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Not quite. I expect everything to be back to normal by about the end of this week.
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Oct 21, 2018 13:18
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Match the Master: 2346 - 2348 I think we've got enough Recons out to cover getting to the bottom of the galaxy now. But that doesn't mean the micro is going to ease up particularly; just that it'll take a different form. The next stage is pop transfers. We don't particularly need this many heading to Matrix 105, but that's just to get them in position to move on further.  Ditto here, even with them leaving an artifacts system. The goal is that any planet that is at the halfway point or higher needs to ship out the surplus drones(except for Matrix 101 which pumps out Colonizers) in order to spread them around as quickly as possible. That's the fastest way to get critical mass of organic construction units(population) at all of the new systems we're settling.  Back to all research here.  Still building up industry.  Here, the terraforming effort begins.  This one does head off to Paladia, the only other system currently within range.  A lengthy journey for these is coming.  Another one heads out this way as well.  2346 The activity at the outer reaches of our scouting range continues. So far, our Recons are holding the line.    Now we'll get some more research starting here as they've reached the amount of factories that a half-supply of population can operate.  This should finish the terraforming work here.  Always pushing on wherever we can.  And another one. 2347 Hello, Orion! I've got more Recons headed out there to get munched by the Guardian unfortunately.    All research here now, the second system to make it this far. We're getting triple the RP total we had just two years ago.  Terraformed, and almost ready to participate in the population transfers.  The cycle begins anew here; first traces of waste begin to accumulate.  Our latest heads out to that just-scouted jungle system. Four Colonizers are currently in operation, sucking more than 5% of our production in maintenance costs.  Unfortunately there's nowhere in range that's closer to retreat to.  Always worth checking into any unknown enemy fleets that are spotted; a bare scout is of no concern.  The Guardian really screwed up our exploration timing, so I'm getting a few more going. It's not the best luck that it occupies the one system in that band of stars that I could just barely reach, but I'll have to suffer the consequences there. https://youtu.be/7WVpuEskUns Another new matrix established, and another quality system scouted towards the bottom of the galaxy. I guess we just keep pushing on that way ...
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Oct 21, 2018 13:30
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For Wayne and the other MOO2ers -- I took a bit of time the other day to boot that up and play for the first time in like a year. And boy am I rusty on it. Got myself waxed good and proper -- on Average difficulty. There's work to be done there, to put it mildly. Meanwhile, the journey continues … Match the Master: 2349 - 2351    We're now up to a third 'donor matrix'.  I need another ship out this way, and here's the closest spare one.  And here's the replacement.  The first leg of the journey for our latest Colonizer.  Back to all research & 'breeding'.   Terraforming to better serve as a 'drone relay' before shipping out drones to Matrix 107. 2349 We chase off that scout we saw coming a few years back, and survey two more systems. One's a fertile jungle planet, though a smallish one.  Collective Data, GY 2350 ** Matrices - 7(+1) ** Operational Drones - 279 million(+41M) ** Production - 832 BC(+116) Over a quarter-billion drones strong now, and economic growth is kicking up as well. A majority of the 'citizenry' now lives off-world. 18 million are on transports and that number is expected to increase.  I expect this to stay about the same now, other than the ebb and flow of how many Colonizers we have out there.  Starting to see some progress now that we've been investing more heavily in research for a few years. No results are expected for some while yet.     Another ship moves downward.  We can leave this system as well, having established a buffer zone on all sides.  All known standard systems that are or soon will be in range have colonizers outbound to them. We've got one system yet in the small hostile category, so I'll knock that out yet(Whynil, the red star that I just moved a Recon away from).   2350 Another loss to the Guardian, and another matrix added.   A slightly shorter deep-space journey to a larger and better-positioned system. This is a useful switch.   One more new system is within range, and this is the closest place to it.  In the other direction, our new recons are finally in place after the Guardian unpleasantness to make a delayed push.  A third system contributes to our research total now. Up to 300 BC annually, and it'll be more than 350 starting a year from now.  Final terraforming here.  Incoming transports mandate that process starting here sooner than I would otherwhise. 2351 The final Guardian 'sacrifice' is made. Things are happening a bit more slowly now as our 'bubble' of controlled space grows larger.
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Oct 23, 2018 13:22
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Really enjoying the thread - I find the combination of technical explanations and AI crushing to be pleasing.
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Oct 23, 2018 14:21
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Thanks! The journey continues … Match the Master: 2352 - 2353  After pondering the matter a bit, I decided I don't really care about Force Fields & Weapons for a while yet. Planetology and Propulsion, for continuing the land-grab, will get increased funding.  Time to start moving drones on to Matrix 107.     The train of convoy relays keeps getting longer.  Now we've got Recons out to both sides of the Guardian, with Human territory to the upper-right. Soon we'll find out if this path is open to us at all.  Another case of having enough of a buffer zone to move a ship forward.  Out to Dunatis, a jungle world that is the biggest aside from the primary matrix that we've yet found. It's a key system in extending our range further down as well.  And here's that nearby hostile system that we want to wrap up.  I think this will be the last Colonizer I can send to anywhere within our current range, although that could change with new discoveries.  A waste issue here, but also now all-in on research.  Terraforming is done, and industrialization accelerates.  The incoming transports continue to stress the facilities here, and it'll be a revolving door of drones for a while. 2352 A lovely new acquisition brings us to nine matrices, while continuing to maintain the four colonizers en-route that we've had for a while now. Emphasizing the growing pains that we're about to start having in earnest is the fact that three of our systems haven't a single factory.  Another matrix switches up the direction for the transport convoys.    I think we've got enough heading out this way now that Matrix 105 can handle the rest that need to come to Matrix 107.  Now we'll have some going to both 108 and 109.  Four new systems are now within scouting range, double what I expected.    There's four ...  And another one to get closer to the front. I'll need to do some adjustments for the next few years to get all the ships where they need to be as we continue to push downwards.  Our reach is quite considerable. Close to a quarter of the galaxy I'd say is either under our control or picketed by a Recon - though that won't last forever. Now there's a choice to be made. As mentioned last year we can no longer reach any other systems with current range tech. Time to go big with a battleship-sized colony ship, but where? Up is the Humans, dark-space gap to the left by the nebula, and in between the guardian. There are a few along the right edge that we could get to, and exploration continues further downward. Down/left is the most important direction for continuing expansion though. Altogether there are seven systems we could land on if we could get there, so there's still plenty to do. I just need a couple big ships to break out.   7 years is less than the usual 10 for this, but it's still a while to wait. We can always shift gears if the scouts reveal something new, but for the moment additional cruiser-sized colonizers would probably just be eating up maintenance.   Adjustments to avoid waste after transferring drones out.  And the slow terraforming without the industry to support it continues here. Thank goodness for Klackon workers, who are at least making this tolerable. 2353 Nothing new there other than the usual moving around.
