Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[NUKE9.13]

Queen Design:
"Anatress": (1) Shadowclaw
"Novico": (4) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, NUKE9.13, Puppyguard, strongpoint
"Forest Princess" N.S.C.: (2) RAM, Wolfchild
"Silvia": (0)
"Lamana": (0)

Designs:
Bombardier: (1) Shadowclaw
Revencher: (4) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, 10ebbor10, strongpoint
Vespa: (3) RAM, Wolfchild, Puppyguard
No Design
Mace tail
Advanced digging
Farming
Darter Caste: (1) Blood_Librarian
Bows ()
Tactics : Penetration of the center (2) 10ebbor10, NUKE9.13,

Haha, whoops. Accidentally got my own name wrong. Fixed now.

[RAM]

"Forest Princess" is small compared to normal queens, not compared to normal members of the hive. We have the introductory steps to plant digestion. We have a vomiting thing that could be converted into honey production. We have the X.E.D.S. that could be incorporated into Ruminant to make wood-eaters, our existing ruminants are useful, but need more work. We are going to be putting more work into food production eventually, and the forests will naturally grow more useful with time. We can either ignore them, attempt to put them to some other use, like glue-production or some sort of awkward bug-or-slave powered lumbermill for support beams or log walls or something, or we can set up queens for additional manpower which will naturally grow more parity with food queens over time as we continue to diversify food production, unless we are going to stop with that where we are?

Meanwhile, I suspect that there may be some votes going to Novico in order to avoid a forest-design. I don't want to be overtly hostile to Novico, but it really really looks to me like it is a boss-monster instead of an egg-factory. A boss-monster is a queen suited to low production and low investment, which means forest queen. It is explicitly hostile to "others" which could easily turn into determined rebellion. It could have some use for sitting on dangerous frontier positions with low food production, but that is what fortifications are for. A boss-monster only helps once the fortifications have fallen... Really, as far as I can tell, a vote for Novico is a vote for spending our queen design on making better boss-monsters.

I have a really difficult time imagining Lamana being effective at that size. I do like the mad science of it and the focus on smaller critters is interesting, but do we have enough smaller critters? It is basically only hunters at this point, or does it get some sort of free helper drone? It is really interesting but, ouch, such a diversion from established wisdom, it is just difficult to support it.

[NUKE9.13]

Meanwhile, I suspect that there may be some votes going to Novico in order to avoid a forest-design.

Oh, there's no need to suspect. I am openly voting for Novico since it is the least-bad of the lot, and the one with the best chance of beating a forest queen.
Your criticism of Novico is valid. If you can write a better non-forest queen design, I'd happily vote for it. But I am not going to vote for our next queen being a forest queen.
90 manpower is not worth it.
We are under no obligation to invest more dice into extracting food from forests. We got forest queens as a random bonus- it was not our goal.

[10ebbor10]

Work in food production may not benefit work on forests, as those are two seperate stats. And while I'm not perfectly happy with that particular design, it's better than being a big target moving through the open, which is what the forest Queen would be.

In addition, Novico does not appear to be a boss monster in any way, the description explicitedly says she has no defenses.

In any case, is this better.

- Gross physical anatomy.  The queen has two distinct lifephases. In one, she has the approximate size and shape of a warrior. The only difference is the armor on her abdomen, which has a strange, shattered look. Her food consumption is limited, and she can move rapidly from one place to the other.

When she resides within a hive, her food consumption increases massively, and her abdomen swells. The shattered plates now move seperatly, to give it more room to expand. Eggs production begins, and growth of the abdomen continues as long as sufficient food is provided.

When threathened, the queen can intentionally sever her abdomen and bug out. This is not a risk free procedure, but it does allow the queen to escape while her attackers are busy finishing of her spasming behind.

- Nutrition.  Like the previous Queen, this queen is an obligate carnivore. In mobile phase, she can feed herself, but when laying she's fed by drones.

- Environmental Tolerance.  In mobile phase, the Queen has the same tolerance as the average worker. When immobile, she requires a stable warm and moist environment to minimize energy consumption and maximize laying rate.

- Defences.  The current Queen relies entirely upon a bodyguard of Soldiers to protect her in the event of incursion. When needed, she can run away

- Personality.  Inquisitive and curious, yet shy and subservient. She will do as she's told, but in her own time try to figure out why the decisions were made as they were.

[RAM]

Novico does not appear to be a boss monster in any way, the description explicitly says she has no defences.

body similar to that of the soldier drones
two thin and long serrated club like forelimbs higher up on the body
layers of mixed carapace to provide protection
thickened ridges on top of her head
honour guard brethren to provide her back up against intrusions.

Sounds kind of like The Queen from Aliens to me... I mean, sure, capable and all, impressive even, but is this what we need from an egg factory?

[10ebbor10]

I have no idea where you got that quote from, but it doesn't match with the post you're supposedly quoting.

Edit : Oh, I got it.

You're dishonestly snipping stuff out of context.

Conveniently ignoring how her laying immobilizes her, and a variety of other stuff. It really doesn't seem like a combat oriented beast when it can't even turn around.

[RAM]

I have no idea where you got that quote from, but it doesn't match with the post you're supposedly quoting.

Have you tried refreshing? I am getting an "edited" from, umm, two-and-a-half hours ago, so I think mine is recent? Probably up-to-date?

[10ebbor10]

Anyway, it seems like you're deliberatly cutting things out of the proposal to support your argument, which confused me at first.

Gross Physical Anatomy: About same height as our current queen with body similar to that of the soldier drones, she has her two thin and long serrated club like forelimbs higher up on the body with a short spinal tail to provide balance. Her body consists of few layers of mixed carapace to provide protection. When immobile her abdomen swells up produce a long egg sac for laying eggs from her rear. As for her head she has thickened ridges on top of her head with pairs of multi-faceted eyes along with dark IR spots surrounding each eye.

Nutrition: She has obligate carnivorous digestive system like the previous queen but through the use of managing the different strains of bacteria to reduce metabolically waste of food and egg laying.

Environmental Tolerance: While mobile she has same tolerance of that of average drone, but requires a stable temperature when she is in process of egg laying to maintain good egg qaulity or laying rate.

Defenses: She relies on few but highly trained honour guard of Soldiers and few spitters which both have IR than non honour guard brethren to provide her back up against intrusions.

Personality: She is warm towards her children and those of her kind, but has a cunning and outright cruel in dealing with outsiders she also possess a sort of free spirited thought process and has strong distaste for humanity.

The above is the full thing.

Note how it says that she has mixed (ie, thin armor). How it says she becomes immobilized when laying. Yeah, when not layinh can move without being a horrifically big target, but that doesn't make it a combat monster. Her weapons are limited, the ridges a place to put eyes.

She's less vulnerable than the current Queen, certainly. But in no way a combat oriented creature.

[flazeo25]

It can only fight when not laying eggs as the egg sac and swelled abdomen hamper movement and it would only get rid of those if it in danger or fleeing.

[Paxiecrunchle]

Ooc: never mind this is way too fast pace for me to keep up with.

[RAM]

It isn't that bad, just bickering a little. Imma stop now. I have said my piece. I should be slower and, well, the important part of the pacing is the timing of the updates, you don't have to pay too close attention to the arguments if you don't want to.

[kopout]

Man, things exploded today while I was at work.
Princess "Minerva"
- Gross physical anatomy.  Somewhat smaller then the current queen with (relatively) small legs along her larvaform abdomen and a pair of digging forelimbs which allow her to slowly tunnel
- Nutrition.  Although an obligate carnivore her gut microbes are optimized for Emitics' vomit and even prevent her from suffering due to gluten
- Environmental Tolerance.  Capable of surviving larger temperature and humidity fluctuations then her mother but requiring stability for optimal egg production.  She resides underground, her chamber maintained by drones.
- Defences.  She relies mostly on her boddygaurd but should be able to use her digging limbs in a last ditch effort to defend herself
- Personality.  She is curious, methodical, and has a talent for lateral thinking.  She has a tendency to find unusualy solutions to problems and is unusualy good at troubleshooting bugs.

Queen Design:
"Anatress": (1) Shadowclaw
"Novico": (4) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, NUKE9.13, Puppyguard, strongpoint
"Forest Princess" N.S.C.: (2) RAM, Wolfchild
"Silvia": (0)
"Lamana": (0)
"Minerva". (1) kopout

Designs:
Bombardier: (1) Shadowclaw
Revencher: (4) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, 10ebbor10, strongpoint
Vespa: (3) RAM, Wolfchild, Puppyguard
Lamprey bug: (2) andrea, kopout
No Design
Mace tail
Advanced digging
Farming
Darter Caste: (1) Blood_Librarian
Bows ()
Tactics : Penetration of the center (2) 10ebbor10, NUKE9.13,

Their are a lot of good  designs but I'm going to vote for the lamprey bug, if it works it will open up the ability to build our own transports and potentially allow us to tap sea based food sources. On a more immediate note it will let us reduce enemy reinforcements, possibly even in a way they won't even notice.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

Queen Design:
"Anatress": (1) Shadowclaw
"Novico": (4) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, NUKE9.13, Puppyguard, strongpoint, Urist Mc Dwarf
"Forest Princess" N.S.C.: (2) RAM, Wolfchild
"Silvia": (0)
"Lamana": (0)
"Minerva". (1) kopout

Designs:
Bombardier: (1) Shadowclaw
Revencher: (4) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, 10ebbor10, strongpoint
Vespa: (3) RAM, Wolfchild, Puppyguard
Lamprey bug: (2) andrea, kopout
No Design
Mace tail
Advanced digging
Farming
Darter Caste: (1) Blood_Librarian
Bows ()
Tactics : Penetration of the center (2) 10ebbor10, NUKE9.13, Urist Mc Dwarf

[Strongpoint]

 

On a more immediate note it will let us reduce enemy reinforcements, possibly even in a way they won't even notice.

It will reduce OUR reinforcements. To build naval units wee need to stop build regular drones. It is not a game with cheap\expensive\very expensive\nat effort system that produces units out of thin air as soon as they are developed.

Queen Design:
"Anatress": (1) Shadowclaw
"Novico": (6) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, NUKE9.13, Puppyguard, strongpoint, Urist Mc Dwarf
"Forest Princess" N.S.C.: (2) RAM, Wolfchild
"Silvia": (0)
"Lamana": (0)
"Minerva". (1) kopout

Designs:
Bombardier: (1) Shadowclaw
Revencher: (3) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, 10ebbor10
Vespa: (3) RAM, Wolfchild, Puppyguard
Lamprey bug: (2) andrea, kopout
No Design
Mace tail
Advanced digging
Farming
Darter Caste: (1) Blood_Librarian
Bows ()
Tactics : Penetration of the center (4) 10ebbor10, NUKE9.13, Urist Mc Dwarf, strongpoint

Hm, maybe tactics can win

[Strongpoint]

Warning this post is full of rants and boring strategy stuff

Any new drones are usually bad tactical decision. Why? Because they have opportunity costs. To produce them we have to stop production of something else.

Hey but you proposed a drone last turn and it even won. Don't you just like your drones and shoot down cool ideas of other people because you are a jerk? No. There are notable differences here. When I proposed hunter we had no new drone that needs both revisions and changes to budget to ramp up its production. We had no timber to exploit. We had no symbiont technology that opens the road to new technologies.

But I want cool stuff to propose! Isn't this purpose of the game
Sure. There are plenty of cool stuff besides drones.
- The whole symbiont tech tree. Many cool things can come out of here.
- Civilian tech: farming, fishing, roads and more
- Battlefield tactics
- Hive-wide improvements of drones. Carapace, muscles, eyes, antennas. whatever you want.
- Uses for timber: bows, spears, shields, siege ladders, boats, traps. Our worker population is able to use that.
- and more

Do you mean we should stop designing units till the end of the game
Definitely not. But new units should come when
-we badly need them to counter some new unit of our enemy
-we have a clearly obsolete drone and need a replacement
-we have a balanced budget for units and can spare some production to produce a surprise for our enemy.

None of this is true. One can say that workers are obsolete... but then there are no offers for their replacement. And I think they are not obsolete they just need more force multipliers or upgrades.

Edit:

One more important thing consider. We get randomized results. No drone can be useful in case of low rolls because it will be worse than current options. Everything else, barring hive-wide genetic modifications, will usually be marginally useful even with bad rolls.