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quote:As somebody on RB pointed out, that will eventually be 2+ BC per person, which is the entire Meklar benefit of manning 2 more factories, without actually having to build those factories. Freaking Klackons. I suppose the issue here is 'eventually'. How long does it take for that to occur, and what will the situation be at that time?
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Nov 18, 2018 07:55
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Wayne posted:The formula is just 50 (where the base 1/2 comes from) plus Planetology TL x3, divided by 100. There has to be more to it than that, given that the bonus doesn't kick in for the really small systems. Re: your statement earlier in the thread, I must have just glossed over it at the time - which probably wasn't a real great idea :P I should also point out that even some of the top players like Sulla are clearly not aware of it, as his generally-excellent MOO tutorial game blamed it on rounding error - like me, he was looking at it too early in the game for it to be obvious that wasn't the case. Wayne posted:There are certain breakpoints where choosing the right shield + armor combination can make a huge difference*, That's definitely one of those areas that I've never paid as much attention to as you have. Bloodly posted:I suppose the issue here is 'eventually'. How long does it take for that to occur, and what will the situation be at that time? You have to have high-level tech for it to reach that peak, but since it increases gradually as your TL goes up, you'll still reap benefits. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Nov 18, 2018 |
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Nov 18, 2018 20:12
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Match the Master: 2389 Still no report on the Bulrathi, as our last couple of infiltrations have failed. Their alliance with the Mrrshan remains intact, but - knock on wood - it hasn't caused us any issues yet. Meanwhile we put back the spying effort on the Psilon front with that down to one active agent.          This is the only significant change in the transfer activities. Good news is that a lot of the newer ones don't need many drones; bad news is that there are still enough systems to require somewhat more drones than we have to spare.  It's looking more like we are slightly over-supplied at the exploration front, which is exactly where I want to be with this. Dunno if I discussed this yet, but I don't think it's anywhere near worth it to get slightly faster warp-3 Recons out here; there just isn't that much territory left to reach, and I want to keep five ship slots free for the Colonizers.  Don't have any idea how I got an extra ship here, but let's definitely push it forwards.  Just a bit of my personal MOO-playing methodology; for about 20 years or so I've moved past it being useful to check on all the ships by looking around the map. The Fleet Screen has become much more useful. I go through the list annually, looking at anywhere that has a Colonizer or multiple Nuc Recons, and ensuring they are going where I want them. If not, I move something out. I'm not sad to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on this being a constant process. I never did it this way on any of the Impossible games - but then none of them had this sort of critical mass of expansion.  This pair has reached their initial relay point, and are now ready to proceed out past the nebula. These are of course the older, slower warp-2 versions.   This ship aims to establish a new 'furthest reach' foothold, around the leftward extent of Psilon space.  The extremity of the lower-right corner; tiny, but Rich.    Just a switch to a Toxic-capable ship here.    The quickest spot for us to get a ship out to that recently-scouted Tundra system.  Going all-in for reserve funding now ... a mere nine decades into the game!  Another drone relay is now ready for research contribution.  Pulling out of the waste dive here.  This one we'll be watching for a while. Klackon worker productivity is particularly vital on industry-challenge worlds.   Tote-board is getting heavy ... and there's many more to come.   2389 Colonization spam ahoy! We found four matrices - and produce five more ships, still ending the year with one more than we started. Back up to the high of 17 there. Some of those who landed had very long journeys, including that one we sent up to Pollus, then redirected almost the entire height of the galaxy down to an artifact-desert planet. Built almost two decades ago, it finally found a destination. The first small bits of reserve investment came in from Matrix 117 as well. This time I shouldn't need to shut off that spigot, as I did with my earlier, very short-lived try. Seemingly gone as well are the days of the six-second 'ships moved and yawn some more' Next-Turn videos; this one is almost two minutes. I hope ya'll like the 'colony ship landing' jingle ...
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Nov 18, 2018 20:13
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Match the Master: 2390 The Psilons are growing, and at the moment basically keeping pace a bit behind us in technology. I don't think that'll hold, on either front, but it's the closest thing we've yet seen to actual resistance. The Bulrathi have the biggest warfleet (ours is just Colonizers + Scouts so it really doesn't count), and our economic edge gradually grows. The Overall notes that we are about twice as powerful as the others, who are bunched together.  Still no Bulrathi report. They have allied with the Psilons, so the Bears being nice and staying out of the war is even more important now - but it doesn't really matter all that much.  ** Borg - 36 ** Psilons - 6 ** Humans - 5 ** Bulrathi - 3 ** Mrrshan - 2 ** Meklar - 2 or more (??) We are holding at 2 for us, 1 for everyone else to split. If our estimate of the Meklar holdings is correct, the galaxy is now exactly half-colonized. By the turn of the century, we should hold half of it ourselves - and the High Council probably forms about that time as well. Still a narrow band to explore along the left side.  Just this year, we've reached the point of being able to get rid of the old nuclear toxic ships. If needed, we'll throw in a standard sub-light design there. Also, the price for the upgrade to the faster engines is a mere 6 BC per vessel here, or roughly 1% of the cost. The speed is worth a great deal more, of course, in practical effect. And Wayne - I don't have 100 scouts. There's only 87 ... and it's been years since I even thought about making more of them. So there :P.  Even a few years ago, research spending was about two-thirds of what it is now, in the mid-800s. This is about what the new plateau will be for a while, but we're already seeing accelerated results. Cheaper factories remain the next thing, and after that probably the Mass Driver coming in roughly about the time we'll need it for our first generation of combat ships.  Missile-base maintenance is creeping up, slowly. Collective Data, GY 2390 ** Matrices - 36 of 99(+10!) ** Projected Completion Year - 2525 ** Projected Completion Date IRL - April 3 ** Operational Drones - 1.326 billion(+228M) ** Production - 4344(+815 BC) Shamelessly stealing Wayne's method of showing how many possible systems there are now. We are over the one-third mark. The 'Projected' lines there are just a bit of mostly humor, based on how many years/system it's taken us to acquire new territory so far and assuming a year a day for the rest of the journey. Another four months of this. Superb, all I think we'll end up more aggressively wrapping it up - but time will have to tell on that, as the saying goes. In game terms, we've seen the greatest explosion in acquisition efforts in the last set of five years, and the pace isn't quite ready to slow down yet. Economic growth spiked again to 23%, approaching a thousand BC increase. The population numbers are not quite exact, though they are close; the reason for that is some of the transport convoys are 'on top' of each other. Most of the older, slower ones have reached their destinations but not all of them on the longer journeys. In these cases I can only see one of the convoys. The transport count is 37 convoys of 102 million drones, down slightly from last accounting of 115M. Nearly a quarter-billion was added to our numbers overall, a boost of a little under 21%, which is quite close to the rate it was previously.      With a high number of small matrices being founded recently, transports in these areas will be constantly shifting destinations year-to-year.   Here it's time to just push more drones leftward across the top of the map, staging at Matrix 123 to be sent on to wherever as the lastest batch of Colonizers arrive. Matrix 114 of course acts a drone relay, allowing the transports to make their way around, rather than through, the nearby nebula.   There are still a couple of 'unserved' new matrices, but most have a significant supply incoming. Drone transports are nearly keeping up with the rapid expansion.  More colony ships reach their initial relay point.  A couple Barren systems were left ... well, barren ... because we could and other areas were a greater priority. The filling-in process will now commence.   It's time for a new level of micro. We've seen a bit of this, but now we'll begin to open up a larger scale of transfers from the planetary reserve. Prepare yourselves for pain. The coming decade or so could well come to be known as the 'Golden Age of Micromanagement' in the annals of this game. The goal is to boost developing matrices of course, beginning with the newest, weakest ones with no factories; they are the ones in the most need of assistance. A metric to track for this is how many systems have fewer factories than population - above that, I just let them grow on their own. Right now that's 16 of 36, or nearly half, eligible for assistance.         That does it for the bottom of the barrel; there's a bit left for slightly more developed systems.  Or in this case, just one of them.  Saying goodbye to another design that served its purpose and is now obsolete.  Done with missile bases for now, and switching to Toxic for some of the nearby 'cleanup' star systems in the vicinity.     Switching to Toxic.  Seems we're close enough to the Humans here that some protection would be prudent.        This will soon be ready to serve as incubator for numerous fill-in/backwater systems in the area.  I thought the terraforming would be done by now, but it seems the radiation damage was not quite as severe as it appeared initially. 2390 Another four systems colonized, and one scouted as well. GNN notes that we will soon control the galaxy - the third size notification - and a decidedly hostile greeting from the Meklar completes our introductions to the enemies.
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Nov 19, 2018 18:45
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Have you noticed any improvement in play from documenting it in such detail? It seems to be a common effect of 4x LPs - at the least, having discovered new mechanics will probably help if you ever come back to MOO again.
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Nov 19, 2018 20:02
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I'm entertained that in the time it's taken you to beat MoO1 once with every race, Libluilni is still fighting his way through one MoO3 game. Not because he's any less a competent player, but simply because the game is so horrendously paced and so much of a slog to play. 
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Nov 19, 2018 20:34
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This LP series has really helped me understand MOO better and I love this game to death but I'm a terrible 4x player. I'm really hoping to see an MOO2 version, maybe not the 'every race' thing but a good in depth set of games like what we've been seeing.
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Nov 19, 2018 22:59
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Fhqwhgadds posted:I'm really hoping to see an MOO2 version, maybe not the 'every race' thing but a good in depth set of games like what we've been seeing. The main difference will probably be, as previously mentioned, that I'm not nearly as good at MOO2. Like here though, I'm sure the journey will I improve my play. Decoy Badger posted:Have you noticed any improvement in play from documenting it in such detail? The planetology tech improves worker production thing is pretty darn huge, as high-level margins go. Other than that, the main thing has been having more attention to detail as I play than I normally would. More accuracy in making sure colony ships and transports go to the 'right' planets at the right times, being more careful with micro on planetary spending in the 'permissible waste' stage, and so on. Those aren't new discoveries so much as being more precise - or anal, depending on your POV - about trying to avoid even small mistakes. The only other thing really that I've noticed is that you can do extended-range cruiser colony ships sooner than I thought, so I'm less likely to do the 'XL' versions in the future. TL:DR, more better application of knowledge than new discoveries, and a pretty small improvement but there are things that will apply to Impossible-level games. PurpleXVI posted:the game is so horrendously paced and so much of a slog to play. I continue to have both admiration and pity for projects such as that, and those who not only do them, but enjoy them.
