Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Ithillid · Apr 2, 2022

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and -5 Political Support
Consumer Goods: 12 Points
Food: 18 points in reserve
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 40 points by the end of next plan
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 30 points by the end of next plan and -5 Political Support
Income: 55 Points (No real point in giving you options)
Processing: 280 points

[ ] Complete Hewlett Gardener Refits and increase income by 250 points
[ ] Increase income by 350 points

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete SADN Phase 2
-[ ] Disregard for -10 PS
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete Phase 3 and -5 Political Support
-[ ] Disregard for -15 Political Support
Railgun Munitions Development
-[ ] Disregard for -10 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
-[ ] Disregard for -5 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
-[ ] Disregard for -5 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
-[ ] Complete
Complete GDSS Enterprise
-[ ] Complete Three Phases of Shala
-[ ] Complete Three Phases of Columbia
Complete at least four phases of Space Mines
-[ ] Complete at least three phases and -5 Political Support
-[ ] Disregard for -15 Political Support
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
-[ ] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan
-[ ] Commit to completing Chicago Planned City by end of Plan, and four phases of Karachi by end of next plan

Before people go all too deep into the planmaking weeds, this is the current draft of the renegotiations. I will probably do a fair bit of editing of this, but basically you can pick up to four of these edits to make to your plan goals.

doruma1920 · Apr 2, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
We might have been better off prioritizing escort carrier shipyards over the war factory refits, honestly. Yes, having +1 Military dice pays off in the long run, but the naval weakness has really put our combat effectiveness as an overall military on a choke chain and restricted us from accomplishing things like Karachi.

I don't disagree, I'm just acknowledging that we would be scrambling to slam out the refits, consumables, and potentially ORSCT at this point. We did significantly improve our ground forces situation giving us opportunities to hit with Steel Vanguard that made it very effective. What is done is done, we can only try to learn from it. In this case I intend to advocate for the continual investment in the navy once the current wave of shipyards are finished.

Rakuhn said:
The problem with the sports program is the Health cost, when we are having so much variance in Health consumption due to the refugee waves. I'd really rather get the Human Genetic Engineering development done first so that we can have the Health ready for the sports program, and start the very long HGE development timer sooner rather than later. But we are currently stuck on not doing HGE due to the PS cost that sports grants, and not doing the sports program due to the Health cost that HGE grants. And we don't have the dice for both (and we keep leaving services dice fallow, so we don't make process on the problem). I think that going for sports is the easier program to push for the thread, especially considering its relatively low resource cost.

Personally, I agree that sports programs isn't a wise move at this point as you've said, the Health cost, while normally tolerable, in the current refugee environment, is less so. However, Simon is also right about how our recent PS expenditure means HGE is less viable. What I'd propose is AMA, Hallucinogens and Hardlight as targets for the next turn, along with Mind Shields if it is in Services. Hallucinogens seems like it will lead to health boosts, as will AMA. Hardlight seems to be useful for computer interfaces and as could have many applications.

IndustrialVice2 · Apr 2, 2022

No option to swap ASAT for Orbital Lasers?

Void Stalker · Apr 2, 2022

Retaining flexibility will be key- though we should also consider what projects we want to get done. Cap goods for example I see no reason to change since we need the cap goods for rolling out various mil factories. Karachi being shifted to next plan at a higher level on the other hand I can get behind since that is something we want to do, but this way we have more flex in infra to get it done.

ASAT to SADN phase 2 is interesting since it is a lot more progress needed if we switch but also something that seems to be something we need to rollout. OSCRT we probably want to go to phase 3 and a small hit or take a bigger ps hit and drop it for a next plan post war project.

aceraptor · Apr 2, 2022

IndustrialVice2 said:
No option to swap ASAT for Orbital Lasers?

ASAT and Orbital Lasers are completely different uses so yeah. You can't swap em imo.

Simon_Jester · Apr 2, 2022

Rakuhn said:
There are a lot of options for downsizing our resource expenditure. Not all of them have to be taken. That said, you were pretty easily able to free up 80 resources for a frontloaded isolinear chip factory (10% CoS) by shifting around other projects (including 1 of 3 dice from Bergen).

I was, but I made sacrifices I would prefer to not have made.

Anadyr hungers.

The problem with the sports program is the Health cost, when we are having so much variance in Health consumption due to the refugee waves.

Honestly, -1 Health is going to be very small potatoes unless we get utterly ridiculous surges in Health consumption. I'm not too worried. I'd be willing to take that hit.

Honestly, I could see putting sports on the menu in the coming plan, since I'm not so hungry to get far on Bergen.

Ithillid said:
Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and -5 Political Support

Huh. Honestly not feeling the need for either of these, because Nuuk isn't that hard to finish... But I could see it.

Food: 18 points in reserve
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 40 points by the end of next plan
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 30 points by the end of next plan and -5 Political Support

@Ithillid , to be clear, when you say "Food Reserve" you mean Stored Food, yes?

We can hit either of these, though I'd be happier with the latter choice.

Processing: 280 points

[ ] Complete Hewlett Gardener Refits and increase income by 250 points

[ ] Increase income by 350 points

No need.

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete SADN Phase 2
-[ ] Disregard for -10 PS
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete Phase 3 and -5 Political Support
-[ ] Disregard for -15 Political Support
Railgun Munitions Development
-[ ] Disregard for -10 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
-[ ] Disregard for -5 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
-[ ] Disregard for -5 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
-[ ] Complete
Complete GDSS Enterprise
-[ ] Complete Three Phases of Shala
-[ ] Complete Three Phases of Columbia
Complete at least four phases of Space Mines
-[ ] Complete at least three phases and -5 Political Support
-[ ] Disregard for -15 Political Support

I don't feel the need for any of these.

Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
-[ ] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan
-[ ] Commit to completing Chicago Planned City by end of Plan, and four phases of Karachi by end of next plan

Before people go all too deep into the planmaking weeds, this is the current draft of the renegotiations. I will probably do a fair bit of editing of this, but basically you can pick up to four of these edits to make to your plan goals.

Honestly, for our purposes, I'd rather choose the first deferral option. If we can do Karachi at all- that is, if the military situation allows it- then there is very little additional downside to pushing ahead to Phase 5 as opposed to Phase 4 by 2065Q4.

But the commitment to do Chicago Phase 4+5 by 2061Q4? That's gonna bite hard.

Rakuhn · Apr 3, 2022

Also, keep in mind that more food reserve efficiency projects are currently gated behind the freeze-dried food plants. Higher amounts of food reserves aren't as difficult to achieve as they appear at first glance.

Oledoms · Apr 3, 2022

I Think we should take Anadyr and Crystal Lasers. It should save enough resources for Bergen.

Also, it would be nice to Complete Chicago as it might unlock more Glaciers like Mecca and Medina.

Also, we should negotiate Arcologies to concentrate on Apartments at least for this plan.

bigking321 · Apr 3, 2022

The five phases of Karachi by the end of next plan seems viable.

But I want to finish Chicago soon anyway. So if building Karachi ends up being harder than we anticipate due to nod interference the Chicago 5 Karachi 4 might be the better choice in the end.

Ithillid · Apr 3, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Stored

Yes. This is still a WIP draft, so I have not gone through and made sure all the terms line up right.

Nottheunmaker · Apr 3, 2022

I support Anadyr, Industrial Lasers and completing Chicago. The latter should come as no surprise to anyone.

trooperist · Apr 3, 2022

During the previous Reallocation, 45 points of stored food was considered 'an actually paranoid level of preparedness'. But I guess we did recently gain a significant amount of population with refugees and the new swath of yellow zones we took control of. Still, at those levels we'd probably be able to feed our entire population for at least a year, perhaps more.

doruma1920 · Apr 3, 2022

Ithillid said:
Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and -5 Political Support

Currently finishing Capital Goods will take either 13 dice (260 R) for Nuuk*

Anadyr is 4 dice (200 R), Industrial Lasers is 1 die (10 R) for development, ??? for deployment if there is one.

*Or ~17 dice and a whole lot more R spread over various sources, but that would include Anadyr anyway so we'll compare the Cap Goods Goal to the other two

Food: 18 points in reserve
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 40 points by the end of next plan
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 30 points by the end of next plan and -5 Political Support

Currently we need 17 dice for Agriculture for the Food Reserve (1 Freeze Dried, 1 Extra Large Stockpiles, 13 for Stockpile Construction, and 2 for Food production)

For 40 additional Reserve we would need 40 - 8 Extra Large Stockpiles = 32, 32/2 per Stockpile Construction = 16 Phases of Stockpile Construction, along with 60 Food to feed the reserves (assuming Freeze Dried Food plants works like we've been thinking).

For the reserve construction, assuming the cost keeps increase as it has been at 25 progress per phase, that would be a total of 5400 Progress, of which we have completed 38, and would therefore need 72 Dice. If the progress cost stops increasing at the last phase currently visible, that would be a total of 3125 Progress, and would therefore need ~55 Dice.

On the Food needed for the reserve we currently have a total of 57 Food available that is not from Shala, so we would need it or a new project to produce enough Food for that goal.

For 30 additional Reserve we would need 11 phases of Stockpile Construction and therefore 40 or 37 dice depending or how the Stockpile Construction progress increases, along with 45 Food.

We currently have a total of 84 agricultural dice before the end of the next Plan.

Personally I favor the latter option of 30 points and -5 Political Support, though the former is potentially achievable. If we chose the former, we wouldn't be able to cut Agriculture at the start of the fourth FYP as we did at the start of the the second and third, and we would need to keep up our current investment, not really any room for stuff like Kudzu Phase 3, Tarberries, Poultice's or Spider Cotton.

Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
-[ ] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan
-[ ] Commit to completing Chicago Planned City by end of Plan, and four phases of Karachi by end of next plan

For completing Chicago by the end of the plan, we would need ~20 dice, which is completely achievable, especially with Steel Vanguard winding down and us needing to fortify our newly gained territory. I'd prefer flexibility in when exactly it gets finished, but it is possible. I do think committing to completing Karachi by the end of the next plan is more reasonable though even if we still want to invest in Chicago this plan.

HousePet · Apr 3, 2022

Derpmind said:
We only spent the first two years of this Plan trying to prepare for Karachi.

Were we really though? We talked about it, but what did we actually do?
2058
Wartime Factory Refits <-Useful
Naval Defense Laser Refits <-Had a PS penalty if we didn't do it.
Tube Artillery <-Maybe useful for Karachi, more useful for War in general.
Pacifier Mobile Artillery Vehicle Deployment <-Not useful for Karachi.
2059
Havoc Scout Mech Deployment <-Maybe useful for Karachi.
Shell Plants <-Maybe useful for Karachi.
MARVs (9 dice of them...) <-Not useful for Karachi.
Orca Refit Deployment <-Useful
Aurora Strike Bomber Factories <-Useful, but we were ignoring it until we got poked.
Q4 (After the warning.)
Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment <-Maybe useful for Karachi, more useful for War in general.
Ablat Plating Deployment <-Maybe useful for Karachi, more useful for War in general.
Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations <-Maybe useful for Karachi, more useful for War in general.
For some reason we decided that a Navy wasn't needed for Karachi, or the war in general.
We wouldn't have built those Aurora Bombers without someone poking us to say that the target wouldn't be there if we delayed any longer.
Were we actually planning for a war, or were we just trying to make our RpT go up?

