The race begins!
 

It's turn 103 against the 9 best TDM AI's in a large quadrant. I just got the dreaded "your sun will blow up in 3 years" message in my home system. I have been building up my infrastructure as I'm still at peace with all AI's encountered. I prefer to let the AI's develop themselves before I go to war. Makes it more fun IMHO. Also with only 10 players, the AI tends to have more room to get established before they go to war. Makes them tougher and allows them to put their AI bonus to good use.

Fortunately, I'm making roughly 300k research points.

Unfortunately, I haven't researched Stellar Manip. at all yet nor have I researched Bases.

My plan is to shift all focus on building a ringworld around that star within 3 years or KA-BLOOIE!

Think I'll make it??? I think so, if I don't have too many battles to contend with before then. I just hope those darn Tessellate stay cool for a while...

I'll keep you informed.

Re: The race begins!
 

Let's see, 30 turns. With 300k research, assuming medium tech cost, it'll take 12 turns to get Stellar Manipulation 5 and Base Construction 3. That gives you 18 turns to build the ringworld.

If you have Space Yards 3 and 100% construction aptitude, minimum build time for the ringworld generator is 23 turns, including the bonus for emergency build on the last 11 turns. 127% construction aptitude after cultural modifiers can bring it down to 18 turns. You'll probably need a turn to spare for activating it, which brings the requirement up to 134% construction aptitude. If you don't have construction rates that high, start stocking up resources and figure out a retroseries build, it's your only hope.

Re: The race begins!
 

I have HI + 120% Construction Aptitude. I'm also building via retroseries. I'm not worried about the RW construction; it's that I'm at peace with all the AI's and they have tons of ships in all my systems... If/when they turn on me, it will be all I can do to keep them at bay. I have not been building too many ships to avoid MEE. Although that's not the best way to handle the AI, I was just fooling around with this game but now it just got fun!

Re: The race begins!
 

Hardy Industrialist won't help unless there's a planet in the same place as the star for some reason. Bring on the retroseries. I'll be interested to know how it turns out.

Re: The race begins!
 

HI does help build those Spaceyard ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The race begins!
 

Ok, I'm going to sleep. Here's the status report after 9 of 30 turns completed:

Good things:
- Got Starbase tech.
- Built 11 starter SB's on the star and are retro-ing them up. Stationed a small, hopefully adequate, defense fleet there too. Even have a loaded Colony Ship in the sector waiting to colonize.
- Researching SM level 5 right now to get RW's. 2 turns to go for SM5. Research now is 448k at the expense of all else unfortunately.
- The quadrant is still at peace. Barely. 3 of 6 known races are "murderous" toward me and I expect them to declare war soon.
- Having had the best string of luck since I can remember, I have acquired ALL the different breathers. (Had None and CO2 prior to the 3-year ticker starting). Begged, borrowed and stole them all without declaring war. Have roughly 30 cargo-capable ships trying desperately to undome my empire before war starts. Most of these ships are small so it's taking longer than using large transports. This has allowed me to "expand" greatly without taking too many new planets. Also, this may be my undoing as I used intel to get 2 of the other breathers. This made the AI freak out and build massive CI and my attacks are now all being blocked; this also has made them pissed off. I'm sure to see lots of intel attacks when war comes around. If I devote all my intel to CI, it should hold out for a while; maybe not if the all gang up.
- I chose Crystallurgy and have a Crystalline Restructuring Plant II in my home system with a lot of my ships, and the ringworld construction. I haven't done the math but that's saving me a ton of ship maintenance. I hope that planet survives.
- My few ships are starting to be strategically placed for a defensive posture. Until war breaks out, they are at training planets for the most part. Maybe training will give me enough of an edge. At least 2 AI's are Religious and have had time to develop the Talisman, though. (UF and Tessellate)


Bad things:
- Research limited to only that needed for Ringworld. Falling way behind on ship production and ship size. I have BC; AI's have lots of BB's and some DN's.
- Stuck at Mineral level 2, Organic level 1, Rad level 1. Desperately need to increase production. Temporarily making due as listed above, but the increased facility building is only allowing me to break even with little ship production. Robotoids are not an option; did the math and won't break even in time. Monolith's are out of the question.
- I have a Resource Converter II. Level III would be nice, but costs too much right now.
- Judging by the sizes of the enemy fleets and the avg ship size, once war starts, I'm gonna lose lots of planets until I can set up some secure borders.
- Desperately need the quantum reactor also; have researched to 1 level below QR.
- I only have enough minesweepers for 2 fleets; not that I'll be using my ships to attack any time soon.
- Now that I'm into it, once I get SM5 in 2 turns, I am not sure if I will have enough resources to keep retrofitting every starter base each turn. Probably not. I underestimated the costs originally. I'm not finished even designing the complete retroseries yet, but it's looking like there will be 8 or 9 retrofits in the series for the RW base. Yikes! I didn't optimize the first starter base as well as I should have; it will probably mean taking an extra retrofit to make it, maybe two. The good news is every base has been retrofitted at least twice already. The Cables and Plating bases should just need 2 more refits to be complete.
- I'm currently ranked 3rd, just moved up from 4th last turn. Not sure if that's good or bad. 2 guys ahead, one very close. I guess it could be worse.
- I'm not sure if the star actually explodes on turn 29, 30, or 31 after the message.
- I gave the AI the max bonus. Now that they are established, they are pumping out ships like there's no tomorrow. Maybe there won't be a tomorrow. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The race begins!
 

Crisis averted.

Summary:
turn 103: star's gonna blow
turn 121: created Ringworld
turn 122: colonized Ringworld.

Re: The race begins!
 

Congratulations on pulling it off with a dozen turns to spare, despite having to do so much research. Of course, this still doesn't change that it's a bug exploit. How, exactly, is a ring of material around a star supposed to prevent it from exploding?

Re: The race begins!
 

Thanks. The amazing part is that I went to high score with all those starbases and then back to #2 after constructing the RW. I think that kept the AI's from declaring war. Now all that research is being pumped into offensive techs and resource procurement so I can pay catch-up.

Bug exploit being the retroseries? I guess it is, however normal retrofits are flawed and I think the whole system should be overhauled. Example: it is cheaper to upgrade an anti-proton beam I to a XII than it is to upgrade an anti-proton beam XI to XII and it takes the same length of time. This is because the I is cheaper than the XI and component removal is a function of cost. Cost for retrofit should be the other way around and larger leaps of tech should take longer. The closer the gap in technology, the less it should cost. So in my mind that sorta evens things out. I always thought it was wierd that you could upgrade to totally different components. My opinion is that retrofitting should only be able to add new stuff if there's space or upgrade existing components to more advanced versions. A total redesign should come at a very high cost. But, we shouldn't get into the retrofit discussion here anyway.

Re: The race begins!
 

I think he meant 'exploit' in that a ringworld can prevent the star from exploding.

Looks and sounds like you had to do a lot of calculator work for this one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: The race begins!
 

Yup, I even made a little chart to make it easier. I normally don't use retroseries mostly because I don't find it fun. To get the RW base it took the original starbase construction then 8 (!) retrofits to get it all the way to a RW base. At least I know it's possible now to prevent that event, provided your research, resources and system defense can support it.


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I thought of this too late, but I should have saved the game off and released it as a scenario. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif maybe after declaring war on all the AI's first...

Re: The race begins!
 

Yeah, it would have made an excellent scenario!

Re: The race begins!
 

The "Star about to vaporize your empire; leave now" is indeed a nifty and fun scenario.

My Exodus Scenario is just sittin' on Imagemodserver, waiting to be downloaded http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif