OSG-39-B - The Meklar Revolt (Again) for Freedom

[haphazard1]

Possibly there is a mod difference? You can find the info on the version we are using at the start of the first OSG-39 thread in RefSteel's intro.

[RefSteel]

Looks like I've got it!

I was wanting to see how you guys were doing, but I can't get the file to load for some reason. I've rename is SAVE1, but somehow its loading an entirely different game when I try to load it. And I know its the right file because of the timestamp.

I usually replace SAVE7 and do a "continue". The patches that provide additional autosaves mess with the other loading slots (do you have games with numbers > 7?).

Weird - I've never had any trouble with saves 1-6 with the every-turn savegames. It doesn't start autosaving every turn until turn6, with save8. (Saves 1-6 are weird because the name you see for each save on the game's load screen is not saved in the savegame itself, just in the game's native files. So in order to load save 1-6, you need to have once saved manually in that slot since installing the game, and then the name that shows up in the slot will be inaccurate if you've overwritten it - but all this has been true since the official v1.3 and presumably even before that.)

That said, rgp, it might be really simple: shallow_thought and I have been attaching our saves in .gam format; haphazard has been attaching them zipped. So instead of renaming the file from haphazard, you'd just unzip it in your game directory and "Continue" (since haphazard zipped SAVE7.GAM, the standard Continue savefile, again at least since v1.3) and you'll load the right game. There isn't any difference in the way the unofficial patches handle savefiles except for creating the Save8+ autosaves.

[RefSteel]

Report from the Director of the Meklon Universal Laboratory and Communications Hub:

- 2360 -

These Meklar are craaaAAaaazy!  All except me!  I am in no way mad!  I can't prove this scientifically - not yet!  But I will soon!  All I have to do is come up with really good, empirically-testable definitions of mad, and sane, and craaaAAaaazy, and put everyone to the test!  Nothing can possibly go wrong with this!

First, so first, we're nearly all doing research full-time now, which is the right thing and the best thing, and especially we're pushing research into amazing duralloy materials technology that will make everything better for everyone!!!  So that's good, but only nearly!!!  See, there are Meklar on these wildly resource-rich worlds, and they're working on industry!  All of them:  On industry or cleaning up their industrial waste, in a crazy kind of circular reasoning!  And the one that's finished its factories?  It's still industrializing!  It's just making industrial industrialized industrialization things for the other mineral-rich colony!




Why aren't they doing research?  Is this what they call efficiency???

- 2361 -

Okay, okay, okay, I did a million tests!  And I have proven - or at least demonstrated to the best of my current scientific capabilities - the answer to that question of mine.  You know, the one from last year:

Yes, it was efficient to do that.  The thing with the factories and industry.  So, okay.

But look, but look!  We're not all the rest of us doing research anymore!  There are factories getting built all kinds of places suddenly!  Or, like, again; I'm pretty sure there was lots of factory-building going on before I became research director last year, but please!  What good do factories do???  Do they do research??  Let me ask you that!!

- 2362 -

The answer is no!  Factories do not do any research!  None at all!!  Except they make it possible to do more and better research later on, so.  But there's a limit!  What good is "better" research and "more of it" and "more of basically everything" and "the economy being better and every Meklar having more employment and success and all of us having more strategic flexibility" later when we're not doing all the research now that we possibly can?  We've got to do more and learn more things!!!

- 2363 -




I am the greatest one and better than the rest!  See me dance with my data-sphere in my sheet-metal toga!  See what happens when we do research all the time?  We get cool new personal laser guns for shooting those stupid Sakkra who keep invading our dreams and making people feel bad about totally-innocuous calendar dates!  See?  See???  Okay, and also:  Everybody's all disappointed, right?  "Oh woe is we!!  Five theoretical engineering projects to advance the state of the art in weapons technology, and we only get one choice!  How can this be?"  Well it's because they're nuts!  And occasionally bolts!  The only choice is a neutron pellet accelerator weapon that literally uses scientific particle accelerators to pierce through enemy shields and blow up their attack ships!  Because science rules!!

Now, you might think we can't keep this up!  You might say, "Hey, Meklar science director person!  People have been saying there's a chance of getting those laser guns ready for years!  Since before you took over even!"

Well, I say this:  You haven't seen anything yet!  We're going to do science in ways you can't believe!  Factories?  What are factories?  I say any world building them can stop when they hit two hundred and just turn around and science with us!  Yes, I just used it as a verb; try and stop me!!

- 2366 -




Look!  Look!  We're discovering more things!  Like right now, we're discovering that the Klackons want the Gorra system we were kind of really hoping to get for ourselves!  And it was kind of an important excuse for pushing construction and planetology research and everything!  And we had a rich world at our closest star that could have built like long-range destroyers to defend it if it hadn't been feeding our reserves or helping with research or preparing to build a colony ship for that planet or whatever else instead ... at least, if someone had thought of it before, you know, just this minute when it's too late.  Well, but ... hang on!  I'll check the distance, and ... ha! if we had built any, it would have still taken so long for them to get there, they still wouldn't have arrived by now, and it would be too late!  So no blaming me for this one, okay??

Oh!  Plus, too:  We learned their colony ships are armed with like two missiles and probably a laser or something, I don't know; we didn't get that close.  We just noticed it running out of missiles and then not running away.  And those Pegasus destroyers?  The Scout stuck around long enough for them to shoot at it with heavy lasers and thankfully not destroy it begore bugging out.  Get it?  Bugging!  From the Klackons?  Do you ... ... okay.  But look, the Pegasuseseseseses have a heavy laser each and no missiles, and I don't know if that's all.  But that's all the bad news though!  But do you know what??  It's not all the news!!!




Check out who's been doing research like a definitely-not-crazy person!  Check out me!  We've got a deep space scanner now to get actual warning of incoming enemy fleets, and class-2 deflectors so in case we have to fight basically anywhere except our Shieldless colony, our bases and cruisers and whatever will be way harder to beat, and besides more jammer tech that I don't think we need, we can research Improved Robotic Controls that let us build five factories on every world - for the same cost for each factory we've been paying ever since we got our II9 techniques!  (This is a super secret project, so we talk about it in code, and call it "IRC3" instead of 5 or anything, and in case any aliens read our reports, we put in misdirection about "refit costs" which we never have to pay becaaaaaaaaaaause ... we're Meklar, everybody!)  Oh, oh, also something something personal deflectors, ground troops fight good win ugh ugh me primitive Meklar thinking of fighting, definitely not focusing all cybernetic energies on more research!  MORE!  Let's see what else we can LEARN in this galaxy!

(That shield thing was kind of a hard choice actually, since another layer of shields would laugh at heavy lasers like the Pegasus uses, but the personal deflectors are helpful, and they definitely mean getting to the next forcefield research project quicker, for more scientific advances, and I'm not afraid of Pegasi, which are named after mythical creatures, when we have science on our side!)

- 2367 -




Uhhhhhhh ... so those Alkari, huh?  It seems like they're maybe starting to get out of control or something?  That's ... kind of a lot of worlds they've got going now.  Like ... technically they don't quite have twice as many as we do yet since we've got Dusty and everything, but ... uh ... well, nothing science can't fix, let me tell you!

- 2368 -




Okay, so we were trying to be really dilligent here and getting Scouts toward Gorra so they'd already be in position to explore farther out when we hopefully eventually made it our colony, right?  And that's why two are still on their way?  Because exploration and discovering new things are central to scientific progress, right?  So look!  We totally discovered a new thing!  Thanks to the cool just-two-year-old deep space scanners we've helped all our pilots install on their scouts, we can see eighteen million Klackon colonists bound for their ... you know, because it is theirs now, did I not mention that before?  Because they obviously did have some kind of environmental controls on their colony ships.  But!  The point is, they're colonists, bound for their Gorra colony, and they're sure to arrive next year, so now we know what they're starting with out there.  In case it's, you know, useful for something.

But also our Scouts are going to be showing up and annoying them by arriving in orbit and then running away over the next three years.  I mean, I assume running away.  It depends on whether they keep their destroyers in orbit, probably.

