Hellraiser
Arcane
A bit of an introduction first. This is an after action report of a 4 player online free for all match in Offworld Trading Company. Offworld Trading Company itself is an economic strategy about building industry on Mars and out-melonheading your rivals while making big jewgold. The core game mechanic is supply and demand which dynamically changes (and commodity price with it) as players sell resources on the market, the NPC colony grows (or shrinks) and random events happen.
Just got released in early access, but the core "skirmish" mechanics seem to be done. Anyway time for me to make some yehzah.
The news of a new U.N. sanctioned colony to be settled in the region of Tharsis Montes has sparked interest on the markets today. Omniventures Inc. has announced its Deep Space Ventures division will use this opportunity to build new industries on Mars,which resulted in raising its stockprices by 14.1%.
: The Sapiens, inferior apes. They wish to beat us at our own game? Fools, we made the game, we made the rules, we taught them it so that they could be exploited and enslaved.
: Do not underestimate them Kotick. Mars is an unfamiliar ground.
: An ape defeating you would be most amusing Kotick.
: Unlikely, I bear the whip that they must obey. They are meant to submit to my will.
Well, one guy is new at multiplayer, but then again the AI is actually harder than most players at this point so if he can handle that it shouldn't be bad. We also have a self-proclaimed messiah and a band famous for Mr. Roboto and Renegade.
It is time to jew.
SURVEY
Game starts with surveying for resources and ultimately a location for your HQ. You get a sensor ping every second, the ping reveals all resources and their deposit sizes within the smaller colored area and just the map outline and generic "there's a resource on this hex" markers within the brighter desaturated area.
You can only ping hexes within the brighter area and everybody starts from the center of the map which is the NPC colony.
You can pick a HQ type (basically they use different resources to upgrade and have different perks) and land at any moment during this phase. Of course if you land to soon you may miss that really good spot, or indeed underestimate the amounts of some resources fucking over your strategy. If you choose to delay landing somebody else may drop and cockblock the best spot you surveyed leaving you with shit.
This is a Volcanic map so the RNG throws a lot of geothermal vents (these are probably the least realistic thing in the game besides some patents) and resources in ratios matching the map type. In particular this map should have little silicon, carbon and water.
This spot is great though not spectacular. There's some aluminium, medium iron and one node of high water. Also a geothermal vent (though its location is irrelevant as I will explain later).
Start-Up
: I see New Prosperia rises.
: Indeed Morden, soon our profits will swell, the red world will be subjugated via the powers of market manipulation. And the sapiens with it. Ha haha HAHAHAAHAHA!
I pick Expansive. Expansive gets more claims per HQ upgrade. Claims allow you to claim hexes (duh!), you can only build on claimed hexes. Besides HQ upgrades you can only buy claims during auctions or from the black market making them very valuable. This also means you need to be careful how you use them.
Also different HQ types have different sizes and shapes, you also get some resources from those you land on (Robotic gets double).
Hexes that are not connected with each other have blimps fly between them and supply them with what they need. But these supply ships use fuel so you either have to buy it or produce it.
Ugh, motion blur. Not noticeable in-game but fudging screens. Anyway as an expansive Corporation Omniventures DSV Mars Inc. needs Aluminium, Steel and Glass to upgrade. But at the same time all the corporate drones and unpaid interns at the HQ need food, water and oxygen. Oh and power, to not to freeze to death or trip in the dark. And the need for those will increase as the HQ gets bigger. I can either produce the steel, aluminium and glass or buy them at current market prices off the market.
Anyway Muad'dib wannabe went with Scavenger, he immediately secured the high carbon deposit in the crater. This is because Scavenger uses carbon instead of steel to build and upgrade. Which means he can skip an iron>steel supply chain freeing up claims, if he secures carbon (which most people won't bother with unless they're going for chemicals or electronics).
Expansion
Omniventures DSV Mars shares surge after new expansion announcement. Styx Mining Consortium establishes new HQ in a late bid to secure the martian market.
Styx is probably lagging badly. Anyway here's what I did, I sold off my surplus Iron and Water in order to be able to afford the Steel and Glass for the upgrade. And thus Omniventures upgraded first.
