RBSotS1 SG2

[Zed-F]

Wow, just finished reading. Pretty epic stuff so far. And I can't believe the freighter plan actually worked that well.

I think you may mean refinery plan, vs the Locusts?
We haven't done much planning with freighters other than to build them.
But if some folks think freighters are mandatory... well I'll just say we haven't tried every race yet.

I finally got Argos Naval Yard, so I can fill a slot eventually. However, I won't be at a SotS computer w/ working internet until...Sunday. Yay moving.

If you'd like to jump in and think you are up to joining mid-game and getting up to speed quickly, by all mean, just say so. That goes for any of our purists as well; I know we had another visitor or two earlier who expressed interest in joining a SotS SG.

[spellman]

I think you may mean refinery plan, vs the Locusts?
We haven't done much planning with freighters other than to build them.
But if some folks think freighters are mandatory... well I'll just say we haven't tried every race yet.

Merp, yeah, the refinery plan. Although the fact you guys are rolling in dough from the freighters is also kind awesome.

I'd probably nab an earlier save and muck around familiarizing w/ where all the systems are before committing. Hard to sometimes follow everything via text/screenshots. I always enjoy looking around the UI myself.

[haphazard1]

OK, managed to play one turn. Not much, I know, but it takes a while to check where everything is and figure out everything that is going on. Now that this has been done, I should be able to play multiple turns tomorrow.

Also, there are a couple decisions to be made and I want the team's input on them.

Turn 212 (inherited)

- Start building biomes for Ke'Lolum
- A sizable fleet, mostly of our older Locust CRs, will arrive at Ke'Thalt next turn to attack the local Tarka. Check fleet organization, tweak things a bit to get the most out of our Deflector CRs and PD DEs.
- I look around and see that the Ke'Thalt attack is the only one currently underway. I think we should go after Ulol (remaining Liir world) next, and look for some ships to use. Errrrr...not much really available except old stuff. I was hoping to have enough newer ships to at least get the Fusion speed for crossing to the target, but we will have to go with older ships because that is what we have. Oh well...should be more than enough to finish off the Liir. I start preparations.
- Deploy a new gate at Shononu. The Tarka don't have enough left there to damage it.
- I manage to spend all the IO we have at every planet, and still have some money. This is different than just 10-12 turns ago when I last played, so our mega freighter spam is certainly paying off.
- Spot one trade sector which is not maxed on freighters, start shuffling a handful of excess DE freighters from overloaded sectors.

- IBT at Shononu, I should have auto-resolved. Our ships are too slow to catch the Tarka CRs which head directly out to space. Oh well, next turn.
- IBT at Ke'Thalt, we find this is a size 2, 6117 resource planet, fully developed. At least the small size will hold down planetary missiles. The Tarka have 94 DEs and 7 CRs but no sats against our 39 DE, 26 CR force.

I take advantage of asteroids to avoid missile barrages, and we wipe out 4 DEs and 3 CRs for no losses. The Tarka were throwing freighters at us by the end of the round, so either we killed all their CnC already or they don't have any here. Surely not all of these ships are non-combatant?



Anyway, next turn I will drive directly at the planet and try to stomp it hard. Let's see if they have anything to stop us. Our PD/Deflector combo worked very well against what few missiles reached us amidst the asteroid field.

Turn 213

- The far Tarka have arrived at Kuo'Gra and colonized it, ending our mining there. Still, we stripped it down to under 1400 resources.
- Speaking of which, we drop 5 full loads of ore on the home world. Mmm, more yummy IO!
- Gate fleets arrive at three new worlds and deploy gates, expanding our network:

-- Ke'Haaku, a mined out 866 CH (left) world with a far Hiver gate. I am assuming they mined it out, as the far Tarka could have colonized it.
-- Kuo'Pral, a fully developed far Tarka world
-- Ibibu, an unclaimed world (although there is a far Hiver gate here). Size 6, 7609 resourcess, CH 703.92 to the left. We can colonize it, and it would be very attractive to the far Tarka. Should we try to claim it? Or just strip mine it before the far empires can take it? We certainly should not leave it intact for them.

- Build more biomes for Ke'Lolum, plus some mega-freighters. I have also build a jammer and a couple DE garrison ships for Ke'Lolum.
- I move a sizable force from Shononu to Liiramu (sp?), as the closest world to Ulol to launch our invasion. We still have plenty at Shononu to handle the Tarka there. If any sizable new threats appear we can assemble some of our scattered "zone defense" groups to oppose it, or build new ships. (Which we need to start doing anyway....)
- Fusion Warheads completed, we need to pick a tech to research. I have tentatively selected Orbital Drydocks (3 turns with a research budget of ~1.75 million/turn) to reduce CR construction costs 5% and to move us closer to DNs. Other interesting options are available:

-- Heavy Drivers for more offensive punch. We are likely to be building more ships soon for offense, so this might be a good time for this tech.
-- Data Correlation, to keep better track of our enemies' forces
-- Xenotech, either Morrigi 2 (so we can get NAPs there), Liir 3 (to intimidate their remaining world rather than fighting there), or Tarka 3 (to keep civilians at the local Tarka worlds we are soon to conquer)
-- Other? Lots of possibilities like drones, fusion mines, spy beams, etc. The above just seemed the best bets to me.

Save attached for your examination. Suggestions and ideas are most welcome, especially on the tech and Ibibu issues.

[haphazard1]

We haven't done much planning with freighters other than to build them.
But if some folks think freighters are mandatory... well I'll just say we haven't tried every race yet.

Well, the Zuul don't do trade if I am remembering correctly. (Haven't played them yet.) But apparently their entire economy is different, with slaves rather than civilians, etc.

Maybe next game.

[Zed-F]

I wouldn't worry so much about the new ship vs. old ship distinction as Hivers seeing as we have a substantial fission navy. Keeing fleet speeds separated into new vs. old is important with most races, some even moreso than others (Morrigi especially), but with Hivers everything goes so slowly in strat that you aren't going to surprise anyone anyway. Until we have lost most of our fission-era cruisers, I would focus on using them up and treating fusion-era cruisers mostly as reserves. I would keep fission-era destroyers around, though, for outnumbering purposes, since they are cheap and easy to leave at home/replace.

I don't find Incorporate Liir to be worth the research cost at this point, but Incorporate Tarka or Incorporate Morrigi would be useful. Heavy Drivers and Data Correlation would both be useful, as would Orbital Drydocks. I would probably pick Heavy Drivers in part to see whether we have neutronium.

If we were ready to get into a scrap with the Far Hivers and Tarka then I would colonize Ibibu, but I think we'd still prefer to concentrate on maintaining decent relations with them for the moment. So I vote we mine it. There are plenty of other worlds to settle once we take them from other factions.

[Mardoc]

Yeah, the turn doesn't take nearly as long once you know where everything is and what it should be doing. Speaking of which...probably time to split off part of the Shononu defense fleet to go on offense somewhere.

I agree that I wouldn't worry about Liir 3. Their last world ought to be easy enough to attack and recolonize, certainly easier than spending the cost of a third tier tech. And we've got no other reason for it now that Liir have been eradicated from the far barbell.

I would probably put Tarka 3 and Heavy Drivers as the next two techs, in whichever order makes more sense for the current state (if we've nearly captured a world, Tarka 3, if we're about to build more ships, Heavy Drivers instead). We're sure we'll need Tarka Xenotech for the long haul, though. Any of your proposed techs (except Liir Xenotech) seems like a strong choice, though - we do want to head toward DN's eventually, we'd like to have the option to keep Morrigi civilians or NAP their empires, etc.

[haphazard1]

I wouldn't worry so much about the new ship vs. old ship distinction as Hivers seeing as we have a substantial fission navy. Keeing fleet speeds separated into new vs. old is important with most races, some even moreso than others (Morrigi especially), but with Hivers everything goes so slowly in strat that you aren't going to surprise anyone anyway. Until we have lost most of our fission-era cruisers, I would focus on using them up and treating fusion-era cruisers mostly as reserves. I would keep fission-era destroyers around, though, for outnumbering purposes, since they are cheap and easy to leave at home/replace.

We will not surprise anyone, no, but I was thinking mostly in terms of time to send the fleet. Our closest world (conquered Liiruma) is 8.0 LY from Ulol, which is a difference of 10 turns vs 14 turns travel time. This is a significant difference over a short gap.

