You know, I almost feel sorry for Gideon, nothing ever seems to go right for him. Just one failure after another. Of course, then I remember who he is and who he works for, and my sympathy evaporates pretty much instantly.
Looking at the result of his latest offensive, I think we might actually be rid of the guy in a few turns. Remember that he originally where based somewhere in the northern or maybe central part of the Appalachians before moving south after the fiasco at Chicago. By moving south he essentially conceded the north-eastern US to GDI. Now that we have expanded further along the Gulf coast, we're probably interfering with his supply lines and he had to act.
While his plan to attack our MARV hub in Alabama and strike at the nearby glacier mines where not bad, his mistake was to split his forces and also attack Savannah. I think he was prepared to face an entire fully functional fortress in Alabama and probably had contingencies in place if he'd had run into a full MARV fleet, but with us putting a fortress at Savannah, effectively his back yard, he had to change his plans. The smart play, however, would have been to focus on his back yard, not chase bonus points by also trying to achieve his original goal. So now he's left with diminished forces, constrained supply lines, the scorn of his ostensible peers and allies/enemies, and most importantly nowhere to go. East is BZ and the Atlantic, north and south are GDI strong-points and west is a RZ with some GDI operations and probably some bands of Forgotten. This is likely the weakest he'll ever be, and I think our military will seize the opportunity. If they don't he might very well end up dead in a ditch somewhere for his repeated failures.
The situation in South America is more worrying IMHO. While just the rolls is a poor basis to speculate on, the result seems to indicate either a diversionary attack in one place that was repulsed followed by a successful attack somewhere else or a GDI commander who got over-eager attempting a counter-attack after an easy victory against a raid (that possibly was a feint all along intended to create this very result). If option two, damage to our infrastructure is probably not so bad but I'll guess we'll see what happened when we get the write-up. Our current options for countering Stahl AFAICT is to work on sensors and stealth disruptors (also likely to be useful against Merethu and Reynaldo) and to limit his maneuver room by expanding our presence in the yellow zones by the usual methods. As he very much wants to pick his battles our best counter is to deny him that option as much as possible.
"Streaks" are not a good way to predict the actions of a random number generator which is known to have a uniform distribution. Important clause! If you miss it, you can end up losing a lot of money betting against a guy with weighted dice.
(IIRC, this forum uses a Mersenne Twister distribution. It's within 1% of uniform, but not good enough for cryptography.)
Look, either the dice roller on this forum is weighted, or it isn't.
If it is, you can do a rigorous proof of that claim; Lord knows it gets used enough on a forum-wide basis.
If it isn't, then there's no use in trying to 'correct' me by pointing out that I'd be wrong if the SV dice roller were loaded in a way that was meaningfully and consistently biased in favor of low results.
with us about to gain once dice for each category with the station completing it might be a idea to keep some service dice idle so we can afford all of the new dice the next turn.
Eh. We'll be able to mostly afford them, especially if we get new income options this turn like a second round of offshore mining. And it's not like any Service dice we spend this turn are wasted.
We'll just take a few more 10 R/die and 15 R/die options next turn instead of 15 and 20 R/die options, respectively. Except for tiberium, where it just might be worth the trouble of doing the Congo glacier mines for the extra Resource surge.
You know, I almost feel sorry for Gideon, nothing ever seems to go right for him. Just one failure after another. Of course, then I remember who he is and who he works for, and my sympathy evaporates pretty much instantly.
Looking at the result of his latest offensive, I think we might actually be rid of the guy in a few turns. Remember that he originally where based somewhere in the northern or maybe central part of the Appalachians before moving south after the fiasco at Chicago. By moving south he essentially vonceded the north-eastern US to GDI. Now that we have expanded further along the Gulf coast, we're probably interfering with his supply lines and he had to act.
While his plan to attack our MARV hub in Alabama and strike at the nearby glacier mines where not bad, his mistake was to split his forces and also attack Savannah. I think he was prepared to face an entire fully functional fortress in Alabama and probably had contingencies in place if he'd had run into a full MARV fleet, but with us putting a fortress at Savannah, effectively his back yard, he had to change his plans. The smart play, however, would have been to focus on his back yard, not chase bonus points by also trying to achieve his original goal. So now he's left with diminished forces, constrained supply lines, the scorn of his ostensible peers and allies/enemies, and most importantly nowhere to go. East is BZ and the Atlantic, north and south are GDI strong-points and west is a RZ with some GDI operations and probably some bands of Forgotten. This is likely the weakest he'll ever be, and I think our military will seize the opportunity. If they don't he might very well end up dead in a ditch somewhere for his repeated failures.
You may be right, especially if in the near future (say, simultaneous with the Karachi Sprint) we do another round of Yellow Zone Harvesting to promote a general military push.
Though if we're going to do that, we want to knock off another phase of fortress towns to cover our advance and expansion. Which we could mostly get done in Q4, though the cost per die makes it less than lovely (see above).
The situation in South America is more worrying IMHO. While just the rolls is a poor basis to speculate on, the result seems to indicate either a diversionary attack in one place that was repulsed followed by a successful attack somewhere else or a GDI commander who got over eager attempting a counter-attack after an easy victory against a raid (that possibly was a feint all along intended to create this very result). If option two, damage to our infrastructure is probably not so bad but I'll guess we'll see what happened when we get the write up. Our current options for countering Stahl AFAICT is to work on sensors and stealth disruptors (also likely to be useful against Merethu and Reynaldo) and to limit his maneuver room by expanding our presence in the yellow zones by the usual methods. As he very much wants to pick his battles our best counter his to deny him that option as much as possible.
Yeah, I think that if we weather the upcoming warlord dogpile well, we should be thinking about a round or two of expansion into the Yellow Zones in the later part of this Plan. It may not be the optimally efficient way to increase Resource income, but it's a good way to alter the strategic calculus.
Besides, we're running out of Green Zone to reclaim into Blue.
with us about to gain once dice for each category with the station completing it might be a idea to keep some service dice idle so we can afford all of the new dice the next turn.
How about no. We'll keep the Service Dice idle if we need to when the turn comes, but we are at the point where we need 870 Resources per Die to be able to activate all of them regularly. We will have 840 with my plan and other plans may try to build up more Resources per Turn than that. Either way, by the time of the Karachi Sprint we will have enough Resources to use all the Dice one way or another.
with us about to gain once dice for each category with the station completing it might be a idea to keep some service dice idle so we can afford all of the new dice the next turn.
The station is close enough to justify however many free dice is needed to insure it's done. It'll pay itself back on them next turn and we need to move on to other items. If parliament is going up? We may want look into space lasers. But that might just be last war talking.
The station is close enough to justify however many free dice is needed to insure it's done. It'll pay itself back on them next turn and we need to move on to other items. If parliament is going up? We may want look into space lasers. But that might just be last war talking.
Personally, I want space lasers to insure some crazy NOD warlord doesn't try to start a space program. There's only room in this orbit for one space program and it isn't for some Tiberium worshipping varmints.
Infra 5/5 75R +28
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2) 15/275 3 dice 45R 43%
-[] Integrated Cargo System 207/800 2 dice 30R 0%
HI 4/4+1 free 115R +23
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant (Phase 3) 258/300 1 die 20R 97%
-[] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 1) 0/160 1 die 20R 0%
-[] Blue Zone Heavy Industrial Sectors 336/500 3 dice 75R 92%
LCI 4/4 60R +18
-[] T-Glass Foundries (Stage 1) 117/350 4 dice 60R 83%
Agri 3/3 40R +18
-[] Perennial Aquaponics Bays (Stage 3) 207/350 2 dice 20R 59%
-[] ???? 1 die 20R (so many options have to see what Kudzu opens up but 20R reserved)
Tiberium 6/6+1 free 180R +31
-[] Hub 3 dice 60R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) 5/195 3 dice 60R 90%
-[] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 2) 20/100 1 die 20R 66%
Orbital 5/5 100R +18
-[] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 5) 1227/1425 4 dice 80R 97%
-[] Study Novel Material 0/50 1 die 20R 83%
Services 4/4 60R +23
-[] Automatic Medical Assistants 0/300 1 die 20R 0%
-[] Domestic Animal Programs 0/200 2 dice 20R 18%
-[] Early Prototype General Artificial Intelligence Development 66/120 1 die 20R 89%
Military 6/6+5 215R +20
-[] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits 0/350 1 die 5R
-[] Super MARV Fleet Yellow Zone 6a 182/210 1 die 20R 87%
-[] Reclaimator Hub (RZ3 South) x2 0/250 2 mil dice 3 tib dice 40R 99%
-[] Orca Refit Deployment 0/200 2 dice 30R 16%
-[] Aurora 3 dice 60R place holder
-[] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Station (Phase 1) 0/220 3 dice 60R 65%
Bureau 3/3 +18
-[] Administrative Assistance (MARV) 2 die
Free 7/7
1 HI, 5 mil, 1 tib
0 Idle dice
805/810
Very early plan since Aurora is unknown costs and a lot of moving parts, 1 free dice to start Nuuka bit early so we can roll out the cap goods we need. Subject to a lot of revision (like Ferro refit is really a placeholder for another mil dice just depends on how many resources are free). Going for tib dice on hubs because we have a bigger bonus on tib than mil so same dice gives higher percentage chance. Looking at 40 to 50 income this turn and 2 more marvs (45) next turn. With philly 2 finishing we need the extra income. Also processing refit continue to knock those out and increase our STU amount. Could risk a die on mil factory with BZ hopefully finishing. For mil very much focusing on doing open deployment projects and leave additional dev until Q4/Q1
The station is close enough to justify however many free dice is needed to insure it's done. It'll pay itself back on them next turn and we need to move on to other items. If parliament is going up? We may want look into space lasers. But that might just be last war talking.
Personally, I want space lasers to insure some crazy NOD warlord doesn't try to start a space program. There's only room in this orbit for one space program and it isn't for some Tiberium worshipping varmints.
Every quarter a d100 is rolled for the red and yellow zones by Darkandus for Tib growth. Subtract mitigation from those numbers and we get Tib growth around the world. Each point counts for .01% of Earth's surface.
Okay, so Mitigation works like this.
I roll a d100 for each of the nonpolitical zone types (that is yellow and red zone) I then subtract however many points of mitigation you have from that number. A negative results in a zone shrinking.
615 + (Entire Tiberium Budget) + (Three Service Dice)/810 R
7/7 Free dice used
[] Plan Tentative 2059Q3 Plan- 200R on Military, ASAT 4, Auroras, Super Orcas, Bureaucrats.
Infrastructure 5/5 Dice + 2 Free Dice 105 R
-[] Integrated Cargo System 307/800 (7 Dice, 105 R) (82% chance)
Heavy Industry 4/4 Dice 95 R
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant (Phase 3) 258/300 (1 Die, 20 R) (97% chance)
-[] Blue Zone Heavy Industrial Sectors 336/500 (3 Dice, 75 R) (92% chance)
Light and Chemical Industry 4/4 Dice 60 R
-[] T-Glass Foundries (Stage 1) 117/350 (3 Dice, 45R) (83% chance)
Agriculture 3/3 Dice 30 R
-[] Perennial Aquaponics Bays (Stage 3) 163/350 (1 Die, 10 R) (1/2 median)
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction 0/150 (2 Dice, 20 R) (51+ % chance)
(this may get swapped out for kudzu plantations, but I do feel like we should do this round of the SFSC)
Tiberium 6/6 Dice ??? R
??? (hard to be sure just yet)
Key concerns:
-What are our options for offshore tiberium mining?
-If we spend two Military dice on widely separate MARV projects, one of them being a hub, can we invest further Tiberium dice in MARV hub construction?