Even after we were told what they needed for Karachi, we only made a half-go at it.
The Navy gave us the option of Carrier Conversions. We lowballed it.
Steel Talons said that they needed Mastodons. We gave them designs for portable ion cannons...

doruma1920 said:
For completing Chicago by the end of the plan, we would need ~20 dice, which is completely achievable, especially with Steel Vanguard winding down and us needing to fortify our newly gained territory. I'd prefer flexibility in when exactly it gets finished, but it is possible. I do think committing to completing Karachi by the end of the next plan is more reasonable though even if we still want to invest in Chicago this plan.

Minimum of 4 dice from Infra or Tib each turn until the end of Plan seems really easy.
But pragmatically, it doesn't really matter much, as I expect to get both done by the end of the next plan.

Mortis · Apr 3, 2022

Ithillid said:
Complete ASAT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete SADN Phase 2

I want this. Not because we can't do ASAT, but because we should have starting building the SADN earlier. We've been pushing NOD back into a corner, particularly known fanatic Gideon, without defending our glowing weak points from WMDs. Strikes on Chicago or Mecca could set us back by hundreds of points of RPT and processing capacity, and depending on the nature of the strike, take years to rebuild if they could be rebuilt at all. The first couple of phases of SADN will reduce the likelyhood of such disasters and make it much more feasible to destroy individual warlords.

Rakuhn · Apr 3, 2022

I'd like SADN phase 2, but it isn't a good switch. We'd be going from a ~200 progress commitment to ~800 progress commitment.

Mortis · Apr 3, 2022

Rakuhn said:
I'd like SADN phase 2, but it isn't a good switch. We'd be going from a ~200 progress commitment to ~800 progress commitment.

I don't know the exact numbers, but surely with the sheer number of dice we put into the military we can fit 800 progress in with the other critical projects over 5 turns? Besides the plan goals, most of which are fairly minor, the navy and the firehawk drones, the military seems to be in fine shape, and SADN seems more urgent than any of the other projects in military. Zone Suits are major, but ground forces aren't struggling without them right now.

Rakuhn · Apr 3, 2022

We can fit anything in, sure. But there will always be sacrifices. After accounting for our current commitments, firehawk drones, and frigates, we have fully committed all of our military dice for the rest of the plan. Any further projects will need to be justified against all departments' projects, not just the military's.

General rule of thumb for the military is 75 progress per die. So 600 net progress/75 = 9 free dice of our 35 available free dice.
---------------------------
I'd rather not be increasing our responsibilities so much at this point in time, although I'd be more than willing to aim for completing the project on our own initiative as we complete our current set of commitments (and re-evaluate the situation then).

Simon_Jester · Apr 3, 2022

doruma1920 said:
Personally, I agree that sports programs isn't a wise move at this point as you've said, the Health cost, while normally tolerable, in the current refugee environment, is less so.

I really, really don't think that the Health cost will be a problem after our current round of +Health projects comes into play.

Void Stalker said:
Retaining flexibility will be key- though we should also consider what projects we want to get done. Cap goods for example I see no reason to change since we need the cap goods for rolling out various mil factories.

I don't think we actually need Nuuk Phase 4 for immediate military factory needs, especially if we're still getting +Capital Goods from lesser sources along the way. I could see doing the 'switchout' option just to gain flexibility and be more able to use Free dice in places that aren't Heavy Industry while still doing Anadyr, Suzuki, and other projects in the field.

ASAT to SADN phase 2 is interesting since it is a lot more progress needed if we switch but also something that seems to be something we need to rollout. OSCRT we probably want to go to phase 3 and a small hit or take a bigger ps hit and drop it for a next plan post war project.

The thing is, we're hard up for Military dice. If we commit to SADN Phase 1+2 instead of ASAT Phase 4, we need to free up dice somewhere else... which makes OSRCT Phase 4 another thing that ends up needing renegotiation, round and round. I'd rather leave things as they are.

aceraptor said:
ASAT and Orbital Lasers are completely different uses so yeah. You can't swap em imo.

