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You can take the computer out of the missile ship, it doesn't do anything and removing it makes the ship a bit cheaper. Also, definitely fight the eel before going to war!
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Aug 29, 2019 19:03
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Depending on the rules in play, having the computer might help with initiative. I also agree with going after the eel, but that's primarily coming from a place of "if it doesn't work, the eel won't come after you for revenge."
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Aug 29, 2019 20:48
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** Note: I realized after the fact that I did something super, SUPER STUPID during the combats here. Thought about going back to replay it, but decided that it wasn't worth the hassle. Suffice to say that the Overmind needs to space a few admirals here. Go ahead and laugh at it, because it's worth l laughing at. Expansion After pondering the situation a bit, I decided to go for the Trilar planet. A Barren planet, Rich or not, isn't going to be of great immediate value. More importantly though, I'm in this for the long haul. In the short-term I'll just get pounded so there's no point in worrying too much about that. I think the monsters will keep a lot longer than a secondary planet in their home system. If they take it before the colony ship is done, I can just switch the stockpiled production over and not lose that much. The only way I would really lose out is if they grab it while I'm on the way, and there's only so much you can plan around.  Whaddya know, he showed up anyway - just waited a bit longer. Right now his research boost, even though it's small, it worth it to me.  Tough call, but after a short term of service Houri is sent packing. I think Crassis will be better in the long-term as we get pollution reductions, and Rash-lki is of course the centerpiece.  After a couple turns to get the Pollution Processor out there, it has become tenable to go for mass-production. We can now produce colony ships, or whatever else we might need at this stage, in a reasonable time-frame. SD 3504.8 - I'm informed of an Alkari-Bulrathi NAP. They're making peace elsewhere, and that tells us that the bodacious bears will be making an appearance. SD 3505.0 - We're a dozen or so turns too late, as the Trilarians finally grab their second planet. Using a colony ship, not a colony base, reports my scout. Go AI.  Space Academy is in, and so I need to build up a maximum force of frigates ASAP. For now, I think I just want to grab some of the cheap stuff indiscriminately here on the research side. I'll go Astro Biology after this.  I'd like better options, but sure. We are sadly lacking in ship fortifications. More importantly, I'm able to convince the Trilarians to part with Automated Factories for the same price. Battle Pods they have as well, but we need something better to pry that from them. The factories boost us up to 90 Industry maximum on Char III.  The armor isn't as important to us now as it might have been prior to the Alkari trade. We don't need the fusion beam yet, but I think I'll get started down that path given the low cost. Meanwhile both scouts have been scrapped for a combined 16 BC - the real benefit of course being to free up the command points. SD 3505.9 - The entire Klackon fleet of eight Worker Ants departs for Nir. The Overmind has impressed upon them that the hopes of all our species are along with them. The journey will take three galactic cycles, and at the end of it will be a battle that we cannot afford to lose. Eel Battle (2:28) Welp the good news is we only lost one ship. Bad news is we didn't do enough damage, and need more. We're going to have to drain the treasury significantly in order to make this happen. Based on the results, we need at least 12, possibly 13 frigates - with eight the Eel still had a third of it's 'structure' intact.  I decide it's time to beeline for more research and the planetary supercomputer that comes after this.  Well, this is fortuitous. He is hired, and ordered to go back out with the fleet to Nir as soon as they are ready to return to Char. His full name is Commodore Kronos, the Ancient Seafarer.  There are Darlocks. Of course there are Darlocks. And Meklar, Silicoids, Gnolams who we haven't seen before. Three systems each for the Bulrathi, Darlocks, and Gnolams. And the Trilarians steal Research Lab, because I've been too lazy to build spies even though I had a chance to *slap self*.  LOL. We're still in our home system, yet nominated in the first Council. Everyone has two votes, except for Quorzum who has three. Everyone else abstains. So a bunch of boring nothing there. SD 3507.0 - Let's try this again, this time with 13 frigates and the good commodore along with them. Correcting the previous error, I have a couple of spies up now. We can't support this size a force for long ... EelBattle, Take 2 (2:02) I did some experimenting at this point, and couldn't find a way to do it with fewer ships. 