Dropping ten or twenty thousand troops via the OSRCT has a lot of potential to decide any single battle, but if you want to decide three battles in the same one-week period, you're probably going to need a separate OSRCT formation for each drop.
Each Phase is expected to be its own formation, and the larger formations can probably be cut up as needed.
GDI High Command isn't stupid, if they are dropping a division sized unit of OSRCT, it's probably because what they're hitting needs a division of OSRCT and they've considered the ramifications of not being able to put them back up on station while they're busy fighting dirtside.
That said, GDI absolutely can move most of the needed equipment into orbit while OSRCT troops are dirtside, and when the fighting is done shift troops back up by the thousands per day. It has the lift transport capacity and the equipment is fungible with that of other ground formations when you can drop your armour formation's MBTs from orbit.
Hopefully we'll do another Phase of Wartime Factory Refits if only for the extra Mil Dice. It would also make up for the loss of that 1 Die thanks to that Nod Assassination that killed the one guy who provided it several turns back.
I'd like this better if He3-extraction Experiments was replaced with Mark II Fusion Engine but I like it enough to vote for it.
[X] Preparing for Mars and Venus
If i could afford to do that i would but the High Security Materials Laboratory Module takes so many Industry Points that only the cheapest research options could be funded.
Also i'm glad we can now spend tib dice on MARV projects. It means we can roll out all the yellow and red zone MARVs much quicker, and we need them to build the entire inhibiter network.
Personally, I don't think that we should go for both Wartime Factory Refits when BZHIS competes, as it will be a while before we get a significant amount more Capitol Goods.
The buffer is also there for us to spend on small projects.
But we should definitely push BZHIS out next turn.
No the benefit of having enough cap goods is that our factories stay productive instead of having shortages and losing production over time. The second benefit is that if our surplus is high enough we can expand production to new units without losing the ability to keep current factories productive.
Edit- We have been told that there are issues with anything having small margins or neutral so there is no stat we can sacrifice without issues
Nah you are overlooking something important: We have been operating with Capital Goods marginal for years now and got outvoted by the thread into doing Wartime Factory Refits sooner in exchange for a malus on getting our Capital Goods supply into red in time for the warlord dogpile.
So with that information and other things people have talked about in thread since the last version, a new version of my preliminary plan:
Infrastructure: +28
Heavy Industry: +23
Light and Chemical Industry: +18
Agriculture: +18
Tiberium: +31
Orbital Industry: +18
Services: +23
Military: +20
Bureaucracy: +18
+5 Development
+5 Technology Working Groups
+5 Station Building
Security Reviews:
Military 2 turns ago 2059 Q1
Agriculture 3 turn ago 2058 Q4
Light/Chem 4 turn ago 2058 Q3
Services 5 turns ago 2058 Q2
Orbital 7 turns ago 2057 Q4
Heavy Ind 8 turns ago 2057 Q3
Tiberium 9 turns ago 2057 Q2
Bureaucracy 10 turns ago 2057 Q1
Infrastructure 11 turns ago 2056 Q4
[ ] Plan Stocking the Piles 3.1: Infrastructure 5/5 Dice + 2 Free Die 105 Resources
-[ ] Integrated Cargo System 307/800 15 Resources per Die -2 Lab - 2 E -2 CapG on Completion, 7 Dice = 105 Resources Heavy Industry 4/4 Dice 95 Resources
-[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 3) 258/300 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
-[ ] Blue Zone Heavy Industrial Sectors 336/500 25 Resources per Die -4 Lab -8 E on Completion, 3 Dice = 75 Resources Light and Chemical Industry 4/4 Dice 60 Resources
-[ ] T-Glass Foundries (Stage 1) (New) 117/350 15 Resources per Die -1 STU -2 Energy on Completion, 4 Dice = 60 Resources Agriculture 3/3 Dice 30 Resources
-[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 1) 0/150 10 Resources per Die -4 F on Completion, 3 Dice = 30 Resources Tiberium 6/6 Dice 145 Resources
-[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6) (Updated) 54/200 25 resources per Die, 5 Dice = 125 Resources
-[ ] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 2) (Updated) 20/100 20 Resources per Die -250 PC if not completed, 1 Die = 20 Resources Orbital 5/5 Dice 95 Resources
-[ ] GDSS Philadelphia II (Phase 5) 1227/1425 20 Resources per Die, 4 Dice = 80 Resources
-[ ] Asteroid Belt Survey Probes 16/45 15 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources Services 4/4 Dice 70 Resources
-[ ] Tissue Replacement Therapy Deployment 0/??? 20? Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
-[ ] Domestic Animal Programs 0/200 10 Resources per Die -3 F on Completion, 1 Die = 10 Resources
-[ ] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Deployment 0/??? 20? Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
-[ ] Early Prototype General Artificial Intelligence Development 66/120 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources Military 6/6 Dice + 5 Free Dice 200 Resources:
-[ ] Wartime Factory Refits (Phase 3) (Updated) 3/100 20 Resources per Die -4 CapG on Completion, 3 Dice = 60 Resources
-[ ] Stealth Disruptor Development 0/40 15 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 15 Resources
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 2 Richmond 58/125 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
-[ ] Reclamator Fleet Yellow Zone 6a Savannah 182/210 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources
-[ ] Orca Refit Deployment 0/200 15 Resources per Die -1 CapG on Completion, 2 Die + 1 Administrative Die = 45 Resources
-[ ] Aurora Strike Bomber Deployment 0/??? 15? Resources per Die, 2 Die = 30 Resources
-[ ] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 1) 0/220 20 Resources per Die, 1 Die = 20 Resources Bureaucracy 3/3 Dice:
-[ ] Administrative Assistance Edit (D'oh): Orca Refit Deployment 2 Die
-[ ] Make Political Promises 1 Die
105+95+60+30+145+95+70+200 = 800/810
-2 Lab -2 E -2 CapG -4 Lab -8 E -1 STU -2 E -4 F -8 CapG -1 CapG means that the minimum for this plan is +36 Labor, -2 Energy, -6 Capital Goods, +12 Stable Transuranics and +17 Food. Let's hope we complete a round of Fusion and the Blue Zone Heavy Industrial Sectors this turn.
All aboard the Get All the Extra Dice Ready and Active in this Quarter Plan and here is what else it does:
- 7 Dice on Integrated Cargo System to patch one of our strategic weaknesses. 82% chance and an Average DC of 55 to complete.
- 1 Die on Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants for a 97% chance and a DC of 4 to complete Phase 3. We will need Phase 4 next turn.
- 3 Dice on Blue Zone Heavy Industry Sectors for a 92% chance and an Average DC of 27.
- 4 Dice on T-Glass Foundries for a 83% chance and an Average DC of 37.
- 3 Dice on Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 1) for a 92% chance and an Average DC of 27 to complete and roll over into the next Phase.
- 5 Dice on Red Zone Containment Lines because I want to do both a gain in Red Zone Mitigation and a gain in Resources per Turn so we have enough with Philadelphia II and Wartime Factory Refits finishing. 100% chance and an Average DC of 2 to complete Stage 6, an 88% chance and an Average DC of 36 to complete Stage 7 and an 3% chance and an Average DC of 76 to complete Stage 8.
- 1 Die on Tiberium Processing Refits for a 67% chance and a DC of 34 to complete another Phase of it.
- 4 Dice on GDSS Philadelphia II to get Phase 5 completed. 97% chance and an Average DC of 28 to complete.
- 1 Die on Asteroid Belt Survey Probes for a 100% chance and a DC of 2 to complete. SCED needs funding right now to be able to better expand their action economy. So this instead of Study Novel Materiel as it can wait and as far as I am concerned SCED can not.
- 1 Die on Tissue Replacement Therapy Deployment to take up space for that option.
- 1 Die on Domestic Animal Programs since it doesn't spend Health. 1/3 Median and no DC that can succeed. Probably going to swap it for an extra Die on one of the Deployments or if both Deployments are not Services Projects then boost it to completion.
- 1 Die on Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Deployment if it happens to be needed.
- 1 Die on Early Prototype General Artificial Intelligence Development to complete it. Since it's an Early Prototype there probably won't be a follow up action for quite some time. 90% chance and a DC of 11 to complete.
- 3 Dice on Wartime Factory Refits to complete those this turn alongside completing Blue Zone Heavy Industrial Sectors. 72% chance and an Average DC of 42 to get at least 1 Extra Die in Military.
