Help! Ship costs are crazy! :'(

Boxleitner

Old

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 8:41:25 PM

Hi guys,

I'd like to know how people are dealing with Ship costs.

1) Not only was I barely able to finish studying military ships by the time the cravers came for me, but also:

2)Just three ships wiped out all my income!! And the cravers had NINE ships!!

Can someone please tell me how they were able to handle this? I have been playing all the races.

UndeadPuppy

Mirror Enthusiast

CLASSIFIED

UndeadPuppy

Mirror Enthusiast

21 100g2g pts

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 8:51:57 PM

I have no idea. Even on Easy difficulty, the Cravers will just rush 6 ships and go to town on your systems if you're unlucky enough to spawn close to them.

Updated 8 years ago.

wintermute213

Ardent

wintermute213

Ardent

8 600g2g pts

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 8:58:16 PM

Cravers have a bonus to fleet size and their AI just churns out military ships. Their ships are on average weaker than the ones other races will build, but numbers are their thing.

The whole "races spawning too close together" is a known bug that should hopefully be fixed soon.

Boxleitner

Old

Boxleitner

Old

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 9:33:44 PM

So, generally speaking, ship building should be done on the fly, when you need to defend?

Having a standing army for defense seems very costly. Are there any techs to create planet shields, missile bases or starbases?

Eji1700

Newcomer

Eji1700

Newcomer

17 100g2g pts

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 9:48:43 PM

Depends on the race, but you should be able to support several fleets:

Cravers- Your starting income/industry is nuts and you begin with a colony ship. Just make sure you're always expanding. You will hit a half life point where your expansion can no longer feed the dying planets you've left behind, and then you start selling your infrastructure on the empty planets and only keep the dust buildings. I finished a game with them having 30+ ships flying around (did eventually scrap them but after I'd won all my wars). The +50 gold per kill law also helps (although you should have mostly positive economy).

Lumeris- Get dust stuff. They love it and it works well. I was pushing 1k a turn on normal by 75.

Voydani- I think i'll make a guide for them, but first make sure your arc is full outfitted with support modules and grab some dust research (not a ton). Their hero on their home system with administrator is godly to the point of possibly broken, so that's always nice, and make sure you get colony tech since it multiplies their population instantly. Oh and Arc's are warships that happen to become colonies. Make sure they're fully outfitted with strong weaponry and then go to town. My voydani game so far is a total runaway.

Sophon- haven't played them yet.

So at least 3 out of 4 races you should be supporting multiple fleets no problem. If you aren't you need to look at your building/tech/hero choices and see where you're going wrong.

Edit- also the only defensive tech in Era 1 increases manpower, while in era 2 there is something that's like a minimal loss for enemies, but it's probably not worth it. If you can't afford fleets you're doing something wrong .

Updated 8 years ago.

Boxleitner

Old

Boxleitner

Old

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 9:55:24 PM

I look forward to your future posts, Eji. Thank you for taking time to answer in detail.

Yes, well I'm building everything in the queue at each system. So far the game seems to move food from one system to another automatically? Maybe I don't need to make food everywhere?

MikeLemmer

Lumeris

MikeLemmer

Lumeris

12 300g2g pts

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 9:59:44 PM

The biggest problem with Cravers I currently see is that a full fleet of their military ships can immediately wipe out any ground-based resistance in one turn unless the defenses can kill at least one of their ships in that turn. I nearly lost my homeworld to that, despite having a full fleet of 4 ships Guarding it. I imagine with a bit of tweaking, this could become a scarily effective zerging strategy without some kind of cheap defenses to counteract it.

Boxleitner

Old

Boxleitner

Old

8 years ago

Oct 8, 2016, 10:15:41 PM

MikeLemmer wrote:
The biggest problem with Cravers I currently see is that a full fleet of their military ships can immediately wipe out any ground-based resistance in one turn unless the defenses can kill at least one of their ships in that turn. I nearly lost my homeworld to that, despite having a full fleet of 4 ships Guarding it. I imagine with a bit of tweaking, this could become a scarily effective zerging strategy without some kind of cheap defenses to counteract it.

Hmmm.

To me it seems like Amplitude might have to choose between allowing Zerging to be effective or squashing it completely.

Do you see how allowing races to create cheap defenses quickly would result in a black or white outcome? Either Zerging will exist or it will not.

Big choice.

Is there any middle ground?

UndeadPuppy

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UndeadPuppy

Mirror Enthusiast

21 100g2g pts

8 years ago

Oct 9, 2016, 12:18:06 AM

MikeLemmer wrote:
The biggest problem with Cravers I currently see is that a full fleet of their military ships can immediately wipe out any ground-based resistance in one turn unless the defenses can kill at least one of their ships in that turn. I nearly lost my homeworld to that, despite having a full fleet of 4 ships Guarding it. I imagine with a bit of tweaking, this could become a scarily effective zerging strategy without some kind of cheap defenses to counteract it.

Ground battles are unbalanced at the moment. Not only that but we're missing tank and air units which could be used to counter your opponent's army more effectively.