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sebmojo posted:I lik e it when the lazors go pew, pew I second this motion; all in favor say Aye.
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Jun 8, 2019 13:59
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Nay! I like Zap Zap lasers not pew pew lasers 
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Jun 8, 2019 14:45
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I like the ones that go "bawoooooooooooo" and shoot a solid beam instead of the ones that go pew pew.
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Jun 8, 2019 14:54
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Olesh posted:It also occurred to me, watching the video, that you don't seem to know that your ships can rotate in place with the right mouse button. Holy crap, thanks for this. I had no idea! Another thing that may speed up combat (and general play) for our LPer is keyboard shortcuts. Instead of moving the mouse over to hit done for each ship, I hit "W" (for "wait") until all my ships are done, then hit "T" to End Turn. "S" to toggle Scan, "B" to toggle Board. Outside of combat, "T" also ends turn on the galaxy map, and if you do a lot of buying for your colonies, B and Y will save you a lot of time. Unfortunately I haven't yet run across any way to set up a build queue for colonies late game via keyboard. Creative races eventually get access to so many improvements that the text of the improvement list becomes ridiculously hard to click accurately.
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Jun 8, 2019 17:59
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Back to the Designing Board After attempting to piece together a middle ground between all the various pieces of advices given by the Royal TechnoGeek Council, their intrepid leader proceeded with the a plan. The first step was to wait a galactic cycle for further mass driver miniaturization. SD 3525.1 - The Klackons had a battleship/colony ship combo headed to Fierias, and I'd sent a battleship there to oppose it. Unfortunately, their complement of advanced missiles plus large numbers of neutron blasters outgunned us, and we were forced to retreat and cede the system. For now. Also the Antarans have returned, but their fleet isn't showing on my scanners. I think they are picking on someone else this time around.  That looks like a toolbelt with a harness to me. But what do I know.  Let's work on physics a bit, as recommended for improving our weapons systems. ** Multi-Phased Shields - Strength of shielding increased by 50%. ** Phasor - 'a trans-warp beam of phased energy that actually exists in several dimensions simultaneously'. Of course it does. 5-20 damage. ** Phasor Rifle - +20 combat edge for ground troops.   Here's the new ship redesigns. Taking the 'more guns' approach that seems to have the most support, and focusing most of the available space on standard AF mounts with a few heavies and point defense variants thrown in. I'll gradually be replacing the current fleet with these, scrapping the existing ships as needed in the interim to make room while I fight a mostly defensive campaign in the interim.  Next turn, we have a repetitive and fruitless Fourth Session of the High Council. Everyone abstains except the principals. 19 votes for us, 17 for the Sakkra, 12 Silicoid, 11 Klackon, everyone else five or fewer. It doesn't look like we'll find a diplomatic solution, not that I want one anyway.  We return in force and snag this away from the bugs, at least for now. Interesting that they have great armor, but the overall equipment picture is much more in our favor. It'll be fun pounding through that kind of plating on their ships though.  Bizarre that we get this on a just-founded colony, but this is what opens the door to the new ending introduced in this game. That's how I plan to win. A long time from now, after I've pacified this galaxy. It's the only way to stop the Antaran raids. The resistance there .... well it will be considerable. And if you think the battles so far have been long - just you wait. But we have other fish to fry before we can even consider that. This is also another one of those 'why doesn't this cost more' moments. At 500 industry, it's not much more expensive than a cruiser. Also, that's a real ugly green color our troops are wearing, which is the only difference compared to the normal one. Where are their power suits?  An impressive-looking weapon. The shields look cool as well, while the rifle looks like a badly designed Hasbro action figure with way too much copper.  Evolutionary Genetics has a couple of interesting things. ** Heightened Intelligence is a racial boost of +1 research per scientist. ** Psionics adds another +10 to our spying bonuses, and +10 morale for dictatorship/imperium governments. Unfortunately that's not us. Heightened Intelligence comes in, and I regret screwing up the screenshot. Basically it looks like something out of the Matrix, a 'bacta tank' housing a naked humanoid in some sort of liquid with various bits of equipment inside and a tube connecting the tank to who knows what. I don't even want to imagine the methods involved. Psionics is a very similar picture.  ** Lightning Field - Overloads the targeting system of torpedoes, fighters, and missiles. 50% chance of destroying them. ** Pulsar - Damages anything adjacent to the ship, a radiating energy field of sorts. ** Warp Interdictor - Planetary structure that slows all enemy ship movement within 2 parsecs to 1 parsec per turn. I'm a little curious how a 'warp destabilizing field' magically doesn't affect your own ships, but whatevs.  SD 3525.9 The first 'Klackon Incubator World' is ready. A second is almost there, and a third is being worked on. When all of them are up and running, we'll be getting nearly two Klackon citizens per turn. Yummy. Also, our first Titan is now in service, with a few of the next-gen Battleships already finished.  Interesting - this wasn't a thing in the original. It would go straight to I think Ultra Poor if it was reduced at all.  SD 3526.1 Our warp-speed trip through the tech tree continues. Next, Advanced Robotics. ** Bomber Bays give us, well, bombers. ** Robotic Factory builds mechanical workers, adding to the industry of a planet based on how rich it is. 5-20 can be gained, which isn't a major amount since our industrial output on some worlds right now exceeds 200 annually. It also occurs to me just now that I forgot to refit the existing battleships, which probably would have been better. But it's really too late now.  They're back again, barely a year after their last attack wherever it was. Lerion is starting to get its feet underneath it, but is not ready, and I've already seen how ineffectual our mass drivers are against damper fields. We abandon these colonies to their fate.  Bombers are dark and mean-looking.  Back to military applications. **Class V Shield does what it sounds like. **Gauss Cannon is apparently a souped-up mass driver, dealing double the damage (18). **Multi-Wave ECM Jammer uses the entire spectrum somehow and gives a +100 missile evasion; standard version is +70. Picked this basically because it gives us a new weapon and also a shield.  *sigh*. It could have been worse though. This wasn't the rich planet in Lerion, and one citizen is left. With no infrastructure. So basically we're just starting from scratch without needing to recolonize. SD 3526.4 - A spy is killed, but no other info on what happened. It's been a long time since we had that issue.  You could make a good argument that it's time to design a new generation of ships by this point. And we haven't even built the current ones quite yet. Let's play with some Plasma (Phyics) and see what happens. **Plasma Cannon - 6-30 damage against all four shields! Range penalties are doubled though. **Plasma Rifle - The best personal weapon there is, +30 combat bonus. **Plasma Web - Envelops a target in, well, a web of plasma. Range of 15 squares and damage of 5-25 dissipates by 5 each turn. Sounds nifty, but I'm unsure how useful it is.  We haven't gotten any new leaders in quite some time and there's no risk here, so I accept. We have a ridiculous amount of money, much of which I'm about to spend on rushing out a couple more ships, and then it'll be time to go on the attack again. We've seen very little activity - everyone appears afraid of their own shadows.
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Jun 8, 2019 20:24
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The middle ground on the advice is actually the problem. MOO2 rewards specialization. Gauss Cannons (18) are triple the damage of Mass Drivers (6). You're correct that you need to update the design of your ships - Creatives researching frequently just research technology faster than they can actually take advantage of it. That's one of the other advantages of using bigger ships, because you have fewer ships you need to refit. However, it is almost certain at this point that Plasma cannons are your best general use option now. Plasma cannons have a base damage of 30 (meaning their normal minimum damage is actually 10). Double range dissipation isn't actually a thing. They're also the most cost-efficient general purpose weapon in the game because they're naturally enveloping - you haven't used an enveloping weapon yet, but it functionally quadruples outgoing damage - it's like auto-fire, but without the accuracy malus and ability to drill through a specific shield facing. Of course, against anything without shields, it just quadruples damage. Because Plasma Cannons are inherently enveloping, you don't have to pay the +100% cost/space premium or miniaturize the weapon two times to get access to it - and unlike Fusion Beams, you aren't losing half the weapon's strength to Class III shields. If you refit your heavy mount and standard mount weapons to Plasma weaponry immediately, even without the benefits of any miniaturization, your fleet firepower will increase substantially - and it's not like your current fleet is taking full advantage of your miniaturization. How substantially? At max miniaturization, beam weapons are reduced to 25% of the base space/cost requirements. Space rounds weirdly and I can't remember if Auto Fire mass drivers round to 4 or 5. Let's assume the most favorable number (4). For every two plasma cannons, you could field 5 auto fire mass drivers (the equivalent of 15 mass drivers). 15 Mass driver shots is 90 damage (less damage absorbed by shields on each of 15 shots). Two plasma cannons, however, is 60 enveloping damage - 240 damage total. Shields apply 8 times here, and you have damage fall-off at range, but your minimum expected damage before shields is still 84 damage, and that's at your absolute longest range.
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Jun 8, 2019 21:28
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The gun math is not taking the Structural Analyzer for doubling post-shield damage into account. That will make plasma cannons even better. If things were slightly different, I'd push for researching Matter-Energy Conversion. Transporters are a gimmick you have to build around, but Food Replicators are fantastic for trading to your enemies. They're a net negative, but the AI doesn't realize it, so they'll splash those stupid things around and drain their treasuries.
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Jun 9, 2019 00:01
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Do you plan to capture a few Antarans for their sweet, unresearchable tech?
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Jun 9, 2019 00:41
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Heavy armor is almost always worth adding to your ships if you're creative, since it doubles your ship's total HP AND prevents armor piercing shenanigans.
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Jun 9, 2019 04:13
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Hannibal Rex posted:Do you plan to capture a few Antarans for their sweet, unresearchable tech? Lot of the stuff you get from the Antarans is'nt *that* great. Shipwide, the best thing you can get is Xenotronium armor. Most of the weapons they give are sweet but aren't miniaturizable so you can't fit more of them in. Then again, by the time you can capture Antarans to loot their stuff generally the issue of needing the tech isn't that big.
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Jun 9, 2019 05:58
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wedgekree posted:Lot of the stuff you get from the Antarans is'nt *that* great. Shipwide, the best thing you can get is Xenotronium armor. Most of the weapons they give are sweet but aren't miniaturizable so you can't fit more of them in. I prefer ships with Damper Fields to ships with shields. To get the most out of your shields, you need Hard Shields, Shield Capacitors, and Multi-Phased Shields. And some of the later game weapons easily chew through even those shields, while they will do much less damage against Damper Field protected ships. If you have Xentronium Armor and Heavy Armor, then that's a lot of hit points to get through, and it takes up less ship space as well.
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Jun 9, 2019 06:11
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Torrannor posted:I prefer ships with Damper Fields to ships with shields. To get the most out of your shields, you need Hard Shields, Shield Capacitors, and Multi-Phased Shields. And some of the later game weapons easily chew through even those shields, while they will do much less damage against Damper Field protected ships. If you have Xentronium Armor and Heavy Armor, then that's a lot of hit points to get through, and it takes up less ship space as well. Yes, but then you leave yourself vulnerable to randomly getting one shotted through all that. Structural analyzer and plasma means you are taking 8x more damage, with dampner field that takes it down to 2x, but that still leaves you open to things like achilies targeting unit and missiles with emission guidance system insta-killing your ship.
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Jun 9, 2019 06:32
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Torrannor posted:I prefer ships with Damper Fields to ships with shields. To get the most out of your shields, you need Hard Shields, Shield Capacitors, and Multi-Phased Shields. And some of the later game weapons easily chew through even those shields, while they will do much less damage against Damper Field protected ships. If you have Xentronium Armor and Heavy Armor, then that's a lot of hit points to get through, and it takes up less ship space as well. It depends on the weapons you're facing, although arguably anything that is better blocked by shields than damper fields is a threat not worth considering if you have access to damper fields, so...
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Jun 9, 2019 06:49
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SugarAddict posted:Yes, but then you leave yourself vulnerable to randomly getting one shotted through all that. Structural analyzer and plasma means you are taking 8x more damage, with dampner field that takes it down to 2x, but that still leaves you open to things like achilies targeting unit and missiles with emission guidance system insta-killing your ship. The best way to stop missiles is not relying on your shields anyway, so I don't see why that would be a big negative about Damper Fields. And to use Achilles Targeting Unit requires you to have finished computer tech. But you can get "Antaran" techs much earlier than that. In fact, I'm kind of surprised Thotimx hasn't done so already. It's of course depending on your luck what you get, but if you do get Damper Fields and Xentronium Armor, you only need low tech Heavy Armor to get a lot of mileage out of it. Admittedly, if you're not creative, you will usually have researched Automated Factories, so you will need to steal or trade for Heavy Armor. But that's much easier done than finishing the computers tech tree.
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Jun 9, 2019 07:20
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HannibalRex posted:Do you plan to capture a few Antarans for their sweet, unresearchable tech? Eventually, but it seems more useful to me at the moment to knock the legs out from under the key rivals first. I think this is the run to do that though, if for no other reason that just to do it once.
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Jun 10, 2019 10:49
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Thotimx posted:Eventually, but it seems more useful to me at the moment to knock the legs out from under the key rivals first. I think this is the run to do that though, if for no other reason that just to do it once. I played a run yesterday and experienced the OTHER other problem with capturing Antarans - they can be real assholes about simply not showing up anymore once you're capable of defending yourself.
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Jun 10, 2019 21:15
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Olesh posted:I played a run yesterday and experienced the OTHER other problem with capturing Antarans - they can be real assholes about simply not showing up anymore once you're capable of defending yourself. If you're on good terms with the species that is being attacked, can't you send your own fleet to intercept?
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Jun 11, 2019 06:10
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wedgekree posted:If you're on good terms with the species that is being attacked, can't you send your own fleet to intercept? Nope. Antarans will attack their target as soon as they arrive - you can't intercept them by attacking the fleet yourself. Battles also only consist of two sides - the attacker and the defender. Allies can't jump in to assist either side. And once the battle is over, the Antaran fleet leaves - they never hang around, so you never get the opportunity to attack the raiding fleets. The only possible way to accomplish what you're talking about is perhaps to pre-emptively take the planet before the Antaran fleet actually reaches it, but I've never tried it to see what would happen.
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Jun 11, 2019 07:25
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Olesh posted:Nope. It's possible to demand the system, or to just conquer it (because Antarans will always take 4 turns to reach their target, while you can be a lot faster in the late game, provided they don't have a Warp Interdictor in their system), and then the Antarans will attack you. But if you're at the point where you can casually demand or conquer a systems the Antarans are attacking, you've basically already won.
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Jun 11, 2019 07:42
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Tipping Point More Antaran Blather (0:23) Since they decided to say something new. They're going after Irra again. They seemed to have settled upon 3 Destroyers + 2 Frigates as an appropriate strike force. I could get there in time to fight them, but I don't care enough. Irra isn't worth the effort. I'm sure the 4M TechnoGeek citizens there won't be happy to hear that, but they knew the risks. Like Pund getting blown up again by the Silicoids, we will eventually get to a point of defending everything but right now the Klackons are priority.  SD 3526.9 - A new gun arriveth. Pursuant to suggestions, I'll redo the designs to include these. I'm not going to be doing a refitting though - I'll just gradually replace our ships in the fleet with plasma-armed Obscenities. The ones we already have I still want to try out on the attack.  Only because it's a bit cheaper than the others. ** Food Replicators convert 2 production into 1 food if needed. As has been mentioned, this is a bad idea compared to just growing more food and shipping it around. Which is why I'm building freighters like a drunken sailor and about 150 of them right now. ** Transporters are for ... transporting things. 12-parsec range for both bombing a planet or sending marines to an enemy ship (if shields facing you are down). I'll eventually use these for that whole Antaran thing.  SD 3527.1 - Approaching 2k research/turn now. These are coming in ridiculously fast.  Tectonic Engineering, because why not build even more ridiculously fast. ** Deep Core Mining - 15 production, +3 per worker. The next step after Automated Factories and Robo Miners. ** Core Waste Dump - Going full space-magic on the pollution issue, we'll just store it in the core of the planet. An infinite amount of it. Forever. Uh-huh, right. It does completely eliminate pollution though, so I can get rid of all those other pesky anti-pollution buildings when I have these. Tatiana Again (12:53) Suffice to say we got that missile problem solved. Couldn't board the starbase because we blew it up too quickly :P. Like the right-click-rotation, esp. after I have some time to get used to it. But ... why do some of my ships not want to bomb the planet? Anyway, now we are just waiting for some transports to get here so we can conquer these fools and commence with spreading the Klackon servants around.  