The leader of the OSG39 re-activated from sleep mode on the morning of its first day in office, momentarily confused. What a strange dream! A very hostile galaxy, aliens sending attack cruisers against defenseless Meklar worlds.... It shook its manipulators and ran a self-check. Perhaps indulging in that many nokli before a sleep cycle had not been wise? It dimissed the half-recalled dreams and cleared its short-term memory buffers. This was the beginning of a new era for the Meklar, and it needed to focus on building a brighter future for the Meklar people.
Initial astronimical scans had revealed only one star system within range of Meklon, a green star 2 parsecs away towards the galactic rim.
The colony ship the Meklar people had labored so long to construct was sent east. Hopefully there would be a planet capable of supporting a colony. Scouts were launched to determine the suitability of other nearby systems, with construction of additional scouts ordered to begin. There were multiple systems within scout range, and with a yellow star to the south and west that might be the home system of another race more information was needed as quickly as possible. The new colony (if it could be colonized) would only bring one additional system into range. If improved propulsion technology would be needed to reach other habitable worlds, the OSG-39 council would need to know as soon as possible.
After a couple years building more scouts, word was received from the colony ship: A habitable world with abundant life had been found! Despite being somewhat dry compared to Meklon, the new colony had the potential for almost as large a population as the home world and was far more fertile. This arid size 85 fertile planet was named Growth. Population from Meklon was sent to begin settling this new world.
More years passed as scouts began reporting back. This region of the galaxy looked very promising for future devlopment, with a pair of large terran worlds (85 and 90) at the yellow and green stars to the west of Meklon. Both were 4 parsecs away, so better range tech would be needed. Most other nearby systems did not have habitable planets, but there was a rich minimal world farther west of the two terrans that would be in range once they were settled. There was also a mineral poor steppe world to the southeast, but it would be much more difficult to reach.
Scouts from the Alkari probed the system with the poor steppe world and the no planets system south of Meklon, but were repelled by our own scouts. The Alkari home world must be at the yellow star SSW of Meklon. Concerned about being beaten to nearby worlds, the leader opened Propulsion tech with minimal spending for one turn. Both range 4 and range 5 are available. The cheaper tech was selected, since it should be sufficient to reach the terran and rich minimal worlds to the west. No actual spending has been committed as of yet.
As the leader's term in office came to an end, it felt the years had been well spent and the future seemed promising. Careful management of the fast-growing population on Growth had allowed colonists to be sent back to Meklon to support industrialization efforts. The home world was nearly at max pop, and could already build a colony ship in only 6 years. The next leader of the council could decide, but a burst of spending on propulsion research while the planets continued building industry should set up the Meklar people for additional colony worlds.
haphazard1 - just played
RefSteel - order to be determined
shallow_thought - order to be determined
DaveV? (not sure if back from road trip)
Anyone else interested
Thanks for getting us started, haphazard! I loved the story, and it looks like you got us off to a terrific start! I'll put my playthrough of the dream/nightmare game aside for now and take this one if no one else claims it, though it might take me until sometime Thursday to get a report up, so if someone can get it done sooner, please feel free!
My plan if I'm the next turnplayer: Prioritize Hydrogen fuel cells heavily, then open planetology to see what we've got, aiming to get our first colony ship out around the time the new fuel is ready. I actually want three out ASAP, and haphazard has done a terrific job of getting factories built on both worlds, so I plan to start colships at both colonies as soon as research is seeded. (In Planetology, I'd take Terraforming if available and try to have it finished by the end of my set; either way, I'll probably take Improved Eco Restoration if it's available after or without the option for terraforming, but probably won't have it finished before the next player's ready. (It's very expensive for the Meklar, but very worth it!) If our only choice is Barren, I might not put anything into it at all this set; we'll see.
Any other thoughts, suggestions, or contrary opinions? (Or better yet, if another player want the save, go for it! I can slot in afterward just as easily.)
Okay, then this is a GOT IT! I'll try to finish the turns tonight and get a report up sometime tomorrow.
Roster:
- haphazard1 (just played) - RefSteel (Now Playing!)
- shallow_thought (order to be determined)
- DaveV? (when and if you're back from your trip, if you have time and inclination, we could use your help!)
- Anyone else who's interested! (Even if you just want a one-set cameo or to play a turn or two!)
I shiver as I wake, the specters of falling mortar shells still dissolving from my biological mind as I reconnect with reality - and with the solid, comforting presence of the interstellar comm net: The party line by which all Meklar share and receive the raw data of our sensory aguments, knowing each other's environments, experiences, and with the effort of a whisper into a microphone, our thoughts. I can feel the easy workings of my electromechanical servos as I rise from the rest pallet, smooth, responsive, undamaged, fully charged, dispelling the emotions of my recurring dream, the terrible invasion of a colony by saurian beings with heavy artillery and terrible claws and teeth, their cruisers smashing cities from the sky, my parts all scraping, shrapnel-scarred, energy levels down in the red. The memory is not destroyed, and the dream will return in some form: This is the third sleep-cycle in which it has troubled me within my memory. Perhaps someday I shall break its grip or learn its meaning, but today it is enough that it cannot intrude upon my life: That I live free.
I am fortunate even among my fellow Meklar, with a steady job in one of my fertile homeworld's factories - already more numerous than were Meklon's itself at the time of my birth and the implantation of my first cybernetic interface in the central planetary creche, as one of the first children born and connected in our Growth colony. All cooperate together though, in or out of our factories, first to build more for those less fortunate than I, and now - having learned definitively that hydrogen fuel research can be achieved - joining everyone else on both worlds in constructing propulsion laboratories and research equipment to find safe means of storage, containment, processing, and refinement, and to test its more-esoteric properties.
Here in our safe, quiet corner of space, already mapped by more than half a dozen small, peaceful scout ships, we await the possibility that hydrogen promises, of finding new homes for future Meklar, some greener though not so fertile as this my home, and one far off for which we all long quietly, with the ideal mix of minerals for building all the humming, busy, industrious factory-cities that our hearts and primary energy cores could desire. Three of our Scouts - two presently orbiting hostile planets deep in our little corner of the galaxy and far from any possible friend or enemy, one holding station in the Toranor asteroid field, empty of planets - are shifting now too, repositioning toward other stars, to allow swifter exploration of the new ones we hope to be able to reach once our research project is complete. Such is the future we seek.
- 2321 -
The interstellar comm net is humming with the change: Our research is well started on hydrogen fuel, and Meklon itself will be carrying the project forward from here at the same time that it starts a far-greater task: The construction of a colony ship to claim the vast jungles of Rhilus. The energy and capacity of our people's true homeworld are so great that if nothing changed, it would finish its ship in less than half the time it will take us to finish ours, though we at the Growth colony are committing all our effort to this single ship while Meklon splits efforts with research - now including a first look into the question of planetology. All the same, don't put too much stock in those numbers: Something always changes.
- 2322 -
The report just flashed out across the interstellar comm net from the Meklon planetology test group: We finally have an opportunity to help our industrial waste engineers to reprocess our factory exhaust output and restore damaged world ecologies! Of course there's a back current on the net of disappointment that terraforming wasn't a possibility - there's always something to complain about for those who want a grievance - but this is still tremendous news, and the main current of Meklar expression on the comm net is of pleasure and anticipation. Serious consideration was given in the Meklon scientific community to turning all the planet's efforts to the new project at once - and some even out here on our Growth colony were considering joining in if they did - but after lengthy discussion and debate, the consensus finally fell on the side of prioritizing the vital colonies at the green, red, and yellow stars between us and the rest of the galaxy: A small initial budget was allocated toward lab equipment for testing new ecology technology, alongside and temporarily exceeding the budget of their continuing propulsion research, but the planetology funding will necessarily drop once the initial capital costs have been paid, slowly rising again as the project matures, and our primary efforts, there as here, will continue to go toward building the ships that will carry us to the stars.
- 2327 -
Our quiet years of steady shipbuilding have been interrupted by a warning from the secondary network we established to keep us apprised of emerging situations across the galaxy. We know it is doubtful that other living beings capable of space travel will long leave us in peace, and the latest Galactic News Network burst transmission warns that the Alkari in particular, warlike avians with terrifyingly skillful combat pilots throughout their fleet, are growing dangerously powerful already. With control already established over no less than six star systems while - in spite of the priority we've assigned the project over the past seven years - we have yet to land Meklar on three, our Alkari neighbors are already becoming extremely threatening. Meklon, still carrying our research and sending a slow trickle of immigration from all its overcrowded continents to our lush and fertile world, will at least complete our first colony ship by next year, but so far it has nowhere to go: We calculated 11% odds of completing our first hydrogen fuel cell prototype by last year, and when that failed as broadly expected, one chance in four of finishing the work by the first of this year instead, but the result was again in line with probability. Now, with ever-greater efforts being made on Meklon to that end, the chances of success within the year are up to 42% - a number that many cheerfully agree across the interstellar comm net is a number of good omen, perhaps as a way of forgetting the danger of the Alkari and looking to our own hope of success instead. To me though, from my factory worksite on our Growth colony, 42% is still just less than half; the cumulative chance that we would have completed the work by next year had the attempts been repeated many times across multiple histories are indeed above 60%, but that doesn't matter now: Probability and chance have no memory.