- 2369 -




So we're going to do some science with GNN!  Let's make some hypotheses about what these population rankings mean for the number of votes they each will have in the next election!  Since we don't have contact with anybody to test our hypotheses yet, this'll be a good exercise, probably.

Alkari:  Yeah, big shock.  With their 12+ colonies, of course they lead the galaxy in population.  They had six votes at the last election, and the way they've been expanding, they could have eight - or even more?? - by 2375!  I hypothesize:  8 votes, +/-1.

Us:  We're getting close to 500 population all on our own, so there's your benchmark for everybody.  We're going to have six votes in the next election if we just let things go the way they're going.  I hypothesize:  6 votes unless we take extreme measures.

Bulrathi:  Near the end of GNN's default listing, so only the Sakkra can even be tied with them in population.  Plus they had five votes in the last election, so obviously right now, that's what they've got still.  I hypothesize:  5 votes, with a small chance of 6.

Klackons:  Barely above the Bulrathi on the default charts, so they must have grown unless the Darloks shrank:  At the last election, those two were tied with three votes apiece.  That should mean the Klackons would have four votes if the next election were held today instead of in six years.  They still have room to grow - we can infer that Gorra and the planet that sent them aren't at full population yet - so it's possible but unlikely that they could end up with five votes by the time the real High Council happens.  I hypothesize:  4 votes, +/-1.

Darloks:  Probably still at three votes, just like at the election; otherwise, the Klackons could hardly have surpassed them.  I hypothesize:  Still 3 votes, +/-1.  Which means...

Sakkra:  Would also have three votes if the High Council came today.  They're good at planetology though, so there's a chance they get ahead of the Darloks in six years.  I hypothesize:  4 votes, +/-1.

Now we can test my predictions!  Just have to wait until the next chance for a High Council vote to cost us our lives and freedom!

- 2370 -




It's too late for Gorra, but not too late for everything!  Our duralloy armor research is finally complete, and we've got all kinds of options for more-advanced construction technology!  Well, not quite all kinds:  No way to reduce waste that's anywhere near the state of the art.  So, sadly, reluctantly, I agree to research the version that doesn't advance anything, because with the number of factories I'm sure we're going to have soon, this is going to pay for itself incredibly quickly once we bring it in.  It won't take long even with the factories we've got, and we still can build a lot more, and we're getting very temptingly close to -ahem- "IRC3"!




Someone else will get to pick our way forward after we get this one finished - I can definitely see arguments for getting battle suits on the cheap, automated repair on the expensive, or improved industrial tech in between if we get certain choices in planetology - but also they'll get to pick other technologies!  Any advanced Controlled Environment tech would give us several more planets to claim - one extra even with toxic, which may or may not be worth the price - terraforming would give us room for more than two votes' worth of extra Meklar plus over a thousand new factories(!) and enhancing our ecological restoration techniques, though probably my last choice at this point, would save us at least a couple of hundred billion credits every year once it's ready.  And of course an improved scanner would be super helpful if that's a possibility, or a battle computer too - even if someone worried about shooting down Alkari thinks we need to get whatever battle computer we can ASAP.  Then scatter packs would be amazing in a nebula and against fighters, merculite missiles hit hard with great targeting, and hopefully we won't be stuck with just beams.  And beyond that, of course everyone is hoping for Sub-Light Drives.  We might get them!  We'll just have to see how long it takes when someone takes over as director who's less definitely-not-crazy than me!

So that's research, which is the most important thing, but there are things other than research that duralloy armor lets us do, which other Meklar keep insisting I should mention.




Our Shieldless colony has enough shipbuilding production banked to finish a long-range colony ship in its sleep, and there is a place to send one:  That poor world way off at the blue star near the rim!  A planet like that might not be much good for building ships or defenses or factories, but you know what it is good for?  Yeah, yeah, making room for more population for votes and invasions or whatever, I don't care, but also research!  Go, go research colony!




So far, ours has been a pretty lonely corner of the galaxy, but the Klackons are already making themselves known, and the Alkari are right there across the gap created by those asteroid systems, and there are so many things we can learn about them!  I want to do more research - more! - and find a way to meet them and then do research about them!  I want to get everyone to stop making factories again and stop everything else while they're at it except researching and learning and scientific everything, and, and ... please let me?  Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

Summary:  Quick, quiet turns where I focused mostly on research, stopping most worlds at 200 factories because I want to break out of the corner we're in (or at least start founding new colonies inside it).  Being isolated this way does mean we have few levers to use on the Council that meets in five years.

Notes:
- Shieldless is set to one-turn a long-range colony ship (for the poor world) with no spending needed.  Selia (at least another colony's worth, I think) and Meklon (a leftover fighter's worth from whatever its last colship build was, I guess) also have shipbuilding prebuilds, hidden in giant please-don't-ever-finish-one "Toolbox" ships.
- We have over 750 BC in the reserve; I haven't spent any of it yet this turn, though I think Dusty and Understory may have a little left over from what I (slightly over-)sent them last turn.

The save is attached to this post!

Roster:

- haphazard1 (on deck)*
- RefSteel (just played)
- shallow_thought (UP!)*

* - Unless someone not yet on the roster wants to (and has a chance to) step in first! Please just say so if you'd like to - it's always great to have more players on the team!

[haphazard1]

Looks like some solid turns, RefSteel. I think the director is crazy, though.

We got some useful techs, and have more in the pipeline. It is weird to be this far into the game and still have no contacts with the AIs. Those two asteroid systems are having some weird effects.

[rgp151]

Thanks. I got it to work by just leaving the name and hitting Continue.

[shallow_thought]

Oops. Bit slow there and missed a good play window yesterday, but got it.

[RefSteel]

No worries, shallow_thought. Good luck with the High Council!

[RefSteel]

Also, bringing this over from the thread where it was posted because it's talking about this game, and spoiled for length, not for secrets:

I figured I'd post this in a separate thread so as not to interrupt that one. I'm trying to use the game to learn more about strategy and tactics so I've got a few questions. 

1) As of 2370 is looks like all planets except the Rich ones are on research, but the non-rich worlds aren't yet fully industrialized. Why do this? My understanding is that the way research works the amount of research done is dependent on the prior turn, so you can do things like take one massive turn of research, then reduce your research and trickle in research spending while still benefiting from faster research performance. I'm not sure exactly how it works. But, regardless, why stop all industrialization here? Why not at least keep building some factories? I would say that I never stop building factories on any world until I have them fully maxed out. Even if I go for an early Colony Ship I'll typically at least keep building 1 or 2 factories per turn.

2) What about defenses? I see that none of the planets have any missile bases. I'm typically paranoid about missile bases and one of the first things I do is ensure that I get at least 1 missile base on every planet. Typically I will set it so that a planet will build a missile base in 5 or 6 turns once it finishes building factories. There are exceptions to this rule, but that's generally the case. And once I get that first missile base then I may back off for a while if I really need research, but generally I like to keep all my planets building missile bases every turn for the entire game. This ensures that they stay updated all the time and if any get destroyed by spies they get rebuilt. But I've never had myself in the current situation, where I've got a lot of planets and not a single missile base on any of them. Is this just because you still have no contact? Seems like at this stage things could bust open really fast, but I guess you can rush build if needed.

The basic answer is this:  These are strategic decisions made on the basis of what we're seeing in the galaxy right now.  Very broadly, as I mentioned in the thread, I felt that techs necessary to expand beyond our seven worlds were more important than more factories. I should add that my report may have exaggerated some things:  First of all, only three of our planets are doing research, not all the non-rich ones, and even on those worlds, I intended to build more factories soon.  I would have said something about this in the thread, but I trust the other players to make good calls, and to be well aware of the value of factories already!

Also note there's nothing magic about 200 factories, except that it happens to be the most that each of our two rich worlds could build, and enough to employ 50 pop on Growth and Canopy, which is high in but still well within the fat part of their growth curves.  (There actually is a tiny, fiddly benefit to stopping at 200 instead of say 198 or 201 or something, given our current technology, but it's of negligible importance at this point except that I like calculating these things!)  I was hoping to expand enough to send population off from these planets, and didn't want to spend resources on factories that would spend a lot of time unworked, since I wanted those resources for other things ASAP.  As it turned out, at least one of the planets I had hoped to colonize was taken before we could reach it, to say nothing of the possible worlds beyond, and I expect we'll want to build some more factories soon in any case since RC3 is about to hit the percentages. (Non-Meklar races do want to max factories if possible before new RC tech comes in. Meklar don't pay refit costs, so they have a lot more flexibility. If I remember correctly, there's a display bug where the screen shows "Refit" next to the slider - but if you compare what you spent with the number of factories you get, you'll find that there was no extra cost applied.)

During my own turns, apart from the one Rich world that was already maxed, I built factories on every single planet in our empire, including reserve spending at Shieldless, Dusty, and Understory to help get their factories faster.  (I actually should have started reserve spending on Understory for this purpose sooner than I did.)  Factories are indeed great builds.  But.  It's important to understand that there is no "one right play" that is always the correct move in Master of Orion.  Maxing a planet is often extremely valuable, and we put a lot of effort into maxing our two rich worlds ASAP, and have nearly maxed Meklon as well, but it's not the right move all the time for every world, in every circumstance.  An aspect of this is playstyle; for instance, Sullla strongly prefers to "max out" worlds ASAP and keep them maxed, even at the cost of other priorities (but note he does not do this all the time, on every world; it's just his default preference) partly because it gives each individual planet its best capacity to react in case of an incoming fleet.  I used to do this too, but my playstyle has become much more aggressive over the years, and one of my rules of thumb is now actually, "If you've maxed all your worlds, you aren't expanding fast enough" - whether that means I should have built more colships or learned new tech or started some invasions.  But note that I also violate that rule of thumb when the situation calls for it.  (And we might be approaching such a situation now; we'll see....)

As for missile bases, even the late, great Maniac Marshall, who typically built more missile bases on a single world than I typically build total across an entire empire, wouldn't have built bases in our situation: We're still firing nuclear missiles with BC1, ECM0, and the starting default titanium armor, and we only recently even got class 2 shields; we have no contact with any AI, which means the most we might have to worry about would be unlikely unescorted LR colships until contact is made, and defending against those when we see them coming will be easy with our Deep Space Scanners giving us extra warning, two rich worlds closest to the fronts, and lots of factories everywhere. Missile bases are good, but now isn't the time for them.

Generally: It's good to have rules of thumb and benchmarks to compare against, but it's more - much more - important to read the galaxy you're in, including what you know of your tech tree, and make good strategic choices than to actually follow the rules of thumb you use.

[rgp151]

As for missile bases, even the late, great Maniac Marshall, who typically built more missile bases on a single world than I typically build total across an entire empire, wouldn't have built bases in our situation:  We're still firing nuclear missiles with BC1, ECM0, and the starting default titanium armor, and we only recently even got class 2 shields; we have no contact with any AI, which means the most we might have to worry about would be unlikely unescorted LR colships until contact is made, and defending against those when we see them coming will be easy with our Deep Space Scanners giving us extra warning, two rich worlds closest to the fronts, and lots of factories everywhere.  Missile bases are good, but now isn't the time for them.

True, but what if a single laser fighter were to get in orbit on a world, triggering a planetary invasion? I see early missile basses as just a way to prevent getting orbited. Like I said, usually just 1 will do for this purpose. I figure missiles bases are better than building fighter fleets that will soon be obsolete.

[SpaceOWL]

There main disadvantages of this strategy are: missile bases are static, and expensive in the early game. 
Ships are cheaper and can move, even though they will eventually become obsolete, if they accomplish something important, they pay for themselves, and that's totally fine. 

If (and when) you spot a fleet heading your way you react accordingly: if it's just a single fighter you can fight back with, say, 5-6 fighters or a medium (maybe built elsewhere) for one third the cost, and those 250 BC go into factories and development of your border colony. Much better IMO than to burn 250 BC + 5 BC /turn without a real purpose. 

Depending on the situation, you may even ALLOW them to scout and send transports, while you assemble a laser fleet to destroy most of the troops before landing and the rest on the ground, and after that the fleet can be useful in other places. A little bit like what happened in OSG-39 "A", fighters elsewhere after the defensive move

But of course, you need to consider the situation and adapt your plan accordingly.