RBSotS1 SG2

[haphazard1]

OK, lots of good advice from the team. Looks like my remaining turns should focus on:

1) Demand surrender of the local Tarka. If this does not work, maybe try again once our fleet is at Ku'Van and we have fought one round of combat. Nothing like a fleet in orbit to "persuade" someone. If still refuse, just crush them as quickly as possible and get them out of the game.

2) Increase our bribes to the far Tarka and other Hivers for the next 10 turns or so. (How much should this be?)

3) Go for station tech (deep space constructors or whatever it is called), then Addict Tarka (though we only have a few TRs with the far Tarka right now).

4) Keep building up the economy with mega freighters, and then with stations. What stations should we build where? Trade stations at the home world and any planet with large numbers of existing TRs seems like a good first step.

Open questions:

- The other Hivers did send us a positive comments about wanting closer ties, and our diplo with them has been rising (up arrow). Maybe once the local Tarka are finished, see if we can get an alliance with them?

- What to do with our assault fleets? They are currently just sitting over the worlds they conquered. Do we have anything specific we want to be doing with them right now?

I should be able to play maybe 6 hours from now, so there is still plenty of time to post your thoughts.

[Mardoc]

Practice is very important... but so is experimentation. Once you have a baseline feel for how things usually go for you, never be afraid to try something a little different to see how it works. Figuring out why approach A is better than approach B in circumstance X is what you really want to do.

I think you're overestimating my skill here. I'm still working on that baseline, and the really low-hanging fruit like target selection, withdrawing damaged ships, and adjusting the composition of our fighting ships depending on the situation. Once I'm confident that I can actually achieve that sort of thing reliably, then I'll move on to experimentation.

2) Increase our bribes to the far Tarka and other Hivers for the next 10 turns or so. (How much should this be?)

This is mostly a guess, but I'm thinking somewhere around 5% of our income, which would be 500K/turn.

3) Go for station tech (deep space constructors or whatever it is called), then Addict Tarka (though we only have a few TRs with the far Tarka right now).

If I understand the stations correctly, the trade routes they add must be foreign routes, and the Tarka are really the only option. Plus, well, Addict Tarka seems to pay off in "a slow decline in Tarka production due to addiction problems as well as an increased chance of planetary surrender" as well as the boost to our income. That seems equally important to me - a way to make sure they're second fiddle without having to actually fight them.

4) Keep building up the economy with mega freighters, and then with stations. What stations should we build where? Trade stations at the home world and any planet with large numbers of existing TRs seems like a good first step.

For stations, it looks like we need Deep Space Constructors, and then Orbital Complexes, for all but Repair stations which only need DSC.

I'll defer to Zed on this one, but here are my thoughts. From reading the wiki, we can build multiple stations at each world, depending on its population (maximum of 4) and our choices are:

1. Command Stations give a 10% bonus to Industrial Output for a system. They are armed. They provide 46 command points — more points than a CR CnC but less than a DN CnC.
   
   
2. Sensor stations have a very large scan radius and act as deep scan in tactical. They are armed. Once the Tunneling Sensors tech is researched, Sensor stations also have an improved chance of sighting cloaked ships in the strategic map.
   
   
3. Repair stations increase a planet's construction points available for building ships by 10%, the planet's repair capacity, and the amount of resources gained post–battle. They are armed.
   
   
4. Trade stations increase the value of all normal trade routes at the planet they orbit by 25% as well as decrease the cost of researching Xenotech Technology. Trade Stations are unarmed. Trade Stations can also be built around uninhabited worlds. Trade stations give two extra trade routes to Allied, NAP'ed or Independent worlds (not to your own or to your enemies), as long as they are in range of the station, when they are constructed. Extra routes to Allied, NAP'ed and Independent worlds do not get the 25% bonus, but have no IO maintenance costs.
   
   
5. Science stations increase a civilization's overall research rate by 5% and the research bonus does stack when multiple stations are built. They are unarmed. Science stations also give advance warning of Von Neumann attacks at that world.
   

From reading that list, my inclination is to suggest first priority is Science stations everywhere, second priority is Trade stations everywhere but where we can't quite manage 2 stations, Sensor stations near any borders, and one or both of Command/Repair where we're building a lot of ships. So, for instance at our homeworld, I would aim for Science, Trade, Command, and Repair, since we expect a lot of income and building from here, but we ought to know if something's coming from sensors elsewhere. While at Peten, halfway down the barbell, I'd go for as many as we can support in the order 1)Sensor 2)Command 3)Repair 4)Trade. And at most of our backlines little planets, go for Science and Trade, and if it's big, Command. Only size 1 planets should be too small for at least 2 stations worth of population.

Basically, it looks like Science and Trade are always useful, with Science providing a fixed boost and Trade providing a boost depending on the underlying world. Command/repair are useful where we'll be doing a lot of building or fighting, and we'll want to add a sprinkling of Sensor stations to make sure we know what's going on in the galaxy.

For priorities - I think I would focus on getting stations built at our major forgeworlds: your 'where we already have lots of trade' seems a good rule of thumb, and Sensor stations at our borders. Aside from that, just fill up everywhere. Granted, at ~2.5 million/station, you won't be able to fill up everywhere, but we might as well get started.

Also, a detail I hadn't noticed before: "Trade Stations can also be built around uninhabited worlds." That suggests that at some point (although I would argue, not yet), we should put up trade stations around all the planets we mined out in the far part of the barbell, to peddle drugs if not for the income .

The other Hivers did send us a positive comments about wanting closer ties, and our diplo with them has been rising (up arrow). Maybe once the local Tarka are finished, see if we can get an alliance with them?

Absolutely, we can't win without allying to both our neighbors or crushing one of them. If the huge bribes don't let us ally and win straight away, then probably abort bribing and start building up for war...speaking of which:

- What to do with our assault fleets? They are currently just sitting over the worlds they conquered. Do we have anything specific we want to be doing with them right now?

Probably not, not unless we end up at war with one of the far factions. I would turn them into zone defense, myself, maybe park at least one over a Gate in the far barbell so we can't lose access by surprise.

If it's looking hopeless to achieve the alliance victory, then I would start arranging for a Pearl Harbor - put fleets in orbit over as many enemy systems as we can, small detachments whereever there's an unguarded gate, etc. I bet having that many ships in orbit would dramatically hurt our relations, though, so don't do it until we're convinced it'll be war anyway.

[spellman]

- What to do with our assault fleets? They are currently just sitting over the worlds they conquered. Do we have anything specific we want to be doing with them right now?

I would regroup them somewhere and redistribute the tech. When I opened an earlier save some of our assault groups were pretty outdated with masses of DE, so reassigning to zone Def would also be nice. Or we can start looking towards scrapping them and just churn out CR.


Oh, fun things I've learned playing yesterday:
- Try not to build the gate unless you really, really need strategic reinforcements. Having your buddies warp in far away from the battle is annoying and useless.

- Deflector in front is good to take the first volley of missiles, but only put them about 2-3 grid marks in front, not a full ship length, or else friendly PD can't help. Similarly, when putting ships in rows, don't place them directly in front or behind or else the ones behind will shoot and can hit the ones in front.

- <3 PD DE ships.


Lastly, a question: What's up with the numbering scheme for the ship designs?

[Zed-F]

I think you're overestimating my skill here. I'm still working on that baseline, and the really low-hanging fruit like target selection, withdrawing damaged ships, and adjusting the composition of our fighting ships depending on the situation. Once I'm confident that I can actually achieve that sort of thing reliably, then I'll move on to experimentation.

Wasn't talking about you in particular, just about things that are useful toward understanding tactical combat in SotS in general.

This is mostly a guess, but I'm thinking somewhere around 5% of our income, which would be 500K/turn.

Sounds like a reasonable starting point. To be honest my experience with high-end bribery is fairly limited. I did have one game where I wound up paying an ally well over a million a turn to keep him happier with me than he was with another player of the same race. I don't think we should need to go that high with the Far Tarka to keep them happier with us than with the Far Hivers, though I could be wrong. I'll also note that the size of the gift relative to the size of the recipient's economy probably matters.