- 1 Die on Stealth Disruptor Development for a 100% chance and a DC of 2 to complete.
- 1 Die on the Blue Zone Marv Hub we overcompleted towards. 69% Chance and a DC of 32 to complete it and have it act as an investment break.
- 1 Die on Super MARV fleet in Savannah for a 100% chance and a DC of 2 to complete.
- 2 Die and 1 Administrative Die on Orca Refit. It's time it was done. 57% chance and an Average DC of 49 to complete. This is the action where the Administrative Die's lack of completion bonuses will do the least harm while giving the most gain for the risk of using it in the first place.
- 2 Die on Aurora Deployment so I can be sure we bomb Krukov next turn. No idea how much building an Aurora factory will take, but we can't slow roll the one that will supply the Russian battlefields.
- 1 Die on Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Stations to get started on that. No chance or DC to complete it, but starting it will stop the political fallout from getting worse.
- 2 Bureaucracy Dice to get 1 Administrative Die on the Orca Refit.
- 1 Die on Making Political Promises to get a few things more into the Plan for both moral and political gain.
- Our Strategic Needs are to keep the confidence level of all our military branches High and to have enough Resources per Turn to activate all Dice while gaining more Dice.
- Our Strategic Weaknesses currently are a lack of full new generation Tiberium processing (which we can mitigate by building new processing plants, but isn't going away until we do both the retrofit and the new generation of Tiberium storage/silos), not enough consumables (which can be fixed by building up ammo, ablat and sensor stockpiles) and not enough slack in our Logistics system for fighting a war (which we can fix by building up more Logistics projects).
- Our Operational Needs are a better distribution of personnel (civilian and military), a better defensive envelope around the Earth so NOD can't use the orbits against us (so the completion of the ASAT system and the installment of new armaments for it), rapid expansion of space infrastructure and Tiberium abatement in all environments (we are currently not doing enough to mine it out of Blue Zones, we are maybe not cleaning enough of the ocean floor, the Red Zones don't have complete containment lines and we are not doing enough in Glacier Mining).
- Our Operational Weaknesses currently are a lack of completed Railways in Blue and Green Zones for better direct population transfer, a lack of Integrated Cargo System for better ablation of Logistics during a war, a lack of Zone Armor so that ZOCOM isn't doing the job of the regular military and a lack of enough quality Housing for our population.
- Our Tactical Needs are better education for all (Litvinov is going to be really helpful with this), Labor pool expansions, Mental Health treatment actions, more options in Orbital Supremacy (Orbital Lasers need the new Laser Tech, High Altitude Ion Cannons, Orbital Nuclear Stockpiles and Orbital Strike Regimental Team Combat Stations), deescalation of everyday life from the war footing and better preparation of our population for participation in military actions.
- Our Tactical Weaknesses currently are an insufficient amount of Yellow Zone Fortress Cities, lack of NOD anti-stealth deployment, the Himalayan (isolated, which can be fixed with a MARV Hub and Karachi), South African (too many eggs in one basket, can be mitigated with Reykjavik) and Arabian Blue Zones (ZOCOM HQ and the Blue Zone from which the Mecca complex is run, needs a MARV Hub and more Fortress Cities), Security Reviews (DC is still too high for 1 Die so we need Philadelphia II completed to be able to run two of them at the same time which will mitigate some problems), better local Food and Water supplies for the Green Zones and the lack of Plasma Shuttle Logistics which would enable better binding of the Blue Zones into a more coherent entity.
I just felt like the current discussion was drowning out SCEDQuest.
Admittedly it's more of a preperational turn this time; the only real event this turn is the Regolith Agriculture. (Which is still good news, since while converting regolith into useable soil isn't free our effective supply of said regolith is effectively unlimited.) But all the exciting stuff is lined up to happen next turn.
No the benefit of having enough cap goods is that our factories stay productive instead of having shortages and losing production over time. The second benefit is that if our surplus is high enough we can expand production to new units without losing the ability to keep current factories productive.
I'm not saying these benefits aren't real. But just... let's walk through the implications of the situation.
...
Capital Goods represent productive industrial machinery production and the parts that go into such machinery. At any given time, we have a certain set of military factories, producing- for the sake of simplicity, we'll talk about shells. We have a certain set of shell factories, which produce shells that are transported to stockpiles and ultimately to the front lines.
