Home » Primary Racial Traits » IS » The Altai - an IS race
| The Altai - an IS race |
Sun, 20 August 2006 21:10  |
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 JasonC |
 | Petty Officer 2nd Class
Stars! V.I.P |
Messages: 58
Registered: July 2006
Location: Arlington, MA | |
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The Altai
Inner Strength
IFE, ISB, OBRM, NAS, RS
0.24 to 1.40 grav
temp immune
51 to 95 rad
1/5 overall
19% pop growth
10/25/14 factories, no G box
10/3/13 mines
Weapons and construction cheap
rest expensive and start at 3
The greatest strength of IS races is obviously freighter growth. They also have some pretty strong advantages in defensive warfighting. But what are the best ways to exploit those strengths?
Freighter growth means you can establish large colonies far from the HW much more readily than other races. Combined with the double defense against invasions, rapid "viral" spreading is a key IS ability. It is quite hard to kill off IS pop early in the game. The Altai are a -f variant that concentrates heavily on good early spreading abilities.
In the first few years, buy 65 mines and 7 scouts, the same as the starting SPT model. Put the tech field on con and leave it there, nothing else in the Q. You will have con 4 in time to move. Next fill the Q with mines up to the 25% of capacity level, to get Iron for shipping. Your colonizer is a privateer with colony and 2 fuel pods. Your early freigher is privateer with 3 fuel pods and 2 tech 3 shields.
As soon as there are targets more than 192 LY away, invest in a few fuel transports and use them as first stage "booster" rockets, letting all fleets leaving the HW go warp 9 for 1-2 years without fuel drawdown to speak of. Split of the booster and send it back to the HW after 1-2 moves, also at warp 9, with just enough fuel to get there. Obviously all freighters are filled less than full, to arrive full after the travel time. You can bring along a little G to help with docks if the target planet is low Gcon.
Hit the best greens - which will be instant breeders - with 75-100k pop. They should put up a spacedock right away, to enable follow on shipping to reach them at warp 9 and continue. They can build colonizing PVTs themselves, just don't take all their pop growth every year.
Hit every green with
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Mon, 21 August 2006 18:08  |
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| vonKreedon |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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Because they are a modified -f that builds factories, and quite efficient ones, in the mid to late game to make up for -f's late game economic weakness. Nice design.
[Updated on: Mon, 21 August 2006 18:09] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Mon, 21 August 2006 19:39 |
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| mlaub |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Mon, 21 August 2006 17:08 |
Because they are a modified -f that builds factories, and quite efficient ones, in the mid to late game to make up for -f's late game economic weakness. Nice design.
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Taking those econ settings on the idea of capturing enemy industry is neither new, or a bad idea. Who knows? it could work. Payoff is a long time down the road, but <shrug> it's fun trying new things.
However, if we are talking about building the majority of the factories, as JC implies, I very much doubt it would be a winning race. Perhaps I am doing something wrong with my -f's...but I have never experienced a "breathing time" that allows for a 37 year hiatis.  It would take roughly 23 years to build all the factories on a 100% planet that was not over populated. Plus, it would take an extra 14 years to 'break even', compared to never building the factories in the first place (go ahead and check my math, I might be wrong). 37 years in a stars game is a big investment...I have serious questions on the abilities of your enemies if this works. Especially after initially kicking over all the neighboring anthills with your 'viral' IS...
OK, sure, you'd catch up tech pretty fast in those last 14 years, but...again...who's to say your neighbors will give you that much free time? and if they don't, you are way behind in everything. Seems like a losing scenerio building factories vs. just a standard -f setup.
By JC's definition, this is not a -f. This is something else. No -f plans on building factories, ever. It would be a nice addition to the 'wacky race designs' thread, tho.
Alternatively, you can take 1 more cheap, and a normal tech, if you drop the 'start at 3' setting and drop factories back to 5/25/5.
-Matt
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Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Tue, 22 August 2006 00:45 |
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| JasonC |
| Petty Officer 2nd Class
Stars! V.I.P |
Messages: 58
Registered: July 2006
Location: Arlington, MA | |
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Starting with no tech is no bargain for this race, whose entire point early on is the ease with which is spreads to long distances.
There is a point late in all games when resources are a drug to factory using races. They become mineral constrained, they can't use their resources. This doesn't happen to -f races, which generally remain resource constrained throughout.
But the value of higher tech in side fields is pretty marginal to begin with. You get it from trade and battles a bit anyway. The weapons and con are cheap, but the others really just aren't that important.
