- Location
- USA
The issue is that we still have a logistics issue so we need more logistics now- as is i see no reason we can start on ICS Q1/Q2 after we push out another rail network to give us a buffer.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mmh...
It's basically a point defense problem--and we can solve that already, the Predator RWS uses a laser PD system. So we can spot and shoot missiles and shells, and presumably differentiate between those two, and the electronics and sensors for all this fit in a tank.
So the limiting factor is how fast and painlessly the shield can be retuned. Beyond that, the main challenges to a practical retuning shield seem to be:
1.Answering laser fires. Arrives at the speed of light, of course--so the default mode has to be maximum diffraction.
2.Answering particle beam fires. We know NOD has the ion disrupter, which presumably has to react to particle beam fire--but they have the advantage that our current Ion Cannons have to shoot more or less straight down 400km, so lots of warning time from a known direction. Spotting and reacting to tactical particle beam fires will be more difficult.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One thing we could do with shielding systems - if the tech allows for it - is modular generator/emitter kits that allow you to swap between kinetic and directed energy weapon specialization at a field base. This would allow a certain degree of tailoring our defensive mix for a closer fit to the local warlord's armaments.
The other option is to asses whether our armor technology is more effective against KEWs or DEWs and mount shields that protect against whatever the armor is weaker against if we want a fully standardized fleet.
The other option is to asses whether our armor technology is more effective against KEWs or DEWs and mount shields that protect against whatever the armor is weaker against if we want a fully standardized fleet.
- Location
- USA
[] Plan Fixing the Backend
Infra 5/5 75R +22
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 3) 94/650 2 dice 30R 0%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 3 dice 45R 30%
HI 4/4+2 free 120R +17
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant (Phase 2) 22/300 6 die 120R 98%
LCI 4/4 80R +12
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 2) 1/160 4 dice 80R 97%
Agri 2/3 20R +12
-[] Security Review (Agri) 1 die
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Development 0/40 1 die 20R 93%
Tiberium 6/6 120R +25
-[] Tiberium Prospecting Expeditions (Repeating Stage) 2/200 2 dice 10R 23%
-[] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 5) 74/180 2 die 50R 92%
-[] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 1) 0/200 2 die 60R 22%
Orbital 5/5+3 free 160R +10
-[] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 4) 362/715? 8 dice 160R 94+%
Services 4/4 35R +17
-[] Green Zone Teacher Colleges 0/200 3 dice 15R 63%
-[] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 1 die 20R 78%
Military 6/6+1 105R +14
-[] Sonic Artillery 0/??? 1 die 15R?
-[] Orca Refit Deployment 0/200 2 dice 30R 10%
-2nd die on Sonic or 3rd die on Orca (15R)
-[] Naval Defense Laser Refits 121/330 3 dice 45R 50%
Bureau 3/3 +12
-[] Security Reviews (Agri) 3 dice +1 Agri 99%
Free 6/6
1 bureau, 3 orbital, 2 HI
1 idle die
715/715
Current thoughts, all dice active- 1 income project that should finish and otherwise working to fixing our issues with logistics, energy and cap goods
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: Major Surplus (+16) (23 population in low quality housing) (1 points of refugees)
Energy: At Capacity (+1) (+3 in reserve) +16 fusion possible -4 processing plant
Logistics: Limited Surpluses (+7) +4 Rail Network possible -2 processing plant
Food: Major Surpluses (+21) (+8 in reserve)
Health: Steadily Improved (+11) (3 consumed by emergency refugee healthcare)
Capital Goods: Marginal Surpluses (+3) +1 macrospinner -1 orca
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)
+10-15 income, +3 RZ mit
Of note the rail network covers 2 stages of processing plants which i think we want to keep a couple dice on until we get 2 stages out now, and more later in the plan.
Orca give our ground attack craft the ability to use anti-air missiles meaning older NOD airframes are not able to suppress them to the same extent, and is an improvement to our carrier forces as well as ground support.
