Remnants of the Precursors - Initial thoughts

[rgp151]

The rich/poor (and ultra variants) traits only affect spending in some categories. They are not blanket boosts/penalties to production. Eco and research spending are not affected, so same size worlds (with similar numbers of factories) spending on research will have the same production. Getting the factories built on those worlds will take wildly different amounts of time, though.

Repulsor beams have always been very powerful, IF the enemy does not have 2-space weapons. Unescorted bombers tend to be easy targets for repulsor ships to block, but the AI usually sends some escorts. Or at least it did in MOO, although sometimes they also lacked 2-space weapons and were ineffective.

Yeah, I realized that in this shot the spending is set to research, but it doesn't matter. Even when spending is set to ship production the numbers stay the same. It's like this in MoO too though, like the production numbers that show aren't adjusted by the bonus. Still, it makes it difficult to really understand when you're trying to sort your planets to determine which ones have the highest production, since in reality the production of the Rich planets isn't properly reflected. 

In MoO you can't completely block access to a planet with a single ship because it possible to go behind the planet. In RotP you can't go behind the planet, so a single ship can entirely block bombers. In MoO you had to have at least 2 separate ships with Repulsors in order to deny access to a planet.

[rgp151]

I'm not clear on how production works in RotP. When you switch production from one ship to another, what happens exactly? Do you lose all of the production you had invested? If I have been producing missile bases and I have 3 years left to build a base, but then I set investment in defense to 0, what happens? Does what has already been invested get lost or is that production retained indefinitely?

[haphazard1]

Can we get a clean up of the troll who obviously has issues with RotP?

Anyway, on topic: a long-delayed update on my game. Life has been busy, but hopefully I will have more regular gaming time soon for the SG and for updates.

My growing lizard empire, as of turn 75:

I was able to colonize Quenth. I had to settle the barren world first to get enough range, so I now have 6 worlds. I have contact with the Kholdan (who I think are to my ENE at one of the two yellow stars there) and the Nazlok (who I have found in the NW corner). The shape shifters are badly squeezed for space in the corner, but their second world was a size 100 so they did get a strong start. I wish my second (or even third) world had been that good. Both races are in contact with the humans, but I have not yet seen any sign of the apes. Maybe they started at the yellow a bit west of center north?

Shalerth and Zherelth are both tundra planets and the Nazlok do not have the tech to colonize them yet, so I am hoping I can add them to my lizard empire. I have two tundra colony ships building now, which would bring me up to 8 worlds. If range 6 tech ever comes in I should also get Kennioth. I have scouts moving to several more systems, so there may be more possible colonizable worlds.

My tech trees have been horrible this game. Lots of repeated techs with no options: IIT9 -> IIT8, Deflectors 2 -> Deflectors 3, Barren -> Tundra -> Inferno, Range 5 -> Range 6. (Technically I did have the choice of death spores rather than Inferno, but...no useful choice.) No terraforming, no clean up techs.

Still, if I can get the tundra worlds I will have 8 planets and lots of lizards. I just need time to develop them and get some real tech spending going rather than the slow trickle I have managed in between building colony ships. Oh well, there are worse problems to have than building lots of colony ships.

[haphazard1]

A minor issue with the planet interface: I had a poor planet with no factories, and shipped out the maximum pop (half) to a newly settled colony. The eco slider ended up showing 'Waste.'

There are no factories on this planet, so it should not be showing 'waste' as the result. I think it should be 'clean' with however much pop growth shown as usual in the slider.

It is a minor issue, as the game got everything back in order the following turn and no waste existed. But the slider was misleading due to the negative pop from sending transports. I would also like to suggest the possibility to somehow set the planetary governor to never build factories, maybe a cap like you can set for ship and base builds. I often do not want to build factories on poor and ultra poor worlds, due to the cost/time required and the potential for them to be captured and tech lost to enemies. Having the governor keep resetting spending to build factories is annoying.

[scooter]

Can we get a clean up of the troll who obviously has issues with RotP?

Purged. Might be the same person who's been repeatedly making new accounts here and trolling. Thanks to the user who reported it by the way - have recently fixed a forum issue that make it much easier to see reports like this. If he comes back, use the report button again.

