Diazo:
I approve.
TechSY730:
Yeah, I only worry about energy buffers once I've taken a second planet, maybe a third, and certainly once I've established even a basic whipping boy/chokepoint. When your only system is your homeworld, losing that Energy Collector is the least of your concerns. I never run into buffer/energy failures until after I've expanded enough to bulk out on MK1 & 2 Fleetships, and have enough m/c to start needing Starships to take on hardened systems. In other words, the second ring of expansion or later.
I don't do an especially low AIP or high AI difficulty # game, however, and run with Civilian Leaders and Fallen Spire most of the time. My usual build:
Loop stardock on 10 scouts, 50 fighters, 10 bombers, 10 frigates. Send out fighters in batches of 24 or so (thank you, L) to take out warp gates depending on mark and how close the wormhole is to my command. Leave bombers and frigates at home till after the first wave to conserve resources and build time. Once that caps, I usually unlock MK2 of my triangle ships and only build one type of that at a time if I know enough about my AI opponent. If not, a fairly equal mix weighted towards cheap fighters mk2, just in case my mk1s are wiped on warp gate/tachyon sentinel ops. On rare occasions I will unlock just one of the triangle at mk3 right off the bat as well, but usually I save some leftover K for a starship, tachyon turrets, etc.
Thanks to avoiding starship construction and the boosted starting resources, I can afford to rush my turrets once the wave is announced and I've narrowed down the avenues it can approach. Before then I slap 1-4 tractor turrets down on each wormhole just for the convenience of handling threat, especially if I've a high mark neighbor. When the wave hits - and I'm only facing the one starship - I focus on the starship before the fleetships.
That said, things get much worse if you're facing at least two starships or you're facing a counter-attack wave. I wouldn't oppose some restrictions to AI starships in the early game, but I second moving Starfleet Commander to "Hard" if nothing else is done. Actually, I find the waves aren't what killed me - the retaliation from venturing into a Mark IV world with multiple starships can be brutal if you're not expecting it, and can't support your own firepower to eat through that health.
If it isn't quite as hard as the rest of the hard AIs, I'm sure some devious minds could make some evil suggestions.
Ignoring the more advanced analysis of unit stats scaling, the Starfleet Commander is twice as dangerous as it used to be, more if you take into account cap of one starships. There are various factors on each side of difficulty from the home FF gravity effect to the Plasma splash...
