Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Location
- Africa
I know , I mentioned that in the rest of the post , 10 points per phase at 5 phases to complete a station is a 50 point , utterly worthless seeing that the bay to give us that discount costs 400 points to begin with
Every phase of stations is double the required progress of the previous one.what the hell kind of drop pod tech does GDI have to drop f***ing Mammoth tanks from orbit? Because that sounds more like magic than even fusion rockets.
I don't get it. Wouldn't this start paying off after forty phases of stations? Because that sounds pretty much completely useless so I must be missing something surely. But what?
A 10 progress discount in phase 1 is a 20 progress discount phase 2
For 5 phases that's 10+20+40+80+160 for 310 discount per station if I'm getting my maths correct
My choice is Fusion, Advanced Material and Station bays. Let the Enterprise be our Space Industry station supplying all our near-Earth development and build a dedicated Military station that will focus on building up a Gravtic anti-Visitor fleet in the future.
- Location
- USA
So, the explanation for stations is bad because it's cumulative per phase of station.
It'll basically pay for itself this plan, since we need Shala, Columbia and whatever comes after Columbia for even more pop in space since we're going to have a mandatory amount from plan goals.
The rest, I lean towards advanced materials and something else but not set on it.
It'll basically pay for itself this plan, since we need Shala, Columbia and whatever comes after Columbia for even more pop in space since we're going to have a mandatory amount from plan goals.
The rest, I lean towards advanced materials and something else but not set on it.
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
So. Say 50 progress discount for shala. And, the same 50 progress discount for Colombia. And those are basically the first two stations.
To get millions of people in space we're going to need dozens of those. Well, after a while we'll possibly upgrade to larger individual stations. But assuming they follow the same Phased Formula the station bay could discount us thousands of progress over its lifetime.
edit: Wait. I derped.
A 10 discount for the first phase. since subsequent phases double the cost of the previous phase that 10 discount becomes 20, becomes 40, becomes 80, becomes 160.
So a 400 cost bay saves us 310 On just one Station. Pays for itself by the completion of just 2 stations. So it's even better than I initially thought.
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Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Can we pass laws to prevent Jevons Paradox from occurring? Or chose the old versions of the actions that will be modified by this bay?
[] Advanced Materials Bay
[] Gravitic Shipyard
[] Fusion Shipyard
I am all for building bays that allow us unique opportunities, besides do not forget that a good spaceship is the way to get TCN from Kane.
I also find the advantage of station bay underwhelming.
It costs 400 points. It will save us 620 points from Shala and Columbia.
This is a 220 points advantage… Not too significant compared to truly unique opportunities the other three bays enable.
Of course, it will save us even more points going forward… But we are also all but guaranteed to build amother production station with a station bay in the future after we finish current batch of stations to get this discount as well.
On the other hand we do know that advanced materials bay will help us with fusion, saving an unknown but likely not insignificant amount of points in Heavy industry department, and I expect advanced materials to help across the board - material science is an extreme enabler, after all.
[] Gravitic Shipyard
[] Fusion Shipyard
I am all for building bays that allow us unique opportunities, besides do not forget that a good spaceship is the way to get TCN from Kane.
I also find the advantage of station bay underwhelming.
It costs 400 points. It will save us 620 points from Shala and Columbia.
This is a 220 points advantage… Not too significant compared to truly unique opportunities the other three bays enable.
Of course, it will save us even more points going forward… But we are also all but guaranteed to build amother production station with a station bay in the future after we finish current batch of stations to get this discount as well.
On the other hand we do know that advanced materials bay will help us with fusion, saving an unknown but likely not insignificant amount of points in Heavy industry department, and I expect advanced materials to help across the board - material science is an extreme enabler, after all.
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The station bay pays for itself by the second station but it seems like a waste of an opportunity to me.
I'd rather something like the 2 shipyards and AMat that is likely to synergise very well
I'd rather something like the 2 shipyards and AMat that is likely to synergise very well
So, analysis, from my PoV:
-Military bay would be quite useful if we hadn't conclusively won the Regency war, but as is, provides something that we don't really need as much.
