Advanced research stations

[Kjara]

Not touching on the aspect of them that unlocks a new unit type, this post is concerned with the unit itself.

At 4 research/second and 2m hps, they make the mkII labs completely obsolete, and once you have two or three of them with your main knowledge raiding group, there's no need to use the mk 1 ones either.  Not sure what the fix is, but since theres already such incentive to take planets with advanced research labs for the unlocking of units, the labs themselves don't need to be nearly this good.  Not sure what the best solution is.  One solution might be to make them unable to go through wormholes(or unable to move), meaning they would make getting the knowledge from one planet easy, but wouldn't totally replace the other 2 types of science vessels.

[darke]

Advanced Research are painfully slow, I never end up using them. For me it'd be quicker to just to build a couple of MkI's on the planet since they're relatively cheap and disposable with the new economy.

[Warnstaff]

When I get an advanced research station I move it to my heavily defended homeworld and leave it there for fear of loosing the new ship I get from it (I've never lost one). They are far to slow and valuable for me to put into a warzone.

[Revenantus]

When I get an advanced research station I move it to my heavily defended homeworld and leave it there for fear of loosing the new ship I get from it (I've never lost one). They are far to slow and valuable for me to put into a warzone.

If an ARS is destroyed you won't lose the new ship type. Once you've captured the station, there's no penalty to losing it other than the loss of a knowledge gatherer.

[darke]

Shame there really isn't a reason to keep it though. Maybe something like a small amount of bonus knowledge a turn?

I know on particularly painful worlds I'll just take out the command centre and build one of my own, then let the ARS die. Which seems a bit on the counter-intuitive side of things.

[Kjara]

I get at least 60%(often closer to 80%) of my research from hostile planets(usually ones where the mk 1 labs and mobile constructors both die very quickly--current game stats:6 planets taken and 31 planets researched).  I guess if you mostly just get knowledge from planets after taking them, it might be less of a boon(and true, mk 1's are 2x as fast movement wise).  Imo mk 2's are completely overshadowed by the advance research labs though.

[Fiskbit]

Personally, I don't see this as too much of an issue; these ships are slow and rare. While they eliminate the need for normal science labs in single player, they're still limited and wouldn't be able to easily satisfy all players in a co-op game. I think this adds to the benefits of grabbing one of these ships, and the recent addition of supply nerfs reduces their utility a little bit, anyway, since before you could take a few of these with a several thousand ship blob and research the galaxy, repairing the ARS as necessary. Because you're limited to nearby planets, they're more invicible now, but you still have a limited number of them and they're excruciatingly slow. If you want Mk II labs to be not so overshadowed, though, I suggest that their speed be increased substantially.

[Kjara]

True, they should be rare enough in multi.  I guess my problem is more with mk II science labs?

[darke]

MkII Science labs are immune to snipers, mines, and most if not all teleporting ships. They are a bit of a niche use, and they're certainly good to have for their ion cannon immunity if you don't have any advanced research stations yet, so they're still pretty decent.

I don't see much of a problem with increasing their speed up to the same as MkI ones though, since their use as deep-raiders has been nerfed by the supply mechanics now.