It'd be hard to fake a sinkhole without some kind of weird exotic tech or setting off enormous underground explosions.
The former greatly narrows down the list of things that could be the threat, possibly to "zero."
The latter implies that the saboteurs have massive fuckoff stockpiles of (chemical or nuclear) explosives and the ability to plant them at will, in which case I can't understand why they're still being subtle.
At least founding TRUST adds an extra step. Still, if we're going to go for it, we should probably go hard, though it occurs to me that the DC 120 version may give us "bigger results, bigger Paranoia."
I think passing the 120 threshold for TRUST is likely to gain us additional paranoia. To me, the breakpoints read as:
40: Hamhanded centralization effort that raises alarms in the throne room and causes unrest in the department, but is nonetheless largely successful. Paranoia gain and other penalties.
80: Successful reorganization that shows we're enthusiastically going along with Mengsk's plans to build up a stratocratic autocracy, while not being a threat to his authority. Paranoia loss, no other effects.
120: Very successful reorganization that greatly increases the power that we, personally, hold. Causes Mengsk to worry that we might eventually have enough power to pull off a coup. Paranoia gain, unknown other benefits.
I have no particular objection to this project, but I would suggest that it may be a bad idea to put too many dice in. Maybe just two? We have other stuff to do in this category.
I don't know that seems to me to be going against the current pattern of having the high DC giving better rewards @Etranger would you care to weigh in on this?
Honestly, it seems like you've got something like this every turn.
If you think a project's a good idea, great, argue in favor of it. But you can argue in favor of a project without insulting everyone's intelligence by implying that we're a bunch of fools for not having done it first ahead of all other priorities and getting all passive-aggressive with the "gee, it's too bad nobody thinks Korhal not being a lifeless hellhole is a good idea" stuff.
It's really unpleasant and corrosive in Planquest discussions when projects get talked about this way. There's so much going on that we just can't reasonably expect everything we want to get done immediately. None of us can.
In this case I think it's because it has kind of been left to the wayside. Last turn we finished the Tyrador Farming thinking it'd open up the route to Korhal Regreening. It actually does seem like it's going to be left behind if not only is it not valuable enough to be taken in Phase 1 before Tyrador farming 1, but apparently not Tyrador Farming 2 either, which will take a good deal of the rest of the year, past the point when we've seriously begun Augustgrad Phase 2.
I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but in canon Mar Sara has a bunch of valuable materials and stuff near the surface as a result of the Protoss bombardment. We'd probably start to get a decent resource return after completing the survey and one other project, for a total investment of maybe 400 or 500 points.
I don't know that seems to me to be going against the current pattern of having the high DC giving better rewards @Etranger would you care to weigh in on this?
Just realised that I didn't factor the Vardona bonus into Treasury Reserve Uniformed Service Troops so one die can now be moved elsewhere so I went with Fort Horner.
[] Plan Private Troops and Funds
-[] Infrastructure 5/5 35R (+4 modifier)
--[] Korhal: Capital City Augustgrad (Phase 1) 2 dice 10R 52%
(-10 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 133/250, -5R per die) --[] Nephor II: Planetary Reconstruction (Phase 1) 3 dice + 2 free dice 25R 22%
(Progress 78/450, -5R per die)
-[] Heavy Industry 4/4 35R (-1 modifier)
--[] Nephor II: Nephor Industrial Megacomplex (Phase 1) 1 die 5R 0%
(Provides Resource income)
(Progress 80/350, -5R per die) --[] Vardona: Ardonin Heavy Vehicle Factory (Phase 1) 3 dice 30R 90%
(Multiple projects finish faster upon completion) (+5 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 153/250, -10R per die)
-[] Light and Chemical Industry 4/4 60R (-1 modifier)
[] Vardona: Vespene Extraction Operations (Phase 1) 3 dice 30R 0%
(Provides Resource income upon completion)
(Progress 0/550, -10R per die) --[] Nephor II: Phoros Neotextile Fabrication Plant (Phase 2) 1 die + 2 free dice 30R 97%
(Reduces some per-die project costs upon completion)
(Progress 116/250, -10R per die)
-[] Environmental 4/4 30R (-6 modifier)
--[] Korhal: Regreening Effort (Phase 1) 2 dice 10R 7%
(+5 Paranoia upon completion)
(Progress 0/150, -5R per die) --[] Vardona: Subsidiary Hydroponics Effort 2 dice 10R 12%
(+5 Paranoia upon completion)
(Progress 0/150, -5R per die)
-[] Services 4/4 40R (-6 modifier)
--[] Mass Literacy Movement (Phase 1) 1 die 10R 0%
(+5 Paranoia when started, +5 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 0/200, -10R per die) --[] Re-Establish the Universal News Network 3 dice 30R 75%
(+5 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 2/100, -10R per die)
-[] Military 5/5 25R (-1 modifier)
--[] Nephor II: Fort Horner Marine Training Camp 1 die 5R 0%
(-5 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 0/150, -5R per die) --[] Vardona: Treasury Reserve Uniformed Service Troops 4 dice 20R DC120 95%
(Unlocks additional TRUST projects) (Paranoia either gained or lost on completion)
(DC 40/80/120, -5R per die)
-[] Research 4/4 50R (-6 modifier)
--[] Korhal: Broken Mesa Xenobiology Institute 2 die 30R 40%
(-10 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 50/150, -15R per die) --[] Tyrador IX: Imperial Science University 2 dice 20R 7%
(+5 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 0/150, -10R per die)
-[] Bureaucracy 4/4 30R (+4 modifier)
--[] Truth and Reconciliation Committee (Idealistic) 2 dice 10R 85%
(+5 Paranoia when complete)
(Progress 146/200, -5R per die) --[] Conduct a Dominion-Wide Census 2 dice 20R 0%
(Progress 42/300, -10R per die)
-[] Personal 4/4 40F (-6 modifier)
--[] Private Investments 4 dice 40F DC70 97%
(DC 30/50/70, -10F per die, +5 Discretionary Funds per quarter per DC passed, failure incurs +5 Paranoia)
-[] Free Dice 4/4
-[] 2 in Infrastructure
-[] 2 in Light and Chemical Industry
-[] Resources stockpile 295/395 Income /315 Total /710
-[] Discretionary Funds (F) stockpile 40/40 Income 0/25 Total 40/65
-[] Services = 4/4 dice, -40 R (-6 modifier)
--[] Re-Establish the Universal News Network [Reconstruction] = 2/100 (2 dice, -20 R)41%
--[] Mass Literacy Movement (Phase 1) = 0/200 (2 dice, -20 R)
-[] Military = 5/5 dice, -55 R (-1 modifier)
--[] Nephor II: Fort Horner Marine Training Camp = 0/150 (3 dice, -15 R) 70%
--[] Brontes: Refloating the Fleet (Phase 1) = 0/300 (2 dice, -40 R)
-[] Research = 4/4 dice, -55 R (-6 modifier)
--[] Korhal: Broken Mesa Xenobiology Institute = 50/150 (3 dice, -45 R) 74%
--[] New Model Weaponry (Phase 1) (Tech) = 0/150 (1 dice, -10 R)
-[] Bureaucracy = 4/4 dice + 2 FREE, -40 R (+4 modifier)
--[] Truth and Reconciliation Committee (Idealistic) = 146/200 (1 dice, -5 R)
--[] Conduct a Dominion-Wide Census [Reconstruction] = 42/300 (2 dice, -20 R)
--[] Flesh Out the Remainder of the Bureaucracy = 62/200 (3 dice, -15 R) 78%
-[] Personal = 4/4 dice, -45 F (-6 modifier)
--[] Private Investments = DC 30/50/70 (3 dice, -30 F) 89.4%
--[] Deadman's Rock: Authorize Arendt's Working Vacation = DC 20 (1 dice, -15 F) 75%
Total Cost: -330 R / -45 F
This Plan focuses on seeking advantages and creating a stronger foundation, such as acquiring more dice (Bureaucracy), gaining more funds (Investment), reducing project costs (Neotextiles) or reducing project length-time (SCVs).
Light Industry: Doing the 2nd phase of Neotextiles seems lucrative enough in reducing project costs, but I'm open to being swayed on swapping it out for other choices, made an alternative plan below.
Environmental: We need to start on Korhal Regreening now if we want to complete it alongside Augustgrad (Phase 1). Based on discussion, we should also diversify with another project like Nephor's Yum-Yums instead of doubling down on Tyrador Farms again, as Yum-Yums can be quickly finished to supply our burgeoning labor force with healthy, portable rations. This is also part of our obligation to complete at least 1 non-[Reconstruction] project.
Research: Focused on completing Black Mesa to get that -10 Paranoia reduction, the -6 dice modifier means that 2 dice isn't enough to guarantee it. Remaining dice is used for Model Weaponry to start chipping away at the next Paranoia reduction.
Military: I think 3 dice on Fort Horner Camp is plenty enough considering the +10 bonus we get for Nephor projects. Leftover dice is allocated to Refloating the Fleet as the next most impactful project available.
Bureaucracy: Only 1 dice is used for T&R Committee since there's Omake bonus available to bridge the final gap if it rolls below average.
Personal: It's crucial we increase our supply of Discretionary Funds early as we don't have enough to fund covert projects consistently. 4 dice on Private Investments is overkill though, so the remaining dice is used for the lowest DC project, which coincides very well since they're both done by Arendt.
-[] Services = 4/4 dice, -40 R (-6 modifier)
--[] Re-Establish the Universal News Network [Reconstruction] = 2/100 (2 dice, -20 R)41%
--[] Mass Literacy Movement (Phase 1) = 0/200 (2 dice, -20 R)
-[] Military = 5/5 dice, -55 R (-1 modifier)
--[] Nephor II: Fort Horner Marine Training Camp = 0/150 (3 dice, -15 R) 70%
--[] Brontes: Refloating the Fleet (Phase 1) = 0/300 (2 dice, -40 R)
-[] Research = 4/4 dice, -55 R (-6 modifier)
--[] Korhal: Broken Mesa Xenobiology Institute = 50/150 (3 dice, -45 R) 74%
--[] New Model Weaponry (Phase 1) (Tech) = 0/150 (1 dice, -10 R)
-[] Bureaucracy = 4/4 dice + 2 FREE, -40 R (+4 modifier)
--[] Truth and Reconciliation Committee (Idealistic) = 146/200 (1 dice, -5 R)
--[] Conduct a Dominion-Wide Census [Reconstruction] = 42/300 (2 dice, -20 R)
--[] Flesh Out the Remainder of the Bureaucracy = 62/200 (3 dice, -15 R) 78%
-[] Personal = 4/4 dice, -45 F (-6 modifier)
--[] Private Investments = DC 30/50/70 (3 dice, -30 F) 89.4%
--[] Deadman's Rock: Authorize Arendt's Working Vacation = DC 20 (1 dice, -15 F) 75%
Total Cost: -330 R / -45 F
Alternative plan that swaps Neotextiles for Refugee Workshop (Phase 2) for those not concerned with our budget and prioritize grinding further progress on Reconstruction.
Problem is that we have very ambitious plan goals, to the point where we really need every single free die on reconstruction, or on stuff that makes reconstruction faster/cheaper. Plus, it's not like getting people out of refugee camps and unemployment is a bad thing.
This isn't just aimed at you. I don't remember anyone commenting on this specific part of the turn results. It's not exactly unclear Mengsk is evil here:
Nephor II: Nephor Industrial Megacomplex (Phase 1) [Reconstruction]
Efforts to survey the old Industrial Megacomplex quickly run into certain difficulties when rumors of "tribes" of refugees inhabiting the facility are confirmed across multiple encounters. While some of the refugees are quite friendly and amenable to being moved out of the Megacomplex and into prefab housing, others are less open to diplomacy. NSP patrollers are met with a variety of traps and clever ambushes; some of the most lethal include the controlled detonation of chemical tanks, causing explosions and noxious gas clouds that render areas entirely unapproachable. These run-ins slow the rate of progress in reclaiming the main facility, though some progress is made.
