This post was updated only in the last 3 parts: XIII (Flaws), XIV (Tips) and XV (Inspiration from a movie?).
Have you ever heard about the game Galaxy Harvest? It’s a free online flash game. Not long ago I hadn't heard about it myself, but I am really happy that I stumbled upon it. This game is simply AWESOME!
https://www.kongregate.com/games/levelrusso/galaxy-harvest
There are so many cool things about Galaxy Harvest that I don’t know where to start. I like physics very much, so made a list based on this interest of mine.
I. Distances are given in light years (LY).
One light year is a distance that light travels in vacuum in one Julian year (one Julian year = 365.25days * 24h/day * 60m/h * 60s/m = 33557600s). This distance is HUGE, because the speed of light on its own is huge: 299792458 m/s. One light year is equal to 9460730472580800 m. For comparison light travels the distance between Sun and Earth in only 8 minutes and 19.0048 seconds.
II. Distances to habitable exoplanets are believable.
An exoplanet is a planet in another star system. The game shows only one planet for each alien star – the planet that theoretically CAN be habitable. Obviously the sizes of stars and planets are not to scale, because otherwise they would be too small to see. The closest exoplanets in the game are around 10 LY, similar to our world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_terrestrial_exoplanet_candidates
III. No super-powerful engines.
There are no fictional super-powerful engines running on hardly any fuel that enable a spaceship to reach a speed close to the speed of light. On the contrary! It takes thousands of years to reach other planetary systems! Cool. And thought-provoking. Think about it: a single space travel lasts thousands of years – hundreds of human generations. And the whole game can span millions of years! How does it compare to the fact (or rather to the belief) that our civilization is only several thousand years old?
IV. Average speed of spaceships can be calculated.
The speed of spaceships (neither average nor maximum) is NOT given in the game, but you can calculate the average speed yourself in a very easy way! To learn the precise time of the journey I stopped the time flow in the game, wrote down the in-game year, send a scout spaceship to an unexplored planet, started the time flow again and when the scout spaceship reached the planet the in-game journal updated automatically and gave me a precise year when it happened. Then I simply calculated the difference between these two dates.
Knowing distance in LY to a planet and knowing the time of journey is enough to calculate the average speed. For example if the distance is 14.2 LY and the journey lasts 5680 years then the average speed of the spaceship is 0.0025c (0.0025 of the speed of light = 14.2 LY / 5680 years). Please notice that this speed is only for non-upgraded engines. Every speed upgrade increases the average speed by 0.00025c – after ten upgrades the average speed is 0.0050c (0.0025c + 10 * 0.00025c = 0.0025c + 0.0025c).
Such an average speed in terms of our current technology is actually extremely high because 0.0025c is equal to 2698132.122 km/h (0.0025 * 299792458 m/s = 749481.145 m/s = 749.481145 km/s). The fastest man-made space vehicle so far is the Parker Solar Probe (it reached 95 km/s and is expected to reach 192 km/s in the year 2025), BUT these speeds are so high ONLY because the probe is orbiting the Sun and the gravity of the Sun accelerates the probe when it is closest to the sun, but then it slows it down. This is true for ANY object travelling around the Sun on elliptical orbit:
Here's a GIF showing how the speed of the Parker Solar Probe will be changing over time, but the animation is too fast (you can save it and run it in slow motion using a media player):
So, the highest speed of the Parker Solar Probe is its highest ORBITAL speed. On the other hand the in-game speed of 0.0025c (749.48 km/s) is the travelling speed between two stars! It's HUGE! So far there are only 5 man-made objects leaving the Solar System. Fastest of them is the Voyager 1, but it moves at ONLY 17 km/s!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_leaving_the_Solar_System
The in-game speed of 0.0025c (749.48 km/s) is 44 times higher than Voyager 1's!
Off-topic trivia: Voyager 1 was actually launched 16 days AFTER Voyager 2, but it had a different trajectory and reached Jupiter first (hence it is numbered as 1). On the other hand Voyager 2 closely passed by more planets, but one of them (Neptune) slowed it down (instead of accelerating) because it was used to change Voyager 2's trajectory to make Voyager 2 closely pass by Triton (Neptune's largest moon).
V. Average speed does NOT depend on the length of the journey!
I checked the average speed of a scout spaceship with non-upgraded engines during shorter and longer journeys in the game and the speed was always the same (around 0.0025c). At first I thought that it is wrong (longer journey means that there is more time to accelerate), but after a while I realized that it is perfectly correct. Why? Because during a very long journey the engines will be actually working only in the beginning of the journey (to accelerate a spaceship) and towards the end of the journey (to slow down the spaceship). Most of the journey (by far) will happen without any use of engines.
Accelerating for longer periods of time takes more fuel, but more fuel means a spaceship is heavier so it’s harder to accelerate. Moreover the longer a spaceship accelerates in the beginning of the journey the longer it will have to be slowing down towards the end of the journey. The process of slowing down takes less fuel because the spaceship is lighter (because some of the fuel has already been used), but it is still LOTS of fuel.
A spaceship will not slow down on its own because there is no friction and no air drag in space. Well, actually towards the end of the journey it would accelerate on its own because it would be closer and closer to an alien star/planet and their gravity forces would be bigger and bigger. The process of slowing down is actually opposite to the process of accelerating in the beginning the journey, including escaping the gravity forces of the home planet/star. Either way the engines have to counter the forces of gravity – in the beginning of the journey in order to move away from the home planet/star and towards the end of the journey in order to slow down to get to the orbit of the alien planet (instead of crashing straight into the planet).
Here are the basic stages of a journey to an exoplanet:
1. Escaping from the gravity of home planet.
2. Escaping from the gravity of home star.
3. Travelling with a constant velocity (speed + its vector).
4. Slowing down to approach the alien planet with optimal velocity.
5. Slowing down in order to get to the orbit of the alien planet.
Obviously the phrase “escaping from the gravity of home planet/star” is a kind of simplification because the range of the gravity is unlimited, but over very long distances this force is extremely week. In the third stage the rounded travelling speed should be constant (the loss of speed should be minimal).
Here is an example of rough calculations for the basic stages of a journey to an exoplanet that is 14.2 light years (LY) away from Earth with an average speed of 0.0025c:
0. Assembling a spaceship on Earth's orbit.
I think that a big spaceship would have to be assembled on the orbit of Earth because it takes lots of fuel to accelerate even relatively light object to the speed of around 7800m/s (the orbital speed of Earth) in a relatively short time (a space shuttle needs less than 9 minutes to get to orbit). It wouldn't be possible to launch a big spaceship directly from the surface of the Earth because the mass of the needed fuel would make the spaceship insanely heavy. All parts of the spaceship would have to be transported to orbit one by one or in small packs.
1. Acceleration 1m/s/s for 1 hour.
Please notice that accelerating a big/heavy spaceship at 1m/s/s would be actually a great technological success.
The starting speed is 7800m/s, so the speed at the end of this stage will be 11400m/s (7800m/s + 1h*1m/s/s = 7800m/s + 60*60s*1m/s/s = 7800m/s + 3600m/s). This is clearly higher than the escape velocity of Earth (11186m/s at the surface of Earth under the assumption that there would be no air drag/friction). Actually the escape velocity for an object on a circular orbit is lower: the orbital speed * square root of 2 = 7800m/s * 1.4142 = 11031m/s.
2. Acceleration 0.025m/s/s for 342 days.
In the second stage one more factor could be important in some cases – the speed of Earth around the Sun (around 29.78 km/s). Obviously it would be best to launch the spaceship in the same/similar direction, BUT some exoplanets can circle stars that are “over” or “under” the Solar System, so the motion of the Earth would be inconsequential then. For this very reason my calculations ignore this speed.
The speed at the start of the second stage is 11400m/s, so the speed at the end of this stage will be 750120m/s (11400m/s + 342days * 0.025m/s/s = 11400m/s + 342 * 24 * 60 * 60s * 0.025m/s/s = 11400m/s + 29548800s * 0.025m/s/s = 11400m/s + 738720m/s). This is clearly higher than the escape velocity of Sun (617500m/s at the surface of the Sun). The speed at the end of the second stage will be equal to 0.002502131c (750120m/s / 299792458m/s).
Please notice that if the spaceship started in the same direction as the Earth's movement around Sun the speed at the end of this stage would be 779900m/s (750120m/s + 29780m/s), which would be equal to 0.002601466c (779900m/s / 299792458m/s). So, the direction of the launch in reference to the Earth's movement is important, but not overwhelmingly so.
Obviously launching the spaceship in the direction opposite to the Earth's movement around Sun would make no sense – it would be better to simply wait half a year and only then launch the spaceship in the same direction as the Earth's movement around Sun.
3. No acceleration/deceleration for around 5680 years
Well, to be precise: there would me some minimal deceleration coming from the force of gravity of the Sun, but it won't really matter because at the start of the third stage the spaceship will be VERY far away from the Sun and over very long distances the force of gravity is extremely week.
Please, notice that the rough number of years can be calculated this way: 14.2 LY / 0.0025c = 5680 years, but in our example the precise speed is slightly higher (750120m/s = 0.002502131c). Let's calculate the distance at the end of the second stage. The formula is this:
Starting speed * time + acceleration * time * time / 2 = 11400m/s * 29548800s + 0.025m/s/s * 29548800s * 29548800s / 2 = 336856320000m + 10914144768000m = 11251001088000m = 75.2au (11251001088000m / 149597870700m). This distance is slightly more than 1.9 times farther away from the Sun than Pluto's average orbit (75.2au / 39.48au).
At such a long distance (11251001088000m) the acceleration in the direction of the Sun will be only 0.0000010484m/s/s. (acceleration of the Sun = gravitational constant (G) * mass of the Sun / distance^2 = 1.3271244*10^20m*m*m/s/s / 11251001088000m * 11251001088000m).
The speed is high enough (750120m/s = 0.002502131c) that it will “stabilise” after some time – after some time the loss of speed will be seen only at decimal places and the round value of the speed will always be the same. My rough estimates (day-after-day calculations) show that the speed should “stabilise” at 750104m/s (0.00250208c) after around 9919 days of the third stage (slightly more than 27 years). As you can see the loss of speed should be minimal – only 16 m/s out of 750120 m/s (0.00002133 = 0.002133%).
4. Deceleration -0.025m/s/s for 342 days.
5. Deceleration -1m/s/s for 1 hour.
The values in stages 4 and 5 are given under assumption that the alien star/planet are exactly the same as Sun/Earth. If the alien star is more massive than Sun then the deceleration will have to be longer or harder to counter the bigger gravity of the alien star. If the alien planet is more massive than Earth then it’s a mixed bag – on one hand its gravity will be stronger, but on the other hand its orbital speed will be higher. I think that overall the acceleration would still have to be longer or harder.
The process of slowing down in most cases will have to be longer because when a spaceship starts its journey it does it at the very best moment (so the escape path from Earth ends up pointing straight at the alien star/planet), but towards the end of its journey the spaceship may be going in the opposite direction than the alien planet (the alien planet revolves around the alien star in its own cycle). In such case the spaceship would have to “wait” for the alien planet to make a half circle, so they would be going in the same direction when the fifth stage begins. It means that the spaceship would have to start decelerating sooner, so the journey would take slightly longer. Either way the whole journey would last thousands of years, so it doesn't really matter.
Summing up: in our example the stages of the journey were these:
1. Acceleration 1m/s/s for 1 hour.
2. Acceleration 0.025m/s/s for 342 days.
3. No acceleration/deceleration for around 5680 years.
4. Deceleration -0.025m/s/s for 342 days.
5. Deceleration -1m/s/s for 1 hour.
This example clearly shows that whatever velocity the spaceship has in the third stage of the journey it will be the rounded average velocity of the whole journey! The precise value will be slightly lower, because the third stage will be slightly shorter than the whole journey. In the example above the third stage will be 99.967037% of the whole journey, so the precise average speed will be slightly more than 749872,738m/s (750120m/s * 0.99967037 + some tiny values coming from the velocities in other stages of the journey). This is slightly more than 0.0025013c.
There is another crucial thing arising from the example above – most of the fuel will be used in the SECOND stage of the journey! Let's compare the second stage to the first stage – the acceleration will be 40 times lower than in the first stage (1m/s/s / 0.025m/s/s = 40), but it will last 8208 times longer (342 days / 1h = 342 days * 24h/day / 1h). I think that even if the engines were more economical in the second stage (much smaller force/acceleration coming from the engines) this stage would still consume most of the fuel.
The fourth stage is similar, but the spaceship is lighter by the mass of the used fuel. Please notice that in the fourth stage the spaceship is slowing down, so to use the same engines the spaceship has to be pointing in the opposite direction – small side engines can be used to rotate the spaceship around its own axis before the fourth stage begins.
In the third stage of the journey (most of the journey) the spaceship will be travelling with a constant velocity (of 0.0025c), so there will be no fuel consumption from the engines at all.
The example above shows why the average speed of a spaceship in the game is always the same (no matter how long the journey lasts).
VI. Limited range of spaceships.
In the game the range of spaceships is limited. At first I thought that it is wrong (after a spaceship reaches the travelling speed its engines will be turned off), but after a while I realized that it is perfectly correct. Why? Because fuel will be needed not only for acceleration. Every device on a spaceship that will be needed during the whole journey (for example detectors, internal clocks, force shields and computers analysing the trajectory) will use LOTS of fuel during thousands (or tens of thousands) of years. A spaceship will need some detectors that will have to be regularly switched on and off to detect big dangers (mostly big asteroids or some very dense dust clouds). The spaceship will also need some major force shields that will have to be switched on in case of big dangers that can’t be dodged and also minor force shields that will have to be turned on constantly as protection against small undetectable asteroids. In the game I imagine that the cost of the fuel consumption by engines is included in the cost of a spaceship and the cost of the fuel consumption by other things is calculated according to the length of the journey.
VII. Space events
In the game there are some space events that are kind of scary. Just read the examples:
VIII. The game changes the perspective on human life.
The game actually encourages you to destroy intelligent highly advanced civilizations for technological points, but we ourselves (as human beings) can be seen as such a civilization. Could some alien civilization come and use Earth as a testing ground? How would we feel then?
IX. You can be good anyway.
I wouldn’t want to be destroyed by a more advanced civilization under no circumstances and for this very reason I try not to harm intelligent species in the game. I prefer, whenever possible, to role-play this game as a kind of space farmer who plants seeds and later harvest all the crops. To start another cycle he has to plant new seeds again. In the early game (without heavy harvesters) I send (at the right time) several normal harvesters (enough to harvest all biomass) one after another and right after them I send a seeder to start a whole new cycle (I never use the option “auto-harvest”):
This way I prevent any intelligent life from developing (I reset the process over and over again). Obviously I sometimes slip (bad timing or miscalculation) and intelligent life develops against my will, but I harvest the whole planet as soon as possible anyway, so the amount of suffering is smallest.
X. Life can emerge on its own.
Sometimes life can emerge on its own:
This is cool because the game shows you that one theory about creation of life doesn't negate any other theory. It could be “transported” from another place/planet, but it could also develop on its own. Anyway, sometimes I leave such a planet alone and just observe. After some time (far too quickly actually) a high-tech civilization emerges:
I like to read about such high-tech civilisations.
As cool as it seems, the high-tech civilizations are not really threats to you, unless you are not careful. It's good and it's bad. Mostly good, because the game gives you a feeling of having God-like abilities to rule over life on the nearest planets. Man, this game is thought-provoking in so many different ways!
I used to protect high-tech civilizations from the “space locust” – some mysterious alien civilization that devours all life on every planet that it reaches. Unlike me, the space locust swarms only destroy life without seeding it first. Again, this concept is good and bad at the same time. Mostly good, because it actually gives you a reason for all this harvesting. I role-play this game as a project that aims to achieve two goals:
a) developing an ultimate interstellar weapon for defensive purposes,
b) gathering enough energy produced from biomass to use this weapon.
The value 3.7 under the planet on the screenshot above means that there is a technological civilization, not some intelligent but primitive life.
One time I ignored all planets where life emerge on its own, but after some time they were so numerous that it became annoying. I destroyed those civilizations that attacked me or planets that were under my “jurisdiction” and I left all the other at the space locust's mercy:
Interestingly, one planet survived an attack (but was overrun later):
Now I usually harvest all biomass also from the planets where life developed on its own, but I upgrade my range only to the level 6, so any life that develops on planets that are farther away is left alone forever (or rather as long as it is not devoured by the space locust). I don't try to explore planets that are very far away, because a lag of tens of thousands of years is annoying – it is hard to estimate how many harvesters I should send to gather all biomass. When my technology is high enough to build Terramorpher I improve the habitability of some of the close planets.
XI. Biomass as a source of energy and space currency.
I role-play this game this way: the biomass can be used for energy production that can be used for the obtaining other resources or carrying out scientific experiments needed for technological progress. HOWEVER, to obtain enough biomass to run our project we need to harvest all biomass from several planets, so we can't do it on our own planet. If we produced energy from alien biomass on our own planet the carbon dioxide generated during energy production would have to be processed further by using technology mimicking what happens in plants, otherwise there would be more and more carbon dioxide on our planet. Instead our harvesters will successively harvest biomass and transform it into energy on the orbit of an alien planet and then just transport to our planet the energy stored in a useful way. This way young plants on the alien planet will have lots of carbon dioxide for growth. As the project has to be self-sufficient we need to use some common currency for everything and the most natural currency is obviously the biomass itself.
XII. Automatic spaceships.
I believe that long space journeys will be automatic for a very long time to come and the game actually supports my belief in a way.
In the game a scout spaceship never comes back. Pretty logical – the scout spaceship can stay on the orbit of a planet and report any changes that happen later. A battle spaceship (for example Fighter or Cruiser) never comes back either, which is annoying, but it can be explained that the most valuable part of battle spaceships are some kind of missiles. After the missiles are launched the value of the empty hull is minimal. However, this fact (that a battle spaceship never comes back) suggests that it is automatic – obviously we can't let its crew die in the space, right?
What about seeders and harvesters? Well, I can't imagine a manned spaceship (of any kind) that travels for thousands or tens of thousands of years. That's hundreds or thousands of human GENERATIONS. So many generations would have to spend their whole life on a spaceship! Without ever seeing a bright sunlight. Moreover such a journey would have to be totally self-supporting but it is impossible in deep space where there is hardly any light – no solar panels and no free-growing plants there. Hard to even imagine. And just think about all the pregnant women, newborn babies and diapers on a spaceship. Obviously there would be no new generations without them! The only alternative would be some kind of hibernation, but I can't imagine a hibernation lasting thousands or tens of thousands of years.
Seeding and harvesting biomass should be easy enough to be conducted by automatic machines because biomass is a relatively soft “material”. This is the way I role-play this game.
XIII. Flaws.
At the end I have to point out some things that don’t make any sense to me and don't fit my way of role-playing this game:
1. Ancient harvesters.
Sometimes you can find an “ancient harvester full of biomass” that you can repair and use. But how can you “repair” an ancient alien spaceship when you know nothing about its design? And how is it possible that the biomass (or energy produced from biomass) remains useful after such a long time of “storage”? I base my role-play on automatic spaceships/machines (for reasons given above) and such automatic “repair attempt” would be even less likely to succeed, so I order such ancient alien harvesters to self-destruct before they reach my home planet (as if nothing ever happened).
2. Ancient ruins.
Sometimes you get technology points from “exploring ancient ruins”. As cool as it sounds it doesn’t make any sense to me. Ancient ruins are still ruins – they don’t work in a way they were designed for. I base my role-play on automatic spaceships/machines (for reasons given above) and such automatic exploration would be even less valuable. Whenever I get such a “free” technology point I think about it as “unexpected technological breakthrough done by our scientists” OR as a result of scientific experiments carried out in space during long journeys. The same goes for “free” technology points form exploring “unidentified objects”.
3. Blackhole Booster.
Blackhole Booster is the only thing in the game that is totally messed up from the scientific point of view – it “creates a black hole near the planet that increases relative time speed”. Oh, boy. Black hole is something very massive and time SLOWS DOWN near massive objects, not accelerates! And how can you create a black hole anyway? I never use Blackhole Booster, because it doesn't make any sense.
4. Headquarters.
In the game there is no home planet orbiting a home star, but an object that cannot move, called Headquarters. This object is one big question-mark. I myself role-play this game as if the Headquarters were Earth orbiting Sun in the very far future.
5. Interstellar Deathray.
Interstellar Deathray has an instant effect, so it's faster than light, which is impossible. Even role-playing it as a ray travelling at the speed of light doesn't really improve anything – it would be impossible to hit a moving target that is several dozens light years away, considering especially that we know the position of the moving target that was true yet other several dozens years ago. Another problem is the meaning of the word “swarm”. After some time I realised that it can, or rather should be understood as a group of small spaceships, instead of just one big spaceship like it is pictured in-game. In such case one deathray wouldn't be able to destroy hundreds of different objects. For these reasons I've recently decided to ignore the Interstellar Deathray completely.
XIV. Tips.
My way of role-playing Galaxy Harvest is easily doable in the main campaign (which is actually one big tutorial that describes gameplay mechanics step by step), but on the map Hive in the Random Sector (a map that throws lots of space locust at you) it is very hard even on the medium difficulty setting. Beating this map on the highest difficulty setting, even without ANY self-restrictions (ANY role-playing rules) is sometimes outright impossible because some crucial things are totally random. This is why I would like to give you some tips.
1. Free Tech Points are crucial.
You get free technological points (Tech Points) from exploring exoplanets in a random way, BUT you don't have to restart the game to get a different outcome. It's enough to reload a game! You can save the game before your Scout spaceship reaches an exoplanet and reload the game over and over again until you get a free Tech Point. Then you can save the game again right before exploring another exoplanet. It feels almost like cheating, but technically it's not a cheat at all. There are always 7 exoplanets within the starting range of your spaceships, so you can get 7 free Tech Points right at the start of the game (on the medium difficulty setting) or very soon into the game (on the hard difficulty setting you have too little starting biomass to explore all 7 exoplanets right away). Well, on the medium difficulty setting it's more than enough to get 3 free Tech Points from the 7 closest exoplanets.
2. Big exoplanets are crucial.
The positions and habitabilities of all the exoplanets are random. If you get a position where all big habitable exoplanets are very far away from Earth then you should restart the game – small exoplanets produce too little biomass, even if they have good habitability. You should also restart the game if you get a position where a big exoplanet (at least 2.0) with good habitability (at least 0.9) has an atypical climate (cold, hot, etc.) – at the start of the game the biomass production on such a planet will be too slow. In other words: you should have a big exoplanet with good habitability with normal climate as close as possible.
3. Genetics upgrades are crucial.
I hate Genetics as a science that interferes with nature, but it can be role-played as a normal cultivation of crops (using the best seeds from the most recent crops over and over again). In the game every level of Genetics increases biomass production by 16%, always in reference to the starting biomass production, which makes a HUGE difference anyway. Obviously you have to develop other technological branches too, especially Capacity (to make biomass harvesting more profitable), but the overall “income” depends solely on how much biomass is available out there.
4. Very high upgrade levels are NOT worth it.
The needed biomass investments are bigger and bigger while the “return” is smaller and smaller. For example Capacity of harvesters increases by 20 per every level: first it's a 20% increase (from 100 to 120), then it's a 16.7% increase (from 120 to 140), then 14.3%, 12.5%, 11.1%, 10.0%, 9.1%, 8.3%, 7.7% and so on. On the other hand the biomass investments are 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 600 and so on, which means that increases per 100 biomass invested are 13.3%, 8.3%, 5.7%, 4.2%, 3.2%, 2.5%, 2.0%, 1.7%, 1.3% and so on. It's almost useless to upgrade Genetics and Capacity past level 12. Actually, I don't upgrade Capacity past level 10 for practical reason – the capacity of a Harvester spaceship is exactly 300 then, which allows easy calculations of the number of Harvesters needed to gather all biomass from an exoplanet.
5. Very distant exoplanets are less useful.
Every spaceships needs more fuel to travel farther, which means higher costs. Moreover it's much more difficult to calculate the number of Harvesters needed to gather all biomass from a very distant exoplanet, because the biomass keeps growing after you send the Harvesters. Most importantly Space Locust Swarms usually attack closest exoplanets (closest for them, not for you), so your range have to be MUCH bigger for you to have time to protect your “investments” AND at the same time to prevent the swarm from growing. Too much trouble combined with too many Tech Points wasted. It's enough to upgrade both Range and Speed to level 6, believe me.
6. Cruiser spaceship is enough.
You don't have to upgrade Weapon level at all, but you should still invest 3 Tech Points to make the Cruiser spaceship available. Sending 1 Cruiser is clearly better than sending 4 Fighters. On the other hand 1 Dreadnought is equal to 2 Cruisers and 1 Fighter, but it requires 5 more Tech Points. It's not really worth it. It's better to siply invest these 5 Tech Points into Genetics and then upgrade the levels of Genetics (investing biomass energy-units) to “earn” more biomass later and to be able to send more Cruisers.
7. Biggest spaceships are risky.
The random event about your spaceships being destroyed in an asteroid collision is less painful when it happens to your Harvester or Cruiser rather than to your Heavy Harvester or Dreadnought. On short distances Harvesters are as profitable as Heavy Harvesters anyway, so there is no need at all to use the bigger spaceship. This is another reason to seed only the closest exoplanets, but using Terramorpher spaceships is a must then (to increase the habitabilities of the closest exoplanets).
XV. Inspiration from a movie?
I've just re-watched Independence Day and the alien civilization in this movie is described as a kind of locust too! I didn't remember that!
No comments:
Post a Comment