mobile constructor

[fiorenzospa]

I know how tey work, but can you tell me when and why you utilize them?
I'm almost at the end of my first game 7 diff level and I never found the needing to use them!

[hullu]

Three things I've ever used them for:

1) Knowledge leeching from AI's system. Takes some resources and effort, but no AI Progress hit.

2) Establishing a beachhead. Bring in a few forcefields and build a bunch of turrents under them on a hostile AI Planet. I think I've got any benefit out of this perhaps once or twice at most....

3) Prepping SuperTerminal for farmage. Sinec SuperTerminal starts pumping out enemies the second you build your command station, you might want to have umpteen turrets and fortresses and whatnots built BEFORE your command station is up....


#3 is the only one I regularly do of the above.

[ShadowOTE]

I also sometimes use them to

1) Prepare defenses on a world I'm about to take
2) set up defenses on a world I've neutralized but don't plan to take at the moment

2 sometimes happens when I want to hold the AI buildup back a world so I don't get carriers dropping by for a visit without warning due to border aggression on longer games. 1 usually happens during deep strikes (laying down defenses while the CP builds) or when moving my "whipping boy".

[fiorenzospa]

hullu - interesting point the N.3... I will use it definitely and also I will try research leeching!

shadow - point 1 I guess is not easy to achieve since the AI will try to kill whatever you are building so you need strong forces to defend your builders. At that point maybe is better to attak with these forces without spending time and money to build up defences?
2 is a good point even if I think you need everytime at least a small army to cooperate with the defence you build in order to keep the planet safe. All depends on how many turrets/fleets you need to keep it safe for a game-period???

[Red Spot]

I have one travel with a FF and a set of colony ships, usually together with some engineers.
Pop them through a gate, set the colony ship to build a CC, have the engies support it while you use the MB to construct whatever you need. Saves me having to 2-step my colonizing of planets (set up CC, come back later when it has finished building).

[ShadowOTE]

hullu - interesting point the N.3... I will use it definitely and also I will try research leeching!

shadow - point 1 I guess is not easy to achieve since the AI will try to kill whatever you are building so you need strong forces to defend your builders. At that point maybe is better to attak with these forces without spending time and money to build up defences?
2 is a good point even if I think you need everytime at least a small army to cooperate with the defence you build in order to keep the planet safe. All depends on how many turrets/fleets you need to keep it safe for a game-period???

I'm currently playing a map with captive human settlements (which I'm playing wrong - complete conquest style!) and as a result often run into situations where I need to clear several worlds before I can move up to the next choke point without risking CPS structures to AI border aggression. In normal games though I usually use Mobile Builders for faster setup. If you've build up some resources you can move a huge chunk of your defenses to a new world very quickly with a combination of mobile builders, well timed scrapping of turrets (to get back resources without wasting any), and moving up right after a wave hits.