Do harvester upgrades now dominate econ command stations?

[Eternaly_Lost]

I did make that choice, and it was econ every time so the game wouldn't drag like a clubfooted sloth.

I rather agree with that as well. Before it was Econ city, now I use Military, Logistics and after their recent buff, Warp Jammers. Eco stations don't stand out that well next to slowing down AI units, doing more damage, moving the fleet faster and making sure that the AI systems stay off alert well I pull in a shard. Each one of those three fits together nicely and it does make Eco fell a bit out of place.

Having Eco stations do something interesting like the suggested Repair or even raising the resource cap would make me strongly consider them. Otherwise it just not worth giving up what the other stations give to build Eco stations.

[Draco18s]

suggested Repair

Honestly, that'd make me less likely to choose an econ station.  Repairs are a drain on the economy, and all it does it allow me to not-build an engineer (which is what, 500 m/c?)

[TechSY730]

My general unlock path is Mk. II harvesters (both types) at the start, then at about 4-7 planets in (depending on map layout), Mk. II econ stations (replacing some of my Mk. I econ stations I placed in planets that are moderately safe with Mk. IIs). Pretty much never go for the Mk. III harvesters or the Mk. III econs, the Mk. II econ and harvesters provide all that I reasonably need.

[Eternaly_Lost]

suggested Repair

Honestly, that'd make me less likely to choose an econ station.  Repairs are a drain on the economy, and all it does it allow me to not-build an engineer (which is what, 500 m/c?)

I should have put it at free repair at a slow rate. Would that make a difference?

[_K_]

My general unlock path is Mk. II harvesters (both types) at the start, then at about 4-7 planets in (depending on map layout), Mk. II econ stations (replacing some of my Mk. I econ stations I placed in planets that are moderately safe with Mk. IIs). Pretty much never go for the Mk. III harvesters or the Mk. III econs, the Mk. II econ and harvesters provide all that I reasonably need.

Grab a calculator, or an excel spreadsheet and just check how much resources you are losing from picking ecoII instead of HarvIII.

You will see that even if at 7 planets you build all 6 of your eco stations, HarvIII's would still give about 200 m+e/s more, and they would scale, and not take any space. All that at the cost of additional 1k knowledge.

tl;dr  MKIIs suck. Dont keep those, always go for a MKIII. The K cost is high, but the advantage over MKII is even higher.

[TechSY730]

My general unlock path is Mk. II harvesters (both types) at the start, then at about 4-7 planets in (depending on map layout), Mk. II econ stations (replacing some of my Mk. I econ stations I placed in planets that are moderately safe with Mk. IIs). Pretty much never go for the Mk. III harvesters or the Mk. III econs, the Mk. II econ and harvesters provide all that I reasonably need.

Grab a calculator, or an excel spreadsheet and just check how much resources you are losing from picking ecoII instead of HarvIII.

You will see that even if at 7 planets you build all 6 of your eco stations, HarvIII's would still give about 200 m+e/s more, and they would scale, and not take any space. All that at the cost of additional 1k knowledge.

tl;dr  MKIIs suck. Dont keep those, always go for a MKIII. The K cost is high, but the advantage over MKII is even higher.

Then that is part of the problem.
If the Mk. IIs of both paths have a lackluster resource to knowledge rate, then that is strong incentive to complete (aka, go to Mk. III) one path. With knowledge pressure being what it is, often times this means you can't complete the other path. And since one both paths' Mk. IIs have a low rate of return per knowledge, this means it isn't worth stopping midway through the other path.
So this leads to the question of which path to take. If you are planning on only taking 12 planets or so, then the econ station path will give you better returns. But the harvester path will scale beyond that, not have an opportunity cost, plus it will give you better rate during that critical 0-3 planet time period. Thus many players will go the harvester route.

Seems like either Mk. IIIs need to be nerfed some, and/or Mk. IIs need buffed some, such that going midway and saving a bit of K, while maybe not hyper optimal, won't put as far behind in terms of resource per knowledge as it would now.

EDIT: Generally speaking, AI War has had a tradition of having Mk. III and above have, while not terrible, rather poor rate of return for their utility per knowledge, for these very sorts of reasons (where the Mk. III+ and up may have a great effect, the knowledge cost goes up even faster still) From what I understand, the idea behind this is that, generally, if you want Mk. III+, that means you are willing to sacrifice variety for quality for a specific strategy (this goes with the whole trying to promote variety design goal). I think this should apply for harvesters and econ stations (and the other stations) as well.

EDIT2: Oh, and for my last game, having an extra 1k knowledge was worth losing 200 m+c/s. I'm not a fast player, so I don't lose money very fast, so that little bit more of income wouldn't be worth it to me. Plus, in my last game, I was very pressured for knowledge. Every 500 knowledge counted.

[Hearteater]

The Harvester upgrade is comparatively boring compared to the Economic Command Stations upgrade.  As long as you have the Knowledge, you get free resources.  That's it.  Economic Command Stations require not only Knowledge, but planets and further planets you don't need to put a Logistic, Military or Warp Jammer on.  If one of the two should be "better" it should probably be Economic Command Stations.  Harvesters should really be best only when you can't afford to use up 12 planets on Econ CS.

[chemical_art]

<see sig>

If you boost an econ station, you will need to boost the other com stations as well.

The logistic station is nice, but there is not that much of reason to get more then a mk I unless the whole ai uses teleports unless you want some inefficent research (compared to harvestors) to get more resources. I see no reason thus to upgrade the logistic station compared to better harvestors.

As for the military station, that is up for debate. The military station is a hard counter to cloaking and melee units. No debate. Aside from this it can hold off border aggression a long while with shields and higher MK lvl's tremendously help on defense. However, these bonuses occur for defense, which is taken advanage about in my games between 10 - 20% on my  border worlds but are off little use in the non border worlds aside from delaying the ai if the defense shell is shattered.

In comparison, the bonuses of the econ station are on all the time. They let you rebuild your defense wall faster (once the colony ship respawns, that helped the balance a little) but in terms of resources the econ station helps more. And for offense the economy station, and not the military station, helps tremendously more. On the whole the econ station outshines the other stations most of the time, its just the harvestors outshine the econ station.

[Draco18s]

Harvesters should really be best only when you can't afford to use up 12 planets on Econ CS.

So.  Like.  80% of all games, then? :|

[Hearteater]

If you boost an econ station, you will need to boost the other com stations as well.

Didn't a few people in this thread indicate they never build Econ CS because they aren't worth it compared to Log and Military?  And I can't really blame them.  Military or Logistics are far to useful for border worlds to drop an Econ.  Isolated islands you need to hold are generally Jammers.  When you knock out the Home World slot you can easily end up with only 6 of 12 planets an Econ could even work, and often Logistics is more helpful anyway.

Not that I'm saying the Mark II and III Mil/Log CS don't need buffs, but at least I'm finding I'm not really using Econ anymore and it sounded like others are finding the same thing.  Of all the improved CS, the Logistics seems the weakest.  Military III gets a nice damage boost and full system tachyon, which makes it worthwhile.

[chemical_art]

As I said...

before the buff to human ships on speed on own worlds, there was a need for logistic stations...but now if you decide to use them at all you don't upgrade them but rather upgrade your harvesters for a much more efficient boost in economy.

military stations are probably good on border worlds during the limitted time you need it to be worth it...but don't do much for the rest of your worlds, and are not useful if not under overwhelming attack.

but both of these comm station's benefits occur between 5-20% of game time, with the econ station being unequivocally more useful therefore at least 80 to 95% of the time.

To put another way.

Military stations are great if actively under wave attack.

Logistical stations are great if you need to move your fleet from one end to another in less then 2 minutes (rare in my games, I use normal game speed btw)

Economy stations are good all the time.

So during very limitted windows the other com stations are useful, but the economy station is good all the time for all different situations (because m + c are the most universal benefit in the game. It is needed to do anything else)

[Martyn van Buren]

@Hearteater: Unless I'm mistaken, a lot of people did use econ stations until the harvester buff, right? I mean it was a plausible choice not to, but I think it was more of a decision than it is now. 

[chemical_art]

I'm starting to really get the vibe that as I examine how economy stations provide a universal benefit while the other three stations provide a situational benefit that the econ station should be re examined.

[Draco18s]

I'm starting to really get the vibe that as I examine how economy stations provide a universal benefit while the other three stations provide a situational benefit that the econ station should be re examined.

You're trying to make the argument that 80% of 100 is bigger than 15% of 1,000.

No one is buying it.

That situational benefit is HUGE when it comes up, absolutely MASSIVE.

For example, I once had a wave of ships attack a planet where I had a military command station under a FF mk1.  I don't know why I didn't hear about it, but I didn't.  Anyway, an hour later* the "command station under attack" warning fired and when I peeked at the system there was 200 enemy ships scattered all over the entire system.

I was able to bring my fleet in and clean up long before the command station was in danger.

Had that been an econ system?  I'd have lost it, and likely the next system too.

*Total guess, but that's about how long I think it took them to knock down the FF, given how unfocused their attack was.

[_K_]

Alright, another general speculation about the recent economy changes:

They are the reason the AI defence feels so weak for so many players right now. With all these buffs, the players are able to rebuild their damaged fleets extremely quickly, giving the AI no time to accumulate enough defences on the planets.

This probably means that if we are not nerfing the player economy, the AI "Economy" should be boosted. The closest thing AI has to human rebuilding speed is planet reinforcement frequency and wave frequency.
The waves are a tricky thing though, as i have already seen people complain about having no time to attack because of all kinds of AI aggression.

Maybe its the right thing though, making the player under constant pressure on higher difficulties, so he has to either invest more heavily into turretball, or split his fleet into offensive and defensive parts.