I support him in doing this. The escort carriers aren't about conserving manpower, they're about having more hulls, having enough hulls in the water capable of supporting naval aviation that we don't need to divert a fleet carrier every time a convoy spots a Nod destroyer division that's making them nervous or every time we think there might be a submarine in the general vicinity.
To make the escort carriers big enough to support meaningful numbers of wingman drones, we'll have to build them bigger, which almost inevitably means we'll build fewer. Either fewer escort carriers, or fewer warships of some other type due to the opportunity costs of manning and building the bigger individual escort carriers.
Sometimes, making a platform bigger more capable is counterproductive. We don't want to fall prey to Panzer Disease.
And yes, I get that wingman drones have a lot of potential. But given GDI's very understandable reluctance to adopt fully autonomous weapon platforms, we're unlikely to see all of that potential fully realized, at least not unless we zoom out to the kind of 6-10 year time frame on which we might seriously consider designing a new escort carrier class rather than delaying (even further) the construction of the existing (urgently needed) class.
This has mostly been litigated before, but
1) GDI units have always been a best quality force, because we have never been able to politically countenance expending human resources the way the Brotherhood does. Meat is always more expensive than metal for us.
2)The QM has mentioned on the Discord back on Nov 10 2021 when this first came up, and I quote, " And, of course, a bigger carrier (up to a point) is almost always a better carrier."
Cutoff point is not specified.
We're building smaller carriers because they are faster to build and replace, and cost fewer crew to run.
If we could build and crew all hundred kiloton plus fleet carriers fast enough, I have no doubt the Navy would opt for those instead.
3) The Navy's designers will explicitly design for Wingman Drones if the research has been done.
They wont ask, they'll just do it.
That represents their IC judgement of whether its worth designing for now.
4)The conflation of bigger = much more expensive = fewer ships doesnt really seem to have any basis that I can find in WoG or precedent. Are you asserting that ship size is directly proportional to cost?
That a 50 kiloton CVE is 25% more expensive than a 40 kiloton one?
Or that an increase in cost will make the Navy reduce their ask of how many they need?
Actually, not having a new APC is kind of a problem if we plan a mass Zone Armor rollout. It's noted in the narration that the Guardian APC doesn't really fit Zone Troopers very gracefully, so we could end up with a situation where we're rolling out large amounts of powered armor that our mechanized infantry formations can't use without rewriting their doctrine to fight on (armored) foot.
So it might well be worth trying to develop a grav-lev APC relatively shortly after we have the requisite grav-lev technology, just to make sure we get something that can accommodate the large numbers of power-armored Ground Forces infantry we expect to deploy soon.
Sure, in the event of mass rollout.
But right now we're only talking enough to outfit the spearhead, some six factories worth, and under those circumstances we can make do with what we have. Besides, its Zone Armor. They're significantly more footmobile than infantry.
I expect new vehicles to be next FYP at the earliest.
The problem is that @Ithillid has said that the carriers would have to be a lot bigger (and presumably, individually more expensive) to take advantage of the wingman drones. And that we'd get a design that was thus bigger (and presumably more expensive).
Which means either accepting fewer ships, or spending more on just that one element of the overall fleet and having less elsewhere.
Note that Ithillid has at no point made any specifics on the expense of a wingman-capable CVE compared to a non-wingman capable CVE.He has, however, explicitly stated that bigger carriers are better, at least up to an unspecified point.And the fact that the Navy will automatically design CVEs to accomodate wingman drones if the RnD is done beforehand means they agree IC.
Its reasonable to think that a bigger ship might be more expensive than a smaller one.
Going beyond that in this case involves a lot of unsupported assumption.
I support doing escort carriers without drones. The navy right now needs hulls in general more than expanded capabilities for any one class of vessel. One of the issues right now is that fleet carriers are being tied down for roles that can be handled by a less capable vessel. The fast and more escort carriers we can have, the more fleet carriers can be freed up for roles more suitable for them. Upgrading escort carriers with wingman drone does give them more capability and essentially turns them into light carriers/CVLs. But more strike capability isn't what's required right now. It's purely hulls.
And wingman drones will require much more investment for full capability, both with and without escort carriers. Drones right now are limited politically by GDI's reluctance on fully autonomous weapons from CABAL's shenanigans, so they are slaved to a human piloted vehicle. On top of that is the limited ranges of wingman drones due to disruption from being on a Tiberium planet. Drone development is also not free from deployment woes, with the masses of drones required we will need to build factories for them. These drones aren't small predator drones with additional munitions. I believe they're slightly smaller versions of whatever air vehicle they are wingmen to. This means that for fully utilized CVLs we will need to pay more per carrier, plus increased drone factories to supply both navy and air force fleets.
If you only wanted hulls, you'd prioritize Sharks.
