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Hatterson wrote on Wed, 27 August 2003 13:30

Other than that, a simple starbase in orbit will stop all invading computer fleets until the end of the game. This is not so against a human player.

How very true... How very stinking true...
I did a 1000 year jump once from strarting posiition with a lot of AI seeded, well guess what? The laser starbase was still standing after 1000 years of war!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!! The AI's were set on hard I think...

I do not really have a -f bencmark race at the moment, I would apreciate people giving me some good exampels of an IT, IS -f race. These are the most promising candidates for a workable -fm
I have a theory that people think that -fm races are unworkable because they are seldom even tried, much less tied again. I can tell you from experience that I threw away 9 races before I stumbeled on a working design and strategy. Carefull readers will note that in stories about -fm they were often a step away from victory- not bad for an "unworkable" economic model. In the end I think that only PBEM victory will persuade sceptics, and this is how it should be, however that won't be forthcoming for quite some time...

For now I will try to convey the strategy theory...

There are three basic strategies:
*Force concentration- build a bigger master fleet and try for a decisive battle.
*Skirmish- many little taskforces engaged in hit and run attacks
*Guerilla- both sides use their fleets to do as much damage to the enemy's industry at expence of own defence.

All of these do not require specialized race design. But for those of as who live in nuclear age, another tactic is known- MAD
Mutually Assured Destruction.
The tactic is simple, cause annihilation war but with a twist- you get ressurected and ready for more after they level your worlds. Now this requires some specialized race designing.
You need:
1)Stealthy force that can overrun any single given planet.
2)Strong defences that are designed to slow the enemy down.
3)Stealthy freighters to evac your pop and minerals for later recolonization.
The idea is to have fleets capable of eradicating enemy econ planets as soon as they are established while avoiding direct battles with the main enemy force. And at the same time having the ability to recolonize worlds and start building reinforcements stright away without any preparation.

Think about it, it usually takes 2-3 turns to take a world, usually more at low tech levels. One invasion fleet can handle a world at a time, then they move on. Now imagine to have ability to recolonize the world back to 100% op state as soon as the fleet leaves, using supplies from your superstealthy evac fleet, that cannot be engaged by the enemy for the simple reason that they cannot see it.

A wide hab -f can probably do it, but it needs to build some mines. Lethality of a conventional -f race can be greatly enchanced if they set fac to 10/25/10-16 for a very modest price in rc pts. That way they are given the ability to gain strength from conquest so that war becomes a net profit instead of low loss. I my later -fm designs I tied to get mines to 10/15/5 to gain a simular bonus in mining department from conquered planets.
Ideally you would want to have complitely mobile mines so that you don't have to rebuild them, and that they are not destroyed with the planet. This way you get a race that can perform better in real game rather than in a test.

(mod edit: fixed quote section)

[Updated on: Thu, 28 August 2003 22:22] by Moderator

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alexdstewart wrote on Thu, 07 August 2003 17:54

-m races and -f? Why you are not playing AR then? Its perfect -m and -f. It even mines enough on its own to upgrade to dock and to build a pair of miners. Downside is that you cannot pop-drop. MM is certainly lot less than that of "conventional" -m and -f design.

Aha...Sure,
I'd rather play -fm with 1/2500 pop eff rather than AR (well, OK maybe I won't...) You get heaps of pts from lowering your fac and mine settings. U don't get that from AR...

(mod edit: fixed quote section)

[Updated on: Thu, 28 August 2003 22:30] by Moderator

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freakyboy wrote on Wed, 27 August 2003 15:12

I once toyed with the idea of a 15/25/5 f 10/15/5 m WM that right from 2401 was geared into pop dropping and using what it could conquer and build only the smallest number of mines required.... it didn't work in the slightest after 2435 or so.

I toyed with a SIMULA idea but with an SD. In fact it was one of my earlier design attempts... (Oh those naive days...)
I am surprised it worked for you at all, it didn't work for me...
As I said -fm is THE most unforgiving economic model. The efficiency costs you too much, too few fac to utilize, and I am not sure if you took ARM or not. A modifier of that race narrowly missed 25k by 2450 mark. I abandoned the pursuit as futile afterwards...

One of advantages of remote mining that is often overlooked is the unlimited sucking power of RM. The key is to build a solid mineral extraction base, so that you stockpile the minerals. Once you have that, build freighters for you pop, while rest of res goes to tech. One you have enough pop to fill you world completely, start building the best warships you can muster in greatest quantity until you nearly run out of minerals. Once you do that you are ready for a big invasion, reduce your pop to 25% on all of your worlds by taking all on freighters and send then away with the warships as one single awesome wave. U will likely overflow their less protected targets, but you should leave the well defended areas alone, only attack where it is profitable to do so. You goal is to send this wave through the rest of the universe, won't destroy anyone but it will cripple their econ building for long long time, throughout the universe.

Answering an earlier query- WM armed probe has speed of 1.5, cargo carriers when full are at 0.5, armed op destroyers 1.
Well? Who's gonna catch whom? A WM probe is indestructible early in the game if given correct orders. In this situation difference between AI and Humans becomes thin indeed...

[Updated on: Fri, 29 August 2003 00:36]

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freakyboy wrote on Wed, 27 August 2003 15:12

Just an idea but have you thought about using CA for your -fm model? the reason for this suggestion is the free terraforming and the total reversion when you get taken over... Your planets are either building a starbase, ships or defenses... bar the odd planetary scanner you'll other wise be contributing 100% to tech while stille having all your worlds terraformed - you also start with level 6 in bio which means you only have to pump resources into energy then you can start with some simple minefields for defenses. Also since your hab will most likely be always centered then your enemy will have a tough time living on your planet once they take it (thus reducing the effectiveness of defenses they build) which makes it easier to reconquer and use what they have made for you. .

The whole idea of -fm was to have an economic model that could take on CA monsters and have a good chance to win. I ain't using CA to kill CA if only for aestetic reasons.
But seriously CA's are the brute force approach, and they do have their disadvantages:
*Need to reseach Bio,- it will cost you whopping 140 pts to get bio normal from 3.5 tech cheap.
*Lack special abilities
*Many people are simply paranoid about them
It is true that a well designed -f can compete with HG's but that's it, I need guile combined with strength, not just brute force. Also -fm CA gets less of the benifit from wide hab, and you can't really improve the other stats, you can inc benifit from conquest, but that's a minimal improovement, cause brute force won't give you planets easily.
IT can distribute its pop and attack fleets effectively, making attacks practicly irresistable.
IS can defend better and overflow planets, making them econ stronger than even CA, +toys
WM can produce warfleets that kill many more than their mineral cost.
SS utilize most from elec cheap and become very nasty very quickly.

To put it simply, CA lacks the skills req to survive as as -fm race. It's success depends on tech level, having minig AND pop res depend on tech is to put too many eggs in one basket. In my opinion to have a forkable -f or -fm race is to be able to restrict each race to about 10k res and therefore low tech levels, terraforming and low tech don't go togethers very well.

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Sotek wrote on Thu, 28 August 2003 16:01

Did you misunderstand me? I'm well aware it can do both in separate battles. Not contesting that. But in a single battle, where I have both a destroyer seeking to catch your armed probe, and a freighter seeking to avoid your probe, you'll have to get into range of the DD to reach the freighter.

Did some simulations with a WM probe. Set the following orders:
Prime: Unarmed
Sec: None
Tactic: Disengage

With this tactic you have a fair chance of bypassing 0.5-1.25 speed destroyers and hitting the freighters . It depends on chance really, cause the probe sometimes flies stright into the destroyer.

Basookas can help. If your probe is destroyed, their chance to gain tech is 50% thus many battels are needed to boost their weap significantly. If you build destoyers to escort your freighters, it means that you divert your resources from econ building in a bad way if you build fac. This way armed scouts are useful even if they don't manage to kill anything, they force you to build expensive escort vessels.

I rest my case...

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Race:

IT
IFE, ARM, RS
0.53g to 1.96g
-92c to 92c
Rad immune
(1/4 hab)
20% gr

-FM econ settings
weap, cons cheap
prop, energy, elec normal
bio expensive.


Plan: research to tech 8 in construction first. Find a suitable planet for remote mining (local and with high I and G).

Tactics:
Keep on building remote miners once tech 8 has been researched.
Send out crash and burn LF's with 50kt of G, 20kt of B and 40kt of I - then fill with pop.
Use fuel mizer large freighters to shuttle minerals around using stargate network.
Upon colonising a planet build an orbital fort + stargate. Await mineral injection then build starbase.
Keep researching construction upto tech 10 (infinity mass stargate) - then dump into anything you want (i did elec in this test bed to i could get better mining robots).
Keep building RM's and send them all to the single mining world and bleed that planet to fairly low levels - then move onto best planet you can find for mining that is red and repeat process.


Basically you need to keep the I and G flowing enough to build those freighters/crash and burn colonisers/miners.
I guess the weakness of this race is not finding a decent supply planet for mining.


Reasons for choices....
IT: less MM, better protected, easier to get the most out of those mining hulls. Plus freighters/crash and burn colonisers can be of 1 design that is never changed throughout the entire game ever.
ARM: duh.
IFE: FM is fairly essential to start with because of the weight of those mining hulls.
Rad immune: even distribution, grav + temp are bell curves.
1/4 hab: if you wanna RM you gotta have some red planets
20% gr: since pop is your sole resource provider you need the race to grow fast, hence 1 immune 20% gr.

This is the best performing effort I have made thus far. Only a PP (of all races) came close to out performing it (no ships needed to shuttle minerals around - but slightly higher crash and burn cost - slower mineral distribution too).



Now for my comments on a -FM now i've played one a fair bit...

Advantages:
You don't have to build anything on a planet bar the SB - same as an AR but without the disadvantages of living on a SB
All planets are useful. Mine the reds... then when they're all dry you can shift your pop into freighters while you strip the planet and re-colonise. Thus end game you're in a good situation.
Harder for enemies to hold your worlds they conquer.
All the ramp up of a -F and better researching ability.
Once you have an Uber Mining fleet then you never have to build any more mines no matter how many planets you lose.
Mass packets become true gifts and have zero effect on your race (unless launched and impacted on same turn).
Disadvantages:
Dependancy on finding a good local mineral whore.
Dependancy upon your mining fleet.
MM nightmare.
MM nightmare.
MM nightmare involving ship designs.
MM nightmare.

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Hmm...

Interesting... Let's face it- I am a lousy player and I don't manage pop properly. Tis why I usually go for 18% growth- the lowest compettitive. In my testplay I was never able to get to con 7 and elec6 in time. So I often setteled on 12mine remote miner to build my industrial base

Can you share with me your secret of how to get to con8+elect early? (Please..?)

As for dependency on nearby mineral rich world- surprisingly these are far more common than good mineral conditions on a WH.
I did mine 8/6/5 in one of my race designs- a Big Mistake, my HW started out at low low min con. It was more profitable to RM a nearby planet with 12mine RM! Setting mines to 8/3/5 will ensure that U have alternative mineral sources.

In my experience you should build a 1000-1600mine strong RM fleet. That way you can suck a planet dry in about 10-16 turns and move on to a next one in 1-2 turns. I'll do the mathematical analysis later, but it should be obvious that this strategy makes even expensive RM more worthwhile than 3res/mine stationary.

One of those days I am going to post a mathematical analysis of just how bell curved the temp and grav are....

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Yep,

The "BELL" curve doesn't look much like a bell...
I played around with the race wizard and came up with the same conclusions. U shouldn't place you hab any nearer than 10 clicks from an edge. This also means that you'll get essentially free rc pts if you shift your hab, not too far- at least 25 clicks from an edge to central hab point.

I take back what I said about the WM probe, better off using a destroyer: FM, 2*phasers, 1 elec1+ scanner, fuel tank(or jet or cargo pod) on following orders:
Prime: Unarmed
Sec: disengage
Tactic: disengage if challenged.

Med Freighter with an escort still gets hammered by this destroyer. 0.5-1.25 speed DD's usually get either no or only one shot at WM DD as it closes in on the freighter. The base armor of 200 is more than enough to absorb the damage.

If the WM is RS and cheap energy, they could slap 2*shields, 3*phasers, and a scanner on a frigate. This design can survive many scirmishes in a team of two...

You gotta love WM

Note: if anyone uses this trick against me they will pay DEARLY!!!

Unfortunately HG, HP tend to use Privateer hulls as their primary transport,- those can be outfitted with weapons and are much tougher to take down than MF or even LF.

[Updated on: Fri, 29 August 2003 10:13]

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alexdstewart wrote on Fri, 29 August 2003 06:29

Can you share with me your secret of how to get to con8+elect early? (Please..?)

You need construction 8 early and you need to do decent mineral lifting so IT is kinda obvious.
20% IT with above 60% second world you can get it ... 2414 normal start game and 2407 acc bbs.
With worse second world it takes turn or two more. Similar results with 1/900 18% race. So its doable by the time you need to expand.

Now you build every second year large freighter + mayflover to spread so its half your resources once in two years... no problemo to get elect 4 soon ... then go and build your miners like mad. But ahem you need to spread from other breeders too and difficulties start. our -FM has to bring minerals to have minerals for build Stations with gates then jump there minerals to build remote miners, jump the remote miners move to reds take the minerals and then has to spread and colonize and carry pop... starting with what? stuff built where? HW industry of 300 resources? It is poor in testbed sole game. It is terrible in real game. What happens in real game if theres true -f nearby with ISB and normal 3 resource mines dropping your mineral poor orbitals or going after your miner fleets? Lets now see these early construction 8 miners are 5.5 resource mine equivalents... just good enough for AR who can afford them with its solid resource base.

But the early construction jump is exactly the same as i do with AR. AR just needs to invest into energy 6 or so first so it gets LF bit later... but its ok to build few medium freighters for early spreading and then LF for later rounding up. AR has some mining and minerals everwhere, dock up, new pinta there medium freighter and so it goes. Soon AR gets its Ultras and is able to let its better planets to grow to 100000 pop. AR can make 25K by 2450 in tiny dense with Acc bbs or by 2455 without acc bbs. This weenie -FM never does it, even in prescanned huge packed. AR is playable PRT, if no pack of true AR haters nearby... but that FM any PRT can beat.

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True... i do not buy the construction 8 as -f or AR because of miners early. I take it because of large freighter. Better miners and cheaper docks are just handy bonus but large freighter is a must to have when you need cheap travel measures. Privateer costs too lot of resources and iron, the medium freighter is a bit low with fuel. AR of course cannot stop there... needs Ultras as soon as possible.

I must admit i did not think of using potato bugs as miners... they seem to give more minerals when scrapped. To not waste the ship slots I usually limit the options of miners to...
ARM: maxi miner and ultra miner (yea i have always scrapped the bugs).
Without ARM: only super miner is enough can switch to alien miner.
With OBRM... only alien miner there.

Why i say this race isnt as capable as simple -f...?
First: The idea behind -f is to be the victor by 2450. Remote miners just arent comparable with ordiary mines in that time frame. So it cannot be as capable.

Second: it has 10% less econ per planet. -f in general suffers from low planetary econ. -10% there starts to feel already. Usually when 2 early beamer fleets with 10% difference in numbers meet, then the smaller leaves salvo and larger one leaves battle with minor losses.

Third: You need to invest so heavily into logistics that only IT or maybe CA is able to meet the requirements. No way you are going to be living nuisance like usual -f?

Deadlier than AR in endgame??? Hmm... nothing there deadlier in endgame.

First: Mineral fountain. AR has limitless 30% mining from any HW it possesses. IF you lose your own there may still be someone who gives you his. That -FM race cannot mine much better than ordinary OBRM race that got alien miner or race that just did not take no OBRM nor ARM in endgame.

Second: Resource density. AR has above 2K (almost 3K at 100% planet) of resources per planet. -FM race has 1K at 100% planet.

Third: Packet-proof. AR is packet-proof from the moment of colonizing. -FM pay 1.5k minerals and resources for defenses and the defenses disappear on the moment he leave it. -FM needs 2 large freighters of pop to operate the defenses AR needs 1 brave represental of his nation to operate its full Deathstar.

