Can I ask what's the thinking on doing both of these actions? From my reading of the update the last three options mostly focus on how do we want to put the first people in orbit, so having both, while nice, isn't a necessity right now. And while I'm fully on board with not looking into making a third stage until we have our next launcher nailed down, starting to throw Sputnik probes at the moon may help put us on the track for first lunar probe, which would be nice to have since we lost the race for first satellite. It would give us experience with the challenge of reaching the moon in the first place for when we start considering more complex, expensive probes or manned lunar missions.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition
- Thread starter Blackstar
- Start date
- Alt. History Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- The great frozen north
I initially figured Manned Capsule was focused on life support systems, but re-reading the action it seems you're right, I'll most likely shift that dice to the Luna program when I make my next plan (which will probably be when we finally figure out what reforms we want)
Manned Capsules are a pretty sure way to get the cosmonauts up there and back to Earth without killing them, and they are relatively simple to develop, even though it will take time. On the other hand, R7M-PKA program is a spaceplane, which is both advanced and complicated, and therefore their development can hit a snag and have us lose the race to first man in space. However, that program is already in the works and we seemingly got very lucky with it, achieving significant progress, so if our luck holds and the program doesn't hit a snag, we'll get a system more advanced than OTL Vostoks and will get it quicker. But it is risky. So, funding both projects would be hedging our bets - if the PKA program works out, all is well, if it doesn't, we'll have Manned Capsules ready to replace it.
- Location
- Russia
I copypasted Urist's plan at first honestly, shifting to Luna probes and manned capsule now. I don't really trust space plane to not mess up one of our most significant PR achievements, spoiling our space propaganda and public view of space exploration far into future.
Also new plan, with much rethinking and actual name:
[] Plan Fossil Fuels and National Republics
1235+3900 Resources (2915 Reserve), 32+3+5 Dice Rolled
Infrastructure (6/5 Dice, 440 R)
-[]Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 Dice (160 R)
-[]Construction of the Paved Road Network(Stage 5), 1 Dice (60 R)
-[]Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 1 Dice (70 R)
-[]Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 2 Dice (150 R)
Heavy Industry (11/8 Dice, 860 R)
-[]Karaganda Steel Mill Construction, 3 Dice (300 R)
-[]Coal Mine Modernization, 2 Dice (120 R)
-[]Perm MMK(Stage 1), 4 Dice (240 R)
-[]Test Reactor Complex Construction, 1 Dice (120 R)
-[]Bus Plants(Lviv), 1 Dice (80 R)
Rocketry (3/3 Dice, 20 R)
-[]Determine the Next Launcher
-[]Start Luna-Probes
-[]Manned Capsule Program
Light and Chemical Industry (9/8 Dice, 520 R)
-[]Modernization of Oil Fields, 2 Dice (100 R)
-[]Volga-Ural Petroleum Basin Exploitation(Stage 1), 1 Dice (30 R)
-[]Pre-Caspian Petroleum Basin Exploitation(Stage 1), 1 Dice (30 R)
-[]Plastic Production(Stage 4), 1 Dice (60 R)
-[]Kitchenware Plants, 3 Dice (180 R)
-[]Computing Plants Modernization, 1 Dice (120 R)
Agriculture (5/5 Dice, 260 R)
-[]Expansions of Factory Farming(Stage 7), 3 Dice (150 R)
-[]Foundation of SOE's in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 Dice (50 R)
-[]Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 Dice (60 R)
Services (2/2 Dice, 120 R)
-[]Baltic Sea Tourist Centers, 2 Dice (120 R)
Bureaucracy (5/5 Dice)
-[]Remove Worker-Compensation Limits, 1 Dice
-[]Break open the Army OKBs, 2 Dice
-[]Start Army-Funding Transfers, 1 Dice
-[]Determine Coalitional Alignments, 1 Dice
A new idea on cracking, courtesy of @garphield , is to push it through with Dedicate Focus Towards a Project in one turn later, which works very well from game mechanics-probability point (78,9% to complete it with 5 dice and a canon omake instead of normal 51,8%), so I'm shifting dice to Kitchenware, a good workforce sink and helpful for our people. Secondly, by Blackstar's reply coal plants' resumption actually needs deskewering coal trade balance, so we'll need to either modernize mines or free coal by switching central heating to gas (for our trade balance, preferably both), and first can be done much faster (and also helps our miners to not die).
Edit: swapped two rail dice to metros.
