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Are we done? (Achievement: Orb has Completed 2 LPs)

3 (42.9%)

Or Shall we Continue our Conquest and Grind our Enemies to Dust(and then harvest it)?

4 (57.1%)

Total Members Voted: 7

[Orb]

I noticed both the other Endless Space LPs kind of crashed and burned. I had originally put off the idea of a Single Player LP, I'd be too burnt out to do a MP one. But since the other two kind of..puttered out, I figured why not. Plus it would give a chance for other B12ers to see more of the game, if they're on the fence about purchasing.

While I'm leaning towards the Cravers for my favorite faction (I played the Zuul in SOTS), I'll play Humans since they offer more diverse game play, and because we already have a LP for the Cravers. If you guys want otherwise, just pipe up.

My style of LPs has been evolving, and this will be a continuation of it. As with my X-com LPs, this will mostly be a handsoff for the forum. I won't display all information, and will generally make all the minor decisions. However, things such as diplomatic relations(which seem nonexistant right now, I can't seem to get a relation in the positive), and major production/war goals will be up to the forum, with my discretion.

So, is there interest? I'll throw up a vote.

Also, I'll be playing in Windowed to make screen capturing MUCH easier, as you may have noticed in the initial image.

[Devling]

Yes. Double Yes.

[Dariush]

Triple Yes. Quadruple Yes.

[ansontan2000]

Quintuple yes. Sextuple yes.

[NRDL]

Sideways 8 yes. 

[Devling]

Yes squared.

[Orb]

Alright, let's get this ball on the roll. I hope to finish it before multiplayer is added, but the pace of the game is slower than SOTS, so we'll see. Also, I essentially make up names for everything. They're similar, but often simplified, shortened, and so on. It should be obvious what I'm talking about. I'm doing this because I don't want to waste time double checking tech, building, and race names. I should get most of them right. For instance, sometimes I call Heavy Isotope Refinery a Heavy Isotope Factory.

Spoiler: Update 1: Turn 1-9 (click to show/hide)

This LP will be going through as Humans, the bad guys in this case(Think Empire in Star Wars). We get a lot of traits, some of them not noteworthy, but here are the ones that are:

N-Way Fusion. An industry tech, essentially. It reveals Titanium-70, which is used in military production, and allows the production of Heavy Isotope Refineries, which boosts system industry significantly for a maintenance cost.

Businessman. +30% spice dust production. I always run low on Dust due to my play style, so its a nice bonus.

Strong Alloys. This is our ship tech. +40% HP. It may not seem like much, but HP is a general defense. It works as anti-missile, kinetic, and laser. Fairly useful early on when our opponents like to tech switch. I also tend to forgo defenses(The best defense is offense), so this helps cushion that attitude.



Game settings are as above. I chose disk because I was getting sick of being 'choked' off by an enemy empire or wormholes. Supposedly, this galaxy type supports more star lanes. I added one of every race, and put the difficulty on Hard. I would have put it on a more difficult setting, but I've only put 12 hours into the game, and I'm not familiar enough with it yet.



We start in this system. While there are no immediate planets we can further colonize in the system, the Titanium-70 on our home planet is nice. We are essentially guaranteed this valuable strategic resource for the rest of the game.

Also of note is the mineral poor attribute of our Homeworld. That is a result of one of the negative traits of Humans. Later on, we'll be able to negate that through research.



Planning ahead, I go for the initial food tech. In the game, there are exploitations. Its essentially a free, creatable bonus for a planet in one field of income, costing some industry to create. A planet can only have 1 of 4 bonuses, and can freely switch between them, for the industry cost(Industry is essentially your build capacity, ships or buildings). Due to the initial system having food lacking planets, I set our Terran Homeworld to a food exploitation and research the tech that increases the effectiveness of said exploitation. More food means a faster population growth, which means more resources in the other categories.



My next job was to increase taxes. There are ranges of happiness(such as content, happy, unhappy, so on). Only switching between them affects production. Seeing as I can stay happy while increasing the tax rate, I see no reason not to.



Some initial scouting. Red and white circles near systems are planets. White is colonizable, red are not.



As usual, a few turns in I reduce taxes to increase moral to ecstatic.



Tech get! I then work on Tundra colonization. Seeing as we have a Tundra in our Home System, and reaching max population on the Terran, I figured it was a good tech to grab. (Also note, whenever I'm in the galaxy view, you can take a peak at the turn # at the bottom right)



The next tech we'll grab is an economic one. It allows construction of a building that essentially creates dust on highly dense system(IE, lots of population, lots of planets; Tourism). It also allows exploitation of some basic plant resources. There's Bluecap Mold in the planned location for our next colony (On route).



This system looked nice. It starts us off with a food producing planet (Ocean), and we can expand further into the Tundra and obtain the Bluecap Mold, which, iirc, increases moral.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summary

I didn't explain everything. So if anyone has any questions, just ask away.

Comments, criticism, suggestions, and so on, are welcome, as always.

[Frumple]

Any notable heroes waiting for hire? ETA on nabbing some? Been eyeing a few LPs and suchlike of th'game, and it looks like heroes are a "get early" thing, especially the system level ones. Any reason for not jacking up the spice income for a turn or two and picking one up?

[Orb]

Any notable heroes waiting for hire? ETA on nabbing some? Been eyeing a few LPs and suchlike of th'game, and it looks like heroes are a "get early" thing, especially the system level ones. Any reason for not jacking up the spice income for a turn or two and picking one up?

The resource income bonus is very small at low levels(8%), and still not that much at higher levels (Like +30%). Dust maintenance is 2, and an additional 2 for every level. It also costs an initial 20 dust. It doesn't seem worth it from an economic approach.

Since I have no fleet, its not worth it from a military approach.

While getting the hero early will allow you to level it up quicker, I've figured the additional production gained from low tax rate in the beginning would have a more productive effect than an early hero. But that's just my two cents.

I usually get my heroes late. There are three available right now, as is standard on a new game start.

[Frumple]

Ah... possibly I was watching an earlier version, then. What one fellow was doing was nabbing one of the labor heroes and snapping up that +25 industry on around the third hero level (+3 to labor talent, then the 25 flat), which looked like a pretty hefty boost in the early game, then stacking on other things (guy had a twenty/thirty percent industry boost at around maybe level five -- before turn twenty, iirc? On top of the other stuff.). Presumably there was similar stuff for other fisd categories. Fellow's heroes also only had a one dust/level upkeep, though, which points to an earlier version. Guess balance has shifted around. Carry on, carry on

[Orb]

We have our first diplomatic contact, if you can call it diplomatic. 

Spoiler: Update 2: Turns 10-21 (click to show/hide)

Tech gained! Now we can properly greet aliens we have not met yet.

I grab core mining next. It upgrades the industrial exploit and, more importantly, reveals Hyperium, which is needed for some lasers, my favorite weapon.



Potential next colony. It has more blue cap mold. Once you get a set of 4 or more of a luxury or strategic resource, you get a bonus. This would increase dust income by 20%. However, the system itself isn't too great, and I would have to grab the tech to colonize Arids (1st level tech, so not a big deal).



Scouting update. I've been focusing heavily on North scouting since that's where the scout is. I'm moving it back down.



Wow. This is probably one of the top 3 systems in the game I've seen. I wish I would have scouted it sooner. It even has Bluecap Mold and Titanium-70! With 4 Titanium-70, I get a +10% boost to dust income. Very nice. The Colony Ship I have under construction is going straight here first.



Tech exploited! I next work on a tech that upgrades dust exploitations(which I have a lot of, given my usual lack of Dust, I planned ahead), and gives a stealth building I have found no use for(apparently it stealths your ship from scanners or something).



Dead end. I don't have wormhole tech yet, focusing more on economy.



Our current rankings (top left). Alright I'd say. 3rd place. Cravers are probably 1st, with their initial economic advantage.



With my(our?...I should probably decide on that sometime) colony ship nearing completion, I realize I haven't edited the basic ship designs yet. While its too late with the old design almost out of the spaceport, I edit them anyway for future production. For those who don't know, you can add as many parts as you like to a ship, but it has a limiting tonnage. The tonnage limit is different for different types of ships. Ship types also get 'tonnage' reduction on certain types of parts, for instance the destroyer gets a -20% tonnage on Weapons, so it can pack on 20% more weapons, or use that extra space to put other things on(assuming it has weapons).

The Scout gets stripped of its guns and I layer on the armor. Pirates use only kinetic guns, and if my scout can survive the encounter, the better. Most AI opponents' basic ships also use kinetic guns. (Armor beats Kinetics. Its rock paper scissors, like GalCiv2, albeit, the combat itself is different, though. I'll show/explain it later when we get into combat).



The Colony Ship has extra tonnage available, so I slap on an engine to increase its speed by 2 (originally 4).



The Colony Ship is on its way to the super Deneb System.



Tech pillaged! The next tech will increase the speed of all ships by 2(A very nice bonus), and allow Arctic Colonization(There's a tiny Arctic in our home system, and we're getting close to hitting the current pop. cap)



Seems I was a little overzealous with the dust exploitations(top-left, +8(Kind of looks like a zero now that I look at it)) Oh well, it certainly won't hurt. Now we can get our 1st hero. (Turn 18, about the time I get my 1st one. It depends on where my dust income lies)



We have two 1/2 eco and 1/2 military, and one full military. Each hero gets two "traits", which determine his starting stats and what abilities he can get.

Honestly, I don't find Eco Heroes(Governors) useful at all until very late game, since their bonuses seem too small. I'd rather have them leading a fleet, where they can do more good.



For that reason I grab the full military one (Pilot + Commander). We will get another hero in 50 turns. You can only have up to a max of 3 heroes to be recruited, and new ones come every 50 turns(reducible with research).



Some information about our hero. He's got very high initial combat bonuses, which I like a lot. With some experience under his belt, he'll make a great fleet commander.



I assign him to our burgeoning Homeworld. While he won't bring any benefits to the system, he'll gain experience which I can put towards upgrading his military abilities until I have a fleet to assign him to.



Taking a glance at the score screen, I noticed the Cravers were identified. Further proving this, they are unlocked on the diplomacy screen. I scan the galaxy looking for where this mysterious contact might have occurred.



I have a sneaky suspicion its this system. I think if you 'scan' another empire's system, you'll unlock diplomacy, even though you can't see the system until you enter it.



As to be expected, we have no military. It doesn't matter anyway, Craver's are in endless war(No Diplomacy).



Oh. I guess they're not here. Nice focal point though, I'll have to colonize that later for a tactical advantage.

Also, pirates have started spawning. Thankfully they just left. My scout cowardly heads to the North.



Tech found! Originally I had planned to follow it up with Arid Colonization, but I realized at the end of this update that none of the system's I had colonized had Arid planets, and while the tech would only take 1 turn, I would be better off researching a more relevant item.



One of our new, improved(?) scouts rolls off the line. I use it to scout the system west of our Homeworld. Wormhole.



Oh, there you are, you sneaky little devil. You planned on blockading all my strategic resource planets, didn't you? Well. I'll have to fix that problem. Also note that the ship present there is my colony ship. 

Mr. Craver, please don't kill the colony ship colonizing super Deneb System.



Thankfully, there's no need for pleading, as I hadn't moved the colony ship this turn. I scoot it along to the planet and colonize it.



With contact with an endless war race, I figured I should redesign the basic warship, aka the Defender. It uses a corvette hull, which is better suited for utility rolls, but its all we got.

I add more guns and armor. For some reason, the original design just has empty tonnage. While it is cheaper, the ship itself is much more expensive than the parts, so I'm not sure why. *shrug*



The Homeworld stops production of the next colony ship and works on the new defender. ETA: Two Turns. Certainly a rouge scout couldn't cause much damage in that amount of time?

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summary

A question for you folk. Would you prefer if I said 'our', 'my', or just interchange between them. I don't really care either way.

Also, if you have ideas for names of our colonized systems, suggest them! Adds personality.

I'm pretty sure you can rename fleets, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Suggestions, over excitement, passionate monologues(well, maybe not), and so on, are welcome, as always.

"Edit" I have increased the 'jpeg quality' for my screenshot tool for the next round of updates. It isn't much, but hopefully it will be easier to see the text in the images next update.

Also, here's what I tech switched to. Forgot to include it in the update.

Spoiler: Tech Switch (click to show/hide)

The Destroyer, as I mentioned before, is a weapon ship. It will be useful in the coming conflict, unlike some useless Arid colonization tech.

[NRDL]

Cool.  May humanity dominate the stars, and crush all others beneath its collective boot. 

[Stworca]

Wait just a... What is this game, and why have i missed it?! 

[cerapa]

No administrator heroes? Damn thats harsh.

But then again I have been playing a lot of Horatio. Having an army of heroes giving 25+ ind and 50+ food to all the newly colonized world makes it possible to expand ludicrously fast and effectively. Expensive dust-wise, but who cares when you can just throw the hero into a random system and make it produce dust to pay for the rest of em.

But Im assuming that works on a smaller scale for everyone.

[Orb]

Wait just a... What is this game, and why have i missed it?! 

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=108683.0

-snip-

The only economic hero I went with was corporate. Mostly boring attributes that give minor benefits, and trade routes. Since I couldn't get a positive relation with anyone, it was mostly useless in my eyes.

I'll have to try an administrator later on.

--------

I've played the update, and I'll upload it later today. The current images are a lot more clean, but they're 5x the file size each (about 500 KBs per image instead of 100). Thoughts? I'd imagine each update would total around 15 Mbs at this point, unless the image uploader reduces the file size (which I hope). I'm leaning on reducing the quality again, but that's just me.