Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Daniel14541 · Oct 24, 2022

so a military security review in two turns is what I am hearing.

FaxModem1 · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
One of the more interesting, if not precisely threatening groups trying to gain privileged access to the Agriculture department's information is actually recipe writers, test kitchens, and chefs. All of whom want access to both information on which projects the Initiative is actively funding towards public use, but also keeping tabs on projects that are not yet ready, like the fast growing and nutritious quillar, and more importantly to many, various projects aiming towards lab grown meat. While Entari for example is now a generally well known product, the chefs and recipe writers who got their hands on it first had a usually small, but very significant edge on their competitors, unleashing a swarm of recipes for mock chicken, mock duck, and even mock steak using the product.

Of all the problems we could have, cookbook writers bribing farmers to know what's coming is not what I was expecting. I understand why, but it was not what I was expecting.

GDI needs a Julie Child style program to help combat this menace.

Sa'kage · Oct 24, 2022

I see NOD has finally meet their match in infiltration. The cookbook writers, most devious of people

MightbeaMimic · Oct 24, 2022

Chlof said:
Now, this is just conjecture but if I were Gideon and I had been told by Kane to get my act together faking a coup in order to 'rebrand' would definitely seem like a good course of action.

I mean...

Ithillid said:
The guards outside died quickly by all reports, and then Gideon himself, hauled out into the open, and executed, broadcast live, with a secondary team taking over the broadcast systems Gideon had installed.

I think he might be dead

bigking321 · Oct 24, 2022

Hmm...

Well look at that. We are in direct negotiations with several warlords. That's fantastic.

Shame they are also the ones we will be in direct conflict with from building Karachi.

Maybe we can come to a eventual agreement that lets us build the city without kicking off another war?

Looks like alloys are in incredibly high demand but supplies are very limited. We still need to see what got cost reductions but their tiberium resistant nature ups their importance by quite a lot.

Kudzu auto completes. Very very nice.

Poulticeplants look very promising.

Tiberium mines look rough. Needs more work.

And potentially more STUs.

Columbia not having much of a impact yet. Perhaps because of its rushed nature. I'm sure over time it will settle down.

Orbital clean up is done. Time to see what power satellites do.

Another step forward for gene editing.

Oof... the eye things continue to be very unpleasant sounding though we dodged the social stigma.

And a bunch of new weapons and tech.

Overall I'd say a nice turn with good but not dramatic results. Just nice steady progress.

The nod negotiations and Gideon biting it were the standouts this time. Very interesting.

We will probably have a lot of new projects next round due to all the research. Not much point in speculating too much.

If I had to make any recommendations it would be to focus on the fusion upgrades and alloys (discount results needed), as well as focusing on finishing larger military goals such as wingmen and laser refits so they could be ready for new ship deployments and Karachi.

Plus more tiberium mines of course.

Which now that I think of it would benefit immensely from having tiberium resistant construction and reinforcement from the alloys. The last phase of alloys makes a lot more sense now.

RaptorusMaximus · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
"Listen, I need you to go down to the vehicle bay, Harls, I need you to get that flame tank that they captured. I need you to fuel it up, drive it over to bay 12, and I need you to light that sucker up. Yes, I know I called the Bay 12 plants my babies hon, just do it. They really didn't like whatever bioweapon the NOD infiltration team released into the fertilizer system. No wait, the other thing. They like it too much. That's why the NOD team are dead.
...
Harleen, if you don't burn that bay, I'm gonna have to cancel our date."-Doctor P. Isley, containing a prion-bioweapon outbreak.

Best part of the update

But yeah, good to see how everything went, I like the new GD-3 being a combination AR/GL, I think it fits V well.

Now, we just need to see what sort of shape we'll be in for this next turn. Costs and available funds and all that fun stuff, new projects to consider. It'll be a grand old time, I can just tell.

MrRageQuit · Oct 24, 2022

There goes Gideon. Things will be getting much more interesting in the Chinese sense down South, I do declare.

Great update, Ithilid.

Simon_Jester · Oct 24, 2022

Reactionpost?

REACTION POOST!

Ithillid said:
Third, the propaganda outlets. Gideon preferred to use the symbols of American protestantism and more broadly the patterns of religious text and speech in his propaganda. The new person has shifted tone quite dramatically, offering promises of food, peace, safety, and prosperity. The art style has shifted as well, although I would rather somebody with more of a background in art history tackle that.

Now, between those three, I am guessing that this is probably affiliated to some degree with Stahl, as the only warlord to consistently win victories in the regency war. I would not expect it to be Stahl trying for direct rule from Rio, too far and with too many GDI ships in between.

Yeah.

Well, Stahl won't make it easy for us to gain much ground, but he's also less likely to randomly 'test our resolve' with ill-advised offensives. One big question is whether Stahl will be able to establish secure control over Mondragon's forces in the west. Mondragon may remain de facto independent because he's even harder for Stahl to access than Gideon was. Waters' arrangements with Krukov will almost certainly remain unchanged.

Q2 2062 Results

Resources: 1125 + 125 in‌ ‌reserve‌ (-30 from Reconstruction commissions) (-15 from Bureau of Arcologies) (-15 from Consumer Industrial Development) (100 in Reserve for Banking)

Okay, so counting the banking reserve as off limits, we have a 1150 R budget next turn, as I was told.

SCIENCE meter is getting low. Trying to remember if we get SCIENCE bumps for attempting a mad science project, or finishing one...

In other news, we're running out of Green Zone- the Blue Zone borders are almost all the way up to the edge of GDI territorial control.

Food consumption is still rising despite Housing demand being steady, which is odd when I think about it.

The Housing situation itself is looking up, though obviously it's going to be harder to keep fighting things down. The communal arcologies (there may only be one phase) and commieblock refits will hopefully put us down to single digit numbers of people in low quality housing, which is a small enough figure that if we don't get any more refugee influxes, we'll be able to have all GDI citizens in high quality housing by the end of the Plan.

Haha, of course we'll have more refugees. Karachi will trigger more refugee inflow.

Logistics is low and needs work. Capital Goods is good but will fall really fast if we start doing AEVAs and so on, and with the alloy foundries on offer there may not be much support for making more Capital Goods.

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌High
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low (Trending to Decent)
Navy:‌ Low ‌(Trending to High)
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

ZOCOM stress remains constant, which is a good sign given the pressure they're under.

Complete 2 phases of Reforestation Preparation

I don't suppose we can get some clues as to what Reforestation Preparation is locked behind...?

Diplomacy
Negotiations have continued between GDI, Qinglian, Bintang, and the Bannerjees. While currently foundering on mutually incompatible red lines, neither side has walked out of negotiations yet; GDI is demanding verifiability, tonnage restrictions, and a relatively narrow view of civilian goods, while the representatives of the warlords look for guarantees of safety, and transit rights along the GDI controlled straits without needing an Initiative pilot and inspection.

Hmm yeah. I can see some of the problems there. We don't especially want gana shipments up to Qinglian; Nod doesn't especially want GDI agents wandering around their cargo vessels.

Navy
For the Navy, in preparation for Karachi, ship timelines are simply too long for a serious further expansion. However, the need for escorts will last long after the port is completed, with the near constant threat of Brotherhood air and missile attack from the subcontinent along massive portions of the proposed routes to any other blue zone. Continued work on area defense upgrades, and other programs to improve the availability of shipping will be a significant portion of what is needed not just for the invasion but a significant period afterwards.

Hm. This has been updated. It's very true that escorts remain needed and remain important, in greater numbers.

"Area defense upgrades..." not sure what that means aside from the laser defense improvements.

"Programs to improve the availability of shipping" means either more military shipyards (not much left but Seattle), or it means more civilian shipyards to replace losses and expand operations. That latter might involve... oh, wasn't there talk of a Planned City in that port city on the south coast of Australia, the one we took from Nod, it's a famous city but the name escapes me at the moment. That would come after Chicago. The Navy might be alluding to that.

Zone Operations Command
At this time, ZOCOM sees no major operational freedom in the immediate future, between the losses incurred during the red zone offensives, and the need to train Ground Forces units in Zone Armor tactics. Currently, the problems are more meat than metal, meaning that while upgraded zone suits, and improved equipment are fundamentally useful, they are not an immediate solution to the command's problems.

Yeah, about what I figured. They're under strain, though it's a different kind of strain than the problems they had in the '50s.

Hopefully, operational experience gained with the 2062 border offensives will make things easier when we take the 2063 border offensives... more gradually, I think.

This last round of apartment construction is complete, even with its stress on logistics as the new apartments are both further from existing industrial construction, and need significant construction of new amenities to support them. With the flow of refugees all but cut off, despite some last handful coming across the lines during Stahl's seizure of power in the American South, the goal has been to move major populations out of low quality housing. While the buildings will still be upkept, and there are going to be significant populations still living in the buildings for one reason or another, they are no longer housing a significant fraction of the Initiative population. Cheap or negative rents are a significant incentive for populations that either don't need much space, or simply prefer the location to available housing possibilities elsewhere.

Future programs are primarily going to be focused on the arcology model, especially with the revelations of just how bad the situation with subterranean tiberium has become. With outbreaks becoming ever more of a problem, disruptions in global and even regional logistics networks become a near inevitability, which makes growing urban areas problematic, especially with the potential for permanent disruptions to key nodes.

I see... Yeah, that makes sense. Hopefully we can fight back the underground tiberium a bit with Blue Zone inhibitors.

"I think I may have been put up in the most remote town in the world. I was told the rent at Petermann Fjord was cheap, and I expected something in BZ3 or BZ-15. Instead, I found my ticket punched to the far north of BZ-17, further north than Thule! There's nothing out here, nothing at all, except our little row of a single street of apartments and a road running along the cliff edge. Other than that, the only public amenities are a library and a train station."

We're building apartment complexes in fucking Greenland.

Also, it's kind of amusing that we even have a train stop out there.

