OSG-35 - Social Distancing

[RefSteel]

It looks as if we could be OK at the council vote half way through the set. We'll be up against the bears, and they are currently at war with everyone else (BTW - if by some erratic miracle the Meks make peace with us and we can scrape enough votes to win I will be taking it unless there are strong objections).

I have no objection; any way we can turn this into a win, I'm in favor!  I should warn though that the Alkari are allied to the Meklar right now, so they could join the war with us (as might the cats just because they're ornery).  So ... er ... good luck!

One possible way to lessen the depth of our tech hole did occur to me - could we turtle and look to take Orion?

Nothing forbids this, but we'd have to survive a lot of turtling:  If we have the production to take Orion, we probably also have the production to smash through the Meklar bases and fleet!

Of course, we would first need to find it ... do we know where it is? And then get range, as I don't think it's close.

Oh!  No, we found it ages ago, and it's quite close by, actually!  See spoilers below...

EDIT: Are the Bulrathi really that uncrackable? They have Pulsons and 22 points of shielding, but look to have weak ECM and armour. Two stacks of similar, fast bombers to mess with their targetting should let us get a volley of Omega-Vs in, and then it's "just" a matter of finding the production to build big enough stacks ...

You're 100% correct!  I preferred to attack the Meks with their then-lesser missile tech and shielding, partly because mad emperor QX-537 could declare random war on us at any time anyway, partly to try to slow down the runaway, partly because there were Meklar targets closer to our core.  But you're correct that if we can build two bomber fleets of separate (even if identical) designs (plus space superiority ships to handle any enemy fleet) that each can take out a planet's bases in two volleys, the Bulrathi Pulsons won't matter!

Hum di dum dooooo...
It's such a beautiful dayyyyyyyy
For clearing the dust awayyyyyyy
Then polish and buff
Where it used to be rough
And everything feels okayyyyyyyyyy!!!

Ahhh, I do so love cleaning our galactic map display cabinet!  It always looks so pretty - and of course all nice and shiny when I'm through!

   

I wonder how long it's been since we visited that green star between About Time and Bulrathi space, in the middle of the "O" of Orion!  Why, whole generations I suppose!  Not that I blame our pilots, of course:  Every reason to think anything else we send there will just get blown up like that scout back in the 24th century.  Maybe one day though ... we'll have the chance to clean that place too!  Why, I'll bet if...

Toc...

...wha?  What was that noise?  Sounded like it came from that room down the corridor there!

... no?  Huh.  Nothing, I guess.  Funny thing.  Coulda sworn I heard a noise.

Ohhhhhhh
It's such a beautiful dayyyyy....

Toc.....

For clearing the dust awayyyyy...

I would take the slot after Arnuz.

Sounds great; I'll include that next time I update the roster!

[shallow_thought]

Looks like the control center door has been left unlocked! I wonder if my codes still work? They do - excellent. I know that the therapists advised another decade or four of aversion therapy before I was ready to consider being exposed to whatever it was that they'd like me to avoid, but it was boring being locked up all day. So, I've come back, to where I've had some of the ... something ... days of my life. As no-one is around, I guess I can fire things up and have a poke. Ooh. Look at all the pretty lights. Does that bring back memories? I'm not sure. What are these buttons with different pictures on them? There are birds and cats and ###### ...

T2520
-----
I do some calculations around bear-killing. Assuming 25 bases (which would be a well defended planet on hard? Fake Edit -  Yarrow has 30 bases, so this estimate is off), 22 points of shielding, but no ECM and only Titanium armour (of course, if they have Andrium or Tritanium and it doesn't fit on our espionage screen ...), what would our Faradays do?

Attack 7 against zero defense implies 100% hit rate, with +16.7 on the damage roll. Rounding that to 15 to make the arithmetic easy implies we do 20 + (d100 + 15) * 20 damage, capped at 40. So, for each 5% band, we do 23,24, ..., 39,40,40,40. Minus the shields gives us 1, 2, ... , 17, 18, 18, 18 averaging at 10.35 per bomb.

So, 5 bombs to kill a 50 HP base, so 125 bombs. Each Faraday carries 8, so 16 hits if we can get 2 volleys off. That's 8 Faradays to kill all 25 bases. And we would need a second stack to distract the missiles. And some contingency. We currently have 8 of the ships.

Hmm. That's all very nice, but we'd also need warships capable of dealing with the bears ships. And they have Plasma Cannon.