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Oct 24, 2018 22:24
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It's hard to believe I haven't put out any new videos for almost 2 years, and most of that was streaming. Feels weird but good to be back at it.  Let me know what y'all think.Introductory Video (needs no thumbnail here, you can see the title screen in the OP, heh) Viewers here probably don't need to see this one, because Thot's covered all of it by now. It's basically there so I can skip the introduction in any other video series for MOO1 I make.  Master of Orion - Klackon Assimilation #01Goes up to turn 50, but because I opted for deuterium fuel cells, has met some AIs and grabbed some planets Thot hasn't seen yet. Behold, my failure to micro and talk at the same time!  Thotimx posted:For Wayne and the other MOO2ers -- I took a bit of time the other day to boot that up and play for the first time in like a year. And boy am I rusty on it. Got myself waxed good and proper -- on Average difficulty. There's work to be done there, to put it mildly. Aww, well, I probably wouldn't do so great right now either, with it being awhile since the last time I played and all these bad habits from MOO1 to boot. That does bring up a question, though: depending on how far ahead of your posts you are, would you be up to co-commenting one of my videos? I'm planning on doing #2 and #3 "podcast-style" (post-commentary general discussion of the game) because they're really micro-heavy and nothing really interesting happens. For #2 I'll be talking about MOO1 itself (why I think it's held up compared to other games of its time) but if you wanted to talk about contrasting 1 and 2 and games you've played that I haven't and such, that'd be great. Let me know what you think. I'd PM but 
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Oct 25, 2018 04:49
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That would be a cool thing to do; I'm definitely interested in trying it, but not in this particular case. A rain check, perhaps?Wayne posted:depending on how far ahead of your posts you are, Only a few years, aka two updates. So since your first one goes through 2350, you've already produced most of what I've played. It would drive me slightly crazy to be 50-100 years or whatever ahead with the number of images that requires, so I basically post an update, upload the stuff for the next day's update, and then play through/screenshot the one after that so that I've only got one update's worth in the folder where I store this stuff on my computer. Makes things the easiest for me. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Oct 25, 2018 |
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Oct 25, 2018 21:14
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Match the Master: 2354 - 2355       Ahh, the thrill of moving ships around. Just hits you right in the gut. Or maybe not.  Oops, there's another one. We are starting to run out of the current Recons again, but there are enough for the time being.   More terraforming, but we're getting there. This ball of rock sacrifices factory-building to boost the drone count elsewhere. 2354 A really nice find - homeworld-level quality. And I think we're going to be able to reach it, eventually.  This is the focus of my current calculations. Note the triangle formed by the three red stars. ** Klystron - Top-left, 5 parsecs away. Will give us the range to reach at least two more standard systems, starting to the left of it. ** Dunatis - Right, with a colonizer en route. ** Tao - Lower-left, 7 parsecs away. Just scouted. It's possible, though unlikely, that we could reach Tao or Klystron after colonizing Dunatis. I stick with the plan for the Colonizer X. It's close though. We're probably at about a half-parsec either way here, and the difference in terms of how fast I get out here will be significant.  Collective Data, GY 2355 ** Matrices - 9(+2) ** Operational Drones - 334 million(+55M) ** Production - 914 BC(+82) Economic growth has slowed down a bit, mostly due to a lot of systems either being on research or drone-incubator duty. It's a blip. Meanwhile, 44 million drones are in deep space in 18 transport convoys ... and I don't think we've hit the peak of that yet. That's about 13% of currently active drones that aren't producing anything. However, nearly 20% population growth in five years is nothing to sneeze at, and that's what is going to power the coming economic explosion of the Borg.  The fleet continues much as it has, picketing and a handful of Colonizers going here and there.  First-tier advances will start coming in anytime, starting with the scanner.       On to the destination for a new matrix.  Another case of growth shaving a year off the production time.  The painfully slow terraforming has been finished here, and now it's on to factories. 2355 I don't often take the time to look at the background when landing on a new planet. The Dead and Ocean views are strikingly different, as shown in our acquisition of two new systems.