To be fair, the real motive is "make Space Force happy." And honestly it sounds like Space Force might be happier with the orbital lasers than with the ASAT node. I wouldn't have been surprised if it were an option.

Rakuhn said:
Also, keep in mind that more food reserve efficiency projects are currently gated behind the freeze-dried food plants. Higher amounts of food reserves aren't as difficult to achieve as they appear at first glance.

Well yeah, but to get +30 Stored Food we'll probably still need +45 Food surplus, expendable Food that isn't being eaten by refugees. And just building the storehouses... Well, the relevant options are:

[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2)
A further expansion of food stockpiles and granaries in deep reserves, Cut into the frozen wastes at the far northern and southern reaches of GDI's grasp, these will be a final backup for GDI's overall food supply. While they will be far from enough, even at full capacity, they can buy the Initiative critical months in case of massive reverses in its fortune.
(Progress 38/150: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)
(Progress 0/175: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)

[ ] Extra Large Food Stockpiles
Laying in all that is possible in the currently existing storage space will be a significant undertaking, requiring a large surplus beyond what is being consumed. While not the most efficient of options, it is the cheapest of the lot, requiring no real additional construction
(+8 Food in reserve, -16 Food)

So we can get +8 Stored Food just be filling up the existing stockpiles. Then we need +22 more. That entails building eleven phases of Strategic Food Stockpile Construction, total Progress cost 150+175+200+... Presumably, each phase costs 25 more than the previous one.

So 150+175+200+225+250+275+300+325+350+375+400 = 3025 Progress worth of Agriculture projects, meaning something in the neighborhood of 40 dice. This is a BIG project we're talking about unless there's some way to make it more efficient, and it'd consume the majority of all Agriculture dice available to us in the next Plan unless we scrape up more from somewhere. Then factor in the actual need to grow all that Food.

This is not a small project, if the cost of additional phases of stockpile keeps increasing linearly "out of sight" of the currently visible phases.

Ithillid said:
Yes. This is still a WIP draft, so I have not gone through and made sure all the terms line up right.

That's fine, just wanted to make sure I understood correctly.

Nottheunmaker said:
I support Anadyr, Industrial Lasers and completing Chicago. The latter should come as no surprise to anyone.

Committing to completing Chicago within the current Plan is doable but rough. I'm totally in favor of working on it, but I don't want to nail our feet to the floor on finishing the whole project in barely a year.

doruma1920 said:
Personally I favor the latter option of 30 points and -5 Political Support, though the former is potentially achievable. If we chose the former, we wouldn't be able to cut Agriculture at the start of the fourth FYP as we did at the start of the the second and third, and we would need to keep up our current investment, not really any room for stuff like Kudzu Phase 3, Tarberries, Poultice's or Spider Cotton.

Ditto. Though honestly, I'd rather NOT cut Agriculture; it's not a thing we can safely be complacent about forever.

For completing Chicago by the end of the plan, we would need ~20 dice, which is completely achievable, especially with Steel Vanguard winding down and us needing to fortify our newly gained territory. I'd prefer flexibility in when exactly it gets finished, but it is possible. I do think committing to completing Karachi by the end of the next plan is more reasonable though even if we still want to invest in Chicago this plan.

Yeah. I don't want to get hit with penalties for not finishing Chicago Phase 5 by 2061Q4, and I feel like if we can do Karachi at all, we can do Karachi Phase 5 by 2065Q4 almost as easily as Karachi Phase 4 by the same date.

Mortis said:
I don't know the exact numbers, but surely with the sheer number of dice we put into the military we can fit 800 progress in with the other critical projects over 5 turns? Besides the plan goals, most of which are fairly minor, the navy and the firehawk drones, the military seems to be in fine shape, and SADN seems more urgent than any of the other projects in military. Zone Suits are major, but ground forces aren't struggling without them right now.

The naval projects are a huge deal and we've already committed to them.

The thing is... SADN is popular. The only reason we haven't already done it is because we're actively at war and people don't expect to be able to invest enough dice in it to matter until the current high-intensity war is over without shorting the war effort itself.

If there are surplus dice left over in Military, you bet we'll start working on SADN. Shackling us to a huge SADN commitment that we may not be able to meet without badly disrupting other military priorities like the shipyard projects... not sure that's a good move.

Simon_Jester · Apr 3, 2022

To carve this list into an actual plan:

Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[k] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan

This gives us more freedom of action, letting us swap out a 13-die megaproject for a much smaller dice commitment.

We can still work on Nuuk if we want, or go poke around at North Boston Phase 5 (we'd have to finish it next plan, but it's very cheap per-die compared to other Heavy Industry, so that's actually realistic)... But the point is, we have freedom to decide what we want to do, instead of being locked into a specific megaproject. Given the need for fusion power, Nuuk Phase 4 plus fusion phases was effectively going to eat all our Heavy Industry dice until the end of the Plan, demanding other projects if we want anything nice. I'm happier this way.

Food: 18 points in reserve
-[k] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 30 points by the end of next plan and -5 Political Support

We badly need to renegotiate this, and figuring out how to source 5 Political Support is WAY less painful than building five phases of food storehouses and the +15 Food worth of farming required to support it.

...

We could renegotiate the Processing target, but why? It's too easy to meet the target, and any renegotiated version would be harder to meet. It'd only make sense in the context of us having to spend all our Tiberium dice on something else... but the only project we're seriously contemplating that would do that is Chicago, which raises the Processing cap all by itself.

...

None of the mililtary renegotiations appeal to me. Renegotiating down OSRCT Phase 4 to Phase 3 would be nice, don't get me wrong, but we don't need the breathing room, especially if we're doing the heavy industry negotiation. And I'd rather not pay the extra Political Support for something we can manage according to @doruma1920 's analysis, even if it's a strain to manage it.

...

The space targets, eh. We have a good reason why we want to finish Enterprise Phase 5 before doing the other stations, and I haven't changed my mind there. Likewise, relaxing the moon mining requirements is nice... We might actually want to go ahead with it. If we drop to three phases, we can skip Regolith Harvesting Phase 2 entirely... But here's the beauty. Regolith Harvesting Phase 2 would have cost us 280 Progress or about four dice. We can then plow 2-3 of those dice into Orbital Cleanup, finish that project, and win back the Political Support, while freeing up orbital options and securing a tidy cost bonus in the process!

Complete at least four phases of Space Mines
-[k] Complete at least three phases and -5 Political Support

This option is, thus, self-funding as long as we put in the time and effort to do the cleanup.

...

Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
-[k] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan

This is much less burdensome to promise. I prefer it greatly.

So:

-[k] Capital Goods: 11 Points
--[k] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan
-[k] Food: 18 points in reserve
--[k] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 30 points by the end of next plan and -5 Political Support
-[k] Complete at least four phases of Space Mines
--[k] Complete at least three phases and -5 Political Support
-[k] Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
--[k] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan

Then we do Orbital Cleanup with the freed-up Orbital dice to recoup our losses in that area, and still come out ahead. Dunno what we do for Political Support elsewhere, but obvious targets exist.

HousePet · Apr 3, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
So 150+175+200+225+250+275+300+325+350+375+400 = 3025 Progress worth of Agriculture projects, meaning something in the neighborhood of 40 dice. This is a BIG project we're talking about unless there's some way to make it more efficient, and it'd consume the majority of all Agriculture dice available to us in the next Plan unless we scrape up more from somewhere.

Something like a Freeze Dried Food Plant perhaps?

Strunkriidiisk · Apr 3, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
[] Plan Anadyr Also Alliterates

~~Way to cut my legs out from under me, Simon~~

Simon_Jester said:
But the commitment to do Chicago Phase 4+5 by 2061Q4? That's gonna bite hard.

