OSG 29B - The Socially-Awkward Diplomats

[RefSteel]

I'm going to assume that a massive ongoing offensive is what we want to be doing here.

This sounds like a sound and appropriate plan!

Cats: nasty guns with good aim. Putting even our new Silence designs up against them would be a war of attrition.

If you're fighting a war of attrition, you can fight it with 2-rack Merc boats and make them suffer all the attrition. But I'd rather skip the whole attrition thing by just bombing them where their fleets aren't and/or bringing enough firepower to kill them in one shot. They're also mounting no meaningful number of heavy beams and have no combat speed, so if we want to take out their fleets, a Warp Dissipator design could freeze them in their tracks (from range 3) and then heavy beamers could pound away unopposed.

So, we need enough forces for a multi-front war. In rough priority order:
- Invade the Meklar
- Hold off any attempts to re-capture those worlds (by the Meks themselves or - for example -  by the cats)
- Glass nearby rocks
- Glass bears
- Strike at cat missile bases if opportunity arises.

All sounds good to me!

Sadly, our current population excess is only useful for the first these things - I'll look at doing some shuffling, but I think it's time to re-max factories across our (non-rich) backline. We have idle pop, and that's a bad thing.

Not a bad plan, though I'd be inclined to keep moving population and ships toward the front until we swallow up the Meklar (and soon non-Radiated Silicoid planets as well) completely.

Genuine question for the next weapons tier (which we saw a few turns back): Fusion Rifle or Omega-V (I'm ignoring torpedos)? The bomb upgrade would future-proof us, but we don't need it yet - I have a feeling we won't get it on smalls for a while. Also, I'm hoping that we can pick up AM-bombs from the cats as an alternative. I'm tempted to push for more gropo tech to make our lives easier invading the Meklar, and so pick up the rifle, even although it's more expensive.

Fusion rifle is a good upgrade, but it won't be state of the art: We got Ion Stream Projectors from the Meks at Dolz. The new techs will be Phasor, Scatter Pack VII, Auto-Blaster, Pulsons, and Tachyon Beam.

Also: Your in-character story remains delightful! Thanks very much for including it!

[shallow_thought]

Eight turns in. Will finish up tomorrow. Brief summary:
- Playing warp dissipator games with annoyed cats is fun.
- Watching the Energy Pulsar in action against you is less fun if you don't notice that the enemy have it. Won't make that mistake with a fighter stack again.
- We have Wynil (from the Meks) and Celtsi (from the rocks).
- There are some glassy former Silicoid colonies on worlds that were radiated anyway.
- The primitive grunting of the bears no longer troubles the galaxy. I should really try to colonise Ursa.

- We have 18 worlds.

Do we want to claim at the vote at 2450 if we can? We're still at war with everyone, but I think we may get 2/3 on our own for Conquest anyway looking at the bars. If I get any peace offers next turn, should I take them and hope for Domination?

[RefSteel]

Eight turns in. Will finish up tomorrow. Brief summary:
- Playing warp dissipator games with annoyed cats is fun.
- Watching the Energy Pulsar in action against you is less fun if you don't notice that the enemy have it. Won't make that mistake with a fighter stack again.
- We have Wynil (from the Meks) and Celtsi (from the rocks).
- There are some glassy former Silicoid colonies on worlds that were radiated anyway.
- The primitive grunting of the bears no longer troubles the galaxy. I should really try to colonise Ursa.

- We have 18 worlds.

Do we want to claim at the vote at 2450 if we can? We're still at war with everyone, but I think we may get 2/3 on our own for Conquest anyway looking at the bars. If I get any peace offers next turn, should I take them and hope for Domination?

Sounds great! I'd be inclined to accept a domination or Conquest victory at this point, but I'll leave it up to you guys; I'm glad to play another set if needed!

[shallow_thought]

Work has gone full on "how not to do a critical software delivery" and dragged me kicking and screaming back on the project on the grounds that "he helped sort it out last time we screwed this up". The full report will therefore be delayed.

In summary, following on from my earlier report:
- Our defences held over the interturn.
- The Meklar, Alkari and Mrrshans each offered peace on turn 2449; I took them all.

In the vote the following turn, we were up against the Meklars. Our 23/39 votes was not enough for conquest, but the cats voted for us - their 3 votes just put us over the top. I took it.

I actually think that this is strictly only a "diplomatic" victory: the 18 planets announcement is not the half-way one ("leaders are already planning to merge with the might empire"). However, we're nearly over the conquest line on pop. I've kept the last save in case RefSteel or anyone else fancies pushing on, but I'm done. I really enjoyed these last turns but it took me several hours (taking extensive notes - there will be a full report), RL is getting in the way and I need to focus on the Imperium game.

Pushing on from here seems straightforward - my sketch plan is here for what it's worth.

With the peace treaties I've put a bunch of worlds back into builder mode, but the rocks are now isolated. Any problems I had through being overstretched should be doubly solved - new huges just arriving and far fewer enemies. Cryslon should be easy now that we can concentrate forces, and the rest of the Silicoid worlds are habitable except for one Inferno - and we have the tech for that. With them picked off, I'd have grabbed cloaking and Impulse drives and stuck them on fusion bombers (assuming we've got the minaturisation - I'm pretty sure we have). Switch everything to building them except for enough defensive ships to hold a handful of "range" colonies, and glass everything. With no economy, the alien fleets vanish and the bombers come back to kill off any freshly re-planted worlds. Game over.

[RFS-81]

Work has gone full on "how not to do a critical software delivery" and dragged me kicking and screaming back on the project on the grounds that "he helped sort it out last time we screwed this up".

No good deed goes unpunished

In the vote the following turn, we were up against the Meklars. Our 23/39 votes was not enough for conquest, but the cats voted for us - their 3 votes just put us over the top. I took it.

I actually think that this is strictly only a "diplomatic" victory: the 18 planets announcement is not the half-way one ("leaders are already planning to merge with the might empire"). However, we're nearly over the conquest line on pop. I've kept the last save in case RefSteel or anyone else fancies pushing on, but I'm done. I really enjoyed these last turns but it took me several hours (taking extensive notes - there will be a full report), RL is getting in the way and I need to focus on the Imperium game.

Well done! I'm looking forward to the report!

[RefSteel]

Great job, shallow_thought! I'm looking forward to the report! RB tradition holds that there are two conditions for a Domination win, and either one will do: Owning ~half the planets in the galaxy (enough to get the final diplo message) OR having at least half the galaxy's population. (Which we do.)

I largely agree with your plans to move forward, except I'd probably launch some invasions for sport, and I should note that AI fleets don't evaporate with their economy. Which doesn't matter since we can wipe them all out anway!

If RFS-81 and/or TheArchduke want to play on, I'll be happy to take the save or let one of them have a crack at it (if you post the save from 2449).

[shallow_thought]

Report is a bit of a screed I'm afraid, but I'm limited on my time for editing.
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Let's start by actually planning the tech.

If it doesn't kill aliens or help us kill aliens, then it's boring. Fortunately, the techs that we have in the percentages all help with this:

Construction: Zortrium; followed by IT5, Armored Exo or RIW40%. If we have Exo, then I'm going for it, and will actually seed. If not, whichever is the cheaper (so IT5) - we already have both IT6 and RIW60 - and turn it off.

Propulsion: Impulse drives - not really necessary for our ships, but put us over another rounding point for transports, so this about to get more emphasis. Followed by Star Gates, Range 10 and Ion drives, in increasing order of interest. We're never building gates, we have sufficient range, even better engines is a nice to have. Probably getting turned off after Impulse is in.

Weapons: Hard Beams - might be interesting to see if we can fit them on small ships. Followed by Phasor, Scatter VII, Auto Blaster, Pulson and Tachyon Beam. I'd go for Pulsons - they're a significant upgrade to Mercs. If they're not there I may head for Fusion Rifle rather than up the tiers (and Omega-V may be worth picking up too).

And the ones that are further off...

Planetology: IT60 - we have more pop than we can currently use! This is going on the back burner.

Computers: BCVII, we have III. Hmm. Meklars have ECM V, but numbers can cope with that. On the back burner at the moment, and can stay there.

Force fields: cloaking - probably needs some love (it may help beat the cats), but it's empty at the moment. Look at this after some of the other techs come in.

Potential espionage notes:
- Meklar: Planetology, Computers, Construction, Weapons, Shields, Propulsion
- Bears: Whatever
- Rocks: Planetology until we get Zortium, then Construction, Computers, ...
- Cats: Weapons, then Computers (BCIV) then ...

Immediate issues:
- invade Whynil
- cover Dolz
- cover Crypto
- cover Guradas.

I'm going to gamble that our Neutron fighters can handle the last two.

T2440
-----

Our bombers head off to glass the bear colony of Keeta. I'd love to get rid of one of the aliens outright, and they're looking like an easy target with only two planets. With nothing else incoming at Whynil, I ship both of our huges back to Dolz - it's only 1t to get between them, so I should have time to respond to problems if I keep my eyes open.

I decide to build some fighters at Artemis to cover Crypto. Endoria is building fighters to cover Guaradas. Exis can keep building a huge.

There's a smaller Meklar fleet inbound to Quayal - a few more missile bases should cope with that. A bit awkward, as it's the source of the troops for invading Whynil: 50m of them.

I shuffle pop around to try and keep the frontier worlds up during the invasion, as well as sending more to Phantos. Might as well grow at the Gaias rather than the non-Gaia. This does reduce the tech rate a bit: I reduce planetology to the minimum and switch the three techs I'm interested in to "just lit" (actually one click short in Weapons case).



T2441
-----
Meklar do get a few mediums over Whynil. We'll get a couple of GoAways there before our transports arrive next turn. Only new invasion incoming is Mrrshans at Altair. No new designs, so PSX and Mercs will handle that.

I split the new fighters at Endoria for the moment. 26 head for Guradas, 30-odd for Crypto. They will join the fighters from Artemis in a couple of turns. Artemis builds another round. Endoria switches to bombers - I want to start glassing rock planets (and Ursa). They will reloc to Phantos and be joined by a small group sitting around at Dolz.

On tech, I start dialling back on construction as it is at 20%. Will probably freeze it and weapons next turn.

T2442
-----
The Meklar mediums are tougher than I thought and they've somehow managed to get a missile base up at Whynil. I lose a GoAway but manage to destroy the ships. I have to retreat from the base though. And the Meklar have reinforced with transports. I've obviously grossly underestimated how fast they're moving and the fact that I don't necessarily get to see them before they land. Ugh. They hold the damn planet with 8 survivors. I kick myself for not sending a second wave and for not tracking this more closely.

At Dolz, the big battle begins.



And ... it could have gone better. I didn't appreciate the significance of the Energy Pulsar on the Annhilator and lost the entire stack of 201 fighters, as well as a GoAway. A couple of the older Huge design escaped, to add insult to injury.

At Crypto, a mix of Silicoid huges and larges with auto-repair and warp dissipator are untouchable by a mere 23 fighters; I retreat before I lose more than a couple. I'm going to stop building the damn things after this wave, frankly. I should be able to put 4x as many together there next turn though. My understanding is I'm allowed to re-send in the handful I've used next turn, as they don't have expendable weapons.

At Keeta, no losses (the upward bomber arc just worked - I meant to take screenies but forgot). Not sure why a warbear retreated from bombers, but I would have been happy to take afew shots from its 3 heavy blasters while bombing the planet anyway. The planet survives a round of the subsequent bombardment. The bears have a fleet inbound - unless their Punisher design has really good anti-bomber weaponry, I 'm going to see how many bears I can kill in battle from space.



At Quayal, Meklar retreat. They are the current holders of Simius, so the ships head there, which is a bit close for comfort.

Guradas founded. Some pop on its way from nearby Gaia's.



Quayal sends yet more troops to Whynil. 80 million this time (max pop 75). There will be bombers and real escorts over it this time. Grumble.

I start building more bombers at some non-rich worlds near the frontier. This reduces tech spending, but I want more Kaboom ™. I do need more escorts, but I can do a lot of damage with bombers alone if I maneuver round the fleets - so bombers first, escorts later (Exis is still building a Silence, and I'll switch Endoria to another soon). If I can simply bomb everyone else down below 1/3 of galactic pop... I would probably take that win at the end of the set.

T2443
-----
At Keeta, the bears retreat their stack from my terrifying bombers. The planet gets glassed. Given how little the bears seem able to handle the Sorry 4, I send them off to Ursa. I'd love to support them better, but the big Meklar fleet is on its way to Whynil, so I'm concentrating everything on the northern front there.

At Whynil we deal with that single missile base.

At Crypto, the Silicoid fleet has started on its way home, so the stack of fighters is more than enough to take out the lone colony ship that turns up. Love that AI weed.

At Phantos, we have Mrrshans incoming in 2 turns. This is nasty, as I don't think we can fend their ships off.



Planetary shield X takes 1000BC to build, and I've got 150 a turn. Even with reserve spending, that doesn't add up. I'm going to try to put together a force that can tackle this, by reloc-ing the Silence (due next turn) from Exis and supporting it with a Warp Dissipator design (giving up the Colony design slot for the moment). I've never used this, lets see how it goes... the Tarbaby - Large, Duralloy, Shield VII design with ARS - should be able to survive any missile and one full round from the cats (worst case), and then plink away. Endoria can build one next turn, Sol one the turn after and any more that I need (I need to get Endoria building Silences). At Phantos itself, put production into making it a Gaia to replace any bombed pop better.



I've 81 invaders incoming at Whynil, pop currently 31/77. I throw another 20 across from Dolz (only one turn away). I expect to lose 1-1 (at least), so shouldn't waste any. Pop at Dolz will be replaced from Tyr.

I ask my scientists some pointed questions about where my techs are... three sitting at 20-22%.

T2444
-----
Meklar and Silicoids have a sniff at Whynil but retreat their weak fleets. Mrrshans retreat rom Altair's 17 layer shield and Merculite bases.

We get Hard Beam. We don't have Pulsons, nor even Scatter VII. I hold course on my notes and hold back a tier, going for Fusion Rifle. We'll have to rely on Fusion Beams and special trickery for a while. I want that Gropo!



We finally have Whynil. And with it comes Controlled Toxic and slightly pointless Class VI deflectors. The former makes me think...

Hello Celtsi - you look nice for a visit, being Rich and all. With no fleet in sight to defend it, bombers are on their way.  There are a couple of GoAways as an escort - they were not going to be useful against the Mrrshans at Phantos without support, and that's a few turns away (3 for the Silence, 2 for the first TarBaby). I meant to actually send transports to invade this turn, but forgot. D'oh.

On Tech, I switch Cloaking to trickle (25% bulb full) and start seeding weapons.

More pop on its way from Dolz to top-up Whynil. With a little reserve spending (and we don't have much left at the moment - Exis and Endoria need to keep building the Silences), I reckon I can get PSX built and a base or two up before the Meklar arrive in force. Could make all the difference.

Oh, we're back in contact with the Alkari. Still at war. I restart spying as we're out of date, but the (7-year old) report only lists ECM II that we don't have, so I don't bother turning on Espionage.

At Celtsi, we take more damage from the missile bases than I expected, but clear them down.  Transports start out on their way from Darrian (3 turns), will reinforce from Palladia (2 turns) next turn.

No problem at Ursa, where the bears don't even kill a single bomber. A handful of pop survives the bombardment.

NOTE: I had really inconsistent results with my bombers against Merculites this turnset. Sometimes there was a clear problem - one of the enemy ships in way - or a mistake I could see, but a lot of the time I can't tell why I got two clean volleys off, and sometimes I didn't. Always taking the upper route... I need to do some testing another time.

