Warming (and/or Burning) Up Again

[WingsofMemory]

Still not looking so good. Not sure what advice I can give at this point. I still think the only path forwards is through someone else. Just not sure you are strong enough to project force while protecting what you have. Good luck!

[haphazard1]

Ouch! Those are some rich prizes for the rocks to potentially claim. Small, but rich and ultra rich worlds are still well worth it.

The bugs going hostile is bad news, obviously. Hopefully they will be distracted by other things and not put too much effort into attacking you.

Thanks for the update, RefSteel! Hope you are having fun with your 'shake off the rust' game.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for the encouragement and thoughts, both of you! The next update may have to wait several days - I have a very busy week ahead, and I'm still dealing with periodic pain that doesn't play well with clicking around a game, though I think and hope it's getting better - but I'm definitely still having fun with this one. WingsofFire, I think you're right, and I think the first target probably has to be the Silis; I'm just hoping their window of vulnerability lasts long enough that I can effectively take advantage of it!

And haphazard1, thanks, yeah! This is starting to look more and more like an all-too-appropriate "practice" for the likes of resuming OSG-39A ... but my toolbox is very different as Alkari than as Meklar! I'll have to hope I can make effective use of it!

[WingsofMemory]

No worries, and don't force yourself if it's causing you discomfort. I can't remember, did you say it was your wrists? Depending on how old you are there might be something you can do about it.

Usually problem pain areas can be mostly-mitigated by building enough muscle to support them. I know someone with a knee injury that bothered them for many years, and messed up tendons in there hands from a manual labour job that I trained where both mostly do not bother them anymore. I've got a tumor in my one leg that on occasion hurt bad enough to make me unable to get out of bed without a cane, but I've trained it enough that it's feeling alright more often than not. Basically you just need to do strength training with special attention to the problem areas. Making sure not to go too hard and overwhelm it, and not going to soft on it that you aren't getting any benefit. But the older that you are, the longer it will take to get the benefit.

Sorry for the rant lol.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for the concern and for wanting to help and sharing your own experiences! In my case, it's a lot more complicated than just my wrists (that's the part that most often affects my game playing and picture-handling capacity) but I strongly suspect you're right that the correct regime of strength-building (combined with stretches) would help a ton if I could strike the right balance between doing enough for improvement and staying short of exacerbation or re-injury.

Fortunately, I feel like that side of things has been improving lately - enough that I'm sure I could get at least a couple turns in without problems. It's just that this week has so much going on that I don't dare look at the game. (Because I know I'll look up hours after telling myself, "Okay, just a few minutes; let's just what happens this next turn or two," see what the clock says, and ... try to remind myself to not do that again, the way I'm in fact not doing it now!)

[haphazard1]

That urge to play "just one more turn" can be quite strong. I have no idea how many times I have intended to play for an hour or so, and ended up realizing the sun has come up.

[WingsofMemory]

lol fair enough.

[RefSteel]

I have no idea how many times I have intended to play for an hour or so, and ended up realizing the sun has come up.

Haha - yup! The complexities of my week actually aren't over yet, but I managed by a minor miracle to play a few more turns - and to not play a few dozen! And so, with the latest developments...



- 2355 -

The quiet continues for now, though it hardly can go on long enough. The only battles we've faced as yet in our double war have been over uninhabited worlds, where the Klackons' scouting Dagger fighters chase our unarmed scouts away in just the way they would have were there no war. It can't possibly last - the Klackon war has been going on for only two years, and the Silicoids' for only four more - but I intend to take advantage of such quiet as I can find for as long as I can.



(Just five total stars here in 2355. If I hadn't rushed to claim Blazing Sky and Dry Thermal, this would be even worse, but we're still way behind the curve here as it is - especially with most of our research going into computers and weapons and the upcoming need for early defenses or fleets. Good warm-up for unwinnable games indeed! But at least I am still expanding ... and teching. Apart from the two ultra-poors, this is the last planet of which we know that we can colonize without new technology!)

It was just six years ago that we traded for the secrets of deuterium fuel, and that at last is what brings us to this glorious day: Though barely habitable, and the smallest world in our part of space of those on which we can live, Beta Ceti 2 will be a vital strategic asset, extending our scouts' range out to far reaches of the galaxy in its direction - the direction on which we and the Psilons appear to have equal claim. We can even hope the fuel base we establish there will also bridge the gap to some other as-yet-undiscovered habitable world, though what we've seen so far suggests that hope may well be vain. At least it is a world, and one on which our people can live, and now the furthest of all our colonies from our warlike enemies. Vitally, it also serves as a watchpost with its scanners, soon to be upgraded, I hope, from which we can keep track of Psilon fleets and - I fear, if they are able to follow our example of continuing to expand in spite of ongoing war - perhaps one day some of the Silicoids' too. Thus the little colony is named High Crag: A solitary resting place amid the sky from which our sharp-eyed people can keep watch all around. It's so important - as is the continuing growth of our population and expansion of our space - that fully 26 million Pyrites are heading there already this year to help get the colony off the ground!

Yes, that's more than a quarter of our homeworld's population sent off in the midst of a double war. Don't worry: We aren't leaving any factories idle(!!) - due to an improbable series of circumstances, here in 2355, I'm still not close to maxing facs on the homeworld! This is a somewhat ... extreme ... version of something Thrawn would sometimes do, building factories empire-wide while juggling other priorities without necessarily concentrating them all on one world. Here, in fact, my most-productive planet is actually Blazing Sky, another size-100 planet, but with more factories (and now more population) than Pyre. It's also still building more factories) - it will likely be the first planet I ~max, and that should happen soon - because I don't want to build hopefully-nearly-obsolete ships or expensive, low-quality missile bases on my front worlds (including Blazing Sky) if I don't have to, but need to be able to respond to a military emergency there quickly if one should arise. This capacity to pivot quickly between strong research and responding to a possible attack is one that Sullla cites for building up worlds before switching them to other tasks like research or shipbuilding, and I tend to agree. I certainly didn't want to leave my homeworld on ~130 factories this late in the game; there are many factors that conspired to lead to this lunacy, and even so, I'm planning to (okay, hoping to be given space to breathe and) finally start building it up to max soon.


- 2356 -


(The Silis could presumably leapfrog it to ultra-rich Zhardan anyway, but I just want to note that nobody but the Silicoids is anywhere close to this Ocean 70; if someone else gets it, it'll be one of their allies sneaking it out from under their rocky snouts. If I were completely delusional, I could try opening Construction in the hope that with a tier-2 Const tech and Controlled Dead, I could claim this with a long-range colship myself and figure out some way to defend it from the Silis. In the real game, there's no possible way it stays uncolonized that long.)

It seems Durash IV is imitating one of his lunatic allies - though unsurprisingly and unfortunately not quite as wastefully - by sending an Escort-class battle cruiser straight through the galactic core nebula on a long-distance scouting mission. I trust the Humans not to have launched it at one of our long-estbalished colonies, which means it probably came from Sol itself and probably is going to the green star nearest to Blazing Sky. Unfortunately, unlike the Sakkra Hydrae, this doesn't mean the Escort will be mothballed before it has the chance to reach an important front: If Durash does decide that he must let one of his manipulative allies completely redesign his diplomatic apparatus to accomodate a war that they want to make universal though it goes against his mercantile, diplomatic people's best interests, that Escort will be as close to our space - or closer if he delays - as any of his other major fleets.

Meanwhile, we've been scouting too - not with heavily-armed cruisers, believe me - well ahead of the Sakkra though in about the same part of space, finally reaching Vega just this year: The green star just at the edge of Silicoid space. It's so close to Ukko, I'm actually a little shocked it hasn't been colonized already, though Ukko itself must be the very newest Silicoid colony - and it's always possible that the rock peoples' colony ships are all slowly crawling through space on attack vectors for Ashen Nest, still out of our scanning range. An incredible ocean world, Vega 2-iii's sparse and snaky continents and widespread aquacultural possibilities are enough to support as much population as can either Ashen Nest or Dry Thermal for us. It's a completely unrealistic target for our expansion, but that's also true of every other carbon-based lifeform in the galaxy, only underscoring the Silicoids' potential dominance ... if they pursue it instead of turning their efforts on a negative-sum war with us. I know there's no point in trying to reason with them when they won't even listen to me - they still won't even reopen diplomatic channels with us - particularly considering what seems to happen to ideas that get into whatever Igneus uses instead of a brain. I know that, but I still feel I must do what I can, if only by example: Another colony ship was finished at our homeworld this year in a move that may well be questioned by virtually everybody. It's heading for the jungle world, its surface covered so thickly in living and decaying matter that mining is virtually impossible there, at the red star nearest our home, just because I feel we need to get our population numbers as high as they possibly can be before someone turns the heat up on our wars.


- 2357 -


(That's a six-parsec journey, as indicated, between Mentar and the nearest planet in our direction: Uxmai, the rich inferno 35 at the blue star between them and High Crag.)

Our scout's arrival at Nyarl, the green-tinted star in the rim nebula, goes a long way toward explaining the Psilons' failure to challenge us for control of what after all - for now - are indeed our back lines: There are no planetary bodies yet formed around that star larger than captured interstellar asteroids. That might be good news, but depends on the technological paths that Tachaon's incomparable researchers pursue. For now, we're just continuing to try to expand and explore, with just one more star - the white dwarf just rimward of Uxmai and our High Crag colony - with a scout en route, in range and uncolonized (and not Orion) but unexplored.

At the same time, another class of explorer has finally made some headway under much-more-dangerous conditions: Our first secret agent to penetrate Silicoid laboratories.



(This could be a whole lot worse, but note they could be researching Planetary Shields, Scatter Packs, Duralloy Armor, and/or Not Robotic Controls. It's very possible our window to attack them may close at any time, and that I should have gone after them much, much sooner than I still plan to.)

They appear to be able to shape their worlds to support significantly more population than we supposed - and if it's accomplished through some form of technology instead of some kind of rock sympathy, we desperately need to learn their methods ourselves. Their gatling lasers and battle computers pose slightly more of a threat to our future fighter fleets than we might have supposed, but we can work around that easily enough - and it appears that they have no better missiles or bombs than we do, with shields no more than twice as powerful as ours in spite of our complete disdain (so far at least) for that type of technology. Most importantly, their range is still as limited as ours - meaning they can't attack us outside of Ashen Nest and - with their Klackon alliance - Blazing Sky, and their engines continue to crawl through space at warp 1. This is important because we can hardly afford to deal with too many threat at once, and...



(We know they're moving at warp 1 because we've seen the Daggers flying around already, and they're part of this fleet. My guess is at least the Cutlass fighters are default single-laser fighters, but the others might have other tech likea computer or a shield, and the Horseman design might even have maneuverability. Unfortunately, those account for roughly half their fleet and are the most-recent of the designs shown here; I believe ship designs are shown left to right, top to bottom (like reading English) from least- to most-recent design. I think that also means, since the colship is more recent than two different fighters, there's a good chance that it's armed.)

...the first, from the Klackons, 33 fighters strong in three different designs, with a pair of potentially-armed colony ships in support, looks like it's already on its way! We should have three more years to intercept it even if I'm right that it's on its way to Blazing Sky, and we shouldn't have any trouble seeing a group of that size off at this stage, but this really isn't the time we want our best colony trying to defend itself against an unknown fleet!

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the update, RefSteel. Entertaining reading, as always.

On maxing planets, I tend to be in the 'build out industry sooner" camp. It takes something fairly exceptional to get me to prioritize something other than more factories. I do tend to be a builder at heart.

The rocks having gatling laser would normally not be too big a worry, but with the Alkari and the usefulness of small fighters it is actually a problem. Hopefully you will not have to face those in battle.

Good luck with that bug fleet.

[WingsofMemory]

I'm not sure you can catch up to their tech (depends how good your spy rolls are I suppose) but you might be able to field a decent fleet of inferior tech to slug it out. Your evasion bonus will help you out when you are lower tech at least.

Thanks for the post, and good luck!