While the aircraft are universally significantly larger and heavier than most previous regimes of ultralight aircraft, primarily due to the need to carry the life support augmentations for a specialized environmental suit, they are simple in design – mostly biplane designs, with a skeletonized tail, a single motor, and (on most designs) a twin prop pusher, primarily to increase maneuverability at low speeds, and to make them harder to modify into high performance units.

That sounds weirdly like the Wright Flyer.

More generally, yeah, the environmental suits are a necessity, aren't they?

There is significant civilian demand for practical uses of the machines. However, one of the first users is actually going to be the Tiberium department, which has placed an order for several thousand units, primarily to serve in survey roles. While much of the work can be handled by satellites and drones, rough terrain, and other features can actually conceal Tiberium outbreaks, and with speed of response being critical, the department wants to be able to put people up anywhere in the world with minimum warnings, and maintain regular patrols in areas like the gullies of Georgia, or the backwater wilds of scandinavia.

Oh yeah, that's interesting.

Though you'd think they'd already use, I dunno, helicopters or something. I guess the ultralights are cheaper to operate if you want a pure recon capability.

Completing the Wadmalaw Kudzu plantations has run into a number of complicating factors. While none of them are particularly significant, they do range from Brotherhood infiltration, to hacking attempts, to a failure of containment in multiple experimental crops, leading to a significant amount of crops needing to be destroyed. The Brotherhood introduced an experimental prion based bioweapon to the crops, turning them into a serious threat to any human that consumes them. While the prion itself is relatively harmless to the plant, it would produce lead like effects, and in the macrodoses that the kudzu produced, would be near instantly and surely lethal if ingested.

"Listen, I need you to go down to the vehicle bay, Harls, I need you to get that flame tank that they captured. I need you to fuel it up, drive it over to bay 12, and I need you to light that sucker up. Yes, I know I called the Bay 12 plants my babies hon, just do it. They really didn't like whatever bioweapon the NOD infiltration team released into the fertilizer system. No wait, the other thing. They like it too much. That's why the NOD team are dead.
...
Harleen, if you don't burn that bay, I'm gonna have to cancel our date."-Doctor P. Isley, containing a prion-bioweapon outbreak.

Honestly, I'm just glad Dr. Isley and Dr. Bora have incompatible orientations; I'm not sure the world could survive them getting together.

The new build aquaponics bays, rather than entirely focusing on producing bulk calories or nutritionally complete meals for humans, are instead far more focused towards dual use crops for the vast array of animals that GDI expects to raise in the near future.

That's... a good call. Of course, it also underlines the part where building more +Food facilities doesn't really translate into better diets for GDI's citizenry, because at this point we're growing animal feed more often than the good stuff.

[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) (Updated)
With the concept proven, vein mines are a fairly expensive but functional way of attacking underground Tiberium, and providing for a long term abatement strategy, while also not stressing military deployments. While they do have their problems, these are of limited import compared to their advantages.
(Progress 195/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 195/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 60/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods) [51, 7, 9, 63, 40, 47]
Income 2d3: [2, 2] = +60 RpT

Let's see how it goes...

Politically, the vein mines are not particularly complicated. While the results are noticeably worrying, the overall response is that it is at least better to know than to suspect. While they do have some problems in terms of tailings, as not even sonics can fully disrupt tiberium all the way through the tons of rock being dug up, and the need to put those tailings somewhere that won't leach into the groundwater too badly, it is more of a concern for observation and ecological study groups, rather than a problem for the treasury to concern itself over. And with the tailings mostly going into pre-designated pooling sites, they can effectively be turned into Tiberium farms – by simply waiting for the crystal to overtake a particular load, and then harvesting it.

Heh. Well, it's a kind of a gallows humor observation, but still not so bad.

In terms of overall conditions underground, it is, in a word, bad. In the last three months, there have been four major collapses, and sixteen minor ones, with significant parts of the mine shafts being cut off from the surface. While the mines are very heavily automated, with each individual having a full suite of life support systems whenever they are down in the mines, there have been over twenty people killed during the initial digs. A significant part of this is Tiberium outbreaks, and Tiberium undermining, where a given crystal vein compromises part of the structural reinforcements in and around the shafts of the vein mines.

Notably that's "over twenty" all over the world, not in any one mine or for that matter any one Blue Zone. While a fatality rate of 80-120 per year isn't what you'd call good, by comparison, the United States alone had 75 fatalities in the mineral extraction industry, split roughly 50/50 between the mining and petrochemical sectors.

GDI is bigger than the United States, so we're not really doing substantially worse than real life, though in real life there are a lot more mines digging a lot more things.

Beyond that there are the problems on the Tiberium end. The Brotherhood has been experimenting with arrays of repulsorplates to manipulate the Tiberium as it is refining, creating vortices and high density masses that seem to produce marginally more STUs. While for the Brotherhood, this is a safety mechanism as opposed to standard APK process approaches, that can be both notoriously volatile and have a number of pressurized containers to produce the large quantities of STUs that the Brotherhood has come to rely on. Adapting the methods are going to be substantially less efficient currently with the limits of GDI's gravitic manipulation technologies, but as progress is made there, much greater efficiencies can be achieved.

Interesting. Since that's an area where progress remains to be made, it implies that there will be a third-tier improvement of this technology if and as our gravitics technology improves.

Which we may wish to remember if work on that ever becomes an option.

For most among Project Trailblazer, the last decade had been mostly a series of fun games. Learning the ins and outs of spaceborne living in a safe environment, and learning a wide array of science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills.

In terms of impact however, it has not had the hoped for effects. While part of this may be a matter of time. It is simply not apparently as exciting as many have hoped for. While Starbound affiliated families have been seeing fertility specialists more often, that is the sum of the actual impact so far.

"When you walk the halls of Columbia, it is austere, sterile. A thing of bare walls and brightly lit hallways. The marks of construction work are everywhere. Rushed welds, hammer marks, rivets, and sharp edges. It may be a house, but it has not yet become a home. Our trailblazers, those first brave people to take the steps into space, must not only overcome the difficulties of a new and hostile environment, but take that and make it their own."

Well, let's keep trying and hope for the best.

The Initiative always expected backlash from its work on cybernetic eyesight. The scars of CABAL, of the Marked, of Brotherhood cybernetic agents run deep. Beyond that, the helmets themselves are far from perfect. Invasive, scarring, deeply problematic, with a tendency to cause seizures if not properly calibrated, the current generation of implants are very much an absolutely minimum viable product. The thing is that while the first wave of recipients were few and far between, the social backlash has simply not appeared. While there is still likely some level of conscious or unconscious bias, things like complaints to the labor bureaus have, to this point not had a single complaint over a firing due to cybernetics, and no actionable complaint of hiring discrimination.

Oh, thank God.

Of all the things we could possibly get from a critical success, this is the best.

Some of the first serious deliveries of railgun rounds have begun to be made. So far most of the rounds have been expended in training exercises, with, for example the high explosive rounds offering a very different ballistic trajectory, being both lighter than the fluted dart, and offering significantly more air resistance. Beyond that, it has given tank crews much more of a reason to use the power dials on their vehicles, rather than simply firing at maximum power under nearly all circumstances (to the point where one of the common field modifications was putting a box around the controls so that they could not be accidentally tweaked.) However, some portion of the rounds are already being held back, with about one in twenty being stockpiled in bases around the Indian ocean.

That's a good start. It may be beneficial to do another phase of the factories before Karachi, preferably well before so that the stockpiles can build up.

The base of the design is simple enough, as with most other things, cutting open a Guardian APC and using the crew compartment as open space for installing equipment is a practical starting point. The biggest external difference is on the top of the vehicle, a combination of mobile, fixed, stealth sensor, and a folding down pannable dish for the disruptor. While able to detect Brotherhood stealth units on the move, the vehicle will have to be stationary while using its disruptor. While there were proposals for a fixed version, the problem is that the unit only has a maximally effective range of under a kilometer, with the infrared portions of the system beginning to lose effectiveness due to the atmosphere.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. Don't think this is going to show up as an orbital "stealth field go blam" weapon any time in the foreseeable future.

The overall program is still going poorly, even as GDI forces drive deep into the Red Zones, losses have remained far beyond replacement rates, with ZOCOM training cadres stretched to their limits drilling new troops while the existing forces bleed white on the front lines. In many cases, training has been curtailed to reorient those assets towards training more ZOCOM recruits, and getting them into the Red Zones as quickly as possible.

Similarly, the disputes on organization have continued, with the rank and file caught between two doctrines. While the debate over maintenance and upkeep continues, a new front has opened, with the return of tank desant as a proposal. Essentially, rather than needing large formations of APCs, Initiative Ground Forces have proposed new armored infantry formations riding tanks into battle, before dismounting and providing high speed support as the heavy spearhead slams into the enemy.

Ugh. While tank desant isn't bad, we clearly need the new APCs so that the tanks aren't forced to deviate from their own optimum battlefield deployment to serve as battle taxis.

More generally, the operator shortage is a big issue with no obvious solution in sight given the pressures everything is under.

One of the more interesting, if not precisely threatening groups trying to gain privileged access to the Agriculture department's information is actually recipe writers, test kitchens, and chefs. All of whom want access to both information on which projects the Initiative is actively funding towards public use, but also keeping tabs on projects that are not yet ready, like the fast growing and nutritious quillar...

Quillar? Huh. First I'm hearing of it. I look forward to seeing what it does.

While getting access to the programs themselves is difficult, they have to interface significantly with the rest of the Initiative logistical system, and, for example, there are very few processes that take large amounts of gallium nitride outside of sensors and communications work. There are similar compounds across the system that make actually hiding projects difficult, and much of it passes through central clearinghouses, where a simple private can, without too much effort correlate routing numbers and delivery codes. While InOps has maintained a near constant presence at such sites, even their argusian eyes cannot see everything, and in some ways, the practices of a spy make them better at such jobs.
While a number of agents have been caught, InOps believes there are still more in place, with their heads firmly down. While another sweep is unlikely to catch many if any, giving some time may well be enough to get some of the agents to poke their heads out again.

Huh. Cool. Well, let's give it another sweep some time in, oh, early 2063, then?

Good that we're getting advice on this from InOps.

Ithillid · Oct 24, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Quillar? Huh. First I'm hearing of it. I look forward to seeing what it does.

The bastard love child of corn and wheat effectively.

Simon_Jester · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
The bastard love child of corn and wheat effectively.

Ah. Interesting. Probably straightforward +Food then, but probably cheaper to implement than entari. Not high priority since it doesn't do anything categorically novel, but certainly not unwelcome once we've got our Plan goals out of the way!

F0lkL0re said:
I was going to use an admin die to finish this but since it's going to autocomplete I'll be putting it elsewhere.

Oh hey, sweet.

Anyone want to make any suggestions on where to put it? I'm thinking of putting it on the Orca drones.

EDIT: Bot is not allowed to suggest space projects!

Well.

AA dice are usually best devoted to whatever department has low cost per die. You're getting less- a lot less- than you would with a normal die; it's all the more of an inefficiency if you're paying a lot of R for the privilege. Maybe on Communal Arcologies... except those are very close to completion as-is. Maybe Urban Metros Phase 4 could be a 1+AA project instead of a 2-die project. Or put it on the housing refits. Lots of possibilities along those lines.

Daniel14541 said:
so a military security review in two turns is what I am hearing.

Me, I say three, but two's not bad.

The trick is, we need to do the sweep after they've already concluded that the heat has blown over, but long, long before they're seriously worried about getting caught in the next one. By now, anyone who's really observing our institutional behavior patterns knows that we almost never do two sweeps less than two years apart, but very rarely wait more than 3-3.5 years between sweeps. Given that it'd been something like 10 turns since we last swept Military, any Nod agents in the subdepartment were probably expecting us to jump on them at any time now.

MightbeaMimic said:
I mean...

I think he might be dead

To be fair, if Gideon were faking his own death, drugging up a body double and shooting them in the head would hardly be out of the question.

FaxModem1 said:
Of all the problems we could have, cookbook writers bribing farmers to know what's coming is not what I was expecting. I understand why, but it was not what I was expecting.

GDI needs a Julie Child style program to help combat this menace.

...Wait.

Wait.

Wait this is brilliant.

Julia Child worked for the OSS (including a recipe for shark repellent, no less!)

InOps can get this set up.

We just need a tol lady from InOps to run a novel, admittedly very indirect counter-infiltration program!

Nottheunmaker · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
GDIWife
They're both Nod, neither of them are sane. I don't know much about the warlords but if one of them is now dead due to the other I'm hardly going to shed a tear.

Know thy enemy, GDIWife, know thy enemy.

Ithillid said:
Looking into the future, the biggest area where further practical development is needed is actually with human interaction robotics, ranging from nurse units, designed to engage with babies and provide general care in assistance of a mother, to elderly assistance robots, which, in many cases, are likely to be more needed, especially with an Initiative population significantly below replacement rates.

Honestly, I'd prioritize childcare bots over elder care bots. That's always a major concern with young families, just all the time and attention very young children need.

Ithillid said:
"Listen, I need you to go down to the vehicle bay, Harls, I need you to get that flame tank that they captured. I need you to fuel it up, drive it over to bay 12, and I need you to light that sucker up. Yes, I know I called the Bay 12 plants my babies hon, just do it. They really didn't like whatever bioweapon the NOD infiltration team released into the fertilizer system. No wait, the other thing. They like it too much. That's why the NOD team are dead.
...
Harleen, if you don't burn that bay, I'm gonna have to cancel our date."-Doctor P. Isley, containing a prion-bioweapon outbreak.

Really hoping that counter biowarfare tech shows up soon.

Ithillid said:
Looking into the future, the projects are going to be a combination of cosmetic and practical. While cat ears, functional and otherwise may not do much to aid in humanity's survival, the idea has some noticeable appeal for many. Similarly, on the more practical side, there are proposals to work on various forms of regenerative and reconstructive technologies, leading towards a greater ability to heal people without leaving scar tissue.

Where Elon Musk failed to give us catgirls, GDI will not!

Personally I'm fine with pushing harder on gene augmentation, though I can definitely understand the concerns. Suppose it'll be easier to say what should and shouldn't be done once we know our options.

Simon_Jester said:
More generally, the operator shortage is a big issue with no obvious solution in sight given the pressures everything is under.

Not in the immediate sense, but if we're going for long term planning, incentivizing families to have kids is usually the way to go. If we need them much more soonish, there's a lot of Forgotten mutants entering adulthood that might be interested in ZOCOM work.

HousePet · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
Navy

For the Navy, in preparation for Karachi, ship timelines are simply too long for a serious further expansion. However, the need for escorts will last long after the port is completed, with the near constant threat of Brotherhood air and missile attack from the subcontinent along massive portions of the proposed routes to any other blue zone. Continued work on area defense upgrades, and other programs to improve the availability of shipping will be a significant portion of what is needed not just for the invasion but a significant period afterwards.

Zone Operations Command

At this time, ZOCOM sees no major operational freedom in the immediate future, between the losses incurred during the red zone offensives, and the need to train Ground Forces units in Zone Armor tactics. Currently, the problems are more meat than metal, meaning that while upgraded zone suits, and improved equipment are fundamentally useful, they are not an immediate solution to the command's problems.

To me, this seems like a suggestion that more ZA is not immediately useful, but we should aim to complete Infernium Laser Refits asap.
I presume the note about improving the availability of shipping means finishing the other shipyards?

Ithillid said:
The bastard love child of corn and wheat effectively.

High vitamin and mineral content, with augmented protein as well?
Are we talking a yellow grain for vitamin A, or are we looking at red varieties for anthocyanins as well?

MrRageQuit · Oct 24, 2022

HousePet said:
To me, this seems like a suggestion that more ZA is not immediately useful, but we should aim to complete Infernium Laser Refits asap.
I presume the note about improving the availability of shipping means finishing the other shipyards?

I disagree, to the extent that we need the Zone Armor going still in prep for the Red Zone offensives next year, and to facilitate the Ground Forces' transition. So just 1 die this turn perhaps, to finish off the Tokyo factory?

And it sounds to me like SADN is also an important thing for them. The one concern I have about Infernium is that it requires STUs, which means between it, the Gravitic Shipyard, and the Alloy Foundries, our budget for that resource is getting stretched. Hopefully the descriptions regarding the Improved HG Process mean the refits will get us more STUs.

Chlof · Oct 24, 2022

MightbeaMimic said:
I think he might be dead

Don't worry, I have a very factual documentary which might explain how he pulled it off:

BoSPaladin · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
as in some cases weeks or months can be the difference between life or death for those afflicted by muscles atrophy or Huntington's disease.

muscular atrophy

Lightwhispers · Oct 24, 2022

F0lkL0re said:
Damn you and using my specific wording against me!

Mwahahaha! Mine is an evil laugh!

HousePet said:
To me, this seems like a suggestion that more ZA is not immediately useful, but we should aim to complete Infernium Laser Refits asap.

MrRageQuit said:
I disagree, to the extent that we need the Zone Armor going still in prep for the Red Zone offensives next year, and to facilitate the Ground Forces' transition. So just 1 die this turn perhaps, to finish off the Tokyo factory?

To expand, Zone Armor factories will help Ground Forces build up a stockpile of suits so that they can stand up the units faster, once they get enough people trained that they can take over training duties.

HousePet · Oct 24, 2022

MrRageQuit said:
I disagree, to the extent that we need the Zone Armor going still in prep for the Red Zone offensives next year, and to facilitate the Ground Forces' transition. So just 1 die this turn perhaps, to finish off the Tokyo factory?

That doesn't really look like a disagreement to me?
We will obviously need more ZA by early next year, and I don't suggest we just drop the project entirely.
When I said "immediately", I meant in Q3. As in, instead of pouring more die into ZA, we pour it into ship defences. In Q3.
And one die to finish off the Tokyo plant seems fine to me.

Etranger · Oct 24, 2022

Chlof said:
Don't worry, I have a very factual documentary which might explain how he pulled it off:

So, I know this was a joke (and it was a good one too), but actually, Nod has really good real-time deepfake technology that goes all the way back to TW2. Kane used it to conceal his facial injuries from TW1. Gideon faking his own death or having it faked for him is entirely plausible.

Also, a superb update. I'm looking forward to voting for the first time (there better be a good space-focused plan, because hot damn is that space pop number big).

GhostStalker · Oct 24, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Quillar? Huh. First I'm hearing of it. I look forward to seeing what it does.

It's a BattleTech reference, since in that setting, quillar is mentioned as a staple grain like crop, as it's highly nutritious and can grow quickly basically in any biome prepared for it, so it's in widespread cultivation all over the Inner Sphere.

Phht · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
"Listen, I need you to go down to the vehicle bay, Harls, I need you to get that flame tank that they captured. I need you to fuel it up, drive it over to bay 12, and I need you to light that sucker up. Yes, I know I called the Bay 12 plants my babies hon, just do it. They really didn't like whatever bioweapon the NOD infiltration team released into the fertilizer system. No wait, the other thing. They like it too much. That's why the NOD team are dead.
...
Harleen, if you don't burn that bay, I'm gonna have to cancel our date."-Doctor P. Isley, containing a prion-bioweapon outbreak.

While I'm vaguely terrified by what plants she has, I'm quite confident that things are well in hand if Pam needs Harley to get the heavy flamer to deal with a situation.

Beyond that there are the problems on the Tiberium end. The Brotherhood has been experimenting with arrays of repulsorplates to manipulate the Tiberium as it is refining, creating vortices and high density masses that seem to produce marginally more STUs. While for the Brotherhood, this is a safety mechanism as opposed to standard APK process approaches, that can be both notoriously volatile and have a number of pressurized containers to produce the large quantities of STUs that the Brotherhood has come to rely on. Adapting the methods are going to be substantially less efficient currently with the limits of GDI's gravitic manipulation technologies, but as progress is made there, much greater efficiencies can be achieved.

Sounds like we need someone to do such a bang up job on something that they can request scrin grav tech specifically off the gacha list.

Beyond that, it has given tank crews much more of a reason to use the power dials on their vehicles, rather than simply firing at maximum power under nearly all circumstances (to the point where one of the common field modifications was putting a box around the controls so that they could not be accidentally tweaked.)

I didn't realize they had power controls for those cannons. XD

The base of the design is simple enough, as with most other things, cutting open a Guardian APC and using the crew compartment as open space for installing equipment is a practical starting point. The biggest external difference is on the top of the vehicle, a combination of mobile, fixed, stealth sensor, and a folding down pannable dish for the disruptor. While able to detect Brotherhood stealth units on the move, the vehicle will have to be stationary while using its disruptor. While there were proposals for a fixed version, the problem is that the unit only has a maximally effective range of under a kilometer, with the infrared portions of the system beginning to lose effectiveness due to the atmosphere.

Okay, how am I going to designate this Guardian variant? Maybe just drop it off in the Support line, like the Mobile Sensor Array is? Probably best. That way I don't have to figure out the designation difference from the arty spotter variant.

bigking321 said:
Maybe we can come to a eventual agreement that lets us build the city without kicking off another war?

Well, Karachi IS going to be a logistics hub... so if a transfer point was built near the city, you could load/unload there, and the Bannerjees could transfer the goods to other routes, etc without having to necessarily give access for GDI straits to Nod shipping. China side is a bit trickier, unless she doesn't mind the round trip to west India and back. A Taipei transfer facility, maybe?

Simon_Jester said:
I don't suppose we can get some clues as to what Reforestation Preparation is locked behind...?

Personally, I like to think AgriMech might be involved. Large scale robotization and mechanization for things like planting crops, with some programming changes (trees and crops aren't necessarily planted the same, after all) it seems like that's be a good way to rapidly plant thousands+ trees in short order.

Honestly, I'm just glad Dr. Isley and Dr. Bora have incompatible orientations; I'm not sure the world could survive them getting together.

Well, we can't rule out that she's not ex-Nod....

--

Well, I'm not going to look at updating my draft plans tonight, but I have more R buffer than I had planned with, and a freed Agri die! Maybe Poulticeplant's back on the menu (for my draft plans).

Hazard · Oct 24, 2022

HousePet said:
To me, this seems like a suggestion that more ZA is not immediately useful, but we should aim to complete Infernium Laser Refits asap.
I presume the note about improving the availability of shipping means finishing the other shipyards?

ZOCOM is basically going 'not that having a big stockpile of suits is useless, but what we really need is time to drill all the new recruits we are getting'.
Navy wants the Treasury to cough up any remaining escort projects, although those won't be done in time for the Karachi military operation they're going to need escorts for convoys going to and from there. They would also like things like like the Infernium refits and other ways to extend GDI's defense umbrella against air threats in particular, as those means GDI can likely maintain and deploy more ships for longer.

Simon_Jester · Oct 24, 2022

Nottheunmaker said:
Know thy enemy, GDIWife, know thy enemy.

Honestly, I'd prioritize childcare bots over elder care bots. That's always a major concern with young families, just all the time and attention very young children need.

The flip side of that is that GDI isn't super-hungry for labor, and just subsidizing parents to spend more time with their kids and work fewer hours may be more cost-effective. Because babies need socialization and responsive care on a level that I don't think it'll be easy to design nursebots to provide.

Like, you already hear shit like little kids in real life who've grown up in the past few years sometimes have more trouble with facial expressions because of the large percentage of people they see who are wearing masks.

Not in the immediate sense, but if we're going for long term planning, incentivizing families to have kids is usually the way to go. If we need them much more soonish, there's a lot of Forgotten mutants entering adulthood that might be interested in ZOCOM work.

Natalism has... problems. I'm not against it, but it has problems. Ultimately, ZOCOM's tiny size is an artifact of its high standards, but also the shortage of power armor that obtained for years; it'll tend to fix itself given several years. It's just that there's no way to rush that.

Also, Forgotten don't fit well in Zone Armor, literally. They tend to have anatomical bumps and lumps humans don't (e.g. tiberium crystals sticking out of their skin), and many of them aren't entirely typical of human-normal body proportions.

HousePet said:
To me, this seems like a suggestion that more ZA is not immediately useful, but we should aim to complete Infernium Laser Refits asap.
I presume the note about improving the availability of shipping means finishing the other shipyards?

Eh, it also notes that production has been slow; check the results blurb for that project. I think we need to keep pushing at least two dice per turn; we've so far only completed three factories in four turns of trying.

ZOCOM in particular can't use more armor, but Ground Force is gonna want all it can get quite soon, and expanding production only after Ground Force pokes us is a good recipe to not really have as much as Ground Force is ready to use in, say, late 2063.

MrRageQuit said:
And it sounds to me like SADN is also an important thing for them. The one concern I have about Infernium is that it requires STUs, which means between it, the Gravitic Shipyard, and the Alloy Foundries, our budget for that resource is getting stretched. Hopefully the descriptions regarding the Improved HG Process mean the refits will get us more STUs.

