Ace Combat XCOM: Enemy Skies

[Simon_Jester]

[X] Plan Hello Estovakia My Old Friend, Semifinal Version
-[X] Directives:
--[X] Logistics personnel are to begin planning requirements for their own activities based around a 40-hour workweek, with variable amounts of overtime. Between now and February 14th, Logistics personnel are forbidden from working more than 10 hours of overtime. Overtime is under no circumstances to be considered mandatory during this timeframe.
--[X] Daniel Snow, personally, is ordered to take tomorrow off, sleep, see a doctor, and sleep. Snow is expressly forbidden from taking overtime between now and February 14th.
-[X] IC Budget:
--[X] Aerospace Procurement:
---[X] Up to 16000 IC for 4 F-35C before February 14th. Cost overruns acceptable to avoid delay.
---[X] 7000 IC and 5 Alien Alloy for 5 EMLs. First two needed ASAP to equip Azdaha, delays acceptable on the others.
---[X] Up to 3000 IC to refill our ADMM stockpiles.
---[X] 7200 IC for 3 F-14Xs. Delays acceptable.
---[X] 15000 IC for 1 CFA-44 Nosferatu. Delays acceptable, but try to play on our relationship with Albastru-Electrice as a good customer to get bumped up the wait list.
---[X] Operation Neighborhood Watch, Phase 2: Up to 500 IC budget. Launch substantial numbers of polar-orbiting reconnaissance satellites over Belka, to recapture the kind of data we obtained from "Phase 1" a couple of weeks ago. Gather information on the Belkan war mobilization.
---[X] Unconventional Airlift Requirements Study: Low-budget. Find out requirements for heavy-lift and cargo aircraft from the Stonehenge project and our researchers' salvage operations. What do we need, and what will it cost us?
----[X] Superheavy skycranes were used to build the Lighthouse and then dismantled. Is it possible that some of the parts or operators are still to be found somewhere around Selatapura? This could help us get started.
--[X] Base and Logistical Expansion:
---[X] 7200 IC for Build Industry (Planes). Delays acceptable.
---[X] 2000 IC for backup power generating capacity and fuel/parts stockpiles to run it. Minor inefficiencies tolerable. Significant delays tolerable. Priorities for the equipment, in order:
----[X] Selatapura Air Command
----[X] Fort Grays Air Base
----[X] Defense-critical installations throughout Selatapura city
--[X] Development and Relief Aid:
---[X] General Directive: As a practical matter, all these projects should be considered in terms of "just get the funds out and keep the balls rolling as best you can." Inefficiency in actually banking IC towards completion of the project is acceptable, as long as nobody starves to death because of it. This is to prevent our people working themselves to death trying to micromanage everything. We want to minimize inefficiency, but subject to the constraints of the work hour requirements set for this week in the directives.
---[X] 10000 IC to the Dashau Resurgence Project.
---[X] 2400 IC for Build Industry (Estovakia)
---[X] 2400 IC for Build Energy Production (Estovakia)
---[X] 3000 IC for Build Industry (Voslage)

The only real edit here, aside from fixing what amounted to a typo, was to peel some IC off the backup generator project to launch another wave of recon satellites over Belka. We should get Project Dove up soon, or some other way of clearing debris with lasers, though.

 

[Icipall]

[X] Plan Hello Estovakia My Old Friend, Semifinal Version

 

[kilopi505]

@Simon_Jester, is having a day shift and night shift for all departments efficient? Or is that what you already meant with "planning requirements for their own activities"?

 

[Speed53066]

@Simon_Jester quick question, but are we able to give our logistical guys personal assistants and the like. So they are able to do their work without having to worry about the instructions getting to the right place at the right time. Another idea would be a gathering of every one of the supervisors on base, and see how everything is doing, what is going right, wrong, can be improved, and needs improving. That could shave a good amount of time, resources, and stress off the entire staff if all goes to pllan.

 

[Icipall]

@Simon_Jester quick question, but are we able to give our logistical guys personal assistants and the like. So they are able to do their work without having to worry about the instructions getting to the right place at the right time. Another idea would be a gathering of every one of the supervisors on base, and see how everything is doing, what is going right, wrong, can be improved, and needs improving. That could shave a good amount of time, resources, and stress off the entire staff if all goes to pllan.

