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It's the year 2019, nobody has any brain cells left that could be killed by such harmless things as the Elerians in boob armor. Gonna follow this LP. I played MoO2 before MoO, so for me this is the original and the clearly better game. I played with the less advanced starts a few times, but later I always defaulted to the most advanced start. Things start happening much earlier, and you can play with the more exotic toys sooner. It will be nice to see you start in the primitive state for the first playthrough of this LP though.
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Mar 12, 2019 08:46
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This probably comes down to which game you played first? The research system of MoO1 was one of the reasons why I could never really get into the game, I vastly prefer MoO2's system. Random tech trees can be a lot of fun (see Sword of the Stars 1), but fixed tech trees like in Civilization can be, too. And it's not as if you research the same techs every game, since what you want and need often depends on what your neighbors do. It's a rude awakening if you've focused on beam defenses and then your enemy comes at you with missile heavy ships.
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Mar 13, 2019 07:16
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Thotimx posted:Our new citizen has been put to work as a Farmer. We can either leave him there and have one food go to waste with a 67k growth rate, or go one food short, get more research done, but see that growth drop precipitously to 17k. As important as it is to get research done and I mean now, I think it's better to keep getting more population and leave things how they are. Also note that with the extra citizen, we are up to a +6 annual income. Mo money!! It's been a long time since I played MoO2, but I think you get like 0.5 credits for every unit of food you're not consuming? I'm 99% certain that the surplus food is not totally wasted.
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Mar 15, 2019 08:35
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A lucky find, having such an obvious target in your first explored system. The ship designer is one of the best things about MoO2. I think only Ascendancy had one that was as good, even if it was pretty different. There are a lot of cool things one can do here, but it will take a bit of research to see that. I hope we have one playthrough with creative race, too. There are some really neat equipment combinations, and depending on the AI to research the techs we skipped can be a massive disappointment.
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Mar 17, 2019 09:48
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Bloodly posted:Meanwhile I've never won a ship battle and don't understand the 'why' at all, which is depressing. That's strange. I found MoO2's battles just made sense for me. But everybody is different, perhaps seeing fight in this LP will help you understand 
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Mar 17, 2019 21:28
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Outpost ships actually do more than just extending your range. Other races can't colonize planets that you have an outpost on, they need to capture it. This can really help if you're in a race to colonize a good system. Also, colonizing a planet that has an outpost automatically turns the outpost into an infantry barracks, which is good because dictatorship get a morale penalty if they don't have a barracks in a colony.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:00
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Olesh posted:Outposts are really good for this reason on larger galaxy settings, as you can expand further without explicitly needing fuel upgrades or having to build a colony that may not be profitable. You can also place outposts on anything - asteroid belts and gas giants included, which can allow you to occasionally expand in directions that would otherwise be impossible without fuel upgrades. The free marine barracks upon colonization also lets you funnel some production from your more established bases to negate the starting 20% morale penalty. However, it may be less than ideal to build outpost bases in advance this way - an outpost ship costs 100 production, while a marine barracks costs 60(+1BC/turn). Every five outpost ships you turn out is another colony ship (500 production), which in the early game is a substantial expense, and in the late game you can frequently burn a great deal of money to speed up the establishment of new colonies and would rather your productive colonies spend production on other things instead. Oh yes, I wouldn't usually use outpost ships to make sure a colony starts with marine barracks. But if you use them to expand the range of your ships, or to claim planets before an opponent can do so, it's a nice bonus to get the barracks for free. Especially for feudal and dictatorship empires.
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Mar 19, 2019 06:18
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But missile bases are still not an option, so the point is moot. There's variety in space monsters, and the space crystal is the toughest. The mistake was definitely to fight it in the first place, but it's too late for regrets now. You should check which worlds are in range of the Silicoids, that way you know what you need to defend. I don't think they can reach Callisto. I don't quite remember, I think you only need one star base per system. If you build a few ships to help augment Sol's defenses, the only loss should be the outpost at Praxis, Trying the hit and run tactic proposed by others in the thread might help your whittle down their forces enough that they agree to peace to stop the attrition.
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Mar 28, 2019 09:08
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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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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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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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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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Yeah, that's a really bad spot you're in. You were quite lucky in the Sol fight, the starbase would have been destroyed if the combat went on for another round. I think you simply cannot attack fleets directly if they're in a system with one of their own planets. You always need to engage them at their world. If you were to meet in a neutral system, it would be different. As for the blockade issue, I'm pretty sure both Meklon planets were blockaded. Your fleet prevented normal ships from coming to their home world, and their fleet blockaded the planet you conquered. I don't have any good advice for how you could turn this game around to be honest. Sometimes you're just screwed by the start, having Silicoids and Klackons as neighbors is very unfortunate. Not the ideal first game to learn the game/discover the differences to MoO1. But it's still quite entertaining!
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Apr 17, 2019 09:08
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I had one memorable run where a fleet armed only with Gyro Destabilizers and tractor beams took down a very special monster found in the center of the galaxy. They're a cool toy for bypassing shields and armor, which does allow you to take on very advanced ships that otherwise would be 100% immune to your weapons. And yes, shields are very strong, it's usually not advisable to wait for Shields 5 before going for them. Likewise, a planetary shield probably would have saved the fighter garrisons, which is a pretty big deal.
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Apr 23, 2019 12:06
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Shield Capacitors increase your shield recharge rate from 30% each turn by 70% points, making you regenerate 100% of your shields each turn.
Torrannor fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 20:45
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I don't think taking repulsive (or lithovore) this game would be the right choice. We were basically at war the entire LP, or had no meaningful other interactions with the AI. Why not simply go with creative, which warps the game as much if not more than taking repulsive, and play the science game by taking democracy and some minor bonuses like rich homeworld? Spy penalties as a democracy are actually not quite as harmless as the people here are making them out to be, but we won't see the AI stealing much of our technology with other races, so this is fine. I just think we shouldn't make the next race overly complicated, Thotimx already said that he wants to play some more races after the upcoming one. Let's just make cool spaceships that you're unlikely to build if you're not creative, and play the game relatively normally. We can choose an UniTol race next time.
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Apr 26, 2019 21:02
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That toxic world has a very appropriate name. But it will never be better than a "fine" planet. With all the tech you get later, this will end up as an 11 pop world IIRC. With massive maintenance penalties that you can't get rid of, since toxic planets can't be terraformed (except in a very roundabout way, but it would cease being ultra-rich). So a fine planet to churn out industry, but nothing more. Still, you've got a lot of usable planets in your neighborhood, that's a pretty good start. But getting a swamp planet with natives that doesn't have any space monster as a guardian is very rare. Definitely a lucky opening, but I feel like this is compensation for the frankly horrible start last game.
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Apr 28, 2019 07:19
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I think the famous leader perk also attracts leaders that you wouldn't get otherwise, except if your race is charismatic.
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Apr 29, 2019 21:41
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PurpleXVI posted:From my own experience, I'd suggest militarizing, since I remember the AI being extremely quick to pounce on any perceived weakness even if you get along with them diplomatically. Yes, this! We DON'T want to encounter other races with virtually no military, especially now that quite some time has passed from game start. Building up a fleet will allow us to take on the space hydra eventually as well, so it's not a wast to militarize now.
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May 1, 2019 21:52
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Thotimx posted:Interestingly, at least from this desc - I've been there once but don't remember it - Orion appears to not be 'double Artifact' in MOO2. But it is Ultra Rich, whereas the MOO1 version was standard for industry. Who'd want a piece of junk planet like this anyway? It doesn't say so in the description, but Orion still has an Artifact bonus. I don't remember if it's the same bonus that you get throuh the artifact homeworld start, or a double bonus, but it's there. And I mentioned before that -10 to spying is not such a small drawback, especially combined with democracy. Having the Darlocks being our first contact is a bit unlucky though.
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May 4, 2019 15:27
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The Mrrshan being unwilling to talk to you is ominous. I fear they are preparing to attack you. Just keep on top of the military situation. As you said yourself, their ships will be better than yours if they are roughly evenly matched technology wise. I think you have a duplicate image above "Looks like these guys are back with a vengeance." ?
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May 6, 2019 07:06
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Martian posted:I'd guess the Silicoid spying is probably the Darlok framing the Silicoid, unless the Darlok already had Tritanium Armor. The Darlock already stole Tritanium Armor shortly after first contact, so it was most likely the Silicoids.
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May 15, 2019 18:16
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Antarans have Xentronium armor, which is better than any armor tech you can research. Particle beams are pretty powerful weapons with inbuilt shield piercing, and dampener fields are great defensive tools, even though you can't use shields with them. If you board and then scrap their ships, you can get these unresearchable techs, too. Just be prepared for many boarding actions to result in the Anraran ships to explode, since they have a kind of self destruct system that blows the ship up in something like 75% of successful boarding attempts,
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May 27, 2019 21:52
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It's pretty funny how the Antaran techs are worth more or less in different stages of the game. When individual weapons have low damage, you're better served with shields. When each side fields death stars with weapons that have a high minimal damage, you fare better with Damper Fields. And when nobody has Hard Shields, and your beam miniaturization is low, Particle Beams can be quite powerful. But later on, once you've researched enough techs to get good miniaturization, you get more damage per (star ship) space with "normal" weapons. Xentronium Armor is always good though. It also has the special feature of being immune to being armor penetrated.
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May 29, 2019 16:23
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MechaCrash posted:The Fury VI battleship looks impressive at first, but holy poo poo, that loadout is awful. It wastes a shitload of space on bioweapons and bombs, has no specials, and a paper-thin shield. If that thing had ignored you starbase and gone right for the planet, it would've hosed the place up real bad, but I don't think the AI wanted to do bombardment against a target that wasn't shooting at it, while the star base was there and being dangerous. Those two five-shot MIRV Pulsons are dangerous, but you have enough point defense on your station to render those harmless, and your weapons ensured that you would win a slugging match. Which you did. The AI will often waste precious ship space with bombs, I don't know why.
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Jun 3, 2019 15:52
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For me, there's a relatively easy explanation for why Thotimx is having so much trouble? Not a single ship in his fleet had dedicated anti-missile weapons. I never sent out a fleet where no ship had some kind of PD weapons to defend against missiles and fighters. They don't need to be on every ship, but you really want some kind of defensive fire capabilities. And yes, Mass Drivers start to become obsolete. The next few physics research levels all have fantastic new weapons. Phasors are the "best "PD weapons, though your Mass Drivers are probably still better until you miniaturize the Phasors enough.They are also useful as full anti-ship weapons if you can leverage the shield piercing option. Plasma weapons come with auto-enveloping. Disruptors have no range dissipation.
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Jun 6, 2019 14:18
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wedgekree posted:Lot of the stuff you get from the Antarans is'nt *that* great. Shipwide, the best thing you can get is Xenotronium armor. Most of the weapons they give are sweet but aren't miniaturizable so you can't fit more of them in. I prefer ships with Damper Fields to ships with shields. To get the most out of your shields, you need Hard Shields, Shield Capacitors, and Multi-Phased Shields. And some of the later game weapons easily chew through even those shields, while they will do much less damage against Damper Field protected ships. If you have Xentronium Armor and Heavy Armor, then that's a lot of hit points to get through, and it takes up less ship space as well.
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Jun 9, 2019 06:11
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SugarAddict posted:Yes, but then you leave yourself vulnerable to randomly getting one shotted through all that. Structural analyzer and plasma means you are taking 8x more damage, with dampner field that takes it down to 2x, but that still leaves you open to things like achilies targeting unit and missiles with emission guidance system insta-killing your ship. The best way to stop missiles is not relying on your shields anyway, so I don't see why that would be a big negative about Damper Fields. And to use Achilles Targeting Unit requires you to have finished computer tech. But you can get "Antaran" techs much earlier than that. In fact, I'm kind of surprised Thotimx hasn't done so already. It's of course depending on your luck what you get, but if you do get Damper Fields and Xentronium Armor, you only need low tech Heavy Armor to get a lot of mileage out of it. Admittedly, if you're not creative, you will usually have researched Automated Factories, so you will need to steal or trade for Heavy Armor. But that's much easier done than finishing the computers tech tree.
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Jun 9, 2019 07:20
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Olesh posted:Nope. It's possible to demand the system, or to just conquer it (because Antarans will always take 4 turns to reach their target, while you can be a lot faster in the late game, provided they don't have a Warp Interdictor in their system), and then the Antarans will attack you. But if you're at the point where you can casually demand or conquer a systems the Antarans are attacking, you've basically already won.
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Jun 11, 2019 07:42
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I'm surprised that your battle station used fusion beam PD. You have phasors researched, why isn't it using that? Also, I usually put PD weapons on "red" in combat. It doesn't prevent them from being fired automatically on incoming missiles/fighters, and you'll no longer accidentally fire them on enemy ships, like you did in your second-to-last turn. It didn't matter in that case, but might matter in other battles.
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Jun 12, 2019 06:08
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Crazy-Go-Nuts You can show off all the cool toys you want to as creative (the stasis projector can be remarkably powerful, and yes, it does disable movement as well), and this is certainly the best race to go for an Antaran victory. Winning by conquest or diplomacy (which is often just another form of conquest victory) can be better done with other races. If you need to string out the game to gear up for an attack on the Antaran homeworld, you might as well be creative to reap the maximum benefits. In the next game you could go Elerians, focusing on combat bonuses. Telepathic is really powerful, and lets you make use of anything you conquer right away.
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Jun 12, 2019 12:24
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Randalor posted:Crazy-go-nuts For that, Thotimx would need to have finished the physics tree. By the way, Thotimx, if you ever decide to take out the Guardian around Orion, make sure you have an open leader slot.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:40
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Thotimx posted:Looks like we're settling in for a nice long journey in this game. Which means I have a question. Is there a way to use the asteroid fields/gas giants in a system with no habitable planets? Nope. Those system are utterly useless. They might as well be empty, or not exist at all.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:48
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Pierzak posted:Does it work on Antarans? I believe it does. Telepathic is very strong. Not only that you can instantly seize any enemy colony (as long as they are not telepathic themselves), those people don't need to assimilate. This can really snowball if you're aggressive enough.
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Jun 14, 2019 11:26
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Neophyte posted:I don't recall offhand, can you "save" some racial picks in the beginning and add them to the +4 Evolutionary Mutation picks later to get higher cost perks? You can. If you have 2 unspent points, you could grab telepathic for example.
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Jun 30, 2019 06:26
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