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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 09:02    Post subject: Let's Play: Sword of the Stars
Sword of the Stars (SotS) is a 4X space strategy game. Player can play as one of 6 different races. Each race has a unique propulsion technology which impacts strategy and tactics for each race.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_the_Stars
http://sots.rorschach.net/

I'm playing this LP as Hiver race. Their propulsion tech is based on teleporter gates that move ships in one turn between planets that have gates. But their ships are very slow to travel to planets that don't have gates.
I'm playing a large map with star clusters. 8 opponents and hard AI.

One opponent of each race and 2 random to make things interesting.

This is our starting location. We are at the edge of the map.

Our planets generate money each turn. Part of the money is spent immediately (planet upkeep, fleet upkeep, etc.) while we decide how much is spent on research and how much should go to treasury. With money in treasury we can buy ships or send it to to other players. Here is a nice detailed description :
http://sots.rorschach.net/Colonies_and_Budget_Interface

So at start we'll spend all our income on research. The more money we spend the faster we research. Research can go overbudget meaning we have reached 100% in a research topic, but we need to spend more money and wait another turn or two to finish research and have results available to us.
Research tree is randomized with different percentages for each race. Some technologies are always available for research to all races.

I don't have some grand research plan so I pick tech that I think I'll need most at the moment.

As you can see, we are exploring our cluster + 1 gate is going to cluster right of us. We have discovered 2 nice planets (they were colonized immediately).

Next tech to research is Cruiser construction. You can see all tech we have researched until now as well (Of course in 3 cases we went overbudget).

And our first random encounter! From time to time an unexplored system can have a random encounter that is triggered when your fleet arrives or when it performs an action at a system (like colonizing).

It's Alien derelict. A part of a ship that has active weapons.

As you can see, we have a new colony and we have scouted a nice planet. Planet with Alien derelict is not so nice.

We have a new colony. 3 more planets are scouted. Only 1 is good and 1 has Alien derelict.

We have a new colony and Alien derelict is dealt with.

We have cruisers now! Now lets make them easier to build.

We have scouted 2 nice planets which are immediately colonized. And our gate is halfway to the other cluster.

Some more research completed (and on time for a change!)

We have scouted a nice planet.
And this is another version of a random encounter.

And we start to research fusion. This will give us better engines and unlock a lot of advanced technologies.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"

Last edited by Veki on Wed, 22nd Aug 2012 07:20; edited 4 times in total
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WhiteBarbarian




Posts: 6006
Location: Russia
PostPosted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 12:26    Post subject:
Oh, haven't seen SotS LP for a while Smile
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farne




Posts: 3726
PostPosted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 12:35    Post subject:
Killer stuff man, hoping to see more
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Thu, 9th Aug 2012 08:06    Post subject:
I hope I'll survive long enough to post here for a while. Very Happy

While fusion is being researched we scout a new planet (that we can't colonize) and we have a new colony. Also planets that we colonized first are finally finished with terraforming and infrastructure improvement.

So we have Swarm in our cluster. And they are going for a planet we can't colonize. Swarm are like space bees. They have a hive which we have to destroy to remove them from a system. They regularly send queens from infested system to try to infest other systems. When destroyed they give a nice amount of money.

We have scouted 2 nice planets which will be colonized immediately.

Looks like we have encountered our first AI player. This one is Zuul race and that is not good. Zuul are aggressive and very hard to make peace with.

Our tanker is no match for their DE. But our CR is.

And fusion is ours! Only 14 turns to research it. Now we go for mega-freighters so we can make a lot of money (we'll need it).

And again Von Neuman random encounter.

CR freighters are immediately put into production. And lucky us, we have Modular construction so we'll get 5% more from trade. Smile

8 ships incoming. Good thing we already sent another gate in that cluster so we won't loose easy access to it.

5% is ours. Now since we have Zuul as neighbours, let's research some weapons.

Lets get the party started!

An interesting thing happened. Only DE attacked the gate. CR just went in the opposite direction and waited for DE to destroy the gate.

Battle report reveals they have green lasers. Well, that's good as green lasers are very weak.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Wed, 22nd Aug 2012 07:30    Post subject:
Sorry for lack of updates, I was on vacation last week.

Let's see how Zuul are standing. Looks good : CR, fission and nuclear warhead.

Looks like we have raiders near our homeworld. Raiders can be a random encounter or can be sent by other players. This one is a random encounter.

Ok, Point Defence is completed. We are now well protected vs missiles and drones (unmanned space fighters). Now let's improve our colonizes. Hope we'll get Bio transfer as well since that will allow us to improve Hazard rating of a planet when we colonize them.

And more raiders at our homeworld.

C'mon guys, how many of you are there? And we have Bio transfer. Yey! We research is ASAP.

2 planets are scouted. One is perfect and will be colonized immediately, the other is inhabitable.

Besides better weapons, we need more ships on the battlefield and bigger ships. So our research is headed that way.

And we're about to meet our 2nd neighbor.

Morrigi. That's good. They are sentient bird like species. It's much easier to make peace with them then Zuul.

A turn later. This is even better.

Dreadnought (DN) class is within our reach. The biggest ship class in the game.

But first we need something else.

Good! We have a NAP with Morrigi. Now we can focus on Zuul.

This is just my luck. First, I failed to destroy the Queen in 1 turn and then when I kill the Swarm I get 51k credits (you can get 50-500k).

And now we go for DN.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Fri, 24th Aug 2012 13:05    Post subject:
Last planet in our cluster is scouted and will be colonized.

Lucky us! We have scouted independent Hiver colony and it automatically joined us. A very nice planet.

Miracles do happen! We've finished DN ahead of schedule. Now we go for CR CnC research.

Zuul colony. We'll just go to another planet, maybe they are not there.

We finished strikeforce CnC and now we go for better weapons. Unfortunately, we only have Particle beam available for research. Let's try Plasma cannon, maybe we'll have more luck with that branch of research.

As you can see, this cluster belongs to us now and we have colonies in neighboring clusters.

We have incoming Zuul fleet. Also our research of Plasma cannons is complete and we'll research Anti-Matter next. We also have Fusion cannons available for research.

Since Zuul is coming to the planet with Alien derelict and we are researching Anti-Matter, we've managed to disable it and get a very nice 25% bonus to research for 4 turns.

This will be fun!

Zuul CR before it exploded. In the back you can see Zuul DE. On the 2nd picture you can see DE Bore ship before it exploded as well.

Flawless victory! You can see they have UV lasers and AP rounds. Still quite weak.

And these guys again. Sad

2 Queens incoming. That means more money for us. Smile

Hmmm?

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Mon, 27th Aug 2012 08:23    Post subject:
Stupid fish.

But here is some good news! Anti-Matter is ours. Now we need fish language ASAP.

Surely we can be friends?

FUCK!

Fish-bird alliance. Not good. Also, fish have Anti-Matter.

Just clearing swarm from a planet in our cluster. And it's a nice planet. Smile

Much needed research.

And first result from said research.

More research.

Another queen.

And more research.

Well, this is a very nice planet. Look at all the infrastructure. That means it was someone else's planet a while ago. Also note a yellow fleet in the middle of the screen.

And even more research.

Ugh, 2nd Zuul. This does not look good.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Wed, 29th Aug 2012 08:18    Post subject:
Let's see how good these Zuul are. They have HCL.

But they are no match for us (for now).

They invite us to form NAP, but choose to engage in combat nonetheless.

Useless birds. So many ships and look at that pathetic damage to queen. Of course if I were instead of queen I'd get 10x damage. x-(

We have colonized 2 planets.

And what do we have here? Alien fleet detected?

Swarm again. Sad

Ranking doesn't look good. But we have Farcasters, the best propulsion for Hivers!

DN already!?

But it's no problem for us.

Still quite weak in firepower and armor.

We need more firepower.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Fri, 31st Aug 2012 07:41    Post subject:
One DN is no problem for us.

Say hello to my little friend! Our DN with Blazer mission section and Battle bridge command section. 18 heavy beams.

You may notice that our DN did 0 damage. That's because I forgot to take SS during combat (only 1 at start) so I replayed this battle. In the 2nd and 3rd and 4th replay DN just wouldn't spawn. Don't know why it spawned on 1st try.

Well, looks like we'll have to behave and be good for now. This is called a "grand menace encounter". It affects whole map and usually in a negative way. They are very hard to defeat. Luckily this one is rather good. It tries to prevent all combat on the map by destroying attackers ships or all ships in battle. It will attack any ship that fires upon it.
So for now we'll not attack anyone and we'll not fire on it if we see it in battle.

6 ships? Well, that shouldn't be a problem for us. We have a DN. Smile

6 DNs!? Surprised

Peacekeeper to the rescue!

And more firepower!

We ask our feathered friend for some research help.

Armada CnC? That's not good.

Next turn we ask for more research help.

Again Peacekeeper help us. Smile

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Mon, 3rd Sep 2012 07:49    Post subject:
57 ships!?

And we manage to get more research help. Smile

I underestimated this battle and lost 3 CR and DN was seriously damaged. One CR had Node cannon.

Another queen. We got good money.

Lucky for us, it's just a lot of DE. Smile

Zuul CR managed to get to my ships before Peacekeeper destroyed them.

Peacekeepr for the win!

This Zuul ha more advanced weapons than purple Zuul.

And we have Cutting beams! Very Happy Next, Armada CnC.

3rd Zuul. Looks like they're all around us. Sad

DN + blazer. Not good.

Heavy stormers, Fusion cannon and Fusion torpedo. Definetely not good.

More research. We have met Tarka, but I didn't see any ships nor colonies.

We see future targets. Twisted Evil

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 08:16    Post subject:
Let's be friends, shall we?

Managed to get more research help from birds and fish. Smile

We colonized a very nice planet (HZ of 15) and we have 2 fleets incoming.

2 battles and 2 victories.

More research.

Peacekeeper has left the galaxy!

Some cleanup battles. Notice that VN has been destroyed on Morrigi planet. When a VN is destroyed, a retaliation ship called Berserker will visit that planet. I'm parking a gate and a colonizer there in wait of Berserker. Twisted Evil
Also note another VN has been destroyed on uninhabited planet. A turn later I colonized it. I wonder if VN Berserker will visit it. Sad

We really want to make love with space sirens. Smile

More cleanup battles. I do have somewhat of a problem with Node cannon. It kills my CR in 1 shot and AI waits for me to come to him so he can shoot me. I'm using my DN to draw its fire while my CR flank it.

A small ship that will help us a great deal.

Guess what I'm sending to Zuul worlds. Very Happy

2 small battles.

And 4 reconnaissance missions.

I doubt yellow Zuul is sending 26 DE.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Fri, 7th Sep 2012 08:24    Post subject:
Yeah, only 3 DE. Sad

But we have DNs and Cutting beams. Smile

Remember that Morrigi colony that destroyed VN a couple of turns ago? I sent a colonizer to that colony (you can see it leaving the colony with STL engines, it's just 1 turn away from colony) in hope Berserker would destroy it. And since we have a gate at the colony and auto-resolve is crap at calculating battles, we're going to watch it (all 10 minutes). Very Happy

A funny thing happened. Berserker collided with an asteroid and pushed it towards the planet. I expected that it would hit it and cause massive damage, but as you can see nothing happened.

I did reload a couple of times after this battle and used auto resolve to see how different this battle would be. Morrigi lost 2-4 CR and Berserker was destroyed.

Finally this research tree is over. Now we'll go for Impactors. We'll need them to counter Zuul Node Cannon (and they look awesome when they hit enemy ship).

Now we can finally increase population without overharvest.

4 CR are not a problem.

We grab the former Morrigi planet. Courtesy of VN Berserker. And we're researching towards Impactors.

Purple Zuul is trying to intercept our scouts. I stopped our scouts when they were 2 light years from Zuul colonies to have a good view of their defenses.

Impactors are within our reach. And we're no longer last in income. Wink

We cleared Alien derelict and killed a Queen. What is important is that we have green Zuul fleet of 8 DN coming to world where we have a gate. Since it's only a gate, I'm not going to fight that fleet. In the background you can see yellow Zuul fleet of 15 ships coming to our colony.

Behold Zuul DNs.

Gate is destroyed, but I saved the scout so I can leave it near the planet. Note Lancers and X-Ray lasers.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Mon, 10th Sep 2012 11:43    Post subject:
Yellow Zuul fleet is dealt with.

Impactors are ours! We now have heavy hitter weapons, but we lack armor. Since our enemies have decent weapons, our ships look like they are made of paper. And since we're fighting Zuul, we need info about their node lines.

A brave move by Liir. That Zuul planet is heavily defended (they have 8 or more DNs there).

Another cleanup battle. I'll stop posting big reports about these small and insignificant battles.

Soon we'll be able to predict Zuul movement and that will help us tremendously.

A hard battle, but Impactors saved the day! And we have our first salvaged tech! You can get salvaged tech after each battle if you have Repair and salvage CR/DN ships. Salvaged tech is a tech you can't research in your current research tree, but you have all prerequisite for it researched.

We researched better engines and superior armor.

I have not met humans yet nor I've seen any of their ships nor I have their Xenotech for research, but they were asking for Ceasefire for 2-3 turns in a row. Probably some bug.

1st Zuul colony destroyed by us. And another salvaged tech.

I hope we'll salvage Adamantite Alloys. And we can research X-Ray laser. I hope research tree it doesn't stop on them.

I'm impressed with Impactors. They are somewhat of a cheat considering their range and knockback. 3rd salvaged tech.

Lots of research is completed. I was hoping Assault command section for CR would have 2 heavy beams, but it just has 1 torpedo. That sucks.

2nd Zuul colony has fallen.

You may wonder why I'm going for Drone research tree.

Colony saved. 0 casualties. New salvaged tech.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Wed, 12th Sep 2012 08:06    Post subject:
We are researching 4 salvaged tech. I did check what they could be : 1 is Torpedo weapons (Disruptor), 1 is Biological (Environmental Tailoring) and 2 are Industrial (I hope Reflective Coating and probably Boarding Pods).

4 scouting reports and 1 colony assault. Note Bronson Alpha and its defenses.

NAP with Tarka - good for now.

Our first salvage tech is Disruptors.

Another Zuul colony bites the dust. And we rigorously defend our colony.

We research more weapons.

That Zuul colony with heavy defenses is no more. Combined Liir-Morrigi assault obliterated it.

Now this is interesting. I position scout ships 2 turns from enemy colony so I can see colony defenses and incoming ships. But this Zuul ship jumped that distance in 1 turn and it was faster in tactical combat than my scout.

Purple Zuul homeworld. This planet has become our number 1 target.

A hard battle.

We have heavy fusion cannon available for research, but first I'm going for some other tech I hope I'll get.

First colonies that are full with Liir are being terraformed back to our HR.

We have 2 very nice defensive techs. And we get 2 very, very good tech from salvaged projects.

We are invited to join Morrigi-Liir alliance (1st and 2nd in global ranking). Twisted Evil

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Veki




Posts: 381
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Fri, 14th Sep 2012 06:52    Post subject:
We join Morrigi-Liir alliance. Almost all galaxy is revealed.

Political view. Our alliance spawns 4 sectors.

Trying to get Thumpers, but no dice. So we got another heavy turret weapon that will help us.

Now that we have all the tech for ships I wanted, here are the designs that will be workforce of the fleet.

Morrigi want out due to loading a game. Stupid bug!. Fine by me. They are now alone.

Finally 2 techs that will make my Liir population managing easier. Smile

To bad Morrigi left our alliance.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commisssioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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