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[CognitiveDissonance]

May I suggest - Revenge of the GNOLAM! They survived this time. They are back for more!

[Moron]

I now agree with whoever said subterranean is better than creative. Especially when combined with fast population growth or cloning centres, you can quickly build up a very large population while colonising relatively few planets, and do loads of research and/or building.

[EuchreJack]

May I suggest - Revenge of the GNOLAM! They survived this time. They are back for more!

I agree.  Gnolam are perhaps the worst of the starting races.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Spoiler: Dramatic Introduction (click to show/hide)

: Great Leader, Great Leader!

: What is it, Commander?

: The insects are attacking! Our ships are being destroyed left, right and center! What shall we do?

: *Sigh* I knew this day would come. That's why I had our top scientists develop a final solution for our problems.

: And?

: They failed miserably.

: Fuck.

: Did someone rang?

: Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my office?

: I am Aboth, defiler of worlds, bearer of plagues, reason wh-

: 20 minutes until the insects get within mind control range, sir.

: Alright, I can take a hint. My offer is simple: total destruction of the insect plague in return for your immortal souls.

: ...

: You can do that?

: I am Aboth the mighty! Devourer of planets, Conqueror of cities! Nothing is beneat-

: Perhaps I ca-

: ...

: Aboth.

: Chu-Can.

: I wouldn't listen to his lies, Great Leader. Aboth is nothing but a seller of snake-oils, one who woul-

: You take that back, over-grown crustacean!

: Make me, meat sack.

: You want to say that again to my face, fish brains! I've got more power in my pinky toe than-

: Behold, I am the great Salhab, and I am here...

: Don't tell me that you two got here before me.

: Butt off, frog eyes. I was here first.

: First my ass. That didn't stop you back in Xoth, you bastard.

: _{Commander, who are these people and how the hell did they get into my office.}

: _{No clue.}

: _{Well, they're Elder Gods, whose powers are unlimited and whose very presense warps reality.}

: ...

: And you are?

: I am T'bbhaug, and I have to tell you that it'll be more than 20 minutes until these three fellows sort out their dispute.

: Then what would you suggest we do, T'bbhaug?

: Well, if it were up to me I'd transport all of you to another galaxy for your undying gratitude.

: Keep talking, I want to hear the catch.

: No catch. Though after a couple hundred of years if you were to remember little old me...

: 5 minutes until MIND CONTROL, sir.

: Alright, alright. Deal, T'bbhaug. Move the entire Gnolam population to some other galaxy and you'll have our undying gratitude. Okay?

: Awesome! You might want to cover your ears though, I'm a bit new to this.

: Wait. New to this? I take that bac-HGGGGHN-

: GAH!

: ...

: Nice robes, Great Leader.

: Thanks. You too.

: See? That wasn't so bad! Everything's more or less in order. I might have had to replace most of your internal organs with dark magic, but no biggie, right?

: Dark magic? What the h-

: Kthxbai!

: ...

: That w-

: Not a word.

Spoiler: Game Start (click to show/hide)

Alright, that was a silly way to start a new game.


We'll be going with the same galaxy settings as the last time. They seemed to work well, at least.


If you can't tell by the intro, we're going with the Gnolam as our portrait, with these following traits. Lithovore + Subterranean is probably a powerful combination, but not so much as Unification + Tolerant. We get to have large populations and don't have to feed them, but they're purely average at everything and pollution will be a large problem. With the harder difficulty, I hope it'll be a more interesting game.


Since this is sorta the revenge of the Gnolam, I'll be going with the same colour, leader and system name as they had in the last game.



We get pretty lucky early on. The first few systems we reach have some good planets for us to colonize.


Also: Space Dragons.


New to the patched game is initative. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but for now all I know is that it allows space monsters to gank my scouts as soon as combat starts. As opposed to ganking them after I try to retreat, of course.



We send out a colony ship to that swampy planet we found. We don't need the food production, but it has a bit more extra space.



Wain has nothing special, but Hermidon has some Natives on an awesome planet. Of course with Lithovore we don't need the food production, but we might need them later.


Sarwa II is probably going to be our future science colony. Production would be crap, but an entire population researching ought to give us lots of tasty RP.


Speaking of researching, we get Research Laboratories to help speed up our research. Our tasty, tasty research.


Actually looking back I should have gone for Reinforced Hulls instead of Anti-Missile Rockets, though chances are I won't use much of either.


*Obligatory tech*



We haven't been lagging behind on the production front though! Okay, maybe we have, but only because we lacked automated factories. Still, we now have an outpost and future colony in Arkham from which to explore further.


Oh boy.

Spoiler: First Contact (click to show/hide)

Pictured: All the techs the Bulrathi have that we don't (AKA none).


I swear that the AI is amazing and competent now that the game's been patched. Obviously the Bulrathi must be rushing or something, hence why they don't have much of anything right now.


Yeah, I have no clue what they're doing. You're supposed to be more interesting now, damn it!


Commander Roula offers his services to us, but +5 weaponry is pretty crappy so we laugh at him and reject his offer.


With the Bulrathi hovering at our western borders we can't really explore much with Arkham. Oh well.


Obviously we must capitalize on our tech lead by rushing for Planetary Supercomputer as fast as possible. They're pretty much par with us military-wise anyways.


I decide to settle Gnol III. Planetary bases are cheap and we could always use more people.


Oh, hey! The Mrrshan! They ought to be-


Bahahahaha, not even close. They only have one tech ahead of us, and it's better fuel tanks.


Fuel tanks which we'll soon have.



Also: We manage to research Planetary Supercomputers and Biospheres. We should probably be research more military techs, but eh, they aren't doing much.


Captain Tyranous, the greatest lizard this side of the Sakkra empire offers his services to us. Obviously we accept.


Arkham gets colonized. Since we already placed an outpost on the planet, it gets a free marine barracks, which saves us a fair bit of time.


One of the fancier new additions to the patched game:


Polls! They not only tell us who's the greatest, but what races we haven't met yet.

Hmmm... Hopefully the Sakkra and Klackon are in good positions so that this game doesn't turn into a curb-stomp like the last one. The Alkari could be a problem, but the Darlocks and Trilarians should be push-overs. Of course we still have to see who the final race is (damn Bulrathi) but things seem to be shaping up nicely.







We get a lot more research done, but otherwise not much happens. Not much point attacking the Bulrathi or Mrrshan right now, since they're behind us on pretty much all fronts. Plus I don't exactly want to tackle ground combat right at the moment.

Spoiler: State of the Galaxy (click to show/hide)

The Mrrshan have expanded into Sarwa, but otherwise things seem stable.


Overall we have a massive lead over the Bulrathi and Mrrshan.


The only problem is that they have about 6 ships to our none (scouts don't count). Hopefully they'll either declare war on us soon, or get devoured by a more powerful race.

[Mephansteras]

What's your plan for when they do declare war on you? Which, with your low fleet strength, is probably rather soon.

[LordBucket]

with Lithovore

Not my most favorite pick in the galaxy, but it's functional. It's expensive for a pick that becomes completely obsolete at higher tech levels. If it only cost 6 I'd probably take it more often. At 10, I find it difficult to justify.

we don't need the food production

It's good for feeding slaves.

I swear that the AI is amazing and competent now that the game's been patched.

Yes. If this is your first time playing 1.31, you will probably lose. Fortunately for you, it looks like the Psilon might not be in the game. If so, that bodes well for you. Unless they're the hidden #7 empire on that GNN report, which means they're very far from you and will have lots of time to research before they suddenly show up with disruptor titans.

Not much point attacking the Bulrathi or Mrrshan right now, since they're behind us on pretty much all fronts.

I'm not sure I follow your thinking. Don't you want to attack empires that are behind you? As in, easily conquered?

Pictured: All the techs the Bulrathi have that we don't (AKA none).

I especially note their lack of shield tech. Good target for missile frigates. Though note that in a patched game that strategy will not stay viable for as long as it did last game. Last game you were still fighting opponents with only level 1 shields fully 200 turns into the game. Patched AI is not that dumb. As a general guideline, plan to get a lot of use from MIRV nuclear missiles, but by the time you have MIRV merculite, odds are good most opponents will be immune to them.

The only problem is that they have about 6 ships to our none (scouts don't count). Hopefully they'll
either declare war on us soon, or get devoured by a more powerful race.

Just make sure that you're the more powerful race. Also, if possible put a missile base on planets close to the front. That should be enough to protect you for a while. Don't be surprised if they blockade some of your planets though. It's not the end of the world, and it means fewer of their ships defending their planets.

The Mrrshan have expanded into Sarwa, but otherwise things seem stable.

Planets without starbases are easy to conquer, and save you the time and expense of building colony ships. It's possible you might not be in any position to be capturing planets right now, and the Mrsshan colony is ultra poor, so maybe not the best target anyway...but remember that it is an option.

I don't exactly want to tackle ground combat right at the moment.

...well, maybe not now...but soon.

We manage to research Planetary Supercomputer

Might consider some defensive spies. You don't want anyone else getting those.

[Moron]

In my experience, it's not shield technology that makes missiles obsolete (AFAIK MIRV merculites can blow through even a Class VII shield.) It's when beam weapons start showing up in sufficient numbers and great enough accuracy to shoot down all the missiles before they reach their targets. Or to just do enough damage quickly enough that the battle is over (all ships destroyed) before the missiles hit.

This is why, unfortunately, so many of the weapons that could be fun in the mid-late game (torpedoes, plasma web, black hole generator) are more or less redundant because they are too slow compared to just spamming disrupters/gauss cannons/plasma guns.

[LordBucket]

In my experience, it's not shield technology that makes missiles obsolete
(AFAIK MIRV merculites can blow through even a Class VII shield.

Shields give damage absorbtion that is applied per attack. So if you fire 10 missiles that do 8 damage against a target with 5 points of damage absorbtion, the result will be 10 * (8 - 5) = 30 damage, not (10 * 8 ) - 5 = 75 damage.

Referencing screenshots from the previous game, Class 1 shields on a ship: 1 point of blocking. Class 1 shields on a starbase: 15 points of blocking. Class 1 shields on a battlestation: 20 points of blocking.

I don't have the game installed to take a look, but just from memory, class 2 shields are enough to render a starbase completely immune to nuclear missiles, MIRV or otherwise. Not sure where the immune point is for merculite, but usually by the time I can modify merculite with MIRV, they don't do enough damage to be worth bothering with.

[Moron]

Hmm, IIRC MIRV becomes available on merculites at the same tech level as zortrium armor/microlite construction, which IMO is well worth rushing.

Assuming enemies have Class V shields, that's 5 points of absorption. Merculite missiles are 14 damage, so after shields that's down to 9. 4 x 9 = 36 for MIRV. Not bad compared to other weapons at similar tech level like phasors 5-20 damage pre-absorption, (7-30 for heavy) gauss cannons 18 at a slightly higher level.

Of course the missile damage is no longer guaranteed at this point, as you are likely to start getting some shot down by beam weapons or deflected by ECM. On the other hand if you are going to rush a good beam weapon at this stage you will also need to get a half decent computer so they actually get a chance to hit and will have to delay zortrium armor which can leave you with glass cannon ships if your enemies have anything that can hit you.


EDIT: Just did a quick experiment: Missiles vs Shields.

1. Titan with 85 x Nuclear Missiles (all upgrades) vs Star Fortress with Class 7 shield (7 absorption, 262 blocking.)
Result: All missiles shot down before hitting (Star Fortress has 95 pd phasors.) 

2. 4 x Titan vs Star Fortress, weapons as above.
Result: 0 damage - shields immune.

3. 4 x Titan with 66 x Merculite Missiles (all upgrades) vs Star Fortress as above.
Result: Kaboom! Each missile volley does around 1500 damage.

Of course at this stage of the game, using missiles is a silly idea as beams are far more efficient, but in theory merculite missiles have a pretty long useful lifespan.

Note: I didn't get to try nukes against class 3 and 5 shields (or merculites against class 10 ) because it appears no-one has researched them in this game.

Further edit: Noticed that the target star fortress had hard shields and multi-phased shields which will increase both the blocking and absorption, can't remember exactly how much.

[EuchreJack]

Emperor Smurch, what a fearsome name that Burathi Emperor has!

[LordBucket]

Assuming enemies have Class V shields, that's 5 points of absorption. Merculite missiles are 14 damage, so after shields that's down to 9. 4 x 9 = 36 for MIRV. Not bad compared to other weapons at similar tech level like phasors 5-20 damage pre-absorption, (7-30 for heavy) gauss cannons 18 at a slightly higher level.

If I recall correctly, the heavy modifier for beams has no miniurazation requirement. So you may as well be doing the 7-30 rather than the 5-20.

Radiation shields give 13 points of absorbtion. Try firing a MIRV merculite missile into a planet with a radiation shield:

Heavy Phasor:
(7 to 30) - 13 = 0 to 17 damage

MIRV Merculite:
(14-13) * 4 = 4 damage

MIRV becomes available on merculites at the same tech level as zortrium
armor/microlite construction, which IMO is well worth rushing.

Or...since research costs are additive per level, and MIRV requires two levels of specialization, you could instead research heavy neutron blasters for a third of the cost:

50+250+650+1150+2000 = 4100 research points for MIRV merculite or heavy phasors
50+150+250+900 = 1350 research points for heavy neutron blasters

For similar damage:
(4 to 18) -13 = 0 to 5 damage

hard shields and multi-phased shields which will increase both the blocking and absorption, can't remember exactly how much.

Hard shields is +3. Multi-phased increases total shield strength by 50%.

[Moron]

Further research from the Institute of Missile Science:

I made a test game and used cheat codes to give myself the necessary tech levels to do some research into missiles vs shields etc.

In short: Nuclear missiles work very nicely against a Class 3 shield and still do some damage vs Class 5.

The addition of Hard Shields changes things, making nukes much less worthwhile against Class 3.

(The AI ship designer will almost always use Hard Shields if it is available. However, it is a pretty advanced tech.)


A Terran planet with a Radiation Shield is completely immune to nukes.  Merculites still do some damage (around 120 for a volley of 18 MIRV.) I'm not entirely sure how damage to planetary bases works - the in-game documentation says that Radiation Shield reduces damage by 5, but I think that a planet's atmosphere gives some innate damage reduction. Not sure if this depends on the type of environment (terran, barren etc.)

The real reason why I had ignored merculite missiles until recently was that I preferred to get both anti-pollution techs (if not tolerant), but I'm starting to think this is not necessary.

However, IMO the most important reason to choose missiles over beams (or vice versa) is not a matter of damage vs shields but of the chances to hit the target. To put it simply, in the early game missiles hit and beams miss, while in the late game beams can destroy a significant number of enemy ships on the first turn before they can fire while missiles and all kinds of other things take too long to do their damage.

To make beams useful you need Battle Scanners plus some kind of improved computer (or play a race with +50 ship combat), and the two early computer upgrades come at the same level of the tech tree as Research Lab and Supercomputer so you can't have them as well as these essential research buildings (unless you trade/steal them or are creative.)

If I think I can hit things with beams I'd be quite tempted to go with Heavy Mass Drivers early - though as with nuclear missiles,  enemy shield techs can make them useless.

[USEC_OFFICER]

What's your plan for when they do declare war on you? Which, with your low fleet strength, is probably rather soon.

I have 500 billion credits in the bank. I'll start spamming ships first thing next update, and then hurry the production if they declare war before I'm ready.

with Lithovore

Not my most favorite pick in the galaxy, but it's functional. It's expensive for a pick that becomes completely obsolete at higher tech levels. If it only cost 6 I'd probably take it more often. At 10, I find it difficult to justify.

Yeah, 10 is probably too many picks for it, but 6 is too low. Lithovore is good in the early game, since you don't have to waste population feeding your colonies which usually can't feed themselves. I won't say that it's obsolete at higher tech levels though, it's just not freeing up as many people, that's all.

I swear that the AI is amazing and competent now that the game's been patched.

Yes. If this is your first time playing 1.31, you will probably lose. Fortunately for you, it looks like the Psilon might not be in the game. If so, that bodes well for you. Unless they're the hidden #7 empire on that GNN report, which means they're very far from you and will have lots of time to research before they suddenly show up with disruptor titans.

I... will keep that in mind. In my test games I basically played one or two updates, so I guess the AI is now much better at mid/late game.

Not much point attacking the Bulrathi or Mrrshan right now, since they're behind us on pretty much all fronts.

I'm not sure I follow your thinking. Don't you want to attack empires that are behind you? As in, easily conquered?

Well... I'm not sure anymore. Probably overconfidence from the last game. Plus I'm the kind of guy who likes to turtle and develop my colonies, so I always hesitate to declare war on people.

The only problem is that they have about 6 ships to our none (scouts don't count). Hopefully they'll
either declare war on us soon, or get devoured by a more powerful race.

Just make sure that you're the more powerful race. Also, if possible put a missile base on planets close to the front. That should be enough to protect you for a while. Don't be surprised if they blockade some of your planets though. It's not the end of the world, and it means fewer of their ships defending their planets.

Missile bases are on the same tech line as... Automated factories, I believe. Unless I manage to steal it from somebody, I can't build them (much as I'd like to).

I don't exactly want to tackle ground combat right at the moment.

...well, maybe not now...but soon.

The Bulrathi have a bonus to ground combat, are High-G and played by the AI, so we'd be facing troopers that are both better shots and three times tougher than our own. The Mrrshan are weaker targets, but we'd still have to swarm them with troopers to take them over due to Warlord. Given the amount of CP we have, I'll probably just pound them into dust and then occupy the rubble. We just can't produce enough transport ships to take their homeworlds intact (obviously colonies are another matter).

We manage to research Planetary Supercomputer

Might consider some defensive spies. You don't want anyone else getting those.

Kay-O. Will do.

I'm not entirely sure how damage to planetary bases works - the in-game documentation says that Radiation Shield reduces damage by 5, but I think that a planet's atmosphere gives some innate damage reduction.

If I remember correctly planets have a 1/2 damage reduction or something along those lines. Thankfully planetary bases aren't as tough as star bases, but with a radiation shield they're invincible to early game weaponry.

[LordBucket]

the in-game documentation says that Radiation Shield reduces damage by 5

This might be a version difference. Which version are you running?

Version I'm used to, radiation shields should give 13 points of absorbtion, and according to this, shield tech bonus is added to that. So the required minimum of class 3 shield tech to have radiation shields, plus the shields themselves would render a planet immune to merculite.

A Terran planet with a Radiation Shield is completely immune to nukes.  Merculites still do
some damage (around 120 for a volley of 18 MIRV.) I'm not entirely sure how damage to planetary bases works

Damage reduction for planets I'm pretty sure works differently in different versions. In some, missiles are treated like bombs and do full damage. In others they're treated like beams and do half damage.

18 MIRV, times 4 means 72 individual missiles. 72 missiles did 120 damage. So, 14 damage, assume divided by 2 for planet becomes 7, minus the 5 your version says radiation shields reduces by becomes 2 times 72 missiles for 144 damage, which is pretty close to what you saw.

Whereas in 1.31, the way I think it works is that the missiles would do full base damage against the planet, but each 14 damage missile would lose 13 damage from the shield, and three more from shield tech, doing no damage at all, with MIRV having no effect because each missile does zero damage.

To make beams useful you need Battle Scanners plus some kind of improved computer
(or play a race with +50 ship combat)

Heavy mod, and/or reduce range to target. Early game, getting close isn't realistic because of defending starbases, but by the time you have heavy neutron blasters it becomes viable.

If I think I can hit things with beams I'd be quite tempted to go with Heavy Mass Drivers early

It can be done but there's only a very small window during which it makes sense: you can get heavy mass drivers (250 RP) before MIRV nuclear (50+250+650 = 950 RP). But during that window you can't fit many on a frigate because of lack of miniaturization. And the next level of force field tech after mass drivers costs 650. So 250+650= 900 RP. So if you're planning to wait for that extra tech level for miniaturization, you may as well spend the extra 50 RP for a weapon that does four times as much damage and allows you to turn your ships around and fly away to avoid taking any damage. If you're planning to do some serious conquering after spending 250 RP but before spending 950, and if you don't mind losing some of the ships you do it with, by all means go for it. Otherwise, MIRV nuclear is probably the better deal.

[Moron]

the in-game documentation says that Radiation Shield reduces damage by 5

This might be a version difference. Which version are you running?

Version I'm used to, radiation shields should give 13 points of absorbtion, and according to this, shield tech bonus is added to that. So the required minimum of class 3 shield tech to have radiation shields, plus the shields themselves would render a planet immune to merculite.

From the post you linked to:

"E.g. in VDC the planetary radiation shield has 13 points blocking strength and added a class II shield makes it 15, which is enough to stop antimatter torpedoes with overloaded mod."

VDC appears to be a user-made mod and so is presumably different from the base game in this respect. AFAIK I have patch 1.31 as I seem to remember downloading a patch but I'm not sure how I can tell for sure.