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Oct 25, 2018 21:14
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Match the Master: 2356 - 2358   The closest system that can divert it's transport here.  Matrix 109 and Matrix 111 are pretty much the same distance apart, but once Matrix 108 has enough it'll supply 109. So another switch of destinations seems best to make sure 111 gets something.  Now the Borg begin to make a left turn. There are enough Recons en route to various places to push all the way to the lower-right corner, so this is the only direction that is useful to go.    A few more transports are incoming, and waste starts to accumulate here. Time to ignore it for a while. 2356 Another standard system scouted, but we miss out on the first Robotics tech unfortunately.     Now this system will send it's extra drones downwards as well.    This is the only planet that needs adjusting right now, almost everywhere is either donating drones or awaiting their arrival to get building. 2357 A few things happened there. Sent some Recons to the wrong system by mistake, so they visited the Humans again. That's an unforced error. A couple of hostile planets scouted, and another matrix colonized. Turns out I'm a liar; I said I wouldn't have a dozen by 2360, and we make it in 2358. Klackons really are crazy. Also, my previous range calculations were accurate. We've got lots and lots of systems that are one parsec out of range, but none that are within it.   Shifting once again to divide up the supply to new matrices, take the most direct route, etc.  Back downwards as Matrix 110 is just a small ball of rock and has enough with the pair of transport convoys that are en route.    Redirecting from Maalor to the nearby star I intended to visit.   Build-up continues.   Time for our newer matrices to start making some headway now. 2358 Another hostile planet scouted, rich but small; the big Colonizer is completed; and the Meklar have ... a situation.
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Oct 26, 2018 20:39
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Match the Master: 2359 - 2360 I think I'm starting to approach the point where I can cut off some of the population transfers. I did some quick calculations at the start of this update, and it's not time yet -- some newer colonies and colonies-to-be would be starved for drones if I did it now. But critical mass shouldn't be too far away. More of the same for the time being though.       Pushing as many ships as I can to where our super-sized Colonizer will arrive(eventually, about a decade from now).  We've got a secure hold on the lower-right corner now; this is literally the corner system that I'm sending this ship to.  More long-distance relocating.   How about that; so far that I can't even see the journey or the destination looking at the path here.  A fourth system joining the research effort.     A growing number of matrices are now into the industrialization phase. Another trio still aren't, so this remains a work in progress. 2359 Lots of stuff happened this year. Another scout standoff, two new systems scouted, GNN congratulates us for reaching the first territory plateau(13), and Nuclear Drives come in. I go backwards for the cheaper Deuterium Cells now to minimize the amount of big colonizers I'll need to build.  Can't even see them all without scrolling now. This will prove less and less useful for looking at the details of any one system, but the empire-wide stats are still important. Collective Data, GY 2360 ** Matrices - 13(+4) ** Operational Drones - 407 million(+73M) ** Production - 1072 BC(+158) 17% economic growth, and 57M drones in 22 transport convoys. That's a lot, and the population is rising even faster than the the economy.  We need new designs with the new engines, and I'm surprised to see I can pull this off already. No more battleship-sized colonizers it looks like.  Won't fit with a set of Dead landing gear on it yet though.  It's debatable whether it's worth doing this, but I'm taking the plunge to get our Recons moving faster. I'll need a whole bunch more, and to eventually scrap the old ones.  A full slate of designs for the time being. Won't be long until we scrap the top two.  Toxic Landings are taking their sweet time, but the reduced-cost factories that we'll get soon will accelerate the economic boom.    Again I consider cutting off these shipments, but decide it's not quite time yet. Soon though.   Taking a look at the map, I counted 10 systems we can now reach. Most of them are standard, and just the one Colonizer X is currently out there. So we've got work to do, and will be spamming these as quickly as possible. I'll be focusing efforts on directions that will extend our range -- this first one will head out towards the gap between the nebula and Human territory. Another major land-grab is about to commence.  This will be the situation at most of the 'half-developed' matrices - getting Nuclear-powered Recons out ASAP to replace the Retro ones and push the frontier.  This is the lone exception to that; we still need to keep research going and this is obviously the place to do it.   Gives us a little over 30 of them this year; that's not enough so we'll come back for more, but it's a good start.  About half of the factories goal here now.   Terraforming time.  2360 Well that was interesting. I hemmed and hawed there on the weapons choice; NPG is cheaper and can be a decent early weapon, but I probably am going to want the security of missile bases while I build up the fleet at some point, so I chose Hyper-X instead. And I've never found an actual artifact this late in the game. That means three artifacts systems; one settled, two to go. Not a bad one to snag either, reducing our waste-cleanup spending a bit further.
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Oct 27, 2018 23:05
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Jesus, all those pop transfer transports. I'm actually curious how big a percentage of your total pop is in transit at any given time.
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Oct 28, 2018 01:01
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Can you try to transfer more population to a planet than it can support? What happens if you do; do the excess just die on arrival? Does population in transit count for council votes? It'd probably be horribly tedious to actually perform, but it's a kind of interesting thought experiment to try to figure out how to maximize your total population counting both planets an pop "in the air". I guess any given planet can accept up to (maximum population - 1) or maybe (-2) in one year without "wasting" any, but it needs to immediately ship most of that off to make room for the next wave. Figuring out the optimal "toss pattern" for a given configuration of planets sounds like a really tricky graph theory problem.
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Oct 28, 2018 01:25
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Excess population just dies on arrival. If a planet is a bucket and pops are water, then you're just spilling them.
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Oct 28, 2018 01:32
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Do you need a new colonizer design for each type of planet (toxic/radiated/dead) etc or is Dead a catch-all for "planets that need tech"? I feel like this was mentioned in an early game, but I couldn't find it.
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Oct 28, 2018 01:38
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rchandra posted:Do you need a new colonizer design for each type of planet (toxic/radiated/dead) etc or is Dead a catch-all for "planets that need tech"? I feel like this was mentioned in an early game, but I couldn't find it. Dead lets you land on all planets that are of Dead or nicer quality. If you want to be able to land literally anywhere with a single colonizer design, you need Radiated landings, because Radiated planets are the worst.
