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Thanks all for your patience. Even those of you who like the game more than me. I do agree with wedgekree's point about the UI - I've seen a lot more recent games that do worse in that aspect. A Grave Mistake  Here's what we know about the three races we have thus encountered. The Klackons being Uncreative is basically our only ray of hope with them right now - hopefully their massive tech lead will be minimized by having suboptimal selections. Meanwhile in terms of building stuff, the Meklar are second to none. Our citizens aren't better than them at anything, and they are FAR better at Industry while also superior in Farming.  At the moment, we have 44M citizens. Only 5M, or basically one out of nine, is Meklar. My goal is to increase that percentage somewhat, and as much as possible, keep the Humans working in research. Science is the only thing we do as well as our new cybernetics do. One of the Meklar is moving to Callisto II as we speak. That and Iras I will be our incubator worlds to grow their numbers. We also have a more clearly defined role for each system now. ** Sol - Under the leadership of Magistrate Vott, their job is to keep the treasury filled and research going. Accordingly, I'm going to slowly fill up Sol II for purposes of research. ** Callisto - Supplies food for the empire from the fourth planet, and the third planet is our primary shipbuilding facility. I shifted labor on Callisto III after this, leaving only one in research and moving a few of them to the factories - gives us 60 Industry per turn there to speed things along. ** Meklon - Magistrate Rash-lki has been transferred here. I'll have two productive planets here, which I would like to make our primary industrial/shipbuilding center down the road. Once the fleet is ready again I want to take down the Meklar homeworld. That'll probably take two attacks to make happen. I thought of designing a new ship, but I don't think we have anything in yet that will aid the hit-and-run tactic.  Nearby Sulcus, the last remaining Meklar system. Two Huge Toxic worlds. They have the Rich one, the other one is standard/abundant. And they've built a cruiser as well, apparently starting to reconstitute their fleet. I just sent in one destroyer to scout it out, and now they'll be returning to Meklon. I don't think either one of these are as valuable as the cybernetic homeworld. 'Battle' at Sulcus We get a look at the Destructor III, then retreat.  I'm saying no this time. That's hazardous, but handing over such a powerful production-boosting tech would be as well. K'kalak responds with a declaration of war. Superb. I thought we could get away with saying no due to our tribute deal and positive relations.  They aren't sending in any transports - but a Battleship is coming. I think our homeworld is in danger, but the fleet is too far away to do anything about this. Sol Battle It was close, but we fought off the Klackon Battleship + Frigate combo with our defenses at the homeworld. Note the amateur screwing around with firing the various weapons and finally figuring out how to do a partial salvo again.  We aren't done yet though. They have a battleship of different configuration heading to Iras. I don't have enough ships to stop them and hold the line in Meklon against the cybernetics, who have moved their cruiser there. Meklon being clearly the more valuable system, I abandon Iras to its fate.  I'd been annoyed by this for a few years. Tried sending the fleet to Meklon II (just told me you can't attack your own colony). I didn't want to attack Meklon III yet, just the enemy ship. Unfortunately, the game won't let me do that. I can't attack their fleet without attacking the colony. But if their ships are staying at their colony, how are they blockading my completely different planet in the system? That just doesn't make sense.  Another destroyer is now headed to the Sol system. With our fleet tied down in Meklon there is nothing I can do to defend our unfortified planets.  And so it continues. Meklon III Perhaps seeing that we have one more frigate incoming, the Meklar decide to strike first. We fight them off, but they still have one cruiser guarding their homeworld. Also, I turn on the grid/legal moves stuff.   So now what? I head for Xeno Relations. Alien Management Center would be nice, halving assimilation time and revolt chance while increasing the productivity of captured pops - not sure by how much though. Xeno Psychology boosts all diplomatic offers by +30. I decide we need that more - I want to get back in the Klackon's good graces ASAP, if possible, and at some point I'm going to want to stop ticking off the entirety of the galaxy.  After another low-level leader applies and is rejected, we meet the felines.  Trapped in the corner, they will have to expand through either us or the bugs. And will probably choose us. The Mrrshan are: * Feudal * +50 pop growth * +0.5 BC tax * +50 ship offense * Rich Home World * Warlord So the usual stuff but it looks like they added pop growth and tax income with their 'extra' points.  They join the group of milling-about, not-Klackon races. I bribe them with a couple of low-level techs, but they still refuse to enter any agreements. Also, I note that the Klackons have deployed four spies against us, the first such activity we've seen. I switch some production from trade goods to building more so that we can match them, or at least come close. It's time to deal with the Meklar homeworld. First things first - this strike will hit their Starbase. Assault on Meklon II Well ... that could have gone better. I think maybe I retreated one turn too late? Should have been able to save some of the ships I think. Now their Starbase is gone, but we're pretty much screwed.  Of course it is. Rash-lki was among the dead.  You don't say. Rebuilding the fleet allows us to destroy an incoming Klackon transport group at Sol and one of their destroyers at Callisto II. The cruiser is more than we can bite off without multiple ships though. The Fighting Continues More are - barely - fought off the next turn. We are hanging on, but not by much. I bribe the Klackons and offer peace. They refuse. Shocker there. We're surviving for now ... but taking a beating.
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Apr 17, 2019 05:09
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A minor thing that I don't remember if it got explained, but clicking on weapons cycles their color, as you saw. And as you figured out, green means "fire if able," yellow means "don't fire this cycle but come back online after this," red means "don't fire at all." The thing that may have been left out: a point defense weapon on "do not fire" will still automatically engage incoming missiles and fighters. Also I think that you're in a pretty deep hole that it might be possible to climb out of, but...well, the good news is you'll be able to show us what the game over screen looks like...
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Apr 17, 2019 07:36
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Yeah, that's a really bad spot you're in. You were quite lucky in the Sol fight, the starbase would have been destroyed if the combat went on for another round. I think you simply cannot attack fleets directly if they're in a system with one of their own planets. You always need to engage them at their world. If you were to meet in a neutral system, it would be different. As for the blockade issue, I'm pretty sure both Meklon planets were blockaded. Your fleet prevented normal ships from coming to their home world, and their fleet blockaded the planet you conquered. I don't have any good advice for how you could turn this game around to be honest. Sometimes you're just screwed by the start, having Silicoids and Klackons as neighbors is very unfortunate. Not the ideal first game to learn the game/discover the differences to MoO1. But it's still quite entertaining!
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Apr 17, 2019 09:08
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Aquatic Klackon? Yiiiiiiikes, that's a bad draw.
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Apr 17, 2019 09:12
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Yow, I have a feel like we're not gonna see a surprise turnaround on this one.
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Apr 17, 2019 12:18
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Yeah, right instincts but far too late on the retreating thing. If you're using early-game MIRV-boats, you fire once, see who got targeted by the defenders, fire two and hit retreat immediately on their target while running the rest of the ships away. You probably have two turns before you have to retreat the second ship that gets missiles aimed at it, but there's not much reason to delay unless the enemy fleet can close quickly enough that they might blow up some of your ships. Getting a few ships blown up in MOO isn't a big deal; in MOO2, each ship represents considerably greater value and you can't afford to take unnecessary losses in the early game.
