The thing is, if we do Zone Lancers now, they come built into the ZA factories we build. If we do Lancers later, we have to go back and refit them to build Lancers. You might think that such a specialized suit would never be required in very large numbers but the first factories skew HEAVILY towards the advanced and specialized suits and away from the generic and boring.
I think different enough suits of zone armor will need separate factories build for them also odds are we will need to build more factories later anyway since those initial ones are just the first wave
 
If I understand correctly, our current Zone Suit factories build the entire distribution of Zone Suits that we have available. From defenders to commandos.

Later stages of the project will slowly shift the exact distribution of the models. As an example, the defenders 'only' offered a 10 pt discount per factory in this stage, but will offer larger discounts in later stages as they become a larger portion of the production set.
 
Wait Edit: no one's doing a plan for SCED? Well then:

Budget: 279, income: 125 Capital per turn
Industrial Capacity: 230 IP
Pathfinder Time: 90 Days
Astronaut Teams: 2 (+5 per Plan)
Astrotech Teams: 5 (+1 per turn, +5 per year)
Total Pathfinder Time: 90 days
Current Maintenance time: 3 days

[X] Plan Driven by G
-[X] Earth-Orbit Facilities Edit 2: 5 C Edit 4: 5 IP:
--[X]Gagarin Station (Stage 4)(Updated) (2/10 Gagarin Station Parts; 5C and 10 IP per Part)(+5 to all rolls, +1 Research Die)(-3 Astrotech Teams)(For one station part per turn, the IP cost is waived) 1 Part 5 C
--[X] Enterprise Orbital Assembler (Phase 3 of 4)(Updated) 0/80 Edit 4: 5 IP
-[X] Lunar Facilities (4 Dice available) 60 C + 60 IP:
--[X] Craterscope Structure (Phase 1) 15/30 +15 Parts 60 C 60 IP
---[X] Craterscope Structure (Phase 2) 0/400 4 Dice
-[X] Assembly 124 IP
--[X] Craterscope Imaging Sensor 46/120 IP 74 IP
--[X] Build Craterscope Atmospheric Analyzer 0/50IP 50 IP
-[X] Development (6 Dice) +30 83 C + Edit 4: 21 IP
--[X] G-Drive Improvement Program 198/400 (15C/Die +10IP) Max 1 Die per Turn 15 C 10 IP
--[X] Ore Electrolysis Smelter Development 164/200 (2C/Die+4IP/DIe) 1 Die = 2 C 4 IP
--[X] Atmospheric Containment Shimmer Optimization 147/400 (1C/Die) 3 Dice = 3 C
--[X] Tick Tank Dig Experiments 137/150 (3C/Die+4IP/Die) 1 Die = 3 C 4 IP
--[X] Craterscope Asteroid Belt Detector 184/200 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional) 1 Die = 20 C + 1 IP
--[X]Craterscope Tiberium Detector 55/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional) 1 Die = 20 C + 1 IP
--[X]Craterscope Moon Detector 110/125 (10C/Die+1IP/Die)(Optional) 1 Die = 20 C + 1 IP
-[X] Space Command Mission Planning (4 Dice) +5
--[X] Mission: Surface Exploration (Charon) (Requires one Die) 1 Die
--[X] Mission: Surface Exploration (Pluto) (Requires one Die) 1 Die
--[X] Mission: Orbital Scan (Oberon) (Requires one Die) 1 Die
--[X] Mission: Orbital Scan (Titania) (Requires one Die) 1 Die
-[X] Missions 20 IP
--[X]Mars (13 Pathfinder days)

---[X] Mars particle collection mission 3/6 max attempts DC65 can be repeated, DC lowered by 5 per attempt) 33 Pathfinder Days
--[X] Other 20 IP
---[X] Pathfinder Drive Testing (NEW) 20 IP 40 Pathfinder Days +1 Die to G-Drive Improvement Program

5+60+83 = 148 C 148-125 = 23 C 279-23 = 256 C

5+60+124+21+20 = 230/230 IP

Let me know if I got something wrong. I'm still kind of green with these SCED plans.

