How many people can play 40 planet, 3 star maps?

Most computers can't even handle it, the game takes 6-10 hours, and most of the people have lagged out/quit by then.

If you want a game to have any real multiplayer following, the MOST an average game can take is 1 hour.

So, before you go off commenting how many games are these epic massive games, you can't possibly believe that type of game is going to exist in a few months.

i ussualy go full capship, as i just love how nice and unbreakable they are if used right...
once i have about 3 planets including my home planet i have enough to start cranking out capships

most smaller games i only lose a max of about 3 caps per game, large maps ussualy dont lose any

capship factory is really nice to have around tho just in case, so that if your fleet does somehow get pwned by spam or something u can build yourself some new capships faster than your enemy kills em

@ Hunting- do you have friends that own the game?

No, nevermind, hold on. More applicable example. I have a friend who owns Civ IV, as do I. If you've ever played Civ IV you know that any decent sized game lasts >18 hours. Obviously not a one sitting sort of thing. And yet there are hundreds playing online at any given time.

The 'mp save' feature was included so that you could play these massive, day-spanning battles with your friends. So what if you don't finish in one sitting? Play 3-4 hours a night for an entire week; keep your friend(s) on the phone or use Vent if need be.

It's not unrealistic to play huge maps. Huge maps need more cap ships. Ergo, it's not unrealistic to need >1 cap ship.

Playing a long game on a bigger map is absolutely possible if you do it with some buddies. Play for 4 hours one night, come back and finish it off the next weekend or whatever. Plus there's always the option of going really epic, controlling multiple large fleets with Cap ships if you play 1 player and just team up multiple AI's against you.

On larger maps, the extra logistics slots isn't as much of an issue since you have many planets, scuttling the Capital shipyard is something you would do if it gave you a significant economic advantage early.

As others have stated, there are set ups that don't involve rushing. I never understood the satisfaction if the battle wasn't epic (anyone out there remember the "Flushers" [flash tank rushers] from Total Annihilation?) I don't get it, but if you want to play that way, that's cool.

As far as how I'm going to test the scuttling strategy, I'm going to start out on a larger map, with no pirates, and a fortify AI so that I don't have to deal with enemy ships, I just want to test the economic engine.

After the game starts and I build my first Cap colony ship, I'm going to save the game so that both simulations have the same resource distribution. The first game I will not scuttle, and see how long it takes to get the second capital ship up and running. Then the second game I'm going to reload, and scuttle. Then I'm going to use the extra money to improve the Economy.

I will track upgrades, buildings, and techs and try to play them the same (not buying any wacky, low yield techs for one simulation and not the other). Basically, just check to see how much of an economic payoff there is with scuttling the Cap Shipyard right away and see which strategy is superior.

It really doesn't have to be that advantageous. That 400ish credit refund has to turn itself into 1000 credits in 10 minutes or so to be worth it. No idea if that will be the case.

the game i described usually take about 3-4 hours before its clear who the winner will be and everyone surrenders. its easy to arrange at a LAN center or online if you know the people you're playing with. and not for nothing, some people also play against the AI from time to time when they can't be buggered to find a partner.

i don't begrudge you enjoying a faster pace game and i enjoy 1on1 small maps quite a bit as well. your strategy guides for those maps are very good, i've used them frequently (personally i think the Kortul Devastator is so incredibly overpowered for that type of map its trivial to play anything but Vasari vs. another Vasari). but you shouldn't disrespect other people who might be addressing different play styles. if you're going to keep posting with the same tone you have been you might as well start off each of your posts with an asterisk

*(everything I'm about to say is totally incorrect unless your playing a 1on1 small map).

Whatever I wrote holds true for 2v2 medium maps, and even 3v3 medium/large maps in all the games I've played.

I'm more interested in what you would consider, fast pace competitive play, or optimal play. Here's the essential problem:

It is, for all intents and purposes, completely impossible to balance a game for 10 player FFA huge map or whatever.

Add on the fact that we have no diplomacy model to speak of, and these long games can ONLY work if you know the people you play with in RL, as others have alluded to.

The topic of the post was: should we scuttle the cap ship facility?

Now, granted, dunov and akkan and all that is useful.... BUT

Do you need them THAT early? Shouldn't you level your primary to 6, and buy levels for your secondaries? Advent, certainly need multiple caps early (and maybe very early), but Vasari and Tec, can easily get by on 1 for a long time.

Anyway, my point was, on almost every map, in almost every circumstance, having a cap ship factory in the back of your empire, using up a valuable logistic slot on your home planet, is basically never useful.

I guess it's just a matter of preference. I usually run 2-3 fleets, each headed by a cap ship... they are all around level 5 by the time I have the money to buy cap levels, and at that point I churn out the big ships and level them up (sure, 1 Kol can get taken out by 8 or 9 Kodiaks, but 8 or 9 level 4-6 Kols beat the living crap out of those 8 or 9 Kodiaks :P)

Suggestion: Lock teams with 1 AI on your team. The game will be won instantly and you can build on at leisure. Why the part that I bolded above? Just run both games exactly the same way: Don't build any more Caps. Take colonies without losing/replacing any ships, or just sit on the colonies you have (for more precision in timing upgrades to match).

ok, here's an interesting discussion point. on a larger map, do you need multiple cap ships early? i think thats a very good question.

this also goes to the issue the original post, which was "how worthwhile is scrapping the cap ship factory after the first ship?"

my opinion is that in terms of the mid-term to long-term economic development of your empire the greatest benefit comes from choosing a colonizer as your first ship. it greatly increases the rate at which you acquire early colonies and build your economy. in the mid-game it becomes by far the best method for capturing territory after your main fleet nukes an enemy colony. so, given a strategy where the first cap ship is the colonizer is it important to build a 2nd ship quickly or significantly later (say after the colonizer has achieved level 6). i have had the greatest success by building the 2nd ship quickly because you will often benefit massively from synergies. the colonizers are relatively low firepower but they all have abilities that greatly amplify the effectiveness of a high firepower ship like a battleship.

in the case of the Vasari (my favorite race) the nano-disassembler of the Evacuator does decent single target DPS on its own but the greatest benefit is the armor reduction, which can only be fully appreciated by adding a high firepower ship to accompany it. i usually choose the Kortul Devastator for this, but sometimes the Desolator works just as well. You could also choose to use LRMs to supplement your firepower early on but I actually think its more economical to go with a cap ship. You only have to research the first cap ship crews upgrade and then, if you've got enough cash can just buy it right away. The cost of that cap ship crews upgrade is definitely lower than the cost of building military labs and researching the LRM prototype. The cost of the cap ship itself can be thought of in terms of how many LRMs you can buy for the same cost or how many LRMs you get for the same 50 fleet logistics. For Vasari 50 fleet logistics worth of LRMs is 8 of them, which costs an almost identical amount of resources to 1 cap ship (its actually about 120 credits less, and the same amount of metal, and just a wee bit more crystal). Personally I think 1 cap ship is alot more powerful than 8 LRMs, particularly after a couple of levels. The cap ship also grows in power as it levels up, which LRMs never do.

i find that for all these reasons getting a 2nd cap ship early is more cost effective and more potent militarily than researching and constructing a supplemental fleet of LRMs right away. therefore, i scuttle my cap factory after the 2nd cap ship.

Argument automatically disqualified on basis of not knowing shit about the game.

I like some of the suggestions Smacksim. I'll definitely ally with the AI. I thought about just having the original colony for precise timing, but the thing is, the timing of upgrades isn't going to be exact. That was sort of the point of getting the extra cash from scuttling. Having money earlier will allow me to either improve the population on my first colonies, or to build more extractors sooner so that it pays off more. If having more money allows for quicker upgrades of the 2nd and 3rd colonies it could possibly yield more resources at the 10 minute mark.

The reason for building the 2nd Capital ship was solely for the purposes of being an artificial cut off. I could also just make 2 points arbitrarily at which I tabulate the # of credits, metal, crystal from each scenario at say 10 minutes and 15 minutes.

Well I can get a 2nd Capital Ship out in 7 minutes game time according to the chart when you quit the game. I had 2 terran planets and 1 asteroid at 19 minutes, had 3rd planet at 26 minutes, and had 9 planets at 56 minutes.

