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Yep - it's a no brainer

Of course, if somebody want to use a bunch of other junk to go up against my nubs there will be lots of stuff falling from the sky .

I won't complain

Ptolemy

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[Updated on: Mon, 21 June 2004 08:19]

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hi

Sorry to but into such an indeapth conversation with a stupid remark from a noob but anyways hehe

I've just completed my first 2 games (Started 4 at the same time ) and Both were over WAY before nubs by Consesion (Not myne thouh )

So in those situation, BET would have givven in both games A HUGE bonus as they could have built HUGE fleets of Cap ships a lot cheaper than anybody else.

Just a thought

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ForceUser wrote on Mon, 21 June 2004 14:16

hi Sorry to but into such an indeapth conversation with a stupid remark from a noob but anyways hehe I've just completed my first 2 games (Started 4 at the same time ) and Both were over WAY before nubs by Consesion (Not myne thouh ) So in those situation, BET would have givven in both games A HUGE bonus as they could have built HUGE fleets of Cap ships a lot cheaper than anybody else. Just a thought

You are realy certain about BET being advantage in short games?
In some test i did i found already the need to research 1 level of prop and con more early on hurting.
But think about what happens if you are drawn into an early war. As BET does only give little points, you will have no tech advantage and a slightly weaker economy, due to extra early tech needed. But BET will force you to develop higher tech levels in all fields, that are needed for your ships. That will mean in most cases en, con and we.How long will that take?
Before building the attack force, your enemy will have developed useful tech as long as research goes fast, e.g. a tech level per turn. Therefore you will need something like 3-6 turns to research the extra levels needed because of BET, because your economy will be of slightly smaller size.
But when you have researched those tech levels your ships will be 5% cheaper(compared to 4% cheaper with non-BET), if your enemy has stooped researching.

So the deal is, you get ships for 95% cost instead of 96%(without BET) and maybe a few race wizard points, but have a slightly smaller economy and you will start production/movement of ships 3-6 turns later than enemy.
Thats acceptable, if you are the attacker, then you choose the moment, but crippling if on defense, especially if enemy tried to surprise you, he has a guaranteed time of 3 turns where you are researching to avoid double costs.

I cannot see when BET race would be stronger than non-BET in terms of war, if there are no allies to help.

(Guess what, as AR or CA in a team game i would consider BET, there are never enough minerals or OAs and someone has to build mine layers, sweepers and chaff as well.)

Carn

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      Nubian noBET    DN BET        DN NoBET
Iron       75kt         70kt           84kt       
Bor        12kt         15kt           18kt
Germ       12kt         12kt           15kt
resources: 150          137            165

[Updated on: Mon, 21 June 2004 09:29]

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[Updated on: Mon, 21 June 2004 09:52]

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multilis wrote on Mon, 21 June 2004 23:54

BET is odd ball, just as AR mineral fountain, and toys of some PRTs. Odd ball MIGHT mean trading possible. I read one game summary where an IS who was far behind the leaders made up ground selling Tachyon scanners to all the major powers. It is useful to understand the how to work within ones odd ball limits, for example an AR or WM should know their defensive weaknesses and act to limit the pain. Similar with BET LRT. Friends are one means of trying to trade reduce the pain. Other methods also exist such as 'bluff or bluster', 'honourable warmonger diplomacy'.

The question is always, what do you gain and what do you lose or what do you need to compensate.
AR needs peace early and midgame, needs perfect defense on and around HW(no foreign ships in 100 LY radius) and loses planets fast, but has great(certain?) chance to win in the long run.
HE needs ally for gates(or has to get along without), but double growth can be turned either into great early advantage(20%+) or great late advantage(mine eff 20+).
WM needs to trade for 3+ mine layers per planet or needs non-aggresive neighbours, but dominates from con16 to con25(which is normally researched after we26).
You might notice that all 3 PRTs have disadvantages, that can be crippling in certain situations, but in return will have(and can plan for) phases in game, where their advantages will be great or even game winning. All three have a chance to win(depending on game settings,...) on their own and all have during their strong phase the means to make interesting offers to neighbours(WM: My DN crews want to see action, any suggestions where i should send them? tri-i HE: Give me 2 planets of your choice and you'll get that green one, hope you are not disturbed by the 500 facs and mines there, no, do not pay for them, they were built so fast. ...)

Now, when has BET a decisive advantage?
Probably somewhere around con 14-17 and we 13-25 and always trading low tech ships.
Will it be a big advantage?
At most something around 10-15% in cost reduction, except for low tech stuff, but always has to research 1 tech more. That sounds nice, but not game winning.
Disadvantages?
Early on some and later realy big.
How can disadvantages be avoided?
Having a communicative ally especially in end game, who does not have thoughts like "i'm #2, he's #1 and unable to build nubs, what do i do now?".

Sorry, seems to me that BET opens a small trade option(remember traded ships lose scrap value, any ship that has chance to survive till outdated is cheaper in minerals to build by oneself instead of BET ally), gives slightly cheaper ships in midgame, but forces one to absolutely have an ally in late game, and the ally will know that. Does not sound a good idea for single victory game, as few people will trade 500 AMP nubs.

Carn

[Updated on: Tue, 22 June 2004 05:30]

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Hi!

