We're measuring revenue, not profit. And Atommash is getting revenue because every reactor it makes is contracted by the government and paid in full. There's not a lot of profit bc there's no other buyers to drive the price up, but revenue will huge bc ministry will be pouring insane money in buying these reactors.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition
- Thread starter Blackstar
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I'm fairly sure we are measuring profit.
I'm 99% sure targets are measuring increase in profit rather than gross revenue, that's why we can't game the Ag target by using an infinite grain cheatcode and why childcare didn't count towards the target despite being a huge sprawling public service used by millions.
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Given the development of nuclear engines here is a decent video about them from Scott Manley:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlKAMB71wT4
As always Fly Safe.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlKAMB71wT4
As always Fly Safe.
I thought sector valuation literally means the value of sector? Like "inifinite" grain don't give because it isn't valuable no matter how much you produce as well as childcare, education and healthcare since those arent valuable in direct economic and business sense.
Sheesh. I remember a few months ago (real world time) we were getting warnings that bad things would happen if we put too many autodice into nuclear. Now it is looking like we can't afford NOT to go to the max on a nuclear build-out.
Are we still expecting to loose political support if we invest in maximum nuclear power autodice?
And does anyone know how many GW or GWh we are producing? And what is consuming all this electricity? Am very curious how we compare to, say, the modern Chinese electrical grid.
To think I was worried about building too much power generation! I'm sure it'll happen eventually, but for now it seems like demand is going to keep rising fairly rapidly for at least another decade...
Speaking of resources and production, does anyone know what we are spending all our steel production on? The OTL Soviet Union over-produced steel, but we seem to actually be using all of our much larger output for things.
Regards,
fasquardon
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I believe the change is due to Klimenko's own personal recognizance of a looming coal crisis, as well as finally getting similar ideas through the heads of enough other major economic strategists (culminating in Blakirev's report last year). The worries about overfunding nuclear power in the past were more based around it being too expensive when power needs could be cheaply met elsewhere, but now we're in a situation where the cost of nukes has gone down and the cost of coal has gone way up alongside a huge surge in electricity consumption. Nuclear power is one of the techno-wonder solutions that got proposed in the report after we yelled at Balakirev about the optics, so if anything there's political risks in underfunding it when we promised it as our fix for the crisis.
We're apparently somewhere in the ballpark of a thousand+ TWh, I don't know any breakdown on exactly what sectors are using how much but we do have very extensive (and power-intensive) manufacturing, metallurgical, and chemical industries spread everywhere from Ukraine to Central Asia that never existed OTL so that's probably a big chunk.
Huge amounts of construction and manufacturing. Automobile output for our USSR is something like 10x OTL, and less drastic but still huge multiples of trains and trucks and buses and barges and turbines and pipelines and apartment buildings and rail lines and... you get the point.
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The huge amounts of manufacturing compared to otl is also where our electricity is going, plus the Soviet citizen being more prosperous and being able to afford more appliances. I'm curious how much power is being used thanks to those natural 1s in the air conditioning project, which I'm sure also didn't help
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Expanding on what Cryo covered, you are probably thinking of the 1965 plan. As Voznesensky we would have had the option of putting up to 3 autodice into nuclear power at a time where our designs were not totally mature and we were much more secure energetically. So going all into it would have yielded poor results at huge opportunity costs.
When Klimenko took over, however, he had a background in the coal industry iirc (as a transport engineer in the Kuzbas region) and favored that as a solution to power our industry, such that we only had the option to put a single HI autodice dice into developing our nuclear policy.
Atomash is happening in an entirely different paradigm, we are careening into depletion of coal deposits, gas power is likely not enough to cover any shortfalls there and the best located hydro is tapped out. We essentially have infinite coal, but its getting increasingly difficult to extract it, our canals have made Eastern deposits more viable and stabilized things for now, but we are going to face difficulties in maintaining reasonable coal prices in the following plans.
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Yes, we want to complete all 3 stages of Atomash this plan at least. The RBMK's are more questionable in my opinion however.
Yeah I think that we should spend 3-4 dice on nuclear power next FYP, but I don't think 5 is super feasible if prices stay at ~300-350 per die for zero power during the entire FYP. I suppose we'll see what prices vs. budget look like once we actually get to 1975, but finishing Atommash for 3 VVER dice should be our minimum target.
