RBSotS1 SG2

[haphazard1]

T180 - Yikes, CR freighters do cost an arm and a leg!

They are costly. I was managing to build 5 or 6 a turn most turns, while still keeping research reasonable. The home world is just about perfect to build 3 per turn with a tiny bit of extra IO and one trade route. Then I would find 2-3 other worlds who could build one each in one turn.

Which reminds me - what should we do with the displaced DE freighters? Scuttle? Keep them around on the premise that we'll be gaining a bunch new trade routes shortly from Arcologies (fingers crossed) and the new conquests? I'm liking the second approach, for now. Maybe a later turnset can scuttle excess freighters, but for the short term we can still probably use them.

I would keep them for now, as we should get some more trade routes for Arcologies, Kuo'Dai and Sunoma once they grow, and maybe elsewhere (more conquests).

Still...we've got 3 million in income, and compared to the list of things I want, it feels like nothing.

Completely agree. It seems like a lot, and then you build a few things and suddenly you have no money left.

For some odd reason, the AI does not propose alliance this turn when I open the save. Perhaps that's a random function. I will not propose it myself, since I don't trust the AI to stick to something that's not its own idea.

Sounds good to me. I am happy with the NAP, as it lets us put gates at their worlds. Maybe they will offer alliance again later?

Lots of killing interturn, doesn't really count as fighting when we don't take damage, does it? And Gates are starting to arrive in the far end of the galaxy. I think you really did break the logjam, haphazard! (or maybe it's Tyrmith's success? Hard to know who did what when everything takes so long to finish).

Tyrmith started the distant gate fleets going. I did redirect most of them to closer worlds, as many gate fleets were killed and the closer worlds were no longer being targetted by any (living) fleets.

On the fighting, that was done in my turnset but Tyrmith assembled the fleets and set them in motion. It's a team effort! It pretty much has to be, as Hivers are so slow to get anywhere that doesn't have a gate.

T181 - For some reason, the Biomes at Kuo'Dai won't settle. I can't find any reason for that, unless maybe it's the one Tarka DE still in orbit that we didn't manage to kill in time? Maybe I should autocalc this battle next turn to make sure we get a clean sweep.

It would be the remaining Tarka ships. The system must be clear of all hostiles before we can colonize. Be aware there were more Tarka CRs incoming to Kuo'Dai, so you may want to fight the battle yourself if it is more than just a DE or two. There was one CR-sized defense sat still in orbit at the end of my turnset, too, although you may have already destroyed it.

A couple thoughts:

- Should we build police cutters for all our systems to improve morale (or reduce negative morale, anyway)? We are doing OK in most systems (and better than OK) since we are keeping the 1 million reserve. But police cutters will be useful in future in case we get negative events.

- Should we build some Propaganda ships? I know Zed-F mentioned this earlier. My understanding is that we only need one per empire, close to or at one of their worlds, and we get the effect. I would think one each for the other Hivers and distant Tarka would be worth it. The per-turn impact is very small, but we can use all the help we can get. Level three xenotech boosts the effect, so we could put those techs in the queue.

Downside is that they are quite expensive (450K just for the Propaganda section! ). But we only need two. I would not bother sending any to hostile empires as they will just get shot down -- we would have to defend them with serious fleets and I don't think it is worth it for hostiles.

Good luck, Mardoc!

[haphazard1]

Ah, cross-posted with your update.

T182 - Autocalc Kuo'Dai, clear all the Tarka, and yep, we can colonize this turn. It was probably the ship in orbit.

As noted, the system must be clear of all hostiles.

We dump 2000ish worth of mined resources on Izakis, which goes up to 560 resources. Is Mining that inefficient, or did I find a bug?

My experience with mining is limited, but this matches what I have seen. Each mining ship will strip 700 resources from the target world, and deliver 140 resources to the dump world. 20% conversion isn't very good. I am not sure if Mega Strip Mining will increase this, or just speed up the mining process, or other?

Anyway, 560 more at Izakis is useful as our IO gets several boosts from various techs. Hopefully this is enough to support another trade route or two? Shuffle freighters from sectors with excess as needed, as Izakis certainly can not afford to build any. And this was once our second most productive world.

Our trade income now ties our colony income - soon it will be significantly greater! Well...soon if you're ok with that meaning a rate of 3-4 CR freighters/turn, since we go broke if we try to spend more. Still - the wiki says payback period on a Hiver CR is 19 turns. We can probably multiply that by 1.33 to take into account our reduced econ settings, but that still is only 25 turns for a CR freighter to pay for itself, and everything afterward is pure profit. It's just a little painful at the current stage, that's all. Still, given the choice of 4% return on investment in freighters vs 1% in interest, it's clear there's no point in keeping cash on hand for anything but morale.

