|
GuavaMoment posted:...but can't because the uniteles brain scorched their entire empire. Meh. Outcolonize and outspy.
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 11:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 06:37 |
|
|
Two things, right off the top of my head. 1) If you're playing with ship initiative on (and you should play with ship initiative turned on), computers actually do serve a purpose, even on unarmed hulls- the Beam Attack of a ship is one of the primary determinants of its initiative, which increases the odds of a successful retreat with a scout. 2) You can zoom further in than that. Not that you'd want to, but zooming in a second time focuses you in even tighter.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 13:53
|
|
|
Good lord what a great first system to find. Two immediately habitable planets with another couple that need a bit of work, but have some upsides to them. Much like your MoO LP, very excited to see where this one goes. This game was a massive hit with my brothers and I growing up.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 13:56
|
|
|
A brief note about missile rack sizes!  A two shot rack means that missiles are either a very minor part of what your ship does (you had a little space left over after stuffing it with bombs or beams or fighters), or it's the entirety of what your ship does (stuffed to the rafters with missiles, it launches its two salvos and then retreats). That, or you have some kind of trick in mind, such as triggering all the point defense with crappy missiles so the titanic volley of The Good Stuff gets through unscathed. A five shot rack means that missiles are the bulk of what it does, but you need the ship to stick around and not just shoot and scoot. A ten shot rack means that it's going to sit in the back and lob missiles for the entire combat, and if it's within range to get shot at by guns, something has gone terribly wrong. Fifteen and twenty shot racks aren't good because fights should probably not be dragging on that long, and if they are maybe you should invest in beam weapons.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 16:58
|
|
|
VictualSquid posted:One thing where MOO2 always felt better to me then all competitors was the connection between ship design and actual combat. You could expect to leave a combat encounter with some ideas on how to improve your ship design philosophy, unless the combat was horribly one-sided of course. Yes! this, and the ship design system in general is the main reason why I like this game. There are so many ways to tweak and modify your ships and many of them have significant effect on performance, which affects tactics... it's so much more rewarding than just "mk3 laser give 15% more dps than mk2 laser"
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 17:10
|
|
|
Meanwhile I've never won a ship battle and don't understand the 'why' at all, which is depressing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 20:33
|
|
|
Bloodly posted:Meanwhile I've never won a ship battle and don't understand the 'why' at all, which is depressing. That's strange. I found MoO2's battles just made sense for me. But everybody is different, perhaps seeing fight in this LP will help you understand 
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 21:28
|
|
|
MechaCrash posted:Fifteen and twenty shot racks aren't good because fights should probably not be dragging on that long, and if they are maybe you should invest in beam weapons. Perhaps most of them, but there are certain fights which I think take a long time almost no matter what. There is one fight I once had, which I'll not spoiler yet since it relates to the 'new' ending to the game, but … it took almost a full half-hour. On warp-speed Auto-Resolve. Battles take a lot longer than MOO1 from my recollection once you get past the early skirmishes . Torranor posted:perhaps seeing fight in this LP will help you understand Hopefully it'll help the guy actually doing the fights understand as well . Really good info all around everybody, thanks. If I haven't gotten to you yet, there's a good chance I'm just saving stuff for later.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 21:44
|
|
|
Arban posted:Yes! this, and the ship design system in general is the main reason why I like this game. There are so many ways to tweak and modify your ships and many of them have significant effect on performance, which affects tactics... it's so much more rewarding than just "mk3 laser give 15% more dps than mk2 laser"  There are at least 20 ship combat/building stratifies depending on what technologies/weapons you have/want to use. I was about to go into a long effort post about it but that would be spoilers.Depending on what technologies you have and how well off you are, the Antarians could be throwing free ships at you.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 21:45
|
|
|
MechaCrash posted:A brief note about missile rack sizes! In the early and mid-game if you shoot six missiles at once, each opponent ship might not even *have* six beams available on his ship to fire on a turn and certainly isn't hitting with all of them even if he does, so at least some of your six-missiles per turn barrage is getting through. Given the high damage of missiles, this is likely either an outright kill or at least some serious damage. However, if you instead did the 2@20 option, he's almost certainly able to shoot down two missiles every turn pretty reliably, so you're doing nothing (and probably actually taking damage the whole time, since the AI designs typically include a mix of beam types).
