I would strongly recommend a Security Review of Services. It's likely that the AI development program was infiltrated. Orbital Cleanup to unlock Low Orbit Support Satellites for our OSRCTs might also be worth it.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
A Tiberium carol for dueling choirs, to the tune of O Holy Night
A Tiberium carol for dueling choirs, to the tune of O Holy Night
(NOD)
O Holy Rock!
The green light softly shining
It is the light that prove all our worth.
Kane saw the world in sin and error pining
Till it appear'd and spread through the Earth
A thrill of hope, the Brotherhood rejoices
The Messiah brings a new and glorious morn!
All is for each, Free to make our choices
O Rock Divine, on which our hopes are borne.
O Rock Divine, O Rock, O Rock Divine
(GDI)
Fed on the blight of Earth's increasing greening;
With swelling corps the Globe we do defend.
So now in spite of its mocking increasing,
It provides our needs to save our land.
The Mammoth tank delivers us from danger,
In all our trials, it is sure to defend.
Our bane and need, to our factories deliver!
Gather the rock! Before it eats the land!
Gather the rock! Before, before it eats the land!
(NOD)
O Holy Rock!
The green light softly shining
It is the light that prove all our worth.
Kane saw the world in sin and error pining
Till it appear'd and spread through the Earth
A thrill of hope, the Brotherhood rejoices
The Messiah brings a new and glorious morn!
All is for each, Free to make our choices
O Rock Divine, on which our hopes are borne.
O Rock Divine, O Rock, O Rock Divine
(GDI)
Fed on the blight of Earth's increasing greening;
With swelling corps the Globe we do defend.
So now in spite of its mocking increasing,
It provides our needs to save our land.
The Mammoth tank delivers us from danger,
In all our trials, it is sure to defend.
Our bane and need, to our factories deliver!
Gather the rock! Before it eats the land!
Gather the rock! Before, before it eats the land!
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
[X] Plan Days of Christmas
Okay, I know that it's not time to actually plan vote time and that it isn't a real plan anyway, but it has an automatic +12 Capital Goods guys!
Okay, I know that it's not time to actually plan vote time and that it isn't a real plan anyway, but it has an automatic +12 Capital Goods guys!
And it grants more Logistics capacity than ICS. Seemingly no cost, either.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I think that makes a few too many assumptions.
If we beeline Reykjavik Phase 5 starting in 2060Q1 (allowing 2059Q4 to finish the T-Glass foundries)... The Reykjavik macrospinner cannot reasonably be expected complete earlier than 2061Q1 without spending Free dice. That means we only have two or three quarters during the current plan to build any Zone Armor factories at all. Unless the benefits from Reykjavik are really good for reducing Zone Armor factory costs, there's no plausible way for this to pay off before the end of the current Plan and all our arrangements being thrown into chaos by reapportionment.
This is why I suggest Reykjavik Phase 4 (which we can get done by mid-2060), because that will serve two useful purposes:
1) It gives us enough time to roll out six Zone Armor factories by the end of the Plan. The best way to do this is with slow-walks, spending two dice on each of several factories, then investing one die at a time as appropriate; there's no point in wasting dice to finish the factories in a hurry. But remembering our experiences with the Governor yards in the previous plan, this is the kind of thing where you need several quarters to get everything spooled up.
2) We will see the direct impact of Reykjavik Phase 4 on the cost of the factories. We can reasonably extrapolate the impact of Phase 5, then decide for ourselves if it's worth it.
Besides, even if we finish the 'Wave One' sites for Ground Forces Zone Armor, there's still 'Wave Two' and 'Wave Three' to be considered, which we can comfortably postpone until Reykjavik Phase 5 is up and running.
Reasonable. On the other hand, we've got the Karachi Sprint coming up, and the Infrastructure and Tiberium departments are very important to the success of that project; infiltrators there could be disastrous.
I'm open to shifting the intended focus of the current round of security reviews, but we last swept Services five turns ago, as opposed to nine and eleven turns for Tiberium and Infrastructure.
There are limits to how often we can afford to completely ignore a department in favor of sweeping something twice.
I'd rather not do that until we've got the immediate +RpT options for moon mining resolved. OSRCT project will be taking several turns and (sadly) probably won't be really ready to intervene at Karachi, with or without the support satellites. But if we feel comfortable investing Free dice in Orbital (because our normal dice are still booked up meeting our Plan commitments), then we might do that while doing the Karachi Sprint. Remember that the support satellites will also benefit conventional Ground Forces, who will be needing all the help they can get by mid-2060.
I dunno.
After what happened in Q4 last year, there are rumors that Kane commanding the start of a secret project. Something about intercepting GDI coal deliveries, of all things.
I'm worried about those flying reindeer being targeted by Nod air defenses.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A thought for next turn. With the Columbia Philadelphia finished and our Orbital bonus up to +23 per die, the Orbital Cleanup project nearly costs 1 die per phase on average. That means we could do the following:
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 8+9+10+11+12) 13/425 6 dice 60R 73% (97% Stage 11)
And in return, finishing all five phases will gain us between 70R-95R for Q1, in addition to saving us 60R this turn for use elsewhere. We could also do to following, to be somewhat more spendthrift:
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 8+9+10+11+12) 13/425 5 dice 50R 33% (80% Stage 11)
-[] Something Expensive 1 die 20R
To be clear, this isn't just about saving R. One of our Plan Requirements is "Develop Tactical Ion Cannons" which we've speculated requires at least the next two phases of Orbital Cleanup to access. But we could easily finish the project entirely this turn, gaining us +5PS and the 20 progress on the future satellites this project opens up.
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 8+9+10+11+12) 13/425 6 dice 60R 73% (97% Stage 11)
And in return, finishing all five phases will gain us between 70R-95R for Q1, in addition to saving us 60R this turn for use elsewhere. We could also do to following, to be somewhat more spendthrift:
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 8+9+10+11+12) 13/425 5 dice 50R 33% (80% Stage 11)
-[] Something Expensive 1 die 20R
To be clear, this isn't just about saving R. One of our Plan Requirements is "Develop Tactical Ion Cannons" which we've speculated requires at least the next two phases of Orbital Cleanup to access. But we could easily finish the project entirely this turn, gaining us +5PS and the 20 progress on the future satellites this project opens up.
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- Location
- USA
I would want to confirm that because orbital has very little flex that can quickly vanish if dice are not kind. Also I think you mean Philly finished and not Columbia which is not even started
- Location
- The Underdark
It does not. the Plan goal, is this project.
[ ] Tactical Plasma Weapon Development
The Talons have once more proposed a new project to develop tactically usable plasma weapons. While the proposal draws heavily on the previous Merlin Ion Cannon built after the First Tiberium War, it also draws on the improved understandings of Scrin energy weapons.
(Progress 0/40: 30 resources per die)
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, either it's listed twice, or do you mean that the "Tactical Ion Canons" are behind the "Tactical Plasma Weapon Development" project?
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
It may actually be worth doing both plasma projects, at least the research. To make sure we're not skipping steps and missing something simple and have broader understanding rather than simply falling into cargo cult levels of having black boxed tech we don't understand.
The Reality: Turians notice a military fleet with a dreadnought is opening a Relay and they message home asking for a team of first contact specialists.
Because GDI isn't trusting that just because there was nothing behind the Relay the last dozen times, there is nothing going to be there this time.
Note that the only reason it's this few, is because the navy is going to look at everybody and go 'you want us to crew how many ships?', for the frigates they simply lack doctrine and crew, and for the carriers they still lack enough crew, they literally will need a couple of years at minimum just to deal with those problems. However, expect over time for the numbers to increase, especially for frigates. The US Navy had about 550 blue water combat hulls, not counting the submarines, and it could lean on its allies in a globe spanning war.
GDI can not. I would estimate that the final count of the frigate fleet is going to be close to a thousand hulls in total.
Except that the admirals remember the last time they had to deal with impractically large and expensive ships and fleets, and it's most of the reason the navy didn't enjoy the Third Tiberium War that much. TW3 GDI navy was very top heavy in ships, and they know they need more escorts, capable escorts, too.
I'm not sure if the two Navy paths are mutually exclusive, but it wouldn't make much sense in-universe. With how big the Red Zones are, we might be running out of time to do "rescue raids".
Edit: Offensive Navy options might be good for a greater offensive into India post-Karachi Sprint, and perhaps South America as well.
Edit: Offensive Navy options might be good for a greater offensive into India post-Karachi Sprint, and perhaps South America as well.
- Location
- The Underdark
They are not mutually exclusive.
- Location
- The Underdark
From your perspective it will just be more expensive. It won't drastically reduce the number of hulls, because, as some people love pointing out "steel is cheap, and air is free."
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
[grunts]
Come to think of it, that's the same way Bintang gets away with expending entire destroyer squadrons just to slow down some Governors so her real heavy hitters (the ones with ultratech weaponry like ion deflectors and plasma cannon) can get into range.
Well, if it doesn't significantly compromise the final hull count and thus the intent of the project, I can see the logic of doing wingman drones first and getting bigger drone carriers. Since we didn't promise anyone we'd finish the escort carrier project by the end of the Plan, and we're really only doing it for the sake of our own conscience and the Navy's actual need, it's not as much of a problem if we don't complete all ___ yards by 2061Q4.
Come to think of it, that's the same way Bintang gets away with expending entire destroyer squadrons just to slow down some Governors so her real heavy hitters (the ones with ultratech weaponry like ion deflectors and plasma cannon) can get into range.
Well, if it doesn't significantly compromise the final hull count and thus the intent of the project, I can see the logic of doing wingman drones first and getting bigger drone carriers. Since we didn't promise anyone we'd finish the escort carrier project by the end of the Plan, and we're really only doing it for the sake of our own conscience and the Navy's actual need, it's not as much of a problem if we don't complete all ___ yards by 2061Q4.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, it was a good idea for you to do so- though I think I've tried asking the QM before, without a response, I could be misremembering.
I'm going to stop pushing back against doing Wingman Drones before Escort Carriers, though I don't consider it an essential prerequisite.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think you did but it was one of those questions that fell through the cracks. Fair enough, I also wouldn't say they're essential but they are greatly desired.
- Location
- USA
The wingman help our air force greatly. I assume anyway. If the war is about to go hot our air force needs advantages against theirs. Especially if their planes are starting to get better.
And it's just logical to do the big airforce research done before doing the big navel airforce thing. Shrug.
And it's just logical to do the big airforce research done before doing the big navel airforce thing. Shrug.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Fair- it's just that the specific reasons the drones help the Air Force may not align with the Navy's needs for escort carriers.
Most of our Air Force spends most of its time either shooting down Nod aircraft or bombing Nod ground forces. In either role, having a helpful robot buddy plane along to carry an extra rack of missiles for you and suicide-decoy enemy SAMs off your tail is really useful. Furthermore, the Air Force flies out of ground-based facilities, where the extra physical bulk of the drones is not a serious inconvenience compared to the advantage of being able to deploy more planes.
By contrast, Navy forces on escort carriers rarely see the enemy and should nearly always be avoiding heavy enemy forces. Their ability to do their jobs is rarely limited by the number of tons of bombs they can carry or by the enemy's firepower. What the escort carriers usually need is to have X autonomous aircraft patrolling Y square kilometers of ocean and sweeping for submarines, and occasionally engaging an enemy raiding force. Since the wingman drones aren't autonomous, they can only contribute so much to that mission role.
But if it doesn't actively compromise the number of hulls and the increase in expense for us is, well, manageable, then I can live with it.
WOG is that Wingman drones aren't really smart enough to conduct a proper search against Nod stealth without a babysitter. They're great for running high intensity strike missions, but not so great for ASW or other finicky tasks, unless you're trying to solo a wolfpack or something. Part of the reason I'm firmly in the CVL camp is that it can take a pilot casualty or three without showing immediate strain on its sub-hunter rotation. Ironically, I wouldn't have any objections to doing fleet carriers at the size we're at.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Frankly, that's kind of my point.
The "with-drones" version of the carrier doesn't get significantly better ASW performance as far as I can tell, except maybe if the wingman drone is carrying extra sonobuoys or something. And the "with-drones" version has fewer actual piloted airframes aboard, from of what I'm seeing, even if it has more airframes total.
The problem is Navy Doctrine is going to shift to One Pilot One Wingman, meaning that we're very likely going to have a period of running the CVEs short staffed. Going CVL is the equivalent of sticking a manual gun on the Abrams: it's a mechanical hack to a doctrinal problem.
- Location
- USA
Shrug.
If it doesn't work well with the carriers then they shouldn't use the drones.
Just because a technology exists doesn't mean they have to use it.
Hopefully it will improve them but I really don't think we need to worry that much about it.
If it doesn't work well with the carriers then they shouldn't use the drones.
Just because a technology exists doesn't mean they have to use it.
Hopefully it will improve them but I really don't think we need to worry that much about it.