Remove ads

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Reader mode
Simon_Jester said:
I think it might be my Attempting To Science the Apertures, with 10+E dice. I may be committing arithmetic fail, but I can't find a lot of other plans with more than 9+E.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Wrong.

13 dice in plan space mines.

Prime 2.0 said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You're preaching to the converted. In point of fact. I was the one to suggest the Enhanced tiberium spikes in the first place. I've argued for them before, put them in my plans repeatedly. Ultimately, they're not a vote winner. Now, that may have swung recently but if we look at which plan is winning, it is the one without the enhanced tiberium spikes.

I'll say it as many times as I need to. "I would love to get the enhanced tib spikes." But, the reality of things is, even with the recent blurb on inhibitors about them pushing tib underground, there are still a number of people that are worried about tib spikes.

I want them, unfortunately, I need to face reality and the thread consensus still seems to largely be against it. I want to make a winning plan that appeals broadly? that means no tib spikes that might turn some voters away.
 
BoSPaladin said:
You're preaching to the converted. In point of fact. I was the one to suggest the Enhanced tiberium spikes in the first place. I've argued for them before, put them in my plans repeatedly. Ultimately, they're not a vote winner. Now, that may have swung recently but if we look at which plan is winning, it is the one without the enhanced tiberium spikes.

I'll say it as many times as I need to. "I would love to get the enhanced tib spikes." But, the reality of things is, even with the recent blurb on inhibitors about them pushing tib underground, there are still a number of people that are worried about tib spikes.

I want them, unfortunately, I need to face reality and the thread consensus still seems to largely be against it. I want to make a winning plan that appeals broadly? that means no tib spikes that might turn some voters away.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm worried about the Enhanced Tib Spikes. I also think they are probably worth doing, despite the risk. They are almost certainly a better idea, from an optics perspective, than doing the Forgotten Experimentation this turn.
 
Thread has been coming around to it since the reveal that "oops, we've been shoving tiberium deeper underground with our inhibitors." I know I've changed my mind on developing them since that came out (fuck no on deploying them still). It's just... the field refining tech. Plus two BZ Inhibitors to finish. Between those three, harvest spikes have a harder time. Next turn should be easier to get them worked on, barring jumping on Field Refining deployment or something.
 
[X] Plan Thinking With Portals, with a dash of sanity
[X] Plan Thinking With Portals, with a dash of lunacy
[X] Plan Sensible Medians and Extra Space+Portal dev.
[X] Plan Space mines

Also, I would note that Ithillid has pretty consistently shown that sometimes, there are non-numeric results to actions. "But what if we roll badly" is something we can say about any action, including, say, the joint Abatement.
Opening up non-hostile trade through more official channels lays groundwork for the cooperation we're going to need when the TCN comes along. In-character, bluntly, there are too few humans left to keep pushing ourselves to all-out-war. Peaceful trade and talks lets us focus on space habitats and such.
 
KnightDisciple said:
Also, I would note that Ithillid has pretty consistently shown that sometimes, there are non-numeric results to actions. "But what if we roll badly" is something we can say about any action, including, say, the joint Abatement.
Opening up non-hostile trade through more official channels lays groundwork for the cooperation we're going to need when the TCN comes along. In-character, bluntly, there are too few humans left to keep pushing ourselves to all-out-war. Peaceful trade and talks lets us focus on space habitats and such.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly, my plan might very well include at least a limited opening-up of trade (if not quite as expansive as the "30-for-15" triple Consumer Goods trade some prefer) if I didn't have two projects that both looked to me like very good candidates for AA dice expenditure.

It's a good idea. I'm in favor of it.

BoSPaladin said:
Wrong.

13 dice in plan space mines.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
My claim was tentative. I said so in so many words.

As to how your plan's larger number of space dice slipped past me? Well,

After one too many rounds of acrimony, I stopped doing detailed enough examinations of your plans to reliably catch this sort of thing. I had no wish to outrage you, especially in ways likely to lead to pointless arguments.

And I failed to re-check all plans at the time of my original posting. I was sincerely unaware of your exact count. But it is true; if @BOTcommander wishes to be a single-issue "maximize space" voter, then your Space Mines plan is indeed very close to "maximum space," much closer than my Attempting to Science the Apertures with its paltry 10.6 dice.
 
Last edited:
[X] Plan Thinking With Portals

I don't understand some of these suggestions that don't focus on the portals. Portals should be the absolute top priority bar none. The reason for this is that portals mitigate or solve every single problem or disadvantage we have against Nod by allowing safe transfer of resources between sites, and massive force concentration potential.