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 22:29
|
|
|
A small trick: going from 0 to 1 space left on your ship adds a level of combat speed and defense to it. This is a very good use of small amounts of leftover space. Don't feel the need to optimize the loadout by bringing it down to zero.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2019 22:41
|
|
|
I understand why they moved away from one-planet-per-system but to me it really ramps up the UI difficulty of space 4x games. Not being able to see the actual disposition of your empire in a single shot is really annoying.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2019 03:49
|
|
|
Another interesting thing: The pool of possible visual ship designs is actually dependant on the chosen color when starting your game. There are four different design types between the eight available colors.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2019 11:24
|
|
|
MOO2 is my favorite of the games, and I playes the first one first. The only thing I liked about MOO3 was how you could have massive clouds of fighters. I loved seeing my devouring swarms of piranhas go eat fleets.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2019 18:38
|
|
|
** Note: The stuff in the 'spoiler' area is meant to be read, and is not actual spoilers. It's just a new way I'm trying out of putting a video in an update and not giving away stuff about it you happen to accidentally read below the link. Intended usage is to watch the video, if you choose to, then read what it's the not-really-a-spoiler spoiler text. To Callisto ... and beyond!  A tough call to make here on Caern. I like him a lot, but 3 BC a year is half of what our surplus was. Still, I decide to hang onto him and just grow the economy. Recruiting a leader of his caliber later would be quite expensive. And so Jarred gets the ax officially. Immediate afterwards, we get our first look at the space combat screen. Briefly. I don't like space monsters. First thing I did in Stellaris after a couple test games was mod them out. It's not the implementation so much as just the thematic concept of them to begin with. The ones in MOO1 are kinda dumb too, but they aren't overbearing. There's only two and they only attack once you're more than capable of dealing with them. There's a justification for them in terms of them going around randomly devouring stuff until they are defeated. MOO2 can do that also, but then it has these static, wanna-be small-g guardian things as well. They just guard star systems for no good reason, and no bad one either - they are just there. They don't impact the system at all. They don't consume, make it radiated, destroy the environment - they just attack everyone who comes into a system that they never had any intention of doing anything with in the first place. Then there's the fact that you you can be certain they are guarding a fantastic planet of better than homeworld quality. Because they ALWAYS are, and I don't like 100% predictable elements either. In fairness, I'm being harsh on the space monster concept here just because I personally don't like it. By itself, that's not enough justification for trashing a feature. Also, they do serve a gameplay function in forcing the player into earlier development of their combat fleet than in MOO1 - the Farmer's Gambit is much less effective and he who turtles too long will rarely profit from it. That's a debatable but definitely legitimate and probably good goal. You might even say they help equalize starting conditions and smooth out galaxy-generation randomness. I'd prefer they be made space pirates, or hostile small colonies of an inferior race, or somesuch. Mercs hired by a consortium of business leaders who think our growing power is a threat. Whatever. The predictability that great planets will always be guarded by one of these things though is something I can't just wave away. It's a heavy-handed approach that needs more variety thrown into the equation for me to really embrace it. From a tactical POV, what also bothers me is you can't even see them because of them being off-screen here and there being no option I can find to start the battle paused to look around. So I have no clue how far away they shooting at me from, or how fast they are moving - my recon could theoretically communicate that stuff back to the Situation Room on Sol I to warn them. Except all I get to see is my ship being blown up by something. If you look really carefully and quick, there is a minimap to give us a vague idea - but it's just too fast. Anyway, I'll have to get back to that in a bit, because Dr. Buttinski informed me that he simply must report on the latest edition of Cool New Toys(tm). TBF, cold fusion is a rather remarkable achievement.  We certainly know what these do by now. Unfortunately I can't design/rename them as Colonizers.  These are new, and this desc. had me befuddled for so darn long. What in the heck does 'function like a colony but no population' even mean? Almost everything a colony does requires population. What this really means apparently is that it is a refueling station - a means to extend your range when you don't want to colonize any planet but want to explore further. I say 'apparently', because that's what people who know more than I do say it is, and I've never actually used them. If I find a decent chance to use an Outpost I will do so.  We have specific troop transports for invasions, filling the other role that the generic transports held previously.  