A Klackon strike group of 2 Battleships & 2 Frigates was smashed by a starbase/missile base combo at Carcosa, confirming the superiority of our defenses. However ... this is a thing. Individually I'm not concerned about them, but I am curious what this Silicoid group of 10 Battleships, a Cruiser, and a Destroyer - with Transports - is going to do now that they've seized Fierias. It'd be nice to have an opportunity to face off against them, because I'm certain they'd fare worse than we would and then they'd have to rebuild. But I'm not going to go chasing them. At the moment I'm secure enough in what we are doing to split off a few ships to guard a system or two against incursions, but mostly I just don't care what the others do so long as they continue to fear attacking our fortified systems. Taking out the Klackons is more important than anything they are doing.  SD 3527.4 Apparently it's a simple as digging a really big hole really deep. It is worth noting that it requires a stupid amount of maintenance (8 ea.), and with the other pollution-reducers I actually don't think, at least yet, that I'm really going to build these. I don't have enough pollution to make them worth it. On really big worlds, or if I didn't have the pollution processor/atmospheric renewer combo, it would be different. Probably a good subject for more theorycrafting.  High-Energy Distribution. With no apparent threat to us anymore, I'm simply choosing now by cheapest price first, and by usefulness as I see it second. ** Energy Absorber - We saw this a long time ago. A quarter of the damage taken is absorbed and needs to be fired on the next turn. ** High Energy Focus - The MOO2 version increases base damage of all weapons by 50%. The way it is worded, it sounds like maybe range doesn't matter for damage calculations anymore with this?!? ** Megafluxers - They ... flux really bigly? Adds 25% space due to improve handling of energy, and are automatic - I don't need to add them like the Battle Pods. Between the HEF and the Megafluxers, effective firepower will be massively increased and I'll naturally need to redesign again. Also, that big Silicoid fleet is headed to Willow. The fleet can't get there in time. In preparation, I'm maxing out defenses with everything I can throw at it. I already have Battlestation/Missile Base/Radiation Shield, and will add a Fighter Garrison and Ground Batteries by the time they show up. Honestly, based on what I've seen in recent battles I don't think they have much of a chance unless their new battleship type is a major improvement on the Fury, but I can't be certain - I've not yet seen a battle of this scale. Willow Confrontation (7:25) Twas actually a decent fight. We didn't get ground batteries up, because a blockade prevented it. They knocked out the planetside installations but our battlestation stood firm, though it took a pretty fair pounding. As for the rocks ... well, their shipyards will be busy and I don't expect any more attacks in force for a bit.  While waiting for ground troops to arrive, the fleet has been smashing Klackon defense installations to avoid boredom. Since they have several 'battalions' or whatever guarding each planet, I'm having the homeworld build more transports anytime we drop below a half-dozen operational. That way there will always be a steady flow towards to front. Here, we have three in place so I figured it was time to proceed. They have a racial bonus and adamantium armor - we have like four other things that are better. Only one casualty was reported the ground commander. Acceptable losses.  We don't need it, but sure.  Same nominees. Same votes across the board. Everyone abstains. 18 for Sauron, no one else with more than 14 but us. We have 24. Our lead is gradually growing, and we are three votes shy of a veto bloc. Not that it matters in the galaxy of Everyone Hates Everyone.  Have a look at the new HEF.  Distortion Fields are next, because I say so. ** Cloaking Device only actually cloaks completely on the galaxy map. When 'cloaked' in combat, beam defense is +80 and missiles have a 50% chance to miss. Firing removes the cloak of course, and you have to take a turn without shooting to be eligible to put it back up. Other than bombers sneaking in to attack a target, I sort of fail to see the point. We certainly don't need it. ** Hard Shields do several nice things. They work in nebulas, counteract transporters completely, and are immune to shield-piercing. They also reduce damage from all attacks by an additional 3 points. ** Stasis Field places a target in suspended animation. The field has a 3-square range and interestingly has a theoretically infinite duration - until it is turned off or destroyed. Prevents recharging, attacking, being attacked, cloaking .. but it doesn't say you can't move?!? Anyway, Hard Shields are why I picked this. It's difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which they wouldn't be best.  Are you sure you want to insult us? Like, really??  What's that, you're the single most irrelevant race still around in the galaxy? Oh, ok.  Hmm, this actually looks useful. It's one of those things you don't even have to build, you just get the effects.  We're losing on average about 3 troops per invasion; apparently got lucky that first time. Tatiana is now completely pacified. To make up the slack, a second planet (Bogina III) is now sending out troop ships. It's no problem, whenever we need something these days we simply point at one of many planets that can get it done and give the order.  Same turn. This is good timing as yet another redesign may commence.  Let's talk about Cybertechnics, aka Androids. All three categories are +3 in their discipline, require 1 production instead of food to supply them, are immune to morale/racial bonuses, and produce no income. Frankly, with Klackons to build stuff and TechnoGeeks to research, I don't even want them. But they are a thing.  I finally bothered grabbing this toxic world, shown for the distinctive purplish hue.  We're going up so fast that only a single of the Mark-III Obscenity was built. For this one, I do not add the hard shields for space concerns. I've eliminated the bombs as the plasma weapons are doing just fine annihilating any planetary defenses we come up against, and now I have phasors for PD duty. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 05:48
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I'm surprised that your battle station used fusion beam PD. You have phasors researched, why isn't it using that? Also, I usually put PD weapons on "red" in combat. It doesn't prevent them from being fired automatically on incoming missiles/fighters, and you'll no longer accidentally fire them on enemy ships, like you did in your second-to-last turn. It didn't matter in that case, but might matter in other battles.
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Jun 12, 2019 06:08
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In this case, where you have a penalty to farming yet only need a few farmers for the entire empire, I believe it's quite useful to build android farmers. It'll give you more food and free up your population to do things they're better at, like research all the toys.
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Jun 12, 2019 06:18
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Androids actually are tolerant, which means they can go over the population maximum on non-Gaia worlds. They're also unaffected by gravity penalties, and for whichever reason, android workers do benefit from morale. The others don't.
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Jun 12, 2019 06:49
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Poll Time Ok, I'd like to get some opinions on a few things. This is going to be strictly a vote and I'll do whatever people want. There is no longer any hope for meaningful resistance in this galaxy. The Silicoids are hopelessly outclassed, the Klackons hopelessly outnumbered, and everyone else is even more irrelevant. So now that I'm assured of actually getting to the new ending, it's time to look forward. 1. Finishing the TechnoGeeks Our path is set; smash all resistance and go through the Dimensional Portal to the Antaran homeworld. So I can do this a couple ways, depending on how wacky we want to get. ** Just Get It Done - Enslave the Klackons, smash enough Silicoids and probably Sakkra to lower them to a couple-few systems each, and glass every last Darlok in the galaxy because they started this fight and they have earned it - and people asked for that at the time. So they will get theirs either way. I'll also research everything in the tech tree before the 'hyper-advanced' or whatever it is when you don't actually get new devices and capabilities, but just miniaturize stuff, and try to capture some Antarans for their goodies. **Crazy Go-Nuts - Under this scenario I would conquer nearly all of the galaxy, max out the hyper-advanced research, and build as many as possible of the most OP ships that I could afford unless the game breaks first. I'd take suggestions on different types so that people could see whatever they wanted to, but I'd build various Doom Stars of various configurations - one for strike craft, one for missiles, one for boarding craft/shuttles, beam weapons, etc. - just for varieties sake and to see them all in action. Then we'd have a glorious fun maximum slaughter at the end. 2. Game Three The next run will be Small galaxy, Advanced start, and I'm planning on Hard difficulty again. I need a new gimmick to try out for that. habituallyred posted:For the small galaxy go maximum space combat: This was a detailed proposal and is one option. I could go all in on cash with modified Gnolams, production with custom Meklar or something, etc. Or some other combo of traits that people may be interested in. If you want something really out there, this is the time to chime in for it. 3. Game Four (final run) Medium Galaxy, Impossible difficulty. Never let it be said that I didn't have the guts to take on the toughest MOO2 has to offer. Probably failing miserably, but I'm still gonna try. There were a couple who wanted a stock race and one of the most popular suggestions was going Uncreative. I figure I'd combine the two and go stock Klackons unless someone has a better idea. After all, if I play as them, I don't have to fight the genocidal bugmaniacs, do I? But that's just where I'm leaning right now. Feel free to change whatever it is you thought you wanted earlier if you have a better/different idea. So vote already on these three items. I'll be taking the results of the first choice in a few days, as the immediate strategy remains the same regardless. The other two will remain open until the current run finishes. Then I'll finalize plans for the rest of the LP. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 08:05
