Remnants Succession Game 02 - In Our Own Talons

[haphazard1]

No problem, Brian. Hope you manage to get some sleep. I will see what I can do with the preparations RefSteel has done.

[RefSteel]

Ugh, yeah, I know that feeling: Heat waves tend to wreck me in at least three different ways. Good luck staying cool and getting better sleep! Which leaves us with:

Roster:
- RefSteel (just played)
- haphazard1 (Up now!)
- Dp101 (on deck if there's time to play before leaving for the weekend on Friday)
- Fenn (swap/skip until Friday)
- Brian Shanahan (skip, probably through July 12th)

[haphazard1]

After much discussion among the members of the Sovereignty, an anxious bird finds himself unexpectedly entrusted with leadership. Critical decisions that will shape the future of the people must be made. In order to continue to expand, a bold (some would say reckless) assault half way across the galaxy must be attempted. The previous leader has prepared extensively, building war fleets and simulating possible outcomes. After reviewing the plans, the order is given: the war fleets set out to attack the single Cryslonoid world barely within extended range of our ships. More ships wills follow next year, and still more will be built and sent in years to come. Hopefully this great undertaking will succeed; failure could have dire diplomatic consequences.

This much stress is bad for any bird; prematurely molted feathers are scattered around the office. But the decision is made; now comes years of waiting to see if  it pays off.

Many things begin to happen all at once.  Our scientists achieve a breakthrough, improving our ability to control factories to four per assigned work group. Options for continued research include a more advanced space scanner and improved ECM Jamming tech, but even better factory controls (5 per working group) are chosen. Production is power, and this is also the only choice which will unlock additonal options for future research.

Refitting of existing factories does not begin yet; research teams believe they are close to a breakthrough which will reduce factory construction costs significantly. Hopefully the scientists are correct and this new advance is achieved soon.

Our spies are also busy this year. One particularly bold agent penetrates a Cryslonoid weapons tech facility, steaaling the (sadly obsolete) secrets of Hyper-X rockets. Still, our own scientists insist there are still things to be learned from such older technologies which will assist in miniaturizing our own weapons. So this is welcome news. Less welcome are reports from other spies that the Cyrslonoids have developed ECM Jammer IV tech, and the Mentarans Auto Blaster weapons. Our galactic rivals are already extremely dangerous; even more tech in their hands and pseudopods is not good news.

T131

More ships are dispatched to the target rock world, timed to arrive together with the bomber fleets.
Research priorities are adjusted, putting more emphasis on planetology. Advanced soil enrichment will allow us to grow our worlds larger, more easily.

T132

Our spies break into a human research lab. Many fascinating projects might be taken, but we get the soon to be obsolete Industrial Tech 8. (The humans have Industrial Tech 5, which would have been a huge gain.) Still, tech is tech.

Our rivals continue developing worrisome new technology. The rocks develop warp dissapator; hopefully they will not have time to deploy it before our fleets arrive. The humans gains ECM Jammer IV and Auto Blaster, presumably in trade from their allies. The brains develop cloaking devices.

T133

Our spies steal Gatling Laser from the rocks. Tiny steps towards tiny weapons.
Next year our fleets will arrive at the target rock world. Will this risky attack succeed?

T134

Disaster! The rocks move a sizable fleet into orbit at the target planet. 4 Feldspars, 4 Magmas, and 23 Granites -- far beyond our ability to defeat, not even counting the two bases. Our pilots retreat without fighting. Diplomacy with the rocks will take a hit, but everyone can pretend we were not about to attack.
In better news, Industrial Tech 6 and Ion Stream Projector both complete. Armored Exoskelton is chosen over Industrial Tech 5, and Hard Beams are chosen to advance weapons research and further miniaturize less advanced weapons.
Our fleets will regroup, but this will take several years. The new factory tech will be used to build industry throughout the sovereignty. Perhaps a future leader will be able to find a way to advance the people militarily. The current effort has failed.
Our spies report the humans have developed Ion Drives, and the brains have developed Cloning.

T135

Our spies report the humans have learned advanced soil enrichment, andrium armor, and cloning. The Brains have learned anti matter torpedoes.

T136

The brains learn ion drives; the rocks learn Controlled Inferno.

T137

Disaster! A computer virus wipes out all our progress on Ion Drives research. Thousands of BCs, lost.
Our spies manage to steal Nuclear Engines from the cats, for a little miniaturization.

