OSG-27: Lumbering Rocks

[Ianus]

2380-2390

2380
First a look around the empire.  I readjust spending at all colonies to maximize working factories.  Cryslon hasn't been upgraded for RC3 but for now I think that tech is more important.  We are woefully behind in tech and can't even build small bombers.  I can fit nukes on a medium hull, but 60BC per bomber with 18hp seems like a bad idea.  I do design a scanner ship and prepare to send one up to the humans.  As far as I can tell we have visibility on their entire empire, and if so they have a grand total of 4 large Dreadnought ships.  I'll find out what they are packing.  

Looking outward, things look grim!  
The good news is that everyone is really close in Total Power.  We are actually first in population.  The SILICOIDS!  FIRST in population!  Must be all of our Terraforming techs.  And planets, definitely planets.  Terrifyingly the brains are 2nd in planets which means that our worst fears are about to come true, particularly given the tech levels they have achieved with their currently tiny population!  At least Zygot is a Pacifist.
I covet the Sakkra's new Auto Repair, so I start espionage on them.  Fingers crossed!  After a LONG internal debate I queue up a Longrock to send over to Paladia in order to annoy the Meklar.  Other than that I don't see anything that needs to be worried about just yet, so lets get started!

2381

Ugh our tech situation is aweful!
I dispatch the Longrock to Paladia, ETA 18 turns!  Wow.  Engines would be nice too!
And now the bad news.  

First, the Humans have grabbed Cygni far to the east between the Meklar and the Psilons.  I wouldn't have noticed it except that two of their Dreadnoughts are heading toward it.  I imagine that this is pretty much the end of peaceful expansion, as the other races will be able to research new controlled environment techs and grab planets before our colony ships can make it across the map.

Second, two more of those Dreadnoughts have departed Ukko, and Poor Quayal must be their destination.  Quayal can build a missile base in 7 years, which is probably more like 4 with reserve spending, but even that won't be enough.  It is 7 parsecs from Ukko to Quayal which means that the fleet will arrive in 3 years at Warp 2.  I should be able to amass 40 or 50 laser fighters by the time those larges arrive, but if they have state-of-the-art Class 4 shields lasers won't do anything.  I think that my safest option is to start a missile base to (hopefully) drive off the invaders, and then hope to survive a round of invaders.  Or I can fall back on threats again.  I'll probably wind up doing that.

2382

F-Bombs discovered!  Neutron Blaster is the only way forward.

And Zygot calls me up asking for an eensy little trade deal.trade deal.  As much as I would love to stay on good terms with the brains I can't afford to tie up that much of our production right now.  Sorry Zygot!
And after looking at our empire production I see that this deal would have cut our production by slightly less than 20%.  That was definitely the right move!
The humans have built two more Dreadnoughts in the last two years, which coupled with their sortee toward Quayal tells me that they are looking to start some shenanigans.  Well we shall see how that turns out for them!

I sign Zygot to a NAP.  He is willing to offer me BC3 for IT30.  Somehow I don't think that this would be in my best interest...
Mr Lizard will trade me Personal Deflectors for IT30 or IRC3.  Again, this doesn't seem like it would be a good idea right now...
The Humans, on the other hand, will trade me Nuclear Engines for IT20, which I jump at as we REALLY need an engine upgrade.

The avalanch is starting to pick up speed!  To that end I design the Rockfall 2 and start production at Paranar.

2383
The Human fleet is due at Quayal next year, so I resort to threats again.

Holy buckets!!!!!!!  Where did you get THOSE?!  The Humans already have Range 7 AND Range 8, and no one else has any engines at all.  Ah, the apes must be trading with the birds who we haven't reached yet.  Well Strader, you drive a hard bargain but I have no choice.  I'm not going to stop my espionage attempts against you though!
I am not going to redesign my bombers as I've already built almost 100 of them and it doesn't change our combat speed.  I do however design the Scout 3 and the Long Rock 3, which will get us Paladia a whole heck of a lot sooner.  It won't actually help with Drakka though.  Actually nevermind, there is a Sakkra colony ship due at Paladia next turn, and that will just about do it for peaceful expansion.

2384

This shouldn't be insurmountable.  I start pumping reserve funds into Tauri, which we should have enough money to keep doing for the next nine years.  I don't know exactly how the Nova research value is calculated in the game, but Tauri is generating 144 production right now.  According to the OSG the nova research is a random 5 to 15 times the colony's current gross production level.  Therefore I need to spend up to ~2200RP.  With reserve spending I should be able to do that in eight turns.  [Player note: If anyone knows more about how this calculation is made please post!  I've NEVER seen the low end of this spectrum in an actual game on Impossible.]

2385
All quiet.  Quayal completes a missile base and goes back to factories.

2386
Very quiet.  Bombers continue to accumulate, so now I just need a fighter to accompany them.  Duraloy and BC2 should complete next turn.

2387

Bingo!  I equilize tech spending with a slight emphasis on Shields in search of some planetaries.
I send a scanner off to finally see what the Humans are carrying around on their Dreadnoughts.  I also notice our first Alkari fleet of four medium Falcons.  We should have contact with them next turn when we colonize Drakka.  Also note that relations with the Humans are tanking right now, so we need to take the fight to them before they take it to us.

2388
Well that was exciting!

First we get to see the Human fleet including a brand new Huge design.  At least our lasers aren't completely obsolete yet.

We colonize UR Drakka
Also in the news

The Meks are peeved at us.
And finally

We meet Ariel the Honorable Expansionist.

What on earth has Ariel been up to over there?!  The birds don't even have enough to make them worth attacking!
I sign them up to minimal trade and offer to trade techs.  Ariel only offers Hyper V's, but he will accept both Nuclear AND Sub-Light engines.  Apparently Strader thinks he is a bird and has to research every propulsion tech available.  Odd!
I trade Duraloy to the Psilons for Personal Deflector even though we have researched most of it ourselves. We do NOT have access to Planetary Shields, so those will be a priority to get from the Brains or Lizards down the road somewhere.  That pretty much does it in terms of tech for the moment.  We desparately need a new gun, but we are in decent shape other than that.
Lets see, it took four years of doubled planetary spending to stop the Nova event, so that is 8x total production.  Right in the middle of what the OSG says.  Nice.
I can design a medium ship with one HLaser on it, or a Large with 11 HLasers.  The large costs 7x as much as the medium with all the same stuff on it, but I don't know enough about this kind of combat to be confident that I know what to do in this situation, so I am going to hold off on planning an attack so that the next player can take the hot seat.  I'll just keep building bombers in the mean time.

2389
Nothing to report.  Adjusted spending and built more bombers.

2390
We have a spy report on the Alkari:

They are not particularly scary, but mostly out of range for the time being.

And that is all we have.  I have readjusted spending to build efficient factories, but have not applied any reserve spending.  There are bombers at Paranar, but we are in desparate need of a fighter to help against the humans.  There is also the question of how to conquer the Humans, conquest or demolition.  But I leave that to you.

[RefSteel]

Wow ... that's a pretty impressive position you've gotten us into here! How many bombers do we have now, anyway?

The Humans' newish Warships are almost a good design! ...almost. Someone should tell their engineers about my response to Reformations above though, so they know that fitting your most advanced battle computer (to improve killing power per weapon) and best shields (to better enable the ships to survive and avoid attrition) is the whole point of building a huge ship. Sadly, the way they're actually designed, each one in orbit will probably only kill about 25-40 of our bombers before we get into attack range. (The "Dreadnoughts" - merely larges - won't kill enough of anything to make us care unless they show up in hilarious numbers.)

[Reformations]

Any comments on small impossible vs medium impossible? (Both full race count).

I normally do smalls so this galaxy looks really big to me

[TheArchduke]

I am up next, no?

Good set of turns. We can finally prepare for a serious invasion.

[RefSteel]

Any comments on small impossible vs medium impossible? (Both full race count).

I normally do smalls so this galaxy looks really big to me :p

Small with full race count is ridiculously cramped. It's very rare to get a runaway AI just because they keep running up against other AIs, and there's generally less exploration and expansion to do before war. Tech also develops slower with fewer worlds to fuel each race's research. I like Small galaxies with three opponents; it tends to lead to relatively quick (in real time) but interesting games.

I am up next, no?

Good set of turns. We can finally prepare for a serious invasion.

Yup, it's all yours! Remember we can't design ships with maneuverability class above 1 (now that this finally matters!) though we can use whatever engines we want for better interstellar speed. Good luck; I can't wait to see what happens!

[TheArchduke]

Are you sure this is your end save and not your start save?

[Ianus]

What year is it? It had better be 2390 or we will have a problem!

[RefSteel]

Errr ... I just checked it, and the save attached to your post appears to be for 2380.

EDIT: Note in case your own autosave has since been overwritten, kyrub's patch also creates a separate autosave at the beginning of each turn. It numbers them a bit oddly, but I think if you have a Save92.gam in your directory, that might be the right one (minus whatever changes you made in 2390 itself).

[TheArchduke]

In the worst case, replay.

[Ianus]

Yeah I checked it too and it is 2380. Sorry! I'll try to get the real save posted tonight or worst case tomorrow morning. I apologize for the confusion!