RBSotS1 SG2

[Mardoc]

also reorg the Sunoma fleet. Nice name, whoever did that one.

(and man that's a nice name Mardoc for the sunoma fleet )

Thanks . I figured it was appropriate, given the circumstances. We certainly weren't going to try to bring them home if they couldn't establish a Gate.

- At Sunoma we smash up the Liir now that their cruiser force is essentially gone.

No losses, always love to see that. I wish we had a second repair ship with this fleet, though; we use all but 9 of the 16000 available repair!

Excellent! I probably should have built or found and gated in a second or third repair, but I wanted to get the fleet moving ASAP. But it appears you have enough force and good enough admiralship that we can afford to keep damaged ships in the reserves and still win this. Just a couple more rounds of DD smashing, and then we ought to be able to send in the shuttles and finish them. Or, if you're really good and can draw the DD's out of position, sending in the shuttles now would really shrink the missile storm. Up to you how you want to play that.

And it's a lesson for the next invasion fleet - even against (especially against?) technological inferiors, make sure to include plenty of repair capability.

- Modular Construction completes. I start Gate Amplifiers, but....
- The distant Tarka call and say they will listen if we want to talk. Should we try for improved relations and work on the next Tarka xenotech instead?

I have not made any additional builds yet this turn. Our open trade routes will have been filled with mega freighters by next turn -- should we continue building mega freighters to replace existing DE freighters? Or would it be better to push research harder?

Which way should we go for tech?

All in all, I agree with Zed. Adena, in particular, looks like a planet we'll be able to gate with a NAP, and we can divert the nearby gate ship here (I tend to forget about that option, I'm still too used to playing as humans where we couldn't divert anything until it arrived). Especially with no incoming fleets, we don't need the gate capacity at the moment, and finally getting a foothold on the far side is worth it. So I would go for Gutter Dialect now. It would let us finally start sending out fusion-powered gates past those who want to intercept them, and with a dramatic head start in distance.

And, if you divert the fleet that's near Adena to Adena, along with an NAP, you could be the first to actually establish new Gates for several turnsets! (good chance of Sunoma and Kuo'Dai in addition, apparently).

Progress at Kuo'Dai is slow but I think we can break through and really hammer the planet now that most of the Tarka cruisers are destroyed. I just hope we do not run out of CnC ships. Sunoma is going well and we should crush the Liir in another round or two. Just lots and lots of fighting still to be done.

Save attached for your examination. Input, ideas, and thoughts are much welcomed!

Excellent! I'm especially glad to hear that we gave you enough fleet to actually have a good chance at both these worlds.

I think the only major things I have to suggest, Zed already covered - in particular, each CR freighter is worth 3x the income of the destroyer it replaces, and you see how large a number that already is! An extra ~2million in income would buy us a lot of nice toys. So I would pretty much have all our IO for the moment going toward megafreighters and only tech with the remainder.

Once that finishes (assuming that finishes in your turnset, it might fall to Tyrmith instead), probably time to start working on building and assembling another invasion fleet. I'm torn on the appropriate target - on the one hand, the local Tarka are actually a threat to us, which we want to cut down to size. On the other, taking Liir worlds requires a much smaller investment, apparently . I think I would come down on the side of building some more Liir invaders, and save the next Tarka invasion for after Point defense, but I'm happy to hear arguments otherwise.

As for trade, at least for the moment while we're not producing ships from Isketot we can change the slider to open trade routes for excess freighters that are pushed out when we produce cruiser freighters. Or we could just set it to producing mining cruisers.

Honestly, I think it should be maxxed out on CR freighters as well. They're just worth so much! Or if not that, then mining ships, support ships for the next conquest fleet, gates - now that we're taking casualties we can afford to build fleet again.

[haphazard1]

As for trade, at least for the moment while we're not producing ships from Isketot we can change the slider to open trade routes for excess freighters that are pushed out when we produce cruiser freighters. Or we could just set it to producing mining cruisers.

Temporarily running trade routes at Isketot is a good idea, especially once we start having excess DE freighters sitting around. Each route takes several turns to develop so we get only a little income, but our mega freighter construction program is much more limited by money than by IO at the moment. So we can spare the IO capacity and get at least some additional income.

Mining ships...how many do we want? I have 4 heading to Miirio (now that it is de-trapped ), but do we want more? We need some ore at Izakis so it can support more trade routes, and then we want to start pumping up our home world.

On mining target worlds, we should avoid mining the ones which are just outside our colonization range. We have a decent shot at Gravitational <mumble whatever> which would give us another 150 points of CH we could settle. And a couple of those worlds would be very nice if we can eventually settle them. So for now we can mine the real dustballs and hellworlds.

Also we should probably continue trying to get gate/tanker pairs through to the other end of the barbel, correct? I don't see any being built.

We will have to see about that one fleet, if we can get it somewhere we can actually gate. But I don't think sending additional gate/tanker pairs is worth doing -- they are ALL getting intercepted and destroyed. If we send more, we should send a substantial combat force with them -- at least a full 6-pack of cruisers, repair ship, etc. They might still get intercepted but it would take a serious fleet to do it, rather than getting picked off by single enemy CRs or pairs of DEs.

Yep... as I mentioned it's often a good idea to send a single refinery around to all the worlds you plan to mine and refine at each of them, making it safe for a follow-up mining fleet.

A mining ship is about the same cost as a refinery, so maybe just send in one mining ship first. Also, do we want to "pre-mine" any worlds we are not ready to actually strip ourselves? Better to leave the (possible) trap and let any enemy that tries to mine get fried instead of us. We can add a note to the systems which we have successfully cleared for mining, and strip each system completely before going on to the next.

Absolutely, yes, we will need the income for later teching and fleet production. We should be building megafreighters with whatever income isn't going to military needs and we should have at least half our budget available for freighter construction.

OK, that's what I have been doing so far to fill the open routes. I just wasn't sure how big a priority it was to replace DE freighters -- we do get a boost for each one replaced, but given the significant price tag on each mega freighter the payback time overall is a fair number of turns. I would like to keep research going at a decent rate, but I will go ahead and push mega freighters as much as we can.

What to do with the excess DE freighters? I like Tyrmith's idea of using the trade routes at Isketot, but eventually we are going to have large numbers of DE freighters sitting around contributing nothing.

I would probably finish Gate Amps first and then get Tarka Language 2, but possibly in the reverse order if we could gate a Tarka world immediately with a NAP. After that, more economy, or PD and HCL, whichever seems more appropriate.

OK, sounds good. I need to check where we could divert that gate fleet.

Thanks . I figured it was appropriate, given the circumstances. We certainly weren't going to try to bring them home if they couldn't establish a Gate.

The name might have been even more appropriate for the fleet at Kuo'Dai -- a lot of those ships are never coming home. But I certainly got a chuckle from it.

Excellent! I probably should have built or found and gated in a second or third repair, but I wanted to get the fleet moving ASAP. But it appears you have enough force and good enough admiralship that we can afford to keep damaged ships in the reserves and still win this. Just a couple more rounds of DD smashing, and then we ought to be able to send in the shuttles and finish them. Or, if you're really good and can draw the DD's out of position, sending in the shuttles now would really shrink the missile storm. Up to you how you want to play that.

And it's a lesson for the next invasion fleet - even against (especially against?) technological inferiors, make sure to include plenty of repair capability.

We have had enough -- barely! -- so far. And the Kuo'Dai fleet does have 2 repair ships, and we have been using most of the second ship's capacity each turn. But it is good to remember for the future.

I think one more turn of destroyer smashing, and then we can take a shot with the shuttles. We wiped out about 1/3 of the Liir's DEs, and some of that fleet has to be support ships and/or obsolete models. So one more good round should let us get to the planet with minimal hindrance.

All in all, I agree with Zed. Adena, in particular, looks like a planet we'll be able to gate with a NAP, and we can divert the nearby gate ship here (I tend to forget about that option, I'm still too used to playing as humans where we couldn't divert anything until it arrived). Especially with no incoming fleets, we don't need the gate capacity at the moment, and finally getting a foothold on the far side is worth it. So I would go for Gutter Dialect now. It would let us finally start sending out fusion-powered gates past those who want to intercept them, and with a dramatic head start in distance.

Sounds like a plan. If it doesn't work, a heavy escort is the next thing to try.

And, if you divert the fleet that's near Adena to Adena, along with an NAP, you could be the first to actually establish new Gates for several turnsets! (good chance of Sunoma and Kuo'Dai in addition, apparently).

It will be nice to get above 81 finally.

Once that finishes (assuming that finishes in your turnset, it might fall to Tyrmith instead), probably time to start working on building and assembling another invasion fleet. I'm torn on the appropriate target - on the one hand, the local Tarka are actually a threat to us, which we want to cut down to size. On the other, taking Liir worlds requires a much smaller investment, apparently . I think I would come down on the side of building some more Liir invaders, and save the next Tarka invasion for after Point defense, but I'm happy to hear arguments otherwise.

