OSG 29A - The Charismatic Introverts

[DaveV]

5-20 damage from a fusion bomb, IIRC, so we'd have to hit the high end of the range to deal damage.  Assuming equal odds of each number in the range, 1200 bombers would average 375 rolls of 16+, for a total of 900ish damage.  Derated somewhat by not guaranteed hits, but I don't know how much so I'm ignoring that.  Meanwhile 15 bases are killing presumably 45 bombers/turn.  Running those numbers (and assumptions) through Excel, I would expect to win the fight on the fourth turn of bombing, having lost ~100 bombers.

Unfortunately, most of our bombs will miss. Silicoids have ECM 3 vs. our attack level of 1, so only 30% of our bombs will hit. So, based on your numbers, about 270 damage per turn, or 2.7 bases. We'll also have to absorb two turns' worth of missile volleys before we can drop our first bombs.

Edit: On the flip side, our ships have a missile defense of 6, vs. battle computer V for the rocks. I think Merculites are +1 or +2 to hit, so only 50-60% of their missile volleys will hit. Each hit is a guaranteed kill.

and Silicoids have Zortium so a base is 200 hp

According to the OSG, and my sometimes-suspect memory, Zortrium is 100hp. Base armor gives 50hp, Zortrium doubles that.

While I was checking the OSG, though, I noticed that base missile defense rating is 1+ECM, so lower our hit probability to 20%. If I'm right on both counts, I think that means we can clear the bases in one attack. Any defending fleet may substantially alter the odds, of course.

[Mardoc]

According to the OSG, and my sometimes-suspect memory, Zortrium is 100hp. Base armor gives 50hp, Zortrium doubles that.

Oh! I just assumed 100 base as a nice round number

While I was checking the OSG, though, I noticed that base missile defense rating is 1+ECM, so lower our hit probability to 20%. If I'm right on both counts, I think that means we can clear the bases in one attack. Any defending fleet may substantially alter the odds, of course.

Agreed, this time it looks like the last base dies to the last volley of bombs, with 1060 remaining bombers. Assuming that bombs are vulnerable to ECM just like missiles, anyway.

I think the exact number will have to wait and see what happens, but the net effect is it looks like we can win a battle here.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the info and estimations, DaveV and Mardoc! Very helpful. My at-a-glance estimate was that the attack should work, with some attrition of our bombers, but this is a much better bit of planning. Given that our bomber fleet is rapidly becoming obsolete, this looks like a good chance to get some use from them while we still can.

Tech planning: Checking the tables this time the next rung of Weapons does not have a missile upgrade. There is a potential bomb upgrade with Omega-V, since we missed anti-matter bombs. For guns there is the megabolt cannon, but we will be just finishing hard beams so maybe a gun is not the most urgent need? Fusion Rifle for gropo, but we have a weapon upgrade for our ground troops with the ion rifle so also not an urgent need. Ion stream projector reduces armor for ship to ship fighting, not really familiar with how to use it effectively. Anti-matter torpedoes, the slow fire rate is a big penalty. What is our best choice here, if available? Put differently, which would we like to take if we can?

Construction, only way to advance the tree is armored exoskeleton which fills a need.

Propulsion possibles are: even faster drives for warp 6, but we will have just popped warp 5; range upgrade for range 10 (we currently have 7, so a significant boost); and star gates, expensive but allowing immediate travel between equipped systems.What do we want most, if possible? More speed never hurts but we will have just finished warp 6. More range, to help reach target worlds? Or the stargates, which offer a unique (but expensive) ability?

[Mardoc]

Gut feel, happy to be outvoted:
Weapons:  I would take Omega-V if available; else the Megabolt cannon.  I think the most important thing is advancing the tree, and the second-most important is being able to invade Mrrshans and Silicoids to steal more of their tech (I know Mrrshans have megabolts).  Megabolt looks like a significant upgrade, but we can work with the beams we have if we just throw more BC's at the problem, while fusion bombs are running out of life.  Also there appear to be three beams and two missiles at the next tier, but no new bombs for quite some time.

Ion stream projector looks like it's an anti-Huge weapon.  I don't think anyone except us is actually using Huges, though.  It's a unique ability so we won't be able to get it later, but it just doesn't seem that useful to me.  That said, this is the one I feel most uncertain about, it's quite easy to imagine being wrong.

Agreed that fusion rifle is only if it's the only choice. Better than not advancing the tree.

Propulsion: I don't know that we need any of those .  I guess I'd be inclined toward range 10, even though range 7 seems to be enough for all practical purposes.  I don't think we have the spare production to benefit from stargates, and warp 6 doesn't feel like much of an upgrade over warp 5.  

Although, again, if we ever want star gates they have to come from this tier, while extra speed and range both are likely to be available later on, so I wouldn't be sad if you picked them instead.

[DaveV]

I'll offer my opinions on techs, knowing that it's not the last word.

Weapons:

1) Omega V - Fusion bombs have a pretty short shelf life at this point.
2) Megabolt Cannon - +3 to-hit can be pretty significant.
3) Anti-matter torpedoes - low rate of fire is a drawback, but this is a good weapon for an auto-repair huge. Good range, and significant damage.
4) Fusion rifle - a pretty marginal upgrade over our current gropo weapons, but better than:
5) Ion Stream - I always have things I'd rather put in the special slots, but maybe that's a weakness in my game.

Propulsion:

1) Ion Drive - faster ships and transports are almost always helpful.
2) Trilithium Crystal - range 7 is plenty as far as I'm concerned; it's hard to protect a planet 10 moves away from our current core. I'd rather expand that core by grabbing nearby worlds.
3) Star Gates - I only pick these when it's the only way to move up a rung. I'd rather build ships or bases than gates. Again, maybe I'm missing something.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the thoughts, Mardoc and DaveV! Very helpful.

On weapons, good point about the following tier having missiles and beams but not bombs. Fusion bombs are already becoming less effective now; they would be really weak (to the point of uselessness against anyone with a planetary shield) by that point.

Of course, all of this could be pointless if we get no choices at all. But given problems with tech choices so far, I thought it would be best to get some input before playing the turns.

[haphazard1]

Our region of the galaxy is engulfed in war and chaos. Quite a bit of it caused by us, actually. But we have enemies who think they can plant colonies in the middle of our empire, or even dare to attack our planets. These attempts must be dealt with forcefully. And once our current tech projects complete, we can shift more fully onto the offensive.

But first we need to focus on some defense at Sol and Guradas, plus some clean up at Crypto (new Silicoid colony planted in our back lines, Sullla has our older Hyper-X missile boats already on the way). And even though our existing fleet is getting a bit long in the tooth, I am going to attempt to glass the Silicoid colony at Gienah in the center of the galaxy to restrict their range from reaching most of our empire. I would love to take it away from them, but as a radiated world we can not land there.

2470 - Looking about our empire, our worlds are nicely developed for maximum population and industy for our current tech. Sullla has left things in very good shape economically. The eastern portion of our empire is devoting its production to driving research forward, except for mineral ultra-rich Exis which is stocking up our reserve funds. The western and newer portion of the empire is still focusing on development and protection, again with the exception of mineral-rich Cygni which like Exis is funding the reserves.

Research has construction, propulsion, and weapons in the percentages. If we are lucky these will pop quickly and we can think about new ship designs. But we will see if the RNG is feeling kind.

On the immediate threat list:

- The rocks have 7 of their Polaris class ships coming to Sol next turn. We are adding missile bases, and should be able to block this attack.
- There is a Whale class ship approaching Guradas in a few turns, plus some pop transports that are an amazing 12 turns away from arriving -- the rocks are seriously lacking in engine upgrades, a nice break for us. Their transports are still crawling along at warp 1. One of our huge gunships is returning from blocking a Silicoid colony ship at Selia to provide protection for Guradas while the planet works on factories and then defenses.

I give orders for our fleet at Phantos -- 2 of our huge gunships and our stacks of medium and small fusion bombers -- to move to Gienah. Our engines allow us to make the move in one turn, so we will have time to return before any Silicoid response can reach the planet.

OK, I think that is everything for this (very busy!) turn. Time to advance the clock.

2471 - Our fleet arrives at Gienah. The rocks have 3 of their Polaris ships and a Shark, plus the 15 missile bases. Their ships retreat, and we proceed to the planet at best speed. Our huge gunships do some minor spitball damage (about 25 points) to the planet's bases each round. Our small bomber stack takes a couple volleys of missiles before it can reach range, but once it does a single drop of bombs eliminates all the missile bases. Boom!

Next up is the Silicoid fleet arriving at Sol. The only weapon they have with any ability to damage our bases is the fusion bomb on the Polaris design, and that only barely. They take a look at our defenses and retreat immediately.

We wipe out the Silicoid colony at Gienah:

This pleases the Bulrathi, who tell us the loathsome Silicoids are a common enemy. Our act of destruction also finds favor with the Alkari, who show up proposing a full alliance.

I think for a while, then decide to accept. Hopefully this was not a huge error. But the birds are honorable and this should lock up their support in the council, which might be useful. They can use our worlds to extend their range, but there is nothing but radiated planets left to be claimed which we do not have the tech for anyway.

Our relations after some "enemy of my enemy" diplomacy:

We still have incoming Silicoid ships at Guradas, but they are still a few turns aways. Sol shifts spending off missile bases back to research. Our fleet heads back to Phantos from Gienah, in case of any incursions.

The rocks have another colony ship on the way (very slowly) to Selia, the radiated world Sullla chased them away from a few turns ago. We will need to do so again.

A bit further north, the formerly Mrrshan world of Simius has been glassed by the Meklar:

Size 10 minimal with a big machine fleet in orbit? The kitties are sending ships, but...yeah, good luck with that.

2472 - Impulse Drives research completes for warp 5. We get the full set of possible options:

I select the stargates, as they will advance the tree and provide a unique (though very expensive) option. Increasing range is a possibility, but range 7 is pretty good and the rocks have better which we might be able to acquire. And while more speed is always useful, we just completed an engine tech and there are likely to be more such in future rungs.

Simius has now been claimed by the Alkari, but whether they can hold on to this spud is questionable. We may get dragged into war with the kitties by way of the alliance, though; that probably was a mistake. Hopefully this will not cost us in the council.

Our old hyper-x missile boats arrive at Crypto and bomb out the Silicoid colony there:

The map looks much better with that nasty Silicoid yellow limited to the far west.

2473 - IIT6 completes. I selct Armored Exoskeleton to advance the tree, and provide a much-needed boost to our ground-pounders.

Some Meklar ships are flying around (very rapidly) in the upper-west near the formerly-Mrrshan-now-Alkari world of Simius, and the Alkari world of Quayal nearby. Large and huge designs.

Guradas is continuing to work on factories, with a Silicoid colony ship and one of their Polaris designs due to arrive next turn. One of our huge gunships is waiting to defend. Our computers research on Advanced Space Scanner has made it (barely) into the percentages. At the next rung we would love to see IRC5 but a battle computer upgrade never hurts. We could actually use an ECM upgrade, since we still have only ECM1, but that would be the last choice.

2474 - The silicoid ships hastily retreat from our huge gunship at Guradas.

Hard Beams research completes. We get 3 of 5 possible options:

I choose the Omega-V bomb, as our fusion bombs are rapidly becoming obsolete against anyone with a modern planetary shield. The gropo upgrade would be nice to have but we already have ion rifle for some bonus to our ground troops. Anti-matter torpedoes could be useful, but we need an effective bomb to have a chance of cracking defenses and capturing tech.

Planetology research on terraforming+50 has edged into the percentages. More population and factories everywhere is always good. Next rung possibilities are Terraforming+60 and Complete Eco Restoration. We are still working with Improved Eco, so we would much prefer the second option.

The Maklar have fleets incoming to Quayal and Simius -- I expect our friends the birds are in for some serious pain.

2475 - Meklar spies destroy 9 missile bases at Phantos. I will start rebuilding them.

The Council convenes. We are not in a position for a victory, as the rocks vote for the Meklar due to our ongoing war. We do now have enough votes (16 of 44) to block any potential loss.

44 votes total
Meklar 12 votes for Meklar
Bulrathi 4 votes for us
Alkari 1 vote for us
Mrrshan 3 votes for us
Silicoids 8 votes for Meklars

Meklar 20 of 44, us 8 of 44, we have 16 votes. I abstain, and the game continues.

The Silicoids show up to ask us to break our alliance with the Alkari. I refuse, since the rocks are not our friends anyway and betraying the honorable birds would carry a hefty diplomatic cost. The rocks offer a sizable bribe of 1500 BC to entice us, but I remain firm and turn them down.

The Meklar glassed Quayal -- lots of dead birds.

We have a Silicoid Shark incoming at Guaradas next turn; our huge gunship should be able to handle it. The rocks are also on their way to Selia again with a colony ship, so I dispatch a gunship there to prevent them from taking that radiated ultra-rich planet.

2476 - Unknown spies destroy a missile base at Endoria.

The rock ship hastily retreats from our gunship at Guradas.

Advanced Space Scanners research completes, and we have a nice set of options:

IRC5 is selected.

Our new scanners reveal many planets across the galaxy to us. There are a couple odd ones, such as Cryslon:

Bioweapons use? Not sure why else it would be reduced in max pop? Or is this because the Silicoids do not bother to clean up waste?

Quayal, former Alkari world wiped outby the Meklar:

Also evidence of bioweapons? The Meklar certainly have them, they may be using them.

A newsflash from GNN:

Our poor citizens are suffering terribly. I boost research efforts at Cygni via reserve funding. This will cost us a fair bit, as Cygni is a pretty solid world. But our reserves are well stocked at the moment, so we should have no problem providing enough extra research to Cygni to beat the plague.

The Silicoids have a colony ship due at Selia next turn, but a gunship will be there to run them off again.

The kitties have a colony ship heading to Crypto, the radiated ultra-rich in our back lines. They do not have Controlled Radiated, though, so maybe this is just exploration?

2477 - Our gunship sends the Silicoid colony ship fleeing at Selia.

The Meklar show up and ask us to break our alliance with the Alkari. I refuse, as the Meklar are not our friends and the honorable birds would be most upset. Maybe this was a mistake? Improved relations with the Meklar could help prevent them from rolling over us. But they are our primary obstacle to dominating the galaxy, so continued conflict with them seems inevitable. Still, the Alkari are very weak. Maybe I should have dumped them to improve relations with the rocks and machines? Not sure. That Silicoid bribe might have been worth it just for the cash.

The Meklar glassed the Alkari (formerly Mrrshan) world of Simius. The birds are down to just their homeworld now.

More reserve funds are sent to Cygni to battle the plague. 8 million of our people have died.

Cloaking Device research has entered the percentages at 6%. Terraforming+50 is up to 17%. Next rung of force fields has Zyco Shield (anti-missile barrier, 75% effective less missile tech level), Planetary XV, and Deflectors IX. I am not sure how useful the Zyco shield would be -- getting significant missile immunity could be pretty useful. We currently have deflectors 5 so 9 would be a significant improvement. And any planetary shield boost is always helpful, but with Class X shields recently built throughout our empire this is perhaps less urgent than Deflectors IX.

Guradas will finally max factories next turn. I shift the excess to begin construction of a planetary shield.

2478 - We get a spy penetration against the Silicoids, Computers or Weapons. It is tempting to go for computers since it helps spying, but the rocks are less advanced than we are in computers and have merculite missiles which could be very useful. So I take weapons. Unfortunately, we get the obsolete Hyper-V rockets instead of Merculites (the only two weapons techs the rocks have that we do not already know).

Guaradas maxes factories and shifts fully to defense spending to get a shield up.

3 million more people die at Cygni from the plague. More reserve spending is ordered.

The Silicoids have another colony ship heading to Gienah, due in 3 turns. We can block this easily enough.

2479 - We get another spy penetration on the Silicoids, hitting all fields this time. I think for quite a while, as the rocks do have some nice propulsion tech, but go for wepons -- we really need a missile upgrade, any missile upgrade. So we get the merculites this time.

Suddenly tech is everywhere! Cloaking Device and Terraforming+50 complete. In force fields we get the full set of options:

I go for Deflectors IX, as this is a 4 point upgrade over our existing tech for our ships and for our planets, so almost as useful on defense as the Planetary XV upgrade but this will also help our ships. Planetology next rung offers only Terraforming+60 -- no Complete Eco to be seen. I decide to not advance the tree this time -- advanced soil so we can convert all our planets to gaias is hugely valuable.

The Mrrshan show up to gloat (prematurely, I hope, given our recent tech breakthroughs):

Well, the timing could have been better, as we have terraforming, more pop, and more factories that could be getting done. But let's see what the cats are bringing our way. Ummmm...nothing? No incoming Mrrshan ships are reported anywhere. How odd.

Well, I order up terraforming throughout the empire, except for Cygni which is still struggling with the plague. Soon we will have bigger worlds, more pop, and more factories.

The Alkari have re-established their colony at Quayal. No idea if they can hold it.

2480 - The new terraforming (except for Cygni) is completed, and our worlds are larger now. I have set some worlds to building factories, others are still funding research since we do not want to completely stop. The next player may want to adjust ratios among research, pop growth, and new factories. Our total research spending is about half what it usually was before the new tech hit.

Items to be aware of:

- Plague continues at Cygni. More spending from reserves and we should eventually solve it.
- Silicoids have a colony ship due at Gienah again next turn. We have a gunship there to run them off again.
- Silicoid transports (15) are incoming at Guradas, 2 turns. Guradas should finish its planetary shield next turn, and the slider shows it should finish a missile base in time for the arrival. We also have a gunship in orbit and another on its way from Selia to help shoot down transports.
- Keep an eye on Gienah, Selia, and Crypto as the rocks keep making attempts to reclaim them.

Once we get all our worlds re-maxed, it will be time to put some of our new discoveries to use. Our spy reports on everyone are current, so we can plan for possible AI ship designs.

Kitties do have the repulsor; Meklar have the high energy focus (among tons of other things ) None of our current research is in percentages or even particularly close yet, so I don't know if waiting on Omega-V bombs is worth doing before creating new designs.

Good luck!

[haphazard1]

A quick look at the state of the galaxy in 2480, for our readers and for planning and discussion.

Map:

Diplomatic relations:

Status:

Our planets (except Uxmai, we have just too many to fit in one page):

Meklar:

Silicoids:

Mrrshan:

Alkari:

Bulrathi:

[Sullla]

Haphazard, that looks like a solid set of turns, and BEAUTIFULLY illustrated with screenshots. A couple thoughts:

* Signing an alliance with the Alkari is not something that I would have done. An alliance commits you to peace and war status with the race in question, and the AI does enough dumb/crazy things that this can be a dicey proposition. Alliances are generally only useful when you're trying to lock up a vote in the Council right before an expected end to a game, or when there's a clearly defined "World War II" set of opponents in a global conflict, to tie someone inextricably into your side of a war. In this situation, yoking ourselves to the whims of a tiny and weak AI empire probably wasn't the best choice. It doesn't matter that much given our position here, but worth considering for the future.

* On tech choices, Star Gates are certainly a solid option and very nice to have. I tend to like warp 6 technology though, since it opens up a combat speed of 4 for ship designs. Generally speaking, the even-numbered warp techs (warp 2, warp 4, warp 6, etc.) tend to be stronger than the odd-numbered ones for this exact reason. Still, Star Gates are a perfectly good choice and we may have warp 7 tech available at the next tech rung. Omega-V bombs are also a great pickup for our empire, replacing the Fusion Bombs just as they're going out of usefulness. We need a missile update (nice job lifting Merculites via espionage!), but we can get that via invading the Mrrshans and taking their Pulsons away. I'm also a fan of choice to take Robotics V and Class IX Shields.

* I noticed that we went from +50 Terraforming to +60 Terraforming. Might have been a good idea to take Advanced Soil Enrichment at the last tech rung. We'll probably want to go back for that at some point, although continuing to push further onwards with +60 Terraforming is also a good choice.

* A note on the Plague event: because it keeps killing population, you need to send additional population to the world affected from another planet, or else funnel some of the spending on the world in question into Ecology to grow back more colonists. Otherwise the planet shrinks and too many factories end up going unworked. Based on the Planets screen, we seem to be falling short in population at Cygni.

* Having the 1/3 veto block in the Council is great news. Now we can be as evil as we want without worrying about a loss. I would use our new techs to design a new ship after we finish terraforming, and then go after the kitties in earnest. They have some very nice Weapons tech that we want to get our hands on. There's no need to be diplomatic here: we can wipe them out completely at this point without fear. Then the path is open to the Siciloid worlds in the west, and we've already had success at taking over their nearby planets. I see a very easy path to galactic domination here without even needing to worry about the Meklars. (If we can absorb the cats and rocks, we'll be more than strong enough to grind down the cyborgs as desired.)

[Mardoc]

Quite a bit to absorb there!

I'm up, but I may not be able to actually play til Friday morning.  Will try to get turns in the evenings but worknights aren't great.

I'll throw up my initial plans for the turnset for everyone to nitpick, though!

I'm thinking my turnset needs to be a balance between re-maxing our existing planets, and getting a couple new ones from the Mrrshans.  It looks like we still need to jump up in tech before we can challenge the Silicoids or Meklar effectively, but Mrrshans are an opportunity for three new worlds and filling in some tech gaps.

I don't want to exterminate them until we get at least Pulsons and Repulsors.  Hopefully we can simply capture those techs, but if we don't, I'm inclined to leave them one world and flood them with spies until those techs pop.  Their other techs seem mostly 'nice to have' rather than vital; I can see a use for much of their weapons tech and the ECM upgrade, but would be ok with taking their last world instead of those techs if I have to.

I like all our new techs, but I don't see much that influences our ship design.  A new engine, and some miniaturization, but otherwise my before-haphazard thoughts seem to still apply:

Honestly, I wouldn't go with Huges at all, after thinking on Sullla's critique.  I think Huge ARS is the wrong way to go in the current situation; we can't soak enough damage to be legitimately invincible, and it costs too much firepower to try  Aim to win the battle quickly, and then we don't have much damage to soak.  That calls for a design based around Medium or Large ships, with speed and guns designed so that we get to shoot first, and only have to shoot once.  Pay attention to keeping the cost down so we can build a lot of gunships, more than to survivability per se.

Assuming the kitty fleet looks like what we saw on Sullla's turnset, they're pretty much glass cannons without shielding, so Hard beams don't buy us much of anything compared to Neutron Blasters.  I'd probably stick with Heavy Neutron Blasters so we can get the first shot (their beams all look like one-range versions) and set up the design to simply put as many guns in space as possible (with decent speed and battle computers).  Also bring our bomber fleet for the missile bases.

The biggest downside to that proposed design is that it's probably not nearly as effective against the Silicoids and is probably toothless against the Meklar.  I'm not sure we can build anything that will stand up to the Meklar just yet, though, so maybe we plan this fleet to be a cat-killer only.

Either that, or honestly...our current fleet might be able to get some work done even without a new design.

In terms of research choices: my guess is I don't actually have many choices to make.  Haphazard just popped a bunch of fields, and I want to invest in using those techs more than anything else.  Growing our worlds more, taking Mrrshan worlds, and securing the new stuff will take a bunch of our BC's; I'll keep research moving upward but I doubt I get enough progress to actually pop any tech.