-Adv. Materials bay is quite nice, since it helps with cutting edge materials science, getting those processes ready for larger-scale production. Definitely in my top 4, however, the station bay and shipyards might edge it out.
-Satellite bay is possibly useful, since it would help with various constellations, but I feel the marginal advantage is less than others.
-G-drive Shipyard is the long-term big advantage, because it gives us a start on getting ships outside cislunar space. The question is, is that long-term advantage worth the short-term legs up other bays give?
-Fusion shipyard gives a short-term advantage on shorter-range craft, especially cargo from Earth to Luna. Major investment for Lunar growth, and also for non-urgent shipping to Mars. Also, for near-Earth patrol craft, most likely
-Station bay: Provides a compounding discount to each phase of a station, so a total of 310 off of a 5-phase station, which most will be. This doesn't provide any tech advantage, it just means that, combined with the Leopard 2 factory, a station like Columbia or Shala that would take on average 30-31 dice with our current Orbital bonus, would only require about 24 dice. In short, more stations, faster, letting us get to the more advanced/specialized space infrastructure sooner. (It almost pays for itself over the course of 1 station being constructed.)
My preference:
Station Bay
Fusion Shipyard
Advanced Materials Bay.
-Military bay would be quite useful if we hadn't conclusively won the Regency war, but as is, provides something that we don't really need as much.
-Adv. Materials bay is quite nice, since it helps with cutting edge materials science, getting those processes ready for larger-scale production. Definitely in my top 4, however, the station bay and shipyards might edge it out.
-Satellite bay is possibly useful, since it would help with various constellations, but I feel the marginal advantage is less than others.
-G-drive Shipyard is the long-term big advantage, because it gives us a start on getting ships outside cislunar space. The question is, is that long-term advantage worth the short-term legs up other bays give?
-Fusion shipyard gives a short-term advantage on shorter-range craft, especially cargo from Earth to Luna. Major investment for Lunar growth, and also for non-urgent shipping to Mars. Also, for near-Earth patrol craft, most likely
-Station bay: Provides a compounding discount to each phase of a station, so a total of 310 off of a 5-phase station, which most will be. This doesn't provide any tech advantage, it just means that, combined with the Leopard 2 factory, a station like Columbia or Shala that would take on average 30-31 dice with our current Orbital bonus, would only require about 24 dice. In short, more stations, faster, letting us get to the more advanced/specialized space infrastructure sooner. (It almost pays for itself over the course of 1 station being constructed.)
My preference:
Station Bay
Fusion Shipyard
Advanced Materials Bay.
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Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
Good, Good.
@KnightDisciple with the development of
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
Right, so my belly-feels say "STEHL RAIHN", but I'm going to push past that.
Station Bay is...it's not "required", but we've got so much orbital construction we want/need to do, that it's going to 100% pay for itself. I think we really need to do this one. It's a foundational thing.
That leaves 2 Bays to choose.
Advanced Materials is nice, but....to me, that's basically "if we had a 4th Bay". It would synergize well with Station Bay and the other 2 pairs (more on that in a moment), but with just 3 bays, I don't think it's quite a winner.
So, that leaves 4 possible choices for 2 slots, and as I look over them, I feel like the best synergies are 2 specific pairings.
The first is a very Earth-focused setup, with Military and Satellites. Massive Orbital Drop capability paired with massively-improved Ion Cannon, Laser Defense, and so on satellite swarms? Tempting. In another scenario, it would be something I'd advocate strongly for. But it's not the situation we find ourselves in.
Because I think what we need instead, is the two bays that let us truly spread our focus out further. The Gravitic Shipyard and Fusion Shipyard.
1.) Space Mining will massively increase our resource pools.
2.) These will help us work toward building up more and more long-term space habitats. On Luna, in the Lagrange points, on Mars, and eventually beyond.
3.) There are Visitors at Jupiter. They are unwelcome Visitors, and it would please me greatly to see them gone. Because I want to be able to safely go out and build a Warship Yard or something at Titan, I want the outer edges of our Solar System. This is our home, and they're not welcome, and unlike a certain Bentusi who's at least got Style, Panache, and Amazing Drip, they have nothing to offer us. Nothing we want, anyway.
So, Station Bay and the Shipyards it is.
Today, the SS Enterprise, tomorrow, Utopia Planitia!
Station Bay is...it's not "required", but we've got so much orbital construction we want/need to do, that it's going to 100% pay for itself. I think we really need to do this one. It's a foundational thing.
That leaves 2 Bays to choose.
Advanced Materials is nice, but....to me, that's basically "if we had a 4th Bay". It would synergize well with Station Bay and the other 2 pairs (more on that in a moment), but with just 3 bays, I don't think it's quite a winner.
So, that leaves 4 possible choices for 2 slots, and as I look over them, I feel like the best synergies are 2 specific pairings.
The first is a very Earth-focused setup, with Military and Satellites. Massive Orbital Drop capability paired with massively-improved Ion Cannon, Laser Defense, and so on satellite swarms? Tempting. In another scenario, it would be something I'd advocate strongly for. But it's not the situation we find ourselves in.
Because I think what we need instead, is the two bays that let us truly spread our focus out further. The Gravitic Shipyard and Fusion Shipyard.
1.) Space Mining will massively increase our resource pools.
2.) These will help us work toward building up more and more long-term space habitats. On Luna, in the Lagrange points, on Mars, and eventually beyond.
3.) There are Visitors at Jupiter. They are unwelcome Visitors, and it would please me greatly to see them gone. Because I want to be able to safely go out and build a Warship Yard or something at Titan, I want the outer edges of our Solar System. This is our home, and they're not welcome, and unlike a certain Bentusi who's at least got Style, Panache, and Amazing Drip, they have nothing to offer us. Nothing we want, anyway.
So, Station Bay and the Shipyards it is.
Today, the SS Enterprise, tomorrow, Utopia Planitia!
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think that's a fair concern. We do need to secure orbit from NOD. I'd rather not fight them over it and I'd rather also not deal with opportunistic noddite missile strikes on our stations. So security comes first.
But honestly, I'm not sure if going full military isn't overkill. We'll also need to make sure to accelerate our future expansion. The station bay does add up a lot. So probably something like station for either military or satellite would be a good idea.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
My main three of interest:
[ ] Station Bay
Easier station building gets us to positive growth rate for population faster, and gets more useful stuff out of easy range of Nod. Useful with near-earth construction, but likely can be reused further out (albeit likely dependent on the ships coming out of shipyards we choose).
[ ] Advance Materials Bay
Sounds like the long haul tech improvement route. Doesn't synergize heavily now, but we likely need the experience (and there's likely things that are easier to make in zero or low g that'll prove useful back on Earth). Lowest of the three I want though, could see it swapped out.
[ ] Gravitic Shipyard
More important than fusion yards to my mind - we need long haul capability more than we need slow bulk to the moon. Especially considering we've got Scrin in the outer system - at some point, we'll need to go squish anything out there that could portal in an invasion force, and for that we need to get some grav ship experience ticking.
OK but not awesome:
[ ] Military Bay
OSRCT is clearly a good thing. Probably a good way to get towards system monitors to deal with the out-system Scrin. Not a fan of the bit about needing lots of resources - expect this'll chew into our lift capacity and maybe what we get out of space mining ops.
[ ] Fusion Shipyard
Bulk haulers to/from the Moon would definitely be useful, and it can stretch to Mars some. Likely useful in the short-medium term, but less useful than good grav drive ships (especially if we can move towards faster options through research from the AMB and GS modules).
No:
[ ] Satellite Bay
I don't think we gain all that much here that we won't get with just iterating on the existing Leopard designs (and with other space industry). Yeah satellite constellations are cool, but not likely very useful with getting people off the Earth or with dealing with the Scrin.
[ ] Station Bay
Easier station building gets us to positive growth rate for population faster, and gets more useful stuff out of easy range of Nod. Useful with near-earth construction, but likely can be reused further out (albeit likely dependent on the ships coming out of shipyards we choose).
[ ] Advance Materials Bay
Sounds like the long haul tech improvement route. Doesn't synergize heavily now, but we likely need the experience (and there's likely things that are easier to make in zero or low g that'll prove useful back on Earth). Lowest of the three I want though, could see it swapped out.
[ ] Gravitic Shipyard
More important than fusion yards to my mind - we need long haul capability more than we need slow bulk to the moon. Especially considering we've got Scrin in the outer system - at some point, we'll need to go squish anything out there that could portal in an invasion force, and for that we need to get some grav ship experience ticking.
OK but not awesome:
[ ] Military Bay
OSRCT is clearly a good thing. Probably a good way to get towards system monitors to deal with the out-system Scrin. Not a fan of the bit about needing lots of resources - expect this'll chew into our lift capacity and maybe what we get out of space mining ops.
[ ] Fusion Shipyard
Bulk haulers to/from the Moon would definitely be useful, and it can stretch to Mars some. Likely useful in the short-medium term, but less useful than good grav drive ships (especially if we can move towards faster options through research from the AMB and GS modules).
No:
[ ] Satellite Bay
I don't think we gain all that much here that we won't get with just iterating on the existing Leopard designs (and with other space industry). Yeah satellite constellations are cool, but not likely very useful with getting people off the Earth or with dealing with the Scrin.
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
I would love nothing better than to bring the Eridani Light Horse down upon our enemies like the angry Left Hand Of God, but alas, fate has decreed we must look outward.
- Location
- USA
It is 310 for a 5 phase because each phase is double the cost of the one before it. This has always been the case for the station bay and why it is so good. So just the 2 we have is 620 discount for 400 points now.
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
Fair. And, working out the maths on station bays. That has shot up to my top priority.
So, station bay for discount. Gravitic bays for long range ships. And. I still want satellites. Not necessarily even for security against nod though that's a nice bonus.
But rather for defences against Scrin.
More or less I also see two bonuses from satellite bay. Possible research into say Ion cannons, heavy lasers, possibly railgun sats. Improving on our space scale weapons. And second while the military bay is coded for ground combat I kind of see satellites with their focus on space weapons, to be a sort of 'military bay' but pointed outwards rather than inwards. Satellite bay+ shipyard for ships with ion cannons basically. Space navy.
My gut instinct is that the military and satellite bays are cool as hell, but also not really needed. We just kicked nods teeth in so I consider a major outbreak of violence unlikely. Advanced bays tickles my number go up brain and would be helpful for future space development. The station bay is imo required. We will absolutely be doing more station construction and the faster we can slam those out the better.
The big issue for me is the damn shipyards. Normally I'd say to just do the fusion yard since the majority of our work will be in orbit and the moon anyway and by the time Mars is a concern we can just brute force it and save the outer system for later.
Then the damn visitors revealed themselves and I'm not cocky enough to say we tangle with them on fusion barges. So now that's much more immediately needed, and idk whether or not to drop the fusion yard or the advanced materials yard.
The big issue for me is the damn shipyards. Normally I'd say to just do the fusion yard since the majority of our work will be in orbit and the moon anyway and by the time Mars is a concern we can just brute force it and save the outer system for later.
Then the damn visitors revealed themselves and I'm not cocky enough to say we tangle with them on fusion barges. So now that's much more immediately needed, and idk whether or not to drop the fusion yard or the advanced materials yard.
Station Bay
Satellite Bay
Adv Mat Bay
Station Bay is a gimme. It makes all station construction easier going forward. Probably even ones not in Earth orbit. And we're gonna have more hab stations, food stations, shipyards, OSRCT stations, etc to go in the not so far future.
Satellite Bay - Makes satellite construction easier. Things like outward facing ion cannons or laser cannons, more Skywatch, orbital power stations to power shipyard stations, etc. Probably even would help with non-Earth orbit satellites or probes as we go because they'll still be better than ones having to be lifted off Earth. Also, since satellites built in orbit don't have to fit into a vehicle to be tough enough to survive launch into orbit, we could get more efficient/compact/powerful designs for things like ion cannons or laser cannons (or Skywatch).
Adv Mat Bay - First, helps with better fusion. Two, better materials means we can have better quality ships a bit sooner, particularly once other "forge" stations come online and can mass produce the materials in orbit. But the better fusion is probably the important part. Probably for power on Earth and as a potential ship reactor option in space.
I know there is a scrin base out in the outer solar system, but there's no indications there's an active Scrin force there. Jumping to shipyard bays might advance our ship design/buiding knowledge base, but that won't help if the Scrin show up in Earth orbit instead of vaguely being out in the depths of the system. With the station bay and sat bay, we can get shipyards faster while getting defensive satellites up quicker to protect Earth. Because it doesn't matter if we're trying to build a big space fleet to fight the Scrin away from Earth 20-30 years from now. It matters that if the Scrin show up at Earth in 5 years, what will the defenses be like? A fuck ton of highly advanced defensive satellites, or a smaller amount of defensive satellites with some primitive cargo ships with weapons bolted on?
Though... anyone want to math out the general time frame for, if we have Leo 2 yard complete this year, how long it would take to build Station Bay + Columbia + Shala and thus unlock other station options? We did promise to design and build 1+ Conestoga ships, so how quickly we can get to the build side of things should we skip the relevant bay for the Conestoga could be important.
Satellite Bay
Adv Mat Bay
Station Bay is a gimme. It makes all station construction easier going forward. Probably even ones not in Earth orbit. And we're gonna have more hab stations, food stations, shipyards, OSRCT stations, etc to go in the not so far future.
Satellite Bay - Makes satellite construction easier. Things like outward facing ion cannons or laser cannons, more Skywatch, orbital power stations to power shipyard stations, etc. Probably even would help with non-Earth orbit satellites or probes as we go because they'll still be better than ones having to be lifted off Earth. Also, since satellites built in orbit don't have to fit into a vehicle to be tough enough to survive launch into orbit, we could get more efficient/compact/powerful designs for things like ion cannons or laser cannons (or Skywatch).
Adv Mat Bay - First, helps with better fusion. Two, better materials means we can have better quality ships a bit sooner, particularly once other "forge" stations come online and can mass produce the materials in orbit. But the better fusion is probably the important part. Probably for power on Earth and as a potential ship reactor option in space.
I know there is a scrin base out in the outer solar system, but there's no indications there's an active Scrin force there. Jumping to shipyard bays might advance our ship design/buiding knowledge base, but that won't help if the Scrin show up in Earth orbit instead of vaguely being out in the depths of the system. With the station bay and sat bay, we can get shipyards faster while getting defensive satellites up quicker to protect Earth. Because it doesn't matter if we're trying to build a big space fleet to fight the Scrin away from Earth 20-30 years from now. It matters that if the Scrin show up at Earth in 5 years, what will the defenses be like? A fuck ton of highly advanced defensive satellites, or a smaller amount of defensive satellites with some primitive cargo ships with weapons bolted on?
Though... anyone want to math out the general time frame for, if we have Leo 2 yard complete this year, how long it would take to build Station Bay + Columbia + Shala and thus unlock other station options? We did promise to design and build 1+ Conestoga ships, so how quickly we can get to the build side of things should we skip the relevant bay for the Conestoga could be important.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I want the station bay and the gravitic yard. I can't decide whether I prefer the fusion yard or the advanced materials bay, so I'm just gonna vote for both... which I suspect makes me very boring and typical by the standards of this vote.
The station bay literally more than pays for itself if completed before we build Columbia and Shala, because it costs 400 points to build and is likely to save us 620 Progress. That's before anything later on down the road is factored in.
We have options to expand it. The Military and Satellite bays would make expanding it cheaper, but there's a reason Nod doesn't sling ICBMs around, and that the only time they ever launched an attack against GDI space assets was after finding a way to one-shot the ASAT network's control systems. It's because it would be very difficult to launch an effective attack through the ASAT system.