Physics is next up, the last of the multi-advance starter techs. A first beam weapon for starships, the laser rifle gives us +5 over the starting Pulse Rifle for ground troops, and then a space scanner. Which we don't have yet, although the star base has an improved version of what we don't have any version of. Roger that.  Here's what that Space Crystal was guarding - a third bigger than a homeworld, good environment, and ultra-rich. These things are quite often the maximum possible size of 25M population. I don't understand why population amounts aren't a hundred times larger than they are - MOO1's were small and these are a fraction of that. With each citizen representing proportionally more of course. It's a surface-level thing, but still. This definitely will be an early military goal now - to defeat the Crystal and take Rav. We are now down to three systems outside of Sol, and a single Recon. The other planet is a medium-sized Barren, 4 pop. Not interesting.  This will take a while. Outposts/Transports cost 100 Industry, but a full Colony Ship costs 500. All pollution concerns are shelved for now, and research reduced to minimal levels of what the lab can do on its own. Getting this out ASAP, regardless of cost, is vital to the future of our species.  Our remaining recon gives a report on the final system in range ... only to discover it's not the final system in range. We found a Stable Wormhole - there are no unstable ones by the way. Wormholes connect two systems and are a one-year journey for all fleets, regardless of distance. They don't require any additional range to traverse. So we can now travel to that white star to the right of Rav next. Galileo II, being Toxic, will suck forever. Toxic is the worst planet type in MOO2, not Radiated. No farming, 50% maintenance penalty, if they aren't Rich fuhghedaboudit. And sometimes even then. Galileo I is Medium, Barren, Poor, 4 max. So the wormhole is the only useful thing here.  This is most of our balance, but I can't turn down the Labor Leader bonus, which grants 30% productivity to all factory workers in a system. Director Rash-lki is installed as governor there to hurry along our colony ship, while Captain Caern is informed his services are no longer required. Praxis has but one planet - Medium, Ocean, 4 max, Rich. Not very big, but good. Ocean planets tend to be that way - the idea is that the need for underwater habitats limits the potential population and there just isn't much land period.  Our new Director has her photo up as the Leader on Sol I for all to see, and Industry is up to 21. It'll normally take five years travel time, but the paperwork gets filed at your home star system, so assigning somewhere here skips that delay unless they are coming from an assignment elsewhere in the galaxy. GNN Returns ... and more Things are happening quickly now. GNN reports that the Psilons have suffered a computer virus. That event is still a thing. And then the Silicoids decide to be unpleasant.  They are nearby. Rav and Praxis will be important systems to try to slow their advance. Hopefully the Crystal bothers them. We can surmise they just settled in Rosemund, bringing them within range of us. AFAIK contact works the same as before - diplomatic relations are automatically established once you have colonies that can reach each other.  The Races Screen, which is basically ported over from MOO1 with some adjustments. One is the new spying, which I can't do until I actually have some. We've got a vertical and less detailed relations bar, but with more potential races to deal with that's understandable. And we hilariously have an Ignore function. Does what it says - we can simply block all communication attempts from them after first contact. There's something to be said for trolling the galaxy. Despite the initial hostility, let's talk to Geode. See what the hulking pinkish-purple crystal has to say.  Despite its 'salutations', you can't negotiate with these things. Surrendering literally ends the game - why it's done from this screen I don't know, and it makes no difference who you surrender to. We at least can declare war without waiting for them to do it. But more to the point, Silicoids are Repulsive. This literally means diplomacy cannot occur with anyone. They are in a de facto state of war with the entire galaxy no matter how they feel about them at the moment, and that will remain the case until they are either victors or vanquished. I'm not thrilled about bordering them.  The left side of the Report screen is the same as before. We're dealing with Xenophobic Industrialists. Kind of redundant with repulsive, but I guess they just really hate everyone. The right side, tech area, drives me nuts though. First off, it was gimmicky before that MOO1 allowed you to know everything after getting a single spy into enemy territory, in terms of their technology. Well now we don't even need that. A race that won't negotiate just told us what secrets they've uncovered across the board. Right. Also, they're divided up totally differently from the standard research categories, about a half-dozen things that we don't have right now. You can see 'Laser Rifle' highlighted here - barely. But why couldn't we have something like the tech overview screen, or at least have consistent headings? I have no idea how to go about researching a specific tech I see listed here, because nothing tells me what field it is in. Guh. I also wish that one of the games had at some point made knowing what techs someone has in a field a high-success-rate espionage mission, so that there was some actual investment and risk attached to that knowledge. The implementation here took one of the weakest MOO1 features IMO and managed to make it worse.  