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PurpleXVI posted:It's only a war crime if anyone's left alive to take you to war court. It's only a war crime if you lose. Edit: Update on last page.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:07
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Match the Master: 2419, Part II     Terraforming finished. Seems we get one or two of these every year these days.       No impending invasion for the first time in I think a decade or so; just boring buildup now.     Adding systems to the research effort is nearly a thing of the past - but here's one now as Matrix 151 has caught up on industry.          I am really frankly shocked that no ships have come here. Usually you get rid of Recons and it opens the floodgates. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Several Radiated/Uninhabitables have gotten visits, which is hilarious.    First cleanup efforts here must now begin.   Planets like this one stand a real chance of not maxing out by the end of the war.  Chances of an attack here seem virtually nil, but procedure and all that.    Almost to the point of having to add to the factories we captured here.  2419 The attack on Sol was both predictable and sad - their missiles bounced off our hulls like so many pebbles. Meanwhile we see that the Meklar are strapped for population units, with only 19M at Helos.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:03
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How much of a setback would it be if an amoeba or a crystal wandered into the galaxy right now, knock on wood? How would that fight go?
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Jan 26, 2019 02:00
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A good point. It depends on where it came in but it would mess things up pretty well I think. I don't have enough missile bases or tech really to be confident against it - I'd have to rally a significant part of the fleet and probably take a fair number of losses, then rebuild/send them back to where they came from. Could well add on another 15 years to the game. If this happens … I'm blaming you. Just want you know that up front, because it's an excellent thing to be concerned about - although I don't think I've seen them this 'early' - and it wasn't even on my mental radar.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:22
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Match the Master: 2420, Part I We're really crushing the opposition now. The Bulrathi tried to keep up with shipbuilding, but they've had to stop now at least for the moment and our fleet has no rivals any more in the big picture. Meanwhile the tech situation has gotten silly and will get more so, ditto for pretty much everything else. The purpose of this screen for the rest of the game will just be to document how pathetic everyone else is in comparison to the glorious Borg Empire.  With none of the other races fighting each other, we can't even get any 'enemy of my enemy' relations boosts. Not that it really matters.  ** Psilons - 9, +1 ** Bulrathi - 3 ** Meklar - 2, -1 ** Mrrshan - 2 ** Humans - 2, -2 If a planet is held by another race, there's a 50-50 shot it's Psilons. Despite their size though, I think only Mentar is really fully-developed. The Humans will be gone soon, allowing us to focus our efforts in that lower-left area.  New fuel cells allowing us to invade pretty much anywhere we wish are now in prototype phase. Soon atmostpheric terraforming will join. Those two should come soon enough to aid the war effort - I may well get drastic with yanking funding out of research after that.  Over 150 of the new Horseman destroyer in just three years, and that should only accelerate. Not bad. We now have enough ships to absorb 60.7% of the Guardian's Scatter Pack alpha strikes. By 2425 we should be able to handle all of it, and after that build the ships that will survive further to bring the mechanical monster down.  Collective Data, GY 2420 ** Matrices - 74 of 94 (+2) ** Operational Drones - 4.155 billion (+513M) ** Production - 17,410 BC (+3098) ** Projected Completion Year - 2453 (+2) A pretty sharp drop in population growth was observed and is likely to continue to be the trend: a 'mere' half-billion additions and just 14%. We're finally starting to show the signs of beginning to fill up. A smaller decline in economic growth, but it was a ways under 22% so the same effect is being seen there. It took a mere 80-90 years of constant breakneck growth for the Borg to grow to dominate the galaxy. The Final Act We seem to be at a natural transition point, with the final era of this run anticipated to be a period of uninterrupted conquest. Over the course of the past decade, the end-game logistics have become an increasingly nagging thought in the back of my mind. Now they must become the primary concern. It's probably self-evident, but I need to take Orion at least a year before the final rival colony - otherwhise the game ends before I can colonize Orion and that would not fit the goals of the challenge. Synchronizing those two tasks is a matter of significant complications though. The travel times required to reach the far edge of the galaxy and capture those targets, then get enough of the fleet back to take down the Guardian, are definitely non-trivial matters. The way the AI flits its fleet about in useless counterattacks will still interere with and delay death-spore attacks. At the moment, I'm still leaning towards massed construction of the Horseman, but there may come a time to tweak that in order to reach the goal. More critical though will be the distribution of the fleet throughout the galaxy, particularly since correcting it takes a lot of travel. I think right now the projection is pretty accurate: I expect to finish sometime between 2450 and 2460. As the matrices continue to fill up, planetary micromanagement will continue a gradual decline, but may largely be replaced by combat fleet micro. Hostile Action Report It was an active year, and the casualty numbers turned overwhelmingly in our favor. The last time we lost a significant amount was a few years ago in the conquest of Pollus. Operation Guava has, in general, had the desired effects. Grand Totals so far: ** Meklar: 40M killed, 51M Borg Drones KIA. 8 Meklar cruisers & 16 destroyers destroyed, with 3 Borg Missile Bases lost and 5 factories. ** Psilons: 114M killed, 92M Borg Drones KIA. 11 Psilon destroyers, 1 fighter, and 1 missile base destroyed, no Borg space casualties. ** Mrrshan: 5 cruisers and 17 fighters destroyed, no Borg space casualties. ** Humans: 258M killed, 162M Borg Drones KIA. 16 Human missile bases, 28 factories destroyed as well, with the loss of 1 Borg destroyer. ** Guardian: Still alive; 3 Borg Recons destroyed ** 9M drones lost to exposure. ** Total: 412M troops killed, 314M losses sustained. 