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So it looks like Mines are still bugged.

:(
Well, drat. So much for that idea then.
Maybe it did get fixed by now but then you'd have to upgrade ..
 
If we stop having contact, will it then also start drifting towards 0?
So you'd need to permanently have a diplomat stationed to maintain treaties?

The treaties themselves also generate positive diplomatic modifiers. So no.

Ah, so another ship would never be close enough to benhit by the nuke?

Exactly. Regular missiles actually have nuclear warheads.

How often do they ask?
And if it doesn't hurt their view of us if we ask them to leave, perhaps we should, then.

At most, once every 5 day build cycle.


The Bork ships have been moving about as fast as Emotion I class Battlecruisers.

And they were specifically OPTIMIZED to be very fast.

Looks like another advanced NPR then.
To be fair I expect the game to specialise tech more than we do.

But once we win Naval supremacy, it hardly matters how long it takes to build units. We can keep them bottled up on the surface until we feel ready to invade.

They will also keep building ground units, moreso if they don't have to spend minerals on ships.
Until they run out, that is.


Our Diplo with the Modrons is +102.3

With the Bork, it's +10

No communications with the Bork yet, right?
 
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I'm going to try a few more experiments with mines.

I realize that they're completely broken... they disappear five seconds after you lay them... but they would just be SO useful if we could get them to work!

It's obviously a bug. They SHOULDN'T vanish like that. So I'll see if I can TRICK the game into "forgetting" to remove them.

Two things I can try:

1) Give the mine a bit of fuel, but no engine. That way, the game will think the mine still has fuel left, and won't remove it!

2) Mount the entire two-stage mine on top of a dummy third stage. Have the third stage booster deploy the upper two stages as a unit. Maybe the game will remove the booster, and leave the two upper stages?
 
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Second attempt... the Petard Mk2. I've added a few drops of fuel.

sc-2114.jpg
 
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Another "significant progress" result with the Bork.
 
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Diplomacy heating up.

sc-2116.jpg


Communications established with the Bork.
 

That's actually annoying.

Those messages about the Modron presence in Harmony - They seem to suggest we send in a bigger fleet or more population to justify our claims with. Maybe we can send some more stuff?

I've found the rules on how this works:

https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118362#msg118362

Diplomacy Part 3: Claiming Systems from NPRs

In the same way that NPRs can warn players to leave a system, a player can warn an NPR. On the Intelligence and Foreign Relations window, there is a tab for Known Systems for each NPR. You can select a system and then set a 'Protection Status' for the selected system in connection with the selected NPR. Alternatively, you can set a protection status for the system on the galactic map and that status will be set for any alien race when they are first detected in the system. The six statuses are shown below with their ‘Demand Number’ (0-5) and their ‘Demand Strength’.

Protection Status
0. No Protection 0
1. Suggest Leave: 1
2. Request Leave: 1.41
3. Request Leave Urgently: 1.73
4. Demand Leave: 2
5. Demand Leave with Threat: 2.24

If you set a status for a specific combination of system and NPR, then if that NPR is detected by you in that system during a construction phase it will be informed of your demand unless it is already allied or hostile.

The impact of the message on the NPR decision to accept or reject your demand is shown by the ‘Demand Strength’ in the list above, which is the square root of the ‘Demand Number’. A Request is 41% more likely to work than a Suggestion, while a Demand with Threat is 2.24x more effective than a Suggestion. The Demand Value represents the idea that, from the perspective of the NPR, the forcefulness of your language may represent a willingness to use force.

While the strength of your demand plays a part in the NPR decision, it also has a significant effect on relations with that NPR. So a higher demand might increase the chance the NPR will leave, but it also increases the chance of starting a war. If you demand the NPR leaves a system it doesn't care about you will cause fairly minor damage, but you could have made a polite request and it may have left with hardly any impact on relations. If you demand an NPR abandons what it regards as a primary system, that might work if you have a significant military advantage and the NPR is aware of it, but it might also cause the NPR to open fire immediately.

System Values
1 Neutral
2 Claimed
3 Secondary
4 Primary
5 Core
6 Capital

This relationship impact is equal to (Demand Number ^2) * (System Value ^2) * (Xenophobia / 50). So a demand to leave a primary system would have the impact of 256 * (Xenophobia / 50), while a request to leave a claimed system would have an impact of only 16 * (Xenophobia / 50).

The demand will be rejected if the NPR has not detected populations of your race with a total EM signature of (10 * Xenophobia) or more. The NPR will base this on actual populations, not currently detected populations, as it is assumed you will provide the necessary evidence to back up your demand.

Otherwise, the demand will be accepted based on Demand Value plus the following additional factors:

Accessible System Value
For each system that would no longer be accessible if the claim was accepted, including the target system, a value is assigned equal to (System Value ^2)/4. For example, a Claimed system is worth 1, a Secondary system is worth 2.25, a Primary system is worth 4, etc. Each individual system value is calculated first and then the results are summed.

