| AR Miners |
Wed, 17 March 2004 01:10  |
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 Inquisitor80 |
 | Warrant Officer |
Messages: 115
Registered: February 2004
Location: The dark places in betwee... | |
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I have been playing AR for a little while now but i always get stuck on the ship slot issue.
I am looking for the beat all end all miner.
I always use ARM with my AR race.
Please tell me what is the best single design with and without any MT parts.
-Inquisitor80
- Inquisitor80
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We must move forwards not backwards, upwards not forwards, and always twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 17 March 2004 02:21  |
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 iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| Inquisitor80 wrote on Wed, 17 March 2004 07:10 |
I have been playing AR for a little while now but i always get stuck on the ship slot issue.
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Welcome to reality. 
| Quote: |
I am looking for the beat all end all miner.
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Not existent. There are always pros and cons. But superbug may be the one.
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I always use ARM with my AR race.
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Not necessary, but it helps.
Early game: build only what you really must, or you'll be facing iron crunch much earlier. Potato bug isn't effective (8.3 res/mine), I usually wait for con-7/elec-4 for the maxi-miner-robot (6.7 res/mine). That miner helps me to get through expansion phase, so I don't build much of them (5-10 robots per a planet). There are two types of late game miners: gateable and non-gateable. I don't build the later, as it takes too much time to get them where I need them. There are two gateable designs:
- "superbug": midget miner, two ultra-robots, cheap engine, and
- mini miner with single super-robot, cheap and light engine. Gateable with 1-2% loses, does the job perfectly.
- beat-all end-all miner: ultra-miner hull, 8 Alien Miners, Enigma Pulsar (mass 300, combat speed 2.5, 94% jammed, 84% cloaked, in practice impossible to spot, catch, kill and build )
BTW, don't count on ANY MT item if you want to survive until the end-game. That item will never arrive.
BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Wed, 17 March 2004 02:38] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 17 March 2004 06:29 |
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For my long term design I would always use midgit miners equiped with ultra mining robots.
I think assuming the MT miner is a dangerous choice. If thats the case you are generally looking very long term, in which case you would've been better off just building the ultra miners earlier in the game.... OFC if you luck out and get the alien miner in teh first 40 years of the game then everything changes, but much after this and I probably wouldn't waste a ship slot trying to upgrade.
The tiny saving in cost using the ultra-miner hull over the midgit-miner is greatly outweighed by the fact it is not gatable, and usually takes at least 2 years to build (effectively denying you about a half turn of it's usual mineral gen.) The gateablility is cruical as is saves you heaps in freight costs and in efficiency (at least until all your worlds fall below 30^conc.)
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 24 March 2004 03:38 |
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| iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
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Not everyone goes improved starbases with AR.
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Playing an AR in a regular game without an ISB is painful. It is the only LRT that is a must for an AR (at least from my POV). The next one by importance is IFE. All others just help.
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Some go with save the points for something else (just as like not all go for ARM). 80% reduction on starbase cost is huge.
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180k res spent in bio 16 is huge waste. You'll realize that when you'll face better players - harder games.
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Conventional flak costs 4 resources a ship. Special flak costs ...
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A scout-chaff costs 9 res (and 4/3/4 minerals) with bio-7 (that's the highest level of bio most players reach until they don't know what to do with spare resources). At techs weap24/con15/bio7 a FF-chaff costs 4/2/4/10 a non-BET race and 3/2/3/9 a BET race. But that phase doesn't last long, and at con26 that difference comes down to a single resource - in the late game, when you have more than enough of them.
<nitpick> BTW a word FLAK comes from FluzeugAbwehrKanonne (Anti Aircraft Artillery) that's for killing planes(ships), not for protecting them as CHAFF does.</nitpick>
BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Wed, 24 March 2004 05:21] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 24 March 2004 11:29 |
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"At techs weap24/con15/bio7 a FF-chaff costs 4/2/4/10 a non-BET race and 3/2/3/9 a BET race. But that phase doesn't last long"
LOL, you are playing BET as a NON BET! Completely stupid to leave bio at 7, for BET. Shielded flak looks a little different depending on tech levels, you need it to do its job.
RNA scanners are useful for anti cloak. Smart bombs are useful for factory saving bombing for cheap if you have allies.
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My point with ordinary potato bug wasn't that I was going to be using them all game, but what miniturization does. 3 resources a mine combined with placing mines at ideal worlds (unlike fixed mines can move on once world stripped) means cheaper mines than any other power. And it gets better with more advanced miners+BET.
Ship trade is a beautiful thing. What is obsolete for you is useful for someone else. Last game I provided chaff to friend and got old transports from an IS as he upgraded.
Try rebuilding a super starbase if it gets blown up. An 80% reduced cost regular starbase is quite appealing, for both replacing losses and rapid expansion.
