Starting tactics

[Suicide Junkie]

The way I usually play it is to build one BSY then go with colony ships and scouts as needed to find nice planets.
The BSY E-builds 4 friends, and they all start making whatever is needed.

Its good enough for me, and provides a solid industrial base immediately. Any planet with a spaceyard will get 3 BSYs to help out eventually.

[Fyron]

You only hit a lack of minerals if you overextend yourself on the BSYs, do not take a good minerals bonus at racial setup, and find no place for even a few mineral miners on colonies. The third condition is extremeley rare.

[primitive]

Parasite
Interesting twist. Should be easilly done without running into any mineral problems.

If I have understood your model correctly:
Compared with my favorite MSY-model where HW only builds 1 turns colonizers on EB for the first year (11 turns), this new model have 1 less colonizers built at turn 11. Your model also have the colonizers built on average 2 turns later so your colonies would be a little less advanced. You have 2 useless (on slow) BSY's but full capacity on HW and you would/could have your first moon yard coming on line.

My model would have no BSY's, a HW on slow, but 2 moon yards ready and the third almost done. Also my first moon yard would normally have produced a colonizer by now making it 2 less for your model. I would be more spread out due to the 2 turns earlier colonizers, have a bit more facilities but a bit less construction capacity for a few turns (In most cases only the difference between HW with bonuses + 2 BSY's on slow and a moon yard + HW on slow).

The little trick with turning the HW off EB early sure is different. Something like that would certainly be worth trying if the starting position don't give the option of (enough) moon yards

[Karibu]

I made a little test. I made a race with +20% mineral mining bonus, 3000 racial points, default settings on galaxy.

Test 1:
Build 5 BSY (á 2 turns) at your home planet. Then every BSY starts making colonyships (á 5 turns on BSY). On turn 15, I had 6 planets, 4 colonyships on route and no minerals whatsoever. My mineral consumption was far too great and I had to shut down my BSY's. Upkeep costs too much.

Test2:
Build 2 BSY (á 2 turns) at your home planet and then start building colonyships (á 2 turns in planet). Then every BSY starts making colonyships (á 5 turns in BSY). On turn 15 I had 8 planets, 2 colonyships on route and resource consumption not too big. I can build on every planet.

Conclusion: Generally at first 2 BSY's on home planet is enough. Later build more if you like. And this is with mineral mining bonus. With no bonus at all, build only 1 BSY at start.

Prove me wrong.

[Fyron]

Using BSYs is more productive when you have a large HW rather than a medium one. Getting that initially wasted resource production used earlier is not a bad thing.

[primitive]

Originally posted by Karibu:

Conclusion: Generally at first 2 BSY's on home planet is enough. Later build more if you like. And this is with mineral mining bonus. With no bonus at all, build only 1 BSY at start.

Prove me wrong.

As all models, there are pros and cons.

Con for your model is your first colonizers only get built at turn 6. While your nice productionbase from turn 15 could make you recover from the slow start in a game with lot of room, you would probably get bLasted in a tight KOTH type game.

[Karibu]

Perhaps. I haven't played any KOTH games, though I recon that most of them end before 100 turns. I am tempted to try it later, after new year perhaps. But in normal games, where is many opponents, not many is willing to take risk of long and straining war at the very beginning. I should test it against computer to find out how to play KOTH type games.