I didn't expect it work that way. I guess it comes with immediately getting the +1 Housing and +1 Consumer Goods this turn, too? We'll have to keep this in mind for future bureaus that also give dice penalties.
Tiberium Spread
22.47 Blue Zone
0.01 Cyan Zone
1.44 Green Zone
22.57 Yellow Zone (93 points of mitigation)
53.51 Red Zone (65 points of mitigation)
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +47? (20 population in low quality housing) (-10? per turn from refugees) (+1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +18 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +22? (-6? from raiding) (-5? from military activity)
Food: +20 (+20 in reserve)
Health: +9? (-7? from Wartime Demand) (-10 from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +16 (+130 in reserve)
STUs: +11
Consumer Goods: +49? (-18? from demand spike) (+3 from Private Industry) (-4? from increased population) (+3 from Bureau of Arcologies and Dept of Consumer Industrial Development)
Labor: +49 (+4 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-1 per turn from private industry) (-1 per turn from other government) (Net +4)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (2115/2470)
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +95
Green Zone Water: +6
To expand on this. We are now in a position where we have 12 orbital dice left and need (assuming average rolls) around 8 to complete our remaining space goals. This leaves 4 for other stuff. I would suggest putting them on completing orbital cleanup if things look good in Q4.
Cleanup and maybe getting a start on the station bay, because oh boy oh boy are we gonna need that next Plan. Pretty sure we're gonna want it; over and above the likely need to complete Shala and Columbia, there's all the space installations we'll build after that.
Or if you don't like the station bay, the Leopard II yard, which is likewise in we gonna need that territory. Or the design for the Conestogas.
Sorry, misremembered. I just... well, I had power consumption figures at my fingertips for my own plan, but not for hers, y'know?
So. Draft of what to do next.
As I see it, here are the key issues in the upcoming plan:
1) With the completion of ELFS, we are up to 12/20 on our Stored Food target. If all we do is build storehouses, we need four more storehouse phases, and if present cost trends continue, that means we're at 85/775 Progress. Not impossible but very much not easy. With a phase of E-CRP, we only need two more storehouse phases, and we can hit the target with 85/375 Progress. Much more attainable. I, for one, am advocating this course of action.
2) OSRCT is about 8-9 dice from completion. Remember, OSRCT are the power-armored guys who drop from space and crash into your living room and hijack your hover-battleship. And there are supposed to be twice as many stations full of them as there are right now, roughly.
That is a LOT of angry space pirates wondering when we are going to build their lairs.
And they have friends. In space. Who can go anywhere. And, from past precedent, steal things that should not normally be steal-able. This is a big problem.
All other military projects need work. Ground Force Zone Armor is a important. All these problems pale compared to the angry homeless space pirates.
I am only somewhat joking.
So.
...
Here's what it looks like if we, ah, really want to get things back in line with the way I, for one, hoped they might be. Note the fourteen-die Military budget, I think that's a record for us. This is in large part an attempt to compensate for the eight-die budget last turn.
But hey, at least we're socking away enough R to literally found a planetary central bank this turn, unless I've miscalculated somehow, which is possible.
1035/1190 R budget
7/7 Free dice (do we ever not spend all the Free dice? )
So we have two projects that we'll probably want to do soonish:
-Structural Alien Alloys that offers a [REDACTED] for [REDACTED], per phase of deployment completed
-And banking reforms, which basically has us founding a sovereign wealth fund, which will improve the civilian economy over time (including more taxes), and grow in value over time itself as its investments pay off
In favor of separate vote mostly. Enterprise bays offer many combos of interesting items and different people here have different views on what these ones should be. I would like a popular vote to narrow down the list of options before we get a bunch of plan variations that only differ by what bay they include at some point in the future.
1) With the completion of ELFS, we are up to 12/20 on our Stored Food target. If all we do is build storehouses, we need four more storehouse phases, and if present cost trends continue, that means we're at 85/775 Progress. Not impossible but very much not easy. With a phase of E-CRP, we only need two more storehouse phases, and we can hit the target with 85/375 Progress. Much more attainable. I, for one, am advocating this course of action.
Something else I forgot to add to the list of changes: Freeze Dried Foods autocompleted, adding +6 food, -1 Energy, and increased efficiency for food storage.
And you have exactly one die committed to storing actual food.
So... what's your plan for hitting the Stored food target? Just throw a shitload of Free dice at it in Q4 and hope for the best?
Heavy Industry +29 (5 dice, 3FD) 110R
-[] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Deployment(Progress 443/600: 20 resources per die) (+6 Capital Goods, +10 Energy) 3D
-[] Personal Electric Vehicle Plants(Progress 0/300: 10 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, +8 Consumer goods, +4 Logistics) (+10 Political Support) 2D+3FD
This is probably not a good time to invest in electric cars. I get why you want to, we could use the political support, but oh God are our actual Plan goals on fire and you're spending Free dice on this. Three of them, in fact.
Light and Chemical Industry +23 (5 dice) 150R
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 3)(Progress 0/380: 30 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +4 Energy) (-1 Logistics) 5D
We don't have five Light Industry dice anymore, either. I don't actually object to spending all four such dice that we have on Bergen, though I don't go that far myself.
Tiberium +39 (7 dice) 155R
-[] Improved Hewlett Gardener Process Development (Tech)(Progress 0/160: 20 resources per die) 2D
-[] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 5)(Progress 6/100: 20 resources per die) (+50 processing capacity [-250 during refits]) 1D
-[] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Construction(Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die) (+500 Tiberium Reserve) 1D
-[] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6)(Progress 54/225: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy) 3D
Red Zone containment lines place strain on ZOCOM. That's a nono.
Also, at this point we really need to do Tiberium Processing Plants Stage 2, so you might want to make room for that. We can't just recycle what my plans for Q2 were, because our needs are different now.
Orbital +26 (6 dice) 120R
-[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 5) (Progress 997/1535: 20 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) (+2 available Bays) (10 Political Support) 6D
That last phase of moon mine still needs to complete. It'd be a real nail-biter waiting for it to finish in 2061Q4 and hoping for the best. Better to put a die on it here and now.
Services +27 (5 dice) 140R
-[] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 1) (New)(Progress 0/300: 25 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods, -1 Labor) 5D
-[] Hallucinogen Development (Tech)(Progress 0/60: 15 resources per die) ED
Nod tech didn't finish. Are you deciding to drop that? Also, Erewhon only has about a 50/50 chance of finishing that tech by themself, just for the record, whereas just spending an actual Service die on the same project a while later would have a roughly 80% chance of doing it.
Military +26 (8 dice, 3FD) 175R
-[] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4)(Progress 36/220: 20 resources per die) (Station) (High Priority) 2D
-[] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3)(Progress 5/295: 20 resources per die) 2D+1FD
This does not begin to address the scale of the OSRCT work we're gonna need to do. Unless we roll exceptionally well, we'll be looking at about seven dice in Q4 just to be anywhere close to sure of full project completion.
So we have two projects that we'll probably want to do soonish:
-Structural Alien Alloys that offers a [REDACTED] for [REDACTED], per phase of deployment completed
Huh. Maybe I should swap that in on my plan draft in place of the particle applicators.
-And banking reforms, which basically has us founding a sovereign wealth fund, which will improve the civilian economy over time (including more taxes), and grow in value over time itself as its investments pay off
Something else I forgot to add to the list of changes: Freeze Dried Foods autocompleted, adding +6 food, -1 Energy, and increased efficiency for food storage.
Yeah, that's really good. The problem is, it doesn't actually change the scale of what we're going to have to build, it just means we'll actually have the food to shovel into the place.
The problem is that tendril harvesters don't seem to abate very well... Wait. if they replace Nod harvesters with something that actually hoovers up all the surface tiberium instead of leaving some behind to reseed, then maybe that would help.
10 to 15% longer regrowth time on GDI's harvesting strategy, which is already very thorough. Nod probably has to wait at least 50% longer than it's used to, if not more.
A quick Anydice shows Enterprise only needs, at most, 10 dice for a 99%+ completion. Meaning we rolled so well this turn, we don't need any Free Dice in Orbital for the next two turns!
We had a lot of bad rolls in Military, but hopefully this makes up for it.
As I see it, here are the key issues in the upcoming plan:
1) With the completion of ELFS, we are up to 12/20 on our Stored Food target. If all we do is build storehouses, we need four more storehouse phases, and if present cost trends continue, that means we're at 85/775 Progress. Not impossible but very much not easy. With a phase of E-CRP, we only need two more storehouse phases, and we can hit the target with 85/375 Progress. Much more attainable. I, for one, am advocating this course of action.
2) OSRCT is about 8-9 dice from completion. Remember, OSRCT are the power-armored guys who drop from space and crash into your living room and hijack your hover-battleship. And there are supposed to be twice as many stations full of them as there are right now, roughly.
That is a LOT of angry space pirates wondering when we are going to build their lairs.
And they have friends. In space. Who can go anywhere. And, from past precedent, steal things that should not normally be steal-able. This is a big problem.
All other military projects need work. Ground Force Zone Armor is a important. All these problems pale compared to the angry homeless space pirates.
I am only somewhat joking.
So.
...
Here's what it looks like if we, ah, really want to get things back in line with the way I, for one, hoped they might be. Note the fourteen-die Military budget, I think that's a record for us. This is in large part an attempt to compensate for the eight-die budget last turn.
But hey, at least we're socking away enough R to literally found a planetary central bank this turn, unless I've miscalculated somehow, which is possible.
1045/1190 R budget
7/7 Free dice (do we ever not spend all the Free dice? )
Like this one. This is a good plan. And has a very good point about space pirates crashing in our apartments to steal our future steaks and girlfriends. And not the kind YellowZon3r was after, my he never continue his family lineage.
In favor of separate vote mostly. Enterprise bays offer many combos of interesting items and different people here have different views on what these ones should be. I would like a popular vote to narrow down the list of options before we get a bunch of plan variations that only differ by what bay they include at some point in the future.
Would any potential overflow in Q4 on Enterprise go into outfitting its bays or would it be wasted?
And will the -30 for the Reconstruction commissions end after Tokyo harbor is fixed? Since it right now involves paying 30RpT to get 60 progress on a 15RpD project.
I'm puzzled by you saying that it doesn't seem intentional, when the QM says this is one of the intended consequences.
It makes sense to me in-universe, since having the Treasury lock-in spending on a megaproject allows for more definite planning to take place.
I don't think a discount for rushing a project in 3 quarters, when it realistically should take 2 years, is intended consequences. The QM was pretty clear about having to suspend disbelief about how fast we complete big projects.
Are you focussing on Plan Goals here or not?
Why would you press the E-CRP button, when you've assigned free dice to HI, Orbital, and even a die on Ranching Domes?
There is no logical reason to assume that the present trend will continue. (Unless you mean the trend of not assigning sensible dice to the Stockpile Construction, in which case I sort of agree...)
8-9 dice should finish the Stockpiles up to where we need them. We just need to trim the fat from our spending and actually try to complete the goal.
You've also assigned 6 free dice to Military, yet you won't finish all the Plan Goals because you started a ZA Factory.
We've just seen that not focussing on the Goals is a bad thing, so why risk it?
I don't think a discount for rushing a project in 3 quarters, when it realistically should take 2 years, is intended consequences. The QM was pretty clear about having to suspend disbelief about how fast we complete big projects.
The discount is for locking in dice, not for locking in any particular amount.
As regards the Food Storage plan goal, I think we should table discussion until we find out how much the Freeze Dried Food Plants help out.
For our military Plan Goals, the incomplete projects this turn can each take 1 die Q3, and if they don't complete 1 die Q4 will finish them off.
2 dice on ASAT 4 also brings it in range where it likely will only need 1 die, and an extra die will provide useful rollover.
OSRCT can take a minimum of 7 dice reasonably, but it's another case where overflow is not a bad thing, so having to put more dice than expected in Q4 is again, not a terrible thing.
HI is fixed, so is LCI, dunno if its better or worse, E-CRP is added, kinda wanted to see what Q3 had in store, but meh, guess I'mma do it anyways, Infra's kinda a mixed mess, its either all in on Shuttles for me to make room for an all in on either the Arco or a shitload of dice on Apartments, Tib was switched to a less ZOCOM shattering mess, hopefully, NOD Research is back in the plan, Rare Metals was also re-re-added I apparently forgot to add that back after modding the old Q2 plan... nice, Mil's mostly fixed, and ED irewhon is making the GD3, though that could change, still wondering where to use them. Newark lost a dice to OSRCT, which is now back to 8 Dice overall, insane spending for that indeed.
My understanding is that the freeze-drying plants help in a very straightforward way: they change the conversion ratio of Food into Stored Food from 4:2 to 3:2. That doesn't change the number of Stockpile phases we need to complete; it just makes it easier or harder to fill those stockpiles.
OSRCT can take a minimum of 7 dice reasonably, but it's another case where overflow is not a bad thing, so having to put more dice than expected in Q4 is again, not a terrible thing.
Until and unless we know that OSRCT Phase 5 is going to be a target for the Fourth Plan, that rollover is probably bad. There are a lot of other things we could and should be doing with Military dice that are probably a higher priority than the fifth phase of OSRCT.
Rollover on ASAT is good because we know we'll need to put more weapon platforms in space for various reasons. But every die I accidentally spend on OSRCT Phase 5 is a die I'll wish I'd spent on Zone Armor or the Navy instead.
HI is fixed, so is LCI, dunno if its better or worse, E-CRP is added, kinda wanted to see what Q3 had in store, but meh, guess I'mma do it anyways, Infra's kinda a mixed mess, its either all in on Shuttles for me to make room for an all in on either the Arco or a shitload of dice on Apartments,
If you want bulk Housing and to get people out of the crappy 2052-era bunkers and commieblocks, apartments are the way to go.
For the Progress cost of as single phase of arcologies (+8 Housing), we can easily get two phases of apartments (+12 Housing) and the Logistics infrastructure it takes to support them. At least for now.
Mil's mostly fixed, and ED irewhon is making the GD3, though that could change, still wondering where to use them.
I've generally tried keep Erewhon away from military projects; it seems wrong, somehow, to ask them to design things 'You' can use to kill other 'You.' But that's me.
...The project is close enough to auto-complete on bonuses. For better or for worse, the rewards that made it a Holy Grail for the thread are now very close at hand, and the price we pay in terms of diversion of effort and resources is now largely paid. It's a sunk cost.
Of course we're going to take it.
I'm just relieved that (1) the cost of granary phases stopped climbing at 200 Progress like we hoped it would, and (2) you're not giving me flak about using E-CRP, because we more or less do need E-CRP now.
If we want to start now, my preference would be the Station, Satellite and Advanced Material bays.
Personally I feel like Parliament will want Gravity Shipyards, Military and Station bays.
I think Parliament will look at the bay selection and say "that's your problem," and we'll have to figure it out ourselves. I'm hoping for a vote on the matter.
I'm guessing 'wasted' but I'd love to be wrong. With that said, we've overall been able to spend Orbital dice very efficiently throughout this Four Year Plan with almost no wastage, so I won't mind wasting 1-2 at the tail end of such a big project.
And will the -30 for the Reconstruction commissions end after Tokyo harbor is fixed? Since it right now involves paying 30RpT to get 60 progress on a 15RpD project.
We've been explicitly told "no," because it covers a lot of little stuff all over the world that wouldn't normally even get our attention. For example, dealing with the aftermath of the numerous terrorist attacks in Western Europe is probably covered there. And there's surely plenty of reconstruction work to do in many formerly Green-Zone-and-fought-over cities that aren't going to be losing their entire populations, if only because we're building new apartment complexes in some of them to house, well... the new part of GDI's population.
I'm just hoping we can get it taken off our budget and turned into a separate line item when reapportionment comes around, because while it's not a big budget item to carry when you have a budget of 50% of GDI's ~2200 RpT quarterly gross domestic product, it's a lot harder to carry when you have a budget of 25% of same.
...It says something that a specific government agency devoted purely to patching up war damage has a budget equal to 1.25% of the government budget which is in turn the overwhelming majority of GDP, as I understand it.
Are you focussing on Plan Goals here or not?
Why would you press the E-CRP button, when you've assigned free dice to HI, Orbital, and even a die on Ranching Domes?
There is no logical reason to assume that the present trend will continue. (Unless you mean the trend of not assigning sensible dice to the Stockpile Construction, in which case I sort of agree...)
8-9 dice should finish the Stockpiles up to where we need them. We just need to trim the fat from our spending and actually try to complete the goal.
You've also assigned 6 free dice to Military, yet you won't finish all the Plan Goals because you started a ZA Factory.
We've just seen that not focussing on the Goals is a bad thing, so why risk it?
Let me begin from the beginning. In Military, I am trying to exceed the Plan goals in a single very specific way: by completing multiple Zone Armor factories. I want to do this because it is necessary to do this. It will be necessary to have that Zone Armor. We need that Zone Armor for the military's use against Nod, but importantly we also need it for use against tiberium.
Without more Zone Armor, we cannot continue to expand our Red Zone operations. And the Red Zones are, as you know, mutating again. Mutating at a pretty respectable clip. If not contained properly, soon enough, the Red Zones will go back to pushing at Nod's backline, and pushing them into us, forcing another round of conflict that may well be fought with nuclear weapons. Furthermore, we need the Zone Armor to use against tiberium for economic reasons, since Red Zone mining is one of the major pillars of our economy.
Point 1: We need Zone Armor factories in 2061.
...
We cannot be reasonably assured of completing Zone Armor factories during 2061, except by either investing significantly in at least one in 2061Q3, or by heavily overinvesting dice in 2061Q4 and hoping for the best. It is therefore necessary to invest two Free dice, roughly speaking, into a Zone Armor factory. I chose New York because New York has a land connection to one of our prospective Red Zone Border Offensive candidates, and I am hoping that the power armor is immediately deployed to prepare new Ground Force units to secure that area so that the border offensive can begin soon.
Combining this with the need to wrap up ongoing projects while heavily investing in OSRCT to insulate ourselves against bad rolls in Q4 causing critical Plan-goal projects to fail badly, and you get my Military budget. One die on Newark and URLS, 1+AA dice on the Mastodon factories which are lagging particularly hard.* Eight dice on OSRCT, which is the minimum needed to give us a reasonable chance of success and hopefully put the project close enough to only need, say, two dice or less to be assured of completion in 2061Q4. One die on ASAT because it is the only Military target where it may- may- prove to our advantage to overspend dice beyond what is required to complete the Plan phase. Adding up the dice, we have two, plus three, plus eight, plus one.
Cutting below these levels means that we are likely to be forced into wasting dice in Q4 to defend ourselves agaainst the predictable "swinginess" of projects rushed to completion at the last minute. Wasted dice are bad, and we are trying to avoid them. For instance, if the Mastodon yard were ignored until 2061Q4, it would not be enough to spend one or 1+AA dice on it; we would need at least two full-bore Military dice to be safe and avoid alienating General Jackson by breaking our word. Which would be a shame, since that's an extra die that would be more productively used on Zone Armor factories or the naval laser refits. In conclusion, for the reasons discussed.
Point 2: It is necessary, or at least very desirable, to spend fourteen dice on the military in 2061Q3.
...
That leaves one Free die and up to two 'AA' dice (one from Erewhon) to allocate. That's not very much, so it behooves me to stop and check what is necessary to accomplish our other goals.
Our Consumer Goods target is trivially addressed by measures already in place. Our Tiberium goals can be resolved with a single straightforward project. Speak, and it is done. I have put the project in place. Our Plan goals in Heavy Industry are well in hand. We rolled well. Three normal Heavy Industry dice are overwhelmingly likely to see the last project done- and a good thing too, because the influx of +10 Energy will help to cover the power costs of starting up multiple war factories this turn.
Our Plan goals in Orbital are under control. We still need one- possibly two- dice to finish the last of our moon mines, but we have those dice. Even without any Free dice whatsoever, we could confidently finish the Plan targets in Orbital. However, there are many other things we could and should do in space! Many things that will help set the stage for ambitious space expansions in the next Plan, which we need now more than ever now that we know there are still Visitor aliens in our solar system. It would be desirable to do a little more, to have a little wiggle room. Furthermore, there are obvious attractive candidates for such action.
Our Plan goals in Military are a dumpster fire, but one we can extinguish with decisive action. We have five projects to complete, and it is virtually guaranteed that at least two of them will still need work in 2061Q4, but we can at least ensure that we don't need to desperately squander dice on any last-minute shock efforts. That is already addressed, see above.
So far, so good. And now we turn to Agriculture.
...
Agriculture is different, not because it's a struggling category (so is Military), but because there are two totally different paths forward. Three, technically, though the first one is (pun intended) particularly unpalatable.
PATH ONE: Two phases of E-CRP. Easily done, pay the -15 PS, watch the legislature and the public scream at us. They would throw rotten tomatoes if anyone let tomatoes get rotten these days when they could possibly avoid it.
PATH TWO: One phase of E-CRP and two phases of Strategic Food Stockpile Construction. Take a -5 PS hit. Complete an Agriculture project at 10 R/die with 247 points of Progress on the clock.
PATH THREE: No use of E-CRP and four phases of Strategic Food Stockpile Construction. Take no PS hit. Complete an Agriculture project at 10 R/die with 647 points of Progress on the clock.
I immediately discard Path One. We are not that desperate. Then I do math.
Our average Progress per die in Agriculture is 74.5 points per die. On average, building four phases of granaries would therefore require 8.5 dice. That is to say, eight dice would give us a low but not terrible chance of success, and nine dice would give us a good but not amazing chance of success. Anydice informs me that the breakdown is something like:
I factor in the quasi-mandatory need to invest one more die in Ranching Domes because nobody is gonna let me get away with leaving that project so close to finished for long (with reason). We have seven Agriculture dice remaining.
To have a good chance of success we need nine dice. To be sure of success we need ten or eleven.
We have seven.
Uh-oh.
Point 3: Now that we've done ranching domes, it is nigh-impossible to complete the Stored Food target without E-CRP and with only our normal Agriculture dice. Before, it was difficult. Now it is effectively impossible.
...
Now, remember Points 1 and 2 above. Zone Armor is critical to GDI's future. It would be very unwise to avoid making a serious effort to roll out Ground Force Zone Armor in 2061. And yet our Military targets are a dumpster fire. We have very few extra resources to spare from extinguishing that fire.
As a rule of thumb, one AA/E die is worth about two thirds of a regular die right now, because it typically gets us about 50 Progress instead of about 75. That proportion breaks down noticeably in Infrastructure and Tiberium where we have much higher bonuses, but it's a guideline.
So we have, approximately, two-and-a-third dice flexible dice left to put on the granary project this turn.
Let's do a thought experiment.
...
Suppose we go ahead with "PATH THREE" and devote all remaining flexible resources to the storehouses. We roll 3+1 +A+EE dice. Assume modest good luck- average die roll of 55, so we get 330+(4*24) = 426 Progress out of 647 remaining. I believe that puts at 179/200 on Phase 5 out of 6, painfully just short of omake completion.
Going back to Anydice, for Q4 that puts our chance of Plan target completion at:
So we are left to do nothing but invest in storehouses, with heated arguments over whether we 'must' spend a Free die on the storehouses, or whether four dice are enough and a 5.6% chance of missing the Plan target is acceptable.
...
Alternatively, suppose our luck on the dice rolls is modestly bad- average die roll of 45. We end up at 119/200 on Phase 5. Our probability breakdown is:
Arguments over one Free die or two. Importantly, this is almost certainly overkill. Even in this scenario, four dice would probably be enough... we just can't gamble on a 29% chance of missing a Plan target in 2061Q4.
Wasted dice. Much as would happen in Military, in a plan that (unlike mine) isn't throwing in four of our seven Free dice just to put out the fires.
Point 4: Trying to reach the Stored Food target at this point without E-CRP requires major Free dice expenditure, which must necessarily result in overkill and/or major diversion of resources from other projects.
...
So that leaves me resolved on Path Two. One phase of E-CRP, two phases of storehouses. We take a political hit, but we can quite correctly fall back on the point that we have tripled the quantity of non-CRP food in the granaries (from eight to twenty-four points) since the Plan started, and that the CRP is there only for the most desperate and nightmarish of situations. And, oh hey, check out the ranching domes, and the second phase of vertical farms, which we'll probably be able to finish in 2061Q4 now that we aren't just endlessly hammering on storehouse construction.
And there you have it.
Point 5: With everything that's just happened, we're better off putting 3-4 dice on granaries, doing one phase of E-CRP, and calling it a day.
__________________________________________________
*
(Also, it is best to put AA dice on cheap-per-die projects where they make the difference between ~30% and ~70 or 80% chance of success. Expensive-per-die projects force you to pay a lot more for your AA/E dice, when you're not getting as much as you would from a proper die, so it's best to reserve the proper dice for the expensive projects)
Tiberium Spread
22.22-0.68+0.93 = 22.47? Blue Zone
0.01? Cyan Zone
1.69+0.68-0.93 = 1.44? Green Zone
22.46-0.54?+0.65 = 22.57? Yellow Zone (98-5 = 93 points of mitigation)
53.62+0.54-0.65 = 53.51? Red Zone (70-5 = 65 points of mitigation)
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +44-10+12+1 = +47 (23+10-12-1 = 20 population in low quality housing) (-10 per turn from refugees)
Energy: +5+16-2-1-1 = +17 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +24-4+3-1 = +22? (-6 from raiding) (-5 from military activity)
Food: +26-4?+4+6+6-12 = +26? (+12+4? = +16? in reserve)
Health: +10-1 = -9? (-7? from Wartime Demand) (-10? from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +12+4 = +16 (+114? in reserve)
STUs: +11-1+1? = +11?
Consumer Goods: +40+3+1+4+2 = +50? (-18? from demand spike) (+3? from Private Industry) (-4 from increased population)
Labor: +46+4+2-1-1-1-1-1 = +47 (+4 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-1 per turn from private industry) (-1 per turn from other government) (Net +4)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (2015+100? = 2125?/2470)
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +95
Green Zone Water: +6
Preliminary plan:
[ ] Plan Running on Glass v3.0: -[ ] Infrastructure 5/6-1=5 120 Resources:
--[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6) 220/300 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
--[ ] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 2) 22/250 25 Resources per Die, 4 Dice = 100 Resources -[ ] Heavy Industry 5/5 Dice 95 Resources:
--[ ] Advanced Alloys Development (Tech) 0/120 15 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources
--[ ] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Deployment 433/600 20 Resources per Die, 2 Die = 40 Resources
--[ ] Division of Alternative Energy -10 RpT -1 Heavy Industry Die
--[ ] Distributed Heavy Industrial Authority (New?) -30 RpT -1 Heavy Industry Die -[ ] Light and Chemical Industry 4/5-1=4 70 Resources:
--[ ] Civilian Drone Factories 292/380 10 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 10 Resources
--[ ] Carbon Nanotube Foundry Expansions 0/300 20 Resources per Die, 2 Die = 40 Resources
--[ ] Department of Distributed Manufactures (New) -1 Light and Chemical Die, -20 RpT -[ ] Agriculture 4/4 Dice + 4 Free Dice 105 Resources:
--[ ] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 2) (Updated) 26/250 15 Resources per Die, 3 Dice= 45 Resources
--[ ] Ranching Domes 228/250 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
--[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 3) 138/175 10 Resources per Die, 4 Dice = 40 Resources -[ ] Tiberium 7/7 Dice 135 Resources:
--[ ] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 7) 78/100 15 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources
--[ ] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 2) 20/200 30 Resources per Die, 2 Die = 60 Resources
--[ ] Tiberium Harvesting Claw Deployment (New) 0/380 15 Resources per Die, 4 Dice = 60 Resources -[ ] Orbital Industry 6/6 Dice + 2 Administrative Assistance Die 160 Resources:
--[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 5) 997/1535 20 Resources per Die, 5 Dice + 2 Administrative Assistance Die = 140 Resources
--[ ] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 2) 56/115 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources -[ ] Services 5/5 Dice + Erewhon Die 160 Resources:
--[ ] NOD Research Initiatives 87/200 30 Resources per Die, 1 Die + Erewhon Die = 60 Resources
--[ ] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 1) (New) 0/300 25 Resources per Die, 4 Dice = 100 Resources -[ ] Military 8/8 Dice + 3 Free Dice 205 Resources:
--[ ] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3) 5/295 20 resources per Die, 8 Dice = 160
--[ ] Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment (Phase 3) 133/200 15 resources per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources
--[ ] Escort Carrier Shipyards (High Priority) Newark 179/240 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
--[ ] Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker Deployment (High Priority) 144/225 10 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 10 Resources -[ ] Bureaucracy 4/4 Dice:
--[ ] Administrative Assistance Enterprise x2 4 Dice
120+95+70+105+135+160+160+205 = 1050/1200
My plan still doesn't do the Improved Hewlett Gardener Process Development because we haven't finished the NOD Gacha yet which might get us some sort of better Tiberium Processing and also I'm aiming for all Plan Goals to be doable in Q4 2016:
- 1 Die on Yellow Zone Fortress Towns for a 68% chance and a DC of 33 to complete Phase 6.
- 4 Dice on Suborbital Shuttle Service for a 98% chance and an Average DC of 22 to complete Phase 2 and a 8% chance and an Average DC of
72 to complete the entire Action
- 1 Die on Advanced Alloys Development for a 30% chance and a DC of 76 to complete. I'm trying not to waste Dice with this one.
- 2 Die on Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Deployment for a 57% chance and an Average DC of 47 of to complete this plan goal.
- 1 Die on Division of Alternative Energy to get some regular Energy income going
- 1 Die on Distributed Heavy Industrial Authority to get some regular Capital Goods income going
- 1 Die on Civilian Drone Factories for a 52% chance and a DC of 49 to complete this Action.
- 2 Die on Carbon Nanotube Foundry Expansions because we have so many uses for Nanotubes, most of them Military including Ablat.
- 1 Die on Department of Distributed Manufactures so we start rebuilding our old-school Capital Goods manufacturing.
- 3 Dice on Agriculture Mechanization Projects for a 61% chance and an Average DC of 46 to complete this action and get us more food.
- 1 Die on Ranching Domes for a 100% chance and a DC of 1 to complete them and get some meat production going unless they autocomplete next turn.
- 4 Dice on Strategic Food Stockpile Construction for a 100% chance and an Average DC of 1 to complete Phase 3, a 90% chance and an Average DC of 32 to complete Phase 4 and a 2% chance and an Average DC of 82 to complete Phase 5. We need Phase 7 done for our plan goal without CRP.
- 1 Die on Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting to complete Stage 7 and a 33% chance and a DC of 68 to complete Stage 8 if we also finished Phase 6 of Yellow Zone Fortress Towns.
- 2 Die on Tiberium Processing Plants Stage 2 for a 63% chance and an Average DC of 44 to complete this and be done with a plan goal.
- 4 Dice on Tiberium Harvesting Claw Deployment for a 46% chance and an Average DC of 53 to complete the other harvesting tech deployment and then start vein mines and almost never stop until we hit boreholes.
- 5 Dice and 2 Administrative Assistance Die on Enterprise for a 29% chance and an Average DC of 56 to complete. In other words probably done this turn and if not will need 1-2 Die to finish it in Q4.
- 1 Die on Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting for a 83% chance and a DC of 18 to complete that plan goal.
- 1 Die and Erewhon's Die on NOD Research Initiatives for a 75% chance and an Average DC of 36 to complete that and get the NOD gacha rolling.
- 4 Dice on Regional Hospital Expansions for a 67% chance and an Average DC of 45 to complete Phase 1. We need to get this done people because our new population needs their own hospitals with the way we are building up new towns.
- 8 Dice on Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations for a 99% chance and an Average DC of 9 to complete Phase 3 and a 42% chance and an Average DC of 58 to complete Phase 4 and be done with this plan goal.
- 1 Die on Escort Carrier Shipyards Newark for a 81% chance and a DC of 20 to complete this plan goal.
- 1 Die on Mastadon deployment for a 61% chance and a DC of 40 to get Steel Talons a new set of bases. Hopefully Steel Talons get new bases next turn.
- 4 Dice on Administrative Assistance on Enterprise so that we can get that done the turn after the next for sure.
Perhaps a bit more explanation about why you've suddenly concluded that E-CRP is the best way forward, instead of the drama, and this wouldn't have been needed?
Point 1 is wrong. It is desirable, achievable, but not required. Your arguments are also self-defeating. You insist that multiple are needed, claim that they can only be completed by starting them in Q3, and then only start 1.
Point 2 was never actually questioned. Pointless waffle. Also technically incorrect. We need about 20 dice spent to complete all the military goals, which is available without extreme measures. Frontloading on goals is just desirable. You are artificially inflating the requirement with Point 1.
Point 3: We have free dice Q4 as well, although your reasoning appears to not include them anywhere. I see no reason that they cannot go towards Agriculture. At this point, only Agriculture and Military need them, and we should still have left over Free dice.
Point 4: That is the purpose of Free dice. And since we just spent dice we knew we didn't have on the Ranching Domes, presumably it was intended that we would use the Free dice to complete the Plan Goals. I'd also like to add that going over on this project isn't an issue, as we can see it repeats out another two phases. So overspending in Q4 is a non-issue.
Point 5: Now that is just a conclusion. Sloppy.
To summarise:
We have a flawed starting point of insisting that ZA Factories are suddenly on a strict deadline. Even if that was the case, we have sufficient dice available to chance at two ZA Factories in Q4 if we really wanted them.
And then we have the odd thing where nobody seems to blink about Free dice going towards Military, but we drag our feet about spending Free dice in Agriculture. Even when it is for nice things like Ice Cream and Plan Goals.
For Kelsia, and hundreds of other Asari Matrons on the world of Nevos the week had begun like any other. She was an everyday stay-at-home matron mother just beginning to get back into working from home in her job as tech support and she needed something to occupy her daughters time for short periods. She herself would be in the same room as Caryna supervising her daughters tech use, but she wanted some extra tutoring for Caryna before she entered a group creche daily rather than just the trial days she'd taken so far.
And so at one of those social playgroups for children and mothers to meet Kelsia had been recommended a 'guided learning through play' application. Completely free it had been curated by the local extranet authorities as Cool Blue for safe and came with multiple glowing recommendations. No spyware or data usage, nor any malware any scans could find, no intrusive ads and of course, child friendly.
Not an advanced education tool. It was more aimed at younger minds and predominately included free and simple lessons. There had been some concern over how it made money, but apart from occasionally suggesting local fruits and flowers for planting at home for lessons with parents on plants life cycles it didn't appear to be monetised. The running theory was it was simply someone doing it as a hobby, a charity, or simply some kind of marketing stunt based around the VI which led most of the lessons.
Kelsia downloaded it to her omni-tool. The application for use with most electronic devices, from omni-tools to standard tablet screens or even home entertainment systems. The application itself wasn't so much the game. As the VI which coded the games and tailored them to the childs age range, intelligence and species. And installing it on the durable child-friendly tablet at home the small smart device scanned the new software carefully before with a soft chime confirmed the new application was safe to run.
Cuddling Caryna on her lap with the screen in front of them Kelsia tapped the screen to begin, Caryna's pudgy blue palms joining her own. A calm voice emanating from the device. "Greeting new users. Do you wish to create new profiles?"
"Yes." Kelsia acknowledged. The devices VI waiting several processing cycles to confirm her words before continuing.
"Would you like to enable parental controls?" The VI asked.
"Yes." Kelsia accepted.
"Please smile into the camera in order to enable facial recognition." The voice chimed. Kelsia automatically accepting the request and smiling. "New user profiles created. One- child permissions." It said highlighting Caryna's face. "One- Parental permissions." It continued highlighting Kelsia's face. "Is this correct?"
"Yes." Kelsia and Caryna both nodded.
"Permissions set. Welcome new users. This unit is designated Rosetta! You can call me Rose for short if my full name is too long." The voice announced happily. "Do you wish to set names?" Kelsia and Caryna did so and the games eventually began. A splotch of colour appearing on the screen. "This colour is Yellow. Can you say yellow?" They did so dutifully, as a short rainbow of colours appeared. The soft VI adapting quickly, and soon displaying multiple colours, saying one and asking the child user to press the correct one. After that came numbers, and some basic shapes and questions. "How many edges does a square have? That's correct! Four!"
Simple questions. Perhaps too simple for an eight year old Asari, but this introductory period was about establishing a baseline for future expansion on.
After maths came simple animals and the noises they made. Then plants, a short animated video of a seed being planted and watered and growing. "Wooow! Did you know it takes thousands of liters of water to grow a tonne of Geliberries?! They sure are thirsty! But asari brains need water too! Why don't we take a short break!?"
Laughing Kelsia agreed to a break preparing jam crackers with geliberry jam as Rosetta suggested. "Do you want to be a farmer and feed people? Or perhaps you'd like to be a geneticist, trying to select and improve tastier variants or other useful properties such as requiring less water?"
"I can be lots of things!" Caryna giggled. It was true too. Kelsia had left having children a bit late and had multiple doctorates ranging from social sciences and xenobiology to diplomacy, engineering and software coding. The benefit to Asari long lives was that they weren't limited into being one thing like Hanar, Drell or Batarians.
Snacktime over Rosetta suggested a dance for exercise, explaining how muscles got stronger when they were used, Caryna taking the opportunity to bound around the room waving her arms.
"Rosetta. calm down." Kelsia told the Vi singing "Doop doop doop de doop." Along with a songs music. "Keep it quiet. I have to work now." Kelsia said going to her workstation as the VI loaded up a simplistic finger painting program to occupy Caryna. Kelsia beginning to work her way through simple bugfixes remotely with her daughter occupied and happy and nearby.
It had seemed so simple. A VI, better coded than the citadels Avina model, but ultimately designed to answer questions and lead the player through simple gamified learning curriculum's based on free data downloaded from local extranet servers.
And it wasn't like Kelsia had abandoned her daughter to a screen. She set time limits and the app had several limits of its own built in. "You've been playing for a while. Why don't you rest your eyes and do something else for a while?" Or. "It's late at night, you should be sleeping." Or for History lessons. "Parental guidance required- subject, formation of the council, rachni-wars and krogan rebellions." Said historical short giving a very simple and sanitised version of the events in question.
The point being that parental oversight was easy, and often encouraged or even required. "Get your parents permission before planting seeds in the garden, we wouldn't want to make a mess of any flowers she has."
There was potentially years of content. The VI scanning and curating material from the local extranet. Information on seeds if you learned it unlocked a farming game where you planted plants and waited for them to grow, using them to perhaps feed animals. Once other targets were met it perhaps unlocked a citybuilder mode. Explaining road and skyway planning.
There had been parents who had it longer than Kelsia, and with older children too. But after a while strange things began appearing on the app. In addition to animals such as Varren, commonly found throughout the galaxy the games introduced dogs (which made a 'woof' or barking noise. And cats which 'miaow'd', horses which neighed, and cows which mewed. It was dimissed as perhaps some animals species from far off colony worlds. Or perhaps imaginary animals from games or cartoons or such.
Recently after a lesson on the council, and Asari history of diplomacy. In another animal lesson Kelsia herself even saw a fawn, a strange fragile creature with spindly legs and wide eyes which bounced away fearfully from the camera in a short video. Then Rosetta interrupted the video, her face a far paler colour than the usual asari blue she sported and strange fur hanging from her scalp. "Thank you for taking part in this first contact package. We hope you've enjoyed the games and have learned a lot. Humans have learned a lot about you and hope to meet you soon. Until we do meet, please, continue to play and enjoy, and from the Global Defense Initiative and humanity we hope to be friends, have fun and stay curious!"
Kelsia blinked in shock at those sudden words. A first contact package? And rather than approaching openly the aliens had almost exclusively targeted children. What's more is they'd apparently been spying on Asari for some time in order to learn from them?!
She immediately locked down the tablet, removing all permissions for the app to send or receive further data from the extranet, and bustling Caryna into the kitchen to eat her lunch began making calls on her omni-tool, the first one being to a former colleague working at the Thessia university.
"Inara, I've got something Big I think there's a first contact!" Kelsia rushed out while Carnya slurped on her soup noisily, happily dunking strips of sugarbread.
"At Nevos? Haven't you're local government got it handled?"
"it's no- it's. I don't know. It might be a prank. I thought it was just a game- there's this VI. We've had it a week. It just came out with a message about aliens called humans and other animals. I've never heard of them! Please tell me the animals are some exotic xenofauna from a middle of nowhere frontier world or something."
"Huh, I'm watching the new now, yeah, this is widespread. Seems harmless. Oh wow, have you asked the VI for more information on humans?"
"No. I blocked all permissions and put it in sleep mode. I don't think I'm turning that tablet back on again until I'm sure it's safe."
"Okay, cool. Probably smart, most parents either haven't had that message yet or are deleting the applications. Hold onto it and we'll check it out. There will be police outside your door in about ten standard minutes they'll confiscate the tablet, and we'll bring you and Caryna in for some gentle questions, whatever you can tell us before we begin interrogating that VI and extracting intelligence should be helpful. You okay?"
"Yeah. We're fine just- What if they'd set it to overload the tablet or something like that?! Caryna could have been hurt!" Kelsia realised in mounting horror.
"Hey, hey, your eclipse is showing. -Wow, it's not just asari that were hit by this, some other species too. Okay. Look, from everything I'm seeing right now it looks like it is, just a game. I can already see talking heads theorising the 'education' part was a way to get info from the extranet without suspicion for large data draws. And, every case I can see it's looking like a friendly hello. Hi, we're friendly aliens, let's play some fun games, we like science and value education. We'll meet soon. Granted, Asari normally prefer face to face meetings before letting other people go through our omni-tools but so far the only weird thing is that there's a race that's seen us. Normally lesser races either blunder straight into our paths in a great big obvious first contact, often panicked or messy. Or-"
"Or?" Kelsia asked.
"Or it's us or the Salarians that are sending probes and educating and uplifting lesser races. Granted, they're hardly uplifting us with our own knowledge, free knowledge at that, but it implies we share similiar values. At least, I hope we do."
Begrudgingly Kelsia felt her apprehension slowly melt away at her friends words. New aliens wanting to join the embassy races always spelled opportunity.
Perhaps a bit more explanation about why you've suddenly concluded that E-CRP is the best way forward, instead of the drama, and this wouldn't have been needed?
This isn't actually sudden. I've always thought this was a good idea.
If Attempting To Be Done By October had won, I'd have presented two Q3 plans (you can find drafts of them from before the vote closed in the thread). One would have focused on finishing the storehouses by brute force to avoid needing E-CRP, then planned around doing Ranching Domes in Q4. The other would have said "fuckit" and put a die on E-CRP, enabling us to do Ranching Domes in Q3.
Point 1 is wrong. It is desirable, achievable, but not required. Your arguments are also self-defeating. You insist that multiple are needed, claim that they can only be completed by starting them in Q3, and then only start 1.
Point 2 was never actually questioned. Pointless waffle. Also technically incorrect. We need about 20 dice spent to complete all the military goals, which is available without extreme measures. Frontloading on goals is just desirable. You are artificially inflating the requirement with Point 1.
As to Point 1, I am treating Zone Armor as a military requirement, not a plan requirement. There is a difference.
Ground Forces have been telling us they need Zone Armor for four years. ZOCOM has been telling us they need Ground Forces to have Zone Armor for some years as well. Recently they have amended that to "if Ground Forces don't get Zone Armor, we're pretty much tapped out on Red Zone operations and GDI can sustain no more."
And the Red Zones are now telling us "I HUNGER!" Which, ah, somewhat raises the urgency of all of the previous things we've been told.
We need power armor for Ground Forces in the same sense that we needed, say, wingman drones. Or the conversion carriers. It's not a Plan target, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter or isn't urgent. So I'm treating it with urgency.
As to the number of factories, my point is that I want to succeed in getting at least one Zone Armor factory, preferably two, by the end of 2061. I don't just want a chance, I want success. Two dice is not, realistically, enough to guarantee success on a Zone Armor factory, unless the Defender modifications prove far more impactful than I dare to hope. Therefore, if I want any factories, I need to budget at least three dice in Q4, or two dice in Q3 and one or more in Q4 to finish a hypothetical unfinished job.
If we take a low-investment approach to the military in Q3, it strikes me as far from certain that we will be able to afford 3+ dice for Zone Armor in Q4. Therefore, I am going to insist on a high-investment approach. You can reject this and draft your own plan that spends less on the military or doesn't spend on Zone Armor in Q3, but I will not be making any plans that do not spend on Zone Armor in Q3. Among other things, I seem to recall giving @BoSPaladin my word on the matter, and while they might not expect me to take it seriously, or care, I do care.
The price we pay for zero free dice on the military in 2062Q2, combined with the unlucky rolls, is having a lot of unfinished business to take care of.