Click to shrink...

I'd think that stuff like that is handled by the departments themselves with the people we've assigned there. And we are all in the same base already, aside from the people at the Stonehenge And vahlen's division who is coming back to base soon.

The reports from their departments, since we have now assigned overall leaders to both Science and Engineering, are to include everything that's going on in their respective departments, if they have come up with new ideas, require something specific, etc.

 

[Simon_Jester]

EDIT: OH GOD I just realized we're gonna need tanker aircraft. I have no idea where the price listings for tanker aircraft are. Do we have any tankers? We should have them or procure them.

@Simon_Jester, is having a day shift and night shift for all departments efficient? Or is that what you already meant with "planning requirements for their own activities"?

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We do business with nations and companies pretty much all the way around the world. Just for example, Oured, the capital of Osea, is about... I dunno, 7-9 time zones behind us (our noon is around their four o'clock in the morning). Conversely, the Estovakian factories that make our Nosferatu super-fighters, ADMM missiles, and EML railguns, are between 8-12 time zones ahead of us.

So us having people manning the phones and someone in the office who can make decisions the senior people will back up is pretty much a necessity. This may be part of what's been keeping the logistics staff working crazy hours, though it's not the entirety of it, I'm sure. If we want to talk to the guys who make our EMLs during their business hours, we have to call them at hours that are agonizingly early in the morning for us.

Which means that, yes, we will need multiple shifts of workers. Even if everyone's working 100-hour weeks, they have to sleep some time, and someone has to pick up the phone if an Emmerian or Osean calls while Daniel Snow is unconscious.

...

The thing is, the reason I talk about 40-hour workweeks and overtime isn't really about the shift schedule, which I figure the logistics department can sort out for themselves. It's because as you may have figured out from reading the last several updates, the logistics team is about to collapse. Even with the infusion of new workers, many of our people who have been with us from the start and know how to do everything we need done (or at least have already done) are on the brink.

Daniel Snow worked ~120 hours last week. He's stopped shaving. His body is so tired that he's dropping off into microsleeps in the middle of a conversation. He can barely string together a complete sentence. And he got "a little loopy" and misplaced several of our fighter jets for at least a few days.

While he may be in worse shape than the rest of his department, I doubt they're on average in much better shape.

This week, nothing we're having them doing is "do-or-die" mission critical activity (we have enough planes for all our pilots, we've got defensive fortifications mostly set up, et cetera, et cetera). Conversely, next week Belka is likely to attack some or all of the surrounding nations with alien support.

Now, X-COM OSEA is poorly armed compared to us, trapped in a cycle of recruiting mediocre pilots and having to buy cheap planes, which then get shot down, which forces them to constantly replace pilots and spend IC buying new planes.* And the actual Osean military is worn down by the Lighthouse War and most of their elite aces are with us. And EOMDS (a coalition of small east Osean nations likely to be under immediate Belkan attack after Bloody Valentine) is in a bad military position where the only GOOD news is that the Demon Lord of the fucking Round Table is flying for them (this is admittedly very good news).

It is very likely that we will be called upon to provide support for operations against the aliens in eastern Osea, just as happened in the Battle of the Grenada Plains. As a side effect we may need to spend a lot of IC and deal with a lot of emergencies- or something we can't even foresee may blow up right here in Usea. Either way, the logistics branch needs to get some rest, so I'm ordering them to get some rest this week, while we can. In a future week we may need to order them to pull a lot more overtime, and that's what's governing my "Directive" choices.
_______________

*[You know, what might have happened to us if we'd tried to hire dozens of rookies and cram them into F-104s or MiG-21s, ahem ahem.]

@Simon_Jester quick question, but are we able to give our logistical guys personal assistants and the like. So they are able to do their work without having to worry about the instructions getting to the right place at the right time.

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Lovely idea. The time to propose it is during the Human Resources vote, which we just had. So remind me of it next week/turn, assuming we don't have to deal with Adam Khatuna falling over dead trying to HIRE EVERYBODY.

Another idea would be a gathering of every one of the supervisors on base, and see how everything is doing, what is going right, wrong, can be improved, and needs improving. That could shave a good amount of time, resources, and stress off the entire staff if all goes to pllan.

Click to shrink...

1) Lovely idea, the right time would be to do this as an "Organize XCOM" action. Since just ordering a regularly scheduled meeting is comparatively easy, we might even be able to do it for a limited Focus cost. However, we're already close to going into the yellow for Focus, and we need rest too to prepare for what's coming.

...

Another issue is that on net this weekly meeting may actually be more time-consuming than having a series of quick meetings scheduled 'whenever.' My understanding of management (admittedly not great) is that in general, the bigger a meeting is, the less productive it is. Since we're very hard pressed for time and man-hours... eh, I dunno.

 

[Icipall]

EDIT: OH GOD I just realized we're gonna need tanker aircraft. I have no idea where the price listings for tanker aircraft are. Do we have any tankers? We should have them or procure them.

Click to shrink...

We have six KC-10 Extender tankers. Two we bought and four we got when the Fort Grays was integrated into XCOM USEA. Tankers and other support and logistics aircraft are in the same list with the cargo planes:

Support and Logistics Aircraft

Spoiler: E-2C Hawkeye

E-2C Hawkeye
Cost: 6300 IC
Carrier Capable: Yes
AWACS aircraft.

Built to replace earlier carrier-borne AWACS, this latest craft is beginning to show its age, both in flight and in the strategic planning rooms.

Spoiler: E-767

E-767
Cost: 16600 IC
Carrier Capable: No
AWACS aircraft.

The workhorse AWACS of the last twenty years, no modern airforce can call itself one if it does not possess at least one.

Spoiler: KC-10 Extender

KC-10 Extender
Cost: 3200 IC
Carrier Capable: No
Tanker aircraft.

Like the E-767, the KC-10 Extender is the tanker workhorse the world over. It is almost unheard of to have any other tanker aircraft.

Spoiler: C-130 Hercules

C-130 Hercules
Cost: 1100 IC
Carrier Capable: No
Cargo aircraft.

One of the other great workhorses, it's quad-propeller design allows it to keep costs relatively low for the amount of cargo shipped, but on the other hand, it remains a propeller-driven aircraft.

Spoiler: C-17A Globemaster

C-17A Globemaster
Cost: 7800 IC
Carrier Capable: No
Cargo aircraft.

The C-17A Globemaster's four jet engines enable the Globemaster to carry a greater load for longer at higher speeds, in exchange for being a more pricey package throughout its service life. Projects have been considered to enable airlifting troops out of the back, but have ultimately been disregarded in favor of helicopter-borne assault teams.

Spoiler: C-5 Galaxy

C-5 Galaxy
Cost: 6000 IC
Carrier Capable: No
Cargo aircraft.

One of the predecessors to the Globemaster program, this twin-jet engined cargo aircraft is quite common, albeit expensive in comparison to its older relatives.

Spoiler: Il-76

Il-76
Cost: 1800 IC
Carrier Capable: No
Cargo aircraft.

One of the competitors to the other cargo planes, the Il-76 boasts a fantastic price for a four jet engined craft.

Spoiler: V-22 Osprey

V-22 Osprey
Cost: 2500 IC
Carrier Capable: Yes
Cargo aircraft.

A tiltrotor aircraft capable of taking off and landing like a helicopter, while flying like a plane. Due to this functionality, the cargo capacity is low, but it can travel nearly anywhere.

Spoiler: XC-01

XC-01

You've only heard rumors about this one, but it seems like it might be a 767 derivative?

World News

Click to shrink...

We also have two extra E-767 AWACS planes.

Fort Grays Island Base now listed. B-tier Druid and Bard Squadrons on station. New aircraft:
2x E-767 AWACS platforms.
4x KC-10 Tankers.
7x F-16 Falcons.
5x F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.

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@huhYeahGoodPoint
Are all the Falcons and Super Hornets we have listed in the front page? It says that we have only four of each. Also:

Yes, Stonehenge's IC cost reductions are now in effect, if you are willing to spend the IC. You can knock off 200,000 IC on the project, provided you're wiling to invest about 300 Alien Alloys into the project*

(or, if you install things in the right order, the Stonehenge team is starting to report, the costs will drop further).

Click to shrink...

Did we ever implement this, and if not, can we do it now?

 

[hYGP]

@huhYeahGoodPoint
Are all the Falcons and Super Hornets we have listed in the front page? It says that we have only four of each. Also:

Click to shrink...

That's probably spare aircraft you're looking at, and the front page is also probably wrong, so I'll go and fix that.

Did we ever implement this, and if not, can we do it now?

Click to shrink...

No you never implemented it because you haven't started the actual "we're going to start putting together Stonehenge" project. You're still working out blueprints and a project timeline.

 

[Vocalend]

And EOMDS (a coalition of small east Osean nations likely to be under immediate Belkan attack after Bloody Valentine) is in a bad military position where the only GOOD news is that the Demon Lord of the fucking Round Table is flying for them (this is admittedly very good news).

Click to shrink...

It's been awhile so you might have forgotten the other good news. Now that the DLCs are canon, there are further entwining between the East Osea nations with Osea proper. Of course, it might also mean that Belka is going to start having at least one Singularity to rival Torres, but that's just par the course for Ace of Aces, I think.

 

[Simon_Jester]

It's been awhile so you might have forgotten the other good news. Now that the DLCs are canon, there are further entwining between the East Osea nations with Osea proper. Of course, it might also mean that Belka is going to start having at least one Singularity to rival Torres, but that's just par the course for Ace of Aces, I think.

Click to shrink...

...OK help me out here, because I don't actually have a modern console to play Ace Combat 7 on, and probably wouldn't have sprung for the DLC if I did because reasons.

 

[Vocalend]

...OK help me out here, because I don't actually have a modern console to play Ace Combat 7 on, and probably wouldn't have sprung for the DLC if I did because reasons.

Click to shrink...

That makes two of us~ What do you want help with? Context?

Anyway, the big moment I've been waiting for months for has finally arrived.

---

Some content is exempt from rules that should apply to everything.
​

The Season Pass SP Mission series has completed. After three months of waiting, with one mission a month, it has finished.

A fun piece of the story becomes a liability in the worldbuilding.
​

I have reviewed the details that are available to me, and can project two ways forward.

Tell me, players. What is the difference between canon information, and noncanon speculation?
​

Comprising three missions in September of 2019, the SP Mission series would expand the world and the Lighthouse Wars - in ways beneficial and not.

So use your imaginations, my fellow questers!
​

I was torn about how I should rule on this set of DLC, due to drafting the worldbuilding before the mission came out -

-and then I realized I had the means to end this dispute in a definitive and elegant manner.
​

Vote, players.

[] [SP] Canon.
[] [SP] Noncanon.

Click to shrink...

And below that, these changes are listed:

Everything in the DLC will be canon and I will be playing them as canon.
Pros:
ACCESSIBLE APS TECH.
More advanced AI work.
Better/Cheaper Submarine Superprojects.
Better Osean/East Osean collaboration.
Mixed:
Higher frequency of Singularities, figures that warp the probability of events until their presence makes predictions impossible.
[Invisitext] A warrior kills to realize a dream. Somebody like you, who kills without meaning, can only be called...monster.

Click to shrink...

Now, if you're asking for full context on what had happened, that's on the to-do list for our good QM. Might drop before or after the update.

 

[Nixeu]

...OK help me out here, because I don't actually have a modern console to play Ace Combat 7 on, and probably wouldn't have sprung for the DLC if I did because reasons.

Click to shrink...

The wiki covers a decent amount of it. Not entirely sure what I'm going to miss, but I can certainly hit the high points for you.

Spoiler: DLC Plot Summary (Accuracy Questionable)

One major player in the DLC is a guy named David North, a member of the Osean Intelligence Agency, who was assigned to keep tabs on the Alicorn, a Yuktobanian submarine that got sold to Erusea for some reason. While originally left in reserve and not intended to take part in the Lighthouse War, the Alicorn was activated and commissioned after Trigger got done sinking the Aegir Fleet. Shortly after, North contacts the LRSSG to hit the Alicorn while it's dock in some harbor I can't be arsed to name. The operation prior to the attack on the Alicorn at the port happens directly after Operation Magic Spear, for those interested in the timeline of events.

David has an AI assistant named Alex, who seems to be designed to predict and model future events, albeit on small scales. Unfortunately, some individuals, called "Singularities" by Alex, actively defy modeling, including Trigger...and the captain of the Alicorn, one Matias Torres. This, as you might imagine, makes predicting what Torres is planning to use the Alicorn for difficult.