It seems likely that the station bay will continue to pay off as we build more and larger orbital industry of various kinds and scale up beyond just the big four "crown jewel" stations that have been holding our attention since game start.
Mathematically that's not how it works. Reducing the up-front cost of Phase 1 of a station by 10 points means that Phase 2 gets 20 points cheaper, Phase 3 gets 40 points cheaper, and so on.
I don't get it. Wouldn't this start paying off after forty phases of stations? Because that sounds pretty much completely useless so I must be missing something surely. But what?
The station bay literally more than pays for itself if completed before we build Columbia and Shala, because it costs 400 points to build and is likely to save us 620 Progress. That's before anything later on down the road is factored in.
The main problem I see is that Military/Satellite focuses us very much inwards on "what on the Earth's surface can we blow up from space today" instead of focusing us outwards on space colonization.
We already have a space defense network- ASAT.
We have options to expand it. The Military and Satellite bays would make expanding it cheaper, but there's a reason Nod doesn't sling ICBMs around, and that the only time they ever launched an attack against GDI space assets was after finding a way to one-shot the ASAT network's control systems. It's because it would be very difficult to launch an effective attack through the ASAT system.
Visitors were there for more than a decade and we've not seen hide nor hair of them for all that time. Is there really a need to immediately start building gravships (that would still be unable to fight them, most probably, as half-G acceleration is not exactly combat speeds) to deal with them? Even Militarists are planning for warships only by 2070. In my opinion, focusing on a solid near-Earth development that will then allow us to build plenty of warships is a superior option here.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So for my thoughts on the fusion and shipyard bays.
The fusion shipyard is obviously going to synergize quite nicely with our near-Earth developments (including the moon) which may lead to an easier time constructing new stations, colonizing the moon and giving Space Force early patrol craft to get its space legs so to speak. Not to mention keep Nod on Earth should they decide to start toying with a space capable Varyag.
I will note that for the G-Drive bay there is one advantage that seems to not be coming up. Building, operating and maintaining more than our current single drive increases the chances that someone working on one comes up with a way to improve drive performance and that the data our scientists gain from the operation of multiple drives will improve our knowledge of the underlying principles of the drives operation.
Also the satellite bay is something I don't see being nearly as useful as the other bays. Sure, it'll make an impact on the rollout of satellite projects but at the same time the admat and mil bays are tremendously more valuable to our future endeavours by giving us bonuses for fusion and giving Space Force a major boost.
The fusion shipyard is obviously going to synergize quite nicely with our near-Earth developments (including the moon) which may lead to an easier time constructing new stations, colonizing the moon and giving Space Force early patrol craft to get its space legs so to speak. Not to mention keep Nod on Earth should they decide to start toying with a space capable Varyag.
I will note that for the G-Drive bay there is one advantage that seems to not be coming up. Building, operating and maintaining more than our current single drive increases the chances that someone working on one comes up with a way to improve drive performance and that the data our scientists gain from the operation of multiple drives will improve our knowledge of the underlying principles of the drives operation.
Also the satellite bay is something I don't see being nearly as useful as the other bays. Sure, it'll make an impact on the rollout of satellite projects but at the same time the admat and mil bays are tremendously more valuable to our future endeavours by giving us bonuses for fusion and giving Space Force a major boost.
It actually takes 1 and a bit stations. The bay costs 400 and saves 310
The G-Drive bay is not to immediately start building warships - it's to give us a leg up because of more experience building G-Drive ships, for when we do start building warships.
Essentially, each shipyard bay is sooner or later going to be superseded by a full shipyard station, likewise for the others as industrial stations. Getting bays built for them will make those stations better. (Where doing the Station bay means we get them sooner.)
Right, mathbrain is somewhat fried, and was adding the bonus for the Leopard 2 factory in, as well. My bad.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
I guess my main question for Adv Mat bay is can we afford the STU requirements?