There's no Status screen there ... but behold the Info screen. Which is great, to the extent it works. First up here with the History Graph, we have a comparison not just now but over time with every race we've met. That's a pretty big addition, allowing you to see how you are progressing ... or regressing. They got off to a faster start but we mostly closed the gap and are now keeping reasonably close. Note that the game doesn't care about territory - we can turn on/off Population, Building, Fleets, and Tech as part of this calculation. Well territory is kind of taken care of under Population though, right?  Actually, no it isn't - because that part of it is completely broken. All races are stuck at 8M pop for all of eternity according to this. But the other three work. As does the very useful income graphic in the lower-left. Only problem there is it is always a turn behind. Still nice as an overview of where your cash is going. Tech Review has the same breakdown of research that we saw on the Report display, only for ourselves.  Race Statistics gives us the trait breakdown for each race we have met. Turn Summary repeats that info for the current year, in case we closed the window but forgot to check on something.  The in-game help, searchable version. This is quite good and almost-but-not-quite-always accurate, as we've seen with the fuel cells already. Still, I find myself wandering here from time to time to find information. Continuing to crawl along, we will get to Callisto eventually. We must.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2019 21:46
|
|
|
Outpost ships actually do more than just extending your range. Other races can't colonize planets that you have an outpost on, they need to capture it. This can really help if you're in a race to colonize a good system. Also, colonizing a planet that has an outpost automatically turns the outpost into an infantry barracks, which is good because dictatorship get a morale penalty if they don't have a barracks in a colony.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2019 22:00
|
|
|
Note to the audience: The higher the difficulty, the more points other races/empires get to play with. So, for example, the Silicoids have the artifact home world bonus which they don't have by default, significantly boosting their science output on their starting planet. On the highest difficulty, it's generally better to invest more points into your empire than into your species, since it's very likely that the population you conquer will be more productive than yours, and you can then start using them instead. e: https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares/Calculations Also, looking it up now, looks like OP was right about how population growth works, and I was wrong. Pop really grows the fastest at 50% max pop. I just use population factories so much I never noticed, lol. my dad fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Mar 18, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2019 22:13
|
|
|
Torrannor posted:Outpost ships actually do more than just extending your range. Other races can't colonize planets that you have an outpost on, they need to capture it. This can really help if you're in a race to colonize a good system. Outposts are really good for this reason on larger galaxy settings, as you can expand further without explicitly needing fuel upgrades or having to build a colony that may not be profitable. You can also place outposts on anything - asteroid belts and gas giants included, which can allow you to occasionally expand in directions that would otherwise be impossible without fuel upgrades. The free marine barracks upon colonization also lets you funnel some production from your more established bases to negate the starting 20% morale penalty. However, it may be less than ideal to build outpost bases in advance this way - an outpost ship costs 100 production, while a marine barracks costs 60(+1BC/turn). Every five outpost ships you turn out is another colony ship (500 production), which in the early game is a substantial expense, and in the late game you can frequently burn a great deal of money to speed up the establishment of new colonies and would rather your productive colonies spend production on other things instead. Thotimx griping about space monsters posted:The predictability that great planets will always be guarded by one of these things though is something I can't just wave away. It's a heavy-handed approach that needs more variety thrown into the equation for me to really embrace it. There are other types of space monsters, and not every good or great planet is guarded by one. However, when the game generates a system with a space monster, it also guarantees a great planet to go with it. Without space monster planets, it's possible for the number of terran planets in the galaxy to be limited to only race homeworlds themselves.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 01:21
|
|
|
The spy thing has always bothered me. Knowing what techs the enemy has removes a lot of strategy, especially once you play the game a few times, so you can tell at a glance what ships the AI is likely to be designing and operating at any given time. It's especially ridiculous if you think about it, because most military techs wouldn't be immediately notable unless you're actively trying to spy on their military. In fairness, none of the contemporaries of this game had particularly good systems either, but at least "establish an embassy" or whatever included some effort and cost associated with it."Thotimx posted:I'd prefer they be made space pirates, or hostile small colonies of an inferior race, or somesuch. Mercs hired by a consortium of business leaders who think our growing power is a threat. Torrannor posted:Also, colonizing a planet that has an outpost automatically turns the outpost into an infantry barracks, which is good because dictatorship get a morale penalty if they don't have a barracks in a colony.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 01:23