-Please no do not build tiberium power plants this turn, we are not that desperate.
Orbital 5/5 Dice 100 R
-[] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 5) 474/1425 (4 dice, 80 R) (97.4% chance)
and ONE OF
-[] Study Novel Material 0/50 (1 Die, 20 R) (83% chance)
OR
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1) 0/80 (1 Die, 20 R) (58% chance of Phase 1, 1/3.25 median to Phase 2, 1/8 median to Phase 3)
Services ?/4 Dice 20+?? R
-[] Early Prototype General Artificial Intelligence Development 66/120 (1 Die, 20 R) (89% chance)
-[] (OTHER STUFF?)
Bureaucracy 3/3 Dice
-[] Bureaucratic Assistance (Savannah MARV fleet)
-[] Make Political Promises (see what we can get for Columbia, if we don't like the offer, forget it)
Okay so I kinda hate your military choices? Our ASAT defenses are tight, we don't need another defense station, and every dice we spend on MARVs is leaving us behind the curve on our conventional military. We've already spent 180R and 9 dice on these Brobdingnagian Uber-tanks. I understand you want to raise the confidence of the Space Force but they are more than just a ASAT defense network. We need to start working on the OSRCT stations, and those 4-5 dice would be fine for doing that. I would even support pulling the die of URLS to push those stations along, a fast-reaction force is never a bad thing. And to quote the last results page: "The Space Force strongly desires the OSRCT concept to move as soon as possible from the drawing board to reality. Additionally, the development of new technologies is an increasingly high priority, as systems to defeat the Ion Cannon network are only likely to proliferate."
I also think that you need to consider doing Tibeirum Inhibitors in the two Red Zones we now have locked down enough to deploy them in. Two Tib dice, one for each zone, should be enough to start them. As for Agriculture, let's just try to get Perennials done next turn, we only need 143 progress and the stockpiles are important but probably not critical. Orbital, well, I'm steadfastly against Columbia, can't we just get started on our orbital mining projects instead? We need to do six phases of those, three before the election isn't unreasonable.
We need at least 2 mil dice before tib dice can be added here (and tib dice have a bigger bonus) so going 2 mil dice and 3 tib dice would give us 2 zones letting us follow up with 2 more marv fleets the following turn for a nice income boost
Okay so I kinda hate your military choices? Our ASAT defenses are tight, we don't need another defense station, and every dice we spend on MARVs is leaving us behind the curve on our conventional military. We've already spent 180R and 9 dice on these Brobdingnagian Uber-tanks. I understand you want to raise the confidence of the Space Force but they are more than just a ASAT defense network. We need to start working on the OSRCT stations, and those 4-5 dice would be fine for doing that. I would even support pulling the die of URLS to push those stations along, a fast-reaction force is never a bad thing.
I also think that you need to consider doing Tibeirum Inhibitors in the two Red Zones we now have locked down enough to deploy them in. Two Tib dice, one for each zone, should be enough to start them. As for Agriculture, let's just try to get Perennials done next turn, we only need 143 progress and the stockpiles are important but probably not critical. Orbital, well, I'm steadfastly against Columbia, can't we just get started on our orbital mining projects instead? We need to do six phases of those, three before the election isn't unreasonable.
Philly 2 is adding multiple dice so we need more income which MARVs are while also being defense forces for regions (as such they protect other income generators like our glacier mines). Also the MARV is being done via admin assistance since it is close to finishing and hubs will be more tib dice than mil dice.
Also we are close to doing the last two stages of mil factory refits which is another 1 or 2 mil dice. All told that means we need to up our income as much as we can in order to make sure we can use all of our dice so mit only projects are not a good idea right now.
Philly 2 is adding multiple dice so we need more income which MARVs are while also being defense forces for regions (as such they protect other income generators like our glacier mines). Also the MARV is being done via admin assistance since it is close to finishing and hubs will be more tib dice than mil dice.