10 failed, for example. The Eel's darned lightning shield just sucks up too many of the missiles, and for whatever reason it seems to work better if I launch them from a few squares away - more of them got through then just launching each ship from right next to it. So basically, this fight was just kind of dumb and I admit I don't fully understand it. Thought about refitting everyone with fusion beams but even with the missiles lost to the Eel's defenses, they still wouldn't have done as much damage. In any case, Nir falls to the indomitable will of the Overmind. I've now got a use-it-or-lose-it fleet that will last exactly four more turns.  Nobody asked you. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Bethmoora is just three turns away. Let's try our hand at the Space Crystal before scrapping some of these ships. I switch on Trade Goods briefly to ensure we have enouch cash to make it.  He'll take charge of Nir. Crystal Battle (2:36) Close. We'll be back, vile entity.  Upon returning to Char, five of the 11 surviving frigates are scrapped - those with the most inexperienced crews. We can't afford to keep paying the maintenance on them right now.  The Alkari have taken Achir while we dithered about. Ecu is still available for now; Umm, even if we defeated the Amoeba, would still be a parsec out of range. Further below, Arkab has an absolutely fabulous planet - and is therefore almost certainly guarded by another monster. This figures to be a profitable monster-hunting galaxy, if we can pull it off. I think that's the route to relevancy. And the quickest route to that is trading with the Trilarians for Battle Pods. The Bulrathi won't agree to anything right now, even after a bribe - Balrokzor is awesomely an Aggressive Expansionist. Aquailis reports that we don't have any technology that they want.  To which I say; would you mind repeating that? Kronos's information is even more extensive than I thought, but we spit on the galaxy already in terms of technology. We just don't have some of the stuff we want.   Four of our seven rivals have a ship combat bonus. Also, the Meklar are stuck in their home system on this game and are the only race with better labor than ours. We want them yesterday, but would have to go through Alkari or Bulrathi to get there. Which is less exciting. And fast-growing Silicoids? What manner of heresy is this?? Anyway, I want to grab Ecu if I can, build up Nir so I can get colony bases out to claim the other planets there, and research so that we can improve to being able to improve our anti-monsters fighting force, or else trade said research for options to do so. I throw the kitchen sink at Balrokzor in order to get an agreement. ANY agreement. I couldn't even get them up to neutral. So we could be fighting the most combat-capable force in the galaxy at any time, and there isn't a darned thing I can do about it.  Just in case we didn't hate them enough already. Mortane is an Aggressive Militarist. I offer him a bunch of tech, boosting relations to Relaxed. And still declines every last manner of agreement. *sigh*. I throw a 10% annual tribute at the Bulrathi. Hate doing this, but I really don't know any other way to mollify them. And I'm not sure even this will be enough. SD 3507.9 - Trilarians take the only decent planet in Ecu. It's not good by any stretch, ultra-poor with gravity issues, but it would have been something.   Boo. If it wasn't for the monsters, we would be totally screwed. And might be anyway. Everyone in the 'Not Klackons' category has Battle Pods. None will even discuss trading it. I sign a tribute guarantee to the Darloks, quite literally trying to buy more time. SD 3508.2 - Meklar-Alkari war. Don't you dare kill them, birdbrains. Also, one of our spies is killed. I queue up a couple more. SD 3508.4 - Bulrathi-Silicoid war. Getting hostile out there. We're not ready for it.  Darloks gotta Darlok. What, exactly, are you planning on doing with that??  The rest of the planets around here are worse, but at the very least they will give us taxpayers and not belong to the others. I'm going to snag them anyway.  Highway robbery, but we can't live without it. The Trilarians are only willing to offer the Planetary Missile Base ... which I still for sure need. I take that deal as well. The other two jerks who don't like us? Yeah, not trading them squat right now. Amazing what happens you finally get in a toy everyone wants.  The new-and-improved design. Enough of these should get us over the hump. The question now is whether our economy can support 'enough' of them.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:34
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quote:Darloks gotta Darlok. What, exactly, are you planning on doing with that?? Trade it with other AIs for actually useful stuff. When you pick up a new technology, especially one that the AI can't actually use, you should immediately see what everyone is willing to trade for it.
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Aug 30, 2019 01:14
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Thotimx posted:
That. Is. Painful. To. Watch.
