OSG-28

[haphazard1]

Planning and priorities sound good, RefSteel. For item 5, maybe a missile base or two could be useful? Since we can not currently build anything more than basic laser fighters....

[shallow_thought]

Thanks all. Once we have contact, I'll try to come up with some words expressing how the Darloks should fit into our world view...

I definitely think we want (low) trade if we can. The only reasons not to would be that we couldn't afford it, we planned to go on the offensive or we felt that we could just shrug off an attack. I'm pretty sure that the latter two don't apply to the game leaders and early-game bears. Every turn we're at peace is one more to out-tech the aliens.

And (cross-posting with Haphazard1), how long would it take to get a missile base up on Tauri? Even one should hold off an armed colony ship for a little while.

I have a memory of reading that the AI is less likely to send ships to one of your planets (in peacetime) if you have even a single scout oribiting. Is that true?

@RefSteel. Personally, I'd have picked the same techs as RFS-81 across the board, given the lack of Neutron Pellet Gun in the tree. So if this feels unfocused, why is that. Is it more a meta-thing: the techs may be fine, but we need a longer term plan to judge the choices against?

[haphazard1]

I am also interested in everyone's thoughts on tech. I like the choices so far. Yes, we are doing a little bit of everything rather than focusing on one or two specific goals. But we do not have a major need right now; we have range to reach new colonizable worlds, we have the environment tech to colonize them (because they are habitable types), and we are not really ready/developed enough for a major military push so we do not have a particular weapon type or defensive tech that we need. So a little bit of everything, advancing each tree with efficient trickle spending, seems like a good approach to me.

Of course, I do not regularly beat impossible, so I could be completely off base here.

If I were to pick one tech to push hard, it would probably be the hyper-x missiles for defense base fire power and possibly some missile boats. That would be the biggest "security" item. Or if we think the AI will not move against us for a while, we could push planetology hard to get more terraforming for bigger pop/more factories. Computer tech for the chance to get IRC III and another round of factory building is also a possibility, but that would also increase the cost of new factories when we are planning to colonize a bunch of new worlds soon. So that is maybe better left until we are a bit more established.

[RefSteel]

So if this feels unfocused, why is that. Is it more a meta-thing: the techs may be fine, but we need a longer term plan to judge the choices against?

Yes, exactly. All of these techs will be useful, and it's good that Reduced Waste is nearly ready. I don't think the previous players did anything wrong with tech. It's just that BCs are at a premium early on, and for high-level play in a strategy game, everything that's spent needs to have a definite reason behind it.

Now, there are reasons behind all the techs we're researching right now:

- RW80 will give us a little boost at each of our worlds (basically 10% to net production at Mentar and Tauri) and that creates an opportunity for e.g. Tauri to boost the homeworld's colony ship production, which it couldn't otherwise do. But that isn't consistent with Mentar helping to fund research into this and other techs at the same time. A ~similar argument can be made about Terra +20, except that - since it is advancing the tree - the costs and benefits of research spent on it aren't as straightforward to calculate.

- Deep Space Scanner will let us see incoming enemy fleets sooner; Shield 2 and Hyper-X will do a better job of protecting us from them when we can spare the production for bases. These are all good things, but they feel a little premature to me with our focus still on expansion and with our infrastructure still just getting started on our primary front world. I'm definitely planning to finish them, but I'd have preferred to wait before investing significantly in them. Of course, I may find out part-way through my set that it's a really good thing we went for them early!

Another way to look at it: The only time you need multiple techs to come in at the same time is when you're planning to do a major new ship design. Otherwise, it's better to stagger research, thinking ahead about (roughly) when you actually want each individual tech to come in. Even "trickle research" will sneak up on you if you're running multiple fields simultaneously, either eating up all of your available resources as the bulbs start to fill up together, or all slowing down as you don't take full advantage of your previous investment, with all its opportunity costs.

[DaveV]

I think the 4x description provides a pretty good script for most MoO games: Explore happens really early on a Medium map, we're in the middle of Expand and will soon be transitioning to Exploit. For that phase, we need to build up factories (Industrial Tech), and max out our planets (Robotic Controls and Terraforming). Protecting what we have is also important, so I always like better missile, shield, and computer techs. I guess that puts me in the research everything camp. I agree that we should target certain key techs in the early game, and spend most of our economy on colony ships and factories, but my default mode from mid-game onward is equal allocation for all techs, adjusting to emphasize key techs or to scale back on techs that have reached the low double digit percentages. I always find myself regretting it when I fall too far behind the AIs in any area.

[Ianus]

So Ref, in your expert opinion, and just as a general rule ignoring specific in-game variations is the best course of action to pursue specific tech objectives up until we have sufficient production developed to open up research in a big way? For example in this game would you say that devoting all trickle research right now to Reduced Waste 80% and forego shields, weapons and computers would be the way to go? Reduced Waste 80% seems like the most worthwhile tech we are currently pursuing which would help our economy the most, but I can see counter-arguments for other techs related to defense being valuable. There is also the factor that maintaining a strong tech rating makes us somewhat more intimidating to the AI so hopefully they won't attack us (I don't know how all of that is considered by the AI).
This game is difficult to find the One Right Answer™ between being the Psilons and not having a particularly pressing tech need at the moment. I would say that the single most important thing right now is to continue to push colonization with all possible speed. Speaking of speed the lack of Nuclear Engines is the single biggest problem our empire faces at the moment. We are going to be trying to reach many worlds far away from our shipyards here in the early game and waiting for ten or fifteen turns for our colony ships to arrive will be a problem here shortly.
Now that I think about it I wonder if we should resume pushing Innertial Stabilizer tech both in hopes of finding Sub Light Drives on the other side or else to trade to the Bears for engines. Sub Lights would be ideal as that would accelerate our population transports too, which will be important also.

[shallow_thought]

Hmm. With hindsight, if there were no trickle or similar complexities, it would obviously almost always be better to research one tech at a time. If you resaerch Hyper-X and it takes 10t, then fields II and it also takes 10, at least you've got one if the Bulrathi turn up in 15t, rather than neither. The effect is even more obvious when I think about a pair like IW80 and Improved Eco - researching one makes researching the other faster.


 How did I not see this? It's interesting how it just feels natural to split, guided by the interface (and half-memories of old Sullla videos). be Perhaps the initial "blindness" also helps steer towards splitting.

So without trickle (and losses if you stop when part way through?) it degenerates into a tree (with some peculiar sub-structure around missing techs and being able to skip techs, although both are present in some other games to a limited extent). Possibly part of why the tree has become the dominant paradigm - you need some added mechanic to justify an alternative.

With trickler, if I understand things correctly, it's a trade-off between fewer RP used overall against getting effects now, and in the early game the latter dominates because of the shortage of RP and high impact of the effects. Which is pretty much what Ianus said.

Tempting to go back to the start of my recent game and try it and see how it feels for comparison.

[RefSteel]

So without trickle (and losses if you stop when part way through?) it degenerates into a tree (with some peculiar sub-structure around missing techs and being able to skip techs, although both are present in some other games to a limited extent). Possibly part of why the tree has become the dominant paradigm - you need some added mechanic to justify an alternative.

Even if you only research one tech at once (which is often not the right thing to do) I don't think MoO's tech ladders end up very similar to a tree: In addition to the "trickle research" effect, with six non-exclusive trees to balance, the way chances of breakthroughs affect the value of spending on techs "in the percentages," and the value of multiple techs in a given "rung" (with the chance of missing techs affecting the value of going back) it really is a completely different system from any other 4-X game. Trees give the game designers more control over the way tech progresses in the game, are easier to balance, and are more intuitive for many players; I think those are the main reasons MoO's system hasn't been duplicated.

So Ref, in your expert opinion, and just as a general rule ignoring specific in-game variations is the best course of action to pursue specific tech objectives up until we have sufficient production developed to open up research in a big way?

I actually like to pursue specific tech objectives until ... the end of the game! It's just that as time goes on and our economy is capable of supporting more research, my objectives tend to diversify, so that my tech strategy converges toward just researching everything - outside of special circumstances, which come up pretty much all the time, this being Orion!

That said, I want to say again that I don't think we've made bad research choices here. I would have delayed some of our investments a little more, but "acquire what we need to defend ourselves" is absolutely a valid objective, and our empire could well end up needing these tools soon! I might argue that the timing would be better when our economy was a little more developed so that we could more easily afford to pay for the fat parts of the bulbs of various techs, and be more likely to be able to crash up a missile base or two where needed after the techs come in, but that's just a different way of looking at the timing.

I also agree that we'll want to research Stabilizers reasonably soon. They're very valuable to our eventual combat fleets (and on the trade screen) and opening the way toward more advanced engines and range tech is very important. I don't know what I'll be able to do in that respect during my set (in progress) but it's definitely among our many, many high priorities! Choosing the ones we think are highest is of course the heart of a strategy game!

[haphazard1]

The trickle research effect is important in making the different fields non-tree-like. And the need/reward for continuing investment also helps differentiate the system from tree-type research systems. It rewards planning, as keeping your overall economy stable enough to make steady, ongoing investments pays off over time.

Better propulsion, both range and speed, will certainly be useful for use down the road. We have enough range for our initial expansion push, and speed will take a while to improve particularly for transports. But being the psilons we are much less likely to have really big holes in our available tech options.

We do need to get our economic base solidified a bit before we can really start ramping up research. But some continuing trickle funding to get the most out fo what little we can afford to spend during these early years should help us. Although I can see an argument for just focusing entirely on expansion and economic development (plus essential military) for a while.

[RefSteel]

[EDIT: Full report now posted here, and spoiled for length:

O Focus of True Thought, First Among the Transcendent, you who for a decade shall steer the Mind with all its lesser foci among the stars, I present to you the Record of the Mind that Was: That with all the Mind that Is focused through you in your Wisdom, you may contemplate That Which Is and That Which Could Be alike in light of That Which Has Been. So witness the Record in the form it was made, when That Which Was unfolded before us as That Which Is unfolds for you.

2350: Uhhhh ... yeah! First Among Trans...something! I am totally qualified here! Not having any doubts about being the new Focus of True Thoughts for the next decade at all! Nope! No way I'm overrated or rusty or anything, because then The Mind wouldn't have selected me in its/our/uh wide-reaching wisdom? Yeah. So. Maybe I'll feel better if I talk to someone who's expcting a little less trans...portation? Something. Uh, from me.



See, I like Monch. He has these simple needs. 25 billion credits sounds like a lot, but that's an empire-wide trade agreement, and it barely makes a mark really. And honestly, I do like sharing knowledge, but it's kind of a huge relief not to be asked about our trans... uh ... you know, that thing; something dental, I think? Or am I just thinking of Monch's teeth? Anyway, our transwhatever wisdom on the True Nature of What Isn't or ... whatever we're supposed to sound like we know about to impress our colleagues. Anyway, the point is, Monch doesn't want to hear about any of that, so there aren't any awkward pauses - just farewellss, and I can go back to trying to get my head aroun this giant empire I'm supposed to be ... uh, focusing? I guess. Anyway, at least I can understand the partss of it I can get the Mind to present to me visually this way.



Just looking at it, I can see Kulthos needs some help to get up off the ground properly. We only have a little bit of treasury to work with, but Kulthos is only a little colony, and this shoul help it get its critical early infrastructure started a little sooner at least. This isn't very transcontinental or whatever, but getting that first factory up sooner - or those first several when we have better waste reduction and some more reserves to work with - is the most important accelerator for a planetary economy because of waste-management efficiency! No other way of spending those extra BCs would have as big an impact, and I'm all about getting snowballs rolling downhill. Wait - no! Isn't there a way to delete something from this official record? Uh, that totally wasn't a sloppy metaphor or anything. It was ... uh, a transistor-dental expression of That Which Is in the form of ... uh ... something something in a higher plane? What am I even doing in this job, anyway? WAIT DELETE THAT TOO!

Uh, moving along! So contemplating! That Which Could Be! Transorbitally! Or, trans... huh. Weird. What is up with our science priorities? We've got like half the people on the homeworld pushing up our chances of reducing waste production just for a better chance to figure it out a little sooner, when they could be building colony ships? But ... like ... it's only going to save us thirty or forty billion credits a year until we get a bunch more factories. Spending more than that each year to get it sooner doesn't make any sense to me. Besides, shouldn't Mentar be going all-out on colony ships? I ... I guess I am the Focus of True Thought. Gonna have to change things around a little bit. Let's see.



Alright, perfect! We can't really afford to make any new lab investments and still build the factories and colony ships we need, so we're juuuuust spending enough to keep on working in the labs we've got. That's why all the LEDs on my research budget calculator aren't quite lit up - I experimented with it a little while my advisors were saying very important things about transient services or something. Oh, except Construction. It's not close to full capacity. The project is nearly finished, so we don't have as much of a need to use all the special-purpose facilitiess we built for it as we used to have, I think.

2351: I wonder if there's any way to get the next two colony ships out even faster! It's probably at least ten years too late to start making plans to claim Yarrow, and it would have been a reach no matter what, but if I...



Oh. Ohhhhhhhh. So apparently the Darloks want that world. Well, you know. Who am I to say no to them? Just the Focus of True Thought, right? Probably doesn't even mean anything to them! Anyway, we still want those two colony ships ASAP - just for the opposite side of our empire here! ... Although.... Ooh! I have an idea! It's super cute and clever of me! I'll design a huge placeholder ship to trick my engineers into building both colony ships at once! Then when miniaturization savings are possible with the new technology coming in, we'll be able to save I dunno, a bunch of BCs! Brilliant! I totally know what I'm doing and am clever! The Mind was right to count on me!

Although ... I didn't manage to send any population to Kulthos last year at all. Admittedly, everyone was really busy, but ... uh ... I went on and on about how helpful that first factory would be, and actual people are kind of really, really important. I'll get on that now, I guess.



I don't want to slow Gion down too much, and Tauri's far away, plus I don't want to leave it with any idle factories, but we've got to get some people out there. I'll send more in the next few years as we can spare them. Also, hey, I've got a kind of dumb trick! I know it isn't trans...lucent? at all, but I like it anyway. See, Incedius has 26 fully-Psiloned factory-cities, which means we have to spend 13 billion credits on pollution cleanup there every year. But this year, The Mind - with all its amazing predictive abilities - has assured me that it'll have 48 billion credits worth of production available! That means if I assign all of them to working on the ecology...



...we can get the place 70% terraformed and do all the pollution cleanup we need, with no production wasted! I mean ... okay, it's a little thing. Like I said, it's not Transylvanian. But like, it turns out that terraforming is really finnicky? Like, if you don't put exact multiples of five billion credits into pushing each stage forward, the planet just reverts toward its natural state and the extra one to four billion credits' worth of work are lost? I mean, hopefully someday we'll have better terraforming and it'll be multiples of 4 or whatever instead, but you know what I mean. And then, you know, The Mind thinks better on each of our planets when it doesn't have to multi-task too hard, so you're usually losing a billion credits here or there just by splitting efforts and...

Okay, so it's really minor. There's kind of not much point in this, compared to just doing big pushes for a lot of terraforming at once when you have the production available. But, you know, when I'm not feeling very transcribed or whatever, which is totally not all the time in every way, it's a little thing I like that's fun for me. But don't tell anybody!

2352: Yup, yup, everything is looking good! I feel so smart and transonic! I am doing so many cute and clever things! Nothing wrong with them at all! In noooo way! And look! Our two most important Things that Could Be, Reduced Waste and better Terraforming techs, are each supposed to have like a whole chance in five of finishing this year! Nothing wrong with this picture!

2353: Here we go! It's a brand new colony!



Sure, it's just Firma, with so few minerals I'd never even bother trying to set up any factories there, but it's a really nice place to live, and the new fuel base there will let our colony ships get to ... will ... waaaaaaaait a minute.

Okay, so remember how I thought I was being all clever and stuff? I was actually just getting way too cute for my own good! The chances of the techs I wanted coming in that turn were pretty small, but even if they had, it was a complete mistake to delay the first colony ship. The savings from miniaturization pales in comparison to the value of getting a strong new colony started one year sooner. The colony ship for Argus could have been half way to Gion right now, and instead it's just sitting in the shipyard, almost-but-not-quite completed! At least I didn't delay the next colony ship this way, and at least it's only a couple of years on the first one, but there's no way around it: That was just a mistake! Finally setting up the relocation orders to Gion now, and having that colony ship finished, but now the colony won't even get built while I'm running the empire!

Maybe I can make up for it by sending a Scout or two to that one Darlok green star, where my predecessor had one chased away by a cruiser or something? I'm trying anyway, but with the way I've been going, it'll probably also get there too late. Gosh, I'm not really feeling very transposed at all these days!

2354: So Nazgur had this really neat idea that everyone should vote for one leader to be the ruler of the galaxy, so we'd all be united and work together and everything! It even offered to set up the computers to do the vote counting and everything! The Klackons proposed a slightly different system though, where it's a little more out in the open so everyone knows without having to ask the computer how everyone else is actually voting. Just so there aren't any misunderstandings I guess. Also everyone who'd met the Darloks sided with the Klackons on that for some reason. So once we worked out all the details, that's when we voted!



Basically it was a flop: Nazgur had the biggest empire and gave itself five votes, and K'kalak the Klackon Queen voted for herself with four, but everybody else abstained: Good old Monch with his four votes, and these rock people and lizards we've never met with two apiece. I could see Nazgur felt bad, so I cast our three votes in its favor even though they were kind of meaningless at that point.

Plus they're close and powerful and we're probably about to meet each other officially, so I kind of wanted to get on their good side. Whereas K'kalak probably lives on the far side of the galaxy, where by the time we meet she'll probably have forgotten all about this election - and if not, if we do officially meet her, I'll bet we'll be in a position to do something about it!

Anyway, I've got a lot of work to do: That Darlok colony fleet is about to reach Volantis, and The Mind is contemplating possible breakthroughs in four different fields of That Which Could Be simultaneously, and not only is that colony ship finally on its way, the next one will be ready by next year too!

2355: Okay, okay, so this is really good news!



...and really awful news! We're like twice as good at terraforming as before, and we're going to be three times as good someday soonish because we still haven't found any worlds where Psilons can't live naturally, but also because none of The Mind's Planetology Foci seem to be able to figure out how to ever improve or enhance or otherwise make better our ecological restoration technology! It's almost as if we have our heads so far up our ... oh, wait, right, being recorded. Uhhhh ... hey, look! We met Nazgur! I should totally call it up to distrac... er, to talk about really important high-level government stuff!



Nazgur's ... kind of annoying to deal with actually. Like, I don't know if it's the translation algorithms or if it's being deliberately obtuse, but I didn't offer it 30 billion credits a year; I suggested 30 billion a year in trade! And then when it offered to trade its cheap, kind of trivial ECM jammer designs to me, it pretended our latest terraforming technology - our very latest work, and the most advanced in our empire - would be a totally appropriate trade. That's a no. And now it's also suggesting that I give it all my treasury transfer protocol passcodes to "facilitate the new trade agreement." No, Nazgur. No. So it's saying it really just wanted the passcodes to do some totally legal tax-evasion-sounding thing for the crown prince of a place I've never heard of called Nigeria, and now it's offering to cut me in for billions of credits for free if I... Just no, Nazgur. No. No. No. No. No.

Bleh, glad that's over with. I call up Monch just to see a friendlier face - or, you know, any visible face at all - and see what he'd be willing to trade for our new terraforming ideas, but all he's offering are class 2 shields, which we're practically finished researching for ourselves. Sorry, Monch. Not today.



Anyway, it looks like Nazgur's been expanding mostly straight toward us for some reason. Hopefully that's as far as it can get! At least we still have a couple new worlds to claim - and at least Volantis will be really hard for it to defend from us! ... Speaking of which ... hang on, I'm going to go get research started on those Hyper-X rockets finally! Also because I was planning and preparing to start a new research project as soon as the new Terraforming was ready though. I had hoped it would be ecological restoration, but you know.... I didn't want to waste all that planned production on anything other than research, and of the three new projects I wanted to start, defensive rockets are the most likely to pay off soon - or if they aren't needed, that's a bonus anyway - and even if I wanted all three techs equally, it makes sense to seed the cheapest one first, so its research costs will have time to shrink with growing breakthrough odds, or even just complete, right around the time a more-expensive tech is demanding the most of The Mind's ... contemplating abilities.

In the meantime though, we ... may be a little behind these other alien races.



Of course, you know, That Which Is always looks a little bleak in comparison with That Which Could Be, so let's work toward our better future, everybody!

2356: See, that's what I'm talking about!



Our trade agreement's brought Monch all the way up to Relaxed relations; we could probably agree to a non-aggression pact if I weren't worried he'd take advantage to stick a scout in orbit over Argus and end up invading the colony. And better still, we've finally got a waste reduction technology! I thought about pursuing duralloy armor as the way forward, especially since That Which Could Be with II8 isn't that much better than the II9 of That Which Is, but we've already spent a bunch of time researching construction things without advancing the state of the art very far, and the industrial improvement is a whole lot quicker to contemplate than the armor, plus all our new colonies and colonies-to-be are going to need a lot of industrial assistance, especially with all our terraforming, and I'm hoping to improve our robotic controls later on, which will mean more factories needed. This will still be a good idea if someone decides to follow the project up with duralloy instead of advancing the state of the art again ... but I kind of hope that doesn't happen. Duralloy's nice, but I don't think it's an immediate need.

...of course, someone more trans...lated? Er, transomething ... might disagree. Anyway, II8 is my new favorite new technology choice, and it's the cheapest, plus now that the core is all terraformed nicely, we can afford to invest a lot more in research than we did last year. So I'm making this a priority.



Don't be fooled by those low-resolution lightbulbs. By the end of the year, That Which Could Be in Construction will have something like time and a half the investment in Weapons technology. Once again, I want to see a chance at an Industrial breakthrough while the rocket technology is still developing.

Oh, also, Mentar's not fully populated anymore, thanks to that great terraforming. Time for Tauri to take a break from sending its unemployed workers toward Kulthos then: They're coming home to Mentar instead! It does keep growing into unemployment though because I don't want to build it any more factories: We need a lot more population around the empire, and I'm trying to keep Tauri below two thirds of its theoretical population limit to prevent the population slow-downs that inevitably accompany overcrowding.

Different story on the homeworld, of course: There has to be somewhere we can create reserves and battle fleets quickly in case of emergencies! Even if planning that way isn't exactly transmogrified of me.

2357: I've got to say, The Mind is realllly good at what it does best.



Deep Space Scanners are pretty great: They'll give us more early warning about incoming fleets, and let us get a sense from far away for what the other races out there are fielding. Plus we've got options for developing every possible early example of Those Computers Which Could Be, so we'll definitely be pursuing robotic factory control technology! ... Eventually. Too soon, and the expense of installing it in all our new factories would cripple all our new colonies. The industrial improvements, better terraforming, and robotic controls among That Which We Could Reseach are all priorities, but we need them very much in that order, without neglecting other fields for our defenses and our fleets. It's a juggling act - exactly the kind that's really fun for me!

As for That Which Is though, we've already made some pretty sizable investments in dedicated research facilities for construction and - to a lesser extent - weapons technology. We've got credits to spare right now but investing in new technology this soon won't actually speed anything up much down the line: We'll just run out of resources to keep all our research investments maturing properly and waste a lot of the up-front investment we'd be making today. Instead, I'll let Mentar build up some reserves for spending at new colonies and in emergencies, and even ask Tauri to start building some starship parts in case we need a fleet.

2358: Well, the colony ship that should be more than half-way to Argus by now is at least well on its way, and I'm sending the trailing ship right after it now from Gion so we'll be able to colonize Paranar as soon as we possibly can. ... Err, I mean, That Which Is now includes me sending the ... anyway, you know what I mean.



Also, it's high time we got more people into space and heading toward our wonderful new worlds-to-be, so I belatedly get on that. Ugh, sometimes I feel like I'm not really deserving of this First Among the Transferred title; I'm not even sure that I'm really Transfigured at all!

2359: Okay, I still don't want to push it too hard, but I think That Which Is makes this a good time to get some serious research going in Propulsion technology. I think. Hyper-X should have a good enough head start now that this could work at least. I'm mostly letting Tauri take care of it, but that's okay: Tauri's good at this kind of thing! Oh, and I should have started doing this sooner, but I'm starting a very minimal token investment in planetology. This way, whenever we do have the resources to seed the research properly, we'll have a good head start from an ongoing pilot project. In theory.



Speaking of theories though: I'm designing a new starship called a Theory! In the sense that it's very much not Practice. Or I guess I should say it's That Which Is Not, That Which Could Be, an That Which Should Not Be simultaneously! It's really just an excuse for our engineers to assemble miscellaneous ship parts for the future. Tauri was doing a little bit of this, and Mentar might do some building this way too when it's not a good time to over-invest in research that we would have had to let go semi-fallow in a few years anyway. It doesn't come with the obsolescence clock of a completed starship, nor the high cost of maintaining Fleets Which Are or missile bases. Unlike a missile base, the ships its parts end up getting used for can fly - which means Mentar can be building defenses for our border worlds, Tauri can build defenses for Incedius, and if we need to perform a pre-emptive strike, the parts can be used as offensive fleets! The ships they go into will of course be state-of-the-art at the time they're actually built, and designed according to the specific needs of The Mind that At That Time Will Be. So it's a little like building missile bases, except way more versatile. This was my compromise between going defenseless and building an already-obsolete starfleet, and it should be better than either choice, I believe.



The other thing about the Theory is that if we ever accidentally build one, at least it'll be really difficult to dislodge in a fight; with all its heavy lasers, it should be able to do as much damage as we can to shielded ships with our current technology. We should never, ever build one of these to completion - not even close, in fact, so as not to take the risk - but if it did happen, it would just mean we've been devoting way more resources to shipbuilding than expected, so we should maybe go on the offensive someplace ... after all, to The Mind's way of thinking, if we have a Theory, we have a fleet!

2360: I don't believe I got through this! I don't believe I managed to fake being Transfused or whatever for ten years! What would have happened if the rest of The Mind had realized....

...

Wait, I was chosen on purpose for being a weirdo? Like, we wanted our Focus or True Thought to be able to figure out these crazy aliens by being maybe a little way toward crazy? With, like, The Mind to moderate my loonier impulses and things? Awwwwww ... gosh, if only I hadn't pretended to be all transitive as I went along! I could have really gone nuts if that's what the rest of The Mind wanted! Good luck to the next Focus of True Thought, First Among the Transparent then!

]

Summary of current status:

(Yes, the wall of text below is the short version!)

- I didn't get Yarrow, because the Darloks claimed it with a serious colony fleet (fifteen armed ships of various sizes) as soon as I first hit next turn.

- Monch is up to relaxed relations. I have not asked for a NAP yet because I wanted to wait until we colonized Argus. We also have tiny trade agreements with both races we've met. (The 'loks are Xenophobic Militarists....)

- There was a High Council election early in the set; the 'loks and bugs were nominated.

- We have a colship is en route to Argus (due in 2) and another is due at Argus one turn behind it, intended to be rerouted to Paranar in the corner.

- One of our scouts is retreating from the green ocean planet of Rha (at a green star off to our southwest). Another will have to retreat as well next turn: I thought it was worth trying to scout the place, and sent two one-ship waves, but they managed to put a couple of missile bases up, so that was a bit of a waste.

- We now have RW80, Terra +20, and Deep Space Scanners. (Shield 2 is being stubborn, missing several chances around 20-25%.) Enhanced Eco is not in our tree! I selected II8 (and invested heavily), Terra +30 (where I've made only a token investment thus far), and Robotic Controls 3! (I've made no investment in the controls yet; we need time to build more factories at our new colonies.) I've also invested a fair amount in Hyper-X rockets and (more recently) Inertial Stabilizers. I've been staggering tech spending so that hopefully when each tech starts requiring a lot of research to keep it maturing rapidly, the previous one will be into the percentages and ready to ease up on its active research commitment.

- I've been trying to get some population up into the general neighborhood of our new colonies-to-be without depleting our core or front-line worlds. This is really slow at Warp 1 though, and Firma in particular has gotten very little because building up a Poor world was my ~last priority. (I still should probably have found a way to send it more, if only so it would be able to seed Argus and Paranar quickly, but population has been at a premium.)

-For similar reasons, there are a bunch of transports in space: 11 trickling into Kulthos over the next 6 turns, 6 due to reach Firma just as Argus is founded, and 9 on their way to Gion, due in 5 turns. I'd send more transports out this turn if I weren't handing over the save as well, but didn't want to dictate that and make you hunt them down if you wanted to change them.

- I left Kulthos set to complete its terraforming this turn (up to +20). Our other planets' terra projects are all already complete (and Mentar's population and factories re-maximized at 240) except at Firma, which hilariously had a chance to terraform to exactly +1 with exactly 5 BC at one point, so I did that just for the grins. It should obviously terraform for real whenever it actually gets populated (and can therefore afford to do so) eventually.

- I have exactly one tick of Hide spying (0.2% of imperial production) on the bears right now. No actual spies yet. You can veto this if you want, but we'll want to know what our opponents are packing eventually.

- You have some reserves to play with (a little under 100 BC) should you need them for anything.

- The save is attached!

Updated Roster:
Ianus
haphazard1
RFS-81
RefSteel (just played!)
DaveV OR shallow_thought - whoever claims it first: UP!
(The other of the two: On Deck!)