MOO2 race design

[Anonymous No.5610975]

What are your perferred ways to make a custom race in MOO2?
In addition, give me your worse race imagineable.

Ill start:
Telepath + 20 spying + feudal + whatever production bonuses can be squeezed in
- Ground combat - Slow breeding and other race specific stuff like that.
The strategy is to rush someone closest to you and use them as a slave race and then use them. Since your spies are the best they can be in the game, you can steal tech left and right and sabotage enemy space starions for incredibly easy early slaughter. Since I use other races to fill out my planets that come with things like tolerant and subterrenean it bypasses the ruler race's disadvantages. Ground combat is irrelevant as well since we are telepaths and we wont be using boarding either.

Another favourite is just a spin on this of some sort:
+ Subterrenean
- Uncreative
Its fun to try to dick around with sub optimal tech choices and try out stuff you normally dont. I rarely use guass cannons for example.

[Anonymous No.5610976]

>>5610975
*and then use them for production and other things depending on who you enslave

[Anonymous No.5610996]

>>5610975
Here's what I often play with. A bit of a mix, the unification production bonuses help me get some defenses and ships built before the AI can overrun me with the bonuses it gets from higher difficulty. Once I get past the start, creative makes the game a total faceroll.
I know I could make it even better by picking repulsive and +prod with rich home world, or unification + tolerant with some other bonuses.

The worst race I can think of would be something like -prod -growth -science lithovores with +ground combat, charismatic and lucky.

Also gauss cannons are awesome, especially with autofiring and armor piercing.

[Anonymous No.5611000]

>>5610975
>give me your worse race imagineable.
black

[Anonymous No.5611039]

>>5611000
>retro games are an escape from cultural marxi—

[Anonymous No.5611050]

>>5610996
It's amazing how slow and bad creative is at the beginning. People who have done multiplayer moo2 shit on the trait relentlessly.

But in sp you can make such badass ships, a creative ship in single can beat larger ai ships 3 tech levels above it

[Anonymous No.5611167]

How do you like your galaxies? Big or small? Mineral or organic? Which tech level? With or without Antarans?

[Anonymous No.5611463]

>>5610996
Good picks anon. Unification is great, more so when you get your advanced goberment research and your Unification bonuses double.
I know a lot of people dont like feudal due to the research malus but since I like to colonize everything I can and claim massive chunks of space ASAP it helps. Its why the Sakkra always do so well. Once the research buildings start to stack up (and esp when Autolabs become commonplace) it kinda goes away.

>>5611039
Are you blind? Thats not a nog. Its just a slightly tanned Sean Connery.

>>5611167
Largest, organic, pre warp or standard. Very hard. With Antarans and random events
I also play with the fanpatch. It just fixes some of the bugs, makes the AI slightly more capable in regards to ship design, and enables some further customization options. Like enabling torpedoes on ground missile bases and planetary stations.
There's also Icemod made by the same guy if you want a more complete autismo rebalance, but be warned that it makes the AI very tough.

[Anonymous No.5611957]

>>5610975
I'm the kind of loser who picks Creative.
Then I just try to survive until I get a stellar converter and genocide the galaxy.

[Anonymous No.5612246]

>>5610975
My terrible race for sp:
Dictatorship + Creative + Industry2 + Subterranean
- Low-G World - Ground Combat - Spying

Subterranean fits with Creative as larger population offsets slower expansion and pays more taxes. As the result all the creative buildings are easier to maintain and have bigger payoff. Industry2 helps to establish new colonies and grow population.

Low-G World isn't big of a deal. Unlike Repulsive it gives us opportunity to hire characters, trade and make a lot of money with large population. With Subterranean trait even Tiny planets can house 3 citizens, 5 with Biospheres and up to 8 with Terran biome. Ground Combat is mostly irrelevant. Dictatorship Spy Defense bonus and bonus technology Creative grants us helps Spying penalty.

Strategy is to settle all planets in the homesystem however shitty they are, build outposts and 3 Destroyers with Auto-Fire Mass Drivers and muscle out other races while colonizing every non-toxic planet. With Subterranean and Industry2 most planets provide 3 hammers per worker and house dozen or more citizens. Expand, kill space monsters, and enjoy morale boost and bonus Command Points from Dictatorship.

[Anonymous No.5612716]

>>5611957
There is fun to be had with that.

>>5612246
Looks kinda based. I actually played very little with creative, maybe only 20 percent of my played games was with creative races.
I rarely take repulsive as well since I dig tech trading and being able to do something other than declare wars. Characters are a big bonus too.

[Anonymous No.5613021]

Post-nerf Creative isn't even that great, there's usually only one piece of research on each tier that's actually good and much more efficient ways to stomp the comps

[Anonymous No.5613375]

>>5612716
Yeah, trade income is a huge bonus here and Creatives have many worthless techs to give to improve relations and open trade. Scout Labs, Death Spores, etc. Captured aliens assimilate faster as well. It's usually more fun to not play as a Repulsive git.

[Anonymous No.5613391]

>>5613021
What do you mean by 'post-nerf'? Price hike?

It was never worth its picks in multiplayer. Everybody builds races to grow fast through production, research, lucky blitz. Creatives are slogging behind but accelerate over time by taking all the bonus tech. In the mean time UniTol is already far ahead and have production to stomp you and take your juicy technology.

[Anonymous No.5613705]

>>5613391
Yeah, when they changed Creative from 6 to 8 points

[Anonymous No.5613713]

>>5613021
There are a lot of "bonus" technologies that are just passives which you usualy dont take when playing non creative. It adds up a lot when a creative reaches mid to late game.
I dont even think people like it because efficency. Its more how you can build a ultimate murderrape ship this way.

[Anonymous No.5613858]

>>5613021
The thing with creatives is that they can make beam ships far earlier than anyone else since they get targeting computers from the computers tech tree, Battle Scanner from physics tree, and Mass Driver from fields, in addition to the standard research labs, communications, and ECM jammers. Mass drivers let you engage, kill some ships in a single round, and then retreat before the missiles reach your ships.
Production races are better, of course, since MOO is a snowball game and prod gets "winning lets you win more" ball going faster, and they can rush the creatives before they get a single ship off the ground.

[Anonymous No.5613997]

>>5613021
Nope, Factories and Missile Base, Holo Simulator and Supercomputer, Autolab and Structural Analyzer are on the same level. Computers, Chemistry and Force Fields have many techs which are better when picked together and they benefit from miniaturization at the same time (ECM Jammers, Internal Stabilizer, Mass Drivers, etc).

Sociology and Biology are mostly lacking in bonus techs but you will research them eventually.

[Anonymous No.5614169]

Charismatic + Telepathic + Fantastic Traders

Rush the Xeno Psychology tech; you can now diplomance your way through the game with hilarious ease. As soon as you meet someone you can quickly build an alliance with them, which lets you meet everyone they've met in turn. If one of your allies declares war on someone you can just demand that they make peace and they will always say yes because everyone loves you so much. You will now be making mad amounts of cash and research from treaties and you can trade for even more tech. If your relationship meter with someone is high enough you can even just straight up demand free stuff from them every once in a while. You can also demand people declare war on each other if need be.

[Anonymous No.5614289]

>>5614169
Do your enemies obey if you tell them to stop fighting you? This is important.

[Anonymous No.5614361]

>>5610975
I can't play this game without picking Creative.

[Anonymous No.5614708]

>>5614361
Try Democracy and Money+1 or Space Chads >>5614169

You have good research and swim in dosh.

[Anonymous No.5615080]

Unification is op

I usually do unification and tolerant with ground combat, ship defense and something else I can't remember for the negatives tho. I think uni needed a nerf more than creative did tho.

[Anonymous No.5615149]

>>5611167
Huge, impossible, pre-warp, with Antarans and randoms

[Anonymous No.5615171]

>>5615080
if there were more indepth morale mechanics instead of "build this building you won't have because you are not creative" unification would have been more balanced

[Anonymous No.5615232]

>>5614169
Sounds hella good. I might try this.

>>5615171
I wish ground combat was just a tiny bit expanded on. Like make the transport ships built on a planet that has an tank/mech building actually have some tanks/mechs on them during invasions. That'd kinda benefit creatives but also make those buildings not utterly fucking useless

[Anonymous No.5615579]

>>5615232
Ground combat doesn't really need to be expanded. If it comes to ground combat, it means you've already won/lost (depending on if you're attacking/defending) since the attacker can always just bring more transports while there's nothing the defender can do.
Besides, creatives already own ground combat with their personal shields, anti-grav harnesses and rifles.

[Anonymous No.5615713]

Yeah, all battles are won in this screen.

[Anonymous No.5615718]

Wars are won in this one.

[Anonymous No.5616206]

>>5615232
>ground combat
>he doesn't purify the xeno from orbit

[Anonymous No.5616210]

>>5616206
>he doesn't grant alien empires Evolutionary Mutation before crushing them to have better servants

[Anonymous No.5616215]

>>5615232
I wish Transport ships had Cloaking Shields and other components. Or that fighters didn't suck so much. Wait, I just want MOO3 ship constructor where you could build everything including death ray heavy fighters with personal shields that can survive drive explosion.

[Anonymous No.5616559]

>>5614169
Tried this and it was a lot of fun, thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.5617072]

>>5614708
It's not that I can't win without it, as a matter of fact I won more times without it than with it, I just don't enjoy the game as much as I do if I pick it.

[Anonymous No.5617082]

>>5616559
I pretty much always played the same race (single player only):

creative
telepathic
+1 science
repulsive
-10 ground combat
large home world

starting in huge, mineral rich galaxy.

Mind control enables me to avoid ground combat, no need for transporters, no resistance. I also LOVE capturing star bases and use them to fuck up the planetary defenses, while my ships have safely retreated. And capture + control enemy ships in battle. AI prefers to attack those over my assault battleships.

Repulsive limits trade and makes everyone hate me. Which on highest difficulty happens anyways.

Ideally, the game has Silicoids or Klackons, which can be used as work slaves.

The other bonuses make not much sense. Extra production is eaten up by pollution. Espionage is so much less useful than in MoO1. Cybernetic and lithovores is also crap imo. The AI sees your stealth ship anyways.

I have never played that game in multiplayer though. I guess that is an entirely different experience.

[Anonymous No.5618101]

I also gave the space chads a try today. Twas fun.
And i again recommend the fanpatch. It makes lategame micro less tedious by inclusion of automatic build lists.

[Anonymous No.5618360]

>>5617082
>Cybernetic and lithovores is also crap imo.

ought to give lithovore a try, anon. It is an extreme research-rush trait. Best major traits to try it out with are democracy or creative.

Demolith was a highly vetted build in multiplayer, faster than UniTol at capturing AIs and fucking people up early, and (nowadays) is particularly good in single for rushing the Guardian with missile boats. Pic related, Demolith artifacts world producing 45 science on the first turn of the game

Creolith is the fastest starter of creative builds. Why be creative if you don't need food tech? Because there are few opportunities in the biology research track that give Creatives edge over non.

[Anonymous No.5619129]

I've never tried anything like this before, but let's see if I can just colonize everything and abuse massive population. Huge galaxy, 8 races, mineral rich, pre-warp.

[Anonymous No.5619145]

And of course I start in a system that has not one, but two excellent planets in it. Both of 'em have abundant minerals.
So much for abusing lithovore to get that speedy start.

[Anonymous No.5619162]

>>5619129
>Ship Attack -2
Hold on now. Meme all you want but don't become suicidal.

[Anonymous No.5619175]

>>5619162
Right. It's supposed to be ship defense, isn't it?
I knew something felt off. Oh well, too late now.

[Anonymous No.5619226]

>>5619129
why didnt you go for farming -0.5? Your eating rock anyway.

>>5618360
this actually sounds good. Will try out lith+dem in combination with either high production and warlord or Telepathic. I always go for aggressive games. The latter always depends on having sweet exploitable work slave races in the game. But on imp you usually have very overpowered AI races anyway, like Silicoids with +2 production or tolerant Klackons.

[Anonymous No.5619245]

>>5619226
>farming penalty
I...
Why didn't I think of that? Maybe because I never play lithovore.

Anyhow, I won. Everyone hates me and keeps making demands, but none of the AI's can stand against my MIRVed Merculite Missile spamming battleships. I could now upgrade 'em to Pulsons since I stole the tech off the Mmrshan as I conquered 'em, but w/e. 16 colonies, insane population, insane tech lead. Also stole Autolabs, which are real nice. Maybe I'll finish the game tomorrow. Or maybe not; the micromanagement is getting to me.

[Anonymous No.5619273]

>>5610975
>Feudal
>Telepathic
And the rest is moot, have fun steam rolling the universe.

[Anonymous No.5619278]

>>5619245
>I...
>Why didn't I think of that? Maybe because I never play lithovore.

You can't, I just figured out. The farming trait options are greyed out once you select lithovore. Unfortunately also, Lithovore and tolerant cannot be combined. Would be way too strong anyways.

[Anonymous No.5619282]

>>5619278
>Lithovore and Tolerant cannot be combined
I see you have never played as Silicoid. You don't even need a custom race for that; stock Silicoid have it. They take a combined 20 picks, so that's all you're getting, tho.

[Anonymous No.5619535]

>>5619278

[Anonymous No.5619928]

>>5619282
>>5619535
My bad, I meant lithovore and telepathic.

[Anonymous No.5620301]

>>5619928
Anon, I hate to say it but I'm afraid you might be confused in this hot weather.

Maybe you meant that you cannot have an advanced government with Litho and Tele already?

[Anonymous No.5620391]

>>5620301
Its 12°C, rain and wind here in Denmark... why else would I look at a screen all day?

but yes, I was indeed still referring to the "Lithovore + Democracy" strategy. However, the 50% research bonus does not seem to be worth 7 skill points to me. Also because of the espionage problem that comes with it.
Oh and playing silicoids sucks. These are the first race to be enslaved in my usual strategy, and after them the Klackons - once have the core waste dump tech.

[Anonymous No.5621080]

>>5620391
Silicoids are annoying to play for me due to their autistic retard diplomacy ways. Gameplay wise I enjoy em.

>SubTol
Shidd. I need to try this. Maybe with feudal.

[Anonymous No.5622348]

Bump for SubTol

[Anonymous No.5622358]

I actually did finish the SubLit game I started.
Got over twice the previous highscore thanks to insane pop from subterranean, and swapping lithovore for cybernetic with evolutionary mutation before leaving all of those picks unused for 200% score multiplier.
Maybe I'll try something with telepathic next.

[Anonymous No.5622370]

>>5611039
Go back to /pol/

[Anonymous No.5622429]

>>5622358
Do spying with telepathic. You can bamboozle people all day long with it.

[Anonymous No.5622484]

>>5622429
OK
Just gotta rush cloning centers with this, or just abuse housing.

[Anonymous No.5622848]

>>5622484
looks interesting, I would have chosen repulsive over the growth and ship defense penalty.
Or have ship attack penalty rather than defense, because being telepathic allows you to capture enemy ships and use them right away in the same battle.

[Anonymous No.5623089]

>>5622484
Be sure to tell us how well you manage to jew the whole galaxy up. Telepathic + 20 spying can do wonders for rushes too like I described in the OP because of the spying bonus from tele and the racial stacking. I havent played too much with it but I managed to nuke enemy stations without fail when I rushed at my nearest neibhour right away.
Also, since your spies are that good they will often frame another race for tech theft, causing more discord in the galaxy and allowing you to prevent the AI to trade techs to extreme levels while you gobble all of their stuff up

[Anonymous No.5624264]

>>5623089
At first it looked like I would lose since Sakkra starter right next to me and did their usual insane colony rush. I had only my HW and 2 very new colonies when they had 6 systems.
Then a random event turned my home world ultra rich and I managed to build some ships before they attacked. A bit of spying removed the tech gap. Klackons, who started in the middle of the galaxy, declared war on Sakkra, and then on me a bit later, but were no match at that point. They made a good slave race and had many good planets.
After that it was just a victory lap. Didn't finish off everyone since I got elected Supreme Emperor just after mind controlling the whole Sakkra empire.

[Anonymous No.5625471]

>>5624264
Well thats kind of a shame

[Anonymous No.5625941]

>>5625471
for the sakkra i think

[Anonymous No.5626083]

>>5623089

[Anonymous No.5626369]

>>5626083
Spacejews and Elerians always get holocausted first. I usually load them on transport freighters and ship them to a radiated planet that is already full. Then they magically disappear.

[Anonymous No.5626487]

>start as SubTol feudal -ship attack
>get this in the starter system
OH NONONONO

[Anonymous No.5626692]

>>5626369
I do that with the furries. If I have stellar converters by that point I usualy just blow up the whole planet that has been tainted with Mrrshan stink.

[Anonymous No.5626957]

>>5626487
Turns out that the Silicoids were right next to me. They got BTFOd and im currently locked in an constant struggle with the Psilons. Once I slay them its smooth sailing, but I think im gonna get elected and then genocide the rest of the galaxy or hit for Antares. Its been a while since I did that.
Anyway ive found a new fav with SubTol.

[Anonymous No.5626981]

>>5626692
secret tip:
if you choose Mrrshan as race picture, there will be no furries in the galaxy... except for you

[Anonymous No.5627278]

>>5626981
But that means that they will win. And who will honestly want that

[Anonymous No.5628687]

Salvation bump to keep the thread going until i finish the match

[Anonymous No.5628727]

>>5628687
It needed rescuing in 10 hours? Damn, this forum must be faster than I thought.

Since I was shilling lithovore earlier I thought I would put my money where my mouth is and attempt to demonstrate a Guardian rush here using the DemoLith build.
>huge imp 8player prewarp demolith artifacts ROLLROLLROLL

[Anonymous No.5628731]

>>5628727
I should note that the idea here is to research
>the bare minimum of tech required,
>to build a bare minimum of specifically-geared ships,
>that can apply just the bare minimum amount of pressure needed,
>to puncture a single face of the Guardian's shields,
>for a single combat turn,
>to slip EMG's in there that can blow its engine.

After this you're home free in the game because you get Loknar's battleship.

These methods were developed at no less a prestigious institution than CalTech, though they've long since taken down the little strategy writeups they had. So maybe it's, like, our duty to preserve this knowledge for future generations.

[Anonymous No.5628783]

>>5628731
We have spawned in the lower left-hand corner. I guess corresponding with the mineral seeding for this galaxy we have a couple of dead medium-sized rocks alongside the artifact-blessed homeworld. Some starting systems are fucking pathetic. This is fine.

The distance from the center of the map is pretty serious, and in all likelihood we'll be dropping a string of outposts. We cannot afford a lot of colony ships. Orion is somewhere in the zoombox I have put over the galaxy in the pic. I do not believe the star's color is any indication of which one Orion is.

2 workers is the most effective allocation for non-tolerant, I opine. Any much more and we are just building radiation barrels; any much less and we aren't building anything.

[Anonymous No.5628812]

>>5628783
Just 1 star in range with the standard fuel cells it looks like.
A rough start.

[Anonymous No.5628862]

>>5628812
>>5628783
it is isolated indeed.

Fortunately Deut cells are in the optimal tech path (usually people don't need tritanium armor) but hitting F9 to check ranges, the yellow star is 8 away so I will be making an ext tank scout (25 prod) just to peek at it when we get the fuel cells.

[Anonymous No.5628891]

>>5628862
I've heard from a lot of sources that the best opening is
>Electronic Computer
>Research Lab
>Reinforced Hull (your choice)
>Automated Factory

This path normally puts any race's research and production level on the map. Deviating from it costs turns, and not taking the Lab or the Factory at those techs is in fact really bad and dangerous. These buildings are one of the issues that makes Uncreative so awful. If you fail to roll the lab, don't plan on doing any research that game and just roll up ayys with rushed fleets.

[Anonymous No.5628924]

>>5628891
At turn 14 we've got the assets in place. Now I feel like we're on the map. There is more research and at least a little bit of actual production occurring. Percentage-wise, the lab doesn't appear to do much over our already phenomenal science capability. But this is a democracy, and so the structure works harder for us than it does for most of the other races in terms of raw points. DemoLith zips ahead for a while.

[Anonymous No.5628934]

>>5628862
>you can measure distances between starts with F9
Huh. I did not think I would learn something new about a 23 year old game that I first played about 15 years ago.

[Anonymous No.5628938]

>>5628924
The CalTech people said unitol was their pick for strongest build, but that its strength came at the end of the early game. It was highly vulnerable to Demolith and Feudal. For comparison here is a screenie of a UniTol +1F game. I completed the lab and factory at turn 30. From there, you continue to fall behind technologically until you outbuilt everything.

[Anonymous No.5628964]

>>5628938
How did they rank meme builds like Aquatic, Spymasters and Creative?

[Anonymous No.5629010]

Ive decided to just go to Antares this time around. I could have won via council or conquest but ehhh.
I need to switch back to impossible. Hard is too easy unless you are playing Icemod.

>>5628934
You can also engage super fast auto combat by pressing Z on the battle screen.

[Anonymous No.5629029]

>>5628934
cheers

>>5628964
all were judged pretty strictly weaker in multiplayer than the triangle of optimized research / production / shiprush... they basically indicated that governments were definitive and it was hard in particular for dictatorship to be competitive. Aqua and sub got some acknowledgment because you can luck out on your surrounding worlds with them and make things very interesting.

Creative gets rolling too late; in single it's fun and in multi it was like posting "My body is available for hard use until t180"

[Anonymous No.5629074]

how does one find ppl to play moo2 online nowadays? implying i wouldn't get anally annihilated at turn 50 by some old geeks who have not played anything else since 1998.

[Anonymous No.5629138]

>>5629029
>>5628938
Our story resumes at t17. This turn pauses at an important milestone for any session of Master of Orion II. Yes, it's that time again. We have to reject Kimbuzzi. This asshole shows up at my doorstep Every. Fucking. Game. And yes, he can solicit Lithovores; the RNG doesn't discriminate. What happens is the impossible Ayys quickly pick up all the stronger heroes, and the situation is pronounced here because we're Repulsive, so our pool of applicants is quite weak.

Unlike ship heroes there is no cheap and easy way to get him killed. You'd have to get your colony destroyed by invasion or bombardment.

>>5629074
No idea man, I am just relaying things better players than I am have said in the past about multiplayer.

[Anonymous No.5629161]

>>5629138
I always seem to get the financial dude whose only bonus is 10% income. I forgot his name. The one who looks like a bald man with some splotches of gold paint on him.
At least he pays for himself and starts turning a profit once he levels up.

[Anonymous No.5629184]

>>5629138
The next major research objective people often think about after you've got your factory and lab is what to do about Planetary Supercomputers, a 900 RP tech that follows a 400 RP tech.

For now we will get the prereqs for ships, which are cheap, but that tech is the next goal. Like most of the Computer line it presents non-creatives with hard choices. The Holo Simulator is great. The targeting computer is desirable, if for no other reason than because ALL of the more advanced targeting computers also come from hard choices.

[Anonymous No.5629368]

>>5629184
>>5629161
Fortunately Ay Tone show up. Unfortunately he gives jack-all at the moment but will be of use when the home system is making production bursts, such as when creating a freshly-researched item or waiting for a tech breakthrough.

I don't know how people prefer to approach tech breakthroughs.

Personally I tend to research up to around 40 percent breakthrough chance and then go full production until it happens. If turns keep passing by at 40%, rather than doing something about it I just I get madder and madder and start beating my chest about how much of a victim I am. I think it's a pretty good system.

[Anonymous No.5629391]

>>5629138
Dunno, if it works only for me. When you reject his proposal he stays in the pool for 30 turns awaiting hire. When there is a guy waiting like that other heroes seem much less likely to offer their service. If you dismiss you him from the pool somebody else can come to you.

[Anonymous No.5629607]

>>5629074
There is an Moo2 online discord somewhere. Just google it.

[Anonymous No.5629969]

>>5629368
Some turns pass and production and small tech happens but nothing that warrants a decision. All in all, though, this seems like a pretty busy earlygame. The homeworld got kind of moist from all the stockpiled hammers and squirted out a colony base at t22. At t23, we started going exploring in a frigate. So far, I'm totally not impressed with what's out there. There's this, which is decent but probably not in our path of conquest, and then the Brown star to the east is an empty system.

But even if the race is omniscient it is a good idea to explore all systems in range because of the specials. Splinter Colony, Pirate Stash, Marooned Hero, and unguarded Artifacts worlds (free tech). Haven't seen anything yet though.

[Anonymous No.5630051]

>>5629969
At t44 we finally reach our tech goal, the Planetary Supercomputer, and when I look at the colony screen there's just one (1) turn left on the colony base. Here then, is a prime example of a Decision™. The instantaneous payoff on the supercomputer is something like 34-40 beakers per turn. The colony base is going to be 3 hammers per turn and some pop growth, so to hell with it. Computer first, and the new colony is backlogged.

Until the Orion fleet equipment starts appearing in the tech menu, we're basically going to just be greedy for any stuff that puts it there faster: namely, more domestic industry and research buildings. So in the pic, we're peering just a bit further into the Construction and Chem trees and seeing two such items. The Robo Miner plant will give us another industrial revolution like the auto factory. The Atmosphere Renewer will allow us to efficiently assign A LOT more workers whenever we need to do so.

The Renewer is overkill, really. The Pollution processor 1 step back would be much better. But on that tech rung we need our key weapon, Merculite Missiles. Merculites are the little pens those human players who have gone before us have taken up to write all the great stories of their galaxies... or something like that.

[Anonymous No.5630378]

>>5629969
>>5630051
Keep going anon. This is great.

[Anonymous No.5630824]

>>5630378
Thanks!

This vacant corner of space we spawned in is getting annoying!
>pic
me on the left, headed home after being the first and last visitor, ever, to the Enoch system. That star will never again be visited by anyone. Even those of us without faith might acquire a certain comfort towards the end of our lives knowing that we live on through the consequences of what we have done and that we have a second life, in some sense, in the memories of those who survive us.

Whereas that star is going to die some day, too, and no one will give a shit.

[Anonymous No.5630879]

>>5630051
>>5630824

Getting back into chronological order, it's now turn 53 and we are doing science. The direction is raw industry first:
>Battle Pods (250 RP)
>Spaceport (400)
>Robo Miner Plant (650)

and then pollution control:
>Deuterium (250)
>Merculite Missile (650)
>Atmosphere Renewer (1150)

We've just gotten off doing a 400RP tech followed by the 900 RP supercomputers so these dinky techs will be flying right by. And after just listing all that shit, I decided to prioritize the Deuterium. With the extended ship range, we suddenly get some reasonably good news about the terrain out there.

The system Inari contains this Medium Abundant Swamp world, swamp being a bit of a rarity on high mineral settings. We can leverage all our new industrial research by making a col ship and putting down there. We need the other end of that wormhole, too; I will at least be planting an outpost there to put us in fuel range of the center. If an AI colonizes the system first that's even simpler, we'll just fucking own it with our Orion fleet on its way to the guardian.

[Anonymous No.5631243]

>>5611039
that nigga's White, my dude.

[Anonymous No.5631259]

>>5615713
>max missles early game
>equipped in 3's
>reinforced hull
I see you are also a man of culture.
MIRV nuclear missles will carry you right up to Zortium Armor and Plasma Cannons.

[Anonymous No.5631280]

>>5626369
Darloks are first for the rope, er bombardment.
They're a race of whores, who steal tech and then turn around and spread their legs to the whole galaxy to give it away.

[Anonymous No.5631623]

>>5630879
From turn 55 all the way out to turn 90 we are basically stockpiling production in a simplistic manner by building an expensive ship that we run no risk of completing, and also getting the aforementioned important techs and some backfill. Like for example to build the colony ship it turned out that I had not yet researched "Colony Ship," so our shipyards did not get very far with that project initially.

Swamp worlds occur in the outer orbits of systems, where the ranking goes tundra, swamp, and terran. The inner orbit planets are ranked desert, arid, and terran. Swamps and arids are not equal. Swamps have the same default food yield as terran, which is 2. But for an environmentally "normal" race (not aqua, sub, or tol), only 40% of the surface of a swamp planet is habitable, whereas arid is 60% habitable. If this medium world were arid, the population limit would be 9. Our medium terran homeworld is 80% habitable (12), and a medium gaia is 100% habitable (15).

[Anonymous No.5631652]

I just fucked up a few UniTol attempts. Settings were tolerant, repulsive, unification, halved growth, +1prod, large home world. I have to find the right tech sequence, was way behind the impossible AI. Although I had massive production capabilities, not being warlord prevented me from building a huge fleet. That may be a nice rush strategy for small galaxies.

[Anonymous No.5631681]

>>5631623
Anons we are getting close. Pic related is the final line of hardware we will research and use to kill the Guardian.
>Fast Rax
We have to fire all of our missiles of each type from specific locations.
>Zortrium Armor
So far, we have only researched Paper Maché Armor, so we need this for our battleship design in particular. We need this tech level, as well, because this is a level of miniaturization for Merculite missiles.
>Emissions Guidance System
While the previous two components might be able to be simulated in theory by quadrupling the size of the fleet (which is inefficient), this is required.
>Neutron Scanner
This is a passive component like the Zortrium Armor. It helps the missiles hit the target, countering the Guardian's ECM. Settling for the Tachyon Scanner 1 tech level back (250 RP) leaves the battle completely up to chance, which is bad. I don't want to have done all this shit just to leave this up to chance.

[Anonymous No.5631713]

>>5631681
Some friends show up in the middle of the map. This is very late for our first meeting with an AI on Impossible 8. We must have been super isolated in that corner!
>Gnol
Oh shit get the showers ready

Preparing as well to drop an outpost at the end of that wormhole and have a 2nd standing by. Orion is either the near White from Osiris or the further Blue or Red. The Gnolams have assisted by narrowing down the possibilities. The AIs have something like the Galactic Knowledge trait on heroes, and don't need to explore really (they know which one it is), and if you observe them they don't send exploration frigates into the mouths of space monsters like we have to. At least I've never seen it happen.

>>5631652
Were you spread out and had trouble with AI's attacking? Unitol is not supposed to have any trouble putting up starbases. They can keep planets from getting invaded and you can arrive with guys to break the blockade.

[Anonymous No.5631723]

>>5631713
>Orion is either the near White from Osiris or the further Blue or Red.

Whoops I meant the near Blue, the one towards the center. Or the White or Red in that area.

[Anonymous No.5631740]

>>5631713
First time, I omitted researching L1 shields and Elerians rushed my 2 systems next to them. Shieldless bases got smoked by their HF lasers.
Second time I had furries next to me, who had already equipped their fleet with L3 shields. Most of mine was still a monster-hunting fleet, basically a shoal of mirv-missile shooting drigates and destroyers. Those were cut to pieces, too. I think I replay in a smaller galaxy where I can crush one or two neighbos early on and get some of their tech.

[Anonymous No.5631756]

>>5631740
Remember that you can refit old ships and heavy modifications deals 150% and punches through shields better.

[Anonymous No.5631767]

>>5631681
The final research projects for this rush are pretty expensive, 5300 RP plus the breakthrough periods. But we've been autistically beelining structures that help meet these costs. One benefit of isolation, of course, was the savings on spies. Didn't need to produce any agents for a long time.

A little late, but not too late I think, I planted that swamp colony. Since everyone around here seems to fap to the notion of having lots of likeminded people all working for the good of their Race, I thought it might be appropriate to use Cloning Centers, a 400 tech diversion that can pay off if you leverage it early enough. I am not sure whether I got them in place early enough to actually save turns rushing Orion, but populations look pretty impressive to me at the end of the tech line.


>>5631740
Shields on missile boats are sub-optimal. I think you should put those RPs towards upgrading the missiles. In battle you just fire the 2-shot rax and run away until they reach their marks. But the AI uses shields of course, and when you start seeing the L3's that is a trailing indicator that one needs Merculites.

I believe both Shields and Beams are more of a creative thing, OR something to try out after nailing the missile boats...

[Anonymous No.5631768]

What would you say is the best beam weapon? Autofiring disruptors?

I usually don't bother with invading Antares since it's so much easier to wipe the AI players out, but I think I have one more game in me before I'm burned out and that could as well be an Antarean run. How early do you do it, and what kind of fleets do you use for it?

[Anonymous No.5631782]

>>5631768
I try to kill all AI but one colony and optimize and max out all my colonies for score reasons. Antares is relatively easy with a mixed fleet of titans with death ray and tractor beams and stealth battleships firing plasma net.
The titans exploit the fact that almost all antaran ships explode once immobile or their ships have no more marines. The plasma net is for their star base. All that plasma keeps accumulating and will eventually destroy it. Its the final battle so best have a little weaponless scout ship somewhere far away, that can wait for the base being destroyed while your fleet is dead. Losing ships does not impact your score.

[Anonymous No.5631804]

>>5631767
yeah I know the missile hit and run tactic, but when engaging a large fleet, enemy ships might simply shoot those shieldless missile ships up in the first or second turn. If there is a alrge explosion, that will even destroy all missiles in the vicinity. I use those missile boats to hunt monsters and blow up early-game bases and planetary bases.

[Anonymous No.5632367]

>>5631259
haha, apropos:

>>5631767
Here is one of the fleet designs the CalTech people gave us for the Guardian. You build one battleship and maybe 4-6 frigates to taste. We are getting these rolled out around t122. In my considered view, and if I do say so myself, this is mind-numbingly early to attack the Guardian from a pre-warp start, but here we are. Fuckin A.

[Anonymous No.5632478]

>>5632367
This pic is what is described as the "minimal" guardian fleet. You build two cruiser class vessels using these designs, and add 4 of the frigates shown in the previous picture. Not counting the fleets' identical frigate complements, the battleship costs 1325h, and these two cruisers cost 1153h.

I have several problems with the minimal fleet. First, the Guardian is quick to pick on the cruisers, and they will not survive the battle; whereas the battleship will survive, and if nothing else you can scrap it afterwards for a huge payoff. Second, this fleet requires more command points and will be definitely be draining your money fast while it exists. Third and more important, the minimal fleet has a higher failure rate, and CalTech said adding a third cruiser (of type 2 in the pic) may be wise. We are sort of iron-manning this run, and we will not accept failure.

[Anonymous No.5632564]

>>5632478
The fleet departs Trilar and will pick up 2 extra frigates from the swamp. Yoda is going to be there to help, lots of ghosts of old CalTech jedi and grad students will be watching, we're their second-to-last hope but promise we'll be back to complete our training etc. etc. and all kinds of other bullshit. Good times.

Orion colony ship trails the Orion fleet by 1 turn because we are just that cocksure about our odds. Also, I really, really like that pipeline to the center of the map. That is seriously the most useful wormhole I have ever come across.

I also recently recruited the cutest hero in the whole game. Captain Gizmo endlessly bathes our academic networks with 10 RPT worth of excited squeaks and whistling noises about high-tech gadgetry. We assign him somewhere deep in the bowels of the battleship and put it in hyperspace transit.

[Anonymous No.5632591]

>>5632564
I forgot to mention that yes, I found out which system Orion was. The battle between the Scout ship and the Guardian was short.

So this is now about revenge! No one messes with our Scouts. *Ulp* Here we go.

[Anonymous No.5632631]

and?

[Anonymous No.5632712]

>>5632631
>>5632591

Well if you MUST know...

The guardian wins the initiative roll (of course), opens by frying 2 frigates with its death rays. We order the remaining 4 to move close ranks with to the battleship, but not get in front of it, and each fires off their EMG missile.

From its starting position, the battleship fires its banks of EMGs. Then, we move ahead one square and fire off the huge cloud of MIRV missiles. These are intended to punch the required hole in the enemy shield. Then we advance 2-3 more squares and fire off all the remaining missiles, which are armored & fast guys that trigger the enemy's Spatial Compressor. I wish he'd target them with his pt defense Particle Beams but he doesn't. He fires at the MIRVs, so I am quite glad that we have a metric shitload of them.

With the missiles all fired we just hope for the best, anons. Guardian has an ATU. When it directs its Death Rays at the battleship on the next turn, the ship's armor is bypassed, but the reinforced hull holds it together.

Fast missiles trigger the defenses, MIRVs slam in, hole punched, EMGs pop the engine, kthxbye. gfgf

[Anonymous No.5632757]

>>5628727
why did you take shipdef-20 instead of spy-10?
is it to offset the spy penalty of demo?

[Anonymous No.5632785]

>>5632712
Will you keep playing now that you have Orion tech or will this demonstration end here?

[Anonymous No.5632820]

>>5632712
The spoils of war...

The warship in particular is a serious prize. This thing is like the Arc of the Covenant in this era. No AI can field a fleet that can get anywhere near it for another 150 turns at least. The one vulnerability of Damper Field-based defenses is, funny enough, the EMG missiles we just used to win. If they are fired against Loknar's ship, make sure to teleport around until you have zapped them all.

>>5632757
It didn't matter in this game, but generally I would take the ship defense penalty over -spying. If your spies suck too hard you will just hemorrhage tech. Especially when they notice your Orion equipment. The ship ATTACK penalty can be problematic, too, due to the reduced viability of beams and the loss of ship initiative.

>>5632785
Wasn't really planning on continuing this game because I have played precisely this incoming noobstomping party out once before. But I definitely recommend doing it at least once, and/or incorporating pieces of this rushing strategy for other race builds...

[Anonymous No.5632848]

>>5632820
Well if you want to keep the thread going...
And this AAR style is a real treat to read. Do you have any other strategies you wanna show off?

[Anonymous No.5632885]

>>5632848
I am slow at writing things down and even slower at playing... but if something interesting comes up I aill at least post pics or make snide remarks. I'm glad you liked the writeup though!

[Anonymous No.5633132]

>>5632885
Ive been thinking of trying my hand at beating the game on impossible as all the base races without any further modifications to them and then uploading it as an AAR thing here as I go along. Its been a while since I played and I am a bit rusty, but it could be fun.
Should I go for it, anons?

[Anonymous No.5633154]

>>5633132
Have fun with Darloks, Elerians and Gnolams.
Also yes. Do it.

[Anonymous No.5633247]

>>5633154
Alright! Im more worried about the spurdos than the Elerians desu.
Starting with the Alkari tomorrow, whom I am pretty sure Ive never played before and who very rarely show up in my games.
Note that I will be using the latest fanpatch on the 1.5 "improved" vannila settings.
>Included in the 1.50 download and the default choice in Launcher, 1.50 improved updates standard with Ship Initiative II, interactive combat stats, updated AI ship designs, removal of quirky classic behaviors, several tweaks, and an AI that can research hyper-advanced techs.
All it really does in practice other than making the AI slightly better at ship design and adding quality of life improvements is that it enables you to tweak an absolute fuckton of things. And very very minor balance stuff, like it enables torpedoes on stations, which I really like since I often make use of them.

[Anonymous No.5633331]

>>5633247
>fanpatch
That's going to make your game a bit tougher than mine. The AI was improved.

I don't use 1.5 because I heard somewhere that he messed with the tech tree. If I started working towards something as a matter of course and found out it wasn't there anymore, I would blow a fucking gasket.

[Anonymous No.5633364]

>>5633331
I think he messed with the tech tree in ICEMOD, not the 1.5. Icemod rebalances a fuckton of stuff to make the game far more difficult, the Icemod AI is ruthless, agressive, and cheats like insane on the higher difficulties to boot.
Some of his ICEMOD changes make a lot of sense, though. Like removing upkeep from the rax and the vehicle factory, both buffing those buildings and giving Feudal and Dictatorship less of an disadvantage over other goverments.

[Anonymous No.5634571]

I'm sick and can't think straight.
That means it's time for memes. My first game on impossible, let's go get crushed. Destination: Antares.

[Anonymous No.5634615]

I am totally impressed by how quickly they can build battleships.

[Anonymous No.5634620]

no workers busy growing food, no waste generated. I never got good playing silicoids tho. Always way behind in tech and population.

[Anonymous No.5634659]

>>5634620
Cloning centeres, spamming colony ships and using the housing colony trick helps.
The last one is this: a colony will gain more people from building housing if it has more vacant room in it. So you have one colony in a system that is dedicated to just building housing and then as soon as you have some people there you instantly offload it to another colony in the same system. This allows you to fill out planets a lot quicker.

[Anonymous No.5634803]

>>5634659
housing colony trick needs lots of micro

[Anonymous No.5635097]

>>5634803
It is annoying but you dont need to do it past the early game.

[Anonymous No.5635218]

>>5634571
Meh.
I forgot how shitty the Antaran fleet is and went for a total overkill fleet.
The Sakkra were more of a challenge with how they shat out a fuckhuge fleet every other turn - and then suicided it into my by far smaller fleet because they ignored range and didn't close in while I had mauler devices.
Waste of time/10

[Anonymous No.5635243]

Here we go. For the sake of making this more interesting im gonna go with a cluster map setting added by the fanpatch.
Just gonna go with a standard opener with research labs + factory and then we'll see what happens. I almost always go missiles, so ill try to avoid that.

[Anonymous No.5635310]

>>5635243
An Emo has shown up and offered to do science. I've foolishly accepted him because he's better than the alternatives I would probably get if I told him to buzz off.
Our first scout has been vored by an space dragon and we are stuck with it being our nearest star. While the place it is guarding is pretty good, we wont be able to slay him for a while. This is bad since I wont be able to take the armour like I wanted to and take advantage of the clustered galaxy setting and im stuck with the fuel cells in order to be able to do anything.
The dumb rocks are apperently somewhere in this mess of an galaxy, though the illustrious coid rock farmers mentioned by the news robot arent present in the game.
And look who else is in! Right next to us too. The (((gnolam))) have used up their bonus race picks they got from the increased difficulty to turn democratic. This will turn them into the ultimate money making machine, and the bonuses they get from impossible difficulty plus the democracy research bonus means that they'll outperform us technologicaly too if we dont close the gap soon. I'm gonna try to use some spies and a few ships to knock them out fast, or at least grab out their colony so im not stuck with this stupid dragon here.
A few turns later as im researching the neural scanner and pondering my next move this guy shows up. Looks like Emo is gonna get the boot.

[Anonymous No.5635418]

>>5635310
The Darloks are in and they seem buff as fuck. They are apperently battling the Silicoids up there and seemingly winning.
As for my position I'm not sure what to do. Wherever I go the gnolam instantly buy an station which I have no way of defeating. They seem to have a character that has an assasin skill too since every couple of turns one of my spies croaks. I cannot reach their systems without extended fuel and every couple of turns I try they blow up the outpost in their territory. I might reroll this as embarrasing as it is, since I cannot think of any way to actually knock them out unless I go MIRV nukes as usual.

[Anonymous No.5635512]

>>5635310
never had the slightest problem outperforming the gnolams or psilons, I was thinking it might be their grav penalty, but more likely it's just that AI sucks at lining-up and leveraging a tech like a human can. Outbuilding the human, though.

[Anonymous No.5635642]

>>5635097
the early part is the most important in higher difficulty games

[Anonymous No.5635865]

Great to see these good old screenshot stories going! Always fun to read... playing these old 4X games myself feels more like a chore too often.

[Anonymous No.5637530]

>>5635865

[Anonymous No.5638193]

>>5635418
any progress?

[Anonymous No.5639369]

>>5635418
more updates?

[Anonymous No.5639731]

>>5610975
I like +2 research, unification, subterranean and large home world. Negative picks are repulsive, ship def and ground combat because: >>5616206

I rush out and claim the nicest systems in my locale, ignore the trash ones. Research cloning centres asap, then research labs and supercomputers to stack my research bonuses while things are still peaceful. I then prioritize research and rush for anti-matter torpedoes and zortrium before things heat up, with a few rich worlds putting a few pop. production into stand-in battleship designs, timed so that when the research concludes they can quickly shit out the real designs which strongly outclass anything my neighbours have at that point. With early security established it becomes fairly leisurely, tech advantage snowballs which (with smart picks + spying techs) leads to a general avalanche of advancement in all areas. I don't bother capturing enemy planets -- that's tedious. I just eradicate any species that particularly annoyed me that game and then go kill the Antarans.

Thanks for reading my blog.

[Anonymous No.5639948]

i'm always antsy about making Rich and U-Rich do research, but i suppose what you are doing with the minerals is saving turns getting through the building list to this point.

>>5639731
nothing doing for your fleet's fuel range or the game score but there is a fun factor, sure

[Anonymous No.5639969]

>>5639948
Rich, U Rich -> fleet production
Poor, U Poor -> farming
Tiny, Small -> population

[Anonymous No.5640020]

>>5638193
>>5639369
Sorry boys, ive got some health issues I need to get done. After that I ll return.
If I dont return that means im legit dead though

[Anonymous No.5640038]

>>5640020
I was going to propose that anon had died, but I didn't want to spread disinformation. But this settles it. Next time, I should obviously just do what feels right in my heart.

[Anonymous No.5640602]

>>5640020
take care and be safe, anon

[Anonymous No.5641739]

>>5640020
Hope you had a good run anon.

[Anonymous No.5643209]

Thanks lads

[Anonymous No.5643732]

>>5640020
Hope you installed a quantum detonator in yourself Anon.