Fourth: Easiness to retake and overtake. AR can get Deathstar up in 3 years on freshly colonized red planet. After that it can just pick up most of the pop and slowly improve the base into full deathstar. Full deathstar is not a weenie... 5 arm dreads will not drop it so better forget the kamikadze attacks against AR. AR has about 150 resources at any red planet where he dropped large freighter of pop to (and who say he may not drop 5 or 10 large freighters there)? -FM got his 75 resources max there.

Fifth: Better defenses. The AR lives in orbital so all you need is to kill it. -FM builds defenses, all one need are 20 cherries (120 resources) or 5 LBU-74 (40 resources) to destroy these 100 defenses. 100 defenses that cost 1.5K minerals and resources. What a fine starbase can be built from 1.5K, and what it costs to drop it?

Sixt: To remote mine AR need to just gate his miners without losing a year or mining. Its AR special ability to mine with gating. -FM has to move to starbase (1 no mining), Gate (2 no mining), move to new mining place... 3 years of empty run.

Okay, Living on a starbase is a weakness of AR ... so are dying on road and no way to pop-bomb. Somehow it feels that living on the bare rock where the only thing you can build are defenses and you even have to leave when you want to remote mine it ...is no much better option.

When it comes to cruisers versus -f frigates then i have noticed that Bazooka frigates are superior to Colloidal cruisers... for same resources. And they have cheaper tech requirements too. Yes, Colloidal frigates are good against the bazooka frigates but by the time of colloidal frigates i have some Jihad cruisers in the pack. This all is of course dependant of situation but usually if i got -f i start to trying control things from

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I'm not going to argue with the LF arguement you start with in the slightest since that is exactly as I view it

1. True -F wants victory ASAP. But this race is far more capable end game than a -F. I suppose it's a balancing act between a -F start and an AR mineral situation end game.

2. 10% less economy is bad, this is true. But with the point gained from taking -m settings you can buy a wider hab range and/or faster growth. So i don't think that the -10% is strictly true depending on how you play it.

3. I agree this is a logistical nightmare. CA isn't much help - CA just gets better tech since they don't invest in terraforming. Only IT and PP IMHO are capable of distributing the minerals in an effecient manner.

4. This IS deadlier than AR in the end game - This race should hold more planets than your average AR race capable of 3000 resources per planet due to hab ranges. But as mentioned "kill starbase" is a setting that wont hurt a -fm anywhere near as much as an AR.

5. AR has 30% minimum on HIS HOMEWORLD. The 30% minimum is lost if the world is conquered or bombed free of population. It only applies to the original holder and as long as he's always had control. AR is king of mining, but bar maybe WM it is also the weakest defensive race in the game.

6. resource density should always be taken in comparison to planet density. If a -fm can colonise 2x the planets an AR can then that density of resources is mitigated by sheer planetary numbers - and an IT -fm can move it's ships into one fleet much better than an AR so again that advantage is lost.

7. a -fm shouldn't be building anything on it's planets. that's the point as far as I see it. It's a mobile race, if someone is going to packet you then upload and recolonise. Free mineral injection and you only lose the SB (which should be empty bar a stargate) and maybe a planetary scanner.

8. Full Deathstar is a weenie. All starbases are weenies. Anyone who's played an AR in the BB era or beyond will see how easily his SB drops to enemy fleets - fact of life, starbases are weak. Your average deathstar in end game situation would fire a single volley at a bunch of chaff and then get nailed by the enemy missile ships set to "kill starbase". Chaff is the end of all starbases it sucks, but it's true.

9. Yes AR has better defenses... but then as stated in point number 7... I'm not building any. Minefields and my own warships are my defenses, I need nothing else.

10. Indeed -fm does waste time moving miners.


Frigates vs cruisers....

1 jihad will do about 42dp of damage to a Frigate if it scores a direct hit (frigates have 45dp of armour if sheilded). So it takes 2 jihads per frigate. So if you have a cruiser with 6 jihads and 2 computers then you'll hit only 50% of the time. So that's 3 frigates destroyed in 2 volleys per cruiser.

Resource to resource jihad cruisers win (I used battlesim so the figures may be distorted slightly) but frigates vs beamer cruisers the frigates win.

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freakyboy wrote on Sun, 31 August 2003 09:23

I'm not going to argue with the LF arguement you start with in the slightest since that is exactly as I view it

Very true, and any -f IT should go for the LF ASAP.
Others might wait on const 3 or 4 because the LF's a bit of a ways for them.

Quote:

1. True -F wants victory ASAP. But this race is far more capable end game than a -F. I suppose it's a balancing act between a -F start and an AR mineral situation end game.

This doesn't have an AR mineral situation endgame. Not quite: More on that later.
The problem is, even your normal fast -f can be meat against a QS race, so slowing it really really doesn't help.

Quote:

2. 10% less economy is bad, this is true. But with the point gained from taking -m settings you can buy a wider hab range and/or faster growth. So i don't think that the -10% is strictly true depending on how you play it.

True. OBRM is better per-world, not as good overall.
This race *won't* intersettle well with others, however.
OBRM does. Another aspect of tradeoff there.

Quote:

3. I agree this is a logistical nightmare. CA isn't much help - CA just gets better tech since they don't invest in terraforming. Only IT and PP IMHO are capable of distributing the minerals in an effecient manner.

CA also gets faster growth and more people and so on and so on in a gigantic snowball effect... although yes, it doesn't help the logistics one bit.

Quote:

4. This IS deadlier than AR in the end game - This race should hold more planets than your average AR race capable of 3000 resources per planet due to hab ranges. But as mentioned "kill starbase" is a setting that wont hurt a -fm anywhere near as much as an AR.

1) Resources in a given volume of space will, IMO, be about the same, yes.
2) Agreed, kill SB is far less effective.
3) The effect this has when on the defensive will be adressed later. However, for now, I note that that alone doesn't make it deadlier, especially with a further note.

Quote:

5. AR has 30% minimum on HIS HOMEWORLD. The 30% minimum is lost if the world is conquered or bombed free of population. It only applies to the original holder and as long as he's always had control. AR is king of mining, but bar maybe WM it is also the weakest defensive race in the game.

1) Yes, AR has 30% minimum on his homeworld.
2) No, it is not lost. That minimum applies to any homeworld that is inhabited, AR or non-AR, no matter who is there, no matter if it's been permanently inhabited or not.
3a)However, for non-AR, it only applies to their on-planet mines, which provides a cap.
3b)For AR, his mining fleets can be used on his homeworld, since he can remote-mine the worlds he lives on.

Quote:

6. resource density should always be taken in comparison to planet density. If a -fm can colonise 2x the planets an AR can then that density of resources is mitigated by sheer planetary numbers - and an IT -fm can move it's ships into one fleet much better than an AR so again that advantage is lost.

Agreed. Although in the nub era, that IT advantage is effectively gone.
However the point of res density being what matters is a very valid one.

Quote:

7. a -fm shouldn't be building anything on it's planets. that's the point as far as I see it. It's a mobile race, if someone is going to packet you then upload and recolonise. Free mineral injection and you only lose the SB (which should be empty bar a stargate) and maybe a planetary scanner.

Agree and disagree.
You certainly shouldn't be building factories or mines, and probably not defenses much.
You build, yes, an empty SB. (Likely space dock for a lot of your worlds. Especially lower-valued ones. But that's just my PoV.)
And yes, probably some planetary scanners, ideally well-placed to see what's up.
But defenses *do* have uses.
Not against packets, certainly, but against invaders, possibly.

Quote:

8. Full Deathstar is a weenie. All starbases are weenies. Anyone who's played an AR in the BB era or beyond will see how easily his SB drops to

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Quote:

-fm is about as close to AR minerals as you can get... if you exclude the 25/3/25 HE race... but HE is so hard to get to the end game.

There are lot of good ordinary mining races.. most powerful designed around OBRM JOAT... mines like 15/3/17 on JOAT makes absurd piles of minerals. I am not sure that this -FM is even comparable to most of them in the time frame of first 150 years. But... sorry i am too lazy to testbed it. Its 100% sure that the JOAT wins with resources and tech. Also who goes to run 100 testbeds to find out the probability of alien miner in first 150 years?

Quote:

AR has advantage with HW minerals - but on conquered HW's then it makes no difference, if AR can mine them then so can anyone with orbital miners that chooses not to colonise the world.

I do not exactly get what is here to argue. I have had 3 homeworlds in posession of AR when game ended... every one of them mines at 30% conc. If you pick up pop they are 1% worlds for remote miners. When you have pop there with other PRT you cannot remote mine. So thats AR-s strength and no other PRT can do something similar to the trick.

Quote:

Defenses would be nice... but not needed. This race is totaly able to move around and isn't tied down to a planet, why invest in the planet when you don't have to? A HP HAS to build defenses, for HG its optional. For -fm i certainly wouldn't build them. Don't get me wrong i love AR... but that damned "kill starbase" is very harsh.

Okay... so you love it why not give our AR another run of thought? -FM wont build defenses but it has 10 large freighters at each orbit, so to dodge the packets? So what forbid AR to dodge the "kill starbase" fleets?

First, are they harder to see? Tossed packet goes clean trough minefields, and moves 253 ly with two years. Going to kill starbase takes to pass the minefields, and takes a fleet that moves 200 ly with two years max. So fleets must be easier to expect

Second, are they too numerous? Packet costs 100-200 res and 1000-2000 bora. "Kill starbase" fleet is expensive fleet if we talk about fleets that fire first and so well that against them a full deathstar is a weenie. Have you ever checked what fortune cost 5 Arma dreads? These are fluff against full deathstar... so send something serious. So... they cannot be too numerous

Third, is it not worth the effort? Our AR see a "kill starbase" fleet coming... AR leave 2 people in its deathstar, evacuate the rest and gate in "kill fleet" fleet. Next turn AR colonize back like -FM but the salvo from the "kill starbase" fleet is lot better than the 500k bora that -FM gains from packet. So it must be is paying well the effort

Fourth, are the ISB starbases so hard to build? Deathstar hull costs 384 resources endgame. Any gadgets you mount on it cost only 39% of its listed value. Its 2.5 times cheaper to build orbitals than build ships to kill the orbitals

It seems... that strategy works. If -FM has to control the orbit, not just kill starbase, because otherwise it gain nothing and the deathstar is back too soon, -FM cannot control all orbits with huge fleets so the deathstar is always back somewhere and -FM pop does not block the deathstar coming back there because it cant live the packets. After deathstar coming back -FM has again to kill the orbital, but there are minefields and stuff blocking it one year and next year there is already a gate that makes sure the "kill starbase" fleet will die after the battle leaving opportunity for third try. Seems that AR is lot better with that "my people are good everywhere i put them, and nothing to lose if i pick them up" strategy than -FM? Just dodge the "kill starbase" fleets like -FM dodges packets.

One thing that makes me wonder... Why you assume that -FM colonize lot more planets than AR? -FM got 1 in 4 hab, quite OK AR can be designed with 1 in 5 hab. AR can terra yellows 2 clicks per turn, -FM can do it 0.5 clicks per turn. So when they concentrate only

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I think you've all got me wrong.

I love AR. I'd love to play it more.

I'm mearly trying this -fm idea which is alot less than most of you. Play it, try it, THEN slate it if you have to.

Stars! could do with a few new ideas and this is one. Don't be so quick to throw it to one side.

You're all comparing this to an AR race, I believe -FM was originally going to be a race that could compete with -F CA's. Ok so it's not... not even close, but it has some valid design points that are worth looking into a little more than most of you will.

Sure it's not as good at mining as JOAT or AR, but it's still better than most races. The weakest point of this race is resources... I'm shocked that you're not picking that apart left right and centre - instead your concentrating on minerals!!!

-f works for most PRT's
HP works for all prt's bar maybe AR and HE
HG works for ALL prt's
Hybrids work for all prt's.
-fm works for IT and thats about it really.

It's not my preffered race design, it still wouldn't play it in a real game just for the MM nightmare. But it's worth looking at, maybe someone with more skill/time than me can truely get the best out of it.

And all starbases are weak - regardless of everything. Yeah armageddon BB's are expensive... but chaff isn't.

4x32 armaggedon missiles from a DS. Thats 128 chaff per volley from the DS... thats 512 resources of chaff per volley... a DS should drop after 1 maybe 2 volleys. It's a huge problem with stars... maybe starbase chaff might be a good idea? lots of little orbital forts or something

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