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Because you can never have too many LPs of 4X games, Let's Play Endless Space 2! What is Endless Space 2? Endless Space 2 is the most recent (OK just the second, but it is still technically the most recent) installment in Amplitude Studio's Endless Space series. It checks all the standard 4X boxes, all four of them, and stands out with its polished presentation and how differently each of the races play. It is almost diametrically opposite to Stellaris, which focuses on procedural variation and is a generic toolbox filled with many other, tinier toolboxes. Go check out the Endless megathread if you want to know more. What's the deal with this Let's Play? Right off the bat, I'll admit that this is my first LP so go gentle. This will be a screenshot LP of a game of Endless Space 2, played from the perspective of the galaxy's most inquisitive and least safety-conscious faction, the Sophons. I'll blatantly admit to be inspired by the LPs of nweismuller, and hope to bring a fraction of his talent in worldbuilding and narrative to my own effort. Due to time constraints (I hope to have this whole thing wrapped up in a month or so) I won't be able to allow a few days between installments for the usual round of goon voting on major initiatives. So I'll be approaching this primarily as an instruction/informative LP, taking time to lay out in detail all the systems and mechanics in ES2 (there are quite a lot) and maybe become a better player in the process. You, faithful goon readers, will play the role of the Assembly of Associated Thinkers, who occasionally advise the ruling Sophon Triumvirate on the direction of their polity, and much more frequently throw unsolicited opinions at the Triumvirate which they will frequently choose to ignore. The Index Eventually there will be a list of updates here.
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Jul 9, 2017 17:44
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Year Zero - The Year Everything Changed We'll start with a short documentary video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R0G_RZykVA Ever since launching their first capsule into space (and sometime later successfully returning a living occupant to ground), Sophon society never flagged in their collective belief that exploration of the deep void above their heads would lead to great things. Their homeworld of Hekim could not possibly compare to the countless variety of worlds and environments that awaited them in the stars above! Space was their destiny, they felt, and so they sought to conquer it with great vigor. The first rockets led to the first shuttles, and a non-trivial fraction of Sophon GPP (Gross Planetary Product) was hurled into the sky in the form of probes, space stations, and brave explorers many of whom even managed to come home to the accolades of their people. However, no amount of dedication or ingenuity could change the fact that space was an incredibly hostile environment, even more so than first predicted. The Sophons took this at first to be just another challenge to their cleverness, but in the 80+ years since that first rocket took off it was the hardest challenge to date. The initial joy in discovering that the nearest planet to Hekim, significantly nearer the sun that their own, was capable of supporting (and did, in fact, support!) life was tempered by the revelation that the world was warmer, much warmer than Hekim. Permanent ice was confined to just the polar regions, and temperatures in the equatorial zones could reach as high as a hundred degrees! It could be colonized, but only at great cost. Perhaps more effort would have been put into colonization if not for a second discovery that overshadowed it - two distinct, almost identical special anomalies had been found at the end of the system, beyond the orbit of the most distant planet. First described as "intricate knots in spacetime", the two anomalies were named Rin and Rala, after the sibling trickster gods from Sophon mythology. Whereas the temperate world (designated Dyl I as an obvious signpost of disinterest) didn't seem to capture the imagination of the people, there was no end of speculation as to what Rin & Rala could mean. Consensus quickly formed that they had to be artificial in nature, but that led to a huge raft of follow-up questions. Who build them, and what for? Why at these particular locations? Why was there no other sign of intelligent life throughout the system? And most importantly, what scientific breakthroughs would these lead to and how much cool stuff could we build because of it? Unified as never before, almost all planetary endeavor revolved around Rin and Rala for the next two decades. Vast resources (far vaster, in retrospect, than would have been needed to colonize Dyl I) were brought to bear as a pair of research stations were constructed near the anomalies. The prospect of trying to sustain a population, even one so tiny as a research laboratory, at the extreme edge of the solar system seemed to be nearly impossible - and probably would have been, if not for the early discovery of elemental gravitational field manipulation by Ashotemm Palanaz. A more simplistic version of the twisted spacetime that formed the anomalies, an basic array of these singularities could be harnessed for both power and propulsion, allowing for the movement of huge (in terms of space travel) masses at significant fractions of the speed of light. Palanaz cannibalized the Rala station's only functioning return craft to prove the validity of his theories, and personally flew back to Hekim an order of magnitude faster than any Sophon had ever traveled to the acclaim of his fellows. Rin, Rala, and Hekim became three points in the immensely important triangle that was the future of the Sophons. Insights into material science, computation, and above all high-energy physics flowed freely for the next twenty years. But eventually the pace of innovation slowed, and there came a point where the three most significant players in Sophon research politics (which is to say, Sophon global politics in general) worried that they were no closer to answering many of the initial questions raised by Rin and Rala. Yes, the anomalies were definitely artificial - but what were they for? Twenty years of scanning and poking at the anomalies (including one incredibly small nuclear detonation) had yielded nothing. And then, the puzzle boxes opened of their own accord.  The knots loosened themselves, and the ten dimensional spacial origami revealed that they were not blockages in spacetime - but conduits. Two of them, leading to distant stars which could never be reached even by the most modern gravity drives. The Sophons could finally explore beyond the light of the sun Dyl, and see what awaited in the beyond! What followed was a massive debate that made all others look like a disagreement of toppings for pizza - but in the end, a triumvirate was formed of the leading scientific institutions to coordinate the Sophon response to this revelation, and manage the exploration of the galaxy that now beckoned. New ships, with modified g-drives suited to make us of the hyperlanes, were commissioned. The Lithium incorporated the most advance sensor suite Sophonity had to offer, including the ability to launch a low-mass probe within a self-contained spacetime distortion that could travel at many times the speed of light. The Beryllium represented the pinnacle of Sophon biological and engineering sciences - a ship that could, in theory, survive planetfall and be converted into a habitable structure for the goal of permanent settlement. And so, on the 19th day of the month of Yotl, two thousand and eighty-four years since the Reconciliation, the first interstellar Sophon craft were christened. The parties to commemorate lasted for days, and included some non-sanctioned use of particle accelerators to produce a lightshow that could be seen across the northern hemisphere. It was a momentous day that was to be the start of a momentous year for the Sophon species. Later, much later, this date would be marked as year zero as a means of common dating amongst all the sentient races of the galaxy. Just as Rin and Rala were opening to life, hyperlanes across the galaxy were also activating. Others were also taking their first steps into the endless space around them, and they would all learn in time that they were not alone. And perhaps more importantly, that they were not the first. kaynorr fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Jul 10, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 18:27
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Nice. I don't usually follow LPs, but I'll be following this one. I look forward to much Sophon shenanigans.
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Jul 9, 2017 21:28
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Year One - Just A Few Errands To Run Before We Get Going Before looking outward to the unexplored stars, let us first consider the state of Sophonity proper in this, the first year of interstellar travel.  The Dyl system encompasses four worlds worth noting (not counting an incredibly hot innermost planet that is unreachable, and a number of planetoids out beyond Dyl IV which are similarly so small as to be irrelevant. Dyl II has been known to be habitable for decades, but until recently the prospect of settling a hot, damp world did not arouse the passions of Sophons the same way that the Rin/Rani pair did. As part of the establishment of the ruling Triumvirate, it was agreed that the settlement of Dyl I would go back into consideration - a sop to various biologist/ecologist factions who felt somewhat left out of all the hubbub regarding the hyperlanes. Dyl I and Dyl IV are both beyond what can support Sophon life now, but the Center For New Worlds promises that any day now, they'll have that problem cracked if you could just see your way to signing their latest grant application. In Endless Space 2, the system is fundamental unit of habitation, not the planets within it. Each planet can hold a number of population units based primarily on its size (for the purpose of the story we'll say that each population unit represents about 50 million sentients), so being comprised of four medium planets the Dyl system can grow to a very significant overall population. Currently we can only harness a quarter of that, but we can expand to Dyl II when we want, and then to the other planets once the appropriate technologies are researched. As of the latest Gross Planetary Product report, Hekim processes 18 kilotons of biomass (primarily food consumption) annually and has a overall industrial capacity of 9.0 on the Fithwell-Gloive scale. Taxation on internal economic flows provides five parcels of Dust to the government coffers, and finally the cumulative output of all cutting-edge scientific endeavors requires roughly twenty-five hundred Sohpon-hours per year to properly catalog, cross-index, and review for follow-up potential. The overall output for a system in Endless Space parlance is FIDS - Food, Industry, Dust, and Science. Food, as per usual for 4X games, contributes to population growth as well as the replenishment of the manpower pool (which we'll get into later when the Sophons decide to go to war). Industry builds system improvements and ships. Dust is the programmable, nano-scale smart matter which is rapidly becoming the universal currency for the galaxy - it will get a further explanation in time but for now let's just think of it as money. It pays for your fleet, goes to the upkeep of many system improvements, funds the establishment of outposts in unsettled systems, and can eventually be used to rush completion of industrial projects with the proper scientific breakthroughs. Science represents how fast you chew through the tech tree. Looking at the output of Hekim you'll notice a purple star below the icons for FIDS - this is Influence, which makes the proper acronym FIDSI. Influence is best though of diplomatic capital, and we don't have any yet.  When we consider all the many Sophons who contributed to the launch of the Lithium and Beryllium, one name rises to the top - Asaroenni Dzulmaran. She had just rotated into the Rani Research Facility when the hyperlanes opened up, having distinguished herself many times over in the fields of energy waveform manipulation and computerized virtual particle analysis. She was chosen to represent all the researchers of the facility with a public address at the opening of the first Sophon spacedock; her eloquence led to becoming a minor media celebrity for a time, and she was celebrated as the "first hero of the Sophon Stellar Adventure". She was offered a post on either the Lithium or the Beryllium, but in the end she deferred, saying that she "wanted the brave captain and crew of these vessels to be remembered as the real pioneers, not just assistants on Professor Dzulmaran's Odyssey". Reports that her frequent inquiries as to the quantity, capacity, and structural integry of the ships' lifeboats went unanswered are probably just gossip - her humility was the real story here. And so Dr. Dzulmaran was installed as Special Counselor to the government of Hekim, where her brilliant mind would be put to the task of helping the Sophon homeworld manage the transition to its new government and center of an interstellar society. Heroes are special units which can greatly boost the fleet or system they are attached to. Every polity starts the game with one, in this case we've got Asaroenni Dzulmaran. Heroes accumulate experience over time, and at level up they can choose to enhance skills in a number of different skill sets. Each hero has three differenct skill sets - one for their race (the Sophon skill set focuses on science, ship movement, and ship probing), one for their race (Counselors like Asaroenni can boost science, influence, and Dust output in their systems), and one which is generic to all heroes. While heroes can be quite potent when attached to a fleet, they build up experience very slowly outside of combat, which we won't be seeing a lot of for a while. The fastest way to make a good fleet hero is to stick him in a system for many turns, then respec his skills when needed or when he's good enough that you don't mind a slower growth rate. We attach Asaroenni to the Dyl system so that she can build up valuable experience appearing at the opening of adminstrative complexes and paying charity visits to the poor, underfunded social science departments of local colleges.  With Dr. Asaroenni shuffled off to her duties, the Triumvirate turns it attentions towards the Single Prioritized List of scientific endeavors. One of the insights learned during the last year was the advantage of having a single goal for Sophon society to collectively work towards. Now that the construction of the Lithium and Beryllium is complete, it is decided that there will be a unified research agenda which will be pursued with all the vigor and creativity that Sophon laboratories can muster, overtime hours and worksite injury payouts be damned! After reviewing all the options, it seems inevitable that the first order of business is to formalize the study of communication with other worlds. Everything from a machine negotiated mathematical syntax to interpretive kinetic dance to synchronized sound/light displays is on the table - imagine how embarrassing it would be if we met another alien race only to find ourselves utterly unable to explain to them how brilliant we are? Xenolinguistics is adopted as the first research goal of the new era.  Before departing the Dyl system through its assigned hyperlane, the Beryllium performs a final field test of its next-generation probe array. A probe is launched towards an identified biological anomaly on Dyl II, and the results come back almost immediately - a new kind of fungus with immense nootropic applications. The field of smart drinks has been hungry for a new innovation ever since the BrainFreeze bubble five years back, and all of the surviving BrainFreeze facilities can be pulled out of mothballs in a matter of months. A survey team ships five tons of bluecap mold back to Hekim for product feasibility testing.  A garbled communications exchange from Hekim high command results in the premature launch of a second probe towards Dyl II, but serendipity smiles on Sophonity this day as it also makes a discovery! A fissure in the large southern continent is found to be rich in a substance which had only been speculated to exist - hyper-deuterium. The same garbled communications array causes the finding to be reported by as "hyper...ium" to the homeworld, and the name sticks. I think it says something about the irrepressible curiosity of the Sophon people that the Beryllium's probe stock was depleted before it left home. Bluecap mold is the first of sixteen luxury resources which are scatted throughout the galaxy. We can't do anything with the five tons we've got so far, but that will change as time goes on. Once we have a settlement on Dyl II, we'll get two tons of it every year. Hyperium is a strategic resource, required to build certain kinds of system improvements and ship components. Its presence also boosts the scientific output of the planetary population, and we'll stockpile three tons of it every year once Dyl II is settled. We'll also need to research Plasma Metallurgy before we can start mining the hyperium. These revelations provide fresh fuel to the controversy regarding the settlement of Dyl II, and Triumvirate realizes that it cannot kick that particular non-perishable foodstuff container down the highway any longer. An industrial plan, roughly analogous to the unified research agenda, must be drawn up. While there is significant support for settling Dyl II immediately amongst the Assemble of Associated Thinkers, the Triumvirate decides to first authorize construction of a state-of-the-art Drone Network, which has the promise of radically simplifying the logistics of both the agricultural and industrial bases. It is estimated that the Drone Network will take five years to complete rollout (accounting for the usual bugs and lost shipment of starch powder containers), at which time Dyr II will be colonized. After Dyr II is off the ground (hopefully taking many of its most annoying advocates with it), a system wide upgrade to information processing is overdue. Dubbed the "Cerebral Reality", this improvement will equally benefit scientific and commercial endeavors by incorporating recursive improvement algorithms directly into its firmware. We start construction of a Drone Network in Dyl, which offers a flat bonus to Food and Industry. We queue up a colony on Dyl II, which will start harvesting bluecap mold & hyperium immediately. Finally, the order is given for the colony ship Lithium and the scout Beryllium to depart. Carrying the hopes, dreams, and any number of irreplaceable prototypes of the Sophon people, the two craft vanish through their respective hyperlane to parts unknown...
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Jul 10, 2017 05:47
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gently caress yea a kaynorr lp
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Jul 10, 2017 07:56
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You should probably, uh, show a picture of a Sophon somewhat earlier in the LP so the readers have something to picture.
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Jul 10, 2017 08:12
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Or put their prologue video in the OP, it's a good summary of what they're about. Looking forward to future Sophon shenanigans.
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Jul 10, 2017 08:32
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Clarste posted:You should probably, uh, show a picture of a Sophon somewhat earlier in the LP so the readers have something to picture. I'm currently imagining them as Kerbals.
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Jul 10, 2017 09:58
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The Lone Badger posted:I'm currently imagining them as Kerbals. I'm currently imagining them as an unfolded proton.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:28
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Don't use thumbnails, it's annoying as hell to have to click on every single image in order to be able to see anything. Also you should differentiate the narration and explanation somehow. And decide whether you want the LP to be narrative or informative because this frankly fails at both; lots of pointless words where there shouldn't be (your hero's backstory isn't interesting or relevant to anything) and lots missing where they should be (why did you choose to do with her what you did with her?). You might also want to explain the relations between these games and the better-known Endless Legend. And so on and so on. Hell, I'd recommend scrapping this and running it through the Sandcastle. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jul 10, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2017 15:50
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anilEhilated posted:Don't use thumbnails, it's annoying as hell to have to click on every single image in order to be able to see anything. I guess we have opposite tastes then - I hate it when LPs have lots of full size images because it fucks with the word flow and I frequently start reading before all images have loaded. anilEhilated posted:Also you should differentiate the narration and explanation somehow. Yeah, that's the one thing I knew I wasn't happy about. I don't think there is a better way to do it than to put either the narration or explanation in quote boxes. anilEhilated posted:And decide whether you want the LP to be narrative or informative because this frankly fails at both; lots of pointless words where there shouldn't be (your hero's backstory isn't interesting or relevant to anything) and lots missing where they should be (why did you choose to do with her what you did with her?). I want it to be both, so I'll find a way to strike a balance. I wanted to go into more detail on some game systems, but I also didn't want the first post to be any longer than it was so some elements initially got short shrift. My plan is to talk about them the first/next time they come up, and hopefully this will stagger the information so no individual post becomes a mammoth infodump. FWIW, I stuck my hero on Dyl because XP growth as a system governor is vastly better than what you get on a fleet. anilEhilated posted:Hell, I'd recommend scrapping this and running it through the Sandcastle. I may throw the OP up on the Sandcastle for criticism, but I have a limited window for this project so I'm just going to have to learn as I go. Thanks for the feedback!
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Jul 10, 2017 16:23
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The Lone Badger posted:I'm currently imagining them as Kerbals. you are correct the most interesting factions of Endless Space 2 are A Crazy Man's Glamor Project, A Bunch Of Terrified Extradimensional Refugees Out To Cure Their Home Of A Disease (it turns out the disease is that our plane of existence exists), Sort Of Vampires In Space, and our own dearly beloved Definitely Not Kerbal Space Program Times The Greys.
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Jul 10, 2017 17:25
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This is great so far. I recommend putting anything OOC (i.e. your informative bits) into italics for easier differentiation.
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Jul 10, 2017 17:25
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Ze Pollack posted:you are correct Kerbal Space Program is an excellent interactive documentary of the Sophon Space Race, with the glaring defect that there is no way (that I know of) to blow up the moon in KSP.
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Jul 10, 2017 17:29
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kaynorr posted:Yeah, that's the one thing I knew I wasn't happy about. I don't think there is a better way to do it than to put either the narration or explanation in quote boxes. Italics for OOC stuff is usually the simplest way.
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Jul 10, 2017 17:45
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I don't know if this might be handy for your pseudohistorical writeups, but if you focus on a planet in system view and turn on the Scan view, it'll display flavor details about the planet like its orbit/day, elements present in core, and elements present in atmosphere.
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Jul 10, 2017 19:53
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Years Two through Five - I do not think this research does what you think it does With its smaller mass and heavier engine, the Beryllium is the first to arrive at its destination of the Tylus system. After signaling back to Hekim that they arrived safely, every sensor array on the ship flares to life as the system is showered in wide-band electromagnetic radiation which is probably harmless to any planetary life. Data pours back into the science crew of the Lithium and reveals...  A system rife with scientific potential but with no way to be colonized, much to the disappointment of the Center for Off-World Studies. The gas giant could provide valuable observations on a previously only theoriezed planetary body (the Dyl system having no gas giants of it its own), and the barren empty biosphere of Tylus II would allow for aggressive experimentation without concern for contamination. In addition, there are no additional hyperlane links leading out of the Tylus system, so the Lithium turns around and follows the path of the Beryllium which hopefully had better luck...  ...which they have a month later when the Bellatrix system is charted. Four worlds across a mix of biospheres, and one within the tolerances of the current colonization module! Bellatrix I isn't ideal - it's too hot and wet to be perfect for Sophons, but with enough air conditioners and a careful choice of landing sites, it could be made into something approximating home. However, Sophonity currently has a single precious seed to plant and there could be something better out there. The Triumvirate decides to have the Beryllium push onward, with the Lithum setting a course to Bellatrix as plan B. Planets in Endless Space 2 are primarily classified by their overall climate - so far we've seen Snow, Boreal, Terran, Lava, Gas (Cold), Barren, Arctic, Steppes, and Mediterranean. The Sophons originate from a Boreal world and can colonize those from the start of the game - they also get two technologies for free at game start, Xenobiology and Rare Earth Foams. Each of those includes the ability to colonize another climate, adding Tundra and Mediterranean to the list of worlds we can settle. As we research more techs, we'll be able to expand across more systems and more worlds in those systems. Tylus is middling at best - you can accumulate a lot of science from gas and barren worlds but that's pretty much it. Plus there are only two worlds so you're looking at a max population under ten, this place should be marked to backfill later when we've got Dust to burn. Bellatrix is a contender for our first offworld colony - we can settle the Mediterranean world of Bellatrix I and get the Sophon snowball rolling. Three of the four worlds have a healthy size of five or six - only the puny Bellatrix IV has a low carrying capacity of two pops. All in all, pretty good. We'll hold off on settling for now in case the next world down the hyperlane is even better, but if not this will suffice. The second year of starflight proves even more momentous than the first, as the Beryllium arrives in the Nihal system to be greeted with a cacaphony of EM frequencies picked up by the sensors. Intelligent life beyond Hekim! Are these the creators of the hyperlanes? Will they offer us the secrets of the universe in exchange for our undying loyalty and willingness to craft vast megastructures in their name? The Beryllium races inward towards the cold gas giant that is the source of the signals.  This is why you keep your expectations reasonable, people. Demonstrating a remarkable ability to be disappointed after traveling the stars for only two years, the Beryllium "regretfully" reports home that the inhabitants of the Nihal system are not, in fact, the hyperlane builders. Rather, they are aliens in the extreme sense of the word - vaguely insectoid, immense in size, native to a biosphere we can't tolerate, and impossible to communicate with. Perhaps when the research into Xenolinguistics bears fruit, we will be able to start a dialog and see if they have any fascinating engineering problems worth solving. In the meantime, the Beryllium leaves behind a communications relay that can interface with the Deuyivan's local information network, and follows the unexplored hyperlane outwards into the unknown. We've encountered the first Minor Faction in the game, roughly equivalent to a city-state in Civ or a non-spaceflight culture in Stellaris. When dealing with the minor factions, your options (aside from just leaving them be, which seems contrary to the goal of stellar dominion) is to either conquer them outright or undertake a long-term project of buliding up relations with them to the point where you can assimilate them into your faction. At the moment we lack the tech to start negotiations, so we'll have to revisit the issue later. Perhaps spurred on by the repeatedly inquiries as to how that research project is going, it is announced with great fanfare that the Unified Research Agenda has bourne fruit, in the form of a theoretical framework of Xenolinguistics!  There just appears to be one small, tiny problem. It turns out that the framework consists of a series of organizing algorithms that have immediate applications in industrial optimization but not so much in....establishing a dialog with alien species. "Really, is talking to another sentient life form so different than conversing with a road paver the size of a city block?" asked the head of the Cognitive Syntax project - the answer was delivered in the form of his summary dismissal. Reading the grant proposals a little more carefully this time, the Triumvirate prioritizes the development of Off-world Agribusiness - which all but guarantees the ability to open communciations with lower-tech races, they promise. Looking beyond that, the Triumvirate also decides that exploiting the new hyperium deposit on Dyl I should be a priority, and assures the CEO of the Kinetic Harvest corporation that his proposal regarding Plasma Metallurgy will be next in line once we can talk to the weird gas giant bug people. I have no idea why a tech called "Xenolinguistics" offers nothing but industrial/science applications, but here we are. We don't have access to any sources of titanium yet (the other early-game strategic resource), but the Public-Private Partnership offers a nice boost to science in systems with lots of worlds. Having thoroughly dressed down the research planning committee, the Triumvirate decides that Sophonity can afford no further waffling over the issue of its first interstellar colony. Settling near the Deuyvians seems unwise until their intentions are better known, and establishing a colony three hyperlanes away seems no less risky. The decision is made that Bellatrix I will be blast-chilled into a paradise, and with an immense amount of media coverage the Lithium makes a final descent into the northern hemisphere and lands permanently. The first Sophons step out onto a world other than their own, and the great work of settling the galaxy officially begins.  Begins very slowly, as the planners calculate. By mid-year it becomes apparently that colonist applications aren't quite pouring in the way that had been hoped. At current growth & immigration rates, it will be twenty-eight years before the colony becomes self-sufficient! Aggresive brainstorming is performed back in Hakim, and there are a number of promising proposals regarding ways to boost the colonial effort! Unfortunately, direct subsidies of the colony would require a cash outlay that the treasury can't afford - and a public relations campaign to rouse the Sophon frontier spirit don't seem to be working. So for the time being, Bellatrix I is going to have to remain a long-term endeavor and a low-level drain on the government budget. Settling Bellatrix I consumes the colony ship and puts an outpost on the planet, but takes time for that outpost to grow to a real colony that can contribute to the overall polity. We do have two Outpost Actions available to try and speed up the estimated 28 turns; Merchants and Money would let us spend 150 dust to double the food production, which in turn should halve the time down to 14 turns. Alternativey we could spend 75 influence to double the migration rate directly. But we have neither of those things, so we'll have to accept the slow growth rate for now (at a cost of 7 dust per turn from our bottom line) until we can get an income going. The alternative would put off establishing the colony for another 8-10 turns, which is a long time to wait. Hopefully we'll amass the resources to use one or both of the Outpost Actions and have a new colony in 15ish turns.  As it turns out, not quite ALL of Sophon society was devoting itself to space exploration in the last few years. A small, secretive cadre of AI researchers had been pursuing their own vision - an expert system so advanced and refined as to make all prior tools look like pointed sticks. And now the time has come for the unveiling, and the ENFER project finds immediate widespread support. The sooner Sophonity can delegate all mundane tasks to ENFER, the sooner they can push the boundaries of knowledge and unanticipated side effects even further. This cannot possibly go wrong. But it also can't go right until we start feeding ENFER massive amounts of training data, and there is a decision to be made regarding how we want ENFER's initial programming to go. Given recent contact with the Deuyivan, it seems the most directly useful thing we can do is train ENFER on how to deal with alien diplomacy. Just in case with meet up with any more foreign races and they turn out to be, gods forbid, boring. This is the start of the Sohpon main quest line, which has four chapters and leads into a follow-up quest line shared by all major factions. Like most major quest chapters, you get to choose the victory conditions and each victory condition yields a different reward. The undisplyed options are to win 10 fights for Military, or explore systems in two constellations other than our own for Inspire. Of the three options, getting a minor faction to 90 is something that will probably happen first; we're not likely to get into that many fights for a while, and exploring other constellations would require beelining for a particular research goal that isn't as useful in the short term. Elsewhere, the exploration vessel Beryllium has reached the Ugaro system, which features another habitable planet and a diverse array of resources:  Analysis from the crew of the Beryllium indicates that there are numerous agricultural applications for what they informally term "Superspuds", commercial and industrial possibilities for the Jadeonyx stones, and significant knowledge gains made from further study of the Dark Glitter phenomenon. However, all of that is counterbalanced by the fact that the Sophonity doesn't have the resources to settle the system at this time. Furthermore, there are no additional hyperlanes leading out of Ugaro - meaning the Sophons have discovered everything immediately reachable. However, the commander of the Beryllium refuses to give up hope of new stellar discoveries. He orders the launch of all probes immediately, in the hope of finding new worlds beyond the limits of the hyperlanes.    Two medium worlds, plus one small and one gas giant, plus three jadeonyx deposits makes this a very good find once we can afford a second outpost. Having discovered all the immediately accessible systems, we have two options with out exploration ship - launch probes into the void in the hopes of finding more worlds (and making contact with more factions!) or return to the previously discovered planets and use the probes to investigate Curiosities. I've chosen finding worlds because there is a large potential advantage to being the first to make contact with a minor faction (which I'll get into more once we can actually talk to the drat Deuyivans). We can backfill the curiosities later, especially considering that most curiosities, even after being revealed, can't be effectively exploited until you can settle the world they are on. kaynorr fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jul 17, 2017 |
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Jul 17, 2017 00:12
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Years Six Through Ten - It's Kinda Crowded Out Here The Beryllium's choice to launch probes into uncharted territory bears almost immediate fruit, as the probe discovers a new system which the Space Exploration Council names "Herakles". Interestingly, the hyperlanes discovered in this system appear to have minor differences in their command and control protocols. After a brief digital interrogation, theorists from the Rin/Rala pair conclude that this must be part of a different hyperlane network than the one discovered in Hekim, and thus links to entirely separate stars. An immense sigh can be heard emanating from the direction of the Center for New Worlds, as the revelation that there are more hyperlane networks is vastly preferably to the scenario where the Sophons are confined to just five systems. These hyperlane networks become referred to as "constellations", and this new constellation is designated "Huran". While the Sophonity does not yet have a stardrive capable of traversing such a great distance without a hyperlane, eager researchers assure the Triumvirate that it only a matter of time. Meanwhile, the home system finishes its first improvement of the starfaring era - a system wide Drone Network that will be put to use immediately as the colonization of Dyr II begins in earnest. Each constellation is a discrete hyperlane network, unconnected from any others, and forms the impassible geography of the galaxy in the early game. Although we can't put ships into that constellation yet, the probes are capable of making contact with both major and minor factions - and as we're about to see, early contact with minor factions can pay long-term dividends.  "We've cracked it this time, we swear" reads the top line of the memo sent to the Triumvirate that research into Off-world Agribusiness is complete. To the surprise of everyone including the researchers, the ability to exchange information regarding the relative value of foodstuffs, and then refine that information with follow-up data streams, is the key to unlocking any sort of structured diplomacy with an alien species. Armed with the ability to express to them how much we value our grain crop, the Sophon Diplomatic Corp is able to make formal First Contact with the Deuyivans - and we immediately praise their patience and intellect as we worked through the first few rocky failures to communicate. They seem to accept our apologies (apparently they do not concern themselves with claims of spurious patrimony and relations with female antecedents) and thus begins Great Exchange Of Ideas with the strange gas bug people. Off-world Agribusiness finally unlocks diplomatic options with minor factions, so we make First Contact with the Deuyivans and use the diplomatic action Praise, for the cost of 10 Influence. Praise causes our relations with the Deuyivans to raise by 2 points ever turn for 10 turns, and we'll keep doing this every ten turns for the foreseeable future. As our relations with the Deuyivans hit certain thresholds, they will be begin to contribute FIDS to our polity, begin immigrating as citizens, and eventually we can assimilate their civilization altogether at 100 points. This obviously takes a while, and this is why we are trying to be the first to make contact with as many minor civilizations as possible. For planetbound savages, they're surprisingly savvy and will happily accept the praise of multiple major factions at the same time. The first person to 100 gets to assimilate them, so making first contact pretty much guarantees it so long as you can always afford the minor Influence cost of Praising them every 10 turns. The Beryllium has rebuilt one of its probes, so we launch it into the next corridor of dark space and see what we can turn up. No sooner has the Diplomatic Corp drawn up its first set of white papers on cross-cultural exchange programs with the Deuyivans than they receive an emergency summons to the Triumvirate - a probe has made contact with another pre-starflight civilization!  And unlike the gas giant bug people, the Z'vali are a people that the Sophons can more easily relate to. It appears that Z'vali culture underwent a much more catastrophic version of the Reality War, which apparently resulted in actual collapse of much of the industrial and agricultural base of the planet instead of what happened on Hekim, where the population of a very small MMO was trapped in the game for only a couple of months. We praise their enduring spirit in the face of technological mishap (which the Sophons are no stranger to) and hope to guide their civilization through these growing pains and become welcome members of galactic society. Hopefully we're the first people to contact the Z'vali, meaning that we'll have two new member races in 30ish turns or so. Under normal circumstances, contact with the Z'vali would have been the highlight of the year - another civilization similar to our own, a little less advanced but with the same indomitable sense of curiosity and technological achievement! All the headlines changed when the Triumvirate was informed of an occurrence that hadn't really been thought about - someone was trying to contact us! An inbound signal using the communications array in place around the Z'vali homeworld, but from an unknown source. It appeared to be based on the command & control protocols used by the hyperlane games - using those protocols as a kind of recursive grammar, the signal auto-negotiated a stable channel and, for lack of a better metaphor, knocked on the door. What was the Triumvirate supposed to do, not accept contact? This was the whole reason we went into space! And so an acknowledgement was sent, and the Sophons were greeted with....  Many eerily similar faces looking back. It took a while to figure out what exactly the word Horatio meant to these people. Was it an individual name? A family name? The name of their species or polity? The answer to all of these questions turned out to be yes. What followed for the rest of the year was the greatest Sophon thinkers in biology, sociology, and genetics collectively losing their goddamn minds. An entire civilization based upon the repeatedly cloning of a single person? And not out of some sort of terrible holocaust or calamity, but just because he didn't much care for other people? How were they not riddled with genetic defects? How were they not totally bugshit insane? Early on in the planning of the first colonization ships, there were contingency plans drawn up in the event of a catastrophic loss of life and genetic material. The Sophons responsible were pretty proud of the fact that they had come up with a plan to sustain a colony with as few as 100 fertile people. But just one? The sheer narcissism of it all was as impressive as it was terrifying. And yet here they were, clearly capable of using the hyperlane gates and with a technological development roughly within the same tier as Sophonity. After the initial shock wore off, cooler heads started to prevail and speak of the virtues of contact with another starfaring race. Surely the Horatio would have something meaningful to add to the Sophon knowledge of the biological and social sciences, even if the implications of their society were troubling. The Triumvirate remains open-minded, and by the end of the year a basic diplomatic protocol with the Horatio is established. Both sides are understandably wary, but there is a line of communication and all the possibilities that come with it. So here we have the first other major faction in this galaxy, the Horatio. They must have been the first to contact the Z'vali, and so when we contacted the VR refugees they presumptuously forwarded our contact information along. Depending upon how long the Horatio have been in contact with the Z'vali we may lose the race to assimilate them, but it's still worth raising our relations in the meantime. Luckily for us the Horatio not immediately hostile, so this won't cause us to immediately reconsider our short term plans. Diplomacy with the major factions works a little differently - at present they don't have a very high opinion of us due to first contact, so we can't even establish a formal peace with them right now. That will change with time - another advantage to meeting people sooner rather than later. We'll dig into the meat of diplomacy a little later when we have more options. Finally, because the Horatio are located in a different constellation to us, even if they were hostile there is no chance of any meaningful physical contact for a while, until one of us researches the technology necessary to travel outside the hyperlanes. For the time being this contact will be restricted to the occasional diplomatic missive, checking in every few turns to see when the first contact penalty has worn off and we can start making meaningful agreements. The year after contact with the Horatio proves to a be a little more quiet, giving Sophonity some time to adjust to encountering so many new cultures. The Beryllium brings another probe online and hurls it out into the dark, then resumes its quiet vigil in the Ugaro system, the edge of known space. Meanwhile back on Hekim, Asaroenni Dzulmaran has proven to be an excellent chief executive - particularly when it comes to making the most of the commercial opportunities that come with interstellar travel. His leadership has bolstered the tax revenues of the Dyl system, bringing the central government's finances back into solvency. Asaroenni hits level 2, and we put one point into the ability Person of Means. This ability adds +5 Dust to the system Asaroenni is posted to, plus an additional +5 Dust per settled sterile world. This puts us in the black even though the output on Bellatrix I is expensive, and in the long run there are multiple sterile worlds on Bellatrix which should make this ability even more valuable. After many years of hard work, Sophonity finally establishes its first self-sufficient offworld settlement on Dyl II. The world quickly becomes renowned for the vast subterranean farms of bluecap mold, and geologists continue to poke relentlessly at the veins of hyperium that were previously discovered from a planetary survey. The material is still too dense to effectively manipulate, but ongoing research into plasma metallurgy promises the ability to extract hyperium in quantity soon. Having guaranteed the survival of the Sophon race in the event of an extinction-level meteor or another, less graceful, moon detonation, the productive capacity of the Dyl system is refocused on the long-hyped Cerebral Reality. Contact with the Z'vali did not create any sense of caution or hesitation in the Sophons regarding more advanced reality simulation - rather, the Triumvirate is determined to demonstrate that such technologies are not inherently harmful, just requiring the proper supervision and moral fiber to be made useful.  The Beryllium's waves of probes continue to bear fruit as the Sophonity makes contact with a third minor faction, possibly the most fascinating so far! The Mavros are located hundreds of light years away, yet somehow posses an incredible genetic similarity to the Sophons themselves. A number of previously discounted theories on the possibility of offworld meddling in Sophon society before Rin/Rala suddenly gain a certain amount of credence. The existence of the Mavros can only be explained in one of three ways - Sophons transplanted across the galaxy by some unknown force thousands of years ago, Mavros similarly relocated to Hekim, or there exists a third world where an ancestor species originated from. Normally the Sophons are not one to allow unexpected information to upset their worldview. The unexpected is just a different way of saying "you learned something you didn't know before", and this philosophy has kept them from shying away from experimentation where other, more cautious races would have balked. But the prospect of interstellar intervention in ancient Sophonity is a sobering one, and for a moment society pauses to consider just what they might find in the depths of space. Not just new ways of accelerating subatomic particles for fun and profit (mostly fun), but perhaps answers to existential questions they had never thought to ask. That being said, the answers will not find themselves and so the Triumvirate pushes on. Standard first contact procedures are followed for the Mavros, in the hopes of cultivating a closer relationship with their exuberant genetic cousins. Luckily we have enough of an Influence income that we can afford to be Praising all three minor factions on a regular basis. Ten years after the first hyperlane opening, this is what the explored galaxy looks like to the Sophon people:  Sophonity has made contact with three minor factions: the Deuyivans in Nihal, the Z'vali in Polaris, and the Mavros in Wasat. The homeworld of the Horatio is still unknown, but is presumed to be somewhere in the constellation with Polaris. The Ugaro system beckons with a habitable world, but the Sophon people can't afford to settle another world until the outpost on Bellatrix becomes self-sufficient. Soon the Triumvirate will have to make choices regarding research that will dictate the nature of future expansion - should they develop a drive system that will let them move beyond the hyperlanes, providing access to stars in other constellations? Or should the emphasis be on making the most of the native constellation, striving to learn how to settle every kind of world already accessible and filling the nearby systems with eager, impetuous Sophons?
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Jul 24, 2017 06:06
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Years Ten through Twenty - Trading Up To This Year's Model The first item on the Triumvirate's desk in the tenth year is an announcement that after a number of false starts (and a lot of uncontrollable combustion events), the secrets of Plasma Metallurgy have been cracked (or melted into a fine mist, rather) and the hyperium deposits that have long been taunting the industrialists of Dyl II can be tamed.  Plasma Metallurgy finishes, meaning we can start exploiting the Hyperium deposit on Dyl II. I've decided to prioritize settling our constellation over exploring abroad, so research on Eukaryotic Sap is next so we can settle the three snow worlds available to us. We can see the approximate location of two systems adjacent to Wasat, so I fire a probe along that trajectory in the hopes of finding something useful. What it discovers is....  Exotic celestials are like standard celestials, but they provide some sort of special bonus once they are within the borders of your polity. This one is a neutron star, which confers Influence and Science bonuses to the population within the nearest system (once that system's border encompasses the exotic). Even in the vastly empty expanses of space, the instant we had a functioning channel of instantaneous communications with another race, gossip started flowing over it. In this case, we hear from our diplomatic contacts within the Z'vali that the Horatio are celebrating a momentous occasion of some sort....  Deeds are special objectives available to your faction based upon your technological progression. The tech map is divided into four quadrants - military, trade, science, and diplomacy, and also into four stages of increasing cost. Researching any technology within a given quadrant/tier segment allows to to and complete the deed associated with it. Seeker of Truths is the first tier science deed, and requires you to search ten curiosities. We were pretty much out of the running on this one when we decided to focus on probing space instead of searching curiosities - with the upside that we've made contact with a lot more minor factions and have a better sense of our local galactic geography. In general the rewards for achieving a deed are a nice clump of resources, but they're usually not worth focusing on to the exclusion of your overall plans. Meanwhile, one of our probes hurtling through dark space makes contact with another star....  There is no major benefit to establishing the location of the Horatio homeworld, save that we have a general sense of how far their primary shipyard is form our borders, in case they start feeling frisky. The Cerebral Reality on Dyl finishes this year as well, so we start construction of a Incubator-class colony ship, with the goal of colonizing the Ugaro system. Despite the fact that major, civilization changing breakthroughs are now occurring ever few years, the fanfare of announcing a major research milestone never seems to get old for the Sophon media. Lead researchers make the circuit of all the major talk shows, brief but brutal struggles for patent rights usually lead to the bankruptcy of one major enterprise, and more importantly grant proposal time! The grant proposal process became significantly higher profile ever since live demonstrations of the technology were allowed, so much so that each presentation needed to be limited to 13 minutes - and even then they have to be scheduled over the course of a week to accommodate all participants. This time around, the Center for New Worlds makes an extremely strong case for a new kind of tailored organism that will bring a new classification of worlds into the Sophon-habitable range. This seemed to be the obvious contender, but the Interstellar Voyager Institute offers up a last minute proposal that quickly gains popular support, given how many new lifeforms Sophonity has made contact with in the last decade.  Researching Machine Bacteria would unlock a steppes world for us to colonize, but there is another option here which is worth a brief sidetrack. Every faction starts the game with a pair of tiny size hulls, suitable for colonization and exploration. What they're not suitable for is any kind of combat - that's fine for the first dozen turns or so, but in the long run we're going to need to keep the hyperlanes clear for continued settlement and exploration. Efficient Shielding gets us two small hulls, and right now we need that more than we need a single steppes world. In year 15, the Beryllium replenishes its probe stock and its captain decides to look downward instead of outwards, launching a probe towards Ugaro IV to investigate the atmospheric anomalies which were noticed by long-range sensors.  Permanent Monsoon is probably a net positive to us - keeping approval up in systems is not particularly difficult and Food is particularly valuable in the growth-constrained early game. Rumors move literally beyond the speed of light thanks to quantum-entangled communications, and the concept of a secret facility dedicated to training exceptional individuals in the advanced use of Dust (beyond its mundane applications as a nanoassembler) is one that takes hold in popular media. Conspicuously quiet about this is the celebrity governor of the Dyl system, Asaroenni Dzulmaran. A fantastic tale that he was somehow...changed...in a freak accident involving a particle accelerator experiment is laughed off as ridiculous, but whispers that there has to be some tangible explanation for his incredible talents persist.  Cooperative quests would be more accurately called competitive quests - everyone is working towards the same goals but whomever gets there first (or most, depending upon the quest) gets the best payout. In this case, neglecting curiosities earlier might payoff as we have numerous places to scan within our constellation to push us closer to the goal. Also premiering in year 16 is the Sophon Political Option Census, an irregularly scheduled effort to accurately document the political sentiment of the Sophonity as a whole. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the Prosperity Through Illumination party enjoys widespread support - who could argue with all the wonders that interstellar travel has brought, only realized through the hard work of countless scientists, graduate students, engineers, and first responders.  Something I haven't touched on yet is the political subsystem, so now seems like a good time to cover (most of) it. Your polity has a senate, and that senate is controlled by one of six political parties. We'll cover the details of senate elections later, but suffice it to say that right now our senate is firmly in the hands of the Scientist party and will probably stay so for the foreseeable future.  The senate matters because it's in charge of the laws that govern your polity, and those laws can have significant influence on how your polity runs. You always operate under at least one law which is standard for that party - for the Scientists it is Oracle of Science, which lets us research technologies one stage above what would normally be possible (this is what lets us research Efficient Shielding, a stage two technology in Empire Development, without knowing any stage one techs). Aside from the one mandatory law, you can pass additional laws depending upon your government type. The Sophonity is (currently) a democracy, which lets us pass two optional laws. Most laws are not flat out bonuses, but a mixed bag of bonus and penalty or just a zero-sum alteration to how your polity works. There are some laws which are just "You do X better than you used to", but those usually cost a certain amount of Influence per population point per turn, and can easily cause your Influence income to go negative in a larger polity. We pass Expanded Defenders of the Realm, which boosts our manpower in the (highly unlikely) case that we have one of our precious few worlds come under siege. We also pass the Peacetime Prosperity Initiative, which nets us +3 Dust (which we need) at the price of -1 approval, which can easily be absorbed. Having explored all the curiosities available in the Ugaro system, the Beryllium plots a return course to Sophon controlled space. This time, however, the curiosities that were previously ignored will be studied, in the hope of getting a better sense of the settlement priority of every system in the local constellation. Year 17 finds the Beryllium in orbit over Nihal, where a probe barely rolls off the onboard fabrication line before it is launched towards Nihal II, discovering yet another heretofore unknown biological....  A flat 40 is a very nice boost to approval - Nihal is going to be an extremely pleasant and productive place to live in the future. Unexpected good news arrives early in year 18, as the Offworld Affairs Bureau crunches the numbers and finds that Bellatrix I crossed the threshold of self-sufficiency ahead of schedule!  So as it turned out, Bellatrix I didn't require the full 28 turns to become self-sufficient, but only 14. That's because is addition to the Dust cost of the outpost, we were dumping Food into it from Hekim - which had a surplus it could spare. An outpost maturing into a colony is ultimately a function of Food on-hand, so this was a huge boon. Had we been able to afford the Dust for an outpost action, Bellatrix I would have become a big-boy colony in only 7ish turns. We queue up Drone Network then Cerebral Reality; it is pretty much the default start for a new system for most of the game, as they are flat boosts to FIDS independent of population. And just as fast as it gained mindshare, the search for the Academy drops from public view.  Rumor of an Academy is only a valid quest so long as no one has discovered the system which houses the Academy - someone who isn't us or Horatio has done so, so the quest just fails for everyone with no winner.  Let's talk a bit about population dynamics and management. Every planet can hold somewhere between one and ten population segments (usually referred to as pops). Most of the ways to produce FIDSI are on a per-population basis, so systems with more and larger worlds will be more productive in the long run. New pops are produced on a timer, which becomes shorter as the system has more Food available. Populations in Endless Space 2 aren't just interchangeable citizens of your polity - each one is made up of a specific species and each species has its own bonuses/deficiencies. Sophon pops reflect the environment of Hekim - they produce extra Science when living on worlds with the Cold attribute (which is mutually exclusive with Temperate and Hot). Our polity also includes a single pop from a difference species, in this case the Pilgrims (each major faction starts with a predetermined "client species"). Pilgrims also have a boost to Science, but only on worlds with anomalies (those are the permanent special properties to a world, such as the Permanent Monsoon on Ugaro II). As we expand to multiple worlds in a system, we have the ability to instantly shuffle pops around between those worlds to maximize their advantages. Eventually we'll be able to ship pops to different systems, but that will have to wait until a greater level of technological achievement. Speaking of different systems, the Rubidium colony ship is finished in the Dyl system this year, and we set it on a course to the Ugaro system. At first, the new contacts on the Beryllium's scanners were assumed to be just Deuyvian trade vessels - until they refused repeated demands to identify themselves and set an intercept course for the ship that represented literally half the entire Sophon space force. Thanks to the quick thinking of the Beryllium's captain, the aggressors only manage to fire a few shots before the completely outclassed scout ship managed to retreat down a hyperlane. The first interstellar conflict in Sophon history ended in a retreat, but with no casualties and a somewhat sobering confirmation that space was not without its dangers.  