I wrote the operational section of the strategy guide, detailing a war I conducted with a -f IS race against an initially much stronger opponent. -f IS is hard to conquer. Even in a small. When spread virally in a larger universe, it is that much harder. The reason is the pop simply won't die. It dodges and it reproduces and it comes back.
One fleet battle doesn't get it done, and one pass over each planet doesn't get it done either, even if you pull it off. More commonly, planets near the front line have to be killed half a dozen times, and many others are untouched. Defenses and speed traps and resistence to invasion supplement that basic strength.
The wars take a lot of time as a result. They are not triumphal processions of the Grand Fleet followed by a resignation. 30 or 40 years of continual warfare to deal with a single opponent is perfectly normal. Only SD is tougher.
The point of the factory option is to avoid time being exclusively on the other guy's side. See, a reasonable strategy against the tough defenders is a blockade strategy, to counter their Mao, 2D spread, free wheeling planet killing war strategy. (Main fleet battle is not available, they just deny battle). A blockade strategy tries to contain a race spacially and then outdevelop and outproduce it. Sometimes without war, often with hyperactive skirmishing fronts supported by warfleets that don't seriously engage.
If an enemy applie
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Tue, 22 August 2006 01:49 |
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| mlaub |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| JasonC wrote on Mon, 21 August 2006 23:45 |
Starting with no tech is no bargain for this race, whose entire point early on is the ease with which is spreads to long distances.
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A few quick points, then I hit the sack.
First, no tech at the begining is an advantage. Getting to Con8 is easier, as you only need 2110 res (Adding in prop2 at cheap), instead of 2465 (start at 3 checked). That's 355 res when your output is ~450...one more year to Lg Freights.
Later on you argue that the other techs make no difference anyway...and I'd rather have the 60 points.
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There is a point late in all games when resources are a drug to factory using races. They become mineral constrained, they can't use their resources.
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Absolutely untrue. Perhaps the races you are used to seeing, but not the races I play.
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This doesn't happen to -f races, which generally remain resource constrained throughout.
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Except for IS, who can double the resource output by overpoping planets. Hey, I've played -f IS before! I know the score here! 
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But the value of higher tech in side fields is pretty marginal to begin with. You get it from trade and battles a bit anyway. The weapons and con are cheap, but the others really just aren't that important.
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Errr. Right. We'll save that for later. Night.
-Matt
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Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Tue, 22 August 2006 02:39 |
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| Marduk |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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I'm with Matt on the 'worry about enemies' thing. Each factory produces one resource per year, and costs 25 resources (plus four kT of germanium) to build. Ignoring the germ, that's 25 years of factory output before you recoup your initial investment. Given that you still have much in common with a -f race, I don't see this working as a factory builder under any normal circumstance.
The resources you spend on factory building could instead be put to research or shipbuilding, both of which have immediate returns, and both of which help you expand. The ability to use factories is nice, of course, provided you capture notable amounts of them. I'd say your number operated should be 11 instead of 14, but even so you didn't pay that much over -f settings.
Let's see... perhaps if you were penned in by a superior foe who didn't have time or resources available to finish you off. Say he's fighting on another front, and has only enough available on your end to match you. Then, provided he remains tied up on his other front, building those factories may turn things around for you. Given that the resources pulled away from productive efforts don't give him enough of an edge to finish you anyway while you're waiting for the payoff.
I've monkeyed around with the idea from time to time. It looks good on paper - for a fairly small race wizard cost you get a big boost to your per-world resources. And if you do it one system at a time, what's the short-term loss of one system's resources for the long-term gain of another half-system? Unfortunately it means a lot. On a world with triple population, it takes about 13.5 years to build full factories (a 70% increase in resources). In those 13.5 years on a 100% world you have spent 29,700 resources produced by your population. During that time, all factory output went into more factories, so repayment doesn't begin until all factories are complete. At 1540 resources per turn, that's 19.3 turns - so a little less than 33 years later, you start to profit. In reso
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Tue, 22 August 2006 03:20 |
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| Marduk |
| Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| JasonC wrote on Tue, 22 August 2006 00:45 |
There is a point late in all games when resources are a drug to factory using races. They become mineral constrained, they can't use their resources. This doesn't happen to -f races, which generally remain resource constrained throughout.
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I'm with Matt in this as well. The last -f IS I played had 10/3/20 mines and still suffered from a mineral shortage. I started in a corner and had to fight my way out while my eventual rival (a full-blown HP) grew largely unopposed for the first 50 years. Despite this I was often number one in resources and was tech leader after about 10 years. When you have four times as many systems as an HP (after terraforming, every system vs one-in-four) and get about 40% of the per-world resources (2200 vs about 5500 for a 100% system), you have 60% more in total.
With HPs and HGs, I find I'm most often G-constrained and next most often resource constrained. Developing systems are building factories instead of contributing resources, and can ship their minerals back to older worlds. -f races can spend nearly all their resources on ships and mineral shipments are precise adjustments instead of wholesale waste management.
When you occupy every system in your space, you are getting a lot of mineral-less worlds. The lower hab races do more cherry-picking and also frequently remote mine the better uninhabitable systems. I've found that having four times as many systems gives me on average about 25% more minerals; luck of the draw is a major factor, of course, but most of the minerals in any given region of space come from relatively few worlds. They will be making every effort to tap those rich worlds whether or not they can live there. 60% more resources and 25% more minerals means mineral constaints.
Just out of curiosity, would someone with access to large volumes of system information care to do an analysis of mineral distribution? That is, in any given sample where each system is represented by a single number (the total miner
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Thu, 24 August 2006 18:51 |
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| JasonC |
| Petty Officer 2nd Class
Stars! V.I.P |
Messages: 58
Registered: July 2006
Location: Arlington, MA | |
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-f races remain resource constrained because they get 1/3 as many resources per rock. They also build at docks and gather from more worlds, both of which favor light beamers - as does the typical -f warfighting style.
As for racing to 100 jug BBs - or the first year of arm BBs, another popular testbed measure - I'd never even look at building expensive factories while still in that portion of the development race. No, up until then it is played as a pure -f and the factories are untouched.
After you have high tech BBs, you fight or you build, your option. Diplomacy and opponent strategies propose, of course. -f, you have no option, you fight. You will never outlast the high producer races to the top tech in all fields.
On the value of not having side tech early to make con 8 cheaper, I am not buying con 8 while I am still at 480 resources. They spread at con 4. And you seriously raise the price of the expensive side fields when you add the per level cost to each of them, buy pushing a couple of cheaps high.
On the unimportance of late side tech, I mean you want W24 or 26 and you want nubians, but who cares about complete phase shields or tech 23 engines? Nexi are slightly more useful but not warwinners, not with the right designs and tactics (beamer-jammers, chaff, etc). That normal races pay hundreds of thousands of resources for such trivialities just shows that they have more resources than they can profitably use.
I understand completely that the payback period for resource from extra factories can be long. Games can also be long. If yours isn't, buy ships. If it is, you can lose just because you picked -f in a game that went long, or you can have something in your back pocket.
The other options for the points are more like 1/4 hab, marginally faster to be sure, or cheaper tech in side fields. Those are useful but they aren't live or die issues for a -f IS race. It is a design option.
As for 11 vs. 14 operated, the cost per click is quite low with factory cost so high.
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| Re: The Altai - an IS race |
Thu, 24 August 2006 22:43 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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I've played a -f IS in one game, rules were all races must be -f (or AR), and winner was top score at 2500.
My race was the Kittens:
IS
IFE, ISB, OBRM, NAS, RS
.36g to 4.16g, -112C to 136C, 31mR to 95mR (1 in 3)
20%
1/1000 5/25/5 4g, 11/3/15
en, we, con cheap; p normal; el and bio expensive
There are some things I'd change now...
I started very slowly, because the first few worlds I found were very low hab, at 2410 I had two colonies, a 67% and a 25%... Oh the 25 was a pop drop of an HE that was colonizing everything with 1k pop.
I found the -f experience to be very fustrating. Low resources meant that tech was slow. It may have been an effect of everyone being -f so growing fast was a bit harder. It could also have been my race, lack of an immunity hurt quite a bit.
At 2500 I was able to get 3x pop everywere (for max score, which it turned out I didn't need). We kept playing after that and at 2501, I dropped back to 2x everywhere for a few years till I could maintain 3x everywhere.
Anyway, even with almost live everywhere, and good (11/3/15) mine settings, and the alien miner, I was running out of minerals. A non-IS might not feel the late game mineral crunch as much, because they have half the resources, or less.
So, what's the point of all this?
It seems that if a -f IS manages to get to 2480 or so, they no longer need factories, they've got decent resources (2200 for a 100% world), not equal to factory races, but not too far behind, and you'd rather invest the resources in tech and/or ships. Not to mention the RW points.
Maximizing an IS takes a ton of MM. I wrote a program to take data from the .p and .f reports and generate a file I could import into an excell spreadsheet to figure out how to get 3x pop maintained everywhere. And even then, I know I missed a bunch of stuff in the early and mid game because I was convinced I had no chance of winning (or even really affecting the outcome).
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- LEitReport message to a moderator
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