(May 2nd, 2024, 15:04)rgp151 Wrote: Just curious (as I haven't loaded the file and am not playing), when you said you needed to get range tech to settle some planets, I assume you mean they are within the range of Extended Fuel Tanks, but you can't reach them without. If so, then I would typically take Sub-lights in that scenario and just build a Colony Ship with Extended Fuel Tanks. Either bite the bullet and just build a Huge ship, OR get the techs needed to miniaturize enough to fit it all on a Large, which I think you get once you have around Tech level 10 in Construction and Planetology (like you've researched your second tier in Construction and Planetology). I'm not sure exactly what it takes to be able to fit it all on a Large, but anyway, that's how I usually go about it.
We have warp 2 and looking at the map I thought it better to take the range before going for warp 3 which was our only chance of advancing the tech tree. We are very close to being boxed in and LR huge designs (I checked in game before making the choice) are prohibitively expensive at the moment.
Yeah, as with most things, there are pros and cons of any choice.
I tend to really strongly go after both Nuclear and Sub-light for a couple reasons. #1 Nuclear doubles the speed of your ships, but Sub-light doubles the speed of your transports, which is also huge, both for colonizing and invading.
But also #2, so many times I don't get Fusion Drives (Warp 4) as an option, so if you skip Sub-light then don't get an option for Warp 4 it really puts you behind. I tend to feel like once you get Warp 3 you're mostly ok in terms of speed. So if you miss Warp 4 and even Warp 5 its not too bad. But being stuck at Warp 2 really sucks.
And usually when it comes to range I rely on two things: Spying and Extended Tanks. All you need to do is get one planet in an area and then it will generally open up everything else. To get Large Extended Colony Ships, especially if all you need is Standard Landings, it doesn't really take that much, so I'd typically rather push Construction and Planetology in order to build Large Extended, than take Range 6 over Sub-lights. And even though a Huge Colony Ship may look like its going to take a long time, it often still takes less than the time it takes to research more range. Of course things are situational.
And again, for range I pretty much always avoid researching it unless I have to, option to acquire it from Spying instead.
But again, that's not always the best approach, and there are many ways to make it work, which is what's fun about the game
(May 5th, 2024, 01:33)RefSteel Wrote: Just noticed this:
(May 4th, 2024, 02:45)Dp101 Wrote: Wait, population becomes more efficient with better planetology?? How have I never come across this before...
I know; there's a lot of information spread out everywhere about MoO, and even Remnants doesn't make all of it visible all the time. According to the OSG, the plantetology bonus is 0.03 BC per pop per tech level - so with Death Spores bringing us to 10, each pop provides 0.5 + (10 x 0.03) = 0.8 BC per pop. (Tech level is more complicated than "your highest level tech" but that's an okay first approximation.) RotP seems to retain this rule, based on the numbers I'm seeing in-game.
Quote:the stuff about IRC in RotP definitely matches observations at least, regarding all planets building up to 2x pop before going through refit of everything at once (which happily means that IRC3 from an artifacts world on turn 3 doesn't actually end your game).
Ah - cool! I'll have to think about all the impacts of that some more....
And also: I've...
GOT IT!
Inherited Turn Report:
(Newtvember 18th)
Breaking news today as the Sssslauran Conclave election resulted in a major upset by the narrowest of voting margins! The odds-on favorite, a one-time incumbent now nearer to two centuries of age than to one, may have lost the decisive swing votes with a now-infamous campaign interview which included the grumbling confession, "I never asked for another term as Emperor or Head Mucky Muck or Conclavistador In Chief or whatever everybody's supposed to be calling it this week. It was just the rest of the old guard claiming they needed me. They don't need an emperor like this old bundle of scales. By the time this coming term is over, if I make it that long, I will have lived in three different centuries - by any of our calendars. What we need is somebody who has some remote idea of what the galaxy is like today, and what we can do about it. If you ask me."
Following the election, the Conclave will be led by another teal-colored lizard: Newly-elected Refssss was not yet hatched form an egg that had not yet been laid when his opponent last won an election, and his success comes partly because and partly in spite of a youthful reputation for iconoclasm and an air of mystery: Eager, energetic, and focused on his work, he avoids the public spotlight to such an extent that his campaign has been run mostly at second hand while he concentrates on devising creative though often impractical and sometimes impracticable schemes to present in quiet, often highly-technical language to fellow lawmakers. Cornered for an interview immediately after his election, the young, inexperienced Refssss thrashed his tail nervously and said, "I'll do my best to figure this out. But it seems like what the Conclave wants is change."