Macrospinner I want to dump another 4 dice next turn to try and finish another phase (2 cap good and 1 energy) to help keep a cap good buffer and add some redundancy in case of sabotage.
Infra 5/5 75R +22
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 3) 94/650 2 dice 30R 0%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 3 dice 45R 30%
HI 4/4+2 free 120R +17
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant (Phase 2) 22/300 6 die 120R 98%
LCI 4/4 80R +12
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 2) 1/160 4 dice 80R 97%
Agri 2/3 20R +12
-[] Security Review (Agri) 1 die
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Development 0/40 1 die 20R 93%
Tiberium 6/6 120R +25
-[] Tiberium Prospecting Expeditions (Repeating Stage) 2/200 2 dice 10R 23%
-[] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 5) 74/180 2 die 50R 92%
-[] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 1) 0/200 2 die 60R 22%
Orbital 5/5+3 free 160R +10
-[] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 4) 362/715? 8 dice 160R 94+%
Services 4/4 35R +17
-[] Green Zone Teacher Colleges 0/200 3 dice 15R 63%
-[] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 1 die 20R 78%
Military 6/6+1 105R +14
-[] Sonic Artillery 0/??? 1 die 15R?
-[] Orca Refit Deployment 0/200 2 dice 30R 10%
-2nd die on Sonic or 3rd die on Orca (15R)
-[] Naval Defense Laser Refits 121/330 3 dice 45R 50%
Bureau 3/3 +12
-[] Security Reviews (Agri) 3 dice +1 Agri 99%
Free 6/6
1 bureau, 3 orbital, 2 HI
1 idle die
715/715
Current thoughts, all dice active- 1 income project that should finish and otherwise working to fixing our issues with logistics, energy and cap goods
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: Major Surplus (+16) (23 population in low quality housing) (1 points of refugees)
Energy: At Capacity (+1) (+3 in reserve) +16 fusion possible -4 processing plant
Logistics: Limited Surpluses (+7) +4 Rail Network possible -2 processing plant
Food: Major Surpluses (+21) (+8 in reserve)
Health: Steadily Improved (+11) (3 consumed by emergency refugee healthcare)
Capital Goods: Marginal Surpluses (+3) +1 macrospinner -1 orca
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)
+10-15 income, +3 RZ mit
Of note the rail network covers 2 stages of processing plants which i think we want to keep a couple dice on until we get 2 stages out now, and more later in the plan.
Orca give our ground attack craft the ability to use anti-air missiles meaning older NOD airframes are not able to suppress them to the same extent, and is an improvement to our carrier forces as well as ground support.
Macrospinner I want to dump another 4 dice next turn to try and finish another phase (2 cap good and 1 energy) to help keep a cap good buffer and add some redundancy in case of sabotage.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It's a very attractive option... the problem is mainly that it doesn't fulfill any of our Plan commitments, and it's the kind of thing that it's inefficient to do while Seo's bonuses to Agriculture dice are still low. You'll see a lot more interest in spider cotton once we have a bit more budget (more to spare for Agriculture) and have fulfilled our commitments on Perennials and the caffeinated kudzu rollout.
We really should try to get at least Phase 1 of the caffeinated kudzu plantations going before the election. It's gonna be pretty popular.
[Plus I suspect the caffeine availability gives us +1 for all dice or something.
]Given that another phase or two of apartments plus the processing plants eats about half of our existing buffer, I can see it...
But we need to recognize that railroad work is becoming by far the less efficient option for +Logistics. To get the same effect as the 800-Progress ICS project, we'd need to do four and a half phases of railroads, and even with no further incremental increase in the cost per phase, that would require 1230 or so Progress to achieve. At some point, saving a few points of Cap Goods and Energy just isn't worth it; we are rapidly approaching the point where it becomes more rewarding to just bite the bullet and do Suborbital Shuttles for the +Logistics over ICS, because shuttles cost more R but less dice, especially after you get through the first phase and on into the second and third.