But it's also entirely doable. A strong effort (3 Tib Dice Q4, 6 Tib/1 Infra Q1, 7 Tib/1 Infra Q2, 3 Tib Q3) gets us roughly a 94% chance of completion, doing napkin math with median results for each die.

So these are my currently preferred ones (I'd like to have an incentive to finish Chicago, but I'm not hugely attached to it, so I'm including both versions of the Karachi compromise):

Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
-[ ] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan
-[ ] Commit to completing Chicago Planned City by end of Plan, and four phases of Karachi by end of next plan

And then this is a maybe:

Food: 18 points in reserve
-[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 40 points by the end of next plan

Simon_Jester · Apr 3, 2022

HousePet said:
Something like a Freeze Dried Food Plant perhaps?

I was already factoring that in. The freeze-drying plants mean we have to scrape up 45 Food instead of 60 to hit the target. They don't mean we can get away with building fewer warehouses to stash all the canned beans and vegetarian spam and whatnot. The biggest obstacle to getting to 30-40 Stored Food, based only on what projects we now know to exist, is just setting up places to put it all, more so than actually growing the food itself.

Like, 45 Food is Mechanization (about six dice) plus about four phases of Aquaponics (about eight dice). That's not the hard part. The hard part is the storehouses (about forty dice).

Strunkriidiisk said:
But it's also entirely doable. A strong effort (3 Tib Dice Q4, 6 Tib/1 Infra Q1, 7 Tib/1 Infra Q2, 3 Tib Q3) gets us roughly a 94% chance of completion, doing napkin math with median results for each die.

Yeah, and it means we can't do much else with Tiberium (say, develop new harvesters, or build inhibitors, or focus on mitigation as the war effort winds down, or do research if any research opens up).

It's just... it's not that we can't, it's that it's a huge sacrifice of freedom of action in exchange for not much actual reward in terms of 'make our lives easier in the long run.' I'd rather take the other Karachi compromise.

And then this is a maybe:

The forty-point target is borderline unreachable unless we're planning on investing Free dice in Agriculture, or unless we get some really good recruitment options next Plan for that area.

Strunkriidiisk · Apr 3, 2022

Additionally, if we don't do Chicago now, then fucking when, perchance? Chicago is valuable as more than just a Tiberium processing hub - it's also our testbed for re-terraforming the territory we've managed to claw back from Tiberium infestation. Now that it's in a Blue Zone, that value is on a (presumably) very rapid deadline. If we don't complete it by the end of this plan, I would be extremely unsurprised if the capstone for Chicago changed to something else and the we have to start the "make Blue Zone from scratch" project all over again.

doruma1920 · Apr 3, 2022

HousePet said:
Something like a Freeze Dried Food Plant perhaps?

Freeze Dried Food Plants does make it more efficient, but it (apparently) makes them more efficient by reducing the amount of Food required to maintain them, not the amount of progress needed to build them.

Simon_Jester said:
Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[k] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan

This gives us more freedom of action, letting us swap out a 13-die megaproject for a much smaller dice commitment.

We can still work on Nuuk if we want, or go poke around at North Boston Phase 5 (we'd have to finish it next plan, but it's very cheap per-die compared to other Heavy Industry, so that's actually realistic)... But the point is, we have freedom to decide what we want to do, instead of being locked into a specific megaproject. Given the need for fusion power, Nuuk Phase 4 plus fusion phases was effectively going to eat all our Heavy Industry dice until the end of the Plan, demanding other projects if we want anything nice. I'm happier this way.

I do have questions on if there is a deployment/refit project for the lasers included in this new commitment as that might change the math. I'd also think that we'd still want to go for Nuuk 4, just for the Cap Goods buffer, though it would clearly be a lesser priority with this swap.

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Friesmancer

Altman be praised

Cinnamon Roll AI

THE LEGEND

THE LEGEND