Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
[X] Plan Measured Spending:
This works the best it ensure that Seo gets the spot while making sure we don't burn all of our bridges doing so.
This works the best it ensure that Seo gets the spot while making sure we don't burn all of our bridges doing so.
No they aren't? It's Blue Zone arcologies that are inefficient at providing housing, they cost 600 points @15RpD to get 8 housing, while Yellow Zone arcologies cost almost half that, coming in at 340 points @15RpD to get 8 housing. Now the Yellow Zone arcologies are certainly less nice to live in, but if we just need anything with a roof and running water to put refugees in, Yellow Zone arcologies are easily the best choice available. Blue Zoners want to upgrade from a commieblock to a Blue Zone arcology, but Yellow Zoners are a lot less picky. A Yellow Zone arcology with running water and clean air and free food and a bunch of dudes with guns and eagles who shake you down less often than the dudes with guns and scorpion tails is already a massive upgrade, they won't complain if they aren't immediately placed in a BZ arco.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
I admit I poorly phrased that, I meant they only provide half the Housing that a Blue Zone Arcology does and on a per stage basis they are half as effective. You are correct that on a Progress basis they are more efficient and I point that out later in my post.
[X] Plan Measured Spending:
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
Well, continued warnings about lack of Arcologies and military logistics (and caffeine).
We should consider making serious progress on the BZ Arcologies and the Rail Expansion next turn.
This may have to come at the cost of not rushing Mecca/Jeddah/Medina.
[X] Plan Measured Spending:
We should consider making serious progress on the BZ Arcologies and the Rail Expansion next turn.
This may have to come at the cost of not rushing Mecca/Jeddah/Medina.
[X] Plan Measured Spending:
Given that we're dealing with a major influx of refugees, we kinda do need to house civilians near the front lines. That said, the next wave of Fortress Cities involve taking former Nod turf, so we might need to run shell plants + ablat before another push.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Measured Spending:
We always want to be building shell plants and ablat before another push.
We basically want shells, ablative plating and the like to be the sort of thing where eventually the military begs us to stop building more production capacity because they can't find enough bodies to use the supplies we are sending them even after stockpiling in all dumps to the rafters.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
REACTION POOOST!
Pity we can't do eyeballs.
Note that accuracy helps with the shell crisis. If our gunners can hit what they are aiming at with the first few shots, they do not need to then expend a metric fuckton of addition ammo blowing the hell out of everything in the general vicinity. Which is one metric fuckton of ammunition we do not need to ever manufacture in the first place.
This is an area where a development project may concretely help with a deployment project, by enabling existing shell production to stretch farther and future shell plant expansions to be more impactful.
On the other hand, there are arguments to fund Shimmer Shields and Plasma Weapons before developing the Havoc, IF we're willing to do so in a timely manner. I know they're expensive per die, but it's only one die. And if we want any chance of even knowing what we can do with those systems before Tib War Four, we need to at least do the development.
As I've said, we're gonna feel pretty damn stupid if it turns out we could have equipped our MBT-7 design with a plasma cannon without too much trouble, or put up urban barrier shields to stop Nod attackers from casually slipping in and doing as they please.
We should honor him with more beam weapons.
While we can probably make a lot of progress on this problem if we push it, it's going to seriously interfere with our ambitions to build a ton of Logistics projects in the coming Third Four Year Plan.
The problem is that, especially if Infrastructure dice are going to be hard to come by to build up Logistics in the next four years due to all those arcologies we have to build... Well, it's going to make it hard for us to do much glacier mining to meet RpT targets. Which in turn means heavy pressure on our vein mining operations, which in turn sucks up a lot of Capital Goods.
Which means a lot of reasons to go for Nuuk instead of North Boston.
Basically, North Boston Phase 5 is 2364 Progress (~36 dice at 15 R/die), -2 Labor, and -8 Energy for +32 Capital Goods.
