Desolation Moon Project

[stormbringer3]

I've found this more than once but when I send a Construction Ship to repair the World Destroyer, I find that I'll never repair it in this lifetime. Is there some tech to speed the repair along or is repairing that ship a fool's errand?
I'm playing in the Pre-Warp game.
Thanks for any opinions.

[Nanaki]

Researching the ship size techs unlocks improved construction yards, which in theory should allow your constructors to build faster.

Also, yes, they take forever to build, but the effort is extremely worth it. The main gun puts even the deathray superweapon to shame, and it will oneshot any ship, station, or planet in the game. Only downside is that the design is not very well optimized, its got 480 tons of cargo bays and 4 docking bays for whatever reason, and a medical/recreational center which, for that class of ship, are utterly useless. It is also VERY fragile, 18 shield gens/30 armor plates is far too little for a ship of that size. Its secondary armaments are slightly superior to a derelict capital ship, which, IMHO, are pretty crappy.

Still, you cannot build the ship legitly and being able to oneshot everything does paper over a lot of the weaknesses, just avoid putting it on the front lines. Its thinnish armor and shields and absolutly abysmal speed makes it a bit too vulnerable, although if your mainly going up against low-tech bumpkins you have nothing to worry about.

Also, avoid blowing up planets with it. It tanks your reputation and, chances are, you probably want to use the planets yourself.

[Cauldyth]

Also, recent patches give you a diplomacy penalty with everyone if you have an operational World Destroyer.

[Nanaki]

Note that pirates do not get a diplomacy penalty with an operational world destroyer... but it hardly matters since everyone hates pirates anyway.

[Kilravock]

Yeah they just take a very long time to repair. It's not a fool's errand because of the research bonus you get while repairing it. I don't like using them and I will send a fleet to destroy any if an enemy is repairing one. Watch out if pirates repair them too. If you think an enemy empire running around with one is bad news, then you have not experienced a pirate faction with two.

[Mortimer14]

Can you put multiple construction yards on your constructor to speed things up?

[Nanaki]

No.

[scotten_usa]

ORIGINAL: Nanaki

Note that pirates do not get a diplomacy penalty with an operational world destroyer... but it hardly matters since everyone hates pirates anyway.

I often give repaired ships to my allies (ones at war)... any idea if giving away the World Destroyer will reduce the diplomacy hit to me and shift it to my ally??

[Nanaki]

Yes. Though giving it to the AI might not be a good idea, if you do not want your ally oblierating enemy planets.

[ParagonExile]

Destroying planets is my favorite thing to do in this game!

Shock and awe! Scorched Earth! Screw invasions!

[Nanaki]

Generally my preference is to use Shakturi-equipped warships to glass the planet, same overall effect and lets you keep the planet for your own colonization later.

[Kilravock]

Especially since a glassed planet can still be recolonized and the quality will slowly return. Blowing it up is wasteful, and angers everyone. They are good for role playing or if you are bored and want the galaxy to burn. The best use for them is to blow up the giz homeworld if they become a massive empire.

[Jeeves]

Just wait 10-15 years after you get automated manufacturing... I repair them for the ongoing tech bonus, then retire them at a spaceport when repaired, sometimes getting the advanced super weapons tech so I can build my own design.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[webgame0003]

I tried to S/L to retire World Destroyer many times, not able to get super laser.
But I remembered I wasn't the first to repair the ship.
And some AI had super laser tech in very early game, and I used agents to steal that tech, but when agents finished their missions, no super laser tech found, I've checked the obsoleted tech. This is very very strange.
I cannot update World Destroyer, either. I can update the design, but not build it.

[Aeson]

I cannot update World Destroyer, either. I can update the design, but not build it.

If you want to build or upgrade your own World Destroyers, you need to have the technology that grants the Super Laser component. I don't recall what it's called off the top of my head, and it's not something you can easily add using the editor, either; your best shot at acquiring it is to fully research the entire tech tree and then start decommissioning World Destroyers and Devastation Moons at your shipyards. If you're lucky, you'll pick up the tech.

Once you have the tech for it, you can add Super Lasers to any design you want. Super Lasers allow any ship so equipped to blow up a planet, and the tech providing them increases your ship size cap to 4500 or so, which is sufficient to build ships the size of the World Destroyer and Devastation Moon, both of which are around 3000 size (which, incidentally, is a large part of why you cannot really do anything to your current World Destroyers - they're roughly twice as large as the largest standard military ship you can build under normal circumstances; only resupply ships and construction ships can be designed on a similar scale with standard end-game technology).

I tried to S/L to retire World Destroyer many times, not able to get super laser.

When you retire a ship at a shipyard to try to extract technology from it, you have a shot at any technology which went into the ship's design and some which are at similar tech levels to the stuff that went into the design. This basically means that retiring a World Destroyer gives you a shot at getting a tech bonus to any tech in the game, because it's got a tech level 8+ weapon system - the Super Laser. If you want to have a decent shot at picking up the Super Laser technology, then you'll need to have researched most, or preferably all, the standard techs in the game, and you may need to have multiple World Destroyers or Devastation Moons to retire because you're not guaranteed to unlock the full technology with just one ship retired.

But I remembered I wasn't the first to repair the ship.

This does not matter, as long as you're the one that controls the ship.

And some AI had super laser tech in very early game, and I used agents to steal that tech, but when agents finished their missions, no super laser tech found, I've checked the obsoleted tech. This is very very strange.

Super Laser technology most likely requires you to send many agent missions in order to successfully steal it, if a computer player happens to have it. Even if you acquire it, you will not be able to see it (or Super Beam Weapons or Super Area Weapons, the other superweapon technologies) in the tech tree, and you'll need to search in the design screen for a component named 'Super Laser' (or Death Ray for Super Beam Weapons or something like Devastator Pulse for Super Area Weapons).

Sending just one or two agent missions to take any of the superweapon technologies will most likely not do anything more for you than advance you a few percent of the way through the tech's development, assuming that the agent missions are successful. If you have an absolutely spectacular early agent, then maybe you'll get ten or so percent of the way through the tech with a successful mission. It's only when a tech disappears from the list of technologies you can steal from a faction that you've stolen enough information on that technology to be able to reproduce it, and if the faction in question is the only one in the game to have that tech and the faction gets destroyed before you can manage this, well, there went your shot at getting that tech. If you have tech trading enabled, you may be able to buy the tech, but be advised that superweapon techs are even more horrendously expensive than standard techs are.

[Mortimer14]

As a side note, I found out the hard way that you do NOT want to go to war with the faction/race that is currently repairing the World Destroyer. What happens is that you will destroy the partially repaired ship and won't be able to find another one anywhere on the map. [&:]

Instead, just attack or capture the construction ship doing the repairs, and get your own in there before it comes back. You take a smaller hit to your reputation with that empire, and you get to finish the repairs. [:D]

[Aeson]

As a side note, I found out the hard way that you do NOT want to go to war with the faction/race that is currently repairing the World Destroyer. What happens is that you will destroy the partially repaired ship and won't be able to find another one anywhere on the map.

The number of World Destroyers and Devastation Moons present on the map is related to the map size and the storylines you've selected at game start. On a Large or Huge map with RotS and Original storylines enabled, you can expect to see about two World Destroyers and two Devastation Moons, typically in out-of-the-way parts of the map. On Tiny or Small maps, you generally have only one of just one of the two planet killer designs and the other simply does not exist. If neither RotS nor the Original storyline are enabled, you won't see any planet killers on any size map.

Whether or not you can find other incomplete planet killers after the project you know about is destroyed is another question, of course, even if there are multiple such sites. The next-closest site may quite literally be on the other side of the galaxy, after all, and there's no guarantee that someone else hasn't rebuilt it before you had a chance to discover it.

[Nanaki]

Sending just one or two agent missions to take any of the superweapon technologies will most likely not do anything more for you than advance you a few percent of the way through the tech's development, assuming that the agent missions are successful.

You will not advance at all. Due to the way the superweapon technologies are scripted, their tech costs are somewhere in the neighborhood of billions or trillions of RP... Simply put, it is impossible to steal unique techs. I assume that reverse engineering probably runs into the same issues although I have not tested it. Now, if you are using mods that place superweapons on the tech tree, their tech costs will likely be much lower.

The number of World Destroyers and Devastation Moons present on the map is related to the map size and the storylines you've selected at game start. On a Large or Huge map with RotS and Original storylines enabled, you can expect to see about two World Destroyers and two Devastation Moons, typically in out-of-the-way parts of the map. On Tiny or Small maps, you generally have only one of just one of the two planet killer designs and the other simply does not exist.

Theres only one World Destroyer design, but it comes in three names: Devistation Moon, World Destroyer, and Planet Annihilator, or something like that. All three are exactly the same, in terms of schematics.

[CaptainBipto1]

Heck I setup a colony if possible otherwise I build defense bases around it. Darn scavengers!