The deflector ships have helped a lot, but we are still taking serious punishment from planetary and satellite missiles. So PD would be a big boost to surviving assaults against developed worlds.

I agree that we should probably grab another Liir world or two, and maybe consider hitting the Morrigi as well. Once we have some new designs we can take another shot at the Tarka.

I should be able to play more turns in maybe 6 hours. So there is still plenty of time to comment.

[Zed-F]

For pre-mining I prefer refineries. Firstly you don't lose any resources in the cargo hold when moving from planet to planet and getting hit with the trap. Secondly you don't have to go home and dump minerals periodically so you can just tag all the planets while the real mining fleet(s) follow up afterward. Thirdly if playing anyone other than Hivers, no worries about fuel when moving about prospecting.

Otherwise, looks like we're going for Gutter Dialect 1st, so far so good.

[Mardoc]

We have had enough -- barely! -- so far. And the Kuo'Dai fleet does have 2 repair ships, and we have been using most of the second ship's capacity each turn. But it is good to remember for the future.

I think one more turn of destroyer smashing, and then we can take a shot with the shuttles. We wiped out about 1/3 of the Liir's DEs, and some of that fleet has to be support ships and/or obsolete models. So one more good round should let us get to the planet with minimal hindrance.

I agree that we should probably grab another Liir world or two, and maybe consider hitting the Morrigi as well. Once we have some new designs we can take another shot at the Tarka.

I should be able to play more turns in maybe 6 hours. So there is still plenty of time to comment.

I didn't think I had anything more to say, but I just had a partial epiphany - depending on how these fights go, it's quite likely for you to be able to combine these fleets and send them off at the Liir again, somewhere else, without needing to build much except maybe support ships. I agree, Tarka with current designs seems to be a meatgrinder, but we ought to be able to eliminate the Liir entirely from the game in 1-2 more turnsets, at this rate - and most of the delay will just be the time it takes for the invasion fleet to inch across space to their worlds.

[haphazard1]

For pre-mining I prefer refineries. Firstly you don't lose any resources in the cargo hold when moving from planet to planet and getting hit with the trap. Secondly you don't have to go home and dump minerals periodically so you can just tag all the planets while the real mining fleet(s) follow up afterward. Thirdly if playing anyone other than Hivers, no worries about fuel when moving about prospecting.

Otherwise, looks like we're going for Gutter Dialect 1st, so far so good.

Well, I wouldn't use a loaded (or partially loaded) mining ship. And we are Hivers, so no fuel worries.

I didn't think I had anything more to say, but I just had a partial epiphany - depending on how these fights go, it's quite likely for you to be able to combine these fleets and send them off at the Liir again, somewhere else, without needing to build much except maybe support ships. I agree, Tarka with current designs seems to be a meatgrinder, but we ought to be able to eliminate the Liir entirely from the game in 1-2 more turnsets, at this rate - and most of the delay will just be the time it takes for the invasion fleet to inch across space to their worlds.

This is a good idea, assuming we can wrap up both fights well enough to set up gates. And for inching across space, newer designs with fusion engines will have 0.8 speed rather than 0.6 which will help quite a bit. Still slow, but almost up to light speed.

New designs with fusion engines will also have improved tactical speed, which will be very useful. With our current ships it takes quite a bit of the overall combat round just to close on the planet, even without worrying about fighting along the way.

[haphazard1]

Another longer-than-expected day at work meant less time for SotS than I had hoped. So I only managed two more turns. We have some choices to make, so it was not a bad stopping point.

Turn 173 (continued)

- As discussed, switch research to Translate Gutter Dialect (Tarka xenotech #2). We had not started Gate Amplifiers so nothing will be lost.
- Build more mega-freighters.
- Re-direct several of our in-transit gate fleets to closer planets where we might be able to deploy gates. These are mostly worlds of the distant Tarka faction, or worlds which have gates from the other Hivers, or both.

- IBT at Sunoma we have another very good round, smashing Liir ships and taking no losses.



- IBT at Kuo'Dai we finally break through to the planet and get some solid damage.



The Tarka actually doved the combat partway through -- they seem to be out of combat ships. A couple freighters were blown apart for bonus cash. Unfortunately, we lost another CnC ship -- I seem to be unable to keep these guys alive.

Turn 175

- The distant Tarka faction dials us up to say "Some of the shooting should cease." I guess he is unhappy we are fighting the local Tarka?
- I rename our in-transit gate fleets to indicate which world they are going to. I hope this will help identify who died when our enemies blow them up.

- IBT at Sunoma we crush almost all the remaining Liir ships and put some solid damage on the planet. However, YACNCD (Yet Another CnC Died).



- IBT at Kuo'Dai YACNCD. We only have one Strikeforce CnC left with this fleet, an older model. I am obviously doing something wrong as my CnC ships keep dying. We do manage another heavy blow to the planet.



- IBT at Peten a DE from the distant Tarka shows up without any notice. First contact protocols are in effect, but it comes in firing and goes for our gate.



- Also IBT (a very busy round) our gate fleet arrives at Nakbe.



The swarm is no longer present, and the other Hivers dove. I dove, and hide in the asteroid field from the Morrigi ships. We survive the round.

- Still more IBT, the local Tarka destroy 3 (!!) of our in-transit gate fleets. Unescorted gates just do not survive. And naming the fleets did not help -- there is no information given on which fleet was destroyed, or where it was heading. Just "in deep space". And if you double-click, it takes you to an empty spot where a fleet used to be...so of course there is no info.

Turn 175

- Translate Gutter Dialect completed. We start Gate Amplifiers.
- Nakbe is explored, and it is colonizable -- barely. Size 1, 709 CH, 4873 minerals. But it can be colonized and is along the path to the far side of the galaxy. Do we want to make the effort to take it and develop it? We will have to destroy or drive off the Morrogi force there, and the distant Tarka faction has ships on the way.

Do we go ahead and deploy our gate, hope to survive the inter-turn, and then bring in heavy forces and biomes? Or try to deploy the gate and bring through a fleet (and more gates)? Other? We need to decide, so we can build biomes this turn if desired.

Also, what to do diplomatically with the Tarka factions now that we have level 2 xenotech for them? Our diplomatic status:



Note that the distant Hivers and distant Tarka are now allied. #2 and #3 powers in alliance is not good for us.

Kuo'Dai is down to non-combat ships, about half its satellites, and less than half its original imperial pop. I think we can finish it off with what we have, although more losses are likely. Sunoma should also fall although it will take a bit longer -- the planet's pop is still mostly intact so lots of missiles. There are only a handful of combat ships left there, it may be time to try to hit the planet with shuttles.

No builds have been set for this turn, in case we want biomes for Nakbe. Apologies once again for not being able to play a full turnset. If the next player (Tyrmith?) wants to grab the save from here go ahead. If not, I should be (I hope! But I said that yesterday and today as well) able to play five more Thursday evening.

Any suggestions on keeping CnC ships alive? The planet missiles just seem to be going directly for it, and coming from above and below so the deflectors do not help. I am not sure how to protect the CnC. Against ships or sats I do fine, with deflector ships in front and ships to either side and to the rear to provide cover. But the planetary missiles are killing our CnC.

Save attached for your examination.

[ssmagus]

How to keep CnC ships alive? Open the fleet manager, Put the CnC ship in the far back, With all the combat ships in front.

Planet missiles? If we have PD and it's not working, Roll the ship.
If we don't... You can try and manual fire the missiles.

[haphazard1]

How to keep CnC ships alive? Open the fleet manager, Put the CnC ship in the far back, With all the combat ships in front.

Against fleets of ships, this just leaves the CnC exposed once the enemy has made their first pass over/around/through your ships. Is there any way to shift your ships vertically? The enemy does this frequently, but it does not seem to be something you can do -- your ships are stuck in the orbital plane.

Planet missiles? If we have PD and it's not working, Roll the ship.
If we don't... You can try and manual fire the missiles.

No PD. And if I try to manual fire on the missiles, I will not be firing on anything else. Including the planet we are trying to wipe out.

With the Tarka having essentially no combat ships left, I wonder if it would be worth holding the CnC way far out and sending the other ships in? But planet missiles can reach way out, so it probably would not help at all. No asteroids to hide the CnC behind in this system either. Although there are asteroids at Sunoma, so that might be a possibility there.

We have reduced the imperial pop at Kuo'Dai from ~840 million to ~350 million (plus some growth this turn, presumably). So there should at least be a lot fewer missiles. That's something, anyway.

And we wanted to reduce our fleet maintenace costs, right? I'm doing a fantastic job on that goal!

[ssmagus]

Against fleets of ships, this just leaves the CnC exposed once the enemy has made their first pass over/around/through your ships. Is there any way to shift your ships vertically? The enemy does this frequently, but it does not seem to be something you can do -- your ships are stuck in the orbital plane.

You need to put the fleet into pursuit for the AI to make your ships go up or down.

[Tyrmith]

Generally all our ships have is APMD of varying sizes. No PD.

Edit: Wow I'm late.

I won't be able to play till late Thursday. If you haven't played by then I'll take the final five turns.