If I understand the stations correctly, the trade routes they add must be foreign routes, and the Tarka are really the only option. Plus, well, Addict Tarka seems to pay off in "a slow decline in Tarka production due to addiction problems as well as an increased chance of planetary surrender" as well as the boost to our income. That seems equally important to me - a way to make sure they're second fiddle without having to actually fight them.

It's really hard to tell whether trade station routes must be foreign routes, because the trade interface is inconsistent. Some of the figures provided on the trade screen that describe the actual routes themselves show just foreign routes, but the summary that says how many freighters you need assume that each station requires 10 more freighters regardless of how many foreign routes you have. So, which is it? I suspect the wiki is correct and the total freighter count is just bugged.

I do know the trade stations will at least prefer foreign routes to local ones, given the possibility of either.

As far as stations go, I personally like to get the trade stations I am planning to build done first, since stations are very expensive to build in the first place. After that I will fill in the command/repair stations at forge worlds where I want them (preference to repair since it helps ship building more) and science stations everywhere that's not a forge world. I generally only build a couple sensor stations at key planets where they will do the most good.

Also IIRC any station can be built at an uninhabited world, but some stations are more useful than others there.

[Zed-F]

I would regroup them somewhere and redistribute the tech. When I opened an earlier save some of our assault groups were pretty outdated with masses of DE, so reassigning to zone Def would also be nice. Or we can start looking towards scrapping them and just churn out CR.

DDs are pretty cheap to maintain and are useful for outnumbering bonus, so my inclination would be to keep 'em. You never know when an extra DD strikeforce or two could be handy.

If I have a lot of cruisers just laying around, though, my first inclination is to use them for something.

Oh, fun things I've learned playing yesterday:
- Try not to build the gate unless you really, really need strategic reinforcements. Having your buddies warp in far away from the battle is annoying and useless.

Or, if you can keep the gate safe, build the gate earlier and get the reinforcements there the turn before you actually need them. They will only do that warp-in animation on the turn they arrive. Fortunately the warp-in animation is only really long with the Hivers since they always warp-in from the gate; other races will show a much shorter warp-in animation close to the actual battle.

Lastly, a question: What's up with the numbering scheme for the ship designs?

I find it helps to tell at a glance how fast ships are so you don't group slow ships with faster ones and slow down the whole fleet. Not quite as important for Hivers as for some other races, but for certain races this can be quite critical (e.g. Morrigi in particular.)

So, I use <design name> <speed indicator>.<version number>, where design name usually denotes something about the weaponry or role of the ship in question. Sometimes I will also include range information along with the speed indicator, but this is less important since you can tell range from the fleet list already.

[haphazard1]

Played 6 more turns to get us to T250.

Turn 244 (continued)

- I demand surrender from the local Tarka, and they refuse. Foolish of them....
- Switch tech to Deep Space Construction, and micro research to make sure we get it in 1 turn.
- Increase gifts to both far Tarka and other Hivers to ~0.5 million per turn and 2% of research.
- Build more mega freighters.

Turn 245

- Deep Space Construction completes, start Orbital Complexes (similar micro to ensure 1 turn).
- Design a construction CA and a repair station. Build a construction ship at Isketot...these things are expensive.
- Mitrou joins our empire as a colony. I drop 5 more biomes to really get it going.
- IBT raiders hit Katozyz, a far Hiver world with a sizable fleet. The raiders are blown to bits, no damage to our gate.

Turn 246

- Orbital Complexes completes, start DN Construction. I considered Addict Tarka but it was 1/2 the turns of DN and is not nearly as useful. DNs it is.
- Design the rest of the station types, emphasizing PD, missiles (for medium mounts), and AP Heavy drivers for large mounts.
- I start a science station at Isketot, as it has about a 20 turn payback time (not counting interest, opportunity costs, etc.). A trade station is just about the same payback period at Isketot (and would be far worse elsewhere with fewer existing routes).
- Dump our last partial loads of ore at Isketot, and scrap about half our miners as we have zero targets for them now.

Turn 247

- I reorganize the Ku'Van wave 2 fleet to use 6 PD DEs as we will be facing a tremendous missile storm from the planet and sats.
- Spam more mega freighters, and continue activating new TRs as planets grow civilians and finish infra/terraforming. We are actually soaking up most of our available DE freighters, even as we continue spamming mega freighters. Lots of routes to fill.
- IBT we find the local Tarka have full rings of light and medium sats, plus 68 DEs and only 5 CRs. We have 13 DEs and 29 CRs. I decide to go directly for the planet, as reducing the missile storm is the top priority. We fight through a small number of combat ships and then hit the planet a decent but not yet crippling blow, killing ~480 million imperials. We appear to have cleared pretty much all the available Tarka combat ships and a few sats, while losing 2 PD DEs. The 6 PD DEs formation worked quite well against missiles, although as Mardoc noted it only takes one leaker to kill a DE.



Turn 248

- I demand surrender again from the local Tarka now that we are over their home world, but they refuse again. Oh well. I guess their alliance with the far Hivers makes them feel strong enough to refuse?
- I push up research to about 5.25 million.
- Continue spamming mega freighters.

- IBT VNs hit the far Tarka at Nakbe. Again the VNs target our gate while ignoring everyone else. Fortunately we survive although with hefty damage.
- IBT at Ku'Van the Tarka have rebuilt some of their lost sats but have not come up with any additional ships. Once again I drive straight at the planet, and find they are throwing freighters in our way. No CnC, apparently. We blast the planet, and get a pop up that all imperials have been killed with 2 seconds left. I spare the remaining civilians.



Turn 249

- We open the turn with this:



At one point the local Tarka were a serious challenge. But times change.
- Send a repair ship to Nakbe
- Science station completes at Isketot. Not enough cash to build another station, so I adjust research down a bit for next turn.
- Build biomes for Ku'Van, while deploying a gate there. I also move the remnants of our first Ku'Van fleet to the system for repair and merging into our more recent force.
- The other Hivers dial us up and say we might yet be of some use. Still, it is a potentially hopeful sign.
- Since our heftier bribers have now been going for 5 turns, I offer alliance to the Tarka, then the Hivers. Both refuse.
- IBT raiders hit Tirynas. As usual I auto-resolve and they are blown to bits despite our not actually having much more than obsolete junk for defenders.

Turn 250

- Repair the Nakbe gate and send the repair ship back to its origin.
- Send biomes to Ku'Van (11 of them). We may want more, feel free to build some if so. Nothing has been built yet this turn.
- DN Construction is at 62%, 3 turns to go with low-ish research. (Low-ish these days is 3.25 million per turn. ) I was accumulating cash for another station, or we can keep spamming mega freighters, or whatever.
- We are ranked dead last in tech still, but otherwise are excellent.



- Our budget continues to grow nicely, even with the drain of bribing the AIs.



Well, the galaxy is down to the big three players now. An alliance would be the "clean" way to wrap this up, but we may not be able to get it. Allying with the Tarka and taking out the other Hivers would be my next choice -- the far Hivers are about half the size of the Tarka. We could probably manage to drop a decent fleet into every one of their systems over 3-5 turns or so, although we might trigger a war after the first couple turns.

But maybe the AIs will be reasonable. We will have to see.

[spellman]

Or, if you can keep the gate safe, build the gate earlier and get the reinforcements there the turn before you actually need them. They will only do that warp-in animation on the turn they arrive. Fortunately the warp-in animation is only really long with the Hivers since they always warp-in from the gate; other races will show a much shorter warp-in animation close to the actual battle.

Oh, I meant specifically while assaulting their planet and you really need all your ships to engage and wipe out their forces as you bumrush the planet.


In other news, nicely done haphazard.

One option still available is abusing our NAP to station massive death fleets over all their major planets and their major fleets and then try to resolve 5-10 battles in one turn.

[haphazard1]

One option still available is abusing our NAP to station massive death fleets over all their major planets and their major fleets and then try to resolve 5-10 battles in one turn.

The far Hivers have 14 worlds, while the Tarka have about twice that. So we would need a really, really large number of fleets. Even with our 510 gate network capacity, it would take a number of turns to get everything into position. And having that many ships over their worlds would almost certainly trigger war before we could get everything into place.

An alternative would be to tech through AM and farcasters, and then use our gates over the mined out/unclaimed worlds in the far barbell as launching pads to hit their worlds. It would not be instantaneous, but it would be far quicker than STL travel everywhere.

[Zed-F]

Oh, I meant specifically while assaulting their planet and you really need all your ships to engage and wipe out their forces as you bumrush the planet.

That's what CnC ships are for. The gate is not going to help you attack the planet, so you might as well deploy it, once it's safe to do so. But given that the planet will probably lob some planet missiles its way, I generally wouldn't unless I had put a deflector section on its nose.

In other news, nicely done haphazard.

Agreed! Good job haphazard. Too bad the other races have not yet decided to ally.

One option still available is abusing our NAP to station massive death fleets over all their major planets and their major fleets and then try to resolve 5-10 battles in one turn.

We might do this over one of the two far races -- e.g. the Hivers -- but probably not both at once. We'll just have to see how things shake out regarding alliances.

Regarding our fleets -- now is an opportune time to scrap our old fission cruisers as:
- they really won't stand up well in modern combat and will just slow our fleets down
- we don't have that many left
- we have enough more modern ships to cover the shortfall.
The next main wars (if any) will likely be fought with Armada CnC anyway since the far Hivers have had DNs for long enough now to have a significant fleet of them, and the race summary screen also says they have AM power. The Far Tarka also have DNs, but are still using Fusion power.

[Mardoc]

Looks like a good set of turns, haphazard! I'm quite impressed that you were able to go against the same defenses as wiped a whole fleet under my command, and lose only 4 DD's.

Lots of economic growth, elimination of the near Tarka, and we're primed to continue spending as much on growth as we want, with the stations tech and new trade routes. I'm actually a bit surprised that we were able to blow through those techs that quickly; no wonder Zed wasn't especially concerned way back when we discovered the far Hivers had DN's, but really only stations.

I do apologize for forgetting about resetting the planetary CH desired. Is there a good summary somewhere for managing multi-racial empires?

I'm also surprised there's quite that many new trade routes - I thought we were pushing being finished with Megafreighters, but it sounds like we're still more than a turnset away. Especially if you're actually having to scrounge for DD freighters!

I've got a question for Zed - the income screen lists 'foreign trade' as a suspiciously small number. Is that our routes? Or is it maybe the 20% share we get of someone else's trade routes into our empire?

I generally wouldn't unless I had put a deflector section on its nose.

Should we go ahead and design a Gate ship for maximum durability? Assuming the pessimistic view is right and we'll be fighting one or both far factions, all our fighting for the rest of the game will be in the presense of Gates, I think. It could be handy to have Gates around that can take a hit.

On the bigger picture, where do we go from here? Well, of course it's really up to Zed. My thinking is to continue the bribes for another 5 turns, try again for alliance, then give up on them and cut those back to a token sum. If a historical friendship and a ton of money isn't enough to overcome Realpolitik, we might as well stop financing the fleets they'll use to hit us with. But for the moment, focus on economy and teching; we should be well ahead of the far factions in income, so it's time to apply that to getting ahead, or at least parity, in tech as well.

Given that stations and Megafreighters have similar payback periods, depending on the station, I would focus on Megafreighters first. They require planetary IO, which we'll want to have free when our DN/AM techs start rolling in. Of course, we've probably made it to the point where our income is greater than our IO's capacity to soak it up, so we're likely to be able to build stations simultaneously, and continue to tech at a good rate as well.

I agree we need at least DN CnC, and probably Farcasters as well before we want a war. Aside from that...beats me! It'd probably be nice to pick up some new weaponry or defenses to put in our dreadnoughts. Accelerator Amplification looks like another good boost to our current techs; Siege Drivers simply look fun - and they'd force the enemy to come to us. Oh, and if we haven't picked up Quark Resonators yet, that's be fun too! It's of course all lower priority than getting to Armada control and Farcasters, though.