We should slow roll the portals with at most 2 dice per turn. Just the amount of resources needed shows us that rushing it isn't the best idea as any problems could be catastrophic. Even if I want to get a stable portal to orbit soon. I know this one won't give us that but maybe the next stage will allow a portal terminal to be put in Columbia's spaceport (after it is built) which will greatly simplify our space transportation needs by not needing to launch people out of Earth's gravity well.
Also I don't want to increase social problems with a rushed housing refit campaign. A Nat1 could really hurt our support before the elections. The last update already showed us that even if the refits give high quality housing they are deeply unpopular with the people living in those locations.
I'm actually not sure if portals will take massive amounts of energy now that I think about it. Scrin production buildings are essentially differently sized portals connecting to factories, and those didn't take crazy amounts of energy. They were using cold fusion power plants, while probably more advanced, are still just fusion.
Speaking for mine, I'm sorry about that. The main reason is the sheer amount of unfinished business (inhibitors and the RZBO) which eat up 3/8 of the dice I'm spending on Tiberium this turn. It's on the docket now that we have direct reason to think that we may learn specifically important things about inhibitors from it.
It'd be wonderful if we could build a device that we can plug into a tiberium vein that coaxes the tiberium towards the surface without accelerating its growth, for instance.
My main reason for tossing a vote at Derpmind's plan is simple - Earth is on a timer. We keep extending it with our abatement work, but it remains. The sooner we get portals working at a "transport people" level, the sooner we can potentially begin a high volume exodus of humanity off Earth should the tiberium situation suddenly go to shit. Fusion lifting people into orbit is Plan A. Portaling them up is the "oh shit" Plan B. I'd like Plan B to be in our pocket sooner than later.
It's not my first vote because I also feel we might as well finish the discount phases of alloys and be done with that for the near future instead of kicking it down the road a turn.
It may honestly turn out to be more practical to evacuate people off Earth to the Moon via giant fusion rocket passenger liners than by portal given how the economics and budgetary requirements work, mind you.
I'm actually not sure if portals will take massive amounts of energy now that I think about it. Scrin production buildings are essentially differently sized portals connecting to factories, and those didn't take crazy amounts of energy. They were using cold fusion power plants, while probably more advanced, are still just fusion.
Portals are *highly* unlikely to be useful for evacuating Earth - we are almost definitely not going to get them large enough, stable enough, and long-range enough, in time for them to be useful. Fusion rockets (with or without xenotech augments) are almost certainly the way to go for that. Which, I recognize, is an argument for the repulsorplate factory, which I'm somewhat grumpy about - I would like to push for North Boston before that, but I can cope with it going first.
As for energy requirements, I suspect that they will go down as we get more refinement in our technology... but for the next half-century at least, they will be very costly, in energy as with everything else.
In other words, I would not expect portals to be useful for anything beyond communications for 50 years, possibly as little as 3 decades. I could be wrong, but this is in large part something for the far future.
I am much less pessimistic than 3 or 5 decades. I think we can get comms well within 2 years and sending (minimal test) mass at 4 years. GDI isn't developing portals from scratch, but has mugged the Scrin for their operating principles. What GDI is doing now is confirming the principles and creating the human manufacturing capabilities to build the stuff.
I feel like portals will have a bigger effect on the game than lasers and lasers have been massive so far.
Just can't justify it currently sorry. There's been a lot of worry of "What if tib grows faster!" So it gets put on the back burner, until I can spare more tib dice.
I'd love to have it. But IMO we need more red zone abatement first. Instead for our 'mad science' I'm checking out the forgotten, both to see if they have any more interesting stuff regarding tiberium, and to see if we can create more infusions/treatments for those exposed to tib. Potentially even with Forgotten mutation instead of death for our GDI soldiers exposed to tiberium.
Roll out a few more inhibs IMO. And I'd love to go for the enhanced tib spikes.
Inhibitors make the subterranean tiberium problem worse, because the original device they are based on was meant to draw tiberium in closer, and we have it operating in reverse.
We need to get operating experience using it the other way around so we can figure out how to get the properties we actually want. That's our justification, and I'd say it's a pretty urgent one if we're planning on making a whole bunch more inhibitors.
The question of what if it reverses abatement meanwhile was answered months ago: we just choose not to build it. Quality rolls pretty much always appear during development.
Speaking for mine, I'm sorry about that. The main reason is the sheer amount of unfinished business (inhibitors and the RZBO) which eat up 3/8 of the dice I'm spending on Tiberium this turn. It's on the docket now that we have direct reason to think that we may learn specifically important things about inhibitors from it.
It'd be wonderful if we could build a device that we can plug into a tiberium vein that coaxes the tiberium towards the surface without accelerating its growth, for instance.
Yeah I totally understand how it's not a priority, I just think that given the narrative hints from BZ inhibitors it's something that could be a really good idea when we shake dice free. Ideally given we need to give ZOCOM some relief, I think we'd go finish inhibs/current RZ border offensive + MARV STUs, then put a couple dice in the enhanced spikes as we continue coordinated abatement and IHG refits. Maybe a little vein mine work too at lower priority for a couple quarters, let ZOCOM catch a breather before we hit up glacier/deep red mining
Portals are *highly* unlikely to be useful for evacuating Earth - we are almost definitely not going to get them large enough, stable enough, and long-range enough, in time for them to be useful. Fusion rockets (with or without xenotech augments) are almost certainly the way to go for that. Which, I recognize, is an argument for the repulsorplate factory, which I'm somewhat grumpy about - I would like to push for North Boston before that, but I can cope with it going first.
As for energy requirements, I suspect that they will go down as we get more refinement in our technology... but for the next half-century at least, they will be very costly, in energy as with everything else.
In other words, I would not expect portals to be useful for anything beyond communications for 50 years, possibly as little as 3 decades. I could be wrong, but this is in large part something for the far future.
Suppose a portal large enough to put a railroad through, and keeping trains running through it 24 hours a day. A common train is about 6 seats wide and has about 1 passenger seat every meter lengthwise, driving at 30m/s.
If the train is full, that's 180 passengers/second going through the portal. A day is a bit under 90K seconds - round to 150 * 100K - about 15 million passengers a day. But then you need half the time to drive empty trains back, so... optimistic evacuation capacity of a billion people in four months.
The much bigger limitation is going to be with building offworld supply hubs and the housing, logistics, and industrial networks to handle that billion people. More accurately, you are probably going to be able to sustain maybe five million a quarter, or lower.
If we advance the technology enough, the question becomes one of logistics more than anything else. More importantly, something like 5 million people every 3 months would completely outstrip our launch capacity. At that rate, we could completely evacuate everyone, all 1 billion-ish people, in 50 years. Compared to what we might expect from our current rate of space station construction? Well, we're still hoping that we'll get plenty of opportunities to speed that up over future years, too. But it'll be good to have two methods of evacuation, rather than just one.
No one is against doing portals. Except that one person worried about nod getting the tech I mean.
It's trying to do portals in one turn that people take issue with.
I guarantee we will get snippets about the treasury losing its mind for dumping 400 resources into a speculative science project. Not putting the resources to better uses. The director is doing mad science again. And so on.
I like the idea of a Portal Rush this turn but finishing SADN and Alloys seems.to be a better Option to make sure that none interferes for a portal rush next turn.
I guarantee we will get snippets about the treasury losing its mind for dumping 400 resources into a speculative science project. Not putting the resources to better uses. The director is doing mad science again. And so on.
Okay, so the plans are very different this time, and I actually like a lot of the differences. And since I actually like different things about the plans, I think I'll inject a bit of commentary this time:
Plan Thinking with Portals vs Plan Attempting to Science the Apertures
Portals Infrastructure
Apertures Infrastructure
Postwar Housing Refits +4 Dice, +40 R, +100% CoS Phase 1, +98% CoS Phase 2, +22% CoS Phase 3
Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 4) 1/480 (3 dice, 45 R) (3/6 median)
Suborbital Shuttle Service +1 Die, +25R, +18 CoS Phase 1, +12% CoS Phase 2
So, these take opposite approaches to the problems revealed in our housing last turn.
Portals takes the approach that it is better to tear down and rebuild the low quality housing as soon as possible to reduce the amount of time that people are displaced (upon completion, we'll have torn down 10 more LQH, and built 9 HQH, not including the arcology bureau).
Apertures takes the approach that it is better to build a surplus of HQH prior to continuing the housing refits (and makes more effort to complete the long-running Shuttles project).
Of the two approaches, I think I prefer Portals'. More at an aesthetic level though, as well as a small suspicion that completing phase 5 of housing might have more of an affect on arcologies than other areas (I think alloys make novel architecture more viable?).
Portals Heavy Industry
Apertures Heavy Industry
Second Generation Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants +1 Die, +20 R, +11% CoS Phase 3
U Series Alloy Foundries +5 Dice, +200R, +91% CoS
Second Generation Repulsorplate Factories +2 Dice, +50 R
Portals HI available dice: 5->0
Apertures HI available dice: 5->6
Portals moves us slightly ahead on the Energy track, and gets us started on the very popular RepulsorPlates Factories.
Apertures invests 2 free dice into the department tries to secure us the 6.25% discount this turn, as well as the Alien Structural Materials capstone (which is phase 5, phase 6 is a different tech).
Considering that I really want to be able to stop doing discount math, I very heavily prefer Apertures in this case.
Portals Agriculture
Apertures Agriculture
Reforestation Campaign Preparations +5 Dice, +50R, +100% CoS Phase 1
Agriculture Mechanization Projects +2 Dice, +30R, +74% CoS
Portals Agri Available dice: 43->46
Apertures Agri Available dice: 43->41
Portals is using Agriculture as a dice dumping ground to be able to afford Portals. On one hand, I'm actually quite excited for more biosphere restoration, and the sooner we do so the better. I also don't think it'll have any rush penalties at this level of investment. On the other, putting free dice into Agriculture seems very questionable, with how tight our available dice are in HI and Orbital (some would also argue Tiberium or Military).
Apertures tries to finally complete the Agriculture Mechanization Projects, which is frankly boring but practical, especially as our Labor indicator continues to tighten. I think there've been rumors that completing that project would open up new similar options elsewhere, but I'm honestly doubtful that'll have a noticeable impact.
Portals Tiberium
Apertures Tiberium
Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes +1 Die, +20R
Tiberium Vein Mines +2 Dice, +40 R, +91% CoS
Forgotten Experimentation +2 Dice, +60R, +10% CoS
Coordinated Abatement Programs +1 Die, +25R, +99% CoS
Portals Tiberium Available dice: 43->39
Apertures Tiberium Available dice: 43->44
In this one, both plans make me uncomfortable.
I really like that Portals gets us started on EHTS this turn considering what we learned about inhibitors last turn, but I'm concerned on the optics of doing Forgotten Experimentation the turn after they gave us a very nice boost. Moving away from that project to something else would also free up a lot of resources that could be used to upgrade some Reforestation dice.
Apertures, on the other hand, aims to get us a small boost in income next turn, but accelerates the Coordinated Abatement Programs. I'd really rather continuing putting only a single die in there until the first phase completes, to avoid potentially causing an incident out of haste. Moving a die from there to EHTS would seem ideal.
Portals Orbital
Apertures Orbital
GDSS Columbia +1 E Die, +20R, +17% CoS
Hospital Bay +2 Dice, 1 E Die, + 60R, +12% CoS
Portals Available Dice: -4->-2
Apertures Available Dice: -4->-4
Portals in this case goes for the fairly straightforward approach of paying down our Orbital dice debt, and makes it much more likely that we'll complete Columbia by the elections.