We are supposed to build around 200 of those IIRC, and the last numbers I remember for the CVEs previously mentioned by the QM in this thread for a blank slate Navy wishlist build(subject to change) is in the 60 ship range.
You are mistaken. Wingman drones do not have limited range; they can go anywhere their primary can.
We have zero indication of the cost of a wingman-equipped carrier.
All that we know is that the Navy would automatically design CVEs to accomodate the new Wingman tech. Which means in their opinion its worth the cost
assuming its been researched.
Can we even commit to the Shark class frigates in basically tandem with the escort carriers? When we have to roll out air upgrades, new weapon systems, overhaul our existing navy, expand the orbital drop force, create new Zone Armor systems, roll out new Zone Armor systems, make an apc that can carry Zone Armor...
I am immensely skeptical of any argument that responds to Escort Carriers being more expensive in R, dice, and hulls being responded to with 'we can suddenly rush out more shipyards to support more simultaneous ship building'. We only have so many slips to build hulls on, and I think most of the Governor slips are still in use. Moreover, our Governor slips were made from cutting down 60k ton battleship slips in two. We might be able to use these slips to make 30k-35k ton escort carriers, we will almost certainly not be able to build 45k-50k escort carriers in those slipways... so now the facilities to make them are drastically more expensive in terms of energy, capital goods, dice and R. Unless we literally undue all our work splitting the slipways to recreate the 60k capital ship slipways for 'an escort carrier'.
So yes, this argument makes me way more alarmed about pushing for drone carriers- its a massive commitment that will radically redefine our entire military budget, require massive amounts of new shipbuilding infrastructure that arguab
We dont
currently have any indication that escort carrier procurement and O&S costs are directly proportional to size.
And the GM has clarified that each class is gonna need its own slipways and supporting infrastructure.
Not that it was ever likely that we would build 20-25 kiloton cruisers and 35-40 kiloton basic CVEs in the same sized slipways; the width of the 45 kiloton America-class carrier is roughly the same as the 62 kiloton Iowa-class. You can build or maintain a smaller ship in a bigger ship class slipways, but not vice versa.
I'm...still skeptical? The Philadelphia cutscenes from Tiberian Sun and Tiberium Wars can be interpreted as people walking with mag-boots.
So what Ithillid's rolling with is that GDI has some primitive artificial gravity tech that we developed.... somewhere, somehow, and is useful for simulating gravity in space and not a whole lot else. In other words, don't think about it too hard it's just a setting quirk established by the previous writers before we got to it.
Nod had repulsortech Banshees back in TibWar2
It makes sense that GDI had been doing research in the same fields, but had made their focus different; both sides regularly steal technology and insights from each other and then use them in very different ways.
Q3 2059 Results
Resources: 850 + 10 in reserve (15 allocated to the Forgotten) (35 allocated to grants)(+25 from Taxes)
COMMENTARY
Captain Ahab Krukov finally built his Pequod.
Whether its a Gana troop carrier, an PAC-style drone carrier, a Devastator-style gunship or a hybrid remains to be seen.
While we didnt expect him to attempt to imitate the Scrin, its in character for the guy who first ripped us off to rip them off.
The worrying implication of that ship is not really in its existence; Im half expecting it to pull a Lampades and die in its first outing now that GDI knows of it. And more in the implication of proliferation of subsystems to other warlords and how they'll use them. Im fully expecting Bintang to start building cruisers and destroyers with repulsordrive propulsion systems; not to fly, but to travel faster and quieter in the water.
-Interesting developments in China.
We might see a rebellion in the region in the next two years. More concerning is Mehretu looking to resume conventional warfare in Southern Africa. We might want to give some thought to putting a MARV in the BZ there.
-Worth noting that if we want to take some of the heat off Nod's internal politics to buy us more time?
We might want to push Red Zone abatement soon.
-Ugh liquid T.
I wasnt in favor before, and would gladly abandon it now if we can.
-Pity about the AI being born with so many maluses.
I'll be voting for any options to mitigate its issues. We should probably get Neural Link done as well.
So, a quick glace at cnc wiki and my terrible visualisation skill, I think this might be
Basilisk. A heavy aircraft armed with twin long-range heavy laser. Well, this does not bode well for us. When can get ou
Nice catch.
Not that we know much but when I hear "ship" I picture something bigger than an attack aircraft. He's building a spaceship or a giant hovering doom barge he's gonna fly straight at Helsinki or something, I think this is a one-off superweapon not a new line of mass produced hardware.
Not a one-off superweapon IMO, but probably more of a Tier 3/Tier 4 weapon.
Avatar or Redeemer-class weapon platform.
Possibly stealth, definitely ion disruptor, and equipped to help Krukov finally achieve his white whale of sacking a Blue Zone city.
If I had to guess, he took a look at either a Scrin Devastator warship or Planetary Assault Carrier and told his weapon designers "I want that". This is the result.
Apollos, wingman drones to give the Apollos more missiles, plasma bombs to give the missiles those Apollos and wingmen sling more punch. Longer term maybe stuff like orbital lasers or giant railguns or something, but out of what we have available those three things are what strike me as immediately useful for contesting bullshit flying superweapons.
Actually, with an estimate of 30-40 kilotons, we're looking at something in the region of 200 metres or more in length.
That would make that thing easily big enough to be targeted by antiship cruise missiles as well as SAMs.
Possibly even howitzers and tanks in direct fire mode.
A naval carrier strike group or surface action squadron with antiship cruise missiles or TLAMs is also going to be a mortal threat as long as there's a spotter feeding them the datalink. And you can stick a bunch of those missile cannisters on the ground at a base or on a truck. Might take another look at the Sandstorm MLRS
Also, we just finished an additional counter in the Aurora project. A squadron of 10x Auroras will carry 60 tons of antiship cruise missiles internally and can deliver them at over Mach 5 to the ship within fifteen to thirty minutes of its being identified within fifteen hundred kilometers or so of a Blue Zone, assuming we achieve the recommended force allocation levels for Auroras.
What additional force multipliers we need are things like Prototype Plasma for better missile warheads and Wingman Drones to increase the amount of ordnance that can be carried on a mission.
I personal want to finish just one phase of the liquid tib power plants. Because I can guarnetee you that Nod is probably using it. and Getting The knowledge on the Issues of containment(When stuff is broken down enough that you have to contain the fallout) and ways to Safely dismantle them. Would be gained by having Some in Semi-Controllable environments with alout of protection around it for potential issues.
GDI has Tiberium research programs.
Thats where you learn those sorts of things, not by rolling out a phase of liquid Tib reactors.
We don't know for sure if Project Varyag is capable of orbital flight or not, but I definitely wouldn't rule it out. "Spaceship covered in ion disruptors and stealth generators that will go fuck us up" isn't #1 on the most likely suspects for what it does IMO but it's like #3 or #4. Giant air fortress of doom that will show up and vaporize an entire armored regiment next time we have a big battle with him is what my money's personally on, but if he went and tried to mug the Enterprise with it instead I wouldn't be surprised.
Unlikely.
Not impossible, because Nod does like their rule of cool, but unlikely.
My current bet is hybrid Gana carrier and gunship for BZ attack. It would be in keeping with his previous Underminer introduction.
It's an AI. Meaning it should be able to get that very quickly through downloading data and the like.
And even if Erewhon isn't potentially dangerous (doubtful), it's the technology behind AI's that absolutely can't get into NOD's hands. There's a reason we got -PS for choosing that. A single man can only do as much damage as they are given people that work under them. A single AI can do it all by itself. So I think they'll say that to the public side and put shackles and failsafes behind closed doors. Everything else would be pretty naive.
Reading a medical book does not make you a doctor. Downloading data does not make you an expert.
Gaining skills, even for an AI, is not just downloading a software package like in the Matrix. Not in the Tiberiumverse.
NOD is decades ahead of us on AI.
Their first stable AI was built around three decades ago. CABAL was stable and good enough that it required a teamup of GDI and NOD to beat and a years long followup campaign to find all its backups we know of. LEGION is currently helping Kane run shit.
It is unrealistic as hell that the first time they were stolen they weren't all disassembled because nukes can be hard to maintain and the would kill any politicians career if they were in office when some got stolen.
Unrealistic?
Nixon first disavowed US use of chemical weapons around 1969.The US nevertheless maintained its stockpiles throughout the Cold War, only committed to destroying them in 1995, and as of September 2021 had only gotten around to destroying 80-90% of it.
Thats a little over half a century at this point. And GDI's declaration of a self-imposed moratorium
1)Can be reversed at need, for example if the Scrin come back and shoot all the ion cannon out of the sky
2)Does not preclude GDI using nuclear weapons as a demolition device for use in construction on Earth and in space.
If I ever heard a cue, that was definitely one.
Isnt that InOps problem?
We're the Treasury, not the Intelligence Department, and InOps turned it up.
Yeah running the numbers we can just barely afford to build the ICS, the t-glass foundries, and a stage each of shells/URLS without needing any more power. Those things leave us at +1 power, and we can't afford any expenditures outside of it, but the absolute core military/economic needs for next turn don't necessitate completing Tib power - it just wipes out our entire buffer without Tib power. And we should have +16 from fusion coming no later than Q1, so there'll be more to spend in 2060. We can get away with not finishing the Tib power, barely, and coast on fusion through 2060/61 as long as we're willing to feed HI free dice.
Thank you for doing this.
Speaking as someone who was always strongly opposed to liquid T reactors, we might still have to finish this phase.
I'd much, MUCH prefer to leave them unfinished though.
I'd like a single phase of tib power so that the stigma against it can slowly decrease over time.
I'd like to go several years before building phase two, however.
If you read the Results again, it explicitly says that opposition is likely to only increase.
I'm not saying we do it, but someone is definitely going to try it at some point. If I were a betting man, I would say the Salarian STG would try it first, given their tendency for... creative warfare solutions like what happened with the Krogan. Could also be the Batarians or Omega-space.
We've got a long way to go if we want to catch up with any of those groups technology-wise anyways, we are so very far away from the crazy stuff the Citadel races are capable of. I doubt the quest will encounter them soon.
Not going to happen.
You do realize that the use of Tiberium-type programmable matter is already regulated under the Citadel Conventions as a Tier II WMD ie uncontrolled self-replicating weapons?
The Citadel Races are not going to look at the publicly available records of Tiberium Earth's 21st century ecological nightmare and then blithely proceed to duplicate the same mistakes. They are not actually stupid, and I am confident the QM will not have them doing blatantly stupid things.
The first two members of the Citadel Council, the Asari and Salarians, were interstellar races that met each other before the birth of Christ. You dont maintain a successful two millenia-plus old interstellar civilization by taking stupid risks for the lols. In Mass Effect canon it was Humanity that did much of the stupid shit courtesy of Cerberus; we got the taco cart meme for a reason.
Pretty much.
I fully expect us to not have any biotics till meeting the citadel races, exactly out of the reasons stated by you, barring some very strange circumstances or outright crits.
Thats reasonable.
Its worth noting that once we notice that biotics are a thing in multiple biological races exposed to eezo, engineering our own in adult volunteers is likely to be fairly straightforward, given precisely how much experience we will have with human biology thanks to Nod mad sciencing their way through human neurology.
Might even build cyberware; NOD has been operating cyborgs and other enhanciles for decades now.
GDI would literally go to war to stop this sort of thing. It doesn't even need to be a winnable war, it would be tantamount to witnessing galactic genocide and doing nothing.
It wont be just GDI either. The Citadel Council is likely to afford them full support to enforce it.
The Citadel had the Turians shooting anyone who tried to randomly open Relays. Imagine what they'll do to anyone trying to export or otherwise proliferate Tiberium. Thats how you get the Citadel to fuck up your entire career.
Frankly I have a hard time imaging that we can keep Tiberium from spreading out of the solar system. Just to start we know that it's extra solar, it's already out. It also assumes that the Citadel races have never encountered the Scrin, which is... a harder call, but it would surprise me.
But even assuming the aliens have never stumbled on Tib, you only a tiny little bit of Tiberium to eventually get an entire planet of Tiberium, as we're trying to averted right now.
And then there's the human factor. People were stupid and greedy enough to spread it around the world before, I don't see them not getting greedy again once we have a lot of planets that it could be spread to and not care about because no one lived there and never would. And then there's Nod.
Unless we can eradicate Tiberium in it's entirety, which would be dumb, as noted our economy is built on it, it will not stay locked down.
-As far as we know, Tiberium is a monopoly of the Scrin. And the Scrin dont share.
If they seed it on an planet, the planet is invariably doomed. And so is any species on it thats not already interstellar. There is no evidence of the Scrin ever seeding Tib on a planet inhabited by a species developed enough to survive it before us.
We happened to be lucky that
1)Kane ended up here with some inside knowledge, and some of his objectives are best achieved by a technological human population surviving
2)The Tacitus is here, with a literal cheatbook for handling Tiberium
3)The Scrin equivalent of a shoestring wildcat operation got scammed into landing on Earth while we had the ability to send them running, leaving us with a cornucopia of Scrin salvage to scavenge and study.
We have been fortunate, and still have lost anywhere from two thirds to three quarters of our pre-Tiberium population and most of our biosphere. Nothing suggests other victim planets and races will be that lucky.
-People were stupid and greedy and, critically were allowed and sometimes encouraged to be that way.
A post-Tiberium Wars, post-genocidal dieoff Earth that remains brutally scarred by that interlude will have close to zero tolerance from anyone trying to pull that shit again.
Not to mention that safely transporting Tib in an interstellar vessel is not exactly something you can do with a thermos flask.
You are treating tab power as if it was a tarp option I adamantly disagree that we would get given a trap auction.
Tib Power has always been accompanied by considerable negatives, political, military and industrial.
We rolled it on the NOD gacha. We were not obliged to pursue it, anymore than we're using Tiberium weapons, and were explicitly aware that its both politically unpopular and vulnerable to Nod catalyst weapons. The only reason we were even able to pursue it now was because Seo rolled really good with Litvinov early in her term.
This is not new. This was not just sprung on us.
Some of us just underestimated the heat involved or thought it was necessary to tank the hit.
They get all the coals instead. 