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Oct 28, 2018 01:49
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Once you get Hyperspace Communications, you can repeatedly redirect your pop transports back and forth and consequently build up effectively unlimited amounts of population "in the air". this is kind of pointless but sometimes I use it for planetary invasions: send the population first, then have it hover around the targeted planet until I manage to actually win the fleet battle.
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Oct 28, 2018 01:58
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rchandra posted:Do you need a new colonizer design for each type of planet (toxic/radiated/dead) etc or is Dead a catch-all for "planets that need tech"? I feel like this was mentioned in an early game, but I couldn't find it. Dead handles anything dead or lower on the hostility scale. So Dead Environs are good enough for Barren and Tundra as well, but not the 'worse' ones. It's pretty common to just put Radiated on once you get to it, since that allows you to land on anything. PurpleXVI posted:all those pop transfer transports. I'm actually curious how big a percentage of your total pop is in transit at any given time. 14% as of that last population update, and rising. It won't get much higher though I don't expect. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Figuring out the optimal "toss pattern" for a given configuration of planets sounds like a really tricky graph theory problem. I don't think it's useful to try and fill them up all the way though due to how population growth works. Given how much more you get when a planet is halfway full, that's why I just ship out anything about the half-full point so that growth is maximized.
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Oct 28, 2018 02:00
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Thotimx posted:I don't think it's useful to try and fill them up all the way though due to how population growth works. Given how much more you get when a planet is halfway full, that's why I just ship out anything about the half-full point so that growth is maximized. Sure, this was more me nerd-sniping myself than anything to do with optimal gameplay. a computing pun posted:Once you get Hyperspace Communications, you can repeatedly redirect your pop transports back and forth and consequently build up effectively unlimited amounts of population "in the air". this is kind of pointless but sometimes I use it for planetary invasions: send the population first, then have it hover around the targeted planet until I manage to actually win the fleet battle. And that kind of ruins the "puzzle", so let's just pretend it doesn't exist. 
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Oct 28, 2018 03:03
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Match the Master: 2361 I decided that this is the year to shut off the drone-transport spigot. Or rather, re-route, prepare, and focus it.  The biggest section of planets that we need to settle are generally this way past Matrix 103. Since Matrix 102 is in the middle of everything, I'll push it's surplus out this way.  Similarly, Matrix 105 will send drones out this way.  Matrix 106 and Matrix 108 will take in whatever is still incoming, and send drones out to this collection of systems below. This is the last group to head out to Matrix 111, which won't take long as a fertile system to start contributing to the transfers itself. Matrix 103 and Matrix 104 will just grow in place until I have somewhere to send on their populations.  Gonna be a LOT of screens like this as I get the new Nuc Recons out to their destinations.              If you think all these shots are just plain annoying - can't blame ya - just think about how much fun it was to calculate which ships need to go where.  All the sliders needed to be tweaked with the reduced waste coming in. Here we're going to follow the big colonizer out ... but actually get there first. I wish I'd have known this would happen, because I wouldn't have spent the production to build that oversized sucker. Mark that down as a miscalculation, and we're still going to be paying maintenance on that thing for several more years.  I still want about 21 more Nuc Recons, so we'll keep 'em coming.  This is the furthest spot away from where they need to go, so I'll just build a few here.    Terraforming starts up here ...  And should wrap up here.  *Phew*. That was a lot of stuff to sort through, and for a single turn. 2361 Got a few more ships built than I wanted, but that's fine and will just put me ahead of the game. Other than that, all that happened was Recon Rush part 2.
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Oct 28, 2018 21:22
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Match the Master: 2362   Switching targets here again, so that we can build up the numbers on the last two current colonies.  The final one comes here, as Matrix 108 now has enough drones to start being a donor.  And now to send out the rest of the Nuc Recons. Not as many as last time but still quite a few.  A number of occupied systems need a replacement picket.             Leaves still a handful of ships remaining. There's only two directions that they'll be potentially needed, so I might as well split them up that way ...    Since we're getting extended-range colonizers out there now, I don't think the range is quite as important and I'll back off the propulsion research some. Planetology is still getting increased funding.  No more Nuc Recons are needed now, so it's back into research for donor matrices.      Terraforming done and all factories here now.  2362 Industrial Tech 8 comes in, accelerating factory production by 20%. Duralloy Armor was tempting, but I think I'll push forward for cheaper factories again and then possibly come back for that. With all the Nuc Recons en route to various locations, there should be a respite from this level of micro for a while.
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Oct 29, 2018 21:17
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PurpleXVI posted:Jesus, all those pop transfer transports. Well, have I got the video for you!  Since Thot's busy, I decided to make this "podcast" video about the 4X genre and some of the meta around playing MOO1, plus some of my experiences with it. #3's is going to be about the history of MOO and why people still play it, and we'll do the comparison between 1 and 2 later (maybe when Thot starts the MOO2 LP?).  Master of Orion - Klackon Assimilation #02Goes through 2368, so we average a little over 5 minutes a turn. Recommended for: very young children who mostly see primary colors, bored strategy aficionados, insomniacs. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Does population in transit count for council votes? No, much like how in XCOM 1 you can send scientists back and forth between 2 bases to avoid having to pay any of them. That's actually a way to avoid an expected council loss: send enough transports flying around on the eve of a vote to fall to #3.
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Oct 30, 2018 00:43
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This kind of thing is why I never do well on 4X games at higher levels. The temptation to just mash "next turn" and trust things to sort out reasonably well is way too high for me.Wayne posted:No, much like how in XCOM 1 you can send scientists back and forth between 2 bases to avoid having to pay any of them. That's actually a way to avoid an expected council loss: send enough transports flying around on the eve of a vote to fall to #3. That's amazing. "We really, really want to vote against the Silicoids, but their population mysteriously fell by 50% last year. Dangit."
