MY 2159 Planning Thread

[Maniac]

A pity we couldn't transport an elite probe team along. That could have killed the plasma probe rover easily.

Btw, regarding upgrading the SCC GeneralTacticus, are you sure it would be necessary? While a direct attack against plasma armour is indeed unlikely to succeed, don't forget the option of long range fire. I think Commando laser against green laser should win, even though our ship is 30% damaged.

Of course, upgrading the ship to missile isn't a bad move, but if I calculated it right, the cost would be 110 credits, and we currently don't really have an abundance of cash right now. Just something I thought I'd mention to take into calculation, in case we're considering other upgrades or hurry orders.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Maniac
Btw, regarding upgrading the SCC GeneralTacticus, are you sure it would be necessary? While a direct attack against plasma armour is indeed unlikely to succeed, don't forget the option of long range fire. I think Commando laser against green laser should win, even though our ship is 30% damaged.

Maybe it would, maybe it would not. Can we take chances? I think not.

Originally posted by Maniac
Of course, upgrading the ship to missile isn't a bad move, but if I calculated it right, the cost would be 110 credits, and we currently don't really have an abundance of cash right now. Just something I thought I'd mention to take into calculation, in case we're considering other upgrades or hurry orders.

Normally, I would agree with you. But this raid is of such importance, I think we must do it. Like I said - I think we should carry this out at all costs.

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Maniac
Btw, regarding upgrading the SCC GeneralTacticus, are you sure it would be necessary? While a direct attack against plasma armour is indeed unlikely to succeed, don't forget the option of long range fire. I think Commando laser against green laser should win, even though our ship is 30% damaged.

Of course, upgrading the ship to missile isn't a bad move, but if I calculated it right, the cost would be 110 credits, and we currently don't really have an abundance of cash right now. Just something I thought I'd mention to take into calculation, in case we're considering other upgrades or hurry orders.

110 credits is quite prohibitive. How about upgrading it to just impact? It would be sufficient to defeat their cannon-fodder of a foil but horribly inefficient if we want to upgrade it to missile later on anyway.

How many - if any - of the rovers are we upgrading to missile and how much does that cost? And how much do we have?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
110 credits is quite prohibitive. How about upgrading it to just impact? It would be sufficient to defeat their cannon-fodder of a foil but horribly inefficient if we want to upgrade it to missile later on anyway.

If it provides a high-enough chance of success for this paricular raid, we won't have to worry about being a little inefficient.

Could we test this attack in a separate simulation, to determine what is needed? Can we even afford the upgrade?

[Googlie]

For the PTS raid, the Elite Impact Rovers suffice.

With the GeneralTacticus, I'm just paranoid that we'll be blocked by a partially damaged Morgan plasma-armored foil in the fungus channel and have no way of landing our rovers. It's imperitive that we destroy that foil.

I'll sim-test it before we spend any of our 219 credits

[Googlie]

Zak has 101 credits. Do we want to zap him for a loan, extortion, or sell Superconductor to him before Lal does?

[Googlie]

Do we want to tag-team those 2 CoasrGuard Cutters and go boink some Morgan heads? (ie, destroy forests, roads, crawlers, whatever we can see inland)

If not - just tag-team them and go cruisin'?

(Turquoise 1 is the slow trannie heading north with 2Nuts supercrawler; turquoise 2 is the Hermes heading south with the Colony Pod and scout towards the Manifold Nexus)

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Googlie
For the PTS raid, the Elite Impact Rovers suffice.

But how about an expansion of the raid to extend to destroying Impaler Polymers and the HGP? What kind of defense can we expect the Morgans to mount?

We could hope to do more damage if we had a missile rover or two in that bunch. And with the Morgans going crazy over plasma garrisons I think we need to do all we can do with this opportunity.

With the GeneralTacticus, I'm just paranoid that we'll be blocked by a partially damaged Morgan plasma-armored foil in the fungus channel and have no way of landing our rovers. It's imperitive that we destroy that foil.

I'll sim-test it before we spend any of our 219 credits

Yes I agree, we need to upgrade it somehow.

There is another chance for a complete disaster, an IoD being awakened by either us or the Morgan foil. We wouldn't stand a chance against it standing in fungus, I should think.

[Googlie]

OK - I've run the sims - good news/possible bad news

If they simply sail their foil one or two tiles west into the fungus, and the GT tries to enter that fungus square, encountering them, then a straight head-to-head naval encounetr would result in us losing the GT every time.

