Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition
- Thread starter Blackstar
- Start date
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Hey, Bala is finally getting with the program. No more complaining about the cost of labor for the poor poor enterprises, rising wages raises all boats.
If we are taking infrastructure as a focus then going all in on infrastructure here isn't necessary. Conversely if we are not taking an infrastructure focus then going all in on infrastructure dice is a necessity. How many dice would that give us if we don't focus on infrasucture, go all in on infrastructure here, and downgrade to a single autodice on rail next plan?
Very rough profitability analysis. Of note, Vladivostok will presumably pay off next turn as ships take a hot minute to construct.
Project: Vladivostok Shipyards, Profitability: 0.00
Project: Microcomputer Plants(Stage 4/4), Profitability: 0.13
Project: Third Generation Food Programs(Stage 2/3), Profitability: 0.09
Project: Textile Industry Overhauls, Profitability: 0.10
Project: Mixed Textile Industries(Stage 3/3), Profitability: 0.08
Project: Intensive Development of the Caspian(Stage 3/6), Profitability: 0.33
Project: Modernization of Oil Fields(Stage 1/4), Profitability: 0.18
Project: Heavy Oil Experiments, Profitability: 0.10
Project: Funding for Local Beef, Profitability: 0.12
Project: New Preserved Meats Program, Profitability: 0.06
Project: Expansion of Domestic Media Production(Stage 1/2), Profitability: 0.10
Project: Restaurant Assistive Funding, Profitability: 0.13
Project: Population Distribution Programs(Stage 4/5), Profitability: 0.06
Project: Vladivostok Shipyards, Profitability: 0.00
Project: Microcomputer Plants(Stage 4/4), Profitability: 0.13
Project: Third Generation Food Programs(Stage 2/3), Profitability: 0.09
Project: Textile Industry Overhauls, Profitability: 0.10
Project: Mixed Textile Industries(Stage 3/3), Profitability: 0.08
Project: Intensive Development of the Caspian(Stage 3/6), Profitability: 0.33
Project: Modernization of Oil Fields(Stage 1/4), Profitability: 0.18
Project: Heavy Oil Experiments, Profitability: 0.10
Project: Funding for Local Beef, Profitability: 0.12
Project: New Preserved Meats Program, Profitability: 0.06
Project: Expansion of Domestic Media Production(Stage 1/2), Profitability: 0.10
Project: Restaurant Assistive Funding, Profitability: 0.13
Project: Population Distribution Programs(Stage 4/5), Profitability: 0.06
I was right about restaurants, they are as profitable now as fucking microchips.
Also, since we lost 2/3 the reserves from the Caspian, going a CI plan is basically mandatory, a revolution in the chemical technologies is the only thing that will blunt oil prices enough to give us time to deploy conversions and shift the economy now. I was really banking on riding the Caspian into the the oil crisis, not expending the whole thing before it even hits.
[] Plan: Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste
-[]RLA-3 Minimal Stack: (-40 RpY)
-[]Modify Recoverability Information
-[]Prioritize Internal Unity
-[]Addressing the Labor Problem: (+2 Infrastructure Dice +2 Light Industry Dice +2 Services Dice)
One goal, and one goal only - trigger the oilshock, here at the 11th hour, in election year no less. But of course, since Bala will be the one starting the wave, he might be able to ride it.
Oh, and it'll help with the middle-income trap. Don't pick the six infra dice. I want them too, but it'll massively fuck up income progress and recreate this exact same problem in 20 years when the new construction workers have worn out their knees and spines. That's a path that ends with increasing dependency on an abused underclass of migrant workers followed by eventual reactionary crisis.
Moderation. These sectors can uptake much more cleanly split three ways.
-[]RLA-3 Minimal Stack: (-40 RpY)
-[]Modify Recoverability Information
-[]Prioritize Internal Unity
-[]Addressing the Labor Problem: (+2 Infrastructure Dice +2 Light Industry Dice +2 Services Dice)
One goal, and one goal only - trigger the oilshock, here at the 11th hour, in election year no less. But of course, since Bala will be the one starting the wave, he might be able to ride it.
Oh, and it'll help with the middle-income trap. Don't pick the six infra dice. I want them too, but it'll massively fuck up income progress and recreate this exact same problem in 20 years when the new construction workers have worn out their knees and spines. That's a path that ends with increasing dependency on an abused underclass of migrant workers followed by eventual reactionary crisis.
Moderation. These sectors can uptake much more cleanly split three ways.
This locks us into doing infrastructure next plan, which locks us out of doing services next plan because we won't survive oilshock with our current oil reserves and and so CI is now a necessity.
Resource prices:
Coal: 58
Steel: 39
Non-Ferrous: 64
Petroleum Fuels: 46 before imports
Petroleum Gas: 15
Petrochemicals: 35
General Labor: 52
Educated Labor: 62
Electricity: 81
On dice distribution, we need more HI dice and Infra is locked in every choice, so the choice is between Long Term Growth Emphasis and Balanced Industrial Emphasis. Both can work fine, but it is more or less making a choice whether we do Infra/Services or CI/Services focus next plan. On the whole, I am inclined towards CI/Services, since the oil shock is likely to hit and Infra is getting purged of everything but the roads, so 9 default dice for it should be enough.
For politics, I implore people to not descend into infighting right before the election. Yes, Zimyanin holds or at least champions some rather odious positions and we want to isolate him to take the sole leadership in the faction, but I think we will be in a much better position to try it after the elections, where we are in a position to strengthen our side of the faction much better than Zimyanin. If we go into infighting right now, odds are that after the election, our faction will be small enough that we'll have to court the same radicals Zimyanin currently does to be in a position to do anything, as opposed to just isolating and ignoring them.
Coal: 58
Steel: 39
Non-Ferrous: 64
Petroleum Fuels: 46 before imports
Petroleum Gas: 15
Petrochemicals: 35
General Labor: 52
Educated Labor: 62
Electricity: 81
On dice distribution, we need more HI dice and Infra is locked in every choice, so the choice is between Long Term Growth Emphasis and Balanced Industrial Emphasis. Both can work fine, but it is more or less making a choice whether we do Infra/Services or CI/Services focus next plan. On the whole, I am inclined towards CI/Services, since the oil shock is likely to hit and Infra is getting purged of everything but the roads, so 9 default dice for it should be enough.
For politics, I implore people to not descend into infighting right before the election. Yes, Zimyanin holds or at least champions some rather odious positions and we want to isolate him to take the sole leadership in the faction, but I think we will be in a much better position to try it after the elections, where we are in a position to strengthen our side of the faction much better than Zimyanin. If we go into infighting right now, odds are that after the election, our faction will be small enough that we'll have to court the same radicals Zimyanin currently does to be in a position to do anything, as opposed to just isolating and ignoring them.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The fact that some of the most heavily developed urban corridors in the Soviet Union didn't have 6-lane freeways until now frankly suggests that we're overcompensating. While four lanes is adequate for most purposes, there are going to be specific places where 6-8 becomes necessary, and "right through the biggest cities in the country" is one of them.
- Location
- Northish
I personally am worried more about having our dense urban and public spaces covered in parking spaces rather than decent highways. We need highways to flexibly move goods and workers in ways that trains can't cover.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, our public spaces were already getting parked on whether they're paved for it or not, because that's what happens when you design a city of a million with, say, 100,000 parking spaces. At least by building actual parking garages we can reduce the literal footprint of the parking by a factor of 3-6 or so compared to what it might otherwise be.
We were never going to get through the twentieth century without major demand for automobiles and the infrastructure to make using them possible. Every developed country, every single one, has hit this issue, because personal motorized vehicles are just so goddamn useful that it's politically near-impossible to try and make the population accept "YOU WILL TAKE THE BUS AND LIKE IT, MISSY!"
- Location
- Northish
I am aware and support throwing up parking towers like grain silos if that keeps things under control.
The Lunar Upper Stack Program did roll on the fairly lowish side, with a 17 yeah. Not the sub-10 terrible... but not great at all.
Of the three options:
RLA-3 Minimal Stack: At first glance it seems doable at least. Two potential issues though, for one the current nuclear reactor is only described as kind of stable... which isn't really what I like hearing on a manned vehicle. Secondly one is basically deliberately throwing nuclear reactors on crash courses with the Moon. Sure, the moon isn't inhabitable, but if the reactor core were breached due to impact it would still will leave radioactive areas you won't be able to visit in future, which is not the greatest. Also one would presume that on the political front, parts of the international community might dislike this kind of perceived careless radioactive littering on a place they can see in the sky and might want to visit in future, also it might remind just a little to much of how an ICBM strike would go. So one should probably expect this will be grabbed on by certain parties (like the USA or France) for negative PR against the USSR for a long time to come, considering those places realistically won't be something that can be cleaned up.
Heavy Direct Lander: It would work as such, though obviously developing a super heavy launcher in just a few years is a bit of a rush project. So this will presumably be expensive and there are risks on if the timetable can really be met. Basically the 50 rpy doesn't represent the entire program here, it's that plus the super heavy launcher that is required to be locked in as well then.
Separated Lander: High on technical risk in using orbital rendezvous to the max, but minimal in actual new things that need to be made. Basically this gambles everything on that one can do orbital rendezvous rapidly enough and well enough to assemble a craft to the Moon. Basically if it works one has proven orbital rendezvous as a valid approach going forward for larger assembled projects to various places. Beyond that it will grant no further technical benefit and it has no prospect long term for Moon missions as it's mostly just a flag raising mission. If it works as hoped this is probably the most sure way to get it done quickly as the rockets already exist, you only need to develop the upper stack. For longer term Moon missions the orbital nuclear tug approach already seems like it will work out, so that would basically then effectively be the immediate follow up to this. Where a nuclear propulsion unit can move you between various orbits and it occasionally refuels from where ever it can get fuel, for now this would be only low earth orbit.
As such the first option seems like it might be a bit risky with a reactor design that might not be fully mature by the time it will be used in the mission. Which is perhaps not really what one wants for a high profile manned mission, it would be pretty bad if the nuclear drive developed a major problem or became inoperative during a mission. And seems like it will give one a PR hit for potentially 'kind of' dangerous radioactive littering of an exploration target.
The second option seems like you'd have to really rush through the super heavy launcher development considering the upper stage would already be done in 1982 which is just 3 to 4 short years. Designing a super heavy that quickly would at the least I'd think constrain what kind of designs are possible, anything to innovative is not doable, and it would not be surprising if potential dangerous corners were cut to try and complete it in such a tight time frame. This could lead to spectacular failure problems like seen with our worlds USSR moon mission, where several test launches of their moon rocket all exploded.
The third option gambles that we can master orbital rendezvous, but otherwise only needs to make the lunar landing system as new hardware, launch is fully covered by existing RLA-3 launchers. It's a minimal flag waving system, but hardware wise it's the easiest to complete quickly I'd expect. You would have to develop a follow on lunar system for long term missions, though presumably the orbital tug system would be involved in this which would presumably make things substantially easier. This should then give one more time to develop a heavy launcher for any kind of later missions and more time for the nuclear engine tech to mature for the orbital tug concept before you start moving people around with it.
Putting that all together, you'd think that after docking with space stations for years now, that one could manage some kind of orbital rendezvous at this point. So I'd cautiously suggest that option 3, Separated Lander might be one of the safest option to proceed with. It doesn't involve experimental technology being pushed in to manned service quickly, and it doesn't need one to rush a super heavy launcher out the door and hope it doesn't have so many problems that your program is delayed for potentially years or explode with a manned capsule on top. Even if something did go wrong with docking in space for the one or other reason, one can safely back out to Earth still and try again later. And even if it never worked one would presumably still be working on the long term Lunar exploration plan, and so one could get to the Moon still at least, even if likely beaten by the USA. But while being beaten by the Americans would be embarrassing and give one some political setback, that could still be recovered if one had a better long term program then the USA did.
If my interpretation is wrong somewhere though, please let me know. To an extent I have to guess a bit on what will happen along each of these paths after all.
PS, the USA using solid rockets for their first stage manned super heavy launcher is kind of scary. This is because if they explode the options for safe excape by the manned capsule will be greatly reduced. Getting clear of the burning chunks of solid rocket fuel would be a lot more challenging and if those hit the parachute of the capsure once it deploys it would obviously be a very bad thing. Also solids are known for causing some rather excessive vibrations compared to liquid rockets, so it might be a bit of a rough ride for astronauts unless they add more things in to dampen the vibrations. So their system is perhaps quick to slap together and it might make a relatively cheap first stage, but it certainly adds further risks to a manned mission.
It's not just electricity, there's also a lot of other stuff we want in HI as to not blow up our economy the way we almost did in the beginning of the plan.
We already have +2 dice in Infra from the deputy, we'll have +6 even only adding 4 dice. Also, there's always something we can spend Infra dice on, no matter how many we'll get, we'll need to prioritise.
- Location
- Earth, Milky Way
Maybe it's time to put some trust in our engineers and go for the Heavy Direct Lander.
Remember, from the update:
Remember, from the update:
Why the would they choose the unoptimal parking lots that have fewer spots when they can make a ton more with a parking garage in the same spot.
- Location
- Poland
Since we already are moving towards leadership of the Stalinist/left-of-Vorotnikov wing, we should absolutely come in carrying a knife. That is the decisive™️course of action, and its better to have a relatively small group of people you have firm control over than a larger faction thats less certain. Especially when it comes to the prospect of eventually forming a coalition with Vorotnikov.
Plus I think this is an approach Comrade Stalin would approve of, and in the end isn't that the most important part?
Plus I think this is an approach Comrade Stalin would approve of, and in the end isn't that the most important part?
[X] Plan Nuclear Assembly
-[X] RLA-3 Minimal Stack: (-40 RpY)
-[X] Modify Recoverability Information
-[X] Pause Internal Conflicts
-[X] Long Term Growth Emphasis (+4 Infrastructure Dice +2 Heavy Industry Dice)
[X] Plan Orbital Rendezvous
-[X] Separated Lander (-40 RpY)
-[X] Modify Recoverability Information
-[X] Pause Internal Conflicts
-[X] Long Term Growth Emphasis (+4 Infrastructure Dice +2 Heavy Industry Dice)
I think either the first or the third rocketry options can work. Starting on a direct assent lander before we even have a superheavy to launch it with is some iffy, on the other hand.
-[X] RLA-3 Minimal Stack: (-40 RpY)
-[X] Modify Recoverability Information
-[X] Pause Internal Conflicts
-[X] Long Term Growth Emphasis (+4 Infrastructure Dice +2 Heavy Industry Dice)
[X] Plan Orbital Rendezvous
-[X] Separated Lander (-40 RpY)
-[X] Modify Recoverability Information
-[X] Pause Internal Conflicts
-[X] Long Term Growth Emphasis (+4 Infrastructure Dice +2 Heavy Industry Dice)
I think either the first or the third rocketry options can work. Starting on a direct assent lander before we even have a superheavy to launch it with is some iffy, on the other hand.
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