To Cover All the Stars in Me(Endless Space Beta Let's Play)

So, some may have heard about the game called Endless Space. It's a 4x game, in the vein of Masters of Orion 1/2 or Galactic Civilizations. And, if you preorder it, you get access to the Alpha. And, while this doesn't sound like the best deal, well, the Alpha's pretty damn good. I don't think it's quite at the level of Galactic Civs or MoO, but most of the areas it falls short are seem to be things that the Development team is aware of, and has plans to address.

Anyways, I was thinking of doing a let's play on these boards, both to get the word out, and also as a bit of fun. It would be in the style of [URL="http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130471"]Let's play Galactic Civilizations II! "All the lights in the sky are... ?"/URL].


To start, some Voting. First off, Factions!

There are currently 5 playable factions, with more on the way. The Five you have to chose from are as follows:

The Cravers

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"Created from an insectoid life form, the Cravers are in the purest sense hunter-gatherers and have never evolved the processes necessary to raise crops or domesticated animal matter. Once their home world was consumed, they left to seek further nourishment. If they do not continue to expand, discover and exploit new worlds, their society could literally eat itself to death. Feeding the hive is their all-consuming purpose: the notions of 'treaty', 'trade', and 'peace' do not exist. A true Craver is one who sees the rest of the galaxy's species as nothing but its next meal."

A bug race. They have pretty good ships and fleets, can fit more people on meduim and smaller planets than others, and can get research points for each ship they destroy. They also have Locust Points. These give any planet +25% to it's productivity for 50 turns, +0% for another fifty after that, and -25% for the rest of the game. Also, they can never be at peace with everyone.

Hissho

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"The Hissho are a modern and civilized people descended from avian DNA. However, they are avian in the way that many species of dinosaur had avian characteristics; in fact, they are not unlike feathered pterodactyls. A race of highly competitive tribal warriors, their history is one of bloodshed, conquest, vengeance and domination. While this has created a very hardy, aggressive, and dangerous people, it has also slowed their advancement and limited their numbers. When they did reach the stars to find other peoples waiting for them, their reaction was to conquer and dominate. Their innate and learned sense of flight makes them superior pilots."
Standard 4x race: they're tough in battle, but dumb. Get a couple bonuses that trigger when they win or lose battles.

Horatio

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"Incredibly wealthy and only slightly less deranged, Horatio was an Imperial trillionare who left to discover his own star cluster. Finding a planet sprinkled with labs of ancient cloning technology left by the Endless, the boredom soon drove Horatio to create a race of allies, servants, and slaves who were every bit as gorgeous as the most beautiful person in the universe -- Horatio. Once the planet was repopulated, Horatio the First had only to look up, regard the stars and realize how much more beautiful they, too, would be if they were filled with... Horatios. The rest, as they say, is history."

An offshoot of the Human faction, this is the Breeder faction. Have a couple bonuses regarding heroes, can fit more people in medium and smaller planets, but their ships cost more.

Sophons

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"Curious, analytical and inquisitive, the Sophons are a people who pride knowledge over all. No theory -- or machine -- is so perfect that it can resist a bit of tinkering: advances come both in great leaps and tiny increments. The Sophons travel the galaxy driven by a thirst to discover and understand. As such, they view war as nothing more than a distraction from the serious things in life. However, with their advanced technologies, they can become a surprisingly dangerous foe."

Another 4x staple: the smart but weak race. Bonuses to research, penalties to fighting.

United Empire

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"The Empire is theoretically under the control of a central monarchy ruled by the Emperor. However, the rate of expansion means the society can no longer be effectively ruled by a sole authority. In fact, the systems of the colonial diaspora are colonized by designated Corporations who work hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Investment and Development. The Ministry of Security is involved as well, due to the need for native and/or alien pacification, security forces, defense and surveillance."

Humanity is the economic race in this game, though interestingly they're also one of the evil factions. Diplomatic Alignment hasn't been integrated yet, but I assume it will give bonuses and penalties to certain actions once it does.

