Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Ace of Scarabs · Nov 5, 2021

Dmol8 said:
We needed more Shells to go encircle freaking Africa. Now that the Fortress Towns have shifted to defense encampments we do still have enough shells for them. Barely.

We also need more shells for sustained operations, otherwise NOD could just run places out of ammo via attrition.

uju32 · Nov 5, 2021

dptullos said:
This is all secondary.
Militia are not going to be as well trained as regulars. They are not going to be as disciplined as regulars. And a lot of the Home Guard were probably ex-Nod, which means they were trained in a culture that does value "over the top last stands".

What matters is that the Home Guard remained loyal and fought hard. Any military failures are vastly less important than the propaganda victory that comes from Yellow Zoners fighting heroically against Nod.

I do not agree.
Contrary to Initiative First suspicions, loyalty and fighting hard was more or less a given. These were volunteers.

GDI has had turncoat scientists and officers and the like, but it has not ever had military formations turn coat en masse in any capacity. Especially given the patchiness of Nod's treatment of PoWs. And YZers who may have been Nod have even more reason to not be taken captive.

But if we are going to be relying on backline militia as a backup string to our bow in protecting rear areas, it is imperative that they will listen to orders and not default to over the top last stands, and not be where the local commander expects.
And its critical we hold them to those standards, and not just blow it off as "what do you expect of ex-Noddies"

We can rebuild infrastructure. It takes two decades to grow a soldier.

As for propaganda victories, its just as easy for Nod and Nod-affiliates to spin it as "GDI sending out YZers to die as meatshields in order to reduce casualties among BZ formations". Which among other places will have impact on the willingness of other YZers to take a chance on running away from Nod territory when they can.

Which is why I'd rather the militia followed the freaking plan.

liquidsnake4673 said:
the vein of GDI and NOD switching strategies and an idea of great irony. The best counter to burrowing tanks releasing Bioforms into our fortifications may be to equip our Guard units (i.e. our GDI Militia) with Flamethrowers. They're cheap, easyish to make, super effective against living weapons (especially in confined spaces) and I suspect some of our Guard members may have prior experience using them or working alongside those who do.

1)Flamethrowers are heavy and have low capacity; WW2 iirc had a full manportable flamethrower maxing out at around 60 seconds of capacity. Nod probably gets much better performance out of theirs because of Tiberium bullshit, but GDI does not use Tiberium weapons tactically.

2)Flamethrowers are dangerous to the user.
They have a minimum range, nor can you use them in close quarters and enclosed spaces because of fear of burning yourself, or consuming the air you yourself breathe. And if your tank is perforated.....

3) Flamethrowers are anti-fortification weapons, not antiassault weapons.

So no. I do not believe we'll even touch them.

Simon_Jester said:
I don't think we should treat the Super Orca as a lower priority than naval point defense. Naval point defense is only impactful on actual surface naval warfare, which is nice, but we just had a big throwdown with Pirate Queen Bintang and she lost a lot of surface combatants even if her flagship survived just fine. She's not likely to hit us again immediately, whereas when it comes to battles that Orcas participate in, we are constantly fighting all over all of the everywhere.

I'd say Super Orcas are just as urgent as the point defense refits.

Bintang tangent:

Its worth remembering that while there is no indication that she has the resources to be responsible for the Falak class, we have seen notSierra class submarines that are much more in her wheelhouse to build.
So we probably will face a subsurface threat from her in the future in addition to surface ships.

Something to keep in mind.

Simon_Jester said:
...

"3)The performance of the Home Guard at Arkhangelsk was entirely over the top.
Wasteful of lives in a manner that GDI frankly cannot afford. Someone obviously hasnt gotten the memo of trading space and infrsstructure for time, and saving the over the top last stands for places it actually matters.

If they were ordered to conserve their lives and decided instead to pull a Horatio at the Bridge?
This is a Bad Thing.
Bad for military discipline, bad for the implications about the Home Guard training program."

Ehhh. These were a couple of fairly small infantry units overrun by a mechanized force that crashed through the front line defenses due to extreme concentration of force. If they tried to saddle up and escape in vehicles, they'd have just gotten shot in the back by Nod tank guns from a kilometer away.

You can't always stop the enemy from overwhelming or encircling small elements of your own force everywhere, and when a specific individual unit does get overrun like that, having them be willing to dig in and delay the enemy's blitz as long as possible so buy time for the operational commander to plug the hole in the line is probably the best result you can hope for.

I'd say it just represents a case of Cherdenko being good enough at his job to force GDI to take casualties against its will, which is frankly totally expected from a mid-ranking Nod commander.

Two companies, representing two thirds of a rifle battalion.
In fortifications with prepared lines of retreat, collapsible tunnels, and generous levels of fire support.
The text does seem to make it clear this was not a matter of necessity, but choice.

I wouldnt be as concerned if Cherdenko had outmaneuvered them in the field.
The fact they threw the plan out the window is where my concern arises.

Simon_Jester said:
...

"5)India. Again.
We have seen Indian cyborg exports at Chicago, near the Malacca straits, and now in Russia.
We really should do something about that in the next year and half."

I'm not sure we can, not in that timeframe. India is a major Nod territorial stronghold.

It's like Nod saying "Europe. Again. We keep seeing weapons GDI manufactures in Europe. We need to take Europe away from them." I mean, yes, we actually do have a lot of important stuff in Europe. But first of all we do have some capacity to spread that around and often do when we need to.* And second of all, it's a huge zone of territory that we've had plenty of time to fortify, so taking it is a major operation even for the full-scale global assets of all of Nod working together.

Your suggestion is good, but has an air of "the mice have voted to bell the cat" about it. Don't get me wrong, doing a SUDDENLY KARACHI planned city drop in late 2059 to force the Indian warlord to pay attention to local security concerns sounds appealing, but even that won't "solve" the problem we're facing.

It boils down to the Himalayas, which already shares a border with India and Krukov's central Asian operations.
We have to be expending significant amounts of effort keeping the two supply routes to the Himalayas open, both defence,and in rebuilding them regularly, since large sections of both either skirt or pass through RZs.

Replacing both supply lines with a new, much shorter supply line should free up a lot of the military and civilian effort to assume an offensive posture into the north of India, while Karachi serves as an air and naval base along the west. Plus, the Pakistani Logistics Corridor would vastly complicate overland transport lines for the Indians sending exports west to Iran or the Urals.

Simon_Jester said:
...

"CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
1)Krukov's major resourcing operations are in the Far East. Also out there we have the Siberian BZ and the Korean BZ as staging points for GDI forces. Rolling out Orca Refit A16s would significantly improve our ability to engage in the time-honored practice of harvester hunting, especially as Orcas carry antistealth scanners.

And regular orbital measurements of Tib fields would point us at which areas are being exploited, even though Nod harvesting operations are stealthed.
Hit them in the wallet." We can identify which general areas Nod harvesters are active in, but only in the sense of "we're pretty sure they've been mining from this ten-by-ten kilometer grid square this week." Lighting up areas that large with ion cannon fire is prohibitive for a lot of reasons.

Point of correction:
I wasnt talking about zapping suspect areas with ion cannon at random, I was talking about sending post-refit Orcas and special forces to those suspect areas to hunt harvesters and resourcing operations.

Orcas canonically carry antistealth scanner pods specifically for hunting stealthed vehicles like Nod harvesters. Priorititzing the rollout of the Super Orcas would allow airbases in the Himalayas and Korea and Siberia to exert pressure on Krukov's (and Qinliang for that matter)resourcing operations along the borders of the Chinese RZ.

Adding Wingman Drones would help, of course. But thats for the future.

Simon_Jester said:
The one catch is that just plowing straight ahead and expanding Johannesburg to get the next phase of mech/zone-armor cost improvements only takes 651 Progress, while expanding Reykjavik sufficiently to get the same benefit will take 320+640 = 960 Progress.

If we're in a hurry to start doing Zone Armor factories, the increased speed of getting Johannesburg Phase 4 up and running relative to how long it would take to get Reykjavik Phase 4 running may offset the fact that it would be quite a bit easier to to Reykjavik Phase 5 than Johannesburg Phase 5.

It's a somewhat complicated and tricky question, at least potentially.

The Johannesburg 4/Reykjavik 4 discount isnt a prerequisite for the first tranche of 6x ZA factories, and I'm increasingly of the opinion that its a mistake to be making plans with that assumption.

We have to build on the order of 40 factories/5x phases to equip the entirety of GDI with ZA by WoG. Building 1-3x ZA factories immediately without the discount is a marginal increase in cost, that immediately pays for itself by freeing up large sections of ZOCOM for RZ military and mining operations. Equipping the masses is when the discount is important.

And for location, I happen to agree with the sentiment about moving our primary myomer production node away from the murder happy saboteur warlord over to Iceland. A 200-point surcharge for that seems reasonable enough.

Simon_Jester · Nov 5, 2021

Mortis said:
That's only a couple of turns worth of progress difference at ~3 dice per turn. We have many urgent tasks to do in Military, and have been putting off the Zone Armor factories for years already. We can delay a major push on the factories by a couple of turns, and if urgent we can still do 1-2 Zone Armor factories at the current cost, which isn't prohibitive. Just a couple of factories could take a lot of pressure of ZOCOM and buy us time to build the rest of this wave, as they're being pressed into many minor jobs that normal troops in Zone Armor could take over.

I don't disagree with the underlying logic of your point. My observation is mainly just that the decision of how to proceed with macrospinners is complicated and multi-factored, and people may want to do different things depending on upcoming decision points or the outcome of future rolls that alter the balance of how much certain choices will cost.

Phant0m5 said:
Actually, want to confirm with @Ithillid
When you say the "first round" of zone armor production would only supply the spear tip, are you saying the first round as in "the first factory we build", or are you saying it like "the entire list of factories presently available to us (and there will be more coming)"?

It's been confirmed that he means the latter.

Also, as the war factory refits include updating older zone armor factories itself, and some of the newer zone armor models include cost savings/ease of production advances, do refits count towards zone armor distribution? Or would those advances be negligible or counterbalanced by also producing some even more expensive armor models?

The earlier zone armor factories for ZOCOM operated on a much smaller physical scale of production- note how despite now having myomer and adequate Capital Goods reserves, each of the new factories costs nearly as much as THREE of the old ones. That's probably because each one is making 3-4 times as many power armor suits, or even more since the new model for Ground Forces has fewer features and less complexity.

As a result, it's unlikely that the new factories could support any significant expansion of power armor to the Ground Forces. It'd be more likely that the excess suits would go to a modest expansion of ZOCOM's infantry numbers, or to very specialized roles like "marines serving aboard ships to fight off Nod giant squid attacks" that slightly reduce the strain on ZOCOM.

randomcringyjoke said:
it would be possible to prioritize research to deal with the "right now" problems

What would that look like, that is different from the bulk of what we are already doing or discussing doing in the near future?

