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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]

Doing a quick glance on the forums, an Alpha save shouldn't have any issues, but there were a lot of balancing changes.

For one, everyone is now much more unhappy. =/

Also, here's a picture of the slick new UI.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And if you scroll in, you can see what the systems are producing, the progress on the production, and if there are ships in their hanger. Overall, saves me a lot of work.

[cerapa]

The new UI is awesome. Makes dealing with a lot of systems way easier.

And yeah, everything now creates unhappyness. I think every system beyond the second(?) one gives 7.5 unhappyness and you start to get the crowded minus from 3+ people.

[Orb]

I have upped the image size. Thoughts? Would you prefer it this size or back to the old size, or maybe even larger?

Spoiler: Update 6: Turns 62-76 (click to show/hide)

So very slick.



Diplomacy is in also. I mess around with it a bit later in the game.



I also notice that our population hates the Emperor, apparently. I fix that partially by building malls in most systems (Infinite Supermarkets).



Sigh. More harassment forces.



The next tech to be researched is a diplomatic one, seeing as there is actual diplomacy. It will allow ceasefires.



I set up a harassment containment force, utilizing that speed advantage.



It seems even invasions got a facelift. I assume the 'locked' means its blockaded.



Double tech gain! The other allows trading of resources in deals, such as Dust or technologies. The next tech, seeing as it is available to me, doubles the resource bonus for having a special luxury resource on a planet.



It seems the Craver fleets are getting stronger. My defenses are pretty lopsided(IE, not useful at all), so I start seriously considering designing the next generation.





Our heroes and ships are still better, however.



I had to shell out some dust, but I figured it would be worth it to have an ally in the end.



NOPE.



I start researching some new techs to finish off the technology I'll need for the next generation.



Oh, well there is our last race. It appears they're south also.



Grabbing some flak...



*Shrug*. We'll deal with them later.



Our first lv 10 hero.



As you can see, he has some impressive combat stats.



I shell out some more resources so we can have open borders. I assume this allows trade and free movement into eachother's systems. As it turns out, I have no idea how trade works, as will be evident later on.

The reason I'm not too worried about giving them resources is because they're pretty low on the score ladder. The fact that the research race is behind US in research says quite a bit.



I had waited a bit until I had enough dust, and here is our new hero. He has administrator, which I put to work right away.



The jewel of the crown. He'll certainly make this even better with time.



Now to upgrade our missile tech to round it off.



The next tech will allow exploration of moons(a rather useless endeavor, it costs too much for the benefits, IMO), and the ability to reduce the effects of minor negative planet traits, with a lot of production cost, of course. This will allow us to remove the poor soil trait from our Homeworld.



I redesign our ships, with defense more in mind. The Beamer loses its armor plating and gets some flak and mirrors.



The scout gets the new sensors and a repair module, which will increase the rate of fleet repair (in combat and out).



I decide to drop the defender. The Cruiser fits its role much better. I plop on a lot of defenses and a moderate amount of weapons.



Bah. I've had enough with these pirates.





Er. What. They took Lupus? In one turn? Bleh.

Interception wasn't on... It must have not saved it with the update and Craver ships were slipping by.

Either way, our fleet is now cut off. I won't retreat, however. I feel I can break through before our offensive fleet crumbles.



I take our useless defenders and plop them in the uncolonized systems. At least they'll serve some purpose: preventing pirates from spawning.



Normally I wouldn't grab the next tech right away, but with such low moral it's kind of needed. Its an improvement that increases moral and resource income moderately, but costs a moderate amount of dust upkeep.



I mess around with trading a bit, but I can't seem to get it to work. 



It seems sustainable farming was nerfed(was all planets before). I clean it out of the systems that get no benefit from it.



The next tech will allow terraforming of planets into lava (including gas giants and asteroid belts, I believe). Not very useful, considering the moral hit from colonizing lava. It also unlocks an improvement, which increases the income of a system by 6 in every resource, but has a maintenance cost of 3 in dust. Essentially, a free upgrade.

~~~~~~~~~~
Summary







This update was mostly damage control and exploration of the new update. The AI got better, I had a moral problem, and trade refused to work. A lot of combat happened I didn't touch on, seeing as it didn't matter much. Mostly harassment prevention and the constant stream of ships/fleets onto our aggressive fleet.

I have cleared Lupus and am currently bombarding it, seeing as I didn't take a screenshot of it. Farver is also almost ours.

Apparently one of the Sophon systems was taken by pirates. XIU, as you can see in the summary image.

Our dust income went up MASSIVELY due to the double bonus from luxury resources. At least, I think that's what caused it. I can't think of any other reason. It certainly helped with the retrofits.

If you take a look at Fleet Theta, it is ready to move into Hissho space and start bombardment. It just needs some bombardment ships.

If anyone has any idea on how to do trade, please let me know.

Thoughts, suggestions, critisism, and so on, are welcome, as always. Remember, I want feedback on the image size.

[Frumple]

Little smaller would be nice; this comp's cutting off the images just a pixel or two in from the right side of the u in 'end turn'. Can scroll over to see, but of course that'd mean scrolling alllll the way down to the bottom of the update, shifting over, scrolling alllllll the way up to the top, reading whatever, then reverting and starting over again. Or just ignoring whatever's happening to the right of the u, which is what I did

Re: Trade, found this. Dunno how (in)accurate it is for latest version, though.

[Orb]

Thanks Frumple. That helps a lot.

Also, apparently I didn't look at cruisers close enough. They give SUPPORT ARMOR tonnage reduction, which increases health. The next ship I unlock gives a reduction to defenses. Bleh.

I played a 20 turn update, so I'll write it up tomorrow.

We're reaching a point where our victory is guaranteed. I have made some initial plans to start a Multiplayer LP with Burnt Pies, most likely to follow our X-com LP's format. I may cut this short so we can start that up.

[Orb]

Unfortunately, there's no middle ground between the two image sizes, so I'll stick with the smaller ones for now.

Spoiler: Update 7: Turns 77-96 (click to show/hide)

Retook Lupus. Farver is almost within our grasp.



I swear. The Craver have no idea how to run a system.

However, the asteroid colonization brings up an interesting piece of information.



They're ahead of us in colonization tech. Not that it matters, we're knocking at their doorstep.



Farver is conquered. Its not a half bad system.

Also, I don't think I mentioned this. Moral starts low due to a change in ownership, and slowly goes away.



I start bombardment of the Craver capital. The Craver offer little resistance(Our fleets are superior).



The next tech will increase our CP by 2 for every ship that's unlocked. We already have 2 unlocked, so that's a +4! bonus. Our fleet size will be at 11.



Some heavy Hissho harass. Unfortunately for them, their technology is way behind us, and they are little more than pesky flies.



I prepare a welcome committee for our new friends.



The next tech will allow slow travel between systems WITHOUT a starlane, and colonization of gas giants. I haven't researched this tech before, so it should be interesting.





Soon enough, the Craver capital is ours. I am once again confused by the way the Craver's set up their systems.



Sweet. But wait, where's the monopoly bonus?



Apparently, a recent patch removed the bonuses associated with monopolies on strategic resources. I was wondering why our income, and consequently, our treasury, was smaller than usual.



With the Cravers broken, I start to spread like a plague, taking their systems with minimal effort.



Apparently, the Hissho has some high level kinetic tech. Works well when the enemy has no defenses against it. Something to keep in mind for my next game.



I accidentally send in my bombarders. I keep forgetting fleets can only attack one fleet at a time, now. Its not a very big deal, it will just delay our push against the Hissho.





Nice. Next on the agenda is the reveal of the strategic resource anti-matter, and an industrial improvement that improves production on some planet types, and adds a base 20% increase in production. It has a 4 dust maintenance cost, though, so I use it sparingly.



I start considerations of designing our next generation. I decide to start research that will unlock the Battleship.



The Cravers, in their pesky ways, force me to split up my fleet.



I start bombardment of the closest Hissho system. With a fleet on that front, I once again start redirecting reinforcements to our Craver fleet. The fleet is low on numbers and could use a bolster to defend the multiple fronts it must hold.



*Shrug*

Since we have the highest research capacity, this benefits us the most.



The Craver finely put up a fleet that can contest our position. Unforunately, they stupidly put an eco only commander at the helm.









An easy victory.



Another system conquered, another disappointment in its layout.



I continue the push.

Note: There's a lot of back and forths between ownership of the planets I just conquered, because I didn't leave a fleet to defend them, gambling the Craver wouldn't send random fleets. I was wrong. I didn't bother taking pictures of it.



I conquer the Hissho system. Once again, I'm disappointed at the lack of food production.



I accept. I figure I could use the fleet to do a pincer attack against the Cravers. The Craver is still the larger of the two empires.



The next tech will increase the maximum tonnage of all ships by 10%, for free! It also unlocks another strategic resource I'll need for certain ship parts.



Amazing. A positive relation change for once. We'll end up conquering them anyway, though.



The next 3 techs are to upgrade our weapons and defenses.



I send our 2nd fleet on a long journey to do a pincer maneuver.





Canis conquered. Another disappointment. Maybe the update messed up the AI's systems? Idk.





I start the pincer maneuver.



Sweet. It seems I don't need a new engine or anything. It took this long to be used because our ships are super fast on starlanes, and it was quicker to go through starlanes.



I continue the research for the next generation.

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





As you can see, empire moral has improved significantly because I built random moral improvements in all our systems.

We are also firmly in first place, and no one can really contest that.  We have almost 1.5x the score of the 2nd place empire. After we clean up the Craver, it will only be the Hissho left, and then victory will be guaranteed. To be honest, that is going to be 3 or more update's worth of comp stomping, so I'd rather not play through it. But I'll play through if you guys want.

So, I'll throw up a pole to see if you guys want to continue.

Also, I tried doing a test multiplayer game with Burnt. It failed. Apparently multiplayer is still fairly buggy. So I wouldn't be able to immediately follow this up with the multiplayer LP, at least for now.

[Korbac]

Continue, but summarize your dealing of destruction! 

[Orb]

This is not over.

I was either too busy or without internet. Our conquest shall most likely* continue momentarily.

*For some reason, the game won't 'finalize' one of the updates, therefore not letting me play. I'm going to try a few things, but if they don't work, I'll have to reinstall, which may destroy the saves.

"Edit" Well, it worked. I'll have an update either today or tomorrow.

[Orb]

Spoiler: Update 8: Turns 97-103 (click to show/hide)

Where were we? Oh right. Crushing the Cravers. It looks like they're offering one last token of resistance.



At first I'm a little worried. But then I quickly realize our commander almost doubles are attack and defense, and it should be in our favor.







Easy enough.











I have no idea why the Craver didn't just group up their fleets. I'll blame it on AI stupidity. That was the last of the Craver resistance.



Next tech will get us a module that increases our max tonnage on our ships, and a defensive card.



Just because, I decide to explore all our moons. I find this, which increases trade income in that system by 20%. Nearly useless.



Next tech will upgrade our industrial exploitation and reveal another strategic resource.



I design the Battleship! This weapon's platform is expensive, but it packs quite the punch.



The Jewel of the crown gets dedicated production of these behemoths.



Very nice.



Now that is a very useful card. Also note our hero stats. He's basically unstoppable.

At this point the Craver are almost defeated, and we are way ahead of the pack. I'm going to have to pull OP rank here and stop it prematurely. If I grind through this(keeping constant production on 15 systems is tiresome), I'll be too worn out to start a Multiplayer LP. I'm going to check again later today if multiplayer is more stable. If so, I'll probably start the next LP within the week. There's still interest for that, right?