Anyway, we fight with what we have. And I agree on using up our existing older CRs -- the Locust types, MD types, early APMD types -- while they are still combat effective.

I am thinking of changing the attack a bit, and splitting the force into two groups: one for Ulol and the other for the near Tarka world near it. The whole group would be overkill for the Liir, and we have enough CnC, repair, etc. for two decent forces.

I don't find Incorporate Liir to be worth the research cost at this point, but Incorporate Tarka or Incorporate Morrigi would be useful. Heavy Drivers and Data Correlation would both be useful, as would Orbital Drydocks. I would probably pick Heavy Drivers in part to see whether we have neutronium.

OK, Heavy Drivers sounds good. As I said, my selection was tentative. And nothing has been invested yet. They should not take all my remaining turns to finish, even if we go over-budget. If we have Neutronium Rounds should we start them immediately? I am thinking yes, as they will boost all our gauss/driver weapons immediately.

If we were ready to get into a scrap with the Far Hivers and Tarka then I would colonize Ibibu, but I think we'd still prefer to concentrate on maintaining decent relations with them for the moment. So I vote we mine it. There are plenty of other worlds to settle once we take them from other factions.

OK, sounds good for now. Even if the far Tarka are pushing colonies in our space. We have mining ships ready to go, so we will start stripping it immediately.

[Mardoc]

We will not surprise anyone, no, but I was thinking mostly in terms of time to send the fleet. Our closest world (conquered Liiruma) is 8.0 LY from Ulol, which is a difference of 10 turns vs 14 turns travel time. This is a significant difference over a short gap.

My opinion is that we shouldn't worry about splitting them up until we can make a full fleet from fusion designs only. Much better to use the fusion ships at a fission pace than to keep them reserved and gathering dust.

I am thinking of changing the attack a bit, and splitting the force into two groups: one for Ulol and the other for the near Tarka world near it. The whole group would be overkill for the Liir, and we have enough CnC, repair, etc. for two decent forces.

Seems reasonable. I haven't looked at the details, but if you can pull off two invasions with one force, that sounds good to me.

OK, Heavy Drivers sounds good. As I said, my selection was tentative. And nothing has been invested yet. They should not take all my remaining turns to finish, even if we go over-budget. If we have Neutronium Rounds should we start them immediately? I am thinking yes, as they will boost all our gauss/driver weapons immediately.

I don't know how expensive they are, for how much benefit. It might be worth still picking up Tarka 3 first. I agree they ought to be a high priority, though.

OK, sounds good for now. Even if the far Tarka are pushing colonies in our space. We have mining ships ready to go, so we will start stripping it immediately.

It's not like we'll remain at peace with them forever, we just want to run out of easier targets first For that matter, if we control the timing of the war, then we can Pearl Harbor them by using Gates over their worlds, but if they control the timing, then we'll have to stick with creeping along to hit them.

[Zed-F]

Yup, and the longer we keep the NAP the more opportunity we have to maybe defend a far Tarka planet from a Morrigi attack or two, which could ease relations a lot. In that case it's possible we might even get back into the alliance and hold it until the Morrigi are eliminated. Not guaranteed by any means, but worth keeping openminded about for as long as the potential is there.

We really do need to get rid of the near Tarka first for this to be possible, though, otherwise the Far Tarka will continue to like them better than us, which hurts our chances of good relations developing. Hopefully they continue to like us better than Morrigi.

As for neutronium rounds, they are quite expensive (but nice!); I would probably want Incorporate Tarka first though so we can avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. Might take the edge off diplo penalties with Far Tarka for attacking near Tarka worlds.

[haphazard1]

As for neutronium rounds, they are quite expensive (but nice!); I would probably want Incorporate Tarka first though so we can avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. Might take the edge off diplo penalties with Far Tarka for attacking near Tarka worlds.

OK, in this case it might be better to grab Tarka xenotech #3 immediately. I do not expect the fighting at Ke'Thralt to last all that long, given what we faced so far. Then Heavy Drivers, and that should fill out my remaining turns.

How do I tell what deals we have with other empires? Trade, research, etc.? We get thanked by the far Hivers frequently, but I am not sure if we have similar deals in place with the far Tarka. Or does that require xenotech #3? That probably explains it, which is all the more reason to grab that first and maybe get a flow of cash and research going to them to boost relations.