Dmol8 · Nov 5, 2021

Yeah you know what? I'm planning on surging Shell Plants Q1 so fuck it new preliminary plan:

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ ‌60?
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌6‌
Housing: +16 (24 Low Quality)
Energy: +1 (+3 Reserve)
Logistics: +6?
Food: +21 (+8 Reserve)
Health +9 (-4 Consumed)
Capital Goods: +2
Consumer Goods: +36
Labor: +31
Tiberium Processing Capacity: (1645/1720)
Yellow Zone
Water: +6

Infrastructure +22
Heavy Industry +17
Light and Chemical Industry +12
Agriculture +12
Tiberium +25
Orbital Industry +10
Services +17
Military +14
Bureaucracy +12
+5 to Development Projects
+5 to Technology Working Groups
+5 to Station Building

Last Security Review:
Light/Chem 1 turns ago 2058 Q3
Services 2 turns ago 2058 Q2
Orbital 4 turn ago 2057 Q4
Heavy Ind 5 turns ago 2057 Q3
Tiberium 6 turns ago 2057 Q2
Bureaucracy 7 turns ago 2057 Q1
Infrastructure 8 turns ago 2055 Q4
Agriculture 9 turns ago 2056 Q4
Military 11 turns ago 2056 Q1

[ ] Plan Running the Eyewall v. 4.5
Infrastructure 5/5 Dice 75 Resources
-[ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 3) 95/650 15 Resources per Die -2 E on Completion, 1 Die = 15 Resources
-[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 15 Resources per Die, 4 Dice = 60 Resources
Heavy Industry 4/4 Dice + 2 Free Die 120 Resources
-[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 2) 22/300 20 Resources per Die, 6 Dice = 120 Resources
Light and Chemical Industry 4/4 Dice 40 Resources
-[ ] Blue Zone Light Industrial Sectors (Phase 1) 0/250 10 Resources per Die -1 E -1 CapG -3 Lab on Completion, 4 Dice = 40 Resources
Agriculture 3/3 Dice 45 Resources
-[ ] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1) 0/170 15 Resources per Die, 3 Dice = 45 Resources
Tiberium 6/6 Dice 140 Resources
-[ ] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 1) 0/200 30 Resources per Die -4 E -2 Log on Completion, 4 Dice = 120 Resources
-[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories (New) Porto 0/70 10 Resources per Die -2 E -1 Lab on Completion, 1 Die = 10 Resources
-[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories (New) Maputo 0/70 10 Resources per Die -2 E -1 Lab on Completion, 1 Die = 10 Resources
Orbital 5/5 Dice + 3 Free Dice 155 Resources
-[ ] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 4) 362/715 20 Resources per Die, 7 Dice = 140 Resources
-[ ] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 5) 117/135 15 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources
Services 4/4 Dice 45 Resources -5 PS
-[ ] Green Zone Teacher Colleges (New) 0/200 5 Resources per Die, 2 Die = 10 Resources
-[ ] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 resources
-[ ] Emergency Tiberium Infusion Development 0/120 15 Resources -5 Political Support per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources -5 Political Support
Military 6/6 Dice +1 Free Die 90 Resources
-[ ] Orca Refit Deployment 0/200 15 Resources per Die -1 CapG on Completion, 3 Dice = 45 Resources
-[ ] Naval Defense Laser Refits (New) 118/330 15 Resources per Die, 3 Dice = 45 Resources
-[ ] Security Reviews Military 1 Die
Bureaucracy 3/3 Dice
-[ ] Security Reviews Military 3 Dice

75+120+40+45+140+155+45+90 = 710/710

Here is what this plan does:

- 1 Die on Blue Zone Arcologies to keep them rolling.
- 4 Dice on Rail Network Construction Campaigns to try and get another Phase of it done for more Logistics gain now and also because it will make evacuating refugees from the Green Zones easier. 78% chance and an Average DC of 41.

- 6 Dice on Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant to get as much progress into it since we need a lot of Energy. I'm repeating this action next turn as well. 98% Chance and an Average DC of 27 to complete Phase 2.

- 4 Dice on Blue Zone Industrial Sectors for some extra Health gain now and because it's cheap. Myomers next turn. 60% chance and an Average DC of 46 to complete.

- 3 Dice on Spider Cotton Plantation since we will spend all our current Capital Goods on this plan. 74% chance and an Average DC of 40.

- 4 Dice on Tiberium Processing Plants to start on removing a strategic weakness. 98% chance and an Average DC of 22 to complete Stage 1 and a 8% chance and an Average DC of 72 to complete Stage 1+2.
- 1 Die each on 2 Railgun Harvester Factories to get some tougher Harvesters for conflict zones before the war starts. 71% chance and a DC of 30 each to complete.

- 7 Dice on Philadelphia II to get Phase 4 Completed this turn. 94% chance and an Average DC of 39 to complete.
- 1 Die on Expand Orbital Communication Network to complete it and harden our communication lines against another nuke Philadelphia masterstroke making the space station less attractive as a target.

- 2 Die on Green Zone Teacher Colleges to keep working on Litvinov's agenda. 13% chance and an Average DC of 76 to complete.
- 1 Die on Tissue Replacement Therapy Development to help people heal easier. 78% chance and a DC of 23 to complete.
- 1 Die on Emergency Tiberium Infusion to slow roll it to completion and a better treatment of Rock Lung. I want Julian Bennett to live a longer life so he can preserve more artifacts and maybe even run for General Secretery again down the line.

- 3 Dice on Orca Refit Deployment for a 57% chance and an Average DC of 48 to complete.
- 3 Dice on Naval Defense Laser Refits to try and get them done. 50% chance and an Average DC of 48 to complete.

- 1 Dice from Military and 3 Dice on Security Reviews Military to dig out some infiltrators out of the Military before the war can start.

Our 3 Main Strategic Weaknesses are: Logistics, Lack of new generation Processing (which we only currently have in Chicago and Mecca) and Consumables. My plan secures an extra +4 to logistics and better evacuation routes, expands our modern Processing Plants so we have less pressure on Mecca and Chicago and goes for our Orca Refit Deployment so we can get better air superiority which will save on our consumables by having to use them less. I also finish our orbital communication network because that makes Philladelphia II less of a masterstroke target.

I'm planning on ramping up dealing with these Strategic Weaknesses alongside making sure all of our military is prepared to fight this war and my stance is defensive. No expanding the Green Zone, just securing it.

Depending on how that new rifle development project looks like I might switch a Mil die to it or just skip it completely for a turn.

TheFourthman · Nov 5, 2021

uju32 said:
Which is why I'd rather the militia followed the freaking plan.

uju32 said:
But if we are going to be relying on backline militia as a backup string to our bow in protecting rear areas, it is imperative that they will listen to orders and not default to over the top last stands, and not be where the local commander expects

You cannot expect Militia to act like soldiers. They aren't. If you want them to be soldiers recruit them. They will have different training levels, different motivations and different objectives then one of our grunts.

A GDI rifleman dropped into Russia is probably not from Russia. He has generic attachment to the area one borne from loyalty to the GDI as a body. A militia man is going to be local. His family and friends have been threaten or face the possibility of being threatened. They are not going to be wholly rational actors.

Also I would not assume all groups are going to act like this one. These guys dig in for three days. Watched their defenses get rocked. Saw the Nod clean up crew. Know what Nod does to prisoners and were like screw it dead anyway.

My assumption for most battles is that they will behave more like they did in the other battle and follow orders. Also we of course will see some units disperse into the country side when fully pressed. As well as some bolt.

Maybe the army needs to work on their training with them but that's an army issue. We've lucky to have them because unlike most irregular units a country trains? They seem to be more politically reliable and loyal then tactical efficient. Which is probably for the best if they're watching out rear. Yes someone might get stupid and let a Nod team blow stuff up. But it'd better then training them and them blowing the stuff up themselves.

KlavoHunter · Nov 5, 2021

TheFourthman said:
You cannot expect Militia to act like soldiers. They aren't. If you want them to be soldiers recruit them. They will have different training levels, different motivations and different objectives then one of our grunts.

A GDI rifleman dropped into Russia is probably not from Russia. He has generic attachment to the area one borne from loyalty to the GDI as a body. A militia man is going to be local. His family and friends have been threaten or face the possibility of being threatened. They are not going to be wholly rational actors.

Also I would not assume all groups are going to act like this one. These guys dig in for three days. Watched their defenses get rocked. Saw the Nod clean up crew. Know what Nod does to prisoners and were like screw it dead anyway.

My assumption for most battles is that they will behave more like they did in the other battle and follow orders. Also we of course will see some units disperse into the country side when fully pressed. As well as some bolt.

Maybe the army needs to work on their training with them but that's an army issue. We've lucky to have them because unlike most irregular units a country trains? They seem to be more politically reliable and loyal then tactical efficient. Which is probably for the best if they're watching out rear. Yes someone might get stupid and let a Nod team blow stuff up. But it'd better then training them and them blowing the stuff up themselves.

You don't have to re-argue this with Uju. The GM already posted why the militia fought to the death in place where they did, and it's not because of any reason that Uju thought was the case. He is wrong, let's move on to something else.

Simon_Jester · Nov 5, 2021

randomcringyjoke said:
it would be possible to prioritize research to deal with the "right now" problems

Which means?

Be specific. What do you want done, that others aren't constantly talking about doing and showing plentiful interest in doing?

uju32 said:
But if we are going to be relying on backline militia as a backup string to our bow in protecting rear areas, it is imperative that they will listen to orders and not default to over the top last stands, and not be where the local commander expects.
And its critical we hold them to those standards, and not just blow it off as "what do you expect of ex-Noddies"

...

Two companies, representing two thirds of a rifle battalion.
In fortifications with prepared lines of retreat, collapsible tunnels, and generous levels of fire support.
The text does seem to make it clear this was not a matter of necessity, but choice.

I wouldnt be as concerned if Cherdenko had outmaneuvered them in the field.
The fact they threw the plan out the window is where my concern arises.

I don't think your takeaway from the battle report is the same as what @Ithillid was trying to communicate, though I could be wrong.

You seem to be working within a paradigm of "the militia companies had easy, safe lines of retreat, and chose to carry out a suicidal last stand for no reason and to no significant tactical value."

I'm pretty sure the intended message was "these units' line of retreat was cut off by the sheer overwhelming mass and speed of approaching enemy armor, the judgment of the officers on the ground in those militia units was that the enemy was near a breakthrough of the fortified zone that would endanger the whole force, and only after this happened did the militia units carry out a last stand."

But I think only @Ithillid could cover this- though note that your interpretation of the text is very much in the minority. Sometimes this can mean that others may have noticed something you do not perceive about the tone of the text.

KlavoHunter said:
You don't have to re-argue this with Uju. The GM already posted why the militia fought to the death in place where they did, and it's not because of any reason that Uju thought was the case. He is wrong, let's move on to something else.

