Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2021

Okay. I...

1) Traded in the Orca refit for more work on anti-laser ablatives.
2) Grudgingly gave up work for the fusion prototype, because the Union yard is sucking up a lot of resources to heavy industry and because having the power plants done next turn would be really nice.
3) Grudgingly shifted a die off Chemical Precursors, since Bulk Plastics does strictly give us the +1 Capital Goods we need and is closer to a sure thing to complete anyway...
4) Grudgingly shifted the other die off too, and put it on a cheap consumer goods project of which we have many. Five dice on Yellow Zone industry seems excessive because it's not a phased project and might go over. I suppose at this point I might as well swap the free die out for somewhere else that has a 10R/die project, because I've given up the "through chemistry" part of the plan name...

[] Fire Up The Yellow Zones (WORK IN PROGRESS, ROUND 6)

4+1 of 5 Free Dice

5 of 5 Infrastructure Dice (75 R)
-Tidal Power (157/200) (2 dice, 20 R) (+4 Energy)
-Arcologies (396/450) (1 die, 15 R) (-2 Energy)
-Fiber Optics (105/240) (2 dice, 40 R)

5 of 5 Heavy Industry Dice (70 R)
-Blue Zone Power (345/550) (4 dice, 40 R) (+16 Energy)
-Union Yard (137/180) (1 die, 30 R)

3+4 of 3 Light Industry Dice (75 R)
-Yellow Zone Light Industry (173/400) (4 dice, 40 R)
-Bulk Plastics (126/200) (2 dice, 20 R) (+1 CapGoods)
-Furniture Plants (0/150) (1 die, 10 R)

3 of 3 Agriculture Dice (30 R)
-Perennials (106/350) (3 dice, 30 R)

4 of 5 Tiberium Dice (90 R)
-Chicago Planned City (41/80) (2 dice, 40 R) (possible -Energy)
-Red Zone Containment Lines (8/180) (2 dice, 50 R)

3 of 3 Orbital Dice
- Philadelphia II (Phase 2) (92/180) (2 fusion dice, 40 R)
- Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3) (1/90) (1 dice, 15 R)

4 of 4 Services Dice (20 R)
-Game Development Studios (0/300) (4 dice, 20 R)

5+1 of 5 Military Dice
-RZ-6 South Super MARV Fleet (136/210) (1 die, 20 R)
-Reclamator Hub Red Zone 7-North (Chicago area) (1 die, 20 R)
-Titan Mk III Development (0/40) (1 die, 10 R)
-Anti-Laser Ablative Production (0/???) (3 dice, 30 R)
--May reallocate dice from this if the ablative production is a cheap project.

3 of 3 Bureaucracy Dice
-Interdepartmental Communication Initiative (3 dice)

POWER BUDGETING

We start at +2 Energy. With this draft plan, we have nearly certain completion of Tidal (+4), and reasonably likely completion of Blue Zone Power (+16), and Fusion Prototype (+1).

We have probable completion of Arcologies (-2) and Chemical Precursors (-2). We have possible completion of Chicago Phase 2 (-??).

RESOURCE BUDGETING

Budget
75 for Infrastructure
70 for Heavy Industry
75 for Light Industry
30 for Agriculture
90 for Tiberium
55 for Orbital
20 for Services
80 for Military

Total: 490 resources.
(antilaser ablatives may cost 15/die, which would require some juggling)

Praetor98 · Jul 10, 2021

Alrighty. So we've got a few ways to either stop or abate Tiberium growth. Thanks for something Scrin!

Chimeraguard · Jul 10, 2021

[ ] Plan Consumer Push
Infrastructure (5 dice)
-[ ] Tidal Power Plants, 1 die (10 Resources)
-[ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Phase 1), 1 die (15 Resources)
-[ ] Fiber-Optic Expansion, 3 dice (60 Resources)
Heavy Industry (5 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] Blue Zone Power Production (Phase 2), 4 dice (40 Resources)
-[ ] Fusion Power Prototype, 1 die (20 Resources)
-[ ] Union Class Construction Yard, 1 die (20 Resources)
Light and Chemical Industry (3 dice +2 Free)
-[ ] Yellow Zone Light Industrial Sectors, 3 dice (30 Resources)
-[ ] Bulk Plastics Facilities, 2 dice (20 Resources)
Agriculture (3 dice)
-[ ] State Operated Breweries, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Perennial Aquaponics Bays, 1 die (10 Resources)
Tiberium (5 dice)
-[ ] Chicago Planned City (Phase 1), 2 dice (40 Resources)
Orbital (3 dice)
-[ ] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 1), 2 dice (2 Fusion) (40 Resources)
-[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3), 1 die (15 Resources)
Services (4 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] Ethnic Restaurants, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Durable Goods Libraries and Central Repositories, 3 dice (45 Resources)
Military (5 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] Super MARV Reclaimator Fleet (RZ-6 South), 2 dice (40 Resources)
-[ ] Ablative Plating Refits, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Governor Class Cruiser Development, 1 die (15 Resources)
-[ ] Wolverine Mark 3 Deployment, 1 die (10 Resources)
Bureaucracy (3 dice)
-[ ] Interdepartmental Communication Initiative, 3 dice

Resources Available: 490
Resources Used: 490
Resources Remaining: 0

Plan Draft with a primary focus on booting out the Free Market Party. Between Tidal Plants and BZ Power Production, we have good chances of at least one finishing, so I'm willing to gamble a bit in terms of what may complete for Energy.

Infra does 1 on Tidal Plants, 1 on Arcologies since it's almost done, and 3 on Fiber-Optics to try and get it complete 3 months before elections kick off.

Heavy Industry does 4 Dice on BZ Power Production and one on Fusion Power and Union each. I'm wondering whether to take a die away from LCI or Military to afford a 5th die on BZ Power Production though. But 4 BZ Power Production is enough to complete unless we're massively unlucky.

LCI goes for Bulk Plastics and Yellow Zone Light Industry. Bulk Plastics should finish with two dice, which means that YZ Light Industry will have the required Capital Goods, so we can continue work on it. YZ Light Industry gets 3 Dice because the people there are starting to grumble about its slow progress.

Agriculture takes away from spamming Perennials because in order to get the full benefit from it this Plan, we merely need to have it finished by the end of Q1 of next year. However, with the need to pound the Free Market Party into the dirt, I decided it was better this turn to go for State Breweries for another 4 Consumer Goods. After this? It'll be all in on Perennials until they finish.

Orbital completes Philadelphia Phase 2 while the final, non-Fusion die goes for some Orbital Cleanup.

Services I have 2 dice on Ethnic Restaurants for a cheap source of 4 Consumer Goods, and 2 on Durable Goods Libraries because that's 8 Consumer Goods at a fairly low Energy cost. And getting it out three months early is enough that I think it's worth committing a Free Die in order to put 3 dice on it.

Military I have 2 dice on finishing up the Super-MARV Fleet, while 2 dice have been placed on Ablat Refits (Word of GM on Discord IIRC is that it's same cost-per-die as Fleet PD, less Progress needed, and no Energy cost.) One more dice goes to Cruisers so the Navy can finally start getting Blue-Water designs instead of green-water hydrofoils, and Cruisers will have a long time before a sufficient number are built, so we need to get them out ASAP. The final die goes towards starting the Wolverines project (it's a /150, so it won't finish on one die, but we should at least start it) because the Steel Talons have been waiting for over 5 years for us to actually fund them, and as what's basically the Military Prototype R&D force, we really need to start giving them the ability to do stuff.

Titan Mk III + finishing up the Wolverine I plan to do next turn. I want to start Wolverine Deployment because that's probably a clearer sign to the Steel Talons that we actually plan to well, invest in them instead of another Development thing when we still haven't done Deployment for Wolverines in years.

Bureaucracy goes into Interdepartmental Communications. Turn afterwards we're more likely to go for Security Review of the Military.
------
If everything goes at least decently, this plan should set us up firmly in the Consumer Goods department for elections to smash the Free Market Party, while also freeing us up for the massive Boston Push in Q4.

Estimated Consumer Goods Gain: 4(Arcologies) +4(Fiber-Optics) +2(Plastics) +4(Breweries) +4(Restaurants) +8(Durable Goods libraries) = 26.

Another 8 added on by Yellow Zone Light Industry if we can get it next turn turn (or even this turn if we're really lucky) for a total of 34 Consumer Goods (35 counting next turn's Art Grants.) Not to mention whatever else we push for during Q4. Combine this with our previous Consumer Goods gains (I think we're at around 26 now), and we can have something along the lines of 60 Consumer Goods done before elections.

With this big a Consumer Goods push, we can, hopefully, nail the FMP to the wall.

ConfusedCanuck · Jul 10, 2021

Well now another good turn I'd say well you know what I'll say by now continued Military spending to play catch up there and a continued focus effort on Space to start getting people off world.

Vilegrave · Jul 10, 2021

More Nod/Scrin research might be useful, considering more knowledge of Liquid Tib/Tib's life cycle as a whole could combine well with the abatement options we just unlocked and reduce their costs/make them better.

After all if we have multiple different ways of abatement there's no reason they can't synergize, a lot of Nods research into various forms of Tib (liquid TIb especially) was likely done to help Kane figure out the Tiberium control network, combined with stuff we get from researching the Scrin (likely a similar thing to what Kane used the Tacitus for) there's no reason it couldn't assist our own approach.

Also AccomplishingProvidence just keeps getting more and more suspicious, i guess Kane is having just as much trouble predicting Dr Granger as the rest of GDI are.

sunrise · Jul 10, 2021

With our research team working on the M drive orbital mining has just become a lot easier to do than with Ion drives. Once the station we are working on now has its current stage completed we should get the third stage of enterprise done so it is ready when the M drives are available.

trooperist · Jul 10, 2021

Big political swing. 6 Hawks just changed from weak opposition to weak support. I guess they like how many military projects we completed this turn.

Ithillid · Jul 10, 2021

trooperist said:
Big political swing. 6 Hawks just changed from weak opposition to weak support. I guess they like how many military projects we completed this turn.

Also representing the split between the Al-Jilani faction and the Ozawa faction, but yes, right now you are starting to gain Hawk support, because not only are you meeting the plan goals you are starting to hit milestones that surpass them.

Chimeraguard · Jul 10, 2021

trooperist said:
Big political swing. 6 Hawks just changed from weak opposition to weak support. I guess they like how many military projects we completed this turn.

I think the big thing is that this turn we completed a 9th Military Factory when we only promised to do 8. So now it's clear that Granger isn't just doing this military stuff because they're forcing him to.

Edit: Ninja'd by QM.

Cursix · Jul 10, 2021

Ithillid said:
First and least potentially useful is an analysis of corruptor toxin.

We absolutely cannot let NOD get a hold of this. We aren't going to be fielding it for moral concerns. NOD aren't going to be so picky.

Ithillid said:
reactionless drive.

Space theatre supremacy time huh.

Aerrow Shadow · Jul 10, 2021

Chimeraguard said:
Snip

It is probably a good idea to have at least one die on Vertical Farming projects (Phase 2) because it is popular

RookDeSuit · Jul 10, 2021

Ithillid said:
Now, the numbers are substantially closer. With this, a full 1200 representatives

Sweet Jesus, we would not be ready, but also, how would all the 3th parties explode? How many non-Tiberium, Wacky ideologies would we see?

Ithillid said:
things like ensuring that a child got a toy for their birthday or a major holiday. However, major corruption along the lines of diverting substantial parts of the total production has been rare to nonexistent,

Just the understandable corruption. Much better than when the Agriculture Department rotted.

Vilegrave said:
Also AccomplishingProvidence just keeps getting more and more suspicious, i guess Kane is having just as much trouble predicting Dr Granger as the rest of GDI are.

Smiling at the idea that Kane has to work to predict our guy, Granger, rather than use psionics.

Chimeraguard said:
I think the big thing is that this turn we completed a 9th Military Factory when we only promised to do 8

It was brought up earlier, but 'Just In Time,' logistics is clearly not good enough. Continued work is an in-universe sign that at least, he understands that much.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2021

Ithillid said:
GDIOnline Q2 2055

Blue Zone Defense Complex Completed!

Dr. Henry Olvier
GDI has finally completed the new set of walls. While they did not protect the Blue Zones last time around, the system is a bit more complex nowadays. Layers of outposts, redoubts, and then the walls. Plus a lot of artillery. Should be enough to give us an advantage the next time NOD attacks. Of course, since it is Granger at the helm, he is also turning it into a major Tib abatement complex. Lot of important stuff happening since the military finally put its foot down, especially since it has languished for years.
Happy to have been able to work on it, felt like this was something that mattered, protecting our homes not trying to fill the Treasury's coffers.

Ahhh, so this also provides defensive benefits. That should help assuage concerns about what happens when Tib War Four rolls around- our Blue Zones are as well or better defended than before, and also with more defense in depth. That won't magically protect us from deep strikes or cancel out our forces in the field having inadequate weapons (if they do), but it helps. Every little bit helps.

AccomplishingProvidence
These recent efforts are a clear byproduct of Doctor Granger's long study of Tiberium, and his understanding of both the potential it holds, and the danger it represents. The layers of walls, fences, and other warding measures is certainly an outgrowth of that mindset. The fact that these layers serve dual purposes for both military defense, and keeping Tiberium away, is only more impressive.
I am curious to see how long the momentum of focused buildup of GDI's military arm continues. It has been impressive thus far, but even the vaunted Dr Granger is not perfect, as the long period of near mono-focus on more basic industrial issues shows. Then again, hindsight is, as they say, 20/20.

I cannot help but think that if this is Kane, this is Kane indulging in a pure recreational activity by making measured ambivalent statements just to see how people react.

SpeakertoManagers
The security measures should have been put in place years ago-I don't know what the government was thinking by letting the Tiberium situation get so bad. We've lost so many Blue Zone areas around the world, half the new walls have gone up in areas that are Yellow now. At least we're not putting up fortifications in Yellow Zones that can be taken away by some brotherhood nutjob.
AccomplishingProvidence, you know something about the military uptick? Any chance it's more than just a flash in the pan from an easily distractible bean-counter?

ShakaButhelezi
It is concerning to me that many efforts have been made to safeguard the rich blue zones with such massive and expansive fortifications, and yet year after year, millions of square kilometers of the Yellow Zone is lost to Red Zone encroachment. In the last year alone, the Red zones have stolen 6.12 million kilometers of our world from us. Where are the fortresses, redoubts and fencing on that border? Why are those in the deep Yellow being left with no recourse? We are part of this Globe too! Defend us!

Two very good counterpoints.

AccomplishingProvidence
#SpeakertoManagers , I haven't heard anything concrete. I'm not an "inside guy".

Hahahaha.

Unforgotten
#LaserKiwi2000
Yes, and I am right behind you, in ur living room

LaserKiwi2000
#EvangelionLover2080
Headhunters are harmless wankers, also it's more amusing to keep them there and artillery strike them when they move around too much

Also

.

FloatingWood
#ProfCollingsworth
It's a common misconception that the Maginot line was meant to halt the German offensive. It was not. It was meant to stall a German offensive across the French-German border, so that France could marshal its forces and strike back. There's a number of reasons why that didn't work out, France did famously poorly in the summer campaign of 1940, but to actually achieve the victory Germany did the Germans took massive risks and more than once the French and British could've turned the resounding victory that seems inevitable from a brief overview of the campaign into a messy stall or outright disastrous defeat.
I hope that what GDI is doing now in facing off against tiberium is better coordinated and organized than what the Allies did during the first year of the conflict in Europe, but with Granger at the helm, both Grangers, they seem to have things in hand.

Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence.

Military
With the shell situation now in hand, and the Apollo becoming GDI's mainline air superiority fighter, anywhere in range of a GDI airbase has become severely contested for the Brotherhood of NOD, rendering large sections of their airlift either grounded, or requiring heavy escort. Small counteroffensives, presaged by carefully planned shock bombardments have quickly become a norm, especially in the Ohio River Valley, with NOD bases withering under the combined pressure of air and ground assault. While these are not the daring deep strikes of the Third Tiberium War, or the rolling thunder of prewar sweeps, they have been punishing for those unfortunate enough to get in the way.

That is damn good news for the prospects of building Chicago, because beating the tar out of Nod in those areas will help to clear Chicago's flank.

Originally, the Vertical Farm project was expected to be little more than a curiosity in the overall project, something that would provide a limited supply of luxury goods alongside major aquaponics and processed foods developments. Things like beer, cider, steaks and leather were to be the main consumer goods drivers, rather than chicken and vegetables. However, the project has caught the imagination of the people, and so more phases are beginning to be implemented, creating a minor surge in popularity of the Treasury, and the government as a whole, especially as people see policy shifting before their eyes.

Hrmm. We may be under pressure to resume work on this project sooner than I expected. Though we really do need to hammer out Perennials.

The satellite communications network has been substantially expanded. Politically it has meant that there is now the secure bandwidth to add a full hundred seats to the parliament, bringing it one step closer to the preferred number of one representative for every hundred thousand citizens. While this would mean a body of five thousand just for the current citizenry of GDI, and fifteen thousand for the entire population, making the current 120 representatives a joke, and not a particularly funny one either. However, two years out from the war, it was the best that could be done. Now, the numbers are substantially closer.

@Ithillid , should I interpret this as to mean that only twelve million people were actually voting in the last election? Or just that the representation ratio was more like one per ten million (plus lots of non-voting)?

I'm a bit confused by the picture this paints.

First and least potentially useful is an analysis of corruptor toxin. A combination of liquid Tiberium, made somehow even more dangerous. The spray from a corruptor is one of the most lethal weapons ever created, and one that is both politically and tactically unacceptable to the Initiative. At best, this project will result in finding new ways to contain the toxin and limit its damage. At worst it will be classified and buried so deep, it won't emerge for a century.

Ways to contain the toxin sound good, especially since Nod already plays around with liquid tiberium. Also, a more general understanding of liquid tiberium would be good.

Second is in fact another weapon, a version of the Scrin Plasma Disruptor. Effectively a light autocannon found across their fleet, from gun walkers to stormriders and drones, the plasma guns are fairly slow firing and relatively bulky weapons. However, they are quite damaging. Unlike GDI and NOD weapons, designed to punch through enemy armor, the plasma weapon splashes on the surface, weakening large sections of plate. While building one using earth technologies has so far evaded GDI's engineering teams, it is likely to be ready in the coming years in one form or another.

Hm. Could be useful against light vehicles or power armor. Not sure it'll be enough of a step up to justify the effort, though... We'll see, though.

The most strategically important developments have come from the Growth Accelerator. One is a Tiberium Inhibitor. Essentially an accelerator running in reverse, it creates a field that slows (but does not stop) tiberium growth...

Wait... you can just... literally plug it in backwards.

The final, and most revolutionary project is a reactionless drive. Long considered a thing of science fantasy, it is based on the engines of the Scrin capital ships. While they were able to leverage the system into being an effective antigravity generator, much like the previously encountered Banshee, current models that GDI can build are much more limited, producing barely more thrust than a conventional ion engine. However, with further development, the engineers of the team working on the project believe that they can refine the system towards at least half a gravity of acceleration, and over time more.

...Holy shit.

Well this is... really nice. It won't be enough to permit takeoff from the Earth's surface in its base form, though you could put it on a rocketship and ridiculously lower the delta-V required to take off. And once you get out of the gravity well...

This, given the long-term likelihood of us needing to evacuate Earth, is wonderful.

Yet more shell plants have been brought online, bringing estimates to fill the demand down from over a decade to years, even including substantial shell expenditures in the course of operations. With the end of just in time deliveries, less intense theaters have begun small scale operations, usually using small volleys of spotted shells as a force multiplier. While not the infinite mountains of shells desired by military commands, it is enough to provide more support regularly than GDI forces have ever had outside of carefully prepared offensives.

Hm. Still not as good as I'd like. This may be worth further development in the near future, because it's a straightforward thing that we can do and more plants probably won't cost much Resources if we're having problems with the budget.

Ablative armor is not a particularly new idea. In the mid 20th century, one idea experimented with by many armies was various forms of stand off armor. Rather than allowing a projectile to impact the side of a tank's turret for example, the Germans often installed stand off bands of armor. Similarly, many American tanks came with mounting points to add additional panels of armor. In the postwar years, came the rise of explosive reactive armor, which detonated to disrupt incoming missile attacks. Ablative armor in this case is essentially a continuation of that idea. The system is a hexagonal puck, 60mm from vertice to vertice and 20mm deep, with three primary layers. The backing is a bulk nanotube layer, providing a hardy stick, and ease of replacement. Above that is a layer of silver alloy, the same material used in GDI's power cables, used for its ability to conduct energy. Finally, the bulk of the puck is a 17mm thick layer of carbon nanotubes, iron filaments, and titanium filaments held in ceramic, which is designed to spread the energy of a laser blast, rather than allowing it to burn through the hull behind it.

Nice. You could probably put these on warships too. Aircraft might be a problem, because it's bad for aerodynamics (lots of little gaps between the plates) and the weight for full coverage would be an issue.

Myomers, of a very similar type, were used in the construction of the Avatar and Purifier, leading to notably spindly designs, a result of not needing the bulk of large motors to produce the force to rip laser cannons and flamethrowers from NOD vehicles.

Kane: "To this day, I do not understand why they didn't simply unbolt the things, but my engineers assured me it was necessary, so what can one do?"

The first myomer works is a fairly small construction, capable of producing only a few hundred kilometers of type 1 a year. While plenty for initial prototyping, much more will be needed, especially as a single company of mechs can require more than yearly production from the facility.

Hooboy. I wonder if that's heavy, light, or military industry...? I'm guessing 'light.'

With major consumer goods pushes coming down the pipeline and years since the last review, the department was long overdue for a major dive into their finances. With InOps scouring the department from top to bottom, they have found a number of places where minor corruption occurred, things like ensuring that a child got a toy for their birthday or a major holiday. However, major corruption along the lines of diverting substantial parts of the total production has been rare to nonexistent, with nearly all of the goods delivered for inspection, and almost all the goods that passed inspection being delivered to final destinations. With the goods that failed inspections, the most common reason was faulty components, something that has since been generally rectified, a consequence of working with too limited tooling. While some of these do seem to have disappeared in various ways, it seems to be a result of the workers and managers making do, and putting the components that did meet specification into personal use.

WELP.

Unfortunately, it turns out there wasn't any massive corruption for us to uncover, so we didn't exactly have loose change behind the sofa cushions to shake out some more Consumer Goods.

Thule · Jul 10, 2021

We need to start giving the Steel Talons something, as i want mech out there fighting some Nod, also if there is a Shell Plants (Phase 4) we should take it, so that the GDI military commands can go on the offensives

Ithillid · Jul 10, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
@Ithillid , should I interpret this as to mean that only twelve million people were actually voting in the last election? Or just that the representation ratio was more like one per ten million (plus lots of non-voting)?

The latter primarily. The issues were that you had a lot of nonvoting, a lot of people who could not vote, and then a really garbage representation ratio compared to the prewar environment.

Void Stalker · Jul 10, 2021

Interesting that we had +5 Consumer goods for the quarter(+1 grant and +4 from vert farms) and our deficit did not change... one day we will actually chip away at it. Of note there are some interesting things in the politics section, FMP is not out of it yet folks.

@Ithillid how does the military feel about supporting a planned city and yz harvesting based on this turn (and assuming 3-4 dice in non marv spending).

I am going to still push 1 dice on the YZ reclamator hub since that gives us a base for aircraft to stage from and helps cut off NOD in SA from Central and NA. It will also bring more refugees under our domain and out of NODs cutting into their recruit pool and it is those small wins that add up in shifting the balance over time.

Simon_Jester · Jul 10, 2021

Chimeraguard said:
[ ] Plan Consumer Push
Infrastructure (5 dice)
-[ ] Tidal Power Plants, 1 die (10 Resources)
-[ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Phase 1), 1 die (15 Resources)
-[ ] Fiber-Optic Expansion, 3 dice (60 Resources)
Heavy Industry (5 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] Blue Zone Power Production (Phase 2), 4 dice (40 Resources)
-[ ] Fusion Power Prototype, 1 die (20 Resources)
-[ ] Union Class Construction Yard, 1 die (20 Resources)

I like the idea of the push, but... (1) I don't like the fact that neither of our power options is really a true sure thing here, and (2) I think the Union yard costs 30/die and not 20. I would dearly love for it to be 20/die, though, so I sincerely hope I'm wrong...

Agriculture (3 dice)
-[ ] State Operated Breweries, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Perennial Aquaponics Bays, 1 die (10 Resources)

I don't think this is a good move. Public demand for the perennials is high and will be impactful in the future. Though admittedly, two dice on Breweries has a good chance of finishing it and if this IS a deliberate surge for immediate effect it kinda makes sense.

Tiberium (5 dice)
-[ ] Chicago Planned City (Phase 1), 2 dice (40 Resources)

Also not a fan of activating only two tiberium dice, but resources are tight otherwise... which, frankly, the tiberium would help address. Sigh.

Services (4 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] Ethnic Restaurants, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Durable Goods Libraries and Central Repositories, 3 dice (45 Resources)

See, the problem here is that this plan is damn likely to finish Durable Goods Libraries... but then there's that dangling risk of not finishing either power option, I think.

Military (5 dice +1 Free)
-[ ] Super MARV Reclaimator Fleet (RZ-6 South), 2 dice (40 Resources)
-[ ] Ablative Plating Refits, 2 dice (20 Resources)
-[ ] Governor Class Cruiser Development, 1 die (15 Resources)
-[ ] Wolverine Mark 3 Deployment, 1 die (10 Resources)

As discussed, it might be mechanically better to put one die on the actual MARVs (fair chance of completion anyway, no dice wasted) and one die on the next hub, because MARV fleet dice do not (to my surprise) roll over.

Plan Draft with a primary focus on booting out the Free Market Party. Between Tidal Plants and BZ Power Production, we have good chances of at least one finishing, so I'm willing to gamble a bit in terms of what may complete for Energy.

Given the nature of the gamble, I really, really think we should be willing to put a second die on Tidal Plants or a fifth die on Blue Zone Power, if we're pursuing a plan like this.

Heavy Industry does 4 Dice on BZ Power Production and one on Fusion Power and Union each. I'm wondering whether to take a die away from LCI or Military to afford a 5th die on BZ Power Production though. But 4 BZ Power Production is enough to complete unless we're massively unlucky.

What are the odds on that again?

Agriculture takes away from spamming Perennials because in order to get the full benefit from it this Plan, we merely need to have it finished by the end of Q1 of next year. However, with the need to pound the Free Market Party into the dirt, I decided it was better this turn to go for State Breweries for another 4 Consumer Goods. After this? It'll be all in on Perennials until they finish.

I guess. Personally I'm not so worried, because I think we'll get enough Consumer Goods rollout in Q3 and Q4 to weaken them somewhat anyway... And with the Hawks shifting to our favor, that's good enough. Let the opposition be overwhelmingly centered in the Free Market Party and the Blue Zone supremacists; we can then hammer them into the dirt and humiliate them with the rest of the plan.

Services I have 2 dice on Ethnic Restaurants for a cheap source of 4 Consumer Goods, and 2 on Durable Goods Libraries because that's 8 Consumer Goods at a fairly low Energy cost. And getting it out three months early is enough that I think it's worth committing a Free Die in order to put 3 dice on it.

Unless the power plants don't finish.

Estimated Consumer Goods Gain: 4(Arcologies) +4(Fiber-Optics) +2(Plastics) +4(Breweries) +4(Restaurants) +8(Durable Goods libraries) = 26.

To be fair, most of these are a sure-ish thing... but I'd really like to see them indexed against Derpmind's probability calculations.

Cursix said:
We absolutely cannot let NOD get a hold of this. We aren't going to be fielding it for moral concerns. NOD aren't going to be so picky.

You're right. On the other hand, they fought Scrin stuff too; they may well have been running their own analysis, so we at least need to do what we can to figure out how to nullify the stuff.

Aerrow Shadow said:
It is probably a good idea to have at least one die on Vertical Farming projects (Phase 2) because it is popular

Yeah... but on the other hand that's a good argument for putting the other dice on Perennials, because we need that project done soon and if we've soft-locked one die per turn on vertical farming, that only leaves two Agriculture dice remaining.

Void Stalker said:
Interesting that we had +5 Consumer goods for the year (+1 grant and +4 from vert farms) and our deficit did not change... one day we will actually chip away at it. Of note there are some interesting things in the politics section, FMP is not out of it yet folks.

That was for the quarter, not the year, surely? Just checking.

I am going to still push 1 dice on the YZ reclamator hub since that gives us a base for aircraft to stage from and helps cut off NOD in SA from Central and NA. It will also bring more refugees under our domain and out of NODs cutting into their recruit pool and it is those small wins that add up in shifting the balance over time.

Hmmm. Maybe. And it's more likely to actually complete than a hub elsewhere, if we only have one die to spare on it (say, one to work on the unfinished MARV fleet and one for the unfinished MARV hub, which seems a reasonable split)

Vilegrave · Jul 10, 2021

Cursix said:
We absolutely cannot let NOD get a hold of this. We aren't going to be fielding it for moral concerns. NOD aren't going to be so picky.

Gonna still need to study it though, the more we know about tib/liquid tib the more we can figure out how to make it safer (liquid tib would likely be a big boon to processing/storage if we could turn it into something that wasn't a literal liquid warcrime, maybe even a good abatement strategy if we could start melting glaciers).

Alo357 · Jul 10, 2021

Vilegrave said:
Gonna still need to study it though, the more we know about tib/liquid tib the more we can figure out how to make it safer (liquid tib would likely be a big boon to processing/storage if we could turn it into something that was a literal liquid warcrime, maybe even a good abatement strategy if we could start melting glaciers).

I think it's stored as a liquid by default given the silos. It's actually using it for anything that isn't a warcrime that's the hard part.

kelgar04 · Jul 10, 2021

Ithillid said:
.
The most strategically important developments have come from the Growth Accelerator. One is a Tiberium Inhibitor. Essentially an accelerator running in reverse, it creates a field that slows (but does not stop) tiberium growth. While tactically not particularly useful, and power intensive, strategic deployment of these systems should provide substantial degrees of abatement and protect Blue and Yellow Zones around the world. The other project is, if anything, more important. Tiberium "mutates" in response to threats, a biomimetic reaction that makes common threats less effective. While sonics have been a substantial aid in slowing the spread, and in some places reversing it, they are not enough, especially with worrying signs already of Tiberium beginning to mutate to make abatement less effective. The Tiberium Stabilizer, a component piece of the Growth Enhancer does a significant part of that for the Scrin, a way of slowing the rate that it mutates in response to a threat, allowing them to harvest without worrying about Tiberium overtaking them too.

We need this one as soon as possible since it will aid in Reclamation of yellow and red zones and keep the areas that have been reclaimed safe.

Chimeraguard · Jul 10, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
I like the idea of the push, but... (1) I don't like the fact that neither of our power options is really a true sure thing here, and (2) I think the Union yard costs 30/die and not 20. I would dearly love for it to be 20/die, though, so I sincerely hope I'm wrong...

Union Yards are definitely 20/die.

Ithillid said:
[ ] Union Class Construction Yard
Most spacecraft rely heavily on various construction methods to lose weight, mainly in the selection of materials, but also by cutting safety margins to the absolute limit. For a fusion drive vehicle however, the opposite is true. With plenty of extra thrust from a dial a yield column of plasma, the prime limiting factor is more volume. These loosened tolerances turn rocketry from a boutique and artisanal program into a problem of proper serial production. With significant investment, the long term savings are likely to be quite substantial
(Progress 0/180: 20 resources per die) (+1 Fusion Lift Die)

I don't think this is a good move. Public demand for the perennials is high and will be impactful in the future. Though admittedly, two dice on Breweries has a good chance of finishing it and if this IS a deliberate surge for immediate effect it kinda makes sense.

Eh, I suppose. Not a big deal whether I go for all Perennials or into State Breweries actually, so I can swap back to Perennials if there's a big push.

As discussed, it might be mechanically better to put one die on the actual MARVs (fair chance of completion anyway, no dice wasted) and one die on the next hub, because MARV fleet dice do not (to my surprise) roll over.

I think it's very important to make sure that the Super-MARV Fleet actually gets rolled out this turn for the Abatement and Income purposes.

What are the odds on that again?

IIRC, the odds of 4 Dice completing BZ Power Production were ~89%. 5 Dice would up it to 99%, which I'd very much like, but I'm not sure where to spare the die for that.

I could take it off Ethnic Restaurants, but that plus no State Breweries would be a pretty significant decrease in the amount of Consumer Goods being pushed in before the Election Turn.

Vilegrave · Jul 10, 2021

Alo357 said:
I think it's stored as a liquid by default given the silos. It's actually using it for anything that isn't a warcrime that's the hard part.

Well yeah, but i mean 'safely' by GDI standards, not NOD's.

As we've already seen Liquid T is great for power generation but the crude methods we've copied from NOD currently causes far too much dangerous waste, it's just making the process acceptable to our people thats the issue, same with any other uses we might figure out.

Edit: Also after this latest find investigating our R&D for NOD infiltration is probably a high priority, Kane really won't like the fact we might find an alternative to his TCN once the extent of what we're learning gets out.

Crazycryodude · Jul 10, 2021

It's impossible to overstate just how much easier reactionless drives make space development. Notably though, this is NOT an excuse to stop investing in our currently available space stations until the reactionless drives come online, even once fully mature our nerds are only expecting it to get 0.5g of acceleration (in the optimistic case, after years of development, if everything goes right). Once you're in orbit, it brings the entire solar system massively closer, but getting up Earth's gravity well in the first place is still a massive pain in the ass (not quite as massive as it used to be but still massive). So our giant reactionless drive superfreighters that can run to Mars in a week will have to be built in orbit and stay exclusively in gravity wells shallower than 0.5g, and we'll need to build up the industrial and administrative capacity to actually exploit all the newly-unlocked resources the hard way climbing up Earth's gravity well with fusion rockets.