However, if we avoid the head-to-head, and instead activate long range fire, then we win every time (and get an upgrade to Elite half of the time)

However, if Morgan just sails one tile into the fungus, then on a hunch long-range-fires into our fungus hiding place, they'll kill the GT 60% of the time.

There's not much we can do about the latter, as being Missile armed doesn't help. Only being 100% fit, or plasma armored, helps.

Not much we can do now, as we're in our hiding place, and can't upgrade armor, so we just have to hope tbat they don't have that "hunch"

Also not much we can do about them disturbing an IoD, as we're there now anyway, and they turn before we do

Zip file contains 2 scenarios

The Sparta one lets you test the attack and long range fore from the GT on the morgan ship - open it as a sceanrio edit, then click on the top left sceanrio tab to de-activate the asceanrio, then it plays like a game

The Morgan one lets you play as Morgan (same opening procedure) and then test your "hunch" as to a vessel being in that fungus tile

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
However, if we avoid the head-to-head, and instead activate long range fire, then we win every time (and get an upgrade to Elite half of the time)

However, if Morgan just sails one tile into the fungus, then on a hunch long-range-fires into our fungus hiding place, they'll kill the GT 60% of the time.

Strange. One would expect equal chances with long-range fire, no matter whether you're attacked or you attack.

Btw, do you have a midturn save?

[Snoddasmannen]

I'm confused, what numbers are used when fighting long range as compared to direct combat? I always thought long range was weapon against weapon.

[Maniac]

Me too.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
But how about an expansion of the raid to extend to destroying Impaler Polymers and the HGP? What kind of defense can we expect the Morgans to mount?

We could hope to do more damage if we had a missile rover or two in that bunch. And with the Morgans going crazy over plasma garrisons I think we need to do all we can do with this opportunity.

All valid points. But why bother now? We can do the same right after the raid, and gain some security by delaying the upgrade. Namely, if Morgan succeeds in some actions against our force, they would not get the Missile technology. Also, we will know better then, than we know now, if an upgrade is needed at all. Remember the distinct possibility of this being a kamikaze raid.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Moved trannie into Great Collective Bay, and 1st probe team extracted Superconductor - he returned to Minas Tirith as Elite

Just for information, did you extract it from Hole of Aspiration?

2nd probe team aboard the transport in Hive waters - both infiltrateable bases now have high security locks, reducing our chances of stealing maps to 66%. Proceed? Or leave the probe aboard and send the Minas Tirith Coastguard Cutter to shadow it and use that probe for gaian infiltration?

Personally I don't care that much whether or not we get the Hive map. Though personally I wouldn't send the SNC Heimdall + probe towards Gaia, as I think we could make better use of it right now by transporting troops to Minas Tirith (the new Olympian Spartan Kel unit with missile weapons) and later by invading Terrapeso.

Originally posted by Googlie
Well, the alternative would be a sensor array (for the defensive protection). It'll be an involuntary instabuild, as the former had almost completed a road to the mine, so it will have its workpoints stored, so I'm guessing it will instantly complete what we assign it to do ((using stored terraforming points as a strategy is forbidden in the rules, but these are involuntary actions - the alternative being to let the former sit and be destroyed.

Just for the record, when I assign that former to build a sensor array, it takes the normal four turns. But I also have to add I've never been able to replicate "stored workpoints" like Googlie can.

Originally posted by Googlie
Zak has 101 credits. Do we want to zap him for a loan, extortion, or sell Superconductor to him before Lal does?

If I extort Zak for cash, he gives us no less than 100 credits, leaving him only with one.

Originally posted by Googlie
Do we want to tag-team those 2 CoasrGuard Cutters and go boink some Morgan heads? (ie, destroy forests, roads, crawlers, whatever we can see inland)

Tagteaming is good - it'll be protect them against mindcontrol.

While the Vladivostokian coastguard is moving west, how about the laser cruiser moves to the tile N-NE of Paramiria and bombards the base with its last MP? It of course won't do much damage, but who knows it'll make Morgan think we're planning to invade that base, and send some reinforcements to there instead of Morgan Mussels.


Btw, will Pegasus move southeast to where the Gaian coast must be, to pop any pods in range there?

[Googlie]

Firstly - here's the midturn save up to the flurry of posts about 3 hours ago

Next - some answers to posed questions:

The infiltration was indeed at HoA (we have already used Great Collective as a superstore, so Yang increased the security of the locks there)

Moving the 'Peg towards Gaian lands with a Commando Impact Speeder might be considered a tad hostile if found - No?

Hmm - I too just get a partial roadbuild when I assign that former to a road. I thought that as we'd moved it from almost completing a mine road that it'd be an instabuild.

I'll post the subsequent moves next