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Nov 20, 2018 03:32
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Thotimx posted:Shamelessly stealing Wayne's method of showing how many possible systems there are now. We are over the one-third mark.  Also, it will be quite something if after my crazy head start, you still end up winning because I have more AI planets to grind through because of RNG.  Maybe I need some Guava Bombers after all....Vis a vis MOO2-- and this is obviously a bit into the future so no need to answer now-- how do you feel about co-LPing it? I'm going to be doing the Stock Race Challenge for it eventually anyway, and since SSLPs take longer that would keep the content going during my breaks between races (and likewise if you take one too). Bloodly posted:I suppose the issue here is 'eventually'. How long does it take for that to occur, and what will the situation be at that time? The full +2 isn't until Planetology 50 (the 50th TL in every field is its ultimate tech, for reference), but like Thot mentioned the Klackons are gradually getting there with each increase. That being said, the Meklar are definitely kings of the midgame, when they have some mature planets with tons of production and the other civs don't have high Robotics Controls yet. But the Klackons are much stronger earlier (when nobody has full factories yet) and later. Decoy Badger posted:Have you noticed any improvement in play from documenting it in such detail? For what it's worth, watching Thot break down his thoughts and screenshots, my biggest takeaways are: * Being really mindful of what you're giving up by sending population out. I used to never think twice about it and Thot going into just how much production you're leaving on the table was an eye-opener. * Keeping an eye on border skirmishes to poach planets. I get tunnel vision about only focusing on the AI I'm planning to attack (or is attacking me) and sometimes you can get stuff "for free" (well, the decreasing cost of a colony ship). * The "acceptable levels of pollution" micro. I still can't be bothered to do it, but I never would've thought about it. I might practice it with the Meklar, it feels like something they'd do. Part 3! Sorry about the delay....  MOO1 Impossible Bulrathi Challenge #03It's another hour and a halfer, but a lot goes on; designing and building our new fleet and launching an attack on the Mrrshan. Well, launching two, but they're not going to let me take Fierias without a fight, heh.
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Nov 20, 2018 19:18
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Match the Master: 2391, Part I I was hoping this day would never come, but it has. I must now, at least on occasion and probably more often, split a single year into multiple updates.  It's now official; there's nothing stopping us, at least in theory, from taking the left edge of the galaxy as well as the right. *boggle* The Meklar have the smallest population ... and by far the largest fleet. That Helos event appears to have had a greater impact on them than I could have hoped. As Xenophobic Industrialists, they possibly could have been problematic with their production abilities - MOO threw me a bone here to help me try and keep up with Wayne perhaps?  And then we finally got this. Annoying to see another race get Robotics III, but they are pretty similar to the others who aren't Psilons. I don't see anywhere they could even try to expand on the map, and if they did find a destination the eggheads would probably beat them to it.  A bunch of our spies got caught, so the work resumes. I'm frankly shocked that nobody else has declared war yet.         Focusing on the systems closer first, then we'll send drones further out.  The 'scenic route' to Matrix 137 is made necessary here by the nebula. The direct path would go straight through it.  Six new systems are in range thanks to the latest round of settlements. Fire up those thrusters boys!  Now approaching ... the third nebula. There's a fourth one but it's below this; pictured is our first destination that is close to, but not quite at, the far edge of the galaxy.      Three Colonizers reached this busy waystation at the same time.  This is an Arid, not hostile, system. At the time though, we didn't have a design slot available for a warp-3 standard ship, so we took the next-best thing.  A Toxic system that we need to push further along the top of the galaxy.  Filling in the more inhospitable ports of call around the boxed-in Human Empire.  All three visible Psilon fleets consist of a single Starfighter. We figure to beat them to most if not all of the systems out here. I hope. Please.  Sweeping nearby the Mrrshan and Bulrathi homeworlds, we head out to the tundra system that will continue our end run. There's a Psilon colony ship out and about, but it appears to be headed further on.  Second of the two barrens I spoke of last year. To Be Continued ...
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Nov 20, 2018 19:36
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Wayne posted:Vis a vis MOO2-- and this is obviously a bit into the future so no need to answer now-- how do you feel about co-LPing it? I'm going to be doing the Stock Race Challenge for it eventually anyway, and since SSLPs take longer that would keep the content going during my breaks between races (and likewise if you take one too). Turned on PMs so we could have a more proper conversation about this - but it seems yours are off so … I'm interested in the idea, but I am a little curious about how it would work, what approach you'd like to take, etc. I don't mind talking about here in this thread, but another medium might be preferable to keep things on-topic. In any case, I've already done some legwork on the first couple of episodes, and doing a co-operative venture would naturally change that approach so I think it's probably best to have the discussion sooner rather than later. Also, I've seen a bit of some of your 'older' vids on the current run, and I agree it's rather hilarious how different the Meklar expansion in your effort is to the lack of one in mine. Thanks, MOO event system! You're giving me a small ray of hope! Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Nov 20, 2018 |
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Nov 20, 2018 19:41
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Match the Master: 2391, Part II Armed with a much larger contribution to the planetary reserve, we proceed with the previously scheduled financial transfer spam. And the really fun part? Granularity is limited to a 75th part of the total reserve. Which could really be a lot worse obviously, but it still keeps me from being BC-perfect when there's more than 75BC in here. So I am obliged to keep a careful record of how much 'extra' each planet is given, so I can back that out if possible the next year so that assistance is stretched to as many systems as possible and spending waste minimized. Also, we're up to almost half of the empire - 18 of 40 systems - that are transfer-eligible per my criteria. The majority of those have 2-3M drones and are just starting out. Two others are Ultra-Poor and therefore not worth the effort ... they'll have to struggle along on their own.                I was able to stretch it a lot further this year, but not far enough to get everywhere. Two systems didn't get serviced at all, and this was a partial.   Switching back to toxic. This could potentially be the last Colonizer produced here - we're starting to wrap up the remaining targets.    A Toxic-capable ship is the latest one needed to stretch the frontier.   These are going to crawl. They'll get there eventually, but it's going to be painful.   Just a year or two away from beginning drone transfers here.  2391 One planet colonized, one Colonizer built, one more system - a hostile one - scouted; and a sarcastic war declaration from the Psilons. They're no longer allied with the Mrrshans, I think this is just a 'we hate you on general principles, and you're getting too big for your britches' deal.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:43
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Thotimx posted:Turned on PMs so we could have a more proper conversation about this - but it seems yours are off so … Yeah, Plat doesn't really add much I wanted to drop  for, not to mention I hadn't posted on SA much after I stopped streaming until this thread and the Civ 4 one popped up. I might go ahead and get one as a Christmas present to myself (and Rich ) but 'til then, you can use my old Twitch e-mail, it's Broopgamers at Gmail. Nothing personal on that one. But I didn't really plan on anything formal about it; just if we're having 2 MOO2 LPs at the same time by 2 goons who've worked together before, it might be better to have them at the same place; that way there's content for both the VLP and SSLP fans and they can talk to each other and us.  MOO1 Impossible Bulrathi Challenge #04Not wanting to risk the genocide penalty, the Bulrathi cease operations after taking Fierias, but the Mrrshan want us to give them tech in exchange for stopping the beatings. So defensive operations will go on a bit longer. I discuss it a bit in the video, but if you're going to war in MOO1 you really need to do it for good planets (or to keep them, if they declare on you). It costs a lot of BC to build a fleet and lots more to maintain it, and you want the high-population planets bringing home the bacon to justify the expense. The other thing worth mentioning in the thread is that the whole war went so smoothly largely because of one thing: my vote for the Silicoids in the Council session before the war. Because they liked me so much they broke the Mrrshan alliance no questions asked, keeping it from turning into a 2-on-1 if either I attacked anyway or [more likely] the Mrrshan attacked first to get a planet once the dust settled on Spica. It's tempting to just abstain if you don't want to antagonize a superpower, but the Silicoids were useful right now, the Klackons are a potential problem later. If you lose now later doesn't matter. Thotimx posted:I agree it's rather hilarious how different the Meklar expansion in your effort is to the lack of one in mine. Thanks, MOO event system! You're giving me a small ray of hope! 
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Nov 22, 2018 02:14
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Match the Master: 2392       This is only a year longer than it would take to reach Matrix 123, so it seemed best to cut out the middle-man.   Switched to here because the other nearby destinations didn't need nearly as many drones as Matrix 119 has to give this year.  Now we shouldn't have much trouble filling the needs in the lower-right with this fertile system contributing.   With every push leftward, new possibilities open up.   In a rare respite, all of the currently-in-service Colonizers are headed to their appointed destinations with no routing orders required.  A slightly higher amount to draw from as our ultra-rich source grows a bit each year. The eligible systems count remains unchanged at 18, just under half the empire.              Pretty much stretched things as far as last year's efforts; a couple planets short, but fairly close.   Another switch due to a newly-scouted planet at the front; barren in this case.         The string of adjustments grows ever longer. 2392 Another three unclaimed systems are scouted, four colonized, and three more Colonizers produced. One of the new worlds is radiated, so we can scratch it off the list. The halfway point will be reached within the next couple of years. It's been a long time since we landed on a terran planet, but we snagged another one here ...
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Nov 23, 2018 01:27
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Wayne posted:I didn't really plan on anything formal about it; just if we're having 2 MOO2 LPs at the same time by 2 goons who've worked together before, it might be better to have them at the same place; that way there's content for both the VLP and SSLP fans and they can talk to each other and us. Gotcha, so you're just talking about a combined thread for mutual discussion, but keeping our respective projects separate? That sounds like a good idea.
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Nov 23, 2018 21:36
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I feel like you're at the point where the cost of building missile bases surrounding one of these enemies outweighs whatever cost the genocide penalty would inflict. It's like they're frozen in time compared to the Borg.
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Nov 24, 2018 15:25
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That's very true. I don't care about the genocide penalty really, it's more about protecting my supply lines for drones as they move through the galaxy. We don't quite yet have a proper weapon for fighting with, and aren't quite ready to invest in building a fleet while we're still expanding.
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Nov 24, 2018 19:58
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Match the Master: 2393  The two pictured green stars here are key. In the lower right is Rana, our only option for continuing the end run around Psilon/Bulrathi/Mrrshan territory. A bare Psilon colony ships appears to be en route as well, and I don't know if they've armed them yet. It may get there at the same time we do, or be a year late - that is unclear, but ours is a year away so it's either going to be a tie or we'll get there first - but they might very well invade. So that's very much up in the air. In the upper-left of the screen is the recently-scouted Simius, an Ocean planet of 60M max. That's also within their range, and if we miss out on Rana we'll need to eventually work our way onto the lower-left corner from above, which will take longer. Just how oppressively absurd our final planet count is at the end of the colonization phase is at stake here, along with how much resistance the Psilons will eventually be able to mount.        One system attempting to supply three isn't going to make anyone happy, but it shouldn't take too long to spread the drones around.   I think its time to finish off the 'small locals' before pushing the population out further now.     Seizing the extreme upper-right corner.  A couple more ships depart to destinations near the homosapiens.  This one is ultra-rich, but one wonders if that will even matter; will we need it's production by the time it's ready?  These shorter trips are really helping the economy, getting the Colonizers out and off the maintenance rolls much more quickly.  We're going to need at least a couple of these - one of which I forgot about after scouting it a couple years back, and we might well pay the price by losing it. This of course is a new max-range, standard Colonizer with Warp 3 capability.  Meanwhile we say adios to the older, slower, Dead design.  Despite the four new matrices, we are only +1 to 19 of 45 being eligible for assistance. The transfer initiative is starting to have its effect, plus Klackon worker productivity means achieving drone-factory parity happens much more quickly of course. Naturally there is still a great deal to be done, and that will remain the case for some time.     Several of the newer systems had enough extra left over from previous years that we didn't need to transfer any more.        Nothing if not consistent, we run out of funding 2+ planets short of the goal. It's not the same planets each year of course due to some graduating from being on the eligible list.  Turns out this is the best, quickest way to get a Colonizer out to that standard system I mentioned overlooking.  The bigger picture right now in terms of where to expand is a see-saw. At the moment, the front on the other side of the galaxy has seized back the reins, compelling me to have four of the six ship-producing matrices sending their vessels out that way.  That ocean planet I mentioned at the start of this year's update is the target here.   Even the poorest systems must eventually bow to the requirements of the environment.   The whole terraforming job should be done in one go here.      Once these rich planets get built up, esp. when our next terraforming boost comes in, we should really have a stupid-large amount of shipbuilding capacity.  10M population building 6 factories a year. That's with transfer assistance, but combine it with the low growth rate of a small hostile planet and we can move systems through the 'assistance needed zone' in a right big hurry.   Another place where I expect to do all the terraforming this year. 2393 A record five Colonizers found their respective matrices - and an equal number of new ships are built. It's been several years now since we failed to expand our territory. Also, one more system is scouted, and the Bulrathi make it three empires at war with us. If our 50 planets, now over the halfway point, are a 'pathetic existence' ... then what exactly are your THREE considered, ambassador??
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Nov 24, 2018 20:05
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Thotimx posted:Gotcha, so you're just talking about a combined thread for mutual discussion, but keeping our respective projects separate? That sounds like a good idea. Exactly. Looking forward to it, then!  Nice job catching up in this game, too. The Mrrshan and Psilons had expanded enough toward the middle in my game it slowed down the colonizer rush, as did being a few turns behind you on the environment techs. It ended up being for the best that the Mrrshan declared so early, though, since I already had some ships on the way when everybody else did! Plus the Meklar being big meant they already had Robotics 3 and I traded for it, so at the same year count my GDP is a bit higher. Definitely going to be closer than it looked a few updates ago, though!  MOO1 Impossible Bulrathi Challenge #05We take the plunge and send the fleet over to Spica, then after I do some turns of teching it's time to go after someone else. Be braced for the ultimate anticlimax when the Silicoid stack of doom heads our way... and then I get Improved Space Scanner.
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Nov 24, 2018 20:35
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PSA: As generous as Wayne is trying to be, I fear he is going to snap in half with the bending over backwards to be gracious. I'm a few years ahead of this now - 2396 - and as of 2395 his 'GDP a bit higher' amounts to more than double what I have. A generation ahead tech-wise across the board pretty much also. Most impressive part to me is getting that trade for Robotics 3 - I don't think I've ever been able to trade for something that good this early, and it should be decisive. I'll have to work hard just to not totally embarrass myself in my own challenge now :P.
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Nov 25, 2018 08:22
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Match the Master: 2394, Part I Doesn't look like it here, but we actually got a report in on the Meklar ... and then got caught.  A few military techs that we don't have, but not much. Also note that they have Dead Environ, which is as good as anyone else has. And yet ...  They've had these Colony Ships for a while. Even on Average, the AI is hard-coded to pretty much always want to have some. Which is good ... unless they don't use them. I think there are four systems within range. They can land on Dead. The four are Dead, Barren, Tundra, and Ocean. Two of them I already have ... but what the heck have they been waiting for? That fleet heading out to the left? No Colony Ships. 4 more Ajax Cruisers. Seriously. Did your machine brain fall asleep or something?? DO SOMETHING MEKLAR!! Or wait no, don't. Just sit there on your duff. All the easier to be assimilated - erm, I mean, annihilated and conquered in this case.   Six of one, half-dozen of the other but we've got a new system out this way and potentially more. I think we'll have a little better distribution by switching directions.    Another direction switch; as we flesh out our empire on the 'other' side of the galaxy, superior destination vectors are making themselves apparent.  Easy to forget about the small hangers-around.     Another source is ready.  There are still more to go.   The latest relay station is now up and running.    We've got enough ships in place at the upper part of the galaxy, so I'm shifting any extras downwards ... complicated by moving around the nebula regions.  And of course the Psilons are still heading out as well.    That Psilon colony ship ended up being a year late. They are still using slow ones. Heh heh heh. 
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Nov 25, 2018 20:15
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Match the Master; 2394, Part II Four in, four out of the eligible list which stays at 19. I'm amazed that we are managing to keep up with this rate of expansion and keep it to that level. Clearly getting the drones everywhere is the bigger challenge for continued growth.                  Made it through the whole list this year - barely, but still made it.  For the first time in well over 70 years, I don't need all hands on deck making Colonizers. We have enough being built elsewhere, at least for the moment. Next step is adding to the reserve work to build up a bit of a buffer, but we'll be getting going on a proper fleet within the next few years I expect. I've split this with research because a couple important things are coming soon - and I wantt them now, not soon.  One more Toxic out around the middle-top of the galaxy that I haven't bothered getting to yet.   Also splitting industry and research here.  We do still need a couple of Toxic ships for the lower-right as well.   Here I want to just max out the factories ASAP, so there's no un-needed delays when I need new ships at the front.          Of the tweaking of spending sliders there shall be (virtually) no end.    2394 A busy year. Five new systems are scouted, three of them uninhabitable, and four colonized. The Psilons show up at two of our newer ones with armed colony ships, so we'll see if they try to stick around and cause trouble. Industrial Tech 6 arrives, Industrial Tech 6, nothing exciting coming up so we'll head back for Duralloy Armor. GNN now says we nearly control a majority of the galaxy. And indeed we do; exactly half of the total stars, giving us well over that of the usable territory. Almost all good news.
