II Cruisers at the start

[Haagenti]

A small tip, that in retrospect seems obvious:

Now that starting Knowledge has been increased, I always research II Cruisers at the start, and then build them, instead of I Cruisers. Only after all IIs have been built, I start building Is..

The reason:
- they cost slightly less than 200%
- they have 200% attack strength (which due to how this game treats shields, is usually more than 200% effectively)
- they fire slightly less than 150% times as often
- they have more than 300% of the health, and the same shields
- in addition, at the start of the game, you can micromanage the cruisers: withdraw those that are damaged and repair them, this is much easier with 80.000 hit points than with 24.000, and saves even more resources

Ergo: one II is much better than two Is, and since you will research and build the II cruisers soon anyway (since cruisers are so dominant), you might as well do it at the start.

I also optimize my starting build queue as to produce II cruisers as fast as possible (spend all my crystal), and produce just enough fighters to take up the slack in time/metal. I no longer build bombers at start as they are too fragile and enemy fighters are not really a threat at start.

Note: this is under the old economic model. I have not yet looked at the new one(s).

[eRe4s3r]

- Please take note, in my rebalance post in the post release 1.14 topic i specifically said that costs should triple for each MK version because the efficiency of MK2 is way more than twice that of MK1 (faster shot rate and shield piercing twice as much damage, with much much more HP means a huge difference)

I agree with your assessment Haagenti, but unlike you i do not build cruiser mk2s at the start, in the end its not like you need them for defense but, there are some things (especially raiders) which will raid your metal facilities and you won't be able to do a thing against them with cruisers (they are much slower)

But i do unlock them, including parasites MK2 at the start ( i guess thats what you do? ) and of course, once i have a mixed defense fleet i start to first build up mk2 entirely and going research raiding with my MK1 stuff (it usually survives long enough for that ,p) I don't find it necessary to build MK2 right from the start at my dif levels...

In 1.14 i would also contest that you could out produce a serious attack with MK2 cruisers, their buildtime is slow if you don't boost it to the maximum with engineers, and they cost -60 the entire time, so your resources are going sky diving when raiders attack you

[Haagenti]

I agree with your assessment Haagenti, but unlike you i do not build cruiser mk2s at the start, in the end its not like you need them for defense but, there are some things (especially raiders) which will raid your metal facilities and you won't be able to do a thing against them with cruisers (they are much slower). But i do unlock them, including parasites MK2 at the start ( i guess thats what you do? )

I research II Cruisers, II Parasites and also II Engineers at start. I need the II Engineers to interact with the Parasites (I Engineers are too slow) and to defend my metal/crystal in a somewhat abusive way 

Against Raiders and other cloaked/tractor-immune riff-raff:
- I wait until they are attacking the metal/crystal in question so I can see them. In the case of non-cloaked ships (like raiders) I can already see where they are going, so I go to the next step
- build a few I short-range turrets right next to the metal/crystal (these cost 100/100: almost nothing) and use the teleporting II Engineers to complete these turrets quickly
- the turrets kill them before they kill the metal/crystal, the engineers then repair the metal/crystal
- I leave the turrets for a possible next attack and when my I short-range turrets start to run out (usually much later), I can scrap the turrets where I don't need them. They are so cheap that it really doesn't matter.

and going research raiding with my MK1 stuff (it usually survives long enough for that ,p) I don't find it necessary to build MK2 right from the start at my dif levels...

I look at the game as a form of resource generation/expenditure. A ship destroyed equals resources permanently lost. I will play without these resources for the other 10+ hours the game takes, which is a huge price to pay. I only wish to do so if I gain something commensurate.

I therefore don't do research raids in the beginning, since it costs ships and only gains temporary knowledge (I will get the knowledge later anyway). I would only do so when I can use the knowledge in a permanently gainful way, but I can't at start: my starting planet cannot contain enough energy to build more ships than I already have.
I tend to conserve ships, build a big fleet ASAP and start conquering planets. Conquering planets gains permanent income, using big fleets with II cruisers means less losses (less resources lost for the rest of the game).

This works in this game since the time penalty is so low at start: raids are extremely small, garrisons increase very slowly and the AI increases at 2/hour (to be upgraded by X soon).

I do research raids later on, but only against planets that I do not intend to conquer.
[/quote]

In 1.14 i would also contest that you could out produce a serious attack with MK2 cruisers, their buildtime is slow if you don't boost it to the maximum with engineers, and they cost -60 the entire time, so your resources are going sky diving when raiders attack you

I haven't looked at 1.14 at all, so I take your word for it. But raiders are no problem for teleporting engineers

[eRe4s3r]

Yeah, that is a good point - i actually am pending between parasites MK2 or engineers MK2 - but the way you describe it MK2's certainly are worth the investment

You should take a look at the pre-release because it needs tests and more tests ;p

(I should mention i am always aiming for the raid starship..)

[Haagenti]

You should take a look at the pre-release because it needs tests and more tests ;p

[x4000]

eRa:  For the increasing costs (cost triplicates), I feel like that would make the higher-mark ships a lot less useful in general, and potentially make everyone too resource-poor.  I'm okay with a strategy like Haagenti's here, because it comes at the knowledge cost of something else -- such as bombers or whatever.

Not to say that I won't tweak the cost of certain ships, most specifically cruisers and or a few other of the smaller ships, but still.  I don't think that a global cost-tripling-per-level is in order.

[darke]

Plus if production time is still directly mapped to cost, it's going to make them take even stupidly longer to build if the costs are tripled as well.

Though I have been considering suggesting bumping the knowledge costs of parasites and cruisers up by a thousand (so 4000 for Tech II and 5000 for Tech III), to compensate for the general all around superiority of the upgrades in comparison to the others ships when you get them early on.

[x4000]

Plus if production time is still directly mapped to cost, it's going to make them take even stupidly longer to build if the costs are tripled as well.

Yes, exactly -- that too.

Though I have been considering suggesting bumping the knowledge costs of parasites and cruisers up by a thousand (so 4000 for Tech II and 5000 for Tech III), to compensate for the general all around superiority of the upgrades in comparison to the others ships when you get them early on.

Well, the problem is that I am not really certain about wanting some ship classes to be more expensive as knowledge unlocks compared to others.  Right now the consistency is really easy to understand.  But there may be a need for this, since knowledge costs are one of the most significant in the game -- having everything equal may actually be detrimental in the long-term.