OSG-34: Rollin' with the Rocks

[Bionic Commando]

Got it, I’ll play by tomorrow. 10 turns, correct?

[RefSteel]

Got it, I’ll play by tomorrow. 10 turns, correct?

Yup! Up to 2360. Good luck!

Oh, and in answer to Ianus: Duralloy Armor would be enough by itself to let us fit a standard colony base and reserve fuel tanks on a large hull; alternatively, if we tech both Improved Industrial 8 and Death Spores, that will also provide the miniaturization required (and have additional economic benefits instead of Duralloy's wartime ones - and of course it depends on what's actually in the second rung of our tree).

[Guiness]

Reading through the reports, enjoying the write-ups!

I have a question though - Ianus, how did you know Psilons were range 7? Did you guess based on the location of their planet when the sailing stones encountered them?

[Bionic Commando]

I am but a modest mineral, Basalt Calamaite, but the time for my rise as Chief Advisor has begun. I only hope that I am strong and do not crumble, for I feel my time as advisor represents the keystone in a bridge into strange new times. Keystone… what a ghastly term the humans taught me. They made bridges of stone once upon a time! True barbarians. You’ll find no meat bridges in Silicoid space. I look forward to the day we can clear those carbon based meat bags out of our galaxy...


Speaking of space, I can make my mark on this empire grabbing up to four easterly border worlds:



Igneous Anhydrous Nephritic Ultramafic System has left us with strongly growing worlds. While we have made some initial breakthroughs and are aiming for IIT9. Our industry is a bit weak, so I’ll focus on completing this research and overall industrialization, particularly at Thrax and Zoctan.







2350 - I note with some humor that the Psilons have a Colony ship in orbit of wonderfully Toxic Darrian. Surely they’re decades from colonization. I’m moving to populate Phyco from Whynil. Our overall industry is weak and we will need to make progress during this advisory period.





2351 - No developments.





2352 - Scouts arrive at Escalon and return bad news:






We’ll advance that scout ship to the next star I can reach, east of Orion. I’ll make the first major choice of my tenure and move to colonize Gion. I’ll redirect the next colony ship to Guardias to expedite colonizing.





2353 -











An unpleasant greeting, but finally a race we have something in common with. Fie those other carbon-based groups! I have a feeling we're going to be the two best friends that anyone could have... The Melkar populate 3 stars adjacent to Psilon “space” with the appendage pointing at Meklon.











Despite a bombastic intro, the Meklar have Relaxed relations with us and agree trade. Their leader is an Erratic Technologist and they’re allied with the Sakkras. They seem to have a powerful fleet, strong technology, and production despite a relatively small territory base.





2354 - Transports arrive at Bootis, Gion is colonized, and a Colony ship comes off the shipyards. The colony at Gion moved Stalaz into range and we will land there next. IIT9 is in the percentages finally. Whynil is back to pop levels where I took over. I’ll shp a couple rock brothers to Gion.





2355 -





We’ve stirred up the hornets nest at the Yellow eastern star, which is Ursa.









My guess is they’ve dug in for a 1PE with hostile-to-them surrounding worlds. Pity!













Another discovery:











This leads to an interesting choice between IIT8 and Duralloy armor. IIT8 will cost 3200 vs 5000 for Duralloy. IIT8 will also potentially have substantial economic benefit, although a diminishing return from our newfound IIT9. It seems the humans will be the most immediate threat, with Psilons and Bulrathi likely 1PEs. That said, Duralloy will reinforce missile bases and allow more substantial minaturizing. At any rate, our economy needs so much work that I pick IIT8. I’d be interested to have this choice reviewed as I really agonized over it. Hopefully this isn’t a turning point!





And another discovery: Bulrathi are actually 2PE and not 1PE with Denubius:







After all that, I move us to colonize Stalaz. I split research between construction and planetology.





2356 & 2357 - Nada mucho.





2358 - Colony Ship completes & RELOCs.





2359 - Stalaz colonizes:











Which initiates the Council vote:











And it’s us v. Sakkra





Humans Abstain (4 votes)

Sakkra self vote (5)

Melkar vote for Sakkra (3)

Psilon vote for Sakkra (1)

Bulrathi abstain (4… maybe they’ve got a third planet… hmm)

We have 4 votes. Nobody wins.



Looks like Meklar have a large moving north into our territory, with the innocuous name of “Annihilator”.  Likely this contains my lava bath.



I’m sending the Colony ship to Talas which will create a nice eastern line of worlds. There’s a green start northward that I’m sending a scout to. Cryslon will RELOC to Regulus to expedite colonizing Darrian. May have to chase off a Psilon colony ship to do so.



2360 -



Nuts! I'm such a terrible judge of character...









Maybe that Annihilator has less than peaceful intentions for Regulus. It’s also worrisome since they ally now with the Sakkra AND Bulrathi. I may have grossly miscalculated on the whole "no wars yet" thing.
















Exiting notes: Thrax really blossomed during my tenure and is now generating lots of research points. Zoctan is creating 13 factories/year and I think we should allow it to complete. I’ll leave it to my successor to pick the coming research agenda for our future. Overall, I accomplished the goals of my first OSG advisory, although sorry about this whole Meklar thing. Be mindful for the 2375 election as well. We can’t afford an intergalactic dogpile!

