what do you think of the racial techs?
 

okay, this topic has been bantered about before, but lets break it down tech by tech. i have been getting frustrated with them lately, and here is how I see their value:

Temporal: i used to like it for the increased production, but you get faster production out of organic tech, and the temporal weapons are good, but not as nice as some of the standard weapons or as some of the organic weapons. the facilities are the best thing about it, but are mostly usefull for a defensive play style when you have a long time to establish your empire

organic: fast production, good weapons, the best population reproduction in the game (especially good for making small portions of alien population multiply quickly) and the best armor.

crystal: an organic killer. weapons are not the best, but you really put those organic player in check with the crystal shards. also, the resource facilities are (only) good in an ancient-game. other than those two things, this tech has no use.

psych: A-subverters are great for abusing the AI, or even human players that you meet late in the game and catch with their pants down if they are not aware that there is a psychic player out there. the training facilities are nice, but not worth the cost of the trait. the other psych weapons are nowhere near as good as standard weapons.

religious: good as a counterpart to another trait, the talisman is handy as an addition to some of the other racial trait superweapons, or even with just standard weapons. the facilities are usefull since they are cheaper than their standard counterparts, but will eventually be obsolete as research progresses. this is a nice utilitarian tech tree.

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

I agree with all of your points except the one about crystalline being an organic killer. Sure, if the organic player doesn't alter their ships any, then he'll lose. But all it takes is 2 or 3 levels in shields, which can be gotten fairly quickly, to nullify the crystalline weapons. They do an infintesimal amount of damage.

Organic manipulaiton is way too powerful when compared to the other racial techs.

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

i think organic arn't too cheap. You can check them pretty quick in the start with crystalline and later on their weapons arn't that amazing. I mean think about, you could spend that 1500 points on some improvements in the normal bonus area. Think about no maintnence? or how about really great construction without temporal? or reproduction. Religous is also really great if only for hte talisman. Think about it. Your ship will always hit the enemies, how sick is that? And now about something else for one of the underpowered racial abilites? a great ECM? There's my $.02

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

"or even human players that you meet late in the game and catch with their pants down if they are not aware that there is a psychic player out there."

Two words: computer virus.

Phoenix-D

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

If you get a few levels in shields, then you have nothing to fear from crystalline races. Yes, the organic weapons are underpowered in the later tech tree, but so what? Organic races are designed for the over-whelming horde strategy. They are supposed to destroy your enemies before the late game. And if each individual weapon is outclassed, big deal. You can always build more ships than your enemies. I always take at least 15% maintenance reduction, which allows me to support all those extra ships that I build.

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Two words: computer virus.<hr></blockquote>

If you survive that long or you start with max tech, talisman + virus + subverter is THE killer combination in the game.

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
If you get a few levels in shields, then you have nothing to fear from crystalline races.<hr></blockquote>

If you have a shield depleter as first weapon and the shard cannon as secondary weapon you might change your mind.

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

I do not consider the racial technologies as powerful as some people say.
My most favorite one is the Organic one (no, i do not choose it for its super duper power. i just like the style) and its counterpart, the Crystallurgy tech - their combination of Shard Cannon and the Ray Gun (forgot the name) is pretty nice, especially when coupled with shield depleters and such.

Talking about their uses, and the preferability of other advancements, i can say that i see only 2 uses for those technologies - either newbie fun or some expert player using them to futher improve his/her strategies.
In my Last race, the TechnoLogic i Banned every single advanced trait from my settings.txt , and belive me, the construction, production, combat bonuses are much better than everything a decent racial tech could bring.

Once again the choice goes by the personality and style of the player.

Side note - In My Opinion every person that uses two racial technologies is just lame (no offense) and doesnt know what is "play for fun".
See, combine two technologies like the Organic and the Crystalline, and see your enemies burn in the parasites and crystal shards. where's the fun?

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

I have something to add - though many people call the current racial technologies quite unbalanced i say it all should be left as it is (i mean in the normal game) because i see that most of the races have one-two useful things, putting it into almost a balance.

Say, the Lighting Ray in Organic Tech Tree is quite the best direct-fire weapon, while the High-Energy Magnifier (recalled the name) is even more powerful than the WMG, which is considered to pack the most punch.
While WMG does 140 damage at range of 8 with rate of 3, the HEM does 110 damage at range of 7 with the rate of 2!!
The Lighting Ray is small and cheap and also the best small weapon i've ever seen for both fighters and troops (same punch, less space, better range).
Also HEM is significantly cheaper than the WMG and puts the another high-damage weapon, the Torpedoes into uselessness.

So here we get almost an balance, i think.
Temporary races get different bonuses aswell, when the Time Burst and Temporal Shifter are nice couple, and tachyon cannon is just nice.
Psychic race get the very best small cannon - Small telekinetic Projector, plus the Mental Flailer and Alliegance Subverter are nice things and Mental Singulatiry Generator packs the best damage at one shot.

Talisman is overpowered indeed, but it adds the religious race what is requied to balance it.

Psychic scanner is cool. so are the enchanced trainings.
Religious are pretty good in defensive style with their shrines, and the temporal space yard & predictor are cool

After all it seems balanced and doesnt need tweaking in the original game. Maybe some new techs, but nothing more.

Re: what do you think of the racial techs?
 

I'd have to second that temporal tech is meant for late-game. It's quite expensive to research too.

But consider the shield-depletion power of their weapons, it doesn't beat shield-depleters in power, but at least it has a use afterwards.
And their other weapons are as dangerous as warp weapons if not a tad more powerfull (if I recall correctly).

It's just a pity it has little use early game where speed matters, but that fits with the idea of the tech.