Like, we spend median 7.5 dice to get +8 Logistics from railroads, or 9 dice to get +16 Logistics from shuttles, or 11 dice plus CapGoods to get +18 Logistics from ICS. Shuttles would be a no-brainer if it wasn't for that heavy, front-loaded cost per die. And we're getting to the point of being rich enough where gritting our teeth and spending 30 R/die on something for 2-3 dice in a good cause is worth it.
How do you get 98% chance of completion from three dice? I'm pretty sure the math requires four dice or more just to have 50/50 odds, because otherwise you don't have enough progress for the median outcome to tip you over the line.
Let me just note that the low spending in Tiberium and Agriculture effectively goes hand-in-hand with putting four dice on Reykjavik. Personally I'm uncomfortable with only spending two dice on the processing plants, because those ARE a high-priority project.
It's a staged project; there's going to be rollover.
If we need to fear the consequences of completing the processing plants this turn, two dice is too many to spend on them, because we have a 22% chance of it happening. If we don't need to fear the consequences, we want the processing plants as soon as possible, to reduce the strains and risks of running so close to our processing cap.
Especially if that nuke-happy Afghan Nod warlord we were warned about gets nuke-happy in our general direction.
Honestly, I think it'd be worth sacrificing a die on Reykjavik to be able to put three dice on the processing plants... although that doesn't quite pay as much as we'd like, so we'd need to scrape loose 5 R from somewhere.
I'm not comfortable with prioritizing the Orca refit over the tube artillery rollout. Reread the text of the relevant sections; Ground Forces seems pushier and grumpier about the artillery than the Air Force is about the Orcas. And while the Navy wants the Orcas too, they're not going to raise a stink as long as you're working on the point defenses. Given that you're only planning to spend seven Military dice, I'd do something like:
1 die on the Pacifier sonic artillery.
3 dice on naval point defense
2-3 dice on tube artillery.
0-1 dice on Havoc.
...
"Of note the rail network covers 2 stages of processing plants which i think we want to keep a couple dice on until we get 2 stages out now, and more later in the plan."
I'd rather work harder to get the first wave of processing plants done now, and do the second wave later, at our convenience, when it isn't a big Resource hog even at the same time that we're fighting a full-court push by Nod forces.
...
"Macrospinner I want to dump another 4 dice next turn to try and finish another phase (2 cap good and 1 energy) to help keep a cap good buffer and add some redundancy in case of sabotage."
You're not actually doing any Capital Goods projects this turn, so we don't need the extra buffer urgently this turn. The consequences of failure to complete Phase 2 of the project this turn are low. Thus, three dice on Reykjavik should be enough.
If needing redundancy in case of sabotage to Johannesburg is urgent, then so is needing redundancy in case of sabotage to Chicago or Medina, which increases the need for the processing plants.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The big obstacle there is that it's not a Plan goal and funding the dice is difficult. I suggest that you start looking at projects with an eye to "when in a plan does it make sense to do these things?"
At the beginning of a plan when we're frantically clawing for enough RpT income to activate all our dice, such that entire categories have to be shut down to provide funding for the minimum necessary projects in other areas, stuff like spider cotton just doesn't get done. It doesn't make sense to do it then.
Gradually, as the Resource constraints relax, you see funding slipped to cheap-per-die projects like Perennials, then to more expensive projects. In this case, we have probably about 1000 Progress worth of Plan commitments specifically in Agriculture to hack through, from needing to get to Perennials Phase 3 and two phases of caffeinated kudzu plantations. Since we don't quite have enough money to go around, this is still an issue- but since 1000 Progress worth of Agriculture actions can be chewed away at a rate of something like 200 points per turn as long as we're funding all three dice...
Well, we're gonna have plenty of time to do spider cotton. It's just a pity we can't afford to do it now, but there's a reason for that.
On which note, to try and get as much Progress towards those Plan goals as possible...