Note that my debt is rising, although slowly. Every resource that is required for upkeep of current operations, like power, food, oxygen, water and fuel, is bought automatically at market prices when your stockpile is empty. This is done with debt rather than cash, cash is used to purchase resources necessary for construction and upgrades as well as stuff from the black market. Debt is also used to finance auction bidding. You are free to go as much into debt as you want.
Debt accrues interest every in-game day. Debt makes your stock price fall. You are not obliged to pay it off which you can do with cash when you please, but more debt means more interest. And more debt, and lower stock prices. Low stock prices of course make you an easy target for hostile takeover which itself is the means to winning the match.
Ok, at this point I am overproducing Water, selling a ton of it on the market driving prices low. Steel mill and another iron mine are up, I have no idea what I used one claim one and I have one left.
My stockpile of food is empty and I start getting debt from buying that and energy. Energy prices are rising. This is a good point to get a power plant. I have 3 options, solar panels, which work only during the day but produce a lot of power (you can't stockpile energy, the surplus gets sold on the market automatically), wind turbines which work all the time but provide little power depending on the windyness of the hex (also martian wind force sucks as it has a thin atmo). And geothermal, which provides 1,4 power, always, but can only be built on vents.
The U.N. is offering rights to the use of a martian geothermal vent to the highest bidder.
What luck! A claim auction for a vent! TheU.N. melonheads are selling a claim on a specific tile. There are also auctions for generic claims. The game pauses during them, you are free to sell or buy shit during the pause or queue other orders.
Anyway this vent happens to be the one next to my HQ, though that is irrelevant as power does not require transports, fuel or stockpiling.
With power prices at 24 kwabucks a jiggawatt everyone is fighting over it like crazy. I decide to retreat however. For two reasons. One, there are at least 3 other vents on the map, all unclaimed. Two, I have a spare claim anyway. Three, 28k debt is a lot at this stage.
: These sapiens are fools! 40k? Ha, they will be crippled by debt while my enterprise thrives.
Styx eventually buys that claim for 48k. lol indeed MrIncredilous. I am wondering if Kwisatz Haderach was actually bidding higher because he saw the other guy overcommitted to winning this auction.
Muad'dib Enterprises expands. I am overproducing Iron and need cash for the geotherm badly. But at least it costs resources I produce so I will get it eventually.
Martian energy prices take a nosedive, analysts claim speculation was inflating energy prices. Steel prices at an all time high of 87 dollars per ton.
Random market surplus, price down by 9 kwabucks per jiggawatt and dropping. Still, my geotherm is being built. Time to prepare for upgrading the HQ as I am out of claims. My investment in Steel pays off, the NPC colony and/or the other players must be buying a lot of it. Having my own supply makes upgrading faster and gives me something to sell off for profit.
Another auction for a geothermal vent. With energy prices at 9 kwabucks it is just not worth it IMO. Also it looks like Styx was the one who bought a claim on the black market. Every time the black market opens you can buy sabotage or claim from it, however everytime somebody buys something from it, the price increases. Nobody has hacker arrays yet.
Incredulous Colonial Solutions upgrades HQ to level 2.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, I claimed a high deposit of water in the west. I am also overproducing both Water and Iron like hell. Steel breaks the 100$ barrier. Fuel production shortage makes me gain 20$ of debt a second. Gotta upgrade fast. Selling surpluss for pennies.
: The Sapiens lust for steel, steel they shall have, as collars and chains by which I will bind them to me. Ha haha hahahahahaha!
Food is expensive, oxygen is expensive, fuel is expensive, steel is expensive. First order of business is to start utilizing these stockpiles of cheap stuff I am overproducing. Luckily there is a lot you can do with water, for one I can turn it to food. Then of course I can turn it into fuel and oxygen via electrolysis plants. But I need glass.
Rather than wait for cash for glass I can use the surplus Iron to build even more steel mills! I mean honestly, even if I will be producing more Steel than the Iron I can mine, it is so cheap now it I can just buy it off the market.
An important thing to remember is that sometimes raw materials cost more than processed goods. If food prices are below ~3 times that of water, it is better to sell the water and buy food off the market than produce it.
Glass prices break new records as Omniventures AbomiWheat farming complex construction begins in New Prosperia driving up demand. Electronics market experiences major shortage as production falls short of martian demand. Muad'dib Enterprises expands.