Additionally, we're at peace with the bears right now, and need to stay that way for a few turns, at least. The cats are vastly weaker, and attacking them would boost our diplo with everyone else. Judging from the fleet we can see they are also heavily reliant on smalls, and we have Energy Pulsar ...

May be worth bearing in mind that Rich Rha has only recently been re-founded by the bears though.

Anyway, I start constructing some huge placeholders while we turtle up against the Borg. Tech priority will be cheaper factories and then more of them. We need raw production.

T2521
-----
The birds declare war, just as Ref predicted. I think we might want a pulsar design soon.




I sketch out a "Thornmail" design. By the time it has initiative and mobility maxed, there's only room for one, standard gun. I'm not sure I'll build it, but it can fill the design slot that was taken up by our fusion bombers (although they might get resurrected against the cats).




The Meklar death fleet (or one of them) is at Keep Out. If it moves I'll burn the birds there.

T2522
-----
No incoming enemies.

T2523
-----
Still quiet. I decide to risk trying to burn Kailis - the birds only have Scatter V and Hyper-X. Let's do the maths:
12 Zortium (100 HP) bases, ECM 3, 11 shield points. We'll get 90% hits, doing average 30 (19) damage. So, our current fleet would kill 10 bases a turn. Hmm. Let's build a few more Faradays and a Thornmail and go bird-hunting. I scrap our remaining warp 3 scanners and a cruiser while I'm at it. I don't think I'll try to hold the planet just yet, but if we can spud an artifacts world, it may give us a window later. Or maybe we're just gifting it to the bears, who knows ?

T2524
-----
I launch our fleet from Nazin, which goes back to tech, Waters Edge restarts a huge placeholder: the ships here will have to wait a turn before setting off.

A Meklar huge is on its way to Sand Line. I can't find a report on the Nemesis design. We have 9 points of shielding and 10 Pulson/Zortrium bases, and the Meklar anti-planet weaponry isn't great. I'll build another base or two, but not panic yet.



T2525
-----
Meklar spies destrory two missile bases on Gion.

Vote time. It's us against the Bulrathi, as expected.
Meklar: 8 for the Bulrathi
Alkari: 5 for the Bulrathi
Cats: 2 for us
Rocks: 8 for us
Bears: 10 for themselves (23/41 total)
Us: 8 - abstain

Oh well, we'd have needed an erratic peace deal from the Meklar, as well as the Alkari staying on side to have won that. Back to the grind.

18 Ajaxes on their way to Waters Edge. On paper Tachyon beams can hurt us very slowly (Max 25, down to 12, leaving 3 damage per shot), but we have 23 pulson bases, so I think we'll cope, even against the cloaking.

I pin construction at one tick at 25% and start to see IRCV. We don't need the cheap factories much until that comes in.

T2526
-----
I nearly have a heart attack as Alkari mediums park in the spot I wanted to put my Faradays, and I end up being surrounded by two sets of missiles and not being sure if taking one move straight down instead of diagonally meant that one or more would hit. The screenshot utterly fails to capture the moment, but everything was fine - they were Scatter-Vs, and thus slow.



I burn Kailis. I think I might colonise it and see what happens. Colships are cheap, and there are enough random wars going on that we might get lucky.

T2527
-----
It's not an option. An Alkari colony ship with 8 megabolts is more than a match for my Thornmails, which retreat. We'll be back with a real gunship at some point though. If I'd been able to fit a heavy fusion beam on we could have danced around them and hit them back ...

So, that's a Nemesis. Big, heavily armoured but slow with poor shielding. It dies to a few volleys - ironically, it's our old Scatter-Vs that are effective here.



We are more advanced than kittens and rocks. Yay.



Do class IV shields really help against Megabolts? Maybe, but I can then only fit a single gun on a large with a stabilizer, and we need the maneuverability. Drop the shields, take more guns. These designs are all single-purpose crud, but at least give the player something to do.



I consider keeping our fleet in "orbit" around Kailis, as they used no munitions, but there's no need - it's only one turn from WE. They can pick up a couple of the new Glassguns next turn and head straight back.

T2528
-----
Pulsons shred Ajaxes at Waters Edge. Our fleet heads back to Kailis...

T2529
-----
... where they run into the Meklar, with one of their Nemesis ships. Ugh. Even worse, I misclick and send our Glassguns forward! Do they have a chance?