2058Q4 BUDGET:
715 R (yay, taxes!)
6 Free dice
715/715 Resources spent
6/6 Free Dice allocated
[] Plan Draft WELP 1-D
Infrastructure 5/5 Dice 70 R
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 (4 Dice, 60 R) (78% chance)
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2) 28/160 (1 Die, 10R) (6% chance)
Heavy Industry 4/4 Dice + 2 Free Dice 120 R
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant (Phase 2) 22/300 (6 Dice, 120 R) (98% chance, median ~127/300 on next phase)
Light and Chemical Industry 2/4 Dice 40 R
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 2) 1/160 (2 Dice, 40 R) (33% chance)
Agriculture 3/3 Dice 30 R
-[] Perennial Aquaponics Bays (Stage 2) 123/350 (3 Dice, 30 R) (32% chance)
Tiberium 6/6 Dice 150 R
-[] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 1) 0/200 (3 Dice, 90 R) (79% chance)
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 1) 0/200 (3 Dice, 60 R) (79% chance)
Orbital 5/5 Dice + 2 Free Dice 140 R
-[] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 4) 362/715 (7 dice, 140 R) (94% chance, median ~100/1430 on next phase)
Services 4/4 Dice 50 R
-[] Green Zone Teacher Colleges (2 Dice, 10 R) (13% chance)
-[] Tissue Replacement Therapy Development 0/60 (1 Die, 20 R) (78% chance)
-[] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Development 0/60 (1 Die, 20 R) (78% chance)
Military 6/6 Dice + 2 Free Dice 115 R
-[] Naval Defense Laser Refits 121/330 (3 Dice, 45 R) (50% chance)
-[] Tube Artillery Deployment 0/200 (3 Dice, 45 R) (57% chance)
-[] Pacifier MAV Deployment 0/??? (1 Die, 15 R) (??% chance)
-[] Havoc Scout Mech Deployment 0/30 (1 Die, 10 R) (100% chance)
Bureaucracy 0/3 Dice
-[] ???
This plan version pushes Perennials hard in hopes of getting an early completion. No security review this turn; I'd LOVE to do a review of Military but there just aren't dice to spare if we want to have a good shot at point defense and tube artillery and do other projects all in the same turn.
Out of respect for @Void Stalker , this plan pushes railroads instead of the ICS. It's inefficient but gives us a much faster completion time to expand our Logistics buffer, plus it's going to be around 2059Q2 before we can count on having a lot of CapGoods to spare anyway. I don't like it, but I can live with it, though I really do hope to hear commentary from people on the merits of starting work on the ICS.
This is not a Housing-focused plan, but the idea is to keep working on apartments so that our housing buffer continues to expand rather than contract on net. Starting the next phase of arcologies is gonna have to wait until we can be confident of a stable Logistics situation in the upcoming war, I think; we really really should start ICS next turn if we possibly can.
- Location
- USA
Looks like a copy paste error from fusion plant line
I am worried about energy issues, so would rather have processing finish next turn but if it finishes this turn at least i have done enough logistics and energy investment to recover next turn, though I am likely to drop 3 dice on processing next turn. 4 on marcospinners puts another phase of macrospinners in reach Q1 and that +2 cap good is big to cover stuff like vein mining while keeping the buffer up. It also means I can save resources to run dice elsewhere (30R for plants vs less from the other tiberium projects)- i dropped the dice into RZ containment so saved 10R and put extra income at a high percent.
Note for Reyjavik- 8 dice is 67% so 4 and 4 means we have good odds at +3 cap good +1 energy to help cover small cap good expenses (such as orca and 1 stage of vein mine)
Orca is -1 cap good, 3 dice do not work because 7 dice (3 and 4) is not likely to finish 2 phases (37%) compared to 4 and 4 (67%) that is a pretty big difference in what we can spend in cap goods next turn.
My view is 2 to 3 dice on processing plants a turn until we knock out 2 stages to give us some flex capability.
Except right now Orcas can only deploy where our fighters have swept NOD fighters since they lack the URLS AAM- the current version can only use the GAM we developed. The refit among other improvements can use the AAM which means older NOD airframes are even less useful for them and Orcas can operate more than they can now. Honestly if I had more R though I would have gone for the plasma weapon under steel talon, that way for steel talon and ground force new models we would have more weapon tech to use.
We've had the Orca refit ready for a few turns longer than we've had the tube artillery ready if I remember correctly and unlike the tube artillery it will benefit all the branches whereas the tube artillery's helpful but will only really help the ground forces so it makes sense to me at least to prioritise the Orca refit otherwise I suspect we're going to keep on pushing it back in favour of other military projects.
Is it just me or do the blurbs kinda seem a tad pessimistic. A lot of the you've done a thing upgrades seem to have the caveat of well actually this won't do as much as you hoped best not get hopes up?
It's understandable as a lot of the things we are doing are baby steps towards actual progress but it kinda weighs on you at times.
About the tidal failure, was the experiment just not well thought out or was the sabotage entirely to much for the scope of the experiment? Being able to expand our harvesting ops to the oceans we controlled would have been a great feather in the hat, but the failure killed both the power and possibility of offshore tiberium harvesting. That kinda double blows as that means NOD will have free reign on ocean tib harvesting.
EDIT: That actually does lead me to a niche question, with the Double Nat 1's killing off what amounts to two projects what would a double nat 100 even do? If double crit fails kill projects would the opposite be the same?
It's understandable as a lot of the things we are doing are baby steps towards actual progress but it kinda weighs on you at times.
About the tidal failure, was the experiment just not well thought out or was the sabotage entirely to much for the scope of the experiment? Being able to expand our harvesting ops to the oceans we controlled would have been a great feather in the hat, but the failure killed both the power and possibility of offshore tiberium harvesting. That kinda double blows as that means NOD will have free reign on ocean tib harvesting.
EDIT: That actually does lead me to a niche question, with the Double Nat 1's killing off what amounts to two projects what would a double nat 100 even do? If double crit fails kill projects would the opposite be the same?
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
We have an overwhelming likelihood of getting the next phase of fusion reactors next turn; if you're really worried, flip the eighth die on the Philadelphia over to fusion, but that just kicks the 98% chance of getting the fusion reactors up to 99+.
Even if we don't finish the fusion reactors, we have reserve capacity, barely, for that 2%-likely "failure' mode. At least, since there are so far as I can determine no other Energy-consuming projects finishing next turn. Basically, if you're afraid that it will be bad if the processing plants finish next turn, we can't afford to spend two dice on them. If you're not explicitly considering that a bad outcome, delay isn't doing us a lot of favors.
Doing two dice on processing this turn and three next turn is worst of both worlds; it's over-completing the stage we actually need, while spending R on an unnecessarily expensive and superfluous tiberium project that could more profitably go to all kinds of other fun stuff. Stuff like:
1) The macrospinners, which are expensive to activate. Or
2) Putting a die or two into the stealth-detector project, so that we can at least have plenty by the time the warlords attack. Or
3) Spending Agriculture dice on spider cotton to eke out a few points of Capital Goods that can in turn be used to fund something else. Or
4) Grudgingly putting a die or two on Suborbital Shuttles, which is actually a very efficient Logistics option once you break through the first phase.
There's a lot of stuff right now that we can't do for lack of resources, so spending 30 R/die on a project that doesn't have major immediate rewards other than "we said we'd get it done by the end of 2061" isn't a good move.
If you're concerned with conserving resources , you want to get processors done with the minimum likely number of dice required total, and realistically that's probably three dice.
...
"Note for Reyjavik- 8 dice is 67% so 4 and 4 means we have good odds at +3 cap good +1 energy to help cover small cap good expenses (such as orca and 1 stage of vein mine)"
I'm not saying Reykjavik is a waste of dice, but there's other projects I'd treat as higher priority, since it won't exactly kill us to finish Reykjavik Phase 3 in three turns rather than two.
...
"Orca is -1 cap good..."
I stand corrected. On the other hand, the Capital Goods surplus dipping from +3 to +2 for a turn or two isn't the end of the world either; it doesn't make us invulnerable to sabotage, but we're vulnerable to sabotage all over the place anyway, and I'm pretty sure a major hit on, say, North Boston could send us into negatives on Capital Goods anyway.