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Oct 30, 2018 01:18
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That's amazing. "We really, really want to vote against the Silicoids, but their population mysteriously fell by 50% last year. Dangit." Or, if we consider a somewhat sensible, but boring approach, it might just be that transports have the population in some form of suspended animation, and therefore not counted among the living while in transit.
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Oct 30, 2018 10:35
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Wayne posted:Recommended for: very young children who mostly see primary colors, bored strategy aficionados, insomniacs. ROFL. I also would never have thought of using the transports in that way of intentionally reducing population. The update after the one I just posted just gets to the start of 2368, so it looks like you'll soon be well ahead of the thread if you aren't already. TooMuchAbstraction posted:The temptation to just mash "next turn" and trust things to sort out reasonably well is way too high for me. That was me when I was younger, for whatever reason it no longer is. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Oct 30, 2018 |
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Oct 30, 2018 22:39
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Match the Master: 2363 - 2365   Bigger transport groups down here until all of the incoming are dispatched.  Finally we get rid of the lone remaining ship from the game's start. It's a small thing, but anything we don't have to pay for, I don't want to pay for.  That gives us our first whopping 2 BC in the reserve, which I shift off to Matrix 113 here, due to it being a large system and our newest. Just a bit of a boost.  A change of tack here. I decide we can afford now to pull Matrix 104 off of research duty. I'll still be sending some drones out from here in a few years, but I want to max out the industry and use this planet to fund the reserve, so we can get all of the new systems we're going to be colonizing growing faster. It's a judgement call on when to do this as tech efforts will suffer some(about 30% of that effort was coming from here), but I'm thinking this is about the time for it.  Last of the terraforming of one of our 'tip' systems, pointing basically right at Orion.  Planets like these will benefit most from the recently-reduced factory costs.  Another matrix begins the build-up process. 2363 A new Colonizer is finished, but that's about it.   Hostile systems make lousy drone sources, but the proximity makes this the only choice here.   The newer, smaller, but faster ship is just a year behind, so this biggun will lose the race to the front by a couple of turns. Given that, I just want it to land somewhere ASAP, and this is the closest useful destination.  This will be the first of the nuclear-powered versions to reach the target.  The first time we've been able to push towards the upper-right corner occupied by Humans in a while. Once again I'm using the tactic of spreading the ships out in different directions.  Another research contributor; soon we'll be able to just build up here, but not until the drone shipments are complete.  Booming as the terraforming work is finished.   There'll be a lot of juggling here; it gets interesting doing terraforming on a planet this small, because of how miniscule the industrial base is.  2364 We're now starting to see the 'core' area around the early systems clear out of traffic, with transports only moving about on the perimeter.  Collective Data, GY 2365 ** Matrices - 13(--) ** Operational Drones - 495 million(+88M) ** Production - 1363 BC(+291) 27% economic growth here; we added almost a homeworld's worth of production as things are starting to take off. A modest decline in transports as expected; 45M drones in 16 convoys, accounting for just 9% of the population which is a considerable drop. It won't stop completely for quite some time, but the era of transports filling the radar screens in almost every conceivable direction are over now.  Back now to the ebb and flow of Colonizers. The next major thing to happen here will be when we have everything in position to get rid of the Retro Recons, but that'll probably be about the end of the decade.  Nothing is imminent. I imagine we'll get Toxic Environs right about the time that we get Colonizers out to all of the current targets.  Something like a third of the map has been reached, and still no hostilities from our rivals. Safe to say that would never happen this late in the game on Impossible. We've found three uninhabitable systems so far, leaving 105 for us to claim. 13 down, 92 to go.     Switching destinations now because only Matrix 113 'needs' more drones at this point, and this shipment will take care of that. I'll still send some more to 'oversupply' for a couple of years most likely, to facilitate sending them on further when needed.  From a strategic, range-extending point of view, this is the most important system to get. It will open a lot of doors exploration-wise.   Some extra cleanup is needed here.  This is the most severe 'intentional waste' situation yet. 31 units have accumulated and I'm going to let it grow even a bit higher.  So far, so good here. This looks weird but once again I'm just trying to match planet size to population ... and playing it a bit safe.  Getting close to terraforming time. 2365 The 'between-turns' action has been non-existent lately. The Borg are seeing a long-awaited boom occur in their newer matrices, even as multiple Colonizers make their way to establish new ones.
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Oct 30, 2018 22:40
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Thotimx posted:I promised this game would be more highly-documented. Here's what I meant by that; and I hope General Revil, with his aversion to micromanagement, is still hanging around to witness it. Oh the humanity! I just caught up and I'm filled with a mixture of awe and disgust. I'd love to join the challenge, but I'm going to have to respectfully pass on that. Edit: Oh, and has anyone mentioned 1oom on the thread yet? https://gitlab.com/KilgoreTroutMaskReplicant/1oom It's a MOO1 engine reimplementation that I just discovered. The readme even references this thread. General Revil fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 31, 2018 |
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Oct 31, 2018 05:17
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General Revil posted:It's a MOO1 engine reimplementation that I just discovered. The readme even references this thread. I"ve seen talk about similar projects, but not this one. That's pretty cool - though I don't see how parentheses are hard to read, but that's neither here nor there.
