OSG-28

[haphazard1]

Yeah, the Omega-V bombs are still quite big and un-miniaturized at this point. So trying to build a swarm may not work out as well as going for a huge design with lots of goodies on it for durability. Especially if we want the inertial stabilizer on the design for combat maneuver rating, as that eats up even more space.

The problem with attacking the bears is that they have fantastic planetology tech, and thus huge worlds with tons of bear population. Of course, this is also the very reason we would love to invade them and capture tech -- we want those planetology techs. It is a dilemma. One possible answer is to dial up the spying on the bears. If they are attacking us anyway, then there is little to lose diplomatically. And if we could steal those planetology techs, we can significantly increase our own planets' size, population, and factories.

Darloks...what do we know about their fleets and tech? They might be an easier target for some conquest, and then we could deal with the bears later when we are in a stronger position. They would certainly be easier to invade, unless they have amazing gropo tech.

[RefSteel]

Ha - when I saw that Bulrathi attack, what I wanted to know was, where was the rest of their fleet? One Rebuttal could have held that attack off, and with a Theory there, my only question is whether any of them lived long enough to retreat.

Do we have a current tech report on the Bulrathi?

Bombers...hmmm, would duralloy for more hit points be worth it?

What would you take off to make room for it? On a bomber like that, everything DaveV put on is mission-critical, and armor is a luxury even when it fits.

Thoughts:
How many of those 102BC medium bombers can we build a turn?

Looks to me like about 36 if we go all-out, leaving only Firma on research. (Almost a third of them from Mentar alone...) - or more if we still have reserves to feed Mentar. Still more than that if we wait for RC4 and build more factories at Mentar and/or our other production worlds.

The only thing that I don't like about them is that they will be harder to build in large numbers and will be fodder for enemy bases until they can close with the planet (2 turns).

Yeah, Darlok bases (with Stingers and BC7!) will tear these apart - but they'll shred anything we send at them right now ... unless we build a bazillion of them, split between three or more identical designs, so we can wipe their bases in two volleys while still retreating anything they shoot at. That would be ... expensive to build.

Bulrathi bases ... well, it depends on their tech. If they're still running around with BC2/ECM2/Duralloy/Hyper-X and no planetaries, they'll only kill about a dozen of DaveV's proposed bombers before they close with the planet, and we'd need about 130 to crack Toranor with minimal losses, or half that to crack it with heavy casualties on our side.

Compare the cost of a medium (102BC/bomb) with the cost of a large which can carry a larger payload and is more durable. Proceed accordingly.

This is a good idea - in fact, I'd check to see how many bombs I could stuff on a Huge, in case one of those from Mentar would help - but half a large bomber doesn't help, and three medium ones do, so it might be a good idea to use multiple designs even if the larger ones are "better." (I also suspect the mediums will end up being the most efficient, though fitting a Battle Scanner on a larger hull will help.)

As I said above, PLEASE prioritize Force Fields! We need deflectors for our attack fleets.

Ianus is up third here, and I might not even get another turn if we get rolling quickly, so I'll note only for purposes of discussion that - much as I love shielding - I'd rather prioritize techs that will let us hit the enemy harder while accepting a high rate of attrition of ships that will hopefully soon be obsolete - especially since a Huge ARS ship has already been built with our existing shield technology.

I almost always like to conquer intact worlds rather than razing and replacing them. Of course that is a challenge against the Bears, so I vote we clean up the 'Loks while gathering some more Gropo tech and then take it to the Bears. Armored Exoskeleton will help with that, and anything else we can research will be good too. That and Cloning should do for the Bears!

Counterpoint: I'm with shallow_thought here; I'd rather raze and recolonize Soil-Enriched Bulrathi worlds (while spying on them in spite of the lousy luck I had with that during my set) and defend them with our already-extant repulsor ships than face BC7 Stingers in space ... until we can build small bombers at least. (If we do attack the 'loks, I'd definitely invade their ultra-poor (rather than glassing it) - even though they've only built a few dozen factories there, that's enough to give us a decent chance at grabbing a tech, plus a lot more facs than we'd ever build on our own there, to help with our research and soldier-cloning there. As mentioned though, I'd rather just make the Bulrathi pay for their attack, and get their enormous worlds working for us. (Then toward the end of the war, once we've gotten Cloning and Exoskeletons, we can start invading to clean up the last of their tech.)

[shallow_thought]

I love the way this team comes so naturally to a consensus  .

Ah well, sign of a rich strategy game I guess.

Good luck making the decisions DaveV. It's probably going to be an interesting turn set for whoever is up next ... damn it.

[Ianus]

You know we could compromise and use Death Spores. Then we wouldn't have to invade and we could still get all of the techs we wanted. I never use spores so it might be a fun change...

[haphazard1]

Heh. Running around slinging horrible biological death weapons everywhere. Our enemies would never stand a chance. But we would probably lose by council vote.

Hmmm, may have to reread that SG. Can't remember which one it was, but it was linked from Sulllla's page.....

[RFS-81]

Great that you could hold off the Bulrathi so easily! But I'm wondering why our huge design doesn't have an ARS, but our large one does. I thought that the amount of damage you repair each turn depends on the max HP of the ship, so it would be even more efficient on the huge design.

[RefSteel]

Great that you could hold off the Bulrathi so easily! But I'm wondering why our huge design doesn't have an ARS, but our large one does. I thought that the amount of damage you repair each turn depends on the max HP of the ship, so it would be even more efficient on the huge design.

That's actually really strange: Is the ship display bugged somehow? The Theory was designed with Auto Repair, and the Rebuttal with a Repulsor Beam (in addition to the systems shown for each; the Repulsor Beam was the whole point of the Rebuttal) - yet now that I look, neither shows up in DaveV's screenshot. I assume they were functioning in spite of not being displayed?

[DaveV]

No, the display is right: the Rebuttal has auto-repair and the Theory doesn't. Not sure what happened there; I'll chalk it up as one of those amusing things that keep succession games interesting  

I put the save onto a flash drive to bring home, and then forgot to bring home the flash drive, so we have some unplanned extra time for discussion.

In the meantime, here's  a screenie that shows just how close the bears came to arriving before my ships:



I'd planned to include some screenies showing the tech list for the Bulrathi and Darloks, but that's not going to happen now. Sorry.

One more random note: the Bulrathi fleet was slaughtered to the last man; the Theory took ~30 damage.

[haphazard1]

Re: forgotten flash drive -- I have done that before.

Lack of ARS...these things happen. But something we will need to rectify when we build more ships.

Good to know the invading Bulrathi fleet was wiped out. Villainous bears, attacking us peaceful brainiacs. They will pay for this assault!

[RefSteel]

Just opened up my save again and checked: The Theory had ARS and the Rebuttal had a Repulsor. I don't understand how that could have changed in the transfer between machines, but ... a good reminder to never just take your predecessor's ship designs as given without checking for possible improvements, I guess?