Copperwire1632 wrote:
I've been messing with "tar baby" ships; I only build defenses and drop them on large AI stacks. While you don't gain experience as quickly as battles you win, if you live 30+ battles a turn adds up real fast.

are you doing auto battles then?

Sovereign wrote:
(about -/+ 5000 HP with some little rocket defense)

5,000 HP? That's over 150 Reactive Hulls or over 1,000 weight at no HP bonuses. Even if you reduce the required weight to ~375 with +100% HP bonuses (unlikely in early-mid game) and cruisers that's still not possible at that stage of the game, especially if you want any weapons.



And I already updated the wiki page with new beam damages.

mhhh nope i checked it out with an savegame currently

i can achieve 5016 HP on Cruiser with 40 UE-reactive Hulls (strong alloys indeed (2/2) and optimal Structure (2/2) and of course the one advanced Container(but everybody use them anyways) dont know exactly how the +10 Experience of UE comes here into the formula. And there is also enough space for repairing tool and 3+ Defenses (i use anti missle cause they are big thread to High HP ships) and about 5+ Laser Modules.



For the Science...with Trade (with no Spacecadets) i achieve the tech for Cruisers/reactive Hulls/advanced containers about round 45-55-60 (depends on planetary luck) at normal game speed (playing most time 6 or 8 Player Partys for enough Trade)

I don't see how the math works out. 40 Reactive Hulls on a Cruiser makes 1,880 base HP, and Strong Alloys plus level 3 experience (if you built it on a system with Hardened Framing) is only +50%, for 2,820 HP total.



And you don't have any trouble damaging defense-based designs with only 5 lasers?

Mhh nope approx 5 lasers are okay cause 75% of Players are using destroyers anyway (but not everybody can spawn they like the hissho or cravers) and witch addionaly tech on the right hand site tech tree u can increase the space for weapons the longer the game last. And of course the enemy get stronger but with combining with higher tech Armor (i dont even speak about lensings u can achieve Crusiers about 6500 HP)



(sometimes a little more lasers with only 4000-4500 HP are also possible) and some mixed fleets works fine too(with some Destroyers) also helps the Cruisers are Damage Eaters in the First Way.



PS: do you consider that UE reactivs each gives + 2% of max Hull?

And Cruisers get an non military Modul Disscount?

Ah, I forgot about the special UE armor modules. I'll write that in.



I agree that you should go all defense or all HP.

^^ Yep



But maybe your right...if someone doesnt go realy realy on High HP ships strong alloys is not that good.

But my opinion is that High HP is and all or Nothing thing...in my experiences Hybrids are always worser then Only Weapons/Defense/HP Ships.



Maybe u try this one day out it is fun to have no worries about scouting enemy weapons and researching anti defenses

i like straightness ; )





AND not to forget there are many Buildings who Provide High HP...one Example XP Buildings and the Building where Ships Starts with 25% more HP and maybe even more (i often just build these two)

Cruisers up to 10.000 HP !!! are possible ; )

Thank you for the tread and discussion.



May I ask for some clarification? Is Strong Alloys an additive (ie 40% + 30%= 70%) effect on other ship armor % bonuses or is it a separate multiple (ie (100 x 1.4) x 1.3)?



In addition: Do you think armor tanks are viable without playing UE and/or the traits?

It's additive with armor modules and ship XP HP bonuses. Improvement bonuses (e.g. Uniform Shielding), however, are technically a different bonus and thus stack multiplicatively.



If you're going armor tanking, I think the two things are very important since you're looking at about a doubling of HP from the earlier +% HP module and the trait. Not only does it increase your attritional survivability, but since Intelligent Tools and Nano-Repair Tools repair a percentage of ship HP, you're also doubling the number of HPs repaired per phase.



Honestly I don't play MP, though, and the dynamics are certainly different than SP--if you get into an attrition situation against the Endless AI you're screwed, but the AI designs are so bad that a defense-based omni-tank can hold off any number of even Endless AI fleets, which is not true for armor tanks which will get worn away eventually. At least before the latest patch; I'm not sure if the new defense and retrofit behavior makes AI fleets enough of a threat. Whereas in MP you're going to be facing fewer but much higher quality fleets, in which case losses may be unavoidable, making armor tanks look more attractive. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell with pure math, since in MP you have to account for player choices, intelligent weapon vs. defense matching, and so forth.

very interesting tips about cruisers.... learn something new daily

It seems to me that any sufficiently experienced ship would make a functional armor tank - regardless of other factors.

I'm not sure how much effect levels will have--HP bonuses from level don't significantly outpace damage bonuses from level until level 6, which is 100 XP; this seems rather difficult to achieve if there is any attrition going on.

I've been messing with "tar baby" ships; I only build defenses and drop them on large AI stacks. While you don't gain experience as quickly as battles you win, if you live 30+ battles a turn adds up real fast.

in MP Dreadnoughts is no realistic Option.....in most cases at this stage of game it is allready over and someone is cleary at the Top of ranking

u have to think with Cruisers and maybe also only with reactiv hulls.



I have made some very good experiences with Cruisers if u build your first ones about round 50 or even before(about -/+ 5000 HP with maybe little rocket defense) they are beasts unless my neighbour is an already 80% FIDS Boni Hissho/and or a good Craver player the cruisers surviving rate was very high and their kills per death rate in industrie points was also quite good.



And Since the Patch beam damage is lesser then before isent it?

Shivetya wrote:
are you doing auto battles then?

Yes - in a a way that has enough characters to post.

I'm curious about your low sowers rating... especially your comments that you aren't even sure if its a net bonus at all.



It seems to me that the ability to basically ignore food techs and buildings in favor of increasing industry as rapidly as possible in the early game does make this a net bonus.

E.g., n-way fusion plant adds 4 food.

Your civil engineer adds 6 food.

Industry exploitation (and a bit of early game research) adds not only 3-4 industry per pop (with a bit of research), but .5-1 food (depending on early game research, and planet). The food exploitation adds 1-2 depending on the planet type (with some research). On appropriate planets you'd still do food.



If you quickly research more industrial enhancements, you can get some very good industry going, along with decent growth. Is it top notch growth? No it isn't. But to get top notch growth you have to focus a LOT more on food. You can come pretty close to top notch growth, and end up with top notch industry.



I think this lends itself to both fast expansion and an aggressive early game.

You can quickly get set up spewing out colony ships with enough food from the industry to support the constant production.

In new systems, a few turns with the civil engineer will have population blooming up around you. Adding n-way fusion and the industry exploitation will help pick up population growth after that. And nothing is preventing you from using that outstanding industry to build a few food improvements either--just cause they are at -50% doesn't mean they are useless. You can build them rapidly and move on.





EDIT: I'm not saying they are top tier. I'm just saying I don't think they are horrible.

The problem is that "decent growth" often isn't enough when it comes to custom factions. You want "balls-to-the-wall" growth, and Sowers take a hard hit in this area:

• You get -50% Food, but only 40% of Industry gets converted.
• You can't take Food traits to speed up growth effectively.
• Industry traits don't speed up growth either, since they decrease the costs of construction rather than increasing Industry.
  
  

Being able to focus constructions does help, but not enough IMO.

To be fair, growth become exponential, so I find that sowers doesn't fall too far behind in population mid game. In fact, most games I remain 1st in fids with sowers, granted this all depends on the skill level of players. Now while it is true that you do lose out on food, Sowers just need to specalize in production. You've got Heavy Isotopes which adds +10, Linked Systems which gives +20%, colonial rights which gives +25% on estactic, predictive logistsics which gives +2 production per population, and so on. Of course, you could argue that you still get better population growth with other factions.



This is true, however one advantage I find with sowers is flexability. Because you focus purely on production, you can easily pump out ships, convert to dust, convert to science while still maintaing growth. For me, this flexability is one reason why sowers is a favourite.



Also, I consider Fragile hulls basically free points. Typically, it's not your hull strength that gets your ships killed, it's not having enough defense mods. At least, in my experience.

Sowers are in a growth disadvantage during twom stages of the game: Very early game and late game.



The very early game penalty can easily be bypassed after a few turns:

(1) Set all planets to industrial exploitation.

(2) Build Isotop Refineries asap - you receive a substantial growth bonus combined with excellent colony productivity at low cost.

(3) Research Transportation Networks once you have your tier 1 research done. With ITN your sower trait will give you a net benefit for the early and mid game.

(4) Colonize high industry planets when you have the chance - gas giants with +10 prod make EXCELLENT starting points for colonizing a system. Lava and desert are also great, sometimes better than other planets if they have ressources on them.

(5) Sowers benefit MORE from ecstatic happiness: The production bonus will usually outweight the raw food income (before the sower trait), so the increase from happniess is substantial. In addition, the Elegant Shopping Networks have a an additional Sower-Specific boost for production.

(6) If you want a good start you should pick the "Mineral Rich" anomaly for your home planet. This boosts early game production and growth significantly, allowing you to pump out colony ships like not tomorrow.



If you consequently start with Isotop Refinery -> Exploitation -> Transport Network buildorders in new systems, your planets will grow quickly and faster than most other races. In fact sowers don't need any food traits to be competetive.

The only time when the Sower trait becomes a disadvantage again is the late game once you unlock the last two food techs - but it doesn't really matter, you can achieve "1-turn-growth" even with the penalty.



Another very important point for Sower growth is the fact that you can use Soil Revification to turn all bad planets into desert. This should provide a substantial happiness boost that either grants you the extatic benefits or allows you to increase tax rate. In addition, desert planets have high industry values, so they are (again) good for production AND growth. The Tundra transformation tech is also much lower in the tree (1.800 vs 14.000 science!), if you manage to get hold of adamantit early (trading or beelining for it), you can quickly transform your deserts into tundra planets. This will provide additional happiness, great science benfits and has a great synergy with another unique improvement from the Sowers: Extreme Infrastructure. This exclusive improvement grants bonus industry for all low-industry planets, turning each and every system into a productive and well-growing part of your empire. It also boosts ocean planets during the later game, making a mix of ocean + 1-2 jungle systems viable as final terraforming attempts.





tl,dr:

The Sower trait is actually a bonus for growth and allows to create extremly productive worlds that growth at high speed. Exception are the first few turns until you get N-Way-Fusion plants. The late game disadvantage is irrevelant since 1-turn growth is still possible. Sowers do not need any growth related traits to be competetive.

Blockade Busters with Amoeba Affinity means instant good trade routes when you meet other players since you already know where all their planets are. This also works for others racial affinities if ally ally with an Amoeba, because the alliance lets you know where all the planets are that you ally knows about.



IIRC taking Eternal War prevents trade routes even if you have Blockade Busters.

"(6) If you want a good start (for sowers) you should pick the "Mineral Rich" anomaly for your home planet. This boosts early game production and growth significantly, allowing you to pump out colony ships like not tomorrow."



If you want a good start for the sower trait try pairing it with the N-way fusion tech and the Core mining tech, this increases your exploitation to +3 on your homeworld (tundra) and allows you to have your exploitation and Heavy isotope refineries built before others have even researched N-way fusion tech. It also has the added benefit of giving you 2 additional start game draws at a resource for your homeworld. Having these techs early can also help militarily as you will be able to spot sources of Titanium-70 (for ion torpedoes) and Hypernium (for "laser") right away.



"(5) Sowers benefit MORE from ecstatic happiness: The production bonus will usually outweigh the raw food income (before the sower trait), so the increase from happiness is substantial. In addition, the Elegant Shopping Networks have a an additional Sower-Specific boost for production."



This is very true and is one reason you want to seek out Gas Giants and lava (and to a lesser extent desserts) especially early that system contains happiness boosts in the form of planetary traits or approval resources. This is in fact a key to the sower playstyle balancing your approval ratings on the one side, and struggling to pay for your improvements with your abysmally low tax rate on the other.



The "other" key to a custom sower build...drop tolerant. Although that may seem what this race is all about, you can really squeeze more out of them if you "play it straight". I find that the Hissho with their Bushido bonus actual make for a much more manageable use of the "tolerant" trait.



Here's the Sower build i've been puddling around with against the AI;



Anarchists (1) -6

Builders (3) +24

Core Mining +15

Crowded planets (1) +10

Dust Archeology (1) +1

Dust Impaired (2) -4

Legendary Heroes (2) +16

Mineral Rich +8

N-Way Fusion +10

Sloppy Sawbones (2) -6

The Price of Beauty (2) -8



With this set-up and the pull of an administrator hero at the start you have your exploitation and Heavy isotopes on turn 3 and have your second colony ship out on turn 5 or 6.



As an aside, why is Baryonic Shielding an "orange" special research item for the sowers? It doesn't seem to contain any changes from anyone else's research...

For those 25 points you spent on the two techs you could have had 2 levels of scientist to research those techs faster and another 5 points to spend.

Could someone explain to me why custom factions from sowers and amoeba only get 60 points? For me that's a huge disadvantage and a pity, since I really like the ship design and the affinities.

Thanks in advance!

Snerch wrote:
Could someone explain to me why custom factions from sowers and amoeba only get 60 points? For me that's a huge disadvantage and a pity, since I really like the ship design and the affinities.

Thanks in advance!

The affinities are so strong, its for balancing. The Amoeba one certainly is, the sowers one people might disagree on, but I do think its incredibly strong.

chromodynamics wrote:
The affinities are so strong, its for balancing. The Amoeba one certainly is, the sowers one people might disagree on, but I do think its incredibly strong.

Both hissho and cravers are much stronger especially in multiplayer.

Unfortunately I probably won't be able to update this in depth until at least next week since I'm away from my main computer.

Economy



Almost Must-Haves

• Builders 3 (24 points): Even if you're playing aggressive, every system is going to require at least some buildup. Think of it as being able to start pumping out ships 30% faster.
• Militarists 3 (24 points): If you're playing aggressive, this is a no-brainer. Even if you're not playing aggressive, you're going to want cheap colony ships to grab more and better systems quickly.
• Growth Plan 3 (30 points): Early game, you're probably taking planets and exploitations with high Food per population, and later in the game, you'll have built up more +Food per population improvements. Therefore, this tends to be more powerful than Cloning. And Food is critical, since it affects the growth of the other three resources on a system. Note that this is important even for trade, since trade income is proportional to your population.
  
  

Corporate Economy



I'm talking about Dust and Science. There's two ways to go about this.



The Trade Economy

This works best with Amoeba--with Blockade Breakers, you get trade routes to all of an empire's systems as soon as you make first contact with them. All of these traits reinforce each other, so it's largely an all-or-nothing play.



In 1.0.14, this strategy has become much more expensive, due to the increase in trade trait costs and a decrease in the points gained from taking negative dust and science traits.