They did 37 damage, out of 1500. Hmm. Maybe I can dance and run out the turns? Nope. I lose one and am lucky not to lose both. I suspect someone competent could have run around better, but speed 2 was enough to force me up against the edges. Still, I may leave the fleet in orbit and see what can be done next turn. Ah no, those Meklar came from Keep Out, which is now undefended ...

IIT5 wanders in. IIT4 is our only follow-up option. Still, some miniaturisation achieved? Well, a revised Thornmail could have a heavy beam now. And we can build an inertial OMG medium bomber with BC VI. Worth remembering?

Annoyingly, I forget to redirect the fleet to Keep Out.

T2530
-----
Blow up some Ajaxes at Sand Line. More Meklar incoming at Waters Edge.

Hey, the bears have burnt Kailis! I strongly suggest doing the same to Keep Out if possible.

In the end, I just sniped where I could while pushing hard for IRCV. I probably should have sniped less and pushed harder, but the player's mental state is part of the game, and I wanted a little action. I'm not sure whether we're keeping in touch with the opposition or not, but we have got some more miniaturisation in, so if we can boost our production we may start to have options. The thing that is keeping us in the game is that everyone else is at war as well.


That's odd. The last thing I remember was opening the door and sitting down. Now there are scratch marks all over the console and an odd smell of burnt feathers. Still, it looks like I was safely able to spend a while in here without any real problems. How long was it? Oh. Ten years. I wonder why no-one stopped me doing ... whatever I did. I think I'll go back and hide under that nice bridge again. I'm sure everyone has stopped looking for me now.

EDIT
The Roster:

- Ianus (Skipped until we hear from you - I hope all is well!)
- shallow_thought - just played
- Arnuz - UP!
- utwig -On Deck
- Cyneheard
- RefSteel

[Arnuz]

Toc...

Toc!


TOC!!



While it's true that lobsters live a particularly long life, the same crustacean surviving for three decades in the same tank in the control room was rather unusual. One of the historians that started appearing around 25 years ago everywhere - already talking in the past tense of the darlok empire, the optimists - was fond of this one, to the point of calling it nicknames much to the disgust of anyone who happened to listen. Familiarity! With a live pet, not a mineral! The horror! But this lobster that kept banging its head on the walls of the tank was really special to him. It looked almost like that the lobster had a purpose.

Eventually, the historian unearthed documents that showed that the tank had been acquired... Exactly 30 years ago, right after the disappearance of the late leader of the period. Wait. Shocked he ran off to the shapeshift medics and in a moment, the leader was brought out of the tank, still trying to grab rocks with his hands acting like pincers...
It took a moment for the leader to understand that he was finally back in his original shape. Immediately he looked at the control and started shouting!
ATTACK
THE
CATS!!!!!!!


Got it!

[RefSteel]

I'm really enjoying the in-character stories! And good turns, shallow_thought! One note for your calculations: Missile bases have an innate defense rating of 1 (so e.g. ECM4 gives them a total missile/bomb/spore defense rating of 5). In any case, I can't wait to see what our ex-tardigrade ex-lobster leader has in store for us!

[shallow_thought]

ATTACK
THE
CATS!!!!!!!

I would have sniped at them, except the birds declared war, and we had a vote coming up . IIRC, attacking them might get us diplo points with our current enemies, which would be nice. However, if we're going to try to put together a force to hold a world, Kailis (artifacts!) is very tempting.

One note for your calculations:  Missile bases have an innate defense rating of 1 (so e.g. ECM4 gives them a total missile/bomb/spore defense rating of 5).

Yeah, I did actually have a note to check whether the baseline was zero or one before actually committing to attacking the bears, then promptly forgot when I ended up attacking the birds instead. As I said, always add contingency .

[Arnuz]

My friends, never forget the tenets of Darlok. If your enemy is large, you shall be the virus that infects it. If your enemy is small you shall be the bear that eats it. If your enemy is strong you shall be the bat that avoids it. If your enemy is fast you shall be the turtle on which it slams. No one can foresee what the Darlok will be next for he is shrouded in secrecy. Everything of the Darlok is secret. Even the sperm of the Darlok is secret. Their sperm does not carry forward in a straight genetic fashion. Gaps occur. Every Darlok examined hides his inner self. They are naturally immune to an Ixian Probe! Secrecy at the deepest levels, that is their ultimate armour and their ultimate weapon.

