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Personally, I like the more aggressive approach. Now that we have PD and Fusion, it's going to be much easier to reuse invasion fleets rather than losing them to gain our new worlds. Really, now that we have a solid tech lead over the Liir and local Tarka, we ought to be able to start up several fleets and keep them all alive and going.
I do apologize for not thinking to supplement the Liir invaders with PD and use them in more than one place. I was thinking that we'd have a new Fusion fleet immediately, that could be going after the local Tarka while the fission era was still in flight, but the Megafreighter push was so much more expensive than I expected.
Edit: But then, I would say that, wouldn't I? 2 of our 3 invasions were launched by me  . If you all would rather go with one of the other approaches, I'm ok with that
EitB 25 - Perpentach
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We have not been on offense much, but we have been doing other (useful) things. We have built a lot of mega freighters and generally built up our trade income. We have spammed gate/tanker pairs to the other end of the galaxy, and are further along in that process than the other Hivers by a fair margin. And we have gotten some techs researched that we really needed to attack significant numbers of planets, like PD and getting HCL, etc.
We could have done more offensively, you are certainly correct. But I think we are in a stronger position now for having focused on increasing our trade income and gate network capacity and breadth.
Given all that, I also favor taking a more aggressive approach going forward. Our newer military techs will not help our existing ships directly, although we can mix in new types. Maybe we should research Quantum Chaff and build some Wild Weasel ships to help divert missiles?
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I'm officially back, and tomorrow after getting a decent night's shape I'll be able to take turns if we want.
My vote by the way is aggression all the way. Teching our way is for pansies. 
Once I recover from the drive home I'll take a look at the save. 
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Ok, I will set us on a path to increased aggression as I play (assuming I go before Tyrmith this time around since he is still recovering from his trip.)
haphazard1 Wrote:Our newer military techs will not help our existing ships directly, although we can mix in new types. Maybe we should research Quantum Chaff and build some Wild Weasel ships to help divert missiles? We could, though since we have PD now (as well as deflectors) that should be adequate to cover off most PD needs. It might be better to pick up some more general toughness-enhancing techs, such as going for Magnetoceramic Armor.
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With quantum chaff are the "ghost" images something that you control, or are they automatically used against the AI? It'd be cool to create multiple "jucy" targets that the AI would immediately dive for (such as several different gates or CnC ships, etc)
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So a couple thoughts after looking at the save:
- If I remember right Advanced robotics opens up several really nice (but really expensive) AI techs (which collectively give +50% research, +50% finances, +50% I/O from each world). Are these too expensive for a non-AM era? Our empire is hitting a pretty nice level of research ability.
-Would heavy drivers be a significant upgrade for us? We've been using AP mass drivers for ages, heavy drivers is four turns of research for us, and could be worth researching if we start facing ships with Magnetoceramic Armor (and I'd think that the AI would start designing ships made to counter us since we're the principal antagonist in most cases for the AI).
- How much diplomatic benefit would we get from hitting the designated world we were asked to attack? It isn't horribly far from one of our gates (11 turns it looks like), and keeping NAPs with the races on the other barbel is really important for all the gates we're trying to plant.
-Is PD something that we want on every ship, or more of something that we want to leave for specialized ships? I just feel like putting PD on everything is going to reduce our combat effectiveness significently, and reduce our ability to deal with DDs and other small ships for our heavy ships.
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Tyrmith Wrote:So a couple thoughts after looking at the save: Re: Wild Weasel sensor ghosts - these are just sensor ghosts, you wouldn't be able to identify them clearly enough to pick up a specific target type. They are not decoy ships (though in SotS2, who knows...)
Quote: If I remember right Advanced robotics opens up several really nice (but really expensive) AI techs
Not from advanced robotics. Expert systems had a chance for the link but we missed it; otherwise we might get lucky from combat algorithms, holographic tactics, or the DN drone section tech (which we'll probably never get). They are quite expensive and risk AI rebellion; because of the latter most people wait until they can get them relatively quickly (the better to quickly get AI virus if needed.) On the other hand, if you can research AI quickly, you probably don't really need it. An early push for AI can be a very strategic gamble if you think you may be overwhelmed otherwise.
Quote:-Would heavy drivers be a significant upgrade for us?
Yes. AP drivers are not in much danger of going obsolete; they don't do stellar DPS but are hard for the AI to counter; you need deflectors or Quark+ armour to get a significant number of deflections. Still, more DPS from the heavy version is more DPS, and we might get a link to neutronium ammo.
Quote:- How much diplomatic benefit would we get from hitting the designated world we were asked to attack?
The AI is really asking us to coordinate an attack with them here. We won't get much benefit if we aren't attacking simultaneously. It is a sizeable boost if we are able to coordinate with them though. We would probably prefer to coordinate defensively until we get Farcasters.
Quote:Is PD something that we want on every ship, or more of something that we want to leave for specialized ships?
It really depends on what PD you have and what threats you expect to face. PD range is not always super far especially for gauss PD. At this stage of the game I generally like a mix of laser and gauss PD on all small mounts; AP drivers are ample to deal with enemy DDs.
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Turn 200-201: Reorganize fleets for increased attacking. Build lots of megafreighters. I need to delete our DD freighter design because it is newer than our CA freighter design and the 'build freighter' button on the Trade screen builds the most recently designed freighter. I hope we have not built too many DD freighters by mistake as a result of that...