Robert wrote on Wed, 30 June 2004 09:28

Anyone tried IS croby hordes being useful when tech gets higher and you got BET?

I've fielded a BET FF horde once (a weird game Well's Bottom), but as a WM. Really cheap design: FM, 3 bazookas, 2 wolverines. Worked wonders against an IS horde CCs (AD-8, 4 crobby, 4 colloidals, 2 sappers-9), esp. because I could kill them 3.5 to 1 ratio, but they costed me 5 to 1. 've managed to kill most of his fleet without losses on my side, but lost two thirds (1100) of them in an prolonged battle with our BIIIG monster with 3 Doom BBs, tech 21 sappers SB and a bunch of other ships.

Conclusion: when cap-missiles show up, those FFs start dying pretty fast. At that time sappers are quite common too, and that makes those FFs dying even faster. Besides, crobby is not expensive, so paying 1 mineral and 1-2 resources less doesn't make BET more attractive.
My .
BR, Iztok

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[Updated on: Wed, 30 June 2004 12:07]

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Quote:

Disadvantages? Early on some and later realy big. How can disadvantages be avoided? Having a communicative ally especially in end game, who does not have thoughts like "i'm #2, he's #1 and unable to build nubs, what do i do now?". Sorry, seems to me that BET opens a small trade option(remember traded ships lose scrap value, any ship that has chance to survive till outdated is cheaper in minerals to build by oneself instead of BET ally), gives slightly cheaper ships in midgame, but forces one to absolutely have an ally in late game, and the ally will know that. Does not sound a good idea for single victory game, as few people will trade 500 AMP nubs.

I think BET is workable in a full out game begining to end. It is very specialized, but not undoable. Firstly I think the most suitable race for BET is the WM.

We won't get into general weaknesses of the WM race (defences, minefields) except to say that they are weaknesses and you can get over around them the same as you do without BET. So this is a moot point. I'll go through some various phases in the game and show how a competative army could be fielded for a comparable cost, and even offer some advantages.

Now, how does BET aid our warfighting, detraction from this as a WM is generally undesireable (Peaceful warmonger? bleh).

First, the biggest advantage of BET is minturization of older tech. WM also gets an inherit advantage of 25% weapons cost savings. If we combine this with fully BET tech we could get as high as 85% cost reduction on weapons , and 80% on everything else. Though, to be fair.. We can only reach max miniturization on tech level 10 and under items.

Enter the second WM only advantage that can be useful for BET. The specialty war ships. The BC is a tech level 10 item, it fully miniturizes to the 80% possible and becomes reasonably cost effective against nubian beamers as the main beamer arm of the fleet. The BC is (in my opinion) the most flexible war ship before the nubian, with 3 general slots and 4 elec/mech you can do quite a bit with it. Yes, I realize that many will very quickly point out that AMP is unavailbe as it is a lvl 26 item. And of course, the best missle platform in the game - the DN.

I would like to suggest a few designs that can be cost effective and work with BET. During the middle game, destroyers will work very nicely until BCs are available for mass construction (const 11). I might also suggest LRT as RS and CE, also *NOT* checking NRSE (read scoops are good, lighter, and cheaper) to further reduce the cost of these lower warships. In building DD/CA/FF level ships engines can often account for a significant (20-30%) cost of the ship. With weapon savings and a movement bonus to boot you should be able to compete toe to toe with possibly as much as a 30% economic deficincy. That's pushing the envelope but it's very workable in the early game. These ideas and LRTs are simply to work with the theme of cost reduction and massing ships.

Next we will enter the BB phase, depending on your economic settings and other game settings you may or may not have fought a war. The BC will serve for many years during this phase, I consider the BC on par with BBs - especially with the cost savings. You can generally build ~2.5 - 3 BCs for the cost of one unarmored BB, ending up with more armor and shields. You suffer larger attrition with missles but you are competative and even possibly at an advantage as you can counter design better, use range 2, etc. UR might be useful in counter design warfare, but it's usefulness is limited as things will depreciate in value a lot as the game progresses and will scrap for less when obsolete due to BET.

Of course the next era the WM always shines - the heyday of the DN. Before nubs emerge - this shouldn't be much different than a little bit shorter lived because of the longer time it takes to start to create them. As a small design tip in this era, I would stick with a doomsday design with enough movement to get 2 1/2. These ships should surv

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[Updated on: Mon, 01 November 2004 13:03]

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[Updated on: Mon, 01 November 2004 13:48]

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Quote:

How much of this victory is down to WM having ramscoops and the Nubians not having them ? [edit: clarification] I don't mean the weight advantage that you already mentioned - the resource and mineral advantage.

15kt of extra Iron on the IS-10s swapped for TGMS would yield an extra 6% ships, or 6 more. Not likely to have affected the outcome much. I thought those were a bit pricy nubians, cheapers engines on a more efficient design I think would have yielded better results and the engine swap would be more useful.

Quote:

From my experience limiting resource in end-game is most of the time germ ... usually plenty of iron left, but no germ around to pay for the missiles and computing ...

This is a potential problem, perhaps I would need to put more missles on a single ship if Germ was in short supply. Depending on actual conditions, designs may vary. This will also vary depending on your chosen economic model, seeing how Germ is required for certain economies and not others

BackBlast

[Updated on: Mon, 01 November 2004 21:16]

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