SysNES 1: A Murky Pool of Light

Just missing Kentharu's currently (which means I can get to work on the other systems tonight), although Gardeners recent questions seem to imply a coming order change (please confirm).

Orders sent.

Oh Dis just want to ask something; in the ship designer is the spreadsheet working as designed when it applies the extra EM damage from surplus weapons to every laser? I've been working on the assumption that it doesn't. (i.e. 4 lasers 4 surplus power gives 20 total EM damage (4+4*4).

No its correct, surplus power boost all of a ships lasers, and thus surplus power seriously boosts laser damage. Think about how lasers work - the surplus power is used to pump the gain medium of the cavity of each laser in turn, which then holds the energy for a short while before they all fire at once/whenever. Or if you prefer instead to think of the reactors directly pumping the lasers themselves with their products, you can do that.

These aren't pew-pew-pew star wars blasters, there is non-negligible charge time.

Another thing that I think people aren't getting - the Shipyard facility, despite being one icon on the map, represents the industrial infrastructure to build ships rather than a single 'thing' - factories and assembly yards on the ground, laboratories, launch sites, orbital cradles and facilities. They and their functions cannot be impeded by ship to ship weaponry, only bombs (and missiles with bomb damage obviously). This is to make things a bit fairer and disadvantage sneak attacks, as you cannot prevent another player using their shipyard with only a fighter or something silly like that.

Disenfrancised said:

No its correct, surplus power boost all of a ships lasers, and thus surplus power seriously boosts laser damage. Think about how lasers work - the surplus power is used to pump the gain medium of the cavity of each laser in turn, which then holds the energy for a short while before they all fire at once/whenever. Or if you prefer instead to think of the reactors directly pumping the lasers themselves with their products, you can do that.

Click to expand...

Ah I was assuming the time to do it for each laser was larger than a 'turns' length, I can see it work either way just alters what a turn is

The customs and religions of the Ik people have deviated drastically from their roots, however much of the terminology remains the same. The definitions of said terms, however, have changed over the course of the development of Ik culture after the First Great Tumult (FGT). The FGT, in essence, wiped out much of the documented data about many of the established customs, naturally however, most of these customs were sustained and maintained through oral communications. Akin to the method in which fables, stories, and knowledge was passed down before the advent of writing, the oral traditions passed down from generation to generation were compiled by a man named Abul Musafad. The exact year and date of this publication is not known since the Second Great Tumult (SGT) again wiped out most records and data pertaining to it. The book itself was lost as well and yet again the knowledge of the Ik religion had to be passed down orally. Because of this, many believe the current religion, if it can be called that, practiced within the Republic of Ik, is vastly different to the roots before the FGT. Leading professor of Cultural Studies in the new University of Taik has stated that “because of the massive loss off data due to the two tumults, the current Ik culture, Ik religion, and even Ik language, have been changed drastically from what the first were”. He went so far as to say that the predominant religion of Izla could have been something drastically different. Linguistic analysts have tried to reconstruct what Izla could have been called before the tumult. A general consensus is that it would have most likely been called “Islan” or “Islah”.

Though there is some semblance of a religious order within followers of Izla, however most mosques operate with little to no interaction between each other. Izla itself is a rather simple belief system based around the worship of the god Alla (or Allah) since much of the rituals, rites, prayers and so forth, were lost with the tumult. Because of this fact, the mythological bases that the Izla faith was most likely founded upon has eroded significantly, and been replaced instead with a more philosophical basis. With the erosion of the myths, and general mysticism of Izla, the philosophical instead of theological, aspect of the religion has come too the forefront of scholarly writing. Instead of being seen as a religion, separate from traditional philosophical discourse, Izla is seen as simply another spectrum or school of thought within the broader umbrella of philosophy.