|
|
|
Space monsters in these games seem to fill the same gameplay role that space pirates in other space games or barbarians in the Civilization games do, and I can't begrudge them that. Early threats to force you to spend some effort on your military early on and keep guarding your borders even when things seem safe.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 02:53
|
|
|
Olesh posted:Outposts are really good for this reason on larger galaxy settings, as you can expand further without explicitly needing fuel upgrades or having to build a colony that may not be profitable. You can also place outposts on anything - asteroid belts and gas giants included, which can allow you to occasionally expand in directions that would otherwise be impossible without fuel upgrades. The free marine barracks upon colonization also lets you funnel some production from your more established bases to negate the starting 20% morale penalty. However, it may be less than ideal to build outpost bases in advance this way - an outpost ship costs 100 production, while a marine barracks costs 60(+1BC/turn). Every five outpost ships you turn out is another colony ship (500 production), which in the early game is a substantial expense, and in the late game you can frequently burn a great deal of money to speed up the establishment of new colonies and would rather your productive colonies spend production on other things instead. Oh yes, I wouldn't usually use outpost ships to make sure a colony starts with marine barracks. But if you use them to expand the range of your ships, or to claim planets before an opponent can do so, it's a nice bonus to get the barracks for free. Especially for feudal and dictatorship empires.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 06:18
|
|
|
Thotimx posted:Our remaining recon gives a report on the final system in range ... only to discover it's not the final system in range. We found a Stable Wormhole - there are no unstable ones by the way. Wormholes connect two systems and are a one-year journey for all fleets, regardless of distance. There is a random event where an unstable wormhole plops a fleet en route to a system in a single turn.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 08:45
|
|
|
Torrannor posted:Oh yes, I wouldn't usually use outpost ships to make sure a colony starts with marine barracks. But if you use them to expand the range of your ships, or to claim planets before an opponent can do so, it's a nice bonus to get the barracks for free. Especially for feudal and dictatorship empires. While it's 40 production more than just building it, in terms of reducing the number of turns before the planet becomes productive, it's often a good deal, especially on mineral poor planets.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 15:34
|
|
|
Educating Thotimx In The Ways of the Sequel A new, tongue-in-cheek feature in which I thank the thread for shortening my learning curve. Stuff I didn't know: ** The whole outpost-barracks thing, thanks to multiple posters. ** Higher difficulty AIs get points boosts to their starting abilities (my dad) ** Unstable wormhole random event is a thing - I think I knew this at one point but I'd sure as heck forgotten (Rappaport) ** Initiative boosts from computers is still around (nweismuller) Also … Olesh posted:There are other types of space monsters, and not every good or great planet is guarded by one. However, when the game generates a system with a space monster, it also guarantees a great planet to go with it. I wonder about this because it's contrary to my admittedly limited experience. I've never seen a better-than-homeworld system in the early-game that was unguarded. Ever. I say early-game because later on you don't know if there was one that was already defeated. I think this game so far backs that up - Callisto has two Large/size-12 worlds, and a couple that more that might be that big if they didn't have negative environs dragging them down. That could be just random, but it seems fairly likely that at least one of those would be of size>12 if such worlds weren't limited to space-monster systems. MagusofStars posted:I don't think any of these make much sense in context though. I agree - but I still say they make more sense than static space monsters that do nothing but wait for a chance to blow visitors up. MagusofStars posted:If they guarded planets which were only minimally better than elsewhere, it wouldn't make much sense to spend time and resources building an attack fleet (and then losing several of those ships) when you could get a planet 85% as good for free and/or build an arsenal to crush your enemies and claim their nice planets. That's definitely true, but I don't think it needs to be either/or. If they were mostly guarding great planets(say 75% of the time or so), and only occasionally at lesser systems, then it would add a lot more variety and nuance to the galaxy while still maintaining the general purpose of the feature. Moot point because it is what it is, I just think you can accomplish the goal without ironclad predictability. I also find it weird that in a game with as many options as MOO2 has I can't change the space monsters in any way. But whatevs, I'll roll with it. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Mar 19, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2019 23:11
