We built Penzhin Tidal Power Plant as 400 point project, I doubt we would need five phases for Panama.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
We built Penzhin Tidal Power Plant as 400 point project, I doubt we would need five phases for Panama.
- Location
- The Underdark
Panama as a whole would probably be five phases because there is a lot of complicated lockwork plus clearance and support structures there.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
@Ithillid will we get an action to unfuck the BMI at some point? Since you know it's an actual real life shitshow that couldn't have gotten better in this universe. If we do get an action is it now? Or do we need to expand our infrastructure more?
This sounds like something that would be folded into a larger "health and nutrition" program.
- Location
- The Underdark
Generally it just got ditched as a metric. Especially since starvation has been more of a problem than obesity from 2020 onwards, especially as the American breadbasket got overtaken by Tiberium.
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
Well not just locks. There's roads, a rail line and airports as well as ports on both ends. It's gonna be a beast to get up and running again.
Panama Canal - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Is the watershed even functioning? I know Lake Gatun is necessary as not just as a transit point but to feed locks.
Still it'd be with it to have a canal up and running. And well we could militarize both ends which would be good. To help lock down the Gulf and the Pacific.
Q2 2056 Results
- Location
- The Underdark
GDI Online Q2 2056
Battle of Hub YZ-5a
Dr. Emiliana Campoy
Today in breaking news has been the battle of the Yellow Zone 5a Hub. I was on site as a medical practitioner helping with the outbreak there. Only really heard and felt the battle itself. The Sonic Cannons on those MARVs are loud. Well, I knew they were loud, but we felt it in our bones, even here. Good thing we were not doing surgeries that day. My hands were shaking like leaves by the end of it.
But at the end of the day, they tried, they failed, and I am on a ship in dock in a blue zone ferrying a load of refugees for a better life with the Initiative.
Solan
The work for those in the MARV hubs is never done. I was on site to prepare the final construction of the MARVs for YZ-5a. It was deemed by the officials in Manchester to be prudent to finish it because of the sporadic attacks in the region. Oh boy, we didn't know there already was a battle happening when we entered the hub. You can see many engineers working double time to finish the giant Tiberium harvesting platforms to destroy those nearing mechs. Thank God for the Navy making sure Nod can be kept at bay while we finish the MARVs. I can tell it was grim before the resupply with the commander reporting a nearly empty shell load and food for the favelas reaching a critical low don't let me even tell you about the kludged together facilities they built. The pilots for the MARVs also weren't there yet finishing their training certifications. Fortunately all MARV engineers are capable pilots so it was good firing at those Nod mechs. Almost lost some good friends there but with that and Chicago it will never be a boring day.
FloatingWood
Wasn't there a slum build around the hub? I hope they got out okay. Civilians caught between two armies tends to result in lots of very dead civilians.
TrueBlue
Wonderful. Another boatload of sellouts crawling in to get Dr. Granger's latest handouts and prizes for licking Kane's boots. Will he learn his lesson when they bite the hand that fed them? Of course not.
God, every day the Initiative just gets worse and worse.
Accomplishing Providence
#FloatingWood, "slum" is perhaps a bit harsh on the one hand, but on the other, "favela" is a localized word for a particular type of "slum". So make of that what you will. It sounds as if they were able to pull the civilians inside the perimeter of the actual hub-base during the fight?
Ormond2020
#TrueBlue Hey man, be careful typing so fast, I can hear you huffing and puffing from here, you useless sack of shit, hey mods, punish me for telling the truth if you want, but I'm sick of these IF freaks ruining the forums, how about you do your goddamn job, they're almost as corrosive to the GDI as the actual Noddies
FloatingWood
#AccomplishingProvidence, I hope that the next hub that goes up in the Yellow Zone takes the refugee matter into account from the get go. I mean, I get not wanting to let just anyone into the secured facilities, but surely a ditch and berm to form an outer perimeter refugees can hide behind isn't too much to ask for? All you'd need is a backhoe (goddamnit English, figure out whether you stick words together or not) or bulldozer to get it done. Some soldiers with entrenching tools in a pinch.
TrueBlue
#Ormond2020
At least Initiative First hasn't forgotten that GDI is supposed to fight the ones who let civilization burn for the sake of an alien crystal fetish, not reward them.
Solan
#TrueBlue Please do not generalize the Yellow Zoners on people working for YEARS with them. It has taken a lot of our time to actually talk to them and say they aren't going to be shot the moment they enter the border. Because we're not Nod and those bastards would rather turn you into a cybernetic monstrosity than help you if they think they could get away with it. While I wait for my next deployment after the battle let me just say that if you say something about leaving one of the last holy sites of the Abrahamic faiths to die might leave you some irrecoverable wounds because we are doing some work on outreach in holy sites now.
ProfCollingsworth
Well, from what I've heard, this probably wasn't intended to bait NOD into attacking, but we probably won't know for sure for a few decades. That said, I am glad that GDI was able to get the fleet operational in time to mount a successful defense.
#TrueBlue You seem to be forgetting that, for decades, the effective policy of GDI has been to provide minimal support, if that, to people whose only crime is to not live in a Blue Zone. For all that I appreciate all that GDI has done, I am not blind to its faults. Or at least, I try.
AccomplishingProvidence
#FloatingWood oh you're not wrong about needing to plan better in the future. It just seems that this was very unexpected compared to reactions when the other Hubs went online? Perhaps due to the location of this hub. More isolated, near the sea, and so on? It sounds as if the Navy is working to build a strong presence as well, which only bodes well for those seeking the protection under the aegis of GDI's metaphorical wings.
#Solan the stories trickling out of the area around Mecca are truly soul-heartening to read and hear. If you are working there now, please keep up the good work, and pass on the thanks of mankind to your fellow workers.
BummerZoom2
#ProfCollingsworth From what I've heard, Granger and Granger were planning this surprise turnabout since last year. Rumor is InOps has had their fingers all over YZ-5a even before it was finished construction; if you read between the lines there's a lot of unusual details about all the supposed delays that have been obscured.
SoLone34
Speaking of work that far out, I heard that the Red Zones actually shrank this month, is that true?
MikoNyan
#SoLone34 Looking at Granger's Doomwall, yeah, it has. Not much, but we are finally making progress. Feels like more than rearranging the deck chairs at this point.
AccomplishingProvidence
#MikoNyan I have to wonder, does the entire office stop working for a few moments while The Doomwall is updated?
MikoNyan
#AccomplishingProvidence Not really anymore. First few times were dramatic, but it gets updated so often nowadays that we would not be getting anything done if we had to check The Wall, every time it updated.
AccomplishingProvidence
Entirely fair, #MikoNyan. Was mostly just an amusing thought about the potential melodrama. We all need a bit of fun melodrama in our lives, or they'd be unbearable under the weight of the world's woes.
YellowZon3r
So, here's the thing. And it's something you won't hear me say often. But good work GDI. It's… they went to a whole other continent, helped a bunch of people who needed help. Protected them, and got shot at for trying to do the right thing. I live in a lighter yellowzone, a green zone if that term ever picks up. And for all the shady shit GDI has pulled in the past, today was one of the first times I was proud to call myself a GDI citizen. When Nod started pushing back GDI committed to defend my fellow yellowzoners. And I hope they're happy in GDI I really do.
FloatingWood
I'm curious, but does the Tiberium Department keep track of how much they expect to be able to drive back the damned crystal back per month? Because looking through the yearly reports to Parliament I get this weird sense that the department was expecting much more effectiveness in its abatement efforts than they are actually getting.
8c1DB00Tz
#FloatingWood
If you know where to look, there are statistics detailing the expected min and max level of growth, based on historical data, that more or less maps somewhat serendipitously to between 0 and 1% of the worlds land surface a quarter. There are also projections, though much harder to get access to, regarding how much the harvesting and defensive positions employed by GDI will impact the growth, but frankly I believe that model should have been thrown out several years ago, because it's been 'optimistic'.
Let me put it like this.
If the Good Doctor hadn't gone as hard on abatement as he has, or worse yet, if abatement had more or less fallen to pieces after Tib War 3?
I don't have access to the numbers from some of the earlier years, but...
Rough, back of napkin underestimate? World currently stands at roughly 14.34 BZ 27.85 YZ 57.81 RZ, in the alterverse where Granger the doc didn't come along and start mining like mad? You're looking at 3.39% BZ, 32.63% YZ and 63.98%RZ.
People seriously don't get it, because GDI and Granger are saving our asses, but they're also hiding how bad the problem really is. People joke about Grangers doom wall. Well it isn't a fucking joke. Initiative first should be lining up to kiss Grangers ass, because he's the only reason most of them have a Blue Zone to be high and fucking mighty about.
YellowZon3r
Yeah, initiative first aren't just pricks they're outright fucking wrong. Realpol for a second, all a yellow zone is, is the strip of land standing between the 'precious' blue zones and the deathworld red zones. Bluezoners bitching about refugee's and yellow zoners? I don't see any fancypants initiative first assholes out here putting in the work that we do.
Consumer Electronics Expo: Best and Worst
MikoNyan
Well, AAA is well and truly back. I can't think of any previous expo that had this consistency of good and interesting concepts. No real gameplay yet, just early pre alpha footage and some slideshows so far. Expecting more next year however.
So, the best:
Terra Nova Looks to be a colonization game focused on the solar system. Lots of emphasis on stations so far, with planetary and lunar colonies being a late game secondary affair. Lots of focus on top down command and building colonies that are reachable through chemical rocket trajectories.
StarFury XV You know it, you love it. Newtonian/Einsteinian starfighter combat with the classic fuel management system. Looks like fuel will be a fair bit tighter than XIV. Likely to be more missile dominated compared to the gunfights of most of the teen series so far.
Containment Gee, you think this one was made by a guy in the Treasury's Tiberium department? You manage one of the many GDI bases assigned to keep the green death crystal from spreading. Which from what's been shown and talked about, is far, far easier said than done.
Titan General A promising turn based strategy game set during the Second Tiberium War. The graphics are rather retro but the presentation was solid.
Bit and Chip: Tools of Construction Well this looks interesting. A mascot builder/shooter game focused around manipulating the battlefield for your advantage. Cute cat and robot pairing, with a construction gun as the primary draw. Throw down cover, build and repair vehicles and buildings, and a focus on system play rather than simply running and gunning like the previous entries.
Honorable Mention: Armor Superiority A game about commanding a Mammoth Tank in the 3rd Tiberium War. Now, I'm pretty sure that premise alone would create a fanbase even if the graphics and gameplay were trash, but everything looks solid so far. I'll keep an eye on it to see if it's just another drive tank and make things go boom game, or a hidden jewel.
And the Worst:
Direct and Destroy 4 Well, I don't know if the developers have ever seen Direct and Destroy before. But this crawler setup is just awful. Do not want.
HAVOK Looks to be a rather terrible and schlocky First Tiberium War shooter. Larger than life characters, one liners and blood and bits everywhere. For the 'maturity' value.
Days Past Looks like a throwback to pre Third War nostalgia games. We have enough of those already, and they were already past their prime anyway.
New Eden To be honest, the concept art looks rather slick, but there is something about the way it was presented with this 'shooter set during the Alien Invasion of Stuttgart' with 'visceral combat' and 'hard decisions' that are making me think this is going for shock value.
Autocracy While I know political games are all the rage currently it seems disappointing on how simplistic it is and well playing as a dictator is a dime and dozen now so it can get boring if they don't do some animated scenes. While reading the text can be interesting I can see it as a niche but the title seems to be very controversy inducing.
FloatingWood
Honourable Mention: Tiberium Cultivator. Basically a 'what not to do' when it comes to handling tiberium of any sort. There's some absolute wallbangers in there, I'm not sure anybody in the development team even read the manuals, or a short encyclopedia entry.
Or it's a double bluff and they read through the long, sordid history of industrial accidents and mishandling of tiberium causing disasters. Not sure yet.
LadiesMan47
#MikoNyan Are you stupid, Direct and Destroy 4 looks awesome. The IP has finally been returned into Westwood hands after EA nearly ruined it with DnD Rivals.
Born2Mine
I'm looking forward to Mountain Springs Vale. No tiberium and I can just farm like my grandad used to? Sounds relaxing when I'm back from a hitch in the red zones.
AccomplishingProvidence
Was Mister Parker the primary consultant for HAVOK? It certainly sounds as if he was providing direct input on it.
Titan General and Armor Superiority sound interesting, though. Strategy is, after all, the highest form of gaming, followed closely by complex driving/simulator games.
Jim Hackett (Education, Culture, and Sports)
Working on this year's Consumer Electronic Expo was a blast and even though we don't have a lot of games releasing yet be rest assured that in the coming years we will have more hands-on features, and release dates for most of the games coming out. We would also like to thank both the indie studios making new games and the old hands of the industry both East and West to provide their insight to the new generation.
One of the game collections DECS is providing for free is the Maker Collection, a series of game makers on different genres to help budding developers in their journey in the video games industry. These game makers come from the surviving companies pooling together their resources to provide a fun experience for makers and players alike. To submit your video game design please send it to the DECS game maker portal for everyone to play in this link bit.gdi/gamemakers
MikoNyan
#LadiesMan47 Rivals was mobile garbage. And you realize that New Westwood has literally three people in common with Old Westwood? And none of them were in particularly high positions in the studio?
LadiesMan47
#MikoNyan It's the spirit that counts, the new guys are a little ambitious, but they have been very communicative on their forum about their plans. If anything it can only be better than Rivals.
FloatingWood
I am finding the game about being a Scrin commander in remarkably bad taste. And I mean beyond 'this is an interesting idea done poorly', I mean the bit where the entire basis of the game is 'murder everybody'.
Also, I've heard our favourite Swedish grand strategy developer is working on a new version of Eagle and Scorpion, that is meant to stretch the timeline from the 1990's to the modern day.
MikoNyan
#LadiesMan47 Better than Rivals is a bar so low you can tunnel over it.
AgathaH
I'm hearing some good things about the new version of Gerbil Space Program. From what is available, the physics looks pretty good, both in terms of trajectories and thermodynamics. Those poor gerbils, though!
LastLizard
Personally I'm looking forwards to the new fishing simulator. It's been a while since we've had a good one. Titan General also looks like it will be fun, and I'm always down for a good RTS.
YellowZon3r
WillsofTitanium IV is going straight on my must have. Yes, the alt-history focus trees for GDI Blue zones are unrealistic. (United kingdom reinstating the monarchy and claiming france is downright silly at this point) But it's a cool what if. Forgotten in the middle of redzones forming a state that's too inhospitable for GDI or nod to claim without serious abatement efforts. Warlords splintering from the Brotherhood and creating their own new states or trying to claim the mantle of old states. Even things like richer blue zones, islands in particular leaving the GDI faction to remove the tax debuff that comes from supporting other blue zones. Just mwah, great military/economic/political/history strategy game.
FloatingWood
Now here's an interesting, if somewhat depressing one. Reclaimer, where you are a robot send from the far reaches of the solar system to reclaim the Earth from tiberium, many centuries after humanity died to the crystal and all that was left was a small collection of fully automated orbital mining and processing facilities.
#AgataH Come on, you know those gerbils enjoy it. Well, when things aren't actively exploding. Unless they are Badass, in which case, bring the explosions.
YellowZon3r
What is the state on AI's Actually? Because I know most computers can't run an actual combat AI since so often in many games the AI' has to cheat in the background through free resources or such to remain competitive but surely they can make a decent strategy opponent by now?
FloatingWood
As far as I know, that's more a thing to do with making an AI that offers a challenge to one player without completely styling over another. It's easier to just shove resources at an AI and let it play with that than it is to create an AI that can accurately gauge how good their human is and can tailor their playstyle to offer a beatable challenge.
Q2 2056 Results
Resources: 605 + 60 in reserve (15 allocated to the Forgotten) (20 allocated to grants)
Political Support: 55
Free Dice: 6
Fusion Dice: 6 (+1 per turn)
Tiberium Spread
14.79 Blue Zone
27.66 Yellow Zone (80 points of mitigation)
57.55 Red Zone (57 points of mitigation)
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: Significant Surplus (+15)
Energy: Marginal Surpluses (+1)
Logistics: Major Surpluses (+7)
Food: Marginal Surpluses (+5) (+4 stored)
Health: Substantially improved (+7)
Capital Goods: Significant Surplus (+3)
Consumer Goods: Meeting Demand (=)
Labor: Gargantuan Surpluses (+51)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (1255/1300)
Yellow Zone
Water: Limited Surpluses (+3)
Status of the Parties
(strong support, weak support, weak opposition, strong opposition)
Free Market Party: 125 seats (0; 25; 25; 75)
Market Socialist Party: 329 seats (150; 129; 35; 15)
Militarist: 237 seats (37; 160; 20; 20)
Initiative First: 178 seats (0; 2; 72; 104)
United Yellow List: 72 seats (57; 15; 0; 0)
Starbound Party: 153 seats (70; 81; 2; 0)
Socialist Party: 45 seats (30; 11; 4; 0)
Independents 12 seats
-Biodiversity Party (3 seats: Weak Support)
-Dominion Party (1 seat: Strong Opposition)
-Reclamation Party (5 seats: Weak Support)
-Homeland Party (3 seats: Weak Support)
Developmentalists: 649 seats (349; 200; 100; 0)
Military Confidence
Ground Forces : Decent
Air Force : Decent
Space Force : Decent
Steel Talons: Low
Navy: Low
ZOCOM: High
Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 9 points remaining
Consumer Goods: 3 points remaining (will complete)
Food: 21 (15) points remaining
MARV Fleets: 1 remaining
GDI Income: 25 remaining
Politics
The Developmentalist Party, the absolute dominant force in the GDI Parliament, has begun to creak. With the two key political foes, the Hawks and the Free Market Parties, having been dismembered and much reduced, the internal contradictions in the party have begun to show themselves.
For decades, the Developmentalists were able to paper over political differences because the main internal political problem for the Initiative was the question of military spending versus civilian development. While some parts of the party were Free Market supporters in all but name, and others fell across the center-left and even into the far left, they found common ground in the need to ensure that people could not only exist, but to thrive in a Post-Tiberium world. However, that common ground is far from being enough in an era when other pro civilian parties are ideologically more coherent than the big tent of the Developmentalists.
While currently, no clear leaders have emerged and no direction has been taken, the rumblings and creakings are obvious even to the less politically engaged. It seems likely that there will still be a Developmentalist party, but with many of the other parties weak, it is likely that both wings will shed membership. On the left to the Market Socialists and Socialists, and to the right the Free Market Party might well be consumed by former Developmentalists.
Brotherhood of NOD
Gideon has unveiled a pair of new weapons systems this quarter. First is what he has termed the Centurion. A smaller battlewalker than either the Avatar or Purifier, the Centurion carries a missile launcher in the left torso and an Avatar grade laser cannon in the right arm. The missile launcher has performance characteristics of a powered launch system, with four main cells, and firing a 6x50 centimeter rocket, using either fragmentation or incendiary warheads. While InOps estimates that between sixty and one hundred and twenty have been made, they seem to be an iterative upgrade on the existing systems rather than a revolutionary new design.
The other system is what Gideon calls a Cyberwheel Servitor, which is apparently some mad science creation using a badly damaged human body to control a fast unicycle tankette, somewhat along the lines of the Second World War era Keugelpanzer. Seemingly armed with a pair of low velocity 20-25mm autocannons, the tank will have difficulty penetrating anything in the Initiative arsenal heavier than a Pitbull.
Meanwhile, out of Joaquim Stahl's arsenal, a new warmachine has been rolled out.. Going by the designation 'Salamander', it is armed with a fixed gun. Though the weapon seems to fire conventional ballistics, it is extraordinarily volatile and an unusually dangerous showing. The times when struck by Firehawks or Orcas have left the vehicles rather thoroughly brewed up, leaving little more than a burnt-out husk for GDI to capture, if it left even that much. Its form factor suggests inspirations from the Hetzer or other Second World War casemate tank destroyers, although the armor is probably not much better. In terms of penetration, it has been able to penetrate all the way through a Guardian APC (at least on the short path) at ranges below 200 meters, while long range has not been demonstrated at this point.
In the air, GDI has seen repeated combat victories against the Lampades, while taking few losses in the air or ground against it. While its unusual maneuverability proved useful in its first excursions against the Initiative, GDI gunnery teams have been generally able to lay enough fire to bring down the aircraft during its attack runs. In the last month, the Lampades has apparently vanished. Likely a result of limited success, and high casualty rates, the aircraft proved to be less useful than Stahl wished. The Barghest however has become more common, now appearing in pairs. While still a distinctly rare occurrence, less than one percent of all NOD air contacts, they have begun operating more aggressively, even overflying GDI positions on two occasions. However, their greatest purpose has been as a threat in being. Rather than actually attacking Initiative formations in the air, their mere existence means that GDI cannot operate its own air forces freely. While an Apollo is generally nearly immune to the Barghest across most energy envelopes, able to break contact at will by simply climbing, the same cannot be said for the Firehawks, Hammerheads and Orcas that still form the bulk of the Initiative's combat air forces. Neither able to outturn or outrun the Barghest, they absolutely require aggressive escorts, meaning that neither the strike craft nor the Apollos can be operated to their best effect.
Russia
Nicholai Krukov is a former Russian Army officer. As the region collapsed in the lead up to the Second Tiberium War, he found his natural allies to be the Brotherhood of NOD. Naturally aggressive, many of his formations use as much captured GDI equipment as the Brotherhood's. But unusually among Brotherhood leaders, he is very willing to engage GDI head on, relying on combined arms and a secure base of operations to maintain his ability to do so.
In the Third Tiberium War, his columns drove as far as Helsinki before being driven back, punching through many of the same positions his ancestors had broken on over a century prior.
Based out of the Ural Mountains, his position is deep enough in the Yellow Zone that GDI has effectively no ability to actually reach out and touch him. Concerningly, while little is known about his bases, it seems highly likely that they are built around and into the mountains themselves, countering GDI orbital superiority.
In terms of personality, Krukov is notably stable as a NOD commander, having earned respect not through fear and intimidation, but through competent and effective leadership, on and off the battlefield. While his territory is large, he seems to have significantly less dissension than many other NOD commanders.
Food in the Initiative
Feeding the population has been a substantial problem for nearly every civilization and has been met with a number of different solutions. Under GDI, the emphasis has usually been on maintaining some forms of rationing and other mechanisms of enforced food distribution as part of a comprehensive welfare system. Ensuring that people eat well and regularly is one of the most efficient means of welfare, and one that translates well into wartime rationing. Taking inspiration from British wartime rationing systems, GDI's framework has been focused towards scalability, and has attempted to be unobtrusive enough to be maintained in times of relative peace, but can be expanded to meet demand during the hard times. Broadly speaking, there are two main elements to the system. The cafeteria, and the ration.
The cafeteria is one of the major tools of wartime rationing and peacetime welfare. More than nearly any other institution, the cafeteria, operated by the Initiative, offers standardized hot meals made with the best quality available to any and all that come through their doors. Adhering to the nutritional guidelines, a typical modern menu is a three-course meal. Generally, that means alternating between vegetable soups and salads made with available tender leafy greens for the first course. For the main meal, it is generally thought of as a protein (fungus bars, or fish most commonly), paired with two hot vegetables, and a starch-derived edibles. For dessert, whatever fruits are available are used, either cooked or raw, depending on the fruit. Typically this is industrially prepared food served at a price point competitive with, if not less than, fast food prices, depending on the total cost to produce. Even in times of peace, cafeterias are popular for the day to day meals of many families, especially those who have commutes or other commitments and want something healthy and filling to keep them going. With the latest Treasury scheme to involve ethnic cuisines and the relative surfeit of victuals, there has been a lobbying drive by the Department of Archive and History towards the Welfare Department to incorporate both traditional and fusion ethnic cuisines in the cafeteria schematics. The former had reasoned that with the continued drive towards YZ area, a more expansive and expensive cafeteria meal templates is a good tradeoff for a more thorough integration and propagandizing the virtues of the GDI.
Adding on to that is a commonly available ration of basic goods as part of the Initiative's welfare system. While rations are, at this point, usually available, that has not always been the case. It is floated at around the production price and is generally substantially more expensive. The system allows for a known amount of nutrition and essential goods to be acquired by everyone, while insulating the impact of uncertainty as it makes hoarding more difficult. Precisely what is covered by the Ration has typically depended on what goods the Initiative can make available to everyone. During the darkest days of the Third Tiberium War, the standard ration dipped as low as 1250-1500 calories per person per day in some areas. While incredibly bland and filled with starch and basic protein, the ration has kept people alive. Gone were those near-extinction days with the new rations system. Using physical credit books with digitized tracing methods through distribution centers, a GDI citizen can claim 1800-2100 calories worth of food per day. This new scheme allows previously impoverished Yellow Zone citizens to work through the day with moderate exertions, which is necessary considering the ever increasing need of bodies for Treasury's programs.
Shopping is typically done in two ways. For larger bulk items, shopping is a matter of either physical order forms or digital orders, which are then shipped to the local store for pickup. The latter method is how the ration is distributed. For smaller non-essential items, or other filler options that need to make it through the week for the next shipment, stores keep a small inventory stocked on the shelves. However, with the unreliable nature of post-War shipping, these small inventories are picked clean before the weekends arrive. Even now, most shelves are bare mere hours after a shipment arrives, as most GDI citizens opted to put themselves on a priority listing. The situation has started to change though, with deliveries coming in every day, with the warehouses and central distribution centers able to fill most orders within a few days at most.
Forgotten Typology
The Forgotten are a breed apart, both from humanity and from each other. Due to aversions regarding eugenics and invasive genetical surgery, it is unknown how much cross-compatibility there is between each typology and towards baseline humans themselves. What is known, however, is that there seem to be a number of phases to mutation and each has what seems to be its own set of advantages and problems. None of the following information is taken for a fact due to a combination of having only field observations rather than autopsies or invasive biopsy as well as rapid mutations to even Alpha Strains that obsoleted prior GDI knowledge. However, greater details than expected have been uncovered due to a push by the Department of Archive and History in part due to Secretary Bennett's anthropological focus towards the Forgotten.
Alpha Strain
The Alphas are the most human of the strains, and the earliest type of Forgotten to be recorded. In the early days after the First Tiberium War, it became clear that sustained overexposure causes the rock to grow on biological substance, forming a quasi-parasitic behaviour with human physiology to the point that even the air they expel from breathing contains trace amount of Tiberium particulates. While it is now known that these minute traces of Tiberium do not have the capacity to propagate into more of themselves, the defining moment for the Forgotten was when numerous screeds exclaimed that the Alphas are Tiberium vectors and super-spreaders. And in the chaotic years after the First Tiberium War and the relatively weak grip of the GDI, many governments worldwide began ostracizing the Forgotten, forcefully displacing and exiling them at best, and at worst- committing pogroms and execution orders. Though it would've been comforting to find that the misinformation campaign that started it all was an act by the NOD, newly unclassified records show that at best, NOD's involvement were marginal. In fact, several high-profile NOD sympathizers within the UN at the time advocated to cease the unfolding genocide since the start while the GDI had been internally torn by the matter, taking two whole years before they began deploying taskforces for peacekeeping operations and dispel the misinformation campaign. The damage had been done, however, and the Forgotten had made escape towards the Red Zone, where no xenophobic hatchetmen could reach them. This had led to their moniker, 'The Forgotten'. By now and in most parts of the world, Alpha strains have become increasingly rare, due to greater strides in environmental suit protection even for those living under NOD's auspice as well as continued exposure for those who had already been mutated advancing to the next strain.
The most well known example of Alpha strain Forgotten is Umagon, the commando in charge of the Forgotten during the Second Tiberium War. Appearance wise, their skin is marred by Tiberium crystals, but aside from such blemishes, they are clearly human at even a second and third glance. Physically however, they are capable of far more than their bodies would suggest, with Umagon being able to keep up the pace with the gruelling benchmark of the GDI Commandos. That someone who has not been fed and trained to the Commando's extent can keep up is a notable and admiring thing in of itself. Furthermore, collected testimonials and verifiable combat records have shown that while Umagon is on the ceiling of the Alpha's capacity for war, most trained Forgotten of this strain are benchmarked to endure all aspects of high-intensity combat to a degree that a third of GDI soldiery couldn't dream of reaching. No wonder then, that a great number of Alpha strain had sold their talents to both the GDI and NOD as small bands of specially trained mercenaries from the interwar period of the First and Second War, and well after Umagon's alliance with the GDI during the Second Tiberium War.
Beta Strain
Betas are the most common strain in the modern day. First recordings of Beta strains were, curiously enough, almost simultaneous throughout Forgotten communes worldwide, though none knew of this at the time. Various unproven hypotheses abound as to why this is the case. From reasonable theories such as a more subtle Tiberium mutation designed for humans to more fringe, almost conspiracy-theorist postulations that Kane is behind it, none can say for certain of the why. The what is well recorded however. Little different in size and stature to unmutated humans, the Betas are characterized best by large crystal growths, jagged protrusions rather than scarring marks of the Alpha strains. These crystalline tumors are removable and doing so are oftentimes necessary due to turning the organs beneath into Tiberium lumps, consigning them to death by organ failure. However, such surgical procedures leave the Forgotten in question enervated and incapacitated for several days on end. This is because above all else, the Beta Strain has unusually large reserves of stamina and regeneration that are derived from their jagged protrusions. Beta strains can draw energy from the Tiberium that surrounds them and into their less malignant tumours, fuelling their movement and removing their need for sustenance, though food and water is still preferable than not. This makes them the ideal miners and messengers for the Forgotten and GDI task forces, treading into lands with too few supply lines and perilous terrain. Though Beta strains are common, the population is noticeably trending down, being replaced by ever more Gammas. From observational demographics, turnover is almost certain to happen by 2060.
Gamma Strain
The appearance of Gamma strains were confusing at first. Originally, they were considered to be a 'stable' state of Tiberium-infused humans, born into the Post-Tiberium world rather than being mutated. This hypothesis was the working order for the GDI, until the defection of the Qatar Loyalist, specifically Lailah Al-Qawiya, who was once a Beta mutant. Continued exposure to deep RZ Tiberium, however, had progressed her mutation to this strain- though many of her fellow comrades hadn't. This is notable because physically speaking, and as befits Lailah's epithet "The Strong", Gamma strain mutants are hulking slabs of muscle. No longer do they have notable Tiberium protrusions and risk death from organ failures. Instead, both Tiberium and the body's physiology has adapted to one another, where flesh and bones and nerves are crystalized to a certain extent. This leads to a notable increase in both mass and height, with the average Gamma Forgotten reaching heights of over two meters tall and a significant minority, like Lailah, approaching the three metres ceiling and weighing at least one and half times more than an average human.
In combat training sessions between Zone Troopers and Gamma Forgotten, this led to them being able to outfight the former in a slightly-less-than-even record, where Troopers not equipped with Jump Jets simply unable to dodge out of the bursts of human movements, allowing the Forgotten to close in and pummel the Troopers down on their chest, restricting their ability get up simply through their mass. Live-fire combat records against the NOD has also shown that even Gamma noncombatants are able to shrug off the effects of concussive and explosive forces from Militant grenades and rockets, so long as they're not a direct hit. The trade off to this seems to be that they tire easily, with the hypothesis that the reservoirs of energy that Beta strains have are repurposed towards fuelling the catalytic process needed for Gamma Forgotten to live with their new condition.Most commonly, they have been found working for one side or another hauling around heavy weapons that would take two or three soldiers to operate. However, with the Washington Conference and the renewal of GDI's alliance with the Forgotten in mostly peaceful roles of Tiberium mining, the mercenary bands have almost entirely disappeared as mercenaries, with only a few rogue bands still serving in that role. That does not, however, mean that they have disarmed. Forgotten bands and tribes have seen a steady increase in armament over the last three years, one that can be primarily attributed to former mercenaries moving back home.
Delta Strain
The last strain known and recorded are the Deltas. Unlike other strains, which come as the result of both mutation and childbirth among the Forgotten, Deltas are almost certainly born out of Forgotten parents and this strain has only been recorded in the last two decades, with the oldest known turning twenty this year. While not as outwardly mutated as the Gammas and closer to Alphas in terms of appearances, their physiological makeup shows that the human anatomy and Tiberium have formed an almost perfect synthesis — or as some cautions, assimilation. Though they are no more durable or better physically than Alpha — which in itself an achievement — Deltas have been observed to show abilities more in common to pseudoscientific notions of psychic powers than anything else. While nothing so obvious as throwing fireballs or levitating objects has yet been documented, many GDI observers have reported that Deltas are uncommonly perceptive and know facts that they could not have otherwise known, suggesting abilities related to extrasensory perception (ESP) and degrees of limited clairvoyance, if not mind reading. While it will take direct testing to ensure that it is not a result of outside interference, Deltas are of great interest to the scientific establishment, however so far no Delta has yet consented to even the most basic of testing, with all known facts being due to GDI personnel directly interacting with them.
[ ] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2)
Phase 2 of the Tidal Power Plants is looking at major tidal power plants, such as the Penzin Bay Facility. These massive installations will provide almost as much energy as a standard nuclear power plant in many cases, although unlike those nuclear plants, these are geographically limited.
(progress 336/450: 10 resources per die) (++++ Energy)
Relatively limited progress has been made this quarter. Between Penzhin Bay, and the other large scale facilities, little has been installed, but much has been produced. Each needs turbines, generators, and masses of battery banks or pumped hydraulic reservoirs to ensure that they can provide not just a surge of power with the tide, but actually provide a stable and usable supply of energy across the entire day. Technically speaking, these are only different from the previous smaller power projects in terms of scale. A series of turbines strung across a relatively low retaining dam, in the case of Penzhin Bay roughly thirty kilometres long.
However, the work has been slowed by a number of factors, most notably the weather. While in most cases GDI has been able to effectively ignore weather conditions due to the massed use of robotics, operating on top and around a very thin concrete slab out in the middle of some of the most variable tides on the planet, is not one of them. This has meant that repeated storms have significantly slowed construction. Similarly, transport problems, while far less of a problem than in previous quarters, have slowed deliveries, with many of the primary assets arriving far too late in the quarter for practical installation.
Politically, the continuing major investments in power generation capability, on top of the major surpluses has begun to raise questions. While many have taken it as an indication that the Treasury intends to spend much of the last year driving a number of massively power intensive projects, such as the Ulsan-Busan yards, or major Capital Goods investment, others, especially those already skeptical of Treasury policy, put it as a potential problem, especially with people already tired of living in the hurriedly constructed apartment blocks of the first four year plan. While currently, it is little more than already discontented politicians looking for a wedge issue, mostly from the Initiative First and Free Market looking for a Treasury "mistake" to turn into an issue, it is something that could potentially become much more significant. Although the Initiative has been actually spending the energy almost as fast as it has come in, the story has proven to have some play in the circles of public opinion.
[ ] Chicago Planned City (Phase 3)
With GDI's ongoing development of Chicago, the next phase is likely to significantly increase total effective abatement as the more proximate Chicago means less wasted effort transferring Tiberium from the Red Zone to processing centers. The expansion will also entail a major expansion to the processing facility in order to cope with this increased throughput.
(Progress 225/360: 20 resources per die) (++ Housing, --- Labor, -- Logistics, --- Energy) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium) (+2 Red Zone Abatement, +2 Yellow Zone Abatement, +120 Tiberium Processing Capacity)
Significant progress has been made on the construction of Chicago this quarter. Between a series of new housing projects, and a number of significant upgrades to the processing plant, the city has seen its first permanent residents move in, along with its first restaurant. While it will likely always be a hardship posting to some degree, it is in the process of being transformed from a series of temporary facilities into a proper city, one that will provide for the needs of the population full time, rather than people being rotated back to safe Blue Zones regularly.
Environmentally, the Red Zone has been pushed back enough that Ion Storms have become significantly more rare, a weekly occurrence, rather than the daily cut off. However, some have begun wishing for the return of the storms, as they are less disturbing than the sonic booms of Apollos and Armageddons crisscrossing the airspace.
At the same time, the Brotherhood has stepped up harassment operations, primarily using long ranged aircraft. A number of Armageddon bombers have overflown the position. While they have been unable to make attack runs due to a constant Apollo presence, that has tied up multiple airbases in the region. While the Armageddon is an old bomber, with a notably light payload, it is also one of the longest ranged and best maneuvering heavy aircraft in NOD's arsenal. Generally able to insert and extract from contested airspace during the Third Tiberium War, they have become somewhat long in the tooth, and are no longer nearly as capable of doing incursions against GDI airspace.
With pushes into the Yellow Zones now taking and holding ground, GDI cannot afford to let up the pressure on either the Brotherhood or Tiberium. However, Chicago is secure enough and well positioned enough that it is not a particularly high priority overall. While a further wave of investment would help bring the critical tiberium processing infrastructure online, it is more a convenience than a requirement at this point.
[ ] Synchronized Cycle Fusion Plants
The next wave of fusion hardware is a series of synchronized cycle plants. Running either four or six fusion reactors in a synchronized cycle is a serious developmental step towards producing clean, universal power solutions, ones that will provide energy for the Initiative for decades to come.
(Progress 150/350: 20 Resources per Die) (++++ Energy) (High Priority)
While fusion is far cleaner than fission, and therefore safe enough to bring much closer to inhabited areas, it is not without its downsides. For one, while far safer than traditional fission reactors, it does unfortunately produce significant amounts of radiation. Even with the best confinement measures available, this means that a fusion reactor needs just as much plating and containment as a standard fission design, especially since the Brotherhood of NOD has a tendency to target civilian energy systems as part of any major attack.
So far, construction has focused on these large scale containment systems. A number of complexes spread around the world's blue zones have been constructed. While none of them have actual fusion components installed, the containment structures are mostly complete, only requiring some post installation anti tampering measures to be finalized. Each is between two and four times the size of an equivalent wattage of fission plants, a result of each of the units having its own separate containment cell. This is because a synchronized plant has four to six independent units, each of which is up to a maximum of eight hours in any given day. This gives the plants significant surge capacity, but at the cost of being down for the next few days for repairs, especially because the connection to the grid is not designed for that kind of surge. (although standard overbuilding means that it mathematically should be able to handle it.)
With this project well underway, calls have already begun to rework plans for yellow zone power generation, as these systems are seen as a good solution to the previous problems of high density generator systems, specifically that they require a lot of effort to do more than be a localized pile of radioactive waste.
[ ] Kure Machine Works:
While most of the other proposed sites for capital goods production are focused on older, simpler tooling to replace lost equipment or supply the civilian market, Zone Blue-6 has presented a plan for replacing highly automated and ultra-high precision 3D printing methods like vapor deposition, laser sintering, and other techniques. While this will demand additional computing resources, the facility will replace some of the harder to make equipment.
(Progress 322/280: 15 resources per die) (++ Capital Goods, --Labor --- Energy) (High Priority)
Kure has begun serious production. While so far the outputs have a cost drastically out of scale compared to the required inputs, between costs, labor, and ongoing energy supply, it is also quite interesting. Take for example a standard triangular bracket. With most technologies, it requires either an expensive to start up stamping, a milled bracket where the chronic tradeoff is between time to produce and the weight of the item. With Kure's additive manufacturing base, that bracket can be made far cheaper, because not all parts of the reinforcement are created equal. Some parts are absolutely vital, while others can be skeletonized to the extreme, or even omitted entirely. Additionally, Kure's methods are extremely agile. Rather than a single unit making a single part, with the right programming, each unit can make a mix of components so that there is absolutely minimal amount of wasted time.
While long term, this is not quite the future of Initiative design in all likelihood, it is almost certain to be one part of it. Kure derived machines are going to be used to create specialized and limited run parts, while the screws, nuts, bolts, and bars are made more conventionally. In combination, multiple methods can each play to their strengths. Conventional designs can be used for true mass production of simple components, while additive manufacturing can cut down on weight without losing strength, and integrate complex components into a single coherent whole.
[ ] Chemical Precursor Plants
While Tiberium and greenhouses can provide many of the chemicals needed for both day to day living and industrial needs, there are many chemicals, such as ethylene, propylene, nitric acid, sulphuric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and a wide selection of others that are important in everything from body armor to storage vessels, to medication. By building large chemical plants around the world, many of these can be produced and shipped more cheaply than doing small scale production on site.
(Progress 238/200: 15 resources per die) (++ Capital Goods, -- Energy)
Similarly, another capital goods infusion has come from the Chemical Precursor plants. While not nearly enough to supply even a tithe of the Initiative's total needs, it adds on to it in a noticeable way. Many of the more minor facilities have had their own chemical works packed up and transitioned or centralized so that critical locations have an uninterruptible supply, while they make do with regular shipments. While the facilities had begun to degrade after years of neglect, surging funding has brought them online and are now fully staffed, ready to be handed off to the chemical directorate that will run day to day operations. While the precursor trucks themselves are an inviting target, they are almost entirely kept deep in the blue zones, rather than being shipped forward.
In terms of use, much of the output has gone towards a variety of polymer and chemical supplies. Things like solvents, peroxide solutions for cleaning and sterilizing surfaces, and the like, mainly in the smaller chemical works that had proliferated before the Third Tiberium War. Many had been privately owned, and either collapsed or were nationalized during the long crisis of the war years. These have been generally built near cities and primarily served the needs of local cities, minimizing the overall demand for logistics.
[ ] Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 3)
With initial production already starting, the macrospinner needs to be severely scaled up in the coming quarters as current production is far from enough for any serious attempt to use myomers across the broad swathes of Initiative industrial and military needs.
(Progress 61/360: 20 resources per die) (++ Capital Goods, + Energy) (Reduces cost of mech projects) (High Priority)
The Johannesburg facility was the site of an attempted attack this quarter. A number of NOD Shadow teams attempted to break in and deliver bombs to a number of critical areas. The attack began shortly after midnight on 19 May, when two teams hit the substation providing power to the facility. Around 0045, four more teams hit the southern outer perimeter, punching through between patrols, and entering the facility proper by 0055. At that point, the military QRF and police SWAT units were already en-route. However, the Shadow teams had mistimed their approach by a matter of minutes, and were caught out by one of the guard patrols on the inner perimeter, who ordered a lockdown of the facility. While the patrol, and two others that responded, were wiped out by the teams, their sacrifice had delayed the infiltrators enough that they could not abort or carry out their mission. Choosing instead to try to fight their way out, they engaged the SWAT team in a short but brutal firefight, where they were buried under the sheer weight of fire that an effective mechanized platoon could provide.
While medals have already been awarded to the dead, and care for their next of kin already being provided, there is little that the Treasury can do at the moment, as many of these are in the jurisdiction of another department. With ratcheting up of pressure, attacks like this are likely, and the Initiative has been very fortunate that the first attack did no serious damage. While it took some time to restart production and continue the expansion work after the attack, it is fortunate that the first known attack of this type since the war was as much of a failure as it was. The teams that infiltrated were carrying enough explosives that, if placed correctly, could have effectively ruined the facility, requiring weeks to restart production at all, and likely months before full operations could resume.
[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 4)
While existing harvesting operations are at their limit, a new wave of harvesting bases, deep in the yellow zones, can continue expanding our influx of Tiberium. While these will require a substantial security detachment to maintain, and the establishment of a number of new convoy routes, the military has come around on these projects recently as they can serve as base camps for continued operations against the Brotherhood of NOD.
(Progress 130/300: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (4 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation) (High Priority)
GDI has also begun pushing once more into the Yellow Zones for the first time in years. Armored assault columns are paving the way for more harvesting. While so far, operations have not ranged particularly far from the blue zones, NOD resistance has already begun to stiffen substantially. One of the more major conflicts has been in the cities outside of Arkhangelsk, where forces under General Krukov have engaged GDI in a number of tank skirmishes. So far the conflicts have been distinctly small scale, the largest being roughly three companies including all GDI and NOD forces involved. Elsewhere, the new offensives have generally involved large scale skirmishing, and artillery exchanges. Typically this has been using Specter batteries and prepositioned spotter and beacon combinations to fire a salvo of shells and then scoot away before GDI's own artillery park can rain shells on the point of origin. While it seems likely that NOD have generally gotten the better of these fights, they have been unable so far to actually stop or significantly slow Initiative efforts around the globe.
The first phase of construction efforts have also begun. So far the only things built have been temporary base complexes, each serving multiple roles. So far, GDI has only found relatively small numbers of potential refugees, as the area so far covered has already been substantially depopulated by previous refugee columns headed for the terminus cities. Future quarters are likely to see new populations moving towards the Initiative, especially once the overall situation is more stable.
[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7)
While preparations are complete to drive another spear into the depths of the Red Zones, current military demands make that impossible. Fixing those problems will allow a further development immediately, and open future projects.
(Progress 130/130: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle [10-20 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation)
In a statement of the military's renewed confidence, one of the first acts this quarter was to drive south, into the Italian Red Zone, over the same territory where nearly two years ago the forward elements of a similar drive were destroyed. Today, when Reynaldo's men and women tried to do the same thing, they were met with a rain of shells and fast moving Zone Armor forces cutting apart formations as they moved towards the jumping off points.
Behind them, engineers have cut a rail line forward, dotting their flanks with outposts. Late in the quarter, the teams reached the glacier face. While the resources to do more than establish some forward observation positions were not available, another glacier mine can be constructed in the coming quarters.
[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 3)
Fully replacing the Forgotten in some areas will require a substantial additional investment. However it will also do far more to contain the spread of the Red Zones, by intensifying both GDI and the Forgotten's harvesting efforts.
(Progress 434/180: 25 resources per die) (254/180, 74/180) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (High Priority)
This quarter has seen the return of GDI investment into the Red Zones. While not quite the absolute maximum effort possible, the surge of investment made waves around the world. Gideon ranted and raved from his Appalachian bunker complex, declaring that "The Infidels and the Heretics have continued to defile the purity of Tiberium. Fighting the future. Fighting the Vision! It is a futile exercise, but one that must be stamped out!" While Gideon tried, he has so far failed to actually inflict meaningful damage on any of the major positions inside his claimed territory.
Other warlords have seemed to adopt a strategy of avoidance. Allowing GDI to shoulder the costs of protecting them against encroaching Tiberium while using that presence to shore up their support in the face of the "great enemy." Reynaldo for example has spent the lives of some of the traditionally more important groups freely, while husbanding his own resources safely in the European Yellow Zones.
In terms of actual practical effect, at this point the containment lines, rather than being a real continuation of GDI's deals with the Forgotten are a majority GDI affair, with the Forgotten being beneficiary subjects in all but name, covering short stretches of territory alongside Initiative harvesting teams.
It would have been a sight to see, no matter the era. A testament to how much the GDI has grown. Not even my predecessors could have envisioned something like this. We had more before, but ZOCOM had never truly gotten the grand share of funding, not with all the directions in which the GDI was torn with. But Granger had been the visionary, who found that he had need for us, in a way disproportionate compared to his predecessors. To serve as the GDI, to put the world under an aegis of order.
And so we marched, and what a sight it was. I was lucky enough to be out of rotation at Lisbon HQ and I had the timing to watch the muster proceed in full. I watched as the digital screens captured the sight of my fellows throughout the world. From frigid Vladivostok to balmy Adelaide, they muster in raiments of metal amalgam, ready to ward the sonic lines in full. In Viña del Mar, a Battalion readied themselves for a shuttle through the Mar de Grau to assist Sayın Escoffier. In Fort Wayne, two more already marched for Chicago. All across the world, in dots of green and blue, two Corps of Zone Troopers strides forth. And we shall not be found wanting.
— Excerpt from "Memoirs of Global Defenders" (2060), attributed to SFC Cennet Melitta
[ ] Gravitic Drive Development
The Scrin gravitic drives have proven to be particularly interesting. Rather than being reaction drives, keyed off of mass, they seem to be volumetric and geometric, with the positions of drive nodes being the critical factor. However, they have reached a point where a development push is required to bring them to being something of science fact, rather than science fiction
(Progress 20/60: 30 resources per die)
This quarter has been a frustrating one for the development teams, with some working on the ground and others doing much of the assembly up on GDSS Enterprise. The first test ship, an automated drone craft, tore itself apart for unknown reasons seconds after the command for it to begin powering up the drive system. The problem seems to have been the geometry, however the number crunching is not yet completed for a full understanding of the flaws in the system. At the same time, the minimum safe distance for the Leopard carrying the observation team turned out to be not quite minimum enough, with about 50 centimeters of wingtip being sheared off as the test ship destroyed itself. While both parts of the Leopard have been recovered, and there have been no casualties among any of the participants, it is a warning that this is a dangerous step into the unknown.
With the need for a new testbed prototype and further funding for predictive modeling for the program to better understand the geometric constraints of the system, a further round of major funding is required.
[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3)
With the largest and easiest of the Philadelphia remnants cleaned up, GDI must now begin to deal with the massive numbers of small fragments, ranging from lost tools and bolts, to shards of solar panels and swarms of rounded fragments from destroyed satellites.
(Progress 222/90: 15 resources per die) (132/90; 42/90) (Opens new Space Projects) (25-30 resources) (Fusion)
Rather than working on space stations, this quarter the vast majority of the fusion launches have been oriented towards continuing cleanup efforts. A final major round, for now at least, of unmanned scrap collectors have finished stripping the debris clouds from a number of the remaining major pieces of the Philadelphia, and damaged or destroyed satellites as the debris created a kessler cascade across the orbitals. Following on from the stripping, the last of the Philadelphia remaining in orbit has been brought in for processing. Critical historical components have been reserved, while the rest has been reprocessed for use in the new station.
As part of this, a pair of old NOD stealth satellites, now clearly defunct, have been captured. From their power systems, they seem to have been pre First Tiberium War, launched on a commercial rocket that did not pay close enough attention to what precisely they were launching. Tracing back to the original launch it was a series of 1996 Delta 1 launches from an American company. Officially the two were part of a constellation of 16 secure communications satellites for a private military company, and the stealth features were a piece of paranoia on the part of the group's owner. In point of fact, the PMC was a Black Hand front organization. While they had been defunct for decades at this point, and completely useless from an intelligence standpoint, they are historically interesting, and a warning of how thoroughly NOD had managed to infiltrate the pre Tiberium societies. Even the rich and powerful could be subverted.
[ ] Game Development Studios
The private market has begun a thriving market in independent video games. However, none have offered an upmarket game experience along the lines of those that existed before the Third Tiberium War. By forming and reforming a constellation of large scale game developers, GDI can begin providing that kind of experience once more, in more consumer friendly packaging.
(Progress 330/300: 5 Resources per die) (+++ Consumer Goods)
Sixty new game development studios, from Westwood in the California Blue Zone, to Criterion in the UK have been formed. Each bears the name of a widely beloved studio that had folded in the decades since the fall of Tiberium. While none have yet released a game, many are excited about the possibilities. However, some games that have just recently been proposed have been nearly universally panned, such as Direct and Destroy 4. Similarly, Half Life 3 (now the ninth game in the Half Life franchise) has been announced, leading to a round of jokes about cursed titles and Valve being unable to count to three. Most of the games are expected in two to three years, but some are likely to take longer. Producing a modern game is a complicated affair, and will take longer than a couple of quarters.