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Aug 30, 2019 21:05
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Thotimx posted:
if you put the MIRV missiles after the normal ones (or heavy armored ones) the normal ones soak point defense. I think. I ran a easier (average, 3 races) game with stock klackons. highlights include 0 new engines, disruptors as only beam, planatary flux shields, and no armor. my opponents never got class 3 shields so my AP lasers were useful until I got powered armor and assault shuttles. Transporters were also available and autolab was MVP. terrenblade fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Aug 31, 2019 |
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Aug 31, 2019 00:47
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Putting the crappy missiles first wouldn't matter for these specific fights, because Lightning Field is just a flat 50% chance to destroy incoming missiles, but it's a good thing to know for the future. As for the Eel and Crystal fights, I think you could've taken the Eel the first time with the fleet you had, but you'd have to spread your ships out so the Eel couldn't hit more than one. And you would've lost at least one. The crystal could've been taken out if you'd just stayed in there and accepted that you were going to have some losses. The frigates had two shots, but they were bailing after only firing one.
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Aug 31, 2019 10:23
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HannibalRex posted:When you pick up a new technology, especially one that the AI can't actually use, you should immediately see what everyone is willing to trade for it. Good if cheesy point. I start doing that more. terrenblade posted:highlights include 0 new engines, disruptors as only beam, planatary flux shields, and no armor. Heh. That sounds … unpleasant. I wouldn't have thought the order of the missiles would matter, but since space monsters basically don't have point defense … MechaCrash posted:The crystal could've been taken out if you'd just stayed in there and accepted that you were going to have some losses. The frigates had two shots, but they were bailing after only firing one. Yep. I totally forgot about the second volley, that was the super-stupid thing I was talking about.
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Aug 31, 2019 21:23
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Monster-Hunting It seemed wise to secure our current position a bit first, adding a Missile Base on the homeworld and building the Supercomputer. All of that would add to how tight the finances are, but it can't be helped and the way out of that is simply growing the population anyway.  I forget if this is the second or third one ... second I think ... but we're the first choice, then Balrkozor. So other races may have more systems, but as long as our population and technology keeps up, I'm not sure that I particularly care.  Gnolams and Trilarians, both also with three votes, abstained ... but we have a supporter!  What? I thought you were my friends?? Not really. The Meklar are also abstaining with just two, along with the Darloks (three). The way this run is shaping up there may be more political intrigue than before here, and I'm totally fine with a diplomatic win if I can swing it. The two nominees are barely that, both having three votes each as well. Nobody is even close ... I vote for the Bulrathi to mollify them.  That would be nice, but it's expensive. Screw the expense though - military leaders of quality aren't easy to come by. Welcome aboard, Captain Sparky! The new frigates cost 60 BC to refit ... with a new one coming in at 69 BC. They're still cheaper, but not by much. Hiring our new cybernetic friend means we won't be able to afford an outsized fleet anytime soon either. SD 3509.4 - Gnolam-Darlok war. Keep em busy. I'm fine with the two 'large' powers of the galactic right feuding.  You're welcome - and don't you dare forget it. Say, that reminds me ... how about signing a trade deal with the great leader who had the foresight to vote for you in the High Council? "Your proposal is declined, Emperor Overmind". SD 3509.6 - Gnolam-Darlok peace. That was useless.  I think we need a diplomatic boost. Maybe this will convince the less friendly fellows to accept our offers. SD 3509.8 - Bulrathi-Silicoid peace. Looks like the Bulrathi won this one, as the Malec system was owned by the rocks, and now it is a disputed one.  The Nir system is now fully colonized. Our budding industrial center there can now focus on optional infrastructure (i.e. research buidings), defenses, and boosting the freighter count. SD 3510.0 - Bulrathi-Trilarian war. I doubt it accomplishes anything, but a Trilarian task group immediately heads for Ursa. Hard to keep up with all this chaos, but at least none of it involves us. Yet. Also, the Darloks pop in to thank us for our tribute.  *clapclap* As you can see, he's responsible for a non-trivial amount of our imperial research output still. SD 3510.6 - We now have six refitted frigates. How many more do we need? By my calculations, eight should just do the job. So, nine it is. Supporting that many, including travel time, figures to just about drain the treasury, but I think we can manage it. I'll do extra trade goods investment if necessary. The space crystal must be destroyed. Space Crystal Again (1:58) Whee! Also I just realized that I had previously been only firing the first volley of missile from my frigates, because I guess I just forgot how to fight or something? Making it harder on myself FTW!! And Xeno-Psych at the same time. Of course it was not yet over. I needed to get a Colony Ship there before anyone else got any bright ideas.  