T138

The brains develop Class 7 deflectors. The bugs develop class 3 deflectors and zortrium.
Our rich and ultra rich worlds have finished maxing out the new factories. I design a new long range fighter, the Swift ER4.1. It is similar to the Swift ER4.0 but has a mark 3 BC rather than the mark 1; miniaturization is useful. We could go with two NPGs and no computer, but better accuracy seems more useful. Maybe a future leader will be able to do something with these; at least I will try to set up the possibility, rather than having rich and ultra rich worlds doing research.
The brains develop BC 7. The humans now have advanced soil enrichment and deflectors 7.

T139

Increase our trade deal with the humans by a big step, to 1350 BC/year. Good relations are important, given how powerful they are.

T140

Our spies steal Range 5 tech (deuterium cells) from the brains. They detect the steal and are quite upset; their ambassador gives us a warning.
Our spies also steal Hard Beam from the rocks. This allows us to choose a new project. I select Auto Blasters to advance the tree, but this can still be changed this turn.

And that is it for this turn set. We acquired some tech and built a lot of factories, but not much else. Notes for the next leader:

We have a sizable fleet of long range fighters accumulating at our artifacts world (just for the central location) and a force of regular range ships at the asteroid field system. You can try again with the rocks, go after the bugs, hit the cats, or whatever else seems useful. If you build more bombers, it is probably a good idea to update designs first. We have gotten a fair bit of tech for miniaturization since the current design.
Some of our planets have finished maxing factories, the rest should complete soon.
Our overall situation is looking pretty dire. We have the most pop in the galaxy, with the brains second. (They have passed the rocks.) They are shown as having twice our production somehow, despite not having better factory controls than we do and lower pop. No idea how that happens. But they and the humans are running away in tech.

Sorry things did not work out better. Good luck!

[haphazard1]

OK, after that debacle of a turn set....

Roster:

- haphazard1 (just played)
- Dp101 (UP NOW if there's time to play before leaving for the weekend on Friday)
- Fenn (swap/skip until Friday)
- RefSteel
- Brian Shanahan (skip, probably through July 12th)

[Brian Shanahan]

Ugh, yeah, I know that feeling: Heat waves tend to wreck me in at least three different ways. Good luck staying cool and getting better sleep! Which leaves us with:

Roster:
- RefSteel (just played)
- haphazard1 (Up now!)
- Dp101 (on deck if there's time to play before leaving for the weekend on Friday)
- Fenn (swap/skip until Friday)
- Brian Shanahan (skip, probably through July 12th)

No worries, I was looking at the map and realised I'd be paralysed by indecision. And the worst thing for me in that kind of situation is that I tend to force myself into making one and locking it in. It generally ends badly.

[RefSteel]

I enjoyed the report in spite of the bad in-game news, Haphazard! Thanks for writing it up! I should really have either committed much more heavily and immediately to the planned attack during the second half of my set or not committed us at all; sorry about that! A couple of things that surprised me though: We got to Ajoite on the fourth turn of your set? I didn't think our ships were close enough for that! And the rocks got Controlled Inferno later on?? Was that a typo, or ... what? (I guess I can check the save to try to find out....) That computer virus was a very bad stroke of luck.

I noticed the production discrepency too. I suppose it's including things like trade deals (the Central Alliance probably has mature trade with all the races we haven't even met) and the AI production bonus; otherwise, it doesn't make any sense.

One thing: It's too late now for this to matter, but ... I think I communicated poorly about the quality of the Silicoid fleets. The new ECM is a big deal for their bases with the limitations fo our long-range bombers, but with just two bases and the fleet you described ... I think we could have taken them if we'd gone for it. Rereading the part of my report where I talk about their fleet, I can see how it might at a glance have seemed like the opposite would be true unless you pay attention to the specific numbers, so ... er ... sorry about that.

[haphazard1]

Hi RefSteel!

Our bombers could have destroyed the enemy bases, but we could not have cleared the system for space superiority. And then our colony ship could not have colonized the planet. (I had it moving to arrive the following turn.) If the rocks had fewer ships in the system we might have been able to do it. There were no rock ships visible the turn before; I do not know if we just did not have enough scan range, or if they showed up that turn.

We have a lot more ship-to-ship fighting power now with the Swift ER4.1s I built. If the next player wants to make another attempt, it might still work. Or we could try to go after the bugs, or hit the cats and take their home world. We will eventually get advanced soil for a bit more pop (our main rivals already have it, sadly, so we are just playing catch up), and we are getting some tech steals. The spy hits are worsening relations, though, and eventually the alliance will attack us. (Be aware that our defenses are minimal; we need to build shields and bases and upgrade existing bases throughout the empire if we expect attack.)

The production gap is a huge problem. With more pop and equal (or better) factory controls we should be competitive or leading in production. Trade does help them, and better planetology tech helps them also, but the numbers being shown just do not look right. Difficulty level effects, maybe? But having half the production of our rivals is not a winning position.

[Dp101]

Opened up the save and learned something new - if you steal a tech you're researching and swap to a new one as a result, you can't actually change research the following turn, so we're stuck on auto blaster - not that I have too many issues with that. Interesting to check status and see that the cats' giant fleets are largely gone? There's a dramatic fall in the graph at one point, and what ships they do have only have BC I at most - if only they weren't the cats so that meant our ships were properly unhittable (update from later in the post, turns out we probably still can be)! Regardless, even with the 20 bases on Fierias they seem to have gone from not worth it to probably worth it, so I might send the fleet south. Assuming that goes well, I do want to try hitting the bugs as I advocated for before, given their relative backwardness.

Looking at new designs, idk how i missed it but somehow we stole inertial stabilisers at some point since I last played? Finally we have what I wanted so long ago... This leaves us with a few options for further fighters - stabilised 2x NPG w/ MK II computer, no stabiliser 2x NPG MK IV, or stabilised 1x NPG MK VI. I think running just a single NPG is misguided, but I do very much like the stabiliser - post racial bonuses we'll be hitting 11 beam/missile defence, which would make it basically impossible for anyone to hit us at all (or actually impossible? I'm not sure if miss chance is capped the same way hit chance is) and even the humans/brains with BC VIIs will struggle without battle scanners and/or missile bonuses. In terms of ER variants of inertial stabiliser builds, things get much more rough since the tank takes 20 space compared to the 8 of stabilisers, so the absolute best one can do is 1x NPG w/ a BC II. I then notice that our Talon design already has a stabiliser with 1 NPG and a MK V computer, so probably not necessary to make a new fighter, but getting one with dual NPGs to shoot larger slower targets would be fun... problem is slots, hard to justify replacing anything, we've got 265 talons 158 Gull 4.1s 98 Swift 4.0 2 falcon's eye 4.0 1 Far Nest 4.0 and 280 Swift ER 4.1s, and I don't quite feel comfortable scrapping any of those for such a minor increment.

Bomber designs might improve though, so looking at that, one can fit an antimatter bomb + stabiliser + BC IV, or fusion + stabiliser + BC II + ER, or (purely for bullying the cats with their 7 points of shielding) 2x fusion + stabiliser + BC III. Interestingly, we've now got enough miniaturisation to field a design with just reserve fuel tanks and an antimatter bomb, but no computer can fit which probably limits the utility greatly, so the fusion-based designs are probably our only options for long range warfare. No stabiliser allows for a BC V on an ER design, which is probably better than the +2 manoeuvrability, though then again the bugs do only have ECM II. So many decisions and variables! And the wrong one could spell doom... at least the bugs only have 9 points of shielding so the fusion designs still have a chance.

Anyways, I'll probably play later tonight, currently having to lean against producing any new non-ER designs given that any future non-cat warfare will be at that range (or at least the most important battles will be) and the cats really aren't worth constructing a new fleet over. The one annoyance I'm having at the moment looking at the cats is with Achernar being at a blue star, the chance that there's a rich world there is not insignificant, and if so it would be the better of the two worlds to take, but it's also the one with the "warfleet" over it. Granted, given how pitiful said fleet is, it might not matter much.

[haphazard1]

Sorry about the design slot issues. We acquired quite a bit of weapons tech and some others in recent turns, so updated designs were useful while RefSteel had already built enough ships to make scrapping the old designs painful.

I tried to build enough long range ships to make a fresh attempt at the rocks or bugs possible. Not the best mix for going after the cats, obviously.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

[Dp101]

Sorry about the design slot issues. We acquired quite a bit of weapons tech and some others in recent turns, so updated designs were useful while RefSteel had already built enough ships to make scrapping the old designs painful.

I tried to build enough long range ships to make a fresh attempt at the rocks or bugs possible. Not the best mix for going after the cats, obviously.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

Hey, don't apologise, I'm glad I have the ships to do stuff with, I'm just contextualising why I might not necessarily put the designs mentioned into production.