13 cruisers, 27 destroyers, 18 fighters, 17 missile bases, and 28 factories destroyed; Borg losses are limited to 3 fighters, 1 destroyer, 3 missile bases, and 5 factories so far. Ground combat numbers are now in our favor, with the space results continuing to be laughably so. I see no reason for those trends to not continue, though Bulrathi opposition will probably cause us some additional fleet casualties. Human Front  It'll be a few years before we can pull ships away from Trax completely,, due to the slow-moving incoming humans. Meanwhile, terraforming efforts should catch up to the drone population this year.  Three years for the transport convoy to get here as well. The human tech backwardness is actually working against us here for once.  These will return later, but right now the closest enemy ships are four years away. Maalor needs to be 'prepared' for the arrival of our invasion convoy.  Time to relocate our bombers to where they are needed - there are no more bases in Human space.   Getting Guavinators to the other side of the galaxy is crucial enough that I might invest in building some out there. Either way, these will head out that direction.  This should be the final invasion convoy of the Human campaign. We ought to have just enough time to sanitize the remaining population on their homeworld before these drones arrive. They will reach Sol the same year that our troops from the other direction get to Maalor, finishing off all remaining resistance in this sector. Psilon Front  We are poised to finally smash Zhardan with the massed transport arrival this year, and also strike from the sky at the Psilon homeworld. After that, it is hoped that we'll be able to split up and hit multiple targets - but that depends on how they react.  We'll need these in place soon as well.  MeklarFront  The Meklar have still not retaken Matrix 162. It's time to chase them off and reclaim it. I don't think we have enough ships in place to survive the missile barrage their fleet would send our way ... yet. In a few years though, it'll be time to smash their core systems.         Redirecting ships to the Meklar front here, since going to the primary staging area at Matrix128 involves going through a couple of nebulas.  
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Jan 26, 2019 22:26
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Match the Master: 2420, Part II   Not quite a straight-shot to the Psilon front - there'll be a stop-over at Matrix 126.  Intense drone fabrication is much less common now, but I'll still use it where needed.     For the moment, I'll be able to get ships into the action a bit faster by not sending them all the way up to Matrix 128.     The start of the terraforming section has been here for a while, and it looks like it's staying for now.    First terraforming 'graduate' of the year.           
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Jan 27, 2019 21:19
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Match the Master: 2420, Part III          This year or next will finish up terraforming here.           Cleaning up almost as much waste as we're producing each year here now.  Catching up after one of those surprising growth spurts.  Also in the middle of cleaning up some, but not all of the waste.   Weird burst from 4M to 6M last year.  First bits of waste creeping in here.   2420 Lots of action pushes this year's video documentation to over six minutes. Zhardan and Matrix 162 join the empire - rejoining in the second case, as the Meklar had left the system again. That brings our target number down to 18 more systems. We lose a few of our older destroyers against the Humans at Trax, but manage to get the Psilons to shoot at retreating groups at Mentar and that battle goes without casualties on our side - had one, maybe even two too many bombers so the planet took slightly more damage than necessary but the defenses have been crushed. And we capture Dotomite Crystals (Range 7), halfway between what we have now and the fuel cells we are finishing up. Not what I wanted, but their homeworld should prove more fruitful. Maalor was the weird one. It lost a bunch of population without our help, presumably some kind of emergency spending that was done with a bunch of waste accumulating. Or perhaps they tried to launch a bunch of transports that we shot down. In either case, the Guavinators weren't necessary and will just move on. It was a highly successful year at any rate.
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Jan 28, 2019 23:14
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Match the Master: 2421, Part I While I normally stay away from genocide due to the diplomatic penalty, in this game it will unquestionably be a net positive. It'll even shrink this list and lower our spying expense a bit. Human Front   Two years until all the counterattacks at these systems are resolved; a third until our invasions at Maalor and Sol take place to wrap things up, and enemy ships are rerouting to those as well. Not many of them though - they don't have much left.   We also need to cut down on the resistance at the human homeworld, the last task in this sector before the fleet moves on completely.  Four human destroyers, Corvette class, will arrive at Maalor the same time as our invasion group does. There's no need to concern ourselves with Sol, as the nearest human ships will be too late to intercept there before we take it over. I now see no use to further ships at all beyond what it is already here. Remaining producers will all be re-routed elsewhere. Psilon Front  30+ Psilon destroyers, some of them their newer variety whose capabilities are not yet known, are inbound from Mentar. Meanwhile 12M troops will be here next year. A significant fleet presence will be necessary to meet these threats. We have 20 destroyers in orbit right now ...  The ships incoming to our nearby staging center should be more than sufficient. That will allow the rest of the fleet, at Mentar, to continue carrying out offensive operations.  Rigel seems clearly the best source for the attack on the Psilon homeworld. I also like the poetic idea of using their own territory against them.  I debated a while with myself about whether to split our forces here. Mentar itself is a fine; only one slow-moving colony ship is incoming there, so we can leave the Guavinators to do their deadly business there. Fierias has 5 cruisers which are likely wimpy and I'd expect around a dozen hilariously inadequate missile bases. The Bulrathi have three cruisers of unknown capability at Nordia ... but eight more incoming, most of which are their newest variant. Those probably mount either Ion Cannons, potentially heavy ones, or their latest missiles. In other words, we're going to take losses there if they choose to resist. It seems wise to hit them as hard as we can. The time to divide our forces has not yet come, at least until we cut their fleet down to size. The resulting group at Nordia will contain 11 of the 26 cruisers that show on our sensors, not including colony ships. A chance to take out basically half of their fleet away from Ursa should definitely be seized, and if they run we will of course just settle for the planet itself. Meklar Front I'm naming these of course for the most significant enemy in the respective region of space, this being the galactic left.  This isn't Meklar at all; another of those newer Bulrathi cruisers is coming here. In 10 years, so we needn't exactly fret. By then I'll be well aware of their capabilities and able to have an appropriate number of ships remain.  In the meantime, I want to take back something else which was once ours. The Meklar took it, then the Psilons, and they are still squabbling. Let's end that disagreement. Five Meklar cruisers are en route, and in a couple of years all of our ships in this region of space will rendezvous to 'greet' them.   All we could spare from here, but it should be enough. None of this would be possible without the recolonizing of Matrix 162, which brought this within range. Guavinator rerouting from human space will take another six years, and this gives the fleet something useful to do while awaiting their arrival.  Analysis I don't feel that we have 'extra' ships anywhere - the buildup has definitely not happened to soon and overwhelming force is the best way to reduce casualties I think. Our casualties that is. At the moment, four invasions are underway. As has happened with humanity, we'll need a significant amount of defensive fleets for a time to beat back any relief task forces they send. I expect a certain ebb and flow to happen due to those requirements. A big question that I spent some time considering is whether to build more Ranger bomber-cruisers on the Meklar front. We only have one there at the moment, and those being re-routed from the Human front are all heading to be used against the Bulrathi. Right now I think I'm better off using the fleet to hit the undefended, scattered Psilon systems out here - and securing those gains against any counterattacks - than building up more ships to hit the more fortified Meklar systems at Meklon and Helos. I'm not certain though, and I may revisit this course of action.    One of the last to stop sending ships to the human front. I also decided it was time to get rid of the bases around human space since, even if they decided to try to attack us with what little they have left, their ships wouldn't reach us before we extinguish their light from the galaxy. Of course that means presuming victory, but I don't see any reason why that shouldn't be foregone at this point. So we've got multi-purpose screenshots here, and I was also a bit curious if you get any scrap for the reserve for bases like you do for ships. It turns out you do - 166 BC in this case or 26 and change per base. Of course if I was REALLY wanting to do this optimally and being completely particular about doing so, I would go around and scrap all the bases before I adjusted the planetary sliders - but we're talking about maintenance costs of just over 1% now. Less after the scrapping. Yeah, I can't be bothered to do that and split this year into even more updates. It'll be close enough.      The only reason I'll need to show Matrix 109 again is to switch up what ship is being built, barring some further terraforming increase or something. Population is almost full and factories just maxed out. This will start happening at more and more systems, allowing me to stop tweaking as many sliders each turn.  Same situation here.      Altogether, these eliminated bases reduced maintenance levels from 1.2% to 0.9%. About 55 BC per year, roughly, was saved in an economy that produces 18k annually.        
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Jan 30, 2019 04:42
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I have to admit I'm actually a bit surprised by how little resistance the rest of the galaxy has provided, despite being united against you.
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Jan 30, 2019 13:26
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Presumably if Thotimx triggered Final War the war situation would be more interesting. Though it looks like we're going to see a drastic shortening of the front lines in short order.
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Jan 30, 2019 15:57
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Final war might help some, but I think it has more to do with how early it is in the game. We've seen the AI consistently not being comfortable with being particularly aggressive until they get to midlevel tech close to 200 years in, and this is going to be over well before that. Attacking someone with superior technology when the balance is still tilted towards defense instead of aggression isn't easy.
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Jan 30, 2019 22:22
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Match the Master: 2421, Part II         Nearing the end of terraforming for another of those small systems that sucks less now ... but still sucks.            Terraforming just finished here.  It's almost a decade from here to anywhere useful, but there's little choice.        Power up the drone vats.      I wonder how far some of these frontier worlds will ever get before this adventure ends.    Time to start adding more factories here. 2421 Fighting in various areas. At Zhardan, we destroyed all 12M incoming transports with ease; chased off a ship at Mentar, and are awaiting a chance to deploy the death spores; and killed 48M humans at Sol, 2M per launcher this time. I wonder if that was the upper limit, or if more are possible? At Nordia, we lost 17 destroyers to the Bulrathi and in retrospect we shouldn't have lost most of those. Had I retreated the Pegasus group sooner, it would have only been 4. Their new Warbear destroyers clearly do mount the Heavy Ion Cannon, but not a huge amount of them. They aren't as much of a threat as the bases are, and once in range our Rangers handled them easily. I had about twice as many as were needed. It's interesting their bases preferred to target the Pegasus instead of the Ranger. I found them to be quite useful decoys, and will probably utilize that role again @ Ursa. Given that, I don't think we need any more bombers beyond what we already have coming ...
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Jan 30, 2019 22:23
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Did you ever post how to scrap missile bases? You mentioned at the beginning of the LP that it is in fact possible to do, but I don't remember you doing it until this run. This is how, for anyone that's curious. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion/Obscure_Interface_Features
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Jan 31, 2019 19:52
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Don't know if I did, but that's a very useful link. That and the spy report (C key) definitely appear to have been added to the interface as an afterthought. They work though.
Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Jan 31, 2019 22:27
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Match the Master: 2422, Part I Human Front   Both of these systems should be secure after this year.  Their work here is done. Two years until our final invasions land. Unless the humans build new ships/bases in that time ... unlikely with their decimated populations ... this is over. It will take almost a decade to reach the Meklar theatre.  This is probably unnecessary, but I've got to do something with them and I'm not certain about the upcoming battle at Trax. PsilonFront  A significant portion of the Psilon fleet is still headed here, while on the surface the remaining ecological damage is being cleaned up.  50 destroyers are already in place, but I want overwhelming force to ensure losses are minimal.  I'm playing the odds here in a couple ways. Mentar is down to 38M population, so I'm leaving three Guavinators behind. If our effectiveness with the Death Spores continues to increase, that's the most I can use and not kill everyone. On the other hand, if it regresses or they manage to belch out another ship, we'll be putting the incoming drone convoy from Rigel at risk. These kinds of calculated risk assessments will continue. Meanwhile, we have a window to kill some Bulrathi at Nordia this year, and I don't want to miss it.  We've plenty of ships down here, so we might as well contribute to the defence with these.  Next target up. Taking all the bombers due to this being a homeworld, and we should be able to smash the handful of cruisers in orbit with ease. Unaccountably, Mrrshan military technology remains a sad joke. Victory seems assured.  They'll be put to use either here or further on at the kitty-origin system.  By sending these now, they'll arrive between a pair Bulrathi task forces set to reach Nordia two and four years from now. Thankfully, Bulrathi space weaponry is far better than their ground combat tech, in which they can rely on nothing more than their legendary brute strength. This may well be overdoing it some on the invasion group, but I want to make sure we have enough. I expect a 3:1 kill ratio against barring any changes, so we still need to reduce their numbers to about 12-15M or less in order for this to work.  MeklarFront  A relatively small detachment should be able to deal with the incoming cruiser, when it eventually shows up.  The fleet will hit nearby Matrix 161 this year to clear the airspace, with the drones due to arrive one cycle later. Elsewhere, we continue to gather ships gradually, contemplating other attacks as the opportunity presents itself.   Convinced that we have sufficient numbers of the ancillary designs already deployed, the Borg Empire shifts all matrices that weren't already thus engaged to build nothing but the Horseman. Already we have more of them than we have built of any other class - 273. I expect that number to exceed a thousand eventually.   The Psilons are on the run, and the Mrrshan lack the range to reach us. Besides, if any of them did want to try, our ships are fast enough to get here before they do. So another base bites the dust.       
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Feb 3, 2019 10:44
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Match the Master: 2422, Part II The latest to max out on factories - and soon drones as well.    I could probably be safe in eliminating bases even from systems like these the way the war is going, but I'll opt for keeping the fleet focused on the attack and wait a very little longer.  Two years, probably a bit more, will be required to replenish our numbers.   These systems have only one purpose left; researching unneeded technology. Well two I guess, when you consider every matrix is valuable in paying taxes to support the starfleet.     Another one gone here. It seems obvious that nobody will develop Radiated landings in this game. They aren't going to be around long enough.  New ships will start heading back up to the main headquarters now.  Another 'nobody can land here' purging.  Same situation here, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger yet. Matrix 129 is in the middle of the chaotic left of the galaxy. Too much flying around to be sure of reinforcing it if they do something weird.   This forever journey is almost there - I think Matrix 131 will top out at 55M pop, maybe 60 at most.        Looks like we're about to top out at 85M here.  A year after the sister matrix here at Matrix 145, who just finished.  
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Feb 3, 2019 23:16
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Match the Master: 2422, Part III   Done building missile bases here. Unlike most systems, they did actually see action. Once.     Defences are complete here, allowing an extra destroyer.  A second terraforming success story for this turn.           Growth spurt.    Soon this will be our latest barely-existing ship facility.     Not far from being a notable contributor to the Borg economic machine. 2422 Some definite weirdness there. Not surprised at all to see the AI fleeing in the first couple of battles, though I always though it was kind of pointless in situations like Trax. You're going to be floating through space when we reach the command center on Sol and hit the self-destruct button, or remotely void the life support on your ships, or whatever. Why not go out in a blaze of glory?? Then the Psilons lost 28M people from Mentar, perhaps because of previous ecological damage, negating any need for bombardment. The Mrrshans at Fierias tried to vary their targeting on the missiles between destroyer groups, and took out a few of ours but once again it was over for them when the Rangers reached orbit. Very disappointing results at Nordia. That's only 0.5M per launcher. Note that every time it's been in exact multiples of that -- 1, 1.5, 2, then 0.5. I'm only going to get one more shot at it before the drones arrive - and I need better results than that. I am going to assume for now that 2M is the max though. And at the end - I've never seen a pop-up for transports being destroyed, then a GNN report, then back to more pop-ups. So that's a bit of news in the order of between-turn reporting. You can still find new quirks after all this time. 78 destroyers this year. How long before we break the annual century mark, and how high will it go? Our range research is nice as well, though we're quite unlikely to get the Ion Drives.
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Feb 4, 2019 20:54
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How does the orderly mind of the Borg feel about Matrix170 being disorderly by missing that one space?
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Feb 4, 2019 21:55
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PurpleXVI posted:How does the orderly mind of the Borg feel about Matrix170 being disorderly by missing that one space? Abandon and recolonize! (I'm assuming that doesn't work)
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Feb 5, 2019 00:12
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Yeah you actually can't abandon a colony of your own. There's no way to unleash bioweapons on your own population, you can only transfer half of them off (rounding down), so you can't ever get rid of the last million of them, etc. I made a bad joke about that system some while back, but basically - these Borg pursue perfection but there are some bugs to work out. It's far from the only mistake I've made. The linguistic subprocessor configuration algorithm was not properly calibrated (insert your own bad fake Trekkie sciencish-sounding technobabble if you don't like that one). But you know, 71 out of 72 isn't that terrible.
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Feb 5, 2019 06:28
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Thotimx posted:I made a bad joke about that system some while back, but basically - these Borg pursue perfection but there are some bugs to work out. Well, they are Klackons.
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Feb 5, 2019 16:52
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Match the Master: 2423, Part I No point on spying on the Humans any more; by this time next year they won't exist. Sometime in the recent past, the Psilons & Bulrathi formed a nearly-irrelevant alliance. Human Front  Time for the rest ships in this area to relocate en masse ... almost all of them.   Four human destroyers will reach Maalor next year, as our transports arrive at both systems.  Psilon Front  The Psilon destroyers will reach Zhardan this year as well. We should outnumber them about 4:1.   Mentar should fall this year as well. Elsewhere though, things are less certain. The main fleet returns to Nordia to deal with a couple more incoming Bulrathi cruisers, and other fleet gymnastics ensue.    All of that is to arrange things so we can deploy bioweapons against the Mrrshan homeworld.  I'm purposefully sending these from further away, to ensure we have time to lower the population enough in case of poor casualty results like we saw at Nordia.  Next big thing is to hit Ursa. I've thought about diverting the fleet up to get Primodious, the other Mrrshan system, or to go somewhere else. I don't think I've got the time. I may hit another target somewhere in this area once things clear out, but dealing with the Bulrathi immediately definitely seems best. Meklar Front  The wait continues.  Both the Meklar and Psilons have incoming troop convoys here. We'll be waiting to introduce them to the void of space.   Meanwhile, I feel a need to prepare for expanding our attack in other directions. A single destroyer will be sent to ascertain the situation on all hostile worlds - a lot of retreating and redirection will probably be necessary, but this will help with directing transports and larger task forces to push our offensive further. There will likely be situations eventually where we can simply send in transports without involving bombardment efforts.       The only systems not covered are Ursa, Meklon, and Helos - and we have recent intel on those, with planetary scanners close enough to tell what ships are in orbit. Advanced Space Scanners are still coming eventually, but that research is only about half finished and I don't have enough time to wait that long. Tour of the Matrices   
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Feb 5, 2019 21:37
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Match the Master: 2423, Part II           Maxed out on industry, Matrix 125 joins the ranks of those we can basically leave along to churn out ships.               
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Feb 6, 2019 21:54
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We're having a relatively mild - by local standards - ice storm. But ice on branches + winds = downed power lines, so the several hours of being without power today that we 'enjoyed' may be only the beginning. If I disappear for a few days, that'll be why. Match the Master: 2423, Part III  We're about at the two-thirds point, probably more, in having terraformed the empire now.   As expected, terraforming is now done here.                There are still growing pains out on the frontier, but only in shrinking pockets.        2423 Lots of goings-on here. Lots of retreating enemies - I thought a couple of those battles they might try to fight at Zhardan and maybe even Nordia, but nope. The light of the Humans has officially gone out in the galaxy. Four more genocides remaining. The one annoying part was the Mrrshan cruiser at Fierias - but that's why we gave ourselves extra time with the transports. The fleet will need to go chase that away. Huge tech reap at Mentar. The choice whether to reduce Eco spending was a catch-22. If I do, then nobody terraforms. If I don't, developed systems waste money as they did, with some going into reserve. There wasn't a perfect answer and I could have gone either way with it. Getting Robotics III is obviously a big one that we've been looking for quite a while - we'll have a brief diversion for industrial expansion. Our moderate waste cleanup costs will be slashed to 40% of what they were with Enhanced Eco - nice to get those two together instead of just having to bite the bullet on the eco budget. Hand Lasers + PDS will really help our troops do better, particularly in the upcoming tango with the Bulrathi. We lose 20M troops to exposure on Maalor, but that's gets a big 'who cares' in the grand scheme. Might have had some at Mentar as well. Either way, that's three more systems joining the Borg conglomerate, and we can see victory in the distance now at 15 systems to go.
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Feb 8, 2019 10:18
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Something Buggy This Way Comes A special report, brought to you by the GPFC (Guava Plan Fan Club). I suspected strangeness afoot at Maalor and Mentar. Now I've assembled proof. Once is a coincidence, twice is a trend, thrice ... well, you know.  Nordia, GY 2423. You may recall that the previous year, Guavinator bombardment reduced the population by 12M bear souls. Note that the habitability rating has dropped by the same amount. Also, when doing manual drops in the combat phase - as opposed to bombardment, remember how the habitability dropped a lot faster than the population. That doesn't happen here with bombardment.  Or ... does it? This is the next year, GY 2424. No bombardment happened, no attack of any kind. See the 2423 video for proof.  It's not waste, as you can see here. So what is going on? Well, either the ships are lowering the maximum population simply by being in orbit (nope, because there's been no change in that multiple times when they are just hanging out with other ships), or there is a one-year delay on the 'extra' reduction after a bombing. Why? Uh ... beats the heck out of me. But this means that next year Nordia won't have jack for population as they will have all died of residual radiation or what-have-you. This explains what happened with the previously-mentioned planets. Sol never got down to the minimum, so it may be a combination of the two; keeping the Guavinators in orbit(but not bombarding) a year after the initial attack may be having some effect. Dunno for sure, but I do know this - I must do more SCIENCE, and this is not working the way it's supposed to. Didn't have any of this when we got hit by Silicoid death spores in the main LP games on Impossible.
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Feb 8, 2019 10:19
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Congratulations on the first successful full assimilation! Maybe keeping the Guavinators in orbit after they initially bombarded has the game treat them as if they were still bombarding the next turn? Something like a bombardment flag not being reset between turns if you don't change the fleet composition in orbit?
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Feb 8, 2019 16:21
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That was a real treasure trove of tech you got there. I wonder how large the production boost will be when you've finished upgrading the factories.
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Feb 8, 2019 17:50
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Hooray for robotics.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:06
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Decoy Badger posted:Maybe keeping the Guavinators in orbit after they initially bombarded has the game treat them as if they were still bombarding the next turn? Something like a bombardment flag not being reset between turns if you don't change the fleet composition in orbit? Yeah the thing that's weird is it isn't really acting like anything that would make sense even under these assumptions. No more population was lost - the planetary max just went way down - so its not like another round bombardment. And the combat ships returned so … main question I have at the moment is whether it still happens if the Guavinators leave. DTurtle posted:I wonder how large the production boost will be when you've finished upgrading the factories. 22.8%, which works out to a little over 4.5k annual production. That's just from this, all other things being equal. We have Planetology TL 23, so we get 1 + 1.38 or 2.38 production per 1M population as Klackons. +2 each for the factories everywhere they are built, and that means 4.38 per 1M population total. Now it'll go up to 5.38. It's sizable but not huge in other words.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:24
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I've kind of noticed this problem too in my games, so let's theorycraft. It's certainly the case that when you take over a planet that's been attacked with bioweapons, you have a lot of waste to clean up. I have three ideas: -Is this waste caused by the bioweapons themselves? -Or maybe the excess factories are somehow still working and polluting without providing actual production? -Either way, maybe the AI just doesn't know how to handle having waste around above what factories should produce, doesn't clean it up, and that's making it worse the next year? But then of course Nordia isn't showing any waste. My money is to believe that that is a mistake.
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Feb 9, 2019 02:30
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Well, none of the planets I've taken over have actually had waste accumulations.  Maalor, also GY 2424, the current turn. Human system we just took over. No waste to clean up, but the population ceiling down to 10 per usual. It needs terraforming to boost it back up. Mentar etc. also behaved this way.
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Feb 9, 2019 02:38
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Measured in screenshot count, this was the longest year to date, by a good margin. Buckle up. Match the Master: 2424, Part I  And then there were four - and two fronts left in the war, more importantly.  The final ships leave what used to be Human-controlled space. Psilon Front  The Psilon destroyers that fled at Zhardan are on their way back here. It'll be a long build on the surface as well.  The Mrrshans still don't have anything that can threaten our defences, but they're coming back regardless. No doubt this is an emotional lashing-out as their leader demands they DO SOMETHING(tm) about our attack on Fierias. Also, get used to the refitting, because almost all the matrices are going to be doing that for at least a year.  We need to get rid of that cruiser the kitties built, and several more Bulrathi ones are incoming to Nordia so I don't want to move our largest concentration of ships too far away just yet.  Why don't you stick around.  Most of you anyway. There'll be a dozen here next year which should be enough. The Mrrshan fleet leaving gives us a chance to knock out Primodius, possibly before they get back, without facing their 200+ fighters among other things. That's a chance I intend to take. It's also good to start splitting things up a bit.  Ensuring the Psilons have no more success here. I'd like to split up our ships more, and maybe I should. Just don't feel comfortable doing it just yet. And really I don't think we gain anything by it until we have the scouting info we need to invade more systems.  A single Warcat cruiser is all that is en route here, and they have a pair of missile bases. We should easily be able to take those out.  Continuing to mass our Rangers towards Ursa.  Realistically speaking, we have four years to take Primodius. It'll take two more years for the Mrrshan fleet to reach Matrix 118, then three years to come back. I want this to be over before then. That'll give us two years of Guava attacks. A relative minimum of damage should be needed, as our troops will have a significant tech edge. If we pull this off, no counterattack will need to be considered - we'll capture Fierias the same year, so both of the feline's holdings will go at the same time, with their fleet uselessly travelling through space. I rather like that idea. It makes Matrix 116 the perfect distance from which to launch the invasion.  Scouts report that Escalon has 19 out of 25M max population, no bases, and no ships nearby save one - a colony ship headed away from the system on a trip that will take it more than a decade. It's totally ripe for the picking, and this won't be enough. Matrix 150 should have enough population to wear them down though; we ought to take out half of them or a little more in this first wave.  I've decided it's time to name this system - Gorra will be the last holdout, reserved until we take Orion. The reason for choosing this location is that it is the closest. I don't want to push the fleet out to more and more remote locations at the end, but rather to be bringing it back from those and gathering more centrally to be relocated easier. I will still attack here, but will simply knock the system down to a minimal population and keep a small fleet garrison to ensure it stays that way, while conquering the surrounding territory. I don't think there's anywhere we could get to Orion quicker from in terms of a final hostile target. Meklar Front  The Meklar are sending their colony ships and destroyers here now. We wouldn't have enough to defend both this and Matrix 161 - except that they are really slow and won't get here for four years. The plan then is to focus on the 161 invasion, then shift much of the fleet here to defend.  Still, let's gather what we can right now.   Everything else keeps going here. Analysis We're approaching the peak of offensive operations against the 'lesser races' of the Orion Galaxy. Invasions are currently underway against Matrix 161, Nordia, Escalon, Fierias, and Primodius. That's a full third of the systems we don't currently control. The end is coming for the pretenders to the galactic crown, and it is coming very soon indeed. All of them will share humanity's fate. Tour of the Matrices It's time to refit. And refit. And refit. And refit some more when we're done with that.  Shipbuilding will cease entirely, though not for long. Refitting costs are 2.5 BC per existing factory; 5 each at starting tech levels, so we're grateful for the improvements we've made in industrial tech. You can also see the reduced ecological 'overhead'.   We'll stick with research on Artifact/Poor/Ultra Poor worlds for now, because of the importance of Atmospheric Terraforming and the fact that its completion is imminent. Once it comes in, resources will shift to industrial refitting.           
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Feb 9, 2019 03:12
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Maybe the population change for the lowered planet capacity isn’t taken into account until the next turn?
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Feb 9, 2019 04:03
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Match the Master: 2424, Part II  Another exception, as we need to get the population back up before joining the Refitting Parade.  Even the best planets will do nothing but refit, aside from the minimal waste cleanup required.                  Holding down the fort with more research.           
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Feb 9, 2019 21:59
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Match the Master: 2424, Part III   Just finished terraforming here IIRC.  I want to make sure we get enough population quickly to capture Escalon.                Time for that wonderful word granularity again. I'll try to use it correctly this time. Our reduced waste costs make it much less useful to do the whole 'permissible waste' deal, or rather shorten the period of a planet's growth cycle that it's useful in. Here at Matrix 167 we have less than two clicks worth of cleanup effort now, so that time is over.  Last year of terraforming.  Less than two segments even here, as low granularity strikes again.       The 'named matrices' section is starting to get longer now.    We'll either finish up terraforming here as well, or get really close to it.  2424 Despite our research efforts being dropped nearly in half, we still snag Atmospheric Terraforming. That effort will ensure there is plenty of micromanagement to be done on the hostile planets for the forseeable future. Matrix 161 and Nordia both fall to Borg troops as well, and we reach another of the spread-out Psilon worlds in Crius so we'll be able to target that.
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Feb 10, 2019 21:28
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Hooray for Atmo terraforming. One of my favorite techs.
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Feb 11, 2019 02:06
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Seems like Final War might as well be started by now, it would save some tedious waiting at the galactic councils.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:40
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Decoy Badger posted:Seems like Final War might as well be started by now, it would save some tedious waiting at the galactic councils. In Final War everyone else shares tech, right? That means the Bulrathi would get the Psilons' extensive ground combat technology, which would be super-obnoxious.
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Feb 12, 2019 06:03
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I'm not sure how serious/tongue-in-cheek the comment really was. I touch on this in the upcoming year but basically I don't expect any more Council votes. Since I'm getting one roughly every two IRL months or so, it's about the last thing I'd consider tedious. Many other things are, but that's not on my personal tedium checklist. Practically speaking, I agree with Manxome Bromide - we'd also be giving some races better missile tech than they have, etc. We're about at the point where it just doesn't matter anyway, but I definitely prefer the current situation to Final War.
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Feb 12, 2019 07:50
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I'll be very surprised if this year doesn't end up as the longest update of the game. You'll see why as things unfold, but I decided to dip back into doing some reserve payments along with a five-year review and every other darned thing going on. As a result, we will being splitting this behemoth up into FOUR parts. Match the Master: 2425, Part I  *Yawn*. Forgot to mention the Council last year, but that was the last vote we'll see I'm quite sure. At most, Meklar and Psilons will still be around. And probably not the first one of that pair, which means no new voting. Also was amused that we had enough votes to win with half of them tied behind our back; everyone else went Psilon who could garner only 8 combined. In a Huge galaxy.  I may very well not need to invest in keep spies in the Mrrshan network. Quite probably I don't. But they aren't dead yet, so I'll do it for at least one more year.  ** Psilons - 6, -3 ** Meklar - 2, -1 ** Bulrathi - 2, -1 ** Mrrshan - 2 Another indication that the pretense of resistance has waved bye-bye. Only about a third of the galaxy is now even nominally contested with the elimination of Human presence.  Pushing 700 destroyers now. It would take about 1,983 of the Guardian's missiles, or 88% of its complement, to destroy them. So we're almost there - but I expected to reach that threshold by now. Getting the factories is the main thing that happened, but we did take some minor losses that impacted as well. The Horseman was originally 120 BC; down somewhat now, and the maintenance savings are starting to become significant with the sheer numbers we are throwing out there. The main takeaway here for me though is that we definitely need to keep pumping out as many ships as possible. We may be plowing through the other empires pretty quickly, but we are not yet nearly ready to take Orion.  I see no good reason to change the investment ratios here, and intend to continue spending this way through the end of the game. Very little that we are researching here is relevant except in terms of cost/space reduction. However, I am toying with the idea of building one final ship, perhaps a mass driver-equipped fighter, once we get those in to further miniaturize. The recent 'acquisitions' from the Psilons allowed us to make that possible ... but not yet practical, given that we can't put a decent battle computer on it. Depends on how much more we can gain.  Collective Data, GY 2425 ** Matrices - 81 of 94 (+7) ** Operational Drones - 4.789 billion (+684M) ** Production - 23,254 BC (+5844) ** Projected Completion Year - GY 2446 (-7) Down to just 13 systems left to conquer. If our pace of the past few years were to continue, we'd get this done in a decade. Clearly that won't happen, another indication that growing the fleet big enough to handle the Guardian is probably going to be the last thing we get done. Populaton growth is at 14%, exactly what it was during the last report - still growing at a somewhat reduced rate due to some systems filling up, at least relative to our current tech. Economic growth however is a different story, spiking to over a third (33.6%) thanks both to the robotics advance that we are working on and several new systems joining the Empire. This has kept military maintenance from growing too far - still less than 8% of our budget goes to that effort. I still think we'll end up on the north side of 2450 by time this is done, but that all depends on just how many ships we can pump out once our two economic boosters have run their course. The projection is down to just over two decades though - we are closing in. Hostile Action Report Updated totals are below. In general, the biggest winner was the morgue. Well over a billion lives have been terminated in this war. When you consider that the galactic population, at least in terms of work force or whatever is represented, is less than 6 billion, that's a significant percentage of it. Almost 30% of our losses have been due to exposure, including 91M at Zhardan in 2420. The next year we lost 17 destroyers at Nordia against the Bulrathi, and 10 more the year after that against the Mrrshan @ Fierias. That constitutes the bulk of our space combat losses in the entirety of the war to date. Of course, things are going much worse for our enemies. ** Meklar: 40M killed, 51M Borg Drones KIA. 8 Meklar cruisers & 16 destroyers destroyed, with 3 Borg Missile Bases lost and 5 factories. ** Psilons: 151M killed, 125M Borg Drones KIA. 11 Psilon destroyers, 1 fighter, and 13 missile bases destroyed, no Borg space casualties. ** Mrrshan: 11 cruisers, 17 fighters, and 11 missile bases destroyed, with the loss of 10 Borg destroyers ** Humans: 378M killed, 173M Borg Drones KIA. 16 Human missile bases, 28 factories destroyed as well. 3 cruisers, 6 destroyers with the loss of 4 Borg destroyers. ** Bulrathi: 25M killed, 18M Borg Drones KIA. 8 cruisers, 4 missile bases destroyed with the loss of 17 Borg destroyers. ** Guardian: Still alive; 3 Borg Recons destroyed ** 160M drones lost to exposure. ** Total: 604M troops killed, 527M losses sustained. 30 cruisers, 33 destroyers, 18 fighters, 44 missile bases, and 28 factories destroyed; Borg losses are limited to 3 fighters, 31 destroyers, 3 missile bases, and 5 factories so far. Psilon Front  Two years until we chase the Psilons away to somewhere else. Over 300 factories here so we're basically just waiting for the population to grow.  The Mrrshan fleet will be here this year and I couldn't care less. Instead, I'll whine a bit about game mechanics/interface for a bit. Not sure if I addressed this yet or not earlier. We have discussed how when a planet is spending production on something and there's multiple things to do in that category, the text changes as you put enough in to complete each task. I.e., ECO goes from Waste to Clean to +Pop usually, or it can have TForm after Clean if that's applicable. DEF will do SHIELD for planetary shields before building missile bases, IND will give you a number of factories before turning to MAX and so on. Except ... sometimes it doesn't. MAX won't tell you when it reaches the planetary maximum (and turns in to Reserve). Similarly, last year we had REFIT all over the place. More than that happened, and the only way you would have known that is to do the math. For example, here's where we are here:  Since before last year we could build only 2 factories per population, clearly we built a whole bunch of them here. While it still said REFIT. Instead of telling us how many more factories were being queued up. Which it could easily have done. So while I don't critize MOO a great deal, this ... could be better and more consistent. By the way, what you see here happened at most planets: we have about 2.5 factories or half of the new ones up along with the refitting completed. Which means we're going to be building the other half, spending quite a bit more in industry for this year, and then we'll be able to resume the normal situation. As it turns out, Matrix 118 is a little short of being able to build all the factories I'd want to catch up here - 42 or so more - but it can add most of them, so we'll do nothing but that. Elsewhere around these parts, we're about to see our first ships reach Primodius.  Matrix 126 is where ships from one of our planets that is in an inconvenient position relative to the nebulas, Matrix 120 I believe off-hand, sends its ships to. They'll move to Mentar basically just to centralize them and because I have nothing better for them to do.  These as well.  And these.  The last group of Bulrathi that was already en route when we started attacking Nordia is about to hit us. Their other cruisers are a ways off to the left mostly.  I thought about splitting up and going after Phyco to the left, the other remaining Bulrathi planet, and I might have been able to get away with it - but we've got several cruisers to deal with at Nordia and I want to make sure it is done with minimal risk. The fleet buildup for Orion is going to take long enough that I think I have the time to invest as much as I need to in clearing out the 'meat' of the opposition here.   Getting the Guavinators where I want them in proper numbers. Six remain at Fierias to attack there, three to Primodius for a total now of six en route there, and the remaining trio staging at Mentar to push on to Ursa eventually. Of course these numbers are just educated guesstimates given the unpredictability of the casualties that will result.  Stragglers that I forgot about.  The second of what I expect to be three invasion convoys. Meklar Front  I don't dare move any of our ships away until I am certain we have dispensed with the incoming Meklar transports - the Psilon group is much smaller. We have over a hundred destroyers in place, plenty for this but once again I'm not confident in splitting them up.  I've decided on a new round of reserve payments. Our savings have gradually increased as happens over time (industry/eco overruns, scrapping ships, etc.) and I only need keep enough saved up for the odd emergency - which is unlikely to strike. I'd like to invest most of it in something. The usual growing systems that have higher population than factory count are one place to do so, but I also want to throw some BCs at places who need assistance with the atmospheric terraforming.  Three years until the Meklar arrive here. They'll probably run, unfortunately.    We still have a couple of years until the Guavinators show up in this theatre.  You may have noticed that we reached this system last year. No defenses, but I'd like to knock the population down some before occupying it. We still are at a slight disadvantage in attacking Psilon colonies with our troops. I don't have to wait - I just think it's better to do so. Analysis The two Mrrshan systems and Escalon are still being invaded, but we didn't add any new attacks this year. Tour of the Matrices  Even on our better worlds, you can see we have just enough to finish up the industrial build, and only a bit extra. I'm also starting a massive change in the RELOC instructions, and only doing so after spending a considerable time thinking about it. The issue is timing. I think we have plenty of ships overall to sweep through the rest of the lower-left quadrant with minimal casualties, and from here it takes newly-produced units five years to reach the staging area. Then however long to get where they are needed after that. 5-6 years from now the Mrrshan will be gone, we'll be attacking Ursa and Phyco and preparing to move further, if we haven't already. The net will be closing considerably and I don't see any use for more destroyers out there that far into the future. So some of our systems will begin re-routing to Matrix 114, the best system close to Orion. We may note this as the beginning of massing the fleet that will slay the Guardian, not just in terms of building it but in terms of getting it in position.   The diminishing category of research worlds will now split the difference between tech efforts and industrializing.   200 BC is a hefty price for most systems to convert their atmospheres, but at least we only have to pay it once. Here we've got enough to get it done. 
Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Feb 27, 2019 |
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Feb 12, 2019 09:26
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