Still muttering ancient forgotten tenets - together with curses against the historians who believe that we're already entombed and that even keep around cats as pets, the heretics - I, this turnset's High ScapeGoat (it's now a title) go to work, from time to time looking behind my back at the glass of the fish tank, from which I looked - with the thousands of reflexive facets that the lobsters eyes sport - at the commands being given in this very control room.

2530:

• We're peaceful with bears and cats, hate with birds and mechs. Clearly that's not enough hate, let's have some more.
  
• After extensive study of the previous battle reports, Vetril, the heavy blaster destroyer is born. Unfortunately, neither a battle  scanner nor an Istab would fit without unacceptable compromise, but those are not strictly necessary. The only luxury that installing our best computer allows is an upgrade to duralloy armour.
  
• Two standard colony ships are started. Yep. You got that right. Well probably you're not THAT surprised given how I woke up from my lobster phase. Otherwise, all the available ship parts are converted into Vetrils.
  
• Map situation: some 52 Meklar transports are en route towards Gorra. That might slow us a bit, but it's also potentially advantageous. We ignore Gorra and send the entire fleet - heh - to Fieiras, disregarding the incoming Meklar Annihilator +11 Ajax - our pulsons will be more than enough for that based on past reports.
  
• Tech focus on computers and propulsion is maintained with minor tweaks.
  

2531: A single bombing run from our Faradays destroys the pitiful Mrrshan defences and then the colony in a single round. QX-537 opens a comms line to tell us that we're now besties, but I shapechanged into a chamaleontic humanoid that our biology scans took up from before melting Fieiras' surface for our historical archives, and he doesn't see anything on the comms. We've built 55 Vetrils and 2 colony ships.

• Kailis has been bombed! Only a portion of the Alkari residents remain, no missiles. That's a golden opportunity. The Meklar are en route with transports there as well. We send Vetrils to Fieiras, and the fleet (Faradays, 2 Thorns, 1 Glassgun) to Gorra. We stop with the ship building for now.
  
• Phyco is a silicoid radiated world with only 7 bases - interesting...
  

2532: This is what passes for a fleet among the Mrrshan:

That ship is destroyed but this time we spare the colony leaving it for the cyborgs to destroy. They seem to appreciate it, they are even friendlier much to my horrour.
We create a new colony for the first time in a very long time using one of the radiated ships - we need to make up for the lost time - and we call it Sabretooth, for a long disappeared feline. The birds are so scared that they offer peace, and we enter into contact with the rocks.

• Map: Kailis is now Meklar!
  
• Bears are going for Phyco - 2 Claws, 4 Tooth and a colony ship, with clear intentions. Time to field-test our Vetrils. Only 7 can reach Phyco in time - 1 turn - while the rest and the bombers and the last radiated colship will reach it in 2.
  

2533: That was not necessary, Phyco's 7 missile bases kill the bear ships. No problem. We need to make distancing great again, and Phyco is on our path!

• In a happy development, Silicoids have sent 70 transports towards Kailis. It'd be great if we can grab it from them avoiding many wars. But even if we can't, we have a galaxy to disinfect anyhow.
  
• Fertile About Time has half its population sent to Sabretooth, and Waters Edge finishes the job.
  
• Sabretooth has 30 Vetrils in defence, Phyco 9. We send the ones from Nazin to the empty system Moro to be at 1 turn from both Kailis and our Capital. The remaining 3 are sent from Sabretooth to check its surroundings.
  

2534:
Cryslon has 24 missiles that go 3 AUs per turn. Rhylus 27. Proxima 11. Our newfound neighbours are, all things considered, well... Not the Meklars:

This assures me of the correctness of my assessment. Phyco is razed to the ground. The silicoids demonstrate their hate by... Cutting contact? That's gratitude for the Darloks... By now I should understand these aliens...

• Politics: the bears are at war with cats and rocks. The rocks are also at war with the driods. We need to exploit their wars! We start more colony ships... I send the bombers on a two year trip towards Kailis - it should become Silicoid next year.
  

2535: 

Oh no how will we do without the kittens' flea ridden pelts! I only lament not being the leader that has ordered their genocide. Darlok history might judge me harshly for this shortcoming.
We substitute the rocks' name of Phyco with a more appropriate RocksStink2. Fertile AboutTimians keep sending their children to the alien worlds. 
Our defence is entrusted to 21 Vetrils headed towards Kailis, 26 in Sabretooth, and 10 in RocksStink2.