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[] Plan Step On The Gas (And Coal) (2265 Resources, 2870 in reserve, 41 Dice Rolled)
-[] Moonshot
Infrastructure, 5 Dice (370R):
-[]Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 Dice (160R)
-[]Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 2 Dice (140R)
-[]Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 1 Die (70R)
Heavy Industry, 8 Dice + 5 Free (1080R):
-[]Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Combine Expansion, 3 Dice (360R)
-[]Coal Mine Modernization, 3 Dice (180R)
-[]Perm MMK(Stage 1), 3 Dice (180R)
-[]Test Reactor Complex Construction, 1 Dice (120R)
-[]New Automotive Plants(Ulyanovsk), 3 Dice (240R)
Rocketry, 3 Dice (0R):
-[]Determine the Next Launcher, 1 Die (0R)
-[]Start Luna-Probes, 1 Die (0R)
-[]R7M-PKA Program, 1 Die (0R)
Light and Chemical Industry, 8 Dice(450R):
-[]Volga-Ural Petroleum Basin Exploitation(Stage 1), 1 Die (30R)
-[]Pre-Caspian Petroleum Basin Exploitation(Stage 1), 1 Die (30R)
-[]Samara Refinery Complex(Stage 1), 1 Die (50R)
-[]Kitchenware Plants, 3 Dice (180R)
-[]Luxury Goods Initiatives(Stage 1), 1 Die (40R)
-[]Computing Plants Modernization, 1 Die (120R)
Agriculture, 5 Dice (245R):
-[]Housing Expansions, 3 Dice (135R)
-[]Foundation of SOEs in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 Die (50R)
-[]Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 Die (60R)
Services, 2 Dice (120R):
-[]Film Studio Formation (Stage 3), 2 Dice (120R)
Bureaucracy, 5 Dice (0R):
-[]Break open the Army OKBs, 2 Dice (0R)
-[]Start Army-Funding Transfers, 2 Dice (0R)
-[]Determine Coalitional Alignments, 1 Die (0R)
Roughly the same goals as matprovk's plan, but doing Dneprodzerzhinsk instead of Karaganda because it gives a larger return for literally half of the dice/resources and tries to focus dice on things that are more likely to finish soon so we can start fixing our massive lack of income sooner. Next turn, we can hopefully do a round of coal plants to give us a bit more electricity so we can do cracking plants, which should give us a huge income increase and also let us lower the amount of lead in our gasoline.
-[] Moonshot
Infrastructure, 5 Dice (370R):
-[]Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 Dice (160R)
-[]Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 2 Dice (140R)
-[]Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 1 Die (70R)
Heavy Industry, 8 Dice + 5 Free (1080R):
-[]Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Combine Expansion, 3 Dice (360R)
-[]Coal Mine Modernization, 3 Dice (180R)
-[]Perm MMK(Stage 1), 3 Dice (180R)
-[]Test Reactor Complex Construction, 1 Dice (120R)
-[]New Automotive Plants(Ulyanovsk), 3 Dice (240R)
Rocketry, 3 Dice (0R):
-[]Determine the Next Launcher, 1 Die (0R)
-[]Start Luna-Probes, 1 Die (0R)
-[]R7M-PKA Program, 1 Die (0R)
Light and Chemical Industry, 8 Dice(450R):
-[]Volga-Ural Petroleum Basin Exploitation(Stage 1), 1 Die (30R)
-[]Pre-Caspian Petroleum Basin Exploitation(Stage 1), 1 Die (30R)
-[]Samara Refinery Complex(Stage 1), 1 Die (50R)
-[]Kitchenware Plants, 3 Dice (180R)
-[]Luxury Goods Initiatives(Stage 1), 1 Die (40R)
-[]Computing Plants Modernization, 1 Die (120R)
Agriculture, 5 Dice (245R):
-[]Housing Expansions, 3 Dice (135R)
-[]Foundation of SOEs in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 Die (50R)
-[]Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 Die (60R)
Services, 2 Dice (120R):
-[]Film Studio Formation (Stage 3), 2 Dice (120R)
Bureaucracy, 5 Dice (0R):
-[]Break open the Army OKBs, 2 Dice (0R)
-[]Start Army-Funding Transfers, 2 Dice (0R)
-[]Determine Coalitional Alignments, 1 Die (0R)
Roughly the same goals as matprovk's plan, but doing Dneprodzerzhinsk instead of Karaganda because it gives a larger return for literally half of the dice/resources and tries to focus dice on things that are more likely to finish soon so we can start fixing our massive lack of income sooner. Next turn, we can hopefully do a round of coal plants to give us a bit more electricity so we can do cracking plants, which should give us a huge income increase and also let us lower the amount of lead in our gasoline.
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- Location
- The great frozen north
Is the idea behind 3 dice on water to get it done in one turn so we don't have to worry about it for a while? I can get behind that. Might be worth taking that approach rather than slow-rolling everything at once. Certainly easier for blackstar, who won't have to write five paragraphs of "we did a little bit of work on X" in convoluted voz-speak every turn.
I worry if we'll ever get to Karaganda if we don't do it now... you're right we want cheap steel, but most of us can't find the energy budget to build one this turn anyway. But if we're that comitted to doing a coal plant next turn anyway, your plan's not bad overall.
- Location
- Russia
There's 24-hour moratorium on voting.
Also I forgot put a rocketry vote into my plan, which I'm fixing now - obviously Moonshot because CORRUPT LUNAR SO-CALLED SAGES WILL FEAR MIGHT OF THE UNION, AND OPPRESSED MOON RABBIT RACE WILL BE LIBERATED FROM SHACKLES OF EXPLOITATION! RED LUNAR WAR COMES!
In addition to eagerly awaiting the opportunity to write a Touhou omake, I think we have every capability to succeed there and secure great propaganda and cultural victory, barring only truly bad dice rolls, and additional funding will only help.
Might make a fork with Development of Near-Earth Technologies later though.
Edit: misunderstood Blackstar's answer in discord. Still would vote for moonshot though.
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- Location
- The great frozen north
@Blackstar should the rocketry objective vote be included as part of our plan, or should that choice be separate?
I'm still hesitant to vote Moonshot myself, I fear burning out the space program with crippling overspecialization and leaving it to languish with little usable infrastructure after we get our little political victory.
I'm still hesitant to vote Moonshot myself, I fear burning out the space program with crippling overspecialization and leaving it to languish with little usable infrastructure after we get our little political victory.
I changed it to only be 2 dice on water instead of 3, but I think we should try to finish this stage of water soon as it will probably save thousands of lives and be a huge QoL improvement. Also I budgeted the electricity usage for my plan and we should probably be okay, even with the steel mill being likely to finish.
We should focus on things that increase our income and/or decrease costs to let us have more to work with once our reserve runs out, and steel is critical for this (allows for direct exports as well as keeping construction costs low and letting us build things like car plants), as at our current rate we have around 3 turns left until our reserve runs out, we need to do this as quickly as possible and therefore can't waste time on a 400 progress project when a 200 progress project increases our steel production by a larger amount. Our steel consumption will only continue to grow - we will do Karaganda eventually.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
[ ] Plan Metros Draft
Infrastructure, 5 Dice +2 Free
-[ ] Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 dice (160 Resources)
-[ ] Passenger Rail Network(Western SU), 1 die (60 Resources)
-[ ] Construction of the Paved Road Network(Stage 4), 1 die (60 Resources)
-[ ] Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 1 die (70 Resources)
-[ ] Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 1 die (70 Resources)
-[ ] Telecommunications Infrastructure(Stage 3), 1 die (80 Resources)
Heavy Industry, 8 Dice +2 Free
-[ ] Karaganda Steel Mill Construction, 3 dice (300 Resources)
-[ ] Coal Mine Modernization, 1 die (60 Resources)
-[ ] Perm MMK(Stage 1), 3 dice (180 Resources)
-[ ] Test Reactor Complex Construction, 2 dice (240 Resources)
-[ ] Bus Plant(Riga), 1 die (80 Resources)
Rocketry, 3 Dice
-[ ] Determine the Next Launcher, 1 die
-[ ] Start Luna-Probes, 1 die
-[ ] Manned Capsule Program, 1 die (20 Resources)
Light and Chemical Industry, 8 Dice +1 Free
-[ ] Modernization of Oil Fields, 3 dice (150 Resources)
-[ ] Kitchenware Plants, 3 dice (180 Resources)
-[ ] Luxury Goods Initiatives(Stage 1), 2 dice (80 Resources)
-[ ] Computing Plants Modernization, 1 die (120 Resources)
Agriculture, 5 Dice
-[ ] Expansions of Factory Farming(Stage 8), 3 dice (150 Resources)
-[ ] Foundation of SOE's in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 die (50 Resources)
-[ ] Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 die (60 Resources)
Services, 2 Dice
-[ ] Baltic Sea Tourist Centers, 2 dice (120 Resources)
Bureaucracy, 5 Dice
-[ ] Remove Worker-Compensation Limits, 1 die
-[ ] Break open the Army OKBs, 2 dice
-[ ] Start Army-Funding Transfers, 1 die
-[ ] Determine Coalitional Alignments, 1 die
Resources Available: 5135
Resources Used: 2290
Resources Remaining: 2845
First draft of my plan, with the big thing for it being that I want 2 dice on Metros given that Voz was describing them as "critically needed." Also making sure to continue all the projects we were doing last turn, except TV Plants and Sports.
Aside from that, things I'm questioning are on the distribution of Free Dice. HI, should I keep with the ZIL Plant, or go for something else? My thought in LCI is that next turn we go for a combo of the two Basic exploitations alongside Samara Refinery (since they're meant to be done together) alongside finishing modernizations if it hasn't been completed yet, while the other half of our LCI dice are on ConGoods duty.
Services I could swap Film (and even Sports) for something else, since I imagine the Sports isn't specifically something at risk of decay if left alone for a turn.
EDIT: Yeah, not enough electricity for ZIL Plant even if it finishes. Swapped it over to an extra die on the test reactor (since it's impossible for 1 to finish it) and one die on a bus plant.
Infrastructure, 5 Dice +2 Free
-[ ] Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 dice (160 Resources)
-[ ] Passenger Rail Network(Western SU), 1 die (60 Resources)
-[ ] Construction of the Paved Road Network(Stage 4), 1 die (60 Resources)
-[ ] Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 1 die (70 Resources)
-[ ] Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 1 die (70 Resources)
-[ ] Telecommunications Infrastructure(Stage 3), 1 die (80 Resources)
Heavy Industry, 8 Dice +2 Free
-[ ] Karaganda Steel Mill Construction, 3 dice (300 Resources)
-[ ] Coal Mine Modernization, 1 die (60 Resources)
-[ ] Perm MMK(Stage 1), 3 dice (180 Resources)
-[ ] Test Reactor Complex Construction, 2 dice (240 Resources)
-[ ] Bus Plant(Riga), 1 die (80 Resources)
Rocketry, 3 Dice
-[ ] Determine the Next Launcher, 1 die
-[ ] Start Luna-Probes, 1 die
-[ ] Manned Capsule Program, 1 die (20 Resources)
Light and Chemical Industry, 8 Dice +1 Free
-[ ] Modernization of Oil Fields, 3 dice (150 Resources)
-[ ] Kitchenware Plants, 3 dice (180 Resources)
-[ ] Luxury Goods Initiatives(Stage 1), 2 dice (80 Resources)
-[ ] Computing Plants Modernization, 1 die (120 Resources)
Agriculture, 5 Dice
-[ ] Expansions of Factory Farming(Stage 8), 3 dice (150 Resources)
-[ ] Foundation of SOE's in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 die (50 Resources)
-[ ] Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 die (60 Resources)
Services, 2 Dice
-[ ] Baltic Sea Tourist Centers, 2 dice (120 Resources)
Bureaucracy, 5 Dice
-[ ] Remove Worker-Compensation Limits, 1 die
-[ ] Break open the Army OKBs, 2 dice
-[ ] Start Army-Funding Transfers, 1 die
-[ ] Determine Coalitional Alignments, 1 die
Resources Available: 5135
Resources Used: 2290
Resources Remaining: 2845
First draft of my plan, with the big thing for it being that I want 2 dice on Metros given that Voz was describing them as "critically needed." Also making sure to continue all the projects we were doing last turn, except TV Plants and Sports.
Aside from that, things I'm questioning are on the distribution of Free Dice. HI, should I keep with the ZIL Plant, or go for something else? My thought in LCI is that next turn we go for a combo of the two Basic exploitations alongside Samara Refinery (since they're meant to be done together) alongside finishing modernizations if it hasn't been completed yet, while the other half of our LCI dice are on ConGoods duty.
Services I could swap Film (and even Sports) for something else, since I imagine the Sports isn't specifically something at risk of decay if left alone for a turn.
EDIT: Yeah, not enough electricity for ZIL Plant even if it finishes. Swapped it over to an extra die on the test reactor (since it's impossible for 1 to finish it) and one die on a bus plant.
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- Location
- Northish
Hopefully the political pressure to make deadlines during this version of the Space Race will end with less dead cosmonauts. I would like to see a red flag over the moon as much as any true socialist but canon Soviet space development was a bit to attritional.
This plan focuses on continuing our infrastructure development and produces a bunch of steel so that we can build the bus plant (and car plants in the future). Notably it has a 66% chance of getting the next stage of Telecomms done this turn, giving us another +1 to every dice.
It spends up to 55/49 Electricity but the chances of using it all are incredibly small. 18%*60%*31%49%*34% = ~0.5% chance of hitting our electrical limit. If we want to be safer we can swap the TV plant with a 2nd dice on Oil Cracking. Note that Factory Farming is Stage 8 (58/450) according to the most recent results post, so we don't risk finishing it this turn.
Currently going for Space Stations for rockets, it'll be less of a propaganda win but getting GPS and weather sats early is much more valuable IMO.
[]Development of Near-Earth Technologies
[] Plan Infra-Steel
-[]2350/5135 Resources (2785 Reserve), 38 Dice Rolled
Infrastructure (9/5 Dice, 680 R)
-[]Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 Dice (160 R)
-[]Passenger Rail Network(Western SU), 1 Dice (80 R)
-[]Construction of the Paved Road Network(Stage 5), 1 Dice (60 R)
-[]Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 1 Dice (70 R)
-[]Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 1 Dice (70 R)
-[]Telecommunications Infrastructure(Stage 3), 3 Dice (240 R)
Heavy Industry (9/8 Dice, 780 R)
-[]Karaganda Steel Mill Construction, 4 Dice (400 R)
-[]Perm MMK(Stage 1), 3 Dice (180 R)
-[]Test Reactor Complex Construction, 1 Dice (120 R)
-[]Bus Plants(Lviv), 1 Dice (80 R)
Rocketry (3/3 Dice, 0 R)
-[]Determine the Next Launcher, 1 Dice
-[]Manned Capsule Program, 1 Dice
-[]R7M-PKA Program, 1 Dice
Light and Chemical Industry (8/8 Dice, 550 R)
-[]Oil Cracking Plants, 1 Dice (90 R)
-[]Television Production Plants(Stage 3), 1 Dice (80 R)
-[]Kitchenware Plants, 3 Dice (180 R)
-[]Luxury Goods Initiatives(Stage 1), 2 Dice (80 R)
-[]Computing Plants Modernization, 1 Dice (120 R)
Agriculture (5/5 Dice, 260 R)
-[]Expansions of Factory Farming(Stage 8), 3 Dice (150 R)
-[]Foundation of SOEs in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 Dice (50 R)
-[]Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 Dice (60 R)
Services (2/2 Dice, 80 R)
-[]Film Studio Formation (Stage 3), 1 Dice (60 R)
-[]Sports Programs(Stage 4), 1 Dice (20 R)
Bureaucracy (5/5 Dice, 0 R)
-[]Enable Worker Initiative, 1 Dice
-[]Remove Worker-Compensation Limits, 1 Dice
-[]Break open the Army OKBs, 2 Dice
-[]Start Army-Funding Transfers, 1 Dice
edit: Move rocket program out of plan.
It spends up to 55/49 Electricity but the chances of using it all are incredibly small. 18%*60%*31%49%*34% = ~0.5% chance of hitting our electrical limit. If we want to be safer we can swap the TV plant with a 2nd dice on Oil Cracking. Note that Factory Farming is Stage 8 (58/450) according to the most recent results post, so we don't risk finishing it this turn.
Currently going for Space Stations for rockets, it'll be less of a propaganda win but getting GPS and weather sats early is much more valuable IMO.
[]Development of Near-Earth Technologies
[] Plan Infra-Steel
-[]2350/5135 Resources (2785 Reserve), 38 Dice Rolled
Infrastructure (9/5 Dice, 680 R)
-[]Secondary City Metro Lines(Stage 3), 2 Dice (160 R)
-[]Passenger Rail Network(Western SU), 1 Dice (80 R)
-[]Construction of the Paved Road Network(Stage 5), 1 Dice (60 R)
-[]Water Distribution Systems(Stage 5), 1 Dice (70 R)
-[]Expansion of the Unified Grid(Stage 5), 1 Dice (70 R)
-[]Telecommunications Infrastructure(Stage 3), 3 Dice (240 R)
Heavy Industry (9/8 Dice, 780 R)
-[]Karaganda Steel Mill Construction, 4 Dice (400 R)
-[]Perm MMK(Stage 1), 3 Dice (180 R)
-[]Test Reactor Complex Construction, 1 Dice (120 R)
-[]Bus Plants(Lviv), 1 Dice (80 R)
Rocketry (3/3 Dice, 0 R)
-[]Determine the Next Launcher, 1 Dice
-[]Manned Capsule Program, 1 Dice
-[]R7M-PKA Program, 1 Dice
Light and Chemical Industry (8/8 Dice, 550 R)
-[]Oil Cracking Plants, 1 Dice (90 R)
-[]Television Production Plants(Stage 3), 1 Dice (80 R)
-[]Kitchenware Plants, 3 Dice (180 R)
-[]Luxury Goods Initiatives(Stage 1), 2 Dice (80 R)
-[]Computing Plants Modernization, 1 Dice (120 R)
Agriculture (5/5 Dice, 260 R)
-[]Expansions of Factory Farming(Stage 8), 3 Dice (150 R)
-[]Foundation of SOEs in the Virgin Land Belt, 1 Dice (50 R)
-[]Continued Infrastructural Development, 1 Dice (60 R)
Services (2/2 Dice, 80 R)
-[]Film Studio Formation (Stage 3), 1 Dice (60 R)
-[]Sports Programs(Stage 4), 1 Dice (20 R)
Bureaucracy (5/5 Dice, 0 R)
-[]Enable Worker Initiative, 1 Dice
-[]Remove Worker-Compensation Limits, 1 Dice
-[]Break open the Army OKBs, 2 Dice
-[]Start Army-Funding Transfers, 1 Dice
edit: Move rocket program out of plan.