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Oct 31, 2018 20:40
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Match the Master: 2366 - 2367   Here's another moment where long-term planning comes in. I don't need any more population here NOW, but this about where it needs to be for the next wave of colonization. I'm pushing the drones to Matrix 112, because I'm going to save the lower-right corner for last - the push along the bottom of the galaxy comes first, so down-left is the key direction I want to go and right now those are the systems that will get me furthest in that direction. For the same reason, Matrix 108 will hold on to it's drones for now.  Nearly straight left to our furthest reach by the nebula. This would be a stupid-long journey without nuclear drives, and will still take several years as it is.  Double-digit annual factories is a nice thing.  Things didn't go as planned here, and I actually cleaned up more waste than was produced last year. So naturally some adjustments were made.  Evening out a bit, and progressing smoothly if slowly on this ball of rock.  At Matrix 111 I can no longer safely allow waste to sit around.  2366 First new system colonized in several years; the new wave has officially begun. Still no contacts, I'm thinking we need that next range boost first. Just as well, I'm in no hurry for that. Now we have more transporting and scouting to do.   We don't have enough drones 'stockpiled' for needs here, but this is a good down payment.   This one heads out to Tao, the 'second homeworld'(100M max, Terran) and our lowest-left target at the moment.  No less than eight new star systems are within scouting range, thanks to our latest acquisition.        Here I'm shifting one of the 'spare' ships, realizing that I'll need another one over there soon.    And another matrix joins the throng of research-contributing planets.   Rare to get 2M drone growth on a hostile planet this small. We'll aim to finish up terraforming this year.  Meanwhile that effort gets started here.   Now the only planet that isn't building up significantly(or already done with that) is the one we just landed on. 2367 A small rich planet in our 'back pocket' sector is scouted, we meet the Humans, and Matrix 104 maxes out industrial capacity, giving us a bit more in the reserve to start doling out. Meanwhile, we are approaching 100 BC economic growth per year, and three Colonizers are a turn away from their targets. There's a lot do and look at coming up ... Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Oct 31, 2018 20:41
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Thotimx posted:
That appears to be the link to the 2366 video.
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Nov 1, 2018 03:52
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You are correct: fixed.
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Nov 1, 2018 05:49
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Match the Master: 2368 This nearly made me laugh out loud. Oh, how different this is from first contact on Impossible!! The Humans ... well, lets just say they aren't a concern. They have only the two planets we already ran into, Maalor and Sol, so there's no point in putting up a map. We'll take those basically when we build up a fleet and feel like it. They are Honorable Technologists, so they'll probably not force our hand ... at least not too soon.  I don't bother with any further conversation with them - Negotiation is Irrelevant and all that - but we do put the standard single-click sliver into spying so we can figure out what they have.  This, however, is trouble. The Psilons have finally bothered to escort their colony ships. They are heading to Rigel here, and it seems clear they'll arrive next year ... the same time that we do. It's basically halfway across the galaxy for us, so it's not a surprise, but a year earlier and we'd have had a chance of retaining it. This was the system I'd marked out as the most key one for extending our range precisely to try and avoid this from happening, but it wasn't enough. Not a great planet in and of itself(40M max Arid), but in any case I'll have to re-direct our ships elsewhere if this goes as expected. The Farmer's Gambit is starting to reach its limitations, even of Average settings.      Now it's time for the planetary transfers. In order to aid as many systems as possible, I begin with the smallest ones. The means starting with Matrix 114. As a refresher, you can transfer enough to double the current output, and my general rule of thumb is to do this until there are as many factories as population, at which point(esp. as Klackons) the drones themselves can take over and don't need the boost nearly as much.   And that's takes all of our available funding. Not as much as I'd have liked, but it is a start.  Now everything Matrix 104 can produce is headed into the reserve annually, until we no longer need it and have a decent surplus.  Another case of extra waste cleanup being needed due to the outgoing transports.   Even more research as Matrix 108 joins the effort.  An extreme example of Klackon productivity here, as the factories are catching up to the population well before we're even ready to terraform.  Now fully terraformed, this is ready to build up industry in obscurity from its position on the galactic rim.  Rest of the job is to be finished here; a two-year process due to the size and productivity of the system.   2368 A big sequence, as anticipated. The Psilons do chase us off of Rigel, but we add two others boosting the total to 16. A few new systems were scouted as well, all of which we are capable of utilizing. I'm starting to wonder whether I should have boosted up another system somewhere for a secondary Colonizer-building source. I don't really think I have anywhere that's big enough and ready yet though ... except of course for Matrix 104, which is in reserve duty.
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Nov 1, 2018 21:00
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Match the Master: 2369 Ultimately I do decide to switch it up. Building the reserve will have to wait further. For now, I want to keep growing, and Matrix 104 will go on Colonizer-building to supplement our supply of those. Even that will not be enough to keep up, but it'll help. That means that longer-range transports will have to depart for the upper-right corner, starting here. It just didn't occur to me that we'd not get cut off by somebody at all these new systems, so the land-grab continues.      Between these last two here, we had enough drones built up to immediately supply the needs of the other new matrix. I hope you enjoyed the respite because, contrary to my predictions, it appears the 'golden age' of drone-transport spam is yet to come.  There are worse things that being forced to redirect to a better system, but it still sucks to lose Rigel.  This one heads out to the Ocean system above the human territory, that we just scouted. If they don't have the range to reach it then they will soon, and I don't want to give them the chance if I can get there first. Another long trip.  Might as well get rid of this design now that I don't need it anymore. One of the best things about this turn is getting that behemoth off the maintenance costs. We had 84 BC there a year ago; now it's down to 50 BC.  Hey look, it's time for more Recon spam! Err sorry, actually it's Nuc Recon spam. Same thing, different flavor.     That last trio will take care of the upper-right corner.        The Dead system that was recently discovered out past the nebula, just up/left of the galactic centre, is the reason for switching this up. Expanding range and reach continues to take precedence over other concerns. We have to hit a wall soon ... but until we do, it's MOAR COLONIZERS. Also, I'm rather flabbergasted to discover that 60+ Nuc Recons might not be enough, particularly with a range boost coming soon. So I build even more.  I'm throwing everything back into Matrix 104, at a net loss of almost 100 BC obviously, but getting more Colonizers out there trumps everything at the moment.  That's enough to shave a year off.   Ready to start researching even before we're ready to terraform on Matrix 109. That's a new thing, for which we can thank reduced factory and waste-cleanup costs primarily.  Ready to start becoming a significant drone source next year. It'll take some travel time to get them in position, but this will definitely reduce the local pressure and keep the population flowing. Probably 6-7M per year for a fertile this large.   2369 Three more systems scouted: an empty, an Ultra-Poor, and a nice Terran all up in that 'Guardian Corridor'. The Psilon fleet also left Rigel, so we could eventually just try to land there ... if we want to pick a fight this early. I don't think we do. Let them have their little toy ... for now.
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Nov 2, 2018 22:27
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Seeing all this micromanaging, I'm left with a few desires. Planetary governors, which I've already mentioned. So much of this micro can be done programmatically. Finer control over planetary spending. I know it's pretty much the opposite of what you'd think from the above point, but I'd like to be able to set an order to clean up exactly x amount of waste, plus any new that comes in. Multi-stage commands for your ships. eg. Go to this star system, then to this one. Or, Get as close to this system as you can, then wait for better range tech, then proceed to that system. Have ships notify you when they reach their target and are awaiting orders. Also, a random fun idea, an option to simulate communication delay. Since a parsec is longer than a lightyear, even warp 1 is faster than light. Your commands to distant planets should be delayed by however long it takes to get a dispatch ship to them. Likewise, information back from planets should be out of date as well. Although, that might actually be the opposite of fun.
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Nov 3, 2018 00:11
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General Revil posted:Oh the humanity! I just caught up and I'm filled with a mixture of awe and disgust. I'd love to join the challenge, but I'm going to have to respectfully pass on that. Aww, c'mon, the more the merrier!  I'll have update 3 up shortly; don't want to get too far ahead of Thot's updates (not too much risk of that when I only get 10-20 turns in an hour, though ). I was thinking about starting the Stock Race Challenge while this thread was still up in case any of y'all were curious in the meantime, and I started with the Bulrathi save from this game. Absolutely awful map. The AIs are so close it's a total crapshoot if you can get more than 2 planets, and they're the worst for early warfare, and if you somehow wax one of them there are Klackons and Psilons both in the west. And then sometimes this happens: Yep, that is a 50 turn Council loss where 2 Xenophobes voted for the other leader. I'm prepared to write this off as the rare actually-impossible map, you have to get a ton of lucky breaks to even get started. I didn't realize when I commented on the practice run earlier that literally everything broke my way and I still had the Klackons to deal with. The good news, that still is a screencap from a video. I finally got a good workflow down for grabbing images from DOSBox video with OBS. The bad news is, of course, that the LP is over. General Revil posted:Edit: Oh, and has anyone mentioned 1oom on the thread yet? https://gitlab.com/KilgoreTroutMaskReplicant/1oom I saw that on Realms Beyond when I went digging for that Huge map project one of the guys there did. Neat that this LP inspired the guy working on it!
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Nov 3, 2018 06:56
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A couple times recently I've sort of had a choice between a small 1-year update and a big 2-year one; last time I went for the small one, this one is going to be longer. Match the Master: 2370 - 2371  The main difference seen in the last couple of years is that the Humans appear to be starting to build some more ships. Given that we outnumber them 16 systems(and counting) to 2, I'm not concerned about that directly, but I expect the other races to be somewhat more numerous.  Collective Data, GY 2370 ** Matrices - 16(+3) ** Operational Drones - 599 million(+104M) ** Production - 1723 BC(+360) 26% economic growth in the past five years is down just a hair but still very strong. We're now well over a half-billion drones, with 54M on 14 transport convoys, holding at 9% of the population but that will probably spike again now as our latest wave of colonizing proceeds.  We'll get rid of the standard Recons in probably a couple years.  Research is also starting to gradually pick up momentum.       Back to research.  Cleanup after another large exodus.  Waste is high here as well, but that'll get rectified as the buildup continues.  I'd mentioned Matrix 111 as a big drone donor, but after further consideration I've decided against that. Instead, as a sizable fertile planet located on the rim, I'll build it up to use as a reserve/ship producer. I really think I might need another one. It's a tough balance to strike between all the priorities. 2370 It's starting to get real now. Several more systems scouted, some hostile and some not, one already occupied. We also get another matrix set up, our first rich one, and meet two more empires. The Meklar aren't among them, but they have a real bad day also.  ROFL. Psilons look like the best of the bunch and are actually a little ahead of us in tech ... but sheer numbers are, shall we say, decisively on the Borg/Klackon side.  Let's see how long the Mrrshan take to launch their first stupid, suicidal attack. I may regret this but I'm still going with just the initial sliver of see-what-they've got work here. I frankly don't even really care if somebody declares war and takes a couple of systems. Building up the bulk of the empire and crushing them when I feel ready due to the weight of purely overwhelming economic force is the path for me.  Total count right now is Borg 17, the other three combined 7 in terms of systems. That's just stupid. I know I've seen Average AIs do much better than this in the past, but they definitely aren't as able to overcome poor starting positions. That hit the Humans with a lot of hostile planets near them, and it looks like the Psilons/Mrrshan have been running into each other. Then the Meklar had one system neutered by that supernova; remains to be seen what they or the Bulrathi are up to in probably the upper-left ... but based on the fact that we haven't seen any of their ships, I doubt either has more than a handful of systems. In other words, not that it's a surprise, but the galaxy belongs the Borg strategically already. The rest of this game is paperwork.    Enough to satisfy needs here and still some to spare. That's really going to help our next set of systems.    The time has finally come to get rid of these. They served us well in their time, but that time is now past.  Let's not aggravate the Mrrshan more than necessary. We leave Primodius, their 'second homeworld'.  I've got a quartet of Nuc Recons here that are sort of blocked off by the eggheads and cats. I'll redistribute them to various places ...     In order to reach the dead system beyond the nebula, we need to go around it, and also wait for another system to be colonized which will extend our range. Long story boring, this is the first of three legs for this ship. Let's hope I don't forget about it somewhere ...  