Empire of the Stars - Comments Thread

[Marski]

I praise your dedication to research the Imperial Japan's naming convention for military hardware and technologies.

[gpt3]

The beam fighters are making a serious killing, taking down enemies many times their tonnage, including ground forces. It seems the AI has difficulty dealing with them. I guess there are too few fire controls to fight with? Targetting efficiently so that damage is spread out seems to be very hard. I've come to see fighters as "reusable missiles". Individually weak, dependent on a mothership and group up in "salvos" just like ordnance. But the game's targetting mechanics treat them as proper ships and so anyone that is not specifically equiped to fight them, suffers. If the Zuijin used the AMMs against the fighters they could put a serious dent in their number too, but they did get a capital regardless, so not bad.

It seems like the best countermeasures against beam fighter swarms are AMMs, massed single-weapon turrets, and having your own beam fighters. Kind of reminds me of how premodern armies deployed foot archers, fortifications, and their own horse archers to deal with the threat of enemy horse archers re-enacting the Battle of Carrhae.

[Xkill]

It seems like the best countermeasures against beam fighter swarms are AMMs, massed single-weapon turrets, and having your own beam fighters. Kind of reminds me of how premodern armies deployed foot archers, fortifications, and their own horse archers to deal with the threat of enemy horse archers re-enacting the Battle of Carrhae.

Yes, massed firepower is key. You need lots of missile and beam firecontrols spread across as many targets as possible, all firing very quickly. The use of particle lances against the fighters was a bad idea from the Zuijin. Too much overkill and fires too slowly.

I pray every day for the Gods to persuade Steve to implement NPR fighters and carriers. 

[Steve Zax]

It seems like the best countermeasures against beam fighter swarms are AMMs, massed single-weapon turrets, and having your own beam fighters. Kind of reminds me of how premodern armies deployed foot archers, fortifications, and their own horse archers to deal with the threat of enemy horse archers re-enacting the Battle of Carrhae.

Yes, massed firepower is key. You need lots of missile and beam firecontrols spread across as many targets as possible, all firing very quickly. The use of particle lances against the fighters was a bad idea from the Zuijin. Too much overkill and fires too slowly.

I pray every day for the Gods to persuade Steve to implement NPR fighters and carriers. 

or AT LEAST a toggle to allow NPR fighters and Carriers.

[Kaiser]

I have encountered similar raider as the Incheon in my current game, only the ship was equipped with a gas-core engine and railgun and could travel at 7000km/s, something I could not replicate due to my technology, It tooks me years before I could defend myself from them, then I came up with the idea of a 8000km/s fast and small assalut ship to capture them instead of directly fighing them. Love how this game helps to think "out of the box".

[Garfunkel]

Absolutely epic!

[nakorkren]

I was biting my nails worrying whether you'd run out of MSP for fighters or battleships first before they ran out of missiles! Perhaps the Imperial Naval Design Board will hold a conference to debate the merits of deeper maintenance bays.

[nuclearslurpee]

I was biting my nails worrying whether you'd run out of MSP for fighters or battleships first before they ran out of missiles! Perhaps the Imperial Naval Design Board will hold a conference to debate the merits of deeper maintenance bays.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the absolute clearest mark of a high-quality AAR is the number and length of Naval Conferences depicted therein. 

Also, Steve, your pace of updates is frankly frightening... perhaps you should check that your wife is not feeling too left out these days? 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I was biting my nails worrying whether you'd run out of MSP for fighters or battleships first before they ran out of missiles! Perhaps the Imperial Naval Design Board will hold a conference to debate the merits of deeper maintenance bays.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the absolute clearest mark of a high-quality AAR is the number and length of Naval Conferences depicted therein. 

Also, Steve, your pace of updates is frankly frightening... perhaps you should check that your wife is not feeling too left out these days? 

I've mainly been catching up. I already had over 70 pages in Word before I started posting anything. I decided that rather than start posting immediately and then abandon the campaign after a few updates, I would make sure I had plenty of material before I started posting I am more or less caught up now.

We are still travelling in our motorhome - over 16 weeks now - and next week we are meeting up with a friend on the Norfolk coast (East Anglia, not Virginia) for a few days so, due to probable excess alcohol consumption, I think updates will pause for a few days then

BTW, we have already moved our ferry home from September to December, so we will probably be in the motorhome for the rest of the year. I have started doing some consulting work for a couple of days a week (from the motorhome), which is taking care of our expenses.

[Kaiser]

Superb AAR, exicited to read about the invasion of the Shimitarian home world, I have two questions:

- Are you playing without the civilian sector?

- When you play your campaign, do you play with the last stable version shared with us or do you play with the upcoming patch so in this case the 2.6.0 to test the new functionality?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Superb AAR, exicited to read about the invasion of the Shimitarian home world, I have two questions:

- Are you playing without the civilian sector?

- When you play your campaign, do you play with the last stable version shared with us or do you play with the upcoming patch so in this case the 2.6.0 to test the new functionality?

I am playing with the latest version of the code, which changes over time as I update it. The campaign is a way to playtest the updates.

The civilian sector has been updated, per the v2.6 change list, and is currently a LOT smaller, so I may have overcorrected. After thirteen years, the starting shipping line has seven ships, while two more have five and four ships respectively. Part of the reason is that very short trips used to be the best option to boost shipping lines and now they are the worst, because its based on distance, which doesn't include loading and unloading time. I may tweak the payment per billion kilometers upwards a little.

[kks]

Awesome AAR. I really am fascinated by the efficacy of EW. In my games I usually don't touch decoys and such much, but reading you AAR really gave me a lot to think in that term.

Also: The MSP and missile logistics are really fun and much better than before the changes. The Scimitar must have shot a few years of ammunition worth in that engagement. I at least always struggle to keep up with missile consumption.

[alex_brunius]

Excellent AAR, BANZAI! 

Part of the reason is that very short trips used to be the best option to boost shipping lines and now they are the worst, because its based on distance, which doesn't include loading and unloading time. I may tweak the payment per billion kilometers upwards a little.

If you want a more accurate payment using time (including loading unloading) rather than distance as basis for payment might be better, if performance allows for it.

What you lose with that approach is that payment for faster trips would be less instead of more, so another option is a flat payment + distance.

[randakar]

Time as a basis would reward them for having slow ships.
Distance x cargo value, perhaps. And perhaps a flat loading fee per ton if you want to balance the long vs short trips thing.

[L0ckAndL0ad]

The Empire is a ruthless conqueror. Is there nothing to stop it? All Empires fall, eventually. 

a mining colony on the eighteen moon of Scimitar III

Was that interspecies CMC vs CMC garrisons combat?  Private Military Company warfare on the frontier gold rush.