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- Location
- Under your couch
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What Does (61 CI3 Steel -8 CI1 Electricity -10 CI2) mean? What do the CI3 and CI2 and CI1 mean?
Also can anyone figure out what this practically means? I have read 9 times by now and I still dont understand it.
[]Enable Worker Initiative: The workers have long been limited by either an excess of bureaucratization or an excessive degree of managerial dictatorship. Instead to better optimize the utilization of the limited capabilities of the vanguard party and better enhance the labor-efficiency of the workers themselves several changes can be made towards the formation of independent collectives. Instead of the previous bureaucratization mandated at all levels, they can instead be held to a looser standard as simple associations of workers. Effectively saving an immeasurable quantity of labor on the part of the vanguard that can better be directed towards the commanding economic heights. (1 Dice, Rolled) (Supreme Soviet Reform
Also can anyone figure out what this practically means? I have read 9 times by now and I still dont understand it.
[]Enable Worker Initiative: The workers have long been limited by either an excess of bureaucratization or an excessive degree of managerial dictatorship. Instead to better optimize the utilization of the limited capabilities of the vanguard party and better enhance the labor-efficiency of the workers themselves several changes can be made towards the formation of independent collectives. Instead of the previous bureaucratization mandated at all levels, they can instead be held to a looser standard as simple associations of workers. Effectively saving an immeasurable quantity of labor on the part of the vanguard that can better be directed towards the commanding economic heights. (1 Dice, Rolled) (Supreme Soviet Reform
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95% Confidence interval. Basically, 10 CI2 means there's a 95% chance the actual value is between 8 and 12 (2 standard deviations)
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
CI stands for confidence interval. Basically, that 61 steel could in reality be anywhere from 58-64. Adds more uncertainty to the plans and forces us to account for worst case scenarios.
HanEmpire
Delicious
It means the Party will stop monitoring every work-related gathering that happens across the Union. Going by the description, right now whenever workers get together to discuss work there needs to be a CPSU party member chairing the session. They are there to make sure there's nothing counter-revolutionary going on and to guide the discussion as proper Vanguards are supposed to do. This is slowing down the economy because there aren't enough party members to go around, and most of them don't know what the workers are talking about anyways.
This reform will change the categorization of such activities to "associations" instead of the current "union activity" so that the Party doesn't have to schedule and chair them all. It'll ease workload for the Party, and allow enterprises to go over daily debriefs without having to wait for a Party member time slot to open up.
That's my reading anyways. I might be wrong; my Voz-fu is weak.
EDIT: Also man is Voz a condescending little shit.
"The Party has better things to do than listen to workers complain about their own laziness and stupidity."
EDIT2: Disregard above, my interpretation was wrong.
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- Location
- france
Still better than the +++++ system were each aditional + signaled "rougthly" double
Roughly how much of the budget does these army enterprises even have right now anyway?
Is this a situation where the already overfunded and most of the planned modernizations are basically spending for spending's sake? Or is this one where the army's already barely scraping by and we're basically kicking them while they're down? Or is it somewhere in between?
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- Location
- UTC+0
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
Definitely the former, OTL the USSR had basically 20% of its GDP tied up in military spending. For reference, the US with its bloated budget is only around 3%. The military also has first dibs on technological innovations and will frequently classify it, making the rest of the economy lag behind. OTL they also consumed 90% of the ICs produced in the USSR, and practically all yhe high quality ones. The military is an enormous drain on the economy and decisively contributed to stagnation.
- Location
- Russia
No, that's actually a cooperatives reform, which was indirectly confirmed by Blackstar some time ago.
Under Soviet Stalin-time law, "craft cooperatives" or artels (as opposed to agrarian cooperatives, i.e. kolkhozes) weren't true private enterprises and were considerably limited by government in their actions. Artels were autonomous in their internal organization and could do worker income sharing, though still had to stuck to general guidelines published by government, but were limited in many production questions like direction of business, pricing and so on, couldn't freely control means of production and were subordinated to local, regional, republican and Union councils of craft cooperation. In general they were closer to our current SOEs than to private firms.