Apertures invests more heavily in Orbital, and gets us closer to establishing medical facilities in orbit, reducing our injury and mortality rates.
Both approaches have something to speak for them. I know I'd definitely prefer Apertures' if they had similar CoS on Columbia, but I'm not actually convinced that making that change would be a net benefit.
Portals Services
Apertures Orbital
Primitive Prototype Portal Construction +3 Dice, +300R, +48% COS
Cosmetic Biosculpting +1 Die, +30 R
Library Enhancement Programs +1 Die, +1 AA Die, +30 R, +26% CoS
Portals Services Available Dice: 38->3429
Apertures Services Available Dice: 38->28
Portals invests heavily in its namesake Portals. I honestly don't get it, as the time adjusted rate of return looks very poor compared to a slower rollout. This is a project that is going to take decades before we start seeing real returns, and paying a heavy price to complete it a turn or two earlier doesn't compute. Reducing it by a single die would allow for the three agriculture free dice to be upgraded to almost anything else, so this is incurring a very heavy opportunity cost. That said, there is one area where investing this many dice makes sense, and that's if we assume that Kane is coming right after the elections to offer a deal (but if we're making that assumption, more inhibitors would probably be a better investment).
Portals also promises to eventually complete both library enhancement programs, which we should honestly intend to do.
Apertures heavily draws down on our available Services dice pool to further us down the transhuman path, and aims to slightly head off our upcoming labor crunch by improving our education.
Unmanned Support Ground Vehicle Development +1 Die, +20R, +72% CoS
Portals Military Available Dice: 13->13
Apertures Services Available Dice: 13->14
Portals starts the MRASP factory, which will start upgrading our MARV hubs once it is finished.
Apertures slightly accelerates our naval deployment, and instead focuses on improving our drone technology.
Portals Bureacracy
Apertures Bureacracy
Make Political Promises
-Developmentalist: Complete both Library Enhancement Programs
-Militarist (Wardens): Begin Karachi after SADN Phase 1 is fully deployed (Q3 2064)
AA Die Sharks
Trade Programs 3 dice
-Sell Consumer Goods x3
AA Die Library Enhancement Programs
For Portals, the Developmentalist and the Militarists aren't my favorite parties, but at least they edge out some of the more extreme parties. Both promises make sense, and the Karachi promise will significantly reduce arguments going forward, so I think I like it. The trade programs... are insane? We'll be giving up 15% of our consumer goods right before elections, which will strengthen the Xenophobic factions a lot. And we've never done this before to we can expect a lot of mistakes to happen, from the diplomatic, espionage, and counter-espionage sides. This is something that needs to be slow-rolled, not used as a dice sink.
Apertures goes for the fairly straightforward AA dice on the Military and Education.
For Portals, downgrading the Forgotten research and instead putting an AA die on Reforestation would be a massive improvement.
For Apertures, I'd personally prefer putting the AA die from Sharks on Columbia, or doing a combination of Make Political Promises and setting up one trade route.
No, seriously, 3x Trade programs two turns before the elections deserve more discussion than they've gotten.
Apertures, on the other hand, aims to get us a small boost in income next turn, but accelerates the Coordinated Abatement Programs. I'd really rather continuing putting only a single die in there until the first phase completes, to avoid potentially causing an incident out of haste. Moving a die from there to EHTS would seem ideal.
This is a project that is going to take decades before we start seeing real returns, and paying a heavy price to complete it a turn or two earlier doesn't compute.
No, I'm pushing back on this ridiculous claim that portals will take decades to see real returns. We went from demonstrating the first human built portals to currently building a ground-to-geosynchronous orbit link in only two years. Q2 2061 to the current Q3 2063. We are definitely going to see returns within this decade with the current fast pace that we're making.
