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[MonkeyHead]

So, I am on a hiatus away from DF. I have had a bit of a void in terms of gaming, as some of you might have noticed from one of my threads around here somewhere... GalCiv2 didnt scratch that itch, and I find myself guiltily returning to an old mistress: MOO3. Yes, the game as intended by the devs is a dog. Worse than that even. Unplayable. But a small core of MOO fans, myself included, took matters into our own hands and ripped it apart and modded it to within an inch of its life and made it good.

A number of months ago I started up a LP of this game which generated a small but keen following. Threads for this LP can be found here and here. Dissapointingly this LP died when IT support at work wiped XP from my lappy and replaced it with Win7, just as contact was made with the games equivalent of HFS. I intend to spend this evening getting a custom mod of MOO3 running on this machine, and to get the early turns of an LP up over the rest of the weekend.

Interested? Please post in this thread then. Feel free to take naming rights for ships, systems, fleets, anything that takes your fancy. Offer suggestions, reccomendations, advice, questions, plans, or simply heckle.

[Person]

I've never seen this played before, so I'm looking over the old threads. I'm interested based on what on saw though.

[RulerOfNothing]

Posting to watch.

[Neonivek]

I almost kinda want to see a unmodded letsplay of MOO3 with references to 1 and 2 so I can understand what is so terrible about it.

Also no I am not asking anyone to make a letsplay or to tell me whats so terrible about it.

[MonkeyHead]

Ok, so here goes...

It is the year 2500 AD.

Should our race survive over the coming millennia, then this will be considered the start of a new age for mankind. Two years ago a remarkable breakthrough by a group of Physicists working in Japan allowed for the construction of our first FTL propulsions, creatively named as "warp drive". Working on the assumption that space-time can be distorted, these engines were our first gateway to the stars. Things happened quickly after that. Several military and private bodies drew up plans, patents and petitions to use these engines in a variety of craft. Petty infighting and squabbling between nations threatened to ruin what was an opportunity to become more than we could possibly imagine. Then the UN stepped in. Their reasoning was clear - we were no longer confined to one world which we would be destined to fight over. Our world was now one of millions of many open to us, and only by being a unified world could we expect to first survive and then thrive in a wider cosmos. The EU and USA led the way towards a global government, and other nations followed. A unified global democracy was established, led by an elected president. Led by me - the first President of the Terran Federation. My first acts were to reorganize the global economy to support our push into the stars, and to commission a number of scout craft to explore our neighbouring stars. Plans for system defence ships and orbital weapon platforms are also in place should we need them.

The future is unknown and uncertain. Technological development continues rapidly. Our population grows as rapidly as ever. What rewards and trials await us as we venture into the galaxy can only be guessed at. Let this journal be a lesson to whosoever so finds it - be it a story of triumph or a warning to those who might follow.

Spoiler: OOC comments... (click to show/hide)

So, this game of MOO3 will be played after being heavily modded. The older threads linked in the OP outline the mods if you are that interested. Basically the game mechanics have been made to work as intended, and races and technology have been totally rebalanced and a whole load of personal additions, touches and tweaks have been made. We find ourselves in a procedurally generated galaxy, and I intend to play in my usual style of slightly paranoid isolonationist humans, unless circumstances dictate. However, I am very willing to follow any number of advice/suggestions/demands from you guys. Some of the main game mechanics are detailed in the threads linked in the OP, but feel free to ask for explanations of any features.

Spoiler: Race Set-up (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Galaxy Set-up (click to show/hide)

Feel free to request ownership/naming rights over anything. I will try my best to accomodate any and all suggestions, and record pretty much anything in a rolling hall of fame.

Update 1 will be up later. Turns are being played right now. This will probably get a bit heavy on screen shots, some of which might be quite large. Sorry.

[EuchreJack]

When the USA backed the UN's attempts to unify Earth, it was understood that certain large contries and coalitions of countries, such as the USA, would be granted some degree of soveignty in newly discovered systems, a kind of giving back of the powers given up by large soveign powers in the unification of Earth.  To that end, the USA requests that their former Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Jack Euchre, be given the governorship of your first colonizable system, as a colony of the new Unites States of American Space.  The newly formed USAS also requests that you found said new colony for the USAS in the next 10 cycles.

[MonkeyHead]

Accordingly, the first off world colony will be assigned to the USAS. This will be provided by our first off world migrants, and accordingly no assurances can be given as to how long it will take.