If our Capital Goods go into the negatives or are consistently at some razor-thin low margin, then making more shell factories might be more difficult (if not impossible). New shell factories would be less efficient (the problem that's pushing us to do the war factory refits). Old shell factories might gradually become less productive as machinery breaks down and cannot be replaced, or must be replaced by less efficient and labor-intensive workaround methods.
But importantly, all these processes are gradual. It will take some time for them to have the fearful and painful impact. Since we are fighting a war against the warlords, who are not as strong an enemy as Kane-leading-all-Nod or the Scrin, we will be in a position to scramble to repair our industrial base and keep fighting. The war factories themselves are more or less intact, supplies of military equipment can still reach the front lines, and so on.
...
Meanwhile, Logistics represents the capacity to move goods around the economy. This includes moving them from the rear areas towards the fighting front. To return to the example of shells, a battery of artillery can easily expend tens of tons of shells in a single day's heavy firing. More ammunition must be trucked in constantly, and multiplied out all over the front, this turns into a very large amount of cargo that needs shipping and handling. All these requirements are greatly enhanced during wartime, as is the need to sail cargo convoys quickly around the world shuttling troops and equipment, especially equipment that is only produced in a few key locations (like myomers).
If we go into negative Logistics, it represents a substantial loss of the capacity to transport goods. Once goods can't move around, all these processes I just described are disrupted immediately, without delay. Our capacity to supply troops or to funnel resources into an area that is damaged or endangers immediately declines. This is inevitably going to be harder for us to compensate for in the heat of the moment.
Edit- We have been told that there are issues with anything having small margins or neutral so there is no stat we can sacrifice without issues
Yes, but sometimes you're talking about a very lopsided tradeoff.
None of us would hesitate to take an option that provides +18 Capital Goods at the cost of only -2 Logistics, if we had 2 Logistics available. I would argue that the reverse is also true. We should not be fearful of bringing our Capital Goods surplus down to 'only' +3 or so for a turn while we build the ICS, when we have BZHIS on the way and so on.
Our Capital Goods situation does not make hoarding behavior sustainable if we want to have a useful buildup and strong war economy. Not yet.
None of us would hesitate to take an option that provides +18 Capital Goods at the cost of only -2 Logistics, if we had 2 Logistics available. I would argue that the reverse is also true. We should not be fearful of bringing our Capital Goods surplus down to 'only' +3 or so for a turn while we build the ICS, when we have BZHIS on the way and so on.
Except that factory refits is another 8 cap goods used and this is more than a turn we are keeping cap goods at +3. Doing that because a project fails to finish is one thing, doing it without that is just bad planning. The same way we should not be riding logistics or energy close the line either.
The fact that you consider keeping something above more than marginal a hoarding behavior is wrong- keeping it above marginal ensures that facet of the economy is working well in isolated situations instead of a general overall we are positive but have issues in some places (which is marginal).
But importantly, all these processes are gradual. It will take some time for them to have the fearful and painful impact. Since we are fighting a war against the warlords, who are not as strong an enemy as Kane-leading-all-Nod or the Scrin, we will be in a position to scramble to repair our industrial base and keep fighting. The war factories themselves are more or less intact, supplies of military equipment can still reach the front lines, and so on.
The issue is that at the same time we would be keeping cap goods marginal people are arguing against getting nuuka out at an accelerated rate- which would move us back above marginal with the needed factory refits finished.
Infra 5/5 75R +28
-[] Integrated Cargo System 207/800 5 dice 75R 10%
HI 4/4+2 free 135R +23
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plant (Phase 3) 258/300 1 die 20R 97%
-[] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 1) 0/160 2 dice 40R 52%
-[] 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 120R +31
-[] Hub 3 dice 60R
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) 5/195 3 dice 60R 90%
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 230R +20
-[] Wartime Factory Refits (Phase 3) 3/100 1 20R 39%
-[] 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
2 HI, 5 mil,
0 Idle dice
820/810 (10R has to be cut but this is a rough draft)
2 free dice into HI because once Philly 2 finishes I feel that orbital and mil is going to take our free dice so taking the chance now to move Nuuk into range of getting some cap goods in Q4 from it (around 35% with 4 dice) though the exact amounts for the aurora will determine things (like if it is multiple factories i will likely shift dice over to try and knock 2 out, also depends on what energy/cap goods the factories require)
Of the 5 capital goods we have now we should try to keep one in reserve, two for ICS, one for the Orca refit and the final one for a zone suit factory.
