Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Lightwhispers · Jul 10, 2022

How To SCED: a primer for planmaking in SCEDQuest

SCEDQuest has 5 resources: Capital (100 Capital is about 1 Resources in the main quest - or somewhere in that realm), IP (Industry Points, which are the availability of fabrication resources/time), Astrotech and Astronaut Teams (Astronaut teams are more highly trained, and can be used to substitute for Astrotechs, in a pinch), and Pathfinder Days (90 days per 3-month turn, since Pathfinder can only be in one place at a time). Unspent Capital is saved for following turns; unspent IP are not saved (there are always uses for spare industrial capacity.)

There are a number of different categories of projects.
Facilities: These either require dice (with a Capital and sometimes IP cost per die), or just a straight investment in Capital/IP (representing getting the needed components on-site, or using existing industrial capacity to produce components). Earthside facilities have unlimited dice, since labor shortages are for larger scales than SCED operates at. Lunar (and eventually other planetary bodies) facilities have limited dice, to reflect the significantly limited labor forces present on-site. Constructing facilities anywhere beyond Luna requires the use of Pathfinder for transport, and so will use Pathfinder Days. Unless specified, Pathfinder is considered to be able to handle all Facilities needs for a location in one trip.
Currently, there are no bonuses to Facilities dice.

Assembly: Similar to Facilities, but it usually just requires IP for manufacturing.

Development: Adapting existing technologies to SCED's needs, and sometimes working out new applications of said tech. Limited dice, with a bonus, and a cost in Capital/IP per die. Currently, SCED has been authorized to spend a limited amount of Capital for additional Development dice used on the Craterscope (Lunar megatelescope) project.

Mission Planning: Must be done before actually conducting a mission. Limited dice, small bonus, generally has no cost per die.

Missions: Going out into SPAAAACE! Each mission usually has a cost in Capital and IP, always Pathfinder Days if it's involved, and sometimes Astronaut/tech Teams for a persistent station/base. Most missions to a planet/object can be combined with other trips, as far as Pathfinder Days go, unless they are noted as not being able to combine.

Hope that helps.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2022

Hazard said:
We also knew that certain technologies would substantially improve the frigates and CVEs, so we delayed and delayed and delayed.

This proved to be a problem because we're at war with Nod- always at war, importantly, though there was also the unwritten deadline imposed on us by the timing of the warlords' planned Great Dogpile that we interrupted with Steel Vanguard.

Here, we're not at war. We can just do what makes sense; it's an industrial planning question and I'm proceeding on that basis as best I can.

Also, we are not doing an upgrade cycle. We are making a redesign of the CCF plants on the basis of new technology and insight into fusion based energy production. Preferably we do this by slamming dice into Bergen so as to ensure we have enough superconductor.

Yeah, yeah, I spoke loosely. What I meant was "develop an upgraded Gen 2 version of the plants and start building those" instead of "upgrade the existing plants." I was at no point trying to suggest upgrades of existing plants to Gen 2.

Although, observation, the fusion plants' physical location is defined by several factors, and one of those is availability of water for cooling. So actual physical locations you slot a fusion reactor into are important and you can run out... At some point you very probably would see old plants being directly torn down and new ones built on-site, but that's well in the future and not really relevant to our discussion.

As to the whole 'yeah, but that means we do multiple upgrade cycles and burn dice on it' thing?

No, no we don't. We do the redesign to deal with the flaws in the first CCF design and to integrate high temperature super conductors. We had the Block 1 CCF plants, we now work on the Block 2 design, and in, say, Plan 5, we revisit the CCF design, implement further changes as technology and engineering permits, and then start building those.

See, here's the thing.

Yes, that's our paradigm. But the consequence of that is that we're going to build a lot of these Gen 2 fusion plants. Probably several waves. Even with all our other energy sources, I'm estimating 3-5 waves. And ideally, I'd like those waves to stretch. I want them to last us, to give us plenty of energy, and I don't want to have to roll multiple rounds of Improve Fusion 2: Thermonuclear Boogaloo to get Generation 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 for that to happen.

Because there's just not that much of a rush.

In an ideal world, where all our Plan targets were handled, I'd say "let's just give the Talons a few dice to do the shield research, bumrush Bergen Phase 3, and spend Heavy Industry dice on everything that could be of use, and just do it." Quickly get the best Gen 2 design we can, because that way we can hopefully squeeze +20 or more Energy out of the next several phases of fusion plants. The alternative is either less Energy for the same number of plants, or having to repeatedly re-research "make better fusion power with this new tech you just discovered" every time we discover an applicable tech.

In-character, I'd write this as "very large fusion research grants mean a lot of people working in related fields have the funding to pursue related research."

In practice, some of the projects I'd like to integrate into the Gen 2 design cannot be researched in a reasonably timely manner (such as the Talons shield tech projects; we've got a lot going on in Military). So I'm likely to say "fuckit, we did our best" after getting only some of the techs into position.

But this isn't a case where we're suffering crippling battlefield consequences for a delayed rollout of the new fusion plant design. Our worst case scenario is something like "you get -2 Energy because the next round of fusion plants isn't upgraded, then +1 Energy on each of the next few phases because you researched an extra tech before building them."

I understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but the mediocre is also the enemy of the good, and there's a balance to be struck here.

bigking321 said:
Just something I'd like to bring up about OSRCT really quick.

I believe we were told that it would serve as the basis for whatever form our space troops would end up taking so they will definitely have a impact on space stuff and not just as a fast response earth force.

That's true. I know.

At the same time, exactly how many extra dice does that mean we want to invest in OSRCT, specifically right now?

For the third or fourth time, I'm not saying more investment in OSRCT would be useless or has no real long-term value. I am well aware that there is effectively no way for "more OSRCT" to somehow be worse than "less OSRCT."

But if I made a list of every project in the Military category that is "not useless and has real long-term value" and tried to draft a plan to do all of them at once, it'd be about 100 dice long. We just plain do not have the resources to spend on every project at once.

I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the many many other military projects that are important, even urgent, and that are all competing for the same 8-15 dice every turn. Suffice to say that I have my reasons for wanting to avoid dice-overinvestment in the OSRCT project at this exact moment in time. Even looking at the Space Force alone, we have a number of other technologies that are arguably quite a bit more important, such as thickening our space-to-space weapon platform capabilities, because all the badass rugged Space Marines in the world won't actually stop an alien warship from vaporizing the platforms those rugged voidtroopers reside on.

The reality is that many of our military Plan commitments wind up being to do things that, while important, aren't the things we or the military would choose to prioritize in light of changing circumstances and their actual needs.

Derpmind said:
I need to give huge huge thanks to @HousePet, as the entire backend excel sheet for the Probability Array has been massively revamped. There should only be very minor changes visible here in the posted version. But on the backend? The excel sheet now automatically generates strings for the Array. That means when a bureau's die bonus is changed, I no longer have to re-do all the results percentages for every single project by hand. I just change one number, and then copy/paste an entire block of ready-to-post project lines.

Huh. Props to @HousePet for spreadsheet-fu, then. My heartfelt compliments.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2022

So I've been meaning to Energy-cost and Food-cost my Plan draft out for a while now.

Also, I just noticed that the diminishing returns on Logistics for apartment phases are getting really steep. Like, Phases 6+7 are -2 Logistics each and I can live with that, but Phase 8 is -3 Logistics. I think the issue of needing commercial/industrial development to catch up with all the new population centers we're filling out is important, and I've come around to the idea that... I think maybe it was @Oledoms ' idea... that we should do a bunch of shuttles work instead. Note that with Phase 1 complete, shuttles are competitive with railroads even as a Resource-efficient Logistics option, because they give us so much more return per unit Progress.

I just shifted focus to take a die off the Nod tech gacha (which is nice and all, but we've got a lot on our plate and won't be able to do a lot with new tech quickly next Plan anyway) and slow-walk it to give us a 67% chance instead of a 16% chance of a hospital expansion phase. I respect people going with a two-and-three plan, but I think I'm a fan of one-and-four right now, especially in light of the above paragraph.

ENERGY BUDGET (moderately pessimistic):
+18 (baseline) +10 (crystal beam) -2 (drones) -2 (ranching) -4 (om nom tib) -1 (hospitals) -2 (URLS) -5 (Newark) -3 (Mastodons) -3 (New York) = +6 Energy.

Huh. That is... actually rather alarming. That's... pretty low. Especially since there's a 6% chance of Crystal Beam not actually completing and putting us in the negatives. What can I do to make the energy situation a bit more favorable?

Well, Civilian Drones can be put off in favor of a Light Industry project that doesn't cost Energy, and we have plenty of Resources. Bergen's an obvious choice because it's actively +Energy and we have the money- note that this will save money next turn since we're not going to be trying too hard to overcomplete Bergen past Phase 3, at least not in my plans. Barring a miracle on Bergen, though, that still only gets us to +8. We won't be able to get to Phase 4 in the foreseeable future anyway. Everything else is too important, though, or so low-Energy that it's not really worthwhile to cut it.

Still, we can live with being at -2 Energy for one turn, as long as we're on the cusp of completing a couple of +Energy projects the following turn (which we would be) and don't have a ton more quasi-mandatory Energy-hungry stuff on the docket for the following turn (which we wouldn't).

So it brings me around to @Crazycryodude 's suggestion about slowly working to complete the Phase 9 fusion plants, just so we have a comfortable Energy reserve in our back pocket. And I'm just so goddamn tired of arguing with people about the Microfusion Cell project people keep telling me to ditch, because I'm treating it as a blue-sky fusion research project that might help us find novel approaches or information of any kind, and they keep telling me "no we cannot just literally scale it up 1000x into a multimegawatt fusion reactor so it is useless to us here." So I'll give up on Microfusion Cell from exhaustion and flip that into a fusion power die. In itself this doesn't give us more Energy in 2061Q4, but it puts us closer to the point of being able to just casually flip a switch and BAM, +16 Energy without any undue strain.

REVISED MILDLY PESSIMISTIC ENERGY BUDGET
+18 (baseline) +10 (crystal beam) -2 (ranching) -4 (om nom tib) -1 (hospitals) -2 (URLS) -5 (Newark) -3 (Mastodons) -3 (New York) = +8 Energy.
(Obviously, this assumes everything completes; many projects might or might not. 13% chance of +4 more if Bergen completes, 6% chance of -10 less if Crystal Beam doesn't complete, very slim chance of going into negatives if our luck is absolutely ass)

FOOD BUDGET
+26 (baseline) -5 (refugees) -4 (ranching) -6 (granaries with freeze-drying) = +11

Hmm. I'm okay with that but it's not ideal and argues in favor of an aggressive Food production campaign in Q4 as opposed to (or additional to) the work I'd hoped to do on Vertical Farms Phase 2. That, or just saying "fuckit" and shifting two dice to aquaponics this turn, but since +11 is still a respectable margin of error on Food supplies, I'm not too worried and think we can stay here for one turn.

