Part 45: Episode IV: 2525 - 2549
Episode IV: 2525-2549
Having an actual missile that's worth a darn at least gives us something to do. I haven't poured any money into useless bases for a while now. Maintaining a good amount of them is now actually important. We might be able to stop an attack or two. In theory. Probably they just crush us with sheer numbers anyway. But something is better than nothing.
We get our first shot right away, at poor nebula system Whynil ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv3UKTw5EMA
Beat the Alkaris, and the cowardly Sakkra retreated!! Fools. But we actually resisted, for literally the first time all game long IIRC. It's ridiculous how good that feels, despite the situation. You won't take us without a small pretense of a fight! Oh, you'll still take us, because we have hideous shields, vastly inferior resources, and no planetary barriers at all. But you'll have to actually try. A little.
It's lame, but it's what we got.
Only 2528 -- things are progressing quickly here. So what do we need next? With the Tech Nullifier our Computer TL is up to 50. Could always use more to help with the espionage but that's by far our highest. We've got our missiles finally, robotics are pretty good. Comes down to terraforming and planetary shields really I think, and the shields are what we need the most. We still haven't gotten a sniff on our own efforts. And we get Class Vs here!! Well, they suck, but they will effectively double our resistance to enemy attacks. They'll find it a lot harder to just beam-weapon us to death at least, and that which makes our bases last longer gives us more Hercular salvos to fire. All efforts will be made to get those built ASAP, as the Psilons incinerate 10 bases on Kakata. Naturally. Still, that's some pretty good luck.
Our overall technology is now considered to be just over half of the New Republic's(it was once not much above a third). Another crack at the Sakkra a couple years later grants us Class III Deflectors, worse than what we already have. Can't win em all. And then,
Rare to have both 'invaders' come this close together. Meanwhile, after just a few years, we have planetary shields up on all but two systems. A few planets are at their allotment of missile bases(most around 30), which means it's time to do something I thought I'd never get to do in this game.
Introducing the first-ever Silicoid combat-capable starship. Monitor is a crappy name for it, but I didn't feel like changing it. Some of the specs are laughable(sub-light engines?), but it has one purpose and one purpose alone: delivering our new missiles in a desperate attack on the Guardian. Let's see how many of these we can afford -- each can fire 10 of them, 5x each. Our best chance at prolonging resistance is still this shot in the dark: reaping the toys that come with Orion.
Some of our systems would take a horribly long time to build this, so I also have a cruiser-size version, the Whale. That has slightly weaker shields, and only a pair of launchers.
Oh joy. Not only is this incoming to one of our two remaining good colonies, but here's a major bug demonstrated also. In larger games, this often occurs for reasons I've forgotten, but an overflow bug results in 32k stacks like this. There are tactics to counter it, none of which I've got the tools for in this situation.
The year after, we steal Stasis Field plans from the Klackons. Something else that would have potentially been useful a century ago. As it is ...
2533. The Sakkra doomstack reaches Tao ... and retreats. ROFL.
Very nice. Best missile shield in the game. Not worth adding to our current ships, but it'll make some things cheaper/smaller, and if we do take Orion ...
We got Class VI Deflectors, and I basically couldn't care less. But tripling our Planetarys to XV? Yeah, that I'd care about, although only one planet is researching right now, the others all shipbuilding. In other news, the Space Crystal is gone, apparently from Bulrathi space. We never saw it either.
Almost all our research efforts will be diverted to Force Fields, though it will still take half of forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIAP5RbhsQ4
That was amusing. Whynil, our lone research planet. No shields function in the nebula, and they had a Mauler Device. Destroyed from orbit. 8 left.
They've been much less frisky lately, but here come the bears. They only had eight cruisers, but it was enough with their tech edge. 7 remain. A few years later, another similar Bulrathi attack ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTj_7VrbWbE
Just enough to survive at Argus. We are resisting. Not well enough mind you, even against their half-hearted efforts, but we are resisting.
I'll remove the veil enough here to note that, for those of you wondering when I'm going to just lose this game already ... well, the next update is the last one. The torturous road doesn't have far left to go.