Part 90: Episode VIII: 2425 - 2450

Episode VIII: 2425-2450




Fleet and tech still have a long way to go, but economically we remain #1.




Things shift annually here. A year ago the Sakkra were down to no allies. Now they have Psilons and Humans back on their side. Superb. They are at war with the Mrrshan, but that may not help us much. We've also started investing in security to counter-act sabotage efforts.




Sublight Engines will be in soon, and probably not long after we'll get the next robotics. Still a ways till we get planetary shields and some other goodies though.




This is the current problem. It's most of the current Sakkra fleet, but I don't think we can stop a force of this size yet. We may well end up losing more territory before we can equalize. I thought of bribing for peace here, but that would do little good when the Psilons are allied with them; we'd need to get both on board at the same time and that's not possible right now. Keep trying to grow and fend them off as much as we can is all we can do. Ship maintenance is still negligible, 4.3% going to missile bases -- we're at anywhere from none to 11 of those, depending on the system. Industrialization has happened in most places, it's more about getting enough technology, bases, and ships so that we can effectively fight back at this point.

2427 -- The lizards show up at Rhilus.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vo04yzndnI



Yep. Just couldn't stop their darned destroyers. The Psilon attack at Nyarl, their first, failed as we'd just built a base there and they are armed mostly with Graviton Beams. Didn't do enough damage to even take out a single base with a dozen ships.

Meanwhile our new engines arrived. Warp Dissipator is the only forward-looking item. I decided to go for the Inertial Stabilizer instead, at a quarter the price, and boost our combat abilities.




Yikes. One more like that, and the planet will be gone. Our ships hung around but could only take out nine of the Banshees with their missile allotment the next year. Not nearly enough.




Another Psilon attack was repelled, but the Sakkra took out 8 bases at Selia, with this result. Might as well move our ships there; we did take out the majority of this smaller task force with the bases. We've got to find a way to stop them soon.




The Psilon-Sakkra alliance broke again; a chance to go for peace. After a couple of rounds of bribing, they still wanted more. If the eggheads don't have better than this they will soon. That was round one.

Now what to do with the Sakkra? Well, if we can get peace with them as well, eventually chase them away from Rhilus, and re-settle it, I'd be ok with letting them keep Mu Delphi. What we need most in time, time at peace. After three mostly crap techs were given away(range 5, nuclear engines, and something else) they agreed:




We also signed a minimal trade deal to encourage their arbitrary nature to stay peaceful. With this accomplished, there is a still a big galactic war on, at least officially: Human/Mrrshan vs. Psilon/Sakkra/Klackon. We're right where we want to be -- on the sidelines. Who knows for how long, but I'll take it in any case.




We have two new colonies and will be heading to re-settle Rhilus ASAP. That will require some funding, and the planetary reserve stands at a pathetic 24 BC. One of our better systems will start doing some investments to help out with that situation before it runs out. You can also see that we're spending almost a third on waste cleanup despite already having gotten a couple of early advances to improve that. We need more soon, but nothing else has yet presented itself.




2431. Next up we'll go for the Advanced Space Scanner, and get some better sensors. Battle Computer VI was also available, but I think we can afford to stick with our current tier IV for now. We also re-colonize Rhilus -- another Sakkra group was there but decided not to risk our relations over a fight -- and sign an max 1150 BC trade deal with the Psilons.

Now there's a trade deficit and industrial investment going on, which means research and shipbuilding take their usual back seat.




Two years later, before we can finish that, planetary shields come in. The economy is building up a definite queue here, but that's a very good problem to have. We'll go with the latest deflectors, but may well come back for the Repulsor. It certainly was beneficial in the Human game ...




Next year. This would be potentially useful against any non-Psilon ships. I don't have to decide yet whether to use it. I also notice that I'm an idiot and didn't factor in the fact that it wouldn't move the tech tree forward. So it's down to Ion Rifle, Mass Driver, or Merculite Missiles. We've progressed far enough in time that I want the missiles.

Most of the factories have been built and we are still just barely ahead in production, as one of those magical boosts occurred for the others as well.

2436 was an important year, with 31M Sakkra troops blown up by our ships above Rhilus, and the first five planetary shields coming online. The next year, I started putting extra into research as I wanted one more toy before designing our next ship. I had a tough choice to make. Stick with the Hyper-X rockets as the weapon system of choice, or switch to the Ion Cannon? The rockets allow for more damage for the price, but beam weapons are better for system defense since they don't have limited ammunition. In figuring the specs here, the Sakkra are the main concern not the Psilons. If we have to fight them much we have bigger problems. The lizards have Class III Shields(II on the ships we've seen), same computer and armor tech we have, but they do have the fusion bomb and neutron blaster. What that all boils down to is that they've got better weapons, we've got better engines(sublight compared to nuclear), and it's really going to come down to numbers.




There we go. Now I'm ready, and I decided we were close enough in capability to the Sakkra to go with the ion cannon. Meanwhile the Warp Dissipator will move us forward in propulsion.




The old Tormenter is gone now; the two new ones are the Devastator and the Ajax. The Devastator has no shielding but relies on maneuverability to avoid damage, and features twin ion cannons. The Ajax, larger and more heavily armed, gives us scanner ability and is shielded, but no inertial stabilizer. Our fleet is rated at less than half the strength of our rivals, and it's time to change that.




Our first terraforming, merely 144 years into the game. With the next council vote in a few years, this is going to be critical to increase us to, hopefully, veto-capable status. Our average system has 64M at the moment and almost all of them are maxed out, so this should be an increase of between a third and a half. Call it 40% or so. The Psilons can build only half the factories per pop that we can and have only two-thirds of the territory, but they have still been able to equal our production despite no terraforming that I can see. Hopefully this will allow us to push ahead. A sizable fraction of the economy will be required to make that effort in the next year, but it will of course be well worth it. The micromanagement of making sure 20 different systems all have optimal spending investments, with new calculations and changes each year for each until they are maxed out on people and factories again, is not my favorite thing in the world. It does have its rewards though.

Next is Bio-Toxin Antidote, the only choice. I was hoping for something that would let us snatch up some of the astoundingly still-unclaimed inferno worlds, but it wasn't to be.




The new scanner comes in, and we are now 3-for-3 on getting robotics in our list. That's some excellent news. A dozen systems are explored with the new electronics. Also ...




Haven't expanded recently, but this is our first overt size warning. From everything I can see, the war on the other side of the galaxy is one of stalemate. Nothing is happening, while our strength grows, which is just the way I want it. It is looking like we'll have to join the fight again eventually, but we aren't ready.

2449: Bad news from Cygni; heavy metals are depleted and one of our larger worlds is now mineral-poor. Not a good time for that, but it will give us, eventually, a second dedicated research system(along with Rhilus).




New council, same nominees. Getting the Psilons support, despite their uneasiness with our size, is huge here.




4 votes were added this cycle, and the Humans got one of them. They aren't nearly at veto status, but with the Mrrshans on their side that's probably still too much for us to win.

** Sakkra(6) -- Abstain. Or that, which also guarantees a deadlock.
** Mrrshan(3) -- QX-537. Really. The Human/Mrrshan alliance must be over, but even with that, I'd have expected them to at least abstain given the diplomatic prowess of our opponent. Must have been an unpleasant divorce.
** Klackon(3) -- QX-537. The galaxy is turning ... against the humans. Lolwut??

We have 16 votes. If we had 17, we could win this with 30 right now. Instead I vote Bladrov II to get on their good side, but it would have been 29-16. We're now over the veto threshold with every intention of staying there. Had I the first clue it would turn out this way, I would have bribed the Sakkra in an attempt to get their support.