Game Discussion, Turn 2121 - 2140

[Zeiter]

I have a quick question: Are Battle Ogres considered as a psi unit for calculation purposes when the game is calculating factional might? Because if they are considered as combat units, then that would mean that we have the strongest prototyped weapon, which would almost certainly put us at #1 in the power charts. So I'm thinking that they are probably handled as psi units. And how many min rows are they worth? 5?

[Kassiopeia]

It is indeed Lal who Zak is submissive to.

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
Correction made

That "edit others' posts" possibility is almost evil. I have to start using it

[Googlie]

Sheesh - it's almost 48 hours since the Morgan turn was posted.

(I guess we got spoiled there for a time as we ran almost a turn a day. I'd get up in the morning and Maniac had already made the non-contenmtious moves and was waiting for debate and concensus on some of the others.

Now it seems like forever since we played that 2120 turn

[Zeiter]

Yep, this turn of Morgan's is taking forever. This is already the longest turn wait so far, and it's getting precariously close to the 48 hour time limit. We'll probaby see a huge spike in Morgan's turn rate graph.

Perhaps my gentle prodding will help encourage them to speed it up.

[Googlie]

Maybe they've surrendered to Zak and are awaiting his instructions as to how to play the next move

[Zeiter]

Maybe the Morganites were attacked by a horde of locusts and have actually been eradicated. Whoops!

[Googlie]

Meanwhile, back at Sparta Command, the cosseted crew of Captain Kassiopeia's Shinsengumi Brigade are out of their vehicles and practicing Riot Control techniques.

This is in preparation for forestalling Drone riots following the imminent population explosion at the base

[Maniac]

Battle Report MY 2121

AFAIK everything had been pretty much decided three days ago, so here's the turn already:

• SCC Invincible moved two tiles south. (second tile was fungus)
• R-112 Brigade moved towards the pod. A nutrient resource was detected, and sufficient materials to complete a network node at Gythium Harbour.
• Chiron Knights followed.
• Rolling Thunder Brigade moved to the Eurotas source.
• Shinsengumi is now stationed in Sparta Command.

Three points:

1) Next turn SC1 colony pod production can be hurried for 3 minerals at a cost of 7 credits.
The calculation goes like this:
16 / 7 *3 = 6.85... -> 7
16 is the credit cost for a full hurry of all 7 remaining minerals.
Divide it by 7 to get the cost for one mineral.
Multiply by three, which is the number of minerals our own mineral production of four has too short to produce the CP on its own.

2) I realized that eg once the gun skimship meets the Hive and signs a treaty, our two southern rovers will probably be on Hivean territory. So I was wondering what to do? Explore deeper and pop more pods into Hive territory, with the possible consequences, or withdraw to explore a bit more to the SE?

3) As has been proposed before, I set GH production to a network node before popping the pod. But I was wondering (while meddling a bit with the simulator to get the hurry cost for next year), wouldn't it be better to set production to pressure domes in the future before we pop pods? This would give us an extra nutrient, mineral and energy, while now with a network node we'll gain one labs but lose one credit. In other words, strictly speaking a zero benefit operation for the moment, until the base grows somewhat in size.
Btw, to make the most use of our network node in GH, once we have a couple of former operational, I'd suggest to plant a forest on (57.19) or construct a solar collector field on (60.20).

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Meanwhile, back at Sparta Command, the cosseted crew of Captain Kassiopeia's Shunsengumi Brigade are out of their vehicles and practicing Riot Control techniques.

I wouldn't want to be the guy who just threw that plastic bottle on the street.

[Kassiopeia]

Shinsengumi is now stationed in Sparta Command.

[Zeiter]

Ah yes, technically we could actually build recycling tanks in a roundabout way by getting a pressure dome auto-completed. Never thought of that.

The network node is good too. Right now we're gaining 1 lab point/turn from it, right? If we could somehow increase Gythium Harbor's energy output to 6, we'd get 2 lab points/turn extra, which I think would be quite nice. With this being a coastal base with 3 ocean tiles in its radius, it should have no trouble later on with getting lots of energy to make that node useful.

Edit: Here's some more discussion...

The drawbacks with scouting in Yang's territory are that:
1. He might get angry
2. Any resource pods we pop just benefit the Hive

However, there are still bonuses that can't be overlooked:

1. More materials pods
2. EC pods
3. Other non-local goodies (like tech, commlinks, unity rover, etc.)

So I would keep scouting in Yang's territory as long as there are pods to pop, as long as we can until Yang starts getting really angry. When Yang is in the "Your troops are suspiciously close to $basename territory" stage, I'd say it's still safe to snoop around. But when he prompts us with choices of what we want to do, it would be a good idea to choose "Withdraw troops to nearest base." As a bonus for us, we get to transport our troops back all the way to our cities instantly, saving us that long treck back. This could actually come in handy if we have impending drone riots in our cities back home. Just antagonize Yang a little until he demands a withdrawl, gladly accept, and reap the benefits.

I would definitely rush the CP at SC1 for 7 credits.

[Zeiter]

Actually, now that I think about it, would it be a bad idea to scrap the net node for credits? We could use the EC's to hurry CP production and thus base expansion. Every turn earlier that we get a CP built is 4 extra nuts, 2 extra mins, and an extra lab point. It just seems to me that, at this point, that would be more beneficial than paying 1 EC/turn to get 1 labs point a turn. Won't SC3 be getting to size 2 pretty soon? If we can rush that and get the purple base planted a couple turns sooner, I think that would be of more benefit. Specifically how many EC's could we get from scrapping the net node?

[Googlie]

I'fd be against scrapping for credits. We'd get 40 ec's for it, and while that might rush us a unit or 2, a lucky podpop with SCC Invincible could yield 25, 50 oir even 75 down the line. It would take us far longer to rebuild the NN, (remember we're -1 industry) and much more to rush, so using the time value of money approach, I'd stay with it in Harbour.

[Skanky Burns]

New turn discussion thread made.

[Zeiter]

Yeah, it would take a long time to build that node again. But would we still be better off keeping it? Perhaps. I'm curious, how much is it speeding up our research right now? How much earlier are we going to get techs?

Yay for the new thread!!