Here we have the forced relocation of an indigenous population. One that has been brutalized by war. A war not between humanity and an alien threat, but one between factions of elitists (Mengsk and the Confederates) competing to see who can control the largest pile of smoldering ruins. "Rebuilding the Dominion Infrastructure" is not an unambiguous good. Setting aside what Mengsk is going to do with the infrastructure we're building him; there are real human costs associated just with the construction phases and Etranger has been pretty consistent about displaying that.
We can't even tell ourselves it's for their own good. Everyone who thinks leaving is a good idea has already left. Those who remain want so badly to stay that they are unleashing chemical weapons in their own homes. In their homes. Let that soak in for a little bit. Sit with this thought: how desperate would you have to be to open a canister of chlorine gas in your living room?
We need to be doing some rebuilding. People are suffering and need help, but most of them will never get help under Mengsk. So we should be making every effort to do good where we can, and Personal actions are more purely good than any other options open to us.
Brutalized by war, yes. Indigenous, uh... Well, these are refugees. That factory complex was a fairly normal industrial complex ten years ago, operated by workers with jobs and homes in the surrounding area. The people moving into the place are not in any normal sense "indigenous."
They're refugees who deserve to be treated with compassion, but (1) it's hard to give people the things they deserve if they shoot at you or blow up tanks full of poison gas to keep you out, and (2) one of the main obstacles we face to caring for these refugees, and other refugees throughout Dominion space, is the lack of... this exact factory complex.
Leaving the Dominion in a bombed-out and ruined condition for the sake of depriving Mengsk of strength is just as much of a gross abuse of the humanitarian needs of the Terran population as leaving Mengsk in power. In the long run, people will suffer from economic deprivation and of course the predictable conquest or eaten-by-Zerg that results from industrial and military weakness.
This is, of course, aside from the part where if the Dominion is still a bombed-out ruin a few years from now, the odds are that Mengsk will simply fire Horner and replace him with someone else. Even if Mengsk's Paranoia remains low, he's not going to sit around indefinitely and accept that vital factories still have giant holes in the roof and that half the population of a major megacity-world is still living under canvas or in shantytowns.
We need to be doing some rebuilding. People are suffering and need help, but most of them will never get help under Mengsk. So we should be making every effort to do good where we can, and Personal actions are more purely good than any other options open to us.
My own plan focuses on the Private Investments action precisely because we need to be able to fund those Personal actions, and to take them with good effect. Right now, spending Free dice on Personal is a losing proposition, because we'll rapidly run out of 5 F/die options and then have to spend Funds faster than we can make them. We theoretically have up to six Personal dice per turn, but we need a big enough slush fund to cover that, and that means at least the 40 FpT budget we can get by maxing out Private Investments.
I'm just going to ask that everyone stay away from the use or examination of the term "indigenous" in this context. No one's said or done anything problematic, I just want to sidestep that entire potential issue. Nothing wrong with pointing out that rebuilding the Megacomplex comes with a human cost, though.
I'm just going to ask that everyone stay away from the use or examination of the term "indigenous" in this context. No one's said or done anything problematic, I just want to sidestep that entire potential issue.
There are definitely a lot of minefields in the discussion of what "indigenous" means, especially in the Koprulu Sector, yeah. I don't mind backing off that.
I'm just going to ask that everyone stay away from the use or examination of the term "indigenous" in this context. No one's said or done anything problematic, I just want to sidestep that entire potential issue. Nothing wrong with pointing out that rebuilding the Megacomplex comes with a human cost, though.
Anyway, I'm aware that rebuilding the Dominion while Mengsk is still in charge will result in Mengsk doing some bigger bad things than would otherwise be possible. At the same time, if we let our angst about this stop us from, y'know, re-establishing a functioning military-industrial complex in the Terran Koprulu colonies... Well, the Terran colonies are fucked even if Mengsk spontaneously combusts on his own within six months' time.
I get a suspicion that further phases of those projects may to some extent hit diminishing returns on project cost reduction. Though I'm going to push ahead on neotextiles and SCVs anyway, so I look forward to being proved wrong!
Personally, I think we should flesh out the bureaucracy first. More dice in all categories sounds like a great "gift that keeps on giving," now that the cost of so many key projects has declined to where we can handily fund all dice we have now. It means more capacity to do Bureaucracy and Services projects that make the state more functional at the expense of Mengsk's personal control later, after all. We're still in the early game, so we want projects that maximize our capabilities to get more done sooner.
