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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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Ithillid said:
It is going to be much more the latter than the former.
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Eew. The Mass Effect fanfiction scene is already oversaturated with HFY, thanks.

Ithillid said:
Tiberium trends towards really good DEWs
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If I recall correctly, Tiberium refining made materials and energy extremely abundant, but it is otherwise completely normal technology. With the exception of technologies that actually use Tiberium itself as a component, there probably isn't any tech gating behind it. Especially not for an interstellar polity that can get any amount of raw materials the normal way.

And yes, I mean any amount. They made a particle accelerator that circumferenced a moon. It ran out of funding centuries ago, but when humans picked up the project again there were no known issues with construction.

Ithillid said:
Eezo based technology is kind of the reverse, where things like Tantalus drives or singularity drives are difficult and expensive, but managing an FTL drive is something that you can do in the late 19th and early 20th century.
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*can do in the late 19th/early 20th century when given a literal "how to uplift primitives: for dummies" cache. I cannot stress that enough, humanity had actual working examples of the technology and refining processes on hand when they got into space. And they could still only manage 0.14 ly/day by the time first contact happened.

Ithillid said:
As for populations, you will be small, but Mass Effect, so far as we see in the games, is generally a setting of relatively small populations.
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Multiple sources corroborate trillions of sapients. At least one had trillions being serviced by individual comm. buoys, which might mean the total is more like "tens of"... if not "hundreds of", but most people seem to have a hard time swallowing that.

Please recall that we are, after all, talking about a civilization that explored up to a percent of the Milky Way galaxy. If you think that in any way sounds small, you are underestimating how big the galaxy is.

Because Space. Is. Big.

(For reference, there are an estimated 100-400 billion stars in the Milky Way. Which means the Citadel has explored up to 1-4 billion stars.)
 
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[X] Plan Capitally Urgent, Funds for Steel Talons, Get Your First Shots, Cleanup on Aisle LEO
Infrastructure (5 dice)
-[X] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2), 218+60=278/450
-[X] Yellow Zone Arcologies (Phase 1), 136+14+15=165+5 Non-canon Omake/170
Heavy Industry (5 dice)
-[X] Fusion Peaker Plants, 172+56+20=248/240
-[X] Heavy Rolling Stock Plants, 171+86+20=277/250
-[X] Kure Machine Works, 0+38+40=78/280
Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice)
-[X] Chemical Precursor Plants, 36+49+30=115/200
-[X] Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 1), 73+171+30= 274/90--> 184/180?
Agriculture (3 dice)
-[X] State Operated Breweries, 84+93+15=192/125
-[X] Perennial Aquaponics Bays, 278+165+30=473/350
Tiberium (5 dice)
-[X] Tiberium Prospecting Expeditions (Repeating Phase), 2+90+105=197+5 Non-canon Omake/200
-[X] Chicago Planned City (Phase 3), 49+23+35=107/320
-[X] Hewlett-Gardener Method Development, 74+35=109/40
Orbital (3 dice)
-[X] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 3), 68+100/390 !NAT 100!
-[X] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3) 28+15=43/90
-[X] Asteroid Belt Survey Probes, 1+15/90
Services (4 dice)
-[X] Vaccine Development Programs, 29+32=61/150
-[X] Fashion Development Houses, 59+32=91/225
-[X] Game Development Studios, 172+64=236/300
Military (5 dice + 6 Free)
-[X] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 7 North, 49+92+15=156/105
-[X] Reclamator Fleet YZ-5a, 88+56+30=174/210
-[X] Zone Suit Factories (Oslo), 62+15=77/40
-[X] Ablat Plating Deployment (Phase 2), 38+208+45=291/200
-[X] Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards (Yokohama), 215+45=260/200
-[X] Rapid Fire Laser Weapons Development, 85+15=100/40
Bureaucracy (3 dice)
-[X] Security Reviews (Military), DC60 147
 
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Sorry to be the new guy, but was the rolls: Yellow 75 vs 77 points mitigation, and red 81 vs 50 mitigation?

Are we looking at RZ growth or both?
 
Ithillid said:
What the Military really wants is for you to pick a pathway. Either load up on MARVS and pick that as your pathway forward, or actually load up on funding and do things that are not MARVS. With where you have been putting them, MARVs are militarily pretty neutral. On one hand, they are problematic for NOD to operate around, on the other they do require a commitment of forces to protect the base and the MARVs. Overall, it pretty much balances out, at lest in most of the Yellow and Red Zones. What the Military really does not want is for you to end up heavily funding MARVs, and loading up on Red and Yellow Zone conventional commitments.

Edit: Basically to put this in dice terms, they would be happy with either
A: 4ish dice of general military stuff + as many dice as you want of MARVs and no or limited expansion of operations.
B: 7-10 dice of general military stuff, and general expansion into the Yellow and Red Zones.

What they don't want is
4-5 dice of general military stuff and general expansion into the Yellow and Red Zones.
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That's quite helpful as a clarification.

The key takeaway here is that the MARVs aren't actually directly substituting for the other things the military would need to project power into a Red/Yellow Zone. Even if they sort of were, when we do a round of expansion into the Yellow Zones, we're doing it all over, whereas each MARV only helps in one place. If we spend 300 Progress and 50-75 Resources on a round of Shell Plants, the military benefits everywhere in the world, whereas a single MARV hub only anchors things in one place. No matter how badass and useful the MARVs are within a radius of a few hundred kilometers around that hub, it's just not the same thing.

