Remove ads

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Reader mode
BoSPaladin said:
:DNobody tell him about Hermione Granger. :rofl:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She's not a wizard. She's a witch.

--

The issue we face is that Nod, being the smaller, somewhat more mobile entity vs us, has the benefit of being able to - Kane willing - focus their xenotech for specific engagements. This offsets the lower economy of scale they suffer from at the battle/campaign of their choosing. That could prove critical to their success. Look at the naval battle vs Bintang in the Regency War. Kelpies are xenotech, and she held on to them to achieve significant advantage over GDI air units in that battle rather than use them in convoy raiding. Krukov's use of the Bogatyrs was critical in his attack on Murmansk, and it was only crazy orbital drops and a spare engineer that kept him from completely walking back out after punching us in the nose. Plasma Scorpions showing up was another nasty surprise.

GDI, OTOH, must defend everywhere as if was going to be the focus because we can't rely on getting sufficient intel to steal a march on Nod offensives again. So our greater economy of scale is offset by the vast area we have to defend. Likely we'd have to at least stage QRFs in various spots to respond in a semi-reasonable time with a higher concentration of xenotech units of our own, giving Nod time to hit and fade before reinforcements arrive that can properly engage them. This causes greater casualties on our side with little to nothing to show for it unless Nod decides that they want to find out after fucking around.

Thus, we need to get the IHG refits rolling harder (not necessarily this coming turn, but Soon), get that STU Planned City going after Karachi, and push what tech we can towards better STU production (Gen 2 plates is a step along this, right?). We can't fuck over our forces on the ground facing Nod, simply to gear up a space force more. Because if we lose the fight for Earth vs Nod as a result of them continuing to leverage STUs and xenotech while we don't, SPACE WON'T MATTER.

...How the fuck do we get from "GOTTA HAVE DRONES! NO DRONES MEANS WE'RE LETTING GOOD PILOTS DIE!" in the Regency War to "Let's skimp on planetary military STU use so we can put it in space or the economy~ Our boys will be fine"?


Do note, I'm not saying STU the fuck out of our Next Gen stuff, but we gotta start pushing the envelope more on integrating this stuff, or we could end up in a 2060s version of Desert Storm on the battlefield... and not in the role of the Coalition forces. How many losses at WW1-2 scale would GDI's citizenry accept without potentially fatal backlash because we decided to be stingy with STUs for non-space military? How bad would the military's morale be at that point?
 
Phht said:
...How the fuck do we get from "GOTTA HAVE DRONES! NO DRONES MEANS WE'RE LETTING GOOD PILOTS DIE!" in the Regency War to "Let's skimp on planetary military STU use so we can put it in space or the economy~ Our boys will be fine"?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is a non-sequitur. None of our drones at present use STUs, aside from the odd plasma missile. We're not doing drones right now because we're bootstrapping a nuclear defense grid... because the guy we're gearing up to fight is known for his nukes, not his air force.
 
Something else to consider is that it's not really a secret that we're going to be doing Karachi soon.

It would make perfect sense for the more hostile warlords to build up their forces and wait for us to be fully committed there. Then launch huge targeted strikes against key infrastructure while we're busy.

It's kinda the reverse of the regency war. Instead of us getting Intel on their attack, they know exactly where we are going to kick off our next conflict.

Edit: I think that the thread picked about the perfect time for the SADN goal. I wasn't that concerned at first but hardening all our key sites now was a REALLY good idea.
 
Last edited:
During both the 3rd Tiberium War and the Regency War, Nod deployed a lot of STU-using advanced military technology. GDI responded with a global-economy enabled juggernaut of steel, and GDI's approach has been proven superior twice. We don't need, nor do we want to, match Nod one-for-one in STU usage for our military. Nod almost certainly has more STUs to put into military tech than we have STUs total, plus Kane's help in making next-next-gen technology. We can't match that even if we tried. But what we can do, again, is invest in our overwhelming economic ability. So we should keep doing that.

Besides, we're not here to defeat Nod's military. We're here to save humanity. Nod is just an obstacle to that. We should give our next-gen tanks shield tech and our next-gen aircraft hoverplates. But if we put all our STUs into outfitting every foot soldier with shields, microfusion, lasers, plasma, and hoverplates, we're still going to struggle to match Nod's elite and we'll be falling behind on our real goal: Ensuring humanity can survive Tiberium.
 
Last edited:
Derpmind said:
But if we put all our STUs into outfitting every foot soldier with shields, microfusion, lasers, plasma, and hoverplates, we're still going to struggle to match Nod's elite and we'll be falling behind on our real goal: Ensuring humanity can survive Tiberium.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think the point was more that the new vehicles should be designed with the new tech in mind so that when it eventually does become available it can be put in without needing a new redesign or deployment.

A example being the shark. Designed with Infernium lasers in mind but using crystal lasers until the production of Infernium laser systems catches up.
 
bigking321 said:
I think the point was more that the new vehicles should be designed with the new tech in mind so that when it eventually does become available it can be put in without needing a new redesign or deployment.

A example being the shark. Designed with Infernium lasers in mind but using crystal lasers until the production of Infernium laser systems catches up.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How our vehicles will be designed depends on how much STU surplus we have. If we're low on STUs, they're going to be designed assuming we're going to be limited in what tech we can deploy. Building the Microfusion Labs will lower our STUs, and we'll still need to wait and do further projects (costing even more STUs) before we're able to put mature Microfusion Cells in our future vehicles.
Ithillid said:
Shields take STUs. High End Laser systems take STUs. Repulsorplates take STUs. There are a few other things that can possibly take STUs. And depending on how GDI is feeling about its STU supplies, that is heavily going to influence how it spends on the Novahawk program. If it is notably choked on STUs, it will strip back on features to have something that can be deployed as a full firehawk replacement. If it is not, well, add features.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Derpmind said:
Building the Microfusion Labs will lower our STUs, and we'll still need to wait and do further projects (costing even more STUs) before we're able to put mature Microfusion Cells in our future vehicles.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Do we have confirmation of that? We don't normally do development, a second project, and then a third before we get a payoff. (And then a fourth project for the vehicles? Seems extreme.)
 
HousePet said:
Do we have confirmation of that? We don't normally do development, a second project, and then a third before we get a payoff. (And then a fourth project for the vehicles? Seems extreme.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We did a development project for Microfusion, then got the option to build something that'll keep improving the tech, rather than roll it out everywhere. The same thing happened with the repulsorplates. Only now that the tech has reach its 2nd generation are we able to build a big factory for the plates.
 
Derpmind said:
Besides, we're not here to defeat Nod's military. We're here to save humanity. Nod is just an obstacle to that. We should give our next-gen tanks shield tech and our next-gen aircraft hoverplates. But if we put all our STUs into outfitting every foot soldier with shields, microfusion, lasers, plasma, and hoverplates, we're still going to struggle to match Nod's elite and we'll be falling behind on our real goal: Ensuring humanity can survive Tiberium.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is an excellent summary of what the issue is. If the End Of The World is on the table, the goal doesn't need to be to conquer NOD, it needs to be to hold NOD (and the Tiberium) off for long enough for us to build enough life rafts from Spaceship Earth. If we can somehow cobble together a TCN either through a deal with Kane or out of Forgotten Psionics and Visitor tech plugged in backwards, excellent, but saving the Earth is a bonus when compared to saving the species. Its why I think the 20k goal is important. 20k people off of Earth would be a severe population bottleneck, but it is far above the minimum viable population size. With 20k in orbit, even if we lost everything instantly, humanity would survive, without serious genetic diversity issues. Its also why one of the Shala Bays needs to be the Species Restoration Bay, if only to act as a life raft for those species.
 
Derpmind said:
Besides, we're not here to defeat Nod's military.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But Derp, trying to build bigger and badder tanks if fun.

doruma1920 said:
20k people off of Earth would be a severe population bottleneck, but it is far above the minimum viable population size. With 20k in orbit, even if we lost everything instantly, humanity would survive, without serious genetic diversity issues. Its also why one of the Shala Bays needs to be the Species Restoration Bay, if only to act as a life raft for those species.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I prefer the emergency raft to be a few hundred thousand people on the moon with a operating asteroid belt mining economy, but eh, details.
 
HousePet said:
Do we have confirmation of that? We don't normally do development, a second project, and then a third before we get a payoff. (And then a fourth project for the vehicles? Seems extreme.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
if nothing else, building STU consuming vehicles will not refund the STUs spent on the microfusion labs, nor do I expect that microfusion equipped vehicles will be free once you get around to the factory-level production.

ETA: also, I think that, on a military level, Maximum Microfusion for everything from APCs to ships and planes, would be 40-50 STUs.
 
Last edited:
BOTcommander said:
I prefer the emergency raft to be a few hundred thousand people on the moon with a operating asteroid belt mining economy, but eh, details.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh make no mistake, the 20k is a minimum amount in my mind. More would be better, for moral reasons, for genetic diversity, and for manpower.


Our Space Economy/Industry is:
100 RpT from Lunar Mines.
2 Capital Goods (4 from Enterprise -1 from Gravitic Bay, -1 from Station Bay).
5 Consumer Goods (4 from Enterprise, 1 from Shala) We expect an additional 6 from Shala.
3 Food from Shala. We expect an additional 12 from Shala.
A whole bunch of ASAT and an ASAT control station.
A production chain producing both Fusion and Gravitic Ships, though the latter will be relegated to maintenance if we loose Earth as we don't have any space STU production.
A production chain for producing additional Stations.
A fancy command and control station for everything.

These figures will change as we build out the Columbia and Shala Bays and as we see what is available for the Lunar City/Columbia 2 Station.
For the Bays I'd favor in somewhat descending order of priority:
Columbia (5 potential Bays):
-Hospital Bay (We will need some means of caring for injuries in orbit)
-Spaceport Bay (To transport and ease orbital logistics)
-Assembler Bay (To diversify our industry away from being concentrated in Enterprise)
These next two I'd favor if we don't need the Bay slots for the 20k population goal)
-SCOP Bay (To become more self sufficient Food wise in orbit, and to get a policy of recycling everything as the Stations are isolated systems)
-Tourism Bay (To allow a location to destress and socialize, mental health is just as important as physical health and a place to relax will be very important)

Shala (5 potential Bays):
-Species Restoration Bay (To preserve life from Earth)
-Animal Husbandry Bay (To maintain a varied diet in orbit)
-Experimental Crops Bay (To develop experimental crops for non industrial production of key resources)
-High Efficiency Void Crops Bay (To develop more sustainable Void Crops that require less maintenance)
For the last Shala Bay I favor the Habitation Bay over the Core Crops Bay, as we are already producing a lot of Food out of Shala and we do need population for the 20k goal, on the other hand a larger Food Base means more Food to support a larger population if the worst happened. I could see arguments either way.

I don't expect to finish these Bays this plan, what with the 20k goal overriding everything else, however, the hospital and spaceport bays in particular are things that will help us efficiently dedicate immense quantities of resources to pursuing the 20k goal and will be advantageous in the long run.
 
Would it be worthwhile to move a die from Fusion to Alloys, in the hope that phase 5 alloys will improve DAE by +1?

(I don't think this has been confirmed)
 
I wouldn't say that it's a Discord thing. It's been a hypothesis for quite a while.

Basically, we know that departments improve when:
-New technologies are implemented
-By certain hires
-Throwing more resources/dice at them (and spun off departments may or may not be improved by parliament diverting more resources their way during reallocation).

Deploying phase 5 alloys (the last phase of structural alloys, whereas phase 6 is bladed alloys) would be a fully implemented new technology. So it might be a good time to re-evaluate our departments.
A 25% decrease in costs means being able to achieve 33% more with the same resources and effort (0.75 cost, 1 benefit. 1/0.75 = 4/3).
-------------------------------------------------------
Department of Munitions and Department of Refits are automatically improved, because they work on project costs, and no other adjustments need to be made.

DAE currently offers +4 energy/t. 4 * 4/3 ~= +5 energy/turn. Net +1.
DCG currently offers +3 Con Goods/t. 3*4/3 = +4 cons goods/turn. Net +1.
DIA currently offers +2 Cap Goods/t. 2*4/3 ~= +2 cap goods/turn. Net +0. (rounding up would be amazing, but maybe at an additional resource cost?).

BoA currently offers +1 HQH/t. 1 *4/3 ~= +1 HQH/turn. Net +0. (I'm hoping that since alloys were supposed to be particularly good for housing, that the benefit would be auto converting one LQH one HQH/turn.)

But again, pure speculation. Basically, this is just readjusting the departments to account for them gradually growing weaker compared to direct investment as we've deployed alloys.
 
Last edited:
bigking321 said:
I certainly wouldn't complain if that stuff got boosted.

And phase 6 is for new blades? Interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yep, thank @One Autumn Leaf for his Giddy Boy's Missile omake. It got us the Buzzerblades, aka Visitor Bladed Alloys, tech. Since we got it around the same time the stuctural Alloys project was researched, it was appended as a 6th phase to the u-series alloy project, rather than a separate project entirely.

And yeah, Visitor blades are going to be pretty cool:

ithillid said:
A proverb that does not get nearly enough play is that when you give people new material, somebody, somewhere, is going to try to make a blade with it. And the new alloys are no exception. Some are too brittle for good blades. Take U0026, which was used to make a short bowie knife of about 18 centimeters at the New York testing facility, which broke at the grip. The best results have come with U0451, a high carbon and chromium spring steel rich in STUs, especially duranium and adamant, a close relative of 5160 steels. The result is a blade that is dense, but strong and incredibly tough, with the first round of testing using it against a decommissioned drainage pipe, which it survived with no noticeable damage. The blade is a relatively thin, roughly meter long construction, with an hourglass grip, and in-line crossguard, in the style of the old Northeast-African kaskara. Made in the London facility, it has wandered across Europe in the last month. When presented up the chain, the blade itself has been tested against everything from Initiative boron carbide strikeplates, to solid blocks of bar stock. While not all were cut, the blade has survived and required only minimal maintenance, although it did need to be regularly sharpened to keep a cutting edge in the face of the abuse.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Super-durable, super-sharp, easily maintained. Great for surgery. I think it also allows for power-armor scale melee weapons? I'm not sure how big they can get and still be used.

We're still waiting for Armor alloys to proc, but between those three we're doing pretty well on Visitor metallurgy.
 
Last edited:
BOTcommander said:
I prefer the emergency raft to be a few hundred thousand people on the moon with a operating asteroid belt mining economy, but eh, details.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There is a difference between the feeblest, most pitifully minimal life raft we can imagine having any chance whatsoever of success... and the life raft we want.

Rakuhn said:
Would it be worthwhile to move a die from Fusion to Alloys, in the hope that phase 5 alloys will improve DAE by +1?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If you're right about what alloys might do for DAE (and we agree, that is speculation)...

Even a five-die alloy plan has a 91% chance of clearing the phase and getting us that benefit. The extra 7-8-9 percent chance, whatever it is, from a sixth alloy die doesn't justify reducing progress on the fusion plants in my opinion. Because we still do need those, a lot of those, fairly soon.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Even a five-die alloy plan has a 91% chance of clearing the phase and getting us that benefit. The extra 7-8-9 percent chance, whatever it is, from a sixth alloy die doesn't justify reducing progress on the fusion plants in my opinion. Because we still do need those, a lot of those, fairly soon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Totally fair. For the sake of simplicity:
+1*0.1 = +0.1 energy.
-1*.95*(84/310)*19= -4.9 energy

Net -4.8 energy.

So unless the +10% chance to the rest of the benefits makes it up (i.e. the normal discount for projects), I think you are right. Especially since we probably aren't intending to do phase 6 any time soon.
 
Last edited:
Rakuhn said:
So unless the +10% chance to the rest of the benefits makes it up, I think you are right. Especially since we probably aren't intending to do phase 6 any time soon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I know there are expected to be +RpT benefits or other tiberium mining benefits from Alloys Phase 6, and I believe that the STU cost of Phase 6 (like that of Phases 4 and 5) has been reduced to -1.

For these reasons, I disagree; I think it fairly likely that we will complete Phase 6 directly after Phase 5.

Personally, when we get there, I'm thinking of proposing two plans, one with Phase 6 and one with repulsorplate factories, and I fully expect the Phase 6 plan to be the more popular of the two.
 
Oleg-14191 said:
Memeplan for Alloys?

Might be worth it to throw everything at them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Shadows' "Diggy Diggy" plans are basically that.

Personally I disagree, for three reasons.

First, because it's very hard, from this far out, to correctly allocate dice so that we're reasonably confident of finishing Phase 6 in one turn without a high probability of overkill.

Second, because throwing so many resources at a project that we slam out a thousand points of Progress on it in a single turn is the very definition of a rush job. I predict that if we do that, we're almost certainly going to pay for that down the line. Look at how our super-aggressive fusion rollout left us with the awkward need to rebuild all those plants and replace them within less than ten years of their construction time on account of short lifespans. I already worry about this, but I'd worry more if we were trying to complete two alloy phases in a single turn.

And third, because precious and good as alloys are, other things we put Free dice on (like spacecraft and tiberium containment) are still very, very important too.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top