Looking at the reactions to the proposed games, there are some clear trends. While shooters have remained in a strong position, the realistic modern military shooter has all but died as a trend. Instead, most are lighter, more colorful, and do not even have pretensions of realism. For Driving games, the tendency is heavily historically inspired, with a first golden age in the 1930s and 40s, and a second in the 1970s and 1980s.
Long term, these game studios are directed towards building engines and tools rather than constantly publishing games. With the overall market constantly growing, having tools freely and easily available to anyone who wants to make a game is one tool to ensure that anyone who wants to try to make a game can. Similarly, these games studios will be publishing all or nearly all of their assets for free.
[ ] Vaccine Development Programs
While GDI has few major problems with infectious disease, keeping on top of the problem has its own advantages, especially with the strategic aim towards expanding Initiative influence in the Yellow Zones, and keeping in practice with modern vaccine technology.
(Progress 154/150: 25 resources per die) (++ Health)
There have been few truly novel diseases since the end of the 20th century. While viral outbreaks were a key part of making the overall situation worse before the second tiberium war, the time since then has seen the Initiative redress those problems. However, this has not meant that GDI has been lax in its vaccination campaigns. For the Initiative, vaccination is one of its best weapons against bioterrorism and biowarfare, and, with ever more of the human population living in relatively sterile cities that concern has become ever greater. Without vaccines, even a basic wild virus can rip through a GDI population in short order. While things like quarantines, lockdowns, and other means of combating the spread of disease are known and accepted, few are as effective as vaccination.
This has led to a fairly draconian policy on vaccination. While legitimate medical exemptions are rare, testing is commonplace, and aside from some limitations (like not being able to serve in much of the medical field due to not qualifying as frontline staff) it is broadly accepted that some people are not going to be able to get vaccinated. Unwillingness to be vaccinated is far less accepted. Typically, the only two options are vaccination or most social environments being varying degrees of closed off. To take influenza for example, while it has not yet been wiped out, a statistically insignificant number of cases are actually lethal or require more than basic measures. While some of it is a result of actually emphasizing cleaning and mask wearing, part of it is also the near universality of vaccination.
One of the few really serious concerns for the Initiative at this point is biowarfare. While neither side of the conflict has yet seriously uncorked that particular genie, it is a lasting concern, especially with operations planned before the fall of Tiberium in mind. One proposal as potential preparation, although it has never really gained traction, has been conducting biowarfare using intentionally "safed" pathogens, ones that are intentionally low lethality and possible to effectively contain and exterminate. However, beyond the problems of effective containment, there are also the medical and governmental ethics problems of infecting one's own population, hence why it has never gone beyond vague proposals and some graduate theses. However, the idea has also never died, as it reflects the severe concerns of GDI's medical establishment about the continued strength and good function of human immune systems.
[ ] Reclamator Fleet YZ-5a
Wth the hub completed, there are three good options for the fleet.
-[ ] Super MARVs
An improved model, conceptualized after examining the destruction of MARVS before and during the Third Tiberium War, the Super MARV is substantially more expensive, but offers equally improved rewards
(progress 291/210: 20 resources per die) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
Over the beach capability is something that GDI has honed for a very long time. In the First Tiberium War, hovercraft served in every theater, providing vital support and supplies to forces across the world. In the years after the Second Tiberium War, the first ship of GDI's new navy was a hovercraft, designed to deliver a third generation Mammoth Tank across most bodies of water in the world, although the oceans themselves can be a bit much. This quarter, that capability came in very handy. With NOD poking at the isolated base, the Navy took one of its few carriers, and a half dozen escorts, plus two battalions of naval infantry and surged them towards the Colombian Red Zone. Bypassing the Hub's overstressed cargo handling system entirely, the forces landed unopposed, bringing hundreds of tons of shells, and over a thousand tons of spare parts to the defenders, plus enough water purification and medical supplies to squash the disease outbreak.
With the Favela in the hands of the Navy, the MARV hub was free to bring in the last wave of equipment in, most importantly the main guns for the MARV fleet. When NOD forces decided to make their move, it was a clash of the titans. A Redeemer, brought out as a weapon of terror and a mark of NOD's power, along with two companies of good quality dual laser Avatar walkers and a further three of Purifiers, along with what is estimated at a full division of assorted Brotherhood armored and infantry forces. Facing them was a full dozen Super MARVs, rushed into service, alongside an effective brigade of GDI forces, the vast majority of which was ZOCOM. The result was a one sided slaughter, with the Redeemer falling in the largest open field battle fought since the assault on Cheyenne Mountain.
Surviving NOD forces retreated south, including the surviving company and a half of Avatars that were not committed to the fight. While NOD's internal politics are always somewhat inscrutable, there has been a reshuffling of insignia across Stahl's territories, with more indications of Stahl centralizing power under himself.
[ ] Ablat Plating Deployment (Phase 3)
GDI's military has continued finding more places that it wants ablative plating than there are available stocks of ablative plating, especially now with Ground Forces now wanting to reequip itself with Zone Armor. Yet more development is needed, especially more carbon nanotubes.
(Progress 245/200: 10 resources per die) (Very High Priority)
With this phase, Ablat plating has begun to become available to non ground forces units. While currently only a small sliver of production is available, it has already begun to find uses. While both the Steel Talons and ZOCOM have made general conventional use of the material, they have both found interesting offset uses. For ZOCOM they have begun redistributing it from vehicles to infantry, with few going out into the field without at least one pauldron or their torso plate being covered with ablat pucks. With no standard pattering, they have been finding it to significantly increase survivability. For the Talons, they have begun experimenting with scatter pattern placements, usually 1 to 3 scatters that provide partial protection against lasers and allow far more coverage overall. Especially as a mech has much more play in its movement, with a standard mech stride moving the center of mass up to half a meter in all three planes, total coverage is much less of a requirement. While they still armor the crew compartment the most heavily, it has meant that the Talons can provide better protection to more units than they otherwise would have been able to. The Navy has begun using it on the turret fronts of its railguns, and around command centers to provide just as little extra protection. Even some small shipments of a few thousand pucks have been sent to the Forgotten. While little more than a token amount of protection, it is one more element in reinforcing the alliance. They have begun using it on their civilian armored busses and other vital population and economic vehicles.
Politically this also marks the completion of the Treasury's commitments to the military in terms of specific new technological and material deployments. The Militarists especially, but to a lesser extent the other parties, are currently waiting with bated breath to see what the long term results of this are. While some expect Granger to once more reorient away from the military, most of the betting has suggested that a high level of investment is likely to be continued, although with more attention being diverted to economic buildup. While some in the Militarist party have been passing around a letter of demands, including maintaining a high level of military spending, Al-Jilani has quietly suggested patience, and has worked to draft a joint letter with the Developmentalist and United Yellow List parties.
[ ] Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards
Rebuilding some of GDI's battleship docks into half sized cruiser sections will save on resources, however they will require major investments in capital goods. These yards will take some significant time to begin major developments however, with a cruiser taking months to construct, and longer to fit out for service. (Very High Priority)
- [ ] Durban (Progress 148/200: 20 resources per die) (- Capital Goods, -- Energy, - Labor)
The Governor Class, much like the prior battleships and carriers, are nuclear powered. Nuclear propulsion dates back to the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) in 1955 for submarines and the Soviet icebreaker Lenin, first built in 1959. In terms of surface warships, the first nuclear powered version was CGN-9 Long Beach. In 1964, Long Beach, along with the USS Bainbridge, and the carrier USS Enterprise, conducted a circumnavigation of the globe, maintaining an average speed of 25 knots and covering over 48,000 kilometers in 58 days, without resupply. In a modern context, this is a vital capability, as the pointilist empires constructed by Britain, the United States, and other major imperial powers have effectively collapsed. In its place are a series of vital nodes that need defending, but each is incapable of supporting the others without the ability to sail at high speeds around the world, fight a battle once there.
While nuclear propulsion has been tried for over a hundred years, it has never been nearly as major a part of naval shipbuilding as it is today. Throughout the late 20th century and early 21st century, naval shipbuilders relied on relatively cheap marine diesels and high efficiency gas turbine engines to keep costs down. For the Initiative, this is not really an option. With most of the world's fuel oils consumed by Tiberium either directly or indirectly, nuclear was one of the few remaining options. While biofuels and kerosene alikes are produced, and in large amounts for everything from jet engines and rockets to helicopters and tanks, it is not produced in nearly the quantities needed for a global navy. A single ship can burn thousands of tons of fuel during a cruise, enough to power entire armored divisions for days on end.
The Governor class uses a pair of pebble bed reactors. Using uranium graphite spheres and a nitrogen coolant, these are fairly stable gas cooled reactors, and more importantly are very simple in operation. While both can be assigned to propulsion if needed, under combat circumstances, one is used for the sensors, point defense, and railguns while the other provides for maneuver. The same make and model (just in much smaller number) as the ones found on the battleships and carriers, the primary sticking point for the Durban yard has been changing over the fittings to connect the reactor system to the control units in the CIC. While not a particularly major problem, it is one that will require a further infusion of resources to fix.
[ ] Titan Mark 3 Deployment
With the Mark 3 ready to be rolled out en masse, the primary remaining requirement is to refit the production lines towards the new unit. While many components have stayed the same, others must be replaced entirely, and whole sections of the line are now obsolete or obsolescent. This requires a major work through of the entire production system.
(Progress 231/175: 10 resources per die) (-- Energy) (High Priority)
The dreams of mechanical fighting creatures are old. In 1880, Jules Verne wrote La maison à vapeur, or in english, The Steam House. In it, a steam powered elephant hauls a pair of mansions on wheels around India in the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Rebellion. In 1897, War of the Worlds saw alien tripod fighting machines destroy Britain. However, practical walker development would wait for the 21st century. In the aftermath of the First Tiberium War, the X-O power suit proved the practicality of limbed locomotion, and from that GDI began developing what would become the Titan and Wolverine walkers. First seen on the battlefields in the late 2020s, they would soon replace conventional tanks in service across GDI's frontline units, although second line units would not replace their medium tanks until the introduction of the MBT-5 Bull and MBT-6 Predator by the early 2030s.
The initial version of the Titan was quite a capable unit, able to outrange and outshoot most NOD base defenses and almost any Brotherhood unit of the same era. However, it proved to also be something of a hangar queen, with the legs providing near constant problems, and readiness rates for most units equipped with them being far below the Initiative's needs. In the aftermath of the Second Tiberium War and the Firestorm crisis, the Titan Mark 2 was developed as a successor, carrying over the range and accuracy of its predecessor, while also being used as a testbed for new technologies. The most critical of these was the development of the railgun, alongside lightweight engines and advanced articulation. While today, these technologies have proliferated across the Initiative, by the early 2040s, they were the exclusive domain of the Steel Talons.
The deployment of the new Mark 3 has been fast, with changeovers in production taking under a month from halting the line section to restarting it for LRIP on the new models. The key in this has been the ability to stage sections and materials before beginning the project. With ever more capital goods production becoming available, GDI can afford to allow days or even weeks of production to sit idle while the full complement is ready, rather than trying to push it into service in stages. By the end of the plan, the last of the second generation Titans will have been retired, and a steady flow of new third generation models will be available for testing and strategic purposes.
One of the Initiative's classic white whales has been the tactical ion cannon. While a practical version code named Avalon was built shortly after the first Tiberium War, it was too expensive, too limited, and too heavy for general deployment. While the Talon's do not believe that they can make a functional shoulder mounted design, they do want to try for a vehicle weight version. While full functionality is unlikely, it is a common enough project that has often provided some insights into applied high energy physics.
[ ] Expand Strategic Planning Apparatus
With the many aims of the Initiative, being able to effectively plan in advance is a requirement. While this will inherently require substantially more resources to be allocated towards this planning, it will also provide more information on longer term project requirements.
(Progress 252/100) (--- Capital Goods)
Strategic planning has been a critical flaw in centrally planned economies for as long as they have been tried. The Soviet Union encountered severe calculatory bottlenecks, leading to widespread corruption and the eventual collapse of the system. While in the modern day processing power is relatively cheap, bringing enough hardware to predict the interactions of thousands of projects across millions of square kilometers of the Earth's surface, requires multiple supercomputer clusters just to construct an applicable model in a reasonable amount of time.
While calculation is a critical component, there are several others. First is that the entire system needs far more and better data than current methods can supply. While the sentiment dates back at least to Charles Babbage, the first time the phrase "Garbage In Garbage Out" appeared was in 1957, nearly a century ago, and is still just as true as it was in the pre Tiberium age. Without having a detailed and accurate dataset to feed to even the most powerful computers, the other part is to ensure that the data is as accurate and clean as possible. Second, is trust. Both trust in the people and trust in the system. Both are critical elements, because without trust any system will begin to be fed garbage, which will in turn produce garbage. Similarly, without trust in the people, the system becomes not a tool of planning, but a tool of oppression, a means to force pegs of all shapes and sizes into the square holes cut for them.
While the total results are likely to be more iterative than truly revolutionary, they represent a massive investment into the good running of the Initiative, and will have a lasting impact on future projects, built with the strategic minds in place.
Battle of Hub YZ-5a
Dr. Emiliana Campoy
Today in breaking news has been the battle of the Yellow Zone 5a Hub. I was on site as a medical practitioner helping with the outbreak there. Only really heard and felt the battle itself. The Sonic Cannons on those MARVs are loud. Well, I knew they were loud, but we felt it in our bones, even here. Good thing we were not doing surgeries that day. My hands were shaking like leaves by the end of it.
But at the end of the day, they tried, they failed, and I am on a ship in dock in a blue zone ferrying a load of refugees for a better life with the Initiative.
Solan
The work for those in the MARV hubs is never done. I was on site to prepare the final construction of the MARVs for YZ-5a. It was deemed by the officials in Manchester to be prudent to finish it because of the sporadic attacks in the region. Oh boy, we didn't know there already was a battle happening when we entered the hub. You can see many engineers working double time to finish the giant Tiberium harvesting platforms to destroy those nearing mechs. Thank God for the Navy making sure Nod can be kept at bay while we finish the MARVs. I can tell it was grim before the resupply with the commander reporting a nearly empty shell load and food for the favelas reaching a critical low don't let me even tell you about the kludged together facilities they built. The pilots for the MARVs also weren't there yet finishing their training certifications. Fortunately all MARV engineers are capable pilots so it was good firing at those Nod mechs. Almost lost some good friends there but with that and Chicago it will never be a boring day.
FloatingWood
Wasn't there a slum build around the hub? I hope they got out okay. Civilians caught between two armies tends to result in lots of very dead civilians.
TrueBlue
Wonderful. Another boatload of sellouts crawling in to get Dr. Granger's latest handouts and prizes for licking Kane's boots. Will he learn his lesson when they bite the hand that fed them? Of course not.
God, every day the Initiative just gets worse and worse.
Accomplishing Providence
#FloatingWood, "slum" is perhaps a bit harsh on the one hand, but on the other, "favela" is a localized word for a particular type of "slum". So make of that what you will. It sounds as if they were able to pull the civilians inside the perimeter of the actual hub-base during the fight?
Ormond2020
#TrueBlue Hey man, be careful typing so fast, I can hear you huffing and puffing from here, you useless sack of shit, hey mods, punish me for telling the truth if you want, but I'm sick of these IF freaks ruining the forums, how about you do your goddamn job, they're almost as corrosive to the GDI as the actual Noddies
FloatingWood
#AccomplishingProvidence, I hope that the next hub that goes up in the Yellow Zone takes the refugee matter into account from the get go. I mean, I get not wanting to let just anyone into the secured facilities, but surely a ditch and berm to form an outer perimeter refugees can hide behind isn't too much to ask for? All you'd need is a backhoe (goddamnit English, figure out whether you stick words together or not) or bulldozer to get it done. Some soldiers with entrenching tools in a pinch.
TrueBlue
#Ormond2020
At least Initiative First hasn't forgotten that GDI is supposed to fight the ones who let civilization burn for the sake of an alien crystal fetish, not reward them.
Solan
#TrueBlue Please do not generalize the Yellow Zoners on people working for YEARS with them. It has taken a lot of our time to actually talk to them and say they aren't going to be shot the moment they enter the border. Because we're not Nod and those bastards would rather turn you into a cybernetic monstrosity than help you if they think they could get away with it. While I wait for my next deployment after the battle let me just say that if you say something about leaving one of the last holy sites of the Abrahamic faiths to die might leave you some irrecoverable wounds because we are doing some work on outreach in holy sites now.
ProfCollingsworth
Well, from what I've heard, this probably wasn't intended to bait NOD into attacking, but we probably won't know for sure for a few decades. That said, I am glad that GDI was able to get the fleet operational in time to mount a successful defense.
#TrueBlue You seem to be forgetting that, for decades, the effective policy of GDI has been to provide minimal support, if that, to people whose only crime is to not live in a Blue Zone. For all that I appreciate all that GDI has done, I am not blind to its faults. Or at least, I try.
AccomplishingProvidence
#FloatingWood oh you're not wrong about needing to plan better in the future. It just seems that this was very unexpected compared to reactions when the other Hubs went online? Perhaps due to the location of this hub. More isolated, near the sea, and so on? It sounds as if the Navy is working to build a strong presence as well, which only bodes well for those seeking the protection under the aegis of GDI's metaphorical wings.
#Solan the stories trickling out of the area around Mecca are truly soul-heartening to read and hear. If you are working there now, please keep up the good work, and pass on the thanks of mankind to your fellow workers.
BummerZoom2
#ProfCollingsworth From what I've heard, Granger and Granger were planning this surprise turnabout since last year. Rumor is InOps has had their fingers all over YZ-5a even before it was finished construction; if you read between the lines there's a lot of unusual details about all the supposed delays that have been obscured.
SoLone34
Speaking of work that far out, I heard that the Red Zones actually shrank this month, is that true?
MikoNyan
#SoLone34 Looking at Granger's Doomwall, yeah, it has. Not much, but we are finally making progress. Feels like more than rearranging the deck chairs at this point.
AccomplishingProvidence
#MikoNyan I have to wonder, does the entire office stop working for a few moments while The Doomwall is updated?
MikoNyan
#AccomplishingProvidence Not really anymore. First few times were dramatic, but it gets updated so often nowadays that we would not be getting anything done if we had to check The Wall, every time it updated.
AccomplishingProvidence
Entirely fair, #MikoNyan. Was mostly just an amusing thought about the potential melodrama. We all need a bit of fun melodrama in our lives, or they'd be unbearable under the weight of the world's woes.
YellowZon3r
So, here's the thing. And it's something you won't hear me say often. But good work GDI. It's… they went to a whole other continent, helped a bunch of people who needed help. Protected them, and got shot at for trying to do the right thing. I live in a lighter yellowzone, a green zone if that term ever picks up. And for all the shady shit GDI has pulled in the past, today was one of the first times I was proud to call myself a GDI citizen. When Nod started pushing back GDI committed to defend my fellow yellowzoners. And I hope they're happy in GDI I really do.
FloatingWood
I'm curious, but does the Tiberium Department keep track of how much they expect to be able to drive back the damned crystal back per month? Because looking through the yearly reports to Parliament I get this weird sense that the department was expecting much more effectiveness in its abatement efforts than they are actually getting.
8c1DB00Tz
#FloatingWood
If you know where to look, there are statistics detailing the expected min and max level of growth, based on historical data, that more or less maps somewhat serendipitously to between 0 and 1% of the worlds land surface a quarter. There are also projections, though much harder to get access to, regarding how much the harvesting and defensive positions employed by GDI will impact the growth, but frankly I believe that model should have been thrown out several years ago, because it's been 'optimistic'.
Let me put it like this.
If the Good Doctor hadn't gone as hard on abatement as he has, or worse yet, if abatement had more or less fallen to pieces after Tib War 3?
I don't have access to the numbers from some of the earlier years, but...
Rough, back of napkin underestimate? World currently stands at roughly 14.34 BZ 27.85 YZ 57.81 RZ, in the alterverse where Granger the doc didn't come along and start mining like mad? You're looking at 3.39% BZ, 32.63% YZ and 63.98%RZ.
People seriously don't get it, because GDI and Granger are saving our asses, but they're also hiding how bad the problem really is. People joke about Grangers doom wall. Well it isn't a fucking joke. Initiative first should be lining up to kiss Grangers ass, because he's the only reason most of them have a Blue Zone to be high and fucking mighty about.
YellowZon3r
Yeah, initiative first aren't just pricks they're outright fucking wrong. Realpol for a second, all a yellow zone is, is the strip of land standing between the 'precious' blue zones and the deathworld red zones. Bluezoners bitching about refugee's and yellow zoners? I don't see any fancypants initiative first assholes out here putting in the work that we do.
Consumer Electronics Expo: Best and Worst
MikoNyan
Well, AAA is well and truly back. I can't think of any previous expo that had this consistency of good and interesting concepts. No real gameplay yet, just early pre alpha footage and some slideshows so far. Expecting more next year however.
So, the best:
Terra Nova Looks to be a colonization game focused on the solar system. Lots of emphasis on stations so far, with planetary and lunar colonies being a late game secondary affair. Lots of focus on top down command and building colonies that are reachable through chemical rocket trajectories.
StarFury XV You know it, you love it. Newtonian/Einsteinian starfighter combat with the classic fuel management system. Looks like fuel will be a fair bit tighter than XIV. Likely to be more missile dominated compared to the gunfights of most of the teen series so far.
Containment Gee, you think this one was made by a guy in the Treasury's Tiberium department? You manage one of the many GDI bases assigned to keep the green death crystal from spreading. Which from what's been shown and talked about, is far, far easier said than done.
Titan General A promising turn based strategy game set during the Second Tiberium War. The graphics are rather retro but the presentation was solid.
Bit and Chip: Tools of Construction Well this looks interesting. A mascot builder/shooter game focused around manipulating the battlefield for your advantage. Cute cat and robot pairing, with a construction gun as the primary draw. Throw down cover, build and repair vehicles and buildings, and a focus on system play rather than simply running and gunning like the previous entries.
Honorable Mention: Armor Superiority A game about commanding a Mammoth Tank in the 3rd Tiberium War. Now, I'm pretty sure that premise alone would create a fanbase even if the graphics and gameplay were trash, but everything looks solid so far. I'll keep an eye on it to see if it's just another drive tank and make things go boom game, or a hidden jewel.
And the Worst:
Direct and Destroy 4 Well, I don't know if the developers have ever seen Direct and Destroy before. But this crawler setup is just awful. Do not want.
HAVOK Looks to be a rather terrible and schlocky First Tiberium War shooter. Larger than life characters, one liners and blood and bits everywhere. For the 'maturity' value.
Days Past Looks like a throwback to pre Third War nostalgia games. We have enough of those already, and they were already past their prime anyway.
New Eden To be honest, the concept art looks rather slick, but there is something about the way it was presented with this 'shooter set during the Alien Invasion of Stuttgart' with 'visceral combat' and 'hard decisions' that are making me think this is going for shock value.
Autocracy While I know political games are all the rage currently it seems disappointing on how simplistic it is and well playing as a dictator is a dime and dozen now so it can get boring if they don't do some animated scenes. While reading the text can be interesting I can see it as a niche but the title seems to be very controversy inducing.
FloatingWood
Honourable Mention: Tiberium Cultivator. Basically a 'what not to do' when it comes to handling tiberium of any sort. There's some absolute wallbangers in there, I'm not sure anybody in the development team even read the manuals, or a short encyclopedia entry.
Or it's a double bluff and they read through the long, sordid history of industrial accidents and mishandling of tiberium causing disasters. Not sure yet.
LadiesMan47
#MikoNyan Are you stupid, Direct and Destroy 4 looks awesome. The IP has finally been returned into Westwood hands after EA nearly ruined it with DnD Rivals.
Born2Mine
I'm looking forward to Mountain Springs Vale. No tiberium and I can just farm like my grandad used to? Sounds relaxing when I'm back from a hitch in the red zones.
AccomplishingProvidence
Was Mister Parker the primary consultant for HAVOK? It certainly sounds as if he was providing direct input on it.
Titan General and Armor Superiority sound interesting, though. Strategy is, after all, the highest form of gaming, followed closely by complex driving/simulator games.
Jim Hackett (Education, Culture, and Sports)
Working on this year's Consumer Electronic Expo was a blast and even though we don't have a lot of games releasing yet be rest assured that in the coming years we will have more hands-on features, and release dates for most of the games coming out. We would also like to thank both the indie studios making new games and the old hands of the industry both East and West to provide their insight to the new generation.
One of the game collections DECS is providing for free is the Maker Collection, a series of game makers on different genres to help budding developers in their journey in the video games industry. These game makers come from the surviving companies pooling together their resources to provide a fun experience for makers and players alike. To submit your video game design please send it to the DECS game maker portal for everyone to play in this link bit.gdi/gamemakers
MikoNyan
#LadiesMan47 Rivals was mobile garbage. And you realize that New Westwood has literally three people in common with Old Westwood? And none of them were in particularly high positions in the studio?
LadiesMan47
#MikoNyan It's the spirit that counts, the new guys are a little ambitious, but they have been very communicative on their forum about their plans. If anything it can only be better than Rivals.
FloatingWood
I am finding the game about being a Scrin commander in remarkably bad taste. And I mean beyond 'this is an interesting idea done poorly', I mean the bit where the entire basis of the game is 'murder everybody'.
Also, I've heard our favourite Swedish grand strategy developer is working on a new version of Eagle and Scorpion, that is meant to stretch the timeline from the 1990's to the modern day.
MikoNyan
#LadiesMan47 Better than Rivals is a bar so low you can tunnel over it.
AgathaH
I'm hearing some good things about the new version of Gerbil Space Program. From what is available, the physics looks pretty good, both in terms of trajectories and thermodynamics. Those poor gerbils, though!
LastLizard
Personally I'm looking forwards to the new fishing simulator. It's been a while since we've had a good one. Titan General also looks like it will be fun, and I'm always down for a good RTS.
YellowZon3r
WillsofTitanium IV is going straight on my must have. Yes, the alt-history focus trees for GDI Blue zones are unrealistic. (United kingdom reinstating the monarchy and claiming france is downright silly at this point) But it's a cool what if. Forgotten in the middle of redzones forming a state that's too inhospitable for GDI or nod to claim without serious abatement efforts. Warlords splintering from the Brotherhood and creating their own new states or trying to claim the mantle of old states. Even things like richer blue zones, islands in particular leaving the GDI faction to remove the tax debuff that comes from supporting other blue zones. Just mwah, great military/economic/political/history strategy game.
FloatingWood
Now here's an interesting, if somewhat depressing one. Reclaimer, where you are a robot send from the far reaches of the solar system to reclaim the Earth from tiberium, many centuries after humanity died to the crystal and all that was left was a small collection of fully automated orbital mining and processing facilities.
#AgataH Come on, you know those gerbils enjoy it. Well, when things aren't actively exploding. Unless they are Badass, in which case, bring the explosions.
YellowZon3r
What is the state on AI's Actually? Because I know most computers can't run an actual combat AI since so often in many games the AI' has to cheat in the background through free resources or such to remain competitive but surely they can make a decent strategy opponent by now?
FloatingWood
As far as I know, that's more a thing to do with making an AI that offers a challenge to one player without completely styling over another. It's easier to just shove resources at an AI and let it play with that than it is to create an AI that can accurately gauge how good their human is and can tailor their playstyle to offer a beatable challenge.
Q2 2056 Results
Resources: 605 + 60 in reserve (15 allocated to the Forgotten) (20 allocated to grants)
Political Support: 55
Free Dice: 6
Fusion Dice: 6 (+1 per turn)
Tiberium Spread
14.79 Blue Zone
27.66 Yellow Zone (80 points of mitigation)
57.55 Red Zone (57 points of mitigation)
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: Significant Surplus (+15)
Energy: Marginal Surpluses (+1)
Logistics: Major Surpluses (+7)
Food: Marginal Surpluses (+5) (+4 stored)
Health: Substantially improved (+7)
Capital Goods: Significant Surplus (+3)
Consumer Goods: Meeting Demand (=)
Labor: Gargantuan Surpluses (+51)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (1255/1300)
Yellow Zone
Water: Limited Surpluses (+3)
Status of the Parties
(strong support, weak support, weak opposition, strong opposition)
Free Market Party: 125 seats (0; 25; 25; 75)
Market Socialist Party: 329 seats (150; 129; 35; 15)
Militarist: 237 seats (37; 160; 20; 20)
Initiative First: 178 seats (0; 2; 72; 104)
United Yellow List: 72 seats (57; 15; 0; 0)
Starbound Party: 153 seats (70; 81; 2; 0)
Socialist Party: 45 seats (30; 11; 4; 0)
Independents 12 seats
-Biodiversity Party (3 seats: Weak Support)
-Dominion Party (1 seat: Strong Opposition)
-Reclamation Party (5 seats: Weak Support)
-Homeland Party (3 seats: Weak Support)
Developmentalists: 649 seats (349; 200; 100; 0)
Military Confidence
Ground Forces : Decent
Air Force : Decent
Space Force : Decent
Steel Talons: Low
Navy: Low
ZOCOM: High
Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 9 points remaining
Consumer Goods: 3 points remaining (will complete)
Food: 21 (15) points remaining
MARV Fleets: 1 remaining
GDI Income: 25 remaining
Politics
The Developmentalist Party, the absolute dominant force in the GDI Parliament, has begun to creak. With the two key political foes, the Hawks and the Free Market Parties, having been dismembered and much reduced, the internal contradictions in the party have begun to show themselves.
For decades, the Developmentalists were able to paper over political differences because the main internal political problem for the Initiative was the question of military spending versus civilian development. While some parts of the party were Free Market supporters in all but name, and others fell across the center-left and even into the far left, they found common ground in the need to ensure that people could not only exist, but to thrive in a Post-Tiberium world. However, that common ground is far from being enough in an era when other pro civilian parties are ideologically more coherent than the big tent of the Developmentalists.
While currently, no clear leaders have emerged and no direction has been taken, the rumblings and creakings are obvious even to the less politically engaged. It seems likely that there will still be a Developmentalist party, but with many of the other parties weak, it is likely that both wings will shed membership. On the left to the Market Socialists and Socialists, and to the right the Free Market Party might well be consumed by former Developmentalists.
Brotherhood of NOD
Gideon has unveiled a pair of new weapons systems this quarter. First is what he has termed the Centurion. A smaller battlewalker than either the Avatar or Purifier, the Centurion carries a missile launcher in the left torso and an Avatar grade laser cannon in the right arm. The missile launcher has performance characteristics of a powered launch system, with four main cells, and firing a 6x50 centimeter rocket, using either fragmentation or incendiary warheads. While InOps estimates that between sixty and one hundred and twenty have been made, they seem to be an iterative upgrade on the existing systems rather than a revolutionary new design.
The other system is what Gideon calls a Cyberwheel Servitor, which is apparently some mad science creation using a badly damaged human body to control a fast unicycle tankette, somewhat along the lines of the Second World War era Keugelpanzer. Seemingly armed with a pair of low velocity 20-25mm autocannons, the tank will have difficulty penetrating anything in the Initiative arsenal heavier than a Pitbull.
Meanwhile, out of Joaquim Stahl's arsenal, a new warmachine has been rolled out.. Going by the designation 'Salamander', it is armed with a fixed gun. Though the weapon seems to fire conventional ballistics, it is extraordinarily volatile and an unusually dangerous showing. The times when struck by Firehawks or Orcas have left the vehicles rather thoroughly brewed up, leaving little more than a burnt-out husk for GDI to capture, if it left even that much. Its form factor suggests inspirations from the Hetzer or other Second World War casemate tank destroyers, although the armor is probably not much better. In terms of penetration, it has been able to penetrate all the way through a Guardian APC (at least on the short path) at ranges below 200 meters, while long range has not been demonstrated at this point.
In the air, GDI has seen repeated combat victories against the Lampades, while taking few losses in the air or ground against it. While its unusual maneuverability proved useful in its first excursions against the Initiative, GDI gunnery teams have been generally able to lay enough fire to bring down the aircraft during its attack runs. In the last month, the Lampades has apparently vanished. Likely a result of limited success, and high casualty rates, the aircraft proved to be less useful than Stahl wished. The Barghest however has become more common, now appearing in pairs. While still a distinctly rare occurrence, less than one percent of all NOD air contacts, they have begun operating more aggressively, even overflying GDI positions on two occasions. However, their greatest purpose has been as a threat in being. Rather than actually attacking Initiative formations in the air, their mere existence means that GDI cannot operate its own air forces freely. While an Apollo is generally nearly immune to the Barghest across most energy envelopes, able to break contact at will by simply climbing, the same cannot be said for the Firehawks, Hammerheads and Orcas that still form the bulk of the Initiative's combat air forces. Neither able to outturn or outrun the Barghest, they absolutely require aggressive escorts, meaning that neither the strike craft nor the Apollos can be operated to their best effect.
Russia
Nicholai Krukov is a former Russian Army officer. As the region collapsed in the lead up to the Second Tiberium War, he found his natural allies to be the Brotherhood of NOD. Naturally aggressive, many of his formations use as much captured GDI equipment as the Brotherhood's. But unusually among Brotherhood leaders, he is very willing to engage GDI head on, relying on combined arms and a secure base of operations to maintain his ability to do so.
In the Third Tiberium War, his columns drove as far as Helsinki before being driven back, punching through many of the same positions his ancestors had broken on over a century prior.
Based out of the Ural Mountains, his position is deep enough in the Yellow Zone that GDI has effectively no ability to actually reach out and touch him. Concerningly, while little is known about his bases, it seems highly likely that they are built around and into the mountains themselves, countering GDI orbital superiority.
In terms of personality, Krukov is notably stable as a NOD commander, having earned respect not through fear and intimidation, but through competent and effective leadership, on and off the battlefield. While his territory is large, he seems to have significantly less dissension than many other NOD commanders.
Food in the Initiative
Feeding the population has been a substantial problem for nearly every civilization and has been met with a number of different solutions. Under GDI, the emphasis has usually been on maintaining some forms of rationing and other mechanisms of enforced food distribution as part of a comprehensive welfare system. Ensuring that people eat well and regularly is one of the most efficient means of welfare, and one that translates well into wartime rationing. Taking inspiration from British wartime rationing systems, GDI's framework has been focused towards scalability, and has attempted to be unobtrusive enough to be maintained in times of relative peace, but can be expanded to meet demand during the hard times. Broadly speaking, there are two main elements to the system. The cafeteria, and the ration.
The cafeteria is one of the major tools of wartime rationing and peacetime welfare. More than nearly any other institution, the cafeteria, operated by the Initiative, offers standardized hot meals made with the best quality available to any and all that come through their doors. Adhering to the nutritional guidelines, a typical modern menu is a three-course meal. Generally, that means alternating between vegetable soups and salads made with available tender leafy greens for the first course. For the main meal, it is generally thought of as a protein (fungus bars, or fish most commonly), paired with two hot vegetables, and a starch-derived edibles. For dessert, whatever fruits are available are used, either cooked or raw, depending on the fruit. Typically this is industrially prepared food served at a price point competitive with, if not less than, fast food prices, depending on the total cost to produce. Even in times of peace, cafeterias are popular for the day to day meals of many families, especially those who have commutes or other commitments and want something healthy and filling to keep them going. With the latest Treasury scheme to involve ethnic cuisines and the relative surfeit of victuals, there has been a lobbying drive by the Department of Archive and History towards the Welfare Department to incorporate both traditional and fusion ethnic cuisines in the cafeteria schematics. The former had reasoned that with the continued drive towards YZ area, a more expansive and expensive cafeteria meal templates is a good tradeoff for a more thorough integration and propagandizing the virtues of the GDI.
Adding on to that is a commonly available ration of basic goods as part of the Initiative's welfare system. While rations are, at this point, usually available, that has not always been the case. It is floated at around the production price and is generally substantially more expensive. The system allows for a known amount of nutrition and essential goods to be acquired by everyone, while insulating the impact of uncertainty as it makes hoarding more difficult. Precisely what is covered by the Ration has typically depended on what goods the Initiative can make available to everyone. During the darkest days of the Third Tiberium War, the standard ration dipped as low as 1250-1500 calories per person per day in some areas. While incredibly bland and filled with starch and basic protein, the ration has kept people alive. Gone were those near-extinction days with the new rations system. Using physical credit books with digitized tracing methods through distribution centers, a GDI citizen can claim 1800-2100 calories worth of food per day. This new scheme allows previously impoverished Yellow Zone citizens to work through the day with moderate exertions, which is necessary considering the ever increasing need of bodies for Treasury's programs.
Shopping is typically done in two ways. For larger bulk items, shopping is a matter of either physical order forms or digital orders, which are then shipped to the local store for pickup. The latter method is how the ration is distributed. For smaller non-essential items, or other filler options that need to make it through the week for the next shipment, stores keep a small inventory stocked on the shelves. However, with the unreliable nature of post-War shipping, these small inventories are picked clean before the weekends arrive. Even now, most shelves are bare mere hours after a shipment arrives, as most GDI citizens opted to put themselves on a priority listing. The situation has started to change though, with deliveries coming in every day, with the warehouses and central distribution centers able to fill most orders within a few days at most.
Forgotten Typology
The Forgotten are a breed apart, both from humanity and from each other. Due to aversions regarding eugenics and invasive genetical surgery, it is unknown how much cross-compatibility there is between each typology and towards baseline humans themselves. What is known, however, is that there seem to be a number of phases to mutation and each has what seems to be its own set of advantages and problems. None of the following information is taken for a fact due to a combination of having only field observations rather than autopsies or invasive biopsy as well as rapid mutations to even Alpha Strains that obsoleted prior GDI knowledge. However, greater details than expected have been uncovered due to a push by the Department of Archive and History in part due to Secretary Bennett's anthropological focus towards the Forgotten.
Alpha Strain
The Alphas are the most human of the strains, and the earliest type of Forgotten to be recorded. In the early days after the First Tiberium War, it became clear that sustained overexposure causes the rock to grow on biological substance, forming a quasi-parasitic behaviour with human physiology to the point that even the air they expel from breathing contains trace amount of Tiberium particulates. While it is now known that these minute traces of Tiberium do not have the capacity to propagate into more of themselves, the defining moment for the Forgotten was when numerous screeds exclaimed that the Alphas are Tiberium vectors and super-spreaders. And in the chaotic years after the First Tiberium War and the relatively weak grip of the GDI, many governments worldwide began ostracizing the Forgotten, forcefully displacing and exiling them at best, and at worst- committing pogroms and execution orders. Though it would've been comforting to find that the misinformation campaign that started it all was an act by the NOD, newly unclassified records show that at best, NOD's involvement were marginal. In fact, several high-profile NOD sympathizers within the UN at the time advocated to cease the unfolding genocide since the start while the GDI had been internally torn by the matter, taking two whole years before they began deploying taskforces for peacekeeping operations and dispel the misinformation campaign. The damage had been done, however, and the Forgotten had made escape towards the Red Zone, where no xenophobic hatchetmen could reach them. This had led to their moniker, 'The Forgotten'. By now and in most parts of the world, Alpha strains have become increasingly rare, due to greater strides in environmental suit protection even for those living under NOD's auspice as well as continued exposure for those who had already been mutated advancing to the next strain.
The most well known example of Alpha strain Forgotten is Umagon, the commando in charge of the Forgotten during the Second Tiberium War. Appearance wise, their skin is marred by Tiberium crystals, but aside from such blemishes, they are clearly human at even a second and third glance. Physically however, they are capable of far more than their bodies would suggest, with Umagon being able to keep up the pace with the gruelling benchmark of the GDI Commandos. That someone who has not been fed and trained to the Commando's extent can keep up is a notable and admiring thing in of itself. Furthermore, collected testimonials and verifiable combat records have shown that while Umagon is on the ceiling of the Alpha's capacity for war, most trained Forgotten of this strain are benchmarked to endure all aspects of high-intensity combat to a degree that a third of GDI soldiery couldn't dream of reaching. No wonder then, that a great number of Alpha strain had sold their talents to both the GDI and NOD as small bands of specially trained mercenaries from the interwar period of the First and Second War, and well after Umagon's alliance with the GDI during the Second Tiberium War.
Beta Strain
Betas are the most common strain in the modern day. First recordings of Beta strains were, curiously enough, almost simultaneous throughout Forgotten communes worldwide, though none knew of this at the time. Various unproven hypotheses abound as to why this is the case. From reasonable theories such as a more subtle Tiberium mutation designed for humans to more fringe, almost conspiracy-theorist postulations that Kane is behind it, none can say for certain of the why. The what is well recorded however. Little different in size and stature to unmutated humans, the Betas are characterized best by large crystal growths, jagged protrusions rather than scarring marks of the Alpha strains. These crystalline tumors are removable and doing so are oftentimes necessary due to turning the organs beneath into Tiberium lumps, consigning them to death by organ failure. However, such surgical procedures leave the Forgotten in question enervated and incapacitated for several days on end. This is because above all else, the Beta Strain has unusually large reserves of stamina and regeneration that are derived from their jagged protrusions. Beta strains can draw energy from the Tiberium that surrounds them and into their less malignant tumours, fuelling their movement and removing their need for sustenance, though food and water is still preferable than not. This makes them the ideal miners and messengers for the Forgotten and GDI task forces, treading into lands with too few supply lines and perilous terrain. Though Beta strains are common, the population is noticeably trending down, being replaced by ever more Gammas. From observational demographics, turnover is almost certain to happen by 2060.
Gamma Strain
The appearance of Gamma strains were confusing at first. Originally, they were considered to be a 'stable' state of Tiberium-infused humans, born into the Post-Tiberium world rather than being mutated. This hypothesis was the working order for the GDI, until the defection of the Qatar Loyalist, specifically Lailah Al-Qawiya, who was once a Beta mutant. Continued exposure to deep RZ Tiberium, however, had progressed her mutation to this strain- though many of her fellow comrades hadn't. This is notable because physically speaking, and as befits Lailah's epithet "The Strong", Gamma strain mutants are hulking slabs of muscle. No longer do they have notable Tiberium protrusions and risk death from organ failures. Instead, both Tiberium and the body's physiology has adapted to one another, where flesh and bones and nerves are crystalized to a certain extent. This leads to a notable increase in both mass and height, with the average Gamma Forgotten reaching heights of over two meters tall and a significant minority, like Lailah, approaching the three metres ceiling and weighing at least one and half times more than an average human.
In combat training sessions between Zone Troopers and Gamma Forgotten, this led to them being able to outfight the former in a slightly-less-than-even record, where Troopers not equipped with Jump Jets simply unable to dodge out of the bursts of human movements, allowing the Forgotten to close in and pummel the Troopers down on their chest, restricting their ability get up simply through their mass. Live-fire combat records against the NOD has also shown that even Gamma noncombatants are able to shrug off the effects of concussive and explosive forces from Militant grenades and rockets, so long as they're not a direct hit. The trade off to this seems to be that they tire easily, with the hypothesis that the reservoirs of energy that Beta strains have are repurposed towards fuelling the catalytic process needed for Gamma Forgotten to live with their new condition.Most commonly, they have been found working for one side or another hauling around heavy weapons that would take two or three soldiers to operate. However, with the Washington Conference and the renewal of GDI's alliance with the Forgotten in mostly peaceful roles of Tiberium mining, the mercenary bands have almost entirely disappeared as mercenaries, with only a few rogue bands still serving in that role. That does not, however, mean that they have disarmed. Forgotten bands and tribes have seen a steady increase in armament over the last three years, one that can be primarily attributed to former mercenaries moving back home.
Delta Strain
The last strain known and recorded are the Deltas. Unlike other strains, which come as the result of both mutation and childbirth among the Forgotten, Deltas are almost certainly born out of Forgotten parents and this strain has only been recorded in the last two decades, with the oldest known turning twenty this year. While not as outwardly mutated as the Gammas and closer to Alphas in terms of appearances, their physiological makeup shows that the human anatomy and Tiberium have formed an almost perfect synthesis — or as some cautions, assimilation. Though they are no more durable or better physically than Alpha — which in itself an achievement — Deltas have been observed to show abilities more in common to pseudoscientific notions of psychic powers than anything else. While nothing so obvious as throwing fireballs or levitating objects has yet been documented, many GDI observers have reported that Deltas are uncommonly perceptive and know facts that they could not have otherwise known, suggesting abilities related to extrasensory perception (ESP) and degrees of limited clairvoyance, if not mind reading. While it will take direct testing to ensure that it is not a result of outside interference, Deltas are of great interest to the scientific establishment, however so far no Delta has yet consented to even the most basic of testing, with all known facts being due to GDI personnel directly interacting with them.
[ ] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2)
Phase 2 of the Tidal Power Plants is looking at major tidal power plants, such as the Penzin Bay Facility. These massive installations will provide almost as much energy as a standard nuclear power plant in many cases, although unlike those nuclear plants, these are geographically limited.
(progress 336/450: 10 resources per die) (++++ Energy)
Relatively limited progress has been made this quarter. Between Penzhin Bay, and the other large scale facilities, little has been installed, but much has been produced. Each needs turbines, generators, and masses of battery banks or pumped hydraulic reservoirs to ensure that they can provide not just a surge of power with the tide, but actually provide a stable and usable supply of energy across the entire day. Technically speaking, these are only different from the previous smaller power projects in terms of scale. A series of turbines strung across a relatively low retaining dam, in the case of Penzhin Bay roughly thirty kilometres long.
However, the work has been slowed by a number of factors, most notably the weather. While in most cases GDI has been able to effectively ignore weather conditions due to the massed use of robotics, operating on top and around a very thin concrete slab out in the middle of some of the most variable tides on the planet, is not one of them. This has meant that repeated storms have significantly slowed construction. Similarly, transport problems, while far less of a problem than in previous quarters, have slowed deliveries, with many of the primary assets arriving far too late in the quarter for practical installation.
Politically, the continuing major investments in power generation capability, on top of the major surpluses has begun to raise questions. While many have taken it as an indication that the Treasury intends to spend much of the last year driving a number of massively power intensive projects, such as the Ulsan-Busan yards, or major Capital Goods investment, others, especially those already skeptical of Treasury policy, put it as a potential problem, especially with people already tired of living in the hurriedly constructed apartment blocks of the first four year plan. While currently, it is little more than already discontented politicians looking for a wedge issue, mostly from the Initiative First and Free Market looking for a Treasury "mistake" to turn into an issue, it is something that could potentially become much more significant. Although the Initiative has been actually spending the energy almost as fast as it has come in, the story has proven to have some play in the circles of public opinion.
[ ] Chicago Planned City (Phase 3)
With GDI's ongoing development of Chicago, the next phase is likely to significantly increase total effective abatement as the more proximate Chicago means less wasted effort transferring Tiberium from the Red Zone to processing centers. The expansion will also entail a major expansion to the processing facility in order to cope with this increased throughput.
(Progress 225/360: 20 resources per die) (++ Housing, --- Labor, -- Logistics, --- Energy) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium) (+2 Red Zone Abatement, +2 Yellow Zone Abatement, +120 Tiberium Processing Capacity)
Significant progress has been made on the construction of Chicago this quarter. Between a series of new housing projects, and a number of significant upgrades to the processing plant, the city has seen its first permanent residents move in, along with its first restaurant. While it will likely always be a hardship posting to some degree, it is in the process of being transformed from a series of temporary facilities into a proper city, one that will provide for the needs of the population full time, rather than people being rotated back to safe Blue Zones regularly.
Environmentally, the Red Zone has been pushed back enough that Ion Storms have become significantly more rare, a weekly occurrence, rather than the daily cut off. However, some have begun wishing for the return of the storms, as they are less disturbing than the sonic booms of Apollos and Armageddons crisscrossing the airspace.
At the same time, the Brotherhood has stepped up harassment operations, primarily using long ranged aircraft. A number of Armageddon bombers have overflown the position. While they have been unable to make attack runs due to a constant Apollo presence, that has tied up multiple airbases in the region. While the Armageddon is an old bomber, with a notably light payload, it is also one of the longest ranged and best maneuvering heavy aircraft in NOD's arsenal. Generally able to insert and extract from contested airspace during the Third Tiberium War, they have become somewhat long in the tooth, and are no longer nearly as capable of doing incursions against GDI airspace.
With pushes into the Yellow Zones now taking and holding ground, GDI cannot afford to let up the pressure on either the Brotherhood or Tiberium. However, Chicago is secure enough and well positioned enough that it is not a particularly high priority overall. While a further wave of investment would help bring the critical tiberium processing infrastructure online, it is more a convenience than a requirement at this point.
[ ] Synchronized Cycle Fusion Plants
The next wave of fusion hardware is a series of synchronized cycle plants. Running either four or six fusion reactors in a synchronized cycle is a serious developmental step towards producing clean, universal power solutions, ones that will provide energy for the Initiative for decades to come.
(Progress 150/350: 20 Resources per Die) (++++ Energy) (High Priority)
While fusion is far cleaner than fission, and therefore safe enough to bring much closer to inhabited areas, it is not without its downsides. For one, while far safer than traditional fission reactors, it does unfortunately produce significant amounts of radiation. Even with the best confinement measures available, this means that a fusion reactor needs just as much plating and containment as a standard fission design, especially since the Brotherhood of NOD has a tendency to target civilian energy systems as part of any major attack.
So far, construction has focused on these large scale containment systems. A number of complexes spread around the world's blue zones have been constructed. While none of them have actual fusion components installed, the containment structures are mostly complete, only requiring some post installation anti tampering measures to be finalized. Each is between two and four times the size of an equivalent wattage of fission plants, a result of each of the units having its own separate containment cell. This is because a synchronized plant has four to six independent units, each of which is up to a maximum of eight hours in any given day. This gives the plants significant surge capacity, but at the cost of being down for the next few days for repairs, especially because the connection to the grid is not designed for that kind of surge. (although standard overbuilding means that it mathematically should be able to handle it.)
With this project well underway, calls have already begun to rework plans for yellow zone power generation, as these systems are seen as a good solution to the previous problems of high density generator systems, specifically that they require a lot of effort to do more than be a localized pile of radioactive waste.
[ ] Kure Machine Works:
While most of the other proposed sites for capital goods production are focused on older, simpler tooling to replace lost equipment or supply the civilian market, Zone Blue-6 has presented a plan for replacing highly automated and ultra-high precision 3D printing methods like vapor deposition, laser sintering, and other techniques. While this will demand additional computing resources, the facility will replace some of the harder to make equipment.
(Progress 322/280: 15 resources per die) (++ Capital Goods, --Labor --- Energy) (High Priority)
Kure has begun serious production. While so far the outputs have a cost drastically out of scale compared to the required inputs, between costs, labor, and ongoing energy supply, it is also quite interesting. Take for example a standard triangular bracket. With most technologies, it requires either an expensive to start up stamping, a milled bracket where the chronic tradeoff is between time to produce and the weight of the item. With Kure's additive manufacturing base, that bracket can be made far cheaper, because not all parts of the reinforcement are created equal. Some parts are absolutely vital, while others can be skeletonized to the extreme, or even omitted entirely. Additionally, Kure's methods are extremely agile. Rather than a single unit making a single part, with the right programming, each unit can make a mix of components so that there is absolutely minimal amount of wasted time.
While long term, this is not quite the future of Initiative design in all likelihood, it is almost certain to be one part of it. Kure derived machines are going to be used to create specialized and limited run parts, while the screws, nuts, bolts, and bars are made more conventionally. In combination, multiple methods can each play to their strengths. Conventional designs can be used for true mass production of simple components, while additive manufacturing can cut down on weight without losing strength, and integrate complex components into a single coherent whole.
[ ] Chemical Precursor Plants
While Tiberium and greenhouses can provide many of the chemicals needed for both day to day living and industrial needs, there are many chemicals, such as ethylene, propylene, nitric acid, sulphuric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and a wide selection of others that are important in everything from body armor to storage vessels, to medication. By building large chemical plants around the world, many of these can be produced and shipped more cheaply than doing small scale production on site.
(Progress 238/200: 15 resources per die) (++ Capital Goods, -- Energy)
Similarly, another capital goods infusion has come from the Chemical Precursor plants. While not nearly enough to supply even a tithe of the Initiative's total needs, it adds on to it in a noticeable way. Many of the more minor facilities have had their own chemical works packed up and transitioned or centralized so that critical locations have an uninterruptible supply, while they make do with regular shipments. While the facilities had begun to degrade after years of neglect, surging funding has brought them online and are now fully staffed, ready to be handed off to the chemical directorate that will run day to day operations. While the precursor trucks themselves are an inviting target, they are almost entirely kept deep in the blue zones, rather than being shipped forward.
In terms of use, much of the output has gone towards a variety of polymer and chemical supplies. Things like solvents, peroxide solutions for cleaning and sterilizing surfaces, and the like, mainly in the smaller chemical works that had proliferated before the Third Tiberium War. Many had been privately owned, and either collapsed or were nationalized during the long crisis of the war years. These have been generally built near cities and primarily served the needs of local cities, minimizing the overall demand for logistics.
[ ] Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 3)
With initial production already starting, the macrospinner needs to be severely scaled up in the coming quarters as current production is far from enough for any serious attempt to use myomers across the broad swathes of Initiative industrial and military needs.
(Progress 61/360: 20 resources per die) (++ Capital Goods, + Energy) (Reduces cost of mech projects) (High Priority)
The Johannesburg facility was the site of an attempted attack this quarter. A number of NOD Shadow teams attempted to break in and deliver bombs to a number of critical areas. The attack began shortly after midnight on 19 May, when two teams hit the substation providing power to the facility. Around 0045, four more teams hit the southern outer perimeter, punching through between patrols, and entering the facility proper by 0055. At that point, the military QRF and police SWAT units were already en-route. However, the Shadow teams had mistimed their approach by a matter of minutes, and were caught out by one of the guard patrols on the inner perimeter, who ordered a lockdown of the facility. While the patrol, and two others that responded, were wiped out by the teams, their sacrifice had delayed the infiltrators enough that they could not abort or carry out their mission. Choosing instead to try to fight their way out, they engaged the SWAT team in a short but brutal firefight, where they were buried under the sheer weight of fire that an effective mechanized platoon could provide.
While medals have already been awarded to the dead, and care for their next of kin already being provided, there is little that the Treasury can do at the moment, as many of these are in the jurisdiction of another department. With ratcheting up of pressure, attacks like this are likely, and the Initiative has been very fortunate that the first attack did no serious damage. While it took some time to restart production and continue the expansion work after the attack, it is fortunate that the first known attack of this type since the war was as much of a failure as it was. The teams that infiltrated were carrying enough explosives that, if placed correctly, could have effectively ruined the facility, requiring weeks to restart production at all, and likely months before full operations could resume.
[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 4)
While existing harvesting operations are at their limit, a new wave of harvesting bases, deep in the yellow zones, can continue expanding our influx of Tiberium. While these will require a substantial security detachment to maintain, and the establishment of a number of new convoy routes, the military has come around on these projects recently as they can serve as base camps for continued operations against the Brotherhood of NOD.
(Progress 130/300: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (4 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation) (High Priority)
GDI has also begun pushing once more into the Yellow Zones for the first time in years. Armored assault columns are paving the way for more harvesting. While so far, operations have not ranged particularly far from the blue zones, NOD resistance has already begun to stiffen substantially. One of the more major conflicts has been in the cities outside of Arkhangelsk, where forces under General Krukov have engaged GDI in a number of tank skirmishes. So far the conflicts have been distinctly small scale, the largest being roughly three companies including all GDI and NOD forces involved. Elsewhere, the new offensives have generally involved large scale skirmishing, and artillery exchanges. Typically this has been using Specter batteries and prepositioned spotter and beacon combinations to fire a salvo of shells and then scoot away before GDI's own artillery park can rain shells on the point of origin. While it seems likely that NOD have generally gotten the better of these fights, they have been unable so far to actually stop or significantly slow Initiative efforts around the globe.
The first phase of construction efforts have also begun. So far the only things built have been temporary base complexes, each serving multiple roles. So far, GDI has only found relatively small numbers of potential refugees, as the area so far covered has already been substantially depopulated by previous refugee columns headed for the terminus cities. Future quarters are likely to see new populations moving towards the Initiative, especially once the overall situation is more stable.
[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7)
While preparations are complete to drive another spear into the depths of the Red Zones, current military demands make that impossible. Fixing those problems will allow a further development immediately, and open future projects.
(Progress 130/130: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle [10-20 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation)
In a statement of the military's renewed confidence, one of the first acts this quarter was to drive south, into the Italian Red Zone, over the same territory where nearly two years ago the forward elements of a similar drive were destroyed. Today, when Reynaldo's men and women tried to do the same thing, they were met with a rain of shells and fast moving Zone Armor forces cutting apart formations as they moved towards the jumping off points.
Behind them, engineers have cut a rail line forward, dotting their flanks with outposts. Late in the quarter, the teams reached the glacier face. While the resources to do more than establish some forward observation positions were not available, another glacier mine can be constructed in the coming quarters.
[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 3)
Fully replacing the Forgotten in some areas will require a substantial additional investment. However it will also do far more to contain the spread of the Red Zones, by intensifying both GDI and the Forgotten's harvesting efforts.
(Progress 434/180: 25 resources per die) (254/180, 74/180) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (High Priority)
This quarter has seen the return of GDI investment into the Red Zones. While not quite the absolute maximum effort possible, the surge of investment made waves around the world. Gideon ranted and raved from his Appalachian bunker complex, declaring that "The Infidels and the Heretics have continued to defile the purity of Tiberium. Fighting the future. Fighting the Vision! It is a futile exercise, but one that must be stamped out!" While Gideon tried, he has so far failed to actually inflict meaningful damage on any of the major positions inside his claimed territory.
Other warlords have seemed to adopt a strategy of avoidance. Allowing GDI to shoulder the costs of protecting them against encroaching Tiberium while using that presence to shore up their support in the face of the "great enemy." Reynaldo for example has spent the lives of some of the traditionally more important groups freely, while husbanding his own resources safely in the European Yellow Zones.
In terms of actual practical effect, at this point the containment lines, rather than being a real continuation of GDI's deals with the Forgotten are a majority GDI affair, with the Forgotten being beneficiary subjects in all but name, covering short stretches of territory alongside Initiative harvesting teams.
It would have been a sight to see, no matter the era. A testament to how much the GDI has grown. Not even my predecessors could have envisioned something like this. We had more before, but ZOCOM had never truly gotten the grand share of funding, not with all the directions in which the GDI was torn with. But Granger had been the visionary, who found that he had need for us, in a way disproportionate compared to his predecessors. To serve as the GDI, to put the world under an aegis of order.
And so we marched, and what a sight it was. I was lucky enough to be out of rotation at Lisbon HQ and I had the timing to watch the muster proceed in full. I watched as the digital screens captured the sight of my fellows throughout the world. From frigid Vladivostok to balmy Adelaide, they muster in raiments of metal amalgam, ready to ward the sonic lines in full. In Viña del Mar, a Battalion readied themselves for a shuttle through the Mar de Grau to assist Sayın Escoffier. In Fort Wayne, two more already marched for Chicago. All across the world, in dots of green and blue, two Corps of Zone Troopers strides forth. And we shall not be found wanting.
— Excerpt from "Memoirs of Global Defenders" (2060), attributed to SFC Cennet Melitta
[ ] Gravitic Drive Development
The Scrin gravitic drives have proven to be particularly interesting. Rather than being reaction drives, keyed off of mass, they seem to be volumetric and geometric, with the positions of drive nodes being the critical factor. However, they have reached a point where a development push is required to bring them to being something of science fact, rather than science fiction
(Progress 20/60: 30 resources per die)
This quarter has been a frustrating one for the development teams, with some working on the ground and others doing much of the assembly up on GDSS Enterprise. The first test ship, an automated drone craft, tore itself apart for unknown reasons seconds after the command for it to begin powering up the drive system. The problem seems to have been the geometry, however the number crunching is not yet completed for a full understanding of the flaws in the system. At the same time, the minimum safe distance for the Leopard carrying the observation team turned out to be not quite minimum enough, with about 50 centimeters of wingtip being sheared off as the test ship destroyed itself. While both parts of the Leopard have been recovered, and there have been no casualties among any of the participants, it is a warning that this is a dangerous step into the unknown.
With the need for a new testbed prototype and further funding for predictive modeling for the program to better understand the geometric constraints of the system, a further round of major funding is required.
[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3)
With the largest and easiest of the Philadelphia remnants cleaned up, GDI must now begin to deal with the massive numbers of small fragments, ranging from lost tools and bolts, to shards of solar panels and swarms of rounded fragments from destroyed satellites.
(Progress 222/90: 15 resources per die) (132/90; 42/90) (Opens new Space Projects) (25-30 resources) (Fusion)
Rather than working on space stations, this quarter the vast majority of the fusion launches have been oriented towards continuing cleanup efforts. A final major round, for now at least, of unmanned scrap collectors have finished stripping the debris clouds from a number of the remaining major pieces of the Philadelphia, and damaged or destroyed satellites as the debris created a kessler cascade across the orbitals. Following on from the stripping, the last of the Philadelphia remaining in orbit has been brought in for processing. Critical historical components have been reserved, while the rest has been reprocessed for use in the new station.
As part of this, a pair of old NOD stealth satellites, now clearly defunct, have been captured. From their power systems, they seem to have been pre First Tiberium War, launched on a commercial rocket that did not pay close enough attention to what precisely they were launching. Tracing back to the original launch it was a series of 1996 Delta 1 launches from an American company. Officially the two were part of a constellation of 16 secure communications satellites for a private military company, and the stealth features were a piece of paranoia on the part of the group's owner. In point of fact, the PMC was a Black Hand front organization. While they had been defunct for decades at this point, and completely useless from an intelligence standpoint, they are historically interesting, and a warning of how thoroughly NOD had managed to infiltrate the pre Tiberium societies. Even the rich and powerful could be subverted.
[ ] Game Development Studios
The private market has begun a thriving market in independent video games. However, none have offered an upmarket game experience along the lines of those that existed before the Third Tiberium War. By forming and reforming a constellation of large scale game developers, GDI can begin providing that kind of experience once more, in more consumer friendly packaging.
(Progress 330/300: 5 Resources per die) (+++ Consumer Goods)
Sixty new game development studios, from Westwood in the California Blue Zone, to Criterion in the UK have been formed. Each bears the name of a widely beloved studio that had folded in the decades since the fall of Tiberium. While none have yet released a game, many are excited about the possibilities. However, some games that have just recently been proposed have been nearly universally panned, such as Direct and Destroy 4. Similarly, Half Life 3 (now the ninth game in the Half Life franchise) has been announced, leading to a round of jokes about cursed titles and Valve being unable to count to three. Most of the games are expected in two to three years, but some are likely to take longer. Producing a modern game is a complicated affair, and will take longer than a couple of quarters.
Looking at the reactions to the proposed games, there are some clear trends. While shooters have remained in a strong position, the realistic modern military shooter has all but died as a trend. Instead, most are lighter, more colorful, and do not even have pretensions of realism. For Driving games, the tendency is heavily historically inspired, with a first golden age in the 1930s and 40s, and a second in the 1970s and 1980s.
Long term, these game studios are directed towards building engines and tools rather than constantly publishing games. With the overall market constantly growing, having tools freely and easily available to anyone who wants to make a game is one tool to ensure that anyone who wants to try to make a game can. Similarly, these games studios will be publishing all or nearly all of their assets for free.
[ ] Vaccine Development Programs
While GDI has few major problems with infectious disease, keeping on top of the problem has its own advantages, especially with the strategic aim towards expanding Initiative influence in the Yellow Zones, and keeping in practice with modern vaccine technology.
(Progress 154/150: 25 resources per die) (++ Health)
There have been few truly novel diseases since the end of the 20th century. While viral outbreaks were a key part of making the overall situation worse before the second tiberium war, the time since then has seen the Initiative redress those problems. However, this has not meant that GDI has been lax in its vaccination campaigns. For the Initiative, vaccination is one of its best weapons against bioterrorism and biowarfare, and, with ever more of the human population living in relatively sterile cities that concern has become ever greater. Without vaccines, even a basic wild virus can rip through a GDI population in short order. While things like quarantines, lockdowns, and other means of combating the spread of disease are known and accepted, few are as effective as vaccination.
This has led to a fairly draconian policy on vaccination. While legitimate medical exemptions are rare, testing is commonplace, and aside from some limitations (like not being able to serve in much of the medical field due to not qualifying as frontline staff) it is broadly accepted that some people are not going to be able to get vaccinated. Unwillingness to be vaccinated is far less accepted. Typically, the only two options are vaccination or most social environments being varying degrees of closed off. To take influenza for example, while it has not yet been wiped out, a statistically insignificant number of cases are actually lethal or require more than basic measures. While some of it is a result of actually emphasizing cleaning and mask wearing, part of it is also the near universality of vaccination.
One of the few really serious concerns for the Initiative at this point is biowarfare. While neither side of the conflict has yet seriously uncorked that particular genie, it is a lasting concern, especially with operations planned before the fall of Tiberium in mind. One proposal as potential preparation, although it has never really gained traction, has been conducting biowarfare using intentionally "safed" pathogens, ones that are intentionally low lethality and possible to effectively contain and exterminate. However, beyond the problems of effective containment, there are also the medical and governmental ethics problems of infecting one's own population, hence why it has never gone beyond vague proposals and some graduate theses. However, the idea has also never died, as it reflects the severe concerns of GDI's medical establishment about the continued strength and good function of human immune systems.
[ ] Reclamator Fleet YZ-5a
Wth the hub completed, there are three good options for the fleet.
-[ ] Super MARVs
An improved model, conceptualized after examining the destruction of MARVS before and during the Third Tiberium War, the Super MARV is substantially more expensive, but offers equally improved rewards
(progress 291/210: 20 resources per die) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
Over the beach capability is something that GDI has honed for a very long time. In the First Tiberium War, hovercraft served in every theater, providing vital support and supplies to forces across the world. In the years after the Second Tiberium War, the first ship of GDI's new navy was a hovercraft, designed to deliver a third generation Mammoth Tank across most bodies of water in the world, although the oceans themselves can be a bit much. This quarter, that capability came in very handy. With NOD poking at the isolated base, the Navy took one of its few carriers, and a half dozen escorts, plus two battalions of naval infantry and surged them towards the Colombian Red Zone. Bypassing the Hub's overstressed cargo handling system entirely, the forces landed unopposed, bringing hundreds of tons of shells, and over a thousand tons of spare parts to the defenders, plus enough water purification and medical supplies to squash the disease outbreak.
With the Favela in the hands of the Navy, the MARV hub was free to bring in the last wave of equipment in, most importantly the main guns for the MARV fleet. When NOD forces decided to make their move, it was a clash of the titans. A Redeemer, brought out as a weapon of terror and a mark of NOD's power, along with two companies of good quality dual laser Avatar walkers and a further three of Purifiers, along with what is estimated at a full division of assorted Brotherhood armored and infantry forces. Facing them was a full dozen Super MARVs, rushed into service, alongside an effective brigade of GDI forces, the vast majority of which was ZOCOM. The result was a one sided slaughter, with the Redeemer falling in the largest open field battle fought since the assault on Cheyenne Mountain.
Surviving NOD forces retreated south, including the surviving company and a half of Avatars that were not committed to the fight. While NOD's internal politics are always somewhat inscrutable, there has been a reshuffling of insignia across Stahl's territories, with more indications of Stahl centralizing power under himself.
[ ] Ablat Plating Deployment (Phase 3)
GDI's military has continued finding more places that it wants ablative plating than there are available stocks of ablative plating, especially now with Ground Forces now wanting to reequip itself with Zone Armor. Yet more development is needed, especially more carbon nanotubes.
(Progress 245/200: 10 resources per die) (Very High Priority)
With this phase, Ablat plating has begun to become available to non ground forces units. While currently only a small sliver of production is available, it has already begun to find uses. While both the Steel Talons and ZOCOM have made general conventional use of the material, they have both found interesting offset uses. For ZOCOM they have begun redistributing it from vehicles to infantry, with few going out into the field without at least one pauldron or their torso plate being covered with ablat pucks. With no standard pattering, they have been finding it to significantly increase survivability. For the Talons, they have begun experimenting with scatter pattern placements, usually 1 to 3 scatters that provide partial protection against lasers and allow far more coverage overall. Especially as a mech has much more play in its movement, with a standard mech stride moving the center of mass up to half a meter in all three planes, total coverage is much less of a requirement. While they still armor the crew compartment the most heavily, it has meant that the Talons can provide better protection to more units than they otherwise would have been able to. The Navy has begun using it on the turret fronts of its railguns, and around command centers to provide just as little extra protection. Even some small shipments of a few thousand pucks have been sent to the Forgotten. While little more than a token amount of protection, it is one more element in reinforcing the alliance. They have begun using it on their civilian armored busses and other vital population and economic vehicles.
Politically this also marks the completion of the Treasury's commitments to the military in terms of specific new technological and material deployments. The Militarists especially, but to a lesser extent the other parties, are currently waiting with bated breath to see what the long term results of this are. While some expect Granger to once more reorient away from the military, most of the betting has suggested that a high level of investment is likely to be continued, although with more attention being diverted to economic buildup. While some in the Militarist party have been passing around a letter of demands, including maintaining a high level of military spending, Al-Jilani has quietly suggested patience, and has worked to draft a joint letter with the Developmentalist and United Yellow List parties.
[ ] Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards
Rebuilding some of GDI's battleship docks into half sized cruiser sections will save on resources, however they will require major investments in capital goods. These yards will take some significant time to begin major developments however, with a cruiser taking months to construct, and longer to fit out for service. (Very High Priority)
- [ ] Durban (Progress 148/200: 20 resources per die) (- Capital Goods, -- Energy, - Labor)
The Governor Class, much like the prior battleships and carriers, are nuclear powered. Nuclear propulsion dates back to the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) in 1955 for submarines and the Soviet icebreaker Lenin, first built in 1959. In terms of surface warships, the first nuclear powered version was CGN-9 Long Beach. In 1964, Long Beach, along with the USS Bainbridge, and the carrier USS Enterprise, conducted a circumnavigation of the globe, maintaining an average speed of 25 knots and covering over 48,000 kilometers in 58 days, without resupply. In a modern context, this is a vital capability, as the pointilist empires constructed by Britain, the United States, and other major imperial powers have effectively collapsed. In its place are a series of vital nodes that need defending, but each is incapable of supporting the others without the ability to sail at high speeds around the world, fight a battle once there.
While nuclear propulsion has been tried for over a hundred years, it has never been nearly as major a part of naval shipbuilding as it is today. Throughout the late 20th century and early 21st century, naval shipbuilders relied on relatively cheap marine diesels and high efficiency gas turbine engines to keep costs down. For the Initiative, this is not really an option. With most of the world's fuel oils consumed by Tiberium either directly or indirectly, nuclear was one of the few remaining options. While biofuels and kerosene alikes are produced, and in large amounts for everything from jet engines and rockets to helicopters and tanks, it is not produced in nearly the quantities needed for a global navy. A single ship can burn thousands of tons of fuel during a cruise, enough to power entire armored divisions for days on end.
The Governor class uses a pair of pebble bed reactors. Using uranium graphite spheres and a nitrogen coolant, these are fairly stable gas cooled reactors, and more importantly are very simple in operation. While both can be assigned to propulsion if needed, under combat circumstances, one is used for the sensors, point defense, and railguns while the other provides for maneuver. The same make and model (just in much smaller number) as the ones found on the battleships and carriers, the primary sticking point for the Durban yard has been changing over the fittings to connect the reactor system to the control units in the CIC. While not a particularly major problem, it is one that will require a further infusion of resources to fix.
[ ] Titan Mark 3 Deployment
With the Mark 3 ready to be rolled out en masse, the primary remaining requirement is to refit the production lines towards the new unit. While many components have stayed the same, others must be replaced entirely, and whole sections of the line are now obsolete or obsolescent. This requires a major work through of the entire production system.
(Progress 231/175: 10 resources per die) (-- Energy) (High Priority)
The dreams of mechanical fighting creatures are old. In 1880, Jules Verne wrote La maison à vapeur, or in english, The Steam House. In it, a steam powered elephant hauls a pair of mansions on wheels around India in the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Rebellion. In 1897, War of the Worlds saw alien tripod fighting machines destroy Britain. However, practical walker development would wait for the 21st century. In the aftermath of the First Tiberium War, the X-O power suit proved the practicality of limbed locomotion, and from that GDI began developing what would become the Titan and Wolverine walkers. First seen on the battlefields in the late 2020s, they would soon replace conventional tanks in service across GDI's frontline units, although second line units would not replace their medium tanks until the introduction of the MBT-5 Bull and MBT-6 Predator by the early 2030s.
The initial version of the Titan was quite a capable unit, able to outrange and outshoot most NOD base defenses and almost any Brotherhood unit of the same era. However, it proved to also be something of a hangar queen, with the legs providing near constant problems, and readiness rates for most units equipped with them being far below the Initiative's needs. In the aftermath of the Second Tiberium War and the Firestorm crisis, the Titan Mark 2 was developed as a successor, carrying over the range and accuracy of its predecessor, while also being used as a testbed for new technologies. The most critical of these was the development of the railgun, alongside lightweight engines and advanced articulation. While today, these technologies have proliferated across the Initiative, by the early 2040s, they were the exclusive domain of the Steel Talons.
The deployment of the new Mark 3 has been fast, with changeovers in production taking under a month from halting the line section to restarting it for LRIP on the new models. The key in this has been the ability to stage sections and materials before beginning the project. With ever more capital goods production becoming available, GDI can afford to allow days or even weeks of production to sit idle while the full complement is ready, rather than trying to push it into service in stages. By the end of the plan, the last of the second generation Titans will have been retired, and a steady flow of new third generation models will be available for testing and strategic purposes.
One of the Initiative's classic white whales has been the tactical ion cannon. While a practical version code named Avalon was built shortly after the first Tiberium War, it was too expensive, too limited, and too heavy for general deployment. While the Talon's do not believe that they can make a functional shoulder mounted design, they do want to try for a vehicle weight version. While full functionality is unlikely, it is a common enough project that has often provided some insights into applied high energy physics.
[ ] Expand Strategic Planning Apparatus
With the many aims of the Initiative, being able to effectively plan in advance is a requirement. While this will inherently require substantially more resources to be allocated towards this planning, it will also provide more information on longer term project requirements.
(Progress 252/100) (--- Capital Goods)
Strategic planning has been a critical flaw in centrally planned economies for as long as they have been tried. The Soviet Union encountered severe calculatory bottlenecks, leading to widespread corruption and the eventual collapse of the system. While in the modern day processing power is relatively cheap, bringing enough hardware to predict the interactions of thousands of projects across millions of square kilometers of the Earth's surface, requires multiple supercomputer clusters just to construct an applicable model in a reasonable amount of time.
While calculation is a critical component, there are several others. First is that the entire system needs far more and better data than current methods can supply. While the sentiment dates back at least to Charles Babbage, the first time the phrase "Garbage In Garbage Out" appeared was in 1957, nearly a century ago, and is still just as true as it was in the pre Tiberium age. Without having a detailed and accurate dataset to feed to even the most powerful computers, the other part is to ensure that the data is as accurate and clean as possible. Second, is trust. Both trust in the people and trust in the system. Both are critical elements, because without trust any system will begin to be fed garbage, which will in turn produce garbage. Similarly, without trust in the people, the system becomes not a tool of planning, but a tool of oppression, a means to force pegs of all shapes and sizes into the square holes cut for them.
While the total results are likely to be more iterative than truly revolutionary, they represent a massive investment into the good running of the Initiative, and will have a lasting impact on future projects, built with the strategic minds in place.
- Location
- USA
Interesting to note NOD is pushing Air and also testing Chicago. I might have to drop the anti stealth for both AA missiles and air lasers to have both available for an Orca refit Q4.
For Next turn:
Infra 0/5 0R +15
HI 0/5 0R +20
LCI 0/4 0R +15
Agri 0/3 0R +15
Tiberium 0/5 0R +35
Orbital 0/3 0R +15 (6 Fusion dice)
Services 0/4 0R +30
Military 0/5 0R +15
Bureau 0/3 +15
Free 0/6
/605 +55 one time resource infusion +5 remaining from this turn
PS 55
For Next turn:
Infra 0/5 0R +15
HI 0/5 0R +20
LCI 0/4 0R +15
Agri 0/3 0R +15
Tiberium 0/5 0R +35
Orbital 0/3 0R +15 (6 Fusion dice)
Services 0/4 0R +30
Military 0/5 0R +15
Bureau 0/3 +15
Free 0/6
/605 +55 one time resource infusion +5 remaining from this turn
PS 55
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- Location
- Earth
Great turn overall. Some options finished, some continue to need more work. Nothing exploded.
Lots of story and flavor going on about, giving much background on the goings on.
I'm wondering how everyone feels about doing the "Quick Maneuver Air to Air Missile Development" project this coming turn to counter the new NOD air threat. While lasers are probably a great technology, missiles seem like they could be deployed to Orcas and Firehawks in addition to Apollos. This way we can keep Orcas and Firehawks working and able to to defend themselves while countering Nod's air research.
Of course, the Orca refit should also be done. Perhaps after one of laser or A2A missile development is done (or in parallel with?)
Lots of story and flavor going on about, giving much background on the goings on.
I'm wondering how everyone feels about doing the "Quick Maneuver Air to Air Missile Development" project this coming turn to counter the new NOD air threat. While lasers are probably a great technology, missiles seem like they could be deployed to Orcas and Firehawks in addition to Apollos. This way we can keep Orcas and Firehawks working and able to to defend themselves while countering Nod's air research.
Of course, the Orca refit should also be done. Perhaps after one of laser or A2A missile development is done (or in parallel with?)
- Location
- canada
Ah, I've always wondered if the forgotten can still even breed, or would they be a genetic dead-end. Now we have the answer, as in they could very well be the next step in evolution for humanity.
Either Granger or Seo should investigate these types of mutants ASAP so long as the relations with the Forgotten are good enough for it. Because if human biology would be able to not just survive, but thrive with Tiberium, then that would be the harbringer of the dawn of a new age for Humanity as a whole. The seemingly psionic potential can't be overlooked either.
- Location
- California
You think they're going for space? First, they build up institutional knowledge in aerospace, then they go for rockets, before finally, launching the first Nod spacecraft.
trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
This turn in politics:
Militarist: +7 Weak Support, -7 Weak Opposition
Initiative First: -2 Weak Support, +2 Weak Opposition
UYL: +2 Strong Support, -2 Weak Support
Starbound: -5 Strong Support, +5 Weak Support
I guess Starbound wanted more work on stations?
Militarist: +7 Weak Support, -7 Weak Opposition
Initiative First: -2 Weak Support, +2 Weak Opposition
UYL: +2 Strong Support, -2 Weak Support
Starbound: -5 Strong Support, +5 Weak Support
I guess Starbound wanted more work on stations?
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
Hey an update and overall great progress has been made!
Yeah don't worry we won't be skipping on military funding anymore since both we need to prepare for the next war and now that we have the funding to go around we can afford to do 3-4 Mil projects each turn(and that means Non-MARV projects).
- Location
- USA
No, space launches take dedicated infrastructure and tend to be visible giving us hard targets to hit and wreck a lot of investment. I think this is more of a contesting the air as another area that allows quick moving forces to harass and strike at weak points.
Of note NOD is not taking GDI head on as can be seen in the RZ containment, instead of challenging those forces they move around the edges and force us to defend everywhere. This is one key reason to drop 3 dice in the RZ-7N Super MARV is to try and get it online to reduce the forces needed to defend the northern approaches to our investments in the RZ-7 area letting us thicken forces elsewhere.
Now I have to go back and check if the QM said that dev projects can be done the same turn as a refit or have to be done the turn before because that makes a difference on what air dev projects we do to try and fit into the orca refit.
Plan Mecca, Air, Enterprise and Mitigation
Infra 5/5 60R +15
-Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2): 336/450 4 dice R 40 R 99%
-Chicago Planned City (Phase 1) 1 dice 20 R (see Tiberium for full details)
HI 5/5 100R +20
-Synchronized Cycle Fusion Plants 150/350 3 dice 60 R 70%
-Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (phase 1) 0/160 2 dice 40 R 47%
LCI 4/4 80R +15
-Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 3) 61/360 4 dice 80 R 36%
Agri 3/3 30R +15
-Perennial Aquaponics Bays (Phase 2) 123/350 3 dice 30 R (+5 PS and no energy cost) 39%
Tiberium 5/5 + 1 dice 125R +35
-Chicago Planned City (Phase 3) 225/360 1 dice (+1 Infra) 20 R 77%
-Mecca/Jeddah Planned City (Phase 1) 0/160 2 dice 40 R 72%
-Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 4) 130/300 2 dice 40R 65%
-Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 5) 74/180 1 die 25 R 45%
Orbital 3/3 +1 dice 90R +15 (6 Fusion dice)
-Gravitic Drive Development: 20/60 1 die 30 R 91%
-GDSS Enterprise (Phase 3) 183/385 3 dice 60 R 57%
Services 0/4 0R +30
Military 5/5 +4 dice 160R +15
-High Efficiency Heat System Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
-Reclamator Fleet RZ-7 North Super MARV 0/210 3 dice 60 R 52%
-Quick Maneuver Air to Air Missile Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
-Wingman Drone Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
-Tactical Airborne Laser Development0/40 1 die 20 R 91%
-Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards (Durban): 148/200 1 die 20 R 79%
-Laser Point Defense Systems Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
Bureau 3/3 +15
-Cooperative Focus 3 dice
Free 6/6
Infra 5/5 60R +15
-Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2): 336/450 4 dice R 40 R 99%
-Chicago Planned City (Phase 1) 1 dice 20 R (see Tiberium for full details)
HI 5/5 100R +20
-Synchronized Cycle Fusion Plants 150/350 3 dice 60 R 70%
-Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (phase 1) 0/160 2 dice 40 R 47%
LCI 4/4 80R +15
-Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 3) 61/360 4 dice 80 R 36%
Agri 3/3 30R +15
-Perennial Aquaponics Bays (Phase 2) 123/350 3 dice 30 R (+5 PS and no energy cost) 39%
Tiberium 5/5 + 1 dice 125R +35
-Chicago Planned City (Phase 3) 225/360 1 dice (+1 Infra) 20 R 77%
-Mecca/Jeddah Planned City (Phase 1) 0/160 2 dice 40 R 72%
-Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 4) 130/300 2 dice 40R 65%
-Red Zone Containment Lines (Phase 5) 74/180 1 die 25 R 45%
Orbital 3/3 +1 dice 90R +15 (6 Fusion dice)
-Gravitic Drive Development: 20/60 1 die 30 R 91%
-GDSS Enterprise (Phase 3) 183/385 3 dice 60 R 57%
Services 0/4 0R +30
Military 5/5 +4 dice 160R +15
-High Efficiency Heat System Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
-Reclamator Fleet RZ-7 North Super MARV 0/210 3 dice 60 R 52%
-Quick Maneuver Air to Air Missile Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
-Wingman Drone Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
-Tactical Airborne Laser Development0/40 1 die 20 R 91%
-Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards (Durban): 148/200 1 die 20 R 79%
-Laser Point Defense Systems Development 0/40 1 die 15 R 91%
Bureau 3/3 +15
-Cooperative Focus 3 dice
Free 6/6
Heat System is an improvement in all lasers, meanwhile in the air new AA missiles both for Orca refit and to use on Apollos and Firehawks to better counter NODs new Fighters, Wingman Drones will work great as well with Orcas and might be able to mix laser and missile loadouts thanks to the other dev projects. Tactical Airborne Laser gives us an energy weapon that combos with Heat system and can be used for Orca refit and maybe a refit onto new Apollos. Finally Laser Point Defense System given that we have one major warlord rolling out a new mech that includes missiles and we already are seeing NOD Stealth tank include missiles to increase their first strike fire power.
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Damian45
Only Sane Man
Well, for the first time in...what was it? Almost four years now? We've managed to push back Tiberium's spread. But we're going to need a lot more if we want to make a real difference.
Thought's about turning some of these on?
It seems like we're going to need them, if we're going to keep up with our military needs against Nod.
I'd also support turning one of these on, if only because Chicago isn't really cutting it with how fast capacity is running dry.
Anything else is just filling in the holes in the plan, from our last MARV to the food situation, to getting our energy needs filled.
And judging from the idiots whining about housing, we're going to have another obstacle that needs removing to avoid any organized political opposition.
Thought's about turning some of these on?
It seems like we're going to need them, if we're going to keep up with our military needs against Nod.
I'd also support turning one of these on, if only because Chicago isn't really cutting it with how fast capacity is running dry.
Anything else is just filling in the holes in the plan, from our last MARV to the food situation, to getting our energy needs filled.
And judging from the idiots whining about housing, we're going to have another obstacle that needs removing to avoid any organized political opposition.
- Location
- USA
Wartime factory needs more cap goods before we can do. And finishing Chicago adds 120 to our processing capacity which gives us time, and as we add planned cities we will increase our processing. I think we can hold off on the Processing plant until next year (or longer depending on how quickly we move down Planned cities). It is more that we have to push planned cities (and that we can mix infra dice in as well is going to be handy).
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
Hmm all this Nod pushing their air forces. Are they going to try hitting the launch sites?
Is that me, or is Chicago not that great, stats-wise?