Home Planet distance penalty

never noticed that, but I would agree, that is way too harsh, especially as you are forced to expend, I would reduce that to at least half, and only the most distant from the cap planet should have that penalty

its a penalty, but it forces you to locate your capitol better late-game.

and I dont think so (crystal thing) if you do the advanced logistics tutorial you'll see what I mean.

It affects fleet supply as well. Though I've only seen it get that harsh in a new system before establishing a capital there (you can have one in each system), YMMV if you're playing with a lot of planets in one system.

I think the distance penalty exists to prevent players from simply maxing out the population on every planet in their far-flung empire and depending on taxes for all their income. Instead, larger empires will need to use orbital trade depots to draw additional income from their more remote colonies.

I haven't played enough on larger galaxies to see how this balances out, but that's the concept.   

-Autistic Angel

I'm playing in a 3 system game with all AIs set to hard on FFA settings
(no marauders). I had 3 enemy AIs in my first system. With the new buffed up difficulty from pirate cruisers, the AI is a much softer target than the pirate defended planets. The new Terran ring system in use pretty much places each AI home world 1 jump away from another. I easily crush all 3 AI in no time flat with Kobalt LF and Krosuv SF while avoiding any Gauss Def Plats.

I would recommend retooling the AI's use of Gauss Def Plats or buff up the Gauss platform firing range (a lot, double it).

Next, full system colonization is pretty easy and I get -85% HPD penalty only if my Capitol is on the far side of the system. The other 2 solar systems are still being developed by the time my economy is smoking, fleets are running rampant and victory is only a stone-throw away.

I also noticed that Cap ships now level up MUCH slower than Beta 1 but still pack quite the punch once researched fully. Researching them fully is expensive but the Cap ship cost isn't. For now this favors the player over the AI since the player starts cranking them out (like in beta one) and can easily mow down any enemy opposition.

I want to stress that having 4-6 cap ships per fleet isn’t a bad thing IMHO (they are escorted by 36+ escort ships of all sizes). I love the feet combat much, much more than planet management (I preferred MOO1 over than MOO2 for the same reason).

Much discussion has also gone into the logistics micromanagement. I'm not sure I like it much. It draws focus away from the war and puts more focus on empire management. I like the tactical slots idea to prevent MEGA defense buildups but I think the logistical slot idea should be scraped (at least that's my opinion).

Eh ... that would really dampen the Frigate though, they don't last very long against the gauss platform, the platform packs a powerful punch and double their current range meaning there will be little to no room for the frigate not to get fragged. Maybe adding a new platform with longer but a weaker punch for these kind of things, but double the range of the guass platform is a no go IMO.





The AI right now doesn't do a lot of expansion IMO, especially toward un populated system so most of the time the only force stand between you and your own ship is the local pirate, which easy to wipe out.




I agree, they're still too cheap, too easy to build and build too fast right now. Although the AI problem is more like the lack of the coordination, they have ship but only move them from what it seems random movement in small groups, sometime even individually between planets without a specific attacking pattern. In fact, the only one doing specific attack right now is the pirate.

well, taking a second look I say it is quite harsh... the penalty is kindof cool, but 5 jumps away gets you 85% penalty!?!? my ice planet hardly produced any crystal with max resourcers.

With the broadcast you can get +10% bonus to your planet but that takes a while and +10% doesn't really offset the -85% that much. It is still a -75% loss which is rather steep. Making the only real reason to have those outer planets as a front line with heavy defenses to slow down your enemy advance. I think you should be able to decrease the loss by more then 10% over time.

Of course the reason for this all could be to create a reverse exponential type curve on your income for a growing empire so it just basically flat lines. That way even though say one player is twice the size of another they don't get twice the income they get maybe 1.5 times as much. So that the smaller players don't fall as far behind. Because this is one problem I noticed in a lot of RTS if don't rush the resource points at the start and your opponent gets them then he'll have twice or more the income and just steam roll you even if you have better tactics you can't deal with them having twice the units. So the penalty is the to help minimize how far ahead someone can get with a huge empire.

Pyro, what is with you and necromancy? Stop gravedigging already!

The necromancy is better than the new guys just starting their own threads about already discussed topics. If someone resurrects a thread, it means they've actually gone through all the arguments. What I can't stand is when someone just decides to make a new thread devoted to a topic that already has a very lengthy argument (*cough* phase lanes *cough*).

Eh, half true -- the problem is, sometimes he resurrects threads that are months out of date, that just aren't accurate anymore. And when he resurrects a long dead thread when there's a more recent thread on the same issue, that also drives me nuts.

What's bad about this is you have Kryo talking about having more than one homeworld when you no longer can.