Again, I want to prioritize things we actually need, or will specifically need predictably no matter what happens (e.g. more Energy, a Logistics buffer for when the warlords attack) over rushing to amass surplus stockpiles that may or may not be needed right then, when we could instead have gotten the same surpluses a little later with similar results.
Doing 3-3-2 or 2-3-3 dice on Reykjavik doesn't really produce worse outcomes than doing 4-4 dice, and it means more flexibility in getting more urgent priorities like the processing plants done.
...
"My view is 2 to 3 dice on processing plants a turn until we knock out 2 stages to give us some flex capability."
Since we're not going to be able to surge income by several hundred more points right away, just doing the first stage gives us a lot of flex capability all by itself.
...
"Except right now Orcas can only..."
I know that having Super Orcas would be better than having regular Orcas; that's not the question. The question is whether the boost from Super Orcas is needed more urgently than the also urgently needed boost from the tube artillery upgrades. Reading between the lines of the Q3 Results post, it sounds like the artillery needs the work more.
Helping the ground forces a lot may be more important than helping all the branches a medium amount. They really need better artillery performance, and soon, before they start having to fight pitched battles against Nod warlords all over the planet simultaneously.
They have been pessimistic lately and I hope it hasn't killed offshore harvesting because I don't know what they would want us to do with out makeing every other Branch suffer with more glacier mining now that I think about it if the partys push us to much without leaving enough stuff to let us start doing it then I don't know what they want from us except going full on income for too long yet again?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Considering our energy woes and the big flashing warnings about nod targeting our processing, I'd like it if we slung a die towards tib containment.
With institutional experience in mind, I think doing the containment project now would also benefit us when it comes time to develop the next generation harvester.
With institutional experience in mind, I think doing the containment project now would also benefit us when it comes time to develop the next generation harvester.
There was a glaring warning sign that the GM was basically going to start adding more infrastructure targets to his NOD attack pools. So hardening our infra sounds like a good idea in general.
Housing: (+16)
Energy: (+1) (+3 in reserve)
Logistics: (+7)
Food: (+21) (+8 in reserve)
Health: (+11) (3 consumed by emergency refugee healthcare)
Capital Goods: (+3)
Consumer Goods: (+28) (+5 from private industry)
Labor: (+30) (+4 per turn)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (1645/1720)
Yellow Zone
Water: (+6)
The crunch points are the energy and Cap goods, but such is life in GDI. The next turn seems like its going to be a set up turn for ground industry and most of the points aimed at orbital. I have faith in our core planners to make smart decisions so lets hope for good dice.
We got a lot of research opportunities from the NOD and Scrin slots but i'm not sure what we can manage with our current slot priorities.
Housing: (+16)
Energy: (+1) (+3 in reserve)
Logistics: (+7)
Food: (+21) (+8 in reserve)
Health: (+11) (3 consumed by emergency refugee healthcare)
Capital Goods: (+3)
Consumer Goods: (+28) (+5 from private industry)
Labor: (+30) (+4 per turn)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (1645/1720)
Yellow Zone
Water: (+6)
The crunch points are the energy and Cap goods, but such is life in GDI. The next turn seems like its going to be a set up turn for ground industry and most of the points aimed at orbital. I have faith in our core planners to make smart decisions so lets hope for good dice.
We got a lot of research opportunities from the NOD and Scrin slots but i'm not sure what we can manage with our current slot priorities.
- Location
- USA
It also means 3 turns vs 2 turns. In addition we have been told that small surpluses mean we still have issues so trying to claw out of that sooner than latter is good. And getting the 2nd location up and running sooner gives us some protection against sabotage.
Progress wise yes, but at 30R per die for the 1st phase is not something we want to pursue until our income is higher or we are pursuing cheaper projects in other areas.
It means if one of our planned cities is isolated for a turn or two we still have the processing capacity to handle our income. We really should be looking at hardening our infrastructure instead of this just eking by
We're coming up on elections. Everyone is demanding more than we can give, and they know it.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...Use commas and periods in your sentences please?