Two steel mills and one hydroponics farm later, steel is going down as I flood the market with it. One thing I forgot to mention, adjacency bonuses. Clustering production facilities of the same type gives a synergy bonus, this applies also to mines, so even low deposits and medium ones can be more attractive than high ones which are alone.
Built another farm for that gluten-rich AbomiWheat and an electrolysis plant which makes my HQ self-sufficient in matters of fuel and oxygen for now. Steel price rises, which is good. Unfortunately so does my debt.
Patent Auction. Patents can be researched with a lab (available at HQ level 3 I think) or sometimes gotten through auctions. This one reduces sabotage damage.
Also Omniventures DSV Mars is making the most money off producing a single commodity. Production per second times prices makes the New Prosperia steel mills a goose laying golden eggs, for now.
Lost the auction but all in all Muad'dib over here got 12k debt in exchange for absolutely nothing if nobody bother to use sabotage such as mutiny, emp or power surge against him.
It looks like he's mining a lot of water, carbon and has a high aluminium deposit claimed as well. Carbon is fairly expensive and he has the best carbon source on the map secured.
Incredulous snatched up high Iron near my second high Water deposit. Also he upgraded to level 3.
The Muad'dib builds a glass furnace, a sane choice considering how high glass prices are.
As I prepare for upgrading it become apparent why glass at this point could be useful. Also the sandpeople messiah decides to get a Chemicals Lab, which makes no sense. Carbon is actually 1 kwabuck cheaper a piece than chemicals, and you also need fuel and oxygen to produce those.
Incredulous has the least debt so his stock price is the highest, so far nobody is using cash to buy stock. For good reason, while buying stock early is cheaper, and you can sell it off later for a profit, upgrading is a better way to spend that money. Plus it just gets frozen up in assets.
Power is going up again.
: New Prosperia grows, like a Moloch feeding on Mammon. Bow sapiens, bow before its greatness and majesty!
Yeah, time to use those claims to get another geothermal plant.
Now I need to secure my lategame by diversifying. There's fuck all of silicon on the map, half the reason why glass is so expensive and nobody is making electronics. Here are some of the only deposits of it on the map, next to the HQ of Incredulous.
Also power prices are going batshit again, 52 kwabucks now.
See the flying quarries (placeholders until they make a construction airship model I guess)? I'm sending them to both secure silicon and cockblock Muad'dib who is indeed the only one making glass now before he upgrades his HQ. I'll place my quarries so that he cannot get more than just one more with an adjacency bonus.
BTW claiming tiles works like this, you send a flying "building" to the hex, whichever arrives first gets the hex. So claiming all the way across the map can backfire, especially at the very beginning when everybody has just landed.
Also he just got an engineering lab. It is a building that researches efficiency upgrades using chemicals, which is probably why he built that chemicals lab. Still, I would just buy them off the market. Overall he seems to be trying to be a jack of all trades too much without utilizing adjacency bonuses.
Incredulous builds a patent lab, patents are global bonuses. Some are upgrades like "get double power from power stations attached to HQ" others enable you to bypass some resource use like carbon scrubbers (carbon from atmo), water engines (units use water instead of fuel), cold fusion (building use water instead of power).
Getting a Glass Furnace and another Electrolysis Plant.
Generic claim auction.
I can afford this, I have the income. Also my stockprice is highest so I can take the debt hit and my debt is falling as power production is very lucrative for me now.
Diversifying further, increase aluminium production with a second mine near my old one and built another glass furnace.
The level 5 HQ upgrade is the most important one for two reasons. One is simply getting more claims, the other is unlocking the off-world market launchpad. Bulk export of goods into space is more profitable than selling them on Mars. It is the key to funding buyouts.
: You apes think you can sabotage me? I am the Kotick, enslaver of sapiens, master of rehashing for profit. You are but ants to the likes of me!
Well, got hit with EMP, Pretty Boy Atreides over here targeted my glass production, most likely so that I would not make more money and so that I would not drive prices down while making most of the profit from Glass before it became cheap.
Also hit level 5 HQ, 7 new claims.
Building a hacker array. It is what melonheads use to manipulate the market. You pay cash to engineer a market shortage or surplus of any resource you wish, which is indistinguishable from regular market shortage/surplus events to other players. The array of course uses a claim like everything else.
Also building a pleasure dome, this turns energy into pure cash. How much you make from it depends on how many pleasure domes are in the game. Of course if energy prices are too high it makes no sense to build it. And power is at 108 kwabucks at this point.
Pirates auction. This thing is great, pirates raid all supply lines stealing all the haul until they get bored. You get everything they steal and your competitors suffer shortages. Win-win.
Food is becoming very expensive, pleasure dome is only giving 88$ since somebody else also has one. And it uses 1 energy per second, when energy is 108$. Gonna scrap it.
Also building more AbomiWheat farms.
Glass production is using up all my oxygen, interns report they have problems with breathing. Well, I'll need more electrolysis plants, and more silicon, and new interns.
Great, I need electronics which are now the most expensive goods. Scrapped the Pleasure Dome as it was causing a power deficit and making my debt go up while paying less than the power it sucked.
Muad'dib goes for more EMP sabotage and gets to level 5 as well. Hits my steel chain this time, should have stuck with Glass TBH, steel is worth far less now. Launchpad is under construction.
Put a solar farm on the empty hex where the dome once stood. Power is after all at 187 fucking dollars! Which is why my debt is finally shrinking, the power surplus is paying it off.
If you are crappy and you know it blame the lag
Also started building another launchpad.
Pirates auction, again. Also you can see the offworld market prices and the first launch of 100 water being prepared. The prices are either 10 times bigger than in reality or the profit margins off launches are just 10%, not sure.
Still, the prices on the off world market are different from those on Mars. They don't seem to change, or perhaps the shipments are but a fraction of total supply and demand so they have little impact.
Won the auction, picking the area to raid now. Muad'dib over here has two silicon quarries just like I do, I send the pirates to loot his silicon transports which should stop his electronics and glass production.
Time to make some money for hostile takeover, engineering a glass shortage with hax from the hacker array.
: The Omniventures-Styx merger will be my best one since acquiring Blizzard!
Using profits from offworld exports to buy Styx stock. I got for the cheapest guy for two reasons, price and because he has a lot of unused claims. I will be able to upgrade his HQ and get more, so I will get a of flexibility in what to expand.
Also launchpads are capped at 2 per level 5 HQ.
As I buy him up his stock price rises, also Muad'dib has no launchpads of his own yet and my stock price rises to nearly 17$.
Styx tries to stall me by buying up his own shares. Basically what happens is this, the more shares I have the less it costs to buyout that rival when the share meter is full. You can technically buyout yourself. Takeover costs a lot more than packages of shares.
: Do you even LBO, bro?
Styx is mine just as a rocket flies into space and with him 4 new claims. If it was flown by Kerbals it would make great celebratory fireworks
Muad'dib researched Carbon Scrubbing.
Muad'dib is stockpiling electronics it seems. For a launchpad of his own probably.
Patent auction, not really worth it. I'm getting another vent, although energy prices are falling. Incredilous gets it which makes sense as nobody else built pleasure domes.
Also have a ton of cash and upgraded Styx, an Omniventures group company, to level 5. 17 claims up for use and two more launchpads ahead.
Styx had a nice water based industry set up. Farms and electrolysis plants, as well as the few rich water deposits around. Both water and food are expensive now.
Muad'dib is buying himself up to prevent takeover. Despite that his share price is still lower than mine.
Water is becoming very expensive, so much that food is unprofitable. Have to change this, building water condensers on the few water ice hexes there are on this map. On the south pole there are dry ice hexes which produce carbon instead of water.
Mars, desert planet indeed, we even have our own Muad'dib.
Styx had an engineering lab. I use it to upgrade glass production efficiency, however first I will need chemicals. Luckily I have enough claims to start producing those on my own, as they are very expensive.
While Muad'dib left me with crap for carbon deposits, I'll just mine these three low ones utilizing adjacency as much as I can.
Also he's making a run for Incredulous.
Oxygen shortage drives prices up. Omniventures records record profits thanks to the acquisition of Styx and offworld exports of food and glass. Muad'dib attempts hostile takeover.
Incredulous tries to buy up his stock.
The sandpeople messiah is making a killing off electronics and chemicals however, not likely Incredulous can defend against his massive stacks of jewgold.
Not sure why I even bought this, water is fucking expensive. Fuel isn't. BTW power is worth jack shit again.
: Tick tock Kotick, the apes are trying to buy you.
: They will fail!
He bought only 1 package. Meanwhile I got some chemical labs and electronics plants to boost my money making.
I need 640k to buy him.
Incredulous gets bought out. I focus on improving production through upgrades between setting up more offworld launches and selling stockpiles on Mars. 4 launchpads are running around the clock exporting shit.
Water prices are insane.
Uh oh, looks like a run on my stock.
New claim, why not?
With oxygen expensive as hell both on Mars and Offworld I use the claim to build another electrolysis plant.
Half a million in cash, I need just 200k more to buy out the desert mouse. Looks like he's not trying to buy more of my stock. No wonder, he still has no offworld markets.
Iron prices crash as well as those of Water. Has the Water bubble burst? Experts debate in studio at 11.
Also guess what, shipping oxygen, electronics and chemicals offworld and I have over 700k in the bank account.
: The Elders are most pleased Kotick.
The Kwisatz Hedarech did not see this coming
Holy shit this thing is long.
Just got released in early access, but the core "skirmish" mechanics seem to be done. Anyway time for me to make some yehzah.
The news of a new U.N. sanctioned colony to be settled in the region of Tharsis Montes has sparked interest on the markets today. Omniventures Inc. has announced its Deep Space Ventures division will use this opportunity to build new industries on Mars,which resulted in raising its stockprices by 14.1%.
Well, one guy is new at multiplayer, but then again the AI is actually harder than most players at this point so if he can handle that it shouldn't be bad. We also have a self-proclaimed messiah and a band famous for Mr. Roboto and Renegade.
It is time to jew.
SURVEY
Game starts with surveying for resources and ultimately a location for your HQ. You get a sensor ping every second, the ping reveals all resources and their deposit sizes within the smaller colored area and just the map outline and generic "there's a resource on this hex" markers within the brighter desaturated area.
You can only ping hexes within the brighter area and everybody starts from the center of the map which is the NPC colony.
You can pick a HQ type (basically they use different resources to upgrade and have different perks) and land at any moment during this phase. Of course if you land to soon you may miss that really good spot, or indeed underestimate the amounts of some resources fucking over your strategy. If you choose to delay landing somebody else may drop and cockblock the best spot you surveyed leaving you with shit.
This is a Volcanic map so the RNG throws a lot of geothermal vents (these are probably the least realistic thing in the game besides some patents) and resources in ratios matching the map type. In particular this map should have little silicon, carbon and water.
This spot is great though not spectacular. There's some aluminium, medium iron and one node of high water. Also a geothermal vent (though its location is irrelevant as I will explain later).
Start-Up
I pick Expansive. Expansive gets more claims per HQ upgrade. Claims allow you to claim hexes (duh!), you can only build on claimed hexes. Besides HQ upgrades you can only buy claims during auctions or from the black market making them very valuable. This also means you need to be careful how you use them.
Also different HQ types have different sizes and shapes, you also get some resources from those you land on (Robotic gets double).
Hexes that are not connected with each other have blimps fly between them and supply them with what they need. But these supply ships use fuel so you either have to buy it or produce it.
Ugh, motion blur. Not noticeable in-game but fudging screens. Anyway as an expansive Corporation Omniventures DSV Mars Inc. needs Aluminium, Steel and Glass to upgrade. But at the same time all the corporate drones and unpaid interns at the HQ need food, water and oxygen. Oh and power, to not to freeze to death or trip in the dark. And the need for those will increase as the HQ gets bigger. I can either produce the steel, aluminium and glass or buy them at current market prices off the market.
Anyway Muad'dib wannabe went with Scavenger, he immediately secured the high carbon deposit in the crater. This is because Scavenger uses carbon instead of steel to build and upgrade. Which means he can skip an iron>steel supply chain freeing up claims, if he secures carbon (which most people won't bother with unless they're going for chemicals or electronics).
Expansion
Omniventures DSV Mars shares surge after new expansion announcement. Styx Mining Consortium establishes new HQ in a late bid to secure the martian market.
Styx is probably lagging badly. Anyway here's what I did, I sold off my surplus Iron and Water in order to be able to afford the Steel and Glass for the upgrade. And thus Omniventures upgraded first.
Note that my debt is rising, although slowly. Every resource that is required for upkeep of current operations, like power, food, oxygen, water and fuel, is bought automatically at market prices when your stockpile is empty. This is done with debt rather than cash, cash is used to purchase resources necessary for construction and upgrades as well as stuff from the black market. Debt is also used to finance auction bidding. You are free to go as much into debt as you want.
Debt accrues interest every in-game day. Debt makes your stock price fall. You are not obliged to pay it off which you can do with cash when you please, but more debt means more interest. And more debt, and lower stock prices. Low stock prices of course make you an easy target for hostile takeover which itself is the means to winning the match.
Ok, at this point I am overproducing Water, selling a ton of it on the market driving prices low. Steel mill and another iron mine are up, I have no idea what I used one claim one and I have one left.
My stockpile of food is empty and I start getting debt from buying that and energy. Energy prices are rising. This is a good point to get a power plant. I have 3 options, solar panels, which work only during the day but produce a lot of power (you can't stockpile energy, the surplus gets sold on the market automatically), wind turbines which work all the time but provide little power depending on the windyness of the hex (also martian wind force sucks as it has a thin atmo). And geothermal, which provides 1,4 power, always, but can only be built on vents.
The U.N. is offering rights to the use of a martian geothermal vent to the highest bidder.
What luck! A claim auction for a vent! The
Anyway this vent happens to be the one next to my HQ, though that is irrelevant as power does not require transports, fuel or stockpiling.
With power prices at 24 kwabucks a jiggawatt everyone is fighting over it like crazy. I decide to retreat however. For two reasons. One, there are at least 3 other vents on the map, all unclaimed. Two, I have a spare claim anyway. Three, 28k debt is a lot at this stage.
Styx eventually buys that claim for 48k. lol indeed MrIncredilous. I am wondering if Kwisatz Haderach was actually bidding higher because he saw the other guy overcommitted to winning this auction.
Muad'dib Enterprises expands. I am overproducing Iron and need cash for the geotherm badly. But at least it costs resources I produce so I will get it eventually.
Martian energy prices take a nosedive, analysts claim speculation was inflating energy prices. Steel prices at an all time high of 87 dollars per ton.
Random market surplus, price down by 9 kwabucks per jiggawatt and dropping. Still, my geotherm is being built. Time to prepare for upgrading the HQ as I am out of claims. My investment in Steel pays off, the NPC colony and/or the other players must be buying a lot of it. Having my own supply makes upgrading faster and gives me something to sell off for profit.
Another auction for a geothermal vent. With energy prices at 9 kwabucks it is just not worth it IMO. Also it looks like Styx was the one who bought a claim on the black market. Every time the black market opens you can buy sabotage or claim from it, however everytime somebody buys something from it, the price increases. Nobody has hacker arrays yet.
Incredulous Colonial Solutions upgrades HQ to level 2.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, I claimed a high deposit of water in the west. I am also overproducing both Water and Iron like hell. Steel breaks the 100$ barrier. Fuel production shortage makes me gain 20$ of debt a second. Gotta upgrade fast. Selling surpluss for pennies.
Food is expensive, oxygen is expensive, fuel is expensive, steel is expensive. First order of business is to start utilizing these stockpiles of cheap stuff I am overproducing. Luckily there is a lot you can do with water, for one I can turn it to food. Then of course I can turn it into fuel and oxygen via electrolysis plants. But I need glass.
Rather than wait for cash for glass I can use the surplus Iron to build even more steel mills! I mean honestly, even if I will be producing more Steel than the Iron I can mine, it is so cheap now it I can just buy it off the market.
An important thing to remember is that sometimes raw materials cost more than processed goods. If food prices are below ~3 times that of water, it is better to sell the water and buy food off the market than produce it.
Glass prices break new records as Omniventures AbomiWheat farming complex construction begins in New Prosperia driving up demand. Electronics market experiences major shortage as production falls short of martian demand. Muad'dib Enterprises expands.
Two steel mills and one hydroponics farm later, steel is going down as I flood the market with it. One thing I forgot to mention, adjacency bonuses. Clustering production facilities of the same type gives a synergy bonus, this applies also to mines, so even low deposits and medium ones can be more attractive than high ones which are alone.
Built another farm for that gluten-rich AbomiWheat and an electrolysis plant which makes my HQ self-sufficient in matters of fuel and oxygen for now. Steel price rises, which is good. Unfortunately so does my debt.
Patent Auction. Patents can be researched with a lab (available at HQ level 3 I think) or sometimes gotten through auctions. This one reduces sabotage damage.
Also Omniventures DSV Mars is making the most money off producing a single commodity. Production per second times prices makes the New Prosperia steel mills a goose laying golden eggs, for now.
Lost the auction but all in all Muad'dib over here got 12k debt in exchange for absolutely nothing if nobody bother to use sabotage such as mutiny, emp or power surge against him.
It looks like he's mining a lot of water, carbon and has a high aluminium deposit claimed as well. Carbon is fairly expensive and he has the best carbon source on the map secured.
Incredulous snatched up high Iron near my second high Water deposit. Also he upgraded to level 3.
The Muad'dib builds a glass furnace, a sane choice considering how high glass prices are.
As I prepare for upgrading it become apparent why glass at this point could be useful. Also the sandpeople messiah decides to get a Chemicals Lab, which makes no sense. Carbon is actually 1 kwabuck cheaper a piece than chemicals, and you also need fuel and oxygen to produce those.
Incredulous has the least debt so his stock price is the highest, so far nobody is using cash to buy stock. For good reason, while buying stock early is cheaper, and you can sell it off later for a profit, upgrading is a better way to spend that money. Plus it just gets frozen up in assets.
Power is going up again.
Yeah, time to use those claims to get another geothermal plant.
Now I need to secure my lategame by diversifying. There's fuck all of silicon on the map, half the reason why glass is so expensive and nobody is making electronics. Here are some of the only deposits of it on the map, next to the HQ of Incredulous.
Also power prices are going batshit again, 52 kwabucks now.
See the flying quarries (placeholders until they make a construction airship model I guess)? I'm sending them to both secure silicon and cockblock Muad'dib who is indeed the only one making glass now before he upgrades his HQ. I'll place my quarries so that he cannot get more than just one more with an adjacency bonus.
BTW claiming tiles works like this, you send a flying "building" to the hex, whichever arrives first gets the hex. So claiming all the way across the map can backfire, especially at the very beginning when everybody has just landed.
Also he just got an engineering lab. It is a building that researches efficiency upgrades using chemicals, which is probably why he built that chemicals lab. Still, I would just buy them off the market. Overall he seems to be trying to be a jack of all trades too much without utilizing adjacency bonuses.
Incredulous builds a patent lab, patents are global bonuses. Some are upgrades like "get double power from power stations attached to HQ" others enable you to bypass some resource use like carbon scrubbers (carbon from atmo), water engines (units use water instead of fuel), cold fusion (building use water instead of power).
Getting a Glass Furnace and another Electrolysis Plant.
Generic claim auction.
I can afford this, I have the income. Also my stockprice is highest so I can take the debt hit and my debt is falling as power production is very lucrative for me now.
Diversifying further, increase aluminium production with a second mine near my old one and built another glass furnace.
The level 5 HQ upgrade is the most important one for two reasons. One is simply getting more claims, the other is unlocking the off-world market launchpad. Bulk export of goods into space is more profitable than selling them on Mars. It is the key to funding buyouts.
Well, got hit with EMP, Pretty Boy Atreides over here targeted my glass production, most likely so that I would not make more money and so that I would not drive prices down while making most of the profit from Glass before it became cheap.
Also hit level 5 HQ, 7 new claims.
Building a hacker array. It is what melonheads use to manipulate the market. You pay cash to engineer a market shortage or surplus of any resource you wish, which is indistinguishable from regular market shortage/surplus events to other players. The array of course uses a claim like everything else.
Also building a pleasure dome, this turns energy into pure cash. How much you make from it depends on how many pleasure domes are in the game. Of course if energy prices are too high it makes no sense to build it. And power is at 108 kwabucks at this point.
Pirates auction. This thing is great, pirates raid all supply lines stealing all the haul until they get bored. You get everything they steal and your competitors suffer shortages. Win-win.
Food is becoming very expensive, pleasure dome is only giving 88$ since somebody else also has one. And it uses 1 energy per second, when energy is 108$. Gonna scrap it.
Also building more AbomiWheat farms.
Glass production is using up all my oxygen, interns report they have problems with breathing. Well, I'll need more electrolysis plants, and more silicon, and new interns.
Great, I need electronics which are now the most expensive goods. Scrapped the Pleasure Dome as it was causing a power deficit and making my debt go up while paying less than the power it sucked.
Muad'dib goes for more EMP sabotage and gets to level 5 as well. Hits my steel chain this time, should have stuck with Glass TBH, steel is worth far less now. Launchpad is under construction.
Put a solar farm on the empty hex where the dome once stood. Power is after all at 187 fucking dollars! Which is why my debt is finally shrinking, the power surplus is paying it off.
If you are crappy and you know it blame the lag
Also started building another launchpad.
Pirates auction, again. Also you can see the offworld market prices and the first launch of 100 water being prepared. The prices are either 10 times bigger than in reality or the profit margins off launches are just 10%, not sure.
Still, the prices on the off world market are different from those on Mars. They don't seem to change, or perhaps the shipments are but a fraction of total supply and demand so they have little impact.
Won the auction, picking the area to raid now. Muad'dib over here has two silicon quarries just like I do, I send the pirates to loot his silicon transports which should stop his electronics and glass production.
Time to make some money for hostile takeover, engineering a glass shortage with hax from the hacker array.
Using profits from offworld exports to buy Styx stock. I got for the cheapest guy for two reasons, price and because he has a lot of unused claims. I will be able to upgrade his HQ and get more, so I will get a of flexibility in what to expand.
Also launchpads are capped at 2 per level 5 HQ.
As I buy him up his stock price rises, also Muad'dib has no launchpads of his own yet and my stock price rises to nearly 17$.
Styx tries to stall me by buying up his own shares. Basically what happens is this, the more shares I have the less it costs to buyout that rival when the share meter is full. You can technically buyout yourself. Takeover costs a lot more than packages of shares.
Styx is mine just as a rocket flies into space and with him 4 new claims. If it was flown by Kerbals it would make great celebratory fireworks
Muad'dib researched Carbon Scrubbing.
Muad'dib is stockpiling electronics it seems. For a launchpad of his own probably.
Patent auction, not really worth it. I'm getting another vent, although energy prices are falling. Incredilous gets it which makes sense as nobody else built pleasure domes.
Also have a ton of cash and upgraded Styx, an Omniventures group company, to level 5. 17 claims up for use and two more launchpads ahead.
Styx had a nice water based industry set up. Farms and electrolysis plants, as well as the few rich water deposits around. Both water and food are expensive now.
Muad'dib is buying himself up to prevent takeover. Despite that his share price is still lower than mine.
Water is becoming very expensive, so much that food is unprofitable. Have to change this, building water condensers on the few water ice hexes there are on this map. On the south pole there are dry ice hexes which produce carbon instead of water.
Mars, desert planet indeed, we even have our own Muad'dib.
Styx had an engineering lab. I use it to upgrade glass production efficiency, however first I will need chemicals. Luckily I have enough claims to start producing those on my own, as they are very expensive.
While Muad'dib left me with crap for carbon deposits, I'll just mine these three low ones utilizing adjacency as much as I can.
Also he's making a run for Incredulous.
Oxygen shortage drives prices up. Omniventures records record profits thanks to the acquisition of Styx and offworld exports of food and glass. Muad'dib attempts hostile takeover.
Incredulous tries to buy up his stock.
The sandpeople messiah is making a killing off electronics and chemicals however, not likely Incredulous can defend against his massive stacks of jewgold.
Not sure why I even bought this, water is fucking expensive. Fuel isn't. BTW power is worth jack shit again.
He bought only 1 package. Meanwhile I got some chemical labs and electronics plants to boost my money making.
I need 640k to buy him.
Incredulous gets bought out. I focus on improving production through upgrades between setting up more offworld launches and selling stockpiles on Mars. 4 launchpads are running around the clock exporting shit.
Water prices are insane.
Uh oh, looks like a run on my stock.
New claim, why not?
With oxygen expensive as hell both on Mars and Offworld I use the claim to build another electrolysis plant.
Half a million in cash, I need just 200k more to buy out the desert mouse. Looks like he's not trying to buy more of my stock. No wonder, he still has no offworld markets.
Iron prices crash as well as those of Water. Has the Water bubble burst? Experts debate in studio at 11.
Also guess what, shipping oxygen, electronics and chemicals offworld and I have over 700k in the bank account.
The Kwisatz Hedarech did not see this coming
Holy shit this thing is long.
Last edited:
