Knowledge raiding has become tedious and trivial. Change it.

[rubikscube]

stationary is not good, pass
Movable, cool
Auto research not cool, pass
Not too much micro , great

computer proccessing...........

Done

Answer:a movable science lab, that researches other planets at a cost

cost = resources, wave modifier or something else, perhaps i do agree with op.


But auto knowledge raiding is a lot more wanted from the developers than auto energy, though not as much as auto scouting so NO

Reason: The point is not cloaking or such, it's to safely throw science labs for an amount of time and then come back, that's the tactic. using transports for scouting, guard post raiding and everything else has made a lot of stuff too easy. But you still need to find a safe spot for your science labs even with transports. either just wait for an amount of time to pass, or wormhole raid the planet.

[rubikscube]

I do not see how it would be tedious and trivial, first you may clear the wormhole and anything with my main fleet is not boring. you say using transports, that's still point less as they will destroy you fast. Use a cloaker starship you say, perhaps other people are right, change it to non cloakable science labs or mobile builder, or when it's extracting knowledge it uncloaks

[RCIX]

I'm not sure of how much it is knowledge raiding, but i simply order my fleet to go in rambo style long enough for the eggheads on the science stations i deploy (5 or so) to get me a bunch of new tech. This wouldn't change that as much (ooh, the AI is trying to attack the sci stations with a couple hundred ships, my 2k+ blob is sooo afraid). I'd honestly prefer something that makes it less of a pain and bother and not more, like the suggested station. After all, it kinda makes sense; surely humans had some sort of uber science station somewhere?

[keith.lamothe]

I'm not sure of how much it is knowledge raiding, but i simply order my fleet to go in rambo style long enough for the eggheads on the science stations i deploy (5 or so) to get me a bunch of new tech.

Yes, that's what I do too; just kick down the door and apply boot to hindquarters until I run out of bubblegum, then go somewhere else.  I suppose the question is whether that is tedious and/or trivial.  It's probably trivial in terms of the actual battle but that's a significant force that isn't deployed somewhere else, etc.  Now, whether that's a fun sort of non-trivial, dunno, probably depends a lot on the player.

This wouldn't change that as much (ooh, the AI is trying to attack the sci stations with a couple hundred ships, my 2k+ blob is sooo afraid).

Well, rest assured I could tune it such that your 2k+ block would have reason to be afraid, and it could be tuned so that wouldn't really happen until you hit say 40k total knowledge (depending on AIP and difficulty, etc).  But at that point that's a lot of ships, and it seems like it would be a pretty intense increase to the overall difficulty of the game, which may not be appropriate (though it could be as an AI Plot, but I'm looking for a more general solution than that... if there's actually a "problem" in the eyes of a large chunk of players).

I'd honestly prefer something that makes it less of a pain and bother and not more

Yes, normally I'm happy to do what I can to minimize the pain and certainly the bother.  But the question in my mind is "If I make getting 2k knowledge from all in-supply planets a trivial activity, does that make the game massively less challenging?".  I mean, I can't really tell how it feels from y'all's end as I don't get much chance to play (and the game changes quite a bit, as you know)  : once you get, say, 110k knowledge (starting + 50 planets), what can stop you?  Getting caught off guard by a big CPA?  Accidentally alerting a homeworld hours before you can assault it?

Of course, the OP complaint is that getting the knowledge is already trivial, it's just an RL bother to execute.  I want the execution of anything trivial to be a non-bother, but I'm really not sure this should be trivial.

[wyvern83]

My problem with the kick-in-the-door method is that for the massive combat that often results from doing it you might as well have taken the whole system for your trouble rather than coming back to do it a second time later.

Ships expended equals time expended to rebuild what you lost. This means more time for the AI to reinforce worlds including the one you were just at since in order to k-raid the world in question must be in supply as well. Even if you established a deep k-raiding outpost it might very well become the front-line eventually anyway depending on the setup of the map.

So in my mind, if you are throwing away vessels in such a fashion why not kill two birds with one stone and take the planet so you only have to do it once. 

[keith.lamothe]

Well, you can often avoid engaging the entire planet, particularly if you use several science labs (which can be the immune-to-insta-kill mk2 science ships, covered by the anti-sniper scout ships), and not incurring the 20 AIP makes a pretty big difference when you're talking about knowledge raiding 10, 20, 30+ planets.

Of course if you want to make knowledge raiding less trivial you could play against a one-way doormaster

[RCIX]

My problem with the kick-in-the-door method is that for the massive combat that often results from doing it you might as well have taken the whole system for your trouble rather than coming back to do it a second time later.

Ships expended equals time expended to rebuild what you lost. This means more time for the AI to reinforce worlds including the one you were just at since in order to k-raid the world in question must be in supply as well. Even if you established a deep k-raiding outpost it might very well become the front-line eventually anyway depending on the setup of the map.

So in my mind, if you are throwing away vessels in such a fashion why not kill two birds with one stone and take the planet so you only have to do it once. 

For me it's not really time wasted as my docks back home are replacing ships as they are lost.

[quickstix]

first, i sometimes don't remember if researched or not. make special color on non researched supplied planets.

There's a galaxy map display mode for that.

Press K on the galaxy map. It will show how much knowledge has been gained on all planets that receive supply (as knowledge can't be gained on non-supply planets).

Press N to go back to normal.

[rubikscube]

first, i sometimes don't remember if researched or not. make special color on non researched supplied planets.

There's a galaxy map display mode for that.

Press K on the galaxy map. It will show how much knowledge has been gained on all planets that receive supply (as knowledge can't be gained on non-supply planets).

Press N to go back to normal.

ooops, never notices, anyhow, using transports is an universal accepted way that uses the least combat and all. perhaps we shall go far away and deploy and let it auto come back to transports and come back to world, seems like transports raw stats is great, but the functions as in simple deploy is very tedious and micro extensive

[Buttons840]

Again.  (my favorite word)

I enjoy knowledge raiding in the early game and consider it and important starting decision, and things are always a little different.  Currently I have a start I'm working on where I've got all knowledge which is easily available and haven't unlocked any of the techs needed to make it easier like my usual cloak/transport.  Once the mid game hits I fall back to the same tactic over and over for dozens of planets, and I'd love to just be able to forget knowledge gathering and focus on my end game strategy.

[wyvern83]

Well, you can often avoid engaging the entire planet, particularly if you use several science labs (which can be the immune-to-insta-kill mk2 science ships, covered by the anti-sniper scout ships)

I find using scout starships in mixed groups to be a pain due to their wormhole avoidance logic. I'm aware they would help, I just wish they could be toggled to be team-players. I'll keep your idea in mind though.

For me it's not really time wasted as my docks back home are replacing ships as they are lost.

How many space docks do you use? Between high AIP and no transport or MRS use loses are so high that my 8-10 space docks don't keep up. (I'm often fighting out of supply so neither are much help offensively, I also tired of transport micro and my fleets often number in the thousands, with complete turn-over of the entire group after 3-4 planets being a regular occurrence.)


Also, I offer as a counterpoint for consideration:

- Minimalist k-raiding provides some variety in high AIP struggles where large fleet action is required for nearly everything else.

[RCIX]

Well, i know i get very little loss in a k-raid scenario thanks to my MRS. Something like 1-200?

[wyvern83]

That sounds very reasonable.

[Ktoff]

Right, I saw those;  I'm not sure that a technique which involves "flagships" and "turret ball" in hostile space really equals "easy" (at the very least, that's firepower you can't be using elsewhere), but I can see how it would feel thus.  But on the other hand, for many of these systems would it not be similarly easy to just kill everything in the system except the command station and warp gate (and other AIP increasers)?  Longer, but just as easy if you're able to maintain that kind of dominance in lower-tech systems.

As for the transports flying to the edge of the map, is that basically unaffected by the recent capping of speed for ships that are too far away from the planet center?

The turretball method is not easy. It's doable but its an effort you have to make. That is not necessary anymore though thanks to the many labs-transport mode. With a turretball mode you cannot just roam enemy space and collect everything you want.

By flying to the edge of the map i mean, flying as as far away as i can without having the speed capped. If that cap was not there, this would be even easier :-)

cost = resources, wave modifier or something else, perhaps i do agree with op.

I like this idea. Maybe the planet could get x*0.5 times more reinforcements with a maximum of times 10 more reinforcements where x is the number of science labs on the planet. This would at least discourage to dump lots of labs on a planet without taking good precautions. At the moment it costs you virtually nothing to dump 20 Sciencelabs on a planet. You raid all the knowledge before you can be attacked (except raid starships and snipers) and you retreat. In most of my games i can retreat to another hostile planet and 'graze' 3-5 planets before i need to get home for repairs. (unless i forgot to check on my science labs sitting in the middle of hostile space;-) )

Edit: And at the moment, the Sciencelab plus transport (plus cloaker if you want) is more or less a no-brainer because it is by far the easiest method to gather knowledge. No military required, just a bit of microing but still less microing than an actual attack requires.

[orzelek]

I think I would agree with this "tedious and trivial". The first few knowledge raids you are doing maybe fun - especially when you have few planets and your ships are at premium, not to much power etc. but when you reach certain point then that 2k ship blob that flies around and gather knowledge is really boring. When I reach middle game ( never got much further actually ) I see the need for knowledge raiding and I also see the boring part of this. I'm not trying the cleverer methods (I may actually try the transport + 10's of ships to make the boring into bearable) but making knowledge mechanic more involving (and more entertaining?) would be very nice.