OSG 24 - The Guns of Sssla

[RefSteel]

Surprised you had enough marines to take all the worlds. Figured you'd either have to glass a couple or leave a couple in the corner for the next person. I probably underestimated our ground combat, which apparently had a major advantage, rather than being at even odds.

No, odds were about even (and I actually had some poor luck on several of the rolls) - our tech advantage just about matched the Bulrathi racial bonus. But you forget: We're Sakkra, with Gaean worlds and Cloning. And we had a LOT of worlds. In my first two or three turns, I was sending a quarter of the population of literally every world in the empire not named Dolz or Beta Ceti, instantly regrowing them, and sending them again. I shipped out transports clear across the galaxy on the basis of advanced scanner reports, just trusting that my fleets could clear out the bases in time. And they did! The last two worlds being hostile rocks (pollution-choked by that time thanks to their fleet maintenance) helped a lot; invasions were sent to the last two worlds from worlds I'd just taken by invasion!

Couldn't have done it if we were playing with the "No Growing Pop" rule, but it had been established that we're not.

 

[ToddMarshall]

I'd just as soon get it over with, but I'm not going to cast the veto vote on final war.

 

[Catwalk]

I'd like to hear from the rest of the team though: Should we go for Final War in 2500? I suspect Catwalk would say yes, but the game might not get around to Catwalk again regardless of what we do here, so....

I'm really, really, really going to say yes However, if all others agree on just wrapping it up quickly without Final War I'll accept the decision. Should we luck into a war prior to that I'll take advantage of it, but I will still wish to trigger Final War at the end of my term. I plan on playing tonight, and will leave the last turn for tomorrow so people get to chip in.

Amazing job on your turns, and I don't think they were played poorly at all. Awesome reporting as always, it's a pleasure and honour to be playing with all of you. Rapid conquest will work out great, and I'm sure we can get ready for Final War in 10 years. I think focused preparation for that will be sufficient to not sacrifice all of our new worlds.

One small thing I disagreed with was picking Hand Phasors over Ion Rifle. Being that we're still fighting with toy guns, a super cheap Ion Rifle (or maybe a slightly more expensive Fusion Rifle) would probably be more cost efficient.

I haven't looked at the save yet, so I'm not sure what my plan will look like. We will be grabbing a LOT of tech in the first few years after Final War starts, so we need to factor that in with our research plans.

Our combined enemy will have the following technological capabilities:
Bases
Herculean Missile / Scatter Pack VIII (which one will they be firing at us?)
Shield 24
ECM 9
BC 9
Andrium Armor

Ground Combat
+15 Andrium Armour
+30 Personal Barrier Shield
+5 Hand Lasers

Production
IIT 2
IRC 6
IT+40
Gaia
Atmospheric Terraforming
Complete Eco Restoration
Cloning

Navigation
Warp speed 5
Inertial Stabilizer
Fuel range 10

Weapons
Plasma Cannon
Megabolt Cannon
Tachyon Cannon
+ various junk

They're pretty weak in ground combat, being that they have no battle armour and only toy guns. If we research Hand Phasors, we'll be at a significant advantage (especially after we steal their Barrier Shield).

I just noticed something else, though.... WE CAN TAKE ORION

Screw all the plans, I'm going for it! I'll still prepare for Final War, but this is just too much fun to pass up I'm confident that the above design will be sufficient, I always use Megabolt Cannon to take on the Guardian because of the insane defense and shields (9 and 9 respectively). I never use missiles because of the Lightning Shield, although I might be missing out here. I suppose Pulson and up could be quite potent, I don't think Stingers will cut it. The Guardian has the following stats:
85x Scatter Pack X (ouch!)
45x Stellar Converter
18x Plasma Torpedo
1x Death Ray

Defense 9
Shield 9
Speed 2
BC 10
10k hit points

High Energy Focus
Lightning Shield

How many of those do you think I'll need? I expect 50% accuracy, and my cannons will do 3.5 points of damage on average according to the FAQ. If the guardian has 100% accuracy, it will be taking out around 50 fighters per turn once missiles are exhausted. The missiles can do insane damage, though. And I doubt I'll be able to outrun them at speed 3. A quick guestimation puts the required fleet size at 3500-4000, relying on dishing out damage faster than we take it. That's kind of expensive, almost 3x our total production. If we were able to dodge those missiles somehow, we could take it easily. Any suggestions? Can we bring other ships and reliably trick it into firing at them?

 

[Catwalk]

I'm going to chicken out on Orion While I knew already it wasn't a particularly bright idea, further analysis reveals that it's simply too dimwitted. Especially when I'm all gung ho to trigger Final War, which I really don't want to delay. I'll start playing my turns and scrap Orion conquest, but I really hope we'll capture Orion in the near future as we're very close technologically.

 

[Catwalk]

Didn't really get started, still in doubt about plans.

2490:

- reducing research in all fields but Weapons and Planetology to minimal amounts
- start spying on our soon-to-be-former allies, the Meklar
- focusing on factories on most planets
- identifying first strike targets:
Nyarl (180 pop, 1440 factories, 10 bases)
Meklon (190 pop, 1520 factories, 64 bases, nebula)
Antares (135 pop, 1080 factories, 52 bases)
Hyboria (66 pop, no factories, no bases)
Zhardan (110 pop, 194 factories, 13 bases, poor)
Tao (110 pop, 251 factories, 17 bases, poor)

I wonder how effectively we can glass their planets when we're up against Hercular Missiles and very decent shields. We can't outrun Hercular, but maybe we can use more than one bomber design to confuse them. Not sure if that's really cost efficient, though. But we'll be able to field huge fleets of bombers in 10 years if we focus on it, so it's a definite option. Just sucks a bit to commit that much production to a fleet that'll be obsolete a year after it's been deployed. Maybe we should go with a smaller fleet, have it poised to take 2-3 systems first year of Final War and then build a new one with queued ship production.

We might be able to wipe out a whole bunch of silicoids before they're able to upgrade their bases. If so, we'll be fighting bases with shield 4.

 

[ToddMarshall]

I don't think taking orion is a bad idea... However, The guardian shoots Scatter Pack V rockets, so there's a major advantage to having 7HP fighters Maybe I'll take Orion on my turn if no one else has.

If we made them, those fighters wouldn't be useless in any account. We've got Stinger boats. Their mission in life from here on out is to kill things sporting repulsor beams. The fighters can clean up on other things.

After 8PM CDST tonite, communication from me might be scarce/non existant till Monday night. Or, it might not. Depends on how much time I have (and the college of DuPage has free wireless, so I might bring the labtop along and check in if I have some slow time)

 

[jmas]

Having significant computer trouble, so I'm writing from my iPod Touch. Nice play, Ref and good report. I think Catwalk is right that the Guardian mounts Scatter Pack X rockets-- which each do 15 damage. We could send a ship with a scanner to make sure. Catwalk, according to the strat guide (appendix F), a Megabolt cannon that hits should do an average of 4.4 damage over a shield of 9.

Final War is OK with me but I am honestly not sure if I'll be able to play again. It'll be very helpful if I can get the computer to work again.

 

[ToddMarshall]

Shows how long it's been since I've challenged the guardain. They are Scatter pack X. However, I believe I read somewhere in Kyrub's stuff that the Hard guardian and the impossible guardian are switched in bassic moo, so it shouldn't be as bad as what he's counting on if that's the case. Still, it's not exactly a pushover either way.

Simple Easy Average Hard Impossible
Scatter Pack X's (5c) 5 25 45 65 85
Stellar Converters 5 15 25 35 45
Plasma Torpedos 6 9 12 15 18
Beam/Missile Defense 1 3 5 7 9
Shield Level 5 6 7 8 9
Hit Points (x1000) 2 4 6 8 10

Standard Features:

* 1 Death Ray
* Attack Level 10
* Speed 2

Specials:

* High Energy Focus
* Lightning Shield

We'll take it before the end if we want to, but now isn't the time. Probably build mostly bombers and maybe more Stingers for now. We know those will be useful

 

[RefSteel]

I'm going to chicken out on Orion While I knew already it wasn't a particularly bright idea, further analysis reveals that it's simply too dimwitted. Especially when I'm all gung ho to trigger Final War, which I really don't want to delay. I'll start playing my turns and scrap Orion conquest, but I really hope we'll capture Orion in the near future as we're very close technologically.

I hope so too! As it became obvious that I was going to meet my Bulrathi goal during my turn set, I actually started thinking about going after it myself(!) - but came to the same conclusion you did: We just don't have the tech yet to make it worthwhile.

We might be able to wipe out a whole bunch of silicoids before they're able to upgrade their bases. If so, we'll be fighting bases with shield 4.

This sounds like the best plan to me - unless we wind up at war with the Silis even earlier (I still don't understand why I wasn't asked to declare on them during my turns). If we have fleets positioned close to enough Silicoid worlds, we should be able to rapidly achieve tech ~parity and design a new fleet of super-bombers accordingly.

If we made them, those fighters wouldn't be useless in any account. We've got Stinger boats. Their mission in life from here on out is to kill things sporting repulsor beams. The fighters can clean up on other things.

Unfortunately, the Silicoid Mako cruisers feature an Energy Pulsar and a combat speed of 3 (among other things). I love fighters, but I'm not sure they're our best answer here.

After 8PM CDST tonite, communication from me might be scarce/non existant till Monday night. Or, it might not. Depends on how much time I have (and the college of DuPage has free wireless, so I might bring the labtop along and check in if I have some slow time)

Thanks for the heads-up ... and have a great time!

Having significant computer trouble, so I'm writing from my iPod Touch. Nice play, Ref and good report. I think Catwalk is right that the Guardian mounts Scatter Pack X rockets-- which each do 15 damage. We could send a ship with a scanner to make sure. Catwalk, according to the strat guide (appendix F), a Megabolt cannon that hits should do an average of 4.4 damage over a shield of 9.

Odd; a straight random 2-20 should be lower. Is the 2-20 damage is actually "2d10"? (1-10 + 1-10, which gives decidedly center-skewed results in comparison to a straight 2-20)

Final War is OK with me but I am honestly not sure if I'll be able to play again. It'll be very helpful if I can get the computer to work again.

Definitely; good luck getting it back up and running soon!

I'm okay with Final War too, but I'd really like to hear from codehappy - who is, after all, the one who would actually have to play the critical first turns of the war!

 

[RefSteel]

However, I believe I read somewhere in Kyrub's stuff that the Hard guardian and the impossible guardian are switched in bassic moo

Sort of: The Impossible Guardian does have the correct stats, but it doesn't have Advanced Damage Control! Thus, you can win by attrition on Impossible while you have to hit harder and faster on Hard in spite of its having fewer hit points.

 

[jmas]

Yeah, I thought I'd scrutinize that 4.4 number a bit more (even before reading the posts since mine) and it looks to me like the Megabolt's +3 levels to hit is factored into that in some way, whereas we'd prefer it not be. So with equal (final) attack and defense levels it should score less than the midpoint of its range (11 dmg) since half of all shots miss. That means < 2 dmg per shot with shields of 9 .

 

[ToddMarshall]

We'll kill it later. A little more miniaturization and we can make a really good fighter.

And Ref, Stingers kill energy pulsar ships just as well as they do repulsor ones heh. Not every ship we come across is going to sport those kind of things.

Really, though, if we're building a ship to engage fleets, I really think another missile design or a repulsor/dissipator design is called for. Not entirely sure it's necessary, though.

Anyhow, off to Chicago.

And I wouldn't worry too much about the bombers being obsolete. If we have enough of them, it's not going to matter.

EDIT: OR, we could just wait around a couple of Hundred years til their tech looks like this, and try to beat them with this kind of fleet (Gotta love runaway Psilons, and yes, I did beat them on a large with this fleet yay. I buddied up to them till I'd wiped out the rest of the universe, minus the 2PE kitties then went for their throat) There was no use fighting their fleet, even with Zeon missiles... they had ships with shield XV, Jammer 9 or 10 (23! missile defense!)

And now that Rachel is finally ready, I really am leaving...

 

[RefSteel]

Yeah, I thought I'd scrutinize that 4.4 number a bit more (even before reading the posts since mine) and it looks to me like the Megabolt's +3 levels to hit is factored into that in some way, whereas we'd prefer it not be. So with equal (final) attack and defense levels it should score less than the midpoint of its range (11 dmg) since half of all shots miss. That means < 2 dmg per shot with shields of 9 .

Actually, it's basically 3.5 (a smidgen below, but just a very tiny smidgen) assuming a flat 2-20. It'll always be GREATER than the (midpoint - shield) as you can trivially tell by taking the case of shields more powerful than the midpoint but less powerful than the maximum (the gun will do some, not negative, damage).

More specifically: To calculate average damage against a given type of shield, just add up all the possible amounts of damage the weapon can do and divide by the total number of different damage rolls the weapon could make. So for a laser shooting at a class 2 shield, you get:

1 base damage = 0 actual
2 base = 0 actual
3 base = 1 actual
4 base = 2 actual

(0 + 0 + 1 + 2) [actual damage] / 4 [# of shots] = 0.75

Now, adding that up for 19 different damage rolls is silly, but fortunately there are mathematical formulae that can be used for series like this. The general form for MoO purposes ends up being:

M = [max base damage]
m = [min base damage]
S = [target shield level]

[(M - S) * (1 + M - S)] / [2 * (1 + M - m)]

 

[RefSteel]

Oops - I neglected to respond to this:

Amazing job on your turns, and I don't think they were played poorly at all.

Thanks very much! I must admit, when I typed the bit about planning to play sub-optimally on purpose, it was before I'd made my plan of attack on the Bulrathi. Once I realized I could pull it off *and* still build infrastructure and defenses and research ... well, yeah.

it's a pleasure and honour to be playing with all of
you.

I heartily second this emotion!

One small thing I disagreed with was picking Hand Phasors over
Ion Rifle. Being that we're still fighting with toy guns, a super
cheap Ion Rifle (or maybe a slightly more expensive Fusion Rifle)
would probably be more cost efficient.

Notice how brightly lit our weapons bulb is already though. We should have those HPs in time for our first battle in Final War, and if so, we'll be glad we didn't delay them for weaker versions of the same thing.

And Ref, Stingers kill energy pulsar
ships just as well as they do repulsor ones heh. Not every ship we
come across is going to sport those kind of things.

Very true!

Really, though, if we're building a ship to engage fleets, I
really think another missile design or a repulsor/dissipator design is
called for. Not entirely sure it's necessary, though.

Yeah. We have the Cannonss doing Repulsor duty for now, but I'd phase it out in favor of the next-generation repulsor cruiser soon if it were me.

EDIT: OR, we could just wait around a couple of Hundred years til
their tech looks like this, and try to beat them with this kind of
fleet

Wow. That's ... a LOT of tech. And those "Omegas" are aptly named!

ALSO: In case anyone thinks I'm a Math Wizard(tm) after my last post, I should note that I had no idea what I was talking about when I wondered about 2d10: If the game calculated damage that way (and I don't think it does) it would actually REDUCE the amount of damage against shields. For instance, Megabolts would do only 2.8 damage against Class 9s. I believe the straight roll and therefore ~3.5 average damage is accurate however.

 

[ToddMarshall]

Wow. That's ... a LOT of tech. And those "Omegas" are aptly named!

Probably the most tech I've ever overcome in battle to win.

1500 of those Omega's needed 3 or occasionally 4 rounds to kill the 100ish shield 35 Zeon bases. And yet, their designs with shield 15 and jammer 9 and TWENTY THREE missile defense were better than mine. If the AI knew how to use ships like that (or put bombs on them instead of stellar converters and mauler devices, though not sure they had better than AMB) I'd never have had a chance. Their designs were so good defensively, even 200 bases wouldn't have made a difference. Twenty of their mauler device ships were enough to kill those.

Another thing that was saving me was my ground combat was far superior to theirs (I had the max level possible), so their repeated invasions of several worlds where they took orbit kept failing.

In the end, though, it was one critical omission from their tree that made the difference. If the Psilons had had interdictors, I'd probably have lost, having no better than warp 6 + stabilizer.

 

[Catwalk]

I'd like some input on these two plans for Final War:
1) Build a small fleet now and prepare for invasion of a few systems, then use queued up production to build a modern fleet with stolen technology
2) Build a large fleet right away, reasoning that we'll need every last bit of firepower available to us

Leaning towards 1, but still undecided.

 

[RefSteel]

I'd like some input on these two plans for Final War:
1) Build a small fleet now and prepare for invasion of a few systems, then use queued up production to build a modern fleet with stolen technology
2) Build a large fleet right away, reasoning that we'll need every last bit of firepower available to us

Leaning towards 1, but still undecided.

I think at this stage, the question is really just how much you want to spend on tech and defenses. If spending in those areas isn't too huge, you should be able to build a large fleet ~right away and still have time to queue up some mostly-built placeholders and reserves in time for Final War. I would definitely plan to build a big enough fleet to blitz the Silicoids by 2500 if we're not at war with them already by then.

That said: I trust your judgment, and it's your call as the turn player anyway!

 

[Catwalk]

Agree with that, blitzing the silicoids is probably most important and we do have enough production. I'll try to finish Hand Phasor and then focus on fleets.

Will silicoids be able to put the new deflectors (normal deflectors, not planetary) on their bases right away? If not, we'll be able to take them out with Stingers alone.

 

[RefSteel]

Agree with that, blitzing the silicoids is probably most important and we do have enough production. I'll try to finish Hand Phasor and then focus on fleets.

Will silicoids be able to put the new deflectors (normal deflectors, not planetary) on their bases right away? If not, we'll be able to take them out with Stingers alone.

Yup, those should update instantaneously. It's even imaginable that they could get some level of planetary shielding up on highly-developed planets in a single turn, but that's much less likely.

 

[jmas]

Actually, it's basically 3.5 (a smidgen below, but just a very tiny smidgen) assuming a flat 2-20. It'll always be GREATER than the (midpoint - shield) as you can trivially tell by taking the case of shields more powerful than the midpoint but less powerful than the maximum (the gun will do some, not negative, damage).

More specifically: To calculate average damage against a given type of shield, just add up all the possible amounts of damage the weapon can do and divide by the total number of different damage rolls the weapon could make. So for a laser shooting at a class 2 shield, you get:

1 base damage = 0 actual
2 base = 0 actual
3 base = 1 actual
4 base = 2 actual

(0 + 0 + 1 + 2) [actual damage] / 4 [# of shots] = 0.75

Now, adding that up for 19 different damage rolls is silly, but fortunately there are mathematical formulae that can be used for series like this. The general form for MoO purposes ends up being:

M = [max base damage]
m = [min base damage]
S = [target shield level]

[(M - S) * (1 + M - S)] / [2 * (1 + M - m)]

I have just a few minutes but wanted to thank you for this reply. Is that the equation used in the game?

By my calculations, if we take the 19 different damage rolls that are possible, and assume there are 19 rolls below that that miss (for 38 possibilities between 1 and 100 on a d100), then I was correct; average damage is around 1.75. But MOO probably doesn't allow for the kind of decimals that requires. Integer truncation seems to be used liberally. So your equation may be much closer to the in-game reality. Gotta go, library closing. I have faith in you guys and not much to contribute to the discussion in the time I have now. I'll be pretty busy with clinical this wknd.