OSG-30 Report - Turns 2390-2400
(Note: see the attached PDF file for the pictures that go with this report).
Coming back to the leadership of the Klackon Empire, I smelled blood. My predecessors had done a thorough and commendable job of motivating our worker ants to build up our glorious empire. But our soldier ants were hungry for more. And the Alkari were weaker prey than many realized.
This was from 2394, after the Alkari had acquired Battle Computers Mark III. Even with that, the Alkari would only be armed with nuclear missile bases with an attack level of 4. We could build nuke bombers with an evade rating of 7, meaning that only 20% of Alkari missiles would hit our nuke bombers. Plus, with a speed of 3, our nuke bombers would be able to dodge, or at least delay, some of the missile impacts.
Plus, it appeared that the Alkari had missed out on Class V shields. Planets with only 4 points of shielding and no ECM defenses will melt surprisingly quickly against even vanilla nuke bombers.
Many in the Klackon Empire had voiced worry about Celtsi’s 24 missile bases, thinking it an impregnable target. Hah! During my 10-year reign, I vowed that these missile bases would melt under the radiation of our nuclear bombs like the fat melts off of our rotisserie turkey dinners.
Here were the initial designs our engineers proposed, along with a huge hull design to encase our spare parts until the last moment when we were ready to assemble our attacking fleet for sure.
And here were the planets that I inherited in 2390 that would have to build these ships.
When I bragged that we already possessed the production capacity to build an offensive fleet and take Celtsi before my time in office was up, many thought I was mad. But my predecessors had built some splendid planets with some fine production facilities. I immediately switched almost all planets over to spare parts production, with just a few on the backlines held back to finish our research in planetology and construction.
In 2391, controlled dead environment researched finished at about 40% odds. Although we would not be diverting resources to colonize the dead world of Escalon on our frontier in the immediate future, the tech was useful in creating an immediate and noticeable increase in the production of each of our worlds—perhaps as much as a 10% increase.
The next year (2392), technology for reducing our factory waste by 60% came in at 15% odds, boosting our planets’ usable production by at least another estimated 10%. Zortrium armor was our only research option for the next level of construction tech.
In 2392-2393, the honorable diplomatic humans apparently acquired good enough range tech to come into communication with us.
The humans were apparently sporting a modest 4-planet empire. Our meeting with them would end up being momentous for us—not so much because of our minimal trade deal that I signed to please them diplomatically, but because of the technology that they were willing to trade to us.
This was a fantastic deal! I didn’t care about making the humans stronger. They would never seriously challenge us. And energy pulsars were just the thing we needed to fight the swarms of Alkari small fighters in ship-to-ship combat.
I also traded ion cannons to the humans for nuclear engines simply in order to give us enough propulsion tech to be able to fit an ion cannon, a sub-light drive, and inertial stabilizers on a small hull.
I immediately put the energy pulsar technology into action against Alkari swarms that were attacking our frontline worlds. For the most part, these attacks were not a big deal. Some of the Alkari fighters were still sporting lasers, which could do nothing against our missile bases. And most worlds could easily emergency-build a few additional missile bases any time an attack looked imminent. But poor Trax had a hard time even getting a 2nd missile base built, and the Alkari started to show up with ion fighters and heavy ion medium-size destroyers. However, the Pulsir-352 design made missile bases a moot point, except against any larges that the Alkari might bring.
For example, in the battle pictured below at Rotan, one single Pulsir-352 ship instantly vaporized 150+ Alkari ion fighters. The Pulsir-352 and its successor, the Pulsak-354, were designed to have the pinnacle of defenses, evasion, and initiative on the battlefield so that they would get the first strike against Alkari small ships AND have staying power to hang in the battle against them to finish them off if the first pulsar shot happened to not be enough. Everything else, including most weaponry, was sacrificed for this single purpose of making the most of the energy pulsar special.
Besting the Alkari in ship-to-ship combat was now going to be a piece of cake. One pulsor capital ship of ours, plus some small ion fighters to deal with any Alkari larges that showed up, would easily maintain air superiority. Now all that we needed was a bomber fleet.
A few turns later, our bombers were also ready. Here is our fleet converging on Celtsi in 2398 (with transports already en route following behind, so sure was I of our victory!)
Our bombers destroyed 8 missile bases in their first volley, and then another 7 missile bases in their second volley before even taking any missile hits. Eventually, the missiles caught up with them, destroyed about 60 bombers. Obviously, that was not enough to deter us.
The invasion was a little trickier with the Alkari having impressive ground combat technology, but I was not afraid to empty half of the population of our frontline worlds for this strategic objective.
The results? We snagged ion rifle and DS4, plus Battle Computer Mark II (not pictured). I also traded BCIII to the Humans for gatling laser beforehand off-screen in order to maximize our chances of getting good techs from this conquest. Pretty decent!
Also, once our rich world was done building bombers, I had it build a long-range dead colony base, so we also got to colonize Escalon.
Meanwhile, the 2400 Election was inconsequential. Everyone still hates the birds, although fewer races hated them so much anymore as to vote for us instead.
So, here’s where things stand as of 2400. (By the way, capturing Celtsi put us into contact with the Silicoids. I have not attempted any diplomacy with them yet).
The next logical target is probably Dolz, which should easily fall even with just the forces already gathered at Celtsi:
As for incoming Alkari attacks, they are of little consequence. I have a Pulsak-354 and some ion fighters set to complete and relocate to Trax to defend that poor planet; otherwise, it might have some trouble defending itself. But our other planets are perfectly secure and hardly need any additional missile bases or ships to guard them, especially now that we have Battle Computer Mark III to help our missiles hit those pesky Alkari ships, and Class IV shields to protect us against Alkari ion fighters. I think we are set to continue going full-bore on the offense…not just against Dolz, but immediately thereafter against even Altair itself! Altair cannot have more than about 34 missile bases, which should fall almost as easily as Celtsi’s 24, unless the Alkari get some dramatically better technology in the interim. All the more reason to hit them hard and fast, I say!
With that in mind, I have some planets building yet more spare parts, which I recommend turning into more bombers whenever the next Emperor deems the time to be right. There are also 326 BCs in the reserve to spend if the next emperor would like. I have done a few things to set up the 2400 turn the way I would play it (such as getting population queued up to transport from Trax to Escalon), but nothing irrevocable has been decided. Good luck!
(Note: see the attached PDF file for the pictures that go with this report).
Coming back to the leadership of the Klackon Empire, I smelled blood. My predecessors had done a thorough and commendable job of motivating our worker ants to build up our glorious empire. But our soldier ants were hungry for more. And the Alkari were weaker prey than many realized.
This was from 2394, after the Alkari had acquired Battle Computers Mark III. Even with that, the Alkari would only be armed with nuclear missile bases with an attack level of 4. We could build nuke bombers with an evade rating of 7, meaning that only 20% of Alkari missiles would hit our nuke bombers. Plus, with a speed of 3, our nuke bombers would be able to dodge, or at least delay, some of the missile impacts.
Plus, it appeared that the Alkari had missed out on Class V shields. Planets with only 4 points of shielding and no ECM defenses will melt surprisingly quickly against even vanilla nuke bombers.
Many in the Klackon Empire had voiced worry about Celtsi’s 24 missile bases, thinking it an impregnable target. Hah! During my 10-year reign, I vowed that these missile bases would melt under the radiation of our nuclear bombs like the fat melts off of our rotisserie turkey dinners.
Here were the initial designs our engineers proposed, along with a huge hull design to encase our spare parts until the last moment when we were ready to assemble our attacking fleet for sure.
And here were the planets that I inherited in 2390 that would have to build these ships.
When I bragged that we already possessed the production capacity to build an offensive fleet and take Celtsi before my time in office was up, many thought I was mad. But my predecessors had built some splendid planets with some fine production facilities. I immediately switched almost all planets over to spare parts production, with just a few on the backlines held back to finish our research in planetology and construction.
In 2391, controlled dead environment researched finished at about 40% odds. Although we would not be diverting resources to colonize the dead world of Escalon on our frontier in the immediate future, the tech was useful in creating an immediate and noticeable increase in the production of each of our worlds—perhaps as much as a 10% increase.
The next year (2392), technology for reducing our factory waste by 60% came in at 15% odds, boosting our planets’ usable production by at least another estimated 10%. Zortrium armor was our only research option for the next level of construction tech.
In 2392-2393, the honorable diplomatic humans apparently acquired good enough range tech to come into communication with us.
The humans were apparently sporting a modest 4-planet empire. Our meeting with them would end up being momentous for us—not so much because of our minimal trade deal that I signed to please them diplomatically, but because of the technology that they were willing to trade to us.
This was a fantastic deal! I didn’t care about making the humans stronger. They would never seriously challenge us. And energy pulsars were just the thing we needed to fight the swarms of Alkari small fighters in ship-to-ship combat.
I also traded ion cannons to the humans for nuclear engines simply in order to give us enough propulsion tech to be able to fit an ion cannon, a sub-light drive, and inertial stabilizers on a small hull.
I immediately put the energy pulsar technology into action against Alkari swarms that were attacking our frontline worlds. For the most part, these attacks were not a big deal. Some of the Alkari fighters were still sporting lasers, which could do nothing against our missile bases. And most worlds could easily emergency-build a few additional missile bases any time an attack looked imminent. But poor Trax had a hard time even getting a 2nd missile base built, and the Alkari started to show up with ion fighters and heavy ion medium-size destroyers. However, the Pulsir-352 design made missile bases a moot point, except against any larges that the Alkari might bring.
For example, in the battle pictured below at Rotan, one single Pulsir-352 ship instantly vaporized 150+ Alkari ion fighters. The Pulsir-352 and its successor, the Pulsak-354, were designed to have the pinnacle of defenses, evasion, and initiative on the battlefield so that they would get the first strike against Alkari small ships AND have staying power to hang in the battle against them to finish them off if the first pulsar shot happened to not be enough. Everything else, including most weaponry, was sacrificed for this single purpose of making the most of the energy pulsar special.
Besting the Alkari in ship-to-ship combat was now going to be a piece of cake. One pulsor capital ship of ours, plus some small ion fighters to deal with any Alkari larges that showed up, would easily maintain air superiority. Now all that we needed was a bomber fleet.
A few turns later, our bombers were also ready. Here is our fleet converging on Celtsi in 2398 (with transports already en route following behind, so sure was I of our victory!)
Our bombers destroyed 8 missile bases in their first volley, and then another 7 missile bases in their second volley before even taking any missile hits. Eventually, the missiles caught up with them, destroyed about 60 bombers. Obviously, that was not enough to deter us.
The invasion was a little trickier with the Alkari having impressive ground combat technology, but I was not afraid to empty half of the population of our frontline worlds for this strategic objective.
The results? We snagged ion rifle and DS4, plus Battle Computer Mark II (not pictured). I also traded BCIII to the Humans for gatling laser beforehand off-screen in order to maximize our chances of getting good techs from this conquest. Pretty decent!
Also, once our rich world was done building bombers, I had it build a long-range dead colony base, so we also got to colonize Escalon.
Meanwhile, the 2400 Election was inconsequential. Everyone still hates the birds, although fewer races hated them so much anymore as to vote for us instead.
So, here’s where things stand as of 2400. (By the way, capturing Celtsi put us into contact with the Silicoids. I have not attempted any diplomacy with them yet).
The next logical target is probably Dolz, which should easily fall even with just the forces already gathered at Celtsi:
As for incoming Alkari attacks, they are of little consequence. I have a Pulsak-354 and some ion fighters set to complete and relocate to Trax to defend that poor planet; otherwise, it might have some trouble defending itself. But our other planets are perfectly secure and hardly need any additional missile bases or ships to guard them, especially now that we have Battle Computer Mark III to help our missiles hit those pesky Alkari ships, and Class IV shields to protect us against Alkari ion fighters. I think we are set to continue going full-bore on the offense…not just against Dolz, but immediately thereafter against even Altair itself! Altair cannot have more than about 34 missile bases, which should fall almost as easily as Celtsi’s 24, unless the Alkari get some dramatically better technology in the interim. All the more reason to hit them hard and fast, I say!
With that in mind, I have some planets building yet more spare parts, which I recommend turning into more bombers whenever the next Emperor deems the time to be right. There are also 326 BCs in the reserve to spend if the next emperor would like. I have done a few things to set up the 2400 turn the way I would play it (such as getting population queued up to transport from Trax to Escalon), but nothing irrevocable has been decided. Good luck!
.
Thanks for stepping up so promptly -- and effectively! -- Psillycyber. 
Been to the emergency room twice (for my brother, not for myself, but still not at all a happy experience). 
I'll have a look at the save (and probably play my turns) tomorrow. With the Imp43 closing date, it looks like it's going to be a MOO marathon weekend...not that I'm complaining! My plan is to grab as many worlds from the Alkaris as possible, except for one, to avoid the diplomatic penalty. I've thought a bit about whether it would be useful to maintain them as our opponent in the council instead since they're so unpopular, but I think we should be able to have a veto in the next election if we go after the Alkaris now.
. We do need better drives, but pointy stick research may provide. We're also low on defensive techs (planetary shields, missiles) but are probably better off investing in ship weapons and the tasty specials we've got lined up. Repulsors and Dissipators can stop bombers nicely. I think we actually have a small edge on the birds in gropo (they have Zortrium against Duralloy, but we have PDS) - Battle Suits were a nice pick-up.