Point 3: We have free dice Q4 as well, although your reasoning appears to not include them anywhere. I see no reason that they cannot go towards Agriculture. At this point, only Agriculture and Military need them, and we should still have left over Free dice.
Point 4: That is the purpose of Free dice. And since we just spent dice we knew we didn't have on the Ranching Domes, presumably it was intended that we would use the Free dice to complete the Plan Goals. I'd also like to add that going over on this project isn't an issue, as we can see it repeats out another two phases. So overspending in Q4 is a non-issue.
Overspending dice on food storage in Q4 means dice that do not go into supplying quality food for the masses. If you think that's a non-issue, HousePet, take it up with, oh, let's say @Nottheunmaker and go on from there.
There are three possible routes forward. I have outlined both of them. I consider the "one phase E-CRP, two stockpile phases" path to be the best of the three. If you prefer the "four stockpile phases" path instead, that is your business, but I think I have made my case. We can accomplish much more in Agriculture and overall if we do not shackle ourselves to doing things this way.
It's like I said earlier. Given the rolls we have, I think we have three realistic choices:
1) Do some E-CRP.
2) Be confident of having Zone Armor in 2061, and insulated against bad luck preventing this from happening.
3) Fail a Plan target.
If there's a lot of support for Free dice on Military in 2061Q4, we might be able to avoid being forced to make that three-sided choice.
But... I was getting pushback in the Q2 vote for overspending on the military, and ultimately lost that vote. And I'm getting pushback from you now regarding high military spending in the Q3 vote; you seem to think it's a "gotcha" that I'm prioritizing a quick-and-dirty resolution to one Plan target while being willing to invest in a popular and important non-target action elsewhere.
So. Pushback in Q2. Pushback in Q3. I have no reason to expect not to get similar pushback in Q4. It behooves me to plan ahead and be honest about what I think we're going to need if we want to get everything done.
I can understand if some doubt the sense of investing heavily in the military, especially after we have recently inflicted several heavy defeats on the Brotherhood with our existing military.
However, we should keep in mind that some of the problems in the military that are currently causing high investment costs and have also tied up many of our dice are due to our decisions to ignore the warnings of our military.
I would therefore advocate, at least for the time being, trying to address the longstanding capacity gaps in our military by planning for a higher investment in the military.
The Armour Zone is of particular importance in this regard because its absence currently limits our ability to conduct various operations in the red zones. Not only purely military, but also civilian operations such as the mining of the tiberium there, due to the lack of security forces.
This reduces our ability to contain or push back the Red Zones and increases the risk of conflict with increasingly desperate NOD factions using their thermonuclear arsenal, against which we currently have no protection.
Since we have other military planning objectives that we also need to meet, increasing the allocated resources to the military is the easy solution not only to achieve the set objectives but also to increase our negotiating position with Parliament by showing them that we are giving the military much needed capabilities even without their pressure.
The fact that it also allows us to increase our income by increasing the mining of tiberium in the red zones is, in my view, a very nice side effect.
I can understand if some doubt the sense of investing heavily in the military, especially after we have recently inflicted several heavy defeats on the Brotherhood with our existing military.
I would like to add to this that everything in my current Plan draft is either something we promised Parliament, or something we've been told that we need in order to fight tiberium in the Red Zones, not just to fight Nod.
However, we should keep in mind that some of the problems in the military that are currently causing high investment costs and have also tied up many of our dice are due to our decisions to ignore the warnings of our military.
I would therefore advocate, at least for the time being, trying to address the longstanding capacity gaps in our military by planning for a higher investment in the military.
My long-term list of goals for the military (out through 2063, and including stuff I think we need to prep for Karachi) revolves around a several categories.
Zone Armor, a dual/role anti-Nod and anti-tiberium measure.
Air/Naval Improvements, a list of specific programs intended to make sure we have enough air and naval support that the Bannerjees can't just make the strength of our ground troops irrelevant, and that if Bintang interferes it will likely go hard for her. The big ones are finishing the frigate yards, upgrading naval laser defense to infernium standards, building more Apollos, expansions of wingman drone projects so the carriers benefit from them, and optionally Ultralight Glide Munitions which I think will help us bombard hostile coastlines and provide air support without getting entangled with Nod air defenses so much. UGMs are going to be particularly powerful coming from Aurora bombers, which default to being very fast and very high, giving them very long effective ranges with a suitable glide munition.
Ground Combat Improvements, which outside of Zone Armor is basically just railgun ammo, Hallucinogen Countermeasures and the GD-3. This stuff is arguably optional, but if we're going on the offensive against Biomonster Central, we want to perform well.
SADN, all the more urgent given the way Steel Vanguard wound down. Any future offensive conflict against Nod raises the specter of Nod targeting our cities and industrial bases with WMD and gambling on coming out relatively less damaged than we do. We need insurance against that.
Space Defenses, something that's sure to be on our plate in the coming Plan but that I don't consider to be top priority so much.
But all of that (except maybe space defenses) is the summation of a list we have a long time to work on, so even if it's a lot, we can do a lot.
I've supported that all along. I think you are misjudging why the pushback is happening. People just wanted to get some QoL projects done.
Ranching Domes, Civilian Drone Factories and Regional Hospitals are delivering those.
Made up a draft plan for getting the ZA Factories done in Q4, finishing all Goals, not using CRP, boosting Food by another +12...
I will admit that it is tight. But it is still very possible, and worthwhile.
[] Draft Plan: Finishing Goals and Power Armor without CRP -Q4
-[] Infrastructure (5 dice, ??? R)
--[] Free rein here, although we should expect one die to finish one of the previous projects.
--[] I'm partial to Chicago 4, but priorities might shift.
-[] Heavy Industry (5 dice, ??? R)
--[] Ditto.
--[] Ditto for Chicago dice.
-[] Light Industry (4 dice, ??? R)
--[] Finish Bergen 3. (2 dice expected.)
--[] Start Reykjavik 5. (2 dice available.)
-[] Agriculture (4 Dice + 3 Free dice, 40 R)
--[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction Phase 3+4+5+6 ???/575 (4 dice, 40 R) Overkill, but I'm accounting for bad rolls.
--[] 3 Free dice available to finish Agri Mech.
-[] Tiberium (7 dice, 165 R)
--[] We'll likely need 4 dice to finish what we started here.
--[] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Construction and something else?
-[] Orbital (6 dice, 60 R)
--[] Assume 3 dice needed to meet Goals.
--[] May as well start the Leopard II.
-[] Services (5 dice, 135 R)
--[] Regional Hospital Expansions Phase 1+2 (5 dice, 125 R) Will be at median completion.
-[] Military (8 dice + 4 Free dice, ??? R)
--[] 3 dice for ASAT overkill.
--[] 2 dice for OSRCT (slight) overkill.
--[] 1 die for whatever other project didn't complete.
--[] 2 +4 Free dice available for ZA Factories to start. May as well do 3 dice on two separate factories. Would only be a 2% chance of both failing to complete.
--[] SADN is also an option. We can pull 2 more dice out of Bureaucracy, and unless you think we strictly need two ZA Factories, there is available dice from one of those.
-Bureaucracy (4 dice)
--[] ??? But could be more Admin Assist to spend big.
???/1365 R budget. Yeah, we can afford whatever we need.
7/7 Free dice
3 in Agriculture
4 in Military
Erewhon could be anywhere. (Be afraid.) Reykjavik is a good option.
I think we should at least start Columbia before the station bay. The first few phases are cheap now, and it's meant to be the test bed for the technologies needed to live in space long-term. I'd like to have that ticking away in the background for a good few turns before we start building the large ships that will need to patrol out past Jupiter.
I've heard some rhetoric that was pretty intense about how we need to stop spending so much on the military. I dunno. You may to some extent be assuming everyone else thinks what you think.
So, basically, you're taking my plan, taking the two Zone Armor dice and the Orbital Free die and putting them on the granaries...
[] Draft Plan: Finishing Goals and Power Armor without CRP -Q4
-[] Agriculture (4 Dice + 3 Free dice, 40 R)
--[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction Phase 3+4+5+6 ???/575 (4 dice, 40 R) Overkill, but I'm accounting for bad rolls.
--[] 3 Free dice available to finish Agri Mech.
-[] Military (8 dice + 4 Free dice, ??? R)
--[] 3 dice for ASAT overkill.
--[] 2 dice for OSRCT (slight) overkill.
--[] 1 die for whatever other project didn't complete.
--[] 2 +4 Free dice available for ZA Factories to start. May as well do 3 dice on two separate factories. Would only be a 2% chance of both failing to complete.
--[] SADN is also an option. We can pull 2 more dice out of Bureaucracy, and unless you think we strictly need two ZA Factories, there is available dice from one of those.
...And then planning on the assumption of a second twelve-die military plan next turn. And then, yes, you can make it all work.
So... from my perspective, the main thing this proves is that two twelve-die Military plans are more or less interchangeable with a fourteen-die plan and a ten-die plan.
The reason I prefer my approach is that I want the flexibility to assign Free dice as I wish in 2061Q4, rather than being committed to assigning them to fulfill Plan requirements. I would prefer a scenario in which we can make our own decisions about what to do in Agriculture in 'Q4 and do another quality of life farming project, rather than being nailed to the task of building more granaries. I would rather have a good chance of getting one Zone Armor plant started in Q3 (better than 31% with the Defender cost reduction, I suspect), rather than merely slamming out two at once in Q4.
Completing the Stored Food requirement without E-CRP and without failing any other requirements and with a respectable Zone Armor rollout is possible, if we can manage the Free dice requirements. But you are effectively locking in our Free dice so that we have no freedom of action to allocate the dice flexibly in keeping with desired policy decisions.
With a phase of E-CRP, we free up about 4-5 Free dice over the course of Q3 and Q4. What can we do with those? We could choose a number of options. We could do the Seattle yard, which the Navy very much wants. Or naval laser refits, which will benefit the Navy greatly and which would be very hard to afford and fund in 2062. Or we could use the dice for personal electric vehicles and rack up some Political Support, maybe even in time for reapportionment. Or we could do a phase or even two phases, potentially, of Vertical Farming and make real progress on the "insufficient yummies" crisis. Or we could do much if not all of the Leopard II yard. Or any of a number of things.
We could do a Talons project or two- research into energy shields might help us get a better result when we research Improved Fusion, for instance. We could conceivably even do something wild like build a MARV hub in the Australian Red Zone with those dice. Or actually do Chicago Phase 4- which is likely to be a place we'd like to use Free dice in Q4, simply because we've lost an Infrastructure die and suffered a loss of some bonus to the remaining dice.
There are a lot of options, and all of them are gated behind using a phase of E-CRP to buy us the wiggle room to NOT be trapped building 400 Progress worth of extra granaries in Phases 5+6 of the storehouse program.
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There does still exist a path to complete the Stored Food target and the Military targets and still have a pretty good chance of getting Zone Armor done, without E-CRP. I admit it. But it is a very strict path that will require us to adhere very closely to the straight and narrow.
However, the outcome of the Q2 turn has convinced me that I shouldn't expect that, so I'm trying to plan for a turn that locks in the outcomes we need without then making assumptions that will lead to disaster if the Q4 plan doesn't follow all my advice or if people decide they want to do something different.
I think we should at least start Columbia before the station bay. The first few phases are cheap now, and it's meant to be the test bed for the technologies needed to live in space long-term. I'd like to have that ticking away in the background for a good few turns before we start building the large ships that will need to patrol out past Jupiter.
That's... kind of the opposite of how I'd want to do it.
Columbia will be a lot easier to build if we've constructed the station bay first, but the advantages of doing that dissipate if we start the station backbone first. Having constructed Columbia won't make it easier to do the station bay, nor will it make the station bay better. But having done the station bay will get us through Columbia significantly faster and enable us to get on to the next project sooner.
It's not that Columbia is somehow unimportant or deserves to be delayed. It's that the station bay, which is specifically intended to assemble large components to make building giant stations like Columbia easier to do, is key infrastructure we'll want in order to make the construction of Columbia happen.
Could I tempt people to switch from Microfusion Cell Development to Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory? There are several reasons why I think it might be a better idea.
Our heavy industry project list is starting to get quite long and this project has been on the books for a while. As it is a Scrin gacha technology, it might be quite revolutionary.
I acknowledge that Microfusion is also Scrin-tech and can be revolutionary. It has benefits militarily by increasing the endurance and offensive power of Zone Armour troops. Zone troopers and Zone lancers would heavily benefit from the increased firepower and longer endurance. Plus from the project description it seems like there would be cost reductions in space projects because a person in a suit can do all sorts of wielding and stay in space longer with a better power supply. Probably not a complete list of benefits. But I think hover has more and better military+civilian applications.
Military applications: the hover chassis factory has been available for a while and some potentially very useful things gated behind this project. I can point to Hover MLRS as one concrete example, but potentially our next gen military ground vehicles from APCs to tanks to harvesters could benefit. Not to mention all our red and yellow zone operations become much smoother when hostile terrain becomes much, much less of an issue. ZOCOM highly benefits from this. From the last military status report, Steel Talons are looking into future applications of this. What the Steel Talons could get from this would be interesting too.
Civilian applications: potentially, a string of hover chassis could be created to make a hover train. That would allow train-level logistics anywhere without the need to build and maintain railroads. Supplying the Himalayan BZ from the Siberian BZ would be much easier. (Including some escorts for safeguarding though of course.) Train-level logistics simplifications also applies RZ Border Offensives, RZ Tiberium Harvesting, and Tiberium Glacier Mining. Trains need to track schedules to make sure no track collisions happen, with hover trains there are no more track limitations too. Trade between BZ and cities no longer limited by rails.
Hover MARVs and hover crawlers/MCVs might have been another advantage, but it appears the Bogatyr's hover/antigrav tech supersedes this. Bogatyr tech seems to be made for capital-sized vehicles, while the Scrin kept hover tech for tank-sized vehicles.
Both projects are 20R (upfront), while Suzuka will take more dice this is a project we can slow walk.
Could I tempt people to switch from Microfusion Cell Development to Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory? There are several reasons why I think it might be a better idea.
You could probably tempt me to do this, but I was penciling it in as more of a Q4 thing.
Also, getting most of the benefits out of Suzuka would probably require a secondary series of development and deployment actions which we're not going to have a lot of time to do soon.
Also, we can do microfusion with like one die, whereas Suzuka is going to take 2-3. I can fit microfusion in alongside Advanced Alloys; I can't fit Suzuka in likewise.
Insofar as I have an actual plan here, it's to try and grab as many as possible of the techs that improve fusion energy, becasue we're probably going to do the improved fusion research relatively early in the next Four Year Plan, if not in Q4 of this year. We want the next-generation fusion reactors to be good, and we're going to be on the clock because we'll need Energy to do stuff in the next Plan.
So things on my to-do list for this include: Bergen Phase 3
Advanced Alloys
Particle Applicator
Microfusion Cell
Buckler Shield
Sparkle Shield
Any or all of these might significantly improve the outcomes we get from Improved Fusion as far as I can tell. I can't get all of them quickly, especially not the two that are Talons projects, but I want to try to get most. Suzuka is also high on my list of "I wannas."
