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Yes, a fleet of 19 laser smalls destroyed 3 larges armed with lasers. I didn't have a Nose on hand to tell me their exact armaments, but I hypothesize that most of the space was devoted to 5-racks of missiles which I dodged. I don't think that they ever did more than 5 damage in one shot with the lasers. And as I said I dodged A LOT of shots. And yes those were the same two unarmed Colony ships which retreated AGAIN. You know what they say, once you start running away it's hard to stop!
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Excellent! And 3 large cruisers is a lot of production for the AI to lose this early in the game! That will set them back some!
I wonder if they will send more of the same lousy design, or if they will try to escort the colony ships with laser fighters next time....
It's almost looking like we will be dealing with crippled Silicoids and crippled Psilons this game, which is a big stroke of luck. The Alkari have me worried the most. And the Meklar could be running away with the game in some corner, for all we know. They don't need a lot of cities to do that.
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Nooooo!!!! You can't let the noble sacrifice of our brave pilots at Primodius be for naught! Actually you can since we should be able to grab the Dead worlds we really want.
1) I don't know if the Psilons are arming their cold hips or not as I never faced them in combat. They must have controlled Tundra as U and B are what they are currently targeting.
2) if I were you I would continue all out for Planetology and then switch to building Dead colships, since most of our empire will be switching to shipbuilding in the very near future. You could even pre-build a placeholder design to get a jump on those planets while you wait for tech. Up to you of course.
3) that order sounds good. I don't know but you might be able to fit Reserve fuel tanks on our colony ships after Dead pops. If so it opens up a few more worlds but either way we will be in great shape!
4) oh good you covered by this! Yes definitely fight the AI in any way possible to prevent being overrun!
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Yeah I'm pretty confident that Meklon is down in the southwest corner and they could be well I their way to owning half the map at this point. Not our problem right now. Besides we are on our way to owning half of the map too. Ours just has more clutter in it...
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Hmmm, what does the forum think? Let the Psilons colonize Celtsi, or block them with a single scout (or honeybee 2.0 more likely)?
I wonder, how likely is it that we could chase the Alkari away from that purple star in the NE? It is only being guarded by a single sparrowhawk. Then we could see what that planet is, and maybe even colonize it, giving us the range to invade Celtsi ASAP.
And I just realized, we could actually colonize Promidius and steal it right out from under the Silicoid's noses, if we wanted, once we get controlled dead. Or, we could "let" them colonize it, and take it from them immediately...choices, choices....
OK folks, how much do we want to piss off our neighbors? Keep in mind that the diplo vote will be coming up any day now. It could come down to us vs. the birds. Crap, the birds are friends with everyone. Who can we reasonably get as an abstention or voting partner? We need to make sure not to antagonize them, whoever they are.
Also, I'm not sure what to use as a placeholder design. The reason is, our fleet slots are almost full. I was going to take up the final slot with the Honeybee 2.0, but then that leaves the standard colony pod as the costliest placeholder, until Escalon gets colonized, in which case I can delete that design and design something else....
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Also, contra the idea of allowing the Psilons to colonize Celtsi: it's not so much that Celtsi itself is important, but it's the mischief that the Psilons could pull in our backlines. Even if we can be sure of taking Celtsi before it gets too many missile bases, in the meantime they could be sending fleets at our backline worlds. What a pain! This still persuades me to deny them Celtsi. When we finally get around to colonizing Celtsi either way, a single colony ship is not going to be a big cost compared to the ships we'd have to build in the meantime to defend against backline mischief.
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Yeah this is where it gets fun! I would make at least a token effort to keep the Psilons out of our back lines. The last time I tangled with them they hadn't advanced beyond lasers so it shouldn't take much to keep a single colony ship away. But as Thrawn points out we can always invade once they colonize. I guess I would try to put a token force in orbit and hope for the best. No point in overspending on ships this early. And definitely hold back the rocks at all costs. Just because we can steal the Dead worlds there are still Inferno+ planets out there, and the longer we hold them back the easier they will be to stomp on later!
Given the state of AI alliances and our current lack of clout I say definitely avoid war at this point. We can't very well sustain against multiple opponents, and with the vote coming up the last thing we want is to turn everyone against us. At least wait to see how the first vote plays out. It could be birds vs lizards which would be awesome, but until we know for sure we do NOT want to lose the first vote.
For a placeholder start building a Colony Ship until the existing one is used up, then scrap it and design a Huge hull and transfer all shipbuilding to that until you can design the ship you need. It shouldn't be more than a couple turns for that last colony right?
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Great turns, Ianus! I'm glad you were able to lead Migrraar Agraff and her Honeybee fleet to turn back the Silis, and getting Controlled Dead deep into the percentages from a standing start was great!
(I think the GNN droid was confused, by the way: We actually lost 0 RP, having invested that amount, but it couldn't process the idea of a computer virus at the defunct RPL facilities wiping out exactly nothing.)
The upcoming vote is definitely worrying; I wouldn't recommend any invasions until we know where we stand diplomatically. Colonizing Primodius right under the Silicoids' rocky promontories would be terrific once we have the Rich worlds in hand if you can manage it though! (Migrraar's nine remaining Honeybee 1s won't stand up to much in the way of force though.)
I agree with the consensus that preventing the Brains from colonizing Celtsi is best if it can be done with a token force. As for dislodging the Sparrowhawk, that should only take a few 2-maneuver fighters, but more than 2....
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So, I've played up through 2362, and there's one decision that I'm unsure about.
The Sakkra showed up with a large "Juggernaut-class" ship headed (I think, based on star geometry of where it could be headed from--probably Endoria) for Artemis (Barren, size 45) just south of Ursa.
![[Image: OSG26-TS2-2362-Uhoh_zpsubqdasj4.png]](http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e326/Zeiter/OSG26-TS2-2362-Uhoh_zpsubqdasj4.png)
I could possibly keep it from scanning Artemis if I changed the build in Ursa from a dead colony ship (which I originally wanted to send to Artemis to give us range on Proxima) to maybe a large cruiser with a battle scanner and lasers on it (so we know what we are dealing with for future engagements with its type, plus in order to kill it). Because I really don't feel safe colonizing the dead worlds down there while that thing is hanging out in the vicinity. (I'm still going to colonize Gienah no matter what. It is close enough to Porridge to share fleet defenders). Or, at least I would feel safer if I could kill this thing first and have a large cruiser patrolling the region.
Then again, if the Alkari were to finally show up, that cruiser would probably be worthless because I would not be able to hit them. And I really do not want to delay the colonizing of these rich dead worlds!
Will the AI re-route a ship from an un-owned star where it is orbiting unopposed to another foreign star? Because if so, I'm afraid that any colonies would be futile. That Juggernaut might be able to wipe out any new colonies nearby before I could get the transports there to beef them up.
Then again, does the AI usually take such aggressive moves? I don't know...
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I don't think that this is aggression. This is like the Psilons sending all those large ships everywhere. The AIs are done with Scout blockades and are out to explore all uncolonized worlds they can. Of course that doesn't solve the problem of a Huge ship hanging out over our new colonied but it is not there specifically to bomb out our colonies. At least not yet. It is most likely there to hold the planet until a colony ship can arrive. Kill it if you can, but killing a huge is serious business, especially when we are trying to expand.
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