| Too Costly? |
Tue, 28 January 2003 01:33  |
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 zoid |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 348
Registered: December 2002
Location: Murray, KY - USA | |
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I'm having a lot of fun playing with an SS race right now, and I'm also using one in a duel with Micha. Not that I've DONE anything exclusively SS so far, and he's ahead in the rankings, and he pop-dropped the last beautiful planet I colonized (the big meanie!)  , but still...
He says SS is too costly for what you get, considering anyone can achieve 98% cloaking. He's an expert, or at least far beyond my level of expertise.
But I think the the 75% base cloaking, tech bonuses, the extra hull, cloaking and scanner toys, combined with the minefield movement bonus of one makes it all worthwhile. Additionally, in a two player game, the SS player gets to know precisely where his opponent is investing research and roughly to what degree, aside from getting a nice piece of it himself.
In my testbed game (comprised of every race and LRT necessary to stage ship battles of any design for combat tests) I made all the races as similar as possible in research, habitat, growth and economy, with the exception of adding RS to half the races and leaving the extra points wasted. With 10 races in the testbed, I didn't want to do any expansion MM so I just gave them all identical default production and research ques and generated 100 turns at a time to get the tech levels up. I'm aware that this isn't exactly a fair test, but in the end the SS's maxed out their tech research WAY before anyone else did.
I think the tech bonus in itself is probably almost adequate compensation for the stiff PRT point penalty in itself. And even if anyone can do 98% cloaking, they have to waste lots of minerals and resources building lots of big heavy cloaker ships for their fleets and then you need more SFE's for fuel because the added mass sucks fuel and that adds more uncloaked mass, needing more bulky cloakers, and then in the end you're missing what is only a few points of cloaking (but that can make a HUGE difference in detectability) so you hop from planet to planet hoping you don't blunder into something in orbit which spoils your su
...
I'M NOT AN EXPERT AND I'M OFTEN PROVEN WRONG. TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN YOU READ MY POSTS.
Math?  Ummm, sure!  I do FREESTYLE math.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Tue, 28 January 2003 05:10  |
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| regiss |
 | Petty Officer 1st Class |
Messages: 65
Registered: November 2002 | |
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| Quote: |
considering anyone can achieve 98% cloaking
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That was exactly my point for not playing SS earlier. Then I
did extensive testing and found out that was not true.
Everyone else are able to cloak to ~90% effectively without
nubians. And how bigger economy do You need to have to keep up
with 98% cloaking in nubian era..
The other thing to consider is advatage of NAS, couse You can
use it easily. Races without NAS (nub filled with last scan)
tend to be able to detect 98% cloaked ships to ~25 l.y. (when
will You get those..) While in earlier stages of the game it
drops to ~12 l.y. And then to ~6 l.y. with cheap scans. With
NAS detection becomes quite easier.
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Tue, 28 January 2003 17:56 |
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Yep, the onyl 98% cloaked galleons or battleships, or bombers you'll ever see belong to a SS race. No need to build overcloakers, or to get nuibans gives SS a very large advantage in using cloaked fleets. So maybe if you're opponent has 98% over-cloaking nubians, his superior economy will beat you in cloaking units. I think that the research advantage is quite nice, it can be very large if both you and the ohter person in a duel research the same thing at once. Also SS can take NAS to help recoup high point cost. Chameleon scanners, and Robber Barons work fine if you keep them everywhere with FF's.
Email me as ----jeffimix@----yahoo.com----
(remove dashes)
The spamatron! run!!!Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Tue, 28 January 2003 18:20 |
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| Micha | 
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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Taking NAS gives you _very_ little points when you are SS. Just look at picking NAS as the first LRT, SS gets 41 points, SD gets 109 points, JoaT gets 95.
Only PP gets even less in return, only 15 RW points ...
Other examples with some common LRTs like IFE, NRSE, OBRM and RS as SS gives you 25 points if you pick NAS. True it's the fifth LRT so you get less points anyway, but the SD still gets 91 RW points! JoaT gets 78.
(And no, by common I am in NO way starting a discussion that SS should take these LRTs  )
Add in LSP (so NAS is the sixth LRT) and SS PAYS with 1 RW point to take NAS! SD still gets 65 points, JoaT 52.
So yes you gain something picking NAS, but not much ...
regards,
mch
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Tue, 28 January 2003 20:27 |
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| regiss |
| Petty Officer 1st Class |
Messages: 65
Registered: November 2002 | |
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The point in picking NAS with SS is not a RW point gain, but to
allow double range scans in detecting cloaked ships, IMHO.
Being SS, I'd take NAS even if it was my Nth LRT (& it would
cost me RW points).
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Wed, 29 January 2003 04:58 |
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I agree...the point of SS+NAS is not so much the points gained but rather the relative lack of disadvantages.
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Wed, 29 January 2003 05:34 |
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| Micha |
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| regiss wrote on Tue, 28 January 2003 20:27 |
The point in picking NAS with SS is not a RW point gain, but to
allow double range scans in detecting cloaked ships, IMHO.
Being SS, I'd take NAS even if it was my Nth LRT (& it would
cost me RW points).
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True, the one time so far that I played SS I picked NAS too, you don't lose the penscan ability, you get double range and you still gain _some_ points, so why not?
I merely wanted to point out that NAS is not a point mine like it is for other races, not by far ... and therefor SS still has a disadvantage, picking NAS gives only a very small boost in other areas (like economy for example) while other races benefit a lot from it.
Sure the other races _do_ lose their penscans (except for JoaT of course) but you can work around that, most simple way is just to trade penscans with an ally, et voila you're economy got a nice boost _and_ the negative LRT is canceled!
Personally I'd rather play an SD with NAS than an SS with NAS, I either hope to trade and if not I'll manage, afterall penscans are _nice_ they are not _necessary_
regards,
mch
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Fri, 31 January 2003 16:47 |
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Something I always wondered was why NAS gives SS and PP so little points when it still gives JOATs loads.
NAS seems to be a VERY popular pick to get some points.
In a universe of stars players who've studied those damned 30k+ by 2450 races the everyday joe needs to stay competetive - so we need the high growth rates and cheap tech.
I think the 25k by 2450 mark has spawned the NAS and -F junkies.
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Wed, 13 February 2008 21:49 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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I think NAS gives full points to JOAT because in an earlier version of Stars, JOAT scanners weren't as good, I don't remember the details, but I think it was either fixed (not adjusted by tech) or no pen scanners.
My biggest problem with SS is not that other races can get 98% cloaking too once they get nubians, but that there is a race that completely cancels their cloaking advantage. Inner Strength races that get tacyons can fairly easily spot any cloaked ship with a moderate investment. IS have lots of other economic and military advantages too, making them rank up there with IT and JOAT, after CA of course...
In a duel, your chances of running into an IS are fairly small, however in a multi player game, it's more likely, and since they cancel the SS's main strength, it can be devastating. One game I was in, the one SS in it found there were 3 IS players in the game...
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Sun, 01 June 2008 00:53 |
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IS tachyon detectors do not cancel out SS cloaking as per common perception. I have posted the guts of the tachyon detector math. All the TD does is 'reduce' cloaking efficiency and, beleive me, a 98% cloaked ship reduced to 87% cloaked is still a formidable opponent.
Ptolemy
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Too Costly? |
Thu, 19 June 2008 07:54 |
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| Soobie |
 | Officer Cadet 3rd Year |
Messages: 270
Registered: May 2007
Location: Australia | |
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| magic9mushroom wrote on Thu, 05 June 2008 13:03 |
Um...what?
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Just messing around.
SS will usually target IS pretty early ... either for take out or alliance 
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