Void Stalker · Jul 10, 2021

Infra 5/5 75R +12
-[] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 1) 157/200 2 dice 20 R 99%
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Phase 1) 396/450 1 dice 15 R 74%
-[] Fiber-Optic Expansion 105/240 2 dice 40 R 55%
HI 5/5 +1 dice 80R +15 (-2 for 2 years due to graduates)
-[] Blue Zone Power Production Campaigns (Phase 2) 345/550 4 dice 40 R 89%
-[] Fusion Power Prototype 124/200 1 dice 20 R 55%
-[] Union Class Construction Yard 137/180 1 die 20R 88%
LC 3/3 +2 dice 50R +12
-[] Yellow Zone Light Industrial Sectors 173/400 3 dice 30 R 32%
-[] Bulk Plastics Facilities 126/200 2 dice 20 R 94%
Agri 3/3 30R +12
-[] Perennial Aquaponics Bays 106/300 3 dice 30 R 22%
Tiberium 2/5 40R +30 (-2 for 2 years due to graduates)
-[] Chicago Planned City (Phase 1) 41/80 2 dice 40 R 99%
Orbital 3/3 55R +12
-[] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 2) 92/180 1 fusion dice 20 R 40%
-[] GDSS Colombia (Phase 1) 0/90 1 fusion dice 20 R 38%
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Phase 3) 1/90 1 dice 15 R 39%
Services 4/4 50R +27
-[] Ethnic Restaurant Program 0/150 2 dice 20R 68%
-[] Durable Goods Libraries and Central Repositories 0/200 2 dice 30R 25%
Military 5/5+2 dice 110R +12
-[] Reclamator Hubs RZ 7 North 0/105 2 dice 40 R 79%
-[] Reclamator Fleet RZ 6 South (Super MARVs) 136/210 2 dice 40 R 94%
-[] Ablat Refit 0/??? 2 dice 20 R
-[] Wolverine Mark 3 Deployment 0/150 (minus myomer reduction) 1 dice 10 R 0%
Bureau 3/3 +12
-[] Interdepartmental Communication Initiative 3 dice 99%
Free 5/5
-1 HI, 2 LC, 2 mil

490/490

Energy:
+2 Current, +4 Tidal Phase 1, +16 BZ Phase 2, +1 Fusion
-2 Arcology -2 YZ Light Industry -? Chicago (maybe), -2 Durable Good

Consumer Goods:
+1 Arts Grant, +4 Arcology (74%), +4 Fiber Optics (55%), +8 YZ Light (32%), +2 Bulk Plastic (94%), +4 over 8 turns Perennial (22%), +4 Ethnic Restaurant (68%), +8 Durable Good (25%)

I need to know ablat refit costs before closing in on a finalized plan, that and if the military thinks if they can support 2 tib projects. Right now I have 4 dice to be assigned in mil, some to ablat refit and then the rest to one or more of the 10 R projects I picked. I already did my best to trim costs (shifted a dice from arcology to tidal power to both guarantee +4 power and save 5 R and went with 2 dice on game dev since at 5R that is our cheapest service project). I might leave the 3 tib dice idle to let the military breathe for a turn which would then let some of the mil dice trickle over to more expensive projects. As it is with 3 dice on light yz (and 2 on bulk plastics to make sure we do not have a cap goods shortage) that should finish by Q4 at the latest. BZ phase 2 has a good chance to finish and is not required to finish this turn but if it does it lets us do a lot of energy projects next turn right before the election. I am still trying to push out consumer goods to satisfy the populace and nail the FMP

Edit- Only 2 tib dice this turn, instead used the saved funds to start one reclamator hub near chicago with 2 dice, drop 1 dice on starting a walker factory that we can hopefully finish q4 and 2 dice on ablat refit (though that will change dependent on progress needed)

At worse we are looking at energy neutral more likely we are looking at a good reserve of energy to spend Q4.

Edit 2- looks like 10 R per dice for ablat refit was confirmed on discord as such changed game dev dice to durable good, not likely to finish but still could and if not easy to finish next turn for a big consumer good boost

Karugus · Jul 10, 2021

I'm still really curious to see how some of this Scrin tech mixes with preexisting GDI tech. I've already mentioned combining those Scrin shields with Firestorm barriers, but the plasma disruptor is potentially more interesting than it first seems. GDI biggest stick is the Ion Cannon, which by definition is pretty much a plasma based weapon. I'm really curious if we can mix our understanding of really intense and focused plasma streams with Scrin's pulses that distribute the impact. For instance, this might make a man portable Ion Cannon potentially cost effective.

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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