Research stations pre warp?

[Tammeroth]

Greetings,

I'm a fairly new player, but I have been of the belief that the value in research stations lay not so much in the additional labs which they provide, but rather in the player's ability to place them in locations with a research bonus (e.g. black holes, etc).

So, in the classic age, I strip the labs out of my SSP and MSP designs, and build research bases in bonus locations.

Pre warp, however, I haven't encountered any bonus locations. So why, in the AARs and LPs that I've seen, are people building research stations on their home worlds? Wouldn't it be less costly and more secure to just add additional labs to one's home SP?

Bah, my head is gonna explode.

[Spacecadet]

I always have Labs on my Spaceports until maybe late game.

Early on, it's going to be hard to meet your research capacity with everything else going on.

[Resan]

Well I like to keep my SSP as small as possible to be able to get it out fast. So I only have 1 of each on that one, and use research stations as basically extra missile turrets until I get a proper MSP with shields and stuff. Figured any aggregation would be spread around a bit, so my SSP might survive. Haven't really tested that theory. Beside I can ramp up research in energy faster with energy bases and wait a bit on weapon research.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Spacecadet

I always have Labs on my Spaceports until maybe late game.

Early on, it's going to be hard to meet your research capacity with everything else going on.

I've been known to add labs to my explorers as well...once I get ship sizes large enough. Course that is a personal preference...to me an exploration ship should have some scientific capacity...sort of like Star Trek Federation ships.

[Bingeling]

The reason I buy stations early and don't adjust the spaceport, is that I find it better to play by AI rules. The AI builds research stations, and thus, so will I. It is "better" to retrofit the spaceport unless you are like me and find it "exploitish".

[Tammeroth]

Thank you for the replies.

I just wanted to make sure that research stations, simply by virtue of them BEING research stations, don't provide any innate research bonus. That is to say, a research station which is not in a bonus location, and has X number of a certain lab, won't crank out any more research than an SP with the same number of labs. Correct?

[Tree Dog]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

The reason I buy stations early and don't adjust the spaceport, is that I find it better to play by AI rules. The AI builds research stations, and thus, so will I. It is "better" to retrofit the spaceport unless you are like me and find it "exploitish".

There's nothing exploitish about putting labs in your spaceport, really. I just put mine on spaceports and I never bother building dedicated stations at all. Still have to pay for my research, and if the AI trashes one of my spaceport, on top of losing some research capacity, I also lose the means to produce more ships and a planet's defences. It's really not a good thing when it happens, compared to just losing some research capacity from the AI destroying a lone research station in a remote system.

[Erik Rutins]

That's correct. I've gone both routes in the past (build more into the spaceport and build more stations).

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Tree Dog

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

The reason I buy stations early and don't adjust the spaceport, is that I find it better to play by AI rules. The AI builds research stations, and thus, so will I. It is "better" to retrofit the spaceport unless you are like me and find it "exploitish".

There's nothing exploitish about putting labs in your spaceport, really. I just put mine on spaceports and I never bother building dedicated stations at all. Still have to pay for my research, and if the AI trashes one of my spaceport, on top of losing some research capacity, I also lose the means to produce more ships and a planet's defences. It's really not a good thing when it happens, compared to just losing some research capacity from the AI destroying a lone research station in a remote system.

It is of course not exploitish in your games. It would be in mine, however. We each have our own styles of play, and reasons for why it is that way.

If you choose to go without bonus sites, that is a nice balancing factor.

[Tree Dog]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

ORIGINAL: Tree Dog

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

The reason I buy stations early and don't adjust the spaceport, is that I find it better to play by AI rules. The AI builds research stations, and thus, so will I. It is "better" to retrofit the spaceport unless you are like me and find it "exploitish".

There's nothing exploitish about putting labs in your spaceport, really. I just put mine on spaceports and I never bother building dedicated stations at all. Still have to pay for my research, and if the AI trashes one of my spaceport, on top of losing some research capacity, I also lose the means to produce more ships and a planet's defences. It's really not a good thing when it happens, compared to just losing some research capacity from the AI destroying a lone research station in a remote system.

It is of course not exploitish in your games. It would be in mine, however. We each have our own styles of play, and reasons for why it is that way.

If you choose to go without bonus sites, that is a nice balancing factor.

No, no, no, there is nothing exploitish about it. You're not exploiting a bug or a glitch, neither am I.
And no, I largely let bonus sites go ignored, I really don't need them, spaceports and their labs are enough to reach my research caps.

[Bingeling]

The bonus sites extends your research beyond the research cap, that i what makes them powerful. A 12% site does not make the labs at the site 12% more efficient, it makes your total research in that area 12% higher.

I don't think they stack with every other bonus, though, at least not the special ruin bonuses.