Part 38: Smashing the Rocks
Smashing the RocksPursuant to the advice given, I've decided I need a new ship design.
The Confiscator has one mission; stealing Antaran tech. A no-frills design gives it fast engines and as many assault shuttles as I can fit alongside a 'standard' complement of PD Phasors. . Each of these should have enough marines in the shuttles to nearly double the defense complement of an antaran Cruiser, but how many of them survive to reach the ships will remain to be seen. Seemed useful to split them into groups for attacking smaller vessels. Notably it is significantly cheaper, not much over 80% of the cost of the other titans. I'll also send along a relatively small amount of Obscenities with this group to blow up anything that just needs to die for whatever reason.
Strategically, I'll just park these roughly in the middle of the empire and wait for the invaders to show up. For now, I'll split resources between that and the expeditionary, rock-smashing fleet as evenly as possible. With all of this other activity - freighters, colony ships, planet-building, etc. - research efforts have slowed to 'only' about 3k per cycle.
We retreated of course, but here's a preview of coming attractions. It occurs to me that I should try to capture this as well - if it's even possible - just for the lolz.
There used to be Silicoids on this planet. It took less than 10% of our bomb strikes to remove them. I'll be splitting up now, but they've sent a sizable strike force to Anchat - a few turns out, but it has a few Titans and Battleships each, so we'll want to meet it.
SD 3530.3
Two races are gone as the High Council meets for the sixth (??) time. Three more are irrelevant. The Silicoids have 13 votes, the Sakkra 20, and we have half of the galaxy with 44. One of the few ways we could have been stopped is if they ganged up on us behind Sauron, but they hated each other far too much to consider that.
Yay.
Cleaning out the last of the cheapies. Disrupter Cannons appear to be the lastest thing in the mass driver - gauss cannon line. Limited modifications, but 40 damage that is not reduced by range.
Meanwhile four new planets were colonized this year alone. It isn't usually that many, but we're definitely filling up all the space we have like a plague.
SD 3530.4 was an important turn domestically. The main push of transporting citizens is now over. By that I mean simply that the settler limit is no longer an issue. I can move everyone I need to move each turn. There are still Klackons being assimilated and fresh colonies needing fresh labor and so on, but I can get it done. I'll need to tweak here and there which race I want to breed the most of, but there's still lots of space to fill so it's not a concern.
Cash is also starting to run low, relatively speaking. That is to say, there are rush jobs each year that I don't do so I don't drop the reserve too low. We've also caught up to the demand in colony ships, so research efforts will begin growing again and investment in trade goods will resume, which will make that second point a temporary limitation.
Looks pretty advanced.
6k is the next tier. Superscalar Construction has applications both economic and military.
** Advanced City Planning is an across the board +5 increase in maximum population of all planets instantly.
** Heavy Fighter Bays gives us better strike craft, which as discussed still doesn't make them as good as other options.
** Star Fortress is MOO2's final word in planetary defense, replacing the Battlestation which replaced the Starbase. A longer scanning range and a +20% to both defense and attack rating for all ships is gained due to optimal command and control or somesuch.
First and last selections here are going to make a significant difference.
Hey there. I forgot you existed.
Battle of Anchat (1:55)
That was actually kind of hilarious. Even the mass-drive powered titans were still absurdly overpowered compared to the Silicoids. And a rare two-fer from GNN!
It appears that what happened to Tatiana is that I lost a few million citizens each across most of the system. I can't be sure but I think it was eight total. None are showing any ill effects immediately after the report. I was curious how it would handle this ... and I'm somewhat annoyed that I didn't get any sort of definitive result.
SD 3530.8
Yep, that's right. Sometime in the far-off, distant galactic future, bipeds will discover ... blueprints. The Star Fortress looks like that thing from the research station (Hermes?) in the opening cutscene.
Moleculatronics. I don't even think that's actually a word.
** Achilles Targeting Unit - Triple chance of hitting weapons/shields subsystems, totally bypasses armor.
** Pleasure Dome - "The ultimate in virtual holographic entertainment". I see what you're doing over there, sicko!! *Ahem*. +30% morale boost, cumulative with holosimulator.