2536:
Ion drives!

I usually try to be less committal with research, but I feel that the situation warrants a bit of a bet... This advanced technology will combine well with the (already chosen) Megabolt cannon whenever we reach that. 
Kailis is still Meklar, with only 2 population left? Too bad. Oh well, we take them out of their misery, without even thinking too much about that. The relations don't even suffer that much - maybe the machines like being disinfected?

• Our computers are for the moment advanced enough. The research efforts are shifted onto Planetology to kickstart atmospheric terraforming and make the radiated planets worth investing into.
  
• We start a new standard colony shit in Waters Edge - I am preparing a trick to bamboozle the dumb bears... We split the bombers, sending 3 to Rha and to Gorra, while the rest goes straight for Cryslon!
  

2537: Our scientists are really delivering!

We decide to go for some ease of life. Advanced space scanners will help plan our attacks during the next phase. We keep some research in computers and move the rest in planetology - once we have a larger economic base we can go for hyperfluxed megabolts ships, and really disinfect it all.
Kailis, the artifacts world, becomes finally ours! Well, it has been Always Ours - they just didn't know about it.
Wait, what is this?? 1 of 13 alkari penetrate our defences? We just founded it! When did the birds send transports...

With quite some luck our new colonists defend the base. Even birds are better fighters than us with their combat tech!
Vetrils have finally a chance to prove their worthiness, in a fight between 21 of our Kailis force against 3 Ajaxs. Despite their cloaking tech, our supercomplicated tactics - waiting to exploit our battle computer initiative - prove too much for the cyorgs.
A similar fight against the bears doesn't go as well - their Tooth design has higher initiative, but we lose only a single Vetril to defend Sabretooth. We need to remember this! So much for advanced computers... Hopefully having committed to 40k BCU in computer research won't wreak our chances.

• Map situation: AlwaysOurs is sought after. Maybe we should have waited for all those transports to arrive, but we didn't notice them, so there's that... At the worse we'll have to use another colony ship. Naah there go our colonists! We need to accelerate! I split further the Vetrils from the east quadrant to try and block as many transports as possible, and send colonists from Nazin and again from AboutTime.
  

2538:
Cryslon's missiles disappear under our bombs.
In alwaysOurs, 21 Vetrils inflict 100-150 damage per turn to the Meklar cloaked Ajax's - Move at 2 distance, Wait, Shoot and move, Stop, repeat and eventually they all die.
A battle against the Silicoids lets us see their techs. These would be problematic for our Vetrils when defending planets, but here they eventually retreat:


Over Rha, we meet some Bulrathi ships:

Better keep well away from this. While our Vetrils do their wait-shoot-stop dance, the bombers unload quite a number of bombs on the planet, accelerating its destruction. 

All Cryslon, Rha and Gorra are destroyed. We have two new colony ships, a standard and a radiated one. We are sailing smoothly!

...Ops, the bears are not at war with the rocks anymore. The bamboozling has failed - they hate us. Oh well, it's time to turtle up anyway! We couldn't afford a rich bear planet on our flank like that. At least the birds are at their best of times with us - probably because of their war with the silicoids. That of course means that Keep Out can't be ours... Oh no, where to sink all of our finances??

Cryslon seems unlikely to be defended but we send a colony ship there too, you never know. We focus defences on Sabretooth and AlwaysOurs for now. Sabretooth has absored a lot of our planetary reserves and is becoming quickly an industrial powerhouse! Soon we'll be able to build missile bases on it. Only our old 3 large designs are left there to keep the space clean for our incoming colony ship.

Of course our technology efforts are completely blocked, but as soon as our rearline planets will be up to IC5.... They'll keep being blocked!! We have to create more planetary reserves or face having undefended bases forever!!

Rhilus is the only Silicoid planet in range, I decide to sterilise it to block the rocks' ships from attacking us through range control. Their range tech is as low as ours. Hopefully this will bring the relations with the bears back up.

The only decision of note is to send the Farady bombers, all alone, towards Rhilus, together with a colony ship. They can always retreat if needed, but the Silicoid ships while resilient designs aren't much of a threat, so it might be that we could bomb a bit the planet should we not meet strong opposition.