[haphazard1]

Purged.

Thanks, scooter.

[RefSteel]

(Thanks, scooter!)

It's great to see Quenth flying the lizard flag! And with more colonies on the way, that's a much more promising-looking empire than at the last update! That does sound like a very rough technology tree, but at least your brilliant planetologists are opening worlds for colonization quickly - and hopefully will get you to some actual options soon!

Great point on the interface. It's great that it shows what the net change in population will actually be, including the departing 'sports and population growth, but the "Waste" sign is definitely a bug, with the display just assuming that's what negative growth must imply. Ideally it might show something like "Regrowth" for this special case of positive population growth insufficient to replace all the departing transports, but just "CLEAN" (or "growth" or "+pop" or whatever it would say if the transports had already left) would be fine.

And an ideal governor could be told to build facs either to the planet cap, to-but-not-beyond (what MoO would call) MAX, or up to a specific cap. I don't much like using governors for my planets in MoO, but I'd imagine it's necessary to manage an empire of many of the sizes Remnants can create.

[haphazard1]

I expect that there is a check for the eco slider, and the negative pop growth (due to the departing transports) is somehow causing it to think there is waste. When I have shipped pop from planets that do have factories, the reduction in output will often result in waste unless you adjust the slider. So most of the time, displaying the negative pop and warning about waste is a good thing. Poor and ultra poor planets just have some oddities that can cause strange results. I have not been lucky enough to find an artifacts world yet; I will have to see if there is anything weird about them once I do.

My lizard planetologists have been working diligently on new tech. And both barren and tundra have allowed me to grab additional worlds, so the techs have been useful. I just wish I had gotten some kind of clean up tech in the first couple tiers of either Planetology or Construction. The Kholdan have both RW80 and the first eco tech, but they want Tundra tech for it. Nope, I am planning to grab those worlds myself. Maybe once I have them safely populated with lizards I might consider a trade. Inferno tech will not open any currently known worlds, unfortunately, so that is a lot of BCs going nowhere useful (at least for now).

Diplomacy with the Nazlok is interesting, as you can not get any information on how they view you (wary, unease, etc.). You just get a message that the shape shifters are inscrutable to your diplomats. And of course spying against them is very difficult. I have already been framed once, almost certainly by the Nazlok, so the bugs are unhappy with me. I have a handful of small laser fighters covering my frontier worlds, but I am going to need something more substantial soon.

[Dp101]

I'm not clear on how production works in RotP. When you switch production from one ship to another, what happens exactly? Do you lose all of the production you had invested? If I have been producing missile bases and I have 3 years left to build a base, but then I set investment in defense to 0, what happens? Does what has already been invested get lost or is that production retained indefinitely?

I'm pretty sure it's retained indefinitely. Not 100%
Glad that games seem to have been going well for everyone!

[Ray F]

I'm not clear on how production works in RotP. When you switch production from one ship to another, what happens exactly? Do you lose all of the production you had invested? If I have been producing missile bases and I have 3 years left to build a base, but then I set investment in defense to 0, what happens? Does what has already been invested get lost or is that production retained indefinitely?

In ROTP, if you have accumulated ship production on a planet for a particular ship design, then change to a new design and hit "Next Turn", then all of that accumulated production is placed into a planetary-specific ship reserve on that planet. It is then used to add up to 50% to your ship production on your planet until it is expended. This is similar and in addition to reserve spending.

Example:

Let's say you are building a 3000BC ship and, once you have spent 2000BC, you decide to switch construction to some 100BC ships.

In MOO1, you would immediately get 20 of those new ships plus whatever you get from the next turn's ship construction.

In ROTP, that 2000BC is funneled into a ship-specific reserve on the planet. So if you create 400BC of ship production the next turn, 200BC will come out of that reserve... giving you 600BC and six of those 100BC ships.

The purpose of this change is to close the "insta-fleet" exploit. You still get a nice benefit from the accumulated ship construction, but it works like an extra form of reserve spending now (for ships only).

Missile base construction is similar, but simpler, since there is no concept of switching designs. There is a accumulated missile base spending. If you suddenly stop spending (or set your missile base target to 0), those BC sit there patiently in a defense reserve until you start spending there again.