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quote:But ... why do some of my ships not want to bomb the planet? I haven't even watched the video yet but there's a dumb bug where the planet's "hitbox" is misaligned with the graphic. This means that, for large planets, bombing from any side other than the top or left might not work. Transporters make this easier. Your new Plasma Cannons (and Heavy Mount Plasma Cannon) ships, when they enter service, will also speed things up quite a bit. Edit: Called it! High Energy Focus Okay, so remember that giant boring effortpost where I talked about damage drop-off and mentioned that regular beams do base damage at point blank and 35% damage at max range? And that point blank weapons do 40% base damage at point blank and, strangely, negative 12.5% damage at max range? This is why. High energy focus increases damage by a flat 50% (additive). Regular beams do 150% at point blank, 85% at max range. Heavy Mounts do 200% at point blank, 135% at max range, and Point Defense do 90% at point blank, 37.5% at max range. Range doesn't increase, but for the low low cost of one heavy special system, you can substantially upgrade all of your beam weapons, especially when firing from range. Normal ranged accuracy penalties still apply, however. (As a side note, this is also what the Ordinance pilot skill does, for a percentage value equal to the Ordinance skill. Ordinance 10 adds a flat 10% of base damage, Ordinance 20 adds a flat 20%, et cetera.) Hannibal Rex posted:Androids actually are tolerant, which means they can go over the population maximum on non-Gaia worlds. They're also unaffected by gravity penalties, and for whichever reason, android workers do benefit from morale. The others don't. Tolerant population also ignore pollution. The game accounts for when a percentage of your populace is Tolerant vs non-Tolerant when calculation pollution - I believe it simply calculates what percentage of your population is not Tolerant and only that percentage of industry counts towards pollution? I'm not sure. Anyways, Androids are fantastic but come too late to really have an impact*. Terraforming is available well before Androids in any sane research order, so while most races can benefit from extra 20%-40% population on every planet (that can be shipped around as desired), you rarely ever see them because the game ought to be well in hand by the time they're an option. * Unless Megatron shows up in your leader list. Megatron is frequently an amazing colony leader to get early, not just because he's great all around (15% bonus to farming, labor, and science per level) but because he also brings all three Android techs with him when you hire him. Androids themselves aren't all that expensive - 50 production each - and still gain bonuses from colony structures like the rest of your workers. If you get Megatron early, prepare to embrace the robot revolution, baby, because hot drat can you expand like crazy in the early game with access to androids.
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Jun 12, 2019 09:02
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Androids are the perfect population to put on toxic worlds since you can't terraform then.
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Jun 12, 2019 10:35
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Voting for: Crazy Go-Nuts And for the next game, it'd be fun to see the Darloks as a player race. Maybe a custom with the worst imaginable research abilities, but the best spying abilities, meaning you'd have to more or less steal every research advance you wanted.
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Jun 12, 2019 11:56
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Crazy-Go-Nuts You can show off all the cool toys you want to as creative (the stasis projector can be remarkably powerful, and yes, it does disable movement as well), and this is certainly the best race to go for an Antaran victory. Winning by conquest or diplomacy (which is often just another form of conquest victory) can be better done with other races. If you need to string out the game to gear up for an attack on the Antaran homeworld, you might as well be creative to reap the maximum benefits. In the next game you could go Elerians, focusing on combat bonuses. Telepathic is really powerful, and lets you make use of anything you conquer right away.
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Jun 12, 2019 12:24
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Crazy-go-nuts I mean, what are the chances that you'll be able to show off all of the toys in the other playthroughs? Also, have you destroyed a toxic planet only to recreate it yet? I know you made a planet, but I don't think you've shown off that.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:24
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PurpleXVI posted:Voting for: Yeah, same on all counts here, esp. the custom race idea. Maybe give them Charismatic as well, to smooth things out when you're inevitably caught. Perhaps Omniscient too, so you can start stealing off the bat.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:37
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Randalor posted:Crazy-go-nuts For that, Thotimx would need to have finished the physics tree. By the way, Thotimx, if you ever decide to take out the Guardian around Orion, make sure you have an open leader slot.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:40
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CommissarMega posted:Yeah, same on all counts here, esp. the custom race idea. Maybe give them Charismatic as well, to smooth things out when you're inevitably caught. Perhaps Omniscient too, so you can start stealing off the bat. Is there a way to force which opponents you fight? I'm torn between "make every opponent uncreative" or "make one opponent creative".
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Jun 12, 2019 14:28
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1: Crazy go-nuts. At the least it's more familiarization with management and ship combat. 2: Max combat - Welcome to the Thunderdome! It'd be interesting to see if this strategy is viable at all in MOO2 compared to how lacklustre Bulrathi are in MOO. 3: Klackons, if you can't be space bugs then it isn't really a space game.
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Jun 12, 2019 15:31
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Randalor posted:Is there a way to force which opponents you fight? I'm torn between "make every opponent uncreative" or "make one opponent creative". No. Races are randomly determined out of the available race options - the only thing you can do is select a race (directly or as your image for Custom) to prevent the AI from choosing it. I'm not sure what determines how the AI goes off their racial standards - I believe they get some number of bonus picks at higher difficulties, but whether it's random what bonus picks they choose or each race has a certain subset of "improved" racial features that gets selected, I don't really know off the top of my head.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:12
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Looks like we're settling in for a nice long journey in this game. Which means I have a question. Is there a way to use the asteroid fields/gas giants in a system with no habitable planets? I.e., I know how to do the Artificial Planet thing, but that requires a colony in a system that has an available field/gas planet to use as the resource. But if there is no habitable planet available of any quality, and putting up outposts does me no good for this purpose … is there any way to make this happen?
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Jun 12, 2019 21:43
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Thotimx posted:Looks like we're settling in for a nice long journey in this game. Which means I have a question. Is there a way to use the asteroid fields/gas giants in a system with no habitable planets? Nope. Those system are utterly useless. They might as well be empty, or not exist at all.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:48
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There are a few tech categories where Creatives just really take the gently caress off, because all the choices are so good. High Energy Distribution, so you can get Megafluxers and High Energy Focus, with bonus Energy Absorber, is one of those categories. Tectonic Engineering is another, and allows your productivity to soar because you're cranking out tons of production per worker and ignoring pollution. As for planetary defenses, I tend to prioritize the tech you don't have yet, then ground batteries, then missile base, and finally fighter garrisons. By the time you have the Ground Batteries, you should have good guns to stick in them and good computers to guide them, so hitting enemy ships and shooting down their missiles shouldn't be a problem. The enemy ships will probably get hung up on your orbital defenses, so they won't be dropping any bombs, so that isn't a threat. The missile base is next because you can fire those every turn, and the AI is mediocre about actually doing something about missiles. Fighters come last because once you launch them, it takes a while for them to get to the target, do their thing, and then come back, and I don't think they do nearly enough damage to justify the delay, and that's if they get to do their damage instead of getting shot down along the way, and it's ten turns to get replacements for anything that got blown up, which is pretty long in this context. To vote, I am going for Crazy Go Nuts. I was originally thinking of just getting on with it, but if we don't go nuts with this poo poo now, when will we? I think you hit max miniaturization at Hyperadvanced 5, so once you get that in the categories with stuff to miniaturize, that's it, you're as powerful as you're going to get. No real opinions on Game Three and Game Four yet.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:17
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Maximum Space Combat You can fool around with the disadvantages but keep the main idea of space superiority at any price. Blockade everybody with frustrating frigates while your main fleet takes planets. Theoretically speaking you could customize your opponents by setting up a lan game with x human players. Then disconnect all but x-1 players, leaving you with AI controlled custom races. Don't ask me what difficulty level those newly AI players are at. Going maximum ground combat is a paradox. To really get everything out of it you need to be telepathic, for the instant control of boarded ships. But then you never use your troops for actually invading planets.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:42
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habituallyred posted:telepathic, for the instant control of boarded ships
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Jun 14, 2019 11:13
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Pierzak posted:Does it work on Antarans? I believe it does. Telepathic is very strong. Not only that you can instantly seize any enemy colony (as long as they are not telepathic themselves), those people don't need to assimilate. This can really snowball if you're aggressive enough.
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Jun 14, 2019 11:26
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