• Blockade Breakers (15 points). The most essential trait for a trade economy. Even if you plan to be at peace with most empires, you want every trade route you can get.
• Merchants 2 (16 points). During the all-important early game, you're going to need the extra trade routes. Later on this becomes mostly superfluous, but it'll have paid for itself by then.
• Diplomats 2 (15 points). This lets you get the most out of your trade routes.
• Space Cadets 3 (-15 points). Since you'll be relying on trade, you won't need domestic production--note that this doesn't affect trade income.
• Spendthrifts 3 (-15 points). Same as above.
  
  

Total cost: 16 points.



The Domestic Economy



This strategy is less strict--you might take more or fewer traits depending on how aggressive you want to play. Possible traits:

• Scientists/Space Cadets 3. Technology is nice, but if you're pursing an aggressive strategy, you will want to take battle traits first over science. Due to exponentially increasing technology costs, a 30% difference in Science doesn't mean a 30% difference in number of technologies--given that technologies costs roughly double each level, you're looking at something closer to a third of a tech level.
• Entrepreneurs. If I want more native Dust, I would take Businessmen first over not taking Spendthrifts or taking Businessmen. +1 Dust per population helps more in the beginning than percentage bonuses, and this is the time when Dust is most critical.
• Crowded Planets. TBD.
• Cloning. TBD.
  
  

Approval and Taxes

You are going to need some source of positive Approval . The bonuses for Fervent/Ecstatic (+30% FIS in all) are simply too large to pass up. However, if you can't keep a decent tax rate, you're going to have to use a lot of Ind->Dust conversion, which will stall your industry--not good!



Tax rates can be divided into the following brackets:

• 0-30% tax. In this range, each "tick" of 5% tax rate changes your Dust multiplier by 0.10, and Approval by 5.
• 30%-50% tax. In this range, each "tick" of 5% tax rate still changes your Dust multiplier by 0.10, but the Approval effect doubles to 10 per tick. This basically means that each additional Dust from taxes is twice as expensive in terms of Approval.
• 50%-70% tax. In this range, Approval remains at 10 per tick, but you get diminishing returns on Dust.
• 70%-100% tax. In this range, Approval goes to 15 per tick, and Dust multipliers per tick continue to fall.
  
  

In most situations, a 30% tax rate is best for most of the game, being at the top of its bracket. However, that gives you a base of only 70 Approval, and then you have planet penalties and expansion disapproval to worry about. Therefore, you're going to need a little help from traits to get above the magic 80 Approval. There are two options:

• Optimistic 2 (18 points). Immediate and effective.
• Naive 2 (10 points). This one won't come into play until you can make peace. At 8 Approval per peace, though, it will outperform Optimistic 2 with at least 3 peace treaties.
  
  

For most of the game, x0.1 Dust is more powerful than +10% Dust, so even in the 30%-50% bracket, taking more Approval traits is more effective than taking Businessmen (or fewer levels of Spendthrift). If you're relying on domestic Dust production, or using the United Empire affinity, you might consider taking both traits.

Ships



Battle



The combat-affecting traits can be roughly ranked in order from best to worst--at the top, take the positive version, and at the bottom, take the negative.



[list=1]

Accuracy. Accuracy bonuses are additive, which means that with no other modifiers, Snipers 3 is as powerful as a 30% bonus to damage for beams at long range. Add in the fact that Snipers is the only source of increased accuracy, whereas damage bonuses and accuracy penalties are plentiful (heroes, power modules), and that it helps even kinetics and missiles get past defenses, and you have the top battle trait.

Ship tonnage. It's a pretty close call between this, fleet size, and weapon damage. Of the three, this is probably the most versatile--you can put more of anything you want on a ship, whether its weapons or defenses for a warship, or extra engines for a colony ship (only the first level is relevant in this case). Granted, you'll have to pay for those extra modules, but unless you're in a glass cannon situation, quality trumps quantity.

Fleet size. A little more expensive than ship tonnage, with similar effect. I give ship tonnage the edge because upkeep is computed per CP, and the main advantage of larger fleet size over larger ship tonnage, namely more fleet modules, doesn't come into full swing until late-game.

Weapon damage. Not as versatile as the above two, but it makes up for it with sheer power: +12% damage for just 5 points per level! This is great for glass cannon situations.

Defense. Now we're heading into the neutral range. This has the same cost as weapon damage, but only gives +5% per level.

Hit points. If you're using glass cannons, you don't need hit points. If you're relying on defense modules, if you get hit you lose regardless of what hit point traits you have. And even hit point-based ships don't come into their own until late-game, at which point any trait modifiers will be swamped by HP module stacking. The possible exception is United Empire with their early percentage-based armor modules.

[/list]



Colony Ships



There are two questions when building a colony ship: how much will it cost, and how long will it take it to get where it's going?



Cost

Let's start without traits. The hull is going to cost 25 Industry, and the Seed Module is going to cost 125 Industry, for a base cost of at least 150. Induction Drive Tuners costs 12 Industry, and Lossless Fusion Pods 25 Industry. Given that they'll get you to the target much faster, that's usually worth it. We'll say we have Lossless Fusion Pods for this analysis. That's a base cost of 175 Industry.



Now, traits. If you took Militarists 3 (you did take Militarists 3, didn't you?), that cuts 30% off the price, to 122.5 Industry. From here:

• If you take Masters of Illusion, that's another 40% off (multiplicative), for a net cost of 73.5 Industry.
• If you're playing Sophons, the modules are 50% off, for a net cost of 70 Industry.
• If both are true, you're looking at a 42 Industry (!) colony ship.
  
  

Clearly, Sophons are the best conventional expanders.



A system has base production 2, and Heavy Isotope Refineries gives another 10. So with either Masters of Illusion or Sophons, it will take at most 6 turns to build a colony ship with Heavy Isotope Refineries in place at Fervent/Ecstatic. With a Civil Engineer it will take 2 turns at most. With some more hero levels and a good Food planet, it may even be possible for a single system to produce a colony ship every turn.



Speed

During the colonization stage of the game, these are the relevant ship speed modifiers.

• Base (4 speed). The base speed for all ships is 4.
• Corvette (+1 speed). Corvettes have a hidden +1 speed bonus, and the cost is the same as transports. Therefore, you should build colony ships on corvette hulls--but note that you can't choose your starting colony ship.
• Fleet module bonuses (variable bonus). Lossless Fusion Pods are easily achievable during this stage of the game, which gives the possibility of using an escort to help ferry colony ships, or have colony ships travel together if they have a nearly common departure and destination. Note that Sophons have a small advantage in this regard, since their starting scout has Lossless Fusion Pods--in a pinch, you can use this to speed up your starting colony ship by 1.
• Engines (+2 or +4 speed). Induction Drive Tuners and Lossless Fusion Pods are the choices in this stage of the game. The former gives +2 speed, the latter +4 solo. Note that you'll need at least Optimal Structure 1 to fit either of these on a corvette hull without other technologies (which are significantly further down the tech tree). With a transport hull you can fit the former but not the latter without tonnage boosts.
• Compact Fusion Reactors (+2 speed). This technology gives a passive +2 speed.
  
  

Now let's consider the speed traits. They are going to have the greatest effect on your first colony ship; Slow Travelers 2 will slow your first colony ship to a completely unacceptable speed of 2--you'll probably want to resettle the ship immediately, which suggests taking a positive anomaly. By the time you build another colony ship, though, you'll be able to boost the speed to an acceptable level; just Corvette hull and Induction Drive Tuners will take you up to 5 speed. However, getting the second colony quickly is a huge advantage. The jury's still out for me.



Open question: which is best?

• Slow Travelers 2, possibly with positive anomaly?
• No speed trait?
• Fast Travelers 2?
  
  

The Pilgrim Export Trick



This involves using a high-Food planet and a Civil Engineer to quickly export Errant Fleet colonies-in-a-box, generally including multiple population and at least Heavy Isotope Refineries. The advantages are that you are not limited by how fast you can move around your Civil Engineer, and your outposts will start at a higher state of readiness.



As far as traits go:

• Fast Travelers 2 (10 points). Since you can't customize Errant Fleets, you must have this speed boost.
• Industry traits not strictly necessary. The cost of Errant Fleet is not affected by Builders, Militarists, or Masters of Illusion.
• Rich Soil (5 points). This will make your home planet a reliable top choice for performing this Errant Fleet spam--with the first Food tech and exploitation, this will give you 9 Food per population. In comparison, a vanilla Terran with no Food penalty will give you 7 Food per population with exploitation.
  
  

I would actually go with the conventional expansion strategy, however:

• Errant Fleet takes up your affinity--you could have taken the Sophon affinity instead for expansion.
• Due to the cost of Errant Fleets, your Civil Engineer is still going to spend at most 1/3 of their Industry building Heavy Isotope Refineries, which is comparable to the conventional traveling-Civil-Engineer strategy (move every 6 turns, and figure 2 turns to build one on a brand-new colony).
• Errant Fleets take up more Industry, and are worse ships than custom-designed colony ships. Even a Fast Travelers 2 Errant Fleet moves at only 6 speed, which a Corvette Colony Ship with Induction Drive Tuners can outrun with no traits.
  
  

Other



Affinities



I personally don't like their style, but if I had to pick a strongest affinity, it would be the Craver affinity. It gives a massive boost when it matters most, and the drawback won't occur until it's too late.



Past this, the next top three affinities I would say are:

• Amoeba make the best traders--as soon as they make first contact with a faction, all of that faction's systems become available to trade with.
• Sophons make the best expanders, due to their support module discount. Their Science bonus from low taxes is also great. Since trade is a good way to make up for low tax rates, they are probably second-place for a trader faction as well.
• Hissho are the best aggressive affinity, due to Bushido stacking.
  
  

The rest:

• Horatio have one trick: Cloning of Civil Engineers. It's a pretty good trick, but I'm not sure I'd put them at the top; the first Civil Engineer is the most important. Plus the Arid homeworld is not too appealing.
• United Empire suffers from the infeasibility of high tax rates in the early game, but at least it and the XP bonuses are indisputable positives. It also has a hidden tax rate bonus which gives more Dust than usual at low tax rates. The key number is x0.8 Dust at 30% tax rate rather than just x0.6.
• Pilgrims, like the Horatio, have one trick. However, it's not that good.
• Sowers I think are the most overrated affinity--I'm not even sure their affinity is a net positive, given the paramount importance of growth in the early game.
  
  

Anomalies



The best positive anomaly is probably Mineral Rich. The planets in the home system are worse than average, and the home system starts as a colony and thus suffers from expansion disapproval. Thus, you shouldn't look for it to be a top system even early in the game. Rather, you want it to pump out colony ships. Since Class I planets have good Food production and exploitations, and Civil Engineers are going to be best used on outposts, you'll need extra Industry to produce colony ships at a reasonable rate. Once you have a Food exploitation and Heavy Isotope Refineries up, you should be able to produce a colony ship on most turns on your home system with this (with appropriate colony ship cost reductions). Finally, it's tied for the cheapest positive anomaly.



Dust Lode might be interesting, though--it could save a turn on Civil Engineer, and help early Dust problems. Maybe with a N-Way Fusion Reactors start?



Meanwhile, the best negative anomaly is Unlucky Colonists. It gives more points back than Poor Soil or Mineral Poor. Furthermore, the possible anomalies from this are Hostile Fauna, Swamp World, Seismic Activity, Long Season, Meteor Strikes, and High Gravity. Of these, none are as bad as either of the fixed anomalies; indeed, only Long Season and High Gravity require Soil Revivification, as opposed to the easier Adaptive Colonies, to remove. In fact, Swamp World, Seismic Activity, and Meteor Strikes are not even wholly negative! If you didn't take Optimistic beforehand, you could take Optimistic 1, which makes it probably about a wash on the home planet and a boost elsewhere, at no net cost.



Technologies



These are expensive, and generally not worth it. N-Way Fusion Plants is the only one worth considering, but you may be spending your first few turns gathering Dust for that all-important Civil Engineer anyhow.

Feeble Warriors is -10 defense on planets. I don't know the exact mechanics, but you should look them up to determine the efficiency.

It's literally just -10 to the "Defense from Invasion" that you see when you hover over a system. Not -10 per population, or -10%, but a flat -10.



Here's the entry for the trait in the XML:



[code][/code]



Compare Impervious Bunkers, which is known to have a flat modifier of 250:



[code][/code]



The signature is exactly the same. So it's a flat modifier.



Check out the wiki page for more: http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Invasion

I'd recommend Rich Soil instead of Mineral Rich on the Jungle homworlds provided by the Pilgrim and Hissho affinities, since it provides a nice balance of growh and production to sustainably crank out colony ships (especially with Civil Engineer!).

With Pilgrims I'll have to test the Heavy Isotope Refineries export trick--in that case it would be better to park your Civil Engineer on your home planet, at which point Food becomes the more critical factor (especially given that Errant Fleet takes all your population except 1) and Rich Soil is definitely more powerful.



Edit: Hmm, I'll have to do a more careful analysis....



Otherwise, Jungle doesn't get extra Industry from exploitation until 3D Replication Plants, which won't happen during the colonization stage, whereas you get extra Food from exploitation at the first Food tech. So you're looking at +3 Food versus +1 or +2 Industry from exploitation, which would favor the Food exploitation early. So the anomaly choice is between 6 Food / 7 Industry per population with Mineral Rich, or 9 Food / 4 Industry with Rich Soil. (Taking the Industry exploitation with Rich Soil is strictly worse at this stage.) I think I would still go with Mineral Rich here, especially if I don't take Masters of Illusion.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
With Pilgrims I'll have to test the Heavy Isotope Refineries export trick--in that case it would be better to park your Civil Engineer on your home planet, at which point Food becomes the more critical factor (especially given that Errant Fleet takes all your population except 1) and Rich Soil is definitely more powerful.



Edit: Hmm, I'll have to do a more careful analysis....



Otherwise, Jungle doesn't get extra Industry from exploitation until 3D Replication Plants, which won't happen during the colonization stage, whereas you get extra Food from exploitation at the first Food tech. So you're looking at +3 Food versus +1 or +2 Industry from exploitation, which would favor the Food exploitation early. So the anomaly choice is between 6 Food / 7 Industry per population with Mineral Rich, or 9 Food / 4 Industry with Rich Soil. (Taking the Industry exploitation with Rich Soil is strictly worse at this stage.) I think I would still go with Mineral Rich here, especially if I don't take Masters of Illusion.

For Fleet Errant rushes I prefer 9 Food /4 Industry > 6 Food / 7 Industry. Since you are adding +25 production from your admin hero, as well as the +10 industry from N-Way Fusion Planets, with a 30% reduction in building costs you should be building an early building per turn. - The +20 food admin ability is "later" since that's 4 levels in. Since your goal is 3-4 population to shift to the new system, you need the excess food to drive the population up. You also need to factor in pop growth curve/time on production. Earlier turns on pop 2-4 will provide more FIDS.



The danger with this strategy is that delivery time for fleet errant's really eats into your overall FIDS production. Those boats are slow... and if Pirates get one, you had a really really really bad day.

Food is definitely better for Fleet Errant. However, I'm not sure Fleet Errant is all that effective--the whole point is to let your Civil Engineer spend more of their time building Heavy Isotope Refineries, but the cost of Errant Fleets means that still at most 1/3 of your Industry is going to be spent that way. That's not much better than the conventional traveling-Civil-Engineer, and you're paying quite a bit in opportunity cost for the Fleet Errant strategy.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
Food is definitely better for Fleet Errant. However, I'm not sure Fleet Errant is all that effective--the whole point is to let your Civil Engineer spend more of their time building Heavy Isotope Refineries, but the cost of Errant Fleets means that still at most 1/3 of your Industry is going to be spent that way. That's not much better than the conventional traveling-Civil-Engineer, and you're paying quite a bit in opportunity cost for the Fleet Errant strategy.

The key with Fleet Errant in my opinion is placements. A good plan get set up a couple of forge worlds and a few research worlds and give them a head start For instance, having 3-5 pop and a supermarket for colonizing Lava can make a huge difference. Going high food enables you to lever the fast population growth from the rich soil option. All of that said, I suspect it's only marginally better than the traveling Civil-Engineer and if you make bad settlement location choices, possibly much worse.

I've been experimenting with different faction creations and what have you, and I noticed something a little odd that maybe you all could shed some light onto.



Most other affinities you are able to have 65 points worth of "abilities" except for the Ameoba affinity, there you are only allowed 60. Is this because with the Ameoba you see the whole map and location of all luxury resources straight away?



Cheers

There are a number of factions that only get 60 points, actually.

Old thread: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9138-optimizing-custom-races



Must-Haves



The following traits I would take regardless of strategy.

• Feeble Warriors 2 (-5). Though the effect is much stronger in 1.0.14, fundamentally you defend with ships, not systems.
• Dust Impaired 2 (-4). It takes quite a while for Dust-costing abilities to appear, at which point such costs may be negligible.
• Sloppy Sawbones 2 (-6). Hero injuries are quite rare.
• Legendary Heroes 2 (16). OP Civil Engineer. That is all.
  
  

Net cost: 1 point.

Installed Endless Space on my current computer, but it's not fast enough to actually play (no video card). Still, I got a brief look at the changes:

• It looks like point returns from negative traits were reduced across the board. This disfavors lopsided faction design.
• Feeble Warriors and Sloppy Sawbones have a much greater impact than they did, but I would still take them.
• The new Dust Archaeology looks like a must. Even with the nerf, Civil Engineer still looks very strong, and the additional starting Dust will save you a few turns on that at very little cost.
• Trade economy is now much more expensive--some sort of Sophons now looks much stronger relative to trade-based Amoeba as a more peaceful build. On the other hand, the recent science speedrun challenge suggests that trade might not be dead.
  
  

Sry my english isent that good....u sai....in late game HP Modifiers will be swamped...does that mean strong alloys good thing cumulativ worth it ; ) ...or Strong alloys bad thing not worth it: (

I never thought of half of these tricks, thanks for the help!

Sovereign wrote:
Sry my english isent that good....u sai....in late game HP Modifiers will be swamped...does that mean strong alloys good thing cumulativ worth it ; ) ...or Strong alloys bad thing not worth it: (

I'm basically saying that if you want late-game HP it would be much better to e.g. take Optimal Structure and put in more armor modules. A single late-game armor module often has an effect as strong as a level of this trait.

Just my 2 cents Evil4Zerggin, but... when comparing Amoeba trade faction to Sophon science faction,

a) the whole map view (allowing you to pick and choose optimal systems to settle from the start)

b) The trade Amoeba's bonus in dust



Continues to make the Amoeba trade faction superior to the Sophon pure science faction. In particular, I find that Sophons really do struggle to keep their tax at <30% due to dust income issue in the earlier (more critical) stages of the game. Once sufficient science research has been done on the left branch of the tech tree, this is no longer an issue, but early game is really the most critical stage in the game.



That said, you cannot afford to take space cadets anymore with the trade focus:

the magnetic field generators buildings which provide 40 science/system is absolutely critical, and taking a 30% hit on that science income would really crush your overall science production.





Thus, I'm firmly of the opinion that

Amoeba: blockade runner + merchant I + diplomacy I = 15+8+6 = 29 is superior to

Sophon: +30% science boost = 30 points.

i also have to refuse you now in one point:

after some math tests i come to the con that the formel for Ship HP is =



(Base HP + Modul Boni)*(Trait Percentual Boni + Modul Percentual Boni)



Maybe the Strong Alloy trait isent that bad if u wanna achiev only HP ships which are worth it



With Defensive Lensing (percentual Bonus of 11% each) u would have to install at least 4 lensings to compensate the Strong Alloys Trait (or even much more cause of this formula)

A Lensing got a tonnage of 25...4x25 sooo with Strong Alloys (2/2) you save a minimum of about 100 Tonnage Points for Weapons or other Modules... my opinion is if u wanna go high HP ships u need more then only Optimal Structure

Efyian wrote:
Just my 2 cents Evil4Zerggin, but... when comparing Amoeba trade faction to Sophon science faction,

a) the whole map view (allowing you to pick and choose optimal systems to settle from the start)

b) The trade Amoeba's bonus in dust



Continues to make the Amoeba trade faction superior to the Sophon pure science faction. In particular, I find that Sophons really do struggle to keep their tax at <30% due to dust income issue in the earlier (more critical) stages of the game. Once sufficient science research has been done on the left branch of the tech tree, this is no longer an issue, but early game is really the most critical stage in the game.



That said, you cannot afford to take space cadets anymore with the trade focus:

the magnetic field generators buildings which provide 40 science/system is absolutely critical, and taking a 30% hit on that science income would really crush your overall science production.





Thus, I'm firmly of the opinion that

Amoeba: blockade runner + merchant I + diplomacy I = 15+8+6 = 29 is superior to

Sophon: +30% science boost = 30 points.

I haven't played the newest patch seriously yet, but this sounds reasonable. All I was trying to say is that the trade advantage is less than it used to be.

Sovereign wrote:
i also have to refuse you now in one point:

after some math tests i come to the con that the formel for Ship HP is = (Base HP + Modul Boni)*(Trait Percentual Boni * Modul Percentual Boni)

Maybe the Strong Alloy trait isent that bad if u wanna achiev only HP ships which are worth it



With Defensive Lensing (percentual Bonus of 11% each) u would have to install at least 4 lensings to compensate the Strong Alloys Trait (or even much more cause of this formula)

A Lensing got a tonnage of 25...4x25 sooo with Strong Alloys (2/2) you save a minimum of about 100 Tonnage Points for Weapons or other Modules... my opinion is if u wanna go high HP ships u need more then only Optimal Structure

Defensive Lensing also gives a pretty huge base HP bonus, though, so the formula means less than four Defensive Lensings are equal to Strong Alloys 2--I'd say less than two Defensive Lensings.

Formula was little false... secound multiple is of course and plus... (Base HP + Boni HP )*(Trait % Boni +Modul % Boni)



the Huge Base HP Bonus also would Provide from the 40% From the Trait. Thats was my point the great thing is that the % Bonus from the Trait doesnt count for the 600 Base(cruiser) as someone should maybe thought. It Counts on the Summ of all other Armor Applications too.



In Other Words the Strong Alloys make every Armor Modul even MORE(too many maths to be exactly) effectiv as 40%



Of Course you can achieve same acceptable Stats for Only HP Ships without it but you throw many Tonnage Points throw the Window.

I am not a fanboy of Strong Alloys Trait(20 Points is much) but for a United Empire Build with only armor Ships i cant imagine someone can compare with *normal* Fleets without the 40% Bonus. Your Ships need Weapons aswell and with for example 3000HP Cruisers u will be oudated by strong beam technology soon and you wil be forced to build 6000HP+[withreactivhulls] ships to survive the fire.



And addtionally in MP the defensiv Lensis is unfortunately an highend tech





PS: To the Space Cadets i say...why not? in the stage where u build generator Buildings u should have a plenty of Trade Routes

And u also gain approx 28 points left from the Science Reactors...sounds not so critical to me

The Question is more...is maybe a pick of Diplomats I ...and Merchants I...without Spacecadets 3...superior..to Diplomats II and Merchants II with Spacecadets 3 ? (in terms of Science Points)

Let's have some math then.



An endgame Dreadnought with no traits has 900 weight with the tonnage module. Since HP increases superlinearly with the number of modules, you're going to want to devote most of the tonnage to it--say, for a round number, 500 for 20 such modules. That gives you 1,200 + 220 * 20 = 5,600 base HP, and a percentage modifier of +220%, for 17,920 net HP.



Strong Alloys 2 will give you 40% of 5,600 more HP, or 2,240 additional HP.



Two more Defensive Lensings will increase the base HP to 6,040, and the percentage to +242%, for 20,656.8 net HP, which is an increase of 2736.8 HP--that's more than Strong Alloys 2. This has a weight of 50. The base weight of the Dreadnought is 450 with the tonnage module, so one level of Optimal Structure will give you 67.5 more weight--you'll have some weight left over even with two additional armor modules.



It is true that this is endgame. However, I would argue that HP-based ships overall are not viable at all before this, because weapon damage is so high that you don't stand a chance of surviving based on HP until you have Dreadnoughts and +% HP modules. Even late game, it's going to depend heavily on the situation whether HP-based is going to work--for example, 20 Gluon Disruptors will deal 15,800 base damage per phase, which is unlikely to be able to be repaired away. Sure, there is accuracy to worry about, but at endgame there's some pretty hefty bonuses to damage. Ships do get HP from improvements, and more HP than damage from XP, but on the other hand Heroes give mostly damage bonuses.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
I'm basically saying that if you want late-game HP it would be much better to e.g. take Optimal Structure and put in more armor modules. A single late-game armor module often has an effect as strong as a level of this trait.

However if you are playing MP and don't want the game to drag out then this is a great trait. I figure it this way, if I can't win before those items come online I screwed up.