I don't recommend spending the Erewhon and AA dice on vein mining, because you hit diminishing returns really fast. A regular Tiberium die is 'scheduled' to get us 93.5 points of project Progress in 2062Q1, while an AA/E die only gets us 50.5. Since it costs the same amount of Resources to do either thing, we'd basically be spending 60 R and all our Bureaucracy dice to do the work of about 1.7 Tiberium dice and less than 40 R.
When Resources are so scarce, this is particularly likely to hurt us.
Furthermore, we have considerable use for the Bureaucracy die. Most of our departments could use security reviews, and we routinely use Bureaucracy dice for recruitment early in each Plan to get ourselves additional dice and bonuses.
So I, for one, plan to spend the Bureaucracy/Erewhon dice elsewhere and keep the 60 R for other projects such as building apartments and car factories and military stuff and whatnot.
...
Now, the general question "what if we just threw a shitload of dice at vein mining" can be answered by "we'd get about 32.5 RpT times the number of phases we complete." There's a bit of uncertainty as to the cost of a vein mining phase, since the Progress cost seems to go down per phase but that trend probably doesn't last forever. If vein mining phases cost 195 points each forever, then fourteen dice net us 93.5*14 = 1309 Progress, which is probably at least six phases, maybe seven. If the cost declines with each phase, we're considerably more likely to get seven, though eight is a stretch.
The trick is, a 'super glacier mine' gives us twice as much RpT for only a little more dice investment, so we'd want to do the one of those we now have available. But setting ourselves up for another of those in 2062Q2 would involve finishing Stage 2 of the border offensives, which 'only' gives an average of 25 RpT for (again) a little more dice investment than a phase of vein mining, slightly complicating the picture.
Thus, the arguable ideal balance is about six dice on Red Zone operations (enough to be confident of finishing one phase of glacier mines and having a second one available next turn, or at least of being in a really good position to finish two phases really fast next turn), plus about eight dice on the vein mines (enough to get us about 3-4 phases of vein mines).
Tiberium +39 (7 dice, 7FD) 315R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2)(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods) 7D
-[] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1)(Progress 101/250: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-35 resources]) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+2 Energy) 7FD
Looking like an expensive and very scary Tib Plan so far, also, this needs the max GDP just to take it unless I just scorch the other departments in Q1 totally.
From the Income Table we can see that while Deep Glacier Mines alone are the most die and R efficient, when combined with its prerequisite Border Offensives Project it is neither the most die or R efficient project, that going to the RZ Harvesting and Glacier mines project, and the Tiberium Vein Mines respectively. This is not incorporating the costs for the Logistics and the Capital Goods respectively.
To calculate how they compare long term, we shall analyze the maximum we can do currently, ie trying to complete 5 phases of both Deep and Normal Glacier Mines:
From this we can see that while assuming Logistics costs are waved, the RZ Harvesting and Normal Glacier Mines slightly beat out the Border Offensives and Deep Glacier Mines looking at income alone. However, they are worse in terms of Energy and mitigation, and most importantly require more then two and a half times the dice in Infrastructure for producing Logistics.
Yeah, the increased Logistics cost of doing heavy glacier mining is really a problem, especially since we're going to have housing construction competing for that Logistics buffer space too.
And this really does hammer home the reasons we're likely to do heavy vein mining in 2062 as well. Because we're going to start 2062Q1 with +18 Capital Goods, and we can get +6 more any time we like by practically snapping our fingers thanks to Chicago Phase 4 being so close to completion. That's more than enough to get us a huge additional slug of RpT, and the optimal short term income-maximizing strategy for 2062Q1 is probably to only do the super glacier mine and have everything else doing a shitload of vein mines.
The catch is that if we don't do more RZBO phases, we don't get more glacier mines in the future, so we end up having to invest in them even though we only get about 12.5 RpT per die invested from them instead of more like hopefully 16.25 RpT from the vein mines.
But we could easily slam out ten phases of vein mines in two turns if we really put our backs into it, and the +325 or so RpT from that would go a long way to helping us out while still letting us stay in double-digit Capital Goods surplus if we finish Chicago Phase 4 and let the DHIA keep rolling.
And that would, in turn, make it a lot less likely for Logistics shortages to become a problem as we wrestle with the Housing crisis, compared to the troubles we'd have otherwise.
Tiberium +39 (7 dice, 7FD) 315R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2)(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods) 7D
-[] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1)(Progress 101/250: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-35 resources]) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+2 Energy) 7FD
Looking like an expensive and very scary Tib Plan so far, also, this needs the max GDP just to take it unless I just scorch the other departments in Q1 totally.
Yep. Welcome to the team; your plan parallels the others I've made/seen, as does your reasoning. With the caveat that we're probably better off putting about 3-4 dice on the super glacier mines (which are like regular glacier mines but +50 points more Progress-intensive and +10 RpT more lucrative, apparently) for immediate income, and using the balance of the "Red Zone" dice on the next phase of RZBO to unlock the next super glacier mine.
But yeah, this is going to eat something in the vicinity of half the budget in 2062Q1. The problem is that if we don't do it, we can't do anything else for a long time, because rebuilding our budget winds up taking a lot longer if we're not mining tiberium intensively. These projects are very expensive in R commitment, but they still manage to pay for themselves within 2-4 turns.
The problem is that for a nation that, by nature, is forced to be an active global superpower capable of intervening at pretty much any point in the world (e.g. "oh shit Nod built a new superweapon, must be Tuesday")... The inability to perform amphibious operations reliably and effectively is a serious handicap. And I suspect our current generation of capability along those lines is both sparse (many of the ships in question having not survived Tib War III or the postwar attrition) and unsatisfactory (mostly including ships simply not designed to accommodate the way GDI wages war).
Like, can you imagine trying to move our current generation forces off an amphibious warfare ship designed in the 1980s to handle the literal US Marine Corps or a similarly equipped force and first used in action during Tib War One? It might not be impossible if we'd somehow preserved the ship from those days to these... but that might not be far out of the range of possibility for what the Navy would be having to do for an amphibious operation these days.
Valid, but not really addressing my point, which is that some people seem to be treating the lack of the "Offensive Navy" ships as either putting us completely on the defensive, or as lacking any landing capability at all.
I'd argue that Ground Force actually has less need for a beam-heavy version of their power armor suit to replace a missile-armed variant. Ground Force tends to operate in closer contact with their supply chain, and has a much wider range of heavy weapons and support option mounted on vehicles that normally escort the infantry. Furthermore, the scale of Ground Force's operations may make the STU cost of modern beam weapons or microfusion-powered armor prohibitive.
I disagree, since I believe the limited ammunition is a tactical constraint, not a logistical one - giving them plasma guns both lets them hit harder and not have the apparently frequent problem of running out of ammunition in the middle of a fight.
And this really does hammer home the reasons we're likely to do heavy vein mining in 2062 as well. Because we're going to start 2062Q1 with +18 Capital Goods, and we can get +6 more any time we like by practically snapping our fingers thanks to Chicago Phase 4 being so close to completion. That's more than enough to get us a huge additional slug of RpT, and the optimal short term income-maximizing strategy for 2062Q1 is probably to only do the super glacier mine and have everything else doing a shitload of vein mines.
I agree that this is probably the best strategy, as the Vein mines, especially with the Harvester Claw upgrade are the very good at efficiently producing Income per R, better then either Glacier Mine combo. Given our R limited state at the beginning of the Plan, it would be best to invest in them now. Narratively it is also a good idea as it will help keep Tib from bursting out of the ground, and limit our RZ exposure during this period.
Yep. Welcome to the team; your plan parallels the others I've made/seen, as does your reasoning. With the caveat that we're probably better off putting about 3-4 dice on the super glacier mines (which are like regular glacier mines but +50 points more Progress-intensive and +10 RpT more lucrative, apparently) for immediate income, and using the balance of the "Red Zone" dice on the next phase of RZBO to unlock the next super glacier mine.
But yeah, this is going to eat something in the vicinity of half the budget in 2062Q1. The problem is that if we don't do it, we can't do anything else for a long time, because rebuilding our budget winds up taking a lot longer if we're not mining tiberium intensively. These projects are very expensive in R commitment, but they still manage to pay for themselves within 2-4 turns.
I edited it a bit in my plan itself, so it should be a bit more around what your thoughts are like about what Tib might look like in Q1, so far the plan could end up either being under budget enough to keep the 100R for the Banking Reforms, or overbudget and need further cuts in other areas... how I love Q1 Resource slumps lol.
Right now I have between 700R and 745R in my budget for a plan, but I can cut everything out and leave just Bureau and Tib and maybe some minor stuff.
Tiberium +39 (7 dice, 7FD) 340R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2)(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods) 6D
-[] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1)(Progress 101/250: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-35 resources]) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+2 Energy) 1D+3FD
-[] Deep Red Zone Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 1)(Progress 0/255: 30 resources per die) (-3 Logistics, +1 Energy) (additional income trickle [55-75 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) 4FD
Valid, but not really addressing my point, which is that some people seem to be treating the lack of the "Offensive Navy" ships as either putting us completely on the defensive, or as lacking any landing capability at all.
The way I see it, our amphibious landing capability is a lot like our "naval escort" capability was before we commissioned the Sharks. Namely, reliant on ships that are either obsolescent, unmanageably few in number, or not designed for the specific mission parameters needed. In any of the three cases, we would find our amphibious capability unsuitable for what one might call "serious" operations, much as our convoy escort situation was unsuitable for Nod attempting a serious naval war against us.
Strictly you are correct that a lack of "offensive navy" ships does not mean our navy will literally never attack. But the lack of specifically the Island-class does probably lock us out of a fair range of specific military operations that would otherwise be very advantageous to GDI, which is in and of itself grounds to consider it.
I disagree, since I believe the limited ammunition is a tactical constraint, not a logistical one - giving them plasma guns both lets them hit harder and not have the apparently frequent problem of running out of ammunition in the middle of a fight.
The trick is that Ground Force and ZOCOM will be using power armor differently.
The Lancer is a specific solution to a general problem: how to put fires onto hardened enemy targets capable of resisting standard infantry weapons.
...
Ground Force has many options for fires. It is well supported by a fairly diverse mix of armored fighting vehicles, long range ballistic artillery, and air support. If Ground Force needs, say, a Centurion war mech blown up, it has a lot of different options that all lead towards the same general outcome of "Centurion go kaboom."
Ground Force needs power armor mainly to provide its infantry with more protection against enemy antipersonnel weapons and the ability to carry more powerful infantry weapons. But these infantry weapons do not scale up indefinitely, nor do they need to, because Ground Force has plenty of other solutions within its doctrinal "palette" to the problem of enemy main battle tanks and bunkers.
...
By contrast, ZOCOM basically invented Zone Armor because it needs to survive combat action in Red Zones. Its doctrine is built specifically on being able to function deep in a Red Zone on a protracted basis. Thus, ZOCOM relies heavily on jump jet mobility and hover vehicles to avoid problems with trying to drive vehicles over tiberium fields and coming into ground contact with them.
With the notable exception of the Havoc (which ZOCOM may or may not possess any time soon, not sure), no vehicle currently in our arsenal is jump-jet- or hover-capable. Thus, most non-ZOCOM vehicles cannot function alongside ZOCOM forces for ZOCOM's typical operations (usually, fighting in Red Zones or very deep Yellow Zones).
Furthermore, close air support of ZOCOM operations is often impossible, as they range far forward into the Red Zones in places the Air Force cannot go reliably without suffering heavy losses due to weather conditions. Artillery for ZOCOM is problematic, because dropping high explosives into tiberium fields can cause bad things to happen.
Since ZOCOM inherently cannot rely on having tanks, air support, and artillery alongside them at all times, unlike Ground Force, they have much more limited options when it comes to fires. Infantry heavy weapons play a more critical role in their ability to deliver direct fires onto enemy targets.
ZOCOM therefore needs suit-mounted heavy weapons much more than Ground Force.
...
Furthermore, when Ground Force infantry need an antitank weapon, it is usually for a specific, clearly delineated role that is, in some sense, an anomaly. They need one missile to engage one bunker, or a handful of missiles to hit a small group of light armor. They do not need to fight protracted, days-long battles against enemy armor without external fire support in terrain that makes resupply difficult or impossible- because in such an environment, the Ground Force would be losing anyway, because doctrinally that cripples them in too many other ways.
Ground Force infantry thus needs unlimited ammo heavy weapons much less than ZOCOM does. Because ZOCOM does go places the supply trucks cannot reach, and does regularly fight against Nod armor in places where their own armor and air support and artillery are not available.
I agree that this is probably the best strategy, as the Vein mines, especially with the Harvester Claw upgrade are the very good at efficiently producing Income per R, better then either Glacier Mine combo. Given our R limited state at the beginning of the Plan, it would be best to invest in them now. Narratively it is also a good idea as it will help keep Tib from bursting out of the ground, and limit our RZ exposure during this period.
On the other hand, there are arguments for doing at least a couple of early-2062 RZBOs and the corresponding glacier mines. Such as:
1) To "spread" the costs on indicators across both Capital Goods and Logistics rather than hitting one very hard
2) To front-load Red Zone mitigation, because we want to do that sooner rather than later
3) Because the trickle of additional +Energy helps us a bit. -3 Logistics for +3 Energy (from RZBO+super glacier) isn't a great trade, but it defrays the costs a little.
I edited it a bit in my plan itself, so it should be a bit more around what your thoughts are like about what Tib might look like in Q1, so far the plan could end up either being under budget enough to keep the 100R for the Banking Reforms, or overbudget and need further cuts in other areas... how I love Q1 Resource slumps lol.
Uh... the banking reforms were in the plan that already passed for Q4. The 100 R it cost to do them was already written into that. We have additional money to work with, to the tune of, as I recall, about 145 R or so that is NOT going into those banks.
[Frankly, I kinda hope Ithillid tracks the money in the central bank fund separately from the money we have "saved up" for Treasury operations, so that we can't accidentally fuck ourselves over that way. Raiding the central bank for funds should be, like, a Bureaucracy action in my opinion]
Tiberium +39 (7 dice, 7FD) 340R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2)(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods) 6D
-[] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1)(Progress 101/250: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-35 resources]) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+2 Energy) 1D+3FD
-[] Deep Red Zone Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 1)(Progress 0/255: 30 resources per die) (-3 Logistics, +1 Energy) (additional income trickle [55-75 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) 4FD
I think four dice on the border offensives is more than necessary, simply because we're only 150 points from completing the next stage of them. Four dice is more than you need to get 150 points in Tiberium; at that point the project completes practically on bonuses alone.
Four dice on the glacier mines is quite aggressive, but probably sets us up well to finish Stage 2 of said glacier mines, which isn't nothing.
We could drop a die on the 2 stages of Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting that we can do now. Not a huge resource output, but the one die pretty much instantly pays for itself if we get the second stage done due to a good roll.
Doesn't save us a lot of R, but it would help stretch the Q1 budget a little more.
I'm feeling a tiny bit against the Deep Red Zone Tiberium Glacier Mining until we can be sure about spending dice on +Logistics.
Infra dice are likely going on Housing for a turn or four. Although if NOD has stopped the refugee wave, we might be able to build Arcologies instead, which don't kick us in the Logistics. Although that still means up to 4 turns to catch up on the Housing.
I do feel the next logistics project we do should be a phase of rails.
Now that we FINALLY have another round of fortress towns done rails would link them all up if they weren't already, help lockdown the military supply lines, secure the Australian red zone, and expand connections to the multiple new cities we've built with the many phases of apartments we've done.
After that we should probably focus more on orbital deliveries.
frankly, our housing options are looking to collapse pretty soon down to just 'do arcologies'. Maybe if we get far enough ahead on our housing situations we can pull down commieblocks and put up better apartments high-rises in their place.
The trick is that Ground Force and ZOCOM will be using power armor differently.
The Lancer is a specific solution to a general problem: how to put fires onto hardened enemy targets capable of resisting standard infantry weapons.
...
Ground Force has many options for fires. It is well supported by a fairly diverse mix of armored fighting vehicles, long range ballistic artillery, and air support. If Ground Force needs, say, a Centurion war mech blown up, it has a lot of different options that all lead towards the same general outcome of "Centurion go kaboom."
Ground Force needs power armor mainly to provide its infantry with more protection against enemy antipersonnel weapons and the ability to carry more powerful infantry weapons. But these infantry weapons do not scale up indefinitely, nor do they need to, because Ground Force has plenty of other solutions within its doctrinal "palette" to the problem of enemy main battle tanks and bunkers.
...
By contrast, ZOCOM basically invented Zone Armor because it needs to survive combat action in Red Zones. Its doctrine is built specifically on being able to function deep in a Red Zone on a protracted basis. Thus, ZOCOM relies heavily on jump jet mobility and hover vehicles to avoid problems with trying to drive vehicles over tiberium fields and coming into ground contact with them.
With the notable exception of the Havoc (which ZOCOM may or may not possess any time soon, not sure), no vehicle currently in our arsenal is jump-jet- or hover-capable. Thus, most non-ZOCOM vehicles cannot function alongside ZOCOM forces for ZOCOM's typical operations (usually, fighting in Red Zones or very deep Yellow Zones).
Furthermore, close air support of ZOCOM operations is often impossible, as they range far forward into the Red Zones in places the Air Force cannot go reliably without suffering heavy losses due to weather conditions. Artillery for ZOCOM is problematic, because dropping high explosives into tiberium fields can cause bad things to happen.
Since ZOCOM inherently cannot rely on having tanks, air support, and artillery alongside them at all times, unlike Ground Force, they have much more limited options when it comes to fires. Infantry heavy weapons play a more critical role in their ability to deliver direct fires onto enemy targets.
ZOCOM therefore needs suit-mounted heavy weapons much more than Ground Force.
...
Furthermore, when Ground Force infantry need an antitank weapon, it is usually for a specific, clearly delineated role that is, in some sense, an anomaly. They need one missile to engage one bunker, or a handful of missiles to hit a small group of light armor. They do not need to fight protracted, days-long battles against enemy armor without external fire support in terrain that makes resupply difficult or impossible- because in such an environment, the Ground Force would be losing anyway, because doctrinally that cripples them in too many other ways.
Ground Force infantry thus needs unlimited ammo heavy weapons much less than ZOCOM does. Because ZOCOM does go places the supply trucks cannot reach, and does regularly fight against Nod armor in places where their own armor and air support and artillery are not available.
I disagree on this. Rocket troopers (and thus Marauders) are anti-armor specialists. That's a common infantry task in C&C. Zone Lancers are the solution to "how do we get our existing anti-armor infantry to be both harder to kill, and better at killing armor."
Yes, there is a certain amount of "gameplay vs reality", but you seem to be erring too far on the level of "RL military". A Zone Marauder does not use one mini-missile against a bunker, or tank. (These aren't Javelins, or equivalent - they're significantly smaller.)
And yes, ZOCOM and Ground Forces need different types of protection, and have different logistical problems, but I definitely disagree about GF access to resupply making reloading a Marauder suit a trivial matter. Especially when there's a tide of Gana or heavily-armored Black Hand coming downrange.
But ultimately, my argument is that the Zone Lancer is a design that doesn't need significantly more tech to be good to go (microfusion might well help, but is probably not essential), will improve the effectiveness of Zone Armor, and will improve the effectiveness of the types that are currently being built.* (And while it's not a Steel Talons project, implementing the ZA plasma guns will likely make them happy, a little.)
*Assuming that's still accurate - it's something Ithillid said a couple months ago.
We could drop a die on the 2 stages of Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting that we can do now. Not a huge resource output, but the one die pretty much instantly pays for itself if we get the second stage done due to a good roll.
Doesn't save us a lot of R, but it would help stretch the Q1 budget a little more.
Yeah, but that's at the cost of us missing out on other operations. We need the stuff that pays off well, and quickly, and heavily, because our problem isn't just "mine efficiently" or "save money for other stuff." The underlying problem is something like "we need +300 RpT of income, pronto," which means our choice of what projects to pursue has to be heavily guided by what's going to pay off in terms of bulk increase in RpT income.
I'm feeling a tiny bit against the Deep Red Zone Tiberium Glacier Mining until we can be sure about spending dice on +Logistics.
Infra dice are likely going on Housing for a turn or four.
We have a thick enough Logistics buffer that one mine shouldn't be a problem. And glacier mines are so good for RpT income that it's almost invariably a good idea to build one when one already has the means to do so.
Urban Metros Phase 4 looks like it might actually be more impactful for the effort (think of it as retroactively reducing the Logistics penalty of some of the apartment phases we've already built). Personal Electric Vehicles is itself a +4 Logistics project in a way, from a certain point of view, but that's not competing for Infrastructure dice.
Narratively speaking, both those projects attack the real reason our Logistics figure has been falling: the increasing burden of supporting newly constructed urban centers with very little in the way of built-up mass transit infrastructure and little in the way of the usual light industry, retail, hospital, and other construction built up around those population centers. Having more personal vehicles and more mass transit helps there.
The railroads are certainly on the list, though- but I'm not really expecting completion there before 2062Q3. Also, just looking at mechanics, we actually do better to build Suborbital Shuttles for 75 R on three dice and leave the other two blank than we do by spending five dice on railroads.
Just to be clear, do you mean "the Logistics cost of more apartments is becoming prohibitive, only arcologies are practical Housing solutions given the Logistics burden" or do you mean "I think Phase 10 is the last phase of apartments that can be built?"
I disagree on this. Rocket troopers (and thus Marauders) are anti-armor specialists. That's a common infantry task in C&C. Zone Lancers are the solution to "how do we get our existing anti-armor infantry to be both harder to kill, and better at killing armor."
Yes, there is a certain amount of "gameplay vs reality", but you seem to be erring too far on the level of "RL military". A Zone Marauder does not use one mini-missile against a bunker, or tank. (These aren't Javelins, or equivalent - they're significantly smaller.)
And yes, ZOCOM and Ground Forces need different types of protection, and have different logistical problems, but I definitely disagree about GF access to resupply making reloading a Marauder suit a trivial matter. Especially when there's a tide of Gana or heavily-armored Black Hand coming downrange.
Situations where Ground Force is expected to break a "tide" of incoming opponents who are armored like light vehicles are situations where Ground Force, doctrinally, would be packing heavy weapons support beyond the level of the organic heavy weapons that come with the infantry.
Yes, your platoon can't stop a whole company of Black Hand all by itself with no resupply and no fire support, because it'll run out of missile ammo, but that's to be expected. That's what happens when an unsupported platoon fights a company.
My general premise here is that wars are usually not won by having the single best whiz-bang gizmo. If they were, Nod would have won all three Tiberium Wars. My view is that wars are won by having large supplies of weapons that are good enough. Not so good that one cannot imagine scenarios in which they fail or are overrun, but good enough to meet the typical use case, and hopefully to face down even extraordinary situations briefly, for long enough that something more powerful that can put down the threat shows up.
...
It's not that the Lancer is useless or ineffective or pointless. It's that both Ground Force and ZOCOM have spent years complaining that they're being strangled by the limited supply of power armor- any power armor. At this time, I regard expanding production of power armor to be more important than pursuing newer cooler more advanced forms of power armor.
My perception of that importance will reverse about 8-12 dice from now, when we finish the first wave of Zone Armor factories.
ZOCOM has multiple ways of making their preferred priorities heard to us. They could mark the Lancer as "High Priority." This, they have not done. The last time we got a paragraph-long explanation of ZOCOM's priorities, it mentioned the words "suit upgrades" once in passing and then spent 108 words going on at length about how overstretched ZOCOM was, why Ground Force Zone Armor is the solution, and how much ZOCOM wants us to deploy that.
I'm pretty sure that's meant to send us a clear message regarding where ZOCOM's priorities lie.
Also, just looking at mechanics, we actually do better to build Suborbital Shuttles for 75 R on three dice and leave the other two blank than we do by spending five dice on railroads.
Rails is a repeatable project, it is a steady supply of Logistics, which unlike Shuttles isn't capped in Phases, nor like Urban Metros isn't capped by Apartments. (It seems to me that the Urban Metros are not a one to one project as the Border Offensive/RZ harvesting to Deep/Normal Glacier Mines, or the way GZ Intensification is capped by both Fortresses and YZ Harvesting, but are more of a 1 phase of metros per 2-3 phases of Apartments, given how they showed up and their descriptions). It might be more accurate to say that Urban Metros is capped by the number of urban cores we have, and since we've been building a whole host of new ones with BZ Apartments...
In any event, we should complete the Shuttles and the Urban Metros before resuming Rail production. And if we are doing that we might not need to expand our rail lines unless we majorly expand the Glacier Mines and Apartments. We currently have 27 Logistics, and can build an additional 16 from Shuttles and Urban Metros. That is 43 Logistics total. Minus 2 from Chicago Phase 4 which we are likely to do soon for the Cap Goods boost is 41. If we went for all of the Deep Glacier Mines, an effort which would take two turns minimum if we mono focused them, we would need 15 logistics, which puts us at 26 Logistics. We will probably also get EVs early in the plan so we can add the 4 Logistics from them as well, putting us at a total of 30 Logistics. Now we also want more Apartments and the next 5 phases gives us 30 high quality housing, enough for essentially all of our current population in Low Quality Housing. That would cost us 15 Logistics (assuming there are no more increases in Logistics cost), that brings us down to 15 Logistics which is around as low as I would want to go just to keep a margin in the event of a disaster/crisis.
Project List:
Suborbital Shuttles Phase 2-3 Complete
Urban Metros Phase 4 Complete
Chicago Phase 4 Complete
RZ Border Offensives Phase 2-5 Complete
Deep Glacier Mines Phase 1-5 Complete
Personal Electric Vehicles Complete
BZ Apartment Complexes Phase 9-13 Complete
Net Logistics 15
As an outline the projects listed will probably take about four turns. As we aren't going to monofocus the Deep Glacier Mines and we are likely to put significant efforts towards the Vein Mines. As an estimate this probably is good enough. Then if we wanted more Apartments we could probably afford two more. 15 Logistics is really as low as I want to go there as having slack in that Economic Factor is what prevents NOD from having a red flashing 'weak point hit here' sign. So unless we want more then all of the Deep Glacier Mines and 5 BZ Apartment Phases we might not need We also should keep in mind that Karachi is on the horizon in two to three years time and it will provide a surge of 20 Logistics as it completes. So the only reason I could see for us to need the Rails (mechanically at least, maybe not narratively) is if we needed more Logistics between the end of 2062 and Karachi.
So the only reason I could see for us to need the Rails (mechanically at least, maybe not narratively) is if we needed more Logistics between the end of 2062 and Karachi.
[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 5)
A further wave of construction will finalize securing the routes to the Australian Red Zone, and ensure improved supply to GDI's various fronts.
There's a bit of a fallacy in saying that we 'need' Rails to take best advantage of Red Zone operations. Yes, it does help somewhat, but we can kind of presume based on the operations being available to work on that we have some kind of logistical route out to at least some of the proposed harvesting areas. Additionally our Tiberium-mining operations may or may not affect our Logistics indicators directly (depending on the operation) but they do tend to include some flavour text that involves laying their own logistical tails; that's why Yellow Zone expansions supported Operation Steel Vanguard - because as opposed to Rail expansions the mine expansions were laying out a large degree of smaller transport routes and infrastructure.
Also, Red Zone mining has been described in the past as being more akin to a large caravan than any kind of established outpost or anything - their logistics have to be handled by airlift and such, and there's a decidedly limited degree to which a static rail line can help.
Also, Red Zone mining has been described in the past as being more akin to a large caravan than any kind of established outpost or anything - their logistics have to be handled by airlift and such, and there's a decidedly limited degree to which a static rail line can help.
[X] Plan Mars + Two Turn Crater Structure + More Reserach
-[X] Earth-Orbit Facilities
--[X] Enterprise Orbital Assembler (Phase 2 of 4)(Updated) (65/80 IP) 15 IP
-[X] Lunar Facilities 72C 72 IP
--[X] Craterscope Structure (Phase 1) 0/30 +15 Structure Parts: 60C, 60 IP
--[X] Ore Electrolysis Test Facility Foundations (Phase 1) 0/3 +3 Foundation Parts: 12C, 12 IP
--[X] Ore Electrolysis Test Facility Foundations (Phase 2) 0/85 4 dice 98%
-[X] Martian Facilities +13 Pathfinder days
--[X] Initial Martian SCED Research Base (Northern polar region) 0/8 +8 Facilities: 56C 40 IP -1 Astronaut Team
-[X] Venus Facilities (12 Pathfinder days)
--[X] Venus Research Station 0/20 +1 station part 5C 0IP
-[X] Assembly
--[X] Craterscope Imaging Sensor 0/120 +46 IP
-[X] Development 6/6 +5 Craterscope dice 124C 27 IP
--[X] G-Drive Improvement Program 114/400 1 die 15C 10 IP (1/3.5 median)
--[X] Ore Electrolysis Smelter Development 0/200 2 dice 4C 8 IP 19%
--[X] Atmospheric Containment Shimmer Optimization 0/400 2 dice 2C (2/5 median)
--[X] Tick Tank Dig Experiments 102/150 1 die 3C 4 IP 83%
--[X] Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer Development 89/200 1 die 20C 1 IP 20%
--[X] Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 0/200 2 dice 40C 2 IP 19%
--[X] Craterscope Tiberium Detector 0/125 1 die 20C 1 IP 6%
--[X] Craterscope Moon Detector 0/125 1 die 20C 1 IP 6%
-[X] Mission Planning 4/4 dice
--[X] Mission: Orbital Scan Uranus 1 die autosuccess
--[X] Mission: Orbital Scan Titan 1 die autosuccess
--[X] Voyager Visitation 131/150 1 die 87%
--[X] Mission: Research Base Mercury 124/150 1 die 80%
-[X] Missions:
--[X] Mars particle collection mission 3/6 attempts 60 Pathfinder Days DC80, 75, 70 (59.7% at least one roll succeeds.)
SCEDQuest Q3 2061 Results
Ore Electrolysis Test Facility
The test facility is situated to the east of the main base close enough that staff can walk there but far enough away that any accidents will not impact the main base. Initial plans only included a single Electrolysis basin but with the entire lunar workforce assigned to this project, the facility has been completed with three different basin setups, two to easily compare results and a single spare in case of accidents
These basins are the heart of the small testing facility. The projected power requirements are so enormous that tests can only be performed during the lunar day when the sun is available to power the heaters and electrodes. But since development for the on-site systems has not been completed the test site is in low power preservation mode until installation of the industrial machines can continue.
240/85
Enterprise Orbital Assembler (Phase 2 of 4)
The workshops on the enterprise station have been expanded with an ore smelter to supply them. This is a smaller one than the main smelters elsewhere on the station, optimized to provide small batches of less commonly used alloys.
+30 IP per turn
Initial Martian SCED Research Base (Northern polar region)
Created to prepare for the proper colonization of Mars, the polar base's location has been carefully chosen near to where our rovers have detected enough water to supply the base. Named Opportunity after a rover program NASA disbanded at the start of the millennium, the base's focus is on small scale habitation experiments. Starting with one involving ten cloned plants, two will be grown on Mars, three on the moon and the rest on Earth to compare the three locations. For now the base is not much more than a few prefabricated habitation- and laboratory-modules, manned by a handful of astronauts to perform experiments. For more expansive operations the base will need to be expanded to the level of the SCED moonbase in both scope and on-site personnel.
-1 Astronaut Team
Venus Research Station
The beginning of the Venus aerostat has been uneventful. A single module of the aerostat stations, put into a stable venusian orbit for storage until everything required is on site. The plan is then to assemble it in orbit and slowly let it drift down into the atmosphere, where balloons and parachutes will bring it to a halt around 50 kilometers above the surface. At these heights, the pressure and temperature are comparable to Earth, meaning an astronaut will not require a pressure suit to be outside, only an oxygen mask and something to protect against the temperature and acidity.
1/20
G-Drive Improvement Program
The first small scale Gravitic Drive experiments have reached completion. While most changes only showed miniscule effects, a few of them lend statistical credence to some of Samantha Carter's hypotheses. It is now time for these experiments to be repeated in larger scale trials. While the experiments can be done on Earth, there is also the option to complement these efforts with live testing on the Pathfinder itself.
198/400
Ore Electrolysis Smelter Development
The team working on the smelter part of the lunar electrolysis system have completed their first prototypes. The remaining work will focus on engineering the actual electrolysis part of the device. With some of the metal oxides in lunar soil having a melting temperature of 2900°C, special design considerations had to be made for power delivery and cooling in the lunar environment. Using an electric heater to melt the ore has been its own challenge to overcome, but with the lack of ingredients necessary for chemical solutions, not using electricity for melting and refining is out of the question.
164/200
Atmospheric Containment Shimmer Optimization
With the current shield parameters, gasses can pass the shields to ensure the crews can breathe. Work has now begun on shields that contain gasses to act as bulkheads, as a shield can be dropped and raised faster than mechanical barriers, reducing air losses when used.
147/400
Tick Tank Dig Experiments
Live testing of the new digger prototypes on the Moon hit an embarrassing snag when it was discovered that the designs were calibrated for Martian rather than Lunar gravity. Luckily, this is a simple problem to fix, and another infusion of funds should see the experiments reach their conclusion by the end of the year.
137/150
Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer Development
Using spectroscopy on the light given off by a planet's atmosphere, the makeup of that atmosphere can be extrapolated. Given the distances and projected minimum data required the Analyzer will need to be able to extract even more information out of an even smaller area of the sky.
208/200
With the help of universities across the world work begins on a large suite of detectors and sensors for the Craterscope. These range from atmospheric analysers to Moon detectors and with more funding all will be done in a few months.
Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 184/200
Asteroid belts are some of the hardest objects to detect. Their cross section is incredibly thin, meaning minimal reduction of light when they pass in front of a star, and they are incredibly nonreflective. With direct methods promising little effort, data analysis and simple AI is needed to pull useful data out of weeks or months of footage. Work on these required code modules has progressed well, with the scientists working on them hopeful the detector will be finished on time.
Craterscope Tiberium Detector 55/125
The search for Tiberium over interstellar distances is an incredible specific task requiring especially specific solutions. Luckily, Tiberium gives off very specific wavelengths of light that can be detected, if the planet's atmosphere is not clouded like Venus. The needed module will need to be incredibly sensitive to these wavelengths, which has been an engineering challenge. While the detector won't be able to fully confirm the presence of Tiberium on any planet outside the solar system, unusually large amounts of these wavelengths being detected when observing such a world will give definite clues.
Craterscope Moon Detector 110/125
Moons run into much of the same problem as Asteroids, with the benefit that they will only exist close to other planets. By observing planets more carefully over longer timespans, data on the possible number, presence, and size of moons can be gained.
Craterscope Imaging Sensor 46/120
Mission: Orbital Scan Uranus
Mission: Orbital Scan Titan
Planning an orbital scan is easy these days with the Pathfinder, all that is needed is to plan the flight and pick the orbits for the satellites and the Pathfinder.
Voyager Visitation
Our mission planning department has estimated the location of the Voyager probe to an acceptable level of precision and has devised options for a visit.
172/150
Mission: Research Base Mercury
The plans for dealing with the long days of Mercury have been completed.
197/150
Mars particle collection mission
The results of the first particle collection mission is that the particles seem to be limited to a single layer in the soil of Mars and a shallow one at that. This hints of a geologically recent arrival of the particles. Studies of craters that cut through this layer result in an estimate of 30.000 to 200.000 years for the age of the layer.
The highest concentrations of the particles have been found near where the rover first detected them, with concentrations dropping if you go to the east or north.
3/6 attempts 60 Pathfinder Days DC80, 75, 70 = 65,27,10
SCEDQuest Q4 2061
This Side Quest was allowed by Ithillid and is supposed to be fun. Things happening in SCEDQuest will be affected by the main one, but unless Ithillid says otherwise it is only semi-canon.
Budget: 279, income: 125 Capital per turn
Industrial Capacity: 230 IP
Pathfinder Time: 90 Days
Astronaut Teams: 2 (+5 per Plan)
Astrotech Teams: 5 (+1 per turn, +5 per year)
Earth-Luna:
Earthside Facilities (Unlimited Dice)
[]Isolinear Computing Center(Updated)
Now that we can print Isolinear chips, we can build dedicated computers for the development department who are eager to get the increased calculation power.
Now that the fabricator at Anadyr is completed we can get some of the needed chips from there reducing the cost of the project.
(Phase 1)(25 Capital per Die 0/200)
(Phase 2)(0/50 IP)(+5 to development dice)
Earth-Orbit Facilities:
[]Gagarin Station (Stage 4)(Updated)
With SCED growing and the number of off-earth sites increasing, the design for the next phase of the Gagarin station has been changed. The new design still includes 0G research labs but the rest of the expansion now focuses on a large communication suite to coordinate SCED efforts across the solar system.
(2/10 Gagarin Station Parts; 5C and 10 IP per Part)(+5 to all rolls, +1 Research Die)(-3 Astrotech Teams)(For one station part per turn, the IP cost is waived)
[]Enterprise Orbital Assembler (Phase 3 of 4)(Updated)
With the industrial space and resources available on Enterprise station steadily growing has come the possibility of other GDI departments besides the Treasury to get a piece of the orbital manufacturing station's capacity. Luckily Developmentalist, Starbound and even a few Militarist politicians continue to look out for the SCED and have reserved some of the station space for the small organization. With the completion of the Station it has become easier to request help from the existing workshops on the Enterprise.
Phase 3: (0/80 IP)(+1 free station part per turn, fewer parts needed once the Conestoga is ready)
Phase 4: (0/80 IP)(+10 IP, research projects require less progress)
Lunar Facilities (4 Dice available):
[]Craterscope Structure (Phase 1)
The construction of the main building will be a major effort that can be begun as soon as the foundations have been completed.
(Phase 1)(15/30 Structure Parts, 4C and 4IP per Part)
(Phase 2)(0/400)
[]Lunar Imaging Seismic Array (Phase 2 of 10)
LISA can be deployed from orbit, the pods landing and burying their sensors by themselves. The SCED will expand the array region by region, scanning each for available volcanic caves.
(0/10 Sensor Pods, 4C and 4 IP per Sensor Pod)
[]Ore Electrolysis Test Facility (Phase 3) With the building completed the next step is the construction and delivery of the electrolysis machines. The plan calls for the facility to run only in the daytime when there is enough power for short testing runs and that full scale operations will begin once the experimental reactor has been completed
0/30 IP +5 to lunar die, -1 Astrotech Teams
Martian Facilities (13 Pathfinder days):
[] Martian SCED Research Base (Phase 2) (Northern polar region)(NEW)
The polar research base's focus is the colonisation of Mars and the first expansion focusses on that with a small aquaponics bay to feed the base and expanded living quarters to house more scientists.
(0/20 Facilities, 7C and 5 IP per Facility)(Max 10 parts per pathfinder trip)(-3 Astrotech Team)
Mercury Facilities (13 Pathfinder days):
[]Mercury SCED Research Base (Northern polar region)(NEW)
The initial base will follow a similar pattern to the lunar one. A number of prefabricated habitat units, connected to life support and power. The plan is for an underground base near the poles as it is easier to deal with constant cold temperatures than the large changes that are present at the poles.
(0/15 Facilities; 7C, 5 IP per Facility)(-1 Astronaut Team)
Venus Facilities (12 Pathfinder days):
[]Venus Research Station
A station in orbit of Venus has been requested to safely study tiberium samples collected there as they can easily be returned to the surface if needed. The station will float in the upper atmosphere with oxygen-nitrogen as a lifting gas. A second goal of the station would be a study of Venus's unique weather phenomena
(1/20 Station Parts; 5C and 10 IP per Part)(Astrotech Teams -2)(For one station part per turn, the IP cost is waived)(max four parts per trip)
Assembly
[]Craterscope Imaging Sensor
The craterscope imaging sensor will be one of the most advanced pieces of technology GDI currently is capable of producing. It will need to be capable of detecting single photons in a wide frequency range and allow the SCED to extract useful data from the minimal data collected.
46/120 IP
[]Build Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer
We can build the Atmospheric Analyzer ourselves
0/50IP
[]Commision Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer
Or commission its construction
0/75 Capital
Development (6 Dice) +30
[]Curiosity Shuttle Prototype 0/200 (25C/Die +20IP)
With work on new variations of the Leopard underway the research department has asked permission to build one to test new technology. The plan is to start with one of the new VIP Leopards and refit it with a hover landing system and artificial gravity. Other planned additions include large sensor arrays, an isolinear EVA, and extensive monitoring systems to study the craft while it is flying.
[]G-Drive Improvement Program 198/400 (15C/Die +10IP)(max 1 die per turn)
Now that our understanding of the science behind gravity manipulation, STU's and superconductors has increased we can try to improve the G-Drive. Due to the high volatility and danger of improperly aligned G-Drives and the limited number of scientists yet qualified to study them, SCED cannot rush this research.
[]He-3 Experimental Reactor 0/200(20C/Die +10IP)
To prepare for the next wave of construction on the Moon the construction of a HE3 reactor is planned. It will power SCED operations for years to come with power to spare for the Treasury's mining operations. The reactor will be designed to experiment with He-3 based fusion processes. While this means the reactor is unlikely to be an optimal design for power production, it allows for a greater range of operating options, and room for extensive sensor networks to study its function. The already extant mines on the Moon are not designed to capture and store He-3 locked in mined materials, but the small quantity that can be recovered will easily provide for the operating of a single reactor.
[]Europa Deep Ocean Sample Extraction Drone 0/200 (4C/Die+4IP/Die)
It has long been theorized that Europa contains oceans of liquid water under its icy surface, heated by geothermal forces. If this should prove to be the case, there may be life in some form huddled around the energy providing deep sea volcanoes on Europa. A specialized, disinfected robot would have to be designed to take samples without contaminating any potential ecosystem already in place.
[]Ore Electrolysis Smelter Development 164/200 (2C/Die+4IP/DIe)
Electrolysis can be used to extract metal from oxidized ore. With Luna lacking the prerequisites for a chemical industry, electro-chemistry will be needed for all on-site refinement. While Enterprise has seen and solved many of the issues involved already, it does so through sheer brute force. SCED is looking to refine the ores without needing to dedicate as much space, power and other resources for the production of raw material in a lunar environment.
[]Atmospheric Containment Shimmer Optimization 147/400 (1C/Die)
Hypothetically, a shimmer shield could be used to keep oxygen atoms from being sucked out into vacuum, however doing so will require a lot of tweaking of shield parameters.
[]Tick Tank Dig Experiments 137/150 (3C/Die+4IP/Die)
The Tick Tank has a unique digging system that may be useful in extraterrestrial construction, but first a few groundside experiments will need to be performed.
Craterscope Projects (Warning: Some of these will have quality rolls; Quality can be improved)(Access to up to 5 Outside Dev Dice, each costs an extra 10C/Die)
[]Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 184/200 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Detection of an Asteroid belt will be an even greater challenge since they are barely hotter than the cosmic background in most cases. However, using anomalies in photon gravitic phase shift should allow for at least confirming the position of asteroid belts in a solar system as long as they are not too far away from their center star.
[]Craterscope Tiberium Detector 55/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Tiberium gives off very particular frequencies of light and radiation patterns. By adding a sensor module tweaked for these frequencies and particles, we could detect Tiberium on planets in other solar systems.
[]Craterscope Moon Detector 110/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional)
Moons are in a similar spot as Asteroid belts, but require a less specialized sensor module to detect the subtle shifts in orbital movement and gravitic redshift caused by orbiting moons.
Space Command Mission Planning (4 Dice) +5
[]Mission: Orbital Scan (Write-in) (for example: Neptune, Saturn or Uranus) (Requires one Die)(Gas Giants have the main planet, each major moon, and rings+minor moons as locations)
Mars (13 Pathfinder days)
[]Rover Delivery-Mars
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location)(22/50 locations surveyed)
[]Mars Pathfinder Survey
Send the pathfinder to Mars to stay there for 20 days so the geology team can live inside while investigating the area. The Pathfinder can carry enough supplies to do two surveys before needing to return to the Moon for resupply.
(Required for activation: 20 Pathfinder days)(shares sites with Rover Delivery)
[]Mars particle collection mission 3/6 max attempts
Before we can study the gravity altering particle we need more than the handful we have now. By landing the pathfinder at the site where the particles were first found we can get a better idea of how rare they are by examining far more materials then the rover could.
(Required for activation: 20 Pathfinder days, DC65 can be repeated, DC lowered by 5 per attempt)
Asteroid Belt (16 Pathfinder days)
[]Ceres Rover Delivery
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location)(0/15 Locations surveyed)
[]Manned Ceres Landing
(Required for activation: 30IP, 15 Capital, 1 Astronaut Team, 14 Pathfinder days)(Cannot do Rover deliveries at the same time as Manned Landing)
[]Ceres Pathfinder Survey
Send the Pathfinder to Ceres to stay there for 20 days so the geology team can live inside while investigating the area. The Pathfinder can carry enough supplies to do two surveys before needing to return to the Moon for resupply.
(Required for activation: 20 pathfinder days)(shares sites with Rover Delivery)
Jupiter (23 Pathfinder days) Banned due the Scrin presence []Observation Array - Jupiter
(0/10 Observation Satellites 6IP+3 Capital per Satellite)
[]Callisto Rover Delivery
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location)(0/15 Locations surveyed)
[]Surface Scan - Ganymede
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
[]Surface Scan - Io
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
[]Manned Landing Europa
(Required for activation: 30IP, 15 Capital, 1 Astronaut Team, 23 Pathfinder days)(Cannot do Rover deliveries at the same time as Manned Landing)
[]Observation Probes - Minor Moons + Rings
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
Saturn (29 Pathfinder days)
[]Observation Array - Saturn
(0/10 Observation Satellites 6IP+3 Capital per Satellite)
[]Observation Probes - Minor Moons + Rings
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
[]Observation Probes - Titan
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
Uranus(39 Pathfinder days)
[]Observation Probes - Uranus
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
Pluto (51 Pathfinder days)
--- Eris(85 Pathfinder days)
[] Orbital scan
There is little practical benefit of scanning a dwarf planet this far away but it would be the most distant object visited by the Pathfinder
(Required for activation: 6IP+ 3 Capital or 4 Pathfinder days)
Other
[] Pathfinder Drive Testing (NEW)
With a greater understanding of the gravity drive the Pathfinder can be temporarily modified to confirm if the experimental results will scale up to full size. These tests will be performed near the Enterprise station where the refits can be done using its workshops while being in range of fusion shuttles if something goes wrong.
(Required for activation: 20IP and 40 Pathfinder days. Roll a die and add the result to the G-Drive Improvement Program. Can only do once per turn.)
[]Voyager Visitation (NEW)
The Voyager probes were the first and only of Mankind's creations that reached the Interstellar void between the stars. Their position has been extrapolated and, using Pathfinder, the SCED could catch up to their theoretical position to place a higher power beacon next to them and secure the probes inside a protective, armored shell.
(Required for activation: 90 Pathfinder days)
—
-[] Curiosity Shuttle Prototype 0/200 2 dice 19%, 3 dice 79%, 4 dice 98%
-[] G-Drive Improvement Program 198/400 2 dice 19%, 3 dice 79%, 4 dice 98%
-–Note: Only 1 Development die per turn.
--Alt: 1 Dev die 1 Pathfinder die 4%
--Alt 2: 2 Dev dice 1 Pathfinder die 57%, 2 Dev dice 2 Pathfinder dice 84%
--Alt 3: 3 Dev dice 1 Pathfinder die 94%
-[] He-3 Experimental Reactor 0/200 2 dice 19%, 3 dice 79%, 4 dice 98%
-[] Europa Deep Ocean Sample Extraction Drone 0/200 2 dice 19%, 3 dice 79%, 4 dice 98%
-[] Ore Electrolysis Smelter Development 164/200 1 die 95%
-[] Atmospheric Containment Shimmer Optimization 147/400 3 dice 42%, 4 dice 88%, 5 dice 99%
-[] Tick Tank Dig Experiments 137/150 1 die 100%
Craterscope (Up to +5 extra Dice) +20
-[] Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 184/200 1 die 100%
-[] Craterscope Tiberium Detector 55/125 1 die 61%, 2 dice 99%
-[] Craterscope Moon Detector 110/125 1 die 100%
Space Command Mission Planning (4 Dice) +5
-[] Mission: Orbital Scan (Write-in) 1 die auto
-[] Mission: Surface Exploration (Write-in) 1 die auto
-[] Mission: Manned Landing (Write-in) 1 die auto
-[] Mission: Research Base (Write-in) 0/150 2 dice 19%, 3 dice 63%, 4 dice 89%, 5 dice 97%
Just to be clear, do you mean "the Logistics cost of more apartments is becoming prohibitive, only arcologies are practical Housing solutions given the Logistics burden" or do you mean "I think Phase 10 is the last phase of apartments that can be built?"
Gone. It's too naratively borring to have unlimited phases of apartments, especially as their logistics required climb higher and higher. So they'll be removed from the queue-we've built seven phases of apartments in the past two years, we are over apartmentalizing. The QM just can't think of anything more interesting to say for new phases of apartments.
It's not that the Lancer is useless or ineffective or pointless. It's that both Ground Force and ZOCOM have spent years complaining that they're being strangled by the limited supply of power armor- any power armor. At this time, I regard expanding production of power armor to be more important than pursuing newer cooler more advanced forms of power armor.
My perception of that importance will reverse about 8-12 dice from now, when we finish the first wave of Zone Armor factories.
ZOCOM has multiple ways of making their preferred priorities heard to us. They could mark the Lancer as "High Priority." This, they have not done. The last time we got a paragraph-long explanation of ZOCOM's priorities, it mentioned the words "suit upgrades" once in passing and then spent 108 words going on at length about how overstretched ZOCOM was, why Ground Force Zone Armor is the solution, and how much ZOCOM wants us to deploy that.
I'm pretty sure that's meant to send us a clear message regarding where ZOCOM's priorities lie.
The thing is, if we do Zone Lancers now, they come built into the ZA factories we build. If we do Lancers later, we have to go back and refit them to build Lancers. You might think that such a specialized suit would never be required in very large numbers but the first factories skew HEAVILY towards the advanced and specialized suits and away from the generic and boring.
I also suspect that Phase 10 is the last one for Apartments. Narratively, it isn't viable to keep building housing like this. The logistical issues should be growing exponentially. Even the Metros aren't resolving the issues by much.
My general premise here is that wars are usually not won by having the single best whiz-bang gizmo. If they were, Nod would have won all three Tiberium Wars. My view is that wars are won by having large supplies of weapons that are good enough. Not so good that one cannot imagine scenarios in which they fail or are overrun, but good enough to meet the typical use case, and hopefully to face down even extraordinary situations briefly, for long enough that something more powerful that can put down the threat shows up.