More information can be found here.

Additionally, I leave the choice regarding the number of other factions up to you as well: there can be as few as 1, and as many as 7 other factions.

Interesting, I might have to check this out.

We're voting on what race is going to be played? I like playing the charismatic, Lawful Evil so my vote is going for The United Empire.

In the case of a tie not involving the UE, I'll let my vote count as one for the Psilons Sophons.

I vote for five other factions, as well.

Awesome, I'm looking forward to seeing this let's play in action. - I assume it will be a screenshot let's play like the let's play you linked?


I vote for The Sophons because science, really.

I also vote for there being only four other empires, as i dislike repeat empires

Everyone is so humanoid. Why?

Why is only humanity divided? Why do the other species not have subfactions?

Of the currently playable factions, I'd go with Sophons or Horatio. The former have the nicest looking ships, the latter allow for crazy roleplay.

Personally, I would like to play Amoeba - because they are sapient amoeba.

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Originally Posted by Icedaemon

Everyone is so humanoid. Why?

Why is only humanity divided? Why do the other species not have subfactions?

Of the currently playable factions, I'd go with Sophons or Horatio. The former have the nicest looking ships, the latter allow for crazy roleplay.

Personally, I would like to play Amoeba - because they are sapient amoeba.

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One more vote for the sentient amoeba.

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Originally Posted by Grif

One more vote for the sentient amoeba.

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As fun as Sophons could be... yeah, Horatio is pretty clearly the only choice here.

The amoeba aren't playable yet. Also, one of the other factions yet to be released is the Sowers, terraforming robots built by the endless that achieved sapience, and decided to continue their programming by preparing all worlds for the Endless. Even though the endless are gone. Still, neither of them are released, so I can't play them yet.


That's 2 non-humaniod factions out of 8 or 9 planned. Percentage wise, that more than most 4x games I've seen(in fact, the only one I can think of that might come close is Masters of Orion 3....).


And, to tally the votes, so far we have one vote for the United Empire and the Sophons, and 2 votes for Horatio.

Faction wise, we have one vote for 5 other factions, and one vote for 4 other factions.

Another vote for Horatio. It's a hilarious notion.

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Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly

Another vote for Horatio. It's a hilarious notion.

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Aye, if the space Amoebas aren't available, throwing my hat in for Horatio then.

Yes, another vote for Horatio. I think 4 other factions would be cool.

I have been pondering pre-ordering this game for a while- it seems really good in concept, but the apparently RTS space battles have been giving me pause.

The battles aren't quite real time. It's more like Galactic Civilizations, except their is some user input if you chose to do manual instead of auto. Namely, their are 5 phases: Arrival, Long, Mid, Short, Aftermath. For Long, Mid, and Short, each side chooses one 'card' that basically determines what your tactics and the like for the phase is. Some cards can cancel others out, giving a sort of rock-paper-scissors feel, though their are more than 3 categories.


Regarding the vote: seems like Horatio is in the lead.

Bumping, partially to announce that the voting will close in about a day. Then it'll start.

This looks interesting. I've been eyeing the game on Steam for a while now.

I'll go ahead and cast my vote for the Sophons, with a preference for some MAD SCIENCE! roleplaying.

Looks like Horatio, with four other empires has won. I'll get started on actually playing the game tonight.

There is big update comming on Monday , the game is going into beta, so you might want to pospone start till then, the patchwill probobly break save games.Also all the races will be available in beta.

Wow. Of all the luck... Looks like they just announced it today, too.

Eh, I'll still go with it, and see how far we get. Good news is that the Beta brings Multiplayer into the mix!

Horatio

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"And Lo, in that Time the First came down to Base Earth, and was Blessed, for he found there Great Machines. Using the Techniques recorded by them, he took his perfection, and doubled it. Again and again, he used the machines, creating a vast Host of the perfect. They spread, building a great city, but in time the First grew troubled. This one planet was perfection, true, but the Stars in the Night were numerous, and the beings there flawed. Thus he decided to spread his perfection even further, till he covered all the stars.

-Horatio, Private Journal Entry 1"

The Year is 3000 After Dust. Vast interstellar Empires span the galaxy, but none are content with the incredible wealth and power they already posses. Drawing inspiration from the past, they look to the great precursors, the Endless. A race of seemingly limitless power, they rules the stars for Millennia. Now only ruins and Dust remain, but combined those can give even the most unlikely of subjects world-shaking power.

Now a Five of the Great powers have set their sights on a new frontier to expand to. Most are sending their Best and Brightest. The Horatio simply sent one, for all of their race, such as it is, is far beyond the best and brightest of any other. Horatio himself has said so, thus it must be true. This, is his story.

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So, this is my first real Let's Play, and here's how I'm going to set it up. Pictures are going to be in spoilers, and all text in spoilers is considered OOC. Text outside of spoilers should be considered In Character.

I'll be asking for opinions occasionally on what paths to pursue. If anyone wants to take "positions of power", ask and I should be able to fit you in somewhere.

Now, to start off, the startup screen.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...ator/start.jpgThis shows most of the basic information about the game. One thing to note: I've disabled the Wonder, Expansion, and Economic victory conditions, largely due to the ease with which one can obtain them, without even really trying or without the enemy stopping you. That still leaves quite a few conditions, though.

I, Horatio-1929019287375876, have been entrusted with a grand duty. Though I but recently left the tanks and finished my education, Horatio himself granted me stewardship of a colony! Of course, I was shuffled off so fast that I haven't even had time to look over the planets that are now my responsibility. Still, I imagine that it shouldn't be too difficult: I'll be able to rely at least partially on the goodwill of other Horatio, and things should be rather sedate at an established Colony.

But the Trans-warp liner has left Intra-Space. Finally my first glimpse of...

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....
That can't be right. Let me turn up the zoom a bit.

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Yep, that's our Home System. In addition, we start out with 2 ships: one scout, and one colony. The Blue dot indicates a colonied planet. The Orange dot is one we don't have the ability to colonize yet, though certain technologies can change that.

The normal lines are...I think they're called strings. I call them Warp Lines or Phase Lanes, because well, those terms are from games I'm more familiar with. They are the initial way one can travel between stars, and at any given tech they also allow the highest movement rate, though wether or not they are faster depends on how direct a route they take.

The Misty line is a wormhole. Once you research a certain technology, you can travel from one end of a wormhole to another instantly, but doing so leaves the ship unable to move any further, no matter how much movement they would have had.

The Large pink Circle indicates 2 things, though one leads from the other. First off, that this is a colony, instead of an outpost. Secondly, because it is a colony, it spreads my empires influences. Unless I have an open borders treaty or a war with a given faction, I cannot pass through their influnce zones, and I can't pass through their's.

Oh.
I see.

This is simply a new seed colony. And I've been tasked with the glorious job of managing it's growth, till it fulfill's Horatio's great vision? Creating an Entirely new sector to join with Perfection?

Well, that or go back to the tanks if I fail. And not in one piece, either: a Horatio has no defects, after all. Well, let's see what I've been given.

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As homesystems go, this isn't too great. Oh, there's nothing really wrong with the initial planet, but it's simply okay, not special in any way. The fact that the only other planet is a gas giant does hamper the early game some, and means that this system will likely become a Tertiary system by mid-game.

Now, to explain what the fields mean. At the top left is the name of they system, and underneath that is the FISD display: Food, Industry, Science, and Dust. Do not, this isn't measured by planet but by system. Food determines how large a population you can support, as well as how fast the population grows. Industry is pretty obvious, as is science. Dust is money.

Next to that we have the Population display, which tells us the current population, how fast it's changing, if it's increasing or decreasing and how many people the system can currently support. Below that is the Approval rating. When this is high, FIS all get bonuses, and when it's low they get penalties. Grey means neither.