The recent growth and establishment of the Ik on Taik has lead to a revitalization of discourse between members of the Izla faith. This can be seen by the first ever organization of the moment prominent scholars among those of the Izla faith. Under the name of “The Fellowship of Alla”, this new organization is aimed at reducing the fractured nature of Izla belief system and hopefully developing a basic framework for the tenants of the fledgling religion. Their first official meeting was carried out on 19th of September 04(AT). Although the FoA have remained a rather transparent organization, even broadcasting all their secessions some have said that there is a degree of secrecy as to what exactly the hierarchy of the FoA is. Never the less the group has had wide public success despite the fact that its members only make up 16% of the population.

Update 5: Like acid and oil on a madman's face...

“Rasheed thinks he can carry the scorpion across the river, but the scorpion will always sting no matter his words. Only fools think the nature of a beast will change from how Allah made them.”

- Anonymous Ik Editorial​

The war continued to broil in Errai, though calling it a war might be an overestimation of the petty combats and screaming invective. Perhaps 'adjustment' might be a better term, as the equilibrium of the Ik and the 'Al rebalances in the face of Akresian aggressive...politics. Despite the vast rewards their daring assault reaped last year, the Akresian preference for decisive action may have lead them astray this time. After readjusting their divisions to comprehensively cover their rocky moon from enemy landings they packed up an unprecedented 85% of their industrial output and reserves and sent it on a fleet of slow shuttles to the Ik homeworld of Errai V (Taik), effectively a colossal down-payment on protection money ensuring that the Ik fleet would protect their Lone Wolf mothership. This action brought outraged reactions from the populace of all three major worlds – the Ik were scandalised that their government would both deal with and protect baby-eating monsters like the Akresians, and the opposition warned about previous Akresian treachery. For the 'Al this deal merely confirmed their deep-seated belief that all not of the collective song can never be trusted, and that all speaking creation is the enemy of the righteous. As for the Akresians, they were angry that the Admiralty sent their loot away rather than improving conditions on Errai VIII b, and incensed when the Ik 'fleet' arrived – a single Abu-class Sloop!

Arriving at Errai VIII b only shortly after the Sloop were a flight of 'Al fighters, with rather less friendly intentions on their minds. The 'Al for their part had burst into a frenzy of martial action, not even caring to correct their food deficit as thousands of both communicators and drones were pressed into newly formed divisions – starvation could be corrected by later growth, defence could not said the oracular matrices. These new military units took up positions on every unoccupied region on both of the remain 'Al worlds, with missile encampments and rapid response units able to halt any enemy landing that didn't clear a path with a bombardment first. Speaking of bombardment , the 'Al went full bore on developing sufficient propulsion technology to construct buster missiles, to wreck revenge on their enemies. They also constructed three IP fighters, of the standard design that pre-dates the Tumult, and sent them to destroy the Lone Wolf before it could be used to ferry more troops for 'Akresian Diplomacy'. At first things look bad for the 'Al, as no sooner had the long bulk of the Lone Wolf appeared on their scanners, the black and white needle of the Ik ship popped out of its shadow and began attacking. The Lone Wolf was pretty much irrelevant as it could only destroy other ships by roasting them in its fusion exhaust, and its sluggish manoeuvrability made it unlikely to intercept the speedy and excellently piloted 'Al fighters. The Ik were successful at first, as their opening salvo instantly obliterated the 'Al fighter “Eleven of Spades”, and luckily managing to dodge any return fire. However whilst the next intersection of orbits saw the Sloop destroying another fighter, it took significant damage in return (the 'Al perhaps adapting to the Ik tactics). Commander Hawazi on the bridge of the Abu-class, reviewed his orders to retreat from Akresian space if heavily damaged and felt that though he could likely destroy the last fighter, the Sloop would more than likely die itself in that action. The Sloop thus kicked its drives up to full throttle and swung out of the region on a gravitational slingshot round the Jovian, leaving in a cloud of Akresian radio curses. The lone remaining 'Al fighter, the “Jack of the Void” now turned its attention to the Lone Wolf, if luck was with the Akresians they might emerge victorious, catching the Fighter in the fires of its drive three times before the Fighter could deal the requisite 17 damage; against the fighter of any other faction they would be a three to two favourite to win, but against the skilled 'Al the odds went in the other direction. And indeed, after a near 567 hour long battle, the “Jack of the Void”, with but a single sweep of the exhaust away from annihilation, was able to burn its way through the linkages of the ponderous colony ship and see the resulting segments 'deorbit' in a spectacular fashion.

-Engagement at Errai VIIIb: Ik Abu Sloop damaged & flees, 2 'Al fighters destroyed & 1 damaged, Akresian Lone Wolf destroyed.​

After the fiasco in Akresian space, the governing party of the Ik desperately sought for something solid to do to appease the simmering public opinion, and seized on the idea of job creation by building both a university and a system of factories throughout their major city on Errai V (Taik). Though the two operations tended to steal creative talent from each other and neither worked as effectively as they might if separate, the Ik saw a large rise in both of their intellectual and industrial output.

As a final irony, the political situation grew even more intricate when a scout probe from the Lantian republic around Gemstar materialised on the rim of the Errai system. Broadcasting incomprehensible koans in a bizarre Root English accent, the probe promised the possibility of technological trade to all the factions. It remains to be seen if any among the Ik, the 'Al, or the Akresians will take up the probes masters offer, ignore it, or seize the probe itself for its precious Ansibyl Pearl.

The Lantians themselves were somewhat nonplussed to see that (according to intercepted communications) the new system their probe had uncovered contained scheming slug eaters, sinister soulless zombies, and reckless cannibal hordes, with no properly enlightened Geashials among them! In light of this knowledge they stepped up production once again on Gemstar I, with more mines and greenhouse farms sprawling across the dusty mares as the world city expanded. Finding they were also outnumbered by the least among the Errai societies was unsettling, and the elders ordered the construction of the 'Pavilion of the Soft Battlefield' to encouraged procreation among their young people. Of course social engineering, especially when such a pitiful amount is spent on it, tends to produce unexpected results, and although the youngsters were certainly made happy by the delights of the pavilion, and some anthropologists picked up a lot of applied 'knowledge', possible increases in birthrate were offset by young people not wanting to give up the single life...[1]

The Esani built an additional farm on their rocky world, and stored the rest of their production for horizontal expansions with alpha habitats elsewhere in the system next turn, or possibly for vertical expansion with a Gamma habitat on their main world. Anarchic and autarkic societies and individual empowerment are all very well, but the constructors around Heze could use some long term planning to guide them!

“Life begets life, in either its beginning or ending. The ramble beyond the ridge does not understand this, but we do. In living we create life, and in dying we protect it. No matter what outcome occurs today, if the stream of life goes on with or without us, our actions are just and right, and the light of knowledge is in each of our hearts”

-Gardener Planeteer prayer circle chant, 3.4 hours before first contact with Soulon scouts.​

The war between the Gardeners and the Soulon still raged around the star Kaus this year, for each hidebound leadership was convinced that no reconciliation could be reached after the betrayals and attacks of yesteryear. If we cover the minor conflict first, on the rocky world of Kaus IV, where last year the Planeteers of the Gardeners managed to fend off and destroy an army of the Soulon during the system-wide Soulon assault. This year the Soulon were back in force, transferring tens of thousands of veteran soldiers from Kaus III to assault this last remaining Gardener outpost in the outer system. Of course their experience in the icy valleys and forests of Kaus III might not count for much on a barren airless iron plains as found on Kaus IV. These divisions faced off against the hardened Planeteer bolstered by local militia called up from the habitats population, for the Gardeners could not spare any resources from their planned actions elsewhere. In the week long battle the Soulon attacked from two directions (they too being unable to spare a fighter for orbital reconnaissance support), and the Gardeners gave as good as they got before they were finally defeated, taking three of the Soulon divisions to the grave with them. The civilian gardener population was expecting this, and the shuttles were lifting off within minutes of the Soulon breeching the last ring of defences.

-Combat on Kaus IV: 4 Soulon divisions vs 2 Gardeners, Soulon victory with 3 losses​

“This day we will go down in history, something that fathers will tell their children for the next hundred generations. It is up to each one of you whether we will be legendary heroes, or legendary fools”

-Prep talk by Keith Sismangai, Soulon flight commander.​

Though vast more lives would be lost this year on Kaus IV, the crucial actions of the war would happen around the inner worlds of Kaus II and III, where the majority population of each faction respectively dwell. Control of space around both these worlds would determine the outcome of the war, and this year the ship movement between the two seemed almost a tragicomic ballet. The Soulon gathered all their fighters from across the system, plus a dozen or so more they constructed this year, and sent them streaming for Kaus II. They knew that the Gardeners would be building warships, and warships with sufficient armour to laugh off their fighters guns, but planned to mob the new ships with their numerous agile fighters and then engage in kamikaze attacks to provide kinetic impacts sufficient to deal damage through their foes armoured hulls. Anticipating two threats; the laser defender and a new Cyclops, they split their forces into two groups. However they soon find that the warship they expected was not there, having boosted for Kaus III weeks ago, and their order of battle was poor for dealing with the single laser platform. A half dozen sped into combat range of the laser array, only to have four fighters annihilated whilst the platform was just a speck in the distance, and the other two miss their engagement paths and be melted into showers of molten metal that missed the platform by less than a hundred yards. This was the Soulon nightmare, a scenario that had turn up less than one in a hundred times in their combat simulations, and the second wing grimly swung in to take their own baptism of laser fire. This time a much more expected result occurred, with two fighters burnt from the sky on the path in, the remaining four being able to match paths and have one of their number intersect with the platform in an explosion of metal. The grim spectre that had haunted the Soulon conciousness ever since it had denied them access to the Eden of Kaus II had finally been slain, but at an incredible cost in men and ships. The Soulon controlled space around Kaus II, but had no way to stop further Gardener ship construction. Meanwhile the Gardener Rakahasa-class Gunboat CSS Ravana arrived in orbit around Kaus III, and took total command of that space, locking out volatiles shipments to the rest of the Soulon sphere, and preventing new divisions being moved in. The Gardeners had considered the Cyclops obsolete before it had even been built, and upgraded their design with their newly researched fusion cores and triple banks of powerful lasers. Sightings and readings of this doughty ship design sent the Soulon military planner into apoplectic fits – suicide fighter tactics would work and even been efficient against stationary battle platforms or single-gun ships like the Cyclops, but the Ravana would annihilate three fighters in an assault wave before they could even close and capably evade suicide rams. They'd have to send in ten, fifteen fighters at a time to even have a chance of success! The Soulon desperately began developing a counter ship (code named the Horatio-class, after the surprise hero of their assault on Kaus II).

-Engagement around Kaus II: 12 Soulon fighters vs 1 Gardener laser platform, victory with 9 losses.​

Smelling a shift in the balance, and losing their out system mine, the Gardeners constructed a mine on the outskirts of their settlements on Kaus II, promising it was only a temporary state of affairs. The sophisticates of the big gamma city shrugged it off as necessary for the war effort, but the smaller city (who actually had to cohabit with the mine) was filled with angry ideologues. The overcrowding caused by population growth and the arrival of refugees from Kaus IV (that the Soulon let land) caused an angry contingent of fanatics to set off into the deserts and build their own shanty habitats that gave no tithes or support to a main government totally focused on the lurid battles in orbit.

In Zavi space things continue much as they have for the last few years. The Vazan continue to mount up industrial production on their massive homeworld, the heat of their operations causing increasing turbulence in its coying atmosphere. In comparison to this concentration of effort the Kations swarm over the other worlds of the system, building their small habitats and living spaces on every chunk of rock and ice with the space to plonk down a facility. The Kations have in fact managed to seal off the whole world of Zavi IV from possible later Vazan action (peaceful action that is, military expansion of course remains), this in addition in their general mastery over the icy moon of Zavi VIa. The Vazan, like some grumbling Vulcan[3] at his forge being left out of the fun, aren't taking this particularly kindly, even their legendary pleasant and placid dispositions annoyed at the Kation conceit of owning the whole sky. A series of snap votes of the public later and the leadership has a full mandate to rectify the situation. They thus turn to investigating weapons and algorithms that would lead to warships, and built a research centre for developing weaponry out of the corpse of GAIAIIIs central core. Though still a long way in propulsion technology from challenging the Kations, their eventual goal seems clear. The Kations for their part, knowing they can't currently expand their fighter fleet, move quickly to rectify that situation. Numerous biotechnologist representatives make political hay out of the Cybernetist moving the core of the republic into the firing range of Vazan aggression, but as the majority of the population now lives on the inner rocky worlds run by Cybernetist technocrats they make less gains than they might have.

Random Events
Bad morale due to overuse of suicide tactics causes problems among the Soulon navy (-1 int to all ships for two years)
The gas release of a small volcano on Errai V, overloads the recyclers of several Ik villages, but does open up some more minerals to mining operations (-1 pop +3 stored e)

Karmically blessed societies
Shiva loves the big guns, which the Rakahasa certain has:The Gardeners +1 lucky roll
The quiet life is the pious life: Esani +1 lucky roll.
Non-specific deities love highly legible orders: The Gardeners +1 lucky roll

Random Stats
Most unlucky society: the 'Al
Least researched technology: Propulsion (I guess no one wants to go anywhere)
Dumbest society: The Soulon, 8 s per year.
Favourite Soulon audiovisual shows: The Funny Shaped Rocks of Kaus VI, Gladiatorial Bloodsport Season V, Two and a Half Men.

Notes
[1] Cultural centres are only guaranteed to reduce unrest, other effects need stories/description and a lot of e, and it is very much buyer beware. Alex only got a nice bonus because of the Homo Superior effect.
[2] Milaqui, the bonuses of new facilities won't kick in till the following turn, and the Research centre only gives the bonus to the habitat that its built in (not your whole s production), and is shown by the separate s streams in the economy stats.
[3] The Roman god, not the Star Trek species.
[4] @ Immaculate: paragraphs – learn them, love them.

Datalinks: Update Five ship designer in ods and xls, now features prototyping costs, and automatic ship type generation.

There seems to be a small error in my tech spending; I was to complete propulsion; and spend the 2 spare s on weapons tech

EDIT: I'm not sure if you included my order addition but thats not so important.

Opps, miss filled the tech box (as you can see the correct 2s taken from the weapons). You have Propulsion and no Weapons

To the Vazan
From the Kations

We are willing to further our discussion on sharing the stars; especially relating to previous enquiries to gain access to a source of Volatiles.

@Disenfrancised: Since the total income of my civilization was 20e last turn and I had 1 population growth, shouldn't my total income be 21e now?

To: The Ik, The AI, and The Akresian Peoples
From: The Resplendent Republic of Lantian

We bear greetings from the Republic of Lantian. For as a drop of water shall be returned with a burst of spring water, we desire to enter into mutually beneficial exchanges. For it is because that a spark can set alight the entire plain that we entreat you to open up relations. While the mountains may be high and the emperor is far away, one still needs to prepare for the coming of enemy armies.

We will shortly send our most ever humble proposals to your Rulers.

Seon said:

@Disenfrancised: Since the total income of my civilization was 20e last turn and I had 1 population growth, shouldn't my total income be 21e now?

Click to expand...

Yes it is, I keep forgetting to add your industrious bonus to the stats sheets.

Ah yes Dis; you called my division on Zavi VIa an IP fighter; and its not on the system map.

From The Republic of Ik
To The Resplendent Republic of Lantian

Prime Chancellor Rasheed of the Republic of Ik sends his greetings to you. We are truly overjoyed to have connect with another nation, considering the current... contact that we have had. That aside we welcome your delegates to our capital planet of Taik.

OOC: Dis, can their space shuttles come get delegates?

OOC:
Kentrharu

All this OOC lying is so disgusting. You and Seon both. Why bother tricking me; why not just declare war properly?

I told you not to retaliate.

as a general request; can you clean up the first page?