MY-2181 - Planning & Execution thread

[Googlie]

Update on building the AV at Ironholm

If we send the flying gin freighter there, it, plus 2 crawlers and 60 credits will instabuild it. And it's no cheaper (there) to wait for upgraded crawlers, 'cos we'd still need two, one of which would need to be upgraded for 90 credits)

But AU needs a Research Hospital prolly before FS needs its Hybrid Forest (but, of course, the FS HF would eliminate the ecology problem we have there. In several openings of the turn to look at data I kept getting mindworms - even a locust swarm (4) at FS, so we need to be on the lookout for that problem)

But if we upgrade, say, 4 crawlers to synthtrance ECM (110 minerals, at 120 each to upgrade) or to simple synthtrance (80 mins, 90 each) we'll be in good shape for MM'ing in the next few turns

[vishniac]

Observations:

we ready the invasion fleet for Operation JumpJazz

Shouldn't we keep all ships in the range of Angel planes inside our harbors for the moment? A penetrator would toast them and they're expensive and long to get.

I changed all the formers that were building a mine on a rolling rainy farm towards building a condenser.

Aaaaaaaaahhh!! The Messena Syndrome!! Aaaaaaahh!!
(If it were for me, we would only plant forests, and build mines on rocky tiles, while waiting for MMing facilities to make the most of it)

-- An H-F at Fort Sup isn't mandatory but would largely outweighs its cost, even short-term: immediate anti-ecodamage, massive boost in economy and in labs, and green light to go to pop 16 and 40 mins/turn. I'd say now. Trying at all costs to reach the HSA is even more urgent now that we're at war (cause it seems we are! ) with the Angels.
-- If we instabuild the AV, can't AU wait 2 turns more if we build a CDF this turn (2 drones more quelled)?
-- Laconia has a lot of crawlers. If we want to upgrade crawlers before we cash the AAs, why not these ones? (or to MM at Gythium Harbor, Vlad or elsewhere).

[Googlie]

Patel nudged his wife, Nathoo, and pointed out of the darkened window of the command squad rover as they swept through the suburbs of Arcadia Regional Command.

“That’s new,” he commented, pointing out the fortifications of the Perimeter Defense . “More troops around, too”

Nathoo nodded. She’d only been to UN Headquarters once before, shortly after she and Patel had been married, but even now her recollections were vivid.

“Much more order – less chaotic” was her terse comment. I don’t know if I like it, though. All that black – on uniforms, and so many weapons in evidence”

They rolled up to an imposing looking building, whose portico was embellished by a banner reading “Arcadia Regional Command Center”

Patel snorted. “That’s the old headquarters itself. Even that has changed. And look, across the square, where the old recreation Commons was” he pointed to an ugly, squat functional building that looked totally out of place among the sweeping spires and rounded domes of the former Peacekeeper office and administrative sector of the base. It had a more permanent façade, with the inscription “Naval Command – Southern Fleet”

Patel shrugged his shoulders – “I guess to the conqueror the spoils,” he muttered. “They can do anything they want to us – we were pretty defenseless against their military might”

The rover rolled up to the steps leading to the Command Center, and the driver hopped out and opened the rear hatchway for them to exit. A guard detail was waiting to escort them into the building.

“This way, please,” the guard commander said, leading the way up the stairs. “The Colonel is expecting you”

*************************************************

The Colonel was tall and graying, and rose to meet them as they entered the briefing room.

“Would you like refreshments?” he asked. “It’s been a long drive for you from Aid Station”

“Some fungal tea would be nice” said Nathoo.

“Done” said the Colonel, gesturing to one of his aides. “With ginger?” Both Patel and Nathoo nodded.

“I never did develop the taste for that”, opined the Colonel. “Personally, I prefer the kelpjuice with peppermint. I always though the fungal extract was better distilled.”

Patel nodded. He had tasted it, but it was a luxury on a farmer’s income.

After the refreshments arrived they got down to business.

“So, tell me in your own words what you saw,” the Colonel said, unrolling a map on the conference table for them to look at.

Patel began:

“Well, it was getting towards dusk, and we were in the fields harvesting the crop, and we first of all heard the noses – at first we thought it was thunder crackling, but looking up we saw some contrails – about 3 dozen or so, and they seemed to be arcing towards us. We then thought that it must just be aircraft on maneuvers – we’d seen the old PK airforce once or twice - but as they got closer we saw that they were smaller than that. In fact, as far as we could tell, they were individual sled like craft each with one person aboard.

“The bottom of the sleds seemed to be glowing, almost like the old Earth vidflicks we say of space re-entry vehicles, but that effect lessened as they descended. They landed pretty much within a square click of each other, in the forest just to the southeast of our farm.

Our son, who was driving out to pick us up, saw them too, and managed to get a somewhat grainy picture of them - we brought it with us. We cant afford holo equipment, and as I said, it was getting dusk, so the quality’s not that great. But at least you can make out what’s what”

The Colonel’s ears pricked up. That hadn’t been in the report he’d received after his agents first interrogaed the couple and their son.

He tapped a key sequence on his control pad, and a small recess appeared in front of the couple, showing several insert bays.

“Let’s have a look, then,” the Colonel said, “third one from the left”

Obligingly Patel reached into his pocket and inserted the filmtape in the receptacle, and sat back to watch again.

“He started filming right after the noises – which of course we now know were sonic booms”

The Colonel nodded, and looked intently at the screen.

They resembled a small meteor shower, as the glowing specks ahead of the contrails grew larger, heading across the southeastern sky towards land, across Drogue Narrows.

As the ablative heat skids cooled, the glow lessened and the figures got larger, coming into focus at what seemed a couple of thousand meters or so, in a graceful parabola across the evening sky. They descended finally out of sight of the camera into the forest in a tangle of skids, broken branches, scattered equipment and the occasional short fireflare as the dry timber caught remnants of the re-entry heat

“Interesting”, the Colonel said, then thanked the couple who were then taken to their accommodation for the night.

*************************************************

After they left, the Colonel turned to his team of staff and adjutants.

“What do you make of this?,” he asked

One tapped some keys, and a spreadsheet repalced the grainy film on the screen.

“Here’s what we know, Sir,” she said. “From our intelligence files on probe teams. They are similar to ours”.

#PROBE TEAM
Complement: 16
Counterintel suite: ShieldSafe V 6.0
Armament: Cyberlinks\mind control
Armor: Passive (Applique)

“As well as what we know about drop technology – available to the Angels since the discovery of Mind-Machine Interface”

#DROP PODS
Desc.: Aircushion LCs
Effect: Can make airdrops
Limits: None
Domain: Land

The Colonel looked across the table at his staff.

“Threat report?”

One staffer replied:

“Angels, no doubt of it. Interesting what they have done. If it were just one team, then we have the capability of interrogating them and sending them scuttling home, but by stacking the teams like that it’s not an option we have.

“Thus, definitely hostile. Arrowed towards either Aid Station or Arcadia Regional Command. The former would be my guess as they are adjacent to our road network. Took some damage on landing – around 10%, but definitely elite units.”

“Recommendation?” asked the Colonel. “Essentially a let them be or a destroy them choice, as I see it.”

The staffers nodded in agreement.

“Sir, I say we take them out,” replied his senior aide. “We can’t just let them roam around our territory like that. Their action is tantamount to declaring vendetta on us.”

The Colonel nodded. “Are we all agreed?”

One by one the Crypteia executive nodded.

“OK, then, I’ll put it to the Junta. Meeting adjourned”

*************************************************

Horst gunned the engines as the Skanky Sileni Division rovers swept out of Aid Station on the road south towards the forest.

They too had seen the contrails and heard the sonic booms, but hadn’t been close enough to see what had transpired,, but the early morning briefing had unraveled everything.

The division rode south in silence – preparing for battle. They understood that it wasn’t the same as dealing with mindworms – the Angels probe teams didn’t use psi warfare, so essentially they were unarmed against the might of the rovers, but Horst was talking no chances, and had deployed his division in battle formation.

As they climbed the hill to the south they could see the top of the monolith poking out above the trees.

“We’re getting close now,” he said into his throatmike. “Increase vigilance”

“Objective in sight – engage individually, but report your targets”

The Angels probe team members could be seen in the forest, having set up camp as they waited for further instructions and healed their minor injuries sustained upon landing.

Horts’s commanders sang out their intended targets.

“Engage” said Horst

As one, their muzzles roared and the probe team operatives were scythed down.

“Threat removed,” Horst reported to the Base Governor. We are returning to base”

At Arcadia Regional Command Colonel Googlie got the news, almost simultaneously with the threat alert warning on his console.

He turned to view it, and with a half curse half chuckle activated his commlink to Colonel Maniac.

“Pedro – Scott here. You’ll never guess what happened. Some artificial intelligence program residing on Gaian software has responded to our surgical operation against the Angels by automatically declaring vendetta on us. This whole mess that the Data Angels started looks like having Chiron-wide repercussions.

“Ah well, we’ll talk to them – I don’t know if that’ll be their official position, or just a programmer’s error. Prepare for the worst, though.

“Googlie out”

[DeathByTheSword]

Shouldn't we keep all ships in the range of Angel planes inside our harbors for the moment? A penetrator would toast them and they're expensive and long to get.

arent ships in harbors even more weak to needles then on open sea? or do we have air cover?

and what is the idea with the invasion force? a raid or a full flegded invasion?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by vishniac
Aaaaaaaaahhh!! The Messena Syndrome!! Aaaaaaahh!!
(If it were for me, we would only plant forests, and build mines on rocky tiles, while waiting for MMing facilities to make the most of it)

Ah yes. With the Ascetic Virtues a tree farm strategy becomes more profitable than a condenser farm strategy
The condensers currently under construction or already built are no waste though. Even under a tree farm strategy, some condenser farms are necessary, to bring in some extra nuts to bases that support specialists for drone control reasons.

Trying at all costs to reach the HSA is even more urgent now that we're at war (cause it seems we are! ) with the Angels.

Ah is that still possible? What is the plan to achieve this? I thought that due to the surprisingly fast research rate of the Angels, and the fact that they're researching Pre-Sentient Algorithms (which we know becaus of the PK info!!!) the Angels already have the HSA in the pocket.

Edit: cashing in the artifacts I see.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
The thought was to build it up as our Arcadian super city (being the HQ, no energy loss was appealing) The tomcats in that triangle - SC1 - SC2 - GH have a slew of rainy tiles t9o farm/condensor for pop growth (note the trance policeman there, so we don't need to upgrade to a cdf - there's a couple of these around now)

I agree about popbooming SC1 asap of course. But how about popbooming Olympus Academy first? That base already has a rec commons, so it'll be less costly right now than popbooming SC1 which would require a creche and also a rec commons.

[Maniac]

Here's a turn with some worker shifting done. I activated all crawlers that weren't working mines and then checked if the base's needs could be fulfilled by workers only. Which we can. Seems to me we have lots of crawlers available we could use for MMing if we want.

[Zeiter]

Another idea: we need some SAM missile rovers in Arcadia!!! Is it not the usual maneuver to stack invading units with a needlejet, which can only be taken out with a unit with SAM (and SAM needlejets don't work well because they will attack at half-strength against the strongest defender)? I wouldn't rule out a fleet of Angel 6-3-1 drop troops and penetrators invading south arcadia next turn. Thus, I propose we upgrade our 6-1-2 to a SAM 6-1-2 and keep it back out of penetrator range, but still in position to pounce when needed. Also, aerospace complexes? How quickly can we get those up where we need them?

Are we really considering an invasion of the Angels? I'm thinking we better switch over to fundy before we try that. One thing is certain: infiltration is priority #1. If we can manage to empty any bases, we need probe teams there ready to capitalize on it.

Edit: This could be a possible diplo message to the Angels:

"We regret to inform you that your drop probes in Spartan Arcadian territory have been neutralized. Unfortunately, we had to declare vendetta in order to remove the probe teams. In our view, this vendetta need not persist. We greatly appreciate your mindfulness of our concerns regarding the Angel needlejet that srecently trayed into Spartan territory, and we hope that our cordial relations can continue. You must understand, however, that we find the presence of foreign probes on Spartan soil to be unacceptable under any circumstances whatsoever. It is only natural that we responded as we did. What would you do if Spartan probe teams landed next to one of your bases, stacked, no less, so as to preclude a simple interrogation and peaceful removal? I am sure you would not tolerate that either. Thank you for your understanding."

[vishniac]

Originally posted by Zeiter
I wouldn't rule out a fleet of 6-3-1 drop troops and penetrators next turn.

We can't have drop troops. We haven't researched (stolen) MMI yet.

Are we really considering an invasion of the Angels? I'm thinking we better switch over to fundy before we try that. One thing is certain: infiltration is priority #1. If we can manage to empty any bases, we need probe teams there ready to capitalize on it.

It's time for serious brainstorming and planning now, and it deserves its own thread.
However, I agree infiltration is paramount.
About Fundy: in 6 turns (and I hope 5 with MMs efforts) we'll know whether we get the HSA.

[Zeiter]

Oh no, I meant seeing a fleet of Angel drop troops. That's what I'm worried about.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Zeiter
Oh no, I meant seeing a fleet of Angel drop troops. That's what I'm worried about.

Remember that it is a) very espensive for them and b) easy to counter. The second part looks like this: We have enough cash to radically improve our offensive cababilities in areas where we already have the numbers. The recently conquered UN territory is one such area.

[Maniac]

May I suggest building the Ascetic Virtues in Fort Soup, and next turn a hybrid forest?
That way we won't have to spend unupgraded crawlers that are working mines, if we built it in IH.
The hybrid forest could then be built next turn with the fungal gin freight.

Also, what do we want to build in Fort Buster?
Some options:
a tree farm for builder actions
a F-6 for more air defense

[Maniac]

Should we put a treaty in the Morganic and Gaian diplobox?

Edit: Updated, but I made a little mistake. I sent a crawler to harvest minerals on a forest, but then realized the crawler was homed to the rioting base GH, meaning production is stalled. So I changed the crawler to harvesting a single nutrient.

Edit2: Second mistake; should've moved the fungal gin freighter to the AU condenser farm.

[Zeiter]

I think an F-6 at Fort Buster is much needed. We could potentially have a 3 vs. 1 situation very soon.

Edit: Building the AV at Fort Sup sounds good. As for treaties in the Morgan and Gaian diplo boxes, wouldn't that seem a bit...desperate on our part? I don't know. Maybe it's a good idea.

[Maniac]

I'll crawler-hurry one then, and hurry the one under production in OA.