[Suicide Junkie]

The value of the neural net is questionable, but training is definitely required.

By doing both ship and fleet training to the max, your ships get +40% to both attack and defense. That is equivalent to two extra tech levels in Sensors and ECM, and can easily make the difference between crushing blows and invulnerability.

If you normally get some ships with +50% legendary status, then the neural net may be worthwhile, especially on the dreadnoughts and baseships.
Place one of the legendaries in each fleet, and all the new recruits get +30% to attack and defense, beyond the training.

With those kinds of stats, enemy fleets will be nothing more than trivial annoyances.

Re: computer tech.
Master computers are OK in most cases, but nearly required against psychic races. Against Allegiance subverters, the only things you can do are:
- use master computers and hope they miss with the computer virus weapons
- use swarms of small ships, so they can't capture them all at once.

Against other races, the MCs will save small amounts of space, freeing up room for an extra shield generator or small weapon.
You main benefit from the computer tech area will be in resource bonuses.

[ July 31, 2002, 20:01: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]