Under Mikoyan reforms cooperatives became true private enterprises (this was in part a legalization of existing de facto private businesses under guise of an artel), but by this reform it seems some remnant of old regulative structures still remain (perhaps that council hierarchy?), which Voz seeks to completely remove now.
Hrm. I have to say, I am not super happy with the Army being blamed for the failure to get to orbit first. Malenkov (and OOC us) and Glushko were more at fault.
But really the issue is that the Army is the main customer of the rocket industry. And now that the Army has been run off and taken Yangel with them, coordination between our rocketry assets and their rocketry assets will be harder, and Soviet weapons and civilian launch vehicles will suffer. Also, we must ask what we want the rocketry program to even do now it is more of an MNKh-only problem.
So what civilian utility do rockets have? Well, ground observation (for weather sats, for example) and communications are super important and can add enormous value to the Soviet economy. Blue-sky research (including landing probes on other planets) has important, if hard to quantify benefits for the economy. And there is real value in scoring propaganda wins, not only as a way of scoring political points for the Union and the ministry, but also in firing up young students to apply themselves to a wide variety of science and engineering fields. We could probably achieve all of those things with fairly modest investments.
But then we need to ask what went wrong with the space program so far? Other than bad luck, two things have been consistently singled out in updates:
1) Glushko struggling with low resources and unhappy with the directions given to him from above.
2) The R7M being barely adequate and an offense to Glushko's sensibilities.
We've also not prioritized rocketry for resources or for dice, and other than over-investing in rocket factories early on, we mostly let the sector coast.
Personally, I am fairly satisfied with the R7M - the full 5 core/3 stage version will be very capable for the late 50s/early 60s. It is a shame that the vehicle and Sputnik weren't ready for primetime earlier, but that failure is probably down to Malenkov/us not giving the engineers the resources needed to achieve those goals earlier. But are my hopes of being able to delay a major rocket design until 1962 or 1964 tenable?
If nothing else, I am thinking that politically, it isn't. The Supreme Soviet wants glorious space race victories it seems, and since we chose to back Glushko in the previous vote, delaying a major rocket design will cause serious political issues between Voz and the man Voz has backed to deliver those space race victories. Glushko, bluntly put, always wanted a giant rocket, because he is an engineer, and he knows that from an engineering standpoint, the bigger the rocket, the more efficient it is. Also, Glushko is a giant space nerd who wants to send people to the moon.
And with the program we are overseeing being cut off from the Army, piggybacking on their development of smaller rockets for ICBMs and IRBMs just got a whole lot more difficult, so we have less reasons to want to lean towards the smaller end of the rocket scale anyway.
So I am thinking that there are sound reasons to go for the moonshot here. It comes with an extra 100RpT and it means that we are pursuing policies that our chief rocket engineer backs, rather than fighting against the man leading the program.
Developing the large rockets that Glushko wants even comes with upsides for other, more interesting programs. Interplanetary probes launched by a big rocket can be far, far more capable - one of the things that troubled Soviet interplanetary missions in OTL is that the lack of high-energy upper stages, lower-mass electronics or superheavy rockets meant that for missions to most planets, they couldn't get worthwhile probes to the destination. Space stations are far cheaper and more effective if you can launch the station in bigger chunks. Earth-orbiting observation platforms and communications satellites can be far more capable when launched by larger rockets. More eager young space cadets can actually get to go into space and do useful things with the kinds of efficient space bus that large rockets enable (which helps motivate those eager young space cadets, and those motivated engineers and scientists will be solving other problems in the course of their careers as well).
The downside of going for the moonshot is the time limit. Even with far better electronics and textile manufacturing than the Soviet Union (advanced textiles being needed for good space suits), the US incurred enormous costs in order to land men on the moon in 1969, rather than 1975. Waiting just a few years would have enabled far better technologies to be utilized at far lower prices than the OTL Apollo program. Even the more advanced Soviet Union of the quest would incur significant extra difficulties in pushing for a moon landing by 1970.
IMO, the program we want to pursue in the 1960s would be the same regardless of the goal we picked - we need heavy launchers (of around about Falcon Heavy class or better) lofting increasingly sophisticated satellites, interplanetary probes and manned vehicles. We need high quality, advanced electronics to make those payloads work. We need a space station (preferably several so that the people running experiments the effect of Martian levels of artificial gravity aren't interfering with the experiments done in zero gee and so on), an orbital propellant depot and orbital assembly of things like moonships and eventually we want a permanent moon base (though that last may be beyond the time this quest will cover). The question is the most efficient path to achieving those goals?