Also we are close to doing the last two stages of mil factory refits which is another 1 or 2 mil dice. All told that means we need to up our income as much as we can in order to make sure we can use all of our dice so mit only projects are not a good idea right now.
I understand fully the desire for more income, but MARVs for income is not a winning strategy in my mind, especially when it steals from the mouths of our critical space boys. There are other tiberium projects we can do to increase our income-vein mines if we have to, or even the Congolese red zone mines and glaciers. We can also do orbital projects for income-not much right now, but if every little bit helps, that's a better use of our orbital die than Colombia.
In the first plan, we decided to build the OSRCT stations. We are coming up on SEVEN YEARS since that decision with not a one built. Space Force is 'Decent' because their orbital interception ability is high, but they have no ability to carry out their other primary mission at all!
I understand fully the desire for more income, but MARVs for income is not a winning strategy in my mind, especially when it steals from the mouths of our critical space boys. There are other tiberium projects we can do to increase our income-vein mines if we have to, or even the Congolese red zone mines and glaciers. We can also do orbital projects for income-not much right now, but if every little bit helps, that's a better use of our orbital die than Colombia.
In the first plan, we decided to build the OSRCT stations. We are coming up on SEVEN YEARS since that decision with not a one built. Space Force is 'Decent' because their orbital interception ability is high, but they have no ability to carry out their other primary mission at all!
We did OSRCT because we had to take that project in the first plan. Currently however it is a lower priority than other mil projects- for my starting the stations is likely to kick off Q1/Q2 after factory refit and philly 2 is online.
MARV also provide valuable protection of our current income preventing NOD from hitting it- hence why we put up the ones to guard vs Gideon. Also space projects are very slow on providing income. The other issue is that the current tib projects either increase demand on the military or use resources such as cap goods that we have to be careful on how much to use. MARV on the flipside does not increase demands on the mil and helps secure areas.
We did OSRCT because we had to take that project in the first plan. Currently however it is a lower priority than other mil projects- for my starting the stations is likely to kick off Q1/Q2 after factory refit and philly 2 is online.
After elections would be Q1- and we should have philly 2 and factory refits online so will be at 8 to 9 mil dice +26 to the category I believe. At that point I would be dropping 3-4 dice to finish phase 1 and have some rollover into phase 2 (it actually almost made it into my current proto plan since right now I am looking to try and get all of our deployments rolled out instead of doing more dev projects)
Edit-
One reason I want to wait until our full dice bonuses are online is that when you consider all 4 stages of OSRCT than having all bonuses online likely saves us some dice over the long run meaning another small project gets done that would not otherwise.
Okay, so Mitigation works like this.
I roll a d100 for each of the nonpolitical zone types (that is yellow and red zone) I then subtract however many points of mitigation you have from that number. A negative results in a zone shrinking.
Correction @Ithillid is not allowed to roll for Yellow and Red Zone expansions anymore and @Darkandus rolls instead because Ithillid's rolls were some rich and fragrant nonsense one too many times.
After elections would be Q1- and we should have philly 2 and factory refits online so will be at 8 to 9 mil dice +26 to the category I believe. At that point I would be dropping 3-4 dice to finish phase 1 and have some rollover into phase 2 (it actually almost made it into my current proto plan since right now I am looking to try and get all of our deployments rolled out instead of doing more dev projects)
Edit-
One reason I want to wait until our full dice bonuses are online is that when you consider all 4 stages of OSRCT than having all bonuses online likely saves us some dice over the long run meaning another small project gets done that would not otherwise.
let me see if I have you straight here. You think that because ASAT is LOWER priority, we should do it FIRST, because five or six points of bonus on four dice are gonna be enough to free up another die to spend elsewhere? After all, the bonus on OSRCT for next turn will be +25, and the turn after that it will be 30. And we're talking about 3-5 dice here-not the entire cost of all four stages. So that 15-30 progress is supposed to be noticeable, when, on big projects, we routinely have final overflow exceeding that amount.
You are the one who said we built MARVs to protect our various mines. Know what also protects our mines? A strike force who can drop two battalions on your head from orbit, with attached air support! Know what a fully developed OSRCT would have done to Krukov's attack on St. Petersburg? General Krukov would have found his retreat blocked by hastily dug-in zone troopers freshly arrived from space, ready to block him in for the Mammoth tanks to slaughter. Or it could have stopped him from ever hitting the city, by dropping in to harry his flanks and defang his distraction attack. There are so many things that OSRCT is good for, it will be hard to keep them in orbit. If you're worried about our odds versus the Warlords, get this Warlord Head Stomping Device.
let me see if I have you straight here. You think that because ASAT is LOWER priority, we should do it FIRST, because five or six points of bonus on four dice are gonna be enough to free up another die to spend elsewhere? After all, the bonus on OSRCT for next turn will be +25, and the turn after that it will be 30. And we're talking about 3-5 dice here-not the entire cost of all four stages. So that 15-30 progress is supposed to be noticeable, when, on big projects, we routinely have final overflow exceeding that amount.
You are the one who said we built MARVs to protect our various mines. Know what also protects our mines? A strike force who can drop two battalions on your head from orbit, with attached air support! Know what a fully developed OSRCT would have done to Krukov's attack on St. Petersburg? General Krukov would have found his retreat blocked by hastily dug-in zone troopers freshly arrived from space, ready to block him in for the Mammoth tanks to slaughter. Or it could have stopped him from ever hitting the city, by dropping in to harry his flanks and defang his distraction attack. There are so many things that OSRCT is good for, it will be hard to keep them in orbit. If you're worried about our odds versus the Warlords, get this Warlord Head Stomping Device.
We should keep in mind that being hit with a "do this or else" warning isn't just a mechanical penalty, but also a narrative one. Regardless of how quickly we resolve the underlying issue after receiving a warning, the fact that we are hit with that warning means that we've already lost trust from the other parties involved.
Missions
As the Pardus mission series comes to their end with lack of prospecting sites, there is a certain sentimentality in the air at SCED HQ in Harper. With much of the exploratory effort switching towards the belt and the riches discovered there, the trace amounts of water discovered on the moon are spare change in comparison.
New Johnson Training Center (Stage 3) 321/400
After the more than problematic last quarter, work on the new training programs continues as usual.
Tanegashima Station Module Complex 41/200
Instead, it is construction work on the new Tanegashima complex that runs into problems. After the first foundations had to be scrapped when a Tiberium fissure threatened to break through the earth and the area was taken over by Tiberium Safety, work up to that step had to be redone on a different site. As such progress has been slow.
Gagarin Station (Stage 3) 5/5 Gagarin Station Parts and High Security Materials Laboratory Module (Requires Gagarin-Stage 3) 2/5 Station Parts
The SCED continues work on their Gagarin Station, completing Stage 3 and beginning to move some of their staff to the station. Additionally, the engineers begin with the pre-assembly of the parts for the planned High Security Materials Laboratory. Each of the parts is a highly complex piece of technology, built to the standards of Tiberium Laboratories but modified for space. So far only the inner and outer shell have been completed with the internal laboratories and the containment and test chambers unfinished.
Advanced Lunar Base Stage 2 476/400
The final theoretical and earth side engineering problems have been figured out. What remains now is to turn the concept from a merely theoretical construct into a real project on the lunar surface.
Mark II Fusion Engine 75/300
Work on the next generation of fusion engines begins with the restart mechanism. Thanks to Nod's crystal laser technology, reaching the required laser power densities is a simple matter, but the problem is both in tuning the machinery and in integrating it with a functioning fusion engine. The rest will require utilizing advances in fusion power and superconducting technology.
Lunar Regolith Agricultural Experiments 197+5(BOT IS MERCIFUL!)/200
The experiments have revealed what SCED had expected. While the regolith is a useful basic substrate, it lacks many of the minerals and organic substances needed for farming. This is an easily solved problem, and merely means that setting up farming on the Moon requires a carefully calibrated fertilizer balance, packets of primary succession organisms to construct the required soil, and some time. Long term maintenance of lunar farms will require proper waste management techniques and imports of certain trace substances from elsewhere on the Moon or space in case Earth is not able to support such activity.
It will still be a sparse, harsh soil for many earth plants, and aquaponics shall remain a keystone of our agricultural needs even on the Moon.
Venus: Tiberium Monitoring Array
Plans for the monitoring array have been completed and the theoretical work done. Now it's on the SCED engineers to figure out the details of the higher power microwave radar satellites.
Venus: Tiberium Sampling 163/200
Planning for the Tiberium Sampling mission, known in the SCED unofficially as the "Tiberium Heist", has been going well. The mission consists of four parts: "produce", "gather", "return" and "store". Planning for "store", in the form of a large satellite containing a complex Tiberium containment system dubbed Tartarus has been finalized with the help of the Tiberium Safety Bureau, but the others are still only halfway through the planning stages.
SCEDQuest Q2 2059
This Side Quest was allowed by Ithillid and is supposed to be fun. Things happening in SCEDQuest will be affected by the main one, but unless Ithillid says otherwise it is only semi-canon.
Budget: 125 Capital + 47 Capital Reserve
Industry Points: 80 IP
Earth Orbit Launch Capacity: 80 per Turn
Pathfinder Time: 90 Days
Astronaut Teams: 2 (+1 per Plan)
Astrotech Teams: 2 (+1 per Year)
Earth-Luna:
Earthside Facilities (Unlimited Dice)
Earth-Industry Points: 80 IP
Earth-Launch Capacity: 80 per Turn
[]Tanegashima Space Center (Stage 4)
With nearly all basic manufacturing needs of the SCED taken care of, it is time to think bigger. The next stage of manufacturing will generally expand manufacturing of common elements in the common part strategy, such as nuts, bolts, microcomputers and reaction control sensors.
(20 Capital per Die 132/500)(+40 E-IP)
[]Tanegashima Station Module Complex
With the SCED planning to build a lot more orbital stations in the near and mid-term future around Earth and other bodies and expected to be required to do so by Parliament, a dedicated clean-room complex dedicated to producing, assembling and testing station modules that can easily be transported by Pathfinder would ease the load on the rest of the small organisation's industrial capacity.
(25 Capital per Die 41/200)(Waves the E-IP cost for 1 Station-Part per turn)
[]New Johnson Training Center (Stage 3)
With the pool of qualified astronaut candidates thinning, SCED looks at more specialised personnel to bolster their ranks. Qualifications to become an Astrotech are still fairly high and require the right training and preparation facilities.
(25 Capital per Die 321/400)(+1 Astronaut Team per Plan, +2 Astrotech Team per year)
[]Harper Spaceport Expansion (Phase 1)
While many of SCED's missions are now solar system wide, they still require launching cargo and materials from Earth into space.
(15 Capital per Die 0/100)(+10 E-Launch Cap)
Earth-Orbit Facilities:
[]Gagarin Station (Stage 4)
Stage 4 will establish the first off-earth laboratory facilities to better test orbital technologies and additionally a larger mission planning center. These additions will come in the form of a ring of connected artificial gravity habitat sections built around the center spire.
(0/10 Gagarin Station Parts; 10 E-Launch Cap, 5C and 10 E-IP per Part)(-1 Pathfinder maintenance time, +2 Mission planning die, +1 Research Die)(-3 Astrotech Teams)
[]High Security Materials Laboratory Module (Requires Gagarin-Stage 3)
For security's sake, the Martian transuranic samples will need to be analysed and researched in a laboratory isolated from Earth. Such a high security laboratory module is already an expensive construction operation on Earth and will be even more expensive in space, both in terms of items and hardware launched and in the projected cost.
(2/5 HS-Station Parts; 10 E-Launch Cap, 20C and 20 E-IP per Part)(+1 Research Die)(-4 Astrotech Teams)
Lunar Facilities:
[]Advanced Lunar Base Stage 2
Luna is now a barebones research outpost. It needs to be expanded massively in order to fully transform it into a proper research station, able to test the newest technologies in lunar colonisation and construction.
(0/10 Facilities; 5C, 5 Launch Cap and 5 E-IP per Facility)(-4 Astrotech Teams, +1 Astronaut Teams)(+1 Development dice, +1 Lunar Die)
Assembly
---
Development (5 Dice) +20
[]Lunar Seismic Imaging Array 0/150 (5C/Die+2E-IP/DIe)
Luna is theorized to have extensive underground caverns, leftovers from its volcanic past, that would be excellent places to build underground cities and bases in, protected from meteorites and radiation by thick layers of lunar soil and rock. Finding these however is difficult and may require the development and deployment of a large scale seismic imaging system all over the moon's surface.
[]Radiation Shimmer Shield Development 0/100 (5C/Die+5E-IP/Die)
The Shimmer shield has opened up interesting new measures to protect against interstellar radiation, which mostly consists of high speed electrons and helium cores, for spacecraft, stations, and stationary bases. Such a shield would very likely not protect against much else, but it would enable Pathfinder's crew to remain longer in Jupiter's and Saturn's radiation belts. As someone else has already done much of the tweaking of the shield pattern, all that remains is for the SCED to adopt this technology.
[]Mark II Fusion Engine 75/300 (5C/Die+8E-IP/Die)
By now SCED's engineers have gotten enough data and experience together with advances in fusion-, laser-, superconductor- and material-technology to begin prototyping a more advanced fusion engine. The current iteration has the problem that once it has finished firing it is very difficult to get going again. The engineers have suggested using laser ignited fusion of small deuterium pellets to quickstart the engine cycle as needed, a concept that will need a large amount of work and prototyping before it can be finished.
[]He3-extraction Experiments 0/100 (2C/Die+1E-IP/Die)
Helium-3 has useful potential applications in fusion technology, as the fusion cycle produces free protons instead of neutrons, which can be more easily tapped for energy, reducing radiation while also increasing efficiency. Extracting He-3 from the regolith however will require unique and new approaches.
[]Tiberium Monitoring Sattelite 0/100 (5C/Die+5E-IP/DIe)
The specifications for the monitoring satellite are a microwave radar powerful enough to break through the dense storm layer. As such the system will need a lot more power handling capacity and cooling, both making the satellite quite large compared to the SCEDs previous designs.
Space Command Mission Planning (4 Dice) +5
[]Mission: Orbital Scan (Write-in) (for example: Luna, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter) (Requires one Die)(Gas Giants have the main planet, each major moon, and rings+minor moons as locations)
-Charon (Requires one Die)
[]Mission: Research Base (Write-in) 0/300
-Mars 169/300
[]Venus: Tiberium Sampling 163/200
Parliament wants the SCED to return a sample of Venerian Tiberium back for study. The extreme environment of Venus atmosphere however will require multiple unique solutions for each step of the journey: Collection, retrieval and transport, each of which is an engineering challenge to be overcome.
Missions
Total Pathfinder Time: 90 days
Current Maintenance time: 3 days
Mercury: 9 days
Venus: 9 days
Mars: 10 days
Asteroid Belt: 13 days
Jupiter: 20 days
Saturn: 26 days
Uranus: 36 days
Neptune: 45 days
Pluto: 51 days
Luna
[]Pardus Mission-Luna
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location, 1 Manned Mission)
-[](Write-in Location)(max 2 per Turn)
Mars (13 Pathfinder days)
[]Rover Delivery-Mars
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location, 1 Launch Cap per Location)
-[](Write-in Location)
Asteroid Belt (16 Pathfinder days)
[]Belt Probing (37/80 Objects probed)((6IP, 3 Capital, 3 Launch Cap) or 5 Pathfinder days per Object probed)
[]Ceres Rover Delivery
(Required for activation: 4IP per Location, 2 Capital per Location, 1 Launch Cap per Location)(0/15 Locations)