There's now room to grow everywhere with the ACP, and new planets we create are now twice the normal size; 10-11M instead of 5-6M. That allows getting them up and running sooner. All rush jobs except for Auto Factories and Robo Miner Plants are unauthorized, so I can pour our cash into boosting all of the new stuff. And of course a bazillion Star Fortresses are added to build queues across the empire at pretty much all developed worlds. They are expensive (1500 production) but only cost one more in maintenance than a battlestation, making them a bargain in terms of supporting a larger fleet to say nothing of the increased military presence on their own that of course I don't need.
Hmm, sure! Haven't seen this guy before, though he's clearly multi-talented. Director Androgena will go after a short stay, and Tanus is assigned to Proctor, the last system we took from the Klackons. It has two rich and three artificial planets, so it's a full system. Doesn't have any particularly massive or special planets, but the aggregate effect of his abilities there should still be considerable.
We are smashing through Silicoid territory with absurd ease. Our latest design hilariously met up with an opposing Titan, 3 Battleships, Starbase, and a Missile Base in the appropriately named Umm system. Only the missile base even got off a shot. The era of giving a crap what our rivals are doing is clearly over.
Naturally we'll queue these up on all sizable developed worlds ... which is pretty much all of them with the expanded populations ... to boost almost everything our empire does now that our citizenry has access to a state of infinite and ongoing bliss.
And that's all for Computing. Hyper-Dimensional Physics beckons.
** Hyperspace Communications - Allows changing destinations of ships while en route like in the original, and also ups the bonus command points to +3 per base.
** Mauler Device - Another retread. Never misses regardless of range (heh,heh,heh), and has the double damage penalties that apparently don't exist. 100 base damage.
** Sensors - LOL at the name here. We've had all manner of scanners, and everything else is named the Super-Duper Physics-Defying Galaxy-Spanning MegaSuperMassiveUltraWeapon or somesuch. And here its ... sensors. Base detection range of 8 parsecs, reduces enemy missile evasion by 70%.
Hyperspace Comms are a big deal for the command points to feed the beast, and I'll have to take a look at that Mauler Device and see if it's a worthy upgrade on the plasma cannons.
Now just a few turns from eliminating the rocks completely, we've split up the fleet a lot more to cover more ground since they have no way to really oppose us. At Cryslon, they have two good-sized rich worlds ... and a desert one that they never bothered taking? Umm, why???
It matters little. We'll make good use of it.
SD 3531.1 - We're now crushing the opposition so fast that we're running short of colony ships, and the constant stream of new Titans is irrelevant at this point anyway. I'm cutting them off now, and will still build some new Confiscators but a number of our industrial worlds will send out new colony ships to deal with the demand. And then the freighters will come under strain again with the population needs of the new worlds. It's always something.
The next turn, imperial population exceeds half a billion. 502M before transfers go out, to be precise, and there are some en route who aren't counted. This is with us starting the real explosion as we start our Occupy Orion Galaxy protest in earnest.
That's one heck of a dish. Also, the Silicoids are no more. Really all three things here look well-drawn.
Oh dear. I didn't know one of these, in Trans Genetics, was even a thing.
** Biomorphic Fungi - Passive imperial boost of +1 food per farmer across the board. 'Would you like some salt with your biomorphic fungus pizza, Billy?'
** Evolutionary Mutation - 4 additional points are given to customize the race. I had no idea this was something that happened after a game started, though I must have seen it at some point before.
** Gaia Transformation - Next-level terraforming improving planets from Terran.
I've started using this screen to automate getting colony ships out, because it's only a matter of a few turns faster if I micro it and I can't be bothered. Right now there are nine colony ships en route somewhere. And it's not enough.
We have a few ships going places - looks like a game of intragalactic Jenga - and a command point surplus once again. Paladia is our first target after we explore that red star to the right of it. Time to push into lizard territory.
3531.5 - We're about to get the next research, so I'll cut it off here. We'll attack the Sakkra very soon; they have nothing larger than battleships and it'll go pretty much like the Silicoid war did. Biggest problem is going to be the fact that we are still limited a bit by range - the fleet can conquer far faster that colony ships can fill in behind at this point. We have caught up on those though and have plenty of extras, so it's time to spam Cloning Center facilities around and re-max out all our planets, along with sending more to the developing ones.
I thought of doing a poll on what to add in terms of racial points, but given that I still can't take any more negatives there really isn't much to play with at this point - only one choice seems sensible and its not gonna matter all that much; but it's still cool as a general concept.