Turn 2404.0:
Researched: Nothing (working on some high-cost techs)
The Youbut are somewhat crippled at this point, but they've definitely been putting up a decent fight - here's one of the larger battles from 2403.7
before:
after:
Ouch. I glassed the planet, but it had about 10 weapons platforms that tried very hard to tear me a new one. If it had launched the 30+ fighters as well, I might not have won that combat.
One other thing I noticed in this combat is that even though I had (a few) direct-fire ships, they would not fire on the satellites. I'm not sure why - as far as I can tell, direct-fire weaponry should do just fine against satellites.
In 2403.9, I was attacked by 8 of these:
Note the level-3 anti-proton beam and the emissive armor. Their designs are interesting, but unfortunately somewhat light on weaponry.
The main problem I'm seeing in the battles is that half their ships usually start with 0 ordnance and have to run away. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm guessing that they're having a hard time building resupply depots.
The Sithrak are still sitting quietly in their system and I've managed to build up a sizeable fleet to go in after them soon (now that the Youbut aren't a looming threat).
Otherwise, all quiet on the other fronts. Expansion continues unabated to the west, though it's defintiely slowed as I've stopped producing colonizers so that I could build up more warships.
Within a couple more months, I'll have rock colonization and the Sithrak and Youbut will be contained. At that point, I should about double (or more) my planetary holdings within the next year.
