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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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Simon_Jester said:
I already discussed this. I don't think this kind of analysis works out as simply as you think, because it sort of... gets backward... the impact of long construction lead times on actual strategic military outcomes.

The practical effect of "we build a shipyard one quarter slower than we theoretically could" is roughly along the lines of "the Navy has one cruiser less than it theoretically could, somewhere on the ocean, for the duration of the buildup," with "the buildup" likely to be running up through the 2060s.

Because getting the first few ships out of these yards has effectively zero strategic impact- the impact is of necessity going to ramp up slowly and increase incrementally, quarter by quarter, precisely because the yards cannot 'surge' production of warships in numbers great enough to be impactful in a naval war.

By waiting this long to do the Governor design and shipyards (and we had our reasons), we are already committed to a military reality in which there won't be enough Governors to make a strategic difference in the naval war until, optimistically, 2058 or later. Maybe more like 2060 or later. Delaying one shipyard just means we have slightly fewer ships during this timeframe, or that the deadline for "you will have ant X cruisers by time T" is pushed forward by, oh, something like 1-3 months.

By contrast, shell factories can surge production and be immediately impactful, enabling Ground Forces to launch new operations within a few months of the new factories coming online.

Now I'm not saying "ignore Governor yards." But what I am saying is that if, after we slam out the first 2-3 yards at three dice per turn, we choose to dial back to 2/turn for the last 3-4 yards, it's not going to cripple the Navy and it may be worth it for the impact on other branches of the armed forces.
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Would it surprise you to hear that I agree in principle? Maybe not the exact yard numbers or dice allocation- but in general, yeah, this is supposed to be about doing this once and then finishing the rest at a much more sedate pace.

This is a meme plan that commits us to seven or eight dice on the Talons, nearly ignoring the rest of the military and leaving us with about 1-2 dice left for all the rest of the armed forces' high priorities.

It is not a good idea unless we've stopped caring about everything but the Talons.
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It's a meme plan, but it's a meme with a reason for existing: The Talons have no confidence. none at all. That might be in part due to neglect, but it might also be a red flag that they need immediate care, a full memeplan to rectify their situation, with follow-up plans leaning heavily on finishing the Havoc and the Mastadon in order to restore their hope and will to live. Now, maybe a partial memeplan will treat them better-maybe we can combine the talons, the need for shipyards, and the finishing up our MARV fleets to create a whole that everyone will vote for-but I think we certainly need to treat our worst-off subfaction as the worst-off subfaction.
 
The problem is, none of the Talon's proposals are rated by anyone as High Priority.
It may be that some of their projects are useful, but for some reason, nobody else thinks so.
 
That just makes me feel bad for the Talons; they have had their self worth ground down by literal years of neglect to the point where they don't even priortise themselves at all :'(
 
HousePet said:
The problem is, none of the Talon's proposals are rated by anyone as High Priority.
It may be that some of their projects are useful, but for some reason, nobody else thinks so.
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>ignore a deparment for years
>the state manages perfectly and actually improves things thanks to the budgeted saved by neglecting said deparment

it doesnt take a lot of effort to realize that people on the administration are asking themselves ''why the fuck are we dragging/finacing a token deparment we arent event using''

and they are right,in their current state the talons are useless dead weight unless given research tasks and budget to fullfil said tasks,otherwise they have no reason to exist and the budget using to keep their deparment would be better used on other things

we know the talons hide nice things,but the politicians,voters and administratives in setting lack eagle view of the talons potential
 
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I think the Talons are just kinda refusing to talk to us tbh. They provide the mandatory quarterly reports that their contracts say they have to and nothing more, they've got a (not entirely unjustified) grudge against the Treasury as a whole and Doctor Granger in particular so they aren't jumping through the hoops and sending people to the optional interdepartmental coffee dates etc.
 
I'm pretty sure that the talons high priority project is myomer and ablative armor.

Sort of like how almost every branch wanted us to finish up deploying suits to ZOCOM so they could their own crack at them. A project doesn't need to be in their associated category for a (or multiple) branch/department to put their weight behind its completion.
 
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Not sure how much I care about the Steel Talons. The only times I've seen them they were getting bodied by Nod during the 3rd war and during the canon Marked Crisis and failing to kill Kane multiple times. And that is with the best equipment and personal money can buy. They seem kinda incompetent to me.
 
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Where have I seen this movie before?

Don't really do military funding.
Ocean attacks happen.
Fund Navy.
Still kind of slow walk ground forces.
Get abatement closed.
Fund ground forces.
Slow walk Steel Talons. <— You are here.
????
 
Image said:
They are just known for getting bodied. Just look at Australia.
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You're using as evidence the fact that NOD was the protagonist faction of the expansion, and thus the GDI subfactions got no airtime as winners, as proof that the Steel Talons are weak? Are ZOCOM also bad at their jobs, and we should cut their budget as well, refusing to invest in any more of their projects?
 
The Steel Talons could stop warlords but feel short when it absolutely counted. That cannot be gainsaid. Their entire division was made to fight the battles that they lost. Its a little hard not too see them as failures.
 
Faced with an opponent that outnumbered them 10-1 at Mt. Cheyenne (by NOD's quality troops, not just militant rabble), the Steel Talons played a significant part in turning what should have been a total curb-stomp in NOD's favor into a knock-down, drag-out fight that cost NOD almost all of its committed forces. They did so well there, that we actually lost the option to demobilize their military contingent afterwards because the rest of GDI was so impressed with their performance. Despite us having done exactly fuck-all to provide them with funding either beforehand or after.

Declaring them to be failures is like declaring that the whole GDI military is a failure when they couldn't stop NOD from inflicting that big defeat on us back when we Nat 1'd RZ Harvesting Ops. The fault for defeat there lies more heavily on us for not giving them the tools it needed to win rather than on them for not fighting well enough. "The best equipment and personnel money can buy" doesn't mean much when it's the exact same equipment that was in service before the previous war even started.
 
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Your point is taken. I suppose I'm blinded by how I feel about a secret military arm that doesn't talk to its superiors. About a military arm that couldn't withstand CABAL and NOD attacks in true timeline. I guess I'm blinded by the success of other divisions. Like ZOCOM. And the Zone Troopers who were mentioned directly in said blurb.

Steel Talons are cool, I just question if they are worth. WE already know how is after all.
 
Image said:
Your point is taken. I suppose I'm blinded by how I feel about a secret military arm that doesn't talk to its superiors. About a military arm that couldn't withstand CABAL and NOD attacks in true timeline. I guess I'm blinded by the success of other divisions. Like ZOCOM. And the Zone Troopers who were mentioned directly in said blurb.
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ZOCOM and its Zone Troopers are something we spent a significant amount of time and money investing in. Steel Talons we've given fuck-all. Pretty much all of their equipment is the exact same stuff they were issued before the 3rd Tiberium War even started (which in turn had seen the Steel Talons constantly on the receiving end of budget cuts.) Because until last turn, we haven't spent even a cent actually upgrading their ToE.

And you want to talk about not being able to withstand LEGION and NOD in the true timeline? What about ZOCOM itself, which lost an entire MARV Fleet to LEGION in Africa? That was the first major combat deployment of MARVs that NOD had no idea even existed beforehand, and LEGION and NOD had to improvise a countermeasure on the spot, but that didn't stop them from raking ZOCOM over the coals. When LEGION went into play in the true timeline, no one could stand up to it. Not the Scrin, not GDI, no one.

The fact that the defenders at Cheyenne performed as well as they did is nothing short of a miracle compared to every past fight against LEGION.
 
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Image said:
Your point is taken. I suppose I'm blinded by how I feel about a secret military arm that doesn't talk to its superiors. About a military arm that couldn't withstand CABAL and NOD attacks in true timeline. I guess I'm blinded by the success of other divisions. Like ZOCOM. And the Zone Troopers who were mentioned directly in said blurb.

Steel Talons are cool, I just question if they are worth. WE already know how is after all.
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The Steel Talons do talk to their superiors. They're not giving the Treasury a lot of information, but that's different.

And every military arm has had trouble with with various attacks in OTL. ZOCOM has had as many losses, at least, as the Steel Talons have. And, as was mentioned, they did very well at Cheyenne Mountain.

So, I have trouble taking your arguments seriously when they are not based on facts.
 
I just got done rereading the section in question. And watching a history of the Steel Talons and ZOCOM. So I'm sorry if it seems that way. But the only mention of Steel Talons in that whole section, was when they were said to be there and fighting alongside them. Looking back at their personal history and only being introduced to them in the T3 expansion most certainly colored my view on them.
 
Image said:
I just got done rereading the section in question. And watching a history of the Steel Talons and ZOCOM. So I'm sorry if it seems that way. But the only mention of Steel Talons in that whole section, was when they were said to be there and fighting alongside them. Looking back at their personal history and only being introduced to them in the T3 expansion most certainly colored my view on them.
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Okay, you do realize that the Kane's Wrath expansion is entitled that for a reason? That it's 'All Kane All the Time Baby' and the purpose of the campaign is to clown on any fool who dares cross Kane? Except for the Black Hand, who are mostly just here to not have an airforce and instead bring too many flamethrowers to the party.
 
I mean in skirmish the Steel Talons where actually really good stat and unit wise. The Titan MK2 could beat any standard enemy tank one on one with room to spare, the Wolverine meant that a veichle force without any infantry was a perfectly viable strat, the hammerhead is awesome and the troop compartment made the Juggernaut way more versatile and useful. Engineer with pistol was useful as well in a race against enemy engineers. Outside of the campaign (where you're the protagonist so of course you've got to win) the Steel Talons in the expansion kicked ass and where tied with marked of Kane for favourite subfraction and where one of the stronger ones competitively. This is ignoring how many of the fun toys for this quest are locked behind them.
 
Rivalnator said:
Of course, that assumes we end up being the first to contact the citadel. I'm sure Councilor Kane would have some very interesting stories to tell about GDI.
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They might start wondering about him after he has been a councilor for over a millennia, humans don't live that long do they?

TheFourthman said:
GDI: (Puts a fleet or 7 at the Relay.) Whelp. Independent FTL or slow boat space travel it is.
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If the scrin can do FTL so can we! If all else fails we can make enough eezo via tiberium to make our own relays.
Ithillid said:
Tiberium, for all that it is an all consuming malignant xenoforming device, is, genuinely, a wonder material. When properly treated, it, in and of itself, crashes every mineral commodity market with no survivors. In its current form, it can effectively be anything. A dynamic proton lattice, the internal structure can be resolved to form nearly any material. That material in turn can be formed, stamped, milled, or otherwise processed using convential industrial tooling.
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trooperist said:
I don't think it's anyone rating their projects, I thought it was the Talon's rating their own projects.
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Nah this is from the:
[] Interdepartmental Communication Initiative
With GDI's other departments on the move, taking more effort to prepare for their actions and how to better coordinate priorities should improve interdepartmental harmony, and the ability of the Initiative as a whole to operate.
(DC 90) (offers indicators which projects are of high priority to other departments.)

So we need to decide whether they really aren't a priority right now, or whether this is just politics.
 
Nonsense, it is clear that Tali Jackson and the Mt. Cheyenne garrison are cowards and traitors who failed to do their utmost to defend the Tacitus. It is irrelevant that the garrison had less than 500 soldiers out of the starting 6000 soldiers and no ammunition left by the end of the battle. The Tacitus was lost by minutes and the cowardly Jackson and her soldiers chose to make an unauthorized retreat into the complex instead of making one final effort to save or retake the Tacitus! The lives of the garrison are of little value compared to the value of the Tacitus. The only acceptable outcome for the Mt. Cheyenne garrison was victory or death! Tali Jackson and the remaining garrison force should be tried and executed! Their families deprived of public benefits and assistance. This will encourage the rest of GDI. Not one step back! /s

Obviously, Jackson and the Mt. Cheyenne garrison did above and beyond what we could have reasonably expected from them under the circumstances. If Jackson had been a Nod commander or a Soviet command defending the Cheyenne complex, Jackson would have probably been executed by Kane or the C&C Soviets in a rather dramatic fashion but we are playing GDI who try to be benevolent toward their soldiers and not as Nod or the cartoonishly evil C&C Soviets.
 
HousePet said:
The problem is, none of the Talon's proposals are rated by anyone as High Priority.
It may be that some of their projects are useful, but for some reason, nobody else thinks so.
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It's unclear whether the priority ratings are internal within a particular branch, or represent the opinions of the military as a whole.

One possibility is just that the Talons don't actually have a 'favorite' project and would be equally interested in doing any or all of the things currently on their menu. After all, ZOCOM may not actually have any High Priority other than the Oslo factory that it turns out they've been really unhappy about not getting finished. The Air Force has three different air-to-air combat improvements, none of which is prioritized relative to the others. The Space Force doesn't list any priorities, which may mean that the bulk of the military doesn't see expanding the Space Force at the moment but may also just mean the Space Force itself doesn't have a particular sense of urgency.

(@Ithillid , is there any particular reason ASAT upgrades aren't classified as a Space Force project? I was surprised to notice that...)

Meanwhile, looking in the other branches, Tiberium, Orbital, and Services doesn't have any listed 'high priorities,' and I doubt that's because nobody cares about any of the projects. It's just that the actual bureaucrats are mostly neutral as to which projects get support on average, and nobody outside Treasury is going to tell us which to do beyond the level implied by the +5 PS for some of the options.

BeepSmile said:
That just makes me feel bad for the Talons; they have had their self worth ground down by literal years of neglect to the point where they don't even priortise themselves at all :'(
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Or maybe they're just like "look, if you actually fund us we barely even give a shit what you fund, man, just let us sort it out."

Besides which, they only actually have about 6 dice worth of projects on the menu and a couple of 3-die Development programs gated behind two of the development projects. If we were seriously funding them they'd get everything currently on their drawing board in a fairly short time, so why worry if there's no actual emergency need to get any one thing first?

Like, the Navy has a Very High priority because while they'd like the point defense refits, hover crafts, and escort carrier designs, they are screaming in pain about specifically not having the cruisers.

The Ground Forces have priorities because there really are some projects they want a lot more than others, likewise.

Maybe the Talons are different and just want to get back to work?

Vehrec said:
I don't think the Talons are gonna give us a straight answer about anything right now.
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Maybe, but it's kind of dumbass of them to refuse to answer if we ask "so, of these three mecha projects, which one do you want funded first?"

Because if the thread weren't actually committed to getting them some funding, I can totally imagine a petty version of Dr. Granger taking the Talons' sullen silence as evidence that the idea of funding them was a stupid idea to begin with.
 
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