OSG-24 Ideas & Interest Thread

[RefSteel]

Hmmmmm.... We may have to change that tradition of reporting over at CF if this keeps up. Save from Maniac is here!

[jmas]

Okay folks. Last night I was in no condition to play after work, but now that I have a day off (actually, I don't work again until night shift on Tuesday night), I am feeling SO much better. Got my turns played.

I read Maniac's comments and I looked at pretty much everything in-game before starting my turns. I agree with his assessment that the risk of war with the Meklar is not worth the possibility of stealing a low-level tech. What really clinched it for me is that the Meklar leader is Xenophobic, therefore, if they catch us, we will suffer twice the diplomatic penalty that we would suffer with most other leader personalities. So that could easily mean a DOW, which would be bad.

I think Maniac may have overestimated our investment in Controlled Inferno Environment. Believe me, I am gung ho about Planetology tech, especially when it opens up new planets to colonize, and I did my best to maximize interest and even invest additional RP beyond what could earn interest at times, however, the tech did not come in this turnset.

At the beginning of my turnset, the Meklar were allied to the Bulrathi and the Silicoids.

I like to keep my reports fairly straightforward. I actually micromanage and click around a lot in the game, but I don't like to share everything that ran through my head. So if you want to know something I didn't include, please just ask.

2370: I decide that Trax, although it has not yet completed its development, will build the additional fighters (PewPewPews) that Maniac suggested for Antares, because it is pretty far along in building its factories and Sssla is significantly further away.

I continue building fighters at Esper to send to Beta Ceti and at Tau Cygni (where I reduce the SHIP investment somewhat) to send to Jinga.

Pretty much every turn I routed fighters along these routes. I'm not going to mention it every time.

IT: nothing, Silicoid Barracuda is traveling SSW in its retreat from Antares.

2371: At 7 parsecs, Jinga is in range of the Meklar. Fortunately, as I finish this turn, we now have 67 total fighters at or en route to Jinga. I move one click from each of Computers and Construction to Planetology.

IT: nothing

2372: Force Fields (class II shields) are now at 1%. The Meklar are now also allied to the Humans.

2373: I increase tech investment at Tau Cygni. I took a screenshot here of the stats because our fleet strength is not too much less than the Meklar, which seems to me like a good thing since we're so up close and personal with them border-wise.



IT: we meet the Silicoids. They are allied to the Bulrathi and Meklar. Their leader is an Aggressive Technologist. (By the way, the guide says that Technologists love to spy). They have 13 planets (the Meklar have 10, we have six right now).

2374: Map:



Stats:



I note that the Meklar now have the Personal Deflector Shield, Ion Cannon, Reduced Industrial Waste 80%, and the Improved Space Scanner.

I initiate trade with the Silicoids at a middle-of-the-road value of 150 BC/turn.



I open the tech-trading option out of curiosity, but they only want to trade us IT+10 for Death Spores; I pass. I also initiate spying against the Silicoids so we can get a current report. I increase tech investment at Tau Cygni again.

2375: now the Meklar are allied to the Klackons (the alliances displayed on the Meklar screen are Bulrathi, Human, Klackons). As evidenced by the Silicoids screen, the Silicoids are not allied to the Meklar this turn.

I move a click from weapons to planetology.

A Silicoid colship is approaching Beta Ceti, unescorted. And a Meklar large ("Nexus") appeared to be approaching Endoria, which is still nowhere near completing its development, so I was pretty concerned. Seeing that we had 10 fighters to arrive at Beta Ceti within the next three turns, and 17 more in the following two turns, I route 20 of the fighters at Beta Ceti to Endoria. I also established a RELOC from Esper to Endoria and maxed SHIP investment at Esper. I thought it would be 2 to 3 turns before the Sili colship arrived, but...

IT: it arrives now to Beta Ceti! It fled without a fight.

2376: Now it looks like Esper is the destination of the Meklar large. I move a few ships from Endoria and RELOC from Tau Cygni. I decide to bring in some ships from Jinga as well, but I didn't want to overdo it, so I only moved 18. I also have Esper concentrate on DEF and I moved all tech funding (edit: leaving 1 click in other fields) to Force Fields and Weapons for the class II shields and hyper-V Rockets.

IT: we get class II shields; the only available option is the Personal Deflector Shield, at a cost of 2560.

2377: The Meklars are approaching Trax with a Nexus and a colship. Now, at last, I see that the other Nexus is actually going to Jinga. I'm glad I didn't move more ships. I return tech distribution to pretty much where it was, except that FF gets only one click for now. We now have a spy in the Silicoid empire.

They have 2 Improved Terraforming technologies (the text is cut off so we can't see which one they have besides +10); they have RC 3, Duralloy, and IIT7, and-- this turn-- they are only allied to the Bulrathi.



IT: we fight off the Meklar at Antares, destroying their Nexus large at a cost of seven fighters. Hyper-V comes in. Brace yourselves: our only options are Gatling Laser for 1000 RP (which would not let us advance) or Anti-Missile Rockets for 1440. So: no NPG, Hyper X, Fusion Bomb, or Ion Cannon. Ouch. I choose Anti-Missile Rockets on the basis that at least it allows us to advance in the weapons tree.

And, the Meklar approach us offering 225 BC/turn in trade. I declined because they are xenophobic and therefore we get only half the diplomatic benefit of positive actions with them, so in practice we're probably getting about as much diplomatic benefit as we can without the one thing every AI loves from the human player: our destroying things that belong to a mutual enemy. In my opinion trade isn't too valuable (economically) if you're not the Humans, and it loses almost all of its value if you continually reset the agreement, because the agreements take so long to mature and turn a profit. If anyone disagrees, I would suggest renegotiating the agreement very soon and then leaving it at the next level, probably until we go to war with the Meklar, because as I'm trying to say, non-Human trade agreements are really a long-term investment if you want to see any economic benefit.

2378: Trax maxes industry. I am pushing Inferno really hard, but we're at just 2% .

2379: this turn the Silicoids are allied to the Bulrathi, Meklar, and Humans, while the Meklar are allied to the Silicoids, Bulrathi, and Humans. The AI love-fest is in full swing. :hippie: I route 8 fighters from Endoria to Beta Ceti and 5 from Tau Cygni to Jinga.

Because Endoria is a hostile planet, the population growth is slow enough that we now have > 1 factory per colonist. It is a small planet and could be a bit difficult to defend from the Meklar next door even when fully developed.

2380: Ssssstate of the Empire: Esper maxes industry. It has almost completed a missile base-- it would be tempting to keep it "almost complete" since then we don't have to pay maintenance on it in this early part of the game, however ... this turn a Meklar huge ("Annihilator") can be seen approaching their nearby colony . So it might be better to play it safe by finishing one or more bases.

There is also some progress toward a missile base at Trax (no rush though) and I put in "token" DEF allocations at Sssla and Tau Cygni.

We have 68 fighters at Jinga which will hopefully hold off the Meklar Nexus-- the only snag will be if it has shields (which would have been inoperative at Antares in the nebula). 12 more fighters will arrive to Jinga in the next four turns and five more on the turn after that.

We will have 77 fighters at Antares within the next two turns. I now have Trax contributing to tech and significantly less to further SHIP.

We have 33 fighters at Endoria, and we will have a total of 67 at Beta Ceti after two more turns.

We have 19 fighters at Esper, and 18 more arriving next turn. I would recommend sending at least half of the total to the "southern" planets of Endoria and/or Beta Ceti.

I like the way we have at least one ship in orbit of all planets and I recommend keeping this at all times. Sometimes if an AI sees a planet without anything in orbit, it will send a fleet there which will succeed at least in scouting the planet, which isn't good because, even if they can immediately be dislodged and any transports they send at the time destroyed, they can send ground troops later when it could be more of a danger, whereas they can't send them if they can't scout the planet.

I didn't add any ships to the defense of the ultra- poor planets or the Toxic Rich. Like Maniac, I thought it would be nice to at least know whether we have Toxic tech in our tree first before sending any more ships to that planet.

Inferno is now at 17%. Substantial progress has been made in IIT8 and RC3; I kept RC3 a bit "behind" IIT8, but we have so many factories on even our developing planets that IIT8 isn't going to help much beyond reducing the cost of the factories that will be able to be added once we have RC3. For now, only a token single click are invested in each of FF and weapons (where we popped techs). Our tech budget is at 485 BC right now, up from 142 in the save that I started from. Our "Planets" income on the Planets screen is now 1239 BC, vs. 1049 when I started. The combined yield of our trade agreements with the Silicoids and Meklars is -18 BC right now. The proportion of our budget going to ship maintenance has increased from 4.6% to 6.6%, so we should try to make sure that the ships we build will actually be deterrents and not hold back our tech too much-- although, we still have developing planets which will become more productive, and Inferno, because it is a Planetology tech, will increase the productivity of our Sakkra gunslingers.

We know of 29 colonized planets among three races; there are 70 stars in a large galaxy, with at least one having no planets in this game. So 46 or 47 planets will have to be colonized for the Council to convene, and depending on what the Humans, Klackons, and Bulrathi have been able to achieve, elections might not be TOO far off. I think if one happens in the near future, it will probably be best if we are not nominated, so that AI votes are more likely to be split.

Let's get some new planets! I'd say the Ultra Rich Beta Ceti is the highest priority, then Jinga. Hopefully we'll be able to reach further in the south once we control Beta Ceti, since those other planets down there are far away. Dolz appears secure for now, but of course we'll want to colonize it at an opportune moment-- it is Rich, after all!

Thoughts, others?

Edit: in 2380, the Sili are no longer allied to the Bulrathi. Until next turn, one supposes...

[jmas]

Save:

[jmas]

I like to have medium ships with just a battle scanner for scanning duty to get the lowdown on enemy ships -- although in this variant we'll need a laser as well. Maybe we could set one of those up as soon as possible at one or more planets where we have significant fighter presence? I have to admit I don't know how the scanner fits with the laser space-wise right now, as I've done enough typing for one day..

[RefSteel]

GOT IT!

(Discussion continues in the game thread in spite of CF's uploader being on the fritz.)

[RefSteel]

Save for 2390 - Catwalk is UP!

[Catwalk]

Save for 2400, good luck!