(July 1st, 2023, 15:37)RefSteel Wrote: Then I suddenly started to worry: Does a torpedo to full damage against planetary targets? I couldn't remember, and couldn't quickly find any indication to the contrary, but I vaguely remember someone saying somewhere that they act like beams, and now I don't remember if that turned out to be true.
The OSG definitely says torpedoes are halved against planetary shields, and my in-game experience bears that out.
Yarp (I think). But Megabolts wouldn't have helped either, great as they are against ships; Fusion Rifles may have been more useful in theory, but the torpedoes are cheaper and we absolutely need to unlock better bombs or missiles to progress against the rocks; powering through and hoping for better luck at the next rung seems a better bet.
I've rarely used torps, but I can see some synergy with ARS and Repulsor. Not that it is likely to be relevant in my set.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Yeah, I vaguely remembered the rule with torps but couldn't find it again quickly and only barely remembered (and only belatedly) because I use them so infrequently. Sorry about that!
(July 1st, 2023, 21:20)thrawn Wrote: IIRC speed 4 was the sweet spot where you can glass the bases without taking any losses but not sure if your stack needs to be big enough to do it quickly. You go around the planet and bomb from behind, getting rid of the bases just as the missiles are going to get you.
You mean like this?: (Picture from an earlier OSG)
As far as I know, that works for scatters and everything up to (and including) Mercs. Against scatter packs (and I think everything up to but excluding mercs) you can even fly an evasion pattern and hit the planet repeatedly while the missiles give chase but never catch you, whereas Mercs do (if I remember correctly) require that a speed 4 stack be big enough to wipe the base in two volleys. But I've never known a speed-4 ship to successfully dodge planetary Stingers this way. (I'm not sure what speed is enough short of teleporters.) It might just be that I don't know how to dodge them correctly, but I think the main thing that allows it to work against high-tech opponents is that they always fire scatters at stacks of small bombers - when they have any, which these Humans don't.
(July 1st, 2023, 15:37)RefSteel Wrote: If their battle computer tech doesn't improve, then each base will kill about 1.2 fast bombers per volley (1.8 of the older, slower ones) and if their ECM and shields don't improve, new bombers with BC3 should average something like ~2.6 damage per attack - so depending on how much attrition you think is acceptable and what else you send, you'll probably want a few hundred bombers, but "a few" can be a pretty small number itself.
Good luck with the turns!
Hmm. I'm calculating we'll do ~3.3 per bomb thrown (6.6 per bomb that hits, which includes the correction for that fact 2 out of 16 times we'll do zero damage, and 50% to hit given equal ECM/BC levels), rather than ~2.6. What am I missing? My calculations on their to-hit against our bombers match FWIW.
Going with my numbers for the moment I make it 480 bombers to (likely) destroy 21 bases in a single volley (21 * 75 / 3.3), and we'd lose ~50 getting there, so 550 bombers should do it safely with minimal (but still costly) casualties. It feels very practical to attack with fewer if we're prepared to sacrifice a few tens more sitting over the planet for a round or two.
Not sure it matters much for my turnset - I think the plan is the same regardless, it's just how far I'll get in building a fleet (we need at least one updated gunship first, IMO).
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Is anti-missile rockets tech available to trade with one of the AIs? Would help to cut the losses (that is, if it can fit in the small bomber). Not a miracle though.
"I've always felt that the Head of Human Affairs was a bit odd, even although he's respected enough to be part of the Strategy Council (he even did a tour as head!), while in some ways I'm just a manager, albeit, as Chief Deputy Undercoordinator for Population and Industry over the last 10 years, quite a senior one. Even so, I found his behaviour particularly strange during my most recent tour - and it seems to have spread to the rest of the council. Other than some instructions around building specific new ship designs as soon as could efficiently be done and to not reduce the espionage budget (however much I might have wanted to), I was pretty much left to run things. The council just had meeting after meeting, and workshop after workshop, focussed on relations with our nearest biological neighbours. What was really disturbing was occassionally coming into a room after they'd used it for a "breakout" session. I know that it's difficult to get Psilons really worked up, and that we need some level of propaganda for the public, but I don't really think that hand-drawn pictures of [REDACTED] are appropriate in a professional environment - and they used up all the red pens (lucky I was able to keep the budget mostly balanced, hah). And some of the language! Do we really need to [REDACTED] all humans? I'm not sure that HoHA is quite sane any more - the grin on his face when we produced the first set of new bombers was quite disturbing. I'm glad to be out of it and off to do some nice research for my next tour."
(From the exit interview of the CDUPI, 2450-2460).
T2450
I don't lock in Ref's suggested bomber design (BCIII upgrade over the Meteor 4.1) for lack of design slots - we need the fighters we have at least until we've had a chance to fight off the current Silicoid pokes. However, I replace the Review 4.0 design with a similar one that has a single missile rack, to allow shoot and move. This may be less useful than normal with Repulsor, but I like to have it.
Uxmai switches to that design, and I start Paradise on one as well, although that may well become a pile of bombers before it launches.
T2451
Humans are sending another ignorable fleet to Paradise.
Switch Mentar to fixing its factories and feeding the reserve to get our new worlds up to speed.
T2452
We steal Gatling Laser from the Humans. I am somewhat underwhelmed, but it's off the list.
However, we also get Megabolt from the cats! And I get to blame their allies the Rocks. Nice. However, with Repulsor and most enemy fleets being large / huge I stick with Heavy Fusion Beams for our gunship design (I can now squeeze an extra gun on).
The Silicoids just turn round at Reticuli.
T2453
IT40 is in; I am very tempted by Cloning but decide to go Advanced Eco; I feel we need more production (also, one of the AIs has Cloning to steal). Planets move to terraform (and then factory) despite the hit to ships and tech.
T2454
Poor Mrrshan security allows us to pick up Ion Rifle.
The Silicoids are sending a fleet to Longlast but we've seen all the designs and they're harmless.
T2455
A second Human fleet is aimed at Paradise and the Silicoids are sending a joke force to Tao - which doesn't have any bases, but does have a shield and can build at 2/y; the enemy won't arrive for 8 ...
The other news is that the Meklar have the Neutronium Bomb. WANT. I guess we'll risk the bad relations and keep spying. Although I note they are now ahead of us in computers. I trade Gatling Laser to them for Controlled Barren simply to clear it out - it leaves only Cloning in Planetology. They would also trade Stingers for BCV or IT40 ...
T2456
Humans arrive at Paradise and promptly leave; I am able to kill a few Frigates on the way out. The Mrrshan's warn us to stop expanding. Their alliance with the Silicoids may be causing issues for us, but I love their ongoing war with the Klackons and Meklar.
T2457
We build our new gunship.
T2458
Having apparently caught one of our spies ('C' screen) last year, the Cats get sloppy and let us steal Neutron Blaster, blaming the Silicoids again. They actually don't have anything left that we particularly want.
T2458
I decide to build a couple of bases at Tao right now, mostly in case I end up stealing PSX from the Rocks. The Silicoids have shield VII now on top of PSX.
T2459
I see that Paradise is 2t away from finishing its gunship and I decide to make it a pile of new bombers instead. Our teching this set means that a fusion bomber can fit BCV; nice. The Apehurt will be useless against anyone else, but maybe we can do some damage with it before the Humans can improve their shields.
T2460
The Humans have a new ship design. It's cloak is fancy, but its weapons are a joke.
We steal Death Spores from the Silicoids, IIT7 from the Mrrshans (blaming the Rocks again).
And then the Silicoids declare war. Whatever. I would like to steal Bio Toxin Antidote from them, just in case ...
The Meklar have also picked up PSX.
Overall, quiet turns. We're in a pretty good position except for not having weapons capable of dealing with decent shields. Just need to turn our production into enough ships to tackle someone whose shields aren't so good, and the Humans (ironically enough) are the obvious candidate. The ongoing war between two alliances suits us fine diplomatically. It's a bit grindy, because trying to build a fleet and start several new hostile worlds leaves little to spend on tech, but I think we're getting there - so long as the Humans don't discover something marvellous (for them) in the next few turns. Unfortunately, that's not completely implausible - they could have been researching PSXV for most of this set.
Notes on things I would have done / could be changed.
- Uxmai and Paradise are set to be building gunships, but I intended that as placeholders for more bombers.
- Mentar is on reserve: I was pushing it to Reticuli (nearly mature but short of pop), Anraq and Toasty.
- I have ruthlessly shipped pop off Nature to fill the hostile worlds (and even Mentar after IT40 came in): may have slightly overdone it, in fact. Once it has enough to take the hit again I would consider sending chunk to help fill Reticuli; I delayed because I thought it would push Nature too far down the pop curve.
- I have continued spying on the Mrrshans because we'll never be friends (allied to the Silicoids) and the Meklar because their tech (weapons, Cloning) is so damn tempting. But we've nearly drained the Cats dry and the Borg now have an edge on us in computing. Ho hum.
(July 2nd, 2023, 09:20)shallow_thought Wrote: ...the Borg now have an edge on us in computing. Ho hum.
I suspect not. The calculation for tech level is 80% of highest tech researched, +1 for every tech in the list. Because of all our junk computer techs we've stolen/researched/traded, we have a pretty big edge in the second half of the equation.
Solid turns, shallow_thought. Some very useful tech acquisitions. If we can somehow get our hands on a decent bomb, the future would be looking pretty bright.
Stealing magabolt cannon is nice...except for the part where it means they have magabolt cannons. And neutronium bombs. And cloning. And better computer tech.
I like the choice of Advanced Eco. It has been a while since we ugpraded our clean up tech, and those saved BC do add up over time.
I am not sure if I can get to the save today due to family social commitments, but I should get to it no later than tomorrow morning. Plenty of time for suggestions and comments.
(July 2nd, 2023, 09:20)shallow_thought Wrote: ...the Borg now have an edge on us in computing. Ho hum.
I suspect not. The calculation for tech level is 80% of highest tech researched, +1 for every tech in the list. Because of all our junk computer techs we've stolen/researched/traded, we have a pretty big edge in the second half of the equation.
Ah good. It may be worth continuing to try to steal from them then, although I got no hits on the Meklar in my set - just from the Cats, Humans and Rocks.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
(July 2nd, 2023, 05:15)thrawn Wrote: I remember doing a larger arc touching the top edge of the screen and then ending up behind the planet. It may also have involved waiting
Absolutely possible that I haven't found the optimal missile dodging route - and yes, I completely forgot about the Wait button since it's been so long since I used it.
(July 2nd, 2023, 06:05)shallow_thought Wrote: Hmm. I'm calculating we'll do ~3.3 per bomb thrown (6.6 per bomb that hits, which includes the correction for that fact 2 out of 16 times we'll do zero damage, and 50% to hit given equal ECM/BC levels), rather than ~2.6. What am I missing? My calculations on their to-hit against our bombers match FWIW.
Planets get a base defense level of 1 against everything before adding their ECM against missiles and bombs. So with ECM3, BC3 bombers would hit only 40% of the time for a little over 2.6 damage each. Of course, now that we have BC5 instead, our Apehurt bombers should average close to 4 damage per bomb, which means that if we can indeed avoid their missiles and fleets on the way in, ten bombers per base would win the battle without losses! That's a big if though, of course.
Also: Good turns! I loved the intro and report, and juggling all our empire's needs is becoming very difficult, as I know first-hand! Personally, I would be inclined to attack ASAP with whatever we can build and send in time (e.g. build a bunch of Apehurts from Uxmai, reloced to Anraq, then send the whole fleet to Selia when all the bombers reach Anraq next turn, and gathering more bombers - note Longlast and Mentar still have large prebuilds - to coordinate an attack of everything on Sol afterward) - before the Humans tech better shields or ECM. Up to Haphazard though!
By my calculations, by the way, DaveV is right: The Meklar computer tech level should be 24 to our 25!
We survive another council vote, acquire more tech, and are alowly making progress against our rivals.
And neutronium bombs. And cloning. And better computer tech.