Yes, the payoff is probably 25 turns or so. But unless we want to go all out on tech spending, or building an assault fleet, what else would we put the cash into? At least this does boost our economy over time.

T183 - Kuo'Dai is founded, and CH immediately reduced to 183. I love Biomes .

Biomes are awesome. More worlds for the queen!

Gate amplifiers finally come in, and we start on Point Defense.

What is our network capacity up to? Should be around 200, with the gate at Kaa'Vaalu replaced and a couple more at the far end of the galaxy.

T184 - Shononu is a bloody stalemate, I should have been more active about directing the fleet. I'll try to do better next round.

T185 - Better showing at Shononu, we'll win this, eventually. Kill two Tarka CnCs.

Sounds good. The Tarka have tough ships and plenty of effective weapons, dealing with them is a major struggle.

Does Reflective Coating affect HCL? If it does, should we consider adding RC to our tech queue plans?

And...it looks like the Morrigi have begun commerce raiding. We lose three freighters, and the time runs out before any of our ships can get near the field of battle.

Hmmm. Is this commerce raiding by an enemy empire, or just the "Raiders" random event? I do not have enough experience to know the difference for certain, but I thought commerce raiding hit only freighters in deep space and did not hit planets. So this may just be the random event, in which case there is not much to do but fight it off as best we can. And hope it does not occur again.

I did not see any randoms during my turnset, as I was fighting multiple battles every turn and this reduces the chance of a random event. Maybe we should begin another assault?

We really ought to do something about that. But what can we do? I've seen references to Q-ships and to escorts, but I'm not really sure how to apply either. I'm going to take a break here, therefore, and hope for input.

Q-Ships are armed freighters, or sometimes disguised warships refit to look like freighters as traps for commerce raiders. I think in game terms they are CR-sized freighters with some additional weapons and less cargo space (so less profit per turn than a regular mega freighter, although more than a DE freighter I think).

I would ignore the raider attack for now and hope it was just the random event. We have excess DE freighters, shuffle some around to replace the losses if needed. If it keeps happening, then we will need to take steps -- assigning patrol ships to the trade sectors, maybe. Or just eliminating the local Morrigi. The escort process is rather inefficient, and requires a large number of ships before you get very good results from it.

[Mardoc]

Yes, the payoff is probably 25 turns or so. But unless we want to go all out on tech spending, or building an assault fleet, what else would we put the cash into? At least this does boost our economy over time.

Well, I would like to dump all the cash into research and assault fleets - I just know better. It's like building workers in Civ - you feel like you're wasting your time building stuff that isn't any use; and then one day you wake up and find you're twice the size of your nearest rival.

What is our network capacity up to? Should be around 200, with the gate at Kaa'Vaalu replaced and a couple more at the far end of the galaxy.

186

Hmmm. Is this commerce raiding by an enemy empire, or just the "Raiders" random event? I do not have enough experience to know the difference for certain, but I thought commerce raiding hit only freighters in deep space and did not hit planets. So this may just be the random event, in which case there is not much to do but fight it off as best we can. And hope it does not occur again.

I did not see any randoms during my turnset, as I was fighting multiple battles every turn and this reduces the chance of a random event. Maybe we should begin another assault?

I would ignore the raider attack for now and hope it was just the random event. We have excess DE freighters, shuffle some around to replace the losses if needed. If it keeps happening, then we will need to take steps -- assigning patrol ships to the trade sectors, maybe. Or just eliminating the local Morrigi. The escort process is rather inefficient, and requires a large number of ships before you get very good results from it.

You know, it probably is a random event. There was no obvious connection to any empire, and not much else happened that turn. So on that note, back to the game! I want to get it to you while you hopefully still have time to play tonight

I'm setting up for another assault anyway, on the Liir, in between freighter spam. Not that it'll happen until a couple turnsets from now, but our hardened veterans from Kuo'Dai need something to do, they're smashing up all the bars and scaring off the criminals!

[Iainuki]

- Reorg the Kuo'Dai fleets now that they are together, and also reorg the Sunoma fleet. Nice name, whoever did that one.

For lurkers like me who don't have the game and/or don't know where to look for the fleet name in the screenshots, what is it ?

[haphazard1]

Well, I would like to dump all the cash into research and assault fleets - I just know better. It's like building workers in Civ - you feel like you're wasting your time building stuff that isn't any use; and then one day you wake up and find you're twice the size of your nearest rival.

Heh. I am almost completely the opposite, and tend to focus on building the economy and neglect fighting capacity if I am not careful. I had over 100 workers in a recent game of Civ, and I built almost all of them myself. This contrast of styles is one of the things I enjoy most about SGs.

186

Definitely getting there. Next goal is to get this over 200. Then we can aim for 250.

You know, it probably is a random event. There was no obvious connection to any empire, and not much else happened that turn. So on that note, back to the game! I want to get it to you while you hopefully still have time to play tonight

I should be able to play either tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Whenever you can find time to finish, don't feel any need to rush on my account.

I'm setting up for another assault anyway, on the Liir, in between freighter spam. Not that it'll happen until a couple turnsets from now, but our hardened veterans from Kuo'Dai need something to do, they're smashing up all the bars and scaring off the criminals!

Sounds good -- we should keep the pressure on the Liir. They have Fusion power so I expect Fusion warheads will follow soon (if they have not already). So hopefully we can get some PD. And send plenty of CnC, especially if the fighting will happen during my turns!

[haphazard1]

For lurkers like me who don't have the game and/or don't know where to look for the fleet name in the screenshots, what is it ?

Sorry, I guess it does not really show up in screen shots unless someone specifically focused on it.

The fleet was named "With your shield or on it".

[Mardoc]

T185 - I reopen the save...and there's an invite to join the alliance. Very confused, but I agree. We've got little empires to smash, no need to clash yet .

And...something I've never seen before. I guess we must have enough sensor tech/something to do with being allied. I watch the combat for the novelty - or, I would, but it doesn't let me fight Shononu manually then. I'm guessing this is to do with the multiplayer aspect, they don't want you wasting all your friends' time doing everything manually, so they make you pick.

This time Shononu goes much more smootly, killing 10 for the loss of 2. I wonder if maybe that first batch was also their newest, strongest ships - it could explain why the fight's been getting easier.

T186 - We gain considerable information from allying, it would appear:

Yep...each of our allies has half a barbell, we have 2/3 of one, and everyone else is little.

Point defense comes in, and we start HCL. Given recent history, I don't have lots of confidence in our scientists believing in 'budgets'.

T187 - Wow, it feels like early days again, spamming gates out into the far barbell like there's no yesterday. Tomorrow. Whatever .

Kill 8 for 2 at Shononu, should finish up the Tarka next turn. And I launch our fleet at the Liir homeworld. Sometime around T202, we'll find out if this was brilliance or folly. Still, we're on the verge of the next generation of military tech, we might as well clear out the cupboards of the last generation first.

T188 - Shononu is finally clear of the Tarka infestation: for the moment anyway. There are *no* incoming fleets of any description. I keep pouring our treasure into trade.

We watch our allies fight a VN - they do horribly! Their fleets were mostly missiles, and hence just got eaten.



T189 - Surprise, surprise, another tech goes overbudget

T190 - And...our alliance is over. Vagabond Princess wants to downgrade it to NAP. Surprisingly, our options are accept NAP in lieu of alliance, or go straight to war.

I dump another load of ore at Izakis, after this maybe send it to our homeworld instead? Not sure. It appears that adding ore to Izakis will still keep increasing our trade routes available.

HCL comes in, so I'm going to take the time to redesign at least a main combat ship with battlebridge/APMD/point defense/fusion. (ok, got main battle line, deflector, and CnC designed, along with a DE point defense specialist ship. We probably could still use updating everything else to fusion, at least, if not also point defense). I start us on Enviro Tailoring, en route to Arcologies, but if you feel we still need something else, feel free to go that route instead. Nothing's been invested yet.

Maybe a third of our DE freighters have been replaced with CRs. There's still an awful long way to go.

Our gate capacity is up to 204.

Kuo'Dai just finished its infrastructure and terraforming - we now have a 0 colony development budget again . Need more worlds...

And, the save. What makes sense for future goals, to me?

• Continue CR freighter program
  
• Build an invasion fleet for somebody. We have the technology, let's use it. Then ship it off.
  
• Continue spamming gates for the far half of the galaxy.
  
• Research up to Arcologies, then...I don't know after that. Maybe pick up better missiles? Maybe some more econ techs?
  

Anyhow, best of luck, haphazard: The Save

[haphazard1]

T185 - I reopen the save...and there's an invite to join the alliance. Very confused, but I agree. We've got little empires to smash, no need to clash yet .

For now, why not? It won't last anyway. Two-way alliances might last a while, but 3-ways (from my admittedly limited experience) seem rather unstable.

This time Shononu goes much more smootly, killing 10 for the loss of 2. I wonder if maybe that first batch was also their newest, strongest ships - it could explain why the fight's been getting easier.

Very probable. Good to know we can beat their best stuff, even if it is a bit of a struggle. Then we mop up their older stuff. And we are doing this with our older stuff.

T186 - We gain considerable information from allying, it would appear:

Yep...each of our allies has half a barbell, we have 2/3 of one, and everyone else is little.

Well, one or both of them eliminated the distant Liir faction. I think we need to clean up our local Liir, and then maybe the local Morrigi as well. Local Tarka will continue to be a pain, but attacking them is more likely to cause problems with the distant Tarka.

Point defense comes in, and we start HCL. Given recent history, I don't have lots of confidence in our scientists believing in 'budgets'.

Very true, sadly. Given how the tech process seems to work, I wish they had not even used the "over budget" concept at 100%. Because really that is only 50% of the breakthrough range, and does not seem to have any actual effect on making a breakthrough more likely.

T187 - Wow, it feels like early days again, spamming gates out into the far barbell like there's no yesterday. Tomorrow. Whatever .

This is good for us, at least as long as we can keep NAPs going. All those gates could vanish instantly with a diplomatic swing.

Kill 8 for 2 at Shononu, should finish up the Tarka next turn. And I launch our fleet at the Liir homeworld. Sometime around T202, we'll find out if this was brilliance or folly. Still, we're on the verge of the next generation of military tech, we might as well clear out the cupboards of the last generation first.

Home worlds are tough, since big pop == lots of planetary missiles. This could be painful. But it should certainly keep the Liir occupied, and if we can conquer their home world they are pretty much finished.

We watch our allies fight a VN - they do horribly! Their fleets were mostly missiles, and hence just got eaten.

Ouch. VNs are pretty much just a nuisance for a human player once you get past very early weapons and economy.

T190 - And...our alliance is over. Vagabond Princess wants to downgrade it to NAP. Surprisingly, our options are accept NAP in lieu of alliance, or go straight to war.

This seems to be the normal thing in the game -- either agree to a reduced treaty or no treaty at all.

I dump another load of ore at Izakis, after this maybe send it to our homeworld instead? Not sure. It appears that adding ore to Izakis will still keep increasing our trade routes available.

We may want to build additional mining fleets and speed up the stripping of non-colonizable systems. I will work on this during my turnset. But more trade routes is good.

HCL comes in, so I'm going to take the time to redesign at least a main combat ship with battlebridge/APMD/point defense/fusion. (ok, got main battle line, deflector, and CnC designed, along with a DE point defense specialist ship. We probably could still use updating everything else to fusion, at least, if not also point defense). I start us on Enviro Tailoring, en route to Arcologies, but if you feel we still need something else, feel free to go that route instead. Nothing's been invested yet.

Enviro Tailoring sounds good, as Arcologies would be very positive for us. Let's hope they are in our tree.

Maybe a third of our DE freighters have been replaced with CRs. There's still an awful long way to go.

Our gate capacity is up to 204.

Now for that 250 mark....

What makes sense for future goals, to me?

• Continue CR freighter program
  
• Build an invasion fleet for somebody. We have the technology, let's use it. Then ship it off.
  
• Continue spamming gates for the far half of the galaxy.
  
• Research up to Arcologies, then...I don't know after that. Maybe pick up better missiles? Maybe some more econ techs?
  

Sounds like a pretty good set of priorities. I will add:

- Expand our mining operations further.
- Check morale throughout the empire, and maybe start a police cutter construction program. A police cutter plus a deep scan/jammer at each planet gives us a minimal garrison to kite/mislead VNs if necessary, while maintaining morale, jamming, and scanning.

Looks like a very solid turnset, Mardoc!

[Zed-F]

Yup sounds good Mardoc!

Your results with mining are pretty normal. For faster mining we need more mining ships and megastripmining - doesn't give bigger loads but does improve mining speed (and overharvest speed.) For dumping loads on Izakis I would just do it until it can run all it's trade routes; make sure you turn overpopulation off for this! After that we can continue to dump on the Homeworld.

Raiders in non-mp games are usually events - though the event appears to put a raiding group in a trade sector so that same raiding group can strike more than once if not dealt with. In our case they should at least take damage from our planet missiles every time they raid. Escorts are split between all routes but you know raider DDs are always going to be a half dozen fairly basic DDs, so if you can build a cruiser that can beat a half dozen DDs you won't need too many of them. Q-ships are more expensive and lose out on some trade income but have an increased chance to intercept raiders. For SotS1 I usually just ignore raiders and replace losses but this may not work so well in SotS2.

The treaty downgrade option is also normal, so we should be fine with a NAP. If it just occurred on the last turn it may not have applied when haphazard reloads for his turn so we might still be allied.

Police cutters everywhere is a good idea, as is a pair of propaganda ships for the far empires.

The option to see allied combats comes because we have FTL broadband, and your surmise about watching 1 combat per turn instead of fighting your own battles is correct -- it's to keep mp games moving quickly.

[haphazard1]

Playing...am only to T191, but noticed a couple things.

- The other Hivers have DNs!
- The far Tarka have AM warheads, and presumably AM drives!

The far Tarka did downgrade us to an NAP, but we are still allied with the other Hivers. The two Morrigi have allied as well. I am worried the far Tarka will ally with the local Tarka, but am not sure what to do about it. Suggestions?

Otherwise everything is going smoothly so far. I am worried about DNs and AM, though. Should we alter our tech path?