Re: Fast construction
 

My HWs always build colony ships in 2 turns. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Well... at least until I get SY IIIs, when they build them in 1 turn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Fast construction
 

In the Lastest PBW game I'm in, my home world is building Colony Ships at 1 per turn. Currently at round 13.
Space Yards 2 (2500) + Hardy Industrialists +25% + Huge Planet of 8000M people +90% = 5375
Space Yards 1 (2000) + Hardy Industrialists +25% + Huge Planet of 8000M people +90% = 4300
This alone makes spending the first year researching SY2 worth it.

[ September 03, 2002, 02:06: Message edited by: Baron Grazic ]

Re: Fast construction
 

A Refit Colony ship is built with only the required components (3650 minerals). Refit the engines and storage units on the next turn.

Simply boost your construction characteristics, add in a population bonus and a happiness bonus.

If you boost construction, your space yards stations are also boosted. If you can get them over 1200 they can crank out Colony Refit ships.

I my Last game I missed the one turn Refit Colony ship by a small margin. With emergency build I can build a complete colcony ship in one turn.
I did test it out first, but was unwilling to cut points else where to add to construction. I figured on building a new ship yard on a moon by the time my home world finished with emergency build year. I also expect resource shortage to hamper my construction by year 2.

Re: Fast construction
 

If you merely want quick initial expansion, design your race to build colonizers in one turn with Emergency build turned on. 10 Colonizers in 10 turns will get you growing fast. I frequently scrap the shipyard after 10 turns and build another mineral facility as by that time, all those startup colonies start depleting the mineral reserve.

Consider increasing shipyard rate based on what you need at wartime. You want Shipyards II and III for wartime, not for initial colonization. With these, you will probably be able to build one colonizer a turn, but at that point, you probably will not be building hoards of them anymore. What you are concerned about is how fast you can build warships compared to your enemy. Here quantity of shipyards can overcome quality of shipyards if you have the superior economy. Think of Cargo Specialists as +20% in all resource catagories (Min, Org, Rad, Intel, Research). Religous Tech III can add another 15% to resources.

If you have colonization limited by planet type or atmostsphere type, you probably do not want to waste points on rapid construction as there are better things to put them on (Propulsion Expert, Ancient Race, etc).

If you really want to build warships fast, Organic tech grants you that quite early on as you use much less in minerals on your ships. Otherwise, you can take Temporal for Temporal shipyards.

If you simply just boast your building capacity up at the expense of your economy, you probably will not have the resources to keep up.

Also keep in mind ship limits in your game. If you are likely to hit the ship limits in the mid or late game, that extra building bonus may be wasted.

I am currently in a game with a 200 ship limit. I have about 90 shipyards, most of them are on hold with base ships with one turn to go. If I loose 50 ships, I replace all of them the next turn, although they are not together. Now my shipyards take about 8 turns to build with shipyards III, but that matters little as I keep hitting the ship limit. I have cheaper dreadnaught designs that I can build in an emergency in about 5 turns. Cheaper weapon and a smaller hull, but more enginers for faster speed.

Re: Fast construction
 

I still can't get the handle on Temporal.
If SY had an upgrade to Temporal SY, I could see the benifit, but scaping your SY to build the Temporal Version and taking 20K mineral to do so ???
And no Temporal SY component ???
Some Temporal weapons are pretty good however.

Re: Fast construction
 

It takes 5 turns to build a normal SY. So why is 10 turns such a problem?

Re: Fast construction
 

10 turns is still 5 turns longer, but if you already have a normal SY on a planet and you then have to destroy it once you can build Temporal Yards, then isn't that 15 turns build time?
Personal playing style, I guess?

Re: Fast construction
 

It still takes only 10 turns to build the Temporal SY itself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Their build rates more than make up for the high build time.

Re: Fast construction
 

In one PBW Game, I've almost researched Temporal SY, so I'll soon see if it is worth it or not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Fast construction
 

As long as you can afford to put your SYs to full use, temporal SYs are worth it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif