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That Hera system will, some day, be really good, thanks to the fact that you can use gas giants to make Huge planets, which you can then terraform all the way up to Gaia. That's not going to be super relevant, though. The nice reason is that it's because by the time you can afford to colonize the second worst planet you can roll, being able to forge a couple of gas giants into huge worlds isn't going to really do all that much for you. The more brutal reason is that it's looking like "living long enough to get that tech" is a tall order.  (Also "build planet" is competing with another really good tech, so that's a mark against it.)
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Mar 31, 2019 11:37
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The mirv upgrade works off tech tiers, not weapons unlocked. So definitely pick up pollution processor.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:09
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Fangz posted:The mirv upgrade works off tech tiers, not weapons unlocked. So definitely pick up pollution processor. This is true for all miniaturization and weapon feature upgrades. Chemistry gives you miniaturization and upgrades for your missiles regardless of whether or not you're researching new missile tech. Likewise with Power for your bombs and Physics for your beam weapons. You, unfortunately, have the worst neighbors to be competing with for space in the early game - the Klackons' Unification means they have the food and production bonuses to colonize less-than-ideal planets while still getting profitable use out of them and stretch their starting Terran planet's good food production further. Silicoids' Lithovore and Tolerant status means that they have an effective production bonus due to the lack of a need for food or cleaning up pollution (as well as generally higher population caps) and thus can profit from nearly any planet. Meklars are cybernetic and have a substantial production bonus, meaning that they can make many more planets profitable - although they lose some of their bonus production to "feeding" themselves, they can stretch their starting Terran food production further than even the Klackons can. You might hang on for a while longer if the Silicoids can't get through your Star Base (and Fighter Garrison) yet, but this game is already over. The Silicoids have noticed that you are easy pickings, and your continued survival rests on the AI's willingness to actually construct and commit a fleet large enough to destroy your Star Base. Even if they choose not to, you're unable to expand and so you will fall further and further behind until one of them finally deigns to crush you
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Mar 31, 2019 21:37
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Oho, I haven't seen Slag in forever. He's a great pick up, as is Felina. A 30% farming boost in a breadbasket farming system can be incredible, and the environmentalist boost is great for move large stacks of population over to production later to get some infrastructure going. Also, yes, Pollution Processors are amazing and are a tech to gun for not only for the MIRV angle, but for the increase to hammers. Also also, yea you're kind of hosed. Getting boxed in by the rocks and ants is a terrible situation to be in. The only other race I'd be more irritated to see are the Sakkrans, but they're a different kind of pain.
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Apr 1, 2019 02:23
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Ouch. Also, never ever get armor barracks. Tanks are really not worth it - you can't use them for offense. Honestly I might consider goin gfor Merculites and getting Missile Bases up on your vulnerable colonies. Thsoe can generally survive reasonably well and if you keep track of hwere the enemy is going you can swing some frigates or lighter vessels in to support. Missile bases can generally take out 2-3 destroyers unless you're massively outteched - and the enemy basically has to prioritize shooting at it the first few turns, and missiles soak up lots of energy weapon fire.
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Apr 1, 2019 06:59
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wedgekree posted:Honestly I might consider goin gfor Merculites and getting Missile Bases up on your vulnerable colonies. Thotimx posted:Takeaways from the thread contributions on this game: Automated factories are still the better choice in that tier, but just so it's clear, thot can't build missile bases this particular game since he didn't research them. He can't trade for them either since no one else has researched them (yet?).
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Apr 1, 2019 07:13
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It's hilarious that "missile bases" comes up again and again. Too many people who only played creative races itt? It's clearly a very tough situation to be in. Silicoids and Klackons are the early game races. If you could hold against them with a similar number of worlds, your tech advantages would make you overtake them eventually. It might still be possible to stave them off. Callisto and Sol have several usable planets between them. You could try to turtle a bit, and then take out the Meklar?
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Apr 1, 2019 08:11
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GuavaMoment posted:Automated factories are still the better choice in that tier, but just so it's clear, thot can't build missile bases this particular game since he didn't research them. He can't trade for them either since no one else has researched them (yet?). And yes, add 'I cannot read at all' to the list of things which I have accomplished on these forums. Shows you what *I* know how to do! Apologies again for sounding like a know it all when I clearly don't know nothing.
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Apr 1, 2019 08:16
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No apologies necessary. I think mostly we're just having fun with the situation. I for sure am at least. After all, I'm the guy who made a 'Le'ts Play' for the first game, and apparently thinks 'Plantetary' is a thing. So since I can't spell, missing something while reading isn't something I'll get up in arms about. Wax sarcastic about? Sure, absolutely.
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Apr 1, 2019 08:38
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Torrannor posted:It's hilarious that "missile bases" comes up again and again. Too many people who only played creative races itt? Until they send 1 spy for a turn and steal all the key technologies.
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Apr 1, 2019 08:58
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SugarAddict posted:Until they send 1 spy for a turn and steal all the key technologies. Keep a spy over there and keep it hidden. The AI usually calls back multiple spies to try to root it out, and hiding gives a huge bonus to not being found.
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Apr 1, 2019 09:46
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Or just send a spy there and keep it 'hidden' with the understanding it generally shows you the entire Empire 'status' screen. Technology, power, etc. Gives you a pretty good snapshot of them - even with your spy hidden and never doing a thing.
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Apr 1, 2019 10:45
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I'm pretty sure Lithovore races don't require any industry to sustain them, they just eat rocks. That's why whenever I played with telephatic feudal Elerians, I always loved when I had Silcoids neighbors. I just beelined directly toward them, mind controled them, and became an industry powerhouse after I put them all to work in the factories. With the feudal shipbuilding bonus I was crancking out a battleship every fourth turn or so in the early game, which is huge.
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Apr 1, 2019 11:51
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gently caress off Batman posted:I'm pretty sure Lithovore races don't require any industry to sustain them, they just eat rocks. That's why whenever I played with telephatic feudal Elerians, I always loved when I had Silcoids neighbors. I just beelined directly toward them, mind controled them, and became an industry powerhouse after I put them all to work in the factories. With the feudal shipbuilding bonus I was crancking out a battleship every fourth turn or so in the early game, which is huge. Yeah. Also, I think one of the impossible variants of Silicoids is subterranean. Which makes them incredible if you can get your hands on them. Also, haven't seen you post since forever.  Sup man?
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Apr 1, 2019 12:01
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my dad posted:Yeah. Also, I think one of the impossible variants of Silicoids is subterranean. Which makes them incredible if you can get your hands on them. Sup. I still read the forums occasionally, but don't post nearly as much. I also like this thread since it tries to examine MOO2 critically, especially because I still think it's probably the best game ever made.
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Apr 1, 2019 13:45
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For what it's worth, I don't think tanks are completely without merit, just mostly so. A planet with a tank garrison will require more ground troops to take, which means your opponent will need to have more troop transports to maintain a similar rate of conquest, or their prize won't be as nice because they'll have to bomb longer and harder to get rid of the defenders. The big problems are that ground troops aren't relevant if they just mind control your planet or bomb it clean anyway, and "they have to drop ten bombs instead of five to get a good crack at tacking the planet, meaning they capture less infrastructure and fewer citizens" is really not worth giving up a building that gives a flat 50% money boost to revenue generated there. And that's not getting into the "if they manage to take and hold orbit long enough to land troops or use bombs, you're pretty well boned in that system anyway" issues.
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Apr 1, 2019 13:50
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Inspired by this LP, I decided to play a game today...
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Apr 1, 2019 19:23
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Martian posted:Inspired by this LP, I decided to play a game today... Yeah, that's an easter egg that happens in games on April 1.
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Apr 1, 2019 19:55
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Between a Rock and a Gang of Wannabes Battle at Hera We lose the outpost, but escape and eliminate one frigate. One of their destroyers was damaged. So it seems hit-and-run tactics could work on them for now, the question being whether we could do it well enough to annoy them into leaving us alone and picking on someone else.  Two poor planets here, the Klackons have grabbed the bigger one of the two. Contact is broken anyway as we lose the outpost. Meanwhile our Fighter Garrison is finished.  Here, Sol II has finished the Automated Factory and Marine Barracks. It's ready to start pumping out the population - problem is we aren't going to have many places to send them so it won't help that much. Still, better than a citizen every six years with this focused on housing. Good proof-of-concept for the future anyway. Elsewhere I mostly stockpiled industry and waited for the research to finish.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that picture look like we are enriching the soil ... with a scorpion? Regardless, I want to build these ASAP everywhere I can.  When done, those will free up more labor for production. So Pollution Processor followed by Robo-Miners would seem to be indicated. Advanced Chemistry it is. Then I think I need to go back for some of the cheaper categories to round out our capabilities. Callisto IV got the Soil Enrichment done right away. Sol I and Callisto III needed a few more turns, but I was able to take a couple of citizens out of farming now that we had more food coming in from elsewhere, so that sped up the process.  This was the big one, two years later. Now Callisto III can support it's own population, with 2 food per farmer (Arid + Enrichment). That means a lot less shipping food around, just minimal amounts to our two incubator planets. Add in Administrator Felina's 30% boost, and we're looking quite good now on the feeding-our-folks front.  I'm now going for Starbases on the big planets to expand our military, and Research Labs on the small ones since our need for more population is minimal. ** SD 3516.7 - Sol I finishes up the enrichment push, and starts work on another colony ship. I want to get to Iras, the only remaining 'safe' system, and then ponder betraying the Meklar as Torrannor suggested. It seems the least hazardous course of action.  We're too late. The Meklar have taken it ahead of us.  Boosting our industry, and also giving us MIRV capability.  Robo-Miners it is next. I see little option here now but to mobilize for war with the Meklar. Things aren't going to get any better for us. They cybernetics have some key defensive techs; Heavy Armor, Reinforced Hull, and Tritanium Armor. They have the next-level research capability with Planetary Supercomputer. Their weapons are the same except that they have Mass Drivers. We really don't have any advantages except in production - they don't have the Pollution Processor yet. Yeah, you read that right. Our only saving grace might be production, against the Meklar. That's an awful thin thing to hang your hat on. I'd like to get our interceptors out there, but the only way I think we might have a chance is to go with maximum cheese:  The Cheeseball here has a half-dozen MIRV 2-shot missile launchers. As recommended, overwhelm enemy PD with hit-and-run tactics. This is as cowardly as all get out. It's destroyer-sized because that was more cost-effective than going frigate or cruiser, and seems the best size right now for building them in a reasonable time-frame. I'll fill our fleet up with these and transports for taking over enemy systems ... and then we'll do this thing. Of course that's after getting pollution processors and starbases in place, so it'll take a bit to prepare. SD 3517.8 - The Klackons and Meklar are at war. That could help us, but on the other hand we need to do this thing before the bugs take it all. Of course, the whole idea in the first place is a desperate venture, backstabbing our only friend who is providing our economy with much-needed boosts. But they are erratic, and it's not like there's a choice here. It's better than waiting for someone to come wipe us out. At least this way we are attempting to do something about it. SD 3518.1 - Alkari and Silicoids are at war too. Apparently everbody else is now deciding that this is indeed the proper time to go set off a galactic conflagration.  Cute. This one I hadn't seen before. The magnanimous K'kalak once again refuses all attempts at negotiation.  Welp, that didn't last long.  Gives us something new to work on just as the invasion force is almost ready.  It's time to talk tachyons. ** Battle Scanner boosts beam attacks to +50%, and adds 2 parsecs to scanning range. ** Tachyon Communications allows any ship within 3 parsecs of a starbase to receive orders, and boosts the command points provided by 1 per base. ** Tachyon Scanners increases the detection range of enemy ships, further for larger ones, and reduces enemy missile evasion by 20%. I'm going with the Communications option - I think I need every last command point I'm going to be able to get. Meanwhile, the Robo-Miner Plant costs 2 maintenance, so I'm only building those on the three big worlds. Hello Again Mr. Talking Robot Anchordude! More bad news all the way around, although the Silicoids have been at 7 for a while.  Just as I'm about to launch my attack. Guh. It would appear the 'fake early wars' from MOO1 are back.  The glorious Meklar Invasion Fleet. Ok, not so glorious. Two transports and a trio of Cheeseballs. I'll be able to get another destroyer or two going soon once we get the tachyon comms in place. For now though, I'm going to strike. You can see that the Klackons took Weg from the cybernetics. All the more important for us to seize what we can before they get frisky again.  Oh heck yes. We'll have the cashola in a few turns.  Looks like somebody combined a radar dish array with a crow's cage.  Fusion now. ** Augmented Engines boost combat speed by 5, a significant percentage - the Cheetah had 12 total for comparison. ** Fusion Bomb - 4-24 damage against ground installations, upgrade over the starting Nuclear naturally. ** Fusion Drives - boosts galactic speed to Warp 3. I'm going with the fusion drives for faster reaction speed to threats. I am not at all confident in this decision.  The caps make me giggle. I like that you can't just misclick and do this though. Our task force is one turn away from Iras, so it is time.  You know, RSW-242 is not wrong about the first part. I am a royal arseface for pulling this crap, and I legit feel sorry for the cybernetics. That doesn't usually happen. But in keeping with the Maximum Space Hitler theme of MOO in general, ethics will not stop me. Also in keeping with the theme of being a royal arseface, I am cutting off this update here on a cliffhanger. But here's the latest on how much we suck:  We're on the comeback trail compared to everyone who isn't a bug. Don't look now, but we could have something here if ... and it's a positively massive IF ... we win this war. On the other hand, K'kalak can probably stomp whoever it wants at will now. And whoever it wants definitely includes us.
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Apr 3, 2019 09:51
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The combat could have gone better. If you had concentrated all your missiles on the ship that carried the leader, it's likely you could have taken it out, and killed the leader with it. It's unlikely the Silicoids researched survival pods. It helps to turn on the grid that shows how far each ship can travel on the tactical map. You've grasped the basic mechanics well enough: The ships don't need to point at the enemy when they're firing missiles. So first thing you do each turn is to fire them, then run away from the enemy. In your second turn, you flew away first, then launched the missiles, which is not the best order. You will also note that the missiles disappeared once the ship that launched them fled combat, you might want to keep that in mind. But you destroyed one of their four ships, and there was no further Silicoid incursion in your territory. By the way, I think the Meklars made peace with the Klackons because they lost a system to the bugs. That doesn't seem like a "fake" war to me.
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Apr 3, 2019 10:14
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Ow. how effective do you find Fighter Garrisons? I tended to not use them a ton as they replaced fighters slowly and didn't have 'complete' wings each invasion. Suppose you can always try and go for the 'snipe a planet that was just conquered' thing as well if you can get there before it can be reinforced or if a defense fleet isn't left. Would suggest if you think that Starbases are gonna be your core defense force to get Class 1 shields. Cheap, will automatically get put on all your defense outposts. Not super important if you're going for frigate swarm with missiles to upgrade on them, mind.
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Apr 3, 2019 11:43
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wedgekree posted:how effective do you find Fighter Garrisons? I tended to not use them a ton as they replaced fighters slowly and didn't have 'complete' wings each invasion. At the moment I find them to be the only planetary defense I have access to, and that's about it. Couldn't tell you otherwhise. Torrannor posted:I think the Meklars made peace with the Klackons because they lost a system to the bugs. That doesn't seem like a "fake" war to me. Yeah I noticed that after the fact, but left that comment in there so as to enshire my ignorance. Looking into the Info a little deeper, they destroyed the entirety of the Meklar fleet it seems. Lost some themselves too, but not too much. Torranor posted:the missiles disappeared once the ship that launched them fled combat, you might want to keep that in mind. I assumed that was how it worked in the next battle, but I wasn't sure. Thanks. gently caress off Batman posted:I also like this thread since it tries to examine MOO2 critically, especially because I still think it's probably the best game ever made. I'll get back to destroying such delusions eventually. wedgekree posted:Or just send a spy there and keep it 'hidden' with the understanding it generally shows you the entire Empire 'status' screen. Technology, power, etc. Gives you a pretty good snapshot of them - even with your spy hidden and never doing a thing. FYI this is not necessary in MOO2. You get that information for free just for meeting them, without any spying necessary.
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Apr 3, 2019 21:18
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wedgekree posted:Ow. how effective do you find Fighter Garrisons? I tended to not use them a ton as they replaced fighters slowly and didn't have 'complete' wings each invasion. Let's talk about fighters - the overall discussion here applies to both Fighter Garrisons and the Fighter Bays that can be put on ships. The basic type of "fighter" is launched by Fighter Bays and (initially) by Fighter Garrisons are called interceptors. Interceptors work similarly to missiles - once launched at a target, they can't be controlled and continue to operate automatically. Interceptors: - Always carry one of your best weapons that can be made point defense. Interceptors carry a NORMAL beam, but will only be equipped with the best one that has a PD version. - Always uses your best targeting computer - Always fires at 0 range - Always shoots the side of the target where shields are weakest - Each interceptor has 3 + (armor multiplier) in structure, so interceptors have between 4 and 13 structure points - Combat speed of 8 + (2x drive speed), ranging between 12 and 22. - Can make 4 shots before needing to return and recharge Fighter bays launch 4 interceptors per bay. Fighter Garrisons launch 10 interceptors (in two groups of 5). How effective Interceptors are depends largely on your available beam research - since they don't benefit from beam miniaturization, they're decent candidates if you've been stealing/trading for your beam technology upgrades. Since they always fire at range 0, interceptors rarely miss and stay out for multiple turns to do damage repeatedly. However, they do tend to get cleared out by drive explosions, making them difficult to rely on heavily. Fighter Garrisons will eventually replenish their interceptors, but I can't remember off the top of my head if Fighter Bays do the same. Interceptors can be sent out against any targets - ships, missiles, other enemy fighters, you name it. Two other types of fighters exist - Bombers and Heavy Fighters, but these are later technologies and fighters in general fall off in effectiveness in the late game as beams begin to reliably out-damage their structure and targeting computers improve to the point where they get shot down reliably.
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Apr 3, 2019 21:23
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Olesh posted:Fighter bays launch 4 interceptors per bay. Fighter Garrisons launch 10 interceptors (in two groups of 5). Fighter bays never make new fighters during combat, they're basically fancier missiles, any fighters that die will stay dead.
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Apr 3, 2019 21:52
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A Dastardly Betrayal The status of the empire on the eve of the invasion. All three primary worlds are set to optimal labor distribution with the most industry they can handle with minimal pollution. Only Sol Prime has any. The food is negative intentionally - Sol II has very slightly negative (-2k) growth and I don't want any more population right now, it would just suck more food out of the producer planets. So we're basically full-to-bursting right now and the main way to improve is to expand. the Meklar 'buildings' count is down to just a hair above ours and our latest report is that their fleet was annihilated by the Klackons just before they sued for peace. Beats the heck out of me why the bugs didn't just finish the job, but this could be a perfect time for our attack.  This screen happens when you get past any defenses in orbit of a planet. Iras Prime, being a relatively new acquisition, doesn't have any. It looks ripe for the picking, so I Invade, aka send in the transports. Invasion of Iras Prime Their one defender took out half of our troops. Yikes. I don't know exactly how the math works for ground combat, but it looks like they had an 16-10? edge in bonuses. The +1 for AI Bonus is I think purely difficulty-based. I've always found it more difficult to see exactly what is going on here compared to the original. More of a flow to things with the troops rushing at each other, and perhaps it makes more sense than the 'one fights at a time' deal, I've just never gotten a clear handle on why stuff happens the way it does.  This is rather gruesome. Imagine our troops going through the Meklar cities, killing off a million Meklar every few weeks (a year divided by ten turns). Let's see, that's almost 27,400 of them a day - and that's just the work force. Gotta figuire about double that if your factor in the elderly, children, etc. The morgue would be rather ... busy. I go with no. They are likely to be better than our citizens, and in any case I should show the assimilation mechanic.  It'll be more so later, but this is a good example of how this stuff can get complicated. Nice Meklar boost, but then there's pollution, morale, and the general we-hate-you factor for being invaded. Also, they are eating half food and half industry and have built a hydroponics farm here. And they are weird yellowish guys with exosuits or what-have-you.  For now, this is all I'll build and it still means operating Iras Prime at a financial loss. With only 3 max population, not a whole lot we can do with it.  So now what? Obviously it's best if we can keep pushing the attack, but I don't what is at Meklon or Sulcus. At least at their homeworld they'll obviously have a starbase, and who knows what else. Given what happened with our troops this time, I think I need to go with three transports and another destroyer to fill out our remaining fleet openings. Dunno if that's enough, but it is what we can afford.  I don't want to give them our hard-earned. I also know that I don't really have a choice. I'm informed that K'kalak 'is pleased we saw the light' and that 'I/Ender have made a wise decision'. So about that trade proposal . .. "We simply are not interested." We have met three races, are at war with two, and are buying the temporary good graces of the third with much-needed resources.  Here's our glorified candlestick, aka the Fusion Drive.  Advanced Magnetism is the last low-level field to consider. The Mass Driver is better than our Fusion Beam in that it doesn't lose damage with range, but if I was going to go that route I wouldn't have gotten Fusion to begin with. Class I Shield removes 1 damage per attack as you'd expect, though in MOO2 shields don't work forever - they can run out eventually though they do recharge. ECM Jammer increases missile evasion by 70%. I hesistantly take the ECM.  The only thing in Galileo is a Medium Barren Poor. This is the part where I wonder if I should have at least put an outpost on it to keep them from taking it. It's too late now, and if I did I'm sure the Silicoids would have just smashed the outpost anyway.  Magistrate Vott puts his considerable skills to work on Sol, which will be research-focused from here on out. Rash-lki is banished to the hinterlands of Iras. Our annual research has been effectively doubled here. This Just In ... Pirates are back, in a system we've never heard of. Also, the Klackons take Galileo and can now hit any of our systems whenever they feel like it. Super-great.  With this, we can consider possibly building different designs depending on how things go. More urgently, it's time to take a step up to more expensive toys.  It's time to look at some AI. I've neglected Computers for longer than I normally would. Probably too long. ** Neural Scanner - A near-perfect lie detector that improves all spies by +10. ** Scout Labs - These are put on ships, and increase research based on the size of the ship they are put on. They also improve attacks against space monsters and those things that shall not be mentioned because they aren't in this run. ** Security Stations - +20 to combat rolls defending against boarding actions; automated weapons systems for repelling them on board and the like. I like the idea of Scout Labs, but it looks like we'll be needing every last ship for combat and won't have the luxury. So I elect Neural Scanners.  How about that. One citizen there is now working full-steam for us.  Blue good, yellow bad. Icon even has a hammer in his hand to indicate he is working dutifully.  Ignore the starvation message - that happens whenever even a partial population reduction happens. We aren't losing a citizen here. More important is the war here. Enemy of our enemy is our friend and all that, but if the bugs have a significant victory here they will become unstoppable.  The Meklar have a fighter garrison on Meklon III. That's their homeworld. But this would be a very nice planet as well. Let's walk before we run, and see if our destroyer quartet can handle a cybernetic Starbase. The Battle of Meklon II I assumed here that if I left the battle screen, the starbase would not be destroyed. We lost one Cheeseball but it was well worth it. Had to take out about half the planet from orbit to knock it down to size, but still overall a successful operation. Also, some of the troops apparently returned to one of the transports afterwards - I assume because too many survived the battle to remain on the planet? The Neural Scanner I accidentally clicked through, but I'll come back to it at some point. It looks disturbingly like an electric chair.  Positronics is next. ** Holo Simulator is nice, boosting morale by 20% for an across-the-board planetary boost in production. ** Planetary Supercomputer is nicer. It improves on the research lab the way robo-miners did for industry. 10 research automatically, +2 per scientist. ** Positronic Computer is the latest word in beam weapon direction, boosting that bonus to +75%. We're not so worried about that this game. Supercomputer it is.  Gotta hand it to the guy, he just won't give up.  So now what? I don't think we can handle their homeworld just yet. May want to take Sulcus and consolidate before I take the step of wiping them out. The Meklar campaign is going quite well. Whether it ultimately matters all that much though remains to be seen. I like the 'contested system' display here with the colors of both empires. Very cool. And I should also see about starting to put the Meklar to work in more optimal situations, as their abilities do differ from ours. Query for the thread: how does population growth work with a mixed population? Is the new citizen randomly chosen from among the candidate races, or based on proportion, or ... ? Guess I'll find out soon enough, but it would still be cool to know.
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Apr 4, 2019 21:08
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Planetary Supercomputer seems like an obvious choice - lots of research means lots of other toys - but in general, Holo-Simulator tends to be a better pick because 20% morale is a 20% boost to everything - research, farming, and production. Also a factor in the decision is that the Meklar, with whom you're currently at war, have both Mass Drivers and Planetary Supercomputer, which means there's a decent chance you'll end up with one or the other if you successfully invade. I have no idea what factors in to the chance to steal technology upon invading an enemy planet, but I generally find Holo-Simulator to be more valuable anyways, so I'm usually pretty happy to take Holo-Simulator even without the reasonable chance of acquiring Planetary Supercomputer through other means. The fact that neither the Silicoids nor the Klackons have taken the opportunity to grind you into paste is nothing short of mystifying, but if Sol is the only thing they can reach, they may not feel confident attacking the Star Base. Early shields in this game can feel pretty underwhelming for a couple of reasons - missiles are very strong in the early game, and early shields don't do much of anything to soak missiles. However, Force Fields is an extremely strong branch of the tech tree. Let's look at what options we have for Advanced Magnetism: Class I Shield: - Negates 1 point of damage from each incoming attack. - Each shot from a beam weapon, missile, fighter, etc, is treated as a separate attack, so if someone fires and hits with 5 laser cannons, Class I shields knock a total of 5 points of damage off the top. - Also adds a pool of regenerating shield HP equal to 5 * the ship's size class. Frigates get 5 shield HP, Battleships get 20. Each shield facing has its own pool of HP, and shields will regenerate 30% of the max shield value every turn, although if I remember correctly this is spread out across any damaged facings. - Since beam damage isn't actually random*, shields are dramatically better at protecting ships when fighting long-range engagements. Mass Driver: - A "beam" weapon that does a flat 6 damage with no range dissipation** - Has Heavy Mount and Point Defense modifications, as well as unlocking Armor Piercing (1) and Auto Fire (2) after the listed (#) of additional levels of Force Fields tech. - Has no range dissipation built in. Counts as a beam weapon for all relevant purposes - fighters will equip themselves with Mass Drivers if it's the best available "beam" tech. Probably the best PD weapon available for a while, although there's an argument to be made for Fusion Beams. ECM Jammer: - Ship Special system, gives +70% missile evasion*** to the ship carrying it. - This is actually a lot. Without an ECM Jammer, missiles have a roughly 90% chance to hit. With an ECM Jammer, missiles have a roughly 30% chance to hit.**** Mass Driver is really good. It's a fantastic workhorse weapon that can be relied upon well into the mid-game. However, ECM Jammer is incredibly strong against the strongest early game weapon (missiles). Class I shields are the only meh pick here. In general, Force Fields has a lot of difficult decisions to make like this and the decisions should be based on your situation - there's usually no one size "best" pick. *, **, ***, and **** are a separate discussion. Suffice to say that the way beam/missile offense/defense work is not intuitive - 50% is neither a flat nor a relative 50% increase to your chance to hit - and the numbers the game displays are either incomplete or flat out wrong. For a quick summary, though, when offense and defense are equal, the chance to hit is 50%, and missiles by default have a "missile attack" value of +50, giving them around a 90% chance to hit. Olesh fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Apr 4, 2019 |
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Apr 4, 2019 23:06
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The main benefit of fighters IIRC is that they upgrade automatically with new weapons, instead of having to build new ships the way you do with new missile warheads. Generally I don't think they are worth it though. I think growth of mixed populations takes into account the relative growth rates and proportions of civilians you have. I remember my empires filling up with Sakkra.