The Stock Exchange would help fuel our expansion, but so would the Cloning Center. When we claim Bethmoora we're going to need citizens. That's cheaper, and just as important. Anyway, a single frigate was lost in the fight, so I could with a trade goods focus support all of them. Keeping that going, Char III poured everything into getting a colony ship out here. SD 3511.4 - Meklar-Alkari peace, in what seems to have been an inconsequential if fairly lengthy war. Good news for our long-term plans of having cybernetic 'assistants'.  I've decided Biology is where it's at. Just got the cloning centers in, we'll get even more population growth from this, and with the hostile planets we have and will be acquiring, Terraforming is the tier after it. A golden age of growth for the Klackons, dutiful minions of the Overmind, is coming and we need the technology to maximize it.  The third (??) meeting of the High Council has the Alkari opposing us. Immediately the Bulrathi choose the side of the birds, while the Trilarians vote for us. Everyone else abstains though, which makes it rather boring. However, we are now the only empire with a whopping FOUR votes. Yay go team. We vote Voreet Zry, who still has less than half of the total. More importantly ...  Mwahahahaha!!! Bethmoora IV is soon to be our new center of ... everything, pretty much. It'll be better at anything than even our homeworld in Char. Two citizens are sent out immediately to bolster the startup, with more to follow.  The natives will ensure that everyone on the hostile worlds has plenty of food. That was starting to become an issue -- past tense.  Only the Trilarians, who have shown no signs of aggression and are embroiled in their conflict with the Bulrathi, can even reach our new remote acquisition. The Overmind orders the fleet to travel to umm ... well, to Umm. Yes, obvious and bad joke is obvious and bad. They refuse, on the flimsy evidence that the system is a parsec out of range. We need an outpost on one of the gas giants in Trilar.  The Darloks finally relent, as do the Bulrathi. I guess a little xeno-psychology does the trick.  Bulrathi-Trilarian peace, with the bears acquiring the minimally useful Ecu system. No sooner is the ink dry than the Trilars declare war on Altair. Sheesh. The more I think about it, with this kind of chaos I don't want any allies. Just friends, and to stay out of the fighting. Amoeba Attack (1:51) It is not without casualties, but we take down the Space Amoeba as well. And a promotion for Rash-lki!! More good omens SD 3512.6 - Same year. Bulrathi-Gnolam war. I'm feeling very good about things, but at the same time I know the ONLY reason for this is that we have remained at peace. We will eventually have to fight. Seemed to me it was time to reconsider the overall situation.  Apparently I lied earlier in the LP, because I was sure the Population comparison wasn't working. But ... it is. Not that we didn't really already have this information from the council voting of course. Bottom line is that there are more Klackons by a good margin now than anybody else. You can also see that budget remains tight. We have seven spies right now - this is why I don't have like a dozen or so.  Lots of ups and downs here with the fighting everyone's engaged in. Seems like only the Darloks have been immune.  Ok so this has gotten worse. You can see that the last time I looked at this was when it was best for us. We flattened out ... and the rest of the galaxy did the opposite. When considering militarizing here I notice a few things. ** We are probably going to fall behind further in research if I don't make that a priority. ** I haven't seen anything larger than a cruiser and no bunches of them, most task groups floating around have been a few frigates/destroyers. Our fleet of five frigates isn't all that much smaller than most. The current Starbase/Missile Base combo is sufficient for now for defending our core planets, and we can get the Fighter Garrison if it looks like we need a bit more. ** We can't do everything we need to do right now - expand, invest in research, and militarize. And we are still at peace. So I think continuing the Farmer's Gambit is the move, while still maintaining as respectable an anti-monster/deterrent frigate group as possible without crippling the economy. ** For all of our planets, productivity-wise we basically have Char III (best for research) and the moderate-sized industrial center of Nir III. And that's really it - Bethmoora's only about halfway through its development cycle and after that we can do whatever with it, but still a bit down the road there. ** I need to keep a closer eye on this.  Expansion-wise, we need to claim the three habitable rich worlds of varying quality - including one with natives - in Umm. There's also a meh planet in Moro and a subpar one in Ecu that are probably worth snagging.  Further down - reachable if we put up an outpost in Achir - is the most valuable Arkab. That would give us another high-quality planet. As in really high quality - 25 pop, Gaia, Ultra Rich, Gem Deposits ... it's practically an Orion+ without the Guardian around. And then it puts us in range of the Meklar, which optimally speaking would be our first war to staff us up with a top-quality work force, after which we'd just go smash things. So putting all this together, I think research on Char, building Colony Ships/Worker Ants on Nir, and continuing to throw population at Bethmoora and later Umm is the best plan. Let's keep growing while we're allowed to. If war does come, so long as rival fleets don't appear to be overwhelming I think we can hold our key planets and frankly I don't care a whole lot about the others.