I get that you want to do more stuff, but I think I would like to get some idea of what the actual situation on the ground is like. We don't have any indicator metrics at all, we have no way to know if we lose energy from doing a project and tip ourselves into a vespene gas crisis, or if we use our last capital goods making T-shirts. Heck, stats might even give us some better idea of what the discounts on future projects may look like, which can't be bad.
I think three dice on the SCV factory is overkill, especially with our lawyer bonus to Vardona actions.
Ehhh, if you're gonna rush the second level of it, I can see this being a productive move. I wouldn't personally do it, but I can see that it's a potentially valid move in the game-space.
I get that you want to do more stuff, but I think I would like to get some idea of what the actual situation on the ground is like. We don't have any indicator metrics at all, we have no way to know if we lose energy from doing a project and tip ourselves into a vespene gas crisis, or if we use our last capital goods making T-shirts. Heck, stats might even give us some better idea of what the discounts on future projects may look like, which can't be bad.
That's a fair point. Personally, I think we can wait on statistical planning one more turn, but I respect your desire to prioritize it. As long as the Bureaucracy dice are focused with "enough" for the primary priority, I'm not going to complain.
With that said, I'm trying hard to push projects that minimize the risk of "use our last capital goods making T-shirts" by promoting reconstruction of our main heavy industrial centers and construction equipment, even at the expense of reconstruction on places like Tyrador IX. The vespene supply is an issue, but also one where we're unlikely to just flat-out run out entirely in a single stroke, so I can hope this would just result in a rationing crisis that could then be resolved.
More generally, I do get what you're saying. As I said, wanting to prioritize stat-planning is respectable, it's just that more dice can come in really, really handy and I'm going to push that precisely because we have something of a Resource glut in the present moment.
Ehhh, if you're gonna rush the second level of it, I can see this being a productive move. I wouldn't personally do it, but I can see that it's a potentially valid move in the game-space.
There's a lot else to do in Heavy Industry, and further phases of the SCV plant are likely to cause +Paranoia, so I'd probably just skip that to avoid the aggro until and unless the statistical planners tell me I really need to.
I think we really ought to get the finger on the pulse of issues before we start chasing more dice. Its not like those dice won't have utility either way, but knowing what categories we're having the biggest short falls will probably inform what dice we grab and what bonuses we're looking for.
There could be issues lurking just under the surface we're only scratching at, and optimizing to resolve the more obvious problems now could make fixing those even more uncomfortable. For all we know- civilian shipping is in disastrous straits and the interstellar economy could just fall through if we don't secure a new supply of freighters. That's probably an unlikely scenario, but the point stands.
I think we really ought to get the finger on the pulse of issues before we start chasing more dice. Its not like those dice won't have utility either way, but knowing what categories we're having the biggest short falls will probably inform what dice we grab and what bonuses we're looking for.
There could be issues lurking just under the surface we're only scratching at, and optimizing to resolve the more obvious problems now could make fixing those even more uncomfortable. For all we know- civilian shipping is in disastrous straits and the interstellar economy could just fall through if we don't secure a new supply of freighters. That's probably an unlikely scenario, but the point stands.
Hmm. If Flesh Out The Bureaucracy does force us to pick specific bonuses and boosts, then yeah, I could see the need to have stat-plan to guide our choices.
I think it would be better to concentrate dice on Nephor II than to put a single die on Tyrador IX. Effectively starting two projects at once isn't very advantageous for us.
Again, both these projects will take a huge number of dice to complete, and trickling two dice per turn into each of them will take about a year to finish either of them. I think we should prioritize one or the other.
-[] Research (4/4 dice, 45 R)
--[] Korhal: Broken Mesa Xenobiology Institute 50/150 (1 dice, 15 R)
--[] New Model Weaponry (Phase 1) (Tech) 0/150 (3 dice, 30 R)
-[] Bureaucracy (4/4 dice, 30R)
--[] Truth and Reconciliation Committee (Idealistic) 146/200 (2 dice, 10 R)
--[] Conduct a Dominion-Wide Census [Reconstruction] 42/300 (2 dice, 20 R)
In Research, I get the desire to slow-walk Broken Mesa and not waste dice, but the same logic applies to New Model Weaponry. Just give the gun research two dice and use the fourth for something else.