In other words, this.

@uju32 , you're doing the thing again. The thing where you decide that you have come across a unique and insightful interpretation of the situation, but you missed some important context, and as a result you wind up repeatedly and extensively talking about how vitally important or terribly dangerous something is... mistakenly. And where a lot of people try to tell you you've made a mistake, and you don't listen, and it detracts greatly from your power to persuade others to listen to your many good ideas.

Please, just... listen this time.

uju32 said:
The Johannesburg 4/Reykjavik 4 discount isnt a prerequisite for the first tranche of 6x ZA factories, and I'm increasingly of the opinion that its a mistake to be making plans with that assumption.

We have to build on the order of 40 factories/5x phases to equip the entirety of GDI with ZA by WoG. Building 1-3x ZA factories immediately without the discount is a marginal increase in cost, that immediately pays for itself by freeing up large sections of ZOCOM for RZ military and mining operations. Equipping the masses is when the discount is important.

I don't disagree. On the other hand, just chugging along at 'full steam ahead' on macrospinner production nets us an average of about 246 Progress per turn. Unless we build those zone armor factories REALLY immediately- so immediately that they interfere with other projects we very much want ready by 2059Q2- it's likely that we can get to a Phase 4 macrospinner without much difficulty before we even do more than one or two zone armor factories, at most.

Prime 2.0 · Nov 6, 2021

Small PSA, unrelated to the current discussion:

pv2 — Today at 8:27 PM
I'm getting the impression here that "time elapsed since you developed/deployed a technology" is a massive factor in what options you have available from it, above and beyond the benefits of more advanced versions of the tech you might get from a tech roll later
I think this came up with tac ion cannons, too?

ithillid — Today at 8:28 PM
To a substantial degree, yes.
There are basically three factors. 1. Related techs. 2. Investment in a field. 3. time.

The context was a discussion of how later generation airborne laser systems (if we develop them) would improve regardless of tech pinata rolls - an example given being that they'd start out as attachable gunpods and progress to integrated systems, and that this is separate from whether we're using modern nod laser tech or not. The experience using them benefits us even after that 97 we rolled matures.

We have a lot of juicy stuff in the pipeline, but what I mean to draw attention to here is that even if we have better versions of the same thing that will unlock later, the institutional experience of applying the general technology - even its lesser forms - applies just as much towards what we can do with it even after we unlock the superior version's development projects.

Nothing silly like "deploying fusion rockets gives you fusion power plants", but "this is how you put lasers on an aircraft" and "this is how you put different kinds of plasma in an infantry firearm", absolutely. The route to fully exploiting our burgeoning DEW technologies especially seems to lay in developing them early and often.

Woltaire · Nov 6, 2021

another reason to add to the pile of not delaying deployment projects/focusing on them above dev projects

Simon_Jester · Nov 7, 2021

Woltaire said:
another reason to add to the pile of not delaying deployment projects/focusing on them above dev projects

I mean, yes. On the other hand, it also means that if we don't develop and deploy the systems we have elected to not yet develop, we won't get the chance to develop second-generation versions of those same systems.

And even if we steal the tech for a second-generation version from Nod or reverse-engineer it from the Scrin, we won't be as good at using it.

So for instance, even if we later find a way to implement a better form of shields than Shimmer Shields, it won't be as good or as easy as it would be if we had developed and implemented Shimmer Shields.

[This is aside from the part where the nature of the Scrin gacha means we may never get another type of shields]

Prime 2.0 · Nov 7, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
I mean, yes. On the other hand, it also means that if we don't develop and deploy the systems we have elected to not yet develop, we won't get the chance to develop second-generation versions of those same systems.

You've got the right of it, more or less. These are the actions we have to take to develop our own expertise in the field, and there's simply no substitute for that.

Dmol8 · Nov 7, 2021

So we need to develop better Tiberium Storage as soon as able and deploy it for better Tiberium handling. Right I'll plan for that sometime in the next year.

staplesdex2 · Nov 7, 2021

Man I can just imagine an Omake with the posters being Senior Officials discussing the budget for some time while the Treasury Director watches. So who's who in this discussion?

Faraway-R · Nov 7, 2021

Well Simon is obviously one of major analysts, alongside Derpmind (and other primary planmakers).

BOTcommander is one of Space Force specialists on attachment.

I am one of the lower level analysts, usually popping up with tangentially related trivia from time to time.

(For example, I can say that we have been completing military deployment projects every turn as far as I checked, but we didn't always deploy what various branches wanted us to).

Dmol8, no offense but you are probably a vocal but unpopular analyst providing plans that are often shut down.

BOTcommander · Nov 7, 2021

Do we argue in character or out of character?

Dmol8 · Nov 7, 2021

Faraway-R said:
Dmol8, no offense but you are probably a vocal but unpopular analyst providing plans that are often shut down.

Sounds about right. I'm just not sure if I could act out that role if we were to do it in character.

uju32 · Nov 7, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
The big obstacles to starting them have been:

1) Building up enough of an Energy reserve to build enough of them to matter (requires fusion power).

2) Building up enough of a Capital Goods reserve to build enough of them to matter (requires Heavy Industry megaprojects that compete directly with the fusion reactors, and the Capital Goods themselves are also desired for many other things).

3) Having enough Resources to build enough of them to matter (which was an obstacle up through all of 2058, really, until now).

We are now in a position where we could knock off a Ground Armor factory or two fairly quickly. But only one or two. So the question we have to ask is:

Which is more impactful, for instance- completing the entire Super Orca program? Or completing only one Zone Armor factory for Ground Forces, which would be only one sixth of the scale of production they would need just to equip their spearhead forces?

It's not a trivial question. The Ground Forces want Zone Armor for everyone, but they don't worry about how much it'd cost to make that happen. Not that I blame them- but the cost is the main obstacle here. Building even the first wave of Zone Armor factories for Ground Forces is going to be a commitment on the same scale as the Governor yards, and you remember what a pain in the ass it was to get all of those done back during the previous Plan.

Let me be upfront:
I think the Super Orca refit is critical immediately, and its R/Progress cost is almost identical to that of a single new ZA factory.
But this comment inspired me to do some numbers.

Some WAGs and assumptions are made to get usable numbers.

WoG several turns ago is that ZOCOM has two corps.
According to Wiki, the US military considers a corps of soldiers to be 40-80k troops. 2 corps at the high end would be 160k.
Round that up to 200k soldiers as ZOCOM's field forces. I will further assume all of them wear ZA.

Last hard numbers for GDI population was 510 million several years ago in quest. Round down to 500 million.
During WW2, the US military was between 9-12% of the population, depending on your sources.
Assume a median of 10%. Now assume that GDI is running half that, which means 5%.

5% of 500 million is 25 million soldiers.
Assuming Ground Forces is 75% of that would give you 18.75 million, rounded up to 19 million troops.

The 6x factories of Ground Forces Zone Armor Factories Phase 1 will equip the entirety of the Ground Forces spearhead.
Now of 19 million troops, what percentage is the spearhead?
1% translates to 190k. 5% is 950k. 10% would be 1.9 million soldiers.

Assuming a 1% spearhead, each factory equips roughly 32k troops
Assuming a 5% spearhead, each factory equips 158k troops
Assuming a 10% spearhead, each factory equips 320k troops

Now remember that at the beginning of this, I said the entirety of ZOCOM maxes out around 200k.

TLDR
Each new Phase 1 ZA factory for Ground Forces can be projected to add between 16% and 160% of ZOCOM's numbers to GDI's complement of power armored troops, depending on the size of the GDI spearhead. That is not a trivial number of troops, and very much justifies every factory we can build, even if only 1 at a time.

TheFourthman said:
You cannot expect Militia to act like soldiers.

I think we can. Thats what US National Guard are supposed to be after all. Part-time citizen soldiers.
You dont see me commenting about the militia and civilians in St Petersburg; that was entirely appropriate there.

Simon_Jester said:
I don't think your takeaway from the battle report is the same as what @Ithillid was trying to communicate, though I could be wrong.
You seem to be working within a paradigm of "the militia companies had easy, safe lines of retreat, and chose to carry out a suicidal last stand for no reason and to no significant tactical value."

I'm pretty sure the intended message was "these units' line of retreat was cut off by the sheer overwhelming mass and speed of approaching enemy armor, the judgment of the officers on the ground in those militia units was that the enemy was near a breakthrough of the fortified zone that would endanger the whole force, and only after this happened did the militia units carry out a last stand."

But I think only @Ithillid could cover this- though note that your interpretation of the text is very much in the minority. Sometimes this can mean that others may have noticed something you do not perceive about the tone of the text.

Thats very much not the impression I got.We are told that "the defense of the Home Guard is unexpectedly stiff" and "neither Major asked for reinforcements, just that they kept the retreat avenues clear" and even "beyond the wildest expectations of Orlovsky".

Do remember that this is written IC in the form of an unclassified briefing report from the military to all 1800 current members of Parliament and their staffers, much like the CRS documents that US Congress receives. Its as much a public release as anything, and is guaranteed to make it into the hands of both the media and the general public even if GDI does not officially release it.

If the military has any criticisms of militia performance, comments on gaps in their training, or recommendations to make about deficiencies noticed in the course of the battle?
They will not be made here.

Or they might be satisfied. Dunno.

Regardless, this is a sideshow.
Military's bailiwick, not Treasury's.
We are unlikely to see it mentioned again unless the military has a major remedial training project for the Militia that needs funding.

Simon_Jester said:
In other words, this.

@uju32 , you're doing the thing again. The thing where you decide that you have come across a unique and insightful interpretation of the situation, but you missed some important context, and as a result you wind up repeatedly and extensively talking about how vitally important or terribly dangerous something is... mistakenly. And where a lot of people try to tell you you've made a mistake, and you don't listen, and it detracts greatly from your power to persuade others to listen to your many good ideas.

Please, just... listen this time.

*points at previous comment*
The QM wrote the battle report IC from the perspective of a public-facing document designed for a public audience in wartime.
And they have made no ex cathedra statements about it since that I can recall.
It is entirely plausible to have varying interpretations of the same data.

Simon_Jester said:
m not saying Firehawks are dirt cheap, but GDI's advantage has always been industrial capacity, and Nod's advantage always hasn't. Given that Banshees and their derivatives use exotic xenotech just to function, from Nod's smaller industrial base, there is no way that trading them on something like a 1:1 ratio for GDI Firehawks works out well for Nod in the long run.

I'd dispute this.

GDI, as I understand it, has a unified industrial base with little duplication except where necessary for redundancy.
Nod has every warlord and subwarlord doing, or attempting to do, their own thing, with a million different RnD programs and factories for everything from the tires of attack bikes to the focusing lenses of a Redeemer main weapon.