In the Middle are the planet displays. This shows how many people each planet can support, who much FISD they provide, as well as if they have any special anomalies, either good or bad. It also shows the Planetary Explorations, if you have any, as well as any special resources on a planet.

Below that, in the center is the build queue: it shows what the system is currently building, and what it will be building in the future. On the Right is the Hanger, which shows all ships currently docked, and the improvement section, which shows currently built system improvements. On the left, you can see which system improvements you can build, as well as the ship tab, which allows you to build new ships.
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This is the planetary view. It also shows the system queue in the middle bottom. In the upper middle, is shows the FISD that the planet provides, as well as what the current exploitation is, and what exploitation are available. Each exploitation boosts the production of a particular aspect of FISD on the planet it is built on. In addition, they give extra bonuses depending on the type of planet. For example, Arid planets proved bonus dust, so a Dust Exploitation built on an arid planet provides a total of +2 dust per population, instead of +1 per population. As you get more advanced Exploitations, the types of planets that provide bonuses increases, as does the bonuses provided. For example, using the last Dust Exploitation Tech, you gets a Base of +3 dust per pop, with an additional +3 dust if it's Arid, +2 if it's desert, and bonuses for a couple more planet types as well.

On the upper left, it would tell us the name and type of planet, but I had the mouse over the whirlpool in the uppermost left, which reveals the scores of all the players. Below that it reveals anomalies or resources if present, the local population, and the presence of a moon(this matters for certain things).

Especially in the Early game, production is more important than dust, so I'm building a production center. I'm going to need colony ships, and at the moment this is the only place they can come from.

Well, it's not the worst system. But why any Horatio would chose this as the start of a sector is beyond me. And why it hasn't been developed yet...!

Well, that's at least easy to rectify. Arid planets usually provide quite a bit of dust, but this sector needs production at the moment.

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Okay, there's more to come, but I need to get to sleep. I'll finish this tomorrow.

To Cover the Stars in Me, Year 1

Ug. The incompenant me who was here first left a real mess. It's going to take 5 years to get production up and running. Maybe getting an assistant would help: I have to be everywhere, but they can focus on the little picture. Yes, getting help sounds good. Surely their are some capable Horatio around here!

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Heroes work something like Masters of Orion 2, with a couple exceptions. First, they never die, at worst simply getting injured, though when that happens they can't work until they heal, which takes multiple turns, or you can pay a fee to get them up and running fast.

Each hero comes with 2 specialties, which help determine their starting stats, as well as what bonus abilities they will have access to later on. I think there are currently 5 specialties. Two civilian(one focused on Food and Labor, one on Dust an Science), Two War(on focused on strategy, the other on individual ships), and one that's a mix between the 2, able to give bonuses to either military fleets or civilian ships. Early game, the Food and Labor one is the best, though soon enough military heroes become pretty good as well. The Dust and Science one struggles at pretty much all points, currently. The Adventurer specialty(the mixed peace/war one) is best used as a support: it's skills aren't exactly the most powerful, but they can aid someone who has good abilities be even more useful.

It's our luck that we received no Labor heroes, but we don't really have the money to buy one at the moment anyways.

At least they are all Human, the race from which Horatio came from. But, really, no ambitious Horatio, really? And so focused on war. Would it hurt to focus on building stuff before blowing it all up?

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Ah, one of the most basic parts of any 4x game, the tech tree. The upper portion is the Military tree, which has weapons and most ship modules, like you'd expect. The left branch is the Diplomacy and Trading tree, which contains upgrades pertaining to dust income, trade, food, approval, and Heroes. The bottom area is the Expansion and Exploration. It allows colonization of advanced planet types, access to better hulls, boosts to travel speeds, the ability to terraform latter on, and gives access to the ability to travel through wormholes and eventually off the warplane system entirely. The Right branch is the Applied Science area, which gives boosts to science and production, as well as many useful ship tactics and equipment.