Edit 2: Cut out one particle collection mission cause we don't have the days for it.

Edit 3: Edited in @Derpmind's Mission planning section.

Edit 4: Fixed the IP math as pointed out by @Derpmind.
 
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I think different enough suits of zone armor will need separate factories build for them also odds are we will need to build more factories later anyway since those initial ones are just the first wave
So you would support adding a seventh zone armor factory to the first wave so we can have Zone Lancers coming out if we don't do them as integral with all six?
 
So you would support adding a seventh zone armor factory to the first wave so we can have Zone Lancers coming out if we don't do them as integral with all six?
we are gonna make a lot of zone armor factories anyway , plus I don't think we can afford to delay , the ground forces have been asking for zone armor for years now at this point and while confidence is high once Nod alters their doctrine to account and will start going down again , there is also the fact that the other branches want their own zone armor and they can't get it until the army gets it fill , so yes I would support adding another factory or two so long as get the armor rolled out as fast as possible , also we need to that ground forces zone armor produced asap since it will free up ZoCom for deep red zone ops so we can get those sweat sweat recourses
 
[X] Plan Driven by G

Project List:
Suborbital Shuttles Phase 2-3 Complete
Urban Metros Phase 4 Complete
BZ Apartment Complexes Phase 9-13 Complete
Hm. Just thinking- how many Infrastructure dice is this? Putting together this as an Infrastructure docket...

2062Q1 (50 R)
Apartments Phase 9-10 (3 dice) (median result has little rollover to Phase 11)
Green Architecture (1 die)
Communal Housing (1 die)
(@Lightwhispers , I think it was you who recommended frontloading Green Architecture; I think you're right)

2062Q2 (50 R)
Apartments Phase 11-12 (4 dice) (median result has little rollover to Phase 13)
Communal Housing (1 die)

2062Q3 (75 R)
Apartments Phase 13 (2 dice)
Urban Metros Phase 4 (2 dice)
Suborbital Shuttles Phase 2 (1 die) (median result ~160/250)

2062Q4 (105 R)
Suborbital Shuttles Phase 2+3 (3 dice) (Phase 3 probably doesn't finish but this is worth slow-walking)
Rail Construction Phase 5 (2 dice)

2063...
(slow-walk Suborbital Shuttles to completion)
(finish Rail Construction Phase 5)

Now, the problem with this lineup is that it has big "gonna get worse before it gets better" energy as far as the Logistics indicator goes. The problem is that we need the Housing now, the Housing is cheap per die, and the best major Logistics project is expensive per die, such that it has to either wait until we have actual money (2062Q3-Q4) or be done so slowly that it doesn't finish until that timeframe anyway.

Well, there's a few reasons mentioned.

Securing another red zone and helping military supplies.

Which hopefully will help mitigate that -3.
That's a good point. Getting rid of that -3 Logistics penalty is probably gated behind a combination of border fortresses and railroad connections, so the next phase of rails may in effect provide a +5 Logistics or something. On the other hand, damn dat dice cost.

There's a bit of a fallacy in saying that we 'need' Rails to take best advantage of Red Zone operations. Yes, it does help somewhat, but we can kind of presume based on the operations being available to work on that we have some kind of logistical route out to at least some of the proposed harvesting areas. Additionally our Tiberium-mining operations may or may not affect our Logistics indicators directly (depending on the operation) but they do tend to include some flavour text that involves laying their own logistical tails; that's why Yellow Zone expansions supported Operation Steel Vanguard - because as opposed to Rail expansions the mine expansions were laying out a large degree of smaller transport routes and infrastructure.
This this this very this. Only the glacier mining operations seem to carry an explicit -Logistics cost, which is probably because they are extraordinarily hungry in that respect.

Though it should be noted that there is precedent for a different project lowering the Logistics cost of specific glacier mines that would otherwise cost more. That's what happened with the glacier mines around the Red Sea after we built the Mecca-Medina-Jeddah planned city complex.

Also, Red Zone mining has been described in the past as being more akin to a large caravan than any kind of established outpost or anything - their logistics have to be handled by airlift and such, and there's a decidedly limited degree to which a static rail line can help.
Yeah, but that's in part because to get from our Blue/Green Zone border to a Red Zone, you have to pass through a Yellow Zone or travel over water.

In places where we have a direct land connection to the Red Zone, I suspect it helps quite a bit to push the railheads forward and as close to the Red Zone boundary as possible.

Gone. It's too naratively borring to have unlimited phases of apartments, especially as their logistics required climb higher and higher. So they'll be removed from the queue-we've built seven phases of apartments in the past two years, we are over apartmentalizing. The QM just can't think of anything more interesting to say for new phases of apartments.
Okay. Just to be clear, is this something you know that Ithillid has spoken on, or are you reading between the lines?

Also, unless the refugee wave dries up Real Soon and no new wave happens afterwards, then if apartments go and no low-cost housing option replaces it, we're borderline railroaded into running out of Housing no matter what. Trying to slam out an entire phase of arcologies every turn to keep up that way borders on impossibility. Not completely out of the question, but close.

I'm not saying that's inconceivable, but my gut says there's going to be another "acceptable low-cost housing" solution of some kind, either a continuation of apartments or something else.

The thing is, if we do Zone Lancers now, they come built into the ZA factories we build. If we do Lancers later, we have to go back and refit them to build Lancers. You might think that such a specialized suit would never be required in very large numbers but the first factories skew HEAVILY towards the advanced and specialized suits and away from the generic and boring.
The ZOCOM factories from the '50s might skew that way. The new factories we're building are designed for maximum volume of production, not bespoke advanced production, because they're designed for Ground Force and Ground Force is not a bespoke-scale organization.

Furthermore, we're going to be building new power armor factories throughout this Plan; pressure is high and we're likely to wind up agreeing to build like twelve of the things total (counting the two that are already done). Worst case, we end up with a situation where the first X factories are dedicated to producing boring old power armor, and the next 12-X have expanded "new hotness" power armor production facilities to compensate. Because we know Ground Force is going to be using the boring old suits alongside the new hotness; both will still be in demand.

I think it'll be fine.

Again, I'm not asking you to go get word from the QM here, but... have you heard something I haven't? Again, the way you confidently rattle off "the first factories slew heavily..." suggests you know something I don't. Which is fine, but I wish people would tell me.

I also suspect that Phase 10 is the last one for Apartments. Narratively, it isn't viable to keep building housing like this.
Narratively, the big question is whether we "level off" ("this is the strain on logistical infrastructure caused by building X new urban cores per apartment phase, out of nothing") or whether

GDI has recovered a LOT of land over the past several years. Like, a lot. We're at something like 22% of the Earth's land surface now; it was down around 15% at our worst. And GDI's population is still less than 10% of what the Earth's real life population is. We don't actually have a problem with running out of space to put things in; the problem is that we're having to reconstruct entire urban areas rather than just continue finding housing for the existing immediate post-TWIII population... and that costs.

It's at least superficially plausible to me that we do get some equilibrium point at which we can just keep building more apartment complexes almost indefinitely, at the price of "lots of -Logistics because you're not building these things close to your existing infrastructure anymore."

That's fair.

Don't get me wrong, working on bleeding edge weapons has its place. Arguably, when fighting someone with such a marked high/low mix as Nod, even having those bleeding edge weapons equip a handful of elite formations, if you can afford it.

But sometimes what you need isn't a new gizmo; it's to buckle the fuck down and just start slamming out hundreds of thousands of something that works better than anything the enemy can make in comparable quantity, and rely on numbers and preparation to take down their handful of bespoke Wunderwaffen.

That's the GDI way.
 
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My general premise here is that wars are usually not won by having the single best whiz-bang gizmo. If they were, Nod would have won all three Tiberium Wars. My view is that wars are won by having large supplies of weapons that are good enough. Not so good that one cannot imagine scenarios in which they fail or are overrun, but good enough to meet the typical use case, and hopefully to face down even extraordinary situations briefly, for long enough that something more powerful that can put down the threat shows up.

And advances in technology are done by pursuing the single best gizmos first, to prove it can be done, and then figuring out how to make them in large numbers and cost effectively.

The Steel Talons are our military pie in the sky projects group and generally pop out a new, more general use project that can be rolled out across more of the military. IIRC, that's how we got 'tanks with actual APS'. I would anticipate that the Zone Lancer leads to miniaturization of plasma or ion cannon technology, or roll out of such technology for use on GDI vehicles.

I doubt we'll see ion cannon carrying Hammerheads or Orcas, but we might see a small production run for a Mammoth variant that deletes enemy hardpoints. Something which we've been noted to have a bit of a problem with during the Regency War.
 
And advances in technology are done by pursuing the single best gizmos first, to prove it can be done, and then figuring out how to make them in large numbers and cost effectively.

The Steel Talons are our military pie in the sky projects group and generally pop out a new, more general use project that can be rolled out across more of the military. IIRC, that's how we got 'tanks with actual APS'. I would anticipate that the Zone Lancer leads to miniaturization of plasma or ion cannon technology, or roll out of such technology for use on GDI vehicles.

I doubt we'll see ion cannon carrying Hammerheads or Orcas, but we might see a small production run for a Mammoth variant that deletes enemy hardpoints. Something which we've been noted to have a bit of a problem with during the Regency War.
See, the way I figure it, if we want that, we need to fund more Talons stuff, not Lancers for ZOCOM in particular. Which is why I'm planning to lean into Talons funding as hard as I reasonably can in the current plan. 2062 is rough because the Talons have no cheap projects, but even so.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Lancer is a bad idea. I'm just not prioritizing it over the Set one GFZA factories.

...

As for the Mammoth tank in particular, I think its real problem is that it just straight up hasn't been updated since Tib War Three. It needs a comprehensive overhaul, because its defensive systems have fallen well behind the curve (no shields, no laser APS) compared to its opposite numbers in Nod (such as Centurion mechs with buckler shields).

Which, for a heavy assault tank designed to breach defenses by trading slams with them, is a serious handicap.

Honestly, those are the two ground vehicles I consider highest priority for upgrade/replacement in the current plan: the Guardian APC (made totally obsolete by mass Zone Armor) and the Mammoth.
 
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[ ] Guardian Mark 2 Development (Platform)
The Guardian APC has served the Initiative well for decades. However, with both the new railgun systems, and the need for mass deployment of Zone Armor, it is simply no longer fit for service. The Mark 2 is intended to be roomier on the inside, with better armor shaping for the new Ablat plates, and an upgraded weapons system.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Armadillo HAPC Development (Platform)
In addition to the Mark 2 Guardian, GDI wants a heavy APC, designed as an assault support unit. During the war, the Guardian proved to be a good agile support unit, but struggled in the assault role, with many being lost to laser cannons, missiles, and NOD's militants. With the need for heavy armor, and all terrain capability, the speed of the unit has suffered, but it is still more than able to keep up with the Predator tanks that it is intended to support.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Mammoth Block Four Development (Platform)
The existing mammoth is a powerful asset, but one that is, even with refits such as railguns and existing point defense systems, heavily aged. A significant revamp is needed, to not only fix the problems that emerged during the Third Tiberium War, but also ensure that it is able to fight effectively in the post Regency War context.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] MBT-7 Paladin Development (Platform)
A complete redesign intended to replace the Predator across GDI's arsenal, the Paladin integrates many of the most modern developments into its core systems, without the compromises that wasted weight and space inside the Predator.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

we really need to do the department of refits to get all of these done , as each one of those will likely involve close to a dozen factories being refit

so here is the idea to get these done by the end of the next plan , first we do the same thing we do at the start of each plan and get the larder filled through deep red ops , then at the end of the first year we carry our the relevant development projects posted above and set up the bureau of refits

the bureau of refits does 30 point of progress a turn on ALL REFIT PROJECTS , this means we get 120 points of progress a year on every single factory of the above , assuming it takes 200 to 300 points per factory refit we get all of these done in a single plan for the cost of a single dice and 30 rpt
 
See, the way I figure it, if we want that, we need to fund more Talons stuff, not Lancers for ZOCOM in particular. Which is why I'm planning to lean into Talons funding as hard as I reasonably can in the current plan. 2062 is rough because the Talons have no cheap projects, but even so.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Lancer is a bad idea. I'm just not prioritizing it over the Set one GFZA factories.

