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.
The race begins!
Hybrid Mode
