[Taqwus]

Regarding speed -- it's important enough that, at the 'high' race point setting, APS is pretty much a default pick for me at 1000 pts.

Why?

6 engines => standard 3 combat movement.
6 + 1 bonus => combat speed of 4 for your escorts and frigates (2nd turn) right off...

And 4 exceeds the speed of the early CSMs, which makes the shoot-and-scoot tactic very, very nasty. (Nastier: organic, using parasites; they fire every 2 turns, not every 3. Lower damage/shot but more shots. Or, also amusing, get good organic armor. Put two pieces on your ships. You won't have to bother dodging if it's only a missile or two.). Starting on the second turn, you can build speed-4 FRs with CSM II x2, if memory serves, which can do a goodly amount of damage compared to target ship size and probable lack of good armor / shields / PD.

But you still need shields and armor once you run into a decent fleet, because numbers allow them to fan out and cover a larger area, so you'll probably be shot at if outnumbered badly.

Engine research is nice, but takes a while (for a longer game, 6 advances per +1 combat speed, IIRC) considering the length of the demo.

For a really strange combo, I'm considering Religious + Psychic. (Think 'mindshare'.). If memory serves, at least in 0.56, combat sensors and experience, et al, affected the displayed probabilities for allegiance shifters and mind flailers. It'd be interesting if the auto-hit component given by Religious means that the shifters *always* work... muhahahahahaha.

Even an auto-hit mind flailer is pretty cruel, let alone the shifters. A fleet using master computers is VERY expensive to support... (4000/1000/1000 M/O/R, IIRC, which means +800/200/200 per ship per turn. Combine with a little intel to disrupt their economy...)


------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night