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Brave New Frontier

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I do think your idea of transitioning to hydrogen fuel cells is a good idea, especially as I think the lighter hydrocarbons are easier to produce from biofuels and those are relatively easy to crack into hydrogen @Tatbee . But I noticed that we were in a bit of a resource crisis at the start, hence why we'd managed to burn all the economically mineable coal and later on found out that we were also running out of the minerals useful for electric vehicle batteries. However, I will say that just how dire the resource shortage shocked me when we got the answers. Thought we'd be running out in four or five turns for the oil, gas and technological minerals.

As otherwise I thought we'd probably have gotten a bunch of screaming in the updates about needing certain minerals or the economy is dead. Or fighting over the remaining sources of those minerals and regulations restricting their mining being discarded. It turns out, no, we are indeed about to see a massive resource crash on those things which run the modern economy.

Hell, I think I'm going to toss in an action next turn about improved recycling efforts. Sure, the asteroid mining if it succeeds (which it should) will give us a constant trickle in, but it'll likely need to be greatly expanded before we reach equilibrium with current use, let alone any expanded use from future developments. So getting the recycling started now to supplement that trickle means we should more efficiently use those important minerals in the future, even after we get access to the solar system's resources.

Also how further development of asteroid mining would probably be cheaper if it came after developing orbital colonies to work said asteroid or lunar mines...
 
Seems we're limited to renewabable energy projects, as nothing else is viable long-term.

@Dapperlad1 Wind Farms already exist right?

I'm thinking Energy Islands. Denmark approves artificial island to site 10GW Offshore Wind hub - Energy Post
Very secure, highly unlikely terrorists could even reach the island.
We could copy IRL China as well; use artificial islands to expand our claimed waters. (iirc international law is something like 10 miles off your coast, is your waters, I think?)

Considering they're surrounded by water, they might also be ideal locations for Hydrogen Plants?
Energy Islands could produce energy stored in Hydrogen, rather than in batteries, or sent via undersea cables to powergrid.

Though maybe that's not viable.
In that case, just construct Hydrogen Plants on mainland, powered by the green energy.

IRL an AEM Electrolyser just won an EarthShot award.
Pretty sure it uses no precious metals. (R&D that, if not).

Long-term, I think Hydrogen Fuel Cells are the optimal way forward.
Both for green energy, and for profit.
 
Recycling and reclamation of all raw materials/water/will not only benefit us now but in our space programs.
 
Oh, I think I used some more serious language than I meant too, it's resource shortages for the most part. Oil and gas are the only one that are actually running out.

A resource shortage isn't that awful, it's a -10 to actions that use it and will cause some panic, but otherwise should be fine. Might even increase PF.

Completely running out of other materials on earth is more like 10 turns away using current consumption.

That's why it wasn't being mentioned in updates.
 
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[X] Plan No Resource Collapse

it'll make South America cry, but it'd be funny to watch the EU try to argue against giving people clean drinking water
 
Dapperlad1 said:
Oh, I think I used some more serious language than I meant too, it's resource shortages for the most part. Oil and gas are the only one that are actually running out.

A resource shortage isn't that awful, it's a -10 to actions that use it and will cause some panic, but otherwise should be fine. Might even increase PF.

Completely running out of other materials on earth is more like 10 turns away using current consumption.

That's why it wasn't being mentioned in updates.
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So basically still enough everyone looking at a chart of long term resource supply is going to look at our asteroid mining push and go 'FUND THEM!' but not so much that they throw the entire wallet in our direction?
 
Pyro Hawk said:
So basically still enough everyone looking at a chart of long term resource supply is going to look at our asteroid mining push and go 'FUND THEM!' but not so much that they throw the entire wallet in our direction?
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Definitely, expect something like the food action in bonus. The EU can get a lot of "Profit factor" out as they work on a Credit based economy, which can squeeze a bit more resources out of the same number of people. They are less explosive in success than you however.

They developed thorium reactors and are just deploying them to their nations. You researched, developed and deployed hydroponics and aqua phonics worldwide in that time.
 
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Somewhat similar to Plan No Resource Collapse, except shortened to just 4 options, with 15 PF to spare.

Securing the Water Supply is merged into power generation; as Hydrogen Fuel Cells produce water.
And with the (likely more expensive) alternative of Hydrogen Fuel Cells, the need for Renewable Chemicals is somewhat alleviated.

[X] Plan: Resources, Hydrogen, Education
-[X] 100 PF - Develop and Expand Orbital Resource Acquisition.
-[X] 100 PF - Construct offshore Energy Islands, producing renewable Wind Energy and Green Hydrogen.
-[X] 100 PF - Push global industries to adopt Hydrogen Fuel Cells.
-[X] 100 PF - Improve Education Efforts.
-[X] -25PF/turn - Hire Ascalon Private Security Company to secure our many facilities and properties.


@Dapperlad1 I'm assuming that spare PF will carry over to next turn?
If not, I'd assign it to options that would receive the most pushback from other factions... not sure which that would be though.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Dapperlad1 on Oct 18, 2021 at 7:11 PM, finished with 39 posts and 7 votes.
  • [X] Plan No Resource Collapse
    -[X] 100PF - Develop and Expand Orbital Resource Acquisition. Earth is running low on certain resources critical to modern industry and we've just built up a lot of orbital capability. Let's take advantage of these two facts to drastically expand the currently minimal asteroid mining and orbital refining operations going on. Maybe we'll even start mining lunar resources if that's cheaper.
    -[X] 100PF - Secure the Water Supply. Clean water is essential to both people and industry, whilst it's also shrinking and becoming constantly more expensive. It's time to secure enough under our control that we can keep our workers and industries supplied to at least a minimal capacity if a disaster happens. Whether this comes from taking control over existing sources of clean water or developing desalination and other purification and filtration methods to supply it will be left up to whichever will give the best results in each region. Do try to avoid upsetting the EU or SA (again) however as such is unnecessary at this time.
    -[X] 75PF - Improve Education Efforts. One of the greatest restrictions for improving our orbital efforts and profits is the fact that we're dependent on European Union workers, and thus can't avoid their regulations. Efforts should be undertaken to improve education capabilities elsewhere so we're no longer reliant on a single source of labour and can thus begin working around the EU restrictions without losing our orbital workforce. Perhaps offering scholarships to company families which pay for the education but lock the new graduate into working for the relevant company for a period of years in exchange? Some focus should be placed on developing these in South America as it'll both hopefully stabilise the situation there so profitability doesn't see reductions and allow us to gain influence in the region as people are educated in our facilities.
    -[X] 70PF - Expand and Develop the Power Sector. We've got a toehold in the power sector, but it's only just breaking even and the EU has just made a major technological breakthrough. Let's try to expand the toehold to something actually yielding a profit through developing new capabilities. Whether that be looking back on renewables and batteries, acquiring the EU's new thorium reactors somehow or developing the ability to export power from orbit efficiently. The Yakuza's suppression efforts may be unavoidable at this time, but we should be able to avoid gaining the EU's ire again by seemingly respecting their anti-trust methods at least. And by ensuring someone else takes the blame if we illegally acquire their new thorium reactor technology, with us then acquiring the information from said other actor. Not like we'll be the only corporations trying to steal that information.
    -[X] 70PF - Secure Chemical Feedstocks. There is a pending collapse of the chemical and fuel industries due to the exhaustion of what remaining fossil fuel deposits there are. However there are methods to renewably produce certain of these chemicals easily, and many others with more expensive processes. Whilst the easiest and most available process currently consume food crops to produce such as soy beans or corn, there has long been ambitions of developing algae farming able to replace them. Fortunately, whilst clean water is expensive and limited, thus decreasing it's use for algae farming, creating oceanic algae farms should be entirely possible. And that is only the most obvious method for feeding our chemical or fuel needs in the future, with more also being worthy of investigation.
    -[X] -25PF - Hire Ascalon Private Security Company to secure our many facilities and properties. Unrest and the recent break-ins are concerning enough that efforts to prevent damage or destruction to our assets is essential.
    [X] Plan: Resources, Hydrogen, Education
    -[X] 100 PF - Develop and Expand Orbital Resource Acquisition.
    -[X] 100 PF - Construct offshore Energy Islands, producing renewable Wind Energy and Green Hydrogen.
    -[X] 100 PF - Push global industries to adopt Hydrogen Fuel Cells.
    -[X] 100 PF - Improve Education Efforts.
    -[X] -25PF/turn - Hire Ascalon Private Security Company to secure our many facilities and properties.
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This is the current vote result, I'll leave another day or so open for discussion, feel free to revise plans or keep current ones.
 
Honestly, I've made my case so probably won't be saying much. It's up to everyone else to decide if they want to go for what I'm doing or not. And it seems people like my efforts to secure a base level of critical resources.

Next turn's going to be fun however as if everything succeeds, then we've got all the essentials to 'possess some so everything collapsing and embargoes everywhere' isn't going to end us. It's then a matter of choosing how we're going to grow.

Other than improving orbital capabilities and looking to the Moon and Mars. That's one part of the path that should be in all of them.
 
Thinking of the possible path of long-term development, that does make me wonder if FTL is going to be possible or if we're going to be stuck with generation ships.

Well, that, and the general level of technology that can be reached, within 100 and 1000 years, or 50 and 500 turns respectively. That might be looking too far ahead though.
 
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[X] Plan No Resource Collapse
For now it seems like the best plan we have. And the one that most seem to enjoy. While we could have capitalized on the trend of the LED masks, hopefully we can promote it in the future later. After all, since everyone will continue wearing their masks for the foreseeable future.

When we gain more control of the media at a later date we'll be able to use them for some very useful things.
 
Caneythekid said:
For now it seems like the best plan we have. And the one that most seem to enjoy. While we could have capitalized on the trend of the LED masks, hopefully we can promote it in the future later. After all, since everyone will continue wearing their masks for the foreseeable future.

When we gain more control of the media at a later date we'll be able to use them for some very useful things.
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One of the problems with grabbing those masks is they're likely to increase demand on technological minerals. The ones running short in 15 years at current demand, and running out within the century. I'd like to be sure we can get the needed quantity in from orbit and perhaps the seafloor before starting that.

