MOO1 Klackon Game

[Harv]

Hi all!

Here is a MOO1 that I am playing on this Forum. The game is set up as follows:

Spoiler :

It looks like I have Version 1.3 of the game.


Settings:


I am choosing the Klackons.


Their Flag shall be Red!


And I named their leader Krikit.

So a normal level difficulty with an easy to play race to start things off and make sure I know what I am doing - or at least recover if I am making too many bone (chitin) headed mistakes. If there are bugs in my game I am sure we will work them out!

The Klackon are Industrious and Productive (Oops - wrong game!) - They get twice the population bonus counted towards a planet's industry. At the beginning of the game, everybody gets 0.525 Industry per population unit but the Klackon gets 1.05. So this means more production in both the early and the late game.

Note that I am estimating the multipliers and I do not know the exact multipliers or mechanics.

Going along with the Productive Theme, the Klackon are Excellent at Constrution Research and get a 40% Discount towards the cost of the Research Project. They are Poor at Propulsion Research and pay a 25% Premium on Research Costs. They are Average in the other four fields.

Klackon Leaders tend to be Xenophobic Industrialists and I might consider playing that part. If the manual is correct, diplomatic relations start as follows:

Humans: Relaxed - Everybody gets along with the Humans!

Meklar: Neutral - Assuming they keep the number of colonies small!
Psilon: Neutral - Maybe everybody assumes them to be harmless!
Bulrathi: Neutral - Do you want to wrestle with one or just smile and nod?

Alkari: Uneasy - The Klackon are Industrious and the Alkari are Militaristic.
Mrrshan: Uneasy - They tend to be Ruthlessly Militaristic.
Darlok: Uneasy - Nobody trusts them.
Sakkra: Uneasy - They are too expansionistic.
Silicoid: Uneasy - So are they.

With the game settings above, I will encounter 5 or these 9 Races. I chose not to look at the big map when I rolled up the start so I therefore have no idea who is out there.

Here is the start:



I am not showing the Galaxy Map because that would spoil who else is there. Instead I will describe my position as approximately center right on the map, about 10 or 12 Parsecs from the right edge and about 15 Parsecs from the top edge of the map.

Here is a description of nearby stars, starting with the three that are within 3 Parsecs:
(0,-3) White
(2,-2) Blue
(-3,0) Blue

4 Parsecs:
(-4,1) Blue
(4,1) Blue
(-1,4) Red

5 Parsecs:
(1,5) Green - It cannot be seen on the map I posted but we will see it soon enough.

6 Parsecs:
(1,-6) Red

Blue and White Stars are not that good for Life Bearing Planets but maybe I get lucky and one of the three will have something.

So I will roll the dice and see what happens. I am planning to send the Colony Ship to the White Star and hopefully that does not turn out to be Orion! The Scout Ships will go to the Blue Stars.

If there are no Life Bearing Planets then I guess that Initial Colony Ship was a huge waste and sadly has to be scrapped. The money can then buy more Industry and then maybe invest in the appropriate technology.

If the Colony Ship finds Orion, then -uh- reload? Soldier up?

That is my strategy for Initial Exploration and Colonization and that will keep me busy for 3 to 6 Turns. Now I have a question about Micromanagement:
Is it worth buying the extra Population Point with Ecology Spending so that in the first three turns my Population goes 53, 56, 59? Or should I just let it grow natural and spend on Industry? Especially given the possibility that there is no Colonizable Planet nearby I am leaning towards natural growth.

If there is a second Colonizable Planet within my Three Parsec Range I plan to stop what I am doing on Kholdan and build another Colony Ship. Explore all the systems within Three Parsecs of the Colonies and then extend to Four and Five Parsecs.

Find all the Colonizable Planets and then figure out how to get there. For this stage of the game, this is the only discussion for techlology.

Thoughts? Comments?

 

[vmxa]

Here is the base RP for Klac. It based on the level of the Planetology.

Level 8 1.48
L17 2.02
L25 2.50
L33 2.98
L40 4.00
L67 5.02
L83 5.98
L99 6.94

These are from the guide and patches may have altered them.

 

[vmxa]

"Is it worth buying the extra Population Point with Ecology Spending so that in the first three turns my Population goes 53, 56, 59? Or should I just let it grow natural and spend on Industry? Especially given the possibility that there is no Colonizable Planet nearby I am leaning towards natural growth."

Pollution reduction is missing, so for Klacs more pop is better than more factories. I do not really see a need to run more Eco though. You have a curve on growth, so at some point your growth will slow down. iirc it is about 66% of max, not sure.

You have 2 factories per pop, so you will have a lot of idle pop at the start. Hence focus on factories at the start. Design a new scout that will shave a BC off the cost. If you have more stars you can reach now, then next turn or two slip in a scout for each star you can reach and have not already send a ship to its location.

Personally I do not start on colony ships right off as I prefer to get a jump on production and a kick start on research. IOW all goes into factories and min ECO, till I get to the point where pop growth has slowed.

NO research before that and when I do some, it will be all in one field. There are anumber of ways to go, but with a huge map, colony ships will be at a premium. I would try to get Kholden to high pop and lots of factories and then spam out colonies as fast as I needed to fill all I could reach.

In this map range techs and engines are going to be very useful. It depends on what you have in the way of planets in range, what techs to prioritize. If you have habitable ones in range (consider the range added for each new colony), then range can wait.

If many closest are hostile, you need landing tech from Planetology.

 

[Harv]

So the Formula is:

R = 1.0 + 0.06L where:
R is the Base Resource Points for the Klackons, and
L is the Planetology Technology Level.

This fits all of your numbers above, except for L40 where I would get 3.40 and you listed 4.00.

For L1, this would be 1.06 instead of 1.05 and my RP Calculation for the Initial Turn would be as follows:

1.06 x 50 + 1.00 x 30 = 83

There may well be some funny rounding in there. I have also seen this multiplier change sometimes the turn after transferring colonists. I will investigate.

 

[Harv]

Pollution reduction is missing, so for Klacs more pop is better than more factories. I do not really see a need to run more Eco though. You have a curve on growth, so at some point your growth will slow down. iirc it is about 66% of max, not sure.

I believe the Formula for Growth is:

0.1P(1-P/M) where
P is the Population, and
M is the Maximum Population

This is a Logistic Population Growth Model and it reaches a maximum at 50% population. So for Kholdan with a Maximum of 100 Population, at 50% the growth rate is 2.5. At 40% or 60% the growth rate is 2.4. At 34% or 66% it will be 2.244. I do not know if it truncates to one decimal place or if there is a floor minimum growth rate.

The higher you go from 70% popluation the faster the population growth drops off. The curve is parabolic.

You have 2 factories per pop, so you will have a lot of idle pop at the start. Hence focus on factories at the start.

Based on this, I try to build up a number of Factories equal to the Planet Size. That way when I can transport colonists down to 50% population every time I build a new colony.

Design a new scout that will shave a BC off the cost. If you have more stars you can reach now, then next turn or two slip in a scout for each star you can reach and have not already send a ship to its location.

I have done this for Colony Ships. For some reason the redesigned ships are a little bit cheaper. I did not think to do this with Scouts. Until I research better Fuel Cells it is not likely that I will need more than the two initial scouts.

Personally I do not start on colony ships right off as I prefer to get a jump on production and a kick start on research. IOW all goes into factories and min ECO, till I get to the point where pop growth has slowed.

I will have to think on this. You may well be correct. The Factories pay for themselves after 20 Turns so by that logic I should be spending more time than that spamming colony ships and will therefore come out ahead. The question may come down to what the population is by the time I have built that first colony ship.

NO research before that and when I do some, it will be all in one field.

Agreed - I start research based on need. The first need is expansion. When I exhaust my expansion with a range of 3, then I will have to research either Propulsion or possibly Planetology. I start with a sliver of 3 or 4 RP and see if I like the Research Project I roll.