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Aug 31, 2019 21:29
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Once you've taken Meklon and have a good work force, you can start gearing up to go after the Bulrathi. I suggest this for two reasons: one is that their massive tech lead will let them run away with things so it's better to put the brakes on that now, and you may even "acquire" a few things along the way. The other and much bigger reason is that taking Ecu or Enzu will put you within striking distance of the Darloks, who of course, must be destroyed.
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Sep 1, 2019 02:33
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MechaCrash posted:the Darloks, who of course, must be destroyed. Nazin Delenda Est.
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Sep 1, 2019 04:26
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LOL. Is there anyone still reading this who actually likes the Darloks? There were a couple who wanted me to go custom max-espionage Darloks with the third run, but maybe that was just so I didn't have to compete with them. I just think the whole DARLOKSMUSTDIEAMIRITE thing is amusing, it's half taken over the thread and I didn't see it coming when I started this up.
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Sep 1, 2019 10:25
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I do it more as a joke than anything else, but yes, Darloks can be a real pain in your side, and the only way to truly not have to worry about your tech being stolen and traded to other races is to cleanse the unclean Darloks with nuclear fire.
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Sep 1, 2019 10:45
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Thotimx posted:
I'm not sure you noticed, but he's worth it for the advanced damage control alone. It's not on your tech-tree, but very useful.
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Sep 1, 2019 10:56
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Thotimx posted:LOL. Is there anyone still reading this who actually likes the Darloks? There were a couple who wanted me to go custom max-espionage Darloks with the third run, but maybe that was just so I didn't have to compete with them. I just think the whole DARLOKSMUSTDIEAMIRITE thing is amusing, it's half taken over the thread and I didn't see it coming when I started this up. I am mostly doing it because I think it's funny, but there is actually a nugget of good strategy under that. Defending against military fuckery requires you to be good at military fuckery, and military fuckery is a conventional thing that you can plan for and route around and, if you have the talent, you can win despite technically being weaker. And if someone starts loving with your poo poo, you know exactly who is doing it and can put a stop to it. There's ways to be sneaky, but once their hand is tipped, it's going to stay tipped, and even if you aren't sure exactly where they are and what they're doing, you know for sure who is doing it. And if nothing else, having a beefy military is good for other things. But spying? Spying is RNG, and the only way to not get your poo poo constantly wrecked by spies is by being better at spying, which requires either shoveling tons of money into spies or being naturally talented, and nobody is better at spying than Darloks. The only ways to make sure they aren't stealing all of your poo poo and then trading it around the galaxy is to not have any poo poo for them to steal, or to crush them in a head to head conflict. Otherwise they'll be shaking your hand while picking your pocket and framing everyone else, sowing strife and discord around the galaxy. So gently caress it, better to nail those shapeshifting bastards to the wall with something they can't pin on someone else. "Being good at spying" is synonymous with "kill these guys first."
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Sep 1, 2019 17:00
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Kurvi Tasch posted:'m not sure you noticed, but he's worth it for the advanced damage control alone. I noticed, didn't talk about it because I frankly didn't care that much. I don't think the MOO2 version of ADC is something that really moves the needle … it's nice to have but I've never seen a situation where it helped all that much.
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Sep 3, 2019 05:51
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Thotimx posted:I noticed, didn't talk about it because I frankly didn't care that much. I don't think the MOO2 version of ADC is something that really moves the needle … it's nice to have but I've never seen a situation where it helped all that much. It's more valuable if you actually have ships survive hits. It's also a technology that you can randomly acquire early and in practice does nothing useful for the AI, so it's useful trade fodder, much like Dimensional Portal.
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Sep 3, 2019 07:43
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Antaran Airheads They aren't headed for us ... but we'd be in trouble if they were. Looks like it's time to start militarizing after all. We get a standard trade deal with them in addition to the research one, but the Darloks still refuse that.  The only useful deal we can swing right now. Terraforming is out there already, but nobody is willing to part with it.  On second thought ...  We'll take that as well. The economy just took a nice step forwards.  SD 3513.3 - The Antarans return. To Bethmoora. But only a single frigate this time, which I've never seen before. We have a missile base in place, and a starbase being built. Unfortunately, there's no way to finish it in time. I don't think our missiles can hold off even a token attack such as this. The population is probably large enough to survive the bombardment, but it won't be pleasant. Bethmoora Defense (0:58) Well that was exceedingly weird. We narrowly survive, only because they waited too long to bomb us. Still, I'll take it for sure. We have beaten the mighty Antarans! Only because they were too bored to send a proper raiding fleet, but details. As a test, I broke our tribute deal with the Bulrathi; it took our relations from Affable (about 80% up the bar) to Restless (about 40%). So it's a pretty stiff price, and definitely not worth doing.  I think we need to save up for this dude. It'll take a while, but with all the trade deals we have going on plus his other benefits, he'll make up the cost rapidly.  The Trilarians flitting about had me worried, but they never made a move. This is the key planet - they'll be much less likely to seize the Toxic and Radiated ones.  No investigation is needed. We know who is to blame.  Yeah I know - it looks nothing like a Scorpion. The other choices look too human though for the most part. Anyway, here's our initial placeholder battleship design. I'm going to build one of these as a deterrent and emergency deployment should they hit us. That'll still leave room for a respectable anti-monster frigate attack group; command points are up to a whopping nine now. The timing is because Bethmoora is now fully developed. It'll take about a dozen turns to build one of these, another reason why we aren't going to field more than that initially.  Yay! Our biggest outstanding concern has been allayed further.  Took a while to show up, but worth the wait I'd say. We really need planetary shields of some type to make use of a number of Radiated worlds, but there are some that will benefit immediately.  I need to clean up some cheapies next I think.  Trendline looks better, but not great yet.  Oooh yes, thank you. Nobody actually wanted terraforming ... they all had it already. Spaceports will go up immediately on our three core worlds. Nir IV, Nir III, and Umm III will all benefit from the terraforming in the near-ish future.  Another High Council, another opposing pretender. We've never met Dolgran, yet we debate with them in the council chambers. How exactly does that work again?? Literally everyone else abstains. 2-4 votes, 4 for Dolgran. We have 6. Creeping slowly towards that veto bloc, which would require 10. Otherwhise a total waste of time.  Strange - I had exactly the converse in mind. Also, we had lost contact with the Silicoids, who said that they 'honored us with their presence once again'. I think disgusted in more appropriate than honored in this case.  Finally we have enough money ... but now what? Who is most expendable??  We no longer are in as much need of the small amount of research that Director Urro provides, and can handle breeding issues on our own. The Overmind thanks you for your service. SD 3515.2 - A lengthy Alkari-Trilarian war ends with the fish-folk conquering Kronos. That has me concerned with what the birds will do next ...  ... but it's time for us to head off to Arkab. The journey is long, requiring travel through the nebula. This is our last possibility for peaceful acquisition. If successful, we'll need to turn our attentions to more established foes.  Blah, blah, blah.  I think this would be a worthy addition to our larger ships.  Well yay. Three attacks so far and two of them aimed at us. We'll try to throw up a fighter garrison to assist with the defense, but if they go for one of the undefended worlds then we'll just let them destroy it. Conflicts coming up at Arkab and Nir make for a good leaving-off cliffhanger here. I'm pretty darn shocked that we've been able to maintain peace, and the future of the Klackon species is looking better than ever because of it.
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Sep 5, 2019 10:41
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These small galaxies get very knife-fighty very quickly.
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Sep 5, 2019 11:24
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That was some great luck surviving that bombardment. Hopefully this will snowball into a come-from-behind victory!
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Sep 5, 2019 16:33
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I think that the "ship explodes" thing is just a random event, and not something that sabotage can cause. Better wipe out the Darloks to be safe, though. 