...

As for the Mammoth tank in particular, I think its real problem is that it just straight up hasn't been updated since Tib War Three. It needs a comprehensive overhaul, because its defensive systems have fallen well behind the curve (no shields, no laser APS) compared to its opposite numbers in Nod (such as Centurion mechs with buckler shields).

Which, for a heavy assault tank designed to breach defenses by trading slams with them, is a serious handicap.

Honestly, those are the two ground vehicles I consider highest priority for upgrade/replacement in the current plan: the Guardian APC (made totally obsolete by mass Zone Armor) and the Mammoth.

The Platform developments tend to be pretty cheap in dice and resources. We should absolutely do them early in a plan because that's when we can most easily do them, it doesn't cost us any indicators, and while it may change our first set of GF ZA factories, it will likely improve our general Zone Armour troops once rolled out as well.

Frankly, as far as I care we should be putting military dice on as many R&D projects as we can manage during Q1 and Q2, precisely so we can see what we are working with.


The reason the Mammoth hasn't been updated is largely to do with the Mastodon, which was intended as a test bed for its replacement's weapons and then was left to bloat for years on end.
 
It's at least superficially plausible to me that we do get some equilibrium point at which we can just keep building more apartment complexes almost indefinitely, at the price of "lots of -Logistics because you're not building these things close to your existing infrastructure anymore."
You are not going to get Apartments beyond phase 10. Mostly because I am out of good ideas for making "you built more apartments" interesting.
 
So, if I may butt in on your discussion @Hazard and @Simon_Jester , but before I go into work I think I can take a moment to throw in my two cents about the role and impacts of new military design and technology.

Technology for technology's sake doesn't really... do a whole lot, but militaries seldom do tech for tech's sake. A lot is merely iterative, making something better at what it already does. Others provide entirely new capabilities that merit changes, large or small, to doctrine. Some tech and designs provide a gross advantage over its predecessors such that a response is crucial. And some remake the face of war entirely because existing doctrine or weapons are wholly incapable of contending with it at humanly plausible scale.

Gunpowder. Radar and radar-guided munitions. The Dreadnought. (I just really like lazerpig okay)
See, the way I figure it, if we want that, we need to fund more Talons stuff, not Lancers for ZOCOM in particular. Which is why I'm planning to lean into Talons funding as hard as I reasonably can in the current plan. 2062 is rough because the Talons have no cheap projects, but even so.
Zone Armor.

Zone armor is the priority of every branch because it is utterly transformative, deployed fully it merits rethinking most of our doctrine. Yes, most, because part of zone armor is its ability to command and control drones, and we're on the cusp of that too. It'd have its impacts on everything else even before then just from sensor fusion and the like, but in our case it's a keystone to doctrinal shifts that will make the next tiberium war nearly unrecognizeable from the regency war we just fought.

Command and Conquer, as an RTS concerned with game balance, largely does not simulate this, and can't be pointed to to rule things out by "what happened". But Ithillid is a historian. He knows how this stuff goes, and can be trusted not to let the conceits of the source material get in the way when a spot of realism would enhance the game.
 
I don't have the brainpower right now to work on a SCEDplan, and this looks decent, so
[X] Plan Driven by G

Edit:
As regards conventional military doctrine and Zone Lancers, Zone Armor being rolled out en masse is a transformative event for infantry doctrine, and having the Lancer variant ready for the reworking of doctrine seems like a good idea. Too busy to try to say more now.
 
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Hm. Just thinking- how many Infrastructure dice is this? Putting together this as an Infrastructure docket...