Right now, I focused on getting production, science, and the ability to colonize another type of planet.

Our Technological and Infrastructure situation isn't in a great shape either. Rather than focus on building a great sector, worthy of the Horatio, I had to attend to the most basic areas of competence. Expanding our colonization abilities, as well as our knowledge of production and science. So ugly, I fear, but necessary.

This might be my last entry for awhile, as there's simply so much to do.
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To Cover the Stars in Me, Year 20

Ah, finally, things have settled down, though with the number of new colonies we've founded over these past few years, that is somewhat surprising. I attribute it to the fact that I was able to establish a working bureaucracy to assist and advise me. In fact, a session of the Senate is starting soon: their advice may be key to this sector's, and my career's, growth.

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This is what our constellation looks like at this point. A couple good planets, but we have reached the point where more expansion requires research.

I managed the early expansion because it was largely a no brainier. I've yet to really find a 4x game where the first 20 or so turns have too much going on: you're essentially preparing for later.

Reader Input:

The most Glorious Horatio-1929019287375876 has officially opened the first session of the Sector Senate. Up for discussion are several issues. Most importantly, changing the names of the other colony systems to something more pleasing to the ear.

Of lower importance is what area of technology we should pursue, and if we should hire any of the Heroes provided. To leave the constellation, or to colonize more planets in the constellation, we must focus on the Exploration area, though our researchers theorize that it would not take long to reach such a point: likely less than 17 years to fully realize the appropriate precautions regarding wormhole travel. Doing so might be dangerous, however, and our military is currently almost non-existent. This could take much longer to fix, especially given that we can't simply slap weapons, armor, and engines together and send it on it's way like the other races: instead we must make this ship a work of art worthy of our presence.

As for the Heroes, the two military aligned ones could be useful, though at the moment we don't require such services. We can dismiss any of the offered ones, and more will come, though it shall take decades to do so.

What Say you, Senate of the Horatio?

The Wise Horatio-1929019287971562 at the stand

First, as I stand in front of the most ilustious compagny of myself, I would like to congratulate me, myself, I, And most importantly, of course, Horatio whose efforts and determination without which I would not be standing today, on this world. And it brings a tear to my eyes to know myself ready to bring to the rest of this galaxy the perfection it so rightfully deserves.

As I've been told our nearest planet is an unahbitable gas giant, I would suggest that we build a scout to find a suitable place to expand as soon as possible. it seems unlikely that we should meet another presence than ours soon so I do not believe armements to be a priority.

I believe for now that the decision taken by the msot glorious me n°1929019287375876 to seek to incresae production is a reasonable one and I support it. I wish, however, to ask if a more technicaly inclined me could give me a short description of the main of those 'research paths', such as 'Xenobotany' or 'Xenology', that are curently available to me and their usefullness and consequences before I take a closer more informed decision ?

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I'll be following this LP, it look fun.

Hope I'm not overdoing witht the 'first person of the singular' thing, it just sounded how they would talk given their flavor (also, I kind of find it hilarious to write.)

While I've played a few 4x game before, I'm not familiar with Master of Orion in particular, so I'm not sure how the hero mechanic works.

And Extremely Old Horatio takes the speakers platform. His garb indicates that he is part of the science caste, and behind him, facing the audience, a projector springs to life.

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Esteemed members of the Senate, I am Loquaci-0-U5. By our current estimates, we will finish work on compact Fusion reactors in less than a year. This will increase the speed of our ships due to mass saved, as well as allowing profitably colonization of Arctic Worlds, adding to the list of Garden Worlds(Terran, Ocean, Jungle), Arid, and Tundra(from Xenobotany). Continuing to focus on this area, we could easily allow profitable colonization of desert worlds, as well as finalizing the first true-warship hull design, the destroyer, and most importantly we could unlock the mysteries of the Casmir Effect, allowing travel through wormholes. There is only conjecture on what lies past that, but it certainly contains more hull blueprints, as well as ways to make more planets colonizable, like Lava, Barren, and the various Gas Giants. Possibly even ways to turn one type of planet to another, though such methods are undoubtedly expensive.

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But that is not the only area we could explore. We currently only have the absolute barest capabilities with regards to weapons. And While we have yet to encounter someone to use said weapons on, we know that there are others out here, though they do not reach the perfection of Our Form. There are three main branches of military technology to explore, and while it is best to focus on one branch, we would be remiss to not study them all to some degree, lest our foes simply counter us. Our basic choices amount to improving our kinetic weapons, as well as anti missile defenses, going with missiles and improving the general sturdiness of our ships, focusing on shields to block energy weapons, as well as increasing our ground combat and energy production capabilities, or focusing on Directed Energy Weapons and ways to improve our ability to deflect kinetic weapons away without damage.

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We also could continue to explore the applied science area. On the science side of things, we believe we can achieve something similar to a cloaking effect, which will, when activated in battle, interfere with our enemies aim, but the system will only work for a short time. Further on the path is the potential to improve our laboratories greatly across an entire system, but at a price, as well as allow the harvesting of certain unusual and valuable resources. Beyond that is a method to induce telepathy among the researchers and scout's, improving the cooperation and production of the former, and the detection abilities of the latter. On the production side, we could harness the power of antimatter more reliably, and if a sufficient source is found it could even be weaponized in some way. The same methods could also be adapted to boost productivity across a system, most especially on asteroids and lava planets. Further on, new forging practices would allow us to shrink components in ships, granting increased tonnage, as well as allowing the application of Hexafurrum, which besides its use in production can be used in advanced an effective weapons. By mixing the two branches, we can boost repair rates of ships as well as improve our anti-missile defenses temporarily in battle. Also, there is a somewhat expensive way to increase food production, most useful in extremely hostile climates, though we lack the ability to colonize those effectively yet.

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Finally, this area of research is a bit of a grab bag. Xenology would give a possible method to boost dust income, though it relies on a much higher tax rate than currently implemented. In addition, it would allow the harvesting of some unusual resources, which would likely be much more useful. Continuing on that branch, we would find increase our ability to trade with other factions, as well as dealing with them diplomatically in general. If we instead focused on the ground already broken by our studies in Soil Xenobiology, we could find a way to improve our common dust generating practices as well as a method to increase our planetary detection nets. Further on, we could unlock even greater food production systems, even ones useful on extremely hostile environments, though once again we lack the ability to colonize such places yet. It would also provide a mechanism to entrance the lower-caste populace: something we are calling an Infinite Supermarket, or Wallmart. There are also methods that would theoretically boost the learning abilities of our heroes, as well as decreasing the time it takes to attract new talent, and increasing the number of applications we can effectively look over at once.

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Yeah, that's a lot of information. One key thing to remember is that, unless we get the Casmir effect we cannot expand!

Also, regarding the tactics stuff I mentioned:
Battles in the game are divided into 5 phases: Arrival, long range, mid range, melee, and departure. During Long, Mid, and melee, combat takes place. At each of these phases, you can chose a tactic card to play. These card can boost your fleets statistics, hinder your enemies, or even odder things(one hero ability allows all ships destroyed that phase to return at the end of battle, though heavily damaged). Additionally, cards can counter other types of cards: when this happens, the card countered had no effect, and the other card's effects are boosted.

Also, the weapons work similar to galactic civilizations. This means that certain defenses work better against certain weapons: Flak Counters Missiles, Shields counter Energy, Deflectors counter kinetics. Also, Missiles are best at long range, energy best at mid and kinetics best at melee.

I'll answer other questions if you have them.

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Regarding heroes:

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Okay, here's what heroes do. They can be assigned to any given system or fleet, and once assigned provide bonuses to that system. Over time, they gain experience(I believe the current rate is one xp per turn, with bonuses when the assigned system builds something, or when the assigned fleet has a victory). Once a threshold is reached, they level up, which in this case allows you to buy abilities which give various benefits. Some are battle tactics, while others are more passive abilities, like increasing production, increasing fleet move speed, or the like. There are special abilities available to all of the 5 specialties.

They do cost money in upkeep, and the cost increases as their level does.

In character:

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Horatio-1929019286555856, vice-governor and chief of present representatives of the fledgling colony of Khras has the floor, a smile on his face.

"I thank Horatio, I and myself for their wise words. It is my understanding that the perfect choices of perfect Horatio' sent us to this particular world and spread us out as it had in exactly the right and proper pattern, as is the Horatio way. That our expansion further would require understanding of the Casmir effect is irrelevant, for the now. We are perfect, any rivals of ours anything but. If we do not yet understand how to make use of wormholes, it is absurd to think that anyone else might."

He pauses for effect, allowing the doubtless laughable notion that non-Horatio could understand anything before Horatio to cause all the mirth it would.

"That these stars are the only ones accessible to us via the strings suggests that we ought to focus on infrastructure still. The more colonies we have, the more room it is for our perfect brethren to enjoy, explore and enhance via our perfect art and architecture. The larger our colonies are, the more intricate the magnificent cities we build, the least of which surpasses the greatest art installations of our sad imperfect Terran kin in every single conceivable meaningful way."

"As for research, such as would improve our industry and colonies are of the highest priority I can see. If any tech of this type seems too time-consuming or irrelevant at the time being though, perhaps exploring the use of telepathy could be considered. The shape and soul of any and all Horatio have been perfect for as long as I have been We, but such a technology could possibly lead to us redefining the meaning of unity."

"In summary, while expansion ought not be forgotten, it ought to be secondary to perfecting what we already have access to."

Out of character: Can I get a more in-depth look of the Khras system (and any other star systems in our possession, for that matter)?

OOC Post.

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Regarding researching other planet types...it's a bit difficult. Desert we can do in only 2 turns, but the next 2 planet types available will take 11 turns each to research, and the Casmir effect leads right to both of them. After that, we'd need 27 turns to get the next two types of planets.

Desert planets as well have an issue: there are only 2 such planets in our constellation, one of which has a severe negative condition attached(hostile Fauna). We can eventually get past it, but doing so is a bit beyond our current means.

Frankly, to be able to effectively get the more advanced planet types, we first need more planets colonized, which means we need the Casmir effect to get them.

Infrastructure is much the same: there's a couple more technologies we can easily get, but after that what we need most is more planets, so that we can boost our research totals.

Warfare and the Grab-Bag section are easier to research, due to the fact that we don't have many techs from those areas. As opposed to the 3 reasonably easy tech in Applied Science(anything that takes less than 11 turns to get), or 4 in colonization and expansion, Grab Bag has 6 such options, and Warfare has 7(though, we likely wouldn't want to get all of them: jack of all trades, master of none, and the game rewards a certain amount of specialization).

Just to let people know: the beta has been released, and the save files are still good. We also have some shiny new graphical features.

My character is greedy and very certain of Horatio superiority. The Grab-Bag dust increase methods and desert planet colonization would be his choice. He would happily try to convert Khras I into 'Horatio's Safariworld'. Incidentally, if individual planets can be renamed, I would prefer if Khras V were renamed Tiger's Eye.

To Cover the Stars in Me, Year 51

A ripple passed through all of Known Space, and things changed. Some things that had been hidden became clear. Knowledge that was thought impossible to reach became evident.

Also, people became quite a bit more temperamental.

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Major changes due to the beta. First off, the Tech trees have been redone somewhat, and new techs added, like ones that diminish Expansion Penalties.

Expansion penalties kick in after you have 3 or more system colonized. On any Colony(they start as outposts, and after 30 turns become colonies), approval takes a penalty, at about -6 per colony above 2 that you have. Considering that approval can provide either a bonus or a malus to Food, Industry, and Science(and somewhat indirectly dust), this is a pretty big change.

Their are techs that diminish the effect, but they cap out at removing 88% of the penalty. So, we're going to have to be careful with expansion.

There have also been a host of graphical and gameplay tweaks.

Soon afterwards, more new situations emerged. We discovered how to travel through Wormholes, and helped settle some of the new tensions among our glorious race.

Exploration came at a cost, though. We discovered Pirates lurking among the stars, losing many fine scout ships and Brave Horatians to their cruel weapons. We also discovered new dangers: first the United Empire, our birth race, followed by the Sophons and the Hissho. Hostilities have not truly broken out yet, but we fear that unless we wed them to our nation, hostilities cannot be far away.

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As if that wasn't enough, 2 major disasters arrived. Most recently Pirates have destroyed our border defence fleet with advanced laser weaponry, leaving us without a military, and possibly on the verge of losing a system.

More importantly, though, we discovered Corruption within our own halls. This greatly troubled us, but we have taken council with those few we trust, and have rendered a decision. The Accused, including Horatio-1929019286555856 and Horatio-1929019287971562 have been sent to the Khras system, to help feed the hostile wildlife there.

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Here is the Galaxy as it stands:

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Blue are the Sophons, Green is the United Empire, and Orange is the Hissho.

To the Senate, I put forward the following questions:
How should we treat the various foreign races we have encountered? The shared border between us and the United Empire may be a problem, but we could head it off. We easily have the means to make peace, and if we wanted to we could obtain the means to make alliances.

Also, we must finally expend our energies toward more martial pursuits. We have 3 paths, but we cannot follow each equally. Our options remain improving our kinetic weapons, as well as anti missile defenses, going with missiles and improving the general sturdiness of our ships, focusing on shields to block energy weapons, as well as increasing our ground combat and energy production capabilities, or focusing on Directed Energy Weapons and ways to improve our ability to deflect kinetic weapons away without damage. Which shall be our primary path, our secondary, and our tertiary?

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been on the endless space forums a bit.
Apparenlty pirates are absolute murder in the beta, so you'd better watch out.

Also, I remmebr you mentioned cloaking tech in one of your earlier post but their Q&A says it's been removed earmy in devellopement. as it been put back on recently ?

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Originally Posted by smuchmuch

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been on the endless space forums a bit.
Apparenlty pirates are absolute murder in the beta, so you'd better watch out.

Also, I remmebr you mentioned cloaking tech in one of your earlier post but their Q&A says it's been removed earmy in devellopement. as it been put back on recently ?

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They were absolutely murderous.

As for the Cloaking, the action cards is in. Not sure if what they are referring to is still in or out.

Bumping this in hopes of getting a bit of feedback.

The problem is sorta that combat still needs quite a bit of finetuning right now. Defences are generally quite bad and you barely ever get in range to use kinetics due to defences being rather baddish.

Beam weaponry is probably what I'd go for?

Could you maybe post a screenshot of the techtree so far?

Tech as it current stands

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Yes, they aren't close ups, but I'd have to do at least 2-3 per tree to get the same coverage, and this work better to show how I've divided things.

We have no military Techs researched so far.

In Expansion and Colonization we only lack Gas Giants and Asteroids as colonizable planets. We currently lack destroyers, but can make cruisers, and we almost have the tech that would remove some negative planetary anomalies. Also availible is the battleship type+another Expansion Dissaproval reducer, as well as a generic speed booster.

In applied Science, our research boosters are first class, with production capabilities not far behind. The easily available techs boil down to a food booster, a Tactic card, or a tonnage booster and a Tactic card. Further away is the T3 factories, as well as a new strategic resource, and an empire wide tonnage reducer.

For grab bag, there are a couple Trade based Techs, fleet size improvement, a couple food boosters, and 2 more happiness boosters, and some more diplomacy tech.

As for weapons vs defenses, against the Computer you can, even now, use defenses pretty well.