If you want to find all surprises yourself, don't read this. It will show how the pre warp era looks from the empire, and new challenges inflicted by the changes to pirates.
Comments and questions are very welcome.
Settings
An overview of the galaxy settings used.
Elliptical galaxy of 700 stars, with 10x10 sectors.
PreWarp expansion
Restless aggression
Hard difficulty (makes just about everything harder)
Expensive research (because normal feels very fast)
Normal space creatures
Many pirates
Not checking "scaling victories", nor "destroyed pirates do not respawn".
Plentiful Colony Prevalence
Plentiful independent alien life
100% colony influence range (recommended)
2 sector colonization range limit
Apart from difficulty, research and colonization range, this is the default Shadows era setup.
Race, empire, opposition
I choose the Ikurro. I have some work to do here after aborting a game in beta due to a new version arriving.
Random galaxy position.
Normal home system.
Starting expansion.
PreWarp tech level
Normal corruption
Random Government.
For opponents, randomly generate 14 empires (11 is the default).
We do allow independents to set up new empires.
To keep victory track I set conditions to 66% of everything and 100% threshold, so
no one will ever win this. No storylines, but all events.
Automation
I have done AARs with lots of automation. This is not one of them.
I automate taxes, population policies, ship design, and characters. And may change my mind as time goes on.
I may do some tweaks to ship design at certain points.
Among ships, explorers will be automated for the most part.
The start position
When starting the game, I find that we call ourselves "The Great Ikurro Territory", and notice that we live on the continental planet of Ikurro 1. We are positioned a bit above the galaxy center, in the E3 sector.
Our government is despotism. It will remain that way unless forced by revolution or other things.
What is relevant in a pre warp start, is how the home system looks. And this does to look too great at all.
Why? Because distance matters when you can't warp.
The system has 5 planets, 3 moons and an asteroid field.
I spot a decent (86) quality desert planet closest to the star.
A 68% ocean planet not too far away. It has a 16% scenery bonus.
Two gas giants, one with 12% energy research bonus.
Three barren rock moons, one around Ikurro 1, the other two around the outer gas giant.
Worth noticing is two ruin sites. One at one moon at the outer gas giant (out right). Another is at the innermost planet.
Action
It is 2100.01.21, and it is time for the very first moves.
We order a medium spaceport for Ikurro 1.
Research
Research matter at the start. A new starting level of items is introduced, and you start without things like shields, armor, and hyper drive.
The AI designer (and researcher) has been improved quite a lot. I prefer manual research, but want to research the 'correct' weapons. One easy way to figure out what the designer wants to use, is to peek at the research and design part of empire options. Tech emphasis for the Ikurro include torpedoes and phasers. This means
the ship designs use torpedoes and phasers as their main weapons.
My early priority for research is.
Armor Plating (first)
Torpedoes
Beam tech towards phasers
Shields (first)
Energy Collection
Space construction (we start with 160 size max)
Hyper drives (two techs, and they are expensive)
Transport Systems (troop compartment)
Colonization (expensive)
Energy research is key early on. Colonization can wait, but you want hyper drive
(and those other energy techs) fast. There is also likely to be independents nearby, and transport systems is a lot cheaper than colonization
Research from the start is armor plating, shields, transport systems.
2100.03.11 - pirates arrive
A single escort from the pirate gang "Lone Force" arrives. They want money. We sport a MSP build with 0 armor, 0 shield, and 0 firepower, and accept. We are defenseless until that spaceport is up. Or rather, until that spaceport is finished and shielded, and shields are not yet available.
We accept the protection agreement.
2100.06.10. Our spaceport is complete. No shields, no armor, but weapons...
We order 2 explorers and 4 frigates. Destroyers are also available, but they won't be once we research some more techs. Designs are rather small without armor, shields, and hyper drives.
2100.06.16. We spot an explorer ship from the Sollost Pillagers. That is a new pirate crew.
2100.07.23. We complete our first spaceships. The two explorer ships. We tell one to explore our moon, then explore the innermost planet with the ruin. And we automate it. We tell the other to explore the moon with the other ruin, then automate it. The latter one is told to explore the ocean planet first, since it is hardly
a detour at all.
We also order a construction ship, which is a bit premature. We should have done another step first. The frigates are finished, and are declared the 1st fleet.
2100.08.18: A lone trader arrives, then another one. It is nice to see visitors with no guns. We are not so happy that they are here to pick up steel, carbon fiber, and gold (and the reservation flag may hint at the freighters being
controlled by the Lone Force).
2100.09.24: The construction ship is done, and is told to build a mine at our moon which we now know holds lead.
We order the colony to build two energy research stations. They complete fast.
2100.10.25. Our dear advisers reminds us to cancel the silly protection agreement. Thank you.
2100.12.23. A pirate frigate attacks Ikurro 1. It is from the Soliost Pillagers.
We see the pirate approaching. The constructor is working, the 1st fleet is waiting. The shield less, and armor less 1st fleet and spaceport prepares to defend themselves. We notice the fleet leader marker on the pirate with some worry.
The brave 1st fleet hide behind the spaceport. There is no need charging ahead, is there?
The pirate drops an assault pod, and die fast.
One of our frigates has 3 components damaged, but manage to limp for repairs.
We can also see that our civilians are prepared to transport whatever may appear on our mining bases. We have one partly built mining base, and 6 freighter to serve it.
We welcome the mining ships, though.
2101.03.09. We have explored the Sanctuary of Ikurro, and increased our understanding of shields. Yay. That was the ruin at the innermost planet.
As the mining base is done, we tell the constructor to build a mining base on the ocean planet. It has polymer and dilithium crystal
2101.04.03. The explorer heading for the outer ruin, is under attack from a pirate frigate. It is a hyper drive less frigate that was in the system, and that the pirate explorer picked up.
The frigate is fast, and the explorer dies.
As this happen shield research is complete. Energy collection is the next item on the menu.
1st fleet is sent to retrofit (shields!), then to kill the frigate. We book a new exploration ship (the other one is far away).
After waiting a bit for cash, we can even retrofit the spaceport (8k to retrofit to new medium spaceport design?!)
2101.10.03: Energy Collection is researched. Space Construction is next.
Pirates attack the mining base on our moon. The 1st fleet is off, and we don't plan to bribe them. "Bye, bye, mine". They capture it, and sadly they leave, rather than attack the now shielded spaceport.
1st fleet kills the silly non hyper drive frigate, and heads back to kill the captured mining base. The order is changed to "refuel", since they barely have fuel to return. Crawling around the system burns fuel fast.
2102.09.22 the explorer investigates the ruin, and we discover info about something called Warp Field Precursors.
We stop research on space construction at 89%, start warp precursors, and queue space construction(2) and hyper drive(3) as the next two projects. Every moment counts.
We notice that the innermost planet is getting close, we order the construction ship (now done with the ocean mine) to build a mine there. This will take some travel time both to get materials and to get to the spot.
The left gas giant is a caslon (and hydrogen) source. The right one is not. It is way too far to go to with no warp by our judgement.
2103.03.19 we have research troop compartments, and start on colonization.
A frigate coming out after refuel runs off to kill the mine. A good thing about building mines with no shields and no armor, is that they are easy to destroy once captured.
2103.06.17. We get the 15400 credits needed, and start to retrofit our spaceport to the Large Spaceport design.
The constructor have just left to build the new mine.
We spot an exploration ship from the Dark Transport. The more the merrier.
While money is not present in abundance, the cashflow is good. +7500. That is one nice side effect of not having enough money to build a lot of stuff.
2104.02.15: We have a setback in warp field research. Back to 10% (from 30-ish)
2104.09.18: The mine on Iddaxcy (innermost planet) is done. It is one year and 3 months since the constructor left the spaceport. And the planet was rather close.
The construction ship is told to retrofit (for energy collectors), which should bring it home and ready for warp drive.
Caslon stock is at 9800 we are doing fine. We hope. There is quite a bit of stores on the colony at start.
2105.03.16. A frigate from the Lone Force attacks the new Iddaxcy mine. It fails to capture it, but leave it with 31 damaged. Oh well.
While travelling away from it it realises how stupid this is, and turns to kill it. Then changes mind again and teleports away. We noticed it it heading east - north-east before jumping...
2105.06.13. Armor Plating is researched. That took almost no time at all. Energy Torpedoes are next.
2105.07.13. The Lone Force arrives at Iddaxcy mining station and raids it. They find nothing of use, which is not so strange considering they have destroyed just about every single component there.
2106.06.16.
That is rude! We build another energy station at the capital (one is not enough).
Apart from that? We got a new mine at our moon, and all state ships sit idle at the capital. Our gas mining
ships are also idle, rather than running across the system to the fuel source. We don't hold that against them.
Advisers keeps begging us to build a defensive base, but we ignore them. We hope we won't regret this.
The Lone Force keeps raiding Iddaxcy mining base. They get away with 868 credits. We again notice they exit heading NE. There is a close star system in that direction...
2108.04.01:
Finally there is some room to maneuver. This won't bring us far though. Maybe to the closest systems, but at least our own system is ours to control.
We accept the retrofit of all ships and bases. Our frigates won't retrofit as the new design is too large, but considering there is 11% left on space construction, that should not take too long.
2108.06.04. Space Construction is complete, and we have a 230 max build size.
We tell the frigates to retrofit and order 4 destroyers and 4 more frigates.
We also order another constructor.
This is the range of the frigates in 1st fleet. One explorer headed out left on own initiative, and we chased the other to the NE manually. The warp drive does not only have short range, it is also dead slow. The explorers have some more range than the frigates, as do the construction ships.
We did not notice them attacking, but the 1st fleet lost one ship attacking kaltors in the system. We add the destroyers to their fleet giving the 1st fleet 3 frigates and 4 destroyers, and put the last 4 frigates in the 2nd fleet.
Cash is at 38k, cashflow at 10k.
NJ298, the system to the left of ours, got nothing at all.
Gundur, the system in the NE, has 4 planets, 2 moons, and no pirate base. One planet has a 26% weapon research bonus.
We are not yet interested in building a weapon research station, we are happy with pumping everything into energy.
Our stupid advisers want to post a general smuggling mission. They don't understand that we don't want to pay pirates, we want to kill pirates. We also got no resource shortages.
2109.12.03: We complete research in energy torpedoes. We start researching maxos blasters, which will replace our pulse blasters.
We build an energy research station at the bonus site in the capital. Once finished, we scrap one of the two we got at our capital.
The Gundur system is in constructor range, we start queuing constructors to build there, as they are done in our system (apart from asteroids).
2110.09.19: A new intelligence agent is a reminder about that part of the game. A glance at the diplomacy screen shows that neither of the 3 pirate gangs are very strong, but that the Lone Force, our first visitors, are the strongest.
We send two intelligence agent into the world, to try steal the territory maps of the Lone Force and the Dark Transport. The latter are the second strongest, and the ones we have seen the least of, and possibly the ones we are likely
locate last when exploring.
If we get their territory maps, we should get info about both their spaceports and their controlled colonies. Which are independents that we want. They have 1 year each, with 74 and 80% probability to succeed.
Gundur 1 mining station (incomplete) is raided and captured by the Lone Force. So much for some silent mining in that system. It is a bit far for attacks by our fleets.
Their construction ship arrives to repair the unfinished mining base they stole. Pirate construction ships are prime targets, but they are extremely hard to catch until quite a lot of tech is obtained. So there is no point chasing after it for a while.
With the new gas mine in Gundur, the strategic source situation is quite good. We lack nekros stone (on the base captured), tyderios, emeros crystal, and Aculon. None of those should be rare. Some of our sources are less than impressive, though (18% carbon fiber, 11% chromium).
2111.09.23: Both spies succeed in stealing territory maps.
Interesting points are circled. The blues (Lone Force) are close, that was expected. The colony below them is ikurro, 99% and large. The colony to the west is ikurro and on the size of a newly planted one (tiny).
The two systems to the right are controlled by (I guess) the Gizureans. This means they are close, as with control circles on, they are within my circle... And this is bad news, as the gizureans breed fast and are strong as the game is balanced now.
I want that colony to the right badly, and I don't think their control stops an invasion, but I need hyperdrives first.
The lower independent is Mortalen, the two on the far left are Haakonish. The orange pirates are dangerous, as they are far away, and possibly hard to catch early even with hyperdrives.
Both pirate bases are small spaceports at this time.
But this is 2111, and we don't have hyperdrives. Progress is 41%.
Lets pray the Gizzies has stumbled around a bit and don't get into space too fast.
The spie with bonus to espionage is sent to grab the territory map of the third pirate faction. The other has bonuses to counter intelligence and assassination (and a 0% sabotage bonus).
