Heya, got a question for you guys out there.

I mainly play Vodyani and Riftborn (mostly Riftborn since they are not so dependant on a good start like Vodyani) and on endless speed (600 turns so double of normal speed which is 300 turns) around turn 180-200 my industry on several systems looks like 2-3k which is quite good (IMHO). That would be turn ~90-100 on normal speed I'd guess (so mid game right?).

I've tried but to no avail to obtain similar industry numbers with other races (empire, lumeris, vaulters, sophons) but it's just not happening no matter what I do, it's patethicaly lower (like 300-500 tops) around turn 180-200. I am going for arid / desert systems, I build industry improvements and use heroes that give mostly bonuses to industry it's just not happening.

I know Lumeris is supposed to build cheap hulls and then upgrade them with their never ending cash, but still with so little industry it takes a while to build even empty shells once you've moved past attackers / protectors. And neither Vodyani or Riftborn have dust problems (or science).

So how do you do... stuff? Maybe I am missing something, there is some combo that boosts industry greatly in mid game so they can stay competitive (from AI is hard to judge since they get insane bonuses on higher difficulties, even with Riftborn I can't outpace lumeris / horatio / cravers expansion speed, but at least I stay competitive).

I think turn 180-200 is well past the end of the game for most people. You could be right, but victory has usually been achieved long before that. 

Nah, you got it mostly right, when compared to riftborn most races are simply not competitive. Especially not industry-wise.
And it does not end with industry, notice that if you can for instance obtain a decent antimatter income, you can easily maintain up to +125% empire wide science boost through singularities. Eat that sophons! Combined with possibly cheapest ships in game (with the quest provided law) you can easily run a full scale endgame fleet as early as turn 40ish on fast(translates to about 4 - 6 times that much to your speed).

Building cheap hulls was a mechanic abuse and was supposed to be fixed in the latest DLC, currently as Lumeris stand (with the whole new inflation mechanics introduced in G2G balance mod), they can simply buyout stuff, however this is far from reality on an endless speed, as buyouts are simply extremely expensive since they save so many turns (but also that many times more powerful).

As for the expansion speed, you are only limited by availability, if you think it through, you have the highest industry output so you can make the most colonization ships + you don't send food to colonies thus you can safely run infinite amounts of outposts at a time without any drawbacks, except for the following issue with overcolonization. This also has a huge impact on such a slow game speed since the growth limitations of an outpost are a big deal when it takes 50 turns to establish a colony.

The only real competitors to this would be cravers abusing high amount of slave pop provided content approval with religious law and of course there is a falloff for that because of the drained planets. But no one can boast +5 indy per pop, however everyone else grows the pop passively and does not have to seed minor pops manually to do so.

To summarize on endless speed the industry and riftborn are probably the king indeed, and even on fast they certainly do not lack competitivenes.

mamarider wrote:

If upcoming riftborn changes from G2G balance mod find their way into the main client, I think industrial potential of the riftborn will be greatly tuned down. They really need to be a bit more in-line with other factions. So do the Cravers. And Hissho, probably? Didn't play with their latest changes, so can't tell for sure.

If you are refering to increase in production cost of riftborn pop based on empire instead of system, it's really not bad at all. I already play them like that - only building pops in each system and not having a dedicated small system to spam them every turn and ship them (well obv. I still ship pops around, but they are built normally).

Why I am asking this is because I can reliably build wonders at an acceptable rate on endless speed (7-15 turns for tier 1-2 wonders for deeds) with Riftborn (the science / dust boosts on exstatic are insane) without delaying my important buildings / population / fleet construction.

@Dragar I did specify endless speed. Game is ~600 turns compared to normal which is ~300 turns. 150 turns on normal equals to ~300 turns on endless speed. Turn 100 on endless speed is still early game by all means (even for endless AI / Pirates, you won't see hunters well up until turn 140+).

Ah and one more thing, actually Riftborns are kings of industry up until Vodyani gets to T3 system (Arc if you like) developments. After that, Vodyani can't be touched even with permanent singularities. A high level Vodyani governor with 9 pops on 5 planets in a system, boosted pops for 8 FIDSI, will generate more dust, science and industry (food too lol.... I know) than even an entire other empire - it's no joke. Riftborn can maybe get to like 60-75% of that on a full 5 hot planets let's say you luck out and get 2 large lavas, 2 large ashes and 1 desert, but otherwise not even they can come close.

I know about food to industry conversion, but I was talking about early to mid game. All you've described it's a very lenghty process, and by the time you get there, the Vodyani and Riftborn already built every single system to max including wonders and having by far the largest number of fully fitted fleets.

That was my point :) The spike that ~2k industry provides you in late early game to early mid game it's way more impactful than dust or science or food. Simple example, it's turn 150 (endless speed so turn 75 on normal speed), we both researched hunter and coordinator hulls. Now by the time you build a single ship, I can make a fleet of them.

But the thing is that Riftborn aren't weaker on normal or fast speed by any means.

Speaking of which, the whole Vodyani population loss with 1 planet colonized at start of game appears only on Endless speed, in normal it doesn't happen. So there is something wrong / buggy here.

Was comparing them because most of you guys place on normal speed, while I prefer the slower paced endless speed. I do however also play on normal, I just prefer longer games. Hence why the comparision. Riftborn being the industry race it's fine, but they are also great at dust and science. Looking at Sophons for example - they excell at science but their dust and industry are minuscule.