[Pax]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
What is the differance if you build ten ships in the first 10 turns and none in the next ten, or if you build 10 ships over the first two years? I could see if it was the differeance in 10 or 20 colnies. Do you really see a decisive differance in getting the same ten colonies a few turns faster?

Presume colonisers that cost up to 3K in one or more categories.

Presume further, a 2-turn average flight time, and 2 turns to build colonisers at normal rates. At the end of 2.2 years, you can have 10 colonies, ranging in age from "just got there" to 1.6 years. You also complete your eleventh colony ship.

OR

Same average flight time; 1 turn per coloniser on EBuild. At the end of the same 2.2 years, you will have (from the first 1.0 years' building) 10 colonies, ranging in age from 1.0 to 1.9 years. You will also have 10 turns' worth of building, at 500/turn/resource. That is 5K/resource towards more ships. At 25% build, you could actually build a cost-3K coloniser in 6 more turns; with 2 years of flight time, you now have an ELEVENTH colony, age 0.4 years, at the Turn 2.2 mark. 4 more years of 25% build gives you another 2K of a twelfth coloniser; one more year gives you the rest of that coloniser, and you then have half the flight time to a new colony. The next year gives you most of a thirteenth colony ship.

Overall result: if you can put a shipyard on EBuild early, and don't suffer for lack of military shipbuilding (IOW this is easiest in a 3+ HW start), you can profit by about two colonies all told (11 colonies to 10, one en route rather than parked at the spaceyard, and about a year ahead of schedule for subsequent colonisers).

Plus isn't the risk you run pretty substantial? What happens if an enemy race shows up about the time your homeworld heads into a 10 turn phase of slow build? You have no capacity then to throw up any sort of defenses. The enemy could attack with a couple of escorts and at the least blockade your homeworld. Wouldn't that about finish you off?

Geoschmo

That's why the first thing you should build (IMNAO*), is a Base SY. 8) While the HW frantically cranks out colonisers, the base churns out cheap explorers and satts/mines/whatever for the HW. And a beginning tech base, with SY and control components, has 50kT of hull space left -- about enough for a CSM, which provides some (small) immediate deterrent to ultra-early attacks.

* -- IMNAO = In My Newbie-Arsed Opinion

[ October 06, 2002, 19:54: Message edited by: Pax ]