2539: another year with many battles!
The first is the longest: our old ships against 1 Mako, 4 Sharks. With our ships having speed 4 against speed 3, on every turn we gain one AU by waiting over the rocks, but since their ships only have 1 range, we aren't shot at for 3 turns every 4. We try to sacrifice some Thornmails to keep the gunship alive and shooting but the rocks keep going towards the gunship and manage to retreat with only the Mako.
The second is quick and harsh: the Meklar have 4 dreadnoughts that we can't cope with, but they might be out of range. We wait and kill their colony ship then retreat.
Finally, on Crislon we meet some more silicoids. Our Faradays again wait and pounce on the planet. They destroy all the missile bases and are ready to retreat when... The silicoids retreat first?!? Fantastic!
We end up with two new colonies - NowDust (formerly Cryslon) and WeRRich (formerly Rha). But the best is... QX, our longstanding friend, proposes peace!!  

The bears relations improve through bombing of rocks, let's keep at it! With peace with both borgs and Alkari and the silicoids at war with everyone else we might even manage to develop these colonies, if the birds don't get drawn in a war by the bears just before the bears change their mind...

• Map: Gorra is free from Meklar ships! Their range was not enough and 4 dreadnoughts have disappeared in thin space.
  
• We're spread way too thin trying to defend all the colonies that we founded on opportunity, we'll possibly have to choose what to defend soon.
  
• Some more target of opportunity in rock space - I send most of the bombers to a 2 years trip
  
• More About Timers sent out, to WeRich.
  

Uh. What is this? Suddenly, we have 3200 BCU in reserve. No idea where that came from, possibly hidden diplomacy presents? We gladly spend this on our developing planets, while the ones without population yet will stay as they are. I don't dare to send population around just yet.

2540
I set some orders up and go for a walk in the private woods that surround the control centre for many kilometres. After all the animals that have harassed me through the comms links, the small pets that remain in our artificial forests - insects, snakes, rats - are not a nuisance for me anymore. The silence is relaxing and I end up in front of the window of the command room. Oh, look! They are already preparing it for the next leader, I feel serene despite knowing that I've gone through a rather revolutionary decade. I look up and rest a bit in the grass, with the leaves of the tree in front of me. This lasts a bit too long and I unwittingly achieve the blank state of mind that brings to shapeshift at an even stronger level than I did when I turned into a microscopic insect. The feat is unheard of...

On the following morning, a new oak is photosynthesising, as if nothing happened, in front of the command room.

A small word on the turns I've set. We're really spread thin and I don't think that we could normally keep both the ex cryslon words, NowDust and Rhilus, which I'm sure the Alkari will try to snag from us with their fleet in Exis. However, there's a nice little detail: Dolz is the only Silicoid world at 5 parsecs, and if our bombers destroy it the silicoids should leave Nowdust - we should have the same range tech as we were without contact until we colonised the Mrrshan world. So I've left in Nowdust a single Thorn to try and force them to leave, but if that doesn't work out there's the range reserve plan. With this we should manage to hold both; otherwise Nowdust could still hold against a bombing of only 8 tachyons. Otherwise no big deal, it's just a cheap colony ship worth of investment.

Ships: the Thorn might seem doomed, but it should be able to force a bump. The tactic that I've used above to actually destroy the Sharks (with more ships) was: at 5 spaces of distance, "wait"; they come at 2. Then you move as much as is left and end turn. The Shark comes closer; if you have the range to go at 5 spaces (with the remaining movement plus the following turn before "wait), then move/turn/move/wait. Otherwise, and this is the trick, wait immediately, without moving. The Sharks will get a shot in, then you can leave and be distant for another 3-4 rounds like this; if you try to move away they'll close you against some corner. The Sharks are heavily defended but only sport 2 tachyons each, with 200hp we should be able to reach the 50 turns like this.
The Faradays are still good against the rocks. Manouver around the missiles, try to avoid any ships but it's ok to take some shots. For some reason the rocks retreat when the missile bases die, this is really bizzarre... In this way you can take some more shots in, then finish off the colony with strategic bombing.
The Vetrils are the classical paper tiger. Never get them shot! Wait and stop like above but keep in mind that they don't have the Istab, they only move 3. You need enough of them to kill a stack or most in one shot, typically. I've managed to surgically remove a Meklar colony ships as so far the Meklars have tactic speed of 2, tops. For future designs, I'd suggest to renew the Vetrils with ion engines, making these underdog tactics a lot easier.

