New Game : Adamant Mod 15.02 10 Planet Small G.

[Fyron]

douglas said:
How about an everyone vs. the space monsters game with a new twist: just one space monster race against as many players as you can get to join, and the space monsters played by me .

The space monsters need some work to be able to handle Adamant planetary defenses...

[Ragnarok-X]

Just edit the designcreation files and allow them to pack 1-2 antiplanet bombs and everything will be okay, as long as massive shield values for facilites are tweaked

[douglas]

Imperator Fyron said:

The space monsters need some work to be able to handle Adamant planetary defenses...

Ah, but they'd be played by a human, not the AI. I'd build up the necessary firepower eventually, I hope. I'm willing to try anyway. Heck, after seeing what tiny space monsters can do to early fleets in the Galactic Invasion game, I'd be willing to go with a multiple-planet start and scrap all but one of my worlds on turn one if no more players join. I haven't joined yet myself because I have enough other games going on that I don't want to join another unless it's going to be really different. If the other players like the idea of teaming up on a race of human-controlled space monsters, then let me know and I'll join as the monsters.

[Fyron]

Ragnarok-X said:
Just edit the designcreation files and allow them to pack 1-2 antiplanet bombs and everything will be okay, as long as massive shield values for facilites are tweaked

They have no anti-planet bombs... Remember, they have a separate "paradigm," the space monster racial traits...

[Ragnarok-X]

Yeah i know, but it wouldnt be a problem to create a new weapon, antiplanet bomb or acid or whatever at the bottom of the research file, with prerequisites only be "monster race" trait .

I prefer a more stock game though, no monsters, just a few empires fighting it out.

[Fyron]

So we are in agreement then... monsters need reworking.

[CovertJaguar]

Even as fun as "The Galactic Invasion" is I would prefer just a normal beatdown as well.

[brianeyci]

Yes. Plus, I don't want to play a nomadic race anymore. Seesh, how the hell do they expand. Without being able to colonize planets, they're hopelessly outclassed in expansion -- what do you do if an enemy colonizer just walks into your system and plants a planet right below your remote mining sats? Simple, nothing.

Maybe there is a correct way to play a nomadic race -- they seem suited to the "turtling" style to me, but they turtle really crappily. If you turtle, the point is supposed to be focusing your resources on research and gathering a lot of ships. The gathering a lot of ships could work, except as tech gets uped those dozens of old ships with ultra-recycler node become useless. And research, oh boy, building a research outpost takes two turns and you can't even mount an ultra-recycler node on one meaning that building a viable research program means tons of maintainence. IMO, research outPosts should take 1% maintainence by default. Ragnarok suggested to me that I use mining satellites, well that's a good idea but not nearly enough as everybody's mining facilities are better than mining sats and far easier to setup. Nomadic race should have their own ultra-effective remote mining components to make up for this.

Nomadic race is definitely for expert players, and I'm not sure even an expert player could keep up. IMO it should be tweaked so that research outPosts have 1% maintainence, and the ultra-recycler node component should be smaller. If it was smaller, you could put it on research outPosts. I took massive bonuses on construction, and on emergency build on a homeworld it still takes two turns to make a research outpost.

Brian

[Fyron]

Nomads have to use diplomacy... They are not meant to expand as normal races do. They are definitely not meant for a purely competitive game. They make excellent merchant empires. Imagine the value of buying a fleet of practically maintenance-free ships... SuicideJunkie, the creator of Nomads, is fond of taking all of the racial tech traits and making ships for sale using lots of fancy gadgets...

And research, oh boy, building a research outpost takes two turns and you can't even mount an ultra-recycler node on one meaning that building a viable research program means tons of maintainence.

They aren't supposed to use research outPosts, actually... Instead, use Research Teams on ships (I forget whether they are mountable on bases or not). In future Versions, the research outpost is not available to Nomads.

Ragnarok suggested to me that I use mining satellites, well that's a good idea but not nearly enough as everybody's mining facilities are better than mining sats and far easier to setup. Nomadic race should have their own ultra-effective remote mining components to make up for this.

They do. Make mining ships or bases with an ultra recyler node... practically all profit.

[Suicide Junkie]

In the P&N on PBW game, I was in first place for a while, and spent most of the game in second place.

I only really went into combat once, and that was to capture a planet that was pissing off people by causing a whole pile of stalemate combats every turn (since nobody had weapons in the area).

Most of my losses were to damaging warppoints, I think.

-----

Key things to do:
1) Forge an alliance right away. The trade income will be all you need to prosper, and in return, you can give them access to your ship and base technologies.
2) Von Neumann bases in orbit of allied homeworlds, and in level 4+ nebulae systems.
3) Use the bases to build insane numbers of ships and units in parallel at any location in the galaxy. If you've done the bases right, you should have about 2^5 = 32 bases 10-15 turns after you first visit.
4) Sell your advantages. Somebody needs a quick fleet of 60 cruiser to fend off an enemy? Those Von Neumann bases will let you deliver from almost anywhere with top of the line tech in a few short turns.

One mistake I made in that game was building too many cargo ships.
When you're making that many ships simultaneously, it is very very easy to make more than you need.
I had about 50 large freighters sitting in stock when I had yet to sell the Last of my medium ones. Warships would have been much better, since they have a naturally limited lifetime.

And taking all six P&N racial techs came in very handy
"Maintenance-free, biocrystal-armored, talisman targetting, grav-driven, living warship with Psycho-temporal weaponry. You know you want it!"