our current estimated strength (keeping in mind that it will be 18 months before our first frigates are rolled out, and we are already incapable of protecting our naval convoys) we don't expect to be able to do Karachi in Q1-Q2 of next year, we should tell our partners that now. That is the professional thing to do.

Waiting until later in the slim hope of a miracle just makes us look like we are dishonest or have poor judgment, even if the miracle occurs. Whereas if we renegotiated and miracle does occur, we can still do Karachi in Q1-Q2 of next year anyways.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
If we can cut the overall project cost by several dice just by building a better laser cannon, it's well worth it- it just means that developing the better laser becomes more urgent.
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Eh. I wouldn't assume any discount.
Even ignoring the added STUs cost (which we can easily afford), this is about protecting critical sites. You don't cost-cut.
Even if the new lasers are actually cheaper, what is more likely to happen is that the project will deliver more for the same cost.
Because if you have fancier lasers, why wouldn't you try to do more with them? This could quite easily lead to feature creep, like adding laser turrets.
 
Yeah I think since it's clear that we definitely can't do Karachi we need to renegotiate ASAP. That won't change in the next 6 months and it's a real big one to miss, especially with a serious Infra crunch. Gulati taking her +10 and going home will hurt enough, and if she wants she can probably take other chunks of the Infra department with her, or be a political thorn in our side.

I think we know enough about how expensive the war is after 6 months to renegotiate now, even if theoretically the situation could still evolve in another 6 months. It's sure as hell not going to get any better in the next 6 months so the responsible thing to do is tell Parliament that now, as soon as we know. If we pretend everything's fine for another 6 months, they won't be more happy with us suddenly saying it's fucked and we need to drop X, Y, and Z. Prime them now with the idea that the economy's fucked, if Kane blows up the Enterprise 6 months from now then we'll re-renegotiate with a Parliament that at least was already aware and used to the idea that we're in a spot of trouble.
 
So, we lost 2 battleships (It's two. When key structural members start getting microfractures, much less cracks, that ship's almost certainly written off) and a third is in drydock for at least a couple turns for repairs. Also, it seems like once the batch of escort carriers is out of the docks, we won't be getting another batch from there for a bit since we need replacement battleships. Upside, over in the Indian Ocean, the Horn of Africa isn't really a threat to us any more, so things are a tad safer in the western Indian Ocean.
 
Ithillid said:
The Order of the Remembrancer was certainly not about to allow this affront to Krukov (and by proxy the rest of the Brotherhood of Nod) to stand.
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Soon. We'll settle all debts soon OR.

Ithillid said:
The Himalayas, barring some paradigm-changing developments, will be able to hold out for four to six years without problems, then facing increasing problems for much of the decade following that – as systems begin to break down due to a lack of specialized parts, skilled labor, and other tools. However, this will be a slow process, and one that can be slowed to a crawl with existing technologies so long as they are deployed.
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God it still must be terrifying to be living there. Even if it's a timeline set in years.

StarJaunter said:
I know that was probably not the goal but the writing makes it seem like we need more governors than frigates or escort carriers. At least to me
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Frigates provide defense in depth when present in convoys and free up cruisers and battleships to do other stuff when their on their on. Escort carriers allow you to push out the fight beyond gun range. As well as go after subs.
 
Ithillid said:
The two battleships were savaged by the barrage – even the missiles damaged or destroyed by the secondary point defense battery spewed sprays of shrapnel across the ships, riddling the outer hull with pockmarks at best, and
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And this is why Battleships are outdated. You could have gotten something similar with Frigates or Destroyers for a cheaper price tag, even if their main armament are missiles, which as seen can still mission-kill a target, which is all that is needed really.
 
Xela63 said:
And this is why Battleships are outdated. You could have gotten something similar with Frigates or Destroyers for a cheaper price tag, even if their main armament are missiles, which as seen can still mission-kill a target, which is all that is needed really.
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Battleships are designed to take this kind of damage and keep going. So long as the citadel remains protected the ship can continue functioning, if not all that well. The worst this does is knock out things like radar and AA guns.

...as you would know if you read the paragraph right underneath the text you quoted.
 
Ithillid said:
The Navy has some in their yards. Same with the Governors, losses will be replaced in time.
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Will the replacements have the various upgrades and new techs we've researched or will that require us to take a refit action at some point?

Like we're probably researching the heavy laser for ships (specifically frigates) and AA defense next turn.

Will Governors and battleships start having those as well?
 
Crazycryodude said:
Yeah we can see that the navy is already incapable of protecting the shipping lanes as they currently stand. If we strip all the modern blue water assets to go die in the Arabian Sea right now then the already-chronic minor raider problems will be totally unanswerable, before even getting into something like Stahl or Bintang deciding to come out for a major fleet action while we're distracted.
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I mean, in all fairness, I don't think our modern assets would just die; India's not omnipotent. A large, concentrated GDI force would stand up a lot better against Nod naval/air attacks than in a situation like the recent convoy battle. There, Bintang was free to commit all her assets and everything she's got, but only if she thought she had a good chance. By contrast, in a naval battle to support Karachi, the enemy would be forced to commit even if they weren't sure they could win. Even an enemy like Stahl or Bintang* is less of a threat if they can't pick their battles freely because they have to act in defense of a critical target.

At the same time, the point that we'd be totally screwed by Nod naval raiding hitting us all over the world while we did that, even if it went okay in the Arabian Sea in particular... So I don't disagree with the conclusion as such.
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*(and we don't know if the Indian warlord or their subordinate commanders are that good as tacticians. Remember, India hasn't actively been to war against GDI much for a long time, and that comes with both advantages and disadvantages. They have relatively intact forces and we aren't familiar with their capabilities, but on the other hand, they don't have a lot of experience against us, not directly)

Rukia said:
Battleships are designed to take this kind of damage and keep going. So long as the citadel remains protected the ship can continue functioning, if not all that well. The worst this does is knock out things like radar and AA guns.

...as you would know if you read the paragraph right underneath the text you quoted.
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On the other hand, the ship's pretty well combat-ineffective without radar, and a sitting duck for more missile strikes without the defense guns. And as we saw, even if the battleship 'keeps going' in the sense of limping back to port after maybe managing a few lucky hits on the enemy, there's a good chance of it being a constructive total loss, in which case the extra armor and all didn't do much good compared to what more lasers and long range missiles might have accomplished.

bigking321 said:
Will the replacements have the various upgrades and new techs we've researched or will that require us to take a refit action at some point?

Like we're probably researching the heavy laser for ships (specifically frigates) and AA defense next turn.

Will Governors and battleships start having those as well?
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If we need to do a refit, we do a refit when we can. Priority is getting the Sharks rolled out with modern lasers, though, because then we can thicken task force defenses and have ships covering each other better.
 
Simon_Jester said:
On the other hand, the ship's pretty well combat-ineffective without radar, and a sitting duck for more missile strikes without the defense guns. And as we saw, even if the battleship 'keeps going' in the sense of limping back to port after maybe managing a few lucky hits on the enemy, there's a good chance of it being a constructive total loss, in which case the extra armor and all didn't do much good compared to what more lasers and long range missiles might have accomplished.
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The thing that is not mentioned is that a battleship limping back to port a total constructive loss keeps the vast majority of its crew alive, and a majority of them able to switch on to another ship and go out and fight tomorrow. A cruiser does not have the same capability.
 
Simon_Jester said:
On the other hand, the ship's pretty well combat-ineffective without radar, and a sitting duck for more missile strikes without the defense guns. And as we saw, even if the battleship 'keeps going' in the sense of limping back to port after maybe managing a few lucky hits on the enemy, there's a good chance of it being a constructive total loss, in which case the extra armor and all didn't do much good compared to what more lasers and long range missiles might have accomplished.
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Arguably the greatest impact of the Battleships is forcing the enemy to engage them to destruction and avoid closing with them at all costs. They don't have the choice to just ignore them because if they do they'll close the distance and eviscerate them, as we see them do in this update.

They serve phenomenally well as ASM bait and just their presence dictates that the enemy must respond to them. I agree that they might not be as cost effective, but spending extra for the ability to force your enemy to make a choice they don't want to make is worth it's weight in battleship grade armour.
 
We haven't been investing in it as hard as we maybe should have but the GDI's massive advantage that's kept it alive for 60 years in the face of multiple apocalypses is arbitrarily large amounts of free* industrial inputs. Steel is as cheap as dirt, gold is as cheap as dirt, titanium is as cheap as dirt, etc. I guess it does make sense for the Initiative to invest in giant piles of metal that keep the meat inside alive marginally better, since humans are an irreplaceable permanently dwindling resource while building an extra five battleships just needs time and rocks.
 
Crazycryodude said:
We haven't been investing in it as hard as we maybe should have but the GDI's massive advantage that's kept it alive for 60 years in the face of multiple apocalypses is arbitrarily large amounts of free* industrial inputs. Steel is as cheap as dirt, gold is as cheap as dirt, titanium is as cheap as dirt, etc. I guess it does make sense for the Initiative to invest in giant piles of metal that keep the meat inside alive marginally better, since humans are an irreplaceable permanently dwindling resource while building an extra five battleships just needs time and rocks.
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We're also probably also mass-producing spare material constantly for our extant fleet, for repairs and maintenance. So really, the process of laying new keels to replace those two battleships is eased by the fact that we probably have a few warehouses stuffed full of a significant percentage of the components we need to get them built, so it's more a matter of assembly.
 
dptullos said:
Nod cannot easily replace their elites. This kind of sustained conflict is difficult for us, but it is disastrous for them. We have already seen several major warlords reduced to regional warlords, and Steel Vanguard isn't over. The Brotherhood that emerges from this conflict will likely be incapable of another united offensive on this scale; with North America fragmented, their ability to threaten GDI's presence there is probably diminished beyond recovery.
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An excellent analysis, I will admit.

StarJaunter said:
I know that was probably not the goal but the writing makes it seem like we need more governors than frigates or escort carriers. At least to me
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The navy wants more frigates and escort carriers over more Governors right now because building more Governors is not as efficient, resource wise for the navy, as building more frigates and escort carriers to free up larger ships, like the Governor class cruisers, for something other than convoy duty.

Blazblade said:
So how long does it takes for the shipyards to build new ships? Like what is the rate per year or something?
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How long it takes to go from cutting steel for the keel and readiness for combat depends on the ship. As a rule of thumb, because part of this depends on the shipyard's familiarity with what it's building and its readiness to build a new ship.

Frigates are about 6 months to a year, cruisers 9 to 18 months, full deck carriers and battleships 1 to 2 years. Escort carriers are expected to be similar to cruisers.

Xela63 said:
And this is why Battleships are outdated. You could have gotten something similar with Frigates or Destroyers for a cheaper price tag, even if their main armament are missiles, which as seen can still mission-kill a target, which is all that is needed really.
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Battleships are, in fact, not actually useless combat platforms in setting. They have definite limitations, but if they were useless the navy would be poking GDI to get rid of them and replace them with something more resource efficient.

Calvin said:
Is the role of a battleship similar to those IOTL, or something different?
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Battleships as GDI sees them have 2 major duties. The first is utterly fucking up Nod's close in combatants with railgun fire when their laser boats get close. Not least of which because lasers have the ever so slight fatal flaw of being exclusively line of sight weapons.

Yes, even when you bounce them off a Venom.

The second major duty is shore bombardment with solid metal arrows the size and width of your leg, with the understanding that 'shore bombardment' can be several hundred kilometer inland.

On top of that, they also these days tend to be very effective any missile and anti air platforms, forcing greater commitment and greater losses onto attempted air strikes.
 
The worst part of ship production is probably the initial builds. Everything is made from scratch and errors have to be accounted for.

After the first ships it's probably much more streamlined and efficient.
 
Overall, that went very well. The naval game was mixed, but if we can get the Conversions Carriers and Frigates in the water, I still believe Karachi is doable. Not easy, but entirely within our power.

That said, I also believe we should get the Wingman Firehawk's up first. Their attrition is much worse then the navy. I hate to say it, but cargo ships are a lot more replaceable then pilots.
 
Khop said:
It's also slighter weaker die it's worth noting, it's basically a AA die in that view giving him small projects to top-off or busy away at seems prudent.
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Orbital is almost ideal for a free AA die, because we've got a relatively small number of really big projects where every little bit helps, and because our plans for actually hitting our targets all seem to involve "use literally every die available for the rest of the Plan" with almost no margin for error.

Crazycryodude said:
I think Erewhon is probably best used to polish off civilian projects that are close but not quite done, at least until it gets some more practice. If there's nothing that fits that bill then put the die on space or Heavy Industry or whatever, but I definitely agree with the idea that we should not have Erewhon work on projects that directly kill people. Not because muh Skynet or whatever, just that getting its hands bloody with constructing machines purpose-designed to kill human beings is a bad introduction to having adult responsibilities and work. It's not even a year old, remember, even if AI childhood doesn't last quite as long as human childhood we shouldn't make the one year old help murder people.
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I favor Orbital, because it aligns with Erewhon's general belief that Earth and humanity suck and it wants off this rock, and because that's the area where a free extra AA die is most likely to do meaningful good, because even another 30-40 points of progress can mean we skip the need for an extra die commitment.

Crazycryodude said:
Using Erewhon as our floating minor space project die is probably a pretty good idea, put it to work on some important but low-stakes stuff like orbital cleanup and the outer system probes that we won't have the base dice to allocate to. Since there's no roll bonus, just an unmodified raw die, the most optimal place to use Erewhon is cheap low-progress projects instead of spending 20R+ for 7 progress points on a 500 point project or whatever. Space has a few of those that would be too low priority to bother with otherwise, it's a good look to the public, and it's meaningful work that Erewhon can feel actually contributes to the GDI project.
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Under present circumstances, I'm honestly not sure- I think that using an Erewhon die on our 20 R/die big projects is actually worth it on average even if by coincidence we happen to roll low sometimes.

I mean, I'd rather spend a Free die instead, but it's not like we don't have other things to spend Free dice on all the damn time.
 
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