As for the RBMK dice, the project to unlock them is small enough that I think we actually can fit in Stage 1 over the next 2 years, which is worth investing in to at least have the option for a 4th nuclear power die in 1975. If we really just can't make the budget work with funding a 4th nuclear autodie then we're only out 2 relatively affordable CI dice of wasted potential spent on unlocking the RBMK option, which is a fine risk to take during a CI focused plan IMO.
As for the RBMK dice, the project to unlock them is small enough that I think we actually can fit in Stage 1 over the next 2 years, which is worth investing in to at least have the option for a 4th nuclear power die in 1975. If we really just can't make the budget work with funding a 4th nuclear autodie then we're only out 2 relatively affordable CI dice of wasted potential spent on unlocking the RBMK option, which is a fine risk to take during a CI focused plan IMO.
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Hmm, this made me do some quick napkin nap. Our budget is around 11000 this turn, and I imagine we are looking to add roughly another 500 R per turn, so barring a oil crisis or some such we should have, at our current spending levels (25%), around 12500 R entering 1975.
So, I came with the following figures, roughly:
At a spending level of 25% we should have around 12500 R
At a spending level of 20% we should have around 10000 R
And at 15% we should have around 7500 R
Also, from conversations on Discord as I write this seems we were working on this at the same time lol
To sum up the conversation we had there, basically, we should be spending around 2500 R just for basic power generation + nuclear. If we pick a 15% funding plan, we would only have around 5000 R to play around with (and that's not even considering other plan commitments), so we would face supply side issues and likely have a repeat of the early Klimenko issues in the heavy industrial sector. If we did a cheap plan (maybe Infra-Services) we could probably run a functional plan, but would likely face some bubbles bursting in the HI sector and maybe in CI too.
Another option would be sticking to 20% funding. We should have a healthier budget, but then this probably entails a cutback in SoE investment funds (the 20+10% funding option). Two issues with that:
- Politically, we will probably receive pushback from the SoEs. If we are in a particularly weak position for whatever reason, that might not be possible
- A cutdown in enterprise spending will mean somewhat of a demand shock, with the enterprises cutting back on expansions and modernizations.
We mayyybe could do a 25% spending plan, but I am skeptical we would even get the option, and if we did it would not be the best ideia. Our economy is running hot hot hot.
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This basically sounds like we've reached a point where the exuberant fast growth of the past will no longer be possible. More expensive investments in ever newer and capital intensive technologies are becoming needed just to maintain growth at some level at all then.
Seems like the politics of the time might become a bit more difficult.
Seems like the politics of the time might become a bit more difficult.
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That mean that all the easy targets, the filling needs and the catch-up is more or less over. The USSR is more or less at the cutting edge of its time. It come with advantages and inconveniences.
The advantages is that we are able to go tow to tow with the USA on current tech level (although I dont know if our modern electrical/electronic/plastic/composite production is only available in small number for the military/special projects or large enough to be available to the general industry/consumer base)
The disadvantage is that we have to invest more to make things better, no longer just giving indoor toilets be view as a marvel of socialism just because tsarists era was dog shit...
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From what I read I guess that we can't just return to the 20%+15% budget and mantain a slightly lower level of hotness in the economy as we'll have at the end of 1974 for the next plan, right?
Maybe next plan we can take a yearly increasing loan with 5 years of just interest costs and then repay what was given to us (+other interests) in the 1980-1985 plan?
Maybe next plan we can take a yearly increasing loan with 5 years of just interest costs and then repay what was given to us (+other interests) in the 1980-1985 plan?
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Continuing on this analysis spree, here are the compiled rolls of each of the Supreme Soviet factions since the last election (which happened under Kosygin, so that's why he is here), and their associated legislation.
Internal Politics:
Gulyam's Faction (69,11,90,63=233/400 or 56.2)
Dzhussoev's Faction (92,5,32,69=198/400 or 49)
Podgorny's Faction (78,9,1,18=106/400 or 26.5)
Kosygin's/Semyonov's Faction (68,38,71,79=256/400 or 64)
Romanov's Faction (78,49,77,14=218/400 or 54.5)
Kleshchev's/Zimyanin Faction (9,98,83,2=208/400 or 52)
Ashimov's Faction (22,88,29,89=228/400 or 57)
Romanovite/Semyonovite center: 256+218 = 474/800 (59.2)
Associated Supreme Soviet Reforms*:
-1969:
Romanov (78): Legal Enforcement (49), Comprehensive Tax Reform (98)**
Kosygin (68): Formalization of Hiring Practices (11), Comprehensive Tax Reform (98)**
-1970:
Romanov (49): Crackdown on Misallocation (86), Enforcement of Enterprise Balances (69)
Semyonov (39): Commission on the Criminal Code (48), State Union Reform (78)
-1971:
Romanov (77): Prison Reform Program (87)
Semyonov (71): Increasing Domestic Innovation (34), Force a Euro Vote (41)
-1972:
Romanov (14): Pension Modernization (68)
Semyonov (79): Restructuring of the Passport System (79)
* Comprehensive Tax Reform was an explicit Romanov/Kosygin collaborational project.
** To an extent, many of these projects were backed both by Romanov and Semyonov, as they are in a coalition. But obviously some were initiated by one or the other. Or were contentious (Increasing Domestic Innovation in particular)
Overall Legislative Results:
Romanov: 49+98+86+69+87+68 = 457/600 (76.1)
Semyonov: 11+98+48+78+34+41+89 = 399/700 (57)
Romanovite/Semyonovite Coalition: 457+399 = 856/1300 (67)
In interpreting results, the first thing one should keep in mind is that in internal politics, the first roll was the most important one since it was election year. It basically set a baseline of cadres each faction could maintain and expand upon, so a low roll that year would mean you'd have to work overtime to compensate for a poor initial result. This, in particular, should affect Ashimov and the Stalinists (Kleshev/Zimyanin). The latter in particular rallied a bit, but well, they could only really grow by making themselves attractive to delegates of other factions, which is harder than just straight up electing their own cadres... in any case it seems the Stalinist wing rallied after their initially poor election results and this turn got into tiffs with the Ashimovites, who rolled a 98.
On the other side of this, you have Podgorny, who while started off excellently as the major force outside the ruling coalition (on the back of a string of excelent rolls the previous cycle, 96,94,98,63 respectively), just crashed and burned. Last turn, he rolled a 1 and got viciously attacked by all wings over foreign policy, and then further rolled a poor 18 this turn. So I imagine a lot of his cadres abandoned him, going mostly to Semyonov, who has rolled well, is higher ranked and arguably more ideologically similar than anyone else, and likely to the right wing. The fact he is old and due to retire in 77 regardless of whether he was successful or not means he is likely seen as a spent force in politics. Whoever is left under his wing will probably initiate a power struggle in anticipation of the 74 elections when he likely retires.
The right wing in general, had a poor year in 1970. They all rolled poorly (11, 5 and 9), but had a good start in the elections and Podgorny aside, rallied in the following turns, likely throwing all focus on forpol gaffes onto the latter. Assuming both Gulyam and Dzhussoev consolidate some of Pod's cadres, continue not making gaffes they probably are off to a good start next cycle.
In regards to the Center, Semyonov did very well, he had the best internal politics rolls as a matter of fact, which is fortunate since the crisis in Austria, and the fall of Algeria would overall reflect poorly on him. Furthermore, he is best positioned to take advantage of Podgorny's major stumbles, simultaneously making him take the blame for Algeria and being best poised to absorb any defections due to his aforementioned similarity to his poltical positions. Romanov, in turn, did well as well, and though he rolled poorly this turn (14), he is still doing above average and is buoyed by significant legislative sucesses.
And speaking of legislative successes, Romanovite/Semyonovite coalition did extremely well overall. Their combined legislative efforts rolled an average of 67 over 13 rolls. Both Semyonov and Romanov did quite well, though the latter shined with a average roll of 76 over the 6 rolls associated to legislation I identified as most aligned to him. That's not too say Semyonov did shabbily though, he rolled a 57 over 7 rolls, which is quite good as well.
Anyway, despite stumbles, Semyonov's terms as GS has gone quite well. Better than I anticipated in fact, he has consolidated his faction, probably expanded it at Podgorny's expense and is not looking to go out for now. Lets see if he is up to task if his luck turns or a oil crisis occurs though. Him retiring in 1980 would be a pleasant surprise I did not think possible previously.
Internal Politics:
Gulyam's Faction (69,11,90,63=233/400 or 56.2)
Dzhussoev's Faction (92,5,32,69=198/400 or 49)
Podgorny's Faction (78,9,1,18=106/400 or 26.5)
Kosygin's/Semyonov's Faction (68,38,71,79=256/400 or 64)
Romanov's Faction (78,49,77,14=218/400 or 54.5)
Kleshchev's/Zimyanin Faction (9,98,83,2=208/400 or 52)
Ashimov's Faction (22,88,29,89=228/400 or 57)
Romanovite/Semyonovite center: 256+218 = 474/800 (59.2)
Associated Supreme Soviet Reforms*:
-1969:
Romanov (78): Legal Enforcement (49), Comprehensive Tax Reform (98)**
Kosygin (68): Formalization of Hiring Practices (11), Comprehensive Tax Reform (98)**
-1970:
Romanov (49): Crackdown on Misallocation (86), Enforcement of Enterprise Balances (69)
Semyonov (39): Commission on the Criminal Code (48), State Union Reform (78)
-1971:
Romanov (77): Prison Reform Program (87)
Semyonov (71): Increasing Domestic Innovation (34), Force a Euro Vote (41)
-1972:
Romanov (14): Pension Modernization (68)
Semyonov (79): Restructuring of the Passport System (79)
* Comprehensive Tax Reform was an explicit Romanov/Kosygin collaborational project.
** To an extent, many of these projects were backed both by Romanov and Semyonov, as they are in a coalition. But obviously some were initiated by one or the other. Or were contentious (Increasing Domestic Innovation in particular)
Overall Legislative Results:
Romanov: 49+98+86+69+87+68 = 457/600 (76.1)
Semyonov: 11+98+48+78+34+41+89 = 399/700 (57)
Romanovite/Semyonovite Coalition: 457+399 = 856/1300 (67)
In interpreting results, the first thing one should keep in mind is that in internal politics, the first roll was the most important one since it was election year. It basically set a baseline of cadres each faction could maintain and expand upon, so a low roll that year would mean you'd have to work overtime to compensate for a poor initial result. This, in particular, should affect Ashimov and the Stalinists (Kleshev/Zimyanin). The latter in particular rallied a bit, but well, they could only really grow by making themselves attractive to delegates of other factions, which is harder than just straight up electing their own cadres... in any case it seems the Stalinist wing rallied after their initially poor election results and this turn got into tiffs with the Ashimovites, who rolled a 98.
On the other side of this, you have Podgorny, who while started off excellently as the major force outside the ruling coalition (on the back of a string of excelent rolls the previous cycle, 96,94,98,63 respectively), just crashed and burned. Last turn, he rolled a 1 and got viciously attacked by all wings over foreign policy, and then further rolled a poor 18 this turn. So I imagine a lot of his cadres abandoned him, going mostly to Semyonov, who has rolled well, is higher ranked and arguably more ideologically similar than anyone else, and likely to the right wing. The fact he is old and due to retire in 77 regardless of whether he was successful or not means he is likely seen as a spent force in politics. Whoever is left under his wing will probably initiate a power struggle in anticipation of the 74 elections when he likely retires.
The right wing in general, had a poor year in 1970. They all rolled poorly (11, 5 and 9), but had a good start in the elections and Podgorny aside, rallied in the following turns, likely throwing all focus on forpol gaffes onto the latter. Assuming both Gulyam and Dzhussoev consolidate some of Pod's cadres, continue not making gaffes they probably are off to a good start next cycle.
In regards to the Center, Semyonov did very well, he had the best internal politics rolls as a matter of fact, which is fortunate since the crisis in Austria, and the fall of Algeria would overall reflect poorly on him. Furthermore, he is best positioned to take advantage of Podgorny's major stumbles, simultaneously making him take the blame for Algeria and being best poised to absorb any defections due to his aforementioned similarity to his poltical positions. Romanov, in turn, did well as well, and though he rolled poorly this turn (14), he is still doing above average and is buoyed by significant legislative sucesses.
And speaking of legislative successes, Romanovite/Semyonovite coalition did extremely well overall. Their combined legislative efforts rolled an average of 67 over 13 rolls. Both Semyonov and Romanov did quite well, though the latter shined with a average roll of 76 over the 6 rolls associated to legislation I identified as most aligned to him. That's not too say Semyonov did shabbily though, he rolled a 57 over 7 rolls, which is quite good as well.