Colonies: I've built a shield at Sabretooth, it could make 1-5 bases then go back to industry, or try and defend it with the ships but you'll need more ships for sure. Probably both necessary soon, especially if the alkari get drawn in the war by the bears, then the bears by the alkari and so on, the worst diplomatic scenario that I can think of (well, together with - and Meklars suddenly declare war because they're erratic) 
The new planets have 1-2 turns worth of investment already poured into them. About Time is the least developed of our systems, as it's still recovering from sending population all around and hasn't started upgrading industry yet. 

Tech: investment is exactly zero. Sorry about that, but at least you can decide where to go from here. Megabolts+hyperfluxers+ion engines and Istabs would make for quite a decent dreadnought! That will take a LOT of time though, 80k research, so planetology sounds like a safer bet first as we have 2 radiated planets of which 1 rich. 

Good luck!

[RefSteel]

Great report, Arnuz! And great work sewing chaos and confusion among our enemies while acquiring some excellent new worlds - hopefully more than temporarily! It looks like a perfect case of shallow_thought setting us up for a dramatic offensive on which you executed with extreme efficacy! This game is starting to look very winnable all of a sudden....

(Unless I just jinxed us again!)

High Council's coming up at the end of utwig's turns. Will we make it through again? Might we even manage a veto? I'm looking forward to finding out!

The Roster:

- Ianus (Skipped until we hear from you - I hope all is well!)
- shallow_thought
- Arnuz - just played
- utwig - UP!
- Cyneheard - on deck
- RefSteel

[shallow_thought]

Wow. That was a busy turnset. If we can hold even one of those worlds (while keeping the rest as spuds) we'll have made noticeable gains. And if we can hold more than one ...

Nice.

[utwig]

Saw the turnset completed, will play later today but I need to spend some time familiarizing with the game.

[utwig]

Another consolidating turnset after the chaos set in motion by Mad King Arnuz
I did manage to consolidate most spoils and got us through the vote safely.

2540
I put shelter on 93 science
Transfer 50 resrves to WeRich so they can have some $bling$
Rocksstink2 has Bulrathi fleet incoming, so I send ships from Werich, Sabre and relocate from AboutTime and Waters Edge Put Rocksstink2 on shield production
   
Terraform Sabretooth and build 1 base
Send transports from Waters Edge and Sabretooth to Onceuponcat
Put Alwaysours on shield

2541
Battle with Silicoids at Dolz - manage to bomb bases but ship forces me to retreat
   
Battle with Silicoids at NowDust do only 4 damage against their Shark, while taking 47 hit, I retreat
   
Battle with Alkaris at Rhilus and then with Silicoids. We win

2542
Since our fleets are spread thin I decide not to build colony at Rhilus
NowDust bombarded for 4 million
Sabretoth has V shield, build bases and factories
Terraform WeRich
Onceuponcat is full 85 pop, build shield and send reserves, relocate fleets there
Move fleet from Rhilus to NowDust
Transfer pop from Sabretotoh to NowDust

2543
Bulrathi transports heading for AlwaysOurs were destroyed
11 Silicoids land on NowDust but 39 troops remain standing
Alkari offer alliance, Silicoids offer peace, we reject
   
Battle with Silicoids at NowDust, we prevai
   
Battle with Bulrathi at Rocksstink2, 10 Ventrils prevail

2544
Battle with Bulrathi at NowDust, retreat
   
Battle with Bulrathi at Rocksstink, 15 Ventrils kill single
Alwaysours and Rocksstink build shield
Bulrathi incoming to WeRich, send reserves and build 15 ventrils at about time and watersedge

2545
NowDust is destroyed
We keep our $Bling$ at WeRich

2546
nothing to report, except Keep Out has beem bombed to dust by Meks


2547
I decide to make a dash for NowDust since it's owned by no one
Dispatch Alkari at NowDust
QUake hits AlwaysOurs
   

2548
Send transports to NowDust

2550
Vote: Alkari cast 5 votes for us, Meklars have 25/42, we abstain, it's pretty safe as we have blocking majority now
   

I consolidated everything except Rhilus and regained NowDust

Good luck to Cyneheard. You can use avoidance tactic with incoming Meklars at NowDust. Note that colony ship design only has standard base so redesign if you're going after silicon worlds.

  OSG35-2550.GAM (Size: 57.65 KB / Downloads: 1)