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Uncle_Joe

Join Date 02/2006

Cost decrease Techs

Is it just me or does it seem that the techs that reduce the COST (not mass) of 'x' or 'y' component are pretty weak? I mean, 10% cheaper Shields? Or Beams? Really? As opposed to more accuracy or 20% less mass? That seems like a total no-brainer IMO.

Granted I'm playing with tech trading off so the decision is even more crucial but it seems like there is little reason for the cost decrease techs to even exist. MAYBE if they were 50% saving or 75% savings then MAYBE. But honestly even then, I doubt it would make much difference in the turns to build most ships. Military Production is rarely a bottleneck at all and by mid-game I can usually churn out solid ships in 2 turns or so with minimal effort.

In fact, it seems like the Manufacturing costs of almost everything seem very low. A starting colony with just a few pop (3 or 3.5) builds the starting Manufacturing buildings in just 2-3 turns anyways. And from there almost every other 'standard' building is just 1 turn (particularly as the planet pop grow). Which in turn means that all of the techs that decrease civil production costs (or increase civil production) are pretty useless as well.

Maybe a quick fix would be to remove the base +5 'TM' from the colony capital? That would slow early industrial growth and put more emphasis on population and early factories to develop the planet?

In any case, I think the production vs output costs are pretty skewed and could use a hefty increase. This would be for ships and improvements and I think would also help the people requesting being able to build multiple units/buildings in a single turn.

As I mentioned in another thread, the best strategy games force 'interesting decisions'. If it's a tough call between techs or specializations it adds to strategic choice and replayability ("What if I do it differently this time?"). But as it is, I find myself choosing the same tech choices game after game because it doesn't matter the situation, tech 'x' is clearly always better than tech 'y'. And that's where I feel the game currently is regarding any choice between cost and mass or cost and effectiveness...after a short while cost becomes largely irrelevant.

Does that mirror other people's experience or am I missing some benefit for these tech choices?

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Hard for me to say its not balanced. I prefer fewer, tougher ships (even if there was no logistics limit). I only have a few shipyards, especially if I'm Terran (and love that 0% decay). The planets that feed them are all geared towards military manuafacturing.

I suppose if you didnt have your empire have planet specialization, and had shipyards on nearly every planet, it might make more sense to lower the cost. I just think its way more micro for every shipyard you have.

But to me, with the logistics cap set to where at top tech levels, you can have only about 9-10 large ships max, using the mass reduction techs is to me, the best strat in the game. Of course, the Hyperion Shrinker reduces logistics only by -1. So for a large ship, thats only a 12.5% reduction (or increase to a fleet's firepower, assuming you can max your fleet), where as if you used tiny ships, thats a 50% reduction, hence a 50% increase in empire fleet wide firepower, and you can ensure your fleets are always maxed out in terms of logistics. Then reduce the cost instead of mass shrinking techs, and you can have every planet pumping 1 small ship out a turn. That might overwhelm a big ship player, who knows. Might be interesting to try a game like that, but I hear with a huge number of ships, the game gets VERY VERY slow and you are using a lot more memory as well. And it would be MICROHELL

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the ship components cost decrease is a bit questionable, that much i agree with. the main reason being that flett sizes are capped by logistics, so "larger" ships with the same logistics cost are usually superior to more cheaper ships - since you can't take advantage of the superior number when both fleets are at the logistics cap.

it's different for buildings, though. i actually like the cost reduction for the two main building types (manufacturing and research). most of my planets end up as research planets anyway and every point of production i DON'T have to invest in manufacturing for upgrades is a point of prodcution that is converted into research at a MUCH more favorable rate (multiplied by hundreds of % of research bonuses). the alternative to the cost reduction is reuced maintenance, which seems pointless when ou only need a very small percetnage of money planets to fund your whole empire either way - and the static +% manufacturing or +% research bonus. they look better on paper than in practice, though. my planets tend to have hundreds of % modifers for the target output anyway. adding another 15% to that large pool is hardly noticeable. cost reduction for farms, approval and influence buildings seems very weak, though. they don't have sucha huge % modifier pool, so specializations that improve the output are more noticeable.

but i guess that depends on how you play the game. the relative strength of the specializations may vary if you run your empire with a different economic layout.

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going all mass reduction, I end up have Uber Fleets which can waste anyone else, and I hardly take damage, and rarely lose a ship. Early on I might lose ships at a 1:4 ratio. I just make sure to design my ships to counter the AI. They dont "adapt" at all, to what you are doing. By wiping their fleets (and only having to repair some of your ships), the enemy sacrifices tech research to rebuild ships, which gives me tech superiority at that point. Then its trivial to win the game. Tech is surely the key.

I disabled tech victory in the game I just finished, and I wish I hadnt because I could have clearly won via tech prior to invading the last few planets needs for an influence victory.

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Thecw

Join Date 08/2012

+84

Quoting dansiegel30,

reply 1

Of course, the Hyperion Shrinker reduces logistics only by -1. So for a large ship, thats only a 12.5% reduction

The Hyperion Shrinker increases your mass cap by 10% and another 5% per adjacency level, which with good positioning can yield easily a total mass cap increase of 65%. See the Miniaturization - how does it work in this game? thread.

The Hyperion Logistics System decreases the logistic cost of newly build ship by 1 and the logistics cap by 1 point per adjacency level. Again with good positioning can greatly increase your fleet size. For a fleet of tiny ships you can stash more than double the number of ships in the fleet, and for a fleet composed solely out of huge hulls your fleet size increases well beyond the 12.5%.

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