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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition

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While I'm glad it's getting traction I do want to point out again that Plan Unlimited* Atomic Power does make some significant tradeoffs, to the point where I'd call it a borderline meme rather than a "responsible" plan. It's sinking a LOT of money into things that won't even start to generate any return for 8 years and won't pay themselves off for decades, there's a VERY long tail on these things and it would almost definitely be better for the economy to do big spends like that more towards the end of the FYP instead of in the middle with targets in the balance like this.

Particularly oof points are the lack of calculators and ESA funding, meaning that they're going to continue being a drag on our budget for the rest of the FYP while slowing electronics development, and the Very Highly Profitable trucking enterprises getting shortchanged instead of giving us income and growth next year to help fund things like nukes.

Not withdrawing the plan or anything, if people still really want it that's fine, but I felt like I should point out a few of the tradeoffs more explicitly instead of expecting people to dig them out of a big stat block.
 
Crazycryodude said:
--[X]West Siberian Petroleum Fields(Stage 2/6), 1 Dice (130 R), 80%/95%
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I am almost ready to vote for Stopping Soviet Stagflation, but the 5% chance of oil crisis scares me. I'd suggest dropping rail to one die (We still regain experience with HSR if we slow roll it) and moving it to oil.

I don't like the Alternate Reactors. I read "Channel-type" and ran away quickly. But even if they're not there recipe for disaster of an RBMK, I am skeptical that they will be cheap to produce. (Safe) nuclear reactors are specialty stuff you can't make with any old machine shop, and the entire point of going with a VVER design was that once appropriate equipment for mass production is established (Atomash) they will have the quickest assembly and lowest per-watt cost.

We plan to cut spending next plan and I am not confident we can afford running Atomash full tilt while also spending even more money on less efficient channel types at the same time as we're still running coal and oil max tilt to work with the 5 year lead time.
 
[X] Plan Stopping Soviet Stagflation with Smart Salary Schemes
[X] Plan Attempting to Maintain the Good Times (By Connecting People)
 
The channel-type reactors are apparently forecasted to be slightly more expensive per core than the VVERs, but the reason to do that project is that channel reactors can be built with significantly less complex tooling so we can use CI dice to build them. So if we really wanted to go all in on nukes we could fund 3 nuke dice with HI through Atommash and then another 1-2 nuke dice with CI through the channel types for a total of 4-5 nuke dice that start paying off in 1980.

If we really want to absolutely minimize coal as hard as possible the channel types are necessary, but yes they are a more expensive option with diminishing returns in what's already our power option with the highest base cost and longest time to return anything on the investment. So they're really only for if we want to commit hard to minimizing coal use at all costs, knowing that it will mean having to really eat the cost in an already-lean 1975-79 before getting anything back.
 
And to head off any "how do you know the Alternative Reactor Programs will give CI nuclear autodice" questions, here:
 
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To note, the channel reactors, specifically the graphite-channel reactors you are making are RBMK-type designs directly cloned from the military. You are being a bit more sensible in that you're designing them to run higher enrichment from the start and don't have weird assumptions about needing to enrich an even more insane quantity of plutonium, just generating more power. They're going to, if anything be closer to an RBMK-1500/second generation RBMK's in that you have a far greater degree of comfort with superheating channels and just don't need the pre-Chornobyl's designs insane neutron economy as it is not like the army has a shortage of plutonium from their 14 reactors. And they will give an auto dice option to build them next plan if you complete the plant.

EDIT: Ninja'd
 
Yeah I'm really not worried about the safety aspect tbh, if you say "RBMK" to a western audience they melt the fuck down because they've only ever heard of one specific RBMK, but that was kind of a fluke and there are dozens of other RBMKs, some running perfectly fine to this very day OTL despite the collapse of the USSR. I think we can manage to safely run RBMKs TTL with a tweaked design, different political pressures, and no horrific state collapse obliterating the supporting knowledge and manufacturing bases.

What I am worried about is the cost. If we're already planning to do 3 nuke autodice off the back of Atommash, then doing an additional 1-2 highly expensive power dice that don't generate any return could sink our budget next FYP since we're expecting a significant reduction in spending.
 
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OK that's good to know. But with how pricy nuclear is, engaging that many nuclear autodice will probably still be cripplingly expensive so my point there still stands. But even if we want to go for that, Unlimited Nuclear Power is still a suboptimal plan given how much it sacrifices to rush nuclear when there's concerns elsewhere and Alternative Reactors is not needed right this turn.

I'd still like an extra dice on oil, but if @Crazycryodude feels the risk acceptable I'll still vote for the plan. I dislike how Attempting To Maintain The Good times does neither television nor calculators in LCI.

[X]Twisted Ribbon Design
[X]Plan Stopping Soviet Stagflation with Smart Salary Schemes

If I've time I'll poke around with another plan this evening.

EDIT: Those RBMK reactors. At the VERY LEAST, do they not have the stupid graphite-tipped control rods? That's what absolutely doomed Chernobyl in the end.

EDIT2: also
[X] Plan We Got to (Safely) Move These Color TVs
 
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Balmung1 said:
I follow this quest periodically but what the fuck happened in Algeria? Last I checked the French hadn't gully conquered it yet
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The conflict was frozen-ish until a large border skirmish caused France to RAGE OUT and go for a full conquest. Thanks to a nat 1 it took them 3 years and the guerillas are more organized than they otherwise would've been, but yeah they're going full Gamer.
 
Just noticed: Under plan commitments it says we need 7 more Petroleum Fuels to meet the -20 requirements for gas power over the course of the five year plan. And we're about to meet it in year THREE. Heh, and some higher ups were fearing there wasn't enough natural gas to go around. This rate of generation is set to remain viable for another decade or two.
 
Just some back of the envelope numbers, but judging by existing power program costs of ~300-320 per die (across all types actually, the difference is in power per die not cost per die funnily enough), then trying to fund 6 dice of immediate power (3/3 or 4/2 gas/coal depending on options) plus 3 dice of Atommash capacity would cost us ~2500 RpT next FYP. We're only spending ~2100 this FYP, and yes the economy will definitely grow by then but we're also taking a significant budget cut next FYP so ~2500 to keep the lights on + use Atommash is already kind of pushing it.

Adding anywhere from 300-800 RpT worth of extra CI nuke dice on top of Atommash and gas and coal is almost definitely outside our means next FYP. So preparing to construct channel type reactors is pretty wasteful if we're not going to actually be able to use the capacity next FYP, unless we want to dedicate the entire Plan period just to focusing electricity generation instead of any other parts of the economy.
 
An interesting proposal that came up in the Discord is accepting that our central budget is basically just going to be core infrastructure and power generation in 1975-59, while upping incentive funds to compensate and put growth on autopilot while we just feed the raw materials in. That strategy might actually let us fund 5 nuke dice if folks want to, just as always there's tradeoffs for everything.
 
I am very dubious at going all in on nuclear power this turn, its a lot of money and dice that could be spent in more productive projects. We don't even really need to sacrifice their completion, 9 dice basically guarantees completing the 3 stages in Atomash, so doing a 3 3 3 spread over the next few turns, or hell, a 3 4 2 one would mean we are allocating our dice a lot more efficiently. Same with the RMBK cores, which well, we can casually complete the first stage of next turn and then still have time to get the second stage done by the end of 74. Ultimately, any money going into nuclear is money that could be spent making more money so we can fund nuclear over a longer period of time.
 
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