Devnull AAR

[Oversway]

2409.3 - I have nearly secured the Toltayan system. There are no enemy ships in the system currently and I have one warphole guarded, and a large fleet 1 sector away. Providing that the toltayans don't have too many ships enter the sector next turn, I should seal it off and begin colonizing.
The toltayan ships are tough to fight, they are bigger, faster, and have better range, and talismans. I take heavy casualities when fighting them (except in warphole ambushes). Luckily, I have a lot of ships to lose

The praetorians are ahead in the 2nd Xi'Chung system. They have over twenty BB and light carriers in the system. I have a decent sized fleet but very outdated ships. I am building a 2nd fleet but I'm not sure how good it will be. The Xi'Chung have one planet left and one ship in that system. Their homeworld is in a neighboring system, but I havn't seen in there for awhile.

Wow: The praetorians send most of their ships through the warphole into my system. All are destroyed. I take some damage, but compared to their losses it is minor. It will be interesting to see if the Xi'Chung will be able to recover from this.

Research:
Computers 1
Deep Space Mining 2
Shields 4
Stellar Manipulation 2


I can l

[Oversway]

Do you recall the construction details of the Praetorian BBs? I'm curious as to how they compare with BBs by another AI, the Narn.

I'll take a look at the combat reports in my turn. I think I recall 6 or 8 PPBs as their main weapons, but I could be mistaken. I'm not aware of the Narn AI being available for devnull (but if it is, can you point me to it?), so the comparison might be a little off.

[Oversway]

I was mistaken

5 Engines
1 Heavy Mount Shield Depleter
5 Heavy Mount Anti Proton Beams
3 PDC
2 Anti-fighter Missile
2 Shield
1 Scattering Armor
1 Combat Sensors
1 ECM
1 Multiplex
1 Engineering Dept

[Hunpecked]

Thanks. The Narn are in the TDM Modpack; they're one of my opponents in a stock game against 5 AIs. Despite losing their home world, the Narn in my game got to battleships before I did. Coupled with their Talisman, the Narn PPBs gave me fits until I developed phased shields.

Typical Narn BB:

5 Ion Engine III (slow!)
1 Master Computer
6-7 Heavy Mount PPB V (dang!)
1 Talisman (yikes!)
2-3 PDC
3-4 Shield V (useless against my PPBs, muahahaha!)
1 ECM I or II
1 MultiTrack

So far the Narn are the only AI in the game to use PPBs. Now that I have phased shields, they should switch to APBs and take advantage of their perfect gunnery at long range.

If PPB vs shields works the same in Devnull as in stock, I would think the Praetorians would do better with all PPBs and no shield depleter on their BBs.

[Oversway]

PPB vs shields works the same in devnull, however each research level alternates between non-phased and phased (so level 1 shields gives you regular shield generator 1, level 2 gives you phased shield generatior 1, level 3 gives you regular shield generator 2, and so on). I find this diminishes the usefulness of PPBs.

I modified the Praetorian design a to somewhat min max them. So they have a better research ability than typical devnull. Most AIs seem to have BB now, with medium bonus. I'm only up to cruisers. Without my fighters, I'd be a goner.

Comparing to the Narn, the Toltayan BBS have a talisman and 4 or 5 APB and 1 or 2 torpedos. In devnull, torpedoes get a bonus to hit, and in later tech they are similar to stock null space projects (but reload of 4, bonus to hit, and I think better damage). My only complaint would be that the Toltayan BBS put the torpedos at the end. This maybe due to some AI limitation.

[Oversway]

Only had time for a turn and a half lately...

2409.4 - My fleet closes off the warppoint in in the Toltayan system, killing a Toltayan colony ship in the process. The Toltayans respond by sending five talisman equipped BBs through the warppoint. My defenses hold but take heavy damage to a few ships (none destroyed, however) and lose. I'm going to research better engines so I can catch up to the Toltayan ships. If I wasn't ambushing them at a warppoint, they would blast me to pieces before I do damage to them. I also need to start researching shield depleters, as I am relying too much on my fighters to knock out their shields (although they do a good job).

Suprisingly, the Xi'Chung send a large fleet of carriers and regular ships into a system next to my homeworld. It is a nebula sector in the warppoint that they come through. I barely fight them off, because the warppoint wasn't well defended and the fighters and sats are very old. I loose most of my defenses there. What saves me is that a third of their ships are missile carriers, which cannot target my units. I quickly ramp up construction to replace the fighters and sats, as well as ordering ships to head to that warp point. It will be several turns before the defenses are reinforced. Hopefully the Xi'Chung doesn't have another fleet waiting.


Research:
Propulsion 6

[Oversway]

2401.0 - The Xi'Chung have sent a few more ships through the system but nothing serious. The warp point they almost breached before is now fairly well guarded.

The toltayans warp a large fleet into their former system. The fleet is smaller ships,
with only 2 battleships, but I have bad starting positions. I loose two carriers and some fighters.

2401.1 - The toltayans warp another large fleet into their former system. They have one BB with a talisman but luckily I damage that component. The rest of the ships are carriers and small missile ships.
I have better position and take minor losses: a few dozen fighters aredestroyed, one ship is destroyed by missiles, and two others are severly damaged.

The Toltayan AI also appears to be doing the typical send four colony ships through a guarded warppoint. Good thing I gave them a bonus.

2401.2 - Praetorians send a decent fleet of 5 BBs and 5 carriers into my system. Considering they are the only race I'm not officially at war with, they sure attack me alot. Lost about fifty fighters.
I am also attacked by single toltayan ships, not anywhere near the disputed system. I wonder how big their empire is...


2401.3 - The Praetorians do it again, 5 BBs and 2 carriers, but at a less well defened warp point. Again my defenses hold, but I loose 3/4 of the fighters and half the ships. I need to do something or the toltayans and praetorians are going to wear me down.

2401.4 - The Praetorians are persistent, but they only have 3 BBs and 2 carriers, I have better position this time. I had fortified the warp point as best I could, mainly with fighters. It works. Next turn several ships will arrive as well.

2401.5 - First contact with Cue Cappa. A single battle cruiser is destroyed by my warp point defenses. Otherwise, Toltayan and Praetorian offenses continue, but with small fleets.

2401.7 - Cue Cappa moves in a small fleet into a seperate system. Luckily, they are destroyed without converting any of my ships.

2411.1 - I (finally) send in a fleet to secure the system in dispute by myself, the Praetorian, and the Xi'Chung. I move the existing fleet to block the Praetorians. However, I am unsure if it will hold against their typical fleet of BBs - it is mostly small ships and old fighters.

2411.3 - I secure the system with suprisingly little resistance. Perhaps this is the calm before the storm.

On this turn the first BBs are rolling off the space yard assembly lines. I've designed them with two Spinal Mount (I think its x15 size and damage) Lightning Guns, we'll see how they do. Because of thier size, they will probably hit first after armor & shields, but on the other hand they retrofit quite quickly, which is nice since I'm retrofitting them right away. They also make the ship about 50/50 in terms of organics to minerals, which is nice. Previous to that, all my ships cost many more minerals.

Research:

Propulsion 7
Shield Damaging Weapons 1
Stellar Harnessing 3
Planetary Weapons 2
Shield Damaging Weapons 2
Chemistry
Repair 3
Shield Damaging Weapons 3
Armor 1
Advanced Military Science 5
Shield Damaging Weapons 4
Armor 2
Propulsion 8
Armor 3
Ship Construction 6
Stellar Harnesssing 4
Computers 2
Ship Construction 7
Organic Weapons 5
Monolithic Construction 2
Armor 4
Organics Extration 2
Planet Utilization 4