Matrix Games Forums

I'm wondering what things people do that don't come down to play style or preferences, but are done every single game because it's stupid not to. No brainers!

Here's the things I do:

Always put Recreation Centers and Medical Facilities on Space Ports
These let you squeeze about %7 more taxes out of colonies for only a tiny maintenance cost. Right now the AI adds these to LSPs, but they should at least be added to MSPs since your homeworld starts with one.

Prioritize construction techs
These seem to get the most bang for your buck in battle, as you get more effective ships without the jump in maintenance costs that higher tech components require.

Solar Panels on fleets ships

Add enough reactors to power hyperdrives all the way
Little bit of maintenance for reactors for a whole lot of speed. The AI only seems to do this for freighters though, so maybe it's intentional?

Minimize armor on designs, shields are king
Armor block a little more damage, and even absorbs some, but they cost ten times as much as shields. I don't see a reason to use these except against space monsters, who are the only things in game that can ignore shields.

Build lots of Explorers if you're going for an economic start
The AI seems to build way too few in general, which makes them really easy to outboom.

Research stations on your homeworld
Gives you a healthy tech advantage early on without tying up your constructors.

I'm curious to see the things other people do, since I haven't been playing for all that long.

Hopefully this will give the devs feedback on ways to make the AI more competitive, or on game mechanics that could use a little tweaking.

Destroy all pirate bases as soon as practical

For two reasons:

1. No base means no fuel for their ships so they can't attack you
2. You will want the gain in reputation you get to help keep you from being at war with half the galaxy at the same time.

PS, you also get some nice goodies from some of the bases.

PS2, You might want to buy independent colony information from them before lowering the hammer on them. [;)]

ORIGINAL: unclean

Always put Recreation Centers and Medical Facilities on Space Ports
These let you squeeze about %7 more taxes out of colonies for only a tiny maintenance cost. Right now the AI adds these to LSPs, but they should at least be added to MSPs since your homeworld starts with one.

Actually, it seems to depend on race. Securans, for example, don't include Rec and Med facilities in their default designs, whereas Humans do. Why? You'll have to ask Erik about that one. [&:]

ORIGINAL: unclean

Prioritize construction techs
These seem to get the most bang for your buck in battle, as you get more effective ships without the jump in maintenance costs that higher tech components require.

I agree but for this one. I invariably start games with low tech and a beginning empire so for me the colonisation techs are very important. I'm happy to trade less efficient ships for a larger economic base which will allow me to build more of them. As often with this game it comes down to which combination of options you prefer.

Put more fuel tanks on important (or all) designs.
Lack of fuel seems to be a huge grief for many players. Fix this by simply adding couple or more extra fuel tanks on the designs. They aren't that heavy and your ships can travel further, work and fight longer.

BTW. Armor tech gets more important if you spend some time researching the higher tier armors. This's still a personal preference, and I too go for shields most of the time. (40% ECM and high-shield combo can do miracles)

ORIGINAL: J HG T

BTW. Armor tech gets more important if you spend some time researching the higher tier armors. This still personal preference, and I too go for shields most of the time. (40% ECM and high-shield combo can do miracles)

Are you sure about this? The best I can say is that armour "sucks less" as you research it. Compared to shields, armour offers very little bang-for-the-buck compared to shields. Or am I missing something?

I've heard from many players that lots of high tech armor combined with couple of repair-bots can be surprisingly effective, can't say for sure. As I said I'm shield heavy person too. I might test this out with the Ikkuro (unique repair-bots) on some of my next games.

I do all of them except the last one

Research stations on your homeworld

I'm in no hurry to build the actual research...I wait until I find a black hole for example

ORIGINAL: Data

I'm in no hurry to build the actual research...I wait until I find a black hole for example

Why wait till a black hole is convenient? Any particular reason?

Just the way I like to play and take advantage of the research bonus a black hole offers

ORIGINAL: Data

Just the way I like to play and take advantage of the research bonus a black hole offers

You're playing 1.06? There's no research bonus for the location in 1.5+ - any bonus is empire-wide and applied to one specific branch of technology. I'm not certain I understand this "bonus" you refer to.

from the pedia

"Specialized research stations should be built near galactic anomalies that provide research bonuses. These special bonus locations include:
· parked in orbit around Neutron stars
· inside the pulsing radiation zones of Supernovae
· on the edge of deadly Black Holes"

I'm on the latest ROTS version but afaik this was in every DW version since the very begining
when you click on one of the objects above you can see a scenic and a research bonus, black holes have the bigest research one....+500% I think

Data -

I believe the research bonus from anomalies was changed with RotS - I played around with it, and didn't find research stations built at anomalies to give any more points than those built anywhere else, with RotS. If there's a bonus gained from a location, then it applies to the total empire-wide research for the affected technology tree, but the points generated by any research taking place at the site is unchanged otherwise.

Or did I miss something?

No, you got it right

Maybe I'm dense this morning, but can someone clarify this?

So I should build a research station at a black hole (or other research bonus location) so that my empire-wide research gets the bonus.

But the research station itself at the black hole will produce the same amount as any other station (all else being equal).

Is that correct?

ORIGINAL: gmot

Maybe I'm dense this morning, but can someone clarify this?

So I should build a research station at a black hole (or other research bonus location) so that my empire-wide research gets the bonus.

But the research station itself at the black hole will produce the same amount as any other station (all else being equal).

Is that correct?

First, I don't think I've seen any Bonuses >100% for quite some time - probably 1.0.6 or earlier.

Not all anomalies give a bonus.
Check your Galaxy planner and select "Research Locations", you can click on the highlighted items and it will tell you how much and what type of bonus the location give.

You can also click on the item and it will display the bonus info in the info box.


You can go to your Research Stations screen and see a listing of bonuses from Research locations.
I don't think the Station itself does more research, but it gives an Empire wide bonus - you could look at the Station in the list on this screen to see if it does.

ORIGINAL: gmot

Maybe I'm dense this morning, but can someone clarify this?

So I should build a research station at a black hole (or other research bonus location) so that my empire-wide research gets the bonus.

But the research station itself at the black hole will produce the same amount as any other station (all else being equal).

Is that correct?

If you are playing ROTS, then click the little lightbulb on the left hand UI menu, that will show you all you research bonus locations. Then queue up a ship to build it there. Only that research station receives the bonus, but it adds up.

Example: Black Hole Insatiable has a +37% high tech research bonus. When you build a high tech research station near the black hole (let the AI handle it by using the queue or leave on automatic building), that research station receives a 37% bonus to the number of high tech research points it produces.

So taking the base high tech research station which is 80,000 high tech research (80k), you get 80,000 + (80,000 * .37) = 109600 High Tech Research Points (a bonus of 29600 RP in High Tech)...which is added to your empire total for High Tech Research.

Yes, Shark has the most clear explanation of this....what a surprise [:)]

Thanks - yes, I know how to find the research bonus locations and build bases there.

My confusion is whether the bonus only applies to the research station at the bonus location, or as a bonus factor to all research stations across my empire. I thought that what Kayoz was saying is that it applies to empire-wide research. Maybe I read it wrong.

So using Shark7's example, if I have 2 high-tech research stations in my empire, one at a black hole with 37% bonus and one somewhere "normal", then I would get -

(80,000 + (80,000 * .37)) + 80,000 = 189600 High Tech Research Points for my empire. Correct?

Correct