It's easy to see why. In the course of the several decades, a combination of questionable research priorities, inefficient industrial spending, errors of timing, and the construction and maintenance of a rapidly-obsoleting, passive combat fleet has cost the Conclave much of the advantage they had built up in the previous century, permitting the machine-people of Meklon to nearly catch them in most important categories while the insectile hivemind of Kholdan pulled back ahead - in spite of those rivals being lately embroiled in what to date has been a totally unproductive war. The status of the seven other empires rumored to control the remainder of the galaxy meanwhile can only be guessed at, with one or more potentially outstripping even the hivemind in knowledge and power. Numerous Conclave power brokers are indeed calling for change, demanding that their own favored policies be pushed through immediately, insisting that only those will establish a decisive advantage for the Conclave sufficiently quickly. If indeed the need for change is in the air however, Refssss might have been expected to win more handily ... if he hadn't been so new to the galaxy as to leave many - perhaps including Refssss himself - wondering whether he actually had any idea of how to run an empire - or, of course, a Conclave - in the galaxy to which he was so new.
----
(Iguanuary 29th)
Captain's Private Log: I received word from Admiral Ssassafrass at 0700 hours that we're to head coreward to Garuga immediately. I asked who our relief would be at the Shuvirth system, and she said not to wait for a relief ship; if the Meks haven't scouted the burning fireball of a planet we've been orbiting yet, they're welcome to do it now. I didn't bother to ask who'd relieve the long-range laser ship at Apophis whenever the lab lizards turn out stable irridium fuel so it can go off and explore; I knew the answer would be classified even if it wasn't probably nobody. All I have are my own orders, but there's enough back-channel scuttlebutt around the fleet that I get the sense of a general movement coreward for just about everybody. Just about: Our fighters and scouts aren't going. From what I hear, every one of them is getting broken down for parts.
I've heard the idea is that we can have some quick little Brookesia 2.0 fighters to take their place - faster everywhere, and with better targeting systems - but I'm not betting much on them. They'd still be armed with lasers, and if it takes too much longer before our ships can mount those ion cannons that are supposed to be so advanced and everything, we're going to have a lot more problems than some modern eggshell laser fighters can possibly handle. We might build some, as a token gesture, but I hope we never have to. Really, I think this whole move is just a gesture toward modernizing the fleet: Warp-1 starships are so slow, they just get in the way.
One other thing I'm hearing: While we're all headed coreward, we've got civilians going the opposite way. Sure, that makes sense with Parath out on the rim and transports heading out in advance so people will be able to land there, especially with so many leaving Avantador, poor and dry enough that maybe nobody wants to live there anyway. There is supposedly a war going on between the bugs and chines though, and their only realistic point of contact is near the core. I'm not saying command is worried about spill-over or anything - but I'm keeping my eyes open anyway. With this coreward move, there's a chance we could see action - before our missile cruiser hits the scrap heap too.
----
(Mauremysch 12th)
Dr. Vrazssoom, for the Nuclear Propulsion Laboratory: Thank you, Dr. Ssimposius. I think we can all agree that irridium fuel is the most critical technology to our immediate future as a species. It alone can enable our scoutcraft - and perhaps long-range colony ships - to to seek worlds beyond Dominion space. It is a necessary component of any hope of projecting power deeper into Dominion or Hive territory; and it is the only chance we have of discovering other races beyond our immediate neighbors in the galaxy - or of building stepping stones toward them. That's why I'm proud to announce that we are on the verge of a breakthrough, potentially by year's end, though it would likely take ten years or more without additional funding.
Dr. Ssnapdragon, for the Sssslan University Department of Environmental Studies: Well, I do appreciate the value of your field, and I hope you get that breakthrough really soon, but we're about surrounded by hostile worlds where we still can't survive - in spite of our outgoing leader's brilliant coup in bringing home the secret of living on Parath! We're so close to finding a way to survive on all these worlds, we can almost taste its scent on the air, but we need a lot more help before we can get there. It'll be the most advanced technology we know once we work it out, so there's still a pretty good road ahead. You're doing so well, you might get the job done right away, which is beautiful - but if we're going to catch up to our delicious arthropoid neighbors again, planetology funding is going to be the key.
Dr. Rockliff, for the Heralth Materials Engineering Consortium: I'm not going to pretend my work is quite as vital to our immediate future as either of yours, doctors, but consider the effects of duralloy manufacturing on the development of long-range starships - particularly with the new, advanced bases you're working on, Dr. Ssnapdragon - even when it's not used on the ships directly. Consider all the improvements to starship engineering that will be possible once we unlock its secrets! And we're so close! A few more years and a little luck could bring us home on this!
Dr. Ssniktslash, for the Avantador Weapons Testing Facility: Listen, I know we're hoping not to need to fight anybody and our neighbors are at war with each other, but what you have to remember is they have no colonies within transport range of each other! If they fight each other at all, it'll be at the little unexplored red star by the core unless they're willing to cram reserve fuel tanks on their combat fleets and try to glass each other's planets from space! So they're building up their fleets without any actual combat attrition, with us standing in between, and our best beam ships are pewpewing with lasers. We're so desperate for firepower, we actually have five missile cruisers flying around trying to accomplish something - mostly with overstuffed racks of hyper-V rockets! Just a smidge more funding will give us a chance at developing ion cannons, and then at least if we have to, we'll be able to build ships with teeth!
Dr. Ssyberscale, for the Jeruth University EECS department: So yeah, I get all of that, and I know it'll be a while before we have the electronic countermeasures we're theoretically working on right now - and then a lot longer than that before we can get some kind of technology we actually care about, frankly. But consider this:
We're not even trying to get a spy into Hive space - not yet anyway - because their computer technology was known to be more advanced seven years ago than ours is today, and we've let them get so much more powerful than us that risking a war against them right now, while they're stalled against the Meklar as Dr. Ssniktslash so wisely points out, is unappetizing to nearly everybody. We're reduced to spying on the machine Dominion, hoping to pick up some of their computer technology, with all the risks that entails - although at least our chances of a breakthrough there have to be better than for the ion cannons this year. So, yes, I understand why our funding is being suspended, and the field mechanics teams' too - but don't let it stagnate forever. We can't afford to fall too far behind for too long here!
Dr. Pleesstaybak, for the Tessith Field Mechanics Laboratory: But ... but we're close! We're kind of close, like as close as Dr. Rockliff - and ... and shields are pretty!
Dr. Ssnapdragon: The main idea I think we all should carry home here is this: Don't do things by half measures! If four new planetology laboratories are worth more to us right now than five new electronics labs, like now, don't make tentative little shifts in spending and leave the rest where it is; commit to planetology, and then you can fund electronics again when you need it. And if the five electronics labs are better than four planetology labs, fund the EECS department right to the one-sixth union mandate - or beyond if four EECS labs are better than four of another kind of lab that's already over the mandate.
Dr. Vrazssoom: Also that propulsion and planetology are of special importance, especially thanks to our exceptional capabilities in your particular field.
Dr. Ssnapdragon: Yes, that too.
Dr. Pleesstaybak: But shields are pretty!
Full report hopefully tomorrow night. (Hopefully!)
Damn, roasting past turnsets and not mentioning the proposed trade at all lol. I get what you mean regarding research, I just don’t really like losing RP to inefficiency via lopsided spending but it’s definitely the case that here it makes sense. What’s the reason to pull back the ER ships? I kinda liked having the ability to keep track of any sudden colonisation efforts. Is ship maintenance cheaper over our own worlds or something? I considered scrapping the missile boats due to their size and relative lack of utility + some thoughts of using the generated reserve on factory refitting, but I was kinda worried about rocking the boat too much, didn’t want this to become a SG that’s just having people override each other’s decisions too much (not to accuse anyone else of this, just that I didn’t want to do it 2 turnsets in a row if not super necessary).
Debating things (and sometimes changing our collective minds with each turn set ) is part of the fun of SGs. It is good to see and learn from different play styles.
Good luck, RefSteel! I am getting worried about how strong the Hive is getting. The Meklonar are less of a threat, but are presumably still building out all their factories and will continue getting more powerful with time. Hopefully we can stay ahead in Planetology and grab a bunch more worlds before our neighbors can do anything with them.
Yikes; sorry: I didn't intend to roast the previous players - at least not unless you count me among them, and first and foremost at that! Most of the mistakes we made - even if I've identified them correctly - were made either by me or at least in part at my suggestion or on my advice. It's a problem with writing a story for my turns: In calling attention to our sagging graphs, I had to come up with some reason for them, mostly for storytelling purposes, and went with the possibilities I came up with off the cuff, on the spot, which may or may not be at all accurate. Remember, I'm not actually at all experienced with Remnants' economy, and though I'm learning and now feel like I have a much better idea than I did fifty turns ago, I can still easily be wrong about lots of things!
As for pulling the Extended Range ships back, I ... don't think I did? When I said I was sending everything coreward, I meant toward the core of the galaxy - up toward the top of the screen - to or beyond Avantador. The ones at Mesarth (with nowhere to scout in that part of space that isn't a Klackon world) are heading up to see if they can get a look at the unscouted nebula colony with the white flag and the bug ship in orbit. The one at Rinneth is moving up to our homeworld in one turn, en route to redeployment closer to the front. The ones at Tessith (and Roluth, I think?) are heading to our Poor point world of Avantador en route to redeployment either to meet the others at that white flag world or elsewhere, depending on what becomes possible when. The ones already at Avantador are headed for the Avrae asteroid field so they'll be closer to unscouted stars within range 9 whenever Irridium comes in. The one at Apophis is holding in place, likewise hoping to go check something out when we have R6, but I may very well pull that one in as far as Shuvirth if the armed Meklar ship in the area indeed seems to be heading for it: If I wait for battle to happen and am forced to retreat (and I'm not expecting one LR Laser ship like this to win a fight with a real combat ship) it would be forced to retreat all the way back to one of our colonies, and I'd rather have it available to run toward new stars ASAP. The ships technically heading from unclaimed stars to our colonies are, I think, one from Roluth and the missile boat from Shuvirth, but really those are just waypoints. The ships heading from our colonies to unclaimed stars are ... I think it's 11 ER Laser boats? Something like that. Don't worry: I'm (mostly) not retreating!
And the missile cruisers are also moving in that direction. I scrapped our few warp-1 Scouts and five warp-1 Fighters, but I'm keeping the missile boats around for now, for basically the same reasons you did - and because we probably need to have some kind of combat fleet while we wait for decent combat tech to come in (and then for a real fleet to be built, if we do decide to build one any time soon). [EDIT: Plus, in hindsight, it was probably a mistake to scrap the ships I did so soon. It only saves a few BC in maintenance, I changed my mind after doing so about building new ships in their design slots right away, and they could have at least sat over the worlds they were at while we waited for others to arrive.]
(May 5th, 2024, 15:50)haphazard1 Wrote: Good luck, RefSteel! I am getting worried about how strong the Hive is getting. The Meklonar are less of a threat, but are presumably still building out all their factories and will continue getting more powerful with time. Hopefully we can stay ahead in Planetology and grab a bunch more worlds before our neighbors can do anything with them.
Thanks, haphazard! That's the plan - let's see if I can execute it. But in terms of longer-term strategy ... I think we can't wait too much longer before we go on the offensive unless something significant changes. Probably not during my turn set, but how long can we afford to wait? Right now, I'm thinking our best target would be the machines, but I may be very much mistaken here; any thoughts from the rest of the crew on whether that sounds right or feasible or (if we do act soon) how soon "soon" should be?
[EDIT: In terms of "how soon," I don't necessarily mean in terms of turns, which I couldn't really guess anyway. I mean something like "wait for at least sublight drives" or "as soon as we can get there with ion gunners, and nuclear bombers, and transports" or "only after we've built up all our future hostile systems" or "we've delayed too much already - start building an attack fleet now with what we've got!" - or whatever else makes sense.]
My vote for when to attack will be after we’ve stood up those hostile worlds - I don’t want to have to do so during a war, and I also don’t want to lose them on account of being busy with other things. Also would like better bombs and real weapons but that goes without saying.
Anyways, sorry for misinterpreting ship paths, I’m out rn since I’m on a trip and as such I can’t open up the file to check names.
Also, um, unless I missed it you still haven’t expressed an opinion on the terraforming +10 for II9 trade?
Put me in the "need Ion Cannon first" camp as far as going on offense. I don't think we can wait for a better bomb, unless we can somehow get one in trade or by spying. It would just take too long. If the AIs get Planetary Shield 5 then we will be in trouble, but hopefully our spies can warn us if that happens.