2111.12.28: We meet an explorer of the Black Rock Transport in the Gundur system. The second agent is told to steal their territory map. They are probably somewhat distant, since they have taken quite some time to appear. They are also stronger than the others, according to the diplomacy screen.
We wait for our intelligence agents, and wait for hyper drives.
2112.10.05: Our agent comes back with the map of the Sollost Pillagers. They are in the gas cloud straight left, twice as far away as the independent that way. They bring no new info of independents.
2112.12.27: The agent heading for the Black Rock Transport is captured. Not so strange considering that the first thing happening after he left was him getting the lawful trait (-10% espionage among others).
Hyper drive research is at 57% and we got plenty of time. We send the other agent.
We get the contact details for yet another pirate crew. The Blood Dagger Pirates are yellow and weak. Hopefully that does not mean that they have been spanked by the Gizureans.
2113.02.13. We approve a defensive base.
Silly advisers want to offer smuggling and attack missions. We do our own mining and attacks. Even if camping at our capital may make it look a bit different.
2114.01.03: Gordas Dokari is back with the territory info of Black Rock Transport. They are similary placed
as the orange/brown, but up-right instead of up-left. They know 7 extra independents to their north, on the rim.
4 are securan, 3 in one system. 2 are Dhayut.
2114.03.14: Sollost Pillagers attack Aldai mining station in the capital system.
1st fleet is told to attack one of them, 2nd fleet to attack the other. It is nice ot have forces in the system.
The mining station is badly damaged (43 components), the raiders are dead. A bored constructor is happy to get some repair work. A destroyer is also badly damaged, the other constructor is also happy to get some repair work.
Darn gravitics...
The damaged destroyer refuses to stop, it insist on heading for the spaceport on its own. The bored crew on the construction ship Jubilant Remorse files a formal complaint.
While fighting went on, maxos blasters are researched, we proceed with improvements to them.
2114.08.21: As hyper drive research is at 79%, we prepare for the future, and order two troop transports and 5 troops. This leaves 4 garrisoned and 6 free troops on the capital.
We tell our fleets to retrofit for maxos blaster, the most important thing with this is to have fewer updates to do when the precious Gerax Hyperdrive is available.
2115.08.18: We approve a second defensive base. This can allow us to worry less about keeping ships in the capital system.
Pirates keep offering protection. They should rather ask for protection...
2116.01.07: Yet another pirate crew shows up (with explorer) in the Gundur system. The Lone Army.
Hyper drive research is at 98%, and we would not be happy about a 50% setback at this time.
2116.03.04:
Status
It is a good time to stop for now.
We are just a retrofit away from being in space. There are no sign of Kuristar 1 (the very nice ikurro independent) not being independent anymore.
It took 16 years to get into space properly. It is worth noting that research speed is slow in this game, that doubles the cost. So with normal research speed, we would be at this point around 2108, or a bit later as it takes some time to find that warp ruin. It is the first time I have the explorer destroyed before it reaches the ruin, though. It did not slow me down, since I would have researched space construction before gerax anyawys, and we had a whopping 11% left when the warp ruin was discovered. Our research is further slowed by despotism (25%).
The status is not very interesting, but...
The map is the same as the one above, with the additon of a pirate base up right, and a cluster of independents above that.
The diplomacy screen has only pirates, and is a tad misleading. The orange, Dark Transport, seems like the far more dangerous. They have a MSP, 37 ships and 1992 firepower. The rest have SSP, and firepower in the 600s.
Dark Transport are the ones up and left in the map image earlier in this post.
For comparison, we got 1439 firepower, and most of that is the spaceport and two defensive bases.
The colony list is compact. 5% bonus development because they love lead and got lead. Is that healthy?
The economy is relaxed since we have spent little money. The cash is a nice reserve, and the cashflow will allow for 30 ships of the current (warp) design. Life has been lazy so far, but once we establish colonies, I expect to want more military ships than I can afford over time.
Colonies means independents, as colonization is at 38%, but we have put everything into energy this far.
37 freighters to serve 1 colony, 8 mining bases, and 2 construction ships. The private sector is quite aggressive about ship building, and will remain so through the game.
Battle 1 is near the enemy capital system. Gizureans and Pirates battle outisde ganc (pirates win). 
