"The battle between the first fleet and the mining drones was played on a loop for months, parts of it were used for military recruitment, others to help advertise weapons technology propaganda at it's finest. It was the Cartels largest success since settling the Hades colony and there had growing concern as to whether the Cartel could defend itself from the growing number of rival empires nearby. The Cartel naturally had greater ambitions than besting a few rusting mining drones, plans were drawn up for a larger fleet, more star-bases, defence platforms and even an invasion of the nearby Uriy Suns. One thing was certain, the Cartel would not sit idle for long."
Stardate: 09-08-2244
Here we are once again, at the helm of the Fox Cartel, with the first fleet returning for repairs and a distant science ship being rerouted to scan the wreckage of the mining drones we ended on something of a high last time. Just as I am sat pondering what I need to do next the physics division barges in gleefully proclaiming they have finished researching mote stabilisation, good start, let's see what our options for the next project are.
All five options available unlock some kind of ship component which is good as we are going to need the best ships. First up we have a new weapon type, disruptors, these things are nasty bypassing both shields and armour. Next we have better reactors followed by better reactor boosters, useful if not terribly exciting. Better hyper-drives is similarly bland a choice followed last but not least by improved lasers. In order to future proof my ships and make sure they are the best in every way rather than just guns for now I opt for better hyper-drives, so it won't take a few years to get from one side of Cartel space to the other.
Another group of caravaneers enters Cartel space and this time rather than sending them on their way, let's see what they have to offer as I have a surplus of energy credits. However their offer is not quite what I expected. At a cost of 500 Unity they wish to offer us some specialists who will stay on our star-bases for 80 years increasing our trade value. It is definitely a tempting offer, whilst it will set back our next tradition choice for a long time the extra energy credits from the increased trade value could be useful. So I opt to go for it, give me your nutrient paste fed specialists!
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| Those caravaneer ships sure are shiny. |
Hades finally hits it's first population milestone giving us our first building slot to work with. Now what to build, alloys or mote production we kind of need both and may even soon need consumer goods. For now though I'll go for mote production so I can get a bit of a stockpile going. Then the society research division finishes the fleet command limit upgrade and then gives us some actual decent options for the next research project (for a change.)
More fleet command limit, nice but I don't have the naval capacity to make use of it yet. Terraforming is very very tempting so we can turn some of these less useless planets into something the Cartel can use. More food from farmers, not really sure I need that right now. Increased naval capacity now that is very tempting too. Then lastly we have off-world trading companies, a star-base module that increases trade value.. Not quite as useful as the rest. I am briefly torn between higher naval capacity and terraforming but terraforming wins, I have 4 planets in my space that could become useful with terraforming. With expansion options drying up quickly I feel that would be the best long-term bet.
We then find a floating databank written in a strangely familiar language so I set the society research division to decoding it with a special project. Who knows, maybe it's instructions to conquer the universe in three easy steps? Then the caravaneers moving through my space decide they are going to litter. So I bill them for the trouble and get us a nice big pile of consumer goods, filthy vagrants, they dump in Cartel space again they'll get the business end of the fleet rather than a bill.
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| Think you can dump your broken ships in Cartel space? Enjoy the bill for services rendered. |
It's at this point I notice the Uriy Suns borders expanding rather rapidly toward ours, I may have to look at building the outposts on my borders into full on star-bases. I notice they have a new colony so I give them a helping paw by establishing a branch office on it as well as a new one on their capital. Given I will need to deal with the Uriy Suns sooner rather than later I use the building slot in the branch office to get us a wrecking yard, we will need the alloys. The new branch offices also give us some intel on our neighbours. They have 2 fleets sitting at around 1.5k fleet power, so their navy is twice as powerful as the Cartels. Not for long I think, forewarned is forearmed.
So individually my fleet is more powerful than any one of theirs so any kind of war could still potentially be won if I can destroy one fleet before the other arrives. In theory. For now I will play the long game and improve my fleet and economy a bit more before I get ahead of myself but we are coming for your stuff Uriy Suns (soon.)
The engineering division finishes researching exotic gas extraction finally giving our two constructor ships something to do so I send them off to start building some gas extractors whilst I have a look what the engineering division has to offer next.
First up is star-holds, basically bigger star-bases with more module capacity and given the Uriy Suns get ever closer it is very tempting to build a few of these. Next up we have space torpedoes which are basically big, slow missiles which don't care if you have shields. Better armour in the form of plasteel, better missiles and finally destroyer hull improvements giving them a nice chunk of extra hit-points. I have to mull this one over for a few minutes, do I start preparing to defend Cartel space by getting star-holds or continue improving my ships weapons and defences ahead of taking the fight to them? I opt for star-holds for now as I figure I can get more out of them.
To end this quiet part of the let's play for today we get one final research project finished from the physics division again giving our ships better hyper-drives. FTL inhibitors keeps popping up as a choice so often I almost want to pick it just to get rid of it. Extra physics research, extra energy credits, a new energy credit boosting building or better shields form the remaining options. For now though I'll go for the extra research, playing the long-game is currently the Cartel's plan.
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| The Unified Uriy Suns are expanding at an alarming rate, my only options for expansion lie to the north or just taking the Uriy Suns on. |
My current main goal is to build up my military enough to go and turn the Uriy Suns into a subsidiary of the Cartel. That may take a while to achieve given they are currently more powerful than us but it is the goal for now unless something changes along the way.
And on that thank you all as always for reading, leaving feedback, support and the like, it is ridiculously humbling and greatly appreciated! Stay tuned for the next part soon!
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