Colonizer empty ship cost 50 industry (I take normal game speed for example)

Leecher - 50 industry

Vineship - 400 industry (O_O)

Basic Colonization module - 50 industry

Draw essence module - 120 industry

Vine Beacon module - 100 industry

When opened 2nd Stage in Miliraty tech these modules save same cost, but ships:

Colonizer - 75 industry

Leecher - 75 industry

Vineship - 600 industry (!!!!!!!)

Why a Vineship has so high cost, not a Vine Beacon module?

Researching Miliraty tech (in first 50-100 turns) for Unfallen looks as very big mistake.

Considering the fact that vineships are not consummed after they make the vine + a planet of the vined system is instantly colonized, their high starting cost is here to prevent the unfallen to make an exponential colonization too early in the game. Back in the late beta early realease, vineships didnt cost as much as other colonization ships. As a result, the unfallen could win econnomically by turn 60 or 70 and vineship spam was an actual strategy. Granted, economical victory was bonkers at the time but still, this was completly broken.

Gosh, now you bring me back some old memories where the average game would be max 80 turn if a lumeris or an unfallen was in the game, or 100 when economic have been nerf and it was science who appears to be too easy.

Yes, actually the game is a buggy mess, have some controversial balance decision and a lot of people have complained about it recently, but it still has accomplidshed a big step forward since its realease and i am confident amplitude studio will do the right choices in the future.

The heavy penalty also helps nudge Unfallen away from militarism, which is good for flavour. If they were cheaper, the penalty would not have much weight.

I agree, Vineship with Vine Beacon has a fair cost.

But the hull has a huge part of this cost. And this cost is increasing for every military stage:

400 > 600 > 800 > 1000 > 1200 industry.

I guess other factions not have a such strong motivation DON'T research military technologies.

Not to mention that vineships are basically defenseless, and require protection from even the most basic of things, like singular scout ships or pirates.

Expansion in the early game for the Unfallen is incredibly punishing. I think that vineships were over-nerfed, and that they could use a cost reduction; perhaps by 20% or so as a conservative first rebalance attempt.

The increase in productivity cost (I believe) is more to balance the timing of production to avoid a snowball effect. 

If the production cost never increased on the ships then, as you invested in more and more production, you'd be able to pound out five or six ships out of a single system in the late game on a single turn which would cause a serious problem with the pacing and timing of the game and make it virtually impossible for any win condition outside of military as there's no way anybody else could keep up with that kind of production. 

Blandersnatching wrote:

Not to mention that vineships are basically defenseless, and require protection from even the most basic of things, like singular scout ships or pirates.

Expansion in the early game for the Unfallen is incredibly punishing. I think that vineships were over-nerfed, and that they could use a cost reduction; perhaps by 20% or so as a conservative first rebalance attempt.

 You can build naked ships and upgrade them in the orbit with dust.  Even after the nerf, Unfallen have the fastest colonisation pace in the game. 

Also consider befriending pirates. It is impossible in vs ai setups, but it is handy in pvp.