As the Budget increases for Research then I can open up new fields. Construction is third on the list, followed by Computers, Weapons, and Force Fields. The idea is to open up low cost projects and slowly build RP into them.

------------------------

EDIT: Removed some text.

 

[vmxa]

"Based on this, I try to build up a number of Factories equal to the Planet Size. That way when I can transport colonists down to 50% population every time I build a new colony."

I should say I am not so much about optimal and I will do things that are not the best move at the time, in terms of perfection.

I would not be sending 50% of my planet off at anytime. I would not stop making factories so that I would not have to worry about idle ones, because I sent pop off.

At this early stage I tend to send off the number of pop that I will get for growth, as long as I will not be idling factories. This is pretty much a given for the first planet. If this was a small map, I would probably do it differently.

Here we want to get out an find planets and colonize them. When Kholden is at max pop and max factories, you will be able to make colony ship at the fastest rate. You are surely going to be very busy making and sending ships out and probaly will not be able to send pop out from Kholden after the first planet or two, till those new ones are up to 30-40 pop.They will be sending the seed pop.

Basically you just do not want to see the Silicoids or at least no where near you. As that will probably mean lots of hostile planets and increased chance of having troops sent to new planets.

Unless you get a very crappy start location, even then, you will be able to get a range and some landing techs to open a lot of planets.

At this level and the huge map, you have little concern that they will try to take planets from you for some time. Just get scouts over all the planets you can and leave them there. Later you may want to add a gun to your scouts.

 

[vmxa]

Ran a 100 turns on a map like yours to refresh my memory of how things tend to go as I do not play huge or avg maps. Not only is it a lot of time and work, but it is just too easy (huge map) for a human.

You can spam out so many planets that they really have no chance. The best chance for the AI, is for them to get more planets using the boost they get at impossible. This lets them get the techs they need and large fleets.

 

[Harv]

So assuming I play correctly then after about 100 turns I will be steamrolling the galaxy. Since I have barely even started, should I reroll a huge galaxy at Impossible? Or should I roll a smaller galaxy?

 

[Harv]

This is a very short round, only three turns to show the results of the initial exploration.

I added a Spoiler tag to make my post shorter.

Spoiler :

Year 2300 (of the Unification of Queen Krikit)
The Klackon are ready to launch into space and have prepared 2 Scout Ships and 1 Colony Ship.

Their calculations have indicated that the White F-Class Star will have the greatest probability of having a life bearing planet and they have filled it with Colonists to alleviate the problems with overpopulation.




The two Scout Ships will investigate the Blue B-Class Stars so if the White Star yields nothing colonizable then maybe another star will yield a colonizable planet.





So we wait in suspense for 3 years for the Grand Journey to the Stars to arrive at its first juncture.

Near the end of the year 2302, the Journey is complete!

One Scout explores Seidon and finds little of note, except for a tiny Inferno Planet that is unlikely to amount to anything. This is little suprise from a B-Class Star.


The other Scout Ship explores Celtsi and finds a huge Frozen World far away from the hot star. Colonizing this may be in the distant future, but Klackon Engineers and figure out anything!


The Colony Ship is more fortunate! They find Exis. It is Minimally Colonizable, but it looks like it has been visited by somebody else - We do not know who.




The new Colonists found a crashed derelict space craft - and a salvagable "Gatling" Laser Cannon.

So here we are in the year 2303. We have built our second Colony, Exis - and it has Artifacts. I am planning to send 18 Colonists from Kholdan to Exis and build up the Industry.

Kholdan will be the Production center, and Exis will be the Research center - when eventually I will be starting up research projects.

Colonizing Exis has brought a Red Star within 3 Parsecs and therefore within Colonizing Range. So one Scout Ship will head in that direction and will arrive in 5 Years. The other Scout Ship will investigate the Blue Star 2 Parsecs away and then the Red Star that is 4 Parsecs away from Kholdan.

Finding a Colonizable Planet quickly is a relief. Finding Artifacts is lucky! The Free Technology, Gatling Laser is not really game breaking like Terraforming +20 would have been.

----------------

ADDIT: I am up to the year 2308, so I have explored both the Red Star and the Blue Star I said I was going to explore. I have to go somewhere for a couple of hours or so but I should be able to post an update on that tonight and maybe play a little bit further.

 

[vmxa]

I never really ran any test, but I would not sent 18 pop from Kholden. It has what, 48 pop at that point, maybe 51. Dropping it by 18 to send to an empty planet, seems like a waste.

Send the 3 you get from growth and send the growth every other turn. It is only a size 40, so it can be filled quickly and will be a long time, before it has 36 factories. My goal is to get the homeworld to max pop and factories quickly or at least near it.

I would say play it out for awhile and see what you think. I wold not suggest you jump to impossible right away. It can get intense, unless you play agressive expansion and smart research.

This lets me fund some research and build ships.

 

[Harv]

I have played out another 5 Years and have explored new worlds.

A Spoiler Tag has been made to save space.

Spoiler :

Year 2303:
Just like when the Ants discover a new source of food, the Klackon have established a new Colony at Exis and start piling more and more Klackon to build up the colony there.


The new Colony at Exis has put a Red M-Class Star within range of Medium Sized Colony Ships, so a Scout Ship has been sent to investigate.


It will take 5 Years to arrive.

The other Scout Ship is exploring more distant systems, and is going to the Blue B-Class Star that is near its present location and the journey will take only 2 Years.


End of Year 2304:
Scouts have explored the B-Class System of Reticuli and have discovered another Blazing Inferno.


Year 2305:
After exploring the Reticuli System, the Scouts have charted a course to another Red M-Class System that is just a little bit out of range from Kholdan.


End of Year 2307:

Scouts have arrived at the M-Class Yarrow System. It has a Dry Rugged Steppe Planet. It supports life, some colonists but not much industry.


Colonizing this system will put two more systems within a 3-Parsec Range: An F Class System I can explore in a couple more years and an M-Class System. I will explore both of these.

In the mean time, I will revert back to the analogy of Ants and Picnics. We have found a system that can be colonized - so I will build another Colony Ship and go there. Based on current production levels, it should take 6 Years to build a new Colony Ship and another 6 Years for the Colony Ship to arrive at Yarrow.

To answer the previous question about Population, Factories, and Production, I have compiled a little chart below.

Kholdan

Spoiler :

Year Pop Fact+B Production
2300 50 30+5.3 69/83
2301 52 35+5.8 76/89
2302 55 41+6.5 86/99
2303 58 48+6.4 90/108
2304 43 54+7.0 98/98
2305 45 62+7.6 108/108
2306 49 69+8.4 119/119
2307 51 78+9.2 132/132

So Population starts at 50 and after 3 Turns the Population. I brought the population back down to 40. Production a couple of turns to recover.

Exis

Spoiler :

Year Pop Fact+B Production
2306 20 0+5.3 20/20
2307 22 2+2.2 24/24

 

[vmxa]

I was thinking it starts at 40 pop, I did not realize you get 50 at avg level. You only get 40 on hard and impossible.

You mention a medium size colony ship? I would think you would have to use a large to make a colony at that point.

BTW I got the vote around 2440, I think I had 53 planets and got 6 votes from someone. I thiink I had enough or maybe needed 1 vote. 47 was needed and I had either 47 or 49, not sure. Normally I like to kill them all, but there was a lot of planets. I had 4 artifact worlds and had not even seen all the map yet. Had Star Gates, none built and atmos terra, was learning adv soil. Soil already applied, just a blow out. As the norm, no trades.

 

[Harv]

On with the game, this round is 12 years and takes us to the year 2320.

I put all of this inside a big Spoiler to save space on the Forum Page.

Spoiler :

Year 2308:
Having recently built a Colony Ship, the Klackon Engineers went to work at building another one faster and cheaper.


Indeed that is a Large Size Ship and not a Medium. Sorry - I confused Small / Medium / Large / Huge with Tiny / Small / Medium / Large. I was thinking a Large Colony Ship for 570BC instead of a Huge Colony Ship with Extended Fuel Tanks for I have no idea how much.

Similarly the Scout can be redesigned to 8BC instead of 10BC but I will cross that bridge when I get to it - and research some extra range.

Anyway, with Kholdan at 87 Factories, this ship will be ready in 6 Turns.


The Scout Ship went to explore the F-Class system only 2 Parsecs away from Yarrow.


At the end of the Year 2308, scouts arrived at the Aurora System and discovered a colonizable planet, but it is nearly devoid of minerals.


It is also slightly out of range at 4 Parsecs. The Scout Ship went on to a nearby A-Class System.


End of Year 2309: Scouts explore the Nordia System.


Year 2310: This scout moved on to an M-Class System that will be within 3 Parsecs of the soon to be Yarrow Colony.


End of Year 2311: Scouts explore the Esper System. Esper features an Arid Planet 5 Parsecs away from Kholdan.


Year 2312: The Scout moved on to a B-Class System 4 Parsecs away from Kholdan.


Year 2313: Here I engaged in a little bit of micromanagement to add a few Factories and still complete the Colony Ship in the next Turn. I really should have front loaded the Factories - Hopefully these differences are minor.


End of Year 2313: Scouts explore the Toranor System. This planet can be colonized and will be within range of Yarrow once it is colonized - and is also nearly completely devoid of resources.


Year 2314: The Colony M0 Ship is completed at Kholdan.


Wasting no time, the Colony M0 heads to the Yarrow System for Colonization. It will arrive at the end of Year 2319.


The Scout Ship continues its Exploration Mission - moving on to a Neutron Star.


The next Colony M0 - Intended for Toranor - will be ready at the same time Yarrow is colonized.


End of Year 2315: Two more Systems have been explored. Romulas has resources in abundance, but cannot yet be colonized.


Vox is a tiny Toxic dump.


Year 2316: Exploration continues - One Scout Ship charts a course to a White F-Class Star 6 Parsecs away.


The Other Scout ships goes to a Red M-Class Star.


Here is some micromanagment diversion to get some more Factories on Kholdan while I make sure that Colony M0 Ship is ready in time for Yarrow to be Colonized and Toranor within range.


Meanwhile, on Exis I started to work on Research. Admittedly this should have been done about 8 Years ago and I would have saved a lot of Research Points. We will live and learn and move on.


Propulsion is the first object of research since we need to get our range up.


.....And our first project is:


I chose the Hydrogen Fuel Cells Range 4 because that is all I need at the moment for expansion and I can get the project done quickly if not efficiently.

End of Year 2318: Scouts explore the Herculis System. There is a colonizable planet but it is fairly far away.


Year 2319: The Colony M0 is 1 Year away from colonizing Yarrow and they have detected an Alien Scout Vessel!


Apparently the Silicoids are nearby! Since the Klackon are Xenophobic Industrialist Expansionists and the Silicoids are Despicable Expansionists a fight is inevitable.

End of Year 2319:

The Silicoid Scout Ship has moved onwards - having no interest in a Mineral Poor Planet even if a Klackon Colony Ship is en route.


Yarrow is colonized.


Year 2320: Another Colony Ship is ready in Kholdan.


No doubt this will go to the Toranor System and will arrive in 7 Years. Another Colony Ship will be built - hopefully in time to take advantage of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Research Project.

I will add a Summary of my three Colonies as soon as I look them up.
ADDIT: Summary Below

Spoiler :

Kholdan 84 Population 108+0 Factories 158/196 Production - Colony M0 in 6 Years
Exis 38 Population 48+3.2 Factories 84/88 Production - 52 Research Points
Yarrow 2 Population 0+0 Factories 1/2 Production

I am planning to send 30 Colonists to Yarrow - and then Yarrow will be able to populate Toranor. Kholdan's production reflects the transfer of 30 Colonists. I am also trying to complete Deuterium Fuel Cells about one turn before completing the next Colony M0 so that it can proceed to Aurora.

 

[vmxa]

Meeting the coids is why I suggested cranking out some newly designed scouts saving the 2BC each. If you leave a scout over a planet, you can force them to retreat and they do not get to scan the planet.

The value of that is two fold at this stage. 1) the ship willl have to return home, before it can go out again. 2) They cannot send a colony ship to it nor send troop to it after you found a colony.

You also gain the faster scouting of the universe, by having many scouts out. I would think 15-20 for huge. Leap frogging the scout, when the planet is colonized.

 

[Harv]

^^So the concept is to have a very low cost guard for the systems.

Anyway not very much time elapsed between spotting that Scout Ship and making First Contact. Here goes:

Spoiler :

With Yarrow freshly settled, the first order of business is to send the excess population from Kholdan to Yarrow. They will arrive in 6 Years Yarrow will become a base from which to populate nearby Toranor.


The new Colony M0 Ship set a course for Toranor. It will arrive in 7 Years.


The Scout Ship went to the B-Class Star near Toranor to see if it can be colonized.


End of Year 2321: Scouts explore the Kulthos System and discover another small Inferno Planet.


Year 2322: The Scout Ship went to a Red Star.


Klackon Engineers were making progress towards developing the longer range Hydrogen Fuel Cells - so have begun research in the field of Planet Engineering.


Since there were no nearby Barren Worlds, the project undertaken was Improved Eco Restoration. This does nothing to help Expansion but it does improve the Production from Factories.


Year 2323: Expanding the Research, the Klackon Engineers start a Research Project in Construction.


The Project chosen was Improved Industrial Tech 9. It is cheap and coupled with the Improved Eco Restoration 3, Factory Yields should increase by nearly 50%.


End of Year 2323: The Klackon Engineers have achieved a Breakthrough in Hydrogen Fuel Cells and immediately equipped all ships.


Onward they moved to Deuterium Fuel Cells.


Onimously, the increased range of Klackon Ships have brought them into contact with the Silicoids. It is immediately apparent that the long term prospects of amicable relations is not good. It is Xenophobic Expansionist against Xenophobic Expansionist!

Here is my information about the Silicoid Empire:

Spoiler :

Here is a map of Silicoid Space. They are in the bottom right corner of the map. It looks like for 24 years they have been spamming Colony Ships and have colonized a total of 8 Systems - an average of one every third turn!


This shows the location of the Silicoid Empire relative to the Klackon Unified Star Empire.


The Silicoids are Xenophobic Expansionists.


We are dedicating 2% of our resources to plant a Spy Network and determine their Strengths and Weaknesses.


According to this chart, the Silicoids have 8 Planets. The Klackon have 3. The Klackon have an edge in Production and Technology and the Silicoids have more Fleet Strength and Overall Power.


Research is being scaled back to build up Exis now that Hydrogen Fuel Cells have been researched. When Exis is fully industrialized it will be dedicated to Research and all Fields will be opened up.

In 3 Turns, I should have Toranor colonized. It is Ultra Poor and I cannot see the Silicoids having any interest in it. Also - A Scout Ship will arrive at Paranar. This is the only Silicoid System within range of the Klackon. Three more Silicoid Systems are within range of the Klackon Scout Ships. The result of this Scouting Mission will determine my strategy with the Silicoids.

Colonizing a total of 8 Star Systems means that the Silicoids have built 6 Colony Ships in 24 Years. That is an average of one Ship every 4 Years. This cannot be accomplished even on Kholdan unless it was fully industrialized. Therefore they have two industrialized Systems dedicated to producing Colony Ships. I am suspecting that they have stumbled on a Rich or Ultra Rich System with their Initial Colony Ship. This looks like the Yellow Star Quayal. Guradas appears to be 4 Parsecs away from Chryslon - This implies that the Silicoids have recently discovered Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

So I expect to see very heavy industry on Chryslon and Guradas. The rest of the Systems will have nothing. If I am very lucky, Paranar will be Colonizable and therefore Invadable - and so will Beta Ceti. These will give me access to Quayal which may well be a prize. If I am unluckly , Paranar is a Toxic Dump and there is no inroad to cut out the Stone Heart of the Silicoid Empire.

