Reading it all dude ... keep going until the entire galaxy is yours!!! [:D]ORIGINAL: Bingeling
Edit: Oh, and if someone is reading this thread, at least a short comment or sign of life would be nice
Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Of course it will be mine. Quite a bit of it, anyways. I am bad at declaring war, but that would not be a good idea at the current time, anyways. Not that it prevents AI empires from doing so.
Pirates can be a royal pain, and I may have gone a bit far in that regards. But a good thing is that one really learns to hate the most active pirate crews, and destroying them gives a good amount of satisfaction. Later in the game empires can do good things that make me hate them as well.
Pirates can be a royal pain, and I may have gone a bit far in that regards. But a good thing is that one really learns to hate the most active pirate crews, and destroying them gives a good amount of satisfaction. Later in the game empires can do good things that make me hate them as well.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
To a better future?
2147.03.25. We are still not well off, and we have just position our fleets after the pirate assault. We lost almost half of our ships. The economy is not strong.
Could a fix be within reach?
Some distance to the NE there is the juicy Atuuk independent.
We don't know what the defenses are. We don't know what the ruin is. But we know there is a lot of potential slaves that could work for us.
We know that there are a lot of pirate bases nearby.
This could, depending on corruption, make a radical impact on our economy, and at least pay for a defensive fleet to protect it. We hope...
One troop transport is ordered, as that is all we can afford right now.
2127.05.08 Tactial interceptors are done. Research on shockwave torpedos are started.
This enables the tech to build carriers.
2127.05.20 We get message about the Haakonish and Quameno ending war, we saw the Haakonish grabbing two minor colonies in quick succession. Lots of wars involving the Haakonish ends.
2147.06.17 We have enough cash to order another troop transport. We will buy frigates and add to the battle 2 fleet (of frigates and destroyers) every time when we can afford them.
2147.09.07 We complete research in continental colonization. Coordinated control next, 4% maintenance savings? Yes please.
2147.09.12 The first troop transport is complete. It is told to load troops at dhayu 3 where the capital ship is present. When complete the other troop transport will load at Arexie.
Why two transports? The independent has a massive population that boosts defense. It may have a pirate base, even though it said no in that screenshot. And we do not want to recruit any crap atuuk troops, so any troops will have to be brought in anyways. Also, raid defenses...
2147.10.14 A tefnyl hive gift og 3640? Yes please. This is only our second gift ever as far as we know. A few times we have sent AI suggested gifts in the 300 range.
Our carrier design still lack fighter bays. The AI designer can probably not fit them to the small max size. And we can not afford them, anyways. Even if we could, they need some meat shields.
The troop transport at dhayu loads 6 troops. It leaves only 3, and we tell the colony to recruit 3 more. To prepare for the incoming load, we recruit 2 more at Arexie.
2147.11.28 The second troop transport is ready, and is told to load at arexie. The first is just finished loading at Dhayu and move to arexie. We verify that battle 2 has good fuel levels. We put the two troop transports in a new fleet and name it invasion.
Free trade with the Qilla Domain. They are Ikurro and far away, it won't hurt.
2148.02.11: As the troop transport arrives to load at Arexie, the lone daggers arrive with a somewhat large fleet. The troop transport takes a few damage quickly, but is luckily still empty. The battle 2 fleet is lower in numbers than before the spaceport attack, and is told to move to a nearby system alongside the invasion fleet.
The troop transport has its hyperdrive disabled and is badly damaged, including its hyperdrive. 3 frigates take rail gun damage.
The full troop transport is near the action, but was luckily not quite there yet.
In good micro manage fashion we:
1: Tell battle 2 to move to the star of the Atuuk independent system (Sipan).
2: Afterward we tell the 3 damaged ships to repair, which will send them home, and they should later rejoin the fleet.
3: After a short wait, we tell the working troop transport to attack Sipan.
The repairing fleet members will lose their repair order if the fleet has a new order, but they will be in the repair shop long before battle 2 reaches Sipan.
Hopefully... If in a pinch, battle 2 can be told to attack by multi selecting the ships, and for movement moving the fleet leader is enough.
As the battle fleet land in the system, we will have time to stop the troop transport, and they will pull any present pirates away from the colony.
2148.03.13 Military refueling rights from the Tefnyl Hive. Not that we need it now, but signs of some friends in the galaxy are welcome.
2148.06.22 The AI being AI... It heads for advanced jump stalling as it finishes high volume thrust. We doubt it will ever equip the module on anything smaller than cruisers, and we can't even build a proper destroyer.
Battle 2 heading for Sipan with Invasion fleet of now 1 transport trailing. A single frigate came from a different spot, possibly after doing its own escape from the Arexie battle and somehow escaping damage.
2148.04.12 We notice a pirate flag and see a construction ship next to Dhayu. The Fierce Moon Minerals have not caused us trouble, but we will cause them trouble. The capital ship is next doors, now with an attack order on the construction ship. It will do its thing again, and it will work until someone creates a speedy construction ship.
As the 3 damaged ships of battle 2 exit from repairs, they are told to attack a captured mine west of the capital. Darn pirates and our inadequate protection level.
As the lead ship of battle 2 enter the Saipan system, a large lone dagger fleet is present and battling some ships of the Savage Sun Ventures. The colony has 1 atuuk militia, recruiting one more. It is at max population with 20630M.
We don't want to battle that lone dagger fleet in a fair fight, and battle 2 will be micro manage to jump around the system, hopefully with a trail of pirate ships behind it.
I watch the approach of invasion, the position of the pirates, and battle 2 closely. I even slow down the game from my usual 2X speed to 1X... With inefficient moving (the battle 2 fleet will move all to the star before going on), I micro manage their evasive actions.
The "enemy" pirate around the colony makes some lone dagger ships hang around to kill it. As invasion is close, the coast is not clear, and we tell it to move to empty space a bit outside the system. There is a proper pirate battle at the colony.
As the "absent" battle 2 members kill the mining station we recive 3600 credits and are free to order battle 2 as a fleet. We notice 22k cash on hand, 4k cashflow, and buy some frigates (5 for 19k).
As pirates battle at the colony, none are too busy following battle 2 after the first couple of jumps.
The pirate battle takes time, but time flows slowly while jumping around. The lone daggers appear to use gravitic weapons, we have been exposed for their rail guns until now.
Various other ships also drop by, like from the Talfagleu Army, and an escort from a Securan empire.
A Free Talfagleu Utopia colony ship appear. How many colonyships have failed to colonize here? We are happy there are pirates present to chase it away, though.
As the battle seems to end, and many ships left the systems, new lone dagger ships appear around the colony... Waiting (while moving)...
We get tired of hoping for "free skies", and order battle 2 to attack an escort at the outskirts of the pack. The troop transport is told to attack the colony.
The transport is slipping in, and we spam "attack" orders to overule its flight instinct. That is bad news for the transport, though, it has done its final mission.
The transport drops it troops, but is doomed. The invasion seems like a scary fight, but there is only one defensive troop, and as it is focus fired on and dies the colony is ours.
Battle 2 is sent to repair.
The colony is filled with a whiny bunch. They dislike us (the dhayut), the dislike our recent conquest, they are terrified about recent pirate raids, and they lack resources to grow.
The start revenue is at 86k, and they are too angry to tax. Hopefully we can improve on both, but keeping the skies clear at this spot will be a challenge. The corruption is at a nasty 46%, and not a regional capital tech in sight.
At least the population should help repel raids...
The colony is a carbon fibre source, and is probably a good spot for our civilian ships to get killed at. But we gain some modest amount of credits, and recruit frigates. This will be a priority to defend.
The influence circle around Sipan includes quite a few resources including our beloved tyderios, two supernova sites with modest weapon research bonuses, and at least 3 pirate bases. It is not a densely packed area of space, but the circle is huge.
2149.03.07 Battle 2 is on its way home, and we have cash incoming, maybe in part from civilian purchases after capturing our new colony. As new frigates are
bought we start adding them to a new home fleet. At this time, including ships under construction, we have 38 frigates and 6 destroyers. And the capital ship.
Battle 2 has 34 ships at this time.
2149.05.23 Another Fierce Moon construction ship triest to set up a spaceport In Adiga next to Dhayu. Again our capital ship takes off.
2149.05.30 We lose some of our troopers at Sipan 4. These raids hurt quite a lot, and they take the most of the beating. Against better judgement we start recruiting some Atuuk troops. Wave after wave of raiders arrive, adding to the attack strength. We interfere with the AI and dismiss a troop general that spawned with -20% defense strength.
Saipan is not a friendly place for anything, so adding troops with a new transport is out of the question at this time.
2149.08.03 All dhayut troops at Saipan has been killed by pirate raids. We need a good number of troops to share raid damage alongside space defenses to control this spot properly.
Earlier, I wondered why Dhayu 3 had less than 10 troops, now I know what happened there...
We notice the construction ship almost outracing our capital. We ask 5 complete frigates in the 10 ship home fleet to attack it. They are a speedy bunch.
We also notice that there is a decent, pirate controlled mortalen colony in our Sipan area of influence. Battle 2 heads for sipan star, but will struggle with the range. They had barely enough fuel to get back to the spaceport the last time.
Faster guys to the rescue.
As the 34 ship battle 2 enters Sipan, it is renamed Sipan fleet. Pirate raids have been small scale lately, but the low fuel level of the fleet members are a worry.
A tiny contribution from Sipan 4. 1% tax of 212K revenue. The capital has 205K revenue, but 27% tax.
If we can nudge happiness high enough for even 10% tax it will be a decent income bonus. After recruiting some more troops, the cashflow is solid negative, money near 0, and we dream of a new troop transport and a shipment to Sipan.
2150.05.20 With Battle 2 standing guard and the Sipan system is at peace, we see full freighters carry goods to Sipan 4. Tax at 2%...
One troop transport is ordered as we got some cash on hand. Troops are garrisoned to be protected from pickup. Maybe time has not moved much, but it has been pretty quiet on our other colonies. Which should mean that some pirate clans got big attacks incoming.
The 10 frigates of the home fleet does some house cleaning near the capital. Annoying pirates are capturing and destroying mines.
2150.06.28 Fierce moon? Again? A third construction ship of the same crew. The capital and home fleet are sent, the home fleet is far enough away to be there last, hopefully. Fierce Moon is a decent size pirate group, with two known bases in the central part of the galaxy, far enough from home.
2150.07.30 Sipan Fleet interfere with a small raid, their first Sipan action since arriving for the second time.
2150.09.12 The construction ship was killed by the home fleet frigates. Home fleet returns to the capital, the capital back to dhayu where it finds the Sinister Spaceways. They still hurt, and the capital takes some modest damage. It has to repair.
Our economy is strained with negative cashflow and slightly negative cash at most times.
We queue a gas mine build at the caslon source in the Sipan system. We are not full of optimism that it will ever be completed, nor survive for a long time. It could be that the initial hail of pirate raids were because it used to be independent, though.
2150.11.29 The Ikoriun Ravagers are very annoying as they attack mines around the capital with single ships. We know their main base quite a bit to the south and east, and a small spaceport straight west at the map edge which is pretty close. When the capital ship is repaired we plan to add it to the home fleet to kill the small spaceport, hoping it will stop this activity.
2150.02.05 Home fleet with the capital included heads for the pirate base.
2150.02.18 Cashflow jumps from -7k to +2k or thereabouts, and we notice that tax level at Sipan 4 has been upped from 3 to 8%.
The troop transport is built and full, and is told to unload at Sipan 4, and to return to the spaceport.
As members of the Sipan fleets report low on fuel, we ask them to refuel at Sipan 4, using the little fuel that is available. There is not anywhere near enough to refuel all at once. It is annoying, it is micro management, but we lack proper infrastructure.
2150.04.22 Two small lone dagger ships appear at Sipan 4 with their trusty rail guns. One ship damaged, and is told to repair and to join home fleet. I will shuffle ships between for repairs. Right now home fleet is busy, though.
2150.05.08 High Energy Cohesion gives new torpedoes, research in High Power Blasters is started, and will give new blasters.
We have no will to retrofit, and little money.
2151.06.14 The Securan Harmony agree to trade Loros Fruit with us. They also send us a gift of more than 19k. We have no ill feelings towards them at this time, keep it up!
We can be bought off any evil plans, everyone; feel free!
2151.06.19: As home fleet lands in the pirate system, they spot approximately 6 ships at the base. At the same time the lone daggers attack a mine in the capital system.
Home fleet see no movement among the ships at base, they may be under construction. They attack. The spaceport has firepower in the 200s.
They close in on the target.
And frigates are hurt, but the spaceport is taking real damage too. (The capital ship design was changed to "all weapons" on stronger targets).
The base is destroyed, most frigates are damaged, but none of them destroyed. The capital ship creates a new Battle 1, the home fleet goes home for repairs.
2151.08.03 Advanced Jump stalling complete, lets go for Accelerated Shield Recharge. Idiots. "We want cruisers, and proper destroyers, carriers and stuff".
Securan Harmony wants free trade. They give us gifts, Loros Fruit and are powerful? What is there not to like about them? We accept like the slave of profits that we are.
We notice crasy 48k credits and +7k cashflow. Saipan 4 tax still at 8%. 10 new frigates for home fleet.
Even if we are not retrofitting a lot, we do build new and updated ships. So new research is not all wasted...
All this while the lone daggers mess with the home system mines using a "large" fleet.
The cashflow improvement is not because of Sipan 4 increasing its tax percentage (8%) but its revenue which is at 329K now. Arexie is also getting into useful territory with 71K revenue.
So far only singles and pairs of pirates for the sipan fleet. Arexie has not seen raiders since battle 2 left at the raid just before they left to support the invasion.
2151.11.03 With some doubt, we decide to try build a small spaceport at Sipan 4. We intend to retrofit it to medium when complete, and then to consider a further upgrade to large. It will add some defense, maybe help draw in caslon, and work as a repair station.
Now we are just waiting for that large pirate raid to appear somewhere.
Cashflow is up to +24k, while cash is still low. Sipan 4 has tax rate increased to 14%.
Sipan fleet is standing guard, a few ships anxiously waiting for some caslon, but not critically low on fuel.
Colonies at home see less action, but writing so should summon a painful raid or two.
Battle 1 is refueling, heading for the Dhayu system. Home fleet is repairing at the spaceport.
A construction ship that took on the job to build a fuel mine at Sipan is closing in on the system.
It is 2151.11.10, and things are looking better.
Status
Things are better, and cashflow did a massive jump just at this point. At least 3 freighters are heading east to pick up loros fruit.
Pirate activity has been less frequent, but that may in part be because the mines near my area are mostly all destroyed...
The atuuk colony is a gold mine even with low tax and massive corruption. They carry a total -21 for being in a dhayut empire, and being enslaved. Being poor in the first place helps in viewing it as a gold mine.
They still have a -4 for lacking some resources, and they have a +2 because we are such nice and popular guys. After invading here we are still respectable.
Colonization will not be a priority for a while yet. There is an 80% continental in the capital system, and a 80% desert within a reasonable distance NW. The "free" nearby independents are all of low quality, but 4000M Dhayut in a 65% desert of the najarca system (where the pirate base was) could be added if we feel in control. The pirate independent that was mortalen next to it is low pop, but could be added to get rid of the pirates and "tighten the borders".
As of now, defenses are still inadequate, but cashflow could help fix that.
Lots of pirate bases that may be attacked, there is no danger of a shortage any time soon.
When hunting relentlessly for pirate constructors it is worth paying a bit attention. We may notice a construction ship NW of Montu Kudro. That one however, is owned by the Secura Utopia. I have a history of killing empire mines believing them to be pirate. The owners may become annoyed if you do that a lot...
Battle 1 is refueling, Home fleet is repairing. Sipan fleet is at Sipan. And our area does not exactly look tightly patrolled...
It is getting pretty well settled.
The Loros Fruit pickup point is an Orange colony being to the SE of their northern capital. Right next to a cluster of 4 bright brownish Haakonish colonies.
The naxxilians have colonized towards us.
We are 1st in population and strategic value after enslaving 20000M furry animals. That colony is #4 on the top colony list, which should include all the big colonies of the galaxy.
A good addition. And the rest are improving. There is room for improving development on our new colony, which has a +15 ruin bonus as well.
We found more cashflow. And foreing trade bonuses has just started appearing. Cash however, sit at 285.
The 24k cashflow is put into perspective when we see that 50 frigates has a 28k maintenance. Buying 50 frigates would cost 210k, though, and have 34k maintenance. Quite a lot of the existing frigates has not seen retrofits for a long time.
At the last status we had 10 mining stations, and 6 gas mining stations. We have gained gas mining station, possibly due to a relentless hunt for Tyderios, and
we have lost 4 mining stations. Pirates has wrecked both the capital system and the systems to the west of it. Constructors have been busy travelling to distant lands to place rather doomed mines.
2147.03.25. We are still not well off, and we have just position our fleets after the pirate assault. We lost almost half of our ships. The economy is not strong.
Could a fix be within reach?
Some distance to the NE there is the juicy Atuuk independent.
We don't know what the defenses are. We don't know what the ruin is. But we know there is a lot of potential slaves that could work for us.
We know that there are a lot of pirate bases nearby.
This could, depending on corruption, make a radical impact on our economy, and at least pay for a defensive fleet to protect it. We hope...
One troop transport is ordered, as that is all we can afford right now.
2127.05.08 Tactial interceptors are done. Research on shockwave torpedos are started.
This enables the tech to build carriers.
2127.05.20 We get message about the Haakonish and Quameno ending war, we saw the Haakonish grabbing two minor colonies in quick succession. Lots of wars involving the Haakonish ends.
2147.06.17 We have enough cash to order another troop transport. We will buy frigates and add to the battle 2 fleet (of frigates and destroyers) every time when we can afford them.
2147.09.07 We complete research in continental colonization. Coordinated control next, 4% maintenance savings? Yes please.
2147.09.12 The first troop transport is complete. It is told to load troops at dhayu 3 where the capital ship is present. When complete the other troop transport will load at Arexie.
Why two transports? The independent has a massive population that boosts defense. It may have a pirate base, even though it said no in that screenshot. And we do not want to recruit any crap atuuk troops, so any troops will have to be brought in anyways. Also, raid defenses...
2147.10.14 A tefnyl hive gift og 3640? Yes please. This is only our second gift ever as far as we know. A few times we have sent AI suggested gifts in the 300 range.
Our carrier design still lack fighter bays. The AI designer can probably not fit them to the small max size. And we can not afford them, anyways. Even if we could, they need some meat shields.
The troop transport at dhayu loads 6 troops. It leaves only 3, and we tell the colony to recruit 3 more. To prepare for the incoming load, we recruit 2 more at Arexie.
2147.11.28 The second troop transport is ready, and is told to load at arexie. The first is just finished loading at Dhayu and move to arexie. We verify that battle 2 has good fuel levels. We put the two troop transports in a new fleet and name it invasion.
Free trade with the Qilla Domain. They are Ikurro and far away, it won't hurt.
2148.02.11: As the troop transport arrives to load at Arexie, the lone daggers arrive with a somewhat large fleet. The troop transport takes a few damage quickly, but is luckily still empty. The battle 2 fleet is lower in numbers than before the spaceport attack, and is told to move to a nearby system alongside the invasion fleet.
The troop transport has its hyperdrive disabled and is badly damaged, including its hyperdrive. 3 frigates take rail gun damage.
The full troop transport is near the action, but was luckily not quite there yet.
In good micro manage fashion we:
1: Tell battle 2 to move to the star of the Atuuk independent system (Sipan).
2: Afterward we tell the 3 damaged ships to repair, which will send them home, and they should later rejoin the fleet.
3: After a short wait, we tell the working troop transport to attack Sipan.
The repairing fleet members will lose their repair order if the fleet has a new order, but they will be in the repair shop long before battle 2 reaches Sipan.
Hopefully... If in a pinch, battle 2 can be told to attack by multi selecting the ships, and for movement moving the fleet leader is enough.
As the battle fleet land in the system, we will have time to stop the troop transport, and they will pull any present pirates away from the colony.
2148.03.13 Military refueling rights from the Tefnyl Hive. Not that we need it now, but signs of some friends in the galaxy are welcome.
2148.06.22 The AI being AI... It heads for advanced jump stalling as it finishes high volume thrust. We doubt it will ever equip the module on anything smaller than cruisers, and we can't even build a proper destroyer.
Battle 2 heading for Sipan with Invasion fleet of now 1 transport trailing. A single frigate came from a different spot, possibly after doing its own escape from the Arexie battle and somehow escaping damage.
2148.04.12 We notice a pirate flag and see a construction ship next to Dhayu. The Fierce Moon Minerals have not caused us trouble, but we will cause them trouble. The capital ship is next doors, now with an attack order on the construction ship. It will do its thing again, and it will work until someone creates a speedy construction ship.
As the 3 damaged ships of battle 2 exit from repairs, they are told to attack a captured mine west of the capital. Darn pirates and our inadequate protection level.
As the lead ship of battle 2 enter the Saipan system, a large lone dagger fleet is present and battling some ships of the Savage Sun Ventures. The colony has 1 atuuk militia, recruiting one more. It is at max population with 20630M.
We don't want to battle that lone dagger fleet in a fair fight, and battle 2 will be micro manage to jump around the system, hopefully with a trail of pirate ships behind it.
I watch the approach of invasion, the position of the pirates, and battle 2 closely. I even slow down the game from my usual 2X speed to 1X... With inefficient moving (the battle 2 fleet will move all to the star before going on), I micro manage their evasive actions.
The "enemy" pirate around the colony makes some lone dagger ships hang around to kill it. As invasion is close, the coast is not clear, and we tell it to move to empty space a bit outside the system. There is a proper pirate battle at the colony.
As the "absent" battle 2 members kill the mining station we recive 3600 credits and are free to order battle 2 as a fleet. We notice 22k cash on hand, 4k cashflow, and buy some frigates (5 for 19k).
As pirates battle at the colony, none are too busy following battle 2 after the first couple of jumps.
The pirate battle takes time, but time flows slowly while jumping around. The lone daggers appear to use gravitic weapons, we have been exposed for their rail guns until now.
Various other ships also drop by, like from the Talfagleu Army, and an escort from a Securan empire.
A Free Talfagleu Utopia colony ship appear. How many colonyships have failed to colonize here? We are happy there are pirates present to chase it away, though.
As the battle seems to end, and many ships left the systems, new lone dagger ships appear around the colony... Waiting (while moving)...
We get tired of hoping for "free skies", and order battle 2 to attack an escort at the outskirts of the pack. The troop transport is told to attack the colony.
The transport is slipping in, and we spam "attack" orders to overule its flight instinct. That is bad news for the transport, though, it has done its final mission.
The transport drops it troops, but is doomed. The invasion seems like a scary fight, but there is only one defensive troop, and as it is focus fired on and dies the colony is ours.
Battle 2 is sent to repair.
The colony is filled with a whiny bunch. They dislike us (the dhayut), the dislike our recent conquest, they are terrified about recent pirate raids, and they lack resources to grow.
The start revenue is at 86k, and they are too angry to tax. Hopefully we can improve on both, but keeping the skies clear at this spot will be a challenge. The corruption is at a nasty 46%, and not a regional capital tech in sight.
At least the population should help repel raids...
The colony is a carbon fibre source, and is probably a good spot for our civilian ships to get killed at. But we gain some modest amount of credits, and recruit frigates. This will be a priority to defend.
The influence circle around Sipan includes quite a few resources including our beloved tyderios, two supernova sites with modest weapon research bonuses, and at least 3 pirate bases. It is not a densely packed area of space, but the circle is huge.
2149.03.07 Battle 2 is on its way home, and we have cash incoming, maybe in part from civilian purchases after capturing our new colony. As new frigates are
bought we start adding them to a new home fleet. At this time, including ships under construction, we have 38 frigates and 6 destroyers. And the capital ship.
Battle 2 has 34 ships at this time.
2149.05.23 Another Fierce Moon construction ship triest to set up a spaceport In Adiga next to Dhayu. Again our capital ship takes off.
2149.05.30 We lose some of our troopers at Sipan 4. These raids hurt quite a lot, and they take the most of the beating. Against better judgement we start recruiting some Atuuk troops. Wave after wave of raiders arrive, adding to the attack strength. We interfere with the AI and dismiss a troop general that spawned with -20% defense strength.
Saipan is not a friendly place for anything, so adding troops with a new transport is out of the question at this time.
2149.08.03 All dhayut troops at Saipan has been killed by pirate raids. We need a good number of troops to share raid damage alongside space defenses to control this spot properly.
Earlier, I wondered why Dhayu 3 had less than 10 troops, now I know what happened there...
We notice the construction ship almost outracing our capital. We ask 5 complete frigates in the 10 ship home fleet to attack it. They are a speedy bunch.
We also notice that there is a decent, pirate controlled mortalen colony in our Sipan area of influence. Battle 2 heads for sipan star, but will struggle with the range. They had barely enough fuel to get back to the spaceport the last time.
Faster guys to the rescue.
As the 34 ship battle 2 enters Sipan, it is renamed Sipan fleet. Pirate raids have been small scale lately, but the low fuel level of the fleet members are a worry.
A tiny contribution from Sipan 4. 1% tax of 212K revenue. The capital has 205K revenue, but 27% tax.
If we can nudge happiness high enough for even 10% tax it will be a decent income bonus. After recruiting some more troops, the cashflow is solid negative, money near 0, and we dream of a new troop transport and a shipment to Sipan.
2150.05.20 With Battle 2 standing guard and the Sipan system is at peace, we see full freighters carry goods to Sipan 4. Tax at 2%...
One troop transport is ordered as we got some cash on hand. Troops are garrisoned to be protected from pickup. Maybe time has not moved much, but it has been pretty quiet on our other colonies. Which should mean that some pirate clans got big attacks incoming.
The 10 frigates of the home fleet does some house cleaning near the capital. Annoying pirates are capturing and destroying mines.
2150.06.28 Fierce moon? Again? A third construction ship of the same crew. The capital and home fleet are sent, the home fleet is far enough away to be there last, hopefully. Fierce Moon is a decent size pirate group, with two known bases in the central part of the galaxy, far enough from home.
2150.07.30 Sipan Fleet interfere with a small raid, their first Sipan action since arriving for the second time.
2150.09.12 The construction ship was killed by the home fleet frigates. Home fleet returns to the capital, the capital back to dhayu where it finds the Sinister Spaceways. They still hurt, and the capital takes some modest damage. It has to repair.
Our economy is strained with negative cashflow and slightly negative cash at most times.
We queue a gas mine build at the caslon source in the Sipan system. We are not full of optimism that it will ever be completed, nor survive for a long time. It could be that the initial hail of pirate raids were because it used to be independent, though.
2150.11.29 The Ikoriun Ravagers are very annoying as they attack mines around the capital with single ships. We know their main base quite a bit to the south and east, and a small spaceport straight west at the map edge which is pretty close. When the capital ship is repaired we plan to add it to the home fleet to kill the small spaceport, hoping it will stop this activity.
2150.02.05 Home fleet with the capital included heads for the pirate base.
2150.02.18 Cashflow jumps from -7k to +2k or thereabouts, and we notice that tax level at Sipan 4 has been upped from 3 to 8%.
The troop transport is built and full, and is told to unload at Sipan 4, and to return to the spaceport.
As members of the Sipan fleets report low on fuel, we ask them to refuel at Sipan 4, using the little fuel that is available. There is not anywhere near enough to refuel all at once. It is annoying, it is micro management, but we lack proper infrastructure.
2150.04.22 Two small lone dagger ships appear at Sipan 4 with their trusty rail guns. One ship damaged, and is told to repair and to join home fleet. I will shuffle ships between for repairs. Right now home fleet is busy, though.
2150.05.08 High Energy Cohesion gives new torpedoes, research in High Power Blasters is started, and will give new blasters.
We have no will to retrofit, and little money.
2151.06.14 The Securan Harmony agree to trade Loros Fruit with us. They also send us a gift of more than 19k. We have no ill feelings towards them at this time, keep it up!
We can be bought off any evil plans, everyone; feel free!
2151.06.19: As home fleet lands in the pirate system, they spot approximately 6 ships at the base. At the same time the lone daggers attack a mine in the capital system.
Home fleet see no movement among the ships at base, they may be under construction. They attack. The spaceport has firepower in the 200s.
They close in on the target.
And frigates are hurt, but the spaceport is taking real damage too. (The capital ship design was changed to "all weapons" on stronger targets).
The base is destroyed, most frigates are damaged, but none of them destroyed. The capital ship creates a new Battle 1, the home fleet goes home for repairs.
2151.08.03 Advanced Jump stalling complete, lets go for Accelerated Shield Recharge. Idiots. "We want cruisers, and proper destroyers, carriers and stuff".
Securan Harmony wants free trade. They give us gifts, Loros Fruit and are powerful? What is there not to like about them? We accept like the slave of profits that we are.
We notice crasy 48k credits and +7k cashflow. Saipan 4 tax still at 8%. 10 new frigates for home fleet.
Even if we are not retrofitting a lot, we do build new and updated ships. So new research is not all wasted...
All this while the lone daggers mess with the home system mines using a "large" fleet.
The cashflow improvement is not because of Sipan 4 increasing its tax percentage (8%) but its revenue which is at 329K now. Arexie is also getting into useful territory with 71K revenue.
So far only singles and pairs of pirates for the sipan fleet. Arexie has not seen raiders since battle 2 left at the raid just before they left to support the invasion.
2151.11.03 With some doubt, we decide to try build a small spaceport at Sipan 4. We intend to retrofit it to medium when complete, and then to consider a further upgrade to large. It will add some defense, maybe help draw in caslon, and work as a repair station.
Now we are just waiting for that large pirate raid to appear somewhere.
Cashflow is up to +24k, while cash is still low. Sipan 4 has tax rate increased to 14%.
Sipan fleet is standing guard, a few ships anxiously waiting for some caslon, but not critically low on fuel.
Colonies at home see less action, but writing so should summon a painful raid or two.
Battle 1 is refueling, heading for the Dhayu system. Home fleet is repairing at the spaceport.
A construction ship that took on the job to build a fuel mine at Sipan is closing in on the system.
It is 2151.11.10, and things are looking better.
Status
Things are better, and cashflow did a massive jump just at this point. At least 3 freighters are heading east to pick up loros fruit.
Pirate activity has been less frequent, but that may in part be because the mines near my area are mostly all destroyed...
The atuuk colony is a gold mine even with low tax and massive corruption. They carry a total -21 for being in a dhayut empire, and being enslaved. Being poor in the first place helps in viewing it as a gold mine.
They still have a -4 for lacking some resources, and they have a +2 because we are such nice and popular guys. After invading here we are still respectable.
Colonization will not be a priority for a while yet. There is an 80% continental in the capital system, and a 80% desert within a reasonable distance NW. The "free" nearby independents are all of low quality, but 4000M Dhayut in a 65% desert of the najarca system (where the pirate base was) could be added if we feel in control. The pirate independent that was mortalen next to it is low pop, but could be added to get rid of the pirates and "tighten the borders".
As of now, defenses are still inadequate, but cashflow could help fix that.
Lots of pirate bases that may be attacked, there is no danger of a shortage any time soon.
When hunting relentlessly for pirate constructors it is worth paying a bit attention. We may notice a construction ship NW of Montu Kudro. That one however, is owned by the Secura Utopia. I have a history of killing empire mines believing them to be pirate. The owners may become annoyed if you do that a lot...
Battle 1 is refueling, Home fleet is repairing. Sipan fleet is at Sipan. And our area does not exactly look tightly patrolled...
It is getting pretty well settled.
The Loros Fruit pickup point is an Orange colony being to the SE of their northern capital. Right next to a cluster of 4 bright brownish Haakonish colonies.
The naxxilians have colonized towards us.
We are 1st in population and strategic value after enslaving 20000M furry animals. That colony is #4 on the top colony list, which should include all the big colonies of the galaxy.
A good addition. And the rest are improving. There is room for improving development on our new colony, which has a +15 ruin bonus as well.
We found more cashflow. And foreing trade bonuses has just started appearing. Cash however, sit at 285.
The 24k cashflow is put into perspective when we see that 50 frigates has a 28k maintenance. Buying 50 frigates would cost 210k, though, and have 34k maintenance. Quite a lot of the existing frigates has not seen retrofits for a long time.
At the last status we had 10 mining stations, and 6 gas mining stations. We have gained gas mining station, possibly due to a relentless hunt for Tyderios, and
we have lost 4 mining stations. Pirates has wrecked both the capital system and the systems to the west of it. Constructors have been busy travelling to distant lands to place rather doomed mines.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Planning for the short term future
So, we have stabilized Sipan somewhat, and discovered a good cashflow. Money is not there, though, but that ought to change. What are the short term actions?
We need higher military strength. We have a few atuuk troops at Sipan, and should get some stronger Dhayut troops there, retiring the weak troops.
We should get some armored troops for flexibility, we already got the facility needed at the capital. The capital should also have some more troops garrisoned, so some of the money will go to troops.
Annoying pirates should be dealt with.
The 34 ship Sipan Fleet is not much stronger than it should be. We lack confidence that there will be no attempted raids, and we just started a spaceport build that is currently stalled on Hydrogen. It is quite near our friendly Securan, and we have quite a bit of trade with them, so getting that should not be an issue even if we have to rely on foreigners. Keep in mind that this was a colony swarmed by pirates until quite a short time ago, its had all kinds of colony related shortages when captured.
Colonization is not the best idea until we got more population, but maybe there is another target? Circled is another Atuuk independent that is the "capital" of the Grim Guild. It is dark purple, and very stealthy due to that, but the yellow circle marks it.
17348 max population
92% quality
Riphidium Ale
What is there not to like, apart from not having 3-4 more good resources? It also should give control of some good mining systems, currently pirate infested.
What would be required to take it? I don't have a clue, so lets drop something by to check the defenses. And then have it leave in a hurry.
For moving troops around and possibly taking that colony, we need some transports. We got none.
Actions
2151.11.10 is the start date.
We queue up the planned troop building and realize it may swallow most if not all of our cashflow.
We make sure Arexie and Dhayu 3 has 5 garrisons and 6 spares, one for each.
The capital has 5 garrisoned troops. We recruit 4 armored troops, and 5 troops to be garrisoned for a total of 10. And 4 more to have spares.
One well fueled frigate of the Sipan fleet joins Home fleet, but is told to move to Atuuk star, where the pirate colony Beate is. Soon it leaves the homef leet due to the fleet being moved around, causing it to take a detour before it can be redirected.
Fleet?
Battle 1 is the capital ship which is refueling at a gas mine, and will head for Dhayu.
Home fleet is repairing, and with 10 or so ship under construction will have 23 frigates.
Sipan Fleet has 27 frigates and 6 destroyers for a total of 33.
We are sad to see that our ships move more slowly. We have a new colony, a larger empire, and the game is more zoomed out
We spot a new pirate flag south of Dhayu, Battle 1 moves to the system just in case the constructor is building it. It is the Fire Bandits, a crew we have not had any conflict with, and seems to be based in the S and SE part of the galaxy.
Home Fleet moves to Dhayu just in case. The capital system got no mines, so no need to protect those rocks, anyways. The research station at the bonus planet is also gone.
2152.02.07. The Sipan defenders waste a single pirate escort arriving. A constructor flees after being attacked in a system just NW of Sipan. Such a surprise, the system only got two pirate spaceports in it...
We found one troop transport, maybe it is the one shot up at Arexie, which was heavily damaged, and which has been fixed by an automated constructor? We may have scrapped that one, but we know we left it there for a while... We book 2 more as we got some funds. The first load of 6 troops will go to Sipan.
There is a lot of work to do around Sipan. A pirate controlled colony, and 3 systems with at least 5 pirate spaceports, all in the influence zone.
2152.03.26 The small spaceport at Sipan is complete, that was not a slow build at all. We start a retrofit to medium.
We notice the Mortalen Empire ending a war. We check that they still hate us, and that their military strength is an impressive 42. That is the same firepower as at least some of our frigates.
Battle 1 arrives at the pirate system, and finds a small spaceport that is much stronger than the one we killed (498), but not as well shielded. The clan's resupply ship is also there. For now it returns to Dhayu 3.
The frigate scouting the Atuuko system finds that the colony is defended by 1 atuuk troop and controlled by the Grim Guild. In additon the Cruel Claw Pillagers have 2 small spaceports built at the same gas giant. What a mess. The main challenge in colony control will be to remove any pirate facilities, that will be a proper battle.
We need a fleet presence to attack it, although there was only 1 cruel claw ship near the colony. An we want some ships at home, so more frigates, please.
2152.06.21 We battle our troop transport at Arexxie to make sure it has 6 infantry and 0 armor that it will unload at Sipan 4. We use to move button at the troop tab in the colony screen.
2152.06.23 The awaited pirate raid arrives with a twist. We see an attack warning at Dhayu 3, and two pirate groups land at once, and shoot at each other. The capital ship has just landed itself, home fleet is there with at least quite a few of its 22 ships present.
It is a mess. Two small raids at the colony, one fails the other leaves with 100 credits (We are broke. A lot of pirates die, some escape. The capital ship and most of the frigates are damaged by rail guns or otherwise, and both fleets are told to repair. Staying at Dhayu was not a bad hunch after all.
We notice 51k cashflow after it being at around 10k when we did the troop purchase. Sipan revenue up to 469K, tax up to 20%. The AI is building a military academy, which is a total waste. Armored atuuk?
We rejoice as the Sipan fleet can refuel at the newly built gas mine in the system. At the same time Sipan Spaceport is done retrofitting to medium. Right now we lack money to do anything at all, so a further retrofit will have to wait.
The lone daggers attack a gas mine NW og Montu Kudro. Savage sun attack the gas mine in montu kudro. We still lack forces to defend everywhere, especially with all of the ships back home damaged. Maybe we should have some smaller fleets to hunt single ships that annoy us? They will not feel well if they stumble on those 12 ship lond dagger fleets, though.
2152.08.17 Sipan 4 has 1158 Loros Fruit in store, the first colony to recive it. Nice. It still has a message about insufficient amounts of strategic resources.
2152.08.30 We get some cash on hand again, and use it to buy frigates. Just 15k, but with 43k cashflow and 40k bonus income there should be more avialable over time. We order 3 new construction ships, but forget to specify where to build them. The one being built at Dhayu 3 could have issues. We need them to build mines at the pace at which the pirates destroy them.
Later the same day, the lone daggers attack Aurexie with a decent fleet. It is a long time since this one has been attacked, but it reminds us that we are not forgotten. Fleets are not yet done repairing.
2152.10.16 A pirate frigate tries do destroy Sipan 7 gas mining station, where the 33 ship strong sipan fleet is refueling. Bad timing on their part. They will reapper and try to board it, but our brave miners shrug them off. We take note of the Savage Sun as annoying.
2152.12.24 A tiny gift from the Ikurro, and 20k from the Haakonish. Thanks! Casflow is at crazy 103k, and the 33k we got is spent on 8 frigates to be assigned to a future Battle 2 fleet.
We notice that the destroyer design is no longer at 13 cruise speed, and that we should start buy some of those as well.
Frigate has:
29 cruise speed.
42 firepower
360 shields
Destroyer has
21 cruise speed
102 firepower
540 shields
Ranges are almost equal, a tiny edge to frigates, maybe due to a bit less static use?
With care taken, we order 3 of the sipan fleet ships to retrofit at the spaceport. That way it is no risk of the whole fleet being stuck if resources are lacking. In a short while when cash reaches 19k, we will retrofit Sipan spaceport to Large. Added protection, and hopefully a future good ship building site.
We spam some destroyers (and frigates) when we get money, building battle 2 to decent strength.
We also got a military academy at the capital, and can recruit special forces. With no futher planning, we recruit 3 of them.
A load of troops is delivered at Sipan 4, 12 are garrisoned, the atuuk troops are disbanded. A good store of caslon at Sipan allows the Sipan fleet to refuel. Sipan 4? 502K revenue, 27% tax. 125k tax from Sipan 4, 83K from the capital.
Sipan spaceport seems to build civilans and retrofit just fine. Sipan fleet continue retrofitting a few a time until the whole fleet retrofits (when many have already retrofitted and will just refuel).
Sorting by maintenance and firepower in the ship list is a nice way to detect those needing a retrofit. Showing all designs in the design screen, and sorting by sub role shows which designs are in use, and how many that use them.
2153.07.06 As the new Battle 2 is at about 10 complete ships, it moves to Dhayu to allow home fleet to retrofit. The retrofit is most important for the 6-7 ancient destroyers of the sipan fleet, though.
2153.11.09 Money, so much money, got to spend it all! 23 ships for battle 2, destroyers for battle 1 (the capital ship), keep going!
2153.12.24: Ikuriun Ravagers arrive at Dhayu, reminding us that even if we build ships, pirates still exist. These did chase our capital ship when alone. Result? 5 ships damaged in battle 2. 3 ships captured for retirement, no raiders on the ground.
For now we keep the larger sipan fleet, and try to balance home fleet and battle 2 at 23 ships with a mix of destroyers and frigates. Battle 1 is trying to become 23 ships as well, and includes the capital ship.
2154.02.06. A construction ship building a mine detects a pirate base being built not far from Dhayu. Battle 1, now wiht some extra ships, and the non-repairing ships of battle 2 launches from Dhayu (dragging a box and selecting works, just make sure not to send any transports or construction ships). The Spaceport is reported to have some firepower, and must be almost complete. Hopefully the construction ship is there. The owners are Lone Trade Interstellar, who have been based further east, but have not bothered us.
A bit of juggling makes ships arrive at approximately the same time. The construction ship is gone, though. We discover that some of our ships are on half shield, probably because they are newly built. that is not ideal...
The base goes down, the destroyer that is taking a beating from base fighters ends up with 62 damaged, or easier to count: 8 working. It is scrapped.
We spot an instellar traders colony ship in a system a short jump north of this battle. Battle 1 heads by to kill it. Battle 1 and 2 are otherwise trying to get back to Dhayu 3.
2154.09.19 We are lining up for an assault at the pirate colony of nice value. And an advisor talks about defensive base at Sipan 4, and we build one both there and at the capital. Cashflow is still extremely relaxed as ships have been booked to fill the 3 fleets to 23 ships.
2154.11.14. Battle 2 and Invasion are both full of fuel at the capital. Battle 2 is told to move to Atuuko star. Invasion to dead space near Atuuko. Battle 2 has 23 frigates and destroyers of 1866 firepower. Invasion has 3 transports carrying 11 infantry and 3 armor (756 strength).
2154.11.26 Annoying choices. A libiya mining base is attacked just as Battle 2 drive past headig for Atuuko. It is a lone dagger 12 ship fleet. We decide to press on with our offensive action, and leave the rebuilding of lost mines to the constructors.
We stop reporting trivial tech, like marsh colonization complete just now. Research has been forgotten in the past as well. We do register that it is more important to have both Fusion and Quantum reactor compared to some larger build sizes. Idiots...
2155.02.28 As battle 2 land at the star, it spots a few grim claw ships around the dual spaceports. There is no activity at the pirate owned colony that still has 1 atuuk troop defending. Invasion is told to attack the colony as battle 2 wait for company at the star.
Not being very distracted, we order the first 14 destroyers and frigates for a new Battle 3. Money is still flowing in.
2155.03.05 Annoying graviton beams are spotted as battle 2 is met by the local ships.
They ships are eager to jump at the dual spaceports, some are wrapping up the last pirate ship at the star. We notice that one spaceport is rather weak, with half the power of the other. And the weaker one has just 240 shields as well.
It is not easy to see what happens in detail, but it is no doubt they charge into battle with some attitude. Not all of our ships are in the image. There is or was probably a pirate consruction ship in there as well.
The spaceports die, so do a lot of pirate ships, it appears that at least one of them may have jumped away to warn its friends. The colony is captured by the time we pay attention.
Battle 2 misses one ship when they gather after the battle. 4 are damaged. The damaged are told to repair, the rest stays in the system. Repair is at the capital, a good distance away.
There are structures to remove. They are the same kind on whiny atuuks that we encountered after conquering sipan. Early revenue is 88k, tax 1%.
No reason to waste time clearing away pirate presence. It looks like our forces should manage the job. The invasion fleet has left to nearest spaceport. At the same time we queue gas mines on both gas giants, one with both fuels, one with hydrogen.
We garrison 5 infantry at beate, and tell invasion to load troops. They fleet members go separate ways, two back to beate.
We buy some destroyers for battle 3, and one destroyer for invasion fleet. The destroyer becomes fleet leader, and will work as a meeting point for transports on various missions.
Cashflow is a scary low 58K, it is good that we have another atuuk colony that soon will bring good income
2155.07.18 We spot a Grim Guild construction ship near the capital. Battle 1 (with the capital ship) launches to welcome it to our territory. They started at Dhayu, but with Home Fleet at Dhayu they will probably continue to Arexie when done. A sinister spaceways construction ship has started a base in our new territory. Most of battle 2 will test if speed and firepower has become good enough will be enough to kill the construction ship (we drag and select because 4 ships are heading home for repairs, and should continue with that).
We even spot a second grim guild construction ship, but that is left alone for now.
2155.11.15 A lone dagger raiding fleet, discovered that it is not a good idea to try raid the colony below the 845 firepower spaceport at Sipan 4. The ships were in another part of the system, and had no chance to get there in time to join in on the kills. They arrived in time for one to be scratched by railguns, though. But Sipan is a nice place to be, it has lots of shipyards to repair in.
2155.08.01 The defensive prowess of home fleet is tested as the lone daggers arrive at Dhayu 3. They can not stop the raid, they kill a few, lose one, and most are damaged. Have I mentioned that I hate pirate railguns? Home for repairs.
The battle 2 ships did not manage to kill their constructors, but they killed the spaceport build. A pirate escort did not impress the large spaceport at Sipan 4, at least considering its aproach along the gunports of the defensive base. Battle 1 will manage to kill its construction ship.
We have researched impact blaster, and the new firepower of frigates/destroyers is improved from 42/102 to 84/114. Spaceports and defensive bases are retrofitted first.
The lone daggers learned that sapila 4 got a large spaceport now, compared to the good old independent days. Their 12-ish size rainding fleet die to the spaceport and defensive base, but manage to scratch 2 fleet members.
There is an internal discussion about who are more annoying. the Grim Guild that usually attack one mine in the north (when rebuilt), or the lone daggers that try to raid our colonies, and bust all kinds of mines.
It is an easy victory for the annoying, rail gun wielding, lone daggers.
It is 2156.01.30, pirates are still annoying, and it may be time for a proper fightback, at least as long as we don't spot another high quality and high population independent.
Status
As a general AAR consideration, I should try move to a bit higer level in writing, but it is hard when mines at home are still frequently attacked. Not that we often do anything about those attacks apart from hoping that automated constructors will rebuild them.
Getting "here" took longer than expected, and with "here" I think of having more than one fleet that can inflict some pain. The Dhayut were not that good starters, and there is a lot of nearby pirate groups. The amount of pirates were increased when setting up the game, though.
I should not have grabbed the two colonies early on...
I guess it could be a good moment to review various states of the empire.
Pirates
Still annoying, but not as overpowering. The action to push away the guys who's small spaceport was to our left was a success. We have not seen them since.
The local gang, the Najarca Council still exists as well. The diplomacy screen show them with 2 bases, 5 colonies, 45 ships, and 5160 firepower. We have not been bothered by them, nor seen them, since busting their starting spaceport, apart from any ship met immediately after that. We can assume that any pirate sufficiantly far from all of our colonies (and mines) is not a problem. I am not too stressed about mines "far away" anyways, I am not going going to put a 30 ship fleet to defend a mine in the middle of nowhere unless it mines something very special. And the lone daggers, at least, do attack mines with 10-12 ship fleets which makes a 4 ship defensive fleet rather pointless.
I feel that there are more pirate attacks on mines. This could be because pirates consider the colonies too strong targets, and start focusing here instead.
Expansion
If we want to, we can colonize deserts, continentals, and marshes. We got some decent targets within the empire, but we are still prone to pirate raids, and the only full colonies are populated with atuuk. Our guys can breed on the colonies they got as long as there is plenty of room there. Every new colony is still a potential problem, as getting credits and tech stolen in raids is not fun.
When pirates stop roaming the empire, we can put down some colonies. But there is no point for instance colonizing the decent prospect in the capital system, and having the capital population move there until the capital is full. Remember, population is key to high colony revenue, which is what we tax.
Better targets than new colonies are some independents that are still around, although not many, if any, are even near the quality and population of our two atuuk colonies.
Ships and bases
Numbers are growing fast, but I am not happy with fleets of frigates and destroyers. The AI is stupid in research, and we can't even build any carrier (or we could build one, but it lacks fighter bays which makes it kind of stupid).
We have only 3 exploration ships, but they are sitting idle since they don't believe they have more to explore. I am not so sure I believe ther is nothing more, there could be resources and ruins out there. In any case there is no need to build more unless I want some scouts in case of war. But like the trip I did to the Atuuko system to check out the defenses, any military ship can do that. It would annoy an empire, though, in which case an exploration ship would be better. However, I do not usually scout that much until war starts anyways.
The alien capital ship is still powerful, and it has hyperdeny that helps in killing construction ship. But it is slow. It has the Kaldos drive with 7 second to jump and a speed of 13750. The rest has our racial drive. 6 seconds to jump and a speed of 23500. The racial drive is very good at this point in time, giving the various benefits of all of the normal drives. Fast jump, high speed, low energy usage.
Special consideration
Our best colony is Atuuk. Soon our second atuuk colony, Beate, will become very profitable as well. It is short on development, and need some freighter service to build a store of luxuries and strategic resources. Freighters will take care of that over time, just like they did with Sipan 4. Beate got 4 more quality, Sipan 4 got 4000M more population and a +15 development bonus from a ruin. I guess Sipan will be better, but both will outshine the capital until it reaches the same population level.
It may be a very bad idea to go to war with the Atuuk empire, at least until we got more good colonies. Who knows how angry these furry beings can be? Less tax income for sure, and maybe even revolts (and leaving the empire) would be possible outcomes.
Corruption is an issue, if not for that Sipan 4 would bring even more money. Regional capitals in areas with many good colonies is helpful. On a single good colony all by itself, not that helpful. But facility building is automated, anyways.
Spaceports
I will try to limit their number to try help the resource situation. I will probably build defensive bases on top of colonies with no spaceport. A colony like Sipan 4 do benefit from the protection that a large spaceport provides, though.
Today my large spaceport design has 1140 firepower and 7020 shields. The defensive base design with 648 firepower and 2880 shields is way weaker. But none of them will stop a proper fleet attack in the later game on its own. The LSP would deal damage for a longer time, though.
It can be a good idea to have a custom cheap base and/or defensive base with the medical and recreational (and some docking bays and commerce center) to boost the colonies with no spaceport. In this game that is not an issue yet, as the dimwits has not researched neither medical nor recreation. I am not sure what I will do when they finally make them available.
The screens
Not a local area map this time. If in doubt, we are the red guys in the upper left part. We have 5 fleets and 5 colonies, the two "northern colonies" have a fleet each. Known pirate bases are highlighted. We can see a lot of them around Sipan (the top right system of ours). And pirates live close to our home area, and those bases are the sources of our annoying pirates there. Not all of the bases nearby are owned by pirates that has caused any serious grief, yet.
We used to be poor an miserable like a lot of the other empires. Then we grabbed an atuuk independent nearby that none of the local powers had managed to grab. Then we grabbed another one. They could be a problem in their own way, as that "power bar" looks kind of favorable.
When it comes to this game, I am not that fond of independents due to things like these. But I added them in this one to help the pirates in the early game.
Beate has very low development, and it still outshines our two "oldies". Arexie is not shabby at all, with 26k tax income it can pay for its own defenses and then some. Dhayu 3 is more questionable with 12k income, but it is not awful, and can easily pay for a defensive base on top and some protective ships. And both should have lots of free space for growth.
We noticed the mortalen were unhappy about us enslaving some of their people. If they don't like slavery, why do they move to our colonies? Dhayu 3 and Arexie both have small populations of Mortalen and Naxxilians, and Arexie has a few Atuuk as well. They add to the workforce
Much more military ships, maybe build some more troop transports? And recruit some troops to fill them with? And some troops for defense? Crazy number of ships are needed when we can only build small things of 300 size or less.
2 defensive bases for the capital and sipan 4. Mine count is up, the 3 extra construction ships have contributed to that, but pirates are still annoying.
About design, it can be mentioned that I have not checked what fuel my fleets use. Probably hydrogen? They are researching the quantum reactor, and may switch between them. They are also researching the second blaster type, and may switch between long and short range blasters that will make the ship firepower go up and down between versions.
Once we were poor, and we built new frigates whenever we got money. Now we are not so poor, and still build frigates and destroyers with all our money, but it is harder to keep up with the income.
So, we have stabilized Sipan somewhat, and discovered a good cashflow. Money is not there, though, but that ought to change. What are the short term actions?
We need higher military strength. We have a few atuuk troops at Sipan, and should get some stronger Dhayut troops there, retiring the weak troops.
We should get some armored troops for flexibility, we already got the facility needed at the capital. The capital should also have some more troops garrisoned, so some of the money will go to troops.
Annoying pirates should be dealt with.
The 34 ship Sipan Fleet is not much stronger than it should be. We lack confidence that there will be no attempted raids, and we just started a spaceport build that is currently stalled on Hydrogen. It is quite near our friendly Securan, and we have quite a bit of trade with them, so getting that should not be an issue even if we have to rely on foreigners. Keep in mind that this was a colony swarmed by pirates until quite a short time ago, its had all kinds of colony related shortages when captured.
Colonization is not the best idea until we got more population, but maybe there is another target? Circled is another Atuuk independent that is the "capital" of the Grim Guild. It is dark purple, and very stealthy due to that, but the yellow circle marks it.
17348 max population
92% quality
Riphidium Ale
What is there not to like, apart from not having 3-4 more good resources? It also should give control of some good mining systems, currently pirate infested.
What would be required to take it? I don't have a clue, so lets drop something by to check the defenses. And then have it leave in a hurry.
For moving troops around and possibly taking that colony, we need some transports. We got none.
Actions
2151.11.10 is the start date.
We queue up the planned troop building and realize it may swallow most if not all of our cashflow.
We make sure Arexie and Dhayu 3 has 5 garrisons and 6 spares, one for each.
The capital has 5 garrisoned troops. We recruit 4 armored troops, and 5 troops to be garrisoned for a total of 10. And 4 more to have spares.
One well fueled frigate of the Sipan fleet joins Home fleet, but is told to move to Atuuk star, where the pirate colony Beate is. Soon it leaves the homef leet due to the fleet being moved around, causing it to take a detour before it can be redirected.
Fleet?
Battle 1 is the capital ship which is refueling at a gas mine, and will head for Dhayu.
Home fleet is repairing, and with 10 or so ship under construction will have 23 frigates.
Sipan Fleet has 27 frigates and 6 destroyers for a total of 33.
We are sad to see that our ships move more slowly. We have a new colony, a larger empire, and the game is more zoomed out
We spot a new pirate flag south of Dhayu, Battle 1 moves to the system just in case the constructor is building it. It is the Fire Bandits, a crew we have not had any conflict with, and seems to be based in the S and SE part of the galaxy.
Home Fleet moves to Dhayu just in case. The capital system got no mines, so no need to protect those rocks, anyways. The research station at the bonus planet is also gone.
2152.02.07. The Sipan defenders waste a single pirate escort arriving. A constructor flees after being attacked in a system just NW of Sipan. Such a surprise, the system only got two pirate spaceports in it...
We found one troop transport, maybe it is the one shot up at Arexie, which was heavily damaged, and which has been fixed by an automated constructor? We may have scrapped that one, but we know we left it there for a while... We book 2 more as we got some funds. The first load of 6 troops will go to Sipan.
There is a lot of work to do around Sipan. A pirate controlled colony, and 3 systems with at least 5 pirate spaceports, all in the influence zone.
2152.03.26 The small spaceport at Sipan is complete, that was not a slow build at all. We start a retrofit to medium.
We notice the Mortalen Empire ending a war. We check that they still hate us, and that their military strength is an impressive 42. That is the same firepower as at least some of our frigates.
Battle 1 arrives at the pirate system, and finds a small spaceport that is much stronger than the one we killed (498), but not as well shielded. The clan's resupply ship is also there. For now it returns to Dhayu 3.
The frigate scouting the Atuuko system finds that the colony is defended by 1 atuuk troop and controlled by the Grim Guild. In additon the Cruel Claw Pillagers have 2 small spaceports built at the same gas giant. What a mess. The main challenge in colony control will be to remove any pirate facilities, that will be a proper battle.
We need a fleet presence to attack it, although there was only 1 cruel claw ship near the colony. An we want some ships at home, so more frigates, please.
2152.06.21 We battle our troop transport at Arexxie to make sure it has 6 infantry and 0 armor that it will unload at Sipan 4. We use to move button at the troop tab in the colony screen.
2152.06.23 The awaited pirate raid arrives with a twist. We see an attack warning at Dhayu 3, and two pirate groups land at once, and shoot at each other. The capital ship has just landed itself, home fleet is there with at least quite a few of its 22 ships present.
It is a mess. Two small raids at the colony, one fails the other leaves with 100 credits (We are broke
. A lot of pirates die, some escape. The capital ship and most of the frigates are damaged by rail guns or otherwise, and both fleets are told to repair. Staying at Dhayu was not a bad hunch after all. We notice 51k cashflow after it being at around 10k when we did the troop purchase. Sipan revenue up to 469K, tax up to 20%. The AI is building a military academy, which is a total waste. Armored atuuk?
We rejoice as the Sipan fleet can refuel at the newly built gas mine in the system. At the same time Sipan Spaceport is done retrofitting to medium. Right now we lack money to do anything at all, so a further retrofit will have to wait.
The lone daggers attack a gas mine NW og Montu Kudro. Savage sun attack the gas mine in montu kudro. We still lack forces to defend everywhere, especially with all of the ships back home damaged. Maybe we should have some smaller fleets to hunt single ships that annoy us? They will not feel well if they stumble on those 12 ship lond dagger fleets, though.
2152.08.17 Sipan 4 has 1158 Loros Fruit in store, the first colony to recive it. Nice. It still has a message about insufficient amounts of strategic resources.
2152.08.30 We get some cash on hand again, and use it to buy frigates. Just 15k, but with 43k cashflow and 40k bonus income there should be more avialable over time. We order 3 new construction ships, but forget to specify where to build them. The one being built at Dhayu 3 could have issues. We need them to build mines at the pace at which the pirates destroy them.
Later the same day, the lone daggers attack Aurexie with a decent fleet. It is a long time since this one has been attacked, but it reminds us that we are not forgotten. Fleets are not yet done repairing.
2152.10.16 A pirate frigate tries do destroy Sipan 7 gas mining station, where the 33 ship strong sipan fleet is refueling. Bad timing on their part. They will reapper and try to board it, but our brave miners shrug them off. We take note of the Savage Sun as annoying.
2152.12.24 A tiny gift from the Ikurro, and 20k from the Haakonish. Thanks! Casflow is at crazy 103k, and the 33k we got is spent on 8 frigates to be assigned to a future Battle 2 fleet.
We notice that the destroyer design is no longer at 13 cruise speed, and that we should start buy some of those as well.
Frigate has:
29 cruise speed.
42 firepower
360 shields
Destroyer has
21 cruise speed
102 firepower
540 shields
Ranges are almost equal, a tiny edge to frigates, maybe due to a bit less static use?
With care taken, we order 3 of the sipan fleet ships to retrofit at the spaceport. That way it is no risk of the whole fleet being stuck if resources are lacking. In a short while when cash reaches 19k, we will retrofit Sipan spaceport to Large. Added protection, and hopefully a future good ship building site.
We spam some destroyers (and frigates) when we get money, building battle 2 to decent strength.
We also got a military academy at the capital, and can recruit special forces. With no futher planning, we recruit 3 of them.
A load of troops is delivered at Sipan 4, 12 are garrisoned, the atuuk troops are disbanded. A good store of caslon at Sipan allows the Sipan fleet to refuel. Sipan 4? 502K revenue, 27% tax. 125k tax from Sipan 4, 83K from the capital.
Sipan spaceport seems to build civilans and retrofit just fine. Sipan fleet continue retrofitting a few a time until the whole fleet retrofits (when many have already retrofitted and will just refuel).
Sorting by maintenance and firepower in the ship list is a nice way to detect those needing a retrofit. Showing all designs in the design screen, and sorting by sub role shows which designs are in use, and how many that use them.
2153.07.06 As the new Battle 2 is at about 10 complete ships, it moves to Dhayu to allow home fleet to retrofit. The retrofit is most important for the 6-7 ancient destroyers of the sipan fleet, though.
2153.11.09 Money, so much money, got to spend it all! 23 ships for battle 2, destroyers for battle 1 (the capital ship), keep going!
2153.12.24: Ikuriun Ravagers arrive at Dhayu, reminding us that even if we build ships, pirates still exist. These did chase our capital ship when alone. Result? 5 ships damaged in battle 2. 3 ships captured for retirement, no raiders on the ground.
For now we keep the larger sipan fleet, and try to balance home fleet and battle 2 at 23 ships with a mix of destroyers and frigates. Battle 1 is trying to become 23 ships as well, and includes the capital ship.
2154.02.06. A construction ship building a mine detects a pirate base being built not far from Dhayu. Battle 1, now wiht some extra ships, and the non-repairing ships of battle 2 launches from Dhayu (dragging a box and selecting works, just make sure not to send any transports or construction ships). The Spaceport is reported to have some firepower, and must be almost complete. Hopefully the construction ship is there. The owners are Lone Trade Interstellar, who have been based further east, but have not bothered us.
A bit of juggling makes ships arrive at approximately the same time. The construction ship is gone, though. We discover that some of our ships are on half shield, probably because they are newly built. that is not ideal...
The base goes down, the destroyer that is taking a beating from base fighters ends up with 62 damaged, or easier to count: 8 working. It is scrapped.
We spot an instellar traders colony ship in a system a short jump north of this battle. Battle 1 heads by to kill it. Battle 1 and 2 are otherwise trying to get back to Dhayu 3.
2154.09.19 We are lining up for an assault at the pirate colony of nice value. And an advisor talks about defensive base at Sipan 4, and we build one both there and at the capital. Cashflow is still extremely relaxed as ships have been booked to fill the 3 fleets to 23 ships.
2154.11.14. Battle 2 and Invasion are both full of fuel at the capital. Battle 2 is told to move to Atuuko star. Invasion to dead space near Atuuko. Battle 2 has 23 frigates and destroyers of 1866 firepower. Invasion has 3 transports carrying 11 infantry and 3 armor (756 strength).
2154.11.26 Annoying choices. A libiya mining base is attacked just as Battle 2 drive past headig for Atuuko. It is a lone dagger 12 ship fleet. We decide to press on with our offensive action, and leave the rebuilding of lost mines to the constructors.
We stop reporting trivial tech, like marsh colonization complete just now. Research has been forgotten in the past as well. We do register that it is more important to have both Fusion and Quantum reactor compared to some larger build sizes. Idiots...
2155.02.28 As battle 2 land at the star, it spots a few grim claw ships around the dual spaceports. There is no activity at the pirate owned colony that still has 1 atuuk troop defending. Invasion is told to attack the colony as battle 2 wait for company at the star.
Not being very distracted, we order the first 14 destroyers and frigates for a new Battle 3. Money is still flowing in.
2155.03.05 Annoying graviton beams are spotted as battle 2 is met by the local ships.
They ships are eager to jump at the dual spaceports, some are wrapping up the last pirate ship at the star. We notice that one spaceport is rather weak, with half the power of the other. And the weaker one has just 240 shields as well.
It is not easy to see what happens in detail, but it is no doubt they charge into battle with some attitude. Not all of our ships are in the image. There is or was probably a pirate consruction ship in there as well.
The spaceports die, so do a lot of pirate ships, it appears that at least one of them may have jumped away to warn its friends. The colony is captured by the time we pay attention.
Battle 2 misses one ship when they gather after the battle. 4 are damaged. The damaged are told to repair, the rest stays in the system. Repair is at the capital, a good distance away.
There are structures to remove. They are the same kind on whiny atuuks that we encountered after conquering sipan. Early revenue is 88k, tax 1%.
No reason to waste time clearing away pirate presence. It looks like our forces should manage the job. The invasion fleet has left to nearest spaceport. At the same time we queue gas mines on both gas giants, one with both fuels, one with hydrogen.
We garrison 5 infantry at beate, and tell invasion to load troops. They fleet members go separate ways, two back to beate.
We buy some destroyers for battle 3, and one destroyer for invasion fleet. The destroyer becomes fleet leader, and will work as a meeting point for transports on various missions.
Cashflow is a scary low 58K, it is good that we have another atuuk colony that soon will bring good income
2155.07.18 We spot a Grim Guild construction ship near the capital. Battle 1 (with the capital ship) launches to welcome it to our territory. They started at Dhayu, but with Home Fleet at Dhayu they will probably continue to Arexie when done. A sinister spaceways construction ship has started a base in our new territory. Most of battle 2 will test if speed and firepower has become good enough will be enough to kill the construction ship (we drag and select because 4 ships are heading home for repairs, and should continue with that).
We even spot a second grim guild construction ship, but that is left alone for now.
2155.11.15 A lone dagger raiding fleet, discovered that it is not a good idea to try raid the colony below the 845 firepower spaceport at Sipan 4. The ships were in another part of the system, and had no chance to get there in time to join in on the kills. They arrived in time for one to be scratched by railguns, though. But Sipan is a nice place to be, it has lots of shipyards to repair in.
2155.08.01 The defensive prowess of home fleet is tested as the lone daggers arrive at Dhayu 3. They can not stop the raid, they kill a few, lose one, and most are damaged. Have I mentioned that I hate pirate railguns? Home for repairs.
The battle 2 ships did not manage to kill their constructors, but they killed the spaceport build. A pirate escort did not impress the large spaceport at Sipan 4, at least considering its aproach along the gunports of the defensive base. Battle 1 will manage to kill its construction ship.
We have researched impact blaster, and the new firepower of frigates/destroyers is improved from 42/102 to 84/114. Spaceports and defensive bases are retrofitted first.
The lone daggers learned that sapila 4 got a large spaceport now, compared to the good old independent days. Their 12-ish size rainding fleet die to the spaceport and defensive base, but manage to scratch 2 fleet members.
There is an internal discussion about who are more annoying. the Grim Guild that usually attack one mine in the north (when rebuilt), or the lone daggers that try to raid our colonies, and bust all kinds of mines.
It is an easy victory for the annoying, rail gun wielding, lone daggers.
It is 2156.01.30, pirates are still annoying, and it may be time for a proper fightback, at least as long as we don't spot another high quality and high population independent.
Status
As a general AAR consideration, I should try move to a bit higer level in writing, but it is hard when mines at home are still frequently attacked. Not that we often do anything about those attacks apart from hoping that automated constructors will rebuild them.
Getting "here" took longer than expected, and with "here" I think of having more than one fleet that can inflict some pain. The Dhayut were not that good starters, and there is a lot of nearby pirate groups. The amount of pirates were increased when setting up the game, though.
I should not have grabbed the two colonies early on...
I guess it could be a good moment to review various states of the empire.
Pirates
Still annoying, but not as overpowering. The action to push away the guys who's small spaceport was to our left was a success. We have not seen them since.
The local gang, the Najarca Council still exists as well. The diplomacy screen show them with 2 bases, 5 colonies, 45 ships, and 5160 firepower. We have not been bothered by them, nor seen them, since busting their starting spaceport, apart from any ship met immediately after that. We can assume that any pirate sufficiantly far from all of our colonies (and mines) is not a problem. I am not too stressed about mines "far away" anyways, I am not going going to put a 30 ship fleet to defend a mine in the middle of nowhere unless it mines something very special. And the lone daggers, at least, do attack mines with 10-12 ship fleets which makes a 4 ship defensive fleet rather pointless.
I feel that there are more pirate attacks on mines. This could be because pirates consider the colonies too strong targets, and start focusing here instead.
Expansion
If we want to, we can colonize deserts, continentals, and marshes. We got some decent targets within the empire, but we are still prone to pirate raids, and the only full colonies are populated with atuuk. Our guys can breed on the colonies they got as long as there is plenty of room there. Every new colony is still a potential problem, as getting credits and tech stolen in raids is not fun.
When pirates stop roaming the empire, we can put down some colonies. But there is no point for instance colonizing the decent prospect in the capital system, and having the capital population move there until the capital is full. Remember, population is key to high colony revenue, which is what we tax.
Better targets than new colonies are some independents that are still around, although not many, if any, are even near the quality and population of our two atuuk colonies.
Ships and bases
Numbers are growing fast, but I am not happy with fleets of frigates and destroyers. The AI is stupid in research, and we can't even build any carrier (or we could build one, but it lacks fighter bays which makes it kind of stupid).
We have only 3 exploration ships, but they are sitting idle since they don't believe they have more to explore. I am not so sure I believe ther is nothing more, there could be resources and ruins out there. In any case there is no need to build more unless I want some scouts in case of war. But like the trip I did to the Atuuko system to check out the defenses, any military ship can do that. It would annoy an empire, though, in which case an exploration ship would be better. However, I do not usually scout that much until war starts anyways.
The alien capital ship is still powerful, and it has hyperdeny that helps in killing construction ship. But it is slow. It has the Kaldos drive with 7 second to jump and a speed of 13750. The rest has our racial drive. 6 seconds to jump and a speed of 23500. The racial drive is very good at this point in time, giving the various benefits of all of the normal drives. Fast jump, high speed, low energy usage.
Special consideration
Our best colony is Atuuk. Soon our second atuuk colony, Beate, will become very profitable as well. It is short on development, and need some freighter service to build a store of luxuries and strategic resources. Freighters will take care of that over time, just like they did with Sipan 4. Beate got 4 more quality, Sipan 4 got 4000M more population and a +15 development bonus from a ruin. I guess Sipan will be better, but both will outshine the capital until it reaches the same population level.
It may be a very bad idea to go to war with the Atuuk empire, at least until we got more good colonies. Who knows how angry these furry beings can be? Less tax income for sure, and maybe even revolts (and leaving the empire) would be possible outcomes.
Corruption is an issue, if not for that Sipan 4 would bring even more money. Regional capitals in areas with many good colonies is helpful. On a single good colony all by itself, not that helpful. But facility building is automated, anyways.
Spaceports
I will try to limit their number to try help the resource situation. I will probably build defensive bases on top of colonies with no spaceport. A colony like Sipan 4 do benefit from the protection that a large spaceport provides, though.
Today my large spaceport design has 1140 firepower and 7020 shields. The defensive base design with 648 firepower and 2880 shields is way weaker. But none of them will stop a proper fleet attack in the later game on its own. The LSP would deal damage for a longer time, though.
It can be a good idea to have a custom cheap base and/or defensive base with the medical and recreational (and some docking bays and commerce center) to boost the colonies with no spaceport. In this game that is not an issue yet, as the dimwits has not researched neither medical nor recreation. I am not sure what I will do when they finally make them available.
The screens
Not a local area map this time. If in doubt, we are the red guys in the upper left part. We have 5 fleets and 5 colonies, the two "northern colonies" have a fleet each. Known pirate bases are highlighted. We can see a lot of them around Sipan (the top right system of ours). And pirates live close to our home area, and those bases are the sources of our annoying pirates there. Not all of the bases nearby are owned by pirates that has caused any serious grief, yet.
We used to be poor an miserable like a lot of the other empires. Then we grabbed an atuuk independent nearby that none of the local powers had managed to grab. Then we grabbed another one. They could be a problem in their own way, as that "power bar" looks kind of favorable.
When it comes to this game, I am not that fond of independents due to things like these. But I added them in this one to help the pirates in the early game.
Beate has very low development, and it still outshines our two "oldies". Arexie is not shabby at all, with 26k tax income it can pay for its own defenses and then some. Dhayu 3 is more questionable with 12k income, but it is not awful, and can easily pay for a defensive base on top and some protective ships. And both should have lots of free space for growth.
We noticed the mortalen were unhappy about us enslaving some of their people. If they don't like slavery, why do they move to our colonies? Dhayu 3 and Arexie both have small populations of Mortalen and Naxxilians, and Arexie has a few Atuuk as well. They add to the workforce
Much more military ships, maybe build some more troop transports? And recruit some troops to fill them with? And some troops for defense? Crazy number of ships are needed when we can only build small things of 300 size or less.
2 defensive bases for the capital and sipan 4. Mine count is up, the 3 extra construction ships have contributed to that, but pirates are still annoying.
About design, it can be mentioned that I have not checked what fuel my fleets use. Probably hydrogen? They are researching the quantum reactor, and may switch between them. They are also researching the second blaster type, and may switch between long and short range blasters that will make the ship firepower go up and down between versions.
Once we were poor, and we built new frigates whenever we got money. Now we are not so poor, and still build frigates and destroyers with all our money, but it is harder to keep up with the income.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Good reading. I liked your recent summary of the state of your empire. And I enjoy your carefully edited screenshots. Moar, please!
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Thanks for the feedback, I am glad you enjoy it.
As for screenshots, I usually don't edit them at all, I have just added some yellow circles a very few times so far. I line up the game to show a travel vector if necessary. I zoom in far enough. Then I use the Snipping tool that is a part of Windows 7 to take screenshot of a region of the screen which is the image shown. If I am not happy I grab again rather than edit it.
I save screenshots in a separate folder for each post.
I type in a text editor, and when I make a screenshot I spam for instance
XXXXXXXX dhayuattack
And save the screenshot with something trying to be dhayuattack.
When "done" I paste the image tags from the forum on line above or below each of those lines. I then go to photobucket, make a new "album" for the part under my main album for the AAR, and drag the images there as a unit to upload. The album is sorted by time taken, and will always be in the same order as in the AAR as long as I have not edited them.
I then read through the text, catch some of the worst language errors (even if it may not look that way), and paste the image url and delete the XXXX lines as I pass them.
Paste to forum, use Chrome spell checker to catch some typos, check line wraps, done.
I find writing AARs like this a bit fun. It is a motivation to play a game, and it make me think a bit more through why I do stuff while doing it. And it creates a chance to enjoy the graphics a bit as I pause to screenshot during combat. Not so fun when a phase drags on as badly as the "into space" phase of pirate beating in this game, though. They took forever to get a halfway decent economy.
As for screenshots, I usually don't edit them at all, I have just added some yellow circles a very few times so far. I line up the game to show a travel vector if necessary. I zoom in far enough. Then I use the Snipping tool that is a part of Windows 7 to take screenshot of a region of the screen which is the image shown. If I am not happy I grab again rather than edit it.
I save screenshots in a separate folder for each post.
I type in a text editor, and when I make a screenshot I spam for instance
XXXXXXXX dhayuattack
And save the screenshot with something trying to be dhayuattack.
When "done" I paste the image tags from the forum on line above or below each of those lines. I then go to photobucket, make a new "album" for the part under my main album for the AAR, and drag the images there as a unit to upload. The album is sorted by time taken, and will always be in the same order as in the AAR as long as I have not edited them.
I then read through the text, catch some of the worst language errors (even if it may not look that way), and paste the image url and delete the XXXX lines as I pass them.
Paste to forum, use Chrome spell checker to catch some typos, check line wraps, done.
I find writing AARs like this a bit fun. It is a motivation to play a game, and it make me think a bit more through why I do stuff while doing it. And it creates a chance to enjoy the graphics a bit as I pause to screenshot during combat. Not so fun when a phase drags on as badly as the "into space" phase of pirate beating in this game, though. They took forever to get a halfway decent economy.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
It is not always easy to come up with a title
2156.01.30, we always continue where we left off.
Troop recruitment. We got money, lets build some. Dhayu 3 and Arexie are nice and Dhayut dominated, they build normal Dhayut troops, 6 each for now. The capital has armored and special capabilities. It builds 5 armor and 2 special forces. The amounts are somewhat random.
Having 3 transports, we order a random 6 more. We use the rest of our money on destroyers, and will probably not build a frigate ever again. We can afford 8 destroyers.
A bit tired of frigates trying to catch up to their fleets while at low shields, new destroyers are added in a new fleet. This is renamed Construction, based at the capital, and will be automated. Postures will be defense and colony only. Hopefully this will bring them to the capital, and it will not show initiative. Care must be taken to never empty this fleet, or settings will have to be redone as the fleet is disbanded. Doing so should also ensure that fleet leader is in the capital system at all times, and he is the guy the others wants to move to. The plan is of course to replenish fleets with ships from the construction fleet.
Before this order we notice 6 free shipyards at Sipan 4, and 1 ship in queue at the capital. It is worth paying a bit attention to build queues, and a possible need for a third spaceport. Currently there is not a real good candidate for that, since they are all quite close to existing spaceports, and the best colony without on is Beate at the map edge.
2156.02.07 Battle 2 members at atuuko complain about fuel, the curse of a new colony. We have queued fuel mines in the system, though. We really need to get some cruisers that ought to have longer range. I target the lowest fuel fleet members, and give refuel order until one does not choose Beate as its target. That one I stop and wait...
I try to keep Battle 1, 3 and Home fleet at the colony systems "at home", and in a refueled state. I send one transport with 5 normal troops to beate to up the garrison there to 10 troops. This colony is valuable.
2156.03.16 retrofit order for battle 1. That is also something to do after getting new blasters.
2156.03.28 The lone daggers arrive again to raid Dhayu 3. The system only has a hyperdrive less member of battle 2. Their raid will be repelled on the ground. Home Fleet is on its way, but in need of a retrofit like the other fleets.
Sipan Fleet tries to retrofit at Sipan. A rather "fresh" colony of ours will for sure not have any issue building impact assualt blasters for 33 ships? We hope...
2156.06.05 A raid successful at Dhayu? We notice Home fleet in battle with the lone daggers in the system after watching battle 2 kill a lone Grim Guild cruiser at Beate. It was a fleet leader and alone, looking very alien.
Home fleet takes a beating to the nasty railguns, and almost all ships are damaged as they are recalled with the pirates still in the system. 2 ships are missing.
24 waiting for construction at the capital spaceport, retrofitting battle 1 could take a while. And home fleet is incoming for repairs, also needing a retrofit.
2156.07.27 We spot a lone dagger construction ship, possibly there to repair a captured mine, in the libiya system near the capital. We send battle 1 which has retrofit order. The capital ship is not retrofitting, some are done, and others maybe not yet "in the yards" as there is a queue for shipyard attention.
The ships for construction fleet are finished, and this should make retrofits and repairs flow quicker at the capital. Only 4 yards were doing repairs and retrofits while they were being built.
2156.08.21 We are happy to see the capital ship land with the construction ship well inside the hyperdeny field. The 5 frigates with it (that were done retrofitting?) circle it nicely. A sure kill.
2156.09.23 A najarca council frigate attacks the gas mine in Montu Kudro system. Battle 3 waits at the colony, and will go for it. This the first we have noticed about them since busting their base. The only base of theirs we can see is too far to be the source of this ship, so where did this one start from? The mine is at half shields when the frigate is wasted by battle 3.
We watch for automated troop ships heading for Dhayu, that is not safe territory. We stop them and add them to invasion. It is a pain to manage troops when the systems recruiting them are not safe to visit.
As Home Fleet is repaired, we order them to retrofit. This swallows all the 20k cash at the time, so we may not retrofit all due to low cash reserves.
2156.12.07 Battle 1 is done with retrofit, and heads for Dhayu start to make the system safe until the next batch of railgun fire.
Battle 1 clears the Dhayu system with 6 damaged. Damaged ships sent to repair, the rest stays. Ships in the home system destroy lone daggers attacking the a newly rebuilt mining station.
Battle 3 retrofits, and the only left to do so is battle 2 at Atuuko.
Strikeback
Sipan fleet is strong at 33 retrofitted ships. It takes attack order of one of two savage sun spaceports (both small) in a system outside Sipan.
At arrival, a few local ships are battling a strike force of the Grand Atuuk Territory.
The only exciting part of the outcome is if there will be losses for the Sipan fleet. As the spaceport dies, 2 are damaged. The fleet is immediately told to attack the other small spaceport in the system.
If you want an action photo, it is OK to reuse the one above. There are only so many ways the same fleet attacking identical small spaceports can look.
As the second spaceport explodes, we get a lost ship location. Wait? What? In the sollost system? That is where our capital is, we thought we had that one explored, but obviously missed an anomaly.
We immediately get control. 208 firepower, a slow moving boat -> retire for tech. Some fleet stuff that can come in handy is not enough reason to keep it.
Sipan fleet has about 15 damaged, I guess it would not have hurt to recharge shields before the second attack. It gets repair order. Three ships are too badly damaged to flee home. We drop them from fleet, and allow them to stay and maybe pick up a repair from a construction ship. They will also function as scouts in the system.
(Much later all of the three will actually rejoin Sipan fleet).
As Home Fleet helps in defeating a small Najarcan fleet that attacked a home system mine, Home Fleet is no more. They all join battle 1. Battle 1 is renamed Crusher 1 to show that it is a stronger fleet than the average battle fleet.
While not planning to do anything about the question, we wonder "Where is that Najarcan base?". There are bigger fish to fry.
Crusher 1 with 46 ships is told to move to the system of the "lone dagger capital", a former mortalen colony. The main purpose of the move is to meet up with the former home fleet starting from the capital.
Never mind that lone dagger fleet attacking a mine just NW of the capital in the Libiya system, we don't do anything about such attacks... As Crusher 1 members land, they find that the colony has a medium spaceport, and a couple of ships present. This is a bad place to hang around if you want to save ships for the main spaceport attack, so they jump further "back" to meet up in the Jintawoe system where the original Najarcan spaceport was.
A Najarcan capital ship (alien) attack our gas mine in Montu Kudro. There is no fleet present, but we take note that they attack in the north of the home areas, which may be a hint that that is the general area of the base. Contrary to being based to the south of our empire.
Crusher 1 finds one lone dagger escort in Jintawoe, and nothing else. It manages to damage a destroyer before it dies...
When all ships are present, Crusher 1 heads for the star of the system with the large lone dagger spaceport. The two flags below that shows the other two known spaceports of them, but those are both small. Rumors tell us about a large spaceport with 948 firepower and 7200 shields.
2157.11.18. The lone daggers attack Dhayu 3 as Battle 3 head for arexie. The lone dagger may not be as eager in raiding quite soon.
2157.12.02. We got Quantum engines, and we are researching larger shipyards. Celebration! It may not be enough for decent cruisers, but it may add more stuff to destroyers, and maybe open up for a proper carrier build.
We approve a suggested defensive base at Beate. We have already started one on top of the colony which still lacks some components. Beate is improving, now contributing with 36k tax revenue.
Arriving in the pirate system, Crusher 1 finds maybe 15-20 ships, some at spaceport and some at random spots, and no other structures. They attack the spaceport before any pirate can damage them.
As they jump at the spaceport, those at the spaceport jump to the star where Crusher 1 just left. It gives a brief moment to engage the spaceport alone.
The frigates dive into battle, and the spaceport sends out fingers of green graviton beams. The spaceport shields go down fast to the 5444 firepower of the Crusher 1 fleet.
As the frigates has charged past the spaceport, and are ready for a new turn, the spaceport is already badly damaged.
As the spaceport has blown, a few attackers being near the center of the explosion did not quite manage to shrug off the blast. The rest of the fleet battle out with the few pirate ships still alive.
As the final pirate ship present is destroyed, most ships of crusher 1 are damaged, and the fleet returns for deserved repair. As they leave, the fleet has 43 ships moving home. A couple of those in the shot above are actually flying, only 1 ship is left in the system. It is the westfalen IV 019, an experienced ship with no less than two officers. Frigates lose their position in the military, and a star frigate has been badly beaten and will be lost.
As the 43 more or less working members of Crusher 1 heads back they can be satisfied with doing a major blow to the most annoying pirate clan. It is, however, no reason to believe that these guys are a spent force.
2158.04.28 At the same time, Sipan fleet with 30 working and retrofitted ships lifts off to bust the main Savage Sun Ventures spaceport near the colony. It shows a much more modest 4800 shields and 588 firepower compared to the spaceport just killed by Crusher 1.
As usual, they target the star, to get a view of the ships in the system before committing to the spaceport. The image also shows that there are more targets to be had.
In other news, Construction fleet was down at 1 ship after replenishing fleets, and does currently have 21 destroyers where 6 are under construction. They help with any pirate appearing in the capital system. New builds are probably not ordered for a wile, as a cash buffer is nice when the new construction size is available.
2158.05.17: As sipan fleet and its 30 ships land at the star of their pirate system, they spot only 3 pirate ships in the system, including at least one badly damaged one. They head for the pirate base where there is a host of civilian "independents".
We can see the shields of the spaceport flash as the first salvos hit it. The leading frigate is seen with its shield flashing as 2/3 of it is removed in an instant as the spaceport fires.
We will never tire of the sound and looks of large pirate spaceports exploding.
Rumors among frigate crews say that right besides the spaceport is the wrong place to be as it explodes. 8 ships lack hyperdrive, 1 ship is lost. None of them fire as a lone pirate frigate appears and wonder where the spaceport is. We scrap them all.
We register the sipan fleet at 18 ships as we wonder how 30 - 1 -8 became 18. Does anomalies not only gift ships but take them away too? Two recovered frigates from their first battle are repaired by a constructor and rejoins, while 1 damaged ship remains in that system for now.
2158.08.05 Not bothered by the loss of their main spaceport, the lone daggers arrive to raid Dhayu 3. There are no defending ships in the system. Battle 3 is at Arexie, Construction is in the capital system, and crusher 1 is not yet home for repairs. The last ships are slow in getting back due to their fuel cells being damaged having caused them to run out of fuel.
As Dhayu 3 battle raiders, we notice that it has reached max population at 4800M. That is one of issues with low quality worlds (65%).
2158.11.24 Battle 2 left Atuuko on a construction ship hunt of unknown success, and heads for retrofit at the capital. Two defensive bases protect Beate, and will hopefully manage just fine.
We are reluctant to build defensive bases at Dhayu 3 and Arexie since we doubt they would survive a pirate attack without fleet help anyways. And we are not stuffed with fleets to sit around protecting a build.
2158.12.11 The ship waiting for repair NW of sipan observes a Grim guild construction ship arriving to build a mine. Some 17 complete ships of Sipan fleet takes off to kill it while the straggles are being repaired.
Sipan fleet manages a good encirclement as they arrive, but we believe the Construction ship escaped after taking some damage with shields down. A good try, but a failure.
2159.01.22 There are several battles in the capital system as lone daggers attack mining bases. As can be seen, there is a good number of Construction and Crusher 1 ships to battle out with them. Some of our ships will require repair after such battles due to rail guns, and many pirates are killed. Often we will notice military ships in the dead space around the capital system, a sure sign that the lone daggers have arrived and are damaging ships, making them flee.
With 95k at hand, +101K cashflow, and component prefabrication at 33%, we decide there is enough time to rebuild a stash, and buy 17 destroyers for almost all of the money.
As the new orders are added to construction fleet, all but the leader is assigned to new fleets. 2 to fill battle 3 to 23 ships, about 6 to crusher 1, the rest increases Sipan fleet to 33 ships. There are more pirate spaceports around Sipan.
Fleets with new ships are told to refuel, then queued to move to the colony. That should make them stay in the gravity well of the colony or base. If not, they tend to "park in space" after refueling while the colony/base leaves on their eternal orbits around the stars.
2159.03.02 Grim guild arrives at the gas mine of Sipan 7 lead by a large alien capital ship. It is powerful at 458 firepower. Sipan fleet is repairing, with 4 damaged ships, and is told to attack the capital.
Not too many are ready to go, but our ships are stronger than at the start of the game, and these capital ships lose their power over time. The attackers die, and sipan fleet loses none. Back to refuel and repair duty. The mine? It had 4 damaged components.
At the same time the Grim Guild visit beate. We can see a lack of focus on their part, and their closest ship taking heavy damage in a volley from the defensive base on top of the colony. The two closest ships are killed, the defensive bases not impressed, and the civilan ships are damaged, fleeing, and possibly killed.
2159.04.03 Holographic network wonder for the Securan Harmony. We have not even discovered recreational centers. We fight pirates, we don't focus on entertainment. Or something. Lots of setbacks in the giant colonization project "way back" does not help our high tech progress at all.
Another alien cruiser appears in the capital system. Another one with 208 firepower and no hyperdeny is sent to retire.
Lots of damaged ships in the capital system after fighting lone daggers. But at least they don't need hyperdrive to limp back for repairs. It is hard to get a fully repaired crusher 1 when this happens. Very damaged ships are transferred to construction.
At Sipan, the fleet waits for its additions to arrive. They also fight mine attackers and manage to capture a couple to retire for tech benefits.
2159.10.12 Sipan Fleet with 30 working ships and 3486 firepower launches after a failed pirate constructor hunt, and heads for the star of the system where the main base of the Grim Guild can be found. We know of 3 additional spaceports of theirs.
At the same time, Crusher 1 finds itself with 46 working ships, and is told to attack the Grim Guild controlled colony near home, where we saw a medium spaceport. They have no troops, and the target is the spaceport we believe is there. We can see their two known spaceport bases on the right. A similar symbol at the bottom is a different clan that has not bothered us.
Sipan Fleet finds only 3 armed ships and a couple of unarmed transports to accompany the Large Grim Guild Spaceport.
The frigate tactic of speedily charging in on large spaceports is not always good for their health. But what can they do with only short range weapons? The spaceport is powerful.
Shots fly around the spaceport which pummels one of our destroyers in the upper right. Another destroyer at the end of the red beam down right is also feeling the pain. The spaceport is soon shields down.
At the same time Crusher 1 circles the lone claw spaceport, and discovers that their expected medium target has become large since last time. It hardly matters, it got to go.
The Grim Guild spaceport is down as Crusher 1 pummels their objective.
Sipan Fleet has 25 ships heading for repair, half of them undamaged. 3 are left behind having no hyperdrive and having issues with a pirate present, they are scrapped.
At crusher 1, hardly any ship escapes damage. The Lone Dagger spaceports go out with a bang.
11 ships find themselves with no hyperdrive. In addition 6 ships are gone. Lets hope they won't retrofit to another large spaceport by the time we have an attack force ready.
At the same time the sinister spaceways of the south attack a mine near home. They have build a large spaceport nearby, and have at least one more large spaceport further south. So many pirates...
We need more ships to replace losses. Component prefabrication is at 62% and there is time to gather even more cash before it is done. Currently we are at 221k, and need to reinforce both Sipan and Crusher fleets. 10 destroyers are built at Sipan to reinforce the local fleet. They are added to a temporary fleet.
Afterwards we build 25 more at the build order screen, and add them to Construction to end up at the capital. Good timing in building helps when organizing fleets. First 10 sipan ships, sort by fleet. Add fleetless ships to the sipan temporary fleet. Then build the ones for Construction Fleet and add them the same way. If there are a host of non-fleeted ships this will not work, but sorting by firepower could work. But in this case both new sets had 0 firepower since the builds had not started.
Invasion has been moved to an "empty" system near home to avoid dragging itself into battles at the capital. We are tired of repairing them, and don't want to lose any loaded troops due to stupid ships trying to fight pirates. One reason to never have weapons on transports if doing manual designs.
2160.02.10 Battle 2, the former Atuuko guys, launches its 23 retrofitted ships from the capital. It aims for the lower of two lone dagger small spaceports, aiming for the star, of course.
We can see invasion camping in an empty system. Crusher 1 working its way back. And above the Crusher 1 marker, all by itself is a star system. In it there is a frequently visited place from earlier in the game, when pirates (and we) built there again, and again. Now it is lone dagger controlled and have been so for a while. A single destroyer of the Construction fleet leaves the capital to that star. We hope to catch it as it lands, before it heads back to fleet leader. The aim is to intercept it to give order to kill that mine. We know it is there due to the way system overview works, but we can't target it.
Another destroyer from Construction launches at pantulemen star where we just killed the pirate colony spaceport. Just to check if they are building another one. It will go home after landing, and we need to watch this one as well not to miss the news. Luckily both destroyers have a shorter trip than Battle 2.
2160.02.27 The securan harmony terminate the trade in loros fruit. How could they?! We can always fetch it by other means if we really want to... Or maybe go for the spice source, that one is in the small system to the right of Sipan, controlled by the dark blue securans (secura utopia).
1.6K stored loros, 2,3k in transit... Our cashflow will take a hit from its current 123K when that runs out. We should survive a small drop The only thing we lack is a lot of cash, which is because we have not been rich for a long time. And because we may lose 16 destroyers at once busting a spaceport, which will cost 85k to replace at this point in time.
The destroyer on a mine hunt is ordered to kill the mine. The one scouting the pirate system finds 3 ships and no structures. And Battle 2 is half way. At this time we spot a lone dagger construction ship in jintawoe. It is the system to the left of the pirate colony just visited.
We tell the damaged capital ship in battle 1, now just arrived at the capital system, to attack it. We are on standby for some ships to help out, but they are faster so care must be taken to have the capital ship place its hyperdeny field before anyone else arrive. Some fleet members may follow it, since a few actually are healthy.
Problems? The blasted pirate mine of lone daggers has graviton weapons, it takes out the hyperdrive of the attacking destroyer. Another Construction fleet member is moved in to kill as the damaged ship leaves the fleet.
A bit distracted watching a destroyer flee from a pirate mine, we fail to notice the battle 2 landing as it happens, but they find a lot of pirate ships, take the usual damage from graviton beams (no more railguns?), and heads home for repair. They can't battle those and the spaceport. There are several mines, a construction ship, and the small spaceport in the system. All members of Battle 2 will make it back home.
The capital ship manages to land and finds the constructor, as it does, a few healthy of its fleet members are told to attack the constructor too.
The constructor is scary fast. Battle 2 is maybe closer on its retreat? Battle 2 is told to attack the constructor.
2160.07.15 And while this happens, the lone daggers try to raid Dhayu 3. We have no protection apart from some 12 troops on ground.
Battle 2 arrives, but they land far back. But the ship between the capital and the constructor (a bit hard to see ahead of it) is a speedy frigate at 35 speed. The capital almost keeps up at 20 speed.
Of course the frigates take damage killing it helped by a mate. What would lone daggers be if they did not arm their constructor with graviton beams? Battle 1 and 2 has renewed orders to repair.
Dhayu 3: Repel some, lose long range lasers to others. Yes, dear lone daggers, please equip long range lasers on all ships ans bases...
2160.09.16 Long range scanner research started, starting at 40% after, we think, some spy missions. They are nice. They could reveal pirate travel lines, and give enough warning to move fleets to intercept raids.
We have the capital ship leave Crusher 1 and join Construction. It is on constructor hunt standby, and is too slow to fly around with our speedy guys. Our superior hyperdrives can make the attacks more efficient, and we pack a punch without it.
17 destroyers of construction joins Crusher 1, bumping its numbers to 45 ships. Some need repair still. We make sure that all added are in the Sollost system, and the ship list is always used for this kind of work.
Just when you think a fleet is ready to leave the capital, a lone dagger has dropped by and scratched one of them...
2161.03.19 We noticed the influence circle around Beate increasing. Checking... Yes, 463K revenue, 27% tax, 115k tax income. Better than the capital in both revenue and tax collected. Casflow? +149k, 252k cash on hand. 97% progress on construction size...
2161.04.26 A repeat image? No. This is Crusher 1 and Battle 2 both moving to the system that battle 2 visisted alone. We can move them as two fleets since the slow capital ship is not here, and they have the same hyperspace speed. This is 23+45 ships on the move.
2151.05.04 Sipan fleet is repaired, strengthened to 35 ships, and take off towards a dual small spaceport system of the Grim Guild further west. They could have gone for the one to the south, but we can see a grim guild ship attacking a mine near the target, and they have had activity in that area. Killing both spaceports on the same trips may be over the top, time will show. Battle 3 sits at Beate at the left, doing some work to protect the 3 mines in the system as well as the colony.
2161.06.09 We have researched component prefabrication.
And with this, with fleets on attack vector, but some distance to their targets. With brand new designs, and with 258K cash on hand, it is a good time for a status.
We are using inadequate ships killing pirates with booby trapped bases, and it is a chore.
Status
A long post, but the focus became to "get to that construction tech".
Discussion of new designs will be at the start of the next part.
The last two research projects feel fast. Long range scanners are closing on completion, but the previous project (Advanced Passenger Transport) was twice as expensive.
Component prefabrication felt fast too, but probably only because we waited forever for it to get started. Of course they move on to refined hyperjump theory, which we will not benefit from. This is a dhayut tech focus in research (in empire policy), but it is only used in capital ship designs. I have reported this as a bug/bad feature.
When it comes to fighting, we really miss repair bots, but they are a long way into the future as they are hidden deep in the damage control/construction branch. On manual research I would have given it a very high priority in energy research. The AI has spent time on useful stuff like 3 different engine types to choose from. And 2 shields. And 2 reactors. Those research projects will eventually be necessary to reach the "end game" technologies, but doing it now is a waste of research effort, when there is little research effort to spare.
We got fleets that can kill the pirate bases, but they take a beating while doing so. Maybe the Sipan fleet should have stayed smaller and inactive, and ships rather spent to create a second Crusher fleet in the south. Grim Guild has been annoying, but not anywhere near the lone dagger level.
No statistics, but I think colony raids are less frequent, and only dhayu now for quite some time, and the lone daggers are behind it.
The Lone Dagger colony that we have visited has 1738M population of some growth, 61% quality. It is not much income, and right now, just another place to get raids and to garrison a decent set of troops. And how much could the Lone daggers really benefit from controlling such a colony?
Screens:
Yellow dots are pirate bases. The most annoying ones are currently awaiting our fleets arriving. The one quite near our red, on the left edge, is a large spaceport at a colony system that I think spawned 1 small mine attack near the capital. It is a group "from the south", the next two bases below are the same crew.
The "cross" was randomly placed, SE of it is the loros source. SW in the blue colony is the spice source. We still got the loros bonus as will be seen in the 135 colony development levels. The fluid source is far to the east, a single light brown Haakonish circle below the big Haakonish capital circle.
There are lots of wars going on, but no one declare war on me, I am not paying much attention to anything but my pirate battles. And being busy fighting pirates, war is not on my mind.
We are doing well, but are not dominant in anything but population. Top 4 in military power, for instance. Shared first in economy. The economy came easy due to the atuuk independents.
Getting some defense pacts could be a way to get dragged into wars. The sluken would be obvious choices for that. In other matters, Securan Harmony is a weird empire to be on friendly terms with, having way of the ancients and all. They are mightily impressed by our noble reputation gained by defending against pirates. Everyone has high reputations, lots of pirates... Several empires are "heroic".
This makes me feel like a proper colonial power. Exploiting the Atuuk natives, and building our fortunes on them.
The capital is getting better and more populated, Dhayu 3 is at maximum population. Arexie is a nice addition when not being raided.
2 more defensive bases, both at beate.
A good increase in mine count, but they are still attacked.
The last frigate has probably been built, but even if we start building cruisers, the destroyers and frigates can do some duty bashing pirates and stuff. And the destroyers are not useless at all.
6 research stations? We now have a bonus site for each, and the 3 at the capital. Research potential is up to 1050K. Research capacity is 3*400, and not way more than needed. For research, a large spaceport at the next big gain in population would fit nicely.
Research bonuses? Component prefab that was just completed spawned a genius with 20% empire bonus to research. Too bad they put it at a research station at a bonus location, but it is one that has lived for a long time. His only bonus apart from that is hightech, and he is on the energy bonus location. Weird.
In addition, we have 10% high tech from leader.
16% weapons, 25% energy, 20% hightech from sites.
We should not run maintenance way up as we got a loros fruit deal that expired, but we could not build enough even if we wanted to. Ships do not come for free. And we do not need _that_ many troops at this time.
We will of course eventually catch up unless we are so rich we got all the ship we bother to buy. But right now the need is like 40 ships in systems with a colony, 20 in systems with a mine, and a few 50 ship attack fleets...
Resort income?! We got no resort base, and I have not noticed any in any attack message either. And 18K is not a trivial amount on a base that was there for a short moment. Odd.
2156.01.30, we always continue where we left off.
Troop recruitment. We got money, lets build some. Dhayu 3 and Arexie are nice and Dhayut dominated, they build normal Dhayut troops, 6 each for now. The capital has armored and special capabilities. It builds 5 armor and 2 special forces. The amounts are somewhat random.
Having 3 transports, we order a random 6 more. We use the rest of our money on destroyers, and will probably not build a frigate ever again. We can afford 8 destroyers.
A bit tired of frigates trying to catch up to their fleets while at low shields, new destroyers are added in a new fleet. This is renamed Construction, based at the capital, and will be automated. Postures will be defense and colony only. Hopefully this will bring them to the capital, and it will not show initiative. Care must be taken to never empty this fleet, or settings will have to be redone as the fleet is disbanded. Doing so should also ensure that fleet leader is in the capital system at all times, and he is the guy the others wants to move to. The plan is of course to replenish fleets with ships from the construction fleet.
Before this order we notice 6 free shipyards at Sipan 4, and 1 ship in queue at the capital. It is worth paying a bit attention to build queues, and a possible need for a third spaceport. Currently there is not a real good candidate for that, since they are all quite close to existing spaceports, and the best colony without on is Beate at the map edge.
2156.02.07 Battle 2 members at atuuko complain about fuel, the curse of a new colony. We have queued fuel mines in the system, though. We really need to get some cruisers that ought to have longer range. I target the lowest fuel fleet members, and give refuel order until one does not choose Beate as its target. That one I stop and wait...
I try to keep Battle 1, 3 and Home fleet at the colony systems "at home", and in a refueled state. I send one transport with 5 normal troops to beate to up the garrison there to 10 troops. This colony is valuable.
2156.03.16 retrofit order for battle 1. That is also something to do after getting new blasters.
2156.03.28 The lone daggers arrive again to raid Dhayu 3. The system only has a hyperdrive less member of battle 2. Their raid will be repelled on the ground. Home Fleet is on its way, but in need of a retrofit like the other fleets.
Sipan Fleet tries to retrofit at Sipan. A rather "fresh" colony of ours will for sure not have any issue building impact assualt blasters for 33 ships? We hope...
2156.06.05 A raid successful at Dhayu? We notice Home fleet in battle with the lone daggers in the system after watching battle 2 kill a lone Grim Guild cruiser at Beate. It was a fleet leader and alone, looking very alien.
Home fleet takes a beating to the nasty railguns, and almost all ships are damaged as they are recalled with the pirates still in the system. 2 ships are missing.
24 waiting for construction at the capital spaceport, retrofitting battle 1 could take a while. And home fleet is incoming for repairs, also needing a retrofit.
2156.07.27 We spot a lone dagger construction ship, possibly there to repair a captured mine, in the libiya system near the capital. We send battle 1 which has retrofit order. The capital ship is not retrofitting, some are done, and others maybe not yet "in the yards" as there is a queue for shipyard attention.
The ships for construction fleet are finished, and this should make retrofits and repairs flow quicker at the capital. Only 4 yards were doing repairs and retrofits while they were being built.
2156.08.21 We are happy to see the capital ship land with the construction ship well inside the hyperdeny field. The 5 frigates with it (that were done retrofitting?) circle it nicely. A sure kill.
2156.09.23 A najarca council frigate attacks the gas mine in Montu Kudro system. Battle 3 waits at the colony, and will go for it. This the first we have noticed about them since busting their base. The only base of theirs we can see is too far to be the source of this ship, so where did this one start from? The mine is at half shields when the frigate is wasted by battle 3.
We watch for automated troop ships heading for Dhayu, that is not safe territory. We stop them and add them to invasion. It is a pain to manage troops when the systems recruiting them are not safe to visit.
As Home Fleet is repaired, we order them to retrofit. This swallows all the 20k cash at the time, so we may not retrofit all due to low cash reserves.
2156.12.07 Battle 1 is done with retrofit, and heads for Dhayu start to make the system safe until the next batch of railgun fire.
Battle 1 clears the Dhayu system with 6 damaged. Damaged ships sent to repair, the rest stays. Ships in the home system destroy lone daggers attacking the a newly rebuilt mining station.
Battle 3 retrofits, and the only left to do so is battle 2 at Atuuko.
Strikeback
Sipan fleet is strong at 33 retrofitted ships. It takes attack order of one of two savage sun spaceports (both small) in a system outside Sipan.
At arrival, a few local ships are battling a strike force of the Grand Atuuk Territory.
The only exciting part of the outcome is if there will be losses for the Sipan fleet. As the spaceport dies, 2 are damaged. The fleet is immediately told to attack the other small spaceport in the system.
If you want an action photo, it is OK to reuse the one above. There are only so many ways the same fleet attacking identical small spaceports can look.
As the second spaceport explodes, we get a lost ship location. Wait? What? In the sollost system? That is where our capital is, we thought we had that one explored, but obviously missed an anomaly.
We immediately get control. 208 firepower, a slow moving boat -> retire for tech. Some fleet stuff that can come in handy is not enough reason to keep it.
Sipan fleet has about 15 damaged, I guess it would not have hurt to recharge shields before the second attack. It gets repair order. Three ships are too badly damaged to flee home. We drop them from fleet, and allow them to stay and maybe pick up a repair from a construction ship. They will also function as scouts in the system.
(Much later all of the three will actually rejoin Sipan fleet).
As Home Fleet helps in defeating a small Najarcan fleet that attacked a home system mine, Home Fleet is no more. They all join battle 1. Battle 1 is renamed Crusher 1 to show that it is a stronger fleet than the average battle fleet.
While not planning to do anything about the question, we wonder "Where is that Najarcan base?". There are bigger fish to fry.
Crusher 1 with 46 ships is told to move to the system of the "lone dagger capital", a former mortalen colony. The main purpose of the move is to meet up with the former home fleet starting from the capital.
Never mind that lone dagger fleet attacking a mine just NW of the capital in the Libiya system, we don't do anything about such attacks... As Crusher 1 members land, they find that the colony has a medium spaceport, and a couple of ships present. This is a bad place to hang around if you want to save ships for the main spaceport attack, so they jump further "back" to meet up in the Jintawoe system where the original Najarcan spaceport was.
A Najarcan capital ship (alien) attack our gas mine in Montu Kudro. There is no fleet present, but we take note that they attack in the north of the home areas, which may be a hint that that is the general area of the base. Contrary to being based to the south of our empire.
Crusher 1 finds one lone dagger escort in Jintawoe, and nothing else. It manages to damage a destroyer before it dies...
When all ships are present, Crusher 1 heads for the star of the system with the large lone dagger spaceport. The two flags below that shows the other two known spaceports of them, but those are both small. Rumors tell us about a large spaceport with 948 firepower and 7200 shields.
2157.11.18. The lone daggers attack Dhayu 3 as Battle 3 head for arexie. The lone dagger may not be as eager in raiding quite soon.
2157.12.02. We got Quantum engines, and we are researching larger shipyards. Celebration! It may not be enough for decent cruisers, but it may add more stuff to destroyers, and maybe open up for a proper carrier build.
We approve a suggested defensive base at Beate. We have already started one on top of the colony which still lacks some components. Beate is improving, now contributing with 36k tax revenue.
Arriving in the pirate system, Crusher 1 finds maybe 15-20 ships, some at spaceport and some at random spots, and no other structures. They attack the spaceport before any pirate can damage them.
As they jump at the spaceport, those at the spaceport jump to the star where Crusher 1 just left. It gives a brief moment to engage the spaceport alone.
The frigates dive into battle, and the spaceport sends out fingers of green graviton beams. The spaceport shields go down fast to the 5444 firepower of the Crusher 1 fleet.
As the frigates has charged past the spaceport, and are ready for a new turn, the spaceport is already badly damaged.
As the spaceport has blown, a few attackers being near the center of the explosion did not quite manage to shrug off the blast. The rest of the fleet battle out with the few pirate ships still alive.
As the final pirate ship present is destroyed, most ships of crusher 1 are damaged, and the fleet returns for deserved repair. As they leave, the fleet has 43 ships moving home. A couple of those in the shot above are actually flying, only 1 ship is left in the system. It is the westfalen IV 019, an experienced ship with no less than two officers. Frigates lose their position in the military, and a star frigate has been badly beaten and will be lost.
As the 43 more or less working members of Crusher 1 heads back they can be satisfied with doing a major blow to the most annoying pirate clan. It is, however, no reason to believe that these guys are a spent force.
2158.04.28 At the same time, Sipan fleet with 30 working and retrofitted ships lifts off to bust the main Savage Sun Ventures spaceport near the colony. It shows a much more modest 4800 shields and 588 firepower compared to the spaceport just killed by Crusher 1.
As usual, they target the star, to get a view of the ships in the system before committing to the spaceport. The image also shows that there are more targets to be had.
In other news, Construction fleet was down at 1 ship after replenishing fleets, and does currently have 21 destroyers where 6 are under construction. They help with any pirate appearing in the capital system. New builds are probably not ordered for a wile, as a cash buffer is nice when the new construction size is available.
2158.05.17: As sipan fleet and its 30 ships land at the star of their pirate system, they spot only 3 pirate ships in the system, including at least one badly damaged one. They head for the pirate base where there is a host of civilian "independents".
We can see the shields of the spaceport flash as the first salvos hit it. The leading frigate is seen with its shield flashing as 2/3 of it is removed in an instant as the spaceport fires.
We will never tire of the sound and looks of large pirate spaceports exploding.
Rumors among frigate crews say that right besides the spaceport is the wrong place to be as it explodes. 8 ships lack hyperdrive, 1 ship is lost. None of them fire as a lone pirate frigate appears and wonder where the spaceport is. We scrap them all.
We register the sipan fleet at 18 ships as we wonder how 30 - 1 -8 became 18. Does anomalies not only gift ships but take them away too? Two recovered frigates from their first battle are repaired by a constructor and rejoins, while 1 damaged ship remains in that system for now.
2158.08.05 Not bothered by the loss of their main spaceport, the lone daggers arrive to raid Dhayu 3. There are no defending ships in the system. Battle 3 is at Arexie, Construction is in the capital system, and crusher 1 is not yet home for repairs. The last ships are slow in getting back due to their fuel cells being damaged having caused them to run out of fuel.
As Dhayu 3 battle raiders, we notice that it has reached max population at 4800M. That is one of issues with low quality worlds (65%).
2158.11.24 Battle 2 left Atuuko on a construction ship hunt of unknown success, and heads for retrofit at the capital. Two defensive bases protect Beate, and will hopefully manage just fine.
We are reluctant to build defensive bases at Dhayu 3 and Arexie since we doubt they would survive a pirate attack without fleet help anyways. And we are not stuffed with fleets to sit around protecting a build.
2158.12.11 The ship waiting for repair NW of sipan observes a Grim guild construction ship arriving to build a mine. Some 17 complete ships of Sipan fleet takes off to kill it while the straggles are being repaired.
Sipan fleet manages a good encirclement as they arrive, but we believe the Construction ship escaped after taking some damage with shields down. A good try, but a failure.
2159.01.22 There are several battles in the capital system as lone daggers attack mining bases. As can be seen, there is a good number of Construction and Crusher 1 ships to battle out with them. Some of our ships will require repair after such battles due to rail guns, and many pirates are killed. Often we will notice military ships in the dead space around the capital system, a sure sign that the lone daggers have arrived and are damaging ships, making them flee.
With 95k at hand, +101K cashflow, and component prefabrication at 33%, we decide there is enough time to rebuild a stash, and buy 17 destroyers for almost all of the money.
As the new orders are added to construction fleet, all but the leader is assigned to new fleets. 2 to fill battle 3 to 23 ships, about 6 to crusher 1, the rest increases Sipan fleet to 33 ships. There are more pirate spaceports around Sipan.
Fleets with new ships are told to refuel, then queued to move to the colony. That should make them stay in the gravity well of the colony or base. If not, they tend to "park in space" after refueling while the colony/base leaves on their eternal orbits around the stars.
2159.03.02 Grim guild arrives at the gas mine of Sipan 7 lead by a large alien capital ship. It is powerful at 458 firepower. Sipan fleet is repairing, with 4 damaged ships, and is told to attack the capital.
Not too many are ready to go, but our ships are stronger than at the start of the game, and these capital ships lose their power over time. The attackers die, and sipan fleet loses none. Back to refuel and repair duty. The mine? It had 4 damaged components.
At the same time the Grim Guild visit beate. We can see a lack of focus on their part, and their closest ship taking heavy damage in a volley from the defensive base on top of the colony. The two closest ships are killed, the defensive bases not impressed, and the civilan ships are damaged, fleeing, and possibly killed.
2159.04.03 Holographic network wonder for the Securan Harmony. We have not even discovered recreational centers. We fight pirates, we don't focus on entertainment. Or something. Lots of setbacks in the giant colonization project "way back" does not help our high tech progress at all.
Another alien cruiser appears in the capital system. Another one with 208 firepower and no hyperdeny is sent to retire.
Lots of damaged ships in the capital system after fighting lone daggers. But at least they don't need hyperdrive to limp back for repairs. It is hard to get a fully repaired crusher 1 when this happens. Very damaged ships are transferred to construction.
At Sipan, the fleet waits for its additions to arrive. They also fight mine attackers and manage to capture a couple to retire for tech benefits.
2159.10.12 Sipan Fleet with 30 working ships and 3486 firepower launches after a failed pirate constructor hunt, and heads for the star of the system where the main base of the Grim Guild can be found. We know of 3 additional spaceports of theirs.
At the same time, Crusher 1 finds itself with 46 working ships, and is told to attack the Grim Guild controlled colony near home, where we saw a medium spaceport. They have no troops, and the target is the spaceport we believe is there. We can see their two known spaceport bases on the right. A similar symbol at the bottom is a different clan that has not bothered us.
Sipan Fleet finds only 3 armed ships and a couple of unarmed transports to accompany the Large Grim Guild Spaceport.
The frigate tactic of speedily charging in on large spaceports is not always good for their health. But what can they do with only short range weapons? The spaceport is powerful.
Shots fly around the spaceport which pummels one of our destroyers in the upper right. Another destroyer at the end of the red beam down right is also feeling the pain. The spaceport is soon shields down.
At the same time Crusher 1 circles the lone claw spaceport, and discovers that their expected medium target has become large since last time. It hardly matters, it got to go.
The Grim Guild spaceport is down as Crusher 1 pummels their objective.
Sipan Fleet has 25 ships heading for repair, half of them undamaged. 3 are left behind having no hyperdrive and having issues with a pirate present, they are scrapped.
At crusher 1, hardly any ship escapes damage. The Lone Dagger spaceports go out with a bang.
11 ships find themselves with no hyperdrive. In addition 6 ships are gone. Lets hope they won't retrofit to another large spaceport by the time we have an attack force ready.
At the same time the sinister spaceways of the south attack a mine near home. They have build a large spaceport nearby, and have at least one more large spaceport further south. So many pirates...
We need more ships to replace losses. Component prefabrication is at 62% and there is time to gather even more cash before it is done. Currently we are at 221k, and need to reinforce both Sipan and Crusher fleets. 10 destroyers are built at Sipan to reinforce the local fleet. They are added to a temporary fleet.
Afterwards we build 25 more at the build order screen, and add them to Construction to end up at the capital. Good timing in building helps when organizing fleets. First 10 sipan ships, sort by fleet. Add fleetless ships to the sipan temporary fleet. Then build the ones for Construction Fleet and add them the same way. If there are a host of non-fleeted ships this will not work, but sorting by firepower could work. But in this case both new sets had 0 firepower since the builds had not started.
Invasion has been moved to an "empty" system near home to avoid dragging itself into battles at the capital. We are tired of repairing them, and don't want to lose any loaded troops due to stupid ships trying to fight pirates. One reason to never have weapons on transports if doing manual designs.
2160.02.10 Battle 2, the former Atuuko guys, launches its 23 retrofitted ships from the capital. It aims for the lower of two lone dagger small spaceports, aiming for the star, of course.
We can see invasion camping in an empty system. Crusher 1 working its way back. And above the Crusher 1 marker, all by itself is a star system. In it there is a frequently visited place from earlier in the game, when pirates (and we) built there again, and again. Now it is lone dagger controlled and have been so for a while. A single destroyer of the Construction fleet leaves the capital to that star. We hope to catch it as it lands, before it heads back to fleet leader. The aim is to intercept it to give order to kill that mine. We know it is there due to the way system overview works, but we can't target it.
Another destroyer from Construction launches at pantulemen star where we just killed the pirate colony spaceport. Just to check if they are building another one. It will go home after landing, and we need to watch this one as well not to miss the news. Luckily both destroyers have a shorter trip than Battle 2.
2160.02.27 The securan harmony terminate the trade in loros fruit. How could they?! We can always fetch it by other means if we really want to... Or maybe go for the spice source, that one is in the small system to the right of Sipan, controlled by the dark blue securans (secura utopia).
1.6K stored loros, 2,3k in transit... Our cashflow will take a hit from its current 123K when that runs out. We should survive a small drop
The only thing we lack is a lot of cash, which is because we have not been rich for a long time. And because we may lose 16 destroyers at once busting a spaceport, which will cost 85k to replace at this point in time.The destroyer on a mine hunt is ordered to kill the mine. The one scouting the pirate system finds 3 ships and no structures. And Battle 2 is half way. At this time we spot a lone dagger construction ship in jintawoe. It is the system to the left of the pirate colony just visited.
We tell the damaged capital ship in battle 1, now just arrived at the capital system, to attack it. We are on standby for some ships to help out, but they are faster so care must be taken to have the capital ship place its hyperdeny field before anyone else arrive. Some fleet members may follow it, since a few actually are healthy.
Problems? The blasted pirate mine of lone daggers has graviton weapons, it takes out the hyperdrive of the attacking destroyer. Another Construction fleet member is moved in to kill as the damaged ship leaves the fleet.
A bit distracted watching a destroyer flee from a pirate mine, we fail to notice the battle 2 landing as it happens, but they find a lot of pirate ships, take the usual damage from graviton beams (no more railguns?), and heads home for repair. They can't battle those and the spaceport. There are several mines, a construction ship, and the small spaceport in the system. All members of Battle 2 will make it back home.
The capital ship manages to land and finds the constructor, as it does, a few healthy of its fleet members are told to attack the constructor too.
The constructor is scary fast. Battle 2 is maybe closer on its retreat? Battle 2 is told to attack the constructor.
2160.07.15 And while this happens, the lone daggers try to raid Dhayu 3. We have no protection apart from some 12 troops on ground.
Battle 2 arrives, but they land far back. But the ship between the capital and the constructor (a bit hard to see ahead of it) is a speedy frigate at 35 speed. The capital almost keeps up at 20 speed.
Of course the frigates take damage killing it helped by a mate. What would lone daggers be if they did not arm their constructor with graviton beams? Battle 1 and 2 has renewed orders to repair.
Dhayu 3: Repel some, lose long range lasers to others. Yes, dear lone daggers, please equip long range lasers on all ships ans bases...
2160.09.16 Long range scanner research started, starting at 40% after, we think, some spy missions. They are nice. They could reveal pirate travel lines, and give enough warning to move fleets to intercept raids.
We have the capital ship leave Crusher 1 and join Construction. It is on constructor hunt standby, and is too slow to fly around with our speedy guys. Our superior hyperdrives can make the attacks more efficient, and we pack a punch without it.
17 destroyers of construction joins Crusher 1, bumping its numbers to 45 ships. Some need repair still. We make sure that all added are in the Sollost system, and the ship list is always used for this kind of work.
Just when you think a fleet is ready to leave the capital, a lone dagger has dropped by and scratched one of them...
2161.03.19 We noticed the influence circle around Beate increasing. Checking... Yes, 463K revenue, 27% tax, 115k tax income. Better than the capital in both revenue and tax collected. Casflow? +149k, 252k cash on hand. 97% progress on construction size...
2161.04.26 A repeat image? No. This is Crusher 1 and Battle 2 both moving to the system that battle 2 visisted alone. We can move them as two fleets since the slow capital ship is not here, and they have the same hyperspace speed. This is 23+45 ships on the move.
2151.05.04 Sipan fleet is repaired, strengthened to 35 ships, and take off towards a dual small spaceport system of the Grim Guild further west. They could have gone for the one to the south, but we can see a grim guild ship attacking a mine near the target, and they have had activity in that area. Killing both spaceports on the same trips may be over the top, time will show. Battle 3 sits at Beate at the left, doing some work to protect the 3 mines in the system as well as the colony.
2161.06.09 We have researched component prefabrication.
And with this, with fleets on attack vector, but some distance to their targets. With brand new designs, and with 258K cash on hand, it is a good time for a status.
We are using inadequate ships killing pirates with booby trapped bases, and it is a chore.
Status
A long post, but the focus became to "get to that construction tech".
Discussion of new designs will be at the start of the next part.
The last two research projects feel fast. Long range scanners are closing on completion, but the previous project (Advanced Passenger Transport) was twice as expensive.
Component prefabrication felt fast too, but probably only because we waited forever for it to get started. Of course they move on to refined hyperjump theory, which we will not benefit from. This is a dhayut tech focus in research (in empire policy), but it is only used in capital ship designs. I have reported this as a bug/bad feature.
When it comes to fighting, we really miss repair bots, but they are a long way into the future as they are hidden deep in the damage control/construction branch. On manual research I would have given it a very high priority in energy research. The AI has spent time on useful stuff like 3 different engine types to choose from. And 2 shields. And 2 reactors. Those research projects will eventually be necessary to reach the "end game" technologies, but doing it now is a waste of research effort, when there is little research effort to spare.
We got fleets that can kill the pirate bases, but they take a beating while doing so. Maybe the Sipan fleet should have stayed smaller and inactive, and ships rather spent to create a second Crusher fleet in the south. Grim Guild has been annoying, but not anywhere near the lone dagger level.
No statistics, but I think colony raids are less frequent, and only dhayu now for quite some time, and the lone daggers are behind it.
The Lone Dagger colony that we have visited has 1738M population of some growth, 61% quality. It is not much income, and right now, just another place to get raids and to garrison a decent set of troops. And how much could the Lone daggers really benefit from controlling such a colony?
Screens:
Yellow dots are pirate bases. The most annoying ones are currently awaiting our fleets arriving. The one quite near our red, on the left edge, is a large spaceport at a colony system that I think spawned 1 small mine attack near the capital. It is a group "from the south", the next two bases below are the same crew.
The "cross" was randomly placed, SE of it is the loros source. SW in the blue colony is the spice source. We still got the loros bonus as will be seen in the 135 colony development levels. The fluid source is far to the east, a single light brown Haakonish circle below the big Haakonish capital circle.
There are lots of wars going on, but no one declare war on me, I am not paying much attention to anything but my pirate battles. And being busy fighting pirates, war is not on my mind.
We are doing well, but are not dominant in anything but population. Top 4 in military power, for instance. Shared first in economy. The economy came easy due to the atuuk independents.
Getting some defense pacts could be a way to get dragged into wars. The sluken would be obvious choices for that. In other matters, Securan Harmony is a weird empire to be on friendly terms with, having way of the ancients and all. They are mightily impressed by our noble reputation gained by defending against pirates. Everyone has high reputations, lots of pirates... Several empires are "heroic".
This makes me feel like a proper colonial power. Exploiting the Atuuk natives, and building our fortunes on them.
The capital is getting better and more populated, Dhayu 3 is at maximum population. Arexie is a nice addition when not being raided.
2 more defensive bases, both at beate.
A good increase in mine count, but they are still attacked.
The last frigate has probably been built, but even if we start building cruisers, the destroyers and frigates can do some duty bashing pirates and stuff. And the destroyers are not useless at all.
6 research stations? We now have a bonus site for each, and the 3 at the capital. Research potential is up to 1050K. Research capacity is 3*400, and not way more than needed. For research, a large spaceport at the next big gain in population would fit nicely.
Research bonuses? Component prefab that was just completed spawned a genius with 20% empire bonus to research. Too bad they put it at a research station at a bonus location, but it is one that has lived for a long time. His only bonus apart from that is hightech, and he is on the energy bonus location. Weird.
In addition, we have 10% high tech from leader.
16% weapons, 25% energy, 20% hightech from sites.
We should not run maintenance way up as we got a loros fruit deal that expired, but we could not build enough even if we wanted to. Ships do not come for free. And we do not need _that_ many troops at this time.
We will of course eventually catch up unless we are so rich we got all the ship we bother to buy. But right now the need is like 40 ships in systems with a colony, 20 in systems with a mine, and a few 50 ship attack fleets...
Resort income?! We got no resort base, and I have not noticed any in any attack message either. And 18K is not a trivial amount on a base that was there for a short moment. Odd.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
This game was a bit of a chore for a while, now it is really fun
Planning
New designs have arrived. Are the cruisers useful at this time?
Carriers are available with 5 fighter bays. They are slow (13 cruise), got point defense, and 2 wasted impact assault blasters. We have missed fighters for ages, we want them.
The frigates are the same as before, they were below the old maximum size at 247. 85 firepower, 29 cruise, 62 sprint. Speedy, and with impact assault blasters. The short range blasters do not help their survival against spaceports, especially the large ones that go out with a big explosion.
Destroyers have gained 34 or 35 size, and have maybe slowed down due to gaining heavy stuff? They need to be compared with the cruisers that for sure want to be larger than they currently are.
Destroyer:
156 firepower. 2 torpedoes are longest range if "standoff" at stronger targets.
540 shields
20 armor
19 cruise, 41 sprint.
8.03 sectors range.
Cruiser:
204 firepower. 4 torpedoes with longest range.
900 shields
19 armor
14 cruise, 30 sprint
13.07 sectors range
None of them are brilliant at chasing down targets, but fighters from carriers are. The cruiser works well for attacking spaceports and sitting at colonies in defense where speed is not so important. The cruiser has better range. And they will be better in the future as we get another build size upgrade or two, while destroyers are at their end game configuration.
With better shields, more torpedoes, and more range, the cruiser is a winner even if a bit slower. For quick response the destroyer is better, but the frigate should help out.
Fleet structure
I prefer to have 3 types of fighting fleets, and separate fleets for transports.
Battle fleets are the main fighters. They attack fleets, defend colonies, bust small and possible medium spaceports. A size like 14 cruisers and 4 carriers could be suitable for now.
Raider fleets are good at busting mines and protecting against enemy strike fleets. And good at intercepting weak pirates looking for a mine kill. Frigates and destroyers, but a carrier and a couple of cruisers could also be used. Maybe 3 frigates and 2 destroyers or something like that? Increase fleet sizes if they fail to do their job.
Crusher fleets are beefed up battle fleets with a different name. They kill things that hurt more. Like large spaceports with defensive bases. 25 cruisers and 6 carriers, maybe?
It is of course possible to use two battle fleets instead of a crusher fleet, just like Crusher 1 and Battle 2 are now both heading for a pirate system.
Shopping
We have 259K credits.
4 carriers for battle 3
4 carriers for battle 2
6 carriers for crusher 1
6 carriers for Sipan Fleet, as it is almost a crusher.
that is 20 carriers in total which is booked. It costs just short of 149k, leaving 110k. I use the build order screen to have the AI split the build on the two spaceports.
I first make sure that 6 carriers built at Sipan joins Sipan fleet.
And that the last two sipan builds join battle 3 at atuuko with another two. And of course distribute the remaining.
It is not necessary to take that much care, but if bored it does not hurt. And we are not at "peace" now, we are fighting pirates, so extra travel across the empire is not ideal.
What can we get for 109K?
12 cruisers and 4 carriers for a new battle fleet. A bit low on cruisers, but it is a start. I make a new Battle 4, and make sure it is based at the capital and that the fleet leader is a cruiser being built at the capital spaceport. This should make sure that they move there, and stay there as long as I also change postures to defensive home base only.
I change names of battle 2 and 3 to Dest 2 and 3 to indicate that they are not "normal" battle fleets. "Dest" because "Destroyer" is too long for the ship list fleet select list.
After a big restructure and purchase like this it is a good idea to drop by the fleet screen to see that things are like expected. This time battle 3 was much larger than battle 2 and had also received the 6 carriers intended for sipan fleet. This is one reason why I like to have "fixed size" fleets, it is easy to spot errors when messing up assignments.
We have 29 ships in the Construction fleet, 28 should be destroyers. They help out in the capital system, and may reinforce other fleets when needed.
And the casflow is +145K, we will be able to buy more cruisers later.
When it comes to action, the plan is to bust the bases of annoying pirates, and this will require to take over the dagger colony near home. The other independent next door is poor quality but full of nice Dhayut, so we may grab that one as well to get clean borders and more Dhayut into the empire.
Action
2161.05.15 Not a moment has passed apart from enough to wake up the date field. All the above was done while paused.
Sipan Fleet is heading for a dual spaceport system (small spaceports) of the Grim Claw.
Dest 2 and Crusher 1 is heading for the system of a small lone dagger spaceport where dest 2 found a lot of ships present and fled when visiting alone.
There are of course no carriers on the move, they have just been ordered.
As Crusher 1 and Dest 2 arrive, they find the local defense forces busy fighting ships of the Sinister Invaders at a site that may have had a gas mine. There is the small spaceport, a gas mine, and possible something more hiding among the civilian ships in the system. The fleets launch at the small spaceport.
2161.08.24 As they circle the spaceport we are warned about an attack in the Sipan system on a gas mine. It is the Tefnyl Bandits, and we add them to the list of the "annoying". They have a base nearby, but their main presence is far south. We have no military presence apart from the colony defenses so the mines will have to fend for themselves.
Only shield damage taken at the spaceport attacked by Crusher 1 and Dest 2, more than 70 ships pack a punch. When they turn to the gas mining station it will be even more of a slaughter. Both fleets are queued to move to the other system with a small spaceport a short jump to the north.
Sipan fleet finds a system with 2 spaceports as expected, and some mining bases. Some ships are present. They warm up with queuing attacks on the two mining bases.
Crusher 1 and Dest 2 has had some ships damaged, but all fly towards the next system.
Sipan fleet is greeted by some of the hosts as they approach the first gas mine. It is about 12 ships defending.
Crusher 1 and Dest 2 both target a construction ship heading towards the spaceport. There are only a few ships present.
We are not sure what happened to the construction ship, but things will die. The fleets will hang around to mop up ships and mining stations at their own initiative.
Sipan fleet has downed one, and the defenders are outside the image above, we can see one beam, and a single ship in the lower right corner. The fleet is immediately ordered to attack the other spaceport.
The defenders desperately tries to protect their remaining spaceport in the system. It is of course a futile attempt. Sipan fleet stay for a while to fight anyone willing to fight, and to finish off at least one mine.
With lone dagger enemies bristling with graviton beams, Dest 2 and Crusher 1 has ships damaged, but they manage to wipe the ships and mines present. When the system is empty, they both get needed repair orders.
The sipan fleet is better off. They find themselves with one lightly, and one moderatly damaged as all identified enemies in the system are dead. They will also be told to repair at Sipan 4 spaceport (default is the capital).
The destruction triggers a star base (scrapped) and a capital ship in our dear Capital System. We are not fans of star bases at sites easily served by our own mines. Even if the pines are prone to pirate attacks.
It has the slow hyperdrive like the other capital, is not very strong, but it has hyperdeny and is kept because of that. We ponder whether to move it north to intercept construction ships in that area, but decide to wait and add it to construction fleet.
While fighting, news about long range scanners being researched arrived.
We retrofit the spaceports, notice a chunk of money, and order 18 cruisers to be put in the Construction Fleet for now.
2162.01.09. The Securan Harmony realize their errors, and agree to trade Loros Fruit with us again. We agree with our advisors and send the a gift of 1233 to reinforce the idea that they should trade goodies with us.
Shortly after, the first carriers are complete. A new built cruiser at Sipan charges the annoying pirates in the system with 28 shields charged, which earns it a trip to the shipyard for repairs. A good start for our new cruisers...
2162.04.14 Loros trade with the Haakonish too? Multiple sources never hurt.
2162.05.11 An attacked mine near Sipan is not newsworthy. The attackers being in a fleet called Phantom Fleet is. We believe it was the Lone Sun Marauders, who have known bases of the north, the black pirate flag, but only a few ships according to the diplomacy screen.
A lone dagger fleet attack a mine at Montu Kudro, a sizable fleet. We need to take care of their colony when we got ships ready for it. For now the Crusher 1 fleet is still heading for repairs, but in the capital system.
2162.08.26 With all ships repaired, and new carriers with about half shields, sipan fleet head out for the last known spaceport of the Grim Guild. This time they have direct attack order. Proper fleets should not need detailed orders to bust a small spaceport. The target site is south of Sipan.
37 Waiting at Sollost 2 Spaceport as it is building new ships, and having two large fleets in for repairs. It is building at full capacity, and it is all just bad timing from the military planner...
The new long scanner at Sipan 4 spaceport reveal the Tefnyl Hive on the prowl. We are not distracted much by pirate activity, focus is on busting bases and have them relocate out of range.
2162.10.24 no big surprises in store for the Sipan Fleet as they engage the pirate base. Some pirate ships are present, though. This is the first instance of combat for the carriers of the Combined Dhayut Alliance.
2162.11.16. With ships repaired, the 27 ships of Dest 2 moves to Pantulumen star, better stay a bit safe considering there may be a new spaceport on site. Invasion fleet moves to Jintawoe, the system to the left, to be both close and safe. It has 10 inf, 9 arm, 5 special forces, and has been idle for a long time loading troops has been a dangerous activity in Dhayu and Arexie.
Someone must remember to save all the planned screenshots... Picture them south of Sipan with attack order on the pirate system just SE of Sipan itself.
2162.11.27 Sipan fleet continue with attack order on a Tefnyl Bandits spaceport with a twist. There are two of them side by side.
The system also have a spaceport of a second clan, the Alzuk Authority who just now is bothering a mine at Sipan. And there is a pirate controlled colony of the Savage Storm League.
2163.01.05 Sipan fleet finds a few ships at the dual spaceports. Due to the dual spaceports, this could actually hurt a bit.
It is a bit of a mess. Shots, torpedoes, and fighter fill the space around the spaceports.
Ships of the Alzuk Authority tries to interfere as well, but as spaceports are dead, the new order is to charge the Alzuk spaceport in the system.
Sipan fleet with some damaged members charge the third spaceport of the system. They will destroy it, and work on a gas mine and some ships in the system. They will head for repairs with quite a few damaged ships, and possibly some lost. We believe at least 2 carriers were destroyed. Carriers are vulnerable as they are alone at the rear.
Meanwhile, Dest 2 has battled lone dagger forces at the star at their objective. They find a medium spaceport (that is not a large in disguise), and with some damaged ships they jump at the spaceport.
... and as Invasion is in position, and dest 2 is charging the spaceport, Crusher 1 move to the Najarca system one step further on.
Dest 2 is a bit depleted after taking ship damage, but they burn down the shields of the spaceport at good speed. As the spaceport dies and some ships are left, invasion is told to attack the colony. We will move invasion away when the colony is taken, before dropping all troops.
Not suprisingly, crusher is met by lone dagger ships in the independent system. As Crusher struggles with downing all pirates, Invasion fleet is told to attack the colony.
After dropping its load, invasion heads to repair its one damaged ship.
Pantulumen 2 was taken with no troops defending. At the start of the pirate base attack to remove it, it was 428 vs 99 for our benefit.
Najacra 1 managed a defense of almost 200, but it does not help much of a combined force with power of 837 (troops, armor, special forces, space control...).
Pantulumen 2 is low quality with good silicon source. The minority population is mainly Atuuk. Some Humans, Dhayut and Naxxilians too.
Najarca 1 is also of low quality, but Dhayuut. It makes it a good troop recruitment colony, and it too adds a silicon source to the empire. It is pretty much like Dhayu 3, but with a higher maximum population.
For now. Dest 2 is told to repair, almost all are damaged. Crusher 1 stays at Najarca with some damaged. The newly built Battle 4 moves to Pantulumen in case pirates visit.
We notice that the reason why the Haakonish came with the loros offer, is probably because they conquered the Loros source from the Securan.
The lone daggers are in Dhayu system, but do they have a remotely nearby base to return to?
About 5 troops are garrisoned on the new colonies. We try recruit a mortalen troop to check its strength, and recruit some new to garrison at Najarca. Colonies with only crap troop material are annoying, the mortalen could rescue this one.
It is 2163.0.29. We have busted some pirate ass, grabbed a couple of colonies, and need to reorganize the military a bit
Status
A need is there to reorganize fleets, and to shop some more. Hopefully the large dagger fleets are no more, and we can try control the skies of all colonies. It is not like we can not afford some ships there.
The prime annoyances took a beating now, but more remain on the hit list. Will we see some peace at home?
Again a galaxy map with pirate bases highlighted.
The cross is marking a colony controlled by the Najarcan Council, our early day pirates who's large spaceport we killed first. That colony could be the source of their mine attack in Montu Kudro, the northern colony in the home cluster. The colony? 88% quality which is good, but very low population. Small colonies grow larger with migration as other colonies are full, though.
One of the two pirate bases in the Sipan circle (the single big red circle not at the map edge), is the large spaceport of a group qualifying as annoying. They own the independent which can be seen as a dark ring in the red. The colony is atuuk main population and probably securan, 76% and just short of 6000M with max pop. Not good, not terrible.
The pirate base at the map edge down left of our main areas, also hide an independent. We triggered it with an exploration event, and it is a 65% securan colony. Nothing special, but that base has probably spawned a base attack, and the colony should probably be taken.
The closest base south of our area has been quiet, but the gang below that with 4 bases has attacked Dhayu 3 quite some time ago. They qualify for the hit list, but it is not a major hurry.
The four bases of the top are all owned by the guys that attacked some mines, and we also think used the small phantom fleet. To their right is a pirate controlled colony in the small orange influence circle.
That colony... is good. Very good. A 94% continental with 9000M securan and 5400M Atuuk, and some decent resources. This is Sipan 4/Beate territory. Without being in a massive hurry, it should be a target. Not in massive hurry as "building transports at Sipan and running away with the garrison" kind of hurry. Organize fleets, finish the running battle with pirates at one of the colonies, load troops, go. The AI seems in no hurry to take any pirate colony.
Diplomacy? We follow some AI suggestions when they seem a good idea, and otherwise don't pay attention. Tefnyl Hive rejected a military defense pact asked for after a suggestion. They used to reject suggested free trade agreements too.
The facility is Pantulumen 2 is the pirate facility which we are still fighting. It is over at any moment. The colony is low pop, but could get migration when ours. We got atuuk workers to move there, for instance.
We got some cruisers, but only 11 or something in a proper fleet. Some are maybe being built. As mentioned, we need to organize fleets. Another alien capital ship.
21 carriers. We built 24, so Sipan Fleet lost 3 of them. Sipan and Crusher fleets are too large to see all fleet member in the selection box, one more reason to use more powerful cruisers - we need less of them.
Still some confusing resort income, but we can live with that.
The 109 cashflow is not that impressive. We could lose the loros stores, and tax revenue drops. And we have had one leader change, now we have a leader with 35% military ship maintenance saving. If he goes, our cashflow takes a big hit. Please take care of him! 34% population growth is not bad either, neither are the other 9 bonuses he applies.
Planning
New designs have arrived. Are the cruisers useful at this time?
Carriers are available with 5 fighter bays. They are slow (13 cruise), got point defense, and 2 wasted impact assault blasters. We have missed fighters for ages, we want them.
The frigates are the same as before, they were below the old maximum size at 247. 85 firepower, 29 cruise, 62 sprint. Speedy, and with impact assault blasters. The short range blasters do not help their survival against spaceports, especially the large ones that go out with a big explosion.
Destroyers have gained 34 or 35 size, and have maybe slowed down due to gaining heavy stuff? They need to be compared with the cruisers that for sure want to be larger than they currently are.
Destroyer:
156 firepower. 2 torpedoes are longest range if "standoff" at stronger targets.
540 shields
20 armor
19 cruise, 41 sprint.
8.03 sectors range.
Cruiser:
204 firepower. 4 torpedoes with longest range.
900 shields
19 armor
14 cruise, 30 sprint
13.07 sectors range
None of them are brilliant at chasing down targets, but fighters from carriers are. The cruiser works well for attacking spaceports and sitting at colonies in defense where speed is not so important. The cruiser has better range. And they will be better in the future as we get another build size upgrade or two, while destroyers are at their end game configuration.
With better shields, more torpedoes, and more range, the cruiser is a winner even if a bit slower. For quick response the destroyer is better, but the frigate should help out.
Fleet structure
I prefer to have 3 types of fighting fleets, and separate fleets for transports.
Battle fleets are the main fighters. They attack fleets, defend colonies, bust small and possible medium spaceports. A size like 14 cruisers and 4 carriers could be suitable for now.
Raider fleets are good at busting mines and protecting against enemy strike fleets. And good at intercepting weak pirates looking for a mine kill. Frigates and destroyers, but a carrier and a couple of cruisers could also be used. Maybe 3 frigates and 2 destroyers or something like that? Increase fleet sizes if they fail to do their job.
Crusher fleets are beefed up battle fleets with a different name. They kill things that hurt more. Like large spaceports with defensive bases. 25 cruisers and 6 carriers, maybe?
It is of course possible to use two battle fleets instead of a crusher fleet, just like Crusher 1 and Battle 2 are now both heading for a pirate system.
Shopping
We have 259K credits.
4 carriers for battle 3
4 carriers for battle 2
6 carriers for crusher 1
6 carriers for Sipan Fleet, as it is almost a crusher.
that is 20 carriers in total which is booked. It costs just short of 149k, leaving 110k. I use the build order screen to have the AI split the build on the two spaceports.
I first make sure that 6 carriers built at Sipan joins Sipan fleet.
And that the last two sipan builds join battle 3 at atuuko with another two. And of course distribute the remaining.
It is not necessary to take that much care, but if bored it does not hurt. And we are not at "peace" now, we are fighting pirates, so extra travel across the empire is not ideal.
What can we get for 109K?
12 cruisers and 4 carriers for a new battle fleet. A bit low on cruisers, but it is a start. I make a new Battle 4, and make sure it is based at the capital and that the fleet leader is a cruiser being built at the capital spaceport. This should make sure that they move there, and stay there as long as I also change postures to defensive home base only.
I change names of battle 2 and 3 to Dest 2 and 3 to indicate that they are not "normal" battle fleets. "Dest" because "Destroyer" is too long for the ship list fleet select list.
After a big restructure and purchase like this it is a good idea to drop by the fleet screen to see that things are like expected. This time battle 3 was much larger than battle 2 and had also received the 6 carriers intended for sipan fleet. This is one reason why I like to have "fixed size" fleets, it is easy to spot errors when messing up assignments.
We have 29 ships in the Construction fleet, 28 should be destroyers. They help out in the capital system, and may reinforce other fleets when needed.
And the casflow is +145K, we will be able to buy more cruisers later.
When it comes to action, the plan is to bust the bases of annoying pirates, and this will require to take over the dagger colony near home. The other independent next door is poor quality but full of nice Dhayut, so we may grab that one as well to get clean borders and more Dhayut into the empire.
Action
2161.05.15 Not a moment has passed apart from enough to wake up the date field. All the above was done while paused.
Sipan Fleet is heading for a dual spaceport system (small spaceports) of the Grim Claw.
Dest 2 and Crusher 1 is heading for the system of a small lone dagger spaceport where dest 2 found a lot of ships present and fled when visiting alone.
There are of course no carriers on the move, they have just been ordered.
As Crusher 1 and Dest 2 arrive, they find the local defense forces busy fighting ships of the Sinister Invaders at a site that may have had a gas mine. There is the small spaceport, a gas mine, and possible something more hiding among the civilian ships in the system. The fleets launch at the small spaceport.
2161.08.24 As they circle the spaceport we are warned about an attack in the Sipan system on a gas mine. It is the Tefnyl Bandits, and we add them to the list of the "annoying". They have a base nearby, but their main presence is far south. We have no military presence apart from the colony defenses so the mines will have to fend for themselves.
Only shield damage taken at the spaceport attacked by Crusher 1 and Dest 2, more than 70 ships pack a punch. When they turn to the gas mining station it will be even more of a slaughter. Both fleets are queued to move to the other system with a small spaceport a short jump to the north.
Sipan fleet finds a system with 2 spaceports as expected, and some mining bases. Some ships are present. They warm up with queuing attacks on the two mining bases.
Crusher 1 and Dest 2 has had some ships damaged, but all fly towards the next system.
Sipan fleet is greeted by some of the hosts as they approach the first gas mine. It is about 12 ships defending.
Crusher 1 and Dest 2 both target a construction ship heading towards the spaceport. There are only a few ships present.
We are not sure what happened to the construction ship, but things will die. The fleets will hang around to mop up ships and mining stations at their own initiative.
Sipan fleet has downed one, and the defenders are outside the image above, we can see one beam, and a single ship in the lower right corner. The fleet is immediately ordered to attack the other spaceport.
The defenders desperately tries to protect their remaining spaceport in the system. It is of course a futile attempt. Sipan fleet stay for a while to fight anyone willing to fight, and to finish off at least one mine.
With lone dagger enemies bristling with graviton beams, Dest 2 and Crusher 1 has ships damaged, but they manage to wipe the ships and mines present. When the system is empty, they both get needed repair orders.
The sipan fleet is better off. They find themselves with one lightly, and one moderatly damaged as all identified enemies in the system are dead. They will also be told to repair at Sipan 4 spaceport (default is the capital).
The destruction triggers a star base (scrapped) and a capital ship in our dear Capital System. We are not fans of star bases at sites easily served by our own mines. Even if the pines are prone to pirate attacks.
It has the slow hyperdrive like the other capital, is not very strong, but it has hyperdeny and is kept because of that. We ponder whether to move it north to intercept construction ships in that area, but decide to wait and add it to construction fleet.
While fighting, news about long range scanners being researched arrived.
We retrofit the spaceports, notice a chunk of money, and order 18 cruisers to be put in the Construction Fleet for now.
2162.01.09. The Securan Harmony realize their errors, and agree to trade Loros Fruit with us again. We agree with our advisors and send the a gift of 1233 to reinforce the idea that they should trade goodies with us.
Shortly after, the first carriers are complete. A new built cruiser at Sipan charges the annoying pirates in the system with 28 shields charged, which earns it a trip to the shipyard for repairs. A good start for our new cruisers...
2162.04.14 Loros trade with the Haakonish too? Multiple sources never hurt.
2162.05.11 An attacked mine near Sipan is not newsworthy. The attackers being in a fleet called Phantom Fleet is. We believe it was the Lone Sun Marauders, who have known bases of the north, the black pirate flag, but only a few ships according to the diplomacy screen.
A lone dagger fleet attack a mine at Montu Kudro, a sizable fleet. We need to take care of their colony when we got ships ready for it. For now the Crusher 1 fleet is still heading for repairs, but in the capital system.
2162.08.26 With all ships repaired, and new carriers with about half shields, sipan fleet head out for the last known spaceport of the Grim Guild. This time they have direct attack order. Proper fleets should not need detailed orders to bust a small spaceport. The target site is south of Sipan.
37 Waiting at Sollost 2 Spaceport as it is building new ships, and having two large fleets in for repairs. It is building at full capacity, and it is all just bad timing from the military planner...
The new long scanner at Sipan 4 spaceport reveal the Tefnyl Hive on the prowl. We are not distracted much by pirate activity, focus is on busting bases and have them relocate out of range.
2162.10.24 no big surprises in store for the Sipan Fleet as they engage the pirate base. Some pirate ships are present, though. This is the first instance of combat for the carriers of the Combined Dhayut Alliance.
2162.11.16. With ships repaired, the 27 ships of Dest 2 moves to Pantulumen star, better stay a bit safe considering there may be a new spaceport on site. Invasion fleet moves to Jintawoe, the system to the left, to be both close and safe. It has 10 inf, 9 arm, 5 special forces, and has been idle for a long time loading troops has been a dangerous activity in Dhayu and Arexie.
Someone must remember to save all the planned screenshots... Picture them south of Sipan with attack order on the pirate system just SE of Sipan itself.
2162.11.27 Sipan fleet continue with attack order on a Tefnyl Bandits spaceport with a twist. There are two of them side by side.
The system also have a spaceport of a second clan, the Alzuk Authority who just now is bothering a mine at Sipan. And there is a pirate controlled colony of the Savage Storm League.
2163.01.05 Sipan fleet finds a few ships at the dual spaceports. Due to the dual spaceports, this could actually hurt a bit.
It is a bit of a mess. Shots, torpedoes, and fighter fill the space around the spaceports.
Ships of the Alzuk Authority tries to interfere as well, but as spaceports are dead, the new order is to charge the Alzuk spaceport in the system.
Sipan fleet with some damaged members charge the third spaceport of the system. They will destroy it, and work on a gas mine and some ships in the system. They will head for repairs with quite a few damaged ships, and possibly some lost. We believe at least 2 carriers were destroyed. Carriers are vulnerable as they are alone at the rear.
Meanwhile, Dest 2 has battled lone dagger forces at the star at their objective. They find a medium spaceport (that is not a large in disguise), and with some damaged ships they jump at the spaceport.
... and as Invasion is in position, and dest 2 is charging the spaceport, Crusher 1 move to the Najarca system one step further on.
Dest 2 is a bit depleted after taking ship damage, but they burn down the shields of the spaceport at good speed. As the spaceport dies and some ships are left, invasion is told to attack the colony. We will move invasion away when the colony is taken, before dropping all troops.
Not suprisingly, crusher is met by lone dagger ships in the independent system. As Crusher struggles with downing all pirates, Invasion fleet is told to attack the colony.
After dropping its load, invasion heads to repair its one damaged ship.
Pantulumen 2 was taken with no troops defending. At the start of the pirate base attack to remove it, it was 428 vs 99 for our benefit.
Najacra 1 managed a defense of almost 200, but it does not help much of a combined force with power of 837 (troops, armor, special forces, space control...).
Pantulumen 2 is low quality with good silicon source. The minority population is mainly Atuuk. Some Humans, Dhayut and Naxxilians too.
Najarca 1 is also of low quality, but Dhayuut. It makes it a good troop recruitment colony, and it too adds a silicon source to the empire. It is pretty much like Dhayu 3, but with a higher maximum population.
For now. Dest 2 is told to repair, almost all are damaged. Crusher 1 stays at Najarca with some damaged. The newly built Battle 4 moves to Pantulumen in case pirates visit.
We notice that the reason why the Haakonish came with the loros offer, is probably because they conquered the Loros source from the Securan.
The lone daggers are in Dhayu system, but do they have a remotely nearby base to return to?
About 5 troops are garrisoned on the new colonies. We try recruit a mortalen troop to check its strength, and recruit some new to garrison at Najarca. Colonies with only crap troop material are annoying, the mortalen could rescue this one.
It is 2163.0.29. We have busted some pirate ass, grabbed a couple of colonies, and need to reorganize the military a bit
Status
A need is there to reorganize fleets, and to shop some more. Hopefully the large dagger fleets are no more, and we can try control the skies of all colonies. It is not like we can not afford some ships there.
The prime annoyances took a beating now, but more remain on the hit list. Will we see some peace at home?
Again a galaxy map with pirate bases highlighted.
The cross is marking a colony controlled by the Najarcan Council, our early day pirates who's large spaceport we killed first. That colony could be the source of their mine attack in Montu Kudro, the northern colony in the home cluster. The colony? 88% quality which is good, but very low population. Small colonies grow larger with migration as other colonies are full, though.
One of the two pirate bases in the Sipan circle (the single big red circle not at the map edge), is the large spaceport of a group qualifying as annoying. They own the independent which can be seen as a dark ring in the red. The colony is atuuk main population and probably securan, 76% and just short of 6000M with max pop. Not good, not terrible.
The pirate base at the map edge down left of our main areas, also hide an independent. We triggered it with an exploration event, and it is a 65% securan colony. Nothing special, but that base has probably spawned a base attack, and the colony should probably be taken.
The closest base south of our area has been quiet, but the gang below that with 4 bases has attacked Dhayu 3 quite some time ago. They qualify for the hit list, but it is not a major hurry.
The four bases of the top are all owned by the guys that attacked some mines, and we also think used the small phantom fleet. To their right is a pirate controlled colony in the small orange influence circle.
That colony... is good. Very good. A 94% continental with 9000M securan and 5400M Atuuk, and some decent resources. This is Sipan 4/Beate territory. Without being in a massive hurry, it should be a target. Not in massive hurry as "building transports at Sipan and running away with the garrison" kind of hurry. Organize fleets, finish the running battle with pirates at one of the colonies, load troops, go. The AI seems in no hurry to take any pirate colony.
Diplomacy? We follow some AI suggestions when they seem a good idea, and otherwise don't pay attention. Tefnyl Hive rejected a military defense pact asked for after a suggestion. They used to reject suggested free trade agreements too.
The facility is Pantulumen 2 is the pirate facility which we are still fighting. It is over at any moment. The colony is low pop, but could get migration when ours. We got atuuk workers to move there, for instance.
We got some cruisers, but only 11 or something in a proper fleet. Some are maybe being built. As mentioned, we need to organize fleets. Another alien capital ship.
21 carriers. We built 24, so Sipan Fleet lost 3 of them. Sipan and Crusher fleets are too large to see all fleet member in the selection box, one more reason to use more powerful cruisers - we need less of them.
Still some confusing resort income, but we can live with that.
The 109 cashflow is not that impressive. We could lose the loros stores, and tax revenue drops. And we have had one leader change, now we have a leader with 35% military ship maintenance saving. If he goes, our cashflow takes a big hit. Please take care of him! 34% population growth is not bad either, neither are the other 9 bonuses he applies.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Reading this guide is against my religion.
I shall alert the Dhayuk inquisition about it.
However, I must admit that I have enjoyed small parts of it, and so must now go shave my neck as something started to grow there... [:-]
I shall alert the Dhayuk inquisition about it.
However, I must admit that I have enjoyed small parts of it, and so must now go shave my neck as something started to grow there... [:-]
NEWBIE GUIDE Distant Worlds Universe
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle
War in the Pacific Poradnik po Polsku
http://tinyurl.com/nxd4cesh
INSTALL WITPAE on modern PC
https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle
War in the Pacific Poradnik po Polsku
http://tinyurl.com/nxd4cesh
INSTALL WITPAE on modern PC
https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl
-
FingNewGuy
- Posts: 183
- Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:31 pm
- Location: Boulder, CO
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
However, I must admit that I have enjoyed small parts of it, and so must now go shave my neck as something started to grow there...
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
ORIGINAL: Timotheus
Reading this guide is against my religion.
You should never disrespect the power of the lord of Automation.
Seriously, it is not problem playing with it, and it is not necessary to be as stubborn with it as I am in AARs. Fighting automation in taxes or design is a bit painful. For the rest, the AI will let jobs finish. So if I really was annoyed at not getting bigger shipyards, it would be no problem for me to click for it to be the research project.
The reason why it is hard to fight taxes and designs, is that these are areas frequently revisited by the AI, and it will quickly overturn the existing settings. Characters are probably the same, but I never bother with them. Troop recruitment not as badly, since the AI probably ever retire troops if it feels the need to save money.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Housekeeping
Invasion fleet has its repair order interrupted as we realize it is just the fleet leader with damage. And that is a destroyer. They are sent towards najarca. Apart from that, this is just clicking around in ship and fleet list.
We should have a couple of decent destroyer fleets for all our colony systems to hit at any visiting pirate. And some Raider fleets of frigates/destroyer to respond to activity and do small scale mine attacks when relevant.
With 115 destroyers and 39 frigates, something should be possible to arrange.
I name defense fleets for example "X Dhayu". I put the X to have them sorted by name, and at the end of the list.
Another fine feature of the names Battle and Crusher is that they are early in the alphabet. Invasion is also ahead of Raider, and there may be many raider fleets, but not that many of the other ones.
Just about nothing will stop a big pirate raid, so better not try to post defensive fleet that could manage that...
10 destroyers of Construction become Montu Kudru defense fleet.
2 cruisers from Construction is assigned to battle 4 to put it at 14 cruisers.
All destroyers and frigates of Dest 2 move to construction.
14 cruisers of Construction to Dest 2, renamed again to Battle 2
15 assorted damaged ships of construction form X Sollost, frigates and destroyers formerly of Dest 2. Capital system defense should not rely on Construction having ships or someone happening to be at home, and pirates attack mines here. They won't do much if an invasion comes, though.
10 healthy frigates and destroyers of Construction forms X Dhayu
10 healthy destroyers of Construction becomes X Sipan
Construction is getting a bit low on ships, with some frigates, destroyers and cruisers. More will be available from Dest 3, Crusher 1 and Sipan Fleet once we have more cruisers.
The two new colonies are more likely raid targets and will see main fleet attendance at first. Dhayu has visitors in 3 lone daggers, Battle 2 heads there to help out, but damaged ships (all carriers and a cruiser) in the fleet has individual repair orders (after the fleet is told to move, a fleet order is an order to all the ships).
All X fleets not being Sollost are told to return to base (which is the colony in the system of course).
277k credits.
We manually queue 3 construction ships at the capital. A safe place to build them. We can afford them and it should not hurt.
We order:
6 troop transports for flexibility.
And 37 cruisers.
37 should be enough for Battle 3 and Crusher 1 (14+25) with some help from a few already in construction. They join construction, troop transports are automated.
Also, we can not afford more than 37 cruisers at this time...
We spam some troops on our Dhayu populated colonies. The capital builds only special forces and armor.
Execution!
As the pirate base battle in Pantulumen almost immediately ends, invasion fleet is told to load troops after making sure that the two new colonies both has 5 garrisoned. The fleet leader repairs, which will make them end up at the capital. Fighting ships should get to Dhayu 3 before any loading transport arrives so that is not a problem in this case (pirates roam that system, remember).
Crusher 1 is at Najarca, Battle 4 is on the way to watch Pantulumen for now. Battle 3 is still at Beate to protect it.
We realize the silliness of Dest 3 sitting there. We reassign the destroyers and frigates.
7 destroyers and 3 frigates becomes X Atuuko. We form Raider 1 and 2 with 3 frigates and 3 destroyers each. And send 2 small ships to Construction Fleet. The fleet now has only 4 carriers, and moves to the capital to await its cruisers.
One raider to park at a mine (of ours) in a system near Atuuko, the other to a mine in a system near Sipan.
As fleets arrive at Arexie and Dhayu 3 we start to build a defensive base on top of each one. We also build on top of Najarca and Pantulumen.
A pirate attacking the new defensive base build at Najarca shows why it is a good idea with ships in attendance. A defensive base with 3 complete modules is not hard to destroy. Crusher 1 took hand of it just fine. Battle 4 attends the Pantulumen build.
2163.11.04 There is a stream of visitors for Najarca, the former independent. Fierce Moon Minerals attack a mine in the capital system, and we can't see a base of theirs less than 2,5 sectors away. We wonder if there is an unknown one nearby. One more pirate group for the "annoying" list. For a while we worried that all the defensive fleets members would be in queue for repair, and that Construction had almost no ships. We forgot about 2 alien capital ships, and there were about 20 more attending to them as well. One ship captured for retirement.
2163.12.09 3 lone dagger ships attack a mine in the capital system. Where did they come from? An unknown base nearby? We should gaze more at the capital long range scanner circle to see the direction of approach. Which we won't manage to do...
As cruisers are complete, the first 12 are assigned to Battle 3, and the leader moves to Sipan. There is an independent that we target in the north, and another good fleet in the area is useful. We complete the cruiser count to 14 with 2 cruisers currently under construction at Sipan.
We are impatient. There is a good queue at the capital spaceport due to repairing ships and builds, and the invasion fleet leader is in the queue. We move him to Construction, fetch a new lead destroyer from the same fleet, and send him to Sipan 4. We want the transports moving north on its tail.
2164.06.04 New visits by the lone daggers and fierce moon int he capital system, at the same time, fooling our defenders. We queue a monitoring base at the approaches from the gas cloud in the west. And a couple that could cover approaches from the NW and NE. At this time the long scanner range seems rather pathetic though, as there is a long distance between Sipan and the rest.
2165.08.20 Sinister Invaders field a proper attack on Pantulumen 2. Battle 4 and a defensive base are present. The base has low shields since it is new.
The attackers die, but manage to land 1 raider. The Sinister Invaders are bumped on our "Annoying" list. They have 3 known spaceports to the east, a bit further than the former lone dagger systems. The 10 or so troops (5 garrisoned) manage just fine.
2164.09.13 Sipan Fleet is repaired, and launches for the juicy independent mentioned at the last status. A large, high quality securan/atuuk world. It is pirate owned. Battle 3 is also at sipan, and refuels, then queues a move to the same star.
Most of invasion is also at Sipan, with enough troops.
We order 3 carriers at Sipan, and have them join Sipan fleet. We forgot the losses from last time. We know that we have a sipan fleet to update, and order 25 cruisers with the rest of our money. There is always some use for a cruiser or ten, anyways. We still lack some non-battle-fleet defenses at Pantulumen and Najarca, and soon, hopefully, a juicy current pirate colony. Sipan fleet could supply destroyers and frigates for that.
A small lone dagger fleet attacks a mining station in Dhayu. We order a monitoring station in a resource less part of a gas cloud to our SW. Maybe that was where they came from? The local ships of course reacts, there are ships in colony systems now!
The lone sun attack a mine north of Sipan where a raider fleet is present. It is a dangerously looking capital ship. Diplomacy screen tell us that this is the only ship of this group. One ship takes damage, the capital jumps away. Raider 1 heads to sipan for repair and fuel.
As Sipan fleet lands in the target system, a few pirates are present. There is no spaceport, and they move to the lovely moon of Ecery, where the colony is. Invasion at sipan is told to attack, battle 3 is incoming with planned guard duty in mind. We realize that the lone trade interstellar is starting to build a spaceport in the system. Sipan fleet is told to attack the construction ship doing the build rather than hang around at the colony.
This time, with fighters assisting, a construction ship is destroyed without the help of hyperdeny. The fleet continues with mopping up the few pirates in the system.
The contents of Invasion fleet vs 1 atuuk militia and a fleet admiral, is not exactly an exciting battle at Ecery. A couple of transport has to unload troops as the battle is quick, and we want troops for a garrison of high quality dhayut troops.
Its a beauty in need of some resources and a pirate cleanup. The population is at max. The pirate battle will start at 202 vs 994 to our advantage and improve as transports unload. Anything above 400 for us should be OK.
This is a spot where a fumbled screenshot can be patched later. The screenshot may not have a pirate base shown, it may have a spaceport being built, but it is Ecery still the same.
With construction queues, much because of large fleets repairing, we start building a medium spaceport at Ecery right away. We have "many" spaceports compared to colonies but that is mostly due to having few colonies not having colonized anything yet. And we have not captured much either. The location is not stellar. Near Sipan, I guess the influence circles will meet once this one is supplied with resources. It is also near the map edge, not very strategical spot for ship building. But we need a spaceport, a good colony gets an LSP for defense, and it is at least better placed than beate that is in a less crowded part of the upper left corner.
We also queue gas mines on fuel sources in the system, no less than 3 hydrogen ones, one of them having caslon too. A player only wants to experience a proper fuel shortage once, I have had mine ages ago...
Sipan fleet heads for repair of its single damaged ship, and to maybe pick up some cruisers, and battle 3 is present to babysit the colony and the spaceport build.
2164.04.07 We realize that battle 2 is ready at the capital, and it solves all our unmentioned woes involving the Crusher 1 fleet babysitting Najarca 1, and that needs to both repair and refuel.
2165.07.11 We remember about troops. We garrison the 13 troops at Ecery that are not armored or special forces. This colony should be good, and should have proper defenses.
We spot the scary looking pirate capital ship with the long range scanner that pops up at Ecery spaceport. And while drooling over systems that could become ours when the influence circle expands, we notice what looks like the Phantom Pirate base in a system overview. And the capital ship looks like the Phantom pirate design. And the fleet that attacked a mine quite some time ago was called Phantom Fleet. We will argue with ourselves if we will visit that system, because the Phantom Bases should give a lot of tech if killed. But we did not really spot it, and more tech could not be for our own best...
We tell Invasion fleet to "load troops", and then send the invasion fleet leader to Sipan. The chickens will follow mommy there, and transports will first head for different colonies scooping up the troops not garrisoned.
It is 2165.07.23, and we are getting things under control.
Status
It is time to distribute some cruisers, and to focus on whipping some pirate butt again. Too bad we don't know where the lone daggers are. They used to attack with 12 ship fleets. Now diplomacy reports them as having 10 ships in total. They are a spent force, but still around. We know of a gas mine of theirs (in the capital system of the small mortalen empire next doors), maybe they have no base? Just a gas mine? Pirates seem to like to put a base "far away", though.
Pirates are still around, but attacks are much weaker, and less frequent. The one featured attack from the Sinister Invaders was the only major one, apart from that a lot of single or trio pirate ships were killed at Najarca, some at Pantulumen.
We have yet to colonize, we are probably getting closer. We do not have more than 4 or so decent targets, all on our territory (one in the newly conquered system).
Some "why"s
An intention in this AAR is to say what I do as main choices, and why I do that. think I sometimes forget to say this, so a bit about why I did things...
First: Why suffer under AI automation? Because I choose to. I could just queue/switch to the most needed research techs when I feel the need for them.
On pirates: My understanding of pirate AI, is that they have some sort of "value" on target. Possibly a measure of "strength" of target too. And they have an idea of their own power, and their fleet's power.
Early on they crawl over ill defended colonies. The colonies are small, weak, and the pirates have "control" that is not shown. They try to keep and raise control with raids and presence. This makes colonies juicy targets, and mines in systems outside colonies are often left alone. They either have not time for those targets, or they do not know about the mines. Or both. Any ship in a system will usually by default attack "enemy stuff" in the system. This will kill any mine in a system camped by pirates, even if it is not a pirate priority.
When pirates feel weaker, or the colonies are stronger/better defended, they seem to turn on the mines in the lack of other targets.
I had Arexie and Dhayu 3 as weak colonies. Dhayu 3 was smaller, and weaker, and the one more raided. Many pirate groups did raid it, they all had some "control" over it. Arexie may have been further away, and stronger, thus a less interesting target. The lone dagger raided it, they had control. There were also a shortage of near pirate bases to the north. The Grim Guild may have had other preferred targets (like the independent Beate that I took from them). And the AI spam weak colonies like crazy, lots of targets for them to the north...
Recently I grabbed the pirate colony and independent near home. The pirate colony is my new weakest colony, I expect it to be raided. The independent (Najarca) was camped by pirates as independent, they had some control, and I expected them to revisit. Also, any ship with a refuel mission on Najarca before conquest (or any move to order) will keep that order even if I capture it (and turn away on arrival if they lack refueling rights). Newly captured colonies do see some traffic from the old owners after capture. Thus, I kept the somewhat damaged Crusher 1 at Najarca, and moved Battle 4 to Pantulumen where the weak colony is. To kill off any visitors, and battle 2 that was originally there needed repair.
Why take Pantulumen colony at that time? It was lone dagger controlled, we wanted them gone from our area. Why take Najarca? I thought I could handle it, and it has a nice Dhayut population that can recruit dhayut troopers. And I do want to expand, after all...
Then the new colony at the top. Why send Sipan Fleet? Because there could be many visitors, a spaceport, many pirate ships. This is a strong fleet, the nearest fleet, and can do the job. Why also send Battle 3? In a small part because if they are "lone dagger light" up there sipan fleet could take a lot of small damage. Two fleets could switch between guarding and repairing at Sipan. But also because I want a fleet there for a long haul, and Sipan fleet is full of destroyers and frigates, and should have them exchanged for cruisers sooner rather than later. Battle 3 has cruisers, and does not need to visit a spaceport or "reinforcement territory" anytime soon. Sipan fleet is also a better candidate to bust that large pirate spaceport near Sipan, and having some destroyers destroyed in the process is not all bad at this time.
Why not send Battle 3 alone to take that independent? Because the ships were new. Some may have low shields just getting out of yards, some may still be near the capital just having exited the yards, I did not bother to check if they were ready and all present, so I just sent them after the other fleet. I gave a refuel order (to happen at sipan spaceport) first.
Why leave all the normal troops of Invasion as garrison? Dhayut and Mortalen troops are strong, I want a strong garrison (since the colony is far from home and valuable). The colony has Securan and Atuuk, they are space hippies and weak creatures respectively, their troops are less power for money. And invasion did not "drop" more than 12 or so normal troops there (I think some transports may never have made it that far).
About invasion fleet and its leader: The only important feature of the leader, is that he does not have an ability to carry troops, and that is is not too easily killed. If parked in a "quiet" spot, it is easy to see the ships present. As long as there are troops to load somewhere, giving the fleet load order, should send the troop transports away. Any fleet ship "done" with an order move to leader.
So, watching the invasion fleet leader. Any ship that stay after "load troops" are full and can be use for invading things. Ships returning has completed its load order, and should have at least some troops. If they only got a few, consider giving the ship itself a "load order". Queuing (or prefacing) refuel may be needed too, as running back an forth a lot makes them burn fuel. My favorite spot for an invasion fleet leader is near the area of action, at the star in a system where I have a deployed resupply ship. Or at a planet not being the one where the resupply ship is deployed. A quiet spot, near a fuel source, near the action.
Screens
As usual, pirate bases. Our lovely red has presence in the north. That circle ought to expand to the size of our other large ones as the colony receives resources.
Next up is probably one of the bases near Sipan (northerly big circle, two bases on right edge of circle), and the independent controlled by that faction which is the dark circle in the influence area.
A secondary logical target is the weak-ish independent with a large spaceport in system on the left edge, SW of our area. Not far away at all on the scale of the distance in our empire.
The NW bases could be attacked, they had just 1 capital ship when checked. And they have attacked us not that long ago (one mine lost).
Numbers are trade amounts, and it is logical that we trade with the nearby empires. The blues probably supply Sipan in the north (a guess). The dark green Atuuk maybe find stuff to buy at Sipan? Another guess. It is possible to watch the goings at spaceports, and see if goods fly in or out on the empire freighters in the area. And if foreign power has much reserved on for instance Sipan 4.
Huge trade with the Haakonish. They trade loros fruit with us, we are happy to pay.
Ecery will be another Beate, given some time.
135 culture/development (C) is the sign of a colony with enough luxuries, and a supply of an ultrarare. We got loros fruit. Ecery lagging badly here is why revenue is so low.
Pantulumen 2 did rise fast. Hm, that colony has a lot of weird shit in cargo, including a colonization module. Some past owner has tried build a colony ship, or something. Being a former pirate "capital" it has a crazy store of hydrogen (271k) and lots of stuff in general.
Lots of military ships. A few new defensive bases (1 for each colony, 2 on arexie, none at Ecery yet). A new spaceport going up at the new colony, it will be large with time.
2 Other bases are two monitoring stations that are complete. Their spotting range looks pitiful.
Way many military ships for an empire this size, actually. Lots of unassigned and possibly not complete cruisers. We have both the destroyers to fill the fleets, and the cruisers that replace them.
This shows that if you just keep at buying cruisers long enough, it will eventually bring down the cashflow. We are waiting for Ecery to rescue ue Even with a small negative cashflow, the bonus income would keep some net income.
Invasion fleet has its repair order interrupted as we realize it is just the fleet leader with damage. And that is a destroyer. They are sent towards najarca. Apart from that, this is just clicking around in ship and fleet list.
We should have a couple of decent destroyer fleets for all our colony systems to hit at any visiting pirate. And some Raider fleets of frigates/destroyer to respond to activity and do small scale mine attacks when relevant.
With 115 destroyers and 39 frigates, something should be possible to arrange.
I name defense fleets for example "X Dhayu". I put the X to have them sorted by name, and at the end of the list.
Another fine feature of the names Battle and Crusher is that they are early in the alphabet. Invasion is also ahead of Raider, and there may be many raider fleets, but not that many of the other ones.
Just about nothing will stop a big pirate raid, so better not try to post defensive fleet that could manage that...
10 destroyers of Construction become Montu Kudru defense fleet.
2 cruisers from Construction is assigned to battle 4 to put it at 14 cruisers.
All destroyers and frigates of Dest 2 move to construction.
14 cruisers of Construction to Dest 2, renamed again to Battle 2
15 assorted damaged ships of construction form X Sollost, frigates and destroyers formerly of Dest 2. Capital system defense should not rely on Construction having ships or someone happening to be at home, and pirates attack mines here. They won't do much if an invasion comes, though.
10 healthy frigates and destroyers of Construction forms X Dhayu
10 healthy destroyers of Construction becomes X Sipan
Construction is getting a bit low on ships, with some frigates, destroyers and cruisers. More will be available from Dest 3, Crusher 1 and Sipan Fleet once we have more cruisers.
The two new colonies are more likely raid targets and will see main fleet attendance at first. Dhayu has visitors in 3 lone daggers, Battle 2 heads there to help out, but damaged ships (all carriers and a cruiser) in the fleet has individual repair orders (after the fleet is told to move, a fleet order is an order to all the ships).
All X fleets not being Sollost are told to return to base (which is the colony in the system of course).
277k credits.
We manually queue 3 construction ships at the capital. A safe place to build them. We can afford them and it should not hurt.
We order:
6 troop transports for flexibility.
And 37 cruisers.
37 should be enough for Battle 3 and Crusher 1 (14+25) with some help from a few already in construction. They join construction, troop transports are automated.
Also, we can not afford more than 37 cruisers at this time...
We spam some troops on our Dhayu populated colonies. The capital builds only special forces and armor.
Execution!
As the pirate base battle in Pantulumen almost immediately ends, invasion fleet is told to load troops after making sure that the two new colonies both has 5 garrisoned. The fleet leader repairs, which will make them end up at the capital. Fighting ships should get to Dhayu 3 before any loading transport arrives so that is not a problem in this case (pirates roam that system, remember).
Crusher 1 is at Najarca, Battle 4 is on the way to watch Pantulumen for now. Battle 3 is still at Beate to protect it.
We realize the silliness of Dest 3 sitting there. We reassign the destroyers and frigates.
7 destroyers and 3 frigates becomes X Atuuko. We form Raider 1 and 2 with 3 frigates and 3 destroyers each. And send 2 small ships to Construction Fleet. The fleet now has only 4 carriers, and moves to the capital to await its cruisers.
One raider to park at a mine (of ours) in a system near Atuuko, the other to a mine in a system near Sipan.
As fleets arrive at Arexie and Dhayu 3 we start to build a defensive base on top of each one. We also build on top of Najarca and Pantulumen.
A pirate attacking the new defensive base build at Najarca shows why it is a good idea with ships in attendance. A defensive base with 3 complete modules is not hard to destroy. Crusher 1 took hand of it just fine. Battle 4 attends the Pantulumen build.
2163.11.04 There is a stream of visitors for Najarca, the former independent. Fierce Moon Minerals attack a mine in the capital system, and we can't see a base of theirs less than 2,5 sectors away. We wonder if there is an unknown one nearby. One more pirate group for the "annoying" list. For a while we worried that all the defensive fleets members would be in queue for repair, and that Construction had almost no ships. We forgot about 2 alien capital ships, and there were about 20 more attending to them as well. One ship captured for retirement.
2163.12.09 3 lone dagger ships attack a mine in the capital system. Where did they come from? An unknown base nearby? We should gaze more at the capital long range scanner circle to see the direction of approach. Which we won't manage to do...
As cruisers are complete, the first 12 are assigned to Battle 3, and the leader moves to Sipan. There is an independent that we target in the north, and another good fleet in the area is useful. We complete the cruiser count to 14 with 2 cruisers currently under construction at Sipan.
We are impatient. There is a good queue at the capital spaceport due to repairing ships and builds, and the invasion fleet leader is in the queue. We move him to Construction, fetch a new lead destroyer from the same fleet, and send him to Sipan 4. We want the transports moving north on its tail.
2164.06.04 New visits by the lone daggers and fierce moon int he capital system, at the same time, fooling our defenders. We queue a monitoring base at the approaches from the gas cloud in the west. And a couple that could cover approaches from the NW and NE. At this time the long scanner range seems rather pathetic though, as there is a long distance between Sipan and the rest.
2165.08.20 Sinister Invaders field a proper attack on Pantulumen 2. Battle 4 and a defensive base are present. The base has low shields since it is new.
The attackers die, but manage to land 1 raider. The Sinister Invaders are bumped on our "Annoying" list. They have 3 known spaceports to the east, a bit further than the former lone dagger systems. The 10 or so troops (5 garrisoned) manage just fine.
2164.09.13 Sipan Fleet is repaired, and launches for the juicy independent mentioned at the last status. A large, high quality securan/atuuk world. It is pirate owned. Battle 3 is also at sipan, and refuels, then queues a move to the same star.
Most of invasion is also at Sipan, with enough troops.
We order 3 carriers at Sipan, and have them join Sipan fleet. We forgot the losses from last time. We know that we have a sipan fleet to update, and order 25 cruisers with the rest of our money. There is always some use for a cruiser or ten, anyways. We still lack some non-battle-fleet defenses at Pantulumen and Najarca, and soon, hopefully, a juicy current pirate colony. Sipan fleet could supply destroyers and frigates for that.
A small lone dagger fleet attacks a mining station in Dhayu. We order a monitoring station in a resource less part of a gas cloud to our SW. Maybe that was where they came from? The local ships of course reacts, there are ships in colony systems now!
The lone sun attack a mine north of Sipan where a raider fleet is present. It is a dangerously looking capital ship. Diplomacy screen tell us that this is the only ship of this group. One ship takes damage, the capital jumps away. Raider 1 heads to sipan for repair and fuel.
As Sipan fleet lands in the target system, a few pirates are present. There is no spaceport, and they move to the lovely moon of Ecery, where the colony is. Invasion at sipan is told to attack, battle 3 is incoming with planned guard duty in mind. We realize that the lone trade interstellar is starting to build a spaceport in the system. Sipan fleet is told to attack the construction ship doing the build rather than hang around at the colony.
This time, with fighters assisting, a construction ship is destroyed without the help of hyperdeny. The fleet continues with mopping up the few pirates in the system.
The contents of Invasion fleet vs 1 atuuk militia and a fleet admiral, is not exactly an exciting battle at Ecery. A couple of transport has to unload troops as the battle is quick, and we want troops for a garrison of high quality dhayut troops.
Its a beauty in need of some resources and a pirate cleanup. The population is at max. The pirate battle will start at 202 vs 994 to our advantage and improve as transports unload. Anything above 400 for us should be OK.
This is a spot where a fumbled screenshot can be patched later. The screenshot may not have a pirate base shown, it may have a spaceport being built, but it is Ecery still the same.
With construction queues, much because of large fleets repairing, we start building a medium spaceport at Ecery right away. We have "many" spaceports compared to colonies but that is mostly due to having few colonies not having colonized anything yet. And we have not captured much either. The location is not stellar. Near Sipan, I guess the influence circles will meet once this one is supplied with resources. It is also near the map edge, not very strategical spot for ship building. But we need a spaceport, a good colony gets an LSP for defense, and it is at least better placed than beate that is in a less crowded part of the upper left corner.
We also queue gas mines on fuel sources in the system, no less than 3 hydrogen ones, one of them having caslon too. A player only wants to experience a proper fuel shortage once, I have had mine ages ago...
Sipan fleet heads for repair of its single damaged ship, and to maybe pick up some cruisers, and battle 3 is present to babysit the colony and the spaceport build.
2164.04.07 We realize that battle 2 is ready at the capital, and it solves all our unmentioned woes involving the Crusher 1 fleet babysitting Najarca 1, and that needs to both repair and refuel.
2165.07.11 We remember about troops. We garrison the 13 troops at Ecery that are not armored or special forces. This colony should be good, and should have proper defenses.
We spot the scary looking pirate capital ship with the long range scanner that pops up at Ecery spaceport. And while drooling over systems that could become ours when the influence circle expands, we notice what looks like the Phantom Pirate base in a system overview. And the capital ship looks like the Phantom pirate design. And the fleet that attacked a mine quite some time ago was called Phantom Fleet. We will argue with ourselves if we will visit that system, because the Phantom Bases should give a lot of tech if killed. But we did not really spot it, and more tech could not be for our own best...
We tell Invasion fleet to "load troops", and then send the invasion fleet leader to Sipan. The chickens will follow mommy there, and transports will first head for different colonies scooping up the troops not garrisoned.
It is 2165.07.23, and we are getting things under control.
Status
It is time to distribute some cruisers, and to focus on whipping some pirate butt again. Too bad we don't know where the lone daggers are. They used to attack with 12 ship fleets. Now diplomacy reports them as having 10 ships in total. They are a spent force, but still around. We know of a gas mine of theirs (in the capital system of the small mortalen empire next doors), maybe they have no base? Just a gas mine? Pirates seem to like to put a base "far away", though.
Pirates are still around, but attacks are much weaker, and less frequent. The one featured attack from the Sinister Invaders was the only major one, apart from that a lot of single or trio pirate ships were killed at Najarca, some at Pantulumen.
We have yet to colonize, we are probably getting closer. We do not have more than 4 or so decent targets, all on our territory (one in the newly conquered system).
Some "why"s
An intention in this AAR is to say what I do as main choices, and why I do that. think I sometimes forget to say this, so a bit about why I did things...
First: Why suffer under AI automation? Because I choose to. I could just queue/switch to the most needed research techs when I feel the need for them.
On pirates: My understanding of pirate AI, is that they have some sort of "value" on target. Possibly a measure of "strength" of target too. And they have an idea of their own power, and their fleet's power.
Early on they crawl over ill defended colonies. The colonies are small, weak, and the pirates have "control" that is not shown. They try to keep and raise control with raids and presence. This makes colonies juicy targets, and mines in systems outside colonies are often left alone. They either have not time for those targets, or they do not know about the mines. Or both. Any ship in a system will usually by default attack "enemy stuff" in the system. This will kill any mine in a system camped by pirates, even if it is not a pirate priority.
When pirates feel weaker, or the colonies are stronger/better defended, they seem to turn on the mines in the lack of other targets.
I had Arexie and Dhayu 3 as weak colonies. Dhayu 3 was smaller, and weaker, and the one more raided. Many pirate groups did raid it, they all had some "control" over it. Arexie may have been further away, and stronger, thus a less interesting target. The lone dagger raided it, they had control. There were also a shortage of near pirate bases to the north. The Grim Guild may have had other preferred targets (like the independent Beate that I took from them). And the AI spam weak colonies like crazy, lots of targets for them to the north...
Recently I grabbed the pirate colony and independent near home. The pirate colony is my new weakest colony, I expect it to be raided. The independent (Najarca) was camped by pirates as independent, they had some control, and I expected them to revisit. Also, any ship with a refuel mission on Najarca before conquest (or any move to order) will keep that order even if I capture it (and turn away on arrival if they lack refueling rights). Newly captured colonies do see some traffic from the old owners after capture. Thus, I kept the somewhat damaged Crusher 1 at Najarca, and moved Battle 4 to Pantulumen where the weak colony is. To kill off any visitors, and battle 2 that was originally there needed repair.
Why take Pantulumen colony at that time? It was lone dagger controlled, we wanted them gone from our area. Why take Najarca? I thought I could handle it, and it has a nice Dhayut population that can recruit dhayut troopers. And I do want to expand, after all...
Then the new colony at the top. Why send Sipan Fleet? Because there could be many visitors, a spaceport, many pirate ships. This is a strong fleet, the nearest fleet, and can do the job. Why also send Battle 3? In a small part because if they are "lone dagger light" up there sipan fleet could take a lot of small damage. Two fleets could switch between guarding and repairing at Sipan. But also because I want a fleet there for a long haul, and Sipan fleet is full of destroyers and frigates, and should have them exchanged for cruisers sooner rather than later. Battle 3 has cruisers, and does not need to visit a spaceport or "reinforcement territory" anytime soon. Sipan fleet is also a better candidate to bust that large pirate spaceport near Sipan, and having some destroyers destroyed in the process is not all bad at this time.
Why not send Battle 3 alone to take that independent? Because the ships were new. Some may have low shields just getting out of yards, some may still be near the capital just having exited the yards, I did not bother to check if they were ready and all present, so I just sent them after the other fleet. I gave a refuel order (to happen at sipan spaceport) first.
Why leave all the normal troops of Invasion as garrison? Dhayut and Mortalen troops are strong, I want a strong garrison (since the colony is far from home and valuable). The colony has Securan and Atuuk, they are space hippies and weak creatures respectively, their troops are less power for money. And invasion did not "drop" more than 12 or so normal troops there (I think some transports may never have made it that far).
About invasion fleet and its leader: The only important feature of the leader, is that he does not have an ability to carry troops, and that is is not too easily killed. If parked in a "quiet" spot, it is easy to see the ships present. As long as there are troops to load somewhere, giving the fleet load order, should send the troop transports away. Any fleet ship "done" with an order move to leader.
So, watching the invasion fleet leader. Any ship that stay after "load troops" are full and can be use for invading things. Ships returning has completed its load order, and should have at least some troops. If they only got a few, consider giving the ship itself a "load order". Queuing (or prefacing) refuel may be needed too, as running back an forth a lot makes them burn fuel. My favorite spot for an invasion fleet leader is near the area of action, at the star in a system where I have a deployed resupply ship. Or at a planet not being the one where the resupply ship is deployed. A quiet spot, near a fuel source, near the action.
Screens
As usual, pirate bases. Our lovely red has presence in the north. That circle ought to expand to the size of our other large ones as the colony receives resources.
Next up is probably one of the bases near Sipan (northerly big circle, two bases on right edge of circle), and the independent controlled by that faction which is the dark circle in the influence area.
A secondary logical target is the weak-ish independent with a large spaceport in system on the left edge, SW of our area. Not far away at all on the scale of the distance in our empire.
The NW bases could be attacked, they had just 1 capital ship when checked. And they have attacked us not that long ago (one mine lost).
Numbers are trade amounts, and it is logical that we trade with the nearby empires. The blues probably supply Sipan in the north (a guess). The dark green Atuuk maybe find stuff to buy at Sipan? Another guess. It is possible to watch the goings at spaceports, and see if goods fly in or out on the empire freighters in the area. And if foreign power has much reserved on for instance Sipan 4.
Huge trade with the Haakonish. They trade loros fruit with us, we are happy to pay.
Ecery will be another Beate, given some time.
135 culture/development (C) is the sign of a colony with enough luxuries, and a supply of an ultrarare. We got loros fruit. Ecery lagging badly here is why revenue is so low.
Pantulumen 2 did rise fast. Hm, that colony has a lot of weird shit in cargo, including a colonization module. Some past owner has tried build a colony ship, or something. Being a former pirate "capital" it has a crazy store of hydrogen (271k) and lots of stuff in general.
Lots of military ships. A few new defensive bases (1 for each colony, 2 on arexie, none at Ecery yet). A new spaceport going up at the new colony, it will be large with time.
2 Other bases are two monitoring stations that are complete. Their spotting range looks pitiful.
Way many military ships for an empire this size, actually. Lots of unassigned and possibly not complete cruisers. We have both the destroyers to fill the fleets, and the cruisers that replace them.
This shows that if you just keep at buying cruisers long enough, it will eventually bring down the cashflow. We are waiting for Ecery to rescue ue
Even with a small negative cashflow, the bonus income would keep some net income.RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
This is a great AAR thread.
I love the irony that pissing off the pirates in the beginning actually caused your income to increase because the civvies were buying more ships.
Also, great to see someone playing despite having so many weaknesses, taking losses, recovering, then counter attacking. More realistic than just dominating in every respect from the beginning.
I love the irony that pissing off the pirates in the beginning actually caused your income to increase because the civvies were buying more ships.
Also, great to see someone playing despite having so many weaknesses, taking losses, recovering, then counter attacking. More realistic than just dominating in every respect from the beginning.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
I am not sure if it actually helped my income much But in theory it could have.
I love it when the game gives a nice challenge that is not scripted. I had maybe my favorite war in my Yor AAR posted here, a proper push that were pushed back... If you want to find old posts you have to twiddle a filter at the top of the forum that limit things to showing threads from the past year only.
But in theory it could have.I love it when the game gives a nice challenge that is not scripted. I had maybe my favorite war in my Yor AAR posted here, a proper push that were pushed back... If you want to find old posts you have to twiddle a filter at the top of the forum that limit things to showing threads from the past year only.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
More independents?
The current plan is to hit the pirate colony and their large spaceport around Sipan. And after that focus on the pirate spaceport and colony SW of the home bases. It removes nearby pirates, and gives a decent and a rather crap colony.
First, some maintenance.
6 recently built, automated and unfleeted troop transports to invasion fleet.
25 fueled cruisers from Construction Fleet to a separate temporary fleet to be included in Crusher 1.
25 cruisers with about 10 unfinised to a tmp fleet, told to move to move to Sipan to become members of Sipan fleet.
All frigates and destroyrs from Crusher 1 to Construction, then the tmp fleet cruisers to Crusher 1. Repair order on Crusher due to damaged carriers in Najarca (a battle fleet is there to watch the colony).
This gives
3 Battle fleets (2, 3, 4) with 18 ships, 14 cruisers, 4 carriers.
1 Crusher with 31 ships, 25 cruisers, 6 carriers.
25 cruisers in a fleet heading for Sipan fleet
Sipan Fleet with 6 carriers and 37 ships in total until reconfigured.
15 undamaged ships in construction (frigates and destroyers) for X Pantulumen. 15 other ships for X Najarca. A bit extra strength since these are expected to have some visitors.
1 destroyer to buff X Atuuko to 10. Not sure if we messed up or lost one.
37 ships left in Construction, not bothering to send any of them to Sipan or Ecery.
Sipan Fleet and Invasion are both headed for sipan. Sipan fleet has some damaged ships to fix. No immediate action in the south.
Action
2165.07.24 and life goes on
We find a fleet X Sipan sitting with two damaged in the capital system. We tell them to repair, set their home base, and queue them to go home. This one was created and forgotten.
2165.09.19 Curious, and alerted by an attack on a civilian, we look into the capital of the former mortalen independent next door. There is another independent colony in this capital system. We discover the expected lone dagger mine, but also a couple of warships and a constructor of the Najarca Council
The two capital ships and 3 destroyers of Construction forms a small fleet and goes on a hunt. Will they be there in time to catch the constructor? Keep in mind, the capitals are much slower than our own ships.
Lots of military ships moving around can be seen in the picture. Construction tags ships formerly from Crusher 1 heading back for repairs and fuel.
Sipan Fleet launces to the star of the system with the large pirate spaceport. We can see the colony system of the pirates where we recently busted 3 spaceports. The other flag is
a small spaceport of the lone trade interstellar, we will see if we hit that after the colony visit.
2165.10.23 _Will see_? The Lone trade attack a gas mine in Sipan using a rather weak probably alien capital ship. Sipan fleet changes target to attack on the lone trade spaceport. It will probably hurt less than the large one and is taken first.
Poor timing on those pirates...
Go Raider 1, the defenders at Sipan. They managed to down shields and damage the capital ship before it jumped away. The mine was lost. We queue a rebuild of the lost fuel mine. Raider 1 is told to fetch a deserved repair.
On arrival Sipan Fleet finds the spaceport already low on shields, and a few ships are present. Neither fact really matter as they go to action.
Destroying the mine makes a destroyer appear in the Capital system, which explodes and ends up with a kaltor spawning on a very much attacked mining base there.
Sipan fleet waits for the pirate capital ship and friends that the long range scanner at Sipan hinted at were heading to the location of the base they just busted.
Meanwhile the construction ship hunting force seems to have a destroyer land way early, but the construction ship is gone. They proceed to the system to kill any pirate ships (Najarcan) and bust the lone dagger mine if still there.
2166.01.05 We get a message that Fierce Moon Minerals raided and got away with some resources at Pantulumen 2. As we look at the colony we see Battle 4 destroying the pirate ships, but the pirates are fast, and launch bording parties from a distance.
The capital ship fleet finds some Najarcan camping the independent, and that the Najarcan has captured the mine. They attack the mine. We ponder that if the Mortalu Supremacy is unable to keep pirates out of its capital system, maybe we should take over its running? The other independent is still "free" as well.
After killing some najarcan, and taking some damage, the small capital ship fleet heads back to repair.
2166.02.24 Sipan fleet is tired of waiting, and head for their original target system. On arrival they find a few ships around the spaceport, and get attack order on the spaceport itself.
The normal attack pattern is established
And the frigates and destroyers dive in with extra fury as they sense this may be their last spaceport attack.
2166.04.03 We celebrate as some silly hyperdeny research is finished, and even larger shipyards becomes the research focus.
For many ships, the pirate spaceport was indeed the last battle. 4 ships lacking torpedoes are also scrapped. 23 survivors (out of 37?) head for the star of the colony systme, a bit careful in case of a spaceport at the colony. Sending one damaged frigate with no fuel for repair and to Construction fleet, they are down to 22.
At arrival they find some Savage Storm League ships (system guys) battling ships of the Alzuk Authority (who used to have a spaceport here). At the colony they see a construction ship of the clan, and attack it.
2 invasion fleet transports with troops have attack order, while the invasion fleet leader get move order to have the rest follow in case more is needed. Invading should not be a problem, removing the pirate facility could be.
The construction ship was an easy kill, it appear to be being built at the colony.
The colony quickly falls, and a battle starts to rid it of the pirate structures. 671 vs 168 at start and looking easy enough. Not waiting, invasion fleet moves to the capital spaceport.
The 25 cruisers of 29th fleet, intended for Sipan fleet, is at sipan and refuels with queued order to move to our new conquest Dilla 3
Dilla 3 is of mediocre quality, and may have a low maximum population considering there is a lot of fast breeding Atuuk (they should have had time to max it out). Also, we inherit a shortage.
The small ships of Sipan fleet, 17 in number, is split into a new fleet and get repair order. The cruisers join Sipan fleet which is short a carrier and has one carrier damaged. Sipan Fleet is renamed Crusher 6 (the numbers in my main fleet names are my keyboard shortcut, and I am used to a powerful fleet 6 by now).
2166.10.30 Sinister Invaders board a mining station, and bump themselves on the hit list. Their closest spaceport is a large one, and the system has a crap mortalen colony that they control.
A gift of 1500 credits for the mortalen supremacy? Are the advisors mad? We rather help them with their incompetent government.
We spot another hidden pirate base on Ecery (they already rebuilt one). We must pay more attention... attack!
Shopping: Defensive base for Dilla 3, a carrier for Crusher 6. Retrofit to large at Ecery spaceport. Troop recruitment for more troops to invasion fleet.
2166.12.22 A civilan ship screaming for help confirm Najarcan presence in the Mortalu System. The capital spaceport is very weak, they have 11 troops at 395 strength with a 10% planet bonus. Invasion fleet before new troops are lifted has 13 inf, 12 armor, and 5 special forces at 931 strength.
2167.01.27. A construction ship of dread mining picked the wrong system for construction - Dilla. Crusher 6 is in the system, and cruisers and fighters easily finish it off with no manual intervention.
2167.02.13: We research planetary governance and can place a regional capital to reduce corruption. We guess it goes to sipan and check corruption levels. Sipan 4: 51%, Beate 44%. Ecery 62%. Facility building where this is included, is AI controlled.
We check diplomacy on Mortalen Supremacy. They have a defense pact with the Ackdarian Xanath alliance. The Xanath has two other wars. We are stuffed with ships and not very worried. The galaxy map at the end of last update is true on the light blue Xanath, at least when it comes to the nearest colonies.
We look for the warning "Get your act together and build a military to clear the system of pirates", but fail to find it. They have 437 military strength. We declare War.
The first and only Mortalen Supremacy War
2167.03.01 Crusher 1 at our capital launch for their capital, Edop. While the Mortalen Supremacy has 437 military power, Crusher 1 has 5244.
Once Crusher 1 has a head start, Invasion fleet leader heads for the Mortalu star. The transports are mostly still refueling at the capital spaceport. Some transports are empty hinting at more troop carrying capacity than ungarrisoned troops.
2164.01.10 The Xanath end one war (with Tefnyl Hive), they still have MDP with mortalen supremacy. They have not declared war.
2167.05.03 We complete a region capital at Sipan 4. New corruption check. Sipan 4 has 0%. Beate 44%, Ecery 40% Maybe ecery dropped due this, but it could be less pirate influence and more development too (did not take note of development, but busted a pirate facility). Sipan 4 revenue skyrockets.
The Najarcan capital ship and others present will probably not influence the outcome for the weak mortalen spaceport.
With the spaceport down, Crusher 1 is told to focus on the Najarcan capital ship. One cruiser is a bit far ahead and is in serious trouble.
We think the capital died and did not jump, but we are not quite sure. The cruiser had 22 damaged, but is operational. Crusher 1 hunts down anything hostile in the system.
Shock and horror! Research department has researched entertainment systems. After a mere 67 years? Incredible!
2167.07.29 As transports with 30 troops has landed at the star of the system, Invasion fleet is told to attack the Mortalen Supremacy capital of Edop.
There is nothing to prevent them in dropping their love. Something did, however, prevent the photographer in getting images back to the capital.
If you have a fair fight, you did something wrong.
Still no Xanath war, still that MDP between them.
2167.10.14 We have taken Edop, the Mortalen Supremacy is no more.
Invasion fleet is told to load troops, hopefully most from Edop where we garrison two intenting to recruit more once we have some overview. Mortalen troops are not bad.
When we first found these independents in the early days of space exploration, we though "Nice, but needs population, but why did we grab that stupid Dhayu 3 colony?". Now it has some population. We start to build a defensive base on top of it.
The first two transports that exit from loading at Edop are told to attack the independent, Grau. It has two mortalen troops defending.
An act of magic!
As the first troop transport drops its troops, the colony transforms into the capital of the Great Mortalu Territory and a spaceport appears. With troops in combat, we immedately tell all ships in the system to attack the colony, and declare war.
Being a bit down on strength, the landing troops could actually manage with only two defenders. A lot of the strength is from population, but when the last troop dies, they surrender.
2168.01.08. We have taken over Grau.
We immediately give invasion a new "load" order, garrison 2 troops, recruit about 6 on each of the two mortalen colonies, and garrisons the new builds. We build a defensive base on top of Grau as well.
Entertainment module? Retrofit the spaceports. Medical is soon done so waiting a tad would have been better.
Nothing at all wrong with Grau, hopefully it has room for a lot more. These two circle the same resourceless gas giant.
Hm, issues with spaceport retrofits, confusing. Mixed with the shock of being exposed to more magic than the average anomaly, this calls for a break to recover.
It is 2168.02.14, and we got distracted from our intended pirate target.
Status
The plan was to go for the pirate thing in SW, but I got annoyed at the pirate haven nearby.
The magic trick of the independent was annoying as well, but did not relly matter apart from maybe me taking a reputation hit for the war declaration. The troops were in combat by the time I paused the game.
Two good colonies were taken, not great colonies like the 3 big independents taken, but good.
The world is prettier with a bigger red blob. We can see the new Dila 3 off Sipan. The new mortalen colonies are in the system to the lower right.
We shortened the list by one. One that probably was held back by the independent that drew in pirates.
The stats are worrysome, those northern independents are too good. Sipan 4 is second on the best colony list. Beate is 5th. Sollost 2 is 8th.
We are way ahead in population. 3 times more than the second, or something like that.
But in the middle of the pack in number of colonies. There is a bunch of former independents with just 1 or 2 colonies.
Twice the economy of the Haakonish that are second.
Firepower is leading, but not with that kind of margin. Using the short range weapons probably boosts firepower a bit compared to the long range ones.
Sipan 4 reveals the monster hidden by corruption until now.
I noticed the new pirate facility at Dilla 3, and started an attack.
Grau and Edop should be among the better colonies, it all depends on maximum population level. Both need some resources to max out development.
Ecery is getting there.
And even the capital is looking quite good now!
A few more defensive bases, one at each colony. 1 escort, 3 frigates and 1 destroyer were inhereted from one of the mortalen empires, they are sent to retire.
With the regional capital, things are even more relaxed. Cashflow was not that great at the last update.
The current plan is to hit the pirate colony and their large spaceport around Sipan. And after that focus on the pirate spaceport and colony SW of the home bases. It removes nearby pirates, and gives a decent and a rather crap colony.
First, some maintenance.
6 recently built, automated and unfleeted troop transports to invasion fleet.
25 fueled cruisers from Construction Fleet to a separate temporary fleet to be included in Crusher 1.
25 cruisers with about 10 unfinised to a tmp fleet, told to move to move to Sipan to become members of Sipan fleet.
All frigates and destroyrs from Crusher 1 to Construction, then the tmp fleet cruisers to Crusher 1. Repair order on Crusher due to damaged carriers in Najarca (a battle fleet is there to watch the colony).
This gives
3 Battle fleets (2, 3, 4) with 18 ships, 14 cruisers, 4 carriers.
1 Crusher with 31 ships, 25 cruisers, 6 carriers.
25 cruisers in a fleet heading for Sipan fleet
Sipan Fleet with 6 carriers and 37 ships in total until reconfigured.
15 undamaged ships in construction (frigates and destroyers) for X Pantulumen. 15 other ships for X Najarca. A bit extra strength since these are expected to have some visitors.
1 destroyer to buff X Atuuko to 10. Not sure if we messed up or lost one.
37 ships left in Construction, not bothering to send any of them to Sipan or Ecery.
Sipan Fleet and Invasion are both headed for sipan. Sipan fleet has some damaged ships to fix. No immediate action in the south.
Action
2165.07.24 and life goes on
We find a fleet X Sipan sitting with two damaged in the capital system. We tell them to repair, set their home base, and queue them to go home. This one was created and forgotten.
2165.09.19 Curious, and alerted by an attack on a civilian, we look into the capital of the former mortalen independent next door. There is another independent colony in this capital system. We discover the expected lone dagger mine, but also a couple of warships and a constructor of the Najarca Council
The two capital ships and 3 destroyers of Construction forms a small fleet and goes on a hunt. Will they be there in time to catch the constructor? Keep in mind, the capitals are much slower than our own ships.
Lots of military ships moving around can be seen in the picture. Construction tags ships formerly from Crusher 1 heading back for repairs and fuel.
Sipan Fleet launces to the star of the system with the large pirate spaceport. We can see the colony system of the pirates where we recently busted 3 spaceports. The other flag is
a small spaceport of the lone trade interstellar, we will see if we hit that after the colony visit.
2165.10.23 _Will see_? The Lone trade attack a gas mine in Sipan using a rather weak probably alien capital ship. Sipan fleet changes target to attack on the lone trade spaceport. It will probably hurt less than the large one and is taken first.
Poor timing on those pirates...
Go Raider 1, the defenders at Sipan. They managed to down shields and damage the capital ship before it jumped away. The mine was lost. We queue a rebuild of the lost fuel mine. Raider 1 is told to fetch a deserved repair.
On arrival Sipan Fleet finds the spaceport already low on shields, and a few ships are present. Neither fact really matter as they go to action.
Destroying the mine makes a destroyer appear in the Capital system, which explodes and ends up with a kaltor spawning on a very much attacked mining base there.
Sipan fleet waits for the pirate capital ship and friends that the long range scanner at Sipan hinted at were heading to the location of the base they just busted.
Meanwhile the construction ship hunting force seems to have a destroyer land way early, but the construction ship is gone. They proceed to the system to kill any pirate ships (Najarcan) and bust the lone dagger mine if still there.
2166.01.05 We get a message that Fierce Moon Minerals raided and got away with some resources at Pantulumen 2. As we look at the colony we see Battle 4 destroying the pirate ships, but the pirates are fast, and launch bording parties from a distance.
The capital ship fleet finds some Najarcan camping the independent, and that the Najarcan has captured the mine. They attack the mine. We ponder that if the Mortalu Supremacy is unable to keep pirates out of its capital system, maybe we should take over its running? The other independent is still "free" as well.
After killing some najarcan, and taking some damage, the small capital ship fleet heads back to repair.
2166.02.24 Sipan fleet is tired of waiting, and head for their original target system. On arrival they find a few ships around the spaceport, and get attack order on the spaceport itself.
The normal attack pattern is established
And the frigates and destroyers dive in with extra fury as they sense this may be their last spaceport attack.
2166.04.03 We celebrate as some silly hyperdeny research is finished, and even larger shipyards becomes the research focus.
For many ships, the pirate spaceport was indeed the last battle. 4 ships lacking torpedoes are also scrapped. 23 survivors (out of 37?) head for the star of the colony systme, a bit careful in case of a spaceport at the colony. Sending one damaged frigate with no fuel for repair and to Construction fleet, they are down to 22.
At arrival they find some Savage Storm League ships (system guys) battling ships of the Alzuk Authority (who used to have a spaceport here). At the colony they see a construction ship of the clan, and attack it.
2 invasion fleet transports with troops have attack order, while the invasion fleet leader get move order to have the rest follow in case more is needed. Invading should not be a problem, removing the pirate facility could be.
The construction ship was an easy kill, it appear to be being built at the colony.
The colony quickly falls, and a battle starts to rid it of the pirate structures. 671 vs 168 at start and looking easy enough. Not waiting, invasion fleet moves to the capital spaceport.
The 25 cruisers of 29th fleet, intended for Sipan fleet, is at sipan and refuels with queued order to move to our new conquest Dilla 3
Dilla 3 is of mediocre quality, and may have a low maximum population considering there is a lot of fast breeding Atuuk (they should have had time to max it out). Also, we inherit a shortage.
The small ships of Sipan fleet, 17 in number, is split into a new fleet and get repair order. The cruisers join Sipan fleet which is short a carrier and has one carrier damaged. Sipan Fleet is renamed Crusher 6 (the numbers in my main fleet names are my keyboard shortcut, and I am used to a powerful fleet 6 by now).
2166.10.30 Sinister Invaders board a mining station, and bump themselves on the hit list. Their closest spaceport is a large one, and the system has a crap mortalen colony that they control.
A gift of 1500 credits for the mortalen supremacy? Are the advisors mad? We rather help them with their incompetent government.
We spot another hidden pirate base on Ecery (they already rebuilt one). We must pay more attention... attack!
Shopping: Defensive base for Dilla 3, a carrier for Crusher 6. Retrofit to large at Ecery spaceport. Troop recruitment for more troops to invasion fleet.
2166.12.22 A civilan ship screaming for help confirm Najarcan presence in the Mortalu System. The capital spaceport is very weak, they have 11 troops at 395 strength with a 10% planet bonus. Invasion fleet before new troops are lifted has 13 inf, 12 armor, and 5 special forces at 931 strength.
2167.01.27. A construction ship of dread mining picked the wrong system for construction - Dilla. Crusher 6 is in the system, and cruisers and fighters easily finish it off with no manual intervention.
2167.02.13: We research planetary governance and can place a regional capital to reduce corruption. We guess it goes to sipan and check corruption levels. Sipan 4: 51%, Beate 44%. Ecery 62%. Facility building where this is included, is AI controlled.
We check diplomacy on Mortalen Supremacy. They have a defense pact with the Ackdarian Xanath alliance. The Xanath has two other wars. We are stuffed with ships and not very worried. The galaxy map at the end of last update is true on the light blue Xanath, at least when it comes to the nearest colonies.
We look for the warning "Get your act together and build a military to clear the system of pirates", but fail to find it. They have 437 military strength. We declare War.
The first and only Mortalen Supremacy War
2167.03.01 Crusher 1 at our capital launch for their capital, Edop. While the Mortalen Supremacy has 437 military power, Crusher 1 has 5244.
Once Crusher 1 has a head start, Invasion fleet leader heads for the Mortalu star. The transports are mostly still refueling at the capital spaceport. Some transports are empty hinting at more troop carrying capacity than ungarrisoned troops.
2164.01.10 The Xanath end one war (with Tefnyl Hive), they still have MDP with mortalen supremacy. They have not declared war.
2167.05.03 We complete a region capital at Sipan 4. New corruption check. Sipan 4 has 0%. Beate 44%, Ecery 40% Maybe ecery dropped due this, but it could be less pirate influence and more development too (did not take note of development, but busted a pirate facility). Sipan 4 revenue skyrockets.
The Najarcan capital ship and others present will probably not influence the outcome for the weak mortalen spaceport.
With the spaceport down, Crusher 1 is told to focus on the Najarcan capital ship. One cruiser is a bit far ahead and is in serious trouble.
We think the capital died and did not jump, but we are not quite sure. The cruiser had 22 damaged, but is operational. Crusher 1 hunts down anything hostile in the system.
Shock and horror! Research department has researched entertainment systems. After a mere 67 years? Incredible!
2167.07.29 As transports with 30 troops has landed at the star of the system, Invasion fleet is told to attack the Mortalen Supremacy capital of Edop.
There is nothing to prevent them in dropping their love. Something did, however, prevent the photographer in getting images back to the capital.
If you have a fair fight, you did something wrong.
Still no Xanath war, still that MDP between them.
2167.10.14 We have taken Edop, the Mortalen Supremacy is no more.
Invasion fleet is told to load troops, hopefully most from Edop where we garrison two intenting to recruit more once we have some overview. Mortalen troops are not bad.
When we first found these independents in the early days of space exploration, we though "Nice, but needs population, but why did we grab that stupid Dhayu 3 colony?". Now it has some population. We start to build a defensive base on top of it.
The first two transports that exit from loading at Edop are told to attack the independent, Grau. It has two mortalen troops defending.
An act of magic!
As the first troop transport drops its troops, the colony transforms into the capital of the Great Mortalu Territory and a spaceport appears. With troops in combat, we immedately tell all ships in the system to attack the colony, and declare war.
Being a bit down on strength, the landing troops could actually manage with only two defenders. A lot of the strength is from population, but when the last troop dies, they surrender.
2168.01.08. We have taken over Grau.
We immediately give invasion a new "load" order, garrison 2 troops, recruit about 6 on each of the two mortalen colonies, and garrisons the new builds. We build a defensive base on top of Grau as well.
Entertainment module? Retrofit the spaceports. Medical is soon done so waiting a tad would have been better.
Nothing at all wrong with Grau, hopefully it has room for a lot more. These two circle the same resourceless gas giant.
Hm, issues with spaceport retrofits, confusing. Mixed with the shock of being exposed to more magic than the average anomaly, this calls for a break to recover.
It is 2168.02.14, and we got distracted from our intended pirate target.
Status
The plan was to go for the pirate thing in SW, but I got annoyed at the pirate haven nearby.
The magic trick of the independent was annoying as well, but did not relly matter apart from maybe me taking a reputation hit for the war declaration. The troops were in combat by the time I paused the game.
Two good colonies were taken, not great colonies like the 3 big independents taken, but good.
The world is prettier with a bigger red blob. We can see the new Dila 3 off Sipan. The new mortalen colonies are in the system to the lower right.
We shortened the list by one. One that probably was held back by the independent that drew in pirates.
The stats are worrysome, those northern independents are too good. Sipan 4 is second on the best colony list. Beate is 5th. Sollost 2 is 8th.
We are way ahead in population. 3 times more than the second, or something like that.
But in the middle of the pack in number of colonies. There is a bunch of former independents with just 1 or 2 colonies.
Twice the economy of the Haakonish that are second.
Firepower is leading, but not with that kind of margin. Using the short range weapons probably boosts firepower a bit compared to the long range ones.
Sipan 4 reveals the monster hidden by corruption until now.
I noticed the new pirate facility at Dilla 3, and started an attack.
Grau and Edop should be among the better colonies, it all depends on maximum population level. Both need some resources to max out development.
Ecery is getting there.
And even the capital is looking quite good now!
A few more defensive bases, one at each colony. 1 escort, 3 frigates and 1 destroyer were inhereted from one of the mortalen empires, they are sent to retire.
With the regional capital, things are even more relaxed. Cashflow was not that great at the last update.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
I really worry about the power of the economy and the effect of those independents the AI is too stupid to grab hold of.
Maybe I should figure out what the largest military defense pact is, and launch at that one, or something? Or just bust some pirate ass, and hope that the others will catch up in population?
Maybe I should figure out what the largest military defense pact is, and launch at that one, or something? Or just bust some pirate ass, and hope that the others will catch up in population?
-
Mark Wilkins
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 10:16 pm
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Sir, your AAR's are awesome please keep doing them.
Seeing different play styles (and using automation, wow) is very inspiring.
I am a full manual player but this is inspiring me to try alternatives.
Your articulation of strategy and humour are also appreciated.
Seeing different play styles (and using automation, wow) is very inspiring.
I am a full manual player but this is inspiring me to try alternatives.
Your articulation of strategy and humour are also appreciated.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Strategizing
Or something like that. For now a pirate hunt is probably still the best idea. Pirate attacks do happen, still.
First. At this time the 1.9.5.2 beta patch is available, which should have among other more AI construction yards on large spaceports. I am not patching for this AAR, and suffer the problem of spaceport capacity.
At the start it was very handy to show a screenshot of the "local area". the problem with expanding a bit, is that the local area becomes awfully large, and does not fit that well in an image in forum thread, if at all. And there is a limit to the zoom range on the map as well. So lets try a few shots of various areas.
There are no known pirate bases between the "core area" and Sipan/Atuuko as can be seen on the last galaxy map. Which does not rule out there being one. There is a few in the very north.
This is the SW part.
We can see the light long range scanner fields. The capital, and two above trying to cover some approaches. One left of the capital, trying to cover the gas fields to the west. That northernmost gas cloud not covered has no resource, anyways.
One in the south tries to watch a gas cloud where various empires have constructors roaming.
For the pirates, as numbered in the image.
1: Left. The pink Sinister Spaceways. The upper one is a large spaceport and a colony. Their home spaceport, however, is most likely the one at the left edge in the corner. 1 mine busted, probably by a single ship (or two) from that upper colony/spaceport system.
2: A small spaceport of the Talfagleu Army. I have not felt them in the south, they are from the North where we have had our battles. We have been more annoying to them than them to us though, taking Ecery from them.
3. A spaceport by Fire Bandits, they have core areas further east. I have not, as far as I know, ever noticed any ship of theirs.
4: Ikoriun Ravagers. They have been raiding Dhayhu 3 in the past. The right of the two is the large spaceport. They are a bit similar in logo to the 5s.
5: Sinister Outlaws. I recognize them as annoying. The left 5 is a colony, which is actually quite nice. 11M Sluken, 85%, nice strategic resources. A nice 27% development bonus from ruin.
None of these have been very annoying lately.
This shows the eastern area, Pantulumen is just off the screen next to Najarca, the blue fuel symbol (pantulumen system) can be seen at the edge of the image.
Writing an AAR can be nice in that there are notes in what pirate clans have been active...
1: In the north is a Najarcan colony, with a Sinister Spaceways (1s in the last image) small spaceport. Najarcans did visit the north a while ago. From here? The colony has a nice 88% quality, but only 767M inhabitants, mostly humans.
2: Sinister Invaders have 3 spaceports pretty close to each other. The left one is the large spaceport, and in the system they got a very poor quality mortalen colony (51%). They have in recent times attacked mining stations, and fielded a decent raid attempt at Pantulumen 2.
3: A mess of a system. It is owned by Securan Harmony, but the Tefnyl Bandits are building hidden network, and will take control if completed. The Tefnyl Bandits have been fought near Sapila, but are from further south. They have a small spaceport in the system.
Dread mining also has a small spaceport in the same system, we do not remember them as very annoying at all.
4: Fierce Moon Minerals. A colony near all the 2s, and some flags at the lower right. They have raided Pantulumen 2, and attacked mines in the capital system. The spaceports are far away, did they start out at that colony? Or another base? The colony is 70% with 874M mixed, majority Dhayut.
5: Hidden Claw Industries. Far away, not on my hit list, currently.
The south-eastern area. The green top left is in the first image as well. The Pink and blue colony at top is in the previous image.
1: The Najarca Council has a medium spaceport. This was our "home crew". It is 2 sectors from Mortalu, though, and we have only had visits in Arexxie some time ago. They did not come from here. We also saw them when conquering Mortalu, those may have come from here.
2: Cruel Claw Pillagers. The lower spaceport is large, the others small. A search in the AAR tells about them being present in Atuuko (Beate colony), and that we mopped a base of them closer to home at the time we hit the Lone Daggers. They probably don't bother us from here? Or?
3: Lone Trade Interstellar. We destroyed a spaceport attempt at them near Dhayu. They were the ones distracting us at our last pirate kill trip from Sipan by attacking a gas mine in Sipan. That is not anywhere near here.
4: Tefnyl bandits again, main area further south. Too far away to worry about.
I hope the pirate overview makes some sense to someone...
What to do?
The core of the latest pirate issues is the 3 Sinister Claw spaceports and the Fierce Moon colony to the east. The issue here is that it is quite a bit away, and do we really want a colony here? More than 2 sectors from Sollost, repair there would be a long trip, and repairs will in particular be needed if we run into railguns. Maybe build a spaceport in Mortalu? Kind of near the capital. Build a spaceport on the eastern 875M colony of dubious quality? It can be done, it may be a good idea, but it is a location ruling, not a colony in need of a spaceport.
The juicy colony south is quite of near home? The Dhayut would jump at it, I think I give the AI a chance to jump, at least for a while. Unless those guys suddenly attack something of ours.
The one at the left? It can wait. I am tired of trying to AAR simultaneous attacks on pirate spaceports. They always end up fighting at the same time.
Battle fleets are:
Battle 3 in the north. A proper fleet in the north is nice.
Crusher 6 is at Dila, the new colony near Sipan.
Battle 2 watches Pantulumen 2
Battle 4 watches Najarca 1
Crusher 1 is at Mortalu, with one damaged and reduced fuel levels.
Of course, there are those 10-15 ship destroyers and frigates fleets, but they are not going to stop a proper raid. We feel the strain. And we got 272K cash and 159K cashflow. And some steady bonus income.
A battle fleet of 14/4 costs 120k and has 17.5k maintenance. Lets take two! One to meet up at Sipan (to release Crusher 6), one to meet at the capital.
Soon we can say hello to Battle 5 and Battle 7. No specific care is taken about who is built where. They are based in the systems (capital and Sipan), and I make the fleet leaders a cruiser built in the target system. They won't be around for a while, though.
In another area? Colonize? Not just yet, pirates are still annoying, the capital is not full. And the targets are in our territory, so no one else will grab them.
Action
2168.02.17
Crusher 1 repair and refuel at the capital. Battle 2 move from Najarca (hopefully the less likely to be raided) to Grau in the Mortalu System. Grau was independent apart from a few seconds while the invasion raged. Edop was the Supremacy capital. Grau is likely to have some pirate influence on it, Edop not, and we assume pirate influence to increase the pirates eagerness to raid. Also, the Edop defensive base is much closer to completion.
Invasion fleet just started loading troops. The leader is moved to mortalu (if he ever had time to leave), since we are thinking of an eastwards motion for the colony of the annoying pirates.
And just as Crusher 1 left, the Fire Moon minerals drop by Grau with 3 ships. Crusher 1 is told to turn, battle 2 is not far off. The defensive base is just in its infancy as a build project. We have to micro manage to not have leader and transports of invasion fleet play heroes. They are manually sent towards a system a bit to the west.
The fire moon minerals, the spaceport with a construction ship retiring (like the former mortalen explorers also are), the too brave invasion members before leaving.
We had this idea "bust the spaceports of those other guys, then maybe invade". We are not sure about that order of action right now.
Soon they have visitors in the form of Battle 2 and Crusher 1. Crusher 1 is again told to repair and refuel. Or, they refuel at grau, and the damaged cruiser flies to repair all alone. We just have to make sure he is caught in the spaceport yards before bossing Crusher 1 with a fleet order again.
With a najarcan escort also visiting, it is clear that Grau will benefit from fleet presence. Luckily Grau has a healty 63K caslon supply, and casually refuel a couple of fleets just fine.
2168.05.14 And while a najarcan is shot at at grau, we see the alert of an attack at Dachsii 1 mining station. That is the Ecery system at the far north. This is the Phantom Fleet leader, the single capital ship (who's phantom base wer pretend to never have seen in a systems overview). Battle 3 is at guard in this system, and happened to be at the mine after a refuel. Bad circumstances for the pirate capital ship. It seems to have arrived at half shields as well.
The phantom fleet capital ship is no more.
2168.05.24 Then the sinister invaders attacks a mine in the Dhayu system. The strength of the defense fleet (10 ships) is not ideal at this time, it s not of Battle 3 quality. Those eastern pirate crews are really competing for our attention.
X Dhayu kill some, lose two and has 1 damaged. We transfer two healthy guys from Construction Fleet and send the single ship for repairs.
2168.08.07 Sinister Invaders also attack a mine in Jintawoe, SW of pantulumen. Moving up on the hit list.
We need more build capacity in central areas. A large spaceport is started at Edop in the Mortalu system. This spaceport will shine much more brightly than the puny one that was there while under Mortalen Supremacy rule. For now, the two damaged ships of crusher 1 and invasion are in the capital shipyards, after some finished cruises and stuff have been completed.
We notice the Sinister Invader at Jintawoe appear to aim for the closest colony/spaceport in the east. And we notice that a Najarcan destroyer does not last long under the combined fighter force of battle 2 and crusher 1 in Mortalu.
2168.09.01 Anyways. With 1 cruiser being repaired, Crusher 1 launches at Kurilea Outpust, the large spaceport of the Sinister Invaders. In a system with a crap mortalen inhabited colony. This will be a proper test for the crusher fleet setup of 25, eh 24 cruisers and 6 carriers (1 cruiser is in the shipyards at the capital).
At the same time, a Najarcan cruiser provides a target for Battle 2 gunnery practice at Grau. We can see its doom incoming (actually it took one more salvo, jumped a few ship lengths, and were finished by fighters).
With most of the ships for battle 5 and 7 built, Crusher 6 moves to Ecery to refuel and prepare to bust the local, northern, pirate presence.
Crusher 1 circles and begins to work on the Sinister Invader spaceport. The days of the fierce frigate assaults on such targets are over.
We see a hail of torpedoes and lots of fighters surround the spaceport, which has low shields considering that it is "large" (2900). They are indeed very low in that picture (0).
The station explodes, and we register Crusher 1 with 30 ships and 1 damaged. One cruiser lost? The damage is not that significant with 4/16 enhanced armor for the one hurt.
16 armor? did they not have 19? We have not retrofitted cruisers, new stuff is researched, they are not of identical designs. The "old" ones probably lack enhanced armor, for instance.
There is a poor colony in the system, but if we want to push the pirates back, we got to take it. There is also the one mentioned a bit further east. If we keep taking pirate colonies because we want to stop them from raiding us. Will we stop before reaching all map edges? Time will show. Invasion fleet has been told to move in.
And if we want battle fleets for:
1 at home
2 in the north (Sapila, Ercery)
2 to guard some near home (Pantulumen, Grau).
2 to guard two new colonies in the east (the two crap ones)
Our current 5 won't reach far. Not if we ignore the crushers.
204k credits, 145k cashflow. Lets spend 120K on Battle 8, and add an additional cruiser to refill crusher 1.
2168.12.03. the sinister invaders raid another mine near home.
Since they are so annoying, Crusher 1 decides it has time to bust a small spaceport, and still be back before Invasion's arrival. They just started from Mortalu (on the left). That may be a bit optimistc, but...
2169.01.10 Sinister Spaceways arrives to raid a mine at the capital system with an alien capital ship. That bumps that western colony/spaceport on the hit list. The new battle 5 were in attendance with local ships to finish it off. Battle 5 is all built, but maybe not all present. Battle 7 still lacks 3 ships.
Battle 5 is told to move to the soon to be captured colony in the east.
Crusher 1 is quick, but not that quick. As invasion lands with not a pirate in sight, and the small spaceport is dead, Crusher 1 moves to the Fierce Moon colony nearby to await for invasion fleet (after it has dropped some troops).
This shot, however has some bonus info. Light blue ships near Mortalu. Najarcan council, 7 ship fleet revealed on some clicking. Where do they come from? They are at a line from that spaceport flagged down right. The scanner revealing it is a sign that the new LSP at Edop is getting at least some systems online.
Battle 2 (who should watch Grau), gets a move order to the colony to help them recover from any unfortunate events that may have made them drift away.
We hope the pirates got some fuel on some of these colonies, because Crusher 1 needs fuel in order to bust that Najarcan spaceport in particular, and spaceports in general in that area. There are a few to pick from (two in the colony system NW of Crusher), for instance.
In other news, there are two green independents below Mortalu. There was only one at the pirate update at start. The AI empires struggle mightly with pirates, and the pirates has taken another one. That orange colony with the two pirate bases will probably turn pirate in some time too (the network is under construction).
Invasion fleet can see 1 troop, but more is needed to bust the pirate structures as well. 3 transports with about 10 troops and 3 armor attack, invasion leader moves to the same target as Crusher 1 fleet.
Meanwwhile Crusher 6 is ready and fueled at Ecery, and impatient to go. They get no orders, we blame AAR writing for their lack of attention.
Hm, the Najarcan appears to move very slowly towards Mortalu. Out of fuel? Or are their drives that slow?
The sorry excuse of a colony called Netoa. The troops immediately starts dismantling pirate structure, and we recruit some new mortalen troops to have as garrisons. It is a waste to garrison that junk with more than 1 troop, but we can't hand it to the pirates, right?
We spot 126k credits, and book another Battle fleet. Battle, eh 9? Cost up to 121.2K. Based at Edop to gather there, no construction yet at the spaceport, so a lead ship is made at random from one built at Sollost. It is named Dark Master. Fitting.
Crusher 1 find 2 sorry pirate ships as it lands at Sloen Van. Invasion arrives, and tell two transports of about 5 troops and 3 armor to attack. Invasion leader is heard asking headquarters "Any more pirate colonies around!?".
A sinister invader parks on top of netoa. battle 5 is incoming from various direction (some were on their way to the capital from the north).
We notice crusher 6 heading back to Sipan to refuel. We wonder of it was lack of fuel, or an old feature on what is calculated as "closest" fuel source when queuing orders. Fuel situation at Ecery seems OK, and there is also lots of fuel on the gas mine.
Invasion leader back to Mortalu system.
Sloes van 6 is mediocre or worse at 70% quality, but a 17% colony development bonus and nice resources makes it respectable. The population is way low, but maybe some peace and quiet under Dhayut rule will help it attract migrants? We are not picky, our enslavement can handle any alien visitors.
Crusher 1 wants to go all back to Mortalu for fuel. We choose to stay to guard a new medium spaceport build at Sloes Van 6. It will help as an operational stop away from home, but the build could take a while unless the pirates stockpiled more other resources than fuel. (130 caslon, 357 steel, 9 lead - they did not).
Kurilea, where Netoa is, has two good gas giants for fuel, but how to keep the mines alive? Sloes Van has many resources and is a nice mining system, but no caslon. There are a couple of caslon sources in our new territory though, one of them has a pirate base on top of it.
Najarca system seems quiet enough, and we hit the pirates hard with the last attacks, we send Battle 4 sitting there to Sloes Van 6. Or was it battle 4? That will soon do something else starting from Pantulumen. Confusion rages as the army press office.
2159.06.03 Meanwhile, in the north. We get messages about ships wanting to refuel, and discover 6 new ships from Ecery spaceport out of fuel heading south. We tell them to refuel, and they head for the single caslon source mine the system. This makes us hunt for further fuel locations (and poke the civilians for more caslon transport). We only find caslon at a star to the south, marked with the selection circle. No less than 3 caslon sources. And a system overview that hints at this being the Phantom Pirate Base (the fleet is dead, though). I guess we will spot them after all, as a construction ship heads there.
We can see crusher 6 heading north, reserving lots of fuel (all 9k reserved) sending the new ships away on empty stomachs. The light blue ships seen crossing the scanner are stressful, but they are not Najarcan pirates, they are Free Talfegleu Utopia ships travelling to and from their regional capital system to the left.
And at the same time, in our south, Battle 4 figures that with all the pirate bashing, Pantulumen is maybe OK? At least we can figure out if the defensive fleet is up to the task. And the defensive base. But we won't learn that if Battle 4 kill all that get close, do we?
They head for a pirate colony to the south. When we over extend by grabbing crap ones in the east, we can grab a nice one in the south too. The one just south of it is not bad either, actually. Apart from Mortalu, maybe we can conquer most of the galaxy just by chasing pirates?
We can see a string of invasion fleet ships heading for Mortalu. A couple of ships are told to drive-by-load at Netoa as the pirate battle there ends.
We see cruel claw pillagers flying over the scanners around the capital, heading SE. Where are they travelling from? They have not bothered us, whatever they did. The most likely candidate is a hydrogen source in a system NW of Atuuko. But that does not fit all their trajectories, some appear to come from systems in an area where we have mines in all of the systems? Confusing. The candidate system for a base at a hydrogen source is circled at the top. It fits the two to the right, but the two two lower ones moving to the SE?
Their destinations could be their bases that are south of our new colonies.
The joy of watching scanners. Too bad the game is to busy to have fun watching civilian traffic. We blame the pirates for that! And with 150k cash we feel the urge for another Battle fleet. 10 battle fleets? Are you crazy? No way, we only have 9 letters for them (0 is invasion fleet).
2169.07.26 Edop Spaceport is ready to serve the empire. Maybe this may draw some load from the fuel mines in the north? By building less ships there? Since we refuse to buy another battle fleet, this may be a minor point.
As Battle 4 is near its southern target system, invasion is told to refuel, and the leader (with good fuel levels) heads to the colony as well.
Phew, with Crusher 6 refueled there is (some) fuel at Ecery. Fuel for the next cruisers and carriers being completed.
On Arrival, Battle 4 finds the usual weakly defended pirate colony, but also a small spaceport of the Hidden Claw Industries on a gas giant in the system. First, it proves that pirates set up on hydrogen sources (which the possible pirate site north of Atuuko also was), and secondly, they may not have bothered us, but a pirate spaceport in our future system? For real?
They tried to be nasty with something looking like gravtion beams, but no damage taken. On our guys, that is.
"What? Can't queue gas mine in the system? What you mean other empire's territory?". The game has no ability to predict the short term future, most if not all of invasion fleet is just outside.
And: "Hello? Research department? One more improvement in resource sensors? Our two explorers stopped doing anything _years_ ago". (it leads to ship scanning, though).
2169.10.07: the joy of building structures at the frontier worlds. The photo shoot alerts us to a pirate facility being built, and the busters are summoned. A quick check of the colony list give show no signs of other pirate structures at this time.
Hello? Invasion fleet? Why are you not at the leader, but busy capturing a hapless pirate at Mortalu? A short delay in the plans of conquering that colony.
Why is Crusher 6 moving south? To Sloes Van 6? Probably because Crusher 1 is there and we fumbled. Noticing a construction ship heading to Ecery to pick up stuff to build a mining station in Thyfirra system, we ask them to refuel (default sipan), since we have a hunch we will discover a bowl of goodies rather soon.
2169.12.18: How long does a pirate escort attacking Netoa last vs the fighters of Battle 5? Nope, it doesn't.
As the transports of invasion has arrived in the south. Two are told to attack (5-6 troops and 3 armor), and Battle 4 heads one step south to the next colony.
It appears the phantoms have found themselves an alien capital. It is powerful, and leader of Phantom Fleet. Powerful alien ships are not what they once were, though. At least not in the Presence of Battle 3. Alien capital dead, the mine takes some shield damage.
Battle 4 are almost happy to find a medium spaceport to attack as they land in the next system, but appear a tad disorganized. They landed at the star, and had attack order, and should do better than this at circling the target. Two ships lightly damaged.
Invasion is not far behind, 3 partly full transports drop their goods. Battle 9 (new) moves to the previous colony taken. When troops have landed, Invasion gets load order and leader moves to mortalu. They won't load at the new colonies in the south, though, since there is a pirate battle raging at both of them. And with the leader move, will the transports manage to follow him this time, or find some other stupid ship to try to capture on own initiative?
Again fighting pirates. Low population, a couple of luxuries, OK quality. An ice world, but the population minority is mostly Dhayut. The natives are probably Naxxilian but it is only 50M of them working in our icy mines. Why "only 50", because if the population was significant (over 100M or 500M), we could use them to colonize ice worlds. Not that we are colonizing anything, but...
2170.04.20: With invasion just having launched to load troops, Crusher 1 babysitting a medium spaceport build while lowish on fuel, and Crusher 6 being impatient to bust some powerful ass, it is time for status.
Status
I find invasion sprees like this one rather tiresome and after a while one gets a bit disorganized. With pirate enemies, there is no peace to be had, though. At war, I typically end up with grabbing 3-5 colonies at a time due to this. Unless I decide to clear a "distinct area" or an entire empire.
The southern move was totally optional, they have not bothered us for quite a while. But after grabbing the questionable stuff in the east to push pirates back, getting a good one was just fair.
I started a medium spaceport in the far east, I am a bit afraid it could bite me in having the build order screen ask it to build a cruiser it struggles with completing due to lacking resources. I hope the spaceport will be some extra draw for fuel for my fleets there, and I have a couple of damaged cruisers in the area that could use a repair. I expect more eastern damage in the future as well, as we are probably not done bashing pirates. There is a couple of fuel sources in our small, new, territory there. One of them has a pirate base on top of it.
Since the spaceport build was likely to struggle, I have not booked at defensive base for the other colony over there (netoa). I don't want to start that build until after the spaceport is complete, at least, there is no use in spamming builds in an area with a local resource shortage.
In the north, if the Thirfyrra system contains what I think it does, the constructor aiming for Thyrfirrra 8 may be happy that the one heading for no 9 is a bit ahead. The base is probably at Thyrfirra 8, a nice dual fuel gas giant.
Oh, and I noticed that there is no fleet at Dila system. 17 ships formerly of Sipan fleet was at Sipan, and was told to be X Dila and to move there. 17 ships is maybe a bit too many, but whatever.
Again, pirates shown. The Thirfyrra system where the possibly doomed constructor is heading, is right south of the northern (red) circle of influence. The closest site with some caslon sources to that colony, and there is a lot of fuel to be had in that system.
We can see that Edop is now the hub in an empire that it never was in incompetent Mortalen Supremacy hands. Two new colonies to the south, two new to the east. The two eastern ones does not exactly bring in a lot of systems (with resources) to our control. The pirates in the eastern red is the last of the 3 bases of the annoying Sinister Invaders. But we struggle a bit with fuel over there.
Hm, order the new Battle 8 at the capital to move to Netoa, the left of the two western, where battle 5 sit with 1 damaged at decent fuel. That colony needs some cover, and battle 5 could bust that base. Or battle 8 could, or something.
The days when the capital, Arexxie (north of it) and Dhayu 3 (SE linked to Etau) was the empire seems so far away. We were poor, and struggling to raise ships for a fightback. Now it is "another powerful fleet maybe? Nah, we have no shortcut key for them". These "many" pirates lead to a lot of protection need if one wants to limit raids, though. And they may have screwed the AI empires quite badly as they fail a lot in keeping control of their small ones. And in busting pirate bases, even if I think one northern one may have disappeared.
We have found a new pirate base south of Sipan. B'cnus Network, they have one known base at the eastern quameno areas, and are probably from that part. They have not bothered us.
I am still not paying attention to diplomacy, and fail to pay notice to some suggestions involving free trade, trade sanctions, or whatever. We took over some sluken though, we are getting closer to the potentially friendly tefnyl hive.
I think the Free Talfagleu Utopia used to look strong, not so much now, and not just because we dominate. The Xanath are on the rise, I think.
Securan Harmony is at war with Haakonish and Mortalen. They appear to spank the space defenses of the Mortalen Capital, which lacks a spaceport. The Mortalen are weak, hurt by our "many pirates, nearby", meaning many started nearby them as well?
The Mortalen are not fond of us, envying and complaining of us trespassing. Our mine is not trespassing in their system, it is their influence circle trespassing on our mine. Silly reptiles.
Hm, why has Ecery dropped from 135 development? It got Loros, so a shortage of luxuries? The civilians need to get their act together.
Edop and Grau lacks Loros fruit, but they are getting there. Dila 3, the former pirate colony SE of Sipan, is well into "profitable" territory.
Astermai will be really nice (but not Sipan 4 nice), Murlilea 2 needs population. Sloes Van 6 needs population and will give some small income. And say hello to Netoa, if we get one more colony you are unlikely to ever see it on this screen again.
12 construction ships, means two former Mortalen ones fled when heading for retirement. We had 10. And should probably get a few more since the AI is not too efficient at deploying them.
Lots of cruisers... And we can afford them.
We could of course make a custom trading port for the colonies of no spaceport to bring the now available resort and medical components. Which would boost happiness, allowing us to tax a bit harder. But why bother?
With the 17 frigates/destroyers heading off to be the Dila defense for just now, we actually need some ships to defend our new stuff in the south. Unless we intend to keep battle fleets parked there into eternity. The 17 ship or whatever construction fleet is handy as pirates do drop by the capital system mines now and then, and the local defense fleet can use the help.
We have the two pirate capital ships, we could probably just retire them. But their hyper denys are nice in making sure the annoying pirates that attack capital system mines get nowhere and dies.
Or something like that. For now a pirate hunt is probably still the best idea. Pirate attacks do happen, still.
First. At this time the 1.9.5.2 beta patch is available, which should have among other more AI construction yards on large spaceports. I am not patching for this AAR, and suffer the problem of spaceport capacity.
At the start it was very handy to show a screenshot of the "local area". the problem with expanding a bit, is that the local area becomes awfully large, and does not fit that well in an image in forum thread, if at all. And there is a limit to the zoom range on the map as well. So lets try a few shots of various areas.
There are no known pirate bases between the "core area" and Sipan/Atuuko as can be seen on the last galaxy map. Which does not rule out there being one. There is a few in the very north.
This is the SW part.
We can see the light long range scanner fields. The capital, and two above trying to cover some approaches. One left of the capital, trying to cover the gas fields to the west. That northernmost gas cloud not covered has no resource, anyways.
One in the south tries to watch a gas cloud where various empires have constructors roaming.
For the pirates, as numbered in the image.
1: Left. The pink Sinister Spaceways. The upper one is a large spaceport and a colony. Their home spaceport, however, is most likely the one at the left edge in the corner. 1 mine busted, probably by a single ship (or two) from that upper colony/spaceport system.
2: A small spaceport of the Talfagleu Army. I have not felt them in the south, they are from the North where we have had our battles. We have been more annoying to them than them to us though, taking Ecery from them.
3. A spaceport by Fire Bandits, they have core areas further east. I have not, as far as I know, ever noticed any ship of theirs.
4: Ikoriun Ravagers. They have been raiding Dhayhu 3 in the past. The right of the two is the large spaceport. They are a bit similar in logo to the 5s.
5: Sinister Outlaws. I recognize them as annoying. The left 5 is a colony, which is actually quite nice. 11M Sluken, 85%, nice strategic resources. A nice 27% development bonus from ruin.
None of these have been very annoying lately.
This shows the eastern area, Pantulumen is just off the screen next to Najarca, the blue fuel symbol (pantulumen system) can be seen at the edge of the image.
Writing an AAR can be nice in that there are notes in what pirate clans have been active...
1: In the north is a Najarcan colony, with a Sinister Spaceways (1s in the last image) small spaceport. Najarcans did visit the north a while ago. From here? The colony has a nice 88% quality, but only 767M inhabitants, mostly humans.
2: Sinister Invaders have 3 spaceports pretty close to each other. The left one is the large spaceport, and in the system they got a very poor quality mortalen colony (51%). They have in recent times attacked mining stations, and fielded a decent raid attempt at Pantulumen 2.
3: A mess of a system. It is owned by Securan Harmony, but the Tefnyl Bandits are building hidden network, and will take control if completed. The Tefnyl Bandits have been fought near Sapila, but are from further south. They have a small spaceport in the system.
Dread mining also has a small spaceport in the same system, we do not remember them as very annoying at all.
4: Fierce Moon Minerals. A colony near all the 2s, and some flags at the lower right. They have raided Pantulumen 2, and attacked mines in the capital system. The spaceports are far away, did they start out at that colony? Or another base? The colony is 70% with 874M mixed, majority Dhayut.
5: Hidden Claw Industries. Far away, not on my hit list, currently.
The south-eastern area. The green top left is in the first image as well. The Pink and blue colony at top is in the previous image.
1: The Najarca Council has a medium spaceport. This was our "home crew". It is 2 sectors from Mortalu, though, and we have only had visits in Arexxie some time ago. They did not come from here. We also saw them when conquering Mortalu, those may have come from here.
2: Cruel Claw Pillagers. The lower spaceport is large, the others small. A search in the AAR tells about them being present in Atuuko (Beate colony), and that we mopped a base of them closer to home at the time we hit the Lone Daggers. They probably don't bother us from here? Or?
3: Lone Trade Interstellar. We destroyed a spaceport attempt at them near Dhayu. They were the ones distracting us at our last pirate kill trip from Sipan by attacking a gas mine in Sipan. That is not anywhere near here.
4: Tefnyl bandits again, main area further south. Too far away to worry about.
I hope the pirate overview makes some sense to someone...
What to do?
The core of the latest pirate issues is the 3 Sinister Claw spaceports and the Fierce Moon colony to the east. The issue here is that it is quite a bit away, and do we really want a colony here? More than 2 sectors from Sollost, repair there would be a long trip, and repairs will in particular be needed if we run into railguns. Maybe build a spaceport in Mortalu? Kind of near the capital. Build a spaceport on the eastern 875M colony of dubious quality? It can be done, it may be a good idea, but it is a location ruling, not a colony in need of a spaceport.
The juicy colony south is quite of near home? The Dhayut would jump at it, I think I give the AI a chance to jump, at least for a while. Unless those guys suddenly attack something of ours.
The one at the left? It can wait. I am tired of trying to AAR simultaneous attacks on pirate spaceports. They always end up fighting at the same time.
Battle fleets are:
Battle 3 in the north. A proper fleet in the north is nice.
Crusher 6 is at Dila, the new colony near Sipan.
Battle 2 watches Pantulumen 2
Battle 4 watches Najarca 1
Crusher 1 is at Mortalu, with one damaged and reduced fuel levels.
Of course, there are those 10-15 ship destroyers and frigates fleets, but they are not going to stop a proper raid. We feel the strain. And we got 272K cash and 159K cashflow. And some steady bonus income.
A battle fleet of 14/4 costs 120k and has 17.5k maintenance. Lets take two! One to meet up at Sipan (to release Crusher 6), one to meet at the capital.
Soon we can say hello to Battle 5 and Battle 7. No specific care is taken about who is built where. They are based in the systems (capital and Sipan), and I make the fleet leaders a cruiser built in the target system. They won't be around for a while, though.
In another area? Colonize? Not just yet, pirates are still annoying, the capital is not full. And the targets are in our territory, so no one else will grab them.
Action
2168.02.17
Crusher 1 repair and refuel at the capital. Battle 2 move from Najarca (hopefully the less likely to be raided) to Grau in the Mortalu System. Grau was independent apart from a few seconds while the invasion raged. Edop was the Supremacy capital. Grau is likely to have some pirate influence on it, Edop not, and we assume pirate influence to increase the pirates eagerness to raid. Also, the Edop defensive base is much closer to completion.
Invasion fleet just started loading troops. The leader is moved to mortalu (if he ever had time to leave), since we are thinking of an eastwards motion for the colony of the annoying pirates.
And just as Crusher 1 left, the Fire Moon minerals drop by Grau with 3 ships. Crusher 1 is told to turn, battle 2 is not far off. The defensive base is just in its infancy as a build project. We have to micro manage to not have leader and transports of invasion fleet play heroes. They are manually sent towards a system a bit to the west.
The fire moon minerals, the spaceport with a construction ship retiring (like the former mortalen explorers also are), the too brave invasion members before leaving.
We had this idea "bust the spaceports of those other guys, then maybe invade". We are not sure about that order of action right now.
Soon they have visitors in the form of Battle 2 and Crusher 1. Crusher 1 is again told to repair and refuel. Or, they refuel at grau, and the damaged cruiser flies to repair all alone. We just have to make sure he is caught in the spaceport yards before bossing Crusher 1 with a fleet order again.
With a najarcan escort also visiting, it is clear that Grau will benefit from fleet presence. Luckily Grau has a healty 63K caslon supply, and casually refuel a couple of fleets just fine.
2168.05.14 And while a najarcan is shot at at grau, we see the alert of an attack at Dachsii 1 mining station. That is the Ecery system at the far north. This is the Phantom Fleet leader, the single capital ship (who's phantom base wer pretend to never have seen in a systems overview). Battle 3 is at guard in this system, and happened to be at the mine after a refuel. Bad circumstances for the pirate capital ship. It seems to have arrived at half shields as well.
The phantom fleet capital ship is no more.
2168.05.24 Then the sinister invaders attacks a mine in the Dhayu system. The strength of the defense fleet (10 ships) is not ideal at this time, it s not of Battle 3 quality. Those eastern pirate crews are really competing for our attention.
X Dhayu kill some, lose two and has 1 damaged. We transfer two healthy guys from Construction Fleet and send the single ship for repairs.
2168.08.07 Sinister Invaders also attack a mine in Jintawoe, SW of pantulumen. Moving up on the hit list.
We need more build capacity in central areas. A large spaceport is started at Edop in the Mortalu system. This spaceport will shine much more brightly than the puny one that was there while under Mortalen Supremacy rule. For now, the two damaged ships of crusher 1 and invasion are in the capital shipyards, after some finished cruises and stuff have been completed.
We notice the Sinister Invader at Jintawoe appear to aim for the closest colony/spaceport in the east. And we notice that a Najarcan destroyer does not last long under the combined fighter force of battle 2 and crusher 1 in Mortalu.
2168.09.01 Anyways. With 1 cruiser being repaired, Crusher 1 launches at Kurilea Outpust, the large spaceport of the Sinister Invaders. In a system with a crap mortalen inhabited colony. This will be a proper test for the crusher fleet setup of 25, eh 24 cruisers and 6 carriers (1 cruiser is in the shipyards at the capital).
At the same time, a Najarcan cruiser provides a target for Battle 2 gunnery practice at Grau. We can see its doom incoming (actually it took one more salvo, jumped a few ship lengths, and were finished by fighters).
With most of the ships for battle 5 and 7 built, Crusher 6 moves to Ecery to refuel and prepare to bust the local, northern, pirate presence.
Crusher 1 circles and begins to work on the Sinister Invader spaceport. The days of the fierce frigate assaults on such targets are over.
We see a hail of torpedoes and lots of fighters surround the spaceport, which has low shields considering that it is "large" (2900). They are indeed very low in that picture (0).
The station explodes, and we register Crusher 1 with 30 ships and 1 damaged. One cruiser lost? The damage is not that significant with 4/16 enhanced armor for the one hurt.
16 armor? did they not have 19? We have not retrofitted cruisers, new stuff is researched, they are not of identical designs. The "old" ones probably lack enhanced armor, for instance.
There is a poor colony in the system, but if we want to push the pirates back, we got to take it. There is also the one mentioned a bit further east. If we keep taking pirate colonies because we want to stop them from raiding us. Will we stop before reaching all map edges? Time will show. Invasion fleet has been told to move in.
And if we want battle fleets for:
1 at home
2 in the north (Sapila, Ercery)
2 to guard some near home (Pantulumen, Grau).
2 to guard two new colonies in the east (the two crap ones)
Our current 5 won't reach far. Not if we ignore the crushers.
204k credits, 145k cashflow. Lets spend 120K on Battle 8, and add an additional cruiser to refill crusher 1.
2168.12.03. the sinister invaders raid another mine near home.
Since they are so annoying, Crusher 1 decides it has time to bust a small spaceport, and still be back before Invasion's arrival. They just started from Mortalu (on the left). That may be a bit optimistc, but...
2169.01.10 Sinister Spaceways arrives to raid a mine at the capital system with an alien capital ship. That bumps that western colony/spaceport on the hit list. The new battle 5 were in attendance with local ships to finish it off. Battle 5 is all built, but maybe not all present. Battle 7 still lacks 3 ships.
Battle 5 is told to move to the soon to be captured colony in the east.
Crusher 1 is quick, but not that quick. As invasion lands with not a pirate in sight, and the small spaceport is dead, Crusher 1 moves to the Fierce Moon colony nearby to await for invasion fleet (after it has dropped some troops).
This shot, however has some bonus info. Light blue ships near Mortalu. Najarcan council, 7 ship fleet revealed on some clicking. Where do they come from? They are at a line from that spaceport flagged down right. The scanner revealing it is a sign that the new LSP at Edop is getting at least some systems online.
Battle 2 (who should watch Grau), gets a move order to the colony to help them recover from any unfortunate events that may have made them drift away.
We hope the pirates got some fuel on some of these colonies, because Crusher 1 needs fuel in order to bust that Najarcan spaceport in particular, and spaceports in general in that area. There are a few to pick from (two in the colony system NW of Crusher), for instance.
In other news, there are two green independents below Mortalu. There was only one at the pirate update at start. The AI empires struggle mightly with pirates, and the pirates has taken another one. That orange colony with the two pirate bases will probably turn pirate in some time too (the network is under construction).
Invasion fleet can see 1 troop, but more is needed to bust the pirate structures as well. 3 transports with about 10 troops and 3 armor attack, invasion leader moves to the same target as Crusher 1 fleet.
Meanwwhile Crusher 6 is ready and fueled at Ecery, and impatient to go. They get no orders, we blame AAR writing for their lack of attention.
Hm, the Najarcan appears to move very slowly towards Mortalu. Out of fuel? Or are their drives that slow?
The sorry excuse of a colony called Netoa. The troops immediately starts dismantling pirate structure, and we recruit some new mortalen troops to have as garrisons. It is a waste to garrison that junk with more than 1 troop, but we can't hand it to the pirates, right?
We spot 126k credits, and book another Battle fleet. Battle, eh 9? Cost up to 121.2K. Based at Edop to gather there, no construction yet at the spaceport, so a lead ship is made at random from one built at Sollost. It is named Dark Master. Fitting.
Crusher 1 find 2 sorry pirate ships as it lands at Sloen Van. Invasion arrives, and tell two transports of about 5 troops and 3 armor to attack. Invasion leader is heard asking headquarters "Any more pirate colonies around!?".
A sinister invader parks on top of netoa. battle 5 is incoming from various direction (some were on their way to the capital from the north).
We notice crusher 6 heading back to Sipan to refuel. We wonder of it was lack of fuel, or an old feature on what is calculated as "closest" fuel source when queuing orders. Fuel situation at Ecery seems OK, and there is also lots of fuel on the gas mine.
Invasion leader back to Mortalu system.
Sloes van 6 is mediocre or worse at 70% quality, but a 17% colony development bonus and nice resources makes it respectable. The population is way low, but maybe some peace and quiet under Dhayut rule will help it attract migrants? We are not picky, our enslavement can handle any alien visitors.
Crusher 1 wants to go all back to Mortalu for fuel. We choose to stay to guard a new medium spaceport build at Sloes Van 6. It will help as an operational stop away from home, but the build could take a while unless the pirates stockpiled more other resources than fuel. (130 caslon, 357 steel, 9 lead - they did not).
Kurilea, where Netoa is, has two good gas giants for fuel, but how to keep the mines alive? Sloes Van has many resources and is a nice mining system, but no caslon. There are a couple of caslon sources in our new territory though, one of them has a pirate base on top of it.
Najarca system seems quiet enough, and we hit the pirates hard with the last attacks, we send Battle 4 sitting there to Sloes Van 6. Or was it battle 4? That will soon do something else starting from Pantulumen. Confusion rages as the army press office.
2159.06.03 Meanwhile, in the north. We get messages about ships wanting to refuel, and discover 6 new ships from Ecery spaceport out of fuel heading south. We tell them to refuel, and they head for the single caslon source mine the system. This makes us hunt for further fuel locations (and poke the civilians for more caslon transport). We only find caslon at a star to the south, marked with the selection circle. No less than 3 caslon sources. And a system overview that hints at this being the Phantom Pirate Base (the fleet is dead, though). I guess we will spot them after all, as a construction ship heads there.
We can see crusher 6 heading north, reserving lots of fuel (all 9k reserved) sending the new ships away on empty stomachs. The light blue ships seen crossing the scanner are stressful, but they are not Najarcan pirates, they are Free Talfegleu Utopia ships travelling to and from their regional capital system to the left.
And at the same time, in our south, Battle 4 figures that with all the pirate bashing, Pantulumen is maybe OK? At least we can figure out if the defensive fleet is up to the task. And the defensive base. But we won't learn that if Battle 4 kill all that get close, do we?
They head for a pirate colony to the south. When we over extend by grabbing crap ones in the east, we can grab a nice one in the south too. The one just south of it is not bad either, actually. Apart from Mortalu, maybe we can conquer most of the galaxy just by chasing pirates?
We can see a string of invasion fleet ships heading for Mortalu. A couple of ships are told to drive-by-load at Netoa as the pirate battle there ends.
We see cruel claw pillagers flying over the scanners around the capital, heading SE. Where are they travelling from? They have not bothered us, whatever they did. The most likely candidate is a hydrogen source in a system NW of Atuuko. But that does not fit all their trajectories, some appear to come from systems in an area where we have mines in all of the systems? Confusing. The candidate system for a base at a hydrogen source is circled at the top. It fits the two to the right, but the two two lower ones moving to the SE?
Their destinations could be their bases that are south of our new colonies.
The joy of watching scanners. Too bad the game is to busy to have fun watching civilian traffic. We blame the pirates for that! And with 150k cash we feel the urge for another Battle fleet. 10 battle fleets? Are you crazy? No way, we only have 9 letters for them (0 is invasion fleet).
2169.07.26 Edop Spaceport is ready to serve the empire. Maybe this may draw some load from the fuel mines in the north? By building less ships there? Since we refuse to buy another battle fleet, this may be a minor point.
As Battle 4 is near its southern target system, invasion is told to refuel, and the leader (with good fuel levels) heads to the colony as well.
Phew, with Crusher 6 refueled there is (some) fuel at Ecery. Fuel for the next cruisers and carriers being completed.
On Arrival, Battle 4 finds the usual weakly defended pirate colony, but also a small spaceport of the Hidden Claw Industries on a gas giant in the system. First, it proves that pirates set up on hydrogen sources (which the possible pirate site north of Atuuko also was), and secondly, they may not have bothered us, but a pirate spaceport in our future system? For real?
They tried to be nasty with something looking like gravtion beams, but no damage taken. On our guys, that is.
"What? Can't queue gas mine in the system? What you mean other empire's territory?". The game has no ability to predict the short term future, most if not all of invasion fleet is just outside.
And: "Hello? Research department? One more improvement in resource sensors? Our two explorers stopped doing anything _years_ ago". (it leads to ship scanning, though).
2169.10.07: the joy of building structures at the frontier worlds. The photo shoot alerts us to a pirate facility being built, and the busters are summoned. A quick check of the colony list give show no signs of other pirate structures at this time.
Hello? Invasion fleet? Why are you not at the leader, but busy capturing a hapless pirate at Mortalu? A short delay in the plans of conquering that colony.
Why is Crusher 6 moving south? To Sloes Van 6? Probably because Crusher 1 is there and we fumbled. Noticing a construction ship heading to Ecery to pick up stuff to build a mining station in Thyfirra system, we ask them to refuel (default sipan), since we have a hunch we will discover a bowl of goodies rather soon.
2169.12.18: How long does a pirate escort attacking Netoa last vs the fighters of Battle 5? Nope, it doesn't.
As the transports of invasion has arrived in the south. Two are told to attack (5-6 troops and 3 armor), and Battle 4 heads one step south to the next colony.
It appears the phantoms have found themselves an alien capital. It is powerful, and leader of Phantom Fleet. Powerful alien ships are not what they once were, though. At least not in the Presence of Battle 3. Alien capital dead, the mine takes some shield damage.
Battle 4 are almost happy to find a medium spaceport to attack as they land in the next system, but appear a tad disorganized. They landed at the star, and had attack order, and should do better than this at circling the target. Two ships lightly damaged.
Invasion is not far behind, 3 partly full transports drop their goods. Battle 9 (new) moves to the previous colony taken. When troops have landed, Invasion gets load order and leader moves to mortalu. They won't load at the new colonies in the south, though, since there is a pirate battle raging at both of them. And with the leader move, will the transports manage to follow him this time, or find some other stupid ship to try to capture on own initiative?
Again fighting pirates. Low population, a couple of luxuries, OK quality. An ice world, but the population minority is mostly Dhayut. The natives are probably Naxxilian but it is only 50M of them working in our icy mines. Why "only 50", because if the population was significant (over 100M or 500M), we could use them to colonize ice worlds. Not that we are colonizing anything, but...
2170.04.20: With invasion just having launched to load troops, Crusher 1 babysitting a medium spaceport build while lowish on fuel, and Crusher 6 being impatient to bust some powerful ass, it is time for status.
Status
I find invasion sprees like this one rather tiresome and after a while one gets a bit disorganized. With pirate enemies, there is no peace to be had, though. At war, I typically end up with grabbing 3-5 colonies at a time due to this. Unless I decide to clear a "distinct area" or an entire empire.
The southern move was totally optional, they have not bothered us for quite a while. But after grabbing the questionable stuff in the east to push pirates back, getting a good one was just fair.
I started a medium spaceport in the far east, I am a bit afraid it could bite me in having the build order screen ask it to build a cruiser it struggles with completing due to lacking resources. I hope the spaceport will be some extra draw for fuel for my fleets there, and I have a couple of damaged cruisers in the area that could use a repair. I expect more eastern damage in the future as well, as we are probably not done bashing pirates. There is a couple of fuel sources in our small, new, territory there. One of them has a pirate base on top of it.
Since the spaceport build was likely to struggle, I have not booked at defensive base for the other colony over there (netoa). I don't want to start that build until after the spaceport is complete, at least, there is no use in spamming builds in an area with a local resource shortage.
In the north, if the Thirfyrra system contains what I think it does, the constructor aiming for Thyrfirrra 8 may be happy that the one heading for no 9 is a bit ahead. The base is probably at Thyrfirra 8, a nice dual fuel gas giant.
Oh, and I noticed that there is no fleet at Dila system. 17 ships formerly of Sipan fleet was at Sipan, and was told to be X Dila and to move there. 17 ships is maybe a bit too many, but whatever.
Again, pirates shown. The Thirfyrra system where the possibly doomed constructor is heading, is right south of the northern (red) circle of influence. The closest site with some caslon sources to that colony, and there is a lot of fuel to be had in that system.
We can see that Edop is now the hub in an empire that it never was in incompetent Mortalen Supremacy hands. Two new colonies to the south, two new to the east. The two eastern ones does not exactly bring in a lot of systems (with resources) to our control. The pirates in the eastern red is the last of the 3 bases of the annoying Sinister Invaders. But we struggle a bit with fuel over there.
Hm, order the new Battle 8 at the capital to move to Netoa, the left of the two western, where battle 5 sit with 1 damaged at decent fuel. That colony needs some cover, and battle 5 could bust that base. Or battle 8 could, or something.
The days when the capital, Arexxie (north of it) and Dhayu 3 (SE linked to Etau) was the empire seems so far away. We were poor, and struggling to raise ships for a fightback. Now it is "another powerful fleet maybe? Nah, we have no shortcut key for them". These "many" pirates lead to a lot of protection need if one wants to limit raids, though. And they may have screwed the AI empires quite badly as they fail a lot in keeping control of their small ones. And in busting pirate bases, even if I think one northern one may have disappeared.
We have found a new pirate base south of Sipan. B'cnus Network, they have one known base at the eastern quameno areas, and are probably from that part. They have not bothered us.
I am still not paying attention to diplomacy, and fail to pay notice to some suggestions involving free trade, trade sanctions, or whatever. We took over some sluken though, we are getting closer to the potentially friendly tefnyl hive.
I think the Free Talfagleu Utopia used to look strong, not so much now, and not just because we dominate. The Xanath are on the rise, I think.
Securan Harmony is at war with Haakonish and Mortalen. They appear to spank the space defenses of the Mortalen Capital, which lacks a spaceport. The Mortalen are weak, hurt by our "many pirates, nearby", meaning many started nearby them as well?
The Mortalen are not fond of us, envying and complaining of us trespassing. Our mine is not trespassing in their system, it is their influence circle trespassing on our mine. Silly reptiles.
Hm, why has Ecery dropped from 135 development? It got Loros, so a shortage of luxuries? The civilians need to get their act together.
Edop and Grau lacks Loros fruit, but they are getting there. Dila 3, the former pirate colony SE of Sipan, is well into "profitable" territory.
Astermai will be really nice (but not Sipan 4 nice), Murlilea 2 needs population. Sloes Van 6 needs population and will give some small income. And say hello to Netoa, if we get one more colony you are unlikely to ever see it on this screen again.
12 construction ships, means two former Mortalen ones fled when heading for retirement. We had 10. And should probably get a few more since the AI is not too efficient at deploying them.
Lots of cruisers... And we can afford them.
We could of course make a custom trading port for the colonies of no spaceport to bring the now available resort and medical components. Which would boost happiness, allowing us to tax a bit harder. But why bother?
With the 17 frigates/destroyers heading off to be the Dila defense for just now, we actually need some ships to defend our new stuff in the south. Unless we intend to keep battle fleets parked there into eternity. The 17 ship or whatever construction fleet is handy as pirates do drop by the capital system mines now and then, and the local defense fleet can use the help.
We have the two pirate capital ships, we could probably just retire them. But their hyper denys are nice in making sure the annoying pirates that attack capital system mines get nowhere and dies.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Operation pirate bash continued
As usual, the game is saved, status written, and unpaused at the next part. Right now, troop transports took off after invading two southern pirate colonies, and we try to build a medium spaceport in the east. It is has 91 unbuilt components, and there is a shortage on the colony.
In other news, we got LargeScale construction 85% complete, it will give a build size of 500 for ships. We look forward to larger and more complete cruisers. Maybe even some small capitals with a bit different loadout (hyper deny?). We are not looking forward to trying to retrofit all the fleets in some style.
2170.04.21. We are off, and we think we may focus on the southern pirate spaceports in general, and maybe that western colony/spaceport of the Sinister Spaceways in particular. But the guys around or two new eastern colonies may be grumpy too. The Crusher 1 fleet that is created for large spaceport busting, is low-ish on fuel and guarding our eastern spaceport build.
2170.04.24 Murillea 2 in the south got fuel. Battle 4 appreciate it. Not just any small caslon store either, 408K.
With the eastern fuel shortage, a resupply ship would be mightily handy right now. We don't have that tech, though. The system north of Sloes van (westernmost) is ours and full of gas giants. We queue mines on 3 giants with caslon, and 2 with hydrogen. I guess this was where we busted a spaceport, since there is a host of "independent" mining ships around.
2170.06.09. Tefnyl Bandits destroy the gas mining build right outside Netoa. Battle 5 was too slow to save it but fast enough to kill the bandits. Battle 5 is low on fuel, and the killed mine would have been a caslon source...
We retire a former mortalen construction ship, and buy 5 new ones. Maybe that will help on various issues. Up to 15. Why not retrofit rather than retire, btw? We don't want mortalen to try set up our advanced designs, now, do we?
Watching Battle 8 head to the eastern area of low fuel, and grumpy about the Tefnyl Bandit attack, we tell them to attack their spaceport. We tell the diplomacy contact officer to just explain "never mind us, just killing pirates", in case the Securan Harmony cares. But why would they care? A system with 2 pirate spaceports and a 27% built criminal network, they probably forgot they even have it.
This will hopefully send a message to the Tefnyl Bandits that they ought to stay away from our caslon mine builds. There is a battle between the two local pirate clans at the colony while we do this.
They fend of some bandits trying to intervene, then turn on some of the Dread Mining ships in the system, that were fighting the Tefnyls and got a spaceport here as well.
Before all pirates are dead, Battle 8 has half of the ships damaged, and head for repair. They choose Sloes Van 6 spaceport. Uh, oh. When will we see battle 8 again? (We could, of course, have sent them elsewhere to repair).
Hidden Claw Industries raid a main way down in the SE corner of the galaxy. What do we have mines there for, anyways?
A construction ship building a gas mine at the first of several caslon giants just north of Sloes Van, reports on a Sinister Company Construction ship starting to set up a spaceport. One single somewhat fueled cruiser of Crusher 1 takes the job of chasing it away.
Repairs work out well at Sloes Van spaceport. Two construction ships are at work in the gas mining system to the north. Battle 8 move there to watch the proceedings (and wait for fuel).
Lovely, 3 caslon mines being set up in an area of need. Dread mining celebrate with raiding one of them. "We know where you live, we just need some fuel". The repair stop at the medium spaceport works well.
Btw, there is a lot of pirate ships visiting new colonies, I don't catch all of them, but drop by to see a fleet killing some once in a while.
Fierce Moon Minerals at Sloes van 6. They are the former owners. We know where they live (at least some of their spots).
Surprise, surprise, we found some structures in the Thyrfirra system. Crusher 6 at Sipan move to the gas giant just a very short stop down left from this one. A construction ship is building a mine on another one. Apart from the colony ship in the image, there are no pirates present.
The base is pretty weak for being large spaceport and defensive bases. Since we only ever saw the Capital ship of the phantom fleet, we assume it spawned early and were killed by pirates/a local AI empire. We heard no news of them either.
Since this is a "large structure" with spaceport and 3 defensive bases, a direct attack will hurt as ships would land on top of the defensive bases while circling the spaceport. We try to land suitably far away that they circle that point, and can move in as a unit. They may not be the latest bleeding tech, but they may still hurt. That other gas giant is a suitable spot to aim for.
They lived in our backyards causing no annoyance. Now they attack a mine in Jintawoe (kind of circled). The Pantulumen defensive fleet is told to kill the mine and move back to base. Battle 2 is at Mortalu and head of for their base (small spaceport). Now, was this a good idea by them?
Tech update
A short while ago we got the ship size update without noticing the news, there is a lot of battles gong on... The effect is detailed here. Destroyers, troop transports, smaller ships are not affected. They are below 400 size, the old limit.
No capital ship design at this size. By watching the "latest designs" we can see that the current capital ship design is size 727, but the AI would try to fit like it did with the cruisers to 400 size. But it strip away that much stuff.
The Carrier was sneaking under 600 size (special size rule for carriers). Now it is 633. If we compare with a Battle 8 carrier.
Values are old/new
Fighter bays 5/5
Cruise speed 16/20
Shields 1080/1080
Point defense 24/24
Firepower 36/36
Armor 18/18
We can see, a bit more speed. That may come in handy.
For cruisers? A battle 8 cruiser is size 400, the new is 494, that is quite a lot of components. old/new.
Cruise speed 17/14
Shields 900/900
Firepower 204/240
Point Defense 12/12
Armor 18/18
They have added some blasters and a nuclear devastator. And they have become heavier and slower.
Not a fantastic upgrade, as spaceports are met with torpedoes only which has not increased. We are in no great hurry to retrofit into slower ships. Even if carriers get a bit faster, they can wait. Remember, our fleets are deployed to protect against, and to kill pirates, retrofitting them would be a pain for small gain.
Continue
2171.05.10. As X pantulumen fight some fire bandits in the Jintawoe system, Battle 2 knocks on the door of their spaceport. As the spaceport dies, we queue a construction ship to build a gas mine on its location. It keeps an eye on the system, and another fuel mine never hurts. And if we got a gas mine we doubt another pirate crew will try set up base there.
2171.07.20 At the same time, Battle 5 fight fierce moon minerals at Netoa. They can not prevent the raid (where a tech is stolen), but kill many ships and capture two for tech retirement. They have 1 ship with minor damage, but that may have been an old wound. That one heads to sloes van to repair.
Battle 8 has refueled at the new gas mines in the east. It moves to Sloes Van 6, and Crusher 1 that was there, heads the other way to refuel. Refueling 31 cruisers and carriers at a gas mine is not fast by any measure. The latest patch should increase the docking bays of the mines, if I saw right.
With the photographer core a bit distracted, Crusher 6 was found hitting the colony ship and one defensive base. We could not do much better by ourselves, the landing spot (a ring of their landing target is seen at the lower left) worked out well. They all moved to that planet, and then headed for a base. The plan is to destroy the closest base, then the spaceport, then the far bases. One at a time, limiting incoming damage, maximizing our damage to each target that fires on our ships.
We discover that a battle 2 cruiser was badly damaged at the Fire Bandits battle. It has no hyperdrive and is scrapped. We order a new cruiser at Edop (where they are heading), and add it to the fleet. Meanwhile, crusher 1 sees a mine in the refueling system captured by Dread Mining. They kill the pirate, and capture the mine back, then start to refuel at it. They are fully aware of the dread spaceport a short jump north, they just need some fuel.
As Crusher 6 kills the phantoms spaceport, they find a stash of technology. One of their carriers is boarded by forces from a base, the carrier is destroyed. Apart from that, 5 damaged. How about the tech haul?
- High storage capacitors - A necessary shield tech (improvement to the ones used)
- Advanced Medicine - Nice. On the way to good tech.
- Light Torpedo Bombers - Very nice with better fighters.
- Officer Training - Save maintenance, can build admiral improvement facility, closer to another regional capital
- Advanced Maneuvering. We used to have crap vectors for turning, now we got the second to last tech.
2171.12.03: A second pirate base at the Mortalen capital system is under construction. pathetic.
2172.01.27. Battle 5 fend off dread mining ships attacking Netoa but takes a lot of damage. This confirms suspicion of rail guns or gravitics. Battle 8 at Sloes van is full of fuel and healty and heads to Netoa, Battle 5 head to Sloes Van for repairs. A fleet swap. Crusher 1 is waiting for the last ships to refuel at the gas mines north of Sloes Van.
When the fleet cower is lacking, sinister spaceways attack a gas mine in Sloes Van. We know where they live, please line up for punishment. It is the base very near that we left after killing their two other bases early in the eastern campaign.
Another fleet swap for repairs with Battle 2 at Mortalu and Battle 4 at Murillea, the southernmost colony. We start defensive base builds at Astemai and Murillea 2. The two defensive fleets here also see frequent visitors, as does Mortalu system.
2172.03.16 Crusher 1 is refueled and ready and head for the small dread mining spaceport nearby. We can see the sinister spaceways ships at Sloes Van where Battle 5 has arrived for repairs. Since the dread mining ships hurt, Crusher 1 will probably need a trip to the shipyards at Sloes Van afterwards.
The Sloes Van spaceport has fuel in store after the appearance of 3 caslon mines next doors. The fuel situation here is improved, but we are just getting refueled and ready. And 3 active fleets use a lot of fuel, civilians will struggle with keeping up with their demands on a spaceport. Again, we want resupply ships
2172.04.07 There are many ships present when Crusher 1 attacks the spaceport. There are more ships "above the image", and the carrier heading that way to keep distance has not made the best choice ever. With rail guns or gravitics, this could damage a lot of ships.
Lots of ships, the spaceport is down, but the battle rages. Half of crusher 1 got damaged. And if this is a small spaceport of dread mining, we hope someone else kills their large ones.
2172.07.13 Battle 2, sent south to relieve the somewhat damaged battle 4, is caught in a battle with the Ikoriun Ravagers when they arrive and end up even more damaged than battle 4. Straight back to Edop... Did the Ravagers use rail guns, or did the alien capital ship they had present cause that?
2172.07.21 As Crusher 1 files into the system for repairs, Battle 5 done with that part launches at the Sinister Invaders small spaceport. There could be quite a few ships present.
If you get the impression that pirate war can be hectic, we can confirm that.
As the image is taken, battle 8 has a battle with dread mining ships at Netoa. Half the fleet heads off to repair afterwards, the rest stays. We do not know where the dread mining are based now, hopefully far away, and this was hopefully the remnants of the missions from their lost spaceport.
Battle 5 finds a few ships as expected, and work on the base. Like last time, we notice that these pirates have low shield strength. They probably have fast recharge shields?
We catch Crusher 1 moving west, this is probably due to home base being that way. Fleets tend to move to base after repairs. We tell them to turn around.
Battle 5 finds that Sinister Invaders, while annoying, at least does not use nasty weapons, and has none damaged. We queue a gas mine on the gas giant that hosted the base, and send battle 5 east to kill a small Fierce Moon Mineral spaceport. The spaceport one step further is large, and probably more suitable for crusher 1.
We need some more punch with many fronts to attend to. We order 9 cruisers at Sollost and 2 Carriers at edop, to turn Battle 2 into Crusher 2. Battle 2 is currently repairing at Edop.
2172.12.19: While waiting for its reinforcements, battle 2 takes of to bust a small spaceport of the Ikoriun Ravagers. A large spaceport of the same can be seen 1 sector further to the right, the green between is a large spaceport of the Sinister Outlaws. The Ravagers have been noticed as more annoying lately, and they do need more ships for the large spaceports, anyways. Also, battle 2 were damaged fighting the Ikuriun Ravagers at their last trip south, so lets not just casually stroll into their large spaceport with a normal battle fleet.
At the same time Crusher 6, repaired, refueled and with a replacement carrier under construction, takes off for the bases of the lone sun marauders. This should be a formality, they have 0 military ships, and are the former owners of the phantom fleet and the phantom fleet bases we just destroyed. But if we clear these away, we know there won't be more ships built here, not that they seem to build anything with these spaceport, anyways... The leftmost spaceport is large, the plan is to take them from right to left.
2173.01.09: Battle 5 is at work at the Fierce Moon Minerals small spaceport. They down at least one construction ship in the process. They take no damage, kill quite a lot, and heads back to our mining system north of Sloes Van to refuel.
The Najarcan reminds us of their existence by visiting Murillea 2. Our southernmost colony.
2173.03.07. Battle 2 at work in the Natunatu system. The mortalen complain about their presence in their territory. As they have cleared the system of all pirates (including a Fire bandits mine and some random pirates), they head home for repairs. We also order further 2 cruisers since we calculated wrongly at the first order of ships for the crusher upgrade. The battles spawned a couple of ships in Sollost, both sent to retire.
So many pirate battles in the systems of the latest batch of new colonies...
2173.05.22. So many pirate battles, that we have to refuel the fleet at Netoa at our gas mine system. There are not enough fleets in the area to protect both colonies and bust pirates at the same time. Especially when defenders need to go away for fuel too. Crusher 1 launches at the large Fierce Moon Minerals spaceport in the east. Two light blueish and yellow targets for the future is in the south.
Battle 4 on our southernmost flank has 1 ship missing, and a carrier is ordered at Edop as two damaged members head there for repairs. Battle 9 in the system north of that (Astemai) sends two back to repair after a battle. We have discovered a pirate base in the system just outside this one. The owners, Sinister Company, are not yet flagged as annoying. Or we have forgotten that they once were.
2173.07.06. Crusher 6 had many damaged at the small northern spaceport, and goes back for repairs. More nasty weapons in use... One ship lacks hyperdrive and is scrapped. A new ship is ordered at Ecery to replace it. How will that large spaceport up there be if a small one hurts this badly?
2173.09.11: Crusher 1 finds themselves a nice little battle at the pirate spaceport (large, Fierce Moon ravagers). The orange ship top right is a frigate of Securan Harmony that is a bit optimistic in taking on this all alone.
As the shields are down and the base is taking heavy damage, the lead cruiser has already gone down, and it went down fast. Still lots of enemy ships are flying, our carriers could be in trouble, but soon the enemy ships will have the fleets full attention. After the fighting ends, they will head back for repairs with a few damaged in addition to the one lost. A replacement cruiser is ordered at Sloes Van 6 spaceport. We wonder if that one will be built without interruption from shortages.
2173.10.23 Crusher 6 heads for the second small spaceport in the north. The replacement ship is still not complete, so 30 starts the journey.
As battle 5 take up position at Netoa in a refueled state, we order a defensive base on top of the colony.
2173.12.09: Battle 8 is refueled and ready in our gas mine system, and heads off to bust a Tefnyl Bandits spaceport in the south. It will not stop at the blueish Najarcan spaceport, since that one is large. We can see that Crusher 1 on the right has just started its journey back for repairs, and that there are less known pirate bases in the immediate area than there used to be.
2173.12.30: As crusher 6 engages the spaceport in the north, there are at least 5 pirate construction ships in the system. One can be seen in the image. 5 of ours take damage, none are lost. Back for repairs and preparation for the battle with the large spaceport. That one could hurt. A lot.
We think we killed all 5 construction ships, not that these guys appeared to do anything (no military ships). Maybe they will start once we demolish their construction ships and bases. They have a base far east, and could be strangled by maintenance.
Battle 2 has received all the 13 ships that turns it into a Crusher fleet. It is now known as Crusher 2. It takes off for a large spaceport of the Ikoriun Ravagers. We seem to remember that they hurt in the past.
We can see the newly discovered spaceport next to Muunos Mandil system where we got the colony Astemai. We can see that Astemai is a good colony by the large influence circle it creates.
We decide that 1.45 million on hand and 293k cashflow may allow us to retrofit Sloes Van 6 spaceport to large without it breaking our economy. It may have more workers than the colony beneath has inhabitants, but we can buff it to stand better against an attack, and build up further stores in the more central parts of the galaxy. Discussions about a southern spaceport are still ongoing.
To their surprise, battle 8 finds two spaceports by the Tefnyl Bandits. There are a few ships around, but more Tefnyls are fighting a strike force of the Securan Harmony outside the Riksul Colonies colony of Capredur 2 that is in the system. The Tefnyl Bandits also got a mine in the system.
When the two spaceports blows up (why kill one when you can do two at the same time?), lots of ships are released from their grasp. What are the states of these ships? Damaged? Incomplete? Fully working? Hopefully they will soon be very damaged.
2174.04.18 The secura utopia starts trading Korabbian Spice with us. The source is pretty close to Sipan.
2174.05.05 As battle 8 jump around chasing the last pirate ships of their target system, Crusher 2 has reached its large spaceport target.
They hammer the target, who's shield have just gone down. The Carriers are busy trying to evade and escape from the ships present.
Edop Spaceport starts building 5 cruisers, 5 destroyers, 5 frigates, 2 carriers to make up X Mortalu, the mortalu defense fleet. Grau and Edop together makes Mortalu the second most valuable system in the empire, after Sipan.
And since we order that mess of ships at Edop, we are fine with Crusher 2 wanting to repair at Sloes van 6 spaceport once it is done crushing the opposition at their target system.
The Humans moan about military forces in the system where battle 8 is fighting. Leave? Before busting all the pirate ships? We are not trespassing, we are house cleaning. Someone else's house. Once satisfied with the lack of pirate ships, they head back to Sloes Van for repairs. With a couple of Crusher fleets, and at least one battle fleet coming in for repairs, that spaceport build was not a bad idea after all. They do have to step over to the mining system to refuel now and then, though. But it is not like "any spaceport" can refuel 50-100 carriers and cruisers dropping by for fuel at approximately the same time. And that return for fuel again and again.
Being bored, the invasion fleet commander tells the boys to load troops. Just to be sure. Maybe some have room? And there are some to be found?
2175.09.11 With the full roster of 31 fully operational ships, Crusher 6 launches for the large spaceport of the north. Wish them luck, remember that the small ones did hurt...
We have construction on suggest, and accept various defensive bases. Beate, ecery, Grau... Apart from our pirate base busts, the north seems quiet. Maybe because there are 3 working securan empires (alongside us), and not a lot of small and weak colonies? The center where we operate is full of small colonies under the pirate hammer, as can be seen by the small influence circles.
2175.01.06 We are almost late to the party, Crusher 6 is working on the pirate spaceport. The spaceport is almost at full shields, 4 ships are already damaged, one badly.
The ships targeted by the spaceport take a beating, but the spaceport is shields down. And it is only going in one direction from there. 28 ships alive when the base is down, one is captured, reducing number to 27. One has no hyperdrive and is scrapped, 26 are going back with 5 lost. Sipan 4 spaceport starts building 5 cruisers to replace losses. We build on the way south, as the northern sector is short of targets. There is one pirate colony, but the Tashtur Sinika Syndicate has not bothered us, except maybe in the very early days of space expansion around Sipan. And we probably don't need a crusher fleet to control that one if we bother to bring a couple of transports north. Battle 3 is sitting outside Ecery, after all...
It is 2175.03.16, and we have been punishing pirates that annoy us. Two crusher fleets at Sloes Van are soon ready to strike again, and it is a fitting time for a status.
Status
![Image]()
A hot tip: If you want to play "empires vs empires with a touch of pirates", don't start with many pirates nearby. And lots of independents, and expensive research. This is a bit of a failed game, actually. But lots of pirate bashing!
Also, stupid steam. Update? It said. Cancel I said. Launch? it said. Yes, I said. Nothing happened. The other window, play game. And end up patched to 1.9.5.2. Stupid steam. I have another install, though, they can't trick me (It could be a 1.9.5.1 beta, though, but it probably does not matter).
No colonization yet? We have in reality colonzied by invasion, for instance two low pop colonies in the east, one low pop colony in the south. But maybe it is time in the more quiet areas near the capital or to the NW? Soon, or something.
The pirate battle is progressing well. The very annoying ones have been hit, some slightly annoying ones are still around.
The usual pirate bases highlighted. The ones near "home" are not very annoying, the one at the left edge has moved to the hit list, though. The "east" of the eastern colonies is getting more clean.
A new Naxx independent has spawned in the lower left, we can see a shared system of green and dark purple-ish. There is a third naxxilian independent there as well that could make the system really interesting if they make an empire.
The mortalen, the dark red near home with a pirate base in their capital system, has not developed their colonies at all. See how small the influence circles of the dark red are. Even Netoa, the left one of my two eastern, seems to have a bigger circle, and that is a totally craptastic 51% quality site. And I don't have a pirate base in my capital system either...
A couple of ackdarian independents near the bottom. And there is one empire that appears a bit dominant. Big trade with the Haakonish (loros fruit). And I hope that the Atuuk trade is mostly them buying, or the construction management guys need to be fired.
I am a bit curious of whether the new "small" colonies develop more rapidly with bigger colonies around the galaxy. Does migration kick in? And with this being an AAR and all, I got the colony screenshot from the last update. The last update was 2170.04.20. Today 2175.01.06, so almost 5 years. Some colonies then and now.
All numbers in M.
Sollost 2 (capital): 15292 to 16125
Najarca 1: 7455 (max pop)
Pantulumen 2: 4117 to 4285 (max?)
Murillea 2: 1107 to 2267
Sloes van 6: 1033 to 2597
Dila 3: 5016 max
Grau: 7452 max
If population did not move, it is at max, even if the game does not say so just now. And we appear to have a lot of full colonies.
Mirillea 2 (south) and Soloes Van 6 doubling in 5 years must be about migration. The capital has only doubled twice since the start (and may have lost population to migration)
While being curious, I discovered that the two southern colonies had 0 troops. And that the rest of the empire has no ungarrisoned troops on the ground at all. Two ungarrisoned colonies, in particular in pirate territory is not by my plan at all. I think we can afford to recruit some.
Defensive bases popping up on AI advisors suggestion.
6 large spaceports? From memory I can only remember 5. The quick menu on the left says 5. The ship list tell of a large spaceport at Beate. I scrap it and remind myself to pay more attention when the AI suggests defensive bases.
Accidentaly starting on a large spaceport to 44k for then only to scrap it before complete, is not really a big issue at all.
With recreational center comes resort bases. 1 resort base in the capital system, 1 a short trip north. Both with quite a few visitors. One south of Sipan, some visitors. One mystery base I have no clue why is built in the capital system has 20K dhayut, just so it will not feel all alone, or something.
As usual, the game is saved, status written, and unpaused at the next part. Right now, troop transports took off after invading two southern pirate colonies, and we try to build a medium spaceport in the east. It is has 91 unbuilt components, and there is a shortage on the colony.
In other news, we got LargeScale construction 85% complete, it will give a build size of 500 for ships. We look forward to larger and more complete cruisers. Maybe even some small capitals with a bit different loadout (hyper deny?). We are not looking forward to trying to retrofit all the fleets in some style.
2170.04.21. We are off, and we think we may focus on the southern pirate spaceports in general, and maybe that western colony/spaceport of the Sinister Spaceways in particular. But the guys around or two new eastern colonies may be grumpy too. The Crusher 1 fleet that is created for large spaceport busting, is low-ish on fuel and guarding our eastern spaceport build.
2170.04.24 Murillea 2 in the south got fuel. Battle 4 appreciate it. Not just any small caslon store either, 408K.
With the eastern fuel shortage, a resupply ship would be mightily handy right now. We don't have that tech, though. The system north of Sloes van (westernmost) is ours and full of gas giants. We queue mines on 3 giants with caslon, and 2 with hydrogen. I guess this was where we busted a spaceport, since there is a host of "independent" mining ships around.
2170.06.09. Tefnyl Bandits destroy the gas mining build right outside Netoa. Battle 5 was too slow to save it but fast enough to kill the bandits. Battle 5 is low on fuel, and the killed mine would have been a caslon source...
We retire a former mortalen construction ship, and buy 5 new ones. Maybe that will help on various issues. Up to 15. Why not retrofit rather than retire, btw? We don't want mortalen to try set up our advanced designs, now, do we?
Watching Battle 8 head to the eastern area of low fuel, and grumpy about the Tefnyl Bandit attack, we tell them to attack their spaceport. We tell the diplomacy contact officer to just explain "never mind us, just killing pirates", in case the Securan Harmony cares. But why would they care? A system with 2 pirate spaceports and a 27% built criminal network, they probably forgot they even have it.
This will hopefully send a message to the Tefnyl Bandits that they ought to stay away from our caslon mine builds. There is a battle between the two local pirate clans at the colony while we do this.
They fend of some bandits trying to intervene, then turn on some of the Dread Mining ships in the system, that were fighting the Tefnyls and got a spaceport here as well.
Before all pirates are dead, Battle 8 has half of the ships damaged, and head for repair. They choose Sloes Van 6 spaceport. Uh, oh. When will we see battle 8 again? (We could, of course, have sent them elsewhere to repair).
Hidden Claw Industries raid a main way down in the SE corner of the galaxy. What do we have mines there for, anyways?
A construction ship building a gas mine at the first of several caslon giants just north of Sloes Van, reports on a Sinister Company Construction ship starting to set up a spaceport. One single somewhat fueled cruiser of Crusher 1 takes the job of chasing it away.
Repairs work out well at Sloes Van spaceport. Two construction ships are at work in the gas mining system to the north. Battle 8 move there to watch the proceedings (and wait for fuel).
Lovely, 3 caslon mines being set up in an area of need. Dread mining celebrate with raiding one of them. "We know where you live, we just need some fuel". The repair stop at the medium spaceport works well.
Btw, there is a lot of pirate ships visiting new colonies, I don't catch all of them, but drop by to see a fleet killing some once in a while.
Fierce Moon Minerals at Sloes van 6. They are the former owners. We know where they live (at least some of their spots).
Surprise, surprise, we found some structures in the Thyrfirra system. Crusher 6 at Sipan move to the gas giant just a very short stop down left from this one. A construction ship is building a mine on another one. Apart from the colony ship in the image, there are no pirates present.
The base is pretty weak for being large spaceport and defensive bases. Since we only ever saw the Capital ship of the phantom fleet, we assume it spawned early and were killed by pirates/a local AI empire. We heard no news of them either.
Since this is a "large structure" with spaceport and 3 defensive bases, a direct attack will hurt as ships would land on top of the defensive bases while circling the spaceport. We try to land suitably far away that they circle that point, and can move in as a unit. They may not be the latest bleeding tech, but they may still hurt. That other gas giant is a suitable spot to aim for.
They lived in our backyards causing no annoyance. Now they attack a mine in Jintawoe (kind of circled). The Pantulumen defensive fleet is told to kill the mine and move back to base. Battle 2 is at Mortalu and head of for their base (small spaceport). Now, was this a good idea by them?
Tech update
A short while ago we got the ship size update without noticing the news, there is a lot of battles gong on... The effect is detailed here. Destroyers, troop transports, smaller ships are not affected. They are below 400 size, the old limit.
No capital ship design at this size. By watching the "latest designs" we can see that the current capital ship design is size 727, but the AI would try to fit like it did with the cruisers to 400 size. But it strip away that much stuff.
The Carrier was sneaking under 600 size (special size rule for carriers). Now it is 633. If we compare with a Battle 8 carrier.
Values are old/new
Fighter bays 5/5
Cruise speed 16/20
Shields 1080/1080
Point defense 24/24
Firepower 36/36
Armor 18/18
We can see, a bit more speed. That may come in handy.
For cruisers? A battle 8 cruiser is size 400, the new is 494, that is quite a lot of components. old/new.
Cruise speed 17/14
Shields 900/900
Firepower 204/240
Point Defense 12/12
Armor 18/18
They have added some blasters and a nuclear devastator. And they have become heavier and slower.
Not a fantastic upgrade, as spaceports are met with torpedoes only which has not increased. We are in no great hurry to retrofit into slower ships. Even if carriers get a bit faster, they can wait. Remember, our fleets are deployed to protect against, and to kill pirates, retrofitting them would be a pain for small gain.
Continue
2171.05.10. As X pantulumen fight some fire bandits in the Jintawoe system, Battle 2 knocks on the door of their spaceport. As the spaceport dies, we queue a construction ship to build a gas mine on its location. It keeps an eye on the system, and another fuel mine never hurts. And if we got a gas mine we doubt another pirate crew will try set up base there.
2171.07.20 At the same time, Battle 5 fight fierce moon minerals at Netoa. They can not prevent the raid (where a tech is stolen), but kill many ships and capture two for tech retirement. They have 1 ship with minor damage, but that may have been an old wound. That one heads to sloes van to repair.
Battle 8 has refueled at the new gas mines in the east. It moves to Sloes Van 6, and Crusher 1 that was there, heads the other way to refuel. Refueling 31 cruisers and carriers at a gas mine is not fast by any measure. The latest patch should increase the docking bays of the mines, if I saw right.
With the photographer core a bit distracted, Crusher 6 was found hitting the colony ship and one defensive base. We could not do much better by ourselves, the landing spot (a ring of their landing target is seen at the lower left) worked out well. They all moved to that planet, and then headed for a base. The plan is to destroy the closest base, then the spaceport, then the far bases. One at a time, limiting incoming damage, maximizing our damage to each target that fires on our ships.
We discover that a battle 2 cruiser was badly damaged at the Fire Bandits battle. It has no hyperdrive and is scrapped. We order a new cruiser at Edop (where they are heading), and add it to the fleet. Meanwhile, crusher 1 sees a mine in the refueling system captured by Dread Mining. They kill the pirate, and capture the mine back, then start to refuel at it. They are fully aware of the dread spaceport a short jump north, they just need some fuel.
As Crusher 6 kills the phantoms spaceport, they find a stash of technology. One of their carriers is boarded by forces from a base, the carrier is destroyed. Apart from that, 5 damaged. How about the tech haul?
- High storage capacitors - A necessary shield tech (improvement to the ones used)
- Advanced Medicine - Nice. On the way to good tech.
- Light Torpedo Bombers - Very nice with better fighters.
- Officer Training - Save maintenance, can build admiral improvement facility, closer to another regional capital
- Advanced Maneuvering. We used to have crap vectors for turning, now we got the second to last tech.
2171.12.03: A second pirate base at the Mortalen capital system is under construction. pathetic.
2172.01.27. Battle 5 fend off dread mining ships attacking Netoa but takes a lot of damage. This confirms suspicion of rail guns or gravitics. Battle 8 at Sloes van is full of fuel and healty and heads to Netoa, Battle 5 head to Sloes Van for repairs. A fleet swap. Crusher 1 is waiting for the last ships to refuel at the gas mines north of Sloes Van.
When the fleet cower is lacking, sinister spaceways attack a gas mine in Sloes Van. We know where they live, please line up for punishment. It is the base very near that we left after killing their two other bases early in the eastern campaign.
Another fleet swap for repairs with Battle 2 at Mortalu and Battle 4 at Murillea, the southernmost colony. We start defensive base builds at Astemai and Murillea 2. The two defensive fleets here also see frequent visitors, as does Mortalu system.
2172.03.16 Crusher 1 is refueled and ready and head for the small dread mining spaceport nearby. We can see the sinister spaceways ships at Sloes Van where Battle 5 has arrived for repairs. Since the dread mining ships hurt, Crusher 1 will probably need a trip to the shipyards at Sloes Van afterwards.
The Sloes Van spaceport has fuel in store after the appearance of 3 caslon mines next doors. The fuel situation here is improved, but we are just getting refueled and ready. And 3 active fleets use a lot of fuel, civilians will struggle with keeping up with their demands on a spaceport. Again, we want resupply ships
2172.04.07 There are many ships present when Crusher 1 attacks the spaceport. There are more ships "above the image", and the carrier heading that way to keep distance has not made the best choice ever. With rail guns or gravitics, this could damage a lot of ships.
Lots of ships, the spaceport is down, but the battle rages. Half of crusher 1 got damaged. And if this is a small spaceport of dread mining, we hope someone else kills their large ones.
2172.07.13 Battle 2, sent south to relieve the somewhat damaged battle 4, is caught in a battle with the Ikoriun Ravagers when they arrive and end up even more damaged than battle 4. Straight back to Edop... Did the Ravagers use rail guns, or did the alien capital ship they had present cause that?
2172.07.21 As Crusher 1 files into the system for repairs, Battle 5 done with that part launches at the Sinister Invaders small spaceport. There could be quite a few ships present.
If you get the impression that pirate war can be hectic, we can confirm that.
As the image is taken, battle 8 has a battle with dread mining ships at Netoa. Half the fleet heads off to repair afterwards, the rest stays. We do not know where the dread mining are based now, hopefully far away, and this was hopefully the remnants of the missions from their lost spaceport.
Battle 5 finds a few ships as expected, and work on the base. Like last time, we notice that these pirates have low shield strength. They probably have fast recharge shields?
We catch Crusher 1 moving west, this is probably due to home base being that way. Fleets tend to move to base after repairs. We tell them to turn around.
Battle 5 finds that Sinister Invaders, while annoying, at least does not use nasty weapons, and has none damaged. We queue a gas mine on the gas giant that hosted the base, and send battle 5 east to kill a small Fierce Moon Mineral spaceport. The spaceport one step further is large, and probably more suitable for crusher 1.
We need some more punch with many fronts to attend to. We order 9 cruisers at Sollost and 2 Carriers at edop, to turn Battle 2 into Crusher 2. Battle 2 is currently repairing at Edop.
2172.12.19: While waiting for its reinforcements, battle 2 takes of to bust a small spaceport of the Ikoriun Ravagers. A large spaceport of the same can be seen 1 sector further to the right, the green between is a large spaceport of the Sinister Outlaws. The Ravagers have been noticed as more annoying lately, and they do need more ships for the large spaceports, anyways. Also, battle 2 were damaged fighting the Ikuriun Ravagers at their last trip south, so lets not just casually stroll into their large spaceport with a normal battle fleet.
At the same time Crusher 6, repaired, refueled and with a replacement carrier under construction, takes off for the bases of the lone sun marauders. This should be a formality, they have 0 military ships, and are the former owners of the phantom fleet and the phantom fleet bases we just destroyed. But if we clear these away, we know there won't be more ships built here, not that they seem to build anything with these spaceport, anyways... The leftmost spaceport is large, the plan is to take them from right to left.
2173.01.09: Battle 5 is at work at the Fierce Moon Minerals small spaceport. They down at least one construction ship in the process. They take no damage, kill quite a lot, and heads back to our mining system north of Sloes Van to refuel.
The Najarcan reminds us of their existence by visiting Murillea 2. Our southernmost colony.
2173.03.07. Battle 2 at work in the Natunatu system. The mortalen complain about their presence in their territory. As they have cleared the system of all pirates (including a Fire bandits mine and some random pirates), they head home for repairs. We also order further 2 cruisers since we calculated wrongly at the first order of ships for the crusher upgrade. The battles spawned a couple of ships in Sollost, both sent to retire.
So many pirate battles in the systems of the latest batch of new colonies...
2173.05.22. So many pirate battles, that we have to refuel the fleet at Netoa at our gas mine system. There are not enough fleets in the area to protect both colonies and bust pirates at the same time. Especially when defenders need to go away for fuel too. Crusher 1 launches at the large Fierce Moon Minerals spaceport in the east. Two light blueish and yellow targets for the future is in the south.
Battle 4 on our southernmost flank has 1 ship missing, and a carrier is ordered at Edop as two damaged members head there for repairs. Battle 9 in the system north of that (Astemai) sends two back to repair after a battle. We have discovered a pirate base in the system just outside this one. The owners, Sinister Company, are not yet flagged as annoying. Or we have forgotten that they once were.
2173.07.06. Crusher 6 had many damaged at the small northern spaceport, and goes back for repairs. More nasty weapons in use... One ship lacks hyperdrive and is scrapped. A new ship is ordered at Ecery to replace it. How will that large spaceport up there be if a small one hurts this badly?
2173.09.11: Crusher 1 finds themselves a nice little battle at the pirate spaceport (large, Fierce Moon ravagers). The orange ship top right is a frigate of Securan Harmony that is a bit optimistic in taking on this all alone.
As the shields are down and the base is taking heavy damage, the lead cruiser has already gone down, and it went down fast. Still lots of enemy ships are flying, our carriers could be in trouble, but soon the enemy ships will have the fleets full attention. After the fighting ends, they will head back for repairs with a few damaged in addition to the one lost. A replacement cruiser is ordered at Sloes Van 6 spaceport. We wonder if that one will be built without interruption from shortages.
2173.10.23 Crusher 6 heads for the second small spaceport in the north. The replacement ship is still not complete, so 30 starts the journey.
As battle 5 take up position at Netoa in a refueled state, we order a defensive base on top of the colony.
2173.12.09: Battle 8 is refueled and ready in our gas mine system, and heads off to bust a Tefnyl Bandits spaceport in the south. It will not stop at the blueish Najarcan spaceport, since that one is large. We can see that Crusher 1 on the right has just started its journey back for repairs, and that there are less known pirate bases in the immediate area than there used to be.
2173.12.30: As crusher 6 engages the spaceport in the north, there are at least 5 pirate construction ships in the system. One can be seen in the image. 5 of ours take damage, none are lost. Back for repairs and preparation for the battle with the large spaceport. That one could hurt. A lot.
We think we killed all 5 construction ships, not that these guys appeared to do anything (no military ships). Maybe they will start once we demolish their construction ships and bases. They have a base far east, and could be strangled by maintenance.
Battle 2 has received all the 13 ships that turns it into a Crusher fleet. It is now known as Crusher 2. It takes off for a large spaceport of the Ikoriun Ravagers. We seem to remember that they hurt in the past.
We can see the newly discovered spaceport next to Muunos Mandil system where we got the colony Astemai. We can see that Astemai is a good colony by the large influence circle it creates.
We decide that 1.45 million on hand and 293k cashflow may allow us to retrofit Sloes Van 6 spaceport to large without it breaking our economy. It may have more workers than the colony beneath has inhabitants, but we can buff it to stand better against an attack, and build up further stores in the more central parts of the galaxy. Discussions about a southern spaceport are still ongoing.
To their surprise, battle 8 finds two spaceports by the Tefnyl Bandits. There are a few ships around, but more Tefnyls are fighting a strike force of the Securan Harmony outside the Riksul Colonies colony of Capredur 2 that is in the system. The Tefnyl Bandits also got a mine in the system.
When the two spaceports blows up (why kill one when you can do two at the same time?), lots of ships are released from their grasp. What are the states of these ships? Damaged? Incomplete? Fully working? Hopefully they will soon be very damaged.
2174.04.18 The secura utopia starts trading Korabbian Spice with us. The source is pretty close to Sipan.
2174.05.05 As battle 8 jump around chasing the last pirate ships of their target system, Crusher 2 has reached its large spaceport target.
They hammer the target, who's shield have just gone down. The Carriers are busy trying to evade and escape from the ships present.
Edop Spaceport starts building 5 cruisers, 5 destroyers, 5 frigates, 2 carriers to make up X Mortalu, the mortalu defense fleet. Grau and Edop together makes Mortalu the second most valuable system in the empire, after Sipan.
And since we order that mess of ships at Edop, we are fine with Crusher 2 wanting to repair at Sloes van 6 spaceport once it is done crushing the opposition at their target system.
The Humans moan about military forces in the system where battle 8 is fighting. Leave? Before busting all the pirate ships? We are not trespassing, we are house cleaning. Someone else's house. Once satisfied with the lack of pirate ships, they head back to Sloes Van for repairs. With a couple of Crusher fleets, and at least one battle fleet coming in for repairs, that spaceport build was not a bad idea after all. They do have to step over to the mining system to refuel now and then, though. But it is not like "any spaceport" can refuel 50-100 carriers and cruisers dropping by for fuel at approximately the same time. And that return for fuel again and again.
Being bored, the invasion fleet commander tells the boys to load troops. Just to be sure. Maybe some have room? And there are some to be found?
2175.09.11 With the full roster of 31 fully operational ships, Crusher 6 launches for the large spaceport of the north. Wish them luck, remember that the small ones did hurt...
We have construction on suggest, and accept various defensive bases. Beate, ecery, Grau... Apart from our pirate base busts, the north seems quiet. Maybe because there are 3 working securan empires (alongside us), and not a lot of small and weak colonies? The center where we operate is full of small colonies under the pirate hammer, as can be seen by the small influence circles.
2175.01.06 We are almost late to the party, Crusher 6 is working on the pirate spaceport. The spaceport is almost at full shields, 4 ships are already damaged, one badly.
The ships targeted by the spaceport take a beating, but the spaceport is shields down. And it is only going in one direction from there. 28 ships alive when the base is down, one is captured, reducing number to 27. One has no hyperdrive and is scrapped, 26 are going back with 5 lost. Sipan 4 spaceport starts building 5 cruisers to replace losses. We build on the way south, as the northern sector is short of targets. There is one pirate colony, but the Tashtur Sinika Syndicate has not bothered us, except maybe in the very early days of space expansion around Sipan. And we probably don't need a crusher fleet to control that one if we bother to bring a couple of transports north. Battle 3 is sitting outside Ecery, after all...
It is 2175.03.16, and we have been punishing pirates that annoy us. Two crusher fleets at Sloes Van are soon ready to strike again, and it is a fitting time for a status.
Status
A hot tip: If you want to play "empires vs empires with a touch of pirates", don't start with many pirates nearby. And lots of independents, and expensive research. This is a bit of a failed game, actually. But lots of pirate bashing!
Also, stupid steam. Update? It said. Cancel I said. Launch? it said. Yes, I said. Nothing happened. The other window, play game. And end up patched to 1.9.5.2. Stupid steam. I have another install, though, they can't trick me (It could be a 1.9.5.1 beta, though, but it probably does not matter).
No colonization yet? We have in reality colonzied by invasion, for instance two low pop colonies in the east, one low pop colony in the south. But maybe it is time in the more quiet areas near the capital or to the NW? Soon, or something.
The pirate battle is progressing well. The very annoying ones have been hit, some slightly annoying ones are still around.
The usual pirate bases highlighted. The ones near "home" are not very annoying, the one at the left edge has moved to the hit list, though. The "east" of the eastern colonies is getting more clean.
A new Naxx independent has spawned in the lower left, we can see a shared system of green and dark purple-ish. There is a third naxxilian independent there as well that could make the system really interesting if they make an empire.
The mortalen, the dark red near home with a pirate base in their capital system, has not developed their colonies at all. See how small the influence circles of the dark red are. Even Netoa, the left one of my two eastern, seems to have a bigger circle, and that is a totally craptastic 51% quality site. And I don't have a pirate base in my capital system either...
A couple of ackdarian independents near the bottom. And there is one empire that appears a bit dominant. Big trade with the Haakonish (loros fruit). And I hope that the Atuuk trade is mostly them buying, or the construction management guys need to be fired.
I am a bit curious of whether the new "small" colonies develop more rapidly with bigger colonies around the galaxy. Does migration kick in? And with this being an AAR and all, I got the colony screenshot from the last update. The last update was 2170.04.20. Today 2175.01.06, so almost 5 years. Some colonies then and now.
All numbers in M.
Sollost 2 (capital): 15292 to 16125
Najarca 1: 7455 (max pop)
Pantulumen 2: 4117 to 4285 (max?)
Murillea 2: 1107 to 2267
Sloes van 6: 1033 to 2597
Dila 3: 5016 max
Grau: 7452 max
If population did not move, it is at max, even if the game does not say so just now. And we appear to have a lot of full colonies.
Mirillea 2 (south) and Soloes Van 6 doubling in 5 years must be about migration. The capital has only doubled twice since the start (and may have lost population to migration)
While being curious, I discovered that the two southern colonies had 0 troops. And that the rest of the empire has no ungarrisoned troops on the ground at all. Two ungarrisoned colonies, in particular in pirate territory is not by my plan at all. I think we can afford to recruit some.
Defensive bases popping up on AI advisors suggestion.
6 large spaceports? From memory I can only remember 5. The quick menu on the left says 5. The ship list tell of a large spaceport at Beate. I scrap it and remind myself to pay more attention when the AI suggests defensive bases.
Accidentaly starting on a large spaceport to 44k for then only to scrap it before complete, is not really a big issue at all.
With recreational center comes resort bases. 1 resort base in the capital system, 1 a short trip north. Both with quite a few visitors. One south of Sipan, some visitors. One mystery base I have no clue why is built in the capital system has 20K dhayut, just so it will not feel all alone, or something.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Great job as usual Bingeling. I've been playing since Legends, and always enjoy your AARs. [&o]
I frequent two general-interest gaming forums where a lot of people are trying DW for the first time. I will point them toward this AAR.
I frequent two general-interest gaming forums where a lot of people are trying DW for the first time. I will point them toward this AAR.