Part 21: Turns 192-206

Turn 192



Despite their string of recent successes, our Inquisitors fail to ensure that the Zuul follow in the glorious crushing tentaclesteps of He Who Shapes. Some secrets are reserved for Him alone. The Inquisitors turn their attention to finalising the results of our gleanings from captured slaves.

It's important to actually research the stuff you get from salvage projects, as there's a good chance that you'd otherwise get another salvage project for the same thing. I'm unsure whether this is a bug or Working As Intended. I pick up Fusion, Disruptor, and Photon Torpedoes over the next few turns, as well as Heavy Plasma Cannons and Emitters.

Turn 196

Our fleets begin a blitzkrieg against the remaining Customer colonies. We picked up this term from a human with an interest in his own planet's military history. Greatfather took a shine to him, and ordered him to dress up in an archaic uniform and spend his days walking around the throne room with an odd lurching gait. Even though he is not shackled to a fusion plant, this Rosencranz seems to find the whole experience terribly upsetting. Our Inquisitors are at a loss as to why.

At Dosadi, the venerable Lord Windy is replaced with the Lord Windy II, using our updated Scout Command designs. Surveying is now a far more dangerous activity, as the primary purpose of our survey fleets is now carving a tunnel directly towards enemy star systems.

Turn 197

Vazkor is an unusually populated system, bearing three human colonies, and having produced a substantial tonnage of their shipping. The invasion will strike the two larger outer colonies first, before moving on to the final small colony at the centre of the system. This will make the most effective use of the limited supplies available to our Regardless vessels.



An unusual bug I've noticed with the last few combats involving the upgraded Awful Fleet. For some reason, two F22/A Raptors are brought along for the ride, even though none of the ships involved carry drones. I suspect it's some kind of boarding pod/drone confusion on one of the non-combat ships.



Although this next image may explain it. One of the human ships launched what appear to be two human boarding pods at my vessels. The latest beta patch may have caused some kind of confusion between the two, as there's no human ship that could launch only two pods as far as I'm aware. I've made an account on the Kerberos forums specifically to report this one, as it might interfere with the LP.



After removing the initial human resistance, our invasion force is free to send an armada of Pvt. Scotts to the outermost Human colony.



Our new generation of Scavenger vessels finds favour amongst a certain section of our military that likes things to go fast, and doesn't really mind if they can change direction.



Turn 199

Our initial incursion has been repelled by the sheer volume of missile fire involved by assaulting one colony after another. However, two Human colonies lie in ruins, along with dozens of their ships, for the loss of only four of hours. A quick retreat to Dosadi will allow us to repair and rearm. This short return allows us to perform a vital task:



There is only so much space on our slave discs, after all.

Turn 204



The Inquisitors march into Greatfather's throne room with glee. "We have it, Great Lord! After centuries of prying secrets out of the minds of others, we have developed the first original Zuul technology!"

"What is it, my beautiful minions? Have we finally devised a way of giving our females tentacles too? I've been eating the mind of a human for whom the word 'otaku' is very important, and I've been getting ideas-"

"Unfortunately not, your Terribleness. What we have discovered is a way of extracting even more resources from a planet even more quickly! It involves large amounts of slaves and large amounts of pickaxes."

The Greatfather bade them be quiet. His centuries of dominance over the Zuul had given him an insight into what came next.

Turn 205

The Humans manage to conjure up a halfway decent fleet for the final defence of Vazkor.



These vessels appear designed to take out our females before they latch on to ships. Such ingenuity!



Such pointless, pointless ingenuity!



In fairness, their lightning cannons did prevent a whole one ship from being overwhelmed by the women. A valiant effort by the Customers here.



Mecron thinks emitters counter boarding pods, by the way.

A less valiant effort by the remnants of their fleet, which is completely unable to prevent our slave discs from flying past them towards their last colony.



Meanwhile, an incoming Publisher fleet at Salusa encounters a fleet of our newer missile ships. They report that Mother has developed a range of troubling new technology.



I think we can assume the AI is building new ships with non-early technology now.

These ships appear to have invested heavily in point defence weapons.



It becomes a considerable challenge to get any missiles through, with each ship taking multiple rounds of missiles to kill.

Meanwhile, my ships are fine, because I'm kiting like buggery.

With each successful kill the point defence grid lessens, however, and the attack is successfully repulsed without losses.

Now Kerberos just needs to teach the AI to concentrate its fire.

And the salvage bounty commences.