Not helping matters is the fact that Matias Torres is just a bit nuts. He defies direct orders when told to scuttle his ship, and instead decides to end the war himself. After a bit of a filler mission, the final battle with Torres, the Alicorn, and his crew of fanatics commences. As far as I know, that middle mission doesn't add very much to the game overall, so I don't plan to go into details. Something about sinking ships, some dude questioning Trigger's necessity to winning the war, assassins, and the aforementioned jag-off getting arrested for hiring assassins to kill one of his own side's Aces. Don't know, don't care, not enough submarine and megalomania.

Now, Torres isn't good at keeping secrets. He's made his aims clear: he intends to end the war by hitting Oured with WMDs. Turns out he plans to use neutron warheads, which are launched from a massive railgun that takes up much of the Alicorn's length. During the celebration of the war's end, no less, because he apparently likes inflicting maximum civilian casualties. Maybe he wants to maximize his K/D ratio, I dunno.

After finding the bloody sub, Trigger and company swoop in to save the day, though the Alicorn puts up one hell of a fight. Aside from the onboard planes, paired side railguns, massive central railgun, and other weapons, the Alicorn has Barrier Drones, which are UAVs resembling tiny UFOs that produce Barriers that resemble those of the Arsenal Bird, albeit much smaller. But, given that they can be deployed in large numbers, they're quite handy gadgets.

Long story short, Trigger manages to sink the Alicorn without Oured getting nuked. Though the Alicorn does get one shot off, Trigger managed to hit the ship with a missile at just the right time to throw it off course. No idea where that one landed, but whatever. Torres and his crew of loonies presumably all die when the ship goes boom, and the day is saved (except the days of anyone caught in the neutron blast Trigger failed to stop, because they're definitely dead). Trigger flies off to go attack an airfield or something, and the war goes on.

No idea why Osean/East Osean cooperation would improve, but maybe it's in some aspect of the DLC I missed. I have also obviously skipped out on many of the details, so I would suggest checking the wiki for their more detailed summaries, if you're interested. This one is basically just meant to explain the various perks the DLC gives us.

 

[Vocalend]

[X] Plan Hello Estovakia My Old Friend, Semifinal Version

 

[kilopi505]

[X] Plan Hello Estovakia My Old Friend, Semifinal Version

 

[CyberFemme]

The reason I want airborne nuclear reactors is precisely so that we can operate outside of the range of the lighthouse - which given our current lack of ASAT batteries is pretty damn vulnerable (it just doesn't feel right leaving our planes to be powered by the Lighthouse when it currently exists more or less at the pleasure of ET).

Through researching Cyclonic Accelerators first might let us build accelerator-driven subcritical reactors.

 

[KnightDisciple]

[X] Plan Hello Estovakia My Old Friend, Semifinal Version

 

[Nixeu]

The reason I want airborne nuclear reactors is precisely so that we can operate outside of the range of the lighthouse - which given our current lack of ASAT batteries is pretty damn vulnerable (it just doesn't feel right leaving our planes to be powered by the Lighthouse when it currently exists more or less at the pleasure of ET).

Through researching Cyclonic Accelerators first might let us build accelerator-driven subcritical reactors.

Click to shrink...

Given that the industrial infrastructure of Usea seems to almost entirely depend on the Lighthouse at this point, I feel like worrying about what happens to any drones or microwave powered planes we might have (which we currently don't, as far as I know) when it goes down seems like focusing on the wrong problem. If you're really that concerned about the Lighthouse being downed, fixing the reliance on it to provide power to most of the continent seems like a far greater concern than a hypothetical problem we don't even really have yet. As far as I know, all of our current aircraft run on good ol' fashioned jet fuel.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that, if the Lighthouse goes down, we're probably boned anyway. It would likely spell the end of the Usean branch of XCOM, even if we successfully evacuated to Fort Grays before it went down, precisely because of that dependence on it for power. As such, I think we'd be better off spending time and resources protecting it, rather than preparing for it to fall. The former would likely be much cheaper, and help us maintain one of our major advantages, while the latter would effectively mean doing away with that advantage, or at least diluting it.