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Apr 5, 2019 02:33
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OK, so, two things. Thing one, the Technomancer is one of the leaders that comes with a free technology. In his case, it's Virtual Reality Network, an achievement that immediately adds +20% morale on every colony, a technology normally deep in the Computers tree. This makes hiring him a HUGE boost to your economy. Number two, population growth on mixed worlds. The game independently tracks population figures for each species on a world, reporting the summed population, and only adding a new population unit when one of the species rolls over the '1,000k' threshhold. Thus, on mixed worlds, it's reasonably common to see a reported total population above what the number of population units implies. (This also meant that in my original MoO2 LP, when I made pure android colonies on toxic worlds, there'd frequently be a permanently sloppy addition of one turn's population growth to the population figures on a planet, from the turn it took me to buy out the first android and ship off the Human population on the planet.) nweismuller fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 5, 2019 03:59
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nweismuller posted:Thing one, the Technomancer is one of the leaders that comes with a free technology. In his case, it's Virtual Reality Network, an achievement that immediately adds +20% morale on every colony, a technology normally deep in the Computers tree. This makes hiring him a HUGE boost to your economy. There's some Meklar pilot that frequently shows up who gives you free Advanced Damage Control. I love that guy because of my aforementioned "one giant ship for the whole empire" strategy.
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Apr 5, 2019 04:12
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While it's true that you needed at least one ship on the battlefield for the missiles to destroy the starbase, you do not need all of them. SOP is to click the retreat button to jump out whichever ship is the target of the missiles, which at this stage of the game are the only real threat in this sort of fleet vs base combat.
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Apr 5, 2019 04:55
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Olesh posted:a factor in the decision is that the Meklar, with whom you're currently at war, have both Mass Drivers and Planetary Supercomputer, which means there's a decent chance you'll end up with one or the other if you successfully invade. So far though I'm 0-for-2 on that front; I don't know how common it is to actually get techs via invasion in MOO2. Olesh posted:The fact that neither the Silicoids nor the Klackons have taken the opportunity to grind you into paste is nothing short of mystifying, but if Sol is the only thing they can reach, they may not feel confident attacking the Star Base. It's actually simpler than that I think. Silicoids never had the range to reach even Sol. Rosemund is 7 parsecs away, and they are at Deuterium (range 6) like we are. The Klackons weren't within range either until the last update. Thankfully they are, at least for now, otherwhise occupied. Thanks for the tech thoughts. nweismuller posted:The game independently tracks population figures for each species on a world, reporting the summed population, and only adding a new population unit when one of the species rolls over the '1,000k' threshhold. Ahh, cool. That's good to know. wedgekree posted:Would suggest if you think that Starbases are gonna be your core defense force to get Class 1 shields. This would imply the existence of a long-term strategic plan … or for that matter, a strategic plan of any length of time. We're in more of the 'Do whatever is least likely to lose the game immediately' stage, and worry about the consequences of that later. I don't have a plan for a core defense force - I simply need the Starbases (and Tach Comms) to get the command point cap up and the destroyer design was the best option I could think of for killing stuff. Didn't go any deeper than that. Narsham posted:you needed at least one ship on the battlefield for the missiles to destroy the starbase, you do not need all of them. SOP is to click the retreat button to jump out whichever ship is the target of the missiles, Another good piece of info for me to conveniently forget the next time it comes up.
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Apr 5, 2019 08:04
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You don't get techs every time you take over a territory. I'm not sure what (if anything) factors in to it. My doomsaying would appear to have been inaccurate; capturing Meklar worlds gives you more territory and you can leverage your Meklar population (which are overall superior to your 0-pick Normal Humans) to substantially boost your own production. In a brutal eugenics sort of way, at this point you'd actually want to replace your population with assimilated Meklar wherever possible; they're no worse at farming or science than your own guys and substantially better at industry. ECM Jammer was a solid pick; frequently when people play this game I see people taking Class I shields when really they ought to be taking ECM Jammers. Class III shields, which are the next shield tech, are the first shields that actually have a meaningful effect. Class I shields are better than nothing, certainly, but the opportunity cost for taking Class I shields instead of Mass Drivers or ECM Jammer is just too rough to justify, in my opinion. So here's a simplified breakdown of how hit mechanics in this game work: Hit Mechanics Any attack that has a chance of missing compares an attack value vs a defense value - for example, Beam Attack vs Beam Defense. I'm going to use BA and BD as examples, but note that missiles use the same general formula but with different bonuses and penalties. When BA and BD are equal, the chance to hit is 50%.When BA is greater, the chance to hit is something greater than 50%, and when BD is greater, the chance is less than 50%. The exact formula isn't given by the game, but you can subtract beam defense from BA to get a single number that I'll call "HIT"), expressed by this simple formula: code:So. Now that we've gotten the "simple" out of the way, what really goes into these numbers? code:code:code:code:A couple of key takeaways: - Missiles are very strong in the early game, because they hit 90% of the time, they're very difficult to shoot down with early game weaponry, and early on you can easily solve most problems by spamming tons of missiles. - Late game, missiles aren't quite so dominant - better computers and weapons make shooting down missiles much more feasible and ECM technology is extremely effective as a defense against non-ECCM missiles. - With drive upgrades, augmented engines, and other defensive ship systems such as ECM, you can make ships that are very evasive and extremely difficult to hit with beam weapons or missiles, even with all available offensive technologies. However, the inherent trade-off is that you won't have nearly the room for weapons, and overwhelming offense (provided you get the first turn) is a perfectly valid and effective means of reducing incoming damage. Races with preexisting defensive picks (such as the Alkari +50 Ship Defense) will find this a more worthwhile tactic in general. - It's much easier and cheaper to acquire an overwhelming offense advantage than it is to arrange for an overwhelming defense advantage. Olesh fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 00:25
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Olesh posted:
Olesh posted:Missile Evasion:  ?
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Apr 6, 2019 01:26
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Missiles also have beam defense, because they can be shot down. A faster missile is harder to hit, but "can go faster" doesn't help against being hit by missiles. Also, for that video in which you attacked the planet, I think turning on "show grid" and "show legal moves" would've helped speed things up quite a bit, because you could've just moused right to the relevant area and clicked instead of creeping about waiting for the cursor to flip between "legal move" and "not legal move."
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Apr 6, 2019 02:26
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MechaCrash posted:Missiles also have beam defense, because they can be shot down. A faster missile is harder to hit, but "can go faster" doesn't help against being hit by missiles. This. I went and edited that section to be more clear. Fighters also use their combat speed to calculate their beam defense.
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Apr 6, 2019 03:56
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MechaCrash posted:Also, for that video in which you attacked the planet, I think turning on "show grid" and "show legal moves" would've helped speed things up quite a bit, because you could've just moused right to the relevant area and clicked instead of creeping about waiting for the cursor to flip between "legal move" and "not legal move." Oh yeah, I wanted to write something like this several times now, but always forgot. This is very good advice. Missiles also lose effectiveness in the late game because there are some weapons that are just very good at killing missiles, and I believe they are unavoidable, e.g. they auto hit. There are also obviously auto hit weapons against ships, the game gives you a lot of tools to deal with many situations. I'm looking forward to seeing them later in the LP
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Apr 6, 2019 07:50
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That's the crazy thing about MOO2. For all its flaws, and there are many, it also did so, so many things right. And just count how many games have tried to replicate and improve on its model? The thing is, is that the flaws I think gave it some of that special flavor that a while a lot of successors fixed or improved upon somehow removed that 'spice' that made playing MOO2 what it was. Combine that with some serious rose-colored lenses and nostalgia and you've got bottled lightning that'll never really be captured again. But that's the trouble with nostalgia. Even when you try something new that's objectively better, you'll still think back to the old and wish that you could have that instead.
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Apr 6, 2019 18:00
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Just a quick note to apologize for my slacking off and say this will resume. . I've been distracted by other, less important shiny things of late. That will soon be remedied.
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Apr 13, 2019 20:07
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No prob Thotmix. Always worth it to see another MoO 2 playthrough. And I like the game because it's deep enough by 4x standards and stands up pretty well. The interface is clear, and while not everything is fully balanced mechanics/species wise it does a pretty good job at it. Also the UI has held up fairly well even twenty years later, which makes it easier to replay and get into than other games from that time.
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Apr 14, 2019 05:03
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Thotimx posted:Just a quick note to apologize for my slacking off and say this will resume. . I've been distracted by other, less important shiny things of late. That will soon be remedied. I wouldn't call LPing a 20 year old game very important, either. So just take a break from doing it if you need one. We'll be happy to wait for you to resume the LP
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Apr 14, 2019 06:21
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