In Bureaucracy, I'd like to point out that we have a number of other important Bureaucracy actions that might come in very handy very soon. Either Planning and Statistics or Flesh Out The Bureaucracy might be a good idea, though we do have to finish that census in the next three turns and it will probably take at least 5-6 dice in fairness.
Modestly spicy take here, but I'd like to see a plan that spends all five Mil dice on the shipyards action. Naval strategy is build strategy, as GDI quest learned the hard way. The sooner we get those docks online, the better off the Navy's going to be when the Brood War breaks out.
Modestly spicy take here, but I'd like to see a plan that spends all five Mil dice on the shipyards action. Naval strategy is build strategy, as GDI quest learned the hard way. The sooner we get those docks online, the better off the Navy's going to be when the Brood War breaks out.
There's actually something to be said about that. A BC isn't going to build quickly, and piracy is definitely a problem in the background right now- that means attrition on some pretty irreplaceable assets right now.
Modestly spicy take here, but I'd like to see a plan that spends all five Mil dice on the shipyards action. Naval strategy is build strategy, as GDI quest learned the hard way. The sooner we get those docks online, the better off the Navy's going to be when the Brood War breaks out.
Er, do you mean Dylarian Shipyards or Refloat the Fleet? One is Heavy Industry and the other is Military.
The big problem is that the sheer amount of damage we've taken to our industrial base means we're still in "tools to make the tools" territory for a lot of things. It may actually be more efficient to get our factories up and running to a basic level and then do shipyard expansions, in that we end up with functional shipyards that are more productive due to having more and better of the right equipment.
However, none of that should stop us from attempting to salvage and refurbish existing hardware, under the Refloat the Fleet option. Hell, we might go for that. I'm honestly tempted.
I say we wait for the next game of cards before we commit to rebuilding the shipyards. We're still setting up all the resources that will feed into it and we can squeeze more concessions from duke, the guy that wants it done the most last time and is noted to be the worst at the card game.
We're doing the totally not zerg research lab and the census which was playing nice with the other two players. Mengsk will probably let this play out once he realizes we wanna do it but we're just doing it in the office politics way.
It's still Q3 after all. Let duke sweat and offer us more goodies for something we'll do anyway. To be honest if we want to rebuild a shipyard, its got to be the a non-military so we can reconnect all the worlds in trade since as of this update we are at half of the core worlds.
Also we want the SCV factories up and running before we touch shipyards so all our space building projects get done quicker.
I say we wait for the next game of cards before we commit to rebuilding the shipyards. We're still setting up all the resources that will feed into it and we can squeeze more concessions from duke, the guy that wants it done the most last time and is noted to be the worst at the card game.
We're doing the totally not zerg research lab and the census which was playing nice with the other two players. Mengsk will probably let this play out once he realizes we wanna do it but we're just doing it in the office politics way.
It's still Q3 after all. Let duke sweat and offer us more goodies for something we'll do anyway. To be honest if we want to rebuild a shipyard, its got to be the a non-military so we can reconnect all the worlds in trade since as of this update we are at half of the core worlds.
Kinda hard to make use of those without proper facilities to fix them. Granted we probably have some smaller ones around somewhere or the option wouldn't be offered in the first place, however the Dylarian Shipyards are necessary for repairing any of the Dominion's larger craft.
Kinda hard to make use of those without proper facilities to fix them. Granted we probably have some smaller ones around somewhere or the option wouldn't be offered in the first place, however the Dylarian Shipyards are necessary for repairing any of the Dominion's larger craft.
Well, as you say, the option wouldn't be available if we didn't have some facilities for refurbishing the salvaged ships. It might get a lot cheaper and easier if we rebuild the Dylarian shipyards first, but the point here is that we shouldn't leave a giant window of military vulnerability wide open and swinging in the breeze longer than we have to, because this is Starcraft.