Nuuk Phases 1+2+3 is 1120 Progress (~17 dice at 20 R/die), -5 Labor, and -12 Energy for +20 Capital Goods, not so great but a lot easier to get rolling quickly.
And then Nuuk Phase 4 is 1280 Progress (~20 dice at 20 R/die) for another -2 Labor and -8 Energy for +32 Capital Goods, which is basically North Boston Phase 5 in economic impact but considerably faster to complete.
Alternatively, we can model Nuuk Phase 1+2+3+4 as a more expensive (but same Progress requirement) version of North Boston... that produces 52 Capital Goods for 36 dice instead of 32 Capital Goods. Again, more costly (~180 more Resources, -5 more Labor, -12 more Energy)... but you get what you pay for (relatively speaking, +20 Capital Goods, which is more than enough to claw back the Labor costs).
On the other hand, we have explicit confirmation that if we want to expand space infrastructure to do Cool Shit with it in Earth orbit, we need to clean things up more.
Nice.
Hope that was one of those giant ocean liner-sized megasubs Nod's been using.
Oh hell no, I want carrier yards, if only for variety's sake.
Yeah, the big debate there is "one die to finish Rosyth, or two?" I think it's gonna be "one," because Military dice are scarce, budget is painful, and there's a pretty good chance of finishing with one die. Gonna sting, though, if we roll short and don't quite finish the cruiser yards in Granger's tenure...
A peaker plant means high peak output, enough to power, say, a giant fuckoff energy weapon. Or to power an ion disruptor for short bursts when they specifically anticipate being under threat, though that doesn't make as much sense.
Pity we can't do eyeballs.
Yeah, it's the little stuff in the corners like this, where a market operation is free to just do the thing, assuming grants are available.
So, no changes. Mass zone armor rollouts are just too much for the immediate future, but we can definitely do something about the consumable (ablatives especially) and shell/artillery crisis.
Note that accuracy helps with the shell crisis. If our gunners can hit what they are aiming at with the first few shots, they do not need to then expend a metric fuckton of addition ammo blowing the hell out of everything in the general vicinity. Which is one metric fuckton of ammunition we do not need to ever manufacture in the first place.
This is an area where a development project may concretely help with a deployment project, by enabling existing shell production to stretch farther and future shell plant expansions to be more impactful.
See? Talons want Havocs. I know we can't do the rollout immediately, mind you.
On the other hand, there are arguments to fund Shimmer Shields and Plasma Weapons before developing the Havoc, IF we're willing to do so in a timely manner. I know they're expensive per die, but it's only one die. And if we want any chance of even knowing what we can do with those systems before Tib War Four, we need to at least do the development.
As I've said, we're gonna feel pretty damn stupid if it turns out we could have equipped our MBT-7 design with a plasma cannon without too much trouble, or put up urban barrier shields to stop Nod attackers from casually slipping in and doing as they please.
Notably, this means that the Super Orca project pleases two branches at once. Between that and being relatively cheap, we can lead with this and the point defense refit, and then start doing the carrier shipyards soon.
Well, at least Takeda died nobly and in keeping with the way he lived: blowing the hell out of things with a massive fuckoff beam weapon.
We should honor him with more beam weapons.
Ahahaha, somebody pick up that phone because I fucking called it! Voters are pissed and disappointed. We might be able to slightly reduce the pressure by surging arcology construction, but we haven't even hit the targets we were hoping to hit a year ago because we weren't planning on spending so many Infrastructure dice on Mecca this late in 2057.
While we can probably make a lot of progress on this problem if we push it, it's going to seriously interfere with our ambitions to build a ton of Logistics projects in the coming Third Four Year Plan.
Note this. When Tib War Four goes up, it's fairly likely that refinery capacity around Mecca will find its ability to safely process tiberium disrupted. It's likewise very likely that Chicago will come under attack, heavily so. We need to spread out our refining space, even more urgently than the strain on our refining capacity would lead us to believe.
Hmm, this definitely alludes to the idea that we might get some higher tech goods out of North Boston Phase 5.
The problem is that, especially if Infrastructure dice are going to be hard to come by to build up Logistics in the next four years due to all those arcologies we have to build... Well, it's going to make it hard for us to do much glacier mining to meet RpT targets. Which in turn means heavy pressure on our vein mining operations, which in turn sucks up a lot of Capital Goods.
Which means a lot of reasons to go for Nuuk instead of North Boston.
Basically, North Boston Phase 5 is 2364 Progress (~36 dice at 15 R/die), -2 Labor, and -8 Energy for +32 Capital Goods.
Nuuk Phases 1+2+3 is 1120 Progress (~17 dice at 20 R/die), -5 Labor, and -12 Energy for +20 Capital Goods, not so great but a lot easier to get rolling quickly.
And then Nuuk Phase 4 is 1280 Progress (~20 dice at 20 R/die) for another -2 Labor and -8 Energy for +32 Capital Goods, which is basically North Boston Phase 5 in economic impact but considerably faster to complete.
Alternatively, we can model Nuuk Phase 1+2+3+4 as a more expensive (but same Progress requirement) version of North Boston... that produces 52 Capital Goods for 36 dice instead of 32 Capital Goods. Again, more costly (~180 more Resources, -5 more Labor, -12 more Energy)... but you get what you pay for (relatively speaking, +20 Capital Goods, which is more than enough to claw back the Labor costs).
The general public is convinced it knows what the satellites do, to the point where only the specific details of how they work are still a secret- and those will cease to be a secret as soon as the satellites are switched on. Again, someone pick up that phone; I fucking called it!
We've hit the point of diminishing returns, though orbital cleanup is still profitable on net, given an expected cost to finish a phase of cleanup with fusion dice of 15R or less (sometimes two dice, sometimes one).
On the other hand, we have explicit confirmation that if we want to expand space infrastructure to do Cool Shit with it in Earth orbit, we need to clean things up more.
We totally have a plan for this and it would be hilarious if Seo makes this his metaphorical campaign promise.
[grins]
Nice.
Hope that was one of those giant ocean liner-sized megasubs Nod's been using.
Oh God there's a Wave Two!?
Oh hell no, I want carrier yards, if only for variety's sake.
Yeah, the big debate there is "one die to finish Rosyth, or two?" I think it's gonna be "one," because Military dice are scarce, budget is painful, and there's a pretty good chance of finishing with one die. Gonna sting, though, if we roll short and don't quite finish the cruiser yards in Granger's tenure...
Ungh.
A peaker plant means high peak output, enough to power, say, a giant fuckoff energy weapon. Or to power an ion disruptor for short bursts when they specifically anticipate being under threat, though that doesn't make as much sense.
Given that I don't think all Granger's political support rolls over to Seo anyway, and that we have +25 PS coming in just from the stabilizer... I think we can afford to splurge a bit here.
- Location
- The Underdark
So this initial wave is 90 ships. Yes, Nine, Zero. That is still not quite enough to do everything. There are going to be options to build more, pushing the number to 105, 120, 135, 150, but it will be a pretty low priority for the Navy. Nice to have maybe, but not actually hugely critical, or a high priority with the navy. Mostly just means you have more of the big ships to do big things and blow big holes in anything with a scorpion tail. After the first six yards, they want escort carriers, and then either Frigates, or LHAs and Monitors.Oh God there's a Wave Two!?
Oh hell no, I want carrier yards, if only for variety's sake.
The Developmentalists are the key block we need to secure, and Starbound/UYL can be pretty much relied upon to vote Seo even without direct prodding (although some will probably break for Carter instead). I think there might be some value in whipping the UYL vote despite that though, cementing a political alliance for Seo with them early could be very useful.
The Developmentalists are eventually going to roll bad and finally explode one of these days, and all the subfactions are probably going to defect to other parties. The Left Developmentalists will mostly go to one of the Socialists so they're solidly in our camp, the Right Developmentalists probably to the Free Marketers so mostly a lost cause for Seo the ideologue. But there's also a fraction of the Developmentalists that used to be UYL or would otherwise be UYL if being inside the big tent wasn't so profitable left over that doesn't super neatly fit the Left/Right. Making alliances with the UYL now while they're small to try and capture more of that segment later is probably worth 5 PS.
[X] Plan From Below
-[X] Expansive Campaign
-[X] Call in Developmentalist Favors
-[X] Call in United Yellow List Favors
The Developmentalists are eventually going to roll bad and finally explode one of these days, and all the subfactions are probably going to defect to other parties. The Left Developmentalists will mostly go to one of the Socialists so they're solidly in our camp, the Right Developmentalists probably to the Free Marketers so mostly a lost cause for Seo the ideologue. But there's also a fraction of the Developmentalists that used to be UYL or would otherwise be UYL if being inside the big tent wasn't so profitable left over that doesn't super neatly fit the Left/Right. Making alliances with the UYL now while they're small to try and capture more of that segment later is probably worth 5 PS.
[X] Plan From Below
-[X] Expansive Campaign
-[X] Call in Developmentalist Favors
-[X] Call in United Yellow List Favors
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Um... I assume the existing Governor yards will continue to build new ships, right? Or is there an effective 'unit cap' because the need to bring existing cruisers in for overhauls and repairs starts to eat into construction? I'd think we couldn't possibly have reached such a cap this fast, though, because the cruisers are all so new and aren't taking tons of damage and losses based on what we've heard...
But yes, I'm in favor of escort carriers and so on.
Ah well. A minor setback, since we're close to the end of the stabilizer project. Without something like stabilizers it is vanishingly unlikely that we will ever again use all our fusion dice until the day we finally have "more than enough" and the cost reduction becomes permanent.
This is just painful. One die on tidal power doesn't finish it and so gives no immediate Energy payoff. One die on arcologies means more voters being pissed off that we're slow-walking the project, as we were warned in the Results text for Q3. One die on rails means we don't get the immediate +Logistics payoff and still have to work on that phase.
And one die on Mecca means we can't rush it for extra Political Support, though admittedly that'd be hard with 400 Progress left to go anyway. Yes, you have three Tiberium dice, but our expected progress for that is 200+15+105 = 320; we realistically fall short.
My advice is to consolidate instead of scattershotting dice all over the place. Either step back from using Infrastructure dice on Mecca so you can afford to put all five dice on some combination of railroads and arcologies, or free up resources so you can 'promote' one or more dice from elsewhere- either from tidal power to arcologies and rails, from arcologies and rails to Mecca, or both.
The microgeneration die could be left fallow to promote other dice. Microgeneration is much more likely to be attractive next year when we're very hard up for Resources. Letting it wait a turn and leaving a Heavy Industry die fallow might well be better if it lets us promote an Infrastructure die, as discussed above.
The personal robotics factory is not a bad idea as such, and should be pursued soon (since it's likely to lead to labor-saving devices and options, I suspect). But for this turn it might be worth sacrificing progress on it for something else.
Also, two dice on Pharmaceutical Synthesis is very unlikely to complete the project, though admittedly it's a project we can slow-walk relatively safely since there's no immediate Health malus to worry about.
We may want to seriously consider doing something else with our fusion dice, because we only really have any assurance of capturing one phase of cleanup with two fusion dice. The cost may very well largely cancel out the payoff.
Note that we won't have much Political Support left to burn here if we're going all-in on making sure Seo wins. Since endorsing a candidate is likely to cost Political Support, this may not be such a great idea.
On the other hand, freeing up resources (say, by dropping the personal robotics plant and consolidating three Light Industry dice on pharmaceuticals to actually clear it this turn) could let us promote the microgeneration die to fusion power construction, which would actually give us a reasonable chance of completing the action.