But the main thing everyone wants from us is increased Resource income. Or at least, that's the main thing people want that's relevant to the idea of offshore tiberium harvesting.
We can get a lot of Resource income done by doing vein mining, which costs Capital Goods but not that much Capital Goods, plus we needed to do a huge amount of Capital Goods projects anyway.
The valid argument here is that mining tiberium underwater is hard and dangerous compared to mining it on land, and tiberium on land presents a much greater immediate threat.
I could see putting a die on containment, and accepting that our first vein mine probably won't complete in 2059Q4. Given that we're trying to stay in the positives on Capital Goods, that might not be a bad thing...
The problem is that doing this won't actually give us containment right away; we'd have to build the silos physically first. Since building the new round of refineries means that the need for the silos goes down a LOT and we were planning to do that anyway, I'm not sure that silo research is urgent except insofar as it helps us develop future harvesting. Not a bad idea, but not as urgent.
Nitpick: You have to allow for which indicators are the easiest to attack.
Capital Goods are mostly produced at heavily secured facilities in Blue Zones.
Logistics involves shipping large amounts of material along railroad lines, which can be disrupted at any point and many of which run outside the Blue/Green Zones themselves. Or sailing ships around on the high seas, where they can be attacked by Nod raiders at many points.
...
Causing GDI to lose -2 Capital Goods is relatively hard for Nod. Causing GDI to lose -2 Logistics is relatively easy for Nod.
Causing GDI to lose -2 Energy is probably somewhere in between- there are more power plants to target and they're individually less secure, but they are secure, and we don't have to travel outside GDI territory just to have Energy the way we have to for Logistics.
...
Our weakest area, factoring in both how close we are to our limit and how easy it would be for Nod to give us a push, is refining capacity. This is why I put three dice on tiberium refineries in my plan draft.
Energy is also a huge priority, but would need to be anyway because we can't build much of anything else without more power plants. That's getting enough dice to give us a 98% chance of completing the current stage of fusion power.
Logistics is next on the list, I think, but our buffer is big enough that in peacetime operations it should hold. Getting it up to a level that will be resilient during wartime is another matter... it's why I favor working on the ICS, but the ICS is problematic if we're not assured having having two points of Capital Goods free at the time it becomes ready.
After that is Capital Goods, but we have a LOT of options for that, none of which can be easily completed in this single turn...
Getting Reykjavik Phase 2 is still "up and running," it's just not running fast enough to ensure that we can have the pre-Reykjavik level of myomer production immediately if Sabotage Guy manages to completely wipe out the Johannesburg plant.
But reality check, the odds of Sabotage Guy actually wrecking the Johannesburg plant in any single turn are low, and the impact of temporarily having a myomer shortage while we throw dice at finishing Reykjavik is relatively limited. At some point, we're insuring against problems that are neither big enough nor probable enough that they should be governing our actions.
Especially if the consequence is that we are neglecting to close a weakness elsewhere, such as in refining capacity, that has been explicitly called out to us as a weak spot.
I'd rather have the "weakness" of a one-turn delay in getting Reykjavik Phase 2 or 3 done than the weakness of a one-turn delay in getting some reserve tiberium refining capacity finally.
We could shake loose a little R for it if we really wanted to, and the first phase is probably only going to be 2-3 dice long.
I'm not saying we should do it right now, but we're getting to the point where it's just honestly a better idea all around. And it's a project that gets MUCH more attractive after the initial investment is over.
For example, Phase 2 of Suborbital Shuttles is frankly quite competitive with Phase 2 of Rail Networks; it costs 60% more per die, but requires only 72% as much progress and returns 25% more logistics, so in practice, you're paying (1.6*0.72) = 1.15 times as much in exchange for 1.25 times more payoff.
The problem, of course, is getting there- the initial phase is not attractive. But if we're willing to keep slamming out rail phases past this one, we should be willing to get past Phase 1 of the shuttle project to unlock the better and weirdly cheaper shuttle phases past that one.
If one of our planned cities is isolated or damaged AND we have Stage 1 of the tiberium refinery project, we can get by, at least for now. That is hardening our infrastructure.
Doing Stage 2, here and now in the immediate next few turns, is just overkill. And if you're opposed to spending 30 R/die on an Infrastructure project to add redundancy to the Logistics buffer, you should probably be opposing spending 30 R/die on a Tiberium project to harden add redundancy to the refinery cap further beyond what is already a generous allotment.
That first stage of refineries gives us +600 refining capacity, as I recall. At which point we can talk about doing the second stage of refineries when we've added another +250 RpT or so of tiberium income... that is, when we're making 1000 RpT or so, at which point paying for the refineries will be a lot easier.
The idea that we are "just barely scraping by" and "need" the second stage of refineries, when even the first one raises the cap by 600 points, seems unreasonable to me.
Gdi has enough eyes on the ground and space to see any conventional or a unconventional rocket or alien system and it's not likey that any warlord would want to use their limited alien technology reserves for something that doesn't help them at all and just paint a Target on them?
staplesdex2
CLASSFIED
I'm still holding out for hope to put a Die in Liquid T Power Cells down the line to help alleviate our power concerns. I'll gladly take the -PS if it helps with the progress.
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- Germany
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- It/Them
More thinking about a sleeper fanatic that manages to smuggle some tib once we have a steady flow of civilians to a fledgling colony, i.e. 30-50 years+.
The holy rock has to be spread after all.
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- He/Him
It doesn't get us them right away, no.
But with the energy crunch, it's not clear that we can get a second round of processing plants that quickly either. Containment is how we make sure it gets done no matter what, and done in great enough quantities that we can refit our older processing plants to the new process, and I think that's important.
Moreover, it could improve safety on tiberium studies in general, which would be good to capitalize on the director's newfound patience for Seo's science binges.
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- He/Him
I think the threat here is more valuable than the immediate tactical or strategic benefits of carrying it out.
Contaminating the Moon doesn't help the NOD situation on the ground, but it does hamper our long term goal of off-world settlement because the nearest source of raw materials becomes much less safe to work or live on. And a warlord can use the threat of that as leverage against us.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I suspect we could contain a tiberium deposit on the Moon or Mars until it had grown quite large; we'd just have to get after it aggressively early.
What has been devastating to Earth is that tiberium was seeded, both naturally and accidentally, all over the world in hundreds and hundreds of locations, and in many cases deliberately cultivated. This makes containment virtually impossible; instead of you surrounding the tiberium, it surrounds you.
To get similar effects on the Moon or Mars would require a lot more payload or a lot more effort.
I mean, our existing Blue Zones contain enormous numbers of tiberium outbreaks every year, as the recent issues with the tidal power stations demonstrate. It's not that hard to contain tiberium in one place if you know how. It's when the stuff is allowed to spread across thousands and thousands of square kilometers, and dig in underground where you can't get at it conveniently, and gets into aquifers and potentially spreads across even greater distances nigh-untraceably, that you have a problem.
What has been devastating to Earth is that tiberium was seeded, both naturally and accidentally, all over the world in hundreds and hundreds of locations, and in many cases deliberately cultivated. This makes containment virtually impossible; instead of you surrounding the tiberium, it surrounds you.
To get similar effects on the Moon or Mars would require a lot more payload or a lot more effort.
That's a problem for the distant future- and by the time we've got a big enough industrial base on the Moon or Mars to run major colonies there, we've got a big enough base to contain a random outbreak from a smuggled hunk of tiberium.
I mean, our existing Blue Zones contain enormous numbers of tiberium outbreaks every year, as the recent issues with the tidal power stations demonstrate. It's not that hard to contain tiberium in one place if you know how. It's when the stuff is allowed to spread across thousands and thousands of square kilometers, and dig in underground where you can't get at it conveniently, and gets into aquifers and potentially spreads across even greater distances nigh-untraceably, that you have a problem.