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[MonkeyHead]

Turn 18.

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Another scout is dispatched to an unexplored system.

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2nd Recon Det. Reaches Yed. Usual survey data recorded before moving onwards. Such a cool star is not capable of hosting worlds that could sustain human life without terraforming beyond our capabilites.

Turn 19.

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3 new systems have been explored, and a new inhabited planet has been found.

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2nd Recon Det. hes explored Nitzer. Nitzer is home to the Oktoketx... they appear to like worlds similar to our own. 2nd Recon Det. has been ordered to investigate one more system before taking up station one jump away from Nitzer to prevent incursion into our space. A fleet will be needed here in time as well.

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3rd Recon Det. has reached Biot, an Orange Dwarf system of the type that our astronomers seem to get worked up about. Colonizable worlds of note include Biot III (a tectonically unstable paradie world of lush vegetation), Biot V (a small world dotted with island archipelagos supporting a wide range of native life forms), and Biot VI (an icy, cavernous world dominated by an agressive plant like species)

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Scout Beta has reached Exis, a cool Red Dwarf system with 4 planets orbting very close to thier parent star. Exis II is a forzen wasteland, but habitable. Exis III has even colder but still habitable conditions, but a dense atmosphere prevents accurate observations of the surface at this stage.

In other news, our engineers are ready to roll out a new hull class. As of yet we have nothing of note to put in a larger hull, but I am sure it will prove useful later.

Latest map:

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Turn 20: Another scout is finished and dispatched into the unknown. That is all.

[Mr.Person]

This is cool, thanks for doing this and explaining things for those of us who haven't played MoO before.

[Sheb]

I demand to command our first waships, as I am the pilot witht he more experience and knowledge of Desmos.

[MonkeyHead]

Of course Sheb. Our first proper combat techs should be ready in a few turns, with combat ships just behind that. 

No Problems Mr Person. Whilst I am RPing quite a bit here, I am trying to stick to in game Canon. Ask away if there is anything further you wish to know.

[MonkeyHead]

Turn 21

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Now we know there are other sentients in the galaxy, we should consider protecting ourselves. The new Mass Driver tech will serve as a useful weapon for our first warships. An engine upgrade, a laser enancement and a crude nuclear warhead are also in the pipeline. Our enginers are gearing up to design our first warships incoroprating these technologies.

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2nd Recon Det. has reacher Merope: a very hot young star. We currently lack the forces to garrison this system in order to prevent it beng colonized by the Oktoketx, but as soon as a ship becomes availiable it will be posted here as a lookout. The outer planet in this system is habitable. Of note is that Merope II appears to be behaving as if the entire planet were one organism - this should be looked at more closeley when we are able to establish an outpost in what is currently a very hostile environment.

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3rd Recon Det. has reached Malec. The stability and age of this star has allowed a wide range of native life to have developed on all 4 worlds, with the innermost being a lush and habitable world.

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Following in the footsteps of our scouting parties are our people - Pioneer have set up an outpost on Biot III, with many more migrants expected to make the journey in coming months. Before long we will have our first extra-solar colony!

Turn 22

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Scout Beta has surveyed Dromos. This large and cool star hosts one habitable world: Dromos II. Its surface appears to be dominated by a lifeform resembling grass. No dout we could farm on this world.

Turn 23

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3rd Recon Det.'s latest survey data is a dissapointment. Kaffa-C is a stable Orange Dwarf star, but is home to an inhospitible gas giant, a terrestrial body with a massive gravitational field strength, and a frozen wasteland with lttle in the way of an atmosphere.

Turn 24 will be up later, and has a lot of stuff in it... spoiler below for teasers.

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Not one but two worlds with pre-industrial sentients on them, right for exploitiation. Excellent.

[MonkeyHead]

Turn 24

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Minor news first: Another scout is sent forth. Migrants swarm to Biot III. Design of our first warships is put back again as new potential enhancements (armor penetrating ammunition amongst others) are lined up for development.

Now for the major news.

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Scout Beta has completed a survey of Laan. This otherwise unremarkable system with a poor excuse for a star has 2 things that make it very valuable to us. It is home to 2 pre-space faring species, both of which are unaware of our presence in thier system.

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The first of these resides on Laan II - a desert world just about habitable with pressue suits, as whilst the atmosphere on Laan 2 is a comfortable temperature and oxygen based, it is remarkably high pressure. Intercepted radio transmissions have provided us with some useful information about them - they call themselves the Bulrathi, and exists at a level of technology where the Jet engine is at the cutting edge of propulsion. They are large and strong, and have a caste based society with warriors at its apex. They will make fine ground troops.

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The, erm... organisms... inhabiting Laan III are baffling. Scout Beta has observed them closeley from orbit and our Xenobiologists are pouring over the data. They have named the life form the "Brye Ehts" (a clever play on the word "brights", or so I am told). The Brye Ehts are non-corporeal - they are beings that exists as bundles of energy and plasma bound up in a body of magnetic flux. Remarkably docile and hardy, there is little we know of them as of yet. The world they inhabit is cool with a soupy atmosphere rich in organic molecules that they seem to synthesise in some way. We could use this trait to colonise some of the gassy giants within our territory and unlock thier vast mineral wealth...

As a matter of urgency I have ordered our military to establish an outpost on both worlds and to begin asismilation of both races into our Empire. I wish to have them colonise worlds unsuitable for humans and turn them into working hubs of industry and research. Both the rugged Bulrathi and the nigh on unkillable Brye Ehts should prove useful as soldiers. Here is the best effort we can put together as a crude outpost ship:

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Slow and ugly, but at least it will allow us a foothold on the 2 new alien worlds. The sooner they are under our control the better.

Current exploration data:

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[cerapa]

Cool LP. I havent played MOO 3 so its a bit hard to follow, but I like it.

I request all Brye Eht planets to be named Cerapa. All of them, past, present and future.

[MonkeyHead]

It will be done... although I will number them to avoid me getting really confused!

Whats going on in a nutshell, and likley to happen:

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Basically we are still in the first X of the four... exploration. This normally lasts until about turn 50 or so. Then from 50 to 100 there is small scale warfare as people pick off vulnerable colonies on border systems. At some point during these skirmishes you establish diplomatic contact with other races, and the next 2 big X's starts: expansion using colony pods (if you get the tech) and exploitation of races and resources. Normally by turn 150 to 200 all hell breaks loose as everyone splits into factions and massive galaxy spanning wars erupt.

[NRDL]

Can you name your most awesome ( production, military and research wise ) planet after me?  Pretty please? 

[MonkeyHead]

Well, that would be Earth... so no. But you can have our next colony, or the next star system to be inhabited.

[NRDL]

Well, that would be Earth... so no. But you can have our next colony, or the next star system to be inhabited.

Alright. 

[Kolbur]

Well, that would be Earth... so no. But you can have our next colony, or the next star system to be inhabited.

How do these colonies come into existence? Is the colonization simply abstracted?
This looks really nice overall. I have only heard bad things about MoO 3 and haven't touch it at all but seeing this I might have to reconsider this. How does it (with your mods) compare to MoO 2 and let's say Galactic Civilisations 2 (still fun game but much more generic than MoO 2)?

PS: would be great if you could add some OOC comments from time to time about how the different things work (like you did with research).

[MonkeyHead]

Ok, will add OOC explanations when new features become prominent.

Getting the game to this state took a lot of work on my behalf - it feels and plays like a true successor to MoO2. I personally prefer it to GalCiv (feels larger scale and more open), but thats only as it is heavily modified. These mods are easily availiable in many places on the internet, and relativley easy to install. Google "MoO3 atari forums" for the archive of what was done back in the day, or visit www.moo3.at for a very out of date website with a semi active forum on it. A big problem problem is that the fixes only work with the version sold by Atari which came as a double cd installation and not the digital download distribution version more commonly availiable nowadays - some kind of Atari black magic DDR makes the game exe. unpatchable. I would strongly reccomend avoiding the game without mods so steer clear unless you can find a double cd installation version.

How Colonization works...

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In the vanilla game, colonization ONLY occured by sending a colony pod to a world of your choice. When the pod arrived, magic happened and you had a new world, whose population depended on the planets habitability (from 1000mil down to 200mil). You also have outpost pods, which land 50mil people on a world regardless of its conditions. This led to the early game being a simple rush to build as many pods as possible to landgrab and removed much tactical play. There was migration but it was so small as to be unnoticeable.

The combinations of mods I run move colony pods to a tech level reached at between turn 50 to 100 depending on the tech tree the game generates for you and your progress through this tree. This prevents the mad land grabbing until you have been able to claim some territory for your own - chokepoint systems become very strategically valuable. This means that until you have colony pods, new worlds are only colonized by migrants. This is a feature fixed by the community. Basically what goes on is this: All planets have a "pull factor" based on thier habitability, distance from home, employment opportunities, fertility, mineral richness, rival or enemy presence, military security, unrest and any plentary specials. All inhabited planets have a "push factor" based on similar criteria, but also on how crowed the world it. If the push factor from a world is high enough (based on a threshold determined by race), then some migrants are sent to a desitnation determined by the pull factor of possible colonies - usually between 50 mil to 250 mil per year. You can influence the pull factor of worlds by marking them for colonisation or, marking them as a migration target. This has the effect of driving pioneers from your overcrowded homeworld to worlds you discover that have suitable habitability for your race. The effect of colony pods is also nerfed: a colony pod will set up a large colony (1000mil) on a suitableworld, but will provide almost no colonists (less than 50 mil, which rapidly dies off) on a hostile world, until you develop terraforming technologies to support a colony.

Outpost pods still exist in the mod packs I am using, but provide such a small population compared to the bult in migration (less than 1mil) they are a total waste of resources to build  in comparison to building scout ships to find habitable bodies colonizable by migration unless you are looking to gain a toehold on a pre-spaceflight races homeworld as a first step in taking over the planet.

[cerapa]

I didnt think you had changes just that big with the mod.

What other changes are there?

[MonkeyHead]

A brief overview of some of the changes are in my first post here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91941.0

As requested, info will be given whenever a feature is used in depth for the first time.