I suspect that in aggregate Nod has at a minimum a similarly sized industrial base as GDI, if not outright larger in absolute terms.
Only that the duplication of effort from being a collection of autonomous fiefs run by semi-independent warlords who are often at loggerheads as well as organizational culture issues translates to major losses to inefficiency.

And when I say major losses, I mean up to half.

TheFourthman · Nov 7, 2021

uju32 said:
I think we can. Thats what US National Guard are supposed to be after all. Part-time citizen soldiers.
You dont see me commenting about the militia and civilians in St Petersburg; that was entirely appropriate there

Jeez. Man learn to read a room. We've both been asked to drop it so drop it.

Simon_Jester · Nov 7, 2021

uju32 said:
Some WAGs and assumptions are made to get usable numbers.

WoG several turns ago is that ZOCOM has two corps.
According to Wiki, the US military considers a corps of soldiers to be 40-80k troops. 2 corps at the high end would be 160k.
Round that up to 200k soldiers as ZOCOM's field forces. I will further assume all of them wear ZA.

Last hard numbers for GDI population was 510 million several years ago in quest. Round down to 500 million.
During WW2, the US military was between 9-12% of the population, depending on your sources.
Assume a median of 10%. Now assume that GDI is running half that, which means 5%.

5% of 500 million is 25 million soldiers.
Assuming Ground Forces is 75% of that would give you 18.75 million, rounded up to 19 million troops.

The 6x factories of Ground Forces Zone Armor Factories Phase 1 will equip the entirety of the Ground Forces spearhead.
Now of 19 million troops, what percentage is the spearhead?
1% translates to 190k. 5% is 950k. 10% would be 1.9 million soldiers.

Assuming a 1% spearhead, each factory equips roughly 32k troops
Assuming a 5% spearhead, each factory equips 158k troops
Assuming a 10% spearhead, each factory equips 320k troops

Now remember that at the beginning of this, I said the entirety of ZOCOM maxes out around 200k.

TLDR
Each new Phase 1 ZA factory for Ground Forces can be projected to add between 16% and 160% of ZOCOM's numbers to GDI's complement of power armored troops, depending on the size of the GDI spearhead. That is not a trivial number of troops, and very much justifies every factory we can build, even if only 1 at a time.

It does.

This broadly aligns with my own analysis, which is that just looking at the cost of each factory... Well, despite myomer-related cost reductions (whatever those are worth), each factory costs (at 200 Progress) roughly three times what the old round of 75-point ZOCOM factories did. This suggests it produces at least three times as much armor as any one of the ZOCOM factories. That is to say, any one of the Ground Force factories in this wave is enough to keep a force at least roughly 50% the size of ZOCOM outfitted in power armor. Maybe more, if the cost savings from the features stripped out of the Ground Force version of the armor are significant enough.

As to the rest...

...GDI, as I understand it, has a unified industrial base with little duplication except where necessary for redundancy.
Nod has every warlord and subwarlord doing, or attempting to do, their own thing, with a million different RnD programs and factories for everything from the tires of attack bikes to the focusing lenses of a Redeemer main weapon...

Eh. Given all the different factors, I suppose you can argue it either way. But the QM has been using phrases like "Nod has a smaller economy/industrial base" to describe the situation throughout the quest, so you know perfectly well what I mean in this case, right?

Ithillid · Nov 7, 2021

GDIOnline Q3 2058 Pt 2.

Moving Day!

Nightingale_Dreams
So, I know I am late to the party, but like half my building moved out today. Mostly going to the new arcology down the road. I did not even put my hat in the ring, because I am actually pretty comfortable here (and really don't like packing), but I don't know about the rest of you. I know a lot of people have been pushing this for a while.
I expect to get a whole lot of new neighbors in the coming days. Keep hearing horror stories about people putting in an application and getting told that there are no spaces available, hopefully the current wave deals with that some.

KryptosAdept
Depending on the specifics, I may also be moving to one soon. I would have a major problem bringing over some of my hobby gear however.

SpeakertoManagers
I still don't see how anyone can bear to live inside a box like that. As well decorated as an arcology is, and as 'natural' as the light from those screens are, it's not natural to live like that.

FloatingWood
Depends on the Arcology I suppose, but they can be pretty spacious internally. It's pretty good living if you can get in, very walkable and excellent public transport inside.

GreenBird
My family is moving into one of the old blue zone habitats soon! They told me the last people to live here kept complaining about the crampedness and the sparse amenities, but when the GDI service worker showed us pictures and explained all the rules for living in them I was blown away! Sensors at the doorways to make sure no Tiberium dust? Suit free in the buildings? That's incredible. And my school is only 30 minutes away! By bus! The last time I got a ride was on the outside of a ruined buggy my dad fixed up. Now I get to ride a car everyday.

Akira Oda (Treasury)
#Greenbird
It is very nice to hear that you live in a safer environment since we here at GDI are hard at work in providing everyone across the world the peace dividend as promised by Director Litinov. Especially since it will hopefully be a great experience in learning new things at the schools our government worked hard to provide for all.

Disaster at Sea: The Tidal Plant Collapses

Dr Henry Card
So, as usual the Initiative is being tight lipped about it, but it is hard to hide power stations just off the coast collapsing and Tiberium infested fragments washing up all along the coasts.
In my area, we had beach closings from St. Ives to Tintagel, and evac orders for all nonpermanent positions in the region. Been seeing response crews coming out for the past week as this began to be a problem.

From what I have been able to piece together, maintenance crews had not noticed that there was Tiberium eating away at the support struts, and when they went in to expand the facilities, they found out that everything had gone horribly wrong, and the stations were in severe danger of collapsing, so they pulled everyone out.

Now remember. GDI is very good about getting the instructions to the people who need to know. If you have not been contacted, just go about your lives as normal, because your area is not considered to be at risk. Otherwise, listen to what the Initiative tells you, and don't be a stubborn fool.

FloatingWood
Sheesh, reminds me of the shit old days of the late 30's projects out in the near YZs. The corps bought the politicos and inspectors, so even though things didn't always go wrong, when they did go wrong it went horribly wrong.
And that happened decidedly more often than was acceptable.

Solan
Cleanup is a mess fortunately we have some unrefurbished harvesters going around since a new refit program is being launched. Anyway from the grapevine and the need to prevent me from breaking any NDAs I would just say that Parliament already knows what's going on and is starting to grill the guy who approved of this. Good thing the other tidal plants aren't affected by this… experiment.

EvaDatabase
#Solan
Good to hear. The situation is already unbelievably ugly, so it's nice to know that at least the existing plants are still fine.

Still, sure would like to be a fly on the wall when they decided this was a good idea. Poking at Tiberium with untested tech? Last time they tried that, they turned half of Australia neon green.

Ares Mission Containment and Celebration Thread

Lili Daeshim (Space Command Exploratory Division Public Relations)
Alright everyone, I just got confirmation that Pathfinder docked at Gagarin station to transfer over the crew for medical checkups and the two week quarantine. With that the Ares mission is officially over. Details to the insights gained will be released over the coming months but until then keep celebrations and questions to this subsection of the forum. Depending on their schedule some of the Ares crew and upper Space Command staff might join in to answer some questions.

Adm. Harrison Carter (Space Command)
Sorry people, no Martians anywhere.

AgathaH
#Adm. Harrison Carter You just want to keep the green space babes for yourself. I get it.

That said, woohoo! Looking forward to more information about what was brought back, but we're finally getting out to visit the neighborhood.

FloatingWood
#Adm. Harrison Carter
Just means we need to make Martians of our own.
Speaking of, Martian settlement project when? Because the Treasury and Space Command aren't exactly moving on settling the Moon outside a few small, minimal personnel mining and research bases.

Adm. Harrison Carter (Space Command)
#FloatingWood
A long way off: years if not decades. Without a Gravitic drive ship a journey to Mars takes two years instead of a few days, which limits the logistics of colonising the red planet without a large fleet of conventional and Gdrive transports. In the meantime there is still a lot of research to be done to prepare us for the challenges of the local environment, mostly ISRU, since our red neighbor is a little too far away for a quick response should something happen.

Solan
You know when I retire I hope Mars will be an option sure I'll be an old man by then but by God I don't want to be reminded of Tiberium every day for the rest of my life if that happens.

EvaDatabase
Inb4 a meteor crashes on Mars and unleashes a new breed of RED space rocks that spreads twice as fast, is three times as toxic, can't be harvested and doesn't respond to sonics.

Seriously though, congratulations to everyone involved in Ares. Even if it takes decades, just the idea that space colonization is now possible gives me hope, and I'm sure that's true for a lot of us.

Q3 2058 Results

Resources:‌ ‌715 ‌+‌ 0 ‌in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(35 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+15 from Taxes)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 60
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌6‌ ‌
Tiberium Spread
17.73 Blue Zone
3.63 Green Zone
22.96 Yellow Zone (88 points of abatement)
55.58 Red Zone (70 points of abatement)

Current‌ ‌Economic‌ ‌Issues:‌ ‌
Housing:‌ Major ‌Surplus‌ ‌(+16)‌ ‌ (23 population in low quality housing) (1 points of refugees)
Energy:‌ At Capacity ‌(+1)‌ ‌(+3 in reserve)
Logistics:‌ Limited ‌Surpluses‌ ‌(+7)‌ ‌
Food:‌ Major ‌Surpluses‌ ‌(+21)‌ ‌(+8 in reserve)‌ ‌
Health:‌ Steadily Improved ‌(+11)‌ (3 consumed by emergency refugee healthcare) ‌
Capital‌ ‌Goods:‌ Marginal ‌Surplus‌es ‌(+3)‌ ‌
Consumer‌ ‌Goods:‌ Significant Surpluses ‌(+28)‌ ‌(+5 from private industry)
Labor:‌ Significant ‌Surpluses‌ ‌(+30)‌ (+4 per turn) ‌
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(1645/1720)‌ ‌
Yellow‌ ‌Zone‌ ‌
Water:‌ Notable ‌Surpluses‌ ‌(+6)‌ ‌

Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌
‌
Free‌ ‌Market‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌125‌ ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌10;‌ ‌20;‌ ‌95)‌ ‌
Market‌ ‌Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌331 ‌seats‌ ‌(141;‌ ‌122;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌15)‌ ‌ ‌
Militarist:‌ ‌237‌ ‌seats‌ ‌(53;‌ ‌140;‌ ‌30;‌ ‌14)‌ ‌
Initiative‌ ‌First:‌ ‌178‌ ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌18; ‌160)‌ ‌
United‌ ‌Yellow‌ ‌List:‌ ‌73 ‌seats‌ ‌(55;‌ ‌18;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌0)‌ ‌
Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌155 ‌seats‌ ‌(70; 80;‌ ‌5;‌ ‌0)‌ ‌
Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌50 ‌seats‌ ‌(24;‌ ‌26;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌0)‌ ‌
Developmentalists:‌ ‌640 ‌seats‌ ‌(300;‌ ‌250;‌ ‌90;‌ ‌0)‌ ‌
Independents‌ ‌11 ‌seats‌ ‌
-Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌ ‌(2 ‌seats:‌ ‌Weak‌ ‌Support)‌ ‌ ‌
-Dominion‌ ‌Party‌ ‌(1‌ ‌seat:‌ ‌Strong‌ ‌Opposition)‌ ‌ ‌
-Reclamation‌ ‌Party‌ ‌(5‌ ‌seats:‌ ‌Weak‌ ‌Support)‌ ‌ ‌
-Homeland‌ ‌Party‌ ‌(3‌ ‌seats:‌ ‌Weak‌ ‌Support)‌ ‌
‌
Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low
Navy:‌ Decent ‌
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 50 Points
Consumer Goods: 110 (40) Points
Food: 20 points in reserve
Income: 355 Points
Stations: 3667 Points
Abatement: 27 Points
Processing: 1080 points
Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
Prototype Plasma Weapons Development
Orbital Defense Laser Development
Railgun Munitions Development
Tactical Plasma Weapons Development
Complete the Point Defense Refits
Complete at least three more phases of Shell Plants
Complete at least two more phase of Ablative Armor
Complete at least two more phases of URLS production
Complete at least two phases of Wadamalaw Kudzu Plantations
Complete at least two more phases of Blue Zone Arcologies
Complete GDSS Enterprise
Complete GDSS Philadelphia II
Complete at least six phases of Lunar Mines
Complete Perennials Phase 3
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
Develop Tactical Ion Cannons
Develop and Deploy Mastodon
Develop and Deploy Havoc

Politics
Once more in the leadup to the Parliamentary Election, GDI's politics roils and waves turbulently. While less of a concern than the rise of the FMP during the run up of the last election, there remains concerns. In particular, the Starbound Party is worried at the neglect of their given mandates. While it was clear that Seo is following in the roots of his predecessor's priorities in an unrelenting drive towards resource extraction, they are worried about the fulfilment of space station stages being unfulfilled for when election rolls by. More than that, with the Battle of Natuna Isles and the Northern Campaign, the socially-inclined supporters of the institutions worry whether this may lead to a shifting of priorities towards military production and less towards the social and public programs the parties have promised to their constituents.

With regards to the Director directly, Litvinov has seemed to turn her attention away from the Treasury, delighted at the quick and thorough completion of her mandates. While there are still programs in the works, they are likely to be smaller in scale. Perhaps as a recompense, she has publically signalled her willingness to sign off on more radical scientific programs and provide cover for Treasury-backed research into topics generally considered taboo.

A Grey Population
GDI has typically had a significantly older population than the historical average, and has had to encourage fertility through a wide range of measures, few with any success, especially as Tiberium has ravaged the world. With the situation stabilized once more even as Tiberium mutates, it is clear that GDI must offer its population hope for the future and for their children to live without the threat of Tiberium. Though the Inhibitor Array did its part to make people all across the world– not just GDI's– safer, it's not going to be enough. At this time, the only possible means to truly signal such safety is to build orbital habitat rings or offworld cities.

Markets
GDI's markets have managed to increase their capital holdings yet again, with ever more products coming out, mainly supplying the newcomers to the Initiative. While the refugee wave is petering out, they are ravenous consumers, restocking everything from their wardrobes to hobbies and toys. The Initiative has often been seen as a land of milk and honey, where the roads are paved in gold (note, the roads are not in fact paved with gold) and while life is harder than the paradise that they expected, it is a substantial improvement on their previous lives.

Welfare
The Welfare department has announced the expansion of the staff in many of GDI's hospitals and public parks. With unemployment a fraction of what it once was, the Welfare department is increasingly taking it upon itself to focus on other elements of the welfare of GDI's population.

Ground Forces
In the wake of the Northern Campaign and the success of the GDI in what amounts to contest of steel and with the sacrifice of the Arkhangelsk's Fourth and Fifth, there has been something of a minor propagandist coup, as the refugees who continued to stream into GDI territories made the choice to fight in the edge of GDI's holdings and filling new Home Guard formations that were kept at understrength sizes. More than that, the politely overlooked reality is that a significant part of the Home Guard cadre had been those who fought on the other side and brought with them significant skills and capability that can't be overlooked. With the surfeit of applicants, the InOps were able to simultaneously tighten and expand vetting process, not only picking semi-trained recruits but also fast-tracking officer candidates. While this could lead to a propensity of sacrifice and heroics among the Home Guard, revisions of the officer curriculum would hopefully temper them against this inclination. (-2 Labour for Q4 2058 and Q1 2059)

The Ground Forces have been forced to push out significant numbers of the next generation sensor suites as they run out of older model systems. Rather than being able to save them for a counterstroke, the Ground Forces are trickling out the systems available as they are needed on the front line. With the operational constraints of the Initiative, the ability to use them for a single concerted strike have almost certainly passed, and the expansion of supply is tantamount to further expansion to NOD regions.

Tangentially, the reconstruction of the St. Petersburg Fortress City has begun at the tail end of this quarter. Unwilling to let opportunity go to waste, Brigadier General Rostam Tir expended his influence over the region, as he lobbied for improved internal defensive lines, and the organization of the buildings to allow for armored columns to more deeply penetrate the city's core. While these were already concerns during the initial construction, his measures would turn the city even more towards defense, to the near exclusion of all other interests. (-2 Labour for Q4 2058, Temporary -1 Logistics for Q4 2058)

Military Priorities

Ground Forces

For the Ground Forces, the highest priority must be the prompt delivery of Zone Armor as soon as possible. With the development of new artillery pieces, they are expecting delivery on a somewhat accelerated schedule, with the aim of drastically reducing the overall shell problem. Third is consumables. While current consumables supplies are enough for smaller scale operations, general operations exhaust supplies quickly.
Currently, the provision of vehicles is generally sufficient. However, many of the existing designs lack the space or other requirements for enhancing capabilities. Though these will require replacements during the coming years, the completion of the refit has mollified these concerns..

Steel Talons

The Steel Talons desperately want to see their current design docket completed in line with the goals committed to in exchange for Tali Jackson. While they see the development of the Havoc as the most potentially revolutionary system currently available, they are also very interested in new weapons and armor technologies, especially the potential of the Ion Cannon system in novel configurations. In terms of truly blue-skies research, they are curious about the logistics of a plasma cannon battery as used by Bintang and where it could be used properly.

Air Force

With the missile problem well on its way to being resolved– although none would gainsay more supplies being available– the Air Force has reassesed its priorities. The most important of them is the A-16 Orcas, but the Wingman drones are not far behind. Beyond that, Cherdenko's intelligence has led to the Aurora bomber being increased in priority. However, the key systems at this point are not more new airframes but rather new tools for airframes, especially things like the Wingman Drones and other means to increase pilot efficiency.

Navy

GDI's naval forces have returned to a point where convoys can expect routine escort, and even attempted blockades can be forced, although not without sacrificing other routes. Though they see the escort carriers with the naval variants of the Orcas as the next major important area to invest in. With the completion of the Busan-Ulsan yard, Point Defense refits are the highest priority– though some among the Naval Command felt as if they've accidentally bit into a lemon, as promises of contemporary laser weapons loomed over the horizon.

Space Force

The Space Force strongly desires the OSRCT concept to move as soon as possible from the drawing board to reality. Additionally, the development of new technologies is an increasingly high priority, as systems to defeat the Ion Cannon network are only likely to proliferate.

Brotherhood of Nod
Gideon has become more active this quarter, putting pressure on Initiative operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike his larger pushes, however, these sets of pressures harken to his performances in the Battle of Shenandoah Valley– in which more tactically superior forces disrupt and pin smaller GDI elements before reinforcements could arrive. Additionally, he has also introduced new models of the Centurion Walkers and a new and lighter weapons platform. The new Centurion variant includes a new model Biprop cannon, one that seems significantly more stable than anything Stahl or even Krukov had fielded in the recent offensive. Losing none of the firepower of the previous models, Gideon's local commanders used these to close in and destroy GDI's emplacements before withdrawing. In several instances, destruction of the cannon and the Biprop canister led only to a localized conflagration on the Centurion's cannon arm and allowing the mechs to retreat relatively safely.. Meanwhile, the second asset is found out to Gideon's penchant for dramatics, as he has revealed a small (approximately four meters tall) mecha– reminiscent to that of GDI's Wolverine– in propaganda videos found as far away as captured Nod bases in Russia. Not much can be gleaned for now, with the exception of the fact that it carries a pair of modular weapons hardpoints, likely including some allocation for melee armaments, flamethrowers, and the rest of the paraphernalia of close quarters battle for the Brotherhood of Nod.

Ibrahim al-Isfahani
In the broader scheme of things, Ibrahim is a relatively minor Warlord, controlling the border regions of the former Iran and Afghanistan. Situated between the center of power in India and the formerly divided Middle East, Ibrahim outlasted many of his ambitious and younger rivals. With records that spanned as far back to the first interwar period, he is a septuagenarian survivor, tending to his fragmented fiefdoms with a very defensive oriented outlook. The main reason for this survival can be attributed to his canniness and risk-management, allowing younger warlords to rise up and be absorbed into the greater Middle Eastern theatre while giving himself credit as their tutor.

And if that does not suffice, Al-Isfahani has a hammer in his disposal. According to latest intelligence, he had gained the moniker of 'Shah of Atom' after it became known that he had been the last in the long line of Warlords to gain the schematics from Persepolis, a joint nuclear research organization between Russia and Iran before the chaos of the first Tiberium War. Unconcerned with fighting dirty, it became known that his bombs were the one who lit up GDI's FOB in the Sinai Valley with nuclear fire. Caravanserai-sourced information corroborated with InOps reasoning that after the destruction of Temple Prime and the dissolution of the Middle Eastern Warlords, he pushed forth in bringing smaller warlords under his control. However, GDI's interests in extraction operations have led to him being put in the inadvertent frontline. Though GDI has no problems beating his forces back, such defeats have been located in the far periphery of his territories.

[ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 2)
Investing in constructing new arcologies reflects a major and ongoing investment in providing not only livable environments but genuinely pleasant ones. These facilities are not just about comfort however. If needed, these are the hardest structures politically feasible to build in the blue zones, and the most resistant to the spread of Tiberium.
(Progress 650/650: 15 resources per die) (+8 Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy) (High Priority)
(Progress 144/650: 15 resources per die) (+8 Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy)

After years of construction, the current phase of the arcology program has finally been completed. In most circumstances, the openings of the first new arcologies since the Third Tiberium War, would have been a cause for much celebration within the entirety of GDI. Much like the temple pyramids of Ancient Mesopotamia or Central America, arcologies aren't just massive imposing structures, they are a symbol. One of power, of wealth, and of Initiative's commitments to aid its citizens in any way it knows how. However, the current situation is somewhat less than that ideal. The result of the opening has been a slackening of frustrations more than anything else. Additionally, the Initiative First Party and many of its sympathizers have begun making hay about how "Hardworking Citizens" are being excluded. While it has done little more than heighten already existing tensions between the Green Zone populations– none too eager to be ablative armour for what some consider to be the 'Initiative proper' and the Initiative First, it has not seemingly won all that many hearts or minds.

The new arcologies themselves are no less luxurious than those built before the war, designed to the same standard pattern and built to the same specifications, they are some of the best housing in the Initiative, and it has shown. Many of the more important figures have gone out of their way to try to find spots in these buildings, although certainly not all of them. The more populist politicians have tended to avoid the arcologies, tending to portray living as one of the people as a sign that they are doing all they can for the greater good of the Initiative.

[ ] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 3)
With revisions to reduce to simply the most viable sites, focused on completing a handful of plants still in progress, and expansions on existing plants to provide added redundancies. With fusion energy increasingly viable, many of the more minor sites lack enough output to be worth the maintenance.
(progress 154/300: 10 resources per die) (+4 Energy) (Project Eliminated) (Double Natural 1)

The Tidal Power Plants have faced utter disaster. Early in the quarter, as work crews returned to the program, the already placed tidal plants were discovered to have been systematically infested with Tiberium. Rather than abandoning and attempting to salvage the platforms, Seo ordered that they be converted into littoral Tiberium harvesting platforms. This proved to be less than advisable, as the harvesting rigs were attacked all along their length, despite the standard sonic protections that are normally installed on land bound tiberium spikes. Over the course of the three weeks following eighteen of the new rigs were completely overtaken with Tiberium, with a further twenty seven breaking apart in the process. This has left significant Tiberium chunks washing ashore on Blue Zones around the world, and the Treasury with a significant mess on its hands.
In response, the Treasury has ordered evacuations along thousands of kilometers of the coast, and surged containment teams, a standard part of Blue Zone work, to the shores. While this has lead to slowed response to a number of Tiberium outbreaks in other parts of the Blue Zones, these have been, for the most part, fairly minor and far from human habitation. The teams have already contained the worst of the outbreaks, and so far all that remains are smaller pieces coming up and starting small scale outbreaks that can be handled by local forces.
However, the political blame game is still underway. While the entire mess can be laid at the Treasury's feet, it is also something where the Treasury did manage to cover its rear in most aspects. The end result has been that Seo has taken a beating in the court of public opinion, but the Treasury as a whole came out effectively unscathed.

[ ] Automated Civilian Shipyards
With GDI's ever increasing need for shipping, production of cargo ships, the backbone of global logistics, must increase. A series of heavily automated shipyards will fill the gap, requiring substantial investments of capital goods, but able to produce ships far faster than human construction crews.
(Progress 353/250: 20 resources per die) (+9 Logistics, -1 Capital Goods, -4 Energy)

A modern cargo ship can operate with an extremely skeletonized crew. While technically speaking wholly unmanned ships are possible, current regulations call for a crew of no less than nine to twelve, and ideally fifteen operating in three shifts. All are conducting remote operations from a central command bridge in the ship's upper works. Typically, that is an officer, a helmsman, a signalman, an engineer and the fire director. However, most ships only run with a crew of nine, dropping the engineer and the fire director as they are considered to be less useful, especially with the limited capacity of either to affect ship systems. In the former case, the number of repairs, even with robotic assistance that can be conducted at sea are limited. Most things more complicated than patching holes as a form of rudimentary damage control, or doing basic repair tasks on the engines are simply too big and complicated for the skeleton crews of the Initiative to handle without assistance from a port, and port crews have far more support to work from in nearly every case. Similarly, the fire director can both be replaced to some degree by the officer, and has little to work with. While most cargo ships do carry a small handful of lightweight missiles and potentially a pair of short ranged point defense mounts, they simply cannot do more than take the hits in most cases.

The allocation to more shipyards, especially high output automated designs, is projected to hit a number of hard limits in the coming months and years. The closest one is actually port facilities. There is only so much that GDI can handle, even coming through its largest ports. Beyond that, there is only so much cargo that needs to be transported the long distances that cargo ships excel at. With the Initiative having fought multiple global wars that cut the vital sea lanes to nearly a dead stop, there has been massive effort expended to ensure that there is little cargo that actually needs to be carried long distances, much less than the increasingly globalized world of the late 20th century that the Initiative was founded to protect in any case.

[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 11) (Updated)
A final stage of Red Sea operations will be in Eritrea, attacking towards the source of the Nile river, and into the Red Zone pocket where the Brotherhood once sourced significant resources for the Egyptian zones. While this will be a somewhat more difficult operation, it should not face significant opposition.
(Progress 159/130: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle [10-20 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation)

The Eritrean mining operation has been a substantial investment for the Initiative. Surging resources to the region have pushed deep into the Red Zone. However, opposition has been stiff. Mehretu's forces have made counterattack after counterattack against the Red Zone mining operations. Thus, over the ground where the first iterations of the MARVs were tested, their successors have fought once again. With more success due to the lack of heavy weapons for the Brotherhood of Nod, the ZOCOM surges forward. However, that is not likely to be the end of local opposition. As befits the Warlord's external stances, the region is rife with infiltrators– and while there are no local civilians, that could only mitigate the problem so much. Already, local operations have countered a dozen attempts to infiltrate GDI lines and positions, and two managed to get deep enough to attack the citadel around one of the forward MCVs.

[ ] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 11) (Updated)
Attacking the other side of the Sinai peninsula and the former territories of Israel, this glacier mine will be the third of four in the area. With a fairly long overland route, it will be marginally more expensive to manage, but not as bad as some of the proposals for other locations.
(Progress 180/180: 30 resources per die) (-3 Logistics) (additional income trickle [40-60 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) (1 Stage available)

The operations against the relatively young glaciers in the middle eastern Red Zone have been a resounding success. With little in the way of opposition aside from Al-Isfahani's nuclear strike in the last quarter, GDI has secured the region and pushed forward glacier mining operations. These glacier mines are recent eruptions, typically smaller and more broken up than older growth glaciers found in places like Italy or America. Thus, they are perfect for harvesting as they can be effectively surrounded and mined on all sides rather than relying on a single angle of attack. The only problem that comes from mining new growth are the unstable glacier clusters, where Tiberium could intermittently cause mini-quakes that launches spikes of the mineral upward, making it very risky to send people or machines into the middle of the clusters, leaving large perimeters where there is very little that can be done to abate the growth.

(Progress 210/180: 30 resources per die) (-3 Logistics) (additional income trickle [40-60 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) (1 Stage available)

Furthermore, the Eritrean operation has been a bold stroke. Operating often less than a kilometer behind the front lines, mining operations have gone up in parallel with more general harvesting operations. It is very fortunate that there were no catalyst missile launches, else the entire complex being constructed could have gone up in an explosion. However it has proven to be more valuable than many of the existing glacier mines already. With this rounding out the Mecca Complex, it has reached a point of saturation, as has the entire Initiative's refining operation. A single strike could cripple years of developmental work, and leave the Initiative far poorer than it could have been. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that the Initiative needs to diversify their Tiberium refining locations, not only to try and replace the previous Mobius and Mobius Granger process facilities, but to simply harden the system against attack. Additionally, the simple strain of transporting to and from large centralized facilities is likely to become increasingly problematic if the Treasury continues its focus on single massive complexes.
Future work will be increasingly distant and more remote, with the next keystone operation being an attack up the Congo river, which will be unfortunately logistically intensive and somewhat risky.

[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories (New)
The Railgun Harvester is a significantly heavier design than previous Harvester systems and so requires a new series of factories. While by the standards of military production these will be overall fairly limited, they will provide a noticeable increase in income, especially from more heavily contested regions.
-[ ] Albany (Progress 116/70 : 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy, -1 Labor)
The Albany factory has been completed. With it comes many of the more serious harvesting operations, such as those south of Chicago, or in the Meccan Planned City Complex, supplying a significantly more capable weapons platform and more heavily armored system is likely to be significant. However, the program is already facing cuts, as the development of novel hover systems and harvesting methods is casting doubts on the viability of the overall program. However, even with these new methods, a more heavily armed and better protected harvester now, is worth almost as much as a superior option later. However, it is something that the Treasury has to strongly consider, not only in terms of immediate investment, but long term allocations.

[ ] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 4)
The project that was never completed by the prewar administration, the fourth phase of Philadelphia will bring yet more critical government systems into orbit and serve as a secure location for parliamentary commissions and panels. (Station)
(Progress 362/715: 20 resources per die) (+3 to all dice, +1 Free Die) (10 Political Support)

The Philadelphia II project has been substantially restarted, but at a slower pace than some would have liked. While there is not a strict schedule for the Treasury's operations, the goals laid out in the four year plan are ambitious, and with the current situation potentially impossible if allowed to lay for too long. Beyond that, there are substantial political pushes. The Starbound party is looking at the oncoming election with significant worry, and while they recognize the advantages of building up administrative and industrial capacity first, they are not ready to give up on putting a permanent population into space before the end of the plan, even if it does not happen before the next election.
More practically, work has continued on the expansion of the offices for Parliament. Once completed, the first in person meeting of the full parliament is planned, a momentous occasion, as such an event has not occurred since before the Second Tiberium War.

[ ] Expand Orbital Communications Network (Phase 4) (Updated)
With ever more communications capacity coming online, more rounds of orbital communications provides for a stronger backbone, and greater redundancy in the face of potential attacks on GDI's orbitals. However, they are beginning to reach a point of saturation, and the limits of current technology though there are still more seats of parliament able to be added.
(Progress 117/135: 10 resources per die) (+2 Logistics) (10 Political Support)

The expansion of relay satellites, placed between two or more other communications units and designed to only talk to other satellites rather than stations or ground bases has been ongoing. With these, instead of relying on connections to high orbits like the Enterprise and Philadelphia, the communications network has its own dedicated platforms in an almost complete network. With each relay able to talk to at least three others, even if all existing stations are destroyed, there are still going to be more units available, even if many are taken out by a kessler cascade, as happened during the Third Tiberium War.
However, there are still a number of keystone units required before this expansion can come fully online. Without the need for the Philadelphia's systems, it can reorient its communications arrays more towards deep space, and provide improved links with the more deep space stations, such as the ones that will be needed to exploit the asteroid belt's resources.

[ ] Nanotube Hull Panelling Development (New)
With the SCED having developed a new advanced form of high resistance hull panels, it is in the interests of the Treasury to test them for its own interests and develop them for a more comprehensive manufacturing sequence.
(Progress 83/30: 5 resources per die)

The sheets of dark silvery metal, covered in anti-flash white across most of their surface, are a marginal but noticeable upgrade to the standard hull panels. While typically the job would be given over to extremely thin layers of aluminum backed ceramics, the SCED has managed to create a lighter, thinner, and more resilient panel, one that would do well in GDI's satellite programs. With a thinner panel, it can actually shrink the satellites by a marginal degree, as there is less wasted space at the corners. For stations on the other hand it is significantly more marginal, but many of the new elements of the Philadelphia are being clad in this, and it has resulted in some marginal cost reductions.

[ ] NOD Research Initiatives
While the lowest hanging fruit has been plucked, there is still much more on the tree. Following up and authorizing another major round of funding, grants, and research programs will provide the impetus for more research into the Brotherhood's so called "technologies of peace"
(Progress 173/160 : 30 resources per die)
With the capture of the Shadows Team that attempted to assassinate Hackett as well as the extra rounds of infusion in funds, a sudden breakthrough has been achieved in the fields of the Brotherhood's 'arsenal of peace' via interrogations that yielded small yet significant bits of pieces needed to cross out the dead-ends and viable research opportunities. Relatedly, the programs that show the most promise in this round of funding allocations have been the smorgasbord of weapons technologies owing to the capture of the Shadow Team equipped by them. Ranging from analyses of Brotherhood efforts in Binary Propellant Weapons, to the hallucinogen grenades that they love so much, to their most advanced laser systems.

Hallucinogenic weapons are at once a very common tool in the Brotherhood's arsenal and a distinctly limited one. Issued only to the Confessor's of Marcion's Black Hand, they have sown chaos and destruction, at times turning clear victories into messy defeats as they plagued the victims with terrors. Survivors of such attacks describe being swarmed by spiders, their friends turning into zombies or devils. Every terror the human mind can conjure, either forcing GDI infantry to retreat or inflicting grievous casualties on the ones bold and callous enough to push through the terror and keep their weapons downrage. The gas is insidious, seeping through every gas mask and filter GDI can design short of total isolation. GDI's research so far has discovered that the gas is a distillate of an engineered fungus, one that is apparently quite difficult to grow, and does not produce all that much of the processed gas. Beyond that, the gas degrades relatively quickly, within a few weeks to months, meaning that building up supplies is effectively impossible.

The most basic possible binary propellant is a hypergolic fuel. For example, in the Messerschmit 163, an experimental Nazi rocket plane from the second world war, a mix of high test hydrogen peroxide and a blend of methanol, hydrazine hydrate, and water served as the rocket for a series of late war interceptor designs. While notably unsuccessful, they did set speed records that would not be matched for decades. More modern binary propellants are closer to fuel air devices, using a combination of oxidizer, fuel, and an electrical arc to produce a stable explosion. While captured devices are far too unstable for GDI to use, they are an interesting combination, capable of building up extremely high pressures, more than any Initiative conventional propellant gun system.

Brotherhood Laser technologies have changed significantly in the last fifty years. Far from the crystal beam lasers of the late 1990s and early 2000s, modern Brotherhood lasers are cheap, effective, and extremely efficient. They have only one key flaw. Hang Fire. On nearly all Brotherhood laser systems in the modern day, there is typically between a quarter second and a full second, depending heavily on the size of the weapon, of hang fire before the system fully engages and spits its photon beam forth. For example, the Spitfire lasers found on buggies, and Venoms, is much faster charging than the Obelisk of Light. While the Brotherhoods design is reliant on Tiberium power cells for its capacitance, that is something that GDI certainly can work around, especially for its Zone Armor and vehicle deployments.

Aside from laser technology, there is the Brotherhood's charged particle beam. Deployed rarely, and primarily among the Brotherhood's elite heavy troops, the beams are almost entirely an infantry weapon, capping out at the equivalents of light autocannon. The existing designs are fully dependent on Tiberium for their functionality, meaning that a direct port of the system is not particularly useful to GDI. However, they seem to be using similar technologies to GDI ion cannons or Scrin plasma weapons, which suggests that an in depth study should provide both information, and serious advancements in the systems that GDI can deploy.

Invented in the First World War, the Flamethrower has had quite a few exotic fuel combinations. Some, like Chlorine Trifluoride have proven to be too excitable for even the Brotherhood of Nod's Black Hand, let alone anyone less powered by fanaticism. Similar are the various oxygenated fluorine compounds, which are typically more than somewhat excited by the idea of setting things on fire. However, they have developed numerous combinations of oxidizers, fuels, and accelerants that produce an extremely hot, sticky flame, oftentimes closing on the results of thermite or thermate. While most of these are Tiberium based in one form or another, there are some that are less horrific, at least in uses aside from attempting to incinerate infantry. Primarily, this is expected to serve as a demolition device, and as a means to create fougasse, although some are proposing inferno missiles as part of GDI's arsenal.

Conventional infantry equipment has become exceedingly heavy in the modern day, often half or more of the soldier's bodyweight. Between armor, ammunition, environmental support, and all of the other paraphernalia a soldier needs to simply survive, there are often severe complications, especially to the joints, from long infantry service. In order to make this more viable, the Black Hand have pioneered a system of power assisted armor. While full, or true, power armor uses the body's movements as little more than guidance, power assisted armor simply uses a semi powered system to hold the weight off of the body, with a form fitting exoskeleton serving as the mounting point for all of the impedimentia of war. Captured copies provide insight into a system that, while not as advanced or effective as Zone Armor, can be used to seriously slim down the armor as a whole, while actually increasing effectiveness, and will likely serve as a second and third line platform for GDI infantry overall.

The Brotherhood's wing packs are an interesting combination of the commonplace and the exotic. A mix of carbon fiber and aluminum serve as the leading edge, along with a wire connecting to a set of memory fabric wings, which stiffen into a gliding surface when a small amount of current is passed through them. These make them significantly lighter than the already incredibly lightweight prototypes that GDI has built, and much more compact. Much of the bulk of the Shadow's wing pack is a small solar powered ducted fan, able to provide a relatively miniscule amount of thrust, but enough, when combined with the wingspan of the pack, to ensure a light person can effectively fly. However, it does not do all that well at takeoff. This strongly suggests that nearly all reports of Shadows taking off from level ground, are either fabrications, or some other piece of technology in their suits, or the work of discardable assisted takeoff units.

The Tick Tank was a weapon of the Second Tiberium War, and a particularly odd one. Effectively a tank destroyer, it had an automated 360 degree entrenching system. Unlike most tanks, whose entrenching system is frontal only, effectively a dozer blade used to push up a pile of dirt and rocks to provide protection for the lower hull during a coming combat, the Tick effectively dug itself a trench and then used its extremely high gun depression to continue shooting at targets. While the system was abandoned for being too expensive for its effect, some variant is more than likely usable to increase GDI defensive capabilities, and provide a less radical means for creating hull down positions wherever is convenient.

The Brotherhood of Nod has a tendency to take a battlefield that already has quite a number of intense emitters and make it even nastier. While the earliest versions of radar defeat were simple strips of aluminum foil dropped from a bomber, modern versions are significantly more complicated and effective. The brotherhood typically layers a combination of barrage jammers. Instead of using a single source, multiple cheap barrage jammers are launched using subsonic loitering missiles, alongside other sources of interference. In most battles this has become a constant thorn in the Initiative's side, and with a number of captured missiles, improved home on jam munitions and other countermeasures are not only possible but relatively simple, and can be instituted with little delay.

[ ] Scrin Research Institutions
While the Scrin material has provided substantial advantages already, Initiative scientists believe that there is still more that can be gained by studying the remnants of the invaders. While it will be expensive, the last round of research has already more than paid off.
(Progress 435/350: 30 resources per die)

The products of the Scrin research are not all that could be hoped for, however, they are still very significant.
The first is a somewhat prosaic device, but a critically important one, the Scrin's mining devices. Both GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod operate physical harvesters. The Scrin do not. Their approach is reliant on the nature of Tiberium as a proton lattice. Each tentacle is a combination of electron and neutron projectors, alongside micro force fields. The combination weakens the bonds between Tiberium crystals and allows the harvester to utilize a series of magnetic induction ports to pull pieces of the weakened crystal into the containment vessel. While GDI's version is likely to be significantly more crude than the Scrin's methodology, it should still be a significant upgrade in harvesting technologies, offering between a five and ten percent increase in GDI income once fully deployed.
Another element of the Scrin harvester that GDI has made to work is the repulsor system. The Scrin seem to have broadly two separate approaches to producing flight or effective flight without a form of impulse. The first is their gravitic drives that GDI has already begun developing into something that can be used to unlock the Solar System. The second is a repulsorplate. Repulsorplates are arc field systems that push against a material at some distance. A very similar principle to what the Brotherhood's Banshee and Barghest designs utilize, the current iteration is significantly less refined, requiring both a fairly large plate, and a relatively dense material. However, it is likely to revolutionize field logistics and over the beach operations, alongside a significant number of port operations, as when they are deployed GDI will no longer need nearly so much infrastructure to handle loading and unloading ships.
Third and finally is the Scrin's electrolaser system. While means of remotely deploying electricity are by no means new, the Scrin seem to have mastered the art, and have produced weapons that utilize atmospheric manipulation, force fields, and other means to generate directed bolts of electricity that are nearly as powerful as actual lightning. While currently the effective use of this technology is unknown, it is worth developing, as it may pertain to some useful technologies in other fields and high energy physics more generally.

[ ] Remedial Education Program Expansions (New)
With many of the refugees coming in with only partial training, the existing alternate education programs are under significant strain, with too few classrooms and too few teachers. Relatively cheap expansions to the program would help speed the expansion of the workforce, and aid Litvinov's education mandate.
(Progress 148/120: 5 resources per die) (natural 100)

Seo's rapid attack on the problems of the Yellow Zone immigrants in the field of education has been significantly noticed. While it has not offset the political problems created by the collapsing sea rigs, they have been able to keep the United Yellow List on side, and reduce defections elsewhere.
The programs themselves are fairly simple. More teachers, more classrooms, more workspaces. However, there are fundamental differences between the Yellow Zone population, and the normal intake of alternate education programs. First is expertise. The Yellow Zoners are often coming into the program with a fair amount of knowledge, only missing a handful of key pieces. This means that they can, to a degree, be thrown into the deep end, with many of the advanced classes setting a punishing pace, able to introduce multiple advanced concepts, because the people taking them are already able to do most of it in practice and are really only brushing up on the theory. Second is formulation. These students can and already have been qualified on many of the tools, or close cousins of the tools in use, meaning that they can do much more work in a hands-on sense rather than one that relies on classroom instruction. While this does not mean classrooms are pointless, and there are many classes that are classroom focused, many are more interested and eager to be getting out and doing, rather than being lectured at.

