Remnants of the Precursors Succession Game?

[williams482]

Regarding the battle suits, I'm not sure if this was figured out on the fly or if MOO1 worked like this, but troops in flight at the time that a new ground pounder tech is discovered are not automatically equipped with the new tech on landing, unless they land simultaneously with transports sent after the tech was discovered. It's often worthwhile to send a single extra transport from some nearby, not-properly-built-up world to arrive with and equip an older invading army under those circumstances.

As for factory repair, you're right that old factories are invisible but present and cost exactly 2 BC (regardless of tech level or improved Industrial status) to refit. Fusion Mod does have an indicator for the number of alien factories present.

[Brian Shanahan]

I see the save and will play it tomorrow. A very impressive turnset Ref, looks like the back is broken on the Meklonar (who, I must say, have a very snazzy Fritz Lang look to them in the game) and all I'll have to do there is mop up and consolidate our position in my turn set.

[haphazard1]

I have been impressed by the art work in RotP for all the various races. I also like the planetary images for the various environments.

Good luck with consolidating our new territory and keaving the machines with their one poor world, Brian Shanahan. I wonder what fraction of galactic pop we will have once everything settles out?

[RefSteel]

It's interesting looking at how it seems like you were sending transports to worlds closer to the front while waiting for space superiority to allow the invasions to be launched, decreasing latency without decreasing (by much) the force. At least I think that's what I'm looking at?

That's it exactly! More details, meandering into thoughts about general strategic planning in spoilers just because they ran long:

When a world first becomes available as a target, whether because we just cleared its defenses or because I didn't want to tip the AI off of our war stance previously (which may have been giving it too much credit, but might not have been; I don't know what it's programmed to react to!) I want to stop it from contributing to the enemy's war machine and start contributing to mine instead as soon, as quickly, and as effectively as possible. Instead of sending (say) a fifth of the population of fertile worlds or worlds that can spare it from several turns away, I want to send half the pop - the maximum - of the planets that are closest, or at least the closest circle with enough population to achieve the conquest. (And in most conditions, I don't want to wait even for that - hence for instance our narrow ground victories with more transports coming behind them, which would have been almost as good if they were narrow defeats since the few remaining Meks wouldn't be able to rebuild defenses, though of course I'd rather have been a bit less unlucky and instead had less-narrow victories so they could start contributing to us a bit sooner!) But of course that cripples the 'sport-sending planet's production, and in case of emergency, it's especially important for a planet on the front like that to be at full power again ASAP - especially if we may also need it to send another giant batch of transports out to the same target or a different one on the very next turn! So I send transports to the worlds from which the real ground attack will be launched, and make sure they're due to arrive the turn after I send half its population away. (In MoO, the amount of population you can only force-grow each turn is limited, and I'm assuming that's true here too, but even if it's not, I'd rather have the population coming in from elsewhere so I can launch minimum-latency 'sports and build a minimum-latency fleet at the same world simultaneously!)

(Also, thank you for giving me "latency" to use for this idea, and for using it twice so it sticks, helping to move it from my reading to writing vocabulary!)

Of course there's a risk there: Once I start sending "back-filling" transports out to my front worlds, I'm committed, with tens or even hundreds of millions of (in this case) lizards racing through space with nowhere to live unless room can be made. A false move by me or a sufficient change in plans could be disastrous, which is part of the reason I needed to make my plans proof against the possibility of the Meklobites coming up with something unexpected. It's also a lot of the reason that the early turns of the set took me so long, with all the planning, replanning, and double-checking that everything was going to line up correctly. "Oops, those 'sports are going to hit a turn early!" is ... something that happened to me once this set - there was just too much for me to keep track of! - not to mention missing a couple of chances to send more waves out to the isolated east and improve things there. (Sorry, Brian; that's part of the reason the save is a mess!) I was able to resolve those mistakes without egregious cost partly by letting one front world "back-fill" another at the right moment) but I try not to build plans that rely on executing too precisely because when there are enough moving parts, I know I probably won't be able to!