1055/1200 R budget
7/7 Free dice

[] Draft Plan Attempting To House The Angry Homeless Space Pirates
-[] Infrastructure (5 dice, +32 bonus, 105 R)
--[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns Phase 6 220/300 (1 die, 20 R) (68% chance)
--[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 2) 22/250 (3 dice, 75 R) (75% chance)
--[] Emergency Caloric Reclamation Processor Installations 0/80 (1 die, 10 R) (68% chance)
-[] Heavy Industry (5 dice + EREWHON!!!, +29 bonus, 110 R)
--[] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Deployment 433/600 (3 dice, 60 R) (96% chance)
--[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 9) 128/300 (1 die, 20 R) (1/2 median)
--[] Advanced Alloys Development 0/120 (1+E dice, 30 R) (72% chance)
-[] Light Industry (4 dice, +24 bonus, 120 R)
--[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry Phase 3 0/380 (4 dice, 120 R) (13% chance)
-[] Agriculture (4 dice + AA die, +24 bonus, 50 R)
--[] Ranching Domes 228/250 (1 die, 20 R) (100% chance)
--[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction Phase 3+4 128/375 (3+AA dice, 40 R) (Phase 3, 76% chance of Phase 4)
-[] Tiberium (7 dice, +39 bonus, 165 R)
--[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (RZ-7 North America) 0/120 (1 die, 30 R) (35% chance)
--[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (YZ-11 Colombia) 0/130 (1 die, 30 R) (25% chance)
--[] Tiberium Processing Plants Stage 2 20/200 (2 dice, 60 R) (63% chance)
--[] Tiberium Harvesting Claw Deployment 0/380 (3 dice, 45 R) (3% chance)
-[] Orbital (6 dice + 1 Free die, +26 bonus, 140 R)
--[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 2) 56/115 (1 die, 20 R) (83% chance)
--[] GDSS Enterprise Phase 5 997/1535 (6 dice, 120 R) (32% chance)
-[] Services (5 dice, +27 bonus, 130 R)
--[] NOD Research Initiatives 87/200 (1 die, 30 R) (35% chance)
--[] Regional Hospital Expansions Phase 1 (4 dice, 100 R) (67% chance)
-[] Military (8 dice + 6 Free dice, +26 bonus, 275 R)
--[] ASAT Defense System Phase 4 36/220 (1 die, 20 R) (1/2 median)
--[] Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment (Phase 3) 133/200 (1 die, 15 R) (75% chance)
--[] Ground Forces Zone Armor (New York) 0/??? (2 dice, 40 R) (??% chance)
--[] Escort Carrier Shipyards (Newark) 179/240 (1 die, 20 R) (81% chance)
--[] OSRCT Stations Phase 3 5/690 (8 dice, 160 R) (Phase 3, 24% chance of Phase 4, 42% with Seo bonus)
--[] Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker Deployment 144/225 (1+AA dice, 20 R) (93% chance)
-Bureaucracy (4 dice)
--[] Administrative Assistance: Mastodons
--[] Administrative Assistance: Food Storage
--[] Erewhon: Advanced Alloys

Nottheunmaker · Jul 10, 2022

I'm again compelled to make my opinion known, and the Sparkle and Buckler Shields are key defense development technologies. At the tail end of the war our forces were getting hammered by Nod plasma cannons. We could kill them eventually, but it would cost.

I feel similarly to Light Combat Lasers to defense against growing Nod missile technology while offering another layer of offensive offerings, and for USGVs to be the Wingman Drones of our ground fighters. All the same weapons and defenses, but on a completely and utterly expendable platform.

That said, some of these we should really, really, really aim to get done by Q4. At 30 and 25 R each, Sparkle Shields and Light Combat Lasers are going to be hard to fit into the next 4YP any time soon. The Buckler Shield and USGVs are only 20R, which is a bit of a strain but much more doable next year.

Rakuhn · Jul 10, 2022

Yeah, we can definitely afford to slow walk Nod Research. No rush there.

I am hoping to use Erewhon to setup the DAE in Q4. +3 guaranteed energy for an Erewhon die is very, very nice.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2022

Nottheunmaker said:
I'm again compelled to make my opinion known, and the Sparkle and Buckler Shields are key defense development technologies. At the tail end of the war our forces were getting hammered by Nod plasma cannons. We could kill them eventually, but it would cost.

I feel similarly to Light Combat Lasers to defense against growing Nod missile technology while offering another layer of offensive offerings, and for USGVs to be the Wingman Drones of our ground fighters. All the same weapons and defenses, but on a completely and utterly expendable platform.

That said, some of these we should really, really, really aim to get done by Q4. At 30 and 25 R each, Sparkle Shields and Light Combat Lasers are going to be hard to fit into the next 4YP any time soon. The Buckler Shield and USGVs are only 20R, which is a bit of a strain but much more doable next year.

I'm definitely considering Sparkle Shields for "toss a die to your Talons" in my Q4 plan. If I'd won in the Q2 vote and rolled well (as in, unlike what we actually got with very bad rolls in Military), I might even have thrown a die to them in Q3.

Light Combat Lasers and the drones are lower priorities for me, because I feel like our existing antimissile tech is adequate and just not fully fielded to all our vehicles apart from the refitted Predators yet. The drones, well, it's gonna be a while before we can implement that; it's something I'm imagining us pursuing more heavily in the mid-60s. Honestly, I'm more interested in MRASP and its potential for mobile basing.

Rakuhn said:
Yeah, we can definitely afford to slow walk Nod Research. No rush there.

I am hoping to use Erewhon to setup the DAE in Q4. +3 guaranteed energy for an Erewhon die is very, very nice.

I dunno. I want to set up the Capital Goods Department in Q4 (with Erewhon). And I don't want to lose two Heavy Industry dice in a single turn because for all I know, reapportionment is going to body-slam us with a literal ton of Heavy Industry projects and long-term dice economy will be a major priority where we're praying for six Heavy Industry dice and would be very afraid of the situation if we only have three.

Not that DAE isn't worth it, just that I'd rather invest in R-heavy but Energy-productive options (like finishing the Phase 9 fusion reactors) now, and R-cheap but less intensive options (like the DAE) in 2062.

Lightwhispers · Jul 10, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
See, here's the thing.

Yes, that's our paradigm. But the consequence of that is that we're going to build a lot of these Gen 2 fusion plants. Probably several waves. Even with all our other energy sources, I'm estimating 3-5 waves. And ideally, I'd like those waves to stretch. I want them to last us, to give us plenty of energy, and I don't want to have to roll multiple rounds of Improve Fusion 2: Thermonuclear Boogaloo to get Generation 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 for that to happen.

Because there's just not that much of a rush.

In an ideal world, where all our Plan targets were handled, I'd say "let's just give the Talons a few dice to do the shield research, bumrush Bergen Phase 3, and spend Heavy Industry dice on everything that could be of use, and just do it." Quickly get the best Gen 2 design we can, because that way we can hopefully squeeze +20 or more Energy out of the next several phases of fusion plants. The alternative is either less Energy for the same number of plants, or having to repeatedly re-research "make better fusion power with this new tech you just discovered" every time we discover an applicable tech.

In-character, I'd write this as "very large fusion research grants mean a lot of people working in related fields have the funding to pursue related research."

In practice, some of the projects I'd like to integrate into the Gen 2 design cannot be researched in a reasonably timely manner (such as the Talons shield tech projects; we've got a lot going on in Military). So I'm likely to say "fuckit, we did our best" after getting only some of the techs into position.

But this isn't a case where we're suffering crippling battlefield consequences for a delayed rollout of the new fusion plant design. Our worst case scenario is something like "you get -2 Energy because the next round of fusion plants isn't upgraded, then +1 Energy on each of the next few phases because you researched an extra tech before building them."

I understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but the mediocre is also the enemy of the good, and there's a balance to be struck here.

My counter-argument to this is twofold. First, we are not certain that Sparkle shields or other new technologies would immediately have an effect on Gen 2 fusion plants. So, there may well be an unknown delay after we do get around to doing those projects, before they would do anything.
Second, is that our scientists think that the Gen 2 design we would get now would be good enough. Would it be better if we waited? Probably. Would it be better enough to be worth the wait? They seem to think not.

And something you haven't addressed, is that we would get Gen 3 fusion plants quicker if we do Gen 2 now. Because one of the features we know about the GDI research setup is that progress in a field is advanced by doing projects that take advantage of progress/new technologies. And so, we will advance our knowledge of fusion power designs by designing and building Gen 2 fusion plants - quite possibly faster than we would if we wait.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2022

Lightwhispers said:
My counter-argument to this is twofold. First, we are not certain that Sparkle shields or other new technologies would immediately have an effect on Gen 2 fusion plants. So, there may well be an unknown delay after we do get around to doing those projects, before they would do anything.
Second, is that our scientists think that the Gen 2 design we would get now would be good enough. Would it be better if we waited? Probably. Would it be better enough to be worth the wait? They seem to think not.

Let's start by quoting the project blurb.

While the existing CCF plants are certainly functional, there are a number of upgrades that may well lead to improved efficiency over simple water boilers. While this project will be more an iterative improvement, trying to get a few percent more megawatt hours per plant out of a relatively similar design to current systems, it is likely to see significant further revisions as other fields improve.

Notice those second and third sentences.

The second sentence tells us something important. As it is now, the improved fusion project is purely a detail design change, and unlikely to yield more than "a few percent" more actual Energy. It integrates little new technology, and there are few obvious reasons to prefer it other than the concerns that the first-generation plants may turn out not to have the decades-long lifespan we desire from them and so have to be replaced with something, if only so they can be taken temporarily offline and refurbished.

The third sentence also tells us something important. With better stuff, with new technologies and more ubiquitous superconducting and so on, we have the potential to come up with something more impressive as the result of a project like this.

And something you haven't addressed, is that we would get Gen 3 fusion plants quicker if we do Gen 2 now. Because one of the features we know about the GDI research setup is that progress in a field is advanced by doing projects that take advantage of progress/new technologies. And so, we will advance our knowledge of fusion power designs by designing and building Gen 2 fusion plants - quite possibly faster than we would if we wait.

The problem is that our current "Generation 2" project is basically "make some minor incremental design improvements." Boiler design improvements and so on.

What will determine how good a "Generation 2" or "Generation 3" fusion plant is is not some fixed "3 is better than 2 by +4 units, 2 is better than 1 by +4 units." It is "how much technological innovation actually went into this?" If all our people did is poke around and fine-tune the detail design of the steam turbines a bit, "Generation 2" isn't really a radical advance over Generation 1 at all. It's just "Generation 1.1," with minor efficiency improvements and longevity upgrades.

If we want something dramatically better, we need to apply something dramatically better... which means we need to invent it. We can wait years to integrate those better techs into "Generation 3" while priding ourselves on our new "Generation 2" plants that are a 6% improvement in efficiency over "Generation 1" in that they give us +17 Energy instead of +16... Or we can integrate those better techs now.

If there was some obvious reason why oh my God we need to redesign the plants now because they're going to start failing in like two years tops, then that would be irrelevant. We'd have to rush out a design that met the desired goal at some minimal level, even if it was no more efficient than the old design.

But we've been explicitly told that the problem isn't on that scale. We're simply not in that kind of a rush here. There's very little benefit to us from spending two Heavy Industry dice just to get +1 or +2 Energy out of each fusion phase. It's not urgent.

...

If we have to wait a fixed X-year period before the "Generation 3 fusion plant using sexy new technology" becomes available, then we have locked ourselves out of using any such new technology for X years.

If the sexy new technology intrinsically cannot influence the Generation 2 project, then a few quarters' delay one way or the other will cost us little, because importantly, this is not a case where you can lose a war because your ships weren't ready. This is a case where we get a little more or less electricity out of our power plants.

And yet, the QM explicitly says that the improvement project "is likely to see significant further revisions as other fields improve." That is, right now, little can be done to make the plants more efficient, because they are the product of an exhaustive project that took us several years of iterative design work in the mid-2050s.

If we want improvements that are impactful enough to truly justify the investment of dice in a reasonably timely manner, at a time when Heavy Industry dice are scarce and we may soon be dropping to three dice per turn at least for a while... Then we need to lay some groundwork first.

...

We're not doing Improved Fusion just to say "we have improved our fusion plants." We're doing it because we want to get meaningfully better results out of our investments in fusion power than we have so far, enough so that it saves us a meaningful amount of time and effort or gives us materially better return on the same investment.

For that, we should try to incorporate some new techs.

bigking321 · Jul 10, 2022

I'm on board for researching a bunch of new tech.

Might get some interesting projects out of it.

Vehrec · Jul 10, 2022

I'm perfectly down to do a big tech push but the next couple of turns are really not a good time for it. We're too pressed for urgent dice-even if we follow Simon's plan, we're still looking at the possibility of 2-3 dice each on ASAT and OSRCTs, and one or two other projects not finishing. That's 5 dice out of eight, and even if we do complete our plan goals, we might want to instead immediately lock those dice up on refits and munitions supplies for the next plan.

StarJaunter · Jul 10, 2022

I just worry that we would have to deploy it, ie build advanced alloy refineries and deploy a particle industry to get the effect you want. So to me it feels more reasonable to pick A tech get it and deploy it (and maybe next phase Bergen) and then pull the trigger.

Unless we want our eggheads to design fusion reactors we cannot make in bulk?

Nottheunmaker · Jul 10, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I'm definitely considering Sparkle Shields for "toss a die to your Talons" in my Q4 plan. If I'd won in the Q2 vote and rolled well (as in, unlike what we actually got with very bad rolls in Military), I might even have thrown a die to them in Q3.

Light Combat Lasers and the drones are lower priorities for me, because I feel like our existing antimissile tech is adequate and just not fully fielded to all our vehicles apart from the refitted Predators yet. The drones, well, it's gonna be a while before we can implement that; it's something I'm imagining us pursuing more heavily in the mid-60s. Honestly, I'm more interested in MRASP and its potential for mobile basing.

The MRASP is an important development project, no argument here. However, it's also a 20R project, while needing 125 points of progress. Odds are it'll need two dice for development. Though this might change, for better or worse, with the completion of Bogatyr reverse engineering. My main point is that development of it is unlikely to put us under strain.

USGVs are also 20R, but only 80 progress. Much more likely to only need 1 die. Not hard to fit into a plan that's about say, two years off. Light Combat Lasers, while 25R, are 40 progress. If I understand our military dice bonuses, it will one take die to finish baring a crit fail. And while we don't know how far they'll spread, those wire guided missiles are likely to start popping up more and more. True, they failed in the assassination attempt, but I'd still rather we get ahead of them. So for me, it'd be ideal if we could find a way to squeeze them in on Q4.

Just for completeness sake, Sparkle Shields are 30R per die and require 120 progress. Very close to maybe needing 2 dice. So that's on the edge of painful, but it is what it is. Buckler Shields are 20R and 100 progress. That's kinda high, but doable next year or the year after.

That said, I'm fine with putting off the USGVs for a couple years. It'll give time for other useful things to be developed. I do however, very much believe they should be done before MRASPs, along with the rest of my list. Afterall, it's a still a weapons platform, and everything else I've talked about is equipment, or in the case of the USGVs, a significant support element. I remain convinced that we need these technologies, and will push for them to be all be done in about two to three years. And to be clear, yes that includes the MRASPs.

Derpmind · Jul 10, 2022

Simon, this whole fusion discussion is just a repeat of the Wingman Drones/Escort Carriers debate. And more importantly, it's the entire reason Ithillid added the (Tech) and (Platform) tags. (Platform) projects are locked-in the turn we finish them, but (Tech) projects are a general increase in GDI's technological capabilities. And the project in question? [ ] Improved Continuous Cycle Fusion Development (Tech).

That's not to say other technology won't also help us improve our fusion plants. (The exception being Microfusion Cells, which Ithillid very clearly weighed in on.) But we're not locked in with what we have the moment we finish the Improved Fusion project. We don't need to get all our ducks lined up before we do the project, and waiting will delay background tech progress.

Simon_Jester said:
I just shifted focus to take a die off the Nod tech gacha (which is nice and all, but we've got a lot on our plate and won't be able to do a lot with new tech quickly next Plan anyway) and slow-walk it to give us a 67% chance instead of a 16% chance of a hospital expansion phase. I respect people going with a two-and-three plan, but I think I'm a fan of one-and-four right now, especially in light of the above paragraph.

Remember that we very much want the research project to finish before the end of the year. If we take too long, then the next time we get the Nod tech gatcha project might be in Q1 2066, at the beginning of a new 4-year Plan, which means we might have a new Director who won't share Seo's critically-usefulm+5 to tech rolls trait. If we can finish the project this year, then it'll show up sometime in 2065 while we know we'll most likely still have Seo around.

Rakuhn · Jul 10, 2022

I mean, the +5 bonus is actually pretty weak in the vast majority of cases. The techs really aren't notably better than each other in that range.

The only real case that is notable is when we roll 96+, where we get two techs (one lore, one high end), which we only expect to happen 1/20 rolls. We'll be lucky to get it to even proc once before Seo leaves office.

It isn't worth overkilling those projects.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2022

Vehrec said:
I'm perfectly down to do a big tech push but the next couple of turns are really not a good time for it. We're too pressed for urgent dice-even if we follow Simon's plan, we're still looking at the possibility of 2-3 dice each on ASAT and OSRCTs, and one or two other projects not finishing. That's 5 dice out of eight, and even if we do complete our plan goals, we might want to instead immediately lock those dice up on refits and munitions supplies for the next plan.

Firstly, if we don't have the dice to do the Talons shield generation projects in hopes that they'll have spinoffs for fusion research, then we don't. Either we just keep soldiering on with the existing first-generation design, or we accept a second-generation design that doesn't have all the Cool Stuff. I'm not obsessed with perfection here.

...

Two side notes.

First, I'd like to caution against loading ourselves down too heavily with bureaus and departments in 2061Q4. We may not be able to get all those line items taken off our budget at reapportionment, and we're already supporting -115 RpT of line-item projects that are taken directly out of our budget. That's a lot of money, enough that even if we get 30% of GDI's probable overall GDP of roughly 2200 RpT, we're down from ~660 RpT to 545 RpT for our starting budget before we even get started. Hopefully we can get some of those obligations lifted off our backs. For instance, the subsidies to the Forgotten and the resettlement program aren't obviously our job even by traditional standards, and with ~1500 RpT in hand for the rest of the budget, the government really should be able to shake loose money for the reconstruction commission or damn well decide to cut the spending themselves.

But the point is, it's a lot, and I'd like to caution us against taking every option we can take just because we can. It's vanishingly unlikely in the present political climate that we'll get to go above 30% GDP, and we're so larded down with line-item programs that in effect, 30% GDP is only 25% GDP. We may have more freedom of action to take certain choices when we can afford to activate dice at 20 R/die again.

Right now, the RpT cost of those departments looks cost-free. It's just the money we totally had on hand to activate those dice anyway! ...It may or may not feel that way in 2062Q1.

...

Second, I'd like to discuss the short list of things I'm willing to spend our handful of "free to allocate" Military dice on in 2061Q4.

First is at least two dice on Zone Armor, possibly three, depending on what is best towards the goal of being reasonably likely to complete two factories by the end of the Plan. But then, we have the following:

Infernium Laser Refits- this is a quite sizeable project that the Navy will need, especially if Bintang doesn't knock it off with the nuclear-tipped antiship missiles. It's a critical thing for our ships to defend themselves well, especially the new frigates, and we really really want to have it in place for Karachi. Trouble is, it's also an intensive, expensive project: 450 Progress at 30 R/die. Very little can or will happen on this project in 2062 if we don't start it now. Even 2063 will be tough. We almost certainly can't finish the project in 2061Q4, but even starting it with an eye to resuming it a few turns later at one die per turn for a slow-walk would be better than nothing.

Seattle Frigate Yard- this is "unfinished business" from our naval construction plan; I effectively gave up hope of completing it in 2061 after the crit-fail on New York. If we could get it done in 2061Q4, we'd have twenty extra frigates at the time of Karachi, ready to go. Delay until late 2062, and those same frigates won't have time to complete and commission, leaving us with more like 80 frigates instead of 100 at Karachi GO time. That's a pretty significant decrease in overall naval strength. Also, it's 20 R/die, so if it doesn't finish, it's at least conceivable that we could focus in on doing it at one die per turn even in 2062Q1 or more likely Q2. It's not like we won't have any money for the military, after all.

Talons Shield Projects- I advocate these because of their potential for fusion research, and also because this is tech we're already using elsewhere in various applications. Since we are already exploring ways to use shimmer shields, upgrading our control over those shields, and their strength, may produce other benefits more rapidly and directly than with some other Talons projects.

Obviously, there is absolutely no way ALL of this gets done in 2061Q4, but it's the list of Big Name projects I think belong there.

StarJaunter said:
I just worry that we would have to deploy it, ie build advanced alloy refineries and deploy a particle industry to get the effect you want. So to me it feels more reasonable to pick A tech get it and deploy it (and maybe next phase Bergen) and then pull the trigger.

Unless we want our eggheads to design fusion reactors we cannot make in bulk?

That's conceivable, but in that case I think we just get reactors that don't have the techs, in which case we really haven't lost very much.

Again, developing this design isn't something we need to rush.

Derpmind said:
Simon, this whole fusion discussion is just a repeat of the Wingman Drones/Escort Carriers debate.

No, it's not, because we're not in the same kind of very nasty "cliff" situation. At that time, we had no ships of the needed type, and were considering whether to delay having any ships in order to have better ships later, versus having adequate ships (lesser-than, but at least afloat) that would exist sooner.

This is different. We already have fusion reactors. We have just fueled a massive military-industrial boom with them. The question is whether we want better fusion reactors, and whether it is worth our time to spend two dice and 40R improving them in exchange for marginal improvements in performance, or whether we should wait a short time

I was on the side of "don't put off the escort carriers" until eventually talked around to accepting delay. And even so, I'm saying I think this is different. I have my reasons.

That's not to say other technology won't also help us improve our fusion plants. (The exception being Microfusion Cells, which Ithillid very clearly weighed in on.)

I don't think that's a literal interpretation of the only words he's uttered in the thread on the subject any time recently. So either you're basing that off something he said in the Discord that nobody's seen fit to share, (which I've lost access to for now, don't bother sending me the link, long computer story), or you're basing that off something he said a long time ago. Or you're basing it on what he said recently, in which case... I really don't think that's what he said.

I could go back into that again, but I've fought this out about three times in the past two days, complete with quoting the QM's exact words at least once and analyzing them.

And it's exhausting trying to defend my belief that it's worthwhile to do fusion research in a way informed by my own experiences about how the actual practice of the science of physics goes (including real life plasma physics and thus real life fusion research).

I'm tired, and I don't know if a single person has actually listened to me on the subject, not even in the sense of "believed me" but in the sense of "taken me seriously on the subject as opposed to thinking I'm some kind of deranged ranting conspiracy theorist."

So fine. Microfusion Cells is dead. I will not put it in a 2061 plan draft. Period. End of sentence. I no longer care if I'm right or wrong about it enough to risk putting up something that someone will decide as a matter of what they see as moral principle to vote against my plan for. And I fully expect that to happen at this rate, like what happened with a couple of people specifically voting against Interdepartmental Favors during the Q2 vote.

And more importantly, it's the entire reason Ithillid added the (Tech) and (Platform) tags. (Platform) projects are locked-in the turn we finish them, but (Tech) projects are a general increase in GDI's technological capabilities. And the project in question? [ ] Improved Continuous Cycle Fusion Development (Tech)...

But we're not locked in with what we have the moment we finish the Improved Fusion project. We don't need to get all our ducks lined up before we do the project, and waiting will delay background tech progress.

@Ithillid , is this true? Is Improved Continuous Cycle Fusion Development that kind of project? Because the blurb phrasing suggests the opposite- that we need to develop other techs in order to integrate them into the design of a new fusion reactor. I'm not entirely clear on where or even if there is a "platform" for the second generation fusion reactor. Is that a second project?

How does this even work, mechanically?

Remember that we very much want the research project to finish before the end of the year. If we take too long, then the next time we get the Nod tech gatcha project might be in Q1 2066, at the beginning of a new 4-year Plan, which means we might have a new Director who won't share Seo's critically-usefulm+5 to tech rolls trait. If we can finish the project this year, then it'll show up sometime in 2065 while we know we'll most likely still have Seo around.

That's a valid argument. I'm ambivalent about how to do the thing, and I'm tired of nitpicky arguments, so I'm just going to table the question for now, but it's a damn good point.

Rakuhn said:
I mean, the +5 bonus is actually pretty weak in the vast majority of cases. The techs really aren't notably better than each other in that range.

The only real case that is notable is when we roll 96+, where we get two techs (one lore, one high end), which we only expect to happen 1/20 rolls. We'll be lucky to get it to even proc once before Seo leaves office.

It isn't worth overkilling those projects.

Just to be clear, the mechanic has been changed to "if we roll a 96, we get the 96 tech and the 01 tech," not "if we roll a 96, we get the 100 tech?"

Rakuhn · Jul 10, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Just to be clear, the mechanic has been changed to "if we roll a 96, we get the 96 tech and the 01 tech," not "if we roll a 96, we get the 100 tech?"

It's always been that if you 'break' the bar, you get two techs. The highest tech (e.g. 99 if we already have 100), then a second tech back from the beginning of the list (mostly lore techs). There might or might not be something special for getting a nat 100 on it though.

That said, in support of your earlier statement to slow-walk Nod gachas, we currently have an expected 8 Nod techs and 4 Scrin techs before the gachas expire. So we have a ~46% chance of proccing it once. Which isn't really all that inspiring.

We could, of course, refresh the gachas prior to that point, but I don't think it is worth spending dice and resources on a very uncertain hope when they are going to be critically needed in the short-term future.

Ithillid · Jul 11, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
@Ithillid , is this true? Is Improved Continuous Cycle Fusion Development that kind of project? Because the blurb phrasing suggests the opposite- that we need to develop other techs in order to integrate them into the design of a new fusion reactor. I'm not entirely clear on where or even if there is a "platform" for the second generation fusion reactor. Is that a second project?

How does this even work, mechanically?

Some of this is intentionally obscured, because tech is not usually clear on what relates. But basically there are a bunch of different items on the list that will improve fusion in one format or another. However, not all of them directly influence the fusion 2.0 project that you have in Improved CCF. Some won't be immediately applicable, but will influence fusion 3.0, or lead towards 2.A, or 2.B fusion, or even 3.A and 3.B fusion with their own advantages and tradeoffs.

Now, Tech versus Platform, and Improved Fusion
Basically, unlike military development where it goes
- Lock in a design
- Build said design
- Refit within the scope of said design's inherent limitations.

A lot of civilian development is a bit different, because unlike the military, where no matter how much you upgrade a panzer III, it is running into the limits of its hull, power pack, and basic design compromises, a lot of civilian systems are more friendly to doing limited, iterative runs. It is a somewhat more costly way of doing things, but at the same time, it is something you very much can do.

The ICCF option is tech because it, on it own, pushes the technological boundaries. Right now, that pushing would be relatively limited and conservative, fixing the longevity problems, making the system as a whole a little bit more efficient. But it then takes into account broader fusion and fusion adjacent technologies to see how much of an improvement you can make practically, both as limited run systems, and more generally deployable ones.

Now, there is an opportunity cost to doing it this way, but that cost is fairly minimal. It is a couple dice, a chunk of resources, and then you have shiny improved version of your power plants ready to hit the construction button.

Microfusion
Part of the issue with microfusion is that it is a fundamentally different bit of the tech web. It is an important toehold on that bit of the tech web, but, basically, it is microscale cold fusion. It is not quite an arc reactor, but it fits the same idea as Tony's first generation version. "that can run your heart for fifty lifetimes." "Yeah, or something big for fifteen minutes." Or, for another reference, Fallout's Microfusion Cells, which are a somewhat direct inspiration. On the other hand, the continuous cycle fusion is macroscale hot fusion. It is not quite a Tokamak, but it fits in the same sort of design space. There is, of course, crossover between these two parts of the broader web, but it is something where those crossover points are not always, or even often, immediately observable or applicable.

The following are the things that are immediately applicable to directly improving fusion energy production. However, there are a lot of other techs that lead to various improvements in the longer term.

Bergen Superconductors
Sparkle Shield
Advanced Materials Bay
Helium 3 Harvesting

Sorry I have been a bit absent from the thread, Been trying (and mostly failing honestly) to hammer through a decent portion of the update before I get sucked into parent involved stuff for a lot of the rest of the month.

Lightwhispers · Jul 11, 2022

With that clearer, it looks like Sparkle Shields and Bergen 3 are probably quick enough to do before ICCF, but then I'd really like to pull the trigger on that. And they're worthwhile working on anyway in the near term.
Helium 3 Harvesting will require more Lunar investment, we don't know how much yet, and the AdvMat Bay is probably on the top 4 list, but IMO is definitely below the Station and Fusion shipyard bays. So that will wait on the vote ~~ritual bloodletting~~ regarding the bays.

HousePet · Jul 11, 2022

Ithillid said:
fixing the longevity problems

Alleged longevity problems, with little evidence for it.

Happerry · Jul 11, 2022

Personally I'd like to grab Microfusion just because I think that the 'personal scale high density energy needs' thing is something that I'd very much like for our military development in terms of zone armor development and shield deployment, but the general lack of support for it leads me to feeling there's not much point in even arguing for it at this point.

Rakuhn · Jul 11, 2022

It's all about STU allocation.

We basically have unlimited demand for the stuff, and very limited supply.

Oleg-14191 · Jul 11, 2022

Gachas are the only way to increase our supply, right?

HousePet · Jul 11, 2022

STU supply is based on how much Tib we process.
The revised processing method is likely to increase it.

Rakuhn · Jul 11, 2022

Oleg-14191 said:
Gachas are the only way to increase our supply, right?

We have quite a few methods to improve our STU supplies:
-mine more tib (whether by tech, effort, or Venus)

-discover how to process liquid tib (gacha, Seo madness, visceroid tree)

-propose projects to create more tib to be mined (e.g. tib accelerators, tib 'recyclers', etc.)

-propose using the polluting variant of refining to generate more STUs (say in former red zones)

-gacha (such as the latest improved refining variant, although realistically we aren't likely to get one out of them anytime soon unless we get more modders)

-develop novel materials that will stretch out STU supplies further (e.g. the Advanced Materials bay)

-work on tiberium projects in the hopes that they will lead to a breakthrough in either income or refining

-keep developing/deploying existing STU consuming applications, in the hope that more efficient variants will be created (such as how we're slowly getting more plasma disruptor missiles per quarter out of the same amount of STUs as knowledge improves)

So there's quite a few methods available. But yeah, gachas are the quickest way to make it possible to deploy more STU consuming applications in parallel, or to make entirely new applications cheap enough relative to their benefit to be viable (such as zrbite blades for tib mining, or even space mining).

Simon_Jester · Jul 11, 2022

Happerry said:
Personally I'd like to grab Microfusion just because I think that the 'personal scale high density energy needs' thing is something that I'd very much like for our military development in terms of zone armor development and shield deployment, but the general lack of support for it leads me to feeling there's not much point in even arguing for it at this point.

Welcome to the club. With that said, I greatly appreciate Ithillid taking the time to respond to me in detail, and will be going into that more below.

HousePet said:
Alleged longevity problems, with little evidence for it.

Suffice to say that we won't know what (if any) problems the design has with longevity until one blows a gasket and starts leaking mildly radioactive steam or something. When the engineers keep saying "uh, boss, not sure how long this fusion reactor is gonna last," and you value your reputation as not being this guy, you listen.

Oleg-14191 said:
Gachas are the only way to increase our supply, right?

It's been implied that we know how to increase our supply if we're desperate.

Use the Abdul-Pascal-Kane process. The only problem is, it produces all manner of horrible byproducts, so GDI isn't irresponsible enough to do it somewhere people live, which presents problems... But we could build a refinery in an isolated location to produce STUs in greater quantity that way. It's just never been an issue because so far we haven't gotten close to using up our STU supply.

Ithillid said:
Some of this is intentionally obscured, because tech is not usually clear on what relates. But basically there are a bunch of different items on the list that will improve fusion in one format or another. However, not all of them directly influence the fusion 2.0 project that you have in Improved CCF. Some won't be immediately applicable, but will influence fusion 3.0, or lead towards 2.A, or 2.B fusion, or even 3.A and 3.B fusion with their own advantages and tradeoffs.

Ah. Thank you. You have an entire tree worked out in detail, and things appear when they appear. That clarifies matters somewhat, and helps square the circle of what people are telling me about how things work and a commonsense understanding of how science in general works.

Microfusion
Part of the issue with microfusion is that it is a fundamentally different bit of the tech web. It is an important toehold on that bit of the tech web, but, basically, it is microscale cold fusion. It is not quite an arc reactor, but it fits the same idea as Tony's first generation version. "that can run your heart for fifty lifetimes." "Yeah, or something big for fifteen minutes." Or, for another reference, Fallout's Microfusion Cells, which are a somewhat direct inspiration. On the other hand, the continuous cycle fusion is macroscale hot fusion. It is not quite a Tokamak, but it fits in the same sort of design space. There is, of course, crossover between these two parts of the broader web, but it is something where those crossover points are not always, or even often, immediately observable or applicable.

Ah.

See, now the thing I've been trying to get at and hitting a wall on is that there are such crossover points, simply because both the "cold fusion micro-generator" and the "hot fusion multi-megawatt power plant" are in some sense "about" the same physical phenomena: nuclear fusion.

Being passingly familiar with the history of the physical sciences, I naturally expect knowing more about fusion in general to pay off in the long run if you are trying to do things with fusion. Sort of like how knowing more about electricity in general tends to make you more effective at working with electrical engineering, even if your knowledge comes from multiple unrelated lines of experimentation by different people trying to accomplish different things. For a long time, for instance, it was totally non-obvious that electricity and magnetism were even related, but knowing that they were related gave scientists very valuable clues into how they were related, and ultimately to how both of them worked. Treating the studies of electricity and magnetism as entirely disconnected "lanes" would have greatly held back scientific progress in both subjects.

...

Now, with this in mind, it's entirely reasonable that the relevant insights from a piece of advanced alien technology that approaches the problem very differently only become relevant later. If I'm still at the "fuck around with static electricity and compasses" stage of my investigations into electromagnetism, I won't learn much from a nuclear reactor, or even a wind turbine, without a LOT of time to think about it.

On the other hand, if you're a high-level planner trying to make sure fusion energy gets improved as far as possible, you invest heavily in anything that seems fusion-related, because you don't know in advance which things will yield important discoveries and which things will not.

So my own perspective was heavily informed by that 'other hand' observation, but I can respect the logic that informs the paragraph before that.

The following are the things that are immediately applicable to directly improving fusion energy production. However, there are a lot of other techs that lead to various improvements in the longer term.

Bergen Superconductors
Sparkle Shield
Advanced Materials Bay
Helium 3 Harvesting

Ah. Well, that puts things in an interesting light. The first of those we can do easily. The third and fourth are things we cannot be assured of doing in the immediate future and no immediate dice allocation choice will help with that. Delaying the project until those are done might well be a bridge too far, especially since we do have the longevity issue to think of and so there is at least some sense of urgency here.

Sparkle Shields occupy a middle ground. It is a hard project to pursue, because it uses scarce resources at an inconvenient time. But it's also an improvement on a tech that has vast, obvious potential in many many areas... And it's a Talons project, and frankly we have a long history of ignoring the Talons as much as we can get away with, which I would like to address.

Sorry I have been a bit absent from the thread, Been trying (and mostly failing honestly) to hammer through a decent portion of the update before I get sucked into parent involved stuff for a lot of the rest of the month.

Well, I wish you better luck tomorrow, then. You have a small army of people to bat ideas around with on Discord, where for now and the immediate future I cannot go, but if you want to bat around with me, you've got the PM thread I started for that stupid joke of mine.

Thank you.

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Altman be praised

Altman be praised

Bat out of Hell