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IS race design |
Tue, 10 June 2003 06:32 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
I'm not a specialist for IS, but one thing I've learned the hard way. But let me ask a question first:
What an IS has in abundance?
Population. So don't repeat my mistake and make a hyper-producer IS.
BR, Iztok
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Re: IS race design |
Wed, 11 June 2003 03:35 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 10 June 2003 12:58 |
IS has a couple of early game toys, Mini-gun and Croby Sharmor, that combined with the pop's inherent defensive capability and cheap defenses make it easier to defend your early game gains.
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Have you ever tried to get all those toys with HW still ramping, and with 2/3 res output of HGs, or building defenses on a new planet with 100k pop producing 40 res?
Sorry, the only IS advantage when comes to early pop-drop wars is pop defense bonus. After your HW turns green (turn 22-25) you can start researching and building DDs with minigun. Weap cheap rest expensive @ 3 has quite some drawbacks for early tech rush for FFs and croby
BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Wed, 11 June 2003 03:36] Report message to a moderator
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Re: IS race design |
Thu, 12 June 2003 01:21 |
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zoid | | Ensign | Messages: 348
Registered: December 2002 Location: Murray, KY - USA | |
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iztok wrote on Wed, 11 June 2003 00:35 | Hi!
vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 10 June 2003 12:58 |
IS has a couple of early game toys, Mini-gun and Croby Sharmor, that combined with the pop's inherent defensive capability and cheap defenses make it easier to defend your early game gains.
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Have you ever tried to get all those toys with HW still ramping, and with 2/3 res output of HGs, or building defenses on a new planet with 100k pop producing 40 res?
Sorry, the only IS advantage when comes to early pop-drop wars is pop defense bonus. After your HW turns green (turn 22-25) you can start researching and building DDs with minigun. Weap cheap rest expensive @ 3 has quite some drawbacks for early tech rush for FFs and croby
BR, Iztok
| I agree. Croby Sharmor at tech 7 is not really an "early" technology, and the worst thing about IS is you start with absolutely zilch for technology unless you make some other tough trade-offs for early gain. When I start a game as IS and find myself with an initial ranking of 13 out of 13 players, I know I'm the only one playing IS.
As Iztok said, there is very little in the way of early advantages for an IS. Croby sharmor (EN7) equipped frigates (C6) are not an early warship when you're trying to build an economy (and they're pretty expensive for a -f race), the planetary defenses though half cost are something you usually don't bother with when you're trying to build your economy, the tachyon detectors come way late at EL14 because so many other tech fields take priority. Somewhat the same with Superfreighters at C13 (albeit to a much lesser extent, but I wouldn't call getting them at 2440-2450 "early"), and the jammer 50 comes way after nubians. Building the speed bump minelayers will bankrupt an early economy of resources and minerals (god they're expensive!).
That only leaves the IS player with three real early advantages - pop defense bonus and pop reproduction on freighters - but I LOVE the low tech (and cheap!) fuel transports best. A cheap warp 5 fuel transport is available early, and never goes out of style. I want them to be slow on the battlefield, because those loaded superfreighters arn't moving any faster than 1/2 move anyways, no matter what engines they have or how many overthrusters you're silly enough to put on them - so it's best that the chaff hang around as long as possible.
The planetary defenses are a decent mid-game advantage for the IS because you look pretty unattractive as a pop-drop target. Pop-dropping on a well-defended IS world is something akin to a nightmare!
I tried a -f IS race in a testbed before and found that the lack of starting techs was crippling, with far too many things to do with my limited resources and not enough to go around. Maybe I didn't do it right, but I figured an IS is a relatively lousy PRT choice for a -f race and never tried it again.
HP? I'm not really sold on the HP concept in general. I've tried it ONCE with a JOAT in my earlier years and the 3% HE next door came and beat me up for being nice. Maybe I sucked a lot worse then than I do now - maybe not. But with the proliferation of hyper-expanding HG's (in whatever PRT) the whole HP concept just doesn't sound good to me.
I believe now that, like it or not, HG is the only way to be versatile enough to have a shot of early survival while keeping long term potential. IMO the IS is one of the better "long-term strategy" PRT choices, but not so good for being an early bully. While I believe there are many ways to skin a cat, with an IS I believe there's only one way to ensure competence - HG. That makes the most of what you get, which is as Iztoc pointed out, population.
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: IS race design |
Thu, 12 June 2003 01:42 |
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boneandrew | | Crewman 1st Class | Messages: 35
Registered: June 2003 Location: Detroit | |
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zoid wrote on Thu, 12 June 2003 01:21 |
That only leaves the IS player with three real early advantages - pop defense bonus and pop reproduction on freighters - but I LOVE the low tech (and cheap!) fuel transports best. A cheap warp 5 fuel transport is available early, and never goes out of style.
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Plus, they're gateable with NO mass damage with the 100/250 gate unlike the super-fuel exports.
I think the -f IS can be pretty nifty. As population is the sole means of resource production for this, having pop growth in freighters really ramps up the resource production. I also like to NOT take an immunity because when I find those poorer worlds, I just let the freighters overbreed onto the planet instead of dropping everyone. Creates a higher growth rate, even if I have to build more freighters. I'll likely have plenty of minerals.
Also, this design is the best of ANY race out there at recovering from invasions. Just have your flying orgie and a colonizer recapture your planets, and boom, instant fully productive planet again; I don't even have to worry as much about growth loss while I'm moving that pop away from the enemy.
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Re: IS race design |
Thu, 12 June 2003 10:15 |
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boneandrew wrote on Thu, 12 June 2003 01:42 | I think the -f IS can be pretty nifty. As population is the sole means of resource production for this, having pop growth in freighters really ramps up the resource production. I also like to NOT take an immunity because when I find those poorer worlds, I just let the freighters overbreed onto the planet instead of dropping everyone. Creates a higher growth rate, even if I have to build more freighters. I'll likely have plenty of minerals.
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You might want to talk to RWIAB players at some point. This game of nine -f races plus an observer race is currently populated by three IS PRT races. So there's some recent experience that can be tapped for commentary.
- Kurt aka The Mad Scientists in RWIAB
[Updated on: Thu, 12 June 2003 11:26] by Moderator
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Re: IS race design |
Fri, 13 June 2003 10:18 |
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LEit | | Lt. Commander | Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003 Location: CT | |
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mazda wrote on Fri, 13 June 2003 05:24 | Hetzer, do you mean an IS no-immune ?
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Yes he does. I'm the IS without an immunity. And I have to say it's been a huge problem for my race. The colonies I find tend to be marginal, some of that is bad luck (best early green I had was 67% or so - it's in the 90s now, but that took a lot of work). Terraforming is more expensive (well I have to do more to get the same effect). And it's slower, compounding the cost. And it means I grow slower (well on the ground at least), again compounding the effect. In the early part of the game an IS still does most of their growth on the ground. Pop in ships don't produce anything (besides babies that is).
I'm not sure, but I think I'd be doing a lot better with an immunity, paying for it is difficult. However, I think the net effect would have had me growing faster early, and therefore, faster now too.
Being an IS has toned down the problems however, and it might not have been too bad if I'd gotten luckier, and or if it were a normal game and I had a few HPs I could pounce on.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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Re: IS race design |
Sat, 14 June 2003 13:36 |
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joseph | | Lt. Junior Grade | Messages: 440
Registered: May 2003 Location: Bristol | |
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Zoid wrote |
I tried a -f IS race in a testbed before and found that the lack of starting techs was crippling, with far too many things to do with my limited resources and not enough to go around. Maybe I didn't do it right, but I figured an IS is a relatively lousy PRT choice for a -f race and never tried it again.
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Well Im no expert but I just finished a game where I played a -f IS race. I came second and lost to a SD who I had been allied to for most of the game (was a "There can be only 1" game).
The way to play is to launch a few scouts in the first turn then run for const 4 for the next few years (you will get it when your pop reaches 4000-5000 if you have 18-20% growth (I had 20% and 1/800 but I would probably tweak that in the future)).
Then you build 2 privateers and a ft each turn (more for the first turn) and as many Santa marias as you can (and mines lots of em).
Colonise everything! send out the Mini Orgys (2P +FT +2-5SM) and just drop your surplus pop on each planet as you pass (red green who cares!) if you find a planet that’s 50% or higher drop your full load and return to the homeworld (or other world that has surplus pop).
Later when you run out of room (ie meet races that have sufficient defences that you cant just pop drop them) use your grow in ships to overfill your planets (a 100% world can raise 2750 resources at 1/800 with OBRM –2200 with 1/1000. This is not as good as a factory race can get but you only need to build 8-10 large freighters rather than all those factories).
I ranked 1st for a lot of the game and even outpaced some f races in resources at times - at the end I was only 5k adrift of the SD and I could get this by dropping most of my flying pop on planets.
Its not a universe beating monster, but I had fun with it and it lasts into the end game a bit better due to being able to get twice the resources per planet other –f races get (you can also get 100+ resources from each red world –small I know but every little helps).
Joseph
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[Updated on: Sun, 15 June 2003 00:21] by Moderator
Joseph
"Can burn the land and boil the sea. You cant take the Stars from me"Report message to a moderator
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