Launch attack on unexplored uncolonized world Ke'Lolum to establish a gate and see if it's suitable for colonization. Tarka pickets should be no match for a cruiser strikeforce, even if of old locust cruisers.
The Far Tarka are starting to send colonization fleets into our side of the barbell to worlds we can't yet colonize. I decide it's better to start strip mining these as soon as possible rather than allow the Tarka to get ahold of worlds with super-high resources near our space while we can't stop them due to the NAP.
Interturn 201: Battle of Liiruma, stage 1. Liir have nearly 200 DDs here and 3 strikeforce command cruisers. We have 30-odd cruisers plus a bunch of mostly obsolete destroyers, including no PD but deflector CAs. Fortunately Liiruma has an asteroid belt so we are able to hide in the shadow of an asteroid near the planet and avoid most of the planet missiles. Light emitters still hurt when there are that many of them, but we give better than we get overall and take out 39 DDs in exchange for 3 cruisers that could not withdraw to back lines in time. We do not lose any command ships as I bring in a second CnC when I see the first one getting significantly damaged, which allows the first CnC to withdraw between Liir waves.
Turn 202: Advanced Robotics comes in, start Mega-strip Mining.
Continue to build megafreighters. I consider launching a second attack against unexplored Tarka colony of Ke'Thalt which has a lot of destroyers but few cruisers and is far from support from the rest of the near Tarka empire. I only have 3 CnCs on hand to put in this fleet, but one is a new fusion CnC with PD capability, and I have 3 PD destroyers in the fleet as well. Still this is a bit hasty attack... I decide to build one more turn of reinforcements (+1 CnC, +8 PD DDs) first.
Interturn 202: Trade another deflector cruiser for 36 Liir DDs.
Turn 203: Launch the attack on Ke'Thalt. Otherwise, mostly building mega freighters. Our on-hand cruisers are otherwise at Liiruma or en-route to Tarka-held worlds.
Interturn 203: Liir appear to be out of combat ships... which means they have 100+ non-combatant destroyers here?? Or else they are fielding non-combatants in preference to combat ships for some reason?
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Wow. I dunno what to say there.  Destroy 10 sats and knock 300M population off the planet for no losses. They still have only nuclear warhead so their planet missiles don't really hurt.
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Zed-F Wrote:Turn 200-201: Reorganize fleets for increased attacking. Build lots of megafreighters. I need to delete our DD freighter design because it is newer than our CA freighter design and the 'build freighter' button on the Trade screen builds the most recently designed freighter. I hope we have not built too many DD freighters by mistake as a result of that...
No DE freighters were built, as I never use the button from the trade screen for builds. I will have to keep the "newest design" thing in mind, though.
Zed-F Wrote:The Far Tarka are starting to send colonization fleets into our side of the barbell to worlds we can't yet colonize. I decide it's better to start strip mining these as soon as possible rather than allow the Tarka to get ahold of worlds with super-high resources near our space while we can't stop them due to the NAP.
I was worried about the other Hivers doing the same thing. But yes, we should grab what we can before they take the worlds.
Zed-F Wrote:Interturn 201: Battle of Liiruma, stage 1. Liir have nearly 200 DDs here and 3 strikeforce command cruisers. We have 30-odd cruisers plus a bunch of mostly obsolete destroyers, including no PD but deflector CAs. Fortunately Liiruma has an asteroid belt so we are able to hide in the shadow of an asteroid near the planet and avoid most of the planet missiles. Light emitters still hurt when there are that many of them, but we give better than we get overall and take out 39 DDs in exchange for 3 cruisers that could not withdraw to back lines in time. We do not lose any command ships as I bring in a second CnC when I see the first one getting significantly damaged, which allows the first CnC to withdraw between Liir waves.
I am going to have to run more battles like this from saves, and experiment with bringing ships in and out of battle, etc. I use this a bit, but obviously much more is possible. More skills to master.
Zed-F Wrote:Interturn 203: Liir appear to be out of combat ships... which means they have 100+ non-combatant destroyers here?? Or else they are fielding non-combatants in preference to combat ships for some reason?
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Wow. I dunno what to say there. Destroy 10 sats and knock 300M population off the planet for no losses. They still have only nuclear warhead so their planet missiles don't really hurt.
Something odd about how the AI handles non-combat ships, maybe? At the fight over Kuo'Dai I also noticed this after a while, with the AI bringing lots of non-combatant ships (including freighters) into the mix.
Do the Liir have any CnC left? Maybe they are getting random ships?
Sounds like very good work, Zed-F! 
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Turn 204: I've... been working on the trade net... all the live long day...
Interturn 204: Charge the planet, scattering the non-combatant defenders before us. This time we focus on bombardment and wipe 2.4 billion pop off the planet, wiping it clean, in exchange for a cruiser. It still has 90-odd infrastructure left too, for when we re-colonize. Oh, and there are still over 100 Liir destroyers here we will have to clean up.
Turn 205: Mega-strip mining completes, start Magnetoceramic lattices.
Interturn: 23 more destroyers and sats down at Liiruma, including all command ships. Hopefully this will mean less running away and faster killing.
Turn 206: More freighter construction. I deploy a gate so we can get at least part of this fleet moving on toward other objectives. Also building PD ships to send to Liiruma once the gate is up.
Interturn 206: Spawn point camp the Liir and start killing DDs as soon as they show up in battle. It turns out that the Liir do still have quite a few combat ships left, so I'm not sure why they didn't use them sooner. Nevertheless it's too late now that their command ships are all done for, and we kill 70 destroyers for no losses.
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