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 24 March 2004 16:24 |
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| Quote: |
Playing an AR in a regular game without an ISB is painful. It is the only LRT that is a must for an AR (at least from my POV). The next one by importance is IFE. All others just help.
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I recently played an AR race with ARM but not ISB. It was ranked 1st when the game halted (that's a whole other story you all know about.) In that game I had the good fortune to ally with another AR race that had ISB but not ARM. ISB gave him the early-mid game resource boost to push us both through to cons 17 for deathstars, while I had the mineral edge that meant he didn't ever need to mine despite the fact war started early in the game. Awesome combo.
I'm not sure I'd risk playing without ISB again, but in this game having the extra RW points really paid off.
If you don't choose ISB, I think it is essential to have ARM to pay the extra cost of starbases. It'd be awesome to have both, but the RW cost of this is painfull.
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Ship trade is a beautiful thing. What is obsolete for you is useful for someone else. Last game I provided chaff to friend and got old transports from an IS as he upgraded.
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I can't stress this enough. Especially relevant with AR races - you want to build those super-miners or potato bugs to avoid an early mineral crunch, but you know you are eventually going to replace them with ultra-bugs. Solution - you have some valuable remote miners, that conventional races probably will not have built.
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 24 March 2004 16:25 |
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RNA scanners are useful for anti cloak.
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Hmmm? Why? I didn't think they were any different to normal scanners?
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| Re: AR Miners |
Wed, 24 March 2004 21:52 |
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While you'll be investing in ALL fields to get proper discount I'll invest in con 13 and weap straight to 24. When our fleets meet you'll have 1/3 more (discounted) ships
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1/3 more ships????? You have got to be joking. Way more than that.
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Why? After Juggs're out a SB's just a sitting target. My mid and late-game SB has gates, maybe a mass driver and just a few beams and shields. Pointless to invest more.
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After JIHADS are out an SB is diminished. I don't see juggs as a big deal, though I do for Doomsday.
Starbases are:
a) needed to hold AR colonists in rapid expansion and replacement after blasting
b) needed to build ships.
c) can be useful for defence, holding gates, etc.
A starbase may be purely a hard to destroy gate with no weapons. Or it may be a contributor to defence against smaller fleets including cloakers.
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RNA scanners...
Hmmm? Why? I didn't think they were any different to normal scanners?
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Relatively low costs including mineral costs. Strange as it may sound, useful as well for a type of shielded flak for a BET who is trying to conserve minerals (have to get costs up to make shielded flak work, one way or the other).
You can do something pre-nub to help against SS, and others who may try with 97% overcloakers. NAS would make them 4 times as effective, but even without they are better than nothing in large enough numbers.
Would you rather sit with your ass in the air allowing the robber barons and/or warships and/or stealth bombers to kick whenever they want? As AR you have your friend(s) to think of as well.
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| Re: AR Miners |
Thu, 25 March 2004 03:13 |
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| iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| multilis wrote on Thu, 25 March 2004 03:52 |
| Quote: |
While you'll be investing in ALL fields to get proper discount I'll invest in con 13 and weap straight to 24. When our fleets meet you'll have 1/3 more (discounted) ships
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1/3 more ships????? You have got to be joking. Way more than that.
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As I've already shown you have about 1/3 discount with BET and 10-15 tech levels lower tech ships, compared to my ships of the same design. You obviously decided to attack with such designs, so you'll have about 3 times as much low-tech ships then I'll have high-tech ones. But I'll have 3-times the advantage in firepower and in information, as you'll have to start building your ships earlier to get such numbers so I'd say it quite levels out. And when I get AMP Nubs there's no more any balance, as they'll cost you twice as much in bora and 50% more in iron/res.
So you'll have to attack early, and that doesn't quite comply with always buying 1 tech level more and researching bio above 7 and prop above 12.
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RNA scanners...
... useful as well for a type of shielded flak for a BET who is trying to conserve minerals (have to get costs up to make shielded flak work, one way or the other).
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You're begging for trouble here. Just a new tech level or a stray shot with sappers can make ships you're trying to protect with your chaff all of a sudden more attractive then your chaff. If you want a real solution please check a thread in RGCS "Shielded chaff attractiveness problem solved".
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You can do something pre-nub to help against SS...
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Most sure I do: I kill his planets if he starts to annoy me.
BR, Iztok
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I didn't say much he hadn't already, except about the hidden cost benefits of using midgit over ultra. 
Re: AR Miners
Gateablity is key 
See ... Pair of these are equivalent of 20 mines. 
has happened to me in game). 
The bugs must mine 6 years to give it back by mining. 
is that 60 iron anyway? One medium freighter + one pinta. Does not save your empire. 
AR should never enter a game that will end before nubian era.
its for spreadsheets. 
hopes to economy 100k somewhere (for example thanks to these 70 rw points) and invest 280k resources into miners. It will result with 2750 miners that act as 74000 mines. 