Any suggestions on what to do for Ship Design? Medium or Large? I am leaning towards Large. Missiles or Lasers? I am thinking heavier on the Missiles.

Colonies, Plans and Planned Colonies:
1. Kholdan - This is my Industrial Center. Once I have colonized and populated Aurora and Esper, I will build up to 100 Population / 200 Factories and then start churning out some ships.

2. Exis - This is my Research Center. I am going to build this up to 40 Population / 80 Factories and be dedicated to Research.

3. Yarrow - This planet is Poor and near Silicoid Space. It is going to produce Population to send to Toranor and then buid Troops if Paranar is Invadable. I will know this in 3 Turns.

4. Toranar (3 Turns) - This is similar to Yarrow, but Ultra Poor. It will either build Troops or Research, depending on the results of the Paranar Scouting Mission.

5. Aurora (6 Turns) - This is another Ultra Poor Planet. It serves as a place holder for Esper and will build Population and then Research.

6. Esper (11 Turns) - It holds 55 Population and has Adequate Resources. I have to build this up quickly because this is my second System for Building.

Unless Esper brings something into range, I think that is all I have for Expansion.

Added: When I fill up my save files - I will zip them and post them. I just have to figure out where to look for them. It looks like SAVE1.GAM through SAVE7.GAM.

 

[vmxa]

Prior to some pollution controls, Klac pop is better than a factory as it is pollution free. That is why I do not want to send a lot of citizens off to a planet that has no factories to run. It cost production while the are in flight and the HW will get the factories up sooner than the new world.

Keeping Coids from scanning a planet is more useful than ohers as they can colonize all of them from the start. The other guys scanning say a Toxic world is not a concern as they will be a long time getting that tech.

The act of grabbing a planet lets the Coids get more of your fledgling planets in range and they will send pop to take it. Well maybe not a this level and this large of a map.

I just finished installing Armada 2526 and will give it a spin tomorrow. I had just gotten Space Rangers last week and got some fun out of it, so I wanted to find another space game.

 

[vmxa]

"Any suggestions on what to do for Ship Design? Medium or Large? I am leaning towards Large. Missiles or Lasers? I am thinking heavier on the Missiles."

I prefer large beamers. Missles have 2 or 5 shot and run out. If you are planning invasions, then that is a different story. Small ships with an NPG or nasty with large numbers. A stack of small bombers to bust any planet you do not invade is good or to crack those missles bases, which the AI tends to have in large numbers.

Large beamers are for defending and discouraging. Later only I only use large. In the game Iran I only used large. Make the smalls with minimal stuff, usually no jammers or shields.

The idea is to make them cheap, so you can have more of them. Until they have scatter packs or beams with overflow, they have to use a gun or two for each ship. This limits the numbers they can take down.

 

[Harv]

Is it my imagination or was my early choice of planets rather limited? My Second Planet had Artifacts. Third, Fourth, and Fifth have no Resources. The Sixth Planet is finally suitable for Production.

The Silicoids also seemed to get a very explosive start. Whatever strategy I come up with will revolve around finding a way to stop them.

 

[vmxa]

Yeah I have seen worse locations, but better one are not uncommon. You just have to work with what you are given. Coids expand very easy as they can colonize all planet types from jump street.

 

[Harv]

I did a little calculation. Kholdan at 100 Population and 200 Factories gets 306 Production, less 100 Pollution for a net of 206.

Chryslon at 100 Population and 200 Factories gets 253 Production and piles up the Pollution. So they get a better return on the Factories and for a while get a production advantage until Klackon Construction and Planetology Technology closes the gap.

In the mean time I am looking at the Silicoids getting a Snowball effect before the Klackon.

I am thinking about running a 10% Planetary fund and diverting from the Poor and Ultra Poor Worlds and investing in either Research on Exis or Production on Kholdan.