Like, I'd have to go back and check, but I'm honestly worried we might go negative on Energy on your plan simply because it makes no realistic allowance for completing any +Energy projects...
A couple things from the Discord:
1:
(That second is once deployed across all vehicles it can fit on, which does not include the current-model Predator, which is already overweight and looks like it has cancer from all the addons.)
2:
So, despite my desire to go memeplan and dump all 6 Free dice into Infrastructure for 11 dice of "25% chance of 16 Logistics from ICS", we should finish Medina ASAP and then slam out some BZ Arcologies or other high-quality housing.
1:
(That second is once deployed across all vehicles it can fit on, which does not include the current-model Predator, which is already overweight and looks like it has cancer from all the addons.)
2:
So, despite my desire to go memeplan and dump all 6 Free dice into Infrastructure for 11 dice of "25% chance of 16 Logistics from ICS", we should finish Medina ASAP and then slam out some BZ Arcologies or other high-quality housing.
- Location
- The Underdark
Okay, so what you have right now is significantly under ninety. You completed Governor Yards in
2057Q3 (Hampton Roads) (5 under construction, 10 still planned)
2057Q1 (Dakar) (5 under construction, 10 still planned)
2056 Q4 (Vladivostok and Durban) (10 complete, 10 under construction, 10 still planned)
2056 Q1 (Yokohama) (10 complete) (5 under construction)
Basically, any single yard is roughly expected to handle 15 cruisers as its stable number. You are still far from actually hitting that capstone point, with only 20 in the water, 25 in various stages of construction, and a further 30 on order. Yokohama is expected to complete its last major wave of construction soon, and then things probably start getting shuffled around. You are only actually going to start hitting that 90 capacity around the midpoint of the next plan, but the navy you want five years from now, is the navy you start building today.
Edit: To be completely pedantic the real number is somewhere between fifteen and twenty per yard depending on a whole list of factors including missile consumption, damage taken, sinkings, and the general state of GDI's industrial baseline.
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- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
Spider-Man pointing meme.
Respect. Dude could have hid in an office but instead put ass to boot.
- Location
- The Underdark
After fifty years of this level of bullshit, the average scientist is somewhere approximating Daniel Jackson minus the inability to stay dead.
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
Yep there's a saying about Navy's that I'm probably going to mangle but it goes like this.
You build for the next war not the current war.
You build for the next war not the current war.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm flattered that you're taking Automated Civilian Shipyards, which I think I may have been the only person stumping for...
Nitpick: Phase 1.
Not a bad lineup; it positions Seo to deliver on a caffeine promise early in his Plan. Notably, we probably don't actually need the Capital Goods from spider cotton right away, so we can afford to intentionally do other things for a few turns.
If I recall correctly, six dice on the stabilizer is excessive. The sixth die just moves you from a 96.42% chance of success to a 99.87% chance. That extra 3.45% of probability is... questionably... worth the investment, compared to another Mecca die or just freeing up the Free die to do something else entirely such as fusion power plant construction or building Reykjavik.
There's an argument for holding off on the Services review until next plan, but given that we're doing a lot of expensive research this turn I can actually see it being worthwhile, just to reduce the risk of Nod infiltrating the research operations.
All in all, a respectable plan, even if one I have some quibbles with- for instance, I might think it better to put another die on Mecca and using a five-stabilizer-dice plan, very likely to complete and giving us a better chance of finishing Mecca by the end of the Plan. One Tiberium die and three Infrastructure dice gives us an average of 280 Progress, nowhere near enough, but two Tib dice and three Infrastructure dice give us an average of 365 Progress, putting us within shouting distance of completion and maybe even clearing it if we roll well.
Given that nobody's gonna want to spend more dice finishing Mecca in 2058 than necessary, I think it's worth it.
True. On the other hand, we've got so much coming in. If the refugee wave doesn't dry up, we may need to do something like spend 3-4 dice/turn on arcologies and intersperse each round of Blue arcologies with a round of Yellows just to keep our buffer open.
The existing commieblocks (the Blue Zone Residential we did in the First Plan) are part of our housing buffer, but so are the Yellow Zone arcologies in a way, because those are a good place to stash incoming refugees if we can't accommodate them in the Blue Zones... and we're rapidly approaching the point where we can't.
It's hard for me to say which is the better housing option from the standpoint of GDI's economy, whether it's better to live in a commieblock apartment in a Blue Zone or in an arcology in a Yellow Zone.
We've reached a point where we have enough of a (mostly co-op worker-owned) market economy in consumer goods that consumer goods output hardly matters. We've been explicitly told to expect minimal Consumer Goods targets for the next Four Year Plan, to the point where I suspect we'll be able to easily meet them out of Agriculture dice and the side-effects of the shitload of Blue Zone arcology development we'll have to do.
The problem is that we can barely hope to complete even one phase of Blue Zone Arcologies next turn, and crash-building a single phase will only accomplish so much, plus we might run into hidden problems from building so many things in three months, or into creating an expectation problem because we finished so many so fast that everyone expects us to be able to do like ten phases in the next Plan.
Likewise, we can make progress on railroads but we only really gain like +4 or +8 Logistics next turn no matter what we do. What's needed (and I have done math on this) is persistent, heavy investment in +Logistics projects. We can't surge it.
By contrast, we can surge-complete or nearly complete Mecca this turn, which would be really nice because at 20 R/die it's going to be a big drag to have to do much work on it in 2058 when our budget drops.
All waves of Fortress Towns involve pushing farther out into Nod territory. And living in a fortress town sucks because you're constantly under threat of Nod attack and the accommodations are... well, sparse.
If we want to just house people in Yellow Zones, we build arcologies in the Yellow Zones, not fortress towns. We build fortress towns if we want to support and/or push for a new round of GDI offensives into Nod territory.
We will never reach this point in ablatives because if we produce literally a billion tons of it, enough to cover every GDI ground vehicle and a lot of static fortifications probably like 100 times over and have enough left over to, I dunno, pave the state of Rhode Island in an imaginative decorative laser-ablative mosaic or something...
The Ground Forces will just slab tons of the stuff all over every vehicle in their arsenal until the axles creak (or, in the Steel Talons' case, the mechs threaten to blow a ligament in the knee or something), then go charging out into battle and get shot with a jillion lasers until it all burns off, then come back and ask for another billion tons of the stuff.
Now, they'll kill a lot of Noddies in the process of doing this, and it's hilarious, but we're never actually gonna hit the cap there.
...
Important Note I Will Never Shut Up About:
We probably might hit this point with artillery shells. Importantly, we hit this point sooner if we stop to develop and deploy better tube artillery. Right now part of the problem is that every time our gunners want to kill something, they have to throw like 100 shells at it, and 100 artillery shells is a literal truckload.
If the gunners could kill the same target with like 50 shells, it would be better and a lot less strain on our factory production chain.
So Ithillid, does this mean that the shipyards could be expanded in order to meet with higher demands or we need to build more shipyards?
- Location
- Wall Gazing
This immediately conjured an image of the Phonebook Armored Car:
- Location
- The Underdark
You are going to be building more shipyards, because a shipyard in Yokohama does not do much good to a damaged ship in Sydney. Basically, each additional cruiser shipyard is not just increasing the capacity that the Navy has to work with. It is also substantially increasing the hardness and resilience of the entire system. In the third Tiberium War, when Hampton Roads was taken out of commission, you saw GDI battleships and carriers being dispersed to other yards for repairs and refits during the war, and it was generally worked around. Because that is what the system is designed to do. You have multiple factories for most military stuff, because it is something where Nod simply can't blow them all up.
Is it possible to build new carriers and battleships or are we limited to upgrading the remaining vessels?