An added idea to give "oomph" to the MK IV nenzul enclave

[Wanderer]

None of this would probably matter, except for the fact that Neinzul bonus ships, of the MKIV variety, are extremely situational and non-cost-effective if you are forced to spam them from a fixed point in the galaxy, or wait for them to come through the IG Warpgates.

In short, without changing some major game mechanic, separating the MKIV Enclave into 2 parts (a cheaper one that requires a Factory, an expensive one that doesn't), makes MKIV Neinzul ships very useful, without changing any core mechanics of the game.

AH, that's what I was missing somehow, that this all hinges on the Neinzul MK IV ships.  Okay, thanks for the explanation.

The problem really isn't the MK IV, it's the MK IV younglings are meant to be streamed into battle with the rest of them and you're hinged to the Fact IV.  Intead of all this rebuilding...

... Keith, similar to the idea of making MK V Youngings not have ... wait no, nevermind, that won't work, or EVERY MK IV ship you build will be attempting to FRD out into the wastelands since gates are non-selective in inclusion.

What abooouuuutttt.... no, that won't work either.  errr... hrmm...

Nevermind, I don't have any good ideas that aren't unbalancing or highly annoying in other ways.

Nothing to see here other than a confused man on the sidewalk, please, carry on.

[Drjones013]

I dunno, 14k for a Mk IV factory I can place anywhere with enhanced build speed and a disposable defense force sounds pretty handy.

[PokerChen]

Chris/Keith, don't listen to any of us until you push out this next version and we've had a honest go at using these "drones" of yours.

[Hearteater]

If the Enclave could only build drones and younglings you had unlocked, but no other ship types, the K cost could become a lot more reasonable.  Yes you could be producing Mark IV ships without a Advanced Factory, but only Younglings, and only if there were one of your bonus ships.  With ARS hacking, that even allows a player to hunt for Younglings specifically if they'd prefer to take advantage of that.  If someone doesn't have Younglings, the Enclave still provides drones.

Given it can only produce one unit at a time, it may be that a Youngling player doesn't really have much use for drones (they are always rebuildings Younglings with no time to produce drones).  This lets the K cost be balanced for both uses.  Set the K cost to make sense for Youngling production, and then balance the stats of drones so they are a comparable strategy for that K value.  Effectively it would fill two different roles.  The Youngling role is fairly niche, since it relies on just five bonus ship types.  But the Drone role is open to anyone, and it allows you to translate defense-K investment into free offensive units.

[TechSY730]

Given it can only produce one unit at a time, it may be that a Youngling player doesn't really have much use for drones (they are always rebuildings Younglings with no time to produce drones).

Um, the enclaves can have a queue of multiple units, just like normal shipyards. They can even loop build like normal shipyards.

[relmz32]

Given it can only produce one unit at a time, it may be that a Youngling player doesn't really have much use for drones (they are always rebuildings Younglings with no time to produce drones).

Um, the enclaves can have a queue of multiple units, just like normal shipyards. They can even loop build like normal shipyards.

I think his point is that it still ends up as a stream of single units that die pretty quickly, and thus you will be rebuilding them, therefore it doesn't leave a lot of room for drone production.

Edit: I'll try to not speak for others.

[TechSY730]

Chris/Keith, don't listen to any of us until you push out this next version and we've had a honest go at using these "drones" of yours.

This.
We are just discussing more ideas, but I don't think any of them should be put in until this upcoming version of the enclaves is tested.

[Hearteater]

I think his point is that it still ends up as a stream of single units that die pretty quickly, and thus you will be rebuilding them, therefore it doesn't leave a lot of room for drone production.

You got it exactly right relmz32.  Even if you have just one Youngling ship type, by the time you can produce a full cap of Mark I-IV, the first units you've produced have already died even if they weren't actually fighting anything.

[keith.lamothe]

Given that with max production speed an enclave can produce four or five ships per second (on performance-profile=high; on extremely-low it's probably 2 or 3 due to a lower number of internal "turns" per second), I don't drones and younglings would overly compete with one another for active production once you had the initial caps built.  Particularly with multiple enclaves.

Interesting idea on making the enclaves only able to produce younglings (if unlocked) and drones, but I'm not sure that would be a good idea.  It would be a tremendous nerf to them, really.  But it's possible that the existing enclaves (even before drones) are actually OP if used efficiently, due to the ability to produce anything your docks can.

[TechSY730]

With the way loop build works, you'll find that if you queue multiple unit types, it won't starve any one unit type a turn no matter how many of the other kinds it can build due to not hitting ship cap.

Like if you set it to loop build and queue up 5 of each unit, then after it tries to build 5 of the first type, it will always check to see if it can build second type in the queue, even if some of the 5 of the first type die before it gets to the second unit type.
This hinges on queuing up smallish numbers of each unit type though. If you queue up, like, 500 of each type, you may start starving other types in the queue, but then that is your own dang fault.

[Wingflier]

You got it exactly right relmz32.  Even if you have just one Youngling ship type, by the time you can produce a full cap of Mark I-IV, the first units you've produced have already died even if they weren't actually fighting anything.

Have you people actually even used Enclaves?

If you had 9 Enclave Starships (MKI-IV) + the Merc Enclave producing only younglings + drones, you could not kill them fast enough.  They could probably produce the entire cap of 2 Neinzul Bonus Ships (MK1-4) within 10 seconds.

Production speed is not a problem, it's more a question of necessity.  There are probably better places where 14k knowledge could go, which in effect really makes you question whether the MK3 Enclave is worth getting as well.

We'll see how this next patch goes first before we draw any hasty conclusions.

[keith.lamothe]

They could probably produce the entire cap of 2 Neinzul Bonus Ships (MK1-4) within 10 seconds.

And it would be glorious

I'd like to see the look on the AI thread's face when it saw that change in firepower calculations on a planet formerly just holding a few unarmed starships...

[PokerChen]

Given that every mark of Enclaves will max out the production rate of its equal mark Neinzuls @ 4 per second on default settings -  it takes a little longer per cap, less than 20 seconds for marks-III and IV. Increasing your performance settings will then increase their power.

In order to make this independent of the update rate, one might consider setting an arbitrary maximum (8 ships per second on Normal caps?) and have constructors build multiple ships per 'tick' at lower performance rates? Will also have to consider the three bonus-types I've mentioned earlier that have a 1 second build time across marks I-IV.

[Cyborg]

They could probably produce the entire cap of 2 Neinzul Bonus Ships (MK1-4) within 10 seconds.

And it would be glorious

I'd like to see the look on the AI thread's face when it saw that change in firepower calculations on a planet formerly just holding a few unarmed starships...

It would probably look like our face when five hybrid super weapons start building simultaneously "somewhere in the galaxy."

[PokerChen]

They could probably produce the entire cap of 2 Neinzul Bonus Ships (MK1-4) within 10 seconds.

And it would be glorious

I'd like to see the look on the AI thread's face when it saw that change in firepower calculations on a planet formerly just holding a few unarmed starships...

It would probably look like our face when five hybrid super weapons start building simultaneously "somewhere in the galaxy."

A Neinzul arms-race? I imagine this will inevitably end up with a Kostura-style superweapon aimed directly at your homeworld, followed by an endless flood of AI zombies pouring forth from its wormhole-blast.