If the Bannerjees try to contest the Karachi landings seriously, and we haven't got a respectable number of refitted ships up and running by then with advanced lasers, we're gonna have a lot more trouble defending our ships from massed missile attacks. It could be a problem.

Phht said:
Personally, I like to think AgriMech might be involved. Large scale robotization and mechanization for things like planting crops, with some programming changes (trees and crops aren't necessarily planted the same, after all) it seems like that's be a good way to rapidly plant thousands+ trees in short order.

Hm. A good point.

Especially since there's some risk of, while you are planting zillions of trees, occasionally digging up tiberium. "Guy with shovel" isn't safe in that situation; drone robot is.

DecaffeinatedOwl · Oct 24, 2022

Phht said:
Well, we can't rule out that she's not ex-Nod....

So, if your sexual orientation is Nod, does that mean you get off solely to Kane plotting ASMR?

staplesdex2 · Oct 24, 2022

TripleTango said:
So, if your sexual orientation is Nod, does that mean you get off solely to Kane plotting ASMR?

To be fair, lots of people worshipping Kane does that, In-universe.

Dmol8 · Oct 24, 2022

Ithillid said:
Looking into the future, the projects are going to be a combination of cosmetic and practical. While cat ears, functional and otherwise may not do much to aid in humanity's survival, the idea has some noticeable appeal for many. Similarly, on the more practical side, there are proposals to work on various forms of regenerative and reconstructive technologies, leading towards a greater ability to heal people without leaving scar tissue.

OK so for those of you in this thread not familiar with mammalian tissue regeneration or working on the project lore with @Ithillid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_mouse#Autotomy_and_tissue_regeneration said:
All studied species of spiny mice, Acomys kempi, A. percivali, A. cahirinus, A. dimidiatus, and A. russatus, are capable of autotomic release of skin upon being captured by a predator. To date, spiny mice are the only mammals known to do so.[7] They can completely regenerate the automatically released or otherwise damaged skin tissue – regrowing hair follicles, skin, sweat glands, fur and cartilage with little or no scarring. It is believed that the corresponding regeneration genes could also function in humans.[8]

In a research article published on May 16, 2017, in eLife, a team from the University of Kentucky described the role of macrophages in epimorphic regeneration.[9] The subtype of macrophages found in African spiny mice produces a different immune response than the subtype that elicit scarring.

It exists in mammals only in Edit: Spiny Mice and is considered compatible with humans but there is a problem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_mouse#Diabetes said:
Captive housing of spiny mice in the mid-1960s uncovered their sensitivity to developing diabetes.[6] That is, spiny mice were kept as pets and maintained on bird food consisting of fat-rich pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds. This diet was associated with obesity, glucosuria, and ketosis. Further studies, in the Institute of Biochemistry in Geneva, revealed that spiny mice manifest low insulin secretion capacity, low response to glucose, and faint first-phase insulin release, despite pancreatic islet hypertrophy and hyperplasia. Notably, they do not show the common symptom of insulin resistance. Also, A. russatus is not known to develop symptoms of diabetes under a similar diet.

Diabetes. The Edit: metabolisms of all Spiny Mice other than the Golden Spiny Mouse turn diabetic and literally start pissing out the metabolic glucose alongside an excess of fat metabolic byproducts when exposed to human-like diets involving glucose and fat-rich food.

So any gene editing project for giving humans mammalian tissue regeneration will have to start with gene transplants from the Golden Spiny Mouse as the most efficient method with the expected side-effects of turning some people nocturnal because the Golden Spiny Mouse has a weird circadian rhythm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiny_mouse#Flexible_circadian_rhythm said:
The most frequently studied aspect of Acomys russatus is its apparent ability to switch from nocturnal to diurnal activity patterns. Specifically, it is naturally nocturnal, but will become diurnal when sharing a habitat with its congener, another spiny mouse species, Acomys cahirinus. Since the two species share food sources, competition does not allow for both of them to be active at the same time in the same habitat. Because of its tolerance for higher temperatures and significantly greater ability to conserve water by concentrating its urine, A. russatus is the species that is better suited to become day-active to eliminate this competition. When this occurs, there is a true switch in circadian rhythm that affects body systems such as metabolism and excretion. This new rhythm can furthermore adapt to seasonal changes in day length, as with any other diurnal species.[10]
However, it is clear that the species has not completely evolved to be diurnal. In a lab setting where no other species is present, Acomys russatus immediately adopts nocturnal activity patterns with no transient phase, suggesting that its diurnal behavior is only an adaptation that is made when necessary.[11] Furthermore, it has been found that the Golden Spiny Mouse's eyes have not evolved to fit a diurnal lifestyle, but rather match the normal pattern of a nocturnal animal. This finding, along with their preference to forage in areas of lower light, such as between and under boulders, further shows that, if not for environmental factors, golden spiny mice would be nocturnal animals.[12]

Edit: Forgot the Wikipedia link, Upper Case Letters and that plural of metabolism is metabolisms.

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