|
|
|
I've never actually seen or played the first Master of Orion. Time to check out your thread on it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 17:53
|
|
|
The Sakkra and Human games come the most recommended.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 21:03
|
|
|
Callisto or Bust They're really coming out of the woodwork now. Took about 25-30 turns longer on Average, so as expected there's a significant difficulty bump.  I'm feeling a bit better about things now. We're pretty well sandwiched between the two competitors we've met in terms of progress. In MOO1, if you can keep up in the early game victory is assured. We'll see if it's the same here.  Like us, the cybernetics are suffering from the ravages of red stars and have yet to expand. Erratic Industrialists, they have the Fusion Beam and Deuterium Fuel Cells but nothing else of note. No agreements or wars, but I'm on edge with a race of their mindset - and MOO2's more aggressive AI in general - in the vicinity.  Now we can get into actual diplomatic matters. ** Propose Treaty - Trade isn't as important as it was in the original but it's still a significant option. As far as I know diplomatic relations are built on the same system - small bonuses over time for existing agreements, attacks/tributes/demands shift relations on a short-term basis, tendency to drift back towards neutral, etc. Trade deals take five turns to equalize, then provide a positive benefit to the reserve of both empires. That means there's much less of a cost for doing those. A new option, Research treaties, works the same except its benefit is RP, not BC. Non-Aggression Pact and Alliances are still the higher-level cooperative stuff. ** Can't break a treaty when you don't have one, and Exchange Tech is off because we don't have anything they want.  Putting the war declaration, break treaty, etc. options here makes more sense. The annual tribute options are also completely new and also available in the other direction as gifts. The specific demand for tech or to stop espionage, give us a system, etc. are all added. Overall a lot of new choices. I'm curious to see how diplomacy ends up shaking out, esp. with no option to increase trade/research deals - you just have one your don't, and I assume they are just kept at the maximum given the relative economics at play.  A research deal was approved with the comment 'There is wisdom in your words, Emperor Ender'. But even a bribe of Fighter Bays couldn't get them to part with their hard currency for a trade agreement. Still, it's a start. I'm just approaching this in classical MOO fashion, start small and make sure I stay on their good side. With only a five-turn warmup period, I don't feel a need to be as wary of the erratic thing in making these investments. Relations are improved to a little above-average, and we have a -5 BC cost currently for the research deal. In a few turns, Stardate 3506.4, the Meklar expand to the Weg system, towards the lower-left corner away from us. I figure this is a positive development overall.  We're now starting to head into research areas where I'm really not sure what's best yet. Due to the cost difference though I'll head to Astro Biology. Biospheres increase the maximum population of a colony by 2, improving your best systems. Hydroponic Farms allow 2 extra food to be grown on any planet, even those where normal farming is impossible. They're pretty much required to make some of the rougher environments self-sustaining. Preferring to get more planets, I go with the hydroponics. I think this is an example of good choice though where there isn't a super-obvious best selection. I thought about going for more range, but we've still got a couple systems within reach and the ships will take time. SD 3507.0 - Think I'll annotate the game turn this way from now on. Sol reaches maximum population, increasing to 23 Industry for the moment.  Would be nice, but we don't have the money nor will we anytime soon. I go back to the Meklar, and sign a trade agreement. I think they mostly didn't want to go so negative in funds at first. Perhaps.  Despite the slightly higher price, Military Tactics is our last entry-level tech. Training ship crews is a thing, and that will happen automatically when in a system with a Space Academy. They get two points a turn, and it takes hundreds of points to get to the highest levels, so it's something you plan ahead on or it doesn't happen. *ClapClapClap*  Finally. I need to get at least one Freighter group done in order to send anything with it afterwards - I decide to build a couple here. I want at least one more colony ship to send to Praxis, but first things first. Now we can call ourselves a galactic empire. Sort of. In another returning feature, we can change the name of the star when we colonize it - and only then. The landing sequence is much different, with two small landers. That cost 500 Industry? Where's the rest of that ship?? Cause that looks nothing like the thing we built. Anyway, the game does a good job of making sure you don't accidentally pick the wrong planet by mistake.  I thought this would round down, but it didn't. Perhaps it only rounds down when at 0.5 or below?  First experience with a new colony this game, and we need to make sure we set a proper build order. Automated Factories first so we can build other things more quickly, barracks to handle morale, lab for automatic research. I'll hopefully be doing this process many times.  