On the other hand, since we definitely intend further expansion into the Yellow and Red zones, that sets us a long term target: 7-10 dice of general military stuff, not counting MARVs. We've actually been meeting that target lately, so that's good, and we probably intend to go on meeting it... but it does mean that if we're gonna keep building MARVs we're stuck pouring all or practically all our Free dice into the military category.

Void Stalker said:
For planned cities as long as we surround them with MARVs does that count under the 4ish dice option? Also stuff like the tiberium vein would not take additional mil support while also providing crucial mitigation and income.
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Reading between the lines, planned cities are a fairly marginal thing because they're delimited. MARVs near them help, but if you asked the general, I'd imagine them waggling their hand going "maaaaybe 5 dice per turn?" Because that sort of represents a middle ground.

For example, conventional military operations in regions the MARV fleet simply isn't likely to go will often be required to cover the flanks of a planned city. Like how the Ohio river valley offensive is supporting what we're doing at Chicago, because an enemy who has a solid lock on the Ohio valley would be able to pretty badly disrupt our ambitions in Chicago. But that's still easier than a global push to roll back Nod everywhere at once.

Also can we have an indication if we build up enough of a military surplus (by say doing 6 dice non marv, and some dice marv for several turns) to undertake one of the tib projects such as RZ containment. For that matter for the following projects how many phases do they have left:
Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 4)
Intensification of Yellow Zone Harvesting (Phase 5)
Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 3)

Because how much total mit we can get down each path will play a roll in which way we invest mil dice.
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I don't think the military can make precise estimates of exactly how many military dice they need, not least because not all dice are created equal, and strengthening different branches lets us do different things.

What I really want to know is how short the military feels like they are before they'll let us open up our expansions again like we were doing.

Ithillid said:
Not really. You can get there a few years earlier, but you won't get more than maybe 10-15 more rolls on the chart maximum.
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Uh... I just want to be clear, you are specifically, literally saying that the game's future assuming we don't all get squashed by Nod or turned into green glowing rocks or something is specifically a Mass Effect crossover, in particular?
 
Tiberium Spread (allowed by qm to investigate the dice roller)
14.32 Blue Zone
28.18 Yellow Zone (77 Points of Mitigation)
57.50 Red Zone (50 Points of Mitigation)
BOTcommander threw 2 100-faced dice. Reason: Tiberium Spread Total: 79
23 23 56 56
 
We really need to up the MARV fleets. Perhaps negotiate with the military to devoting two quarters or so to the fleets after the next few ZONE armor factories are finished?
 
Simon_Jester said:
Uh... I just want to be clear, you are specifically, literally saying that the game's future assuming we don't all get squashed by Nod or turned into green glowing rocks or something is specifically a Mass Effect crossover, in particular?
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It is a hypothetical sequel quest that would take place in the far future of this quest assuming we successfully meet one of the win conditions of the quest.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Uh... I just want to be clear, you are specifically, literally saying that the game's future assuming we don't all get squashed by Nod or turned into green glowing rocks or something is specifically a Mass Effect crossover, in particular?
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It is currently planned to be, once you stabilize things in your little sandbox. It is something where it is still real world years off in any case however.
 
Tiberium Spread
14.32 Blue Zone
28.18 Yellow Zone (77 Points of Mitigation)
57.50 Red Zone (50 Points of Mitigation)
Vehrec threw 6 100-faced dice. Reason: Tiberium Spread Total: 382
87 87 94 94 10 10 45 45 84 84 62 62
 
Simon_Jester said:
That's quite helpful as a clarification.

The key takeaway here is that the MARVs aren't actually directly substituting for the other things the military would need to project power into a Red/Yellow Zone. Even if they sort of were, when we do a round of expansion into the Yellow Zones, we're doing it all over, whereas each MARV only helps in one place. If we spend 300 Progress and 50-75 Resources on a round of Shell Plants, the military benefits everywhere in the world, whereas a single MARV hub only anchors things in one place. No matter how badass and useful the MARVs are within a radius of a few hundred kilometers around that hub, it's just not the same thing.

On the other hand, since we definitely intend further expansion into the Yellow and Red zones, that sets us a long term target: 7-10 dice of general military stuff, not counting MARVs. We've actually been meeting that target lately, so that's good, and we probably intend to go on meeting it... but it does mean that if we're gonna keep building MARVs we're stuck pouring all or practically all our Free dice into the military category.
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They sort of substitute though, if you note they require fewer dice for defense commitments to other military areas (4ish v 7 to 10). The hubs provide a fortified operating base that has to be secured (hence the dice investment) but the Super MARVs function as area denial against NOD and reduces the ability for NOD to sneak bases close because a Super MARV can pretty much run over it. Based on that our current strategy of using Super MARVs deployment to regions we have operations (glacier mining and planned cities) continues to make sense as they provide additional income and mitigation in the area as well as reducing the ability of NOD to project force in the region. Since we are likely to go 6ish or more in non MARV projects that does mean we can fit in limited expansion in addition to the MARVs (which is likely our best route to mitigation- by doing MARV and one or two tib projects each year).



BOTcommander said:
Tiberium Spread (allowed by qm to investigate the dice roller)
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Dice roller is fine, it is just our bad luck on the tib rolls, those specific rolls have taken a very unlikely tendency to roll high but such things happen. At least the dice have not been too terrible overall (I know one quest that basically ended due to mass failure via dice)
 
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What the hell, I'll throw the dice myself.
Tiberium Spread ("spam" allowed by qm to investigate dice roller)
14.32 Blue Zone
28.18 Yellow Zone (77 Points of Mitigation)
57.50 Red Zone (50 Points of Mitigation)"
Praetor98 threw 2 100-faced dice. Total: 69
47 47 22 22
 
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