While they are not best mechanicaly, narratively, people without bed will disagree with you.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
While they are not best mechanicaly, narratively, people without bed will disagree with you.
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
It's not just beds, it's things like washing machines, clothes dryers, even some large grills/stoves and so on.
These are the kinds of things that are covered by the appliance factories and light industrial sectors at least. I think the furniture plants project might go obsolete at some point, it's been sitting around forever and is kinda getting superseded by more sophisticated consumer goods production. Kind of a relic of the first FYP when we had no money and small ambitions.
PyroTechno
The Procrastination Pokemon
Who else is hoping that the asteroid probe nat 1 is not the Scrin, but just a repeat of that one incident with the IRL Mars probe where NASA and Lockheed Martin got metric and imperial confused?
- Location
- USA
Given that we have 2 viable paths to red zone mitigation right now though and that MARV hubs also act as bases to expand our territory control I am not so sure of that. And given that previous Tib projects have had limits on the phases that we can do ( so do MARVs but it looks to be a lot more) and that at some point we can actually do MARVs and Tib expansions (and even now we can mix MARVs with planned cities and tib vein) that the opportunity cost on skipping MARVs is way to high.
Also read the notes- all the ones you dislike I mention are ones that will be upgraded after all the dice are allocated since I don't know how much I need for orbital and the remaining service and 1 free dice. To that end I picked the cheapest projects in the categories after putting in must-do projects. Furniture, YZ power, dice 4 and 5 on tidal are all examples of ones that can be bumped to more expensive projects depending on how many resources we have left over. For Aquaponics it was realizing that we likely need to run cheap in that category so 1 20 R dice and 2 10 R dice a turn, whether the 10 R is Aquaponics or YZ water into YZ aquaponics I am unsure. And with 14 10 R dice we can finish 1 set of those before plan end while the other 7 do Spider, Entai and other such projects.
Steel Talons are holding us hostage for 1 dice a turn and right now with all the other high priority projects it is irresponsible to put multiple dice a turn on trying to get Titan MK3 out. Having said that there is 1 free dice floating that depending on how things works can be slided in to make this 2 dice next turn.
And cutting MARV and the mitigation and income they provide is a very bad idea given that 1) tiberium is about to start mutating and we are about to start losing mitigation and 2) we have major income problems and MARVs are the more reliable way to fix that. The first is a larger issue that has been not dealt with well so far in the quest and we have major issues lying ahead of us at trying to keep pace with mitigation loss at a time that the red zone is still expanding. We will be losing a d5 a turn (though I don't think it was clarified if it was a d5 overall or a d5 to both scores) and we have not built up anywhere near enough a RZ mit reserve to deal with that loss (not to mention that aside from 1 quarter the red zone has expanded each and every turn).
Edit-
Note as of Q2 of 2057 we start losing d5 mitigation a turn (unsure if total or d5 for each type) we have 4 turns to build up as much of a mitigation buffer as we can and try to push tiberium back (and remember except for 1 turn RZ has grown each turn of the quest).
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'd like to note that, for LCL projects, Personal Pharmaceuticals Plants is marked as a High Priority project. It may not give Capital Goods, but it gives an important boost to our healthcare system and we've been ignoring it for a long time. Compare it to Furniture Factories, which even says "While basic furniture is fairly commonly available, higher end products are not." We way want to give people better furniture, but it's not an area we have a shortage in.
- Location
- USA
If resources allow the furniture dice would go to personal pharma plants, I just don't know how the orbital section will breakdown so I would rather put in place holder actions that are cheap for the category and upgrade those dice to a more expensive action if there are resources to spare. I had personal pharma in my plan this turn so a fairly good chance that furniture is changed but it is better than going 2 dice for ?? R in terms of seeing what the budget actually looks like for next turn. In a turn without resource constraint personal pharma is one of my top picks in LCI +2 Cons Good and +1 Health with no labor or energy costs is good for us. It just all depends on the resource breakdown
edit- having said that, I might prioritize bumping both tib prospecting to tib vein if possible since that provide mitigation and more income which means we dont need to do cheap actions only and also starts addressing the deeper tiberium veins before it mutates and has an easier time spreading.
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You have a point about the problems with MARVs... but at this point, we're kinda locked in to finishing those fleets. The SA hub already has a bunch of refugees there, who expect us to be able to protect them. So... yeah, point taken for the future, but at present the best we can do is to finish the existing commitments quickly.
Although leaving the start of the RZ-7 fleet for a turn to 3-dice Titans would not be a terrible idea, so as to ensure the production line is down for the least amount of time.