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Nov 26, 2018 20:34
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Thotimx posted:I'll have to work hard just to not totally embarrass myself in my own challenge now :P. Well, that's what it's all about.  And while I did partly want to shill the challenge a bit with your recent surge in planet count, it's been about 2 weeks since I touched this game (I played another update after this one, to about 2410, because I thought I'd be traveling on vacation so I wanted a backlog, and then it turns out I won't be able to  ), so I actually forgot how well I was doing for this update, heh. Master of Orion - Klackon Assimilation #06The 2nd part of One More Turnism and closing out the 24th century. Much like in the Bulrathi videos (kind of funny that this is the order they got uploaded in), I lean on missiles and Heavy beams to crack missile base shields in lieu of bombs. I like very early nuclear bombs (especially if you don't get Fusion Bombs or Neutron Blasters and your target gets the class 4 shields to screen out ion cannons and heavy lasers) and the good stuff later on, but I don't often use bombers like I do in the Bulrathi videos. When you only get a couple of design slots thanks to needing scouts and colonizers, multi-purpose, multi-threat (Gunships aren't great against small stacks and that is a problem, but they'll still contribute) designs are what I like. Edit: Thot, when did we start updating at the same time?
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Nov 26, 2018 20:44
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Probably a couple weeks ago when I changed my workflow to work better with my real-life work schedule.
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Nov 27, 2018 21:41
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Match the Master: 2395, Part I Looks like we are starting to pull away more now, even though we're not quite done expanding.  Normally I'd be upping Security by now, but I have virtually no concern about enemy spies. I've not seen the slightest aggressive move yet; the planets we have building bases are only doing so to protect the supply lines of our drone transport convoys at this point. Once that isn't needed anymore, even that protection will go away. Actual war is coming soon - soon being relative, as always.  You can see that esp. in the upper-left we've found a lot of useless systems. That's 14 of them in total now. ** Borg/Klackon - 54 ** Psilons - 6 ** Humans - 5 ** Bulrathi - 3 ** Mrrshan - 2 ** Meklar - 2 18 for everyone else combined. We have 75% of the settled planets in the galaxy. There are only eight more to scout, Orion for the Guardian of course, and 13 that need Colonizers sent. That's 108 altogether.  10 of those 13 are currently in service, the fewest we've needed to carry on the balance sheet in decades. We're pretty well on top of things but will keep building more at a reduced rate. We could still get up to 20ish more systems before we're done colonizing. 70 or a little more seems like about where we'll end up. Which is of course completely insane. Also, the Recons are the only remaining active nuclear-powered ships.  Annual research isn't actually going to be this high, more like about 1.5k. I want to get our new toy here for anti-ship duty before building the combat fleet, and it's close. We have an average TL of less than 13, and I'm now nearly at the point to commit mass genocide on the galaxy. That just doesn't happen.  Bolstering that Reserve balance is an increasing priority. ** Matrices - 54 of 94(+18!) ** Projected Completion Year - 2467 ** Projected Completion Date IRL - April 3 ** Operational Drones - 1.611 billion(+285M) ** Production - 5429(+1085 BC) Just 10 years ago in 2385, we had 26 systems under Borg control. It's more than doubled in a decade. The rapidity of the expansion has really made playing each turn take longer, not least of which because I forget where everything is. Before the last decade of play it was a gradual enough pace that I was keeping pretty good tabs on it -- now I have to use the Planets screen a lot and search for the next system. Better late than never, I can actually say that I've caught up to Wayne who, from what I can tell, has 53 at the same year. With far more population, more than double my production, and basically another tier or so of tech across the board due to getting his empire spread out much faster than I did. So from a competitive sense vis a vis his run, all I've really done here is slow down the bleeding. I also don't have any warships yet, whereas he's already started building them by this point. As far as the end date goes, I was thinking 200-250 years when this project started. Looks like it's going to be faster that ... but how quickly I can defeat the Guardian is a real wild-card. That's getting quite a bit ahead of ourselves though at this point. Economic growth of 25% overall which is close to our best reports in the upper 20s. We'll be pushing 2 billion drones by the end of the century, and have 'only' 97M on 25 transports, a mere 6% of the population.       At this point it looks best to just send the drones on to Matrix 123 as the next 'link in the chain' relay station, and then decide where they go from there.  Just guessing on the 'right' amount here on this one-time contribution, as Matrix 124 will be done terraforming soon and able to contribute.  I'm no longer 100% sure about it, but this still looks like the biggest growth direction.        These two will try to stay in place; whether they succeed or not depends on whether the Psilons leave.  Probably don't even need to, but I'll continue the downward shift until we've reached every target.    Last of the upper-right Inferno planets.    Similarly finishing up in the lower-right. This leaves one more remaining.
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Nov 27, 2018 21:42
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How feasible would it be to build a colossal fleet of fighters armed with whatever weapons you have that can damage the Guardian, and just swarm it down with sheer numbers?
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Nov 27, 2018 22:11
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I was just coming here to post that an assessment of military issues is coming soon, as part of the 2396 year - probably second part of a two-update turn. Figured that was worth mentioning given how dry the drone-transfer, money-transfer, colonizer-moving, recon-moving, and slider-adjusting turns are getting for me, nevermind the readership. I'm writing that up now and will include in it the need to be able to take down the Guardian at some point not too long in the future. But as it stands at this point in the game, we have only one weapon capable of damaging the Guardian - barely. Hyper-X Missiles can do exactly one point of damage. So we'd need thousands of them, assuming that it never repaired, which it does. On higher difficulty levels they can't even scratch it, so we should thank our lucky stars. So at the present tech level, not feasible at all. Once the next bit of weapons research is done though and we get the Mass Driver, it becomes more possible. That is probably the approach that is going to be taken, as opposed to waiting for torpedoes or something that I may not even get in my tree.
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Nov 27, 2018 22:46
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Considering the sheer number of planets you now own, how quickly are we going to see the tech tree go from "ok about average discoveries" to "holy poo poo we went from lasers to black hole guns in 3 turns"
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Nov 27, 2018 23:28
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The answer that I imagine you're not really looking for to that is "Most likely never". I'm about at the point where the only vital thing I need more research is to get ready to fight the Guardian. As will be shortly seen, tech is more than good enough right now to fight our mundane foes and that's without considering the whole crushing them with sheer weight of numbers deal. I'm unlikely to go past mid-level tech … at the very highest … and probably not even that far. If I see TL 30 in any field before this game is over I'll be quite surprised.
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Nov 28, 2018 10:04
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Match the Master: 2395, Part II Up a few to 22 needy matrices this year. Almost all of them continue to very new though. Also with more funding in the reserve, granularity decreases so that 5 BC is the minimum I can transfer at first.                We needed most of the extra, finishing the transfers once again with only a fractional savings.  New scouting results compel our original system to get back into the shipbuilding business.  The quickest way to get a standard ship out to our latest discovery - Cygni.   Switching to the reserve/research split.  And here as well.  The final 'local' Colonizer in this area will come from here.   Good to get this nice planet up to the industrial midpoint.    We are now approaching 2k sustainable research.    Another good example of how quickly the small, hostile planets are getting through the build-up phase.      A rather extreme example of the consequences of not being able to get drones out to the outskirts quickly enough. Still at starting 2M population, and already having a slowdown due to not enough organic units to run the available facilities.  2395 Two more Psilon encounters, one over an unclaimed system that is Toxic and they can't land on. Class IV Deflectors arrive, and three more systems are added to the empire.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:10
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Just wanted to say that even though I haven't done much commenting lately, I'm still reading every post. Keep it up.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:44
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Thotimx posted:The answer that I imagine you're not really looking for to that is "Most likely never". I'm about at the point where the only vital thing I need more research is to get ready to fight the Guardian. As will be shortly seen, tech is more than good enough right now to fight our mundane foes and that's without considering the whole crushing them with sheer weight of numbers deal. I'm unlikely to go past mid-level tech … at the very highest … and probably not even that far. If I see TL 30 in any field before this game is over I'll be quite surprised. No worries, I'm just the kind of player who likes to tap out all the tech trees in Civ before I dominate the galaxy. Honestly I'm enjoying seeing all these different examples of play, taking advantage where you can, and just getting it done. I should adjust my style but I'm lazy
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Nov 28, 2018 21:52
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RedMagus posted:No worries, I'm just the kind of player who likes to tap out all the tech trees in Civ before I dominate the galaxy. Honestly I'm enjoying seeing all these different examples of play, taking advantage where you can, and just getting it done. I should adjust my style but I'm lazy I'm not much of a Civ fan, but replace Civ with Warcraft 3 and that's me. That's why huge galaxy, Psilons, keep the other races alive and try to get every single tech has caught my attention so much. It gives me an idea for a stupid challenge. You know how some people do crazy challenges on the Sims (Nothing is Free, Legacy, Succession, Build-a-City, etc.) that suck up a ton of time. Imagine something like that for MoO. In order to unlock a trait in MoO2, you have to beat a matching challenge in MoO1. For example, to unlock creative (to allow play as Psilons, or a custom race with creative), you have to beat my all tech challenge. If you want diplomacy bonuses, you need to get a council victory. Bigger diplomacy bonus, get a council victory while in second place in terms of population. Combat bonus, genocide the galaxy. Trade bonus, establish crazy huge total trade agreements. And so on and so forth.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:50
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PurpleXVI posted:Just wanted to say that even though I haven't done much commenting lately, I'm still reading every post. Keep it up. Oh, so you're the one?!? JK, thanks and I definitely will. @ GeneralRevil - that's a completely insane, absurdly time-consuming idea. Therefore I heartily approve.
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Nov 29, 2018 07:03
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Match the Master: 2396, Part I The war has begun for real. It is no longer a theoretical concept.  These appear to be about to hit Matrix 118, which is just about to complete its first missile base. I seriously doubt that'll be enough, but it's always possible they are just packing lasers on those fighters.  In more distant news, these are apparently headed for Matrix 137. It'll take them several years to arrive. We can get more drones to defend by that time ... but the eggheads have hand lasers, duralloy armor, and personal deflector shields. We have no ground combat tech at all. So this could very possibly not go well for us either. It was only a matter of time, but now it's here. the War of Borg Ascendancy has begun. The galaxy won't like how it ends, but right now they do have the initiative.    Bypassing Matrix 118 for now until we find out what happens with the Mrrshan attack.      One last interruption to the leftward push from here.  I'd take them from somewhere else if I could, this being an artifacts system, but it's by far the closest option that has enough supply.   More back-filling.       We'll do everything we can to maintain a ship in orbit everywhere, but at this point it's not going to happen.  Last of the nuclear-powered colonizers goes away, and we free up another slot.  An extra ship has been held here for a while to nab this, the final scouting expedition in the upper-left quadrant.  Anybody's guess whether we actually get this Barren system or not. The Psilon and Meklar ships en route aren't colony ships, but you can bet they'll send them here eventually. Meanwhile we're ready and coming, but from a significant distance.  Pretty similar situation here. A Bulrathi combat cruiser is the only thing headed here I think. It's an Ocean system, so it'll be a free-for-all once they figure out what it is. Very possible that we get it and then they take it away from us.  Down to 19 eligible matrices this year, and I think that number will probably keep falling in general now that we are starting to see declining numbers of new systems. Colonization and reserve transfer efforts are now thankfully, finally, on the downside from peak demands.        We've got quite a sizable surplus remaining now. That means it is time to build some bombers.
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Nov 29, 2018 20:37
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Is there a limit to how many ships you can materialize in a given system in one turn, if you throw enough BC at it?
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Nov 29, 2018 23:35
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How is the planet list sorted and is it sortable? It always seems nigh-random in those screenshots - maybe it's by distance?
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Nov 30, 2018 00:04
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Is there a limit to how many ships you can materialize in a given system in one turn, if you throw enough BC at it? From what I recall, BC investment can only double your production capacity on a planet. A planet that outputs 4BC can consume 4BC of funding as additional production each turn. Excess investments are kept around and consumed turn by turn until they run out.
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Nov 30, 2018 01:46
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Dirk the Average is precisely correct. I'm a huge fan of the way you can't just say 'I want an uber battleship built at this planet I just colonized, don't care how much it costs'. There's a limit to it and it costs efficiency - since there's no way to get funding into the reserve that doesn't at least end up with you losing half of it. Decoy Badger posted:How is the planet list sorted and is it sortable? It always seems nigh-random in those screenshots - maybe it's by distance? I think it uses the same internal planet list the game has for deciding what order the between-turns phase resolves combats at planets, or scouting/colonizing, etc. It is unfortunately not sortable, so I just sort of have to deal with it as it is. Also, if you use the next/previous planet hotkeys - F2 and F3 - this list is what is used and you can't change that either.
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Nov 30, 2018 06:51
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 MOO1 Impossible Bulrathi Challenge #06 - A Barbearic BeartrayalMy episode puns are getting unbearable so I figured I'd include this one this time. It's pretty much as implied: I do a nasty backstab on the Silicoids to get rid of their stack of doom. Not much progress gets made on my end because I have to defend Jinga and my border planets from crystalline retaliation, but we do launch for Cryslon near the end of the video.General Revil posted:You know how some people do crazy challenges on the Sims (Nothing is Free, Legacy, Succession, Build-a-City, etc.) that suck up a ton of time. Imagine something like that for MoO. In order to unlock a trait in MoO2, you have to beat a matching challenge in MoO1. Hmm, now that could actually be kind of fun. I wouldn't start it or join a challenge that was too time-consuming, but I could see taking part if somebody else set it up. RedMagus posted:Honestly I'm enjoying seeing all these different examples of play, taking advantage where you can, and just getting it done. I should adjust my style but I'm lazy I didn't intend for it to be, but this Bulrathi game has really been a textbook case of military opportunism, heh. But the general guideline of "tech enough to hit a strong enough advantage you can win a war before you have to invest a lot into RPs again" is how I like to play. I remember you from the Civ 4 thread; my war against Kublai was basically that (tech to Knights and trebs and just whip units it was time to research again). TooMuchAbstraction posted:How feasible would it be to build a colossal fleet of fighters armed with whatever weapons you have that can damage the Guardian, and just swarm it down with sheer numbers? Sheer numbers works. I don't remember who, but somebody earlier mentioned a couple thousand Mass Driver fighters. I've only done that with Megabolt Cannons (the +3 to hit helps make up for the Guardian's high defenses on Impossible) and usually wait 'til High Energy Focus armored battleships (enough HP to survive the Death Ray and enough shields to stage down the other stuff). So first, here's what we're up against (Advanced Damage Control is unlisted, so that's 1800hp it regens each round):  As Thot noted, Hyper-X rocket boats theoretically work. In practice about half or more will miss outright (the missile only has an innate +1 and our Battle Computers aren't great yet) and Lightning Shield will zorch 92% of them. You don't want to mess with ADC undoing your damage, so you'd need about... a million rockets fired? 500k 2-shot tubes? And of course if its Scatter Pack Xs wipe out a stack of your missile boats, its rockets in flight will disappear. The Stellar Converters and Plasma Torpedoes each average to basically 100 damage a shot (Converters for example are (10-35)x4, minus (shields x4), so figure about 25x4), so you can figure how many ships you need to survive ~3 rounds of that (you want him dead before that so he can't regenerate). 6000hp with Shield 7s isn't really that bad; that's about 800 to 1000 Megabolt Cannon hits, and you can put those on Fighters without needing much miniaturization. The real threat are those missiles; Scatter Xs are a 10-pack of Stinger missiles, moving at 3 speed and doing 15 damage a shot, and each "shot" is 45 of those. You want to make sure all your ships have speed 3 (preferably 4) to dodge them if you want to fight him early or come in with a fleet of thousands of fighters (as each hit would lose you the full 450 unless you had like Cloaking Devices and stuff).
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Nov 30, 2018 08:05
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