Nod likes hit-and-runs; imagine if every time Nod was found, a tidal wave of GDI poured out of a portal. Imagine if once a base was found, we just beamed in bombs.

Conversely, portal tech probably also leads to jamming-of-portal tech, which means that we both 1) need to rush it so we can make attacks unjammed and 2) need to develop jamming ourselves, unless we want Nod beaming in nukes.
 
Last edited:
Takareer said:
[X] Plan Thinking With Portals

I don't understand some of these suggestions that don't focus on the portals. Portals should be the absolute top priority bar none. The reason for this is that portals mitigate or solve every single problem or disadvantage we have against Nod by allowing safe transfer of resources between sites, and massive force concentration potential.

Nod likes hit-and-runs; imagine if every time Nod was found, a tidal wave of GDI poured out of a portal. Imagine if once a base was found, we just beamed in bombs.

Conversely, portal tech probably also leads to jamming-of-portal tech, which means that we both 1) need to rush it so we can make attacks unjammed and 2) need to develop jamming ourselves, unless we want Nod beaming in nukes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Portals won't be relevant enough soon enough for either military logistics or space evacuation.
 
Okay, so I have seen between here and the discord a fair bit of bickering over trade, and what trade stuff actually means.
First off, why those values. Well, the big one here is that the +rpt values associated with trade? Those are profits. That is what you get in after you subtract out what it costs to produce the goods, and transport those goods to market.
Second, what does it actually mean to trade with the Brotherhood. It means that you have people who are interested in trading with you, a mix of high level warlords, low level warlords, smugglers, and the like. Anyone willing to deal with you, and can get in contact through some official channels.
 
Takareer said:
I don't understand some of these suggestions that don't focus on the portals. Portals should be the absolute top priority bar none. The reason for this is that portals mitigate or solve every single problem or disadvantage we have against Nod by allowing safe transfer of resources between sites, and massive force concentration potential.

Nod likes hit-and-runs; imagine if every time Nod was found, a tidal wave of GDI poured out of a portal. Imagine if once a base was found, we just beamed in bombs.

Conversely, portal tech probably also leads to jamming-of-portal tech, which means that we both 1) need to rush it so we can make attacks unjammed and 2) need to develop jamming ourselves, unless we want Nod beaming in nukes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think you're a tad bit optimistic about what portals are capable of, since not even the Scrin can (or do) do some of the things you describe. And while it's conceivable that the Scrin's real military, as distinct from the armed mining company we were invaded by, have more capacity, it will be a very long time before we can surpass the Scrin who invaded us. With the limiting factors being likely to have more to do with other unrelated discoveries than with specifically how fast we fund portal research directly.
 
BoSPaladin said:
Wrong.

13 dice in plan space mines.



You're preaching to the converted. In point of fact. I was the one to suggest the Enhanced tiberium spikes in the first place. I've argued for them before, put them in my plans repeatedly. Ultimately, they're not a vote winner. Now, that may have swung recently but if we look at which plan is winning, it is the one without the enhanced tiberium spikes.

I'll say it as many times as I need to. "I would love to get the enhanced tib spikes." But, the reality of things is, even with the recent blurb on inhibitors about them pushing tib underground, there are still a number of people that are worried about tib spikes.

I want them, unfortunately, I need to face reality and the thread consensus still seems to largely be against it. I want to make a winning plan that appeals broadly? that means no tib spikes that might turn some voters away.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Speaking as someone voting against the plan with enhanced spikes, I actually quite like them and definitely want to do them at some point soon. As you said, the recent blurb about inhibitors pushing it underground changed my mind.

The issue is that I strongly dislike a good 50% of the rest of the plan

Simon_Jester said:
I'm not so sure about the 'evacuation' angle. Unless you're tapping into some significant Discord information that's not being explicitly stated here in the main thread but that you're taking as canon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
As far as I'm aware we don't know when or how effective the next stage or stages of portals are, even on the discord.

Personally I'm of the opinion that their importance in the next 5-10 years is likely to be somewhere in the middle of 'oh my god these will change everything' and 'these will do nothing' but I think the next stage at least will be towards the lower end.

I'm definitely not seeing a reason why we need to dump a significant chunk of the planetary GDP on getting them right this turn
 
Last edited:
KnightDisciple said:
Portals won't be relevant enough soon enough for either military logistics or space evacuation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I wouldn't be so sure. Military logistics sure we are not going to be getting portal tech usable on the tactical level before this Quest's end, but strategic logistics (movement between Blue Zones) and moving people and materials from surface to orbit, that could certainly become relevant soon with this portal project.
 
Last edited:
Until we can conceivably put everyone and the required infrastructure in orbit, the ability to move people to orbit without rockets is of very little use.
Ultimately, we either have to stop the planet exploding, or we have to leave the solar system. Portals aren't looking like they will be capable of either any time soon.
 
Being able to run a train of cargo containers through a portal we could keep open much of the time from groundside to geosynchronous orbit would be huge for our space efforts, because spacelift is such a big bottleneck.

(Though we'd have to build a dedicated station around the portal, that would still be SO worth it)

HousePet said:
Until we can conceivably put everyone and the required infrastructure in orbit, the ability to move people to orbit without rockets is of very little use.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
On the other hand, getting the infrastructure up there would be a LOT easier with portals leading up to space. It's not just about being able to evacuate people, it's about, for example, being able to rapidly shift a whole lot of construction equipment from the Earth to the Moon in a hurry.
 
Earth to High Orbit portal would be useful and so would an eventual Earth to Moon portal. Either way you have solved the space lift issue.

Also if we can go "Earth to Orbit"" we can go "NY to CA" portals. Which also would come in handy. Though I hope that this is after we build a Transcontinental Railroad 2.0 linking the two sides of the North America.
 
Portals can be helpful in the future sure.

That's why practically no one is saying not to do them.

But there is no real rush. It's most likely going to take years until we get portals 3.0.

A dice or two a turn to complete it is fine. No need to try and smash it out in one turn. There are other things we can put the resources into. Like heavy industry and orbital. Those are the areas that are tight. We don't really need free dice in agriculture so we can afford 400 resources of portals.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Being able to run a train of cargo containers through a portal we could keep open much of the time from groundside to geosynchronous orbit would be huge for our space efforts, because spacelift is such a big bottleneck.

(Though we'd have to build a dedicated station around the portal, that would still be SO worth it)

On the other hand, getting the infrastructure up there would be a LOT easier with portals leading up to space. It's not just about being able to evacuate people, it's about, for example, being able to rapidly shift a whole lot of construction equipment from the Earth to the Moon in a hurry.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So far haven't we barely been able to make one big enough for a radio message that lasted less than a second?

'Train of cargo containers to the moon' seems like it's pretty far away still
 
MightbeaMimic said:
So far haven't we barely been able to make one big enough for a radio message that lasted less than a second?

'Train of cargo containers to the moon' seems like it's pretty far away still
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That was a couple of years ago. The big question is how fast the scientists and engineers are learning. It was only about 10 years (if that) between the launch of the Wright Flyer and the first airmail services, and only about 10-15 years more before you started to see serviceable medium to long distance airline services using heavier-than-air travel, for example.
 
I expect the first practical usage of portals to be in eliminating communications lag between earth and space, sending cargo on the other hand seems a bit optimistic though but if it is managed then it will probably be small high value objects that can be sent through quickly.
 
F0lkL0re said:
I expect the first practical usage of portals to be in eliminating communications lag between earth and space, sending cargo on the other hand seems a bit optimistic though but if it is managed then it will probably be small high value objects that can be sent through quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What is higher value than people? And what communications lag is so urgent that 1 second coms delays must be replaced with portals?
 
Vehrec said:
What is higher value than people? And what communications lag is so urgent that 1 second coms delays must be replaced with portals?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How small a hole can you fit through Vehrec? The questions that need to be answered before you send humans through a portal are 1. how much energy does it take to open one 2. how big can you make it? 3. how long will it stay open for? 4 does the portal have any harmful side effects (radiation or destroying organic matter that passes through)? If the answers result in safe human traversable portals that's great but considering that the first stable portal was measured in atoms and lasted about half a second I'm not going to be jumping up and down psyching myself up about our soon to be evacuation portals to Alpha Centauri.
Again I'm not saying future phases of portals won't be useful, I'm saying let's be sensible and realise that this is entirely new technology we're developing here it's not going to be fast or particularly impressive at first.

As for the com lag can someone please remind me what the time lag between Earth and the Moon or Mars are.
 
Vehrec said:
And what communications lag is so urgent that 1 second coms delays must be replaced with portals?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Depends on the distance I suppose.

Earth to earth orbit. Not a big deal.

Moon? Still probably not that big of a deal.

Anything farther than that? That could be pretty helpful.

If we could use it on our deep space ships? That's a big deal. Very helpful.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top