[EuchreJack]

Oops, I forgot that in this version, you don't start with a colony ship, and that your citizens can spontaneously colonize stuff.  Still, do what you can to get an off-world colony booted up as soon as possible.  Terra is kinda...crowded.   

[MonkeyHead]

2500AD

So this is the cosmos we find ourselves in.

Spoiler: Galactic Map (click to show/hide)

Sol sits at the junction between the galactic central bulge and one of the main galactic arms. Two black holes mark the boundary - navigating these might present a future risk. 2 of our scouts are dispatched to investigate the white giant stars sitting astride our home system. As for our home system...

Spoiler: The Sol System (click to show/hide)

Sitting further from the sun the Earth are 2 worlds habitable with our current level of technology. Freed from the infighting of a fractured humanity,  these two worlds are marked as a priority for colonization, and before long I am confident our citizens will set up home on them with control of the first one going to the US as a result of the unification negotiations. If our citizens choose to set up home elsewhere outside of the Sol system, they will be good early targets once we develop some kind of colonization technology. Sol I and II are uninhabitable hot gas giants. Sol III is a gigantic terrestrial planet with a water moon. Its crushing gravity renders it useless for now.

Spoiler: Earth (click to show/hide)

Earth itself should serve us well in our early expansion efforts. Rich in minerals and highly fertile, the lack of useable land and inevitable overcrowding (thank you global warming...) shouldn't present too many issues if we can set up home on other worlds. The shipyards on Earth are instructed to continue producing scout craft.

Most remarkably, even though we are only starting our move into the stars we have been noticed.

Spoiler: Leader Profile: Loknar (click to show/hide)

Loknar appears to be a military leader with experience of galactic combat on the largest scale. He brings with him knowledge of technologies we are only beginning to envisage. This will prove to be invalable. Loknar has been given access to our research facilites, which are currently working on impoved infantry weapons and tactics, hydroponic farming and an early prototype of a defensive energy field.

Scouting reports from both the white giants stars are due in around 24 months - we may have the ability to surpass the speed of light, but star systems are still very far apart.

[EuchreJack]

Wow, Loknar.  Nice draw.

Although honestly, he is a lot cooler in Moo2.  And also a lot harder to acquire, so I guess it balances out.

[ivanthe8th]

I seem to recall seeing one of your earlier attempts at doing a MMOO3 LP. I'm glad you're getting back to it. May I request some sort of incredibly trigger-happy and horribly genocidal ship/fleet/ship design/whatever the hell there is in MOO3.

[EuchreJack]

I recall one LP in which Loknar fit that classification.  He does kind of hate the Antarans...

[MonkeyHead]

Ivanthe8th, you can have command of our first military fleet, if that pleases you.

Anyway, due to popular demand, a link. This LP is being played using my own personal mod combination, which is based around a mod package called "chocolate v0.999". This was the culmination of many years work to turn the dog the original game was into a 4X worthy of some praise - it fixes bugs, broken features, enhances the GUI, and expands on core gameplay mechanics without breaking any of them. Alas these efforts went largley unnoticed, and were killed off by Atari. Other MOO3 mods exist (Vanilla, which simply fixes everything wrong with the original as best we could, Strawberry, which gives the game a graphical overhaul, and Tropical, which massivley changs the core gameplay mechanics and is really only for veterans, and even then its an aquired taste) and are readily availiable with a lil bit of google-fu, but this one isn't - the killing of the community by Atari has allowed this one to sink to the depths and is damn hard to come by. I have further tweaked it to make it more demanding (details upon request), but you can find the original chocolate mod pack here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mjp0r5

Disclaimer:  This and all MOO3 mods will only work with the physical medium sold as 2 CD's version of the game. YMMV with digitally distributed versions - sometimes they work, sometimes they dont, and those of us in the MOO3 community never really got to the bottom of that one. Its pretty trivial to install once you have MOO3 patched to v1.25.

There will be an update later this evening. 10 to 15 turns or so of early exploration, and maybe even a colony or two.

[EuchreJack]

Cool!  I know that I had Vanilla and the Encycolpedia mod, but not this one.  Thanks!

[shadenight123]

Posting to watch, comment, and hopefully i'll finally manage to start actually playing it. (had moo3, tried to install mod package of Tropical, never again touched the thing)
Whatever fleet gets the responsible feat of razing to the round enemy colonies can count on Herr Von Shade.