[Ianus]

Guiness - I knew that the Psilons must have just discovered Range 7 tech because we did not increase our own range or settle any planets. And in fact neither did they as they still had only their homeworld.  So a couple of game tricks here (I don’t know how much you know about MoO, sorry if this is too basic): first even though we haven’t explored their planet clicking on Mentar will show its minimum distance to one of our worlds, and second we have visibility on the locations of all of a race’s colonies once we have met them even though we haven’t explored them yet. Thus I could click on Mentar once I knew where it was and see that it was 7 parsecs from our nearest planet, and since WE certainly don’t have Range 7 (reserve fuel tanks don’t count) I know that the Psilons must have just discovered the tech that turn.

In thinking about this I have started to second guess myself. I’m almost certain that alliances don’t count for extending range to meet new races, but I’m not certain. Can someone else confirm?  Because if that is the case the brains could have allied with the Humans that turn and reached us that way. I don’t THINK that is what happened but I’d like to be sure.

And I see that while writing this we have a new report up. Yay!

[Ianus]

Very nice Bionic Commando! Bummer about the Meklar. Maybe they are jealous that we are made with Silica too? Or more likely their software is buggy.

Regarding your decision to pursue IIT8 over Duralloy: that’s a tough one. I THINK that I would have gone for Duralloy because we already have IIT9 and Duralloy has defensive value and because of the range discussion from earlier, but IIT8 also has high value for our development. Plus we weren’t at war when you made that choice and from a strictly developmental standpoint IIT8 is a good choice.

So it’s to be war eh? Might be time to fortify Bootis and Regulus, although being poor we might have to write off Regulus for the time being. Still and all we are in great shape, just as long as we don’t get dog piled now (knock on petrified wood).

[RefSteel]

Great development, Bionic Commando - and I loved your report!

Nothing you could do about QuiXotic 537's erratic war declaration (when they blame the conjunction of planets, you can be sure it's not your fault!) - but it does look like this game is going to get pretty exciting pretty quickly! If we want to save Regulus, we probably can beat that one cruiser - though it depends on how well they've shielded the thing and what it's armed with, to say nothing of what if anything they send to reinforce - for instance by turning the colship that Mentar's about to complete into combat ships instead, and sending more down from Thrax. (There's no point in building a shield-1 titanium ECM-0 nuclear missile base at the Poor world itself.) No fleet we build would be in time to stop the Annihilator from taking orbit (unless it has no beams and our scout is enough) but they should be able to evict it and hopefully shoot down the transports that'll be sent in its wake.

Whether we plan to save the colony or not, my instinct is to evacuate it as far as we can to discourage Meklar bombing and save as many rocks as we can (if we're going to lose the colony, which we very well may, I'd rather lose 5M Silicoids killing 5M invading Meklar than lose 30M Silis to kill 40M 'chines). If I were up next, I might send half the population of Regulus off to Bootis every turn until the situation is resolved! On the other hand, doing that might cost us a colony we could otherwise have saved, which would also cost us our contact (and trade agreement) with the Psilons (though colonizing Darrian might change this; I'm not sure of the distance). Just because it's my instinct doesn't mean it's necessarily right!

Speaking of which: You are correct about contact, Ianus. In order to have "official" contact (where we can see them and negotiate with them on the Races screen) at least one of us (either us or the race in question) needs range technology at least equal to the shortest distance between one of our worlds and one of theirs. Our ships may be able to reach one another's colonies due to alliances (and/or reserve fuel tanks) when this does not apply, but diplomatic contact always follows the same rule anyway.

I notice our research is seriously lagging, with a hot war brewing against the most powerful race we know. Bootis will help with tech when it's better developed though - assuming we can hold onto it! Juggling priorities for the coming turns will likely be a challenge! Good luck, Guiness!

---

Roster:
- RefSteel (on deck)
- RFS-81
- Ianus
- Bionic Commando (just played)
- Guiness (UP for ten turns, to 2370!)

[Guiness]

So delighted am I, GuinessSkimmingstoneOnceSkipped88time to have been named reigning chief advisor by 34th Ornamental Sandstone Guy!

Got it. Will play today

[Bionic Commando]

Regarding your decision to pursue IIT8 over Duralloy: that’s a tough one. I THINK that I would have gone for Duralloy because we already have IIT9 and Duralloy has defensive value and because of the range discussion from earlier, but IIT8 also has high value for our development. Plus we weren’t at war when you made that choice and from a strictly developmental standpoint IIT8 is a good choice.

What sealed it for me was the large proportion of Poor and Ultra Poor worlds. We're going to have to develop industry on most of them to win and reducing factory costs to reasonable levels -- sooner rather than later -- will be critical. If we're desperate for Duralloy, we can always trade or steal for it. 

My vote is for evacuating Regulus to Thrax and Bootis, although it may be worthwhile to see what that Cruiser has on it. In fairness, it's possible I've miscalculated its trajectory and without ISS, determining destination is really only guesswork.

[Ianus]

If it was in transit before war were declared there is a good chance that it is going to Darrian as the AI in this game react to empty planets like cats to paper bags: they just can’t leave them alone. They will certainly send a fleet now that war were declared, however. We shall see.