WeLoveYou wrote:

They are definitely not weaker than other factions, they just get some time to get used to as some of the their traits run counter to other factions. In my playthroughs at least, early science modules are more important than industry to get those important techs. You can specialise later, but for most of the game you'll want to have arks completely decked out with science. You industry comes from population and buildings. 

Population is more important getting more colonies. Two rounds of pop is cheaper than an ark in terms of essence for your first ark, and gets you more essence faster, meaning the downtime is less than you might think. For later arks, it becomes even more efficient to get the population asap.

Unlike other militaristic factions, you'll want to play defensively for a good amount of time, never leaving an ark exposed (especially with pirates) until you have a few system upgrades. Use the population boost luxury constantly for double the FIDS on your population, buy it on the market if you need it. Basically, you can stay competitive on 3-4 high planet systems for a good amount of the game. You'll eventually have more essence than you really need, which makes manpower hardly an issue, even if you were struggling before.

In terms of getting essence early, put an engine on your first leecher. They move exceptionally fast and you only really need enough essence to get your first population and ark rolling. After that, leecher designs are better used as siege ships or long range scouts if you really need them.

The only place I think Vodyani could get some love is in regards to pirates and to some degree early manpower. Arks are just a little too vulnerable early on to pirates, and it's not always so easy to get out a defensive fleet in time to stop them from rolling you over. Half of this is the damage nerf arks get before they are upgraded, and other half is their hull weakness. Reducing hull weakness before upgrades would go a long way in making them defensible. Reducing the cost of the essence to manpower conversion to 150 rather than 300 would help with that.

I agree with almost all of this, except that I think they are weaker until you can get that FIDS bonus really going. Which only occurs around late game. 

Also, the industry and science modules mostly depend on the planets you get. If I start off with colder planets that lack industry, I tend to put at least 1 or 2 industry modules for a level 2 Ark instead of the science one and focus the rest of getting essence since it's quite slow even with leechers (which take quite a bit to produce). 

For pirates, is it a bug or can you not create a non-aggression pact with them ? I figured it was a feature unique to the Vodyani because they hate pirates, due to some pirates relation to Isyander and the fact that the Vodyani look down upon any non-Vodyani.

You can have a defensive pact with pirates, but it wears off pretty fast, and gets incredibly expensive as you have to spend dust to get all the way up to cordial. It's a bit wonky right now in terms of how quickly relations degrade. You shouldn't have to pay them every other turn. There's also some issues with them attacking population ships, but that's not an issue for Vodyani. I think that everyone should be able to pay with influence for a non-aggro pact with pirates (like Vaulters). The Vaulters get the free portal travel, which is a big enough advantage to have with the pirates without the additional benefit of not having to spend dust. Maybe that would make pirates too easy to handle, not sure tbh.

I used to go for a mix of science and industry modules, but I found getting the colonisation techs up faster paid off a lot quicker. After I get my second ark, I'm not usually too fussed about leeching/ark essence modules, and would rather invade to get essence. It also pays off in the long term. Once you get those final ark module techs, you're pretty much 95% of the way to any victory you want, either churning out ships for military victories, massive amounts of dust for economy, or just finishing off the science techs. Maybe I'll go back to experimenting some more, but so far the science focus early and mid game has been consistently winning through playthroughs. The FIDS bonus from pop boosts is enough I find to make up for the industry. Ignoring any other bonuses and sources, 3 boosted Vodyani on a fully colonised Tchinomy system (always 4 planets) produce 384 FIDS (96 industry) when boosted. Compare that to the UE (with 12 pop) - 24 (influence) with the same boost, or Lumeris - 60 (dust) with the same boost, it's actually absurd how good their population are. Riftborn don't get pop boosts. *sad robot face*.

So I don't really think of them as a late game faction. When they get strong depends on a lot of factors that is more to do with how easily you can get out those first arks and population, which can come earlier or later. It's sometimes just a matter of patience and making opportunities, but they have the tools to survive the early game just fine as long as you don't get greedy. I find the complaints a little strange to be honest, as the weakest early game faction (and also the strongest late game faction) by far is Horatio, yet no one has complained about that for ages. I really think this comes down to expectations as most military factions are powerhouses right at the start, whereas Vodyani can take some time to get the ball rolling.

Yeah, I never pay them off partly b/c it seems like a waste of dust, and since you have to do it every turn it gets rather annoying; plus invading them seems just fine to me. 

I used to build straight science and essence until I unlocked a majority of the techs but then I switched to industry early since I started getting a number of colder planets that helped alleviate the scientific cost. So I'll probably do some more experimenting in the other way and try out invading systems for essence instead of the leeching modules like you do lol. 

And yeah, the strongest asset of the Vodyani is the FIDS bonuses, it's really strong. But that's why I think of them as a late game faction b/c those FIDS bonuses stack up so well, and coupled with the FIDS techs, it makes their systems stronger than any other. 

They do survive early game but can be more easily rolled over by an invading enemy faction than others, though our experiences could be different as that is how Endless games work lmao. 

You are right though that the Vodyani do play differently than the other military factions; they vary in times in how strong they can get and don't snowball as fast as the others. 

Though I don't think the Horatio is the weakest early game faction, as I've never seen them die off in the early or mid parts of the game