What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?

[Vandermeer]

Played a successful Tau themed game in 7.1. There was nothing of special interest that warranted some sort of documentary though, so here is just a tech summary I saved.

Successfully tested the Manta Facs and "Railgun Batteries" of the capitals with size 2 missiles instead of the usual size 1 for me here, and it turned out that this is still enough to overcome all point-defense of equal to somewhat larger mass easily.
Also was reminded why I didn't use Jump-Drives since my second ever game. What was it, like 1 million research points to send a 600kt ship through? Haha, no.
They had to be about this size though, because it turned out that the 1/100th conversion rate that I used wayyy back on my first Wh40k attempt (link) was very fitting to get the exact number of both, torpedoes and fighter craft on board, while smaller or larger versions would have to make non lore-friendly cuts or have much useless empty space on carriers.
Also a confidence providing bonus: When you use this '20 fighter per launch bay'=10kt as basis, and then get all the other weapon's numbers by comparing this size to their Battlefleet Gothic exchange rate in weapon batteries, torpedoes, ion-cannons etc. (e.g. 1 point ion = 1 point hangar = 3 points mid-ranged batteries), you end up with a tonnage that is exactly what you get when recreating a Wh40k Tau ship in space engineers, like this guy did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZHUTNi3FQk

Tau's stylish looking Custodian and Emissary class ships are excellent explorer capitals btw. . Naturally well tuned in a better way than my large explorers before.



I also did get some time to check on the interesting new game mechanics. For example that distant battles now neatly sum up, so instead of a wall of 5-second turns, you get just one weird turn like 1:12:35:15, and all is done. (there was somebody here with that funny scrolling 5-second turn gif, but I guess he will now have to mothball this )
Also, not sure if this is really new, but I witnessed enemy units grouping up as if they used tactics. There was one situation where an enemy ship cleared all my fleet from a system, and only then, and actually directly after, they jumped through some extra missile destroyers that rendezvoused with their vanguard to form some sort of TG, and then started searching around and picked on the colonies they could find. Could be coincidence, but then the timing was really good.
What I also saw was a friendly NPR fleeing through a jump point, and then taking position at the other side for the enemy who was going to come through. They sat there patiently and shot down 3 large ships without counter. Smart and impressive, but maybe also coincidence.

I am also not quite sure whether the overall performance has improved or not, but it seemed to me that multi-tasking, like watching videos while Aurora processes, seems now just barely have influence on Aurora's speed, where before it did cause some definite slowing. Could be something with my computer though.

There were some more tiny things that I noticed over the weeks, but don't remember anymore.

[Mastik]

3200 size 4 [13 dam] missiles inbound towards earth....   

[Mastik]

104 Missiles got through defenses, 3 alien ships destroyed.  3 more in a adjacent system have retreated.  Planetary suitability to 0.3,  population growth -13%, Manufacturing efficiency 53%.  Amm stockpiles are low, duranium stock piles are low.  Fleet strength improving, but not ready to go face to face with the aliens.

[83athom]

Terra was reporting a lack of minerals for the current construction queue. I found where I made a mistake. Instead of 4000 Infrastructure and 250 Maintenance facilities, I requested 4000 Maintenance facilities and 250 Infrastructure.
Edit; I had hoped that the micro increments that started when I entered a new system was just a part of the 1 day long "micro" increments that I was already encountering. Turns out I was wrong. GSV Marc Aaronson's navigation sensors picked up a ship ~20m km away, and soon after actives from two more sources were detected from beyond navigation sensor range but was powerful enough to clearly pick up the survey ship. Lets hope the 4-46 armor is enough to weather the faster ships until it reaches the back into human space. It seems they could identify that the active sensors are civilian grade navigation sensors and that the GSV is a ship of exploration instead of a ship of war despite the military grade jump engine, so they remained at a steady pace keeping up with the Marc Aaronson with one ship just inside navigation sensor range while the others sit just outside range as the GSV heads for the JP.

[83athom]

Been in "micro" increments since mid-December 2134... it is now May 2135 and it is still going. Turn lengths go for a few 5sec increments, to a day increment, then one or two 15 sec increments. Sometimes (every other month) I do get a 5-10 day long increment but that is the minority. I wan't to go and smack whoever is doing this, but they seem to be having a fun war so I will allow it for now. It helps that the turns do go pretty fast.

[formicae]

This newbie's first aggressive(-ish) actions towards a TN NPR:

These guys seem friendly enough (definitely neutral; at least they're not shooting at me).

Oh look, they've built a jump gate connecting to my network.  Civilian shipping is the first to notice, and they promptly load up all their colony ships to settle their colony cost 0 homeworld (where I'd created a colony for the purpose of having a home for my espionage team).

I should take measures to ensure the safety of my colony.  I'll start with a listening post and a couple garrison battalions.  They seem to have no objection.

I should take further measures, and begin preparing to unify our empires.  I'll drop a couple brigades of mobile infantry there.

Two days later, 96 strength-1 nuclear explosions, bye-bye colony, and those troop transports are going to have to be written off.  Dang.

[Mastik]

2100

  100 year anniversary of the 1st Trans-Neutronim space flight.  A somber day, as hundreds of millions of Earths citizens have withered (radiation) away to the missile strikes of 2092.  50 million fewer souls reside on Earth, as did 100 years ago.  Humanity has colonized 19 bodies, in 5 systems. 1 more strike from 3 Alien battleships was easily swatted away by Sol defense forces.  Recovered alien tech continues to fuel our research.

[Iranon]

That Iranshahr Coalition, a friendly but slightly annoying NPR 2 jumps away from Sol, is under missile attack by an unseen foe.
They are failing badly: inadequate point defence, 60 FAC wrecks so far and a few more every tick, their other assets don't seem to do anything.

My main fleet is in no condition to go anywhere without falling apart and I neglected my military a little, 6 fast laser cruisers will observe but avoid unnecessary risks.

[Pixel1191]

Finally figured out what was causeing my turns to slow down to 6 hours (praised be Designer Mode). Solved the problem, now I can finally get this show moving at a reasonable pace and stomp an NPR for daring to attack (and pretty much decimate) my ally. :/

[Vandermeer]

Finally figured out what was causeing my turns to slow down to 6 hours (praised be Designer Mode). Solved the problem, now I can finally get this show moving at a reasonable pace and stomp an NPR for daring to attack (and pretty much decimate) my ally. :/

That problem you described is fairly worrying. Kind of like the old civil fleet explosion, or the NPR snowball effect. If that starts happening with me too, I might just delete their whole bunch until this improves.

[83athom]

The micro increments seems to have passed for now, it is now Early July. I discovered a new system with 3 Earth-like worlds and a gas-giant. The bonus kicker, its named Anchorage. I think I found my new fleet base.

[Mastik]

2110-11

  Passive sensors detected the Alien presence in the Earth system (1 human colony), they are coming through a gate in the the Angelique system. [Sol<->Earth<->Angelique<->unknown]  Alien gate construction ships were attempting to build a gate at the Earth-Angelique JP.  Human forces have destroyed 6-gate constuction ships, 1-survey vessel, and 2 Battleships (Laser).  While losing 1 PD Destroyer to laser fire.  2 additional battleships have disappeared though one of the JPs in the Angelique system.

[Mastik]

2012

Fighting in the Earth system continues, 6 enemy missile destroyers, and 3 survey craft have been destroyed.  1 fleet mine layer, 1 small civilian frighter, and 2 terrafomers were lost.

[83athom]

Was starting to go into a Corundium and Mercassium crunch when Terra ran out and there were no other bodies in Sol with a decent amount. I started checking the systems that I wanted to colonize first and second, they didn't have much. Then I looked at the system I would have colonized 3rd-4th (refer to image)... Bonus, it has a Gas Giant with millions of Sorium which the habitable body is orbiting.

[jem]

So, after more then a month irl the assault on the npr homeworld is finally over. 3 500 000+ missiles were shot at us, roughly 3 000 000 were amm. 1960 things where shot down, out of those 800+ where commercial, 500 stationary bases around the home world and the rest assorted military crafts (mostly facs). Own losses include 39 fighters, 2 pd escort ships and 3 missile support destroyers. Rest of the fleet is in various stages of "damaged" and will need 'some' repairs. Total number of pow's exceeded initial expectations of 30k and the final tally was over 80k. Do note that clicking trough 1960 lifepods is extremely boring......


Note to self: Never do anything like this ever again......

Edit: Also, it is bloody amazing how fast the turns are all of a sudden