(May 5th, 2024, 17:24)Dp101 Wrote: My vote for when to attack will be after we’ve stood up those hostile worlds - I don’t want to have to do so during a war, and I also don’t want to lose them on account of being busy with other things. Also would like better bombs and real weapons but that goes without saying.
Ah - good point; I'm used to MoO, where AIs will completely ignore worlds they can't colonize. Here of course, if the AI sees an ill-defended hostile world, they may well try to glass it, I imagine.
Quote:Anyways, sorry for misinterpreting ship paths, I’m out rn since I’m on a trip and as such I can’t open up the file to check names.
No worries; it was a good question, and I can see how it could have appeared that way from the screeny!
Quote:Also, um, unless I missed it you still haven’t expressed an opinion on the terraforming +10 for II9 trade?
Oof. I'm doing a lousy job at communicating (i.e. in this case, failing to even post anything when discussion would have been cool and hearing more would have helped me quite a bit) - sorry. I think trading II9 for T+10 at the start of my set would have been a good move, but I had it in my head that the (MoO) AI gets upset if you pester them too often, so I was going to wait a few turns before doing any diplomacy ... all without even knowing if the Remnants AI even behaves that way! Then because I was mentally putting diplomacy off, I also skipped over discussing it, which was especially silly. So:
- All our worlds were pretty close to max population, and all were maxed on factories except the Poor world, another nearby that was nearly maxed, and one that was at 2xpop factories but hadn't yet refitted. IT+10 would let us grow more population both to do work and to put on transports without leaving idle factories, and would allow us to build more factories later and increase our total output by something like ~15% I think.
- IT+10 is already in our tree, and we can research it extremely quickly, but the trade would still save us probably ~200 BC of research costs and let us start benefiting sooner - and the ~200BC would specifically be devoted to Planetology research, allowing us to get Soil Enrichment or Radiated or Antidote or IT+40 sooner without giving up (as much of) the 25% research bonus.
- New Mekl(on)ar worlds will benefit a lot from II9, but their existing core worlds will benefit less from it than others would even when they get more-advanced RC. And I think we can afford to give the Meks a factory production boost: If we can conquer some of their newer worlds soon, more factories for us! And even if not, they're well behind (and at war with) the bugs. When either of them eventually learns to reach each other, the Meklar being a bit stronger and better able to avoid just being absorbed right away would be a good thing!
I've already played 4 turns now before writing all of this out though, and I have another, somewhat related dilemma: I suspect that my sense of timing is way off for RotP. In MoO, a 30-turn return on investment for factory building is iffy, but (almost) everything (starting with tech beyond the first tier) in Remnants feels slow to me. In a MoO impossible game as the Sakkra, I'd probably already have something from the Radiated tier by T100, and one or more of the AIs with their giant production boosts would probably still be further ahead of me than the Klackons are ahead of us here. This makes sense: To allow time for things to develop in a larger galaxy, tech progress has to be slower, and then RC factories have to be slower too so there's a decision to be made about how to spend your peaceful resources when. But if so, and if 30 turns is a good return time, I should focus more on maxing factories and not let the presence or absence of better IIT affect that too much (which consequently also makes II7 a less-attractive tech at its tier).
Except. There are exceptions to the slow pace: New colonies and new (RC2) factories go up as fast as ever. So too for conquest (although if conquered colonies somehow lose all their factories as rpg151 has reported, that changes some of the calculus quite a bit...) - which would mean that the name of the game would be Expand Constantly by Any Means Necessary.
In either case, unless I'm wrong on one or both counts, I'm inclined to give II7 a miss and pick something military - like say the more-expensive Autorepair - for our next Construction pick. Which is relevant because it's ... kind of come up already.
Ugh, forum ate my post. Short version: AI typically won’t refuse any diplo due to frequent contact except for trying to sign a trade deal and then update it in the same interaction. Tech decision, wasn’t said explicitly but I think it’s II7 vs auto-repair? If so I’d grab the special, there’s lots of options to get more improved industrial stuff later.
(May 5th, 2024, 19:51)haphazard1 Wrote: Put me in the "need Ion Cannon first" camp as far as going on offense. I don't think we can wait for a better bomb, unless we can somehow get one in trade or by spying. It would just take too long. If the AIs get Planetary Shield 5 then we will be in trouble, but hopefully our spies can warn us if that happens.
Cool - that definitely makes sense. And....
(May 5th, 2024, 21:41)Dp101 Wrote: Ugh, forum ate my post. Short version: AI typically won’t refuse any diplo due to frequent contact except for trying to sign a trade deal and then update it in the same interaction. Tech decision, wasn’t said explicitly but I think it’s II7 vs auto-repair? If so I’d grab the special, there’s lots of options to get more improved industrial stuff later.
Argh; I hate it when the forum does that! The diplo information is good to know, and you're correct about the tech decision, but since I have some time before Brian's ready to play, I'll pause here for a moment and give more detail in a...
Memorandum to all scanning staff and intelligence divisions: Can any of you tell me what in the name of the seventh head of Tiamat this is supposed to be?
What I'm getting from your read-outs is that some heretofore unknown alien species just visited the Machine Dominion at the 41 Aries system and had to beat a hasty retreat from the possible bases and armed Dominion fleet. I get that probably we're just using our own ship images as placeholders for whoever this turns out to be, and they haven't built ships tha look identical to ours by sheer coincidence. But what - is - this? There's another identical reading near Meklon, except that the scan says it's cruising hyperspace toward someplace like Askook, Garuga, or Taenth, but I need to know more about what that reading is! I get that our scanners are limited and we have incomplete information - but you have to tell me what information we're getting and what you're making up! This display is just vague enough - and just incorrect enough, with our own ship types displayed - that I don't even know what parts of it I can trust! Both are presenting as identical small ships of ours. So are those place-holders for one small ship apiece of unknown design, for one ship apiece of unknown design and size, or for unknown fleets of completely unknown composition except that there's something out there? Probably it's the first one and that would be clear if there were multiple ships in the fleet, but I can't tell from this! Or am I wrong about the whole place-holder thing? Is there another faction in the galaxy that makes ship that look identical to our own? I know xenoengineering experts claim would theoretically be possible in a sufficiently-large galaxy, but I thought we were below the threshold for that. And finally, will one of you scanner lay-abouts tell me what you mean when you throw that "armed" designation onto an enemy fleet? Does that mean it might be armed as far as we know but it also might not be, or that it is definitely armed with something but a ship without the designation still might be, or that weapons systems have such powerful and obvious hyperscanner signatures that you can tell whether there are armed ships in a fleet with perfect accuracy even when you don't know anything else about their load-out? I can handle any of those situations, but I need to know which, or I'm going to start stomping heads around here!
- Dr. Sspyydi Vrazssoom, Galactic Standard Cycle 102 -
For those of you who are aware of the importance and serious nature of the work we do at the NPL on Rinnenth, please be aware that the holo-image display is showing examples of the many engine classes that can benefit from the irridium fuel refinement process we've just developed at the lab.
For those with a different turn of mind, if you must insist on reporting that we were showing off how stable our new irridium fuel is by pouring it into plastic water bottles and carrying them around, at least please also include my categorical denial. This is entirely serious business we're involved in here, and we're deeply proud of our contribution to the future of the Conclave - and eager to get to work on new engine technology: A new class of engines that we believe will be able to achieve such tight arcs through the curve of hyperspace for short bursts as to briefly surpass the so-called light barrier, making microjumps in less time than it takes to project light itself through hyperspace for interstellar communication. With a greater rate of power, some theorists claim there may be no limit to the speed with which future engines could drive ships through hyperspace, and even now they would improve our state of the art substantially.
- Chief Gardener Priizo Issplan, Galactic Standard Cycle 103 -
Well, I've never had a challenge like this one before, and I can't wait to get started! We're finally just about to touch down on Parath 5!
The place is completely barren of water and life as far as the eye can see through the dust-choked atmosphere, with much-weathered mountain crags towering over spacedust dunes stretching to the horizon, whipped up by the winds roaring constantly between the day and night sides of the planet at different altitudes as it slowly spins. If it weren't for the Hive technology picked up during the previous Conclave administration - you can clearly seen their influence in the design of our ship - none of us would be able to live here at all except for brief scouting visits with full environmental suits. Now though, we'll be able to build domes strong enough to protect us from the constant dust storms and frigid nights, not just for a moment or a single night but for the foreseeable future: Us, and the hydroponic plants we'll be growing to sustain us here, and eventually even labs and factories! We'll build our domes into virtual gardens even on this huge, barren, dust-covered rock!
And when I say we, I'm not just talking about the bare two million of us, nor even just the hatchlings from the eggs we'll be laying down: Millions more are setting out now to join us from Valstrath and Heralth, making room on their own worlds for transports sent from neighboring stars in anticipation of this moment! We'll have to wait a few more years for the bulk of our people to arrive, but more than twenty million are already en route to Valstrath from Avantador and Tessith, to take over at Valstrath's factories after we've been established here a few years and the main wave of future colonists is ready to come join us here!
We're not the only new arrivals either: The long-range laser ship from Apophis just got back to Shuvirth, sent as soon as it became obvious a Meklonar destroyer would be showing up at its old post the next year. Coincidentally, it got there at right about the same time the big fleet of its sister ships hit the asteroid field at Avrae, so all those ships are fanning out to stars recently brought into their range by irridium fuel! I love the way our galactic maps display this too, with the whole stack of ships from Avrae reaching halfway to Meklon on the screen. It's a good thing nobody's nominating me as Conclave director, because scouting like this is really important, and me, I can't take anything but plants seriously. Put me in charge, and I'd see how many scouts I can stack in one system, and send them all out to different stars simultaneously, just to see a map screen where - say - one of the ships departing from 12 Crater, heading out on the long hyperjump to Garuga, would look at a glance like it was just making the short, easy jump from Valstrath to Garuga!
I notice one of the ships in that stack is heading back down to Askook though, maybe in hopes of meeting the mysterious white ship or fleet or whatever is hanging out there and not letting us see what it really is - like the other two further coreward, around Mek space. Of course we might meet new friends anyway at one of stars our ships will be scouting in the next few years, but it seems starfleet command doesn't want to miss any chances. And then of course there's that nebula star with a bunch more of our long-range ships on the way. What's exciting everybody about that one is that it looks like the Klackon cruiser that was hanging around just vacated the place! I hate this type of nebula (don't get me started, okay?) but it's still an opportunity, and our one remaining colony ship, long-range tanks and all, is going up to check it out with an escort, even though they'll get there a year ahead of the ships from Mesarth! That star could be anything, including twelve kinds of cool, so send the fleet that's heading there good luck!
- Dr. Lokanssiss Ssniktslash, Galactic Standard Cycle 104 -
Oh, hey, good news, fellow Ssslaurians: Your entire starfleet is now officially obsolete!
Yeah, that thing's a double-barrelled ion cannon: One barrel for positive, one for negative stream. Target takes the hit from subatomics at relativistic speeds, then tears itself apart on the electron exchange; you get me? But listen, I'm not here to steal the spotlight. The big news here is duralloy. Good old Dr. Ssolidaza Rocklif from down Heralth way worked his tail off getting this done on time. I mean, yeah, it'll regenerate, but that's dedication! All a lizard like me can do is put her claws together in applause - and keep showing off these sweet new guns we made!
Real question though: What's next? Rocklif's got the whole slate from battle suits to indutstrial tech to self-repairing ships to doubling down on the waste reduction from years ago, and in spite of old plans to the contrary, I think he's with me on leaning toward the one for spaceships that does something cool! And I can go back for my lovely, beautiful, sadly-overlooked NPGs or forward with whole new ideas, like a new version of our hyper-rockets that split into five when they're launched or an ion rifle design for our troops on the ground. Or we could go for a mass driver that's kind of like my beloved NPGs but bigger and more expensive and therefore worse, so let's not, or for a more-advanced missile where we can get fewer warheads into space but they're each faster and hit harder with better aim. Me, I'm thinking of going with scatters - the fastest way to really cool new technology - but that stuff would be a long way off, and I'm curious to know what other lizards have to say!
Looking pretty good, RefSteel. A new colony and multiple new techs are always welcome news.
For weapons, the scatter packs sound good. It upgrades our missile bases and they should remain effective for a while yet. A boost to ground troops would be nice, but is probably not the most urgent need. Harder hitting missiles would also be good, but are much more expensive than the scatter packs. I would avoid going back for NPGs, as we have a beam option with Ion Cannon and I think it is better to advance the tree.
Construction...hmmm. Battle suits are OK but again ground combat is not our most urgent problem. Industrisl tech and clean up are good to have, but Auto Repair is a big boost for ship-to-ship combat and potentially for large bombers as well. I would go for Auto Repair.
) is part of the fun of SGs. It is good to see and learn from different play styles.
A new colony and multiple new techs are always welcome news.