A whiff of imbalance in the air

[Haagenti II]

Think I see what Haagenti was complaining about. Got hit with a wave of 2000 MkIV ships which included about 750 MkIV raiders. The forces I had, had previously taken out a few waves of similar size with about 50% attrition (replaced between waves), but they couldn't handle this wave, and when the dust had settled there was something like 600 raiders left (and a handful of other ship types), and none of my fleet or turrets.

En mass these things seem to be abnormally good in comparison to other singular masses of units. I don't think even cruisers are this killy, especially not in terms of cost anyway. (In 999L.)

Basically, if you don't have a mass of fighters to stop them (and a forcefield over a wormhole to stop them from moving through), you are dead. If you play against Vicious Raider, mercenary fighters kept on low power are a good counter if you can afford them.

[Oewyn]

has anyone been able to afford mercenary ships after the most recent changes to energy?

I almost never have enough metal/crystal to waste on mercenary ships.

[Kjara]

Well, if you only use 1 MkII energy plant per planet, the upkeep costs aren't that bad(mostly achieved by building turret balls with power plants on easy adjacent enemy planets).  Its when you start using a 2nd mkII or a mkIII that the upkeep starts getting bad.

[darke]

I feel energy cramped due to the massive fleet sizes of 8-planet-start games, so I end up with one of each MkI/MkII/MkIII per planet, so I don't usually have the resources to spare on Mercs, especially since my attrition rates are 8x faster due to the insane waves the AI throws at me.

The last time I played a normal start game the energy/resources constraints were much more relaxed, so I would have thought that getting mercs would be much easier.

[Haagenti]

It also helps to take 10-12 planets: if I get to that stage, my energy problems are over as I can move to 1 II per planet.

And you should go green:
- do you really need all those engineers? (these are the real energy killers)
- do you really need to have more than 1 spacedock?
- do you really need all those forcefields?
- can you put your garrison units on low power when you don't need them?

[Volatar]

I will plug in here that I posted my energy ratios chart because of the discussion in this thread on the matter. I have similar energy issues until I take enough planets also, though I only play 1 home planet starts. 

[Kjara]

I'll stress again that you don't have to take a planet to stick a mkII energy plant on it.  For up to diff 8 at least, its possible to stick a small number(<30) turrets(mix of laser/mirv/short range I's) and a mkII power plant on a mk I or II hostile planet that you never plan on taking against most ai types.  With only about 4-6 planets, you can have the same number of full efficiency mk II plants as someone with 12 planets.

Having more than 1 spacedock is generally a good idea imo, but most of them can be low power most of the time(and only take 1k energy then) and only turned on for emergencies.  Early on I find I have more problems getting either crystal or metal for my space docks anyhow .

Regarding the 8 home planet case, that's pretty clearly not how the game was balanced for.  If it was a real 8 player game, each of those 8 starting planets could have a mk II energy plant for each player at full efficiency.

Edit: On a more related note, they seem to be fixed(at least for the player).  Not sure if its almost too much of a nerf(only time will tell there), but they are pretty useless at the start, as your economy cannot support them in the numbers required, and they die pretty fast.  I'm getting to the point in the game where my economy can support them. Trying to figure out if what they save me in time/other losses makes up for their cost or if I would just be better off sinking those resources into mercs, but at least they are semi-viable at this point for raids.  Part of what has devalued them in this game is that I was given armoreds as my first unlock, which means that I don't need them for turret killing nearly as much.