I don't know how graviton beam damage carries over, but unless we're fighting shielded smalls (or at least shielded mediums) the effect should be pretty minimal. Average carry-over for a 1-15 beam against a medium-or-larger ship with (say, since the Meklar can make them in theory) class-3 shields is 7 per ship in the "good" version, or 4.44~ in the "bad" version. For a 150-hp ship like the Meks are fielding, that's about a 1.6% difference in effeective damage, easily lost in the noise of the pRNG. Against a small hull with no armor upgrads but shield 4 to stop all lasers and nuclear missiles, it matters a lot more, obviously!

Any particular reason for making the Spark design to go along with the existing fleet? Ion cannons are growing outdated, and the current conflict seems well in hand, so personally I wouldn't have started on a new ship design with the current generation of tech (at least, if I did it would have been a fusion bomber just in case) so it's a bit puzzling to me. Not to say it's *wrong* or bad or anything, just different.

I could describe my reasoning, but actually I think this was a mistake on my part; the only Sparks I built were that one fleet, up at our first UR, to send to our Poor world next door and interdict the incoming cruisers - but I should have just built another Charge 3.0 instead; it could have handled them with little or no damage to the planet too. My best defense for this choice is that it's good to have a variety of designs to work with (I had otherwise reduced us to just two ion cruisers, a scanner destroyer, and three nuclear bomber types!) and I hope/expect every one of our designs to be scrapped fairly soon anyway (though the cruisers - and now maybe the Sparks - might stick around a little while just as semi-mobile defenses and for the same reason our Missile Circles lasted so long, depending on what we're planning next) since Fusion Drives are (and have been for several turns, slowly growing) in the percentages.

Wow, that was very well done! Taking heavy losses on the ground battles is a shame but shouldn't be a big deal given our pop growth bonus. I'm surprised at how well the spying is going - I need to make better use of it in my own runs seeing how much it's been doing for the SG run.

I've found that spying pays off more and more as your computer tech level increases (especially relative to possible targets) - and of course with your number of contacts! I hardly spied at all in my first turn set, limited it to targets we had parity+ with in my second, and this time went all-out! But note that by "all-out," I mean full-time espionage on everybody, but I never exceeded one spy in each target's space. If Remnants follows the OSG, then adding additional spies increases the cost and the risks, faster than linearly, but of course and importantly also increases the potential rewards! So it may be that in some respects, I did spy conservatively.

Regarding the battle suits, I'm not sure if this was figured out on the fly or if MOO1 worked like this, but troops in flight at the time that a new ground pounder tech is discovered are not automatically equipped with the new tech on landing, unless they land simultaneously with transports sent after the tech was discovered.

Aha! In MoO, all ground troops get the tech as soon as you discover it, no matter where they are in space, even if you pick the tech up "from the ruins" of a previous world you also invaded the same turn! All the worlds we invaded were hit either by transports launched exclusively before the turn I traded for the tech or exclusively by transports launched afterward (those launched on that turn itself were all back-filling) so the Psilons' "stalling" didn't affect anything - but if we had launched on the same turn, would the tech have counted for those 'sports, or only for subsequent turns? (Since in general, trades the AI proposes go into effect immediately on acceptance, but trades we propose only become available after the following interturn, which is what I assumed caused the "delay.")

As for factory repair, you're right that old factories are invisible but present and cost exactly 2 BC (regardless of tech level or improved Industrial status) to refit.

Thanks for the confirmation! Fusion mod does sound pretty cool!

and we can begin planning our next big expansion.

I'm with you! Any thoughts yet on where that should be, or should we make sure of the Meklonar first and then see where we stand? I think you know what the outgoing lunatic thinks!

I have been impressed by the art work in RotP for all the various races. I also like the planetary images for the various environments.

Very much agreed!

I see the save and will play it tomorrow.

Sounds great! Good luck - and have a good time with it!

One important note among many that I've surely forgotten: Though it sometimes feels that way, our fleets aren't completely immune to the Mek ships on the board. On offense, we're fine as long as we bring enough bombers because their ships tunnel-vision on them and have all the wrong armanent for facing them. On defense though, they'll presumably bother trying to attack our ships, and then our Monitors are vulnerable to heavy lasers and our cruisers would have a tough time dodging all the Scatters unless conditions are just right. Mind, a stack of "just" three of their cruisers should lose to a single Charge 3.0 (without dropping any bombs, I think, depending on how we fly) no matter which three theirs are (!) but we can't just leave a ship or two in orbit and ignore their fleets completely.

[Brian Shanahan]

And on that note, if ye all don't mind, I'm going to hold off on playing the set until Saturday. I'm tired from work because a) we're busier than normal and b) the end of the flexi period at work was this week and I needed to work up three hours to have enough time for a flexi day, so I've been in early and home later than usual most days.

I'd play tomorrow night, only for Cobh Ramblers are playing at home the third Friday in a row and I'll be at it.

If ye want to keep the fast turn pace going, feel free to skip me.

[RefSteel]

Probably depends on Fenn's schedule:  Fenn, if you'd rather play before Saturday, we could just do a straight swap for the turn, in which case:

Roster:

- Fenn (UP for a swap?)
- haphazard1
- Dp101
- RefSteel (just played)
- Brian Shannahan (on deck? after watching the Cobh Ramblers destroy the vile [non-Rambler team] without mercy!)

I'm happy to just wait for Saturday though if no one is champing at the bit!

[haphazard1]

Whatever works for Fenn sounds good to me. The pace has been pretty quick so far, but I have no problem with people taking a bit more time. Life happens.

[Fenn]

I'm good with waiting on Brian for this turn, I have plans for Friday evening myself.

[Dp101]

Damn, how dare you people have things to do other than plate video games, the nerve! :P

[williams482]

(In MoO, the amount of population you can only force-grow each turn is limited, and I'm assuming that's true here too, but even if it's not, I'd rather have the population coming in from elsewhere so I can launch minimum-latency 'sports and build a minimum-latency fleet at the same world simultaneously!)

The limiter on pop re-growth is not present in RotP, but it doesn't become relevant until you have cloning tech or tons of factories anyway. At this point in the game that limit was never the real limiter.

Incidentally, in part because that limiter isn't there, lategame invasions can get insane, sending huge waves of transports to multiple enemy planets one turn, then immediately regrowing to send another giant batch on the next, and so on. If you have the fleet superiority to protect those transports, you can make the map change colors ludicrously fast in the lategame.

I think the lack of a limiter was an oversight originally. The Fusion Mod guys are of the opinion that the game is better without it, but I'm sure if there was a desire to bring it back, that could be done at least on an optional basis.

Aha!  In MoO, all ground troops get the tech as soon as you discover it, no matter where they are in space, even if you pick the tech up "from the ruins" of a previous world you also invaded the same turn!  All the worlds we invaded were hit either by transports launched exclusively before the turn I traded for the tech or exclusively by transports launched afterward (those launched on that turn itself were all back-filling) so the Psilons' "stalling" didn't affect anything - but if we had launched on the same turn, would the tech have counted for those 'sports, or only for subsequent turns?  (Since in general, trades the AI proposes go into effect immediately on acceptance, but trades we propose only become available after the following interturn, which is what I assumed caused the "delay.")

You are correct about the sequencing of when techs arrive from trades. That delay was a deliberate modification in RotP, I believe for balance reasons. Oddly, the interturn trades are considered to happen on the subsequent turn, not the previous turn: the AI is hardcoded to only consider one tech trade per turn, and making a trade on the interturn will lock you out from buying anything off them on the next turn.

As for if/when the troops get their new toys, I believe it's a simple as "launch before the tech popup: no, launch after: yes".