- 2328 -
There was a suggestion, considered off and on when Meklar here and on the homeworld were deciding what to do in case our scientists were unlucky, that we might delay completion of our first colony ship until the fuel cells we would need for it to reach its destination were ready. In the end, it was decided that we were better off finishing it - even though the cost of maintaining a finished ship of that size would be above ten billion credits every year - just so it could set out the moment its fuel was ready, and so establish our next colony a single year early. It didn't pay off immediately, but there are better than even odds - up above 60% thanks to all the work on Meklon - that at least it won't have to wait in orbit there for more than a year. Let's hope it proves out that way; at least the fuel should be ready before too many more years, and in the meantime, while ensuring that is so and slowly building up our knowledge base in planetology, Meklon - like us - is counting on it working, now getting started on yet another colony ship of their own!
- 2329 -
The ICN is singing as the most-vital research project of our early interstellar history is finally complete: The threat of fuel excursions into the oxygenated atmospheres of our ships has finally been resolved through the introduction of stable H-15 Trirosette bonding rings that prevent our new fuel from reacting spontaneously with the oxygen our biocomponents breathe to produce water and completely unconstrained radiant and thermal energy. The thrill of success was barely dampened by the years of unanswered hope that preceded it - after all, our cumulative chances to this point were only in the mid-80s - and by the absence of a workable proposal for nuclear engine research: Irridium fuel, unlikely to be of great service apart from bringing a single impoverished world into range, was much less appealing than the prospect of doubling our starships' speed, with the result that the winning proposal in the end turned out to be for a different prospect entirely: The inertial stabilization field suggested by the Continental Propulsion Council will one day help our fighters to maneuver in combat as well as better engines could have, and to dodge around enemy fire almost as readily as our Alkari neighbors can already, just as soon as research on the design is complete - so several years after it's eventually started, I suppose. Given all our myriad present needs, there's no way to justify any priority for a combat benefit for ships designed to meet and repel attack ships from other peoples who as yet remain theoretical apart from a few encounters between our Scouts' and the Alkari's, and who may - I hope, at least! - never turn out to be our enemies. Instead, Meklon's research efforts are being cut down to standard staffing for the planetology laboratories while most of their efforts go into a second colony ship, now due to complete not long after ours.
More importantly, the ships we have are heading out now: Spare Scouts for some of the stars that hydrogen brings into reach, and the patient colonists aboard the ship Meklon completed just last year for the jungle world of Rhilus, soon - we hope - to be claimed for our people and given a more-fitting name.
- 2331 -
Our work is progressing steadily, and the ship is nearly ready! I've even data-exchanged with people here on our Growth colony who've made their last contributions to it, and have turned to planetology research instead, freeing up more homeworld Meklar to finish theirs a little sooner too, because all the remaining work on the colony ship is already assigned to others here - like me. I'm especially proud of the spherical microbearings, perfect to within seventeen angstroms, being turned out by my own factory division: A tiny piece of my effort making its way into nearly every moving part in the huge cruiser-sized colony ship nearing completion, its relocation orders already set for Meklon, its hyperspace route already locked in and ready to load into its nav computer, its colonists aware of when they must be packed and ready, with everything calculated precisely for its departure date - colonists like me.
I was born here, as were most of us, in spite of the slow and still-ongoing immigration from Meklon, and I have known no other world. Fortunate as I am, I was well-positioned for selection, and was able to prove my qualifications for the tasks required. I do still love my lifetime home, but I am - we are - Meklar, an inerstellar people, a blending of life and machine. It is time, or will be soon, that I give up my place in my factory to another, once less fortunate than I, and go to share our heritage by crossing the stars.
We're not alone in this: Even now, the already-powerful Alkari are sending another of their Scout ships across our space, passing within our scanners' limited range, clearly bound for the green star nearest the colony that for my whole lifetime thus far has been my home. The Alkari will find the hostile world we left unguarded at their destination, and some across the ICN warn that we'll regret permitting them to see the planet, but for the rest of us, scouting deeper across the galaxy is more important, as are the colonies-to-be and research to which we have committed all our resources lately.
- 2332 -
Had we known the truth about Seidon, of course, we could have kept a Scout above the green star the Alkari are bound to scout next year. The nearest blue star to the presumed homeworld of that very avian people, Seidon harbors no more planets than does Toranor. That was where our Scout departed for a look at Seidon: Toranor, the blue star nearest Meklon, had torn apart every planet larger than a mid-sized factory just by the action of its massive tidal forces, and it seems that Seidon's have done the same. The poor, lonely Scout and pilot then will be re-redeployed back toward Toranor en route to further exploration once our fuel bases expand to the worlds nearer our homeworld where our people hope to live. I feel for the poor pilot, with empty vacuum against the ship's hull - the third skin of any Meklar pilot beyond flesh and chassis - and it strengthens my gratitude to each and all of our pilots, learning the nature of the stars for us, risking their ships and their lives for our knowledge and our future among the stars. At least there is this: In a sense, though not to the extremes that they've experienced, I have joined their ranks, and many others soon will join them too - them and us and me.
It would be an insult to those Scout pilots though to pretend I am alone as they have been. Not only are there two million others who will board our colony ship with me, but our ship will soon be pursued to Meklon - our populous homeworld - by fully half the population of our Growth colony, in a vast fleet of transports for which there would be no space on Meklon were that world's population to remain unchanged. Departure plans are all over the network though: By the time they arrive in two years' time, Meklon too will have launched dozens of transports, carrying nearly half its population, larger than our Growth colony's ever has or could have been, to a world of which until recently, we could only dream.
But no - let me not say so. Say instead a world we long have hoped for and couldn't reach. I do not wish to dwell too long on dreams.
- 2333 -
We reached Meklon just in time to catch the transmission from across deep space: Our fuel base is ready, our people safely landed and established at our third star, now named - perhaps - for its lush, green jungle Canopy ... or perhaps for the protective transparent covering of a typical civillian chassis or pilot's seat. With our Canopy established, we at last can safely reach more-distant stars ... at least, for someone's definition of "safely."
One of our Scouts reached Uxmai this year as well, the nearest blue star in the nebula, and the pictures its pilot sent back across the ICN indicate that it lies in the nebula indeed, where shields don't function no matter their quality. It was able to discover this only because it was challenged by another people's Scout, already occupying the system, and so with emergency systems powered up on both sides, it could detect the nebula interference in the interplay between them. When it stood its ground and the Alkari Scout fled rather than parley though, it discovered something still more astounding: A minimally-habitable world so rich in mineral resources as to be almost identical to my own high-priority destination, and only a little bit farther away! Once I and the other colonists reach the planet for which we are bound and set up a fuel base with its more-than-generous mineral wealth, Uxmai too will be within our colony ships' range!
So we continue, united in our plan: My colony ship is carrying me out beyond the Canopy colony, for whose verdant jungles nearly fifty million Meklonites are departing already, making room for more than forty million ex-Growthians like me to arrive and take up the tasks they're leaving! Thus, Canopy will be able to support us on our own new colony by sending many of its ex-Meklonite millions forward, with Meklon ready to do the same for Uxmai and the other jungle at the yellow star nearby, with further support from our Growth colony if needed. How close the Klackons are to Uxmai, I can't tell, but at least their homeworld must be at one of the yellow stars that lie either beyond the nebula - or at the virtual center of the galaxy.
- 2334 -
We're on our way, crossing the stars toward our future home at last! Nor I alone: Back home, another colony ship has just been finished at Meklon, and is setting out already, while materials engineers begin a new project in construction research, developing lab equipment of several varieties, new Scouts are on their way to Meklon from my one-time homeworld, to take advantage of the added range our new fuel bases will grant us to learn still more about our galaxy. Further out, another Scout is doing so already, discovering a fiery world at Misha, the red star just at or around or barely within or outside of the edge of the nebula - with no other ships there to test the interference, it's difficult to be sure of which. No doubt the Scout will hold station there for now: It won't be long, if all goes well, before we extend our range in that direction again with yet another new fuel base!
