Author Topic: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?  (Read 1572 times)

Offline Thinking42Man

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« on: February 05, 2010, 08:55:55 am »
I'm just wondering, is there any reason to build, for example, a Mark 1 Fighter when you have unlocked Mark 2 Fighters? I was looking at their stats, and the doubled price seems to be trivial compared to the awesome tripling or quadrupling of their other stats, especially when the energy cost is the same.

Kind of lame to have so much obsolescence, but that's just my opinion.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2010, 09:00:04 am by Thinking42Man »

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2010, 09:34:00 am »
You definitely won't be able to win on the upper difficulties and on the larger maps without building the lower tier units. Really, you should never stop building them at all during the game. The reason is the per-ship-per-level unit caps. Unlike most rts games, you cannot just spam the highest version of your favorite unit. You need to build all of your unlocked units to get the largest possible fleets, and then the trick is deciding how to use the outdated stuff (as a real military commander has to do).

Some players always put the lower tier stuff on homeworld defense. I tend to keep it mixed with my main fleet. The extra firepower is handy, and they absorb shots that would otherwise hit higher-level ships. When there is an ion cannon that makes me have to leave my lower level ships behind for a given raid, that is a real blow to my offensive effectiveness unitl that thing is dead.

Regarding defenses, pretty much everyone unlocks some sort of more turrts. They are better in a lot of ways than the mobile ships, except they are immobile and require supply. Which turrets you unlock are up to you and your current situation. I don't unlock a ton of defensive stuff myself, but that varies by player. I tend to always get transports and rally posts, and mobile repair stations are also super popular. Higher level force fields can provide needed security, but it depends on the game if you need them. Same with fortresses, though I think they are less common by far for most players.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Thinking42Man

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2010, 01:06:21 pm »
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2010, 01:39:41 pm »
My pleasure!
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Ruges

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 56
Re: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2010, 02:26:42 pm »
On my current game I have an 80 world snake. After conquring the first 40 planets I had not researched a single tier 2 ship. (although I did have a few hundred that I had leached). I did get into one battle that was crazy sick for losses and rebuilds. Acording to this graph I peaked out at 6,000 ships in production. I was just tossing them in there for weapons fodder as fast as they would be built, and thats pretty fast with all my enginiers assisting. (do we use humans to fly our ships (like in space above and beyond), or do we have CI to fly them for us?)

But yea it was during that time I was using mrk 1 ships like candy. Since then I have taken over anouther 20 planets and have unlocked 5 mrk IV lines, and since then I have stoped building mrk I's as I am trying to keep a lower number of max ships so the game runs smoother, Although I suspect I might need em again when I reach the final core world.

Offline RCIX

  • Core Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,808
  • Avatar credit goes to Spookypatrol on League forum
Re: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2010, 05:37:40 pm »
(do we use humans to fly our ships (like in space above and beyond), or do we have CI to fly them for us?)
As i understand it, they are remote piloted. However, the lore is pretty vague, and X just lets the player fill this stuff in, so if you want to believe you lost a few hundred thousand people valiantly fighting to take back a system go ahead :)
Avid League player and apparently back from the dead!

If we weren't going for your money, you wouldn't have gotten as much value for it!

Oh, wait... *causation loop detonates*

Offline Ruges

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 56
Re: Lower Tier Ships and Defenses - Any Value?
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2010, 11:34:52 pm »
Yea I like the Enders Game aproach. Becouse if there where people inside those ships, I would never use them that way. And I would be pretty pissed at them for staying in battle to die when they should have pulled back once they took heavy damage.

 

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk