Are fleet/ship training facilities all that useful?

[Wardad]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Wait a second--mineral scanners and robotoid factories don't stack? If so, what's the point of researching the scanners since you can already get a 30 percent bonus with the robotoid factory III--and get to it much earlier than you can the scanner, IIRC.

That's the problem: there is no point to them. Esp. since the Robotoid Factories affect all 3 resources, unlike the Scanners, that only affect 1. If the Scanners add more than the Robotoid Factories, say, 5-10% more, then they could be useful.

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OOPS, aren't the scanners cheaper and quicker to build?, but require more research.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The value of the neural net is questionable, but training is definitely required.

Questionable? Damn, man. Build up some ships (with neural nets) to park and train, during peacetime. When war happens (as it inevitablywill), don't send them ALL off in a group to the front.

Build new ships. Assigne 2 or 3 of the hgihly-trained ships as "Task Force Command Ships" into the same fleet (ideally, you trained the peacetime fleet in Groups of 2 or three, each in their own fleet).

Now, while you might expand your fleet to five or ten times normal size, your ships ALL still benefit from being highly-trained (thanks to the "leader" ships), AND, you have a stable fo trained FLEETS to put them into.

Assuming you wanted to go order-of-magnitude higher in fleet strength ... and wanted, oh, 200 ships ... then for peacetime, train 20 ships, in ten fleets of 2 ships each. When you build / unmothball the other 180 ships, they ALL benefit as if they'd been sitting there trainign up to 20%.

Once one set of "leaders" is trained, ofc, if yo're still at peace ... mothball 'em and start a new set of trainees.

If you're ever fortunate enough to get to 40% ship with someone, and they have a neural net ... you get to 40% ship with EVERY ship in teh same fleet.

IMO the benefit of the neural net is GREAT, if you can only expect to train SOME of your ships.

If you can expect to fully train them ALL, of course (psychic race relyign SOLELY on their system-wide training facilities), then it's a waste of space, ofc.

By doing both ship and fleet training to the max, your ships get +40% to both attack and defense. That is equivalent to two extra tech levels in Sensors and ECM, and can easily make the difference between crushing blows and invulnerability.

If you normally get some ships with +50% legendary status, then the neural net may be worthwhile, especially on the dreadnoughts and baseships.
Place one of the legendaries in each fleet, and all the new recruits get +30% to attack and defense, beyond the training.

Or +50%, -without- training at all. If you go to a peacetime footing after a war, it might pay to break up those veteran fleets (w/o deletign the fleet ITSELF ofc) and spread them around as a core group of veterans LEADING NEW RECRUITS. 8)

Even in the midst of a war, if you have a ship hit 40% or 50% ship experience, consider pullign it BACK fromt eh fighting, to merge into a large fleet of raw recruits. If you can, then they can skip ALL their training, and (so long as the actual legendary ship survives) gain teh FULL benefit of that legendary ship's experience. 8)

With those kinds of stats, enemy fleets will be nothing more than trivial annoyances.

Re: computer tech.
Master computers are OK in most cases, but nearly required against psychic races. Against Allegiance subverters, the only things you can do are:
- use master computers and hope they miss with the computer virus weapons
- use swarms of small ships, so they can't capture them all at once.

- try and stay completely out of the range of their subverters in the first place.

Against other races, the MCs will save small amounts of space, freeing up room for an extra shield generator or small weapon.
You main benefit from the computer tech area will be in resource bonuses.

Or freeing up space for another PDC or two -- maybe three, on the REALLY big ships, and on full Starbases ofc.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Others have already pointed out that training is very useful.

I think the cleverest use for the Neural Combat Net would be to get a ship to 'Legendary' status and then convert it to some sort of support ship (Supply? Repair?) without weapons that does not actually fight.

snip further details

VERY creative. Especially if you make that single, +50% ship a SUPPLY boat (lots and lots of solar panels, or just the one quantum reactor), and if you have room add repair modules. 8) Makes it useful in and of itself for the design, AND, as a "C3I" command-center.

Hmm.

That puts me in mind of a component to add; is there a component ability that can add to the hit/miss chances of ALL ships in the same fleet, the way the Neural Net does ... but using a -specific- bonus%, rather than based on experience?

If so, a "Flag Bridge" or "War Room" or the like might be a nice idea ...

[Baron Munchausen]

I think that the 'Combat Modifier - System' ability works on a component. So you could have a single ship or base with both a 'Combat Intelligence Center' and the NCN act as a super-command center.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by Pax:
<snip>
If you're ever fortunate enough to get to 40% ship with someone, and they have a neural net ... you get to 40% ship with EVERY ship in teh same fleet.

You get the 40% experience bonus on every ship in the same fleet that has a neural net - an important point to remember. The neural net doesn't "push" experience to other ships, it "pulls" experience from other ships.

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:Against other races, the MCs will save small amounts of space, freeing up room for an extra shield generator or small weapon. You main benefit from the computer tech area will be in resource bonuses.

Originally posted by Pax:
Or freeing up space for another PDC or two -- maybe three, on the REALLY big ships, and on full Starbases ofc.

As I mentioned below, on the REALLY big ships (baseships, base stations, starbases) it's cheaper to use the MC than the Bridge/CQ/LS combo. For Dreadnoughts, Heavy Carriers and Large Transports, the MC adds a cost of 500 minerals (plus a few orgs and rads, but those are usually in a HUGE surplus for the standard game).

[tesco samoa]

Baron... For the value improvement. I always stacked them and built 5 per planet...( on large and huge planets )

Is your modification greater than 3% ???

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, it's always possible to stack them. It's good that they do stack, too. But I don't generally bother. If you need more resources that badly and don't have other options then you've probably already lost the game.

And no, I've not increased the enrichment rate. I think 3 percent annual is plenty.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Well, it's always possible to stack them. It's good that they do stack, too. But I don't generally bother. If you need more resources that badly and don't have other options then you've probably already lost the game.

And no, I've not increased the enrichment rate. I think 3 percent annual is plenty.

Actually, I tend to stack them up too -- in order to get to the higher resource%'s faster, then strip them out and replace with something else I might need. But I do tend to stick with stacking no more than ~3 of them (thus, not quite 1 full % per turn, with the level 3 facility, that way), and often less (say, if I've a climate enhancer built -- until the conditions hit optimal, that's one less "space" for a value booster ).

Ringworlds or the like, though ... those I might rack up -lots- of them, 5 or even 10. Why not, after all? 8) Not like I'd be hurting for ROOM to build other stuff on huge places like those ... !