Oh dear, you've left me a pretty interesting problem there I agree that the low-armor ship design makes a lot of sense in our situation, and Ion Cannons give the most bang for our buck against unshielded enemies. Did you try out different ship sizes before settling on large? Maybe we could get better efficiency at a different size.
Now, should I commit Bootis to building more defense as well, or should I keep researching to get a few more turns of value from Bootis?
On ship sizes: It depends on what you're looking for. One 20-ion gunship of the type in the design queue should be able take on the entire Bootis-bound Meklar fleet all by itself - but unless there are several of them, or more bases to fling rockets (or better yet, Mercs acquired in trade) at the dedicated super-bombers and the other (shielded) ships in the Meklar fleet, the Meks will still drop enough fusion bombs to take out all the bases and destroy a significant number of factories and population from the combat screen. In the save file, I have Bootis building bases and Jinga working on shipbuilding, but it might indeed be a better idea to let Bootis research and send additional ships from other star systems instead.
But what to send? It might be possible to get enough of those Large ships over there, and that might be the best way to handle it. A huge ship is less efficient on a price-per-damage basis and anyway we couldn't get one there in time; medium ships are also much less damage-efficient than the larges if they're shielded like the larges, and small ships can't mount shielding at all and still hope to hurt enemy ships in a meaningful way. The problem with the large ships is mainly that there are planets that could send some smallcraft or mediums to the fight, but couldn't build a large in time. (Or they might be able to send one large and some more stuff, but not two larges, etc.) So what should they be sending?
- Huge: Not possible.
- Large: Good, at least for the present, but eventually we'll reach the point where they also can't be built in time.
- Medium: Well... If you give them Shield 4, BC 3, Maneuver 3, and 3 Ion cannons, they're less than half as effective for killing-bombers-before-they-reach-the-planet as larges for the cost, but they might be able to get there when larges can't. With shield 2, 5 ion cannons, and Maneuver 2, your damage output would be significantly better (but still not as good as a large) except that now the gats can damage them, and there are a lot of gats. So many that without shield 4, I don't think it's worth using Mediums at all.
- Small: Fighters basically can't be shielded at all if they want any damage output to speak of, so we'd be looking at something like BC3, 1 Ion Cannon, Maneuver 4. Believe it or not, they'd still do less damage than a large ship before the bombers reached the planet even if not fired upon - but at least they can contribute when a large ship couldn't be built, and they don't have shields to lose in a nebula. They're also more maneuverable than mediums, but gat damage would still tear them apart. Duralloy could be added but wouldn't make much of a difference here; I'd still expect to lose well over a hundred each round. Likewise, we could drop down to BC1 to fit on a stabilizer for more maneuverability, which would probably mean we'd lose "only" 40-50 each round, but that's still a lot of dead ships on our side, and damage output with just BC 1 is almost as bad as shielded mediums, but without the advantage of the shield.
So having gone through it ... I think the large ships are the way to go, with whether to build more bases depending on how many large ships can be brought into play in time. Then shield-4 mediums can play a role from planets whose distance and production prevents them from getting a large over in time. Smallcraft can be added too from places that can't do any better, but they'd be throw-away ships; you'd have to be careful with them to even be sure of getting one clean shot in before they're gone. (Though it might be possible to get two or three with some luck and some really fancy flying.)
[EDIT: The big concern is really our nebula worlds, which might need tons of missile bases, preferably with Mercs, if they're going to stop Meklar fleets that come their way. Or something. The key strategic point is that we need to find a way to take the fight to the Meklar, I think....]
That's my assessment anyway. It's always possible I'm missing something, or that my calculations are wrong! Whatever course you take, good luck!
(January 17th, 2019, 04:57)RefSteel Wrote: On ship sizes:
[snip]
So having gone through it ... I think the large ships are the way to go,
I had a look at your design, and want to add some thoughts of my own.
My calc show the medium and large designs as much closer in cost effectiveness - your large is 732BC, the medium you describe is 126BC, so you can build 5x as many mediums. Swap in a sub-light engine instead of fusion, and it's 112BC, and 6x as many can be built. This gives you 18 ion cannons instead of 20, so quite close. No battle scanner though.
On the subject of the Battle Scanner, is it needed on the large? It could be swapped out for two more blasters at the same cost.
Thanks for the thoughts, Guiness! You made me realize I hadn't shown all my work when I listed my conclusions. I'll start by answering the question: Yes, the Battle Scanner is absolutely needed on the Large. It's a big part of the reason that ship is so much better for this purpose than the other available options. Here's why:
First of all, a Battle Scanner adds +1 attack value to the ship. The Ajax bombers have beam defense of 3, and our best battle computer gives attack level 3, so the Battle Scanner alone improves to-hit chances from 50% to 60%. So 18 cannons on ships without battle scanners would hit (on average) 9 times per round, 22 cannons on a ship without a battle scanner would hit (on average) 11 times per round, and 20 cannons on a ship with a battle scanner would average 12 hits per round. (I used this specific example, but on a ship with 20 guns, +1 attack is better than +2 guns as long as your odds of hitting are high enough for it to help at all!)
But I said it would be twice as good as the mediums, specifically in terms of damage to Ajax bombers prior to their arrival at the planet. That's also because of the battle scanner! In addition to the attack bonus (which adds to initiative itself) it gives the ship a special +3 initiative bonus. Without it, the Ajax bombers (which do have battle scanners) would move before we do, and move a second time before we could fire at them, with the result that we would only get two shots in on them before they reached (and dropped a round of bombs on) our planet. But if our ship has a battle scanner and Maneuver Class 4 to allow a 3-space advance (not possible with Sublights unless we use a relatively expensive stabilizer) and BC 3*, then we can move first, and move just close enough to fire on them after their first move, allowing us to get three volleys in before they can drop any bombs. So the large I designed ends up hitting them (on average) 12 x 3 = 36 times before they can reach the planet, whereas mediums carrying 18 total cannons would hit 9 x 2 = 18 times before the first bombs fall.
* - or even BC 2, but see above for the value of higher attack level.
I definitely recommend against using sublight drives in any case. If a ship arrives a turn (or more!) too late to a battle due to lower strategic speed, it does zero damage to enemy fleets in the course of that battle!
That's not to say that my suggestions above are the best though. Just for instance, especially if we trade for Merculites, it's possible that some new 2-rack missile boats (which shouldn't need shields) would make for a better medium design, at least for purposes of this battle. (I didn't look into those.)
I'm not going to do the turn-by-turn report style this time, I hope it's more fun to read that way.
FIrst of all, you'll be glad to know that no bombs at all hit Silicoid colonies. However, an even bigger fleet is now on its way to ultra-poor Whynil, and our fleet that defended Bootis is unavailable due to weedy moves The Psilons first cancelled our NAP, and then declared outright war towards the end of my turnset, but until they actually research some kind of bomb, we won't have to worry too much. The Psilons agree with me on that point and haven't sent any fleets at all against us yet.
My first action was to give Zortium Armor to the Humans in exchange for Merculite Missiles. That beefs up our missile bases, and raises the question whether to use RefSteel's design (which I named Boulder 1.0), or a missile boat. Here's the design I came up with which I named Avalanche 2:
The Boulder costs roughly 7 times as much. A salvo from an Avalanche would deal on average 16.5 points of damage to an Ajax, while a Boulder deals on average 60 damage, but has the (minor ) advantage of having more than two attacks per battle, of course. I decided to rely on Avalanches to kill the Ajax before they'd arrive at the planet, and use the Boulder to mop up the rest. I used the stockpiled production at Jinga to build two Boulders and produced Avalanches otherwise at the various planets in the neighbourhood of Bootis. Robotic Controls IV and Terraforming+40 finished early on, and I switched planets to terraforming and industry once their ships wouldn't arrive on Bootis in time. All in all, there's still a lot to be done on that front, since I also didn't want to neglect tech spending completely. New tech choices were BC5 (which I picked) or ECM5 in Computers, while Planetology offered only Cloning, which is great to have, of course.
I pressed F9 every turn to cycle through all planets with incoming enemy fleets. Otherwise, I would surely have missed these guys (2432):
No Ajax, so this problem was easily solved with some more missile bases. I spotted some more attack fleets, but mostly lone Annihilator ships which only pack Gatling Lasers and are thus easily repelled by missile bases. Unfortunately, the Meklars were targeting ultra-poor Whynil also, which I propped up with a Boulder from Chryslon.
The Psilons cancelled our NAP between 2432 and 2433, clearly gearing up for a classic MOO1 frontier war, but never sent any fleets, likely because they lack effective bombs:
The Meklar fleet arrived at Bootis exactly on the ETA, in 3435. To defend, I had 2 Boulders, around 50 Avalanches, of which I lost only a couple, and a bit over 10 bases. The Ajax bombers and the Nexus were all destroyed before arriving near the planet. The Devastator could have bombed the planet, but preferred to trade blows with our Boulders instead. In the end, only 3 Annihilators limped away after my Avalanches ran out of missiles and retreated. On the same turn, the Bulrathi were hit with a computer virus, destroying over 8000 RP in weapons research. We're pretty lucky with random events this game!
After the danger to Bootis was averted, I ordered terraforming and more factory construction there. I though about putting some of its production into tech, but decided against it because new factories on Bootis while pay themselves back twice as fast than on other planets. (Once we finally turn them over to tech, that is.) In 3436, I received threats from all three races that were still willing to speak to us: The Humans, Sakkras, and Bulrathis. They all complained that we're expanding to fast... I guess that was triggered by our recent increase in population capacity?
In 2437, I decided that Omega-V bombs are too far off, and we should take the battle to the Meklars soon, so I designed a bomber:
Meklar bases have 125 HP (Andrium Armor), only 4 Shield, and a defense of 4 (1 base + 3 from ECM), so a bomb deals on average 3.6 damage with a chance of 40% to hit. So on average, those ships would need to drop 86 bombs to destroy a Meklar base. I started producing them on Jinga and Thrax (eyeing Darrian with only had 10 bases). I sent our fleet from Bootis to Jinga to provide an escort for the bombers. That probably was a mistake, though.
Towards the end of my turnset, I had finally some success in espionage, but with disappointing results: Hyper-V Rockets from the Meklars, Range-5 fuel cells from the Humans, and Anti-missile Rockets from the Bulrathis. This resulted in a threat from the Bulrathis. (I thought two threats = war declaration? Did the one about our expansion not count somehow?) I considered stopping espionage, but then I noticed that they have Anti-matter Bombs and decided that I want those. The Psilons declared an open war, but still made no moves and still lack bombs.
In 2438, I spotted a huge Meklar fleet heading to Whynil:
The fleet from Bootis was still en route to Jinga and probably won't be there in time. So I ordered some more avalanches to Whynil (which still has a Boulder from earlier). I don't know if it'll be enough to kill all the bombers before they reach the planet. Whynil is completely defenseless. Also almost completely useless, except that it's worth a bunch of votes, of course! So I have to leave the next player with an even bigger problem that I started with...
There's still some terraforming work left, and a lot of factory construction. Or maybe you can use the newly-unemployed population to invade Meklar worlds.
We have a lot of missile boats (but not where we need them ) and a few bombers.
Watch the Psilon spy reports and prepare for some trouble when they get bombs.
Looks good from here, RFS-81! I should also note that if Meklar base defenses haven't increased, 50 of those new Avalanches should be able to take down most (though not quite all) of Darrian's ten bases all by themselves!
Also, as it's been nearly 24 hours: Do you need a skip, Ianus? It's been a while since we heard from you in here, although I realize we've (nearly) all needed some extra time to play the turns this round.
2440-2450
Where has the time gone? Suddenly 2440 seems a lot later into the game than 2400 when I passed over power last time around. I would say that it is time to start thinking about the end-game for our people. We are in a strong position right now, but we haven’t expanded our empire in the last ~70 years. Luckily, for our slow-growing rocks even a span of 70 years is a blink of the eye. And even though our expansion has been stalled we have certainly not been busy. The governing Henge has done a wonderful collective job responding to threats and pressures from our opponents. After the initial losses to the Meklar we have held firm and turned back even the most egregious threats without significant damage. And now, at last we are ready for war. Like individual stones combining to form an unstoppable avalanche all of our technological advances and infrastructure builds have combined to prepare us to explode into action.
The goal for my turn set is simple: reclaim our lost planets, consolidate our holdings and keep our war effort rolling along. We have been pushed around for FAR too long, but that ends here and now!
2440
Where to begin? There are fleets flying everywhere, our planets all need to build additional factories, and I’m ready to start taking it to the Meklar. Darrian will my first target, with only 10 bases defending 30 million population and 150 (!!!) factories we should get a really good tech haul. The Meklar have Ion Rifles, Andrium Battle Suits and Personal Deflector shields. Comparing that to our own Hand Lasers, Zortium Battle Suits and Personal Deflectors gives the Meks at least a +15 on top of their defender bonus, which means that we will have to commit significant troop numbers to take even a size 30 planet. That isn’t really sustainable for our slow growth. In an effort to close that gap I readjust research spending to ~49% into Cloning and ~49% into Armored Exoskeleton; everything else just gets a tick to keep up on our progress.
Even so these techs won’t appear any time soon. I’ve suspended shipbuilding efforts for now while all worlds focus on maxing factories thanks to our new IRC level, with only our poor planets continuing research. 270 RPs won’t take us very far in a hurry, but thats the cost of progress! I TRIED to convince the Sakkra to trade me their Ion Rifle techs, but they weren’t interested. Looks like we will be doing this the hard way! At the cost of decimating the population of our empire I could field a couple hundred million troops, but after taking a look at our star fleet I’m not convinced that i would crack even the 10 bases at Darrian. Maybe I’ve been rattling my saber a little bit more than I should have been. Our tech levels are seriously lacking!
2441
Space combat: a single Annihilator attacks at Whynil and is destroyed in two shots by our bases. Action will continue there for the next couple years with the main Meklar fleet due in 2443.
Oh my! Christmas has come early!
That should help some.
I also note 3 Annihilators due to poor Guradas in 8 years. I’ll keep an eye on them and have an interdiction force in place to meet them.
2442
Now there is another token fleet coming into Cryslon! This is getting ridiculous! Someone should do something about these buggy cyborgs!
Factory construction continues at maximum capacity. Once I’ve doubled our production we should be in a much better position for war.
2443
And the main event at Whynil:
And the aftermath:
No damage to the planet, and the only loss was maybe 10 missile boats. If the Meks ever deploy a gun better than Gatling Lasers we will be in trouble, but for now we can hold off even their bomber fleets.