---

[x] Simon_Jester

Just so I don't have to change my vote if there's a final version.

 

[CyberFemme]

Given that the industrial infrastructure of Usea seems to almost entirely depend on the Lighthouse at this point, I feel like worrying about what happens to any drones or microwave powered planes we might have (which we currently don't, as far as I know) when it goes down seems like focusing on the wrong problem. If you're really that concerned about the Lighthouse being downed, fixing the reliance on it to provide power to most of the continent seems like a far greater concern than a hypothetical problem we don't even really have yet. As far as I know, all of our current aircraft run on good ol' fashioned jet fuel.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that, if the Lighthouse goes down, we're probably boned anyway. It would likely spell the end of the Usean branch of XCOM, even if we successfully evacuated to Fort Grays before it went down, precisely because of that dependence on it for power. As such, I think we'd be better off spending time and resources protecting it, rather than preparing for it to fall. The former would likely be much cheaper, and help us maintain one of our major advantages, while the latter would effectively mean doing away with that advantage, or at least diluting it.

---

[x] Simon_Jester

Just so I don't have to change my vote if there's a final version.

Click to shrink...

I'm more concerned about the possibility of precision strikes rather than outright destruction. It would suck if ET decided to cut some power cables while leaving it standing so they can use it themselves once they conquer us. Equipping the Lighthouse itself with APS might be a good idea once we research the tech.

Jet fuel has a similar type of strategic vulnerability - orbital strikes on oil refineries. The aliens have shown no indication that they want to do this so far, but it's best to plan for capability rather than intent.

How does R&D work for other XCOM bases through? Do we get access to their breakthroughs and vice versa?

 

[Nixeu]

I'm more concerned about the possibility of precision strikes rather than outright destruction. It would suck if ET decided to cut some power cables while leaving it standing so they can use it themselves once they conquer us. Equipping the Lighthouse itself with APS might be a good idea once we research the tech.

Jet fuel has a similar type of strategic vulnerability - orbital strikes on oil refineries. The aliens have shown no indication that they want to do this so far, but it's best to plan for capability rather than intent.

How does R&D work for other XCOM bases through? Do we get access to their breakthroughs and vice versa?

Click to shrink...

I (or other players, I just seem to be the one who writes about the topic the most) write Omakes about things other branches are researching and @huhYeahGoodPoint canonizes them if he likes them.

More seriously, I can't tell you exactly how it works without a glimpse behind the curtain. However, it certainly seems like different branches are taking independent actions. It's entirely possible that the other branches have an entire turn system like us, just with hYGP running them. The decisions made may revolve around basic personalities and motivations assigned to the NPCs running them. Hell, it's possible that the same applies to all the countries of Strangereal, plus the Aliens.

Alternatively, he might just be using something like XCOM's event system, and is rolling for the various happenings around the world, having drawn up a table of possible events. He might even be using some sort of hybrid system. It's really not clear, and it's entirely possible that hYGP is refining the system as time goes on.

As for the sharing of technologies, that doesn't seem to be happening. It probably could, if we reached out to the other branches to establish some sort of technology exchange, or a deal to exchange such things freely. But some of the branches may resist a completely free exchange of data. ANEA, for example, is in a position where they may want to keep their tech secret, and exchange it for IC, since tech is one of their two main advantages over other branches, and a source of leverage they can use to expand their own industrial base. Or they may only share their tech for a fee, for similar reasons.

Paranoia about what might happen after the war ends might stop VERUSA and OSEA from sharing all of their toys. The details of how to make Arsenal Birds and super-submarines are important military secrets for Osea and Yuktobania, and they may not want to share them out of concern that someone could use those secrets to build superweapons after the aliens are defeated. Same with other proprietary technology from other countries. They may make the results of that tech available for purchase, like the Nosferatu or the EML, but they might not want to share the design details.

But then, we also can't be certain they'll object before we ask, so we might as well consider asking anyway.

 

[Icipall]

Speaking of nuclear power, @huhYeahGoodPoint , Belka has the only uranium mines in Strangereal, but what about plutonium?

 

[Nixeu]

Speaking of nuclear power, @huhYeahGoodPoint , Belka has the only uranium mines in Strangereal, but what about plutonium?

