Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Pyro Hawk · Jun 26, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
I strongly disagree. First, Nod's gonna keep innovating. Second, Kane can release better tech at any time, and as we saw with the favors he's done for Bintang and Reynaldo, even a few items from his bag of goodies can revitalize a Nod warlord's efforts.

Furthermore, we've scored almost all the easy victories there are left to score. Most of Nod's warlords have been pushed back to the point where nuclear retaliation is likely if we push them any farther.

You'll notice that I did edit in a bit right afterwards taking this into account. Sure, we've won all the easy victories we can but those are the ones that are supposed to be more of a challenge. And I'll admit, a lot of that is down to just how the dice rolled this time. But it's also something that I would have preferred to take twice as long, without Nod having gotten to do noticeable damage to us. Longer if they'd managed to pull off their 'traditional' first strike damage advantage. Now, Kane's return is going to give them a bunch but that's probably more a case of equaling things out to how we'd be like at the end of the Regency War, with one more Nod+Scrin successful Gacha and the results of iterating the tech we'd had available then.

Not what we've got now with all the Mod techs that have just hit. That's going to require him being unusually generous to deal with, especially after you factor in just how badly Nod was effected by the Red Zone Rampage that occurred during, and after, the end stages of TW3. Sure, he's likely to do that but we can't depend entirely on that for those of us wanting a bit more 'balanced difficulty'.

Edit: Also, in regards to Nod being able to do their own inventing to even things out. Well... That's likely also another thing that's going to get crippled to a degree due to all our successes in the Regency War. Because Nod's going to be so busy rebuilding and fortifying what they're left with that everyone except maybe Stahl and almost certainly (until Karachi at least) the Indian Warlord(s?) are going to minimise their tech development programs aimed at future technology in favour of allowing better and more widespread roll out of what they have right now so as to make it a lot harder for the current GDI to take them out.

Unfortunately, future GDI is going to be a lot stronger against them, especially when you take into account the fact that we've got better forcefields coming out. Even once you factor in that they'll probably use STUs thus limiting how much we roll those out along with everything else, just being able to roll out integrated Shimmershields which are the less capable, STU-less (or maybe only one for the entire GDI military) shields is going to reduce how lethal even the plasma cannons were to us. And those are among the new top end tech that is probably also going to see reduced roll out thanks to the damage, though to nowhere near as much as future technology development is going to get hit.

As for joking about it. Well, I only did that because I decided I really didn't mind too much if it happened once as it'll both get the seriousness in for everyone, including those who don't necessarily read everything and that I also did kind of want Nod to get more loot from us for a more balanced (though strongly tilted towards us still) 'game'. I also checked that no one had done that before I posted so it would stay 'just once'. Otherwise I would have removed that bit, and possibly the rest of the post.

I also wasn't expecting an actual roll to happen from it as I was clearly joking, and believed Ithillid would be able to see that, even after taking into account 'internet context blindness'. However, as the paragraph above shows, I did not purely rely on that when I worked out the possible results of my post and was willing to take the hit for it if I was wrong for this so long as it was only one, not a bunch of posts 'joking around' which could see us having Nod roll three, four or even more times.

Rakuhn · Jun 26, 2022

Pyro Hawk said:
Sees new policy
"We must destroy the Yellow Zones! It's the only way to- is shot

Aww... I just wanted to balance things out a bit considering how much we've scored thanks to Mod Gacha Rolls. It's starting to feel a bit too unfair. Sure, I'm all for things being unfair because that's how you win (or lose badly, it depends on what you are trying for) but there is a certain point at which things lose most of the challenge. And we're kind of there with Nod to a degree.

-snip-

If it helps any, we are currently at 20 out of 23 on Scrin techs, and 22 out of 21 (including Shield Bucklers)* on Nod techs. The mod gachas have to date been mostly pushing us towards the maximum theoretical value that we could have rolled**, rather than advancing us beyond that point.

*3 of the omake Nod techs have been d50s, IIRC, which I tend to prefer because they tend to be flavorful rather than transformative

** not counting the hypotheticals of getting two techs from rolls over 100, defeating/negotiating with Nod warlords, or other applicable crits

Pyro Hawk · Jun 26, 2022

Rakuhn said:
If it helps any, we are currently at 20 out of 23 on Scrin techs, and 22 out of 21 (including Shield Bucklers)* on Nod techs. The mod gachas have to date been mostly pushing us towards the maximum theoretical value that we could have rolled**, rather than advancing us beyond that point.

*3 of the omake Nod techs have been d50s, IIRC, which I tend to prefer because they tend to be flavorful rather than transformative

** not counting the hypotheticals of getting two techs from rolls over 100, defeating/negotiating with Nod warlords, or other applicable crits

Helps to a degree, but I prefer comparing it to the 'average' as that's what we're likely to have gotten, rather than the maximum all-luck-used-up. Just means that I'm going 'it would be nice if Nod got one or two boosts' rather than 'Nod needs several boosts'.

Void Stalker · Jun 26, 2022

Pyro Hawk said:
Helps to a degree, but I prefer comparing it to the 'average' as that's what we're likely to have gotten, rather than the maximum all-luck-used-up. Just means that I'm going 'it would be nice if Nod got one or two boosts' rather than 'Nod needs several boosts'.

Thing is we put a lot of effort into pulling ahead of NOD in how we built our backbone and also dumped a lot of dice into mil to pull ahead. Which meant less free dice were going into QoL.

Oledoms · Jun 26, 2022

Ithillid said:
Also, new policy, every time someone advocates the anhillation of the Yellow Zones, @KnightDisciple gets a free roll for what new tech the Brotherhood gets.

Edit: I got argued down. Instead I will simply be asking for threadbans for anyone who advocates that. It is not fair to everyone else. It is more an overreaction to a kind of argument that I had hoped we had left behind months ago

Oh, I would have loved this new rule, sadly it became defunct but I understand why. Adds a new layer of challenge to the game. Although I would prefer it to be just a d20 or d50 instead of a full d100 to prevent something gamebreaking for Nod.

Simon_Jester · Jun 26, 2022

Pyro Hawk said:
You'll notice that I did edit in a bit right afterwards taking this into account. Sure, we've won all the easy victories we can but those are the ones that are supposed to be more of a challenge. And I'll admit, a lot of that is down to just how the dice rolled this time. But it's also something that I would have preferred to take twice as long, without Nod having gotten to do noticeable damage to us. Longer if they'd managed to pull off their 'traditional' first strike damage advantage. Now, Kane's return is going to give them a bunch but that's probably more a case of equaling things out to how we'd be like at the end of the Regency War, with one more Nod+Scrin successful Gacha and the results of iterating the tech we'd had available then.

Not what we've got now with all the Mod techs that have just hit. That's going to require him being unusually generous to deal with, especially after you factor in just how badly Nod was effected by the Red Zone Rampage that occurred during, and after, the end stages of TW3. Sure, he's likely to do that but we can't depend entirely on that for those of us wanting a bit more 'balanced difficulty'.

The thing is, if you want us to be at 'balanced' difficulty against the warlords themselves, then we'd just plain screwed when it comes to dealing with the warlords and Kane and the Visitor remnants.

Historically GDI has always eventually been able to mop up and roll back Nod in the aftermath of each Tiberium War, with an eventual resurgence under Kane after Kane re-emerges from seclusion. The real challenge is balancing numerous threats off against each other, and the ability to handle any one of those doesn't mean that the game is unbalanced.

As for joking about it. Well, I only did that because I decided I really didn't mind too much if it happened once as it'll both get the seriousness in for everyone, including those who don't necessarily read everything and that I also did kind of want Nod to get more loot from us for a more balanced (though strongly tilted towards us still) 'game'. I also checked that no one had done that before I posted so it would stay 'just once'. Otherwise I would have removed that bit, and possibly the rest of the post.

I also wasn't expecting an actual roll to happen from it as I was clearly joking, and believed Ithillid would be able to see that, even after taking into account 'internet context blindness'. However, as the paragraph above shows, I did not purely rely on that when I worked out the possible results of my post and was willing to take the hit for it if I was wrong for this so long as it was only one, not a bunch of posts 'joking around' which could see us having Nod roll three, four or even more times.

I just don't think it's funny, is all, okay? Like, not funny.

I also think it was high-handed of you to decide "nah, I want a challenge, so I don't care if I do something that might get everyone else with no say in my actions in trouble if the QM is mad and decides to make a point about it not being a joke, because it'll probably be fine and nothing bad will probably happen."

Hazard · Jun 26, 2022

Also important to remember; while GDI generally wins the wars, Nod has a habit of winning the peace, with GDI generally returning to a mix of isolation and exploitative occupation of tiberium contaminated areas. Rio de Janeiro in the TW2-TW3 interbellum did not come out of nowhere, it resulted from GDI neglecting to provide Rio de Janeiro with the needed goods and services, and that is something that has happened worldwide.

Part of that is simply a result of GDI being severely pressured by tiberium and Nod agitators, certainly, but another, not insignificant component of the formulation of those policies was the political and resource constraints GDI was operating under at the time. This is true on the 2000's and the 2010's, when GDI had to deal with the UN and its member nations falling apart under the strain of the tiberium disaster, this was true in the 2020's, 2030's and 2040's, when GDI had to become a world government during and following TW2 and turned the Earth from a ball of soon to be consumed rock that was probably a worldwide YZ with patches of proto-RZs rapidly spreading, into the not particularly good but actually improving situation of the pre-TW3 2047 Earth.

It'd even be true in the canon timeline for C&C, where GDI retreated back to the BZs and eventually got run over by tiberium, while ignoring the world was getting eaten by tib until it was far too late.

The quest incarnation of GDI is an aberration. Before, GDI has generally been unwilling to spend treasure and blood for the non-GDI aligned populations outside their control except in the most perfunctory and demonstrative manners. The Granger administration saw GDI deploy en masse garrisons to YZ territories long held by a wide variety of warlords, most of whom some variety of shitty rulers, and not only forced those warlords and their militias to either bend the knee, leave, or die, but followed it up by establishing a functional extension of GDI's civilian authorities and government apparatus, guarded by GDI's troops and a thorough, properly formulated and well enforced body of laws.

Sure, it's not universally popular among both the YZ populations and the BZers. But the effect of GDI going 'yes, we are the government here now, and you know all that propaganda we make about how we are the good guys? They aren't all true, some are too fanciful, but damnit, we will try to make them true'. The sheer impact of proper medical and educational support, for example, cannot be overstated, even if it comes with a few strings. Because GDI's strings are far, far less dangerous than Nod's are.

Pyro Hawk · Jun 26, 2022

Void Stalker said:
Thing is we put a lot of effort into pulling ahead of NOD in how we built our backbone and also dumped a lot of dice into mil to pull ahead. Which meant less free dice were going into QoL.

Yeah, but this is the sorts of success that I'd have expected to gain if we'd done a 'Crush Nod early' strategy which we funded using tiberium mitigation. Rather than the 'Go all out against Tiberium, fund the military well and keep the rest of the economy alive, even if effectively on life support'. Basically, I'd have hoped that Nod was better off than they effectively were after a decade of rebuilding time, rather than what we got thanks to dice and other factors. See below for more detail.

Simon_Jester said:
The thing is, if you want us to be at 'balanced' difficulty against the warlords themselves, then we'd just plain screwed when it comes to dealing with the warlords and Kane and the Visitor remnants.

Historically GDI has always eventually been able to mop up and roll back Nod in the aftermath of each Tiberium War, with an eventual resurgence under Kane after Kane re-emerges from seclusion. The real challenge is balancing numerous threats off against each other, and the ability to handle any one of those doesn't mean that the game is unbalanced.

I don't want a true balanced difficulty against the Warlords because of what you say. I just wish it was a bit more balanced than what we got. Definitely not to a Stahl degree, but considering we were going on the offensive into long held Nod territories, it was too much. Something were we should have been able to achieve the successes we had against Gideon but in return had only pushed the others. Rather than what we achieved which is basically crushed Gideon and Reynaldo, taken Eastern Australia, caused a friendly Nod faction to double in size by taking from one of the more dedicated anti-GDI Nod warlords in a manner that left his remaining smaller sub-territory isolated and significantly drove back Krukov. All for the cost of more or less deadlocking against Stahl, still not knowing what's going on in India and achieving a bloody stalemate in Bintang's favour due to messing up our purchase order so the Navy ends up screwed.

That level of success is what I'd like to see happen Post-Kane. Subsequent offensives pushing further and further into their territory because we're still strong at home while they're not. Instead we're left in a position where Nod is going to be rather weak even after the Post-Kane buff because they've lost a lot of what they use to make up for their lacking industry against GDI. Meanwhile us as GDI have also gained a lot of population which offsets GDI's constant population disadvantage against GDI.

Sure, a lot of that is down to how the dice turned out. But should Nod's modifers have been better considering the circumstances? Too late to change.

Simon_Jester said:
I just don't think it's funny, is all, okay? Like, not funny.

I also think it was high-handed of you to decide "nah, I want a challenge, so I don't care if I do something that might get everyone else with no say in my actions in trouble if the QM is mad and decides to make a point about it not being a joke, because it'll probably be fine and nothing bad will probably happen."

First of all: I was risking a single dice roll. That's what, a quarter of the rolls we've gotten just from Nod thanks to Mods? I checked to make sure nothing possibly deserving of one had happened before I posted even, as I said. I don't call that a challenge. I can't even call that 'making things more balanced' because it's just... not.

Also, it was minimal risk because of how clear I made that I wasn't being serious, and a few other factors. I can't say no risk, but then nothing is ever no risk. As for the rest... I'm not going to argue about it just because I know that we've got different views of it, for many reasons, and all I see coming from that is us metaphorically stabbing each other in the thread for the rest of the day, ruining it for other viewers and the QM. Or alternatively, one or more temporary (or not) threadbans. Which is just not worth it.

We have different perspectives of what I did. You view it as intolerable. I don't. I'll agree to differ in that, will you?

Rakuhn · Jun 26, 2022

Pyro Hawk said:
Yeah, but this is the sorts of success that I'd have expected to gain if we'd done a 'Crush Nod early' strategy which we funded using tiberium mitigation. Rather than the 'Go all out against Tiberium, fund the military well and keep the rest of the economy alive, even if effectively on life support'. Basically, I'd have hoped that Nod was better off than they effectively were after a decade of rebuilding time, rather than what we got thanks to dice and other factors. See below for more detail.

I don't want a true balanced difficulty against the Warlords because of what you say. I just wish it was a bit more balanced than what we got. Definitely not to a Stahl degree, but considering we were going on the offensive into long held Nod territories, it was too much. Something were we should have been able to achieve the successes we had against Gideon but in return had only pushed the others. Rather than what we achieved which is basically crushed Gideon and Reynaldo, taken Eastern Australia, caused a friendly Nod faction to double in size by taking from one of the more dedicated anti-GDI Nod warlords in a manner that left his remaining smaller sub-territory isolated and significantly drove back Krukov. All for the cost of more or less deadlocking against Stahl, still not knowing what's going on in India and achieving a bloody stalemate in Bintang's favour due to messing up our purchase order so the Navy ends up screwed.

That level of success is what I'd like to see happen Post-Kane. Subsequent offensives pushing further and further into their territory because we're still strong at home while they're not. Instead we're left in a position where Nod is going to be rather weak even after the Post-Kane buff because they've lost a lot of what they use to make up for their lacking industry against GDI. Meanwhile us as GDI have also gained a lot of population which offsets GDI's constant population disadvantage against GDI.

Sure, a lot of that is down to how the dice turned out. But should Nod's modifers have been better considering the circumstances? Too late to change.

First of all: I was risking a single dice roll. That's what, a quarter of the rolls we've gotten just from Nod thanks to Mods? I checked to make sure nothing possibly deserving of one had happened before I posted even, as I said. I don't call that a challenge. I can't even call that 'making things more balanced' because it's just... not.

Also, it was minimal risk because of how clear I made that I wasn't being serious, and a few other factors. I can't say no risk, but then nothing is ever no risk. As for the rest... I'm not going to argue about it just because I know that we've got different views of it, for many reasons, and all I see coming from that is us metaphorically stabbing each other in the thread for the rest of the day, ruining it for other viewers and the QM. Or alternatively, one or more temporary (or not) threadbans. Which is just not worth it.

We have different perspectives of what I did. You view it as intolerable. I don't. I'll agree to differ in that, will you?

I mean, each omake roll takes up a very large portion of my freetime, and I'm sure that is true of Bot, and Puterace as well (who built a really, really awesome tool), so I don't think that doing a drive-by posting explicitly to spite those efforts is very kind. And I'm someone who likes it when Nod gets new tech.

All of our tech rolls so far combined have had a minimal impact on the quest so far, considering that we've gotten 12 techs from them*.

-Spending rolls developing Corpse Starch, Tiberium Extractor Claws, Hardlight, Ion Storm Controller, Mind Shields, and Portals to no effect yet.
-Opening up Isolinear Computing, which allowed us to change our plan goals, and gave Erewhon a new and temporary lease on life (and even that needed a reroll).

Nod suffered long before the omake techs came about (and it's debateable whether they have even been a net positive to date for the players). Nod primarily got screwed in the following events:
-Kane's Wrath did not go well for them, considering how heavily they were favored to win
-Tiberium delayed mutating for several years longer than it should have, giving us much more time to build our economy.
-We rolled the tiberium stabilizers tech (through the normal gacha), giving us decades more time before tiberium blew up the planet
-We rolled a critical success for kicking the war off
-They rolled multiple crit failures over the course of the war

We could remove every single omake tech and they'd be just as screwed. IMO, omake techs are for the flavor, and are inherently self-balancing thanks to them being constrained by resources and dice.

*7 full Scrin, 1 "that saves the QM so much time and energy that you get to pick any tech off the list" Scrin (portals), 1 full Nod, 2 d50 Nods, and 1 April Fool's joke (Corpse Starch). No Scrin dice have been rolled since Q1 of last year.

Simon_Jester · Jun 27, 2022

Pyro Hawk said:
Yeah, but this is the sorts of success that I'd have expected to gain if we'd done a 'Crush Nod early' strategy which we funded using tiberium mitigation. Rather than the 'Go all out against Tiberium, fund the military well and keep the rest of the economy alive, even if effectively on life support'. Basically, I'd have hoped that Nod was better off than they effectively were after a decade of rebuilding time, rather than what we got thanks to dice and other factors. See below for more detail.

I don't want a true balanced difficulty against the Warlords because of what you say. I just wish it was a bit more balanced than what we got. Definitely not to a Stahl degree, but considering we were going on the offensive into long held Nod territories, it was too much. Something were we should have been able to achieve the successes we had against Gideon but in return had only pushed the others. Rather than what we achieved which is basically crushed Gideon and Reynaldo, taken Eastern Australia, caused a friendly Nod faction to double in size by taking from one of the more dedicated anti-GDI Nod warlords in a manner that left his remaining smaller sub-territory isolated and significantly drove back Krukov. All for the cost of more or less deadlocking against Stahl, still not knowing what's going on in India and achieving a bloody stalemate in Bintang's favour due to messing up our purchase order so the Navy ends up screwed.

That level of success is what I'd like to see happen Post-Kane. Subsequent offensives pushing further and further into their territory because we're still strong at home while they're not. Instead we're left in a position where Nod is going to be rather weak even after the Post-Kane buff because they've lost a lot of what they use to make up for their lacking industry against GDI. Meanwhile us as GDI have also gained a lot of population which offsets GDI's constant population disadvantage against GDI.

Sure, a lot of that is down to how the dice turned out. But should Nod's modifers have been better considering the circumstances? Too late to change.

You seem to have very specific and precise expectations about how this game should go. It seems to me that such specific expectations are an easy way to wind up disappointed with a wide variety of possible outcomes.

We have different perspectives of what I did. You view it as intolerable. I don't. I'll agree to differ in that, will you?

Yes. We will 'agree to disagree' about whether it's okay for you to take a chance on doing unilateral things that might affect my game experience without my consent, potentially to spite or negate the efforts of other people who put real work into their contributions to the game world.

You think that's okay, and I don't, so we'll 'agree to disagree' and I guess I have to just hope that it never actually becomes a problem for me. Not that I'll get any say in the matter if it does. Right.

Look, why don't you just admit that you did something high-handed and inconsiderate, and not do it again? It was rude, and refusing to admit one has been rude never ends well.

BOTcommander · Jun 27, 2022

Ithillid said:
On other news, I gotta present for yall.

Edit: Also, have an idea of what the map totals are.

Just to give an idea of what this means. Cyan Zone grew 0.01% in one turn, the total change of YZ to some form of BZ was 0.48%. 0.01/0.48 is like 0.02083. Multiply that by our 98 Abatement is like 2.0416, which is in line with what we would get from one Inhibitor. Part of me wishes the math worked out to like 10 Abatement in one spot so I could complain. 🦑 has said Cyan Zones are subject to slightly different mechanics than us, but as far as the math is concerned rn, there is no Nod Kane magic involved. India simply build one Inhibitor.

Pyro Hawk · Jun 27, 2022

Rakuhn said:
----

Yeah, I'll admit that you do have some good points, and that I'd even been forgetting just how impactful some of them had been. Also, I'm certainly not complaining about you giving us the mod rolls. Because I do love them, don't want to see them disappear and wish I was willing to invest the time to be able to play them once my main PC's set up again. Just wishing that we had something to balance things out as it's kind of a 'too much of a good thing' factor. Only, you know, not actually being a problem for us.

It's just reducing the enjoyment I'm getting from succeeding so hard. Oh, and I basically discount the Portals 'roll' from my count of Mod gachas because that wasn't a reward for a mod. That was very much a 'you helped the QM with something that means the quest might live longer. You absolutely deserve this' moment. The April's Fool joke is... more mixed, but considering it was specifically meant to be something barely worthwhile, I count that as a 'half Gacha' if you will. The d50s count as full though, because whilst they aren't giving us anything too good even at their best, there is some exceptionally useful stuff down there which means higher rolls in the future can be even better from having a more advanced baseline, and it's also meaning future low rolls are higher in-effect.

Oh, and of your list of techs that have had no effect yet, only the Corpse Starch, Mind Shields and technically Portals count. Because the Tib Claws and Ion Storm Controller are absolutely going to noticeably alter our future decisions, though the Tib Claws to a lesser degree due to already having the Tib Tentacles, so those do count. Hardlight is basically the same 'technically' as Portals because they haven't done much for us, but due to rolling the more advanced Hardlight tech in the latest Scrin Gacha, they fall on the 'does count' side. Because it means that we've had several years developing, deploying, using and iterating upon a less advanced version.

Said effort meaning that whatever results we get from using Advanced Hardlight are going to be much better, with future improvement of the technology also easier because we don't have to figure out Steps B-G when advancing from Step H, as we already know steps D-F. So advancing from Step A to D is a lot less difficult and mystifying, whilst the same is the case for figuring out what Step G is. So rather than 'throwing shit at the wall' to figure out how the hell the underlying mechanics behind the Advanced Hardlight work, or even what they are, we kind of already know. Or at least, we've got nice boxes with 'actually theories lie inside these possibilities' which is very workable.

Also, for everyone else: probably not going to respond to any other responses to my comments for the rest of the day as I believe I've said enough to share my opinion on things, I do in fact want to do other things today (which would definitely have been harder if I actually had triggered a roll so should probably have factored that into my risk calculations...) and I'm busy enough tomorrow that I'm not sure when I'd be able to dedicate the time to give them a worthy response if I don't get around to it before sleeping. So if I don't respond as soon as I have for the last few, don't think I'm ignoring you. I'll likely respond later on if I feel it's something that deserves one.

Crazycryodude · Jun 27, 2022

BOTcommander said:
Math

Huh, that's pretty neat actually. Not that I think there's much doubt but nice to have a data point confirming that the Cyan Zone is just about exactly what one inhibitor would produce in one turn, pretty sure the Indians built their first inhibitor from the stolen tech. It would be a lot harder to count the pixel delta on the Red Zone in northeastern India but I bet if we did, it would come out to be losing approximately an inhibitor or two's worth of pixels every turn it recedes as well.

aceraptor · Jun 27, 2022

That cyan zone is probably proof of concept. We'll probably see more inhibitors popping up elsewhere, especially with the more reasonable portions of Nod like Stahl.

Pyro Hawk · Jun 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Yes. We will 'agree to disagree' about whether it's okay for you to take a chance on doing unilateral things that might affect my game experience without my consent, potentially to spite or negate the efforts of other people who put real work into their contributions to the game world.

You think that's okay, and I don't, so we'll 'agree to disagree' and I guess I have to just hope that it never actually becomes a problem for me. Not that I'll get any say in the matter if it does. Right.

Look, why don't you just admit that you did something high-handed and inconsiderate, and not do it again? It was rude, and refusing to admit one has been rude never ends well.

Okay, saw this and decided I'd give one last response as it appeared whilst I was typing up my response to Rakuhn. If a Mod wants to squish the two messages together, please go ahead? I just don't think editing this into the already posted comment is fair to Simon or anyone else who'd already refreshed the page.

-------------------------------------

So if I went and did something that got me a gacha roll. Like, I don't know, tossed twenty or thirty dollars Ithillid's way (No, please don't allow this. It is a bad idea for Quest Balance.) as a bad, off-the-cuff example and asked for the gacha roll to be for Nod on their GDI table, would you still be as bothered about it? I just want to know so I can define in my head what you consider 'unilateral, high-handed and inconsiderate'.

Also: I note that you are the only one being so vocal to it. Now, I absolutely believe there's at least several others just as annoyed at me and if it actually had caused a roll then there's be even more. But if it had, I will admit that I'd probably be looking into doing a major 'Omake' or something to make up for the miscalculation, though I can't promise it would actually happen or when.

As for 'high-handed, and inconsiderate', there are a lot of other people who have done or said things in this thread that is worse than what I posted, especially when it was clear that I was not seriously making the suggestion that this was a thing that 'needed to happen' which would trigger the roll. And I'm just counting the things that didn't get punished or discussed to death. Rude, eh, everyone's got different considerations there as to what is actually rude or just what could be rude. For me, it was something that had the potential to be so if I hasn't careful with how I wrote. To you, what I wrote obviously wasn't either careful enough or your line is a lot more sensitive than mine.

Now, because I know that I'm getting a bit worked up from this discussion and likely not putting enough thought into how I state things, whilst the impression I'm getting from your comments has been that you at least started at the place that I'm approaching, I'm definitely going to do as I said and go away from the thread, which will let me, and hopefully you as well, cool down. If you decide to continue this discussion, I will respond but don't expect it for a while. And that's provided we don't get told to drop the discussion/argument.

Simon_Jester · Jun 27, 2022

Pyro Hawk said:
So if I went and did something that got me a gacha roll. Like, I don't know, tossed twenty or thirty dollars Ithillid's way (No, please don't allow this. It is a bad idea for Quest Balance.) as a bad, off-the-cuff example and asked for the gacha roll to be for Nod on their GDI table, would you still be as bothered about it? I just want to know so I can define in my head what you consider 'unilateral, high-handed and inconsiderate'.

The thing about mods is, someone who makes a mod for Tiberium Wars or something is doing a thing others can, potentially, enjoy. Someone who writes omakes is doing something others can, potentially, enjoy. Same for artwork, and so on, and so on.

Someone who slips the QM a twenty, or who deliberately provokes QM punishments against the thread at large, is not creating something others can enjoy.

So if I create something that others can partake of, I have created good to offset any bad that I may create. If I help to change the game in a way most others would want, then others will not feel as much need for an offset.

But if I don't create anything other would partake of, and the effect is to impact the game in a way others would not want, and if I make this happen purely by expending personal resources in a way that doesn't do anything to make anyone in the player community happy...

Well, that's kinda disagreeable. In a way, I'd be taking without giving anything back to the people I'm taking from.

...

So that's where I draw the line on stuff like this. I don't think it's right to take from the playerbase without giving back, either as a joke, or as a lark, or out of some one-man mission to 'rebalance' a game that one believes has become imbalanced.

Also: I note that you are the only one being so vocal to it.

You literally just got done replying to someone else who had a problem with what you were doing. I'm just wordier than she is.

Karugus · Jun 27, 2022

It feels like the new cyan zone seems more like a shift in priorities than newly gained capability. For all that a lot of NOD probably does try to motivate people with the prospect of seizing the Blue Zones I'm skeptical the Indian warlord didn't have enough tech and industry to eke out some kind of Blue Zone over time.

It's entirely possible NOD abatement is unbelievably fucked by comparison to ours since they don't have our sonic tech, and it was only the theft of the inhibitor that made this a realistic possibility, but I still hew closer to the idea it's a shift in goals. The inhibitor probably did make it more practical I suppose.

aceraptor · Jun 27, 2022

The cyan zone could also be Kane testing out TCN techs. They also probably added Inhibitor tech they stole from GDI.

bigking321 · Jun 27, 2022

If it stops the green rock I'm all for it.

I've long been a advocate that if nod ever took their head out of their asses and actually came and asked for help against red zones that I'd be fine having a cease fire and helping them build red zone inhibitors across the entire planet.

If they instead want to play silly games we can do steel vanguard till we have our own access to red zones.

Just look at mid east nod. They left us alone, we got some backdoor negotiations happening, and everyone's happy living and let living. It's not hard.

Rakuhn · Jun 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
-snip-

I actually held a vote in discord on whether or not to release a mod this quarter (Nod d50).

As there was little support for it (understandably so, as we had just rolled the scrin gacha), I decided to hold off for now. So I do try to keep people's feelings and wishes in mind, even when it's a "positive" effect.

Oleg-14191 · Jun 27, 2022

Dumb question:

Ithillid said:
[ ] Low Velocity Particle Applicator Development (Tech)
The Brotherhoods Charged Particle Beams are in effect very high efficiency particle accelerators, energized from Tiberium based power cells. While the Initiative is unwilling to adopt the power cells, the technologies behind the particle beams have potential uses in a wide range of industries, including extremely high precision additive manufacturing, lithography, large particle projectors, and industrial cutting machinery.
(Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die)

Any idea if this project might be of use for our shipbuilders?

Nottheunmaker · Jun 27, 2022

More sounds like something for isolinear chips, STU alloys and precision manufacturing, like space stations and satellites. Scientific research too.

KnightDisciple · Jun 27, 2022

Ithillid said:
Any is going a bit too far, but really this is the game running into one of the simplifications I decided on.

Basically, there are three ways for techs to get better.
1. Investing in that tech's projects.
2. Investing in related projects (for CRP that would be various biotechnology/biotinkering projects)
3. Making other, related breakthroughs.

In terms of what you can do now, it is primarily a matter of investing in CRP enough for someone to have a Eureka moment and find the problem that is making the gym socks smell (Which is a result of the process producing a decent number of free sulfur compounds), or investing in things like Human Genetic Engineering, Spider Cotton, Poulticeplants, etc.

The Qatar loyalists will die on you sooner or later. But yes, Ranching Domes, Human Genetic Engineering, Visceroid Studies, and a couple others all work to extend their lifespans.

Right.

So I still stand on "no CR(a)P this turn". I'm willing to *potentially* vote for something next Turn/Plan that looks to do 1-2 Phases of CRP, if done in conjunction with at least two applicable projects to improve it.

EDIT: This goes double for anyone proposing that our poor Spacers should have to subsist almost entirely on CR(a)P.

Void Stalker · Jun 27, 2022

Given at least part of the PS loss is from the view of us trying to dodge around the goals given to us I can imagine the PS cost dropping if we finish off the current plan goal food reserve first.

StarJaunter · Jun 27, 2022

Did anything ever materialize with the idea of Aurora supersonic Bombers armed with Xenotech Plasma Bombs being a GDI masterstroke?

Like did that get used and I missed it, did it fizzle out without doing much or is it still sitting in our back pocket for a rainy day?

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Friesmancer

Altman be praised

Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.