I don't build a 2nd capital ship factory. When I build a Capital Ship, I will upgrade them, and then send them into the fight. The journey to the front lines just gave it time to upgrade.

The whole notion that losing 700 credits will help you in 10 more minutes seems abit over the top. The resources you get for 1 scuttled Cap Ship Factory will buy you 1 Cobalt Light Frigate. But I never have problems purchasing those anyway. So scuttling the Cap Ship Factory doesn't do anything for me at all. It will almost purchase the first lvl 1 upgrade. It wont help much in getting 2 Civ Labs and researching tradeposts.

Also no need to do a comparison in game, this is fairly simple math.

Asteroid will get you .4 credits per sec while upgraded
Scuttling the Cap Ship Factory will net you just about 2/3rds of that upgrade cost for the Asteroid.

X = Income of Asteroid .4/sec
Y = Loss of income of Asteroid -.2/sec
S = 2/3rd of the upgrade cost needed to get X from Y.

.4/sec x 60 secs = 24 x 10 minutes that is 240. Divide 240 by S to get 144.5 credits.

Now the person who didn't upgrade

-.2/sec x 60 secs = -12 credits per minute. -12 x 10 minutes that is -120 credits.

So let us take the -120 player A losses and the +144.5 player B gains. The difference between those 2 numbers is B - A. So 144.5 - (- 120) which is 264.5.

So player B should be 265 credits more than player A at the 10 minute mark.
Now in order to build a second Capital Ship Factory you need 1k.

So 265 is almost 250, and it takes 4x250 = 1k. If this is true, then 4x10 minutes = 40 minutes. It'll take player B 40 minutes before earning enough credits from his investment to place into a 2nd CSF.

Now this is assuming player A never invests into his Asteroid. Let us assume now that he does. Well he is 300 behind Player B who scuttled his CSF. So let us see how long the Player A takes in order to get the Asteroid upgraded.

The Capital will earn 10/sec in credits. So 300/10 = 30 seconds. Player A is 30 seconds behind Player B in Upgrading his Asteroid. Then 30 x Player Bs .4/sec = 12 credits. Player B is only 12 credits ahead of Player A.

When Player B builds his 2nd CSF he is 1000-12 or a big 988 credits behind player A who did not scuttle his CSF.

I scuttle the cap ship fac to get 35 (or was it 30?) crystal. In the beginning of the game, when everyone makes a mad dash for crystal, it's not uncommon for it to get as expensive as 850 credits. 35 crystal means you get the pop upgrade on the asteroid sooner/assailant tech sooner/1 extra assailant

Well my Crystal rate is .9 after getting the Asteroid. That means that player B has extra 30 crystal, which translates into 33 seconds ahead. Again, once player B builds his 2nd CSF he is now at a big loss. He losses 100 crystal the first time he builds a CSF and recovers 30 from it, the second time he builds a CSF he is now at -70 Crystal his opponent has. You would be a whole minute behind your opponent in Crystal. That means he can get his ship upgraded to the front line in the same amount of time you can get your 2nd Capital with no upgrades.

Scuttling your CSF is only helpful if you plan on never buying another Capital Ship.

It's not a simple matter of how much crystal you have one way or another or how quickly you can get a second cap ship. The argument is about how much (in a competitive game where people are going to be at each other's throats from the get-go) extra punch you can get out of that extra frigate or by having a planet upgrade, structure, or bit of research completed 33 seconds faster than your opponent.

Whether or not you 'could' get a cap ship in 7 minutes is irrelevant. In a competitive game, are you going to have time to wait for the mountain of resources that 'one' ship requires? Is that one ship going to be worth more than 7-10 frigates of similar costs when it pops out at level 1?

Anyway, these are rhetorical questions. The point is, it's a lot harder to quantify what scuttling the thing will do for you than simply looking at total resources. It's a choice between having those extra 33 seconds worth of resources or having a logistics-burning lump that won't do a thing for you until you can feasibly scrape together the ship-cost + logistics upgrades required for a second cap ship. In a competitive game, as has been said, this may never happen and by the time it does, it's very likely that you'll want your cap facility somewhere else, anyway.

Exactly - unless I'm Advent I rarely/never build another cap ship. Of course, things change if I lose my first one, but I try to keep them safe in general.