I fully agree that ship-borne Labs is half the problem.

Shipborn labs should give 1 military lab per capitalship at rank 1 and 1 of both types of labs per capitalship at rank 2.

That way rank 2 is as strong as the current rank 1- and both ranks are needed for shipborne labs to help the vasari loyalist player towards stripped.

Also, while I agree stripping should take longer(and rather like the idea of any siege damage stopping the stripping process) I don't think an initial cost to start stripping is really necessary.  All that's really necessary IMO is for it to be realistic for the opponent to take back their planet before it's gone forever.

Easy up on the nerf hammer there buddy.  I'd suggest lvl 1 on titan research (thereby requiring 1 military lab) for mobile rulership.  Your strip to the core ideas are nice, but durations and cost are excessive. 

Remember, you want to balance things, not nerf them into oblivion.

I would say I disagree on almost every point.  If you nerf them too far, than it makes it impossible to go full mobile.  And that is the problem with most of the "fixes"....

1 - Agreed, the Titan is the important key for going mobile

2 - Yes/No.  I always thought the strip should have been fixed to a ship... So I think it should be part of the Titan.

3 - HELL NO.  I do not like this at all.  I would say 2-3 minutes to strip... but that would be the most.

4 - Interesting idea, but I don't see how this helps the "imbalance"

5 - Again, NO.  If there is a time delay, then you have time to bomb the planet before it can be striped.  

6 - A cost to strip? Lol?  The whole point of striping a planet is to get resources once you are full mobile... this defeats the purpose of full mobility.

7 - Agreed.  Payout seems fine where it is.  There usually are not many high level worlds to strip, and they are usually swallowed up before one can tech to strip anyways....

My only suggestion is to put it at research level 8.  This forces the player to have multiple capital ships and a titan to tech it, or to have multiple planets and labs to get to it.  It pushes it back to the mid/late game, where it should be.  That is the only issue I see with Strip to the Core... making it a mid/late level tech, not a rush-able tech.

That is all.

What about moving it to tier 8?  Wouldn't that force the player to have a riskier build to try and tech that high?  Even with labs, the amount of cash to get there will seriously hurt their fleet and defenses...

OPs nerfs were a little excessive. You have to remember without striped to the core the VL really have nothing going for them when compared to the VR. I suggest this. In order to use striped to the core you need to have a titan built but it doesn't have to be present and the strip should take 3-5 minutes. I also think the tech striped to the core should have 3 levels. Each level increases the payout by 1/3 with the final upgrade making it pay out what it currently does. this takes care of the problem of strip rushing while keeping striped to the core viable.

Seems I was rather excessive with the time-to-strip proposal - the goal of all these requirements was mainly to give players who stand to lose planets that they would otherwise colonize a chance to prevent the planet from being destroyed the 10 minutes was just a seat-of-the pants estimate of how long it would take to cross 5-7 gravwells.

Now that I think about it, it seems almost like the strip time should be proportional to map size - on a small map, it wouldn't take to long to respond to a strip attempt in your region of the map, but when there are 50+ gravwells, it becomes much easier to find planets on someone's section of the map that they can't reach in 3 minutes or so - making it easy to deny their future economy at no risk unless time-to-strip is increased.  Once the map has been colonized, stripping planets becomes harder, so it makes sense for a tech to be available then that reduces time to strip (besides labs, a requirement for many prereq techs would also help keep it from being available sooner).

Regarding any siege damage at all cancelling the strip, consider this scenario:  Vasari Loyalists have a titan+fleet, and are stripping a planet.  Advent Loyalist have a titan+fleet, and they want to stop them.  If they need to siege the planet all the way down to do this, those ships aren't contributing to the fight, giving the Vasari a significant edge.  Not building siege ships would mean the Strip succeeds, and they still are facing a roughly even fleet.  Thus, the requirement that the Vasari must prevent siege from reaching the planet at all, either directly or through deterrent value (any capitals moving in to siege eventually get sniped by Assailants).  Perhaps this is an overreaction, since an midgame Strip-using Vasari would have needed to sacrifice some fleet to get the needed research - but then, they could have sacrificed a few of their own planets to get the ball rolling.

The cost-to-Strip was proposed because right now, initiating Strip is practically risk-free - at worst, you lose the ninja-colonized planet you didn't intend to keep anyway.  The OP stated that the cost would be added to the return if you succeed - it just means that if you use the ability near enemy territory, you might actually lose something significant.

Also, I agree that Shipboard Labs needs a nerf as well - don't think the devs intended for research tiers to become meaningless halfway through the game.

Thanks for the feedback!

I still think you all are over-reacting....

Volt hit on the main issue ---> ship labs.  If SttC is moved to tier 8, and ship labs are halved, I think all the other issues are gone.  

Messing with the strip amount, canceling, ect. is a BAD idea.  

This is the Loyalists remember... they want to GTFO as soon as possible.  Being mobile is how the faction works, so don't nerf it into oblivion.

This would be a viable option if capitalships(which the vasari loyalists generally have a lot of) didn't push back culture so effectively.  After a brief wait you can almost always push back the culture enough to colonize with a few capitalships.

Actually stopping the Vasari Loyalist Strip Advance cold with culture isn't really possible.  If   capitalship culture pushback were nerfed so that the Vasari were forced to attack other sectors to knock out culture buildings before they could realistically colonize  it would be a viable counter.

As it is, it's just a short pause while they wait for their fleet to remove the culture so they may colonize.

I like ideas.

Only thing that I think its a bit too harsh is the price tag it should be about 2000 credits and duration should be about 3-5 minutes and i would change if planet takes any damage to If you loose planet strip is cancelled and your investment is lost 

Vorastra to strip planets itself - as replacement for Desperation

While you were making your calculations did you took into account trade route and how many legs did it had?

I think, requiring the Titan to be present in the gravity well in order for resources to be collected solves the problem most easily. Fleet labs, as well. You'd now have to add the build time of the Titan as well as the travel time, and research time as well, slowing it down. Strip might also be a tech 8 research too.

Also gives a more flexible option to Vasari Loyalists, as then you can abandon a planet without stripping it (for an ally, for example).