Anyway, despite stumbles, Semyonov's terms as GS has gone quite well. Better than I anticipated in fact, he has consolidated his faction, probably expanded it at Podgorny's expense and is not looking to go out for now. Lets see if he is up to task if his luck turns or a oil crisis occurs though. Him retiring in 1980 would be a pleasant surprise I did not think possible previously.
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I am not sure if that option will be available to us, however even if it is, I am not sure it would be worth taking. Another 5 years of very high spending, perhaps coinciding with oilshock, could cause economic problems.
But yes, this plan officially marks the end of looting the countryside for labor, and steadily increasing prices for inputs in general. Growth at the rate of the Voznesensky/late Klimenko era will become harder and harder to sustain as our economy becomes more developed.
The old cabbages are going to try to shake India and china for labor I'm guessing?
- Location
- The great frozen north
I count. From the start of Voznesensky's term to the current turn (83), the power grid got 5185 new electricity units of generation capacity. That's 1728 Terawatt-hours/year, or 197 gigawatts averaged out. That is just the grid however. The hydropower cascades generate a lot of electricity that is used directly by local metallurgical industries (mostly non-ferrous, some steel) that is never directly tallied, and hence the real number is probably a couple hundred TWh/yr larger. That puts us on the same level as the USA in the seventies OTL!
Things REALLY ramped up in the current plan: despite being only three years in, it makes up over a third of that total at 1943 units! The main contributors to that are the hydropower cascades, and massive intensification of coal power. Apparently we got much better at building those turbines compared to the 8th plan: We locked in 50% more dice but we are getting two and a half times as much electricity from it vs last plan. IDK what happened, gas power didn't see similar inflation.
I plan to make an electricity retrospective at the end of Klimenko's term like I did for The Voz. I'm still not sure how to factor in the way much of our generation now has a 5 year lead time, it makes things less straightforwards to graph. I take suggestions.
The reason coal suddenly got so amazing this FYP is that this is the first time we have access to supercritical steam systems, which are significantly more efficient. Gas power is still using the same combined cycle gas turbines they were last Plan rather than supercritical steam generators, which is why it didn't get similar gains.
That's a large part of why we're suddenly in a coal crisis, coal became an incredibly potent energy source but then oopsie we premised a bunch of growth on gobbling up the coal as fast as humanly possible.
That's a large part of why we're suddenly in a coal crisis, coal became an incredibly potent energy source but then oopsie we premised a bunch of growth on gobbling up the coal as fast as humanly possible.
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It'll add up, though I am alot more worried about all the freon in their refrigerant loops.
With us and the USA rushing for maximum air conditioning, the ozone layer will be getting utterly hammered.
Ahh, I see, so the warning was about putting putting too many dice in during the 60s. I thought the warning had been about what we put in each year once the big build-out started in the 70s.
So according to this China can generate 8,882 billion KWh, which is an odd way to count TWh, but it is an American source, and the US a little less than half of that in 2022. So us producing over a thousand TWh is... At least 1/8th of a modern China? According to the same source, the US in 1980 generated 2,290 TWh.
So already 500 TWh more than the OTL Soviet Union in 1980... A respectable number, but less than I feared. (I say feared because I've been a bit worried that we've been extremely inefficient at turning raw resources into quality of life improvements...)
That makes me wonder if the numbers for the US includes things like the hydro in the Pacific Northwest that was purely used for industry.
It is wild that investing in RMBK reactor production might actually be a good idea.
Though I do worry about things like cost-effectiveness if we introduce another standard reactor design. I'd rather get maximum economies of scale with the VVER designs, and of course, there's always the fear of a crit fail which would be especially bad with this design...
Still, RMBKs are better than even more coal plants.
So more reasons for an LI focused plan then...
On the other hand, the odds that we will get an oil crisis over the next plan are much higher. If running even hotter than we are now means we're better prepared for global energy crunch time, it might be worth doing. Especially as we can blame the oil crisis for the crisis when the overheated economy crashes.
Of course, if running even hotter isn't needed for preparing, we shouldn't do it.
It's gonna be interesting to see how it goes when it comes. I am expecting it to be a fair bit worse than the OTL oil crises. Will be especially challenging helping our allies survive it.
Depending on who is in power in the US and thus who gets blamed, it could have interesting effects on the Cold War too.
For sure. Just managing the politics as politicians get used to growth being slower will be interesting.
Regards,
fasquardon