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Sep 6, 2019 04:16
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MechaCrash posted:I think that the "ship explodes" thing is just a random event, and not something that sabotage can cause. The problem is once you wipe out the Darloks you have no one to blame your own espionage on though.... 
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Sep 6, 2019 06:31
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PurpleXVI posted:These small galaxies get very knife-fighty very quickly. Yes, yes they do. Decoy Badger posted:That was some great luck surviving that bombardment. Hopefully this will snowball into a come-from-behind victory! *crosses fingers* Right now I'd give it 50-50 on that. Arganzar posted:The problem is once you wipe out the Darloks you have no one to blame your own espionage on though.... Heh, nice art there  .
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Sep 6, 2019 21:24
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The Peace Ends ... In Theory Nir V (0:22) Clearly our Scorpion was horribly overmatched, which is no surprise. No point in losing it trying to hopelessly defend a tiny, hostile world  Good to see you too.  I could just tell them to shove it ... but if we are going to want to conquer them anyway, what difference does it make if we give them this? Sure, why not - we agree. They say 'you are very wise indeed'.  There are multiple useful things we could pick, but I think we want the Radiation Shield next. Meanwhile, our Scorpion can add one of those new shiny Inertial Stabilizers without sacrificing much in terms of loadout, so that refit begins immediately. SD 3515.7 - Peace between Bulrathi and Gnolam.  How nice of you. And arrogant. Anyway, we now have a full set of deals; relations with Bulrathi, Darloks, Alkari, and Trilarians are all considered 'peaceful'.  I was honestly expecting something bigger than an Eel to be guarding such a prize. Let's do this thing then ... Battle of Arkab (2:24) That went well ... the second time. First time I got too close, it fired off a shockwave to destroy half the frigates, and ... yeah. It was basically the way not to do it.  The shape-shifter diplomats were busy meanwhile.  Yeah, we'll take that.  But apparently I miscalculated in assuming the others wouldn't want hostile planets - they've outgrown that and seized one of the worlds in Umm.  I think it's time to move on from our Worker Ant frigates. Against shielded targets like the Meklar starbase - and doubtless the battleship they have defending the system as well - our missiles will be of less use. But our Scorpion might be able to handle things, esp. when we add more. The cybernetics are at war with the Silicoids, but as of now they are holding their own.  If I didn't know better, I'd say they made it all up.  Their greeting jingle is a bit too nursery-rhymey for my taste. Dolgran immediately agrees to a pair of trade deals, which should be a good start to our relations.  At least we get the third wheel here. I think before going after the Meklar I want to acquire every piece of rock we can peacefully acquire. I never, though I should have, expanded our holdings in Bethmoora, and there are some minimal ones we can snag elsewhere. With terraforming capability we at least get some benefit out of anything.  The good Magistrate is becoming quite decent.  I think our military capacity could use an upgrade. Meanwhile we get back set up to rebuild on Nir V, destroyed by the Antarans. SD 3516.3 - The Meklar make peace with the Silicoids, and declare war on the Alkari. Our intel is that a large convoy of troop transports is en route to Meklon ... but only a single Cruiser is with it. Meanwhile our own freighters drip colonist ferries on the long journey (usually 7 turns) to Arkab. It'll take time to get that going.  Dang, we're just getting all kinds of good military signings this time around. We agree to Captain Kytryl's terms. Also, Bulrathi-Trilarian war is on again. No significant fallout from the Darlok Incident. And as expected, the Alkari are defeated and retreat from Meklon. Though small, the cybernetics appear to be fierce.  You know, I don't think we have anything to fear from them. They have problems of their own. Rejected. 'Alright then, to war!' Suit yourself.  We're ok on money, but I haven't forgotten the idea of pushing for the Astro University. I think it's time for it, though I considered the Ion Drive as well. The top handful of races are starting to embarass us technologically again, and while we're doing another expansion push here I'm eventually going to need to deal with that. .  They had other interesting possibilities, including Fusion Drive and Tritanium Armor. But we've seen the usefulness of the mass driver in the past, and we're not going to improve on that weapon anytime soon.  This a terrible deal. I take it anyway.  And we also get the drives.  Ending with this, as the galaxy's starting to get some serious vote numbers. ** Bulrathi (4) - Abstain ** Trilarians (4) - Abstain ** Gnolams (4) - Overmind ** Silicoids (4) - Abstain ** Alkari (3) - Abstain ** Meklar (2) - Morfane ** Darlok (5) - Morfane We have 9, and I think are on a growth path to getting a veto bloc now. If I get there, I might consider trying to throw together some alliances and win this way. Gotta figure out how often they meet - this one was at 3516.7.
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Sep 11, 2019 08:52
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It'd be a surprise if this ended with a diplomatic victory, but probably the least risky way to win considering the Klackon tech disadvantage.
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Sep 11, 2019 13:00
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Probably true, esp. since I'm not chasing alliances, but one can dream.
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Sep 17, 2019 21:35
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PSA: Suspending all my LPs indefinitely - hopefully not for long - due to a new health issue that's worse than I initially thought. TLDR version is that a tooth got infected earlier this week, infection spread very rapidly, and it would not have ended well without the age of modern medicine. As it is there's still a (small) chance of it permanently damaging vision in my left eye, and I'm pretty much incapacitated until I get the situation under control. Hope to be back soon.
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Sep 20, 2019 18:55
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Oh Jesus, get better soon, Thotimx.
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Sep 20, 2019 19:04
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poo poo, get better soon.
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Sep 20, 2019 19:58
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drat. I hope you get better quickly!
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Sep 20, 2019 23:50
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Speedy recovery, Thotimx.
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Sep 20, 2019 23:56
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My sympathies! Get well!
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Sep 21, 2019 00:34
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Somehow, the Darloks are behind this.  May you recover with no complications.
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Sep 21, 2019 03:30
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Yikes! Best of luck out there.
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Sep 21, 2019 06:40
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Get well soon!
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Sep 21, 2019 06:53
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Yikes. Here's hoping for a thorough recovery.
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Sep 21, 2019 08:12
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Thotimx posted:PSA: Suspending all my LPs indefinitely - hopefully not for long - due to a new health issue that's worse than I initially thought. TLDR version is that a tooth got infected earlier this week, infection spread very rapidly, and it would not have ended well without the age of modern medicine. As it is there's still a (small) chance of it permanently damaging vision in my left eye, and I'm pretty much incapacitated until I get the situation under control. Hope to be back soon. See what happens when you treat ground combat as a dump stat? You end up with a weird race whose teeth ricochet into eyeballs when punched. Do not neglect ground combat.
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Sep 21, 2019 12:52
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Pierzak posted:Do not neglect ground combat. I guess not  . In all seriousness, thanks all for your well-wishes. Just a quick-ish update here; it looks like everything will eventually be fine after what was a pretty darn miserable few days. Modern antibiotics were deployed in time to prevent any damage to the eye … and a lot more than that. A century ago something like this might well have been the end of me, so the main thing I'm feeling just about now is a mix of gratitude and relief. Gradually things have cleared up through the combined force of the medication and also gravity - in this case working in my favor as the infection sought a way to drain downwards. Among those who work with me at my real-life job, there were three leading theories as to what happened on Saturday when I returned to work (badly, in sleep-deprived zombie mode): ** I had a stroke (thankfully NO) ** I had a bad allergic reaction ** Somebody picked up the desk and hit me with it in the side of the face All wrong of course, but perhaps they paint a bit of a picture as to what I looked like comparatively. I've still got extraction of the offending teeth to come later this week and all but definitely on the path back to normalcy and I expect to be no worse for the wear. Plan for now is: ** Train my brain to sleep again. After a few days of rarely being able to do so for more than an hour at a time (and generally waking up in considerable pain in those cases), I still can't sleep for more 2-3 hours yet without my brain trying to get me up. ** Keep the darned area clear and unaggravated and whatnot so I don't have to do this crap again. If it's on your bucket list, please scratch it off. It's not worth doing. ** Work my way back into living 'normally'. I find myself bemused that before this happened, a generalized health-motivated lifestyle adjustment I was making was going fantastically with much better than expected results. So I want to get back on all that stuff. ** Assuming no other problems, resume this here hobby thing I do bit by bit over the course of the next week. I'm definitely considering every peaceful breath I take now to be an increased blessing. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Sep 23, 2019 |
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Sep 23, 2019 10:11
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I'm glad you're getting better! Stay away from those space amoebas!
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Sep 23, 2019 14:57
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Good to hear you're making a recovery!
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Sep 23, 2019 15:21
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