Questionable Questing

Ehh. I thought automata were super long/complex to build, but mecha have a massive handling/hauling advantage over normal humans. Having watched IRL lumberjack operations, a lumberjack team with a mecha assisting them could be wildly more efficient than a purely unmechanized team.

Plus, no chainsaws or mechanized drills/hammers without a steam engine.

I'm going off the automaton shop taking months to build each unit, even though the computer shop is the one to build and program the computer. A mecha is just an automaton that replaces the computer with a cockpit so shouldn't be any faster.

I'd replace the lumberjack team with a steam tractor with a circular saw.

I'm kind of wondering if I should have put up a vote ditching Ivan. There's a lot of people complaining about him, but no one has put up a vote to get rid of him. I mean I gave up on convincing people not to take him before, but now it seems like there's more willingness.

A forest is difficult terrain, though. This universe's mechs can easily handle the terrain, but even modern AFVs don't want to drive over tree stumps if they can help it.

If you can guarantee you us another source of heavy firepower I would be willing to switch away from Ivan. I originally thought Radium piles would be viable for colony expansions, but Shaper said 1 colony and vehicles at most -___-

I think it's pretty manageable as long as you cut off the stump low enough. Not like we're very likely to be driving on the ground instead of ice and snow anyway.

I still don't think we need heavy firepower. No one has really come up with where the giant army you need heavy firepower to deal with is supposed to come from.

I don't think we need to deal with an army or even a division (20k men) of conventional enemy, but I'm not at all confident that Harmon + mortars & MG can handle a Geniustech attacker.

There's no guarantee they'd come after us, but we know the threat exists, so...

As for industrial mecha, well, we'll have to ask Shaper on the cost efficacy. Considering the minimum useful size of Steam vehicles is 'a greyhound bus' mecha might not be so bad in comparison.

Harmon assassinating the genius is pretty much the most consistent way to deal with such a widely variable attack type. Though I suspect Ivan doing something stupid would be the most likely reason for them to come after us.

Also keep in mind Mecha have a similar size limit imposed by their steam engine.

True, my point was that mecha go from horrifically inefficient (IRL) to probably manageable because it's competition isn't the paragon of economical sense either.

And you can't always assassinate your opponent or their key personnel, its just not very reliable.

Fighting tinkertech head on isn't very reliable either.

Military, conventional, genius tech, and Intrigue responses are all part of a toolkit.

It's worth noting not all our colony sites are innately as defensible as Morgan HQ.

What would conventional be if not military?

Chesapeake I simply don't expect to survive the fall of civilization, it's that indefensible. Saltworks it's hard to say, we don't really know enough about its position.

Our Chile facility is actually *more* defensible than our HQ. It's in the most barren desert on the planet outside Antartica. And around that desert are mountains on every side to ensure you have to airlift everything just to get into the desert.

Picking Harmon has made our heads-on conventional ability to take on attackers weaker, though in the final analysis (between Hawthorne's focus and intransportability) he was an overall better pick, especially since he gives us a boost to Intrigue actions. That leaves us with Geniustech alternatives.

The Chile mine might be problematic, depending on water availability (groundwater next to a copper mine???) and the 4500ish mile trip between it and our coal production node.

I'm surprised you haven't proposed selling off our less defensible facilities.

The Chile facility is going to have issues with both water and fuel. However we need a copper mine. We don't have local copper production in the HQ area, and copper is one of the most essential raw materials to technology. We're probably going to be sinking a lot of work into making it stay running, but we have to.

I meant the other sites were of lower utility and defensibility. I.e. saltworks, hunting lodge, etc, might be gotten rid of.