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Now I could make some joke about forms of power that are safe and good and forms of power that aren't, but I get the feeling that that oil drilling platform will either become a problem in story, or the oil will be used to make carbon fibers or something.
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Jan 12, 2022 04:40
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I think that an orbital elevator isn't really feasible at that latitude in reality, so I guess that the world of Anno has some fancy Fantasium that helps make it viable. Now we see another scene of Virgil Drake showing us that he's not noble at all, and quite willing to mess with the Earth's climate to mess with us specifically.
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Jan 12, 2022 05:43
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Oh yeah, the whole "Orbital elevator in the polar region" thing is something I find massively hilarious.
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Jan 12, 2022 05:57
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Don't worry, there's plenty of incredibly stupid ideas to make this viable, they are generally dynamic structures, of course, which clearly shows that humanity really likes to dream and not think about the failure modes of, for example, a static tube circling Earth at around 200 km up with another tube magnetically locked into it moving at orbital speeds which can then bear the mass of the entire structure, generally they have the outer tube be a maglev ring and have static ground stations connected to cars on the outer tube, since, you know, action and reaction, the outer tube is probably moving, probably, and so the ground static car can hang down cables and magically correct its orbit to be ground static, maybe through a Molniya orbit. When you start to glare at those people they start saying what if it was a particle accelerator instead, when you start to point and laugh they call you a luddite and a "deathist". E: It is definitely possible to build a structure, given magical assembly methods and magical materials, working entirely in tension and compression, near the poles like this that reaches into space, but it's probably not perpendicular to the ground and also absolutely hilarious to imagine, some sort of centrifuged crown, probably terminating into an equatorial orbital ring in the geostationary zone, to equalize stresses, with connections to the ground all over the world, and with masses orbiting further and pulling it up, an orbital fancy lace handkerchief rather than an elevator. SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Jan 12, 2022 |
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Jan 12, 2022 06:04
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 UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF LAST PAGESIGSEGV posted:Now I could make some joke about forms of power that are safe and good and forms of power that aren't, but I get the feeling that that oil drilling platform will either become a problem in story, or the oil will be used to make carbon fibers or something. It used to be that the main thing you used the oil for is expanding production modules in the arctic - honestly, I'd assume for making lubricants and other chemicals rather than as fuel. Now, it's mainly used for expansion. The only petrochemicals I've spent so far are on upgrading the arctic spaceport. HiKaizer posted:so I guess that the world of Anno has some fancy Fantasium that helps make it viable. It has Super Alloys, which are made from aluminum and molybdenum in their production chain but the fluff if you mouse over them say they're an alloy of aluminum and cobalt. 
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Jan 12, 2022 16:17
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the orbital watch is definitely the first time someone's thought of weaponizing the giant climate machines, please avoid thinking about how an organization of unarmed ecologists manage to somehow avoid getting their region opened by force
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Jan 12, 2022 17:09
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Agean90 posted:the orbital watch is definitely the first time someone's thought of weaponizing the giant climate machines, please avoid thinking about how an organization of unarmed ecologists manage to somehow avoid getting their region opened by force That may be more down to a general international consensus of "Please don't loving try to collapse one of the few remaining pillars of global climate. Or else." rather than the custodians themselves weaponising the stabilisers. And hell, just shutting them off would be threat enough.
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Jan 12, 2022 20:59
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Magni posted:That may be more down to a general international consensus of "Please don't loving try to collapse one of the few remaining pillars of global climate. Or else." rather than the custodians themselves weaponising the stabilisers. And hell, just shutting them off would be threat enough. This is my interpretation as well, that the Arctic Custodians are members of the Global Union specifically to add teeth to the "Or else." Making real sense of Anno 2205's world is a bit of an ask, but in my mind after 2070's setting of global disaster, then the further disasters that happened after 2070, the world in general is a much more ecologically conscious place because everyone's so painfully aware of the consequences. The Custodians might be a cranky bunch of weirdos who seem happy to live in the arctic, but every remaining government and big NGO knows that their work is vital to the Earth's survival and is willing to go to bat for them. We did, after all, just see that the 'Or else' may involve a megacorp with an extensive stockpile of nuclear weapons and a liberal attitude about using them. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jan 12, 2022 |
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Jan 12, 2022 21:29
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Cythereal posted:This is my interpretation as well, that the Arctic Custodians are members of the Global Union specifically to add teeth to the "Or else." Making real sense of Anno 2205's world is a bit of an ask, but in my mind after 2070's setting of global disaster, then the further disasters that happened after 2070, the world in general is a much more ecologically conscious place because everyone's so painfully aware of the consequences. The Custodians might be a cranky bunch of weirdos who seem happy to live in the arctic, but every remaining government and big NGO knows that their work is vital to the Earth's survival and is willing to go to bat for them. And if they aren't, every single one of them is almost certainly acutely aware of how much of a feeding frenzy the public outcry of their corporation even looking like touching the Custodian's poo poo would cause. Corporations, Mega and Minor, would be having their lawyers lining up around the block for a bite. Like the shady yet small-fry poo poo Luca Volodin gets up to in this sector is probably toeing the line of even what the shady Usoyev will allow. Alkydere fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jan 12, 2022 |
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Jan 12, 2022 22:38
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Research and Development We've reached the point where we can vote in the World Council! Vote for one of the Big Five, and whoever wins the vote gets a pack of special, extra-powerful modules that work for buildings of the megacorp's type. I have never, ever seen Lei Sheng not win the elections because energy is that important and energy buildings have a module that directly save you money by reducing maintenance costs. Even the balance patch adding bribes, where one of the Big Five gives you money and rare resources for voting for them, didn't change this. At any rate, we're already acquainted with Lei Sheng, Cassian Industries, and Usoyev Inc, but who are these other folks?  Saayman International are the standard bearers for one of the few unqualified successes of the last two hundred years, the Sub-Saharan Renaissance. As Europe, North America, and East Asia grappled with the Drowning, many African nations blossomed, and one lasting gift from these developments is the largest agricultural enterprise in the world. Synthwheat, biopork, kelpfruit, and all the other staples of the modern diet were first grown in Saayman laboratories or research farms, and now grow in any climate imaginable, even underwater.Though Saayman’s space program is small, orbital greenhouses test crops to grow in zero-g, and other facilities study the possibility of agriculture on the Moon and Mars. In terrestrial operations, Saayman International maintains the largest and most efficient bulk transportation infrastructure in the world, ensuring that many people have never eaten food that has not been trademarked by Saayman International. Wherever people are, so too is this megacorporation, and Saayman’s horizons look bright. On the other side of things, Ibarra-Foxcom is what turned the Big Four into the Big Five just eight years ago. The best way to illustrate why is this: I am dictating these notes into an Ibarra-Foxcom Clerical SmartAssistant 3.7, which bounces its signal off an Ibarra-Foxcom satellite to you, who are almost certainly reading this on an Ibarra-Foxcom computer, tablet, or SmartAssistant. Ibarra-Foxcom is the world leader in computers, robotics, communications, and electronics in general. They may be the smallest of the Big Five, but their growth in the last ten years has been staggering and shows no signs of slowing down. Ibarra's dominance of the world's communication infrastructure has also lead to them enjoying the largest media presence of any corporation in the Global Union. What's really fueled Ibarra's growth, though, has been the Second Wave. Ibarra brand computers, robots, and drones have been a critical element of the new space race, and Ibarra devotes more resources per capita to their space program than any other megacorp in the world. As we speak, there's an Ibarra-Foxcom ship on its way to Mars to drop off a so-called 'seed factory' in the hopes of establishing a completely autonomous research and mining outpost in the red planet that could be later fitted for human habitation. Well. I should say that it's a joint Ibarra venture with the Global Union. True AIs have been banned ever since the FATHER Crisis of 2070, and in the last five years Ibarra has been going over those laws with a toothbrush looking to see just how much they can get away with. To be perfectly honest, if we end up in another cataclysmic global crisis aside from the energy inflection point, my money's on the crisis starting in an Ibarra-Foxcom research facility.  You can see an orange dotted line connecting Walbruk Basin and Ikkuma Glacier representing the vitamin drinks trade route I established in the last update. Shipping these in has lead enough Karens to migrate to the arctic that neuro-implant production is now possible, and there is a demand in both sectors.  We start with a molybdenum mine, seen here with an adjacent transport depot for logistics.   Not seen, me immediately shutting down the mine because it spiked our energy into the red. Producing energy in the arctic is a bit of a pain, the only arctic power plant available right now requires a mine slot and there were only two mines on the island I started with. Which means it's time to grab another island! Doing so costs a fair bit of petrochemicals, this is the main thing rare resources are used for now in 2205.  The main form of power in the arctic is geothermal power, which has a neat visual effect of the generators being half-submerged in water. These also generate huge heat areas nearby, so odds are I'll be moving some Karens here in the future.   And with the magic of Lei Sheng modules from the Council, I drop a 600 credit maintenance down to 6 credits!  Neuro-implant production is a go. Neural implants, in the modern economy, define the gap between skilled and unskilled labor. Any white-collar job these days expects and demands neural implants, but affording them as an elective procedure is unfortunately out of reach for much of the world's working class. This is why most megacorps, including Esperanza now, manufacture their own (almost all of them with Ibarra-Foxcom or Usoyev licenses, of course) and provide them as benefits for workers willing to take hardship postings like the arctic, the sea floor, and orbital facilities. I got mine from my time with the Tlaloc Initiative, three years of data entry and statistical analysis on the closed-habitat seed airships over Central America without ever touching the ground in that time.Note how I'm stringing out the production modules, creating space for more houses in the heat areas.  Getting implant production online also introduces Karen's final need: community. Community centers like this work just like the other public buildings.  Now, what the story wants me to do next is to ascend Karen to the next and final step of arctic residents (the arctic only has two tiers), but my income is currently rather low and the next step up from Karen is going to be even more expensive. Erica back in Walbruk needs neural implants, too, so I'm heading back to the temperate sector. This is, to be honest, one of my biggest frustrations with Anno 2205: I think the temperate sector is incredibly dull, despite how pretty it is, but it's where you make all your money and it's always going to be the focus of your efforts. I wish this game would have been set completely in exotic environments like the arctic and moon and maybe underwater.  Erica is ready to ascend! She can't yet, because doing so requires a construction material only possible with the second tier of arctic citizens, but it's time to lay the groundwork and make more money.  Alert. Esperanza expansion detected. They have now claimed the largest landmass in the Walbruk Basin for development. You may not build ships yourself anymore in 2205, but every trade route you establish generates ships traveling back and forth between your sectors based on the number and size of the trade routes. Smaller ships also appear as you colonize other islands in the sector, hauling goods and people in-sector.  I will not be ascending any Ericas on the starting island, there's not enough room for the future public buildings. This much larger island is going to be the focus of our population and growth.  Back in Ikkuma, I build a new shuttle launch facility. Erica can only work in one type of lab on the space station, but arctic residents provide two more.  Scientists have now arrived in Ikkuma. I'd show this in more detail, but...  PRIORITY ALERT! Orbital Watch attack in Walbruk Basin! It's our first invasion! These were added in the balance patch as an optional thing. The Orbital Watch will periodically invade your sectors and seize a specific good produced in a sector. They'll go away eventually if you do nothing, but I'm calling in the fleet.  Since the last Crisis Sector, I've gotten another Spark for the fleet.   Invasions play just like Crisis Sectors, just with no sidequests and very limited powerups - you need to be economical with your powers. The objective is simply to sink enough Orbital Watch ships to force them into retreat.  Once that's over with, it's back to orbit. Erica in space was easy to satisfy. Joel, less so. Besides wanting specific terrestrial goods to produce lightbulbs and specific adjacent modules, Joel cares intensely about temperature - every module increases or decreases the temperature of adjacent labs, and finagling this is a big part of the optimization puzzle that is the space station.  Electronics research is a very low priority, but the expansion kits are very useful - in particular, note the circular icon above and to the right of the basic electronics research. This is a lab, and by letting this build we'll permanently unlock a new lab slot even if we later remove this electronics research. I'll be moving research around and letting timers play out, a lot.  Orbit is real pretty y'all.   Back in the arctic, Joel's ground based counterparts have unlocked Super Alloys, used for all kinds of advanced construction and made from aluminum and molybdenum. I build the smelter near the perimeter of the shuttle launch pad, trying to create an enclosed heat perimeter that I can fill with people for the shuttle.  Right now, those super alloys are needed immediately in Walbruk.  Alert. Esperanza executives are relocating to Walbruk Basin. Hypothesis: Esperanza intends to make Walbruk Basin their new corporate headquarters.Meet Keith! Keith is an rear end in a top hat and I hate him!  You see, Keith's basic need is luxury food, which Joel up in the arctic also wants. It's expensive to produce: wine is produced fine on its own, but beef paddocks are not only pricey and take up lots of room in themselves, they also need soybean farms to produce fodder for the cattle in the first place. This chain just sucks and everyone who's played Anno 2205 agrees. But, there is an alternative...  You see that blue icon with crossed wires at the top of the screen? That's one of the big features of 2205, that later became a huge part of 1800: you can change production chain requirements. This icon is the tech Animal Rights Policy, and as long as we have that slotted we can substitute rice for beef in making luxury food, cutting out not just the cattle but also the soybeans. The downside to doing this is that if I build my economy with this option I'll never be able to de-select it without ruining my economy. Decisions, decisions...  Also, while making this update this morning, I had 2205 running in the background to run down the clock on more orbital kits and during this time, Ikkuma got invaded. Featuring a very special guest, the Eradicator.  It's actually pretty underwhelming. Eradicators have a ton of HP and take a long time to grind down, but their damage output is surprisingly low. Just have fuel for the energy shield (or use support powers) and a lone Eradicator isn't much of a threat.  Our new home in Walbruk. With the greater population density from the higher citizen tiers, I've relocated the shuttle pad.  The starting island in Walbruk is going to be used more and more simply for producing goods. In fact, it might be time to think about getting a new sector that can be used primarily for producing goods...  Ikkuma is growing to my satisfaction. Again note the use of strung out production modules in parallel lines to create enclosed heat areas for houses.  It's going to be a long time before the look of our space station is settled, there's still lots to unlock.
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Jan 15, 2022 15:31
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I love 2205 adding the mechanic to swap around ingredients. I hate that it's a global switch. Also I can completely understand not building giant settlements in the arctic. It's still a delicate area so you want as few people there as possible (which still ends up being massive industrial bases later). In comparison I'm actively infuriated by how we can't build proper colonies in another sector.
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Jan 15, 2022 19:12
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Cythereal posted:You see that blue icon with crossed wires at the top of the screen? That's one of the big features of 2205, that later became a huge part of 1800: you can change production chain requirements. This icon is the tech Animal Rights Policy, and as long as we have that slotted we can substitute rice for beef in making luxury food, cutting out not just the cattle but also the soybeans. The downside to doing this is that if I build my economy with this option I'll never be able to de-select it without ruining my economy. So I guess in the future, Beyond Burgers will be made from rice.
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Jan 15, 2022 23:10
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Anaxite posted:So I guess in the future, Beyond Burgers will be made from rice. The whole chain is for high-end luxury food. (And organic food seems mostly rice-based, but there's a bit of abstraction at work there to keep the production simple for a basic worker-tier commodity.) Cheap meat dishes like burgers are just outright no longer a thing in 2205, period. Lower-end cooking culture has likely moved on from meat and meat-imitations for the most part due to how long that's been the case by this point. Just another one of those little hints that it's a post-apocalyptic setting, only with the world actually being in recovery from said apocalypse. Cythereal posted:You see that blue icon with crossed wires at the top of the screen? That's one of the big features of 2205, that later became a huge part of 1800: you can change production chain requirements. This icon is the tech Animal Rights Policy, and as long as we have that slotted we can substitute rice for beef in making luxury food, cutting out not just the cattle but also the soybeans. The downside to doing this is that if I build my economy with this option I'll never be able to de-select it without ruining my economy. You can, it just requires a bit of effort. Look at your current luxury food production, divide by two and then build enough beef production to satisfy that number before switching it off. The rice farms you can tear down later, given their maintenance and power cost is pretty trivial by that point. Magni fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jan 16, 2022 |
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Jan 16, 2022 01:56
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Another tidbit, my review of arctic sector traits. Deep Aluminum Deposits: +20% production from aluminum mines Better than the temperate versions because you need aluminum for both super alloys and metal foam, but still nothing I'd use. Deep Molybdenum Deposits: +20% production from molybdenum mines This one, however, is legitimately good. Besides super alloys, molybdenum makes neuro-implants, which are an important good, and this makes your mines go further. Cultivated Minerals: +10% production from mines A weaker version than either of the above but applies to both minerals. Not bad, but molybdenum is the arctic mineral you really care about, not aluminum. Hot Spot: +20% energy production from geothermal plants Bonus energy production is always a good thing in 2205, and the arctic's means of energy production all have serious limitations. Ocean Nourishment: +10% production from coastal sites Your arctic coastal sites are very important, which makes this one pretty useful. Restored Reefs: +20% production from coral farms We haven't seen coral farms yet, but this is a very solid bonus and the one we got for Ikkuma Glacier. It's even better after the balance patch for reasons we'll see when we get to the tundra - coral is used to make a good that tundra citizens consume in huge quantities. Recreational Area: Public needs buildings maintenance -50%, production buildings production -10% Identical to the temperate version but not remotely worth it here. You want to maximize your production in the arctic, not your income. Borate Minerals: Plasma smelter workforce requirement -50% No. Workforce can be an issue in the arctic, but you want a sector trait that applies to something you're likely to build more than one of in a sector. Heavy Water: Deuterium strainer energy requirement -30%, fishery production -15% Not worth it. Deuterium is fairly energy hungry, yes, but by the time you unlock it you're a skip and a hop away from fusion power. Kneecapping your basic food production by -15% is a bad trade. Tectonic Activity: Fishery and coral farm production +30%, aluminum mine and molybdenum mine production -15% If you're setting up your arctic sectors in specialist fashion, this trade could be worthwhile. But for general purposes, this isn't worth taking over a purely beneficial trait. Nature Preserve: Subzero cleanroom production +30%, methane extractor production -15% Very specialized, but you do come out ahead on this trade. Katabatic Winds: Energy buildings maintenance -50%, production buildings +1 logistics cost This, however, is an excellent trade. The additional logistics is minor, and the credit savings are big. Somewhat undercut by the ubiquity of Lei Sheng financial calculators, though this does cut down on the impulse to use them in the arctic. Stratospheric Warming: Production buildings -2 logistics cost, cybernetics lab production -15% Yeah, no, this does save some on logistics but I'll pass on -15% production of an important good. tl;dr I like deep molybdenum deposits, hot spot, ocean nourishment, restored reefs, katabatic winds Bonus shot from yet another sector invasion: 
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jan 17, 2022 |
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Jan 17, 2022 00:10
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Jan 19, 2022 02:49
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Does nuking your own stuff have any repercussions? That's an extremely funny cheevo though.
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Jan 19, 2022 03:29
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HiKaizer posted:Does nuking your own stuff have any repercussions? That's an extremely funny cheevo though. Nope, it won't even fire the nuke if you try. There's no mechanism for your stuff (except for the combat ships) actually being destroyed in the game. Invasions were added as part of the game's one and only feature update, and they're pretty vestigial.
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Jan 19, 2022 03:36
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Razing the Steaks So, this weekend I had the game on in the background for a while to run down timers on some Orbit stuff, and during that time I hit the credit cap. 2205 has a cap on your max money depending on your level, and rather than let money go to waste, I chose to unlock some new space, starting with Viridian Coves.  New sectors come stock with a level 2 spaceport (can trade with temperate and arctic sectors) and a small supply of basic construction materials. Rare resources are shared in a global pool, but biopolymers, constructobots, and super alloys need to be manufactured or shipped for each sector. You can also see in the minimap that this sector is big, lots of room to grow. There's also a new sector project here. Sector trait here is Sun Exposure, which is irrelevant. For now, I elect to leave Viridian Coves empty and undeveloped. I have it, and I'll leave the question of doing something with it for the future.   I also pick up Greentide Archipelago and also leave it fallow for the time being. This sector project, I'm much less likely to do.  The fruit of all this time I left 2205 running is the green circles on the tech web. The tier thee circles mark shield expansions on the station, giving me more room to work with (that I don't need right now and may not ever, but still). I've also elected to pick up Animal Rights Policy, obviating the need for soybeans and cattle to make luxury meals.  It also occurred to me when making this update, I haven't talked about production chains in a while, particularly regarding expansion. The truth is, between the power of the god window and the huge variety of ways to mess with outputs in 2205, I don't really think of "I need X new chains for Y population." I think about increasing production of various goods as needed piecemeal. Inefficient of me, perhaps.  At any rate, wine is a staple good of the Anno series and here's 2205's take on vineyards.  Wine combines with rice (thanks to Animal Rights Policy) in 'food design workshops' to make luxury meals. Just as well that vegetarianism has been trendy for the past century. Here's a little secret: everyone knows that biopork is grown in a lab, but what not everyone knows is that it's a synthetic protein derived from puffball fungus. It's actually kosher, I think. Not only temperate executives but arctic scientists eat luxury meals, so I start shipping some up to Ikkuma.  Doing so brings up enough scientists to unlock their next need, which starts with coral. Coral in Anno 2205 is farmed in coastal slots in the arctic.  Coral in 2070 had the noble purpose of being used for immunity drugs. In 2205? 'Stimulants.' And scientists in this game go through stimulants at an alarming rate. Draw your own conclusions.  Joel's needs, since I don't think I've shown them.  And now for the second phase of the Walbruk Basin sector project.  A drone follows the command ship around and blows up some wreckage.  200 surplus logistics. This ain't happening organically. That isn't to say there is not a solution.  I think Esperanza's calling this one a stress test of their ability to rapidly alter their transportation infrastructure. Next is simply sending a shipment of super alloys. Also, Drake is here - he occasionally turns up to give sidequests, framed as you foiling his schemes.  And now to produce 35 bots surplus. This is going to take some doing.  More feldspar...  More cobalt...  More bots. I'm sure there will be no negative consequences to growing a lot of rice next to all this heavy industry. No, seriously, I'm completely sure it will be fine. Yana Rodriguez's greatest achievement as Secretary-General was making it a core tenet of what would become the Global Union that industry should have strict environmental controls to permit industry and agriculture to exist side by side without issue. For the record, this is a soybean farm and attached module. They're actually pretty little farms imo, I love the glass design.  This is a large part of why I hate cattle ranches: they take up a lot of space and have awkwardly shaped main buildings. They also cost a fair chunk of money, power, and logistics.  Random aside - there's a coral icon on the space station. If I wanted to maximize my lightbulbs, I could start shipping coral up to the space station for research. I don't, but the ability to boost research by shipping in goods is something I'll come back to in a future update.  The final step of this phase of the Walbruk Basin sector project is sending Lei Sheng a big shipment of constructobots.   Drake chooses this moment to visit with friends. Unfortunately for him, Esperanza's fleet now includes a second Turtle and Flare. While recording this update, he's also demonstrated two more types of sector invasions. Before, he's simply seized all production of a particular good in this sector. In this one, he blockades all trade routes going in and out of a sector - given that Walbruk is our hub, this is a very bad thing. The other type I've seen is inciting panic, directly reducing income from all residents of the sector.  Normally Drake only says this in a later Crisis Sector, but yeah all the Orbital Watch ships (except, presumably, the bomb drones) are manned. Moving on...     Some glamour shots of the city. I do wish that cinematic mode would hide the outlines of coastal slots.  Ikkuma Glacier   With the second hydroelectric dam complete, I use more super alloys to upgrade the spaceport to tier three.       We are confirmed: Pyxis-1 has reached lunar orbit and there is no sign of surface-to-space fire from the Orbital Watch. Really? Drake's control over the colonies must be more tenuous than I thought. Chihiro, tell Esperanza that they're the first megacorp to reach the moon since the LEC. The choice of landing zone is theirs. What'll it be, goons? We'll be making our base in one or more craters that can be shielded from radiation and meteor impacts. Novikov Crater is the easiest and best choice, with a sector project that awards workforce - which is hard to come by on the moon. Efforts there will be split between two craters. Iwamoto Crater has the most cliff sites and a project for the moon's rare resource, but is divided into three small craters that may complicate things. Mare Relictum is one giant crater with the most room to work, but has the fewest and most spread-out cliff sites. The sector project here is purely cosmetic.
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Jan 20, 2022 01:43
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Let's go with the Iwamoto Crater to see what the secret and precious lunar ore is.
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Jan 20, 2022 02:30
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Iwamoto Crater has the spiciest Sector Project.
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Jan 20, 2022 02:55
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Mare Relictum because the first moon colony in N many years may as well be a prestige project. (
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Jan 20, 2022 05:09
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Whichever one had the moon hotel project. I can't remember based off of those descriptions.
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Jan 20, 2022 12:13
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HiKaizer posted:Whichever one had the moon hotel project. I can't remember based off of those descriptions. Mare Relictum Alumnus Post posted:Mare Relictum because the first moon colony in N many years may as well be a prestige project. ( Don't fret about the moonquakes, sector traits are randomly generated every time I click the 'choose a sector' button. The only time I've 'rerolled,' as it were, was for Walbruk Basin when the trait it first gave me was High Humidity.
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Jan 20, 2022 16:04
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Iwamoto Crater because it's the one I normally neglegate. Also, with you going to the moon, 2 of the funnier achievements in the game are about to be possible.
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Jan 20, 2022 17:50
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Magni posted:Also, with you going to the moon, 2 of the funnier achievements in the game are about to be possible. 
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Jan 21, 2022 00:04
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Hah those are both good achievements. And yes, adding my vote to Mare Relictum.
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Jan 21, 2022 01:55
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Iwamato Crater sounds cool.
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Jan 21, 2022 15:11
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I'll be aiming to record the next update tonight or tomorrow, now that my FF14 subscription has expired, so I'll take that as the tiebreaker vote for Iwamoto Crater. Incidentally, Iwamoto Crater is a fictional location, but it's probably named after Masayuki Iwamoto, a Japanese astronomer. Novikov Crater is in turn likely named after Russian astrophysicist Igor Novikov. And Mare Relictum is a lunar mare whose name roughly translates to 'the sea left behind' or 'sea of those left behind.'
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Jan 21, 2022 21:28
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Harvest Moon   Welcome to the moon! The moon sucks and I will spend as little time and effort here as possible! This might sound like a very odd thing for me to say, if you’ve never played Anno 2205. Reaching the moon is the primary objective of the campaign. It’s all over the game’s marketing. The game’s villains are based on the moon. Everything is clearly pointing to the moon being the focal point of the game, or at least a very significant element that you’ll spend a lot of time on. Right? Well, no. The arctic, at least, makes a small profit eventually. Besides just being a resource and production hub, the arctic is always worth investing in and playing around with. This is not true of the moon. Construction and maintenance costs on the moon are ludicrous, and the income from the two – count em – tiers of lunar citizens do not begin to make up for it. The number one mistake new Anno 2205 players make is rushing into developing the moon. Even more so than the arctic, the moon is a work camp you want to keep as small as possible to minimize the drain on your finances. The moon does contribute significantly to the profitability of your empire, but only by filling the needs of high-tier citizens in the temperate zone. The only other utility the moon has is, once fully developed, solving your energy problems in all sectors. You might also expect the moon to involve some kind of confrontation with Drake and interacting with the Orbital Watch colonies, or the implication that not all existing colonies on the moon are under Drake’s control. This sort of comes up with one of the other sector projects where you build a refugee settlement for lunar citizens fleeing the Orbital Watch, but you can’t bring your fleet up here and there is no land combat in Anno 2205. There’s no final confrontation with Drake, no conclusion to the story of the first attempt to colonize the moon and now the return. The moon is just an expensive source of goods to satisfy your high-end citizens. I love Anno 2205, but the way the moon is handled is far and away my biggest issue with the game. There’s an enormous missed opportunity here, and probably several. Oh well, maybe once Ubisoft finishes milking Anno 1800 we’ll get another sci-fi entry in the series that will spend more time on the unique setting opportunities rather than just building more cities in generic green forests guest starring labor camps in areas that are actually kind of interesting. Let’s get on with things.  Your spaceport is isolated from your settlements just like on Earth, but on the moon settlements are built into craters. I come down to the largest crater in Iwamoto to set up shop, this crater is where most of our lunar colonists are likely to live.  But wait, there's a gimmick! Radiation and meteors are a problem, so all buildings - houses and production facilities both - need to be sheltered by shield generators.   The first order of business on the moon is getting production of the basic construction material up and running, which starts with a titanium mine. Just look at the maintenance costs on this thing! The moon is expensive and I will regularly be dipping back to other sectors to build up the income we'll need to support the lunar colony.  A titanium mine (in the background) and an ion welder (the big facility in the foreground) get titanium plate production going. Another thing to be aware of on the moon, things tend to eat a lot of titanium plates and it's very easy to run out of plates before you realize just how much you're spending. Either take it slow, or bite the bullet and add production modules to produce more titanium and more plates.  That done, I need to reach out to another cliff site. In the foreground is a shield generator, these project a circular shield area where you can build around them. For mine sites, you want to plant shields as far into the crater as possible to give yourself the most buildable room while still covering the mine. In the background is a moon ice driller.  The point of mining ice is this new building, an oxygen separator, which supplies your colonists with fresh oxygen. Note at the top of the screen that my income is already down 6k. If this seems like a weird luxury to you, you've never lived in a closed habitat long term. There is an odor to recycled air that no amount of scrubbing can remove. My girlfriend is pretty sure my sense of smell was permanently damaged by my three years on the Tlaloc aerostat facilities. And with that and a few more moon houses, the first main story step on the moon is done. I'll come back to this later. In the meantime, I've unlocked the second phase of the Ikkuma Glacier sector project.  Step one, get a combat drone and blow up what Usoyev assures me are completely unnecessary parts of the oil rig.  Hmmm. Producing 20 units of super alloys in Ikkuma would involve some real effort. But there is an alternative for quests like this.  The world market lets you buy resources straight out of the ether! You can also sell your excess to the world market, and the prices of goods actually does fluctuate based on supply and demand from people still playing this game - this is 2205's big 'always online' feature. However, you will want to be very selective about how much you use this feature: you have a cap on your number of world market routes based on your corp level, and right now I can only have two. Buying goods this way is also much more expensive than normal trade routes. But when you need the goods pronto, or are in a situation like this where you briefly need an abnormally high amount of a random good, this can be a perfect solution.  Back home in Walbruk while the quest timer churns, I've built up enough to unlock Keith's second need, intelliwear. This needs flax and microchips, but as in 2070 you can't produce microchips directly and this time there's no electronics recyclers.  Flax farms are appealingly small. I wound up with the perfect amount of space for one farm and a production module tucked in among the public needs buildings here.  Silicon in this game is mined directly (via 'silicon scrapers') rather than filtered from river sand.  And a Microfabrication Hall turns silicon into microchips. Our little starting island in Walbruk is starting to completely fill up!  Then the Nano-Textile Mill in the foreground here turns flax and microchips into intelliwear. If you're playing at home, be aware that textile mills are one of the larger temperate production facilities, so you'll need to find space. Luckily I had a spare corner.  Hmmm. The next step requires a shipment of methane ice, which I can't currently produce. And you can't buy goods off the world market that you haven't unlocked for production yourself.  About 300 more scientists will unlock methane, but other things are demanding my attention. Next update, perhaps.  Back in Iwamoto Crater, the colony has grown enough to unlock the first lunar spaceport upgrade.    The good news is, Zandra Haynes is our trader on the moon. The bad news is, to cut out a lot of dialogue, we're now informed that many Lunar Excavation Corp personnel fled the Orbital Watch revolt and made it back to Earth. But the Global Union, for reasons never explained, decided they couldn't publicly shelter these refugees and shipped them off to the arctic protectorates under assumed names. Witness protection? Many Earth powers sympathizing with the Orbital Watch? Who knows! Either way, the Orbital Watch has found the protectorates and has sent a fleet to destroy them. It's Crisis Sector time. Or just advance your corporation to the next level, which is fluffed as evacuating the LEC personnel to your own, better protected territory.    In retrospect I could, and probably should, have done this on Advanced difficulty. Our fleet is now at its maximum size, and has already faced an Eradicator - before sector invasions, this was the first time you'd see one. Also, contrary to what you might think, there's no time limit or defense objective in this mission.  The Eradicator (Eradicators on higher difficulty levels) will make a beeline for where you start and blow up a variety of allied structures. There are absolutely zero consequences for this and no one even mentions it on the radio, leaving you free to scour the map for resources and sidequests.  You know how these go by now.  Eradicators are not immune to EMP, by the way. I actually lost a Flare on this map because I was careless and not paying much attention. The only consequence for losing a ship is that you lose them for the mission. They respawn for free at the end of the mission and don't even lose veterancy or anything.  With that settled, the lunar spaceport has been upgraded and we can now transfer goods between Earth and the moon.  Which immediately unlocks Ben's need for rejuvenators from the temperate zone.  Be warned, Earth/moon trade routes cost about three times as much to operate as terrestrial trade routes.   I also buy Wildwater Bay at this time. Poor Lei Sheng - May's dialogue in this game implies that the temperate zone of this game is actually part of what's left of post-apocalyptic China.  More building on the moon unlocks the final shuttle pad for our space station. I'll do a more detailed post about the space station probably in the next few updates, but getting a shuttle pad on the moon finally unlocks the full extent of what we can do in orbit.  I've also unlocked a new production chain on the moon. This cliff site building is not a mine digging down into the crater, but a robot mining the lunar surface. This is a KREEP Collector, harvesting rare earth elements (if you read my Anno 2070 LP, you might recall that mining rare earth elements was a pain in the arse chain underwater). Iwamoto's sector trait I got is Abundant KREEP Deposits, increasing rare earth element production by 20%. Maybe not the best moon trait, but quite handy.  This in turn demands the basic power generator on the moon, solar arrays. Solar arrays also require cliff sites.   Pictured: why Lei Sheng wins every election.  And this is what you do with rare earth elements: bionics labs on the moon make them into bioenhancers, which both our miners up here and executives down on Earth need. A trade route to Walbruk is set up. For the record, 'bioenhancer' is a generic term for a vast range of bionic and cybernetic implants and augmentations that go well beyond basic neural implants. Some are even for recreational use rather than professional, but I'm told they're vital for long-term work in space. Getting bioenhancer production up and running also unlocks Ben's public need, repairs, which is met by a maintenance station. Personally, I'd think this wouldn't be the last facility for the basic colony to be unlocked, but what do I know...  If I've seemed a little scatterbrained this update, well, it's the nature of the beast at this point. There's a lot of interconnectivity between sectors, and there is only going to be more.   
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 17:04
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Everything Cythereal said about the moon is correct. The moon is a giant, expensive disappointment in so many ways. It does have some cool art design and will eventually straight up solve all your energy needs and then some. Especially if you abuse finance modules (you should absolutely abuse finance modules). However unlike the Arctic (and the Arctic-Adjacent DLC zone) the moon never makes anything close to a profit. The Arctic (and said DLC zone) will at least come close to even but Luna will always be a giant money hole, which is why the temperate zone generates so much money. Also as mentioned the building "puzzle" is rather boring. Just slap down a power and money hungry shield generator and now you can build nearby. As compared to the Arctic which has an interesting and organic puzzle based off of building your housing around your industry. Honestly I feel 2205's Arctic is better than 1800's even, I liked the building mechanics so much in 2205's Arctic. Oh and outside of one sector project where you create a tourist site...you never really colonize the moon. Nope it's a work camp used to make fancy, expensive toys for the Temperate zone and a fuckton of power later. Heck even the designs of the worker houses bother me: a bunch of disconnected buildings so you need to spend a quarter hour putting on your space-suit that takes a third of your shipping-container sized house if you left a tool out in your workshed or need to visit your friend in the pressurized shipping container next door. The upgraded houses look...better but still suffer from the same issue. The moon sectors in 2205 really do feel unfinished, like there should be a 3rd tier of settlers (with reasonably designed housing!), or some sort of long term project to tell Drake to gently caress off (there never is and if you go for the 1 million population challenge he'll still be there Cobra Commander-ing right at you)
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Jan 22, 2022 20:20
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So here's a little trick: As shown, trade routes from the moon to terrestrial sectors are expensive. Trade routes from or to your space station however always cost the same no matter where the other sector is. And it's 1/3 the cost of a Moon - Earth route. In other words, sending stuff through the space station with two routes is actually 33% cheaper than sending it directly from or to the moon. Magni fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 23:06
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Magni posted:So here's a little trick: As shown, trade routes from the moon to terrestrial sectors are expensive. Trade routes from or to your space station however always cost the same no matter where the other sector is. That's always felt cheesy and unintentional to me, though, so I haven't been doing it in the LP. I... actually recorded the next update already, because I wanted to play more Anno, and I ended up playing with ornamentals and adding a couple of little nooks to spare corners of Walbruk Basin.  
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Jan 23, 2022 00:29
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Given that we're on the moon, I get to start talking about my expressed support for Cobra Commander - and he absolutely is every insult that the thread has thrown at him. Thing is, the moon is a hell hole and demolishing the Big Five and Global Union's claims/will to mess with it is a good thing. The first element of this comes in on the demands screen for the workers - specifically for the rejuvenators. When you unlock that need the fluff that comes up talks about how rejuventors are needed on the moon to mitigate people suffering radiation damage. You might think, wait, aren't the shields supposed to help with that? They are, and they do. Somewhat. But roads aren't shielded or required to be, nor are workspaces outside buildings. A good player will naturally do as Cythereal did and shield as little of the mines as possible since that's all that's needed by regulations and game mechanics. Too bad about all the little dudes in their suits in the unshielded by law and optimization in the work area. It took me a bit to notice this, and a bit longer to connect the dots. That said, have a close look at the housing. Doesn't exactly look that sturdy, does it? Or for that matter have any decent shielding against radiation. This gets even darker when you think about people bringing their pets along with them. Thankfully they don't animate those leaving their housing area, so little Scooby isn't eating massive amounts of rads on screen. Alkydere rightfully points out that this part of the game seems like it's a bit unfinished, but it's still bad. The housing that your grunts occupy and that the vast majority of the moon will have is absolute garbage. The upcoming officer housing is, as mentioned, not that much better. Moreover the officers' area need, which the grunts have as maintenance, is absolutely loving hilarious. As is another thing or two.
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Jan 23, 2022 04:43
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Cythereal posted:That's always felt cheesy and unintentional to me, though, so I haven't been doing it in the LP. I wouldn't say it's cheesy at all. Space-flight is absolutely capital-E Expensive. I'm pretty sure it's more or less intended.
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Jan 23, 2022 05:36
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The temperate and arctic zone maps look really pretty, and Anno has always been good with ornamentals.
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Jan 23, 2022 10:40
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   Been making progress with unlocking all the station modules for the space station, but gently caress I don't care for this aspect of the game despite how useful a fully unlocked space station is. I'm planning to do a proper update about the space station and tech tree once I've got everything unlocked. Edit: The first calamity has struck. 
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 23, 2022 |
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Jan 23, 2022 17:22
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Complications posted:Given that we're on the moon, I get to start talking about my expressed support for Cobra Commander - and he absolutely is every insult that the thread has thrown at him. Thing is, the moon is a hell hole and demolishing the Big Five and Global Union's claims/will to mess with it is a good thing. Eh, you're being pretty paranoid there. Shielding is supposed to help, but that doesn't really mean it's gonna do a perfect job or that it's expected as such. Having a higher requirement for anti-rad treatments is pretty much going to be expected, jsut as you'd have to expect higher medical cost for postings in the arctic. The housing look like pre-fabricated metal boxes. Which, uh, is in fact the perhaps most efficient way to build radiation-shielded shelters. Larger vehicles and stuff that goes outside the crater is presumably shielded itself, simply because trying to erect extra shield generators everywhere is just plain impractical. Overall, the moon seems to me basically akin to working on an oil rig writ larger. You have a working population that's signed up to work shifts of a few months or a year or so before being switched to the next, with it being regarded as a hardship post people take on because the pay and benefits are proportionate to how hard it sucks. Hell, that's likely part of why everything costs so much maintenance - you're paying premium just to get people to sign up for a tour, exacerbated further by relatively high skill and personality requirements. And well, given the implied situation on Earth, demolishing the Big Five and Global Unions claims/will to "mess" with the moon is absolutely not a good thing. To the tune of mass death from impending energy inflection point and all that comes with it. It gets even more farcial given that they seem to have no real plans to actually take back the old LEC colonies to begin with, and it's Orbital Watch just outright claiming the whole drat moon for themselves despite msot of it being completely uninhabited that's driving the whole conflict.
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Jan 24, 2022 03:00
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Magni posted:Eh, you're being pretty paranoid there. Shielding is supposed to help, but that doesn't really mean it's gonna do a perfect job or that it's expected as such. Having a higher requirement for anti-rad treatments is pretty much going to be expected, jsut as you'd have to expect higher medical cost for postings in the arctic. The housing look like pre-fabricated metal boxes. Which, uh, is in fact the perhaps most efficient way to build radiation-shielded shelters. Larger vehicles and stuff that goes outside the crater is presumably shielded itself, simply because trying to erect extra shield generators everywhere is just plain impractical. Disputing most of what you're arguing here relies on arguing motive and the ethical leanings of the corporations involved in developing the moon, a decent part of which involves some upcoming things from Iwamoto Crater's sector project. Do you mind if we stick a pin in this and come back later?
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Jan 24, 2022 05:23
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I mean, honestly, if we're talking about the ethical leanings of the Corporations, the most damning thing there is actually near the start of the game. Specifically, this one here: ...Our Union contact notes that most of the MegaCorps don't even bother covering Organic Food. You know, the very first basic need in the game? That does not bode well for their treatment of employees.
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Jan 24, 2022 08:43
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It's not really an ethics issue IMO is what I'm saying. It's the same as IRL oil rig workers, or your guys in the artic. These need to be comparatively high-paying jobs with decent benefits because otherwise you just won't get enough qualified people signing up for them. And actually trying to force people into these posts against their will would be a recipe for all kinds of disaster. The best move from a ruthlessly pragmatic, purely profit-oriented perspective just seems practically the same as that from a more benevolent one in this specific case.Crepuscule Adepte posted:...Our Union contact notes that most of the MegaCorps don't even bother covering Organic Food. You know, the very first basic need in the game? That does not bode well for their treatment of employees. OTOH it also specifically notes that the GU doesn't agree with said many megacorps on that. Magni fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 24, 2022 |
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Jan 24, 2022 15:54
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