OSG-28

[haphazard1]

Stinger missiles would certainly be one possible answer to several of our problems. Stronger defense from our missile bases, possible offense option against planets, also possible ship-to-ship option. It would also advance our weapons tech to the next tier, where we might have a better bomb or other useful options.

How much range would we need to reach the planets west of the Bulrathi? Gaining contact with the other races, or even with one of them, could be helpful. Not sure just how much we would need, though.

[RefSteel]

Turns played! And report actually complete!

2410: For twenty years, the Mind has been electrified by the idea of war: By its possibility, and even by its necessity to take our rightful place in the galaxy as the guiding Will behind the actions of its beings. Already the preparations - the technological preparations - have been long underway, but there is a long way yet to go - or so it seems. Yet tonight, as I take on the mantle of the Focus of True Thought, First among the Transcendent - or, as our neighbors would insist, as I become Emperor for a decade - I intend to set our course irrevocably for that war which the Mind has long been imagined, and so to make a virtue of this violent necessity.

I begin by gathering intelligence - the true way of the Mind that Is - and find that the Darlok world of Volantis, nearly empty of minerals, has as yet built only some 45 factory-cities, and yet has already completed a missile base. No glittering shield occludes my veiw of the surface however, and so I examine the one other Darlok world in view of our scanners:



The oceans of Proteus are littered with floating Darlok cities, and the world is heavily defended: Twenty missile bases spread across its atolls and scattered islands are supported from space by a massive Darlok war fleet, many, many times stronger than the one that claimed this very planet for them in the beginning of the last century - but once again, I see no shield protecting the planet's surface. We will have a chance to defeat them here if we can strike quickly and deal with their fleet. To that end, I also fund intelligence agents to work in Darlok space. At less than 1% of our this line item should disturb precisely nobody, but even with the view of Proteus confirming that these be-cowled people lack our knowledge of how to build planetary shields or robotic factory controls, and even with the additional intelligence gathering I intend to accomplish myself through diplomacy, we're going to need more complete information, and quickly.

As for our spies among our other neighbors, though they require no further funding for insertion projects at present, with two highly-capable agents already embedded in Bulrathi territory, I shall send them new, clandestine orders: The Bulrathi possess secrets, from soil enrichment to anti-matter bombs, that have so far eluded all our attempts at discovery, and it is high time that our agents begin the task of acquiring them. Learning these secrets would be of tremendous value to the Mind - far greater than any diplomatic repurcussions we might face. They are, after all, only creatures of sinew and bone, thinking with their muscles rather than their brains. How such a base and fundamentally ignorant people could ever have come to possess these secrets in the first place is cause for some concern, but it is only right that the wise and noble Mind should likewise learn of them.



We have gone too long without personal deflector shields for the protection of our people - each more valuable individually than any number of the base creatures from whom we learned of them. These ursine people are eager to trade them for the means of landing their people on purely-theoretical types of worlds, and I felt they were welcome to that knowledge - the more so if it allows them to turn their more violent attentions more certainly and effectively upon other peoples of the galaxy like the as-yet-undiscovered Silicoids. At the same time, I make up - a little bit, perhaps - for our crippling lack of range technology by exchanging our Hyper-X rocket designs for Bulrathi deuterium fuel cell technology. With their ability as ground warriors, the importance of weakening the Darloks, and the nature of attack runs on alien worlds, I think it unlikely that we will regret giving them the plans for these rockets, whereas any improvement to our range will be vital to our success at worlds like Proteus - which we couldn't even reach with transports or any starship that lacks extended fuel until this deal went through.

Even so, there will be more than enough for our spies to do on Bulrathi worlds - and the same would no doubt be true among the Darloks if there were any reason to believe we would have any hope of success among that uniquely deceptive people. There is less and less question among the true thoughts of the Mind that Darloks are very much a case of That Which Should Not Be. Nevertheless, as with the Bulrathi, there remain ways of learning their secrets - some of their lesser secrets at least.



Their neutron pellet guns will prove invaluable to such fighter fleets as we build for the upcoming years of war, and though our own mass drivers are powerful beam weapons indeed, I made the exchange willingly: I was certainly not going to offer anything else on their wish-list, from fusion drives to planetary shields to robotic control technology, and I made the trade in full awareness of the Mind's continuing progress on Repulsor Beam technology - which would render mass drivers on enemy ships completely ineffective against our fleets.

...our theoretical fleets, at least: It comes to my attention that the Mind hasn't built or designed a single new starship in half a century. I proceed to scrap our entire, hopelessly-outdated fleet: Five laser fighters that would be knocked out of orbit by a a small gust in the solar wind, and nine warp-one scouts, most or all of which are more than a century old, currently sitting around in various planets' orbits and accomplishing precisely nothing. By next year, they will all be replaced by a - small - new fleet ... while glorious Mentar itself works on parts for a rather more impressive collection of future warships.

2411: Behold the Grand Psilon Fleet, newly redesigned from scratch!



It must be admitted that it includes zero total weapons actually present in space, and it is to be hoped that even its many theoretical weapons systems will be superceded shortly, but all the designs feature the wonders of our fusion engines - the Mind's design, and the envy of Darloks and Bulrathi alike - and the ships that do exist so far should give us valuable intelligence about the galaxy - and about our neighbors' fleets.

2412: It appears that in his lumpish, muscle-bound way, Monch has been growing grumpy. He controls so few planets in comparison with the Darloks and ourselves that I suppose it is understandable - but he has decided to call an end to the non-aggression pact of more than fifty years' standing between our peoples.



In light of our psychological records relating to his personality - well-understood by the Mind to be prone to agressiveness in the name of his people's expansion - it would be unsurprising if the end of the pact signaled a new period of aggression. I will be up to us - and to me as the Focus of True Thought - to show him that measured and thorough planning will alwayss overcome his primitive style of mindlessly aggressive behavior.

2413: With the utmost calm and equanimity befitting my station as a superior being, I must acknowledge that if this fleet from Vox were to come after us at Firma...



...there would be nothing we could do to save that world. Or at least there would have been nothing in the time of That Which Was. But as of this very year, That Which Could Be a defense against them has entered the realm of That Which Is!



While automated repair systems will help to give our heaviest starships greater staying power in combat, the repulsor beams we've just designed will alow us to hold off certain types of enemy ships indefinitely - such as anything that relies exclusively on the mass driver weapons systems I recently traded to Nazgur's people, and which Monch's possess as well. They also should prove effective against bomber and sporer fleets, so long as we have the firepower to deal with their heavy beamers before they can take out our repulsor ships. There is little point in turning these theoretical new systems into actual fleets however until we know what type of threat we will be facing; that would be hasty, reactive, Monch-like, and the Mind is above such follies as these. If the Bulrathi are relying on heavy ion cannons, we will need to execute a very different strategy. To this end, the Intel 4.0 shall be sent up from the Darlok front to investigate the Ursine fleets.

2414: We have at last encountered the mysterious Sakkra people - as yet only by encounters in deep space, but with their beautiful terran homeworld of Sssla just 8 parsecs away from Incedius, we may well have an opportunity of establishing a formal embassy ere long. Like the Bulrathi, they are a crude and violent people: Their Daemon fighters attacked our harmless Discovery scout ship at the Obaca asteroid field even before another, equally-unarmed Discovery approached their homeworld and fled before their missile bases and starfleet.



The Colossus cruisers - the pair flying alongside the Hydra cruisers, themselves forming up beside the Sakkra Colony Ships closest to the planet itself - are either built with Duralloy armor or with exceptionally thick layers of titanium; the other ships use titanium armor only, according to our ship's sensors. As for the Daemon fighters, thanks to the brave sacrifice of the Obaca Discovery, we were able to learn the hard way that their attacks were not mere bluffs and that the Daemons are armed with lasers.

2415: All the Mind longs for its foci to wield fusion beams in defense of the worlds we have grown and nurtured so long. The chances of success keep climbing without result, but I trust in the Mind to pierce their secrets still in time. May the green light of our fusion fire one day fill the skies of alien worlds and our own, that the crudities of other races may be reshaped and reformed into the willing agents who execute the guiding will and knowledge of the great Psilon Mind!

2416: Our INTEL-class scanner starship has at last arrived at Vox: The world at which the main Bulrathi fleet is stationed.



They have a dangerous mix of combat ships, with 140 death spores loaded aboard their Rhino dreadnoughts, 56 heavy beams, and and more than enough hammering power to take down shielded targets thanks to all those mass drivers. I would be very, very concerned about this massive fleet ... if the Bulrathi designers had remembered to provide their ships with any tactical speed. As things stand, I'm just not worried. Frightening and powerful though it might appear to lesser beings like the Bulrathi themselves, we can - and if necessary, we shall - stop this fleet.

2417: I have to admit ... if the Mind can't figure out some of these theoretical advances it's been contemplating for years on end - Fusion Beams in particular have been promised practically forever - I may have to start questioning my assumptions about intrinsic Psilon superiority. Of course, these assumptions are based on completely unassailable fact, and no one else could possibly match or indeed understand our transcendent intellectual capabilities, but you'd think at some point, with the nominal odds climbing every year, we'd at least manage to figure out some kind of new technology.



2418: It is at times like these that I think of Pippa 's Song, the famous Psilon poem by Robert Brow ning .

The year's at the spring
And the day's at the morn;
The dark night has ended
By the light of our star.
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on his thorn;
The Mind is Transcendent -
All's right with Mentar!

The Mind has at last unlocked the secrets of fusion cannons. This is as it should be, but there is always more to learn. There is a longing among certain of the Psilons for Stinger missiles, perhaps because certain of our people fear enemy fleets more than I do - or respect their shields and electronic countermeasures less. This is as it may be, but in the depth and the wisdom of its contemplation, the Mind has discovered a more alluring possibility. The aptly-named Omega-V Bombs to which the Mind now turns its contemplations shall make an end to this long period of fretful, fearful yearning for an opportunity to attack our enemies. This technology will be of value to us, and though it cannot possibly be finished during the period of my reign, I intend to see it well along its way.



After years of gathering reserves for emergency shipbuilding - or, in my secret thoughts, for this very moment - Mentar goes back to contemplating the deeper nature of That Which Could Be. Primarily, contemplating Bombs Which Could Be decimating the crude and unsophisticated aliens' missile bases. That isn't enough though - not for me; not with this new technology. All of our emergency reserves are poured into our worlds: Argus, Paranar, Kulthos, and Tauri all are sent enough resources to double their efforts at constructing new weapons labs, and all the remainder is sent to Gion for exactly the same purpose.

As an eccentric Focus said more than half a century ago, there are times when a focused research plan converges toward a balanced approach to learning new technology.

This is not such a time.



This is a time to prepare for war.

2419: At last our long interstellar nightmare is over: After more than a century of contemplating That Which Could Be in the realm of planetology, always seeking and hoping to find some means of restoring damaged ecologies placed at risk by heavy industry, we at long, long last have discovered the means of advancing our clean-up techniques. We can move forward, moreover, by contemplating state-of-the-art terraforming techniques that would nearly double our previous abilities...



...but we're not going to do that - not yet at least. We've been talking about the need to attack for years now, and it's time we fully committed to our plans. Invading enemy worlds will be costly - especially if they belong to the Bulrathi - and we'll be able to spare troops in much greater numbers if we can build them with cloning technology! Mentar can resume building up our emergency reserve, but we're going to need as many cloning test labs as our other worlds can build: The omega bombs are needed much sooner, since the miniaturization that always comes with advancing the state of our art in weapon designs, together with the deadly bombs themselves, will be vital to the construction of our fleet, but once the fleet is ready and the time arrives to send transports to meet it or to arrive in its wake, we'll want fully-operational cloning vats ready to produce the many, many soldiers we'll need. It is a far cleaner, and far more sophisticated means of bringing the necessary numbers into battle than anything of which the crude Bulrathi or underhanded Darloks would ever dream.

In the meantime, there is excellent news, delivered by the ... news, apparently.



Not only do the Foci of the Mind outnumber the Bulrathi, but should we choose war with those very neighbors, we would not appear to risk facing our Darlok ... friends ... in an election, as they appear to be outnumbered by a Silicoid people of which I have heard only rumors. Yet it seems that even that is about to change: A Silicoid colony ship is approaching the asteroid field up at Zhardan. If they think that even they can colonize those rocky, airless, microgravitational subplanetoids, they are certainly welcome to give it a try.

2420: No further breakthroughs greet the end of my ten-year ascension to First among the Transcendent, as the Focus of True Thought. So I yield my place much as I accepted it: By noticing an ocean world with no planetary shield.



Only now, much belatedly, did I notice in examining our list of colonies, that Argus had not built one prior to my reign. I suppose that it was imagined to be safe, as the Bulrathi at the time that we were building shields were not known to have any better range technology than we do presently. With the advent of their dotomite crystal-powered ships however, the world is indeed at risk, and though the shield won't protect the planet from their death spores, some extra bases might help should we choose to build them after the shield is complete. I have asked them to build their shield, but I don't expect the gesture to be needed. If we come under attack, I think the starfleet we could build to meet the threat would be more than adequate if handled adroitly.

And we are Psilons, you know. We do everything adroitly.

Some notes:

- The Bulrathi broke their NAP with us several turns ago, and though there has been no action yet, they have been gathering a large fleet at Vox and their diplomat has not yet returned.

- I checked trade options with the Darloks just a couple turns ago and found they didn't seem to want anything we had except our Repulsor Beam. I didn't make either of the trades I asked about at that time. Their diplomat left when I exited, and has only just returned, so they may be a bit impatient still....

- Tech spending is not set up the way I would have done it were I still playing, mainly because I like fiddling with things and adjusting spending every turn so I feel like I'm doing something all the time (and consequently thinking about where the empire is going, hopefully). Instead, I set the sliders to be more or less okay to just leave as-is for a while if that's your preference for handling tech.

- The Discovery (warp-4 scout) departing the Zhardan asteroid field is retreating from a Silicoid Colony ship, which has titanium armor and is armed with some kind of beam.

- I could tell as soon as I got a spy into Darlok space that I wasn't going to hit my stretch goal for these turns (and then Fusion Beam took forever to hit anyway) but I've set us on a track to go after someone aggressively and fairly soon.

- I'd wait to build more ships either until they're needed or until our new weapons tech comes in. The large repulsor design (not yet built) is intended as a quickly-buildable answer to the Bulrathi fleet at Vox in case it attacks, in combination with as many (likewise-not-yet-built) Neutrino fighters as can be dispatched to the area in time (and missile bases of course, if the target isn't Firma). This solution does require some tactical care and an awareness of what's on their fleet (see report, above). You are of course welcome to come up with your own solutions and alternatives!

- Conveniently, it looks like our attack will be delayed until after the election. And shallow_thought, if much of the fighting falls to you and you're not confident using tactical speed and guile, this could be a great opportunity to learn - by asking questions here and/or by diving in brainy-Psilon-head-first!

- The save is attached!

Roster:
- Ianus
- haphazard1
- RFS-81
- RefSteel (just played!)
- DaveV (UP!)
- shallow_thought (on deck!)

[DaveV]

Got it, but I think I'll wait for some input before I play. It looks as though we're heading to war, and we may not even be the ones who initiate it. My initial reaction: I agree with Ref that we can probably protect our planets against the Bulrathi. I'd rather be on the offensive than the defensive, though.

[haphazard1]

Looks like some good turns, RefSteel. Our luck with the techs coming in has not been the best but eventually breakthroughs happen.

Interesting to see the Sakkra at the bottom of the population rankings. They must have really gotten short-changed on available worlds.

Omega-V bombs will be very very useful. I would like to see some improved missiles after that is completed, if possible. Our current missile bases are not going to be much use for actually stopping anyone. I understand that the plan is to stop any attackers with our fleet, or better yet take the fight to their worlds first. But if we have a missile option at the next tech rung grabbing it could be very helpful.

All this hostile environment planetology tech, and no hostile worlds to actually use it on. This game has been a bit odd, that way.

Edit: Good luck, DaveV!

How do we want to use the Omega-V bombs? Swarms of smaller, fast bombers or some big hulking ARS hulls with big bomb payloads?

[Ianus]

Well I can say that we won't be able to fit Omega-Vs on small hulls for quite a while, so working out the most efficient way to deliver enough of them to the target while minimizing attrition will be of high strategic importance. Probably not medium hulls given our enemies' missiles, so maybe ARS Huge gunships supporting Large bombers? We should be able to put that together fairly easily I'd think, and the 'Loks don't have enough shielding to stop those bombs in any significant numbers. We simply need to deliver them to their planets.  Also remember the caveat that we can't retreat our bombers and then redirect them to stay for another turn of combat.
While we are waiting for our new bombs what is the state of the rest of our war preparation? We have Autorepair, Repulsors, Fusion Beams, Duraloy (not ideal but workable), and BC4.  Ref started research on Shields 6 which to me is just as important as our bombs. We currently have Shields 3 which won't stop much of anything, so we need those shields before we start amassing our fleet. With those two techs in hand we should be nearly unstoppable. My only other wish would be for Zortium Armor or similar to improve the efficiency of our Autorepair, but that shouldn't be a problem!
As a famous Psilon author once wrote: "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!"

[DaveV]

Here's a mid-set report. Omega bombs just came in, and it's decision time.

2421 - The bears are on their way. My eyeball says I can intercept them, though.



2422 - I'll steal Ref's tech reporting format:



2424 - The Bulrathis arrive. I used Ref's designs, and the Bulrathi ships didn't stand a chance:





2425 - Research



Newsdroid



Election. It's us vs. Monch. Klackons (5) abstain, Sakkra (5) vote for us, Silicoids (7) abstain, Monch (8) votes for himself, of course, Darloks (7) abstain, so I gave our 9 votes to the dirty traitor that just tried to attack us.

Here are the Bulrathi planets:



And the Darloks:



Races screen:



Race status:



Potential bomber design:

[DaveV]

Decisions to make:

Best bomber design?
Best victim for our aggression?
Clear and resettle, or try to conquer with troops?

[haphazard1]

Those bears...they will pay for this aggression! It may take a while, but they will pay.

Conquering with troops would get us tech (or at least the chance of getting it). But against worlds with hundreds of bear population, on defense? The armored exoskeleton would help a lot, and it applies instantly once it completes without needing to build anything which is nice. And cloning would help us replace the pop. But still...very, very costly. Hmmm, we both have duralloy so that's a wash, they have personal deflectors and so do we after RefSteel's trade, what gropo weapon do they have? They do get the defense bonus plus the Bulrathi racial bonus, so at least +25 on their part? So taking a 150 pop world would likely need at least 250 troops or so from us? That is a lot of population. But getting Terraforming +40 and Soil Enrichment would be a huge boost to our empire, plus assorted other techs. The armored exoskeletons would help a lot.

Bombers...hmmm, would duralloy for more hit points be worth it?

[Ianus]

Thoughts:
How many of those 102BC medium bombers can we build a turn? The only thing that I don't like about them is that they will be harder to build in large numbers and will be fodder for enemy bases until they can close with the planet (2 turns). Compare the cost of a medium (102BC/bomb) with the cost of a large which can carry a larger payload and is more durable. Proceed accordingly.
As I said above, PLEASE prioritize Force Fields! We need deflectors for our attack fleets.
I almost always like to conquer intact worlds rather than razing and replacing them. Of course that is a challenge against the Bears, so I vote we clean up the 'Loks while gathering some more Gropo tech and then take it to the Bears. Armored Exoskeleton will help with that, and anything else we can research will be good too. That and Cloning should do for the Bears!

[shallow_thought]

Wow it's been a busy day in the thread .

Looks like good stuff so far, and nice job on beating back the Bulrathi (and on getting all the necessary techs and designs in place before that). My thoughts (as always, feel free to point out errors or mis-understandings).

The main reasons for attacking an enemy are:
- to grab tech
- to grab planets
- to grab factories (this one last)

For us in this game, at this point, are we really that desperate for tech? We need planets more, so if the Bulrathi are an easier target than the Darloks (or even if they simply have better planets) I'd be happy with hitting them first. They seem a more natural target if I understand the current diplo situation, so if their shields and missiles are comparable to or worse than the Darloks...

If we can't put bombs on smalls, then I'd be tempted to put them on a large with a stabiliser as well rather than on a medium. Get the big bombs (and they are BIG right now) into orbit ASAP. The costs and HP scale at about the same multiplier I think, or not too much worse (x6 per level for both for an empty design? - I've not factored in anything else). Depends a bit on how many bombs you can actually pack in. I'd actually like to try and do some rough maths as to the effect of getting into orbit one turn earlier but with fewer bombs, but I need to go start cooking dinner before  my wife gets home...

If we do go for the Darloks, we'd probably rather try to invade (except maybe that ultra-poor thing they've got - glass that to reduce their range?). Bears, as said, raze and replace unless we get lucky enough to cut a world down to invade-able size, when it might be worth seeing if we can grab something from the ruins.

All in a bit of a rush, so could be .

Cross-posted with Ianus, so this is without taking what he said into account.