Per Aspera (Space Agency Plan Quest)
- Thread starter Shadows
- Start date
- Original
[X] Plan: Doing the most with the least
-[X] [FUND] 1.5% - Going back to 1.5% of the budget would be a difficult sell, but you could point to the ongoing human spaceflight program as justification for it. That didn't mean it'd be easy, of course. Just easier. (+230R/turn, -55PS)
-[X] Conduct Supersonic Jet Research (Phase 3) (Int(M-L) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 towards Oppose)
-[X] Conduct Supersonic Jet Research (Phase 3) (+5 PS) (Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (+5PS) (Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build the Sydney Microelectronics Research Centre by 1957Q1. (+5PS, SDL moves 1d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build and test-fly a spaceplane before 1957Q3. (+5PS, +2 to Sao Paolo Aerodynamics Centre's bonus)
-[X] Conduct Prototype Spaceplane research (+5PS, FWW moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[X] Research Support (-5PS, +3 to all Science and Engineering dice until 1955Q1)
-[X] [GRAD] Science
Not a lot here. I'm going pretty hard on the flight options because we've neglected those and I think they can help. Especially with getting people into space. Aside that I want to focus on the impactors. Because they're absolutely necessary.
-[X] [FUND] 1.5% - Going back to 1.5% of the budget would be a difficult sell, but you could point to the ongoing human spaceflight program as justification for it. That didn't mean it'd be easy, of course. Just easier. (+230R/turn, -55PS)
-[X] Conduct Supersonic Jet Research (Phase 3) (Int(M-L) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 towards Oppose)
-[X] Conduct Supersonic Jet Research (Phase 3) (+5 PS) (Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (+5PS) (Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build the Sydney Microelectronics Research Centre by 1957Q1. (+5PS, SDL moves 1d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build and test-fly a spaceplane before 1957Q3. (+5PS, +2 to Sao Paolo Aerodynamics Centre's bonus)
-[X] Conduct Prototype Spaceplane research (+5PS, FWW moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[X] Research Support (-5PS, +3 to all Science and Engineering dice until 1955Q1)
-[X] [GRAD] Science
Not a lot here. I'm going pretty hard on the flight options because we've neglected those and I think they can help. Especially with getting people into space. Aside that I want to focus on the impactors. Because they're absolutely necessary.
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That's a lot to promise. We have no idea how many Program slots we're talking about here. It could be anything from 3 to 5 (and given the PS gains, I'm leaning towards 5).
I think we can afford some promises in this area. Probes will probably require Science dice as well after all.
...why? We have 21 months to do it, and the R-4a looks like it will have 1-2 payload for a lunar launch. That's enough for a small impactor-if we build a larger pad, we can strap on bosters, maybe get something like 3 payload to the moon.
As we found out last year, the simplest way to achieve +2 industry/infra is to lobby for it, which 1) consumes 2 politics dice and 2) leaves us at a net -15 PS after we do it twice. There's the slightly more cost-effective use of facilities dice, but that still leaves us at -5.3 PS*. Meanwhile, asking for GRAD picks weakens the background industry/infra buildup.
I don't have numbers to back this up because I don't know how strong the background stat increase is, but my gut feel is that it's more optimal to use those politics dice to do things like lab talent scouting and leave GRAD alone so that there's passive stat increase.
R-4a should be done by the end of the year, and Impactor is a 3-turn project. No reason it should be an auto-fail when we have until Q3 of next year to do it.
Programs are for recurrent launches in the background that we want to ignore, AIUI. We'd be supplementing a program slot with repeated "launch a R-4 carrying a weather sat" actions, and we can definitely launch 3 rockets in a year if we put our mind to it.
As for eng, yeah, I edited some stuff in.
* We have to do 500 points of progress at 20 R/dice, which means locking two dice into it for the entire year and probably costs us 165R by the time we're done. At 1 PS=5R/turn and 1 facilities die = -5R/turn, that's equivalent to about 10.3 PS. This is more cost effective, but still, we're ending up net-negative versus not doing it at all.
EDIT: Per Shadows on discord, it's a coinflip. That means each GRAD pick is taking away, on average, 2 stat improvements per year.
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- Location
- The great frozen north
Too tired for politics, but I am voting for a plan that takes Demil Locker Access. We're doing well politically so if we want to do it at all now's a great time. And yeah I don't want to drain all the GRADs.
We're able to get more dice fairly easily, but are bottlenecked more on resources (especially since each die is -5). Constant 1.5% funding isn't sustainable in PS, so we should try and match our dice pool with constant activation on alternating 1 and 1.5% funding; this means we need more global budget more than we need more dice (and again, we can get more dice very simply with the recruitment options; if we want to ask for any graduates, it should be politics)
That's also a resource sink; each die is 5 resources.
- Location
- alphen aan den rijn
i say to the weather sats and maybe some launch pads and keep the 1% and i am sure we be mostly fine.
there a lot of prep work to be done and i rather grow as an agency then try for a larger budget that over promises and under delivers
there a lot of prep work to be done and i rather grow as an agency then try for a larger budget that over promises and under delivers
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
Fair enough. I took that off and moved some stuff around.
Not really a fan of what you put in there though. Lunar Impactor is fine, but I really don't see the appeal of Nuclear Rockets? I'd much rather go for the Spaceplane Prototype plus the promise to get in flying by Q3 1958. Aero is a common enough category that a +2 is pretty valuable.
Yeah, this was mostly jumping at the opportunity to have a net +25 PS for something we'll probably want to do... eventually. I'd be ambivalent about what to put there, but I figured why not take a shot at it.
I'm somewhat apprehensive on spaceplane, at least while there's so much supersonic jet research left, which is why I didn't pick it. If we mess that up, well... X-15 Flight 3-65-97 - Wikipedia
From what I can recall from previous discussions, the prototype spaceplane won't actually be going supersonic, short of some sort of catastrophic explosion of course. That's probably something for a later model.
trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
A lot of people wanting their regions to have weather satellites. And for good reason given how many surprise storms seen to crop up in the news. I'm not sure how many regions a program slot would cover.
I'm sure the Antarctica people would at least like a flyby of the continent at some point.
The more we modify the R-4 the heavier it will get. So we should probably build the new launch platforms this year. And build Sydney since I don't see why not.
I'm tempted by the authorization for the nuclear engines
I'm sure the Antarctica people would at least like a flyby of the continent at some point.
The more we modify the R-4 the heavier it will get. So we should probably build the new launch platforms this year. And build Sydney since I don't see why not.
I'm tempted by the authorization for the nuclear engines
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
I reiterate that I'm really wary of making too many promises. One weather sat, one science facility, one research program. We're a multinational space agency with a lot of irons in the fire right now- Human rocketry and nuclear power and satellites and more. Cooling the jets a bit more isn't a bad thing. We're currently on 100 PS. So why not spend some of that down to maintain breathing room, imo. We don't even necessarily need 1.5% of the world budget, everywhere else needs the funds too, ya know?
I don't really grok these plans, but can't we have a plan that does... A little less? Pick fewer graduates, make fewer promises, don't poke Research Support / Demil Locker Access / Request Negotiation Aid?
I don't really grok these plans, but can't we have a plan that does... A little less? Pick fewer graduates, make fewer promises, don't poke Research Support / Demil Locker Access / Request Negotiation Aid?
Tend to agree. Having a quiet year to build up before we start doing all the things can't hurt.
We did that; last year was our quiet year to give us breathing room for this one. That's why we have 100 PS saved up. It's important that we get our launch tempo going this year or we won't be on track for a manned launch and interplanetary probes in 1959, which are things we more or less committed to. Mchanically, every time we launch a R-4 successfully, the reliability improves. If we want to launch valuable cargo, that means we should be keeping all our ops dice running at full tilt for the next three years. At 1% budget, that's not possible unless we dramatically cut down what we're doing in other areas (e.g, no outreach programs or research with civilian applications).
I'm also not getting why you'd want to cut back to only one facility promise and only one research program? We'd still have our workers sitting around doing nothing. Sending them out to build radio antennas and/or a new rocket launch complex makes sense even if you don't think there's any use to the space program beyond weather satellites (which are objectively useful)
Your math here is off. It assumes that we only take one NA rebuilding promise. If we take 3, which we can do, we can make a 4.7 PS profit while also giving us a "free" Graduates die.
Said die should be pretty useful, as our die requirements have increased faster than our Politics actions to get more dice have compensated for. Leaving 3 Graduates to help with the rebuilding has worked quite well for us so far, and this will let us grab 4 instead of 3*. The increased number of politicians supporting us would be nice as well.
*Our Education improvements seem to have increased the Graduates supply.
Probes I get, but the manned launch? I don't see that on our Promises list?
Edit: I am seriously hoping it isn't a strict requirement though. Mostly because I can't see us being able to launch more rocket/missile tests than either side of the Space Race in less time. Our bosses have much higher priorities than building a better WMD delivery system after all.
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- Location
- Germany
Because it isn't a promise to the world congress, but Sergei Korolev:
Personally don't know exactly when he came on board, but the clock is ticking for this.
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
He was the Assistant Director that was picked by vote.
Ah, still I am concerned about getting this done with rockets alone. I'd much prefer doing it with Spaceplanes or at least a hybrid system. It helps that we are a lot closer to doing a manned spaceflight with a Spaceplane than with a rocket imo. All we need to do is to get our Spaceplane Prototype flying and we should be good to go.