[ ] Wartime Factory Refits (Phase 2)
The second phase of refits includes a number of the critical new developments pushed forward by the Global Defense Initiative in the aftermath of the Third Tiberium War. Systems like the Apollo, Zone Armor Factories, and similar need refits promptly, and will significantly increase GDI's ability to absorb losses in those areas.
(Progress 93/90: 20 resources per die) (-3 Capital Goods)

Further redevelopment and rationalization of the production system has begun supplying more Zone Armor to the front lines. While not enough to do more than ease some of the supply worries of the Zone Operations Command, it does mean that GDI can potentially support one to two more mines before beginning to run into the limits of production and training. Similarly, the Apollo can begin taking a significantly larger operational position. While currently there are enough for many operations, they can potentially begin pushing forward with greater aggression. More broadly, GDI's improving supply situation, while not significantly influencing the course of the battles in the north this quarter, has begun filling the stockpiles in preparation for a fourth Tiberium War.

[ ] Sonic Mobile Artillery Vehicle Development
While the Shatterer has shown its effectiveness, it remains held back by its origin as a mining tool. ZOCOM has requested a next generation weapon system capable of offering indirect fire support at extreme ranges to the soldiers of the Zone Operations Command. (Progress 43/40: 10 resources per die) (High Priority)

In the latter half of the 19th century, the most advanced blasting composition in the world was Dynamite, an emulsion of Nitroglycerin and clay, invented by Alfred Nobel. It was, of course, quickly taken up by militaries, looking for a better means of breaking ships and destroying fortresses. However, it had one critical problem. The deflagration or detonation of existing propellants provided a short, sharp, shock to the system, one that would detonate a dynamite filled shell, especially older ones whose emulsion had begun to break down, and had begun weeping pure nitroglycerin.
The same problems apply to sonic shells. Each is in effect a single shot sonic projector, using a reactive crystal as an amplifier for a single overpowering blast wave. However, this crystal is a fundamental flaw in the design, as it is both the primary determinant of how much energy, and therefore how much damage the shell can impart, and how fast it can be accelerated. The answer unfortunately in the latter case is not much. A sonic shell is quite the fragile thing, and heavy impacts, such as being dropped from about two stories, is enough to make shells unreliable at best. This has meant a more low impact solution is required. At the tail end of the 19th century, the Sims-Dudley dynamite gun used a smokeless powder charge to pressurize a piston that launched the dynamite charge down the barrel. The modern system is little different aside from the means of propelling the piston. Instead of a charge of powder, it uses a linear induction motor to fling the piston down the barrel, and launch the shell.

The Pacifier MAV uses four of these cannons, each 125mm in diameter. With the barrels themselves being only slightly longer than the travel of the piston, and only really being there to support the weight of the shell during the first part of the transit, they are notably lightweight, if only having around five kilometers of range, at least on a ballistic course. While a significant upgrade when compared to the Dynamite guns of the late 19th century, it is far from enough for a general purpose artillery piece of the mid 21st century. The solution however, has already been found in the form of glide munitions. Instead of loading a full caliber sonic munition, a subcaliber round can be loaded, and freeing up the rest of the space for other purposes which in this case is a set of folded wings. This turns the projectile into a high speed glider, and one able to deliver relatively precise munitions as far as twenty or thirty kilometers away. While still extremely short ranged by artillery standards– and though the reality of signal interference of Tiberium fields meant that conventional artillery would not be effective at those ranges regardless, it offers substantial advantages in other areas, most notably when operating in heavily Tiberium infested environments in providing heavy fire support without setting off Liquid Tiberium deposit within the earth's crust, and has a blast radius between fifty and seventy five percent greater than a conventional shell of the same caliber.

[ ] Shimmer Shield Development
Developed from the basis of Scrin shield technology, shimmer shields are weak deflection fields that form in a bubble around a projector unit. Intended to serve as a combination of anti missile and anti energy weapon, defense, development should provide a means to reduce the overall effectiveness of many of the brotherhood's weapons.
(63/60: 20 resources per die)

The Shimmer Shield is a noticeable improvement in survivability. As developed it is a system that requires two key elements. First, a shield generator, and second a series of projectors to shape the bubble. While it will always be a bubble, it can be elongated and shaped to fit the shape of the unit in question. The shield is actually fairly light, and not hugely energy intensive. The expanding requirements of next generation systems, in order to mount the lasers, railguns, and particle beams that have been developing as the future of the Initiative arsenal, do not need to be expanded all that much to include the shield devices.
In terms of effect, with shield systems, specialization seems to be the answer to strength. There is a clear trade off between cost, specialization, and strength of the shield system. The engineers working on this have run head first into this problem. Tuning for greater diffraction directly reduces the impact on other weapons systems, reducing the effectiveness of lasers by ten to fifteen percent, while letting missiles and particle beams pass through unaffected. Comparatively, tuning the system for particles reduces the impact by around ten percent, but lets through other systems. Finally, a shield tuned to kinetic impact can detonate standard impact fuses as much as two meters short of their target, but does little against standoff munitions, and has problems with heavier, or delayed, fusings.

[ ] Hydrofoil Shipyards
With GDI's new Rapier class Hydrofoils design ready, there remains a need to build them in appropriate areas. With the need for patrol assets, GDI has selected three ports for doing the work. The last port remaining is the combined port of Busan and Ulsan. One of the largest shipbuilders in the world, the port is a natural fit for the relatively small scale production of additional military vessels.

[ ] Busan-Ulsan Combined Port (Progress 154/85: 10 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Labor)

The last of GDI's hydrofoil shipyards has begun operations this quarter, with a final surge of resources. While only a few boats have so far hit the waters, the sea of Japan has begun to see a more constant GDI presence. With the boats mostly operating in Blue Zone waters, GDI can detach ever more of its cruisers and other heavy warships for more aggressive patrolling, and forward operations. The hydrofoils are likely to serve, effectively unchanged for quite some time, as while they are vulnerable to many things, they are intended to only be a relative stop gap, with many of their more aggressive roles filled by frigates and monitors, or by increasing numbers of cruisers. But at least for now, GDI is more able to control its immediate surroundings and contest Brotherhood invasions than ever before. Operations like the raid that captured Dr. Giraud during the Third Tiberium War are now effectively unthinkable, and likely to incur severe losses on any warlord bold enough to attempt them.

[ ] Naval Defense Laser Refits (New)
The Navy requires laser refits across the fleet, including the newer Governors. While it will not be improving the very lightest units, it will provide significant improvements in the defensive umbrella that most naval units can provide. While it is a noticeably intensive refit, requiring significant effort to run additional power conduits through the ship, and involves losing out on some of the antiaircraft firepower, the protections are definitely worthwhile.
(Progress 121/330: 15 resources per die)

The ongoing naval refits have begun with ships still under construction. It is far easier to change paper than metal, and the same applies here. With most of the current wave of Governor class ships still building up the main hull and the engineering spaces, the addition of a defense laser is simple, easy, and part of an overall refit, including swapping out the existing antiaircraft autocannon for rapid fire railguns. While this has been a process occurring across GDI's anti aircraft weapons suites, the Governor has benefited significantly from this, with the increased velocity pushing the effective range of the guns out, decreasing the volatility of the ammunition stores, and significantly increasing the depth of those magazines with the smaller ammunition.
Similar refits have begun on the battleships and carriers still under construction. While they require massively more alteration, including the addition of more firing platforms, reshaping the hulls, and completely reworking the power systems, each of the currently under construction warships is being equipped with six antimissile platforms, a dozen short range point defense systems, primarily the electrolasers, and additional railgun antiaircraft mounts for good measure.
However, there is far more left to do. GDI does have a significantly larger existing fleet of heavy ships, and the refits for all of them will be a serious expense over the next six months to a year as they come in for refit and repair. However, it is in the Treasury and the Navy's interest to have sufficient supplies allocated for the refits to begin as soon as a ship enters port, rather than waiting to produce during the refit cycle.

[ ] Security Reviews
GDI has often faced problems with infiltration by the Brotherhood of Nod. A full security review of one department of operations can mitigate or discover infiltration, however it will take a significant amount of effort. (DC 55 + 1 operations die)

The Light and Chemical Industry department has been a relatively uneventful security review. However, the department, with its long stint of relative inactivity, has developed something of a party culture. With more hands and fewer assignments, the department has seen little pressure to perform these last nine months, long enough that they have slackened off on many of their procedures. While it is unlikely that this will affect work habits in the long term, it is something that can happen to long dormant operations.

[ ] Lobby For Establishment of Negotiation Corps
With the Initiative having engaged in negotiations with the Brotherhood of Nod on multiple occasions in the last years, one common element has been the completely amateur nature of GDI's diplomatic services. While currently there is limited support at best for a proper Department of State, establishing a corps of professional, dedicated negotiators to lead engagement with the Brotherhood and any neutrals may well have positive results.
(DC 100/120/130) (-5 Political Support per die)

The bill to establish a negotiator corps has been passed through GDI's parliament. Put forward by the Treasury, but co-sponsored by the Zone Operations Command and the Director, its passage was never in doubt. The only questions would be the latitude and the size of the corps. In full, it will be a fairly substantial group, if one that will have few to practice with besides themselves. Historically speaking, GDI had a massive corps of lobbyists since its founding, a result of needing to negotiate and placate hundreds of countries in order to retain funding and authority. However, in the tumultuous early 21st century, as nations crumbled and GDI's influence grew, with that influence came a certain chauvinism, as GDI held strong and nations fell to pieces. The Initiative was not just a supranational defense organization, it is a world government, one where there were two states of people. Those under GDI, and those who had not yet realized that they should be.
Their first test will be reassuring the Caravanserai that GDI still remains interested in the Mecca region, and attempt to find a long term peace. While this is not expected to succeed, they are also unlikely to fail in a way that is unrecoverable. With the holy cities well protected at this point, and only likely to be more so in the near future, with the possibility of ringing them in antimissile sites, it is likely that they will at the most become a bargaining chip to bring another round of Warlords to the table after the next major conflict.

Shinr · Nov 7, 2021

The situation with the Tidal Plants sucks.

Can we get some spacing on the Nod tech, though?

Void Stalker · Nov 7, 2021

Down to +3 cap goods so we have to be careful on spending there as we have a lot of projects that will eat it up, still at +1 energy pushing out 2 phases of fusion is more important since we can avoid cap good projects in favor of others.

Ithillid · Nov 7, 2021

Shinr said:
Can we get some spacing on the Nod tech, though?

yes, you can.

Edit: I am going in for a booster shot soon. Will probably wipe me out for a day or so, but I should be able to put out an update tonight or tomorrow with the turnpost.

staplesdex2 · Nov 7, 2021

So, do we give a bone to the Starbound Party or what?

BOTcommander · Nov 7, 2021

staplesdex2 said:
So, do we give a bone to the Starbound Party or what?

Starbound desires a permanent off earth population and with how things go I dont see it happening. We are occupied with Philly, Ent and the moon mines, even if we go up to 9 dice on orbital per turn, it will be barely be enough to fill all of Enterprises bay slots, at least one of which will likely be a station construction discount one, before we can start spamming Colombia or Shala.

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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