Military Advantage
This assessment depends on the total size of your military forces that have been detected by the NPR during the last five years in comparison to its own (with an assumption of some as-yet-unseen forces) and its assessment of relative technology based on its observation of your ships. I don't want to go into too much detail on the Player Military Advantage, but if the NPR believes the racial balance of forces is equal, Player Military Advantage will be equal to 1. For the NPR to believe you have an advantage, it will need to see some firepower. This is based on total known forces, not local known forces, so generating a high Military Advantage number is difficult unless you show off a large portion of your forces. You won't be able to simply send in a survey ship and ask the NPR to move out

Population Factor
This is equal to SQRT(Total EM Signature of Player Populations in System / Total EM Signature of NPR Populations in System). However, this factor can never be higher than the fourth root of (Total EM Signature of Player Populations in System / 100). For example, if the player had 1000 EM Signature and the NPR has 200 EM Signature, the factor would be 1.78 (because the fourth root of (1000/100) is lower than SQRT(1000 / 200). This is to limit the advantage when the populations are relatively small or the NPR has no populations. Population Factor is the best ’peaceful option’ as demonstrating a large population is much more likely to achieve a decision in your favour.

Resistance
(Xenophobia + Militancy + Determination) / 150. If the NPR has low militancy, low determination and low xenophobia, it will be much easier to push around, and vice versa. This is difficult to assess because it is an unknown factor.

If Military Advantage * Demand Value * Population Factor) > (Accessible System Value * Resistance), the NPR will accept the claim.

For example, if the NPR has militancy, determination and xenophobia all at 50, then the value to overcome for a Secondary system is 2.25. If there are no populations and you use ‘Demand Leave’ which is worth 2x, you will need a Military Advantage greater than 1.125. Making this demand will cause a negative relationship impact of (4^2) * (3^2) * (50/50) = 144. If you have a significant advantage in population in the system, then you require a smaller military advantage or can use a lesser demand.

If the NPR rejects your demand to withdraw, the protection status for that system for that NPR is reset to No Protection, so that further diplomatic penalties are not incurred. If you want to re-instate the demand (at whatever level), it will generate a new penalty.

If the NPR decides it must withdraw based on its assessment of the situation, it will evacuate its ships and transfer any colonies to your control. These will start at a status of Occupied. The system will be set to 'Alien Controlled' (Player controlled) from the perspective of the NPR and it will ignore the system when deploying forces. This will change if conflict breaks out.

Note that the player vs NPR and NPR vs player functionality for claiming systems are a little different. Both sides can send messages to each other and the types of messages are effectively the same. The difference is the method of delivery and the potential reaction. This is because I wanted to give the player maximum flexibility in Diplomacy, while still proving a structured approach for the NPR. For example, the player view of the NPR in terms of diplomatic points does not drop if the NPR ignores demands to leave. The player can decide whether it is necessary to go to war.
 
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How come?

Well, when NPR's are generated they get a fixed amount of research points, based off the player's empire strength. That value can be up to 120% of ours, but also as low as 80%.
NPR's then spend those points on research, and if I'm not mistaken they will choose a path through the tree based on what they want to specialise in. A result of which is that they will in general have fairly one-sided research trees.

Players, on the other hand, tend to branch out a lot more to cover various contingencies. Do cheap research because it's cheap, basically. But that also means the NPR will get further down the tech tree than the player will, even if not by gigantic amounts, at a cost of less diverse technological capabilities.
 
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Nice.

Those messages about the Modron presence in Harmony - They seem to suggest we send in a bigger fleet to justify our claims with. Maybe we can send some more stuff? I think military tonnage and population counts are the two deciding factors here.

We can also take bigger risks with our messages - set the protection status higher, basically. They are more likely to accept a demand than a suggestion, as described in the Diplomacy rules post I just linked.
But maybe we can do both? I don't know.
 
Communications established with the Bork.

The Dione Clan. And they haven't shown up in ZNZ yet either, have they?
At least now we can talk to them we might make some progress on diplomacy with them.
 
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Way ahead of you.

We have already been sending Infrastructure to Harmony, so that we can ship in colonists without asphixiating them.

Gave the shipping order to a civvie company. The first load is arriving now, in fact.

sc-2117.jpg


I'll send a substantial part of the fleet, and some orbital maintenance modules.



The Dione Clan. And they haven't shown up in ZNZ yet either, have they?
At least now we can talk to them we might make some progress on diplomacy with them.

The Bork are in AX Microscopii as well as the ZNZ.
 
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We can also take bigger risks with our messages - set the protection status higher, basically. They are more likely to accept a demand than a suggestion, as described in the Diplomacy rules post I just linked.
But maybe we can do both? I don't know.
It could wipe out our entire progress, though...
 
Way ahead of you.

We have already been sending Infrastructure to Harmony, so that we can ship in colonists without asphixiating them.

Gave the shipping order to a civvie company. The first load is arriving now, in fact.

View attachment 1229559

I'll send a substantial part of the fleet, and some orbital maintenance modules.





The Bork are in AX Microscopii as well as the ZNZ.
Where are they settling?
Thought that system only had adgeroids
 
Where are they settling?
Thought that system only had adgeroids
There's a planet with CC about 4.

Similar conditions to Jupiter's largest moons.

EDIT: We are settling that planet. Not them.
 
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I'm gonna send something over half a million tons of Navy to Harmony, and then ask again, not quite so politely.
 
Where are they settling?
Thought that system only had adgeroids
That's what they're "settling".

Looks like stacks of auto-mines, to me.
 
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