How the **** do yu keep up in tech

[Suicide Junkie]

Be sure to build at least 2-3 Space Yard Bases over your homeworld so you can pump out colony ships faster, and warships later on.

If you grab missile tech and a few levels of ship construction, you can neglect a LOT of otherwise critical technologies, and save those research points for whatever research path you prefer.
(shields/armor, sensors/ECM, and such are not needed for missile ships)

The key here is to have sufficient numbers, as combat will be more of an all or nothing deal.
If the enemy has enough PDCs, your ships will be relatively harmless and get slaughtered in a corner.
Otherwise, they'll be pounded by the long range bombardment and be unable to fire back, meaning you win with little to no casualties.

[ March 27, 2004, 16:14: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[PvK]

Also, while you should set the AI Difficulty to the highest, you should keep the AI BONUS at "None" (or perhaps "Low") until you feel competant - the Bonus is the way to give the AI an unnatural advantage in resource/research/intel production.

PvK

[Puke]

yeah, difficulty to high - always. otherwise, they dont use fleets and do lots of really dumb things that make the game boring. if you are having a hard time, turn their bonus off.

the AI bonus multiplies their construction rates, research, and resource generation by up to five times. unless you are playing in a large quadrant and are good at expanding, its hard to stay ahead in points when the ai has a large bonus.

which reminds me of one of the easiest tricks to expanding quickly: the first thing you should build ought to be a space yard base over each homeworld. consider emergency building them if your construction bonus is not enough to build them in one turn, and consider building between 2 and 5 of them, depending on your resource income and starting position. you wont get colonies quite as quick, but you will get LOTS more of them by the time your colony ships start rolling off the lines.

[ March 31, 2004, 00:06: Message edited by: Puke ]

[Wardad]

I find the base spaceyard trick can be difficult to pull off.
They cost maintenace, and build slowly.
So, if your empire has very low maintenace costs and boosted construction rates it should help.

By the second year of your expansion you could be starving for minerals, or organics, or rads. That is when the base spaceyard maintenance really bites. Unless your lucky enough to find rich planets in system.
New Facilities builds consume a lot of minerals.
New colonizers consume a lot of organics and rads.

I usually do not do the base space yard thing. I like to have a second spaceyard on a nearby moon or tiny planet within 0.7 years of the first colonizer. When handed lemons, make lemonaid.
When handed large juicy planets then build facilities first. If they are all juicy then build base spaceyards at the homeworld.

Try to tweek your racial construction rate so that you can at least do this:
HOMEWORLD: full population, emergency build, colonizer with no engines (3650 minerals), in 1 turn.
COLONY WORLD: colonizer with 4 to 5 engines, 2 turns.

Then retrofit engines onto the colonizer while you pump out more. I find it easier to manage if I can build with 3 engines. The standard spaceyard repair/retrofit rate is 5 componants a turn, but could be reduced by the racial setup.

BEWARE: Repair/retrofit does not fill the new engines with supplies. The planet needs a resupply facility for that.

BEWARE:Homeworlds get population bonuses for construction. Will your game homeworld be 2000M or 4000M?
You can lose a pop bonus by causing the pop to drop. 4M is replaced by growth, but 20M may not be.
Consider taking Advanced Storage Techniques. It increases your pop by 20%, and facilities space by 20%.

[ March 31, 2004, 13:42: Message edited by: Wardad ]

[Wardad]

wha hoo

I got in the Last word...