Imperion

[Darkdragon]

I would, but I don't know how much resistance is there in unoccupied (and occupied) worlds. "Numbers" would also mean things like ratios which has an optimum balance between fuel and return. I would like to check if someone has already done the calculations so I don't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

[Tezkat]

Unoccupied worlds offer no resistance at all. You just send transports out, and you get resources back. The only thing that matters is cargo capacity. (Well, depending on what you're raiding with, fuel consumption and speed can matter, too.) You never lose ships unless some clever fellow has stationed a fleet there to ambush you.

As for occupied worlds... the only way to know for sure is to spy first. The population count merely reflects the levels of buildings on that particular world. Military strength isn't reflected in the number at all. The only limitations on military size are energy consumption and resources to fuel them. You can only guesstimate those from pop size. If they're Titan or have league friends nearby, all bets are off, since they can have arbitrarily large defending fleets supported by other planets.

A Terran just out of newbie protection might have a few dozen Fighters. A slightly larger one might have a hundred Battleships. Endgame players might have thousands of Heavy Cruisers.

Also, an occupied world will have a minimum baseline defence, so sending only unescorted transports may result in casualties even if all fleet and artillery on the planet have been wiped out.

Furthermore, Terran or Titan players can elect not to fight by hiding their ships behind hangars or stealth generators. (Xen can't hide ships.)

[Kasarn]

I should probably post in this thread.

*post*

[Darkdragon]

I should probably post in this thread.

*post*

I've noticed there's a player named "Kasarn" in the game. Is that you?

[Kasarn]

NO.

Oh wait, yes.

[techmaster-glitch]

Alright. Old account nuked. New one started up in Galaxy 1, name "techmastergltch".

I can't say I'm particularly "thrilled" with my new location, but I can't complain much either. I haven't started near any established players, but I'm pretty much surrounded by newbies like me, though there does seem to be some unoccupied space south of me...eh, it'll do. My coordinates are...uh, I *think* my coordinates are 16,91...or they might be 16,-91... I'm not sure, the damn y-axis confuses me.

Alright, so we've got Tezkat, llearch, myself, Valynth, Darkdragon, and Kasarn all onboard... we got enough to form the Defensive Mutually-Friendly Alliance, yet? (or whatever the full name is...)

[Darkdragon]

What I'm thinking is that when the server resets next time, and everyone is still up for it, we can set up a league then.

In other news, I've joined Thugz proper.

[techmaster-glitch]

What I'm thinking is that when the server resets next time, and everyone is still up for it, we can set up a league then.

And when is that going to happen?

EDIT:

Because I wanted to know where everyone was in relation to each other (and myself), I got a piece of graph paper, looked up the thugz league, and pointed the location of everyone's planets. The results I've gotten are... interesting. Tezkat, if you find this useful at all, you might want to pass it on to the rest of the thugz as well. maybe they can use it to coordinate military operations, and plan the location of everyon'es future colonies.

(note, the y-axis is inverted on the graph, as it is on imperion's star map. llearch and valynth are not listed because they are in galaxy 2. And Darkdragon, what is your imperion account? I only just realized it can't be "darkdragon", because that person is listed as Titans, and in the newbie thread, your stuff is Terran... so ignore the odd one out on the graph )

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5525/thugzimperionmap.png

[Darkdragon]

It's "Illizad", same as my CN account. It's located at (-84|37).

Nice hand-drawn graph by the way, I would have done it in excel or something. >.>

[techmaster-glitch]

It's "Illizad", same as my CN account. It's located at (-84|37).

Nice hand-drawn graph by the way, I would have done it in excel or something. >.>

Oh -you're- illizad? okay, you are already on the graph.

And I tried excel. But, considering I've never actually used it in my life... it didn't exactly work out >_<


EDIT: Aaaand I've finally joined the Thugz alliance. Still holding out for a DMFA in the future, though.

[fisherman]

If any of you registered on the thugz.org forum please PM me over there so I can talk to you and mask you.  I'm on IRC too.  I'm not playing Imperion now, but I still run the thugz forums.

[Kasarn]

Bored now. The game requires too much attention for one in which there is nothing to do... or rather, there are no rewards for any of the few things that there are to do. It's basically NationStates but requires that I log in every two hours.

/clicks delete account and sends a heap of resources to Tezkat

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

... not to me? Awww. ;-]

[Kasarn]

I would've, but I can't send between galaxies; probably need wormhole physics.

There's also a limit on how much you can send to one player, so I sent 10k crystal to glitch as well. Hope you've got enough space for it.

[techmaster-glitch]

Whoa. Uh... thanks kasarn. Incidentally, I do have the storage space (barely)...but it is still sad to hear you are leaving this game. Farewell.

[Darkdragon]

While it is sad that you are leaving, it is an understandable conclusion and now you can say that you've tried it, but did not like it.

(I feel left out of the gift-giving, but I'm not complaining)

[techmaster-glitch]

(I feel left out of the gift-giving, but I'm not complaining)

I'm definitely going to have more than I can use immediately, so I'm good with rerouting some your way once I get Kasarn's shipment.


EDIT: Tezkat, was the graph I made of all our planet locations in Galaxy One useful at all? And if so, did you pass it on to the rest of the thugz?

EDIT EDIT: Okay, I just got a message that they're doing a new update. I followed the threads around in the forum, and it appears as if something new is going to be introduced to the game, something called "Qi". These appear to be artifacts floating around that can give various bonuses to someone who holds one. Thoughts/comments on this?

[Tezkat]

Hmm... yeah, sorry to see you go, Kasarn. It does loook like we've experienced a culling of the pack this week. A number of Thugz have left as well, citing similar concerns.



Unless the mid to late game turns out to be significantly more exciting, I do have concerns about the long term viability of the league. As you can see from techmaster-glitch's map, we're currently spread out all over the galaxy and largely unable to support each other or prosecute any kind of shared goals. Imperion is kinda neat as a sim, but it fails as an MMO. We're just people who sorta happen to be playing in the same sandbox at the moment.



Has anyone seen any of those Qi things yet?

[Darkdragon]

Unless the mid to late game turns out to be significantly more exciting, I do have concerns about the long term viability of the league. As you can see from techmaster-glitch's map, we're currently spread out all over the galaxy and largely unable to support each other or prosecute any kind of shared goals. Imperion is kinda neat as a sim, but it fails as an MMO. We're just people who sorta happen to be playing in the same sandbox at the moment.

This statement rings a hollow truth. I'm not certain if there is a higher-order goal as opposed to simply building up an empire.

Has anyone seen any of those Qi things yet?

What? What Qi things?

[techmaster-glitch]

This statement rings a hollow truth. I'm not certain if there is a higher-order goal as opposed to simply building up an empire.

Isn't that pretty much what video games are? (or at least these types of mmo sims, as I once knew several text-based ones that restarted every year, like I've heard Imperion is supposed to. Basically, the goal is "get the highest in the rankings you can before the reset")

What? What Qi things?

http://forum.imperion.org/showthread.php?t=7414

IMPORTANT EDIT:
Okay, I've made an updated map to include the new planets by a few plaers, and the missing planets of those who've dropped out.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/6277/imerionthugzmap2.jpg

Now, I'm very close to getting ready to establish my first secondary colony. The drop ship is under construction, and I only need another two days or so before I have the EP needed. Now, I need some help here. Where should I try to plunk down my next colony, to the ends of supporting, and receiving support, from the other thugz? Keep in mind that, as a Titan, I'll have access to teleporters and transportals, but my next colony still should probably be as close to someone else as possible. Should I try to get close to The Pink Terror, go the other direction towards shamWOW and ProfessorM, or somewhere else? I'm actually a little worried about trying to go towards the center, where I'll be surrounded and at the mercy of evey other player...

What do you think, Tezkat?

[Tezkat]

Hmm... if it's been a week since the last post, it might be better to bump. Otherwise, we might not notice the edits...


Anyways... going west would keep you within spitting distance of Peep and Pansy. I'm not sure you want to be too close to your buddies, though. We don't really have planned meeting coordinates for the league yet, and competing with them for resources would be a Bad Thing.

You'll be competing with your home planet as well, mind you. I parked my first colony 6 fields away from my homeworld, and there was a bit of planet sharing in the middle. For Titans, I think 8-10 is ideal unless you have a lot of tank capacity boosts. That way, you're mostly out of farming range of your other colonies, but you can still support them with ships. (I don't have civilian shipyards on any of my colonies. It's kinda pointless unless your empire is much bigger.)

I'm now expanding out in kinda triangular wedges, placing colonies within 8-10 spaces from two other worlds. On the other hand, if you want your new world to be a mining or factory planet, you'll instead want those to be as close to your supporting planets as possible.


At this stage, economic considerations should trump most other concerns unless you have a lot of hostiles in the area.

For Titans especially, energy is a major issue. Titans eat energy like crazy, and the non-AEC generators have tiny production. You'll want to pick a planet with 160+ efficiency in at least one energy type. (I focus on Desert/Solar.)

It's also important to have planets of the type you like to harvest close by. Actually, in general, it's nice to be near a tight star cluster rather than in the middle of nowhere.

And then of course, there's proximity to enemies and other competition...


Placing a colony is bit like buying a house. Location! Location! Location! But, in the end, it's all about weighing the various tradeoffs.


There's been some discussion of this topic on the thugz forums, if you want to check that out.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'm still saving up for fusion, myself.

I think I'm probably going to hit four planets before I get it - I keep spending on both solar and wind, and my first planet has _both_ power planets.

For what it's worth, the only thing that eats power like crazy is the shield generator. On the other hand, it'd be crazy to go without it...

[Valynth]

Well, I'm about ready to start expanding now, and I'm considering turning the ocean world in my system into essentially a "fuel depot."

[techmaster-glitch]

   Okay, blowing a whistle here. I'm getting quite concerned about the actions of "deuce65". I've been following the leage attack reports as best as I can, and I notice that deuce has been repeatedly striking another player, "bajumbalaman". This in itself is only slightly disconcerting, the real problem here is that bajum is clearly an active player, deuce's own espionage reports has seen him rebuilding defences after each attack. And not only an active player, but a member of another league, which, while smaller than us, is still not inconsequential.
  If deuce is attacking this person for a reason, as in, bajum attacked deuce or another one of us first, then I'm okay with that; I haven't been able to keep track of every single attack report for and against the thugz. I would just like confirmation that deuce is not just farming this player just because. I am dearly hoping that these "thugz" people we DMFA folks have thrown our lot in with just happen to have an ironic name and theme, and they aren't actually the agressive PvP types.
   EDIT: Nevermind, maybe bajum really is inactive, and I was just seeing the automatic def repair...

  In addition, I am also worried for one of the thugz themselves, ShamWOW, who has been repeatedly pounded by this guy "dingdong". Is ShamWOW going to continue playing, or has he given up? (he's grey in the league list). If ShamWOW plans to keep playing, is anything going to be done about these raids against him?


EDIT: Holy HELL llearch, what on earth did you do to earn the ire of two of the three most powerful members who also happen to be the two primary leaders ALL THREE of the most powerful members of a league ranked at #51?!?  

Dear lawdy man, I hope a message from you to each of them to let them know you are an active player is enough to get them to stop. The worst part is I can't even help support you financially, I don't have wormhole physics...shit, do anyone in the thugz have wormhole physics?

Oh man, they've completely wiped out your stuff...what are you going to do?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Laugh and move on.

I did send this message to one of them, who poked me previously:

To:     
Baron Raibert
   Sent:    
01/12/09 09:41:08 PM
Subject:    
Awww, you came back!
Message:    
And you brought some friends with you.

I'm touched. I really am.


So, do you feel better, now that you've spent three or four times what you got back in resources on a silly errand?

If you ask nicely, next time I'll even save up some resources so you have something to collect for all your efforts. I'm sorry there wasn't anything there this time, I'd just spent most of it on building things...
/quote

I think it was the cheery message I sent earlier about him bouncing off my shield that amused me more, though. He and I had a little conversation. I spose if they're the biggest folks around, I'm a target for their entire guild. Oh, well.

... at least my home planet is safe. I guess I'll just have to move all my resources off-planet, to leave them nothing to collect. either that or start building a cache...

[techmaster-glitch]

So, apparently there's been a new update to the game, something about the espionage. I'm still not entirely clear about the exact specifics (as I never got a chance to try espionage before the change), but on the .org forums, it seems that every player and then some are furious over the changes to Xen espionage, specifically. Anyone got a clearer idea of what's going on?

[SquirrelWizard]

Hey I'm game for this. I'm at -74,-62(5)

edit: I'm terran at the moment, I may decide to change depending on how I see it panning out.

[techmaster-glitch]

Hey I'm game for this. I'm at -74,-62(5)

edit: I'm terran at the moment, I may decide to change depending on how I see it panning out.

Cool. If anyone's still here, either wait for Tezkat to invite you to the league, or poke him and then he'll invite you. If you have any questions or need help, ask them here or in the Newbie Guide thread.

[SquirrelWizard]

I'll try terran for a bit, I might go titan though.

[Tezkat]

Hey I'm game for this. I'm at -74,-62(5)

edit: I'm terran at the moment, I may decide to change depending on how I see it panning out.

Invite sent. Welcome aboard.

(You'll need to build an embassy before you can accept, if you haven't already.)