Quick start woes

WOO HOO. I'm not the only one who hates quick start.

I stand by my reasons. It only saws off about 10-20 minutes from the game, and it clearly encourages rushing and sweetens the reward for doing it, pretty much a multiplayer addition. You wanna tell me how quick start DOESN'T encourage rushing in 4v4's and 5v5's, be my guest.

Games already take upwards of 45 min to 3+ hrs, so what's another 10-20 minutes at the beginning of the game? The econ tree finally becomes viable with quick start turned off on maps where people are relatively close to each other (4-6 jumps ish away from each other at start)

While I agree with your gripes regarding quick start, I do think it's a step in the right direction.  The problems you're talking about can be fixed without reverting back to having ten or fifteen minutes where everyone is dirt poor.  I'd rather see some tweaking to the cost balance between labs, units, and upgrades rather than reverting to the days when everyone spent their starting cash exactly the same way: putting up extractors, a capital shipyard, and at least one military lab.

at least one military lab? Nooooooo, that wasn't me. Ever. Ok...maybe I Illum rushed occaaaaasionally, but my start was almost always determined by what was around me. Determined when and how I bought my labs. The layout of the map was the controlling factor in my decisions....not prepping myself to rush or be rushed. I shan't be suaded away from the fact that I don't like quick start. 

I can put my grievance in a very small nutshell. It wasn't broken, so why'd they fix it?

Sorry, I should have said at least one lab.  Most of the time you at least needed to have repair bays available, and if you weren't going military chances are you'd want to grab volcanic or ice planets early.

Frankly, I found the start-up phase pre-quickstart to be boring; too slow-paced even by Sins standards.  When a game is boring, that qualifies as "broken" in my view.

well to show how much quick start helps advent early game i timed some games i was advent and vasari

With quick start on in 8 mins i got 15 assilents out, and in the same time 10 illums.

Now here is the change in 8 mins with normal start i got 9 assilents out but only 3 illums.

both these tests were on a fixed map i only had my HW and a roid from the start. I tried my best to make them accurate but the tests may be slightly different but the basic idea is there.

Normal start slows down the game slightly but right now it balances the game out. I like your idea Darvin about increasing the cost of labs. That would give advent the disadvantage of 3 labs but it wont kill thier early game econ.

I like faster games but quick start tips the balance slightly and vasari are supposed to be strong early game.

I'd agree that quick-start was favourable to Advent and unfavourable to Vasari, and that needs to be addressed.  Doesn't mean quick-start should be rolled back.  You don't need to convince me that illuminators (and any tier 3 unit) greatly benefitted from quick start, as I can plainly see that. 

You could also attack the cost of logistics slots, or combination of labs and logistics. 

Frankly I don't see a problem with Vasari losing their decisive early-game advantage, so long as they lose their late-game disadvantages as well.

I'm not a huge fan of quickstart. but

3labs = Lums

3labs also = carriers

Really just means Vasari have to work harder than before to stay on top early game. I don't think it throws the balance off a significant enough margin to be removed. But I would like to see more non-quickstart games.

The other factor to look at here is trade. TEC can throw up 2 civic labs, get trade up and have a 3-4 port chain going and then switch to fully military and be in a good position as 1) they have econ already going (extractors, full planet upgrade) etc.. and 2) they can get it earlier and cheaper. From this point of view Vassari is screwed, especially if they can't hold onto the neutrals they have grabbed - the cost for them is 1000C,150M,250C PLUS 4 civic labs PLUS any planet upgrades needed to get the labs PLUS andplanet upgrades needed to make room for those ports after 4 civic (and 1 military) lab has been obtained. Meanwhile TEC are using the credits to pump out a million scouts and are scout rushing you and killing your assailants which you can't do anything about as you can't afford to upgrade to carriers. So you have to pump out LF and hope they don't bring LRM in too soon.

Yes, it is DEFINATELY a lot harder playing Vassari early game with quick start on in my opinion then without it...

You forget one thing here

2 labs - FLAK... which kill your fighters... Which means that carrier investment is a waste with the way FLAK vs fighters works now...

In vanilla, I never thought of the 2-lab trade port as a huge advantage.  By the time you could seriously afford trade, one extra lab swing isn't a big deal when comparing TEC and Advent, and two extra labs is only a minor disadvantage for Vasari.  With quickstart, that has definitely changed.

Yeah - TEC have uber repair, so if you can turtle for a bit, get trade up and research your balanced fleet, you are in a powerful position as the trade will kick in and you start making $$$

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

Yeah, but I gotta say, I do like the challenge. In team games it'll make you focus more on the long game with Vasari. If you think about it quickstart actually tends to make team games longer, since players are less likely to be destroyed early by a Vasari rush, which is kind of backwards.

Nope I didn't forget. But remember how it was 2 patches ago? Wasn't so bad then. We should definitely be heading back towards that in the future.

Personally I like having quickstart.  It does hurt a vasari rushing in the first 5 minutes or so but that is not such a bad thing.  Everyone gets the same bonus so its not like they are treated unfairly.  It just removes the ability of a vasari thats within 2 jumps hw to hw from capitalizing on a 1 lab LRF because with quick start everyone can have LRF or whatever pretty quickly out of the gate.  Don't underestimate saving 10-20 minutes on a game that can last overly long anyways.  Besides I would rather not see some vasari getting a little early feed and then SB rush someone that cannot easily get enough of a defense to be meaningful against a vasari SB.  Its difficult enough at times even with quick start.

[_]-Greyfox

I kind of like Quickstart because it speeds up the game....Entrenchment games can go really long....  but I agree, it almost removes the "early phase" of the game that allowed Vasari their early advantage.  Before Quickstart, Vasari countered their "most expensive" ship costs with an early neutral economy a full 5-10 minutes before anyone else could have trade up.  As we know, mid game is a tough time for Vasari until they can start to implement late game technologies like Phase Gates, RA, Subverters, and Kostura...at which point, they have a good fighting chance, assuming they have survived that long.  I think Vasari still have a very brief early advantage.....but only if they start with an Evacuator and get some neutrals quickly.

Pre-Quickstart used to be hardest for Advent, because they had to make a hard choice whether to get colonization techs or trade before they got Illuminators.  I used to play mostly Vasari or TEC, but some of the last games I played I switched over to Advent because I could pretty much go straight military and counter anything that was thrown at me and then get my civics.  Currently, the only weakness Advent has is their susceptibility to phase missiles, and that is pretty manageable if you are careful.  Their econ is a little weaker, but it is also more streamlined in that you can function pretty well with 3-4 civic labs and just spam tradeports everywhere else, so I never saw much disadvantage there.  Sorry, getting off topic.

I agree with Amish, the other thing that sucks about Quickstart is feeding.  There is a lot more leeway to feed someone right at the start without hurting yourself too much now.  It was a really big decision to feed someone before because you would have nothing if you did.  Now it is very common for someone to get fed 5-10K very quickly and completely crush their neighboring opponent.  Good team strategy, but it makes the game less interesting for the both the guy getting crushed and for the "econ slot" player who sometimes doesn't see combat for 2 hours, they just keep pumping tradeports and feeding. 

I think there should be an option to turn feeding off--with one CRUCIAL change-- designating a new homeworld would have to be free (but maybe take a few minutes) if a player has lost his HW.  That way players who are not completely knocked out could crawl back into the game without a feed.  Another idea would be to have a delay of 2 minutes for a feed to arrive.  You could still feed to help people out, but it would help cut down on rushing or "instant starbases" for people who didn't plan ahead.  I swear "feed for starbase!!!!" is something you see all the time in games now.  I have had games where people were fed to aggressively rush SB on both my starting worlds right at the beginning of the game....it is kind of annoying.

well, i'm not a long time online multi player, but one thing i saw basically every game i played with quick start active ( ok 6 or 7 ) is that every vasari with or without feed can spam starbases really early playing with no fleet other than a capital and a few assaliant and being able to protect himself and strike peoples hard if he can sneak a sb somewhere building a strong eco during the time. virtually invincible for the time, until someone get enough bomber or anything else to challenge his sb/repairs bay i dont thing vasari look as weakened by quick start as you are saying guys. yes it s possible to harass a vasari badly, but finish him? i don't think so, not in a reasonable time gap/eco investisment like an advent or tec would have been if things goes well.

its a camping way i agree but an efficient way too, making the game much long in my mind

maybe you have a way to crush a start base rapidly that i dont master actually... ?

my (noob) 2 cent

It builds really slowly....you have to make sure you see it in time and get your fleet killing it before it is finished.  If you wait until it is done, yeah, you have serious problems.  If you think 1 is bad, just wait until someone feeds your enemy and they are building two on you at one time in two different places.

yes ^___^ i mostly dont have problems noticing that one is building, but when my fleet is involved in a  fight somewhere or 3 or 4 jump away ... things began to be harder and harder . An offensive starbase i can deal with it, without  repair platform or too much fleet backup  it's just a matter of time and bombers a lot of

its mainly the defensives one i dislake, when i see the time i need to take out  just a 3000 hp one with like 4 repair platform as back up and the micro involved , lurring it, shooting the planet or the platform, running away etc etc unable to just jump to the next planet just because i know there is a 6k hp one or better a 10 k one ...

that take ages to destroy, and during the time your ennemy can fortify, regroup, grew up is eco etc etc so when you go for his allies insteed he just have to feed them and try to sneak a little one somewhere ... starbase spam is making vasari a perfect eco race anywhere you start.

it's difficult considering a pain in the arse like this as something hurt using QS.

 vasari quick start isn't a trade? strongh rush capacity using "normal" start for strong entrenchment capacity?

not the kind of playstyle everyone like.

no really if vasari are hurt by something it's definitively not QS use, ship/abilities balance only.

QS can just be more ... brutal? (but dont really help not having your girlfriend  curse your computer for time waste O__o)

Just to throw another wrench in the system. Game plays a lot differently when you turn off quick start and set resource income to normal.

first game agaisnt computer was like this... took 11h to win omg i still have nightmares