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Apr 18, 2019 00:20
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Thotimx posted:Thanks all for your patience. Well, it's a bit much to take an entire week away from your adoring fans, but I guess we can forgive you this time.  Actually I'm wrapping up my vacation and saw this thread (and the ill-fated MOO1 one  ) the other day, and I actually loaded up MOO2 to try to record something and surprise y'all, but I have a really annoying audio bug. There's constant static on the music, and while music is turned on there's some skipping and popping sometimes too (like when I switch menus). It's really frustrating and I've tried every DOSBox configuration and setsound option I can think of and nothing's fixing it. I'm too much of a perfectionist to play without it, so I don't know if I'll be contributing anything this time around. What's weird is that I got a laptop for my vacation, and the music's doing that on that too, and it's doing it on a fresh install from the disc and the GOG version you can get from Archive.org. It's really baffling, especially since when I streamed it back in Christmas 2016 I didn't have that problem. Narsham posted:Getting a few ships blown up in MOO isn't a big deal; in MOO2, each ship represents considerably greater value and you can't afford to take unnecessary losses in the early game. Yeah, if your race doesn't have a production bonus ships are quite expensive early on, and even if you do command points limit you on your standing fleet too. Then factor in that your fleet strength : systems held ratio is basically what the AI uses to decide who their best target to attack is, and often that's you. If you lose your fleet in a defensive battle, that can trigger a dogpile that costs you the game.
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Apr 18, 2019 02:47
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Wayne posted:have a really annoying audio bug. There's constant static on the music, and while music is turned on there's some skipping and popping sometimes too (like when I switch menus). It's really frustrating and I've tried every DOSBox configuration and setsound option I can think of and nothing's fixing it. I'm too much of a perfectionist to play without it, so I don't know if I'll be contributing anything this time around. I'm sorry … who are you again?!? *Ahem*. This is probably unrelated and not particularly helpful, but I've had a milder version of this. Basically anytime I'm running my video processing program - with the original MOO I would often edit a video for another project, then play stuff for that LP while waiting for it to do its thing - I get a lot of skipping with the MOO2 audio. This has forced me to not have that running in the background when I MOO, and consequently made it a little more inconvenient/harder to find time for it. At the very least you can still hang out and laugh at how much I'm screwing up relative to MOO1 if you like :P. my dad posted:Aquatic Klackon? Yiiiiiiikes, that's a bad draw. Didn't even notice that. But yeah I agree with the general consensus that my current 'barely holding on' thing is probably not going to last much longer. One positive is that I won't have to do what I did in my first MOO loss - wait like a century or something for them to come for me (and eventually lose via revolt, what an insult that was). Once they are strong enough that my Starbases aren't as much of a threat, stuff is going to go very badly if I'm still in this pickle. MechaCrash posted:I think that you're in a pretty deep hole that it might be possible to climb out of, but...well, the good news is you'll be able to show us what the game over screen looks like... I actually thought about that. See, I DID plan on showing at least one loss, but I figured that would be upon making the jump to Impossible, which I've never so much as tried on MOO2 since I've been hit-and-miss on Hard in my limited experience. This game was supposed to be a quick diplomatic win. So naturally it's devolved into a series of desperate wars, with me unable to make any friends except the one that I discarded out of necessity in that brief bit of expansion into Meklar territory. In other words, the plan … didn't exactly pan out. At all. In any way.
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Apr 18, 2019 08:07
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Humanity Strikes Back ... or Dies Trying. Probably the Second One Sol Prime Defense This barely fighting off Klackon battleships thing is getting old hat. Prior to this a Meklar destroyer was chased off. We need to rebuild the fighter garrison on the homeworld. Meanwhile the supercomputers are going up to increase our research capacity, and we are trying to counterattack in what limited capacity we may. Can't even reach Meklon so we need a stepping-stone first. Galileo is nearby and is held by the Klackons. Maybe by taking it we can annoy them into peace. Probably not, but whatever. It's something. First try has us losing three Cheeseballs, while they lose two destroyers. They have a Starbase as well that survives the encounter. It appears to be better than the Meklars, which suprises nobody. I'm not sure if we can take it anyway, but it seemed best to clear out the escorts first. 3522.6 - Meklar dorks destroy the minor research world at Sol II. I'm still aggravated. The next year they attack our homeworld, losing three destroyers in the process - but we lose one as well. This is really looking like we are going to be stuck on the defensive.  So Xeno Psychology is symbolized by ... a chrome hubcap? I mean, a cool-looking one, but still.  Oh let's see ... Gravitic Fields. ** Anti-Grav Harness frees ground troops from terra firma. Or as the game says, 'allows them to fly'. +10 ground combat. ** Gyro Destabilizer spins enemy ships from a range of up to 15. Damage is 1-4x the ship's size class, but having it end up facing a random direction is probably more valuable? ** Inertial Stabilizer is a partial warp field that can operate in normal space. In other words, we didn't even try with this description and just went full space magic. +50 beam defense and halves the movement cost for turning. Well I can run away faster with this and not get hit by as many beam weapons. I think the inertial stabilizer is better if I want to keep doing the hit-and-run tactics. Long-term though, I probably don't. Gyro Destabilizer is a new mechanic so I go with that. Who knows, maybe I'll even live long enough to build one.  Trilarians are a thing in this game. We're getting a lot of 2 or 3-turn wars, so I don't take much notice of the actual conflict. It's more just telling me they exist. Personally, I'd prefer not knowing about a war with an enemy we haven't met yet, but that probably goes along with the whole deal of it being super-easy to know info about a rival empire. SD 3523.0 - The Klackons show up and bomb Callisto II, our Meklar-pop world. And damage nothing. But still, the onslaught continues.  Cool. They can go die in a fire. Oh wait, that's our fate. NVM then. 3523.3 - Trading destroyers with the Klackons in Callisto. Efforts at securing peace continue to be rebuffed. Callisto IV How nice. We chased them off, but the Meklar have a Graviton Beam that can hit our planet from the starting position. I hate them even more. Then we chase off a bug cruiser, and blow up another one of their battleships. As the tech gap grows though, I know this can only last for a limited time. I'm not sure I have a viable long-term strategy beyond 'blow up a bunch more ships and make them earn their human genocide'.  Latest toy.  Normally I'd consider Planetary Stock Exchange, which doubles income on a planet. Or combining Shield Capacitors with Class III Shields and actually building a large carrier-type ship. But right now we are in desperation survival mode. So Pulson Missile it is. Iridium Fuel Cells increase range to 8, and the Atmospheric Renewer builds on the pollution processor to quarter the amount of industry that counts towards pollution. All of which is a luxury right now. 3523.7 - The Klackons have some new toys, but three more destroyers go down at Sol Prime. Still, I have a feeling the end is nigh. New Klackon Battleship They ran away this time, but their ships are getting pretty scary. There is literally nothing I can think of to do but keep defending, research to try and up our firepower, and wait to get smashed. We're in a corner, so I can't go another direction - there's no other direction to go.  I did scrap two of our three Transports, because we're not going to be invading anyone anytime soon, and hesitantly designed this. It's a switch from hit-and-run to stay-and-fight tactics. Anything bigger would take a long time to build. I have noticed our fighters from the garrisons do seem to do a good amount of damage to enemy designs though, once they get there. The boringly, purpose-named Fusion Carrier has fusion everything. Fusion beam-powered Interceptors. Fusion drives. Fusion Beams of it's own, PD ones, for handling incoming ordnance or strike craft. Reinforced Hull and ECM Jammer for survivability. It's vulnerable to beam weapons, but we don't really have a good option for that so I'll just hope to out damage the enemy before that becomes too much of an issue. Which may very well not work, but let's at least try out the darned interceptors before we go down in flames? I have nothing better. I think for now, I want to get rid of that last transport and try to field four of these. That would mean paying an extra maintenance cost for the last one, but it's a cost we can afford. Why not go even bigger with Battleships? They would just take too long to build. Which may not be a good enough reason, but it's what I'm going with. That would be on the order of 1200 or more in terms of price. In other words, 20 turns on our best planets. Each carrier has 16 interceptors, compared to 10 for a fighter garrison. So a few of them grouped together gives me a whole bunch of small ships to swarm the enemy and overwhelm their PD. In theory. 3524.0 - Another Klackon battleship goes boom at Callisto IV, but not before doing heavy damage to our Starbase. Without the fighters we would not be winning these battles. I'm sold on them at least as an early-game defensive option - the fighter garrisons at least. Meanwhile Psilons-Klackons are at war. Go fight the eggheads and leave us alone for a bit? Nah. And that fleet had 8 transports with them. We're losing a planet if we lose any of these fights.  It was the only one left. Now we just have the big defended ones; Sol Prime, Callisto III, and Callisto IV. Until we can push out and counterattack - so never, in other words - there's little point in reconstituting the smaller systems. Meanwhile the umpteenth attack by the Meklar at Sol was repulsed. They like to attack with lone cruisers and run away before we can destroy them. Meanwhile I'm constantly having to switch around labor due to this or that blockade being lifted or enacted. Behold - the Fusion Carrier! The first deployment of our carrier. Chasing off a destroyer with a cruiser is no great development. And in this case, the bugs were well-equipped to damage us. But we would have made short work of them with our interceptors, and they knew it.  Once nice thing here is that Sol, Callisto, and Galileo form an isosceles triangle. Each of them are a two-year journey away from the other two for our current ships. That means I can have some defending each system, and they can rendezvous for an attack like this together. I have no intention of capturing the system, I just want to remove the Klackon presence if we can. Push them back away from our territory. The 'Battle' of Galileo That definitely sucked. Try Massacre of Galileo. It would appear Klackon technology is now good enough that attacking them is not a real good idea. Ok then. If we can't attack them, and can't make peace with them, I see my choices as follows: ** Wait to be destroyed. Nah, that's boring. Let's find some way to pointlessly flail about. ** Outpost on Hera, then go for Meklon again. ** Defeat the Crystal on Rav. Rav does not require our fleet to be in two places at once. Meklon does. Now of course there's the possiblity that the Crystal kicks our butt again, and also that we take the system and then get it stole from us, but we're not exactly in a position to be choosy. So I elect to return to Rav, with maximum Cheeseballs.  Yay, the Pulson Missile. Of course we can't MIRV them yet but they will help our Starbases.  Once again it's all about survival here. I'd like to get mods for those new missiles, but I think getting some shielding for less than half the price is more vital. So Magneto Gravitics draws my attention. ** Class III Shield - Absorbs 3 points of damage from any attack. We're getting hits of up to the low 40s, so that won't mean much to the high end. It'll mean more to the low-end though, some is better than nothing, protection against the more equal races, etc. ** Planetary Radiation Shield - Radiated planets are upgraded to Barren, reduces damage to planets by 5 points. ** Warp Dissipator - Misspelled here. Also, prevents any ship in a large radius from retreating. Not important enough in our present situation. So yeah, Class III Shield for a bit of protection it is. The one time I don't record - I'd replay it if this game wasn't pretty hopeless. Next Klackon attack, their battleship blows up a destroyer in the first round. Which blows up a second one in the explosion radius. Which badly damages the Starbase. Which is soon finished off. Our fighters still won the day, but the planet had considerable damage inflicted. In other words, the day of doom has nearly come, and our ships are pretty much irrelevant to them now. 3525.3 - Meklar cruiser knocks out our fighter garrison at Callisto IV before we can take it down. There's a pattern here. A bad one.  Well you better hurry. There's not much time for profit - or anything else. We're about to be incinerated.  Well hello to you too.  Psilon look quality, Alkari have only one system?!  Based on this, they must be sharing at least one with someone else. More notably, the Psilons appear to be a real threat to the bugs. Trade deals are immediately struck with both. If we could gain a powerful friend ... We will almost certainly still lose. But we will know that we tried to find a last desperate way out of it ... or something? Both races are Honorable. Psilons are Technologists because of course they are, Alkari are uncharacteristically Diplomats.
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Apr 23, 2019 08:38
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By the way, I'm still figuring out what battles to show and what ones not to. Probably going to just record them all and weed them out as I go from now on. If I put all the combats up, this would simply become Repetitive Combat: The LP and I don't think that would be of any use to anyone. On the other hand, the one with the explosion damage domino effect would have been worth seeing.
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Apr 23, 2019 10:10
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The 'chrome hubcap' for Xeno Psychology has the insignia of all the races in the game around the rim; probably just a way to say 'you study them, and them, and them, and...'
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Apr 23, 2019 10:36
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Gravitic Fields: Gyro Destabilizer is a very strange piece of equipment. On paper, each gyro destabilizer does poor damage relative to its size and cost. The spinning of enemy ships rarely has much use, as you can't control which direction the enemy ships end up pointing and you've got roughly 75% odds that the enemy can still turn to bring their forward weapons to bear. However, Gyro Destabilizers ignore shields and armor and do damage directly to enemy structure. It's possible to have a fleet attack strategy that relies exclusively on gyro destabilizers to blow up enemy ships, but it's not the most efficient or effective strategy. Inertial Stabilizers, by contrast, is very good - halving the cost of turning has obvious applications for hit and run strategies, but the real prize is the +50 Beam Defense (and the undocumented +25 missile defense). +50 Beam Defense is a substantial amount of defense, equivalent to two levels of computer upgrades. A ship with Augmented Engines and Inertial Stabilizers has a total of +100 Beam Defense over the base defense provided by crew and combat speed - 100 points of BD can be the difference between incoming fire operating with a +50 bonus (a roughly 90% chance to hit) vs a -50 penalty (a roughly 10% chance to hit). However, the size and cost of these systems is substantial without miniaturization, meaning that only larger ship classes can realistically equip them while still having a weapons loadout. But they're vital to the "large durable ship" strategy, and especially when paired with other racial picks making few, expensive, unkillable ships is a perfectly legitimate way to play. Magneto Gravitics: Warp Dissipater is incredibly situational, but if you're playing very aggressively, you might find this useful. Expensive and sizable to mount on ships, but preventing retreats can be useful. Planetary Radiation Shield is the first planetary shield. Useful defensively - any defensive structures on a planet has incoming damage from all sources reduced by 5 points, including missiles and bombs. Defensive structures (such as a Fighter Garrison) also come equipped with your best shields, so if you possess (for example) Class III shields, your Missile Bases and Fighter Garrisons under a planetary radiation shield would have incoming damage reduced by 8 points, rendering nuclear missiles and most early beam weapons entirely ineffective and providing good durability against nuclear bombs. Class III Shield is the first shield that provides reasonable levels of protection. All incoming damage is reduced by 3 points before being applied to shields, armor, or structure, and provides an additional regenerating pool of hit points (15 * ship size class). Both Class III shields and Planetary Radiation Shield are great picks, but will depend on your situation - Class III shields provide a substantial level of protection in early game conflicts. However, from an economic standpoint Planetary Radiation Shields can be crucial - while the difference between Barren and Radiated planets is mostly academic in the early game (you can't grow food and they have the same population cap), all maintenance costs are 25% higher on Radiated planets, meaning that a Planetary Radiation Shield will frequently pay for itself for any moderately developed colony and you can't terraform Radiated planets - only Barren and up can be improved. Rarely, if ever, would you want to take Warp Dissipater over either of the other two options. However, it seems like we need some clarification here: Thotimx posted:** Class III Shield - Absorbs 3 points of damage from any attack. We're getting hits of up to the low 40s, so that won't mean much to the high end. It'll mean more to the low-end though, some is better than nothing, protection against the more equal races, etc. Let's talk about Shields! Shields, as everyone probably assumes, absorb damage. They range from Class I (the weakest) to Class X (the strongest). Shields reduce incoming attacks by an amount equal to their class rating, and provide additional shield hit points equal to (5 * class rating * size class). Shields reduce damage from incoming attacks, then the leftover damage is applied to the appropriate shield facing, and any damage left over gets applied to armor (and then structure, if there's no armor left). Shields don't function inside a nebula. Also, some weapons ignore shields entirely, other weapons can be modified with shield piercing to allow them to ignore shields. There is a Ship Special System, Hard Shields, that increases shields' damage reduction by an additional 3 points, allows shields to function inside nebulae, and prevent shield piercing weapons from bypassing shields. So let's break down an attack here - I've got a frigate with Class III shields. My opponent fires and hits with 10 Laser Cannons. Without shields, I would expect to take somewhere between 10 and 40 damage. Based on the quote from Thotimx above, you might think that with Class III shields, the incoming damage taken is between 7-37 damage which gets applied to the shield facing. This is incorrect. While the damage total is displayed as a single number, shields apply their damage reduction to each individual attack. What this means is that a Laser Cannon, which normally deals between 1-4 damage, is mostly ineffective against Class III shields, doing 0-1 damage. Nuclear Missiles only do 5 damage (and not 8), and so forth. Even Class I shields offer decently modest protection against early beam weapons, especially at range, since beam weapon damage isn't actually random. Wait, what? You heard me. The listings for Laser Cannons say 1-4 damage, and Fusion Beams say 2-6, but these numbers are lies, lies, lies. But how come when I shoot, the damage numbers that pop up aren't always identical, you might ask? Beam Damage is not random See, beam weapon accuracy is random. In the previous effortpost, I talked about hit chances - if Beam Attack and Beam Defense are equal after taking everything into consideration, each attack only has a 50% chance of connecting. This means that if I shoot with 20 Laser Cannons, on average I'm only going to hit with 10. Sometimes I'll hit with 8, or 9, or 12. I might get lucky and hit with all 20. Regardless, the damage dealt per beam isn't random. Beam weapons only have one damage number - it's the "top" end of their range. Laser Cannons do 4 damage, Fusion Beams do 6 damage, Neutron Blasters do 12 damage, and so forth. However, the actual damage dealt to an enemy ship is a function of distance. At point blank (from 0-2 "squares" away), beam weapons do their full damage*. As the ranges get further away, the damage dealt by beam weapons falls off to a minimum of 35% the listed value, with the damage numbers being rounded to the nearest integer. Laser cannons at max range will always deal 1 point of damage, Fusion Beams will always deal 2 points of damage, and so forth. All "beam" weapons (with a few notable exceptions including Mass Drivers) use the same calculations for damage falloff. Yes, this means that the "x2 range dissipation" property of Fusion Beams doesn't actually exist. At 15-17 squares away, Laser Cannons do 50% damage (2 points) and Fusion Beams do 50% damage (3 points). Both are completely ineffective against Class III shields at that range. * Heavy Mount and Point Defense weapons operate under the same general rules - Heavy Mount weapons start with a 1.5x damage multiplier (point blank being from 0-8 squares away), down to a minimum of 0.85x the listed damage at 45-50 squares. At max range for regular beams (21-23 squares), Heavy Mount weapons still have a 1.2x multiplier. Point Defense weapons start with a 0.4x damage multiplier at 0-2 squares, do 0.2x damage at 3-5 squares, and do 0x damage from 6-8 and -0.125x damage at 9-11 tiles. Wait, WHAT? Well, okay, there's a minimum 1 point of damage. But that multiplier is there for a reason: High Energy Focus, is a special system that purports to claims beam damage by 50%. What High Energy Focus actually does is add a flat 0.5 to the damage multiplier after range is factored in. With High Energy Focus, a regular point blank beam does 1.5x damage, while a regular beam at max range does 0.85x damage. Heavy Mount weapons likewise get upgraded to doing 2x damage at point blank, and 1.35x damage at max range. Point defense beam weapons get upgraded to doing 0.9x damage at point blank, and 0.375x damage at max range. Some Key Takeaways: The listed damage ranges are worthless; only the higher number has any meaning. Beam weapon damage depends on exclusively on distance. If you are having trouble getting through enemy shields, use Heavy Mount weapons and/or get closer before shooting. Heavy Mount weapons suffer dramatically less in the way of damage drop-off compared to normal weapons. PD weapons are nearly useless except at point blank ranges without High Energy Focus. The Leader skill Ordinance applies as an additional percentage to the damage multiplier, similar to how High Energy Focus works. An Ordinance skill of 10 adds an additional 0.1 to the damage multiplier at all ranges, while a skill of 15 adds 0.15. Olesh fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 11:37
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Olesh posted:the undocumented +25 missile defense Pulls hair out by the roots in large quantities. Olesh posted:let's break down an attack here - I've got a frigate with Class III shields. My opponent fires and hits with 10 Laser Cannons. Without shields, I would expect to take somewhere between 10 and 40 damage. Based on the quote from Thotimx above, you might think that with Class III shields, the incoming damage taken is between 7-37 damage which gets applied to the shield facing. That makes sense. I'd forgotten about the 10 Lasers or whatever being 'bundled' into one combat number. Which is a rather massive thing to forget about/ignore. Olesh posted:Yes, this means that the "x2 range dissipation" property of Fusion Beams doesn't actually exist. Grafts hair back into head so he can rip it out again. Also: thanks for the damage over range explanation thingy. I should have a clearer head about this in future playthroughs. Emphasis on should.
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Apr 23, 2019 11:48
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I had one memorable run where a fleet armed only with Gyro Destabilizers and tractor beams took down a very special monster found in the center of the galaxy. They're a cool toy for bypassing shields and armor, which does allow you to take on very advanced ships that otherwise would be 100% immune to your weapons. And yes, shields are very strong, it's usually not advisable to wait for Shields 5 before going for them. Likewise, a planetary shield probably would have saved the fighter garrisons, which is a pretty big deal.
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Apr 23, 2019 12:06
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One thing I didn't include in the "key takeaways" is that, if you look at the numbers, I wouldn't blame you for thinking that point defense weapons are pretty worthless. That's because for the most part, they are worthless outside of point-blank range. Without the benefit of the Ordinance skill or High Energy Focus, ALL* PD beam weapons do only 1 point of damage at 6+ squares away. The sole exception are PD Mass Drivers, which don't suffer range dissipation and do a flat 3 damage at all ranges.
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Apr 23, 2019 12:07
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I enjoy having the maths broken down some. Also, Thotimx, if you're not having fun with a purposeless run, I'd say go out in a blaze of glory as soon as possible so you can restart, unless you see some sliver of potential hope.
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Apr 23, 2019 12:17
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I don't really see any hope, but I'm still going to play it out. One because that's what I do, and two because I think it's still useful in its own way to get further into the tech tree, be edumacated on stuff I don't know by the thread here, experiment with stuff like I've done with the carrier, etc. That should all help me actually show up and compete for the next run.
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Apr 23, 2019 21:02
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The Grim Reaper Cometh This one is fairly video-heavy, but each one is unique and most of them are short. The High Council This is a thing that's back. I liked the old presentation better personally where the was someone at the 'podium' or whatever putting in their two cents when it was their turn to vote. Here, it can be hard to see who's speaking when it's one of the nominees. Not obvious enough. But otherwhise, this is a cool look graphically. Gameplay-wise it works the same as before from what I can tell.  Note that K'kalak couldn't care less that we voted for them. It seems to be a lot harder to manipulate the diplomatic system, which is weird because I've been able to do it in previous games easier. Maybe we're just in a 'you suck, we're going to kill you, nothing else matters' corner or maybe I'm misremembering things. In any case, we now know that the Triliarians are a major power as well, else it would be the Psilons as the second nominee. Also, two Klackon battleships are en route to Sol, a year apart from each other. Bad things could be about to happen.  Or not. They take out one of our destroyers then retreat on the first approach. And then we get this, which may buy us some time. Pretty cool graphic I think.  So long as I just got the shield, might as well move up to Ion Fission. ** Ion Drive is an upgrade to 4 parsecs per turn speed. I think this would be worth considering if we didn't already have Fusion Drives (3 parsecs). A one-third speed increase on the galaxy map doesn't look like its worth it. ** Ion Pulse Cannon bypasses armor and structure, doing 2-10 points of damage via system overloads. Useless against space monsters and those things that shall not be mentioned which are not part of this game. ** Shield Capacitors are worded confusingly. I THINK they more than double shield recharge from 30% to 70% per turn. Capacitors are supposed to be a good pairing with Class III Shields, or so I read somewhere once. Having the shields last longer in a fight seems useful, and they are among the cheaper tech options we have, so let's do this thing.  The Klackons are swarming. Callisto IV Breakthrough Well, that's that. The whole boarding mechanic thing is shown in action. Our destroyers existed only as something to be shot at and then our defenses overwhelmed. It was only a matter of time. We have two planets left. 3526.0 - The Battleship/Cruiser combo comes to Sol. I concentrate all firepower on the big one, barely managing to destroy it. But they still capture the Starbase - took two attempts this time - and bomb our homeworld, destroying a bunch of stuff but we still control it for now. The next turn they finish the job. Magistrate Vott and all of humanity's most priceless creations are gone. Only Callisto III remains.  Felina begins work on building a Capitol on the sole remaining presence of our species. Note the big morale hit we take for not having one. Mostly though, people alternatively riot and get their affairs in order. They know homo sapiens are not long for this galaxy. 3526.3 - The cruiser attacks on its own. This is a mistake, and we blow it up. A temporary reprieve. It is simply a matter of how long they decide to take to eliminate us.  Another two turns, and we have a Capitol again. Also, this looks scary but isn't. TEN Klackon transports. Unescorted. What is even the point of that? Meanwhile contact was broken with Alkari/Psilon when Sol was lost, so we can't even reach out to them. Meklar Battleshipo The Meklar Tormentor battleship can take a beating, but we eventually took it down. We rebuild the fighter garrison ... just in time for another one to come back and a repeat of the same fight. However, two Klackon destroyers decide to take advantage of our weakened state this time ... One Location/Turn, Two Battles Wouldn't think they'd pose much of a threat, but they shoot down most of our pulson missiles in flight. We do eventually win, but they do significant damage. It won't take much to finish us off ... Klackon Upgrades ... The latest Klackon Batteship, armed with a LOT of Neutron Blasters along with a few of the Thotimx Special(AM Torps). They are almost a match for our starbase/fighter combo by themselves. No Rest for the Weary Another one comes the next turn. I had some industry stockpiled but couldn't get the Starbase nearly ready in time. By themselves, the fighters have no chance.  Here is what's left. How pathetic. Magistrate Felina does not bother even attempting to console the few remaining survivors of this wanton destruction. Gathering together in caves like primitives, or in air pockets within the rubble of the once-great cities of Callisto III, they know they have only weeks to live until the latest supply ships arrive. Then the bug battleship will open fire again, and all life on the surface will be extinguished without mercy. The End Well wasn't that lovely. So I have a mark to beat. It's not a high one, something like 40% of the lowest rung on the starting Hall of Fame. I raise only one objection to that closing video - my people were not 'enslaved'. They were obliterated, genocided, nothing left of them but a memory among the endless eons of the Orion Galaxy. Bonus points though for the ships searching through the wreckage for more people to kill with their floodlights, and the evil laugh at the end. Go pound sand, MOO2, for I shall return with vengeance. And increased knowledge of your trickery. And, most importantly, with a much better race. Post Mortem So a number of mistakes were made here. Got some good luck with the leaders, wasted resources in the early attack on the Space Crystal at Rav and some other places. A few tech choices have been clarified. Going Biosphere would have helped early growth. Not having Silicoids and Aquatic Klackons would have been nice too. And I need to Always Be Stockpiling!, unless there's something more vital to be doing. Despite all that though, I should have given K'kalak his bloody Robo-Miners - he eventually got them anyway, and if I could have continued the Meklar campaign I would have eventually conquered them I think without Klackon interference. That would have put me solidly in 4th position behind the Klackons/Trilarians/Psilons. From there, I would have had a chance for a long comeback victory. The bugs may have come for me anyway, but it would have bought me time to potentially not be such an easy mark for them. So I think that was the fatal error. Clearly I can't treat MOO2 diplomacy the way I treated MOO1 diplomacy, at least not until I understand it better. The MOO2 AI's aggressiveness is shown here - also shown though is the fact that they clearly don't have a great grasp of risk, which means that aggressiveness could be a liability. They kept sending insufficient force and getting blown up more often than they retreated. Had I been more competent, that might even have mattered. Next up, I pick myself up off the canvas, and begin my revenge. Or at least the attempt at it.
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Apr 24, 2019 20:35
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Given the 'Your insolence' bit, I have to presume it's the Antarans speaking.
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Apr 24, 2019 20:42
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Shield Capacitors increase your shield recharge rate from 30% each turn by 70% points, making you regenerate 100% of your shields each turn.
Torrannor fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 20:45
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Personally I seem to remember the MoO2 AI as being very diplomatically capricious but also, yes, opportunistic as gently caress. It will easily spot if it can pound you into the dirt and then jump on that opportunity in an instant.
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Apr 24, 2019 20:58
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I still think that is one of the greatest game over screens ever made. Which is good, because you see it a lot.
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Apr 24, 2019 21:37
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Gnoman posted:I still think that is one of the greatest game over screens ever made. Which is good, because you see it a lot. It's a great game over screen, except when you get it because you accept a Council decision in favor of an empire on friendly terms with you, in which case it seems slightly... overwrought.
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Apr 24, 2019 21:40
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Torrannor posted:Shield Capacitors increase your shield recharge rate from 30% each turn by 70% points, making you regenerate 100% of your shields each turn. Correct, but potentially slightly misleading. There are four shield sides - front, starboard, larboard, and rear. Each individual facing has the full listed number of hit points (it's not divided among the facings). Shields naturally regenerate 30% of a single side per turn, spread more or less evenly throughout all damaged sides. Shield Capacitors increase this to 100% of a single side per turn, but you still have four sides, meaning that you might not regenerate all of a single side if you have shield damage to the other sides. If you have class 3 shields on a size 2 ship, your shields have 30 hit points (total 120 hit points across all 4 facings), but you'll only regenerate 9 hit points per turn normally - and that's 9 hit points total, not 9 hit points per facing. With Shield Capacitors, you'll regenerate 30 hit points per turn - this is, again, 30 hit points total. Ion Fission: When considering drive upgrades, it's important to note that drive upgrades don't just affect map movement, but also affect combat speed, meaning that every level of drive upgrades is functionally another +10 to Beam Defense. Whether or not this is relevant and worth pursuing depends, largely, on your situation. However, in this case, Ion Drives are almost never worth taking over the alternatives and it's rare that I select anything other than Shield Capacitors here. Honestly, I think the biggest factor in your defeat WAS the race issue - there's a reason why operating with 0 picks gives you a 200% score multiplier, after all.
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Apr 24, 2019 21:41
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Olesh posted:Honestly, I think the biggest factor in your defeat WAS the race issue - there's a reason why operating with 0 picks gives you a 200% score multiplier, after all. Yeeeeeah. The first time I tried to play this game with a friend, I customized my guys (not even particularly munchkiny) and he picked Darloks because they looked cool. End result: I had 3 systems fully colonized before my friend got the first colony ship out, we called it quits there. e: Actually, it was 2 systems fully colonized, but the point still stands. my dad fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 22:48
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Gnoman posted:I still think that is one of the greatest game over screens ever made. Which is good, because you see it a lot. Bitch please  No Klackon ever did anything that bad to humanity. 
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Apr 25, 2019 03:17
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GuavaMoment posted:Bitch please Well, hard to argue with you there.
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Apr 25, 2019 03:27
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my dad posted:Yeeeeeah. The first time I tried to play this game with a friend, I customized my guys (not even particularly munchkiny) and he picked Darloks because they looked cool. End result: I had 3 systems fully colonized before my friend got the first colony ship out, we called it quits there. Someone else mentioned this, but ultimately the most important thing is that you have strengths and you play to them. It's possible to win games with 0 racial picks. It is not possible to win every game with 0 racial picks.
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Apr 25, 2019 04:55
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Speaking of racial picks, I'd like some help in designing the next race.  Ok, here's what we're going with this time. ** Staying on Hard difficulty because let's walk before we run and I just got my arse kicked on it. ** Huge galaxy because we're going for endgame stuff this time. ** Organic Rich seemed better for expansion than the alternative; we've seen Average and I wanted to try something new. ** Average TL to show the 'standard' start. ** Antaran Attacks on. Time to meet our exogalactic invader-type threat. We will be doing the Antaran Ending here as mentioned. Which ... takes a while. Everything else is as before. mydad posted:If you're going creative on the first run, then you might as well take democracy and whatever else you want to spend 5 points on and go maximum science. MechaCrash posted:an idea for a custom race: Creative Democratic with +1 research (18 picks), paid for by a hit to Ground Combat and being Repulsive (8 points of disadvantage). You should be able to science it up pretty well and get good money flow. Nobody will invite you to sit at their table, but that won't matter once you use your crazy superships to conquer their stupid puny tables. Just make sure you survive until you get to that point... These similar but not identical ideas form the basis for our next adventure; Custom Psilons. The theme here is MAXIMUM SCIENCE, complete the tech tree, try out some of the obscene space magic stuff at the high end, conquer most of the galaxy, and then do that thing with the Anatarans once things die in fear of us making the slightest of nods in their direction. One big advantage right off the bat of course is that by playing the Psilons, we don't have to face them as an adversary. Stock Psilons have: ** Creative ** Low-G, Artifacts, Large Homeworld ** + 2 Research ** Dictatorship Thing is we can't afford all that and still go Democracy - which gets +50% research from scientists.  This has Creative, Democratic, Low-G World selected. Creative-Democratic I definitely want to go with on this run for multiple reasons; industry will be harder to come by so I'm going to want the money to buy stuff early, which Democracy will help with. I like the science bonus from it, etc; over time democracy will be better than +2 research, which unfortunately this means we can't get that no matter what. You can only do 10 negative racial picks at the most, and we'd need 11 (6 more) to get the +2. So we're pretty much stuck with +1. That needs 3 more points, which I figured to get from taking a -10 in Spying. Now democracy already gets a hit there, but I figured by being Creative we'll be able to cover up our deficiencies there just fine by the time we need agents to do anything, and mostly we'll want to be defending our tech with them anyway not being aggressive.  This is easier to see point values on - same shot from the first game earlier in the thread. So the question at this point is would you change anything from what I've outlined above? Should I get rid of Low-G and go with some other negative such as Repulsive? That has the risk of getting us into conflict early again, but Low-G hurts ground combat and, more importantly, will have us suffering penalties to production on most worlds until we have the tech to neutralize it. Perhaps take another couple negative points from ground combat and use them on Rich home world (or Large instead?). Take Artifact homeworld instead of the +1 research?(adds +2, so we'd research faster at the start but the racial bonus is a lot better once we grow). Within the Creative-Democratic framework there are a number of possibilities. I'm going to leave this open for a day or two, and then dive into the next game, but I wasn't certain what would be best here, so what say you? If this game goes well I'll put up similar discussions for the last couple of runs partway through it, but I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. Naming Themes Almost forgot about this. ** Race Name: TechnoGeeks? ** Homeworld: ?? ** Emperor: ?? Any suggestions for these? I can always go with stock Psilon stuff for the HW/leader, but any ideas would be cool also. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 25, 2019 06:21
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Penalties to spying and ground combat are the free-est 5 points you'll ever get. Those penalties will get wiped out by tech advances in no time. For the other penalties the farming one isn't as bad as you think; it'll slow down the early game a bit, but you won't even notice it entering the mid-game. Then take either ship offense or defense penalty for your max 10 points to spend on other fun things. Democracy, creative, +1 science, rich homeworld would work.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:40
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GuavaMoment posted:Penalties to spying and ground combat are the free-est 5 points you'll ever get. Those penalties will get wiped out by tech advances in no time. For the other penalties the farming one isn't as bad as you think; it'll slow down the early game a bit, but you won't even notice it entering the mid-game. Then take either ship offense or defense penalty for your max 10 points to spend on other fun things. Democracy, creative, +1 science, rich homeworld would work. For the core set of Creative + Democracy, offsetting 5 picks with Ground Combat + Spying is, as Guava says, the free-est 5 points ever. Those picks are perfectly fine as-is. For the remaining +/- 5 points, here's my take on each: + picks: For 3 point picks, +1 Science is the choice if you want to slam all the way into the research gimmick. Racial Science picks are most valuable in the early game, where you don't have technologies boosting your scientists' outputs +1 Production, on the other hand, is probably going to be more valuable as your ability to produce and expand, even with the aid of technologies, is going to be starkly limited in the early game. Warlord is the weird generic runner-up - it functionally provides a minimum of +15 Ship Attack and Beam Defense over non-warlords (and for top-level crews, this rises to +25), but you also get bonus command points for every colony Large Home world / Rich Home World are okay ways to spend extra points - Rich Home World is a little more useful in my experience, but you should never really take both as you could instead get a bonus to Industry or Science for the same cost. Likewise, Artifacts World is rarely worth it since for the same price, you can get a bonus to Science that works everywhere. - picks: For a Creative race, Ship Attack is very nearly a free 2 points, as you will almost certainly be operating with better computers at any given point than a non-Creative race. Ship Defense, unfortunately, is a little less appealing, but combined the two pair with Warlord for a very minor net penalty (-5 of each) while also giving you a bonus to Command Points. The penalty to Farming, likewise, is made significantly less severe by the fact that as a Creative race, you don't have to make compromises in your research, and the increased BC income from being a Democracy means that supplementing all your colonies with Hydroponic Farms/Soil Enrichment to free up extra workers/scientists is far more affordable than it otherwise might be. Low-G world is another option if you want a full 5 points.
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Apr 25, 2019 10:09
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You are playing organic rich, which means more good planets, which means aquatic for 5 points gets a chance to shine. You can combo it with poor farmer for -3 points to still get a +1/2 food per colonist for every wet planet and have a higher growth rate and maximum population on a lot of planets including your starting one. Take bad at ground combat for the remaining -2. Comboing democracy with poor at espionage forces you to play really conservatively early on because every enemy you meet is guaranteed to be able to leech half a dozen techs from you.
my dad fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 25, 2019 11:17
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Personally I always liked to combo Creative and Lithovore. Being able to spread fast, because you don't have to give a drat about whether a given world can actually support farming, combined with Creative, will soon outweigh your disadvantages. Ground Combat, Farming and Spying penalties should combine to make the former affordable, if I didn't miscalculate. Or if it's actually smart enough to bar Lithovore races from taking Farming penalties, Poor Home World + Ship Defense penalty.
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Apr 25, 2019 11:46
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Lithavore doesn't get farming technologies and doesn't get any racial farming picks. Also repulsive is one of my go-to free points, you are going to be killing all the AIs eventually.
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Apr 25, 2019 18:37
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PurpleXVI posted:I always liked to combo Creative and Lithovore. Being able to spread fast, because you don't have to give a drat about whether a given world can actually support farming, combined with Creative, will soon outweigh your disadvantages. Sounds interesting. However, it doesn't really fit with the whole maximum science thing, which I want to use for specific reasons. Given that, I can't justify spending that many points on a non-tech pick (Lithovore, being hideously OP, requires 10). Good points for the others on different ideas. I like the synergy mydad mentions between organic rich and aquatic, which is not one I was considering. I've never played an Aquatic race for even two seconds, so that's a point in it's favor. So: Positives ** Creative ** Democratic ** Aquatic This does sacrifice the +1 research, but I would think the extra population will more than make up for it in the long run. Negatives ** Farming ** Ground Combat These seem to be consensus selections. There is more of a difference of opinions on where to get the other 5 negative points from. Seems to come down to Repulsive (in which case I'd swap out Ship Attack for Farming to make the points work), Low-G World, Ship Attack/Spying, or Ship Attack/Ship Defense/ Poor HW. Four different ways to go. Problem with Repulsive is that yeah I'm going to kill the AIs anyway, but being able to butter them up early on if the start isn't favorable - like, you know, last time - is a useful thing. The others all have negatives potentially but I'm going with: ** Ship Attack ** Spying The point about being vulnerable to espionage is well-taken, but I'm going to aim to not have enemies for a while. I don't want a Poor HW to hamstring early production esp. when I'm already taking a farming hit, Low-G will make expansion harder when we are already in an industry-poor galaxy, and I'd prefer not to take the hit to ship defense. So I'm sticking with the idea that this is the 'least bad' limitation to accept. The TechnoGeeks, led by Emperor Kelvan from his throne on Mentar have thus proceeded. The early stages of their (mis?) adventure will be coming next.
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Apr 26, 2019 07:28
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SugarAddict posted:Also repulsive is one of my go-to free points, you are going to be killing all the AIs eventually. Repulsive definitely makes the game harder. Even on higher difficulties, you can use diplomacy to keep some of the AIs off your back while you're killing the others, and they will accept trade and research deals that make you a less attractive target for random wars. Even demanding technology from them works if you butter them up enough first. Speaking of, it can sometimes be useful to deliberately hand over technology you've researched to an empire that's catching up to you in a particular area, because that ensures that they won't research it, meaning you can try to pry one of the alternate technologies for that level out of them later.
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Apr 26, 2019 20:28
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Basically, the better you are at manipulating the AI via diplomacy, the worse repulsive gets, both if you pick it and if the enemy gets it as tradeoff for something. Sakkra who get repulsive to "compensate" for some ridiculous bonus are the bane of my existence in diplomatic games.
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Apr 26, 2019 20:54
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I don't think taking repulsive (or lithovore) this game would be the right choice. We were basically at war the entire LP, or had no meaningful other interactions with the AI. Why not simply go with creative, which warps the game as much if not more than taking repulsive, and play the science game by taking democracy and some minor bonuses like rich homeworld? Spy penalties as a democracy are actually not quite as harmless as the people here are making them out to be, but we won't see the AI stealing much of our technology with other races, so this is fine. I just think we shouldn't make the next race overly complicated, Thotimx already said that he wants to play some more races after the upcoming one. Let's just make cool spaceships that you're unlikely to build if you're not creative, and play the game relatively normally. We can choose an UniTol race next time.
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Apr 26, 2019 21:02
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Torrannor posted:I don't think taking repulsive (or lithovore) this game would be the right choice. We were basically at war the entire LP, or had no meaningful other interactions with the AI. Why not simply go with creative, which warps the game as much if not more than taking repulsive, and play the science game by taking democracy and some minor bonuses like rich homeworld? Spy penalties as a democracy are actually not quite as harmless as the people here are making them out to be, but we won't see the AI stealing much of our technology with other races, so this is fine. I just think we shouldn't make the next race overly complicated, Thotimx already said that he wants to play some more races after the upcoming one. Let's just make cool spaceships that you're unlikely to build if you're not creative, and play the game relatively normally. We can choose an UniTol race next time.
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Apr 27, 2019 10:20
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TechnoGeek Opening This time we're not in a corner. Remains to be seen if that's good or bad, but at the very least we'll have more exploratory options. Everything looks a little smaller because of it being a huge galaxy.  I have to talk about this, since there were no brown stars in the first galaxy. What even is this description? This is just lolrandom - I'm sure they were trying to funny, but I would have preferred if somewhere in there was the slightest inkling of what, in gameplay terms, brown stars are likely to have.  We have four stars we can reach initially. Two red, two blue-white. Everything within several parsecs is a hostile star type. So much for organic rich. We are in the worst part of this galaxy it would seem in terms of habitability.  At least we have a starting fleet. Two Scouts and a Colony Ship, just like in the original. Scouts will head out to the blue-white possibilities, and I'll keep the colony ship around until I get more information.  Our starting planet. Ocean. We are underwater. Don't think too much about the background, or you'll realize that, for example, our Starbase is submerged. One would think that would hamper the effectiveness. Aquatic here gives us a farming boost so that we only need three farmers to feed eight citizens instead of the usual four, and population growth is a little higher than normal as well. Two workers to stockpile industry until we have enough (60) to build the first thing we're going to research. That'll take a full year, everyone else taking the Scientist job. That's what our skinny blue smartdudes are best at. Having our second planet be Toxic sucks, but the fact that it is Rich is very nice. Should be a fine incubator planet quite early on.  All of the 'everybody gets these' advances have been granted us, but that's it. Here you can see Creative in action, as we don't have to choose. Optronics first to start us on the path to getting basic research and industrial improvements.  This will be a fine planet ... eventually. But it's too early to make effective use of a toxic, high-gravity world.  Better, but we'd still need to import food. I'd like a second farmable planet in order to build up and then use that to spread people throughout the surrounding area. I decide to wait a few turns to scout the red stars, hoping for something more along those lines. Hilarious to me that we have the inhospitable, industry-rich area of an industrially-challenged galaxy.  Ooh, Natives! Nice little early boost to the work force. The pop-up here pretty much says what they do.  This is where they are. Obviously the planet being poor isn't great but I can't complain about anything else. I think we need to grab this, take the extra labor, and work on this being a farming colony initially while Mentar builds stuff. The others are a gas giant and two Low-G worlds; Tiny Tundra Poor and Medium Barren Ultra-Poor. So they'll suck at everything. Two turns to the final scouting location in range, but I'm not waiting. Vela it is.  A good candidate for buying stuff early, since everything will take a longer time to build.  Here's what happens if you test the game and try to move the Natives. They don't pay taxes either, the lazy louts. Still, we have three million of them! We are forced to have plenty of extra food here. No freighters to move it, but soon. Could start stockpiling, but I think it's more valuable to accelerate our early research. So the Natives are going to free us up to do that and give us some extra cashola for our early reserve.  This is definitely OP IMO. Why is a more primitive race better at farming than a more advanced one? I get that they are an agricultural society ... but certainly a warp-capable race would have the technology and equipment to more than make up for that. At any rate, it won't last but we now have a 467% profit margin. 17 BC income, 3 BC going out to support the starbase and barracks on Mentar. For less than a year into the game, that's pretty darned incredible. I began to ponder whether or not I should just build a freighter fleet or two right away, since that would allow shipping food back to Mentar and even more productivity there. I decided not to do it just yet, but this kind of find does provoke some decidedly non-standard strategic considerations.  Dang. I still picked the right place to settle first, but yeah. Food will most definitely not be an issue for us assuming we get this. The other two are medium planets, Barren Abundant and Desert Ultra-Poor LG.  Below Vela at the bottom of the map, and our first friendly-type start system. The third planet here is an excellent fit for us. Also: ** Medium Desert Rich ** Medium Swamp ** Medium Barren Rich I'll take 'em all, thanks. I'm already shelving concerns here about whether we'll have enough good places in range to land. Now it's more of a 'how do I get enough Colony Ships out to all these juicy targets' deal. SD 3501.0 - With enough industry stockpiled to build the Research Lab, I would normally switch to having everyone as a scientist to wrap it up. I this case though I keep stockpiling, because I want to get some freighters going immediately afterwards. I'm not sure if that's best or not, but it seems right.  Last scout for now. Figures to be a fine industrial world through sheer size.  SD 3501.3. Optronics is in a turn earlier than expected, and now we'll beat a path to Automated Factories.  With as much money as we're making right now, I see no reason to turn this down.  Well ... that kind of stinks. The way the math works, tipping us over into pollution territory, we actually gain nothing from him quite yet. 3501.5 - I spend 40 BC to get a freighter fleet three turns early. A bargain as far as I'm concerned, as it will allow us to ramp up quicker.  The next turn. Now we've got a whole lot of research happening, and still plenty of excess food. SD 3501.8 - Advanced Engineering is in. One more project till we get our factories. SD 3502.0 - Another 40 BC to get another batch of freighters in early.  SD 3502.4. Advanced Construction, the automated factory and other goodies are in. I still like the idea of Astro Biology here, both for price and for getting Biospheres available this time.  A bit expensive but I don't want a delay. About half our annual profits are being eaten up by the food transfers, and I'm pouring a lot of cash into getting things going faster. Also, Vela I isn't growing at all now that I've recalled our colony citizen to the homeworld - natives apparently only reproduce enough to sustain their numbers. Too busy in the fields I guess.  We've a lot to do here, and have encountered no resistance. The main question is finding the best order to do it in that I can.  One other thing - MOO2 was a bit ahead of its time on this screen, which I didn't show before. Game and IRL date being thrown in there is a useful thing.
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Apr 27, 2019 21:13
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