At Phantos, Mrrshan guns are quite nasty - 43 million killed. I don't know if the colony will survive until help gets here. I'll risk the first Tarbaby on its own and see if I can maneuver well enough to kill them will a thousand cuts...



Bombing Silicoids makes us much more popular with the Meklar and Alkari. Go away and stop bothering us! Silicoids are short of ships, so the bomber stack heads off for one of the radiated worlds. Annoyingly, they're sending a big colony fleet to Crypto again. I suspect that once I've dealt with the cats at Phantos, I'll have to bomb it to death. I can't afford to divert any real ships right now. 50-odd fighters can be in position to meet them, and may be able to cope.



T2446
-----
Bulrathi fleet again retreats from our bombers at Ursa. A lone Bulrathi WarBear wanders into the war zone at Phantos and is destroyed by TarBabies. Then the real fight begins...
I wish I'd put a battle scanner on the TB. Oh well.

All a bit underwhelming. No problem immobilising the enemy, and destroyed their Colship, but not enough damage from two TBs to overcome even a Panther's ARS, let alone the Huge. Our huge should be arriving next turn though...

I make a stupid error and retreat the TarBaby - I meant to wait for the draw, and hope that stopped them bombing the planet. Turns out they retreat anyway. Lucky. Do immobilised ships miss their chance to bombard the planet?

Bomb out the missile bases at Selia; take quite a few losses doing so - just not enough damage to kill them all in two volleys. Start work at glassing the colony.

And that's it for the bears. The secrets of PSV are ours alone! (NOTE: actually, the Alkari get it as well by the end of the turnset). The big bomber stack heads for the Radiated hell-hole of Gienah, to kill more rocks.



Zortrium armour comes in. Armored Exo is what I wanted, which is good because it is the only choice! Will hold off researching it as I hope to steal it from Silicoid corpses soon (along with Antidote, ideally - the rocks have Doom Virus).

A smallish Meklar fleet (one huge, eight medium) are on their way from Simius to Artemis (they've held Simius for a little while now, but there are rocks about to arrive...). There's time to build PSX and bases before they get there, so I start.

Whynil is going to have one base up before the Meklar arrive - together with our fleet, should be enough.

I pack invaders from Palladia off to Celtsi as well. 105 against 49 may be overkill, but I really want to grab it and (hopefully) the Silicoid techs. They do have good armour, although no personal weapons or shields.

With Phantos temporarily cat-free, I send pop from Tyr to bring it up close to maximum.

Despite the inefficiency, I need to be able to build reserves at another (non-rich) backlines world. My production powerhouses are busy building ships - and I need to replace some lost bombers I'm afraid. Rha starts building factories, so it can do reserves if needed.

T2447
-----
Aargh. I _retreated_ my TarBarbies from Phantos didn't I, and forgot to immediately redirect them. That leaves a single Silence 4.0 against the Mrrshans (one huge, three large). This might work - it's much more maneuverable, so I may be able to out-ARS them. Fingers crossed.

I kill three Panthers easily, and the Huge retreats. Phew.

At Selia, the Silicoids annoying get a new missile base up. They also have a huge with a warp dissipator, but it retreats once the remaining bombers finish off the base. Still some losses though - I could swear these Mercs are firing before I move. BC issues? Bombers not enough to kill planet this turn, but there are some more coming out of Tyr's and Sol's factories.

The Silicoids offer peace. If this had been after my invasion of Celtsi I might have considered it...

There are 59 Mrrshan transports en-route to Phantos . I put as many random fighters as I can get there in time on their way to help. We'll have double their numbers on the ground, but let's kill what we can in space.

T2448
-----
Major battle at Whynil. Got shield and three bases up. Annoyingly, I lose the SlowSssh - I thought I could get one attack and a retreat in, but couldn't. The Silence drives the rest off (it might have struggled if the Slowssh hadn't absorbed the Mercs, although the Silence might have dodged better).

At Crypto, the Silicoids freeze and kill my fighters - but they take the Colship down with them, leaving their fleet with nothing to do. Moral victory!

I lose a few bombers at Gienah because the Silicoid huge parks in my spot above the planet. All the bases are gone now though. Gienah and Selia are now glassed, and we have grabbed Celtsi - with only 22 survivors. Glad I didn't skimp. This gains us BC IV and Cloning. Both are OK, particularly the latter. It also takes us up to 18 planets.



Note - I'm holding off ATMOSing Celtsi and Guradas so that the cats (who don't have the right tech) don't come nosing round.

The Meklar fleet (one huge, 8 medium) are coming in to Artemis in three turns - but there will be at least one missile base and their Merculites will just bounce off PSX + VII. It may be a little bit interesting holding Celtsi against the Silicoids - I send a TarBaby across to help. I need most of my forces at Phantos to hold off the cats. I'll have two more Silences off the production lines next turn - while it will take a few turns for them to get to the front lines, the Silence / Tarbaby combo can probably handle most of what's in the sky at the moment.

T2449
-----

Meklar get lightly pummelled at Whynil. A Silicoid huge forces my bomber stack away from Gienah. Turns out that the Silicoid huge is a slightly odd design. Have we seen a Kraken before? I'm glad I've got the TarBaby - it might have been able to get some bombs in if I'd had to rely on GoAways to kill it. In fact, the TarBaby can't kill it in the turns available!



An espionage hit on the cats - but no Weapons. My notes say to go for BCIV - but we have that now. I go to computers anyway and we get ECM II. Meh.

The Meklar offer peace, and this time I accept. So do the Alkari, and then the Mrrshans. Worst case is that the next player is free to chew rocks. Huh. Didn't see that coming after genociding the Bulrathi. I may regret this, as the cats have grabbed Ursa - I just didn't have a spare ship. But they're still at war with the Meklar and the Alkari, so I forecast a spuddly future there. Sadly, the rocks have failed to take Simius from the Meklar, so the borg have a world that's closer to our core than I would like.

With the sudden outbreak of peace I take the opportunity to build factories everywhere except a couple of worlds still teching. Exis and Endoria each finish a Silence and can now push the reserve. Time to put together an attack of sorts on the nearest good rock world, but this close to the handover I'll hold off doing anything too exotic.

NOTE: the actual T2449 save that I've kept is from the start of the orders phase and doesn't have my changes to the production.

T2450
-----
The vote is in. Meks - 7 for themselves. Alkari abstain. Cats, 3 for us (nice kitties), Rocks 5 for the Meks. We have 23/39 votes ourselves, which is a bit short, but the cats bring us up exactly 2/3.



And the first commands are:
- all races to stick to their own planets;
- no-one is to bother the Humans without being contacted first;
- council is on indefinite hiatus.

Final thoughts on the set: fun, busy, plenty of tactical errors. Some of that is down to inexperience, some down to the sheer amount of stuff going on, some down to just my natural carelessness. In particular, I messed up a chunk over Whynil and Dolz - it took me a couple of turns to really get engaged after taking over. I was also lucky to get away with retreating the initial TarBabies at Phantos.   Improving some of this late game stuff with the safety net of being in a clear winning position was one of the reasons I was keen to play the set, so the experience was worthwhile.

On the positive side, I feel I picked my offensive targets quite well. An argument could be made for more focus on invading the Meklar, but limited numbers of escort and defensive ships was a problem that was only coming under control by the end of the set. Given that, I was very happy to hold Phantos and keep the rocks off Crypto (with a little help from the AI's stupidity). Thanks to RefSteel for his comment earlier about using Warp Dissipator against the cats - it was a life saver.

Overall, really fun game. I think that the AI being constantly meshed in wars against each other really helped us. If the Meklar had been left to build and tech in peace, it could have been much tougher...

I'll attach the T4449 save in case anyone wants to push on and make damn sure that non of the aliens have the temerity to come calling round for tea uninvited...

[RefSteel]

Nicely done, shallow_thought - thanks for bringing us home! I'm glad the Tarbabies served us so well. Wayyyyy back when Warp Dissipators first showed up as a research option, when I noted that they're actually really good, I didn't realize we'd end up teching it after all, nor that the Cats (and to a lesser extent the Silis) would offer the perfect example of what I meant!

On the Silence and SlowSssh battle at Whynil: In addition to dodging more missiles, the Silence has seven more layers of shields! That means it takes only 30% of the damage a SlowSssh does even from the Merculites that hit! Losing a now-very-aptly-named old huge ship at this point in the game obviously isn't a big deal though. Not nearly as bad as the huge ship I lost by misplaying a combat against Meklar missile ships during my most-recent turnset anyway!

Also note that transport speeds are actually equal to our current best warp speed minus 1 (minimum 1). So Impulse engines would increase the effective speed of our 'sports from warp 3 to warp 4, and allow us to build warp 5 fleets (which wouldn't affect combat moves, but would make strategic logistics a lot easier)!

I definitely enjoyed this game as well! Thanks for all the great reporting! I'm still happy to play on if RFS-81 or TheArchduke would like, but even before looking at the save, I suspect that if I play the next set ... well, there would still be a save to pass on afterward, but I'm not sure there'd be much left for the next player to do. I'm inclined to just accept the Domination win and if anyone wants to play things out any further, let them go for it from here. I'll still be happy to answer questions and offer advice if desired, naturally!

[shallow_thought]

I'd have loved to have had Impulse drives, but it was not to be - they're at 3% in the screenshot from the first turn of the set, and I quickly got them up to 20% - and they're still there, turns later .

[RefSteel]

Yeah, I see that you emphasized them early; no problem there, except of course for the pRNG! I was just responding to this:

Impulse drives - not really necessary for our ships, but put us over another rounding point for transports

Of course you're right that they aren't really necessary, but they're great for ships, and more notably, there isn't any rounding on strategic transport speed: They just stay one speed slower than our fastest ships, not half-speed.

Also something to note on tech spending though: When do you reduce spending for a tech in the percentages? For me, it goes something like this:

- Tech I don't actually want right away: [Wherever it is right now - e.g. 1%]. Can in theory apply for a Planetary Shield when I don't have any bases, or RC3 when I have a lot more regular factories I want to build, lousy IIT, and no rich worlds, but if I run into those cases I should have planned better earlier, e.g. when I was seeding the tech. I won't actually turn off research to prevent it from coming in though if it's in the percentages. If the pRNG gives me the tech at low odds, I can spend the tech savings on whatever I wanted to accomplish before the tech came in.

- Tech I'm not excited about, where efficiency (or some other use for the production) is more important than getting it quickly: ~20%. But note getting a tech quickly can be important even if I'm excited about getting to the next rung in the field ASAP. 20% is basically the minimum amount to which I'll push a tech outside of the rare case when I don't want the tech yet.

- Tech I definitely want soon: 30-40%. Note this category would be by far the most common in a vacuum; when I slow spending down around 20-25%, it's usually (as was probably the case for you with Impulse Engines) because there are too many other high-priority things to which I want to commit the BCs.

- Tech I desperately need: 100%. Sometimes, efficiency doesn't matter. Sometimes, 97% isn't enough because getting the tech I need now is too important to risk rolling snake-eyes. Sometimes, as Thrawn pointed out up-thread, when you're going back to something much lower on the tech ladder to fill a late hold, the actual number of BCs is so small in comparison with your budget that it's better to just spend them all now than risk wasting a second turn teching the thing. I basically never actually get a modern tech all the way to 100% because it'll hit somewhere along the way, but in Imperium 37, when I had to get my colship and fighters to an important front-line world ASAP, I did this with Hydrogen fuel cells in 2335:


Not something we'd have done this late in this game, obviously! I just saw an excuse to talk about it, so I did!