The delay time is dependent on distance and our warp drive tech as far as I know. I want to build up Callisto IV as quickly as I reasonably can. A second citizen was sent shortly afterwards, with the second freighter group being completed.  We were now in range of another system, Iras - which has another wormhole. A gas giant and a small desert planet are here. Desert planets are Mars-likes, 1 food per farmer and 25% maintenance penalty. Unfortunately the other end of the wormhole, Zirkal, just has a pair of gas giants.  SD 3508.8. We have a spy. He's that purple - because what other color would he be in this game? - guy down at the bottom of the screen. If we leave him there, he does internal security stuff and tries to catch enemy spies. Otherwhise, we can drag him up to the similar area by one of our rivals. For example Geode says No Treaty and then there's a line underneath it - below that line is where we'd put our agent. From time to time, both our spies and enemy ones will get killed and I'll need to replace them. This is one of those things where it's cool at first, and then you ask yourself why it couldn't just be done with the slider approach from the first game, since it serves the exact same function. The answer is: because then we wouldn't be adding more time-wasting micromanagement to the planetary build queues, duh. The addition I can see here is that you can move spies between the two (internal security and deep cover with a rival). That part of it is a small but useful add.  This is Hera, last system for us to scout right now. The other two planets are gas giants. Hera sucks, and I don't mean maybe. Also, the Silicoids recently expanded to a fourth system, Anchat. I'm worried about them.  SD 3509.1 - There's still a markup here, but I think it's worth it at this point to jumpstart Callisto IV.  I'm worried about Rav. I have to keep the Silicoids from taking it. I'd like to grab that small Ocean world in Praxis - I can eventually send out more bases locally in Callisto so I don't want to waste a full colony ship on that. But Praxis isn't as important I don't think. So next time, I need to design my first combat ship. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Mar 21, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 21:05
|
|
|
That first combat ship will be very useful for securing your southern border against the Meklon. And by "securing your southern border" I mean "go crush them now while they're small and weak." That tiny toxic planet is actually an amazing find, because the only way it could be worse would be if it were Ultra Poor instead of regular Poor. There are ways to "rehabilitate" planets like that into useful things, but it requires a lot of end game technology and hoop jumping. It's not actually useful, it's the kind of poo poo that you do just because you can. The procedure is as follows: first, you give the planet to a rival empire, preferably one you already hate anyway. Then, you blow it the gently caress up with a Stellar Converter, which is pretty end-game technology (you did ensure that there's no defensive installations or citizens you mind losing on these planets before doing this poo poo, right?). And finally, you reconquer every other planet in the system (again, you made sure there weren't any defensive facilities on them, right?), and then use Artificial Planet (also end-game tech!) to turn the resulting asteroid belt into a Large Barren Abundant planet, which you can then terraform all the way up to Gaia if you've got the science chops. Like I said, it's a lot of running around for no real benefit, because "upgrade a garbage planet to the specified parameters" is not going to make an appreciable difference to an empire big and powerful enough to pull it off. Which actually reminds me of something that I like about the Master of Orion series: the guns have different effects instead of "bigger numbers." Sure, fusion beams are mechanically the same as laser cannons, but this early a 50% power boost is enough. But later you get stuff that spins ships, or things that can inflict structural damage directly, or things that kill crew, or things that naturally envelop the ship and hit all four sides. It's pretty neat, and while I agree that there's some stuff that was a bit of a downgrade from how MOO1 handled it, I thought the way MOO2 handled fleet management and ship combat was so much better as to give it an edge.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 21:51
|
|
|
Fun Fact about Space Academies, if you have more than one space academy they add up. Also Lasers are the best starting weapon, Last I checked you can put armor piercing, shield piercing, continuous, and more for very little cost/space. And this doesn't go away very fast because the damage reduction of armor and shields only matters if they stop the attack. SugarAddict fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Mar 21, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 22:21
|
|
|
You can also get robotic pops to work toxic planets.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 22:55
|
|
|
Hydroponic farms versus biospheres is an example of what most of the tech choices *should* be - both options are valuable, either option could be preferred based on the game situation, and there are decent arguments for either choice. The +2 maximum population of biospheres is useful, particularly in smaller or crowded universes since it can turn a tiny or small planet from "too low population to be useful" into "viable" and give you more planets worth colonizing. But on the other hand, the 2 free food from building a Farm is effectively like purchasing a free citizen since you can make your farmer something else. I'm not sure there's really a universal correct answer here (except "be Creative" or "nab the other one from an AI" of course). I personally tend towards Farms in most cases since they bring benefits immediately whereas a biosphere only becomes useful once you start maxing out your planets...but if you're free enough from immediate threats to play the long game, biospheres can definitely hold their own.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2019 23:36
|
|
|
Hydroponic Farms seem like a good deal - hey, you can put two food on the table anywhere - but Biospheres are the better long-term choice and depending on your race/picks, can be a better short term choice if you feel like you can successfully grow, feed, and sustain the increased population. Aside from the expensive startup costs of building colony ships, the biggest problem in early colonization is providing food. Only Swamp, Ocean, and Terran worlds are "viable" self-sustaining colonies at the start, as the 0 and 1-food biomes require you to ship food in to make the colony useful. As you get access to improved technology, the number of workers you need to dedicate to farming decreases and more and more it ends up being both efficient and practical to let your high food, low-mineral planets feed the rest of your empire. Eventually, food stops being a remote concern, but early on getting a lucky biome or a farming leader can be the difference between expansion being feasible without tech and not.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 00:05
|
|
|
Game mechanics note: Zirkal here is a good example of where outpost ships really shine. Outposts can be built around a gas giant (according to the manual), and Zirkal is really far away from anything you have while still being accessible via wormhole. Unless I'm remembering really incorrectly, you can get a massive range boost here, accessing a big cluster of stars much sooner than you could otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 00:40
|
|
|
Alright I have to stop you all right here. Hydroponic farms is one of the worst choices in the game. You get two food per turn from them, but they cost 1 BC maintenance every turn as well. This is the exact same cost as freighters take when being used to transport 2 food. Even getting into mid game, you might only have one or two really good farming worlds that can feed your entire empire. The extra population you get from biospheres will almost immediately give you more food, more BCs of income, more everything, everywhere than the two food you get from the farms. In fact all techs that allow you to grow food on hostile worlds are not worth it, it's just so much more efficient to have one massive farming world feed your whole empire. Build all the farming boost techs there, and everyone else can focus on industry and science. I even frequently pick the farming penalty when making a custom race and only run with one or two farming worlds. Farming just gets ridiculously efficient the later into the game you get.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 01:13
|
|
|
One of the reasons food is a dump stat is that it's basically a binary result. Either you have enough food to go around, or you don't. Two food per planet isn't even worth the upkeep cost of the farms.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 03:11
|
|
|
With regards to Silicoids, there's a strange bug related to custom species: Their "repulsive" status is actually also tied to their species graphic. So if you pick Silicoid graphics for a custom species, you're automatically stuck being unable to engage in diplomacy. Not sure if it's present in all versions of the game, but it was in the one I had as a kid.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 06:54
|
|
|
GuavaMoment posted:You get two food per turn from them, but they cost 1 BC maintenance every turn as well. This is the exact same cost as freighters take when being used to transport 2 food. Even getting into mid game, you might only have one or two really good farming worlds that can feed your entire empire. The extra population you get from biospheres will almost immediately give you more food, more BCs of income, more everything, everywhere than the two food you get from the farms. In fact all techs that allow you to grow food on hostile worlds are not worth it, it's just so much more efficient to have one massive farming world feed your whole empire. This was instantly obvious to me as soon as I read it, while at the same time I didn't have enough experience to know beforehand. Good advice to file away for future runs. .
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 08:28
|
|
|
Note that while concentrating all your farming on one planet tends to end up being the most efficient way to farm, it makes you incredibly vulnerable to that system being blockaded. All the enemy needs is a single frigate, and your entire empire is starving or forced to drop a lot of production and research for however long it takes you to bring something to chase it off. The AI isn't smart enough to exploit this on purpose, though.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 08:40
|
|
|
Do Biospheres need to be built (and pay upkeep on?) like Farms or is it a galaxy-wide improvement?
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 20:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 06:37 |
|
|
rchandra posted:Do Biospheres need to be built (and pay upkeep on?) like Farms or is it a galaxy-wide improvement? Every planetary improvement is a building, not a passive. Empire-wide benefits are gained immediately upon being acquired.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 21:03
|
|