And that's why you build warships. Pirates such as the Reavers are spawned from systems controlled by minor factions, and our exploration ships are no match for even a single pirate vessel. We'll go into the ship combat system in more detail when we have an actual fight, but for now we tell the 1st Beryllium Expedeition to retreat back the hyperlanes to Bellatrix. So long as the Reavers are in orbit around Nihal, we're cut off from that system and more importantly Ugaro, which we'd like to colonize. Our scout ship still has an action left when it reaches Beryllium, so we'll make the best of the situation and explore on the curiosities remaining in that system...  A nice mix of approval and a Science boost, we'll take it. While calling it the "Battle of Nihal" is possibly a bit of hyperbole, the Triumvirate takes the setback in the larger colonization plan very seriously. As if a sign of providence from the gods, it is only a few months after the encounter when the Interstellar Voyager Institute announces that the new shielding technology they've been working on will allow for spaceframes larger than anything previously though possible. Large enough to hold weapons comparable to those seen on the reaver ships, and tough enough to hold together under fire until the pirate threat is eliminated.  Now that we can build combat capable shifts, we go back to the expansion agenda and start researching Machine Bacteria. Amongst the fanfare that accompanies the expansion of the Dyl spaceyards to accommodate the expansion of the Sophon space force, the other big story of year 20 is the emergence of a new species amongst the Sophonity. Arriving in vessels that are barely spaceworthy, a group of refugees calling themselves the Haroshem limp into the Bellatrix system. Apparently they are the remainder of a pre-FTL colonization fleet which was launched hundreds of years ago from the Haroshem home world - the location of which could not be recovered from the badly damaged computer systems of the refugee ship. Knowing little of who they are or where they come from, the Haroshem are graciously accepted with open arms by the Sophonity and a sizeable population settles on Bellatrix I.   I find it odd that an event called "Babies Not Booms" can spawn a pop of a different species, other than what's already present. Still, the Haroshem will come in handy when we settle those two sterile worlds in Bellatrix. Sophon linguists and anthropologists long ago noted that the more important a concept is to a particular culture, the more and varied expressions that concept will find in the culture's language. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are over twenty ways to say "I told you so" in the dominant language of the Sophon people. Many of those permutations were used when combat-viable ships were developed just as the pirate threat in Nihal developed, over the objection of those who lobbied for more esoteric research. Now that there was no serious debate about the need to project force, the Triumvirate calls the various military institutes and academies together to draw up designs for the fleet that will keep the hyperlanes clear. The time has come to wrestle with the ship design subsystem in Endless Space 2, which on balance is pretty good and only has one really annoying quirk. Building a ship involves picking a hull type, then filling that hull type with a number of modules in different categories. The categories are offense/defense/support, with each hull type having a different mix. The hulls are further differentiated by having a number of bonuses, as well as a role which dictates how that ship will behave in combat.  Let's start with the Magnet, which was auto-designed as soon as we got access to the Deka-class hull. Its two support slots were left empty by the autodesign - we'll fill them with a Debris Analyzer (which provides loot in the form of Science for every ship you kill) and Nano-repair Bots (regenerates 15% of the ship's health after a battle, along with a very small flat boost to max health). Note the single yellow module displayed in the ship designer - that color indicates that the module requires a strategic resource, in this case hyperium, to be built. In this case we don't want to use that module, but our constant income of hyperium means that we're in a good place if that changes. The other auto-designed ship is the Accelerator, which actually comes off the line ready to use. We'll make no adjustments to it at this time. Now that we've designed our ships, it's time to build a few. This takes priority over colonizing Dyl IV, so we push that to the bottom of Dyl's production queue and order up one of each class. Estimated completion of our fleet is 10 turns away, so we're going to have to hope that the Reavers keep to Nihal/Ugaro and don't make any movements towards our settled systems. kaynorr fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 19:20
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Just gonna point out I'm loving this LP.
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Aug 16, 2017 20:43
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King Doom posted:Just gonna point out I'm loving this LP. Thanks, I really appreciate it. I got stuck for a while because of various things, but I'm hoping to get posts up once up every 1-2 days.
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Aug 16, 2017 21:22
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I was just about to say the same thing. Thank you for doing this lp. This is a game I wouldn't have the patience to play.
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Aug 17, 2017 07:33
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When I tried the game, I didn't liked it as much as first Endless Space. But it was in Open Beta. Plus, I don't have a patience to finish the game... Thank you for showing how to do it right.
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Aug 17, 2017 08:10
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NHO posted:When I tried the game, I didn't liked it as much as first Endless Space. But it was in Open Beta. Plus, I don't have a patience to finish the game... I make NO claims about doing it right, but hopefully I'm at least doing it interestingly.
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Aug 17, 2017 15:48
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Years Twenty To Thirty - Maybe We Should Be Able To Shoot Back? Twenty years after the establishment of the Triumvirate and the Assembly of Associated Thinkers, the political charter that created these entities mandates a new election to ensure that the Assembly reflects the will of Sophonity as a whole. Speeches are given, babies kissed, and numerous political predictions are proved more-or-less accurate as the Prosperity Through Illumination party retains its place of prominence, but this time on equal footing with the pacifist Universal Goodwill party.  This is where the political leanings revealed in that survey back in turn 16 are made concrete. Our research & industrial projects have primarily had Scientist & Pacifist inclinations, so that is the way our population votes. The one difference is that the Militarist faction no longer has any representation in the senate, meaning that our Militarist Law (Expanded Defenders of the Realm) is cancelled. Reviewing the laws available to replace it, everything either has an unacceptable downside or too high an Influence cost. The good stuff costs 1 or 2 Influence per population, which for us translates to 6 or 12 per turn. 12 per turn would put us in the red for Influence, and while the laws are nice they're not worth sapping our Influence reserve. So for now we'll leave the third law slot blank. While serving as the military garrison of the Bellatrix system, the Beryllium finds time to do the job they were hired for and launches a probe at Bellatrix I. A heretofore unknown vein of titanium is located in what was previously believed to be a valueless mountain ridge near the equator of the planet.  Now we have both the early-game strategic resources at our disposal, which is always nice. A year later, the crew of the Bellatrix gets bored with "readiness" drills and "accidentally" launches another probe, this time at an electromagnetic anomaly on Bellatrix II. By the time the probe has sent back the initial findings to the Bellatrix, it has already been targeted by the planetside nanomachine swarm and rebuilt into what one could only assume was the last thing requested out of the assembler array before it went dark. An quarter-mile wide circular patch of crimson-hued moss eventually marks the spot where the probe was last seen.  Once it gets fully online, Bellatrix is probably going to outpace Dyl as our primary agricultural system. Year twenty-four of the interstellar era proves to be a particularly busy one, as almost every aspect of Sophonity sees improvement or change in one way or another. The Center for New Worlds is only too eager to announce that the high-altitude, low-humidity world of Nihal I can now be made palatable for Sophon life, thanks to the innovative LifeLichen! And now that we can seed organisms on another world which brings it closer to habitable, it only makes sense to follow that up with a concerted effort to make the new life we cultivate as aethetically pleasing as possible. Planetary Landscaping gets the go-ahead as the next major research project.  Aside from the benefits of whatever technology you researched directly, gaining access to the next tech stage in a quadrant confers benefits of its own. In this case we can now build two new kinds of probe modules using our strategic resources - Titanium or Hyperium Probes. Titanium probes see father, replenish faster, and stockpile more than standard probes, and hyperium probes are even better than titanium. We can also make a run for a new deed, the Intergalactic Technology Center (ITER). This is essential a wonder of the world from Civilization - a large industrial project that can only be built once in the galaxy, and confers a large bonus to whomever completes it.  We can afford the hyperium, so we update the design for the Detector class (thus creating the Detector2 design). We can upgrade our existing scout ship when it's in the Dyl system.  Quite unexpectedly, the Sophon Triumvirate receives an unsolicited communication from the weird gas bug people, ahem, the Deuyvians, expressing their admiration for our innovation and their continued hopes for the future. Out of gratitude for our cross-cultural technology exchange program, they Deuyvian (Hive? Gasmind? Central authority? The translator remains unclear on this one) wishes to make an annual contribution to Sophonity. The fruits of our diplomacy begin to blossom. We now get an income of 8.5 Dust, 9 Science, and 50 manpower from the Deuyvians every turn, and that will continue to grow as the Deuyvian polity does.  There is no argument like a pedantic one, and given what a stickler the Sophons are for accurate classification this flares up into a major controversy. Neither choice is good, but in an unexpected turn of events the Triumvirate rules in favor of letting the existing classification stand. "Mistakes will follow us to the stars, and we must not be so fearful of them that we look backwards at our failures rather than forwards at the new mistakes we have yet to make. We will learn from this experience, but not at the expense of all we have yet to do across the galaxy." The choice here is pretty clear - taking a hit to our Industry would put us way behind, so we'll just slow down our pace of innovation for a while. Just when the crew of the Beryllium was looking for anything else they could shove probes into for sport, the situation at Bellatrix turns dire as sensors report the reaver fleet inbound. Despite attempts to rearrange the external sensor array in the most aggressive way possible, the Beryllium is still outgunned by the reavers and no antenna alignment will change that. Reluctantly, the Beryllium must withdraw to the safety of the Dyl system and leave Bellatrix to its own devices, for a time. Now the military situation is becoming a little more dire. Bellatrix space is now effectively under siege by the reavers; luckily the pirate factions don't generally bombard settled worlds the way major factions do.  As if sensing the potential for a sea-change in the mood of the people, Asaroenni Dzulmaran undergoes a goodwill tour of the new settlements on Dyl I, and in the aftermath both industrial and biomass production across the system doesn't just stabilize, but improves with the steadying hand of Dzulmaran's leaership. Asaroenni has made it to level 3, so we choose to improve her bonuses to Food and Industry production per-pop. Next year, just as plans for civil defense and wartime rationing are being finalized, the reaver fleet exits back down the hyperlane it came - luckily, away from the Sophon home system. The people of Bellatrix breath easier, while also publishing op-eds in a number of major media outlets that maybe, just maybe, it would be amazing if any field tests of the new Sophon Navy could take place near Bellatrix. Pirate factions don't really pursue any specific agenda - they just kind of wander around the adjacent systems attacking anyone they come across. Luckily for us they leave Bellatrix just as quickly as they entered, giving us an opening to move our warfleet in just as soon as it finishes. Back on Dyl, the Beryllium is outfitted with the latest in hyperium-augmented probe technology. The crew wastes no time in doing what they love to do - launch sensor packages at unknown curiosities with a great deal of enthusiasm! The new hyperium probe array is immediately emptied, with the payloads divided between Dyl IV (more transvine, never a bad thing) and Dyl I...   Perhaps life on Dyl I will become a little more interesting with the addition of psychogenic phenomena. Year 26 brings peace and quiet, for the most part. The Sophon Navy is still only half completed, with the offense oriented Accelerator-class ship still three years away. Until this is complete, the entire constellation is at risk of further pirate harassment. While all of Dyl is laboring away at completing the Navy, Bellatrix celebrates the unveiling of its own Cerebral Reality - no longer will the people of Bellatrix be considered second-class virtual citizens. The recent discovery of titanium on Bellatrix I makes the construction of an Interplanetary Transit Network not just feasible, but recommended. Magnetic cargo drivers are particularly well suited to the heavy mass of strategic materials, and the boost to system-wide industry can be quite extreme.  Here we have an example of an improvement which has more targeted appeal. An Interplanetary Transit Network only makes sense if there is at least one, and preferably two or more, planets with a strategic resource. Back on the Beryllium, the new hyperium equipment is spitting out probes as fast as the crew can launch them. In the time it took to head for the Tylus system another probe came off the assembler, so they waste no time examining a series of contradictory findings from the original survey of Tylus I. The probe data reveals...nothing out of the ordinary. Comparing the new data with the original survey notes, a transposition error in the survey data is found which rendered much of the original survey useless. Fresh, accurate data is sent to replace the master files in the Sophon Planetary Index, which is happily received. Sometimes you only get a little bit of loot when you explore a curiosity, usually in the form of FIDS. We get 50 Science, which isn't great but every data point helps. This find takes us over the top and work on Planetary Landscaping is complete.  Next up is Baryonic Shielding, which is going to shake things up. The science staff of the Beryllium redoubles their efforts the following year, and the probe of Tylus II turns up a much more interesting result.  The third and final curiosity in the Tylus system is probed the following year to great success, and the material sciences staff is delighted at the prospect of getting to name another form of exotic matter.  It will be a while before we research the technology that lets us exploit Adamantian (one of the midgame strategic resources), but it's good to know that we'll have a supply available to us when the time comes. Much more importantly, the Accelerator-class warship Rubidium finally completes its field trials and is ready to join its Magnet-class companion in exterminating the pirate menace. Navy Fleet Admiral Oebium Valanizi christens the craft by hurling a cluster of brightly-colored exited photons against the prow, and with high expectations the 1st Rubidium Expedition enters the hyperlane to Bellatrix. Year Thirty brings with it a moral quandry, in the form of a bit of one-of-a-kind technology that has outlived its maker and has ominous implications.  Normally this kind of thing wouldn't faze the Sophons - destroying a unique prototype would be considered a heinous act of ignorance! Despite appearances of irresponsibilities to outsiders, Sophonity is not without its share of cultural taboos. This particular device brings up an ugly period in Sophon history, during which time the brutal dictator of a small island nation was engaging in flagrant crimes against Sophonity. This partiular manifestation was the development and widespread implementation of nervous system override circuits, which at best turned people into unwilling slaves and at worst left them quadriplegic and suffering. Eventually a catastrophic programming error led to the death of over ten thousand Sophons, at which point the global community was shamed into intervening and ending the regime. To this day, while cognative/neuroscience research is certainly not prohibited, there remains an aversion to anything which represents outright control of one being by another. Dyl is hovering just below 50% approval, so that makes the choice clear. We destroy the device. The Triumvirate is eager to move on from this difficult subject to happier news - another revolutionary breakthrough in high-energy physics! Baryonic Shielding fulfills the (now decades old) promise of being able to escape the confines of the hyperlanes and travel at FTL speeds towards any distant star. This is achieved by means of a baryon-mediated "hyperbubble" which emulates a hyperlane in the space immediately surrounding a ship. There is plenty of room for improvement with this technology - there is some sort of not-yet-understand gravity drag which slows down a craft in a hyperbubble, such that it takes significantly more time to cover a distance compared to a proper hyperlane. On account of this, new baryon shielded ships are equipped with a larger supply of supplies for long trips, along with a larger complement of stimulating research projects and activities to keep the crew busy. Based on early surveys, almost mandatory is a complete collection of the "Quaking Sky" epic, an enormously successfully film trilogy based on an even more successful series of books. This landmark of Sophon storytelling is a heavily fictionalized depiction of one man's lifelong mission to blow up, and then attempt to reassemble, the moon. Baryonic Shielding is a bit of a game-changer, as it allows us to travel beyond the confines of our home constellation. Travel...very...slowly, but travel all the same. We need to tend to the homefront a bit for now, but once this pirate matter is dealt with and we've settled Ugaro, it will be time to look to the adjacent constellations to plan our next moves. The Rubidium expedition arrives in Bellatrix space to find that the pirates have not returned, and decide to take up a defensive posture rather than give chase to Nihal and possibly beyond.  A star system is a big place, and having a ship in orbit doesn't inherently interfere with other fleets passing through. If we had the movement points, we could fly our fleet directly past the pirates and just wave as we go. Setting a fleet action to Guard changes that - it effectively interdicts the system from anyone passing through for one turn. Only one turn, so you need to have your welcoming party ready immediately otherwise you'll miss the opportunity to properly greet your visitors kinetically. As our home constellation is an unbranching chain, we can just sit here in Guard mode and be fairly confident that the reaver fleet will wander in sooner or later. If we get impatient we can always move on to Nihal and guard again, and so forth. And just before the end of the thirtieth year since starflight, someone in the Sophon Diplomatic Corp finds a sticky note that had fallen off their holodisplay, just reading "Call Deuyvians, make nice". Once FTL transmission later and our cordial relations with the Deuyvians are reaffirmed The diplomatic action Praise only runs for ten turns and doesn't generate any sort of even when it ends. I just now noticed that our relations with the Deuyvians wasn't rising, so I called them up and spent another 10 Influence to keep on track.  Just for reference here is the current map of Sophon explored space. Now that we can send our exploration ships into the other constellations, building at least one more will be our first order of business once current peacekeeping operations have concluded. kaynorr fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 00:55
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Adding my voice to the choir of 'digging what you're doing here'. My computer is ancient and janky beyond words, so it's nice to have access to games I might wanna play like this one in some way!
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Aug 18, 2017 07:42
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