In OTL, the NASA of 1960 was planning to take a similar course forwards, but the Kennedy moon goal (plus a string of Soviet space firsts, Kennedy getting martyred and the former senator who forced Eisenhower to create NASA getting made prez piling on pressure to actually MEET that goal) led to the pre-existing NASA infrastructure and most other US space plans being sacrificed on the altar of Apollo. The result was a propaganda victory and an agency that had destroyed itself in the race to achieve that victory. To put it bluntly, we don't need to make the same mistakes as the Americans of OTL.
By contrast, in OTL the Soviet space program was pretty much a military program with some fun spin-offs and the Soviets didn't even take the American moon program seriously until 1964, at which point catching up was an exercise in extreme optimism. While Korolev tried, realistically the Soviets were starting too late, and couldn't have managed a landing until 1975 or 1976. We don't need to make the mistakes of the OTL Soviets either.
With setting a goal of reaching the moon by 1970 now, we'd have 12 years. That is a doable schedule. And if we were able to keep the moon program from cannibalizing the larger space program, we could potentially end up with an efficient and effective program that not only delivered propaganda wins, but also achieved science and telecommunications benefits at rock bottom prices due to economies of scale. And you know, Glushko will be happy.
The issue is, are we willing to spend precious resources on rocketry and spend political capital defending the inevitable hiccups of the program? Historically we've done well on the latter at least...
TL;DR, I am torn between the near-earth focus and the moonshot. IMO the scientific focus is too conservative, and thus can be dispensed with.
IMO we definitely DEFINITELY want the R7M interplanetary boost stage. The science benefits and engineering experience we could gain from such a project makes it absolutely worthwhile, and even if we start developing a new rocket now, we'll still be using the R7M as our main LV for some time yet... And even once we move on to other rockets, the interplanetary boost stage may still be useful for missions launched by them as well.
The Luna probes also sound like a good investment. Propaganda glory, encouragement to improve the electronics industry and science all in one neat package!
I am unsure about the choice between a manned capsule program and the R7M-PKA... The reports on the PKA have consistently sounded a little too good to be true to me. But if the engineers just rolled well behind the scenes, it could be an extremely valuable foundation to build on.
I am also unsure if we should start developing a new LV right now...
There's a couple things to note here: during the Cold War the USA was certainly not spending 3% of its GDP on the military! The actual spend was between a high of 17.4% (in 1953) and a low of 5.47% (in 1979) of GDP, see here. Second is that both the USA and the Soviet Union had reasons to exaggerate the Soviet military budget (for the USA, because it justified more resources for the American military and intelligence services, for the Soviets because it allowed them to blame the USA for problems that were actually of their own making). So... Research any claims about Soviet military spending with a few hills of salt (for example a common mistake that was made both accidentally and on purpose was to calculate the Soviet military spend by figuring out what all those men an equipment would cost the American economy to field, then comparing the size of that number to the size of the overall Soviet economy that had been calculated according to what manpower and materials costed the Soviet economy - but things like the hourly wage, the cost of steel and so on weren't the same in the Soviet and American economies, so a comparison like that was very much an apples-to-melons comparison). Realistically, the Soviet military may have been consuming over 50% of Soviet GDP during Stalin's last years, 20-25% during the 60s (when the US was spending over 10% of its GDP on the military) and 10-15% in the 80s.
Also, it isn't fair to blame the Soviet military-industrial complex for making technological innovations secret - that wasn't behavior restricted to the military industrial enterprises, but rather a scourge that infected the entire Soviet bureaucracy. All information was made secret if some bureaucrat could get away with it, even if he were running a yarn factory using Tsarist-era machinery, because information was above all a weapon in the constant bureaucratic turf war that was Soviet politics.
And while it is correct to say that the military was an enormous drain on the economy of the Soviet Union, it was an enormous drain on the US economy too. The Cold War was enormously wasteful by nature. However, in neither case was the military industrial complex the WORST drain on their respective economies and for the most part, the military was generally a declining burden, in relative terms (or in other words, not a problem that tended to get worse over time). Unlike for example the Soviet problems with over-investment in expensive infrastructure products and the out-of-control agriculture subsidies of the Gorbachev era.
It MAY be useful for Voz to mount an attack on the Army's budget and the military-industrial complex, but don't expect some vast trove of treasure to be locked behind their bureaucratic defenses.
fasquardon
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- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just as a note for my initial mistakes with some things in the update, since I was writing when out of it. The factory farms have been updated to the correct extent, you do have eight dice in HI, and you have five bureaucracy dice. It's just the initial version did not display that.