Part 18: Turns 63-77

Memories of a better time - Let's Play Sword of the Stars as the Hiver Imperium.

Update 3. Turns 67-77

In which I attempt to avoid a genocidal war while persecuting genocide

So. We're ordering the remaining colony ships to colonise Tunguska. Their brothers will still help the colony since their deaths added to the planet's resources. Colony traps can only fire once, so it's safe to set our colonisers down this time.


Before our fleet can arrive, the Swarm sends another Queen. This time for our inhabited homeworld. Since we have fleets nearby, we can pick it up on sensors at least


We also get another of the infrastructure-y researches complete. 10% cheaper ships and 15% industrial output is kind of amazing though.


Also, it leads to this.

Fun times are ahead.

Since money is always the right choice, I start researching Economics in hyperspace.


Our fleet arrives at the Swarm homeworld in our cluster.


Closing up the formation is chaotic, as ever, but this fight goes smoother than the other did.


One of our ships loses its centre section, so I order it to withdraw so we can get a better equipped destroyer in the fight.


When the asteroid hive breaks, a young Queen pops out. If it survives, the infestation re-establishes itself next turn.

Also, I believe that's a tractor beam or gravitron beam, a high level tech. Luckily it didn't get a solid lock, and our destroyer manages to fly out of it. Rather than getting swung around into another ship or something. There's one Queen left, heading for our homeworld.

Also, I researched suspended animation. Even with that, Expert systems means we go from 8 colony ships to 10 at our home of Rapatic. Suspended animation lets us put the colonists in stasis so we can pack more in our ships.


We have plenty enough ships here to hold off the Queen, I think.


If I wasn't so lazy I would've set up like this to begin with


The Swarm does manage to obliterate a destroyer as we form up.


A few aliens slip through and engage the planetary defense grid.

Our defenses manage to clean things up though.

The last Swarm Queen. The tail reminds me of Okami.


I am glad we don't have to pay for planetary missiles.


There is only room for one insect species in this space cluster.


It is us.


I don't think I've shown off the Over Budget window yet.


Research completes two turns later. Unlocking trade gets you a fair chunk of message spam. I actually wish you could turn it off. At least this one is only spammy once.


Freighters!


And I get to talk about a good trade interface, hooray!

Your planets are broken up into sectors. We'll focus on Sector 2 since it has two trade capable worlds.

On the left, we have the currently active and total routes, 0 of 11 because we only researched trade this turn
We also have the current freighter count, the queued freighter count, and the total freighters the sector can support based on the sliders as they are now.
It also tells you the sweet tradebux you're earning. Again 0 because we have no freighters.

On the right, we can see the planets in the sector, and their construction/trade sliders. When you select a world, you can add a single freighter to the build queue. I'll look into how it selects when I get cruiser versions.
Anyhow. Each of those notches on the construction/trade slider indicate 1 trade route to dedicate Industrial Output to. A trade route can support up to 5 Freighters.
In Sector 2, I've shifted Izokot to its maximum of 3 trade routes, while Rapatic currently only has one. This is mainly because Rapatic is where I produce my ships for the most part. I will eventually build up the rest of its trade routes though. For now it has just the one.

Freighter complete messages are by far the most spammy though. And while the Sector notification tells you that you can actually start setting trade routes up, freighter complete messages are less useful, since you've already ordered them through the trade management window, so you've got a fair idea how many to expect and when anyhow. But oh well.


Nipping back to our trade window, we can see the last thing I wanted to mention. If we click on the sector itself, rather than a planet, we get the sector status. While trade routes are establishing, they only earn 1000 spacebux. And it takes a few turns for them to get everything in order. Then they start making a lot more. We'll come back here again once we have a route set up.


I went to my research screen and remembered I hadn't balanced out research when I started. Plus ordering a bunch of freighters changed the interest we're getting. Then I saw this.


Shit.

Before I show where they're at, we should talk about the Magical Space Dolphins. In SOTS1 Lore, they had been enslaved by a race of beings. To free themselves, they bioweaponed the hell out of them. So virulent was the bioweapon they used, that it cleared them out of orbit and local space too. They then took their overseer's technology, and started their exploration into the stars. They also forgot what their masters looked like.
What this means for the player is that if your ships or colonies destroy a SINGLE Liir ship, they will go to war with you and never consider peace at all. This is problematic when your first meeting is at one of your own colonies, because even if you select peaceful resolution, the planets missiles WILL fire on them, and you will be thrown into war with them. They focus on energy weapons and shields to protect their lightweight but super-manuverable ships.

Liir are ASSHOLES, basically. Thankfully, since one of my scout fleets located them, I can research Fleet Song, and arrange a Cease Fire before we meet them. So I might be able to diplo them, which will be especially important if they have cruisers already. After I have fleetsong, I'm going to research Tarkachat, then get Mass Drivers and Cruisers quick-smart. Tune in next time to see how THAT goes.


And because I know you all love voting - Vote here for how we're going to diplomatically handle the Space Dolphins.