But I can see us pushing research into holograms and the like next turn to try and boost our commercial products. Which we can then use to create that sort of consumer good. Likely giving a better product due to pushing the boundaries less with the action.
 
There's a good supply of Anorthite on the Moon. Chemically that's Ca Al2 Si2 O8. Apollo 15 found some.

Smelting the stuff will get oxygen for life support, as well as building materials (aluminum structures and silicate materials(ceramics, glass, semiconductors.))
 
Just want to ask, is there likely to be a noticeable upset at all? If not, I can start writing.
 
Dapperlad1 said:
Just want to ask, is there likely to be a noticeable upset at all? If not, I can start writing.
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Doesn't look like it. I think next turn and future turns will be different and we'll finally have left initial set up and thus there's no longer an 'optimal' path to follow.

Do we crush the governments? Subvert them? Or just keep trying to break them economically and pick up the pieces...

How about orbit? Do we build complete settlements in Earth orbit of start developing the Moon? Do we push for Mars and the Asteroid Belt or leave those for once the near Earth region has been exhausted if easy developments? What about Venus, do we start developing atmospheric mines which can give us chemical resources whilst starting the terraforming process? Do we terraforming Mars or let that happen over time?

And then there's everything we do on Earth itself...

Basically if you think of us as playing say, Surviving Mars we've probably just built things up to the point that we've got several domes sustaining themselves with food, water, oxygen and power whilst also extracting enough minerals to keep developing whilst enough industry to just barely meet maintenance needs and an education system so our marsborn children will sometimes get specialisations as they reach adulthood.

So we're self-sustaining, if not yet at the point where depleting resource deposits won't crash us, said resource deposits have long enough left on them that we should easily be able to tap new ones even if it's a minimal effort to doing so, and now we're wondering just how the rest of the game's going to go.

At least in my view. Does this sound about right to everyone?

And thinking about it now, we probably should grab control of some of the industrial and Tech sectors next turn because that's the only thing we're still running with what we started at. Except for the orbital constructions but those will be busy in orbit not on Earth.
 
Pyro Hawk said:
Do we crush the governments? Subvert them? Or just keep trying to break them economically and pick up the pieces...
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Personally I'm in favor of subverting them. Might as well go full corporate government civ. It would also be helpful for gunning straight towards becoming the species/civilization specializing in trade on the galactic stage once we get to that point and on the possibility there's aliens around.

Pyro Hawk said:
How about orbit? Do we build complete settlements in Earth orbit of start developing the Moon? Do we push for Mars and the Asteroid Belt or leave those for once the near Earth region has been exhausted if easy developments? What about Venus, do we start developing atmospheric mines which can give us chemical resources whilst starting the terraforming process? Do we terraforming Mars or let that happen over time?
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Building up colonies on the moon seems like a good idea to me, maybe make some minor research towards setting up a ring habitat on Earth's geosynchronous orbit. Other than that, mining the asteroid belt seems like a good idea, Mars as well, but Venus would require specialized equipment so they don't melt the moment they enter its atmosphere.

I'm the topic of terraforming, I'm not entirely sure about that, simple colonies with earth-like conditions inside them should be better and less egregiously time-consuming.
 
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Pyro Hawk said:
Doesn't look like it. I think next turn and future turns will be different and we'll finally have left initial set up and thus there's no longer an 'optimal' path to follow.

Do we crush the governments? Subvert them? Or just keep trying to break them economically and pick up the pieces...

How about orbit? Do we build complete settlements in Earth orbit of start developing the Moon? Do we push for Mars and the Asteroid Belt or leave those for once the near Earth region has been exhausted if easy developments? What about Venus, do we start developing atmospheric mines which can give us chemical resources whilst starting the terraforming process? Do we terraforming Mars or let that happen over time?

And then there's everything we do on Earth itself...

Basically if you think of us as playing say, Surviving Mars we've probably just built things up to the point that we've got several domes sustaining themselves with food, water, oxygen and power whilst also extracting enough minerals to keep developing whilst enough industry to just barely meet maintenance needs and an education system so our marsborn children will sometimes get specialisations as they reach adulthood.

So we're self-sustaining, if not yet at the point where depleting resource deposits won't crash us, said resource deposits have long enough left on them that we should easily be able to tap new ones even if it's a minimal effort to doing so, and now we're wondering just how the rest of the game's going to go.

At least in my view. Does this sound about right to everyone?

And thinking about it now, we probably should grab control of some of the industrial and Tech sectors next turn because that's the only thing we're still running with what we started at. Except for the orbital constructions but those will be busy in orbit not on Earth.
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Let the Europeans and South Americans have their little islands of government and watch us kick the legs out from under them as we develop and market cheaper food, minerals and technologies. We will have three major portions of the world to develop as we wish and they can buy our products at the prices we set.

I was thinking that with out new wealth we can purchase companies that have fallen on hard times to acquire certain industries and technologies.

We first need to develop the Moon for raw materials along with LEO. Terraforming requires too much investment right now.

We also need to boost our intelligence services and electronic defenses against terrorism and competitors.
 
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