Devnull AAR

[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

[Azatol]

Its interesting to see so many empires with the talisman. Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you, but you seem to be doing well.

I'll have to try Devnull mod. I haven't reinstalled proportions yet, because I don't like how weak the AI is now, but maybe Devnull will be fun. That spinal mount sounds interesting.

[Oversway]

Actually there are only two empires with relgious in this game, and I havn't encountered the Norak yet. The toltayan are a thorn in my side but I'm catching up. At this point I'd say the praetorian are a bigger threat even without racial tech - they seem to be able to produce BBs much faster.

Yeah, Devnull has lots of cool toys I only took 1 racial tech, but there are cross-over components for each (example: chant crystal which needs religious and crystal). They have a cool space monsters AI as well, although I'm not using it in this game.

The devnull AI probably isn't much better than any other mod where people have actually updated the files and test them (tdm, etc.) Thats why I've purposefully limited myself (no diplomacy, not researching combat as much, etc.). I suspect AIC/proportions would be the best AI, although I havn't played it myself.

[Oversway]

I've been busy, but I managed to play a few more turns.

Organic Technology 3
Weapons Platform 2

2411.5 - THe toltayans have another suprise for me = high quality emissive armor, which negates up to 60 points of damage. This makes them immune to all the ships in my fleets except the new BBs with the spinal mounts, and most of those are still in transit. Once again, my fighters save me, as even a small stack can get over 60 points.
I did get to use one of the Spinal Mount BBs, and it was quite fun. I can nearly gut an enemy BB with 2 heavy mounted shield depleters and 2 spinal mounted lightning guns. If they all, hit. Another aspect of using such big weapons is you are putting your eggs in one (well two ) basket.

[Devnullicus]

This was really fun to read!

[Atrocities]

Remembering the good old days?