
The Story Thread is up and running, SDNW4 has officially begun!

No, we just like messing with your headsKarmic Knight wrote: Do the Collectors worship the Gift, and protect it and its propagation above all else?
Ah, because the Knights of Order can respect the drive to propagate the faith, if the Collectors were so inclined to allow their logic to be called a faith.PeZook wrote:No, we just like messing with your heads
...
That came off wrong *hides bonesaw*
Just in time for me to hit the time where I really can't work weekends, so I shall make my posts next week, if not tonight.Steve wrote:Well, after two and a half months of whining and arguing and planning... we've made it to start date!![]()
The Story Thread is up and running, SDNW4 has officially begun!
On the contrary. By the time you remember how terrible it is, you've forgotten what it is that's terrible, and since it's impossible to remember isolated terribleness without a terrible thing to remember... it vanishes and you're happy again!PeZook wrote:Ah, good to know organics sitll enjoy the tradition of selective quoting. Must be terrible to have such a low memory capacity to not remember 50% of a pointSimon_Jester wrote:Well, you would, being brain donors. Anyway...
Talk all you want, just stay off the property. If you want to start your own hyperwave broadcast station, we'll see about negotiating bandwidth rights with the Ministry of Ecology.Most of you don't appreciate us talking about The Gift. For some reasonSimon_Jester wrote:FINISHED!
[brandishes Giant Ion Cannon]
Look, Mr. Robot Man, I've got nothing specific against you and yours, just... no solicitors, OK?
[continues brandishing]
Steel endures, but meat has erogenous zones.PeZook wrote:We prefer to think of it as getting rid of useless trash. Once you accept The Gift, your perception of the universe becomes so superior that a meat-based processor seems...disgustingly weak.
'Tis but a question of programming and clever sensor placement.Beowulf wrote: Steel endures, but meat has erogenous zones.
I know, it makes my $760 monsters look tame.Siege wrote:I gotta say, going by the Wiki there's an enormous proliferation of absurdly massive (1000+ points) warships going on. It wasn't so bad when an exception was made for the Collectors and the Chamarrans had one unique ship, but now we also have Byzantine battlebarges and battleships, Pfhor "Light Dreadnoughts", an immobile, $4000 point warstation by the Klavostanis (which I have slightly less issues with because of its immobility), Karlack world eather motherships... And that is with half the navies in the galaxy currently still unknown.
Frankly I think this is getting a bit ridiculous.
And it makes my $350 ships look like midgets.Norade wrote:I know, it makes my $760 monsters look tame.Siege wrote:I gotta say, going by the Wiki there's an enormous proliferation of absurdly massive (1000+ points) warships going on. It wasn't so bad when an exception was made for the Collectors and the Chamarrans had one unique ship, but now we also have Byzantine battlebarges and battleships, Pfhor "Light Dreadnoughts", an immobile, $4000 point warstation by the Klavostanis (which I have slightly less issues with because of its immobility), Karlack world eather motherships... And that is with half the navies in the galaxy currently still unknown.
Frankly I think this is getting a bit ridiculous.
Not compared to me, but that's what a $9,000 difference in naval budgets will do.Grif wrote:And it makes my $350 ships look like midgets.Then again I do have a disproportionate amount of carriers compared to some of the OrBats that I have looking over.
Few do; Steve's making them take six years to build and nine to finish saw to that.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I have no plans to lay down any battle barges and battleships any time soon.
You tell yourself your fleet will be enough when it comes face to face with my 38 ship battle group anchored by a $760 heavy dreadnought!Simon_Jester wrote:Few do; Steve's making them take six years to build and nine to finish saw to that.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I have no plans to lay down any battle barges and battleships any time soon.
Honestly, I don't mind the idea of everyone (or nearly everyone) having a few... well, the one I'm most closely involved in I think of as a "supermonitor;" that's where the giant ion cannon in the prologue went- the Union of Four Stars built a Really Big sector defense ship around it.
The existence of supermonitors doesn't bother me, because I routinely move my capital ships around in fleets large enough to be quite capable of wolfpacking and killing one. Sure, it'll have escorts, but I can always tell myself that the combined cost of two or three battleship divisions should be able to match any probable escort fleet they'll stack on the supermonitors.
I think everyone has incentives to actually build ships in the 350-700 range; the time required for construction gets prohibitive after that. Given the sheer depth of the backstory, it's no surprise that a lot of countries built supermonitors at one point or another, and still keep them around because it's more cost effective to refit than to scrap. But the construction time rules create significant problems with the idea of building ships that cost an enormous amount of money during the game.![]()
In fact, I think that's the real reason we even see the supermonitors in the game- with so much backstory, no one has to worry about the enormous construction time involved in assembling the damn things. Who would bother to lay down a ship that won't be finished for a decade now, though?
Besides, when all's said and done, killing one of these empires' supermonitors is the perfect time for them to be shocked enough to make it a major game event- either they go all out total war when you blow up the pride of their fleet, or they surrender, or something.
Not quite, I have something far more sinister in mind. *maniacal laughter* Ahem.PeZook wrote:Holy crap the Karlacks are in reality escaped genetic experiments of the USCR led by a ghoul of President Shady!
I laid them down before I knew there were going to be $1,200 point battle barges laying around, but you're right compared to some they're rather modest flagships perhaps showing that the RIS shipyards have yet to be tested by a real war. I would rather have a more balanced force than one comprised of too many super heavies though. It gives a fair bit more flexibility and allows a more measured response to threats.Simon_Jester wrote:Your 760s are on the border between what I think of as the "battleships" (the heaviest combatants I intend to build) and the "supermonitors" (ships costing a lot more than battleships, generally 1000$ or over). You already have half a dozen and are free to turn out more, obviously, but I don't feel all that nervous about the prospect of having to face the Expansion-class in combat. They're respectable, and I certainly wouldn't want to tangle with them at less than two to one odds... why do you think my heavy capital ships travel in pairs and trios anyway?![]()
Given the sheer cost of those battlegroup, I'm more worried about facing the aggregate tonnage of the rest of the fleet than I am about the flagship.
EDIT: Hey, Steve, is a nation's ongoing small craft production counted as part of the construction it lays down annually, or separately? I'd expect it to count; 10% of my GDP dedicated to ship construction would give me 5900$ worth of everything being laid down (and, except for Heavy and larger hulls, completed) that year, not just starships.