Knowledge Costs

[Kahuna]

And Hardeneds can take more punishment than the normal ones

No, they can't, really.

Yes, they can, really.

Bomber's damage 58.560
FF's health 20.000.000
FF destroyed in 341,5s = 29 shots

Bomber's damage 11.712
HFF's health 5.000.000
HFF destroyed in 426,9s = 36 shots

More than 100k armor piercing would be needed to have less than 80% damage reduction.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Well, first, a ship-cap on high-level command stations is a limitation that only applies to high-AIP games (because low AIP probably doesn't have eight systems to begin with), so it can probably go.

Second, something that might make command stations more appealing (and the tactical landscape more interesting) would be linking harvester types to the system's command station.

Example:

• Unlocking better harvesters directly is removed
• Instead, the kind of harvesters you can build in a system is determined by what type and mark of CS you have in the system
• Econ CS mk(#) lets you build economic harvesters mk(#), with appropriate incomes (maybe equivalent to mk (#+1) current harvesters? maybe 30/45/60?)
• Military CS mk(#) lets you build fortified harvesters mk(#), which have more HP and one or both of guns and a local munitions booster, but only have the income of basic harvesters (i.e., mk1)
• Logistic CS mk(#) lets you build [something] harvesters mk(#), which can do "stuff" (repair? local gravity effect? engineer-style construction acceleration?) and have income that starts as basic harvesters but might rise with mark level (or maybe it gets it indirectly, by repairing less or no resources?)
• Warp jammer CS lets you build stealth harvesters which cloak (or maybe instead of consuming resources directly, it loses resource income by making decoys instead of harvesters -- the decoys would have radar dampening and some method of making AI ships in the system think they're the big threat, such as cloaking superboost, or falsely flagging as irreplaceable)

I probably still wouldn't use the warp jammer CS, but like this I might use the economic command station in my backfield.

[Nodor]

So to jump in..  The knowledge costs on Turrets are fine and may need a bump up.  Especially if you have a Super Terminal.

In general, I ramp up AI progress to the 250-350 point, unlocking mostly turrets, forts, harvesters and fleet ships.    I'm kinda an anti-Diazo, rather than minimizing my AIP, I maximize my defenses.

I set up the Starships, 1/3 of my forts, my Mark 1 turrets and a good chunk of my fleet on my whipping boy.

Everything else is set up on the ST World - 4+ Forts, Mark 2 and 3 turrets etc.  Wait for CPA.  Post CPA, run Super Terminal for 2-4 hours.  Kill Superterminal at next CPA announcement. 

Conquer remainder of galaxy at 300 AIP - minimum threshold. 

When you have better technology than the AI, winning is fairly straightforward.   Now, this DOES NOT WORK at 9.X difficulty.
 

[Toranth]

Re: HFFs

More than 100k armor piercing would be needed to have less than 80% damage reduction.

A quick look at the export spreadsheet says about 200 mark/types have 100,000 or more armor piercing.  That's of 1200 total mark/types in the game.
While not bad, it's not nearly as uncommon as you might have thought.

Conquer remainder of galaxy at 300 AIP - minimum threshold.

Unfortunately, the AIP Floor isn't capped at 300 anymore.  If you do multi-hour ST runs, you'll be pushing the floor up well above 300.  In addition, every system you kill will add 4-5 points to the floor.  Core Guardposts add another 10.

[Kahuna]

about 200 mark/types have 100,000 or more armor piercing.

um.. what the hell. Forget that spreadsheet and check out the Wiki page on in-game "wiki" with F1.