We will not complete all of these next turn so there is a chance of the HIS completing and giving us more before we are down to +1(as i expect the orca refit to reduce the cost of the war zone refits by a capital good).
We also will have 5 HI dice after the next turn so building Nuuk phases one and two can be done in two turns with just a single free dice on HI.
The issue is that at the same time we would be keeping cap goods marginal people are arguing against getting nuuka out at an accelerated rate- which would move us back above marginal with the needed factory refits finished.
Nuuk itself has another problem - we'll need another stage of Fusion after Stage 3 to feel comfortable.
Maybe we should consider focus on Tokyo? Now granted it doesn't have narrative bonuses, and return on investment from Nuuk is significantly better. But completion of all 5 stages of Tokyo gets us to Cap Goods plan goal, helps with Consumer goods goal and no need to do additional Energy projects. Could be worth it.
I suppose there is deploying the Liquid T Power Cells if we're desperate enough. As in really desperate that sacrificing a chunk of our PS is a net positive.
We don't even know what liquid t power looks like yet and, with the potential risks, unless it's absolutely amazing it's probably the last of the last resorts.
Interesting thing to note the "Seismic Imaging Array" can also be useful on Mars as Mars has significant caverns and lava tubes so what work we do for underground cities on the Moon can largely also be applied to such underground settlements on Mars.
Others' relaying words regarding ASAT and Space Force's confidence has already convinced me.
As I said to Vehrec, I hope you can, at least, stretch to being willing to accept that my initial wanting to focus on further expansion of space defenses as we finish an extremely expensive and critical space-based megaproject that houses our command and control hubs for al of GDI is...
Well, even if you think I'm wrong, I hope you can accept me as something other than a babbling fool for wanting it and thinking, in the past, that it had been a good idea. I am not the only person to talk of doing ASAT Phase 4 alongside completion of the Philadelphia in the past few quarters of game-time.
I don't think you're a fool, I don't think ASAT4 is even a trap, I just think priorities got a bit shifted around. We don't know everything our subordinates know- it's natural to prize increased defenses against a hypothetical attack in an area we heavily invested in. Usually more than a hypothetical advantage on the attack when we're so much more often on the defensive rather than the offensive.
I tend to be pretty argumentative as a matter of course, and for all that I disagreed with your priorities it was never an unreasonable conclusion.
As for why I picked you rather than anyone else to argue with, you're a respectable plan writer and advocate. I'll be blunt, I don't know all the fine details and time tables and other constraints we operate on for our plans, and if I'm going to wade into debate I want to debate with someone who does less assumptions make an ass out of me.
Vööööte rölling
[X] Preparing for Mars and Venus
-[X]New Johnson Training Center (Stage 3) 321/400 3 dice 75C, aiming for multiple stages
-[X]High Security Materials Laboratory Module (Requires Gagarin-Stage 3) 2/5 Station Parts 3 parts 60IP 60C
-[X]Development: 22C 16IP
-[X]Lunar Seismic Imaging Array 0/150 (5C/Die+2E-IP/DIe) 2 dice 4IP 10C
-[X]Tiberium Monitoring Sattelite 0/100 (5C/Die+5E-IP/DIe) 2 dice 10IP 10C
-[X]He3-extraction Experiments 0/100 (2C/Die+1E-IP/Die) 1 die 2IP 2C
-[X]Missions: 4IP 2C
-[X]Pardus Mission-Luna 4IP 2C
-[X]Asteroid Belt (16 Pathfinder days)
-[X]Belt Probing (37/80 Objects probed) 5 Pathfinder days per Object probed) 14x5= 70 days + 16= 86 days
-[X]Planning:
-[X]Venus: Tiberium Sampling 163/200 1 die
-[X]Mars manned base 169/300 3 dice
Astronaut Teams can do the job of Astrotech Teams so we can build the High Security Materials Laboratory Module this turn and study the transuranics we found on Mars.
159/172C
76/80IP