- 2335 -
Life aboard our colony ship is peaceful, thankfully: There will be plenty of work to be done setting up our fuel base and ICN relay when we arrive in four years' time! It's not so everywhere, of course: An Alkari colony ship apparently just fled our lonely Scout at Toranor, and though of course no shots were fired, that's a lot more hostility and fear than anything among the asteroids of that empty system deserves.
Back home, research shows more promise, as materials engineers shared proposals both for faster factory construction and for reducing the industrial waste products of all our factories! We chose the first and simplest option since we hope to need so many factories across Meklar space, it's certain to repay its cost even if we end up going back to research the waste scrubbers as well, and since it will finish relatively quickly: All this from the world on which I grew up, the Growth colony that also built a final Scout ship this year, leaving Meklon proper to concentrate on getting one more colony ship ready as quickly as may be, to hopefully colonize the last of the six incredible habitable worlds to which we have access so far in the galaxy.
I'm doing my part to make this ... to make this hope ... a possibility. Lately, to my great relief, since starting this interstellar journey, I have not suffered - or at least have not remembered suffering again - through my old recurring dream.
Notes for the next player:
Unusually for me, I've actually left the save exactly as I'd leave it just before hitting Next Turn. There are still several things you can veto though: Four Scouts just arrived at Meklon and one just produced at Growth have all been dispatched, but can all be redirected, either from the Command screen or by from the end of the Fleet screen: One at each world is going to unexplored blue stars in our back lines, but the rest are moving forward in anticipation of new colonies = fuel bases for further exploration. Other Scouts, including one at Toranor, are just standing in place though, either "guarding" worlds or awaiting new scouting opportunities. Note also that 49 transports will arrive at Canopy in a couple of turns. The plan here was to send most of them on to the rich world at the first opportunity, but what they do now is up to you!
One other note on ships: We have a colony ship already en route to the yellow star with its large jungle world. You can colonize it when it arrives in three turns if you wish - or you can let it wait there one more turn for the other colony ship to arrive, declining to colonize twice, and then send it on to Uxmai, the rich world in the nebula! Either way, Meklon is building a colony ship for the other of those two, and already has at least a full turn invested.
Oh, and on tech: I opened Construction last turn with an actual investment - though a small one - of a dozen or so RP, and I felt getting the field started was more important than building one or two more factories. Facs will definitely be helpful, and I did build ... er, one? Or was it three? ...erm. But with reason: Until we get that next colship out and are well on our way toward IER and II9, I think industrialization needs to take a back seat to our other priorities. Doesn't mean I'm right of course! Have at it, whatever you decide; good luck with the save!
Roster:
- haphazard1 (on deck? - depending on when and which other(s) end(s) up playing)
- RefSteel (just played) - shallow_thought (UP!) (unless DaveV or someone else wants to step in and gets there first!
- DaveV? (when and if you're back from your trip, if you have time and inclination, we could use your help!)
- Anyone else who's interested! (Even if you just want a one-set cameo or to play a turn or two!)
I loaded this up just to check it out. Saw some things that were interesting. The way you sent so much pop (I assume from Growth) forward to Canopy was interesting. I don't usually send huge transports like that early, but it makes sense here with those other worlds up front. From Canopy then I ended up sending pop to the other systems that were quickly colonized and kept sending pop forward to Canopy from Growth and from Canopy on to the other worlds and was able to get all of the easily colonizable planets fully populated pretty quickly.
One thing I did do, which I've never really been sure about, is I took a turn with all production set to research, then I backed it off to a trickle of like 15 RP per turn (all from Growth). I started building factories again on Meklon at 2 per turn and allowed Colony Ships to be built in 6 turns as opposed to 5.
In spite of this looking like a really nice setup, it turns out that the Alkari will setup a massive empire taking the entire lower right quadrant. When I played it, I ended up going up against the Alkari in the first vote and everyone voted for the Alkari, whose population was twice that of mine, and thus ended the game. A shame considering the nice starting position.
I like the idea of greeding an pushing for the nebula Rich world before colonising the Jungle. An alternative use of the Nebula world would be as a trap, invading and farming techs (only works if we're behind), but that's not really my playstyle.
rgp151 - you're very welcome to look at the saves and try things out, but could you spoiler anything you see / do, so as to avoid leaking info to the next player? And make it clear that's what you're doing so I know not to peek! Strictly, alternative turns / events can leak information even if only viewed a few turnsets down the line (like a view of a planet that gets blocked by a random fighter in the main timeline).
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
I agree with shallow_thought on all points, rgp151. I'm glad you found my transport tactics interesting - but as shallow_thought said, if you play ahead (even irrevocable actions on the same turn, such as an Audience) from the team's save (or even play an alternate history over turns we've already played) please don't post about what happened until our game ends! I'd actually prefer that no one play forward from the saves at all (except the one playing the turns for real, obviously!) because if you do, thoughts you have on the game state later on might be affected by things you learned from your "shadow" turns, and I'd love to hear input and suggestions from you - or anybody! - as long as they aren't based on spoilers from an alternate (even partial) playthrough!
And a couple of other notes on the game proper - spoilered for length, not for secrets:
On the transports I sent forward:
If you read my report, you'll see that they actually came from Meklon, but with another shipment of transports of almost-equal size en route to back-fill Meklon from Growth, one turn behind. Honestly, this was a little too cute: There's only a one-turn difference in the transit times, so I could have just sent the population direct from Growth, with a smaller contribution from Meklon to get things started a turn early. The net cost of my too-cute move was a little over 20 BC on Growth and a similar amount on Meklon, in exchange for slightly better growth on each world and a similar number of BC that Canopy will gain when they all arrive at once, a turn earlier than Growth's transports could have gotten there directly. Actually this is equivalent to (in fact slightly better than) spending ~20BC on "reserves" on our existing colonies and pouring the result into Canopy if that were possible, so I take that back: It was a good move, since we're Meklar in no danger of leaving factories idle this way, apart from taking a risk that I'd get the timing wrong and lose all those transports horribly. Making plans resilient against my own possible misplays is one of the areas where I want to improve - not only in strategy games!
Additional thoughts for discussion on tech, in the order in which I'd probably prioritize them right now:
Planetology: After IER completes, the priority goes down a bit most likely, but I'd rate the next options as: Terraforming +20 > Controlled Dead > Controlled Tundra >> Death Spores. Even if our only options are (useless but comparatively cheap) Tundra or (useless and extremely expensive) Death Spores, I'd want to put at least a little research into this field continually, but that will depend on other needs.
Construction: Though second after IER, this field will be very important. Once II9 completes, it'll depend on what our future expansion prospects look like as well as what's available at the next tier. If we're going to sit at six worlds for now and build up factories, I think I'd go "back" for RW80, seed it with at least 100RP, and then ride the interest while building factories everywhere. I would normally never do this in Construction, especially with IER in hand already, but Meklar with this number of worlds this large - especially if we do get Terraforming+20 to make them even bigger quickly - will have a lot of waste to clean up if we build out our factories. If we're not expecting to build more than ~half our max factories on our non-rich worlds right away, e.g. because we have more good expansion prospects (in war or in peace!) and II8 is available, I think I'd skip straight to that ... unless there are really good planets available (not just the one poor one) at range 5-6 and Duralloy is available, in which case I'd probably make that my priority, for long-range colony ships!
Computers: Meklar excellence in this field - and paying no refit costs for robotic-control factories - makes this an important for us, especially if we've get both rich worlds! I'd probably choose Deep Space Scanner > Battle Computer 2 > ECM 1, but as Meklar with rich worlds, there's an argument for just taking ECM if it's there to find out if we have Robotic Controls 3 ASAP.
Propulsion: Though Stabilizer is expensive right now and we have no contact yet, it'll be the most-valuable tech we can get for combat in the Uxmai system until at least the third tier, while also benefiting fighters on any other possible front throughout the game. Perhaps more importantly, it advances the tree toward (hopefully!) better engines, so I would definitely want to invest in it when we have the RP to spare. Sub-Light Drives would obviously be my choice in the next tier over Dotomite fuel crystals.
Weapons: No contact yet, and no known conflict points, but we'll run into some soon enough! We probably won't need to open this field until after shallow_thought's set, but that depends on what we encounter along the way. Hand Lasers are my default first choice, mostly because they're so cheap and so the quickest route to the second tier, and Hyper-Vs are my second choice for basically the same reason, but even Gatling Lasers aren't actually bad - with Uxmai in the nebula, we might even use them to good effect if we're fighting there early!
Force Fields: Shield 2 and the path to the next tier is worth getting eventually obviously, and might rise in priority if we end up in conflict over non-nebula stars with anyone relying on lasers or other beams. Overall though, this is the tech field that can most afford to wait.
Just got caught up on the game so far -- I have had a very unexpectedly busy and stressful few days.
Looks like some very good turns, RefSteel. Two minimal rich worlds? Very strange, I can not remember seeing that before. But they will be very valuable, if we can defend them. I like the tech choices so far. Too bad we did not have an option for nuclear engines.
It is a scientific fact that there are quantum elements to the bonds that join the Meklar in a single conciousness, a sea of thought shared through their unique mechano-physiology. The hypothesis that this extends to alternate timelines, giving the Meklar insights into possibilities unseen by other races is intriguing but unprovable. However, it has been suggested as the underlying reason behind the otherwise inexplicable feeling of dread that was reported to have spread throughout Meklar society as the year 2335 passed.
Spoilered for length, and played before Ref posted his latest thoughts.
T2335
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Scary to be back at this turn number again. I stick with Ref's plans.
T2336-37
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Quiet. I like that.
T2338
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I don't colonise the jungle planet ... greedy.
T2339
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The second blue star in the nebula is Orion. It's just outside the nebula based on the background as the Guardian fries our scout.
We colonise the northern Rich world. I misclick and it doesn't get renamed, so it's still Selia. Our older colship heads out for the nebula Rich world. Meklon micros some production, leaving just enough to finish the next colship in 1t while lighting up both techs and starting more factories.
20 pop leaves Canopy for Selia.
T2340
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Meklon finishes our last (for the moment) colony ship, which heads out. It promptly switches to building our first fighter because we have an Alkari scout incoming (probably to Growth) and need to fend it off. The Alkari must have a big range tech (unsurprisingly)
T2341
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Nope, it's heading for Meklon. One more laser fighter needed to cover. Improved Eco is in the (very low) percentages.
T2342
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We have a new colony candidate in our backlines - Centauri is a Desert, but it's in range. Pollux in the back corner is both out-of-range and Dead. Meklon hits max pop. I judge it better to get our techs in to make the next ship cheaper before picking it up.
T2343
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We found Shieldless in the nebula. Canopy again sends pop. Uh-oh: I think the Alkari scout is headed for the jungle world,nit Meklon after all (I've no idea how I got confused over this). This may mean delaying colonisation to avoid them getting orbit.
T2344
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Yeah, we're going to have to drive the scout off before founding. That's two turns, maybe even three, of orbit for our colship. Bah. But better than 50 Alkari battalions showing up in 5-10 turns from now.
T2345
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Growth goes back to factories, Meklon trickles RP into IER (40%) and keeps IIT9 lit, but is mostly on factories itself. We wait one more turn before colonising the jungle.
IER is in. Controlled Tundra is our only option, which is not great news. Either Controlled Dead or IT20 would have been better. However, there is a Barren world north of the nebula - but at range 7.
We drive off the Alkari scout with our (rather bored) colship and found Understory. Meklon sends pop, Growth sends pop to refill Meklon (I should have done the second part of that a turn or two ago).
T2346
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The Alkari have a colony at Nordia, the yellow south of the nebula. They've got some fighters and mediums there too ... that leaves them 7 from Shieldless.
I hang around long enough to determine the mediums have missiles. There is also a Sakkra scout hanging around.
T2347
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During the interturn a Bulrathi scout is visible at the white star in the nebula. It's gone by my turn though. I send more pop from Canopy to shieldless - I intend to ruthlessly keep it around mid-pop and pump the rich worlds and new colonies for quite a while ...
T2348-50 (um ... I seem to have stopped recording the year in my notes, perhaps because Sulla started up the Friday TfT session at this point)
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IIT9 is in, and I pick Duralloy over staying at the first tier RIW80. There is an argument for the latter as Meklar, but we can go back for it if necessary and Duralloy is too good to ignore. The white nebula start has a rich planet - but it's an Inferno.
Meklon starts a colony ship for Centauri now that it's above 200 factories, but keeps some factory building going.
The state of our local area at the end of the set. I don't seem to have managed to free up a scout for the yellow on the far side of the nebula yet, but one should be available once the fighters are re-shuffled.
It is less clear whether the relative happiness of the second part of the 2340's was due to similar fluctuations, or simply the joy of having planted the collective on two Rich worlds.
I basically paused research after our current techs came in, prioritising factories and more colships. I do have a nasty feeling this could be our last turnset of peace - I expect the birds to grab another range tech soon and start eyeing up our worlds.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore