Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

doruma1920 · Apr 4, 2022

Phht said:
But can we guarantee enough free dice over 2061?

Can I interest you in the 'A Silicon Eyed Missile Machine' Plan on the previous page, which I think addresses come of your concerns.

What's Q4 2060-Q4 2061 look like for Food production / Stored Food budget needs? Are we going to be needing free dice spent over there to ensure we can stay food positive and add 18 Stored Food? I don't really do Plans, so I'm honestly not sure around what's needed over the next 4-5 turns to handle this requirement.

If we keep the current Food Reserve Plan Goal, we can afford roughly 6 dice into food production (not counting Chemical Fertilizers and Shala if we go for that). Those six dice can get us four Phases of BZ Aquaponics, which will produce 24 Food. We need an extra 4 Food on top of our current supply and Freeze Dried Food Plants to complete the 18 points of Food reserve, as we currently understand it. That leaves 20 Food for the Refugees. I'm uncertain exactly how much Food we need for the refugees, but they have thus far consumed 8 to 10 Food by my estimate over the last two turns. The Q3 2060 results post will help clarify the situation.

However, that will only clarify what rate of Food the Refugees need, not how long they'll be coming. If that estimate is accurate, and if the waves continue to the end of the plan, we will need 24 to 30 Food for them. That is 4 to 10 Food above the estimate of what we'll have extra from the BZ Aquaponics. If we finish Chemical Fertilizer, which will provide 4 Food, and Shala Phase 1-3 (assuming we take that instead of Columbia), which will provide 3, we will need an additional 3 Food to break even in the worst case. If the Refugee waves stop with the end of Steel Vanguard, in say Q2 of next year, we will not need Free Dice. If it continues at the current rate to the end of the Plan, we might need 2 to 3 Free dice for Agriculture Mechanization, depending on how much Food they consume. We could do it the other way around with Agriculture Mechanization first and BZ Aquaponics in reserve, but BZ aquaponics has a slightly higher ceiling then Agriculture Mechanization (24 vs 20 Food), even though it on average requires an extra die or so.

-Food: 18 additional points in reserve:
--Strategic Food Stockpile Construction Phase 2-6: 38/1000 Progress ~13 dice median
---Requires 20 Food
---Provides 10 Food in reserve
---Note: Assumes Phase 5 and 6 continue the progress increasing pattern of Phase 2-4 and are 225 and 250 Progress respectively.
--Extra Large Food Stockpiles: 1 die 100%
---Requires 16 Food
---Provides 8 Food in reserve
---This is a single die, autocomplete project and as such we should use an Administrative Assistance or Erewhon die when we have the spare Food available.

Semi Required Projects:
-Freeze Dried Food Plants: 126/200 ~1 die median (Increases efficiency of Strategic Food Stockpile Construction and Extra Large Food Stockpiles)
--Requires 1 Energy
--Currently Provides 5 Food
--Note: Currently we have 18 Food, if we committed to producing an additional 18 Food we would not require Freeze Dried Food Plants. However, if we completed Freeze Dried Food Plants we would receive an additional 5 Food for a total of 23 Food, and we would require less Food for the stockpiles. If the Food provided by Freeze Dried Food Plants is the Food freed up by more efficient stockpiling, then it follows that the required Food per Food Reserve changes from 2 Food per Food Reserved to 1.5 Food per Food Reserved. This means we would require 27 Food for the remaining 18 Food Reserve. IE requiring us to produce 4 Food.

At this point we have used 14 dice, along with an AA or Erewhon die. Agriculture has 20 dice for the rest of the Plan, therefore we have 6 dice for Food production.

Q1 2060 Start: 14 Food
Q1 2060 End: 14 Food, completed BZ Aquaponics Phase 1 (+6 Food)
Q2 2060 Start: 14 Food
Q2 2060 End: 22 Food, completed BZ Aquaponics Phase 2 (+6 Food) (Extra two from Perennials I think)
Q3 2060 Start: 18 Food

Next Food change from Q1 2060 Start to Q3 2060 Start: 18 - 14 = Increase of 4 Food
Total Food Produced: 12 to 14 Food (Unknown on Perennials)
Net Food Consumed by Refugees: 14 to 12 - 4 = 10 to 8 Food
Total Food Consumed by Refugees per turn: 10 to 8 / 2 = 5 to 4 Food per Turn

If estimate is accurate and continues:
Net Food Consumed by end of Q4 2060 = 2 * 5 to 4 = 10 to 8 Food
Net Food Consumed by end of Q2 2061 = 4 * 5 to 4 = 20 to 16 Food
Net Food Consumed by end of Q4 2061 = 6 * 5 to 4 = 30 to 24 Food

Simon_Jester · Apr 4, 2022

Void Stalker said:
Depends on how many phases of Bergen we are talking about, if only phase 1, that means Q4 we can pump power and than Q1 when our income is higher pump Anadyr. With 4 dice we likely finish it Q1, at worst 1 dice followup Q2. Even at 3 dice on Anadyr Q1 and 1 dice Q2 and Q3 if needed we still have a turn left over.

Huh. Respectable and valid. As to your plan draft...

HI 5/5+2 free 130R +29
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 7) 153/300 6 dice 120R 99%, 74% for Phase 8
-[] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Development (New) 0/80 1 die 10R 70%
LCI 5/5 110R +24
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1) 71/95 3 die 90R 100% (68% for phase 2)
-[] Civilian Drone Factories 0/380 2 die 20R 0%

I respect the logic of wanting an aggressive fusion rollout (since we're foreseeably gonna need the power from at least two more phases, and it lets us really get out in front of the problem). Though in this position myself, I might move Free dice to another category.

But as to your Light Industry... I'd rather do fertilizers than drone factories. Fertilizers help us hit a level of +Food surplus that lets us do stockpile construction properly without worrying about the refugees going hungry.

Agri 4/4 60R +24
-[] Vertical Farming Projects (Stage 2) 65/240 2 dice 30R 40%
-[] Freeze Dried Food Plants 126/200 1 die 20R 56%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2) 38/150 1 die 10R 28%

I don't like the division of effort here. I'd rather throw three dice at food stockpile construction, or three dice at a +Food option- and Vertical Farming is the least efficient +Food option on offer, much less attractive than aquaponics or mechanization.

Orbital 6/6 140R +26
-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1) 0/150 2 dice+Erewhon 60R 91% (10% for Phase 2)
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2) 50/320 2 dice 40R 0%
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 3) 217/375 2 die 40R 60%

If we're renegotiating our space goals, we want to reorganize this somewhat, I think. Regolith Harvesting may be outright unnecessary in that scenario

Services 4/5 70R +27
-[] Automatic Medical Assistants 101/300 2 dice 40R 26%
-[] Hallucinogen Development 0/60 1 die 15R 88%
-[] Hardlight Interface Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%

If we're not going for Nuuk Phase 4, we probably want to stay back from doing Automatic Medical Assistants right away. Trading -4 Capital Goods for +2 Health only makes sense if we have a glut of Capital Goods, or if we're desperate, and we're probably not going to be desperate next turn.

doruma1920 said:
Orbital: This comes from Derpmind's plan sketch which righty points out that while we could slam out the first three phases of either Columbia or Shala in one turn, but that it is more beneficial if we build the two Station progress reducers first, and its better to build the Leopard II Factory cause it could have an effect on the remaining Lunar Mines as we still want to get those done before moving to the Station Goal.

The remaining moon mine projects don't have enough Progress cost to make it worthwhile to do the Leopard II yard, as compared to the station bay which has greater impact on station construction costs. An extra -5 Progress to each of 3-4 phases of moon mines is very unlikely to be impactful, compared to an extra -5-10-20 = -35 Progress cost from the station bay.

Military: Continuing the rollout of the shipyards and Firehawks. Along with improving our consumables situation via the Ablat, as of last, we knew that things would need to slow down if our stockpiles were not reinforced, but we only had a timeline for the shells, which will have improved with the completion of the last phase of shell plants. Getting the Railgun Munitions to remove that from the list and to save R. Additionally, getting the Mastodon to plan out the last year of the plan more accurately, and to improve the Steel Talon's situation (which the Light Combat Laser will also do). They are the ones primarily going up against the Order thanks to their task of defending key sites, and I'd really like to reduce their ability to run wild.

I'd rather have four dice on the Firehawk drones and skip the light combat laser, than have three with it. We want the drones to actually start entering service soon, preferably quite soon, because we need all the help we can get.

doruma1920 · Apr 4, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
The remaining moon mine projects don't have enough Progress cost to make it worthwhile to do the Leopard II yard, as compared to the station bay which has greater impact on station construction costs. An extra -5 Progress to each of 3-4 phases of moon mines is very unlikely to be impactful, compared to an extra -5-10-20 = -35 Progress cost from the station bay.

I thought the station bay gave -10-20-40 = -70 costs. Its the Leopard II factory that gives the -35 over phase 1-3 to stations cause it have the cost reduction for both stations and lunar mines. I'd rather do both, with the Leopard II factory first so it applies its bonus to the lunar mines. Then in Q1 primarily focus on the Station bay while cleaning up the mines and Leopard II factory, then in Q2 slam out Columbia/Shala.

I'd rather have four dice on the Firehawk drones and skip the light combat laser, than have three with it.

I understand your concern, though if I had to, I'd rather flip the die on the last frigate yard to the firehawks then drop the light combat lasers

Void Stalker · Apr 4, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I respect the logic of wanting an aggressive fusion rollout (since we're foreseeably gonna need the power from at least two more phases, and it lets us really get out in front of the problem). Though in this position myself, I might move Free dice to another category.

But as to your Light Industry... I'd rather do fertilizers than drone factories. Fertilizers help us hit a level of +Food surplus that lets us do stockpile construction properly without worrying about the refugees going hungry.

It saves Isolinear until the following turn when we have more resources, and well we are always short on energy. For light industry I believe drone was the cheapest so those are place holders to let more resources be used in other categories. Though the promises reorg will change things up. I also wanted to make sure I had resources after going for a phase 2 bergen with crystal lasers. And I think pulling all free dice off of HI would be a mistake since we would need to pay it down later and this way we keep enough of an energy surplus to be flexible on future turns.

Rakuhn · Apr 4, 2022

I don't think either of these would end up applied to our ships, now that we have the Naval Heavy Support Laser, right?
[ ] Light Combat Laser Development
[ ] Heavy Combat Laser Development

If not, I think I'd rather complete our current set of refits before introducing even more weapon systems in need of refitting.

Nottheunmaker · Apr 4, 2022

I again state my strong support for Light Combat Lasers, and not just for the Talons. We need anti-missile options, and these also have an offensive role. I also suspect handheld lase rifles are behind this project, and while we don't have the STUs to equip a large part of our forces with such weapons, even a few specialists could make a difference with Gana attacks, and sets us up for later.

This is also why I support Plasma Weapon deployment, though I don't find that as pressing. It's something that can wait til the next plan.

Calvin · Apr 4, 2022

We may already have a good anti-Gana weapons system: Wolverines. The current design uses rapid-fire Zone Trooper railguns, and it has been noted that Zone Troopers are effective against Gana, though I'm not certain whether or not it's because of their weapons or the Zone Armor itself.

Nottheunmaker · Apr 4, 2022

The problem there is that the underground deployment system they have. They can get behind the Wolverines easy enough. Zone Armor is definitely a good match up though. It's only problem is how little we have, but we've got projects to solve that.

Personally I'd like all of it. More Zone Armor, equip them with plasma and laser weapons, do the backpack missiles, the works. I don't expect to get it all anytime soon, but that's the dream.

Rakuhn · Apr 4, 2022

We already have an infantry-scale anti-gana weapon development system:
[ ] GD-3 Rifle Development
It's probably cheaper in progress, resources, and STU cost, and a faster deployment speed, than trying to get infernium lasers into the hands of our infantry.

We are already pursuing a lot of big budget projects between the navy and the airforce. I think we should focus on low-hanging fruit (such as railgun munitions) when we have spare dice/resources until our current slate of intensive projects is finished.

HousePet · Apr 4, 2022

Calvin said:
We may already have a good anti-Gana weapons system: Wolverines. The current design uses rapid-fire Zone Trooper railguns, and it has been noted that Zone Troopers are effective against Gana, though I'm not certain whether or not it's because of their weapons or the Zone Armor itself.

Steel Talons did say that Havocs and Mastodons were the way to deal with Gana.

Simon_Jester · Apr 4, 2022

doruma1920 said:
I thought the station bay gave -10-20-40 = -70 costs. Its the Leopard II factory that gives the -35 over phase 1-3 to stations cause it have the cost reduction for both stations and lunar mines.

I was calculating in relative terms, and communicated poorly.

To clarify, my point is that for projects that we're still gonna complete this plan, assuming we swap Enterprise for Shala/Columbia...

The Leopard II yard gives us -15 or -20 to the cost of various moon mine phases in 2-3 categories (so minimal or no rollover), and -35 to the cost of three station phases (with yes rollover).

The station bay gives us -70 to the cost of three station phases (with yes rollover).

Thus, if we can only build one, the station bay is more impactful on our actual Plan goals, in that it is very likely to save us one Orbital die by the end of the Plan, since -70 Progress is pretty much equivalent to a whole Orbital die.

By contrast, the Leopard II yard might save us one die (-35 Progress) on the station, and is unlikely to actually save us any dice on the moon mines (it's only relevant if we have a moon mine that comes within five or so points of completion without tipping over).

I'd rather do both, with the Leopard II factory first so it applies its bonus to the lunar mines. Then in Q1 primarily focus on the Station bay while cleaning up the mines and Leopard II factory, then in Q2 slam out Columbia/Shala.

If we can fit it all in, then sure.

The problem is that if we start the station bay in 2061Q1 and don't massively overinvest (which would defeat the purpose), there's a very real danger of the bay not being ready until 2061Q2 or even 2061Q3 if our dice are cursed. At which point we don't have time to be confident in completing Columbia or Shala up to Phase 3.

I feel like we can only be sure of having one of the two projects ready to go before we are forced to start work on the new station, and that's the one we start now, in 2060Q4.

...

So my moderately pessimistic plan would look something like:

2060Q4
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 3) 217/375 (1+E Dice, 40 R) (36% chance)
-[] Station Bay 0/400 (5 Dice, 100 R) (49% chance)

2061Q1
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 3) (1 Die or E Die)
-[] Station Bay (1 Die or E Die)
-[] Leopard II Yard (5 Dice)

Hopefully this finishes the Leopard II yard (77% chance). But if it doesn't, we have to say "ah fuckit" and push the GO button anyway on our other projects.

2061Q2
-[] Finish that stupid project that inexplicably didn't finish last turn. (1 Die)
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2) OR Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1+2) (3 Dice)
-[] GDSS Shalaumbia (Phase 1+2+3) (1+E Dice, effectively 1.7 out of 6 median, factoring in impact of station bay)

2061Q3
-[] Finish Previous Moon Mine (1 Die)
-[] Other Moon Mine (2+E Dice)
-[] GDSS Shalalumbia (Phase 1+2+3) (3 Dice, bringing us to 4.7 of 6 median)

2061Q4
-[] Finish Remaining Moon Mines (2+E Dice)
-[] GDSS Shalalumbia (Phase 1+2+3) (4 Dice, bringing us to 8.7 out of 6 median, ~99% or higher chance)

So that's a viable plan that hopefully gets us both cost-reducing options before we have to start work on Shalalumbia. The problem is, as you see, that this is down to the wire on both Plan commitments, with critical things still needing to be completed in 2061Q4 in both the moon mining and station headings. It's better if we negotiate Starbound down to letting us build only five moon mine phases and skipping Regolith Harvesting, because then we have a lot of actual wiggle room and can wrap things up more neatly... But that's an 'if.'

If we're still committed to six moon mining phases, we simply may not have enough time and dice to commit to both the station bay and the Leopard II yard by the end of the Plan...

And if we have to pick one, my vote's for the more impactful station bay.

I understand your concern, though if I had to, I'd rather flip the die on the last frigate yard to the firehawks then drop the light combat lasers

As long as we're not tooling around with a sub-60% chance of finishing the drone project, I'm happy-ish.

Void Stalker said:
It saves Isolinear until the following turn when we have more resources, and well we are always short on energy. For light industry I believe drone was the cheapest so those are place holders to let more resources be used in other categories. Though the promises reorg will change things up. I also wanted to make sure I had resources after going for a phase 2 bergen with crystal lasers. And I think pulling all free dice off of HI would be a mistake since we would need to pay it down later and this way we keep enough of an energy surplus to be flexible on future turns.

Suffice to say that if we're NOT renegotiating the Stored Food commitment (and it looks like we shouldn't), I want to do the fertilizer plants before the end of the Plan, and now's not a bad time... But I take your meaning.

More generally, you're not wrong, especially since we do need the Energy. I could get behind this distribution of Heavy Industry dice, though I'm honestly skeptical of the idea that Anadyr will actually be made cheaper because of it. I'm not sure how much superconductors they're going to be using.

Rakuhn said:
We already have an infantry-scale anti-gana weapon development system:
[ ] GD-3 Rifle Development
It's probably cheaper in progress, resources, and STU cost, and a faster deployment speed, than trying to get infernium lasers into the hands of our infantry.

We are already pursuing a lot of big budget projects between the navy and the airforce. I think we should focus on low-hanging fruit (such as railgun munitions) when we have spare dice/resources until our current slate of intensive projects is finished.

The GD-3 makes our basic infantry a bit more deadly against biomonsters, probably by giving them some more interesting heavy weapon variants of the rifle from what I've heard Ithillid say.

Pushing better energy weapons is going to be a solution for our elites to use against enemy biomonsters, which is welcome if it makes them more effective, but ultimately solving a different problem.

HousePet said:
Steel Talons did say that Havocs and Mastodons were the way to deal with Gana.

Havocs I can see as a solution (for them at least, when they show up on the battlefield), because they're so mobile.

I'm not sure how Mastodons fit into the picture unless the Steel Talons are expecting Indian Nod to start rolling out kaiju.

HousePet · Apr 4, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I'm not sure how Mastodons fit into the picture unless the Steel Talons are expecting Indian Nod to start rolling out kaiju.

Could be. We don't actually have a need-to-know why the Steel Talons think that Mastodons are needed.

But I suspect that a Mastodon is basically impervious to standard gana attacks. Gana are very anti-infantry.
Mastodons are also mobile, so they could be used to block gana rushes, or funnel them into traps.

Nottheunmaker · Apr 4, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I'm not sure how Mastodons fit into the picture unless the Steel Talons are expecting Indian Nod to start rolling out kaiju.

I see this as entirely within the realm of possibility. And would also be very cool.

TheFourthman · Apr 4, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I'm not sure how Mastodons fit into the picture unless the Steel Talons are expecting Indian Nod to start rolling out kaiju

If India turns out to have Evangelions we should nuke the site from orbit. Only way to be sure.

Crazycryodude · Apr 4, 2022

The Talons requested Mastodons because they saw a need for "superheavy armor to screen Initiative troops with" (or something along those lines) when asked about Eastern Paris IIRC. They might know something we don't about kaiju and Afanc swarms, maybe they just want their big stompy mech, maybe they're thinking of something entirely different from gana, but I don't know if the difference really matters since we've gotta build them regardless.

bigking321 · Apr 4, 2022

I'm not sure any justification is going to make much more sense than just having a giant mobile fortress unit.

No matter the strategic situation it's certainly a nice option to have.

If they can be dropped with our space troops, holy crap that could change up a fight.

staplesdex2 · Apr 4, 2022

I'm just in it for the Mastodons because Giant Armored Camels are awesome.

Phht · Apr 5, 2022

re: Mastodons

In C&C4, they came with chin mounted sonic artillery. I'm guessing here they'll have chin mounted railguns, and possibly also design work to accommodate medium tactical plasma weapons once available.

I'd expect railguns would do a number on massed gana as is, but there's Railgun Munitions development on the way. That'd certainly boost the effectiveness. And then if they deploy some to Karachi mounting medium tactical plasma weaponry... Ouch.

Blazblade · Apr 5, 2022

Phht said:
re: Mastodons

In C&C4, they came with chin mounted sonic artillery. I'm guessing here they'll have chin mounted railguns, and possibly also design work to accommodate medium tactical plasma weapons once available.

I'd expect railguns would do a number on massed gana as is, but there's Railgun Munitions development on the way. That'd certainly boost the effectiveness. And then if they deploy some to Karachi mounting medium tactical plasma weaponry... Ouch.

Why not give ZOCOM the version with the chin mounted sonic cannons? I can see that being useful for giving them heavy firepower to bring to the battlefield.

Phht · Apr 5, 2022

Blazblade said:
Why not give ZOCOM the version with the chin mounted sonic cannons? I can see that being useful for giving them heavy firepower to bring to the battlefield.

The C&C4 version apparently also had sonic missiles. I expect those to be regular URLS launchers here.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a version for ZOCOM should they end up deciding they wanted some, but right now I think only the Steel Talons want the design. Should it work out well for them in the field and be "cheap" enough, other groups like ZOCOM might take an interest. Mastodon-R as the railgun model, Mastodon-P for plasma model, Mastodon-S for sonic. Maybe Mastodon-L for laser at some point. Turn it into a proper AT-AT expy.

Incidentally, a (dev?) render of the Mastodon shows side/rear turrets not present on the in-game render. If our Mastodon gets those, they might be spots for Light Combat Laser or Heavy Combat Laser upgrades (probably heavy, and just add LCL hardpoints to the design for anti-infantry or anti-missile work).

BOTcommander · Apr 5, 2022

I hope I dont need to remind people with their "70 progress saved"-argument that the earlier the bonus applies the more we save overall. If we decide to switch to Colombia/Shala 3 we should do Leo IIs and optionally the station bay first. Over all five stages of a station the progress discount rises to 5+10+20+40+80=155, so roughly 4 dice for the two stations in total.

bigking321 · Apr 5, 2022

Plus the mine discounts and whatever other benefits having Leo IIs gives.

Orbital delivery probably will benefit from larger transports.

sunrise · Apr 5, 2022

The station bay/ Leo II might even make the Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations and ASAT of the military cheaper

bigking321 · Apr 5, 2022

sunrise said:
The station bay/ Leo II might even make the Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations and ASAT of the military cheaper

Oh, those are stations aren't they. Good point.

Derpmind · Apr 5, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I feel like we can only be sure of having one of the two projects ready to go before we are forced to start work on the new station, and that's the one we start now, in 2060Q4.

We can build the first three phases of GDSS Columbia/Shala right now, in one turn. It's 7 dice for a median completion chance, and 9 dice for a nearly-certain 98% chance. (And any overflow is only of benefit for the last two phases.) As long as we don't wait until the very last turn, a single turn just-in-case buffer is more than enough.

Even without any discounts, two turns of 6 dice each on the station would get us most of the way towards finishing the fourth phase.

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Altman be praised

Altman be praised

Altman be praised

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