This is incorrect. We will be losing 1d4 mitigation every 1d4 turns. (I think it's for each, but still, it's much better than you imply.)
Once we get one of the Scrin techs, and deploy it, it will go up to every 1d5 turns.
- Location
- USA
RZ-7 N secures the hub we just deployed and that hub helps secure Chicago planned, it also finishes our MARV fleet deployment requirements (so if people dislike MARVs we can then go hard on RZ containment lines)
Is it? I remember different loss amounts being given but 1d4 every 1d4 turns is not as bad though given our luck we want to prep against rolling several 1s on the turns counter.
- Location
- The Underdark
The problem is that I can't stream it. Simple as that. I also don't have a source for the novels, or the Mongoose produced RPG.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Some off the wall ideas for sequels that will be on our level:
Earth 2
Alien and Predator franchise
Battlestar Galactica
Stargate
Alien Nation
V
Each one of these deal with aliens and human civilizations that are rather near GDI's level and have their own wars and political hangups.
Earth 2
Alien and Predator franchise
Battlestar Galactica
Stargate
Alien Nation
V
Each one of these deal with aliens and human civilizations that are rather near GDI's level and have their own wars and political hangups.
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I just had a worrying thought.
So here is the actual terrible part of the evac plan. We might be forced to bring Tiberium with us. All of our technology is now almost dependent on easy access Tiberium resources. If we leave earth without a viable alternative to our industrial problem, we will have to reseed Tiberium on the New homeworld.
Fudge.
So here is the actual terrible part of the evac plan. We might be forced to bring Tiberium with us. All of our technology is now almost dependent on easy access Tiberium resources. If we leave earth without a viable alternative to our industrial problem, we will have to reseed Tiberium on the New homeworld.
Fudge.
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- Location
- his hidden lair
And I think there will be a lot less to do than we currently have, next to none of the same sense of urgency, and a lot less incentives to go out and engage with the setting. Which people still haven't addressed. As annoying as it is to have to argue with so many people on an issue like this- my point stands, while I doubt GDI will be outright isolationist, they have a lot of reasons to stay home. Tiberium is currently forcing us to act, Nod is forcing us to act, the potential of a Scrin invasion is forcing us to act, our political factions are forcing us to act, most of those aren't applicable or are going to be applicable in entirely different ways. I won't be so arrogant to say a plan quest relies on urgency, but I think it's a pretty important ingredient- and it definitely won't be there in nearly the same degree without the Reapers, and I genuinely think Reapers and Scrin have a hard time coexisting unless you insist the Scrin come from outside the galaxy or something, and that completely changes what the Reapers operating in Dark Space beyond the rim implies.
C&C and ME are completely different, and a fusion doesn't always work well- especially when the story/quest wasn't built to be a crossover from the ground up. C&C is so much rarer and so much higher on my lists to see well done than what is literally the most overused sci-fi setting in fiction right now I'd much rather focus on what makes C&C interesting than inject all of ME here. Do I think Ithilid can probably make it work? Yeah. Do I think it will be nearly as satisfying as trying to arm GDI for war against Nod or the Scrin as we wage a desperate battle for the fate of our world against an increasingly alien environment? No.
I mean, that sortof relies on an idiot ball when GDI has very little heavy industry outside of it's control and how hard to hide a space ship normally is. I doubt NOD could hide a relay jump or accelerating into FTL.
I mean, they're also going to probably open far less relays far less rapidly because they're going to be prepared to put down whatever comes out. It's hard to overstate how hard the SA was pushing the expand button.
That means they'll want to go to the nice planned cities, not roughing it in the middle of nowhere with ~10,000 people on the entire planet. Which is what SA did.
Sorry, I had to do that leg of the arguments on a phone so I was getting testy by the the end of it- but even then. Like you said yourself- Eden Prime will be receiving hundreds of millions of colonists. As for Garden worlds? The two systems listed in the Exodus cluster have two pristine garden worlds in Eden Prime and Terra Nova. Those two alone would provide massive amounts of living space inside a single relay cluster, especially if we assume the Exodus cluster is more than those two star systems. That was literally with 5 minutes of looking and
And yes, it's going to want military installations and some depth to protect the important worlds, but no corporate colonies, almost certainly no independent colonies barring NOD, and much less economic incentives to claim clay. It's the same with the Green Zones, where we're investing heavily in and fortifying the 6% that live in the periphery- though I will point out that GDI to some extent is trying to draw that population into the Blue Zones. And while I don't disagree that NOD isn't going away, the nature of it being a threat to human survival likely will with humanity going into the stars. NOD's going to undoubtedly cause us diplomatic problems, and fighting to keep tiberium in Pandora's box is likely going to be constant. Likewise, when it comes to defensibility- the lack of a permeable border (barring slower FTL) means the defenses are always going to centered around primary and secondary relays.
- Location
- The Underdark
I know. The thing is that I have basically 30-40 years worth of good interesting material to do the desperate battle against the Brotherhood of NOD and Tiberium thing. Takes us out to 2080, maybe 2090. After that point, I am out of ideas. That is the point where serious crossover elements might end up appearing, because I don't think I can do a satisfying battle against the Scrin, I don't think I want to manage fifty to a hundred years where you are the sole uncontested power of a large stretch of space.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
[ ] Plan Curse You Tiberium Dice
Infrastructure (5 dice)
-[ ] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2), 5 dice (50 Resources)
Heavy Industry (5 dice)
-[ ] North Boston Chip Fabricator (Phase 4), 2 dice (30 Resources)
-[ ] Kure Machine Works, 3 dice (45 Resources)
Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice)
-[ ] Chemical Precursor Plants, 2 dice (30 Resources)
-[ ] Personal Pharmaceuticals Plants, 2 dice (30 Resources)
Agriculture (3 dice)
-[ ] Yellow Zone Purification Facilities, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Entari Deployment, 1 die (20 Resources)
Tiberium (5 dice)
-[ ] Tiberium Prospecting Expeditions, 3 dice (15 Resources)
-[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 3), 2 dice (50 Resources)
Orbital (3 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 3), 2 dice (2 Fusion) (40 Resources)
-[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3), 2 die (2 Fusion) (20 Resources)
Services (4 dice)
-[ ] Fashion development houses, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Game Development Studios, 1 die (5 Resources)
-[ ] Vaccine Development Programs, 1 die (25 Resources)
Military (5 dice +5 Free)
-[ ] Reclamator Fleet YZ-5a (Super MARVs), 1 die (20 Resources)
-[ ] Orca Refit Package Development, 1 die (15 Resources)
-[ ] Ablat Plating Deployment (phase 3), 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards (Durban), 3 dice (60 Resources)
-[ ] Titan Mark 3 Deployment, 3 dice (30 Resources)
Bureaucracy (3 dice)
-[ ] Cooperative Focus, 3 dice
Resources Available: 545
Resources Used: 545
Resources Remaining: 0
Got a plan draft here. Tidal Plants gets all 5 dice for the power boost. Heavy Industry goes for finishing Kure and then starting up work on Boston, though I could also see going for Microgeneration simply for the Resource savings. LCI completes Chemical Precursors, then pushes to get Personal Pharmaceuticals since that's marked as a High Priority. Next turn we can push hard for Phase 3 Macrospinner.
Agriculture is the funny one. People probably understand a die on Entari Deployments, but the Yellow Zone Purification Facilities is definitely weirder. But it's 10 RpD and thus good resource savings. Plus, it's more investment into the Yellow Zones after Arcologies, to show the Y-Zoners that we're still giving consistent investment. But it's mostly because I needed to save Resources, and I consider getting the next Stage of YZ Aquaponics to be an unofficial plan goal for me anyway.
Tiberium, 3 dice are going into Prospecting to save Resources again. 2 dice however, are being poured into RZ Containment Lines for that immediate RZ Abatement boost. I'd like to work on Chicago, but RZ Containment offers faster returns on Abatement, and a bit more RZ Abatement, which is what we really need right now. And it gives some actual income, which also helps.
Orbital is kinda preliminary right now until we see what the Nat 1 and Nat 100 gave, but right now I have 2 dice on Enterprise, and 2 dice on Orbital Cleanup. 2 dice on Enterprise should get it almost completed, and 2 dice on Orbital Cleanup will almost definitely see one stage complete, maybe 2 if we're lucky. Either way, it'll clear up Orbital Comms for the turn after, and the resource infusion will help in affording some more expensive projects like Superconductors in LCI.
Services is just finishing up the projects we started last turn. Vaccine Development Program is a little low in terms of chances to complete, but it's expensive enough that I thought it was worth trying to slow-roll.
Military, MARV Dice have been cut down to one. Not doing 1 die on the RZ MARV Fleet because 1 die can't complete it, so I think it's best to wait a turn there. Instead, I'm doing Orca Refit Package because it's high priority. 2 dice go onto Ablat Phase 3, because if it's /200 Progress Project like Phases 1 & 2 are, that should be enough to complete it. 3 Dice continue to go into getting the Navy their Cruisers, and the last 3 dice are on the Mk III Titans.
Next turn we can probably do the last set of MARVs in the Red Zone, a 3rd Governor Shipyard, and then either RWS or Orca Refits.
And finally, Bureaucracy goes for Cooperatives.
Infrastructure (5 dice)
-[ ] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2), 5 dice (50 Resources)
Heavy Industry (5 dice)
-[ ] North Boston Chip Fabricator (Phase 4), 2 dice (30 Resources)
-[ ] Kure Machine Works, 3 dice (45 Resources)
Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice)
-[ ] Chemical Precursor Plants, 2 dice (30 Resources)
-[ ] Personal Pharmaceuticals Plants, 2 dice (30 Resources)
Agriculture (3 dice)
-[ ] Yellow Zone Purification Facilities, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Entari Deployment, 1 die (20 Resources)
Tiberium (5 dice)
-[ ] Tiberium Prospecting Expeditions, 3 dice (15 Resources)
-[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 3), 2 dice (50 Resources)
Orbital (3 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 3), 2 dice (2 Fusion) (40 Resources)
-[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3), 2 die (2 Fusion) (20 Resources)
Services (4 dice)
-[ ] Fashion development houses, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Game Development Studios, 1 die (5 Resources)
-[ ] Vaccine Development Programs, 1 die (25 Resources)
Military (5 dice +5 Free)
-[ ] Reclamator Fleet YZ-5a (Super MARVs), 1 die (20 Resources)
-[ ] Orca Refit Package Development, 1 die (15 Resources)
-[ ] Ablat Plating Deployment (phase 3), 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards (Durban), 3 dice (60 Resources)
-[ ] Titan Mark 3 Deployment, 3 dice (30 Resources)
Bureaucracy (3 dice)
-[ ] Cooperative Focus, 3 dice
Resources Available: 545
Resources Used: 545
Resources Remaining: 0
Got a plan draft here. Tidal Plants gets all 5 dice for the power boost. Heavy Industry goes for finishing Kure and then starting up work on Boston, though I could also see going for Microgeneration simply for the Resource savings. LCI completes Chemical Precursors, then pushes to get Personal Pharmaceuticals since that's marked as a High Priority. Next turn we can push hard for Phase 3 Macrospinner.
Agriculture is the funny one. People probably understand a die on Entari Deployments, but the Yellow Zone Purification Facilities is definitely weirder. But it's 10 RpD and thus good resource savings. Plus, it's more investment into the Yellow Zones after Arcologies, to show the Y-Zoners that we're still giving consistent investment. But it's mostly because I needed to save Resources, and I consider getting the next Stage of YZ Aquaponics to be an unofficial plan goal for me anyway.
Tiberium, 3 dice are going into Prospecting to save Resources again. 2 dice however, are being poured into RZ Containment Lines for that immediate RZ Abatement boost. I'd like to work on Chicago, but RZ Containment offers faster returns on Abatement, and a bit more RZ Abatement, which is what we really need right now. And it gives some actual income, which also helps.
Orbital is kinda preliminary right now until we see what the Nat 1 and Nat 100 gave, but right now I have 2 dice on Enterprise, and 2 dice on Orbital Cleanup. 2 dice on Enterprise should get it almost completed, and 2 dice on Orbital Cleanup will almost definitely see one stage complete, maybe 2 if we're lucky. Either way, it'll clear up Orbital Comms for the turn after, and the resource infusion will help in affording some more expensive projects like Superconductors in LCI.
Services is just finishing up the projects we started last turn. Vaccine Development Program is a little low in terms of chances to complete, but it's expensive enough that I thought it was worth trying to slow-roll.
Military, MARV Dice have been cut down to one. Not doing 1 die on the RZ MARV Fleet because 1 die can't complete it, so I think it's best to wait a turn there. Instead, I'm doing Orca Refit Package because it's high priority. 2 dice go onto Ablat Phase 3, because if it's /200 Progress Project like Phases 1 & 2 are, that should be enough to complete it. 3 Dice continue to go into getting the Navy their Cruisers, and the last 3 dice are on the Mk III Titans.
Next turn we can probably do the last set of MARVs in the Red Zone, a 3rd Governor Shipyard, and then either RWS or Orca Refits.
And finally, Bureaucracy goes for Cooperatives.
trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
I did a report on that for school once as an example of improper communication.
$327.6 million and years of work down the drain because one program made impulse calculations in pound-force seconds while a different program expect them to be in newton-seconds.
Your regular reminder that Imperial Units belong in garbage bin of history.
And it is my hope that GDI, which was engaged in war and mobilization for decades, put them there.
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BoSPaladin
The Paladin
What I like about mass effect is there's a broad selection of challenges.
Just stepping into space? laying down your first few colonies and researching ancient ruins? There's random pirate bases and slavers, and criminal gangs hiding out. Next step up, maybe some warlord claiming a section of space with a world of their own and some industry and some collection of pirates under them a la Aria. After that, you've got the actual governments such as batarians and whatnot, and trying to fight them directly may not be a good idea if they've got the rest of the terminus behind them, or even worse still have an embassy on the citadel.
Which neatly brings us to the citadel and council races itself. The galactic superpower.
The kind of 'threat' that we may not even want to get into a shooting war with.
Like. Looking at GDI quest as it is right now. We're gonna file tiberium under an economic problem. But, broadly speaking, there's economic problems in that we need to build industry and look after our pop and so on. There's military problems in that there's a major enemy causing us trouble. and there's political/diplomatic problems in that we have to manage political parties, support from other wings of the bureaucracy, and otherwise trade favours and politic.
A pyramid of problems that we have to balance. Some stuff we can't just throw money at, some stuff we can't just shoot. And some enemies we can't diplomacy away.
That there are varied and interesting challenges. Across tiers. And even if/when you're sitting at the table with the big boys. There's still room for minor problems to lurk around the edges and try catching you out when you're not expecting.
Just stepping into space? laying down your first few colonies and researching ancient ruins? There's random pirate bases and slavers, and criminal gangs hiding out. Next step up, maybe some warlord claiming a section of space with a world of their own and some industry and some collection of pirates under them a la Aria. After that, you've got the actual governments such as batarians and whatnot, and trying to fight them directly may not be a good idea if they've got the rest of the terminus behind them, or even worse still have an embassy on the citadel.
Which neatly brings us to the citadel and council races itself. The galactic superpower.
The kind of 'threat' that we may not even want to get into a shooting war with.
Like. Looking at GDI quest as it is right now. We're gonna file tiberium under an economic problem. But, broadly speaking, there's economic problems in that we need to build industry and look after our pop and so on. There's military problems in that there's a major enemy causing us trouble. and there's political/diplomatic problems in that we have to manage political parties, support from other wings of the bureaucracy, and otherwise trade favours and politic.
A pyramid of problems that we have to balance. Some stuff we can't just throw money at, some stuff we can't just shoot. And some enemies we can't diplomacy away.
That there are varied and interesting challenges. Across tiers. And even if/when you're sitting at the table with the big boys. There's still room for minor problems to lurk around the edges and try catching you out when you're not expecting.
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- Location
- The Underdark
Nearly all of them. Cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons are still in common use, but I have generally tried to reference everything in metric whenever I have to measure things in actual units.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Solar Movies has all 5 seasons as does Apple, I think, but that needs you to buy it unless they have a streaming service now. I find it worth having bought it years ago but I bought it already having watched reruns of it with my dad as a kid. The novels you can technically skip as the wiki tends to have a very detailed run down of the events in said novels and I've found them hard to get digitally (to the point I don't have them). Didn't know there was an RPG though.
Edit: Can you an American please explain what the hell a "cup" is for measuring? Is it a small mug, a large mug, my massive double sized mug, is it a 300ml glass, a pint glass? It is the most bizarrely named measurement to exist but then metric is French in origin so that explains a lot.
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trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
A cup is 236.5 mL. 2 cups equal 1 pint. 2 pints equal 1 quart. 4 quarts equal 1 gallon. 1 gallon is 8.35 pounds.
I really wish the US had converted to metric decades ago.
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- Location
- The Underdark
The thing is that I don't tend to like buying TV shows sight unseen. There are a lot of things that people rave about that I have just hated (Like either version of Battlestar Galactica just does not work for me). There are others that I have liked, such as Stargate, and I don't know which end this one is on. I have tried in the past to run settings that I don't know particularly well, and it has typically not gone well, so I am very nervous around trying to work with settings that I don't have an in depth knowledge of the entire setting, especially when running it for a group of people who know the material much better than I do.
- Location
- Pennslyvania
- Pronouns
- She/They
There's probably a loremaster or two of B5 either here or on the discord that would happily launch into a long explanation of the plot, if that would let you see if you'd like it,