I get 8 dice for 5 Apartment Phases, 5 for the Shuttles, and 2 for the Metros, total of 15.

You are not going to get Apartments beyond phase 10. Mostly because I am out of good ideas for making "you built more apartments" interesting.

Ok looks like we're going to need that communal housing sooner then later.

[X] Plan Driven by G
 
You are not going to get Apartments beyond phase 10. Mostly because I am out of good ideas for making "you built more apartments" interesting.

With the promise of 32+ Arcology Housing on next plan(16 from UYL Promise and 16 from Bureau) and other options like Communal and green housing and with Columbia going up. Yeah, that is for the best.
 
Communal housing is our potential apartment replacement for the niche of low cost but acceptable quality housing. Especially with apartments capping out at 10 phases, we need to put 2 dice into communal housing experiments next turn so that the infusion of new housing stock isn't interrupted any more than it has to be. We can get away with creating Yellow Zoner ghettos for a few months if we really must, but keeping YZ refugee populations stashed away in their own little enclaves in the "bad" parts of town for multiple turns is edging way too close to a temporary solution becoming permanent.
 
Communal housing is our potential apartment replacement for the niche of low cost but acceptable quality housing. Especially with apartments capping out at 10 phases, we need to put 2 dice into communal housing experiments next turn so that the infusion of new housing stock isn't interrupted any more than it has to be. We can get away with creating Yellow Zoner ghettos for a few months if we really must, but keeping YZ refugee populations stashed away in their own little enclaves in the "bad" parts of town for multiple turns is edging way too close to a temporary solution becoming permanent.

I don't think we will have ghettos (by which I mean Refugee tent cities) unless the Refugees continue at the current rate for another year. We currently have 32 housing, even if most of it is YZ Fortresses. We can get another 12 from the remaining Apartments, and another 4 from Chicago, before even considering the Communal Housing. Though putting Refugees in YZ Fortresses isn't much better then tent cities. So I fully support going for both the Communal Housing and the Green Housing in Q1.
 
I don't think we will have ghettos (by which I mean Refugee tent cities) unless the Refugees continue at the current rate for another year. We currently have 32 housing, even if most of it is YZ Fortresses. We can get another 12 from the remaining Apartments, and another 4 from Chicago, before even considering the Communal Housing. Though putting Refugees in YZ Fortresses isn't much better then tent cities. So I fully support going for both the Communal Housing and the Green Housing in Q1.

It's a lot better actually.

Fortress towns are hardened against tiberium and enemy action. Tent cities... not so much.
 
I consider a Yellow Zoner ghetto to be any concentration of YZ origin populations that are in low quality housing without significant intermixing from native Blue Zoner populations. Which logically must exist already and must grow every turn we build less fresh housing than we get refugees, there are currently extant and growing populations of YZers de facto segregated into the "shitty" parts of town.

Now I want to be very clear, the problem here is not the refugees' quality of life, I'm sure quite a few are thrilled to be in an old 2052 commieblock compared to where they came from. I'm not worried about Yellow Zoners rioting over their housing quality. What does worry me is the attitudes their Blue Zone native neighbors will take. Even if the refugees love the commieblocks, the natives THINK of them as the shitty undesirable part of town (regardless of what we might technocratically argue about square footage and environmental controls etc. etc., it's indisputable fact that native BZers tend to think of commieblocks as "bad" housing).

Putting the marginalized newcomers in their own enclaves in the shitty part of town will reinforce negative social stereotypes and make integration that much harder for everybody. The YZ and BZ populations need to be forced to interact and get used to living with each other, which we make an effort to do when filling up new housing. But we're not going to go around evicting Blue Zoners from their already-assigned apartments to make room for new YZ refugees at an optimal anti-racist population mix, that would be a step too far for even Seo and would definitely get the Blue Zoners rioting in the streets. So the only way we can get properly balanced communities is new construction that we can control the flow of fresh tenants to. Yellow Zoners passing through de facto ghettos in commieblocks or fortress towns for a turn or two while we frantically build enough new communities to get a good mixture is ok, but letting them sit for years is definitely not.
 
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