CASA - Space Ship Central

[General_W]

CASA
- The Council Aeronautics and Space Administration –
​

Mission Center: Engineering

Cockpit: (320) Spaceflight. Aluminum

Docking Bay: (160) Spaceflight. Aluminum

Engine: (640) Spaceflight. Aluminum

Exterior Casing: (640) Synthetic Fibers. Aluminum + Rubber

Fuel Cells: (160) Superconductor. Uranium

Life Support: (320) Superconductor. Aluminum

Party Lounge: (160) Laser. Aluminum

Stasis Chamber: (320) Robotics. Aluminum + Uranium

Storage/Supply: (160) Synthetic Fibers. Aluminum

Thrusters: (320) Satellites. Aluminum
​

Mission Center: Resources

Aluminum: Cockpit, Docking Bay, Engine, Exterior Casing, Party Lounge, Stasis Chamber, Storage/Supply, Thrusters.

Rubber: Exterior Casing

Uranium: Fuel Cells, Stasis Chamber
​

Mission Center: Technology

(8400): Exterior Casing, Storage/Supply

(9000): Cockpit, Docking Bay, Engine, Apollo Program

(9000): Fuel Cells, Life Support

(7800): Thrusters Whole Map Revealed

(8400): Party Lounge

(9600): Stasis Chamber
​

Hope this reference guide is helpful!
Let the discussion begin on the best way to get this Space Ship off to Alpha Centauri!!

 

[dl123654]

To add to that we will also need as prereqs:
Ecology 7800 (SABER currently researching)
Miniaturization 9600 (Next turn)
Nuclear Power 8400

So without Ecology and Miniaturization we need 60,600 beakers.

Currently we are making a little over 2000 beakers per turn at 100% however that won't last.

At 1500 beakers per turn that is 41 turns
At 1750 beakers per turn that is 35 turns
At 2000 beakers per turn that is 31 turns

As for tech routes there are 4 techs we need to get to in order to launch (everything else is a prereq):
Robotics:Moble Artilery, I'm thinking second
Satellites:Reveals map but becomes much more useful if nukes are needed
Superconductors:Not useful and should be last
Synthetic Fibers:I'm thinking top priority for modern armor, even so much that we research it ourselves even if SABER researches it too. Also the only rubber part.

As for building parts now or later I think Apollo (500 shields) should be built now. The reasoning is we may have a 1 turn warning if we are going to be attacked and can switch to parts (Casing especially) if we are going to lose the resource.

As for where to build Apollo the capital makes some sense because we need to hold that anyway to keep the space ship. Silo and Gulag also make sense being the center and hard to get to, besides if we don't have any parts then the capital can afford to be lost. With spies out there it would make sense to build parts later as long as we can.

 

[donsig]

Good analysis dl but we'll get all the techs faster if we get the tech deal with SABER. I agree synthetic fibers are a top priority but I think we can rely on getting that from SABER through trade. I like the idea of heading to robotics but then chaging gears towards satellites if Manhattan is built.

Niklas said we'd paint a big target on ourselves once we build Apollo. I was a bit skeptical of that since it must be clear to all that we are trying for a space win. But now that we know SABER has espionage I agree that we should hold off on Apollo and try to build the ship all at once the turn after Apollo is completed. That means less risk of our capitol getting nuked and / or attacked.

 

[Paul#42]

2 x 640s. Palace, Battlefield Medicine
4 x 320s.
4 x 160s.

For all but two parts, a solar plant can be used as a prebuild.

Engine and Casing (640 each) could be prebuild with >=500s wonders (Battlefield Medicine and palace), to the final turn if The Treasury or (The Chamber) has ~499s the turn before. (~180spt (~170spt) with nuclear and Mfg plants)

We should hide building Apollo as long as possible because of spys...
Although building solar plants in four towns also paints quite a target...

But it's good to have some options when we decide where to place Apollo.

 

[donsig]

We will soon have fibers leaving just five techs and 43,800 beakers left to research. My guess is we will complete research on the last required tech in about 33 turns after finishing fibers. (See discussion below.) I took a stab at laying out the timing of our spaceship build assuming we want to build Apollo at the last minute and have pre-builds ready for all ten parts set to complete the turn after we build Apollo.

Since we're mobilizing soon an additional constraint is to be able to remain mobilized as long as possible. I will assume we will not use unit pre-builds during mobilization. Under mobilization we are limited in the invisible pre-builds that are available. We have only one battlefield medicine (500s) pre-build and airports (160s). For visible pre-builds we have Manhattan and Universal Suffrage (800s each) and the United Nations (1000s). We will have to decide what level of invisibility we want to maintain, remembering that our plans are always susceptible to being uncovered by spies.

We will have to devote 11 cities to the Apollo and SS parts pre-builds. If we plan on using our top 11 production cities for these pre-builds, does it make sense to say mobilized as long as possible? I guess we could use lower production cities at least for the 160s parts. The airport pre-builds cover these nicely. We have enough cities doing ~10spt that could be used for these.

That still leaves four parts @320s, two @640s and Apollo @500s with only 160s airports and one 500s Battlefield Medicine for (invisible) pre-builds. Airports will only work for one turn in The Treasury, and two turns in The Chamber, The Institute, The Admiralty and The Silo. The options are to demobilize several turns before launching (in order to be able to use solar plants (320s) and the palace for pre-builds) or use Manhattan, US and UN as (visible) pre-builds. The latter option also means we forego building Manhattan and nukes. Even using the three wonders as pre-builds we can only get three of the 320s SS parts not quite half-way with pre-builds. The conclusion is we'll have to demobilize some turns before launching.

Here's my time line. t = the turn we launch our SS.

• t-16: Begin 160s SS part (airport pre-build) in The Phoenix (10spt).
• t-14: Begin 160s SS part (airport pre-build) in The Marina (12spt).
• t-11: Begin 160s SS part (airport pre-build) in The Pier and The New Yard (15spt each).
• t-9: Begin 640s SS part (airport pre-build) in The Institute (72spt) and The Chamber (78spt).
• t-7: Switch The Chamber and The Institute to a wonder pre-build.
• t-6: Begin Apollo (Battlefield Medicine pre-build) in The Treasury (102spt).
• t-6: Begin 320s SS part (airport pre-build) in The Gulag, The Arboretum, The Silo and The Admiralty (53 spt).
• t-3: Demobilize.
• t-3: Switch The Gulag, The Arboretum, The Silo and The Admiralty to solar plant prebuilds and MM shields to at least 54spt.
• t-2: Switch The Treasury to Apollo.
• t-1: Finish researching last tech.
• t-1: Build Apollo in The Treasury.
• t-1: Switch all pre-builds to appropriate SS part.
• t: Complete all SS parts and launch.

This plan let's us stay mobilized the longest. Any spies in our country would not see our spaceship progress until the turn before we launch. We do have to use wonder pre-builds as early as seven turns before our launch and this may tip off our rivals. If we use Manhattan they may think we want nukes. If we use the UN we might be able to sell that as a legit build since by then SABER and FREE will know we have a BABE settler sequestered. Once we demobilize our competition may discern our plans if they investigate the cities building solar plants. The troubling aspect of that is they will also be able to easily calculate the timing of our launch. They would only have a couple turns to react though.

I'm not a micro-manager so I'm not certain this is the best plan but I think it is doable. Some of the pre-builds are tight with little overflow meaning pollution could end up costing us a turn. We also have to begin the 160s SS part pre-builds early meaning we need an accurate estimate of when we will finish the last tech and we'll need it 16 turns ahead of time. We could substitute The Aerie and The Meeting Room for The Phoenix and The Marina cutting our lead time down by five turns. We may want to keep those two cities on military production though.

When is t? We will have fibers on turn 226. I assume we will research in the following order: laser (8400), robotics (9600), space flight (9000), satellites (7800) and superconductor (9000). I estimate we'll have 1200g in the treasury box and this assumes we don't spend any gold. Here's my estimate for research times:

• Laser: turn 232 (5 turns @80% and 1 turn @40% costing us 150g leaving 1050g)
• Robotics: turn 238 (5 turns @80% and 1 turn @100% costing us 800g leaving 250g)
• Space flight: turn 245 (6 turns @70% and 1 @50% netting us 200g leaving 450g)
• Satellites: turn 251 (5 turns @70% and 1 turn @60% netting us 100g leaving 550g)
• Superconductor: turn 258 (6 turns @70% and 1 turn @50% netting us 200g leaving 750g)

I used the turn 224 save and CA II for these estimates/guesses. I was conservative since I am not sure how many units we'll be building while mobilized. Each unit we build will cost us 2gpt.

If this time line is correct we'll be able to launch on turn 259. We'd have to demobilize on turn 256. We'd also have to begin our 160s pre-builds before we get spaceflight. Actually we'd have to begin the 10spt pre-builds before we start researching space flight.

Comments welcome.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

couple of questions:

Don't we have mil trad? have we built the military academy yet? Or do we need an army in the field to do that - I can never remember. My guess is that we'll be attacked before that, so may gain another 500 shield prebuild...

Did we figure out if we keep shields from building a unit when we demobilize? Like, from building a tank.

This is good analysis, donsig!! I doubt we'll fool anyone with it, mind you, but it's great analysis none-the-less.

One major problem is we can be denied the SS easily by someone taking SCI and our rubber, which we need for 1 part.

 

[donsig]

We need a victorious army in order to build the Military Academy - so we'd need a leader first.

I see only two alternatives for the rubber. Either we build Apollo ASAP and start the part we need that uses rubber or we defend SCI. We've already begun airlifting units to SCI and mobilizing will help us crank put more units to defend the island.

 

[General_W]

thanks for your work in getting this started Donsig!

How realistic is it for us to hold SubCom Island? Relying on holding that island makes me really, really nervous.

It'd be nice to have the Space Ship be a big surprise in 2 turns right at the end, but when we don't participate in the scramble for a Domination win - it's going to be obvious what we're doing anyway.
Unless we have a real solid way to hang on to Sub Committee Island, I think we're better off getting the pre-builds going while we still have access to rubber.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Excellent work, donsig, and also in the mobilization thread. You're on fire with data.

One small point that doesn't really change anything, I think, is that oddly enough Universal Suffrage is not an available pre-build in war-time.

I already feel better about our chances as we are mobilizing next turn and will have modern armor first to boot. Research times are lagging for Saber who will soon be out of their GA (8 turns?) and Free as well as they grow their militaries. Free just took 7 turns to get ecology which was much cheaper than the monopoly price of 7800. They have another 7-8 turns to get to modern armor and by then it may be too late for them. Neither have any realistic chance of beating us to space or out-teching us even if we slow our research.

If Free wants to build nukes, the biggest danger to us, they'll need another 15-16 turns of research to get space flight or at least several turns to attempt steals. Saber may build Manhattan's for us and get to space flight solving our pre-build and some defense problems as they attempt to destroy Free. Luckily, we have an anti-nuke treaty with them until Free is eliminated. I think that will be profoundly hard for them to do before we can launch. Neither Saber or Free are anywhere close to domination without almost totally defeating the other. Ganging up they could probably defeat us, but that would just lead to a stalemate, imo, and neither wants that.

We need to think about when an attack is likely to happen as I think it will likely be SCI island they come for first. We need to defend it almost at all costs, as without rubber we have almost no chance to survive a sustained attack much less launch the spaceship. We'll need many jets there for air superiority and should probably concentrate our bombers there as well. If our EWS spots an invasion fleet we must dow immediately and can then transfer 16 or more mechs there in addition to the build-up we're starting. I don't know if we can do it, but I think so, and we sure have to try.

Spies will be a good thing for us so we know what we are up against and we need to think about getting them sometime soon. I agree we also need to watch our treasury as cash can be very useful in an emergency. We might even think about slowing our research a bit to increase our strength.

 

[Yilar]

Here's what I think...

We should build apollo program in The Meeting Room with a prebuild battleship. It is unlikely that they will investigate all cities, and a coastal city that is "almost" inland is very unlikely. We go wartime next turn and can switch over to a battleship and get the bonus, then when we approach 200 sheilds we switch to battlefield medicine. When we approach 500 shields we will hopefully have space flight and so we go out of wartime for a single turn. The following turn we go back into wartime and stay that for the remainer of the game, as we can build spaceship parts in wartime afaik.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Other options are to find places where there is rubber in the world and prepare plans to take one of those spots for a turn for the rubber, of course. All we need is to have it for a turn.

My guess is that we get attacked within 5-6 turns of having space flight whether we show parts done or not - it will depend on how fast our research is going.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Can we research advanced flight and save up gold to help us run deficit research and cut time off of some of the other techs? I'd really like to have radar towers if we can - will be a nice help to defense and counterattacks.

 

[donsig]

Yes, we can start and build SS parts when mobilized. This is not a bad idea Yilar. Here's a closer look at your idea:

The Meeting Room has 22s in the bin and will make 36spt on a battleship under mobilization. If we cut back shield production slightly we can use the battleship pre-build until turn 229 when we'd have to switch over to Battlefield Medicine. At that point The Meeting Room reverts back to 24spt. This puts the city over 500 shields on turn 242. Adding 1spt to The Meeting Room's production gets us one shield short of making 500s by turn 241. This is the earliest we could build Apollo in The Meeting Room (and it assumes we won't lose the bonus shields when we switch from the battleship pre-build).

My best estimate for getting space flight is on turn 245. If we finished the sub in The Meeting Room (on turn 226) and then started the battleship pre-build we could time the Apollo build for turn 246 by lowering The Meeting Room's production to 23spt (after switching to BM on turn 213) and lowering it a bit more on turn 244.

The scenario above assumes we research both the laser and robotics before space flight. If we bumped space flight up in the queue (after the laser) we could have it on turn 240 just in time to switch The Meeting Room over to Apollo for the build on turn 241.

Some bad news. In trying to fit Yilar's idea into the schedule I worked up yesterday I found that I was not correctly calculating the impact of the increased support costs on our budget. By keeping the research rate as high as I suggested and building as many units as we can under mobilization we'd hit a treasury deficit on turn 235 that would keep growing and growing. My calculations were based on cranking out 200 units by turn 259 resulting in a total support cost of over 8000 gold (above and beyond the 50gpt we're paying for the units we currently have). The research rates I suggested only drained 166g from the treasury but it is obvious that we cannot build (and support) 200 new units and we will have to cut back our research rates and times to support whatever we do build.

Given the realization that we cannot launch by turn 259 (unless we leave our defenses at a minimum) I am now much more inclined to build Apollo sooner rather than later. Starting the SS paints a target on us but I'm not sure we can avoid that.

The quickest we could have Apollo is on turn 233. We could do that by researching space flight after getting fibers. Five turns at 80 percent and one at 70 percent and we'd have about 200g left (assuming we built about 45 units during that time and didn't spend gold on anything else). The Chamber, The Treasury, The Institute and possibly The Gulag or the Silo could be used in this time frame. I'm not suggesting we do this, I'm only pointing out the possibility.

Yilar's idea has merit and we can have space flight by turn 240 with over 500g left even if we have an additional 100 units by then. We'd finish fibers on turn 226 (at 90%), research the laser in 7 turns (6 @70% and 1 @20%) and then do space flight in 7 turns (6 @70% and 1 @50%). (Keep in mind this doesn't include paying to plant spies or upgrade units, etc.)

From there things depend our gold situation. If we've not spent any gold we could do satellites in 8 turns while continuing to build units fast. We could support this research rate and have about 160 more units than we now have. That takes us to turn 248 with two expensive techs left to research: superconductor (9000) and robotics (9600). These techs are required for three SS parts (160s and 2 320s).

 

[Niklas]

We might get some cash from SABER for techs though. But of course we shouldn't count on it. But in any case, I'm all for an early Apollo.

 

[Yilar]

We should contact saber and set up a deal for the future. Even though it is somewhat long term I would still like to know which techs they would actually be interested in.

 

[donsig]

Here's what I think...

We should build apollo program in The Meeting Room with a prebuild battleship. It is unlikely that they will investigate all cities, and a coastal city that is "almost" inland is very unlikely. We go wartime next turn and can switch over to a battleship and get the bonus, then when we approach 200 sheilds we switch to battlefield medicine. When we approach 500 shields we will hopefully have space flight and so we go out of wartime for a single turn. The following turn we go back into wartime and stay that for the remainer of the game, as we can build spaceship parts in wartime afaik.

After thinking this over I'm against using The Meeting Room to build Apollo. If we decide to abandon the idea of launching our SS the turn after building Apollo then I suggest we build Apollo near our core. The whole idea behind building Apollo early is to reduce our dependence on rubber by starting (and hopefully completing) the one spaceship part that requires rubber (exterior casing, 640s, requires synthetic fibers). The idea of building Apollo and the casing early is appealing since it basically relieves us of defending SCI. In that event we might as well keep Apollo close to our core. Having it in The Meeting Room requires us to defend both our core and the west coast equally. Having to defend only our core could be crucial if we're involved in a last minute invasion before we launch.

 

[General_W]

I like the idea of building Apollo early - we're not going to fool anyone by delaying it.

However - don't forget - we need to defend BOTH Apollo and The Chamber.
If they burn our capital, the space race is over then, also.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

However - don't forget - we need to defend BOTH Apollo and The Chamber.
If they burn our capital, the space race is over then, also.

Hmm, I learned the hard way in a game I played once that destroying the town with the Apollo Program does not end their space race. I had spent a bunch of bucks investigating the ai's cities and successfully invaded and destroyed the Apollo Program and was horrified when it did not work. They won two turns later as I had no time to also destroy their capital.

 

[General_W]

- so do we not need to defend Apollo at all then?
Is there any consequence for losing it? Maybe we just lose the ability to start new SS part builds?

Does anyone know?

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Okay, I just tested this and yes you need Apollo to build parts. If it goes you lose your pre-builds and must rebuild it to start parts again. It does not destroy parts already built or destroy your spaceship like losing the capital does, however. Of course, if we are to the point of losing mainland cities a launch might be difficult anyway...