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Plutonium usually only shows up naturally in trace amounts in uranium deposits, as a consequence of decay products from uranium atoms hitting other uranium atoms. It can also potentially show up in meteorites, due to solar radiation bombarding uranium found in those meteorites, but that's also likely to only be in trace amounts. Generally, to get an appreciable amount, you need nuclear reactor or cyclotron, and uranium.

Also, in my research on this topic, I have found out that science has, in-fact, discovered that plutonium "tastes metallic". As that is not an empirical observation I particularly desire to verify, I will take their word for it. I'm guessing it's from some industrial dust exposure or something, though some pretty unethical human experimentation apparently went down on the subject of plutonium exposure after WWII, so I could be wrong.

 

[Simon_Jester]

The reason I want airborne nuclear reactors is precisely so that we can operate outside of the range of the lighthouse - which given our current lack of ASAT batteries is pretty damn vulnerable (it just doesn't feel right leaving our planes to be powered by the Lighthouse when it currently exists more or less at the pleasure of ET).

Click to shrink...

We can also use "Toroidal Energy Storage" to, in principle, store enough electricity to just run the planes off a superconducting battery pack. I don't know what the power requirements on those electric engines are, but it sounds at least broadly feasible to make it work?

Given that the industrial infrastructure of Usea seems to almost entirely depend on the Lighthouse at this point, I feel like worrying about what happens to any drones or microwave powered planes we might have (which we currently don't, as far as I know) when it goes down seems like focusing on the wrong problem.

Click to shrink...

I mean, I agree and all that, but building up energy infrastructure that can keep the lights on with the Lighthouse shut down or destroyed sounds like something we should seriously consider as a civil defense measure if we can handle it, in the long run. Total reliance on the Lighthouse could get really nasty if the aliens fight smart and/or if the Belkans can fill in the gaps in their knowledge of us so that they figure out our weaknesses.

If you're really that concerned about the Lighthouse being downed, fixing the reliance on it to provide power to most of the continent seems like a far greater concern than a hypothetical problem we don't even really have yet. As far as I know, all of our current aircraft run on good ol' fashioned jet fuel.

Click to shrink...

Yes, but we're seriously considering moving on to some kind of electric propulsion for aircraft. Since Lighthouse power has the obvious drawbacks you mention, if we want that, we need something that can keep our planes flying and that isn't the Lighthouse.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that, if the Lighthouse goes down, we're probably boned anyway. It would likely spell the end of the Usean branch of XCOM, even if we successfully evacuated to Fort Grays before it went down, precisely because of that dependence on it for power. As such, I think we'd be better off spending time and resources protecting it, rather than preparing for it to fall. The former would likely be much cheaper, and help us maintain one of our major advantages, while the latter would effectively mean doing away with that advantage, or at least diluting it.

Click to shrink...

I dunno. I'm not clear on what the ratio is for spending IC on energy generating capacity. Building an entire redundant power grid for all of Usea is probably unrealistic but we might be able to manage something partial to cover key sites and rebuild with help from other continents.

Also, we know from our own experience that despite its size, the Lighthouse can be put out of action by comparatively minor damage or sabotage, namely "one princess with a wrench." Being able to continue functioning temporarily while we frantically repair damage of some kind would be a good thing.

[] Simon_Jester

Just so I don't have to change my vote if there's a final version.

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Since no one has raised any concerns or suggestions I consider to justify further amending or iterating the plan, there won't be.

As for the sharing of technologies, that doesn't seem to be happening. It probably could, if we reached out to the other branches to establish some sort of technology exchange, or a deal to exchange such things freely.

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Well, we're already working with XCOM OSEA on xenobiology research. I'm sure that if we spent Focus on technology sharing or coordination we could get something rolling.

 

[Nixeu]

I mean, I agree and all that, but building up energy infrastructure that can keep the lights on with the Lighthouse shut down or destroyed sounds like something we should seriously consider as a civil defense measure if we can handle it, in the long run. Total reliance on the Lighthouse could get really nasty if the aliens fight smart and/or if the Belkans can fill in the gaps in their knowledge of us so that they figure out our weaknesses.

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On a small scale, sure. Enough to keep the lights on in a major emergency seems reasonable. Enough to keep the industry of the continent running might be a touch too much. There's a line between "preparing for an emergency" and "making one of your largest assets irrelevant".

Yes, but we're seriously considering moving on to some kind of electric propulsion for aircraft. Since Lighthouse power has the obvious drawbacks you mention, if we want that, we need something that can keep our planes flying and that isn't the Lighthouse.

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Not even in disagreement, really. It's just not an immediate issue. It's only a concern once we have those electrically-powered planes or drones. And since I've never actually been super crazy about powering drones off the Lighthouse anyway, going with some nuclear stuff would be fine by me. Superweapons are more reasonable to power off the Lighthouse.

I dunno. I'm not clear on what the ratio is for spending IC on energy generating capacity. Building an entire redundant power grid for all of Usea is probably unrealistic but we might be able to manage something partial to cover key sites and rebuild with help from other continents.

Also, we know from our own experience that despite its size, the Lighthouse can be put out of action by comparatively minor damage or sabotage, namely "one princess with a wrench." Being able to continue functioning temporarily while we frantically repair damage of some kind would be a good thing.

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That certainly sounds reasonable enough. Sounds like we might want to make the Lighthouse's systems more redundant as well, if it's really that easily sabotaged.

Well, we're already working with XCOM OSEA on xenobiology research. I'm sure that if we spent Focus on technology sharing or coordination we could get something rolling.

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We could probably swing joint projects pretty easily. It's getting them to share their more fundamental or proprietary technologies that would likely be tricky. Chipping in on new research means they get to reap any benefits and potentially use the tech post-war. Talking about their current technological secrets, on the other hand, means giving up their current advantages.

Speaking of joint projects, I don't remember, did we actually get ANEA (or rather, Macmillan and Albastru-Electrice) in on fixing Stonehenge up or not? I know I wrote a story where they wanted to help out, but I can't recall if we took them up on the offer of aid.

 

[Simon_Jester]

On a small scale, sure. Enough to keep the lights on in a major emergency seems reasonable. Enough to keep the industry of the continent running might be a touch too much. There's a line between "preparing for an emergency" and "making one of your largest assets irrelevant".

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Once we figure out how much it costs to produce X units of electrical generating capacity, I'll agree with you.

Not even in disagreement, really. It's just not an immediate issue. It's only a concern once we have those electrically-powered planes or drones. And since I've never actually been super crazy about powering drones off the Lighthouse anyway, going with some nuclear stuff would be fine by me. Superweapons are more reasonable to power off the Lighthouse.

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True true. Also, it sounds like with Toroidal Energy Storage we can just make batteries and fill them off the Lighthouse, then use those to power our planes and drones. After all, most of our planes are single-seat fighter aircraft; they don't actually have unlimited operational endurance even if we did manage to give them the capacity to run their engines at full thrust for days. The pilots' can't live on amphetamines forever, after all.

We could probably swing joint projects pretty easily. It's getting them to share their more fundamental or proprietary technologies that would likely be tricky. Chipping in on new research means they get to reap any benefits and potentially use the tech post-war. Talking about their current technological secrets, on the other hand, means giving up their current advantages.

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Yeah, but right now I'm talking about other X-COM branches, not national militaries like Osea*, which are thinking 'national security.'

*(which knows how to build APS, meaning they're well in advance of us in particle physics since that's locked behind the Cyclonic Accelerators tech according to @huhYeahGoodPoint )

Speaking of joint projects, I don't remember, did we actually get ANEA (or rather, Macmillan and Albastru-Electrice) in on fixing Stonehenge up or not? I know I wrote a story where they wanted to help out, but I can't recall if we took them up on the offer of aid.

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I think we took them up on it; we'd be fools to turn them down in my opinion.

@huhYeahGoodPoint , is that correct? We haven't gotten a report from the Stonehenge team in... well, a lot of real time, so it's hard to keep track.

 

[Icipall]

True true. Also, it sounds like with Toroidal Energy Storage we can just make batteries and fill them off the Lighthouse, then use those to power our planes and drones. After all, most of our planes are single-seat fighter aircraft; they don't actually have unlimited operational endurance even if we did manage to give them the capacity to run their engines at full thrust for days. The pilots' can't live on amphetamines forever, after all.

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That's what I'm hoping we achieve. It would take and advantage of our greatest resource while not relying on material we can only get more from a hostile nation.