EDog wrote on Mon, 02 December 2002 23:16

I personally rank the HE as the weakest of all the PRTs.

It's funny how far the pendulum has swung. In the early days of Stars, the tri-immune 4% HE was considered unbeatable (and was often banned in games) until Scott Phelps wrote an article on 19% JOAT with expensive tech being able to stomp it. There were heated arguments until Scott finally took on a challenger to prove his point. From there, it seems all the 25K by 2450 races began to spring up after Barry Kearns and Jason Cawley made the astonishing claim that 25K by 2450 was possible.

The weakest of all PRTs? Not by a longshot, IMO, but it depends entirely on the universe settings and game objectives. Each individual game will have weak choices and strong choices. The no-stargate issue is a severe problem, but it is manageable given the right universe.

HE is still extremely viable and can be surprising in terms of power in the right hands. It's even more deadly today given that most people will underestimate the potential of the HE, assuming they are a weak non-threat. In the old days, if you were crazy enough to play HE, you would immediately have to fight off the entire universe once your PRT was discovered because of FEAR of the PRT. Under the right conditions, I say experiment with HE and have some fun, because most today won't consider you a threat (and this could allow you to grow peacefully).

Regards,

John G
Stars! Historian

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ZZZh, thats why I feel they should be able to use atleast One kind of gate in bigger games, its just... unfair otherwise

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No gates whatsoever does seem a bit stringent; I think limiting the HE race to only a 100/250 gate would have been better. After all, the OBRM guy still gets basic miners, and the WM still gets basic defenses, the NRSE guy still gets the fuel mizer engine ( and there might be other comparisons that could be made but I'm too lazy to think that hard). The "no stargates" limitation seems to be the only one that cannot be mitigated by the Mystery Trader, so it's awfully harsh.

Limiting the HE to a 100/250 gate would still be punitive (how useful would stargates be if the 100/250 was all there was?), but then, I guess disadvantages are meant to be punitive. At any rate, it might make a difference for someone. Alternatively, they could have given the MT stargate plans for a special stargate, since any other similar disadvantage in the game can be undone by MT trading. It's only fair.

Perhaps the Jeffs (are people still saying that?) also felt in the early days that the HE was too powerful, like everyone else. I guess HE players will have to live with it like it is though; as old as this game is I don't foresee any changes at this point, so it's all academic.

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[Updated on: Fri, 26 January 2007 06:09] by Moderator

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freakyboy wrote on Sun, 29 December 2002 17:04

I'm curious about a gate from the MT. It can't have infinite ability for range or mass because that would rip away the IT advantage. I can't think of a good way to make it work, unless it was on some form of no armed ships type deal.

If you are gating to IT inf/infinity gates that would be the case. As the Jump Gate has range and mass of the destination gate, which in the case of an HE would have to be an ally's planet. The risk of losing IT advantage is very small. Some MT items are years in coming. Some show up often, especially those you don't really want. I have played many games over four years and have yet to get this item in a multi-player game. Except for those in the MT scout ships that I have received.
The jump also requires two moves, jump to space, jump to gate, whereas IT can jump in one.
Usefulness is the ability of non-IT race to gate minerals and colonists like an IT. Have you ever been in games where good planets were available to you via ally conquest, but they were hundreds of ly away from your nearest planets. If ally lets you use gates then you can jump colonists to new area and get fast start on new planets.
But this won't work if you are backstabber as ally won't let you use gates lest he face instant death on many planets.

[Updated on: Sun, 29 December 2002 19:45]

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Last time I got that, it did have infinite range. I used it for cargo gating. Now they must haev fixed it because I'll swear to it that I wasn't IT. I know it says its dependant on recieving gate, but meh.

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Greetings all,

Just thought I would put in my couple of cents about the HE Strategy. Keep in mind that the HE has the ability to colonize EVERYTHING. This means trading for planets a LOT easier. If you are having trouble getting stargates... get an ally who has some and ask for them to colonize a couple of planets in your system in exchange for planets in his, minerals, and your forces. That in it's own right is a VERY extensive tool, and if that isn't enough, HE can have a very nice tech advantage after they start ramping everything up... and even then they can still provide the overcloaked Mine Layers and the Flux Cap Nubian/smaller ships.

Just because you can live everywhere doesn't mean you HAVE to, it just leaves you more room to play with. And considering a HE can have high value greens on EVERY planet right at year 1, and if you have a bi-immune you only have to worry about 1500 (Maximum +/- 15% Terraforming at 100 resources per click) maximum amount of resource for terraforming per planet, as compared to 4500 for all other races (3000 compared to 1-immunes). That is a LOT compared to the fact other races have to constantly manage that, and puts HE up there with that of a CA, but even a CA can't get 100% planets on almost all of his planets... (though they can get pretty cloes )

Again this all goes into the fact that one must understand his people in order to run a fluid empire.

Hope this helps,
Stalwart

[Updated on: Mon, 30 December 2002 00:13]

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Hmm, I was wrong about the MM having only 1 less base init, the CR does have 5 base init while the MM has only 2. I was thinking that could easily be compensated for given the number of slots and versatility of a MM hull. However, I'm willing to concede that while the MM could be made superior with the same technologies on a ship for ship basis, on a cost effectiveness basis maybe you are better off using the same amount of resources and minerals on CR's than MM's. You could basically make MM's with superior targetting, init, and jamming (easier at higher tech with a Targetting Nexus) with twice the firepower and roughly equivalent defenses of a single cruiser, but it would cost more. Of course, being able to cart away the scrap with your MM's after a battle is nice too.

On the other hand, I'll speculate that if init is so important, maybe the same amount of minerals and resources used in CR's with lower init, targetting and firepower would be ill-fated against the MM fleet, so how is that cost effective?

I know someone is now going to pull out their calculators and disprove me scientifically with mathematics; I just wanna say it's not fair that I'm a dumb truck driver who is forced to speculate, in the company of all you rocket scientists with real brains.

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johng316 wrote on Sun, 29 December 2002 16:40

I personally think the best way to balance HE would be to reduce the points HE gets from reducing growth rate and return some limited (if not full) stargate capability.

You know, I've always thought HE had more room to play with the growth rate due to the "doubled" growth of HE's. However, it just occurred to me that the so-called "double" growth rate is really not that at all, since their population cap is halved. In order to produce the same number of colonists per turn that any other race does, the HE must have twice the growth rate. So, while I always thought an HE could get away with a lower growth rate than other races due to the "doubled" growth, it actually is not true at all, is it? A 2% growth HE gains the same number of colonists per year as any other 2% growth prt, even though it's so-called "double" growth rate gives it 4%, since it's basically twice the multiplier of half the factor. What is the greater amount, 1*2 or 2*1? Gee, now I feel like a mathematician, since I figured that all out by myself.

In light of this new revelation, I think the HE is severely broken, with two really big handicaps (no gates, half pop cap) and no advantage except the two exclusive hulls, the limited-use settlers delight engine, and the flux capacitor. I'd gladly exchange all of those for either the stargates or the full pop cap. Pretty lousy prt, and it has always been my favorite. Shows how much I know.

What to do about balancing the PRT (not that it'll ever happen)? To reduce the points that an HE gets for reducing growth wouldn't be fair at all. Instead, give the HE full stargate capability and let it keep every exclusive goodie it has. Even better, restore the full pop cap and let it keep every exclusive goodie it has. One or the other, stargates or full pop cap. I think restoring the pop cap would be best. Either one of those handicaps is sufficient to balance the few goodies the HE gets, and the pop cap one is espe

[Updated on: Thu, 16 January 2003 01:18]

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