How to build the Conqueror?

[legionof1]

Defensive planning speaking once the conqueror is on the production line it, and its crew and equipment are the show. Cydonia is a one shot win or lose the campaign. Don't risk the resources invested(which are monumental the base alone is at least 20 mil and 4-5 months never mind lost components), bring your best and brightest to guard it which coincidentally is the same batch of gals your mailing off to mars. Just seems efficient use of resources. Once your ready to start this the rest of the game can go to hell. You can have 41 days off completely ignoring the game prior to build start and still get your shot.

[ivandogovich]

ah..... 

Yeah, my brain got looking at that Hellerium problem again.

I did napkin math on extracting that much Hellerium. Even with 350 runts, you'll get less that 3 Hellerium/day.   Any guesses how long that takes to make 25,000?  Yep, over 8.15 years.

Ok, buy it on the market.
$20,000 per pop. * 25,000 =
$500,000,000

Thats a lotta dosh!  All that talk about, "Jeez, there's too much Hellerium in the game... You should nerf it again, Dioxine! "  - Pfft!

Spoiler:

Honestly, I don't know if I'll complete my campaign after seeing how crazy this is.  Maybe that cash is easy to come by.  Maybe I need three mint bases. I had hoped one would be enough.  If I can get to the CONQUEROR tech though, I may just call it good.

[Arthanor]

Well, at that point, you can see all of your stockpile(s) of other stuff too, which by endgame, should amount to some money too. And you're probably sitting on a fair pile of cash too. Plus you probably have all the tech you care about, so you can finally fire all those expensive brainers!

Fair enough, 500M$ is a lot and you're unlikely to get that out of XGrog, but tactical missions are not bad if you sell everything (given that at that point, you won't need it. Except the Hellerium, of course!). You can easily get a few millions, which isn't much, but does help a bit. And by then, most missions should be "walk through enemy firepower unscathed and stun everything in a hit, so you'll get ransom money too.

I don't know, it sounds doable

[legionof1]

500 mil seems about right given how long ive been at this campaign. That is if i had had mansion runs available throughout. Eh while i build up the funds super-factory base can churn out battle tanks for cash. Not like im doing anything with my plastasteel anymore.

[Dioxine]

@Ivan: a factory base can make around $2M daily manufacturing Battle Tanks. Don't sweat (you need an insane supply of Plastasteel for that, but you can manufacture it at that point).

[ivandogovich]

@Ivan: a factory base can make around $2M daily manufacturing Battle Tanks. Don't sweat (you need an insane supply of Plastasteel for that, but you can manufacture it at that point).

Thanks! Thats good to know.  I haven't gotten to working up profitability on Battle Tanks (I haven't even seen them yet).  I really appreciate all the brain power involved in the discussion here, and of course your skill and vision which has made this such a vibrant mod!

[Dioxine]

Hmm, I just thought... putting a Grav Shield into one of the free slots would increase defence rating to OVER 9000!!!

[legionof1]

a grav shield does give you alot of potential defense but its less then 100% accuracy so its of questionable value to me. I know for certain barring a single type of hideout defense i will win with the elites of my ground crew around. Even that single worse case scenario of pure greyrobe stargods i still have a decent shot to hold. And hey more free plasma weapons is never bad. Honestly wish we could selectively disable defenses. "Let them come, the fools. evil chuckle"

[lusciouspear]

I was gonna come in here and bitch, but my math was off by an Order of Magnitude (I thought 250,000 Hellerium was needed). It makes sense that you need an entire base to build this thing. It's like...massive. And the future of humanity.

I guess I can make $7.5m/month casually with one base if I do plastisteel -> battle tank. Maybe I can optimize to 20m/factory? Not sure. So it's probably not too hard to get to $75m/month manufacturing.

It's just SO MUCH CLICKING

As far as pacing/gameplay are concerned, I really like the idea of the:

Spoiler:

Reticulan Pact. I wish starting the Conqueror project actually changed the UFOs/Battles you see. Like, you can capture plastisteel or Hellerium or something. It's an incentive to start the project and stay on top of things. You're not just twiddling thumbs shotting things down to keep your score decent. It's a way to keep players engaged.

Personally, I'm just modding the fuel capsules in because I think I've put 100+ hours into this game and I need resolution and my life back

[Dioxine]

Just 100 hours to get to the endgame? Man you're fast!
But yeah, waiting x months to get the ship done while still having to fight battles isn't exactly great fun. It was my gripe with the OG It will be fixed at some point.

[legionof1]

Its one of those learning problems. A second play through would bypass much of the hurry up and wait because you know whats needed at the finish line and you could plan ahead for everything but the hellerium. No way to play that much stockpiling in advance.

[karadoc]

I'm finally coming to the end of my first playthrough, still on 0.98B.

For the last month I've just been building vaults and enslaving everything I can get so that I can store the stuff I need for the Conqueror. (And at the same time, building up the money I need.)

I've finally got all the materials, and I'm sure that if I sell some of my spare weapons and chips I can get the money within a day or so. However... I'm kicking myself that I didn't notice that the Conqueror requires 100 workshop space!

I usually don't even look at workshop space, since very few things in the game need it. So I just didn't notice it. And the base I've been setting up for the Conqueror is not my factory base; I decided it would take too long to get the storage capacity high enough in my factory base, since it has zero vaults, and zero free spots. (It's 100% slave based storage. Enough to build a Dragon, but not a Conqueror.) I'd need to sacrifice my industrial printer to build the vaults, and so I decided to use a different base instead.

So now, I've got everything I need except the workshop space. I've decided to trash one of my hangers to build an industrial printer so that I can build the Conqueror.


I don't mind that the Conqueror needs a ton of resources and a specialised base; but I just wish I'd known it was coming. If I knew that's what I'd need in the end game, I would have set up a base for it in advance. My last two bases are interceptor launch pads, with training facilities, basic defences, and manufacturing. I could easily have created a second factory base instead; but I just didn't think I would need it.

[Mattdo]

I built it. It wasn't that hard from where I was - I'd built up a sizeable fortune while waiting for a Star God Coordinator to show up. You don't need hundreds of workers - you could even just have fifty or so and let them take a few months building it.
The main obstacle is that you need hundreds of millions worth of Hellerium. I had multiple bases buying and processing it and shipping it to my construction base.
The other obstacle is if you decided to emancipate all your slaves before beginning - in which case, destroy some stuff and build lots of Armored Vaults.
Also, you need a couple of dozen stasis pods, which means finding and shooting down Battleships.

[legionof1]

Yeah knowing that much hellirum is needed only after the tech is done is.....irritating at the least. Everything else is easily had by the time the tech is done. Even stasis pods are easy if you have enemy base hanging around to generate supply ships. But that hellirium count.........Cant wait for the planed sub assemblys so you can do things in digestible chunks. Although present form is working out since i need to wait for mansion runs to make sufficient high end armor for the final assault.

[Mattdo]

The hellerium is basically a question of money, which I'd been playing for all along anyway.

Mansion runs aren't essential for armor. Once you have all the techs, Annihilator suits can be made from grav units, power armor parts, common bits and pieces, and money.