A nice long journey here, even for Nuclear drives. This will push us well past the midway point along the top of the galaxy, if we get there before anyone else does.  The scrap from the decomissioned Recons is poured right back into making more Colonizers.  Then there's the matter of that last batch of Nuc Recons I built a couple years back. Well, it appears we never sent a replacement here. It's a Toxic system so I don't see anyone else taking it, but let's get there with a picket anyway. I can't find any others that I missed, so I'll happily live with this small error.  For the moment, it seems best to split the others in three directions, four for each.   We'd lose about as much time going around the nebula from here as we would going through it I think. Gotta bite the bullet. I'm not yet sure this is all the Recons we're going to need, but I think we're good for the moment at least.  Back to standard Colonizers for now. Each time I need to build a new ship, I'm re-evaluating where to send the next one.  Still growing and building.   Been missing the boat as often as not on calculating cleanup efforts here. Didn't mean to get rid of all the waste last year for sure; I give it another shot here as the drone count continues to gradually rise.  Sort of the same thing here, as production is too high now to allow for the required granularity to leave 'just a bit' of waste lying around. #KlackonProductivityProblems.  2371 We surprisingly run into the Bulrathi in the middle of Psilon/Mrrshan territory. Didn't see that coming, and we have more Nuc Recons going there so we'll be literally poking the Bears some more. That could well mean the Meklar have the upper-left to themselves, and end up the biggest opponent. Also Deuterium Fuel Cells come in, and clearly faster engines are the next goal. In fact, I think I want to accelerate that work.
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Nov 3, 2018 21:56
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Almost enough (if the other AIs are just as territory-starved) for an auto-victory via election! This is going to be one hell of a beat-down.
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Nov 3, 2018 23:31
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Wayne posted:The good news, that still is a screencap from a video. I finally got a good workflow down for grabbing images from DOSBox video with OBS. The bad news is, of course, that the LP is over. I'd be highly interested in how you pulled that off if you are willing to share. I spent an absurd amount of time and tried everything I could think of, boosting the bit rate far beyond where it made any difference, and with multiple different recording options including OBS. Very impressive! Wayne posted:I'm prepared to write this off as the rare actually-impossible map, you have to get a ton of lucky breaks to even get started. I didn't realize when I commented on the practice run earlier that literally everything broke my way and I still had the Klackons to deal with. I don't think I'd call it impossible, but you definitely do need to get lucky to have a chance.
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Nov 4, 2018 02:38
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Match the Master: 2372 Shifting directions again, as we've got enough heading out to Matrix 115 in the upper-right now.  Here also.     Turns out there's a green star in the extreme upper-right that I'd been totally missing. Can't reach it yet, but we need to be ready to so I take the closest 'spare' and get it moving.  We can now reach this system thanks to the new fuel cells which magically get put on even ships in hyperspace or orbiting hosting worlds because game mechanics. Good a place as any to go.  This one at the very bottom of the map is in the same boat, we've been waiting to get that extra parsec so this trip could be made.  Continuing to push the explorers further out wherever and whenever I can.   This is the next step left of the nebula for us to explore.  This is the ocean system Yarrow, and the Humans are going to get there three years ahead of us. We had the right idea, but the others are starting to gobble up territory and we couldn't get here fast enough. First Rigel, now this, there'll be more. It's a race now -- but one in which we have a massive lead.  Another try at getting one that the Humans would naturally be aiming for on the other side of their territory. This is the only standard system at the moment that we need the reserve tanks to reach, and while it's a poor system it's better ours than theirs.  Deuterium fuel cells make it practical to build cheaper colonizers without fuel tanks for a few new targets. It's only a 20-BC savings, so this is a minor thing.  And yet another one, our most expensive as we can now pack Dead landings on with the reserve tanks. We need this for a couple systems at the moment.  After some consideration, I decide that the next-most-important hostile system is in the upper-right corner, beyond Matrix 115 where the RELOC will head. It's just close enough to human territory that they might snag it, and we don't have any spies yet to get a tech report on them.  Switching around some tech spending as well, to get more investment in Propulsion. Sublight Drives would give us 50% faster starship speed and halve the transit times of our transports.  It'll be all shorter-range standard Colonizers for our 'B' producer for a while - we've got four targets for those.  Last year went better, and now we've reached the point where there's no useful amount of waste we can leave around.  Latest terraforming project begins.  2372 The Human do take Yarrow, chasing off our scouts, but we scout another system(small Inferno) while a pair of new Matrices are established. One is at Tao, aka Matrix 119, our first homeworld-level acquisition. I'll take that kind of trade.
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Nov 4, 2018 21:31
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It's pretty amazing that you're still in the land-grab phase, but it's really bothering me that you didn't start the planet numbering with Matrix 100.
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Nov 5, 2018 19:17
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Life's full of small tribulations I guess. 101 made more sense to me :P As far as the game itself goes, it's becoming apparent that I'm going to have to transition into military buildup before I'm done with the land-grab, which is not something I do otherwhise. This run is just bizarre after being in the mindset for the others. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Nov 5, 2018 |
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Nov 5, 2018 21:49
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