Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Location
- MSC
I wonder about Apartment complexes - new phases or reworked into new project?
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Portals are a big resource sink, but people have mentioned that it's better to start now because it'll take around ten years to get results. But then we should consider other technologies having time to catch up, and by doing so could make it take less time to get results.
But then we don't know exactly which technologies would help with that.
But again, probably shouldn't listen to me on the subject of portals. I've never been interested in them.
But then we don't know exactly which technologies would help with that.
But again, probably shouldn't listen to me on the subject of portals. I've never been interested in them.
- Location
- USA
My assumption is that when we finish the portal project our investment in it ends and it will keep chugging along and every few years we get a update on how they figured out how to do something new with portals.
And we might get a few projects like power transfer through portals or portal communications. Revolutionary stuff.
But we have to kick it off. Might as well be now when we can afford some really expensive dice.
And we might get a few projects like power transfer through portals or portal communications. Revolutionary stuff.
But we have to kick it off. Might as well be now when we can afford some really expensive dice.
The problem is that if you think they're difficult to fund now they'll be far worse after reallocation
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The problem with portal research is that even a single die of it costs 100 R.
Factoring in all our fixed expenses like ongoing grant programs, I think it would be grossly optimistic to plan around more than about 600 RpT of budget in 2062Q1. I'm actually guessing more like 500 RpT, depending on how a variety of things play out.
Now, assume we fully fund Tiberium at about 25 R/die because we have to in order to get income back up to speed in any reasonable length of time. Everything else gets what we can spare... so, maybe 400 R for everything. Stipulating that we spin off three departments in Infrastructure, Heavy Industry, and Military, we have... 50 dice, as I recall. Since there are practically no projects left that cost less than 10 R/die, we will be leaving dice fallow. Even after that, it will take several turns of income reconstruction just to get back up to where we can, say, fund everything at a baseline of 15 R/die and still have any money left over.
So it is going to be a long time before we can even consider doing portal research again in the new plan. If we don't finish these portal applications now, they won't get done until some time in 2063 in all likelihood... which means that we'll have delayed all future portal technology options by two years.
You'd have to present me with a pretty damn good reason to do that.
- Location
- USA
All the more reason to get tendrils and claws done so harvesting tiberium next plan is easier.
- Location
- Earth
If we don't do portals before reallocation, we'll have to leave a lot of dice fallow if we do them after reallocation. Tendrils and claws aren't so expensive that we can't do them either pre or post reallocation unlike portals.
Simon's right here, it's finishing this portals this plan or it will be 2-3 years before we can do it again.
Simon's right here, it's finishing this portals this plan or it will be 2-3 years before we can do it again.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
All I know is, I'm not gonna treat it as a disaster if Tendrils Phase 2 isn't done before the reapportionment. Sure, not getting a maximal full-size boost to any tiberium harvesting projects we do in 2062Q1 would be a pity... But on the other hand, damn it would be helpful if there were a single project we could do for a sudden surge of +100 RpT right out the starting gate!
- Location
- USA
As long as we get them done before going on a harvesting and mining binge. Before or after redistribution is fine either way.
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
First, leaving Portals at lowest priority in no way means that they will be delayed into next year.
Second, we've left dice fallow at the start of every Plan since the start. It wouldn't be anything new.
Third, if Portals aren't important enough to do when we are short on resources, should we even be doing them now? Because that means we are putting them ahead of a more important project simply because we can 'optimise' the dice. Project value >> dice optimisation.
The dice are an arbitrary indication of whether we are utilising our departments fully, not an indication about whether we are funding things properly. Fallow dice means nothing as long as the required spending gets done.
Second, we've left dice fallow at the start of every Plan since the start. It wouldn't be anything new.
Third, if Portals aren't important enough to do when we are short on resources, should we even be doing them now? Because that means we are putting them ahead of a more important project simply because we can 'optimise' the dice. Project value >> dice optimisation.
The dice are an arbitrary indication of whether we are utilising our departments fully, not an indication about whether we are funding things properly. Fallow dice means nothing as long as the required spending gets done.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes, but we want to do less of it, not more of it.
This argument misses an important point. Right now, we can very easily find something useful for nearly every die we have available to do, every turn. There's always something- and there's funding left over for some of those useful "somethings" to be very expensive projects and still be useful. But we can spend 100 R on a portal research die, without it meaning we have to leave Military or Orbital or Agriculture dice fallow. Instead, all those other dice can be doing something useful, while the portal research still gets done.
In 2062Q1, our choice will be "activate one die on portals, or activate 7-10 dice in other areas doing something else." And at THAT point we are forced to make a very hard decision about which is more important, doing one die on portals now rather than later, or doing enough other stuff to complete some whole significant project or make major progress on multiple projects? Is it worth giving up, say, two whole phases of apartments and a phase of vertical farms to get one more portal die?
When we spend on a portal die right now, we don't have to make that choice. If we spend on a portal die in 2062, we will have to make that choice.
Now, in theory we could just never do portal research and potentially have 100 R in the bank in 2062Q1 to fund other dice. That's an option. But we'd have to do the portal work sooner or later, or give up on ever having portal technology, which would be very self-destructive. Sooner or later, we need to spend the money, and spending it sooner is better than later all else being equal, and now is a much better time than one year from now.
We're not really helping ourselves by putting this off. It's a false economy.
The trick here is that accomplishing more projects is generally better than accomplishing fewer. In practice, it's almost certainly a bad idea to leave half a dozen extra dice fallow just to activate one, even if that one die is on an important project.
It is simply a crude, basic, practical fact of economics that commodities are more valuable when they are scarce than when they are plentiful. Right now, R is plentiful, making it a good time to do R-intensive projects. Soon, R will be scarce again, and we would have to be quite reckless to spend the same amount of R on the same project right then, even if we had it available.
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Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Why do you think we won't be able to get our 30% of budget during reallocation again?
Also as a reminder not getting the space mining income reallocated is on the table right now and the only thing anyone could think off to do to get that passed again is to get more income from Tiberium harvesting to offset the potential loss in space mine income. So why are you suddenly thinking of not doing Tendrils Phase 2? When that is literally what we need to get +100 resource income above our RpT goal and insure we have more money to start with.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I think doing so will be an uphill battle if Parliament is seriously interested in redirecting funds towards a reopening of the civilian economy.
Because either they're gonna take an extra slice of budget and start their own grant programs, or they're going to expect us to start the grant programs, probably with heavy penalties for tardiness because they'll want time to see good results before Election Day.
Dmol, I don't know how your math is going right now.
...
We were at "20 RpT more income required" in the 2061Q1 Turn post.
That was before Harvesting Tendril Deployment Phase 1 (+90 RpT), which we completed in a single turn alongside +20 RpT worth of moon mining income.
We have now overachieved our "increase GDI income" target by a total of 90 RpT, even if we do nothing to further increase income during the rest of 2061. We must complete an additional +5 RpT from moon mining (the second phase of Rare Metals). It is vanishingly unlikely that we will not complete any other income-generating Tiberium projects; at a bare minimum we are likely to attempt at least two phases of Red Zone Border Offensives to lay groundwork for the (presumably insanely lucrative) super-glacier mines to become available in 2062. Statistically, one phase of RZBO would yield 22.5 RpT, and two phases of that would yield 45 RpT.
Thus, it is effectively certain that we will have overachieved our income target by a minimum of 95 RpT even if we are unrealistically idle for the next three turns.
It is very likely that we will overachieve our income target by (with a bit of rounding) at least 120 and perhaps 140 RpT, maybe even more.
We will have exceeded not only the 700 RpT target we agreed to, but the 800 RpT target that was the most ambitious one available.
All of this will happen even if we do not make the slightest effort to complete Harvesting Tendril Deployment Phase 2.
...
If it turns out that us overachieving the Plan target by 140 RpT (roughly 90 RpT of which goes straight into the rest of the government's budget on reapportionment) is not enough to let us keep the 70-80 RpT of moon mine income that would otherwise be taken in reapportionment...
Well, in that case, then believe me, I will not regret pulling off a gambit that lets us rapidly complete a half-finished Tendrils Phase 2 for +100 additional income. We would simply be responding to the perverse incentive that they created. And that money will be used for the sole purpose of achieving good things for everyone.
I don't mean to be nasty about this, mind you. Hell, I'll even start lobbying for Interdepartmental Favors in mid-plan once we get our income back up, to trade some of the extra money off for Political Support and nice options.
But we have a lot expected of us, and being able to afford to do it is just common sense.
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Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
So you're expecting a 140 RpT without doing the tendrils? So why don't we do the tendrils now and raise that to 200 or 240 RpT now so that the government has enough money to do the grants and leave us our 30% cut of the budget? The more money the rest of the government has the more money we can can focus on doing new things instead of rebuilding and maintaining the infrastructure of the whole of GDI.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I dunno. Maybe it's worth doing that. Maybe it'd be better to do like Lawrence from the omake says and concentrate on stacking up more Red Zone abatement instead.
What I'm saying is, I think we've done right by Parliament either which way. We've already accomplished quite a lot more than they asked for. I can confident predict that by year's end, we will accomplish not only more than they asked for, but more than they seriously considered asking for. Indeed, we have nearly crossed that line already.
So I'm not going to feel like we're making a reckless decision or cheating Parliament if we put off Tendrils Phase 2 until 2062Q1.
On the other hand, I'm not going to feel like we're making a stupid or reckless sacrifice if we complete Tendrils Phase 2 this year.
Either way, it's not going to be my top priority, but it's on the list of things I'll be thinking about doing in my plan drafts.
EDIT:
Remember the concept of opportunity costs. We still have roughly 700 Progress (about 7-8 Tiberium dice) left to go on Tendrils Phase 2. That's a lot of work we could put into doing other things that aren't strictly mandatory but are still desirable.
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- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
Incorrect.
By spending those R on expensive project now, we are committing ourselves to having fallow dice in the next year.
If we really wanted to avoid leaving any dice fallow, we wouldn't touch the Portals project, and instead bank our resources to fill the fallow dice at the start of the next Plan.
Why are we not doing that? Because fallow dice aren't an issue as long as sufficient resources are delivered evenly. Because at the end of the day, we still spent all the budget on useful things, and that is bit that matters.
- Location
- USA
We have projects that can get our income back up, we have projects we can give dice up to get a benefit, and we have low cost projects.
We want to leave as few dice fallow as possible but that doesn't mean stop doing expensive high tech projects while we can afford them.
This is explicitly the time to do high cost projects.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Even with the portal spending, we may well be able to avoid having many fallow dice in categories where it is so painful that we wind up regretting it- say, areas where we have particularly tight Plan targets. We'll see.
Furthermore, this becomes a balancing act. In 2062, we will leave some dice fallow. 50 R worth? 100 R worth? 200 R worth? I don't know. What I do know is that realistically, given a future choice between leaving an additional 7-10 dice fallow in 2062Q1 and delaying portal research another quarter, we will choose to delay portal research another quarter. Realistically, now when we can afford to activate all our dice with considerable surplus, we will vote to do the portal research.
If you argue that this is irrational, because delaying the portal research by one more turn could free up another +85 or +90 R to spend on something else in 2062Q1... My counterargument is that we will always be able to say that, but portal research is important enough that it should not be put off indefinitely on the grounds that eventually if we hold onto the money long enough we'll find something else to do with it.
Projects are not merely items to check off a checklist. They are investments. The portal project is a particularly long-range investment where delays in starting the project explicitly delay the rewards... And we have reason to expect those rewards to eventually be transformational.
I don't know about you, but I intend to budget the necessary funds to get the portal project done, barring extreme bad luck. I hope to minimize fallow dice in 2062 as well. But I will not court predictable, totally predictable delays in resuming portal research during the Fourth Plan, when I could instead finish the portal research here and now during the Third and not have to worry about it.
Incorrect.
By spending those R on portals, we are investing in a key technology required to ensure a useful fraction of humanity can survive should we fail to develop a TCN (or fail to make a deal with Kane eventually for it).
If that means leaving dice fallow early next Plan, so be it. To do otherwise means delaying significantly a critical technology for preserving humanity in the face of Tiberium caused extinction.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If we don't do the portal project now, when we're flush with cash, then when do we do it? Years from now? Never? The project is a quest win condition. If Kane trips, breaks the Tacitus, and dies, we can still use portals to save humanity even without a TCN. (Plus we can get useful stuff from it even before full-sized portals are done, like pinhole communications.) It's worth far more than its price tag, and we have more than enough R to do it and several other expensive projects simultaneously.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Every time someone brings up failing to save Earth I get just that bit more annoyed. We've been told the TCN is not the only way to stop Tiberium. The future of humanity does not rest on Kane thinking he has better odds getting off Earth by cooperating with GDI. We can win the war on Tiberium without him, and without giving up on our Homeworld.
I'm not against portals and I'm not against space development. We very much need to get out to the rest of the solar system to exploit various resources, such as the Tiberium on Venus or the transuranics on Mars. But it should be done with the mindset of building up and saving our home, and working to protect ourselves from the Scrin, not giving up and going someplace else.
I'm not against portals and I'm not against space development. We very much need to get out to the rest of the solar system to exploit various resources, such as the Tiberium on Venus or the transuranics on Mars. But it should be done with the mindset of building up and saving our home, and working to protect ourselves from the Scrin, not giving up and going someplace else.
- Location
- USA
Funny, I remember several comments along the line of "You absolutely can't win against Tiberium conventionally at this point, TCN or equivalent required for earth to survive."
We don't win against Tiberium unless we get lucky if Scrin gacha and kludge together a TCN ourselves or Kane gets involved.
We don't win against Tiberium unless we get lucky if Scrin gacha and kludge together a TCN ourselves or Kane gets involved.
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
I just did a quick read back, and I can't see anyone suggesting that we don't do the portal project now.
???